# Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion



## Sasaferrato (Jan 31, 2020)

There have been two positives in the Newcastle area.









						Hunt begins for 'close contacts' of the two UK coronavirus cases
					

Health officials tracing anyone at risk from Chinese nationals being treated in Newcastle




					www.theguardian.com
				




And so it begins...


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## treelover (Jan 31, 2020)

sadly some cases of Chinese here getting shouted at, funny looks, etc.


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## treelover (Jan 31, 2020)

A young friend of mine says Sheff UNi, is thinking of confining returning Chinese students to residences for two weeks, though i really think this is rumour.


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## Teaboy (Jan 31, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> There have been two positives in the Newcastle area.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It was inevitable.

Anyway it really isn't much to worry about unless you're in the vulnerable groups.  Oh shit, sorry sass.


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## treelover (Jan 31, 2020)

I am definitely in it.


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## danny la rouge (Jan 31, 2020)




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## maomao (Jan 31, 2020)

I've got a bit of a cough/cold and had great fun at work Tuesday morning telling everyone my wife's cousin had come to stay and we all had a touch of flu. People are genuinely scared.


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## Sasaferrato (Jan 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> I've got a bit of a cough/cold and had great fun at work Tuesday morning telling everyone my wife's cousin had come to stay and we all had a touch of flu. People are genuinely scared.



Bastard!


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## Sasaferrato (Jan 31, 2020)

DP.


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## Proper Tidy (Jan 31, 2020)

It keeps making me have that my sharona song in my head


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## Sasaferrato (Jan 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> It was inevitable.
> 
> Anyway it really isn't much to worry about unless you're in the vulnerable groups.  Oh shit, sorry sass.


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## danny la rouge (Jan 31, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


>


Humans, chickens, bats and snakes.


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## Sasaferrato (Jan 31, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Humans, chickens, bats and snakes.


 

Joking aside, I really would not like to catch this. I'm about 30% down on lung capacity, due to surgery and emphysema.


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## Teaboy (Jan 31, 2020)

Flu is a far greater risk.  You would be extraordinarily unlucky to catch this.  Its also yet to be confirmed that the virus can survive a Scottish winter.  Few can.


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## fucthest8 (Jan 31, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> It keeps making me have that my sharona song in my head



Ooh, my little pretty one, my pretty one
When you gonna give me some time, Corona
Ooh, you make my nose run, my nose run
Gonna need a fluid IV line, Corona



Never really looked at all the lyrics before. It's a bit paedo eh?

Never gonna stop, give it up, such a dirty mind
I always get it up, for the touch of the younger kind
My, my, my, aye-aye, whoa!
M-m-m-my Sharona


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## brogdale (Jan 31, 2020)

I really hope the coach drivers were genuine volunteers.


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## Teaboy (Jan 31, 2020)

Yup proper dodgy.


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## danny la rouge (Jan 31, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Joking aside, I really would not like to catch this. I'm about 30% down on lung capacity, due to surgery and emphysema.


I’m in the vulnerable category too. And I did catch the Mexican swine flu. Which was very unpleasant. So I’m hoping this is over hyped.


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## souljacker (Jan 31, 2020)

treelover said:


> A young friend of mine says Sheff UNi, is thinking of confining returning Chinese students to residences for two weeks, though i really think this is rumour.



My wife works at a boarding school with a lot of Chinese kids and they have already told them they aren't allowed home or allowed a visit from their parents for the foreseeable future. Any that do insist on going home will be quarantined on their return.


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## Lord Camomile (Jan 31, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Humans, chickens, bats and snakes.


"Is all my brain and body need"

(Apologies  )


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## 8ball (Jan 31, 2020)

fucthest8 said:


> Never really looked at all the lyrics before. It's a bit paedo eh?



For anyone with any concerns, Sharona is now an estate agent in West L.A.


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## fucthest8 (Jan 31, 2020)

8ball said:


> For anyone with any concerns, Sharona is now an estate agent in West L.A.



Will her suffering never end?


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## fucthest8 (Jan 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> "Is all my brain and body need"
> 
> (Apologies  )



No need to apologise, genius


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## brogdale (Jan 31, 2020)

Dunno about Sharona...every time I hear about this bug I'm cast back to being about 7 years of age and gleefully glugging down the contents of these dimple-necked bottles. 
My fave was the red (Cherryade) on the right.


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## 8ball (Jan 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Dunno about Sharona...every time I hear about this bug I'm cast back to being about 7 years of age and gleefully glugging down the contents of these dimple-necked bottles.
> My fave was the red (Cherryade) on the right.
> 
> View attachment 197202



Did you have a pop lorry come round?


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## Teaboy (Jan 31, 2020)

I've had "Rhythm of The Night" as my ear worm all week.


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## brogdale (Jan 31, 2020)

8ball said:


> Did you have a pop lorry come round?


Yes, but we bought these fellas from the corner shop at the bottom of our lane...called "_Popjoys"; _honestly.


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## Teaboy (Jan 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Dunno about Sharona...every time I hear about this bug I'm cast back to being about 7 years of age and gleefully glugging down the contents of these dimple-necked bottles.
> My fave was the red (Cherryade) on the right.
> 
> View attachment 197202



Do you come from the North?  Was it delivered by a pop man?  A sugar heavy version of the milk man.  I was amazed when I first heard about the concept, the Northerner I was speaking to at the time as equally amazed it wasn't a thing down South.


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## brogdale (Jan 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Do you come from the North?  Was it delivered by a pop man?  A sugar heavy version of the milk man.  I was amazed when I first heard about the concept, the Northerner I was speaking to at the time as equally amazed it wasn't a thing down South.


We had a lemonade delivery lorry when I were a lad in Kent. Mind you, it was North Kent if that helps.


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## Teaboy (Jan 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> We had a lemonade delivery lorry when I were a lad in Kent. Mind you, it was North Kent if that helps.



I suspect this might be a generational thing as well as a geographical thing.  But growing up in the 80's / 90's the pop man was still a thing in Lancashire I'm led to believe. Very much less so in Oxfordshire.


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## 8ball (Jan 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I suspect this might be a generational thing as well as a geographical thing.  But growing up in the 80's / 90's the pop man was still a thing in Lancashire I'm led to believe. Very much less so in Oxfordshire.



In the 80's in south Wales too.


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## brogdale (Jan 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I suspect this might be a generational thing as well as a geographical thing.  But growing up in the 80's / 90's the pop man was still a thing in Lancashire I'm led to believe. Very much less so in Oxfordshire.


v.much late 60's/early-mid 1970s for me.


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## Teaboy (Jan 31, 2020)

8ball said:


> In the 80's in south Wales too.



Still is, probably.


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## brogdale (Jan 31, 2020)

We digress.


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## Teaboy (Jan 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> We digress.



Well there is another thread on it already and lets face it: The thread title is likely out of date already.


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## danny la rouge (Jan 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> We digress.


As a rule.

It was Alpine vans round here in the 70s.  Bright, lurid liquids like in a mad scientist’s lab.


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## Baronage-Phase (Jan 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Flu is a far greater risk.  You would be extraordinarily unlucky to catch this.



Fuck. I've 3 "extremely rare" autoimmume diseases...
When I was sick with the last one pre diagnosis, one dr said "you'd be extremely unlucky to develop another one"... and yet.... sigh. 
If I had the equivalent measure of good luck I'd have won the lottery by now.....twice. 

FFP3 masks and swimming goggles are being deployed.


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## brogdale (Jan 31, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> As a rule.



anarchist rules


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## Proper Tidy (Jan 31, 2020)

Pop, bread, libraries, everything was on wheels in 80s north wales


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## 8ball (Jan 31, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Pop, bread, libraries, everything was on wheels in 80s north wales



Bank, drugs, ice cream, needle exchange...


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## Proper Tidy (Jan 31, 2020)

8ball said:


> Bank, drugs, ice cream, needle exchange...



Ah not drugs, had to go knock for them and they'd serve you out the back door or a window


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## SpackleFrog (Jan 31, 2020)

treelover said:


> A young friend of mine says Sheff UNi, is thinking of confining returning Chinese students to residences for two weeks, though i really think this is rumour.



Not just a rumour but complete bollocks. About as likely as UCEA suddenly deciding to give us a 10% pay rise, for much the same reasons. 

We are however being provided with hand sanitiser and being asked to use it as often as possible.


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## hegley (Jan 31, 2020)

treelover said:


> A young friend of mine says Sheff UNi, is thinking of confining returning Chinese students to residences for two weeks, though i really think this is rumour.


Possibly hyperbole based on this: The UK Government is now advising anyone who has recently returned from Wuhan to ‘*self-isolate*’ for 14 days after entering the UK.


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## pogofish (Jan 31, 2020)

treelover said:


> sadly some cases of Chinese here getting shouted at, funny looks, etc.



A local town has abruptly cancelled the Chinese Gala Show that we had put together with our (mostly Wuhan) students and various local/community groups - The first performance last week went-off really well and the few people who had been in Wuhan most recently voluntarily stayed out of it.


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I really hope the coach drivers were genuine volunteers.
> 
> View attachment 197201



On the TV news they showed 4 of those Horseman of the apocalypse coaches turning-up.


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## Celyn (Jan 31, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> As a rule.
> 
> It was Alpine vans round here in the 70s.  Bright, lurid liquids like in a mad scientist’s lab.


Aha,  yes.  I was thinking "Alpen" but that's breakfast cereal.  Yes,  we had Alpine lorries visiting for a short time in the mid/late 1970's. It can't have been all that profitable,  because it didn't last long. Ooh!  Ice-cream vans too!


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Do you come from the North?  Was it delivered by a pop man?  A sugar heavy version of the milk man.  I was amazed when I first heard about the concept, the Northerner I was speaking to at the time as equally amazed it wasn't a thing down South.



We certainly had the Corona man & van come round in Essex when I was growing up in the 70's, also the Mr Kipling man too.


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## Baronage-Phase (Jan 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> On the TV news they showed 4 of those Horseman of the apocalypse coaches turning-up.



Oh ... didnt spot that 😳

Driver has no mask...but other person has a full body suit. Maybe the passengers are all in full body suits.


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## brogdale (Jan 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> On the TV news they showed 4 of those Horseman of the apocalypse coaches turning-up.


Yep, and none of the drivers had any visible anti-viral protection...unlike the service personnel sat up front who were in what looked like pretty full bio-hazard kit.
Very brave/selfless or foolhardy/conned?


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Yep, and none of the drivers had any visible anti-viral protection...unlike the service personnel sat up front who were in what looked like pretty full bio-hazard kit.
> Very brave/selfless or foolhardy/conned?



You wouldn't catch me doing it!

In fact I have a Chinese take-away as a client, I was going to pop in & see them today, until the news of these 2 cases broke, which reminded they had only flown in following their annual holiday in China on Tuesday, it wasn't urgent, so they can wait another week or so!


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## elbows (Jan 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Yep, and none of the drivers had any visible anti-viral protection...unlike the service personnel sat up front who were in what looked like pretty full bio-hazard kit.
> Very brave/selfless or foolhardy/conned?



Its a nice visual example of the way protection measures tend to veer between excessive and too little. I sort of wish I was surprised to see the two extremes sitting side by side, but I'm not.

Anyway I'd do the job. Except I cant drive, so the journey would probably have a much higher mortality rate than the disease. And I'd probably get in trouble for making jokes over the PA about dropping the passengers off at a Brexit party.


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## Smangus (Feb 1, 2020)

Did you pass the Fizzical?


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## Saul Goodman (Feb 1, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Dunno about Sharona...every time I hear about this bug I'm cast back to being about 7 years of age and gleefully glugging down the contents of these dimple-necked bottles.
> My fave was the red (Cherryade) on the right.
> 
> View attachment 197202


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## Shechemite (Feb 2, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> It keeps making me have that my sharona song in my head



One of the final symptoms. So they say.


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## keybored (Feb 2, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Dunno about Sharona...every time I hear about this bug I'm cast back to being about 7 years of age and gleefully glugging down the contents of these dimple-necked bottles.
> My fave was the red (Cherryade) on the right.
> 
> View attachment 197202


Empties were a nice little earner.


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## Serge Forward (Feb 2, 2020)

Dandelion and burdock.


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## hash tag (Feb 27, 2020)

Has Coronavirus hit Battersea? This is getting close to home. I have already started stockpiling.








						Pupils at George and Charlotte's school self-isolate over virus fears
					

Four pupils at Prince George and Princess Charlotte's school are in self-isolation after returning from northern Italy, which has been hit by hundreds of coronavirus cases




					www.standard.co.uk


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## CNT36 (Feb 27, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Has Coronavirus hit Battersea? This is getting close to home. I have already started stockpiling.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They're in self-isolation because their parents pay for it.


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## Teaboy (Feb 27, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Has Coronavirus hit Battersea? This is getting close to home. I have already started stockpiling.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



We have a thread for Corona virus.

This is a thread for discussion of door to door soft drink deliveries by region.


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## pesh (Feb 27, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Has Coronavirus hit Battersea? This is getting close to home. I have already started stockpiling.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I would totally count buying a new TV as stockpiling for the Coronavirus


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## hash tag (Feb 27, 2020)

If I have to self isolate, I'll need something to do


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## bellaozzydog (Feb 27, 2020)

School round the corner from me just closed and pupils self isolating ....... pharmacy attached to health Center selling masks at two and a half quid A pop. Worlds losing its mind


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## Pickman's model (Feb 27, 2020)

hash tag said:


> If I have to self isolate, I'll need something to do


you can ponder on suppplies, you'll wish you'd got in 14 days' food for a start


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## Pickman's model (Feb 27, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> School round the corner from me just closed and pupils self isolating ....... pharmacy attached to health Center selling masks at two and a half quid A pop. Worlds losing its mind


apparently you can't get hand sanitiser in dalston for love nor money. which is peculiar seeing as it has not the slightest effect on a virus.


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## hash tag (Feb 27, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> School round the corner from me just closed and pupils self isolating ....... pharmacy attached to health Center selling masks at two and a half quid A pop. Worlds losing its mind


It's the end of the world as we know it.


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## Teaboy (Feb 27, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> apparently you can't get hand sanitiser in dalston for love nor money. which is peculiar seeing as it has not the slightest effect on a virus.



Yeah I hear the shelves are empty.  I know anti-bacterial won't do anything but can you get anti-viral?  Why would the government recommend something which is useless?  Its not bothering about masks and stuff.


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## MrCurry (Feb 27, 2020)

Checkout worker at the supermarket today was coughing away into her hands then of course grabbing every item and scanning them through. Nice bonus layer of virus and bacteria all over your goods - lovely. 

Sadly with hundreds of people passing them each day they will be among the first to catch this when it gets going, and will no doubt pass it on to plenty.


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## hash tag (Feb 27, 2020)

pesh said:


> I would totally count buying a new TV as stockpiling for the Coronavirus


You miss little. I can spend the Two weeks trying to programme the dam thing


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## Teaboy (Feb 27, 2020)

hash tag said:


> It's the end of the world as we know it.



The report on Newsnight last night was suitably calming and low key.  Started ranting on about mass death epidemic or something.  Twats.


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## hash tag (Feb 27, 2020)

I had this text out of the blue yesterday

If you've been to Wuhan or Hubei Province in China in the last 14 days (even if you do not have symptoms)
OR to other parts of China, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Republic of Korea, Malaysia or Italy in the last 14 days and have a cough, high temperature or shortness of breath (even if it's mild) or have been in close contact with someone with confirmed coronavirus 
DO NOT go to a GP surgery or hospital. Call NHS 111, stay indoors and self isolate.


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## hash tag (Feb 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> The report on Newsnight last night was suitably calming and low key.  Started ranting on about mass death epidemic or something.  Twats.


You should have heard prof Nial Ferguson on R4 this morning. The numbers are very understated....


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## Wilf (Feb 27, 2020)

grauniad site:



> NHS staff have been asked to shave their beards to allow masks to fit more securely in a bid to limit the spread of coronavirus, according to the Sun.
> 
> Bosses at Southampton University NHS Trust sent a mass email to tackle a “known problem” with ill-fitting masks on hairy faces.
> 
> ...


In the past we'd have been able to blame forced beard removal on the EU.


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## pesh (Feb 27, 2020)

(((hipsters)))


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## andysays (Feb 27, 2020)

MrCurry said:


> Checkout worker at the supermarket today was coughing away into her hands then of course grabbing every item and scanning them through. Nice bonus layer of virus and bacteria all over your goods - lovely.
> 
> Sadly with hundreds of people passing them each day they will be among the first to catch this when it gets going, and will no doubt pass it on to plenty.


Time to start using the scab tills?


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## Jennastan (Feb 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Do you come from the North?  Was it delivered by a pop man?  A sugar heavy version of the milk man.  I was amazed when I first heard about the concept, the Northerner I was speaking to at the time as equally amazed it wasn't a thing down South.


it was a thing in Devon. I still clearly remember the corona lorry coming down my street.


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## Jennastan (Feb 27, 2020)

hash tag said:


> If I have to self isolate, I'll need something to do


i still need to finish GTA V


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## MrCurry (Feb 27, 2020)

hash tag said:


> You should have heard prof Nial Ferguson on R4 this morning. The numbers are very understated....



That interview is here, beginning at timestamp 2:12:40 








						Today - 27/02/2020 - BBC Sounds
					

News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.




					www.bbc.co.uk


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## Pickman's model (Feb 27, 2020)

MrCurry said:


> Checkout worker at the supermarket today was coughing away into her hands then of course grabbing every item and scanning them through. Nice bonus layer of virus and bacteria all over your goods - lovely.
> 
> Sadly with hundreds of people passing them each day they will be among the first to catch this when it gets going, and will no doubt pass it on to plenty.


yeh. many people who use the scab tills may pass on all manner of things. plus you don't know how your goods have been stored before being shelved.


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## MrCurry (Feb 27, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> yeh. many people who use the scab tills may pass on all manner of things. plus you don't know how your goods have been stored before being shelved.



Yes, I wasn’t suggesting unmanned tills are safe. Just being in the supermarket is likely going to be hazardous in the next few months.  

Much as I’ve always sneered a little at preppers with their tin roofed shelters with filtered air supplies and 6 months worth of army rations buried in the garden, at times like these they might start to look somewhat prescient.


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## CNT36 (Feb 27, 2020)

andysays said:


> Time to start using the scab tills?


How's your nicking?


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## brogdale (Feb 28, 2020)

Have we had the slightly blurry, telephoto lens tabloid news pic of body bags being loaded/moved by ARMY !!! trucks to London/B'ham yet?


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## 2hats (Feb 28, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Have we had the slightly blurry, telephoto lens tabloid news pic of body bags being loaded/moved by ARMY !!! trucks to London/B'ham yet?


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## smmudge (Feb 28, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> apparently you can't get hand sanitiser in dalston for love nor money. which is peculiar seeing as it has not the slightest effect on a virus.



Alcohol based ones will kill both bacteria and viruses probably including coronavirus.


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## danny la rouge (Feb 28, 2020)

smmudge said:


> Alcohol based ones will kill both bacteria and viruses probably including coronavirus.


Do you have to drink it straight or can you use a mixer?


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## hash tag (Feb 28, 2020)

At our local hospital, people drank them straight. They have now been "locked down" to stop this!


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## smmudge (Feb 28, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Do you have to drink it straight or can you use a mixer?



On the rocks with a twist of lime should do it.


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## brogdale (Feb 28, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Do you have to drink it straight or can you use a mixer?


And you wonder why people call you middle class!


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## xenon (Feb 28, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I had this text out of the blue yesterday
> 
> If you've been to Wuhan or Hubei Province in China in the last 14 days (even if you do not have symptoms)
> OR to other parts of China, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Republic of Korea, Malaysia or Italy in the last 14 days and have a cough, high temperature or shortness of breath (even if it's mild) or have been in close contact with someone with confirmed coronavirus
> DO NOT go to a GP surgery or hospital. Call NHS 111, stay indoors and self isolate.



Who sent you that? (haven't read whole thread.)

I had a Chinese takeaway on Sunday. I have developed a cold, cough, slight shortness of breath.

Should I panic or go to the pub as I was planning to later? (Have forsaken the gym, it's also raining.)


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## spitfire (Feb 28, 2020)

smmudge said:


> Alcohol based ones will kill both bacteria and viruses probably including coronavirus.



Needs to be above 60% alcohol apparently. the little cuticura ones are 57.6% Ethanol. Look for surgical ones, the ones i have from my kitchen are 80%.

But as Mr. Model says. you'll be hard pushed to find any at this point.


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## brogdale (Feb 28, 2020)

xenon said:


> Who sent you that? (haven't read whole thread.)
> 
> I had a Chinese takeaway on Sunday. I have developed a cold, cough, slight shortness of breath.
> 
> Should I panic or go to the pub as I was planning to later? (Have forsaken the gym, it's also raining.)


Isn't always the advice to keep up your fluid intake when suffering from a head cold? So....pub it is, I guess?


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## xenon (Feb 28, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Do you have to drink it straight or can you use a mixer?




You don't drink it FFS.


You snort it. Because that's where germs er and virus's live, in the snot.

Science.


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## danny la rouge (Feb 28, 2020)

xenon said:


> You don't drink it FFS.
> 
> 
> You snort it. Because that's where germs er and virus's live, in the snot.
> ...


Doh! Of course.


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## two sheds (Feb 28, 2020)

xenon said:


> You don't drink it FFS.
> 
> 
> You snort it. Because that's where germs er and virus's live, in the snot.
> ...



Not sure how that will affect Nutt's advice to go to a pub and share a glass of wine with three friends and a straw. 









						Share a pint or glass of wine between three to drink safely, says expert
					

Former government advisor David Nutt says alcohol is more damaging than harder drugs




					www.theguardian.com


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## Supine (Feb 28, 2020)

Drinking / Snorting alcohol at 80% concentration would be a very bad plan. I'd prefer to get the virus tbh.


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## brogdale (Feb 28, 2020)

Supine said:


> Drinking / Snorting alcohol at 80% concentration would be a very bad plan. I'd prefer to get the virus tbh.


Are there any other ways of administering medication?


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## JuanTwoThree (Feb 28, 2020)

Per anum

I suppose


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## Pickman's model (Feb 28, 2020)

brogdale said:


> And you wonder why people call you middle class!


when they're not calling him a dog hypnotist


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## Pickman's model (Feb 28, 2020)

JuanTwoThree said:


> Per anum


how many times per anum per annum?


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## SpookyFrank (Feb 28, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> They're in self-isolation because their parents pay for it.



The parents were probably isolated from them before the virus tbh. Standard practice among the gentry.


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## Proper Tidy (Feb 28, 2020)

That first case in wales is in newport, obviously very sad but if there is any good to come from it then hopefully it will find its way to the sennedd, we could do with a new political class over this way. Expect to see vaughan gething sweating buckets on telly telling everybody not to panic and the cardiff metropolis is still open to investment


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## treelover (Feb 28, 2020)

When even the progressive bits of civil society have tolerated a welfare system for disabled and sick people which the UN has condemned twice, and seen many hundreds take their own lives, I don't think they can expect much when they have to self isolate, with very little official care and support, hard times indeed.


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## Fez909 (Feb 28, 2020)

I think there's a Cobra meeting planned - sounds like the govt's news is out of date as the snake theory was discredited ages ago.

Bat/Pangolin Meeting is what we want/need/demand!


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## SpookyFrank (Feb 28, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> I think there's a Cobra meeting planned - sounds like the govt's news is out of date as the snake theory was discredited ages ago.
> 
> Bat/Pangolin Meeting is what we want/need/demand!



Think this Cobra meeting is for the Iran thing. The Coronavirus one is pencilled in for late April, and then they're gonna sort the floods out some time around August.


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## Supine (Feb 28, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Think this Cobra meeting is for the Iran thing. The Coronavirus one is pencilled in for late April, and then they're gonna sort the floods out some time around August.



Grayling will probably want to isolate people by building flood defences around them.


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## SpookyFrank (Feb 28, 2020)

Supine said:


> Grayling will probably want to isolate people by building flood defences around them.



If you want him to fix a flood just give him a hose and send him to water the garden.


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## brogdale (Feb 28, 2020)

but those pooey touchscreens in McDonalds will be fine after about 3.30pm.


----------



## CNT36 (Feb 28, 2020)

xenon said:


> You don't drink it FFS.
> 
> 
> You snort it. Because that's where germs er and virus's live, in the snot.
> ...


A lot of nastiness enters the body through the eyes so don't forget the old eyeball Paul.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Feb 28, 2020)

London firms send staff home amid coronavirus fear - BBC News
					

Three companies have now asked employees to work from home as a "precautionary measure".




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 28, 2020)

Supine said:


> Drinking / Snorting alcohol at 80% concentration would be a very bad plan. I'd prefer to get the virus tbh.


there speaks a man who hasn't tried polish pure spirit


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Feb 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> grauniad site:
> 
> 
> In the past we'd have been able to blame forced beard removal on the EU.



Sod the soppy cold with delusions of grandeur, what in the name of suffering fuck is a ‘chin curtain’?


----------



## Marty1 (Feb 28, 2020)

Now in Wales and 2 more cases in England.









						Coronavirus: 'Crucial' to trace origin of latest UK case to keep outbreak under control — Sky News
					

It is "crucial" to find out how the first person who caught the coronavirus within the UK was exposed to it, say experts, as authorities race to piece together their movements.




					apple.news


----------



## fishfinger (Feb 28, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> ...what in the name of suffering fuck is a ‘chin curtain’?


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> grauniad site:
> 
> 
> In the past we'd have been able to blame forced beard removal on the EU.


or peter the great, if you're posting from russia


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 28, 2020)

fishfinger said:


> View attachment 200047


----------



## Supine (Feb 28, 2020)

So I was reading up about Indonesia and it’s lack of cases. Seems the local press have some suspicions that the samples are not stored cold enough while being transported to the labs.

They are isolating returning workers and turning people away at the borders. There is also a hotel in lockdown as a Japanese tourist was diagnosed positive upon return from a four day holiday in Bali (they may not have caught it in Bali though).


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Feb 28, 2020)

fishfinger said:


> View attachment 200047



Urgh, give us sniff of coronavirus and let’s get this shit over with please.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Feb 28, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> View attachment 200048



He got telt.


----------



## maomao (Feb 28, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Sod the soppy cold with delusions of grandeur, what in the name of suffering fuck is a ‘chin curtain’?


Neckbeard.


----------



## smmudge (Feb 28, 2020)

spitfire said:


> Needs to be above 60% alcohol apparently. the little cuticura ones are 57.6% Ethanol. Look for surgical ones, the ones i have from my kitchen are 80%.
> 
> But as Mr. Model says. you'll be hard pushed to find any at this point.



My Carex from Sainsbury's is 70%


----------



## brogdale (Feb 28, 2020)

Still got me Tamiflu from when we had to do that weird shit queueing at the Pharmacy during the Police flu epidemic.
Might dig it out...could be worth quite a bit soon (even waaayyy out of date)


----------



## seeformiles (Feb 28, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Dunno about Sharona...every time I hear about this bug I'm cast back to being about 7 years of age and gleefully glugging down the contents of these dimple-necked bottles.
> My fave was the red (Cherryade) on the right.
> 
> View attachment 197202



Had these stickers over my school jotter in the 70s

u


----------



## extra dry (Feb 28, 2020)

Had someone go full mental about it at work. Students a teachers wearing face-mask


----------



## skyscraper101 (Feb 28, 2020)

lolz!1 









						Pranksters stage sick coronavirus hoax by collapsing in London's Canary Wharf
					

Security guards in the banking district were filmed rushing to help the man, who appeared to fall to the floor while pretending to suffer from a coughing fit




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Marty1 (Feb 28, 2020)

Supine said:


> So I was reading up about Indonesia and it’s lack of cases.
> 
> *They are isolating returning workers and turning people away at the borders*. There is also a hotel in lockdown as a Japanese tourist was diagnosed positive upon return from a four day holiday in Bali (they may not have caught it in Bali though).



Seems like a reasonable containment precautionary measure, although I think the American press are labelling Trump a racist for doing the same.


----------



## hash tag (Feb 28, 2020)

xenon said:


> Who sent you that? (haven't read whole thread.)
> 
> I had a Chinese takeaway on Sunday. I have developed a cold, cough, slight shortness of breath.
> 
> Should I panic or go to the pub as I was planning to later? (Have forsaken the gym, it's also raining.)


NHS....Mrs T had the same sent to her yesterday.


----------



## brogdale (Feb 28, 2020)

Have we had any projected, post-Corona L : R ratios yet from the remainarians?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Feb 28, 2020)

hash tag said:


> NHS....Mrs T had the same sent to her yesterday.


I had the same from my GP last week.

I also work within the NHS and am receiving daily updates/alerts.


----------



## brogdale (Feb 28, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Have we had the slightly blurry, telephoto lens tabloid news pic of body bags being loaded/moved by ARMY !!! trucks to London/B'ham yet?


They've got the bags.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Feb 28, 2020)

We don't even have an outbreak yet. 

Britain are shit at this, too


----------



## elbows (Feb 28, 2020)

S☼I said:


> We don't even have an outbreak yet.



We havent detected an outbreak yet. The range of time between having an outbreak and detecting it is somewhat variable, so I can make no claims about whether we have one already, more than one, or how large they are, in anything approaching a timely fashion. But I would go as far as to say that I'd consider it surprising if we dont already have community spread.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Feb 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> But I would go as far as to say that I'd consider it surprising if we dont already have community spread.



Given the time it takes to detect it and/or develop symptoms I agree.

News tonight reporting 1st known case of contagion through contact with someone here in the UK who is infected.. No way of knowing that is the only case, seems odd to think it will be.


----------



## elbows (Feb 28, 2020)

Yeah, they wont really treat it as if its an isolated case, its exactly what they are looking for to give them confirmation of community spread. 

They will still want to find more examples to really underline the confirmation, and further contact tracing or luck can always turn unlinked cases like this one into a small known local cluster, rather than sentinels for the broader 'sustained wider community spread'. Its still the first confirmed human->human transmission in the UK though, whether they nail it down to a cluster or not.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Feb 29, 2020)

Daft innit
People are still moving about from places where it's rife to places where it ain't. Funnily enough that's spreading it.


----------



## Marty1 (Feb 29, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Daft innit
> People are still moving about from places where it's rife to places where it ain't. Funnily enough that's spreading it.



Time to start prepping?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Feb 29, 2020)

From what I hear it wouldn't be a bad idea to get extra pasta and tins in.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Feb 29, 2020)

S☼I said:


> From what I hear it wouldn't be a bad idea to get extra pasta and tins in.



My other half did yesterday. Mainly chickpeas from what I can tell. I might go to b&m later and get a few fray bentos in


----------



## DotCommunist (Feb 29, 2020)

surely people haven't used up their No Deal emergency stash already?


----------



## 2hats (Feb 29, 2020)

DotCommunist said:


> surely people haven't used up their No Deal emergency stash already?


I'm only just about to break into my 'swine flu' FFP3 face mask stash.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Feb 29, 2020)

2hats said:


> I'm only just about to break into my 'swine flu' FFP3 face mask stash.


----------



## DexterTCN (Feb 29, 2020)

The threads were merged, yeah?

Look at this. Unbelievable lack of awareness.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Feb 29, 2020)

I don't get the point of the video.


----------



## Celyn (Feb 29, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> School round the corner from me just closed and pupils self isolating ....... pharmacy attached to health Center selling masks at two and a half quid A pop. Worlds losing its mind


There is a problem here. If the schools are closed (really?), there will be a terrible plague of noisy squawking children. Everywhere! At all tImes. Eek!


----------



## Celyn (Feb 29, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah I hear the shelves are empty.  I know anti-bacterial won't do anything but can you get anti-viral?  Why would the government recommend something which is useless?  Its not bothering about masks and stuff.


"Why would the government recommend something which is useless?" 
Remember "Protect and Survive"?


----------



## Celyn (Feb 29, 2020)

S☼I said:


> From what I hear it wouldn't be a bad idea to get extra pasta and tins in.


It would be a good idea to stock up on tin -openers, too. Become the hero of your neighbours.


----------



## MrSki (Feb 29, 2020)

Celyn said:


> It would be a good idea to stock up on tin -openers, too. Become the hero of your neighbours.


 Like having dry rizla or bog roll at a festival.


----------



## Celyn (Feb 29, 2020)

Exactly. Yes.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 1, 2020)

So...looks like all of the May elections won't happen, then?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 1, 2020)

brogdale said:


> So...looks like all of the May elections won't happen, then?
> 
> View attachment 200255




Please make it happen, I am sick of fucking local elections every May.


----------



## treelover (Mar 1, 2020)

Just sitting in a rammed Cafe, no windows open, no door open, no aircon either, excellent conditions for Mr Covid19 to spread.


----------



## treelover (Mar 1, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> lolz!1
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Should be proesecuted for wastinng responders time, etc.


----------



## prunus (Mar 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah I hear the shelves are empty.  I know anti-bacterial won't do anything but can you get anti-viral?  Why would the government recommend something which is useless?  Its not bothering about masks and stuff.



60%+ ethanol hand wash will kill these viruses - they have a complex encapsuating membrane of lipids and proteins that is disrupted by strong ethanol solutions, inactivating them. Soap will do this too, possibly better in fact (and certainly less overall irritatingly to your skin). They are relatively fragile viruses, as these things go.

Not useless (though I do believe soap and water is better as I say).


----------



## brogdale (Mar 1, 2020)

I suppose it's unrealistic to expect that anyone from this administration could effectively offer any coherent sense or reassurance about the spread of the virus. That said, they do seem to be emitting consistently worry-ramping gobbets atm....


----------



## weepiper (Mar 1, 2020)

First confirmed case in Scotland.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 1, 2020)

Have they been away?


----------



## weepiper (Mar 1, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Have they been away?


Northern Italy.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 1, 2020)

Overwhelmingly the UK cases are "explainable", which is a good thing shirt term. Normally this shit would terrify me enough to avoid the news but seeing as I hear all sorts of wild rumours from my students I feel it's best to keep up with the situation.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 1, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Overwhelmingly the UK cases are "explainable", which is a good thing shirt term. Normally this shit would terrify me enough to avoid the news but seeing as I hear all sorts of wild rumours from my students I feel it's best to keep up with the situation.



Without wanting to shit you up  - as elbows has been patiently explaining for several weeks, you're not going to find evidence of something you're not looking/testing for.

Iiirc correctly, the couple of cases where they haven't travelled overseas, were only caught down to them trialling testing of people presenting with respiratory problems in 100 GP surgeries across the country, but I think that is the extent of the testing being done on anyone outside of those returning from the (increasing number of) countries which have seen more dramatic spreads, who are also exhibiting symptoms (or close contacts of those same people).

So it's not particularly meaningful that the huge proportion of people diagnosed here, so far, have caught it elsewhere.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 1, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I suppose it's unrealistic to expect that anyone from this administration could effectively offer any coherent sense or reassurance about the spread of the virus. That said, they do seem to be emitting consistently worry-ramping gobbets atm....
> 
> View attachment 200273



This seems to be _the plan_

*What are the government’s steps?*


Firstly, the government are trying to contain the virus, he said. This meant that “every single case found here gets immediate treatment”, with their contacts tracked down and given medical advice or checks.


Hancock said that the government were trying to delay the onset of the virus, having determined that the UK would be better able to cope with a mass spread of coronavirus in the summer.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 1, 2020)

First case in the south of Ireland.









						Coronavirus: First case confirmed in Republic of Ireland
					

The case is associated with travel from an affected area in Italy, rather than contact with a confirmed case.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## weepiper (Mar 1, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Without wanting to shit you up  - as elbows has been patiently explaining for several weeks, you're not going to find evidence of something you're not looking/testing for.
> 
> Iiirc correctly, the couple of cases where they haven't travelled overseas, were only caught down to them trialling testing of people presenting with respiratory problems in 100 GP surgeries across the country, but I think that is the extent of the testing being done on anyone outside of those returning from the (increasing number of) countries which have seen more dramatic spreads, who are also exhibiting symptoms (or close contacts of those same people).
> 
> So it's not particularly meaningful that the huge proportion of people diagnosed here, so far, have caught it elsewhere.


Scotland is now doing sample testing of people displaying respiratory symptoms from 41 GP practices regardless of whether they have travel history or known contact that might trigger a test - patients who are showing symptoms such as coughs, fevers etc. Pneumonia patients in critical care units will also be automatically tested for the virus.


----------



## Ax^ (Mar 1, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> First case in the south of Ireland.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Close my cousins daughters school over than one


not sure if she mind


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 1, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Scotland is now doing sample testing of people displaying respiratory symptoms from 41 GP practices regardless of whether they have travel history or known contact that might trigger a test - patients who are showing symptoms such as coughs, fevers etc. Pneumonia patients in critical care units will also be automatically tested for the virus.



My brother is doing the tests in dundee. And is quite annoyed because they're meant to be bacterial infections he works on but the viral people don't have the level 3 something something so they're doing it and having to do all the extra protocols while the viral people are getting off with it.   Rumours are saying it someone in dundee. Maybe he'll find out tomorrow at work.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 1, 2020)

brogdale said:


> So...looks like all of the May elections won't happen, then?
> 
> View attachment 200255



At risk of being a bit grim, that's probably good news for labour


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 2, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> At risk of being a bit grim, that's probably good news for labour


Hmm, overstretched health service, bounce from a new leader. Could go either way IMO


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 2, 2020)




----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 2, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Hmm, overstretched health service, bounce from a new leader. Could go either way IMO



Yeah. Just in terms of a delay at all though, at moment I think tories would mop up


----------



## maomao (Mar 2, 2020)

If they do start shutting down towns or cities Chinese style there'll be no state help with regards to wages/rent/mortgage payments/food at all will there. 

When it first kicked off in China the state immediate told everyone that they'd be covering all medical and funeral expenses. Meanwhile we're planning mass graves apparently


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 2, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


>



there is of course a london body which would deal with this sort of thing, the london resilience forum


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> If they do start shutting down towns or cities Chinese style


How does this work in reality? I'm due to move on 21st March to a new city. If they decided to quarantine Manchester or Leeds between now and then, am I just fucked? Can't move as no travel, yet can't stay as no house... 🤔


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 2, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> How does this work in reality? I'm due to move on 21st March to a new city. If they decided to quarantine Manchester or Leeds between now and then, am I just fucked? Can't move as no travel, yet can't stay as no house... 🤔


you might be stuck between them


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 2, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> you might be stuck between them


Always liked Huddersfield


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 2, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> Always liked Huddersfield


after 14 days enforced residence its charms might lose some of their allure


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 2, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> after 14 days enforced residence its charms might lose some of their allure


I spent some time there in my youth, and I wholeheartedly agree.


----------



## maomao (Mar 2, 2020)

White people wearing masks in e14 today. I've been looking at snoods


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> White people wearing masks in e14 today. I've been looking at snoods


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 2, 2020)

Small increase in cases overnight...surprising, but welcome!


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2020)

I dont really have an expectation of exactly when we'll see the uk numbers explode, other than soon. So I cant really call small daily increases surprising quite yet. Could change any day, but which day I cannot say.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 2, 2020)




----------



## Fez909 (Mar 2, 2020)

This is Milton Keynes this morning.



<insert joke here>


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 2, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> This is Milton Keynes this morning.
> 
> View attachment 200312
> 
> <insert joke here>



Great way to get a whole table to yourself on the train though.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 2, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Great way to get a whole table to yourself on the train though.


I would sit next to him. 

It's the cunts coughing in their hands you want to keep away from!


----------



## Numbers (Mar 2, 2020)

Love how the other guy is looking at your man with the mask.


----------



## editor (Mar 2, 2020)

*Changed the title for obvious reasons


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2020)

> Calderwood said: “The evidence we have is that we might expect up to 80% of the population to have coronavirus at some point, although we will obviously have people recovered and people who have antibodies and would be completely well.
> 
> “The peak we’re talking about we might expect to be over a three-week period, with a delay [until it peaks] of two to three months.”
> 
> She said the same rates of infection would apply across the UK if the epidemic took hold but said this was a hypothetical scenario, adding: “This might not happen.”



I dont know if the 2-3 months thing is based not just on current models, but also what happened with swine flu in 2009 (first imported cases detected near end of April, first local transmission confirmed 1st May, first pandemic wave in July). Either way, this is not a timescale I am banking on.

And then on to the bullshit:



> She said the current strategy appeared to be working: “At the moment, there is good evidence that we have contained the virus.” The NHS was well equipped and “we have time to plan.”











						Scotland says 250,000 could be hospitalised if coronavirus spreads
					

Up to 80% of Scotland’s people could catch virus in worst-case scenario, medical chief says




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## NoXion (Mar 2, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Love how the other guy is looking at your man with the mask.



He's probably thinking "what a fucking pillock!"


----------



## Wilf (Mar 2, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> This is Milton Keynes this morning.
> 
> View attachment 200312
> 
> <insert joke here>


 At least the fetish community will be safe.


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2020)

Well we have reached the milestone of a special program from the state broadcaster:



> BBC One is broadcasting a special programme this evening in which a panel of experts and BBC reporters from around the world answer questions on the coronavirus outbreak.
> 
> If you want to know the latest health advice, what you should do if you are planning a trip abroad, or what impact the outbreak could have on businesses, join us here from 19:30 GMT as we cover the main points from the programme.



From their live updates page at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-asia-51701043

I suppose I will watch it so that I can make a noise about anything I perceive as misleading.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well we have reached the milestone of a special program from the state broadcaster:


 'Jeremy Corbyn was today revealed as the source of the Coronavirus outbreak. He has since self quarantined in his terrorist HQ/allotment'.


----------



## editor (Mar 2, 2020)

Now it's REALLY getting serious


----------



## treelover (Mar 2, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> This is Milton Keynes this morning.
> 
> View attachment 200312
> 
> <insert joke here>



he may have a compromised immune syatem,  but as always it will be the worried well who empty the shelves, etc

my freind, a former Inf Diseases Nurse, 80, has lung disease, etc, is taking it very seriously, she loves life and wants to carry on, and is now going to self isolate, from family, etc, till a vaccine is available, she would be a gonner if its does become pandemic though.


----------



## treelover (Mar 2, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Hmm, overstretched health service, bounce from a new leader. Could go either way IMO



This govt are going to be found wanting.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 2, 2020)

Anyone else getting a bit pissed off with all the _don't panic; it's only those with underlying health issues that are vulnerable..._shite?

What normal folk don't have some sort of underlying health issue, FFS.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 2, 2020)

editor said:


> Now it's REALLY getting serious
> 
> View attachment 200340


Is he some sort of Coronavirus Typhoid Peter?


----------



## weepiper (Mar 2, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Anyone else getting a bit pissed off with all the _don't panic; it's only those with underlying health issues that are vulnerable..._shite?
> 
> What normal folk don't have some sort of underlying health issue, FFS.


Yeah. It's fine if you or everyone you love is 100% fighting fit. Mr W has no lower intestine and is recovering from surgery/lost loads of weight etc, coronavirus could easily finish him off. My dad has COPD. One of my kids is asthmatic. It's all FINE though.


----------



## maomao (Mar 2, 2020)

I'm sat next to someone who's diabetic, clinically obese, has COPD and is undergoing bariatric surgery in two weeks. He's fucked basically.


----------



## kenny g (Mar 2, 2020)

Some cunt presenter on LBC yesterday - a former libdem candidate -  was saying we should forgo 500,000 lives rather than have behaviour change that may affect the economy.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 2, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Some cunt presenter on LBC yesterday - a former libdem candidate -  was saying we should forgo 500,000 lives rather than have behaviour change that may affect the economy.


Were they volunteering?


----------



## 8ball (Mar 2, 2020)

‘kinell, has elbows not got that vaccine sorted yet?

I dunno, I turn my back for a few weeks and everyone starts slacking.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 2, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Yeah. It's fine if you or everyone you love is 100% fighting fit. Mr W has no lower intestine and is recovering from surgery/lost loads of weight etc, coronavirus could easily finish him off. My dad has COPD. One of my kids is asthmatic. It's all FINE though.


Exactly.
It's so fucking BBC to keep rolling out the _nothing to be concerned about...unless..._ line.


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2020)

The BBC have made a right mess of this:









						Coronavirus: World in 'uncharted territory'
					

The World Health Organization says the virus is "unique" but stresses it can still be contained.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The world is in "uncharted territory" on the coronavirus outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.
> 
> Doctors had "never before seen a respiratory pathogen capable of community transmission", its chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said.





I will be back shortly with the bit they missed out, causing all sensible meaning to be lost.


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2020)

As it happens I still somewhat disagree with what the WHO said, but at least with the missing but... it isnt quite as nonsensical as the BBC version.


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2020)

I am now watching the BBC special. Its very much what you would expect in terms of tone.

I doubt they will recycle the Alan Partridge toilet hygiene sketch.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> I am now watching the BBC special. Its very much what you would expect in terms of tone.
> 
> I doubt they will recycle the Alan Partridge toilet hygiene sketch.


I'm trying not to shout at Boris Johnson.


----------



## prunus (Mar 2, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Some cunt presenter on LBC yesterday - a former libdem candidate -  was saying we should forgo 500,000 lives rather than have behaviour change that may affect the economy.



I fear this close to exactly the arithmetic those in charge of the UK (and indeed every country)’s response are doing.   Full-on utilitarianism. How are they weighting the factors though? Lives vs prosperity.


----------



## kenny g (Mar 2, 2020)

prunus said:


> I fear this close to exactly the arithmetic those in charge of the UK (and indeed every country)’s response are doing.   Full-on utilitarianism. How are they weighting the factors though? Lives vs prosperity.


I suspect it is slightly off the greatest happiness for the greatest number.


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I'm trying not to shout at Boris Johnson.



And travel agents!


----------



## editor (Mar 2, 2020)

Even the car parks of Britain aren't safe anymore









						Chesham dogging parties 'cancelled' amid coronavirus fears
					

According to Public Health England, there have also been two confirmed cases in London - in Wimbledon and Hillingdon




					www.mylondon.news


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 2, 2020)

editor said:


> Even the car parks of Britain aren't safe anymore
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm confused. Do people not realise how much more satisfying this is with a mask?


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 2, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> I'm confused. Do people not realise how much more satisfying this is with a mask?



And why do people take their dogs to car parks?


----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 3, 2020)

anyway, thnking back to UKG  responses to this and the ole cole war scenarios ( square leg and its like for nuke stuff), government options included a free to flee plan ( just fuck off and lets see what happens afterwards) which was very cost effective i.e. no cost vs the containment plan. where townies were forced to stay in their urban hell holes and lets see who survives outcome. which one of these will be dusted off?


----------



## two sheds (Mar 3, 2020)

I intend to get under the table as instructed  



			https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/110193.pdf?v=c77f06e782d33a2ec8bf00d7c597ea10


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 3, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> My brother is doing the tests in dundee. And is quite annoyed because they're meant to be bacterial infections he works on but the viral people don't have the level 3 something something so they're doing it and having to do all the extra protocols while the viral people are getting off with it.   Rumours are saying it someone in dundee. Maybe he'll find out tomorrow at work.



My only updates on this are

It wasnt my brother who did the test as he hasnt done any for a week* and they were all negative and allegedly the covid19er has been sent to edinburgh. 

*quite glad of this as I've just been visiting him.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I intend to get under the table as instructed
> 
> 
> 
> https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/110193.pdf?v=c77f06e782d33a2ec8bf00d7c597ea10


I'm going to Duck and Cover


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 3, 2020)

UK Govt 'Plan'

If police lose "significant staff" numbers to illness, they would "concentrate on responding to serious crimes and maintaining public order".
In a "stretching scenario", it is possible that up to one fifth of employees may be absent from work during peak weeks.
Everyone will face increased pressures at work, as well as potentially their own illness and caring responsibilities. Supporting staff welfare "will be critical" for businesses.
The UK has stockpiles of medicines for the NHS, plus protective clothing and equipment for medical staff.
The public can help delay the spread of the virus by washing hands with soap regularly, not spreading misinformation and relying on trusted sources. They should also ensure family vaccines are up to date and check on family, friends and neighbours. They should also check Foreign Office advice before travelling abroad and be understanding of the pressures the health service is under.
The public will be asked to accept that "the advice for managing Covid-19 for most people will be self-isolation at home and simple over the counter medicines".
If coronavirus becomes established, there will be a focus on essential services and helping those "most at risk to access the right treatment".
During the mitigation phase, when the virus is much more widespread, "pressures on services and wider society may become significant and clearly noticeable".
The Ministry of Defence will provide support as needed, including to essential services.
There will be increased Government communication with Parliament, the public and the media if the virus becomes more widespread.
All Government departments to have a lead person for coronavirus.
If the virus takes hold, social distancing strategies could include school closures, encouraging greater home working, reducing the number of large scale gatherings and closing other educational settings.
It is possible that an outbreak or pandemic of Covid-19 could come in multiple waves.
Non-urgent operations and other procedures could be cancelled, and hospital discharges monitored to free-up beds, with appropriate care in people's homes.
Hospital worker shifts could be altered and leavers or retirees called "back to duty".
Measures exist to help businesses with short-term cash flow problems.
There is a distribution strategy for sending out key medicines and equipment to NHS and social care.
This strain of coronavirus is new and people have a lack of immunity to it, meaning "Covid-19 has the potential to spread extensively".
Everyone is susceptible to catching the disease and thus it is "more likely than not that the UK will be significantly affected".
There could be an "increase in deaths arising from the outbreak, particularly among vulnerable and elderly groups".
While most people will suffer mild to moderate symptoms, similar to seasonal flu, some will need hospital care due to pneumonia developing.
Young children can become infected and "suffer severe illness", but overall the illness is less common in the under-20s.


----------



## elbows (Mar 3, 2020)

I wont have time to read the plan till later. But from the sounds of media reports, the government are indeed planning to save the draconian measures for the time when the first big peak wave is beginning to ramp up.



> If there is a widespread transmission - which seems highly likely at this stage - it could take two or three months to peak. The peak would last two or three weeks and around 50% of people who become infected could become infected in those peak weeks.
> 
> There would then be a period of two or three months of declining cases, although the battle plan acknowledges there could be multiple waves.
> 
> The government is likely to use its most drastic measures at its disposal just ahead of the peak in an attempt to flatten it.











						Coronavirus: Up to fifth of UK workers 'could be off sick at same time'
					

Non-urgent NHS care may be delayed if the coronavirus outbreak worsens, the government says, as the number of UK cases rises to 51.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 3, 2020)




----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 3, 2020)




----------



## hegley (Mar 3, 2020)




----------



## bimble (Mar 3, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> UK Govt 'Plan'
> ...
> 
> If the virus takes hold, social distancing strategies could include school closures, encouraging greater home working, reducing the number of large scale gatherings and closing other educational settings.
> ..


How is that anything but post-horse barn door shutting ??


----------



## elbows (Mar 3, 2020)

bimble said:


> How is that anything but post-horse barn door shutting ??



Mostly because the plan does not really involve trying to completely eliminate transmission of the disease, just reducing it with the aim of hugely flattening the peak. Its the peak(s) they are bothered about, because thats when the strain to various sytems will become immense.

As expected there is no fixed timing baked into the plan. Having now read it, there was nothing much for me to comment on. Other than thinking that having Research as its own phase is a bit of a fudge really, research will actually carry on at its own pace throughout all the phases, and I get the impression they only included it as its own phase so they could go on about it explicitly using the phase structure.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 3, 2020)

14:18 on 3/3/2020

BBC flash has just indicated that Matt Hancock says the UK now has 51 cases.


----------



## elbows (Mar 3, 2020)

Oh yeah, I always forget that 2pm (or shortly after) is the time for the daily UK figures.


----------



## Bingo (Mar 3, 2020)

Has anyone done a graph of UK incidences / time yet? 🤔


----------



## Bingo (Mar 3, 2020)

Here's something 






						UK Coronavirus Infected Numbers Going Parabolic - Day 34 Update :: The Market Oracle ::
					






					www.marketoracle.co.uk


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 3, 2020)

Bingo said:


> Here's something
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wikipedia is often the best source for these things...









						COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## elbows (Mar 3, 2020)

A bit more on the latest UK cases:



> Eight patients had recently travelled from Italy, one from Germany, one from Singapore, one from Japan and one from Iran. The patients are from London, Hampshire, Northamptonshire, Bury, Wirral, Greater Manchester, Humberside and Kent. All are being investigated and contact tracing has begun.
> 
> The total number of confirmed cases in England is now 48 (one previously reported positive case was retested and found to be negative) and with each of the previously reported single cases in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, the total number of UK cases has reached 51.



 1h ago 15:37 

Not sure what to make of the positive case that subsequently tested negative being removed from the tally - my opinion would depend on more detail, such as whether they had any particular reason to think the positive test was faulty.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 3, 2020)

hegley said:


>



More Trumpish by the day. Lying cunt.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 3, 2020)

"Trumpian" is the recognised adjective, I believe


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 3, 2020)

Absolutely fucking shameless, the cunt.


----------



## rekil (Mar 3, 2020)

Coronavirus: Iran holy-shrine-lickers face prison
					

Two men face jail in Iran for licking holy shrines in defiance of coronavirus health warnings.



					www.bbc.com
				






> In another video at a shrine in Mashhad a man is filmed saying he is there to lick the shrine, "so the disease can go inside my body and others can visit it with no anxiety".



A cunning plan.


----------



## weepiper (Mar 3, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> My brother is doing the tests in dundee. And is quite annoyed because they're meant to be bacterial infections he works on but the viral people don't have the level 3 something something so they're doing it and having to do all the extra protocols while the viral people are getting off with it.   Rumours are saying it someone in dundee. Maybe he'll find out tomorrow at work.


My dad (retired, but still loves a bit of sticking his oar in) has just asked this, can your brother shed any light?


----------



## weltweit (Mar 3, 2020)

I expect it is down to bad organisation and that with practice and increases in demand they will probably up their game.


----------



## elbows (Mar 3, 2020)

Is it actually taking a week? I havent kept up with that aspect at all so I am utterly unsure.

The only check of this I have had time to do is that I notice that 2 Bury cases that were reported to have tested positive today are said to be known contacts of the first Bury confirmed case, whose positive was reported 2 days ago.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 3, 2020)

I wonder how many isolation beds the NHS could make available if they needed to? China apparently bought in a lot of ventilators and in severe cases were taking the patient's blood outside the body to re-oxygenate it. (probably not the right terminology, I am not medical). And in Wuhan of course (a city the size of London) they made two and a half thousand extra beds available with the two new hospitals that they built.


----------



## elbows (Mar 3, 2020)

Well even if you can get the space and equipment, you need the people too. Hence the plans for calling up retired doctors and nurses, an idea thats had a very mixed response due to the number of people in that category who no longer feel they could perform the physically demanding aspects of the job, not to mention the number of them that will be in the at risk category for serious Covid-19 complications themselves.

China has a lot of people and also because it was a mostly localised outbreak, they could move resources and people from other parts of the country, giving them surge capacity. Whether that sort of thing will be any sort of option in the UK will depend on outbreak wave timing & geographical spread.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 3, 2020)

Sure, it all depends on may things, and it is early days in the UK story so far. 

Do we have any travel restrictions in place yet? Last I heard there were still flights arriving from Italy without any special temperature checks being made on the passengers, though if they were just at the incubation stage of course that wouldn't detect anything. But is it wise not to have any travel restrictions in place while the virus has expanded around the world as it has?


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 3, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> This is Milton Keynes this morning.
> 
> View attachment 200312
> 
> <insert joke here>


That orange jacket won't help.


----------



## elbows (Mar 3, 2020)

Regarding surge capacity by moving resources around the country, unfortunately I have to say I am not very optimistic that many other countries will have the relative 'luxury' of having the main initial large outbreak in one place like China did. Because with Wuhan that was the very initial seeding event. Everywhere else since then has had multiple opportunities for multiple seeds to be planted, so there could be a lot of independent outbreaks that build off the back of all these seeds, and I would assume a bunch with rather similar timing.

I've got nothing much to say about travel restrictions or lack thereof. I wouldnt quite call it a red herring, but its of relatively little interest to me, and things that are less than outright bans (such as flight cancellations and public perceptions of risk) have some impact anyway.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 3, 2020)

I genuinely at a bit of a loss at what to say to my elderly parents , (both late 80s), about the virus. My natural instinct is to offer reassurance but I fear the reality may prove to be very bleak for the elderly. 
I suppose I'm most concerned that if they both fall ill together, they will look to the NHS to come to their aid and, who knows...by such a stage...we may be well into rationing by cohort and, as for the oldest...well...hmmm.
Apols if this is all a bit dark...just not liking the look of this.


----------



## agricola (Mar 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well even if you can get the space and equipment, you need the people too. Hence the plans for calling up retired doctors and nurses, an idea thats had a very mixed response due to the number of people in that category who no longer feel they could perform the physically demanding aspects of the job, not to mention the number of them that will be in the at risk category for serious Covid-19 complications themselves.



Indeed, and the fact that the media hasn't really challenged the Government on that rather important point (or other points like how they can recall them, whether they would come back anyway, how they'd renumerate them, what hours they'd work or how they will deal with what may be several years worth of training that might need to be delivered) is pretty worrying. 

That said its not as bad an idea as this latest one of moving kids around when a particular school is closed because of an outbreak there, something that might actually be designed to infect as many schoolchildren as possible.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 3, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I genuinely at a bit of a loss at what to say to my elderly parents , (both late 80s), about the virus. My natural instinct is to offer reassurance but I fear the reality may prove to be very bleak for the elderly.
> I suppose I'm most concerned that if they both fall ill together, they will look to the NHS to come to their aid and, who knows...by such a stage...we may be well into rationing by cohort and, as for the oldest...well...hmmm.
> Apols if this is all a bit dark...just not liking the look of this.


I know exactly what you mean. My parents have long since passed and I am on my way to being one of the at risk groups myself but looking at my friends, there are people who are high risk, I joked with one of them recently - stay away from the Italians  they laughed but they are very aware that they are at risk. 

And perhaps worse, because of the nature of the incubation who knows when or whether we ourselves could be carriers and infect the very people we want to protect.


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 3, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I genuinely at a bit of a loss at what to say to my elderly parents , (both late 80s), about the virus. My natural instinct is to offer reassurance but I fear the reality may prove to be very bleak for the elderly.
> I suppose I'm most concerned that if they both fall ill together, they will look to the NHS to come to their aid and, who knows...by such a stage...we may be well into rationing by cohort and, as for the oldest...well...hmmm.
> Apols if this is all a bit dark...just not liking the look of this.


Am in a similar situation-mother is eighty-nine and needs my help on a daily basis.However I work with two hundred others at fairly close quarters every day.If I get infected it seems my chances of kicking the bucket are one in a hundred.If I infect my mother it seems her chances of suffering a similar fate maybe closer to one in seven.At some point it may be that the best thing would be for me to stay away.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 3, 2020)

Duncan2 said:


> Am in a similar situation-mother is eighty-nine and needs my help on a daily basis.However I work with two hundred others at fairly close quarters every day.If I get infected it seems my chances of kicking the bucket are one in a hundred.If I infect my mother it seems her chances of suffering a similar fate maybe closer to one in seven.At some point it may be that the best thing would be for me to stay away.


Yes, I fear many of us will be faced with some very difficult decisions over the coming weeks/months.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 3, 2020)

weepiper said:


> My dad (retired, but still loves a bit of sticking his oar in) has just asked this, can your brother shed any light?
> 
> View attachment 200450



I'll ask!  My brother certainly complains every time I see him about the continual changes in working practice and how each one is not an improvement!  

He also said they were told the move to edinburgh was 'political' though at what level who knows.


----------



## kenny g (Mar 3, 2020)

79 year old father with smashed lungs but a very active social  life and fighting fit. Currently they are in India and back in a week or so. Going to be really difficult for them to restrict their lives, especially as they haven't done it for almost 80 years.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 3, 2020)

weepiper said:


> My dad (retired, but still loves a bit of sticking his oar in) has just asked this, can your brother shed any light?
> 
> View attachment 200450



Can you copy and paste rather than post as an image?


----------



## weepiper (Mar 3, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Can you copy and paste rather than post as an image?


Sorry, I don't seem to be able to do that on my phone.


----------



## Yata (Mar 3, 2020)

shelves absolutely rinsed clean of anything with antibacterial in the name at tescos


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 3, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Sorry, I don't seem to be able to do that on my phone.



It's ok. It went ok now.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 3, 2020)

weepiper said:


> My dad (retired, but still loves a bit of sticking his oar in) has just asked this, can your brother shed any light?
> 
> View attachment 200450



" everything in it is true except  we are getting results in  about 36 hours, a good whack of that is the time it takes to transport the sample to the testing centre, only one delivery per day,leaving at 4 pm"

I asked for clarification because I was confused. *

"We send all samples once a day at 4 pm using a special courier that can comply with the transport of dangerous goods by road act, so if a gp takes a sample on thurs that doesnt get to us till friday it wont get to glasgow till saturday morning then it has to be tested and someone has to phone the results out" 


* I dont always listen very closely


----------



## Callie (Mar 3, 2020)

weepiper said:


> My dad (retired, but still loves a bit of sticking his oar in) has just asked this, can your brother shed any light?
> 
> View attachment 200450


That might be the case for an established PCR assay but this is a novel virus with a new assay. It's not well established. It's not available in every laboratory. Not every laboratory has the training or equipment to perform PCR.

initially testing is performed by public health laboratories this is for epidemiological purposes and they often perform R&D to either produce an assay to distribute to other UK labs to do the testing OR they look at any commercially available assays and verify how well they work so they can make recommendations to UK laboratories so they can make an informed choice on which assay to include in their testing repertoire.

Public Health labs are struggling with the numbers to test. Testing is now being rolled out to more local labs.

Samples are being processed at Biological Safety Containment Level 3 currently which is a step up security/safety wise from your average microbiology lab so fewer places can do this. I feel this is a precautionary measure while we learn more about the virus. We are still learning. 

I do not believe it's taking a week to get results. My experience is 48hours at most.

I don't think it's bad organisation but I think in terms of capacity for the numbers being tested we have been struggling but we are now moving to a phase of increased testing but less restricted options for where the testing can be done (roll out to more labs, more testing outside of the specified case criteria).

Hope that makes sense!


----------



## weepiper (Mar 3, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> " everything in it is true except  we are getting results in  about 36 hours, a good whack of that is the time it takes to transport the sample to the testing centre, only one delivery per day,leaving at 4 pm"
> 
> I asked for clarification because I was confused. *
> 
> ...


Thanks!


----------



## weepiper (Mar 3, 2020)

Callie said:


> That might be the case for an established PCR assay but this is a novel virus with a new assay. It's not well established. It's not available in every laboratory. Not every laboratory has the training or equipment to perform PCR.
> 
> initially testing is performed by public health laboratories this is for epidemiological purposes and they often perform R&D to either produce an assay to distribute to other UK labs to do the testing OR they look at any commercially available assays and verify how well they work so they can make recommendations to UK laboratories so they can make an informed choice on which assay to include in their testing repertoire.
> 
> ...


That is helpful, thank you


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 3, 2020)

Callie said:


> That might be the case for an established PCR assay but this is a novel virus with a new assay. It's not well established. It's not available in every laboratory. Not every laboratory has the training or equipment to perform PCR.
> 
> initially testing is performed by public health laboratories this is for epidemiological purposes and they often perform R&D to either produce an assay to distribute to other UK labs to do the testing OR they look at any commercially available assays and verify how well they work so they can make recommendations to UK laboratories so they can make an informed choice on which assay to include in their testing repertoire.
> 
> ...



I was going to tag you! But thought that might be rude.   I'd already had some of this explained to me the other day but couldnt remember the details.


----------



## elbows (Mar 3, 2020)

Thousands of intensive care patients to be tested for Covid-19
					

NHS bosses in England ramp up efforts to detect virus amid fears it is circulating in ICUs




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The move came to light in a letter sent to all NHS organisations on Tuesday by Prof Keith Willett, the senior doctor co-ordinating NHS England’s efforts against the virus. In it he told trusts: “In recent days, new Covid-19 infections have been diagnosed in intensive care units in a number of European countries, without any epidemiologial links to high risk areas.
> 
> “Nosocomial [hospital-acquired] transmission has occurred in these units affecting other patients and staff. It is essential that we detect cases admitted to intensive care at the earliest opportunity. We are requesting that all intensive care units and severe respiratory (Ecmo) centres commence case detection.”
> 
> Adult and paediatric ICUs should test any patient whose “presenting condition is an acute community acquired respiratory infection of any kind, regardless of known or suspected causative pathogen and clinical features”, the nine-page letter said.


----------



## kazza007 (Mar 3, 2020)

Will there be much help for self employed contractor if they are sick or need to quarantine or job is cancelled by the firm :/


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 3, 2020)

kazza007 said:


> Will there be much help for self employed contractor if they are sick or need to quarantine or job is cancelled by the firm :/



I only get paid if a cancellation is within 24 hours. If I'm off sick, I get nothing. I don't claim UC but if I did then a few weeks off either through illness or cancelled work might have them deciding I was non longer 'gainfully self employed' and that I needed to be doing 17 hours of jobsearch activity per hour or get nothing. 

Best to get the precarious workers' rent strike movement started now IMO.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 4, 2020)

kazza007 said:


> Will there be much help for self employed contractor if they are sick or need to quarantine or job is cancelled by the firm :/



I doubt it, I’m technically ‘self employed’ - will probably be left to rot if coronavirus temporarily shuts down the country.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 4, 2020)

Panic buying update!! 

As well as hand sanitizer, loo roll, tinned soup, baked beans and UHT milk I can add Fray Bentos pies, corned beef and dog food. 

Apparently the shelves of Waitrose have been "decimated" (according to local Facebook groups) which probably tells you all you need to know about the demographic of Maidenhead


----------



## two sheds (Mar 4, 2020)

Now here's a surprise, and you can hardly blame them: 









						Majority of retired NHS staff don't want to return to tackle Covid-19 crisis
					

Some former workers say going back would threaten their mental and physical health




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## andysays (Mar 4, 2020)

Johnson has just announced that people will get SSP from the first day of corona virus related absences, rather than the 4th as currently.


----------



## Kilgore Trout (Mar 4, 2020)

Its very slow moving this pandemic, with sort of 5 new cases a day ish in the UK. I'm surprised it doesn't follow an exponential type shape with 5 then 25 then I dunno a big number. Given how much people move around and come in to contact with other folks I'm surprised at the slow pace of spread. 

Maybe there are lots of unreported cases as people just think they have a cold?


----------



## Baronage-Phase (Mar 4, 2020)

I have 60 days sick leave.
Terrified of this virus .. kidney and liver failure plus on immunosuppressants. I tick quite a few boxes on the "in mortal danger" list. 
Wondering if I should just stay away from work for 2 months? And hope that summer hits with high temperatures in May.


----------



## extra dry (Mar 4, 2020)

Good luck is all I can say, to everyone. 
  2 packs of ramin noodles here only


----------



## sptme (Mar 4, 2020)

Coronavirus: Cases in UK jump to 87
					

The UK reports its largest daily increase in cases, as two patients on a hospital ward are diagnosed.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 4, 2020)

_I’ve _got a couple of 50 packs of masks was issued with a couple of years ago and never took away with me. Time to start the profiteering...


----------



## Baronage-Phase (Mar 4, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Panic buying update!!
> 
> As well as hand sanitizer, loo roll, tinned soup, baked beans and UHT milk I can add Fray Bentos pies, corned beef and dog food.
> 
> Apparently the shelves of Waitrose have been "decimated" (according to local Facebook groups) which probably tells you all you need to know about the demographic of Maidenhead




I added 6 double packs of custard creams to my shopping list last week. 
They're in storage in the "Brexit/Covid-19/munchies" box. 🙂


----------



## Edie (Mar 4, 2020)

Kilgore Trout said:


> Its very slow moving this pandemic, with sort of 5 new cases a day ish in the UK. I'm surprised it doesn't follow an exponential type shape with 5 then 25 then I dunno a big number. Given how much people move around and come in to contact with other folks I'm surprised at the slow pace of spread.
> 
> Maybe there are lots of unreported cases as people just think they have a cold?


From a JP Morgan Covid and US election briefing document I have, top graph shows exponential


----------



## Wilf (Mar 4, 2020)

UK cases up by 34:








						Italian educational institutions close as Covid-19 deaths pass 100 – as it happened
					

Outbreak continues to spread with Italians in India testing positive. This blog is closed




					www.theguardian.com
				




Not sure when we get into active emergency/governmental panic mode, mass school closures etc?


----------



## bimble (Mar 4, 2020)




----------



## Numbers (Mar 4, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Panic buying update!!
> 
> As well as hand sanitizer, loo roll, tinned soup, baked beans and UHT milk I can add Fray Bentos pies, corned beef and dog food.
> 
> Apparently the shelves of Waitrose have been "decimated" (according to local Facebook groups) which probably tells you all you need to know about the demographic of Maidenhead


Just came from my local Morrison’s - shelves packed to the rafters.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 4, 2020)

Wilf said:


> UK cases up by 34:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, yes - is there an actual number? Of cases? Of deaths? 

I do _understand_ all the reasons put forwards for delaying (by posters here, not Boris etc, obvs), I get that it's not straightforward, but it's just so horribly, fucking _stark_ that that's what it comes down to - and I'm still totally conflicted about those reasons anyway.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 4, 2020)

I've not got a problem with them not reporting where the cases are on a daily basis, as the information is of no real use.

Its been reported in the last week that there's two new cases in West Sussex, what use is this information to anyone in Worthing? They could be in this town, or somewhere miles away, even if they are from Worthing, without knowing who they are, how would this be useful in a town of over 100,000?

OTHO when it hit the press that a GP, from Brighton, who tested positive had done a couple of days in A&E at Worthing hospital it caused a major panic, even though he didn't pass it onto anyone else, and tested negative just a few days later.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 4, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Well, yes - is there an actual number? Of cases? Of deaths?



There's been no deaths in the UK so far, figures for reported cases & deaths worldwide are updated daily on this site:









						COVID-19 situation update worldwide
					

This update has been discontinued - please see the Weekly Country Overview report.




					www.ecdc.europa.eu


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's been no deaths in the UK so far, figures for reported cases & deaths worldwide are updated daily on this site:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, I'm well aware of that - it was a response to Wilf's post, questioning how/when the gov measure moving to a new stage (beyond the current 'containment') to be necessary.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 4, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Yes, I'm well aware of that - it was a response to Wilf's post, questioning how/when the gov measure moving to a new stage (beyond the current 'containment') to be necessary.



That is dependent on the advice of the various UK chief medical officers & chief scientific officer.

elbows explains it well in this post, on the main thread:









						Coronavirus - worldwide breaking news, discussion, stats, updates and more
					

As I posted a few days back, from a workforce perspective mass shut downs is a v poor outcome. Shut a load of schools in an area and you knock out a significant chunk of workers who then become carers.  Other countries have managed and done it early particularly Vietnam getting a grip on...




					www.urban75.net


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That is dependent on the advice of the various UK chief medical officers & chief scientific officer.
> 
> elbows explains it well in this post, on the main thread:
> 
> ...



Perhaps you could just read the post of mine you originally quoted, where I explained that I had read the various points put forwards by posters here _and understood them_  - but I was _wondering_ along with Wilf (dunno why you feel the need to point this out to me and not to him?) what that actually _meant_ (from the pov of our government who, tbf, I don't hold that much trust in) in real terms.

Anything else I need to clarify again?


----------



## treelover (Mar 4, 2020)

Slots for tesco home delivery in my area are nearly full, collect and collect all full, suspect the stockpiling is beginning, likely wont be the at risk groups either.

nearly all hand santisers gone.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 4, 2020)

treelover said:


> Slots for tesco home delivery in my area are nearly full, collect and collect all full, suspect the stockpiling is beginning, likely wont be the at risk groups either.


A lot of the stuff being stockpiled is what would normally go to foodbanks (tinned, dried etc).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 4, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Perhaps you could just read the post of mine you originally quoted, where I explained that I had read the various points put forwards by posters here _and understood them_  - but I was _wondering_ along with Wilf (dunno why you feel the need to point this out to me and not to him?) what that actually _meant_ (from the pov of our government who, tbf, I don't hold that much trust in) in real terms.
> 
> Anything else I need to clarify again?



It wasn't directed at you, I was adding to your response to Wilf.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 4, 2020)

treelover said:


> Slots for tesco home delivery in my area are nearly full, collect and collect all full, suspect the stockpiling is beginning, likely wont be the at risk groups either.
> 
> nearly all hand santisers gone.


The price of hand sanitiser has rocketed where available. We have some at work i will be requisitioning.


----------



## Edie (Mar 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> The price of hand sanitiser has rocketed where available. We have some at work i will be requisitioning.


You’d never steal from the common store would you? 🤨


----------



## chilango (Mar 4, 2020)

Even my wife is talking about "popping to the shop to pick up a few extras" tonight.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It wasn't directed at you, I was adding to your response to Wilf.



Fucking hell  - well then thank you, on behalf of Wilf I guess...


----------



## elbows (Mar 4, 2020)

For those bothered by the loss of daily information about location of cases, it looks like local/regional authorities might still choose to mention cases, but I guess it will be a postcode lottery.

eg:


----------



## editor (Mar 4, 2020)

Apols if this has already been posted here or elsewhere, but it seems a more sensible analysis than some I've read: 

The WHO has sent a team of international experts to China to investigate the situation, including Clifford Lane, Clinical Director at the US National Institutes of Health. Here is the press conference on Youtube and the final report of the commission as PDF after they visited Beijing, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chengdu. Here are some interesting facts about Covid that I have not yet read in the media:


When a cluster of several infected people occurred in China, it was most often (78-85%) caused by an infection within the family by droplets and other carriers of infection in close contact with an infected person. Transmission by fine aerosols in the air over long distances is not one of the main causes of spread. Most of the 2,055 infected hospital workers were either infected at home or in the early phase of the outbreak in Wuhan when hospital safeguards were not raised yet.
5% of people who are diagnosed with Covid require artificial respiration. Another 15% need to breathe in highly concentrated oxygen - and not just for a few days. The duration from the beginning of the disease until recovery is 3 to 6 weeks on average for these severe and critical patients (compared to only 2 weeks for the mildly ill). The mass and duration of the treatments overburdened the existing health care system in Wuhan many times over. The province of Hubei, whose capital is Wuhan, had 65,596 infected persons so far. A total of 40,000 employees were sent to Hubei from other provinces to help fight the epidemic. 45 hospitals in Wuhan are caring for Covid patients, 6 of which are for patients in critical condition and 39 are caring for seriously ill patients and for infected people over the age of 65. Two makeshift hospitals with 2,600 beds were built within a short time. 80% of the infected have mild disease, ten temporary hospitals were set up in gymnasiums and exhibition halls for those.
China can now produce 1.6 million test kits for the novel coronavirus per week. The test delivers a result on the same day. Across the country, anyone who goes to the doctor with a fever is screened for the virus: In Guangdong province, far from Wuhan, 320,000 people have been tested, and 0.14% of those were positive for the virus.
The vast majority of those infected sooner or later develop symptoms. Cases of people in whom the virus has been detected and who do not have symptoms at that time are rare - and most of them fall ill in the next few days.
The most common symptoms are fever (88%) and dry cough (68%). Exhaustion (38%), expectoration of mucus when coughing (33%), shortness of breath (18%), sore throat (14%), headaches (14%), muscle aches (14%), chills (11%) are also common. Less frequent are nausea and vomiting (5%), stuffy nose (5%) and diarrhoea (4%). Running nose is not a symptom of Covid.
An examination of 44,672 infected people in China showed a fatality rate of 3.4%. Fatality is strongly influenced by age, pre-existing conditions, gender, and especially the response of the health care system. All fatality figures reflect the state of affairs in China up to 17 February, and everything could be quite different in the future elsewhere.
Healthcare system: 20% of infected people in China needed hospital treatment for weeks. China has hospital beds to treat 0.4% of the population at the same time - other developed countries have between 0.1% and 1.3% and most of these beds are already occupied with people who have other diseases. The most important thing is firstly to aggressively contain the spread of the virus in order to keep the number of seriously ill Covid patients low and secondly to increase the number of beds (including material and personnel) until there is enough for the seriously ill. China also tested various treatment methods for the unknown disease and the most successful ones were implemented nationwide. Thanks to this response, the fatality rate in China is now lower than a month ago.
Pre-existing conditions: The fatality rate for those infected with pre-existing cardiovascular disease in China was 13.2%. It was 9.2% for those infected with high blood sugar levels (uncontrolled diabetes), 8.4% for high blood pressure, 8% for chronic respiratory diseases and 7.6% for cancer. Infected persons without a relevant previous illness died in 1.4% of cases.
Age: The younger you are, the less likely you are to be infected and the less likely you are to fall seriously ill if you do get infected:

Age% of population% of infectedFatality0-912.0%0,9%0 as of now10-1911.6%1.2%0.1%20-2913.5%8.1%0.2%30-3915.6%17.0%0.2%40-4915.6%19.2%0.4%50-5915.0%22.4%1.3%60-6910.4%19.2%3.6%70-794.7%8.8%8.0%80+1.8%3.2%14.8%
_Read: Out of all people who live in China, 13.5% are between 20 and 29 years old. Out of those who were infected in China, 8.1% were in this age group (this does not mean that 8.1% of people between 20 and 29 become infected). This means that the likelihood of someone at this age to catch the infection is somewhat lower compared to the average. And of those who caught the infection in this age group, 0.2% died._


Gender: Women catch the disease just as often as men. But only 2.8% of Chinese women who were infected died from the disease, while 4.7% of the infected men died. The disease appears to be not more severe in pregnant women than in others. In 9 examined births of infected women, the children were born by caesarean section and healthy without being infected themselves. The women were infected in the last trimester of pregnancy. What effect an infection in the first or second trimester has on embryos is currently unclear as these children are still unborn.
The new virus is genetically 96% identical to a known coronavirus in bats and 86-92% identical to a coronavirus in pangolin. Therefore, the transmission of a mutated virus from animals to humans is the most likely cause of the appearance of the new virus.
Since the end of January, the number of new coronavirus diagnoses in China has been steadily declining (shown here as a graph) with now only 329 new diagnoses within the last day - one month ago it was around 3,000 a day. "This decline in COVID-19 cases across China is real," the report says. The authors conclude this from their own experience on site, declining hospital visits in the affected regions, the increasing number of unoccupied hospital beds, and the problems of Chinese scientists to recruit enough newly infected for the clinical studies of the numerous drug trials. Here is the relevant part of the press conference about the decline assessment.
One of the important reasons for containing the outbreak is that China is interviewing all infected people nationwide about their contact persons and then tests those. There are 1,800 teams in Wuhan to do this, each with at least 5 people. But the effort outside of Wuhan is also big. In Shenzhen, for example, the infected named 2,842 contact persons, all of whom were found, testing is now completed for 2,240, and 2.8% of those had contracted the virus. In Sichuan province, 25,493 contact persons were named, 25,347 (99%) were found, 23,178 have already been examined and 0.9% of them were infected. In the province of Guangdong, 9,939 contacts were named, all found, 7,765 are already examined and 4.8% of them were infected. That means: If you have direct personal contact with an infected person, the probability of infection is between 1% and 5%.


----------



## editor (Mar 4, 2020)

And..

_A few direct quotes from the report:_

"China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic. In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history. China’s uncompromising and rigorous use of non-pharmaceutical measures to contain transmission of the COVID-19 virus in multiple settings provides vital lessons for the global response. This rather unique and unprecedented public health response in China reversed the escalating cases in both Hubei, where there has been widespread community transmission, and in the importation provinces, where family clusters appear to have driven the outbreak."

"Much of the global community is not yet ready, in mindset and materially, to implement the measures that have been employed to contain COVID-19 in China. These are the only measures that are currently proven to interrupt or minimize transmission chains in humans. Fundamental to these measures is extremely proactive surveillance to immediately detect cases, very rapid diagnosis and immediate case isolation, rigorous tracking and quarantine of close contacts, and an exceptionally high degree of population understanding and acceptance of these measures."

"COVID-19 is spreading with astonishing speed; COVID-19 outbreaks in any setting have very serious consequences; and there is now strong evidence that non-pharmaceutical interventions can reduce and even interrupt transmission. Concerningly, global and national preparedness planning is often ambivalent about such interventions. However, to reduce COVID-19 illness and death, near-term readiness planning must embrace the large-scale implementation of high-quality, non-pharmaceutical public health measures. These measures must fully incorporate immediate case detection and isolation, rigorous close contact tracing and monitoring/quarantine, and direct population/community engagement."

From Reddit


----------



## treelover (Mar 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> The price of hand sanitiser has rocketed where available. We have some at work i will be requisitioning.



Not at you, but I think we will see the worse of people as well as the best.


----------



## Looby (Mar 4, 2020)

treelover said:


> Slots for tesco home delivery in my area are nearly full, collect and collect all full, suspect the stockpiling is beginning, likely wont be the at risk groups either.
> 
> nearly all hand santisers gone.


I’ve been trying to buy hand sanitiser for a week. I use it daily at work and am running out. I’ve tried almost every possible option in store and online. It’s insane. A friend might order me some as she has a trade account but even then I think it’ll be out of stock. I’m going out tonight but I’ll try the 24hr Tesco on the way home in case they’ve had a delivery.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 4, 2020)

andysays said:


> Johnson has just announced that people will get SSP from the first day of corona virus related absences, rather than the 4th as currently.



An unusually sensible decision. It will encourage people to get tested, too.


----------



## Looby (Mar 4, 2020)

If you’ve been in contact with someone who has been in contact with someone who is unwell and has been tested (results in 72 hours) how concerned would you be? Asking for a friend. 😕


----------



## treelover (Mar 4, 2020)

My friend ex typhoid nurse, says soap is the best and only thing needed


----------



## brogdale (Mar 4, 2020)

Looby said:


> I’ve been trying to buy hand sanitiser for a week. I use it daily at work and am running out. I’ve tried almost every possible option in store and online. It’s insane. A friend might order me some as she has a trade account but even then I think it’ll be out of stock. I’m going out tonight but I’ll try the 24hr Tesco on the way home in case they’ve had a delivery.


It's the 60% thing that's the key, isn't it?
Pricey, but may end up cheaper than the non-existent hand-wash?


----------



## Looby (Mar 4, 2020)

treelover said:


> My friend ex typhoid nurse, says soap is the best and only thing needed


Soap and water isn’t available when you are out on visits, in and out of homes and meetings and some days barely go near the office. So no, soap is not the only thing needed.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 4, 2020)

brogdale said:


> It's the 60% thing that's the key, isn't it?
> Pricey, but may end up cheaper than the non-existent hand-wash?
> 
> View attachment 200569


Wray & Nephew is 63% ad half the price in pretty much any local off license.


----------



## marshall (Mar 4, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Just came from my local Morrison’s - shelves packed to the rafters.



Same in Norwich; Sains, Tescos, even Waitrose with that lovely cassoulet in a tin for £8.19 , no shelf-clearing, chill everyone.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 4, 2020)

Edie said:


> You’d never steal from the common store would you? 🤨


The common store 

I work in a small library. Each site purchases its own supplies and I'm taking 1.5 bottles from my sites stores, which wouldn't be there if I hadn't asked for them to be bought six months ago. To reach the library you must pass three ladies and three gents, and one unsignposted unisex toilet, so there is great scope for hand cleansing. Also there's another four bottles of gel for emergencies.


----------



## treelover (Mar 4, 2020)

Looby said:


> Soap and water isn’t available when you are out on visits, in and out of homes and meetings and some days barely go near the office. So no, soap is not the only thing needed.



Sorry, i meant for those self isolating


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 4, 2020)

treelover said:


> Not at you, but I think we will see the worse of people as well as the best.


I'm sure we shall


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 4, 2020)

Did the person on the Wirral really go to a school to tell them he might have it?


----------



## brogdale (Mar 4, 2020)

marshall said:


> Same in Norwich; Sains, Tescos, even Waitrose with that lovely cassoulet in a tin for £8.19 , no shelf-clearing, chill everyone.


£8.19?  
How many of the fuckers do you get for that?


----------



## prunus (Mar 4, 2020)

Looby said:


> If you’ve been in contact with someone who has been in contact with someone who is unwell and has been tested (results in 72 hours) how concerned would you be? Asking for a friend. 😕



I would be anxious, because I’m human, and that’s a human reaction. However I would try to temper that anxiety with the following arithmetic: only about 0.5% of people tested in the UK have tested positive, so assuming the tested person is part of that population (ie isn’t of particular risk, hasn’t eg been working in a quarantine hospital in Iran) which is a reasonable assumption, we’re already at 1 in 200 of there being anything to actually worry about. 

Transmission by contact (the intermediate  person in contact with the unwell person) is be no means certain; it would depend on the closeness of contact, but if it was not very close and or prolonged transmission at that level is unlikely. 15% is a figure I have seen for some level of contact, although I don’t know exactly what. I would in my arithmetic assume 50% for pessimism. I’m now at 1 in 400. 

The intermediate contact isn’t showing any symptoms it appears - it’s not exactly known, but the current belief is pre-symptomatic people are less (possibly much less) contagious. I’m going to assume 5 times less, which I think is probably pessimistic. We combine that with the (pessimistic) contact transmission percentage above to get a 10% chance of transmission at this level; if I happen to know that this contact wasn’t close and/or extensive, I could probably divide that by 3 or more - but even so, I’m now at 1 in 4000 chance of it being an issue, as a probably high estimate of the likelihood of an issue. 

I would try to let that logic assuage my anxiety.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 4, 2020)

What makes me fearful, is how the response is and will be politcised. 
I'm not scouring news because I'm directly worried about me and mine (I'm way more worried about the potential we might personally have to spread it).
I'm worried because the NHS was already in the process of being completely destroyed and because I have no faith in our own government as it is.
Also, how that extends, globally, during a huge health crisis - how health services will fare elsewhere, how different countries address it, how the advice differs, how we learn.

It's really outside of our normal experience.

What adds fuel to my own fire, is that it seemingly involves relinquishing the lives of elderly and/or vulnerable people, before the _next_ decision is made - and that that is quite explicit.
I can read loads of _rational_ stuff about why you have to continue along that path before different plans are put in place, but that's what keeps coming into view, for me, personally - that that's at the cost of lives which are more expendable/reduce further health costs anyway, for now?
Almost like a fucking bonus.

I have read every, single post on both the main threads and I am not feeling any more panicked or paranoid than I think I should be.
Soz for the wall of words but there we go, done now.


----------



## pogofish (Mar 4, 2020)

brogdale said:


> It's the 60% thing that's the key, isn't it?
> Pricey, but may end up cheaper than the non-existent hand-wash?
> 
> View attachment 200569



This is probably why Prof Hugh Pennington has advised you use gin for the hand washing - he likes a good dram!


----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 4, 2020)

Kings college hospital in SE London  has a brace of inpatients who have tested positive.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> Kings college hospital in SE London  has a brace of inpatients who have tested positive.



Do you mean two?


----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 4, 2020)

yes


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## agricola (Mar 4, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Did the person on the Wirral really go to a school to tell them he might have it?



Having been raised across the Dee from there, I think the least likely bit in that story is that he went to a school.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 4, 2020)

agricola said:


> Having been raised across the Dee from there, I think the least likely bit in that story is that he went to a school.


Lol


----------



## brogdale (Mar 4, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> Kings college hospital in SE London  has a brace of inpatients who have tested positive.


From travel or community transmission?
Not good if the latter, the hospitals will be full of sick people IYSWIM


----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 4, 2020)

dunno ...


----------



## brogdale (Mar 4, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> dunno ...
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 200601


I suppose this is how it will be now.


----------



## phillm (Mar 4, 2020)

Many, many thanks, elbows for your erudite and informative information which you dispense without hyperbole or scaremongering. You are the Dr John Campbell of Urban and I am promoting your contributions on other forums. Do you know if there is any way to volunteer to help out in some way such as manning phones or such like? I am currently on quarantine with my wife for 14 days after returning from a holiday in Thailand and we have coughs and sore throats which is not difficult for us as we are retired but for the self-employed just making do I can't imagine it's an option.  When we left Thailand everyone was screened with a heat camera by a medical team and two elderly gents were 'detained' for further examination no doubt and that's for people leaving the country.  At Heathrow - nothing - just a photocopied piece of paper telling us if we have symptoms of a cough, shortness of breath or fever that we should stay indoors and call 111. I fear we are just weeks away from all hell breaking loose in terms of numbers, lockdowns and hospitals under siege, wish it was otherwise but given the inexorable logic of this nasty, vicious virus means it is almost a given. It is now our war, a world war  - a war on this virus that will probably last 6 months or more and shape our lives forever.

Just signed up for this...









						Scientists Need Your Help to Find Treatments for Coronavirus
					

Different teams of scientists need the public's help to donate idle computing power and solve puzzles to fight Covid-19.




					www.vice.com
				




Encouraging to have this guy in charge - a derided expert no less!
_
“Thank God he’s where he is to maintain some sense of sanity about all this coronavirus business,” Mabey added. “He’s an absolutely extraordinary, brilliant man. They couldn’t have a better person in charge. He’s exactly the man we need.” _









						Prof Chris Whitty: the expert we need in the coronavirus crisis
					

Even No 10 has realised the value of the ‘impressive’ chief medical officer for England




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 4, 2020)

Thanks, sorry that I do not know anything about the volunteering opportunities.

I appear to be a bit worn out and am unable to sustain my output. Plenty of other people are contributing valuably to these threads, if I have stuck out its in part because I simply had a lot more time to dedicate to the task. I still have time, but I seem to have drained some sort of mental reserves, I feel spent.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thanks, sorry that I do not know anything about the volunteering opportunities.
> 
> I appear to be a bit worn out and am unable to sustain my output. Plenty of other people are contributing valuably to these threads, if I have stuck out its in part because I simply had a lot more time to dedicate to the task. I still have time, but I seem to have drained some sort of mental reserves, I feel spent.



I reckon there's not a single poster who's read any of these threads who won't have noticed your input (thank you  ) but equally, who wouldn't see you were due a break. Please rest.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 4, 2020)

Echoed, you've done a phenomenal amount of (greatly appreciated) research. Not surprised you're drained.


----------



## phillm (Mar 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thanks, sorry that I do not know anything about the volunteering opportunities.
> 
> I appear to be a bit worn out and am unable to sustain my output. Plenty of other people are contributing valuably to these threads, if I have stuck out its in part because I simply had a lot more time to dedicate to the task. I still have time, but I seem to have drained some sort of mental reserves, I feel spent.



I'll have a look at the volunteering issue and report back looks like we are all going to have to pull together to beat this damn thing. Once I'm out of quarantine looking to help the neighbours on our row some are elderly and see if I can help with shopping, phone calls and the like to keep spirits up. Can see why you are burnt out having an intimate knowledge of what this is, and what it means for our communities is a difficult cross to bear but a big, big thank you from me. Over on Mumsnet they are going quite mad I fear. 









						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Forum | Mumsnet - Mumsnet
					

Worried about coronavirus? Want to discuss news / prevention tips / impact on families & children? Join Mumsnet's COVID-19 information forum.




					www.mumsnet.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 4, 2020)

Please spare far more of a thought for all the people who will be on the frontlines fighting this.

As for me, I dont really imagine being able to take more than a day here and theres mental break from matters. But in terms of my output I suppose my focus is likely to narrow, less of the science (but still a bit when interesting new stuff emerges and I actually manage to notice it), and fewer countries, more UK.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 4, 2020)

The number of cases in the UK are increasing but for some reason, which escapes me, we are still not restricting incoming travel from infected areas. 

I think this is a mistake, the Chinese moved to restrict movement and it seems to have worked for them, we might be leaving it too late, in China there was a centre of the virus outbreak in Wuhan, in Britain so far we have cases all over the place which will make it less possible for us to contain all these diverse infections were we to try. After the horse has bolted is no time to close the stable door.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> The number of cases in the UK are increasing but for some reason, which escapes me, we are still not restricting incoming travel from infected areas.
> 
> I think this is a mistake, the Chinese moved to restrict movement and it seems to have worked for them, we might be leaving it too late, in China there was a centre of the virus outbreak in Wuhan, in Britain so far we have cases all over the place which will make it less possible for us to contain all these diverse infections were we to try. After the horse has bolted is no time to close the stable door.


You wouldn't say that if you saw what stables are like after the doors have been left open for a day or two. And mostly the horse wanders back anyway


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thanks, sorry that I do not know anything about the volunteering opportunities.
> 
> I appear to be a bit worn out and am unable to sustain my output. Plenty of other people are contributing valuably to these threads, if I have stuck out its in part because I simply had a lot more time to dedicate to the task. I still have time, but I seem to have drained some sort of mental reserves, I feel spent.


up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> Please spare far more of a thought for all the people who will be on the frontlines fighting this.
> 
> As for me, I dont really imagine being able to take more than a day here and theres mental break from matters. But in terms of my output I suppose my focus is likely to narrow, less of the science (but still a bit when interesting new stuff emerges and I actually manage to notice it), and fewer countries, more UK.



Wanted to echo the thanks shown by others!


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 4, 2020)

Yes, thank you elbows but dont feel you have to respond to every bit of info. Stick your out of office on.


----------



## elbows (Mar 4, 2020)

Cheers.

A notable piece of 'build up the expert' here:









						Prof Chris Whitty: the expert we need in the coronavirus crisis
					

Even No 10 has realised the value of the ‘impressive’ chief medical officer for England




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Edie (Mar 4, 2020)

phillm said:


> I'll have a look at the volunteering issue and report back looks like we are all going to have to pull together to beat this damn thing. Once I'm out of quarantine looking to help the neighbours on our row some are elderly and see if I can help with shopping, phone calls and the like to keep spirits up. Can see why you are burnt out having an intimate knowledge of what this is, and what it means for our communities is a difficult cross to bear but a big, big thank you from me. Over on Mumsnet they are going quite mad I fear.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


None of that seems mad to me?


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 4, 2020)

There's a couple of universities I go into regularly. Both have loads of international students, including loads from China and South Korea. I was thinking it was paranoid to avoid them, but now two unis have been hit, including one that I visit....


----------



## elbows (Mar 4, 2020)

Decision to withhold information is getting criticism, as it bloody well should.









						Move to weekly UK coronavirus updates criticised by experts
					

Decisions raises fears public won’t be able to make informed choices to help control outbreak




					www.theguardian.com
				






> “They should be sharing the data as much as possible, to make the public equal partners in tackling this and help them make decisions about their own lives. The public needs to know if it’s in their area on a daily basis,” he said. “The planning documents talk a lot about openness, transparency and public involvement. But that hasn’t applied to what’s been going on for the last three weeks.”


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I've not got a problem with them not reporting where the cases are on a daily basis, as the information is of no real use.
> 
> Its been reported in the last week that there's two new cases in West Sussex, what use is this information to anyone in Worthing? They could be in this town, or somewhere miles away, even if they are from Worthing, without knowing who they are, how would this be useful in a town of over 100,000?
> 
> OTHO when it hit the press that a GP, from Brighton, who tested positive had done a couple of days in A&E at Worthing hospital it caused a major panic, even though he didn't pass it onto anyone else, and tested negative just a few days later.



Comment from West Sussex County Council, reported by our local rag...



> A county council spokesperson said: “The response is being led nationally by Public Health England (PHE), and *location specific information is not being released to protect individual patient confidentiality.*
> 
> “The persons concerned are no longer in the area and those deemed to be a potential risk will be advised to self-isolate as a result of PHE’s contact tracing.
> 
> “We would like to reassure everyone that West Sussex County Council, together with the NHS and Public Health England, is taking every necessary measure to help reduce the risk of the virus spreading.”


----------



## phillm (Mar 5, 2020)

If the spread continues as it has then I can't see any festivals going ahead. 









						Glastonbury Respond To Concerns Over Cancellation Due To Coronavirus
					

The festival is still preparing for the June event, but also "closely monitoring developments with the coronavirus situation".




					www.kerrang.com
				




But....









						Coronavirus could shut down parliament for months under emergency plans
					

In the House of Lords, where the average age of peers is 70, fears have been expressed for the wellbeing of elderly members




					news.sky.com


----------



## brogdale (Mar 5, 2020)

phillm said:


> If the spread continues as it has then I can't see any festivals going ahead.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So Johnson/Cummings is going to Corogue Parliament?
What a gift.


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Mar 5, 2020)

I wouldn't mind getting Coronavirus. Apparently they put you up in a hotel in Brighton for a couple weeks and they even let you use a  Playstation so I hear. Sounds good to me.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 5, 2020)




----------



## phillm (Mar 5, 2020)

You should trademark crorogue this may just be the very first use of a new word.


----------



## flypanam (Mar 5, 2020)

Slight derail but there was this excellent interview in the New Yorker with the Frank M Snowden who has written a book about pandemics

How pandemics change history

with an interesting observations that 





> Diseases do not afflict societies in random and chaotic ways. They’re ordered events, because microbes selectively expand and diffuse themselves to explore ecological niches that human beings have created. Those niches very much show who we are—whether, for example, in the industrial revolution, we actually cared what happened to workers and the poor and the condition that the most vulnerable people lived in.


----------



## phillm (Mar 5, 2020)

hash tag said:


> View attachment 200644


----------



## brogdale (Mar 5, 2020)

#Corogue


----------



## brogdale (Mar 5, 2020)

Like this will work for people. 
Also...if you're too ill to make your Jobcentre appt....probably best to say coronavirus...whatever.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 5, 2020)

Not that I would voluntarily go to this particular hospital (it has a woeful reputation and my personal experience was not good)

*Statement from NCIC March 4th 2020:*
_"The Trust can confirm that member of hospital staff has tested presumptive positive for Covid19 following a trip to northern Italy.

On returning from the trip the member of staff sensibly self-isolated and did not come into work or have any contact with patients.
_
_We can assure the public that the risk remains low. The Trust is operating normally and there is no need to cancel any appointment_


So that implies someone is "at home" in the area, probably with the virus. 
Lovely.  Lots of potential here ...
They could live anywhere within a 50 / 60 mile radius.


----------



## phillm (Mar 5, 2020)

Select committee live now with Professor Chris Whitty.






						BBC iPlayer - Watch BBC Parliament live
					

Watch BBC Parliament live on BBC iPlayer.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## bimble (Mar 5, 2020)

Whitty is good isn't he. Just facts, helpful.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 5, 2020)

phillm said:


> Select committee live now with Professor Chris Whitty.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And, someone in the room is coughing away.


----------



## phillm (Mar 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, someone in the room is coughing away.


yes they should be told to leave the room. Being aware of cough/cold type symptoms and the chance of not spreading them should be enough for them to make their excuses and leave.


----------



## andysays (Mar 5, 2020)

Government has reversed their decision not to give location details of new cases (Guardian)


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> Government has reversed their decision not to give location details of new cases (Guardian)



Good. Havent read about the reversal yet, but the last thing they needed to do was to create suspicion and leave a vacuum where people would fill the info void with made up stuff (or leaked genuine stuff that we cant verify officially).


----------



## og ogilby (Mar 5, 2020)

phillm said:


> yes they should be told to leave the room. Being aware of cough/cold type symptoms and the chance of not spreading them should be enough for them to make their excuses and leave.


At one point Chris Whitty coughed into his had whilst speaking. It can't be helped. The important thing is cover your mouth and wash your hands as soon as possible.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> Government has reversed their decision not to give location details of new cases (Guardian)



Here's the link.



> Speaking to the Commons health committee he said: “I think we had a bit of a communications fumble on this one. We are intending to provide geographical information.
> 
> “We are intending to have some delay of about 24 hours to be absolutely sure we’ve got the details right. I think we do intend to continue with these geographical things. And in fact, in due course, will use maps and other things to enhance that.”











						Coronavirus UK: U-turn over plan to stop daily geographical updates
					

Chief medical officer admits ‘communications fumble’ over providing data on virus spread




					www.theguardian.com
				




He did go on to say it would continue to be at county & city level, not specific communities, so not a lot of help.


----------



## andysays (Mar 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Here's the link.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the link.

I think there's a balance to strike between providing info to the public and the risk of identifying individuals. Not sure how useful it would be to know, e.g., what street newly diagnosed cases live on.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

Even more generalised location info is of potential help and way better than none. It will be interesting to see if the level of detail changes over time, what the maps are like etc. 

The idea that a 24 hour delay is just to ensure they've got the details right is unlikely to be the whole story there. They want a bit of wiggle room, and are likely thinking of the stages where increases in particular areas tend to tell a story the public might respond strongly too, and the authorities want a head-start on that sort of reaction.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> Thanks for the link.
> 
> I think there's a balance to strike between providing info to the public and the risk of identifying individuals. Not sure how useful it would be to know, e.g., what street newly diagnosed cases live on.



Yeah, I think Singapore publicly shared info about where cases worked and where they lived, but thats a surveillance state with a very different level of control over people, and different expectations about what the public might do with that info.

I dont think street level data will be all that useful for us during large outbreaks anyway.


----------



## treelover (Mar 5, 2020)

phillm said:


> You should trademark crorogue this may just be the very first use of a new word.



need a thread on the profiteers, name and shame


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> need a thread on the profiteers, name and shame


you seem to be taking the lead on this one


----------



## treelover (Mar 5, 2020)

flypanam said:


> Slight derail but there was this excellent interview in the New Yorker with the Frank M Snowden who has written a book about pandemics
> 
> How pandemics change history
> 
> with an interesting observations that



How did the 1918 Spanish Flu change society, not sure that it did in that case, the Plague certainly did.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> need a thread on the profiteers, name and shame


I really hadn't thought go it that context...although I see where you're going with it.
I'd merely made a sort of Portmanteau of coronavirus & prorogue to express Johnson's good fortune in finding an emergency that may 'require' the inconvenient democratic scrutiny of Parliament to be suspended.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> How did the 1918 Spanish Flu change society, not sure that it did in that case, the Plague certainly did.


I'd imagine that historians would find it very difficult to isolate the societal impacts of the 1918/19 influenza epidemic from the world shattering events that had immediately preceded it.
I will say that It's always shocked me that a good number of the graves in many CWGC sites mark the year of death as 1919, though.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> How did the 1918 Spanish Flu change society, not sure that it did in that case, the Plague certainly did.



...

so not important at all then i suppose


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

On the opposite note, I am tempted to get hold of a copy of the book America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918.


----------



## flypanam (Mar 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> How did the 1918 Spanish Flu change society, not sure that it did in that case, the Plague certainly did.








						Spanish Flu History: Facts About The 1918 Pandemic – Deaths, Origins, Impact | HistoryExtra
					

How many people died? Why was it called the Spanish Flu? Everything you need to know about the pandemic's impact, death rate and legacy...



					www.historyextra.com
				






> This exemplifies how responses to the flu reflected gulfs in understanding. The 1918 pandemic struck a world that was entirely unprepared for it, dealing a body blow to scientific hubris, and destabilising social and political orders for decades to come.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 5, 2020)

OK, I'll ask...why have the shops been cleared of bog-roll?
Not a single sheet in my Lidls.
What's that all about, then?


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

brogdale said:


> OK, I'll ask...why have the shops been cleared of bog-roll?
> Not a single sheet in my Lidls.
> What's that all about, then?



One factor is that people saw shortages of toilet rolls in other countries being reported for weeks on end.

Another is they take up a lot of shelf space so their absence is more visually dramatic and there are more obvious limits to how many are on the shelves and taking up store room space.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 5, 2020)

No idea. My local Tesco was fully stocked as usual this morning.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 5, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> No idea. My local Tesco was fully stocked as usual this morning.


Don't put the location up...they'll be hordes of hoarders descending!


----------



## brogdale (Mar 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> One factor is that people saw shortages of toilet rolls in other countries being reported for weeks on end.
> 
> Another is they take up a lot of shelf space so their absence is more visually dramatic and there are more obvious limits to how many are on the shelves and taking up store room space.


Suppose I should know this, but is that a fairly standard knee-jerk reaction to a crisis/threatened breakdown in the norm?


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Suppose I should know this, but is that a fairly standard knee-jerk reaction to a crisis/threatened breakdown in the norm?



I dont know. Maybe. Maybe some situation-specific reasons too, such as rumours in some countries that toilet paper production could be affected by switch of capacity to mask production.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

I am presently wondering whether the talk and backlash regarding UK switching to only publishing geographical info weekly, and subsequent comments today about how they will still give that info, but delayed 24 hours, was actually about more than just the geography.

I say that only because I dont yet see any signs of the daily UK numbers update which is normally published at 2pm.

This post could obviously become obsolete rather quickly, and I know that an update to the Scottish numbers came this morning. And I might have missed something else today, I'm not exactly on top of the streams of info.

But given the moment we are at, with the threshold of 100 confirmed cases soon to be crossed, or the possibility of quite large leaps in daily figures, I am bound to wonder about this.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> I am presently wondering whether the talk and backlash regarding UK switching to only publishing geographical info weekly, and subsequent comments today about how they will still give that info, but delayed 24 hours, was actually about more than just the geography.
> 
> I say that only because I dont yet see any signs of the daily UK numbers update which is normally published at 2pm.
> 
> ...


I was wondering along similar lines. Is it possibly the 24 hour lag they were talking about? I assumed that was just in relation to the geographical information, but it could mean today will be missed out in order to set the timelag going on the numbers as well.

AKA, I don't know.


----------



## andysays (Mar 5, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I was wondering along similar lines. Is it possibly the 24 hour lag they were talking about? I assumed that was just in relation to the geographical information, but it could mean today will be missed out in order to set the timelag going on the numbers as well.
> 
> AKA, I don't know.


Part of the reason given for the 24 hour delay was to check that all the diagnosis were correct, there was a false positive the other day which meant they gave out the wrong figure and then had to revise later.

If they are now delaying everything while they double check, then logically there won't be any number to announce today


----------



## brogdale (Mar 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> I am presently wondering whether the talk and backlash regarding UK switching to only publishing geographical info weekly, and subsequent comments today about how they will still give that info, but delayed 24 hours, was actually about more than just the geography.
> 
> I say that only because I dont yet see any signs of the daily UK numbers update which is normally published at 2pm.
> 
> ...


Whitty addressed this at the Heath committee hearing:


----------



## Wilf (Mar 5, 2020)

Just as an example of where this leaves people, my Mum is in a care home in Bury, where there has been a case linked to Northern Italy and, I think, 2 potential onward transmissions. I saw the info regarding the second 2 on a newspaper site, afaik. I looked on the home's own site and there is nothing at all about the virus, in the absence of which it looks like business/visiting as normal. Yes, I realise the chances of me or another visitor having the virus and passing it on to a specific home are _very _low, but then the consequences of the virus getting into an environment where all the residents are old and vulnerable would be dreadful.  I'm due to drive over to Greater Manchester tomorrow and almost certainly will go.  But whatever 'phase' we are in now still leaves individuals making those decisions.  

A lot of other people will have more acute decisions to make than mine, things like whether they can afford to self isolate, how they can support vulnerable friends and relatives etc. But it seemed my own case was an example that we are pretty much in a holding pattern at the moment.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 5, 2020)

brogdale said:


> OK, I'll ask...why have the shops been cleared of bog-roll?
> Not a single sheet in my Lidls.
> What's that all about, then?



Presumably partly because people really, really dont want to run out of toilet roll.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Presumably partly because people really, really dont want to run out of toilet roll.


Yeah, a given.
Suppose what I was getting at was why they thought that the shops might not be able to maintain supplies...and elbows gave a pretty credible explanation for that.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2020)

> *UK cases of coronavirus jumps to 115*
> The department of health confirmed that as of 9am on 5 March 2020, 18,083 people have been tested in the UK, of which 17,968 were confirmed negative and 115 were confirmed as positive.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2020)

Maybe it's just the geographical stuff that'll be delayed 24 hours, then - although that makes no sense when the reasons given were to confirm cases - who knows?! 
ETA - or perhaps that number is _already_ the delayed figure?


----------



## andysays (Mar 5, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK moving towards 'delay' phase of virus plan as cases hit 115


> UK health officials are moving towards the second phase of their response to the coronavirus outbreak. It comes as the number of people diagnosed with coronavirus in the UK reached 115.





> The latest government figures released on Thursday showed that of the total number of cases, *25 are in London*.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

Well I originally only expected it to be geographic data delays, which is why I was speculating that the delay today was due to crossing a threshold.

Cases will have been confirmed by 9am, so they already had hours to double-check.

It is possible that additional delays for checking relate to how many are considered to be cases due to recent travel, as opposed to cases acquired in the community. And on that note, and in regards to  the geographical stuff/dashboard:


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2020)

*Cases identified in England by NHS region*
Change between chart and table

NHS regionCasesEast of England8London25Midlands9North East and Yorkshire10North West17South East17South West15To be determined4Total105


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

I suppsoe the most obvious remaining hole in UK info is that unlike some other countries, we arent told whether any of these cases were detected in existing pneumonia cases, people already in hospital before covid-19 tested for, etc.

It is too early for me to say whether the lack of info so far means there havent been any cases like that, or something else. I suppose the first we might hear of this is when someone dies.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 5, 2020)

phillm said:


> Many, many thanks, elbows for your erudite and informative information which you dispense without hyperbole or scaremongering. You are the Dr John Campbell of Urban and I am promoting your contributions on other forums. Do you know if there is any way to volunteer to help out in some way such as manning phones or such like? I am currently on quarantine with my wife for 14 days after returning from a holiday in Thailand and we have coughs and sore throats which is not difficult for us as we are retired but for the self-employed just making do I can't imagine it's an option.  When we left Thailand everyone was screened with a heat camera by a medical team and two elderly gents were 'detained' for further examination no doubt and that's for people leaving the country.  At Heathrow - nothing - just a photocopied piece of paper telling us if we have symptoms of a cough, shortness of breath or fever that we should stay indoors and call 111. I fear we are just weeks away from all hell breaking loose in terms of numbers, lockdowns and hospitals under siege, wish it was otherwise but given the inexorable logic of this nasty, vicious virus means it is almost a given. It is now our war, a world war  - a war on this virus that will probably last 6 months or more and shape our lives forever.
> 
> Just signed up for this...
> 
> ...



grief! dial the drama down a notch


----------



## phillm (Mar 5, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> grief! dial the drama down a notch


I hope you're right for all our sakes paranoid fucker that I am ! Is there mileage in the more hopeful scenario that far more people have this than are being tested and only ones with problems present themselves for testing and therefore the mortality rate is much much lower than some figures suggest? (Currently WHO are saying 3.5%).


----------



## Wilf (Mar 5, 2020)

phillm said:


> I hope you're right for all our sakes paranoid fucker that I am ! Is there mileage in the more hopeful scenario that far more people have this than are being tested and only ones with problems present themselves for testing and therefore the mortality rate is much much lower than some figures suggest? (Currently WHO are saying 3.5%).


Hope you and your wife are okay phillm


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> grief! dial the drama down a notch



I think that's rude and patronizing.
Iirc, you have worked/do work in some quite...erm.. extreme environments, so your own barometer of what is _normal_ is a set a little differently to others.
That's fine, obvs - you crack on - but I don't think it follows that you should be so dismissive of how other people are experiencing it.


----------



## phillm (Mar 5, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Hope you and your wife are okay phillm


Thanks wilf kind words are always lovely - sorting our stuff around the house and getting over jet lag. It is a nagging worry though and not something probably any of us have experienced in our lives up till now. Having seen the responses in country after country now I think we can assume this isn't just panic but something much more serious as much as I would like to believe this is pretty bad but amplified many times by internet,social media hysteria. 

I hope we have one of these in the UK.









						Inside A Secret Government Warehouse Prepped For Health Catastrophes
					

More than $7 billion in drugs, vaccines and supplies are stashed in warehouses to be tapped in case of a pandemic or an attack with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. NPR got a peek at one.




					www.npr.org


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 5, 2020)

Well it's certainly affecting people's minds before their bodies. 

At the moment we're counting in stupidly low numbers - and panicking over that. The Guardian atm has the totally unsensational headline of "U.K numbers *jump *to 115." That's not a jump. It's barely a progression. What language (and amount of panic) are we going to see when we start counting in thousands and tens of thousands? The sensationalism is doing nothing for anyone. No amount of panic and fear is going to stop those numbers going up right now. What it will do is help clear the shelves of bog roll and hand sanitiser - ffs, a product not even as good as soap for some sort of protection.

By all means, be wary, and start to think about methods to slow the progress of this virus. But calling for the absolute shutdown of society based on 100 cases (sorry, I think the figure mentioned by someone on here was actually a massive 200 cases) is scare-mongering and leading to what we are beginning to see happening in some supermarkets.

And btw, I'm in the more at risk cohort, and work in a shite school with kids who last saw soap in 2011. And no amount of swapping fear with others will change that.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 5, 2020)

I've been doing personal development sessions around coronavirus this week. So many students have no idea about the difference between numbers that have been tested, have tested positive or who have self-isolated. One student has given himself a nasty rash due to scrubbing his hands in some sort of industy strength cleaner. 

So I've been giving them simple facts and advice, and putting the numbers into perspective - not downplaying how bad the effects could get to them, society, college, etc, but definitely introducing some sense into their constant misinformation streams.


----------



## kalidarkone (Mar 5, 2020)

Looby said:


> Soap and water isn’t available when you are out on visits, in and out of homes and meetings and some days barely go near the office. So no, soap is not the only thing needed.


If you can't get hold of any alcohol gel then I would be carrying around anti bacterial hand wash and kitchen roll. Most people have hot water.


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Mar 5, 2020)

First death from virus in UK just reported









						Coronavirus: Woman in 70s becomes first virus fatality in UK
					

The patient, who had underlying health conditions, dies as the number of UK cases rises to 116.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 5, 2020)

UK coronavirus cases jump to 115
					

'We will continue to try to contain this virus. However, it is now highly likely that the virus is going to spread in a significant way', government spokesperson says




					www.independent.co.uk
				




115 now? It was 90 earlier.

E2a not sure what happened there I checked we were on the last page and wondered why no one had updated the thread since this news broke.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> UK coronavirus cases jump to 115
> 
> 
> 'We will continue to try to contain this virus. However, it is now highly likely that the virus is going to spread in a significant way', government spokesperson says
> ...



It gets updated daily for cases in England ('as of 9am', but reported at 2pm - up until today, when it was later) - then there are figures from the rest of the UK, which seem to be updated at different times (Scotland seems to report earlier in the day, for eg).


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2020)

> Public Health England said in a briefing on Thursday evening that they’re now treating confirmed cases with mild symptoms at home and not in hospitals. 45 cases are now being treated at home.
> 
> It was also confirmed that travellers returning from all of Italy, not just north, were now being advised to self isolate if they have symptoms. The tightening of the advice is understood to have been prompted by the recent surge in UK cases of people who recently come back from Italy, where the outbreak has escalated across the country in recent days.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Well it's certainly affecting people's minds before their bodies.
> 
> At the moment we're counting in stupidly low numbers - and panicking over that. The Guardian atm has the totally unsensational headline of "U.K numbers *jump *to 115." That's not a jump. It's barely a progression. What language (and amount of panic) are we going to see when we start counting in thousands and tens of thousands? The sensationalism is doing nothing for anyone. No amount of panic and fear is going to stop those numbers going up right now. What it will do is help clear the shelves of bog roll and hand sanitiser - ffs, a product not even as good as soap for some sort of protection.
> 
> ...



Actually fear is an important component of getting people to adhere to measures such as social distancing and other necessary behavioural changes and acceptance of restrictions.

What counts as panic as opposed to entirely rational response? Some stuff is obviously counterproductive fear and panic, but these sweeping labels tend to be used most by those who favour a far more restrained attitude in general, and I'm not a fan of that approach to this pandemic at all.

And why focus only on the UK numbers when the picture of what is happening in certain other places around the globe that has obviously been a huge driver of attitudes towards this coronavirus?

There will be some inappropriate responses and we should comment on them when they happen. But general complaints about panic and fear and overreaction are just as counterproductive to the battle to minimise the effects of this virus as far as I'm concerned.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Public Health England said in a briefing on Thursday evening that they’re now treating confirmed cases with mild symptoms at home and not in hospitals. 45 cases are now being treated at home.
> 
> It was also confirmed that travellers returning from all of Italy, not just north, were now being advised to self isolate if they have symptoms. The tightening of the advice is understood to have been prompted by the recent surge in UK cases of people who recently come back from Italy, where the outbreak has escalated across the country in recent days.



Ah, treating mild cases at home was always expected to be part of the next phase, and 100 cases was a phase trigger in previous pandemic plans, so not surprising to hear of this happening now.


----------



## IC3D (Mar 5, 2020)

First death has happened in UK


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

What I never realised fully about attitudes towards stoicism, fear etc, was some of the national roots of this stuff. As propaganda in time of war etc is sort of obvious. But I didnt know so much about the attitudes towards the officer class supposedly being immunised against such fears by the public school system and focus on competitive games. Nor did I realise that there were old medical attitudes that suggested the fear of a disease made it more likely you would catch it.



> ‘Fear worries the nervous system’, argued a 1902 medical advice pamphlet. ‘One of the best ways of preventing influenza is to keep your mind easy instead of imagining, like so many do, that you are going to fall a victim to the disease’





> The cultivation of positive character traits was also thought to strengthen an individual’s powers of resistance, hence the pamphlet’s claim that ‘there is no better established fact in the whole history of epidemics than…that the man or the woman of pluck and energy is the last to take the prevalent disease’











						Regulating the 1918–19 Pandemic: Flu, Stoicism and the Northcliffe Press
					

Social historians have argued that the reason the 1918–19 ‘Spanish’ influenza left so few traces in public memory is that it was ‘overshadowed’ by the First World War, hence its historiographical characterisation ...




					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Well it's certainly affecting people's minds before their bodies.
> 
> At the moment we're counting in stupidly low numbers - and panicking over that. The Guardian atm has the totally unsensational headline of "U.K numbers *jump *to 115." That's not a jump. It's barely a progression. What language (and amount of panic) are we going to see when we start counting in thousands and tens of thousands? The sensationalism is doing nothing for anyone. No amount of panic and fear is going to stop those numbers going up right now. What it will do is help clear the shelves of bog roll and hand sanitiser - ffs, a product not even as good as soap for some sort of protection.
> 
> ...





S☼I said:


> I've been doing personal development sessions around coronavirus this week. So many students have no idea about the difference between numbers that have been tested, have tested positive or who have self-isolated. One student has given himself a nasty rash due to scrubbing his hands in some sort of industy strength cleaner.
> 
> So I've been giving them simple facts and advice, and putting the numbers into perspective - not downplaying how bad the effects could get to them, society, college, etc, but definitely introducing some sense into their constant misinformation streams.



I work in a school, too - and I do understand the need to minimise panic/stress there, of course, while I'm also much less _frontline_ than either of you, but where I also work in the kitchen/canteen.
We have sanitiser by all the tills but there has been no instruction/advice for the kids to use it, it's just there if they want to (on my till, I reckon about five kids have, out of hundreds, over the past couple of weeks).
I know we have to balance things carefully, that you don't want to scare anyone without any good reason and that you do need to keep perspective etc.
In my kitchen, with the work culture we have there, we also still have people turning up ill and as a parent, I know there has also been huge discouragement of children going off sick, for _years_ now, unless they have temperatures etc (I guess down to other, external, political factors based around absence etc).

All of that has fucked me off for a _long_ time prior to this, too - the active encouragement of people attending work/school when they're ill.

planetgeli - what _are_ the methods you'd suggest yourself, then (highlighted)? Genuinely interested - is it just higher numbers for you? For a disease that has an exponential rate of transmission?


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 5, 2020)

What I think I would like to see is employers encouraged to encourage staff who can work from home do so more often if they have to use crowded public transport. I can't work from home much but fewer people on the tube helps me too, I'm sure.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Actually fear is an important component of getting people to adhere to measures such as social distancing and other necessary behavioural changes and acceptance of restrictions.



Fear is many things. There are better ways of explaining necessity than scaring them. That's already producing counter-productive results. It also won't work on everybody.



> What counts as panic as opposed to entirely rational response?



I really need to point out panic to you? I already did with the one example I quoted from someone on here saying we should close down everything if cases reach 200. People are playing numbers games and some of those people have no real idea of arithmetic. Panic is in the language too. *Jump. *



> Some stuff is obviously counterproductive fear and panic, but these sweeping labels tend to be used most by those who favour a far more restrained attitude in general,



You followed calling panic and fear "sweeping labels" with a sweeping generalisation. Nice.



> And why focus only on the UK numbers when the picture of what is happening in certain other places around the globe that has obviously been a huge driver of attitudes towards this coronavirus?



It's a UK thread. Though I have quoted the low mortality rate in Korea in another thread. For balance. Not to play things down. But to encourage perspective.



> There will be some inappropriate responses and we should comment on them when they happen. But general complaints about panic and fear and overreaction are just as counterproductive to the battle to minimise the effects of this virus as far as I'm concerned.



Complaints about panic and fear aren't clearing the shelves of hand sanitiser in Grimsby.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

People should be buying hand sanitiser.

Anyway, enough from me, my stance is clear, so is yours.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What I think I would like to see is employers encouraged to encourage staff who can work from home do so more often if they have to use crowded public transport. I can't work from home much but fewer people on the tube helps me too, I'm sure.


I'd like to see this too.    In recent weeks I've been reflecting just how crowded my journey to work is.   Anytime I travel after 7 and before 9 30am  I'm spending nearly 1.5 hours in very, very  close proximity to other people.    Some of it brief but some of it wedged up against each other for quite some time.   Uggh even without an epidemic looming.   

If universities switched to online learning I could work from home and use video conferencing for meeting students if necessary.  obviously,  UCU strike is helping somewhat


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 5, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> planetgeli - what _are_ the methods you'd suggest yourself, then (highlighted)? Genuinely interested - is it just higher numbers for you? For a disease that has an exponential rate of transmission?



I liked the rest of your post a lot btw.

Not sure what or why you're asking me here though? I'm not a doctor or Professional Disaster Logistician. On a personal level, sure wash your hands more, buy a mask so you don't give it to me...I'm not sure what you mean about is it just a numbers game for me? It's about perspective. For me. I don't think people worrying and scaring themselves (or having it done to them) is particularly healthy or helpful in approach. I think its here, we're stuck with it, and you deal with what is put in front of you. 

If people are genuinely worried about the scope for disaster here, go around your locality and find those who are truly vulnerable to it, which is those over 60 with pre-existing conditions, plenty of these people about, and go and talk with them, re-assure them, take their emergency details and keep in contact with them. Buy them a bog roll instead of 24 for yourself.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

Extra in-person contact with vulnerable people is not exactly what I would recommend right now. Such groups may well be advised not to go out much, I think thats in the plan for some stage.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

I suppose I am inclined to look for what detail is missing when it comes to statements about the death.



> The trust said in a statement:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 2h ago 17:23 

So in this case, the missing detail that first catches my attention is when they were admitted for the final time.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> If people are genuinely worried about the scope for disaster here, go around your locality and find those who are truly vulnerable to it, which is those over 60 with pre-existing conditions, plenty of these people about, and go and talk with them, re-assure them, take their emergency details and keep in contact with them. Buy them a bog roll instead of 24 for yourself.


_"If you're worried about the consequences of people being in proximity to each other, why not go visit all the vulnerable strangers in your neighbourhood you would never normally come into contact with?"_


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> It's a UK thread. Though I have quoted the low mortality rate in Korea in another thread. For balance. Not to play things down. But to encourage perspective.



But Korea implemented lock-down quite quickly, didn't it?


----------



## killer b (Mar 5, 2020)

I'm interested in the way the chief medical officer Chris Whitty has been in receipt of ludicrously overblown puff pieces across the press today - one sample here, but there's more elsewhere. I'm sure Whitty is a capable physician and a calm and reassuring presence, but that reads like full on wartime propaganda.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm interested in the way the chief medical officer Chris Whitty has been in receipt of ludicrously overblown puff pieces across the press today - one sample here, but there's more elsewhere. I'm sure Whitty is a capable physician and a calm and reassuring presence, but that reads like full on wartime propaganda.



Yes I posted about that piece last night (I think), it wasnt exactly subtle was it? I havent seen any others so thanks for bringing to attention the idea that this phenomenon has become widespread.

I suppose I'm not surprised. When faith in the politicians is diminished, and we have been going through a divisive period, when a famous liar is in number 10, and where 'we've had enough of experts' was used by some of the Brexiteer politicians to justify ignoring unhelpful reports and projections, they probably thought they needed to lay this expert rehabilitation on rather thick and rather quickly.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Extra in-person contact with vulnerable people is not exactly what I would recommend right now. Such groups may well be advised not to go out much, I think thats in the plan for some stage.


You beat me to it, but this is really important, it's worth saying again and again. This is a terrible idea.

I was thinking earlier on what a community response to what is a very anti-social issue might look like.

sihhi was talking about your local councillor being an organiser of supplies for your area or volunteers. I don't think that's likely to happen, but we need something along those lines.

I was thinking about a website that divides people into pods - local families, if you will. And similar to the way the Chinese are managing it, we could have the pod representative go do the shopping so that the rest don't have to go out. You can communicate with your pod on there and let me know what you need.

They should be given extra PPE as they will be the most at risk, and most risky to others. They need to be well monitored. And could also report back to authorities on who needs help in a hospital rather than at home.

Proper Neighbour Watch. 

And to those who think this is a reaction due to 'only' 115 infect: don't forget that was the number of people infected 10-15 days ago. The true picture is much higher already and is only going to get worse.


----------



## killer b (Mar 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yes I posted about that piece last night (I think), it wasnt exactly subtle was it? I havent seen any others so thanks for bringing to attention the idea that this phenomenon has become widespread.
> 
> I suppose I'm not surprised. When faith in the politicians is diminished, and we have been going through a divisive period, when a famous liar is in number 10, and where 'we've had enough of experts' was used by some of the Brexiteer politicians to justify ignoring unhelpful reports and projections, they probably thought they needed to lay this expert rehabilitation on rather thick and rather quickly.


yeah - _whoops, we've spent the last few years bringing public trust in politicians and civil servants to a level where no-one believes a word they or we say..._

Also interested to note that his dad, a diplomat, was assassinated in Athens in the mid 80s in a way which suggests he was definitely a spook.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 5, 2020)

phillm said:


> yes they should be told to leave the room. Being aware of cough/cold type symptoms and the chance of not spreading them should be enough for them to make their excuses and leave.



Should they? 

Official NHS guidance is that if you have travelled to/from an affected area or have been in contact with a confirmed covid19 sufferer then self isolate and report to 111. If you have not and have symptoms then don't. There are loads of colds and flus about and obviously normal rules apply about not spreading your illness around as much as is possible but most people can't just freeze life for two weeks because they've had a cough or a runny nose with no reason to think it's the Great Corona


----------



## weltweit (Mar 5, 2020)

I had a runny nose for the last month :-/


----------



## weltweit (Mar 5, 2020)

If you are used to coughing and sneezing into your hand, it is quite hard to change the habit of a lifetime and do it into the crook of your arm.


----------



## tommers (Mar 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What I think I would like to see is employers encouraged to encourage staff who can work from home do so more often if they have to use crowded public transport. I can't work from home much but fewer people on the tube helps me too, I'm sure.


Literally sent out that exact email yesterday.


----------



## tommers (Mar 5, 2020)

Well, it was a slack message but you know what I mean.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 5, 2020)

If we are instructed to stay indoors for a period of time other than a few going out for supplies Mrs SI's dad has been readying himself for end times/zombie shit show for ages so we'll just send him out for supplies every few days or summat


----------



## treelover (Mar 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> What I never realised fully about attitudes towards stoicism, fear etc, was some of the national roots of this stuff. As propaganda in time of war etc is sort of obvious. But I didnt know so much about the attitudes towards the officer class supposedly being immunised against such fears by the public school system and focus on competitive games. Nor did I realise that there were old medical attitudes that suggested the fear of a disease made it more likely you would catch it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



i'm not sure if the 1918 pandemic changed society as much as i would think, would value amny literature on its long term effects, etc


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 5, 2020)

weltweit said:


> If you are used to coughing and sneezing into your hand, it is quite hard to change the habit of a lifetime and do it into the crook of your arm.


working in a nursery trained me to do this ...not that it stopped me getting covered in snot every day from young'uns


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

weltweit said:


> If you are used to coughing and sneezing into your hand, it is quite hard to change the habit of a lifetime and do it into the crook of your arm.



If you can get to the point where you at least notice quickly after every time you make that mistake, eventually your brain will hopefully kick into gear just before it happens rather than just after, you will start to catch yourself doing it in the nick of time.


----------



## killer b (Mar 5, 2020)

I have been conscious of touching my face, constantly, as well as where I sneeze. I've caught myself a few times too, so it's catching on I guess.


----------



## og ogilby (Mar 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> If you can get to the point where you at least notice quickly after every time you make that mistake, eventually your brain will hopefully kick into gear just before it happens rather than just after, you will start to catch yourself doing it in the nick of time.


I've definitely noticed my habits changing after 3 or 4 days of trying to change them.


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> i'm not sure if the 1918 pandemic changed society as much as i would think, would value amny literature on its long term effects, etc



Yeah a bit earlier I was on about some book about the 1918 pandemic being forgotten in the USA, but I havent got the book yet. I think it was mentioned in the stoicism paper I linked to, but I forget. I think the paper suggests that 1918 pandemic didnt leave that much of an imprint in the end, but the paper has quite a narrow and specific focus so I doubt it is anything like the full story, and I bet there is also some variation depending on what country we are talking about.

I suppose the context of that pandemic would have had some effect - people were already in mass death mode of the world war 1 variety, albeit death in that war tended to target a much narrower demographic.

Anyway history may be a problematic guide to what the results of this current virus ultimately are. It could change everything, or not so much. I bet it will be a subject I will go on about for years and years either way (if I'm still around to do so). I'd like to study other pandemics in the meantime, but as far as guessing what the political etc impact of this pandemic is going to be, I better not dedicate too much attention to that at this early stage. Best case scenario: the priorities of the people of the world are transformed in a non-fickle manner. But unfortunately this scenario likely requires worst-case outcomes, havoc and horror from the disease itself, and I'd rather be all wrong about that.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 5, 2020)

As a chronic face toucher, nail biter, nose picker, all-round gross person - I'm not hopeful of staying disease-free.

I have noticed myself noticing though, so I agree with those who say it changes quickly. Let's hope the nail-biting fucks off for good if I survive


----------



## killer b (Mar 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Anyway history may be a problematic guide to what the results of this current virus ultimately are. It could change everything, or not so much.


I was thinking earlier about this, and wonder if the 2008 financial crash might give us a more useful guide about how things might change - China's sudden emergence as one of the serious superpowers in the last decade is down to it's agile response to the crash - we can already see how it's response to _this_ crisis has quickly got it's own infections under control, while foot-dragging and denial is likely to make it a much longer and deeper crisis in many other places, especially the US and Europe...


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> I was thinking earlier about this, and wonder if the 2008 financial crash might give us a more useful guide about how things might change - China's sudden emergence as one of the serious superpowers in the last decade is down to it's agile response to the crash - we can already see how it's response to _this_ crisis has quickly got it's own infections under control, while foot-dragging and denial is likely to make it a much longer and deeper crisis in many other places, especially the US and Europe...



Maybe China will have to come to multiple countries medical aid and this will accelerate the building of their very modern empire. Maybe some countries will make opportunistic use of timing and circumstances to carry out long-dreamt of military plans. Maybe the disappearance of local, visible pollution will leave an impression. Maybe travel will never quite be the same again. Many maybes, dont get me started, argh too late lol.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> I was thinking earlier about this, and wonder if the 2008 financial crash might give us a more useful guide about how things might change - China's sudden emergence as one of the serious superpowers in the last decade is down to it's agile response to the crash - we can already see how it's response to _this_ crisis has quickly got it's own infections under control, while foot-dragging and denial is likely to make it a much longer and deeper crisis in many other places, especially the US and Europe...


I think China's advantage if you could call it that, is that the outbreak was centred on one city and thus easy to isolate. Here we have pockets cropping up all over the place and the stable door has not yet been shut.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 6, 2020)

163 in the UK, as of 7 a.m. this morning:








						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 6, 2020)

Wilf said:


> 163 in the UK, as of 7 a.m. this morning:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


0.8% of those tested.


----------



## lizzieloo (Mar 6, 2020)

2nd UK death in Milton Keynes according to the local rag 









						Public Health England confirm separate case of coronavirus in Bucks after death at Milton Keynes Hospital
					

In a separate case, a patient on a ward at Milton Keynes Hospital has died of what is believed to be coronavirus.




					www.miltonkeynes.co.uk


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 6, 2020)

Don’t know if this has already been posted yet but here’s a bit of good news for delivery drivers at Hermes.









						Delivery firm Hermes to pay gig workers if they must self-isolate
					

Company announces £1m support fund after coronavirus warning from trade unions




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 6, 2020)

Got to one of the GPs I work out this morning, doors shut, signs everywhere, ring the buzzer. Receptionists screening people via the intercom because someone had rocked up this week 10 days after being in Northern Italy coughing and spluttering, wanting vaccinations to go off to Peru. She was isolated and removed but 111 advice was that she 'might' be alright so she came back a few hours later almost demanding to be immunised for her trip.  Said she hadn't seen the news, didn't know she should have self isolated or owt.


----------



## elbows (Mar 6, 2020)

The infection prevention and control guidance (for healthcare workers)  has been updated.






						[Withdrawn] COVID-19: infection prevention and control (IPC)
					

Guidance on infection prevention and control for seasonal respiratory infections including SARS-CoV-2.




					www.gov.uk
				




Main changes:

Patient type
Change in guidance

For symptomatic, unconfirmed in-patients meeting the COVID-19 case definition.
PPE revised to include a change from FFP3 respirator to fluid resistant surgical mask, gloves, apron and eye protection if risk of splashing into the eyes.

For confirmed cases of COVID-19
Full PPE ensemble continues to use FFP3 respirator, disposable eye protection, preferably visor, long sleeved disposable gown and gloves.

For possible and confirmed cases of COVID-19 requiring an aerosol generating procedure
Full PPE ensemble as per previous guidance for confirmed cases: FFP3 respirator, disposable eye protection, preferably visor, long sleeved disposable gown and gloves.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 6, 2020)

Saw a lady, sweaty-looking, red-faced and runny of eye have a sneezing fit in the cheese aisle of my local Aldi. Saw people start down the aisle then clearly think "Fuck. That." and go elsewhere.


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2020)

The detail about the 2nd death is not reassuring.









						Family fear Briton who died of coronavirus was kept on ward too long
					

Staff and patients at Milton Keynes hospital in isolation after man’s death




					www.theguardian.com
				






> A family member, who did not wish to be named, told the Guardian: “Our concern is that the hospital were too slow to detect that our relative had symptoms similar to those of coronavirus and too slow to move him from a ward into isolation, and that that may have put a lot of people – fellow patients on the ward, staff who were looking after him and visitors who came to see him – at risk of contracting the virus from him.
> 
> “We think they should have put him into isolation right away, as soon as he arrived, given his symptoms. That was a failure by the hospital. He was coughing a lot and had quite severe symptoms.
> 
> “Despite that, he was put on a ward with lots of other sick patients for six or seven hours before he was moved into isolation. During that time a lot of relatives came to see him, both adults and children. Who knows if any of them have now got coronavirus and are maybe spreading it to older people who might get sick?”





> They said that the family were told at around 7pm on Thursday that their relative had coronavirus – and about an hour later were told he had died. They said the family were also concerned about the reason they were given for his death, which was presumed to be that he took off his oxygen mask and asphyxiated. NHS England was approached for comment about the death of the patient.


----------



## lizzieloo (Mar 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> The detail about the 2nd death is not reassuring.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Locally people are saying he was on a ward with other patients and visitors for 6 hours


----------



## bendeus (Mar 7, 2020)

Spent the day with a dear old friend today. He's been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, meaning he has, at best, five years to live. Meds he is on to slow down the advance are immunosupressants, which means he's doubly fucked when it comes to covid-19. Bloke in the pub, having sat near him coughing and spluttering in the bar corners him in the bogs and asks outright if he had coronavirus. "I fucking wish", says my mate.


----------



## bendeus (Mar 7, 2020)

bendeus said:


> Spent the day with a dear old friend today. He's been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, meaning he has, at best, five years to live. Meds he is on to slow down the advance are immunusupressants, which means he's doubly fucked when it comes to covid-19. Bloke in the pub, having sat near him coughing and spluttering in the bar corners him in the bogs and asks outright if he had coronavirus. "I fucking wish", says my mate.


Said he had a four seat table to himself on the train home at rush hour, though. Every cloud...


----------



## phillm (Mar 7, 2020)

Apparently we have long had a strategic plan.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/225869/Pandemic_Influenza_LRF_Guidance.pdf


----------



## Tankus (Mar 7, 2020)

Two positives in the 'diff now


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 7, 2020)

Leading ex-nurse says coronavirus pandemic would be ‘useful’ to solve bed blocking by killing off patients
					

‘Your hospital would work because these people would be taken out of the system,’ Professor June Andrews says




					www.independent.co.uk
				




Well, that's one way of looking at it I suppose...


----------



## andysays (Mar 7, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Leading ex-nurse says coronavirus pandemic would be ‘useful’ to solve bed blocking by killing off patients
> 
> 
> ‘Your hospital would work because these people would be taken out of the system,’ Professor June Andrews says
> ...


Seems like a rather extreme approach to dealing with the "bed blocker" problem


----------



## Dan U (Mar 7, 2020)

andysays said:


> Seems like a rather extreme approach to dealing with the "bed blocker" problem



Hancock probably has it as an option in his Social Care funding paper


----------



## Supine (Mar 7, 2020)

Tankus said:


> Two positives in the 'diff now



I've only been here 24hrs!


----------



## og ogilby (Mar 7, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Leading ex-nurse says coronavirus pandemic would be ‘useful’ to solve bed blocking by killing off patients
> 
> 
> ‘Your hospital would work because these people would be taken out of the system,’ Professor June Andrews says
> ...


I imagine there will be people with wealthy elderly parents who are seeing this as an opportunity to get their hands on their parents wealth a little sooner than they previously thought they might.

Maybe even try to expose their parents by visiting them when they haven't been taking precautions themselves.

Bound to happen imo.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 7, 2020)

Unsolicited text from NHS Scotland:


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 7, 2020)

When are the latest UK figures released? 2-3 o'clock?


----------



## keybored (Mar 7, 2020)

Got mine almost a fortnight ago.


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2020)

S☼I said:


> When are the latest UK figures released? 2-3 o'clock?



2pm except on a couple of occasions so far when they have been late.


----------



## extra dry (Mar 7, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> The price of hand sanitiser has rocketed where available. We have some at work i will be requisitioning.



Where i am at, no masks, 100,000 people, workers etc coming back from south korea.

Students getting sick and lot businesses closed


----------



## The39thStep (Mar 7, 2020)

S☼I said:


> When are the latest UK figures released? 2-3 o'clock?


They are being incorporated into Final Score on Saturdays


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 7, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> They are being incorporated into Final Score on Saturdays


Covid-19, late kick off.


----------



## extra dry (Mar 7, 2020)

W


brogdale said:


> It's the 60% thing that's the key, isn't it?
> Pricey, but may end up cheaper than the non-existent hand-wash?
> 
> View attachment 200569


With ice and water v nice


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 7, 2020)

So we should see 235ish as the figure in the UK today


----------



## xenon (Mar 7, 2020)

andysays said:


> Seems like a rather extreme approach to dealing with the "bed blocker" problem



Just usual clickbate shite. Find someone to say something tactless and controversial, cue tweeting outrage etc.

I mean of course hospitals would function better if most of those occupying wards died. But you know, it's not an outcome anyone with an ounce of humanity would actually work towards and saying it just makes you look like a calass monser.


----------



## xenon (Mar 7, 2020)

I got a text from my dentist on Thursday as I had a check up booked on Monday. Message was, if you have a cough / cold / related symptons, please think of others and reschedule your appointment.

Still got an annoying cough / cold, on it's way out though, so I was happy to do TBF.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 7, 2020)

206 in UK now.
26% increase on yesterday.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 8, 2020)

> The banning of people over 70 attending public events is also reportedly being considered by the Cobra emergency committee, which meets on Monday.



From: Coronavirus: quarter of Italy's population put in quarantine as virus reaches Washington DC


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 8, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> From: Coronavirus: quarter of Italy's population put in quarantine as virus reaches Washington DC



Guess that Genesis reunion tour is off then.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 8, 2020)

xenon said:


> Just usual clickbate shite. Find someone to say something tactless and controversial, cue tweeting outrage etc.
> 
> I mean of course hospitals would function better if most of those occupying wards died. But you know, it's not an outcome anyone with an ounce of humanity would actually work towards and saying it just makes you look like a calass monser.


It's the sort of joke that nurses and doctors make all the time which has its place when you work with people dying around you frequently 

Probably wrong audience


----------



## ska invita (Mar 8, 2020)

I'm trying to forsee if it will happen in the UK and if so when, and also what kind of thing we can expect

I read on a thread here we are about 11 days behind northern Italy in terms of case numbers. As of today northern italy is in 'lockdown'

Reported as "The lockdown decree includes the power to impose fines on anyone caught entering or leaving Lombardy, the worst-affected region, until 3 April _(**from today thats a period of near enough a month)_. It provides for the banning of all public events, closing cinemas, theatres, gyms, discos and pubs. Religious ceremonies such as funerals and weddings will also be prohibited, and leave for healthcare workers has been cancelled. "

Id like to see more precise details on the rules.

I appreciate each national response is dependent on its politicians, and the likes of Johnson will be more unwilling to have a lockdown than others, but does anyone feel confident enough to predict/estimate when such a lockdown might hit the UK (and for work reasons Im particularly interested in London)


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 8, 2020)

No idea. But I have plenty beer, Netflix and a comfy bed. Lockdown sounds rather appealing tbh.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 8, 2020)

I guess there are a lot of factors at play. The 11 day thing elbows posted (with caveats) was just numbers. We're not the same as Italy I imagine - for many reasons. Yesterday's jump of new reported cases here at the same stage for Italy was about 40%, here was 26%. But a lot depends on how many are being tested, who's got it but hasn't, where they are, how much individuals and authorities are taking measures, etc. I don't think it's possible to predict much at this point.


----------



## LDC (Mar 8, 2020)

Worth watching Dr. Chris Witty present to the Health and Care Committee on 5th March as he talks about the planning and thought that goes into some of the factors for moving to this stage.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 8, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I guess there are a lot of factors at play. The 11 day thing elbows posted (with caveats) was just numbers. We're not the same as Italy I imagine - for many reasons. Yesterday's jump of new reported cases here at the same stage for Italy was about 40%, here was 26%. But a lot depends on how many are being tested, who's got it but hasn't, where they are, how much individuals and authorities are taking measures, etc. I don't think it's possible to predict much at this point.


11 days is quite a specific number...but howabout saying within 2-3 weeks then? a reasonable assumption?

I guess it will become clearer with each passing day, but i need to make preperations (not bog roll related ones  )


----------



## ska invita (Mar 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Worth watching Dr. Chris Witty present to the Health and Care Committee on 5th March as he talks about the planning and thought that goes into some of the factors for moving to this stage.



2 hours long and im commuting! any key points?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 8, 2020)

ska invita said:


> 2 hours long and im commuting! any key points?


Chances of containment now are slim to none.


----------



## LDC (Mar 8, 2020)

ska invita said:


> 2 hours long and im commuting! any key points?



ska invita

Fatality rate 1% or less (quite different to what the WHO say).
Caution with the move to close things down but some of them coming soon.
Most people will be fine, even the old.
Pack in smoking.
Kids mostly OK, but not sure if they carry it with no symptoms, or just don't get it.
Likely to be a short period of intense infection.
Chance of it being a significant outbreak in the UK now almost certain.
No chance of a vaccine in the next year or so.
Hope that some current drugs we have will help the very ill.
During the time of worse infection rates the NHS will look very different to how it does now.
No need to stockpile anything currently.
Top end of worse case possible prediction is bad.


----------



## brix_kitty (Mar 8, 2020)

Is there anywhere that has a breakdown of whereabouts the cases are in the UK? Ta.


----------



## Supine (Mar 8, 2020)

brix_kitty said:


> Is there anywhere that has a breakdown of whereabouts the cases are in the UK? Ta.








						[Withdrawn] Coronavirus (COVID-19): number of cases in England
					

Daily updates on cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in England.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## xenon (Mar 8, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> It's the sort of joke that nurses and doctors make all the time which has its place when you work with people dying around you frequently
> 
> Probably wrong audience



Fair point, I didn't actually read the article. Website bogs my computer down.


----------



## xenon (Mar 8, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> From: Coronavirus: quarter of Italy's population put in quarantine as virus reaches Washington DC



Suspend the house of lords.
Push through emergency legislation.
_evil laugh_


----------



## ska invita (Mar 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> ska invita
> 
> Fatality rate 1% or less (quite different to what the WHO say).
> Caution with the move to close things down but some of them coming soon.
> ...


thanks for that. the key thing im interested in though is "Chance of it being a significant outbreak in the UK now almost certain" <<<therefore will there be a lockdown and can we predict when


----------



## killer b (Mar 8, 2020)

I'm expecting significant disruption within a week to two weeks. Within a week if they're sensible


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 8, 2020)

xenon said:


> Suspend the house of lords.
> Push through emergency legislation.
> _evil laugh_


It's an ideal virus for a right-wing, authoritarian take over init?

Suspend Parliament.
Emergency legislation.
Restrict travel.
Ban gatherings.
Slim down the NHS to only deal with coronavirus
Reduce police force to only 'essential services' - probably means protecting property.
Advice to not use cash - all purchases now traceable
Rationing tinfoil sales


----------



## ska invita (Mar 8, 2020)

particularly am working on an event for about 500 people end of March, wondering if its going to get pulled


----------



## elbows (Mar 8, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I guess there are a lot of factors at play. The 11 day thing elbows posted (with caveats) was just numbers. We're not the same as Italy I imagine - for many reasons. Yesterday's jump of new reported cases here at the same stage for Italy was about 40%, here was 26%. But a lot depends on how many are being tested, who's got it but hasn't, where they are, how much individuals and authorities are taking measures, etc. I don't think it's possible to predict much at this point.



What was the 11 days thing? I dont remember it. I would have posted plenty of stuff that suggested using Italy as a guide to what will happen elsewhere, but I would not have made a precise claim about 11 days myself. Its quite possible I quoted somebody or something that did make that claim, but I dont remember and would like to see it.

As for the whole 'we are not the same as Italy' thing, as far as I'm concerned people who want to cling to that thought need to suggest some actual reasons why they think our fate is going to be any different. It certainly wont be down to stringent measures because we havent had any. Although that last point is looking to the past, its always possible we will act more decisively and strongly than Italy at some key stage, but most signs so far is that we are going to wait till the first epidemic wave is clearly kicking off before we do the heavy stuff.


----------



## LDC (Mar 8, 2020)

ska invita said:


> thanks for that. the key thing im interested in though is "Chance of it being a significant outbreak in the UK now almost certain" <<<therefore will there be a lockdown and can we predict when



He said that there's not going to be a moment when everything changes and an announcement is made. The phases overlap, and it'll be a gradual response moving from one phase to the next, and that might be different in different parts of the UK.


----------



## LDC (Mar 8, 2020)

ska invita said:


> particularly am working on an event for about 500 people end of March, wondering if its going to get pulled



My take on it is that they're being very cautious about banning and closing things down, and something that size won't be affected by any announcement or measures put in place in the forseeable. My prediction is they'll make it more like a recommendation at first, and might restrict people over a certain age groups (over 70 has been mentioned) from attending certain events. Whether people will stop going to such events anyway is hard to predict.

I think they're wary of closing things down for 2 reasons, firstly that it's not that sustainable so it has to be timed carefully to be of maximum value. Secondly they're very worried about the economic impact of any measures.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 8, 2020)

i think this is the 11days behind post








						Coronavirus - worldwide breaking news, discussion, stats, updates and more
					

Given the rate of increase in infection and our knowledge of the progress of the virus in China, Japan, Korea, Italy and Japan how long before we enter lockdown in some communities? This expert makes for a sombre viewing.    If you look at Italy's numbers, they've got around 4k infections...




					www.urban75.net
				






Fez909 said:


> If you look at Italy's numbers, they've got around 4k infections currently. It's taken 11 days to get there from the position we're in.
> 
> If you look at how they got there, their figures grew by about 40% a day for about half that time, then 20%-25% since then.
> 
> ...


----------



## ska invita (Mar 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My take on it is that they're being very cautious about banning and closing things down, and something that size won't be affected by any announcement or measures put in place in the forseeable. My prediction is they'll make it more like a recommendation at first, and might restrict people over a certain age groups (over 70 has been mentioned) from attending certain events. Whether people will stop going to such events anyway is hard to predict.
> 
> I think they're wary of closing things down for 2 reasons, firstly that it's not that sustainable so it has to be timed carefully to be of maximum value. Secondly they're very worried about the economic impact of any measures.


i totally appreciate that. But theyve just banned such events in Milan and other Italian cities - no reason why not in UK cities


----------



## elbows (Mar 8, 2020)

ska invita said:


> i think this is the 11days behind post



Thanks. Lets please not get into a situation where we assume certain kinds of reports, numbers and estimates must have come from me!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thanks. Lets please not get into a situation where we assume certain kinds of reports, numbers and estimates must have come from me!


Apologies elbows - I misremembered the poster and assumed it was you as you've posted a lot of interesting and informed stuff on this


----------



## elbows (Mar 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My take on it is that they're being very cautious about banning and closing things down, and something that size won't be affected by any announcement or measures put in place in the forseeable. My prediction is they'll make it more like a recommendation at first, and might restrict people over a certain age groups (over 70 has been mentioned) from attending certain events. Whether people will stop going to such events anyway is hard to predict.
> 
> I think they're wary of closing things down for 2 reasons, firstly that it's not that sustainable so it has to be timed carefully to be of maximum value. Secondly they're very worried about the economic impact of any measures.



The chances that events are banned by the end of March is pretty high as far as I'm concerned. Scale does make a difference, location of outbreaks will make a difference. But even so, for planning purposes my default assumption for events in the 2nd half of March and for April is that they wont happen.

The government are meeting the Premier League/other football entities on Monday to discuss playing behind closed doors stuff. When that stuff is triggered I'm not even sure how long it will be sustainable, because as soon as any player & staff from any first team tests positive or gets isolated due to known contacts being positive, the league will probably grind to a halt completely.


----------



## elbows (Mar 8, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Apologies elbows - I misremembered the poster and assumed it was you as you've posted a lot of interesting and informed stuff on this



No problem, I dont want to be an arse about this, but it was a good opportunity to remind people that I am just one among many, albeit one with too much spare time on my hands!

If I had made the claim it would have been a bit vaguer, I would likely have said something like 'a few weeks'.


----------



## marty21 (Mar 8, 2020)

Difficult to do all my work from home as part of my job is showing flats but I guess they could postpone them for a period. I could at a pinch walk to work, according to Google maps it is a 1 hr 25 minute walk. But if we go full lock down , might as well stay at home.


----------



## andysays (Mar 8, 2020)

ska invita said:


> particularly am working on an event for about 500 people end of March, wondering if its going to get pulled


Depending on what it is, where it is and where the attendees are coming from, I think there's a significant chance it will be postponed or cancelled. 

I would certainly start to think about that as a possibility now, rather than wait another few weeks before considering it.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 8, 2020)

I work in a public library/community centre, with NHS consulting rooms. We have pregnant women's groups, a COPD support group and many elderly and disabled visitors, so many of our customers are at risk. Loads of children visit after school and if they close the schools, they will all come to the library all day instead, so I imagine they'd have to lock down my place of work too. I doubt that will mean time off work though, they'll squeeze it out of us somehow. But even if we do get paid time off for a number of weeks, the backlog of work on return would be enormous and hard to cope with.


----------



## elbows (Mar 8, 2020)

Unlike swine flu, pregnent women arent thought to be in the high risk category for this illness, but that doesnt mean there wont be a single instance of severe illness in that demographic.

Just an aside as you mentioned pregnant women, not a criticism of you or what you said, I'm just taking the opportunity to convey info.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Mar 8, 2020)

I've got 2 events to put on for voluntary organisation in the next month or so - fairly minor thing at the end of march, which is basically a case of changing the date on last year's stuff and getting it out there, easter weekend's event is a lot bigger.  

and work is running buses (i drive a desk rather than a bus) so if everything goes in to lockdown, presume we'd be off the road.

what's the deal with staff getting paid if the business is closed?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Unlike swine flu, pregnent women arent thought to be in the high risk category for this illness, but that doesnt mean there wont be a single instance of severe illness in that demographic.
> 
> Just an aside as you mentioned pregnant women, not a criticism of you or what you said, I'm just taking the opportunity to convey info.


Aye, it was just an assumption that they'd be at risk. We had an instance of a child off school with chicken pox being sent to the library to spend his days off, instead of being kept at home. We had to send him home as he was a risk to others' health.


----------



## BigTom (Mar 8, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> I've got 2 events to put on for voluntary organisation in the next month or so - fairly minor thing at the end of march, which is basically a case of changing the date on last year's stuff and getting it out there, easter weekend's event is a lot bigger.
> 
> and work is running buses (i drive a desk rather than a bus) so if everything goes in to lockdown, presume we'd be off the road.
> 
> what's the deal with staff getting paid if the business is closed?



Govt have said SSP will be paid from day 1 of sickness for coronavirus cases, rather than from day 3 as usual. Otherwise depends on your employers sick pay policy.


----------



## xenon (Mar 8, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> It's an ideal virus for a right-wing, authoritarian take over init?
> 
> Suspend Parliament.
> Emergency legislation.
> ...



This is just a test run...

It has the makings of a cheesy dystopian Netflix drama.

Employee 793. Working in a secret military lab, due to an administrative error following a minor fire, discovers there's more to producing a vaxene for some obscure virus thought to have only effected water fowel.

"They isolated all our teams. We shared our results anonymously through an air gapped encrypted network. No one knows the other guys names. It was for our safety."

But bigger mistakes were made.
<scenes of infected birds escaping during fire>

As reports of a spike in flue cases around the region come out, the lab goes dark.
<military bods in covert meeting>
"What the hell happened here. Project flamingo wasn't ready."
"One thing I learned in Afghanistan, you get the plan or you get the time. Never both. What do virus's do, they adapt to survive. I say we adapt, learn, this is what the suits wanted anyway. They can't complain too much, we just came in under budget and ahead of schedule."

As a slow creeping panic takes hold, emergency measures are brought in,  lock down begins
<hazmat suit wearing troops guarding government buildings>
<Armed patrols, curfews>
<stockpiling, panic>

Employee 793 realises they're infected themselves. They know they must flee with only the partial solution to a vaxene. But where can they run, who can they tell?

...


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Mar 8, 2020)

BigTom said:


> Govt have said SSP will be paid from day 1 of sickness for coronavirus cases, rather than from day 3 as usual. Otherwise depends on your employers sick pay policy.



but what if people are not sick, just that their workplace is either put on lockdown, or just doesn't have any business coming in?


----------



## BigTom (Mar 8, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> but what if people are not sick, just that their workplace is either put on lockdown, or just doesn't have any business coming in?



ah right.
Well if the business decides to pause trading, then they will need to keep paying you or make you redundant. People on zero hour contracts will be fucked 
If the govt. enforces a lockdown and prevents businesses from trading I would imagine they would pay SSP or something brought in to do the same job. I don't think they've said anything about the possibility of enforced shutdowns.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 8, 2020)

Some good news, out of the 32 flown back from the outbreak on the ship of doom in Japan, 28 have just been released from quarantine.   

* the other 4 tested positive on return, and were dispatched to specialist hospitals.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 8, 2020)

I think it all depends on where the cases are, my understanding is that at the moment they're everywhere.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Aye, it was just an assumption that they'd be at risk. We had an instance of a child off school with chicken pox being sent to the library to spend his days off, instead of being kept at home. We had to send him home as he was a risk to others' health.


Bloody hell - sending a contagious kid to a library is incredibly irresponsible.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 8, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I think it all depends on where the cases are, my understanding is that at the moment they're everywhere.



They are, as you can see HERE, they are not going to lock-down the whole of the UK based on a couple of hundred cases spread so thinly across the country.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 8, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Bloody hell - sending a contagious kid to a library is incredibly irresponsible.


That’s nothing. We had one sent to us who had norovirus and he vomited all over an upholstered chair


----------



## Flavour (Mar 8, 2020)

You should all assume that any event from mid-march onwards will be cancelled. Indefinitely


----------



## elbows (Mar 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They are, as you can see HERE, they are not going to lock-down the whole of the UK based on a couple of hundred cases spread so thinly across the country.



They will wait til there is explosive growth in  particular location(s) and then act.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think they're wary of closing things down for 2 reasons, firstly that it's not that sustainable so it has to be timed carefully to be of maximum value. Secondly they're very worried about the economic impact of any measures.


Yeah, that's the tricky bit. Judging 'ahead of when it gets more expensive not too but not after the horse has totally bolted', and as others have mentioned, the problem of people who get no pay whatsoever if they're not working... not to mention the baseline of people who already don't have enough food for two days, let alone two weeks if they have to self-isolate and especially if there's only one adult in the household.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> They will wait til there is explosive growth in  particular location(s) and then act.



Indeed, just like they did in China & Italy.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 8, 2020)

Flavour said:


> You should all assume that any event from mid-march onwards will be cancelled. Indefinitely



Highly doubt it. They have 'official' advice from Chris Whitty that says 'caution with the move to shut things down (though some coming soon)'. That's a long way off 'any event', rightly or wrongly.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 8, 2020)

Supine said:


> [Withdrawn] Coronavirus (COVID-19): number of cases in England
> 
> 
> Daily updates on cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in England.
> ...



I don't find these all that useful - not much use knowing there are 2 cases in Cornwall without knowing where they are (I suppose useful to know there are only 2, though). A bit like one summary I saw giving the figure for the "West Country", could be in Somerset.


----------



## magneze (Mar 8, 2020)

273


----------



## kebabking (Mar 8, 2020)

We did a staff planning exercise with PHE/NHS and various others at ACSC focusing on Ebola (the exercise was about using your brain to plan/react, not necessarily about this or that eventuality) one of the options explored was classifying people as essential/non-essential in terms of their occupation: so if you worked in food production you could go to work and buy petrol, but if you worked in basket weaving (or at a former polytechnic... ) then you stayed at home. Schools were open as, effectively, child care centres for people in these reserved occupations, but closed for those who weren't - the curriculum went out of the window obviously...

It wasn't about _stopping _the spread of the disease, it was about slowing it down - so the starting point was about reducing contact - if half the population stay at home you instantly reduce total contacts by 50%, something any virologist would give their right arm for.

_personally_ I would presume that any planned activity/event due to take place from 15th march or so won't now happen - if it does, great, but I would act on the assumption that it won't.

I certainly wouldn't book a trip to Butlins in the Easter holidays and get the kids all excited about it....


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 8, 2020)

Hmmm. Bigger increase than yesterday. At yesterday's rate it should've been 260. Not dramatically bigger though.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 8, 2020)

31.8% rise


----------



## tim (Mar 8, 2020)

Cobra may ban people over 70 from attending public meetings according to the Grauniard, I can't see some of the over-seventies I know being keen on that.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 8, 2020)

kebabking said:


> I certainly wouldn't book a trip to Butlins in the Easter holidays and get the kids all excited about it....



How about Pontins?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 8, 2020)

I wouldn't expect it to be increasing at any regular percentage really.
I mean I know it's relevant later, when you can see definite decreases in the percentage of new cases (in China for eg, for now, at least) but if you look at for eg France, the percentages are all over the place - the fact is that the numbers are going up, regularly and significantly.


----------



## tim (Mar 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> How about Pontins?



And spend the following six months trapped on the Isle of Wight, following the blockade of the Solent. Take an airgun as red squirrels will be source of protein available to refugees from the Big Island


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 8, 2020)

Wondering how long it'll be before schools and colleges close. I'm guessing within the fortnight. Bloody annoying as I've got a month's worth of progression review planning to do for 190 students and I'm not sure if it'll be all for nothing


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 8, 2020)

tim said:


> Cobra may ban people over 70 from attending public meetings according to the Grauniard, I can't see some of the over-seventies I know being keen on that.


If they ban gatherings of large groups of people, only the Lib Dems will get to have a party conference this year.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 8, 2020)

ska invita said:


> i think this is the 11days behind post
> 
> 
> 
> ...


UK on 273 so just a little off on Fez's projection


----------



## a_chap (Mar 8, 2020)

Interesting new stat. Well, new to me at least.

Total (reported) cases per 1 million population.


Total reported casesTotal cases per 1M population1​S. Korea7,313142.62​Italy5,88397.33​Iran6,56678.24​China80,70356.15​Bahrain85506​Switzerland33738.97​Norway15929.38​Singapore15025.69​Sweden20320.110​Belgium20017.311​Netherlands26515.512​Hong Kong11415.213​Kuwait641514​France94914.515​Spain61313.116​Germany1,01812.217​Austria10411.518​Slovenia167.719​Estonia107.520​Greece73721​Denmark35622​Lebanon324.723​UAE454.524​Finland234.225​Qatar124.226​UK273427​Japan502428​Ireland193.829​Palestine193.730​Georgia133.331​Malaysia993.132​Australia803.133​Oman163.134​Czechia312.935​Israel252.936​Croatia122.937​Portugal282.738​Taiwan451.939​Canada631.740​USA4641.441​North Macedonia31.442​Iraq541.343​Latvia21.144​Costa Rica5145​New Zealand5146​Azerbaijan90.947​Bosnia and Herzegovina30.948​Ecuador140.849​Hungary70.750​Romania140.751​Thailand500.752​Bulgaria40.653​Belarus60.654​Slovakia30.5

UK languishing in 26th.

Must try harder.


----------



## lizzieloo (Mar 8, 2020)

I just saw that and thought the same, we are way down on the list


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 8, 2020)

a_chap said:


> Interesting new stat. Well, new to me at least.
> 
> Total (reported) cases per 1 million population.
> 
> ...



I was looking at the figures from yesterday, and spotted the UK was well down on the list of European countries, when considering populations.

I even considered doing a spread-sheet to illustrate it, but decided I couldn't be arsed because of the time involved, so this is great to see.

Do you have a link to where you found it?


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 8, 2020)

Iceland has reportedly got 55 cases in a population of 360,000, which would put it at or near the top of that list.


----------



## lizzieloo (Mar 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Do you have a link to where you found it?











						Coronavirus Update (Live): 129,471,257 Cases and 2,828,154 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
					

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 8, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> Iceland has reportedly got 55 cases in a population of 360,000, which would put it at or near the top of that list.



Blimey, that would be a big jump, it was only 19 yesterday. 

SOURCE


----------



## a_chap (Mar 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Do you have a link to where you found it?











						Coronavirus Update (Live): 129,471,257 Cases and 2,828,154 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
					

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Blimey, that would be a big jump, it was only 19 yesterday.
> 
> SOURCE



All people who had been on a ski trip to Italy and Austria - Iceland seems to be handling it pretty well, with total transparency from the government and full pay for people in quarantine.









						From Iceland — Fastsplaining: This Is How Iceland Handles The Coronavirus
					

Iceland is no different from other countries when it comes to the coronavirus, or COVID-19. The first case was discovered...



					grapevine.is


----------



## hash tag (Mar 8, 2020)

Banning over '70s from places will require proof of people being under 70, which will be fun, unless taken on trust.
i gather Mrs T's place are planning for closure. She is a non essential worker. I suspect I will be classed as essential. Will we have to be separated. Fortunately I don't have to use public transport and only really come into contact with a few vulnerable people. Could be interesting in our little box.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 8, 2020)

I said this elsewhere but I would like to see employers encouraged to get those employees who can work from home to do so  for part of each week, or even only coming in for key tasks.  The fewer people we have contact with  the less crowded public transport is, the better to my mind, without having effects as severe as complete shutdowns.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 8, 2020)

ska invita said:


> particularly am working on an event for about 500 people end of March, wondering if its going to get pulled


is this the one you talked to me about?   I guess some of it will depend on the venue and how it deals with next few weeks.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 8, 2020)

There's about nine coppers left in this country they couldn't enforce a piss up in a brewery.


----------



## Looby (Mar 8, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Will we have to be separated.


I think that’s the one thing I wouldn’t be willing to do. I’d be horribly anxious if I had to stay away from Mr Looby and the dogs.

Something really weird happened with my quoting there!


----------



## chilango (Mar 8, 2020)

One thing to bear in mind is that Italy is perhaps a little prepared for/resilient towards a month long shutdown.

It happens pretty much every August.

OTOH in the UK we're subject to much more of a 24/7, 364/365 culture of working and consuming.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> There's about nine coppers left in this country they couldn't enforce a piss up in a brewery.



What a bizarre, wrong & totally pointless contribution to the thread.


----------



## spitfire (Mar 8, 2020)

kebabking said:


> ...so if you worked in food production you could go to work and buy petrol,...



Winning. Ware do I aply?


----------



## hash tag (Mar 8, 2020)

Mrs T has just told me to stop going to the gym  I suspect I will continue about this little discussed bit of exercise I do. In fairness, I am in the high risk category.


----------



## pesh (Mar 8, 2020)

just tell her you're going to the pub?


----------



## pesh (Mar 8, 2020)

(then go to the pub)


----------



## hash tag (Mar 8, 2020)

I only go when she is not around and at work...


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 8, 2020)

Another death in the UK









						Man becomes third person to die after testing positive for coronavirus
					

There are now more than 270 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the UK




					www.stokesentinel.co.uk


----------



## Looby (Mar 8, 2020)

Two cases in Dorset now confirmed, not sure exactly where but in main urban areas I hear.


----------



## plurker (Mar 8, 2020)

Flavour said:


> You should all assume that any event from mid-march onwards will be cancelled. Indefinitely


Everything I'm reading (I'm in the events industry) is saying this but early April and they estimate for a period of 3-4 weeks whilst the worst occurs.

I think (hope, for my wages' sake) that our company will just about be ok. We've got 3 arena shows this week being  postponed because the artist and crew are in the restricted area in Italy. Not clear yet, but I think our event insurance will cover any losses.

Three other London shows this week to get through, and then we don't have anything major for while. 

Venues are worrying and some (primarily US) artists are, but interestingly we're not seeing loads of audience members asking about it, or requesting refunds cause they don't want to come...so panic buying bogroll, but still prepared to go out.


----------



## rich! (Mar 8, 2020)

ska invita said:


> particularly am working on an event for about 500 people end of March, wondering if its going to get pulled


I was organising a Europe-wide event for 800 people in Spain for 4 days last week. If we'd done it a week later we'd've cancelled because all the large organisations kicked in "no travel" Monday/Tuesday last week. As it was we had 100 cancels, 200 no shows, and a good time amongst those who turned up.


----------



## elbows (Mar 8, 2020)

Looby said:


> Two cases in Dorset now confirmed, not sure exactly where but in main urban areas I hear.



They are listed under 'Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole' in the official data.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> They are listed under 'Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole' in the official data.



Link? Would be interested to see which towns Cornish cases are in.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 8, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Link? Would be interested to see which towns Cornish cases are in.


From here. Coronavirus (COVID-19): number of cases in England
Only goes by health areas. For some reason Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole is not part of the Dorset figures.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 8, 2020)

MrSki said:


> From here. Coronavirus (COVID-19): number of cases in England
> Only goes by health areas. For some reason Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole is not part of the Dorset figures.



Ah ok thanks


----------



## MrSki (Mar 9, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Ah ok thanks


Pretty evenly spread across the country but Devon has 12 so stay your side of the river.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 9, 2020)

Given that the UK is where Italy was two weeks ago, this is a bit worrying.






Hopefully there are a lot of unreported or untested cases but a 5% death rate is much higher than has been reported in other countries.


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

Unfortunately the death rate can spike rather high if your intensive care capacity is overwhelmed. Italy is close enough to that point that the idea of prioritisation of intensive care gets a mention in their press, and I've seen at least one story about ICU patients being moved to somewhere less overloaded. Wuhans case fatality rate was very bad at a particular stage of the outbreak there.

Not that any of the resulting impact of that stuff has necessarily shown up in the numbers from Italy much yet, maybe it is just starting to show in recent days, maybe too soon still. An alternative explanation is that the number of detected cases is miles off the actual number of people who should be cases, and this is skewing the case fatality rate.


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

Oh and I should have said that such skewing can be rather pronounced. Because if you are seeing a lot of seriously ill people coming in, you are likely going to prioritise testing them before you test milder cases. This is only a big factor if you are close to testing capacity, but there are plenty of other reasons why milder cases are more likely to be missed too.


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

Another potential cause of skew is that outbreaks within institutions such as hospitals and care homes can lead to a lot of cases that are at increased risk of death, and often quite rapid death. And institutional outbreaks will be spotted and counted as clusters once those deaths start to happen, they may act as early signs of what is happening less visibly in other areas of society. Washington States detected outbreak has provided the most obvious example of this recently. There will no doubt be UK examples soon enough  And they will make the early stage numbers leap up, quite notably if the broader picture isnt yet being recorded properly.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 9, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> Another death in the UK
> 
> 
> 
> ...


RIP to the feller.  My Dad was in the same hospital in the weeks leading up to his death and my uncle is a cancer patient there (had an op a couple of weeks ago).


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

Just finishing off that previous point, I suppose I should say that in a perfect world, where most cases were detected, and detected as soon as they got sick, then the skew would be in the other direction, the deaths would always be lagging behind the cases because it takes time to die or recover. But we are nowhere close to that simple picture, and indeed Italy mostly got a handle on the existence of their locally spreading outbreak only once deaths started happening. When its the deaths that lead you to the discovery of clusters, some statistical relationships and lag issues sort of go into reverse. Hope this makes sense.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2020)

MrSki said:


> From here. Coronavirus (COVID-19): number of cases in England
> Only goes by health areas. For some reason Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole is not part of the Dorset figures.



Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole is a Unitary Council area now, so doesn't come under Dorset County Council any longer, just like Brighton & Hove City doesn't come under East Sussex CC nowadays.


----------



## andysays (Mar 9, 2020)

Looks like you won't have to wait much longer to get an official answer ska invita

*Coronavirus: Boris Johnson to hold emergency Cobra meeting*


> The Prime Minister will chair an emergency Cobra meeting later to decide whether to bring in measures to delay the spread of coronavirus in the UK. The meeting is expected to consider whether "social distancing" measures should now be introduced . These could include banning of big events, closing schools and encouraging home working.


----------



## Looby (Mar 9, 2020)

MrSki said:


> From here. Coronavirus (COVID-19): number of cases in England
> Only goes by health areas. For some reason Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole is not part of the Dorset figures.


It’s two councils, Dorset and then BCP which all merged last year.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 9, 2020)

Expecting work to madate working from home shortly - which would make sense as the tube is far and away the likeliest place for me to catch Covid, we're all quite well spaced apart in the office.


----------



## Ms T (Mar 9, 2020)

Nearly a quarter of Italians are over the age of 65 which partly explains the relatively high death rate.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 9, 2020)

I don't think they're going to drop any lockdown today... I'm expecting nonsense like standing 2m away from people, and that thing about 70 year olds maybe staying home more. I think they'll crescendo up to martial andrex law over a couple of weeks yet

Meanwhile today


----------



## magneze (Mar 9, 2020)

2m away from people? Kind of enforces working from home for many jobs.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> As for the whole 'we are not the same as Italy' thing, as far as I'm concerned people who want to cling to that thought need to suggest some actual reasons why they think our fate is going to be any different. It certainly wont be down to stringent measures because we havent had any. Although that last point is looking to the past, its always possible we will act more decisively and strongly than Italy at some key stage, but most signs so far is that we are going to wait till the first epidemic wave is clearly kicking off before we do the heavy stuff.


Then again we have eugenicists in Downing Street. I can imagine them being quite keen to bump off some more economically underproductive citizen-consumers


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 9, 2020)

magneze said:


> 2m away from people? Kind of enforces working from home for many jobs.



 any jobs that workers get to by bus or train.....


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I don't think they're going to drop any lockdown today... I'm expecting nonsense like standing 2m away from people, and that thing about 70 year olds maybe staying home more. I think they'll crescendo up to martial andrex law over a couple of weeks yet
> 
> Meanwhile todayView attachment 201075View attachment 201076


marshal andrecks was a dutch army officer in the french revolutionary period


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

> Very importantly, if you have symptoms that suggest you might have Covid, you absolutely must not be in contact with others. You are trying to reduce the spread. Then you look at large events. But it is not just the big events. I want to stress it is also gatherings in community halls, in religious spaces and services, and also in pubs and the like. It will be that sort of gathering that the government will look at, as well as of course the big events.



 53m ago 10:10


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> 53m ago 10:10


great news for developers.


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 9, 2020)

Pubs?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Then again we have eugenicists in Downing Street. I can imagine them being quite keen to bump off some more economically underproductive citizen-consumers


Looking at the most at-risk groups, I'd think they might be quite worried about their vote demographic. The 70+ age bracket is the baby boomer generation - a 15% mortality rate will have a big effect on Tory votes.


----------



## The39thStep (Mar 9, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Looking at the most at-risk groups, I'd think they might be quite worried about their vote demographic. The 70+ age bracket is the baby boomer generation - a 15% mortality rate will have a big effect on Tory votes.


Same age bracket as Corbyn and Saunders


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm interested in the way the chief medical officer Chris Whitty has been in receipt of ludicrously overblown puff pieces across the press today - one sample here, but there's more elsewhere. I'm sure Whitty is a capable physician and a calm and reassuring presence, but that reads like full on wartime propaganda.



And now the USA edition of bigging up the trusted voice / expert:









						Not His First Epidemic: Dr. Anthony Fauci Sticks to the Facts (Published 2020)
					

Where politicians fumble and other government health officials step back, he steps up to explain.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

> A European Union expert said the UK had only a "few days" to implement measures to prevent an outbreak like Italy's, which is the worst outside China with 7,375 confirmed cases and 366 deaths.
> 
> Sergio Brusin from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme: "The UK is in the same situation Italy was two weeks ago."











						Coronavirus: UK to remain in 'containment' phase of response
					

Measures such as school closures will not yet be introduced, as the UK's fourth virus death is confirmed.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## maomao (Mar 9, 2020)

Ms T said:


> Nearly a quarter of Italians are over the age of 65 which partly explains the relatively high death rate.


Germany is close behind with the third oldest population in the world but with over 1100 cases and no deaths yet.


----------



## lizzieloo (Mar 9, 2020)

Only 3 new cases being reported today


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2020)

lizzieloo said:


> Only 3 new cases being reported today



Err, 46 actually. 









						Coronavirus: UK cases rise by 46 - taking total to 319
					

Coronavirus cases in the UK have risen 46 to 319 over the last 24 hours, according to latest government figures.




					news.sky.com


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 9, 2020)

lizzieloo said:


> Only 3 new cases being reported today


It's just been advised a rise of 46 on the BBC.


----------



## lizzieloo (Mar 9, 2020)

I was looking at the live update numbers thing, my bad


----------



## 8ball (Mar 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Err, 46 actually.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, the 3 came from one specific source.
If it's only 46 for a whole day, then that's fairly encouraging (I haven't kept abreast of release times).


----------



## lizzieloo (Mar 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Err, 46 actually.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'd "like" this cos you're right but I can't cos you Errrrr-ed at me.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 9, 2020)

10 days ago, I'd have thought we'd be closing schools and sports events with over 300 cases. But somehow we are way behind Germany and Italy and haven't had say, a large number of casualties say, in a particular care home. All of that + the desire to keep the economy rolling seem to be dominant in what passes for the mind of government.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2020)

Wilf said:


> 10 days ago, I'd have thought we'd be closing schools and sports events with over 300 cases. But somehow we are way behind Germany and Italy and haven't had say, a large number of casualties say, in a particular care home. All of that + the desire to keep the economy rolling seem to be dominant in what passes for the mind of government.



The government is acting on the medical & scientific advice, which is why opposition parties are currently backing their actions.


----------



## MrCurry (Mar 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They are, as you can see HERE, they are not going to lock-down the whole of the UK based on a couple of hundred cases spread so thinly across the country.



Couple of hundred _confirmed_ cases. There’s been enough discussion on the big thread already of why the true number of cases will be much higher, but using Prof Neil Ferguson’s yard stick of 1000 times multiplier (from 0:50 in below video), then UK cases should be around 3000 now, with 3 deaths confirmed.

And what that means for Italy’s situation is not good at all.


----------



## Riklet (Mar 9, 2020)

There are so many factors at play it's hard to judge why Italy is much worse currently.

Seems like the localised outbreaks there have been really bad there tho, which isnt currently the case in the UK.

Other factors are likely:

Timescale (likely that the virus spread in Italy all through February, coming directly from Wuhan at some more earlier stage)
Unreported cases
Weather/temperature (generally not been so cold in the UK and perhaps not such significant shifts in daytime/night-time temperatures)
Age of people affected
Super-spreader individuals (bad luck essentially)
Different varieties of the virus (potentially)
Population density
Warnings and public health advice (Time lag may have benefited UK)
Success in isolating individuals and encouraging self-isolation in UK (could quickly change)
Schengen/Freedom of movement differences (Significant daily traffic & movement between Switzerland/France/Northern Italy/Austria)
Conversely, more limited movement within rural areas of Italy leading to more contained regional spread than would be the case in the UK

Really hope that the strategy to spin it out and limit spread here is successful. Quite worried now. I think it's likely there is inevitably gonna be controls on events in the near future.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 9, 2020)

Hmm, I'm still not feeling great - had a bug that was making me feel tired and headachy with slight temp (though not fever) at end of last week, in the end rang 111 early on Saturday morning and their feelings was it didn't sound like Covid 19 at all so not to worry, then felt rather better in that afternoon. Fatigue's gone but still feeling headachey and now seem to be getting a snotty cold (which the kids have got), so although I still don't think it's Covid and I don't need to self-isolate, I'm wondering if the pro-social thing to do is semi-isolate and keep working from home and avoid indoor gatherings until it shows more sign of clearing up. Cos going out there and potentially giving people another virus just adds to burden for 111/NHS and people worrying it's Covid and would be generally unhelpful. I can totally do my job from home and no important meetings this week.


----------



## sihhi (Mar 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> particularly am working on an event for about 500 people end of March, wondering if its going to get pulled



It will only spread infection. What looks overdoing now will appear common sense 3 weeks down the line, that's exponential growth and respiratory infection. I'd urge its cancellation.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Then again we have eugenicists in Downing Street. I can imagine them being quite keen to bump off some more economically underproductive citizen-consumers


----------



## Wilf (Mar 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The government is acting on the medical & scientific advice, which is why opposition parties are currently backing their actions.


I'd agree from what I've read (which admittedly isn't much) that what our government are doing is _broadly _within the scientific consensus - maybe at the laissez faire end of that consensus. But expert advice is rarely the full tale, see for example the sexed up dossiers. At the very least there will be tensions between keeping the economy running and tory ideology on one side and the pure science on the other.  

On a related point, I work in a university and have just been asked for details as to how the modules I teach might run 'remotely' in the event of a shutdown. Seems to me that might have been something to start planning a week ago, though I'm not sure if the timing is down to the institution where I work or the governmental/civil service level.


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

> Another patient in the UK has died after contracting the coronavirus, the NHS has confirmed.
> 
> A Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust spokesperson said:
> 
> ...



                            6m ago    15:34


----------



## trashpony (Mar 9, 2020)

A family member of a kid in my son's year has been diagnosed. The child is self-isolating as is a teacher who has had contact with the person who has tested positive. 

As you can imagine, the school facebook is going bonkers


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I'd agree from what I've read (which admittedly isn't much) that what our government are doing is _broadly _within the scientific consensus - maybe at the laissez faire end of that consensus. But expert advice is rarely the full tale, see for example the sexed up dossiers. At the very least there will be tensions between keeping the economy running and tory ideology on one side and the pure science on the other.



I would suggest everyone watches Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England, being quizzed by the select committee, or google & read in-depth reports on his advice, which is the advice that the government is following, it's all very clear & logical.


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 9, 2020)

So I'm a bit confused today (probably because I've come down with something) so here's what I've gathered, please let me know if it's correct or not:

The government is having a cobra meeting, this is the second one they've had over coronavirus 

We're expecting them to encourage social distancing, notably telling over 70s not to go to big gatherings, encouraging people to work from home

Advice yesterday was still the same as it had been - aka only worry if you've been in direct contact with a confirmed case or travelled from an affected area abroad. Is the line beginning to change on this today?


----------



## LDC (Mar 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I would suggest everyone watches Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England, being quizzed by the select committee, or google & read in-depth reports on his advice, which is the advice that the government is following, it's all very clear & logical.




It's good, but also now nearly 5 days out of date.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> So I'm a bit confused today (probably because I've come down with something) so here's what I've gathered, please let me know if it's correct or not:
> 
> The government is having a cobra meeting, this is the second one they've had over coronavirus
> 
> ...



The meeting is long over, no changes at the moment, we are still in in 'containment' phase.



> The government has previously said "social distancing" measures to slow the spread of the virus could include a ban on sporting events and other large gatherings, and encouraging people to work from home rather than use crowded trains and buses.
> 
> Such a step would require agreement from chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance.











						Coronavirus: UK to remain in 'containment' phase of response
					

Measures such as school closures will not yet be introduced, as the UK's fourth virus death is confirmed.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's good, but also now nearly 5 days out of date.



His advice hasn't changed, yet.


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The meeting is long over, no changes at the moment, we are still in 'containment' phase.



Thanks that's really helpful!


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 9, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> So I'm a bit confused today (probably because I've come down with something) so here's what I've gathered, please let me know if it's correct or not:
> 
> The government is having a cobra meeting, this is the second one they've had over coronavirus
> 
> ...




Nope!

UK to remain in coronavirus 'containment' phase


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 9, 2020)

My boss' deputy has been to Venice for a few days on holiday. Now having an extra two weeks at home in iso.


----------



## D'wards (Mar 9, 2020)

I have felt well rough since Saturday. Headache, aching limbs, tiredness, cough but no fever. 

Seeing as I'm a type 1 diabetic I thought I'd better call 111 but if you haven't been abroad recently or have had exposure to a confirmed case they appear to not want to know


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

A case has been detected in the intensive care unit at my local hospital (a hospital which often features high on the list of hospitals with serious issues):









						Coronavirus patient in intensive care at Nuneaton's hospital
					

The George Eliot Hospital has issued a statement




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

D'wards said:


> I have felt well rough since Saturday. Headache, aching limbs, tiredness, cough but no fever.
> 
> Seeing as I'm a type 1 diabetic I thought I'd better call 111 but if you haven't been abroad recently or have had exposure to a confirmed case they appear to not want to know



Yes one of the consequences of not changing phase yet is that they are sticking to the old criteria for suspecting cases, which is based on travel history or contact with confirmed cases, rather than much broader criteria of suspicion which will kick in once wide scale community transmission is full confirmed and acted on. Only other way to get tested now is to be so seriously ill that they pick you up via testing of pneumonia cases in hospitals.


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 9, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I'd agree from what I've read (which admittedly isn't much) that what our government are doing is _broadly _within the scientific consensus - maybe at the laissez faire end of that consensus. But expert advice is rarely the full tale, see for example the sexed up dossiers. At the very least there will be tensions between keeping the economy running and tory ideology on one side and the pure science on the other.


Moreover that "expert advice" is absolutely political. Science that connects with humans is, and must be, political. 


Wilf said:


> On a related point, I work in a university and have just been asked for details as to how the modules I teach might run 'remotely' in the event of a shutdown.


Yep starting to come out here. Directions to upload more material to the virtual learning environment. Same time as there's the biggest ever strike of university workers, strange that.


----------



## UrbaneFox (Mar 9, 2020)

My GP seems to be locked in. I rang this morning to make an appointment for routine matters, and the receptionist grilled me about my age, whereabouts in the last few weeks, have you got x symptoms of Coronav?, and then 'a doctor will phone you later'.

No news since.


Wrong thread, sorry


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

D'wards said:


> I have felt well rough since Saturday. Headache, aching limbs, tiredness, cough but no fever.
> 
> Seeing as I'm a type 1 diabetic I thought I'd better call 111 but if you haven't been abroad recently or have had exposure to a confirmed case they appear to not want to know



Do you have any good healthcare contacts from your routine diabetes management that you can turn to? (GP, diabetic clinic, on the phone etc, not in person). Given that 111 wont help until the protocols for suspecting cases are changed, you either need to find a GP or whoever that could maybe possibly bypass that and approve you for testing, or if that avenue doesnt seem to be open, non-Covid-19-specific advice for type 1 diabetics during influenza-like-illnesses should be followed. Hows your blood sugar level management?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 9, 2020)

No. 10 doing a press conference on this now. Boris still lying about Matt HandOnCock having met with supermarkets...


----------



## Cloo (Mar 9, 2020)

trashpony said:


> A family member of a kid in my son's year has been diagnosed. The child is self-isolating as is a teacher who has had contact with the person who has tested positive.
> 
> As you can imagine, the school facebook is going bonkers



Yeah, daughter's head teacher had to send round an email to quell Whatsapp rumours of someone being diagnosed.



muscovyduck said:


> Advice yesterday was still the same as it had been - aka only worry if you've been in direct contact with a confirmed case or travelled from an affected area abroad. Is the line beginning to change on this today?


 Doesn't look like it - kind of stupid as it blatantly just isn't that any more, but I guess they're trying to prioritise who they test.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 9, 2020)

First confirmed case in Windsor and Maidenhead. 

People are demanding that they are told exactly which part of the Borough the person is from, I know people are scared, I appreciate why as I'm in a high risk group, but it's like a fucking witch hunt


----------



## bimble (Mar 9, 2020)

That press conference is definitely not going to help with the loo roll panic.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 9, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> First confirmed case in Windsor and Maidenhead.
> 
> People are demanding that they are told exactly which part of the Borough the person is from, I know people are scared, I appreciate why as I'm in a high risk group, but it's like a fucking witch hunt




Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this today. Saw pics from the Basque Country where whole streets have been cordoned off and those living in the building are pretty much held there even if not sick. How long before plague like X's start appearing?


----------



## trashpony (Mar 9, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Yeah, daughter's head teacher had to send round an email to quell Whatsapp rumours of someone being diagnosed.


The head has just sent round a follow up email saying that, despite a screenshot doing the rounds on snapchat, the school isn't actually closed for the rest of the week


----------



## andysays (Mar 9, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK prepares to ask even mildly sick to stay home



> People who show "even minor" signs of respiratory tract infections or a fever will soon be told to self-isolate in an effort to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. The UK government's chief medical adviser said the change in advice could happen *within the next 10 to 14 days*.



I'm genuinely amazed that they're still waiting to do this, rather than introducing this and further measures immediately. Just how bad does it have to be before they take decisive action?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 9, 2020)

andysays said:


> Coronavirus: UK prepares to ask even mildly sick to stay home
> 
> 
> 
> I'm genuinely amazed that they're still waiting to do this, rather than introducing this and further measures immediately. Just how bad does it have to be before they take decisive action?



It's nuts... _preparing to prepare_...


----------



## andysays (Mar 9, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It's nuts... _preparing to prepare_...


It's not even that, it's thinking about preparing to do something, possibly...


----------



## 8ball (Mar 9, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It's nuts... _preparing to prepare_...



It's an established escalation plan, and they're basically saying they're not at the point of thinking it is worth treating every sniffle as a potential case just yet.  There are a lot of things to be balanced.  I get that it sounds weird, though - it's not like that sniffle will suddenly become a mild C-19 infection based on Government edict.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 9, 2020)

8ball said:


> It's an established escalation plan, and they're basically saying they're not at the point of thinking it is worth treating every sniffle as a potential case just yet.  There are a lot of things to be balanced.  I get that it sounds weird, though - it's not like that sniffle will suddenly become a mild C-19 infection based on Government edict.



It's that along with everything else (...that they're NOT doing yet) though and with an approx. timescale set which seems _really_ far ahead in terms of how much things could escalate in that time, when you look at how numbers have risen elsewhere.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 9, 2020)

andysays said:


> Coronavirus: UK prepares to ask even mildly sick to stay home
> 
> 
> 
> I'm genuinely amazed that they're still waiting to do this, rather than introducing this and further measures immediately. Just how bad does it have to be before they take decisive action?


Trouble is plenty of people are still going 'Well, God, it's only 0.00X of the population, why all the fuss?' as if it isn't going to increase massively, and will refuse to do anything until it's too late. We're such a massively selfish, individualistic culture. I guess another problem is the government know there are lots of people for whom self-isolating and looking after themselves will be incredibly difficult and there is fuck all infrastructure set up to help them and they don't know how to deal with that.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 9, 2020)

Fifth person has died according to the radio.


----------



## magneze (Mar 9, 2020)

5 people have died in the UK now


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 9, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Boris still lying about Matt HandOnCock having met with supermarkets...


No surprise there then.  He's a shameless cunt isn't it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2020)

magneze said:


> 5 people have died in the UK now



I wish you would sort out your 'thumbs up' avatar, it's not a good look, when you make posts like this.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I wish you would sort out your 'thumbs up' avatar, it's not a good look, when you make posts like this.


Secretly the Grim Reaper.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I wish you would sort out your 'thumbs up' avatar, it's not a good look, when you make posts like this.


If you’d ever met magneze you’d think very differently, cupid_stunt 

Top man.


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

andysays said:


> Coronavirus: UK prepares to ask even mildly sick to stay home
> I'm genuinely amazed that they're still waiting to do this, rather than introducing this and further measures immediately. Just how bad does it have to be before they take decisive action?



It appears to me that they are trying a particular approach to partially deal with a classic issue of bureaucracy.

The system is based on phases. This causes issues because you are flipping from one set of rules and measures to another at some arbitrary moment.

It looks like with this pandemic they are still using that sort of system, but they are trying to add a degree of nuance. This is happening in the form of Chris Whitty telling the press and public things well in advance of them actually formally happening. It already happened when he started describing how we were sort of in between two phases. And now it seems to have happened again quite deliberately with this news about what they are likely to do in a week or two.

Normally I do not think you start telling the public that sort of thing far in advance, if you want to keep the message really simple, and you dont want them to actually switch to those new behaviours yet. So I am inclined to believe they are saying this stuff today because they know some people will start to modify their behaviour on these fronts straight away, rather than wait till the advice is formally changed. A sort of staggered change in behaviours rather than a binary switch.

Thats what I think I am seeing anyway, perhaps I am overthinking it.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 9, 2020)

magneze said:


> 5 people have died in the UK now


Five people have died in the UK, all with underlying health issues; from October 19 - Feb 20 70 died of bog standard flu and over last 5 years it has averaged 17,000 pa. Yes Covid needs to be contained but the actual response economically and socially is way over the top - let's hope we never have a real air borne virus or a variant of so called Spanish flu which killed people in a day because that will be absolute bedlem. Post Covid it will be interesting to see the research completed on societal response - it seems to me we have moved to an era where over-reaction about most things is now the norm.


----------



## Supine (Mar 9, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Five people have died in the UK, all with underlying health issues; from October 19 - Feb 20 70 died of bog standard flu and over last 5 years it has averaged 17,000 pa. Yes Covid needs to be contained but the actual response economically and socially is way over the top - let's hope we never have a real air borne virus or a variant of so called Spanish flu which killed people in a day because that will be absolute bedlem. Post Covid it will be interesting to see the research completed on societal response - it seems to me we have moved to an era where over-reaction about most things is now the norm.



You don't understand exponential growth do you. The potential is there for this to be as serious as Spanish flu. It may well not be, that's partly what this thread is about.


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Five people have died in the UK, all with underlying health issues; from October 19 - Feb 20 70 died of bog standard flu and over last 5 years it has averaged 17,000 pa. Yes Covid needs to be contained but the actual response economically and socially is way over the top - let's hope we never have a real air borne virus or a variant of so called Spanish flu which killed people in a day because that will be absolute bedlem. Post Covid it will be interesting to see the research completed on societal response - it seems to me we have moved to an era where over-reaction about most things is now the norm.



If multiple intensive care units in the UK are overwhelmed in the coming weeks, are you ready to modify your stance? Or if not, what would be enough to cause you to reevaluate the severity of this pandemic?


----------



## PD58 (Mar 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> It appears to me that they are trying a particular approach to partially deal with a classic issue of bureaucracy.
> 
> The system is based on phases. This causes issues because you are flipping from one set of rules and measures to another at some arbitrary moment.
> 
> It looks like with this pandemic they are still using that sort of system, but they are trying to add a degree of nuance.



Sorry but it is not a pandemic as it is not prevalent over a whole country or the whole world, and given the rate of spread it is not even an epidemic..it is an outbreak that is spreading and the inaccurate and inflammatory language used to describe what is happening especially by the media as we know does not help.


----------



## maomao (Mar 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I wish you would sort out your 'thumbs up' avatar, it's not a good look, when you make posts like this.



Every post you make is prefaced with a puerile spoonerism.


----------



## Barking_Mad (Mar 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> It appears to me that they are trying a particular approach to partially deal with a classic issue of bureaucracy.
> 
> The system is based on phases. This causes issues because you are flipping from one set of rules and measures to another at some arbitrary moment.
> 
> ...



They made the point during the press conference that they are basing the advice on a statistical model that estimates when the growth of the virus is estimated to take off. The model seems to suggest that it's about to become far more widespread (there may be degrees of relativity to this "spread"). Glad I'm not crunching those numbers! That said as far as infectious diseases are concerned we have some pretty smart people on this.

Fingers crossed.


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Sorry but it is not a pandemic as it is not prevalent over a whole country or the whole world, and given the rate of spread it is not even an epidemic..it is an outbreak that is spreading and the inaccurate and inflammatory language used to describe what is happening especially by the media as we know does not help.



Given your view on the seriousness of all this, whats your explanation for the way governments are acting? They are having to contemplate all sorts of measures that dont come naturally to them, that will derail their economies etc.

This is not a story of media hyping things up. Its a bad pandemic unfolding before our eyes. The consequences are immense.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> You don't understand exponential growth do you. The potential is there for this to be as serious as Spanish flu. It may well not be, that's partly what this thread is about.



Please explain where there is exponential growth in any of the outbreaks ie doubling every set period of time... and what evidence you have that this may happen.

Part of a recent report on China

Chinese hospitals overflowing with COVID-19 patients a few weeks ago now have empty beds. Trials of experimental drugs are having difficulty enrolling enough eligible patients. And the number of new cases reported each day has plummeted the past few weeks. These are some of the startling observations in a report released on 28 February from a mission organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Chinese government that allowed 13 foreigners to join 12 Chinese scientists on a tour of five cities in China to study the state of the COVID-19 epidemic and the effectiveness of the country’s response. The findings surprised several of the visiting scientists. “I thought there was no way those numbers could be real,” says epidemiologist Tim Eckmanns of the Robert Koch Institute, who was part of the mission. But the report is unequivocal. “China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic,” it says. “This decline in COVID-19 cases across China is real.”

Here is an interesting one (which very few people are aware of and did not cause the panic we are currently seeing) the 2009 H1N1 (influenza) outbreak in the United States affected over 60 million Americans resulting in 274,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths....does anyone think COVID will reach these levels in the US?


----------



## Supine (Mar 9, 2020)

Perhaps read the thread before asking questions


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 9, 2020)

Or even, the content of their _own post_.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Given your view on the seriousness of all this, whats your explanation for the way governments are acting? They are having to contemplate all sorts of measures that dont come naturally to them, that will derail their economies etc.
> 
> This is not a story of media hyping things up. Its a bad pandemic unfolding before our eyes. The consequences are immense.



Partly I think they are reacting the way they are as it is a relatively unknown virus, humans have no immunity to it (there is no vaccine), there is rapid transmission especially in close groups but this is not yet understood, similarly the severity is not yet understood but it seems it is more like influenza than SARS.  Politically there is rightly serious concern that health systems will not be able to cope with a true epidemic/pandemic so measures are being put in place so that these systems are not tested to breaking point - plus there is a responsibility to ensure that those who need other medical care receive this. I know a paramedic who recently spent 5 hours dealing with one individual who was worried they had COVID and I believe wanted to be tested etc rather than follow the government advice to self isolate - time taken out of dealing with other incidents, which is the sort of pressure being placed on the NHS.

You suggest the media are not hyping this up - I would suggest that the language they are using does not help to calm the situation.

So I am not saying that this isn't serious or that government does not have a duty to put in place procedures to deal with it - it does. But we all have a role in not overplaying what we might think (ie opinion) the consequences may be and present these as so called fact (ie it is a bad pandemic unfolding before our eyes) and reduce the inflammatory/sensationalist language around this as it leads to behaviours that none of us welcome such as the recent attacks on the Asian guys.


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

Thanks for taking the time to explain your thoughts on those matters, it is appreciated.

I mostly differ because I dont think they want to calm the situation, a sense of huge abnormality is desired in order that people actually modify their behaviour and put up with all the disruption to their lives in the weeks ahead.

I know my choice of language isnt to everyones tastes, but it is my opinion that its a bad pandemic unfolding before our eyes, so I say so. But I know what its like to dislike the language choices of others, eg I hate it when people call it a plague or a killer virus, or give it a name that stigmatises certain ethnic groups or countries. Very early on there was a thread that was all about joking about what we could call it, and one of my suggestions involved China, because I was taking the piss out of the whole 'communism with Chinese characteristics' thing. But then that thread got merged into the main one, and I got more into a proper serious mindset, and regretted my suggestion very much.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> Perhaps read the thread before asking questions


I have and the Italian figures are not exponential - they are not doubling daily, whihc is the time being used - so perhaps you need to understand meaning before accusing others of not...and you have not presented any evidence of exponential growth have you? Another question...


----------



## two sheds (Mar 9, 2020)

Exponential growth doesn't demand doubling daily though.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 9, 2020)

PD58 said:


> I have and the Italian figures are not exponential - they are not doubling daily, whihc is the time being used - so perhaps you need to understand meaning before accusing others of not...and you have not presented any evidence of exponential growth have you? Another question...


Perhaps you should remind yourself what exponential means


----------



## PD58 (Mar 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thanks for taking the time to explain your thoughts on those matters, it is appreciated.
> 
> I mostly differ because I dont think they want to calm the situation, a sense of huge abnormality is desired in order that people actually modify their behaviour and put up with all the disruption to their lives in the weeks ahead.
> 
> I know my choice of language isnt to everyones tastes, but it is my opinion that its a bad pandemic unfolding before our eyes, so I say so. But I know what its like to dislike the language choices of others, eg I hate it when people call it a plague or a killer virus, or give it a name that stigmatises certain ethnic groups or countries. Very early on there was a thread that was all about joking about what we could call it, and one of my suggestions involved China, because I was taking the piss out of the whole 'communism with Chinese characteristics' thing. But then that thread got merged into the main one, and I got more into a proper serious mindset, and regretted my suggestion very much.



Sensible discussion and debate with differing POV is what the forum is about isn't it? Time, as always will tell, with the outcome and my take is that we will have a new strain of influenza in the human population ie it will become endemic. Oddly, although not working in this area, I have been interested in viruses for a long time and what does freak me out is an Ebola type virus that is truly airborne - I believe at some point this will happen but probably, or is that hopefully, not in my lifetime. Vruses have been around much longer than we have and some scientists believe they have evolved alongside us - Virolution by Frank Ryan is a good read on this.


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## PD58 (Mar 9, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Perhaps you should remind yourself what exponential means


Isn't it that the rate of change per unit of time is proportional to the current value of whatever is being measured - which to me will means that today the number of deaths in Italy will be over 700 and tomorrow over 1400 if growth is exponential as the unit of time on the graph being used is one day....?


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## two sheds (Mar 9, 2020)

PD58 said:


> as the unit of time on the graph being used is one day....?



why this?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 9, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Isn't it that the rate of change per unit of time is proportional to the current value of whatever is being measured - which to me will means that today the number of deaths in Italy will be over 700 and tomorrow over 1400 if growth is exponential as the unit of time on the graph being used is one day....?


No. Exponential just means a multiplier, not addition. So a 30% rise on an amount each day on a figure, i.e. cases of coronavirus, would mean larger jumps each day as it's 30% of a bigger number every time.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 9, 2020)

Indeed: doubling every two days would be exponential growth, as would doubling every week.


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## SpookyFrank (Mar 9, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Isn't it that the rate of change per unit of time is proportional to the current value of whatever is being measured - which to me will means that today the number of deaths in Italy will be over 700 and tomorrow over 1400 if growth is exponential as the unit of time on the graph being used is one day....?



Effectively it means n(tomorrow) = n(today)x where x is basically any number. Estimates for where the UK is at the moment seem to put x at about 1.4, so not doubling daily but increasing by a greater absolute number of cases every day. The alternative would be arithmetic growth, in which a constant number of cases were added per day, something that doesn't really happen in nature, or only appears to happen at a specific point on an exponential growth curve as x declines over time.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Effectively it means n(tomorrow) = n(today)x where x is basically any number. Estimates for where the UK is at the moment seem to put x at about 1.4, so not doubling daily but increasing by a greater absolute number of cases every day. The alternative would be geometric growth, in which a constant number of cases were added per day, something that doesn't really happen in nature, or only appears to happen at a specific point on an exponential growth curve as x declines over time.



geometric = arithmetic?


----------



## Numbers (Mar 9, 2020)

Some of the Urban Fam are wary of you PD58


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 9, 2020)

two sheds said:


> geometric = arithmetic?



Yes I meant to say arithmetic. A level maths was a while ago now. Geometric is actually synonymous with exponential in this context.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 9, 2020)

change it in the original, nobody will notice


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 9, 2020)

I'm sure this pinch of salt has been added many times but still, worth saying again that there are any number of reasons why the observed case rate and the actual case rate may differ greatly from each other. Incubation period, possibility of asymptomatic cases, effectiveness and availability of testing etc.


----------



## kebabking (Mar 9, 2020)

I seem to recall that WHO/PHE/CDC version of 'wildfire epidemic' was a doubling of cases every 6 days - and that goes for something like Ebola - no one, to my knowledge, talks about a doubling each day being some kind of definition of exponential growth/decent epidemic status....


----------



## sptme (Mar 9, 2020)

See that curve,  that's what exponential growth looks like in a graph. (South Korea looks like their growth is no longer exponential, so good for them)


----------



## weltweit (Mar 9, 2020)

There was an interesting point raised in the interview I watched tonight which was that when testing is able to ascertain people who have had the virus and are now immune, it could be these people that are asked to help care for people in vulnerable groups, whether that be doing shopping for them or the like.. because at that stage they would be much less likely to infect anyone else.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 9, 2020)

Not to turn the thread into a maths discussion but here are the figures for Italy on a daily basis (this is the time being used on which the exponential growth calculation would be based) since the first death. It might be me but I do not see except for the first 4 days any pattern of exponential growth ie the growth is not increasing at a constant rate whatever that might be (I am aware it does not have to be double but initially here it was) - for the first 4 days it was doubling so exponential  - but then the total went up by 4/8 followed by 5/12, 5/17, 2/11 etc.....so considering this data on a daily basis I cannot see how the growth is exponential but then as someone said maths was a long time ago and i have forgotten most of it. Given this is a medical outbreak though it would be very odd if it was exponential growth.


Date21​22​23​24​25​26​27​28​29​1​2​3​4​5​6​7​8​9​Nos of deaths1​1​2​4​4​5​5​4​8​11​11​27​22​47​49​36​133​97​Total1​2​4​8​12​17​22​26​34​45​56​83​105​152​201​237​370​467​


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## two sheds (Mar 9, 2020)

Graph of the daily increase from your figures (assuming my additions are right). Averaging out looks exponential to me, particularly given the last few days.



You keep stressing exponential needs to be doubling every day - it really doesn't.


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## elbows (Mar 9, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Given this is a medical outbreak though it would be very odd if it was exponential growth.



Maths is often useful because it does a good job of approximating things that can be seen in nature too.

Just google something like 'viruses exponential growth' and you should have no shortage of reading material.


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## two sheds (Mar 9, 2020)

Yep it was a revelation to me when I realized (late on) that exponential means 'grows at a rate proportional to itself'


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## sptme (Mar 9, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Date21​22​23​24​25​26​27​28​29​1​2​3​4​5​6​7​8​9​Nos of deaths1​1​2​4​4​5​5​4​8​11​11​27​22​47​49​36​133​97​Total1​2​4​8​12​17​22​26​34​45​56​83​105​152​201​237​370​467​


Pick any number after the 25th of February and double it. (Eg 12 fatalities on the 25th X2 = 24) Then look at the number of fatalities 3 days later.  It's larger than double (26 fatalities on the 28th of February) this means it's doubling rate is faster that 3 days.  Doubling every 2 and a bit days is scary fast.
Edit for typos


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## ska invita (Mar 10, 2020)

Does anyone have a good summary of what lockdown looks like in Italy?
What are the rules?


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## Saffy (Mar 10, 2020)

Not officially but this was from my friend whose sister is in north Italy. 

From my sis: Schools stay closed. Cinemas, gyms, theatres etc.. all closed. No travelling. You can go to the shops but have to stay a metre away from others. Today I queued up outside the supermarket (a metre between each person) and there were only about 10 people in at a time. When one person left, one went in.


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## LDC (Mar 10, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Does anyone have a good summary of what lockdown looks like in Italy?
> What are the rules?



Someone I know there is doing good informative posts about this. I'll try and get one and stick it up here.


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## ska invita (Mar 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Someone I know there is doing good informative posts about this. I'll try and get one and stick it up here.


Cheers, I'd really like to see the detail.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 10, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Graph of the daily increase from your figures (assuming my additions are right). Averaging out looks exponential to me, particularly given the last few days.
> 
> You keep stressing exponential needs to be doubling every day - it really doesn't.



No i don't, read my post...exponential means it is increasing at a constant rate (I say double as that is what it did start at) and this isn't - i have never said that it is not increasing quickly but it is not  exponential as some days the increase is greater than or less than the day before (both absolute and relative) which is to be expected and in fact 8 March is an outlier given what has come before. If it was exponential you should be able to predict what the next day is... 

RE sptme start with 12 then to 26 is 2.16, so next period is 56 which is what we have but then it should be 121 but is 156 so this is not exponential...it is actually faster., the next period is also faster but then it looks like it might be slower.

If anyone is that interested in how diseases might spread search logiistc growth model and considerable research indicates across a range of diseases that growth (not deaths) is generally sub exponential...

On the plus side it does seem toe b levelling off in boih China and S Korea, it will be very intereting to see what happnes in Italy and then we are in to the much more interesting discussion about 'democratic' versus 'communist' response


----------



## maomao (Mar 10, 2020)

For reported disease cases to match an exact pattern of growth expected from a mathematical model of disease transmission you would need to be sure you were testing all the right people. Which we're not.


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## LDC (Mar 10, 2020)

Deputy CMO just announced the UK epidemic peak is likely to start in about 2 weeks.


----------



## Flavour (Mar 10, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Does anyone have a good summary of what lockdown looks like in Italy?
> What are the rules?



you're not supposed to leave your house except to go to work, hospital or to buy food. all transport between regions and provinces is not allowed except for valid reason i.e. for work, to go home from being away. all cinemas, pubs, clubs, theatres, gyms, leisure centers and any other place of public congregation closed. coffee shops and restaurants must close at 6pm (i.e. no restaurant dinner service anywhere in italy) - basically everything is closed except shops selling food and stuff. obviously the cops can't really control everywhere at once but there are heavy fines and potentially jail time for people who break the rules of this curfew. it's very hardcore indeed.


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## ska invita (Mar 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Deputy CMO just announced the UK epidemic peak is likely to start in about 2 weeks.


Saw that. What does peak mean in this case? Surely not that cases will go down after that two week period


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 10, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Saw that. What does peak mean in this case? Surely not that cases will go down after that two week period


No. It's when shit goes really bad for a while.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 10, 2020)

sihhi said:


> It will only spread infection. What looks overdoing now will appear common sense 3 weeks down the line, that's exponential growth and respiratory infection. I'd urge its cancellation.



I'm also working on an event for last weekend of March.  Trying to convince the team what the numbers now are actually likely to mean.  Got people coming from all over the world (a lot of cancellations so far tbf).


----------



## sihhi (Mar 10, 2020)

8ball said:


> I'm also working on an event for last weekend of March.  Trying to convince the team what the numbers now are actually likely to mean.  Got people coming from all over the world (a lot of cancellations so far tbf).



Honestly the numbers now will seem like a puddle compared to the torrents later.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> No. It's when shit goes really bad for a while.


The use of the word peak seems meaningless to me... Im taking it to mean within two weeks they'll press the lockdown button


----------



## LDC (Mar 10, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Saw that. What does peak mean in this case? Surely not that cases will go down after that two week period



Start of the peak. The beginning of the curve upwards.


----------



## LDC (Mar 10, 2020)

ska invita said:


> The use of the word peak seems meaningless to me... Im taking it to mean within two weeks they'll press the lockdown button



I think that's about right. As it starts going up measures will start to try and flatten the curve and push it into the future. My understanding is that's the reason for not doing the lockdown now but waiting.


----------



## LDC (Mar 10, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Cheers, I'd really like to see the detail.



Posted it in the Italy thread ska invita


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Start of the peak. The beginning of the curve upwards.


Yup.


> The start of the UK peak of the coronavirus epidemic is expected within the next fortnight, England’s deputy chief medical officer has said.


Of course you really want to start serious measures _before_ that.


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 10, 2020)

If they close the schools I can't go to the one I clean for money and clean it (for money). Coronavirus dipping my pockets now.


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 10, 2020)

Given the way things have gone so far...at a rate of 30% increase daily and fatalities at the current 1.5%, by the end of March we're looking at over 78,000 cases and over 1100 deaths. Obviously a lot might alter those numbers but it's not the blah blah jokey joke it was a month ago, is it


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

It wasnt a blah blah joke to everyone on December 31st or January 20th, let alone on February 10th.


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

> In a move similar to that announced in Italy, UK taxpayer-owned bank RBS will allow people affected by the coronavirus outbreak to defer mortgage and loan repayments for up to three months.
> 
> The bank, which runs the RBS, NatWest, and Ulster Bank brands, also said savers could close fixed-term savings accounts early with no charge.
> 
> This is designed to allow people to access cash if they need it as the impact of the virus is felt.



from BBC live updates page at 12:50 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-asia-51811969


----------



## treelover (Mar 10, 2020)

Not sure where else to put this, but i am getting very worried, not just about contracting Covid, but what i can see is a lack of preparation for disabled and sick people, all slots for tesco delivery are booked next couple of days, the help lines are jammed and long wating times, already i have carers who are saying they wont be working for me much longer, this is before it gets severe, also wondering what happens if ISP's are affected, the internet is essentail for DASP.

just looked online, hardly any pasta at tescos


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## chilango (Mar 10, 2020)

I wonder, especially as we approach the two week Easter holidays, if - should things escalate further - we'll see a default "self-managed" lock down of schools preempting any Government announcement.

1) I suspect we'll see significant numbers of parents keeping their children home. I know of one example where after a case was diagnosed in a nearby school dozens of (extra) children were absent from school the following day with unspecified minor illnesses.

2) I know the Government and School leaders have talked of how to run schools if a % of staff are off...but the reality is the moment any gets it the rest of the school will be self-isolating anyway.


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## andysays (Mar 10, 2020)

A sixth death reported by BBC


----------



## 8ball (Mar 10, 2020)

sihhi said:


> Honestly the numbers now will seem like a puddle compared to the torrents later.



Yes, I am trying to get that across to the team.

The spread here is roughly half the Italian rate, meaning if we follow their tactics, we would still not be locked down (quite) by end of month.  That’s a lot of assuming, though, and I expect us to be sunk on ticket sales anyway (they tend to come through about now).

Feel bad for the guys who have been working really hard on it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 10, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Not to turn the thread into a maths discussion but here are the figures for Italy on a daily basis (this is the time being used on which the exponential growth calculation would be based) since the first death. It might be me but I do not see except for the first 4 days any pattern of exponential growth ie the growth is not increasing at a constant rate whatever that might be (I am aware it does not have to be double but initially here it was) - for the first 4 days it was doubling so exponential  - but then the total went up by 4/8 followed by 5/12, 5/17, 2/11 etc.....so considering this data on a daily basis I cannot see how the growth is exponential but then as someone said maths was a long time ago and i have forgotten most of it. Given this is a medical outbreak though it would be very odd if it was exponential growth.
> 
> 
> Date21​22​23​24​25​26​27​28​29​1​2​3​4​5​6​7​8​9​Nos of deaths1​1​2​4​4​5​5​4​8​11​11​27​22​47​49​36​133​97​Total1​2​4​8​12​17​22​26​34​45​56​83​105​152​201​237​370​467​


Given the relatively small numbers involved, there's going to be a fair bit of variation in the daily number while still fitting the overall pattern. Taking groups of four days, you have:

8 ...  18 ...  57 ... 154 ... then 231 for just first two days of last period, being conservative, double that to make 462

The underlying pattern there would appear to be about a tripling of deaths every four days, so yes, exponential growth.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 10, 2020)

treelover said:


> just looked online, hardly any pasta at tescos



What is it with bog roll and pasta?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 10, 2020)

8ball said:


> What is it with bog roll and pasta?


Pasta keeps. Bog roll for sneezes


----------



## killer b (Mar 10, 2020)

8ball said:


> What is it with bog roll and pasta?


everyone heard bog roll and pasta were in short supply, so they bought extra


----------



## Numbers (Mar 10, 2020)

Usual 2pm update of numbers delayed.


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## 8ball (Mar 10, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Usual 2pm update of numbers delayed.



No more cases, I expect.
Panic over.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 10, 2020)

8ball said:


> No more cases, I expect.
> Panic over.


I’ll fill in as today’s Numbers until the official release.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 10, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I’ll fill in as today’s Numbers until the official release.



1,978?!??


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 10, 2020)

*Number of cases*

As of 9am on 10 March 2020, 26,261 people have been tested in the UK, of which 25,888 were confirmed negative and 373 were confirmed as positive. Six patients who tested positive for COVID-19 have died.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 10, 2020)

*Cases identified in England*
Change between chart and table


NHS regionCasesEast of England29London91Midlands36North East and Yorkshire24North West37South East51South West41To be determined15Total324


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 10, 2020)

Coronavirus sufferers symptom-free for five days on average – study
					

Findings suggest the 14-day quarantine period used around world strikes a good balance




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 10, 2020)

Fewer than I expected. Thought we might hit 400-415 today.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 10, 2020)

About 17%


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Given the way things have gone so far...at a rate of 30% increase daily and fatalities at the current 1.5%, by the end of March we're looking at over 78,000 cases and over 1100 deaths. Obviously a lot might alter those numbers but it's not the blah blah jokey joke it was a month ago, is it



But, we are not seeing a 30% increase daily, yesterday it went from 273 to 319 cases, today it went from 319 to 373 - both around the 17%.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, we are not seeing a 30% increase daily, yesterday it went from 273 to 319 cases, today it went from 319 to 373 - both around the 17%.


At that rate it's 10,000 by the end of March.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> At that rate it's 10,000 by the end of March.


Thing is we can't have much certainty about future rates. People have already changed their behaviour since the start of this, and we don't know yet what effect that will have, particularly given that there will be a delay between changing behaviour and its effect coming out in the numbers.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 10, 2020)

Of course. Any predictions come with in-built caveats


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 10, 2020)

those numbers are somewhat reassuring. i keep expecting it to skyrocket at some point, glad we're not there yet.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 10, 2020)

Complacency is a worry...

<edit - not aimed at you, bob - post crossover>


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> At that rate it's 10,000 by the end of March.



Somewhat better than your previous prediction of 78,000, and about where Italy is now.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 10, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> those numbers are somewhat reassuring. i keep expecting it to skyrocket at some point, glad we're not there yet.


We're testing fewer people 😕


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Somewhat better than your previous prediction of 78,000, and about where Italy is now.


I wasn't really predicting, as there's no real way to do so, only really an exercise in what various rates might look like later


----------



## Wilf (Mar 10, 2020)

Must admit, 10 days ago I'd have thought a figure pushing up to 400 would have pushed government into school closures and the rest.


----------



## lazythursday (Mar 10, 2020)

Haven't they said that as of today they are testing everyone attending / in hospital with a respiratory problem? How long does it take for the test results to come in? Because it seems to me this will be the crunch moment - either an enormous surge or a sigh of relief.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 10, 2020)

Are we testing fewer people because fewer people are presenting/requesting?  Or because fewer people can say 'yes I have definitely had contact that conforms with your criteria for testing'? 

How many in London yesterday?  I have it in my head it was 60 but that might have been from days ago.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 10, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Haven't they said that as of today they are testing everyone attending / in hospital with a respiratory problem? How long does it take for the test results to come in? Because it seems to me this will be the crunch moment - either an enormous surge or a sigh of relief.



It was apparently 48 to 36 hours.   Maybe less now if more hospitals are doing the tests onsite now. 

Callie ?


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 10, 2020)

re school closures i think zoe williams has it spot on









						School closures will lay bare the private struggles so many of us endure | Zoe Williams
					

The likely coronavirus response will disrupt family life and show just how many people, young and old, need care, says Guardian columnist Zoe Williams




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## treelover (Mar 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Deputy CMO just announced the UK epidemic peak is likely to start in about 2 weeks.



what levels are they expecting at this peak?


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

Finally starting to see some grumbling in the press about the UK response.









						Coronavirus confusion as NHS helpline gives out wrong advice
					

Travellers returning to UK from Italy told no need to isolate as sixth death announced




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Sensible discussion and debate with differing POV is what the forum is about isn't it? Time, as always will tell, with the outcome and my take is that we will have a new strain of influenza in the human population ie it will become endemic.



If it becomes endemic and seasonal, that doesnt mean it is also going to be incorrectly rebranded as influenza. It is not influenza.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 10, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> re school closures i think zoe williams has it spot on
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It is right, both on the subject of carers and more generally about the general unsustainability of so much of how modern society is set up (even in normal times leading to people's lives being fucked when just some small thing becomes impossible), the pointlessness of GDP as the primary measure of social health, and so on.

Will this change perceptions long term though? Tbh I don't think it will. In six months' time we'll just have all the same bullshit. Any attempt to look at the social conditions will be shunned in the media as "politicising a tragedy".


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

I can imagine various different outcomes, but I have absolutely no sense of which ones will be more likely. There are some interesting possibilities along the lines of demanding something better in exchange for our sacrifices, very unlike what happened with austerity. A big reason that might not happen is people just ending up weary and desperate for a sense of normality. But depending on whats collapsed, that might not be possible anyway, at which point perhaps other priorities could rise up.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 10, 2020)

It is scary to think that I am 42 and have never faced the slightest real national crisis, I mean, nothing that has in any meaningful way disrupted day-to-day life en-masse. Let alone potentially (let's face it, probably) affecting everyone. For weeks.

I don't think we're well set up to deal with this in any way, logistical or psychological.

I'm quite taken with an idea I read on Twitter where someone was saying we cannot hope for anything like real productivity working from home, far better, where possible, for people to do just what it takes to keep things moving for just a few hours a day, a few days a week, and concentrate on looking after our mental and physical needs and our families. Obviously, that's not going to be an option for every worker, but when discussing with my manager (seeing as our job is not critical to anything) I want to suggest we take this approach and not expect 7 hours a day 5 days a week from anyone if it comes to lockdown, which I think she'll be open to.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 10, 2020)

I'm really going


Cloo said:


> It is scary to think that I am 42 and have never faced the slightest real national crisis, I mean, nothing that has in any meaningful way disrupted day-to-day life en-masse. Let alone potentially (let's face it, probably) affecting everyone. For weeks.
> 
> I don't think we're well set up to deal with this in any way, logistical or psychological.
> 
> I'm quite taken with an idea I read on Twitter where someone was saying we cannot hope for anything like real productivity working from home, far better, where possible, for people to do just what it takes to keep things moving for just a few hours a day, a few days a week, and concentrate on looking after our mental and physical needs and our families. Obviously, that's not going to be an option for every worker, but when discussing with my manager (seeing as our job is not critical to anything) I want to suggest we take this approach and not expect 7 hours a day 5 days a week from anyone if it comes to lockdown, which I think she'll be open to.



I didn't have much luck with that with my line manager in our meeting a few minutes ago.    she accused me of panicking when I said we should be facilitating WFH as much as possible asap rather than wait til italageddon or the govt lockdown the whole city,  but is in a panic herself that someone might get one over her by not being as productive as usual.


----------



## clandestino (Mar 10, 2020)

Pessimistic view of what might happen:

The 27 EU leaders are currently taking part in a teleconference summit on the coronavirus outbreak. Their conclusion is that all countries across the EU should go into lockdown to stop the spread of the virus. The UK, having just left the EU and being run by fucking idiots, decides that this needn't apply in this country, and we blunder on regardless. The virus continues to spread in the UK while it slows down in the EU. By the time we realise the EU were right, it's too late. Brexit turns out to be a bigger fuck up than we'd initially feared. 

Doom-mongering, right? It could never pan out like this...


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> but is in a panic herself that someone might get one over her by not being as productive as usual.


She sounds a right charmer.  Cough all over her at every opportunity.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 10, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> She sounds a right charmer.  Cough all over her at every opportunity.



I mean that's not what she said of course.  Something about people not having their usual routine blah blah.  I'm more annoyed because having people WFH as much as possible over the next couple of months is just the socially responsible thing to do.  If I have to come to work I want to share the tube with as few people as possible.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I mean that's not what she said of course.  Something about people not having their usual routine blah blah.  I'm more annoyed because having people WFH as much as possible over the next couple of months is just the socially responsible thing to do.  If I have to come to work I want to share the tube with as few people as possible.


She sounds quite unreasonable though, although she might be getting pressure from above.  I'm the complete opposite - I tell the team if they need to work from home (not just at the moment) for whatever reason to just do it.  We normally do 2/3 days a week at home as a rule anyway, but often 5 where need be.


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> She sounds quite unreasonable though, although she might be getting pressure from above.



Or the pressure could be self-generated, based on what they think expectations are, what they think they are supposed to promote in their role, or just their own personal attitude to work and illness. Large, dramatic shocks are often required to dislodge their thinking from the stale rails of normality.


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

Hopefully gorm will quickly form around the new norm.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 10, 2020)

The local story here is that the owner of Nottingham Forest has a confirmed case of covid-19, and met with the entire team late last week.

So there goes promotion for yet another season.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> The local story here is that the owner of Nottingham Forest has a confirmed case of covid-19, and met with the entire team late last week.
> 
> So there goes promotion for yet another season.



Bright side:  try to see it as delaying the heartache of relegation.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 10, 2020)

I wonder at what stage we just start ourselves avoiding groups of people? Even if the instruction has not yet come down from on high. It isn't just that I would rather not get the virus, more significantly I wouldn't like to be the one that infected others during an incubation period. I usually go to my camera club on a Wednesday, there are between 35 and 45 people there usually, many of them retired, if I don't have it I could catch it, if I do have it I could infect others.


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

The official UK dashboard is live:






						ArcGIS Dashboards
					

ArcGIS Dashboards




					www.arcgis.com


----------



## Supine (Mar 10, 2020)

Uk vs other countries


----------



## Cloo (Mar 10, 2020)

I give the UK max two weeks of lockdown before mass losing of shit, sad to say.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> The official UK dashboard is live:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Seeing how few are infected in my county perhaps my thought in the post above is premature.


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Seeing how few are infected in my county perhaps my thought in the post above is premature.



Confirmed case numbers dont make me complacent, because they may vary very significantly from actual cases.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 10, 2020)

So why is Japan different?


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

weltweit said:


> So why is Japan different?



I'd rather talk about it on a thread that isnt all about the UK.

I posted a similar tweet that also has extra data (number of tests per capita) which may go some way to explaining.            #3,340


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 10, 2020)

Cases in all London boroughs now, apart from Bexley and Newham.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> Or the pressure could be self-generated, based on what they think expectations are, what they think they are supposed to promote in their role, or just their own personal attitude to work and illness. Large, dramatic shocks are often required to dislodge their thinking from the stale rails of normality.


True.  I hope you get something sorted quimcunx


----------



## weltweit (Mar 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> Confirmed case numbers dont make me complacent, because they may vary very significantly from actual cases.


Indeed, we don't know how many people have it. 

In some ways it might be advantageous to get it and recover, (as long as that could be proved by a test) I am not really in a high risk group and if I had the bug, survived and developed immunity then I could help other people without the risk that I could infect them.


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Cases in all London boroughs now, apart from Bexley and Newham.



I suppose I wont make to much of a habit of posting images from the official UK dashboard, but since its new and a novelty...


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 10, 2020)

From the Guardian -

Back here in the *UK*, a school in north-west London has had a Covid-19 case confirmed but health officials have said there’s no need for it to close, nor for any staff or pupils to be put into quarantine, *Kevin Rawlinson* reports.


Hatch End high school has published a letter from its headteacher confirming a person at the school has tested positive, though it did not say whether they are staff or a puil.”


The person was last in school on Friday 6 March. PHE have conducted a risk assessment and advised us that no staff or pupils need to exclude themselves from school.”


A group of pupils and a small number of staff members have been asked to monitor themselves for symptoms, for a period of 14 days (until 20th March). No one in this group has been asked to exclude themselves from school if they are well.”


A note on its website added: “Given the specifics of this case they have determined that a deep clean of the school is not required.”

Wtaf?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I give the UK max two weeks of lockdown before mass losing of shit, sad to say.



I have no faith in the government to make any sensible decisions about the extent or timing of any restrictions, nor to enforce them fairly or effectively. 

If there's a near-total economic shutdown there must be a moratorium on rent payments for the duration, or chaos will ensue. I fear however that if forced to choose between chaos and and telling landlords to take a haircut, the tories will choose chaos.


----------



## killer b (Mar 10, 2020)

Bizarre. Surely they're going to find themselves informally closed tomorrow anyway when half the pupils and staff dont come in?


----------



## two sheds (Mar 10, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Seeing how few are infected in my county perhaps my thought in the post above is premature.



Ta - first map I've seen that's actually useful


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 10, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> re school closures i think zoe williams has it spot on
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I agree that lumping in two months of nationwide school closures with a postponed rugby match is pretty demented.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I have no faith in the government to make any sensible decisions about the extent or timing of any restrictions, nor to enforce them fairly or effectively.
> 
> If there's a near-total economic shutdown there must be a moratorium on rent payments for the duration, or chaos will ensue. I fear however that if forced to choose between chaos and and telling landlords to take a haircut, the tories will choose chaos.


Although at least some UK mortgage lenders have already said they will allow payment holidays - pragmatism may have to take over at some point.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I have no faith in the government to make any sensible decisions about the extent or timing of any restrictions, nor to enforce them fairly or effectively.



Good job the government isn't actually making the decisions here, and leaving it to the Chief Medical Officers & Scientific Officers from across the four nations of the UK, hence the support from the devolved governments & opposition parties.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> Bizarre. Surely they're going to find themselves informally closed tomorrow anyway when half the pupils and staff dont come in?



Staffroom banter gives no indication that this is the case. The two classes I worked with today had zero kids off sick.

e2a: It seems you're referring to a specific school with a known case of the virus. So general anecdotal evidence maybe not that informative. Carry on.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Good job the government isn't actually making the decisions here, and leaving it to the Chief Medical Officers & Scientific Officers from across the four nations of the UK, hence the support from the devolved governments & opposition parties.



Are the chief medical officers going to be handling enforcement of curfews, travel bans etc?


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Good job the government isn't actually making the decisions here, and leaving it to the Chief Medical Officers & Scientific Officers from across the four nations of the UK, hence the support from the devolved governments & opposition parties.


Until the CMOs and CSOs* advise something unpalatable which would upset the tory funders in the City. 

* don't know if there is just one UK CSO or one for each nation.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Are the chief medical officers going to be handling enforcement of curfews, travel bans etc?



And, what has that to do with the price of bread?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 10, 2020)

Argh...bitter sweet new acquaintance made tonight starting at the train station, Denmark Hill by KCH.

Reading some shit from here on my phone, heard a raised voice but couldn't make out exactly what the rant was about. Just knew it was nasty, hairs on arms went up, wrong'un radar etc. Looked down the platform to see a young-ish woman wearing a face mask coming towards me, head down. As she got to me I asked if she was alright. She looked up at me stopped and stepped into the cubby I was standing in and burst into tears.  

Was that guy shouting at you I asked, yes.

Stay here with me, you getting the next train?

I moved round so to block view of her, gave her a tissue and told her I was sorry. I think I made it worse tbh but, after a while she stopped crying and we had a little chat about the virus situation.

She's a PHD research student at Kings, has to get the busy trains most days. Originally from China but from the SW. Her parents are worried but they are okay. She hasn't been home in a year or so and a bit sad that she can't go back for a bit yet.

We continued the chat on the train, including the culture of wearing masks in China because of the pollution and how that differs to here and people are getting paranoid etc. Made it clear I wasn't making excuses for the dickhead, which made her laugh.

She asked me if I was worried about the virus...I explained that I am trying not to worry, not in a risk group. Will see how it goes etc.

She was so grateful. I was grateful I was there.

Got off at the same stop. Said if we get the same train again we'd continue the chat.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 10, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Until the CMOs and CSOs* advise something unpalatable which would upset the tory funders in the City.



Johnson is clearly leaving it up to the experts, knowing full well what a political hot potato it would become otherwise.

He's a cunt, but he's not that daft.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, what has that to do with the price of bread?



I expect we'll see.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 10, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Argh...bitter sweet new acquaintance made tonight starting at the train station, Denmark Hill by KCH.
> 
> Reading some shit from here on my phone, heard a raised voice but couldn't make out exactly what the rant was about. Just knew it was nasty, hairs on arms went up, wrong'un radar etc. Looked down the platform to see a young-ish woman wearing a face mask coming towards me, head down. As she got to me I asked if she was alright. She looked up at me stopped and stepped into the cubby I was standing in and burst into tears.
> 
> ...


Was someone shouting at her based on her being Chinese?


----------



## Numbers (Mar 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Cases in all London boroughs now, apart from Bexley and Newham.


I’m quite surprised, and relieved of course, that Newham has yet to record a case.  Some big hub stations, London City airport, massively diverse demograph etc.

Hopefully stays that way.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 10, 2020)

I thought testing was taking place on contact tracing, is that the case? is that still the case? 

I believe testing is being done on all individuals presenting at hospital with respiratory illness, are they presenting at hospital these days? Anyhow I would expect such testing, but if contact tracing testing is taking place I would feel more reassured by the numbers.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 10, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Argh...bitter sweet new acquaintance made tonight starting at the train station, Denmark Hill by KCH.
> 
> Reading some shit from here on my phone, heard a raised voice but couldn't make out exactly what the rant was about. Just knew it was nasty, hairs on arms went up, wrong'un radar etc. Looked down the platform to see a young-ish woman wearing a face mask coming towards me, head down. As she got to me I asked if she was alright. She looked up at me stopped and stepped into the cubby I was standing in and burst into tears.
> 
> ...


Bitter sweet alright.  Having met you tho’ mate, not many better people for her to have met right then.


----------



## Callie (Mar 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> It was apparently 48 to 36 hours.   Maybe less now if more hospitals are doing the tests onsite now.
> 
> Callie ?


Case criteria samples can/will be processed more urgently than routine screens. It feels slightly off that that is still the case but there you go. I'm sure that will probably change to urgent being when there is significant clinical need.

Rolling out to local labs means we (UK health service) can run more tests but doesn't necessarily mean faster turn around times for the COVID testing. 

The workload will increase massively if all ITU (intensive care unit) patients are being checked and even more drastically increased again if testing all patients with respiratory symptoms. The infrastructure is not there to run all COVID tests as urgent even if more labs are running the tests.

Such a sudden unplanned increase in testing for a specific, new thing is pushing the whole system in places it hasn't really been pushed before (supply chain for example) so interesting times!


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

The authorities arent treating the number of positive cases as though these numbers represent most of the picture, and nor should anyone else. 

The numbers, and the way they trend, are useful in various ways. Les so if you take them literally. Their order of magnitude can be the useful things to watch, not the absolute numbers.

To give a practical example. My own personal risk assessment when going out and about in a particular region right now would not be altered one jot by whether there were currently 0 confirmed cases in that area or 8. Start sticking some 0's on the end of numbers in some areas, and I'd start to pay more attention to what that might indicate.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> He's a cunt, but he's not that daft.


We'll see I suppose.


----------



## sptme (Mar 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Cases in all London boroughs now, apart from Bexley and Newham.


We're too poor to go skiing in Italy


----------



## kebabking (Mar 10, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> We'll see I suppose.



No, we've (so far), already seen - daft as fuck is Trump, who is being a total fuckwit. Johnson is doing as the CMO/CSA's ask - and remember, each of the devolved governments have a CMO and CSA, if Johnson refused to follow the advice given him, Sturgeon would scream to high heaven - there's no love lost there whatsoever.

No, so far, the UK government is doing as the CMO asks/recommends - and in doing so is doing the politically smart thing, and Johnson is, above all else, politically smart.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 10, 2020)

I'm take note sure how this will affect my work.

So much will depend on suppliers and deliveries getting through. I can forsee my actual job (stock control) not being needed. Indeed at the moment I'm not doing part of it (related to online availability) as there is no point. This does tend to happen  around Christmas when we're very busy.

Otherwise I can see my working hours changing to cover shifts etc..


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 10, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Was someone shouting at her based on her being Chinese?



Yes, plus she was wearing  a mask. I purposely didn't ask her to tell me exactly what he had said. I didn't need to. I could hear it was nastiness and I just wanted her to feel safe.


----------



## tommers (Mar 10, 2020)

Lots of companies we work with have cancelled work with us. Won't let people onto their premises. Google have sent everybody home from Thursday.

So the government might not be doing anything but they're making their own arrangements.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 10, 2020)

1st MP to test + ive...


----------



## elbows (Mar 10, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Haven't they said that as of today they are testing everyone attending / in hospital with a respiratory problem? How long does it take for the test results to come in? Because it seems to me this will be the crunch moment - either an enormous surge or a sigh of relief.



Yes the definition for possible cases changed today.



> *2. Case definitions: possible case, as of 10 March 2020*
> *2.1 Patients who meet the following criteria, regardless of epidemiological links*
> 
> requiring admission to hospital
> ...








						[Withdrawn] COVID-19: investigation and initial clinical management of possible cases
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## tommers (Mar 10, 2020)

brogdale said:


> 1st MP to test + ive...



Whoa.


----------



## Dan U (Mar 10, 2020)

Felt sick while signing the bill to make it a notifiable disease apparently

Irony is alive and well


----------



## agricola (Mar 10, 2020)

Dan U said:


> Felt sick while signing the bill to make it a notifiable disease apparently
> 
> Irony is alive and well




first felt ill on Friday
went to constituency surgery on Saturday
whilst being in possession of far better advice than the rest of us are about this


----------



## girasol (Mar 10, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I wonder at what stage we just start ourselves avoiding groups of people? Even if the instruction has not yet come down from on high. It isn't just that I would rather not get the virus, more significantly I wouldn't like to be the one that infected others during an incubation period. I usually go to my camera club on a Wednesday, there are between 35 and 45 people there usually, many of them retired, if I don't have it I could catch it, if I do have it I could infect others.



I avoided going to my regular class on Sunday as I had a cold, in case it turned into the real thing... It didn't. But I don't think people would have liked to have me sneezing and blowing my nose next to them!


----------



## Dan U (Mar 10, 2020)

agricola said:


> first felt ill on Friday
> went to constituency surgery on Saturday
> whilst being in possession of far better advice than the rest of us are about this



Yes, does seem pretty daft that.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 10, 2020)

agricola said:


> first felt ill on Friday
> went to constituency surgery on Saturday
> whilst being in possession of far better advice than the rest of us are about this


Vote winner


----------



## Idris2002 (Mar 10, 2020)

Nadine Dorries is infected, apparently.


----------



## Voley (Mar 10, 2020)

Nadine Dorries has got it now. The Health Minister.


----------



## Sue (Mar 10, 2020)

agricola said:


> first felt ill on Friday
> went to constituency surgery on Saturday
> whilst being in possession of far better advice than the rest of us are about this


TBF, we already knew she was a fuckwit.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 10, 2020)

#MustResistPoorTasteJoke


----------



## fishfinger (Mar 10, 2020)

Voley said:


> Nadine Dorries has got it now. The Health Minister.


I feel sorry for the virus


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Mar 10, 2020)

RESULT!


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Mar 10, 2020)

I do hope she socialised a great deal with many other of her ilk.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 10, 2020)

lol sorry nadine, a cunt of a nurse who has not practiced nursing for years, speaks against abortion, disability and poor. eat shit. inshallah she has infected the clowns running the government.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 10, 2020)

Count Cuckula said:


> RESULT!


Only if she's managed to put BoJo and the cabinet into a 14 day quarantine ... and at least some of them get it


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Mar 10, 2020)

We can only hope that this headline is true


----------



## Cid (Mar 10, 2020)

Count Cuckula said:


> View attachment 201244
> 
> We can only hope that this headline is true



Great time to be advertising reduced price Legoland tickets...


----------



## agricola (Mar 10, 2020)

Count Cuckula said:


> View attachment 201244
> 
> We can only hope that this headline is true



If that is true and they are only testing people who have symptoms (and are treating this "any other standard case"), then you really wonder what on earth they are doing.   If she is infected then they are one or two people away from our head of state, who is in the very highest risk group for this particular virus.  She (Dorries) could have even taken out most of the Cabinet and started on the senior leaders of the armed forces, emergency services and NHS whilst they are expected to provide the national response to this.

Did anyone have Nadine Dorries as the person most likely to wreck the British government in the pool?


----------



## 8ball (Mar 10, 2020)

It's really not especially good to have someone go down with the virus who has had contact with a v large number of people.  A big part of containment measures has been down to tracing contacts and advising them appropriately.

I will, of course, retract this if Trump gets it.  Omelettes, eggs, etc.


----------



## Cid (Mar 10, 2020)

Given Dorries has it, and given the kind of people who go the races... Cheltenham may turn out to have been a very bad idea.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 10, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> #MustResistPoorTasteJoke


TBH, if it wasn't for the reinfection potential with real people I'd be fucking belly laughing.

I'd realised Johnson had brought some bizarre characters into his government, but I'd missed her appointment. Fucking hell, Nadine Dorries!


----------



## MrSki (Mar 11, 2020)

Supposedly the editor in chief of the Lancet but no blue tick.


----------



## keybored (Mar 11, 2020)

agricola said:


> first felt ill on Friday
> went to constituency surgery on Saturday



Not quite Craig David but I reckon we can build on this.


----------



## sptme (Mar 11, 2020)




----------



## Supine (Mar 11, 2020)

UK investment for covid is woeful


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 11, 2020)

The Bank of England has slashed the interest rate from 0.75% to 0.25% to help prop-up the economy, as the virus is already causing a slowdown.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The Bank of England has slashed the interest rate from 0.75% to 0.25% to help prop-up the economy, as the virus is already causing a slowdown.



Priorities of course.


----------



## bimble (Mar 11, 2020)

Just went to nhs website and it is still sending a message of wash your hands but otherwise basically carry on as usual unless you've come back from china, been in close contact with a confirmed case or are told by someone on the helpline to self isolate.
Seems irresponsible to me to not even suggest people avoid crowds if they can help it.

Also criteria for being eligible to be tested seem to remain really narrow.


----------



## magneze (Mar 11, 2020)

Isn't there another Cobra meeting today? Perhaps further guidance will be given after that.


----------



## pesh (Mar 11, 2020)

beginning to think having a Cobra meeting is just a euphemism for going for a curry.


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 11, 2020)

pesh said:


> beginning to think having a Cobra meeting is just a euphemism for going for a curry.



Apparently it started when hungry minister refused to work without takeaway food being delivered and an aide promised "Curry on Boris, right away."


----------



## two sheds (Mar 11, 2020)




----------



## chilango (Mar 11, 2020)

We don't even have cobras in this country. Should change to something more British, like an adder. Or a slow worm.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 11, 2020)

I was going to say there's no adder beer though, but


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 11, 2020)

chilango said:


> We don't even have cobras in this country. Should change to something more British, like an adder. Or a slow worm.


Hobgoblin committee. It's a beer and also a fairly accurate description.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

magneze said:


> Isn't there another Cobra meeting today? Perhaps further guidance will be given after that.



Health secretary due to make a statement at 7pm, I think, I've only just started to look at todays news.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 11, 2020)

Looks like I won't be getting back into raves any time soon


----------



## 8ball (Mar 11, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Looks like I won't be getting back into raves any time soon



You can go to techno nights where everyone is spaced out 3 metres away from one another.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Johnson is clearly leaving it up to the experts, knowing full well what a political hot potato it would become otherwise.
> 
> He's a cunt, but he's not that daft.



I dont think thats the way I'd look at this.

Science and medicine do not operate in a vacuum. Different parts of the political system feed into each other. Science will give different answers depending on what parameters you feed it. The preferences of the government and the PM are parameters that can in theory affect the scientific advice.

There is simply no knowing the extent to which Johnson has influenced the decisions being made. We'd usually only find that out if there was a falling out and someone revealed something in particular.

As it happens, I assume that Johnsons instincts on this matter are not really so far adrift from what the UK establishment would come up with as the favoured approach anyway. But small differences in things like the timing can be important, so I shall just have to wait and see.

I will say that I finally watched Mondays press conference and the press were starting to sound skeptical, and were pressing Boris & the health/science blokes. The phenomenon where people start looking at what other countries are doing (especially countries in europe) and are asking 'why arent we doing that yet?' has begun.

One of the political risks for the government is that even if their strategy works, in terms of delivering effects that were in the range they were aiming for, it might still look like a failure to everyone else. Then all thats required is some small revelation about how Johnson influenced the approach, and a gazillion tonnes of blame will end up on his shoulders.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 11, 2020)

Good article here on the govt's strategy. Very risky. Has all the hallmarks of Cummings.


			Bloomberg - Are you a robot?


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

The other thing that could go wrong for them is that they may be aiming to have an intense period of more draconian measures, but are planning to leave this quite late. The political risk is that this wont seem like a planned step when it happens, it will look more like they did far too little for too long, and then had to u-turn suddenly while under mounting pressure.


----------



## Cid (Mar 11, 2020)

Just got a text from my GP saying they’re stopping walk-in services.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 11, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> Good article here on the govt's strategy. Very risky. Has all the hallmarks of Cummings.
> 
> 
> Bloomberg - Are you a robot?



Nah, it's not Cummings' lot - it's the Behavioural Insights unit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 11, 2020)

Well, ATM, both the Labour Party & the SNP are backing the government's overall action.

Not heard anything for the LibDems. [who?]


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 11, 2020)

8ball said:


> You can go to techno nights where everyone is spaced out 3 metres away from one another.


Eh?


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 11, 2020)

clandestino said:


> Pessimistic view of what might happen:
> 
> The 27 EU leaders are currently taking part in a teleconference summit on the coronavirus outbreak. Their conclusion is that all countries across the EU should go into lockdown to stop the spread of the virus. The UK, having just left the EU and being run by fucking idiots, decides that this needn't apply in this country, and we blunder on regardless. The virus continues to spread in the UK while it slows down in the EU. By the time we realise the EU were right, it's too late. Brexit turns out to be a bigger fuck up than we'd initially feared.
> 
> Doom-mongering, right?


i think you're being overly optimistic


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 11, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Looks like I won't be getting back into raves any time soon


I hope you’ve started washing again


----------



## 8ball (Mar 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Eh?



3 metres is likely to be safe.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 11, 2020)

Supine said:


> UK investment for covid is woeful



it's all the money from boris johnson's piggy bank


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 11, 2020)

8ball said:


> 3 metres is likely to be safe.


No, why do you seem to think people keep their distances at techno parties?


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, ATM, both the Labour Party & the SNP are backing the government's overall action.
> 
> Not heard anything for the LibDems. [who?]



It is normal for oppoisition parties to mind their public sentiments during national emergencies. They will use the standard template language about how great and professional the chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser are. About how they will support the government in keeping people safe, about how this is not the time for partisan party politics. But that wont stop them making quiet and careful criticisms at the same time, about the timing of the response, or some other details. Chances that they will not resist pointing out what austerity has done, what it means for our response and the most vulnerable. But there will probably periods where they are relatively quiet about that, they will want to pick their moment. The press wont be so timid, though again there are moments when dissent might be considered an unaffordable luxury and they will fall into line. That wont last, and then we will get to see the political ramifications play out.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> No, why do you seem to think people keep their distances at techno parties?



Obviously not _all_ of them.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 11, 2020)

8ball said:


> Obviously not _all_ of them.


None of them


----------



## 8ball (Mar 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> None of them



'Not all' and 'none' are different.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> The other thing that could go wrong for them is that they may be aiming to have an intense period of more draconian measures, but are planning to leave this quite late. The political risk is that this wont seem like a planned step when it happens, it will look more like they did far too little for too long, and then had to u-turn suddenly while under mounting pressure.


Johnson  said,  not unreasonably,  that to start on a hard lockdown too soon would risk making it too long to be really sustainable and harder to enforce. Honestly it's probably mostly a guessing game of when and how long. What I gather now is that potential lockdown is not intended as 'until this thing goes away and no one gets it', but 'until most usual winter NHS strain has passed and it can cope with masses of cases' (and presumably has got more breathing equipment in?)


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 11, 2020)

8ball said:


> Nah, it's not Cummings' lot - it's the Behavioural Insights unit.


I know who is responsible for the policy but the decision to use a policy from the Nudge Unit and not copy say, Italy's strategy, has the hallmarks of Cummings, IMO.


----------



## MrCurry (Mar 11, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> Good article here on the govt's strategy. Very risky. Has all the hallmarks of Cummings.
> 
> 
> Bloomberg - Are you a robot?



Everything they’re doing (or rather not doing) has a reason (excuse) attached to it in that article. Someone has carefully crafted a narrative to make it all look justifiable, then fed that to the press.

I want to believe it, but then I remember who is in government and I suddenly feel much more afraid.  I do wonder how much the perceived benefits of “getting this thing done with” have swayed the decision making, especially with the ticking clock of the end of the Brexit transition period to think about.

“A Britain which has weathered the storm, terrible though it was, but has come out the other side and is now ready for business again, even while other nations continue to bear the brunt of their prolonged epidemics....”  You can almost hear Boris tub-thumping about it later in the year


----------



## 8ball (Mar 11, 2020)

MrCurry said:


> “A Britain which has weathered the storm, terrible though it was, but has come out the other side and is now ready for business again, even while other nations continue to bear the brunt of their prolonged epidemics....”  You can almost hear Boris tub-thumping about it later in the year



Slightly sceptical, but this last bit has a ring of plausibility to it.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 11, 2020)

Just seen my first mask in real life. In Manchester. Asian.

Lots of cunts coughing and sneezing on the tram without even using their hands to catch it never mind their elbows.

I think I'm done with public transport for a bit.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I hope you’ve started washing again


Now on ignore - BYE.


----------



## NoXion (Mar 11, 2020)

I stand by my stance that Covid-19 is not the 1918 Flu 2.0 - but my overall impression is that the government response to this has been piss-poor. Only £46 million to fight this novel disease? Fuck. Off.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

MrCurry said:


> Everything they’re doing (or rather not doing) has a reason (excuse) attached to it in that article. Someone has carefully crafted a narrative to make it all look justifiable, then fed that to the press.
> 
> I want to believe it, but then I remember who is in government and I suddenly feel much more afraid.  I do wonder how much the perceived benefits of “getting this thing done with” have swayed the decision making, especially with the ticking clock of the end of the Brexit transition period to think about.
> 
> “A Britain which has weathered the storm, terrible though it was, but has come out the other side and is now ready for business again, even while other nations continue to bear the brunt of their prolonged epidemics....”  You can almost hear Boris tub-thumping about it later in the year



Regarding the 'carefully crafted narrative', actually there is a logic to it that requires no government spin to grasp. For example I was rambling on in certain posts about the theory and the timing of the strategy. I based what I said on what I had learnt in the past, and stuff that not-UK-specific scientists has been talking about online(well before the detail of UK approach was revealed). Someone here commented that what I'd said was very similar to what Whitty had been saying, and sure enough when I checked, it was.

The thing about their approach that I'm struggling to match with your expectations is that the UK strategy is not supposed to get the whole thing out of the way quickly, its to drag out the first epidemic wave so that it lasts longer, but with a much lower peak. In theory there could be a point reached that involves the sort of tub-thumping you describe, but it would be much further down the road. And it would only really work if our country was being compared to a country that had fairly successfully 'kept the virus out/prevented an epidemic wave', with the side effect that their countries population would not have built any herd immunity, and were still just as vulnerable to an epidemic from fresh imported cases as ever.

There is another problem with the article that is being discussed. It doesnt acknowledge that the UK governments plan does include far more draconian measure to be unleashed at some stage. They havent decided never to do any of that stuff, its more a question of timing. They might fuck the timing up totally, in which case they will deservedly be skewered. The draconian period might resemble a massive u-turn while under intense pressure, even though it was actually part of the plan. So there are many political landmines waiting to go off.

Timing is certainly something I could criticise. I spent a fair amount of time in February going on about all the issues with when and who countries will decide to test (seek and you shall find), and various sorts of lag. But as far as UK-specific dodgy timing, some of the timescales they have been coming out with recently seemed a bit off to me. eg hoping to get through the whole of March before moving to another phase. And all the talk of trying to delay the first epidemic peak till 'the summer'. Hmmm, maybe, sort of, if you start blending phases rather than making no changes and suddenly switching phase and response one day, and if your definition of summer isnt really summer at all, but rather just past the period when winter seasonal influenza-like-illnesses have fallen away.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 11, 2020)

NoXion said:


> I stand by my stance that Covid-19 is not the 1918 Flu 2.0 - but my overall impression is that the government response to this has been piss-poor. Only £46 million to fight this novel disease? Fuck. Off.



They have just announced a £30bn programme to protect the country from the coronavirus, including £5bn emergency funding for the NHS, and more if required. .


----------



## Numbers (Mar 11, 2020)

Numbers at 456 now.

+ decrease in testing for 4th day in a row.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Johnson  said,  not unreasonably,  that to start on a hard lockdown too soon would risk making it too long to be really sustainable and harder to enforce. Honestly it's probably mostly a guessing game of when and how long. What I gather now is that potential lockdown is not intended as 'until this thing goes away and no one gets it', but 'until most usual winter NHS strain has passed and it can cope with masses of cases' (and presumably has got more breathing equipment in?)



Yeah. And unfortunately similar discussion is going on in two threads at the same time today, I will try to resist urge to repeat everything I just said in the other thread here, but it is a good match for what you are talking about.

But yeah, one of the problems they have when communicating their strategy is that the logic of the strategy does involve lots of the population ending up infected, because without the usual things like vaccines, thats the only way to actually start to build some herd immunity in this country. Otherwise, if you instead avoid an epidemic completely but the virus is still elsewhere, waiting to be reimported into the uk, then you are still just as threatened by an epidemic as you were in the first place, but with less energy/resources/will.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 11, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Numbers at 456 now.
> 
> + decrease in testing for 4th day in a row.


That decrease in testing seems a bit crazy. Heard from a friend today that someone she knew with all the symptoms of coronavirus couldn't get tested because she'd not (knowingly) been in contact with anyone with it. The doctor even said it might be coronavirus, but in her age range she'd be fine, but no, it wasn't possible to test. Seems nuts to me. Can anyone fathom the logic of that?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 11, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> That decrease in testing seems a bit crazy. Heard from a friend today that someone she knew with all the symptoms of coronavirus couldn't get tested because she'd not (knowingly) been in contact with anyone with it. The doctor even said it might be coronavirus, but in her age range she'd be fine, but no, it wasn't possible to test. Seems nuts to me. Can anyone fathom the logic of that?



Doesn't make sense, considering yesterday's announcement.



> With the number of UK coronavirus cases set to rise, NHS England says it is scaling up its capacity for testing people for the infection.
> 
> It means 10,000 tests a day can be done - 8,000 more than the 1,500 being carried out currently.
> 
> ...


----------



## Supine (Mar 11, 2020)

Logistical issues with getting test availability would be my guess


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 11, 2020)

MrCurry said:


> <snip>
> “A Britain which has weathered the storm, terrible though it was, but has come out the other side and is now ready for business again, even while other nations continue to bear the brunt of their prolonged epidemics....”  You can almost hear Boris tub-thumping about it later in the year
> <snip>


Just transpose USA for Britain and Trump for Bojo in there ... sounds somewhat familiar ...


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> That decrease in testing seems a bit crazy. Heard from a friend today that someone she knew with all the symptoms of coronavirus couldn't get tested because she'd not (knowingly) been in contact with anyone with it. The doctor even said it might be coronavirus, but in her age range she'd be fine, but no, it wasn't possible to test. Seems nuts to me. Can anyone fathom the logic of that?



They gradually increase the criteria for suspecting cases, and thus who can be tested.

To start with you needed the right travel history, or the right contact with a confirmed case.
Then the travel history bit broadened to include more locations.
Then they started testing hospitalised pneumonia cases, and activated broader testing & surveillance in 100 GPs surgeries/clinics.
Most recently, yesterday, they broadened the criteria for suspecting a case, so that anyone with any influenza-like-illness symptoms who was ill enough to be hospitalised can be tested.

I'm not defending the timing of these things, I spent a good deal of February moaning about this sort of thing, and how it is the norm (eg same sort of thing happened with swine flu). Although part of the reason it does peoples heads in and seems crazy is that people are given a misleading impression about what the actual mission is at these early stages. They were not trying hard to catch every case. They wanted enough data to build an estimate of the actual picture, and they wanted 100+ cases early on that they could study from a clinical point of view.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 11, 2020)

8ball said:


> 'Not all' and 'none' are different.


Yes, I’m aware of that. Just confused how you got the idea that there are any clubs, let alone techno clubs, where people dance like that


----------



## 8ball (Mar 11, 2020)

elbows - re: herd immunity- I was under the impression any post-infection immunity was v. limited and ropey


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 11, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Now on ignore - BYE.


It was a serious comment


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 11, 2020)

8ball said:


> elbows - re: herd immunity- I was under the impression any post-infection immunity was v. limited and ropey



I've seen a handful of reports about people getting it, then testing negative, but later testing positive again, but they have tended to suggest the most likely reason was faults in testing, and that they hadn't actually recovered in the first place.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 11, 2020)

Interesting piece here:



> A small study out of China suggests that the new coronavirus can persist in the body for at least two weeks after symptoms of the disease clear up.
> 
> This sort of persistence isn't unheard of among viruses, experts told Live Science, and thankfully, the patients are most likely not very contagious in the post-symptom period. The findings may even be good news, said Krys Johnson, an epidemiologist at Temple University's College of Public Health. The viruses that tend to hang around in people's systems also tend to be the viruses that the body develops a strong immune response against.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

8ball said:


> elbows - re: herd immunity- I was under the impression any post-infection immunity was v. limited and ropey



Yes, it doesnt sound too promising.

However, I believe that even some moderate and not terribly long lasting immunity would start to make a difference to epidemic modelling. And I expect they would much prefer to be facing next winter after a large chunk of the country has had this coronavirus, than without.

It would be unwise of me to get ahead of things with this topic though, just too many unknowns, and we dont know at exactly what stage pharmaceutical interventions will begin (other than not soon at all).


----------



## andysays (Mar 11, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Johnson  said,  not unreasonably,  that to start on a hard lockdown too soon would risk making it too long to be really sustainable and harder to enforce. Honestly it's probably mostly a guessing game of when and how long. What I gather now is that potential lockdown is not intended as 'until this thing goes away and no one gets it', but 'until most usual winter NHS strain has passed and it can cope with masses of cases' (and presumably has got more breathing equipment in?)


It's one thing not to want to start a hard lockdown too soon, but quite another to basically do nothing other than urge people to wash their hands.

There are many "social distancing" measures which could have been promptly introduced before getting to the hard lockdown which is likely to become necessary sooner than it otherwise might, had more decisive measures been taken earlier


----------



## hegley (Mar 11, 2020)

andysays said:


> It's one thing not to want to start a hard lockdown too soon, but quite another to basically do nothing other than urge people to wash their hands.
> 
> There are many "social distancing" measures which could have been promptly introduced before getting to the hard lockdown which is likely to become necessary sooner than it otherwise might, had more decisive measures been taken earlier


Graph re effects with/without social distancing in this article:


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 11, 2020)

Is there another Cobra meeting today?


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Is there another Cobra meeting today?



I think so, unless I have got my days confused. I expect something to be announced this evening (maybe Hancock 7pm thing)


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> I think so, unless I have got my days confusd. I expect something to be announced this evening (maybe Hancock 7pm thing)


Thanks  I thought so but wondered if the budget might have effected things.


----------



## andysays (Mar 11, 2020)

No mention of COBRA on the BBC, but does have this



> The UK is currently in the "contain" phase of its four-part plan to deal with coronavirus. Health Secretary Matt Hancock is due to give a statement to MPs later.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> They gradually increase the criteria for suspecting cases, and thus who can be tested.
> 
> To start with you needed the right travel history, or the right contact with a confirmed case.
> Then the travel history bit broadened to include more locations.
> ...


There's the testing of those who have the symptoms, traveled from X and the rest. However I haven't heard about any 'random focused' testing i.e. testing of a-symptomatic individuals in wider communities, areas and demographics to get a sense of underlying patterns of transmission.

Edit: meant to say, am I right in thinking those kind of studies don't seem to be taking place?


----------



## prunus (Mar 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> They gradually increase the criteria for suspecting cases, and thus who can be tested.
> 
> To start with you needed the right travel history, or the right contact with a confirmed case.
> Then the travel history bit broadened to include more locations.
> ...



A potential problem with this approach, I think, is that we’re going to get a more than necessarily scary fatality rate, if we skew the population we test towards people ill enough to require hospitalisation. I understand of course that it’s a resource management game, and also a data manipulation one, and certainly with sub sampling and so on we (they) will be able to extrapolate the ‘invisible’ case number and have an estimate of the true CFR, however this may end up with them saying it’s still under 1% or whatever, while the numbers they publish are going to show 2% or more, which is going to be increasingly difficult to spin. Maybe.  Am I wrong?


----------



## 8ball (Mar 11, 2020)

prunus said:


> ...however this may end up with them saying it’s still under 1% or whatever, while the numbers they publish are going to show 2% or more, which is going to be increasingly difficult to spin. Maybe.  Am I wrong?



Will certainly be loon-fodder.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They have just announced a £30bn programme to protect the country economy from the coronavirus


FTFY


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 11, 2020)

UK dashboard has been updated btw: Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

prunus said:


> A potential problem with this approach, I think, is that we’re going to get a more than necessarily scary fatality rate, if we skew the population we test towards people ill enough to require hospitalisation. I understand of course that it’s a resource management game, and also a data manipulation one, and certainly with sub sampling and so on we (they) will be able to extrapolate the ‘invisible’ case number and have an estimate of the true CFR, however this may end up with them saying it’s still under 1% or whatever, while the numbers they publish are going to show 2% or more, which is going to be increasingly difficult to spin. Maybe.  Am I wrong?



Its always an issue, its why I have been very hesitant to make much of all sorts of data out of all sorts of countries so far.

I dont have a clue what sort of scale of actual testing they plan to do in the next phase, it might be a question of resources. Certainly with the swine flu, once the first epidemic wave had clearly got going, they switched to a different approach towards cases, less about actual test results and more about estimates, sampling, and counting general presentations of influenza-like-illness. One of the reasons they could do that is that it was July, so they didnt have to worry as much about other influenza-like-illnesses clouding the picture.

Whatever they manage in the way of actual tests, I expect they will still want to do broad serology surveys of the population at some point, to get a sense what proportion of the public have caught it in the first wave.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

Wilf said:


> There's the testing of those who have the symptoms, traveled from X and the rest. However I haven't heard about any 'random focused' testing i.e. testing of a-symptomatic individuals in wider communities, areas and demographics to get a sense of underlying patterns of transmission.
> 
> Edit: meant to say, am I right in thinking those kind of studies don't seem to be taking place?



Current test doesnt even necessarily work that well when people are in an asymptomatic phase, this is one of the unknowns.

And it's not been all that long since they even started to sample influenza-like-illness symptomatic cases that went to one of the 100 GP surgeries/clinics that are part of the surveillance scheme. 

If I had designed the system then I'd have routine random sampling built in at all times, and certainly from the start of this situation, but thats just not the way most countries seem to do it, they all start with the narrowest possible testing, and then slowly expand.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Current test doesnt even necessarily work that well when people are in an asymptomatic phase, this is one of the unknowns.
> 
> And it's not been all that long since they even started to sample influenza-like-illness symptomatic cases that went to one of the 100 GP surgeries/clinics that are part of the surveillance scheme.
> 
> If I had designed the system then I'd have routine random sampling built in at all times, and certainly from the start of this situation, but thats just not the way most countries seem to do it, they all start with the narrowest possible testing, and then slowly expand.


And that seems to create a political logic, that Johnson is currently slap bang in the middle of: 'we are watching, waiting and testing, sounding all adult but doing very little... eventually the real world takes over, the virus spreads and they have to spend all the money and lock things down... they then discover the true number of infections, as a post hoc justification for having to ramp things up'.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 11, 2020)

First two cases in my county, allegedly at a school near me but not my school.

Close down edging nearer.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 11, 2020)

They're popping up around me.  I'm fairly resigned to getting it now.  Hoping to i) not die and ii) get some decent antibodies.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 11, 2020)

Still clear here in Newham, but a guy in the building I work was sent home today.


----------



## andysays (Mar 11, 2020)

Regarding testing

Coronavirus : NHS to ramp up testing capacity



> With the number of UK coronavirus cases set to rise, NHS England says it is scaling up its capacity for testing people for the infection. It means 10,000 tests a day can be done - 8,000 more than the 1,500 being carried out currently.





> Confirmation of any positive test results will be accelerated, helping people take the right action to recover or quickly get treatment. Most of the people tested should get a result back within 24 hours.


----------



## Callie (Mar 11, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Numbers at 456 now.
> 
> + decrease in testing for 4th day in a row.


where did you get that there has been a decrease in testing from? I think its quite the opposite.


----------



## Callie (Mar 11, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> That decrease in testing seems a bit crazy. Heard from a friend today that someone she knew with all the symptoms of coronavirus couldn't get tested because she'd not (knowingly) been in contact with anyone with it. The doctor even said it might be coronavirus, but in her age range she'd be fine, but no, it wasn't possible to test. Seems nuts to me. Can anyone fathom the logic of that?


Capacity.

it is just not physically possible to test everyone who might have it


----------



## Numbers (Mar 11, 2020)

Callie said:


> where did you get that there has been a decrease in testing from? I think its quite the opposite.


Gov UK twitter page.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

I dont know how much energy I have to carry on complaining about the testing regime since I already said so much about the topic in February, but here is some via the Guardian: 1h ago 17:48



> A retired intensive care doctor claims the government plans to increase coronavirus testing are “way too late” after he and his friends were repeatedly refused test despite falling ill following an Austrian skiing trip.
> Six of the group, from Chichester, suffered severe flu-like symptoms after a trip to Ischgl in Austria, earlier this month, he said. The resort is classed as a virus risk area by some countries, including Iceland and Norway, but not the UK. As a result all of the group have been denied tests by the NHS 111 service. It has also closed bars as a precaution.
> The 55 year-year-old former doctor, who gave his name only as Andrew, said he had also fallen ill at an earlier trip to the same resort in January:I’ve never been so ill. I was hoping they would just test me anyway and to prove I’ve had it. My friends have all phoned NHS 111 and they’ve all been told several times that as they haven’t been to an at risk area they can’t be tested and they should even self isolate.





> These people are saying they are as ill as they’ve ever been, and they still can’t do a test.
> The reason we’ve got relatively low numbers in this country at the moment is because they’re only been testing about 1,500 a day. I think the infection has been widespread for a month now.
> They may be upping the testing but they haven’t put Ischgl on a high risk list, despite knowing about this for days. It is a massive cluster. Six of us have been back in Chichester going about their daily life. I suspect we’ll find a big cluster in Chichester two weeks.
> The increase in testing is way too late. I think it was obvious six weeks ago that we should have been doing surveillance screening. Lives are at risk here.


----------



## agricola (Mar 11, 2020)

Callie said:


> Capacity.
> 
> it is just not physically possible to test everyone who might have it



This - but that is why the government (and media, though they are adopting the government line here) should really stop putting the emphasis on numbers of confirmed cases / deaths as evidence of how serious this outbreak is; its giving people information about the spread of the disease that is both days out of date and misleading since its based on what is a really small and rigorously enforced sample selection.


----------



## Callie (Mar 11, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Gov UK twitter page.


cant see anything but their running at 60 tweets and replies a minute  anyway its WRONG. The actual PHE labs will be testing fewer samples though as testing rolls out to more local labs so maybe it was that but testing overall has increased for definite. I think it will be difficult to give actual numbers of tests once that is fully up and running.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> A case has been detected in the intensive care unit at my local hospital (a hospital which often features high on the list of hospitals with serious issues):
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The case from this hospital is one of todays deaths 



> Dr Catherine Free, the medical director at George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust has said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



                            5m ago    18:49


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> Just got a text from my GP saying they’re stopping walk-in services.


They’ve started drive-through testing here apparently. Unless that was a dream I had. Maybe it was a dream. It suddenly looked mad when I typed it out.


----------



## killer b (Mar 11, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> They’ve started drive-through testing here apparently. Unless that was a dream I had. Maybe it was a dream. It suddenly looked mad when I typed it out.


Edie mentioned they're doing it in leeds, so it's probably real.


----------



## killer b (Mar 11, 2020)

(it's also one of the ways South Korea has managed to get on top of their outbreak, so probably a good idea too)


----------



## two sheds (Mar 11, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> They’ve started drive-through testing here apparently. Unless that was a dream I had. Maybe it was a dream. It suddenly looked mad when I typed it out.



I dreamed that I met Nadine Dorries in a queue in a shop last night. Under questioning she assured me (several times) that she'd not infected Boris but I didn't really believe her.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Is there another Cobra meeting today?



It was chaired by Hancock and his 7pm statement in parliament was mostly about how parliament will not be shut down.

He may as well have started going on about how he had a Laissez-faire doom sausage in his pocket.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

Shadow Health Secretary is quoting the bloke in the Lancet who has been critical of the UK stance.


----------



## Sue (Mar 11, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I dreamed that I met Nadine Dorries in a queue in a shop last night. Under questioning she assured me (several times) *that she'd not infected Boris* but I didn't really believe her.


Wishful thinking..?

Eta That makes absolutely no sense. All I can say is that it's been a very long day.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 11, 2020)

Sue said:


> Wishful thinking..?



On her part perhaps


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

Hancock just gave a very shitty answer that was all about pretending that we are following some kind of perfect monolithic science, and suggests some other countries response is different because they arent following the science.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

Oh god now a Tory MP brought up the Big Society.

Jeremy Hunt was the voice of reason for one brief moment, strange times indeed.

Hancock sticking to the idea that asymptomatic transmission isnt a big thing, so no problem with MPs cramming into the voting lobbies, as long as they dont come into parliament if they have symptoms.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Gov UK twitter page.



Greg Clark, Chair, Science & Technology Committee just raised this issue of test numbers in parliament, pointing out the slight drop, and how the WHO China report went on about how important testing was.

Hancock gave a fluff answer.


----------



## tommers (Mar 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh god now a Tory MP brought up the Big Society.
> 
> Jeremy Hunt was the voice of reason for one brief moment, strange times indeed.
> 
> Hancock sticking to the idea that asymptomatic transmission isnt a big thing, so no problem with MPs cramming into the voting lobbies, as long as they dont come into parliament if they have symptoms.



Good good.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 11, 2020)

God that debate is fucking dire.  Hancock is such a cock.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> God that debate is fucking dire.  Hancock is such a cock.



Inevitably with a subject like this he occasionally says something that I agree with and have said on this forum, it makes me cringe!


----------



## PD58 (Mar 11, 2020)

After a reasonably clear opening statement from Hancock - subsequent responses to MPs points from all sides are framed in 'guided by the science' terms and are so vague to be meaningless...you wonder what has been discussed today. Emergency Bill next week so still not seen as that urgent...interesting.

Edit
Hancock is getting worse as the debate proceeds....


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2020)

And now he claims the science does involve looking at what every other country is doing every day as well.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 11, 2020)

Same journey home tonight , just a tad earlier. Noted more people with face masks on in Lewisham when I got off the train. All youngish women, various ethnicities.


----------



## phillm (Mar 11, 2020)

Richard Horton, the editor-in-chief at the prestigious Lancet medical journal, accused the Government of playing roulette with the lives of Britons


----------



## Numbers (Mar 11, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Same journey home tonight , just a tad earlier. Noted more people with face masks on in Lewisham when I got off the train. All youngish women, various ethnicities.


I’ve seen 2 people with masks in the last cpl of weeks, and here in Newham we’re still virus free on the Gov statistics.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 11, 2020)

I think we have to shut shit down NOW.


----------



## hegley (Mar 11, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> They’ve started drive-through testing here apparently. Unless that was a dream I had. Maybe it was a dream. It suddenly looked mad when I typed it out.


They've definitely started it in Fife.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 11, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Same age bracket as Corbyn and Saunders



Trump as well though he seems to have the energy of a 25yr old tbf.


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 11, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Trump as well though he seems to have the energy of a 25yr old tbf.



He seems energetic during public appearances because he takes Adderall before making speeches - the rest of his existence seems to be a slothful one, mostly spent watching TV - his only "exercise" is golfing, where he drives a golf cart all over the greens instead of walking anywhere because he owns the golf course and can do what he wants.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 11, 2020)

Chatting at work today and with my partner. Im in London.

The City is emptier than usual. Have friend who is a Personal Trainer in a City gym and less people are coming.

I think a lot of City people are working from home. If you have job in financial sector you can still do a lot on internet at home.

For a lot of us who do manual work of one kind or another working from home is not an option. Staying at home isn't an option either.

Bills have to be paid.

Met a lorry driver from Italy today. He said the same. Can't just stay in Italy earning no money. I totally sympathise with him.

An enforced lockdown will affect the less well off. I dont see how it can work for people like me and my workmates.


----------



## nogojones (Mar 11, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> He seems energetic during public appearances because he takes Adderall before making speeches


You don't happen to have a source for that?

His use of, not where I can get some.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 11, 2020)

I think Chilango mentioned this too, but looking at the calendar today im wondering if they're hoping to dovetail a degree of lockdown with the easter school holiday: 4th - 19th April.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 11, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I think Chilango mentioned this too, but looking at the calendar today im wondering if they're hoping to dovetail a degree of lockdown with the easter school holiday: 4th - 19th April.



Way too late. Now is too late probably.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 11, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I think Chilango mentioned this too, but looking at the calendar today im wondering if they're hoping to dovetail a degree of lockdown with the easter school holiday: 4th - 19th April.


Me and Mrs SI have said the same (we both work at the same college). That would mean closing on Fri March 20th.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 11, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Way too late. Now is too late probably.


Oh I agree. Should isn't the same as will


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 11, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> He seems energetic during public appearances because he takes Adderall before making speeches - the rest of his existence seems to be a slothful one, mostly spent watching TV - his only "exercise" is golfing, where he drives a golf cart all over the greens instead of walking anywhere because he owns the golf course and can do what he wants.



If that were the case then Biden and Bernie would have been boffing the hell out of it - especially Joe.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 11, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Me and Mrs SI have said the same (we both work at the same college). That would mean closing on Fri March 20th.


why 20th? i dont follow


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 11, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Way too late. Now is too late probably.


At the very least, non essential workers (useless office people like me) should be WFH now - there is constant media attention about football/gigs/festivals etc, when millions of us commute on overcrowded trains, buses, trams/tubes every day.
I'm diabetic, so a bit high risk.  I am telling my employer that I am wfh for the foreseeable.  (I'm going in on Friday as it's a mate's leaving do and we are going to Sweeney's for pies and ale).


----------



## ska invita (Mar 11, 2020)

14m ago22:38

The UK health secretary said earlier that the prime minister, *Boris Johnson*, is due to chair a meeting of the government’s Cobra committee on Thursday. The Press Association is reporting that ministers are expected to decide at that meeting whether or not the UK’s coronavirus response should move on from the “containment” to the “delay” phase.
Reuters reports that the prime minister’s spokesman has said such a step is expected to be taken.
Moving to delay would mean social distancing measures could be brought in, such as restricting public gatherings, and more widespread advice to stay at home.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 11, 2020)

ska invita said:


> why 20th? i dont follow


Cos then you'd have a month of lockdown/social distancing, with the second half of that the normal and possibly already prepared for Easter holidays


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 11, 2020)

Seriously worried about how the fuck kids on FSM are gonna get fed. We feed them at work during the holidays, but if there is a lockdown, I don't know how that will happen


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 11, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Then again we have eugenicists in Downing Street. I can imagine them being quite keen to bump off some more economically underproductive citizen-consumers



what are you doing in response?


----------



## treelover (Mar 11, 2020)

Public health expert, Professor John  Asworth has just savaged the Govt response on Newsnight, pointing out 3000 italian football fans are in liverpool tonight, despite the whole of their country in lock down, he says there will certainly be carriers amongst them

geeting more worried at the govt approach , it is based on economic concerns.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 11, 2020)

i wonder if they'll say lockdown tomorrow! or lockdown next week? as in, will they give some advance warning? i dont think they gave warning in italy....


----------



## agricola (Mar 11, 2020)

ska invita said:


> i wonder if they'll say lockdown tomorrow! or lockdown next week? as in, will they give some advance warning? i dont think they gave warning in italy....



They gave a day's warning and everyone went straight to the supermarket.

TBF if they do it, I think they'll only do it to the extent of saying that people should stay home unless they absolutely have to leave for vital work / medical appointments etc and then leave it down to people to either follow the advice or not.   Some form of curfew is really difficult to see happening because of the extreme difficulty in enforcing it.


----------



## agricola (Mar 11, 2020)

treelover said:


> Public health expert, Professor John  Asworth has just savaged the Govt response on Newsnight, pointing out 3000 italian football fans are in liverpool tonight, despite the whole of their country in lock down, he says there will certainly be carriers amongst them
> 
> geeting more worried at the govt approach , it is based on economic concerns.



that many Roman Reds?


----------



## ska invita (Mar 11, 2020)

im predicting halfway to lockdown announced tomorrow (football closed doors and shit) then maybe fuller lockdown the week after around the 20th as SI suggests


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 11, 2020)

ska invita said:


> i wonder if they'll say lockdown tomorrow! or lockdown next week? as in, will they give some advance warning? i dont think they gave warning in italy....


It's not gonna be lockdown yet. It's going to be advice to stay at home where you can.

You can't go from "wash your hands" to lock down in one step.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 11, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> It's not gonna be lockdown yet. It's going to be advice to stay at home where you can.
> 
> You can't go from "wash your hands" to lock down in one step.


see my post above yours 

in the post you quoted i was just asking how much warning will be given when the time comes


----------



## chilango (Mar 11, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I think Chilango mentioned this too, but looking at the calendar today im wondering if they're hoping to dovetail a degree of lockdown with the easter school holiday: 4th - 19th April.



Over the last few days I've spoken to a couple of people high up in schools and universities and that is definitely the hope...


----------



## strung out (Mar 11, 2020)

treelover said:


> Public health expert, Professor John  Asworth has just savaged the Govt response on Newsnight, pointing out 3000 italian football fans are in liverpool tonight, despite the whole of their country in lock down, he says there will certainly be carriers amongst them
> 
> geeting more worried at the govt approach , it is based on economic concerns.


Who were these Italian football fans in Liverpool supporting - Liverpool or Athletico Madrid?


----------



## PD58 (Mar 11, 2020)

treelover said:


> Public health expert, Professor John  Asworth has just savaged the Govt response on Newsnight, pointing out 3000 italian football fans are in liverpool tonight, despite the whole of their country in lock down, he says there will certainly be carriers amongst them
> 
> geeting more worried at the govt approach , it is based on economic concerns.



Of course it is - this has the potential of scuppering Boris's premiership before it even gets going...forget levelling up, the money will be spent on bail out and hopefully health care.

Denmark is advising that all gatherings of 100+ should be postponed - meanwhile there are 50,000+ at Anfield including Italians masquerading as Spanish it seems...


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 11, 2020)

chilango said:


> Over the last few days I've spoken to a couple of people high up in schools and universities and that is definitely the hope...


It's being planned for in Mrs SI's maths dept, even if wider college has said business as usual for the time being


----------



## ska invita (Mar 11, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Then again we have eugenicists in Downing Street. I can imagine them being quite keen to bump off some more economically underproductive citizen-consumers


to prove my point this happened (in case anyone missed it)


----------



## chilango (Mar 11, 2020)

S☼I said:


> It's being planned for in Mrs SI's maths dept, even if wider college has said business as usual for the time being



Yep. I've also seen a fair bit of "read between the lines, we'll be shutting completely" planning for the coming weeks.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 11, 2020)

The first person from my town has tested positive. Comment-posters on the local rag are demanding he/she be identified and even killed to prevent further contamination


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 11, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I’ve seen 2 people with masks in the last cpl of weeks, and here in Newham we’re still virus free on the Gov statistics.


Sat next to a bloke on the tube last night with a very badly fitting mask on, who kept fiddling with it with his hands.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 12, 2020)

So, there's an emerging consensus that widespread testing and decisive measures are the only way to go - and the UK is just singing happy birthday. It's looking bad for the old, the sick and the poor, even if we've no real way of knowing how bad.  FFS, even if you are too shit scared to close places of work at least do something to limit the spread. Shouldn't be too difficult to suggest people don't visit care homes for the next month or to shut down large sporting events/entertainments. And of course a lot of other things.

One thing does strike me, what about Chris Whitty? He was the voice of level headed seriousness a week ago and even on here some people were reassured that policy was being run off 'the science'. But increasingly he's looking out of step with other scientific voices.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 12, 2020)

Re chris whitty I'm sure in the footage with the jeremy hunt panel he said something about taking the economy into consideration.  Who knows. What motivated all the gushing media pieces about him?


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

Wilf said:


> One thing does strike me, what about Chris Whitty? He was the voice of level headed seriousness a week ago and even on here some people were reassured that policy was being run off 'the science'. But increasingly he's looking out of step with other scientific voices.



He was and is coherent, and there was logic to his explanations. And people also liked some of the things he said because he was prepared to talk about certain things the government would probably do in future.

But many rational and coherent positions can be suggested in science, without necessarily being correct. Scientific understanding isnt monolithic and rigid, and genuine scientific consensus can be elusive. And you can get the theory right but still fail if you get certain parameters wrong, such as the timing.

Also, he could carry on talking a lot of sense, even if the actions the government were actually taking on a particular day were not a perfect fit with what he would choose to do or what the ultimate logic of their stance would really dictate should be done. After all he goes on about balancing things quite a lot, which means political and economic considerations. And we know that one of the sciences they are using is behavioural science.

There are various complaints about the government I could make that I'm saving for now, at least until I see how far they are actually prepared to go with measures during the 'delay phase' which appears to be rather imminent.

It is tempting to say they are politically doomed even if their approach leads to the results they are hoping for. Because I'm not sure even a 'successful' outcome will resemble anything people will really think of as a success. And they have really nailed themselves to the mast in terms of going for what now resembles their own distinctive strategy. They can try to hide behind words like science, and point to WHO declaring a pandemic and suggest their own timing was in step with WHO, but I dont really think the way they've gone about things so far genuinely gives them that cover. Not judging by what the press, parliament and people more broadly have started saying this week. Mind you, maybe still too early to tell, unclear what sort of politics and criticism will be considered appropriate during the darkest weeks of the first epidemic wave.


----------



## bimble (Mar 12, 2020)

Being a sort of masochist i check the dm comments section now and then on any big story to see how those people are thinking and today under their main virus article all of the top rated comments are calling for top down decrees to enforce social distancing .

The one with the most upvotes of all says 'It's time our government took their thumb out of their a@se and protected our people'.
So if gov wanted for various reasons to wait until people are ready for their personal freedom to be curtailed before announcing measures i think we are there?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> to prove my point this happened (in case anyone missed it)



Before it even gets as bad as it probably will...there are some, who, as they are sadistically prone,  stepping back from the fact they are also human and speculatively measure this as a capital positive/profit-making opportunity.. I wonder if they all have copies of William Rees-Mogg's books.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 12, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yep. I've also seen a fair bit of "read between the lines, we'll be shutting completely" planning for the coming weeks.


But for Universities the scope for “lockdowns” is inevitably limited as they are also ‘home’ to so many foreign students who will, by that stage, likely have no chance of travelling anywhere.


----------



## miss direct (Mar 12, 2020)

If the UK gets locked down, what are the chances of me (British citizen currently in Turkey) being allowed back in? I can imagine lots of flights being cancelled  I’m preparing to move back as there is no work here and my visa has expired but struggling to find any work in the UK 😢


----------



## bimble (Mar 12, 2020)

miss direct said:


> If the UK gets locked down, what are the chances of me (British citizen currently in Turkey) being allowed back in? I can imagine lots of flights being cancelled  I’m preparing to move back as there is no work here and my visa has expired but struggling to find any work in the UK 😢



I think that repatriating citizens despite travel bans is standard and you shouldn't worry about that. Sorry sounds really stressful for you anyway right now.


----------



## miss direct (Mar 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think that repatriating citizens despite travel bans is standard and you shouldn't worry about that. Sorry sounds really stressful for you anyway right now.



Hope so but those sort of things seem to apply to holiday makers rather than people who’ve been gone for years. Anyway just trying to take it day by day and not get too down. It’s a frightening time and as always, not knowing is the worst part.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> Being a sort of masochist i check the dm comments section now and then on any big story to see how those people are thinking and today under their main virus article all of the top rated comments are calling for top down decrees to enforce social distancing .
> 
> The one with the most upvotes of all says 'It's time our government took their thumb out of their a@se and protected our people'.
> So if gov wanted for various reasons to wait until people are ready for their personal freedom to be curtailed before announcing measures i think we are there?



One should be wary of conflating 'people' with 'DM comment thread gobshites'. Probably half of them are Putinbots trying to sabotage our economy.


----------



## Glitter (Mar 12, 2020)

What are the chances of international travel being suspended?


----------



## ska invita (Mar 12, 2020)

_*Ministers will hold cross-party talks with Labour on Thursday about the emergency legislation required to implement and enforce some of these measures. Matt Hancock, the health secretary, said the government hoped to pass the legislation next week. *_


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 12, 2020)

agricola said:


> Some form of curfew is really difficult to see happening because of the extreme difficulty in enforcing it.


Don't underestimate the power of concerted tutting and shaking of heads.


----------



## wiskey (Mar 12, 2020)

Glitter said:


> What are the chances of international travel being suspended?


Very high


----------



## wiskey (Mar 12, 2020)

My 95yo grandmother has been hospitalised (nothing to do with respiratory illnesses), I don't know if this is a good thing or not. At least she's being cared for


----------



## girasol (Mar 12, 2020)

People in London have already started to avoid things like fitness classes, for example.  Last night my teacher was telling us he was lucky he was still teaching, and a lot of the other classes at the places he teaches had no students at all, most of them, in fact.   So this means teachers hiring rooms and losing money.  Considering that exercise is actually great for the immune system, it seems counter productive. 

I am still going to keep going as long as there are classes but I have stopped shaking hands and hugging (since last week).  Last night this caused amusement, offence and agreement in equal measure...  I did a foot bump with my training partner for the night.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 12, 2020)

I don't understand the curfew thing at all. Do people think viruses only travel at night?

Forcing people to do everything they need to do outdoors in the same window of time is just going to make everything more crowded and increase the risk of transmission. You'd think better advice would be if there's something you need to do and you can do it at 4am instead of 4pm, do so.


----------



## chilango (Mar 12, 2020)

brogdale said:


> But for Universities the scope for “lockdowns” is inevitably limited as they are also ‘home’ to so many foreign students who will, by that stage, likely have no chance of travelling anywhere.



True. But as much of the accomodation is outsourced to private companies there is an element of "not our problem" in the thinking.

As many UG courses are now finishing up for the term there's a "get them done, get them off campus" rationale that would see much smaller numbers to manage on campus over the coming weeks.

We'll see of course. I'm astonished there hasn't been a more major outbreak at a University thus far.


----------



## purenarcotic (Mar 12, 2020)

If someone has already posted about this on other threads then apologies, but why wait till the rates of infection are high before lockdown? Would imposing a lockdown when just a few people were sick not have been better as it would have reduced the level of spread significantly? I am guessing the answer is to do with levels of preparedness?


----------



## krink (Mar 12, 2020)

We have been told we all might have to work from home if there is a lockdown. I already work 2 days from home (for mental health reasons) but there is no way i can afford to have the heating on every day and my house is freezing cold. and i'm too poor to stockpile anything. i went to buy rice for my tea and the shelves were empty and that'll get worse won't it? I don't have anyone to bring me supplies if I get isolation. I help look after my mam, who will visit her if I'm isolated? I'm not scared of the virus but what I am really worried about is the measures to be taken.


----------



## Cid (Mar 12, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Hope so but those sort of things seem to apply to holiday makers rather than people who’ve been gone for years. Anyway just trying to take it day by day and not get too down. It’s a frightening time and as always, not knowing is the worst part.



Certainly some of the people repatriated during the initial outbreak were longer-term residents, with families in China etc...


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 12, 2020)

nogojones said:


> You don't happen to have a source for that?
> 
> His use of, not where I can get some.



It's all rumours, hearsay, and speculation, but there's been a lot of it going back decades - allegedly Adderall was his drug of choice during his Celebrity Apprentice days, but he's now using phentermine.

From a 1993 Trump biography:



> The diet drugs, which [Trump] took in pill form, not only curbed his appetite but gave him a feeling of euphoria and unlimited energy. The medical literature warned that some potentially dangerous side effects could result from long-term usage; they included anxiety, insomnia, and delusions of grandeur. According to several Trump Organization insiders, Donald exhibited all these ominous symptoms of diet drug usage, and then some.








						Rumor: Doctor Prescribes Donald Trump "Cheap Speed"
					

Back in December, Donald Trump’s personal doctor declared to the world that Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” While that particular claim is unfalsifiable (although almost certainly incorrect), according to a source with knowledge of Trump’s current...



					gawker.com


----------



## crossthebreeze (Mar 12, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Chatting at work today and with my partner. Im in London.
> 
> The City is emptier than usual. Have friend who is a Personal Trainer in a City gym and less people are coming.
> 
> ...


If I work from home I don't get paid, and I'm self-employed so no sick pay.  I hope as many office workers etc as possible start working from home for at least some of the time.  Makes public transport and other public areas less crowded, which makes transmission to those of us who can't stay at home less likely.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 12, 2020)

chilango said:


> True. But as much of the accomodation is outsourced to private companies there is an element of "not our problem" in the thinking.
> 
> As many UG courses are now finishing up for the term there's a "get them done, get them off campus" rationale that would see much smaller numbers to manage on campus over the coming weeks.
> 
> We'll see of course. I'm astonished there hasn't been a more major outbreak at a University thus far.


Reckon the time for 'getting rid' is rapidly diminishing, tbh. But, yeah...it's many of the accommodation blocks with (yearly contracted) foreign students that just can't close.


----------



## chilango (Mar 12, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Reckon the time for 'getting rid' is rapidly diminishing, tbh. But, yeah...it's many of the accommodation blocks with (yearly contracted) foreign students that just can't close.



Yeah.

I'm not advocating anything. Simply reporting what I'm hearing.


----------



## LDC (Mar 12, 2020)

Glitter said:


> What are the chances of international travel being suspended?



Two weeks I'd have said very low. Today... already happening and only going to get more restrictive.


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 12, 2020)

chilango said:


> True. But as much of the accomodation is outsourced to private companies there is an element of "not our problem" in the thinking.
> 
> As many UG courses are now finishing up for the term there's a "get them done, get them off campus" rationale that would see much smaller numbers to manage on campus over the coming weeks.
> 
> We'll see of course. I'm astonished there hasn't been a more major outbreak at a University thus far.


After years of doing fuck all to assist workers working from home suddenly the HEI I work at has found, within a week, that it has been able to develop strategies to facilitate working at home, even the delivery of teaching sessions . Strange that isn't it.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 12, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> It's all rumours, hearsay, and speculation, but there's been a lot of it going back decades - allegedly Adderall was his drug of choice during his Celebrity Apprentice days, but he's now using phentermine.
> 
> From a 1993 Trump biography:
> 
> ...



Still, world leaders using amphetamines has a fine and noble history. Going all the way back to [checks notes] Hitler.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 12, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Still, world leaders using amphetamines has a fine and noble history. Going all the way back to [checks notes] Hitler.


excellent tv series on drug use of PMs and El Presidentes,  on youtube now


			Altered Statesmen (TV Series) | Radio Times


----------



## brogdale (Mar 12, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> After years of doing fuck all to assist workers working from home suddenly the HEI I work at has found, within a week, that it has been able to develop strategies to facilitate working at home, even the delivery of teaching sessions . Strange that isn't it.


The out-sourcing genie?


----------



## miss direct (Mar 12, 2020)

If there’s a lock down I’m assuming carers will still be allowed to carry out home visits?


----------



## crossthebreeze (Mar 12, 2020)

krink said:


> I help look after my mam, who will visit her if I'm isolated? I'm not scared of the virus but what I am really worried about is the measures to be taken.


The way this affects social care is scary.  People who need care and support can't self-isolate - and if they usually receive care from family or friends who don't live with them, or they employ their own PAs under a personal budget, what happens if their carers have to self-isolate?  I've replied to a friend's callout for people who can assist her with personal care and household tasks if her PAs are sick or self-isolating - she needs someone with her all the time (and she lives independently, and her family aren't close by), so its really worrying her.


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 12, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The out-sourcing genie?


Not in this case. Just managers suddenly deciding that people don't actually need to be at their desks + some IT issues that, while apparently unsolvable a month ago, have now been addressed.


----------



## LDC (Mar 12, 2020)

miss direct said:


> If there’s a lock down I’m assuming carers will still be allowed to carry out home visits?



Depends how bad it gets tbh. Nothing will be off the table in the most dire possible scenarios.


----------



## marty21 (Mar 12, 2020)

We have a holiday in Yorkshire booked for May , even if there are no UK travel bans in place , probably won't be worth going if everything is shut down.  (Sorry Yorkshire)


----------



## brogdale (Mar 12, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Not in this case. Just managers suddenly deciding that people don't actually need to be at their desks + some IT issues that, while apparently unsolvable a month ago, have now been addressed.


Good to hear but, of course, the psychopathic vermin will have viewed this crisis from the outset as a series of opportunities to trial, pilot and, in the case of class-sizes, to legislate for changes that could erode job security, de-professionalise and otherwise undermine workers' rights.


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 12, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Good to hear but, of course, the psychopathic vermin will have viewed this crisis from the outset as a series of opportunities to trial, pilot and, in the case of class-sizes, to legislate for changes that could erode job security, de-professionalise and otherwise undermine workers' rights.


Oh absolutely, and people are being expected to do extra work to cope with problems.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

miss direct said:


> If there’s a lock down I’m assuming carers will still be allowed to carry out home visits?



One assumes so, I doubt they will leave people like my mother without visits, but they may have to cut down on the number of visits, if they have too many staff off.

Luckily, I am self-employed & my brother is retired, so we could cover things for our mother, if required. We have actually discussed taking over anyway, if they are struggling to cover visits, to free them up to care for others in a worst situation.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 12, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> If someone has already posted about this on other threads then apologies, but why wait till the rates of infection are high before lockdown? Would imposing a lockdown when just a few people were sick not have been better as it would have reduced the level of spread significantly? I am guessing the answer is to do with levels of preparedness?



I suppose the thinking is that no measures can be sustained indefinitely, and that if they jump the gun they face the prospect of being forced to raise certain restrictions during a perod of acute crisis, and thus worsening it. I would think there was a lot of stuff happening behind closed doors to ensure that shutdowns of this that or the other can happen in a slightly less chaotic way, but I don't see much evidence of that happening with schools so far. Teachers are largely just assuming that they'll get word at some point that they need to close in short order, and until then it's just more 'wash your hands' stuff, although apparently with no hand sanitiser as the bellends who are hoarding it aren't just affecting the consumer market, but also the sort of places where good hygiene is vital for the general public good.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 12, 2020)

marty21 said:


> We have a holiday in Yorkshire booked for May,  probably won't be worth going.



FFY


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> apparently with no hand sanitiser as the bellends who are hoarding it aren't just affecting the consumer market, but also the sort of places where good hygiene is vital for the general public good.


Aye, we’ve run out of gel at my work and we get a couple of thousand people through our doors every day


----------



## Badgers (Mar 12, 2020)

krink said:


> We have been told we all might have to work from home if there is a lockdown. I already work 2 days from home (for mental health reasons) but there is no way i can afford to have the heating on every day and my house is freezing cold. and i'm too poor to stockpile anything. i went to buy rice for my tea and the shelves were empty and that'll get worse won't it? I don't have anyone to bring me supplies if I get isolation. I help look after my mam, who will visit her if I'm isolated? I'm not scared of the virus but what I am really worried about is the measures to be taken.


Hey Krink  

Anything I/we can do to help? Send me a PM if you need anything


----------



## bimble (Mar 12, 2020)

British government wants UK to acquire Covid-19 'herd immunity' | ITV News
					

The Government’s experts – the chief medical officer and the chief scientific advisor – have made two big judgements. | ITV National News




					www.itv.com
				




If that’s accurate it explains why no drastic lock down measures are happening.


----------



## kebabking (Mar 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> British government wants UK to acquire Covid-19 'herd immunity' | ITV News
> 
> 
> The Government’s experts – the chief medical officer and the chief scientific advisor – have made two big judgements. | ITV National News
> ...



Pandemic response has never been about _stopping _an outbreak, it's always been about trying to spread it out so that we don't have 500,000 people needing intensive care beds at the same time, and - simultaneously - everyone else running out of food.


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 12, 2020)

krink said:


> I don't have anyone to bring me supplies if I get isolation. I help look after my mam, who will visit her if I'm isolated? I'm not scared of the virus but what I am really worried about is the measures to be taken.





Badgers said:


> Hey Krink Anything I/we can do to help? Send me a PM if you need anything


Is it worth having Covid-19 threads/conversations especially for this type of stuff - organising with each other to help those, or family of those, that have to self-isolate?

EDIT: thread started here


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 12, 2020)

Some politicians have been saying that shutting large public events would have no effect on the spread of the virus. That's pretty counter-intuitive. What's the logic/evidence they are using?


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Aye, we’ve run out of gel at my work and we get a couple of thousand people through our doors every day


We never even had any.  We get thousands in daily at our uni


----------



## bimble (Mar 12, 2020)

kebabking said:


> Pandemic response has never been about _stopping _an outbreak, it's always been about trying to spread it out so that we don't have 500,000 people needing intensive care beds at the same time, and - simultaneously - everyone else running out of food.


Yep. The bit I hadn’t got my head round before is the idea that locking things down just delays the inevitable total amount of infected people, that no measures will change that eventual % who get the illness (?)
But then I still don’t get why they’re not basically banning all unnecessary crowds today?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> We never even had any.  We get thousands in daily at our uni


We've always had them as we get a lot of people who for whatever reasons do not look after themselves very well, so it's already become routine to sanitise regularly. 
We've put up signs to ask for wipes when people have finished using computers and phones and we keep wiping down the touch screens on the queue management kiosks. Only one person so far has asked for a wipe.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Some politicians have been saying that shutting large public events would have no effect on the spread of the virus.





> The goal is to 'flatten the curve'. Rather than letting the virus quickly rampage through the population and burn itself out fast, the idea is to spread all those infections out over a longer period of time.
> 
> Yes, it would potentially prolong the epidemic. But in doing so, public health agencies and the health care infrastructure gain invaluable time to respond to the crisis.








						This One Graph Shows Why 'Flattening The Curve' Is So Critical For COVID-19 Right Now
					

Anywhere from 20 percent to 60 percent of the adults around the world may be infected with the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19.




					www.sciencealert.com


----------



## LDC (Mar 12, 2020)

The UK is taking the opposite the strategy that China took, for a mix of reasons. We're now at a much more globally advanced spread of the virus than we were even not that long ago, so the chance of it being kept in one area of the world is now zero, which means long term the best chances for a population is slowing the infection rate but not eliminating it.

The nasty thing is that what's best for the population as a whole is not going to be what's best for some individuals.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 12, 2020)

See the Uber wealthy here are making sure they are ok.

Harley Street is doing well out of this. Jump in hiring of private jets to make sure don't have to mix with the lower orders.

This virus really showing how society operates.

Lock down won't affect them.









						Super-rich jet off to disaster bunkers amid coronavirus outbreak
					

‘Self isolate’ for some of world’s richest means Covid-19 tests abroad, personal medics and subterranean hide-outs




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 12, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> See the Uber wealthy here are making sure they are ok.
> 
> Harley Street is doing well out of this. Jump in hiring of private jets to make sure don't have to mix with the lower orders.
> 
> ...


“Members who are travelling commercially are choosing to book elite services at airports, not your typical first-class lounge,” a spokeswoman said. “For example, private terminals where guests are greeted and given their own suite. Check-in, customs and security are all done privately and guests are then taken to the doors of the aircraft. Members can request for the jetty to be cleared so they minimise the interactions with other passengers on their way to their seat.”

At which point they're then still sat in a sealed metal tube with everyone else anyway. Money can't fix stupid.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> That's pretty counter-intuitive. What's the logic/evidence they are using?


Capitalism


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Some politicians have been saying that shutting large public events would have no effect on the spread of the virus. That's pretty counter-intuitive. What's the logic/evidence they are using?



Even if they are partially right about open air gatherings not being as large transmission risk in their own right as people would imagine, there is the movement of people from different parts of the country (and overseas) to attend, and associated use of public transport, people gathering in bars before and afterwards, to consider.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 12, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I don't understand the curfew thing at all. Do people think viruses only travel at night?
> 
> Forcing people to do everything they need to do outdoors in the same window of time is just going to make everything more crowded and increase the risk of transmission. You'd think better advice would be if there's something you need to do and you can do it at 4am instead of 4pm, do so.


Because the stuff you do in the evenings is usually the social activity, large crowd sort of stuff - drinking, eating out, socialising, cinema, etc. Nobody's trying to stop you working on your allotment at 4am.


----------



## High Voltage (Mar 12, 2020)

> The world’s richest people are chartering private jets to set off for holiday homes or specially prepared disaster bunkers in countries that, so far, appear to have avoided the worst of the Covid-19 outbreak.



Whilst the cat's away the mice can break in, loot and generally "redistribute wealth amongst the needy"


----------



## Cloo (Mar 12, 2020)

Presumably the UK is going to have launch an emergency response to Donnie's flash of brilliance to make us the only place from which people can get from Europe to the US? I mean, it would seem wise to place some sort of restriction on all the extra people passing through, like commandeering airport hotels and keeping them from passing through major centres?


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 12, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Presumably the UK is going to have launch an emergency response to Donnie's flash of brilliance to make us the only place from which people can get from Europe to the US? I mean, it would seem wise to place some sort of restriction on all the extra people passing through, like commandeering airport hotels and keeping them from passing through major centres?



Presumably they're looking forward to that extra dolla from more people passing through the airports


----------



## Cloo (Mar 12, 2020)

I've seen flight ban doesn't apply to US citizens, so maybe not quite so bad, but still such a moronically irresponsible decision to make without consultation with better informed people about the wisdom of doing so. But of course,  no one's better informed than The Donald.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 12, 2020)

Mrs BB has just come home from the school where she works. They had a meeting about possible upcoming school closures, and how that's going to work - don't know whether that means the DfE is preparing them for an announcement today or not.

Edit: Ireland have already announced - Schools and colleges to close in Republic of Ireland


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 12, 2020)

Today's staffroom banter is school closures are expected after the 20th of March.


----------



## killer b (Mar 12, 2020)

This just in from Mrs B's employer, a university in northern england...

The email begins: _Safeguarding the wellbeing of our students and employees is our top priority_

And then: _The University has taken the decision to end face to face teaching on_ 



wait for it...


_*27th March 2020*_

they go on to say: _Enacting alternatives to campus- based activity at this time will put us on the front foot_


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> This just in from Mrs B's employer, a university in northern england...
> 
> The email begins: _Safeguarding the wellbeing of our students and employees is our top priority_
> 
> ...


----------



## lazythursday (Mar 12, 2020)

FFS 27th March... I bet they have empty campus way before then


----------



## killer b (Mar 12, 2020)

guess when they break up for easter?


----------



## pogofish (Mar 12, 2020)

That's our outdoor/party event for Friday is now officially cancelled.

And just an hour ago, the big boss came-in and told us to "elevate" our contingency plans for a shutdown, pending an announcement to come in the next day or two.

Everyone except me has been running around like headless chickens.  I can already manage most of what I need to do remotely if needed.  

Our "official" contingency manager is currently on holiday in the Western Isles!


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> This just in from Mrs B's employer, a university in northern england...
> 
> The email begins: _Safeguarding the wellbeing of our students and employees is our top priority_
> 
> And then: _The University has taken the decision to end face to face teaching on  _... _*27th March 2020*_


That seems a pretty strange decision to make now when it's looking increasingly likely that they'll be closing before then anyway.


----------



## killer b (Mar 12, 2020)

it's totally bizarre. it just tells their entire faculty they don't give a fuck about them, for no reason at all.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 12, 2020)

I also work at a northern university and attendance is already abysmal. Even if we don't get an official shutdown in the next week a combination of factors will produce it in practice (individual local schools closing, the government advising individuals with a cough/cold to self isolate [if/when that happens], rumour etc.).


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 12, 2020)

With being on strike it's hard to tell what's happening at the HEI I work at but I suspect similar to you Wilf student attendance is already down.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 12, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Me and Mrs SI have said the same (we both work at the same college). That would mean closing on Fri March 20th.


April 3rd here, lol.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 12, 2020)

Lots of masks in Cardiff (mostly students)
Where I work we have lots of contact with public including taking payments, 1 hand sanitiser that doesn't pump and no hot water in the toilet  have asked for hot water and sanitisers that work


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 12, 2020)

Just heard from my local uni via the grapevine, they think coronavirus might affect them in some way


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

Scotland up from 36 cases to 60 in the last 24 hours.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Scotland up from 36 cases to 60 in the last 24 hours.



where is that info from?  e2a just seen Scottish Sun.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> where is that info from?  e2a just seen Scottish Sun.



It was on the TV news, now confirmed here  Mass events ban likely as virus cases spike


----------



## Numbers (Mar 12, 2020)

590 positive now.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 12, 2020)

Still less than 30000 tested.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

Numbers said:


> 590 positive now.



That's up 134 compared to 456 yesterday, just under 30%.


----------



## hegley (Mar 12, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> where is that info from?  e2a just seen Scottish Sun.








						Coronavirus in Scotland - gov.scot
					

Up to date information on the situation in Scotland. All covid rules and restrictions have been lifted in Scotland, but there are still things that you can do to protect yourself and others.




					www.gov.scot


----------



## Numbers (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's up 134 compared to 456 yesterday.


2288 tested compared to 1215 y/day.


----------



## maomao (Mar 12, 2020)

30% ish? Effects of compound interest starting to hit home.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 12, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Still less than 30000 tested.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 12, 2020)

By the way, this is on the Department of Health and Social Care twitter page.


----------



## Poot (Mar 12, 2020)

I'm so delighted that Trump's banned flights from the EU to the USA but NOT here. That means that every single American trying to get home from any virus hotspot in the EU is going to be coming via London. _Slow hand clap_.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 12, 2020)

Poot said:


> I'm so delighted that Trump's banned flights from the EU to the USA but NOT here. That means that every single American trying to get home from any virus hotspot in the EU is going to be coming via London. _Slow hand clap_.


It's a weirdly arbitrary decision, even for Trump. Does he understand the difference between Schengen and non-Schengen free movement?

It's like he had a hat full of random stuff to do and just pulled one of them out.

I _really_ hope Trump catches it.


----------



## maomao (Mar 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's a weirdly arbitrary decision, even for Trump. Does he understand the difference between Schengen and non-Schengen free movement?
> 
> It's like he had a hat full of random stuff to do and just pulled one of them out.
> 
> I _really_ hope Trump catches it.


He must have shares in British Airways. Two week bonanza for them before they just shut everything anyway.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Mar 12, 2020)

Poot said:


> I'm so delighted that Trump's banned flights from the EU to the USA but NOT here. That means that every single American trying to get home from any virus hotspot in the EU is going to be coming via London. _Slow hand clap_.



No, there are still fights from the Schengen zone to approved US airports, but only US citizens or lawful residents will be able to take them after today.

Anyone sneaking in via the UK from tomorrow and pretending they have not been in the Schengen zone in the past 14 days will be barred for life from the US if caught. If they infect anyone they can expect a very long prison term.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 12, 2020)

In the Trumpverse, everything is a political pose, isn't it? Britain needs to be 'rewarded' for brexit. UK has left EU so its position wrt coronavirus is magically different. It's bonkers.


----------



## Poot (Mar 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> No, there are still fights from the Schengen zone to approved US airports, but only US citizens or lawful residents will be able to take them after today.
> 
> Anyone sneaking in via the UK from tomorrow and pretending they have not been in the Schengen zone in the past 14 days will be barred for life from the US if caught. If they infect anyone they can expect a very long prison term.


Oh. That's not how it's being reported on the BBC.

Trump halts travel from Europe to US


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> In the Trumpverse, everything is a political pose, isn't it? Britain needs to be 'rewarded' for brexit. UK has left EU so its position wrt coronavirus is magically different. It's bonkers.



Trump is a twat, but it's nothing to do with brexit, it's to do with the Schengen area, hence Ireland & other European countries are not being included in the ban.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Trump is a twat, but it's nothing to do with brexit, it's to do with the Schengen area, hence Ireland & other European countries are not being included in the ban.


that's an arbitrary decision, though, not based on any sensible calculation of risk re Schengen/non-Schengen. It's a purely political position.

eg Poland is in Schengen and has both a low rate of infection currently and a set of very rigorous measures put in place early.


----------



## Barking_Mad (Mar 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> Public health expert, Professor John  Asworth has just savaged the Govt response on Newsnight, pointing out 3000 italian football fans are in liverpool tonight, despite the whole of their country in lock down, he says there will certainly be carriers amongst them
> 
> geeting more worried at the govt approach , it is based on economic concerns.



Here: Health expert brands UK's coronavirus response 'pathetic'


----------



## little_legs (Mar 12, 2020)

Toot toot


----------



## Cloo (Mar 12, 2020)

Some idiots are sharing totally unevidenced SCHOOLS ARE GOING TO SHUT FOR TWO MONTHS posts


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 12, 2020)

I’ve had flu jab and pneumonia immunisation which will probably do bugger all but here’s hoping.

Hopefully it’ll be wfh next week as the city descends into chaos.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 12, 2020)

The resemblance to the Fibonacci sequence is strangely pleasing.


----------



## editor (Mar 12, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Some idiots are sharing totally unevidenced SCHOOLS ARE GOING TO SHUT FOR TWO MONTHS posts


It's what Facebook is designed for!


----------



## Cloo (Mar 12, 2020)

Oooh, further  information coming later today from management.... suspect it will be at least a suggestion not to come in unless essential,  possibly more than that.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 12, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Some idiots are sharing totally unevidenced SCHOOLS ARE GOING TO SHUT FOR TWO MONTHS posts



To be fair, it might worth parents having a ponder about how to handle such an eventuality.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> that's an arbitrary decision, though, not based on any sensible calculation of risk re Schengen/non-Schengen. It's a purely political position.
> 
> eg Poland is in Schengen and has both a low rate of infection currently and a set of very rigorous measures put in place early.



Of course it's arbitrary, but still nowt to do with brexit.


----------



## andysays (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Of course it's arbitrary, but still nowt to do with brexit.


For some posters, *everything *bad is to do with Brexit


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Of course it's arbitrary, but still nowt to do with brexit.



It’s political and unable to be unlinked from brexit. He’s giving Britain special treatment (and yes Ireland as well but the focus is very much on Britain, I don’t think Trump even knows what an Ireland is at this stage of his dementia)

It’s a nod to the Special Alliance and I don’t think you can divorce it from brexit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

> Gatherings of more than 500 people should be cancelled from next week, the Scottish government is advising.
> 
> First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said this was to free up emergency services, including police and ambulance crews, to deal with coronavirus.
> 
> She said it was not necessary to close schools and universities yet, but added that would remain under review.











						Coronavirus: Mass events ban as Scottish virus cases spike
					

Gatherings of more than 500 in Scotland will be cancelled from next week as the UK moves to the delay phase.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Mar 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> In the Trumpverse, everything is a political pose, isn't it? Britain needs to be 'rewarded' for brexit. UK has left EU so its position wrt coronavirus is magically different. It's bonkers.





cupid_stunt said:


> Trump is a twat, but it's nothing to do with brexit, it's to do with the Schengen area, hence Ireland & other European countries are not being included in the ban.




Probably a bit of both. He dislikes the EU and likes Brexit, so it is two fingers up to the EU. At the same time Ireland is still in the EU, so it's more a Schengen thing, as people can in theory walk from Italy to Germany and get on a plane to the US. Of course Trump has no idea that Iceland is in Schengen.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 12, 2020)

I've just looked at my Mum's carehome webpage. Still not a fucking word of advice about visiting and the virus. Astonishing.


----------



## editor (Mar 12, 2020)

The Brit approach as seen from the US 



			Bloomberg - Are you a robot?


----------



## tommers (Mar 12, 2020)

we told people that we "strongly encourage" them to work from home from Monday and that will change to "you have to" if the guidelines change.

I've been here three days already


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Mar 12, 2020)

Poot said:


> Oh. That's not how it's being reported on the BBC.
> 
> Trump halts travel from Europe to US




The facts are:

From midnight tonight US time anyone arriving from the Schengen Zone will be turned back if not a US citizen or lawful US resident. Further the US will only accept flights from (and therefore to) the Schengen Zone in to approved airports; Atlanta, Dallas Ft Worth, Detroit, Newark, Honolulu, JFK, LAX, Chicago O'Hare, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington Dulles.

Anyone arriving from a non-Schengen Zone country will need to declare that they have not entered the Zone in the past 14 days. Same as from China (not Hong Kong and Macau) and Iran.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 12, 2020)

Hopefully that big jump in numbers today will increase pressure on the government to put in place a few more measures. I see the guardian's now running a stream of articles to say the government's response isn't good enough.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Some idiots are sharing totally unevidenced SCHOOLS ARE GOING TO SHUT FOR TWO MONTHS posts


The chief medical officer has said that schools might have to close for more than two months, but it’s only been discussed as a possibility


----------



## Winot (Mar 12, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Some idiots are sharing totally unevidenced SCHOOLS ARE GOING TO SHUT FOR TWO MONTHS posts



This is interesting and sensible on the Irish closure (via Twitter):


----------



## Poot (Mar 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> The facts are:
> 
> From midnight tonight US time anyone arriving from the Schengen Zone will be turned back if not a US citizen or lawful US resident. Further the US will only accept flights from (and therefore to) the Schengen Zone in to approved airports; Atlanta, Dallas Ft Worth, Detroit, Newark, Honolulu, JFK, LAX, Chicago O'Hare, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington Dulles.
> 
> Anyone arriving from a non-Schengen Zone country will need to declare that they have not entered the Zone in the past 14 days. Same as from China (not Hong Kong and Macau) and Iran.


Ah. So we can expect them to self-isolate for 14 days in the UK, then. Or at least say they did. That's fine


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Of course it's arbitrary, but still nowt to do with brexit.


Trump likes to reward things he likes and punish things he doesn't like. He likes brexit britain and he dislikes the eu. We've already seen how he's used the pandemic to push things like, say, his wall, despite zero evidence that it's in any way linked. I think you overestimate him if you think he couldn't be this petty in a serious situation.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 12, 2020)

What a fucking shitshow. I'm pretty much at the point of hoping I get the virus now, while things are still running reasonably, rather than in a month. What a fucking state of affairs.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 12, 2020)

Winot said:


> This is interesting and sensible on the Irish closure (via Twitter):
> 
> View attachment 201423


Thanks - I have wondered about some of that as it does seem no one really knows if kids spread it as such as they don't seem to get it.


----------



## pogofish (Mar 12, 2020)

Have been told - slightly more officially (but not fully) is that there will be an announcement over the weekend and to take my laptop and other materials away with me on Friday.

Which could be great because I have a stinker of a job I don't really want to do lined-up for Monday morning!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

Looks like the post-COBRA meeting press conference is coming up soon, BBC1 has dropped their normal schedule to take the News channel's output.

ETA - Having taken over BBC1 at 4.15pm, they have just taken over BBC World too.

What do they know?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 12, 2020)

Big jump in cases today, 134 new ones. PHE Dashboard


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> What do they know?


I think it's pretty clear that they've already leaked to the BBC that there won't be school closures, they're all very definitive about that _not_ happening (this week at least).


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looks like the post-COBRA meeting press conference is coming up soon, BBC1 has dropped their normal schedule to take the News channel's output.
> 
> ETA - Having taken over BBC1 at 4.15pm, they have just taken over BBC World too.
> 
> What do they know?



They know there is a government press conference, and that it hasnt started yet.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 12, 2020)

One of these things is not like the others 

(I've kind of ruined the game by putting a big red square around it...  )


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I think it's pretty clear that they've already leaked to the BBC that there won't be school closures, they're all very definitive about that _not_ happening (this week at least).



Sturgeon, having been in the COBRA meeting, has already had her press conference & explained there's no plan for school closures in Scotland yet, so I think it's safe to say the same for the rest of Britain. 



elbows said:


> They know there is a government press conference, and that it hasnt started yet.



They didn't take-over BBC1 & BBC World for the last press conference, clearly they think or have been briefed that this is going to a much bigger story.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 12, 2020)

My first thought with that is 200,000 farmers coughing on each other for 4 days.


----------



## Plumdaff (Mar 12, 2020)

Wales vs Scotland 6 nations is going ahead. I can't see any risk in not only having a massive stadium jam-packed in a city centre, but also the thousands of people who tend to travel into Cardiff to get arseholed watching the matches all day, with a high percentage of older folk involved. FFS Welsh government.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> View attachment 201430
> 
> One of these things is not like the others
> 
> (I've kind of ruined the game by putting a big red square around it...  )



Yep, one event is on day 3 & ending tomorrow, whereas all the others are breaking news stories about future events being cancelled, or likely to be. 

Do I win a prize?


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They didn't take-over BBC1 & BBC World for the last press conference, clearly they think or have been briefed that this is going to a much bigger story.



Well there was a major COBRA meeting and they already told the press that the delay phase would be triggered. Which means new measures that they will want to communicate to the public ASAP. Sounds like the BBC have already got details, school trips abroad banned, old people and people with underlying health conditions told not to go on cruise holidays, self-isolate if you have symptoms.


----------



## agricola (Mar 12, 2020)

Johnson sounds very much like he is coming done with something.


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> ... school trips abroad banned, old people and people with underlying health conditions told not to go on cruise holidays...


woah, earth shattering response


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

The press were already getting hostile on Monday, dunno what they will be like now that Ireland and Scotland are doing their own thing.


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 12, 2020)

agricola said:


> Johnson sounds very much like he is coming done with something.


fingers crossed...


----------



## Celyn (Mar 12, 2020)

pogofish said:


> ...
> Our "official" contingency manager is currently on holiday in the Western Isles!


Clever.   I don't think there are any cases there yet.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 12, 2020)

Numbers said:


> My first thought with that is 200,000 farmers coughing on each other for 4 days.



And most of the Irish clergy.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 12, 2020)

Is that it? Don't go on a cruise if you're over 70 and no school trips abroad. Oh and stay at home if you have a fever.

Fucking hell that's shit.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 12, 2020)

"Many of you will lose loved ones before their time"

Not news, but still chilling to hear.

Unbelievable that advising against cruises is the response so far. We're fucked.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 12, 2020)

'We've done all we can to contain the disease' 

You've done the square root of fuck all to contain the disease!


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Hopefully that big jump in numbers today will increase pressure on the government to put in place a few more measures. I see the guardian's now running a stream of articles to say the government's response isn't good enough.



Err... Don't go on a cruise... Good luck!


----------



## Wilf (Mar 12, 2020)

As well as upping the testing regime for anyone with suspected cv, they should be doing random testing to get even a vague sense of community transmission (not just the extent, but also the routes and probable methods of transmission). There are clearly a minimum of several thousand infections in the UK at the moment, but Johnson et al just don't want to know. Cunts.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 12, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Is that it? Don't go on a cruise if you're over 70 and no school trips abroad. Oh and stay at home if you have a fever.
> 
> Fucking hell that's shit.


It's weird, the whole tone of his speech was very sombre as though he was announcing catastrophic measures, but then almost nothing announced, like they wrote the speech for a series of stronger measures.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 12, 2020)

Yay, slides! Graphs! Clickers not working! It's just like being at work...


----------



## maomao (Mar 12, 2020)

One of today's deaths at hospital 200 yards from my house


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

Claiming we are about 4 weeks behind Italy. Hmmmm.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 12, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> "Many of you will lose loved ones before their time"
> 
> Not news, but still chilling to hear.
> 
> Unbelievable that advising against cruises is the response so far. We're fucked.


Yeah, so many people were poised to head off on a cruise....


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Yay, slides! Graphs! Clickers not working! It's just like being at work...



Hopefully their efforts to press the peak down will be more successful than the attempt to show the graph of that happening!


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 12, 2020)

I don't get why they aren't talking about at least closing universities. A much easier thing to do than schools, and a much higher risk environment.


----------



## agricola (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> It's weird, the whole tone of his speech was very sombre as though he was announcing catastrophic measures, but then almost nothing announced, like they wrote the speech for a series of stronger measures.



like T.May's speech that sounded very much as if she was going to resign, but didn't


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Claiming we are about 4 weeks behind Italy. Hmmmm.


How many cases did Italy have 4 weeks ago? Looks like they were around 600 about 30 days after the first case was discovered, which was the end of December.


----------



## agricola (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I don't get why they aren't talking about at least closing universities. A much easier thing to do than schools, and a much higher risk environment.



Loads of them are already in financial problems; taking out a big bit of their income from rents etc and probably a chunk of the tuition fees would probably tip some of them over the edge.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 12, 2020)

For all the BBC conspiracy theorists, 'Pointless' follows the government's news briefing - you could not make it up 😁

Edit

Looks like they have changed the schedule - sensible!


----------



## Smangus (Mar 12, 2020)

The govt response  is all about cutting losses, not prioritizing public health.


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

The testing regime is dead.


----------



## agricola (Mar 12, 2020)

No testing unless you've been admitted to hospital, apparently.  Can see the point of it but it is probably going to do in a load of nurses / doctors etc.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 12, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> How many cases did Italy have 4 weeks ago? Looks like they were around 600 about 30 days after the first case was discovered, which was the end of December.


None, basically


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> How many cases did Italy have 4 weeks ago? Looks like they were around 600 about 30 days after the first case was discovered, which was the end of December.



Other people have been crunching the numbers on this sort of thing here for some time, so they are better placed to comment on that than me. But generally people have been working with the assumption that we are a few weeks behind Italy, not 4. I dont know what my opinion will be when I have time to think about it properly myself, but provisionally 4 weeks sounds too long.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I don't get why they aren't talking about at least closing universities. A much easier thing to do than schools, and a much higher risk environment.


It's happening by stealth. Durham has said they are finishing physical teaching a week early (moving to virtual); where I work is hurriedly putting in place plans to do the same and I've heard of similar happening elsewhere. But yeah, exactly, universities/colleges can be closed without needing parents to be off work and, depending on the course, it's relatively easy to complete the year/degree remotely.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 12, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> None, basically


Where do you get 'none' from? They had 600 cases 30 days after the end of December, i.e. at the end of January, which was almost 6 weeks ago. Edit, see planetgeli post below.


----------



## agricola (Mar 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> The testing regime is dead.



they really have to stop going on about number of infections / deaths then, as a statistic its meaningless now


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 12, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> None, basically



Well...



> On 31 January, the first two cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Rome. A Chinese couple, originally from Wuhan, who had arrived in Italy on January 23 via Milan Malpensa Airport travelled from the airport to Verona, then to Parma, arriving in Rome on 28 January.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 12, 2020)

Wilf said:


> It's happening by stealth. Durham has said they are finishing physical teaching a week early (moving to virtual); where I work is hurriedly putting in place plans to do the same and I've heard of similar happening elsewhere. But yeah, exactly, universities/colleges can be closed without needing parents to be off work and, depending on the course, it's relatively easy to complete the year/degree remotely.


Yep, this is true, the university I'm linked to is moving lectures online from 23rd March. Lecturers have been told to start prepping for that now. I suspect they've been told to do it by the government. But if they recognise the risks of universities (international students, highly mobile academics, crowded lecture theatres) it feels like they should act now rather than in two weeks.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 12, 2020)

Wilf said:


> It's happening by stealth. Durham has said they are finishing physical teaching a week early (moving to virtual); where I work is hurriedly putting in place plans to do the same and I've heard of similar happening elsewhere. But yeah, exactly, universities/colleges can be closed without needing parents to be off work and, depending on the course, it's relatively easy to complete the year/degree remotely.


Latest from our place was "business as usual", but within our department they've been asking us who has capabilities to work from home. Will be interesting, because a lot of my team are still based on the frontline so there's only so much we can do, and curious as to whether they'll actually close the libraries or those who do the frontline will still be asked to come in. I would _hope _they wouldn't be daft enough to do the latter, but y'never know.


----------



## marty21 (Mar 12, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Clever.   I don't think there are any cases there yet.


Great contingency planning tbf


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

agricola said:


> they really have to stop going on about number of infections / deaths then, as a statistic its meaningless now



I was never a huge fan of the case fatality rate stats from around the world because I had no way to judge the actual number if infections, as opposed to detected cases.

It was always likely that the testing regime would change. The same thing happened with swine flu when they judged that we had entered the epidemic phase.

I dont really know what useful stats we will get moving forwards, sadly my attention has turned to simple data about number of serious cases and deaths, and I will wait for serology surveys and other clues and hindsight about broader levels of infection. For monitoring the situation day by day, a lot of what I will want will be hospital stats, and I dont know to what extent we will get them.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 12, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Well...


Hence the "basically".


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

Wilf said:


> As well as upping the testing regime for anyone with suspected cv, they should be doing random testing to get even a vague sense of community transmission (not just the extent, but also the routes and probable methods of transmission). *There are clearly a minimum of several thousand infections in the UK at the moment, but Johnson et al just don't want to know. Cunts.*



Are you actually watching or listening to the press conference? 

Only, they have said the current number infected in the UK is likely to be between 10 & 12k.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2020)

Numbers said:


> My first thought with that is 200,000 farmers coughing on each other for 4 days.


That reminded me how delighted I am that they're bringing back The Fast Show:


----------



## agricola (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Are you actually watching or listening to the press conference?
> 
> Only, they have said the current number infected in the UK is likely to be between 10 & 12k.



That they said that, and then said they weren't going to give a number based on a guess was absolutely infuriating.   With the current testing regime its really difficult to know how widespread it is, and with the proposed one its going to be impossible.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 12, 2020)

I missed the bit where they said they're stopping testing. Why are they doing that?


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

agricola said:


> That they said that, and then said they weren't going to give a number based on a guess was absolutely infuriating.   With the current testing regime its really difficult to know how widespread it is, and with the proposed one its going to be impossible.



Actually they will still have methods for estimating stuff under the new regime. Whether they share the detail with us I dont know, probably they will share a number or two from it in regular updates rather than leave a void.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I missed the bit where they said they're stopping testing. Why are they doing that?


They didn't say that. They relaxed the rules around testing that means you can now get tested without having a history of travel to an affected country or exposure to a confirmed case.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I missed the bit where they said they're stopping testing. Why are they doing that?


There was something about moving the testing resources to hospitals so they can test the people that have symptoms, I think.


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I missed the bit where they said they're stopping testing. Why are they doing that?



They want to use all their testing capacity on sick people who need hospital treatment, they dont want to use resources on people who will only have a mild illness. There will be exceptions.


----------



## agricola (Mar 12, 2020)

Macer Hall (of the Express) with a clearly planted question there.


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 12, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> They didn't say that. They relaxed the rules around testing that means you can now get tested without having a history of travel to an affected country or exposure to a confirmed case.


but only on admission to hospital with severe symptoms, i thought.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2020)

A lot about isolating the elderly, but is there any advice about those of us who live with elderly relatives? Can't stay more than two metres away - it's a tiny flat and we eat together


----------



## agricola (Mar 12, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> but only on admission to hospital with severe symptoms, i thought.



thats what it will be from now on (but with any symptoms, not just severe)


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 12, 2020)

not allowed in unless severe hence self-isolate with mild symptoms.


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> I will wait for serology surveys and other clues and hindsight about broader levels of infection.



By the way that was the thing Whitty was making reference to with his final comments in answer to a question about how much faith they had in international data.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 12, 2020)

Final Churchillian words from our brave Prime Minister:





> Don't forget, wash your hands, and, uh, we will get through this


----------



## Barking_Mad (Mar 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Are you actually watching or listening to the press conference?
> 
> Only, they have said the current number infected in the UK is likely to be between 10 & 12k.



Which is surely at odds with "4 weeks behind Italy"?


----------



## agricola (Mar 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Actually they will still have methods for estimating stuff under the new regime. Whether they share the detail with us I dont know, probably they will share a number or two from it in regular updates rather than leave a void.



I rather suspect we'll all be told there were "only" 200 more infections today, that the worst is over etc etc etc


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2020)

Barking_Mad said:


> Which is surely at odds with "4 weeks behind Italy"?



No, because Italy is likely to currently have well over 100k cases.


----------



## gaijingirl (Mar 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Aye, we’ve run out of gel at my work and we get a couple of thousand people through our doors every day



I've had mine nicked at school and apparently we're struggling to source any more supplies.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> This just in from Mrs B's employer, a university in northern england...


I got that today, I mentor one of their students.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 12, 2020)

School has bought us hand sanitizer. Hahaha. They never buy us anything. 

Pupils are gonna be pissed off though. Wales online ran a story today saying we'd be shut by next Friday. Apparently not.


----------



## kebabking (Mar 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> A lot about isolating the elderly, but is there any advice about those of us who live with elderly relatives? Can't stay more than two metres away - it's a tiny flat and we eat together



The advice is one of two options - go elsewhere, or isolate _as a unit._

That means you don't go to work, limit shopping, don't socialise with others.

It doesn't mean nailing the door shut, you can still go out for bike rides, walks, drives, but you must be rigourous in your hygiene/decontamination regimes while you're out and when you get back.

You are, roughly, in the same position as someone with you kids, and the advice is the same for them.


----------



## Indeliblelink (Mar 12, 2020)

Heard schools might have to give up some of the summer holidays to catch up with lost teaching if they close.
Rise in parents looking for private tutors during any closures? Might just be because it's that time of year - pre-exams.


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 12, 2020)

Wilf said:


> It's happening by stealth. Durham has said they are finishing physical teaching a week early (moving to virtual); where I work is hurriedly putting in place plans to do the same and I've heard of similar happening elsewhere. But yeah, exactly, universities/colleges can be closed without needing parents to be off work and, depending on the course, it's relatively easy to complete the year/degree remotely.





Brainaddict said:


> Yep, this is true, the university I'm linked to is moving lectures online from 23rd March. Lecturers have been told to start prepping for that now. I suspect they've been told to do it by the government. But if they recognise the risks of universities (international students, highly mobile academics, crowded lecture theatres) it feels like they should act now rather than in two weeks.


Time for workers to double down on ASOS and screw the fuckers


----------



## mauvais (Mar 12, 2020)

We're on a trial of enforced working from home on Monday.

I'm not yet two months into this specific role and from the beginning I've been arguing - for simple risk reasons - that we need to make one of our systems accessible from outside the building in order to have basic continuity. It's been my hobby horse that noone else really wanted to do, but I've cracked on with it anyway. Well now I look like a _genius, _and all it's taken is a global plague and several thousand deaths.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 12, 2020)

So glad I resigned my job in a school, that filthy understaffed underfunded germ factory run by a child.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 12, 2020)

The big question is do we (ie as a society as well as on here) buy into the science as presented and hence the resulting strategy and act accordingly - it seems our approach is more strategic across time (proactive?) than reactive - is this the right approach, only time will tell.  

According to the CSO the peak may still be 10-14 weeks away which is a long time to self isolate (if you are old) and to close things down; it was also interesting that the worst case scenario was 80% infection rate  but CMO did not think this would be reached.

Nothing on reinfectiosn as part of the staying at home approach i.e. I get it pass it to my partner but start to improve, he/she then passes it back to me - can this happen or do i have some immunity? So much we still do not know.

I cannot image the grief anyone in public with cough is now going to get...


----------



## Supine (Mar 12, 2020)

I thought the scientific and medical advisors made great explanations for why the response is currently so measured. All of the closures being discussed are obviously still on the table and will almost certainly get used over the next few weeks. 

History will let us know how good the scientific advise turns out to be. Seems right to me at the moment.


----------



## kazza007 (Mar 12, 2020)

PD58 said:


> The big question is do we (ie as a society as well as on here) buy into the science as presented and hence the resulting strategy and act accordingly - it seems our approach is more strategic across time (proactive?) than reactive - is this the right approach, only time will tell.
> 
> According to the CSO the peak may still be 10-14 weeks away which is a long time to self isolate (if you are old) and to close things down; it was also interesting that the worst case scenario was 80% infection rate  but CMO did not think this would be reached.
> 
> ...


If you had, and it cleared, you are apparently no longer infectious.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2020)

kebabking said:


> The advice is one of two options - go elsewhere, or isolate _as a unit._
> 
> That means you don't go to work, limit shopping, don't socialise with others.
> 
> ...


thanks for that, i'm freaking out so much that i've had to stop looking at the newsfeeds, as my heart is pounding too much. I may go to work tomorrow to sort some shit out, then come back, have a Silkwood shower, then stay home until.. Until when? fuck


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 12, 2020)

This has probably already been said, but what kind of fucking state do we have to be in for _Jeremy Hunt_ to be the voice of reason???


----------



## treelover (Mar 12, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I’ve had flu jab and pneumonia immunisation which will probably do bugger all but here’s hoping.
> 
> Hopefully it’ll be wfh next week as the city descends into chaos.




I didn't know you couuld be inoculated from pneumonia, and i am in at risk groups, etc.


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> I didn't know you couuld be inoculated from pneumonia, and i am in at risk groups, etc.



There is a vaccine against one particular form of pneumonia, that is caused by a kind of strep bacteria. The vaccine wont do anything against all the other forms and causes of pneumonia.


----------



## CNT36 (Mar 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> I didn't know you couuld be inoculated from pneumonia, and i am in at risk groups, etc.



I'm at risk too and it nearly took me out when I was 21. Gimme gimme gimme.


----------



## CNT36 (Mar 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> There is a vaccine against one particular form of pneumonia, that is caused by a kind of strep bacteria. The vaccine wont do anything against all the other forms and causes of pneumonia.


Thought it may be something like that.


----------



## prunus (Mar 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> I didn't know you couuld be inoculated from pneumonia, and i am in at risk groups, etc.



Not specifically this one, just pneumococcal etc, but probably worth doing.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> excellent tv series on drug use of PMs and El Presidentes,  on youtube now
> 
> 
> Altered Statesmen (TV Series) | Radio Times


Was that made by Peartree Productions by any chance?


----------



## prunus (Mar 12, 2020)

Has anyone got a link to a transcript or replay of the press conference?  I missed it and would like to read/hear the science justification.  Thanks.


----------



## phillm (Mar 12, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Final Churchillian words from our brave Prime Minister:


We shall fight them with the bleaches.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 12, 2020)

prunus said:


> Has anyone got a link to a transcript or replay of the press conference?  I missed it and would like to read/hear the science justification.  Thanks.



There is some justification for not completely locking down but I can't see the reasoning behind not recommending social distancing and canceling large gatherings. I watched the press conference and still non the wiser other than 'people will get bored of it,' a mind boggling position in itself.

It's probably available on youtube by the way.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 12, 2020)

phillm said:


> We shall fight them with the bleaches.


"This is not the end, it is not even the beginni * cough * I... no.... wait!"


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 12, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I don't get why they aren't talking about at least closing universities. A much easier thing to do than schools, and a much higher risk environment.



My brothers had an email from Manchester met saying to go on Easter holidays early. Its yet unclear whether they will be expected to come back but my feeling is probably not.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 12, 2020)

Fuck the doctor on channel 4 is just chilling with her words.

'we will be burying our colleagues in this'


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 12, 2020)

Not sure whether this is the right thread for this.

On personal lockdown.

Supposed to be meeting a friend tomorrow. Asked my partner and she was ok about it. Got home and now she is concerned about me going out due to the virus.

(Im in London)

Im already taking risks as work in central London. This being a multicultural city I have been working with people who have been in France and Italy recently.

So Im already taking a risk.

But do posters think cutting down on seeing friends is the way to go?

So far no official bans.

Im trying to juggle friends and what is now I see in London as increasing social anxiety.

Had friend who was sent home from work today in London as person in her building is now in hospital with the virus. Company sent everyone home immediately and told them to work from home from now on. Until told different. The person was not in her department. So she didnt have contact. Its just that the company decided to send everyone in the building home. 

So despite the general the show must go on feeling its starting to get serious.

And this is having personal implications.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 12, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> The person was not in her department. So she didnt have contact.


It's not just about close personal contact. They might have sat on the same toilet seat, or at the same table in the staff canteen, or shared the elevator. Plenty of ways that anyone in that building could have been close enough at just the wrong time to pick up the virus.

About seeing friends - every person you meet up with is one more potential infection vector (in both directions). Is it a big increase in risk? No, probably not in the general scheme of things. But is it 100% risk-free? No, definitely not.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 12, 2020)

Lonfon Met Uni is going online from 20th March and next week professional services staff are in two shifts to allow more distance (they are in next week to prepare for the shutdown) 

LSE and Durham unis announced plans 

Waiting for mine to move online


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 12, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Of course it is - this has the potential of scuppering Boris's premiership before it even gets going...forget levelling up, the money will be spent on bail out and hopefully health care.
> 
> Denmark is advising that all gatherings of 100+ should be postponed - meanwhile there are 50,000+ at Anfield including Italians masquerading as Spanish it seems...


Boris Johnson has been pm for nearly 8 months. How many months do you think it takes for his administration to get going?


----------



## Mogden (Mar 12, 2020)

Work have sent the email round today clarifying who is supposed to stay at home and/or WFH. My role means I can't work from home as I'm quality control. The smallest hint of a sniffle and we're to self isolate and they've said they'll not count it as sick leave, meaning you'll not get it on your record so to speak.

We have a strict hand washing policy anyway but we're in danger of running out of the very specific supplies we have to use and if that happens we will have to close and ironically some of our products will be needed more at this time but we won't be able to produce them


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 12, 2020)

The former director of public health on question time is utterly scathing of the government's approach.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 12, 2020)

The "management" of the multi-occupancy site where I have my workshop supplied some liquid soap and alcohol-based hand gel this week. The former normally lasts a week or so before it "disappears".
Both bottles "disappeared" yesterday, and the site caretaker could only re-supply the soap this afternoon.

Annoying.

I've got my own in my bag, the "official" stuff is way too harsh for my skin - it usually brings me out in a rash after a few days regular use.
Will be wearing latex gloves much more than usual (normally only wear them for painting and varnishing) ...


----------



## scifisam (Mar 12, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I mean that's not what she said of course.  Something about people not having their usual routine blah blah.  I'm more annoyed because having people WFH as much as possible over the next couple of months is just the socially responsible thing to do.  If I have to come to work I want to share the tube with as few people as possible.



Yep, for those who do have to go out to work, which is quite a lot of people, it'll be much easier for them to do social distancing if there aren't as many people to distance themselves from. 

Plus if your boss is worried about people not having a routine, surely it's better to gradually ease people into it now while there are still people in the office to help organise things, rather than have everyone be "out of their routine" at once.

The one positive outcome of all this lockdown stuff might be more employers starting to allow working from home long-term, where it's possible. I know employers have been gradually moving towards this more and more, but this could force the reluctant ones into trying it and realising that it doesn't really result in lower productivity.



Cloo said:


> Johnson  said,  not unreasonably,  that to start on a hard lockdown too soon would risk making it too long to be really sustainable and harder to enforce. Honestly it's probably mostly a guessing game of when and how long. What I gather now is that potential lockdown is not intended as 'until this thing goes away and no one gets it', but 'until most usual winter NHS strain has passed and it can cope with masses of cases' (and presumably has got more breathing equipment in?)



I hate to say it, because it's Johnson, but I think it actually makes sense.



Orang Utan said:


> Seriously worried about how the fuck kids on FSM are gonna get fed. We feed them at work during the holidays, but if there is a lockdown, I don't know how that will happen



That worries me too. Perhaps the meals on wheels service could step in? They could at least bring refrigerated ready meals round, if actually cooking that number of extra meals (presumably with a reduced staff) is impossible. I mean, it's fairly easy to make deliveries without actually coming into contact with people, especially if you don't ask them to sign for it. It'd be better than just leaving the kids without their school lunches.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2020)

scifisam said:


> That worries me too. Perhaps the meals on wheels service could step in? They could at least bring refrigerated ready meals round, if actually cooking that number of extra meals (presumably with a reduced staff) is impossible. I mean, it's fairly easy to make deliveries without actually coming into contact with people, especially if you don't ask them to sign for it. It'd be better than just leaving the kids without their school lunches.


Meals on wheels is usually just for elderly and disabled people. I doubt they'd be able to cope with whole families!


----------



## Quote (Mar 12, 2020)

My stupid parents are stubbornly insisting on going on a coach tour to fucking Llandudno. Scares me just thinking about it. I was desperately hoping that stupid blonde tit would do something useful for once and call for more extreme lockdown measures (for the selfish reason of hoping it would scare them straight...)

But of course we decided to elect a risk taking, reckless, gambling wanker with a Churchill complex.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 12, 2020)

The way this virus is going, I can see apocalyptic empty streets with only delivery vans on the road delivering toilet paper, hand gel, face masks and tinned food to the self isolated masses.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Meals on wheels is usually just for elderly and disabled people. I doubt they'd be able to cope with whole families!



Hence me mentioning delivering ready meals instead. It wouldn't be whole families anyway, just the kids. Just an idea for something to do rather than letting kids starve. Hopefully dealing with this is one of the things local councils who actually know about stuff have included in their planning.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Hence me mentioning delivering ready meals instead. It wouldn't be whole families anyway, just the kids. Just an idea for something to do rather than letting kids starve. Hopefully dealing with this is one of the things local councils who actually know about stuff have included in their planning.


from my experience, the ideas about how to deal with this come from the bottom up 
It sounds like a logistical nightmare to deliver hot meals to families this way. I can only speak from my own experience, but it was difficult enough delivering meals from a single location, esp since it transpired that it wasn't just the kids who need feeding.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> from my experience, the ideas about how to deal with this come from the bottom up
> It sounds like a logistical nightmare to deliver hot meals to families this way. I can only speak from my own experience, but it was difficult enough delivering meals from a single location, esp since it transpired that it wasn't just the kids who need feeding.



Oh yeah, delivering extra hot meals would be impossible. I meant just bringing round ready meals for the parents or kids to heat up, like macaroni cheese or veggie lasagne, that sort of thing. That assumes they have something to heat it up in, of course, but most people do, and it's still better than just doing nothing.


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2020)

Hunt being puzzled, worried or whatever about the governments approach, even when taking their 4 weeks behind Italy timing estimate at fate value, and wanting to see the behavioural science modelling, probably should be recorded on this thread for future reference.



> Former Health Secretary and current Chairman of the Health Select Committee Jeremy Hunt was interviewed on Channel 4 News earlier this evening about the UK’s response to coronavirus. Hunt challenged the logic of delaying social distancing measures, saying “I’m surprised we’re not moving sooner”.
> 
> “The places that have succeeded are the ones that moved earliest to social distancing ...I think people will be concerned that we’re not moving sooner to more social distancing, for example banning external visits to care homes.”
> 
> ...



                            49m ago    23:05


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 13, 2020)

Aktion-T4 in default if not design 









						‘It was a medical disaster’: The psychiatric ward that saw 100 patients diagnosed with new coronavirus
					

Hand sanitisers could not be left out because of risk patients would drink them




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Oh yeah, delivering extra hot meals would be impossible. I meant just bringing round ready meals for the parents or kids to heat up, like macaroni cheese or veggie lasagne, that sort of thing. That assumes they have something to heat it up in, of course, but most people do, and it's still better than just doing nothing.


Ready meals made locally or from supermarkets? I seriously doubt the latter would be supplied unfortunately


----------



## scifisam (Mar 13, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Ready meals made locally or from supermarkets? I seriously doubt the latter would be supplied unfortunately



From supermarkets. Normal ready meals you find in the fridge section. I'm not expecting Tesco to step up and provide food for free, but I'm also not expecting supermarkets to suddenly not have ready meals for sale. Better than leaving kids without food, surely?


----------



## bendeus (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Hunt being puzzled, worried or whatever about the governments approach, even when taking their 4 weeks behind Italy timing estimate at fate value, and wanting to see the behavioural science modelling, probably should be recorded on this thread for future reference.
> 
> 
> 
> 49m ago    23:05



Is it just me or does he appear to be close to tears at certain points of the interview?


----------



## kazza007 (Mar 13, 2020)

bendeus said:


> Is it just me or does he appear to be close to tears at certain points of the interview?


I thought he was about to emotionally breakdown at several points.


----------



## bendeus (Mar 13, 2020)

kazza007 said:


> I thought he was about to emotionally breakdown at several points.


Glad it's not just me. At certain points he almost resembled a (deep breath) human.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 13, 2020)

bendeus said:


> Is it just me or does he appear to be close to tears at certain points of the interview?





bendeus said:


> Is it just me or does he appear to be close to tears at certain points of the interview?



Looks like he's bricking it. He's properly upset there.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 13, 2020)

Perhaps his contribution to fucking up the NHS was working its way through to his conscience 


..... ah as you were.


----------



## bendeus (Mar 13, 2020)

This appears to be a fairly significant schism within the ruling party, no? He's gone further than any elected member of any party (that I'm aware of) in his explicit criticism of current policy. Have to say that this makes me deeply, deeply worried

ETA: keeps referring to behavioural scientists needing to produce the evidence. Is this a swipe at Cummings and the scientific basis on which policy is being rolled out?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2020)

Ready meals need microwaves and ovens and adults to operate them


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Well I dont really know what to say about this article right now, would be interested to hear the opinions of other people who have been following the numbers in Italy, the UK and other places.









						Coronavirus: Three reasons why the UK might not look like Italy
					

Boris Johnson's chief scientific adviser says the UK is four weeks behind Italy, What does that mean?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Theres a bunch of stuff that doesnt make all that much sense to me as well as some obvious omissions, but I will sleep on it.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Given that even back in the Blair era of the UK-EU relationship, I sometimes noticed things that were painted in the press as being a Blair agenda were actually EU directive based, and that we havent really had time to disentangle from that world yet, I thought I would check out the European Centre for Disease Controls latest update.

Hmmm, maybe its the source of the '4 weeks behind Italy' thing.



> The current pace of the increase in cases in the EU/EEA and the UK mirrors trends seen in China in January-early February and trends seen in Italy in mid-February.



However that is specifically about case increase pacing. And its not the same as saying that we have 4 weeks until we resemble the current state of affairs in Italy. For example in regards the future, it actually says:



> The speed with which COVID-19 can cause nationally incapacitating epidemics once transmission within the community is established, indicates that in a few weeks or even days, it is likely that similar situations to those seen in China and Italy may be seen in other EU/EEA countries or the UK.



There is some other interesting stuff in there too but its a little late for me to be plucking more bits out to quote right now.









						Rapid risk assessment: Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic: increased transmission in the EU/EEA and the UK – sixth update
					

Since ECDC’s fifth update on novel coronavirus published on 2 March 2020 and as of 11 March, the number of cases and deaths reported in the EU/EEA and the UK has been rising, mirroring the trends seen in China in January-early February and in northern Italy in late February. If this trend...




					www.ecdc.europa.eu


----------



## sorearm (Mar 13, 2020)

Email from CEO went around today saying a patient had potential CV exposure (didn't say whether staff or relative source of potential exposure) , all non essential staff to discuss with line manager working from home.

I've sorted out work laptop and vpn dongle to pick up tomorrow,  looks like WFH Monday onwards

Fucking furious schools not being closed,  considering keeping daughter off school from Monday


----------



## UrbaneFox (Mar 13, 2020)

Arsenal manager.


----------



## andysays (Mar 13, 2020)

Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I suspect Hunt is just starting to position himself for a leadership bid once Johnson's handling of the CV crisis fails completely. 

Being PM is still a worthwhile goal, even if it's of a country devastated by plague, with its population reduced by many millions and all public infrastructure in tatters.


----------



## Rosemary Jest (Mar 13, 2020)

andysays said:


> Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I suspect Hunt is just starting to position himself for a leadership bid once Johnson's handling of the CV crisis fails completely.
> 
> Being PM is still a worthwhile goal, even if it's of a country devastated by plague, with its population reduced by many millions and all public infrastructure in tatters.



Not being cynical at all. This, this, and one million times this.


----------



## Looby (Mar 13, 2020)

andysays said:


> Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I suspect Hunt is just starting to position himself for a leadership bid once Johnson's handling of the CV crisis fails completely.
> 
> Being PM is still a worthwhile goal, even if it's of a country devastated by plague, with its population reduced by many millions and all public infrastructure in tatters.


He looked shaken though, I hate him and all of them but I believed he’s worried.


----------



## Rosemary Jest (Mar 13, 2020)

Looby said:


> He looked shaken though, I hate him and all of them but I believed he’s worried.



A Tory can only feign concern about others when it benefits them, don't be fooled.


----------



## killer b (Mar 13, 2020)

Hes probably just got some friends and loved ones who are more likely to die if this is a wrong call surely?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 13, 2020)

Urban, eh. Black and white and red all over as ever


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 13, 2020)

bendeus said:


> Is it just me or does he appear to be close to tears at certain points of the interview?



I think there may have been a monitor in his line of vision displaying the latest stock market figures.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 13, 2020)

BBC being shit at challenging the CSO about why the UK's tactic are so completely different to the rest of Europe.


----------



## tommers (Mar 13, 2020)

At least he was honest about the NHS being overwhelmed.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Mar 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> Hes probably just got some friends and loved ones who are more likely to die if this is a wrong call surely?




Some of the very first cases were in his constituency, Haslemere and Farnham. For all his myriad faults, he is a local MP who was born here, schooled here and still lives here. So possibly feels a bit more responsibility to his constituents than an MP parachuted in like Gove or Johnson.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 13, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> BBC being shit at challenging the CSO about why the UK's tactic are so completely different to the rest of Europe.



The journo's questions at yesterday's briefing were poor to say the least - nothing about the behavioural science aspect of the strategy for example, which basically inferred that people will not do what is asked of them.

Interesting to wake up and see that I tend to agree with Hunt - we live in strange times...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 13, 2020)

Guardian reporting a tube driver positive for coronavirus.

Doom, doom in the deeps.


----------



## bendeus (Mar 13, 2020)

sorearm said:


> Email from CEO went around today saying a patient had potential CV exposure (didn't say whether staff or relative source of potential exposure) , all non essential staff to discuss with line manager working from home.
> 
> I've sorted out work laptop and vpn dongle to pick up tomorrow,  looks like WFH Monday onwards
> 
> Fucking furious schools not being closed,  considering keeping daughter off school from Monday



Yeah. We took our kids out today for the duration. Both myself and Mrs Bendy are self-employed and both of us are already being badly hit by the situation in terms of work coming in so there's no danger of there not being someone at home to look after them


----------



## PD58 (Mar 13, 2020)

I think the strategy is slowly sinking in - 'herd immunity' so a significant majority of us contract the virus suffer mild symptoms recover and develop immunity and bingo transmission problem alleviated...a somewhat different approach from elsewhere. Re the large gatherings how does the CSO know there is more chance of catching it in the pub then at a football match - where is his evidence? Seems a lot of organisations are doing the job for the government anyway...


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

It will likely be based on basic stuff such as enclosed spaces with much poorer ventilation having increased potential for spread. But the full picture needs to include travel and the mixing of people from different areas.

Their justification for not banning large public gatherings did seem to rely on the idea that people would 'go to the pub to watch the football game instead'. Leading to the obvious suspicion that there was still some risk from the outdoor event and the associated travel, and they had to contrast that with the greater risk from pubs etc in order to justify their stance.


----------



## rookwood (Mar 13, 2020)

I do think though, purely from the comms perspective (again) irrespective of the media’s inadequacy, the government is starting to lose control of the situation.

Significant numbers of people are taking children out of school, some universities have decided to close (or go onliine, as far as they can, but this is often not feasible) and others will follow today and early next week, students are in any event voting with their feet (particularly international students) and just heading home to be with families.

They didn’t want to cancel sport but the spread amongst the professional football community has meant it has been cancelled anyway on its own authority (so much for ‘pubs’), and there is huge pressure in the unions for significant (and if necessary illegal) coordinated action to force the hands of employers. The GMB is demanding that the government nationalise the private healthcare sector and seize their beds. In a crisis like this you’ll find that policy will be popular with every Tory voter who doesn’t have top-end private health insurance, and even some of them.

The keep calm and carry on thing isn’t going to work at a communications level in a globalised world and the danger for the government is they become seen as an incompetent, complacent, irrelevance as sectors make their own arrangements. One of the problems with political leadership is you do have to set the agenda; if you consistently refuse to do this, others will.

That’s aside from the broader questions of ‘nudge’/Cummings vs. the epidemiologists.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

How fancy can behavioural science be in regards to reverse psychology?

Is it possible they are trying to work on several levels at once, and have factored in the idea that people might actually take more personal steps to reduce the spread if they think the government isnt going far enough?


----------



## bimble (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> How fancy can behavioural science be in regards to reverse psychology?
> 
> Is it possible they are trying to work on several levels at once, and have factored in the idea that people might actually take more personal steps to reduce the spread if they think the government isnt going far enough?


I think at least that they are definitely factoring in that a certain proportion of people will hear the message of 'next week we may be imposing these tighter restrictions on you' and start doing those things themselves now.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Fuck this times a million:



> Analysis
> By Nick Triggle
> Health correspondent
> The worst health crisis in a generation. Lives will be lost. All this is true. But what got missed in the government's coronavirus message - understandably, given the scale of the challenge - is that we should also get on with our lives.
> ...





> We should still go out, play sport, attend events and keep children in school. Why? Short of never leaving your home and the rest of the household following suit, it's impossible to eliminate the risk of getting the virus. It's circulating.
> 
> Even if you skip your trip to a concert or the theatre, you may well catch it on your way to work or when you do the weekly shop.





> This virus is with us now. And it will be for the foreseeable future. Only when we have a vaccine or if herd immunity develops - if enough of the population is exposed to it - will we have protection.
> 
> There will no doubt be a time when drastic measures are needed - to flatten the peak, protect the most vulnerable at the time of highest risk and stop the NHS getting overwhelmed - but it's not now. That's the clear message.











						Coronavirus: UK measures defended after criticism
					

The government defends its coronavirus plans as confirmed cases rise to 798.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Cid (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Fuck this times a million:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Baffling... there genuinely seems to be an attitude of ‘don’t worry, we brits are above all this’. And so much internally contradictory shit being spouted. We were never at ‘delay’, we just moved straight to ‘let it run’.


----------



## Cid (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> How fancy can behavioural science be in regards to reverse psychology?
> 
> Is it possible they are trying to work on several levels at once, and have factored in the idea that people might actually take more personal steps to reduce the spread if they think the government isnt going far enough?



Anecdotally I’ve not met anyone worried about it (at all), except some of my older, better informed relatives. I’ve not noticed fewer people in supermarkets, or in the centre (of Sheffield).


----------



## Numbers (Mar 13, 2020)

798 positive, increase of 208.
3007 tested in 24hrs.


----------



## krink (Mar 13, 2020)

Thanks for the messages and offers of support everyone, I really appreciate it. I have tried to make sense of the info from work compared to the info from government and the media and I feel a lot less stressed today. It's going to be tricky but we will get through it. My brother lives a lot closer to my mam  so he does more of the heavy lifting but me and my kids go every week and get her shopping and whatnot. She's remarkably fit considering she's 85 and had a hell of a tough life but we are still worried what might happen if me and my brother have to isolate ourselves. I think I will have to meet up with him and make a plan. 
Working from home today, still waiting for instructions for next week but hey it's only 2 pm and we finish in a couple of hours so plenty of time


----------



## Numbers (Mar 13, 2020)

Am I right in assuming this is just the peeps who present to a hospital?


----------



## prunus (Mar 13, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Am I right in assuming this is just the peeps who present to a hospital?



I would say no, not yet at least, on the basis that my co-worker* was tested at home just this morning.

* Who I sit next to for 8 hours a day.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Am I right in assuming this is just the peeps who present to a hospital?



Announcement of ending of previous testing regime was only yesterday, so probably still catching up with tests ordered under that system, and I suspect there might be additional devil in the detail. Especially since its possible that part of the point of announcing changes to testing were to reduce the amount of the worried well who were expecting to be tested and could flood the system.

I will see if I can find greater clarity on that.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

I havent found the complete answer yet, but there are several clues in this document (updated March 12th) regarding priority of testing during periods of significant demand:





__





						COVID-19: guidance for sampling and for diagnostic laboratories
					

Information for clinical diagnostic laboratories regarding safety, sampling and packaging specimens associated with COVID-19.




					www.gov.uk
				






> *Group 1 (test first):* patient requiring critical care for the management of pneumonia, ARDS or influenza like illness (ILI)†, or an alternative indication of severe illness has been provided, for example severe pneumonia or ARDS
> 
> *Group 2:* all other patients requiring admission to hospital* for management of pneumonia, ARDS or ILI
> 
> *Group 3:* clusters of disease in residential or care settings, for example long term care facility, prisons, boarding schools



So group 3 gives some indication of non-hospital cases that they still envisage testing.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Another BBC attempt to explain the UK stance:

14:46 on their live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51866403



> Pallab Ghosh
> Science correspondent, BBC News
> 
> Many countries are taking tough measures such as school closures, cancelling mass gatherings and severe travel restrictions. But the UK has adopted relatively modest controls. The difference can be explained partly by the fact that some of the countries are further into their epidemics.
> ...


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 13, 2020)

All-college email. Training Monday and Tuesday covering all aspects of teaching and communication from home in readiness. This time next week I think we'll be shut down, as I've thought for a while now.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 13, 2020)

Numbers said:


> 798 positive, increase of 208.
> 3007 tested in 24hrs.


35% increase.


----------



## prunus (Mar 13, 2020)

S☼I said:


> 35% increase.



The daily increases are going to become less useful as a measure of anything, other than a function of the number of tests really, as they focus the testing regime on those likely to be positive.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 13, 2020)

prunus said:


> The daily increases are going to become less useful as a measure of anything, other than a function of the number of tests really, as they focus the testing regime on those likely to be positive.


Yeah, I know. I just like the numbers. These are two weeks old though are they not?


----------



## Callie (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Announcement of ending of previous testing regime was only yesterday, so probably still catching up with tests ordered under that system, and I suspect there might be additional devil in the detail. Especially since its possible that part of the point of announcing changes to testing were to reduce the amount of the worried well who were expecting to be tested and could flood the system.
> 
> I will see if I can find greater clarity on that.


Kind of yes. No more community testing of mild cases. Self isolate. Call 111 only if in need of medical assistance. Testing for those "admitted" to hospital with respiratory symptoms.


----------



## Callie (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> I havent found the complete answer yet, but there are several clues in this document (updated March 12th) regarding priority of testing during periods of significant demand:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If testing capacity allows


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

What about medical staff being tested? (eg after exposure to a positive patient or when there is strong suspicion of nosocomial spread).

Are we still going to see exceptions to the new regime, eg will we still hear of public figures testing positive even if they are not hospitalised?


----------



## Flavour (Mar 13, 2020)

I cannot believe the UK government is saying they're fine with potentially half a million people dying. What utter scum.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Flavour said:


> I cannot believe the UK government is saying they're fine with potentially half a million people dying. What utter scum.



I wasnt surprised they took this approach in terms of what they are actually doing with policy, but I have expressed plenty of surprise this week that they have so publicly and unambiguously nailed themselves to that mast. They've not given themselves any cover at all, they've not tried to pretend that they are taking the same approach as other countries, and they've gone on the record with some of their modelling assumptions that everyone will be able to test the validity of in the coming weeks.


----------



## Edie (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Another BBC attempt to explain the UK stance:
> 
> 14:46 on their live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51866403


I was impressed by Johnson and the scientific and medical advisors yesterday. I thought the position was well explained and rational. Basically: wash your hands, flatten the curve, herd immunity, and timely social distancing measures to avoid social fatigue.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 13, 2020)

All May elections have been called off. 

That'll pissed off Rory Stewart.


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 13, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Am I right in assuming this is just the peeps who present to a hospital?


Yes, as we've now moved to not community testing (so if symptomatic, no test, stay at home and isolate for 7 days), and only testing hospitalised (first part of the new groups-to-test definition - "requires hospitalisation") patients.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Edie said:


> I was impressed by Johnson and the scientific and medical advisors yesterday. I thought the position was well explained and rational. Basically: wash your hands, flatten the curve, herd immunity, and timely social distancing measures to avoid social fatigue.



I am guilty of independently explaining on this forum the rationale behind this sort of approach, sometimes before the government did. So I know what you mean. But, unless they are being overly clever with the behavioural psychology and are using reverse psychology to get people to 'take more personal steps and responsibility because the government is perceived as doing too little', they've gone for an extreme version of this approach, and some people such as myself are very nervous about the timing assumptions they have indicated publicly. My anxiety levels have been elevated since they said that they think we are 4 weeks behind Italy, but either way I'm not going to look forward to finding out whether they are right on that or not. If the answer to that takes 4 weeks or more to become clear, I will be overjoyed.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 13, 2020)

Edie said:


> I was impressed by Johnson and the scientific and medical advisors yesterday. I thought the position was well explained and rational. Basically: wash your hands, flatten the curve, herd immunity, and timely social distancing measures to avoid social fatigue.



I get all of that but I can't help but think that the time to start flattening the curve is absolutely being driven by reasons which are not about minimising the cost to_ lives. _


----------



## Edie (Mar 13, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I get all of that but I can't help but think that the time to start flattening the curve is absolutely being driven by reasons which are not about minimising the cost to_ lives. _


I’m not that cynical I don’t think mate.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Alternative possibility (not sure, cant rule it out I suppose):

They are actually still more in tune with other countries such as EU ones than the choice of rhetoric suggests. With just a few main differences:

School closures - they probably realise the NHS is in worse staffing shape than some other countries, and that the knock on effects on healthcare workers from closing schools right now is something they cannot stand the burden of at this particular stage. Alternatively, they are actually planning more imminent measures on this front but dont want to telegraph that move yet.

Other closures and restrictions - they wanted as many events as possible to be cancelled by the organisers and participants, rather than government. And for the stuff that government will mandate, they want to do a bit every day or so, rather than all at once.

Timing - they've decided on a particular public communication strategy that I dont fully understand, and the actual timing of some stuff wont be as far off as they were trying to suggest in press conferences this week.

Certainly the flattening the curve stuff is not some weird UK-only thing, its in EU planning documents and was touted by experts before we reached the point where governments in this part of the world had to act/reveal their plans. Its just the timing of it that seemed rather out on a limb in this weeks press conferences.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 13, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’m not that cynical I don’t think mate.



You're not - but I am.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Alternative possibility (not sure, cant rule it out I suppose):
> 
> They are actually still more in tune with other countries such as EU ones than the choice of rhetoric suggests. With just a few main differences:
> 
> ...



One of the other countries that announced school closures yesterday (I can't remember which!) had a plan to keep some schools open, effectively for child care - so kids who have parents who can't stop work etc.


----------



## rookwood (Mar 13, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’m not that cynical I don’t think mate.



It’s not cynical; in one the early reports (possibly Tuesday/Weds) in the Times on the behavioural modelling they were open about incorporating other factors such as how to avoid skiving into their modelling. Nudge theory wasn’t built for this.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2020)

So the UK is basically a giant laboratory right now. Thanks Boris.


----------



## lizzieloo (Mar 13, 2020)

I bet you all just googled "nosocomial "


----------



## prunus (Mar 13, 2020)

lizzieloo said:


> I bet you all just googled "nosocomial "



I did indeed and now I have a marvellous new word in my lexicon


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 13, 2020)

coronavirus - improving vocabularies since 2020.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Ha, I normally shy away from using that word as there is too much jargon already, but now I'm glad I did.


----------



## lizzieloo (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Ha, I normally shy away from using that word as there is too much jargon already, but now I'm glad I did.



me too


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> All May elections have been called off.
> 
> That'll pissed off Rory Stewart.


Oh no it won't. Khan was headed for a landslide. It'll piss off Khan!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 13, 2020)

lizzieloo said:


> I bet you all just googled "nosocomial "


I keep reading that a no-so-comical. And I guess it isn't.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 13, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I get all of that but I can't help but think that the time to start flattening the curve is absolutely being driven by reasons which are not about minimising the cost to_ lives. _


I share your cynicism, but we don't know, do we? It might prove to be right. It might prove to be wrong. 

It is kind of staggering the way Johnson stood there and basically said 'get ready to bury some loved ones'.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 13, 2020)

I've remarked before that a lot of old blokes I used to talk to would say about hospitals - ooo you don't want to go there mate, loads of people with diseases. 

I increasingly realize how wise they were


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It is kind of staggering the way Johnson stood there and basically said 'get ready to bury some loved ones'.



Indeed, probably the first time he's told a truth.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 13, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> So the UK is basically a giant laboratory right now. Thanks Boris.


One consequence of this govt's approach is how the lack of central action plays out on the ground. I work at a university and it looked like yesterday we were seeing a sector wide shift towards closing down/moving things online.  Found out today my institution are not closing and have had a series of email about continuing the 'business critical' aspects of the work (ffs). So, some universities have staff working from home but essentially self isolating, whereas we are trooping in... anxious about risks etc. Similarly, I got a phone call from my Mum's care home last night to say they were in lockdown, so no visitors. Then got another call today to say they are not. In such circumstances, how can you have the slightest bit of confidence that staff working there haven't got undiagnosed virus (they need the money and, hey, we ain't fucking testing anyway!).  The woman who rang me said they were getting no advice. This really is a strategy of letting it play out/let it rip.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 13, 2020)

Tbf, Edie is right at the frontline of this, working away and doing a _fuckton_ more than in dealing with it than I am - so I think my scepticism is much easier found than the prospect of what she is facing. 
Love you Edie x


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 13, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> So the UK is basically a giant laboratory right now. Thanks Boris.



You need to spread your 'thanks' around, considering the Labour Party, SNP & the 3 devolved governments are backing the policy.

Not heard anything from the LimpDems (who?), TBH.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 13, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Tbf, Edie is right at the frontline of this, working away and doing a _fuckton_ more than in dealing with it than I am - so I think my scepticism is much easier found than the prospect of what she is facing.
> Love you Edie x


Great post sheo


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> You need to spread your 'thanks' around, considering the Labour Party, SNP & the 3 devolved governments are backing the policy.
> 
> Not heard anything from the LimpDems (who?), TBH.


Boris is at the top - he shoulders the responsibility


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 13, 2020)

There needs to be a facepalm reaction.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There needs to be a facepalm reaction.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 13, 2020)

Comparing the UK with Italy, why UK may not follow completely the Italy story .. 








						Coronavirus: Three reasons why the UK might not look like Italy
					

Boris Johnson's chief scientific adviser says the UK is four weeks behind Italy, What does that mean?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 13, 2020)

London Marathon put off from April to October.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

More here:  2h ago 16:11


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 13, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Comparing the UK with Italy, why UK may not follow completely the Italy story ..
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That article looks bonkers (on pretty much every point), based on the testing we have done so far along with the rules/restrictions for current testing.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 13, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> That article looks bonkers (on pretty much every point), based on the testing we have done so far along with the rules/restrictions for current testing.


You may be right .. personally I am grasping at any idea / hope that Britain may not fully follow Italy. In part because it seems such a doomsday scenario, if Britain follows then why not Spain France Germany - the full 27 EU countries, etc, then not just us but Europe really would be in the shit.


----------



## Aladdin (Mar 13, 2020)

The idea of allowing this run through the population so as to develop herd immunity is frightening.
One of the wealthiest countries in the world is going to allow 1/4 million at risk citizens die?
A vaccine could be in place by next March. But no...the British government cant delay things for the sake of older or sicker people?
Am I being too simplistic about this?


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 13, 2020)

I've been following this cardiologist for a while now on health generally :-


----------



## weltweit (Mar 13, 2020)

Sugar Kane said:


> The idea of allowing this run through the population so as to develop herd immunity is frightning.
> One of the wealthiest countries in the world is going to allow 1/4 million at risk citizens die?
> A vaccine could be in place by next March. But no...the British government cant delay things for the sake of older or sicker people?
> Am I being too simplistic about this?


I don't think you are being too simplistic. I believe Britain has / had choices as to how we respond to this, although the further along the present trajectory we go, the less options we will have.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Certainly the flattening the curve stuff is not some weird UK-only thing, its in EU planning documents and was touted by experts before we reached the point where governments in this part of the world had to act/reveal their plans. Its just the timing of it that seemed rather out on a limb in this weeks press conferences.


What I don't understand is how they think doing nothing is flattening the curve.

If we lock down now, we're still Italy in 2 weeks-ish. If we do basically nothing (the current situation), then we're going to have the biggest peak except possibly USA. They're _saying _let's flatten the peak, but in actual fact are going for short, sharp shock, IMO.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

I'll get back to you on that shortly.









						Coronavirus: Why is the UK not shutting schools like other countries?
					

The government's top scientists are ploughing a different furrow to that of many other countries.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> There are undoubtedly some who do disagree with the strategy. But there is an acceptance by such critics that Sir Patrick and Prof Whitty are the ones in the hot seat, having to make the biggest calls they have made in their professional lives. So the science community is prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt and not speak out, for now at least.



This is a lie. Some are already speaking out.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 13, 2020)

Sugar Kane said:


> The idea of allowing this run through the population so as to develop herd immunity is frightning.
> One of the wealthiest countries in the world is going to allow 1/4 million at risk citizens die?
> A vaccine could be in place by next March. But no...the British government cant delay things for the sake of older or sicker people?
> Am I being too simplistic about this?



They are hoping to delay the peak until summer, so the NHS is in a better situation to cope.

Delay the peak longer, and it ends up being in the winter, when the annual joy of flu arrives, and even more people will die.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 13, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I've been following this cardiologist for a while now on health generally :-



This video is actually really good, but the start is bullshit. I almost didn't watch because of that...


----------



## weltweit (Mar 13, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I've been following this cardiologist for a while now on health generally :-



Good video, thanks for posting it.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> What I don't understand is how they think doing nothing is flattening the curve.
> 
> If we lock down now, we're still Italy in 2 weeks-ish. If we do basically nothing (the current situation), then we're going to have the biggest peak except possibly USA. They're _saying _let's flatten the peak, but in actual fact are going for short, sharp shock, IMO.



Either their computer model is shit, or we have made incorrect assumptions about the timing and their 4 weeks is closer to reality than our 'days-2 weeks', or they were being misleading with the way they spoke about 4 weeks and that isnt really the timing they expect.

Also have to factor in that 'doing nothing' hasnt exactly been their approach. Close to nothing at times, but there have been some things, and there were a few more today than yesterday (eg local elections being cancelled).

Plus there is the hard to measure impact of the mitigation that people and organisations have decided to do themselves.

I'm going to dig into the European Centre for Disease Control documents again shortly, there is plenty to compare and contrast with in there.


----------



## Aladdin (Mar 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They are hoping to delay the peak until summer, so the NHS is in a better situation to cope.
> 
> Delay the peak longer, and it ends up being in the winter, when the annual joy of flu arrives, and even more people will die.




They're thinking the first wave will enable herd immunity. But the cost is going to be high in terms of mortality. 
If there is a second wave then you end up with another problem. 

"First do no harm" seems to have been gone out the window. 
😥

"Many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time" Boris Johnson.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'll get back to you on that shortly.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They definitely are. Even on Today this morning, which had the standard Brit mainstream editorial line of "well maybe the government _is_ right when it says something entirely different to basically everyone else", whenever they interviewed a scientist or doctor the latter tended to say "uh yeah this is not what I'd recommend/what I did/what the science says".


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 13, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> What I don't understand is how they think doing nothing is flattening the curve.
> 
> If we lock down now, we're still Italy in 2 weeks-ish. If we do basically nothing (the current situation), then we're going to have the biggest peak except possibly USA. They're _saying _let's flatten the peak, but in actual fact are going for short, sharp shock, IMO.



They seem to be building up the _herd immunity_ thing, more than they're focussing on flattening the curve, for now.
The message is people will die - but that we're then better protected from it returning later.
But that all seems to be based on a guess as to how widely it has already spread too, while testing is also being limited and where the daily rise in cases doen't really reflect the number os suspected cases being tested, even.
I understand why testing is limited - that you have to have the capacity to test - but it feels a bit like a roll of the dice, in terms of predicting numbers of the existing spread.

I hope I haven't got loads of that wrong.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Either their computer model is shit, or we have made incorrect assumptions about the timing and their 4 weeks is closer to reality than our 'days-2 weeks', or they were being misleading with the way they spoke about 4 weeks and that isnt really the timing they expect.
> 
> Also have to factor in that 'doing nothing' hasnt exactly been their approach. Close to nothing at times, but there have been some things, and there were a few more today than yesterday (eg local elections being cancelled).
> 
> ...


They are doing far far less than what it sounds like in the press conferences. We're now in stage 2 and they've said wash your hands, and don't go on a cruise if you're old, and stay at home if you have viral symptoms. That's very very mild mitigation.

What I do wonder though is they might still be right, and it could be that their model says there's no way to avoid all the deaths, or even flatten the curve enough to make a difference, so short sharp shock is actually the 'best' outcome. As we all [should] know, scientific modelling is not a politics-free zone. If your model weights the economy as equal to human cost, well...

I think we're going in hard on purpose, despite what they're claiming.

The stuff you keep talking about in regards to knowing soon if their numbers are right: the main one to check after the fact is the excess deaths. We know it's variable how many die, depending on how overwhelmed the health service is (the height of the peak and the duration of epidemic over the health service's capability). They're claiming 1% now. Italy's is way higher currently (I know, I know, can't compare while we still have active cases...but it looks bad). China's was higher than we thought, but still chance for a 2nd wave/rebound there.

I think we might see much higher levels in this country with this approach, unless something changes soon.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 13, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> They seem to be building up the _herd immunity_ thing, more than they're focussing on flattening the curve, for now.
> The message is people will die - but that we're then better protected from it returning later.
> But that all seems to be based on a guess as to how widely it has already spread too, while testing is also being limited and where the daily rise in cases doen't really reflect the number os suspected cases being tested, even.
> I understand why testing is limited - that you have to have the capacity to test - but it feels a bit like a roll of the dice, in terms of predicting numbers of the existing spread.
> ...


It sounds like you've got it all right to me : building up herd immunity means letting people get infected by doing little.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 13, 2020)

The Mirror of all places:


> The authorities want "herd immunity" to protect us against future waves of the bug, but have twisted the phrase and its purpose. It no longer means a vaccinated population protecting its most vulnerable from an outbreak, but a population with rampant infection, killing off its vulnerable members at speed. They're worried about 3 years' hence; this year has been written off already.











						Who's going to survive the coronavirus? The ones who listen to their instincts
					

Boris Johnson can't be trusted, the experts are divided, and you're right to be worried, says Fleet Street Fox. So use your common sense to beat the pandemic




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 13, 2020)

.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 13, 2020)

Wrong thread, oops


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> What I do wonder though is they might still be right, and it could be that their model says there's no way to avoid all the deaths, or even flatten the curve enough to make a difference, so short sharp shock is actually the 'best' outcome. As we all [should] know, scientific modelling is not a politics-free zone. If your model weights the economy as equal to human cost, well...
> 
> I think we're going in hard on purpose, despite what they're claiming.



But they told us that the main reason to flatten the peak was to allow NHS capacity to cope. So they have set themselves up to be judged a failure very rapidly if they intend to let infections surge ahead!



> The stuff you keep talking about in regards to knowing soon if their numbers are right: the main one to check after the fact is the excess deaths. We know it's variable how many die, depending on how overwhelmed the health service is (the height of the peak and the duration of epidemic over the health service's capability). They're claiming 1% now.



Initially I will just focus on the 4 weeks claim, I wont wait for the full dataset to become apparent. Either number of cases, or, if the change in testing regime scuppers that, I'll just look at the increasing rate of reported deaths and evidence of hospitals being overwhelmed as a sign we are 'now like Italy'.

Anyway, the ECDC documents. Problem is once I've just read one it contains so much info that I dont know where to start in regards talking about it here. Please take a look. I will come back in a bit with a couple of highlights.



			https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/RRA-sixth-update-Outbreak-of-novel-coronavirus-disease-2019-COVID-19.pdf


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 13, 2020)

My son arrived home a little while ago to see an ambulance outside our door - very panicked. They brought out a neighbour two doors down who was coughing a lot.
My daughter is asleep at the moment - she's had daily headaches and some heart fluttery stuff (which she's had before - locum suggested eating less chocolate).
I'm fairly sure that she is having tension headaches and some subconcious worry - although she insists she's not panicking (or that, if she is, it's about some other, understandable, unrelated housing etc issues) - but I have held off from making a GP appointment.
It's very small stuff, comparatively (I have done some 5,4,3,2,1 grounding exercises with her and we've sat in my bed watching some easy going programmes etc and I will keep an eye) but it's another consequence, I think, of a lack of direction.
Do you proceed as you normally would, or should you be really mindful of the fact that you're _not _in normal days, iykwim, and use instinct above what you imagine will be standard advice, so as to avoid hogging the system?
I've found it difficult to balance that with making her feel I am _doing_ shit, too.
I do also get the usefulness that schools have in providing some of that calmness and care, too and I don't mean to be all about the schools, or the kids (I'm still way more worried about their capacity to silently pass it on) just how that branches out through society.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 13, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> My son arrived home a little while ago to see an ambulance outside our door - very panicked. They brought out a neighbour two doors down who was coughing a lot.
> My daughter is asleep at the moment - she's had daily headaches and some heart fluttery stuff (which she's had before - locum suggested eating less chocolate).
> I'm fairly sure that she is having tension headaches and some subconcious worry - although she insists she's not panicking (or that, if she is, it's about some other, understandable, unrelated housing etc issues) - but I have held off from making a GP appointment.
> It's very small stuff, comparatively (I have done some 5,4,3,2,1 grounding exercises with her and we've sat in my bed watching some easy going programmes etc and I will keep an eye) but it's another consequence, I think, of a lack of direction.
> ...


I'm struggling with this atm. I have a clubnight booked next week (I'm running it) that I want to cancel, but everyone else thinks should go ahead.

I think they think I'm over-reacting, but I'm worried at their lack of concern.

It's hard to know what to do, and even though I've been 'nerding' out on this story since January, I still don't have a clue what the right thing is.

Carrying on as before does not _feel _right to me, though.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2020)

The loathsome Anne Widdecombe's mask has slipped again:








						Ann Widdecombe slammed for claims coronavirus will be like AIDS - ‘not as devastating as feared’
					

In a despicable newspaper column for the Express, former Brexit Party MEP Ann Widdecombe has claimed that coronavirus will be like AIDS...




					www.theneweuropean.co.uk


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> I'm struggling with this atm. I have a clubnight booked next week (I'm running it) that I want to cancel, but everyone else thinks should go ahead.
> 
> I think they think I'm over-reacting, but I'm worried at their lack of concern.
> 
> ...


Me too. Wish I could get my dad to take it seriously but he went to the gym this morning. He's been coughing this evening  
Suppose I might as well go back to work on Monday - what's the point of self quarantining if he's not?


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 13, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> The loathsome Anne Widdecombe's mask has slipped again:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


At 72 years old, she'd better hope so.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> At 72 years old, she'd better hope so.


38 million people died ffs and she doesn't think that was devastating. I hope she gets it.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 13, 2020)

Herd immunity seems to be crucial, well...

Herd immunity only works if most people in the population are vaccinated (for example, 19 out of every 20 people need to be vaccinated against measles to protect people who are not vaccinated). If people are not vaccinated, herd immunity is not guaranteed to protect them.

A quote from this...https://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/herd-immunity


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 13, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> I'm struggling with this atm. I have a clubnight booked next week (I'm running it) that I want to cancel, but everyone else thinks should go ahead.
> 
> I think they think I'm over-reacting, but I'm worried at their lack of concern.
> 
> ...



I get it.
It gets tricky judging your own sense of responsibility, against the expectations of others (for fun, for work, because you have no choice financially and because of the impact on others health, ultimately).


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 13, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> I have a clubnight booked next week (I'm running it) that I want to cancel,
> 
> Carrying on as before does not _feel _right to me, though.



Then cancel it. No one will die because a club night doesn’t happen. 

Give yourself a break


----------



## Dan U (Mar 13, 2020)

What this article explains is probably driving some of the decision making, trying to buy us a few weeks 









						'Unlike anything seen in peacetime': NHS prepares for surge in Covid-19 cases
					

Hospitals cancel non-urgent operations in unprecedented shutdown of normal activity




					www.theguardian.com
				




I do also see the argument about immunity. Its a calculated risk that rests on the assumption that when the countries being hugely restrictive lift their restrictions it all kicks off again and the people you just protected die anyway.


----------



## Cid (Mar 13, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> I'm struggling with this atm. I have a clubnight booked next week (I'm running it) that I want to cancel, but everyone else thinks should go ahead.
> 
> I think they think I'm over-reacting, but I'm worried at their lack of concern.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I think this is partly what's frustrating me about the gov approach. There are arguments for their policies, aspects of them at least. But for their approach to work you need a high degree of fairly complex individual responsibility. One that will vary from person to person depending on their exposure to people who may be vulnerable (and of course sometimes they won't actually know). The advantage of the blanket measures that other countries are imposing is that they're pretty easy to understand, or actually force people to avoid situations where you might get a substantial and rapid outbreak (by banning events etc). 

Point being that here there seems to be an expectation that people should just sort that out for themselves... But this is the UK, and we're shit at community cohesion and responsibility. And not very good at absorbing complex messages either... The general response among my friends is 'who gives a shit? just another cold'. And seeing that reflected more widely. I think most wouldn't bother self-isolating, and haven't really had clear messages to do so. I mean I know Johnson has said you should... but it's all couched in terms of 'we advise' and the like, and offset by the blase attitude of his advisors. I'm self-employed (as are most of my friends) so don't know how that's reflected in the wider work environment. But it does just seem weird that most seem to be doing business as usual.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 13, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Me too. Wish I could get my dad to take it seriously but he went to the gym this morning. He's been coughing this evening
> Suppose I might as well go back to work on Monday - what's the point of self quarantining if he's not?




I do think it's shit that we expect elderly people to just stay in and suck it up because they are most at risk, while kids quietly/easily carry it and spread it around and there is no movement to reduce that impact.
I KNOW I would be really fucked off about that, if I were him.
Do you think he would respond better to it being about him _not passing it on_, than he would about his own risk?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 13, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah, I think this is partly what's frustrating me about the gov approach. There are arguments for their policies, aspects of them at least. But for their approach to work you need a high degree of fairly complex individual responsibility. One that will vary from person to person depending on their exposure to people who may be vulnerable (and of course sometimes they won't actually know). The advantage of the blanket measures that other countries are imposing is that they're pretty easy to understand, or actually force people to avoid situations where you might get a substantial and rapid outbreak (by banning events etc).
> 
> Point being that here there seems to be an expectation that people should just sort that out for themselves... But this is the UK, and we're shit at community cohesion and responsibility. And not very good at absorbing complex messages either... The general response among my friends is 'who gives a shit? just another cold'. And seeing that reflected more widely. I think most wouldn't bother self-isolating, and haven't really had clear messages to do so. I mean I know Johnson has said you should... but it's all couched in terms of 'we advise' and the like, and offset by the blase attitude of his advisors. I'm self-employed (as are most of my friends) so don't know how that's reflected in the wider work environment. But it does just seem weird that most seem to be doing business as usual.


I think this is changing rapidly tbf. Last week, I think everything you say here was true. But this has escalated very quickly and anybody turning up at work with cold symptoms is going to get sent straight home and asked wtf are you doing. I think the social stigma of not self-isolating is taking a strong hold tbh.

Nothing to do with anything the govt has done, mind. I think most people are taking their lead from other sources and even other governments.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 13, 2020)

Mrs SI went to work with a sore throat and headache today, nobody said shit, even though she was at Leicester's football ground on Tuesday


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 13, 2020)




----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 13, 2020)

I've been wondering what my neighbours have been thinking.
I had ordinary flu 2 weeks ago and I don't mess around when I need to cough.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 13, 2020)

I do wonder how many of the ‘we are being given too much responsibility’ brigade would be happy if we went into lockdown.


----------



## Winot (Mar 13, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Mrs SI went to work with a sore throat and headache today, nobody said shit, even though she was at Leicester's football ground on Tuesday



Those aren’t the relevant symptoms though.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think this is changing rapidly tbf. Last week, I think everything you say here was true. But this has escalated very quickly and anybody turning up at work with cold symptoms is going to get sent straight home and asked wtf are you doing. I think the social stigma of not self-isolating is taking a strong hold tbh.
> 
> Nothing to do with anything the govt has done, mind. I think most people are taking their lead from other sources and even other governments.



This 100% would NOT be the case in the school kitchen I work in (where there are a huge number of disciplinaries taking place, throughout the school, which have already been dragged out for months, which look like money saving exercises to me). No WAY any of us would be comfortable to call in with cold symptoms and self-isolate for a week (and we're employed by the council and have good but overwhelmed, union representation).


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 13, 2020)

Thread by @JayneMcCubbinTV: “I don’t think my child will be prioritised when push comes to shove... he’s non verbal, he’s severely disabled. So many reasons to say ‘don…
					

Thread by @JayneMcCubbinTV: “I don’t think my child will be prioritised when push comes to shove... he’s non verbal, he’s severely disabled. s to say ‘don’t bother with him’ “ Had so many conversations with parents of children with disabilities today #Co…




					threadreaderapp.com


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 13, 2020)




----------



## treelover (Mar 13, 2020)

These mutual aid groups look promising, not just the usual suspects, shop owners, self employed, all sorts really

however, they seem focused on when vunerable people are self isolating, not preparing, stock piling, etc

local labour parties don't seem to be doing anything.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 13, 2020)

treelover said:


> however, they seem focused on when vunerable people are self isolating, not preparing, stock piling, etc



tell us what you are doing or just shut the fuck  up for once


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 13, 2020)

‘Look promising’. Christ.


----------



## kenny g (Mar 13, 2020)

treelover said:


> These mutual aid groups look promising,


wanker


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 13, 2020)

top doctors keeping off the trains


----------



## smmudge (Mar 13, 2020)

Wilf said:


> One consequence of this govt's approach is how the lack of central action plays out on the ground. I work at a university and it looked like yesterday we were seeing a sector wide shift towards closing down/moving things online.  Found out today my institution are not closing and have had a series of email about continuing the 'business critical' aspects of the work (ffs). So, some universities have staff working from home but essentially self isolating, whereas we are trooping in... anxious about risks etc. Similarly, I got a phone call from my Mum's care home last night to say they were in lockdown, so no visitors. Then got another call today to say they are not. In such circumstances, how can you have the slightest bit of confidence that staff working there haven't got undiagnosed virus (they need the money and, hey, we ain't fucking testing anyway!).  The woman who rang me said they were getting no advice. This really is a strategy of letting it play out/let it rip.



Yes the big problem with this woolly approach is that workplaces will do the minimum the govt guidance allows. So at the minute me and my wife (different companies) are just being told... Don't worry, basically just carry on as normal but wash your hands more, don't come to work if you feel ill, normal sick policy applies.

Even though I and the team I'm in and many others are PERFECTLY CAPABLE of working from home, they're still not encouraging it because they don't have to according to the guidance. Apparently it wouldn't be "fair" to the people who can't work from home.

All they've done is say, don't take business trips that aren't necessary. No outside visitors unless it's necessary (in an office of 500, how much is that really going to reduce the risk?).


----------



## killer b (Mar 13, 2020)

This thread speculating on the government's strategy is interesting (it is speculation, but looks like he's got it about right to me)


----------



## Flavour (Mar 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> This thread speculating on the government's strategy is interesting (it is speculation, but looks like he's got it about right to me)




"Kids generally won’t get very ill, so the govt can use them as a tool to infect others when you want to increase infection. When you need to slow infection, that tap can be turned off – at that point they close the schools.  "

sorry but this is utter bollocks.


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 13, 2020)

Flavour said:


> I cannot believe the UK government is saying they're fine with potentially half a million people dying. What utter scum.



Mainly Tories though, there’s that.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 13, 2020)

I don't understand the figure of 60% for herd immunity. If there are 4 out of 10 people with the virus and one of those 4 coughs on you then you're buggered.


----------



## Flavour (Mar 13, 2020)

all this herd immunity shit is completely irresponsible nonsense. it's shocking. there is no proof at all that those who recover from having covid-19 develop immunity. i cannot believe people are swallowing this dangerous, inhuman, criminal shit from the tories. they are literally saying they are ok with killing half a million people, maybe more. it's unbelievable.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> This thread speculating on the government's strategy is interesting (it is speculation, but looks like he's got it about right to me)



One thing you'd think they'd need for that strategy would be accurate figures on infections and the patterns of transmission. But they don't seem keen on getting that information.  And as he says, 'a key issue during this process is protection of those for whom the virus is fatal. It's not clear the full measures there are to protect those people. It assumes they can measure infection, that their behavioural expectations are met - people do what they think they will'. No emergency hospitals/intensive care units being built afaik. Similarly, the government's strategy so far has almost been to _ensure _it gets into care homes and the like.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 13, 2020)

GVT uturn on banning large gatherings imminent. This has been decided fornthem by the sports bodies and suchlike. trying to catch up with people making thier own decisions  

UK to ban mass gatherings in coronavirus U-turn


----------



## MrSki (Mar 13, 2020)

Has there ever been a virus where herd immunity has naturally occurred to remove the threat without there being a vaccine? Surely it only works with vaccination?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2020)

I think I need to turn off the internet 








						Why Britain’s Coronavirus Strategy is Literally One of the Most Insane Things in Modern History
					

Britain’s Government Wants People to Get Coronavirus. LOL — What The?




					eand.co


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Has there ever been a virus where herd immunity has naturally occurred to remove the threat without there being a vaccine? Surely it only works with vaccination?


Aren’t there quite a few diseases that you only have once and after that have an immunity to? Like chicken pox (though I’m aware that a few people do get it again)


----------



## Cid (Mar 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> This thread speculating on the government's strategy is interesting (it is speculation, but looks like he's got it about right to me)




Problem is it relies on some huge assumptions... Big ones would be:


Outcomes in healthy/young people. 60% of the UK population is around 40m people... That is one fuck of a lot of risk.
Necessity of isolating at risk population. We will absolutely be fucking bad at doing this.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 13, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Aren’t there quite a few diseases that you only have once and after that have an immunity to? Like chicken pox (though I’m aware that a few people do get it again)


Yes but chicken pox is still around. Herd immunity has not worked for that.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 13, 2020)

The whole approach seems strange to me - I'd have thought you'd want as few people to get it as possible so as not to overload the NHS, until a vaccine/treatment is developed.

Jeremy Hardy's image does keep coming to mind though that Johnson, affable buffoon that he seems to be, would be quite happy herding people into rugby stadiums and machine gunning them. Just the old and infirm though


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 13, 2020)

The tories are trying to kill us all off, same shit they've been pulling with the benefits system and nhs for like a decade now, what's the fucking shock seriously


----------



## little_legs (Mar 13, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The whole approach seems strange to me - I'd have thought you'd want as few people to get it as possible so as not to overload the NHS, until a vaccine/treatment is developed.


seizing on the pandemic as an opportunity to crash the NHS _disruptor _style


----------



## crossthebreeze (Mar 13, 2020)

treelover said:


> These mutual aid groups look promising, not just the usual suspects, shop owners, self employed, all sorts really
> 
> however, they seem focused on when vunerable people are self isolating, not preparing, stock piling, etc
> 
> local labour parties don't seem to be doing anything.


I'm in a neighbourhood/ward mutual aid group, and the Newcastle one.  Both are less than than 10 hours old!  At the moment the focus is on leafleting local houses and flats/contacting through social media people in the area who may want to join or think they may need help at some point.  Labour party councillors are in the neighbourhood group.  There is a call-out is for donations to a local foodbank - and community centres which get food donations to give away are encouraging people to ask neighbours if they want items picked up.  More organised preparations could happen, or individuals may ask for help with shopping now (even if they are not symptomatic or officially isolating) - but we have only been going for a few hours, so its up to whats needed/what people feel they can do.


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

thats great, i am likely to be needing the one in my area very soon

Btw, looks promising is what is says, it has great potential, but other things have collapsed and people left out, i have documented it on here as have others, some nasty crap on here at times.


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

Well whatever the government were trying to do with their strategy, I dont think lots of newspapers declaring that Johnson has had to u-turn already was part of the plan.

Still, this needs to be just the first u-turn of many in order to deal with the full range of complaints about their approach.

Mind you, I still dont think this weeks NHS reconfiguration and preparations are very indicative of a government that really thinks we are 4 weeks behind Italy. I still watch the data nervously for signs, and I suppose they may yet try to qualify their 4 weeks remarks differently to how they let them be interpreted at the last press conference.


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Has there ever been a virus where herd immunity has naturally occurred to remove the threat without there being a vaccine? Surely it only works with vaccination?



Herd immunity can build up naturally, and I am under the impression that the phenomenon was recognised before mass vaccination was much of a thing. Whether that particular name for it was used at the time I dont know.

Epidemics are linked to levels of immunity within communities. Whether this immunity was acquired via vaccination or via catching the illness doesnt matter so much to the underlying theory. If we look at some illnesses that we dont vaccinate against, such as the other coronaviruses which cause a portion of the seasonal colds humans experience, there are often some quiet years where there are far less infections, interspersed with years where lots of people get infected. This probably relates to immunity levels within the communities in question. Levels of immunity within the population builds up when there is widespread infection, but with those coronaviruses our immunity starts to wane after a while, so eventually overall immunity within a population falls below the level required for herd immunity to have a strong effect, and the virus will have a chance to have a busy season again. Then the cycle can repeat. Nobody actually knows for sure if the same sort of thing will happen with this new coronavirus.


----------



## Combustible (Mar 14, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Yes but chicken pox is still around. Herd immunity has not worked for that.



I don't think that they are claiming that herd immunity will eliminate the virus, but that it will dampen it's severity. I thought they were expecting covid to become a seasonal infection. Look at the effects diseases like measles, flu, chicken pox and smallpox had on native Americans (killed around 90%), compared to Europe, where they may have killed many but didn't eradicate most of the population. In that sense, herd immunity 'worked'.


----------



## bimble (Mar 14, 2020)

Re our gov's strategy i think it might be a bit like this:
There is no way for them to 'win' with this - if they were to go all out right now (close and cancel everything) and that works and so there isn't a disaster, people will think it was a pointless overreaction (see YK2) and resent it. If it doesn't work and people still die, so that everyone will still at least know someone who gets sick and probably a large proportion of us will still get sick all at the same time then thats even worse for the gov.
What I think they are probably trying to do (aside from prevent nhs being absolutely obviously overwhelmed if they can) is keep the impression that there is a plan unfolding and that they have a series of measures kept in reserve to employ one after the other and thereby keep a semblance of control which people may find reassuring, instead of 'using up' all the tools in the box now and then just having to stand there with nothing left to announce apart from frightening statistics. 
If they were left like that at this early stage they'd have already lost everyones trust completely. Which would be properly dangerous for them not just politically but also law and order-wise, if thats not too alarmist.
Another bit that I think must be part of their thinking is bloody brexit. They were elected on that promise to Get It Done, and have said just yesterday that they do not intend to delay. Seems mad to me but it will be a factor - if they flatten that curve too much, this thing could roll on into next spring with their voters busy worrying about the virus and their sick relatives etc, which would be a disaster for Johnson and co.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

Britain’s coronavirus death toll jumps to 21 — The Times and The Sunday Times
					

The number of British deaths due to coronavirus has risen by 10, taking the total number to 21, Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, announced today. NHS England issued statements on behalf of nine trusts today saying that a further ten people had died. Whitty said that all those who died...




					apple.news


----------



## bimble (Mar 14, 2020)

👆paywall can you c&p?


----------



## fishfinger (Mar 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> 👆paywall can you c&p?


Here you go



> Police will be able to detain infected people and schools could be forced to stay open under a package of powers being announced next week to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
> 
> Emergency laws to help to limit the spread of the virus will be introduced after the number of people infected in Britain rose by 200 in 24 hours to 798. The measures, seen by _The Times_, will also let councils lower standards in care homes to deal with staff shortages.
> 
> ...


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> Re our gov's strategy i think it might be a bit like this:
> There is no way for them to 'win' with this - if they were to go all out right now (close and cancel everything) and that works and so there isn't a disaster, people will think it was a pointless overreaction (see YK2) and resent it. If it doesn't work and people still die, so that everyone will still at least know someone who gets sick and probably a large proportion of us will still get sick all at the same time then thats even worse for the gov.
> What I think they are probably trying to do (aside from prevent nhs being absolutely obviously overwhelmed if they can) is keep the impression that there is a plan unfolding and that they have a series of measures kept in reserve to employ one after the other and thereby keep a semblance of control which people may find reassuring, instead of 'using up' all the tools in the box now and then just having to stand there with nothing left to announce apart from frightening statistics.
> If they were left like that at this early stage they'd have already lost everyones trust completely. Which would be properly dangerous for them not just politically but also law and order-wise, if thats not too alarmist.
> Another bit that I think must be part of their thinking is bloody brexit. They were elected on that promise to Get It Done, and have said just yesterday that they do not intend to delay. Seems mad to me but it will be a factor - if they flatten that curve too much, this thing could roll on into next spring with their voters busy worrying about the virus and their sick relatives etc, which would be a disaster for Johnson and co.


Tbh, it seems to me that the uks government approach is a combination of snmart arseness based on some very risjy assumptions about 'herd immunity'  whilst trying to  wing it.  Im shocked at the lack of clear planning or advice. They are likely to be caught out by events. I cant see their plan surviving the (inevitable) big rise in cases and fatalities over the next few weeks.


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> top doctors keeping off the trains View attachment 201620


I don't understand this. 
Healthcare professionals are the most at - risk group in society in terms of probability of catching the virus. Not necessarily in terms of mortality (although I know of at least two itu doctors currently ventilated in Italy) but in terms of getting infected. The patients in the community with the highest viral load-the sickest people - come to doctors. Those of us (and nurses, HCAs etc) in the hospital environment may as well not do anything to reduce our risk of getting it if we are going to continue working (I am fully committed to working through this). 
Our risk is to others, and that's the only reason I see to take any social distancing measures


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

fishfinger said:


> Here you go



terrifying


----------



## bimble (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> terrifying


yes. that article is some kind of leak i think.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

The forcing schools to stay open thing, even if there's legislation passed there's no way it will be enforceable. Are the police going to go door to door rounding up kids and dragging them in? Are headteachers going to be taken to court, and prosecutors argue that some fag-packet law is more important than upholding a duty of care?

This does all suggest that someone has calculated how long a full lockdown can be sustained, come up with a pretty small number (I'd guess four weeks) and then realised that if they start too early they'll have to lift the lockdown at the worst possible time.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

What stops people just keeping their kids home if they are worried about eg relatives


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

Just a thought


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 14, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> The forcing schools to stay open thing, even if there's legislation passed there's no way it will be enforceable. Are the police going to go door to door rounding up kids and dragging them in? Are headteachers going to be taken to court, and prosecutors argue that some fag-packet law is more important than upholding a duty of care?
> 
> This does all suggest that someone has calculated how long a full lockdown can be sustained, come up with a pretty small number (I'd guess four weeks) and then realised that if they start too early they'll have to lift the lockdown at the worst possible time.



I think this is pretty much exactly what is happening. "Let's just get through the exam season...whoops."

Schools can't stay open with no teachers. Wait until we start going off sick en masse.


----------



## purenarcotic (Mar 14, 2020)

I get we need social distancing but it doesn’t half feel grossly uncomfortable having the Tories manage it. Care only once a day? Changing the law so statutory failings can’t be challenged? I don’t believe those changes will automatically revoke, either. 

Christ this is so utterly depressing and shit.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 14, 2020)

The word on the (education) street is schools and unis to close a week either side of Easter. I think that's a week too late.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> What stops people just keeping their kids home if they are worried about eg relatives



Your already liable for fines and punishment if you keep your kids off school unnecessarily.

Going to be some fun legal cases after this is over.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 14, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Your already liable for fines and punishment if you keep your kids off school unnecessarily.
> 
> Going to be some fun legal cases after this is over.


My lad's coughing and has a temperature. Happy to send him to school if they make him. Then they can arrest him for failing to self isolate. Great rules


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Your already liable for fines and punishment if you keep your kids off school unnecessarily.
> 
> Going to be some fun legal cases after this is over.



Overheard at reception this week: _the local authority won't accept you being pregnant as a reason for your child being late for school._

Fucking madness. As if you can change the facts of the material universe by simply not accepting them.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

Given that this has come out in the Times, a publication which could scarcely be further up Johnson's arsehole, what do we think about the chances of this being a fake set of measures designed to make the ones that are actually brought in seem reasonable by comparison?


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Your already liable for fines and punishment if you keep your kids off school unnecessarily.
> 
> Going to be some fun legal cases after this is over.



If you want your kids at home keep them at home.


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> If you want your kids at home keep them at home.


and quit your job? 🤷


----------



## The39thStep (Mar 14, 2020)

Jet2 cancels all holidays in Spain with immediate effect - LIVE updates
					

It is understood at least half a dozen flights are affected




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 14, 2020)

Harsh.









						Newborn baby tests positive for coronavirus in London
					

Child’s mother, who was taken to hospital days before birth with suspected pneumonia, also has virus




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> This thread speculating on the government's strategy is interesting (it is speculation, but looks like he's got it about right to me)




That's really interesting. Thanks for posting that.


----------



## sorearm (Mar 14, 2020)

Kept daughter off school Thursday and Friday,  screw that. 

Collected my laptop,  working from home from Monday


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> This thread speculating on the government's strategy is interesting (it is speculation, but looks like he's got it about right to me)




Assuming they're not just making shit up as they go along, this seems plausible. Any number of ways it could backfire horribly of course, but it does seem like an appropriately cold, Cummings-esque methodology. It's clear that public health is being weighed against protecting an already fragile economy with dubious long-term prospects and an unhealthy dependence on precarious work and high rents.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

I can definitely see Cummings skim-reading the phrase 'herd immunity' somewhere, assuming that as Earth's greatest polymath genius he instantly grasped the concept in all its subtlety, and deciding to bet the farm on it. Because nobody sees what he sees, the number of people crying out 'this is insane, please stop' probably just makes him more convinced that he's found the Correct Answer to all this.


----------



## killer b (Mar 14, 2020)

I think the drive to attribute every vainglorious or opaque decision by the government to Dominic Cummings is a mistake tbh.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think the drive to attribute every vainglorious or opaque decision by the government to Dominic Cummings is a mistake tbh.


You think his chief advisor has no sway on most of the decisions?

If so, what do you think he does?


----------



## killer b (Mar 14, 2020)

I'm sure he's in the mix, but tapping your nose and going_ I smell that_ _dastardly cummings!_ as if Johnson is just some sort of comical flesh puppet, or as if there's no-one else with influence is a mistake is all. There's a lot more going.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think the drive to attribute every vainglorious or opaque decision by the government to Dominic Cummings is a mistake tbh.



I'm reaching a little bit there I'll grant you. It's just that the actual cabinet is a bunch of people who seem like they'd struggle to tie their own shoes.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 14, 2020)

Have the govt said themselves they're being led by behavioral science or is that speculation?  I can see there is some value in thinking about behaviours but I'd have thought more emphasis on medical, epidemiological, yes, immunological expertise, along with expertise on what would be least worst for NHS. 

Personally I think it would be better to try to minimise infection this year in the hopes there will be some treatments or vaccines next year, or that the virus is less transmittable or fatal by then, while accepting that is not necessarily likely. 

Do we even know how long people are immune to a strain of cold coronavirus after having it?  If I get 3 lurgies in 3 months are they all different viruses?


----------



## agricola (Mar 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> This thread speculating on the government's strategy is interesting (it is speculation, but looks like he's got it about right to me)




the point about waiting until the NHS is at capacity before bringing further measures is almost delusional, tbh


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

The government strategy will be focussed on behaviour modification 

It’s not like they’ve been subtle about for the past 40 years


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 14, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Have the govt said themselves they're being led by behavioral science or is that speculation?


Yes, in the last press conference, Chris Witty said it.


----------



## agricola (Mar 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm sure he's in the mix, but tapping your nose and going_ I smell that_ _dastardly cummings!_ as if Johnson is just some sort of comical flesh puppet, or as if there's no-one else with influence is a mistake is all. There's a lot more going.



There is, but the influence of that sort of "_we won Brexit, therefore we are cleverer than all yous_" people is there for all to see.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> The government strategy will be focussed on behaviour modification
> 
> It’s not like they’ve been subtle about for the past 40 years



The state will not act responsibly. We know this. Our focus needs to be on ensuring that their irresponsibility kills and immiserates as few people as possible


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

agricola said:


> There is, but the influence of that sort of "_we won Brexit, therefore we are cleverer than all yous_" people is there for all to see.



there could be strategy in being behind the curve, and only ramping things up if and when there’s an outcry (“see, we are being led by you”


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

We are going to need to do a lot of this ourselves. That’s how it will be.

We organise to protect our communities and “the vulnerable”. Or we don’t.

at risk of going all mad autistic, it’s a make your mind up time kind of thing


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Do we even know how long people are immune to a strain of cold coronavirus after having it?



Depends on mutation rates. Any acquired immunity is only good for as long as it's more or less the same virus going round that you've already fought off. Also it's not just a question of live or die, some people who survive will have permanent respiratory damage that will make them more vlunerable in future.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

And these cunts can stay exactly where they are.

“The girls”. They are in their twenties.

“the staff don’t speak English”. They complain, about the staff _in Vietnam_ looking after them









						Coronavirus: London backpackers quarantined in Vietnam
					

The three Britons tested negative for coronavirus but are being kept in an abandoned hospital.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 14, 2020)

Boris Johnson's hero is the mayor who kept the beaches open in Jaws. That's fine by me
					

The PM thinks Amity mayor Larry Vaughn is ‘the real hero of Jaws’. Maybe that’s why he’s emulating his ‘the beaches are open’ politics as coronavirus spreads around the world




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> and quit your job? 🤷



whos going to look after your kids if the schools close?

Shit employment isnt something a school can change.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

Guardian and Daily Mash finally merged into one it seems.


----------



## Cid (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> And these cunts can stay exactly where they are.
> 
> “The girls”. They are in their twenties.
> 
> ...



Nice of the bbc to give them free advertising though.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

Part-timah said:


> View attachment 201691
> 
> 
> 
> ...



this articles adds what exactly to our understanding of what will happen?


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

Cid said:


> Nice of the bbc to give them free advertising though.



the media class. treat the world as your playground because you know you can cry in front of a camera if it goes tits up


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 14, 2020)

I think the medical experts have presented them with a range of options and Johnson and co have picked the one they like best on the basis of least disruption. I find the lack of comprehensive advice and measures to protect the most vulnerable staggering.


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> this articles adds what exactly to our understanding of what will happen?



It adds that Boris is callous and that the choices he makes are not necessarily grounded in science. Although the state broadcaster is in full war time propaganda mode to convincing us otherwise.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

Part-timah said:


> It adds that Boris is callous and that the choices he makes are not necessarily grounded in science.



And to think he had urban fooled all this time


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 14, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> I think the medical experts have presented them with a range of options and Johnson and co have picked the one they like best on the basis of least disruption. I fond the lack of comphensibe advice and measures to protect the most vulnerable staggering.



If by “least disruption” most appealing to their billionaire sponsors at this moment in time.


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> And to think he had urban fooled all this time



??


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> I think the medical experts have presented them with a range of options and Johnson and co have picked the one they like best on the basis of least disruption. I fond the lack of comphensibe advice and measures to protect the most vulnerable staggering.



it’s part of the strategy to remove social care from the budget and shift it onto individuals and their families

Neoliberalism, no quarter given


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> I don't understand this.
> Healthcare professionals are the most at - risk group in society in terms of probability of catching the virus. Not necessarily in terms of mortality (although I know of at least two itu doctors currently ventilated in Italy) but in terms of getting infected. The patients in the community with the highest viral load-the sickest people - come to doctors. Those of us (and nurses, HCAs etc) in the hospital environment may as well not do anything to reduce our risk of getting it if we are going to continue working *(I am fully committed to working through this).*
> Our risk is to others, and that's the only reason I see to take any social distancing measures



thank you


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Have the govt said themselves they're being led by behavioral science or is that speculation?  I can see there is some value in thinking about behaviours but I'd have thought more emphasis on medical, epidemiological, yes, immunological expertise, along with expertise on what would be least worst for NHS.
> 
> Personally I think it would be better to try to minimise infection this year in the hopes there will be some treatments or vaccines next year, or that the virus is less transmittable or fatal by then, while accepting that is not necessarily likely.
> 
> Do we even know how long people are immune to a strain of cold coronavirus after having it?  If I get 3 lurgies in 3 months are they all different viruses?



The DWP is now led primarily by behavioural science as is parts of the NHS, FND, M/H, etc. its very influential


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 14, 2020)

So Whitty thinks the peak is still 10-14 weeks away, which even at 20% daily increase means a figure four times as many as live in the UK. Yes I know the figures don't mean that much any more but when, exactly, do they close everything down based on this? I reckon we're two weeks behind Italy, and they've just stopped everyone leaving the house.


----------



## agricola (Mar 14, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> I think the medical experts have presented them with a range of options and Johnson and co have picked the one they like best on the basis of least disruption. I fond the lack of comphensibe advice and measures to protect the most vulnerable staggering.



Exactly.  If they were genuine about what they want to do here, they'd be doing everything they could to expand the capability of the NHS to treat as many people as possible - but as far as I can see they aren't doing anything at a national level (which is not to say that individual trusts aren't increasing their own capacity to treat people, but it will not be enough for them to do it themselves).


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

treelover said:


> The DWP is now led primarily by behavioural science as is parts of the NHS, FND, M/H, etc. its very influential



and the persecution and murder of disabled people is going to escalate.

This is the end for a lot of our friends.


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> The government strategy will be focussed on behaviour modification
> 
> It’s not like they’ve been subtle about for the past 40 years




'Economics are the method: the object is to change the soul’

Margeret Thatcher 1981

The Tories haven't changed.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

S☼I said:


> So Whitty thinks the peak is still 10-14 weeks away, which even at 20% daily increase means a figure four times as many as live in the UK. Yes I know the figures don't mean that much any more but when, exactly, do they close everything down based on this? I reckon we're two weeks behind Italy, and they've just stopped everyone leaving the house.



You're assuming a constant rate of increase. Growth rate falls as you approach the peak of the curve.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

S☼I said:


> So Whitty thinks the peak is still 10-14 weeks away, which even at 20% daily increase means a figure four times as many as live in the UK. Yes I know the figures don't mean that much any more but when, exactly, do they close everything down based on this? I reckon we're two weeks behind Italy, and they've just stopped everyone leaving the house.



So how do we speed up the shutdown (if that’s we need to do)


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

treelover said:


> 'Economics are the method: the object is to change the soul’
> 
> Margeret Thatcher 1981



we are fucked


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 14, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You're assuming a constant rate of increase. Growth rate falls as you approach the peak of the curve.


Yeah, as I've said before any talk of figures comes with huge caveats but we're going to be talking huge numbers, and if the gov are waiting for this peak before closing the country it's going to be ages isn't it? Potential for a lot more vulnerable people to get it. I reckon we could manage six months of shutdown given the right mindset. But it's almost "deal with it"


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> And these cunts can stay exactly where they are.
> 
> “The girls”. They are in their twenties.
> 
> ...



they actually seem quite decent, and are trying to offer advice about isolation, etc.


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> it’s part of the strategy to remove social care from the budget and shift it onto individuals and their families
> 
> Neoliberalism, no quarter given



Johnson is on record as saying that families should take up the burden of social care, it was reported days after his election victory.


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

> L********* M******* at the Council (Contingency and Emergency Planning Officer):
> 
> *The scenario will be covered by the care providers business continuity arrangements for significant loss of staff which may become applicable should the self isolation advice be extended.
> In the event of this spreading wider than the capacity of individual continuity planning being effective, coordinated business continuity to reduce non essential services in order to support essential services would be implemented.  This would be supported by existing Sheffield multi-agency pandemic planning arrangements, which have recently been reviewed and tested in preparation for such a situation.*



Wasnt going to post this bit it is very worrying, it is in manageralise, but its a reply to a request on how disabled and sick people(DASP) will cope in a pandemic, was meant to be about those on direct payments, but reply is about care homes I think, but basically saying
lower levels of outbreak would be managed by the care company in the same way as any other bout of illness or significant staff shortages, and if it gets worse than this, there is a city-wide group who plan for these eventualities. They seem confident that these plans would cover it.

I don't think their plans will, many disabled and sick people can't even get care or carers at present, what happens when their carers, if they ahve any, get sick.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]


----------



## Detroit City (Mar 14, 2020)

how many people have died in the UK due to COVID-19?


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 14, 2020)

Detroit City said:


> how many people have died in the UK due to COVID-19?


11 so far.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 14, 2020)

Some rise in cases in Swansea overnight (Wales gives its figures in the mornings). Swansea University rumoured to be closing. My partner, who works at UWTSD, had to detail work from home arrangements yesterday.


----------



## Detroit City (Mar 14, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> 11 so far.


that's a shame, we're up to 40 or 45 i think


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Some rise in cases in Swansea overnight (Wales gives its figures in the mornings)


last time i looked the number of tests carried out was less than 1000


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Depends on mutation rates. Any acquired immunity is only good for as long as it's more or less the same virus going round that you've already fought off. Also it's not just a question of live or die, some people who survive will have permanent respiratory damage that will make them more vlunerable in future.



Sadly that may not even be the biggest factor when it comes to human immune systems and coronaviruses. I am still not happy with the amount of study of other coronaviruses that was done in normal times, but it appears human immunity to coronaviruses isnt that good, it seems to fade even if the virus hasnt changed in a big way. There will always be small changes to viruses, but coronaviruses dont mutate as quickly as influenza ones because they have a duplication error correction system (which isnt perfect but does reduce the mutation rate). So its a big shame that there seem to be other reasons human immune systems cant maintain immunity against coronaviruses for long periods.


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Yeah, as I've said before any talk of figures comes with huge caveats but we're going to be talking huge numbers, and if the gov are waiting for this peak before closing the country it's going to be ages isn't it? Potential for a lot more vulnerable people to get it. I reckon we could manage six months of shutdown given the right mindset. But it's almost "deal with it"



In addition to whatever mistakes they have made with policy and assumptions and modelling, I'm pretty sure they fucked up the communication on this point. It might have gone better if the graph slideshow hadnt broken at the last press conference.

None of the stuff about pressing down and flattening/stretching out the epidemic curve works if you wait till the top of the peak before you do anything. There is no way even this government were claiming that. The point they were trying to make is that they were planning to wait until they were at the point where the curve was really taking off. Thats why some of the detail they were getting into wasnt single dates, it was ranges, periods, either side of the very peak. The language I would have used would be to impose the most stringent measures once the first epidemic wave was underway, and I would set some threshold for defining that moment.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 14, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> last time i looked the number of tests carried out was less than 1000



945 with 60 positives


----------



## Red Cat (Mar 14, 2020)

Of course behavioural science is going to be part of infection control amongst a large population.


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> So how do we speed up the shutdown (if that’s we need to do)



If you can, do the following:

Call in sick to work, even if you're not 

Slow down work as much as possible on health and safety grounds, eg refuse to take short cuts with hand washing, cleaning of environment/objects etc

Refuse overtime/cover work

Push back against complacency -refuse to engage in conversations about how it's a hoax or an over reaction, if someone is coughing at you ask them not to

Stop giving your custom to non-essential services, eg bars and cafes. Yes, even the independent ones. Small business doesn't mean ethical business.

Act calm and rational as you go about this, do not give the fuckers amunition to call you a drama queen etc. Be wary of people looking for arguments, pick your battles

Show solidarity with your colleagues if they are fighting similar battles

Help people in the community research laws and guidance, eg online or access legal advice


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think the drive to attribute every vainglorious or opaque decision by the government to Dominic Cummings is a mistake tbh.


Yes.

There seems to have been a move from "trust the experts" to "Cummings/Johnson dastardly plans" neither view is helpful or accurate.  The UK government does seem to be pursuing a different strategy to other countries but _science_ no more said that the UK approach was right on Thursday than it says it is wrong today. 


Part-timah said:


> It adds that Boris is callous and that the choices he makes are not necessarily grounded in science.


There quite clearly is a scientific argument behind the governments actions. Whether it is the "right" one or not who knows but this sort of simplistic view of science and individualised politics does not provide any understanding.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 14, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> Yes, even the independent ones. Small business doesn't mean ethical business.


Lots of bars and clubs on Instagram are rightly nervous about this, and saying how they've put safety procedures in place etc.

Of course, they can't, and it's going to affect a lot of great places to go out. Sad, but I don't see what consumers can or should do to help.

It should be the government stepping in to suspend business rates, force landlords to put in measures to prevent evictions etc.


----------



## agricola (Mar 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Some rise in cases in Swansea overnight (Wales gives its figures in the mornings). Swansea University rumoured to be closing. My partner, who works at UWTSD, had to detail work from home arrangements yesterday.



Aberystwyth is self isolating as well (and has been since 1900).


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 14, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> Call in sick to work, even if you're not
> ......
> Stop giving your custom to non-essential services, eg bars and cafes. Yes, even the independent ones. Small business doesn't mean ethical business.


How long are you going to do this for? How long should people not go to cafes/pubs? 2 months? 6 months? A year? 
And what if you call in sick to work now only to find you've used up all your sick pay when you need it later in the year?


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 14, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> How long are you going to do this for? How long should people not go to cafes/pubs? 2 months? 6 months? A year?
> And what if you call in sick to work now only to find you've used up all your sick pay when you need it later in the year?





muscovyduck said:


> *If you can*, do the following:


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 14, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> .


I'm skeptical that telling people not to use "non-essential" services is helpful, it may even be harmful, isolating people even more.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

treelover said:


> Wasnt going to post this bit it is very worrying, it is in manageralise, but its a reply to a request on how disabled and sick people(DASP) will cope in a pandemic, was meant to be about those on direct payments, but reply is about care homes I think, but basically saying
> lower levels of outbreak would be managed by the care company in the same way as any other bout of illness or significant staff shortages, and if it gets worse than this, there is a city-wide group who plan for these eventualities. They seem confident that these plans would cover it.
> 
> I don't think their plans will, many disabled and sick people can't even get care or carers at present, what happens when their carers, if they ahve any, get sick.



thanks


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 14, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> I'm skeptical that telling people not to use "non-essential" services is helpful, it may even be harmful, isolating people even more.


Question I was replying to is how we get everything shut down as quick as possible, I appreciate there's nuances regarding whether that's actually a good idea or not


----------



## andysays (Mar 14, 2020)

10 more deaths in one 24 hour period, almost doubling the total.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> Of course behavioural science is going to be part of infection control amongst a large population.



True


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> Question I was replying to is how we get everything shut down as quick as possible, I appreciate there's nuances regarding whether that's actually a good idea or not



exactly.

if we want a shutdown we accept it will be brutal to do so

if we don’t want a shutdown we accept it will be brutal not to do so.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> How long are you going to do this for? How long should people not go to cafes/pubs? 2 months? 6 months? A year?
> And what if you call in sick to work now only to find you've used up all your sick pay when you need it later in the year?



Or you realise you need to get paid in oder to have food and stuff.


----------



## Callie (Mar 14, 2020)

"As of 9am on 14 March 2020, 37,746 people have been tested in the UK, of which 36,606 were confirmed negative and 1,140 were confirmed as positive. 21 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 have died. "









						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 14, 2020)

I've been multiplying by 1.3 last few days  that's a jump of more than 1.4.  More testing? Or escalation?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

Callie said:


> "As of 9am on 14 March 2020, 37,746 people have been tested in the UK, of which 36,606 were confirmed negative and 1,140 were confirmed as positive. 21 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 have died. "
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fag packet maths says we're likely to be at 12,000 cases a week from now, assuming testing can keep up.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 14, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I've been multiplying by 1.3 last few days  that's a jump of more than 1.4.  More testing? Or escalation?


Way more testing.



From here:


----------



## Callie (Mar 14, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I've been multiplying by 1.3 last few days  that's a jump of more than 1.4.  More testing? Or escalation?


Testing has increased  24960 on monday, 26261 (+1301) , 27476 (+1215), 29764 (+2288), 32771 (+3007), 37746 (+4975).   I dunno how to review those figures in terms of increase in cases per number of tests (?percentage pos vs tested?). Everyone wants their results yesterday and some tit has told people it only takes 24 hours so I have been explaining to people why they will not have their result in 24 hours most of this morning.


----------



## Callie (Mar 14, 2020)

Also the number of tests may not be the true picture - while testing moves away from the centralised public health labs and more labs can perform the test the more difficult it is to keep track - positives are reported urgently to public health but actual test numbers and negatives not so much (labs don't have the facility/resource to quick zap this sort of thing to anyone that wants it).


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 14, 2020)

42.8% rise


----------



## extra dry (Mar 14, 2020)

maomao said:


> Germany is close behind with the third oldest population in the world but with over 1100 cases and no deaths yet.


Genitics?


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

extra dry said:


> Genitics?



Germany, like the UK, is entering a crucial period where the number of deaths is expected to start increasing quite rapidly. Its started happening as expected, but its still a little soon to demonstrate with a series of numbers. Unfortunately Spain and to a slightly lesser extent France are a bit further ahead of Germany and the UK. 

Number of UK deaths and rate of increase so far is roughly consistent with us being about 2 weeks behind Italy. I have not looked at other countries numbers for today yet, but no real reason to expect any divergence from the expected trends


----------



## extra dry (Mar 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Germany, like the UK, is entering a crucial period where the number of deaths is expected to start increasing quite rapidly. Its started happening as expected, but its still a little soon to demonstrate with a series of numbers. Unfortunately Spain and to a slightly lesser extent France are a bit further ahead of Germany and the UK.
> 
> Number of UK deaths and rate of increase so far is roughly consistent with us being about 2 weeks behind Italy. I have not looked at other countries numbers for today yet, but no real reason to expect any divergence from the expected trends



Right, I do keep up with current events, around 5% death rate which is horrific for all.  Communities are going to need all the help they can. 

Good luck everyone.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 14, 2020)

Eton and Harrow closed, who would have thunk it


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> Eton and Harrow closed, who would have thunk it



Meanwhile state schools are apparently going to be forced to remain open on penalty of legal action. I don't even need to bother adding the bit about one rule for them do I?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 14, 2020)

There's probably cultural reasons why it's spreading more in some countries than others. More so in countries that kiss each other's cheeks when greeting, less so in more formal and/or fastidious countries.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 14, 2020)

how long do people think the government can keep to  their back of a fag packet plan of breezy optimism (bar death of a few thousand loved ones) , "herd immunity" and er .. wash you hands? I fully expect we will be in full on lockdown mode in a week or two - as death rates spiral and people start to panic. People, businesses and organisations are already taking their actions in this regard. 
This is a situation that is crying out for comprehensive state intervention across pretty every areas of the economy and public sphere - with a fully detailed plan on how to protect the most vulnerable and maximise NHS resources (very much including staff). Also making sure people can get food - and pay the rent. Unlike Italy - they've had fucking weeks to plan this. 
I hope im wrong - but it reeks of Johnsons and dominic wormtongue's  approach of lazire faire improvisation with a side order of sociopathic lack of concern for public safety (see also - their brexit strategy). 
They're are dozens of measures they could be taking now short of "lock down" - but not even seen so much as a fucking poster giving basic advice on slowing infection.


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

> The National Education Union has written to the prime minister to ask why the government has decided not to shut schools to help reduce the spread of the virus and asking for "fuller disclosure" of the models it has used during its decision-making process.



And the '4 weeks behind Italy' thing seems to have started giving way to something with more wiggle room, at least for those at the BBC whose job seems to be to explain and justify the governments stance.



> Analysis, By Nick Triggle, Health Correspondent.
> 
> Instead, the logic of the move is to relieve pressure on the emergency services in attendance. It was always envisaged that this would be done when we started seeing significant rises in the number of cases - that is thought to be *at least a few weeks away*.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: UK deaths double in 24 hours
					

Ten more people have died after testing positive for the virus, NHS England says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

> Hundreds of members of the scientific community have sent two open letters to the British government, voicing their concerns about the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
> 
> One comes from 198 academics in the field of maths and science , calling for urgent measures of social distancing across the UK.
> 
> It says: “Going for “herd immunity” at this point does not seem a viable option, as this will put NHS at an even stronger level of stress, risking many more lives than necessary.”





> Another letter has been signed by 164 behavioural scientists. It raises concerns about the idea of ‘behavioural fatigue’ - the idea that if the public are instructed to take preventative measures too early, they’ll eventually revert back to prior behaviour.
> 
> The letter suggests that this has been a cornerstone of British government policy on coronavirus and sheds doubt on the evidence behind this.
> 
> ...



5m ago 15:26

I'm glad people didnt wait for the '4 weeks behind Italy' stuff to be proven true or false, before pointing out the other problems with their approach. And no amount of bullshit from the state broadcaster, or laughable appeals from some quarters on this forum to trust the government, could hope to overcome this.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> how long do people think the government can keep to  their back of a fag packet plan of breezy optimism (bar death of a few thousand loved ones) , "herd immunity" and er .. wash you hands? I fully expect we will be in full on lockdown mode in a week or two - as death rates spiral and people start to panic. People, businesses and organisations are already taking their actions in this regard.
> This is a situation that is crying out for comprehensive state intervention across pretty every areas of the economy and public sphere - with a fully detailed plan on how to protect the most vulnerable and maximise NHS resources (very much including staff). Also making sure people can get food - and pay the rent. Unlike Italy - they've had fucking weeks to plan this.
> I hope im wrong - but it reeks of Johnsons and dominic wormtongue's  approach of lazire faire improvisation with a side order of sociopathic lack of concern for public safety (see also - their brexit strategy).
> They're are dozens of measures they could be taking now short of "lock down" - but not even seen so much as a fucking poster giving basic advice on slowing infection.



If the plan is what many seem to think it is, basically keep 'lockdown' in the toolbox for an as-yet-undetermined 'peak' time (never mind the fact we won't know where the peak is until we've already gone past it) so as to minimise economic disruption, then blinking too soon would basically undermine the whole thing and the end result would be indistinguishable from a half-arsed, too-late version of Italy's response. 

Of course the fact that, as you say, they're not even taking relatively simple measures short of total lockdown does rather argue against there being any kind of plan at all.

Who fucking knows. Even if the government told us exactly what their plans were, either it would be a pack of lies or it would all get changed around on the hoof anyway.


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> how long do people think the government can keep to  their back of a fag packet plan of breezy optimism (bar death of a few thousand loved ones) , "herd immunity" and er .. wash you hands? I fully expect we will be in full on lockdown mode in a week or two - as death rates spiral and people start to panic. People, businesses and organisations are already taking their actions in this regard.
> This is a situation that is crying out for comprehensive state intervention across pretty every areas of the economy and public sphere - with a fully detailed plan on how to protect the most vulnerable and maximise NHS resources (very much including staff). Also making sure people can get food - and pay the rent. Unlike Italy - they've had fucking weeks to plan this.
> I hope im wrong - but it reeks of Johnsons and dominic wormtongue's  approach of lazire faire improvisation with a side order of sociopathic lack of concern for public safety (see also - their brexit strategy).
> They're are dozens of measures they could be taking now short of "lock down" - but not even seen so much as a fucking poster giving basic advice on slowing infection.



Labour have been cautious about too much criticism on the plans as don't want to be seen as 'weaponing the issue' but Ashworth has been quite good, but now time for the robust bit to begin

I have just lost my main carer,  gone back home from college to S.A, its near impossible to get carers even now, been in touch with the mutual aid groups, but it is not the same.


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> If the plan is what many seem to think it is, basically keep 'lockdown' in the toolbox for an as-yet-undetermined 'peak' time (never mind the fact we won't know where the peak is until we've already gone past it) so as to minimise economic disruption, then blinking too soon would basically undermine the whole thing and the end result would be indistinguishable from a half-arsed, too-late version of Italy's response.



Like I said earlier, they fucked up some of the comms regarding the peak, they were not intending to wait till we reached the peak. They were, like many other countries, going to wait till they had their indications that we were beginning to rapidly accelerate up the first epidemic curve. But they decided to describe it in their own special way, half-arse a load of measures, and say things about timescales which shook people who had been looking at the numbers faith that they would get the timing right at all.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who was scratching my head about the timing they were indicating, even before they started saying stuff about us being 4 weeks behind Italy. For example the press has been talking for some time about the emergency government legislation, and the proposed timetable was always said to be 'the end of March'. At the start of March this timetable sounded unrealistic and late, let alone now.


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

> Hundreds of members of the scientific community have sent two open letters to the British government, voicing their concerns about the response to the coronavirus outbreak.
> One comes from 198 academics in the field of maths and science, calling for urgent measures of social distancing across the UK.
> It says: “Going for ‘herd immunity’ at this point does not seem a viable option, as this will put NHS at an even stronger level of stress, risking many more lives than necessary.”
> Another letter has been signed by 164 behavioural scientists. It raises concerns about the idea of “behavioural fatigue” – the idea that if the public are instructed to take preventative measures too early, they’ll eventually revert back to prior behaviour.
> ...



from the G updates


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

'Behavioural fatigue' is a funny way of saying 'not enough resources to survive for long periods with no income'.


----------



## Plumdaff (Mar 14, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> 'Behavioural fatigue' is a funny way of saying 'not enough resources to survive for long periods with no income'.



Amen. An extended period of, if not lockdown, but strong social distancing, would involve state intervention that is a complete anathema to this government. Guaranteeing income and jobs, increasing funding massively to local government and social care, likely need for industrial substitution, and so on. They may be forced into this down the line, my fear is they will move far too late on purely ideological grounds.


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

In normal times I would probably not link to a Tom Peck article, but since he seems to have taken the idea that behavioural science may involve reverse psychology and ran with it, I will.









						Tom Peck: The plan worked. Johnson told us to carry on and now we’re in coronavirus lockdown
					

All they had to do was get the least trusted man in the nation’s history to tell us that any kind of mass attempt at isolation would be counterproductive, and already it’s like ‘I Am Legend’ out there




					www.independent.co.uk
				






> It can only have been the nudge unit’s idea to get the least trusted man in the nation’s history to tell us that any kind of mass public lockdown would be counterproductive at this stage. Because 20 minutes later, it was immediately like I Am Legend out there.
> 
> It is well known in behavioural psychology circles that people are far more likely to keep to rules they have set for themselves than those that are imposed on them from the top down, so deploying Johnson to instil the required levels of blind panic by telling everyone there’s no need to panic is truly a stroke of genius.



I have speculated about that before, but I have taken no time to explore the literature on behavioural psychology.

Also in that article:



> Two weeks ago, Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of Italy’s Democratic Party, posted a picture of himself, having an early evening drink in a Milan restaurant, alongside the words, “we need normality”.
> 
> Zingaretti is now in isolation having contracted coronavirus.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> I have speculated about that before, but I have taken no time to explore the literature on behavioural psychology.



You have to be careful with that stuff as at least 50% of the entire field is baseless voodoo nonsense.


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

Petition: Implement UK lockdown for preventing spread of COVID19
					

The UK needs to follow suit the containment procedures of countries that have been greatly affected by COVID19 such as Italy.  The UK should restrict unnecessary travel between towns and cities. Travel permitted should only be for work or emergencies. Public gatherings should also be discouraged.




					petition.parliament.uk
				




petition calling for lock down, over 100,00 sigs already


----------



## maomao (Mar 14, 2020)

I think when they say 'herd immunity' they're using it as a euphemism for 'just let the fuckers die'.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 14, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> 'Behavioural fatigue' is a funny way of saying 'not enough resources to survive for long periods with no income'.



Tbf it won't _just_ be that.


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

> We're about to learn a terrible lesson from coronavirus: inequality kills | Owen Jones
> 
> 
> Thanks to a decade of austerity, the Tories have ensured the pandemic will hit the poor the hardest, says Guardian columnist Owen Jones
> ...



Owen Jones back on form, it will really expose 40 years of neglect


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 14, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> Amen. An extended period of, if not lockdown, but strong social distancing, would involve state intervention that is a complete anathema to this government. Guaranteeing income and jobs, increasing funding massively to local government and social care, likely need for industrial substitution, and so on. They may be forced into this down the line, my fear is they will move far too late on purely ideological grounds.



Yep - exactly this.


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You have to be careful with that stuff as at least 50% of the entire field is baseless voodoo nonsense.



Such as the joys of the 'human' branches of science.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

treelover said:


> Owen Jones back on form, it will really expose 40 years of neglect


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 14, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Yes.
> 
> There seems to have been a move from "trust the experts" to "Cummings/Johnson dastardly plans" neither view is helpful or accurate.  The UK government does seem to be pursuing a different strategy to other countries but _science_ no more said that the UK approach was right on Thursday than it says it is wrong today.
> There quite clearly is a scientific argument behind the governments actions. Whether it is the "right" one or not who knows but this sort of simplistic view of science and individualised politics does not provide any understanding.



It’s an excuse. Look at the extensive criticisms from experts in their field. The BBC is doing its best to spin it but Boris and Cummings are not fit for managing this.


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

I hope councils set up hand washing stations around cities, towns, now, very few public toilets, etc

and get the funds to do so.


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

A glimpse of what is actually planned:


----------



## clicker (Mar 14, 2020)

Yes , I can see them now not planning on reopening until September. I think they're trying to hold out for an Easter shut down, but it's late this year.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 14, 2020)

The Irish take on the British response.


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2020)

MrSki said:


> The Irish take on the British response.



I finally ended up quoting parts of an EU document that give more info about the current state of the situation, the planned responses to it, some very large similarities to aspects of the UKs plans and public communication, and some key differences that have lead to the UKs version going down very badly.

They ended up in a different thread, so please forgive me linking to my own posts:

           #3,628      
           #3,630      

(its the 2nd link that is most directly relevant but the first ones quotes might help with context and understanding the EUs evolving stance).

My conclusion at the moment, which I am always willing to revisit, is that actually the UK approach has much in common with the EU stuff. Indeed we are probably still using the EU stuff but with a couple of twists in public communication, and publicly stated timescales, that have blown up in the UK governments face over the last couple of days.

I will include my final EU document quote from those posts here, because I believe it indicates the key difference between the EU stuff, and what the UK has told its public:



> The evidence for the effectiveness of closing schools and workplaces, and cancelling mass gatherings is limited. However, one modelling study from China estimated that if a range of non-pharmaceutical interventions, including social distancing, had been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier in the country, the number of COVID-19 cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86%, and 95%, respectively, together with significantly reducing the number of affected areas.



That is a very large 'however', and it is the failure of the UK to focus on that bit that has lead to their plans going down so badly. Indeed they have implied stuff that makes us think their timing decisions are off in a different world, one where there will be many needless deaths.


----------



## sihhi (Mar 14, 2020)

Dan U said:


> What this article explains is probably driving some of the decision making, trying to buy us a few weeks
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Has this assumption been tested? That things are kicking off in China again after the return to work has started. 

The herd immunity argument goes against virological sense since antibodies against other _coronvidae _do not last very long, chasing this where no vaccine exists is wrong.

A virus needs 70% of exposure in a given population. But how can 70% be exposed if not by the NHS being overpowered because a fifth of that 70% need hospitalisation, so over what timeframe is the 14% to enter hospital? It's a monstrous gamble.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 14, 2020)

I can’t remember what thread, but thanks for the mutual aid idea. I had my head up my arse for ages probs due to self enforced minimal comms, and was like “it’s just flu” (although in my defence I think the flu is serious shit)
Floated the idea amongst Orcadians this evening and got a speedy and positive response from loads already in 15 minutes, naturally cause people are pretty awesome given a chance.  And I’m going to speak to the senior tomorrow about what’s happening in our care home, plans etc. Aye anyway I went in earlier for a chat but someone had fallen- ambulance, chaos. My mum’s work is already in lockdown(mad props Inverness) but ours is not.
Thanks to urban and Frogwoman and other randoms for disturbing my trance. Also pray for me when the schools close faaaackin ‘Ell. I.... just will not think about it right now. Can’t!


----------



## sihhi (Mar 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> A glimpse of what is actually planned:




I have seen twitter explain that this will be cushioned around the summer break.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Mar 14, 2020)

Am I missing something here? So many people stating that we need to wait for a vaccine as herd immunity won’t work. Isn’t a vaccine just a low dose of the virus which then builds immunity? But as there isn’t one and won’t be one for ages, far too long to have people self isolating, the only way is to let the least vulnerable get it and hope that the most  vulnerable can be kept away from it until most people are immune and hope there is the capacity to treat as best they can those most affected by it?


----------



## Supine (Mar 14, 2020)

And lol at the antivaxer I saw on fb ranting about the cure not being ready yet!


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 14, 2020)

Elderly could be quarantined for four months to combat coronavirus | ITV News
					

According to a government source, the perception ministers are reluctant to make difficult decisions to battle the virus is wrong. | ITV National News




					www.itv.com
				






> People over 70 will be instructed by the government to stay in strict isolation at home or in care homes for four months, under a "wartime-style" mobilisation effort by the government likely to be enforced within the next 20 days.
> 
> Other measures already being planned include:
> 
> ...


My dad is _not _going to quarantine himself for four months. He's got various underlying health conditions, so if he gets it I am properly worried about his chances.

And fuck their "wartime-style" bullshit


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 14, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Am I missing something here? So many people stating that we need to wait for a vaccine as herd immunity won’t work. Isn’t a vaccine just a low dose of the virus which then builds immunity? But as there isn’t one and won’t be one for ages, far too long to have people self isolating, the only way is to let the least vulnerable get it and hope that the most  vulnerable can be kept away from it until most people are immune and hope there is the capacity to treat as best they can those most affected by it?


That is exactly the strategy, yes. Their plan is to institute the strict regime of distancing only to reduce the tidal impact of cases hitting the nhs (i.e. severe cases requiring inpatient therapy/ palliation) rather than to prevent spread. They've clearly modeled that containment cannot work and we are all going to get it eventually.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> A glimpse of what is actually planned:




Love to know what they think people can do to prepare for that.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Mar 14, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> That is exactly the strategy, yes. Their plan is to institute the strict regime of distancing only to reduce the tidal impact of cases hitting the nhs (i.e. severe cases requiring inpatient therapy/ palliation) rather than to prevent spread. They've clearly modeled that containment cannot work and we are all going to get it eventually.



It can’t be contained. Post above yours, by Lord Camomile sums it up. My mother in law has locked herself away for two weeks now, she’s gonna get bored of it soon enough though, or may even think, ‘Why am I trying to prolong my life if it must be a life of isolation?’

There clearly are no easy answers, but all this shutting everything down which is happening across Europe and the US can only go on for so long, people will get bored, but before that they must eat, and pay their rent and so on. Isolation will see the numbers dip, but as people come out the numbers will rise again.

I think I am kind of agreeing with government policy  

But a plus is Johnson’s premiership is fucked. It’s built on his hardcore getting Brexit done, but no one gives a fuck anymore and he’s tasked with dealing with something really serious that is out of human control. Cunt looks rough as fuck right now.


----------



## agricola (Mar 14, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Am I missing something here? So many people stating that we need to wait for a vaccine as herd immunity won’t work. Isn’t a vaccine just a low dose of the virus which then builds immunity? But as there isn’t one and won’t be one for ages, far too long to have people self isolating, the only way is to let the least vulnerable get it and hope that the most  vulnerable can be kept away from it until most people are immune and hope there is the capacity to treat as best they can those most affected by it?



What you are missing is Dan Hodges, Toby Young or one of the others writing exclusively in the _Mail_ tomorrow to tell you that after the Black Death struck, everyone left alive had immunity to it. The greatest victory in English history then followed!


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Mar 14, 2020)

agricola said:


> What you are missing is Dan Hodges, Toby Young or one of the others writing exclusively in the _Mail_ tomorrow to tell you that after the Black Death struck, everyone left alive had immunity to it. The greatest victory in English history then followed!



Not sure what you are getting at, have no idea who those people are?


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> That is exactly the strategy, yes. Their plan is to institute the strict regime of distancing only to reduce the tidal impact of cases hitting the nhs (i.e. severe cases requiring inpatient therapy/ palliation) rather than to prevent spread. They've clearly modeled that containment cannot work and we are all going to get it eventually.



it goes against a lot of what I believe in about care (I detest the ‘recovery approach’), but ‘encouraging personal responsibility’ (which isn’t this context cannot just be shouting at service users to stop self harming, and must  include supporting those with severe cognitive/mood/communication difficulties to process and remember what they need to do) is going to need to be done.

we are going to need to have people recognising that there are things that they need to and should do, and to develop and implement public health communication for those who need that information to be communicated in a way they they can process and understand and in a way that doesn’t cause anxiety and distress

sorry if that is garbled.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

I mean I’ve completely mad now and am in full ‘your people need you @MadeInBedlam’ (intrusive thoughts are fun). 

The OCD symptoms (ie if you don’t do x then awful things will happen to people) happens periodically, but I guess this time going onto war footing could actually be useful


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 14, 2020)

A few people of us are going to create material/training for staff/servcie users (the aim being for there to be material that explains clearly, but that is also reassuring). Happy to be told if it’s a daft idea (now is really not the time to be precious about this stuff)


----------



## agricola (Mar 14, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Not sure what you are getting at, have no idea who those people are?



I envy you


----------



## treelover (Mar 14, 2020)

Some appalling comments on the Owen Jones article, poor deserve it basically, bad eating habits, obesity, drinking, smoking, some moving to eugenics


----------



## sihhi (Mar 14, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> That is exactly the strategy, yes. Their plan is to institute the strict regime of distancing only to reduce the tidal impact of cases hitting the nhs (i.e. severe cases requiring inpatient therapy/ palliation) rather than to prevent spread. They've clearly modeled that containment cannot work and we are all going to get it eventually.



It's against all WHO advice, it's hellish.


----------



## IC3D (Mar 14, 2020)

I think the plan might be lockdown when the hospitals are full and hope for the best.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Mar 14, 2020)

agricola said:


> I envy you



 As any right thinking person would


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 14, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> That is exactly the strategy, yes. Their plan is to institute the strict regime of distancing only to reduce the tidal impact of cases hitting the nhs (i.e. severe cases requiring inpatient therapy/ palliation) rather than to prevent spread. They've clearly modeled that containment cannot work and we are all going to get it eventually.



In effect then, the _herd_ immunity (vs waiting for a vaccine stuff) is really not the issue?
It IS solely down to 'the curve' and _when_ you choose lock down, so as not to overwhelm health services?
(That makes sense, obviously, but also doesn't, re the '4 weeks behind Italy' stuff, cos we're clearly not.)

So is it balancing a wider spread, more quickly, against the hope that some immunity, _however short-lived_, buys that extra time, instead of locking down earlier?

I'm sorry to ask you questions - you must be knackered and you don't need to answer - but I'm way more interested in what you, and our other NHS workers here, feel is right, than the confusing messages coming from the gov.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 14, 2020)

treelover said:


> Some appalling comments on the Owen Jones article, poor deserve it basically, bad eating habits, obesity, drinking, smoking, some moving to eugenics


do yourself a favour and don't read the comments.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 14, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> do yourself a favour and don't read the comments.


Pretty much applies to anything


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 14, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Pretty much applies to anything


true enough 
I can't resist other shit, but if I read the comments I would go round the bend even more


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Mar 14, 2020)

Govt and advisers they are hiding behind now coming under attack from academics and professionals in relevant fields on both herd immunity strategy ( which they now appear to be backing off from and blaming on Vallances “bad messaging” - though the proposed “law to force schools to stay open” is a bit of a tell that this was not just about messaging - school openings and closing appear to be envisaged as a tap to reduce and increase community spread) and also their (ab)use of behavioural theory to justify delaying advice on social distancing and closures.
Coronavirus: Scientists say UK virus strategy is 'risking lives' 









						Coronavirus: Some scientists say UK virus strategy is 'risking lives'
					

More than 200 scientists write to the government calling for tougher measures to tackle Covid-19.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 14, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> In effect then, the _herd_ immunity (vs waiting for a vaccine stuff) is really not the issue?
> It IS solely down to 'the curve' and _when_ you choose lock down, so as not to overwhelm health services?
> (That makes sense, obviously, but also doesn't, re the '4 weeks behind Italy' stuff, cos we're clearly not.)
> 
> ...



Well, I have to say i'm not a public health specialist or an epidemiologist. I'm a clinician- that is my speciality.
I have to trust that my colleagues doing other things know what they are doing.
So, I'm guessing here a lot, but my interpretation is that the hope for a degree of spreading post-infective immunity (and thus a smaller pool of people passing on the virus) is part of the plan, but that the mainstay is to only use the social distancing measures as a way of restricting the flow of sick into the health system.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 14, 2020)

Interesting, a letter from UK scientists saying do more do it sooner etc


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 14, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> Well, I have to say i'm not a public health specialist or an epidemiologist. I'm a clinician- that is my speciality.
> I have to trust that my colleagues doing other things know what they are doing.
> So, I'm guessing here a lot, but my interpretation is that the hope for a degree of spreading post-infective immunity (and thus a smaller pool of people passing on the virus) is part of the plan, but that the mainstay is to only use the social distancing measures as a way of restricting the flow of sick into the health system.



Yes, of course. 
As an individual with absolutely no medical knowledge, I sort of cycle back again as to when that_ right_ time comes etc, then - but that's got to be getting very old for you and I really, really appreciate your reply, while you're just working through this. 
I don't suppose that helps and it must be very hard for you all, even harder that normal (and even more difficult while you're also dealing with armchair knobheads like me looking for details that you really don't have time to think about and/or provide).
Thank you for the work that you do.


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 14, 2020)

Thanks, but we aren't superheroes, we're just trained to do this particular job. It's a great job, and I for one wouldn't do anything else for a living. 
Right now everything is as normal, but there is a growing pervasive anxiety. I'm impatient for it to start so we can just get on with it. We can only do what we can do


----------



## Red Cat (Mar 14, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> Well, I have to say i'm not a public health specialist or an epidemiologist. I'm a clinician- that is my speciality.
> I have to trust that my colleagues doing other things know what they are doing.



That's my position too.

I'm a mental health clinician, in which I have some expertise. irl, I'm trusted with this, and I have a responsibility to use my experience, my training and my skills as well as I can. I too feel I have to trust that others know what they're doing, as much as is possible.

eta i know this is very different to medicine but more about knowing the limits of your specialism


----------



## two sheds (Mar 15, 2020)

Grrrrr I went out and bought some ibuprofen  on Thursday because of something I read on urban 









						Anti-inflammatories may aggravate Covid-19, France advises
					

French minister says patients should take paracetamol rather than ibuprofen or cortisone




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 15, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Grrrrr I went out and bought some ibuprofen  on Thursday because of something I read on urban
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Although the explanations offered by France so far are somewhat generalised, anyone here is who familiar with the whole ACE2 thing with this coronavirus probably wont need to do much research in order to pick up on one possible reasoning behind the concern over Ibuprofen.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 15, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> Thanks, but we aren't superheroes, we're just trained to do this particular job. It's a great job, and I for one wouldn't do anything else for a living.
> Right now everything is as normal, but there is a growing pervasive anxiety. I'm impatient for it to start so we can just get on with it. We can only do what we can do



I did think quite hard about that post. I can quite imagine that it's not normal, or helpful, to have an influx of gushing responses to you doing your every day job, particularly when it's a profession you've chosen (as opposed to a job you just find yourself doing/have to do through circumstance) but where I recognise the training you might put yourself through, or the long hours.
Fwiw, I try quite hard to value my _own_ role, the impact I can have (cos I can) and the part it plays in our society.
I think all of our roles have already changed/will likely change and/or continue to change - and that we will just make those shifts forwards (because what else do you do) - but I still decided to post it because I AM appreciative of the additional work (whether that's pratical, or emotional) that others might take on. I _am_ grateful and I know the NHS has only continued to operate because of it's staff.

I'm not going to stop thinking of you all, while I do my bit, too and I'm trying very hard not to be over the top, I promise, but y'know, suck that praise up  - cos you _deserve_ it.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Although the explanations offered by France so far are somewhat generalised, anyone here is who familiar with the whole ACE2 thing with this coronavirus probably wont need to do much research in order to pick up on one possible reasoning behind the concern over Ibuprofen.



I also get asthma which means I should be careful about taking ibuprofen. I usually take lemsip if I have a cold which works really well - that's got paracatemol so fewer problems.


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 15, 2020)

Part-timah said:


> It’s an excuse. Look at the extensive criticisms from experts in their field. The BBC is doing its best to spin it but Boris and Cummings are not fit for managing this.


Sorry what is an excuse? The fact that there is criticism of the approach the UK gov is following does not indicate that the approach is not based on science. That's how science works - on any subject where there are so many unknowns there is going to be strongly contested alternative positions. And of course here where scientific decisions are inevitably political there is going to be more disagreement. 

I don't have the knowledge or background to comment on when or how it is best to move to a lockdown and I'm highly critical of the - just listen to the experts - line. The response society makes will be political and so people should have a say in how such a response. 
But equally to say that the CMO and CSO and all the people working under them are just developing scientific excuses for Johnson/Cummings is no more helpful. This is very much a state (and capital) response.


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 15, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Sorry what is an excuse? The fact that there is criticism of the approach the UK gov is following does not indicate that the approach is not based on science. That's how science works - on any subject where there are so many unknowns there is going to be strongly contested alternative positions. And of course here where scientific decisions are inevitably political there is going to be more disagreement.
> 
> I don't have the knowledge or background to comment on when or how it is best to move to a lockdown and I'm highly critical of the - just listen to the experts - line. The response society makes will be political and so people should have a say in how such a response.
> But equally to say that the CMO and CSO and all the people working under them are just developing scientific excuses for Johnson/Cummings is no more helpful. This is very much a state (and capital) response.



The gov scientists would have presented options. Boris and Cummings have made their choice. This choice is criticised by many experts including the fucking WHO. You know loony, tinfoil mentalist at that org. 

Are you aware of what scum those pair are? You know Boris idealises the mayor in Jaws?


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 15, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Interesting, a letter from UK scientists saying do more do it sooner etc



I suggest checking who the letter is from. Turns out "229 scientists" is a bunch of random mathematicians and students. There's even a glaciology teaching fellow in there. I am very surprised the BBC lent it such weight. It seems none of these scientists have done any science related to the things they are criticising.


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 15, 2020)

Sorry but frankly I think that's a naive view of how states/governments work.

Modern states have a huge government, not just Johnson and the Cabinet, but also the devolved governments, all the civil servants and other machinery. If there was not substantial support for this proposed policy within government then you'd be seeing that with leaks, briefings etc. And the "choice" made by the government is supported by some experts.

Are Johnson and Cummings scum, sure. But so is Macron, so is Jinping, so is Merkel.
I'm not defending the governments response but I repeat simplifying it to Johnson being scum is as harmful as "trusting the experts'.


----------



## bimble (Mar 15, 2020)

This won’t cheer anybody up but is a pretty compelling case imo for why the unknowns make it impossible to say right now what the best course of action is.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 15, 2020)

Elderly could be quarantined for four months to combat coronavirus | ITV News
					

According to a government source, the perception ministers are reluctant to make difficult decisions to battle the virus is wrong. | ITV National News




					www.itv.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 15, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Grrrrr I went out and bought some ibuprofen  on Thursday because of something I read on urban
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Main takeaway from that, the French health minister is an actual doctor! Can you imagine such a thing happening in this coutry?


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 15, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Main takeaway from that, the French health minister is an actual doctor! Can you imagine such a thing happening in this coutry?



Not Liam Fox. Please no.


----------



## weepiper (Mar 15, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Main takeaway from that, the French health minister is an actual doctor! Can you imagine such a thing happening in this coutry?


The SNP's health spokesperson at Westminster is a breast surgeon.








						Philippa Whitford - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


----------



## Red Cat (Mar 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> This won’t cheer anybody up but is a pretty compelling case imo for why the unknowns make it impossible to say right now what the best course of action is.




I was going to post yesterday that its daft to think that something as complex and multidisciplinary with so many things we don't know could suggest a clear and consensual solution. I even wrote it and then didn't post it cos I thought it would be ignored (because I'm not a scientist).

eta I'm glad a scientist with expertise has pointed out the uncertainty and the unknowns


----------



## agricola (Mar 15, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Main takeaway from that, the French health minister is an actual doctor! Can you imagine such a thing happening in this coutry?



Even those giants of politics TIG couldn't manage to get their doctor to be Health spokesperson.


----------



## Red Cat (Mar 15, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Sorry but frankly I think that's a naive view of how states/governments work.
> 
> Modern states have a huge government, not just Johnson and the Cabinet, but also the devolved governments, all the civil servants and other machinery. If there was not substantial support for this proposed policy within government then you'd be seeing that with leaks, briefings etc. And the "choice" made by the government is supported by some experts.
> 
> ...



The tories themselves have spent the last 4 decades undermining the experts, the self-interested professionals (teachers, academics, doctors etc) so it's no wonder is it that its hard for so many people to trust anyone when they have knowledge we don't.


----------



## blossie33 (Mar 15, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Elderly could be quarantined for four months to combat coronavirus | ITV News
> 
> 
> According to a government source, the perception ministers are reluctant to make difficult decisions to battle the virus is wrong. | ITV National News
> ...



I can't see that going down very well 
Advise yes, but insist no - I certainly wouldn't comply


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 15, 2020)

blossie33 said:


> I can't see that going down very well
> Advise yes, but insist no - I certainly wouldn't comply


I turn 60 this year, thankfully I probably don't LOOK particularly old.
But it's another good reason not to start attending local repetitive beats events in retirement ...


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 15, 2020)

If we shift to that position then you bloody well should, as the one thing we don't need is more people saturating the collapsing health system who we cannot treat. They will be undischargeable due to how sick they are and will be shedding enormous numbers of viruses which will infect healthcare workers. Time to think collectively I'm afraid.


----------



## blossie33 (Mar 15, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> If we shift to that position then you bloody well should, as the one thing we don't need is more people saturating the collapsing health system who we cannot treat. They will be undischargeable due to how sick they are and will be shedding enormous numbers of viruses which will infect healthcare workers. Time to think collectively I'm afraid.



I understand what you're saying but I know many very fit people over 70 - one of whom climbed Kilimanjaro last year and he's 80.


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 15, 2020)

The virus doesn't care. Age is an independent risk factor.


----------



## Red Cat (Mar 15, 2020)

There will be huge social pressure to conform and comply. 

My mother won't as she's a 2 year old in the body of an 80 year old smoker who hates doing what she's told. She doesn't really go anywhere anyway but it's likely this will kill her.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 15, 2020)

For myself, as an above-averagely fit and healthy 60 year old - albeit one who seems to catch everything going - I will be treading some sort of middle ground.
My clients are massively skewed towards highly-gregarious under-20s and the the health risks are massively one-directional.


----------



## Winot (Mar 15, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> The virus doesn't care. Age is an independent risk factor.



Should they be telling smokers to self-isolate too?


----------



## LDC (Mar 15, 2020)

blossie33 said:


> I understand what you're saying but I know many very fit people over 70 - one of whom climbed Kilimanjaro last year and he's 80.



You're totally missing the point. Dangerously so.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 15, 2020)

Matt Hancock, y'know, our Health Secretary, has written an article about the crisis in The Telegraph. Behind a paywall 

Apparently the paywall has been lifted now, and I know I shouldn't be surprised any more, but sometimes it's the low level dumbfuckery that really bemuses.


----------



## LDC (Mar 15, 2020)

Winot said:


> Should they be telling smokers to self-isolate too?



The info I've seen is going to include people with serious underlying health conditions self-isolating as well.


----------



## Winot (Mar 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The info I've seen is going to include people with serious underlying health conditions self-isolating as well.



Does that automatically mean smokers?

My understanding is that smokers are much more at risk. It seems logical therefore to extend the advice/compulsion to them. But I defer to you medical experts.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Matt Hancock, y'know, our Health Secretary, has written an article about the crisis in The Telegraph. Behind a paywall
> 
> Apparently the paywall has been lifted now, and I know I shouldn't be surprised any more, but sometimes it's the low level dumbfuckery that really bemuses.



The same Telegraph that described its own readership as a bunch of oxygen thieves who we'll be better off without? Classy choice.


----------



## LDC (Mar 15, 2020)

Winot said:


> Does that automatically mean smokers?
> 
> My understanding is that smokers are much more at risk. It seems logical therefore to extend the advice/compulsion to them. But I defer to you medical experts.



Wait for the info to be made public, it'll be made clear.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 15, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> There will be huge social pressure to conform and comply.
> 
> My mother won't as she's a 2 year old in the body of an 80 year old smoker who hates doing what she's told. She doesn't really go anywhere anyway but it's likely this will kill her.


I'm genuinely worried about my dad for the same reason; could maybe convince him not to go to the pub for a weekend, but 4 months? I would be amazed. He's almost certainly going to get this, and then it's just a case of what it does to him


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 15, 2020)

Whatever the rights or wrongs of it, asking any section of society to self isolate for four months is a road to failure. Clearly a large proportion are not going to fully comply.


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 15, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Whatever the rights or wrongs of it, asking any section of society to self isolate for four months is a road to failure. Clearly a large proportion are not going to fully comply.


Zero relevant knowledge here but tend to agree with the above on the basis of personal experience.Aged parents need all the help they can get and since huge numbers of them especially in lower income brackets are not connected to the internet four months seems an impossibly long time.Cannot really myself understand what Joan Bakewell was saying about a possible silver-lining with people pulling together etc.Seems to be exactly what we are now being told not to do?


----------



## Red Cat (Mar 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I'm genuinely worried about my dad for the same reason; could maybe convince him not to go to the pub for a weekend, but 4 months? I would be amazed. He's almost certainly going to get this, and then it's just a case of what it does to him



My parents local closed a while back and my mum was barred from it (in her seventies) for being obnoxious. I'm more worried about my dad. He has heart failure but plays sport, walks. Despite being fitter than my mum, he had pneumonia last year and then a TIA in the summer. My mum still smokes in the house and doesn't give a fuck. tbh I'd prefer my mum went quite quickly than a long drawn out and painful illness but I don't want that to happen to my dad. Obviously I don't want either of them to die.


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 15, 2020)

Can't see my mother not going over the road to church today.Hopefully no-one else (except maybe God) will be there so she will be okay.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 15, 2020)

Duncan2 said:


> Cannot really myself understand what Joan Bakewell was saying about a possible silver-lining with people pulling together etc.Seems to be exactly what we are now being told not to do?


I think this is one of the really counter-intuitive aspects about this whole thing - in times like these many people want to 'pull together' to support each other but, as you say, that's expressly what we're being told not to do. The usual methods won't work and we need to be a bit creative in how we support each other while still doing what's best for the collective.

Um, any ideas, anyone 

(For what it's worth, I also think 4 months isolation is basically impossible, and figure we surely have to come up with something else?)


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I think this is one of the really counter-intuitive aspects about this whole thing - in times like these many people want to 'pull together' to support each other but, as you say, that's expressly what we're being told not to do. The usual methods won't work and we need to be a bit creative in how we support each other while still doing what's best for the collective.


See also: "carrying on as normal", as if it's a fucking ideological issue and if we let it disrupt our way of life then we're "letting the virus win"


----------



## Winot (Mar 15, 2020)

Duncan2 said:


> Can't see my mother not going over the road to church today.Hopefully no-one else (except maybe God) will be there so she will be okay.



Am in church now. Numbers about half the normal but mainly parents and their kids have stayed away. The older folk are here (including a 103-year old).


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 15, 2020)

Winot said:


> Am in church now. Numbers about half the normal but mainly parents and their kids have stayed away. The older folk are here (including a 103-year old).


Not sure whether I am reassured or not Winot.Is it okay to be checking social media whilst at prayer these days??


----------



## 2hats (Mar 15, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Whatever the rights or wrongs of it, asking any section of society to self isolate for four months is a road to failure. Clearly a large proportion are not going to fully comply.


Likely proportional to the additional numbers that die.


----------



## hegley (Mar 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I think this is one of the really counter-intuitive aspects about this whole thing - in times like these many people want to 'pull together' to support each other but, as you say, that's expressly what we're being told not to do. The usual methods won't work and we need to be a bit creative in how we support each other while still doing what's best for the collective.
> 
> Um, any ideas, anyone
> 
> (For what it's worth, I also think 4 months isolation is basically impossible, and figure we surely have to come up with something else?)


I just don't understand how they're going to police it tbh. There is no way my mum (77, alzheimers/cancer) is going to self-isolate, even if she remembered that she had to. She goes to the pub every lunchtime for a meal as well which is the vast amount of her calorie intake for the day. She can't (remember how to) cook anymore; and I'm 400 miles away.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 15, 2020)

Has this been done yet? To my layman head he makes a good case, but as with most thing’s I don’t fully understand, I’m suspicious until I’ve heard from someone I trust to understand it better.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 15, 2020)

hegley said:


> I just don't understand how they're going to police it tbh. There is no way my mum (77, alzheimers/cancer) is going to self-isolate, even if she remembered that she had to. She goes to the pub every lunchtime for a meal as well which is the vast amount of her calorie intake for the day. She can't (remember how to) cook anymore; and I'm 400 miles away.


Sorry to read about your mum and that you are so far away, that must be a worry. As I understand it the government may close pubs at some point as they have in France so your mum's lunch arrangements may be disrupted at that point.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 15, 2020)

2hats said:


> Likely proportional to the additional numbers that die.



Possibly, although that also means more pressure on NHS, more people dying from covid 19 because of lack of resources, more dying from other stuff for same reason, so on. Seems behavioural science all the rage at the moment so seems silly to blame people for behaving like people


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 15, 2020)

hegley said:


> I just don't understand how they're going to police it tbh. There is no way my mum (77, alzheimers/cancer) is going to self-isolate, even if she remembered that she had to. She goes to the pub every lunchtime for a meal as well which is the vast amount of her calorie intake for the day. She can't (remember how to) cook anymore; and I'm 400 miles away.


That sucks for your mum (and you).

I was wondering if there could be designated 'social quarantine zones' where there were checks before you get in, or something, so people could still socialise in person if they weren't infected.

Instinctively sounds rather dystopian though, and given people can be asymptomatic probably wouldn't work anyway.


----------



## elbows (Mar 15, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> The virus doesn't care. Age is an independent risk factor.



There seems to be fairly widespread failure to understand this aspect. People are also somewhat misreading the age-related risk and think its only the elderly or the sick who will become seriously ill.

This problem has probably been reinforced because it is typical to use the age and underlying health conditions stuff as some kind of reassuring message for the population as a whole, but now there is an ugly gap between reality and perception and there is likely to be a shift from under to overreaction when the actual picture starts to dawn on people.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 15, 2020)

Yeah my other half's mum has alzheimers, she's not too bad yet but memory shot obviously, we're telling her to stay in and avoid people and we'll get anything she needs from shops but every time other half calls she is out at supermarket or whatever, either doesn't remember that she shouldn't be going out or says it's a lot of fuss, when it's your time it's your time etc. 

Four months is a long time, honestly unworkable imo


----------



## elbows (Mar 15, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> If we shift to that position then you bloody well should, as the one thing we don't need is more people saturating the collapsing health system who we cannot treat. They will be undischargeable due to how sick they are and will be shedding enormous numbers of viruses which will infect healthcare workers. Time to think collectively I'm afraid.



My mother, who I have shared my thoughts with as the pandemic unfolded, has reacted perfectly to everything, right up until I told her about the self-isolation plan for people aged 70+. The reaction was poor and the denial and 'this isnt practical' set in, so I went straight for the key aspect you mention there. It struck a chord with her and I am now waiting for it to sink in more to see if she comes to terms with the proposed measures.

Hopefully the point resonates more widely, because if my mother is anything to go by, fatalism is the first thing reached for to avoid accepting such measures. And if personal risk messages just result in fatalism, the message about healthcare burden and critical care being overwhelmed encourages thinking about the bigger picture and saving others.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 15, 2020)

Duncan2 said:


> Not sure whether I am reassured or not Winot.Is it okay to be checking social media whilst at prayer these days??



The (Sur)realGodAlmighty@Twitter


----------



## two sheds (Mar 15, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> Has this been done yet? To my layman head he makes a good case, but as with most thing’s I don’t fully understand, I’m suspicious until I’ve heard from someone I trust to understand it better.




Only rather than a bottle we've got a thimble (60 million population versus at the moment 120,000 NHS beds plus as many more as they can get minus beds occupied by non-cv illnesses minus doctors and nurses becoming infected). So you must need to control the numbers getting cv or the beds will immediately start getting swamped. Also, I'm not sure that quarantining will immediately stop more people getting cv - there's bound to be a lag.

Why aren't they testing as many people as possible and tracing contacts so at least we know how many are infected? The official map shows Cornwall with 4 confirmed cases - if there are 10,000 unconfirmed in the UK then I just don't believe that figure.  A neighbour has just been to the local hospital and said that they're not even coping now before people are being admitted with cv.


----------



## Winot (Mar 15, 2020)

Duncan2 said:


> Is it okay to be checking social media whilst at prayer these days??



We’re a very broad church.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 15, 2020)

Anti-inflammatories may aggravate Covid-19, France advises
					

French minister says patients should take paracetamol rather than ibuprofen or cortisone




					www.theguardian.com
				




Wasn't sure where to put this. But research is suggesting ibuprofen and other anti inflammatories aggrevate the inflammation in covid 19 and leads to more severe infection. French health ministry advising not to use at all.


----------



## keybored (Mar 15, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Pretty much applies to anything


Not so. Reading the comments on this article (from Airbnb property landlords whining about having to refund guests who won't be able to travel due to Covid-19) warmed my cockles.








						Airbnb extends no-charge cancellation policy due to coronavirus
					

Because of the current state of the global coronavirus pandemic, Airbnb has announced updates to its policies that provide reservation cancellations without charge for stays booked in specific areas. Guests who booked reservations through Airbnb in Mainland China, South Korea, Italy and the...




					techcrunch.com


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 15, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Only rather than a bottle we've got a thimble (60 million population versus at the moment 120,000 NHS beds plus as many more as they can get minus beds occupied by non-cv illnesses minus doctors and nurses becoming infected).


And only around 4k intensive care beds. If the figures out of China and Italy are right, we can expect ~10% of infected people to need intensive care, which if the 70% figure is reasonable is around 5 million people needing ICU treatment at some point over the next few months.

So, the dude with the water is correct, but he should be using a thimble with a pinprick in.


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> This problem has probably been reinforced because it is typical to use the age and underlying health conditions stuff as some kind of reassuring message for the population as a whole,


One  vexing aspect of the situation is that we now have to be constantly asking ourselves whether the official information is accurate or just what is "expedient" for the general public to be believing at any given moment.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 15, 2020)

I'm not sure "please, we're desperate, we'll pay anything" is the strongest negotiating strategy, doesn't really fill one with hope about the upcoming trade talks, but I guess that's why he's an MP and I'm not.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 15, 2020)

Duncan2 said:


> One  vexing aspect of the situation is that we now have to be constantly asking ourselves whether the official information is accurate or just what is "expedient" for the general public to be believing at any given moment.



Totally. It's adding so much stress to the situation. You can't even trust that they are going to try to do the right thing. We've got to make all these decisions on our own and it's agonizing.


----------



## prunus (Mar 15, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK over-70s to be asked to self-isolate 'within weeks', Hancock says

Matt Hancock is a dick, I think he’s got the message completely the wrong way wrong here - fucking Tory mentality appealing to people’s self-interest rather than self-sacrifice for the common good which a) I think would get a better response, and b) is surely the fucking point here? Sorry to be coarse but I am getting more and more frustrated with the way they are handling this.

The self-sacrifice bit they should be pushing is simple, I think: For each X people over 70 infected Y will need hospital treatment. For the same X under 40s say, the number will be Y/4 (very roughly, don’t quote me, but it’s something like that). That means for each over 70 that stays away from the risk of infection, 4 under 40s can be out and about without swamping the hospital system.

Why should these lucky under 40s get to be out and about? I want to go to the pub, coffee with my friends, it’s not fair?

Because we need people out there to eg keep logistics for food and fuel going, keep power stations and schools running (as appropriate), and oh I don’t know run the ducking healthcare system? Ie keep the country functioning.

That’s the argument that I think people will respond to (put slightly more tactfully perhaps).


----------



## two sheds (Mar 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I'm not sure "please, we're desperate, we'll pay anything" is the strongest negotiating strategy, doesn't really fill one with hope about the upcoming trade talks, but I guess that's why he's an MP and I'm not.




We really need Grayling in charge here, with his wide experience of Brexit ferry negotiations he'd be giving £85 million to companies that don't actually have ventilators, just in case.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I'm not sure "please, we're desperate, we'll pay anything" is the strongest negotiating strategy, doesn't really fill one with hope about the upcoming trade talks, but I guess that's why he's an MP and I'm not.




He's not saying "we'll pay anything", he's saying "no number [of ventilators] is too high," the whole piece is about needing as many as possible.


----------



## maomao (Mar 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> He's not saying "we'll pay anything", he's saying "no number [of ventilators] is too high," the whole piece is about needing as many as possible.


He's still a cock though.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 15, 2020)

Can the public do anything to help support NHS (and social care) workers?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> He's not saying "we'll pay anything", he's saying "no number [of ventilators] is too high," the whole piece is about needing as many as possible.


Hmm... 
Yeah, alright.


maomao said:


> He's still a cock though.


That 

And still wouldn't be in such a position if the NHS hadn't been criminally underfunded for the past decade. Would probably still need to supplement what they had, but not to the same degree.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> And only around 4k intensive care beds. If the figures out of China and Italy are right, we can expect ~10% of infected people to need intensive care, which if the 70% figure is reasonable is around 5 million people needing ICU treatment at some point over the next few months.
> 
> So, the dude with the water is correct, but he should be using a thimble with a pinprick in.



Same applies to those graphs of peak cases against health service capacity like the ones shown down the page on the left here.









						Coronavirus: How Johnson’s plan shifted as virus wreaked havoc
					

The strategy set out by the prime minister and his advisers came under strain as the scale of the crisis became clear




					www.theguardian.com
				




The line showing health service capacity is drawn at around half the maximum possible peak value whereas it's fucking miniscule when compared to the 60 million population who can all potentially catch it. They need to control the number of new cases as much as possible, not just let people catch it and see whether the NHS is swamped.


----------



## elbows (Mar 15, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Same applies to those graphs of peak cases against health service capacity like the ones shown down the page on the left here.



I note that this piece was a more nuanced attempt to justify the governments stance than the likes of the BBC managed on Friday.

I remain thoroughly unconvinced.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 15, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> Has this been done yet? To my layman head he makes a good case, but as with most thing’s I don’t fully understand, I’m suspicious until I’ve heard from someone I trust to understand it better.



Nice illustration but I suspect that due to the 2-3 week delay on the cases coming down the line (ie are infected but asymptomatic/low grade and busy shedding the virus for others) I think that window is fast closing so they need to act soon - which appears to be the call Spain, Austria, etc have just made.

e2a: also made worse as COVID19 (unlike other major respiratory infections) _appears_ to involve extensive viral shedding in the pre-symptomatic phase.


----------



## elbows (Mar 15, 2020)

I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire | William Hanage
					

Vulnerable people should not be exposed to Covid-19 right now in the service of a hypothetical future, says William Hanage, a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard




					www.theguardian.com
				






> When I first heard about this, I could not believe it. I research and teach the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health. My colleagues here in the US, even as they are reeling from the stumbling response of the Donald Trump administration to the crisis, assumed that reports of the UK policy were satire – an example of the wry humour for which the country is famed. But they are all too real.


----------



## mystic pyjamas (Mar 15, 2020)

The British government are taking an alternative approach to most other European lock down countries.
If they throw the dice right they will be the most popular thing since sliced bread but if they fuck up.......
Equally European governments will be held to account if they have made a wrong turn.
Maybe there is no right way cos we all seem to be fumbling about in the dark here.
Suck it and see.


----------



## treelover (Mar 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The info I've seen is going to include people with serious underlying health conditions self-isolating as well.



i am very very bitter about being asked to self isolate for four months by the state, people in the network i set up for disabled and sick people have struggled to get care allocated and then source carers, face a brutal welfare regime, etc, and now they come to us, who is going to look after disabled and sick people for that time, ,many have lost carers due to brexit and now C19 means students, etc are going home,


----------



## andysays (Mar 15, 2020)

treelover said:


> i am very very bitter about being asked to self isolate for four months by the state, people in the network i set up for disabled and sick people have struggled to find get care allocated and then source carers, face a brutal welfare regime, etc, and now they come to us, who is going to look after disabled and sick people for that time, ,many have lost carers due to brexit and now C19 means students, etc are going home,


Have a look at this thread

C19 - the 'i need help' thread.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 15, 2020)

Over 70s (seemingly) will be asked/told to self isolate for weeks so as not to overwhelm the NHS - whereas I and plenty of others are being told to go into work tomorrow in a job that is far from vital to the economy (a university). Wartime spirit for some, business as usual for others. This is so far away from anything resembling a coherent strategy.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 15, 2020)

mystic pyjamas said:


> The British government are taking an alternative approach to most other European lock down countries.
> If they throw the dice right they will be the most popular thing since sliced bread but if they fuck up.......
> Equally European governments will be held to account if they have made a wrong turn.
> Maybe there is no right way cos we all seem to be fumbling about in the dark here.
> Suck it and see.



Some one said

in the end it will be impossible to know if we over reacted or did too much, but it will be really fucking obvious if we Under reacted or did too little


----------



## extra dry (Mar 15, 2020)

Need to have acted weeks ago.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The info I've seen is going to include people with *serious underlying health conditions* self-isolating as well.



This is going to need defining.


----------



## LDC (Mar 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> This is going to need defining.



Yeah, it will be.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 15, 2020)

Posted this here as it is the most popular thread and do not think it has been listed yet...if you want a daily update

🦠Covid-19 - 13/03/20 We are not sheep| 🤕 134,488 | Deaths 4,970


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 15, 2020)

My facebook is full of my middle class mates sons and daughters excelling in their various hockey/rugby/football/horse thrashing competitions this weekend, loads of group hugs for the young victors travelling across counties to battle other groups of teens

I’m at the 

“hope some of them get commandeered to move bodies from nursing homes to makeshift morgues” 

level of thought process at the minute. I should probably keep off social media


----------



## little_legs (Mar 15, 2020)




----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 15, 2020)

Be good to get a list together of which private health companies are involved in this...









						8,000 private hospital beds to be rented to NHS for £2.4million per day
					

The Government is stepping up its fight against deadly coronavirus as the elderly will be told to self-isolate for four months and 8,000 private hospital beds are rented at a cost of £2.4million a day




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## phillm (Mar 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I'm not sure "please, we're desperate, we'll pay anything" is the strongest negotiating strategy, doesn't really fill one with hope about the upcoming trade talks, but I guess that's why he's an MP and I'm not.



I know nothing about these machines but do we have a UK manufacturer? How realistic is it for other high tech UK companies to retool and produce them in quick time ? Where is fucking Dyson ?









						Ventilator - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				












						r Emergency Medical Treatment Hospital | eBay
					

Find great deals for r Emergency Medical Treatment Hospital. Shop with confidence on eBay!



					www.ebay.co.uk


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 15, 2020)

Hasn't this fucker made enough money to bail himself out?

Can't he sell over one of his numerous homes or an Island or something...









						Virgin Atlantic boss urges Boris Johnson to sanction £7.5bn airline bailout
					

The PM will be told by Virgin Atlantic bosses that the airline industry needs government aid worth up to £7.5bn, Sky News learns.




					news.sky.com


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 15, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Hasn't this fucker made enough money to bail himself out?
> 
> Can't he sell over one of his numerous homes or an Island or something...
> 
> ...



he must be stretched poor lamb, having recently sued the NHS


----------



## Yuwipi Woman (Mar 15, 2020)

hash tag said:


> If I have to self isolate, I'll need something to do




I think boredom and lack of human contact will probably be most people's challenge in this.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 15, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Be good to get a list together of which private health companies are involved in this...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's a big headline figure, isn't it?

But, at £300 per bed, per day, it's on a par with the cost of NHS beds, so either the government has got a bulk discount, or they are forcing private hospitals to match the NHS cost.

Whichever, it's going to piss off private patients, when they discover they can't queue-jump during this crisis.


----------



## Celyn (Mar 15, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> My facebook is full of my middle class mates sons and daughters excelling in their various hockey/rugby/football/horse thrashing competitions this weekend, loads of group hugs for the young victors travelling across counties to battle other groups of teens
> 
> I’m at the
> 
> ...


As they're all very fit and healthy and athletic, some can dash around fetching groceries and essential supplies for the people interned at home, and the ones with horses will be useful for the "bring out your dead" corpse carts. All in this together!


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> or they are forcing private hospitals to match the NHS cost.


Hopefully they threatened to nationalise them if they refused, although I doubt it with this lot of twats in power.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 15, 2020)

Announcement of latest figures very late today


----------



## Celyn (Mar 15, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



Because I vaguely thought "who is Hunter Davies? Possibly a bloke who used to write in "Punch"?", I had a quick Google and was amused to find that 





> After completing his degree course he stayed on at Durham for another year to gain a teaching diploma and avoid National Service.


 Hunter Davies - Wikipedia

Obviously, being a student is more fun than being sent to Kenya or Suez or wherever, but it doesn't _quite_ help with that whole "I have been through terrible things, me" image.


----------



## andysays (Mar 15, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Announcement of latest figures very late today


Up to 35


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 15, 2020)

Total confirmed UK cases 1,372, that’s up 232, 14 more deaths – total 35.

More than 40,000 tested now.

It's suspected there's now 'tens of thousands' cases in the UK.

Source - Sky News.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 15, 2020)

The British are breathtakingly stupid. God damn.


----------



## editor (Mar 15, 2020)

little_legs said:


> The British are breathtakingly stupid. God damn.


People LITERALLY puffing and panting all over each other.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 15, 2020)

April fools day is going to be too easy this year


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 15, 2020)

This is in America but jeez.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 15, 2020)

Still only 40,000 tested in UK. I thought test capacity had been increased to 10,000 a day.


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Mar 15, 2020)

I would say that the spread of this virus has revealed something, which is - why do we have government if it cannot protect it's citizens from such an outbreak? Surely one of the 'functions of government' is to deal with such a threat?!


----------



## little_legs (Mar 15, 2020)

We are going leave the pandemic with a great deal, get covid done.


----------



## Supine (Mar 15, 2020)

Count Cuckula said:


> I would say that the spread of this virus has revealed something, which is - why do we have government if it cannot protect it's citizens from such an outbreak? Surely one of the 'functions of government' is to deal with such a threat?!



Virus don't do politics


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Mar 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> Virus don't do politics


They do Virus in the Body Politic – Anarchist Communist Group


----------



## treelover (Mar 15, 2020)

little_legs said:


> The British are breathtakingly stupid. God damn.



and they expect others to self isolate for four months ffs!


----------



## little_legs (Mar 15, 2020)

This was not the only half marathon that took place this weekend, 2500 people completed Liverpool half marathon today.


----------



## Cid (Mar 15, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> This is in America but jeez.




One of the strange ironies of this state of affairs is that the facepalm is now considered a possible transmission vector.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 15, 2020)

Why the fuck are they hurriedly trying to produce thousands of ventilators now rather than 4 weeks ago? They new this was coming.
Why was there no contingency for this already in place seeing as this type of pandemic has been recognised as a significant risk for decades.
They talk about vulnerable people self isolating but their is zero detail on how they are going to be supported.
I increasingly fearful of a social, economic and public health disaster that will leave many thousands dead, millions thrown into destiution and health and public services essentially collapsing under the strain.
Please someone reassure me im wrong but i dont think ive ever been more fearful of the future and less confident in the basic competance of those in charge.


----------



## weepiper (Mar 15, 2020)

6 positive cases in a care home in Lanarkshire


----------



## weltweit (Mar 15, 2020)

BBC news doesn't seem to have much new to say today, they are repeating a Hancock interview with Andrew Marr. Hancock doesn't seem very definite on anything in it.


----------



## magneze (Mar 15, 2020)

UK coronavirus crisis 'to last until spring 2021 and could see 7.9m hospitalised'
					

Exclusive: Public Health England document seen by Guardian says four in five ‘expected’ to contract virus




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 15, 2020)

They are closing pubs in Ireland.









						40 new cases of Covid-19 confirmed, pubs asked to close
					

Forty more cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed by the Department of Health, bringing the total number of cases in the Republic to 169.




					www.rte.ie


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 15, 2020)

Well this is pretty bleak - between 360k-500k deaths over initial infection period based on 80% contagion and 1% mortality rate

UK coronavirus crisis 'to last until spring 2021 and could see 7.9m hospitalised'









						UK coronavirus crisis 'to last until spring 2021 and could see 7.9m hospitalised'
					

Exclusive: Public Health England document seen by Guardian says four in five ‘expected’ to contract virus




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## magneze (Mar 15, 2020)

Already posted, but yeah *7.9 million* hospitalised over the next 12 months?! How does that work?


----------



## 2hats (Mar 15, 2020)

magneze said:


> Already posted, but yeah *7.9 million* hospitalised over the next 12 months?! How does that work?


It doesn't.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 15, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> They are closing pubs in Ireland.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Not even waiting til Wednesday?


----------



## maomao (Mar 15, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Well this is pretty bleak - between 360k-500k deaths over initial infection period based on 80% contagion and 1% mortality rate


And all the other deaths from not having a functioning health system and the Tories just leaving us to starve.


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 15, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Not even waiting til Wednesday?


The opposite, cancelling Wednesday.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 15, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> The opposite, cancelling Wednesday.


You mean Tuesday? Paddy's day? Wow


----------



## LDC (Mar 15, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Well this is pretty bleak - between 360k-500k deaths over initial infection period based on 80% contagion and 1% mortality rate
> 
> UK coronavirus crisis 'to last until spring 2021 and could see 7.9m hospitalised'
> 
> ...



Yeah, just read that too. Absolutely fucking terrifying tbh. If that's true it's the end of how society is currently, especially if either re-infection is possible and/or it mutates into something more serious.

Fucking. Hell.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, just read that too. Absolutely fucking terrifying tbh. If that's true it's the end of how society is currently, especially if either re-infection is possible and/or it mutates into something more serious.
> 
> Fucking. Hell.



Innit. Had heard it as the worst case scenario, not as the likely one.

I did take some comfort from the comment about it ultimately becoming just another flu, something that does the rounds but which there is some inbuilt immunity to. Hope that's right.


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 15, 2020)

It's not a fucking flu.  People need to wake the fuck up and take *personal* responsibilty. It mutates...of course the weakest in society will be the earliest victims...but that is not what it is. Wash, shower, don't share, don't cough or sneeze near anyone...if you think you might, don't put them in that situation by not putting yourself in that situation. There is no immunity, herd, otherwise or magic....that is not real. They didn't have science and social media in the old days...lock yourself the fuck up. Good luck.









						How Patient 31's lack of social distancing led to an explosion of COVID-19 cases in South Korea
					

A resurfaced Reuters article detailed how a single patient's failure to self-isolate led to a massive surge in the number of coronavirus cases in South Korea.




					twitter.com


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 15, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Well this is pretty bleak - between 360k-500k deaths over initial infection period based on 80% contagion and 1% mortality rate
> 
> UK coronavirus crisis 'to last until spring 2021 and could see 7.9m hospitalised'
> 
> ...



Ffs. We are going to be lucky to have a 1 percent death rate. 1 percent on a lockdown and every resource we got aimed at keeping people alive OK yeah. Not here tho.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 15, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> It's not a fucking flu.  People need to wake the fuck up and take *personal* responsibilty. It mutates...of course the weakest in society will be the earliest victims...but that is not what it is. Wash, shower, don't share, don't cough or sneeze near anyone...if you think you might, don't put them in that situation by not putting yourself in that situation. There is no immunity, herd, otherwise or magic....that is not real. They didn't have science and social media in the old days...lock yourself the fuck up. Good luck.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No, it's a coronavirus. Like lots of others that affect people, but which don't have a significant mortality rate because inevitably life, naturally and through medical intervention, adapts to viruses like viruses adapt and mutate to life. The issue is how long until we get to that point and how severe the effects are in the meantime. Don't be a dick, it's not helpful. Dick.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 15, 2020)

Grace Johnson said:


> Ffs. We are going to be lucky to have a 1 percent death rate. 1 percent on a lockdown and every resource we got aimed at keeping people alive OK yeah. Not here tho.


Likely the CFR will turn out to be sub 1%. Some tenths.


----------



## bimble (Mar 15, 2020)

So “worst case” in this weeks public broadcasts was actually the most likely scenario . not exactly shocked but full of dread.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 15, 2020)

The minimal testing is ... baffling and surely completely the wrong approach. 
My partner is a nurse in a care home. At least two people we have been in close contact with in the past week are now self isolating because they have flu like symptoms - cough, fever, aches etc. But they dont know if its corona because they cant get tested. She cant get tested. So she has no way of no knowing if she is should go to work - potentially infecting dozens of very vulnerable people - or stay home - putting strain on a vital support service quite probably for no good reason. I am sure their are huge numbers of people in this position.
The lack of comprehensive testing is insane - it deprives the public health system of vital information of how to plan and allocate resources to hot spots, map and contain outbreaks and ensure health staff are clear - and infected ones self isolate.


----------



## elbows (Mar 15, 2020)

Scotland is talking about its community testing program. Note that this is part of the sort of surveillance systems authorities use to track epidemics, rather than trying to track all cases, it is not the same as deciding to go back to testing all milder cases. Its a survey basically, sampling a small subset of the population over time.









						Coronavirus: Scottish Covid-19 testing expanded to communities
					

Surveillance testing is extended but there is no routine testing of people with minor symptoms.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 15, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> The minimal testing is ... baffling and surely completely the wrong approach.
> My partner is a nurse in a care home. At least two people we have been in close contact with in the past week are now self isolating because they have flu like symptoms - cough, fever, aches etc. But they dont know if its corona because they cant get tested. She cant get tested. So she has no way of no knowing if she is should go to work - potentially infecting dozens of very vulnerable people - or stay home - putting strain on a vital support service quite probably for no good reason. I am sure their are huge numbers of people in this position.
> The lack of comprehensive testing is insane - it deprives the public health system of vital information of how to plan and allocate resources to hot spots, map and contain outbreaks and ensure health staff are clear - and infected ones self isolate.


We don't have the reagents to waste them on that. People need to take responsibility and if they might have it need to self isolate especially if symptomatic - as in the public health advice.
Even our sick hospitalised patients aren't getting tests turned around quickly enough to facilitate safe care currently. Those well enough to be in the community need to assume they have it and act accordingly. It would be great if we could rapidly test everyone as soon as a cough or a fever emerged (then in healthcare the non -coronavirus causes could be identified and those people brought back to work to keep helping). We also don't know the rate of false negatives yet. We do know that a less than vigorous swabbing in influenza can give a false negative, so with coronavirus we are doing four (two nasal and two throat)


----------



## treelover (Mar 15, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> The minimal testing is ... baffling and surely completely the wrong approach.
> My partner is a nurse in a care home. At least two people we have been in close contact with in the past week are now self isolating because they have flu like symptoms - cough, fever, aches etc. But they dont know if its corona because they cant get tested. She cant get tested. So she has no way of no knowing if she is should go to work - potentially infecting dozens of very vulnerable people - or stay home - putting strain on a vital support service quite probably for no good reason. I am sure their are huge numbers of people in this position.
> The lack of comprehensive testing is insane - it deprives the public health system of vital information of how to plan and allocate resources to hot spots, map and contain outbreaks and ensure health staff are clear - and infected ones self isolate.



how can you work out epidemiology, patterns, etc, without mass testing?


----------



## elbows (Mar 15, 2020)

treelover said:


> how can you work out epidemiology, patterns, etc, without mass testing?



You rely on surveys, community sampling, which if done right (and there is plenty of experience of that because the same sort of things are done with flu etc) can demonstrate the bigger picture. Especially when combined with data from hospitals on the serious cases.

eg the stuff talked about in the Scotland article I just linked to a few post ago.


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 15, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> No, it's a coronavirus. Like lots of others that affect people, but which don't have a significant mortality rate because inevitably life, naturally and through medical intervention, adapts to viruses like viruses adapt and mutate to life. The issue is how long until we get to that point and how severe the effects are in the meantime. Don't be a dick, it's not helpful. Dick.


Telling people to take personal responsibility in the current situation is not being a dick.   

Dismissing it...well I'll leave that to everyone else.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 15, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> No, it's a coronavirus. Like lots of others that affect people, but which don't have a significant mortality rate because inevitably life, naturally and through medical intervention, adapts to viruses like viruses adapt and mutate to life. The issue is how long until we get to that point and how severe the effects are in the meantime. Don't be a dick, it's not helpful. Dick.


Yep. 'Everybody hide behind your 4 walls' only works if there was an astonishing state response to organise society, that society was itself equal and resilient, we were used to caring for each other etc. So little of that is in place and we've got a government that combines not actually giving a fuck about society with having the worst ideological disposition for a crisis of this kind.  If there are going to be healthy, supportive impulses, they'll have to be built from the bottom up. Trouble is 'social distancing' isn't the ideal situation for that to begin. This is going to become very bad on a number of levels.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 15, 2020)

So I knew my brother in law was head of public health for a London borough.... just found out that, more than that, he is 2nd in command of the entire London response, no wonder he's utterly flat out.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 15, 2020)




----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 15, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Telling people to take personal responsibility in the current situation is not being a dick.
> 
> Dismissing it...well I'll leave that to everyone else.



No issue with telling people to take personal responsibility, do have an issue with somebody ploughing into a thread to give it the hellfire and brimstone we're all going to die shit. Fair enough probably an issue with tone rather than content but people don't need to be shouted at right now


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 15, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> We don't have the reagents to waste them on that. People need to take responsibility and if they might have it need to self isolate especially if symptomatic - as in the public health advice.
> Even our sick hospitalised patients aren't getting tests turned around quickly enough to facilitate safe care currently. Those well enough to be in the community need to assume they have it and act accordingly. It would be great if we could rapidly test everyone as soon as a cough or a fever emerged (then in healthcare the non -coronavirus causes could be identified and those people brought back to work to keep helping). We also don't know the rate of false negatives yet. We do know that a less than vigorous swabbing in influenza can give a false negative, so with coronavirus we are doing four (two nasal and two throat)


would you say it was wise for people to self-isolate before they have symptoms if they have regular/daily contact with people who are at risk? of course, this is impossible in health and social services, but I'm worrying that my work will either stop paying me or start paying SSP, cos then I'd have to go back to work.


----------



## treelover (Mar 15, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




The Guardian online is read by many hundreds of thousands, maybe more and shared massively, people will really panicking about this, many terrified, i am not sure at this stage it was a good idea to publish, even though it is an exclusive, etc.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

First of all, it's a Tory government, they only know how to communicate through leaks. 

Secondly, who gives a shit if it's an exclusive, people should be terrified. 

The British govt's response thus far has been the worst in the world. I mean, fuck the US isn't doing great, but even the US is taking significant action.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Well the worst case assumptions they are describing are another indication of what we face if the UK orthodoxy wins on this one. Its not just these current Tories, its years of assumptions that have ended up baked into the thinking of influential people in other public health, planning and response roles. Its what happens when you stick with influenza pandemic assumptions and plans and ignore key early lessons from some other countries in response to the coronavirus.

The backlash against the approach so far has forced a new communications approach (daily briefings), and may have brought forward their timetable on certain measures. But I dont see any signs yet that it has succeeded in dislodging the orthodox thinking in terms of the approach to testing, contact tracing and actually containing the virus rather than letting it burn.









						Coronavirus: health experts fear epidemic will ‘let rip’ through UK
					

Doctors and scientists urge government to stop ignoring strategies from countries that have brought cases down




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Anthony Costello, a UK paediatrician and former director of the World Health Organization (WHO), said he had personally written to the chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, asking for testing to continue in the community.
> 
> “The key principles from WHO are intensive surveillance,” he told the Guardian. “You test the population like crazy, find out where the cases are, immediately quarantine them and do contact tracing and get them out of the community. This deals with family clusters. That’s the key bedrock of getting this under control.”





> This was how South Korea, China, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan had brought their case numbers down. “You can really take people out of the population and make sure they are quarantined. That is vital – before you get to social distancing.”
> 
> Yet the UK government was stopping tests outside of hospital. “For me and the WHO people I have spoken to, this is absolutely the wrong policy. It would mean it just lets rip,” he said.





> Costello thinks we will be in the same position as Italy within two weeks. “The basic public health approach is playing second fiddle to mathematical modelling,” he said.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Although since I've gone on about EU documents and how similar they are to the UK approach (leaving aside last weeks UK botched comms, herd immunity crapfest, and actual timing of measures), it may be unfair to call it UK orthodoxy. But the degree to which other countries in europe ditch aspects of the old orthodoxy compared to the UK could lead to more notable differences quite quickly.

Anyway, I mention this because the EU docs do include stuff to do with limiting your testing regime if testing capacity is too limited to sustain it. Which does make me think that perhaps all the attention on the UK testing policy now may be unfairly missing out info regarding what the testing picture is like in various EU countries.

If there are people here that have a little time and the appropriate language skills, I would really like to know what sort of testing and contact tracing of milder, community cases is still being attempted in Italy, Spain, France and Germany. Are there stories that shed light on their testing capacity, or stories about any of these countries having to change testing approach recently?


----------



## Humberto (Mar 16, 2020)

Basically: thanks Libertarians


----------



## two sheds (Mar 16, 2020)

Daily Mail gets to the essentials again - pull together for the unflappable queen, peoples


----------



## Wilf (Mar 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Daily Mail gets to the essentials again - pull together for the unflappable queen, peoples
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 201862


'I will stay in London', well yeah, suppose she has to. Can't miss work, won't get paid I imagine.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 16, 2020)

Yep and quite a large residence to patriotically quarantine herself in.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 16, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



I can't quite believe this.

So we're asking _now _if anyone knows anyone who can build ventilators? And give us a bell if so. We'll see if we can come to an arrangement - two weeks before we're at the start a systematic healthcare breakdown?


----------



## Humberto (Mar 16, 2020)

Fuck you all, i have shares


----------



## two sheds (Mar 16, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> I can't quite believe this.
> 
> So we're asking _now _if anyone knows anyone who can build ventilators? And give us a bell if so. We'll see if we can come to an arrangement - two weeks before we're at the start a systematic healthcare breakdown?



Next: asking if anyone knows who can supply intensive care beds and doctors/nurses, who can supply toilet rolls


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well the worst case assumptions they are describing are another indication of what we face if the UK orthodoxy wins on this one. Its not just these current Tories, its years of assumptions that have ended up baked into the thinking of influential people in other public health, planning and response roles. Its what happens when you stick with influenza pandemic assumptions and plans and ignore key early lessons from some other countries in response to the coronavirus.
> 
> The backlash against the approach so far has forced a new communications approach (daily briefings), and may have brought forward their timetable on certain measures. But I dont see any signs yet that it has succeeded in dislodging the orthodox thinking in terms of the approach to testing, contact tracing and actually containing the virus rather than letting it burn.



Oh good, those dots have been joined:


----------



## zora (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Although since I've gone on about EU documents and how similar they are to the UK approach (leaving aside last weeks UK botched comms, herd immunity crapfest, and actual timing of measures), it may be unfair to call it UK orthodoxy. But the degree to which other countries in europe ditch aspects of the old orthodoxy compared to the UK could lead to more notable differences quite quickly.
> 
> Anyway, I mention this because the EU docs do include stuff to do with limiting your testing regime if testing capacity is too limited to sustain it. Which does make me think that perhaps all the attention on the UK testing policy now may be unfairly missing out info regarding what the testing picture is like in various EU countries.
> 
> If there are people here that have a little time and the appropriate language skills, I would really like to know what sort of testing and contact tracing of milder, community cases is still being attempted in Italy, Spain, France and Germany. Are there stories that shed light on their testing capacity, or stories about any of these countries having to change testing approach recently?



A quick google of the term "Kontaktpersonen ermitteln coronavirus" (contact tracing), brings up stories from regional newspapers from all over Germany that mention new cases testing positive and that their contacts are being traced in order for them to go into quarantine/self-isolation. These articles were from the last 2 -5 days.

Interesting article in this context from Munich talks about developing ideas for widening testing capacity locally, this is from two days ago, and emphasis seems very much on continued tracing and quarantine, under the heading "Health authorities and municipalities jointly develop a pilot scheme" (though I don't know how representative this is as it's literally just from a first google hit).

ETA: God, google translate is good these days. Just put the article in to see if it made any sense, but it's pretty much a perfect translation:
"T_he number of people infected with coronavirus in the district is increasing steadily. The health department is now working closely with the local authorities to contain the virus. Infected and contact persons should in future be able to be tested for the virus in decentralized test centers. In order to slow the spread of the corona virus, all forces should now be concentrated. The district office in Munich got all municipalities on board and developed a two-stage model project. This morning, the responsible persons from the municipalities and the health department exchanged information with District Administrator Christoph Göbel in Unterhaching. On-site test centers In a first step, test centers are to be set up in as many cities and municipalities as possible, in which, with the voluntary participation of the local medical profession, smears are carried out and patients and contact persons are identified and cared for. The test centers can be designed differently. Self-tests, for example, are also conceivable, in which affected citizens can take a smear independently according to instructions and under professional supervision. The advantage of this procedure is that protective equipment would not have to be used to such a high degree. Of course, all activities take place in an exchange with the responsible experts in the health department. Extended arm of the health department Another task that municipalities will support the health department in the future is contact person management. At its core, it is about identifying Category I contacts and providing them with the necessary information - for example regarding quarantine to be observed, keeping a fever diary or behavior when symptoms occur, etc. The aim is to find the contact persons even faster in order to slow the spread of the virus. The municipalities act here as health officials. The statutory reporting obligation of the medical profession to the health authority remains unaffected. "Working closely with the municipalities, we developed a model project that enables us to identify the contact persons even faster and to provide them with important information. My sincere thanks go to all those involved on site who support us with a lot of commitment and full strength in coping with current events, ”explains District Administrator Christoph Göbel. "By creating decentralized self-test centers, we also want to relieve the local doctors by pooling capacities and using protective clothing to conserve resources." _"

Another article from Berlin from today is an appeal for contacts of a positive tested person who were in a particular night club at a particular time under reference to the ongoing containment strategy.

So while containment strategy still seems to be ongoing, I was shocked how lax/late Germany seemed to be in suggesting any kind of social distancing - for example my brother who commutes for an hour and a half each day in one of the most populous states with the most cases and who works in a job that lends itself easily to working from home, will only start working from home from tomorrow.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh good, those dots have been joined:




i love the way that it’s suddenly a cross party four nations issue

peston need put against the wall when this is all over


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 16, 2020)

[


two sheds said:


> Next: asking if anyone knows who can supply intensive care beds and doctors/nurses, who can supply toilet rolls



Is there anyone on board who can fly a plane?


----------



## tommers (Mar 16, 2020)

If only they'd had two months to prepare but no, sudddenly it's on our doorstep.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Daily Mail gets to the essentials again - pull together for the unflappable queen, peoples
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 201862



Fortunately she can self isolate really easily because she never goes near anyone anyway


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 16, 2020)

How has Nadine Dorries managed to get sick, recover and now write about her 'journey' in the Times in just over a week? Is this another I'm a Celebrity moment?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 16, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> How has Nadine Dorries managed to get sick, recover and now write about her 'journey' in the Times in just over a week? Is this another I'm a Celebrity moment?


Some people don't get very poorly. Arsenal's manager was ill for like two days


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)




----------



## Cid (Mar 16, 2020)

Sheffield uni suspending face to face teaching from today.


----------



## bimble (Mar 16, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



This is good news isn't it - That people don't trust the gov and are taking their own decisions and doing what they can.

eta I've no idea of how much this means but '#Covid19Walkout' is a thing on this county's twitter today.


----------



## maomao (Mar 16, 2020)

Stratford Station still quite busy at 5.30 this morning but the kind of people who go through Stratford at 5.30 are probably the kind of people who don't get to work from home.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 16, 2020)

Someone on one of the local mutual aid groups is really annoying me...he is insisting that there should be teams of temperature testers at the entrance of every single tube/train station in Greater London checking people and turning them away if they seem to have a temperature. I know it sounds like a common sense idea but there are 5 million tube journeys per day alone and the temperature check isn't reliable because you could be incubating and not showing symptoms...he won't have it.


----------



## andysays (Mar 16, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Someone on one of the local mutual aid groups is really annoying me...he is insisting that there should be teams of temperature testers at the entrance of every single tube/train station in Greater London checking people and turning them away if they seem to have a temperature. I know it sounds like a common sense idea but there are 5 million tube journeys per day alone and the temperature check isn't reliable because you could be incubating and not showing symptoms...he won't have it.


Maybe you can suggest he takes on that role and leave others to perform other tasks.

That's one of the things we're going to have to deal with, isn't it, people who want to be helpful but have less than sensible ideas about what being helpful might mean...


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 16, 2020)

andysays said:


> That's one of the things we're going to have to deal with, isn't it, people who want to be helpful but have less than sensible ideas about what being helpful might mean...


Yep, in my mutual id Whatsapp group, there's someone sharing Black Friday videos saying it's people trying to get at food...not helpful at all. Thankfully they were shut down quickly by everyone else.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 16, 2020)

Because I have been having less than kind thoughts about jabbing him really hard in the ear with a thermometer I have decided to mute his thread.   He is drawing far too much attention and that may mean other more practical local support is being lost.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 16, 2020)

I decided to leave a comment too....I tried to be kind. 

'IMO this thread is drawing too much attention. This group is for offers of help locally and for people to connect with others who need help. I am going to mute it because whilst the discussion may feel important there are other places it can be had that don't interfere with the purpose of this group.'


----------



## spitfire (Mar 16, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> I decided to leave a comment too....I tried to be kind.
> 
> 'IMO this thread is drawing too much attention. This group is for offers of help locally and for people to connect with others who need help. I am going to mute it because whilst the discussion may feel important there are other places it can be had that don't interfere with the purpose of this group.'



Nicely done. Our Tower Hamlets one has laid out some ground rules that are mostly being stuck to so far.









						Tower Hamlets Covid19 Community Support
					

This is a group for Tower Hamlets residents looking to help each other out during the Covid-19/corona virus pandemic. You can be accepted to the group once you agree to admin rules and answer...




					www.facebook.com
				




This is a group for Tower Hamlets residents looking to help each other out during the Covid-19/corona virus pandemic. You can be accepted to the group once you agree to admin rules and answer questions as requested.

We will be looking to help people access food, complete errands etc - particularly those who are elderly, disabled and/or immunocompromised.

_This is not a group for exchanging medical advice. We cannot provide medical advice. Please get in touch with your GP or call 111 if you have symptoms you are worried about._

No prejudice will be tolerated, and anyone attempting to underplay the seriousness of the pandemic will be banned from posting. Likewise please don't share posts that stir up panic, or anything that isn't useful or relevant to supporting the community.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 16, 2020)

Wonder if it's worth having a separate mutual aid thread? Realise there are masses of threads already, but as time goes on getting some sort of community support becomes more and more important. Could even be pinned.

With the usual apols if there's already one and I've missed it.


----------



## fishfinger (Mar 16, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Wonder if it's worth having a separate mutual aid thread? Realise there are masses of threads already, but as time goes on getting some sort of community support becomes more and more important. Could even be pinned.
> 
> With the usual apols if there's already one and I've missed it.


There's one here:

C19 - the 'i need help' thread.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

My two cents about thermometers: the Taiwanese authorities have had success with the infrared thermometers during and post SARS outbreak, they have been using them widely during the current covid-19 outbreak. They fitted infrared thermometers at busy rail stations and as passengers made their way across the central part of the stations they were being monitored for temperatures and those with temperatures over 37.5 were stopped from entering the station. In the past those infrared thermometers were not as clever, i.e. they would just identify a part of the station registering high temps, but now the technology can identify and track an individual person, something like this:







I don't know if the members of the British public would respond positively to being asked to leave station though.


----------



## treelover (Mar 16, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Someone on one of the local mutual aid groups is really annoying me...he is insisting that there should be teams of temperature testers at the entrance of every single tube/train station in Greater London checking people and turning them away if they seem to have a temperature. I know it sounds like a common sense idea but there are 5 million tube journeys per day alone and the temperature check isn't reliable because you could be incubating and not showing symptoms...he won't have it.



best to keep these groups to discussions on how to support people, otherwise usual tensions.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 16, 2020)

treelover said:


> best to keep these groups to discussions on how to support people, otherwise usual tensions.



It's a petition he is pushing to be clear...just in the wrong place IMO.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Regarding being trapped by orthodox thinking in regards pandemics, it pains me that even with my big gob and lack of deference I was probably limited in my thinking at some points by the orthodoxy. If it sounded at some stages like I knew what would happen next and what the response would be, its because a large chunk of my pandemic knowledge came from reading pre-existing plans (usually influenza specific). And I knew what the default position of the WHO would be. But I think I was very slow to see the WHOs rapid shift in stance for what it was, and I was also reluctant to accept at face value the most obvious interpretation of the numbers coming out of China and some other countries in the region once they had taken draconian measures.

I feel bad about it because I ended up spending so much of my time explaining the thinking behind the governments stance, and I was distracted by weird talk about 4 weeks instead of 2, and the botched public communications regarding herd immunity. I dont think I focussed anywhere near enough on the shift in underlying stance that has happened elsewhere (or might be happening, its a little early to tell properly in regards a bunch of EU countries, even though most of them have now gone for heavy measures implemented quickly).

I've got little clue about what happens next in terms of this countries strategy and the political reaction to it. I suppose I shall wait at least until todays press conference to see what signs are there.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 16, 2020)

My thoughts to everyone affected.

On the positive side, when I went to Tesco today there were long queues still, but the shelves were still fairly stacked albeit a few gaps in stock. Not as manic as Saturday, so I'm hoping the staff have it under control.

Also, it's lovely and warm in London today. Spring is definitely on the way, so hopefully the hotter weather will help slow the spread of the virus down and the UK may not need to go into full lockdown after all.


----------



## maomao (Mar 16, 2020)

New case figures are out but no death figures today which worries me.


----------



## andysays (Mar 16, 2020)

maomao said:


> New case figures are out but no death figures today which worries me.


BBC reporting one death today, the first in Wales


----------



## T & P (Mar 16, 2020)

It might have been mentioned already (have only skimmed quickly over the last few pages), but the Spanish government has taken over the private health sector temporarily so private hospital beds can be used without permission, delay, or having to pay for them. I wish the UK government had the will, initiative or balls to do the same here.


----------



## maomao (Mar 16, 2020)

andysays said:


> BBC reporting one death today, the first in Wales


That was released by Welsh gov/NHS. Not the national figure.


----------



## LDC (Mar 16, 2020)

First bit of news I've seen relating to this, thought worth a separate thread tbh.









						Army likely to embed medics in NHS hospitals to help fight coronavirus
					

MoD preparing to send thousands of medics into NHS rather than build field hospitals




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

T & P said:


> It might have been mentioned already (have only skimmed quickly over the last few pages), but the Spanish government has taken over the private health sector temporarily so private hospital beds can be used without permission, delay, or having to pay for them. I wish the UK government had the will, initiative or balls to do the same here.


The panto clown that the gammon have elected as their dear leader is likely to facilitate the opposite. He is decimating the NHS on purpose.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

Fucking hell, why not wait until 11pm and do the daily briefing.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Press conf scheduled for 4.45pm, no idea what time it will actually end up starting.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

BBC reporting that a prison officer from High Down prison is Surrey has tested positive. Male, tested positive on Saturday, 4 prisoners who had close contact have been placed in isolation.


----------



## T & P (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Press conf scheduled for 4.45pm, no idea what time it will actually end up starting.


And when it does start, I fear it will be another ''Carry on as normal with typical British stoicism folks, situation normal and don't you pay any attention to those panicky OTT Johnny Foreigners'' message.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

BBC had this graph but to be fair the presenter and guest did discuss the fact it was misleading because we recently changed the criteria for testing.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Press conference is on. Johnson starts with the usual stuff about flattening the peak and following the best scientific advice.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Says we are now approaching the 'fast growth' part of the curve.

Now asking people with symptoms to stay at home for 14 days. You can go out for exercise.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others. Need people to start working from home. Avoid pubs, clubs, theatres etc.


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 16, 2020)

hardening up on the social distancing...


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Now asking people with symptoms to stay at home for 14 days. You can go out for exercise.


Not just people, but anyone sharing a household with anyone with symptoms.


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 16, 2020)

12 weeks wtf - who for??


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Looks like London is now 'a few weeks ahead'. Londoners should pay special attention to the new advice.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 16, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> 12 weeks wtf - who for??


High-risk groups.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

LOL

London is turbo fucked


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 16, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> High-risk groups.


over 70s +_anyone_ with "underlying health conditions"?


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

Did you know that saving lives is a _draconian measure_?

I hope an infected person spits in that man's mouth. Cunt.


----------



## sojourner (Mar 16, 2020)

One definite case in my home town of St Helens.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Johnson claims that globally we are leading the campaign!


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 16, 2020)

oh god he's invoking for the sake of humanity now


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 16, 2020)

We're "leading the world" in "keeping the economy growing" and "backing business". Not so much on the keeping-our-people-alive bit, but swings and roundabouts, eh?


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

I didnt know the virus could warp time, 4 weeks seems to have passed in less than 1 week.


----------



## Looby (Mar 16, 2020)

Fuck! I can’t stay home for 12 weeks. 😞


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

It's absolutely amazing that he still did not ban public gatherings. Beyond belief.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Johnson claims that globally we are leading the campaign!


It's a psychological disorder, he can't go about his business without insulting people.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 16, 2020)

and handy Churchillian quotes for tomorrow's Mail, Express and Sun.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 16, 2020)

CSO summary (basically reiterating what PM already said):

Whole household isolation - 14 days after first symptoms of anyone
Social isolation ramped up - work from home, no non-essential travel, no gatherings, reduce social contacts
Vulnerable people (over 70s, existing diseases, etc.) - self-isolate for 12 weeks, maybe longer
It may be necessary to think about school closures soon, but has to be done at the right time


----------



## PD58 (Mar 16, 2020)

They are not 'banning' anything it seems but 'asking' or 'advising'...not the strong leadership required one might argue?


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

+1 point for Whitty bringing up the indirect deaths, from NHS being overwhelmed etc.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

PD58 said:


> They are not 'banning' anything it seems but 'asking' or 'advising'...not the strong leadership required one might argue?


_Work from home if you want, I dunno..._


----------



## bimble (Mar 16, 2020)

Where the hell is the definition of ‘underlying health issues’ ?


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

this is a murder, they are trying to murder the elderly


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 16, 2020)

PD58 said:


> They are not 'banning' anything it seems but 'asking' or 'advising'...not the strong leadership required one might argue?


This will be a hotly debated point over the next week I suspect.


----------



## Looby (Mar 16, 2020)

bimble said:


> Where the hell is the definition of ‘underlying health issues’ ?


People who are recommended to have the flu vaccine. Heart, kidney disease he said. I assume diabetes as well.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> I didnt know the virus could warp time, 4 weeks seems to have passed in less than 1 week.



I seem to remember the '4 weeks' was how far behind Italy we were, not the period before new advice & measures were gradually introduced.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I seem to remember the '4 weeks' was how far behind Italy we were, not the period before new advice & measures were gradually introduced.



It was bullshit in any context. We are not 4 weeks behind Italy.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 16, 2020)

little_legs said:


> this is a murder, they are trying to murder the elderly



I think 'cull' is the word they'd prefer


----------



## hegley (Mar 16, 2020)

OMFG Johnson is so fucking woolly. He's just totally unwilling to take any responsibility!


----------



## PD58 (Mar 16, 2020)

Off script he is just a bumbling fool and fails to convince...


----------



## Wilf (Mar 16, 2020)

Fuck me, they've just said that testing is crucial! Cunts.


----------



## andysays (Mar 16, 2020)

maomao said:


> That was released by Welsh gov/NHS. Not the national figure.


Yeah, you're right, thought it was unlikely tbh.

Still waiting on the whole UK figure


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Fuck me, they've just said that testing is crucial! Cunts.



They had to due to the pressure and people speaking out.

The sort of testing they are trying to suggest they want in future is the serology testing that I have mentioned numerous times in the last month+.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Thank fuck enough journalists knew the right questions to ask. eg the testing of heath care workers.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thank fuck enough journalists knew the right questions to ask. eg the testing of heath care workers.


Better questions from the journo's today - not sure they are being answered though...for example no response on the ventilators!!


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

And the question about 4 weeks was met with a dubious answer about lower prediction reliability at the start when you have far fewer data points. That is true but there was enough other stuff out there that randomers like me and others on this forum and elsewhere knew that 4 weeks didnt sound right. Vallance thinks its more like 3 weeks now, still a bit of a fudge but I dont care so much about those details and narrative, just that they start the right measures at the right time.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> BBC had this graph but to be fair the presenter and guest did discuss the fact it was misleading because we recently changed the criteria for testing.
> 
> View attachment 201935



The title of the graph is also wrong. It should be 'increase in recorded cases slows' or 'number of new cases falls'. A single number cannot be fast or slow.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 16, 2020)

I had two separate enquiries today for components of ventilators from engineering companies, unfortunately we can't make the components they were thinking of to medical standard so we had to decline.


----------



## bimble (Mar 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I had two separate enquiries today for components of ventilators from engineering companies, unfortunately we can't make the components they were thinking of to medical standard so we had to decline.


For some reason this has made me angrier than anything else so far, why weren’t they doing this weeks or even months ago. We have 5,000 I read somewhere to go round everyone in the UK.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 16, 2020)

bimble said:


> For some reason this has made me angrier than anything else so far, why weren’t they doing this weeks or even months ago. We have 5,000 I read somewhere to go round everyone in the UK.


You make a good point, it should have been thought about earlier indeed, perhaps it is a detail that fell through the cracks.


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 16, 2020)

little_legs said:


> this is a murder, they are trying to murder the elderly


A bit hyperbolic there. They are trying to protect them by isolating them from infection, might be a more generous position. They could have instituted these massive restrictions a week ago, but have saved them until the last minute as they are horribly restrictive


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> A bit hyperbolic there. They are trying to protect them by isolating them from infection, might be a more generous position. They could have instituted these massive restrictions a week ago, but have saved them until the last minute as they are horribly restrictive


You are right about the restrictions. I was actually referring to the low testing numbers, they should test as many elderly as possible.


----------



## LDC (Mar 16, 2020)

Seriously I understand people are upset and scared but talking about 'culling' or 'murdering' the elderly is untrue and really, really unhelpful.


----------



## LDC (Mar 16, 2020)

little_legs said:


> You are right about the restrictions. I was actually referring to the low testing numbers, they should test as many elderly as possible.



With your huge medical experience of global pandemics and how to beat them?


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> With your huge medical experience of global pandemics and how to beat them?


With my following of how South Korea handled the outbreak. Also, fuck off with your patronising tone.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> With your huge medical experience of global pandemics and how to beat them?



You mean like the WHO saying that you cannot fight a fire while blindfolded, test, test,test?


----------



## Dan U (Mar 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Seriously I understand people are upset and scared but talking about 'culling' or 'murdering' the elderly is untrue and really, really unhelpful.



Indeed. Given that most of them vote Tory its an odd move for the Tories to do on purpose.


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 16, 2020)

bimble said:


> Where the hell is the definition of ‘underlying health issues’ ?


I'm literally trying to find this out right now. Everyone can give a few examples but no one gives a comprehensive list, and the advice I'm seeing about my condition seems incredibly dubious if it is there at all


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 16, 2020)

There is contention over ace 2 inhibitors ...
The European cardiologists reckon there's research that shows that ace inhibitors can actually be protective ...


----------



## kazza007 (Mar 16, 2020)

Should asthmatics be soon to be asked to stay at  home for 12 weeks?
The message is confusing. In a video posted here from YouTube with that doctor, he talked about mild to moderate asthma and controlled diabetes being not classed as 'serious underlying disease'

Is this the case?

And I'm self employed and can't work from home.


----------



## maomao (Mar 16, 2020)

My colleague who was meant to be having a stomach sleeve fitted has just had his operation cancelled. He's in his 60s with COPD and diabetes and had done his liver shrinking diet properly for the last four weeks. Gutted for him. He'll probably never get the op now and would be unwise to leave his house anytime soon.


----------



## magneze (Mar 16, 2020)

little_legs said:


> With my following of how South Korea handled the outbreak. Also, fuck off with your patronising tone.


You were LOLing London being fucked a while ago. Perhaps you could just give it a rest eh?


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 16, 2020)

PD58 said:


> They are not 'banning' anything it seems but 'asking' or 'advising'...not the strong leadership required one might argue?



Kind of yes and no. It doesn't seem like enough but Asking people first is actually pretty reasonable. It gives them time to gauge what the general public response is and to put other measures in accordingly. To just come out of the blue and put the police and the military on the streets to keep people in is risky as fuck. I live in the inner city and if they tried that round here I can properly see it kicking it off. Also the neccasary legal measures for these kinds of restrictions on people's lives just isn't there at the moment. As much as I hate these cunts and think their response upto now has been absolutely woeful and  believe these measures are not quite far enough reaching. I don't think they are that far off the mark here. Bringing that in by force might work in suburban towns but in other places its playing with fire.

Edit to add:

I'm not convinced it's even come into their reasoning on the matter tbh but there's an important psychological aspect to this too. If everyone is sensible and stays away from people and shops and limits everything then people can still get out for exercise. Part of the advice today said as long as you stay away from people you can go out for exercise if self isolating. That's a big thing. That will do wonders for people's psychological well being its also going to help people stay healthy which boosts their immunity. It will make people more able to withstand long periods of isolation. Not saying that that's their reasoning at all. I don't think they even care. But if everyone stays away from shops, bars and restaurants we've all got a chance for this to go a bit easier. So there's that too no faith in anyone being sensible about it tho tbh


----------



## little_legs (Mar 16, 2020)

magneze said:


> You were LOLing London being fucked a while ago. Perhaps you could just give it a rest eh?


I wasn't LOLing, I was being ironic. I am sorry if this came off as a bullshit move, it's far from funny.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 16, 2020)

spitfire said:


> Nicely done. Our Tower Hamlets one has laid out some ground rules that are mostly being stuck to so far.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'm on that too - it does seem to be well run. 



little_legs said:


> It's absolutely amazing that he still did not ban public gatherings. Beyond belief.



Probably because, if there's an official ban on public gatherings, etc, then companies will be able to claim on insurance, employees might be able to claim benefits, and there might be a push for the government to arrange some compensation, with the reasonable logic that if they could bail out the banks then they can bail out small businesses. If he can say "well, they chose to close," then he won't pay out anything. It would cost the government money and Johnson and his like don't give a shit about small businesses.


----------



## LDC (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> You mean like the WHO saying that you cannot fight a fire while blindfolded, test, test,test?



For sure, but that's not some randomer shouting 'test all the elderly!' on the internet in some panic of knowing fuck all.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 16, 2020)

The US has put an Admiral in charge of testing, and 1.9 million test kits produced by commercial companies are being distributed this week, with millions more to follow.

Meanwhile we're apparently ramping up to ten thousand at some point.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 16, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> The US has put an Admiral in charge of testing, and 1.9 million test kits are being distributed this week, with millions more to follow.
> 
> Meanwhile we're apparently ramping up to ten thousand at some point.



Trump Mobster Family are now making a mint from the increase in testing as SIL Kushner's company has the monopoly...the delay was a business move. The Cunts.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 16, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> ..
> Meanwhile we're apparently ramping up to ten thousand at some point.


I believe we (UK) will or even can test 10,000 per day, something they are yet to do mind you.


----------



## BigTom (Mar 16, 2020)

UK public told to work from home, avoid pubs and abandon travel plans amid coronavirus outbreak
					

‘Now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel,’ prime minister says




					www.independent.co.uk
				












						UK public told to work from home, avoid pubs and abandon travel plans amid coronavirus outbreak
					

‘Now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel,’ prime minister says




					www.independent.co.uk
				




Govt now say no unneccesary contact, to stay away from pubs, clubs, theatres etc., no mass gatherings from tomorrow (but can't see a number for "mass" yet).


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> The US has put an Admiral in charge of testing, and 1.9 million test kits produced by commercial companies are being distributed this week, with millions more to follow.
> 
> Meanwhile we're apparently ramping up to ten thousand at some point.



They have made many wild claims about testing to try to compensate for the disgraceful situation with tests there. I will wait till they actually materialise and get used.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 16, 2020)

BigTom said:


> UK public told to work from home, avoid pubs and abandon travel plans amid coronavirus outbreak
> 
> 
> ‘Now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel,’ prime minister says
> ...


But my college and my kids' schools are open. Jayneeoos


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 16, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> The US has put an Admiral in charge of testing, and 1.9 million test kits produced by commercial companies are being distributed this week, with millions more to follow.
> 
> Meanwhile we're apparently ramping up to ten thousand at some point.



Trump claimed over a week ago that a million test kits were being sent out, they weren't, it was a lie.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 16, 2020)

BigTom said:


> UK public told to work from home, avoid pubs and abandon travel plans amid coronavirus outbreak
> 
> 
> ‘Now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel,’ prime minister says
> ...


Unless he closes them for a month though, no fucker's gonna listen.


----------



## marty21 (Mar 16, 2020)

We've been told to wfh half the week from now on, and limit visits to residents (I normally meet with residents most days)


----------



## marty21 (Mar 16, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Unless he closes them for a month though, no fucker's gonna listen.


My local is worried about the impact on pubs if they are closed down without government support.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 16, 2020)

marty21 said:


> My local is worried about the impact on pubs if they are closed down without government support.


If they're forced to close,by government, they can at least claim insurance apparently,but not unless. So this current situation is shite for them.


----------



## RTWL (Mar 16, 2020)

It would be a really good idea if we could at least test healthcare professionals.


----------



## bimble (Mar 16, 2020)

Idris Elba’s got it, says he got the test result today. Has put a little video on Twitter encouraging people to not freak out but take it really seriously.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> They have made many wild claims about testing to try to compensate for the disgraceful situation with tests there. I will wait till they actually materialise and get used.



The admiral later clarified that despite millions of test kits they hoped to be able to do tens of thousands of tests. The reason being that the person conducting the nasopharyngeal swab needs to change into fresh PPE for each patient they test.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 16, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> If they're forced to close,by government, they can at least claim insurance apparently,but not unless. So this current situation is shite for them.



Most can't, pandemics are not covered by most business insurance. 



> Hundreds of businesses forced to close because of the coronavirus outbreak will have no protection for lost earnings, because their insurers have removed cover for disruption caused by pandemics or flu-type illnesses.
> 
> Disruption cover, which is standard in most corporate insurance policies, compensates enterprises that are forced to close while they recover from floods, fires or other disasters.
> 
> ...


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 16, 2020)

BigTom said:


> UK public told to work from home, avoid pubs and abandon travel plans amid coronavirus outbreak
> 
> 
> ‘Now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel,’ prime minister says
> ...



How are people who work in pubs supposed to stay at home or avoid pubs


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> How are people who work in pubs supposed to stay at home or avoid pubs



When the government announce this sort of thing, the implication is that pubs etc will largely close themselves. Either because the pubs own risk assessments end up making that decision, or the business economics (reduced footfall) dont make staying open economically viable, or because of staffing issues, or indeed the fear of doing the wrong thing or bad publicity.

Some may try to corner the defiance market and remain open, hoping to hoover up the willing pub-goers whose regular pubs have shut, but I dont know how much of that we will actually see.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 16, 2020)

It strikes me as fairly sensible to give advice at this point in time, rather than order people around, as most people will follow that advice.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Most can't, pandemics are not covered by most business insurance.


Wow. You'd think a pandemic would be exactly the type of thing business interruption insurance was designed for.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 16, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Wow. You'd think a pandemic would be exactly the type of thing business interruption insurance was designed for.



Sadly not, the insurance companies have to protect themselves from bankruptcy.

Of course such cover is still available, at a premium rate, but I'll me surprised if many go for that.

I am seeing my insurance broker tomorrow, if I remember, I'll ask him about it & post his reply.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Wow. You'd think a pandemic would be exactly the type of thing business interruption insurance was designed for.



Only if someone is insuring the insurers for such circumstances, they wont have the funds to pay out on that sort of thing because everyone claims at the same time = insurance doom.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 16, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> How are people who work in pubs supposed to stay at home or avoid pubs


On the positive side there is now virtually no chance of finding Boris Johnson in a pub


----------



## lazythursday (Mar 16, 2020)

So they got the numbers wrong and the herd immunity strategy is over. 









						The UK Only Realised "In The Last Few Days" That Its Coronavirus Strategy Would "Likely Result In Hundreds of Thousands of Deaths"
					

Scientists advising the government say an aggressive new approach adopted to attempt to "suppress" the virus may have to be in place for 18 months.




					www.buzzfeed.com
				




Lockdown / restrictions for potentially 18 months!


----------



## spitfire (Mar 16, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> On the positive side there is now virtually no chance of finding Boris Johnson in a pub





*am not really going to the pub.


----------



## agricola (Mar 16, 2020)

I see that the likes of Wickham and Peston (and probably others) have been given the green light to start attacking the Government's previous advice, presumably in an attempt to deflect blame onto Whitty and his chums when this goes horribly wrong:




To say they didn't realise what their previous policy would do is absurd; it was the only way that herd immunity (a phrase which may be about to go extinct on Fleet Street) could have come about in the time frame they were talking.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Most can't, pandemics are not covered by most business insurance.


I'm no expert but I'm not sure this is true. Closing due to pandemic would be if the staff all got sick and couldn't run the business. Closing because they're ordered to by government in turn because of a pandemic is potentially something else.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

I will not defend tories and their instincts. But as I've driven myself mad saying in recent days, this is also a story about orthodox approaches and rigidity of thought. 

I can sleep a bit better tonight knowing that the old orthodoxy is dead, long live the new one that has been cobbled together in its place. I hope it evolves here, and everywhere else around the world, in a manner that really helps defeat this virus.

I do hope to have the time to zoom in on details and see what the story is with getting numbers wrong in the modelling, whether that was ever really a factor. The 4 weeks behind Italy thing still blows my mind but I'm hoping that its replacement, '3 weeks', does not end up eating as much of my time and mental energy.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Only if someone is insuring the insurers for such circumstances, they wont have the funds to pay out on that sort of thing because everyone claims at the same time = insurance doom.


That makes sense.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 16, 2020)

Grace Johnson said:


> Kind of yes and no. It doesn't seem like enough but Asking people first is actually pretty reasonable. It gives them time to gauge what the general public response is and to put other measures in accordingly. To just come out of the blue and put the police and the military on the streets to keep people in is risky as fuck. I live in the inner city and if they tried that round here I can properly see it kicking it off. Also the neccasary legal measures for these kinds of restrictions on people's lives just isn't there at the moment. As much as I hate these cunts and think their response upto now has been absolutely woeful and  believe these measures are not quite far enough reaching. I don't think they are that far off the mark here. Bringing that in by force might work in suburban towns but in other places its playing with fire.
> 
> Edit to add:
> 
> I'm not convinced it's even come into their reasoning on the matter tbh but there's an important psychological aspect to this too. If everyone is sensible and stays away from people and shops and limits everything then people can still get out for exercise. Part of the advice today said as long as you stay away from people you can go out for exercise if self isolating. That's a big thing. That will do wonders for people's psychological well being its also going to help people stay healthy which boosts their immunity. It will make people more able to withstand long periods of isolation. Not saying that that's their reasoning at all. I don't think they even care. But if everyone stays away from shops, bars and restaurants we've all got a chance for this to go a bit easier. So there's that too no faith in anyone being sensible about it tho tbh




I don't disagree re pubs etc and he did mention liberal democracy and I appreciate the notion of trusting people, but for example he did not ban events but said they would not be providing public service support - this shifts the moral duty to organisers and already tonight I know of organisers of certain events, which are their livelihood, who are now asking participants if they want to go ahead with this...surely this was not the intention was it, because if so the strategy is not going to work.


----------



## spitfire (Mar 16, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I'm no expert but I'm not sure this is true. Closing due to pandemic would be if the staff all got sick and couldn't run the business. Closing because they're ordered to by government in turn because of a pandemic is potentially something else.



As a food manufacturer I follow a lot of catering establishments and industry types on twitter. The general consensus seems to be they think they can claim on their insurance and I haven't seen anyone saying otherwise.

That doesn't mean they're correct though and cupid stunt may well be right.

I'll ask my insurance broker tomorrow, she specialises in food related insurance.


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 16, 2020)

spitfire said:


> As a food manufacturer I follow a lot of catering establishments and industry types on twitter. The general consensus seems to be they think they can claim on their insurance and I haven't seen anyone saying otherwise.
> 
> That doesn't mean they're correct though and cupid stunt may well be right.
> 
> I'll ask my insurance broker tomorrow, she specialises in food related insurance.


I've seen pubs on twitter and fb saying they are staying open because they can't claim on their insurance until the government forces them to close.  I may well pop into the pub after work tomorrow.


----------



## agricola (Mar 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> I will not defend tories and their instincts. But as I've driven myself mad saying in recent days, this is also a story about orthodox approaches and rigidity of thought.
> 
> I can sleep a bit better tonight knowing that the old orthodoxy is dead, long live the new one that has been cobbled together in its place. I hope it evolves here, and everywhere else around the world, in a manner that really helps defeat this virus.
> 
> I do hope to have the time to zoom in on details and see what the story is with getting numbers wrong in the modelling, whether that was ever really a factor. The 4 weeks behind Italy thing still blows my mind but I'm hoping that its replacement, '3 weeks', does not end up eating as much of my time and mental energy.



TBH if they are trying to escape blame for a disaster they think is coming then noone should be sleeping better anywhere in the UK.  The only government who could ever reassure people right now is one that would try to do its best to get the country through this even if it resulted in them losing office.


----------



## spitfire (Mar 16, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> I've seen pubs on twitter and fb saying they are staying open because they can't claim on their insurance *until the government forces them to close*.  I may well pop into the pub after work tomorrow.



Sorry, yes I should have said that bit. ^^^

Some mixed messages here.


----------



## editor (Mar 16, 2020)

This comment sums up the shitstorm perfectly: 



> *Des de Moor*
> 
> Bad to worse. The UK prime minister has just shafted the two industries closest to my heart, one of which provides a significant part of my income: brewing, pubs and hospitality, the other being the arts and performance sector. If there are good arguments for closing public meeting places to deal with Covid-19, and there very well may be, then force them to close and provide proper compensation and support to get those many small, independent and already cash-strapped businesses through the crisis. But telling everyone not to go out, and hinting darkly that venues should close voluntarily, is the worst possible combination, leaving them with a choice of staying open, with potential health and reputational risks and probably very few customers anyway, or closing of their own accord, unable to claim any insurance, rent and rate relief, compensation etc etc. Once again big business, banks and insurers come first. And meanwhile they're still pursuing their bloody Brexit by December. Sadly, in a moment of crisis that no-one could have predicted, we have the very worst people in charge.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 16, 2020)

.and:

"There are claims this evening that the UK prime minister’s decision to stop just short of ordering businesses such as pubs, restaurants and theatres to close down altogether will make it harder for them to claim back losses on their insurance.

The shadow digital, culture and media secretary, Tracy Brabin, has said:

It is a tragedy for any arts venue when they have no choice but to close. From the West End to community theatres up and down the country, many artists, actors, stage crew, producers and other workers face a terrible time ahead. It’s unacceptable that the Tories seem to be prioritising the needs of the insurance industry in what could be an existential crisis for our sector.

The prime minister must urgently clarify that theatres, music venues, and other organisations in the creative industries affected by his statement can claim insurance. The same goes for the UK’s incredible hospitality sector. These industries are part of the lifeblood of the nation and Labour will fight for their future."

suggests it can be claimed for? guess it depends on the policy?


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

agricola said:


> TBH if they are trying to escape blame for a disaster they think is coming then noone should be sleeping better anywhere in the UK.  The only government who could ever reassure people right now is one that would try to do its best to get the country through this even if it resulted in them losing office.



I can only speak for myself. I already knew what sort of hideous disaster and horrors could await in this sort of pandemic. No sort of government could reassure me at all on that front.

I can sleep better because the horror was looking likely to be magnified by adherence to an orthodox approach. Well actually, it already has been magnified, because the orthodox approach adopted since January already means that we and many other countries 'containment' phase was not really a fully comprehensive attempt at keeping the virus away/contained. But I spoke about that at the time, I wont repeat the detail right now.

Point being, we've already had that magnification of the problem, and we are already going into this with umpteen political and practical disadvantages such as the state of the NHS after all that austerity and its most challenging winter. So its already going to be terrible. The last thing I wanted to hear in recent days was that the orthodox approach was going to carry on into the next phase. But thats what they said. And now things have changed, so I can sleep easier. That doesnt mean I sleep easy overall, but I'll take what I can get in terms of good news/slightly promising signs.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 16, 2020)

Can anyone answer a question how long a shutdown might last?

How long was Chinas? Has China fully lifted?
Is there indication of how long to expect shutdown to last (at least on this occassion) in France/Spain/Italy?


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 16, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Can anyone answer a question how long a shutdown might last?
> 
> How long was Chinas? Has China fully lifted?
> Is there indication of how long to expect shutdown to last (at least on this occassion) in France/Spain/Italy?



23rd January til .....


----------



## Johnny Doe (Mar 16, 2020)

marty21 said:


> My local is worried about the impact on pubs if they are closed down without government support.


Our old local Irish pub has posted Facebook posts advertising their St Patrick's Day entertainment tonight, then posted that 2 of the acts have pulled out due to 'health and safety reasons' and then proudly posted replacement acts!


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 16, 2020)

they dont have a strategy or  any sort of  thought through plan. They are still trying to wing it - im guessing its an attempt to keep the economy going. But this a situation that requires the complete mobilisation of the full capacity of the state at every level combined with properly coordinated community responses - essentially world war 2 level stuff.   Every other country has jumped on this big style from the start - i am thoroughly unconvinced that johnsons and his mates - with their hard for  "creative chaos"  and social darwinism - have come up with a better solution.  
The UK had a higely valuable notice period of at least 6 weeks to plan - and they've have clearly done nothing. There is no contingency planning - its all being done on the hoof. 
Why the fuck are they keeping schools open? They will start closing themselves by the end of the week anyway. Where it the proper public information campaign? Why haven't they worked with supermarkets to prevent panic buying? Why aren't they tackling online misinformation? Where is the mitigation for the huge impact it will have on people's livelihoods? And - most glaringly - planning for ventilators and testing?


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 16, 2020)

ska invita said:


> guess it depends on the policy?


This I think.  and bear in mind that no insurance policy ever paid out for anything unless and until it absolutely had to. 
In the meantime, many festivals/gigs etc have cancelled of their own accord, out of concern for the health of their communities - be it staff, bands, punters etc.  People whose livelihoods depend on the festival season/gigs will be broke for over a year. Bands, small festivals, people like Something Else, won't have insurance against this type of thing and have had it.  (I hope not, but you know what I mean).

Entirely selfishly, the thought of not getting a festival in this year terrifies me.  I'm hoping Something Else's autumn one survives (for their sake's too).

I guess you could be affected by this?


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Every other country has jumped on this big style from the start



Sadly that is not the case. Thats also one of the reasons why it has taken this long for the UKs approach to come under such intense scrutiny - it is only as epidemics have really started to get going in various EU countries that those countries got into action, and the differences in approach have become so apparent. The initial 'containment' phase was flawed in similar ways in most countries, with only a handful taking a different approach from the start.


----------



## agricola (Mar 16, 2020)

ska invita said:


> .and:
> 
> "There are claims this evening that the UK prime minister’s decision to stop just short of ordering businesses such as pubs, restaurants and theatres to close down altogether will make it harder for them to claim back losses on their insurance.
> 
> ...



Not sure that allowing them to claim on insurance is the best idea; the scale of these claims will just collapse the insurance firms and noone will get compensated.  

A better idea - though I appreciate this has been said oft times already this week - would be having some form of national mortgage / rent holiday (with the latter where a landlord fully owns a property mortgage-free, so the tenants rent is covered; landlords with a mortgage would just get the mortgage payment) for a quarter combined with no tax on affected businesses at all for the same period and SSP or UC for everyone unable to work due to quarantine / a closed business.  It will cost in the low tens of billions, but it will be much less than the 2008 bailout was and removing the cost of housing should (when the cost of transport is taken out too, since people won't be going to work) allow people to get by until we can get through the worst of this hopefully.


----------



## Thora (Mar 16, 2020)

My insurer has specifically said they won't pay out for any coronavirus related shutdown, whether govt. ordered or not.


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 16, 2020)

Thora said:


> My insurer has specifically said they won't pay out for any coronavirus related shutdown, whether govt. ordered or not.


That is shit.  Bugger all you can do, I know, but pass it on to your MP?  Even if just to make the point? (are they just trying to get away with it?)


----------



## Thora (Mar 16, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> That is shit.  Bugger all you can do, I know, but pass it on to your MP?  Even if just to make the point? (are they just trying to get away with it?)


There's a specific clause about cover for shutdowns for notifiable diseases, but obviously c19 wasn't officially a notifiable disease (didn't exist) at the time I took the policy out.  There are about 3 insurers who cover the childcare industry and all are saying the same.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 16, 2020)

Thora said:


> My insurer has specifically said they won't pay out for any coronavirus related shutdown, whether govt. ordered or not.


Clever business model they got going, there.
Can see why they donate so much to the vermin.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2020)

Too many quotable things in the Imperial College document for me to even begin to mention them all. 



			https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
		


This bit is their key excuse for why they only just realised:



> In the UK, this conclusion has only been reached in the last few days, with the refinement of estimates of likely ICU demand due to COVID-19 based on experience in Italy and the UK (previous planning estimates assumed half the demand now estimated) and with the NHS providing increasing certainty around the limits of hospital surge capacity.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 16, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> I'm literally trying to find this out right now. Everyone can give a few examples but no one gives a comprehensive list, and the advice I'm seeing about my condition seems incredibly dubious if it is there at all


I've just found this:





						[Withdrawn] [Withdrawn] Guidance on social distancing for everyone in the UK
					






					www.gov.uk
				




I'm 59 and have been offered a flu jab for 10-15 years and the system at the docs has me down as 'vulnerable'. Reporting so far has mentioned specific conditions with regard to vulnerability e.g. blood pressure, but this document specifically links it to getting the flu jab.  However the document only talks about the vulnerable being 'particularly stringent' with regard to distancing. It doesn't use Johnson's phrase from today about the elderly and vulnerable self isolating for 12 weeks (or whatever specific form of words he used was).


----------



## scifisam (Mar 16, 2020)

Thora said:


> There's a specific clause about cover for shutdowns for notifiable diseases, but obviously c19 wasn't officially a notifiable disease (didn't exist) at the time I took the policy out.  There are about 3 insurers who cover the childcare industry and all are saying the same.



Total fucking bastards. 

This should change from high up. The government has bailed out reinsurers before, and they could do it again, so that coronavirus was covered by insurance companies. It'd be far better than driving people into the ground so that they had no money to spend once the crisis is over.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It strikes me as fairly sensible to give advice at this point in time, rather than order people around, as most people will follow that advice.


 With regard to getting people working from home, it really is helpful if government issue instructions to employers. Otherwise, workers and unions are forced to waste time and energy getting this through the thick heads of management (a battle my union branch has been engaged in today at work).


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 17, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



Covidris Elba


----------



## little_legs (Mar 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Too many quotable things in the Imperial College document for me to even begin to mention them all.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The IFR for the 70 and 80 plus groups is lower than the bars in the earlier Chinese CDC graphs, good news potentially?


----------



## treelover (Mar 17, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> This I think.  and bear in mind that no insurance policy ever paid out for anything unless and until it absolutely had to.
> In the meantime, many festivals/gigs etc have cancelled of their own accord, out of concern for the health of their communities - be it staff, bands, punters etc.  People whose livelihoods depend on the festival season/gigs will be broke for over a year. Bands, small festivals, people like Something Else, won't have insurance against this type of thing and have had it.  (I hope not, but you know what I mean).
> 
> Entirely selfishly, the thought of not getting a festival in this year terrifies me.  I'm hoping Something Else's autumn one survives (for their sake's too).
> ...



i'm terrified i am going to end my days(which haven't been brilliant), in a triage tent in a field somwhere, but hey.


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 17, 2020)

treelover said:


> i'm terrified i am going to end my days(which haven't been brilliant), in a triage tent in a field somwhere, but hey.


I'm in a high risk category.  My days haven't been brilliant either.  The one thing I've clung onto is that my job comes with decent death in service benefits for OH and daughter.  

My biggest worry now is that I could lose that.


----------



## treelover (Mar 17, 2020)

sorry.


----------



## maomao (Mar 17, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> So they got the numbers wrong and the herd immunity strategy is over.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's not that they didn't realise what the numbers were it's that they didn't realise everyone else knew what the numbers were.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 17, 2020)

Train station almost empty in Lewisham. Platform is usually rammed at this time. Feels like a Sunday.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 17, 2020)

RTWL said:


> It would be a really good idea if we could at least test healthcare professionals.



We are really going to need to keep NHS folks on side in what is likely to be a grim and exhausting time for them. Giving them access to testing so they can make sensible decisions about when to come to work seems like the level zero, rock bottom level of support we should be providing.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 17, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> We are really going to need to keep NHS folks on side in what is likely to be a grim and exhausting time for them. Giving them access to testing so they can make sensible decisions about when to come to work seems like the level zero, rock bottom level of support we should be providing.



While this is obviously true, there are hundreds of thousands of frontline clinical staff. Getting the capacity to test them all on-demand is not a trivial task and not simply a matter of politicians getting their arse in gear.


----------



## Cid (Mar 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Trump claimed over a week ago that a million test kits were being sent out, they weren't, it was a lie.



I think he doesn't actually know about numbers below a million.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 17, 2020)

Trump has held off on making test kits available until he could make sure his family has the monopoly. The company that is now distributing them is his SIL Kushner"s firm. Cunts.


----------



## bimble (Mar 17, 2020)

Does Jared Kushner’s Brother Own a Company Involved in COVID-19 Testing?
					

Oscar, a digital health-insurance startup that recently set up a service for users to find COVID-19 testing centers, was co-founded by Joshua Kushner.




					www.snopes.com


----------



## maomao (Mar 17, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Train station almost empty in Lewisham. Platform is usually rammed at this time. Feels like a Sunday.


Tube was packed at 5.30 but partly due to cancellations, probably due to driver absences.


----------



## spitfire (Mar 17, 2020)

ska invita said:


> .and:
> 
> "There are claims this evening that the UK prime minister’s decision to stop just short of ordering businesses such as pubs, restaurants and theatres to close down altogether will make it harder for them to claim back losses on their insurance.
> 
> ...



So as cupid_stunt and others were saying correctly it looks like there will be little or no cover available and the twitter people were just being hopeful. Some sort of bailout a la France needs to happen.









						Restaurant operators won't be covered by insurance in event of hospitality lockdown [updated]
					

Restaurant operators are unlikely to be covered by insurance if there was an official government lockdown on bars and restaurants because COVID-19 will not be included in many businesses’ insurance policies.




					www.bighospitality.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 17, 2020)

I know the Imperial College report is almost old news already, but for the sake of completeness, and given their brief role in trying to prop up the governments previous approach, here is the BBC coverage of it:









						Coronavirus: UK changes course amid death toll fears
					

Ministers were warned hundreds of thousands of people in the UK would die without stronger measures.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 17, 2020)

Wildly speculative conspiracy theory: not enforcing shutdown not only protects the insurance industry but also means that the only ones who survive are those with the capital muscle to ride out the storm, then on the other side the consolidate their power by hoovering up all the assets and market space left by the smaller institutions, further strengthening their grip on industries and concentrating power with a select few.

Even if that's not actually their plan, can't help worrying it will be one of the outcomes.


----------



## spitfire (Mar 17, 2020)

But the insurance companies are already protected by dint of them not insuring anyone for this anyway?

edit. The cunts.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 17, 2020)

Is the NUT demanding that the schools at closed? ITs fucked up - to stop the NHS being overwhelmed they need to use everything they've got to slow infection rates at the earliest opportunity.


----------



## Athos (Mar 17, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Is the NUT demanding that the schools at closed? ITs fucked up - to stop the NHS being overwhelmed they need to use everything they've got to slow infection rates at the earliest opportunity.



The fear is that NHS workers will not be able to go it, if they have to llok after kids.  But there must be some inaginative ways around that e.g. requiring companies to allow their partners paid time off to lok after the kids during the crisis etc.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 17, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Is the NUT demanding that the schools at closed? ITs fucked up - to stop the NHS being overwhelmed they need to use everything they've got to slow infection rates at the earliest opportunity.



Most people are assuming schools will be closed from next Monday. Teachers are being expected to conjure up 'home working packs' from thin air, literally overnight in some cases, but there's still no certainty and so no proper preparations can happen. The more advanced warning there is, the chance parents will have to sort out childcare.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 17, 2020)

I feel it's a dumb move not closing the schools, the rampant germ factories that they are. Of course essential NHS workers will need child care when it does happen, jump to it Boris.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 17, 2020)

The NHS is about to completely overwhelmed and its will much worse than it needed to be thanks to these fuckwits and their criminally negligent lack of planning. I think everyone who can should take their kids out of school and for the issue.


----------



## spitfire (Mar 17, 2020)

That's pretty definitive.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 17, 2020)

I am sure some have already read this but here is the Imperial College research paper...

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf


----------



## Sue (Mar 17, 2020)

A friend works in a bingo hall that's still open. Most of their customers are elderly, some with serious medical conditions. However, for many of them it's the only social interaction they get. The bingo hall is also only barely surviving financially. 

My friend -- who really needs the job and it's a small town with very few jobs -- has repeatedly said they need to close as it's irresponsible to remain open but to no avail. She's terrified of passing it on to the customers. Who'll continue coming regardless while it's still open. (Most of them tell her it's all a fuss about nothing etc.) It looks like they'll likely go out of business whatever.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 17, 2020)

The Association of British Insurance has put out a statement saying standard business interruption cover - which majority of firms purchase - does not include forced closure by authorities


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 17, 2020)

Badgers said:


> The Association of British Insurance has put out a statement saying standard business interruption cover - which majority of firms purchase - does not include forced closure by authorities



The fucking cunts.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 17, 2020)

Just been out...loads of oldies beadling around trying do some shopping and 'spoons was quite busy.
Well played #Johnson; going so well.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 17, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> The fucking cunts.



A insurance policy is a contract setting out what is covered, this isn't, if it was, insurance companies would be going under, so hardly cunts.

It's up to the government to help businesses.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 17, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Just been out...loads of oldies beadling around trying do some shopping and 'spoons was quite busy.
> Well played #Johnson; going so well.



yep - same in Armley, Leeds. People in cafes, hairdressers, bookies etc etc. Either they want effective social distancing to prevent infections rates or they don't.  Half arsed half measures are going kill more people and further fuck the NHS.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 17, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> I feel it's a dumb move not closing the schools, the rampant germ factories that they are. Of course essential NHS workers will need child care when it does happen, jump to it Boris.


Today I'm ill with a cold and at home, and I think in no small part because of this I have for the first time felt an overwhelming urge to gather and keep the family here so I can keep them safe.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 17, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Today I'm ill with a cold and at home, and I think in no small part because of this I have for the first time felt an overwhelming urge to gather and keep the family here so I can keep them safe.


Sorry to read that.  I'm a dreadful cynic and find it unnatural to believe pretty much anything i'm told by politicians. look after your family is more important than a job.


----------



## elbows (Mar 17, 2020)

I am behind on 'the science' due to the politics etc of recent days, but will try to catch up a little this week.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 17, 2020)

Great idea


----------



## bimble (Mar 17, 2020)

Guardian says that Germany has increased its number of intensive care unit beds with respirators by 7,000 in preparation. 
As of Matt Hancock's tweet yesterday (asking if anyone feels like manufacturing them please) we have 5,000 of these machines altogether. 

Here are some cold scary numbers, this is how many intensive care beds European counties have per 100,000 people (the german number out of date obvs) 
We are way below average, half as well equipped as Italy.


----------



## elbows (Mar 17, 2020)

And then combine that with this table of estimates from the Imperial College report.




			https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf


----------



## elbows (Mar 17, 2020)

From the BBC live updates page:

13:11 entry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51921683


> The Prime Minister's father has indicated he would ignore his son's advice to tackle the spread of coronavirus and still go to the pub.
> 
> Boris Johnson yesterday urged everyone to "avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues", saying it was particularly important for people over 70.
> 
> But Stanley Johnson, 79, said: "Of course I'll go to a pub if I need to go to a pub." Speaking on ITV's This Morning, he said landlords "don't want people to be not in the pub at all".


----------



## LDC (Mar 17, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> yep - same in Armley, Leeds. People in cafes, hairdressers, bookies etc etc. Either they want effective social distancing to prevent infections rates or they don't.  Half arsed half measures are going kill more people and further fuck the NHS.



It's the same here other side of Leeds, all looks the same. I suspect many people are only half aware of the measures at best anyway.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's the same here other side of Leeds, all looks the same. I suspect many people are only half aware of the measures at best anyway.


The vermin are so fucking useless, they can't even do authoritarianism with any credibility.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> From the BBC live updates page:
> 
> 13:11 entry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51921683


Pity hilaire belloc, dodgy shit tho he was, never wrote a cautionary tale about this sort of thing.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 17, 2020)

So many people either don't know or don't care what's going on, things to be mindful of. It's ridiculous


----------



## magneze (Mar 17, 2020)

Went out for a ride at lunchtime (it's going to be my way of keeping sane) and cafes seem reasonably busy. You really wouldn't know anything was different. 🤷‍♂️


----------



## MickiQ (Mar 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> From the BBC live updates page:
> 
> 13:11 entry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51921683


Twill be ironic if he gets it and infects his son


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 17, 2020)

Gossip from our kids' school is that they are eying this Thursday or Friday for shutdown. To be taken with a large pinch of salt.


----------



## chilango (Mar 17, 2020)

They really wanted to get to the 27th, but events are overtaking them. Which is frightening.


----------



## chilango (Mar 17, 2020)

I just popped out with the plan of a quick, quiet walk round the park.

The streets were as busy as normal.

But then with schools open as normal and most people unable to work from home what did they fucking expect?!?


----------



## belboid (Mar 17, 2020)

Even God is worried now









						Archbishops call for Church of England to become radically different as public worship put on hold to help stem spread of coronavirus | The Church of England
					

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are calling for Church of England churches to put public worship on hold and become a “different sort of church”.




					www.churchofengland.org


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 17, 2020)

chilango said:


> I just popped out with the plan of a quick, quiet walk round the park.
> 
> The streets were as busy as normal.
> 
> But then with schools open as normal and most people unable to work from home what did they fucking expect?!?



I definitely cant recommend going out at lunchtime round here. Far too busy.


----------



## spitfire (Mar 17, 2020)

I had to go into the branch to get a new business card printed. 2 have disappeared and I can't pay for stuff so essential enough. Spitalfields, Brick Lane and Bishopsgate were dead quiet. Luckily I can walk there and back so exercise and no spreading/being spread on.

Bottom picture is Spitalfields at lunch hour, it's usually mobbed.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 17, 2020)

chilango said:


> They really wanted to get to the 27th, but events are overtaking them. Which is frightening.


Our village school just emailed parents to say they are closing tomorrow, and now the kids have heard the other local secondary is closing tomorrow as well. Everything is slowly grinding to a halt.


----------



## MickiQ (Mar 17, 2020)

belboid said:


> Even God is worried now
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And so he should be, he did start all this after all


----------



## rutabowa (Mar 17, 2020)

Upper Clapton is very noticeably quiet, has been since the weekend.


----------



## Athos (Mar 17, 2020)

I don't know why they don't just ask all parents who don't work in NHS (or other crucial roles) to keep their kids off school; NHS workers' kids could go in, and be looked after by a reduced number of staff (which is inevitable as more get I'll or self-isolate).  Seems like the least bad option.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 17, 2020)

Sir Patrick Vallance says a death rate of one fatality for every 1,000 cases was a "reasonable ballpark" figure, based on scientific modelling.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 17, 2020)

I believe schools will close a little closer to the existing Easter holiday.


----------



## agricola (Mar 17, 2020)

Athos said:


> I don't know why they don't just ask all parents who don't work in NHS (or other crucial roles) to keep their kids off school; NHS workers' kids could go in, and be looked after by a reduced number of staff (which is inevitable as more get I'll or self-isolate).  Seems like the least bad option.



Indeed, though you'd probably find schools would be contacted by outraged people asking why little Brexitia is at home rather than being educated like the children of the deep state are.


----------



## chilango (Mar 17, 2020)

chilango said:


> They really wanted to get to the 27th, but events are overtaking them. Which is frightening.



I think they're about to start crumbling and some will close as early as Thursday from what I'm hearing...others plan on partial closures, which sounds like a plan but I fear will not work.


----------



## kebabking (Mar 17, 2020)

Local high schools in Worcestershire are partially closing - year 7 first, then as staff shortages get worse it's year 8, then 9 etc..

Our junior school seems to think that they'll be running on empty by Wednesday of next week - the big decision then is whether to maintain a skeleton child care service for essential workers, probably by picking one site per area, and putting all available staff there.


----------



## Thora (Mar 17, 2020)

Ours seem to be doing the opposite - keeping year 7 in as they’re most in need of supervision.


----------



## chilango (Mar 17, 2020)

kebabking said:


> Local high schools in Worcestershire are partially closing - year 7 first, then as staff shortages get worse it's year 8, then 9 etc..
> 
> Our junior school seems to think that they'll be running on empty by Wednesday of next week - the big decision then is whether to maintain a skeleton child care service for essential workers, probably by picking one site per area, and putting all available staff there.



It seems that round here they'll keep Year 7 going longer on the basis that the older kids can be "home alone".


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 17, 2020)

I mean you could wait until so many teachers and pupils are self-isolating that the schools just can't run any more, or you could start doing a managed shutdown before that which would be a bit more planned and easier to deal with. The latter sounds like a better idea to me, seeing as how it has the same result but fewer infected people, but the former seems to be basic policy for literally every part of society now.


----------



## RTWL (Mar 17, 2020)

Exuse me... just posted this mornings uk death rate thinking it was this evenings


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 17, 2020)

RTWL said:


> Only 5 uk deaths today according to
> 
> 
> 
> ...


14


----------



## maomao (Mar 17, 2020)

S☼I said:


> 14


Was 16. Showing 71 total now. 









						Coronavirus Update (Live): 129,471,257 Cases and 2,828,154 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
					

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## RTWL (Mar 17, 2020)

S☼I said:


> 14



shit sorry i messed that up ... that was last updated 09:00 (GMT) on 17/03/2020

71 ... that makes a lot more sense


----------



## maomao (Mar 17, 2020)

RTWL said:


> shit sorry i messed that up ... that was last updated 09:00 (GMT) on 17/03/2020


I have the above site on my work pc all day and hit refresh every hour or so just to clear out the last scraps of hope and joy from my broken heart.


----------



## chilango (Mar 17, 2020)

(At least) eight local schools have started partial closures near me now.


----------



## RTWL (Mar 17, 2020)

The things that we do to ourselves


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 17, 2020)

The City of London is already locking itself down without Boris telling them.  Im no fan of the City and it means Im losing work but a lot of big City firms are leaving. They are thinking ahead. Acting responsibly for those who work there. I assume they are still being paid. These are people in high paid jobs who could do some work at home. Even if it means less work for a while.

I went to a City legal firm today to pick up a package. They are packing up all the computers and files to send out to peoples homes to work from home.

The only person there was the office manager.We had a nice chat and she gave me some antispectic wipes. Which in London are golddust.

As I said her and me are probably pretty safe from the virus in the City as hardly anyone in City compared to normal. She said the tube/ train was lot less people than normal.

The City was empty. Looking up at the big glass windowed offices and no one there.

Only postroom staff and security guards.

Looks like security gaurds will be ok job wise.

Looking like I may be in deep shit soon.

But as big business is doing a lock down before being ordered to by government  this might help stop virus spreading .

Which may be good for the country as a whole. If not for the low paid who keep London going.


----------



## bimble (Mar 17, 2020)

Today's press thing from the gov. War-metaphors all over and very non peacetime feel to it got to say.
Chancellor has said 'i will do whatever it takes' about 7 times so far.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 17, 2020)

maomao said:


> I have the above site on my work pc all day and hit refresh every hour or so just to clear out the last scraps of hope and joy from my broken heart.


((maomao))


----------



## RTWL (Mar 17, 2020)

Nothing about rent/bills and not so forthcoming about covering businesses as Poland .


----------



## phillm (Mar 17, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Sir Patrick Vallance says a death rate of one fatality for every 1,000 cases was a "reasonable ballpark" figure, based on scientific modelling.



This is widely reported and I'm sure it's correct if so isn't that a fatality rate more in line with bad flu season then?









						UK coronavirus death toll reaches 71 after another 14 die
					

The Department of Health updated the UK death toll after the Foreign Office advised Britons against non-essential travel to anywhere in the world.




					metro.co.uk
				




Public Health England estimates that on average 17,000 people have died from the flu in England annually between 2014/15 and 2018/19. However, the yearly deaths vary widely¾from a high of 28,330 in 2014/15 to a low of 1,692 in 2018/19. Public Health England does not publish a mortality rate for the flu.









						How does the new coronavirus compare to influenza? - Full Fact
					

The World Health Organisation says the Covid-19 coronavirus spreads slower than the flu, but appears to have a higher mortality rate.




					fullfact.org


----------



## elbows (Mar 17, 2020)

‘There is a policy of surrender’: doctor on UK’s Covid-19 failures
					

Consultant Mark Gallagher can’t understand why the NHS is not testing its staff for coronavirus




					www.theguardian.com
				






> “They are abandoning the basic principles for dealing with an epidemic, which are to test whenever possible, trace contacts and contain. Almost all individual physicians I know feel that what they are doing is wrong.”
> 
> Last week, a woman of 79 was admitted to his care for an elective, non-urgent procedure. She was then diagnosed with Covid-19, which, he says, “she almost certainly acquired on our wards”. She was put on a ventilator but died on Monday night.
> 
> “I’m sure she will go down as an elderly patient with underlying conditions, but she should have lived to 90,” he said. “Approximately 50 nurses dealt with her and many doctors. None has been tested. All are still at work.”


----------



## Mattym (Mar 17, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I believe schools will close a little closer to the existing Easter holiday.



I think you might be right for an official closure but can't see it reaching that far with most schools, due to falling staff numbers, so think many heads will make the individual decision to shut prior to the official closure.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 17, 2020)

phillm said:


> This is widely reported and I'm sure it's correct if so isn't that a fatality rate more in line with bad flu season then?


I think the problem is they don't know how many people have got it. They may even be doing it backwards by going _oh, 71 people have died, that must mean 70,000 people must have it_


----------



## weltweit (Mar 17, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I think the problem is they don't know how many people have got it. They may even be doing it backwards by going _oh, 71 people have died, that must mean 70,000 people must have it_


They probably are taking death stats as being more reliable now. For countries like the UK at least - where we don't really have an axe to grind either way. Japan, I am less sure of as they have the Olympics still in play.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 17, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I think the problem is they don't know how many people have got it. They may even be doing it backwards by going _oh, 71 people have died, that must mean 70,000 people must have it_


----------



## Mogden (Mar 17, 2020)

Quieter on the buses to and from work but dickheads still prevail. I still the furthest away from other people and yet they still come and sit behind, in front or directly opposite me


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 17, 2020)

Only years 7, 10 & 11 in from tomorrow in my school, down to growing staff shortages. Year 9's out at my daughter's school.


----------



## prunus (Mar 17, 2020)

phillm said:


> This is widely reported and I'm sure it's correct if so isn't that a fatality rate more in line with bad flu season then?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No, the 1 to 1000 figure is a rule of thumb for estimating how many active cases there are in the growth phase. The number of deaths always lags behind the number of cases in the growth phase, as its the deaths from the number of cases 2-4 weeks ago. It’s not an estimate of fatality rate, which is still probably about 10x larger give or take.


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 17, 2020)

> Gramsci said
> 
> But as big business is doing a lock down before being ordered to by government  this might help stop virus spreading .
> 
> Which may be good for the country as a whole. If not for the low paid who keep London going.


Still trying to get my head around how far a lockdown or "managed shut-down of society" could possibly go?Aside from those whose work is computer-based ,those easily able to work from home it does seem to me that there are swathes of people who are just going to have to continue to go to work simply to keep the economy going.So many people are in occupations that at the end of the day could be described as essential.These people if not actually ill themselves be they coppers or council-workers or delivery-persons cannot surely be told from on high that they must stand-down because if that were to happen there will be chaos.Sorry just thinking aloud here.


----------



## bimble (Mar 18, 2020)

Outline of the new bill the gov plans to push through that would give them emergency powers _for two years_ .Totally wartime flavour.
Very scary on Mental Health assessments, new powers for immigration officials to detain people, streamlining the 'Death Managemenet Industry' . .
bloody hell.






						[Withdrawn] [Withdrawn] What the Coronavirus Bill will do
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## Azrael (Mar 18, 2020)

Duncan2 said:


> Still trying to get my head around how far a lockdown or "managed shut-down of society" could possibly go?Aside from those whose work is computer-based ,those easily able to work from home it does seem to me that there are swathes of people who are just going to have to continue to go to work simply to keep the economy going.So many people are in occupations that at the end of the day could be described as essential.These people if not actually ill themselves be they coppers or council-workers or delivery-persons cannot surely be told from on high that they must stand-down because if that were to happen there will be chaos.Sorry just thinking aloud here.


As soon as all cases are detected and isolated, it can be eased off, as is happening in China. Since South Korea never allowed Covid-19 to run outa control, she never went into a panicked lockdown. Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan of course stopped the virus from ever gaining a foothold (as S.K. probably would've if it hadn't been for that godforsaken church).

That the West ever let it get this far is bad enough, but talk of indefinite lockdowns is unreal. We have concrete demonstrations of why they're unnecessary even without a vaccine. If we junk the mathematical models and patiently follow the excellent examples from Asia, we can get it under control and get things running again. The W.H.O. is screaming at us to test, test, test, every suspected case, every contact. We didn't listen early enough, leading to thousands of needless deaths, but we can listen now, and turn things around.


----------



## Cid (Mar 18, 2020)

Azrael said:


> As soon as all cases are detected and isolated, it can be eased off, as is happening in China. Since South Korea never allowed Covid-19 to run outa control, she never went into a panicked lockdown. Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan of course stopped the virus from ever gaining a foothold (as S.K. probably would've if it hadn't been for that godforsaken church).
> 
> That the West ever let it get this far is bad enough, but talk of indefinite lockdowns is unreal. We have concrete demonstrations of why they're unnecessary even without a vaccine. If we junk the mathematical models and patiently follow the excellent examples from Asia, we can get it under control and get things running again. The W.H.O. is screaming at us to test, test, test, every suspected case, every contact. We didn't listen early enough, leading to thousands of needless deaths, but we can listen now, and turn things around.



Not sure we can, not without testing reagents.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 18, 2020)

Cid said:


> Not sure we can, not without testing reagents.


Of course, we need mass testing to find carriers and break the transmission chains. Thankfully even faster tests look close to rollout, as does a mobile app that mirrors South Korea's (uses geodata to warn you if you've come close to someone infected).

I'm extremely worried about the psychological effects of the government's rudderless fatalism, especially in the aftermath of the obscene "herd immunity" plan. Uncertainty and panic are enemies that can be defeated with a clearly explained roadmap back to something resembling normality.

Museums in China, South Korea and Japan have either reopened, or plan to do so in the coming weeks, as have shops. Reports like this should be highlighted by Whitehall. They offer tangible hope, with mass testing a realistic path to fulfilling it. Yes, there could be further outbreaks, but with the mechanism in place to detect and stamp them out, they needn't trigger the terror of the current epidemic.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Of course, we need mass testing to find carriers and break the transmission chains. Thankfully even faster tests look close to rollout, as does a mobile app that mirrors South Korea's (uses geodata to warn you if you've come close to someone infected).
> 
> I'm extremely worried about the psychological effects of the government's rudderless fatalism, especially in the aftermath of the obscene "herd immunity" plan. Uncertainty and panic are enemies that can be defeated with a clearly explained roadmap back to something resembling normality.
> 
> Museums in China, South Korea and Japan have either reopened, or plan to do so in the coming weeks, as have shops. Reports like this should be highlighted by Whitehall. They offer tangible hope, with mass testing a realistic path to fulfilling it. Yes, there could be further outbreaks, but with the mechanism in place to detect and stamp them out, they needn't trigger the terror of the current epidemic.


Thanks for those two posts.. really helpful. The lack of available information about successful precedents has been depressing me. The information given by the Tories is a sick joke. Grinning baffoon BJ himself looks scared shitless, totally out of his depth.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Thanks for those two posts.. really helpful. The lack of available information about successful precedents has been depressing me. The information given by the Tories is a sick joke. Grinning baffoon BJ himself looks scared shitless, totally out of his depth.


Glad they've helped a little, this is exactly what I'm talking about. 

After a weekend living in terror of a "herd immunity" plan that was as criminally negligent as it was scientifically illiterate, my feelings towards the government have passed loathing. Just want them gone, and gone quickly (Jeremy Hunt's sudden reappearance is maybe a sign that the men in grey suits are circling, we'll see). Cummings and his weirdos having any role in shaping policy currently scares me far more than any coronavirus.


----------



## hegley (Mar 18, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I'm extremely worried about the psychological effects of the government's rudderless fatalism, especially in the aftermath of the obscene "herd immunity" plan. Uncertainty and panic are enemies that can be defeated with a clearly explained roadmap back to something resembling normality.


I wish I could "like" this bit 100x. There are *so* many people posting on FB, forums, twitter really worried because the current information coming out is so vague - it's just creating so much unnecessary anxiety and confusion. Seen so many people saying "I've got x condition but my boss won't let me WFH", "I've got young kids and I don't know whether I should let them visit g-parents". Agree with ska invita about BJ being out of his depth - but it really shouldn't be that difficult.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 18, 2020)

hegley said:


> I wish I could "like" this bit 100x. There are *so* many people posting on FB, forums, twitter really worried because the current information coming out is so vague - it's just creating so much unnecessary anxiety and confusion. Seen so many people saying "I've got x condition but my boss won't let me WFH", "I've got young kids and I don't know whether I should let them visit g-parents". Agree with ska invita about BJ being out of his depth - but it really shouldn't be that difficult.


Yup. Al Johnson's in the midst of a blue screen of death, refusing to make decisions, prey to ghouls like Cummings and co. An anti-leader, dangerous in the extreme.

May well be down with it myself -- several bouts of fever and a burning chest, now gone -- but thankfully dentist has me on a massive dose of vitamin D, which just happens to squash respiratory infections, so never close to pneumonia. Whatever it was, soon as symptoms appeared, can honestly say I wasn't that worried as clearly a mild case. What did put me in mortal terror was the prospect of a SARS virus turned loose on tens of millions. You've bested corona, Boris, bravo.


----------



## Fedayn (Mar 18, 2020)

Coronavirus bill: what it will do
					

Measures contained in the fast-tracked coronavirus legislation and why they are needed to effectively manage the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in the UK.




					www.gov.uk
				






> *The legislation will be time-limited – for 2 years – and not all of these measures will come into force immediately. The bill allows the 4 UK governments to switch on these new powers when they are needed, and, crucially, to switch them off again once they are no longer necessary, based on the advice of Chief Medical Officers of the 4 nations.*
> 
> *Contents of the bill*





> The bill enables action in 5 key areas:
> 
> increasing the available health and social care workforce – for example, by removing barriers to allow recently retired NHS staff and social workers to return to work (and in Scotland, in addition to retired people, allowing those who are on a career break or are social worker students to become temporary social workers)
> easing the burden on frontline staff – by reducing the number of administrative tasks they have to perform, enabling local authorities to prioritise care for people with the most pressing needs, allowing key workers to perform more tasks remotely and with less paperwork, and taking the power to suspend individual port operations
> ...





There are some serious ramifications in this bill.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 18, 2020)

Seems like basic commonsense admin stuff really.

Existing powers are probably more severe. e.g. the Secretary of State for Health and magistrates already have the power under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 to order the demolition of buildings, the seizure and destruction of things, and the detention of persons.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 18, 2020)

Welp, our office was full of people yesterday laughing and saying how they're safe and it's just a bad cold etc. They even put communal snacks in the kitchen and everyone was helping themselves to them. Not sure when people will start to take this thing seriously.


----------



## bimble (Mar 18, 2020)

srs stuff now. Eastenders is stopping filming. They're going to eek out the already recorded episodes by spacing them out "to make them last for as long as possible".


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 18, 2020)

they replaced MOTD with Mrs Browns Boys so I dread to think what will take the place of soaps. Vintage Noel's House Party episodes maybe.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> srs stuff now. Eastenders is stopping filming. They're going to eek out the already recorded episodes by spacing them out "to make them last for as long as possible".



I can help out by writing some scripts for them.

_-Ere, Terry, wotchoo doin wiv my wife?
-Fack you Barry, you facking slag.
-Ee's not Barry, ee's Barry's evil twin Gary._
-_And you can fack off an' all Sheila. Gawd strike a light.
-Roight that's the last facking straw. Ah'm leaving you and shacking up wiv your bruvver.
-Jellied eels! Getcher jellied eels! _

...etc.


----------



## kalidarkone (Mar 18, 2020)

Athos said:


> I don't know why they don't just ask all parents who don't work in NHS (or other crucial roles) to keep their kids off school; NHS workers' kids could go in, and be looked after by a reduced number of staff (which is inevitable as more get I'll or self-isolate).  Seems like the least bad option.


That's great idea.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2020)

Athos said:


> I don't know why they don't just ask all parents who don't work in NHS (or other crucial roles) to keep their kids off school; NHS workers' kids could go in, and be looked after by a reduced number of staff (which is inevitable as more get I'll or self-isolate).  Seems like the least bad option.



Makes sense to designate certain schools, with central-ish locations, to stay open with a full complement of staff for critical workers' kids rather than keep one or two teachers on in every school. This won't work out in the countryside of course, but in towns and cities it might.

My housemate works at the pupil referral unit. They're closing on Friday but will be providing a full-ish set of lessons online.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> srs stuff now. Eastenders is stopping filming. They're going to eek out the already recorded episodes by spacing them out "to make them last for as long as possible".


It really is the apocalypse, isn’t it?


Do you remember your Dad?
No, he died before the soaps stopped airing.
Was that before or after the last general died?
According to the stories it was just after YouTube went down.
Draw me a meme, son.
OK mum. I’ll burn a twig for charcoal.


----------



## magneze (Mar 18, 2020)

DotCommunist said:


> they replaced MOTD with Mrs Browns Boys so I dread to think what will take the place of soaps. Vintage Noel's House Party episodes maybe.


Only if they want to get everyone back outside again.


----------



## bimble (Mar 18, 2020)

MadeInBedlam have you seen this ? The mental health stuff is quite something.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2020)

Seems like a lot of schools will be closed by the end of the week, but on their own initiative and with little if anything in the way of central planning. 

They also face the prospect of being legally required to re-open in the near future. Which is batshit insane, even at a time when we're all pretty much knee-deep in bat shit.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> MadeInBedlam have you seen this ? The mental health stuff is quite something.



yeah

obviously I’m not relaxed, but the ‘only one s12’ Doctor rule might not make much difference to those being assessed under the MHA - the MHA legislationand the MHA Code of practice is routinely breached, doctors/AMHPs rarely disagree on whether to detain or not. I mean it wasn’t exactly trial by your peers before this.

What losing me a lot of sleep is the conditions on the wards themselves. They are disgusting, violent, chaotic places. Will they be kept clean? How will those who are suicidal/severely unwell be kept safe from themselves (eg self harm, non-existent self care etc)? How will they be kept safe from each other? Or from the staff?

this will be the end of informal mental health admissions. If you’re not mental enough to be sectioned you’ll be nowhere near an inpatient ward.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 18, 2020)

They’ll be a lot of people detained (without limit) with NO ONE to advocate for them. A lot of people with no family, no community support. There won’t be any IMHAs.


----------



## JimW (Mar 18, 2020)

Thought this was going to be about Typhoid Mary's younger cousin.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 18, 2020)

Fuck it I’m going to have to work on a ward. 

I need to focus on myself at the moment (going mad, family are very concerned about me ‘having one of my turns’*). At the moment I’m focusing on making sure they know that I’m ok (which for me does mean demonstrating to them I’m on top of medication, daily routines, self-care etc). 

I’m leaving my phone with my family for periods during the day. I’m receiving a lot of calls/messages from terrified friends.

when I’m sorted and they know I’m sorted I’ll find out where I’m needed, then I’ll go there.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 18, 2020)

JimW said:


> Thought this was going to be about Typhoid Mary's younger cousin.



he was a cunt. All you need to know


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 18, 2020)

<changes username>


----------



## agricola (Mar 18, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> *They’ll be a lot of people detained (without limit) with NO ONE to advocate for them*. A lot of people with no family, no community support. There won’t be any IMHAs.



Doubt it - where are they going to put them all?  The pressures on MH beds and staff were bad enough when there wasn't a pandemic going around.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

Have seen a fair few videos on social media of big pubs/bars in UK packed with people out for St Patrick's day  absolutely fuck all distancing.


----------



## grit (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Have seen a fair few videos on social media of big pubs/bars in UK packed with people out for St Patrick's day  absolutely fuck all distancing.



When even us Micks closed the pubs for paddy's day you know its serious!


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 18, 2020)

agricola said:


> Doubt it - where are they going to put them all?  The pressures on MH beds and staff were bad enough when there wasn't a pandemic going around.



Those with family/support outside of hospital will be discharged.

so who will that leave in hospital then?


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 18, 2020)

agricola said:


> Doubt it - where are they going to put them all?  The pressures on MH beds and staff were bad enough when there wasn't a pandemic going around.



fucking moronic comment


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 18, 2020)

Christ if anyone thinks “fewer beds = less sectioning” here then urban really is shite.


----------



## MickiQ (Mar 18, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I can help out by writing some scripts for them.
> 
> _-Ere, Terry, wotchoo doin wiv my wife?
> -Fack you Barry, you facking slag.
> ...


You're going to try and  introduce some sophiscated repartee and intelligent conversation  into the show then.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Have seen a fair few videos on social media of big pubs/bars in UK packed with people out for St Patrick's day  absolutely fuck all distancing.



Recommendation to avoid going to pubs did not go down well, Spoon's numbers y'day:


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> You're going to try and  introduce some sophiscated repartee and intelligent conversation  into the show then.



I'm glad you picked up on that, yes.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

grit said:


> When even us Micks closed the pubs for paddy's day you know its serious!


 

Still amazed Cheltenham Festival went ahead  very big Irish attendance at that one I heard


----------



## agricola (Mar 18, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Those with family/support outside of hospital will be discharged.
> 
> so who will that leave in hospital then?



Not sure that is the case, at all.  The service was already doing that wherever possible because of the pressure on beds, to move those people into social care (again, in many cases) so they can section a load of people who they couldn't do before because they couldn't get two doctors to agree does not make much sense.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 18, 2020)

agricola said:


> Not sure that is the case, at all.  The service was already doing that wherever possible because of the pressure on beds, to move those people into social care (again, in many cases) so they can section a load of people who they couldn't do before because they couldn't get two doctors to agree does not make much sense.



You’re going to need to make that legible if you want a response


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2020)

prunus said:


> No, the 1 to 1000 figure is a rule of thumb for estimating how many active cases there are in the growth phase. The number of deaths always lags behind the number of cases in the growth phase, as its the deaths from the number of cases 2-4 weeks ago. It’s not an estimate of fatality rate, which is still probably about 10x larger give or take.



That is a very important point.

I will just throw in that some anecdotal evidence in regards particular cases that have passed away in the UK recently, suggests a shorter time between testing positive and dying in a bunch of these cases. To be expected at this stage I suppose, for various reasons including testing methodology and the age/underlying health conditions of the early cases involved.


----------



## agricola (Mar 18, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> You’re going to need to make that legible if you want a response



I think I'd rather not have one then.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 18, 2020)

Great


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 18, 2020)

My council has closed all public buildings and cancelled all events with the exception of libraries and hubs remain all of which remain open.  @ having to call in sick with anxiety and stress, cos I'm not allowed to call it a sensible rational act to self-isolate when I live with a vulnerable person.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2020)

Azrael said:


> As soon as all cases are detected and isolated, it can be eased off, as is happening in China. Since South Korea never allowed Covid-19 to run outa control, she never went into a panicked lockdown. Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan of course stopped the virus from ever gaining a foothold (as S.K. probably would've if it hadn't been for that godforsaken church).
> 
> That the West ever let it get this far is bad enough, but talk of indefinite lockdowns is unreal. We have concrete demonstrations of why they're unnecessary even without a vaccine. If we junk the mathematical models and patiently follow the excellent examples from Asia, we can get it under control and get things running again. The W.H.O. is screaming at us to test, test, test, every suspected case, every contact. We didn't listen early enough, leading to thousands of needless deaths, but we can listen now, and turn things around.



I have to say that despite the Imperial College paper and the resulting u-turn and fallout, some of the government rhetoric remains unchanged. Yes they are now repeatedly talking about ramping up testing capability, but the likes of Johnson and Vallance still keep talking about pushing down the peak of the epidemic, rather than all out suppression.

eg  22m ago 12:40


----------



## pesh (Mar 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> srs stuff now. Eastenders is stopping filming. They're going to eek out the already recorded episodes by spacing them out "to make them last for as long as possible".


just an excuse to let them gentrify the fuck out of Walford while everyones distracted.


----------



## grit (Mar 18, 2020)

[/QUOTE]

That the West ever let it get this far is bad enough, but talk of indefinite lockdowns is unreal. We have concrete demonstrations of why they're unnecessary even without a vaccine. *If we junk the mathematical models and patiently follow the excellent examples from Asia, we can get it under control and get things running again*. 
[/QUOTE]

That ship sailed several weeks ago, the lockdowns are coming and are needed.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Mar 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> My council has closed all public buildings and cancelled all events with the exception of libraries and hubs remain all of which remain open.  @ having to call in sick with anxiety and stress, cos I'm not allowed to call it a sensible rational act to self-isolate when I live with a vulnerable person.



Can't you just say you've got a cough?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 18, 2020)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> Can't you just say you've got a cough?


I do have a very mild cough but they know I've had it ages. And what if I really get it? I'm not going to lie and put myself in a potentially more difficult in the near future


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (Mar 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I do have a very mild cough but they know I've had it ages. And what if I really get it? I'm not going to lie and put myself in a potentially more difficult in the near future



Well you've got the time of is the main thing.

My understanding is that it's ok to self isolate if you've got a cough even if you don't then get it. Which would mean you still have the potential down the line to get it and take more time off..


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> My council has closed all public buildings and cancelled all events with the exception of libraries and hubs remain all of which remain open.  @ having to call in sick with anxiety and stress, cos I'm not allowed to call it a sensible rational act to self-isolate when I live with a vulnerable person.


If you feel unsafe coming in you can throw H&S at them, typically it is the one thing employers actually fear. Are you in a union? They should be able to provide some extra firepower.

EDIT: Different area I know but this the advice UCU is giving members


> There is a general legal duty, set out within Section 7 of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act to 'take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work'. If arising from your institution's COVID-19 policy you believe that you or those in your care are in danger, you should raise the issue directly with your immediate line manager and seek their instruction and also immediately contact your local UCU branch. There is a further legal right to leave the workplace, under Section 44 of the 1996 Employment Rights Act, 'in circumstances of danger which the employee reasonably believed to be serious and imminent and which he could not reasonably have been expected to avert'. However, the legal bar for such action is high and heavily dependent on the particular circumstances; members should therefore seek advice from the union BEFORE they do this.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 18, 2020)

Have contacted my union but they’re rubbish and haven’t replied yet


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Have contacted my union but they’re rubbish and haven’t replied yet


OK I'd ask your line manager for a direct *written* instruction that you must come into work regardless of the fact that you live with someone in a high risk category and believe that coming into work (via public transport?) is putting yours and theirs health and safety at risk. See what they say.

EDIT: Should say Orang Utan that this does not necessarily mean that you won't have to come into work but IME putting a line manager on the spot and making then declare in writing that they request you to undertake something with the H&S risk often puts the shits up them.
One last general point if your line manager ask you to do something you don't want to do rather than saying you won't do it, you are better off telling them you can't do it (for whatever reason).


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> I have to say that despite the Imperial College paper and the resulting u-turn and fallout, some of the government rhetoric remains unchanged. Yes they are now repeatedly talking about ramping up testing capability, but the likes of Johnson and Vallance still keep talking about pushing down the peak of the epidemic, rather than all out suppression.
> 
> eg  22m ago 12:40



I think they are so dogmatically hidebound they are still resisting the reality of what has to be done - exactly the same lockdown that we are seeing pretty much everywhere else. Because if they do this - they will have to provide comprehensive support for everyone in the UK - or deal with a total economic meltdown as the entire service and entertainment industry collapses - followed by millions of people defaulting on their mortgages or getting into rent arrears - local authorities bankrupt because they can't collect business rates - massive banking crash - millions out of work at a strole - public services and NHS collapsing -  and so on and so right up to a complete collapse of the economy.
They will have to do all this eventually - but it will be done in a haphazard, badly thought out, rushed manner - exactly what has charchertised their response since the start.
Any previous government would have been contingency planning for exactly this scenario at least 6 weeks ago.
The contrast with past responses to emergencies like AIDS, foot and mouth, 9/11 and similar is stark.
So we get the pubs and cafes staying open but telling people not to go to them. We get no proper testing regime. We get a desperate scramble for ventilators. We get the schools staying open. We get no proper public information campaign. We get easily preventable panic buying. We get stated policy being reversed within days. 
The cunts will cause unnecessary deaths of thousands and wreck millions of peoples livelihoods because they are lazy, bigoted chancers  who are ideologically opposed to the idea that the fundamental purpose of government is to safeguard the well being of its citizens.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 18, 2020)

Thoughts anyone?








						[Withdrawn] [Withdrawn] What the Coronavirus Bill will do
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## agricola (Mar 18, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> I think they are so dogmatically hidebound they are still resisting the reality of what has to be done - exactly the same lockdown that we are seeing pretty much everywhere else. Because if they do this - they will have to provide comprehensive support for everyone in the UK - or deal with a total economic meltdown as the entire service and entertainment industry collapses - followed by millions of people defaulting on their mortgages or getting into rent arrears - local authorities bankrupt because they can't collect business rates - massive banking crash - millions out of work at a strole - public services and NHS collapsing -  and so on and so right up to a complete collapse of the economy.
> They will have to do all this eventually - but it will be done in a haphazard, badly thought out, rushed manner - exactly what has charchertised their response since the start.
> Any previous government would have been contingency planning for exactly this scenario at least 6 weeks ago.
> The contrast with past responses to emergencies like AIDS, foot and mouth, 9/11 and similar is stark.
> ...



I agree with almost all of this, but not the bit about the comparison to previous emergencies - if anything, this and them all share the same sort of makeup, ie: the obvious result of a load of decisions usually taken by politicians for the wrong reasons, over a number of years, and in the face of very real and usually well-informed objections.  There is even the same sort of self-interested media cheerleader activity.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 18, 2020)

Up to 2626 now.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 18, 2020)

agricola said:


> I agree with almost all of this, but not the bit about the comparison to previous emergencies - if anything, this and them all share the same sort of makeup, ie: the obvious result of a load of decisions usually taken by politicians for the wrong reasons, over a number of years, and in the face of very real and usually well-informed objections.  There is even the same sort of self-interested media cheerleader activity.



I dont disagree with that - but when the "this is an emergency" stage was reached the government response was comprehensive, thought through and it was clear they were taken things seriously - even if some of the responses were of dubious value or counterproductive - there was a clear, thorough plan. See also the response to the 2008 banking meltdown.
The Thatcher government's response to the AIDS epidemic is interesting  - their ingrained homophobia and bollocks moralising was put to one side and they deferred to the public health experts. Because whilst  Thatcher was callous and prejudiced, she was not stupid (like trump)  or intellectually lazy (like johnson)  - and was persuaded by arguments based on expertise, evidence and facts.  Johnson gives every impression that he wants it all to go away and therefore is - consciously or unconsciously or both - downplaying the seriousness of the situation and dodging what action needs to be taken.   Cos rather than bluffing and bullshiiting his way  through brexit on the back of a massive election win - shit just got very very real and the cunt is not up to it.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> Outline of the new bill the gov plans to push through that would give them emergency powers _for two years_ .Totally wartime flavour.
> Very scary on Mental Health assessments, new powers for immigration officials to detain people, streamlining the 'Death Managemenet Industry' . .
> bloody hell.
> 
> ...


There's a scary amount in there about rapid processing of the dead


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 18, 2020)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> Well you've got the time of is the main thing.
> 
> My understanding is that it's ok to self isolate if you've got a cough even if you don't then get it. Which would mean you still have the potential down the line to get it and take more time off..


Orang Utan  Yep. Just showing symptoms of COVID is enough to self-isolate, even if it turns out not to be that. You're doing the right thing calling in, and you should get whatever they say in writing to protect you should you get in trouble unfairly.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 18, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Cos rather than bluffing and bullshiiting his way  through brexit on the back of a massive election win - shit just got very very real and the cunt is not up to it.



I was pretty much equally cringeing and feeling crippled with fear when I was watching yesterdays daily update thingy... that there had been some very obvious thought into coming up with a new fucking _catchphrase_, to replicate the 'success' of the Brexit one. It's no surprise but it's so unsettling too - I know, let's just keep saying _We will do whatever it takes_, really slowly, over and over - oh yes, that'll sort it out, marvellous idea! Wtf, I just despair, the ignorant _cunts_!


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 18, 2020)

Maybe in general this will make employers think twice before guilt tripping staff for calling in sick.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Thoughts anyone?



Its all the sort of stuff that has long been known to be part of emergency/public health plans. Any journalist who seems surprised by its scope and ramifications hasnt been paying attention to this area previously. Some unease about it is also quite predictable, I considered it somewhat inevitable as soon as some people started going on about 'well we cant do that here, we are a liberal democracy', much earlier in this coronavirus crisis, when countries like China started doing draconian stuff. 

Its the sort of inevitable shit that we would also expect see in a very large war. Just because we havent had such a scenario for a very long time, never made me complacent about the chances of experiencing it in my lifetime.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 18, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> There's a scary amount in there about rapid processing of the dead



My funeral director friend is not looking forward to this.


----------



## smokedout (Mar 18, 2020)

Just went on a largely futile kamikazi mission to  Holloway Road Morissons to get supplies.  Anyway they didn't really have any, but then they never have anything.  Local shops and the little Tesco/Sainsburys seem to be a better bet at the moment.

Really worrying how  busy everywhere is though.  All the pubs were open and almost all businesses, even the fucking charity shops.  I worry about the workers getting paid but some places just seem to be open for the sake of it, all the posh fucking letting agents are still open, and I doubt anyone is going to be buying a new kitchen or is that worried about antique furniture at the moment.  Hipsters and posh bits aside this is still pretty much a working class area, and people have to work - if they really want lock down then they have to do something to guarantee wages and get places that are non essential closed.  And I can even understand people having a sneaky pint or coffee sat outside a quiet caf somewhere just for reasons of sanity, but Starbucks, and a couple of other places were packed with people huddled round tables like nothing was happening.  

The biggest problem though is food.  Lots of people don't have a car and live within walking distance of a supermarket and are  used to picking up food every couple of days as they need it, me included.  And there's only so much you can carry home on foot or public transport anyway.  Everywhere that sells food is packed with people, and because you can't get anything then people are going from shop to shop looking for things.  It's probably too late to do anything about it now, and hopefully it will ease, but people won't stay home if they need to search from shop to shop for food and medicine, and they won't wash their hands properly if you can't even buy soap anywhere.  I think London's fucked, and without serious action to guarantee wages and distribute food then I suspect it will get very bad here very quickly.


----------



## treelover (Mar 18, 2020)

> The housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, is expected to detail measures on renters


 
It would appear that the problem is rentiers, not renters.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Maybe in general this will make employers think twice before guilt tripping staff for calling in sick.



Good luck with that.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Maybe in general this will make employers think twice before guilt tripping staff for calling in sick.


Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 18, 2020)

Yes, I probably was being a tad optimistic. Temporary moment of insanity, please move on, nothing to see here.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 18, 2020)

smokedout said:


> Just went on a largely futile kamikazi mission to  Holloway Road Morissons to get supplies.  Anyway they didn't really have any, but then they never have anything.  Local shops and the little Tesco/Sainsburys seem to be a better bet at the moment.
> 
> Really worrying how  busy everywhere is though.  All the pubs were open and almost all businesses, even the fucking charity shops.  I worry about the workers getting paid but some places just seem to be open for the sake of it, all the posh fucking letting agents are still open, and I doubt anyone is going to be buying a new kitchen or is that worried about antique furniture at the moment.  Hipsters and posh bits aside this is still pretty much a working class area, and people have to work - if they really want lock down then they have to do something to guarantee wages and get places that are non essential closed.  And I can even understand people having a sneaky pint or coffee sat outside a quiet caf somewhere just for reasons of sanity, but Starbucks, and a couple of other places were packed with people huddled round tables like nothing was happening.
> 
> The biggest problem though is food.  Lots of people don't have a car and live within walking distance of a supermarket and are  used to picking up food every couple of days as they need it, me included.  And there's only so much you can carry home on foot or public transport anyway.  Everywhere that sells food is packed with people, and because you can't get anything then people are going from shop to shop looking for things.  It's probably too late to do anything about it now, and hopefully it will ease, but people won't stay home if they need to search from shop to shop for food and medicine, and they won't wash their hands properly if you can't even buy soap anywhere.  I think London's fucked, and without serious action to guarantee wages and distribute food then I suspect it will get very bad here very quickly.


Agree with all of this - there seem to be a lot of people, many of them old, doing everything as normal, maybe on the basis that everywhere might be shut soon. (Mind you I am having a quiet pint myself, in an almost completely empty pub where I am about ten metres away from any other human so I reckon it's pretty safe.)

I also don't think it's practical for a lot of Londoners to really stock up on food either - storage space and carrying capacity are limited. This is how I live myself; I have a tiny freezer compartment, I buy small amounts of fresh veg most days. If I really need to I could survive for a bit but it wouldn't be good for me.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 18, 2020)

My college is closed to students from 5pm tomorrow, and staff are in on Friday to make final preparations to move to online learning from Monday.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

Interesting to see how the UK broadband networks will cope  

Also if people are locked down then surely there is a strong case for broadband bills (along with utilities and rent) to be suspended.


----------



## grit (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Interesting to see how the UK broadband networks will cope
> 
> Also if people are locked down then surely there is a strong case for broadband bills (along with utilities and rent) to be suspended.



I expected Ireland and definitely Dublin will the large concentration of tech workers to have an issue but its been fine so far. For most office workers outside of stuff like media the usage is actually quite small


----------



## bimble (Mar 18, 2020)

I think we should be not surprised at all if a proper lockdown is announced very soon .


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 18, 2020)

My school closed today. My daughter's will now just has year 7's and 11's in - but has made an exception for kids of frontline staff in other years who need to stay in school if possible. 

Both say they would expect to be open again on the 27th, unless further gov advice is passed on.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 18, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> My daughter's will now just has year 7's and 11's in



I don't understand, why just 7's & 11's, and not 8's, 9's & 10's?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I don't understand, why just 7's & 11's, and not 8's, 9's & 10's?



11's coming up to exams - year 7's being the youngest/least likely parents would happily leave home alone.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think we should be not surprised at all if a proper lockdown is announced very soon.


Almost certain  

The problem is our government will not enforce it but further phase it in


----------



## a_chap (Mar 18, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Up to 2626 now.



My favourite Zager and Evans song, that.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Getting messages about military vehicles moving on/in London. Anyone seen with own eyes?


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Getting messages about military vehicles moving on/in London. Anyone seen with own eyes?


Maybe tomorrow we'll all see them


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 18, 2020)

"Strongly advise" people follow instructions. But not enforcing it. Jesus. What a wet end


----------



## Azrael (Mar 18, 2020)

grit said:


> That ship sailed several weeks ago, the lockdowns are coming and are needed.


To clarify, yes, lockdowns are absolutely needed, immediately, since Whitehall's allowed the situation to spiral outa control.

The experience of other countries does indicate an exit strategy, but only when a mass testing and contact tracing regime's been set up. Who knows how long that'll take, but the sooner we start, the less time we'll have to keep this going.

Both lockdown and mass surveillance + isolation of Covid-19 achieve the same ends of severing the chains of transmission. One can be used to buy time to establish the other. Whitehall need to set this out clearly and explain what they're doing to get us there.


----------



## bimble (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Almost certain
> 
> The problem is our government will not enforce it but further phase it in


How would you like to see it enforced? do you just mean telling businesses to close?


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Getting messages about military vehicles moving on/in London. Anyone seen with own eyes?



Military vehicles move in the direction of London every week of the year, they move all around the country.

If there are hundreds of them stacking up on the north circular then maybe it will mean something.

Meanwhile just because Mark on Facebook saw a couple of lorries near Birmingham doesn't mean troops are about to seal off London.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Interesting to see how the UK broadband networks will cope



Just had our third email from TalkTalk ensuring us they can cope and everything is going to be fine.

So, y'know...


----------



## spitfire (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Getting messages about military vehicles moving on/in London. Anyone seen with own eyes?



I've seen 2 clearly fake photo's of military doing the rounds "today".

One is a bunch of army cadets walking through Clapham from god knows when.

The other looks like a land rover and some other green bits and bobs parked at the side of the road. In a country that drives on the other side of the road....


----------



## magneze (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Getting messages about military vehicles moving on/in London. Anyone seen with own eyes?


There appear to be two photos doing the rounds.

1) Army vehicles - these are on the right hand side of the road, so not UK and might not even be recent
2) People in combats in Clapham High Street - apparently these are cadets


----------



## magneze (Mar 18, 2020)

Snap! spitfire


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> How would you like to see it enforced? do you just mean telling businesses to close?


I mean a lockdown rather than an 'urge to avoid gatherings' 

Nobody wants police or army or any cunts on the streets. Also don't want to see events like Cheltenham hosting 75k people a day and pubs like Spoons cheering punters in.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 18, 2020)

magneze said:


> There appear to be two photos doing the rounds.
> 
> 1) Army vehicles - these are on the right hand side of the road, so not UK and might not even be recent
> 2) People in combats in Clapham High Street - apparently these are cadets


1) might be UK near usaf base


----------



## spitfire (Mar 18, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> 1) might be UK near usaf base



It's a 4 lane road and the central reservation barrier is all wrong. It's concrete. I thought it could be Germany possibly. I could post the picture if you want?


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 18, 2020)

spitfire said:


> It's a 4 lane road and the central reservation barrier is all wrong. It's concrete. I thought it could be Germany possibly. I could post the picture if you want?


Don't bother, I'm enjoying speculating about a picture I haven't seen


----------



## spitfire (Mar 18, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Don't bother, I'm enjoying speculating about a picture I haven't seen



You love it.


----------



## Sprocket. (Mar 18, 2020)

We will know when there is going to be a lockdown, when the Eton Rifles appear in the row down near Slough!


----------



## magneze (Mar 18, 2020)

TBF, the Guardian has this:


> *Johnson refused to rule out introducing tighter self-isolation rules for London*. There have been reports claiming a virtual lock-down in the capital is planned for the weekend.Johnson did nothing to play down these suggestions, and instead he repeatedly stressed his willingness to go “further and faster”. In response to one question on this, he said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...











						All schools to close from Friday; GCSE and A-level exams cancelled – UK Covid-19, as it happened
					

Thirty-two more people die in England taking UK death toll to 104. This blog is now closed




					www.theguardian.com
				




So, it's not an outlandish rumour by any means.


----------



## belboid (Mar 18, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> We will know when there is going to be a lockdown, when the Erin Rifles appear in the row down near Slough!


what a sweet auto-correct


----------



## BigTom (Mar 18, 2020)

All schools closing Friday: UK coronavirus live: all schools to close from Friday; GCSE and A-level exams cancelled



> All UK schools will close immediately to staff and most pupils from Friday afternoon until further notice. Wales was first to announce the measure, followed closely by Scotland and Northern Ireland, before the Prime Minister confirmed the move would be nationwide. Johnson said nurseries and private schools would also be asked to close, and exams would not take place in May and June.


----------



## spitfire (Mar 18, 2020)

magneze said:


> TBF, the Guardian has this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I agree. 

Anyway I'm sure kebabking will give all his internet pals a heads up before he rolls into town on a Challenger.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 18, 2020)

spitfire said:


> I've seen 2 clearly fake photo's of military doing the rounds "today".



Send them to Piers Morgan


----------



## spitfire (Mar 18, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Send them to Piers Morgan



I'll print them off and give them a good lick.


----------



## editor (Mar 18, 2020)

It seems extremely likely that a lockdown is happening very soon. I imagine it equally likely that it will involve the military.

Anecdotally, a friend's husband (who is in the army) has been told it's happening in a couple of days but that should be taken with a pinch of salt, obvs.


----------



## belboid (Mar 18, 2020)

_Could _actually be legit and part of this - 10,000 troops from 13 countries arrive in the UK for major exercise


----------



## editor (Mar 18, 2020)

Song of the day


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

belboid said:


> _Could _actually be legit and part of this - 10,000 troops from 13 countries arrive in the UK for major exercise


That's from 2019


----------



## editor (Mar 18, 2020)

belboid said:


> _Could _actually be legit and part of this - 10,000 troops from 13 countries arrive in the UK for major exercise


Great time for thousands of people to be pouring into the UK  

*Edit: HAD it been in 2020!  😂


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 18, 2020)

belboid said:


> _Could _actually be legit and part of this - 10,000 troops from 13 countries arrive in the UK for major exercise



Except that was in 2019, and we are in 2020.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 18, 2020)

editor said:


> It seems extremely likely that a lockdown is happening very soon. I imagine it equally likely that it will involve the military.
> 
> Anecdotally, a friend's husband (who is in the army) has been told it's happening in a couple of days but that should be taken with a pinch of salt, obvs.


Heard the same this evening from a friend with army contacts. Next 24-48 hours for London.


----------



## belboid (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> That's from 2019


Oops. I’ll let the original poster know!


----------



## komodo (Mar 18, 2020)

Yes - once Schools have mostly closed Friday I think the lock down will come.


----------



## kebabking (Mar 18, 2020)

The pictures on twitter featuring an army ambulance are of a Spanish Army unit driving along a road _in Spain..._

the other one - no idea - not UK military, and not on a UK road.


----------



## magneze (Mar 18, 2020)

belboid said:


> _Could _actually be legit and part of this - 10,000 troops from 13 countries arrive in the UK for major exercise


Wrong year


----------



## magneze (Mar 18, 2020)

Lazy Llama said:


> Heard the same this evening from a friend with army contacts. Next 24-48 hours for London.


Channel 4 news mentioned it. If course their source might be same person.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> A notable piece of 'build up the expert' here:



And a much more recent example of reassuring words about Whitty, albeit with some slight recognition of the difficult political moments of the last week.









						Chris Whitty: The man with our lives in his hands
					

The UK government's chief medical adviser has become the public face of the coronavirus response.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




These sorts of pieces usually have a bit where they would normally attempt to humanise the official, go into some detail about their family or interests, but very little info on that is available in the case of Whitty so we get an awkward bit instead. At least this particular ones awkward bit didnt include language and security service attitudes that sound more like something from the 1950s.


----------



## Lazy Llama (Mar 18, 2020)

magneze said:


> Channel 4 news mentioned it. If course their source might be same person.


A few more people in the Canary Wharf facebook group have heard the same from family members/contacts in the Army. All saying starting Friday.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 18, 2020)

chilango said:


> True. But as much of the accomodation is outsourced to private companies there is an element of "not our problem" in the thinking.
> 
> As many UG courses are now finishing up for the term there's a "get them done, get them off campus" rationale that would see much smaller numbers to manage on campus over the coming weeks.
> 
> We'll see of course. I'm astonished there hasn't been a more major outbreak at a University thus far.



Might well have been but students tend to be young and so only have mild symptoms. They are only testing people who are hospitalised.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 18, 2020)

elbows there was a bbc profile of Whitty earlier in the week, Profile - Professor Chris Whitty - BBC Sounds


----------



## chilango (Mar 18, 2020)

Grace Johnson said:


> Might well have been but students tend to be young and so only have mild symptoms. They are only testing people who are hospitalised.



There's a LOT of not so young, and young but with "underlying health problems' on campus. Any outbreak wouldn't necessarily have been restricted to healthy, young folk. As is beginning to be apparent.

But, yeah, given the lack of testing we may never know


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Well London lockdown is to be expected but fuck off with the army bullshit.
We're practically locked down already without needing to go all iron fist


----------



## keybored (Mar 18, 2020)

I heard this lockdown thing from a friend who has a friend who knows someone with a relative in the army, too.

Funny how they train them up to give the bare minimum information out when they are being tortured, but they seem to be singing like canaries right now.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 18, 2020)

Excuse me for being dim here but by "lockdown" do we mean police/army on the streets making sure that nobody is going out unless going to work, buying food, going to pharmacy, drs appointments... ?


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Excuse me for being dim here but by "lockdown" do we mean police/army on the streets making sure that nobody is going out unless going to work, buying food, going to pharmacy, drs appointments... ?


Yes


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 18, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Yes


Thanks


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 18, 2020)

Fuck


----------



## klang (Mar 18, 2020)

True or not, but if we say it often enough on here they won't have a choice.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 18, 2020)

Up here I think the army would be better placed surrounding the council until they stop chatting shite. “The cruise ships will still be coming.” Get a fucking grip 
Shetland already has 11 cases.  In fact they should surround the council and open fire.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Excuse me for being dim here but by "lockdown" do we mean police/army on the streets making sure that nobody is going out unless going to work, buying food, going to pharmacy, drs appointments... ?



gives a picture








						What coronavirus lockdowns have meant around the world
					

How countries from China to Italy have imposed measures to curb the spread of Covid-19




					www.theguardian.com
				




was hoping for the San Fran version in there, think we're getting the more Franco-Mussolini-esque model


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 18, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Wildly speculative conspiracy theory: not enforcing shutdown not only protects the insurance industry but also means that the only ones who survive are those with the capital muscle to ride out the storm, then on the other side the consolidate their power by hoovering up all the assets and market space left by the smaller institutions, further strengthening their grip on industries and concentrating power with a select few.
> 
> Even if that's not actually their plan, can't help worrying it will be one of the outcomes.



So basically a re-run in a different format of 2008?


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 18, 2020)

I heard some of them were making Winston Churchill style speeches  at meetings. Like their moment had arrived. Would have been a sight indeed.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Up here I think the army would be better placed surrounding the council until they stop chatting shite. “The cruise ships will still be coming.” Get a fucking grip
> Shetland already has 11 cases.  In fact they should surround the council and open fire.


most of Londons cases seem to be in Westminster. Surely best to send in the army in this hotspot and do aDaily Telegraph style cull


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

Sounds like a good week ahead


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 18, 2020)

OK. I actually want to cry now.


----------



## klang (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Daily Telegraph style cull


it might just bring down the pension age by a few years.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Excuse me for being dim here but by "lockdown" do we mean police/army on the streets making sure that nobody is going out unless going to work, buying food, going to pharmacy, drs appointments... ?



It wont necessarily all happen in one go. They can start by more forcefully ordering various shops, pubs, bars etc to close.


----------



## keybored (Mar 18, 2020)

Anyone caught outside the gates of their sub-division sectors after curfew Will. Be. Shot.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 18, 2020)

How the fuck do you prove you're only out to buy food though? Seriously.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Sounds like a good week ahead


if it were only a week i wouldnt mind so much


----------



## RubyBlue (Mar 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How the fuck do you prove you're only out to buy food though? Seriously.



wecwill have to show our ration book 😁


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How the fuck do you prove you're only out to buy food though? Seriously.


carry a bag for life and point to your stomach a lot


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How the fuck do you prove you're only out to buy food though? Seriously.



Present yourself with hungry eyes, an empty shopping bag and some cash or a card? 

I know, right?


----------



## klang (Mar 18, 2020)

they'll check your tesco club card to see when you last purchased what.


----------



## kalidarkone (Mar 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How the fuck do you prove you're only out to buy food though? Seriously.


I'm a big woman with a weight to maintain. I'll have to be out every day!


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 18, 2020)

keybored said:


> Anyone caught outside the gates of their sub-division sectors after curfew Will. Be. Shot.


I for one will desist from interfering with urine sample collections


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Locking down only London is clearly Cummings playing up to Northern Voters. A dream come true



Spoiler






> this was a joke btw


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> It wont necessarily all happen in one go. They can start by more forcefully ordering various shops, pubs, bars etc to close.


It will almost certainly be a phased roll out from our feckless government. 

The positive is that there will be time to (as best we can) organise. 

The negative is that this is more dithering from the government which likely means a longer overall period of lockdown and almost certainly more deaths.


----------



## killer b (Mar 18, 2020)

Sounds like it's pretty torrid down there rn. My brother has been working in London this afternoon and has left town with rumours of soldiers already taking positions in the centre.


----------



## Aladdin (Mar 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How the fuck do you prove you're only out to buy food though? Seriously.




Show them the shopping list and the bags 😁


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 18, 2020)

These rumours will just cause the panic buying to continue, if not escalate.

Unless the supermarkets can actually enforce this "no more than 3 of anything" rule.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> Sounds like it's pretty torrid down there rn. My brother has been working in London this afternoon and has left town with rumours of soldiers already taking positions in the centre.




Are you sure?...rumour is all us people from the big smoke are loaded and think we are all special.


----------



## killer b (Mar 18, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Are you sure?...rumour is all us people from the big smoke are loaded and think we are all special.


I'm sure my brother heard this rumour. I doubt it's real though.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> These rumours will just cause the panic buying to continue, if not escalate.
> 
> Unless the supermarkets can actually enforce this "no more than 3 of anything" rule.



Being implemented across all main store over the next few days...time will tell.

I saw a shop assistant get away with her life yesterday after being descended on after she tried to move a large bag full of toilet roll from the store room to the kiosk where they are trying to hold stuff for pensioners and the disabled. People pounced, tore the plastic bag, grabbed packets and laughed as they went. She got back to the kiosk stunned holding a large torn, empty bag with one 4 pack left in it. It was disgraceful and sickening.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 18, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Being implemented across all main store over the next few days...time will tell.
> 
> I saw a shop assistant get away with her life yesterday after being descended on after she tried to move a large bag full of toilet roll from the store room to the kiosk where they are trying to hold stuff for pensioners and the disabled. People pounced, tore the plastic bag, grabbed packets and laughed as they went. She got back to the kiosk stunned holding a large torn, empty bag with one 4 pack left in it. It was disgraceful and sickening.


Over the next few days isn't good enough - it needs to be from tomorrow morning!

And yes - how it will be enforced is anyone's guess. Your story there is absolutely horrible and what shop worker is going to risk or stand up to that?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm sure my brother heard this rumour. I doubt it's real though.



If there were squaddies roaming around central London I suspect some evidence of this would have emerged by now.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Being implemented across all main store over the next few days...time will tell.
> 
> I saw a shop assistant get away with her life yesterday after being descended on after she tried to move a large bag full of toilet roll from the store room to the kiosk where they are trying to hold stuff for pensioners and the disabled. People pounced, tore the plastic bag, grabbed packets and laughed as they went. She got back to the kiosk stunned holding a large torn, empty bag with one 4 pack left in it. It was disgraceful and sickening.


raaah 


fucking toilet paper, i cant get over it. i wonder what Freud wouldve made of it


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> fucking toilet paper, i cant get over it. i wonder what Freud wouldve made of it



A little fort of some kind perhaps, or maybe the more traditional pyramid.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> If there were squaddies roaming around central London I suspect some evidence of this woukd have emerged by now.




No roaming Frank, no. Eye witness reports in different areas yesterday. Places where you would never see them, totally away from barracks etc. Today the same....random appearances on streets...enough to cause a stir. etc.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> A little fort of some kind perhaps, or maybe the more traditional pyramid.


a massive cock and balls surely


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> raaah
> 
> 
> fucking toilet paper, i cant get over it. i wonder what Freud wouldve made of it



The permanent anusol crew..stuck in that fucking stage.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 18, 2020)

about the army thing ... No, that's not the British Army preparing for lockdown


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> about the army thing ... No, that's not the British Army preparing for lockdown


thats just those two photos though... supposedly people have been spotting them with their eyes in town (possible rumour tbf), plus we've got squaddie grapevine rumours, plus its on the front page of newspapers


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 18, 2020)

Fuck knows how most/all of the schools closing down after Friday is going to work out


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 18, 2020)

If this is going to happen then I want drones shouting at people like that clip someone posted on another thread somewhere. At least then I'd get to feel like I was in a Philip K Dick story.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

Just breaking on News at 10...20k troops to close the 'spoons and lug the bodybags


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Just breaking on News at 10...20k troops to close the 'spoons and lug the bodybags


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> about the army thing ... No, that's not the British Army preparing for lockdown



Christ so the source of all this was Monty Panesar? I mean he was a decent enough spinner and that last wicket stand with Jimmy in Cardiff was a classic but even a fan would have to admit he's gone off the rails a bit in recent years.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Fuck knows how most/all of the schools closing down after Friday is going to work out



They'll close...many parents will be in an impossible situation. The concept of it working isn't in the equation...


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

The 20k CoronaCorps to be based in Aldershot, apparently


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 18, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> They'll close...many parents will be in an impossible situation. The concept of it working isn't in the equation...



Basically sounds impossible doesn't it?

We're not parents, but we know a lot of people/colleagues who are, and they're shitting themselves ......


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

It is pretty certain there will a lockdown. 

The police don't have the numbers to do it fully. 

So the army (social media nonsense aside) is the likely solution. They were called in to bail out the disgraced private security firms employed by our disgraced government at the Olympics. Given the huge importance of the current situation it is logic.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 18, 2020)

Surely there would be some photos though. Literally everybody walks around with a camera in their pocket. 

Also if armed forces used, would it not prob make more sense to use then for distribution etc


----------



## mauvais (Mar 18, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The 20k CoronaCorps to be based in Aldershot, apparently


I've got 19,999 mates who've just climbed down from some balcony on Prince's Gate who say they're going to be set loose to shoot the poor any minute now.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

seriously...this was on News at 10...I'm sure I didn't just imagine this....even after a few bottles of numbers.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Surely there would be some photos though. Literally everybody walks around with a camera in their pocket.
> 
> Also if armed forces used, would it not prob make more sense to use then for distribution etc



Or just guarding the empty homes of the oligarchs.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 18, 2020)

brogdale said:


> seriously...this was on News at 10...I'm sure I didn't just imagine this....even after a few bottles of numbers.



Is this not the 20k on standby to help the NHS and stuff


----------



## keybored (Mar 18, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> If there were squaddies roaming around central London I suspect some evidence of this would have emerged by now.


----------



## killer b (Mar 18, 2020)

the first 20k are to guard the toilet rolls in sainsburys. One crisis at a time huh.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Is this not the 20k on standby to help the NHS and stuff


Could be that.
Sure, some will just be lugging the body bags around...but the ones with the guns will be the ones that shoot the looters.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2020)

keybored said:


> View attachment 202229



What with all that camo I didn't see them there.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Could be that.
> Sure, some will just be lugging the body bags around...but the ones with the guns will be the ones that shoot the looters.


considering the lack of anything yet for renters/people not on a basic wage etc, thats not even a joke


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> considering the lack of anything yet for renters/people not on a basic wage etc, thats not even a joke


it wasn't.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 18, 2020)

Can we just all acknowledge brogdale who has been on fire, their posts in the Philip death threads and this one are providing much needed LOLs


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Surely there would be some photos though. Literally everybody walks around with a camera in their pocket.
> 
> Also if armed forces used, would it not prob make more sense to use then for distribution etc


I grew in Aldershot. They can deploy fairly quickly if needed.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 18, 2020)

keybored said:


> View attachment 202229


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I grew in Aldershot. They can deploy fairly quickly if needed.



Well yeah I'm sure but I find it difficult to believe reports of soldiers roaming london streets over last six hours when nobody managed to take a photo. I could be wrong, let's see what morning brings.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> It is pretty certain there will a lockdown.
> 
> The police don't have the numbers to do it fully.
> 
> So the army (social media nonsense aside) is the likely solution. They were called in to bail out the disgraced private security firms employed by our disgraced government at the Olympics. Given the huge importance of the current situation it is logic.


What will they do in all the other cities?


----------



## spitfire (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I grew in Aldershot. They can deploy fairly quickly if needed.



Especially when you spill their pint.

I'm friends with some people who have an unhealthy interest in the military. (Not like me oh no, I'm normal). I've seen nothing on any socials. Usually they'd post up at the faintest rustle of multicam.

As Badgers said, it's likely enough though as there's fuck all coppers left. It will hopefully be more like the Olympics than Threads though.


----------



## spitfire (Mar 18, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> What will they do in all the other cities?



They'll just need Cub Scouts innit.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 18, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Well yeah I'm sure but I find it difficult to believe reports of soldiers roaming london streets over last six hours when nobody managed to take a photo. I could be wrong, let's see what morning brings.



They'd be shot if they tried though wouldn't they


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Mar 18, 2020)

Lazy Llama said:


> Heard the same this evening from a friend with army contacts. Next 24-48 hours for London.


Yeah I'm hearing from various people Friday is the day in London. Nothing confirmed obviously.


----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 18, 2020)

troops already there- oxford circus tonight


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 18, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Well yeah I'm sure but I find it difficult to believe reports of soldiers roaming london streets over last six hours when nobody managed to take a photo. I could be wrong, let's see what morning brings.


Well exactly.  Look at Italy/France etc - they haven't got the army on the streets.  and we wont either.  If we do get locked down, then my natural instinct would be to get out there and fuck em. But if the pubs aren't open, what's the bloody point?


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 18, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Yeah I'm hearing from various people Friday is the day in London. Nothing confirmed obviously.



Was one of them the cabbie


----------



## spitfire (Mar 18, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> troops already there- oxford circus tonight
> View attachment 202234View attachment 202235



Seems legit.


----------



## oryx (Mar 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How the fuck do you prove you're only out to buy food though? Seriously.


I read somewhere that in France or Spain (can't remember which) they have forms and you fill in a form to say you're food shopping and the 'authorities' (police army?) take your form.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Yeah I'm hearing from various people Friday is the day in London. Nothing confirmed obviously.


Not even from that taxi driver?


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2020)

Given the seriousness and unusualness of the situation, how quickly its moving, and the particular moment London is reaching, it would be more surprising if there were not these rumours about the army!

There are after all likely to be some more stringent lockdown measures coming Londons way rather soon. And there are inevitably a whole bunch of pandemic plans that do involve the military. So at the moment it is tempting for me to say that these two things have got conflated, or people have got a bit ahead of themselves.

And army stuff is quite a common theme for rumours really, and their involvement and presence (or lack of) is seen as some kind of measure of how serious stuff has become. In various ways they can also be a metaphor for freedom, or lack of freedom.

Plus there is always the idea that an invisible imagined army inside our minds can affect our behaviour as much as the real thing.


----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 18, 2020)

its an honor document in france iirc


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

Who else can seal off the M25?


----------



## spitfire (Mar 18, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Who else can seal off the M25?



Broken down HGV in lane 1? Seems to do the trick usually.

Or swans.


----------



## klang (Mar 18, 2020)

leaves will sort out the rail network.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 18, 2020)

oryx said:


> I read somewhere that in France or Spain (can't remember which) they have forms and you fill in a form to say you're food shopping and the 'authorities' (police army?) take your form.


It's France. Where these forms come from though remains unclear to me as yet. Maybe you can download them.

ETA yeah - you download them


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

spitfire said:


> Especially when you spill their pint.
> 
> I'm friends with some people who have an unhealthy interest in the military. (Not like me oh no, I'm normal). I've seen nothing on any socials. Usually they'd post up at the faintest rustle of multicam.
> 
> As Badgers said, it's likely enough though as there's fuck all coppers left. It will hopefully be more like the Olympics than Threads though.


I don't expect for a second it will be sandbags round the streets and mirrors under cars #thegoodolddays 

More of a presence.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

spitfire said:


> Broken down HGV in lane 1? Seems to do the trick usually.
> 
> Or swans.


The M20 bridge twatting lorry did a good job.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> most of Londons cases seem to be in Westminster. Surely best to send in the army in this hotspot and do aDaily Telegraph style cull



Probably because they are all rich and can afford private testing so know about it.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 18, 2020)

spitfire said:


> Broken down HGV in lane 1? Seems to do the trick usually.
> 
> Or swans.


----------



## klang (Mar 18, 2020)

i still have a handful of travel permits from my journeys through yemen. pm me if you get stuck somewhere.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 18, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Agree with all of this - there seem to be a lot of people, many of them old, doing everything as normal, maybe on the basis that everywhere might be shut soon. (Mind you I am having a quiet pint myself, in an almost completely empty pub where I am about ten metres away from any other human so I reckon it's pretty safe.)
> 
> I also don't think it's practical for a lot of Londoners to really stock up on food either - storage space and carrying capacity are limited. This is how I live myself; I have a tiny freezer compartment, I buy small amounts of fresh veg most days. If I really need to I could survive for a bit but it wouldn't be good for me.



Make sure you’ve got plenty vape juice - imagine going without nicotine


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

I am not scaremongering about the army thing. Nor do I expect any type of martial law. 

It is just logical. Not as enforcers (barring a serious situation arising) of a curfew but to support with logistics and such.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

Hmmm


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


>


I normally commute by train, but I had to drive in one day.  Sat in a traffic jam on the A33.  when I got to the front, there was, indeed and in actual fact, a copper chasing a swan around the dual carriage way.  I did laugh.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I am not scaremongering about the army thing. Nor do I expect any type of martial law.
> 
> It is just logical. Not as enforcers (barring a serious situation arising) of a curfew but to support with logistics and such.



Yeah it does make sense to use the armed forces, part of their function is as a source of flexible labour, but yeah it will be in logistics, distribution, perhaps army medics etc working within nhs. Fuck knows though, world is so weird now it wouldn't surprise me to wake up tomorrow to some green cunt pointing a gun at me and requisitioning my supernoodles


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Yeah it does make sense to use the armed forces, part of their function is as a source of flexible labour, but yeah it will be in logistics, distribution, perhaps army medics etc working within nhs. Fuck knows though, world is so weird now it wouldn't surprise me to wake up tomorrow to some green cunt pointing a gun at me and requisitioning my supernoodles


Yeah, probably about right...but when MPs are talking openly about "containing London" I'm thinking that they would need the green cunts.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 18, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Are you sure?...rumour is all us people from the big smoke are loaded and think we are all special.



Special like EastEnders.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 18, 2020)

I'm due to visit my family in Birmingham on Saturday 4th April. Think I'll have trouble getting into Central/from Euston on my way home? Or should I ask Trainline for a refund?


----------



## tommers (Mar 18, 2020)

So just me that finds this all a bit scary? They're here to save us from ourselves or something?


----------



## spitfire (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I don't expect for a second it will be sandbags round the streets and mirrors under cars #thegoodolddays
> 
> More of a presence.



I know mate, didn't think you did. May have been lost in translation.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> I'm due to visit my family in Birmingham on Saturday 4th April. Think I'll have trouble getting into Central/from Euston on my way home? Or should I ask Trainline for a refund?


Unless it is an essential trip I would cancel. Most train companies are offering credits or journey transfers.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

tommers said:


> So just me that finds this all a bit scary? They're here to save us from ourselves or something?


Nope, not just you al all.
When i drove down to my aged pares last week to fill the boot with grub for them, I was thinking then about when and how they'd cut off London.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

tommers said:


> So just me that finds this all a bit scary? They're here to save us from ourselves or something?


We can't be trusted sadly. 

Nor can they but look at other countries and the measures taken. The army are scary but actually not to bad at something like this.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

> Johnson plans London lockdown as crisis escalates Prime minister shows strain in latest address to country on coronavirus While Boris Johnson was addressing the country, officials were being briefed on plans to close down London
> 
> Boris Johnson’s face bore the strain of the past three weeks, during which coronavirus went from being a distant menace to one that threatened to consume Britain’s economy, spread death across the country and dominate his premiership. The British prime minister has gone in a matter of days from advising people to wash their hands to planning the closure of London, followed by the rest of the country; government officials expect the capital to be locked down as early as Friday.
> 
> ...









						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com
				




Basically not enough police to do this. The army is around for specific reasons.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Subscribe to read | Financial Times
> 
> 
> News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication
> ...


Paywall


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> We can't be trusted sadly.
> 
> Nor can they but look at other countries and the measures taken. The army are scary but actually not to bad at something like this.


That said, they'll shoot anyone attempting to get through the cordon sanitare.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Paywall



Have a look again. C & P'ed


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

/


----------



## clicker (Mar 18, 2020)

It all feels very War of the Worlds here. No aeroplane sound is deafening.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

clicker said:


> It all feels very War of the Worlds here. No aeroplane sound is deafening.



Weird huh... absolutely under the gatwick flight path here...noticably quiet in that regard.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Have a look again. C & P'ed


Thanks x


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

Guardian report on Army involvement here.


----------



## weepiper (Mar 18, 2020)

Edinburgh is already locking itself down voluntarily. These are from 9pm this evening. It wouldn't normally look like this even at 4am.


----------



## clicker (Mar 18, 2020)

Not much left to loot.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 18, 2020)

clicker said:


> Not much left to loot.


In the shops, no...but those distribution centres just out beyond the M25...


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Mar 18, 2020)

blargh

i'm still trying to persuade mum-tat (who is in that london) that she won't be under house arrest and will be allowed out for food shopping (she does also do online shopping and has some neighbours who have already offered help)

don't think it's going to be entirely constructive to try and get her out and over here before lockdown happens (assuming we're given notice) or for me to go and stay there

if she came here, she'd be remote from her doctors, and while it would be possible, there isn't really much space here

if i went there, i'd have to stop work (the specialist software i work with isn't work from home-able and i'm kinda busy at the moment producing plans for each stage of shitstorm


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> (assuming we're given notice)


notice is given - starts friday, no?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 18, 2020)

clicker said:


> Not much left to loot.


Warehouses and small business stocks are full.


----------



## weepiper (Mar 18, 2020)




----------



## keybored (Mar 18, 2020)

"sources"


----------



## weepiper (Mar 18, 2020)

keybored said:


> "sources"


Yeah. Cunty Dominic, obvs.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 18, 2020)

Two media sources. 

Anything from our elected government?


----------



## ska invita (Mar 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Two media sources.
> 
> Anything from our elected government?


dont encourage them. ghostface killa will be back at the podium tomorrow for sure


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 19, 2020)

editor said:


> It seems extremely likely that a lockdown is happening very soon. I imagine it equally likely that it will involve the military.
> 
> Anecdotally, a friend's husband (who is in the army) has been told it's happening in a couple of days but that should be taken with a pinch of salt, obvs.


So many people have relatives in the military cos I've heard that from loads of people today


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Mar 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Not even from that taxi driver?


Not from him no.


----------



## spitfire (Mar 19, 2020)

10,000 extra troops to join British army's Covid support force
					

MoD doubles size of force amid fears over ability of police and NHS to cope with crisis




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Mar 19, 2020)

ska invita said:


> notice is given - starts friday, no?



all very vague - sources suggest / rumours / conjecture at the moment

from a public health point of view, if they do announce that the border will be sealed, can't help thinking that will encourage people to rush to gtfo from london - and not sure that's really a great idea...


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 19, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> perhaps army medics etc working within nhs.



An awful lot of Army medics are reservists who work for the NHS anyway.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 19, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> all very vague - sources suggest / rumours / conjecture at the moment
> 
> from a public health point of view, if they do announce that the border will be sealed, can't help thinking that will encourage people to rush to gtfo from london - and not sure that's really a great idea...



they'll all come to their second homes in Cornwall


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 19, 2020)

I don’t get why people are suddenly so surprised by the prospect of the army being involved. Being there to be used for situations like this is literally part of their job.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

I've moved on a little with my thoughts and I will now be surprised if there isnt a London lockdown by Friday (or at least announcement of it by then).

But I'm not including any particular army stuff in my idea of what the first stages of that lockdown must mean.


----------



## belboid (Mar 19, 2020)

'They' were trying to get through to the end of English school term, I reckon. Announce a weeks 'recommended' shutdown to get us used to it and then go in for the full shebang.  But...events, dear boy, events.


----------



## keybored (Mar 19, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I don’t get why people are suddenly so surprised by the prospect of the army being involved. Being there to be used for situations like this is literally part of their job.


I don't think anyone is surprised by the prospect armies might be mobilised during a global pandemic.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 19, 2020)

Hmmm - going to be interesting over the next few months with the countrys entire population of teenagers out of school and with absolutely nothing to do.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 19, 2020)

and the police off doing other things  









						UK police to start 'graduated withdrawal of service' if coronavirus outbreak worsens
					

‘Things will have to change and we will adjust our service accordingly,’ senior officer tells MPs




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## ska invita (Mar 19, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Hmmm - going to be interesting over the next few months with the countrys entire population of teenagers out of school and with absolutely nothing to do.


Also there's a lot of overcrowded living in london and no doubt other cities. I was involved with a young offenders project for a while and parents of the kids time and again said they had to let them out on the street as there's just not the room for everyone in the family to be in all the time. Add a heatwave, a collapsing economy, a global depression, not being allowed out of the house, and what looks like lots of people with zero money coming in all of a sudden........


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 19, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Hmmm - going to be interesting over the next few months with the countrys entire population of teenagers out of school and with absolutely nothing to do.



What will be more difficult is another long hot summer in the inner city if noone has enough money for food, rent or bills.

The government need to do something here to guarantee income for everyone now. If they don't and they are trying to enforce lockdown with a depleted police force and the military on the streets. It is going to kick off.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 19, 2020)

...........


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 19, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Hmmm - going to be interesting over the next few months with the countrys entire population of teenagers out of school and with absolutely nothing to do.



If all we have to worry about around here is bored teenagers we will be fckin blessed to be honest.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2020)

Terrifying stuff: 


> Boris Johnson’s face bore the strain of the past three weeks, during which coronavirus went from being a distant menace to one that threatened to consume Britain’s economy, spread death across the country and dominate his premiership. The British prime minister has gone in a matter of days from advising people to wash their hands to planning the closure of London, followed by the rest of the country; government officials expect the capital to be locked down as early as Friday. As the UK death toll jumped by 33 to 104 — and with the pound crashing around him — a pale-faced Mr Johnson announced at a press conference plans to close the country’s schools, declaring: “We will not hesitate to go further and faster in the days and weeks ahead.”





> While Mr Johnson was addressing the country, officials were being briefed on plans to close down London — the worst affected part of Britain — as early as Friday, with police being put on standby to prevent the possible looting of deserted town centres. According to one person briefed on the proposal, there would be a full lockdown of the capital with only one person allowed to leave home at a time, with no entry to local shopping areas. Supermarkets would be guarded by police, while pharmacies would be among the few other shops to remain open. Two officials briefed on the proposals said residents and business would be given just 12 hours’ notice of the new restrictions. They could initially be in place for about a fortnight. Mr Johnson did not deny that plans for a lockdown existed, and his allies say only that “the situation is moving fast”. A number of senior Whitehall officials have told the Financial Times they expect the plan to be implemented in London on Friday.








						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


----------



## LDC (Mar 19, 2020)

Sorry for _The Guardian _again, but looks like plans being stepped up to help with the logistics chain and some areas of the medical response.









						10,000 extra troops to join British army's Covid support force
					

MoD doubles size of force amid fears over ability of police and NHS to cope with crisis




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## bimble (Mar 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sorry for _The Guardian _again, but looks like plans being stepped up to help with the logistics chain and some areas of the medical response.


and 'the armed forces need to be prepared for the threat of a breakdown in civil order given that troops have been deployed in other countries to enforce lockdowns and prevent looting of shops.'
Also if they are seriously going to try to 'contain' London how would they do it? checkpoints ? I have no idea obvs.


----------



## High Voltage (Mar 19, 2020)

> MoD preparing to send thousands of medics into NHS rather than build field hospitals



Bloody hell  They're not going to be reactivating Sasaferrato are they


----------



## LDC (Mar 19, 2020)

High Voltage said:


> Bloody hell  They're not going to be reactivating Sasaferrato are they



Re_animating_ you mean?


----------



## High Voltage (Mar 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Re_animating_ you mean?



That's . . . harsh


----------



## tim (Mar 19, 2020)

So even under normal circumstances there are 10,000 troops sitting in British barracks prepared to come out and shoot us if we get uppity


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 19, 2020)




----------



## ska invita (Mar 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> and 'the armed forces need to be prepared for the threat of a breakdown in civil order given that troops have been deployed in other countries to enforce lockdowns and prevent looting of shops.'


like i said on the Lockdown thread, there's a lot of overcrowded living in London and no doubt other cities. I was involved with a young offenders project for a while and parents of the kids time and again said they had to let them out on the street as there's just not the room for everyone in the family to be in all the time. Add a heatwave, a collapsing economy, a global depression, not being allowed out of the house, and what looks like lots of people with zero money coming in all of a sudden........ army is going to be heavily outnumbered. Actually the heatwave bit is irrelevant. This is why BJ looks like he just shat the bed.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 19, 2020)

Does BoJo really think the army - ie the personnel - are going to be immune (unless the troops go full out with the B in NBC suits) ???


----------



## ska invita (Mar 19, 2020)

How many active British soldiers are here in the UK, as opposed to station abroad?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Also if they are seriously going to try to 'contain' London how would they do it? checkpoints ? I have no idea obvs.



 Close every exit on the m25 ?


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 19, 2020)

Is it really called 'Broadshare'? You couldn't make it up.

I was going to start a thread 'Civil Disobedience - inevitable?' but I guess this will do.

I think it is inevitable. A hungry population is an angry population. And we are already seeing a definite lack of 'broadly sharing' as morons fill up their estate cars, freezers and garages leaving empty shelves in their wake. 40,000 arrests for non-compliance already in Italy. Fines tripled in France.

I work with severely disadvantaged kids from severely disadvantaged families who don't give a toss for obeying general laws, let alone emergency ones. A possible death sentence from coronavirus means nothing to them. Their lives are so bad, so in the gutter, they simply don't care for normal rules. Good luck with keeping them off the streets.

If this runs and runs, with attempts to keep people indoors with no food and little to entertain them, no childcare in schools...yeah, I can see what direction this could head in pretty quickly.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> Close every exit on the m25 ?


That'll be it.
OK for north Ockendon?


----------



## tim (Mar 19, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Does BoJo really think the army - ie the personnel - are going to be immune (unless the troops go full out with the B in NBC suits) ???



Given that there are probably very few octogenarians with complex health problems on active service in the British army the effects on any of them that contract the virus are likely to be non-lethal and fairly short-term. This is a nasty bug, but it isn't the Black Death and we're not living in the 14th Century.


----------



## Idris2002 (Mar 19, 2020)

"Broadshare calling Danny Boy"

(Come on, you're all thinking it)


----------



## High Voltage (Mar 19, 2020)

"Broadshare calling Bozo Boy" is what I was thinking TBH


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 19, 2020)

tim said:


> Given that there are probably very few octogenarians with complex health problems on active service in the British army the effects on any of them that contract the virus are likely to be non-lethal and fairly short-term. This is a nasty bug, but it isn't the Black Death and we're not living in the 14th Century.


People going about their business when contagious is what spreads infections - and some germ factories will be asymptomatic ... it is the vulnerable that need protecting as much as they need supplies.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 19, 2020)

It's not just old people dying tho is it.


----------



## LDC (Mar 19, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It's not just old people dying tho is it.



No, or getting critically ill and needing ICU. The first person in my extended circle (cousin's workmate) to get that I know of it is a fit 27 year old who's on ICU. But statistically it is very unlikely. Anyway, back to the subject...


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

High Voltage said:


> Bloody hell  They're not going to be reactivating Sasaferrato are they


No!


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> No!


Did you say you weren't willing to shoot 'looters'?


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Re_animating_ you mean?


My 'animation' is in perfect working order I'll have you know!


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Did you say you weren't willing to shoot 'looters'?


Looters certainly deserve to be shot, it is a vile act, but not by me.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Looters certainly deserve to be shot, it is a vile act, but not by me.


So that's a "i wouldn't shoot my fellow citizens", then?


----------



## kebabking (Mar 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> So that's a "i wouldn't shoot my fellow citizens", then?



Surely it depends on how full ones freezer is?


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> So that's a "i wouldn't shoot my fellow citizens", then?



On a slightly serious note, your "Fellow citizens" engaged in food looting are putting the whole community at risk. Really not on. If looters were to be shot, it wouldn't be many, as it is a major discouragement. When people behave in a manner that endangers others, strong measures may be required. I don't think for one moment that it would come to that.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

We'll see, won't we?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 19, 2020)

I now have this image in my head of Sasaferrato as Fraser from Dad's Army, "we're doomed!"


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 19, 2020)

Operation ShockDoctrine more like amirite


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> We'll see, won't we?


If society breaks down to the point of shooting looters, we are finished as a nation. 

Mrs Sas was over at ASDA earlier, to shop for our neighbours, two adults and four children, who are busy passing the bug amongst themselves, taking advantage of early entry for wrinklies. The queue started before 6am when they open.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I now have this image in my head of Sasaferrato as Fraser from Dad's Army, "we're doomed!"


More 'Don't panic'.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 19, 2020)

Another MP has tested positive, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown.









						Sussex MP tests positive for coronavirus a week after self-isolating
					

A Sussex MP has tested positive for the coronavirus.




					www.worthingherald.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

Looks like this will be the gist of what they're going to do to us in London:


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

_1 person allowed to leave home at a time_

A squaddie on every door?
lol


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> If society breaks down to the point of shooting looters, we are finished as a nation.



Brace yourself.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 19, 2020)

This has probably already been posted, but I found this interesting as I painfully slowly try to get a measure of this thing ...
This guy suggests that like the Spanish flu, this is roughly 25 times as risky to catch as regular flu.
Though his background is in electronics and computer sales...


----------



## Ax^ (Mar 19, 2020)

The Toilet Paper riots

Well it will give Bojo Pm ship a interesting legacy


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 19, 2020)

There's probably not much point me busking with all this going on, so I'm going to claim Universal Credit to cover my expenses. I'll have to look for a certain amount of jobs per day, assuming anyone's hiring. As far as I know, we're still allowed to go out walking for exercise as long as we stay 2 metres away from others, so hopefully I won't get cabin fever.


----------



## killer b (Mar 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> And a much more recent example of reassuring words about Whitty, albeit with some slight recognition of the difficult political moments of the last week.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


ha yeah, the only family colour on Whitty is that his dad was obviously a spook, and involved in stuff heavy enough to get dead for it.


----------



## prunus (Mar 19, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> This has probably already been posted, but I found this interesting as I painfully slowly try to get a measure of this thing ...
> This guy suggests that like the Spanish flu, this is roughly 25 times as risky to catch as regular flu.
> Though his background is in electronics and computer sales...




Not watched it, but I would just note that the demographic risk is a very different shape for this one, so that blanket statement isn’t really applicable to most people.  He might address that, but I wanted to flag for people who might only read the headline.


----------



## bimble (Mar 19, 2020)

this is really scary too (guardian about 1/2 an hour old):

"The European Union’s industry chief has called on Netflix and other streaming services to take action to reduce congestion on the internet, amid surging demand as millions of people confined to their homes go online.
Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for industry, told Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings that he and other operators should take responsibility for preventing internet congestion by switching to standard definition rather than high definition."

If netflix breaks the army will be busy.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 19, 2020)

prunus said:


> Not watched it, but I would just note that the demographic risk is a very different shape for this one, so that blanket statement isn’t really applicable to most people.  He might address that, but I wanted to flag for people who might only read the headline.


yes - the Spanish flu was killing fit and healthy young men.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 19, 2020)

Might have to dust off the DVD player.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 19, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Christ so the source of all this was Monty Panesar? I mean he was a decent enough spinner and that last wicket stand with Jimmy in Cardiff was a classic but even a fan would have to admit he's gone off the rails a bit in recent years.


You are Andy Zaltsman, AICM£5


----------



## clicker (Mar 19, 2020)

Hither Green mainline station has just closed.

Eta...sorry I know it's a bit specific, but may mean others following suit today.


----------



## LDC (Mar 19, 2020)

The moment critical national infrastructure starts going (power, internet, phones, etc.) all bets are off if you ask me...


----------



## existentialist (Mar 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> they'll all come to their second homes in Cornwall


Anecdotal reports suggest quite a few people running for the "hills", metaphorically speaking - what they're doing is heading for their static caravans here in West Wales. Most sites have already closed communal facilities.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Anecdotal reports suggest quite a few people running for the "hills", metaphorically speaking - what they're doing is heading for their static caravans here in West Wales. Most sites have already closed communal facilities.



Couple of Scouser mates of mine have popped off to a tiny stone cottage in the hills of North Wales.
Think they had arranged it anyway tbf.  Whereabouts are you?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The moment critical national infrastructure starts going (power, internet, phones, etc.) all bets are off if you ask me...



No reason this should happen so long as critical staff are exempted from lockdown measures. Internet may struggle with everyone trying to do everything on skype and/or just watching TV all day but other than that.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 19, 2020)

8ball said:


> Couple of Scouser mates of mine have popped off to a tiny stone cottage in the hills of North Wales.
> Think they had arranged it anyway tbf.  Whereabouts are you?


I'm in Laugharne, south-west of Carmarthen. Not obviously remote, but not on the way anywhere, so comparatively little through traffic.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 19, 2020)

Just a puddle away from St Ishmael, round the corner from Llareggub. 

Nice over there.


----------



## BoatieBird (Mar 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Anecdotal reports suggest quite a few people running for the "hills", metaphorically speaking - what they're doing is heading for their static caravans here in West Wales. Most sites have already closed communal facilities.



We were away last weekend in a cottage in Suffolk. We were chatting to the owners as we were leaving on Monday morning and they were saying that someone had booked it for a month, starting on the Monday night


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

State broadcaster says what will happen is not happening.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 19, 2020)

tim said:


> Given that there are probably very few octogenarians with complex health problems on active service in the British army the effects on any of them that contract the virus are likely to be non-lethal and fairly short-term. This is a nasty bug, but it isn't the Black Death and we're not living in the 14th Century.


and around 9% of cases are in the 20 to 39 age groups


----------



## Wilf (Mar 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Terrifying stuff:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think you underestimate the thought and preparation that has gone into the government's response.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> State broadcaster says what will happen is not happening.
> 
> View attachment 202297



Friday afternoon:


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> State broadcaster says what will happen is not happening.
> 
> View attachment 202297



All these Pestons and Kuenssbergs want rounding up. Fucking shame on them for enabling this government-by-gossip shit.


----------



## NoXion (Mar 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> State broadcaster says what will happen is not happening.
> 
> View attachment 202297



The fucking IDIOTS are still dragging their feet. Useless fucking shower of cunts.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 19, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> All these Pestons and Kuenssbergs want rounding up. Fucking shame on them for enabling this government-by-gossip shit.


To be fair it is actually from the lobby briefing - it's been reported by other people too. UK coronavirus live: Williamson refuses to rule out government putting London in lockdown by weekend

eta: nice title there from the Guardian  shows you how consistent the vermin are


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 19, 2020)

This is what Sam Coates off Sky is saying was said:


> Downing Street making important clarification about what may happen in London in coming days
> 
> From No10 spokesman at lobby briefing
> 
> ...



Frankly though I have no confidence this isn't going to randomly change again, given how much they seem to be making it up as they go along. It's also hardly definitive in itself.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 19, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> All these Pestons and Kuenssbergs want rounding up. Fucking shame on them for enabling this government-by-gossip shit.





NoXion said:


> Useless fucking shower of cunts.



Couldn't agree more with these posts.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> and around 9% of cases are in the 20 to 39 age groups



That is because we wrinklies have the common sense to keep well away from others who could be infected. (And not having to attend a workplace helps.).


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 19, 2020)

"One person allowed to leave home at a time".

Yeah, very enforceable in a city with hundreds of thousands of multi-occupied homes.


----------



## Riklet (Mar 19, 2020)

The most important thing if they fully deploy in London is preventing the wealthy and priviledged from 'opting out' by going to their holiday and second homes and fleeing the capital, spreading the virus merrily as they go... or dafties going back to stay with mum and dad, clearly to be avoided too.

This has already happened in Spain. Queues on the motorways leaving Madrid to Valencia and Andalucia when they tried closing the city. I am no fan of draconian measures normally, jeez, but I dont think there will be any civil unrest any time soon. And I think its the duty of the state to think of our interests - which currently means if they are going to seal off London, doing it properly quickly and with no exceptions. 

And if people do start looting and turning the situation quickly into a crisis - is Sas wrong to say they should be dealt with extremely firmly (I dont know about shot).  I dont think so.  There should always be a question of immediate priorities and demands for progressive politics.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 19, 2020)

It's so incredibly shit and speaks horrendous volumes about our society that the rich can just pack up and leave to chill in the countryside somewhere and we all going to be sat here trying to deal with this shit. They know it's coming and if they've got all these billions of pounds all of a sudden why the fuck can't they take the loss on utilities and rent and give working people the safety to stay home like they realise is obviously so necessary. They don't think we are human in the same way they are. This is fucked up.

They got the resources to make sure everyone is housed and fed. They've just shown that. Oh here you go there's 330 billion quid for businesses. That's 5 grand a head for everyone in the country. Feed people first it's not rocket science. Make sure everyone got somewhere safe to stay in this chaos. Theyve just shown there's a magic money tree if they so desire. They need to sort it out.

They are going to have to come up with something for protect working people now or it's going to kick off. Horribly.

Another long hot summer, under these conditions. Nah. Fuck that.

Sad thing is, I'm not even that angry. I'm looking at this with a sad sense of inevitability. It's normal working people going to suffer like it always is. Our community is all out organising and trying to sort people out with food and help the older people. Hoping we can get the kids involved with that with us. Staying positive. Helping people. I love my neighbourhood so much and seen it battered for years, I just hope we can hold it down right now with this. We can do things for the elders and the vulnerable but I'm so scared for the young people round here right now too. It's going to get aggy.


----------



## chilango (Mar 19, 2020)

Looting is quite a broad term. There's a spectrum from wantonly ransacking the local food shops in an orgy of competitive individualism to cracking open hoarded surplus resources and redistributing it.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

This London lockdown panic's getting properly dangerous now, especially the zombie nation screeching in the _Mail_. They've learned jack from the fiasco over the Italian "red zone" leak.

Communicating this stuff via the old lobby games is irresponsible beyond the telling of it. If the rumours aren't doused, they're risking public order incidents that'll make them nostalgic for a brawl over bog rolls. Enough of these pestilential No. 10 "sources". Communicate clear, calm measures accompanied by their rationale and assurances that vital goods will keep flowing, and we can focus on containing this outbreak.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

chilango said:


> Looting is quite a broad term. There's a spectrum from wantonly ransacking the local food shops in an orgy of competitive individualism to cracking open hoarded surplus resources and redistributing it.


Exactly.
Plenty of previous examples where hungry people have been shot as 'looters' whilst liberating the profiteers hoards/stocks


----------



## MickiQ (Mar 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> this is really scary too (guardian about 1/2 an hour old):
> 
> "The European Union’s industry chief has called on Netflix and other streaming services to take action to reduce congestion on the internet, amid surging demand as millions of people confined to their homes go online.
> Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for industry, told Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings that he and other operators should take responsibility for preventing internet congestion by switching to standard definition rather than high definition."
> ...


Not a problem will just download the HD stuff from Pirate Bay


----------



## sunnysidedown (Mar 19, 2020)

edit: already discussed!


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 19, 2020)

Have I got this right? 

Looters, generally economically disadvantaged people who may otherwise starve, deserve to be shot.

Hoarders, generally rich middle class who have paid for their stuff, paid for their oversized freezer with 3 months of food and therefore creating a crisis, just planning ahead?

Is that right?


----------



## Mr Moose (Mar 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The moment critical national infrastructure starts going (power, internet, phones, etc.) all bets are off if you ask me...



But is there any reason they should? 

Food and the means to live. Guarantee those and most people will adapt. At the moment the measures don’t go far enough for those facing hardship.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

This coronavirus will kill some fit and healthy young people too. Just because a lower percentage of them become seriously ill than older people, doesnt mean the burden to the younger group is nil.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 19, 2020)

Maybe I'll be proven wrong by events but I still think the likelihood of armed forces personnel enforcing law and order and curfews and what not is pretty... remote. They haven't got the numbers for a start. I reckon it will just be official orders to shut up shop unless you are a chemists/convenience store/supermarket and soldiers driving and stuff. Don't reckon it's going to go mad max just yet


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

They've got people so wound up I'm not sure a full lockdown's even viable now, especially with police numbers as low as they are (using soldiers would just hose petrol on the panic, and they're already being sent to do logistical work). Italy's been having trouble policing hers, and that's wasn't introduced in the wake of a swivel-eyed plan to deliberately infect millions with coronavirus.

Every legacy of austerity's erupting at once.

Maybe shutting all pubs and cafes, banning all remaining events, combined with an exhaustive locate and isolate programme, will be all they can enforce. God what a mess.


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 19, 2020)

thinking of becoming a spiv for modern times only instead of nylon stockings and meat ration cards I'll have modern stuff like giffgaff credit, weed and amazon firesticks.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

Riklet said:


> The most important thing if they fully deploy in London is preventing the wealthy and priviledged from 'opting out' by going to their holiday and second homes and fleeing the capital, spreading the virus merrily as they go... or dafties going back to stay with mum and dad, clearly to be avoided too.
> 
> This has already happened in Spain. Queues on the motorways leaving Madrid to Valencia and Andalucia when they tried closing the city. I am no fan of draconian measures normally, jeez, but I dont think there will be any civil unrest any time soon. And I think its the duty of the state to think of our interests - which currently means if they are going to seal off London, doing it properly quickly and with no exceptions.
> 
> And if people do start looting and turning the situation quickly into a crisis - is Sas wrong to say they should be dealt with extremely firmly (I dont know about shot).  I dont think so.  There should always be a question of immediate priorities and demands for progressive politics.



The likelihood of looters being shot is infinitesimal, especially with troops and police on the streets to enforce isolation. Even in WWII, where there was widespread looting by utter vermin, no one was shot. 

'During the four months of the London Blitz from September to December 1941, a total of 4,584 cases of looting were heard by the Old Bailey court. In just one day in November, 56 of the cases to be heard by the courts involved looting. '

Were looting to occur, the looters are stealing food from society at large, no doubt with the intent of selling it back to society at inflated prices. The 'seize to redistribute' scenario is utter bollocks. Criminals don't work like that.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 19, 2020)

DotCommunist said:


> thinking of becoming a spiv for modern times only instead of nylon stockings and meat ration cards I'll have modern stuff like giffgaff credit, weed and amazon firesticks.



I will take weed and a loaded firestick, serious btw


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Maybe I'll be proven wrong by events but I still think the likelihood of armed forces personnel enforcing law and order and curfews and what not is pretty... remote. They haven't got the numbers for a start. I reckon it will just be official orders to shut up shop unless you are a chemists/convenience store/supermarket and soldiers driving and stuff. Don't reckon it's going to go mad max just yet



It depends on how this goes. Troops and police are enforcing isolation in other countries now.

What astonishes me is the casual way people are regarding this, well casual is perhaps not the right word, but there seems to be no realisation that this has not yet really started in the UK.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> I will take weed and a loaded firestick, serious btw


 Weed is indeed in short supply.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> This coronavirus will kill some fit and healthy young people too. Just because a lower percentage of them become seriously ill than older people, doesnt mean the burden to the younger group is nil.


 We simply just don't know. That is the frightening thing.


----------



## lazythursday (Mar 19, 2020)

Mr Moose said:


> But is there any reason they should?
> 
> Food and the means to live. Guarantee those and most people will adapt. At the moment the measures don’t go far enough for those facing hardship.


What worries me is how global supply chains may be breaking down. Will there actually be enough food in a few weeks time? Will, for instance, Spain still be exporting vegetables to us? 
In power, to take one example, will logging to create wood pellets still be taking place in the US? Will those pellets be transported and loaded onto boats, taken to Liverpool, loaded onto trains and delivered to Drax power station? 
I'm trying not to think about this stuff because once you do it becomes way more worrying than being confined to home for months / catching the virus. I hope there are people in all sorts of sectors making contingency plans.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 19, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> It depends on how this goes. Troops and police are enforcing isolation in other countries now.
> 
> What astonishes me is the casual way people are regarding this, well casual is perhaps not the right word, but there seems to be no realisation that this has not yet really started in the UK.



Yeah I'm not ruling it out in coming weeks or months. Depending on how long this goes on for it could get really grim. Just unconvinced by the panic that set in last night about roadblocks and drones and compliance by pointing guns at people across london by friday.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 19, 2020)

There's nothing like swift, decisive action to get control of the situation in a crises. And this is nothing like it.
They are consistently dragging their feet on doing what clearly need to done to slow down infection rates - and then being forced to do it as events run ahead of them. 
It is really dangerous - as well as pushing infection rates higher than they would be - it will stoke fear and confusion and chaos - especially in London. 
The cunts are still in denial - they have to mobilise the entire forces of the state at every level to contain the pandemic and ensure peoples basic needs are met - and they are refusing to accept it.  
Millions of people will now be increasingly fearful of being pushed into destitution - but it ok cos meal vouchers and your landlord cant evict you for 12 weeks.
Appalling.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

With hindsight, they've been working on the basis of the "herd immunity" strategy for weeks, maybe from the start (no restrictions at airports, which led to untold carriers melting into the general population, no testing of people reporting symptoms without known links with infected people, etc), and I don't believe for a second that their boffins didn't have a rough idea of a death toll that was obvious from the most basic arithmetic. They just didn't anticipate the extent of the backlash.

Now they're floundering, with remnants of the old policy still in place (why else bullheadedly refuse to test any NHS staff or enlist labs who've volunteered for testing?), mixed in with half-hearted attempts at suppression. We can't go on like this: a commitment to mass testing, contact tracing and isolation grows more urgent by the hour.


----------



## kebabking (Mar 19, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Yeah I'm not ruling it out in coming weeks or months. Depending on how long this goes on for it could get really grim. Just unconvinced by the panic that set in last night about roadblocks and drones and compliance by pointing guns at people across london by friday.



It's delusional fuckwits obsessed by their own, imagined - and mistaken - importance.

Which kind of sums up London tbh....


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 19, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Yeah I'm not ruling it out in coming weeks or months. Depending on how long this goes on for it could get really grim. Just unconvinced by the panic that set in last night about roadblocks and drones and compliance by pointing guns at people across london by friday.


Has anyone on here said that is going to happen?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 19, 2020)

kebabking said:


> It's delusional fuckwits obsessed by their own, imagined - and mistaken - importance.
> 
> Which kind of sums up London tbh....


Right. 🙄


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> With hindsight, they've been working on the basis of the "herd immunity" strategy for weeks, maybe from the start (no restrictions at airports, which led to untold carriers melting into the general population, no testing of people reporting symptoms without known links with infected people, etc), and I don't believe for a second that their boffins didn't have a rough idea of a death toll that was obvious from the most basic arithmetic. They just didn't anticipate the extent of the backlash.
> 
> Now they're floundering, with remnants of the old policy still in place (why else bullheadedly refuse to test any NHS staff or enlist labs who've volunteered for testing?), mixed in with half-hearted attempts at suppression. We can't go on like this: a commitment to mass testing, contact tracing and isolation grows more urgent by the hour.



I am genuinely getting increasingly fearful now. Its the sort of thing that could prompt a major exodus from london - (and other cities) further increasing the spread of the virus. Or is their "nudge unit" actually trying to provoke a complete break down in social order? Cos these cunts are doing the polar opposite of promoting calm reassurance or trust in their basic competence.


----------



## Riklet (Mar 19, 2020)

chilango said:


> Looting is quite a broad term. There's a spectrum from wantonly ransacking the local food shops in an orgy of competitive individualism to cracking open hoarded surplus resources and redistributing it.



Fair enough there is a difference in defiitions. But which is more likely in London May 2020? This isnt Paris after a year long siege.

Point remains about immediate priorities and immediate demands. Is the immediate priority for socially-minded individuals to be out in big groups and breaking into warehouses and company supplies? No. There are much more humble positive actions that can be done that dont involve Paris Commune Fantasy Roleplay. Sure, if things actually got to the severe necessity and breakdown that this was appropriate, then that might be different.

But that wasnt what I was talking about with 'looting' in the context of a pandemic health crisis. What were anarchists and communists doing in East London during the Blitz? Def not helping themselves while others were suffering. Did that mean they uncritically agreed with the state and didnt agitate in other ways? Er no.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 19, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Has anyone on here said that is going to happen?



Pretty much yeah. 

Anyway I'm not taking piss or looking for a row, I understand it's an anxious time and a step into unknown. I do think people should be careful about adding to the anxiety of others tho (this isn't directed at you or any other specific person)


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> The likelihood of looters being shot is infinitesimal, especially with troops and police on the streets to enforce isolation. Even in WWII, where there was widespread looting by utter vermin, no one was shot.
> 
> 'During the four months of the London Blitz from September to December 1941, a total of 4,584 cases of looting were heard by the Old Bailey court. In just one day in November, 56 of the cases to be heard by the courts involved looting. '
> 
> Were looting to occur, the looters are stealing food from society at large, no doubt with the intent of selling it back to society at inflated prices. The 'seize to redistribute' scenario is utter bollocks. Criminals don't work like that.


This is a fair point, but it's important to remember that it has to be set in the context of rationing which ensured that everyone just about got what was needed to keep going and without the immediate food insecurity of just-in-time systems of stock control.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> I am genuinely getting increasingly fearful now. Its the sort of thing that could prompt a major exodus from london - (and other cities) further increasing the spread of the virus. Or is their "nudge unit" actually trying to provoke a complete break down in social order? Cos these cunts are doing the polar opposite of promoting calm reassurance or trust in their basic competence.


Likewise. I was never fearful in this way about Covid-19 itself. Knowing that Whitehall was perfectly willing to allow hundreds of thousands of their citizens to perish, and worse, their top scientists signed off on it, has shaken me to the core. Now they're blundering hopelessly, chasing headlines, without a clue how to get control over an epidemic they knowingly fueled.

Becoming resigned to the possibility that we'll only gain a handle on this outbreak (and using the WHO's guidelines, we can) when the chaos becomes bad enough to collapse the current government. I don't want to think about how many will lose their lives needlessly before that happens, and continue to hope beyond hope that there's another way out.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

kebabking said:


> It's delusional fuckwits obsessed by their own, imagined - and mistaken - importance.
> 
> Which kind of sums up London tbh....


Surprising lack of solidarity.


----------



## NoXion (Mar 19, 2020)

I honestly don't understand how the fuck they thought that this "herd immunity" strategy would work. Any immunity gained from this virus won't last because of the rate at which it mutates. It spreads very easily, and a lot of people who do catch it will exhibit mild symptoms that don't exactly force one to stay in bed all day, meaning they are more likely to spread it about.

Dangerous fucking idiots. Toss them out NOW.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

NoXion said:


> I honestly don't understand how the fuck they thought that this "herd immunity" strategy would work. Any immunity gained from this virus won't last because of the rate at which it mutates. It spreads very easily, and a lot of people who do catch it will exhibit mild symptoms that don't exactly force one to stay in bed all day, meaning they are more likely to spread it about.
> 
> Dangerous fucking idiots. Toss them out NOW.


The chatter from reliable journos on Twitter is that it's the mutant baby of Cummings' weirdos, splicing the eugenics obsession doing the rounds among the political incels with a half-understood concept from epidemiology. Even the _Sunday Times_ quoted a source saying that Johnson's a "Darwinist" who believes in "survival of the fittest".

Their media cronies are desperately firefighting the implications of what they tried to do, but you can't effectively gaslight something this bad. It's destroying even a base level of faith in the government at the worst possible moment.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 19, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> No!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 19, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Pretty much yeah.
> 
> Anyway I'm not taking piss or looking for a row, I understand it's an anxious time and a step into unknown. I do think people should be careful about adding to the anxiety of others tho (this isn't directed at you or any other specific person)


On my to do list this afternoon I have calls to people already worried about access to food because they can't get a delivery, are self isolating or have been to their local shops and couldn't get what they need. Also gotta call people who have no income as their jobs disappeared in recent days... I've no interest in creating panic, people are already feeling it in so many ways...according to the tone of some comments here lately they should simply stop being such bloody self important Londoners. It a crock of shit.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 19, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Any immunity gained from this virus won't last because of the rate at which it mutates.


No one knows how fast it mutates because it hasn't done so in any significant way yet.

I'm all for criticising the govt's response here, but no need to spread more fear with stuff like this.

The current thinking is that if you've had it, you're immune from catching it again for at least a while.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 19, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> On my to do list this afternoon I have calls to people already worried about access to food because they can't get a delivery, are self isolating or have been to their local shops and couldn't get what they need. Also gotta call people who have no income as their jobs disappeared in recent days... I've no interest in creating panic, people are already feeling it in so many ways...according to the tone of some comments here lately they should simply stop being such bloody self important Londoners. It a crock of shit.



Yeah I understand, I've got no income now either and am fucked. Its everywhere though isn't it, this isn't just london. And the stuff on here last night about soldiers gathering, lockdown by force etc, honestly people should be more responsible imo but there we are, it's done, focus on solidarity from here on in prob best


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 19, 2020)

I hate this whole situation. I know it has to be done, but I feel very depressed today at the thought of not being allowed to see my friends or family, busk or socialise for up to 18 months, and only go to the supermarket. It doesn't seem right we have all this advanced science and they can't hurry up and contain it without practically putting us all on house arrest.

Just needed to rant, sorry.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 19, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> No one knows how fast it mutates because it hasn't done so in any significant way yet.
> 
> I'm all for criticising the govt's response here, but no need to spread more fear with stuff like this.
> 
> The current thinking is that if you've had it, you're immune from catching it again for at least a while.


Yep. And I was chatting to someone yesterday who thinks the real apocalypse to be scared of is next winter, when it will have the full winter to run riot, and that there is therefore benefit to more people getting it in the summer. Problem is, this government is so lacking in transparency and competence and empathy that we're left working out what the hell they're trying to do or if they even care.


----------



## RTWL (Mar 19, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Weed is indeed in short supply.



Oh yes. There was one thing I have panic bought ... only got 2 ounces though .... at a stretch thats only a month .... best start a grow !


----------



## existentialist (Mar 19, 2020)

NoXion said:


> I honestly don't understand how the fuck they thought that this "herd immunity" strategy would work. Any immunity gained from this virus won't last because of the rate at which it mutates. It spreads very easily, and a lot of people who do catch it will exhibit mild symptoms that don't exactly force one to stay in bed all day, meaning they are more likely to spread it about.
> 
> Dangerous fucking idiots. Toss them out NOW.


From what I understand it, this SARS-CoV-2 isn't likely to be a rapidly mutating variety. It has quite good error correction for its RNA, so seems to stay quite stable. That was from a BBC Inside Health podcast about the virus.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> This is a fair point, but it's important to remember that it has to be set in the context of rationing which ensured that everyone just about got what was needed to keep going and without the immediate food insecurity of just-in-time systems of stock control.



Yes, the shortfalls in the 'just in time' system are very clear at the moment.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

RTWL said:


> Oh yes. There was one thing I have panic bought ... only got 2 ounces though .... at a stretch thats only a month .... best start a grow !



Well, if this shit goes on and on... PM me when it has grown.


----------



## Sprocket. (Mar 19, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Yes, the shortfalls in the 'just in time' system are very clear at the moment.


And how precarious the whole system is too, sadly.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

Just had a text from my surgery 'Don't come here unless you are ill'. Well, that's this afternoon's social call out of the window.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

LeytonCatLady 

Evidence we have suggests we can contain it without mass house arrest, as multiple Asian countries have done, either by stopping it gaining a foothold as Taiwan and Singapore did, or via South Korea's mass testing and contact tracing programme.

Lockdowns are emergency measures to regain control when containment's failed, measures that're strictly temporary (they're already being lifted in China). This just isn't being communicated here, likely because Whitehall's still working off mathematical models that take no account of the suppressive effect of testing, tracing and isolation.

We (and this extends to much of the West) simply refused to listen to Asian countries who knew what they were dealing with and how to fight it. That hubris has gotta be junked fast.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> And how precarious the whole system is too, sadly.


 We are about to realise how much of our food comes from places where it isn't being produced at the moment.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 19, 2020)

its the way the UKs response is so out of step with everywhere else that is so troubling - especially when you look at whos making the decisions - people with a hard on for "creative chaos" and social darwinism.


----------



## chilango (Mar 19, 2020)

Riklet said:


> Fair enough there is a difference in defiitions. But which is more likely in London May 2020? This isnt Paris after a year long siege.
> 
> Point remains about immediate priorities and immediate demands. Is the immediate priority for socially-minded individuals to be out in big groups and breaking into warehouses and company supplies? No. There are much more humble positive actions that can be done that dont involve Paris Commune Fantasy Roleplay. Sure, if things actually got to the severe necessity and breakdown that this was appropriate, then that might be different.
> 
> But that wasnt what I was talking about with 'looting' in the context of a pandemic health crisis. What were anarchists and communists doing in East London during the Blitz? Def not helping themselves while others were suffering. Did that mean they uncritically agreed with the state and didnt agitate in other ways? Er no.



Aye.

But my point was simply a reminder that looting is a broad term, and if we uncritically define it in reference to an individualized, anti-social extreme we are laying the groundwork for the Right to order all kinds of shit.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> From what I understand it, this SARS-CoV-2 isn't likely to be a rapidly mutating variety. It has quite good error correction for its RNA, so seems to stay quite stable. That was from a BBC Inside Health podcast about the virus.


Yes, what I've read suggests it does confer a degree of immunity (although virologist after virologist has said it's far too early to know how much and how long, and there have been credible reports of possible reinfection in some cases). The issue was the horrific death toll required for what amounted to a punt on dodging a hypothetical second wave (itself based on influenza modeling).


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> LeytonCatLady
> 
> Evidence we have suggests we can contain it without mass house arrest, as multiple Asian countries have done, either by stopping it gaining a foothold as Taiwan and Singapore did, or via South Korea's mass testing and contact tracing programme.
> 
> ...


Oh I know. It's the not knowing that's driving me insane. And I know everyone's in the same boat, so I'm not saying this for pity-me purposes. It's just hard.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> The issue was the horrific death toll required for what amounted to a punt on dodging a hypothetical second wave (itself based on influenza modeling).


I think there's a decent probability it would 'work' - by that I mean you wouldn't get your big second wave if you let everyone get it this summer.

But it's just not an acceptable amount of deaths, even for a heartless bastard like a Tory.


----------



## NoXion (Mar 19, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> No one knows how fast it mutates because it hasn't done so in any significant way yet.
> 
> I'm all for criticising the govt's response here, but no need to spread more fear with stuff like this.
> 
> The current thinking is that if you've had it, you're immune from catching it again for at least a while.



Faster mutation doesn't necessarily mean that it's hard to deal with, as I understand these things. It just requires a strategy that isn't "let's get everyone infected" or something similarly fucking brain-dead.



existentialist said:


> From what I understand it, this SARS-CoV-2 isn't likely to be a rapidly mutating variety. It has quite good error correction for its RNA, so seems to stay quite stable. That was from a BBC Inside Health podcast about the virus.



Maybe it doesn't mutate especially fast, but everything I've read indicates that acquired immunity from this coronavirus doesn't last. The herd immunity "strategy" will do nothing but drag this out.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 19, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Maybe I'll be proven wrong by events but I still think the likelihood of armed forces personnel enforcing law and order and curfews and what not is pretty... remote.



I can see troops patrolling with coppers, in a support role, I'll be surprised to see armed troops on the streets accept when they are guarding places like parliament.

For now, at least.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I can see troops patrolling with coppers, in a support role, I'll be surprised to see armed troops on the streets accept when they are guarding places like parliament.
> 
> For now, at least.


Yeah, I'd imagine that we'll see them doing pretty much what they're doing in Italy, Spain & France


----------



## Badgers (Mar 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> base level of faith in the government


Sorry what?


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 19, 2020)

One of the top 'liked' comments btl in the Guardian live blog at the moment ('JamesinDerbyshire') states we are not far short of needing martial law and that looters should be shot on sight.

A reminder.

Looters, so far, 0.

Hoarders, so far, many hundreds of thousands.

This governing in a crisis lark is a piece of piss.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Sorry what?




For someone as distrustful of the state as me, that's little more than "least they're better than a gang of robbers." Right now I'd gladly take the robbers.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> For someone as distrustful of the state as me, that's little more than "least they're better than a gang of robbers." Right now I'd gladly take the robbers.


I would have them put against the wall frankly. 
We would be better off under a feudal system that carrying the current lot.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> LeytonCatLady
> 
> Evidence we have suggests we can contain it without mass house arrest, as multiple Asian countries have done, either by stopping it gaining a foothold as Taiwan and Singapore did, or via South Korea's mass testing and contact tracing programme.
> 
> ...


Yep, totally this. The contact tracing programme seems especially important. Will require an army of people to do all the detective work, but guess what, an army of people have just been put out of work.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> this is really scary too (guardian about 1/2 an hour old):
> 
> "The European Union’s industry chief has called on Netflix and other streaming services to take action to reduce congestion on the internet, amid surging demand as millions of people confined to their homes go online.
> Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for industry, told Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings that he and other operators should take responsibility for preventing internet congestion by switching to standard definition rather than high definition."
> ...



the idea of 20K troops arriving in London on the eve off lockdown just  for cross services / civil purposes is a tough one to swallow 









						Thugs smash doors of London Sainsbury's as capital approaches lockdown
					

A gang of thugs smashed a Sainsbury's shop front in south London in a nighttime raid as supermarkets come under huge pressure amid coronavirus fears (pictured, crime scene).




					www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 19, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> its the way the UKs response is so out of step with everywhere else that is so troubling - especially when you look at whos making the decisions - people with a hard on for "creative chaos" and social darwinism.


I don't care about their social darwinism, it's that they're utterly incompetent and the way they're dealing with cv is just as good as the way they've dealt with all the other issues this fuckwitted administration has faced. Like the way Johnson agreed a deal worse than theresa may's with the EU.


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 19, 2020)

Almost wish someone could modify the Bat-Signal to summon Gordon back to Downing Street.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 19, 2020)

Duncan2 said:


> Almost wish someone could modify the Bat-Signal to summon Gordon back to Downing Street.


Commissioner gordon?


----------



## prunus (Mar 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Commissioner gordon?



I’d take Gordon the Gopher even - fucking anyone other than this shower of shite.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 19, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Yep. And I was chatting to someone yesterday who thinks the real apocalypse to be scared of is next winter, when it will have the full winter to run riot, and that there is therefore benefit to more people getting it in the summer. Problem is, this government is so lacking in transparency and competence and empathy that we're left working out what the hell they're trying to do or if they even care.



I don't think that Labour would have been any better.

This is unprecedented, no government in pretty much living memory has had to deal with something like this.

There are a huge number of unknowns, and it is inevitable that as knowledge grows, government advice and action will change. That isn't something to be critical of, what would deserve criticism is not responding to increasing knowledge.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 19, 2020)

have we had any reminders about avoiding socialising? any official social media stuff? a poster? cos i have seen nothing. If they aren't shutting pubs and cafes etc - they could at least give some advice on "safer" socialising - and point out that things like karaoke at not a good idea right now. And are bingo halls still running? Its bizarre. Is it "herd immunity" on the quiet?


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 19, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> I don't think that Labour would have been any better.
> 
> This is unprecedented, no government in pretty much living memory has had to deal with something like this.
> 
> There are a huge number of unknowns, and it is inevitable that as knowledge grows, government advice and action will change. That isn't something to be critical of, what would deserve criticism is not responding to increasing knowledge.



Any previous government would have done the same as all the other european countries have done - testing and wide ranging restrictions and following WHO advice. Thats whats so glaring about the actions of these murderous fucking clowns


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 19, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> One of the top 'liked' comments btl in the Guardian live blog at the moment ('JamesinDerbyshire') states we are not far short of needing martial law and that looters should be shot on sight.
> 
> A reminder.
> 
> ...



See.

*Net government approval rating hits highest level since 2010, poll suggests*






Andrew Sparrow

Voters are more likely to approve of the Boris Johnson and the government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak than disapprove, according to some new polling from Ipsos MORI. Some 49% of people think the government is handling it well, against 35% who think it is handling it badly (a net rating of +14), and Johnson’s rating are 47% v 38% (a net rating of +9).


----------



## bimble (Mar 19, 2020)

cantsin said:


> the idea of 20K troops arriving in London on the eve off lockdown just  for cross services / civil purposes is a tough one to swallow
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Agree with your point but that link in the Dm is about a few blokes trying and failing to nick some booze in elephant. Dont think thats got a lot to do with the bug or the army tbh.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 19, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> have we had any reminders about avoiding socialising? any official social media stuff? a poster? cos i have seen nothing. If they aren't shutting pubs and cafes etc - they could at least give some advice on "safer" socialising - and point out that things like karaoke at not a good idea right now. And are bingo halls still running? Its bizarre. Is it "herd immunity" on the quiet?



Bingo halls and casinos still going. Everyone under the age of about 50 have stopped going and they are all full of older folk who don't want their routines disrupted. At least here anyway. One of my friends is one of the older folk who still insist on going 

Cinemas and some restaurants shutting here though.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 19, 2020)

prunus said:


> I’d take Gordon the Gopher even - fucking anyone other than this shower of shite.



I laughed but in a dark, fuck it all kind of way because your right.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Any previous government would have done the same as all the other european countries have done - testing and wide ranging restrictions and following WHO advice. Thats whats so glaring about the actions of these murderous fucking clowns



No, all the european countries had about the same approach as the UK, up until recently. Which is not surprising, because they still share basically the same pandemic protocols.

This is why most of them are starting to experience their own epidemics. If some of them had taken a very different approach from the start, they might be in a situation more akin to South Korea right now. But no, most countries went down the same old path, ignored the lessons from China and elsewhere.

The containment phase of EU countries was not a genuine attempt at total containment, it was just like the UKs approach. Only once epidemics have started to emerge in their individual countries have they started to abandon the orthodoxy, think the unthinkable and lock things down far more substantially. The main UK difference is that we tried to carry on with the orthodox approach for a bit longer, and we had the weird spectacle of the public burning of the orthodoxy via awkward political and public health communications failures. And then the UK gov decided to stick with some of the language from the orthodox approach, even when a u-turn had clearly happened. So despite the Imperial College report going on about needing to switch to the suppression strategy, we are still going on about pushing down on the curve, which is same language as used in the previous delay/mitigate approach. But in other areas, some of the specifics do suggest we have switched to a suppression strategy, and its down to the detail of measures and timing as to whether we do that properly or not. Issues relating to testing of healthcare workers, and getting everyone on the front lines the PPE they need, are some of the areas where the UK will likely find itself in the spotlight in the coming weeks. A proper switch to a suppression strategy requires test capacity we havent got yet, and the mistakes most countries made during the 'containment' phase means we cannot dodge the first wave of trouble for the healthcare system, no matter what we do now. Any strong lockdown measures taken now will take some weeks to show their effect on hospital burden, and in the meantime we, like other countries in europe, will have to try to cope with the consequences of doomed orthodox thinking in January and February.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 19, 2020)

But when other european countries decided to act - they seeked to have all gone for a decisive tactic of containment - whilst the UK is all over the place. And we had more warning than many countries.


----------



## belboid (Mar 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> ha yeah, the only family colour on Whitty is that his dad was obviously a spook, and involved in stuff heavy enough to get dead for it.


dad was probably wrongly targeted, he'd just bought his car from from an MI6 officer.

Whitty's main problem is that he looks far too like Chris Grayling, and therefore always freaks me out when he comes on TV.


----------



## andysays (Mar 19, 2020)

Johnson reckons "we can turn the tide in 12 weeks. I'm absolutely confident we can send the virus packing in this country"

Glad to hear he has it all under control now...


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> But when other european countries decided to act - they seeked to have all gone for a decisive tactic of containment - whilst the UK is all over the place. And we had more warning than many countries.



Yes I'm not defending our approach, I just feel bound to describe the more universal orthodox thinking that set the scene in all these countries.

And there is information overload in this scenario, we probably arent getting a full sense of the picture in some countries.

For example, the widespread closure of schools in various european countries was an obvious difference in policy (and/or timing) compared to the UK. But France then proceeded with a local election, with Macron going on about how democratic life needed to be preserved.

And Germany, although some of their measures have gone further than the UK already, are still attempting to pull something off that is less than a full lockdown. Some aspects of it do remind me of the UKs approach, although there are already signs that compliance isnt high enough and they will feel the need to go further soon:



			https://www.thelocal.de/20200318/coronavirus-is-germany-heading-towards-a-full-lockdown
		




> Although some places are undoubtedly quieter,  the hustle and bustle continues in many streets, parks and cafes across the country. And it begs the question: is Germany doing enough by trying to reason with people to encourage social distancing?
> 
> Or will the government look at more extreme measures such as forced quarantine or curfew (_Ausgangssperre_) currently being used in nearby countries Italy, France and Spain?



They even have their own version of 'we will do things our way in this country':



> "We must take the appropriate measures for Germany," said Schmidt-Chanasit. "The health system, the structures, the cultural backgrounds are different."
> 
> In contrast, Lars Schaade, Vice President of the RKI, said "anything that puts distance between people is good."


----------



## bimble (Mar 19, 2020)

Watching Johnson now,  "please please please follow the advice" thats it basically.   

oh. Temporary morgues being set up across UK amid rising Covid-19 deaths


----------



## killer b (Mar 19, 2020)

belboid said:


> dad was probably wrongly targeted, he'd just bought his car from from an MI6 officer.


lol right.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

I've not watched todays UK press conference yet but just to finish off my point in regards Germany, here are some things Merkel said yesterday, spot the similarities?









						Merkel calls Coronavirus biggest challenge since WWII – DW – 03/18/2020
					

In an extraordinarily rare nationwide TV address, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on citizens to do their part in helping to overcome the COVID-19 outbreak. Germany is now one of Europe's hardest-hit states.




					www.dw.com
				






> "The situation is serious. Take it seriously. Since German unification, no, since the Second World War, there has been no challenge to our nation that has demanded such a degree of common and united action," she said.





> "I truly believe that we will succeed in the task before us, so long as all the citizens of this country understand that it is also THEIR task," she said. "I also want to tell you why we also need YOUR contribution and what each and every person can do to help."





> Merkel had previously said that up to 70% of Germany's population of roughly 83 million people could eventually be infected.



Anyway I'm aware that this is a UK thread but I did want to point out the similarities, not just the differences. And Germany at this current moment is probably the best example I could find. I'm done with this point now, cheers.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Watching Johnson now,  "please please please follow the advice" thats it basically.



Almost. 

What he said was 'we can beat this in 12 weeks' if 'you all follow the advice'.

Politics for 'when this isn't beaten in 12 weeks, I can blame you lot'.

And for this he has a 49% approval from the public apparently.

Cunt. And cunts.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 19, 2020)

andysays said:


> Johnson reckons "we can turn the tide in 12 weeks. I'm absolutely confident we can send the virus packing in this country"
> 
> Glad to hear he has it all under control now...



I thought the silence from the other two after he said that, while he desperately cast about to get them to take over and save him confirm it, said loads. They looked pretty horrified.

Pretty fucking pointless that, all round -  fuck all of use, just focusing hugely on the potential for the new test. That's obvs great but is not here yet, while there are already immediately pressing problems that need addressing - lack of PPE for NHS staff and job losses etc.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 19, 2020)

Very upbeat, wasn't he?


----------



## belboid (Mar 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> lol right.


he was a British Council bod putting on plays.  He might well, of course, have been a spook as well, but I am pretty sure that, unless you know any other details, Abu Nidal was rather more likely to target an MI6 bugger than him.


----------



## blameless77 (Mar 19, 2020)

This might help people who have been laid off from pubs and restaurants: British supermarkets draft in army of temps to 'feed the nation'


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 19, 2020)

Yeah, my mate who is a copper in London has heard nothing about city wide shut downs or anything like that which was definitely happening according to this site yesterday.  He did mention about the morgues though.


----------



## baldrick (Mar 19, 2020)

So hundreds of thousands of people are in the process of losing their jobs and livelihoods. Surely to god there's a way of a) giving these people a job they desperately need and in the process b) increasing the capacity of the NHS and their suppliers

Is it just me that thinks there might be a solution here if only we had a competent and forward thinking government that acted rapidly?


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 19, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> But when other european countries decided to act - they seeked to have all gone for a decisive tactic of containment - whilst the UK is all over the place. And we had more warning than many countries.


One of the leaders of PD was telling people there was nothing to fear and encouraging them to behave normally, the Spanish government was ok with large marches going ahead, the French had elections in the middle of the outbreak. The39thStep  has outlined what's been happening in Portugal.  I think the decisiveness of other European countries is not really true. If there was any decisiveness it was probably in Central Europe with countries jumping on this opportunity to shut borders.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 19, 2020)

kebabking said:


> It's delusional fuckwits obsessed by their own, imagined - and mistaken - importance.
> 
> Which kind of sums up London tbh....



Yeah, thanks for that.

I’m not bothering to cite examples to prove this is rubbish. But it really really is total bollocks.


----------



## klang (Mar 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> I've not watched todays UK press conference yet but just to finish off my point in regards Germany, here are some things Merkel said yesterday, spot the similarities?


regardless of everything else, Merkel held her speech under the banner of Anarcho-Syndicalism, so there is hope.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 19, 2020)

Where did I read this? 

in 2016 (I think) in London there was a simulated training event, for emergency services, which simulated a virus attack on the UK. There were lessons learnt as a conclusion. One of the key lessons was that Britain did not have nearly enough ventilators. 

But it seems no remedial action was taken. 

And now I hear in their desire for the manufacture of ventilators that JCB and car makers have been mentioned. Would you really turn to a heavy machinery manufacturer or a car producer to produce medical equipment to medical standards? Especially when there are volume ventilator manufacturers in Ireland whose output could be increased by the application of skills and resources. I would start with existing manufacturers, aiming to find ways to increase their output significantly, then also other makers of medical equipment who already have clean room medical manufacturing in place.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 19, 2020)

Was this the lockdown thread? Looks like it's been merged? Can someone confirm? I  think it was worth having a thread specifically on that topic. This is now on several topics simultaneously.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Yeah, I'd imagine that we'll see them doing pretty much what they're doing in Italy, Spain & France


Others places may be culturally used to the sight of troops on the street. Here in the UK we aren't. Londoners aren't spooked cos they think they're special...people are rightly spooked at the prospect of the army being on the streets, even in a support role because it underlines the seriousness of the situation. It is unnerving to many and would be to those from other places in the UK too if they were facing this reality. It draws on many associations and it's absolutely normal to feel uncomfortable and a bit anxious about it.


----------



## Supine (Mar 19, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Where did I read this?
> 
> in 2016 (I think) in London there was a simulated training event, for emergency services, which simulated a virus attack on the UK. There were lessons learnt as a conclusion. One of the key lessons was that Britain did not have nearly enough ventilators.
> 
> ...



You can't get non medical device manufacturerd to make ventilators for a huge number of reasons. Including iso13485 accreditation, design master files, company quality management systems, quality control standards, procedures and personnel and performance validation. It's just desperate measures from an idiotic government that could kill patients easily if not done properly.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 19, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Others places may be culturally used to the sight of troops on the street. Here in the UK we aren't. Londoners aren't spooked cos they think they're special...people are rightly spooked at the prospect of the army being on the streets, even in a support role because it underlines the seriousness of the situation. It is unnerving to many and would be to those from other places in the UK too if they were facing this reality. It draws on many associations and it absolutely normal to feel uncomfortable and a bit anxious about it.


I remember going to Rome in May 2002 and being quite unnerved seeing armed forces at the airport and outside. Especially as they looked like they weren't shaving yet.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 19, 2020)

Possible cure according to researchers at Queensland University. Fingers crossed.









						Researchers set to begin clinical trials on potential coronavirus treatment
					

Queensland researchers are set to begin clinical trials of a potential treatment for COVID-19 – using two existing drugs.




					www.uq.edu.au


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 19, 2020)

we had a meeting earlier and due to the nature of my job, we were told to send in our details , passport number etc so we can get a letter from the govt , to show , to prove we are allowed out and about.

It maybe precautionary but the fact it was even said was a bit mad


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 19, 2020)

belboid said:


> Whitty's main problem is that he looks far too like Chris Grayling, and therefore always freaks me out when he comes on TV.


He always looks like he's smirking a bit - or trying not to laugh (probably at the cunt stood his left).  Quite offputting.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 19, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Where did I read this?
> 
> in 2016 (I think) in London there was a simulated training event, for emergency services, which simulated a virus attack on the UK. There were lessons learnt as a conclusion. One of the key lessons was that Britain did not have nearly enough ventilators.
> 
> ...


I hate to break it to you like this, weltweit, but there just _might_ be someone who's actually involved in the manufacturing industries who might have thought this through already.


----------



## maomao (Mar 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I hate to break it to you like this, weltweit, but there just _might_ be someone who's actually involved in the manufacturing industries who might have thought this through already.


weltweit is in the manufacturing industry as far as I know.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

Supine said:


> You can't get non medical device manufacturerd to make ventilators for a huge number of reasons. Including iso13485 accreditation, design master files, company quality management systems, quality control standards, procedures and personnel and performance validation. It's just desperate measures from an idiotic government that could kill patients easily if not done properly.



I'd rather have a ventilator that does not adhere to the rules of normal times than no ventilator at all.

Corners will be cut during this pandemic, some of which have consequences. But in some areas those consequences will still be much better than doing nothing, or trying to do things in the normal way with the normal rules and timetables.

I have no idea which of these proposals will actually happen, and whether the timing and results will allow them to make a real difference. Possibly. I am not happy that the world and this country did not build this capacity into healthcare systems and manufacturing during normal times, but now that we are in this situation, I will probably end up cheering some efforts that I would otherwise have regarded as terrible.


----------



## Ladystardust (Mar 19, 2020)

the problem is johnson is handing over all responsibility to a man that isn't prime minister. he's hiding behind the experts when what he really should be doing is talking to lots of them and then making a fucking decision as a leader. i feel like this chris witty bloke is the fall guy, it should be johnson and johnson alone.


----------



## maomao (Mar 19, 2020)

What a performance from Boris. I don't understand his continued popularity with Tories. He's hardly a strongman is he. He's an inneffectual and irresponsible prick. The response to the question on price gouging was fucking comical. 'please be nice'. How about using some of your emergency powers to lock the cunts up eh? God knows you'll be flexing your muscles with the over the top sentences when the other side of the same problem pops up in the form of looting. 

Hope the murderous toff cunt dies in pain. Seriously considering fucking this country off and going back to China if things get any worse.


----------



## Supine (Mar 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'd rather have a ventilator that does not adhere to the rules of normal times than no ventilator at all.
> 
> Corners will be cut during this pandemic, some of which have consequences.



As one doctor pointed out a faulty ventilator is more likely to kill a patient than cure them.


----------



## maomao (Mar 19, 2020)

Ladystardust said:


> it should be johnson and johnson alone.


In the stocks facing a barrage of bricks.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

Supine said:


> As one doctor pointed out a faulty ventilator is more likely to kill a patient than cure them.



And no ventilator being available at all will kill many Covid-19 patients.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

Ladystardust said:


> the problem is johnson is handing over all responsibility to a man that isn't prime minister. he's hiding behind the experts when what he really should be doing is talking to lots of them and then making a fucking decision as a leader. i feel like this chris witty bloke is the fall guy, it should be johnson and johnson alone.



God no. The world over uses experts in such roles at such times, and there are reasons public health bodies etc have their own talking heads. Johnson cant do that sort of detail, nor would people take it as authoritative if it comes only from him.

Behind the scenes there are layers of formal scientific advice, eg SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies). Johnsons politics instincts on such matters suck, and his influence on the decision making process can be negative in many ways. But the science people can mess it up too even without Johnson, as we saw a week ago (herd immunity doom narrative from Vallance, and large u-turn over the subsequent 4 days).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 19, 2020)

Ladystardust said:


> the problem is johnson is handing over all responsibility to a man that isn't prime minister. he's hiding behind the experts when what he really should be doing is talking to lots of them and then making a fucking decision as a leader. i feel like this chris witty bloke is the fall guy, it should be johnson and johnson alone.



It's not just him, but also the chief scientific adviser, both working with their opposite numbers in Scotland, Wales & NI - all of which have a whole team of experts advising them.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Was this the lockdown thread? Looks like it's been merged? Can someone confirm? I  think it was worth having a thread specifically on that topic. This is now on several topics simultaneously.



Yes it got merged, there is a thread about tidying up this forum. I think it deserved its own thread. I suggest that when stronger measures are applied to London (or the country as  a whole), someone start a new one on that topic. Because there will be far too much UK-specific news in the weeks ahead to imagine it all going in this one thread.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

Regarding the ventilator manufacture, its also possible to imagine a mixed solution.

eg it could be that some companies just end up making certain very specific parts, and the actual overall design, assembly etc is still left to companies who already have that specialisation. Or it could be that people from such specialist companies are seconded into other sorts of manufacturers to oversee more all-encompassing manufacture of devices by these companies.

Its far from ideal but necessity is the mother of invention and I am far beyond thinking in a mode appropriate to normal times, that orthodox stuff is now a luxury we cant afford.

Not that any of this means I think this stuff will end up being a massively relevant part of how things go - it could be, but depending on timing and scale and practicalities it may still end up a dead end gimmick that goes nowhere.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I hate to break it to you like this, weltweit, but there just _might_ be someone who's actually involved in the manufacturing industries who might have thought this through already.


I do work in manufacturing existentialist and have done for most of the last 30 years, we have been contacted by a number of engineering consultancies hunting for elusive new UK ventilators or components of the same in the last few days. My hope is that government has been wise enough to expend a greater energy in significantly ramping up the production of existing ventilator manufacturers rather than simply splurging on consultants, heavy equipment or car manufacturers whose methods and standards are not suited to ventilator manufacture.


----------



## bimble (Mar 19, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> we had a meeting earlier and due to the nature of my job, we were told to send in our details , passport number etc so we can get a letter from the govt , to show , to prove we are allowed out and about.
> 
> It maybe precautionary but the fact it was even said was a bit mad


Sat here looking at this post, this is such a weird situation emotionally, to feel reassured they are at taking those steps to basically lock everyone apart from you up.


----------



## Athos (Mar 19, 2020)

Supine said:


> As one doctor pointed out a faulty ventilator is more likely to kill a patient than cure them.



But surely 100 ventilators of which, say, 10 are faulty would have a net benefit over zero ventilators?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 19, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I do work in manufacturing existentialist and have done for most of the last 30 years, we have been contacted by a number of engineering consultancies hunting for elusive new UK ventilators or components of the same in the last few days. My hope is that government has been wise enough to expend a greater energy in significantly ramping up the production of existing ventilator manufacturers rather than simply splurging on consultants, heavy equipment or car manufacturers whose methods and standards are not suited to ventilator manufacture.



I hear there’s a ferry company able to do fine work making ventilators these days.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> Regarding the ventilator manufacture, its also possible to imagine a mixed solution.
> 
> eg it could be that some companies just end up making certain very specific parts, and the actual overall design, assembly etc is still left to companies who already have that specialisation. Or it could be that people from such specialist companies are seconded into other sorts of manufacturers to oversee more all-encompassing manufacture of devices by these companies.
> ..


That would be a factor in increasing the output of existing manufacturers, working out where their bottlenecks are and adding resource to those areas whether it be more people or manufacturing capacity either on site or external or more money, what would it take to increase their output by 5 times perhaps would elicit where their restrictions were. 

There is loads of UK electronics subcontract capacity which could be brought to bear, mouldings could be an issue depending on tool construction (single or multiple cavity construction), even if moulding machines were run 24/7 there will be a maximum output, unfortunately making more injection mould tools does take time but given the length of the disruption could still be worth it. Final assembly would likely be a human factor and if the lines are not running 24/7 more staff could be trained to go to three shifts. There are lots of things that could be done ideally where a skills base exists. Starting from scratch is not going to compete with this solution imho.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 19, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I thought the silence from the other two after he said that, while he desperately cast about to get them to take over and save him confirm it, said loads. They looked pretty horrified.



It was like a particularly bad tryout for a regular slot on LBC once he gets heaved out - all meandering waffle and unconvincing time-filling. Partridge would scoff at his amateurism.


----------



## strung out (Mar 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> weltweit is in the manufacturing industry as far as I know.


Don't know about you but I was quite enjoying  watching a counsellor man(ufacture)splain to someone who works in manufacturing.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Sat here looking at this post, this is such a weird situation emotionally, to feel reassured they are at taking those steps to basically lock everyone apart from you up.


Im quite happy being on lock down , not so happy to have a letter saying I dont have to be


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 19, 2020)

Ladystardust said:


> it should be johnson and johnson alone.



Way to let Loreal and Garnier off the hook...


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'd rather have a ventilator that does not adhere to the rules of normal times than no ventilator at all.
> 
> Corners will be cut during this pandemic, some of which have consequences. But in some areas those consequences will still be much better than doing nothing, or trying to do things in the normal way with the normal rules and timetables.


red tape and "experts" ?

These things are pumping up the lungs - what could possibly go wrong ?

I bet that nice mr Dyson has something on the back burner ...

... except he shut down his UK manufacturing ...  oopsie ....


----------



## two sheds (Mar 19, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> red tape and "experts" ?
> 
> These things are pumping up the lungs - what could possibly go wrong ?
> 
> ...



... and he's specialized in sucking rather than blowing you'd get a lungfull of dust


----------



## weltweit (Mar 19, 2020)

I understand in China they used lots of ECMO machines (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) in their intensive care, as far as I know they haven't been mentioned here as being in short supply in the NHS, do any NHS practitioners know more about this?


----------



## xes (Mar 19, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> He always looks like he's smirking a bit - or trying not to laugh (probably at the cunt stood his left).  Quite offputting.


Is he the one who's upset the guy who makes his suits?


----------



## Ladystardust (Mar 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's not just him, but also the chief scientific adviser, both working with their opposite numbers in Scotland, Wales & NI - all of which have a whole team of experts advising them.


yeah i get what you mean, but it's the, "over to you shit" "nothing to do with me" "these are the experts, I'm just that funny bloke on have i got news for you", i basically just hate boris johnson. i suppose that's it. jesus.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 19, 2020)

Well personally I'm glad to hear freedom of movement will still continue in London for a little longer, though i'm under no illusion it will last, not least because BJ is a professional liar. Particularly good for tradespeople I think. Once it stops thats income over for them too.
Looks like the next step is closing "pubs, restaurants, shops and gyms ". This weekend? London only?
If people have nowhere to go other than the chemist and superbogrollmarket I dont really see a need to stop freedom of movement


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> red tape and "experts" ?
> 
> These things are pumping up the lungs - what could possibly go wrong ?



But I'm not comparing it to what we should have or how things should be done. I'm talking about it in the context of thousands of people needing intensive care, and of capacity being overloaded many times over. Its a desperation move for sure.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I understand in China they used lots of ECMO machines (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) in their intensive care, as far as I know they haven't been mentioned here as being in short supply in the NHS, do any NHS practitioners know more about this?



They are a tiny resource in the UK.









						Coronavirus: England only has 15 beds for worst respiratory cases
					

NHS says system will struggle if more than 28 patients need artificial lung treatment




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## iona (Mar 19, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I understand in China they used lots of ECMO machines (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) in their intensive care, as far as I know they haven't been mentioned here as being in short supply in the NHS, do any NHS practitioners know more about this?


There's something like 20 in the whole country.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Well personally I'm glad to hear freedom of movement will still continue in London for a little longer, though i'm under no illusion it will last, not least because BJ is a professional liar. Particularly good for tradespeople I think. Once it stops thats income over for them too.
> Looks like the next step is closing "pubs, restaurants, shops and gyms ". This weekend? London only?
> If people have nowhere to go other than the chemist and superbogrollmarket I dont really see a need to stop freedom of movement


Really not sure if lockdown's coming now, Johnson used a ton of political capital denying it, and a second policy u-turn in so many days would be disastrous for him. Even if he thought his administration could take the hit, may well have decided they lack the resources to enforce it.

If they're not gonna lockdown, they've gotta shutter pubs, coffee shops and restaurants (many are shutting down themselves but far from all), close the tube to general use, and institute a mass testing, tracing and quarantine programme.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 19, 2020)

Blimey - sort of dialysis ...


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> They are a tiny resource in the UK.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Remember a report on these in 2009, around the same numbers were mentioned. Incredible, given what they knew was coming.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> They are a tiny resource in the UK.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





iona said:


> There's something like 20 in the whole country.


20 does not seem like many.
I wonder if I can find the article about how many the Chinese had.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 19, 2020)

Work has agreed to pay anyone who has to isolate themselves in full for their contracted hours, and they've sent home anyone 70 or above for a period of three months, also on full pay. Probs the only thing they've ever done that I approve of


----------



## xes (Mar 19, 2020)

Just gathered up some Mensa puzzles for a work college, she wants her kids to be unboredificated but learning.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 19, 2020)

Incidentally I just heard on the news that lots of UK companies have come forward to make ventilators including F1 .. I assume a team or two. So that seems good. No mention of boosting existing producers, what do I know  - I did earlier see some enterprising people print a solenoid valve for use in a ventilator and I also saw the beginnings of an initiative to repair faulty ventilators in numbers rather than junking them when they are faulty.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 19, 2020)

xes said:


> Just gathered up some Mensa puzzles for a work college, she wants her kids to be unboredificated but learning.



Colleges are good for that


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 19, 2020)

I swear I once did enough of those Mensa-type exercises to score a high IQ , but the other day I had a go and lost the will to live after half a dozen ...


----------



## xes (Mar 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Really not sure if lockdown's coming now, Johnson used a ton of political capital denying it, and a second policy u-turn in so many days would be disastrous for him. Even if he thought his administration could take the hit, may well have decided they lack the resources to enforce it.
> 
> If they're not gonna lockdown, they've gotta shutter pubs, coffee shops and restaurants (many are shutting down themselves but far from all), close the tube to general use, and institute a mass testing, tracing and quarantine programme.


I give it a week 2 max before this is all out of hand and he's got no choice.


----------



## xes (Mar 19, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Colleges are good for that


now you see why I'm giving them away. Little wooden bastards sitting there, mocking me.


----------



## klang (Mar 19, 2020)

weltweit said:


> UK companies have come forward to make ventilators including F1


they gonna be well fast


----------



## Azrael (Mar 19, 2020)

xes said:


> I give it a week 2 max before this is all out of hand and he's got no choice.


Him, or his successor ...


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 19, 2020)

Does every county make its own ventilators ?
Since EU connections haven't been mentioned, I'm guessing they do - or no  one trusted the UK to make parts for theirs ...


----------



## xes (Mar 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Him, or his successor ...


just...everything.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 19, 2020)

Sorry, but imo it's gotta be a lockdown, and now. A lot of people will be prepared already. We've been expecting it.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 19, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Does every county make its own ventilators ?
> Since EU connections haven't been mentioned, I'm guessing they do - or no  one trusted the UK to make parts for theirs ...


It is a good question, I believe there is/are UK manufacturers and larger ones in Ireland. I have also seen that there are German manufacturers and my bet would be that there are also components made here.


----------



## xes (Mar 19, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Does every county make its own ventilators ?
> Since EU connections haven't been mentioned, I'm guessing they do - or no  one trusted the UK to make parts for theirs ...


 On a related note... Anyone know what companies are making this equipment and are they needing workers? I'd happily switch jobs to make things that are needed.


----------



## Cid (Mar 19, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Incidentally I just heard on the news that lots of UK companies have come forward to make ventilators including F1 .. I assume a team or two. So that seems good. No mention of boosting existing producers, what do I know  - I did earlier see some enterprising people print a solenoid valve for use in a ventilator and I also saw the beginnings of an initiative to repair faulty ventilators in numbers rather than junking them when they are faulty.



I suppose the way they might be looking at it is either using production line capacities of other companies in final assembly, or using them to manufacture specialist components that aren't readily available but could potentially be made using rapid-prototyping stuff that wouldn't really be viable in normal manufacturing chains, but might be on this basis. F1 teams are likely to have a range of very sophisticated machinery on that level, and ridiculously over-qualified engineers. And, of course, they're all on down-time with races cancelled.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Sorry, but imo it's gotta be a lockdown, and now. A lot of people will be prepared already. We've been expecting it.


I am conflicted. I see the need, sure. I also feel that so many people are now working at home or isolating the risk in terms of numbers on the street are, even here in London, like everyday is new years day or something. Commuter trains empty, buses through out the day empty, the streets too. Density only around shops, people queuing or buying etc.

...and whilst i'm well I still need to go to work because even though I am not a medical health worker, I am doing front line stuff which has meant my referrals have rocketed over the last week.  So many people aren't prepared, especially those who work and are still working because they are responding to the increased need and haven't been able to.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 19, 2020)

weltweit said:


> 20 does not seem like many.
> I wonder if I can find the article about how many the Chinese had.


There is an article here: ECMO, mobile CT play big role in treating COVID-19 patients: official - Xinhua | English.news.cn

which says that 





> China has sent 67 ECMO machines to Hubei, said Luo Junjie, an official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, adding that the ministry will import more ECMO machines for Hubei and Wuhan, the capital city of the province.


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2020)

There's an interesting post in the Hamlet forum about the likelihood of pubs/businesses successfully getting insurance cover for lost revenue from the virus. 'Very unlikely' seems to be the opinion. 









						Dulwich Hamlet and Coronavirus
					

Looks like Dulwich Hamlet have made the decision before (inevitably) The National League does. https://www.pitchero.com/clubs/dulwichhamlet/news/covid19-statement--16th-march-2020-2522327.html




					www.urban75.net


----------



## treelover (Mar 19, 2020)

> *Sheffield now has 36 confirmed coronavirus cases, which is the most outside London and the south*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 19, 2020)

Cid said:


> I suppose the way they might be looking at it is either using production line capacities of other companies in final assembly, or using them to manufacture specialist components that aren't readily available but could potentially be made using rapid-prototyping stuff that wouldn't really be viable in normal manufacturing chains, but might be on this basis. F1 teams are likely to have a range of very sophisticated machinery on that level, and ridiculously over-qualified engineers. And, of course, they're all on down-time with races cancelled.


I was amazed recently to see video of this 80-something year old toolmaker in Japan working from a small workshop making metal components to incredible precision - Samurai sword-style - but still deemed a viable option in their advanced manufacturing industry in the 21st century ...


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 19, 2020)

xes said:


> I give it a week 2 max before this is all out of hand and he's got no choice.



What did the u-turn on schools take? Four days?


----------



## editor (Mar 19, 2020)

This is disgusting 









> A hotel worker said he will have to sleep in a tent after he was sacked this afternoon, alongside a number of other employees who were staying in staff accommodation.
> 
> Spanish national Alvaro Garcia said he had been working at the Coylumbridge Aviemore Hotel for the past two years, but was this afternoon handed a letter telling him his “services are no longer required”, and to “vacate the hotel accommodations immediately”.
> 
> ...











						Sacked staff left homeless after north hotel orders them to ‘vacate immediately’
					

A hotel worker said he will have to sleep in a tent after he was sacked this afternoon, alongside a number of other employees who were staying in staff




					www.pressandjournal.co.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 19, 2020)

Jesus wept - and incredibly naive - given the power of Internet reviews.....

And it has begun already ...






						Google Travel
					






					www.google.com


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 19, 2020)

That wasn't meant to be a like btw


----------



## xes (Mar 19, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> What did the u-turn on schools take? Four days?


Prexactly. 

This is such a fluid situation, changing by the hour. I want to pack in work, it's about as non essential as you can get. (been ready to quit for a few weeks)  This could have been handled differently. We should all be in lockdown for a month. Starting 3 weeks ago. Fuck the economy, freeze it or something. Just press pause. It'll be fine. Food deliveries gratis from the gov. And streamed lynchings of people hoarding stuff the NHS need.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 19, 2020)

editor said:


> There's an interesting post in the Hamlet forum about the likelihood of pubs/businesses successfully getting insurance cover for lost revenue from the virus. 'Very unlikely' seems to be the opinion.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I pointed this out days ago, if businesses haven't pay out extra for 'pandemic cover', they can't expect insurance companies to pay out.

You wouldn't expect your car insurance to pay out if you haven't taken out house insurance, and your house burnt down.


----------



## weepiper (Mar 19, 2020)

ruffneck23 can I ask where you are?


----------



## kenny g (Mar 19, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Does every county make its own ventilators ?
> Since EU connections haven't been mentioned, I'm guessing they do - or no  one trusted the UK to make parts for theirs ...


Well I don't think Essex make their own but plenty who live here ventilate.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I pointed this out days ago, if businesses haven't pay out extra for 'pandemic cover', they can't expect insurance companies to pay out.
> 
> You wouldn't expect your car insurance to pay out if you haven't taken out house insurance, and your house burnt down.


However, if you take out compulsory closure-by-notifiable-disease insurance, you might be peeved should said insurer later refuse to pay out when you are forced to close your business because of a notifiable disease.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 19, 2020)

posted elsewhere - spells out clearly and in depth why the "mitigation" strategy is fatally flawed - and will kill huge numbers.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

Kaka Tim

Maybe the single most important article I've read on this, that must be got to journalists ASAP and put to the CMO. It's very accessible and even has a memorable tag in "hammer and the dance".

If people believe that a lockdown could be over in weeks (no guarantees, but at least a realistic possibility), support would be much stronger.

When this is finally over, two burning questions: how did the modellers overlook the ability of testing, tracing and quarantine to offer an alternative to a lockdown of over a year; and how in the hell could any medical doctor sign off on the avoidable deaths of hundreds of thousands?


----------



## treelover (Mar 20, 2020)

Trying to track down the video just shown on BBC Newscast by a critical care nurse, Clair who has just done 48 hrs in clinic, goes to the s/market and can't get anything, she doesn't hold back, righthly excoriates the hoarders, looters really,  harrowing and needs sharing.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 20, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> They'll close...many parents will be in an impossible situation. The concept of it working isn't in the equation...


I don’t know how long this lockdown will last for but I’m looking at my son not being able to play with another child now for how long? I’m also potentially not going to get to work but it’s that side of it, the thought of him being isolated like this, that’s made me realise it’s really not going to worth it. This could fuck so many kids up, yet I’ve no way to protect him from this. I didn’t give my consent to this. And as conscious as I am of infection control etc- I can’t square this in my head as being ok.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 20, 2020)

Mental health patients don’t give their consent to the things we do to mitigate risk either. Now we are all going to get a taste of that. Great.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 20, 2020)

treelover said:


> Trying to track down the video just shown on BBC Newscast by a critical care nurse, Clair who has just done 48 hrs in clinic, goes to the s/market and can't get anything, she doesn't hold back, righthly excoriates the hoarders, looters really,  harrowing and needs sharing.


Dawn Bilbrough was on news at 10 tonight at 20 mins 18 seconds in








						BBC News - BBC News at Ten - Available now
					

Available episodes of BBC News at Ten




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## treelover (Mar 20, 2020)

Tx, will copy using mirilis action, edit and share.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 20, 2020)

The government is appealing for farm workers. 

Coronavirus: Urgent appeal for Brits to work on farms



> Some 70,000 seasonal workers are usually required annually on British farms – with many coming from overseas. But travel restrictions and tighter border controls are having a significant effect on the number of people able to travel to the UK.
> 
> With the soft fruit harvest due to get fully under way next month, labour provider Hops Labour Solutions said seasonal workers were urgently needed to help pick and process fruit and vegetables on farms and in packhouses.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 20, 2020)

I'm a lifelong cynic and a supermarket worker and I loudly predicted to an annoying degree to everyone who works with me what we have seen in retail over the past two weeks - two or three highly publicised neccessities (bog roll, pasta, handgel) selling out, then survival items that most people don't usually buy (UHT and then soya milk, dried rice, multipacks of soap) and eventually, when people realised these items are unavailable, literally everything else. I finished work on Tuesday for a much-needed four-day break and, for my final hour, being sick of customers, assigned myself to cardboarding the aisle that used to stock big bags, clingfilm and tinfoil - all stripped clean, because you never know if you'll be called upon to cater for an impromptu buffet in the middle of the apocalypse  Most people's fridges are now full so the fresh fruit and veg, ready meals etc should reappear in the next couple of days, the toilet/kitchen rolls a few days later (as surely we all have enough now) and then this nonsense should be over.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 20, 2020)

Can I take your word on that and when as we realise we have little in!


----------



## bimble (Mar 20, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> posted elsewhere - spells out clearly and in depth why the "mitigation" strategy is fatally flawed - and will kill huge numbers.


This is probably the best thing I've seen yet to send to people (like my whole family  )who are still not getting it. Thanks for posting.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> However, if you take out compulsory closure-by-notifiable-disease insurance, you might be peeved should said insurer later refuse to pay out when you are forced to close your business because of a notifiable disease.



Very few, if any, businesses will have cover for this situation, even closure because of disease cover is normally designed/written to cover an outbreak on the premises that results in a forced closure. Policies are legal contracts, so if it's covered, it will be paid out, because there'll be very few claims.

The reason why cover is not largely available or taken out for these circumstances is probably due (a) no one ever thinking it was a possibility, or (b) they did, but realised if it was wildly available & taken up, and it actually happened, it would collapse the insurance industry, meaning claims wouldn't be paid out without the government stepping in anyway.

This is far too big for the industry to cover, only the government can cover this situation.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 20, 2020)

The policy is actively sold to businesses in the said sector, where compulsory-closure-by-notifiable-disease _on the premises_ is an ever-present threat, by an insurer positioning itself as the specialist insurer for that sector, as an appropriate remedy against compulsory-closure-by-notifiable-disease on the premises. No additional cover options or add-ons are offered - it is not _sold_ as ‘for some but not all notifiable diseases’.

A disparity between the expectations derived from what a customer is told they are covered for, and what marketing and promotional materials, and shorter policy statements, say they are buying, and what a final, long-form contract _might_ (or might not) say, might, a reasonable person could say, amount to mis-selling. Especially if, as in this instance, it was not limited to one business, or two businesses, or ten businesses, but extended to an entire sector.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 20, 2020)

Key worker list summarised here:









						Key worker: official list of UK personnel who can still send children to school
					

Those working to provide essential goods and services are exempt from general closure of schools




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## andysays (Mar 20, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Key worker list summarised here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No mention of council grounds maintenance workers there, so I guess I won't be expected to go to work from next week (currently on a week's leave, booked before all this got serious)


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 20, 2020)

andysays said:


> No mention of council grounds maintenance workers there, so I guess I won't be expected to go to work from next week (currently on a week's leave, booked before all this got serious)


Redeployment will likely be a possibility for many working at local authorities, one would imagine.


----------



## andysays (Mar 20, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Redeployment will likely be a possibility for many working at local authorities, one would imagine.


That's what I'm imagining too, TBH. 

Planning to give one of my colleagues a call this afternoon to see if anything has been announced yet.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 20, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Redeployment will likely be a possibility for many working at local authorities, one would imagine.



They've already cancelled recycling collections here in anticipation of people not being able to work.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> A disparity between the expectations derived from what a customer is told they are covered for, and what marketing and promotional materials, and shorter policy statements, say they are buying, and what a final, long-form contract _might_ (or might not) say, might, a reasonable person could say, amount to mis-selling. Especially if, as in this instance, it was not limited to one business, or two businesses, or ten businesses, but extended to an entire sector.



Which is why it's always worth finding a good insurance broker who will review your requirements and explain the options of cover available.


----------



## bimble (Mar 20, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> They've already cancelled recycling collections here in anticipation of people not being able to work.


Been wondering about that. Are you in uk? Could get grim really fast as it warms up with lots of people (incl me) already on one bin collection every 2 weeks.


----------



## prunus (Mar 20, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Key worker list summarised here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You’re better off with the official publication, it’s more detailed and comprehensive. The guardian has been as bit slipshod there, especially in the companion article which says children where just one parent is a key worker should go to school, which is completely opposite to the actual situation.

Guidance for schools, colleges and local authorities on maintaining educational provision


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 20, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Does every county make its own ventilators ?
> Since EU connections haven't been mentioned, I'm guessing they do - or no  one trusted the UK to make parts for theirs ...


Not really, there are a few big manufacturers. Siemens kit is the dog's bollocks.


----------



## bimble (Mar 20, 2020)

Quite interesting - reponses to a survey on whether or not people think london should now be 'locked down'.Majority of the people they asked say yes. You can click to see differences in views for different demographics.








						Daily Question  | 19/03/2020  |  YouGov
					

At this time, would you support or oppose London being placed under a "lockdown" where people are not allowed to leave their homes except to go to work or get essential supplies?




					yougov.co.uk


----------



## hash tag (Mar 20, 2020)

Thats all very well but describe lock down. Transport being stopped (not possible), pubs, clubs, theatres, museums being closed, if not an "essential" worker, stay home, no going out.......


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 20, 2020)

Anecdotes on twitter that lots of people are leaving London to go to parents' or their country homes, merrily spreading the virus as they go. It's another fuck-up that the government hasn't even discouraged people from doing it, let alone done anything to stop them.


----------



## bimble (Mar 20, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Thats all very well but describe lock down. Transport being stopped (not possible), pubs, clubs, theatres, museums being closed, if not an "essential" worker, stay home, no going out.......


The same thing as is going in France Spain Italy Switzerland California etc, is how i imagine it. Don't think Johnson will have the guts to do it until he can blame someone else for forcing him to, Khan maybe.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 20, 2020)

Now that the shops have been stripped of food, a situation that could be seen coming at least a month ago yet was beyond the scope of the government to control. I'm wondering why there's no noise about commandeering all the facilities  within the private health industry.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> posted elsewhere - spells out clearly and in depth why the "mitigation" strategy is fatally flawed - and will kill huge numbers.



I find his musings about the poorer countries a little surprising.  Perhaps he is being polite or doesn't want to come across as judgmental or anything.  It is pretty obvious why those countries have very low rates of infection and its because no one is testing or recording the deaths.  Leaders have either stuck their heads in the sand or taken the cold (callous?) decision that they neither have the healthcare system or funds to do anything about it so they will just ride it out.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Now that the shops have been stripped of food, a situation that could be seen coming at least a month ago yet was beyond the scope of the government to control. I'm wondering why there's no noise about commandeering all the facilities  within the private health industry.



I beginning to think the supermarkets are hot beds of infection.  With so little food available people who are able to are making daily trips.  Government should have fixed this a long time ago, its scarcely believable that they've still taken no action.  Still, must shut down those village pubs with 2 people in them.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> I'm wondering why there's no noise about commandeering all the facilities  within the private health industry.



They are already planning to take over the 8,000 beds in private hospitals, at around the same cost per bed per night as NHS ones.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I beginning to think the supermarkets are hot beds of infection.  With so little food available people who are able to are making daily trips.  Government should have fixed this a long time ago, its scarcely believable that they've still taken no action.  Still, must shut down those village pubs with 2 people in them.


The close proximity of people, long queues,  the picking up and putting down of items in my local Morrison’s y/day, like everywhere no doubt, was rather worrying.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 20, 2020)

The list of stupid shit that is still open today includes the Buckingham Palace gift shop


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 20, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> The list of stupid shit that is still open today includes the Buckingham Palace gift shop


Never shy of an easy profit.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 20, 2020)

three big holiday parks down this way refusing to close, making discounted offers for 3 day 'breaks ' and bigging up Easter in 3 weeks time - exodus from Milan 2 weeks ago, pre lockdown, and the impact it has had since,  matters not a f*ck to these profiteering shitehawks


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I find his musings about the poorer countries a little surprising.  Perhaps he is being polite or doesn't want to come across as judgmental or anything.  It is pretty obvious why those countries have very low rates of infection and its because no one is testing or recording the deaths.  Leaders have either stuck their heads in the sand or taken the cold (callous?) decision that they neither have the healthcare system or funds to do anything about it so they will just ride it out.



Its a very interesting article with plenty of useful stuff in it, but I still have a few reservations. He talks about the '2 strains' stuff as if it is a simple fact, when its actually from a research paper that many people who work in that field were not at all impressed by. The media loved it because they love anything to do with mutations and different strains, even if the underlying reality is often so much more mundane. Many mutations are irrelevant to the factors we care about with viruses.


----------



## editor (Mar 20, 2020)

Foxtons at their finest 



> Estate agent Foxtons told a tenant with coronavirus symptoms who was self-isolating to leave their home so potential buyers could view the property.
> 
> Despite NHS guidance that anyone who may be infected should stay at home, Foxtons told the tenant that potentially having the virus was not acceptable grounds to restrict access to their home for viewings.
> 
> ...











						Estate agent told suspected coronavirus sufferer to leave their home so buyers could view it
					

‘If you have coronavirus or have symptoms it cannot and indeed should not impact your landlord’s plans,’ estate agent tells tenant




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Sue (Mar 20, 2020)

Foxtons being fuckers. There's a surprise. FFS.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 20, 2020)

treelover said:


> Tx, will copy using mirilis action, edit and share.


also now here on it's own, easier to share if you haven't managed to capture it already


----------



## little_legs (Mar 20, 2020)

Well, this is shit









						Exclusive: London hospital trust becomes first to admit it is turning away coronavirus patients
					

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust has said it has transferred Covid-19 patients to neighbouring hospitals as demand for treatment surges




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				





> Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust said it has transferred Covid-19 patients to neighbouring hospitals, as demand for lifesaving treatment surges.
> 
> A senior clinician at the trust revealed that at one stage on Tuesday only one patient had been admitted to intensive care out of an eligible group of five, although the trust insists all who have required ventilation have so far received it.
> 
> ...


----------



## oryx (Mar 20, 2020)

Thanks for that little legs. Was just about to post same, as I'd it heard from reliable sources (it's my local hospital).

Very concerning - beds were well over recommended capacity before this started.


----------



## BCBlues (Mar 20, 2020)

We've had an Aunt die in Devon, 92 yrs old, remarkably not Covid19 related as there were 4 active cases in the Hospital she was in. Anyhow, my Sister down there has the pressure of trying to arrange a (Catholic) funeral down there under this terrible climate. We're searching for info at the mo, I came across this...



			| National Association of Funeral Directors
		


...and she has been told the Death Cert will take up to 10 days to arrive.

I've looked at the Emergency Act that went up yesterday, grim reading at times.
Anyone else going through this or seen any relevant info?

What a horrible year.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 20, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> We've had an Aunt die in Devon, 92 yrs old, remarkably not Covid19 related as there were 4 active cases in the Hospital she was in. Anyhow, my Sister down there has the pressure of trying to arrange a (Catholic) funeral down there under this terrible climate. We're searching for info at the mo, I came across this...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sorry to hear about your Aunt.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

I've now moved from frustrated about the total lack of testing being done in this country to furious about it.  Its like they've made the decision that testing everyone will be impossible so we won't really bother with anyone.

I don't want to go into it too much but I'm pretty sure I've got it now.  I live in London and have recently come back from SE Asia.  I have a tick box exercise in the symptoms and I'm not someone who gets ill much, indeed I have never had flu in my adult life and any cold I get is minor.  I live with my g/f who is now showing symptoms.

Thing is in a week or so we will be through this.  A time which would coincide with her father having a operation to remove a cancerous lump on his bladder.  He has been told he will need to be housebound for 12 weeks after the operation. Her mother doesn't have the tool kit to deal with a situation like this and doesn't really understand the concept of isolation.  If we knew that we had both had the virus we would go and help, but no.  You can get tested as easily as buying a big mac in some countries but in this country we're effectively banned from them.

We'll now have to sit at home and twiddle our thumbs from afar and hope he survives.  Fucking wankers for throwing their hands and just saying 'it can't be done' with something so important as testing.


----------



## maomao (Mar 20, 2020)

There's fucking kids everywhere. They've built some sort of shopping trolley sculpture in Sainsbury car park. I predict a permanent structure by May.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

Social distancing may be needed for ‘most of year’
					

The government's scientific advisers say this will help to limit the spread of coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## bimble (Mar 20, 2020)

Guardian on London:

"The government was today actively discussing a new clampdown on London with pubs, cinemas and gyms possibly being ordered to close to stop the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
An announcement could be made within hours, after crisis planners became increasingly concerned that too many people were continuing to ignore social distancing advice, making the spread of the virus more likely.
The British capital is the target of tougher measures because it has the highest rate of infection and deaths so far. Debate within government is continuing about whether non-essential shops - that is those not selling food or medical supplies - would be included in the ban.
*The government had been considering a formal ban on Thursday and was braced to announce it - but pulled back. Among senior government figures there is a deep reluctance to issue banning orders.*
Officials believe they would have the power to order bans even without special emergency laws to address the pandemic.
Crisis planners and government advisers have been looking at a range of data, such as transport usage in the capital and hospital admissions, to assess if the pleas made on Monday for people to stay home were being heeded.
Continuing anecdotal evidence of people, especially younger Londoners, continuing to go to pubs despite repeated pleas has led to the government believing it may have no choice but to issue the ban..'


----------



## editor (Mar 20, 2020)

Much more like it 








						TfL giving small businesses three months free rent due to Coronavirus - ianVisits
					

As people are avoiding (in theory) travel and shops, TfL has announced that it will scrap rent on small shops that have space in its stations and railway arches for three months.Read more ›



					www.ianvisits.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Guardian on London:
> 
> "The government was today actively discussing a new clampdown on London with pubs, cinemas and gyms possibly being ordered to close to stop the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
> An announcement could be made within hours, after crisis planners became increasingly concerned that too many people were continuing to ignore social distancing advice, making the spread of the virus more likely.
> ...



If they resist such things today, and let a 'normal' weekend happen, then they should be held to account for their negligence.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

Cornwall doesnt want people going on holiday there:

 25m ago 13:38 



> It is important that everyone follows the advice laid out by the government to slow and stop the spread of this virus and do everything we can to support our essential public services, especially our NHS.
> 
> That includes avoiding non-essential travel.By anyone’s assessment a holiday at this time is not essential. So therefore, regrettably we are asking people not to come on holiday to Cornwall at this time.
> 
> We need to stop the spread of this virus and also need to protect our NHS and keep our supermarket shelves stocked. An influx of thousands of tourists in the coming weeks will put unnecessary pressure on our services.



Probably similar to the reason why Norway asked its people to come home from their countryside cabins - the health services in those locations wont cope.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Guardian on London:
> 
> "The government was today actively discussing a new clampdown on London with pubs, cinemas and gyms possibly being ordered to close to stop the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
> An announcement could be made within hours, after crisis planners became increasingly concerned that too many people were continuing to ignore social distancing advice, making the spread of the virus more likely.
> ...



But carry on crowding into virus riddled supermarkets on a daily basis because we can't be arsed to fix the food and essential supply problem.

Fantastic work.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Cornwall doesnt want people going on holiday there:
> 
> 25m ago 13:38
> 
> ...



the housemates are saying that “the posh mob” are starting to rock up in north cornwall. A combination of london Virus numbers rising and schools out. People seem to want to isolate in their holiday home......

Cornwall was doing well numbers wise let’s see how it is effected by an exodus to the seaside

cornwall NHS is ducked, I spent 5 weeks door knocking pre election with the former Cornwall Health chief who painted a grim picture even before corona virus raised its head


----------



## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

I believe it is permitted to walk a dog but not take unnecessary journeys. 

I wouldn't mind some fresh air and I believe I know a dog that I could borrow ..


----------



## Ivana (Mar 20, 2020)

Hey guys, we have a place - accommodation in Cambridge, UK. 

There's a dispute and there are a lot of rooms becoming available. 

Managing agents disappear without deposits as well. 

Regarding the situation with the Coronavirus and since the public transport in UK is very restricted, if you are stuck in Cambridge and don’t have a place to stay at the moment do contact us, we can accommodate up to 15 squatters for free. 

Please spread the word, let's help somebody... 🙏


----------



## klang (Mar 20, 2020)

Ivana said:


> Hey guys, we have a place - accommodation in Cambridge, UK.
> 
> There's a dispute and there are a lot of rooms becoming available.
> 
> ...


are you sure it's the right time to ask 15 strangers to move in with you?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

Isle of Mann has its first confirmed case, plus one bloke arrested for failing to self-isolate as the local government imposes strict rules, including up to three months in jail and a penalty fine of up to £10,000.

Easy too to on such a small island.









						Coronavirus: Man arrested on Isle of Man for failing to self-isolate
					

A 26-year-old man has been arrested on the Isle of Man for failing to self-isolate as the local govenrment imposes strict rules. The Manx government has




					www.cityam.com


----------



## klang (Mar 20, 2020)

Ivana said:


> Please spread the _virus_, let's help somebody... 🙏


ffy


----------



## RTWL (Mar 20, 2020)

littleseb said:


> are you sure it's the right time to ask 15 strangers to move in with you?



Well if they have no where else to go then I think the idea of giving them somewhere other than the streets ATM is a pretty amazing thing to do.


----------



## klang (Mar 20, 2020)

RTWL said:


> Well if they have no where else to go then I think the idea of giving them somewhere other than the streets ATM is a pretty amazing thing to do.


could be but could also be exactly the wrong thing to do. has the rest of the squat been in isolation for the last two weeks to make sure they are not carriers before asking strangers in?


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> But carry on crowding into virus riddled supermarkets on a daily basis because we can't be arsed to fix the food and essential supply problem.
> 
> Fantastic work.



Unfortunately, behaving in a responsible manner towards the rest of the community by not hoovering up available supplies necessitates fairly frequent visits to the supermarket. We are going every second day and only buying what we will eat in the subsequent two days.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 20, 2020)

One of my mates has just sent a message suggesting I should try and catch this now, whilst there are still beds and ventilators available. My response is not printable.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Unfortunately, behaving in a responsible manner towards the rest of the community by not hoovering up available supplies necessitates fairly frequent visits to the supermarket. We are going every second day and only buying what we will eat in the subsequent two days.



Sure, I'm not blaming people just that fixing the problem with the supermarkets is to my mind a far bigger priority than the sparsely attended pubs and cafes.  Yet for some reason the government doesn't see to give much of a shit about it.


----------



## RTWL (Mar 20, 2020)

littleseb said:


> could be but could also be exactly the wrong thing to do. has the rest of the squat been in isolation for the last two weeks to make sure they are not carriers before asking strangers in?



I am guessing that if they can squat and secure a building with multiple living spaces and negotiate it's use with the authorities, they are not stupid and are fully up on the latest covid19 avoidance and isolation protocol.


----------



## klang (Mar 20, 2020)

RTWL said:


> I am guessing that if they can squat and secure a building with multiple living spaces and negotiate it's use with the authorities, they are not stupid and are fully up on the latest covid19 avoidance and isolation protocol.


Ok, I don't know them so can't comment. The message is out so good on them and best of luck


----------



## RTWL (Mar 20, 2020)

. that is a completely understandable concern . And I was a little too quick to assume they are competent tbh.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> One of my mates has just sent a message suggesting I should try and catch this now, whilst there are still beds and ventilators available. My response is not printable.



Any idea that is guaranteed to backfire horribly if everyone has it at the same time is probably a bad idea.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

So a bunch of todays news stories are based on SAGE documents the government has now made public.

I havent had a chance to read any of them yet, but here they are:






						Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies
					

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) provides scientific and technical advice to support government decision makers during emergencies.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

From the document in that collection that deals with public disorder:



> Where public disorder occurs, it is usually triggered by perceptions about the Government’s response, rather than the nature of the epidemic per se. For example, a perception that the Government response strategies are not effective in looking after the public may lead to an increase in tensions.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/873736/08-spi-b-return-on-risk-of-public-disorder.pdf


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Sure, I'm not blaming people just that fixing the problem with the supermarkets is to my mind a far bigger priority than the sparsely attended pubs and cafes.  Yet for some reason the government doesn't see to give much of a shit about it.



Closing pubs, clubs, etc. is easy, dealing with fuckwits stripping shelves in supermarkets is not so easy.

Beyond sending troops in, what would you suggest as a solution?


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Beyond sending troops in, what would you suggest as a solution?



Exactly this.  Why not use the resources at our disposal? This is supposed to be a national emergency of a level none of us have faced in our lifetime.  I'd rather have a cop or a couple of soldiers enforcing a reasonable regime rather than expecting the poor low paid person on the till.

Closing pubs and cafes is going to be irrelevant if we all still have to traipse to the shops regularly to scavenge in crowded places.  The food supply chain has effectively collapsed in a lot of places, under these circumstances it doesn't seem unreasonable to use the resources that are available.  I'd rather they give that a go before we all have to go into complete lockdown and they instead use police and troops to enforce that.

There are other ways.  Some sort of formal approach to who can shop on which days to spread the crowds out.  They could attempt to ration to some description.  Johnson should at least try instead of washing is hands and drunkenly mumbling something about being nice to each other.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 20, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Any idea that is guaranteed to backfire horribly if everyone has it at the same time is probably a bad idea.



Apart from the fact that if I get this, ventilated or not, I will probably die. Age and lack of lung capacity are against me.

On the upside though, ex nurse, ex soldier, well versed in keeping yourself safe from contamination. Hand gel after touching anything that anyone else has touched,and keeping away from people.


----------



## editor (Mar 20, 2020)

Telling people not to go to cafes and pubs seems a bit pointless when this is how the tube looked this morning.



_[Pic by Victoria Sandham‎ ]_


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Exactly this.  Why not use the resources at our disposal? This is supposed to be a national emergency of a level none of us have faced in our lifetime.  I'd rather have a cop or a couple of soldiers enforcing a reasonable regime rather than expecting the poor low paid person on the till.
> 
> Closing pubs and cafes is going to be irrelevant if we all still have to traipse to the shops regularly to scavenge in crowded places.  The food supply chain has effectively collapsed in a lot of places, under these circumstances it doesn't seem unreasonable to use the resources that are available.  I'd rather they give that a go before we all have to go into complete lockdown and they instead use police and troops to enforce that.
> 
> There are other ways.  Some sort of formal approach to who can shop on which days to spread the crowds out.  They could attempt to ration to some description.  Johnson should at least try instead of washing is hands and drunkenly mumbling something about being nice to each other.



Mrs Sas reckons that ration cards may emerge before we are over this. You could also allot shopping slots.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

That last document I linked to is rather surreal in places, given it was from Feb 25th and says this:



> Provide clear and transparent reasons for different strategies: The public need to understand the purpose of the Government’s policy, why the UK approach differs to other countries and how resources are being allocated. SPI-B agreed that government should prioritise messaging that explains clearly why certain actions are being taken, ahead of messaging designed solely for reassuring the public.



Well the 'why the UK approach differs to other countries' went down in flames a week ago.


----------



## editor (Mar 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Mrs Sas reckons that ration cards may emerge before we are over this. You could also allot shopping slots.


And you can guarantee the rich will do just fine, whatever happens.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Telling people not to go to cafes and pubs seems a bit pointless when this is how the tube looked this morning.
> 
> View attachment 202457
> 
> _[Pic by Victoria Sandham‎ ]_


Nay, Nay and thrice Nay. No way Jose.


----------



## klang (Mar 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Telling people not to go to cafes and pubs seems a bit pointless when this is how the tube looked this morning.
> 
> View attachment 202457
> 
> _[Pic by Victoria Sandham‎ ]_


seems like it's even busier than under 'normal' circumstances.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

editor said:


> And you can guarantee the rich will do just fine, whatever happens.


like not like


----------



## klang (Mar 20, 2020)

why do people do this  
no way I'd go anywhere near a tube like this.


----------



## campanula (Mar 20, 2020)

My immune depleted D-i-L has been sweating, hacking and down with a sore throat. As a nursery nurse who has been shopping everyday, I fear the worst. She has been quite calm (she has had several brushes with death all her life, but my youngest is devastated with fear. At what point should she call 111. Wait till she is on her last gasp. Phone now (she will not be able to fight this on her own - she already has intense gamma globulin treatment and is not over thyroid cancer. She is 29 and I love her.

Have also had to venture forth for milk and electricity (on a pre-payment meter). Am worried we are going to be starving, left in the dark, withdrawing from a script and bereft. stuck at home with a grumpy partner and no-one else. have been trying to access UC for him for 4 hours! I fucking hope this is a free line (0300).


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 20, 2020)

editor said:


> And you can guarantee the rich will do just fine, whatever happens.


 As always.

May I commend to the world my friend and Brother Qaiser Ahmed. He has the wee shop fifty yards from us. He has not increased the price of anything, and is making sure his regulars are getting what they need. Like many little community shops, his main business is amongst the less well off. People who normally buy a two pack of bog rolls, or a small jar of coffee. He is looking after the people he sees every day.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Exactly this.  Why not use the resources at our disposal? This is supposed to be a national emergency of a level none of us have faced in our lifetime.  I'd rather have a cop or a couple of soldiers enforcing a reasonable regime rather than expecting the poor low paid person on the till.
> 
> Closing pubs and cafes is going to be irrelevant if we all still have to traipse to the shops regularly to scavenge in crowded places.  The food supply chain has effectively collapsed in a lot of places, under these circumstances it doesn't seem unreasonable to use the resources that are available.  I'd rather they give that a go before we all have to go into complete lockdown and they instead use police and troops to enforce that.



What resources that are available? 

The police are short staffed and struggling to cope, 20,000 troops are coming to help the NHS, police & with logistics. There's over 14,000 supermarkets & large food stores in the UK, where are the numbers of police & troops to guard them?


----------



## hegley (Mar 20, 2020)

campanula said:


> My immune depleted D-i-L has been sweating, hacking and down with a sore throat.... At what point should she call 111.


With all three symptoms I would be calling 111 now.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Cornwall doesnt want people going on holiday there:
> 
> 25m ago 13:38
> 
> ...



Neighbour said that Radio Cornwall has had people calling in reporting that  the A30 has loads of caravans and motorhomes coming into Cornwall. So spreading cv if they're coming from areas like London. Only one major hospital (which a friend said is already chaotic with only looking like just one cv case) and doubtless buying stuff up at supermarkets. Is what they said.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Telling people not to go to cafes and pubs seems a bit pointless when this is how the tube looked this morning.
> 
> View attachment 202457
> 
> _[Pic by Victoria Sandham‎ ]_



I have a friend who has to commute into the City and he keeps sending photos of empty carriages and saying how lonely commuting is at the moment.  Maybe different lines are more busy but I do wonder whether this photo was taken this morning?


----------



## Numbers (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I have a friend who has to commute into the City and he keeps sending photos of empty carriages and saying how lonely commuting is at the moment.  Maybe different lines are more busy but I do wonder whether this photo was taken this morning?


Doesn’t look like a London tube.


----------



## campanula (Mar 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> People who normally buy a two pack of bog rolls, or a small jar of coffee. He is looking after the people he sees every day.


 Yep, this is happening in my Day1 corner shop. They are keeping stuff off the shelves after a bunch of people who never, ever shop there, suddenly appeared like a plague of locusts and tried to empty the shelves. Shan, the Sri Lankan owner, had to get his son and a passing local to  restore order. These are middle class people (the smug Gwydir Street muesli belt who would never deign to use a shop like this...in fact who have campaigned vigorously to get his alcohol licence stripped because it brings the area into disrepute (while it is a lifeline on my estate). A lot of class differences, alongside a rabidly individualistic society are being laid bare on a daily basis.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> What resources that are available?
> 
> The police are short staffed and struggling to cope, 20,000 troops are coming to help the NHS, police & with logistics. There's over 14,000 supermarkets & large food stores in the UK, where are the numbers of police & troops to guard them?



I don't accept that a country as wealthy as the UK does not have the means to protect its food supply chain so people get what they need without having to crowd together and spread the virus accordingly.

It really is no wonder many people aren't taking the warnings seriously regarding the virus when there seems to be total inaction from the government on vitally important aspects of daily life, such as having enough food.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Telling people not to go to cafes and pubs seems a bit pointless when this is how the tube looked this morning.
> 
> View attachment 202457
> 
> _[Pic by Victoria Sandham‎ ]_



I am struggling to believe this is the tube today, when all the images I've seen are showing almost empty trains.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Doesn’t look like a London tube.



You may be right about that.  There is a vague image of a route map visible on the left.  Given the blue this could only be a Victoria or Piccadilly line train and neither have an up spike in their route at either end.

Also having both blue and light blue colour scheme?  That would be unusual on a London tube I think?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 20, 2020)




----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 20, 2020)

Bouncers on the door of an Aldi in Grimsby.
My daughter just finished school but just before she did there was a pupil group hug. FFS

World's going nuts


----------



## bimble (Mar 20, 2020)

I saw a few people post pics of busy tubes early this morning, as 40 stations are closed so people crammed onto what’s left.
This is new though its still just ‘advice’:


----------



## Numbers (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> You may be right about that.  There is a vague image of a route map visible on the left.  Given the blue this could only be a Victoria or Piccadilly line train and neither have an up spike in their route at either end.
> 
> Also having both blue and light blue colour scheme?  That would be unusual on a London tube I think?


It also has a destination notice thingy which tubes don’t have, could be a train into London.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I don't accept that a country as wealthy as the UK does not have the means to protect its food supply chain so people get what they need without having to crowd together and spread the virus accordingly.
> 
> It really is no wonder many people aren't taking the warnings seriously regarding the virus when there seems to be total inaction from the government on vitally important aspects of daily life, such as having enough food.



The supply chain would be fine if it wasn't for fuckwits hoarding, and I am still waiting on how you think over 14,000 stores can be protected from these twats?

Say at a minimum you need an average of 8 cops/troops per store, over 2 shifts/7-days a week, where are these 112,000 enforcers coming from, when we only have around 120,000 cops in England & Wales?


----------



## editor (Mar 20, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Doesn’t look like a London tube.


It's London overground according to the poster.

Oh.. hoooooold on! The poster has just added "I DID NOT PERSONALLY TAKE THIS PICTURE" so it's probably total bollocks. Apols.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I believe it is permitted to walk a dog but not take unnecessary journeys.
> 
> I wouldn't mind some fresh air and I believe I know a dog that I could borrow ..



It's ok to go out for walks as long as you stay away from people and avoid shops. I've been having an hour in the park of an evening. Borrowing a dog does always make walking better though


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The supply chain would be fine if it wasn't for fuckwits hoarding, and I am still waiting on how you think over 14,000 stores can be protected from these twats?
> 
> Say at a minimum you need an average of 8 cops/troops per store, over 2 shifts/7-days a week, where are these 112,000 enforcers coming from, when we only have around 120,000 cops in England & Wales?



Sorry, I'm not in the civil service in charge of policy planning so it may take me a while to get all the data on resources and possible actions and their implications.  I've given several suggestions but I guess doing nothing and blaming _people_ is something.

Anyway this is all a bit silly.  _If you think you can do any better etc   _

The supermarkets are fucked in many places and as a result the virus will spread through these places gleefully.  I think that the government should try and do something to help in this regard.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I've now moved from frustrated about the total lack of testing being done in this country to furious about it.  Its like they've made the decision that testing everyone will be impossible so we won't really bother with anyone.
> 
> *I don't want to go into it too much but I'm pretty sure I've got it now.  I live in London and have recently come back from SE Asia.  I have a tick box exercise in the symptoms and I'm not someone who gets ill much, indeed I have never had flu in my adult life and any cold I get is minor.  I live with my g/f who is now showing symptoms.*
> 
> ...



absolute madness that you aren't being tested in these  circumstances


----------



## campanula (Mar 20, 2020)

Harley Street doing rather well with £375 private tests available.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 20, 2020)

The Emirates cable car has has to stop operating - funny that the one mode of transport in London in which it was possible to social distance is the first to fall victim of the turndown in footfall - but wasn't it getting something like 4 customers a day before anyway?


----------



## Wilf (Mar 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> One of my mates has just sent a message suggesting I should try and catch this now, whilst there are still beds and ventilators available. My response is not printable.


I'm 59 but on the 'flu jab/vulnerable' list, so I'd certainly prefer to get it now rather than later. I've no plans to try and catch it though, given that I may never get it and also that I'd then risk passing it to others. Mates, eh?


----------



## campanula (Mar 20, 2020)

hegley said:


> With all three symptoms I would be calling 111 now.


 Dare not intervene (she is furiously independent). Hope my youngest just overrules her and risks future wrath. Personally, I would love her to have it right now before it all goes completely to shit in a week or so.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

Its already too late for the 'catch it early' thing to apply to the UK as far as I can tell. Regional variations apply to this logic, but given the lag involved, I'd still say its already too late.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its already too late for the 'catch it early' thing to apply to the UK as far as I can tell. Regional variations apply to this logic, but given the lag involved, I'd still say its already too late.


The chances of getting an acute bed/oxygen and an experienced doctor will surely be higher over the next 2 weeks or so than after that?  Not really arguing, there's no point, things will happen, but there's still a feel like we are in a period of panicky normality at the moment.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> The Emirates cable car has has to stop operating - funny that the one mode of transport in London in which it was possible to social distance is the first to fall victim of the turndown in footfall - but wasn't it getting something like 4 customers a day before anyway?



A few more but not many more and the vast majority were tourists anyway and I'm guessing our tourism industry is not flying (ha) at the moment.  

I never did work out why they built the thing where it is.  Still, its reassuring to know that the guy who commissioned that is sorting out this virus problem for us.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

from todays metro,









						Pubs, restaurants, gyms and cinemas 'to be ordered to close in London'
					

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce the move this afternoon.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Athos (Mar 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> One of my mates has just sent a message suggesting I should try and catch this now, whilst there are still beds and ventilators available. My response is not printable.



It's probably too late.  In the week or so before you'd need hospitalisation they'll be over capacity, and rationing treatment to e.g. parents of young kids, or current NHS staff.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

It probably is true or at least will be true in the next few days.


----------



## andysays (Mar 20, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> from todays metro, apologies if its not true so possible fake news warning ;
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Johnson is expected to give a news briefing soon, so we won't have too long a wait to find out...


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

andysays said:


> Johnson is expected to give a news briefing soon, so we won't have too long a wait to find out...


yep im listening to the radio , waiting...


----------



## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

I just heard that the boss of Wetherspoons doesn't see why he should close. 

I wonder if Boris is about to tell him he has to?


----------



## andysays (Mar 20, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> yep im listening to the radio , waiting...


The whole nation is crowded round the radio with you


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

Cafes, pubs, bars, restaurants, gyms, etc., must now close tonight.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

There you go...


----------



## hungry_squirrel (Mar 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I just heard that the boss of Wetherspoons doesn't see why he should close.
> 
> I wonder if Boris is about to tell him he has to?



Yup. Fuck him.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 20, 2020)

Athos said:


> Apart
> 
> 
> It's probably too late.  In the week or so before you'd need hospitalisation they'll be over capacity, and rationing treatment to e.g. parents of young kids, or current NHS staff.


And rightly so.


----------



## Flavour (Mar 20, 2020)

Finally


----------



## souljacker (Mar 20, 2020)

Chancellors going to pay our wages.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

Government grants for salaries .. 

Hopefully that will keep businesses afloat.


----------



## chilango (Mar 20, 2020)

Employers given money to pay wages.

But still nothing for the self-employed and casualised.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 20, 2020)

If only Cineworld and all those like them had waited until the end of the week.

But no, couldn't wait to get rid of people. Heartless, ruthless cunts.


----------



## hegley (Mar 20, 2020)

I don't think Rishi said "unprecedented" enough.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

so there was a magic money forest after all...


----------



## Crispy (Mar 20, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Doesn’t look like a London tube.


It's the Victoria LIne








						File:Victoria Line 2009 stock interior (1).jpg - Wikimedia Commons
					






					commons.wikimedia.org


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 20, 2020)

hegley said:


> I don't think Rishi said "unprecedented" enough.


It really is an unprecedented level of unprecedented.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

chilango said:


> Employers given money to pay wages.
> 
> But still nothing for the self-employed and casualised.


Well there was something there for self employed I think but I didn't comprehend it exactly. 


Lord Camomile said:


> If only Cineworld and all those like them had waited until the end of the week.
> 
> But no, couldn't wait to get rid of people. Heartless, ruthless cunts.


What happened at Cineworld? Did they lay everyone off?


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 20, 2020)

hegley said:


> I don't think Rishi said "unprecedented" enough.



Think he's got one of them learn a word a day calenders. It was cognizant yesterday.


----------



## chilango (Mar 20, 2020)

Self-employed get access to universal credit of up to SSP.

Casual workers absolutely nothing.


----------



## magneze (Mar 20, 2020)

Did Johnson just say they he might go and see his mother for Mother's Day? Stupid message there, again.


----------



## magneze (Mar 20, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> If only Cineworld and all those like them had waited until the end of the week.
> 
> But no, couldn't wait to get rid of people. Heartless, ruthless cunts.


Indeed


----------



## N_igma (Mar 20, 2020)

Funny how they can pull hundreds of billions of pounds out of thin air when their interests are threatened...after 10 years of fucking austerity on the people who are ultimately going to save us all from this virus. 

You bunch of fucking Tory pricks so angry right now.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> What happened at Cineworld? Did they lay everyone off?


Not everyone, but FoH staff who had less than two years, I think.

A lot of fucking people, basically. And they weren't the only ones.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

N_igma said:


> Funny how they can pull hundreds of billions of pounds out of thin air when their interests are threatened...after 10 years of fucking austerity on the people who are ultimately going to save us all from this virus.
> 
> You bunch of fucking Tory pricks so angry right now.



Yes, for some reason I dont think we will be hearing any shit that attempts to compare state debt with families personal credit card debt this time!


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 20, 2020)

campanula said:


> Harley Street doing rather well with £375 private tests available.



You're right.









						Private firms criticised over £295 coronavirus testing kits
					

Health businesses under fire for profiting while NHS workers cannot get access to tests




					www.theguardian.com
				




Love this wonderful Guardian article.  A classic of the the genre.  Lots of hand wringing and righteous anger whilst casually mentioning the companies by name who are providing this service.  They know their readership.


----------



## oryx (Mar 20, 2020)

Is anyone else getting annoyed by people saying this is like a war?

It's difficult/unprecedented/worrying etc. but we are not under enemy bombardment.

Anyone saying this is like a war should take a look at news footage of the poor sods in Syria.


----------



## binka (Mar 20, 2020)

Did anyone catch the details of the working tax credits? I thought he said it was being increase by £1000 pa across the board but was distracted when he was saying it


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 20, 2020)

Oh, wait, will companies now sack _more _people because the government will pick up the wage bill? Then all those people are rehired once the market is open again?


----------



## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

Bit unclear on the shops, China closed everything except food stores and pharmacies. 

I don't think Johnson was as specific as that?


----------



## Petcha (Mar 20, 2020)

Grace Johnson said:


> Think he's got one of them learn a word a day calenders. It was cognizant yesterday.



To be fair, the things he just announced are absolutely insane by any normal standard


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

oryx said:


> Is anyone else getting annoyed by people saying this is like a war?
> 
> It's difficult/unprecedented/worrying etc. but we are not under enemy bombardment.
> 
> Anyone saying this is like a war should take a look at news footage of the poor sods in Syria.



When people say that they mean that the scale of the required response is equivalent to a major war. This can already be seen with the economic measures, school closures etc. It will be seen in hospitals etc in the coming days.


----------



## oryx (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> When people say that they mean that the scale of the required response is equivalent to a major war. This can already be seen with the economic measures, school closures etc. It will be seen in hospitals etc in the coming days.


I don't think they all mean that.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Bit unclear on the shops, China closed everything except food stores and pharmacies.
> 
> I don't think Johnson was as specific as that?


Not closing shops in general (yet), BBC was careful to clarify that a few minutes ago.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 20, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> If only Cineworld and all those like them had waited until the end of the week.
> 
> But no, couldn't wait to get rid of people. Heartless, ruthless cunts.



CBI economist on the news just saying that the wage thing applies to anyone who was on payroll on the 28th feb, so a possible lifeline for thousands there.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 20, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> CBI economist on the news just saying that the wage thing applies to anyone who was on payroll on the 28th feb, so a possible lifeline for thousands there.


Aye, but Cineworld have already exposed themselves.

Genuinely great news if their now ex-employees are covered, though.


----------



## Petcha (Mar 20, 2020)

I couldn't quite take that all in! What does it mean for unemployed people? It's great(ish) for those in jobs, but not quire sure how it affects those who aren't?


----------



## emanymton (Mar 20, 2020)

N_igma said:


> Funny how they can pull hundreds of billions of pounds out of thin air when their interests are threatened...after 10 years of fucking austerity on the people who are ultimately going to save us all from this virus.
> 
> You bunch of fucking Tory pricks so angry right now.


Nah, we will be paying for this with even harder austerity in the future.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 20, 2020)

oryx said:


> I don't think they all mean that.



I think when blokes like this say it's like a war I tend to pay attention.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 20, 2020)

Was it explained how those who had been on zero hour contracts would be affected?


----------



## Petcha (Mar 20, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Was it explained how those who had been on zero hour contracts would be affected?



He was asked about it by a journo but managed to wrap it up in politician speak which I couldn't quite take in. Someone smarter will be along soon


----------



## two sheds (Mar 20, 2020)

N_igma said:


> Funny how they can pull hundreds of billions of pounds out of thin air when their interests are threatened...after 10 years of fucking austerity on the people who are ultimately going to save us all from this virus.
> 
> You bunch of fucking Tory pricks so angry right now.



Private Eye compared Daily Mail articles saying how Labour's spending plans would lead to huge deficits and ruin the country against how Johnson's announcements are wonderful and saving the country from disaster.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 20, 2020)

It should cover anyone on PAYE and full details will be published later tonight


----------



## Athos (Mar 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> And rightly so.



Yes, of course.  I wasn't being facetious, though - we're probably past the point at which catching it would've made a certain amount of sense.  At the very beginning, I did seriously consider trying to catch it (and immediately self-isolating) on the basis that it's more likley that not that it would have no significant effect, and that, even if it did, I'd have more chance of receiving treatment than I would later.  And becuase it'd then probably give me some immunity if I need to care for elderly relatives.


----------



## tommers (Mar 20, 2020)

oryx said:


> Is anyone else getting annoyed by people saying this is like a war?
> 
> It's difficult/unprecedented/worrying etc. but we are not under enemy bombardment.
> 
> Anyone saying this is like a war should take a look at news footage of the poor sods in Syria.



Did groan when Vera Lynn released "we'll meet again" again


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

campanula said:


> Harley Street doing rather well with £375 private tests available.



Bargain compared to the $3,500 across the pond.

Still cunts, though.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

binka said:


> Did anyone catch the details of the working tax credits? I thought he said it was being increase by £1000 pa across the board but was distracted when he was saying it



Fairly sure he did.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

Those cunts at Britannia Hotels, owners of Pontins, have sacked loads of staff, and those living on site have been told to pack-up & fuck-off.   









						Hotel staff sacked on the spot and made homeless amid coronavirus outbreak
					

Britannia, 'Britain's worst hotel chain', has been slated for the move.




					metro.co.uk
				




Fucking cunts!


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> As always.
> 
> May I commend to the world my friend and Brother Qaiser Ahmed. He has the wee shop fifty yards from us. He has not increased the price of anything, and is making sure his regulars are getting what they need. Like many little community shops, his main business is amongst the less well off. People who normally buy a two pack of bog rolls, or a small jar of coffee. He is looking after the people he sees every day.



One of numerous fine reasons to shop local. 

The discrepancy between bare shelves in supermarkets and full shelves in independent shops 100 yards away is proof, if any were needed, that this panic buying madness is just that, madness.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 20, 2020)

Should just build a wall round this place

BBC News - Coronavirus: Why are Southwold and Lowestoft faring so differently?








						Coronavirus: Why are Southwold and Lowestoft faring so differently?
					

Southwold and Lowestoft are 14 miles apart but one has plenty of visitors and the other is a ghost town.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Those cunts at Britannia Hotels, owners of Pontins, have sacked loads of staff, and those living on site have been told to pack-up & fuck-off.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


People are on that and the company are now most likely shitting themselves.   Did not go down well at all.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> People are on that and the company are now most likely shitting themselves.   Did not go down well at all.


if only they had waited a couple of days... wankers


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Private Eye compared Daily Mail articles saying how Labour's spending plans would lead to huge deficits and ruin the country against how Johnson's announcements are wonderful and saving the country from disaster.


You cannot apply norms to exceptional times.


----------



## bimble (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> But carry on crowding into virus riddled supermarkets on a daily basis because we can't be arsed to fix the food and essential supply problem.
> 
> Fantastic work.


Still no answer to this from gov today not even telling people to stand apart when queuing like they are doing elsewhere.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> You cannot apply norms to exceptional times.


Times havent been normal since 2016 , what ever colours you fly :-(


----------



## existentialist (Mar 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Those cunts at Britannia Hotels, owners of Pontins, have sacked loads of staff, and those living on site have been told to pack-up & fuck-off.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They *really *need a boycott when this is over.


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 20, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> Times havent been normal since 2016 , what ever colours you fly :-(


Yup..Leicester won the PL and ever since then the world has been fucking twilight zone.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Yup..Leicester won the PL and ever since then the world has been fucking twilight zone.


I went to work in the isle of man for a year in 2016 , came back to a crazy UK World


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 20, 2020)

Maybe the Mayan calendar was ten years out.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

Bit miffed that C-4 News went to a live reporter here, on Worthing seafront, for no apparent reason, as he was waffling on about the government's announcement today, there was about a 15-second pre-recorded insert from a manager at one of our hotels, absolutely no reason to be live from the seafront.   

Surely if they wanted a day out of the office, they could have found somewhere more exciting to go?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Maybe the Mayan calendar was ten years out.


you know it did cross my mind the other day.

Or 2012 was just the beginning and its just getting going

im not serious


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 20, 2020)

So why is closing the pubs and schools etc a good idea now and it wasn't a week ago? Just like a complete lock down hasn't been announced but it will only be a matter if time, next week is my guess.
The only way to stop the virus spreading to catastrophic levels is to jump on it hard as early as possible.
 And it needs to be spelt out to the public exactly how catostophic that it will be if that action isn't taken. 

This cack handed, incremental response has already very likely doomed thousands.
The news that people who can are streaming out of London is utterly predictable and a perfect way of ensuring the infection gets spread all over the country.
I have literally been in tears today at the prospect of what is about to happen. Its like a scifi horror film for real.
Our government are enabling a disaster.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> So why is closing the pubs and schools etc a good idea now and it wasn't a week ago? Just like a complete lock down hasn't been announced but it will only be a matter if time, next week is my guess.
> The only way to stop the virus spreading to catastrophic levels is to jump pn it hard as early as possible. And it needs to be spelt out to the public exactly how catostophic that will be.
> This cack handed, incremental response has already very likely doomed thousands.
> The news that people who can are streaming out of London is utterly predictable and a perfect way of ensuring the infection gets spread all over the country.
> ...


because they are inept fucking fools


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 20, 2020)

49% of people in the latest poll reckon cuntface is doing a good job with coronavirus.

Let that sink in.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> 49% of people in the latest poll reckon cuntface is doing a good job with coronavirus.
> 
> Let that sink in.


not 52% ?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I don't accept that a country as wealthy as the UK does not have the means to protect its food supply chain so people get what they need without having to crowd together and spread the virus accordingly.
> 
> It really is no wonder many people aren't taking the warnings seriously regarding the virus when there seems to be total inaction from the government on vitally important aspects of daily life, such as having enough food.



This is the secret. The UK is only wealthy on the top half.

We've a big head and tiny legs and it's about time we balanced shit out.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

They want it to peak in the summer, when the NHS is best able to cope, but at the same time even out the peak over a number of months, instead of a few of a weeks. The last thing we need is to totally suppress it now, only for it to blow up in our faces as we come into winter.

Some people seem to think China has solved the problem with their 2+ month lock-down, a lot experts don't. There was a professor from HK Uni interviewed on Sky News yesterday, he was saying China has suppressed it, and re-set the clock back to December, but he doesn't think the problem has been solved, and expects in a month's time they could be back to where they were in January, and having another lock-down.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They want it to peak in the summer, when the NHS is best able to cope, but at the same time even out the peak over a number of months, instead of a few of a weeks. The last thing we need is to totally suppress it now, only for it to blow up in our faces as we come into winter.



That plan was abandoned. It was the orthodox approach that died on Monday.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

Although to be honest, they havent been 100% clear about the new plan, and probably dont know themselves yet. But key aspects of the old plan are gone. Sometimes I have my doubts about whether they have genuinely abandoned all of them, and certainly the old graph still persists in some media messages.

A very different graph from the Imperial College report illustrates a possible replacement strategy, if they do go for the 'turn the measures on and off' approach.




			https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf


----------



## killer b (Mar 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> 49% of people in the latest poll reckon cuntface is doing a good job with coronavirus.
> 
> Let that sink in.


I think at times of national crisis there's a tendency to rally round the flag, which accounts for most of that 49%

People haven't started dying in very large numbers yet (hello next week), so for people who aren't paying that much attention, a light-touch, incremental approach probably looks sensible.


----------



## klang (Mar 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think at times of national crisis there's a tendency to rally round the flag, which accounts for most of that 49%
> 
> People haven't started dying in very large numbers yet (hello next week), so for people who aren't paying that much attention, a light-touch, incremental approach probably looks sensible.


the promises of financial support helped as well.


----------



## killer b (Mar 20, 2020)

littleseb said:


> the promises of financial support helped as well.


that only dropped tonight though, it won't be picked up on the opinion polls yet. 

But yeah - I expect the polling numbers to improve after today


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Although to be honest, they havent been 100% clear about the new plan, and probably dont know themselves yet.



When I said that, I should have said that I'm referring to the medium term onwards.

I'm sure they would like to avoid repeatedly having to switch the full measures on and off for such a long period, for economic reasons as much as anything. There will be great pressure around the world for new medical interventions to get added to the arsenal. And there are a number of other possibilities depending on how far we are able to take testing capacity and associated strategies, and whether they try to go down a big data/bye bye privacy/surveillance state approach at some stage.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 20, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> So why is closing the pubs and schools etc a good idea now and it wasn't a week ago? Just like a complete lock down hasn't been announced but it will only be a matter if time, next week is my guess.
> The only way to stop the virus spreading to catastrophic levels is to jump on it hard as early as possible.
> And it needs to be spelt out to the public exactly how catostophic that it will be if that action isn't taken.
> 
> ...



On the face of it it looks like lock down should've been done a week ago, I think the same thing. OTOH though we don't know exactly what the modeling being looked at is. 

I couldn't give a monkees about the politicians in this as they are, thankfully, more or less yes men when it comes to listening to scientists. One thing that gives me more confidence is that we are, historically at least, very good at public health interventions and I don't see that being any different now. Furthermore, if you look at the numbers France didn't lock down until their confirmed cases were at six thousand odd and their population is more or less on a par with ours. We are at around half their cases and have now shut down all public social spaces. 

It's a fast moving target, it's scary and people have and are going to die but government enabling a public disaster? I don't think so. You could very well argue the case austerity has damaged our ability to deal with it, no doubt it has but I think that's an argument for another day at the moment.

Sending you a big, socially distant hug


----------



## treelover (Mar 20, 2020)

So, nothing from Sunak on benefits,, people are having to spend more stock piling, higher prices, etc


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 20, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> Times havent been normal since 2016 , what ever colours you fly :-(



I suppose the sole benefit of Coronavirus (which is a huge family, including the common cold) is that it takes your mind off Brexit.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

I think they could have attacked with contact tracing and testing and more testing earlier and more strongly than they did, they seemed to sit back into a - the virus will make its own way - sort of mentality while the WHO were still saying loudly that countries could massively affect the outcomes by their actions. Too little too late and if we do follow Italy, and France and Spain and Germany, Europe will be a disaster zone.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They want it to peak in the summer, when the NHS is best able to cope, but at the same time even out the peak over a number of months, instead of a few of a weeks. The last thing we need is to totally suppress it now, only for it to blow up in our faces as we come into winter.



And in case my previous response to this was not accepted as proof of the change, here is where the BBC are with this subject right now:









						Coronavirus: When will the outbreak end and life get back to normal?
					

The huge challenge the world faces to find an exit strategy to end the lockdowns and return to normal.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I dont agree with every single sentiment expressed by people in that article, but the point is that its clear enough that the old plan and timetable is dead, it is nowhere really to be found in the landscape described by this article. I mean obviously there are still some similarities in the sense of taking measures now and reducing ICU demand, but the whole 'delay it till the summer' thing was part of the herd immunity plan that went down so badly after the press conference of 8 days ago. If you didnt notice the dramatic change, its because the government press conferences since then rather tried to smooth over the chasm between the two approaches, but every day the rhetorical shift took another step, the timetable morphed, and some clear statements illuminated some of these aspects, mostly from Whitty. I may try and find a few suitable quotes from his this week that illustrate my point further.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I think they could have attacked with contact tracing and testing and more testing earlier and more strongly than they did, they seemed to sit back into a - the virus will make its own way - sort of mentality while the WHO were still saying loudly that countries could massively affect the outcomes by their actions. Too little too late and if we do follow Italy, and France and Spain and Germany, Europe will be a disaster zone.



And we talked about it here for all the weeks that this was happening. If I had time to go back through the original main thread then I'm sure I would find numerous examples of people asking why we werent doing more during the misleadingly named 'containment' phase, and numerous examples of me explaining why we werent doing more by describing the orthodox approach that we and many other countries would take in the early stages of a pandemic/potential pandemic, right up until that approach died on its arse.


----------



## treelover (Mar 20, 2020)

Doctor on Ch4 news, savaged NHS attrition over last ten years, saying she doesn't feel her colleagues can cope or be protected.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 20, 2020)

treelover said:


> Doctor on Ch4 news, savaged NHS attrition over last ten years, saying she doesn't feel her colleagues can cope or be protected.



TBH no health service in any country is going to be in the position that it's staff can cope and be protected.


----------



## bimble (Mar 20, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> TBH no health service in any country is going to be the position that it's staff can cope and be protected.


Yep but there’ll be measurable comparable outcomes with some (eg ours) faring worse than others. I think that’s an element of what the ruling party are worried about.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> TBH no health service in any country is going to be the position that it's staff can cope and be protected.


If it's allowed to spread unchecked this is absolutely true. Exponential growth will swamp ICUs. Which is why suppression's the only option. Asian countries that've done this have kept cases and deaths low without draconian measures.

There's gonna be a reckoning for the entire West as to why we ignored hard data from Asia, disregarded quarantine measures, and through that gross negligence, caused untold thousands of preventable deaths.


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## mx wcfc (Mar 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I think they could have attacked with contact tracing and testing and more testing earlier and more strongly than they did, they seemed to sit back into a - the virus will make its own way - sort of mentality while the WHO were still saying loudly that countries could massively affect the outcomes by their actions. Too little too late and if we do follow Italy, and France and Spain and Germany, Europe will be a disaster zone.


Not long ago, the WHO were advocating open borders and continued international travel to keep the economy going.
If China's borders had been closed in January, this wouldn't have happened.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> And we talked about it here for all the weeks that this was happening. If I had time to go back through the original main thread then I'm sure I would find numerous examples of people asking why we werent doing more during the misleadingly named 'containment' phase, and numerous examples of me explaining why we werent doing more by describing the orthodox approach that we and many other countries would take in the early stages of a pandemic/potential pandemic, right up until that approach died on its arse.


Don't worry elbows I am not having a go at you. I just find it frustrating where we are now. The only way is forward from today, with the situation we are in. Good news is there seems to be enough PPE for the NHS it was just not being distributed well, I hope there will be more ventilators quickly, and perhaps ECMO machines. What can the rest of us do? follow our instructions, distancing and working if we can, and perhaps help local vulnerable people. I tried to help one local chap in his 70s here only to find 1) that they are more prepared than I was and 2) they offered to make me some bread themselves  because at that time I didn't have any!!


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yep but there’ll be measurable comparable outcomes with some (eg ours) faring worse than others. I think that’s an element of what the ruling party are worried about.


As they should be! A pattern's already clear as day: rapid testing, tracing and quarantine suppresses the virus' spread and allows life to continue close to normal. Citizens of Taiwan and Singapore, which nipped it in the bud, are getting on with their lives, as are those of South Korea, who successfully got an outbreak under control. Hong Kong's citizens, who remember SARS, would tolerate no delay and pressured their government into action.

There's no excuse for Western governments to have ignored the necessity of suppression: WHO have been screaming it from the rooftops, as have leading epidemiologists. It's little wonder so many are pushing the second wave myth for all they're worth: when populations realize what happened, they'll be rightly enraged, and seeking justice.


----------



## Petcha (Mar 20, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> So why is closing the pubs and schools etc a good idea now and it wasn't a week ago? Just like a complete lock down hasn't been announced but it will only be a matter if time, next week is my guess.
> The only way to stop the virus spreading to catastrophic levels is to jump on it hard as early as possible.
> And it needs to be spelt out to the public exactly how catostophic that it will be if that action isn't taken.
> 
> ...



My gf is also in tears. She's a nurse in west london. Nuff said really. But her colleague who was supposed to get married in two weeks has had to cancel the wedding has now been posted to some kind of 'Corona Task Force'. On her wedding day. They also had two patients die on them today. And been told to prepare for tenfold. So I guess my bitching about being broke kinda pales.


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## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> Not long ago, the WHO were advocating open borders and continued international travel to keep the economy going.


I haven't been following everything the WHO have been saying apart from more recently that they said we can affect the outcome by our actions. 



mx wcfc said:


> If China's borders had been closed in January, this wouldn't have happened.


I think infected people arrived in Italy perhaps as early as Dec / Jan and went unnoticed into the population causing them to get a head start in their infections compared to other European countries. (I have no evidence for this though)


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## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> Not long ago, the WHO were advocating open borders and continued international travel to keep the economy going.
> If China's borders had been closed in January, this wouldn't have happened.



Italy imposed a ban on flights from China on 31 January, first of only 2 countries in Europe to do so, went well, did't it.


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## bimble (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> As they should be! A pattern's already clear as day: rapid testing, tracing and quarantine suppresses the virus' spread and allows life to continue close to normal. Citizens of Taiwan and Singapore, which nipped it in the bud, are getting on with their lives, as are those of South Korea, who successfully got an outbreak under control. Hong Kong's citizens, who remember SARS, would tolerate no delay and pressured their government into action.
> 
> There's no excuse for Western governments to have ignored the necessity of suppression: WHO have been screaming it from the rooftops, as have leading epidemiologists. It's little wonder so many are pushing the second wave myth for all they're worth: when populations realize what happened, they'll be rightly enraged, and seeking justice.


Why is the second wave a myth can you explain?


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Italy imposed a ban on flights from China on 31 January, first of only 2 countries in Europe to do so, went well, did't it.


I've seen this point repeatedly made, and it overlooks the fact that travel restrictions must be combined with mass testing, tracing and quarantine. That's where Italy went so tragically wrong (and I'm not singling her out, it's a collective failure across the West).

Taiwan banned flights from the affected regions immediately when the gravity of the situation became clear, but combined it with other measures. Her numbers speak for themselves.


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## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I've seen this point repeatedly made, and it overlooks the fact that travel restrictions must be combined with mass testing, tracing and quarantine. That's where Italy went so tragically wrong (and I'm not singling her out, it's a collective failure across the West).
> 
> Taiwan banned flights from the affected regions immediately when the gravity of the situation became clear, but combined it with other measures. Her numbers speak for themselves.



Taiwan has seen confirmed cases go up 25% in the last 24 hours of reporting.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why is the second wave a myth can you explain?


Comes from influenza modeling, and was responsible for Whitehall's disastrous "herd immunity" plan. Basically rapid suppression will cause a worse "second wave" of the virus when measure are lifted.

It's never explained how on Earth this is supposed to happen. If there's another outbreak, the same suppression measures can be reimposed then eased off again. Moreover, if the virus isn't endemic, it has no reservoir from which a "second wave" can emerge.

Zoonosis could repeat, but the odds would be greatly reduced with the closure of wet markets and other unsafe practices, and again, if it happened, suppression could be repeated. 

It's become an article of faith, and it's caused thousands of needless deaths.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Taiwan has seen confirmed cases go up 25% in the last 24 hours of reporting.


Mainly imported from abroad, so different in kind to a "second wave" arising from an endemic disease. They've been located and quarantined.


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## mx wcfc (Mar 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Italy imposed a ban on flights from China on 31 January, first of only 2 countries in Europe to do so, went well, did't it.


No help at all if people could just fly from China to Singapore, then Italy, or to anywhere else in Europe.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> No help at all if people could just fly from China to Singapore, then Italy, or to anywhere else in Europe.


Exactly. It's one quarantine measure among many. All countries that've successfully suppressed Covid-19 have employed a multi-pronged approach.

It's incredible that so many have looked to Italy and concluded not that she should've done more, but done less.


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## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

Just heard a snippet that the mobile companies may be asked to track whether people are complying with social distancing. I know in China there was a lot of surveillance, I suppose one could expect the UK Gov to enquire about it, how though, and but really?


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## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

The old orthodox way of thinking about things was about more than a 2nd wave, there were a lot of other assumptions wrapped up in the approach too.

The WHO's own orthodoxy meant they did not recommend widespread travel restrictions, border closures etc. I talked about this at the time and then they proceeded to reiterate it.

It was therefore not surprising that orthodox approaches to the 'containment' phase in other countries dominated thinking for quite a period.

That period really should have ended no later than when the WHO had press conferences about, and then published a report by, their team that went to China. This was the moment that the orthodox 'influenza-based pandemic planning' approach should have been ditched, and the alternative approach no longer considered some unthinkable thing that couldnt be done here. The WHO press conference was on February 24th. The report was published on February 28th.


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## wayward bob (Mar 20, 2020)

yeah i noted that too weltweit. good job my phone rarely leaves home even when i go out


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Just heard a snippet that the mobile companies may be asked to track whether people are complying with social distancing. I know in China there was a lot of surveillance, I suppose one could expect the UK Gov to enquire about it, how though, and but really?


South Korea's been doing since the start. Anonymized data's made public, and using GPS, citizens receive text alerts if they've come close to infection, and are told to report immediately for testing. 

We've never been in a better position to impose effective quarantine, yet in the West, have squandered it.


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## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Don't worry elbows I am not having a go at you. I just find it frustrating where we are now.



Don't worry, I didnt think you were, I was just reviewing some of the history. I was frustrated all the way along really, although I doubt I framed things properly at some stages and I was slow on the uptake as to some of the new approaches. Mostly frustrated because I knew some of the absurdities of the old orthodox approach (containment my arse), some of the assumptions it was based on, and the low chances that countries would deviate from that approach before disaster struck.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> The old orthodox way of thinking about things was about more than a 2nd wave, there were a lot of other assumptions wrapped up in the approach too.
> 
> The WHO's own orthodoxy meant they did not recommend widespread travel restrictions, border closures etc. I talked about this at the time and then they proceeded to reiterate it.
> 
> ...


Yes, WHO are far from blameless. The Asian countries with a folk memory of SARS and MERS didn't wait around, and rushed to impose effective quarantine.

Agree that the press conference was a crucial missed opportunity.


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## Lord Camomile (Mar 20, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> If only Cineworld and all those like them had waited until the end of the week.
> 
> But no, couldn't wait to get rid of people. Heartless, ruthless cunts.




Fuck off 

If it is backdated to 28 Feb, and thus going back would have no impact on the (ex-)employees, would be interested to see how many do go back. Some will have enjoyed the job, or at least aspects of it, and made good friends there, but I bet a lot of 'em think Cineworld and Picturehouse can get fooked.


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## wayward bob (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> We've never been in a better position to impose effective quarantine, yet in the West, have squandered it.


but surely at the cost of level of state surveillance that's a massive imposition and hard to roll back?


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## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

Thinking back to the last third of January, and early February, it pains me to think that many of the clues were there.

I remember there was a lot of focus on blaming China, and people were understandably not impressed with the way information came out, how the outbreak was handled early on, and the timetable of the outbreak compared to the timetable of actually detecting it and then later actually responding properly. I remember using the word lag far too many times, to describe far too many things. And one of my main points when talking about that was was that many of the delays that happened in China would be expected to happen elsewhere too, even though, unlike China at the start, everywhere else did have advanced warning.

Well, I made those points with a certain set of assumptions in mind at the time (including 'the horse has already bolted'), and a big focus on the early phases and the orthodox approach. I was just trying to ready people for the fact that our own detection of cases would lag behind the reality, and that we would make many of the same mistakes China made. What I had no idea of at the time was that the orthodoxy about what comes next would be challenged. We had no idea Chinas suppression strategy would have big results, and then when it showed results I and many other people were skeptical of some of Chinas data.

Orthodox thinking still ended up being destroyed in record time by this pandemic, but sadly not fast enough to avoid a first horrible wave of epidemic in many places


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## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> South Korea's been doing since the start. Anonymized data's made public, and using GPS, citizens receive text alerts if they've come close to infection, and are told to report immediately for testing.


How do they know people are close to infection? What/where/when is the known about infection?



Azrael said:


> We've never been in a better position to impose effective quarantine, yet in the West, have squandered it.


I am not sure I am displeased about this


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> but surely at the cost of level of state surveillance that's a massive imposition and hard to roll back?


We already have highly intrusive surveillance for a range of criminal and civil matters. Stopping an epidemic in its tracks is surely the definition of a _reasonable _search and seizure!

That doesn't mean states should get a blank cheque, of course. I certainly don't agree with the British law's two-year sunset clause. But provided there's safeguards, I would unhesitatingly support the South Korean approach.


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## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

The surveillance stuff is such a complex subject, I do think things will get messy on this front, and my 'never say never' mode is engaged on this one for all sorts of reasons, many high stakes in this area.

Because although its true that they squandered the chance to do this for this particular phase, there is always a chance, if levels of infection drop to a certain level and other capabilities come online such as massive amounts of testing, that a subsequent opportunity for full on virus suppression will be spotted.

One of the issues for making this stuff work is that another UK establishment orthodoxy will have to be dispensed with or heavily modified - its not so much a question of the surveillance itself, but whether its overt or covert. I do not have special secret knowledge about existing UK capabilities, but over the years it has been possible to at least ascertain that this country really hates revealing any of its methods, to the extent that such things sometimes seem to be the overriding priority above all others.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> How do they [S. Korea] know people are close to infection? What/where/when is the known about infection?


Believe a combo of test results, self-reporting and diagnosis from clinicians is fed into a programme, and geodata triggers an alert. Am very interested to learn more about it.


> I am not sure I am displeased about this


Given the alternative, I certainly am!


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thinking back to the last third of January, and early February, it pains me to think that many of the clues were there.
> 
> I remember there was a lot of focus on blaming China, and people were understandably not impressed with the way information came out, how the outbreak was handled early on, and the timetable of the outbreak compared to the timetable of actually detecting it and then later actually responding properly. I remember using the word lag far too many times, to describe far too many things. And one of my main points when talking about that was was that many of the delays that happened in China would be expected to happen elsewhere too, even though, unlike China at the start, everywhere else did have advanced warning.
> 
> ...


I had grave misgivings about the lack of travel bans and border testing from the start, but British contact tracing did seem to be proving effective (I.e. in suppressing an outbreak in Brighton), so kept them off here out of a wish to avoid spreading panic.

Turns out they were cooking the books, knew there were likely tens of thousands of untested cases in circulation, and egregiously, had no intention of suppressing the disease. I took the next states as contingency plans for if containment failed, when it turned out they were the intended endzone. Disastrous.


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## 8ball (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I had grave misgivings about the lack of travel bans and border testing from the start, but British contact tracing did seem to be proving effective (I.e. in suppressing an outbreak in Brighton), so kept them off here out of a wish to avoid spreading panic.
> 
> Turns out they were cooking the books, knew there were likely tens of thousands of untested cases in circulation, and egregiously, had no intention of suppressing the disease. I took the next states as contingency plans for if containment failed, when it turned out they were the intended endzone. Disastrous.



I can actually feel my piss boiling.  Have had a lot of anger these last few days.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> The surveillance stuff is such a complex subject, I do think things will get messy on this front, and my 'never say never' mode is engaged on this one for all sorts of reasons, many high stakes in this area.
> 
> Because although its true that they squandered the chance to do this for this particular phase, there is always a chance, if levels of infection drop to a certain level and other capabilities come online such as massive amounts of testing, that a subsequent opportunity for full on virus suppression will be spotted.
> 
> One of the issues for making this stuff work is that another UK establishment orthodoxy will have to be dispensed with or heavily modified - its not so much a question of the surveillance itself, but whether its overt or covert. I do not have special secret knowledge about existing UK capabilities, but over the years it has been possible to at least ascertain that this country really hates revealing any of its methods, to the extent that such things sometimes seem to be the overriding priority above all others.


Can't see any other way to return to a semblance of normality before a vaccine's available. Even if some of the promising antivirals are proven and fast-tracked, A&Es and ICUs would still be swamped by uncontrolled spread, and there'd still be a serious death toll among vulnerable groups.  

If people see South Korea and other countries succeed in containing Covid-19 without draconian lockdowns for an extended period, the political and economic pessure to use surveillance and quarantine as a route back to normality will be overwhelming.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

8ball said:


> I can actually feel my piss boiling.  Have had a lot of anger these last few days.


Was consumed by rage like I've never felt all weekend. The British government planned to allow hundreds of thousands to die in a grotesque medical experiment, and senior doctors signed off on it. Has upended everything I thought I knew about the state and the professions, and I won't be forgetting it.


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## 8ball (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Was consumed by rage like I've never felt all weekend. The British government planned to allow hundreds of thousands to die in a grotesque medical experiment, and senior doctors signed off on it. Has upended everything I thought I knew about the state and the professions, and I won't be forgetting it.



That’s not really how I formulated it personally, but there’s something in that and I think it will be remembered.

Those doctors were most likely hammered with factoids about likely consequences of over-aggressive measures imo.  And there’s the also the Chomskyite view that only those either on side or amenable to such manipulations would find themselves in such a position in the first place..


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## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I had grave misgivings about the lack of travel bans and border testing from the start, but British contact tracing did seem to be proving effective (I.e. in suppressing an outbreak in Brighton), so kept them off here out of a wish to avoid spreading panic.
> 
> Turns out they were cooking the books, knew there were likely tens of thousands of untested cases in circulation, and egregiously, had no intention of suppressing the disease. I took the next states as contingency plans for if containment failed, when it turned out they were the intended endzone. Disastrous.



For me and probably some other people who have been on these threads for a long time, one of the most disconcerting aspects is that there wasnt actually an obvious moment where this revelation took place, not in that form at least.

By that I mean:

We were talking about all sorts of models from quite early on here. We saw the projections about what sort of numbers of infected people might have left Wuhan before the lockdown, what travel patterns were like, how effective airport screening is, and how many undetected cases we might reasonably assume are out there for every case that was actually detected. With that sort of stuff in mind, there never was a stage where we were confident that contact tracing and other measures in the UK were picking up all the cases.

The number of unconfirmed cases out there has clearly increased over time, I forgot what sorts of numbers were being modelled for that sort of thing at the time, but I dont think it would have been tens of thousands of UK cases back then. Given doubling every x days, the numbers would have been pretty small back then to get to tens of thousands recently. Anyway thats not to distract from all your points.

If I wanted to be really kind to the orthodox thinking on the pandemic, I suppose I could say that rather than calling them intended endzones, they were considered to be inevitabilities. Like what happened with the swine flu pandemic of 2009 - once it was properly spotted it was already active in communities in several countries, all the assumptions and traditional thinking about flu pandemics kicked in, and it was considered inevitable that everywhere would get it. Initial containment phases were more about getting clinical data from early cases in the country, and some data useful for epidemic modelling, than anything else. Of course such thinking is more forgivable in a flu pandemic because there tend to be pharmaceutical interventions available and the more solid prospect of a vaccine within a known timeframe. But it could still have been a disaster if that had been a very bad flu pandemic.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

8ball said:


> That’s not really how I formulated it personally, but there’s something in that and I think it will be remembered.
> 
> Those doctors were most likely hammered with factoids about likely consequences of over-aggressive measures imo.  And there’s the also the Chomskyite view that only those either on side or amenable to such manipulations would find themselves in such a position in the first place..


True, but they still took an oath to do no harm, and I thought that counted for something. Turns out it's so much confetti, and scores of our most senior physicians will junk all ethics if politically expedient. When this is over, there's gonna be some extremely tough questions about how the medical profession's regulated, and how it ever allowed such people to go undetected.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Was consumed by rage like I've never felt all weekend. The British government planned to allow hundreds of thousands to die in a grotesque medical experiment, and senior doctors signed off on it. Has upended everything I thought I knew about the state and the professions, and I won't be forgetting it.



If you are in that sort of state then perhaps the following article will be of interest:









						When it comes to national emergencies, Britain has a tradition of cold calculation | David Edgerton
					

The government’s reluctance to put the health of citizens first has echoes in the 1940s and 50s, says author David Edgerton




					www.theguardian.com
				




Its not as good as I would have liked, but since I read it recently its the one that leapt readily to mind.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> For me and probably some other people who have been on these threads for a long time, one of the most disconcerting aspects is that there wasnt actually an obvious moment where this revelation took place, not in that form at least.
> 
> By that I mean:
> 
> ...


I expect we'll reconsider our laissez faire attitude to influenza as a result of this, indeed, our tolerance of infections of all kinds. Who knows what broad spectrum antivirals and vaccines we could've developed if money had been pumped into R&D years ago.

The situation was, undoubtedly, confused at the start, but Asian countries show that it was possible to act without hindsight. We should've been learning everything we could from them from the off.

Those smelly little orthodoxies are still lingering: Sky News have just trotted out the second wave, and are talking about a year-long lockdown. More readers that hammer and dance article gets, the better.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

Its still entirely valid to talk about subsequent waves, if the detail and context is right. At the moment as far as the public communication goes, its still a bit messy as the old orthodoxy fades into the new.

Its not just Britain either by the way. I made too many posts about European Centre for Disease Control reports on this pandemic last weekend and at the start of this week to go through all that again, but if there is ever an inquiry into this then there will be plenty of evidence that the UK was largely sticking to plans from the EU era. Still I would need an inquiry to understand the full story of events between Thursday 12th March and Monday 16th March. Oh that reminds me, there is one more ECDC thing for me to check on, to do with when their orthodox approach formally started to shift, will post again if it yields an interesting conclusion.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> If you are in that sort of state then perhaps the following article will be of interest:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Read it few days back, good piece.

Crucial difference for me (and one mentioned in the article) is that while planners didn't make life-saving contingencies in the Blitz or the Cold War, in both cases, the state put every effort into averting calamity, whether via appeasement and belated rearmament, or in developing a serious nuclear deterrent. The first of course failed disastrously and the second is debatable, but the intent to head off disaster was at least there.

This time, they nodded it through until they decided hundreds of thousands of deaths were politically unviable.


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## two sheds (Mar 20, 2020)

there were huge clues though - not testing people coming in from italy, not testing people generally, not tracing people was fucking insane.


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## 8ball (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> When this is over, there's gonna be some extremely tough questions about how the medical profession's regulated, and how it ever allowed such people to go undetected.



This may be my current mood talking, but that strikes me as optimistic.


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## 8ball (Mar 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> there were huge clues though - not testing people coming in from italy, not testing people generally, not tracing people was fucking insane.



The lack of rigorous contract tracing is the thing that makes me most angry.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

I'm kind of scared to go and see what I wrote at the time but I feel like I might get some temporary closure on some aspects if I have a quick hunt and post one or two bits and bobs.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its still entirely valid to talk about subsequent waves, if the detail and context is right. At the moment as far as the public communication goes, its still a bit messy as the old orthodoxy fades into the new.
> 
> Its not just Britain either by the way. I made too many posts about European Centre for Disease Control reports on this pandemic last weekend and at the start of this week to go through all that again, but if there is ever an inquiry into this then there will be plenty of evidence that the UK was largely sticking to plans from the EU era. Still I would need an inquiry to understand the full story of events between Thursday 12th March and Monday 16th March. Oh that reminds me, there is one more ECDC thing for me to check on, to do with when their orthodox approach formally started to shift, will post again if it yields an interesting conclusion.


Think the problem is with the phrasing "second wave", which suggests that suppression's impossible and Covid-19's become hopelessly endemic. It's a fatalistic approach, and the orthodox defeatism's gonna wear people down, fast. If they talked instead about eliminating the virus and suppressing new outbreaks, whole different ballgame.

Interesting point about E.U. plans. "Herd immunity" was being pushed by the Netherlands the other day, and was implicit in plans of other European countries, so this goes past Whitehall. Their plan was particularly disastrous thanks to the malignant influence of the weirdos, but the underlying failing spreads far beyond our borders.


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## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> there were huge clues though - not testing people coming in from italy, not testing people generally, not tracing people was fucking insane.


Indeed. I was never convinced by the arguments that airport screening would do more harm than good -- of course it would miss many, perhaps most, but it'd raise awareness and offer the first link in a contact tracing chain -- but the success of British contact tracing dampened my unease.

Heard several worrying reports of people being denied testing if they didn't meet the travel or contacts criteria, but that could be reasonable if the capacity just wasn't there yet, and other tracing could've filled the gap.

With hindsight, the whole strategy comes together. The editor of the _The Lancet_ suspects that the entire approach was geared towards facilitating a "controlled"epidemic, and I see no reason to doubt his suspicions.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> ..
> With hindsight, the whole strategy comes together. The editor of the _The Lancet_ suspects that the entire approach was geared towards facilitating a "controlled"epidemic, and I see no reason to doubt his suspicions.


Are we too late to avoid that fate though?


----------



## 8ball (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> "Herd immunity" was being pushed by the Netherlands the other day, and was implicit in plans of other European countries, so this goes past Whitehall. Their plan was particularly disastrous thanks to the malignant influence of the weirdos, but the underlying failing spreads far beyond our borders.



Fuck's sake.  "Herd immunity".  Cunts.  Nigh on every epidemiologist in the country must have choked on their cornflakes at that.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 20, 2020)

they'll get away with it though - daily mail and rest of the fuckers will toe the 'responsible reactions as science developed' line


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Are we too late to avoid that fate though?


The half-million death toll is, surely, now avoidable. I fear tens of thousands of deaths, but haven't given up hope that antivirals can be rushed into use to significantly reduce it. There's been some promising reports from Asia -- South Korea already has an antiviral protocol in use, and has kept deaths massively lower than Italy, but correlation isnt, of course, causation -- but we'll have to see.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> they'll get away with it though - daily mail and rest of the fuckers will toe the 'responsible reactions as science developed' line



You're probably right, but I'm trying to kick against fatalism at the moment.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

Well I quickly got completely overloaded trying to look at posts from the past, so I am mostly abandoning that idea and just have one quote which I took from a 2009 review into the UKs handling of the 2009 swine flu pandemic.



> Although communications materials were in general good, certain terms used during the pandemic were unclear and caused confusion. Given the critical importance of the public clearly understanding the advice being given by government, some of the terminology should be revisited. In particular, ‘containment’ was used to describe a strategy which was not intended to contain the disease but to slow the spread.



https://assets.publishing.service.g...ile/61252/the2009influenzapandemic-review.pdf

Oh dear, I just found another post while writing this one. I wrote this on Feb 24th in response to a Guardian article.

           #1,848          



> The existing influenza plan demonstrates how the UK normally has no stomach for internal travel restrictions or the cancellation of mass public gatherings. I wonder if this will change or, if not, how the disparity between that and actions taken in other countries will be explained. Still, this may be less of an issue depending on timing and whether any other countries demonstrate a different approach, more like the one the UK normally favours, first.



(in response to this Guardian article        Government to shut schools in event of UK coronavirus outbreak      )

Oh and some tweets I quoted on Feb 24th, just to reiterate what message started coming loudly from WHO China mission on that date.





OK I'm done with this revisiting of recent history, thanks for bearing with me while I got that out of my system.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> The half-million death toll is, surely, now avoidable. I fear tens of thousands of deaths, but haven't given up hope that antivirals can be rushed into use to significantly reduce it. There's been some promising reports from Asia -- South Korea already has an antiviral protocol in use, and has kept deaths massively lower than Italy, but correlation isnt, of course, causation -- but we'll have to see.


Just looking at the raw figures at the moment, S Korea is the gold standard here. Whatever it is they're doing, everyone else needs to be learning - and asking for help, and showing humility...


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

elbows

Thanks for taking time to do that, very telling: a "containment" plan that has no intention of containing a disease is worthy of Orwell!


----------



## Riklet (Mar 20, 2020)

What exactly are they doing in South Korea and are European governments taking note?

Surely we have some access to these antivirals too?


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Just looking at the raw figures at the moment, S Korea is the gold standard here. Whatever it is they're doing, everyone else needs to be learning - and asking for help, and showing humility...


100%.*

* At least for an outbreak: the absolute gold standard must be Taiwan, Singapore and (via popular demand) Hong Kong, who stopped Covid-19 from ever gaining a foothold. South Korea appeared to have the same plan until the chaos with the cult, and can't praise them enough for reversing an outbreak on the fly.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> 100%.*
> 
> * At least for an outbreak: the absolute gold standard must be Taiwan, Singapore and (via popular demand) Hong Kong, who stopped Covid-19 from ever gaining a foothold. South Korea appeared to have the same plan until the chaos with the cult, and can't praise them enough for reversing an outbreak on the fly.


Sure, but that baby's bolted.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

Riklet said:


> What exactly are they doing in South Korea and are European governments taking note?
> 
> Surely we have some access to these antivirals too?


Effective detection and quarantine, basically: they rapidly take carriers of the virus outa circulation via mass testing and contact tracing, and with the infection chains severed, Covid-19 runs out of hosts.

When it comes to stopping an outbreak, therapeutic measures are, ultimately, far less important than public health measures and vaccines, although of course essential to patients who succumb. I just fear that, thanks to our catastrophic failure to isolate and suppress Covid-19, Britain's only hope of preventing the NHS from being swamped is drugs to keep people outa intensive care.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sure, but that baby's bolted.


Yup, though once she's starved Covid-19 of hosts, expect South Korea will be in the same place, relying heavily on border security to keep her people safe.

Until there's a vaccine, international travel as we know it's simply over. That in itself is barely fathomable, but vastly better than the alternatives.


----------



## prunus (Mar 20, 2020)

I wonder if the point at which UK deaths exceed China deaths will be the one where people start asking aggressive questions of our government's response?  A month or more too late of course, but I think it will be important psychological turning point of why could they stop it and we couldn't.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 20, 2020)

prunus said:


> I wonder if the point at which UK deaths exceed China deaths will be the one where people start asking aggressive questions of our government's response?  A month or more too late of course, but I think it will be important psychological turning point of why could they stop it and we couldn't.


On the international thread, I mentioned that East Asia has had these scares before, while we haven't, and the previous scares have largely missed us by pure luck really. But yes, clearly massive lessons are being learned daily!


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

prunus said:


> I wonder if the point at which UK deaths exceed China deaths will be the one where people start asking aggressive questions of our government's response?  A month or more too late of course, but I think it will be important psychological turning point of why could they stop it and we couldn't.


Given the shock at Italy overtaking China, this is surely inevitable, and must happen if we've any hope of avoiding a repeat of this atrocity.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> On the international thread, I mentioned that East Asia has had these scares before, while we haven't, and the previous scares have largely missed us by pure luck really. But yes, clearly massive lessons are being learned daily!


Absolutely. As I noted up-thread, there's a powerful folk memory of SARS and MERS in Asia. Moment they heard the news from Wuhan, they didn't mess around, and in future, we won't either.


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

I wont try to predict the mood, it could go in several directions, maybe it wont even resemble what we have seen in these threads in the last week.

I decided to augment my brief 24th Feb history lesson with something much more recent:



> Mr Johnson suggested that governments in other countries may have - in his opinion - overreacted.
> 
> He said decisions by other governments to lock their countries have happened because "politicians and governments around the world are under a lot of pressure to be seen to act, so they may do things that are not necessarily dictated by the science", Press Association reports.
> 
> ...











						The UK's four-stage coronavirus plan and what they mean
					

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to approve a plan to escalate the UK's coronavirus strategy to stage 2 - 'delay' - here's what it means




					www.chroniclelive.co.uk
				




That was just over a week ago!


----------



## elbows (Mar 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> On the international thread, I mentioned that East Asia has had these scares before, while we haven't, and the previous scares have largely missed us by pure luck really. But yes, clearly massive lessons are being learned daily!



It will be interesting to see if Canada also retained the lessons learnt from SARS. They had quite a lot of SARS cases, including a notable hospital cluster.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Absolutely. As I noted up-thread, there's a powerful folk memory of SARS and MERS in Asia. Moment they heard the news from Wuhan, they didn't mess around, and in future, we won't either.


Well I will certainly include myself in the group of people who didn't react to this early enough. I only really started taking it seriously last week, maybe a few days ahead of Johnson, but only a few days. We're not good at properly comprehending the true meaning of exponential growth, even if we can do the maths easily enough.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 20, 2020)

If nothing else, we'll surely see a resurgence of the late-Victorian, early 20th Century obsession with hygiene that was prominent in the decades between the advent of Germ Theory and the discovery of effective antibacterial drugs in the '30s.

Sulfonamides and then antibiotics have of course been a blessing without equal in the history of medicine, but they've sowed a lethal complacency that's now blown up in our faces.

The ancient impluse achieve quarantine is gonna be back with a vengeance.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well I will certainly include myself in the group of people who didn't react to this early enough. I only really started taking it seriously last week, maybe a few days ahead of Johnson, but only a few days. We're not good at properly comprehending the true meaning of exponential growth, even if we can do the maths easily enough.


I've had a lingering dread since the first reports from China, but until the infamous herd immunity presser, it was checked by the false belief that containment was being achieved, and outbreaks could be suppressed. Discovering that was all a lie is what did it for me.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I've had a lingering dread since the first reports from China, but until the infamous herd immunity presser, it was checked by the false belief that containment was being achieved, and outbreaks could be suppressed. Discovering that was all a lie is what did it for me.


I flipped later than I should have done. I'd read well-reasoned stuff from plenty of scientists saying the UK's response was scientific nonsense, and I knew I ought to have been following them. It only really dawned on me that what has now just happened was only a matter of time at the start of last week. And even then, I was ahead of a lot of people - when I suggested a drink in the pub last Friday to people cos it might be our last chance, I was met with some strange looks.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

It wasnt even the herd immunity stuff at that press conference that blew my mind, it was the 4 weeks behind Italy thing. By that point their pronouncements about timing had already sounded a bit off for a while, but that 4 weeks thing really scared me because it was 2 weeks out of whack with the estimates and assumptions we'd been talking about on this forum.

And to be honest the herd thing didnt stick out to me because the orthodox approach had already been well discussed in the media before then. I dont even know how much Vallances choice of language, or the failure of his presentation slides to work, would have done to explode the situation if it had not been for other aspects of the timing and context that were in play by that stage of last week. Italy had locked down, most other countries were busily closing schools a day after that press conference.

I would be surprised if I couldnt find quotes from people like Whitty from well before that date that meant nobody should be have been expecting that containment to avoid an epidemic here was still considered feasible. It sounds like that wasnt too well understood, so no wonder the press conference had additional explosive effects. Let me go search for some quotes on this matter.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

What we have, with testing focussing on hospitals and NHS staff is an admission of widescale community transmission. The shutdown orders from government will only have a delayed impact because people with the virus in the community have to get ill enough to reach hospital and that could take up to 14 days (longer) . But spread could still occur within households, assuming social distancing has worked and stranger to stranger transmission does stop. That still means perhaps 4-8 weeks (or more) before we are likely to see any reduction in the numbers of new infections.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

Oops, before I do that, I got distracted by other stuff about herd immunity that started getting mentioned on March 11th, which I believe is the date Italy did a 'full' lockdown of the whole country, and that Johnson made his comments about how other countries may have overreacted.



> On March 11, David Halpern – the group’s chief executive and a member of the the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies – spoke to BBC News outlining an approach that depended on shielding vulnerable people until enough of the UK population had been infected with Covid-19, acquiring an immunity that would halt its spread. Senior Number 10 advisor Dominic Cummings also brought up the topic in a meeting with UK tech leaders on March 11.
> 
> That’s how the term “herd immunity” started making the rounds, which led to an extremely negative reaction among many experts, as it seemingly suggested the government was simply letting the population get infected.
> 
> Matt Hancock would tell the BBC on Sunday: "Herd immunity is not our policy. It’s not our goal. Our goal is to protect life and our policy is to fight the virus and protect the vulnerable and protect the NHS."



From the end of How the UK’s political machine has shifted to fight coronavirus


----------



## Azrael (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> What we have, with testing focussing on hospitals and NHS staff is an admission of widescale community transmission. The shutdown orders from government will only have a delayed impact because people with the virus in the community have to get ill enough to reach hospital and that could take up to 14 days (longer) . But spread could still occur within households, assuming social distancing has worked and stranger to stranger transmission does stop. That still means perhaps 4-8 weeks (or more) before we are likely to see any reduction in the numbers of new infections.


Shutting down inter-family transmission's gonna be the next fight. China set up fever accomodation and hauled anyone with a temperature from their homes. Can't see that going down well here, to put it mildly, but perhaps setting either the infected or their healthy flat- and housemates up in hotels will be viable.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> It wasnt even the herd immunity stuff at that press conference that blew my mind, it was the 4 weeks behind Italy thing. By that point their pronouncements about timing had already sounded a bit off for a while, but that 4 weeks thing really scared me because it was 2 weeks out of whack with the estimates and assumptions we'd been talking about on this forum.
> 
> And to be honest the herd thing didnt stick out to me because the orthodox approach had already been well discussed in the media before then. I dont even know how much Vallances choice of language, or the failure of his presentation slides to work, would have done to explode the situation if it had not been for other aspects of the timing and context that were in play by that stage of last week. Italy had locked down, most other countries were busily closing schools a day after that press conference.
> 
> I would be surprised if I couldnt find quotes from people like Whitty from well before that date that meant nobody should be have been expecting that containment to avoid an epidemic here was still considered feasible. It sounds like that wasnt too well understood, so no wonder the press conference had additional explosive effects. Let me go search for some quotes on this matter.


Partly I wonder how much they've been basically lying because they weren't ready to do the shut-down immediately. It was painfully obvious that schools would close this week, for instance.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

Some of the dodgy stuff had such a short shelf-life though, the 4 weeks claim was never going to stand up to even a week or twos passage of time. They had to change it themselves, I think it lasted about 4 days before they changed it to '3 weeks plus London a bit ahead', which was probably their way of changing it to 2 weeks without saying so.

Oh well, may as well stick in a few more things from the period. Peston during the vanishingly brief period when the herd immunity strategy was the idea to be sold to everyone:









						British government wants UK to acquire Covid-19 'herd immunity' | ITV News
					

The Government’s experts – the chief medical officer and the chief scientific advisor – have made two big judgements. | ITV National News




					www.itv.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

Bonkers, innit. As they were saying that, epidemiologists around the world were screaming at them that it was nonsense, that herd immunity is something that will happen eventually, but is not something you ever plan for. I was complacent as well, I admit, but I'm not government.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

Like I've said before, if you take away the stupid references to herd immunity then the UK approach at that point was no different to EU stuff, all those graphs with the curve being pushed down were in the EU docs too, it wasnt a purely UK orthodox approach. When it became a UK thing was when Johnson & Co attempted to stick with and promote the orthodox approach and vague nudge unit stuff at the very moment others were departing from that approach. It was the orthodoxies last stand, and also the last stand for Johnson trying to play Jaws mayor keeping the beaches open. I am very pleased with all the people who spoke up and said the right things or asked the right questions in the few days that followed, so that the whole thing blew up in record time.

Now then, I have my Whitty quote that demonstrates that people were given warning at least a week before the messy March 11th-16th 'herd immunity' period that we had gone beyond the phase labelled containment.



> Professor Whitty said the “working assumption” was now that the virus was spreading from person to person in the UK on a limited scale because there were a small number of cases with no apparent link to outbreaks abroad.
> 
> The Government has a four-pronged strategy against coronavirus: contain, delay, science and research, mitigate.
> 
> “We are mainly in the second stage at this point in time,” Professor Whitty told the MPs, explaining there would be a gradual shift between phases.











						Virus war enters next phase as switch is made to delaying outbreak
					

Follow our live coronavirus updates HERE




					www.standard.co.uk
				




That was March 5th. There may be earlier examples, I ran out of energy to check.


----------



## keybored (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Just heard a snippet that the mobile companies may be asked to track whether people are complying with social distancing. I know in China there was a lot of surveillance, I suppose one could expect the UK Gov to enquire about it, how though, and but really?


GPS accuracy is around 4m, giving a margin of error that would make pinning some kind of "Breach of social distancing" charge on any individual unlikely. Cell tower triangulation accuracy is 150m at best.

I suppose you could argue that it could be used to track and stop people moving between urban areas, but you have to wonder who is going to process all this information during times like this.

Where do you hear this stuff, I'd love to subscribe for the comedy value.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Bonkers, innit. As they were saying that, epidemiologists around the world were screaming at them that it was nonsense, that herd immunity is something that will happen eventually, but is not something you ever plan for. I was complacent as well, I admit, but I'm not government.


I went to my GP on 12th March for a repeat prescription and asked for more meds than 2 months  in case the NHS became overwhelmed and had no appointments.  He laughed and said 'oh we'll be fine we just need everyone to get it and we'll be ok by May'  I was like WTF?


----------



## Azrael (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Some of the dodgy stuff had such a short shelf-life though, the 4 weeks claim was never going to stand up to even a week or twos passage of time. They had to change it themselves, I think it lasted about 4 days before they changed it to '3 weeks plus London a bit ahead', which was probably their way of changing it to 2 weeks without saying so.
> 
> Oh well, may as well stick in a few more things from the period. Peston during the vanishingly brief period when the herd immunity strategy was the idea to be sold to everyone:
> 
> ...


Gets more incredible more I read it. The article he linked says the precise opposite of what he claims: WHO explicitly say the spread of coronavirus can be controlled. Then there's this:-


> ...
> the kind of coercive measures employed by China in Wuhan and Hubei have simply locked the virus behind the closed doors of people’s homes.
> 
> And just as soon as the constraints on freedom of movement are lifted there, the monstrous virus will rear its hideous face again.


That's not how viruses work! If they're starved of hosts, they die, and the epidemic ends. Neither SARS nor MERS became endemic to the populations of countries with outbreaks. That's why China separated the sick from their families. At most, he's got grounds to advocate keeping people locked down until they're all tested. 

Peston's a fiercely intelligent guy, yet he got suckered, and appears not to've sought expert opinion before filing. Terrifying just how easy it is for disinformation to spread.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Peston's a fiercely intelligent guy,


He is? Maybe in a lawyery kind of way.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I went to my GP on 12th March for a repeat prescription and asked for more meds than 2 months  in case the NHS became overwhelmed and had no appointments.  He laughed and said 'oh we'll be fine we just need everyone to get it and we'll be ok by May'  I was like WTF?



Also spare a thought for the handful of people on this very forum who picked days during the March 11th-16th political bonfire of the orthodoxies to tell us all how much they trusted the government and the government experts. Deference in action. Deference inaction. I rejected their viewpoint at the time, but little did any of us realise quite how bad their timing was to turn out to be, or how quickly this point would be demonstrated.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> He is? Maybe in a lawyery kind of way.


He's certainly got quite the resume and has done a lotta groundbreaking work in economics reporting. At the least, he should've been able to spot the grave weaknesses in the stated plan and known to seek expert advice. Or, well, read his own link.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

Azrael said:


> He's certainly got quite the resume and has done a lotta groundbreaking work in economics reporting. At the least, he should've been able to spot the grave weaknesses in the stated plan and known to seek expert advice. Or, well, read his own link.



And compare to the tune he started singing by Sunday evening:

           #1,578


----------



## Azrael (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> And compare to the tune he started singing by Sunday evening:
> 
> #1,578


Yup, to his credit he backtracked relatively swiftly and helped people like John Ashton and Anthony Costello raise the alarm.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Also spare a thought for the handful of people on this very forum who picked days during the March 11th-16th political bonfire of the orthodoxies to tell us all how much they trusted the government and the government experts.



And to those people I would like to thank them for not exploding with rage at my occasional references to this. I am hoping that I have got this period of recent history out of my system now, and that when the broader subject comes up in future, I wont feel like repeating myself again and again. I cannot sustain this level of repetition. If circumstances force me to address the issues of this period again, I will leave these references to what some people said on the forum out of it.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 21, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Peston's a fiercely intelligent guy, yet he got suckered, and appears not to've sought expert opinion before filing. Terrifying just how easy it is for disinformation to spread.



The daily press conferences are a good idea - but the media outlets seem to be only sending along their political/economic generalists. All the big ones have specialist science journos - why aren't they questioning the CSA and CMO who are attending most of them (obvs no point questioning the PM)


----------



## Wilf (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Also spare a thought for the handful of people on this very forum who picked days during the March 11th-16th political bonfire of the orthodoxies to tell us all how much they trusted the government and the government experts. Deference in action. Deference inaction. I rejected their viewpoint at the time, but little did any of us realise quite how bad their timing was to turn out to be, or how quickly this point would be demonstrated.


Yes, maybe there was deference full stop, but I also thought some posters were so keen to reject the more critical accounts of our government and its motivations that they ended up seeming to argue that our government was being guided by a 'value free science' (yuk).  Fwiw, I don't go with the line that Johnson was happy to kill off the over 70s on this, though he and his ilk have been killing the poor for years. However I am convinced there was a big fat neo-liberal game in play of 'not panicking', for long term political gain and to secure an advantage over competitors (itself a lingering effect of his get Brexit done mindset). What 'science', in the form of his top advisors, didn't do was manage to speak truth to cunts, or at least have the guts to go with what was a growing scientific consensus. Both they and Johnson are hiding behind the Imperial College research and may find it doesn't even reach up to their nasties:








						Richard Horton | The Guardian
					

Richard Horton is a doctor and edits the Lancet




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Petcha (Mar 21, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> The daily press conferences are a good idea - but the media outlets seem to be only sending along their political/economic generalists. All the big ones have specialist science journos - why aren't they questioning the CSA and CMO who are attending most of them (obvs no point questioning the PM)



They seem to have marginalised the two science/medical guys since their advice was proven to be categorically incorrect


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 21, 2020)

Tremendous news about the wages guarantee. I get to go back to work on Sunday for my £9p/h, whilst those with the best (and strangely non-essential) jobs can sit at home receiving £2500 a month from our newly socialist chancellor


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

Petcha said:


> They seem to have marginalised the two science/medical guys since their advice was proven to be categorically incorrect



Not sure about that. Before this week there were not daily briefings, and the briefings didnt involve special guest stars like the chancellor. So the failure of Whitty and Vallance to be there every single day is not necessarily indicative of much, need to wait for other signs.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

Another piece that is an introduction to the new way:









						Coronavirus: What could the West learn from Asia?
					

Experts say the UK and US lost an opportunity to prepare for the outbreak - but that it's not too late.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

Nick Triggle alert:









						Coronavirus: How to understand the death toll
					

The rising number of coronavirus deaths is distressing. But what are the figures actually telling us?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The figures for coronavirus are eye-watering. But what is not clear - because the modellers did not map this - is to what extent the deaths would have happened without coronavirus.
> 
> Given that the old and frail are the most vulnerable, would these people be dying anyway?
> 
> Every year more than 500,000 people die in England and Wales: factor in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the figure tops 600,000.





> There are, of course, other factors at play here. Left unchecked, the deaths would come very quickly.
> 
> The 500,000 deaths could all occur in the UK by August, the modellers said.
> 
> ...





> NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens suggested intensive care capacity could be doubled, after this modelling came out.
> 
> What else has not been done is a proper assessment of the economic and social costs of the measures taken, which themselves will put lives and health at risk.
> 
> As we get deeper into this crisis, we will need much greater intelligence on just how many lives are truly being saved, and compare that to the wider cost to society, so the government and the public can weigh up the best course of action.



Same guy that was telling us we should get on with our lives on March 13th.            #1,164        
By the way I think his analysis that I quoted on March 13th in that previous post was removed from the BBC article of the time, but there are still traces of it to be found elsewhere on the net.


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 21, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Tremendous news about the wages guarantee. I get to go back to work on Sunday for my £9p/h, whilst those with the best (and strangely non-essential) jobs can sit at home receiving £2500 a month from our newly socialist chancellor



I thought that was largely to cover pub, restaurant, hotel workers, etc. who mostly weren't making anything near £2500 a month to start with - it's going to be especially tough for anybody who relied on tips as part of their income.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 21, 2020)

Amazing how this messes with your head. I've constantly flipped from 'they know what their doing' to 'that's a bit crazy' to 'fuck me they're out of their depth' to 'it'll be alright' to 'they've really fucked up here' on and on. Even only yesterday I said 'they haven't enabled a disaster' to 'Yes they have' to 'is enabled really the right word though?' 

The 'herd immunity' thing was worse though, felt like two sides of my brain were thinking the opposite to each other at the same time.

I think the lack of folk memory of SARS and the like is absolutely key to the west's complacency in general. Myself and lots of people I knew were just thinking it was another SARS thing that will come to nothing. I started taking it seriously two weeks ago but at the same time thought the government would get on top of it all pretty quickly. It's a sense of disbelief and denial that they could fuck it up but I guess we'll soon find out to what extent all this plays out now.

Nice one for going over previous quotes, elbows. That's been really useful.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Mar 21, 2020)

Having not panic bought I'm getting low food, no tomatoes, frozen peas, eggs or soya milk. At this point I'd probably go to the supermarket àfter work but the shops are empty then.  

I'm still working for now and can't go early and my partner has panic attacks in queues and crowds. Think we'll have some odd meals for a whole. I'm getting worried that I'll never be able to buy eggs again.


----------



## bimble (Mar 21, 2020)

This says that government guidelines are expected to be issued today to help direct the decisions that hospital staff will need to make when they have to choose who gets a ventilator and who doesn't.








						NHS doctors to be given guidelines to help decide which coronavirus victims should live or die
					

Exclusive: Health chiefs act on tragic choices to be made if hospitals run out of intensive care beds or ventilators




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## mauvais (Mar 21, 2020)

keybored said:


> GPS accuracy is around 4m, giving a margin of error that would make pinning some kind of "Breach of social distancing" charge on any individual unlikely. Cell tower triangulation accuracy is 150m at best.
> 
> I suppose you could argue that it could be used to track and stop people moving between urban areas, but you have to wonder who is going to process all this information during times like this.
> 
> Where do you hear this stuff, I'd love to subscribe for the comedy value.


There's serious ongoing discussion about mobile tracking. It's obviously not going to tell you whether people are staying 2m apart but it absolutely could tell you to what degree people are staying at home and obeying advisories. I'm sure there are plenty of people who could rapidly analyse it.

It's a bit of a waste of time though IMO because it doesn't matter what level of passive compliance is being generated; it's clear that the country should stop fucking about trying to nudge people and actively enforce serious measures as appropriate.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 21, 2020)

I initially didn't understand the severity of this - was slightly bemuses by the intensity of the reaction in china etc. But it was reading urban that made me realise that it was the rate of infection that made this so serious. Johnsons and co dont have that excuse - it was there job to understand what the implications were and what should be done - and they are surrounded by people with serous expertise in these matters.
I flew back into the manchester airport from Cyprus two weeks ago after a week away - and i was shocked by the utter lack of any controls or warnings. The only indication of a looming public health emergency was a hand written note saying "wash your hands" that the cabin crew had put up inside the airplane toilet - attached with little stickers saying "50%" off. Pretty much from that moment i have gone from shaking my head to literally crying in despair at the governments reluctance to take this seriously.
I think this absolutely comes from Johnson - and the mindset of his peers in government - a pooh poohing of health and safety restrictions, wilful ignorance towards troublesome details, a disdain for the "nanny state".

And  very much this -



Wilf said:


> I don't go with the line that Johnson was happy to kill off the over 70s on this, though he and his ilk have been killing the poor for years. However I am convinced there was a big fat neo-liberal game in play of 'not panicking', for long term political gain and to secure an advantage over competitors (itself a lingering effect of his get Brexit done mindset).



Hence the utter lack of preparation and contingency planning - for which we about to pay a deadly price. What baffles me is why the public health professionals went along with this - surely they must have been modelling. Why weren't - at the very least - pressing for extensive testing, a rapid expansion of critical care capacity, measures to prevent panic buying and a major public information campaign (still bafflingly absent). Yesterday they called up thousands of retired nurses and GPs -_ yesterday.  _Like so much else - it should have been done weeks ago.

We've got 5 more years of this cunt in power when the whole world is facing its biggest disruption since WW2. Now we find out that actually the character of the person in charge during a  crises has huge implications. Lick spittles of the capitalist system they may have been - but I would give my right arm for Obama and Brown to be at the helm right now.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 21, 2020)

Cornwall fears influx of 'out-of-towners' will overwhelm NHS services
					

Council, health body and tourist board urge people to stay away but roads from London to the south-west were busy on Friday




					www.theguardian.com
				




Calling Voley 

Some second homes need burning.


----------



## Voley (Mar 21, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Cornwall fears influx of 'out-of-towners' will overwhelm NHS services
> 
> 
> Council, health body and tourist board urge people to stay away but roads from London to the south-west were busy on Friday
> ...


It's a real worry. And not just because of the virus spreading. Sainsbury's delivery guy I spoke to yesterday said first thing second home owners do on arrival is a massive food shop.

Germany have already told people they're not allowed to travel to their second home. We should do the same.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 21, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> I initially didn't understand the severity of this - was slightly bemuses by the intensity of the reaction in china etc. But it was reading urban that made me realise that it was the rate of infection that made this so serious. Johnsons and co dont have that excuse - it was there job to understand what the implications were and what should be done - and they are surrounded by people with serous expertise in these matters.
> I flew back into the manchester airport from Cyprus two weeks ago after a week away - and i was shocked by the utter lack of any controls or warnings. The only indication of a looming public health emergency was a hand written not saying "wash your hands" that the cabin crew had put up inside the airplane toilet - attached with little stickers saying "50%" off. Pretty much from that moment i have been shaking my head at the governments reluctance to take this seriously.
> I think this absolutely comes from Johnson - and the mindset of his peers in government - a pooh poohing of health and safety restrictions, wilful ignorance towards troublesome details, a disdain for the "nanny state".
> 
> ...


I’m a thicko in all these things.  May I ask why Obama and Brown Kaka Tim


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 21, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I’m a thicko in all these things.  May I ask why Obama and Brown Kaka Tim



Because they were serious minded, highly intelligent people who could process information - and who would have devoted every waking minute to get on top of this. E.g - they probably prevented the 2008 crash being far worse than it could have been.  Right now i would rather have Thatcher in charge than Johnson.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 21, 2020)

Voley said:


> It's a real worry. And not just because of the virus spreading. Sainsbury's delivery guy I spoke to yesterday said first thing second home owners do on arrival is a massive food shop.
> 
> Germany have already told people they're not allowed to travel to their second home. We should do the same.



Cornwall should close its borders


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 21, 2020)

Voley said:


> It's a real worry. And not just because of the virus spreading. Sainsbury's delivery guy I spoke to yesterday said first thing second home owners do on arrival is a massive food shop.
> 
> Germany have already told people they're not allowed to travel to their second home. We should do the same.


A French contact did a runner from Paris to the Gironde while he could - where the locals aren't happy -a lot of them elderly.
Not just to do with food supplies, but emergency services and hospitals - on a peninsula - so quite a haul from there to Bordeaux... and the fecking great estuary makes it a boat or helicopter ride to the nearer ones ..

He claimed he's allowed on the beach, but I have seen the instructions from the Mairie ...


----------



## two sheds (Mar 21, 2020)

friendofdorothy said:


> Having not panic bought I'm getting low food, no tomatoes, frozen peas, eggs or soya milk. At this point I'd probably go to the supermarket àfter work but the shops are empty then.
> 
> I'm still working for now and can't go early and my partner has panic attacks in queues and crowds. Think we'll have some odd meals for a whole. I'm getting worried that I'll never be able to buy eggs again.



Have you got a milkman? Or local shop that will deliver? Or supermarket delivery?


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Also spare a thought for the handful of people on this very forum who picked days during the March 11th-16th political bonfire of the orthodoxies to tell us all how much they trusted the government and the government experts. Deference in action. Deference inaction. I rejected their viewpoint at the time, but little did any of us realise quite how bad their timing was to turn out to be, or how quickly this point would be demonstrated.



Some detail here in the internal debate within government: 10 Days That Changed Britain: "Heated" Debate Between Scientists Forced Boris Johnson To Act On Coronavirus

From that article: "While Downing Street’s deference to the experts won plaudits early on, this approach has turned out to be lacking, the ministers and MPs said, because the scientists themselves disagreed on what to do. One minister said that it was then the political responsibility of Johnson and Number 10 to decide which scientists to back, but described a 'vacuum of leadership' among aides. "

I know there aren't many David Cameron fans here, but in his autobiography this is something he covered when discussing his role as PM - that it's often thought the PM is mostly there to just make big decisions, but in fact its actually the questioning of official advice, seeking other opinions, keeping on and on at people, and offering new ideas that make the difference at pivotal moments.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

keybored said:


> GPS accuracy is around 4m, giving a margin of error that would make pinning some kind of "Breach of social distancing" charge on any individual unlikely. Cell tower triangulation accuracy is 150m at best.
> 
> I suppose you could argue that it could be used to track and stop people moving between urban areas, but you have to wonder who is going to process all this information during times like this.
> 
> Where do you hear this stuff, I'd love to subscribe for the comedy value.


It must have been a mainstream news bulletin, possibly BBC News 24 .. they didn't go on about it though, just a mention.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 21, 2020)

I was just standing looking out of the window in my pyjamas, watching joggers and dog walkers keeping 2 meters apart, and noticed in the flats opposite several pyjamaed people in windows doing exactly the same.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

Azrael said:


> .. China set up fever accomodation and hauled anyone with a temperature from their homes. Can't see that going down well here, to put it mildly, but perhaps setting either the infected or their healthy flat- and housemates up in hotels will be viable.


I think that might be something to file under China can do this UK probably can't


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 21, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> flew back into the manchester airport from Cyprus two weeks ago after a week away - and i was shocked by the utter lack of any controls or warnings. The only indication of a looming public health emergency was a hand written not saying "wash your hands"





Voley said:


> Germany have already told people they're not allowed to travel to their second home.


This sums up why I've no confidence in the Gov now. These are both situations that any fule kno could help with preventing spread yet our leaders seem paralyzed.


----------



## The39thStep (Mar 21, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I was just standing looking out of the window in my pyjamas, watching joggers and dog walkers keeping 2 meters apart, and noticed in the flats opposite several pyjamaed people in windows doing exactly the same.


Avert your gaze from bored housewives


----------



## bimble (Mar 21, 2020)

Sorry if its been already posted elsewhere. This claims to know the behind the scenes wrangling that have been going on to turn the government machine this past week. 








						10 Days That Changed Britain: "Heated" Debate Between Scientists Forced Boris Johnson To Act On Coronavirus
					

“This is going to get much, much worse, very quickly, both in terms of deaths and the economy,” a cabinet minister told BuzzFeed News. “It will not be long before we are getting numbers like Italy. I don’t think people realise that yet.”




					www.buzzfeed.com


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Avert your gaze from bored housewives


Will not.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 21, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I was just standing looking out of the window in my pyjamas, watching joggers and dog walkers keeping 2 meters apart, and noticed in the flats opposite several pyjamaed people in windows doing exactly the same.



Working from home


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 21, 2020)

Wearing Fucking Hanything


----------



## scifisam (Mar 21, 2020)

I went to the supermarket early this morning - sorry, Teaboy, but I've been having trouble getting my asthma prescriptions at my usual chemist and I'm also registered at the in-store chemist there so went there instead (and had to go in person), and since I was there I decided to do some shopping. 

The bad - the frozen aisles and tin aisles and toilet rolls, nappies, etc, were completely depleted at 8am, the pharmacist had a sign up saying that they'd run out of things like paracetamol, and almost all vegetarian (Quorn, etc) products were gone:

However, the good is that there was plenty of fresh fruit and veg, a decent amount of ready meals, and prepared salads and sandwiches (which is what I bought), and there was no sign of fighting over produce, and people were distancing as much as they reasonably could. It was actually a lot friendlier than usual, TBH. I have a cough that I'm still fairly sure is just my usual asthma cough, and nobody gave me dirty looks, possibly partly because I was coughing into my elbow. 

I gave planting advice to a guy buying seeds for the first time, which made me feel helpful, and the supermarket had a two of the same kind limit that most people seemed to be complying with without arguing.



cupid_stunt said:


> Very few, if any, businesses will have cover for this situation, even closure because of disease cover is normally designed/written to cover an outbreak on the premises that results in a forced closure. Policies are legal contracts, so if it's covered, it will be paid out, because there'll be very few claims.
> 
> The reason why cover is not largely available or taken out for these circumstances is probably due (a) no one ever thinking it was a possibility, or (b) they did, but realised if it was wildly available & taken up, and it actually happened, it would collapse the insurance industry, meaning claims wouldn't be paid out without the government stepping in anyway.
> 
> This is far too big for the industry to cover, only the government can cover this situation.



The govt had stepped in the bail out reinsurers before, so it's not an unprecedented situation. And it's shit that people who actually paid for notifiable disease cover aren't covered because this disease didn't exist at the time. That's the kind of clause that no buyer beware advice can help with, and shouldn't have been allowed in the first place.



platinumsage said:


> They've already cancelled recycling collections here in anticipation of people not being able to work.



They have here too. The problem is, on our street we don't have bins - Georgian townhouses with narrow pavements and no place to put bins - so we have to put bags on the actual pavement. It's a mess out there already, and it's only going to get worse. I picked up a couple of bottles that had been dragged out of bags by foxes tearing the bags apart, and put them in the bags that weren't destroyed. It's a health hazard. I really hope they do collect from streets like ours at least.



friendofdorothy said:


> Having not panic bought I'm getting low food, no tomatoes, frozen peas, eggs or soya milk. At this point I'd probably go to the supermarket àfter work but the shops are empty then.
> 
> I'm still working for now and can't go early and my partner has panic attacks in queues and crowds. Think we'll have some odd meals for a whole. I'm getting worried that I'll never be able to buy eggs again.



I'm probably a bit far, but if you run low and can get here, I'm happy to pass on some stuff. You could call me and I'd leave it on the doorstep and wave through the window . Though I don't actually have the items you mentioned, I do have a reasonable stock of other stuff.


----------



## Supine (Mar 21, 2020)

Even the 'best science' doesn’t have the final word on covid-19
					

Models of what impact interventions will have on the new coronavirus's spread are imperfect, so factors other than the science play an important role too, says David Adam




					www.newscientist.com


----------



## spitfire (Mar 21, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I went to the supermarket early this morning - sorry, Teaboy, but I've been having trouble getting my asthma prescriptions at my usual chemist and I'm also registered at the in-store chemist there so went there instead (and had to go in person), and since I was there I decided to do some shopping.
> 
> The bad - the frozen aisles and tin aisles and toilet rolls, nappies, etc, were completely depleted at 8am, the pharmacist had a sign up saying that they'd run out of things like paracetamol, and almost all vegetarian (Quorn, etc) products were gone:
> 
> ...



you’re in tower hamlets as well aren’t you? The bin men are/were on strike. We’ve had massive piles of rubbish outside for a week. Apparently they’re starting to clear now.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Some detail here in the internal debate within government: 10 Days That Changed Britain: "Heated" Debate Between Scientists Forced Boris Johnson To Act On Coronavirus





bimble said:


> Sorry if its been already posted elsewhere. This claims to know the behind the scenes wrangling that have been going on to turn the government machine this past week.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks for posting that article, very timely. One more level of detail beyond that should be enough to really get to the bottom of matters, I wonder if more of that will come out in the terrible weeks ahead or whether it will all have to wait for a public inquiry.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 21, 2020)

spitfire said:


> you’re in tower hamlets as well aren’t you? The bin men are/were on strike. We’ve had massive piles of rubbish outside for a week. Apparently they’re starting to clear now.



Yeah, I heard that too, but the black bin bags have been collected. It's an awkward time for a strike. Callous as it might sound, I hope they're able to use it to bargain for good terms, given that everyone has collectively realised they're an essential service - it would be the kind of profiteering I'd approve of.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 21, 2020)

The lack of testing of NHS staff is just mind numbingly stupid.


----------



## Petcha (Mar 21, 2020)

Bizarrely/ironically, whatever - this thing is working out quite well for flathunters. Landlords are falling over themselves to get people in. I just knocked one down by 200 quid a month


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 21, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> The lack of testing of NHS staff is just mind numbingly stupid.



criminally negligent to the point of manslaughter. As im sure the public enquiry will find when it reports its findings in 30 years time.


----------



## Supine (Mar 21, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> The lack of testing of NHS staff is just mind numbingly stupid.



It's almost certainly because not enough testing capability is available. There is no sane reason to not test them.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

More on the 'other companies making ventilators' thing:



> British technology firm Smiths Group says it is making the details of one of its ventilators available for other manufacturers to produce, in an attempt to tackle the shortage of equipment.





> The group's Smiths Medical unit is also ramping up its own ventilator production, as well as providing intellectual property and advice to other companies to make its PARAPAC Plus lightweight ventilators.



From 11:49 of BBC updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51984399


----------



## prunus (Mar 21, 2020)

More musing on the effect on the national psyche, I wonder if this could finally kill off the pernicious evil of the concept of British exceptionalism?  When we see many other countries of the type we’ve traditionally looked down on being more competent, better organised, better resourced, pulling together, better informed and crucially just coping better and so on maybe we’ll realise that we’re not special, we’re the same as everyone else, pretty average on balance, good at some things, way behind on others. And then I would hope we might realise that like everyone we and they and everyone are better off together, working together for common goals each using their strengths to shore up others’ weaknesses, rather than always trying to get one up and steal an ‘advantage’ over our fellow man and woman.  Maybe.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)




----------



## planetgeli (Mar 21, 2020)

editor said:


> This is disgusting
> 
> 
> 
> ...



'salright. Just an 'admin error' apparently.









						Coronavirus: Hotel made staff homeless in 'admin error'
					

More than a dozen staff at a Highland hotel were sacked and asked to leave staff accommodation.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Screw them.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 21, 2020)

They should have installed Grammarly - though I don't know if that spots people being cunts ....


----------



## xes (Mar 21, 2020)

A care home in Wales playing Hungry Hungry Hippos during lockdown.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

Good:



> The Home Office has released almost 300 people from detention centres in the last few days because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Guardian has learned.
> 
> The speed and scale of the release is unprecedented in recent years. Detainees and charities estimate that more than a quarter of those currently locked up have been set free.
> 
> The release comes in the wake of a legal action launched last week which argued that the Home Office had failed to protect immigration detainees from the coronavirus outbreak and failed to identify which detainees were at particular risk of serious harm or death if they do contract the virus due to their age or underlying health conditions.











						Home Office releases 300 from detention centres amid Covid-19 pandemic
					

Release follows legal action that argues Home Office is failing to protect immigration detainees




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## agricola (Mar 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> Sorry if its been already posted elsewhere. This claims to know the behind the scenes wrangling that have been going on to turn the government machine this past week.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



yet more PM-excusing drivel from him:



> While the crisis that Johnson faces is undoubtedly unprecedented, there is significant criticism of Number 10’s handling of the situation across the government and the Conservative Party.
> 
> Chief among them is the view — expressed by several ministers and Tory MPs to BuzzFeed News over the last few days — that Johnson and his chief aide Dominic Cummings have effectively “outsourced” the government’s decision-making process to Vallance, the chief medical officer Chris Whitty, and a small team of scientific advisers.
> 
> ...



Its the _scientists_ that were wrong, apparently.  Also, "millennials" (despite that Wetherspoons cretin and the likes of Humphries telling his Mail readership that he'll be defying the advice to stay home):



> Despite the prime minister’s praise for Londoners, there is increasing concern in Downing Street the public is so far not heeding his advice to avoid unnecessary social gatherings.
> 
> It is believed that in particular, millennial men have been the worst offenders at failing to reduce their contact with other people, continuing to visit pubs, travel widely and take part in other social events, despite being told that doing so risks the lives of the elderly and vulnerable.
> 
> On Wednesday, health minister and recent coronavirus sufferer Nadine Dorries blasted the "selfishness" of Londoners who have been failing to follow social distancing advice.



Anyone to blame but them.  That someone who claims to be a journalist is putting out this absolute rubbish is a disgrace.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 21, 2020)

The NHS are taking over private hospitals from next week –that’s 8,000 beds, over 1200 extra ventilators, over 10,000 nurses, over 700 doctors, over 8,000 other qualified clinical staff. 

Breaking on sky News.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

I wonder if more measures are on their way initially for London because according to some the parks are full of people who aren't taking social distancing seriously, that and that London is a hot spot for infections.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I wonder if more measures are on their way initially for London because according to some the parks are full of people who aren't taking social distancing seriously, that and that London is a hot spot for infections.



Just how fucking thick are people, especially in London.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Nick Triggle alert:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I note some changes to that article since I posted about it last night (my post with some quotes            #2,565          )

The title of the piece when I posted it was 'Coronavirus: Have UK experts over-egged deaths?'.

It has since been changed to 'Coronavirus deaths: What we don't know'.

I dont think anything has been removed from the article, but some stuff has been added. In particular, the following caveat was inserted after a sentence about how it is not clear to what extent the deaths would have happened without coronavirus:



> Of course, this will never truly be known until the pandemic is over, which is why modelling is very difficult and needs caveats.


----------



## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just how fucking thick are people, especially in London.


they are no different in any other larger city eg Munich or Berlin.


----------



## lazythursday (Mar 21, 2020)

agricola said:


> yet more PM-excusing drivel from him:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I thought that article read more like an attack on Cummings from some other cabinet minister (Gove?) rather than a defence of Johnson. It seems quite clear the government scientists fucked this up as well as the politicians anyway.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 21, 2020)

littleseb said:


> they are no different in any other larger city eg Munich or Berlin.



OK, all major city dwellers are thick. 

Being serious, there's far more cases in London than anywhere else in the UK, these twats need to wake-up.


----------



## magneze (Mar 21, 2020)

There's lots of space but having the kiosks open seems a bit stupid. Inevitably there are loads of people there.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 21, 2020)

littleseb said:


> they are no different in any other larger city eg Munich or Berlin.



I just had an email from friend in Dusseldorf which unfortunately confirms this. All the same problems, bog roll etc, and if anything she paints an even worse picture of actual fights in supermarkets.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Just heard a snippet that the mobile companies may be asked to track whether people are complying with social distancing. I know in China there was a lot of surveillance, I suppose one could expect the UK Gov to enquire about it, how though, and but really?



talking to chinese colleagues the Chinese government had absolute control over their people using the technical infrastructure. Each residential block has a perimeter and monitored. If you got caught out with a temp you were literally whisked off to a clinic no mercy.  The Chinese boss here explained that he hadn’t touched cashfor ages everything is done electronically including monitoring the population access to buildings

 Testing and tracing was immediate

a million miles from this fucked  up dither, suck it and see bullshit


----------



## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I just had an email from friend in Dusseldorf which unfortunately confirms this. All the same problems, bog roll etc, and if anything she paints an even worse picture of actual fights in supermarkets.


was moaning to friends and family (in Munich and Berlin) a lot over the last few days, and they painted a very similar picture. In Munich, even when shops had to close at 3pm and playgrounds were shut, the beer gardens remained open and people had a jolly good time. They're on a partial lockdown now, only one person out per household at a time.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 21, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> but surely at the cost of level of state surveillance that's a massive imposition and hard to roll back?



yup


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

From where we are now, WFH, no unessential journeys, various self isolating, NHS under pressure, pubs resteraunts cafés gyms etc closed, the tube and public transport still running, what are the next steps Johnson could be considering?


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> talking to chinese colleagues the Chinese government had absolute control over their people using the technical infrastructure. Each residential block has a perimeter and monitored. If you got caught out with a temp you were literally whisked off to a clinic no mercy.  The Chinese boss here explained that he hadn’t touched cashfor ages everything is done electronically including monitoring the population access to buildings
> 
> Testing and tracing was immediate
> 
> a million miles from this fucked  up dither, suck it and see bullshit


Sounds to me this is what we need here. No mucking about ..


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 21, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I just had an email from friend in Dusseldorf which unfortunately confirms this. All the same problems, bog roll etc, and if anything she paints an even worse picture of actual fights in supermarkets.



Blimey! That is a shock. I lived in Germany for over seven years, and found it to be quite a formal and very polite society.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 21, 2020)

The John Lewis Partnership has announced they are closing all their JL branded stores*, I expect others to follow, or the government will end-up forcing them to close anyway.

* not their Waitrose stores.









						John Lewis closes all 50 stores across Britain amid coronavirus pandemic
					

The firm will temporarily close its 50 department stores at the close of business on Monday due to the outbreak, marking the first time in the company's history that it has shut its doors to customers




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Sounds to me this is what we need here. No mucking about ..



Conservative and Labour MPs and David fucking Davis* are already whining about the steps you suggest being way over the top.









						Tory backbenchers plan rebellion against Boris Johnson's plans
					

Tory backbenchers will stage a rebellion next week against the Prime Minister's plans to introduce emergency laws to help fight coronavirus.




					www.dailymail.co.uk
				




*Dickhead in chief, deserves a special mention.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> From where we are now, WFH, no unessential journeys, various self isolating, NHS under pressure, pubs resteraunts cafés gyms etc closed, the tube and public transport still running, what are the next steps Johnson could be considering?



Close all shops apart from food shops. Kibosh public transport altogether.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Labour MPs and David fucking Davis are already whining about the steps you suggest being way over the top.


Let them whine!

Sasaferrato I am sure you will agree that the only way to significantly reduce transmission of the virus is to isolate everyone at home for a period and that will bring new cases down and reduce the load on the NHS, buying time for other initiatives.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Sounds to me this is what we need here. No mucking about ..



Even if they will consider going for the all out virus suppression strategy, capacity of all manner of things must first be built up. Testing is the most obvious, most approaches need that, and initial capacity increases really should be directed at NHS workers.

I'm also going to stop making predictions about the future government response, public attitudes etc until we see what impact the looming NHS nightmare first wave capacity crisis has. As we have seen in recent times, a lot can change in a week at the moment.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Close all shops apart from food shops. Kibosh public transport altogether.


I would agree with that. China I think only permitted food shops and pharmacies to be open, and only one person per household was permitted out to buy food / medicine per day. We should be doing that now imho.


----------



## belboid (Mar 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Kibosh public transport altogether.


how would essential workers get to work?


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Sounds to me this is what we need here. No mucking about ..



we just don’t have the level of oppressive routine monitoring China has.

If  Boris stopped “hoping” and “suggesting” and “taking it on the chin” two weeks back we could had closed it down more. Some back room douche nozzle theorist had very peculiar presumptions of what the great U.K. unwashed would or wouldn’t “stand for”

it needed fuck off strong leadership and direction. We got neither and the British bulldog stiff upper lip,  Union Jack, two world wars and one World Cup mentality went about their business

like  the amuricans who are gonna realise that their peculiar definition of freedom Is flawed and they can’t kill a virus with an M4 semi auto rifle

my despair is strong tonight


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I would agree with that. China I think only permitted food shops and pharmacies to be open, and only one person per household was permitted out to buy food / medicine per day. We should be doing that now imho.



There is no capability to enforce this and a large enough chunk of the population will ignore it.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Let them whine!
> 
> Sasaferrato I am sure you will agree that the only way to significantly reduce transmission of the virus is to isolate everyone at home for a period and that will bring new cases down and reduce the load on the NHS, buying time for other initiatives.



I do indeed agree, and am saddened but not surprised by the clowns in the Commons. I've long felt that there should be an IQ test to be an MP, so many of them are fuckwits with zero real life experience. This applies to _both _sides of the house.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> There is no capability to enforce this and a large enough chunk of the population will ignore it.



The capacity to enforce it can be called up at quite short notice.


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## binka (Mar 21, 2020)

Been over to the retail park today and homebase, Argos, pets at home, hobby craft, the range and b&m are all open the only one that's shut is tk maxx


----------



## agricola (Mar 21, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I thought that article read more like an attack on Cummings from some other cabinet minister (Gove?) rather than a defence of Johnson. It seems quite clear the government scientists fucked this up as well as the politicians anyway.



Yes, but the criticism is limited to him and the PM believing "the scientists" and following their advice. 

The possibility that it might have been them (the political leadership) who decided to let the virus go through the country (take it on the chin, avoid economic damage and we'd be left with a healthier population afterwards) isn't even acknowledged, even to the point of not mentioning that "the scientists" might have presented other options (lockdown, partial lockdown, take it on the chin) (edit) and asked them to pick one - which is something that they almost certainly would have done.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> The capacity to enforce it can be called up at quite short notice.



If you mean squaddies it's probably them that's been keeping the pubs in business.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> If you mean squaddies it's probably them that's been keeping the pubs in business.



There are a lot of ex-squaddies, matelots and crabs who are still on the reserve. The usual service length is 22 years, but many do less, they are on the reserve until IIRC 55.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 21, 2020)

littleseb said:


> was moaning to friends and family (in Munich and Berlin) a lot over the last few days, and they painted a very similar picture. In Munich, even when shops had to close at 3pm and playgrounds were shut, the beer gardens remained open and people had a jolly good time. They're on a partial lockdown now, only one person out per household at a time.



Brings its own risks I'd have thought - only needs one person with cv per household to spread it round to other households?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 21, 2020)

Police patrol boat on the Thames, using their speakers to blast out Monty Python's 'always look on the bright side of life.'


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## Sasaferrato (Mar 21, 2020)

agricola said:


> Yes, but the criticism is limited to him and the PM believing "the scientists" and following their advice.
> 
> The possibility that it might have been them (the political leadership) who decided to let the virus go through the country (take it on the chin, avoid economic damage and we'd be left with a healthier population afterwards) isn't even acknowledged, even to the point of not mentioning that "the scientists" might have presented other options (lockdown, partial lockdown, take it on the chin) (edit) and asked them to pick one - which is something that they almost certainly would have done.



If the scientists fucked this up, what can the PM do? It seems that the term 'expert' is a very movable feast indeed. OTOH, when you are dealing with something where actual knowledge is like hens teeth, maybe 'best guess' is all that is available.


----------



## lazythursday (Mar 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> If the scientists fucked this up, what can the PM do? It seems that the term 'expert' is a very movable feast indeed. OTOH, when you are dealing with something where actual knowledge is like hens teeth, maybe 'best guess' is all that is available.


There was plenty of knowledge but some of the experts and politicians thought they knew better, by the looks of it.


----------



## agricola (Mar 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> *If the scientists fucked this up, what can the PM do*? It seems that the term 'expert' is a very movable feast indeed. OTOH, when you are dealing with something where actual knowledge is like hens teeth, maybe 'best guess' is all that is available.



To begin to accept that as a possibility, you have to ignore the fact (which even Wickham admits) that there was no consensus amongst themselves as well as the fact that the WHO and the rest of the world were all doing something different.   It is really difficult to believe that "the scientists" would have not mentioned the alternatives (even though there was no consensus amongst them and other countries were doing something different) and that the PM / Cummings didn't know that there were alternatives and that other countries were doing different things, and just let them get on with it - when "letting them get on with it" is emphatically not what has been done anywhere else in government since he became PM (as Javid's sacking proved).

Then you also have to accept that "the scientists" would have somehow have come up with a notion of "herd immunity" which was not especially well supported by the science, and knew how to get the PM's supporters to come out a few weekends ago and all say what a clever idea it was, even to the extent of one of them saying they'd be saving money by culling the elderly.  

There is however an alternative theory - which is that a group of people, some of whom we know are already attracted by the idea of eugenics and almost all of whom have a high opinion of money, were asked to make a decision between "taking it on the chin" and a low cost economically and a high cost in lives, or forms of lockdown which would cost a lot economically but fewer lives.  

I think the fact that the creatures of this government have all been going around blaming the science should tell you which theory is correct.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> OK, all major city dwellers are thick.
> 
> Being serious, there's far more cases in London than anywhere else in the UK, these twats need to wake-up.



Because London’s fucking huge and has mass transit, jobs and flats where people are cheek by jowl half the time.


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## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Kibosh public transport altogether.



You've not thought the consequences of that through.


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## Celyn (Mar 21, 2020)

friendofdorothy said:


> Having not panic bought I'm getting low food, no tomatoes, frozen peas, eggs or soya milk. At this point I'd probably go to the supermarket àfter work but the shops are empty then.
> 
> I'm still working for now and can't go early and my partner has panic attacks in queues and crowds. Think we'll have some odd meals for a whole. I'm getting worried that I'll never be able to buy eggs again.


Ha! Yes indeed.  I came to my Dad's house and he was running out of most things.  Fine,  that is usually easily fixed.  But not when the supermarket delivery slots are so rare,  and the range of things that turn out not to be available.  Eggs,  coffee,  lentils, rice etc.  But we're lucky in that there is a Spar shop within walking distance,  although I want to avoid it as much as possible.  (Dad=85 so high risk,  although he vaguely thinks it's all a panic about nothing.)


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## scifisam (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I wonder if more measures are on their way initially for London because according to some the parks are full of people who aren't taking social distancing seriously, that and that London is a hot spot for infections.



Aren't parks supposed to be a safe place to go as long as you don't get too close to people, which is fairly easy in a park?


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## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Aren't parks supposed to be a safe place to go as long as you don't get too close to people, which is fairly easy in a park?


Yes, you would think they should be safe but the photo I saw somewhere on here within the last hour showed a park with people absolutely cheek by jowel.


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## brogdale (Mar 21, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Aren't parks supposed to be a safe place to go as long as you don't get too close to people, which is fairly easy in a park?


Yep.

On my walk today I went through 2 parks. Plenty of other folk responsibly doing the same to keep body & soul together. Felt sorry for the families...they've got to let the young'uns burn off all that energy. Until we go full-on lockdown I intend to walk every day that i can.


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## mx wcfc (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Yes, you would think they should be safe but the photo I saw somewhere on here within the last hour showed a park with people absolutely cheek by jowel.


We went to a local national trust place today.  Never seen it as busy.


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## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Aren't parks supposed to be a safe place to go as long as you don't get too close to people, which is fairly easy in a park?


In munich police patrol the parks urging people not to get too close. When people are permanently reminded to do so the message eventually gets through. Here it is almost impossible to keep distance, even if you are trying your best. People pass you close by, shuffle up on you, don't give way etc etc. It's very frustrating.


----------



## xenon (Mar 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Close all shops apart from food shops. Kibosh public transport altogether.



Essential workers still need to get around though. Maybe issue with permits so only they can travel on busses, tubes etc.


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## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Until we go full-on lockdown I intend to walk every day that i can.


yes me too and so we should. Esp my son needs fresh air etc.
what gets me is the people who treat the whole thing as an event. people having picnincs in the park with beer, laughter and snacks. There were quite a few of them in my local park today.
I'm not expecting people to put on their sad dramatic face and get depressed, but I find it puzzling how blase about it all some people seem to be.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just how fucking thick are people, especially in London.


I went for a walk in a park in London today. There were fewer people there than you would normally see on a sunny March day. Those people that were there were mostly just walking, not getting close to others they didn't know, and not really contacting anyone other than the person/people they went to the park with, which in the majority of cases will have been the people they live with. I don't see that as irresponsible. You get into much closer contact with people you don't know, touching surfaces touched by others, in a supermarket.


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## redsquirrel (Mar 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Close all shops apart from food shops. Kibosh public transport altogether.


And how are people supposed to get around?


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## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I went for a walk in a park in London today. There were fewer people there than you would normally see on a sunny March day. Those people that were there were mostly just walking, not getting close to others they didn't know, and not really contacting anyone other than the person/people they went to the park with, which in the majority of cases will have been the people they live with.


maybe I live in an especially thick part of town, but my experience from today's outing is v different.


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## chilango (Mar 21, 2020)

We went to take our daughter out to a big green space for a run art and some fresh. Rammed with people. Ice cream can with a long, tightly packed queue etc.

People are just not socially distancing at all IME.


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## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> Essential workers still need to get around though. Maybe issue with permits so only they can travel on busses, tubes etc.


There are all kinds of others who aren't essential workers but need to get about to help disabled or sick relatives, etc. Are we at this point now, because this kind of measure also puts a different group of people at risk?


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## chilango (Mar 21, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> And how are people supposed to get around?



They're not


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## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

littleseb said:


> maybe I live in an especially thick part of town, but my experience from today's outing is v different.


Ah ok. I was in Regent's Park. Far from empty but it can get very busy there and this wasn't. Maybe different further out?


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## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ah ok. I was in Regent's Park. Far from empty but it can get very busy there and this wasn't. Maybe different further out?


From what I saw today and yesterday I can only take that we need playgrounds shut and cops patrolling the parks urging people not to get close to strangers.
Fuck me, that's what it has come to....me demanding more police in local green spaces


----------



## andysays (Mar 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> OK, all major city dwellers are thick.
> 
> Being serious, there's far more cases in London than anywhere else in the UK, these twats need to wake-up.


The truth is we don't actually know how many cases there are anywhere in the UK, because of the absence of testing. There are also far more people in London than in any other region of the UK.

Genuine question for someone who can be bothered to do the necessary sums - are there significantly more identified cases and/or deaths per head of population in London compared to elsewhere?


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> They're not


But as others have pointed this effects essential workers, it effects people who need to move. I don't know where you are chilango but people here definitely are behaving differently, Leeds city centre is much quieter than usual.

=========

As for the other countries have handled this better, Johnson needed to listen to the scientists. Have people actually looked at the table elbows made? The UK is not an outlier for Western Europe, it is following the same trend as Spain, France and Italy (and Germany by number of cases, though not by deaths).


----------



## scifisam (Mar 21, 2020)

littleseb said:


> In munich police patrol the parks urging people not to get too close. When people are permanently reminded to do so the message eventually gets through. Here it is almost impossible to keep distance, even if you are trying your best. People pass you close by, shuffle up on you, don't give way etc etc. It's very frustrating.



Why is it better in Munich than here? There are loads of enormous parks in London with wide paths.



weltweit said:


> Yes, you would think they should be safe but the photo I saw somewhere on here within the last hour showed a park with people absolutely cheek by jowel.



Either people who lived together anyway, or a photo from the past, or irrelevant. 

You can't build up a city with lots of people living in overcrowded conditions and no outside space, even with kids, close down workplaces and schools, and then tell them that even going to the park is a bad thing. It's not like you're forced into close contact like on a tube train, or share air like in an office.


----------



## LDC (Mar 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> We went to take our daughter out to a big green space for a run art and some fresh. Rammed with people. Ice cream can with a long, tightly packed queue etc.
> 
> People are just not socially distancing at all IME.



No, there's just been footage on the news of Newcastle city centre looking busy today, and plenty of streets round me look no different, or only marginally so.

Why the fuck are the council and cops not going round with loudhailers announcing people to stay indoors unless essential?


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## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

andysays said:


> The truth is we don't actually know how many cases there are anywhere in the UK, because of the absence of testing. There are also far more people in London than in any other region of the UK.
> 
> Genuine question for someone who can be bothered to do the necessary sums - are there significantly more identified cases and/or deaths per head of population in London compared to elsewhere?


London is a particular hotspot, yes. Not surprising really, given how many people pass through. 

Coronavirus UK: how many confirmed cases are in your area?


----------



## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Why is it better in Munich than here? There are loads of enormous parks in London with wide paths.


I can only guess that people are more used to it because Bavaria is a few days ahead to London with school closures, soft lock downs etc etc.
This is anecdotal btw, not a first hand account.


----------



## xenon (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There are all kinds of others who aren't essential workers but need to get about to help disabled or sick relatives, etc. Are we at this point now, because this kind of measure also puts a different group of people at risk?


I'm including carers as essential. My dad needs them.

As an aside, it was pretty busy when I went out earlier. Traffic levels seem about normal for here. Where the fuck everyone's going, I don't know. Yes, obviously I was part of that busyness but I needed some fresh food. Went to the local butcher's and green grocers. I don't go in the nearby supermarket at the best of times as it does my head in but apparently there were some more of the usual items. Hopefully the panic buying nonsense will evaporate over the next few days. And I'm not blaming people buying an extra bottle of milk. But the cunts buying 15 pizzas, 72 bog rolls etc.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Police patrol boat on the Thames, using their speakers to blast out Monty Python's 'always look on the bright side of life.'


Got a link?


----------



## chilango (Mar 21, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> But as others have pointed this effects essential workers, it effects people who need to move. I don't know where you are chilango but people here definitely are behaving differently, Leeds city centre is much quieter than usual.



I know. 

...but that's the logic behind a transport shut down. Stop people getting around.

I don't know if it's desirable, or possible.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Why is it better in Munich than here? There are loads of enormous parks in London with wide paths.


In Munich, you just take all your clothes off. People keep their distance then. 

The strangely misnamed 'English Park' is full of surprises...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> I'm including carers as essential. My dad needs them.


A huge number of carers aren't official, though. Would they need to go and get some kind of permit? Last thing people need to have added to their problems atm.


----------



## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> In Munich, you just take all your clothes off. People keep their distance then.


you got this around the wrong way. In Munich people go near to naked people, here they run away from them.


----------



## Sue (Mar 21, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Aren't parks supposed to be a safe place to go as long as you don't get too close to people, which is fairly easy in a park?


I went out earlier to the park with local friends who were walking their dogs. We kept reasonably apart and, frankly, it was very good mentally to be outside and seeing other  people. 

We're all wfh and have decided to meet at 830 am every day to do the same. (We live a five minute walk from each other and our local park is v close by too.)


----------



## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

Sue said:


> We kept reasonably apart and, frankly, it was very good mentally to be outside and seeing other people.


of course it is!!


----------



## agricola (Mar 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, there's just been footage on the news of Newcastle city centre looking busy from today.
> 
> WTF are the council and cops not going round with loudhailers announcing this?



Its a consequence of millions of people switching off mentally when "experts" tell them something, and only hearing "_keep calm and carry on_" whenever the Government talks about wartime conditions.


----------



## xenon (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> A huge number of carers aren't official, though. Would they need to go and get some kind of permit? Last thing people need to have added to their problems atm.


I'm not recommending it. We're already being told not to travel unless it's essential but if people ignore that on mass, who knows.


----------



## andysays (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> London is a particular hotspot, yes. Not surprising really, given how many people pass through.
> 
> Coronavirus UK: how many confirmed cases are in your area?


Not surprising given how many people actually live and work here.

Without doing any sums, it does look as if there's more cases per head of population in London than elsewhere.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

I don't know if it has been mentioned, probably but no matter, the NHS has agreed terms to takeover private hospitals which gives them a lot more beds, more nurses and doctors and more ventilators.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Let them whine!
> Sasaferrato I am sure you will agree that the only way to significantly reduce transmission of the virus is to isolate everyone at home for a period and that will bring new cases down and reduce the load on the NHS, buying time for other initiatives.


When you say For A Period, we're talking realistically about 18 months here . BBC floating 2 years on the front page website today When will the coronavirus outbreak end?


----------



## Mation (Mar 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> They're not


For the moment, some people still do have to go to work and others will have to, almost no matter what, unless total apocalypse. We need some, limited, public transport.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 21, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Got a link?



Nope, just saw it on Sky News.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> There are a lot of ex-squaddies, matelots and crabs who are still on the reserve. The usual service length is 22 years, but many do less, they are on the reserve until IIRC 55.


how may in total do you reckon? plus currently serving


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 21, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> You've not thought the consequences of that through.



I have. But it's not me running this shit show is it?


----------



## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> For the moment, some people still do have to go to work and others will have to, almost no matter what, unless total apocalypse. We need some, limited, public transport.


the more limited the more crowded though. I don't have an answer, but maybe more of a regulation as to how many passengers per train / bus?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I don't know if it has been mentioned, probably but no matter, the NHS has agreed terms to takeover private hospitals which gives them a lot more beds, more nurses and doctors and more ventilators.



Here are the figures:



cupid_stunt said:


> The NHS are taking over private hospitals from next week –that’s 8,000 beds, over 1200 extra ventilators, over 10,000 nurses, over 700 doctors, over 8,000 other qualified clinical staff.
> 
> Breaking on sky News.



Beds & staff, etc., taken over at cost.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I have. But it's not me running this shit show is it?


No you haven't. Totally cancelling public transport somewhere like London puts another group of people's lives in danger. It's a mad thing to do.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I have. But it's not me running this shit show is it?



Thank Christ, we would be even more fucked.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Beds & staff, etc., taken over at cost.


And hopefully never given back.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

ska invita said:


> When you say For A Period, we're talking realistically about 18 months here . BBC floating 2 years on the front page website today When will the coronavirus outbreak end?


My understanding is that initially a lockdown could significantly reduce cases. Once that has been done and the NHS sees workload reducing some relaxation might be permitted, if cases increase again lockdown again, and so on .. and that seems all we can hope for until ideally one of the candidate vaccines comes through and gets into volume production. 

However as you say, this is longer term, it seems unlikely a vaccine will be available in less then 12-14 months or more.


----------



## chilango (Mar 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> For the moment, some people still do have to go to work and others will have to, almost no matter what, unless total apocalypse. We need some, limited, public transport.



I'm not saying we don't. Just pointing out the logic behind the call.


----------



## Mation (Mar 21, 2020)

littleseb said:


> the more limited the more crowded though. I don't have an answer, but maybe more of a regulation as to how many passengers per train / bus?


Didn't prove so this week, at least. In the morning I travel very early, and numbers were typically low on the train itself, and fewer in the ticket hall. (I guess an artefact of which carriage people usually tend towards?)

On the way home, earlier than usual, it was more crowded, but nothing like what you'd expect of a normal rush hour. No one standing.


----------



## klang (Mar 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> Didn't prove so this week, at least. In the morning I travel very early, and numbers were typically low on the train itself, and fewer in the ticket hall. (I guess an artefact of which carriage people usually tend towards?)
> 
> On the way home, earlier than usual, it was more crowded, but nothing like what you'd expect of a normal rush hour. No one standing.


ok, that's something i guess.
i don't travel by tube btw.


----------



## campanula (Mar 21, 2020)

I am sure I am stating the obvious here but there are no scientists who are politically neutral - the neo-liberal basis of R&D, privatisation, the conflation of business and academia has left us with a scientific community, at least in the top echelons, which is in thrall to the pursuit of profit/power/shareholder value above all else. Every single aspect of health care has been skewed to serve an agenda which is not predicated on the public good. During the Sars epidemic, I recall reading how  research was being obstructed because of huge uncertainties over patents, ownership of genetic material, suppression of data....etc etc. I think we should not venerate science as something objective, pure and even utilitarian. I doubt there is a single senior scientist who is notin bed with business...with all the inevitable bias.
So no, not really surprised at the craven attitude of some of these scientists - and not buying some propaganda and deference thing.
Of course, this does not apply to the vast majority of health workers   but scrutiny of the role of govt. advisors will, I think, expose the structural deficiencies when science is predicated on profit before people.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 21, 2020)

Went for a run earlier. Obviously tried to keep distance, crossing road or running into road or onto grass verge etc to keep healthy space away from passers by. But amazed how so many seemed oblivious, making no effort to move over, big groups. Park was rammed including kids playground with loads of kids going on slides and swings etc, so multiple hands on equipment. On field there was an organised game of football, in proper kit with a ref. Apparently snowdon and all the beaches rammed with queues.

Incredible really.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just how fucking thick are people, especially in London.



Yep, all Londoners are fucking thick. Every last one of us.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 21, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Went for a run earlier. Obviously tried to keep distance, crossing road or running into road or onto grass verge etc to keep healthy space away from passers by. But amazed how so many seemed oblivious, making no effort to move over, big groups. Park was rammed including kids playground with loads of kids going on slides and swings etc, so multiple hands on equipment. On field there was an organised game of football, in proper kit with a ref. Apparently snowdon and all the beaches rammed with queues.
> 
> Incredible really.



I think we just have to accept that thousands more will die here than in countries where everyone takes it seriously.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

littleseb said:


> the more limited the more crowded though. I don't have an answer, but maybe more of a regulation as to how many passengers per train / bus?


Mate, there is next to no one on the streets, trains, buses...been like that for days. The density is around shops IME.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> As for the other countries have handled this better, Johnson needed to listen to the scientists. Have people actually looked at the table elbows made? The UK is not an outlier for Western Europe, it is following the same trend as Spain, France and Italy (and Germany by number of cases, though not by deaths).



I'll stick the next version of it in this thread, just waiting for one or two numbers for today. I've added the Netherlands to it since I last did it.

We probably need to wait 2 weeks or more before we can start to judge some differences between countries in terms of their policies once they all went past their shared approach to the initial phase, and started doing different sorts of lockdowns with different timing and levels of enforcement.

Other factors may yet obscure such comparisons though. I'm really shitting it that the UKs numbers will look bad even compared to Italy because of our particular issues with capacity, staff, testing, and inadequate PPE, before we even start to consider the effects of the behaviour of the population (and the political decisions that affected the when and how much of such behavioural changes).


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Went for a run earlier. Obviously tried to keep distance, crossing road or running into road or onto grass verge etc to keep healthy space away from passers by. But amazed how so many seemed oblivious, making no effort to move over, big groups. Park was rammed including kids playground with loads of kids going on slides and swings etc, so multiple hands on equipment. On field there was an organised game of football, in proper kit with a ref. Apparently snowdon and all the beaches rammed with queues.
> 
> Incredible really.



Is Snowdon a London Borough?  It must be.


----------



## nogojones (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> No you haven't. Totally cancelling public transport somewhere like London puts another group of people's lives in danger. It's a mad thing to do.


Can't they all just cycle to work?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 21, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Yep, all Londoners are fucking thick. Every last one of us.



It's fairly clear the reference to London was in respect of how it's clearly spreading faster there, as expected, but if you want to admit to being thick, fair enough.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

nogojones said:


> Can't they all just cycle to work?


We might have to. I luckily have a bike, many don't and just as many live quite a distance away from work, even Londoners.


----------



## andysays (Mar 21, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Yep, all Londoners are fucking thick. Every last one of us.


#NotAllLondoners


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's fairly clear the reference to London was in respect of how it's clearly spreading faster there, as expected, but if you want to admit to being thick, fair enough.



Yep, THICK AS SHIT. Especially true because you say so.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 21, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Is Snowdon a London Borough?  It must be.



Eh?


----------



## nogojones (Mar 21, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> We might have to. I luckily have a bike, many don't and just as many live quite a distance away from work, even Londoners.


I was kidding a little


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Eh?



It was a joke.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 21, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> We might have to. I luckily have a bike, many don't and just as many live quite a distance away from work, even Londoners.



My granddad used to walk 30 miles to work and back for 3d a day AND had to buy his own shoes. 

#dontknowtheyrebornsomelondoners


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

nogojones said:


> I was kidding a little


 I know.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> My granddad used to walk 30 miles to work and back for 3d a day AND had to buy his own shoes.
> 
> #dontknowtheyrebornsomelondoners



I actually love walking and have already planned a couple of routes to work just in case. 1.5 to 2 hours walking depending which site I am at.


----------



## belboid (Mar 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> My granddad used to walk 30 miles to work and back for 3d a day AND had to buy his own shoes.
> 
> #dontknowtheyrebornsomelondoners


shoes?  He was lucky


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 21, 2020)

ska invita said:


> how may in total do you reckon? plus currently serving


I'll do a bit of research and come back to you. It will be in the order of ten thousand or more.

Closer to 50,000 over the last ten years, leavers and active reserves.

Quite hard to get exact figures without spending a fair bit of time on it.

ska invita


----------



## Doodler (Mar 21, 2020)

Supermarkets could have acted to stop panic buying/profiteering but chose not to. Store managers already have the necessary authority but are wedded to their jobs and dream at night of sales targets. They'll only act if head office comes under legal pressure, as with Think 25 policies on sales of knives etc to youngsters. Lots of out of work doormen now who could be employed to back up the till staff and enforce purchase limits.


----------



## editor (Mar 21, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It should cover anyone on PAYE and full details will be published later tonight


I'm going to be totally fucked. The only job I'm on any kind of payroll is the low paying mag writing job.


----------



## editor (Mar 21, 2020)

I think this lockdown is going to mentally affect me very hard. It already feels like the first of an endless depressing stream of Bank Holidays mixed in with dreary Sundays with just about everything I like doing now out of bounds and all my work cancelled.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> For the moment, some people still do have to go to work and others will have to, almost no matter what, unless total apocalypse. We need some, limited, public transport.


No we need more public transport not less.
From next week they are cutting bus services. Me and lots of people still need to get to work by bus. Cutting services means more people waiting for longer at bus stops/stations and even more people packed into the already overcrowded buses for even longer. 

The time I am most at risk of getting infected is on my daily commute and the way to reduce that risk is to run more services not less.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

One of the reasons I fear for the UK situation in particular:









						Coronavirus: NHS staff protection 'short of WHO guidelines'
					

Frontline staff need far more than the mask, gloves and apron they wear, a consultant warns.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Frontline NHS staff risk "cross infecting everybody" because they are not getting the recommended protective equipment, a consultant has warned.
> 
> The face mask, short gloves and apron worn by NHS staff is far short of the World Health Organization recommendations, Dr Lisa Anderson of St George's Hospital, London, said.





> Dr Anderson, a consultant cardiologist, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the current situation "can't continue".
> 
> She said that the government had changed the rules to deviate from WHO guidelines, which currently recommend health staff wear a full gown and visor.
> 
> Since Monday, staff in the NHS only have to wear a simple face mask, short gloves and a pinafore apron, Dr Anderson said.



I do recall the change to UK guidelines, I probably quoted them here at the time. The change itself was an ominous sign for PPE supplies, they wouldnt have done it if there was plenty of better PPE available.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> One of the reasons I fear for the UK situation in particular:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I would imagine that there is a world wide shortage of kit at the moment.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

emanymton said:


> No we need more public transport not less.
> From next week they are cutting bus services. Me and lots of people still need to get to work by bus. Cutting services means more people waiting for longer at bus stops/stations and even more people packed into the already overcrowded buses for even longer.
> 
> The time I am most at risk of getting infected is on my daily commute and the way to reduce that risk is to run more services not less.


This is a great point. For as long as people need to get to work, there needs to be a good, steady service to match the demand. I could see the case for cutting services back to reflect a far reduced demand, but that pared-down service would still need to be reliable and regular, and no reason why it can't be - the main reason trains are late, I've realised, is cos of all the passengers; get rid of most of them and you can run things without a hitch.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

editor said:


> I think this lockdown is going to mentally affect me very hard. It already feels like the first of an endless depressing stream of Bank Holidays mixed in with dreary Sundays with just about everything I like doing now out of bounds and all my work cancelled.


If it is any consolation you aren't the only one feeling that way. Although I can atm WFH that just seems to ram home the trapped feelings every day of the week.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

They also cut transport services back because of staffing issues.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

Latest version of the total deaths in a bunch of countries table, which I find quite horrible to compile. USA figure may yet increase before their day ends, I dont know, I just used what was available at this moment.

I stick this version on the UK thread at this time because one of my reasons for compiling it is to compare timing & scale of things in the UK to other countries. And there has been much discussion about the whole 2 weeks behind Italy thing (and me blowing a gasket and never shutting up about it when the government said 4 weeks instead of 2). As it has turned out, todays UK total so far is exactly the same number as Italy's was 2 weeks earlier, 233.

In future, if I am not making a specific point about comparing UK to other countries, I will likely stick further versions of this table in the global thread instead.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is a great point. For as long as people need to get to work, there needs to be a good, steady service to match the demand. I could see the case for cutting services back to reflect a far reduced demand, but that pared-down service would still need to be reliable and regular, and no reason why it can't be - the main reason trains are late, I've realised, is cos of all the passengers; get rid of most of them and you can run things without a hitch.



Issue a 'Public Service' transport card. Only Public Service people travel


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Latest version of the total deaths in a bunch of countries table, which I find quite horrible to compile. USA figure may yet increase before their day ends, I dont know, I just used what was available at this moment.
> 
> I stick this version on the UK thread at this time because one of my reasons for compiling it is to compare timing & scale of things in the UK to other countries. And there has been much discussion about the whole 2 weeks behind Italy thing (and me blowing a gasket and never shutting up about it when the government said 4 weeks instead of 2). As it has turned out, todays UK total so far is exactly the same number as Italy's was 2 weeks earlier, 233.
> 
> ...


Yes, amazingly similar numbers from this week here and three weeks ago in Italy.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Issue a 'Public Service' transport card. Only Public Service people travel


And how do you get one? What if the public service person is unavailable one day and someone else has to go? It's a rule that people would necessarily need to break. 

I would hope that enough people would act with sense when it comes to it to make compulsion like that unnecessary, but I'm not so optimistic.


----------



## clicker (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes, amazingly similar numbers from this week here and three weeks ago in Italy.


2 weeks ago?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 21, 2020)

clicker said:


> 2 weeks ago?


Sorry yes. Basically the first and third weeks of the month.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Sounds to me this is what we need here. No mucking about ..


A statement usually followed shortly by "who put that dictator in charge?"


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 21, 2020)

clicker said:


> 2 weeks ago?


« This post was brought to you by Elbows' blood pressure consultant »


----------



## Spandex (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> todays UK total so far is exactly the same number as Italy's was 2 weeks earlier, 233.


I noticed that too. If the UK carrys on tracking Italy's death toll the shit is really gonna start hitting the fan in the next few days and will be up there with China in a week


----------



## clicker (Mar 21, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> « This post was brought to you by Elbows' blood pressure consultant »


I did panic a bit when I saw it 😷.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is a great point. For as long as people need to get to work, there needs to be a good, steady service to match the demand. I could see the case for cutting services back to reflect a far reduced demand, but that pared-down service would still need to be reliable and regular, and no reason why it can't be - the main reason trains are late, I've realised, is cos of all the passengers; get rid of most of them and you can run things without a hitch.


When I used to get the train to work it was obvious to me that it was impossible for the train to run to time as the timetable didn't allow for the fact that trains have passengers and it takes time for them to get on and off. It would only run on time in the period between Christmas and new year when it was dead. Never understood why the people doing the timetables don't understand that.

They seem to be pitching cutting services  as some kind of protective thing which is total crap, it's to cut costs because passenger numbers are down. At the very least they should not cut peak time services as they are still busy just not as full as they used to be. Basically the busses I get have gone from standing room only to 75% of the seats taken. Cutting services takes us back to standing room only.


----------



## treelover (Mar 21, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Went for a run earlier. Obviously tried to keep distance, crossing road or running into road or onto grass verge etc to keep healthy space away from passers by. But amazed how so many seemed oblivious, making no effort to move over, big groups. Park was rammed including kids playground with loads of kids going on slides and swings etc, so multiple hands on equipment. On field there was an organised game of football, in proper kit with a ref. Apparently snowdon and all the beaches rammed with queues.
> 
> Incredible really.



40 years of me, me, me...


----------



## Mation (Mar 21, 2020)

emanymton said:


> No we need more public transport not less.
> From next week they are cutting bus services. Me and lots of people still need to get to work by bus. Cutting services means more people waiting for longer at bus stops/stations and even more people packed into the already overcrowded buses for even longer.
> 
> The time I am most at risk of getting infected is on my daily commute and the way to reduce that risk is to run more services not less.


More than we had at full service, or more than we do right now? I have to get to work using public transport and will probably keep having to.

When I say limited, I mean not 1 tube every minute when so many fewer people are using the service. If it operates at normal capacity, who will run it?


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> « This post was brought to you by Elbows' blood pressure consultant »



Especially given that the governments way of shifting away from their 4 weeks claim was to say 3 weeks and London a bit ahead, instead of having to publicly change it from 4 weeks to 2 weeks in the space of 4 days!


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Especially given that the governments way of shifting away from their 4 weeks claim was to say 3 weeks and London a bit ahead, instead of having to publicly change it from 4 weeks to 2 weeks in the space of 4 days!


It's almost like they think we're not all regularly refreshing the page


----------



## Supine (Mar 21, 2020)

I haven't recieved one yet but people I know are receiving key worker status letters they can show with photo ID when requested.

Lock down on the way...


----------



## emanymton (Mar 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> More than we had at full service, or more than we do right now? I have to get to work using public transport and will probably keep having to.
> 
> When I say limited, I mean not 1 tube every minute when so many fewer people are using the service. If it operates at normal capacity, who will run it?


Well the tube is a very different animal. My bus service is dreadful at the best of times. I think if they were serious about reducing the risk of infection they should run more services at peak times, they certainly should not be cutting them. Realistically keeping it the same might be more achievable. But I don't see why we should suddenly have a shortage of bus drivers that is not affecting any other industry yet as far as I am aware.

You know it occurs to me that some people who live in London may not fully understand how shit public transport is in other areas and what cutting services means for people.


----------



## Mation (Mar 21, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Well the tube is a very different animal. My bus service is dreadful at the best of times. I think if they were serious about reducing the risk of infection they should run more services at peak times, they certainly should not be cutting them. Realistically keeping it the same might be more achievable. But I don't see why we should suddenly have a shortage of bus drivers that is not affecting any other industry yet as far as I am aware.
> 
> You know it occurs to me that some people who live in London may not fully understand how shit public transport is in other areas and what cutting services means for people.


I wasn't suggesting cutting already poor services  London and Not London have different needs.


----------



## chilango (Mar 21, 2020)

Given the stream of posts I've seen today from all over the country about people ignoring social distancing and outdoor spaces being rammed I think we'll get enforced lockdown nationwide at some point in the coming week.


----------



## killer b (Mar 21, 2020)

It wasn't ever going to be any different tbh.


----------



## killer b (Mar 21, 2020)

we can easily see from literally every other country in the worlds that's had a significant outbreak that enforced lockdown is necessary, and that voluntary measures just don't work.. the idea that people anywhere in the world will stay put just because they're told to is laughable.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

What do people think will be the implications of "lock down" in London or the wider UK? 

Will people still be able to go to work for example?


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> What do people think will be the implications of "lock down" in London or the wider UK?
> 
> Will people still be able to go to work for example?



Gonna be key worker related surely?

Other places have implemented a ban on going too far from home unless going to work. Only allowed to shop locally etc.


----------



## killer b (Mar 21, 2020)

You can't really blame people for thinking getting out into the countryside is ok I don't think - the national trust made all their properties free entry last week, and if we can't trust the national trust to act sensibly who can we trust? (they're closing them all from tonight after the numbers turning up today).


----------



## chilango (Mar 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> we can easily see from literally every other country in the worlds that's had a significant outbreak that enforced lockdown is necessary, and that voluntary measures just don't work.. the idea that people anywhere in the world will stay put just because they're  told  *politely asked* to is laughable.



Ffy.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> What do people think will be the implications of "lock down" in London or the wider UK?
> 
> Will people still be able to go to work for example?


Will certainly challenge the hollowed out state/local state. I can't imagine our authorities easily putting in place the Parisian style pass papers or enforcement. i suppose that, ultimately, what the Army's on standby for.


----------



## chilango (Mar 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> You can't really blame people for thinking getting out into the countryside is ok I don't think - the national trust made all their properties free entry last week, and if we can't trust the national trust to act sensibly who can we trust? (they're closing them all from tonight after the numbers turning up today).



Indeed.

I saw this with my own eyes 'cos I did exactly the same.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Gonna be key worker related surely?


Hmm, could put what remains of the economy into cardiac arrest! 



Rutita1 said:


> Other places have implemented a ban on going too far from home unless going to work. Only allowed to shop locally etc.


China iirc only allowed one person per household to shop for food or medicines. I don't recall if it was one per day ..


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> China iirc only allowed one person per household to shop for food or medicines. I don't recall if it was one per day ..


Some places moved to not allowing anyone out and doing home deliveries on a rotating system.


----------



## killer b (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Hmm, could put what remains of the economy into cardiac arrest!


if there isn't a comprehensive lockdown it's dead anyway.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Some places moved to not allowing anyone out and doing home deliveries on a rotating system.


I am sure I speak for many that I didn't expect to have to spend so much time at home and as a place it just isn't designed for it. 

I am reminded of a Churchill quote: We mould our dwellings and then, our dwellings mould us!  :-/


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 21, 2020)

It's a shame really, being able to get outdoors a bit is good for the soul and the mental health and the four walls syndrome, all people have to do is be sensible. Obviously a sizeable proportion can't. Lockdown is going to be tough


----------



## Supine (Mar 21, 2020)

I'm a key worker and I work away from home. It looks like accommodation and food is going to become difficult. I need to eat


----------



## brogdale (Mar 21, 2020)

With caveats about assumed trajectories etc...this is pretty convincing & very worrying.

We will be Italy in 9 days...and they locked down properly 10 days ago.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I am sure I speak for many that I didn't expect to have to spend so much time at home and as a place it just isn't designed for it.
> 
> I am reminded of a Churchill quote: We mould our dwellings and then, our dwellings mould us!  :-/




I am sure many of us are really worried about being forced to stay indoors. But we can. Many don't have an 'indoors'.  There is a lot we can do at home and we can adapt if we need to.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 21, 2020)

Shit.


----------



## LDC (Mar 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> Given the stream of posts I've seen today from all over the country about people ignoring social distancing and outdoor spaces being rammed I think we'll get enforced lockdown nationwide at some point in the coming week.



I was skeptical we would get that, now I'm convinced we will, and I think it's not very far off either. There's a significant number of people not taking any notice of social distancing measures at all. Also I work in the NHS and we're weeks behind where we should be now. I'm very worried and think we're heading for a catastrophe, much of which could have been preventable.


----------



## phillm (Mar 21, 2020)

editor said:


> I'm going to be totally fucked. The only job I'm on any kind of payroll is the low paying mag writing job.


If anybody deserves a gofund me for services to the internet it's you. Build it and they will come !


----------



## brogdale (Mar 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I was skeptical we would get that, now I'm convinced we will, and I think it's not very far off either. There's a significant number of people not taking any notice of social distancing measures at all. Also I work in the NHS and we're weeks behind where we should be now. I'm very worried and think we're heading for a catastrophe.


We are, and it's going to be the result of criminal negligence.


----------



## chilango (Mar 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I was skeptical we would get that, now I'm convinced we will, and I think it's not very far off either. There's a significant number of people not taking any notice of social distancing measures at all. Also I work in the NHS and we're weeks behind where we should be now. I'm very worried and think we're heading for a catastrophe, much of would have been preventable.



Yep.

At some point later I'll write more about the ideological reasons behind this, but for now I'm just too angry.

...but I'm also optimistic, for entirely different reasons.

But, yeah, lockdown is coming, and soon.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yep.
> 
> At some point later I'll write more about the ideological reasons behind this, but for now I'm just too angry.
> 
> ...


I am also angry and always optimistic, I also think that lockdown is coming and necessary, but whatever I fucking do I just can't seem to stop touching my flipping face!


----------



## kabbes (Mar 21, 2020)

Couldn’t believe it today.  Went out for the usual dog walk.  My little village was absolutely fucking rammed with outsiders who’d come to walk, cycle and mostly just hang around in the village centre chatting.  The little shop had a massive queue outside it of people buying coffees, all in close proximity to each other.  Whilst trying to walk, great gaggles of people were blocking the paths, not even attempting to keep away as we tried to pass.  It was clear that people had just thought “oh, the shops are shut, we’ll go hang out in the countryside instead “.  It’s like they had zero recognition that there was any kind of need to prevent infection whatsoever — the whole message had utterly passed them by.  It made me realise we’re really fucked and it annoyed me no end.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

Depending on the distribution of infections government could decide to fully lock down specific areas rather than the whole country. In China and Italy they locked down the areas with the biggest infections first, Wuhan and Hubei and Lombardy in Italy. 

There is a site which shows the spread of infections in the UK, does anyone have a link to it for me? 

I think early on the issue for the UK was that infections were fairly spread out across the country making regional shut downs harder to justify because there would be no benefit. If it comes to a national shut down that will be 66 million people under lockdown which could be a first.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 21, 2020)

I can't yet seen any other news outlet carrying this quote...maybe Wickham has gone early on a 10pm embargo...but, if correct, this would appear to be the pretext for some more stringent measures.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Depending on the distribution of infections government could decide to fully lock down specific areas rather than the whole country. In China and Italy they locked down the areas with the biggest infections first, Wuhan and Hubei and Lombardy in Italy.


The political problem with that is that, incredibly stupidly, they have specifically said that they won't - won't prevent people moving in and out of London, "zero chance". Why say it? So now it's harder to do a U turn.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> There is a site which shows the spread of infections in the UK, does anyone have a link to it for me?








						ArcGIS Dashboards
					

ArcGIS Dashboards




					www.arcgis.com
				




This? Although I'm not sure now that I trust it all that much - the Cornish ones are all shown in Roche which I'm fairly sure is bollocks.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> The political problem with that is that, incredibly stupidly, they have specifically said that they won't - won't prevent people moving in and out of London, "zero chance". Why say it? So now it's harder to do a U turn.


Oh I don't think Johnson will have any issue changing tack .. or apparently contradicting himself. ..


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Those cunts at Britannia Hotels, owners of Pontins, have sacked loads of staff, and those living on site have been told to pack-up & fuck-off.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## mauvais (Mar 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> ...but I'm also optimistic, for entirely different reasons.


Can you expand on this bit?


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> ArcGIS Dashboards
> 
> 
> ArcGIS Dashboards
> ...


Well that does seem to suggest Greater London is a centre.
Thanks for posting the link. It isn't the easiest thing to use is it?


----------



## hegley (Mar 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I can't yet seen any other news outlet carrying this quote...maybe Wickham has gone early on a 10pm embargo...but, if correct, this would appear to be the pretext for some more stringent measures.
> 
> View attachment 202701


He said in yesterday's press conference that he'd be seeing his own mother tomorrow.


----------



## killer b (Mar 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Couldn’t believe it today.  Went out for the usual dog walk.  My little village was absolutely fucking rammed with outsiders who’d come to walk, cycle and mostly just hang around in the village centre chatting.  The little shop had a massive queue outside it of people buying coffees, all in close proximity to each other.  Whilst trying to walk, great gaggles of people were blocking the paths, not even attempting to keep away as we tried to pass.  It was clear that people had just thought “oh, the shops are shut, we’ll go hang out in the countryside instead “.  It’s like they had zero recognition that there was any kind of need to prevent infection whatsoever — the whole message had utterly passed them by.  It made me realise we’re really fucked and it annoyed me no end.


I think relying on _the message_ just isn't good enough, even if the message had been communicated better and earlier. This kind of public health emergency isn't something that can be left to individuals deciding whether to take stuff seriously - enough will inevitably found wanting.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 21, 2020)

I see National Trust will be closing gardens and car parks National Trust to close gardens and parks before Mother's Day to limit spread of COVID-19


----------



## treelover (Mar 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I can't yet seen any other news outlet carrying this quote...maybe Wickham has gone early on a 10pm embargo...but, if correct, this would appear to be the pretext for some more stringent measures.
> 
> View attachment 202701



He mentions his mother saying she has parkinsons, and won't be visiting.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 21, 2020)

I gather most people are confined to home in France and Italy following suit. Us next?


----------



## BlanketAddict (Mar 21, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


>




Apparently it was an 'admin error'.

Gutless as well as heartless...


----------



## treelover (Mar 21, 2020)

Gtech, and Mcclaren ready to manufacture ventilators, pretty impressive


----------



## treelover (Mar 21, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> It's a shame really, being able to get outdoors a bit is good for the soul and the mental health and the four walls syndrome, all people have to do is be sensible. Obviously a sizeable proportion can't. Lockdown is going to be tough



for those with breathing difficulties it is going to be nightmarish.


----------



## killer b (Mar 21, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I gather most people are confined to home in France and Italy following suit. Us next?


by the middle of next week IMO


----------



## treelover (Mar 21, 2020)

*Some good news*

UK military planners drafted in to help feed vulnerable in Covid-19 outbreak


----------



## brogdale (Mar 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> by the middle of next week IMO


Wouldn’t be surprised if the decision has already been made but they’re waiting for military assistance to be in place before calling it.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I can't yet seen any other news outlet carrying this quote...maybe Wickham has gone early on a 10pm embargo...but, if correct, this would appear to be the pretext for some more stringent measures.
> 
> View attachment 202701


I'm going to see my mum but only cos there's zero % chance of her getting it off me


----------



## kabbes (Mar 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I'm going to see my mum but only cos there's zero % chance of her getting it off me


Why?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Why?


she's dead


----------



## prunus (Mar 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> she's dead



Liked in an I’m sorry, but nice play kind of way.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> she's dead



but she could still pass it on to someone else .


----------



## weltweit (Mar 21, 2020)

So, 

The Queen is planning to speak to the nation.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 21, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> but she could still pass it on to someone else .


she's two metres underground - old school social distancing


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 21, 2020)

Fucking Boris laying all this at our door when he only closed the pubs yesterday.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 22, 2020)

Morrisons have just announced they will have an NHS shopping hour from 7 - 8 am Monday to Saturday where someone on the door will let in only those with an NHS badge.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 22, 2020)

Sorry not read this thread for a couple of days but have we had this yet?


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Sorry not read this thread for a couple of days but have we had this yet?



not that tweet, but was spotted by urbans own from the figures


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> What do people think will be the implications of "lock down" in London or the wider UK?
> 
> Will people still be able to go to work for example?



My partner Mother is in Madrid area. Total lockdown. One implication is that people die alone with no friends or family to support them . That is what is
happening.

Also London has a massive population. Many of whom are living in poor conditions. Some are homeless. I don't see how a total lockdown will be accepted without harsh measures.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 22, 2020)

I've been thinking it over and on balance I believe that, over the lifetimes of those who live through it, lockdown will cost more years of more lives than the virus itself. 

Not to say it doesn't need to happen. But there must be a point on the sliding scale of duration and severity of restrictions where you end up doing more harm than good.


----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

Gtech founder powers ahead building ventilators, Branson probably skulking on his private island while asking for hand outs.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> So,
> 
> The Queen is planning to speak to the nation.


Bit late innit? I mean it's half past midnight


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

desperate drug addicts owning the streets around whitechapel according to this - paints a raw picture


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 22, 2020)

Given that London is a very divided City with a history of distrust of Police in some areas a total lockdown using Police isn't going to go down well.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Given that London is a very divided City with a history of distrust of Police in some areas a total lockdown using Police isn't going to go down well.


agree
its not going to go well whatever happens
much of london living is sardine tins
and a lot of people just got jobless


----------



## ash (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> agree
> its not going to go well whatever happens
> much of london living is sardine tins


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> agree
> its not going to go well whatever happens
> much of london living is sardine tins



London is an example of what years of neo liberalism does to a City. On local community level people will support each other. But overall all London is not an example of social cohesion.

I have heard only a few people I know want total lockdown. I don't see a lot of trust in the State institutions. Also feeling that the well off / rich will cope ok but the poor will be shafted. Either now or when its over. They see the example of what happened with the last economic crisis. That is talking to the people I work with and know.


----------



## ash (Mar 22, 2020)

Tbh I’m sure it’s no different to the other European cities on lockdown- high density living with no outdoor space ???


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

ash said:


> Tbh I’m sure it’s no different to the other European cities on lockdown- high density living with no outdoor space ???


yeah im curious about whats happening elsewhere on the ground, beyond the singing neighbourhoods










						The UK has the smallest homes in Europe, says new research
					

An investigation by Sellhousefast.uk has revealed Britain has the smallest homes in Europe, measuring less than the regulatory minimum in some cases




					www.pbctoday.co.uk
				




Though London comes 15th on this








						Europe's most densely populated square kilometres – mapped
					

Prof Alasdair Rae has crunched data to locate the densest square kilometre in every European country – here are the top 15




					www.theguardian.com
				




Stats hide the picture - certain parts of London will swing a stat. There'll be key areas combining poverty + painful economic impact of lockdown + squashed housing


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 22, 2020)

What I have seen in London is an increase of people in the areas around the City and West End. As homeworking is increasing. 

So more people on the streets in outer areas.

In central London a lot less people.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 22, 2020)

The more I think about it the more the idea of a total lockdown in London will be near impoosible to manage. On a practical level there aren't enough Police. Police numbers have been cut.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 22, 2020)

brogdale said:


> With caveats about assumed trajectories etc...this is pretty convincing & very worrying.
> 
> We will be Italy in 9 days...and they locked down properly 10 days ago.
> 
> View attachment 202694


That's with us only testing clinical cases.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> desperate drug addicts owning the streets around whitechapel according to this - paints a raw picture



I've been wondering how this will play out


----------



## toblerone3 (Mar 22, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I've been wondering how this will play out



Going to flag this to my girlfriend who is planning to go down Sainsburys in Whitechapel on Monday.


----------



## belboid (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> desperate drug addicts owning the streets around whitechapel according to this - paints a raw picture



I’ve got various mates who work in ‘drug action’ and associated teams and they’re all doing really good stuff around registered addicts.  But absolutely duck all about the unregistered ones. There’s another complete health disaster waiting to happen there.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 22, 2020)

toblerone3 said:


> Going to flag this to my girlfriend who is planning to go down Sainsburys in Whitechapel on Monday.



That's where I was yesterday morning, and it didn't feel dangerous in the tiniest bit - it was friendlier than usual, even. I'm not discounting that bloke's video, but that big Sainsbury's is well guarded (not due to Coronoavirus - it's always had security guards; I've seen people say "and now there are security guards at the supermarket!" and wondered how they never noticed them before) and very safe.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 22, 2020)

treelover said:


> Gtech, and Mcclaren ready to manufacture ventilators, pretty impressive



Yep, Gtech is ready to go into production within days, and has come up with a design that can be made by almost any engineering and manufacturing company. 



> The ventilator is driven and controlled entirely from the hospital oxygen supply, meaning there is no need for electricity.
> 
> Mr Grey said: "We designed the ventilator entirely from parts that can readily be made from stock materials or bought off-the-shelf.
> 
> ...











						'I thought it was a hoax' - Worcester company in race against time to build life-saving ventilators for coronavirus patients
					

A COMPANY based in Worcester has designed a medical ventilator to be used in hospitals in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.




					www.worcesternews.co.uk


----------



## Lurdan (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> desperate drug addicts owning the streets around whitechapel according to this - paints a raw picture



I think that picture could be interpreted as something rather more dramatic than the current position warrants. Yes there has been a floating population of junkies and street drinkers for as long as I've lived here (early 80s). In recent years the Council and the filth have been attempting to 'disrupt' them and  stop them settling anywhere particular. That has made them a little less visible in many parts of the Borough. When Martin refers to tourists and commuters it seems to me that he is talking in particular about the areas in the west of Tower Hamlets around the tourist attractions (Tower Hill, Brick Lane etc.) and the transport facilities serving them.

Estates come in all types and I'd expect that ones where there are already issues may see them get worse. The one I live on, not far from the areas Martin is referring to, has always been pretty quiet. In the past that meant it was used as a regular gathering point for groups of people waiting for the mobile dealer but I haven't seen that happen for a long time. Last week there was some shouting out the back over a couple of days as someone made a series of attempts to attract the attention of someone who wasn't responding. And a couple of aggressive sounding arguments. Sufficiently unusual events to attract my notice. But I don't feel inclined to construct a narrative around them. The current situation isn't just affecting junkies and drinkers. The extremely tenuous support networks (official and unofficial) for poor, homeless and vulnerable people have just been disrupted or broken. A lot of people are in serious difficulty and that will manifest itself publicly but mostly in ways that aren't a danger to other people.

Certainly there is potential for more aggressive begging, and worse than that. But at the moment IMO it's still mainly a matter of the warning signs that things could get far worse than they have been. 



toblerone3 said:


> Going to flag this to my girlfriend who is planning to go down Sainsburys in Whitechapel on Monday.



Really wouldn't over stress it.

When I went to Whitechapel Sainsbury's on Thursday to try out the 'silver hour' I saw nothing at all untoward. And I wouldn't really expect to - it's not somewhere where the junkie/drinker types are going to be very successful begging.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 22, 2020)

Hate the word junkie personally.


----------



## Taphoi (Mar 22, 2020)

Are acute cases of COVID-19 predominantly long-term smokers? Key facts have recently been reported about acute cases of COVID-19 such as: acute symptoms are concentrated among the elderly; children suffer almost no mortality nor even severe symptoms; there are twice as many acute cases among men as among women in the UK. Elderly male smokers in the UK (and past smokers) outnumber female smokers (and past smokers) by nearly two to one (this is shown by the graph below and at this link: https://www.closer.ac.uk/data/cigarette-smoking-prevalence/) Children largely do not smoke. Smoking damage to lungs is cumulative over time, so would be greater in elderly smokers. Hence all the curious facts about acute cases of COVID-19 would be explained by the single hypothesis that it is particularly targeting long-term lung damage in smokers. Nor would this be at all surprising in a disease that targets the lungs. Has anyone investigated this hypothesis? Clearly it would be overwhelmingly important in the management of the crisis were it a valid hypothesis. We would know exactly who needs protection.


----------



## Supine (Mar 22, 2020)

UK manufacturer of ventilators planning to manufacture 5000 ventilators in the next couple of weeks raising to 30,000 in the coming months   









						Smiths Group significantly ramping up production of its PARAPAC Plus ventilators | MTDMFG
					

Smiths, the global technology company, (LSE: SMIN.L) announces that its Smiths Medical division is ramping up production of its PARAPAC Plus ventilator at its Luton site to meet increased demand from the UK and across Europe. Smiths Medical is working with its supply chain to increase weekly...




					www.mtdmfg.com


----------



## kabbes (Mar 22, 2020)

Supine said:


> UK manufacturer of ventilators planning to manufacture 5000 ventilators in the next couple of weeks raising to 30,000 in the coming months
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Actually:

“*helping the UK Government* deliver its ambitious plan of 5,000 additional ventilators within two weeks, with the intention to scale availability to 30,000 over the coming months”

It isn’t clear how much of that will be from Smith’s.  Also, 30,000 isn’t going to be anywhere near enough, I fear.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I've been thinking it over and on balance I believe that, over the lifetimes of those who live through it, lockdown will cost more years of more lives than the virus itself.
> 
> Not to say it doesn't need to happen. But there must be a point on the sliding scale of duration and severity of restrictions where you end up doing more harm than good.


Yep, I've been asking about this on the Spanish politics thread but apparently the balance of harm/good has not been much of a debate there yet.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 22, 2020)

UK could enforce Italy-style coronavirus lockdown if people fail to stay at home, minister suggests
					

‘This isn’t a game, it is very serious,’ warns Robert Jenrick




					www.independent.co.uk
				




FFS , but I'm not sure what is going to stop the Covidiots

I am not for one second advocating it mind


----------



## alex_ (Mar 22, 2020)

Has this been discussed ?



More data pointing at bad things to come

Specifically this


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 22, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Yep, I've been asking about this on the Spanish politics thread but apparently the balance of harm/good has not been much of a debate there yet.



And if that debate doesn't happen openly and in full view, the result will be everyone coming to their own conclusions in private and either rejecting lockdown measures en masse or, perhaps more likely, taking their anger out on whoever they're locked in with. 

This has already been handled in a way that's been catastrophic for mental health. The government has been saying one thing and doing another the next day, over and over again. That leaves nothing solid, nothing that can be relied on, no way to start to get a handle on any of this. And it's still going on. We're all still in fucking limbo. And it doesn't even serve a purpose, it's costing lives from continued spread of the virus _and_ it's driving people mad. 

There's a balance to be struck yes, but that's not the same as sitting on the fence doing nothing. It needs to be these are the measures we're bringing in to stop the virus, and these are the measures we'll be using to protect public health during that time. And the reasoning must be clear. The Spanish policy where you can walk your dog but not yourself for example, that makes no sense. All it does is tell people that they're worth less than a dog.


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

alex_ said:


> Has this been discussed ?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Just in case anyone else is as dumb as me -I got a lesson last night on what a logarithmic scale is (like the Y axis in all these graphs). It's being used to represent exponential growth in cases and deaths in graphs like that one so that that everything doesn't just look like an almost vertical line.
The gentle looking curves on these graphs are really misleading if you don't look at the y axis properly and get that.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 22, 2020)

alex_ said:


> Has this been discussed ?


Yes, it has been discussed a bit. 
What are your feelings on it?


----------



## Spandex (Mar 22, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> UK could enforce Italy-style coronavirus lockdown if people fail to stay at home, minister suggests
> 
> 
> ‘This isn’t a game, it is very serious,’ warns Robert Jenrick
> ...


Jenrick is the fucking idiot. He says that
while people should stay healthy and go out for exercise, he said they should not pack together in parks.

Well, if people should go out and exercise, where should they go? Everything is shut except public open spaces like parks and the countryside, if people can get to it. So the government is advising people to go out for exercise, but not to gather in places where people can go for exercise. There's no way of knowing where everyone else is going before you go there. If you follow the government's advice, your likely to end up in a busy open space.

If they want people to stay home, that should be the advice. It's no good blaming people for following advice when the consequences of that advice are inevitable.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Mar 22, 2020)

Just in case anyone else is as dumb as me -I got a lesson last night on what a logarithmic scale is (like the x axis in all these graphs). It's being used to represent exponential growth in cases and deaths in graphs like that one so that that everything doesn't just look like an almost vertical line.
The gentle looking curves on these graphs are really misleading if you don't look at the x axis properly and get that.


Y axis surely?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Y axis surely?
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice


oops yeah that.


----------



## Supine (Mar 22, 2020)

Time for another graph lesson


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 22, 2020)

Spandex said:


> So the government is advising people to go out for exercise, but not to gather in places where people can go for exercise. There's no way of knowing where everyone else is going before you go there. If you follow the government's advice, your likely to end up in a busy open space.


I've wondered if they should do something like divide the population in three by surname letter, and say each group can only go out every three days. But hard to know if that could still create big concentrations of people because they are sick of being cooped up for two days.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 22, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Jenrick is the fucking idiot. He says that
> while people should stay healthy and go out for exercise, he said they should not pack together in parks.
> 
> Well, if people should go out and exercise, where should they go? Everything is shut except public open spaces like parks and the countryside, if people can get to it. So the government is advising people to go out for exercise, but not to gather in places where people can go for exercise. There's no way of knowing where everyone else is going before you go there. If you follow the government's advice, your likely to end up in a busy open space.
> ...



Yes all of this is so transparently being done with no attempt to think it through. It's all on the back foot, there's zero consistency or logic. Even someone who wanted to do everything they were told would find it all but impossible.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> This has already been handled in a way that's been catastrophic for mental health. The government has been saying one thing and doing another the next day, over and over again. That leaves nothing solid, nothing that can be relied on, no way to start to get a handle on any of this. And it's still going on. We're all still in fucking limbo. And it doesn't even serve a purpose, it's costing lives from continued spread of the virus _and_ it's driving people mad.



Even incomplete and severely compromised social distancing measures still do something. Not enough, but more than nothing. And more over time, as measures are ramped up.

I think I will wait before addressing the wider topic properly because I expect the mood will change again over the coming week, as the toll mounts.

Plus I dont think I'm going to join in with flipping from 'government herd immunity plan sucks, they are happy to let people die' to 'we must consider the balance' in a week. I'm not saying you have done that as an individual, I'm speaking more broadly, but in any case, no fucking way.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 22, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I've wondered if they should do something like divide the population in three by surname letter, and say each group can only go out every three days. But hard to know if that could still create big concentrations of people because they are sick of being cooped up for two days.



Many people in families have similar surnames.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Many people in families have similar surnames.


For exercise I mean, not for doing food runs. The issue would be families who _don't_ have the same surnames but want to exercise together. But you could find a way to make it work.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Plus I dont think I'm going to join in with flipping from 'government herd immunity plan sucks, they are happy to let people die' to 'we must consider the balance' in a week. I'm not saying you have done that as an individual, I'm speaking more broadly, but in any case, no fucking way.



I never really bought that it was a 'herd immunity' plan, so much as a 'lockdown is unsustainable, we have to use it as a last resort' plan dressed up with pseudo-scientific justifications.

But if that's the case, it means they understood the implications of lockdown all too well and did nothing to mitigate them. Whatever the strategy was, it should have been communicated clearly from day one. Now everything that goes wrong with the current plan, all of which was foreseeable, is being blamed on the public.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Now everything that goes wrong with the current plan, all of which was foreseeable, is being blamed on the public.



There will be a glaring hole with this if they try to pull it in the next 2 or 3 weeks, because they have already acknowledged the lag between such measures and seeing the results in terms of number of cases, serious cases and deaths. The horrors that await the NHS in the next few weeks are entirely down to government policy.

However I'm quite sure they will use what happens in the days ahead to try to guilt trip the public into compliance. This has had mixed results in places like Italy so far, their appeals to the public sound increasingly desperate there. The enormity of the situation has not affected everyone in the ways they would hope. At this rate it will soon be time to kiss goodbye to some facades of liberal democracy, especially as China are using the results of their own response to justify their political system.


----------



## agricola (Mar 22, 2020)

have we had this yet?


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Just in case anyone else is as dumb as me -I got a lesson last night on what a logarithmic scale is (like the Y axis in all these graphs). It's being used to represent exponential growth in cases and deaths in graphs like that one so that that everything doesn't just look like an almost vertical line.
> The gentle looking curves on these graphs are really misleading if you don't look at the y axis properly and get that.


The Worldometer page lets you switch between logarithmic and linear graphs for the full chilling effect of a near vertical ascent at the rightmost of the x-axis 









						Coronavirus Update (Live): 129,471,257 Cases and 2,828,154 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
					

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## two sheds (Mar 22, 2020)

agricola said:


> have we had this yet?




That's no fucking surprise at all


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 22, 2020)

Protect the economy eh?

It does seem like there's a school of though in the mix whereby if we get all our deaths in early, we can be back up to full speed before our economic competitors. For too many reasons to count, that is Not How It Works.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 22, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> The Worldometer page lets you switch between logarithmic and linear graphs for the full chilling effect of a near vertical ascent at the rightmost of the x-axis
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Jesus - even in the logarithmic scale the gradient is rising.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

agricola said:


> have we had this yet?



Dont think we had it yet, no. Its no surprise that his influence was malign or that he took such a stance. But its also no surprise that there are efforts to direct all the blame attention towards some individuals, rather than the entire orthodox approach and establishment. Cummings could not have come up with such a position without the orthodoxy providing a suitable backdrop. And it was the orthodox approach, rather than what has quickly been cobbled together after the orthodox consensus collapsed, that has caused whatever we witness in the next few weeks. After those first 2-3 weeks of hospital horror and many more deaths, it will start to become more about the different approach that followed, and the publics response to it.


----------



## agricola (Mar 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Dont think we had it yet, no. Its no surprise that his influence was malign or that he took such a stance. But its also no surprise that there are efforts to direct all the blame attention towards some individuals, rather than the entire orthodox approach and establishment. Cummings could not have come up with such a position without the orthodoxy providing a suitable backdrop. And it was the orthodox approach, rather than what has quickly been cobbled together after the orthodox consensus collapsed, that has caused whatever we witness in the next few weeks. After those first 2-3 weeks of hospital horror and many more deaths, it will start to become more about the different approach that followed, and the publics response to it.



I don't think its that at all.  I'd put a shiny new £1 coin on the orthodox approach offering them a range of options and that they chose the worst one.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 22, 2020)

More evidence of Britannia Hotels being cunts.   



> Members of staff laid off because of the coronavirus crisis have described the dismissals as devastating - as some were left homeless and with no redundancy payoff.
> 
> Pontins has axed a number of workers from its holiday park in Prestatyn, Wales, after the camp was closed due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
> 
> One worker who was part of the team left to clear and lock up the site said it felt like "digging your own grave", North Wales Live reports.





> He added: *"The Bluecoats who live on site then found out they had to be off site by 4pm and had to quickly pack up and get escorted off the site. *











						Sacked Pontin's staff feel like they 'dug their own graves before being shot'
					

Pontins has axed a number of workers from its holiday park in Prestatyn, Wales, after the camp was closed earlier this week due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

agricola said:


> I don't think its that at all.  I'd put a shiny new £1 coin on the orthodox approach offering them a range of options and that they chose the worst one.



Sadly the orthodox approach to pandemics contains very few choices at all. One example of this is the 2009 swine flu pandemic - most things were considered inevitable, all the phases of response were laid out before hand, featuring simple progressions from one stage to the next with no genuine expectation of making any meaningful difference to epidemic progression. The UK deviated slightly from the approach of others, but probably only because there were some pharmaceutical options available (even if they were largely meaningless) - during the phase labelled 'contain' (that was actually about delay, not containment), the UK decided to throw a load of tamiflu at the problem, with very little result.

All sorts of radical things could be attempted during the initial stages of a pandemic, but I doubt these would get much of a look in by any government that was subject to orthodox thinking. Its not like EU countries took a very different approach from the UK to this coronavirus, they didnt learn any of the lessons from China etc, they didnt protect their people. Obviously its all different now, the orthodox approach died. But only since ~ March 11th (and March 16th in the UK).


----------



## killer b (Mar 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Now everything that goes wrong with the current plan, all of which was foreseeable, is being blamed on the public.


this is a really important point, cheers.


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

I think part of this shambolic response has to be down to the PM himself being the man who wrote those two articles one pro one against at the time of brexit and then dithered waiting to see which way the wind was blowing before picking which to publish. His cowardice indecision and fear of getting it wrong will have cost precious time.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Cummings could not have come up with such a position without the orthodoxy providing a suitable backdrop.


The backdrop is he's a eugenicist and believes in a natural order of survival of the fittest in which Tory individualists are the fittest. Scientific good sense is outdated in a mindset where oddball freethinkers are finally in control


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> The backdrop is he's a eugenicist and believes in a natural order of survival of the fittest in which Tory individualists are the fittest. Scientific good sense is outdated in a mindset where oddball freethinkers are finally in control



This is being circulated, supposedly from the Sunday Times today.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 22, 2020)

My partner is Spanish and her family are in Madrid Ive been hearing about the lockdown in Madrid area.

Her mother says some people are shouting from their balconies they want to go out.

One of her neighbours is seriously ill in hospital. No one can visit. If someone dies no funeral.The hospital informs relatives of death and body is cremated straight away.

Hospitals in Madrid are at breaking point.

Partner just told me that all beds are full and hotels are being taken over as temporary hospitals. 

This is the reality of lockdown.


----------



## alex_ (Mar 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Yes, it has been discussed a bit.
> What are your feelings on it?



We are going into lockdown in a couple of days.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 22, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> This is being circulated, supposedly from the Sunday Times today.
> 
> View attachment 202745


I can confirm that it's a genuine article from The Sunday Times today (here behind a paywall).


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

National trust is trying to decide on its own whether to close all of its car parks after everywhere is rammed with visitors (smaller gardens and all indoor things they already shut).


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> The backdrop is he's a eugenicist and believes in a natural order of survival of the fittest in which Tory individualists are the fittest. Scientific good sense is outdated in a mindset where oddball freethinkers are finally in control



Well I can see that I've been wasting my time trying to explain the orthodox approach for the last week+, and its role in all of this.

Never mind, I will keep wasting my time for now regardless.

I shall compare a few things from the 5th Rapid risk assessment of the European Centre for Disease Control, dated 2nd of March, with the 6th edition from the 12th March. The documents are too long to compare all the differences, so I will pick a few key ones

5th edition does not have the following, which is in the 6th edition and suggests they started to think the unthinkable in terms of strong response:



> The evidence for the effectiveness of closing schools and workplaces, and cancelling mass gatherings is limited. However, one modelling study from China estimated that if a range of non-pharmaceutical interventions, including social distancing, had been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier in the country, the number of COVID-19 cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86%, and 95%, respectively, together with significantly reducing the number of affected areas



Remember those numbers when it comes time to judge the effects of UK policy & timing!

Travel restriction orthodoxy is still hanging around in the 6th edition, but the section is shorter, shift probably under way:

5th edition:



> Although WHO considers that the comprehensive measures taken by local authorities in China, which included severe travel restrictions have had a delaying effect on the epidemic within China and internationally, in general, travel restrictions at international borders or within national borders are neither efficient nor effective against outbreaks of respiratory disease, unless they can be implemented comprehensively. During the 2009 influenza pandemic, such comprehensive measures were shown to be feasible and effective only on isolated, small island countries.
> China, and some other countries has used area quarantines, or so called ‘cordon sanitaire’ in addition to other measures on large cities, with apparent effect on delaying the spread of this disease. There is very little evidence elsewhere to suggest that such measures would work against respiratory virus epidemics, unless implemented with such a rigour that there is absolutely no movement across the ‘cordon’ and there is very low prior transmission outside the ‘cordon’.



6th edition:



> China, Italy and some other countries have used area quarantines, or so called ‘cordon sanitaire’ in addition to other measures on large cities, with the apparent effect on delaying the spread of this disease in China [16]. Apart from the experience in China and historical assessments of measures during the 1918 influenza pandemic, there is little evidence elsewhere to suggest that such measures would work against respiratory virus epidemics, unless implemented with such a rigour that there is absolutely no movement across the ‘cordon’ and there is very low prior transmission outside the ‘cordon’.



Sections on testing and contract tracing have changed too much to do a proper comparison, but there are differences of emphasis and detail.

5th edition: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/de...9-increase-transmission-globally-COVID-19.pdf
6th edition: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/de...f-novel-coronavirus-disease-2019-COVID-19.pdf


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

France had to threaten to shut its borders to UK before our gov acted on Friday:









						Reuters | Breaking International News & Views
					

Find latest news from every corner of the globe at Reuters.com, your online source for breaking international news coverage.




					uk.reuters.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

I'll not give France all the credit, no way. The change was already underfoot, UK had already telegraphed stronger measures several days earlier, the overall approach had clearly changed by last Monday, devolved administrations like Scotland already spilt certain beans and likely applied pressure of their own. Not to mention the UK media questioning things.


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

Ok. You don’t have to give France any credit but their stance completely logical, why would they leave the border open unless we immediately sorted ourselves out.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 22, 2020)

Meanwhile in Wales...


----------



## agricola (Mar 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ok. You don’t have to give France any credit but their stance completely logical, why would they leave the border open unless we immediately sorted ourselves out.



Not really - this was probably Macron doing his usual faux hard man thing of seeing that the UK was about to do that anyway and then try to claim credit for them doing it.  

After all, if he genuinely thought that what the UK was doing was dangerous then the time to do it was back in the herd immunity days (when it was dangerous), not a couple of weeks afterwards when the Government's creatures in the Press were all telling us what was coming anyway.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ok. You don’t have to give France any credit but their stance completely logical, why would they leave the border open unless we immediately sorted ourselves out.



I didnt say I would give them no credit at all.

The whole thing is absurd anyway, whatever measures we took it is not exactly 'safe' for other countries to let our population travel there, there are too many infections here already for that.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

agricola said:


> Not really - this was probably Macron doing his usual faux hard man thing of seeing that the UK was about to do that anyway and then try to claim credit for them doing it.
> 
> After all, if he genuinely thought that what the UK was doing was dangerous then the time to do it was back in the herd immunity days (when it was dangerous), not a couple of weeks afterwards when the Government's creatures in the Press were all telling us what was coming anyway.



Just a small point about timing - it was only 1 week ago that the herd immunity approach died, at least in name (last Sunday was when Hancock said herd immunity wasnt the policy).


----------



## agricola (Mar 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Just a small point about timing - it was only 1 week ago that the herd immunity approach died, at least in name (last Sunday was when Hancock said herd immunity wasnt the policy).



yes, but I meant when it was the policy (not after it was killed off)


----------



## prunus (Mar 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> National trust is trying to decide on its own whether to close all of its car parks after everywhere is rammed with visitors (smaller gardens and all indoor things they already shut).



I can probably help them with the answer to this: yes.


----------



## Mation (Mar 22, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I've wondered if they should do something like divide the population in three by surname letter, and say each group can only go out every three days. But hard to know if that could still create big concentrations of people because they are sick of being cooped up for two days.


Rich people would only find a way to exploit that to their double-barrelled advantage 

(Sorry  )


----------



## a_chap (Mar 22, 2020)

No idea if this is the right thread: there are so many Covid19 threads it's confusing for a bear of little brain like me.

I'm thinking of printing a leaflet and posting it through the letterboxes of the neighbours of the streets around me (it's about 3 dozen houses) offering to help anyone that's struggling due to self-isolation or illness. Things like trying to source groceries/supplies if they're running short.

Any helpful suggestions for me? I don't want to make things worse but equally I can't ignore the fact that people withing a few hundred yards of me might be in difficulty.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 22, 2020)

Mation said:


> Rich people would only find a way to exploit that to their double-barrelled advantage
> 
> (Sorry  )



I know this is a joke but also, lots of not-rich people have doubled up their names when they got together, and for their children, because the woman didn’t want to give up her surname.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 22, 2020)

a_chap said:


> No idea if this is the right thread: there are so many Covid19 threads it's confusing for a bear of little brain like me.
> 
> I'm thinking of printing a leaflet and posting it through the letterboxes of the neighbours of the streets around me (it's about 3 dozen houses) offering to help anyone that's struggling due to self-isolation or illness. Things like trying to source groceries/supplies if they're running short.
> 
> Any helpful suggestions for me? I don't want to make things worse but equally I can't ignore the fact that people withing a few hundred yards of me might be in difficulty.




I couldn’t tell you where it is but back when this started someone posted a link to a draft example of such a letter.


There’s this:









						How to Help Neighbors Safely During the Coronavirus Pandemic
					

Here’s how to safely show up for your block, your building, and others near you during the coronavirus pandemic—because that’s crucial to our health, too.




					www.vice.com
				




There’s a letter template included in that article.

Please ignore the picture showing zero social distancing in the stock photo that accompanies the article.


----------



## agricola (Mar 22, 2020)

a_chap said:


> No idea if this is the right thread: there are so many Covid19 threads it's confusing for a bear of little brain like me.
> 
> I'm thinking of printing a leaflet and posting it through the letterboxes of the neighbours of the streets around me (it's about 3 dozen houses) offering to help anyone that's struggling due to self-isolation or illness. Things like trying to source groceries/supplies if they're running short.
> 
> Any helpful suggestions for me? I don't want to make things worse but equally I can't ignore the fact that people withing a few hundred yards of me might be in difficulty.



It would be better to organize the three dozen houses into a mutual support network so that everyone pitches in who can help, in case you get it.


----------



## kebabking (Mar 22, 2020)

a_chap said:


> No idea if this is the right thread: there are so many Covid19 threads it's confusing for a bear of little brain like me.
> 
> I'm thinking of printing a leaflet and posting it through the letterboxes of the neighbours of the streets around me (it's about 3 dozen houses) offering to help anyone that's struggling due to self-isolation or illness. Things like trying to source groceries/supplies if they're running short.
> 
> Any helpful suggestions for me? I don't want to make things worse but equally I can't ignore the fact that people withing a few hundred yards of me might be in difficulty.



We've had one through the door the form has a #viralkindness logo, so you might find it if you search that.


----------



## editor (Mar 22, 2020)

Rail statement 



> These are exceptional times. COVID-19 is changing how everyone in the UK lives, works and travels. But we know that Britain’s railway is a vital artery that keeps the economic and social lifeblood of the nation connected through this challenging period.
> 
> That is why, in order to keep essential services running over what may be a prolonged period of disruption for the country, we have worked with government to switch to a reduced timetable from Monday. It is not an easy decision, but it is a necessary one which will allow us to match the number of services available to our reduced workforce. It means that key workers like nurses, police officers and firefighters will continue to be able to get to their jobs over the coming weeks and months. It means that freight trains will continue to deliver the goods that keep our supermarket shelves stacked and our power stations running.
> 
> ...


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK could enforce Italy-style lockdown if people fail to stay at home, minister suggests — The Independent
					

The government would consider an Italian-style lockdown if people fail to follow advice to stay at home during the coronavirus crisis, a senior minister has said.




					apple.news


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 22, 2020)

Yep, there's the narrative


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 22, 2020)

"Regrettably, due to the actions of some irresponsible people, we have no option but to..."

And so the indecision, U-turning, lying etc is deflected


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 22, 2020)

not like tories to try and blame the outcomes of thier shit policies on a lack of personal responsibility in others


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Yep, there's the narrative





S☼I said:


> Yep, there's the narrative



it’s all our fault, not government

The other thread in the narrative is “filthy Chinese eating all sorts of animals” blame the foreigner

Johnson had a fluff piece today humanising him in one broadsheet where he wrote a letter to a little girl...managing his profile while subtlety sliding cummings in as the bad guy number one in another story

this country needs a fucking journalistic revolution


----------



## prunus (Mar 22, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> this country needs a fucking revolution



extraneous word excised.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

Need to stop the blame game tbh and the media is the worst at this at the moment.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Need to stop the blame game tbh and the media is the worst at this at the moment.


You're so very dumb.


----------



## Mation (Mar 22, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I know this is a joke but also, lots of not-rich people have doubled up their names when they got together, and for their children, because the woman didn’t want to give up her surname.


I know


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 22, 2020)

will self suggesting a national unity government run by Sunak and Starmer. Definitely think there are moves against johnson from within the tory party - using cummings as a proxy. Gove will be in there as well - probably explaining why the cummings story appeared in the times.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 22, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> will self suggesting a national unity government run by Sunak and Starmer. Definitely think there are moves against johnson from within the tory party - using cummings as a proxy. Gove will be in there as well - probably explaining why the cummings story appeared in the times.


Who gives the first nanofuck what Will Self reckons?


----------



## Raheem (Mar 22, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> They should have installed Grammarly - though I don't know if that spots people being cunts ....


Judging from the ads, it must incorporate some sort of cunt-locating technology.


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 22, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> will self suggesting a national unity government run by Sunak and Starmer. Definitely think there are moves against johnson from within the tory party - using cummings as a proxy. Gove will be in there as well - probably explaining why the cummings story appeared in the times.


I have no idea where I read it or when, but that Times story today is not the first time I've heard of this approach by Cummings.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 22, 2020)

a_chap said:


> No idea if this is the right thread: there are so many Covid19 threads it's confusing for a bear of little brain like me.
> 
> I'm thinking of printing a leaflet and posting it through the letterboxes of the neighbours of the streets around me (it's about 3 dozen houses) offering to help anyone that's struggling due to self-isolation or illness. Things like trying to source groceries/supplies if they're running short.
> 
> Any helpful suggestions for me? I don't want to make things worse but equally I can't ignore the fact that people withing a few hundred yards of me might be in difficulty.


Covidmutualaid.org has advice on how to do this safely as the virus lives for 72 hours on paper. 
The group we put together round my way offers non contact support so like phone calls, dropping off groceries(ideally get them to pay the shop over the phone) picking up prescriptions. We didn’t do the leafleting as health types advised not to, so we were on the radio, the newspaper and asked GP surgeries and that to pass our details on- small community though these might not be easily done elsewhere. If you wanna chat more about this message me, I might even reply. Main issue we’ve had is people actually taking advantage of our services, not many.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 22, 2020)

The bit about leafleting seems daft mind you if you were also going to drop off shopping anyway, the guidance is confusing.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Who gives the first nanofuck what Will Self reckons?



well - quite - but its more indicative of what sort of chats are going on in the bubble.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 22, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> will self suggesting a national unity government run by Sunak and Starmer. Definitely think there are moves against johnson from within the tory party - using cummings as a proxy. Gove will be in there as well - probably explaining why the cummings story appeared in the times.



More frantic wanking over imagined scenarios from the #fbpe lot.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> The other thread in the narrative is “filthy Chinese eating all sorts of animals” blame the foreigner



So the the agricultural and economic policies of the PRC are all well and good then? The rising Chinese bourgeoisie played no part in driving the growth of wet markets during the past 40 years?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 22, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> will self suggesting a national unity government run by Sunak and Starmer. Definitely think there are moves against johnson from within the tory party - using cummings as a proxy. Gove will be in there as well - probably explaining why the cummings story appeared in the times.



We're all going to stab each other in the back. Then after that, national unity.

These fucking people. If this is all they have to do with their time then better they just go home and play minecraft until this is all over.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 22, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> So the the agricultural and economic policies of the PRC are all well and good then? The rising Chinese bourgeoisie played no part in driving the growth of wet markets during the past 40 years?



don’t be disingenuous,  it’s the context it’s being used in


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> don’t be disingenuous,  it’s the context it’s being used in



Of course


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Don't think Johnson will have the guts to do it until he can blame someone else for forcing him to, Khan maybe.


this is me doing a tentative I told you so face. 








						Police could enforce social distancing rules, says London mayor
					

Sadiq Khan says people should not leave home ‘unless you really, really have to’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## kabbes (Mar 22, 2020)

Utter wankers









						Coronavirus: 'Unprecedented' crowds in Wales despite warnings
					

Car parks and trails could be shut to stop people visiting Snowdonia, while beaches are also busy.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




“Busiest ever day”


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

Fuck off Marty1


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Utter wankers
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I struggle to see how the guidance/advice could have been any clearer for these fuckstains


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

'Fit and healthy' staff nurse fighting for life with coronavirus
					

Mum-of-three Areema Nasreen, 36, is seriously ill and on a ventilator after being diagnosed with the virus




					www.birminghammail.co.uk
				








> A 'fit and healthy' Walsall staff nurse is fighting for her life in hospital after being diagnosed with coronavirus, her devastated family has said.
> 
> Areema Nasreen, a mum-of-three, tested positive for the virus after developing a soaring temperature, body aches and a cough.
> 
> The 36-year-old, who has no underlying health conditions, was taken to Walsall Manor Hospital after her condition worsened.





> "I want everyone to know how dangerous this is. My sister is only 36 and is normally fit and healthy.
> 
> "People are not taking this seriously enough. She is young - it is not just the elderly who are at risk."
> 
> Areema first became unwell around ten days ago, first suffering with 'body aches', a high temperature which could not be brought down and a cough.





> Eventually she got taken to hospital and they tested her two days ago. It came back positive and now she is in the Intensive Care Unit at the Manor Hospital.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

The effects of Cheltenham going ahead are now being felt:









						Cheltenham Festival punters say they are now showing signs of coronavirus
					

The four-day meeting went ahead last week despite widespread criticism and a number of punters say they now have symptoms of COVID-19




					www.birminghammail.co.uk
				






> More than 250,000 fans attended Cheltenham and, as of Monday, 10 people have now tested positive for coronavirus in Gloucestershire.
> 
> One person wrote on Twitter: "I was at Cheltenham for three days last week and I am now showing all the symptoms of coronavirus, please be careful everyone."
> 
> ...


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 22, 2020)

Like so many fucking people warned


----------



## oryx (Mar 22, 2020)

> I was at Cheltenham for three days last week and I am now showing all the symptoms of coronavirus, *please be careful everyone*



It's a shame they weren't .


----------



## editor (Mar 22, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Fuck off Marty1


Not the thread for this stuff.


----------



## alex_ (Mar 22, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Meanwhile in Wales...
> 
> View attachment 202751



I think they might struggle to go home looking at the state of that


----------



## Spandex (Mar 22, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> I struggle to see how the guidance/advice could have been any clearer for these fuckstains


What, the government's advice, from the PM and Culture Secretary, to millions of anxious people with nothing to do, facing the prospect of being confined to their home for months, that "people should stay healthy and go out for exercise".


----------



## little_legs (Mar 22, 2020)




----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> More frantic wanking over imagined scenarios from the #fbpe lot.



what Cummings story?


----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> 'Fit and healthy' staff nurse fighting for life with coronavirus
> 
> 
> Mum-of-three Areema Nasreen, 36, is seriously ill and on a ventilator after being diagnosed with the virus
> ...



wake up call, off the streets now.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 22, 2020)




----------



## Sue (Mar 22, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



Broadway Market  . (Presume that's from yesterday? Not that that makes it any better obvs.)


----------



## little_legs (Mar 22, 2020)

Sue said:


> Broadway Market  . (*Presume that's from yesterday?* Not that that makes it any better obvs.)


Indeed.


----------



## BCBlues (Mar 22, 2020)

treelover said:


> wake up call, off the streets now.



Thats a heartbreaking story


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 22, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

Last weekend people were going mad at the governments herd immunity plan, this weekend they decided to do their own bit to accelerate that plan 

Obviously that isnt the real story because many of the people being reckless this weekend were not the ones going mad about the government plan last weekend.

I dont like to think about where exactly sentiments will be at by next weekend.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 22, 2020)

platinumsage said:


>




More ammo to just blame the public for when it properly goes  tits up.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 22, 2020)

Just gotta lock it all down you daft cunts


----------



## Sue (Mar 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Just gotta lock it all down you daft cunts


Yeah, I'd be really surprise if it doesn't happen in London at least this week.


----------



## miss direct (Mar 22, 2020)

I know this post is about the UK but we have exactly the same situation here in Turkey. People have been asked to stay at home but as it's the weekend and the weather's nice, parks, forests and the seaside have all been busy today. Wonder if we'll get locked down before you.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



supermarkets will remain open though...they need to set up a distancing system within the shops like in poland (one of the tother threads)


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 22, 2020)

Sue said:


> Yeah, I'd be really surprise if it doesn't happen in London at least this week.


Should have been last week, week before. The economy will recover. Dead people won't. I'm so mad that if someone as naive as me can see all this stuff weeks in advance why can't the people with the power to do something?


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Should have been last week, week before. The economy will recover. Dead people won't. I'm so mad that if someone as naive as me can see all this stuff weeks in advance why can't the people with the power to do something?


you care about people too much, thats where you're going wrong


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> you care about people too much, thats where you're going wrong


I KNEW IT


----------



## editor (Mar 22, 2020)

Walked through Ruskin Park today (s London)  and people have definitely got the message - everyone was keeping a safe distance from the people they were talking to, no mass gatherings and my favourite scene was when two friends who'd cycled to the park and were sitting down apart on the grass, had to both stretch out so one could fill the other's coffee cup from her thermos...


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 22, 2020)

editor said:


> Walked through Ruskin Park today (s London)  and people have definitely got the message - everyone was keeping a safe distance from the people they were talking to, no mass gatherings and my favourite scene was when two friends who'd cycled to the park and were sitting down apart on the grass, had to both stretch out so one could fill the other's coffee cup from her thermos...



Five of us gathered for an equinox fire last night. Three housemates and two visitors. No touching, everyone sat equidistant around a big fire and as soon as the fire got so low that we started hitch our chairs in towards the fire and be a meter apart we all said goodnight and went home. It was so good to meet each other but we were all really aware that we were on the borderline of safe distancing.

I was in my car and took a little detour to have a look round Brixton. Very quiet, but those I did see were (I think) soup kitchen clients and they were all very close together in the doorway of that sports outlet on Pope’s Road.

What on Earth will rough sleepers and street homeless folk do if there’s a lockdown?


----------



## andysays (Mar 22, 2020)

It's getting silly now, until recently we were told we just needed to wash our hands, now we've got this...

Coronavirus: London parks closing as areas urge tourists to stay away


> Parks in part of London are being shut after criticism of large numbers of tourists visiting beaches and beauty spots. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan urged people to "stop social mixing", saying "people will die" if they don't. Authorities in the Yorkshire Dales and Lake District asked people to stay away, saying "now is not the time for tourism".


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

Spandex said:


> What, the government's advice, from the PM and Culture Secretary, to millions of anxious people with nothing to do, facing the prospect of being confined to their home for months, that "people should stay healthy and go out for exercise".



Like this?


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 22, 2020)

andysays said:


> It's getting silly now, until recently we were told we just needed to wash our hands, now we've got this...
> 
> Coronavirus: London parks closing as areas urge tourists to stay away



That video posted in the Italy thread was a young man whose father is an emergency doctor. He was saying stay home, do not meet your friends, do not go out. 

I reckon I’m going to err on the side of caution, take my lead from thise at the sharp end of this rather than the UK government. If the Italians are saying social distancing is critical, then I’m going to listen to them.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 22, 2020)

Of course a lot of people are not going to take the social distancing advice seriously. Especially as the government has only now started to do so. 
Being social is a fundamental human urge, so it was entirely predictable that a huge number of people are not going to stop doing what they are doing on the basis of a half arsed request from Johnson. Its like having an advisory speed limit and then moaning that people are ignoring it. 
As well as getting control measures in earlier, They should have been scaring the shit out of people from the start. They still aren't tbh.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> supermarkets will remain open though...they need to set up a distancing system within the shops like in poland (one of the tother threads)



Supermarkets need to change to reduced hours, open early in the morning for the olds and vulnerable and NHS workers, open again in the late afternoon.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

Some journalists have clearly been looking at the Italy-UK comparison numbers that have been going around, one of them asked about it in todays UK press conference. The answer focussed on case fatality rates, and why comparing those could be misleading. Certainly thats true, its one of the reason I've been mostly ignoring case fatality rates so far. But thats not the numbers that people have been comparing recently anyway, so the answer largely dodged the question.

I think the question made reference to some article Johnson has written somewhere, where he has now said we are 2-3 weeks behind Italy. I was wondering how and when they would further adjust this claim, having started at 4 weeks, then shifted to 3 weeks+London a bit ahead, sounds like Johnson has started the next step on the claims journey down to 2 weeks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Supermarkets need to change to reduced hours, open early in the morning for the olds and vulnerable and NHS workers, open again in the late afternoon.



Great idea, make them even more crowded in the  more limited hours they open.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

I've not studied public health communication formally, but I would expect that a basic rule is keeping things as simple as possible, and the governments approach when it comes to details of all manner of things cannot be said to be living up to that principal.


----------



## smokedout (Mar 22, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I was in my car and took a little detour to have a look round Brixton. Very quiet, but those I did see were (I think) soup kitchen clients and they were all very close together in the doorway of that sports outlet on Pope’s Road.



Much quieter round here as well, I went out for a longish walk  to the supermarket in Camden earlier, which was suprisingly quiet and even on the busier roads it was pretty easy to keep distance from people, and most people seemed to be making an effort not to get too close to each other.  Loads of joggers out, but buses were running past almost empty.  If you kept to the backstreets there was barely anyone about.  It's not what you'd call lockdown, and some businesses were still open that made me think wtf like Carpetright, and there were occassional huddles of people chatting, but was much more reassuring than the other day.

I'm not sure the message has got out that face to face contact by far seems to be the most likely method of transmission.  Washing hands and stuff is obviously important but I think it needs to be made clearer that the more people you interact with, and the longer those interactions last, then the more chance of transmission happening.  A stroll through the park/streets maintaining decent distance from others I imagine is pretty safe, but meeting up with your mates and having a picnic in the park is not.  And it sounds likely soon we'll be stopped from doing the first because of people doing the latter.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 22, 2020)

andysays said:


> It's getting silly now, until recently we were told we just needed to wash our hands, now we've got this...
> 
> Coronavirus: London parks closing as areas urge tourists to stay away


It's interesting that they mention the Dales.

The village I grew up in, and where my parents still live, was apparently bursting yesterday with visitors.

Mind you they had a fucking Farmer's Market there today so it's not just tourists who are being foolish.


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

So “my” national trust woodland has shut its gates this afternoon after really big crowds turned up apparently. It’s eerily quiet in here now, beautiful but strange.


----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Should have been last week, week before. The economy will recover. Dead people won't. I'm so mad that if someone as naive as me can see all this stuff weeks in advance why can't the people with the power to do something?



Johnson press conference, still no lock down, polite request  to not congregate, his Libertarian values will cost lives,

Deputy CMO agreed with him to a point, but urged social distancing.


----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> It's interesting that they mention the Dales.
> 
> The village I grew up in, and where my parents still live, was apparently bursting yesterday with visitors.
> 
> Mind you they had a fucking Farmer's Market there today so it's not just tourists who are being foolish.



Car park nearest Peak District at Foxhouses rammed today, lock down now!


----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> That video posted in the Italy thread was a young man whose father is an emergency doctor. He was saying stay home, do not meet your friends, do not go out.
> 
> I reckon I’m going to err on the side of caution, take my lead from thise at the sharp end of this rather than the UK government. If the Italians are saying social distancing is critical, then I’m going to listen to them.



Yes, the warnings from Italy are heartbreaking and necessary.


----------



## Lucy Fur (Mar 22, 2020)

I'm in a very rural part of S.W. France, and a 300 euro fine certainly focuses the mind. Somethings can't be left to the public, the UK government needs to enforce stay at home unless absolutely necessary and enforce it now.


----------



## zahir (Mar 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> So “my” national trust woodland has shut its gates this afternoon after really big crowds turned up apparently. It’s eerily quiet in here now, beautiful but strange.


I walked down to my national trust woodland to see how the closure was going. Sign up saying the cafe and car park were closed. The car park was still about half full. Lots of people walking who didn’t look like the usual walkers. I expect it will stay the same for the extended bank holiday in the months ahead.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

Went to the local park earlier with my daughter for a stroll and to feed the swans, expecting the place to be deserted, maybe a few dog walkers.

The place was bursting with people, car park overflowing, ice cream van by the main pond with a large queue, cyclists, joggers etc.

The govt enforced lockdown is coming.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

treelover said:


> Johnson press conference, still no lock down, polite request  to not congregate, his Libertarian values will cost lives,


Read today that a Lockdown meeting is on Monday (legislature even?) - i forget now.


----------



## keybored (Mar 22, 2020)

Spandex said:


> What, the government's advice, from the PM and Culture Secretary, to millions of anxious people with nothing to do, facing the prospect of being confined to their home for months, that "people should stay healthy and go out for exercise".


This govt only speaks to people with massive estates they can potter around on (or at least sizeable back gardens).


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Went to the local park earlier with my daughter for a stroll and to feed the swans, expecting the place to be deserted, maybe a few dog walkers.
> 
> The place was bursting with people, car park overflowing, ice cream van by the main pond with a large queue, cyclists, joggers etc.
> 
> The govt enforced lockdown is coming.


those terrible other people spoiling it for everyone eh.
er, what were you doing there?
etc


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Supermarkets need to change to reduced hours, open early in the morning for the olds and vulnerable and NHS workers, open again in the late afternoon.



They already are, my parents can get into either Tesco’s or Sainsbury’s earlier (over 70’s only).


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> those terrible other people spoiling it for everyone eh.
> er, what were you doing there?
> etc



You’re right, I’m no better than anyone else that was there - maybe everyone else thought the place would be deserted too.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> You’re right, I’m no better than anyone else that was there - maybe everyone else thought the place would be deserted too.


yeah exactly that
and tbh its perfectly possible to go to the park and interact with no one and stay at least 2 meters apart
seems hong kong and singaporeans can do this having learned the etiquette the hard way from previous outbreaks
hopefully we can get to the point by summer or else like spooky frank says, it'll be devastating
then again, with little foreign travel and everyone off work, parks are going to be busy no matter what


----------



## AverageJoe (Mar 22, 2020)

It's not that hard is it? I mean is it? 

Only go out If You Have To. 

You don't have to go to the park 
You don't have to go the beach
You don't have to go out with your mates, have play dates for the kids, etc etc etc. 

So unless you have to, stay in. And when you Have To Go Out, be aware, stay two metres away from others, cough into your elbow if you need to and don't bulk buy. 

Cos if you continue to treat this with impunity, we will be forced to lock you down. This is your last warning. Don't be a dick. 

That's kinda what I got from Boris' message today


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

So sick of Johnson. Am resorting to Sturgeon to compare and contrast - I've only just started watching it but I expect a similar message, delivered in a somewhat different way, with different emphasis.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 22, 2020)

FFS. I... 









						'They took everything' - Knottingley foodbank forced to close after thieves steal £500 of supplies
					

A foodbank has said it will have to close after thieves broke into a storage container and took more than £500 in supplies.




					www.yorkshirepost.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

Some of the stuff Sturgeon said makes it sound like way too many businesses were trying to get their staff key worker status so the kids could be sent to school.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 22, 2020)

editor said:


> Walked through Ruskin Park today (s London)  and people have definitely got the message - everyone was keeping a safe distance from the people they were talking to, no mass gatherings and my favourite scene was when two friends who'd cycled to the park and were sitting down apart on the grass, had to both stretch out so one could fill the other's coffee cup from her thermos...


That’s still not good enough.  Those friends shouldn’t be meeting up in the first place.  People shouldn’t be gathering at all.  The message isn’t getting through.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

Not everyone will be given the choice to go outside (at all). Forgive me if I struggle to get my head round fucking idiots who just do what they want (when they want, because they’re special)









						Emergency legislation could sweep aside the rights of the mentally vulnerable
					

It is hard to see much logic behind measures that alarm an already frightened group of forgotten citizens




					inews.co.uk


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

Also









						The Right to Life
					

Thoughts on the implications of the UK government’s Coronavirus policies for autistic people and people with learning disabilities. Like a lot of people, I’ve watched the emergence of the Coronavir…




					thetiredoptimist.wordpress.com


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

And 









						Coronavirus: Legislate in haste, repent at leisure? - Dimensions
					

The emergency Covid-19 bill is expected to whip through parliament quickly following Monday’s debate. Whilst its urgency is not in doubt, some of the draft powers relating to social care have the potential to eliminate decades of hard-won protections for disabled adults. If the bill goes through...




					www.dimensions-uk.org


----------



## andysays (Mar 22, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> It's not that hard is it? I mean is it?
> 
> Only go out If You Have To.
> 
> ...


The thing is, this advice, while appropriate, is very different from what was being said even a few days ago,  where the National Trust, for example, were actively encouraging people to visit their properties. 

It's good that the government finally seems to be treating this with seriousness it deserves, but it's hardly surprising, giving their previous positions, that some people are still not getting the message yet.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Should have been last week, week before. The economy will recover. Dead people won't. I'm so mad that if someone as naive as me can see all this stuff weeks in advance why can't the people with the power to do something?


It's not as simple as the economy vs people though. The economy is not some abstract entity totally separate from people.  A fucked up economy means fucked up lives, it means dead people.


----------



## editor (Mar 22, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Like this?


The cyclists are fucking idiots for all grouping together once they get off their bikes but the use of a telephoto lens has distorted some of the views. Most of the people in the outdoor cafe seemed to be a fair distance apart.


----------



## editor (Mar 22, 2020)

kabbes said:


> That’s still not good enough.  Those friends shouldn’t be meeting up in the first place.  People shouldn’t be gathering at all.  The message isn’t getting through.


They weren't 'gathering' - there was just two people sat two metres apart in the open air. There's lots of things to get rightly worked up about, but this isn't one of them for me.


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

This is a little compilation of Italian mayors shouting at people to Stay the Fuck Home. You can see the urgency of them knowing exactly what they’re talking about.


----------



## editor (Mar 22, 2020)

My mate just sent me a photo showing a 400m long queue outside a Hastings supermarket with loads of people standing right next to each other.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 22, 2020)

editor said:


> They weren't 'gathering' - there was just two people sat two metres apart in the open air. There's lots of things to get rightly worked up about, but this isn't one of them for me.


Sitting two metres apart, you're still covering everything between you in your (possibly infected) exhalations every time you breathe out.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 22, 2020)

I wonder what the situation with cash machines is. 

Apart from being places you could get infected. 

If people at home get others to bring them supplies, how are they going to repay them if not in cash?


----------



## editor (Mar 22, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Sitting two metres apart, you're still covering everything between you in your (possibly infected) exhalations every time you breathe out.


It was a park. It was cold. They were sat on the grass away from everyone.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> If people at home get others to bring them supplies, how are they going to repay them if not in cash?


Inter-bank transfers are pretty simple nowadays, especially with internet banking.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 22, 2020)

editor said:


> They weren't 'gathering' - there was just two people sat two metres apart in the open air. There's lots of things to get rightly worked up about, but this isn't one of them for me.


That is gathering


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 22, 2020)

Jack Monroe is brilliant.


----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

Friends family all medics/NHS, went to s/market for NHS hours , huge que round the block, this was at 7am, things are going badly wrong.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 22, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Inter-bank transfers are pretty simple nowadays, especially with internet banking.


Good thinking, why didn't I think of that? :-/


----------



## lazythursday (Mar 22, 2020)

kabbes said:


> That’s still not good enough.  Those friends shouldn’t be meeting up in the first place.  People shouldn’t be gathering at all.  The message isn’t getting through.


My partner cycled off to his place earlier to get something and ended up sitting drinking in the communal garden drinking for hours with people. At a safe distance, he insists. But it's still fucking unnecessary risk I think. It's a gathering. Hard to get this through to people. On the plus side he did convince two at risk people that this is real and they need to start isolating.


----------



## N_igma (Mar 22, 2020)

Some wee shit bags decided to set fire to the countryside around here. As if our emergency services aren’t stretched to the limit as it is. Mind boggles at the sheer idiocy and selfishness of some people.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 22, 2020)

The advice, particularly from Italy, is simple.

Stay completely away from people.  Don’t meet friends.  Don’t meet family.  Don’t gather.  Don’t do social things.  Don’t do anything you don’t absolutely need to do.  Certainly don’t go for a fucking bike ride with your mate, you absolute tit.


----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> And
> 
> 
> 
> ...



people need to be aware that decent social care, which is already under massive strain is even more under threat.


----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> And
> 
> 
> 
> ...



people need to be aware that decent social care, which is already under massive strain is even more under threat.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

editor said:


> They weren't 'gathering' - there was just two people sat two metres apart in the open air. There's lots of things to get rightly worked up about, but this isn't one of them for me.



Your photo of the tube was quite revealing.


----------



## killer b (Mar 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I wonder what the situation with cash machines is.
> 
> Apart from being places you could get infected.
> 
> If people at home get others to bring them supplies, how are they going to repay them if not in cash?


I've not used cash in more than a week - paying with my card any shop I've visited... I'm doing shopping for a couple of friends and they're using paypal to pay me back.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 22, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The advice, particularly from Italy, is simple.
> 
> Stay completely away from people.  Don’t meet friends.  Don’t meet family.  Don’t gather.  Don’t do social things.  Don’t do anything you don’t absolutely need to do.  Certainly don’t go for a fucking bike ride with your mate, you absolute tit.



Indeed, and the message has been very fucking clear in the last week, but still selfish fuckwits ignore it.


----------



## eatmorecheese (Mar 22, 2020)

I fucking despair sometimes









						Holes drilled in tyres as six ambulances attacked
					

Under-pressure paramedics on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus discovered a fleet of ambulances damaged this morning.




					www.kentonline.co.uk


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Indeed, and the message has been very fucking clear in the last week, but still selfish fuckwits ignore it.


It hasn’t been clear. It’s been a mess. Johnson himself said he hoped to see his mum for Mother’s Day. And his dad was loudly telling people on daytime tv that he was off to the pub.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

I’ve devised my own method of safe parcel delivery - Amazon advise that we knock on customers door then ask customer to step back 2 metres before we place their parcel/s on their floor.

Instead, I knock them place parcel on doorstep then walk back to the pavement until they open door and wave them off - people seem to appreciate this approach much better.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)

More signs of grotesque negligence in terms of the provision and distribution of PPE for health workers.

 10h ago 10:09 



> NHS nurses are being made to use various items they can find – including bin bags – in the hospital to help protect themselves, with many using plastic aprons over their head, buying wellies or wrapping clinical waste bags around their feet.





> One nurse, who did not wish to be named, said:
> 
> 
> > Widespread nurses are making their own PPE [personal protective equipment]. I know friends I trained with doing the same. We have to protect ourselves, some of us have children and babies. We are trying to help people but have to protect families. I don’t know why we are not getting PPE.





> Nurses in the Royal Free hospital in north London have been tying clinical waste bags around their legs, the Guardian has been told. In North Middlesex hospital they have been tying plastic aprons around their heads.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> It hasn’t been clear. It’s been a mess. Johnson himself said he hoped to see his mum for Mother’s Day. And his dad was loudly telling people on daytime tv that he was off to the pub.



Forget the mother's day fuck-up, otherwise the message over social distancing has been very clear, over every media outlet, if anyone hasn't got that, they basically have the IQ of a single-celled organism.


----------



## Spandex (Mar 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> It hasn’t been clear. It’s been a mess. Johnson himself said he hoped to see his mum for Mother’s Day. And his dad was loudly telling people on daytime tv that he was off to the pub.


Exactly.  Just a few hours ago at his daily blathering Johnson was saying parks and other green spaces were vital for people’s mental and physical wellbeing, but also said the public should stay indoors wherever possible.

So which is it, Mr Shithead Prime Minister? Stay home or is it okay to go to a green space if you stay 2 meters apart? If it's okay for one person to go to the park or countryside, then it's okay for 10s of millions across the country to go, leading to the scenes we've seen all weekend. The message he's giving is a contradictory mess, like most of the messages he's blurted out about this coming disaster.

If people need to stay home - and we very much do - then he needs to say so in no uncertain terms.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

Not sure what to think about this.









						Mental health trusts transfer junior doctors to acute hospitals
					

Mental health trusts across England are transferring foundation year one doctors to acute trusts to help tackle the covid-19 crisis, HSJ can reveal.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## bimble (Mar 22, 2020)

Mad. I missed today’s blathering. He’s saying that whilst local national trust woman had to make the call the close the gates today.


----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> I’ve devised my own method of safe parcel delivery - Amazon advise that we knock on customers door then ask customer to step back 2 metres before we place their parcel/s on their floor.
> 
> Instead, I knock them place parcel on doorstep then walk back to the pavement until they open door and wave them off - people seem to appreciate this approach much better.



marty, the key worker.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

treelover said:


> marty, the key worker.



I’d rather get the China flu


----------



## a_chap (Mar 22, 2020)

treelover said:


> marty, the key worker.



I didn't realise he was a locksmith...


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

HMV and Primark both announced their closure until further notice today, my gf got notification emails from them.


----------



## keybored (Mar 22, 2020)

editor said:


> They weren't 'gathering' - there was just two people sat two metres apart in the open air. There's lots of things to get rightly worked up about, but this isn't one of them for me.



You don't even see the bit bolded below as risky? 


editor said:


> Walked through Ruskin Park today (s London)  and people have definitely got the message - everyone was keeping a safe distance from the people they were talking to, no mass gatherings and my favourite scene was when two friends who'd cycled to the park and were sitting down apart on the grass, had to both stretch out * so one could fill the other's coffee cup from her thermos...*


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 22, 2020)

Someone posted a link earlier about a study looking at how long the virus can live on various surfaces.

Copper is only a few hours.

Cardboard is 24 hours. So I’m now wary of letters and parcels coming through the door. 

Plastic and metal is longer.

I wonder about clobber. Like if someone sneezes into their elbow crook. Do I need to remove clothes on coming indoors?


I couldn’t be arsed trawl through and find the link posted before so here’s a diffeeent report of the same study.









						How long can the novel coronavirus survive on surfaces and in the air?
					

A new study shows that SARS-CoV-2 can linger in the air for hours and on some materials for days




					www.economist.com


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Someone posted a link earlier about a study looking at how long the virus can live on various surfaces.
> 
> Copper is only a few hours.
> 
> ...


 
Thats interesting as Amazon have informed that the virus is only active on cardboard for 20mins.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Indeed, and the message has been very fucking clear in the last week, but still selfish fuckwits ignore it.


I'm not sure it has been that clear. Just about the only thing the government has been consistent on has been handwashing.  Over the last few days we've gone through 'social distancing', 'of course you can go out for exercise', 'best not to go to the pub but we aren't closing them', 'we are closing the pubs', 'work from home if you can' etc etc. Whilst it should be pretty obvious by now that sanding in a group, next to somebody in a queue ain't a good idea, Johnson et al haven't created an environment where common sense and consistency spread easily.  In this environment where people can quite reasonably expect shortages and even lockdowns, going to the supermarket amongst a press of other people isn't itself irrational. We are all balancing risks.

Edit: ah, I'm a page behind, hadn't seen the replies.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Thats interesting as Amazon have informed that the virus is only active on cardboard for 20mins.



So your employer is a leading body in science now? ffs


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 22, 2020)

keybored said:


> You don't even see the bit bolded below as risky?




What am I missing? How is that risky? Greater than 40 degrees kills the virus, if they have the sense to sit apart they’re taking other measures too like making sure cups etc are clean.



We’re all going to become obsessive about cleanliness by the end of this. I picked up 4 satsumas, a packet of biscuits and 2 tins of dog food (for my fox). I cleaned the lot down with hot soapy water once I was indoors. (The other people in the shop were most definitely not bothering with distances. I think one woman was actually teasing me once she realised I was being cautious, bumping up against me and pushing past me unnecessarily.)


----------



## Wilf (Mar 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Forget the mother's day fuck-up, otherwise the message over social distancing has been very clear, over every media outlet, if anyone hasn't got that, they basically have the IQ of a single-celled organism.


You could take examples of things like parks football games that have apparently been going ahead. Yes, stupid. But standing in a queue, to get food?  Yes, of course there are stupid people but this isn't about personal stupidity.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

editor said:


> The cyclists are fucking idiots for all grouping together once they get off their bikes but the use of a telephoto lens has distorted some of the views. Most of the people in the outdoor cafe seemed to be a fair distance apart.



Here’s another photo from Richmond Park


----------



## Wilf (Mar 22, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Exactly.  Just a few hours ago at his daily blathering Johnson was saying parks and other green spaces were vital for people’s mental and physical wellbeing, but also said the public should stay indoors wherever possible.
> 
> So which is it, Mr Shithead Prime Minister? Stay home or is it okay to go to a green space if you stay 2 meters apart? If it's okay for one person to go to the park or countryside, then it's okay for 10s of millions across the country to go, leading to the scenes we've seen all weekend. The message he's giving is a contradictory mess, like most of the messages he's blurted out about this coming disaster.
> 
> If people need to stay home - and we very much do - then he needs to say so in no uncertain terms.


100%.  Johnson's a neo-liberal and libertarian fuckwit, seemingly influenced by the worst bits of behavioural science. All of that and lacking a decent sense of community means the problem is with him and his ilk, not the people.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Thats interesting as Amazon have informed that the virus is only active on cardboard for 20mins.




The story is all over the Internet.

Show them this link. It cites the study in the New England Journal.

N van Doremalen, et al. Aerosol and surface stability of HCoV-19 (SARS-CoV-2) compared to SARS-CoV-1. The New England Journal of Medicine. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2004973 (2020).

ETA

This is the article :


			https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2004973


----------



## keybored (Mar 22, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> What am I missing? How is that risky? Greater than 40 degrees kills the virus, if they have the sense to sit apart they’re taking other measures too like making sure cups etc are clean.
> 
> 
> 
> We’re all going to become obsessive about cleanliness by the end of this. I picked up 4 satsumas, a packet of biscuits and 2 tins of dog food (for my fox). I cleaned the lot down with hot soapy water once I was indoors. (The other people in the shop were most definitely not bothering with distances. I think one woman was actually teasing me once she realised I was being cautious, bumping up against me and pushing past me unnecessarily.)


It's not the temperature of the coffee. It's the going to all the trouble of staying 2m apart (which seems to be a minimum recommendation for just passing people), then leaning in to bring their faces within a metre or so apart. Unless they had very long arms.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 22, 2020)

Went for a lovely walk with two of my dogs. No humans, two cars. Saw the ISS pass through Orion's belt. Needed reminding of that sort of stuff.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 22, 2020)

I went and played on my mum and dads drive with my baby son today so they could watch him through the window. Obviously we didn't go in and they didn't come out but it was nice to see his face when he saw them and theirs when they saw him.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> So your employer is a leading body in science now? ffs


 
Nope, more that they’re full of shit.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Nope, more that they’re full of shit.



So who have Amazon informed exactly?


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> So who have Amazon informed exactly?



Delivery drivers - we had an impromptu coronavirus debrief off them recently.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Delivery drivers - we had an impromptu coronavirus debrief off them recently.



Did they present you with factual scientific evidence to support of what your purport? Or are we going down a Marty rabbit hole?


----------



## existentialist (Mar 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Forget the mother's day fuck-up, otherwise the message over social distancing has been very clear, over every media outlet, if anyone hasn't got that, they basically have the IQ of a single-celled organism.


Maybe it's the contrarian in me, but that feels too easy an explanation to be likely. What I think is going on here is that people are suddenly realising that what they had taken for granted as the natural order of things isn't quite as rock solid as they had comfortably assumed all this time. So they are entering a kind of fear they simply have no learning or experience to cope with - and it's coming out in irrational behaviours, stockpiling, defying the "orthodoxy" in a kind of rebellion that means a lot to them, and nothing to a little virus particle.

I think we get angry with them because we recognise a lot of our own primal urges in their selfish behaviours, but some of us - and I suspect those of us who are chronically anxious will be significant in this - have spent a lot of time confronting fear, nameless and otherwise. For all the scars that may have given us, it did at least give us some kind of way of working through that fear. It'd be interesting to see how people who were anxiety-prone, but had learned to manage it well, might be coping with all this uncertainty and rapidly-changing situation.

In my small circle within Laugharne, there's a pragmatic and fairly optimistic attitude. The group of us who tended to meet in the pub are in a Facebook conversation, I do some socially-distanced walking with my downstairs neighbour, nobody's really talking about breaking the lockdown - in a way, the strongest feelings are about the sudden arrival of a fair handful of caravans. I wasn't too chuffed to see a Swansea motorcycle club all parked up on the Grist and getting coffees from Poon's, either...bloody outsiders, coming in here with their strange foreign germs .

But we're not going to get anywhere, except perhaps to enjoy the glow of a bit of righteous indignation, by sitting in judgement on these people who just don't know any better. And it's a spectrum - how many stories have we seen on here of people who searched for ages for $essentialhouseholdcommodity and then, quite naturally, may have bought more than they normally would in view of the scarcity? I must admit that, having bought 12 tins of chopped tomatoes just before the worry hit, I did nip out and top them up with another 12 a fortnight later. I'll admit that puts me pretty far down the spectrum , but...have a care. Any solution that stems the hoarding is far better not to be a judgemental, brute force one.


----------



## treelover (Mar 22, 2020)

> Thought I’d share this with you all.  I woke up early to go to Tesco for our allotted shopping hour today.  There was a 3/4 mile queue of cars waiting to get on the car park. I eventually parked my car. I joined the very long queue which wrapped around the super store.  Only to be told by those wearing ID not to bother as a crowd of people not wearing ID badges had stormed into the shop.  At 09:20 the shelves were stripped bear.  I witness NHS staff walking away in tear having not given been able to get into the shop let alone buy essential items.



FFS, action now.

posted elsewhere.

btw,, this is right at the top of the spectrum!


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Nope, more that they’re full of shit.


Theres a lot of things that upset me about this crisis, but the fact that Amazon are going to be making even bigger profits - tax free - off everyone else's misery, really stings.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Did they present you with factual scientific evidence to support of what your purport? Or are we going down a Marty rabbit hole?



No, we (drivers) were debriefed by the Amazon bod for about 10mins outside in the loading yard.  It mainly covered new delivery procedures and van hygiene.  The 20mins on cardboard remark was made in reply to a question by a driver.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Theres a lot of things that upset me about this crisis, but the fact that Amazon are going to be making even bigger profits - tax free - off everyone else's misery, really stings.


by coincidence just seen this



how id laugh to see the day amazon got nationalised


----------



## keybored (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> I’ve devised my own method of safe parcel delivery - Amazon advise that we knock on customers door then ask customer to step back 2 metres before we place their parcel/s on their floor.
> 
> Instead, I knock them place parcel on doorstep then walk back to the pavement until they open door and wave them off - people seem to appreciate this approach much better.


Hate to break it to you but that's been the preferred method for plenty of delivery drivers and posties for at least a week.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 22, 2020)

Lambeth havent been much better.



> “It was a hard decision because we care about our library users,” said one worker who walked out in Brixton. “But we also care about their safety and ours. We don’t have hand sanitiser and there are no wipes for the keyboards and touch screens.”











						Walkout at ten south London libraries over coronavirus safety - Socialist Worker
					

Lambeth library workers said they were angry at managers' lack of action




					socialistworker.co.uk


----------



## keybored (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> The 20mins on cardboard remark was made in reply to a question by a driver.


That's some despicable behaviour (although s/he could have been told that by their manager). Maybe go to the press?


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> No, we (drivers) were debriefed by the Amazon bod for about 10mins outside in the loading yard.  It mainly covered new delivery procedures and van hygiene.  The 20mins on cardboard remark was made in reply to a question by a driver.



Ive had little advice.

Im going in tomorrow. Not sure what wil happen.

After the last few weeks of moving everyone out of the City its eerily quiet now. Postrooms are still manned and a few staff still seem to be at office buildings.

On Friday was taking stuff to and fro from people working at home from main offices.

Some level of delivery service is still needed.

Keep safe.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

keybored said:


> Hate to break it to you but that's been the preferred method for plenty of delivery drivers and posties for at least a week.



Great minds think alike


----------



## friendofdorothy (Mar 22, 2020)

kabbes said:


> That’s still not good enough.  Those friends shouldn’t be meeting up in the first place.  People shouldn’t be gathering at all.  The message isn’t getting through.


Oh god really? we can't meet at a distance in the open air? Am I not allowed to walk in the park at all?  What about the neighbours who I chat with on the street - at a distance?  Surely it's coughing and sneezing that carries the germs 2m not just breathing. 

I thought touching surfaces that may have been infected, then touching your face was the dangerous thing.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

keybored said:


> That's some despicable behaviour (although s/he could have been told that by their manager). Maybe go to the press?



I think they’re getting their info from American sources perhaps - I know a lot of Amazon UK info is passed from its Seattle HQ.



> Public health experts said the odds were relatively low that ill warehouse workers or truck drivers would infect the recipients of packages, in part because the virus does not survive on cardboard surfaces for very long.











						‘Terrified’ Package Delivery Employees Are Going to Work Sick (Published 2020)
					

Truckers and warehouse workers at UPS and FedEx feel they have no choice but to keep showing up, even with coronavirus-like symptoms.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## The39thStep (Mar 22, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Someone posted a link earlier about a study looking at how long the virus can live on various surfaces.
> 
> Copper is only a few hours.
> 
> ...



What about buying  food packaged in cardboard like cereals or takeaways like pizza ?


----------



## RD2003 (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> I’ve devised my own method of safe parcel delivery - Amazon advise that we knock on customers door then ask customer to step back 2 metres before we place their parcel/s on their floor.
> 
> Instead, I knock them place parcel on doorstep then walk back to the pavement until they open door and wave them off - people seem to appreciate this approach much better.


Taken several Amazon deliveries over the last week, including for neighbours, and the drivers have been doing exactly that. So has the postman. And no signing by the recipient.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Went for a lovely walk with two of my dogs. No humans, two cars. Saw the ISS pass through Orion's belt. Needed reminding of that sort of stuff.



Yep blackthorn's out now (white blossoms for those who don't know it - look like hawthorn but hawthorn's not out for a month or so yet). Hopeful for sloe gin in the autumn


----------



## two sheds (Mar 22, 2020)

I've now got a large aluminium bin outside the front door which I'm asking delivery people to put things in. Bit of a squirt of 70% alcohol spray and leave it for a bit then fingers crossed and take it out.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Mar 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> What about buying  food packaged in cardboard like cereals or takeaways like pizza ?


thats why you need to wash your hands after handling anything and before eating/touching your face.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

RD2003 said:


> Taken several Amazon deliveries over the last week, including for neighbours, and the drivers have been doing exactly that. So has the postman. And no signing by the recipient.



Yeah, zero contact with drivers PDA is essential for obvious reasons.  If we need a signature we’ve been instructed to sign it ourselves with ‘NA’ (not applicable).


----------



## RD2003 (Mar 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I've now got a large aluminium bin outside the front door which I'm asking delivery people to put things in. Bit of a squirt of 70% alcohol spray and leave it for a bit then fingers crossed and take it out.


How did you manage to get alcohol spray?


----------



## keybored (Mar 22, 2020)

RD2003 said:


> How did you manage to get alcohol spray?


You could put isopropanol in an atomiser.


----------



## RD2003 (Mar 22, 2020)

Basically, with me, that means what? and what? I left school at 16 with 4 crap o levels.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

“The latest NICE guidance for NHS intensive care doctors could result in patients with a learning disability not getting equal access to critical care and potentially dying avoidably. These guidelines suggest that those who can’t do everyday tasks like cooking, managing money and personal care independently – all things that people with a learning disability often need support with – might not get intensive care treatment.”





__





						Mencap responds to new NICE COVID-19 guidance
					






					www.mencap.org.uk


----------



## keybored (Mar 22, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Yeah, zero contact with drivers PDA is essential for obvious reasons.  If we need a signature we’ve been instructed to sign it ourselves with ‘NA’ (not applicable).


Wow, after me slagging off Hermes for years because they simply threw my shit over the wall and marked it as "Signed-for" it turns out they were just way ahead of the game.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 22, 2020)

RD2003 said:


> How did you manage to get alcohol spray?



Couple of weeks ago ebay and add 100 ml water to the 250 ml alcohol then in a spray bottle thingy I've kept. 

Eta: ah sorry I see 0 left


----------



## keybored (Mar 22, 2020)

RD2003 said:


> Basically, with me, that means what? and what? I left school at 16 with 4 crap o levels.


Google rubbing alcohol.


----------



## The39thStep (Mar 22, 2020)

friendofdorothy said:


> thats why you need to wash your hands after handling anything and before eating/touching your face.


Thanks. I think i have the cleanest hands Ive ever had with all this washing.  I'm ok with the cardboard issue .. it was the other poster who was concerned


----------



## keybored (Mar 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Couple of weeks ago ebay and add 100 ml water to the 250 ml alcohol then in a spray bottle thingy I've kept.
> 
> Eta: ah sorry I see 0 left



This back in stock and better value. 








						Hexeal IPA 99.9% | 5L | Lab Grade | Isopropyl Alcohol/Isopropanol 99.9% 635346986864 | eBay
					

Isopropyl Alcohol 99.9% is used widely as a solvent and as a cleaning fluid. Our Isopropyl Alcohol easily removes glue, grease, ink and varnish. It also has many other uses such as, a household cleaner to sanitise surfaces when diluted.



					www.ebay.co.uk


----------



## RD2003 (Mar 22, 2020)

keybored said:


> Google rubbing alcohol.


OK thanks


----------



## RD2003 (Mar 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Couple of weeks ago ebay and add 100 ml water to the 250 ml alcohol then in a spray bottle thingy I've kept.
> 
> Eta: ah sorry I see 0 left


Ta


----------



## Cid (Mar 22, 2020)

treelover said:


> FFS, action now.
> 
> posted elsewhere.
> 
> btw,, this is right at the top of the spectrum!



Where?


----------



## two sheds (Mar 22, 2020)

keybored said:


> Wow, after me slagging off Hermes for years because they simply threw my shit over the wall and marked it as "Signed-for" it turns out they were just way ahead of the game.



 yep they do that here too. 

I was really pissed off at Yodel (fucking company - you can't talk to human on the phone, even their chat line is a fucking bot) for sticking card in my post box saying 'sorry you weren't in' when I'd stayed in. I finally spoke to the delivery guy (they have a tracker on the website with 'there are e.g. 5 deliveries before you this is where he is at the moment so you know exactly when he'll arrive) who was really nice and was concerned about my dog   from before.

I've now installed a bell by the gate so shouldn't be a problem in future.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 22, 2020)

keybored said:


> This back in stock and better value.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Bookmarked, ta, in case I need a refill.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 22, 2020)

treelover said:


> FFS, action now.
> 
> posted elsewhere.
> 
> btw,, this is right at the top of the spectrum!


It seems to be getting worse rather than easing off


----------



## RD2003 (Mar 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Thanks. I think i have the cleanest hands Ive ever had with all this washing.  I'm ok with the cardboard issue .. it was the other poster who was concerned


Had a minor operation in Feb, which was cancelled at the last minute first time, but the washing advice beforehand was beyond belief. Never been so fucking clean.

And now this. I'm out working every day, and I'm running out of Nivea for my cracked hands.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 22, 2020)

Mcdonald's closing all its outlets by 7pm tomorrow - - not just seating, for takeaway and drive thru as well


----------



## Cid (Mar 22, 2020)

The alcohol situation is a bit annoying for those of us who actually use it. In my case to dissolve shellac for french polishing. And definitely not a jar set aside for weed tinctures.


----------



## keybored (Mar 22, 2020)

Cid said:


> The alcohol situation is a bit annoying for those of us who actually use it. In my case to dissolve shellac for french polishing. And definitely not a jar set aside for weed tinctures.


I use it for work too. Was a bit annoyed a couple of weeks ago when my supplier was out of stock, but I just found 3 litres in the shed I'd forgotten about.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 22, 2020)

Covid19 Bill - Disabled and vulnerable adults and children
					

Dear Prime Minister  I believe that the #CoronaVirusBill presents a real and present danger to the lives of disabled people. The government’s plans for disabled children and adults during the crisis are effectively rolling back 30 years of progress for disabled people.  The government’s plans...




					you.38degrees.org.uk
				




Cc treelover


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> What about buying  food packaged in cardboard like cereals or takeaways like pizza ?




I know 

And if the virus lives on cardboard for up to to 24 hours...

I took the jaffa cakes out of the cardboard wrapper and ditched the cardboard.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 22, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I know
> 
> And if the virus lives on cardboard for up to to 24 hours...
> 
> I took the jaffa cakes out of the cardboard wrapper and ditched the cardboard.



 emergency need for immediate jaffa cakes I can understand that


----------



## Raheem (Mar 22, 2020)

friendofdorothy said:


> thats why you need to wash your hands after handling anything and before eating/touching your face.


Don't eat your face, though. Maybe when you get to week 12.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 22, 2020)

friendofdorothy said:


> Oh god really? we can't meet at a distance in the open air? Am I not allowed to walk in the park at all?  What about the neighbours who I chat with on the street - at a distance?  Surely it's coughing and sneezing that carries the germs 2m not just breathing.
> 
> I thought touching surfaces that may have been infected, then touching your face was the dangerous thing.




I think it's just that we don't know. The Italians are at their wits end, as much social distancing as they do the number still keep going up so they're now just saying "stay home, don't meet, it's not worth it." 




friendofdorothy said:


> thats why you need to wash your hands after handling anything and before eating/touching your face.




I'm really trying to keep the inside of my home clean of any concern so that once I'm indoors I can relax and not worry. If I've got packages I've brought in and then put into the fridge or the cupboard, then I feel the need to wash my hands every time I touch anything at all. 

It feels like a Dr Who story : the merest touch is dangerous. The Green Death!

Or Landlubbers, which is what we used to call the Floor is Molten Lava game, where you can't touch the floor at all or you'll die.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> emergency need for immediate jaffa cakes I can understand that


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2020)




----------



## Marty1 (Mar 22, 2020)

ska invita said:


> by coincidence just seen this
> 
> 
> 
> how id laugh to see the day amazon got nationalised




It’s a very good point.

Us drivers have had a pay increase of £2 extra per hour which is very much welcomed and appreciated though we’ve been told that this will be reviewed at the end of April (perhaps they think this pandemic will have miraculously gone by then or petered out, then drop us back down to usual pittance).

But also worth noting that Bezos has recently pledged $10 billion toward climate change and he’s also throwing billions at his space project Blue Horizon.  Also read an article that he paid $18k parking fines for contractors vehicles working on one of his multi million dollar mansions (loose change to him) - so not financially assisting his workforce enduring this pandemic is testament to the level of cunt that he is.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 23, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> It’s a very good point.
> 
> Us drivers have had a pay increase of £2 extra per hour which is very much welcomed and appreciated though we’ve been told that this will be reviewed at the end of April (perhaps they think this pandemic will have miraculously gone by then or petered out, then drop us back down to usual pittance).
> 
> But also worth noting that Bezos has recently pledged $10 billion toward climate change and he’s also throwing billions at his space project Blue Horizon.  Also read an article that he paid $18k parking fines for contractors vehicles working on one of his multi million dollar mansions (loose change to him) - so not financially assisting his workforce enduring this pandemic is testament to the level of cunt that he is.


worth reading the responses to that John Simpson tweet, some interesting bits in amongst the 500 responses there (well, as far as twitter goes)


----------



## oryx (Mar 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> worth reading the response to that John Simpson tweet, some interesting bits in amongst the 500 responses there (well, as far as twitter goes)





> Everyone getting a bit sick of capitalism


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> worth reading the responses to that John Simpson tweet, some interesting bits in amongst the 500 responses there (well, as far as twitter goes)



It certainly is worth a read, lots of justified anger towards Amazon.  Someone linked this interesting article in the comment section:





__





						'They don't care about safety': Amazon workers struggle with pandemic demand | Amazon | The Guardian
					

Workers say hectic pace amid coronavirus outbreak is devastating for physical and mental health




					amp.theguardian.com


----------



## UrbaneFox (Mar 23, 2020)

We're not even allowed to run for the hills anymore.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

UrbaneFox said:


> We're not even allowed to run for the hills anymore.


----------



## treelover (Mar 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> Where?



it was on a private health FB group, i edited it and posted it as it really needed being seen.


----------



## treelover (Mar 23, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Covid19 Bill - Disabled and vulnerable adults and children
> 
> 
> Dear Prime Minister  I believe that the #CoronaVirusBill presents a real and present danger to the lives of disabled people. The government’s plans for disabled children and adults during the crisis are effectively rolling back 30 years of progress for disabled people.  The government’s plans...
> ...



tx


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 23, 2020)

I know it is focussed on health/care rather than social security but all part of the mix right now


----------



## editor (Mar 23, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Went for a lovely walk with two of my dogs. No humans, two cars. Saw the ISS pass through Orion's belt. Needed reminding of that sort of stuff.


My friend posted this on FB: 


> There appears to be a lot of people having a go at people going out for a walk. Yes, the advice is to stay at home as much as possible BUT the advice also says that "You can also leave the house to exercise – but stay at least 2 metres away from other people". Not only is walking some people's only form of exercise but, bear in mind, that there are a lot of people for whom walking is an antidote to loneliness, depression and anxiety at normal times but especially at times of minimal contact with others. While daily deaths from coronavirus are presently higher and and will continue to be for a while, there are 16 deaths a day from suicide. That will probably get higher during this period and will carry on after this is gone. Let's try and be kind, considerate and a little less judgemental to each other during what is a going to be a stressful time for all.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## andysays (Mar 23, 2020)

Not sure if this has been posted yet



> In other developments, the NHS in England announced it had identified 1.5 million of the most at-risk people who should now stay at home for 12 weeks. Those at-risk people include those with specific cancers, severe respiratory conditions and people who have received organ transplants.


*



			The government is setting up "hubs" around the country to arrange deliveries of groceries and medicines to them.
		
Click to expand...

*


> Councils, pharmacists and members of the Armed Forces will help this work and there will be opportunities for members of the public to volunteer. The PM told those people to "shield" themselves, adding it "will do more than any other single measure that we are setting out to save life".


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

friendofdorothy said:


> Oh god really? we can't meet at a distance in the open air? Am I not allowed to walk in the park at all?  What about the neighbours who I chat with on the street - at a distance?  Surely it's coughing and sneezing that carries the germs 2m not just breathing.
> 
> I thought touching surfaces that may have been infected, then touching your face was the dangerous thing.


If you follow what has happened elsewhere, it’s straightforward — keep away from other people.  Whilst you chat 2m apart (which inevitably ends up less than 2m at various points anyway), the exposure of virus is gradually increasing between you.  Yes, it will be in your breath, not just your cough,  your breath contains a lot of water vapour.  If you’re walking, walk by yourself (or the person you live with anyway), keep away from others and certainly don’t linger to chat to them.


----------



## donkyboy (Mar 23, 2020)

keybored said:


> This back in stock and better value.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



out of stock


----------



## Cid (Mar 23, 2020)

treelover said:


> it was on a private health FB group, i edited it and posted it as it really needed being seen.



Where in the country? Posted by someone you know?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 23, 2020)

Wife reporting central line in chains and packed still. (She's a lab worker for the NHS so don't start in saying she shouldn't be traveling.)

Yay.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

Coronavirus lockdown looms as ‘selfish’ ignore distancing advice — The Times and The Sunday Times
					

People should not be fleeing their homes to isolate in holiday houses or caravans, the government has warned after the prime minister said he was prepared to introduce curfews. Official guidance was updated last night to specify that people should be staying in their primary home wherever...




					apple.news


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

From that Times article, this tells a story about how much the UK is in denial


----------



## Ivana (Mar 23, 2020)

littleseb said:


> are you sure it's the right time to ask 15 strangers to move in with you?



The rooms are separate, in different apartments /  different objects. Of course, I am aware of everything there is regarding the coronavirus, would not suggest grouping or gathering, just hoping I could help somebody.


----------



## killer b (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> From that Times article, this tells a story about how much the UK is in denial
> 
> View attachment 202860


Tbh I think it just shows that the schools are closed elsewhere.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> Tbh I think it just shows that the schools are closed elsewhere.


The daytime traffic has barely reduced in the UK.  It’s not just school delivery.


----------



## killer b (Mar 23, 2020)

Rome, paris and Madrid are all on lockdown too arent they? Is there data from the last few days before that happened?


----------



## bimble (Mar 23, 2020)

How are people supposed to act on the Prime Ministers instructions when he prevaricates like this:

"Johnson stressed that parks and other green spaces were vital for people’s mental and physical wellbeing, but also said the public should stay indoors wherever possible."
(graun on yesterday's tv show) 

I think years of 'don't trust the experts' and everyone knowing that the PM is a liar have not helped us but if they want to get a message across to people who do not spend all their time reading the news they really need to sort it out, last month.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> Rome, paris and Madrid are all on lockdown too arent they? Is there data from the last few days before that happened?


The fact that people don’t do it without lockdown is the exact point.  Even with our knowledge of what has happened in other countries, people are still carrying on as normal.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> Tbh I think it just shows that the schools are closed elsewhere.



Yes and generally the other places have had longer to adjust to 'lockdown' mentality/behaviour. Utterly daft comparison in the circumstance really, I mean what would you expect?


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The daytime traffic has barely reduced in the UK.  It’s not just school delivery.



That just shows London though. I wonder what the regions are like. IME, of going out twice (for food) in the last 5 days is that Wales, or my part of it, is massively reduced in traffic.


----------



## killer b (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The fact that people don’t do it without lockdown is the exact point.  Even with our knowledge of what has happened in other countries, people are still carrying on as normal.


oh sorry, I thought the point was to show that people in london were taking it less seriously than elsewhere. 

(the London graphs do show very significant drops in road usage though fwiw)


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

The point is that we have the knowledge of what is needed but, for whatever reason (chiefly denial at both the individual and institutional level), it’s not happening.  Our traffic flows should be scaled back similarly to Italy, Spain and France because we have no smaller a problem.  And yet they are clearly not.  It needs legislative response immediately.


----------



## killer b (Mar 23, 2020)

You can't make any assumptions about individual denial by comparing data from here with data from where there's been a more substantial institutional response though - the reason there's been a substantial institutional response in Paris, Madrid and Rome is because enough people were ignoring voluntary measure there too, same as everywhere.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> That just shows London though. I wonder what the regions are like. IME, of going out twice (for food) in the last 5 days is that Wales, or my part of it, is massively reduced in traffic.


You mean like this?


----------



## bimble (Mar 23, 2020)

Re those graphs , there’ll also be a number of people switched from trains and buses into cars, us being in this in between limbo.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 23, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> That just shows London though. I wonder what the regions are like. IME, of going out twice (for food) in the last 5 days is that Wales, or my part of it, is massively reduced in traffic.


Yeah, just looked at the traffic cams round here (Manchester) and traffic is very sparse compared to what it'd normally be like at this time of day.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> You mean like this?
> 
> View attachment 202863



No. I don't live in Snowdonia. I said my part of Wales.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> You can't make any assumptions about individual denial by comparing data from here with data from where there's been a more substantial institutional response though - the reason there's been a substantial institutional response in Paris, Madrid and Rome is because enough people were ignoring voluntary measure there too, same as everywhere.



Yes humans are basically the same everywhere. Important to remember, for all sorts of reasons.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> You can't make any assumptions about individual denial by comparing data from here with data from where there's been a more substantial institutional response though - the reason there's been a substantial institutional response in Paris, Madrid and Rome is because enough people were ignoring voluntary measure there too, same as everywhere.


There is denial at the individual level here regardless of how much individual denial there might or might not also be elsewhere.  I’ve witnessed it at the weekend and I’ve witnessed it on these boards.  And with that denial comes a need for measures to be imposed instead.

People are still going around as if nothing is happening, killer b


----------



## killer b (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> There is denial at the individual level regardless of how much individual denial there might or might not also be elsewhere.  I’ve witnessed it at the weekend and I’ve witnessed it on these boards.  And with that denial comes a need for measures to be imposed instead.
> 
> People are still going around as if nothing is happening, killer b


and until the lockdown happened in Italy, france, spain, there was people doing exactly that there too.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> and until the lockdown happened in Italy, france, spain, there was people doing exactly that there too.


So what?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> There is denial at the individual level here regardless of how much individual denial there might or might not also be elsewhere.  I’ve witnessed it at the weekend and I’ve witnessed it on these boards.  And with that denial comes a need for measures to be imposed instead.



Measures need to be imposed anyway. Nobody has voluntarily locked themselves down, not anywhere. Well, some people have here in the UK and elsewhere but not the entire population.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Nobody has voluntarily locked themselves down, not anywhere. Well, some people have here in the UK and elsewhere but not the entire population.


So what?

This isn’t some game of who is most to blame or which nationality is smartest.  This is about pointing out measures that demonstrate the need for a lockdown.  The _proof_ that people are not doing it voluntarily.  Evidence.


----------



## killer b (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> So what?


What did you post that graph for? To show that there is less traffic on the roads after a lockdown than before? No shit.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> What did you post that graph for? To show that there is less traffic on the roads after a lockdown than before? No shit.


To prove that the lockdown is needed


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 23, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> That just shows London though. I wonder what the regions are like. IME, of going out twice (for food) in the last 5 days is that Wales, or my part of it, is massively reduced in traffic.



The traffic on the roads here in Worthing has been well down, apart from over the weekend when we had a influx of visitors heading to the seafront.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think years of 'don't trust the experts' and everyone knowing that the PM is a liar have not helped us but if they want to get a message across to people who do not spend all their time reading the news they really need to sort it out, last month.


As ever, I'm sure other people have a better grip/understanding of this, but it does feel like the current reaction from both public and politicians is the result of decades worth of shifting culture; don't trust experts, trust your gut, individual freedom, don't let anything stop you living your life the way you want to...

It's really bloody depressing


----------



## smmudge (Mar 23, 2020)

Why did so many people go out at the weekend, it was fucking freezing!


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 23, 2020)

smmudge said:


> Why did so many people go out at the weekend, it was fucking freezing!


I was outdoors assembling my new pushbike - yes cold, but also sunny - and when I rode it up the road and onto the railway path to test it, I understood why so many others were out.
If I hadn't been somewhat under the weather I would have been very tempted to cycle to a particular south-facing steel bridge and soak up some rays.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

smmudge said:


> Why did so many people go out at the weekend, it was fucking freezing!



Sunny though init. It's tradition for everyone to go out without enough layers on and immediately freeze to death on the first sunny weekend in March. 

Here you get people sunbathing shirtless in the park in these conditions. Mostly Polish people I think, possibly alcohol-assisted. Then you've got your Caribbean grandmas in four jumpers and two coats walking past muttering to themselves in disbelief. All these moments will be lost, like tears in the rain


----------



## killer b (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> To prove that the lockdown is needed


no argument from me about that!


----------



## crossthebreeze (Mar 23, 2020)

The IWGB is taking legal action against the UK government over the failure to protect wages and jobs of self employed, gig economy, and other low paid or precarious workers, and failure to ensure the health and safety of those still in workplaces.

Petition: Call on the Government to Protect Precarious Workers

Crowdfunder: Proper Sick Pay & Wage Protection for Precarious Workers

Press release: IWGB to sue UK government over its failure to protect precarious workers · IWGB



> *The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) is taking legal action against the government over its failure to protect the wages and jobs of millions of workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as its failure to ensure the health and safety of those still employed through proper sick pay.*  We are represented by Leigh Day Solicitors and a team of Old Square Chambers barristers led by Ben Collins QC.
> 
> The union will argue that the current £94.25 per week Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) arrangement discriminates against women, BAME workers and workers in the so-called “gig economy” for whom these payments are not enough to survive or in some cases not even available at all.
> 
> The union will further argue that the 80% wage subsidies offered by the government to businesses to keep people employed discriminates against “gig-economy” and other self-employed workers, who are not included in this scheme.



Demands:


> The IWGB calls upon the government to:
> 
> Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) should be made fit for purpose:
> Extend SSP to Limb B Workers;
> ...


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> That just shows London though. I wonder what the regions are like. IME, of going out twice (for food) in the last 5 days is that Wales, or my part of it, is massively reduced in traffic.



Driving around Teeside last week, the roads were noticeably quieter especially on Saturday.

Ive taken a day off today but hoping this trend continues when I return to work tomorrow.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 23, 2020)

Agggggghhhhhhh


----------



## bimble (Mar 23, 2020)

Fucking hell . And then there’s this.


----------



## bimble (Mar 23, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Agggggghhhhhhh
> 
> View attachment 202878



May not be true that one. I hope not.


----------



## killer b (Mar 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> May not be true that one. I hope not.



the dubiousness of this allegation is raised multiple times in the replies to that tweet - worth just checking the replies before sharing stuff like this MadeInBedlam - things are already torrid enough.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 23, 2020)

Fair dos


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 23, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> The Worldometer page lets you switch between logarithmic and linear graphs for the full chilling effect of a near vertical ascent at the rightmost of the x-axis
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Spoiler: Not for the faint-of-heart



Around 3 weeks ago the mild:severe ratio was around 85:15, and recovered:fatality about the same. Then the severe and fatality rates both dropped down to 5%, and stayed pretty constant. But in the last few days the fatality rate has jumped up again and is now at 13%.

And Italy's total cases per million population looks set to break through to 1k+ (it's currently at 978 with the last day's stats expected soon). Judging by recent stats Italy could surpass China in total number of cases in 2-3 days


----------



## dessiato (Mar 23, 2020)

I'm not sure this is the right thread for this.

I was speaking to my sister this morning. She was very critical of the stupidity of people not doing as they are told and self isolating, doing as Boris is telling them.

Conversation carried on. She told me about how she'd been onto her allotment with her two daughters, their partners and two of her grandchildren. They'd been able to use the community hut to make tea.

She doesn't see the contradiction of criticising others for doing what she is doing. 

While people are this stupid there's only big trouble ahead for the UK.

(She's also a high risk group)


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 23, 2020)

It's only stupid when other people do it - if I do it, I had a perfectly good and sensible reason.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

Lockdown in 24hrs according to this article:









						Coronavirus: UK lockdown could come 'very soon' as emergency laws rushed in — Sky News
					

Britain could be locked down to force people into self-isolation "very soon", as the prime minister considers racing new laws through the Commons in a day to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.




					apple.news


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

Im slightly fucked off at the sanctimonious haranguing of people for going out on a sunny day. People are very poor at judging risk at the best of times and there has been very little about social ditancing advice from the government, and what there has been has been decidedly mixed in its messaging. 
In fact most of the warnings about it are coming from people sharing stuff on social media. 
Basically, this is on the government. Expecting people to go against their normal behavior just on medical advice is never going to to get majority compliance and they know it, look at smoking and obesity.

Only a few days ago Johnson explicitly said there would no travel restrictions in London. Now hes chelping about people travelling.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 23, 2020)

This guy says outdoor exercise is a good thing if you are fortunate enough to be able to do it safely.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> May not be true that one. I hope not.




Some kind of sick cunt making this sort of thing up. It doesn't even make sense.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> People are very poor at judging risk at the best of times...



Very much so. And not just stupid people or people who don't care, we all have shortcuts in our thinking that makes anything involving a complex set of risk factors almost impossible to grasp. Some tiny risks we obsess over, some big risks we ignore. We are not, as a species, equipped to comprehend anything involving tiny probabilities multiplied up by a population of millions or billions. We are not equipped to think of ourselves as data points in a vast, connected set. Maybe one person doing thing x doesn't cause any harm at all, but if everyone does it then there is measurable harm, potentially quite a lot of it. That's pretty bewildering. Everyday patterns of thinking do not provide an explanation for it.


----------



## GailL (Mar 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> The alcohol situation is a bit annoying for those of us who actually use it. In my case to dissolve shellac for french polishing. And definitely not a jar set aside for weed tinctures.


Tell me about it! My manicure is ruined with the constant washing hands and pouring alcohol based hand sanitizer! Better safe, than sorry though.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 23, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> This guy says outdoor exercise is a good thing if you are fortunate enough to be able to do it safely.




Obviously. I'm still slightly hopeful there will be some allowances for solitary outdoor exercise post lockdown although don't expect it.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

Going out for some exercise is one thing.  Going out for the day to sit around on picnic blankets or outside coffee shops with a bit of a walk in between with 5 of your mates is something else entirely.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 23, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Obviously. I'm still slightly hopeful there will be some allowances for solitary outdoor exercise post lockdown although don't expect it.


They've closed all the beaches etc in France - presumably because they didn't trust people not to take the piss...


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Going out for some exercise is one thing.  Going out for the day to sit around on picnic blankets or outside coffee shops with a bit of a walk in between with 5 of your matters is something else entirely.



Yeah. This is the problem.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Going out for some exercise is one thing.  Going out for the day to sit around on picnic blankets or outside coffee shops with a bit of a walk in between with 5 of your matters is something else entirely.



But yourself - and most of the people on here are well ahead of the curve in terms of understanding the situation - reality is only just beginning for many many people and they are still in the denial stage. 
Of course people are going to go to the park with friends on  a sunny day - right now most people's understanding of dos and donts is probably alongs the lines of - "wash hands more - call in sick and self isolate if you think you have the bat flu - cancel the birthday party/big family do you had planned - and maybe don't meet anybody new on dating sites" . 
Being fully aware of the risks and reasons and then carrying on with risky behaviour is twatty - but I suspect most people are not even close to that - and its not their fault that they aren't - its the governments.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 23, 2020)

Seeing some shops and pubs boarding up their windows (catford)


----------



## chilango (Mar 23, 2020)

There's a difficult balancing act going on between "it's just like a bad cold that might kill a few old, sick people, so we can carry on as normal" and "we're all gonna catch it anyway and then it's going to be really, really, shit so fuck it we'll carry on as normal whilst we still can"...

...even in my own head.


----------



## treelover (Mar 23, 2020)

It is not just the threat of the Corona Virus whch idiots,/non social distancers/supermarket crowders,  are presenting, they will be spreading other viruses bug, colds, etc, which can very dangerous for many immune compromised people when they get home, exposed to them, etc, making them much more suceptible(sic) to the C19 big one..

I went out a few days ago to a cafe, stayed outside, drink brought to me, scrupulous hygiene in cafe looking through the window, then back home, now floored with what i think is the flu, I think it was the taxi, that was the agent.


----------



## lazythursday (Mar 23, 2020)

Getting various reports locally that every McDonalds is rammed with queues stretching out of the door because they're closing today


----------



## Numbers (Mar 23, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Getting various reports locally that every McDonalds is rammed with queues stretching out of the door because they're closing today


Just walked past one and can confirm the above is not true.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 23, 2020)

Wish people would stop posting hearsay as fact tbh. Like that doctors getting mugged for ID nonsense


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Mcdonald's closing all its outlets by 7pm tomorrow - - not just seating, for takeaway and drive thru as well



Yeah, strange one considering there was mention of them going to keep drive thru and delivery going.

Last day for a Big Mac I guess.


----------



## lazythursday (Mar 23, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Just walked past one and can confirm the above is not true.


It's true here, i've seen pictures posted by a good friend who has a job that involves him driving around.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 23, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Yeah, strange one considering there was mention of them going to drive thru and delivery.
> 
> Last day for a Big Mac I guess.



Who do you think is cooking your food?


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

Even the Times are not exactly impressed with Johnson. Its paywalled but the Guardian reported on it earlier:

 2h ago 10:42 



> The truth is that [Boris Johnson’s] performance so far has been chequered. Since the start he has appeared behind the curve. Considerable time that could have been spent preparing for the crisis appears to have been squandered. The World Health Organisation first warned of the risk of a deadly global pandemic in mid-January, by which point the coronavirus was spreading rapidly in China and parts of Asia. Yet the government spent much of February apparently distracted with fights with some of Britain’s institutions, including the civil service, the judiciary and the BBC. Even at the time many questioned why the prime minister disappeared from view for a week in the middle of the month to his grace-and-favour home in Kent. He did not preside over his first Cobra meeting to discuss the crisis until March 3. Even as the scale became apparent, Mr Johnson’s response to it has been uneven. For the most of the first half of March, the official advice was simply to wash one’s hands. On March 12, as countries across Europe and the world closed schools, restaurants, bars and shops and introduced lockdowns and travel bans, the government merely advised that those ill with coronavirus symptoms should self-isolate for seven days ...





> Mr Johnson’s liberal instincts and reluctance to restrict civil liberties would normally be admirable. But dithering over whether to shut schools, bars and restaurants, combined with anonymous briefings warning of imminent lockdowns that are then ruled out by ministers, may have only made the crisis worse. Panicked shoppers have stripped supermarkets of supplies while many Londoners will have escaped to the country, almost certainly further spreading the virus. City traders say that doubts about Mr Johnson’s response contributed to the run on sterling. Britain’s death toll is now at the same level as Italy’s two weeks ago, yet already one hospital says that it has been overwhelmed and the NHS is warning of shortages of ventilators and protective clothing ...





> And if the government is forced to introduce even more stringent restrictions to halt an escalating epidemic, they may ask why they weren’t introduced sooner, as they have been in much of the rest of the world. The country needs to know that Mr Johnson has a coherent strategy. Otherwise the prime minister who dreamt of being Churchill may find himself cast as Neville Chamberlain.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 23, 2020)

STILL IN STOCK at 13:01.









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Isopropanol 99.9%, used widely as a solvent and as a cleaning fluid. Isopropyl alcohol removes smudges, dirt, and fingerprints from phones and tablets. IPA 99.9% | 25L. Isopropyl alcohol, commonly referred to as IPA or rubbing alcohol , is a flammable, clear, colourless liquid with a slight...



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					www.ebay.co.uk


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 23, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Yeah, strange one considering there was mention of them going to keep drive thru and delivery going.
> 
> Last day for a Big Mac I guess.



Makes sense though, drive thru involves passing bag/cash/card between people etc


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Londoners escaping to the country is the one that's got me going most. You're in the UK's hotspot. You bloodly well stay inside the hotspot! Exactly the same thing happened in Paris last week. It reflects very badly on the people doing it, but it also shows how inadequate the govt responses in both countries were at the time it was happening.


----------



## editor (Mar 23, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Wish people would stop posting hearsay as fact tbh. Like that doctors getting mugged for ID nonsense


My facebook feed is awash with 'a doctor said...' bollocks and, worst of all, fuckwit 'remedies' which Facebook is doing fuck all to stop spreading.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> But yourself - and most of the people on here are well ahead of the curve in terms of understanding the situation - reality is only just beginning for many many people and they are still in the denial stage.
> Of course people are going to go to the park with friends on  a sunny day - right now most people's understanding of dos and donts is probably alongs the lines of - "wash hands more - call in sick and self isolate if you think you have the bat flu - cancel the birthday party/big family do you had planned - and maybe don't meet anybody new on dating sites" .
> Being fully aware of the risks and reasons and then carrying on with risky behaviour is twatty - but I suspect most people are not even close to that - and its not their fault that they aren't - its the governments.


The fact that all businesses have closed down because it’s so dangerous doesn’t act as any kind of clue, then?


----------



## Raheem (Mar 23, 2020)

First day of home school and, of course, all the work is online and we are having a hard time accessing it because so many people are at home and on the Internet.

So can I ask everyone to think of the bandwidth and please switch your porn to a lower resolution during school hours.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Raheem said:


> First day of home school and, of course, all the work is online and we are having a hard time accessing it because so many people are at home and on the Internet.
> 
> So can I ask everyone to think of the bandwidth and please switch your porn to a lower resolution during school hours.


Leave more to the imagination!


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 23, 2020)

Mrs Sas and me went for a walk yesterday. There were quite a lot of people out, but it was like putting same poles of a magnet together, no one came within ten feet of us.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The fact that all businesses have closed down because it’s so dangerous doesn’t act as any kind of clue, then?



have they? - most shops are still open. many people are still working.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The fact that all businesses have closed down because it’s so dangerous doesn’t act as any kind of clue, then?



One would have thought so. It infuriates me that the high risk people are being put at further risk by the behaviour of asymptomatic spreaders, who won't behave in a responsible manner.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 23, 2020)

A clue that a lot of people in England are fuckwits came when they voted for Johnson in December


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Even the Times are not exactly impressed with Johnson. Its paywalled but the Guardian reported on it earlier:
> 
> 2h ago 10:42



Do I detect gove's behind this (hes close to murdoch) ? The mention of neville chamberlain is a pretty clear threat.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Do I detect gove's behind this (hes close to murdoch) ? The mentions of neville chamberlain is a pretty clear threat.


It's also fucking ridiculous. Johnson has done what he should have done perhaps two weeks later than he should have done it. That may cost some lives, which is of course horrible, but where was Gove in all this? Did he resign two weeks ago in order to make his point? No. ffs in this instance, Jeremy Cunt is cast as Churchill.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Makes sense though, drive thru involves passing bag/cash/card between people etc



Yeah, I really fancy one now


----------



## Cid (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> But yourself - and most of the people on here are well ahead of the curve in terms of understanding the situation - reality is only just beginning for many many people and they are still in the denial stage.
> Of course people are going to go to the park with friends on  a sunny day - right now most people's understanding of dos and donts is probably alongs the lines of - "wash hands more - call in sick and self isolate if you think you have the bat flu - cancel the birthday party/big family do you had planned - and maybe don't meet anybody new on dating sites" .
> Being fully aware of the risks and reasons and then carrying on with risky behaviour is twatty - but I suspect most people are not even close to that - and its not their fault that they aren't - its the governments.



Exactly that... it needs a concerted public information campaign; billboards, public notices. And, much as I am no fan of the police, it would probably be an idea to have them stationed around city centres, park entrances etc. Not necessarily with any extra powers, but working to keep people separate. With that, and with some measures (e.g delivering leaflets) there might be some additional risks of course... but probably could be balanced. It also needs a firm set of guidelines, set out in a simple to understand and follow list; that list on billboards, social media, shop windows etc.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's also fucking ridiculous. Johnson has done what he should have done perhaps two weeks later than he should have done it. That may cost some lives, which is of course horrible, but where was Gove in all this? Did he resign two weeks ago in order to make his point? No. ffs in this instance, Jeremy Cunt is cast as Churchill.


Cunt must be wishing he'd gone in harder on this now. If he was going to criticise based on a judgement that the govt was wrong and would be forced to change, he was better off going all in and laying into them.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 23, 2020)




----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 23, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


>




I don't understand this. Are they having an exhibition or rounding up the infected


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> I don't understand this. Are they having an exhibition or rounding up the infected











						Exhibition centre in Madrid receives first patients as emergency coronavirus hospital
					

Exhibition Centre In Madrid Receives First Patients As Emergency Coronavirus Hospital Keep up with the Latest News In English Murcia Costa Calida Spain




					murciatoday.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> I don't understand this. Are they having an exhibition or rounding up the infected


Field hospital-style I would have thought, like in 1918. If this gets out of control, that's what will be needed.


----------



## treelover (Mar 23, 2020)

juast heard that my local support hub, which i personally along with many others, desperastely rely on, is massively downsizing services due to staff shortages, self isolating, etc, i suspect as time goes on the mutual aid groups will find this, many seem to post interminable posts about sharing books, while desperate people with no money begging for food, I think we need the full force of the state now, army, etc,  i don't have one carer now, ffs..

We are used to being abandoned by social services, civil society, etc, but this is something else.


----------



## treelover (Mar 23, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Lockdown in 24hrs according to this article:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



they will then need the main army based emergency hubs, local ones are struggling.


----------



## treelover (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Im slightly fucked off at the sanctimonious haranguing of people for going out on a sunny day. People are very poor at judging risk at the best of times and there has been very little about social ditancing advice from the government, and what there has been has been decidedly mixed in its messaging.
> In fact most of the warnings about it are coming from people sharing stuff on social media.
> Basically, this is on the government. Expecting people to go against their normal behavior just on medical advice is never going to to get majority compliance and they know it, look at smoking and obesity.
> 
> Only a few days ago Johnson explicitly said there would no travel restrictions in London. Now hes chelping about people travelling.



see my post about spreading other viruses, etc, weakening immune compromised, etc.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Field hospital-style I would have thought, like in 1918. If this gets out of control, that's what will be needed.
> 
> View attachment 202906



Field hospitals we have. People to staff them we have. ICU beds in field hospitals... we don't have. The model dictates that that those needing intensive care go back to base hospitals, which are static.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> Exactly that... it needs a concerted public information campaign; billboards, public notices.



I don't understand why they are not producing the old style 'Public Service Announcements', with simple bullet points of the updated daily advice & explaining how it's unfolding in Europe, and they expect similar here. 

Then force every TV channel & radio station to carry them on a regular basis, both BBC & commercial, free of charge, because the airwaves belong to the people, the broadcasters are only licenced to use them.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I don't understand why they are not producing the old style 'Public Service Announcements', with simple bullet points of the updated daily advice & explaining how it's unfolding in Europe, and they expect similar here.
> 
> Then force every TV channel & radio station to carry them on a regular basis, both BBC & commercial, free of charge, because the airwaves belong to the people, the broadcasters are only licenced to use them.



The lack of updates and information is really quite rubbish.  A shambolic Johnson 'briefing' one per do when he may be coherent but almost certainly half cut is not really public information.  There's now that advert thing on TV fronted by Whittey who is clearly a charisma void and so monotonous it would be impossible to listen to even if he was saying anything other then what has already been said a million times.  Why not use an actual healthcare professional who is used to be on camera?  There are loads of them.


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Mar 23, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Field hospitals we have. People to staff them we have. ICU beds in field hospitals... we don't have. The model dictates that that those needing intensive care go back to base hospitals, which are static.


There was an Italian doctor on TV this morning, being interviewed at home in isolation. She had been working g in a small private hospital that had been requisitioned as a “recovery” hospital for those leaving hospitals with ICUs. I guess, at least at the start - field hospitals might be used as either triage to hospitals with intensive care (and implementation of the tragic and allegedly not too far off “survivability criteria”) and/or as recovery centres for those who have survived the worst but will still be very poorly.


----------



## Cid (Mar 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I don't understand why they are not producing the old style 'Public Service Announcements', with simple bullet points of the updated daily advice & explaining how it's unfolding in Europe, and they expect similar here.
> 
> Then force every TV channel & radio station to carry them on a regular basis, both BBC & commercial, free of charge, because the airwaves belong to the people, the broadcasters are only licenced to use them.



Yep. And I log into Facebook, there’s no information. Just a mix of people still with the ‘not that bad’ line, or comments about problems in the supermarket. Google links to some info, but that’s still the old ‘wash your hands, try not to go near I’ll people’ stuff that’s really a week or two out of date. Really don’t get why the communication is so piss poor.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Do I detect gove's behind this (hes close to murdoch) ? The mention of neville chamberlain is a pretty clear threat.


Michael "Britain has had enough of experts" Gove is keeping an unsurprisingly low profile at the moment.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 23, 2020)

dessiato said:


> I'm not sure this is the right thread for this.
> 
> I was speaking to my sister this morning. She was very critical of the stupidity of people not doing as they are told and self isolating, doing as Boris is telling them.
> 
> ...



Thing is, going to the allotment isn't a bad idea. Yeah they'll have to touch gates - they could wear gloves for that - and they won't be completely isolated, but no more so than people with gardens going into their own gardens. They're not hundreds of miles way from your home. And you do need to get out, especially if you have kids, because you might literally go mad otherwise, and growing things will help a lot with mental health as well as keep a tiny bit of fresh food in for you. You can practice social distancing while going to your allotment. It'd be shit to let all the allotments go untended right now, really. 

But why use the community hut?   I've never known a single person who has an allotment who doesn't also have a thermos flask.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

More on this theme, which I seem to have increasing reasons to post about lately 



> A consultant from an *NHS* hospital within the M25 (he did not want his hospital named) told the Guardian that his hospital was coping at present but he was anticipating a “proper crisis” by Saturday.
> 
> While hospitals are increasing bed numbers and ventilators are on the way, he said *staffing* was key and so *personal protective equipment (PPE)* for NHS staff and *testing* was vital.





> He said:
> They keep downgrading the [PPE] specifications in view of the shortages. There’s a real fear among non-frontline staff that they’re just being sold a dummy. The places where they have been most successful in containing spread among healthcare workers they have been much more aggressive with the PPE (giving it to all healthcare workers). The doctors are seeing other vulnerable patients without Covid. If they’re asymptomatic and seeing patients, it’s the perfect medium to spread Covid.





> The consultant said that by distributing the correct spec PPE among all healthcare workers, countries like Singapore and South Korea had reduced spread. By contrast, he said:
> In Italy the frontline medical workers had an eight times Covid risk than the general public. I haven’t seen anyone spraying the front of my hospital [with disinfectant] like we see in Korea.
> On testing, he said:
> What you want to do is *test early*. Then, if they test positive, for all intents and purposes they’re likely to be immune (when they recover). If they don’t have Covid they can work. If they do have Covid, they can self-isolate.
> ...



                            49m ago    13:45


----------



## dessiato (Mar 23, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Thing is, going to the allotment isn't a bad idea. Yeah they'll have to touch gates - they could wear gloves for that - and they won't be completely isolated, but no more so than people with gardens going into their own gardens. They're not hundreds of miles way from your home. And you do need to get out, especially if you have kids, because you might literally go mad otherwise, and growing things will help a lot with mental health as well as keep a tiny bit of fresh food in for you. You can practice social distancing while going to your allotment. It'd be shit to let all the allotments go untended right now, really.
> 
> But why use the community hut?   I've never known a single person who has an allotment who doesn't also have a thermos flask.


Because there’s a kettle there for people to use.

I do agree with you about going to allotment, but not the whole family, and not all sitting in a small hut together.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 23, 2020)

Packed Tube trains make distancing 'impossible' - BBC News
					

The crowding has left London Underground drivers and staff "furious", a union leader says.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Who would have thought it the consequence of cutting a service is more overcrowding. But its not their fault for cutting services, it's the fault of people who have to get to work because guess what most people are still working and not everyone can work from home.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> More on this theme, which I seem to have increasing reasons to post about lately
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fuck's sake. It seems pretty obvious that this should be a priority in terms of reducing the spread of the virus. Particularly as NHS workers will still have their kids in school, mixing with other kids, who then go home to other key workers. I find it hard to believe people going for a walk in the park is as big a problem as frontline healthcare workers receiving inadequate protective equpiment and not being tested. 

Also ways must be found to give staff enough time off, and enough rest. There is no substitute for proper sleep, no human alive who can continue to function for any length of time without it, and if we're not extremely careful staff burnout and coronavirus cases will peak at the same time. Exhaustion alone will kill doctors, and by extension their patients.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

5m ago    14:40                    



> A reader has been in touch to say he has just had an email from the *Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency* saying that MOT tests are still going ahead, even though the government is trying to minimise social contact and coronavirus transmission risks. He does not think that’s wise, and he thinks it is inconsistent, given that MOT tests for lorries have been suspended. But when he raised this with the DVSA, an official replied:
> 
> I appreciate this is a difficult time for the whole country, at this moment in time there is no exemption or extension from MOT testing, and no contingency plan in place.
> 
> If your vehicle MOT expires whilst you are in isolation, then you are only able to drive the vehicle directly to/from a pre-booked MOT test after midnight on the date of expiry of the current certificate. After that time the vehicle must not be kept on a public road until it is re-tested and taxed etc.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Fuck's sake. It seems pretty obvious that this should be a priority in terms of reducing the spread of the virus. Particularly as NHS workers will still have their kids in school, mixing with other kids, who then go home to other key workers. I find it hard to believe people going for a walk in the park is as big a problem as frontline healthcare workers receiving inadequate protective equpiment and not being tested.
> 
> Also ways must be found to give staff enough time off, and enough rest. There is no substitute for proper sleep, no human alive who can continue to function for any length of time without it, and if we're not extremely careful staff burnout and coronavirus cases will peak at the same time. Exhaustion alone will kill doctors, and by extension their patients.


We've already seen doctors and nurses dying from CV around the world. Exhaustion + virus


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We've already seen doctors and nurses dying from CV around the world. Exhaustion + virus



Yes, sleep deprivation cripples the immune system in a very short space of time. And working tired is basically no different from working drunk.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 23, 2020)

Local council here advises it is suspending its homelessness drop-in service indefinitely - all inquiries only via telephone or email now


----------



## treelover (Mar 23, 2020)

FFS.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 23, 2020)

All the libraries/community hubs are now shutting in my town, apart from three of them, and of course one of them's where I work. FFS why should we risk going to work? I'm staying at home.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Local council here advises it is suspending its homelessness drop-in service indefinitely - all inquiries only via telephone or email now



For all them homeless lads with wifi.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 23, 2020)

dessiato said:


> Because there’s a kettle there for people to use.
> 
> I do agree with you about going to allotment, but not the whole family, and not all sitting in a small hut together.



I think I misread and didn't realise that this was essentially two families going to the allotment together. The ones who already live together aren't an issue, since they'll be sharing germs at home anyway, but they shouldn't be going with other people they don't live with.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> All the libraries/community hubs are now shutting in my town, apart from three of them, and of course one of them's where I work. FFS why should we risk going to work? I'm staying at home.



Im in work tomorrow, will be taking required precautions.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 23, 2020)

Coronavirus: Teens held for 'coughing in face' of elderly couple
					

A woman in her 70s was left with a black eye after a fight broke out when a man tried to help.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




We can cede this ground to the far right. Or we can, you know, not.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

> The Health Care Supply Association tweeted: “If any DIY stores want to help at this time then donating supplies of visors and glasses will greatly help NHS staff.
> 
> “We have trusts who for various reasons are running short. Contact your local trust and ask for the Supplies or Procurement Department-thanks.”
> 
> Some providers have issued similar appeals online, with South London and Maudsley Foundation Trust appealing for soap sachets on Twitter on Friday.











						NHS appeals to DIY shops for protective equipment
					

A healthcare supply trade body has asked DIY shops to donate personal protective equipment to NHS trusts amid intense supply chain pressures.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 23, 2020)




----------



## Shechemite (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> NHS appeals to DIY shops for protective equipment
> 
> 
> A healthcare supply trade body has asked DIY shops to donate personal protective equipment to NHS trusts amid intense supply chain pressures.
> ...



cheers. I’ve shared this round


----------



## smmudge (Mar 23, 2020)

In the end the govt is going to blame a lock down on people not being "responsible" enough, not taking advice that was published 4 days ago "so" the number of cases and deaths continue to rise. But these numbers are based on people getting infected 2 weeks ago when the advice was way more vague than it even is now. What's the chances that they will admit they acted too late. Very small I'm sure!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

smmudge said:


> In the end the govt is going to blame a lock down on people not being "responsible" enough, not taking advice that was published 4 days ago "so" the number of cases and deaths continue to rise. But these numbers are based on people getting infected 2 weeks ago when the advice was way more vague than it even is now. What's the chances that they will admit they acted too late. Very small I'm sure!


Yep. Was posted elsewhere that the number of new cases and the number of deaths are going to continue to increase for a few days at least after the actual infection rate has been brought under control. That's the frustration - is the lockdown in Italy working? Yes, probably, but we can't really tell clearly yet. They need to be putting across this kind of message. tbh I think they're so used to treating people like idiots that it doesn't even occur to them to just be straight.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I think I misread and didn't realise that this was essentially two families going to the allotment together. The ones who already live together aren't an issue, since they'll be sharing germs at home anyway, but they shouldn't be going with other people they don't live with.


This should be the message now. It's all too little too late, though, isn't it?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

About the only crumb I'm clinging to is that international measures may mitigate the disaster in the UK. Italy had the misfortune of getting it early before international movements were closed down. Regardless of UK govt ineptitude, the efforts of others _might_ help here.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> About the only crumb I'm clinging to is that international measures may mitigate the disaster in the UK. Italy had the misfortune of getting it early before international movements were closed down. Regardless of UK govt ineptitude, the efforts of others _might_ help here.



If the UK never imported another case from this moment forward, I dont see how that would significantly alter the first wave of the epidemic.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> NHS appeals to DIY shops for protective equipment
> 
> 
> A healthcare supply trade body has asked DIY shops to donate personal protective equipment to NHS trusts amid intense supply chain pressures.
> ...


My partner works in an NHS lab (in a large teaching hospital, just down the corridor from the infectious diseases unit) and they've had no PPE whatsoever. I deal with a lot of Chinese suppliers at work so I've been begging them for masks and thankfully they've just started coming through and I should have enough to last her a month. Any more I can get will be shared between her colleagues. 

Theres also a forwarded called PFS who are offering to source them in quantities of 10000 or 500000 but I think they're probably profiteering, I don't know the price from China usually but 85p each DDU on 10000 and 65p DDU on 500000 seems really steep.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

With the news that the UK is now up to 335 deaths, we are now at a moment where the UK figures may be diverging from the Italian ones in a way that quickly leads to a significant different in totals between us and 'Italy exactly 2 weeks earlier'. Whether this actually means much is also difficult to say though, obvious it depends on whether the trend continues (a big leap on any given day could erase it), possible differences in reporting/confirming cause of deaths, and indeed the individual stories behind the deaths - eg I've said before how much of a role institutional spread between vulnerable people can have, and if large institutional outbreaks happen at different stages in different countries, it could make a fair difference to the numbers, at least temporarily.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> With the news that the UK is now up to 335 deaths, we are now at a moment where the UK figures may be diverging from the Italian ones in a way that quickly leads to a significant different in totals between us and 'Italy exactly 2 weeks earlier'. Whether this actually means much is also difficult to say though, obvious it depends on whether the trend continues (a big leap on any given day could erase it), possible differences in reporting/confirming cause of deaths, and indeed the individual stories behind the deaths - eg I've said before how much of a role institutional spread between vulnerable people can have, and if large institutional outbreaks happen at different stages in different countries, it could make a fair difference to the numbers, at least temporarily.


Yeah too early to say. I'd want at least a couple more days of divergence before drawing any conclusions. As you say, infection patterns appear to be very clumpy, hence the tendency for figures on any given day to vary quite a lot without necessarily reflecting the overall trend.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 23, 2020)

The panto clown has cancelled today's briefing, instead he'll _address the nation_ this evening. Seems ominous.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 23, 2020)

little_legs said:


> The panto clown has cancelled today's briefing, instead he'll _address the nation_ this evening. Seems ominous.


Cobra meeting currently happening I gather. Lockdown time maybe?


----------



## little_legs (Mar 23, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Cobra meeting currently happening I gather. Lockdown time maybe?


I understand that the ExCel in London is going to house _military planners_ and a field hospital per Sky.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 23, 2020)

little_legs said:


> The panto clown has cancelled today's briefing, instead he'll _address the nation_ this evening. Seems ominous.



Finally going to reclaim the French throne.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 23, 2020)

little_legs said:


> I understand that the ExCel in London is going to house _military planners_ and a field hospital per Sky.


There's probably still a biowar modelling exhibit left over from last year's DSEi lurking somewhere in a storeroom.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 23, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Cobra meeting currently happening I gather. Lockdown time maybe?



Shots and beer pong more likely.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 23, 2020)

little_legs said:


> The panto clown has cancelled today's briefing, instead he'll _address the nation_ this evening. Seems ominous.



Nah, he's just necked too much this time and he needs a few hours to sober up a bit.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Nah, he's just necked too much this time and he needs a few hours to sober up a bit.


That explains why he repeatedly said _prohibition_ like 10 times yesterday.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 23, 2020)

All Bristol's parks now closed ... The Bristol to Bath railway path is technically one of their parks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 23, 2020)

The PM is going to address the nation at 8.30 pm - expect serious shit.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The PM is going to address the nation at 8.30 pm - expect serious shit.



From Boris I always expect shit.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 23, 2020)

Would watched Pfeffel take a dump live on rolling news TV raise the nation's morale?


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

Fuck - anyone watching BBC News now?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 23, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Fuck - anyone watching BBC News now?



Yep, the images from inside that Spanish hospital is worst than any footage I've seen from inside Italian hospitals.   

Anyone not supporting a UK lock-down needs to get a fucking grip.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 23, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

I'm afraid the way the deaths in Spain have been leaping up did suggest overwhelmed healthcare in some areas there, so I wasnt too shocked by the report, but it was still grim.

I see the BBC finally arrived at the 'UK 2 weeks behind Italy' thing.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, the images from inside that Spanish hospital is worst than any footage I've seen from inside Italian hospitals.
> 
> Anyone no supporting a UK lock-down needs to get a fucking grip.



Yeah, gut wrenching scenes.

Think Boris will be announcing the lockdown at 8.30pm.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

what do people think - just london or uk wide? nothing being trailed in the media - which suggest its going to be pretty comprehensive and with immediate effect.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> what do people think - just london or uk wide? nothing being trailed in the media - which suggest its going to be pretty comprehensive and with immediate effect.



I suppose I anticipate it applying to the whole country, and in large part to be a demand that many more sorts of businesses close. I have no idea how far they will push the 'everybody stay inside' thing directly - something on that front is required but I dont know quite what they are likely to go for.


----------



## bimble (Mar 23, 2020)

Why the fuck did he go and say on Thursday that there was “zero chance” of any restrictions on movement coming in. The idiot. Will have just made it harder for himself to get dragged along and do the necessary thing.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 23, 2020)

I’m wondering if it will be from midnight tonight or if he’ll give notice for it to happen at some future date, which would no doubt trigger further panic buying and fleeing to the borders.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 23, 2020)

The management and messaging through this has been truly abysmal. What a showers of useless cunts.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

At some point I will probably feel that people understand the situation, rather than getting the wrong idea because of the much higher percentages of serious outcomes in older cases, and the main risk messages about that aspect that have dominated in the media so far, and I will be able to stop posting these sorts of stories. That time is not now.



> People in their 30s and early 40s with coronavirus are "fighting for their lives" in intensive care, a Labour MP and practising doctor has said.
> 
> Rosena Allin-Khan, the Labour deputy leadership candidate and a senior A&E registrar, said Boris Johnson's "relaxed" approach to the disease and "mixed messaging" could cost lives.
> 
> ...





> She said there is a "very real sense that the number of cases are growing and they are growing very, very quickly".
> 
> Dr Allin-Khan added: "If we look at the fact that we are two weeks behind Italy, we are headed for a disaster if people do not heed the social-distancing measures.
> 
> ...











						People in their 30s are fighting coronavirus for their lives doctor warns
					

Labour MP for Tooting Rosena Allin-Khan, who has returned for NHS shifts at St George's Hospital in south London, said she has been surprised at how young some of the patients are




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 23, 2020)

Mrs SI, the moment she heard of the 8.30 show, steamed out to Aldi and Jack's. Managed to get 4xwine, 8 beers, bottle of gin and some tonic. NOW we're set. Aldi was telling everyone they are shutting at 8 (two hours early).


----------



## treelover (Mar 23, 2020)

NHS plans to turn ExCeL centre into coronavirus hospital
					

London venue expected to become 4,000-bed ‘field hospital’ at peak of epidemic




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The ExCeL centre has 87,000 sq metres of space, drive-in doorways, and a waiting area for 300 vehicles.



in and out,mmm..




Oh, well dying in a huge cavernous space, is probably better than in a tiny airless room.


----------



## treelover (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> At some point I will probably feel that people understand the situation, rather than getting the wrong idea because of the much higher percentages of serious outcomes in older cases, and the main risk messages about that aspect that have dominated in the media so far, and I will be able to stop posting these sorts of stories. That time is not now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




voting for Rosena for Deputy leader, not that its the most important thing at moment.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 23, 2020)

Just remember Mayhem used to do these speeches all the time, and she basically walked out in her new shoes, read out the poster on the wall behind her, attempted something she was told was a smile, and then walked off again to a confused silence


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 23, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Just remember Mayhem used to do these speeches all the time



if now isn’t the time for some classic 90s Norwegian Black Metal, then I don’t know when is.


----------



## magneze (Mar 23, 2020)

Just found 10 series of Dangermouse on Netflix. Lockdown ready.


----------



## Sue (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> At some point I will probably feel that people understand the situation, rather than getting the wrong idea because of the much higher percentages of serious outcomes in older cases, and the main risk messages about that aspect that have dominated in the media so far, and I will be able to stop posting these sorts of stories. That time is not now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Heard her on the radio and she was very articulate and all but how the fuck can she work as an A&E registrar AND be an  MP at the same time? I mean, it's not like knocking out the odd newspaper article or doing some one-day a month job or whatever while working as an MP, is it?


----------



## two sheds (Mar 23, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Mrs SI, the moment she heard of the 8.30 show, steamed out to Aldi and Jack's. Managed to get 4xwine, 8 beers, bottle of gin and some tonic. NOW we're set. Aldi was telling everyone they are shutting at 8 (two hours early).





time for emergency delivery request.


----------



## LDC (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> what do people think - just london or uk wide? nothing being trailed in the media - which suggest its going to be pretty comprehensive and with immediate effect.



Risk of London only is people leave if they can, caused problems in Italy. Think it'll be country wide for sure. I think there's no question we'll get some more restrictions, question is to what level. 

I do wish they'd fucking be more specific than 'non-essential', most people think what they're doing is essential, hence the crowds everywhere.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I do wish they'd fucking be more specific than 'non-essential',


Indeed. Boris even said “It doesn’t take much imagination to realise what happens next”.  Well, since I’m not actually a mind reader, I could be jumping to a different conclusion. Be specific.

No wonder people are confused. You can stand in a checkout queue in a supermarket, but you can’t queue for fish and chips. Even though take away is supposed to be fine.  There are no aisles in any supermarket where you can give other shoppers a two meter berth. But too many people in parks is bad.  Even though exercise and fresh air are OK.  

The reporting on it can be contradictory, the rules seem contradictory to many people, and there just isn’t the clarity some people imagine.

It’s not about people being stupid. I mean people _can_ do stupid things. But        not everyone reads up on epidemiology.


----------



## keybored (Mar 23, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Just remember Mayhem used to do these speeches all the time, and she basically walked out in her new shoes, read out the poster on the wall behind her, attempted something she was told was a smile, and then walked off again to a confused silence


Maybe he's just going to ask the covidiots to stop being so jolly naughty, but in a more serious tone of voice this time.


----------



## Athos (Mar 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> Heard her on the radio and she was very articulate and all but how the fuck can she work as an A&E registrar AND be an  MP at the same time? I mean, it's not like knocking out the odd newspaper article or doing some one-day a month job or whatever while working as an MP, is it?



I think she'd stopped it to become an MP, then went back on when it was 'all hands to the pump'.


----------



## Sue (Mar 23, 2020)

Athos said:


> I think she'd stopped it to become an MP, then went back on when it was 'all hands to the pump'.


No idea, wasn't aware of her before but guess that's plausible.


----------



## Sue (Mar 23, 2020)

God but Boris Johnson is rubbish. It's like he's talking to a five year old.

And it all still feels a bit waffly/unclear. is this happening now or is it a future threat?


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

full lockdown by the sounds of it. has he said when it comes into effect?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)




----------



## planetgeli (Mar 23, 2020)

No but hes just said for 3 weeks


----------



## two sheds (Mar 23, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> You can stand in a checkout queue in a supermarket, but you can’t queue for fish and chips. Even though take away is supposed to be fine.



That's just brought home the seriousness of it all a little


----------



## hegley (Mar 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> God but Boris Johnson is rubbish. It's like he's talking to a five year old.
> 
> And it all still feels a bit waffly/unclear. is this happening now or is it a future threat?





Kaka Tim said:


> full lockdown by the sounds of it. has he said when it comes into effect?


He said from now.


----------



## Sue (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> full lockdown by the sounds of it. has he said when it comes into effect?


Glad it's not just me that's unclear. 

Just what we need right now, eh?


----------



## blairsh (Mar 23, 2020)

Mate just posted this in a support group
"God it’s like story time with the most patronizing cunt in the world!"


----------



## emanymton (Mar 23, 2020)

two sheds said:


> That's just brought home the seriousness of it all a little


I know. No fish chips!


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

I know this shouldn't be the thing I get annoyed about, but can we please stop calling it "coronavirus", for fuck's sake!


----------



## belboid (Mar 23, 2020)

I think all docs who become mps do the very occasional shift to maintain their professional registration (for emergencies or post HoC career)


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> full lockdown by the sounds of it. has he said when it comes into effect?





Sue said:


> Glad it's not just me that's unclear.
> 
> Just what we need right now, eh?


From tonight.


----------



## LDC (Mar 23, 2020)

Proper measures finally. Just hope it's broadcast more clearly and widely than before.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> God but Boris Johnson is rubbish. It's like he's talking to a five year old.
> 
> And it all still feels a bit waffly/unclear. is this happening now or is it a future threat?


Exactly. Take Nicola Sturgeon as an example. A simple, coherent, clear message. With Johnson you get blabbering, stuttering, trailing off into some obscure comparisons. Clown.


----------



## tommers (Mar 23, 2020)

Im not sure how it could be much clearer tbh.


----------



## editor (Mar 23, 2020)

For people of a certain age (i.e old fuckers like me) I felt quite emotional parallels with today's announcement and the Cold War. I know it's not the same thing at all, but it triggered memories of the same kind of helplessness and impending doom that I remember from when I was young....


----------



## xes (Mar 23, 2020)

does this mean I don't have to go to work tomorrow?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 23, 2020)

editor said:


> For people of a certain age (i.e old fuckers like me) I felt quite emotional parallels with today's announcement and the Cold War. I know it's not the same thing, but it had echoes of the same kind of helplessness and impending doom that I remember from when I was young....


Innit. I lived in fear of newsflashes as a kid.


----------



## tommers (Mar 23, 2020)

Fucking terrifying.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 23, 2020)

I liked the bit where he pointed out that no health service on Earth could cope without enough ventilators and doctors, as if it was irrelevant how quickly that point arrives.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I know this shouldn't be the thing I get annoyed about, but can we please stop calling it "coronavirus", for fuck's sake!



What would you like to call it?

The disease is called Covid-19 in humans, but that name has blatantly failed to catch on, leading to more and more entities using the name that is in broadest use, which is coronavirus. I know its too vague, but thats sort of irrelevant in the grand scheme of how humans actually end up adopting words.

SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the virus, but thats a mouthful and has SARS in it so that didnt exactly catch on either.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 23, 2020)

Blame the public narrative in full swing


----------



## RTWL (Mar 23, 2020)

fisherprice lockdown ! Its not enough ... everybody is still going to be working !


----------



## emanymton (Mar 23, 2020)

xes said:


> does this mean I don't have to go to work tomorrow?


I'm wondering the same thing.


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I know this shouldn't be the thing I get annoyed about, but can we please stop calling it "coronavirus", for fuck's sake!


srs, why?


----------



## purenarcotic (Mar 23, 2020)

What a weird time to be living in. Is anyone else keeping a diary? Historians have asked people to keep paper diaries for future study. How will they know if your work is essential? Self definition?


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

hmm - like a lot of people i co-parent - 2 young kids (5and7) half the time at mine, half at mums. need clarity about weather they have to stay in one place or can still go inbetween.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

From Peston:


----------



## weltweit (Mar 23, 2020)

xes said:


> does this mean I don't have to go to work tomorrow?


That was indeed not 100% clear, because he said - stay at home - and - one of the reasons for going out was to go to work. So I am not sure. 

Anyhow I am going to work because I am WFH :-/


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> srs, why?


Because it's not the name of the virus, it's the type. There are many coronoviruses, this one is COVID-19. It just causes confusion.

I'm a librarian and a pedant, these things matter to me


----------



## xes (Mar 23, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I'm wondering the same thing.


'you can travel to work, but only if essential' does that mean if my work is essential or just that I can't do it at home?


----------



## LDC (Mar 23, 2020)

Essential work needs to be defined asap.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Because it's not the name of the virus, it's the type. There are many coronoviruses, this one is COVID-19. It just causes confusion.
> 
> I'm a librarian and a pedant, these things matter to me



It annoys me because when I am searching online there are 3 different things I potentially have to search for.

But its beyond my control so I just have to move on. Blame the people who couldnt come up with something snappier than Covid-19.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> *That was indeed not 100% clear, because he said - stay at home - and - one of the reasons for going out was to go to work. So I am not sure.*
> 
> Anyhow I am going to work because I am WFH :-/



This is the bit thats going to be used by people to justify going out, all those self-employed people and others on low wages who need to work or have been told to work by someone comfortably wfh...


----------



## xes (Mar 23, 2020)

yes, if you don't make food or essential supplies. Just said on t'news.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 23, 2020)

How exactly can they tell if people in a group are from the dame household or if someone is going to work or not?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 23, 2020)

xes said:


> 'you can travel to work, but only if essential' does that mean if my work is essential or just that I can't do it at home?


the G says "only if you cannot work from home"









						UK lockdown: what are the new coronavirus restrictions?
					

The updated advice for Britons, including on shopping, taking exercise and travelling to work




					www.theguardian.com
				




eta: but the actual speech adds "only where this is absolutely necessary"









						Boris Johnson's address to the nation in full
					

PM announces closure of shops, gatherings of more than two people and social events




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

emanymton said:


> How exactly can they tell if people in a group are from the dame household or if someone is going to work or not?


One of many, _many _questions...


----------



## Supine (Mar 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Essential work needs to be defined asap.



Key workers were notified last week. I'm sure there is a list on the BBC website somewhere.


----------



## tommers (Mar 23, 2020)

emanymton said:


> How exactly can they tell if people in a group are from the dame household or if someone is going to work or not?



They can't but maybe the point of this isnt to try to break it.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

Hope the police don’t keep pulling me over at work and ask what I’m doing out.


----------



## xes (Mar 23, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> the G says "only if you cannot work from home"


I make pretty smelling skin cream, it's non essential work all day long. (gonna miss cuddling ma cows)


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> One of many, _many _questions...


Well never mind, I'm sure we can trust that the police will interpret all of this properly and there will be no issues.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 23, 2020)

The building sites will still be going hammer and tongs then. The hotel project I work on is loving it. Nobody's staying at the hotel so they can do noisy works all day long. Making hay while the sun shines. Builders have caught it, know they have it, and still come in to work cos they're paying for every hour they can get.


----------



## binka (Mar 23, 2020)

My girlfriend telling me to go to hers straight from work on Friday and then not leave til I need to go to work on Monday morning as if we're supposed to find some loophole to justify getting  on a tram for an hour! She doesn't seem to appreciate the point of all this


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

Oh, shit, can't go to the post office


----------



## 5t3IIa (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> hmm - like a lot of people i co-parent - 2 young kids (5and7) half the time at mine, half at mums. need clarity about weather they have to stay in one place or can still go inbetween.


8 & 10 here, my partners and his ex co-parent. Fortunately(?), I am a key worker so will legitimately be out & about in a car so can drop off & pick up, plus a walk to their mothers will presumably count as their one (1) form of exercise a day. But plenty of people won’t be in this position wrt distance etc 😣#fucktastrophe


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

I posted this in another thread but since Johnson since said 3 weeks, here is where that likely came from:

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf



> Such an intensive policy is predicted to result in a reduction in critical care requirements from a peak approximately 3 weeks after the interventions are introduced and a decline thereafter while the intervention policies remain in place.



So as I mentioned, they will review in 3 weeks because they will be better able to judge what effect the measures are having by then.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Essential work needs to be defined asap.




Are cornerhsops essential? It feels ike it to me, here in my flat alone.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 23, 2020)

xes said:


> 'you can travel to work, but only if essential' does that mean if my work is essential or just that I can't do it at home?


Don't know.

I can work from home, but we also need people physically in the office. The current plan was to have half of us in at any one time and to swap over every 2 weeks. Don't know if they can/Will stick to that. 

I guess they will not enforce it fully for the first day as it will take time for people to sort stuff out. Hell some people will get up to go to work in the morning without having heard the news.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 23, 2020)

emanymton said:


> How exactly can they tell if people in a group are from the dame household



Surely the uniforms will all be the same?


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Oh, shit, can't go to the post office


you reckon? surely an essential service?


----------



## donkyboy (Mar 23, 2020)

Go to the supermarket and get what you need and then go back home and stay there until you need to to get essentials again. how hard is that for people to understand?


----------



## Supine (Mar 23, 2020)

Hmmm. Train travel has reduced by 70% so my train service home has been reduced by 75% in frequency.  Surely that means my already busy train will be even busier???


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 23, 2020)

Shops selling food, pharmacies, banks and post offices will remain open.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> you reckon? surely an essential service?


Aye, I assume _they're_ an essential service, but they didn't get mentioned as a reason we're allowed to go out.

Ah, fuck it, who knows. There better be a bloody FAQs about this!


----------



## keybored (Mar 23, 2020)

Did he really say "No social gatherings except funerals"? Because there's going to be a lot of those coming up and I don't expect people attending to be immune, or in a state of mind to keep strict social distancing rules at the forefront of their minds.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 23, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Well never mind, I'm sure we can trust that the police will interpret all of this properly and there will be no issues.


This is one of my worries. How much do you want to bet that young black men will be disproportionately asked to account for why they are out?


----------



## mauvais (Mar 23, 2020)

Funerals are banned in Italy. It's alright, we'll have that restriction in a few more days.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I know this shouldn't be the thing I get annoyed about, but can we please stop calling it "coronavirus", for fuck's sake!


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

So this is a war time government now, perhaps Boris was summing the spirit of Churchill?


----------



## rekil (Mar 23, 2020)

One of our boffins two weeks ago. We're screwed basically, the UK even more so due to the tory factor.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 23, 2020)

keybored said:


> Did he really say "No social gatherings except funerals"? Because there's going to be a lot of those coming up and I don't expect people attending to be immune, or in a state of mind to keep strict social distancing rules at the forefront of their minds.




They'll restrict numbers I expect.


----------



## gaijingirl (Mar 23, 2020)

Nothing at all about schools.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 23, 2020)

Wonder how long "exercise" can be and how far away from your house!


----------



## keybored (Mar 23, 2020)

emanymton said:


> This is one of my worries. How much do you want to bet that young black men will be disproportionately asked to account for why they are out?


Plus ça change.


----------



## Septimus Rufiji (Mar 23, 2020)

I'm doing agency work at a place that makes ink atm. Today a manager came in and said that they were going to argue that they're essential because of labels and stuff, complete load of bollocks obvs. Don't want to rock the boat and not go in what with it maybe being a long term contract (possibly a couple of years) but also don't want to get up at 4.30am and walk for an hour there and another hour back if I don't have to.

Think I'll chuck this at the agency tomorrow at 7am and have a lie in.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 23, 2020)

I wonder about petrol stations


----------



## purenarcotic (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> hmm - like a lot of people i co-parent - 2 young kids (5and7) half the time at mine, half at mums. need clarity about weather they have to stay in one place or can still go inbetween.



We received this at work today. If I’m honest I don’t think it’s that helpful at all but it’s the only thing out there: 






						COVID-19 guidance for children and families - Cafcass - Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service
					

Cafcass has put together the following guidance to support children and families as the situation surrounding COVID-19 develops. We will do everything we can to […]




					www.cafcass.gov.uk


----------



## grit (Mar 23, 2020)

rekil said:


> One of our boffins two weeks ago. We're screwed basically, the* UK even more so* due to the tory factor.




The lockdown may change that if we don't impose one as well.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 23, 2020)

I know this is a silly thing. But I could do with a haircut.


----------



## eatmorecheese (Mar 23, 2020)

That was an extraordinary address by Johnson. Hair on my arms stood on end. He looked... He looked shit scared.


----------



## hegley (Mar 23, 2020)

Crispy said:


> The building sites will still be going hammer and tongs then. The hotel project I work on is loving it. Nobody's staying at the hotel so they can do noisy works all day long. Making hay while the sun shines. Builders have caught it, know they have it, and still come in to work cos they're paying for every hour they can get.


Sturgeon's already said that building sites need to close - can't imagine that's Scotland only.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 23, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I know this is a silly thing. But I could do with a haircut.



I could have done with a haircut for the last 20+ odd years, you stop noticing or caring after a while


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 23, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I know this is a silly thing. But I could do with a haircut.


Iirc in Spain you are allowed out for a haircut.


----------



## tony.c (Mar 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> Key workers were notified last week. I'm sure there is a list on the BBC website somewhere.


These are the key workers who can still send their kids to school


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 23, 2020)

All a bit of a cunt if you're homeless, this.


----------



## 8ball (Mar 23, 2020)

keybored said:


> Did he really say "No social gatherings except funerals"? Because there's going to be a lot of those coming up and I don't expect people attending to be immune, or in a state of mind to keep strict social distancing rules at the forefront of their minds.



I think that would have been for impact.  
"Only way you're seeing people is at a funeral, pal."


----------



## ChrisD (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Oh, shit, can't go to the post office


Will they be open?  I was going to post Mrs ChrisD's prescription (as she is vulnerable she's isolated at her mother's house) looks like I won't see her for another 11 or 12 weeks.


----------



## kenny g (Mar 23, 2020)

Wonder how many lives would have been saved if this had been introduced last week.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 23, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Iirc in Spain you are allowed out for a haircut.


Phewww.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Mar 23, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I could have done with a haircut for the last 20+ odd years, you stop noticing or caring after a while



Mrs Sas does mine, but yes, it is the least of worries at the moment.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 23, 2020)

hegley said:


> Sturgeon's already said that building sites need to close - can't imagine that's Scotland only.


I'll need to see it in writing from Westminster. And the bosses are going to need guns pointed at their heads before they stop the work.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 23, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Mrs Sas does mine, but yes, it is the least of worries at the moment.



Indeed - am I going to get my Aldi emergency alcohol supplies is what's now on my mind.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

Now then, where is the hard hitting advertising campaign?

No fucking around. How about one where every time someone comes up with a crap reason why they need to leave their home, a doctor has to come up with a reason to choose not to admit a particular patient to intensive care because its full and they must prioritise.


----------



## UrbaneFox (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Because it's not the name of the virus, it's the type. There are many coronoviruses, this one is COVID-19. It just causes confusion.
> 
> I'm a librarian and a pedant, these things matter to me


Urban75's love of librarians and pedantry is well-documented, but in these difficult times even we have to relax the rules. 

I may resurrect the informal anarchy thread later. If I'm still alive.


----------



## keybored (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Because it's not the name of the virus, it's the type. There are many coronoviruses, this one is COVID-19. It just causes confusion.
> 
> I'm a librarian and a pedant, these things matter to me


Can't hear you, I'm hoovering the floor.


----------



## Supine (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Now then, where is the hard hitting advertising campaign?
> 
> No fucking around. How about one where every time someone comes up with a crap reason why they need to leave their home, a doctor has to come up with a reason to choose not to admit a particular patient to intensive care because its full and they must prioritise.



There has definitely been a lack of a public awareness campaign. It seems to be run using informal briefings to journalists which is just not acceptable.


----------



## LDC (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Now then, where is the hard hitting advertising campaign?



Something I've been saying for ages. If you don't watch the news you could very easily miss much of this (especially if English isn't your first language). Our council has totally not dealt with this problem. No letters to every house, no poster campaign, no cars with loudspeakers or those billboards on, absolutely fuck all. Criminally useless.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Mar 23, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I know. No fish chips!



Digital fish and chips for the foreseeable.


----------



## Hollis (Mar 23, 2020)

Crispy said:


> The building sites will still be going hammer and tongs then. The hotel project I work on is loving it. Nobody's staying at the hotel so they can do noisy works all day long. Making hay while the sun shines. Builders have caught it, know they have it, and still come in to work cos they're paying for every hour they can get.



Is construction really essential at the moment?  I'm getting the tube at 7.15am atm - and there's loads of construction workers on it..   Tubes are still a joke in the morning.. they've got busier as they cut the services.  Ditto overground.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 23, 2020)

Two's a crowd, three's illegal.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 23, 2020)

Hollis said:


> Is construction really essential at the moment?.


This job in particular has a date in 2021 at which point the building gets valued and our client gets a share of the business based on that value. So despite this client being a massive germophobe who's hermitted himself away in his French villa, the whip is still being cracked from the top down. Time is literally money.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 23, 2020)

xes said:


> 'you can travel to work, but only if essential' does that mean if my work is essential or just that I can't do it at home?



This is the quandary I’ve found myself in, only to be reassured by my employer who has just rung me to say don’t come in tomorrow, & wait further instruction. I was supposed to be in tomorrow but they were waiting for gov confirmation of a lockdown. Maybe speak to your employer?


----------



## MickiQ (Mar 23, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> I wonder about petrol stations


I would imagine they have to be open otherwise it makes a mockery of critical workers getting to work certainly outside London, I believe they have stayed open in France and Italy. 
I filled mine up (as I always do) on my last day in the office before we went to compulsory WFH which was Thurday 12th, my car has a 75 ltr tank and can go 700 miles on a tank of diesel. I have done under 10 miles since then so I reckon I shold be OK to about Dec 2021 at this rate.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Mar 23, 2020)

keybored said:


> Can't hear you, I'm hoovering the floor.



Hoovering up the sellotape and tippex I spilt earlier.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 23, 2020)

Selfish as fuck but happy that I can still get out for an hour run every day, think I'd sink without it


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Aye, I assume _they're_ an essential service, but they didn't get mentioned as a reason we're allowed to go out.
> 
> Ah, fuck it, who knows. There better be a bloody FAQs about this!


i'm assuming the numbers of coppers it's going to take to break up the meetings of more than 2 teenagers might deflect attention from my odd dash to the post office, fingers crossed


----------



## Weller (Mar 23, 2020)

Septimus Rufiji said:


> I'm doing agency work at a place that makes ink atm. Today a manager came in and said that they were going to argue that they're essential because of labels and stuff, complete load of bollocks obvs. Don't want to rock the boat and not go in what with it maybe being a long term contract (possibly a couple of years) but also don't want to get up at 4.30am and walk for an hour there and another hour back if I don't have to.
> 
> Think I'll chuck this at the agency tomorrow at 7am and have a lie in.


Im in same position but manufacturing automotive parts required usually daily just in time but as JLR have shutdown its confusing where I stand not just on going in but what I do for income , I am pretty sure that the company will want to retain me as it was supposed to lead to a perm position at a higher level than I am now
but as an agency worker at moment not sure that I qualify for this 80% "retain staff laid off etc that Boris talked about 

Its all very confusing so will have to throw it to agency tomorrow too but its likely that neither the agency or the manager at local level will have much more idea on what to do as they anticipated this today but had no idea even for the permanent payroll staff its going to be a confusing day for many agency workers I guess


----------



## ddraig (Mar 23, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> i'm assuming the numbers of coppers it's going to take to break up the meetings of more than 2 teenagers might deflect attention from my odd dash to the post office, fingers crossed


post office is allowed! don't know how often mind


----------



## tonysingh (Mar 23, 2020)

Dashing into chatham/Gillingham n back for pet bits I can handle. Food delivered as much as possible same. Staying in is fine, I have DVDs, Netflix, Prime and a Ps4 as well my studies BUT.... and feel free to laugh....does walking Kail count as my one outside exercise a day?


----------



## LDC (Mar 23, 2020)

ddraig said:


> post office is allowed! don't know how often mind



FFS, are you serious? AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE.


----------



## LDC (Mar 23, 2020)

tonysingh said:


> ...does walking Kail count as my one outside exercise a day?



Yes it fucking does, ffs.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 23, 2020)

You're allowed out with your family and for a run once a day? It's still not tight enough is it?


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 23, 2020)

Is this clear enough now?









						Suspected coronavirus outbreak in nursing home - 'three quarters of residents infected'
					

STAFF at a nursing home are desperately pleading for help after a suspected outbreak of coronavirus which has lasted for 11 days.




					www.theargus.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Mar 23, 2020)

Once a week for food and essentials shopping is reasonable, maybe a bit less ideally, not just popping out whenever you need something.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS, are you serious? AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE.


easy now! just answering wb!
but is once a week too much?

e2a I went to a supermarket for the first time today having not being out since last Tuesday as been responsible, not been to a post office in months!
I was out of the house for about 40 mins, in 6 days


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 23, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Selfish as fuck but happy that I can still get out for an hour run every day, think I'd sink without it


Know what you mean, I need an hour's walk each day to function. Luckily, no one I know shares my love for walking, so at least I can safely do it without risking anyone else's health or my own.


----------



## Sue (Mar 23, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> They'll restrict numbers I expect.


It's the funeral of my sister's best friend's dad tomorrow. She was going to go to the funeral but they've been told it now has to be restricted to immediate family only. So sad.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

i would imagine huge numbers will flout the regs and police will be stretched concentrating on the most blatant offenders (aforementioned teenagers) . 
No info about what happens to the homeless - there some story about them being put up in hotels (which are now mostly empty) but ive seen nothing since.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

From a friend on Facebook.





> My flatmate still has to go in to work, received an email from her asdhole boss saying they were an essential service selling fitness clothes/equipment so people could work out! Mike Ashley is a capitalist prick who's endangering his staff and their families and friends!


Fucking Mike Ashley 

Would be interested to see if they could actually enforce that...


----------



## tommers (Mar 23, 2020)

tonysingh said:


> Dashing into chatham/Gillingham n back for pet bits I can handle. Food delivered as much as possible same. Staying in is fine, I have DVDs, Netflix, Prime and a Ps4 as well my studies BUT.... and feel free to laugh....does walking Kail count as my one outside exercise a day?


Walking the dog will be my exercise mate. Course it counts


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Once a week for food and essentials shopping is reasonable, maybe a bit less ideally, not just popping out whenever you need something.



Good luck finding a week's supply of food anywhere round here.

Also I have no car, and I cannot carry a week's supply of food. Nor the extra stuff I need to lay in against a possible 14-day quarrantine.


----------



## LDC (Mar 23, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Good luck finding a week's supply of food anywhere round here.
> 
> Also I have no car, and I cannot carry a week's supply of food. Nor the extra stuff I need to lay in against a possible 14-day quarrantine.



This has been coming for weeks, could you have made any preparations? And can you order food for delivery by a supermarket?


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> From a friend on Facebook.Fucking Mike Ashley
> 
> Would be interested to see if they could actually enforce that...



My brother in law has had a similar cunty thing from his boss. His work is probably more essential but still, carting bits of pipe round a warehouse essential at this time? I don't think so. Why be such a cunt at this time? Especially when the government are paying your employees wages.


----------



## magneze (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> hmm - like a lot of people i co-parent - 2 young kids (5and7) half the time at mine, half at mums. need clarity about weather they have to stay in one place or can still go inbetween.


Yes, this is pretty common. We were wondering this too.


----------



## MickiQ (Mar 23, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> i'm assuming the numbers of coppers it's going to take to break up the meetings of more than 2 teenagers might deflect attention from my odd dash to the post office, fingers crossed


Depends on whether they do it with a stern talking too  or rubber bullets I suppose.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This has been coming for weeks, could you have made any preparations? And can you order food for delivery by a supermarket?



I'll try and get paid earlier in the month in future. Or I would, if I still had any work.


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This has been coming for weeks, could you have made any preparations? And can you order food for delivery by a supermarket?



There are many reasons why people can't buy more than a weeks worth of food in one go, and a lot of people were trying to ensure they didn't stockpile.


----------



## agricola (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> From a friend on Facebook.Fucking Mike Ashley
> 
> Would be interested to see if they could actually enforce that...



that and charging people for gloves and masks, probably


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> My brother in law has had a similar cunty thing from his boss. His work is probably more essential but still, carting bits of pipe round a warehouse essential at this time? I don't think so. Why be such a cunt at this time? Especially when the government are paying your employees wages.


Hard to shake lifetime habits.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

I'd been planning on volunteering for my local food bank once I'd gotten over the virus; I'm assuming that's counted as an essential service, but are volunteers?


----------



## ska invita (Mar 23, 2020)

Looking for an official summary of the rules. Best i can find includes

"travelling to and from work, but only if you cannot work from home."

No mention of essential/key worker

So painters are ok? Plumbers? Electricians? Fire security? None the wiser


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Looking for an official summary of the rules. Best i can find includes
> 
> "travelling to and from work, but only if you cannot work from home."
> 
> ...



We got a call today saying there are people coming round tomorrow to put new windows in. Um, fucking what?


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 23, 2020)

I'm confused. Johnson didn't say only 'key workers' can travel to work. He said only travel to work if absolutely necessary and you can't work from home.

But this below on the HM government official twitter account says only *key workers* can travel to work. So whats correct? Fucking mixed messages


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Looking for an official summary of the rules. Best i can find includes
> 
> "travelling to and from work, but only if you cannot work from home."
> 
> ...


Yep, they still need to clarify, the fucking idiots. You could see they had been told to make it as simple as possible as people were confused, but they still screwed it up.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Looking for an official summary of the rules. Best i can find includes
> 
> "travelling to and from work, but only if you cannot work from home."
> 
> ...


Not like they knew it was coming or anything ...

See they're reviewing it in three weeks. If mass testing and isolation's launched within days, may just be feasible to ease up in some areas.

By then we'll have tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of active cases for breaches, all of whom are entitled to two trials (mags/Crown Court). With all jury trials now adjourned, dread to think of backlog. This isn't sustainable for long, and must be used wisely.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This has been coming for weeks, could you have made any preparations? And can you order food for delivery by a supermarket?


Or if he PMs you a shopping list, you could drop it round for him when you next go out shopping.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

What about online deliveries? Lots of detail lacking


----------



## Threshers_Flail (Mar 23, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Selfish as fuck but happy that I can still get out for an hour run every day, think I'd sink without it



I wouldn't say that's selfish. It's one thing that's going to keep me going next few months.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This has been coming for weeks, could you have made any preparations? And can you order food for delivery by a supermarket?



Supermarket deliveries are booked up as far ahead as they go, pretty much.

I'm hoping that the fact they're all taking on more staff, along with restricted opening hours and now this, may mean things will settle down a bit there - with less people in the shops (although potentially it still means whole families are allowed to go out food shopping whenever they like  ) - but then there will be even more pressure on delivery services now, too (and the Tesco website has crashed, as of this evening!).


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> What about online deliveries? Lots of detail lacking


Supermarkets should be taking on van drivers.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 23, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> I'm confused. Johnson didn't say only 'key workers' can travel to work. He said only travel to work if absolutely necessary and you can't work from home.
> 
> But this below on the HM government official twitter account says only *key workers* can travel to work. So whats correct? Fucking mixed messages
> 
> View attachment 203013


Yes, contradictory and misleading. 
I can work from home, when my work is done I need to pop into work to get more. But others who can't work from home are going into work, at least they were on Monday, Tuesday I am less sure, I bet they don't know either now..


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 23, 2020)

Sturgeon says 'To travel to and from work but only if it is a necessity.'

This is a different phrasing again and totally ambiguous 

Labour politicians seem to be saying only key workers should be commuting. I wonder why?

Edit: oh I see, probably taking from official twitter account. But then why did Johnson say something different?


----------



## weltweit (Mar 23, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Supermarkets should be taking on van drivers.


It isn't just drivers, my understanding is they don't have enough vans!!


----------



## belboid (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I'd been planning on volunteering for my local food bank once I'd gotten over the virus; I'm assuming that's counted as an essential service, but are volunteers?


Councils will probably be taking over there services, tbh.  Ours is organising ones that can deliver, which makes more sense.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 23, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Sturgeon says 'To travel to and from work but only if it is a necessity.'
> 
> This is a different phrasing again and totally ambiguous
> 
> Labour politicians seem to be saying only key workers should be commuting. I wonder why?



Fucks sake. My Mum is going spare. She didn't go to work today because they have made no safety provisions and she had to put her foot down to get them to mandate distancing. Now she doesn't know if she should be going in at all or not by law? I don't know what to tell her because the advice given by Johnson is not the same as the advice given on HM Government twitter account 

Nobody on the news has picked this up yet?? Sky News too busy showing ariel shots of London from the helicopter


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> What about online deliveries? Lots of detail lacking



He was urging people towards using online shopping if they could, iirc (but then see my previous post)?


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> It isn't just drivers, my understanding is they don't have enough vans!!


I'm sure there must be plenty of owner drivers out of work at the moment, and no shortage of vans available to rent.


----------



## keybored (Mar 23, 2020)

BlanketAddict said:


> Hoovering up the sellotape and tippex I spilt earlier.


Whilst doing some xeroxing in the portacabin.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 23, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Supermarkets should be taking on van drivers.



They've been taking on more people for a good few days now (I assume that's for deliveries as well as help in store) but I suppose they have to have enough extra _vans_, too, eh?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> There are many reasons why people can't buy more than a weeks worth of food in one go, and a lot of people were trying to ensure they didn't stockpile.


Exactly, and then they find they can't buy stuff like pasta even if they wanted to. Some people have big freezers full of stuff. Lots of other people don't have that option.


----------



## belboid (Mar 23, 2020)

Supermarkets _are_ taking on loads of van drivers, and lots tof other roles


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

So what about the poor homeless?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> They've been taking on more people for a good few days now (I assume that's for deliveries as well as help in store) but I suppose they have to have enough extra _vans_, too, eh?


Well surely they can rent them from all the businesses that can't use them?


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 23, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> Fucks sake. My Mum is going spare. She didn't go to work today because they have made no safety provisions and she had to put her foot down to get them to mandate distancing. Now she doesn't know if she should be going in at all or not by law? I don't know what to tell her because the advice given by Johnson is not the same as the advice given on HM Government twitter account
> 
> Nobody on the news has picked this up yet?? Sky News too busy showing ariel shots of London from the helicopter


Yeah, they fucked it again. It's rage-inducing, it really is.

And yes, journos should be all over this to clarify. I guess we'll see something soon.


----------



## xes (Mar 23, 2020)

Just been told I'm working.  Think that may change.


----------



## tommers (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> What about online deliveries? Lots of detail lacking


Specifically said they are ok.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 23, 2020)

So millions of peoples actions in just a few hours, to travel to work or not, may or may not be illegal. Depending on whether they are a key worker. Confusing? Much?


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Exactly, and then they find they can't buy stuff like pasta even if they wanted to. Some people have big freezers full of stuff. Lots of other people don't have that option.



Exactly. Now is not the time to be getting on people's backs for not having done enough shopping and planning during an ever changing environment where shopping has generally been even more stressful than normal.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 23, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> So millions of peoples actions in just a few hours, to travel to work or not, may or may not be illegal. Depending on whether they are a key worker. Confusing? Much?


I just watched the his speech on sky news. No mention of key workers that I heard


----------



## iona (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I'd been planning on volunteering for my local food bank once I'd gotten over the virus; I'm assuming that's counted as an essential service, but are volunteers?


I'm wondering this too. Meant to be going into work (where I'm a volunteer anyway) some time this week, to collect food that otherwise would've gone to waste since we're closed and take it to donation point. I also work on a farm which is food production so essential, but again an informal voluntary thing. Lambing is just starting and they don't need _me specifically_ but they do need some people to still turn up.

Not trying to find loopholes to go outside, I just want to know where I stand...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I just watched the his speech on sky news. No mention of key workers that I heard


They're still trying to do it with a soft touch. I wouldn't have minded that two weeks ago, or even a week ago - hard measures with soft edges - but they dithered too long for that now.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 23, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Exactly. Now is not the time to be getting on people's backs for not having done enough shopping and planning during an ever changing environment where shopping has generally been even more stressful than normal.


Especially when the shops are empty because the people complaining about others not planning ahead have emptied them.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

iona said:


> I'm wondering this too. Meant to be going into work (where I'm a volunteer anyway) some time this week, to collect food that otherwise would've gone to waste since we're closed and take it to donation point. I also work on a farm which is food production so essential, but again an informal voluntary thing. Lambing is just starting and they don't need _me specifically_ but they do need some people to still turn up.
> 
> Not trying to find loopholes to go outside, I just want to know where I stand...


That sounds like key work to me. It's not about money, it's about function, surely.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Especially when the shops are empty because the people complaining about others not planning ahead have emptied them.


The people with cars, freezers, space, money....


----------



## weltweit (Mar 23, 2020)

Asian bloke on live VT in London on BBC news - with a selfie stick with light and wearing a mask, what are you doing? I got my YouTube channel, are you sure you should be out? got to update my YouTube channel, you sure you should be out? yea


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> What about online deliveries? Lots of detail lacking



As long as the online retailer sells food or vital supplies you can order.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Asian bloke on live VT in London on BBC news - with a selfie stick with light and wearing a mask, what are you doing? I got my YouTube channel, are you sure you should be out? got to update my YouTube channel, you sure you should be out? yea



Citizen journalism.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well surely they can rent them from all the businesses that can't use them?


Hardly rocket science, is it. And I'm sure pretty much every van rental company in the country would be glad of the opportunity to rent out vans.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Exactly. Now is not the time to be getting on people's backs for not having done enough shopping and planning during an ever changing environment where shopping has generally been even more stressful than normal.


Especially with the horrific mixed messages. On the Continent, what panic buying there was fizzled out with clear, reassuring leadership. We've got the squashed sombrero. No wonder there's chaos.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The people with cars, freezers, space, money....


Having a go at those with none of the above. You couldn't make it up.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> They're still trying to do it with a soft touch. I wouldn't have minded that two weeks ago, or even a week ago - hard measures with soft edges - but they dithered too long for that now.


Deliberate ambiguity do you reckon? Maybe that's it


----------



## editor (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Because it's not the name of the virus, it's the type. There are many coronoviruses, this one is COVID-19. It just causes confusion.
> 
> I'm a librarian and a pedant, these things matter to me


I don't think anyone is confusing this with any other virus right now and, more importantly, people know what you're talking about when you say coronavirus. Suddenly calling it somerthing else is not going to be useful in any possible way. In fact, that's the best way to start confusing people.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

Also, doubt they've bothered to set up anything like the French system of self-declaration. Given government IT timescales, be lucky to have it by the next once-in-a-century pandemic.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Deliberate ambiguity do you reckon? Maybe that's it


I do think they are genuinely trying not to go the French route of full regimentation. It's hurtling towards that point, though.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 23, 2020)

I call it The Corona. Trust me this will be the one that sticks. No historians will be calling it covid 19


----------



## cantsin (Mar 23, 2020)

Favelado said:


> You're allowed out with your family and for a run once a day? It's still not tight enough is it?



all a bit unsure about this down here for now, ie :  going to drive 2 + miles ( back lanes only ) with son for long awaited sunny surf in the morning, + v much hoping not too many others will. or we'll get kyboshed  for the rest of the week /next 3


----------



## editor (Mar 23, 2020)

Hollis said:


> Is construction really essential at the moment?  I'm getting the tube at 7.15am atm - and there's loads of construction workers on it..   Tubes are still a joke in the morning.. they've got busier as they cut the services.  Ditto overground.


I wet to the get the lift in my block today and seven builders came out of it. Luckily I had a mask and sanitiser, but FFS.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Supermarkets should be taking on van drivers.



i know - i m going to be one of them  - i meant amazon and ebay.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 23, 2020)

editor said:


> I don't think anyone is confusing this with any other virus right now and, more importantly, people know what you're talking about when you say coronavirus. Suddenly calling it somerthing else is not going to be useful in any possible way. In fact, that's the best way to start confusing people.


People already are calling it something else. Some news reports call it coronavirus, some call it COVID-19, some call it C19.

It's true, the moment has possibly already passed, which just makes it all the more frustrating. But think people would probably catch on pretty quick.

Although, in fairness, they haven't with a lot of the other stuff...


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 23, 2020)

Why is nobody on the news picking up on this??

Millions of people who are not key workers will be travelling to work because in their opinion it is 'absolutely neccessary' and they cannot work from home as per Johnson's statement, and the government publishes advice saying only key workers will be allowed. So millions will be breaking the law in just a few hours. Great.


----------



## belboid (Mar 23, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> I call it The Corona. Trust me this will be the one that sticks. No historians will be calling it covid 19


Depending how many other pandemics we have in coming years...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

editor said:


> I wet to the get the lift in my block today and seven builders came out of it. Luckily I had a mask and sanitiser, but FFS.


There's not been any forward thinking at all because officially this wasn't going to happen (although it's been obvious that it was going to happen). Road outside me was dug up for big scheduled pipe replacement work three days ago. ffs this is a job that will take weeks. Not a thought not to start it.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> hmm - like a lot of people i co-parent - 2 young kids (5and7) half the time at mine, half at mums. need clarity about weather they have to stay in one place or can still go inbetween.


You'd think that if all they are doing is going house-car-house then the risk is not going to be great, provided neither you or her are going to be out mingling. Not saying that's within the rules, though, and obviously it can't apply if public transport is involved.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I do think they are genuinely trying not to go the French route of full regimentation. It's hurtling towards that point, though.


Not much different, is it? They say coppers will be enforcing it, and restrictions look broadly similar. The laissez faire approach was last weekend, and thanks to the muddled messaging, we all saw how that went.

If there'd been weeks of public information ads (like, oh, the £100mil spaffed up the wall promoting a crash-out Brexit that never happened), perhaps the voluntary approach could've worked. As at was, far too little, too late.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well surely they can rent them from all the businesses that can't use them?



You'd hope so - but I have no idea how fast they could practically make that happen - I mean, to the degree that anyone who wants a delivery could get one within a couple of days (which was normal previously, if you were flexible on the delivery time), starting from _now_.
There are also issues with needing to spend a certain amount and/or paying larger delivery charges etc, it'd be great if they would lower/get rid of those that once they have logistics up to scratch (cos they're obviously raking it in).


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 23, 2020)

They've now deleted the video which had that statement on it.

This is a complete fucking shambles.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Not much different, is it? They say coppers will be enforcing it, and restrictions look broadly similar. The laissez faire approach was last weekend, and thanks to the muddled messaging, we all saw how that went.
> 
> If there'd been weeks of public information ads (like, oh, the £100mil spaffed up the wall promoting a crash-out Brexit that never happened), perhaps the voluntary approach could've worked. As at was, far too little, too late.


Yep. And that is what will come out in the wash. The softly softly approach was done half-heartedly, probably because they feared/knew that they'd have to do this eventually anyway. And now the hard hard approach is also being done half-heartedly. It might still work. Or there might be crowded tubes again tomorrow morning, and another Johnson special tomorrow night.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Mar 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> People already are calling it something else. Some news reports call it coronavirus, some call it COVID-19, some call it C19.
> 
> It's true, the moment has possibly already passed, which just makes it all the more frustrating. But think people would probably catch on pretty quick.
> 
> Although, in fairness, they haven't with a lot of the other stuff...



It's like ISIS/ISIL/Daesh all over again.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

belboid said:


> Depending how many other pandemics we have in coming years...


Given the billions about to be hosed at broad spectrum antivirals and vaccines, not to mention a global surveillance system, barring an unfortunate nasty in an asteroid, there's a realistic chance this'll be the last.

Til the machines let loose ...


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Or there might be crowded tubes again tomorrow morning, and another Johnson special tomorrow night.



I'd bet on this.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Not much different, is it? They say coppers will be enforcing it, and restrictions look broadly similar. The laissez faire approach was last weekend, and thanks to the muddled messaging, we all saw how that went.
> 
> If there'd been weeks of public information ads (like, oh, the £100mil spaffed up the wall promoting a crash-out Brexit that never happened), perhaps the voluntary approach could've worked. As at was, far too little, too late.


Police won't be enforcing it tomorrow. Supposedly they don't know what's going on yet either (sky news)


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep. And that is what will come out in the wash. The softly softly approach was done half-heartedly, probably because they feared/knew that they'd have to do this eventually anyway. And now the hard hard approach is also being done half-heartedly. It might still work. Or there might be crowded tubes again tomorrow morning, and another Johnson special tomorrow night.


Expect they genuinely believed they could wing it on "herd immunity," quarantining fewer than two million of the most vulnerable as P.R., and writing off the rest as collateral damage to save the economy. Cummings was, according to the Sundays, obsessed with the idea.

Ironically, a compassionate, rigorous approach would've headed off the whole thing, and we'd now be going about our business with some minor inconveniences. The right thing to do was also the smart thing to do.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Expect they genuinely believed they could wing it on "herd immunity," quarantining fewer than two million of the most vulnerable as P.R., and writing off the rest as collateral damage to save the economy. Cummings was, according to the Sundays, obsessed with the idea.
> 
> Ironically, a compassionate, rigorous approach would've headed off the whole thing, and we'd now be going about our business with some minor inconveniences. The right thing to do was also the smart thing to do.


Yes, well Cummings will be a casualty in this, but whatever the truth of the stories, he is not the elected official who makes the decisions. That Johnson was ever seduced by that idea ought to be the story. They'll be hoping that sacking Cummings and shovelling shit all over him will save Johnson. It might.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Now then, where is the hard hitting advertising campaign?


We need to bring back those terrifying public information films from the 70s, of just make a Blindingly Obvious one:


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Ironically, a compassionate, rigorous approach would've headed off the whole thing, and we'd now be going about our business with some minor inconveniences.



Enough already with this unsafe claim. I've already talked to you about how countries who were successful at dealing with initial cases are nowhere near the endgame and in some cases are feeling the need to impose additional measures, or are very nervous about the weeks ahead. Maybe there will be fresh successes, but I would not try to sell any approach to anybody using claims that things can be solved with minimal inconvenience. And those countries are more likely to be doomed if many of their citizens share your complacency. Setbacks are a very real prospect!


----------



## bendeus (Mar 23, 2020)

eatmorecheese said:


> That was an extraordinary address by Johnson. Hair on my arms stood on end. He looked... He looked shit scared.


My thoughts exactly. He looked ragged, out of his depth and just plain terrified


----------



## belboid (Mar 23, 2020)

The idea that the man who came out with ‘operation last gasp’ was offended by the idea of herd immunity is a tad laughable.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes, well Cummings will be a casualty in this, but whatever the truth of the stories, he is not the elected official who makes the decisions. That Johnson was ever seduced by that idea ought to be the story. They'll be hoping that sacking Cummings and shovelling shit all over him will save Johnson. It might.


I'm most concerned with the CMO, Deputy CMO and Chief Scientist, any of whom could've put a stop to this at any time by threatening to resign and condemn the government. Especially the medical doctors, who used their Hippocratic Oaths as an Andrex substitute.


----------



## tonysingh (Mar 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes it fucking does, ffs.




OK, sorry. 

Did say it might have been a stupid question tbf.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim - there was something on the news before he was on where they had a q&a session with _someone_ (but which was _in the event of lockdown_, sorta thing) and she said that it was important that children didn't lose out on that and that you'd just manage it as sensibly as you could - drive if possible, if not walk.

There was actually another question re builders - I didn't hear exactly what the question was but the answer was that builders should _not_ be working!

With both those though, I'm not sure if that was just her interpretation of what various rules _should_ mean rather than her having anything to do with policy making or whatever.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

i'm amazed (well i'm not actually) that there wasn't detailed briefing document given out with far more details. Again - where the fuck was the contingency planning? And they have the experience of other countries lock down measures to draw on. I know johnsons is lazy clown with know head for detail - but there is an entire civil service at this fingertips to do the details. Back of an envelope stuff. Again.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

bendeus said:


> My thoughts exactly. He looked ragged, out of his depth and just plain terrified


I can't bring myself to watch it. But this doesn't surprise me. The absurdity of anyone thinking he was a 'leader' is one of the madnesses in this. They were slagging off May in the stories at the weekend, saying she would have been even worse, but I genuinely don't think so. She might have grasped things a little sooner, and might not have shat her pants over it.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 23, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Hardly rocket science, is it. And I'm sure pretty much every van rental company in the country would be glad of the opportunity to rent out vans.



Vans with refrigeration compartments are in somewhat shorter supply though


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

Maybe they plan to spend the rest of the week addressing all the ambiguities and unresolved questions. Its not how I would do it, but their approach seems to have been a constant dribble so far, so I suppose I expect that to continue. Maybe they will be more explicit about some further sorts of businesses that should close.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Enough already with this unsafe claim. I've already talked to you about how countries who were successful at dealing with initial cases are nowhere near the endgame and in some cases are feeling the need to impose additional measures, or are very nervous about the weeks ahead. Maybe there will be fresh successes, but I would not try to sell any approach to anybody using claims that things can be solved with minimal inconvenience. And those countries are more likely to be doomed if many of their citizens share your complacency. Setbacks are a very real prospect!


It referrs simply to where they are at present, and since it relies on constant vigilance, is the opposite of complacency! I see nothing unsafe about advocating exactly what the WHO and scores of leading epidemiologists advocate as best practice, and highlighting the extent of the government's failures depends on focusing on where they went wrong. Am saying no more than this op-ed from a public health professional . Certainly making no claims about when it'd be safe to ease the lockdown: have consistently said this will be uncertain until more data's collected.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> Vans with refrigeration compartments are in somewhat shorter supply though


Fair point, but you split deliveries - fridge stuff only in the fridge vans, everything else in the new, hired vans. There will be things they can do.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> It referrs simply to where they are at present, and since it relies on constant vigilance, is the opposite of complacency! I see nothing unsafe about advocating exactly what the WHO and scores of leading epidemiologists advocate as best practice, and highlighting the extent of the government's failures depends on focusing on where they went wrong. Am saying no more than this op-ed from a public health professional . Certainly making no claims about when it'd be safe to ease the lockdown: have consistently said this will be uncertain until more data's collected.



Well, I hold a similar position when it comes to following the WHO-recommended approach for now. And yet I find myself at odds with many of the things you say. I think its because when you say things like the following, its just the sort of boosterism that people hate Johnson for. "we'd now be going about our business with some minor inconveniences".


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

Combination of no support for self employed and the ambiguity of johnson's statement will very likely mean that many many tradespeople etc will carry on working. A friend of a friend who is a gardner has just said they will go to the work because otherwise they cant afford to live basically.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Maybe they plan to spend the rest of the week addressing all the ambiguities and unresolved questions. Its not how I would do it, but their approach seems to have been a constant dribble so far, so I suppose I expect that to continue. Maybe they will be more explicit about some further sorts of businesses that should close.


It's fucking shocking. Ministers are tweeting things different from what the Prime Minister just said. People don't know whether their boss is deciding whether going into work is 'necessary' (bosses seem to be assuming they are) or the government. Potentially millions of people don't know what the announcement means for them. It is utterly inexcusable.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Fair point, but you split deliveries - fridge stuff only in the fridge vans, everything else in the new, hired vans. There will be things they can do.



That's gotta be a way more complicated process for picking and packing and would then require TWO deliveries per household - can't see that helping much, tbf!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well, I hold a similar position when it comes to following the WHO-recommended approach for now. And yet I find myself at odds with many of the things you say. I think its because when you say things like the following, its just the sort of boosterism that people hate Johnson for. "we'd now be going about our business with some minor inconveniences".


Isn't it partly a case of not having had this before? The successes thus far (and I include China in this now it has fewer active cases than the UK with 50 times the population) have all had such scares before. We'll be better at it next time as well, no?


----------



## weltweit (Mar 23, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> Vans with refrigeration compartments are in somewhat shorter supply though


Indeed, hadn't thought of that .. 


littlebabyjesus said:


> Fair point, but you split deliveries - fridge stuff only in the fridge vans, everything else in the new, hired vans. There will be things they can do.


Certainly there will be ways of extending deliveries. 
I think also supermarkets may feel their driver routing hard and software may be a pain to integrate with new drivers who will have different systems. That isn't to say that it can't be done, just that it may be another issue to deal with. Perhaps Marty1 may know more?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> That's gotta be a way more complicated process for picking and packing and would then require TWO deliveries per household - can't see that helping much, tbf!


Well I've only just thought of it on the hoof tbf.  Would require a bit of IT to split products into 'fridge', 'no fridge' so that the orders come down to the packers already split up. It would be an arse, of course.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well, I hold a similar position when it comes to following the WHO-recommended approach for now. And yet I find myself at odds with many of the things you say. I think its because when you say things like the following, its just the sort of boosterism that people hate Johnson for. "we'd now be going about our business with some minor inconveniences".


I'll rephrase gladly, running through a lotta replies. Think it's a reaction to the waves of defeatism that've been crashing over us for last few weeks.

Certainly must be no complacency, and will be an extremely tense time until a vaccine's available, or Covid-19 goes the way of SARS, difficult as that is to see ATM. There's a realistic prospect of life getting significantly better if we follow best practice. No more than that.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 23, 2020)

Been working in the City (of London) and West End today.

Apart from the buiding sites ( which in central London are big) every else was quiet.

Was sitting in front of the National Gallery on Trafalgar square this morning. Hardly any people and then a group of tourists come along with a tour guide. They were wearing masks. But a surreal experience. As most of my day has been.

Roads were so empty that cycling was actually easy.

I saw a lot of homeless. They imo are in need of help. Was in Lincolns Inn Fields in the evening. The church groups normally go to Lincolns Inn in the evening to give food to them. They were not there this evening but some homeless were. They must be getting desparate.

I picked up the Evening Standard ( the only London wide paper) and saw on front page that Tory Matt Hancock "condemned the selfish actions of some people". This appeared to be that people were going to work on the tube and buses. What the Standard called "packed buses and tubes" on its front page.

He wanted to make clear "tougher" measures might be introduced.

What I saw was that use of public transport had gone down a lot.. My partner works at a school still open for key workers and uses the tube.She says compared to normal its empty.

Thing is the average Tory has no understanding of public transport use. What to me as a Londoner is big reduction in use does not look like that to a middle class Tory.

I found the Evening Standard front page article really offensive. Its always been a Tory rag. Its working up to support government introducing harsh measures.

That is how I read the front page. Its run by Osbourne.

The Evening Standard is doing its bit for the Tories using the well trusted individual failings / responsibility argument.

This is classic Thatcheite tactic used in a surreal way. Now getting off your arse and going to work is anti social. The flip side of Thatcherite extolling of individualism was the State cracking the whip. As happened in the 80s. Its the flip side of Neo Liberalism.

Im rather afraid the ramifications of this health crisis could lead to more heavy handed State with individuals blamed for any failings. Fined and shamed by the state. A move to Chinese style Capitalism.


----------



## xes (Mar 23, 2020)

So, on the government website 





						Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance and support
					

Find information on coronavirus, including guidance and support.




					www.gov.uk
				




it says, and I quote. 


> Only go outside for food, health reasons or essential work



On that page is a link to Full guidance.
which gives you this





						[Withdrawn] Staying at home and away from others (social distancing)
					






					www.gov.uk
				





> Travelling to and from work, but only where this absolutely cannot be done from home



WTAF!


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 23, 2020)

a_chap said:


> No idea if this is the right thread: there are so many Covid19 threads it's confusing for a bear of little brain like me.
> 
> I'm thinking of printing a leaflet and posting it through the letterboxes of the neighbours of the streets around me (it's about 3 dozen houses) offering to help anyone that's struggling due to self-isolation or illness. Things like trying to source groceries/supplies if they're running short.
> 
> Any helpful suggestions for me? I don't want to make things worse but equally I can't ignore the fact that people withing a few hundred yards of me might be in difficulty.



Look on Facebook for local mutual aid groups. If there’s not one, read up and consider starting one.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 23, 2020)

Managements will say - keep at it, workers will wonder should I be here .. until there is clarity from Government this will continue .. 

Is it another nudge issue where Gov don't want to spell it out for some reason?


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Isn't it partly a case of not having had this before? The successes thus far (and I include China in this now it has fewer active cases than the UK with 50 times the population) have all had such scares before. We'll be better at it next time as well, no?



I spent way more time than it was healthy to spend on that side of the topic in the last 10 days. I think I used the word orthodox about a billion times. I went on about how our approach was the same as the EU approach, all that stuff. And yes, learning the lessons from SARS came up too, although I have not repeated myself too much on that subject yet. Lets see if Canada learnt from their SARS problem.

Frankly I expect so many nations to be so changed by this pandemic that I find it hard to zoom in on any particular future detail prediction. Priorities might never be quite the same again. But since we dont know how big or how long or what interventions will stand the test of time or what options might arrive later with game-changing effect, its hard to know all the lessons that will be learnt from this pandemic, or how quickly they might start to fade. And we dont know what forces will seize what opportunities, the world order was already in an unstable phase, climate and energy issues already meant systemic change was on the cards, and quite how these things will interplay with each other is anybodies guess.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Fair point, but you split deliveries - fridge stuff only in the fridge vans, everything else in the new, hired vans. There will be things they can do.



Of course. The big supermarkets are essentially gigantic logistics operations, and they've all got loads of institutional expertise on hand. The pace of events is testing them, but if even they can't manage this then we are all fucked anyway.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Managements will say - keep at it, workers will wonder should I be here .. until there is clarity from Government this will continue ..
> 
> Is it another nudge issue where Gov don't want to spell it out for some reason?


I think we should all give up attempting to ascribe some hidden competence to them. We got the worst possible government for a national emergency and we're all going to pay the price.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 23, 2020)

xes said:


> So, on the government website
> 
> 
> 
> ...



good spot. none of the media have picked up on this yet. all falling into line with the government. Could be that when millions of tradespeople head of to work tomorrow the media will work itself into a lather blaming them and the restrictions will be clarified /tightened. The ambiguity may even be deliberate to keep the economy going a bit longer - pretty much like all of their haphazard responses (dont go to the pub/pub can stay open - etc) .


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> I spent way more time than it was healthy to spend on that side of the topic in the last 10 days. I think I used the word orthodox about a billion times. I went on about how our approach was the same as the EU approach, all that stuff. And yes, learning the lessons from SARS came up too, although I have not repeated myself too much on that subject yet. Lets see if Canada learnt from their SARS problem.
> 
> Frankly I expect so many nations to be so changed by this pandemic that I find it hard to zoom in on any particular future detail prediction. Priorities might never be quite the same again. But since we dont know how big or how long or what interventions will stand the test of time or what options might arrive later with game-changing effect, its hard to know all the lessons that will be learnt from this pandemic, or how quickly they might start to fade. And we dont know what forces will seize what opportunities, the world order was already in an unstable phase, climate and energy issues already meant systemic change was on the cards, and quite how these things will interplay with each other is anybodies guess.


Fair enough, but I will add that if (and of course it's only _if_) CV19 slacks off in June like regular flu does, the likes of South Korea are almost bound to come out of it having taken the correct approach compared to, say, the whole of Europe and the US.


----------



## xes (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> good spot. none of the media have picked up on this yet. all falling into line with the government. Could be that when millions of tradespeople head of to work tomorrow the media will work itself into a lather blaming them and the restrictions will be clarified /tightened. The ambiguity may even be deliberate to keep the economy going a bit longer - pretty much like all of their haphazard responses (dont go to the pub/pub can stay open - etc) .


bonkers innit.


----------



## T & P (Mar 23, 2020)

This is how the prize cunts at the Telegraph-or at least the subeditor on duty right now have chosen to headline tonight’s measures


The fucking cunts just don’t get it do they


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

xes said:


> bonkers innit.


Every time they ramp things up, they fuck it up. It's almost admirable that they can be so consistent.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I think we should all give up attempting to ascribe some hidden competence to them. We got the worst possible government for a national emergency and we're all going to pay the price.


Absolutely. If they were some kinda Machiavellian braintrust, they wouldn't have acted as they did. They're spivs who winged it, got caught out, and here we are.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

T & P said:


> This is how the prize cunts at the Telegraph-or at least the subeditor on duty right now have chosen to headline tonight’s measures
> 
> View attachment 203022
> The fucking cunts just don’t get it do they


That's extraordinary. It's like the rest of the world just doesn't exist.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 23, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> That's gotta be a way more complicated process for picking and packing and would then require TWO deliveries per household - can't see that helping much, tbf!



It's doable though. Massive hyperbole, but Operations Overlord and Bagration? The Apollo program? I respectfully suggest that double deliveries from Tesco is not that big a deal.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Fair enough, but I will add that if (and of course it's only _if_) CV19 slacks off in June like regular flu does, the likes of South Korea are almost bound to come out of it having taken the correct approach compared to, say, the whole of Europe and the US.



Our approach sucked, I'm not defending it. I look to countries who took a different approach with interest, but I wont be celebrating their achievements until more time has passed to see if they can hold those gains.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Mar 23, 2020)

I was hoping that as I do switchboard/admin support role at a major care charity, that my job might be considered essential. But just got a text from my manager saying not to come in.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 23, 2020)

Tourism in a Pandemic. I was sitting in front of National gallery in Trafalgar Square and this small group with a tour guide came along. Im not going to criticize. It felt like a scene out of a Ballard novel.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Our approach sucked, I'm not defending it. I look to countries who took a different approach with interest, but I wont be celebrating their achievements until more time has passed to see if they can hold those gains.


We can surely celebrate their achievements to date without slipping into complacency or undue certainty for the future?

I'm particularly worried that, if cases drop off here as they've begun to in Italy, the lockdown will be relaxed without the necessary surveillance and suppression systems being put in place, and we'll get another outbreak. Either out of irrational optimism, or fatalism having been driven up the wall with cabin fever. If people think the lockdown alone's the solution, we're in an extremely dangerous place. If I praise other models excessively, it's motivated by the determination to avoid that horrific scenario.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 23, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> Vans with refrigeration compartments are in somewhat shorter supply though


That's what these are for.





						Polystyrene Cooler Boxes | Davpack
					

Great value polystyrene cooler boxes for effective temperature controlled insulation, ideal for use in the food industry and transportation of medical supplies.



					www.davpack.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Absolutely. If they were some kinda Machiavellian braintrust, they wouldn't have acted as they did. They're spivs who winged it, got caught out, and here we are.


I almost agree. I think they are good at much of the Machiavellian stuff. That's how they got into power. But their skill lies purely in plotting and getting into power. That's where the skill abruptly ends. That's why Johnson is now shitting himself - he's just realised that the bullshit routine doesn't work in this situation, but he doesn't have anything else. 

For instance, he's only just realised that bigging himself and his govt up is inappropriate in this situation. He was doing it up to, well, today, really. That's not what leaders do.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 23, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> The ambiguity may even be deliberate to keep the economy going a bit longer - pretty much like all of their haphazard responses (dont go to the pub/pub can stay open - etc) .


I'm sure that's it.
Was Johnson whose Brexit policy was Cake and eat it. Same thing here


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 23, 2020)

friendofdorothy said:


> I was hoping that as I do switchboard/admin support role at a major care charity, that my job might be considered essential. But just got a text from my manager saying not to come in.



I hope you are still being paid?


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 23, 2020)

As an ordinary Joe out in the epicentre I find all this talk of unquestioned surveillance etc rather distubing.

At end of my day in the City I ended up in reception of one of the big office blocks. Now inhabited by two security guards and a receptionist.

I had picked up some computer equipment for the IT guy from someone working at home.

IT and postroom staff plus security are still manning City office blocks. Its needed. Home working needs a support from a central site. 

Had a chat with the night security. One said this country must all pull together to defeat this health crisis.

We had interesting chat. I did say the rich in London have left. This country does not pull together. That all talk of "us" is an illusion.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> We can surely celebrate their achievements to date without slipping into complacency or undue certainty for the future?
> 
> I'm particularly worried that, if cases drop off here as they've begun to in Italy, the lockdown will be relaxed without the necessary surveillance and suppression systems being put in place, and we'll get another outbreak. Either out of irrational optimism, or fatalism having been driven up the wall with cabin fever. If people think the lockdown alone's the solution, we're in an extremely dangerous place. If I praise other models excessively, it's motivated by the determination to avoid that horrific scenario.


We've got to look at what's working surely. Korea now has fewer active cases than the UK. As does China. The Chinese model maybe cannot be copied in its entirety, but it can be adapted. Right back in January, New Scientist magazine went out on a limb in its editorial, praising China's approach to its crisis while the rest of the media was widely condemning it. I think we can say now that NS was right in the things it praised.


----------



## agricola (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I almost agree. I think they are good at much of the Machiavellian stuff. That's how they got into power. But their skill lies purely in plotting and getting into power. That's where the skill abruptly ends. That's why Johnson is now shitting himself - he's just realised that the bullshit routine doesn't work in this situation, but he doesn't have anything else.
> 
> For instance, he's only just realised that bigging himself and his govt up is inappropriate in this situation. He was doing it up to, well, today, really. That's not what leaders do.



Not even sure they have that Machiavellian skill, to be honest.  In December they were up against someone who (rightly or wrongly) terrified the money and so had all the support it is possible for someone to get in British politics, and before that (still enjoying overwhelming support) they were up against possibly the least qualified PM and selection of candidate PMs imaginable.  Even then they almost messed both of them up.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 23, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Iirc in Spain you are allowed out for a haircut.


And a hairdressers' union was up in arms about it!


----------



## Humberto (Mar 23, 2020)

Inevitably: 'The government should sort it'. If people won't fucking listen, what can the government do? Apart from use physical force? At what point do you point the blame at the stupid peevish boneheads who bought all the toilet roll or who go to the beach to display their defiance? This country is fucking shit, and they keep voting for shit.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

agricola said:


> Not even sure they have that Machiavellian skill, to be honest.  In December they were up against someone who (rightly or wrongly) terrified the money and so had all the support it is possible for someone to get in British politics, and before that (still enjoying overwhelming support) they were up against possibly the least qualified PM and selection of candidate PMs imaginable.  Even then they almost messed both of them up.


Fair points. Still, Johnson got himself in as PM with a good majority, having previously been mayor of london and foreign sec. For someone with no discernible competence in anything to do with public service, he's done alright.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 23, 2020)

Plaid Cymru are onto the lack of clarity/ambiguity/massive cock-up thing over what he meant by who can go to work and have written to Johnson.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Plaid Cymru are onto the lack of clarity/ambiguity/massive cock-up thing over what he meant by who can go to work and have written to Johnson.


Oh yeah. The opposition. It's not just Jeremy Cunt, is it? I know it's tricky for an opposition in this situation, but kinell.


----------



## T & P (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That's extraordinary. It's like the rest of the world just doesn't exist.


Or that while it’s all very well for Johnny Foreigner to accept such restrictions on ‘freedom’, it is an affront to an Englishman regardless of the situation.

Cunts.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We've got to look at what's working surely. Korea now has fewer active cases than the UK. As does China. The Chinese model maybe cannot be copied in its entirety, but it can be adapted. Right back in January, New Scientist magazine went out on a limb in its editorial, praising China's approach to its crisis while the rest of the media was widely condemning it. I think we can say now that NS was right in the things it praised.


(Channelling Teal'c) Indeed. 

Everyone focused on the initial cover-up, but didn't pay enough attention to the fact that Beijing lost their shit when they grasped what they were dealing with. Was too much mocking them for being draconian, and not enough asking why they were so scared, and what we should do to stop it happening here.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We've got to look at what's working surely. Korea now has fewer active cases than the UK. As does China. The Chinese model maybe cannot be copied in its entirety, but it can be adapted. Right back in January, New Scientist magazine went out on a limb in its editorial, praising China's approach to its crisis while the rest of the media was widely condemning it. I think we can say now that NS was right in the things it praised.



Who is the "we"? 

After being out and about in the epicentre for past month I don't think there is a "we".

I don't have any say in this. I don't feel part of whatever "we" is.


----------



## moochedit (Mar 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Managements will say - keep at it, workers will wonder should I be here .. until there is clarity from Government this will continue ..



My boss has sent us all an all staff email saying stay at home until he gets some clarification about it. It is all a bit confusing.


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Fair points. Still, Johnson got himself in as PM with a good majority, having previously been mayor of london and foreign sec. For someone with no discernible competence in anything to do with public service, he's done alright.



Done alright? Insincere, supremacist cuntery. The more he speaks, the worse he gets.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Indeed, hadn't thought of that ..
> 
> Certainly there will be ways of extending deliveries.
> I think also supermarkets may feel their driver routing hard and software may be a pain to integrate with new drivers who will have different systems. That isn't to say that it can't be done, just that it may be another issue to deal with. Perhaps Marty1 may know more?



I think traditional supermarket/grocery suppliers could work with existing dedicated delivery/courier companies to outsource final mile delivery of essential  goods to customers.

Amazon logistics as an immediate example could imo easily and quickly scale up to fulfil this type of demand and also companies like DHL, DPD etc as they also have their own in-house navigation systems in place.

Edit: Amazon Flex already do grocery deliveries for Morrison’s albeit on a small scale currently.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Who is the "we"?
> 
> After being out and about in the epicentre for past month I don't think there is a "we".
> 
> I don't have any say in this. I don't feel part of whatever "we" is.


The 'we' is anyone who read the NS editorial. Their praise was for the seriousness China was paying to it, the enormous logistic, medical and scientific effort they had instigated, the way they were getting things under control, and also (and this wasn't being mentioned elsewhere at the time) the way they had thrown their data and science open to the world. Afaik they are still doing this last bit, sending scientists to Italy, for instance.  And that will have to be the model from now on - total open international cooperation and collaboration. If anything good comes from this mess, that will be it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Part-timah said:


> Done alright? Insincere, supremacist cuntery. The more he speaks, the worse he gets.


He's a total cunt. But he's done alright in terms of getting himself jobs. I'm talking about absolutely nothing other than his ability to get himself into positions.


----------



## agricola (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Fair points. Still, Johnson got himself in as PM with a good majority, having previously been mayor of london and foreign sec. For someone with no discernible competence in anything to do with public service, he's done alright.



He did, but the support he has always enjoyed allowed him to define that - mere office-holding - as success, especially when the support ensures the nearly complete obscuring of what he actually did whilst he held the role.  The almost total lack of his record with the Met for example.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And that will have to be the model from now on - total open international cooperation and collaboration. If anything good comes from this mess, that will be it.



Like in _The Martian_


----------



## Azrael (Mar 23, 2020)

Speaking of which, can Whitehall please join those damn European conference calls now?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

agricola said:


> He did, but the support he has always enjoyed allowed him to define that - mere office-holding - as success, especially when the support ensures the nearly complete obscuring of what he actually did whilst he held the role.  The almost total lack of his record with the Met for example.


Yes, of course I'm not suggesting different. It is a very narrow, and time-limited, definition of success.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The 'we' is anyone who read the NS editorial. Their praise was for the seriousness China was paying to it, the enormous logistic, medical and scientific effort they had instigated, the way they were getting things under control, and also (and this wasn't being mentioned elsewhere at the time) the way they had thrown their data and science open to the world. Afaik they are still doing this last bit, sending scientists to Italy, for instance.  And that will have to be the model from now on - total open international cooperation and collaboration. If anything good comes from this mess, that will be it.



Well I haven't. Sorry I dont buy the NS. So this "we" is in fact a minority.

You can count me out the "we".

Im just one of the people who have been moving people out of the City to home working. Whose been posting up direct exeperience. Not going on about NS articles.

My personal experience of the last month leads me to think nothing good will come of this.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Well I haven't. Sorry I dont buy the NS. So this "we" is in fact a minority.
> 
> You can count me out the "we".
> 
> ...


whatever.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 23, 2020)

agricola said:


> He did, but the support he has always enjoyed allowed him to define that - mere office-holding - as success, especially when the support ensures the nearly complete obscuring of what he actually did whilst he held the role.  The almost total lack of his record with the Met for example.


He didn't really engage with the Met or the RMT. Huge failure. But it was always distressing working alongside how much people warmed to him.


----------



## T & P (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That's extraordinary. It's like the rest of the world just doesn't exist.


Sorry to rant on about this, but I see that we can’t even blame it on an unsupervised sub putting something up on the online version that would have been changed in an hour anyway. They’ve made it the print edition’s main front page headline!


----------



## WouldBe (Mar 23, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> There are also issues with needing to spend a certain amount ...


Morrisons want you to spend £40. Doesn't appear to be an option to pay for delivery if you spend less than that. I would have to buy 2 weeks of food at a time. Also they don't have the same range as in the shops so would have to go to the shop to get missing bits.


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 23, 2020)

moochedit said:


> My boss has sent us all an all staff email saying stay at home until he gets some clarification about it. It is all a bit confusing.


mrs mx got an email from the CEO, after the announcement, telling her to go work tomorrow as normal.  The company does an essential service.  But if they had got their act together, support staff like mrs mx could have been working from home a week ago, like I've been doing.  I'm furious. Plan is, she goes in tomorrow, gets everything she needs (computer files etc) then gets the fuck home, and stays here.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> whatever.



FUCK OFF.

Ive been working my bollox off getting people out of the City. Was told today Im out of a job at end of week.

GO FUCK YOURSELF you complacent piece of shit.

Fucking cunt. What do you know.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> We can surely celebrate their achievements to date without slipping into complacency or undue certainty for the future?
> 
> I'm particularly worried that, if cases drop off here as they've begun to in Italy, the lockdown will be relaxed without the necessary surveillance and suppression systems being put in place, and we'll get another outbreak. Either out of irrational optimism, or fatalism having been driven up the wall with cabin fever. If people think the lockdown alone's the solution, we're in an extremely dangerous place. If I praise other models excessively, it's motivated by the determination to avoid that horrific scenario.



OK maybe celebrate was the wrong word.

I suppose my point is that I have the luxury of not needing to judge that stuff yet, I can wait a while to see how those countries cope with the next weeks because the UK already blew its first opportunities to try that approach, and it will be some time before it gets another opportunity to try it. If that time ever comes at all, for the WHO are aware that all manner of supplies get used up by the rigorous approaches those countries took, and that this may be hard to sustain without herculean efforts on the production and distribution side.

Plus, to be honest, I'm not trying to think too far ahead with the UK's approach because we are entering a very bleak period, and what happens to the health service in that time will have an impact on how people feel about everything. I dont want to assume exactly how the public and political sentiments will pan out, so I have to wait.

Its certainly too early to say that Italy is turning a corner, the signs in the data are very tentative and more days data is required before they really dare to hope. Plus they tightened their measures further very recently. If complacency and too much relaxing of measures becomes an issue, its one thats currently too far away for me to contemplate properly.


----------



## weepiper (Mar 23, 2020)

I work in a small bike repair shop. We had already instigated some distancing/self protection measures, including not allowing customers over the threshold, card payments only, spray disinfecting bikes that come in, handing bikes out at the door. We had an insanely busy weekend and everyone independently came to the conclusion that despite our efforts it is not safe for us to remain open. My brother (who is one of the owners) nearly punched a guy who literally tried to barge past him into the shop despite being told today. He had to physically shove him outside. We were expecting to close tomorrow anyway so it was frankly a relief to hear that all nonessential retail is required to close. Except now I have seen that bicycle shops are on the official list of exemptions. Now what do we do?


----------



## MickiQ (Mar 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Looking for an official summary of the rules. Best i can find includes
> 
> "travelling to and from work, but only if you cannot work from home."
> 
> ...


Plumbers and Electricians not key workers? So what happens someone gets a gas leak or a water leak in the next three weeks? It's OK just don't smoke or stick a bucket under it?
The fusebox goes out or the boiler? You've got to stay at home because you're vulnerable and the virus might kill you but you'll freeze to death because no-one is allowed to come and fix your boiler or you can't cook hot food because no-one will come and fix the cooker.
Are mechanics not allowed to go to work so anyone who breaks down just abandons their car and walks home?
If the blast furnaces in Scunthorpe are allowed to cool it will take a fortune to fire them up again and may not be financially worth it.
Same for a LOT of production lines, the longer they are completely shut down then the costlier it gets to restart them plus the number of people that the Govt will end up paying 80% of the wages for is going to shoot up.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> FUCK OFF.
> 
> Ive been working my bollox off getting people out of the City. Was told today Im out of a job at end of week.
> 
> GO FUCK YOURESLF you complacent piece of shit.


You have no idea what i've been doing. All I was posting about was an article I'd read a couple of months ago. But you get arsey and imply that, because I want to talk about that article, it shows I'm not doing anything else. So fuck off yourself. You know nothing about me.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You have no idea what i've been doing. All I was posting about was an article I'd read a couple of months ago. But you get arsey and imply that, because I want to talk about that article, it shows I'm not doing anything else. So fuck off yourself. You know nothing about me.



FUCK OFF


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> FUCK OFF CUNT


whatever


----------



## ska invita (Mar 23, 2020)

weepiper said:


> . Now what do we do?


Whatever you want I guess... Sounds like you were wanting to close, so ....

Is it possible for you to post the list of exemptions please? Id like to read that


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Ive been working my bollox off getting people out of the City. Was told today Im out of a job at end of week.



Mate, I’m so sorry to hear that.

Im hoping you can get back into work quickly, maybe fulfilling new demands from the supermarkets needing delivery drivers?


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 24, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Are mechanics not allowed to go to work so anyone who breaks down just abandons their car and walks home?



I've got the car booked in for its MOT on Thursday.  I guess that's not going to happen.  Not a disaster - we have another car, and it's not like we'll be going further than Sainsburys for the next few weeks.  I'll ring the garage tomorrow and see if they are open.  Personally, I'd rather just stay at home - the car is off road.  Do I need to do a SORN?  Does anyone care about that sort of thing atm?


----------



## weepiper (Mar 24, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Whatever you want I guess... Sounds like you were wanting to close, so ....
> 
> Is it possible for you to post the list of exemptions please? Id like to read that


It's here



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/874732/230320_-_Revised_guidance_note_-_finalVF.pdf…
		


Edit, that link doesn't seem to work for some reason. Here's the tweet I got directed there from


----------



## ska invita (Mar 24, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> I've got the car booked in for its MOT on Thursday.  I guess that's not going to happen.  Not a disaster - we have another car, and it's not like we'll be going further than Sainsburys for the next few weeks.  I'll ring the garage tomorrow and see if they are open.  Personally, I'd rather just stay at home - the car is off road.  Do I need to do a SORN?  Does anyone care about that sort of thing atm?


Saw elsewhere MOTs are continuing, but that was earlier today


----------



## Azrael (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> OK maybe celebrate was the wrong word.
> 
> I suppose my point is that I have the luxury of not needing to judge that stuff yet, I can wait a while to see how those countries cope with the next weeks because the UK already blew its first opportunities to try that approach, and it will be some time before it gets another opportunity to try it. If that time ever comes at all, for the WHO are aware that all manner of supplies get used up by the rigorous approaches those countries took, and that this may be hard to sustain without herculean efforts on the production and distribution side.
> 
> ...


Fair enough. I'm simply looking ahead because, to set up anything close to a comprehensive surveillance and suppression programme within the next three weeks, we must start immediately: regardless of the length of any extension, knowing progress was being made may help people bear it. We can't endure any more delays. I notice that even the _Telegraph_ is now promoting mass testing, so there's realistic hope this can now happen.

Couldn't agree more about Italy. Other countries have of course had unexpected spikes. More we prepare now, better equipped we'll be to face the unexpected.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> all a bit unsure about this down here for now, ie :  going to drive 2 + miles ( back lanes only ) with son for long awaited sunny surf in the morning, + v much hoping not too many others will. or we'll get kyboshed  for the rest of the week /next 3


Stay at home! For fuck's sake. Even Urbs! You're normally the ones I can trust.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 24, 2020)

weepiper said:


> It's here
> 
> 
> 
> https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/874732/230320_-_Revised_guidance_note_-_finalVF.pdf…


Thanks a lot
Link slightly broken, two dots on the end there btw



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/874732/230320_-_Revised_guidance_note_-_finalVF.pdf


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 24, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Plumbers and Electricians not key workers?



Sparks and plumbers are key workers. I can't remember where I saw it/heard it - complete avalanche of info innit - but they are.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Saw elsewhere MOTs are continuing, but that was earlier today


I would have thought that a temp extension to all MOT certs would not be beyond their wit to arrange. So if you're due one in the next month, you're ok.


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Mate, I’m so sorry to hear that.
> 
> Im hoping you can get back into work quickly, maybe fulfilling new demands from the supermarkets needing delivery drivers?



Its not 100% that all being let go. Ive started looking. I cycle don't drive. It the cyclists that are not needed in City anymore.

Whether couriers are key workers or not is a grey area. Some kind of courier service will be needed even if total lockdown happens.

Ive worked for years. Im not used to the new job market. They want full CV for a warehouse job. Chatting to friend at work. He had been going to supermarkets last weekend asking for work filling shelves. Told he had to apply online. That is new world for me and some of my mates.

London was always a place where one could find something something. Just by walking around. Even if it was not that great. Now everything is closing down.

This is a first for London.

Only working jobs ( in City and West End) still going full on are construction. For some reason all the builidng sites are still operating at full steam.

How is it in your area?


----------



## ska invita (Mar 24, 2020)

Mentions garages staying open... So MOT remains on I think


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> He didn't really engage with the Met or the RMT. Huge failure. But it was always distressing working alongside how much people warmed to him.



I wish he hadn't engaged with the Met - if he hadn't, then less damage would have been done.   The old Hendon would be really useful right about now.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Its not 100% that all being let go. Ive started looking. I cycle don't drive. It the cyclists that are not needed in City anymore.
> 
> Ive worked for years. Im not used to the new job market.
> 
> ...



It’s an unreal situation for sure.

I’m working tomorrow and up to this point think that Amazon will be operating as usual as they sell food, beverages and essential items allowing them to fit the criteria to continue operating under these new restrictions.

If anything Amazon will be matching if not exceeding the kind of volume traditionally expected at Xmas peak, it’s just feels completely bizarre going out on the roads under these circumstances and health risks.


----------



## stereotypical (Mar 24, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> What a weird time to be living in. Is anyone else keeping a diary? Historians have asked people to keep paper diaries for future study. How will they know if your work is essential? Self definition?



Yes been vlogging daily for over a week and my gf (frontline NHS nurse) is keeping a daily journal. Helping us both to get through it and I figure it's important to document this all.


----------



## Indeliblelink (Mar 24, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Mentions garages staying open... So MOT remains on I think



There's a retail park near me with an Aldi, a B&Q and a Pets at Home, so they'll all be open tomorrow according that list. Not much of a lockdown.


----------



## AverageJoe (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Fair point, but you split deliveries - fridge stuff only in the fridge vans, everything else in the new, hired vans. There will be things they can do.



There's also all the refridge lorries that don't have to deliver to schools, airports, ferries, football clubs, casinos, restaurants, Greggs, McDonald's etc that are available. A friend of mine works in Logistics for someone like 365, and their trucks are being taken by the government to get ready to deliver to shops and to vulnerable people, using Army drivers where necessary.

Don't forget that the Army won't necessarily backing up the curfew with a visual gun presence. They'll be distributing the food, supporting the police, ambulance and fire crews, and probably providing security and hospital work too.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 24, 2020)

ska invita said:


> View attachment 203031
> 
> Mentions garages staying open... So MOT remains on I think



What's so important about bike shops that they get mentioned twice?


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Indeliblelink said:


> There's a retail park near me with an Aldi, a B&Q and a Pets at Home, so they'll all be open tomorrow according that list. Not much of a lockdown.


I got get a bike mot!


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> What's so important about bike shops that they get mentioned twice?


bikes
are cool in a way that cars can rarely be.


----------



## clicker (Mar 24, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> What's so important about bike shops that they get mentioned twice?


Look once, look twice, think bike.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 24, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> How is it in your area?



OMG you might have to have a CV, and apply online. Fucking get a grip. You post on a message board - that puts you _wildly_ ahead of many people in terms of dealing with the job situation. For some individuals it has literally taken me years to get to them to the level where they can mostly deal with the DWP online stuff on their own. Fucks sake


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> He's a total cunt. But he's done alright in terms of getting himself jobs. I'm talking about absolutely nothing other than his ability to get himself into positions.



Upper middle class with some blue blood —> Eton —> Oxford + Bullingdon = Power on a plate


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> What's so important about bike shops that they get mentioned twice?


If unicycle shops were mentioned once, it makes perfect sense.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 24, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> OMG you might have to have a CV, and apply online. Fucking get a grip. You post on a message board - that puts you _wildly_ ahead of many people in terms of dealing with the job situation. For some individuals it has literally taken me years to get to them to the level where they can mostly deal with the DWP online stuff on their own. Fucks sake


have some more fucking sympathy/empathy then!


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> have some more fucking sympathy/empathy then!



How's your stress levels at the moment? Sorry Gramsci - totally unfair of me and I really do know better


----------



## ddraig (Mar 24, 2020)

pretty high, did wonder, take care


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Its not 100% that all being let go. Ive started looking. I cycle don't drive. It the cyclists that are not needed in City anymore.
> 
> Whether couriers are key workers or not is a grey area. Some kind of courier service will be needed even if total lockdown happens.
> 
> ...


Good luck comrade.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> How's your stress levels at the moment? Sorry Gramsci - totally unfair of me and I really do know better


Come on. On any spectrum of stress thats not nice or kind or supportive.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

clicker said:


> Look once, look twice, think bike.


That was a terrifying public information film. What was that fuckers name punching his fist. Shaw fucking Taylor? Was it him..


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

I'm registered now with the local volunteer person. No news of food parcels. I would rather Amazon eats not compo rations in thick tins.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I'm registered now with the local volunteer person. No news of food parcels. I would rather Amazon eats not compo rations in thick tins.


She is very sweet and has no budget at all.


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2020)

clicker said:


> Look once, look twice, think bike.




*sorry but this clip came to hand and thought might provide a nano second of levity amongst all the horrible news


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Come on. On any spectrum of stress thats not nice or kind or supportive.



Uh-huh.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> What would you like to call it?
> 
> The disease is called Covid-19 in humans, but that name has blatantly failed to catch on, leading to more and more entities using the name that is in broadest use, which is coronavirus. I know its too vague, but thats sort of irrelevant in the grand scheme of how humans actually end up adopting words.
> 
> SARS-CoV-2 is the name of the virus, but thats a mouthful and has SARS in it so that didnt exactly catch on either.



this is causing confusion where I am, we received testing kits but they were then disregarded as they had “SARS” on them and it was thought they were from the previous SARS mitigation programs


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Come on. On any spectrum of stress thats not nice or kind or supportive.



A genuine apology from me (literally sat at my computer cringing at my behaviour) and now there's someone rushing in to spread a little sanctimony. Well, great.


----------



## 5t3IIa (Mar 24, 2020)

Am thinking about prep for my Keyworker Travel to/from work, and what I’ll say if *I get pulled over for travelling *😳 Got my work photo ID and driving license to hand. Plus I can name drop at least two police persons I work with. Uhm ☹️


----------



## MrCurry (Mar 24, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I gather most people are confined to home in France and Italy following suit. Us next?





killer b said:


> by the middle of next week IMO



Boom!  

Smartarses.....


----------



## 5t3IIa (Mar 24, 2020)

Fine for travelling = £30! Just in from Today programme.


----------



## Anju (Mar 24, 2020)

Out for morning dog walk now and it's pretty busy on the roads. Sat in a park next to a building site with workers arriving and delivery in progress. 

Selco, builders merchant, closed but Screwfix open for click and collect. 

Not sure the first day is going to go well.


----------



## LDC (Mar 24, 2020)

My friend in the house opposite has just left for work at a building site after getting a call from his boss saying he's expecting him in today. FFS.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Mar 24, 2020)

Anju said:


> Selco, builders merchant, closed but Screwfix open for click and collect.
> 
> Not sure the first day is going to go well.



On my 5.30am run, I saw slightly less, but still quite a few, working men awaiting a pick up, coffee or Red Bull and a fag on the go. They'll all be self-employed, if not cash in hand and can't stop working unless someone pays them, or I guess, makes them stop


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 24, 2020)

Looking out the window I just saw the bus go by and it was full. I bet they're not going to the bloody park.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My friend in the house opposite has just left for work at a building site after getting a call from his boss saying he's expecting him in today. FFS.



Yep, full steam ahead apparently:


----------



## BigTom (Mar 24, 2020)

That's just fucked really. I can imagine some sites would need a day or two to weather proof and tie down a building site but continuing as normal? Can't see how it could be considered essential.


----------



## Athos (Mar 24, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> A friend of mine works in Logistics for someone like 365, and their trucks are being taken by the government to get ready to deliver to shops and to vulnerable people...



Makeshift morgues more like.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 24, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> hmm - like a lot of people i co-parent - 2 young kids (5and7) half the time at mine, half at mums. need clarity about weather they have to stay in one place or can still go inbetween.



They added a foot note:

"Any medical need, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person***"

***Where applicable, this includes moving children under 18 between their parents’ homes.


----------



## A380 (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> Not even sure they have that Machiavellian skill, to be honest.  In December they were up against someone who (rightly or wrongly) terrified the money and so had all the support it is possible for someone to get in British politics, and before that (still enjoying overwhelming support) they were up against possibly the least qualified PM and selection of candidate PMs imaginable.  Even then they almost messed both of them up.



This ^ the Tory campaign was shit. It’s only because a. The full weight of capital swung behind them, and b. the Labour campaign was, unbelievably, even more shit they won.

I don’t believe in karma, but BoJo is challenging that for me with his terrified face. Now we are s asLimits on a war footing,  long before the grownups in the Conservative Party take action against this new Chamberlain?


----------



## prunus (Mar 24, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> They added a foot note:
> 
> "Any medical need, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person***"
> 
> ***Where applicable, this includes moving children under 18 between their parents’ homes.



Thanks; your link is broken though, would you be able to fix it? I could do with passing this on officially to some people. Thanks.


----------



## LDC (Mar 24, 2020)

Just heard a doctor on Radio 4, she was good. Said stop quibbling about the clarity of the guidance, just stop going out unless you absolutely have to. She sounded close to tears, has colleagues in their 30s in ICU.

I agree with her, I think some people are making this more complicated than it needs to be, and are creating more confusion and problems. It's not a thing to 'game' or try and beat, it's about people's lives, not getting an extra trip to the shops in for your own benefit.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just heard a doctor on Radio 4, she was good. Said stop quibbling about the clarity of the guidance, just stop going out unless you absolutely have to. She sounded close to tears, has colleagues in their 30s in ICU.
> 
> I agree with her, I think some people are making this more complicated than it needs to be, and are creating more confusion and problems.


That's all very well but if you have a boss you can't necessarily make the decision for yourself. Now would be a bad time to get the sack.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 24, 2020)

Pob just saying they’ll make sports direct shut their doors, as it’s not essential retail


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 24, 2020)

Tube this morning apparently: 



source


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Stay at home! For fuck's sake. Even Urbs! You're normally the ones I can trust.



am unlikely to come within 10 m of another human during this ‘ exercise ‘.

Meanwhile, the tube this a.m...


----------



## xes (Mar 24, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Tube this morning apparently:
> 
> View attachment 203049
> 
> source


----------



## Numbers (Mar 24, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Tube this morning apparently:
> 
> View attachment 203049
> 
> source


Shocking, it was on GMB.

I feel sorry for those people.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 24, 2020)

Michael Gove, when asked just how far people can go on their once a day permitted walk/run: ""people can go for the standard length of walk and run they would have done".

Some people's "standard length" is bloody miles!


----------



## Gramsci (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> whatever



Sorry for losing it with you last night. I do apologize. Im not normally like this.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 24, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Tube this morning apparently:
> 
> View attachment 203049
> 
> source


You would _hope _that many of those are wasted journeys and once they get to work they'll be told to go home, and it'll be a lot less busy tomorrow.

Problem of announcing it in the evening, no-one knows what that means for work the next morning. Yes, most of them are probably "non-essential", but what are the people who control their wages going to say?


----------



## hash tag (Mar 24, 2020)

But we are allowed out to put a brick through one of Mike Ashleys windows?








						Sports Direct says it will stay open amid coronavirus lockdown
					

Email to staff says they need to keep selling fitness equipment to population isolating at home




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I agree with her, I think some people are making this more complicated than it needs to be, and are creating more confusion and problems. It's not a thing to 'game' or try and beat, it's about people's lives, not getting an extra trip to the shops in for your own benefit.





Brainaddict said:


> That's all very well but if you have a boss you can't necessarily make the decision for yourself. Now would be a bad time to get the sack.


Exactly. It _shouldn't_ be complicated, but the fact that people need wages to survive, and can't rely on those wages, makes it complicated.

The 80% wage payment will hopefully work for some, but maybe not for others?


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 24, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Michael Gove, when asked just how far people can go on their once a day permitted walk/run: ""people can go for the standard length of walk and run they would have done".
> 
> Some people's "standard length" is bloody miles!


Indeed. Mine is  a 10 mile trundle on my bike to a quiet spot on the BtoB railway path, chill for an hour or two, soak up some rays, then 45 minutes back uphill in full rave mode.
I will give it a week or two before I take a chance on that, but I just got a new bike !


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Tube this morning apparently:
> 
> View attachment 203049
> 
> source



You can see a stronger lockdown being applied to London coming with scenes like that happening.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 24, 2020)

hash tag said:


> But we are allowed out to put a brick through one of Mike Ashleys windows?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Literally just announced on BBC news that Chris Wooton (who sent the email to workers last night) has 'clarified' that SD and Evans Cycles _won't _be "opening to the public". What that means for staff remains unclear...


----------



## bimble (Mar 24, 2020)




----------



## Apathy (Mar 24, 2020)

Were they just sniffing poppers during the cobra meeting or summat.  Useless cunts


----------



## zora (Mar 24, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Michael Gove, when asked just how far people can go on their once a day permitted walk/run: ""people can go for the standard length of walk and run they would have done".
> 
> Some people's "standard length" is bloody miles!



This drives me bloody nuts! Also, absolutely no thought on population density etc. I am glad that the lockdown has been announced nation-wide and is not just a London-shaming thing (of which there is enough going round already), however there _may_ be areas in the country where it could potentially be okay to keep up your usual run routine, but if everyone round where I live does a 10 mile recreational every day, it'd be like bloody parkrun all day. Also, runners and cyclists (apols to the considerate ones amongst you) are already the bloody worst, going full pelt panting and clearing their throats past people, with no consideration of social distancing and their fucking phlegm hitting others! Ugh!


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 24, 2020)

I went by a golf course yesterday and it was rammed. I bet there isn't a single golf green in the country that isn't being mowed this morning, obviously essential work.


----------



## bimble (Mar 24, 2020)

Zooming out a bit - and not to let them off the hook at all  for their utterly shit communications since beginning - but despite al the announcements of enforcement coming in this was always going to be reliant on the majority of people getting the message and choosing to do the right thing because its just impossible to actually enforce in any consistent way. Also the goal was never zero transmission but a significant reduction.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 24, 2020)

Apparently the government is currently in the process of sending out text messages with a link to the advice to every phone .


----------



## Sue (Mar 24, 2020)

Michael Gove on R4 just now. Sounded like he was making it up as he went along. (The presenter was asking him about what people were meant to do in specific scenarios.)


----------



## BlanketAddict (Mar 24, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I went by a golf course yesterday and it was rammed. I bet there isn't a single golf green in the country that isn't being mowed this morning, obviously essential work.



That's the problem with the ambiguity in the message last night. 

Some businesses  will take the piss.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Stay at home! For fuck's sake. Even Urbs! You're normally the ones I can trust.



tho will admit, if there’s loads of people in , won’t be hanging around / repeating


----------



## BlanketAddict (Mar 24, 2020)

Sue said:


> Michael Gove on R4 just now. Sounded like he was making it up as he went along. (The presenter was asking him about what people were meant to do in specific scenarios.)



Massive amount of 'err...'ing going on. Even by Gove's standards.


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 24, 2020)

Definitely feeling that the restrictions are deliberately loose, which will mean people will be far more likey to breech them when they see half their neighbours still going to work and the likes of pets at home still open.
Im also wondering when the fuck are going to introduce strigent infection control measures in
 supermarkets, possibly the number one source of viral spread right now.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 24, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Definitely feeling that the restrictions are deliberately loose, which will mean people will be far more likey to breech them when they see half their neighbours still going to work and the likes of pets at home still open.
> Im also wondering when the fuck are going to introduce strigent infection control measures im supermarkets, possibly the number one source of viral spread right now.



Perhaps they don't want to reduce the infection rate too much and end up with unused NHS capacity in a few weeks time.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 24, 2020)

I went out to Heaton Park and did my government-issued daily run of 5k this morning, started about 7.45am. There were a few people about but it was entirely possible to maintain big separation distances - it's got very wide routes.

I think I'll aim to make a semi-regular habit of this, but the earlier the better.


----------



## MickiQ (Mar 24, 2020)

Sue said:


> Michael Gove on R4 just now. Sounded like he was making it up as he went along. (The presenter was asking him about what people were meant to do in specific scenarios.)


TBF they are making it up as they are going along, which is not entirely their fault, they are reacting to events over which they have virtually no control.


----------



## bimble (Mar 24, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Definitely feeling that the restrictions are deliberately loose, which will mean people will be far more likey to breech them when they see half their neighbours still going to work and the likes of pets at home still open.
> Im also wondering when the fuck are going to introduce strigent infection control measures in
> supermarkets, possibly the number one source of viral spread right now.



Who benefits from them being _deliberately_ loose? You could say bosses and the government but those would be better served by not doing this at all.I think its more likely cock up than intentional and will be tightened and defined in drips and drabs through the week. 
Totally agree re supermarkets, in switzerland apparently they at least have hand sanitizer at all supermarket entrances which people are expected to use as a matter of routine when going in.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 24, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I went out to Heaton Park and did my government-issued daily run of 5k this morning, started about 7.45am. There were a few people about but it was entirely possible to maintain big separation distances - it's got very wide routes.
> 
> I think I'll aim to make a semi-regular habit of this, but the earlier the better.



Yeah it's a lifeline for me. Pre all this I was an early morning runner but have got used to lying in til 7ish now and have started going in evening, I like it, quiet, dark. Running on roads, last night I saw maybe six people in an hour and never closer than about 5m. Avoiding day time.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 24, 2020)

This is not lockdown



original message



then the message changed


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 24, 2020)

Rush hour train from Beckenham Junction...


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 24, 2020)

Meanwhile the opposite platform has two people on it. One guy chatting on his phone and a woman very rudely shouting at him to get away from her even though he is stood still and she is walking towards him. 🙄


----------



## weltweit (Mar 24, 2020)

Buggers muddle wrt working .. 

Politicians are supposed to be intelligent people, why can't they get this right?


----------



## Sue (Mar 24, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> TBF they are making it up as they are going along, which is not entirely their fault, they are reacting to events over which they have virtually no control.


Yes, but the scenarios he was being asked about weren't exactly highly unusual. You'd think they could've at least come up with a standard response/advice for them. 

All just adds to the impression that they've no idea what they're doing which isn't exactly what's needed right now.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 24, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Buggers muddle wrt working ..
> 
> Politicians are supposed to be intelligent people, why can't they get this right?


I suspect it has everything to do with looking after their mates.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 24, 2020)

Reading some of the comments on here from last is pretty disappointing.  One thing this site has historically been very good at reminding everyone that not everybody is in the same position and enjoys the same benefits.

We need to remember that many people are in the situation where they have to go food shopping regularly whether they want to or not.  People don't all have decent freezer capacity, indeed some have none or a little ice box at best.  People will live in crowded shared houses with strangers where places to store food is minimal. People don't have sufficient funds to do large shops or cars to put that shop in.  Most importantly a large shop is a complete impossibility (its almost laughable to talk about it) in many cases as the shelves are stripped bare.

For all of the reasons above there are people who are having to go to the shops regularly (and exposing themselves in the process) because they have to.

On the going out for exercise.  Well it would be great if everyone had a garden but loads of people don't.  They live in blocks of flats without as much as a balcony, these flats are small.  People need to exercise to do some degree for basic health of both body and mind.  People need vitamin d after a long winter this is especially critical if your family background is not exclusively white European.

I know people are scared and I know they are angry with things they are seeing and hearing but we need to remember that an action which may be quite simple for one person is either completely impossible or potentially very damaging for another.   We have to strike the correct balance otherwise the remedy will kill more than the poison. And, lets go a bit easier on people who are in an impossible position.


----------



## hot air baboon (Mar 24, 2020)

Anju said:


> Screwfix open for click and collect.



"essential purchases only" though

_Click and Collect – We will provide a click and collect service for essential purchases only.
Our stores will be open from 8am for existing essential click and collect orders only. If you have previously placed a click and collect order and it is not essential please do not travel to our store – we will contact you in the next few days to discuss options._

damn & blast - had my eye on one of those paint shop respirators for my next trip to Tescos.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> all a bit unsure about this down here for now, ie :  going to drive 2 + miles ( back lanes only ) with son for long awaited sunny surf in the morning, + v much hoping not too many others will. or we'll get kyboshed  for the rest of the week /next 3



I’m waiting for reports of the surf situation in North Cornwall.....surely it should class as exercise and is fairly self isolating

I doubt you could stop theNewquay masseeve getting out if its good


----------



## hash tag (Mar 24, 2020)

Thank heavens for this, greedy arrogant bastard. Are there really no depths he will not go to to try and make a quick buck?








						Sports Direct staff facing uncertain future after pressure forces store closures
					

Workers on zero-hours contracts at Mike Ashley’s chain will reportedly not be paid while stores closed




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## LDC (Mar 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Reading some of the comments on here from last is pretty disappointing.  One thing this site has historically been very good at reminding everyone that not everybody is in the same position and enjoys the same benefits.
> 
> We need to remember that many people are in the situation where they have to go food shopping regularly whether they want to or not.  People don't all have decent freezer capacity, indeed some have none or a little ice box at best.  People will live in crowded shared houses with strangers where places to store food is minimal. People don't have sufficient funds to do large shops or cars to put that shop in.  Most importantly a large shop is a complete impossibility (its almost laughable to talk about it) in many cases as the shelves are stripped bare.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I'm one of the fuming ones, and I've probably fumed at some of the wrong people. Everything you say is totally fair and I agree. The problem is there's plenty of people that _do_ have options and are just fucking being totally irresponsible selfish cunts and cloaking their wishes up in the language of it being essential. My anger is directed at them, not people that have no option but to go out more than is ideal.


----------



## BigTom (Mar 24, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> I’m waiting for reports of the surf situation in North Cornwall.....surely it should class as exercise and is fairly self isolating
> 
> I doubt you could stop theNewquay masseeve getting out if its good



It was clear that there are three forms of exercise that are considered ok here: walk, run or cycle.
Whilst surfing is great exercise (you only need to look at surfers to see how fit they are!) it won't be counted here and for good reason. If you lived on the beach you might be ok but travelling any further than you need to in order to exercise is not ok. If you can go for a walk, run or cycle by home, you should not be travelling somewhere else for exercise.


----------



## BigTom (Mar 24, 2020)

I've just had this text message. I didn't even know we had this system setup but makes sense that we do.


----------



## CNT36 (Mar 24, 2020)

Sue said:


> Michael Gove on R4 just now. Sounded like he was making it up as he went along. (The presenter was asking him about what people were meant to do in specific scenarios.)


Work just told everyone to finish today then go home for two months on full pay after Boris' statement last night then Gove came on and muddied the waters. They now don't know whether his stuff means they won't get any support with wages etc as they've chosen to shut.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 24, 2020)

BigTom said:


> It was clear that there are three forms of exercise that are considered ok here: walk, run or cycle.
> Whilst surfing is great exercise (you only need to look at surfers to see how fit they are!) it won't be counted here and for good reason. If you lived on the beach you might be ok but travelling any further than you need to in order to exercise is not ok. If you can go for a walk, run or cycle by home, you should not be travelling somewhere else for exercise.



me and housemates live 400 meters from the nearest beach break (not much help when I’m stuck in the Middle East)

I do see what you are saying but how it’s going to be policedwill be interesting especially since the local coppers can only stretch the manpower to smack and crack policing (local inspectors own words) and nowt else


----------



## Kaka Tim (Mar 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> Who benefits from them being _deliberately_ loose? You could say bosses and the government but those would be better served by not doing this at all.I think its more likely cock up than intentional and will be tightened and defined in drips and drabs through the week.
> Totally agree re supermarkets, in switzerland apparently they at least have hand sanitizer at all supermarket entrances which people are expected to use as a matter of routine when going in.



it means they the economy doesn't slow down as much whilst they can claim to have taken rigid measures. they can then blame people for not following the rules when the lax nature of the shutdown becomes apparent. its pretty consistent with everything else they have done.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 24, 2020)

Sue said:


> Michael Gove on R4 just now. Sounded like he was making it up as he went along. (The presenter was asking him about what people were meant to do in specific scenarios.)


Exactly, same on BBC Breakfast.

Really reminded me of our managers during a recent restructure, each giving vague, differing answers because there's no detail to the plans, no "same hymn sheet" to sing from, and they're basically having to guess at responses they hadn't considered.

Only THIS IS A GOVERNMENT DURING A GLOBAL CRISIS.

And yet people will still vote for them


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> I’m waiting for reports of the surf situation in North Cornwall.....surely it should class as exercise and is fairly self isolating
> 
> I doubt you could stop theNewquay masseeve getting out if its good



you waiting for reports as in ' is anyone surfing / is it legit ' etc ?  DC Police / Carvemag etc seem to be saying ' no congregating / keep soc distance' etc


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> all a bit unsure about this down here for now, ie :  going to drive 2 + miles ( back lanes only ) with son for long awaited sunny surf in the morning, + v much hoping not too many others will. or we'll get kyboshed  for the rest of the week /next 3


Which part of "stay at home" is so hard to understand?

"v. much hoping not too many others will" ?? Well if you've thought of doing it, do you really think you will be the only one to have had that thought?


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 24, 2020)

Stay at home? No that's for everyone else - not me and my special activity


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Which part of "stay at home" is so hard to understand?
> 
> "v. much hoping not too many others will" ?? Well if you've thought of doing it, do you really think you will be the only one to have had that thought?



which bit of ' one form of exercise per day' are you struggling with here ?


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> which bit of ' one form of exercise per day' are you struggling with here ?


The part where you are going to go somewhere potentially crowded.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> The part where you are going to go somewhere potentially crowded.



have never surfed within two metres of someone in my life, there are no car parks open, and miles of open  beach - as long as half of Bristol haven't decided to go rogue, there's little chance of crowds of any sort ( maybe on one small beach - we wldnt go there )  - in the v unlikely event that are there are, we'll go elsewhere, and also fully expect the hammer to come down re: tmmrw / rest of week


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> have never surfed within two metres of someone in my life, there are no car parks open, and miles of open  beach - as long as half of Bristol haven't decided to go rogue, there's little chance of crowds of any sort ( maybe on one small beach - we wldnt go there )  - in the v unlikely event that are there are, we'll go elsewhere, and also fully expect the hammer to come down re: tmmrw / rest of week


Good luck then. Let's hope the rest of Bristol don't do the same thing.


----------



## keybored (Mar 24, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> What's so important about bike shops that they get mentioned twice?


To enable Boris to keep back-pedalling.


----------



## bimble (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> ..also fully expect the hammer to come down re: tmmrw / rest of week


What does this bit actually mean? Is it if half of Bristol ‘goes rogue’ and does the same as you you expect the army to come and stand around on the beach ? Just not getting what you mean by a hammer.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 24, 2020)

Footpaths and open access land to be closed where there is a risk of people being in close proximity: Cornoavirus UK legislation


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> What does this bit actually mean? Is it if half of Bristol ‘goes rogue’ and does the same as you you expect the army to come and stand around on the beach ? Just not getting what you mean by a hammer.



ie : specific surfing ban - am guessing parks all over UK will have people exercising in them on these sunny days, but on the basis of ' no on essential travel ' , we're kinda hoping for a ' locals only' scenario down hereon beaches, and no crowds


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> ie : specific surfing ban - am guessing parks all over UK will have people exercising in them on these sunny days, but on the basis of ' no on essential travel ' , we're kinda hoping for a ' locals only' scenario down hereon beaches, and no crowds



FWIW I think driving there and making a reasonable decision based upon who is around when you get there seems like a sensible thing to do.


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 24, 2020)

work txt to say all work is suspended from now, so I only tapped out 2  days early anyway but I'm glad I did. I'll be taking the dog over the fields daily as usual. This is a quiet town anyway but everyday is like sunday now.


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> ie : specific surfing ban - am guessing parks all over UK will have people exercising in them on these sunny days, but on the basis of ' no on essential travel ' , we're kinda hoping for a ' locals only' scenario down hereon beaches, and no crowds



I believe the parks are going to be shut and have already been so in Bristol? 

There is a very clear reason why the government have allowed people to exercise for up to an hour as it's obviously vital for our wellbeing both physically and mentally. That being said traveling far distances to do it does seem to be against the point of what we are trying to do.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I believe the parks are going to be shut and have already been so in Bristol?
> 
> There is a very clear reason why the government have allowed people to exercise for up to an hour as it's obviously vital for our wellbeing both physically and mentally. That being said traveling far distances to do it does seem to be against the point of what we are trying to do.



agreed - seems our Kernow brethren are piling into Fistral already, so not feeling  optimistic here tbh


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 24, 2020)

Anyone else just have a text from the UK government to stay at home?

Think that may be a first for this country if so. Emergency SMS messages, that is.


----------



## Aladdin (Mar 24, 2020)

I exercised for an hour outside in the back garden yesterday.
Walked up and down the same square footage on patio tiles for an hour. Felt like I was pacman going over and back. Today I'm doing the same only I'll bring snacks and avoid the 5 flower pots.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 24, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> Anyone else just have a text from the UK government to stay at home?
> 
> Think that may be a first for this country if so. Emergency SMS messages, that is.



It was mentioned a little earlier in the thread (although I can't find it now) - it's a good plan, since not everyone will be avidly keeping up with the news/changes!


----------



## hot air baboon (Mar 24, 2020)

my lawn won't know what's hit it - gonna get mowed like never before this spring


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 24, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It was mentioned a little earlier in the thread (although I can't find it now) - it's a good plan, since not everyone will be avidly keeping up with the news/changes!



Ah.. apols. I only just got the text. Only last night I was reading the government had failed to develop the system after trialing it so perhaps not after all? Or they've found a workaround.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 24, 2020)

Indeed.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 24, 2020)

Tim Martin is a scumbag

**


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 24, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I believe the parks are going to be shut and have already been so in Bristol



He (cuntface) definitely said last night that parks will remain open, play areas shut.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 24, 2020)

Building sites are a complicated situation.  I know a lot here are scratching their heads and demanding they be shut down but there are lots of complicating factors why the government is so very reluctant to do so and its not just because the bosses are worried about their bonuses, it really isn't.

Italy only started closing theirs in the last couple of days and only in the worst affected region of Lombardy.  It really is last gasp stuff.

ETA: That being said I am starting to see main contractors themselves taking unilateral decisions to shut their own sites.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I believe the parks are going to be shut and have already been so in Bristol?
> 
> There is a very clear reason why the government have allowed people to exercise for up to an hour as it's obviously vital for our wellbeing both physically and mentally. That being said *traveling far distances to do it does seem to be against the point of what we are trying to do*.


This is the key bit. For instance, if you live in a city or a town, stay in that city or town. Exercise locally. There's no excuse for travelling to other places just to do exercise at the moment. That's selfish behaviour.

And tbh that goes for the people thinking of driving somewhere to go surfing, too. Stay where you are. Do something else. _Not surfing _for a few weeks won't kill you.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin apologies for being a bit arsey earlier. I kind of got out of bed the wrong side this morning and things are a bit, well, stressy at the moment.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Building sites are a complicated situation.  I know a lot here are scratching their heads and demanding they be shut down but there are lots of complicating factors why the government is so very reluctant to do so and its not just because the bosses are worried about their bonuses, it really isn't.
> 
> Italy only started closing theirs in the last couple of days and only in the worst affected region of Lombardy.  It really is last gasp stuff.
> 
> ETA: That being said I am starting to see main contractors themselves taking unilateral decisions to shut their own sites.



This is true as some sites are essential but lots of piss taking too - know somebody told to go to site today, small new build development, none sold yet


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 24, 2020)

DotCommunist said:


> everyday is like sunday now.


Not sure whether to post the racists (very good) song.


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 24, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Not sure whether to post the racists (very good) song.


I literally queued it up on youtube to post and went 'oh its solo morrisey, it was smiths in my head. I'll leave it' .


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 24, 2020)

DotCommunist said:


> I literally queued it up on youtube to post and went 'oh its solo morrisey, it was smiths in my head. I'll leave it' .


Still a good song, from a decent album. And with Vini Rielly on guitar.


----------



## zora (Mar 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I'm one of the fuming ones, and I've probably fumed at some of the wrong people. Everything you say is totally fair and I agree. The problem is there's plenty of people that _do_ have options and are just fucking being totally irresponsible selfish cunts and cloaking their wishes up in the language of it being essential. My anger is directed at them, not people that have no option but to go out more than is ideal.



^^^ This, very much. I wondered if my rant about people's behaviour in high-density areas might come across wrongly. My concern is exactly for the people here who live in probably already crammed conditions in high-rises, poorly resourced, and who will be bearing the brunt of these measures the most (including the concern about heavy handed policing etc that others have voiced)- this is the thing that currently keeps me awake most at night - whereas I'd imagine that the average lycra-clad power runner/cyclist is likely to be much more well off, having a bigger flat and possibly garden access. I would very much like everyone to have safe access to fresh air and Vitamin D throughout this, this is why it's so important to me that the space is being shared considerately.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 24, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> I call it The Corona. Trust me this will be the one that sticks. No historians will be calling it covid 19



I’m seeing references on the net to “he’s got the Miley”


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> cantsin apologies for being a bit arsey earlier. I kind of got out of bed the wrong side this morning and things are a bit, well, stressy at the moment.


lol, no worries at all - v grey area this tbh at the mo, and folk recklessly flouting for purely selfish reasons just adds to everyone else’s stress - am not going to be that person / will be retreating if at all borderline


----------



## hegley (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> which bit of ' one form of exercise per day' are you struggling with here ?


The specific options listed by Johnson were walking, running, cycling. Probably because they are relatively low risk activities - he didn't say go out surfing, cold-water swimming, rock-climbing, skiing, canoeing.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

Then gf is out shopping at Sainsbury’s- we’ve got to get more food in now as we’ve got the kids for the duration of this lockdown.

Sent home from Amazon due to not enough delivery routes for all drivers and had to start cooking bacon and eggs for son and daughter.

It’s my daughter’s birthday today and hasn’t turned out as she expected - party cancelled and getting happy birthday texts from her pals instead.

My son eats like a horse, he’s 6ft and is using home gym in our garage to work out.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

hegley said:


> The specific options listed by Johnson were walking, running, cycling. Probably because they are relatively low risk activities - he didn't say go out surfing, cold-water swimming, rock-climbing, skiing, canoeing.



 ie : solo sporting activities - add in the ocean, and the low risk factor only increases, by a fair bit I'd guess


----------



## xenon (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> have never surfed within two metres of someone in my life, there are no car parks open, and miles of open  beach - as long as half of Bristol haven't decided to go rogue, there's little chance of crowds of any sort ( maybe on one small beach - we wldnt go there )  - in the v unlikely event that are there are, we'll go elsewhere, and also fully expect the hammer to come down re: tmmrw / rest of week



Judging by the traffic on the A road I live on, a lot of Bristol or at least people transiting through it, are on their way somewhere. I don't think they're all care workers, nurses, food supply workers etc.

Spoke to my friend who's pregnant on Sunday. One of her mate's who sounds like a woo merchant if you ask me, suggested she go for a walk on the beach. I was like, er, you know the beaches are crowded. Even like the shit nearest ones, (sorry Clevedonn.) Oh I'll just stick on the path.


People are all going out thinking no one else will be at their special place. Fuck sake, it's difficult enough to keep distance if you need to get food.

Not having a pop at you BTW, I understand what you're saying. But the thing is likely others having the same idea.


----------



## xenon (Mar 24, 2020)

They've closed the parks in Bristol, where they can. Mayor has told people to stay out of them.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> Judging by the traffic on the A road I live on, a lot of Bristol or at least people transiting through it, are on their way somewhere. I don't think they're all care workers, nurses, food supply workers etc.
> 
> Spoke to my friend who's pregnant on Sunday. One of her mate's who sounds like a woo merchant if you ask me, suggested she go for a walk on the beach on Sunday. I was like, er, you know the beaches are crowded. Even like the shit nearest ones, (sorry Clevedonn.) Oh I'll just stick on the path.
> 
> ...



yep, will know in half hr, keeping fingers x'd


----------



## hegley (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> ie : solo sporting activities - add in the ocean, and the low risk factor only increases, by a fair bit I'd guess


Not sure adding in the ocean at this time of year when sea temp at its lowest makes it a low risk activity!


----------



## kalidarkone (Mar 24, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I believe the parks are going to be shut and have already been so in Bristol?
> 
> There is a very clear reason why the government have allowed people to exercise for up to an hour as it's obviously vital for our wellbeing both physically and mentally. That being said traveling far distances to do it does seem to be against the point of what we are trying to do.


Yeah the parks are closed.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 24, 2020)

I'm so pissed off. So my brother in law's employer seem to think moving bits of drain round a warehouse is essential. He needs to stay off because him and my sister live with my mum and step dad who are both vulnerable and both isolating. They're saying they won't even give him SSP. I don't know why they're doing this as the government have said they'll both pay the SSP and the 80% thing. Has anyone got information I can categorically show to these bunch of cunts he needs to be off and paid for it? The HR have given him two different messages, one saying he is entitled to SSP and another saying he's entitled to nothing.


----------



## Crispy (Mar 24, 2020)

Crispy said:


> This job in particular has a date in 2021 at which point the building gets valued and our client gets a share of the business based on that value. So despite this client being a massive germophobe who's hermitted himself away in his French villa, the whip is still being cracked from the top down. Time is literally money.


Good news  The contractors have taken it into their own hands and declared the site shut. Couple of days to secure the site and then everyone goes home


----------



## kalidarkone (Mar 24, 2020)

While I was queuing at the scab tills last night after work I had to tell a guy to stand 2 metres away from me and then move so he could see what 2 metres looked like. He looked at me like I was crazy.
Then when I was driving out the car park he was all huddled with his mates walking along! If only he knew it was for his own protection. 

So yeah peeps still not getting it and that includes people working I  hospitals.


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Rush hour train from Beckenham Junction...


An eight carriage train went past my window and I doubt if there was more than 6 people on it.


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> Judging by the traffic on the A road I live on, a lot of Bristol or at least people transiting through it, are on their way somewhere. I don't think they're all care workers, nurses, food supply workers etc.
> 
> Spoke to my friend who's pregnant on Sunday. One of her mate's who sounds like a woo merchant if you ask me, suggested she go for a walk on the beach. I was like, er, you know the beaches are crowded. Even like the shit nearest ones, (sorry Clevedonn.) Oh I'll just stick on the path.
> 
> ...



Oi leave Clevedon out of this.


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I believe the parks are going to be shut and have already been so in Bristol?
> 
> There is a very clear reason why the government have allowed people to exercise for up to an hour as it's obviously vital for our wellbeing both physically and mentally. That being said traveling far distances to do it does seem to be against the point of what we are trying to do.


I would say that driving a car/motorbike several miles to go somewhere for a walk/surf/whatever does seem outside the spirit of the ban. I think people should only exercise in their local area - so it's fine to go walking/running 5 miles if that's your usual exercise (following social distancing rules) but driving off somewhere seems a no-no to me.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> I would say that driving a car/motorbike several miles to go somewhere for a walk/surf/whatever does seem outside the spirit of the ban. I think people should only exercise in their local area - so it;s fine to go walking 5 miles if that's your exercise (following social distancing rules) but driving off somewhere seems a no-no to me.



Especially as it states "when doing these activities, you should be minimising time spent outside of the home"


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> I would say that driving a car/motorbike several miles to go somewhere for a walk/surf/whatever does seem outside the spirit of the ban. I think people should only exercise in their local area - so it's fine to go walking/running 5 miles if that's your usual exercise (following social distancing rules) but driving off somewhere seems a no-no to me.


The whole point of this is not to spread the virus. The farther people travel, the farther it spreads. That bit is really quite simple.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 24, 2020)

i see southern rail want people who need a paper season refunding to go to a ticket office


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> I would say that driving a car/motorbike several miles to go somewhere for a walk/surf/whatever does seem outside the spirit of the ban. I think people should only exercise in their local area - so it's fine to go walking/running 5 miles if that's your usual exercise (following social distancing rules) but driving off somewhere seems a no-no to me.



Find a way to do exercise in the house and don't go out. The lockdown rules are too weak and it seems daft to give people an excuse to go outside.


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> i see southern rail want people who need a paper season refunding to go to a ticket office



No doubt that they've seen that coronavirus cunts thread and thought it was a disgrace they hadn't been mentioned so far.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

Anyone noticed an increased police presence?

In the holding car park this morning there was a police X5 slowly driving around seemingly monitoring the area shortly followed by a police van.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Find a way to do exercise in the house and don't go out. The lockdown rules are too weak and it seems daft to give people an excuse to go outside.


Yes and no. Some people live in nice houses with gardens etc. Others don't. It's also about making rules that stand a chance of being obeyed. But getting in your car to drive somewhere else to exercise (often being done by people who live in nice houses) is being selfish.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> *sorry but this clip came to hand and thought might provide a nano second of levity amongst all the horrible news



Thanks for this. I have always ridden bikes but have never escaped the terror of the info film, the motorcyclist locking up their brakes as a car pulls out on them. The screech, the impact. 

When I had my worst crash in 1996, hit by a drunk driver on the Old Kent Road flyover (I had pregnant wife on the back) I recollect well that same info film going through my head as my brakes locked up on the wet road and I hit the car femur first. 

Other couriers felt the same. It was the most fucked up scare film ever.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> But getting in your car to drive somewhere else to exercise (often being done by people who live in nice houses) is being selfish.


How can it hurt? If you crashed? Possible interaction? I'm thinking that when my motorcycle is roadworthy I will go out on it. Is this foolish?


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> am unlikely to come within 10 m of another human during this ‘ exercise ‘.
> 
> Meanwhile, the tube this a.m...



Just stay at home and don't be selfish. 100% chance of not infecting someone if you stay at home. If you go out, you might walk past someone, buy something, touch something, catch something.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

5t3IIa said:


> Am thinking about prep for my Keyworker Travel to/from work, and what I’ll say if *I get pulled over for travelling *😳 Got my work photo ID and driving license to hand. Plus I can name drop at least two police persons I work with. Uhm ☹️


If you think the police want to breathe your germs you are mistaken. I would surmise it would be very hard to get arrested for anything at the moment. 
Maybe get shouted at by a copper safely in their vehicle with the windows up.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> How can it hurt? If you crashed? Possible interaction? I'm thinking that when my motorcycle is roadworthy I will go out on it. Is this foolish?



Stay at home!

What the fuck is wrong with people!

IF YOU STAY AT HOME THERE IS NO CHANCE OF SPREADING INFECTION. IF YOU GO OUT THERE IS A CHANCE.

1500 dead in Madrid in 5 days. Is that clear enough?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> How can it hurt? If you crashed? Possible interaction? I'm thinking that when my motorcycle is roadworthy I will go out on it. Is this foolish?


Spreading the virus. You might live in a local hotspot - you can't know. Or you might be driving to a local hotspot and bringing it back to where you live. The only chance places that don't yet have the infection knocking around of staying free of it is by not having people from outside coming in.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

They will delegate issuing fixed penalty notices to Kingdon Security and other companies that supply accredited enforcement officers to local councils. Loads of accredited security staff out of work at the moment. 
This is when it will get nasty. £25 bonus on every £80 ticket issued. The wannabe screw cunts who work for Kingdom Security and their ilk will be harassing the sick and ill. 

I wonder if they will get battered? 
The legislation brought in this week will really spell out the above.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

Top Bantz TopCat. You bloody weirdo.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> They will delegate issuing fixed penalty notices to Kingdon Security and other companies that supply accredited enforcement officers to local councils. Loads of accredited security staff out of work at the moment.
> This is when it will get nasty. £25 bonus on every £80 ticket issued. The wannabe screw cunts who work for Kingdom Security and their ilk will be harassing the sick and ill.
> 
> I wonder if they will get battered?
> The legislation brought in this week will really spell out the above.



How do they expect people to pay fines off these vultures when most aren’t at work?


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Stay at home!
> 
> What the fuck is wrong with people!
> 
> ...


Thanks for your highly emotional response. 
So do you disagree with the govt allowing us to go out and do excercise? Yes or no please and no shouty caps theres a good chap.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> How do they expect people to pay fines off these vultures when most aren’t at work?


They never consider ability to pay really.


----------



## 5t3IIa (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> If you think the police want to breathe your germs you are mistaken. I would surmise it would be very hard to get arrested for anything at the moment.
> Maybe get shouted at by a copper safely in their vehicle with the windows up.


Well, that’s good news. I was wondering what format this might take and being squeaked at by a bumfluff’d copper while I wave my MoJ badge about works for me 👍🏼


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

It’s threads like these that really bring home how entitled, and how detached from reality, radical activisty types are.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Spreading the virus. You might live in a local hotspot - you can't know. Or you might be driving to a local hotspot and bringing it back to where you live. The only chance places that don't yet have the infection knocking around of staying free of it is by not having people from outside coming in.


If you dont interact how can you get it? Are people really arguing its properly airborne not just contact or droplet spread?


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

Sorry if I'm grumpy. Look, I'm in a city where people are dying every few minutes. I'm not leaving the house even though I've just moved in and I seem to be allergic to the building and it's making me feel sick.  I'm bored and I'm on my own but TOUGH SHIT

I'm staying in because it's what all the scientists say we should do. We're not allowed to go out for exercise here, and to be honest it sounds like a bad idea anyway.

Your surfboard, motorbike or jog can fucking wait.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 24, 2020)

Has anyone had a 'stay at home text' from the government yet?


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

Omg I can’t go surfing.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> If you dont interact how can you get it? Are people really arguing its properly airborne not just contact or droplet spread?



Who gives a fuck what you and some other cunts on a forum think? Why not just play it safe and not participate in the greatest pandemic of the past 100 years. Just be nice. If you stay in there's a 100% chance you won't be part of it. Go out and the odds change.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Has anyone had a 'stay at home text' from the government yet?



Nope - maybe they have a special list?


----------



## scifisam (Mar 24, 2020)

Kaka Tim said:


> Combination of no support for self employed and the ambiguity of johnson's statement will very likely mean that many many tradespeople etc will carry on working. A friend of a friend who is a gardner has just said they will go to the work because otherwise they cant afford to live basically.



I'd have thought that was a job where social distancing is relatively easy, at least, as long as they don't get there by public transport.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Looking out the window I just saw the bus go by and it was full. I bet they're not going to the bloody park.


If we had a citizens wage this would not be happening.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

BigTom said:


> That's just fucked really. I can imagine some sites would need a day or two to weather proof and tie down a building site but continuing as normal? Can't see how it could be considered essential.


Contract penalties?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> If you dont interact how can you get it? Are people really arguing its properly airborne not just contact or droplet spread?


Can you guarantee not interacting? I would think that a local walk gives you more controllable variables than any kind of a journey. But it's a judgement call. On the macro scale, the more people who travel, the more it will spread.


----------



## hegley (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Sorry if I'm grumpy. Look, I'm in a city where people are dying every few minutes. I'm not leaving the house even though I've just moved in and I seem to be allergic to the building and it's making me feel sick.  I'm bored and I'm on my own but TOUGH SHIT
> 
> I'm staying in because it's what all the scientists say we should do. We're not allowed to go out for exercise here, and to be honest it sounds like a bad idea anyway.
> 
> Your surfboard, motorbike or jog can fucking wait.


But we HAVE been told we can go out for exercise here. And lots of people have made the argument for supporting this for mental health reasons. I don't really think the issue is going outside and getting fresh air/exercise - it's the indirect consequence of going out and driving a car/motorbike, or doing a risky activity and ending up in A&E and taking up vital NHS resources.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 24, 2020)

hegley said:


> Not sure adding in the ocean at this time of year when sea temp at its lowest makes it a low risk activity!



surfers though


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> That's all very well but if you have a boss you can't necessarily make the decision for yourself. Now would be a bad time to get the sack.


Easy for a high earning doctor who can afford Occado and a nice big  garden.


----------



## BigTom (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Contract penalties?



If it's purely financial, it's not essential. Unless what they are building is needed (like they are finishing building a hospital or something) it's not essential. I get why companies don't want to stop to meet their contractual agreements but it's not essential that they do meet them.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 24, 2020)

Just got me GOV.UK text message.
(Vodaphone)


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

hegley said:


> But we HAVE been told we can go out for exercise here. And lots of people have made the argument for supporting this for mental health reasons. I don't really think the issue is going outside and getting fresh air/exercise - it's the indirect consequence of going out and driving a car/motorbike, or doing a risky activity and ending up in A&E and taking up vital NHS resources.



Okay - just my opinion but I think it's daft to have a lockdown that lets people out once a day. Just don't bother with the lockdown then. You either do this or you don't. I don't dispute the mental health angle but people need to be inside not infecting each other. That might cause people to feel down but it's the dituation we're in.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Tube this morning apparently:
> 
> View attachment 203049
> 
> source


It's because the tube is running a reduced train service. This is about saving money at the moment not because drivers are sick.


----------



## friendofdorothy (Mar 24, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> As an ordinary Joe out in the epicentre I find all this talk of unquestioned surveillance etc rather distubing.
> 
> At end of my day in the City I ended up in reception of one of the big office blocks. Now inhabited by two security guards and a receptionist.
> 
> ...


yes I was hoping to be one of those receptionists still answering the phones and mailing out the packages. But it will just be my boss and deputy boss there doing that now.  



Gramsci said:


> I hope you are still being paid?


Yes luckily I'm on a permanent contract.   What about you, are you self employed?


----------



## campanula (Mar 24, 2020)

This is an absolutely perfect time to take up Tai Chi. There are loads of websites and it can be done in a few metres of outside space. I have a public green outside my house where I envisage I will be spending much of the summer. Horrendously conflicted because like just about everyone, we are dependent on movement of goods and services. I am also frantic about D-i-L who got one of the 1.5million letters for the critically ill. She has 2 days worth of food and no idea how she can get anymore so obviously, I am going out to shop for her and will leave a parcel outside the front door. Christ, this is a shitstorm but, for myself, I would have no problem whatsoever, spending the coming months in strict quarantine. I am dismayed that messages from the top seem to lack any sort of clarity...even to the point of spelling it out, in clear and unambiguous language, what quarantine means, why it is enforced and what the benefits are. A whole heap of people seem to be oblivious that we have a responsibility towards each other


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> Who benefits from them being _deliberately_ loose? You could say bosses and the government but those would be better served by not doing this at all.I think its more likely cock up than intentional and will be tightened and defined in drips and drabs through the week.
> Totally agree re supermarkets, in switzerland apparently they at least have hand sanitizer at all supermarket entrances which people are expected to use as a matter of routine when going in.


Do we wipe down all  tins and that with a bleached cloth?


----------



## two sheds (Mar 24, 2020)

I was assuming I'd be taking the dog out into the (pretty well deserted) valley at the back for a once-a-day walk. She just looks at me as if I'm stupid if I call her to walk round the garden, so perhaps i'll put her lead on her and take her for a bit of a drag round instead.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Do we wipe down all  tins and that with a bleached cloth?


Not so hard with tins. Lettuce, on the other hand...


----------



## two sheds (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Not so hard with tins. Lettuce, on the other hand...



Should be ok - probably covered with pesticide residues anyway.


----------



## chilango (Mar 24, 2020)

Thing is, unless and until:

1.We can all get the food we need delivered when we need it

2.Workplaces are shut down and workers still get paid.

There's no 100% lockdown anyway.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Good luck then. Let's hope the rest of Bristol don't do the same thing.


It's not likely is it.


----------



## MickiQ (Mar 24, 2020)

Been for a lunchtime walk around the housing estate and only seen 2 other people, a woman washing her car and a guy mowing his front grass (crossed the road both times to stay away from them), no vehicular traffic at all. The vast majority of the houses have cars in the driveways. There is one house with a painter and decorators van parked outside but no other sign of  activity so I don't know whether he is working there or it's his home. 
Yesterday when I walked to the Tesco Express to get milk and eggs (which is about three times as far) I saw quite a few people including kids since keeping them off school didn't seem to be interpeted as keep them indoors. 
Everyone was keeping their distance yesterday even at the shop, though tbf I suspect that is a lot easier in a town of a few thousand people rather than a city of millions.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> Thing is, unless and until:
> 
> 1.We can all get the food we need delivered when we need it
> 
> ...



True. But I think that it should be as tight as possible. More activity is more infection for sure - so minimised activity is minimised infection.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> Anyone else just have a text from the UK government to stay at home?
> 
> Think that may be a first for this country if so. Emergency SMS messages, that is.


I am one of the 1.5 million who are likely to peg it if we get it. I got the stay in for a  minimum of 12 weeks text yesterday.


----------



## Aladdin (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Do we wipe down all  tins and that with a bleached cloth?



I've been spraying everything with disinfectant. Everything thats boxed or tinned or.......
....... jarred..... 🤪


----------



## bimble (Mar 24, 2020)

No deliveries and no bin men for me for now (living inside a closed national trust place is brilliant but might have its downsides)


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 24, 2020)

There's also the fact that going out on a motorbike, paragliding, fell running or whatever other stupid bollocks people are thinking of doing while there's a non curable highly infectious disease spreading around that kills people, might actually cause you and other people to be injured and therefore taking NHS resources away from treating people seriously ill from said highly infectious non curable disease.


----------



## chilango (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Okay - just my opinion but I think it's daft to have a lockdown that lets people out once a day. Just don't bother with the lockdown then. You either do this or you don't. I don't dispute the mental health angle but people need to be inside not infecting each other. That might *cause people to feel down *but it's the dituation we're in.



Depression literally kills thousands every year.

In 2017 there were approximately 5,821 registered deaths by suicide in the United Kingdom

Getting outside and exercising are, for me - like many - absolutely key to mental health.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> Depression literally kills thousands every year.
> 
> In 2017 there were approximately 5,821 registered deaths by suicide in the United Kingdom
> 
> Getting outside and exercising are, for me - like many - absolutely key to mental health.



Hi. I've also suffered from depression and I don't feel too great right now. Tough shit. Don't want other people to die. It's not about me at the moment.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> No deliveries and no bin men for me for now (living inside a closed national trust place is brilliant but might have its downsides)


How are you going to manage with no bin men?


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

hot air baboon said:


> my lawn won't know what's hit it - gonna get mowed like never before this spring


The sound of powered garden tools and family squabbles is in the air today.


----------



## chilango (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Hi. I've also suffered from depression and I don't feel too great right now. Tough shit. Don't want other people to die. It's not about me at the moment.



What about all the people who'll die if you don't let them out at all?

C19 isn't the only killer we need to be fighting.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Anyone noticed an increased police presence?
> 
> In the holding car park this morning there was a police X5 slowly driving around seemingly monitoring the area shortly followed by a police van.


Yes central London has lots of police milling about, doing nothing..."presence". Heard the legislation to fine people etc gets passed on Friday?

Spotting more pubs especially getting boarded up


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> Depression literally kills thousands every year.
> 
> In 2017 there were approximately 5,821 registered deaths by suicide in the United Kingdom
> 
> Getting outside and exercising are, for me - like many - absolutely key to mental health.



Those numbers as well. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of people here, and as I said 1,500 have died in Madrid *this week*. So even something as important as the suicide rate is secondary right now. Staggering though it is for me to find myself typing that.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> What about all the people who'll die if you don't let them out at all?
> 
> C19 isn't the only killer we need to be fighting.



The numbers don't compare do they?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> Depression literally kills thousands every year.
> 
> In 2017 there were approximately 5,821 registered deaths by suicide in the United Kingdom
> 
> Getting outside and exercising are, for me - like many - absolutely key to mental health.


It's not straightforward working out the effect of this crisis on things such as suicide. There is normally a peak in suicides at this time of year - people emerging from winter only to find that they still feel just as bad even though it's now spring and everyone else is cheering up.

I know that feeling myself and the despair it can bring. This crisis could even temporarily mitigate it.


----------



## bimble (Mar 24, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How are you going to manage with no bin men?


not sure. I think that will get sorted through conversation between NT and the council quite soon hopefully.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Sorry if I'm grumpy. Look, I'm in a city where people are dying every few minutes. I'm not leaving the house even though I've just moved in and I seem to be allergic to the building and it's making me feel sick.  I'm bored and I'm on my own but TOUGH SHIT
> 
> I'm staying in because it's what all the scientists say we should do. We're not allowed to go out for exercise here, and to be honest it sounds like a bad idea anyway.
> 
> Your surfboard, motorbike or jog can fucking wait.


Sounds like you are suffering being cooped  up.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> not sure. I think that will get sorted through conversation between NT and the council quite soon hopefully.


They will have to do something. You can't be left with no refuse collection. Hope it gets worked out.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Who gives a fuck what you and some other cunts on a forum think? Why not just play it safe and not participate in the greatest pandemic of the past 100 years. Just be nice. If you stay in there's a 100% chance you won't be part of it. Go out and the odds change.


Favelado you are just descending into sweary Mary stupidity. 
I suggest winding your fat neck in a bit. 
I have depression issues, have cancer and am going for a walk once a day.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Sounds like you are suffering being cooped  up.



I think it's my genuine opinion regardless of how much fun this is. It's about the fact that in my Zoom classes I've got a student with Corona symptoms, the terrible number of deaths in the city, the risk to my best friend in London who has MS, worrying about my grandad.

Even if I was in a better situation I'd feel the same way. I don't think it matters how I'm doing at the moment. We have to do everything to protect others.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Can you guarantee not interacting? I would think that a local walk gives you more controllable variables than any kind of a journey. But it's a judgement call. On the macro scale, the more people who travel, the more it will spread.


Thats sensible. You cant guarantee this at all.


----------



## BigTom (Mar 24, 2020)

campanula said:


> This is an absolutely perfect time to take up Tai Chi. There are loads of websites and it can be done in a few metres of outside space. I have a public green outside my house where I envisage I will be spending much of the summer. Horrendously conflicted because like just about everyone, we are dependent on movement of goods and services. I am also frantic about D-i-L who got one of the 1.5million letters for the critically ill. She has 2 days worth of food and no idea how she can get anymore so obviously, I am going out to shop for her and will leave a parcel outside the front door. Christ, this is a shitstorm but, for myself, I would have no problem whatsoever, spending the coming months in strict quarantine. I am dismayed that messages from the top seem to lack any sort of clarity...even to the point of spelling it out, in clear and unambiguous language, what quarantine means, why it is enforced and what the benefits are. A whole heap of people seem to be oblivious that we have a responsibility towards each other



I'll post something up once we have the full programme out, but the charity I work for are doing 3x daily live streams of activities, including a couple of tai chi sessions each week: The Active Wellbeing Society and also goes onto youtube afterwards if you're not on facebook: The Active Wellbeing Society
It'll all be delivered by our instructors from inside their houses so all the activities are geared around people doing things indoors.
I haven't done any of these myself but as the organisation is very much focused on getting inactive people to be active, I would assume that the tai chi and other sessions will be aimed at beginners so could be a good place for someone to start.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Favelado you are just descending into sweary Mary stupidity.
> I suggest winding your fat neck in a bit.
> I have depression issues, have cancer and am going for a walk once a day.



I'm genuinely very sorry about the cancer. Nothing gives you the right to put others at risk. My neck stays where it is.


----------



## prunus (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I am one of the 1.5 million who are likely to peg it if we get it. I got the stay in for a  minimum of 12 weeks text yesterday.



Just to keep things on the level - there are very few people who are _likely_ to die if they get it, even most of the at risk groups have a greater (mostly a fair bit greater) than 80% of surviving an infection, according to the data so far.  Obviously 1 in 5 chance is way too high for comfort, and more than justifies the extra caution, but I think it’s important to keep things in perspective, it’s not a death sentence.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> There's also the fact that going out on a motorbike, paragliding, fell running or whatever other stupid bollocks people are thinking of doing while there's a non curable highly infectious disease spreading around that kills people, might actually cause you and other people to be injured and therefore taking NHS resources away from treating people seriously ill from said highly infectious non curable disease.


Straw men. Fucking fell running. 
Probably going to get more problems for the NHS by bored people putting object up their arses.


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

prunus said:


> Just to keep things on the level - there are very few people who are _likely_ to die if they get it, even most of the at risk groups have a greater (mostly a fair bit greater) than 80% of surviving an infection, according to the data so far.  Obviously 1 in 5 chance is way too high for comfort, and more than justifies the extra caution, but I think it’s important to keep things in perspective, it’s not a death sentence.



It isn't - but ramming the NHS full of people who are seriously ill with this is going to put loads of people at risk of death should they have a coronary, a bad traffic accident, a fall and break their hip, get crushed by the 1000 loo rolls piled up in the front room and so on.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I'm genuinely very sorry about the cancer. Nothing gives you the right to put others at risk. My neck stays where it is.


My govt says I can go out to excercise. You say im a cunt. You dont have any right to demand anything of me. Your in a different country even. I dont need your sympathy. I am poking you a bit as you are an example of irrational over emotional behaviour that helps no one. 

Btw the figures from Spain were shocking yesterday. How are they today?


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

prunus said:


> Just to keep things on the level - there are very few people who are _likely_ to die if they get it, even most of the at risk groups have a greater (mostly a fair bit greater) than 80% of surviving an infection, according to the data so far.  Obviously 1 in 5 chance is way too high for comfort, and more than justifies the extra caution, but I think it’s important to keep things in perspective, it’s not a death sentence.


My oncology consultant would not agree with you.


----------



## prunus (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> It isn't - but ramming the NHS full of people who are seriously ill with this is going to put loads of people at risk of death should they have a coronary, a bad traffic accident, a fall and break their hip, get crushed by the 1000 loo rolls piled up in the front room and so on.



Absolutely, there are very good reasons both personal and societal for vulnerable people to be particularly cautious, I just didn’t want the idea taking root that all the 1.5m are likely to die if they get it - that kind of fear would be very damaging in itself.

I’m trying to keep my brother (heart disease) and sister (MS) from melting down about this right now, so I’ve got some anecdata!


----------



## Numbers (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> My govt says I can go out to excercise. You say im a cunt. You dont have any right to demand anything of me. Your in a different country even. I dont need your sympathy. I am poking you a bit as you are an example of irrational over emotional behaviour that helps no one.
> 
> Btw the figures from Spain were shocking yesterday. How are they today?


4500+ new cases, 385 deaths


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Thats sensible. You cant guarantee this at all.


I do think we all need to think very carefully about this. You're actually a good example, I think. I would say that you're a priority for being allowed out for a daily walk, and it's important that you should be able to do this safely. For that reason, it's imperative for others to moderate their actions accordingly.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Numbers said:


> 4500+ new cases, 385 deaths


385 daily deaths?


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> My govt says I can go out to excercise.



I thought you were expecting to be on the list of 1.5 million people who have been told not to leave their homes at all?

Having looked at the list of conditions its not clear to me whether you will actually be included in that group, and quite possibly I am out of date with your feelings about this.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I do think we all need to think very carefully about this. You're actually a good example, I think. I would say that you're a priority for being allowed out for a daily walk, and it's important that you should be able to do this safely. For that reason, it's imperative for others to moderate their actions accordingly.


I'm actually lucky enough to have a garden and a park adjacent to my house. I agree about not putting others at risk. How far we take that is a moral issue , I'm not certain. 
It will get clearer, the morals and  the practicalities as this progresses. 

I am stamping up and down the stairs as I dictate this.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> I thought you were expecting to be on the list of 1.5 million people who have been told not to leave their homes at all?
> 
> Having looked at the list of conditions its not clear to me whether you will actually be included in that group, and quite possibly I am out of date with your feelings about this.


Er yes you are correct. I can open a window. 
I got the text yesterday. Apols.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

I'm just grumpy missing my love and family and friends. Sorry Favdllaaado, Mrs miggins and anyone else I have snapped at.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

I am going to use the garden. I can't  not.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> My govt says I can go out to excercise. You say im a cunt. You dont have any right to demand anything of me. Your in a different country even. I dont need your sympathy. I am poking you a bit as you are an example of irrational over emotional behaviour that helps no one.
> 
> Btw the figures from Spain were shocking yesterday. How are they today?



I am not personally calling you a cunt. I am saying I think it's selfish for people to go out. I wasn't sending you pity just being polite (and sincere). Just because an incompetent Tory government has said that it's a good idea, it doesn't mean it is one. My 'behaviour' is absolutely not over-emotional in context and certainly more rational than those who fancy a bit of surfing or motorcycling today. That petrol tank might need filling up. You might have to buy something. You can't avoid other humans completely.

Here in Spain the trajectory is worse than Italy - the equivalent of our Wembley Arena has been turned into a makeshift treatment centre. If anything the measures aren't tight enough here. It's public transport that I think is one of the main issues. They should have come up with a plan to stop there being a rush hour. Overall, however the lockdown here will be more effective than the UK one I hope - as I think that Boris has ballsed up.

Just because he has got his policy wrong - it doesn't mean people have to follow it.


IFEMA Conference Centre


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I'm just grumpy missing my love and family and friends. Sorry Favdllaaado, Mrs miggins and anyone else I have snapped at.



But it's fine. I think the important thing on Urban is to be able to argue and know when to stop as well.

All is well and I wish you well.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

prunus said:


> Just to keep things on the level - there are very few people who are _likely_ to die if they get it, even most of the at risk groups have a greater (mostly a fair bit greater) than 80% of surviving an infection, according to the data so far.  Obviously 1 in 5 chance is way too high for comfort, and more than justifies the extra caution, but I think it’s important to keep things in perspective, it’s not a death sentence.


Thing is, if you infect someone, it's not just them. You set of a whole new chain of infection, apparently consisting of over 400 people on average (although it's hoped that the new restrictions will cut this dramatically). Given the mortality rate, some of those people are going to die.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

I have had several texts now (just checked doh). 
First. 
NHS Coronavirus Service: We have identified that you're someone at risk of severe illness if you catch Coronavirus. Please remain at home for a minimum of 12 weeks. Home is the safest place for you. Staying in helps you stay well and that will help the NHS too. You can open a window but do not leave your home, and stay 3 steps away from others indoors. Wash your hands more often, for at least 20 seconds.

Read more advice about staying safe at home.




__





						Guidance for people previously considered clinically extremely vulnerable from COVID-19
					






					www.gov.uk
				




We will send you more messages with information.

To opt out reply STOP

Second:NHS Coronavirus Service: Do you know how you will get your medicines while you are staying in your home? You can order repeat prescriptions online via the NHS app or your GP's online services.

Read more information about online services








						NHS online services
					

Find out how to order repeat prescriptions, book appointments and access your health record online




					www.nhs.uk
				




Please ask your family, friends or neighbours to pick up your prescriptions from a pharmacy. Just remind them to leave the items outside your door.

The NHS is still here for you - you will still get the care you need, but the way you receive it might change. More will happen over the phone and internet.

To opt out reply STOP

Third: NHS Coronavirus Service: Do you live with others? This advice will keep you safer from the virus:

Sleep separately if you can
Stay 3 steps away from others at home. Keep away from children
Only essential carers should visit
Wash your hands more often for 20 seconds and always before eating. Moisturise if your skin gets dry
Eat separately, using your own cutlery, dishcloths and towels
Clean and wipe down surfaces in the kitchen, bathroom and door handles before use
If you can, use separate bathrooms. If you share a bathroom, use it first and clean between uses


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I am going to use the garden. I can't  not.



If by some miracle I find an abandoned rolling road that would fit in your garden I will try and send it your way.  You'd have to find someone else to throw insects at you though.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Hi. I've also suffered from depression and I don't feel too great right now. Tough shit. Don't want other people to die. It's not about me at the moment.



Exactly, it's not about you. You don't feel too great, others feel far worse than that. If this had happened when I lived in my old flat with my young daughter and no garden I'd have to take her outside now and then to let off steam. Some of her friends lived in hugely overcrowded homes with no outside space at all - and no home broadband to provide entertainment, either. One lived with a violent alcoholic stepdad who regularly beat her mother to a pulp.

People like that need to get outside now and then or they might die from things other than coronavirus. Just because coronavirus exists, it doesn't mean nothing else does.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> If by some miracle I find an abandoned rolling road that would fit in your garden I will try and send it your way.  You'd have to find someone else to throw insects at you though.


I think the bike is going to remain marooned in my garden for the time being.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Exactly, it's not about you. You don't feel too great, others feel far worse than that. If this had happened when I lived in my old flat with my young daughter and no garden I'd have to take her outside now and then to let off steam.



That just sounds really entitled. Noone in Spain and Italy is allowed to do that. Most people don't have gardens and live in flats. Why are you so special?


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Straw men. Fucking fell running.
> Probably going to get more problems for the NHS by bored people putting object up their arses.



Yeah, outbreaks of cabin fever - when will this madness end etc.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

Well inevitably - people agree or disagree. When people really start dying at home - hundreds at a time - which is coming very soon, maybe there'll be a shift in attitudes.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> That just sounds really entitled. Noone in Spain and Italy is allowed to do that. Most people don't have gardens and live in flats. Why are you so special?



Oh fuck off. You're not reading what anyone says to you at all.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

He all about the emotions today.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Oh fuck off. You're not reading what anyone says to you at all.



I absolutely am and I think the context drowns all the other *admittedly very important* other issues. London may well be Madrid in ten days' time and let's see how everyone feels then.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Corona virus sylogism.  
We must do something
This is somethig ergo we must do this


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Those numbers as well. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of people here, and as I said 1,500 have died in Madrid *this week*. So even something as important as the suicide rate is secondary right now. Staggering though it is for me to find myself typing that.



It isn't just immediate suicides though, it's future ones, it's broken down relationships and broken families, dv, mh deterioration to point of no return, all that. Not suggesting it's more important or anything like that, but we need to try and find a way to release pressures for people where we can without increasing risks and even when that isn't possible then show understanding and compassion.

Sounds bad for you btw, can't be easy in a flat on your own in madrid right now mate, hope you can keep your chin up


----------



## BigTom (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Corona virus sylogism.
> We must do something
> This is somethig ergo we must do this



But that's the opposite of what's going on here - moving to lock down, to reducing contact to the absolute minimum possible - is something to do because it's proven that it reduces the speed/spread of infections. There's good reason for doing this, it's not like that sylogism at all.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I absolutely am and I think the context drowns all the other *admittedly very important* other issues. London may well be Madrid in ten days' time and let's see how everyone feels then.



TBH the anger you seem to be feeling isn't really a good argument that being completely locked down doesn't affect your mental health.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> It isn't just immediate suicides though, it's future ones, it's broken down relationships and broken families, dv, mh deterioration to point of no return, all that. Not suggesting it's more important or anything like that, but we need to try and find a way to release pressures for people where we can without increasing risks and even when that isn't possible then show understanding and compassion.
> 
> Sounds bad for you btw, can't be easy in a flat on your own in madrid right now mate, hope you can keep your chin up



You sound uncannily like Trump there as he was saying as much in a recent WH press conference, something along the lines of the treatment can’t end up being worse than the cure leading to suicides, lives ruined etc.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> How can it hurt? If you crashed? Possible interaction? I'm thinking that when my motorcycle is roadworthy I will go out on it. Is this foolish?


I think that, ironically, motorcycling is probably one of the safest means of transport at the moment. You're wearing a helmet and gloves, so there's little chance of coming into contact with the virus. In fact, riding a motorbike is good exercise, and if you combine the bike run with an essential shop run, and take that from your one-a-day outdoor exercise quota, you're probably more than doing your bit.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> You sound uncannily like Trump there as he was saying as much in a recent WH press conference, something along the lines of the treatment can’t end up being worse than the cure leading to suicides, lives ruined etc.



Come on marty, no


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> I think that, ironically, motorcycling is probably one of the safest means of transport at the moment. You're wearing a helmet and gloves, so there's little chance of coming into contact with the virus. In fact, riding a motorbike is good exercise, and if you combine the bike run with an essential shop run, and take that from your one-a-day outdoor exercise quota, you're probably more than doing your bit.


I think you fail to understand the people who fail to understand this.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I think you fail to understand the people who fail to understand this.


Just don't fall off. 

And unless you're riding to the local shop, in which case it may be a rather short ride, you're potentially travelling distances that won't help contain the virus.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> If you think the police want to breathe your germs you are mistaken. I would surmise it would be very hard to get arrested for anything at the moment.
> Maybe get shouted at by a copper safely in their vehicle with the windows up.


Specially if you cough once or twice


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 24, 2020)

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Someone has to do the uncomfortable math that says a few more suicides or beaten kids is an acceptable price to pay for several thousand fewer deaths from coronavirus.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> It isn't just immediate suicides though, it's future ones, it's broken down relationships and broken families, dv, mh deterioration to point of no return, all that. Not suggesting it's more important or anything like that, but we need to try and find a way to release pressures for people where we can without increasing risks and even when that isn't possible then show understanding and compassion.
> 
> Sounds bad for you btw, can't be easy in a flat on your own in madrid right now mate, hope you can keep your chin up



It's not so bad. It's not about quarantine. It's about what's happening in the city.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Someone has to do the uncomfortable math that says a few more suicides or beaten kids is an acceptable price to pay for several thousand fewer deaths from coronavirus.


Sorry but the talk specifically of suicide is off the mark. Long-term perhaps with destroyed lives (but more lives will be destroyed by more deaths from CV), but short-term you're making a bunch of dodgy assumptions that there will be a spike in suicides with a lock-down. There are reasons to believe that the reverse is likely to be true. 

Vulnerable people stuck at home and unable to get the help they need is a far more real concern.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> You sound uncannily like Trump there as he was saying as much in a recent WH press conference, something along the lines of the treatment can’t end up being worse than the cure leading to suicides, lives ruined etc.



If I was granted one wish, it would be to grab Trump and shove him up your arse.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> TBH the anger you seem to be feeling isn't really a good argument that being completely locked down doesn't affect your mental health.



Quite a snide reply. It's frustration at seeing things going wrong at home that guides my opinion - regardless of personal circumstance - also the broader situation in Spain. And I repeat, who cares about my temporary mental health? People are dying in their hundreds.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> We have identified that you're someone at risk of severe illness if you catch Coronavirus. Please remain at home for a minimum of 12 weeks.
> 
> To opt out reply STOP


Replying STOP sounds like the best option, but is it the Coronavirus or the 12 weeks isolation you'd be opting out of?


----------



## xenon (Mar 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> TBH the anger you seem to be feeling isn't really a good argument that being completely locked down doesn't affect your mental health.



He isn't saying that at all though is he.

X is terrible and will mean peple suffer / die

Y if left unchecked will defineitley kill thousands, hundreds of thousands of people directly, many more as health services won't cope and those with other conditions are infected / die without treatment of their pre-existing issues.

If you're urging peple all to do as much as they can to mitigate against Y, it doesn't follow you're dismissing X.

Anyway no point carping at each other but just thought he was being misread.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I am not personally calling you a cunt. I am saying I think it's selfish for people to go out. I wasn't sending you pity just being polite (and sincere). Just because an incompetent Tory government has said that it's a good idea, it doesn't mean it is one. My 'behaviour' is absolutely not over-emotional in context and certainly more rational than those who fancy a bit of surfing or motorcycling today. That petrol tank might need filling up. You might have to buy something. You can't avoid other humans completely.
> 
> Here in Spain the trajectory is worse than Italy - the equivalent of our Wembley Arena has been turned into a makeshift treatment centre. If anything the measures aren't tight enough here. It's public transport that I think is one of the main issues. They should have come up with a plan to stop there being a rush hour. Overall, however the lockdown here will be more effective than the UK one I hope - as I think that Boris has ballsed up.
> 
> ...


I cant imagine being able to sleep there.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Just don't fall off.
> 
> And unless you're riding to the local shop, in which case it may be a rather short ride, you're potentially travelling distances that won't help contain the virus.


Yeah I cant ensure no interaction on a bike. It will wait. 
More push ups and stair climbs for me then.


----------



## bimble (Mar 24, 2020)

One small but awful little detail in the guidelines for what we are and aren't allowed to do - the 2m distancing applies to funerals. 
Please be careful anyone doing stuff that has even a moderate risk of injury that might need medical care and just do it really carefully and slowly if you do it (like using power tools tools whatever).


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 24, 2020)

............


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The whole point of this is not to spread the virus. The farther people travel, the farther it spreads. That bit is really quite simple.



Also about not taking unnecessary risks which could potentially put extra strain on the emergency services.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

Yeah. I mean, I'll go and get my classes ready now. I don't want to steal anyone's walk or exercise off them for no reason. It's because I think everyone needs to have the mindset of thinking about others first in the crisis we find ourselves in. Just infecting one person, or becoming infected keeps the chain going, and we've all seen the charts of exponential growth. Sometimes we have to suffer for others even if it makes us feel bored, or down. With issues as serious as domestic abuse, of course I don't have the answer to that. Who am I? No-one. But if you can do your exercise at home or not go for a walk, better to do so. If that makes you feel down, if that's a privilege you feel entitled to - maybe you should reconsider it. Just doing it because the Tories, who have mishandled this from day 1, say you can seems an abandonment of reason and your responsibility to society - and many of you would of course describe yourself as socialists.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Someone has to do the uncomfortable math that says a few more suicides or beaten kids is an acceptable price to pay for several thousand fewer deaths from coronavirus.


They have done the maths and made decisions on who will be intubated and who wont be. This is the who lives and who dies decisions. The Deputy Chief Medical Officer confirmed this at the press conference on Sunday.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I'm just grumpy missing my love and family and friends. Sorry Favdllaaado, Mrs miggins and anyone else I have snapped at.


No worries - take care x


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Yeah. I mean, I'll go and get my classes ready now. I don't want to steal anyone's walk or exercise off them for no reason. It's because I think everyone needs to have the mindset of thinking about others first in the crisis we find ourselves in. Just infecting one person, or becoming infected keeps the chain going, and we've all seen the charts of exponential growth. Sometimes we have to suffer for others even if it makes us feel bored, or down. With issues as serious as domestic abuse, of course I don't have the answer to that. Who am I? No-one. But if you can do your exercise at home or not go for a walk, better to do so. If that makes you feel down, if that's a privilege you feel entitled to - maybe you should reconsider it. Just doing it because the Tories, who have mishandled this from day 1, say you can seems an abandonment of reason and your responsibility to society - and many of you would of course describe yourself as socialists.


Now you are having a dig at the Socialists as well as the Tories.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> If I was granted one wish, it would be to grab Trump and shove him up your arse.



__


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Yeah. I mean, I'll go and get my classes ready now.


Are you a teacher? Have they not closed the schools there?


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 24, 2020)

Fuck going out, stay home till its all over. Rather be bored than dead.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Are you a teacher? Have they not closed the schools there?



Zoom classes. At the end of the month ELT sector will sack half the teachers as students refuse to sign up for following month (not the product they signed up for).


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

I’m so sorry bimble. I just had a fag.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

My god it was good though


----------



## Numbers (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> 385 daily deaths?


Yep, daily.  But just been reading on the BBC site (385 is the figure on the worldometer site) that 'Spain has reported a record 514 deaths in a single day, bringing the total number of fatalities there to 2,696'


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> I’m so sorry bimble. I just had a fag.



Outside?


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Zoom classes. At the end of the month ELT sector will sack half the teachers as students refuse to sign up for following month (not the product they signed up for).


Well maybe cut the prices a bit?


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Yep, daily.  But just been reading on the BBC site (385 is the figure on the worldometer site) that 'Spain has reported a record 514 deaths in a single day, bringing the total number of fatalities there to 2,696'


Thanks


----------



## treelover (Mar 24, 2020)

I'm not even going in the communal(quite private) garden
got the flu anyway, in bed most of day, horrendous


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Outside



Leave it. It ain’t worth it. Etc


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> One small but awful little detail in the guidelines for what we are and aren't allowed to do - the 2m distancing applies to funerals.


Because nobody wants to be one foot in the grave?


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Fuck going out, stay home till its all over. Rather be bored than dead.


A lot of people don't have the luxury of being able to stay at home. Some have to work, most have to eat. At some point in the next couple of days I'll have to go shopping. Not because I want to but because I have to.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 24, 2020)

I have a flight to Nice booked with BA on Sunday. It hasn’t been cancelled yet, but they seem to be sending rather keen emails reminding me of my booking and how to check in online, almost as if they’re inviting me to cancel myself rather than cancel it themselves and be forced to refund


----------



## scifisam (Mar 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> He isn't saying that at all though is he.
> 
> X is terrible and will mean peple suffer / die
> 
> ...



But that's without really concrete evidence that just going for a walk will lead to "hundreds of thousands" of people dying. Spain and Italy are in total lockdown, but some other countries, including ones that have relatively low numbers of infected yet alone dead, have allowed brief exercise outdoors. Even in China, which is being praised for containing the virus well once they decided to do something about it, people weren't allowed to leave their compounds without a pass (but they could sometimes get a pass), but those compounds included outside space that people _were_ allowed to use, and, at least in some regions, people were allowed out for walks.

One example: Life on Lockdown in China

Some people she mentions stayed in their apartment for weeks, but there was outside communal space for people to use and no ban on using it, and she even went for a run along the river.

And yes, Favelado has been dismissing the mental health repercussions. He literally said "tough shit," and if that's not being dismissive then what is?

Obvs a lot of us are reacting angrily due to fear, and that's understandable. But that anger won't be helped by prolonged enforced isolation.

Obvs I'm talking about an occasional walk or run, not gathering for parties or acting like nothing's wrong.


----------



## Fedayn (Mar 24, 2020)

Am a designated key worker, Category 2 mind.. For those on benefit there's been a change today

*



			From today (Tuesday 24 March) jobcentres are directed to allow access only to those with genuine exceptions.
		
Click to expand...

*


> At this unprecedented time, additional steps are now being taken to protect our customers and focus on ensuring their payments are in place.
> It is also important that we support the critical efforts to reduce unnecessary travel, increase social distancing, protect our customers and protect our colleagues to ensure they can focus on making payments.
> Therefore after the measures taken last week to decrease the amount of customer contact in jobcentres, we will from tomorrow be reducing face-to-face contact to an absolute minimum.
> *What this means: *
> ...


----------



## Numbers (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Thanks


1 person dead every 3 minutes or so, sobering.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Leave it. It ain’t worth it. Etc



Was just going to mention a couple of hardened cancer stick users I know have switched to vaping during this pandemic as you can chuff away indoors with no residual stink of tobacco or go outside when it’s Baltic.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

When you have no shoes and all that 









						My sister has a learning disability and I can't visit her because of coronavirus | Saba Salman
					

The 1.5 million learning disabled people in the UK are already among society’s most segregated people. Communities must not forget them, says Saba Salman, a journalist specialising in learning disabilities




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> A lot of people don't have the luxury of being able to stay at home. Some have to work, most have to eat. At some point in the next couple of days I'll have to go shopping. Not because I want to but because I have to.


Maybe I should add to that list: bored and skint. And probably eating the strangest menu ever.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> I have a flight to Nice booked with BA on Sunday. It hasn’t been cancelled yet, but they seem to be sending rather keen emails reminding me of my booking and how to check in online, almost as if they’re inviting me to cancel myself rather than cancel it themselves and be forced to refund



Yep, we had to wait till Jet2 cancelled our flights else we’d have lost 90% of our money.

Since then Jet2 have said we are in credit with them for the cost of the holiday.  We’ve told them we’d like a refund but Jet2 have requested we email them detailing exactly why we can’t accept a credit before they will consider a refund.

Spoke with credit card company we paid holiday with and they’ve advised to play ball with Jet2 until they say either way before they will act to recover our cash.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Was just going to mention a couple of hardened cancer stick users I know have switched to vaping during this pandemic as you can chuff away indoors with no residual stink of tobacco or go outside when it’s Baltic.


Speaking of vaping... I wonder if any research has been carried out on whether this virus can attach itself to the exhaled droplets of vape juice, and whether or not vaping in public places should be banned at this time.

Note to self... Stay away from vapers.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Yep, we had to wait till Jet2 cancelled our flights else we’d have lost 90% of our money.
> 
> Since then Jet2 have said we are in credit with them for the cost of the holiday.  We’ve told them we’d like a refund but Jet2 have requested we email them detailing exactly why we can’t accept a credit before they will consider a refund.
> 
> Spoke with credit card company we paid holiday with and they’ve advised to play ball with Jet2 until they say either way before they will act to recover our cash.



They’ll try it on for sure. And you can’t blame them really. They’ll be fighting for survival like many other travel firms right now.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 24, 2020)

some positive stuff!








						Coronavirus: The new inventions inspired by a pandemic
					

A virus-killing snood and hands-free door pull are among Welsh innovations to tackle coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				



A ventilator designed in 3 days that can help patients self care that also "cleans room of viral particles"
Welsh Government backing this and 100 a day could be made!!





*A virus killing snood*
"Designers claim the mask kills more than 95% of any viruses - including Covid-19. "
and a *hands free door handle* with the design available to 3D print


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

aggghhhhhhh









						UK hospitals being sent untested coronavirus protection, say medics
					

Staff having to get refitted for face masks, while only option for others is to buy their own




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

It’s a valid point.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Maybe I should add to that list: bored and skint. And probably eating the strangest menu ever.


My menu will be soy sauce on carpet squares if I don't get to the shops soon


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Speaking of vaping... I wonder if any research has been carried out on whether this virus can attach itself to the exhaled droplets of vape juice, and whether or not vaping in public places should be banned at this time.
> 
> Note to self... Stay away from vapers.



^ Wibble^


----------



## ddraig (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> It’s a valid point.



you fucking WHAT?? Why do you think HE is making THIS point FFS
Fuck sake


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 24, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> I have a flight to Nice booked with BA on Sunday. It hasn’t been cancelled yet, but they seem to be sending rather keen emails reminding me of my booking and how to check in online, almost as if they’re inviting me to cancel myself rather than cancel it themselves and be forced to refund



That is definitely what's happening. Some of the behaviour from travel companies and airlines has been appaling. All kinds of shitness going on.


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> It’s a valid point.



Its a shit point. A long time ago we passed the point where it was too late to stop an epidemic here. But that doesnt mean we cannot strongly influence the timing and scale of the epidemic. So it is never too late to do something.

The same can be said for imperfect measures that still have holes in them. That doesnt make the whole exercise pointless, its a numbers game and any reduction of the reproductive rate of the virus can have a very real impact.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> ^ Wibble^


It's a valid and serious concern. If the virus can attach itself to exhaled vape juice, then vapers could effectively be turning it into an airborne virus.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 24, 2020)

so Marty1  you agree with Farage and want to stop people coming here but you still want to go on fucking holiday???
hypocrite scum


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

Fags it is then


----------



## Numbers (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> It’s a valid point.


----------



## pesh (Mar 24, 2020)

which one?


----------



## xenon (Mar 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> But that's without really concrete evidence that just going for a walk will lead to "hundreds of thousands" of people dying. Spain and Italy are in total lockdown, but some other countries, including ones that have relatively low numbers of infected yet alone dead, have allowed brief exercise outdoors. Even in China, which is being praised for containing the virus well once they decided to do something about it, people weren't allowed to leave their compounds without a pass (but they could sometimes get a pass), but those compounds included outside space that people _were_ allowed to use, and, at least in some regions, people were allowed out for walks.
> 
> One example: Life on Lockdown in China
> 
> ...




OK. I read his "tough shit" as just a reaction to what's going on in Spain, around him, the grim numbers coming in.   Not a cool considered weighing up of X vs Y

Prolonged isolation will help with slowing the spread of this down but exaserbate other issues, no argument.


As for China and South Korea, we haven't been doing what they've done and are doing.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Yeah I cant ensure no interaction on a bike. It will wait.
> More push ups and stair climbs for me then.


I've just been to the shops and for a short walk (first time out since Sunday). tbh around me at least, it is very easy to keep your distance when out walking. 

I get where favelado is coming from and it sounds horrible in Madrid atm, but we're not there yet. I don't think taking short local walks and being careful not to interact with anyone while doing so is being selfish. But we're all balancing things.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> As for China and South Korea, we haven't been doing what they've done and are doing.



Killing doctors and people in institutions?


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a shit point. A long time ago we passed the point where it was too late to stop an epidemic here. But that doesnt mean we cannot strongly influence the timing and scale of the epidemic. So it is never too late to do something.
> 
> The same can be said for imperfect measures that still have holes in them. That doesnt make the whole exercise pointless, its a numbers game and any reduction of the reproductive rate of the virus can have a very real impact.



No - the point about still letting planes arrive from highly infected countries.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

What if they’ve got a pressing surfing appointment


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> It’s a valid point.



Fuck off.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> so Marty1  you agree with Farage and want to stop people coming here but you still want to go on fucking holiday???
> hypocrite scum



Er.. wat?

Im not going on holiday and wouldn’t want to - especially if it meant I’d be possibly spreading this virus.

Makes perfect sense to stop international travel into the U.K. from other highly infected countries - it’s entry level basics in controlling a pandemic.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> No - the point about still letting planes arrive from highly infected countries.


Like the US? why was the US not mentioned do you think?
you go on about your fucking holiday then quote the uber cunt farage dogwhistling about others from other countries "coming over here" on the same fucking page, you cunt
Do you actually know planes are still coming in? does he? For Fucks sake


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Er.. wat?
> 
> Im not going on holiday and wouldn’t want to - especially if it meant I’d be possibly spreading this virus.
> 
> Makes perfect sense to stop international travel into the U.K. from other highly infected countries - it’s entry level basics in controlling a pandemic.


REally fuck off. the wisdom of trump and farage and your barely concealed agenda to spread hatred and racism. Fuck the fuck off.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Er.. wat?
> 
> Im not going on holiday and wouldn’t want to - especially if it meant I’d be possibly spreading this virus.
> 
> Makes perfect sense to stop international travel into the U.K. from other highly infected countries - it’s entry level basics in controlling a pandemic.


why quote that cunt? do you not know what his agenda is? or just agree with him in general?


----------



## chilango (Mar 24, 2020)

Stay focussed on who the real enemy is here people, please.

The politicians who cynically act to protect the market.

The bosses who force their staff to keep working else their profits stall.

The landlords who hold the power of eviction over those who've just lost their income.

Not someone going for a walk, or wishing they could go surfing or having to go to the shops 'cos they're not in the position to buy an extra freezer and stockpile it full of hoarded goods.

Remember who the real enemy is, because when this is all over we must hold them to account.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> Stay focussed on who the real enemy is here people, please.
> 
> The politicians who cynically act to protect the market.
> 
> ...


Someone who wants to go surfing isn't the enemy. But they do need telling.


----------



## chilango (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Someone who wants to go surfing isn't the enemy. But they do need telling.



Yeah. They shouldn't go surfing...of course.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> Stay focussed on who the real enemy is here people, please.
> 
> The politicians who cynically act to protect the market.
> 
> ...



And recognising our own power/agency, and our duty to each other?


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Er.. wat?
> 
> Im not going on holiday and wouldn’t want to - especially if it meant I’d be possibly spreading this virus.
> 
> Makes perfect sense to stop international travel into the U.K. from other highly infected countries - it’s entry level basics in controlling a pandemic.



No it's not. The virus is all over the world now. Stop flights from one place you might as well stop flights from everywhere. The US tried to test people getting off planes and that failed because no symptoms were showing for several people tested. Later on they showed symptoms, meaning of course it's been spread.


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I get where favelado is coming from and it sounds horrible in Madrid atm, but we're not there yet.



One of the lessons from other places is to act quickly. As such, I consider 'we're not there yet' to be quite ridiculous. And I'm quite horrified, but sadly not surprised, at the way people have been able to insulate themselves from the reality/lag behind the reality of what is happening to people just because its a different country.


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> It’s a valid point.



Apart from the obvious racism and xenophobia - the virus is everywhere now, including the USA - why do you feel the need to post up a pointless, depth-free bit of casual, ignorant xenophobia from a xenophobic cunt like Farage? What agenda are you hoping to further here? There's plenty of informed comment from industry and medical professionals, yet you choose this twat. Why, exactly?


----------



## treelover (Mar 24, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Fuck off.





elbows said:


> One of the lessons from other places is to act quickly. As such, I consider 'we're not there yet' to be quite ridiculous. And I'm quite horrified, but sadly not surprised, at the way people have been able to insulate themselves from the reality/lag behind the reality of what is happening to people just because its a different country.




In this case, leaving aside who it is, shit stirring, isn't he right,


----------



## treelover (Mar 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> Stay focussed on who the real enemy is here people, please.
> 
> The politicians who cynically act to protect the market.
> 
> ...




Good luck with that, didn't seem to happen post 2008


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> No it's not. The virus is all over the world now. Stop flights from one place you might as well stop flights from everywhere. The US tried to test people getting off planes and that failed because no symptoms were showing for several people tested. Later on they showed symptoms, meaning of course it's been spread.



Yes and now the US have suspended flights from Europe, U.K. etc to proactively reduce the spread of the virus in America, which is just common sense of course.


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Yeah. I mean, I'll go and get my classes ready now. I don't want to steal anyone's walk or exercise off them for no reason. It's because I think everyone needs to have the mindset of thinking about others first in the crisis we find ourselves in. Just infecting one person, or becoming infected keeps the chain going, and we've all seen the charts of exponential growth. Sometimes we have to suffer for others even if it makes us feel bored, or down. With issues as serious as domestic abuse, of course I don't have the answer to that. Who am I? No-one. But if you can do your exercise at home or not go for a walk, better to do so. If that makes you feel down, if that's a privilege you feel entitled to - maybe you should reconsider it. Just doing it because the Tories, who have mishandled this from day 1, say you can seems an abandonment of reason and your responsibility to society - and many of you would of course describe yourself as socialists.


Have you got a garden where you are? That would make it infinitely easier to stay in for long periods, but for a lot of people in London they're stuck in tiny flats or bedsits, often with tiny windows and no direct sunlight.


----------



## robsean (Mar 24, 2020)

Yes and now the US have suspended flights from Europe, U.K. etc to proactively reduce the spread of the virus in America, which is just common sense of course.

No they haven't.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> Apart from the obvious racism and xenophobia - the virus is everywhere now, including the USA - why do you feel the need to post up a pointless, depth-free bit of casual, ignorant xenophobia from a xenophobic cunt like Farage? What agenda are you hoping to further here? There's plenty of informed comment from industry and medical professionals, yet you choose this twat. Why, exactly?



Nothing to do with any of that other than the point made regarding flights still being allowed into the country from other countries with high rates of infection.

In retrospect I regret posting a tweet from said figure as it’s produced a highly negative response away from the subject which was not my intention.


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Nothing to do with any of that other than the point made regarding flights still being allowed into the country from other countries with high rates of infection.
> 
> In retrospect I regret posting a tweet from said figure as it’s produced a highly negative response away from the subject which was not my intention.


I guess you follow him avidly on Twitter and found yourself unable to resist sharing his ignorant, unqualified xenophobic drivel here, eh?


----------



## scifisam (Mar 24, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> No it's not. The virus is all over the world now. Stop flights from one place you might as well stop flights from everywhere. The US tried to test people getting off planes and that failed because no symptoms were showing for several people tested. Later on they showed symptoms, meaning of course it's been spread.



Testing people coming off flights would still be better than not testing them, though, surely? They'll catch at least some of the people who can spread the virus on. And they're in an airport, a place where it would be easy to get people in an orderly line and test them, because we're used to strict rules in airports. We need to start testing some segment of the population that isn't already in acute care or we're never going to know what's happening with this disease. 

And hopefully all of those people will self-isolate; they should be obliged to, but that might be hard to enforce - and for people who've recently travelled abroad from pretty much anywhere that should mean two weeks' actual lockdown, including not going out for walks. They're higher risk to spread the virus and, also, they've obviously just been away so are lower risk for the effects of being cooped up.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Nothing to do with any of that other than the point made regarding flights still being allowed into the country from other countries with high rates of infection.
> 
> In retrospect I regret posting a tweet from said figure as it’s produced a highly negative response away from the subject which was not my intention.


fuck off again. You're thick but not that thick. You knew full well the reaction it would get.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> Have you got a garden where you are? That would make it infinitely easier to stay in for long periods, but for a lot of people in London they're stuck in tiny flats or bedsits, often with tiny windows and no direct sunlight.



Gardens are very uncommon in Madrid. Flats are smaller in Madrid than London I'd say, having lived in both cities. People here just have to suck it up (of course there has been non-compliance here too). 50% of flats in Madrid are 'interior'  - they don't have windows facing to the outside, let alone direct sunlight.  It's not going to be easy - but it's for the common good.


----------



## treelover (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> Have you got a garden where you are? That would make it infinitely easier to stay in for long periods, but for a lot of people in London they're stuck in tiny flats or bedsits, often with tiny windows and no direct sunlight.



same in spain, etc, lucky i have a very big opened windowed flat, though a sociopath for a landlord who will and has left me without power, etc.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Nothing to do with any of that other than the point made regarding flights still being allowed into the country from other countries with high rates of infection.
> 
> In retrospect I regret posting a tweet from said figure as it’s produced a highly negative response away from the subject which was not my intention.


total bullshit
you could make the point about flights without quoting a tweet from that racist, xenophobic dog whistling cunt, yet you did
well.fucking.done


----------



## treelover (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Gardens are very uncommon in Madrid. Flats are smaller in Madrid than London I'd say, having lived in both cities. People here just have to suck it up (of course there has been non-compliance here too). 50% of flats in Madrid are 'interior'  - they don't have windows facing to the outside, let alone direct sunlight.  It's not going to be easy - but it's for the common good.



I would go insane with that


----------



## ddraig (Mar 24, 2020)

treelover said:


> In this case, leaving aside who it is, shit stirring, isn't he right,


oh come on! Farage is never right, never


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Gardens are very uncommon in Madrid. Flats are smaller in Madrid than London I'd say, having lived in both cities. People here just have to suck it up (of course there has been non-compliance here too). 50% of flats in Madrid are 'interior'  - they don't have windows facing to the outside, let alone direct sunlight.  It's not going to be easy - but it's for the common good.


But do you have a garden? And there's plenty of really tiny, really shitty flats in London where, of course, there's shitloads less sun and loads more miserable greyness and rain. I know this because I've lived in some horrendous shitholes, one where I had to share a tiny window with my neighbour (the wall went through the middle of the room). I'm not going to blame anyone responsibly taking a walk if they're living in a shoebox with no nautal light.

That makes me think - how is it going to work for those shitehawks The Collective with their cash-extracting on-trend micro 'co-living' blocks?




__





						Co-living | Live Like You've Never Lived Before | The Collective
					

Discover a better way of living.  Co-living buildings designed to connect and inspire you, with shared spaces and events. We’re reimagining renting so you can live your best life.




					www.thecollective.com


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

treelover said:


> I would go insane with that



But if you lived here, you'd spend more time outside  and it would be less of a problem in normal times- of course madrileños are having to be inside much more than they ever normally would now. This is a city that lives in the street much more than London, or even Paris. If madrileños can put up with it, I think most people can. I'm not saying it's nice. I have had better weeks.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> But do you have a garden? And there;'s plenty of really tiny, really shitty flats in London where, of course, there's shitloads less sun and loads more miserable greyness and rain
> 
> That makes me think - how is it going to work for those shitehawks The Collective wit their cash-extracting on-trend 'co-living' blocks?
> 
> ...



No I don't have a garden because literally noone does in the whole neighbourhood.

eta Londoners are much more used to being inside than madrileños so it's swings and roundabouts.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> In retrospect I regret posting a tweet from said figure as it’s produced a highly negative response away from the subject which was not my intention.



Lying again, it was exactly your intention. Another "apology" that actually blames the people reacting.


----------



## chilango (Mar 24, 2020)

treelover said:


> Good luck with that, didn't seem to happen post 2008



Doesn't seem to be happening now either


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

Quite


----------



## treelover (Mar 24, 2020)

> A children’s nursery in *Cornwall* has been forced to close for key workers after burglars caused extensive damage.
> 
> 
> Daisy Fays Nursery in Chiverton Cross, near Truro, was broken in to over the weekend. Two gas canisters were stolen and significant damage caused to the front entrance. A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said:



i am sure some of the criminal fraternity will look down on this and act accordingly.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

Just seen that theatres can't open, but cinemas are allowed to open in order to live stream performances. Uh?


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

I dont agree with the headline for this story (unlikely this was the first death relating to hospital infection) but since the topic is so important I'll post it anyway.









						Woman is first UK victim to die of coronavirus caught in hospital
					

Death of Marita Edwards, 80, in Wales raises concerns of virus’s spread within hospitals




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Just seen that theatres can't open, but cinemas are allowed to open in order to live stream performances. Uh?



Seen where? Doesnt seem at all likely to be true.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Just seen that theatres can't open, but cinemas are allowed to open in order to live stream performances. Uh?



Where have you got that from? All I am seeing is that cinemas are closed.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

Guardian website. Will link if I can find it again.

Eta:









						UK coronavirus lockdown: what you can and cannot do
					

Everything we know about the rules and restrictions so far




					www.theguardian.com
				




About a quarter of the way down.


----------



## MrCurry (Mar 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Has anyone had a 'stay at home text' from the government yet?



I got one from UK_gov today, and I live in Sweden! UK mobile sim though, so I shouldn’t be surprised.  Boris will be pleased to know I didn’t leave the house today, except to drop rubbish in the wheelie bin outside (no-one else around).


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

treelover said:


> i am sure some of the criminal fraternity will look down on this and act accordingly.



But what if the downtrodden nursery burglars are stressed out by the lockdown?


----------



## bendeus (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> It's a valid and serious concern. If the virus can attach itself to exhaled vape juice, then vapers could effectively be turning it into an airborne virus.


Sorry, but what's the difference between exhaling the shed loads of virus in one's mouth along with the traditional CO2 and exhaling the virus with your vape exhaust gases? It still travels the same distance from your mouth and in the same concentrations regardless.


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Guardian website. Will link if I can find it again.
> 
> Eta:
> 
> ...



Its the Guardian/government combined botching the detail. Its not likely to really be applicable to cinemas, but shows up since they were grouped together with theatres and concert halls in the government table of locations and exceptions.

The government docs say:

(first column labelled Non-residential Institutions, 2nd labelled Exceptions

Cinemas, theatres and concert hallsLive streaming of a performance by a small group could be permissible with social distancing observed.









						Coronavirus: how to stay safe and help prevent the spread
					

Find out how to stay safe and help prevent the spread of coronavirus.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## teqniq (Mar 24, 2020)

Bit of good news:









						Fight against Covid-19 given huge boost by design and production in west Wales of new ventilator device to save countless lives.
					

Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales's national website




					www.partyof.wales


----------



## MrCurry (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Yep, we had to wait till Jet2 cancelled our flights else we’d have lost 90% of our money.
> 
> Since then Jet2 have said we are in credit with them for the cost of the holiday.  We’ve told them we’d like a refund but Jet2 have requested we email them detailing exactly why we can’t accept a credit before they will consider a refund.
> 
> Spoke with credit card company we paid holiday with and they’ve advised to play ball with Jet2 until they say either way before they will act to recover our cash.



No way would I accept “store credit” with any travel company for a cancelled trip at this time. Who knows if they will still be trading this time next year?  By then your credit card company would probably disallow a claim under the time limit Ts&Cs. Be polite but persistent that you require a refund to your credit card would be my advice.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its the Guardian/government combined botching the detail. Its not likely to really be applicable to cinemas, but shows up since they were grouped together with theatres and concert halls in the government table of locations and exceptions.
> 
> The government docs say:
> 
> ...


Even in the Government version, it's not exactly clearly worded.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

bendeus said:


> Sorry, but what's the difference between exhaling the shed loads of virus in one's mouth along with the traditional CO2 and exhaling the virus with your vape exhaust gases? It still travels the same distance from your mouth and in the same concentrations regardless.


Does COVID-19 attach itself to CO2 mulecules?


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 24, 2020)

bendeus said:


> Sorry, but what's the difference between exhaling the shed loads of virus in one's mouth along with the traditional CO2 and exhaling the virus with your vape exhaust gases? It still travels the same distance from your mouth and in the same concentrations regardless.



No doubt something very complicated to do with aersols and droplets. It may or may not make a significant difference but input from an expert would be needed.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 24, 2020)

London's ExCel centre to become field hospital 'within days'
					

It will initially have 500 beds, according to reports.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Mar 24, 2020)

Word on a local FB group here is that the police are stopping cars going through town and asking them where they are going.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Word on a local FB group here is that the police are stopping cars going through town and asking them where they are going.


Where's here?


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Word on a local FB group here is that the police are stopping cars going through town and asking them where they are going.


"Shopping" is always going to be a valid answer, until shopping tickets become a thing.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> "Shopping" is always going to be a valid answer, until shopping tickets become a thing.


Not if your licence says you live 30 miles away, though.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 24, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Word on a local FB group here is that the police are stopping cars going through town and asking them where they are going.



If you mean your town, the only thing through there is some very nice secret beaches.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

MrCurry said:


> No way would I accept “store credit” with any travel company for a cancelled trip at this time. Who knows if they will still be trading this time next year?  By then your credit card company would probably disallow a claim under the time limit Ts&Cs. Be polite but persistent that you require a refund to your credit card would be my advice.



Yeah, going to give it a couple of weeks to follow credit cards company advice for Jet2 to respond - if no joy then have to fill a form out online for credit company to act.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Not if your licence says you live 30 miles away, though.


"30 fkn miles and I still haven't found a shop with loo roll, officer"


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> London's ExCel centre to become field hospital 'within days'
> 
> 
> It will initially have 500 beds, according to reports.
> ...



Better get that ready pronto Exclusive: Frantic action to stop London ‘running out of beds in four days’


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Yeah. I mean, I'll go and get my classes ready now. I don't want to steal anyone's walk or exercise off them for no reason. It's because I think everyone needs to have the mindset of thinking about others first in the crisis we find ourselves in. Just infecting one person, or becoming infected keeps the chain going, and we've all seen the charts of exponential growth. Sometimes we have to suffer for others even if it makes us feel bored, or down. With issues as serious as domestic abuse, of course I don't have the answer to that. Who am I? No-one. But if you can do your exercise at home or not go for a walk, better to do so. If that makes you feel down, if that's a privilege you feel entitled to - maybe you should reconsider it. Just doing it because the Tories, who have mishandled this from day 1, say you can seems an abandonment of reason and your responsibility to society - and many of you would of course describe yourself as socialists.



I live in rural / coastal N Devon - not much good when you're made 75  % unemployed @ 50 + yrs,  + with little in the way of transferrable skills, or if you want to go to an art gallery, or a museum, or a gig or, anything else much - but in the v rare and alarming circs we now find  ourselves, I can get to the sea, get in, get back, without coming within 20 yds of another person over a 1.5 hr period - no visiting shops, no stops en route - quite simply, plse explain any objections you have to that in practical terms,  especially now that after yr stern proclaimations this morning, I have Made In Bedlam trolling me like a wet sheep


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Not if your licence says you live 30 miles away, though.



And you have a surfboard strapped to the roof.


----------



## Marty1 (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> I guess you follow him avidly on Twitter and found yourself unable to resist sharing his ignorant, unqualified xenophobic drivel here, eh?



Well, Farage was a member of the EU Parliament for over 20yrs so you have a point regarding ‘unqualified drivel’.


----------



## bendeus (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Does COVID-19 attach itself to CO2 mulecules?


I was under the impression that the Covid 19 virus was expelled through simple activities such as talking, breathing and of course coughing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> I live in rural / coastal N Devon - not much good when you're made 75  % unemployed @ 50 + yrs,  + with little in the way of transferrable skills, or if you want to go to an art gallery, or a museum, or a gig or, anything else much - but in the v rare and alarming circs we now find  ourselves, I can get to the sea, get in, get back, without coming within 20 yds of another person over a 1.5 hr period - no visiting shops, no stops en route - quite simply, plse explain any objections you have to that in practical terms,  especially now that after yr stern proclaimations this morning, I have Made In Bedlam trolling me like a wet sheep



I bet you regret ever mentioning your intentions.


----------



## bimble (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Well, Farage was a member of the EU Parliament for over 20yrs so you have a point regarding ‘unqualified drivel’.


Just stop it . Not this thread.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 24, 2020)

Fucking hell, the government's daily briefing is usually at 5 pm or soon after, switched on at 5 & it was coming to an end, bloody muppets.


----------



## seventh bullet (Mar 24, 2020)

I work in a supermarket. Had a Filipino colleague told by a thick scumbag customer this was 'all your fault' the other day.


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Even in the Government version, it's not exactly clearly worded.



Yeah I fiddled with my post to include the government in that bit, but my edit may have been after you read it.

Also keep in mind that advice was from before yesterdays increased 'stay indoors' lockdown message. They were previously trying to leave a bit of wiggle room but I expect that room to shrink as they further clarify what really counts as essential in the lockdown phase.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> An eight carriage train went past my window and I doubt if there was more than 6 people on it.


Sounds like a decent first line to a song.


----------



## Celyn (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> ...
> 50% of flats in Madrid are 'interior'  - they don't have windows facing to the outside, let alone direct sunlight.


That's horrible.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I bet you regret ever mentioning your intentions.



At least it gives MIB something new to latch on to I guess


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

bendeus said:


> I was under the impression that the Covid 19 virus was expelled through simple activities such as talking, breathing and of course coughing.


It can only attach itself to droplets, as far as I'm aware, such as those exhaled in their millions when sneezing... or vaping. I don't think normal breathing is a problem.
If the virus can attach itself to the vape droplets, then it could be far more dangerous than sneezing.


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Well, Farage was a member of the EU Parliament for over 20yrs so you have a point regarding ‘unqualified drivel’.


Take a week off this thread. NO ONE wants to hear anything that useless pointless cunt Farage has to say about COVID-19. Whether he spent one minute or a thousand years as a useless member of the EU Parliament is completely irrelevant to anything.


----------



## bendeus (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> It can only attach itself to droplets, as far as I'm aware, such as those exhaled in their millions when sneezing... or vaping. I don't think normal breathing is a problem.
> If the virus can attach itself to the vape droplets, then it could be far more dangerous than sneezing.


Thanks fella. Useful info for the semi ignorant (such as myself) .


----------



## spitfire (Mar 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> London's ExCel centre to become field hospital 'within days'
> 
> 
> It will initially have 500 beds, according to reports.
> ...



Saw a C130 coming in over East London about an hour ago heading towards City airport. I assume, I didn’t follow it. He was a bit high.
Not seen one of them over London outside flypasts.

Gave me the willies. (Not like that. )


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

Celyn said:


> That's horrible.



That's all of Spain and Italy I think. Not specific to Madrid.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Well, Farage was a member of the EU Parliament for over 20yrs so you have a point regarding ‘unqualified drivel’.


You're not at all regretful or sorry for posting him earlier are you? you're in total agreement!
He was a mostly absent member leaching all the money and perks he could from an organisation he didn't agree with or think should exist
He and you are scum


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> I have Made In Bedlam trolling me like a wet sheep



Where have I done that?


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> At least it gives MIB something new to latch on to I guess



Oh give it a rest.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Oh give it a rest.



okey


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

Weird


----------



## bimble (Mar 24, 2020)

Excel Center, can’t think of many worse places to die.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> I live in rural / coastal N Devon - not much good when you're made 75  % unemployed @ 50 + yrs,  + with little in the way of transferrable skills, or if you want to go to an art gallery, or a museum, or a gig or, anything else much - but in the v rare and alarming circs we now find  ourselves, I can get to the sea, get in, get back, without coming within 20 yds of another person over a 1.5 hr period - no visiting shops, no stops en route - quite simply, plse explain any objections you have to that in practical terms,  especially now that after yr stern proclaimations this morning, I have Made In Bedlam trolling me like a wet sheep



Yeah just stay at home in case you do bump into someone.  Don't be so selfish.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

I spot the hand of Isreal in all this Human rights and equality considerations in responding to the coronavirus pandemic | Equality and Human Rights Commission


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> Excel Center, can’t think of many worse places to die.



That’s opposite angel tube? Doesn’t seem to be a place for easy access


----------



## existentialist (Mar 24, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> How do they expect people to pay fines off these vultures when most aren’t at work?


I think they are expecting the fines to be a deterrent, in the way that fines essentially are.


----------



## belboid (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> I live in rural / coastal N Devon - not much good when you're made 75  % unemployed @ 50 + yrs,  + with little in the way of transferrable skills, or if you want to go to an art gallery, or a museum, or a gig or, anything else much - but in the v rare and alarming circs we now find  ourselves, I can get to the sea, get in, get back, without coming within 20 yds of another person over a 1.5 hr period - no visiting shops, no stops en route - quite simply, plse explain any objections you have to that in practical terms,  especially now that after yr stern proclaimations this morning, I have Made In Bedlam trolling me like a wet sheep


There's nothing wrong with going surfing, as long as you can choose a spot that is quiet, which you very probably can. People objecting on that basis alone are silly.  The only problem, imo, is in the travelling.  Sure, you'll be in a car and not really exposing anyone, but you will be a small part of encouraging other people to make similar journeys and, as we saw at the weekend, lots of them wont be such good judges.  If you can walk there, fine, go wild. Anything over a mile away should be a no no though, I'm afraid.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Yeah just stay at home in case you do bump into someone.  Don't be so selfish.



gotta say, reactive, substance-free stuff like this not helpful imo, just adds to confusion


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

Profiteering private ‘care’ provider scum


----------



## bimble (Mar 24, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> That’s opposite angel tube? Doesn’t seem to be a place for easy access


It’s on the docks somewhere east i think. Vast.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

belboid said:


> There's nothing wrong with going surfing, as long as you can choose a spot that is quiet, which you very probably can. People objecting on that basis alone are silly.  The only problem, imo, is in the travelling.  Sure, you'll be in a car and not really exposing anyone, but you will be a small part of encouraging other people to make similar journeys and, as we saw at the weekend, lots of them wont be such good judges.  If you can walk there, fine, go wild. Anything over a mile away should be a no no though, I'm afraid.


fairs


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> That’s opposite angel tube? Doesn’t seem to be a place for easy access


No, Docklands. 

You're thinking of the Business Design Centre, I think.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> gotta say, reactive, substance-free stuff like this not helpful imo, just adds to confusion



That's all there is to say. Don't go out. Don't be selfish. Stay at home.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> Excel Center, can’t think of many worse places to die.


#Ex-pire centre straightaway


----------



## lefteri (Mar 24, 2020)

bendeus said:


> Sorry, but what's the difference between exhaling the shed loads of virus in one's mouth along with the traditional CO2 and exhaling the virus with your vape exhaust gases? It still travels the same distance from your mouth and in the same concentrations regardless.



one difference is that, in the case of vape cloud, between 30 & 50 percent is propylene glycol which has anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties and has a long history of use in air-sanitation


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

Haven’t seen Glassman/Blue labour pop up for a while with their ‘NHS was a massive step backwards’ take for a while. Funny that


----------



## brogdale (Mar 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> It’s on the docks somewhere east i think. Vast.


Yep, you can't really miss the fucker...


----------



## editor (Mar 24, 2020)

belboid said:


> There's nothing wrong with going surfing, as long as you can choose a spot that is quiet, which you very probably can. People objecting on that basis alone are silly.  The only problem, imo, is in the travelling.  Sure, you'll be in a car and not really exposing anyone, but you will be a small part of encouraging other people to make similar journeys and, as we saw at the weekend, lots of them wont be such good judges.  If you can walk there, fine, go wild. Anything over a mile away should be a no no though, I'm afraid.


If you live next to the beach, yeah, go surfing. But travelling miles and miles to get there - and  perhaps having to stop off a petrol station on the way - really doesn't seem the right thing to do.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> It can only attach itself to droplets, as far as I'm aware, such as those exhaled in their millions when sneezing... or vaping. I don't think normal breathing is a problem.


You think incorrectly then.

The virions adhere to all endogenously exhaled droplets (normal, everyday, regular breathing produces an aerosol of such).


----------



## Epona (Mar 24, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> That’s opposite angel tube? Doesn’t seem to be a place for easy access



Nah it's way east, near where I am in Canning Town and not far from City Airport


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

The future is nurses dancing on a human skull. 

Forever


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

What’s the one in angel then? Oh it’s this Business Design Centre | Exhibition Venue | Showrooms & Office Space


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

belboid said:


> There's nothing wrong with going surfing, as long as you can choose a spot that is quiet, which you very probably can. People objecting on that basis alone are silly.  *The only problem, imo, is in the travelling*.



And the fact that surfing is a dangerous activity, which could land someone in hospital, putting further pressure on the already overworked hospital staff. I'd be more concerned about that than anything.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> You think incorrectly then.
> 
> The virions adhere to all endogenously exhaled droplets (normal, everyday, regular breathing produces an aerosol of such).


Good to know. Do you know how far these droplets might travel, compared to exhaled vape?


----------



## rutabowa (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> And the fact that surfing is a dangerous activity, which could land someone in hospital, putting further pressure on the already overworked hospital staff. I'd be more concerned about that than anything.


Yeh that's my only concern with it. Same with doing DIY and stuff... I'm lowering risk. Its a balance though


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> And the fact that surfing is a dangerous activity, which could land someone in hospital, putting further pressure on the already overworked hospital staff. I'd be more concerned about that than anything.


There's also the social psychology of it. If people start making decisions that it's OK for them to break or bend the rules, they know what they're doing etc, other people will quickly start thinking 'well, fuck it, then'.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Yeah just stay at home in case you do bump into someone.  Don't be so selfish.



Give a rest, I know you are in a city that is in crisis, not everyone is in the same situation. 

I am on the edge of Worthing, part of the Greater Brighton area, I can easily go out for a walk & hardly see anyone, I can certainly keep enough distance from them to avoid catching or spreading the virus, there's no risk whatsoever.


----------



## belboid (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> And the fact that surfing is a dangerous activity, which could land someone in hospital, putting further pressure on the already overworked hospital staff. I'd be more concerned about that than anything.


not something I'd take up now, for sure.  But if you're experienced, it's a different fishkettle.  It had a lower death rate than cycling, running or walking in the UK last year, and in every year I'd imagine (seeing as I cant find a record of when the last actual death while surfing in the uk was).


----------



## belboid (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> There's also the social psychology of it. If people start making decisions that it's OK for them to break or bend the rules, they know what they're doing etc, other people will quickly start thinking 'well, fuck it, then'.


That's the important bit, not the rest of it.


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 24, 2020)

Have we had the UK Gov have decided not to be part of EU medical kit collective buying. The despicable twats.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Where's here?


Laugharne, West Wales


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 24, 2020)

Part-timah said:


> Have we had the UK Gov have decided not to be part of EU medical kit collective buying. The despicable twats.



Well, we have left the EU.  We have to fend for ourselves now for better or for worse, this is what the people wanted.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

editor said:


> If you live next to the beach, yeah, go surfing. But travelling miles and miles to get there - and  perhaps having to stop off a petrol station on the way - really doesn't seem the right thing to do.



straight up, just heard this from expert ( not sure name ) on Beeb 1 Corona update ( he was also on at lunch it seems ) 

 : question from public : 
is it ok for me to drive for half an hour to go to a park that is far more empty than my nearby one. ?

answer : 
empahatically, yes, much better / safer - he then specifically mentioned that walking in remote countryside is essentially ' risk free' 

honestly, that's it for me for now


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

belboid said:


> not something I'd take up now, for sure.  But if you're experienced, it's a different fishkettle.  It had a lower death rate than cycling, running or walking in the UK last year, and in every year I'd imagine (seeing as I cant find a record of when the last actual death while surfing in the uk was).


Dying wouldn't be the problem. Breaking bones, etc would be.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Good to know. Do you know how far these droplets might travel, compared to exhaled vape?


It's a probability cloud which clearly varies with the prevailing microclimate (humidity in particular) and mixing. Improve your odds by maximising separation in both distance and time. In static air the vast majority of droplets either fall to ground or evaporate within about 2-3 metres of their origin (up to 8 metres if sneezed) and they could take up to 15 minutes to do so.


----------



## keybored (Mar 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> If I was granted one wish, it would be to grab Trump and shove him up your arse.


I suspect that would be two wishes granted at once.


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Well, we have left the EU.  We have to fend for ourselves now for better or for worse, this is what the people wanted.



No we are still part of this agreement. Boris & Cummings have consciously and actively rejected the by default advantage.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> It's a probability cloud which clearly varies with the prevailing microclimate (humidity in particular) and mixing. Improve your odds by maximising separation in both distance and time. In static air the vast majority of droplets either fall to ground or evaporate within about 2-3 metres of their origin (up to 8 metres if sneezed) and they could take up to 15 minutes to do so.


It's probably because it's clearly visible, but I'd be more worried about being in the same room as this than I would about  someone breathing a couple of metres from me.


----------



## keybored (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> It can only attach itself to droplets, as far as I'm aware, such as those exhaled in their millions when sneezing... or vaping. I don't think normal breathing is a problem.
> If the virus can attach itself to the vape droplets, then it could be far more dangerous than sneezing.


You exhale vapour when you breathe out anyway. Try it on a cold day.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 24, 2020)

With these empty streets the afternoon drug deals really stand out!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 24, 2020)

Just sharing this app which has been developed by Guys and St Thomas’ to help track the spread of the virus. 

Help slow the spread of #COVID19 and identify at risk cases sooner by self-reporting your symptoms daily, even if you feel well   Download the app








						ZOE Health Study
					

Fight major diseases like COVID & cancer logging your health daily with millions of community scientists supporting global health research.




					covid.joinzoe.com


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 24, 2020)

ska invita said:


> With these empty streets the afternoon drug deals really stand out!



Key workers need to keep going


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

Interesting, this.  Has a test for COVID antibodies been set up yet?





> The new coronavirus may already have infected far more people in the UK than scientists had previously estimated — perhaps as much as half the population — according to modelling by researchers at the University of Oxford. If the results are confirmed, they imply that fewer than one in a thousand of those infected with Covid-19 become ill enough to need hospital treatment, said Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology, who led the study.
> 
> The vast majority develop very mild symptoms or none at all. “We need immediately to begin large-scale serological surveys — antibody testing — to assess what stage of the epidemic we are in now,” she said. The modelling by Oxford’s Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease group indicates that Covid-19 reached the UK by mid-January at the latest. Like many emerging infections, it spread invisibly for more than a month before the first transmissions within the UK were officially recorded at the end of February.
> 
> ...


----------



## existentialist (Mar 24, 2020)

seventh bullet said:


> I work in a supermarket. Had a Filipino colleague told by a thick scumbag customer this was 'all your fault' the other day.


And what's the betting that customer would just the kind to be oioiing it up in a pub garden last Saturday night?


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> Interesting, this.  Has a test for COVID antibodies been set up yet?



According to Hancock, yes they have and we have 3.5m on order.  Though from everything I've read I'm not totally sure what their accuracy is.  I'm no scientist mind.


----------



## seventh bullet (Mar 24, 2020)

existentialist said:


> And what's the betting that customer would just the kind to be oioiing it up in a pub garden last Saturday night?



Or may end up being cared for by my colleague's nurse wife in the local hospital.


----------



## xsunnysuex (Mar 24, 2020)

No idea if this has been posted. Or if it's in the right thread.
But help with council tax for people already getting help.









						Millions of Brits will get a council tax reduction this year because of coronavirus
					

Millions of Brits are set for a reduction in council tax because of the coronavirus pandemic. Read here to find out if you are eligible




					www.entertainmentdaily.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Mar 24, 2020)

Interesting and hopeful, though it also shows how far apart the experts seem to be in their understanding of corvid-19


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

existentialist said:


> And what's the betting that customer would just the kind to be *oioiing* it up in a pub garden last Saturday night?



if this isn't already in the Oxford English Dictionary then it should be


----------



## gosub (Mar 24, 2020)

ZOE Health Study
					

Fight major diseases like COVID & cancer logging your health daily with millions of community scientists supporting global health research.




					covid.joinzoe.com


----------



## Azrael (Mar 24, 2020)

Oh joy, we're back to "herd immunity".

Even if they're right, why on Earth have the team publicised this now, before the data's even begun to be collected? It could irrevocably embed fatalism in Westminster, and destroy any momentum towards establishing long-term surveillance and quarantine measures.

The CMO wrongly claimed that some 20% of Wuhan's population has contracted Covid-19, and "herd immunity" had helped defeat it: the actual figure's thought to be closer to 5%, and there's been no evidence produced that attributes the drop to herd immunity rather than aggressive suppression.

I'm far more scared of this official defeatism than I am of Covid-19. It's just a virus, an unthinking agent of chaos, following its nature. The government doesn't have to be.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Dying wouldn't be the problem. Breaking bones, etc would be.



If we were talking skiing etc, would definitely be an issue, and also kite surfing ( which is best on v windy days ) - but amongst a wide circle of folk down here, and the wider surfing community that I hear about  online, I've never heard of a broken  bone in 13yrs, ( it's a water thing - kite surfers smash into walls and stuff on the beach  ) , or indeed an A + E visit ( and people here will surf 4/5 days per week when lucky with swell etc ) .

(the odd holiday maker does drown unfortunately, but we're not talking about visitors in this instance)


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> Excel Center, can’t think of many worse places to die.



Let's hope they're not reliant on the in house catering, £12 for a cuppasoup with some cabbage lobbed in from some place called Robbe'd or half a tuna baguette from an upper crust. Take me now.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> If we were talking skiing etc, would definitely be an issue, and also kite surfing ( which is best on v windy days ) - but amongst a wide circle of folk down here, and the wider surfing community that I hear about  online, I've never heard of a broken  bone in 13yrs, ( it's a water thing - kite surfers smash into walls and stuff on the beach  ) , or indeed an A + E visit ( and people here will surf 4/5 days per week when lucky with swell etc ) .
> 
> (the odd holiday maker does drown unfortunately, but we're not talking about visitors in this instance)











						Recreational surfing injuries in Cornwall, United Kingdom - PubMed
					

Surfing injuries were most common in young adult men. Most injuries presenting to the ED were minor/moderate injuries and did not require hospital admission. The overall pattern of injuries was similar to those found in studies from other countries where surfing is popular; however, there was a...




					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


----------



## hot air baboon (Mar 24, 2020)

gotta love the great British weather : soooo confined to your miserable dwellings are you...right ..endless clear blue skies for you lot


----------



## Numbers (Mar 24, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Let's hope they're not reliant on the in house catering, £12 for a cuppasoup with some cabbage lobbed in from some place called Robbe'd or half a tuna baguette from an upper crust. Take me now.


There’s a lovely Lebanese right next to it.


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> Interesting, this.  Has a test for COVID antibodies been set up yet?




Oh good, I will go and read that shortly. Because this is absolutely one of the main reasons I've been so interested in serological surveys and understanding the true extent of mild or asymptomatic cases of this disease for so long. Its one of the main reasons I have repeatedly said I'm not interested in the current case fatality ratios.

I have still kept going on about the serology (antibody) tests because there are other reasons they are important too. But I probably havent focussed on the potentially game-changing optimistic possibilities for ages because the WHO dampened a lot of hopes on that front with things Bruce Aylward said when their China mission report was released. That was about a month ago now, and although I didnt want to believe its conclusions at the time, I still cannot take those thoughts any further without some kind of data evidence to the contrary of what they said. At the time he said that China did some widespread testing and found very few signs of wider infection rates, but he did also say that they were only just starting actual serology tests there, so he could be back a week later saying something different. Since then I've not heard of any results from China on this, so I remain none the wiser.

One of the reasons I never wanted to rule out much wider spread infection, and the possibility that the impact of this virus is only pronounced and devastating when it first emerges, is that I'm very interested in some of the other coronaviruses that make up a proportion of our seasonal colds. I'm interested in what these viruses would have been like in terms of what impact they would have had when they first arrived in human populations, and how quickly they 'sunk into the background' to the extent that they would be unremarkable and not high on anyones list of priorities.

Anyway I do not like to get my hopes up too much, and in general I find it hard to share optimistic thoughts when especially terrible moments approach. But I can go as far as to say that most of my concerns and tales of horrible woe have been very much focussed on the short term, I would not rule out wonderful outcomes later on, or that some of the huge gaps in our current knowledge are eventually filled with detail that isnt all bad in its implications for humanity.


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh good, I will go and read that shortly. Because this is absolutely one of the main reasons I've been so interested in serological surveys and understanding the true extent of mild or asymptomatic cases of this disease for so long. Its one of the main reasons I have repeatedly said I'm not interested in the current case fatality ratios.
> 
> I have still kept going on about the serology (antibody) tests because there are other reasons they are important too. But I probably havent focussed on the potentially game-changing optimistic possibilities for ages because the WHO dampened a lot of hopes on that front with things Bruce Aylward said when their China mission report was released. That was about a month ago now, and although I didnt want to believe its conclusions at the time, I still cannot take those thoughts any further without some kind of data evidence to the contrary of what they said. At the time he said that China did some widespread testing and found very few signs of wider infection rates, but he did also say that they were only just starting actual serology tests there, so he could be back a week later saying something different. *Since then I've not heard of any results from China on this, so I remain none the wiser.*
> 
> ...



TBF that would explain the recent easing of conditions over there, as well as the otherwise surprising reduction in the number of cases.

edit:  they really need to establish the extent of this over here asap though


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> TBF that would explain the recent easing of conditions over there, as well as the otherwise surprising reduction in the number of cases.
> 
> edit:  they really need to establish the extent of this over here asap though


They're going to start antibody testing on the general population in a few days. I reckon there will be about 50 million volunteers.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 24, 2020)

Favelado you are just descending into sweary Mary stupidity.
I suggest winding your fat neck in a bit.
I have depression issues, have cancer and am going for a walk once a day.
[/QUOTE]

Afair, Favelado lives and works in Spain, which must all be very _eye of the storm_ atm but which is also where we are heading.
Fwiw - and where I DO have a garden/outdoor space - I totally understand the urgency in his posts and I am also concerned for people like you, whose immune systems are already compromised.
I'm a few pages behind so apologies if this point has been made already but it's difficult to see people doing the right thing being taken to task later.

I saw a very easy to absorb visual on BBC news the other day (which I know I've seen on here) which illustrated our own spread really effectively.
I can't find it now (can anyone else?) but it was a good demonstration of basic maths, how one person could go on to infect 400+ instead of 14.

Waffling - I think we all need to listen well and to be kind to each other - also to offer any practical help we can.


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> They're going to start antibody testing on the general population in a few days. I reckon there will be about 50 million volunteers.





I hope though its NHS first, then food supply / distribution, then the rest of the emergency services.


----------



## treelover (Mar 24, 2020)

just got a UK govt text saying you must stay at home, is this the one for very vulnerable, max confinement, etc.


----------



## Cid (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> TBF that would explain the recent easing of conditions over there, as well as the otherwise surprising reduction in the number of cases.
> 
> edit:  they really need to establish the extent of this over here asap though



I don't think the reduction in cases is particularly surprising. China's lockdown was comprehensive, and widely followed. It was inevitable that cases would drop under those circumstances. Second thing is that China has been planning a lifting, or at least relaxing of restrictions around now for a while...

e2a: before anyone points it out, yes I know that it might come back in China as they allow more movement, not my point.


----------



## xes (Mar 24, 2020)

treelover said:


> just got a UK govt text saying you must stay at home, is this the one for very vulnerable, max confinement, etc.


click the link in it, it also tells you that you can go outside. I got that text too, I'm not high risk.


----------



## Cid (Mar 24, 2020)

treelover said:


> just got a UK govt text saying you must stay at home, is this the one for very vulnerable, max confinement, etc.



They've sent out a text to everyone I think, the 'new rules in force' one. The actual rules are a little less dramatic, but I think they've got the message right on this one by leading with a particularly severe statement.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> I hope though its NHS first, then food supply / distribution, then the rest of the emergency services.


Yeah fair dos. * shuffles to the back of the queue *

One thing I hope this has brought home to more people (it has to me) is who exactly it is that does the really important work. Shop workers are right up there. The staff in my local supermarket were taking this very seriously today but were also in very good spirits, mostly, despite the fact that you could tell some of them were concerned. Good on all those who felt uneasy about it but reported for work anyway. You're stars.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Recreational surfing injuries in Cornwall, United Kingdom - PubMed
> 
> 
> Surfing injuries were most common in young adult men. Most injuries presenting to the ED were minor/moderate injuries and did not require hospital admission. The overall pattern of injuries was similar to those found in studies from other countries where surfing is popular; however, there was a...
> ...




*METHODS:*
The details of patients presenting (with injuries sustained while surfboard/bodyboard riding) to the Emergency Department (ED) of the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro (UK), from* September 2004 until August 2006 *were recorded prospectively. The notes were then retrospectively reviewed by a senior ED physician. The records of each visit were scrutinized for date, age, sex, injury type, and injury severity and outcome; in addition, the patient's residential status (Cornish resident or visitor) was recorded.

*RESULTS:*
A total of *212* patient episodes were collected. Male patients represented 80% of injuries. The average age was 27 years (range, 11-66 years). Nonresident surfers represented 57% (121) of the patients, and *43% (91) of patients were local Cornwall residents*. O*f the total injuries, 90% (n = 190) were injuries that were minor/moderate (allowing for discharge after treatment)

= 9 non minor injuries amongst THE WHOLE RESIDENT CORNWALL SURF COMMUNITY....IN 2 YRS*


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

cant think of the right words here ,  or at least one's that aren't going to get me into trouble : 

"We have ONE district hospital here in North Devon with SEVEN ventilators. The entire Allsopp family could need EVERY bed within the next two weeks instead of staying put in West London where their medical provision is."









						Kirstie Allsopp slammed for taking coronavirus infected family to Devon
					

The TV presenter was told to "b***** off back to Notting Hill' and slammed for 'passing the virus' on to her sister who then travelled back to Edinburgh in a furious post




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> cant think of the right words here ,  or at least one's that aren't going to get me into trouble :
> 
> "We have ONE district hospital here in North Devon with SEVEN ventilators. The entire Allsopp family could need EVERY bed within the next two weeks instead of staying put in West London where their medical provision is."
> 
> ...


Here you go. _This_ is selfish travelling behaviour.


----------



## smokedout (Mar 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> You think incorrectly then.
> 
> The virions adhere to all endogenously exhaled droplets (normal, everyday, regular breathing produces an aerosol of such).



There's a useful article on this here:  The coronavirus likely can remain airborne. It doesn’t mean we’re doomed

In summary aerosol transmission is possible, and especially potentially so for healthcare workers, but not thought as yet to be a very common source of transmission in the wild.


----------



## treelover (Mar 24, 2020)

> 'Covid coalition' government considered by senior Conservatives



Rumours of a Covid 19 semi-national govt, senior Tories kite flying

One says it will bind in Starmer amnd Labour so Johnson won't get all the blame.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

treelover said:


> Rumours of a Covid 19 semi-national govt, senior Tories kite flying
> 
> One says it will bind in Starmer amnd Labour so Johnson won't get all the blame.



had forgotten Starmer existed


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 24, 2020)

question for you all..?

I havent been out of the house since Thursday , Im doing fine , but my wages go in at 4pm tomorrow , and  i need to get food and some beer if I'm honest. so ,can someone who has been out and about, would it be wise to go shopping then or wait til the morning? I want to go out as little as possible  , but really am getting low on stuff 

Ta in advance, ( I think i know the answer but you know... )


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> had forgotten Starmer existed



Easy done, not a lot to notice


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> question for you all..?
> 
> I havent been out of the house since Thursday , Im doing fine , but my wages go in at 4pm tomorrow , and  i need to get food and some beer if I'm honest. so ,can someone who has been out and about, would it be wise to go shopping then or wait til the morning? I want to go out as little as possible  , but really am getting low on stuff
> 
> Ta in advance, ( I think i know the answer but you know... )


Going to depend where you are, but where I am most places are closing early. You might actually be too late for supermarkets.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 24, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> I havent been out of the house since Thursday , Im doing fine , but my wages go in at 4pm tomorrow , and  i need to get food and some beer if I'm honest. so ,can someone who has been out and about, would it be wise to go shopping then or wait til the morning? I want to go out as little as possible  , but really am getting low on stuff


I haven't been out, so this is just conjecture, but my thinking is that early morning will be packed with people trying to beat the crowds or get shopping done before work, and then you have special hours for the elderly and NHS staff. I'm planning to go in the early afternoon - hopefully they might have had another delivery or time to restock the shelves, and most people will still be at work (whether at home or not).


----------



## smokedout (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> Interesting, this.  Has a test for COVID antibodies been set up yet?




This doesn't make sense to me.  If half the population has had it at some point since January then surely it's peaked?  So why the growing rise in hospitalisations now?  I think (hope, and I'm completely unqualified to even comment) it's likely there is a much greater level of infection than is currently indicated by testing in some places, and I think the figures from Germany and South Korea where mass testing is happening, point to there being a lower CFR than is feared.  And this may mean that some form of herd immunity is a possibility without hundreds of thousands of UK deaths, but the fact they seem to be over-egging the pudding with talk of half the population immune already doesn't fill me with confidence and suggests they are as interested in headlines as in what their anaysis actually found.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 24, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> question for you all..?
> 
> I havent been out of the house since Thursday , Im doing fine , but my wages go in at 4pm tomorrow , and  i need to get food and some beer if I'm honest. so ,can someone who has been out and about, would it be wise to go shopping then or wait til the morning? I want to go out as little as possible  , but really am getting low on stuff
> 
> Ta in advance, ( I think i know the answer but you know... )



Yesterday was the last time I was out and I'd say your best going around 9 or 10. Don't rely on supermarkets because the ones I've seen have been fucked.


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

smokedout said:


> This doesn't make sense to me.  If half the population has had it at some point since January then surely it's peaked?  So why the growing rise in hospitalisations now?  I think (hope, and I'm completely unqualified to even comment) it's likely there is a much greater level of infection than is currently indicated by testing in some places, and I think the figures from Germany and South Korea where mass testing is happening, point to there being a lower CFR than is feared.  And this may mean that some form of herd immunity is a possibility without hundreds of thousands of UK deaths, but the fact they seem to be over-egging the pudding with talk of half the population immune already doesn't fill me with confidence and suggests they are as interested in headlines as in what their anaysis actually found.



No idea, though that article did read as if the study had suggested one thing but then the journalist wanted to get herd immunity in as well.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

smokedout said:


> This doesn't make sense to me.  If half the population has had it at some point since January then surely it's peaked?  So why the growing rise in hospitalisations now?  I think (hope, and I'm completely unqualified to even comment) it's likely there is a much greater level of infection than is currently indicated by testing in some places, and I think the figures from Germany and South Korea where mass testing is happening, point to there being a lower CFR than is feared.  And this may mean that some form of herd immunity is a possibility without hundreds of thousands of UK deaths, but the fact they seem to be over-egging the pudding with talk of half the population immune already doesn't fill me with confidence and suggests they are as interested in headlines as in what their anaysis actually found.


People who are carrying but asymptomatic won't contribute to herd immunity, because they either are or will be shedding the virus. So half the population could have it without the visible progression slowing down. 

IM non-expert O, though, this hypothesis doesn't ring true because if it were you would not expect all the early UK cases to be people who had very recently been in China. Some, at least, would have been in the UK longer, and maybe some would have not been in China at all.


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> People who are carrying but asymptomatic won't contribute to herd immunity, because they either are or will be shedding the virus. So half the population could have it without the visible progression slowing down.
> 
> IM non-expert O, though, this hypothesis doesn't ring true because if it were you would not expect all the early UK cases to be people who had very recently been in China. Some, at least, would have been in the UK longer, and maybe some would have not been in China at all.



TBF though back in January only people who had recently been in Wuhan might think that they have it and get tested for it; everyone else might have been told that they just had a flu (edit) or assumed that anyway.


----------



## smokedout (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> No idea, though that article did read as if the study had suggested one thing but then the journalist wanted to get herd immunity in as well.



That is another possibility

Hack: So you mean half the population could have had it already then?
Scientist: Well, no, not really, I don't think that, that's not what our work suggested
Hack: So it's a possibilty then?
Scientist: Well yes I suppose, I mean anything is possible but that's not ...
Hack: Yah thanks bye. (hangs up)


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> *METHODS:*
> The details of patients presenting (with injuries sustained while surfboard/bodyboard riding) to the Emergency Department (ED) of the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro (UK), from* September 2004 until August 2006 *were recorded prospectively. The notes were then retrospectively reviewed by a senior ED physician. The records of each visit were scrutinized for date, age, sex, injury type, and injury severity and outcome; in addition, the patient's residential status (Cornish resident or visitor) was recorded.
> 
> *RESULTS:*
> ...


Fuck me, you're trying your hardest to justify your selfish attitude, aren't you. Personally, I couldn't give a fuck what you do, but every one of those 212 people took up valuable hospital time. I couldn't give a flying fuck how many lived in Cornwall, but FFS, try thinking about somebody that isn't you.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> question for you all..?
> 
> I havent been out of the house since Thursday , Im doing fine , but my wages go in at 4pm tomorrow , and  i need to get food and some beer if I'm honest. so ,can someone who has been out and about, would it be wise to go shopping then or wait til the morning? I want to go out as little as possible  , but really am getting low on stuff
> 
> Ta in advance, ( I think i know the answer but you know... )


Hey ruffneck. I can only really relate my experience at my local supermarket this afternoon. They were doing one in-one out, social distancing in the queues. Queue wasn't long, though, and while there was a lot missing,  there was also stuff there (and plenty of beer). Once in, it was fine. They have reserved the first hour of the day for priority - old and disabled - and had two queues through the day - priority and non-priority. tbh it was working well, but that might not be the case everywhere, of course. 

I've not seen it in the morning, but you might even be better off going in the afternoon as it may be quieter. It's hard to tell.

Hope you're doing ok.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> TBF though back in January only people who had recently been in Wuhan might think that they have it and get tested for it; everyone else might have been told that they just had a flu (edit) or assumed that anyway.


Maybe, but I can't see someone presenting with a serious case - it has fairly identifiable symptoms - saying it was a good few weeks since they had been in China and the doctor just thinking _no point in testing, then_.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 24, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> A genuine apology from me (literally sat at my computer cringing at my behaviour) and now there's someone rushing in to spread a little sanctimony. Well, great.


I did, It was late, I was pissed, I rushed in. Hope you are ok.


----------



## smokedout (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> People who are carrying but asymptomatic won't contribute to herd immunity, because they either are or will be shedding the virus. So half the population could have it without the visible progression slowing down.



It was more the implication that many people have had it and are now immune rather than currently have it, and the calls for urgent antibody testing to see if this was the case.  That doesn't seem plausible to me, much as I think antibody testing would be a very good idea, and I think it's possible the journalist decided on their own elaboration. I'd like to read a more nuanced report.


----------



## agricola (Mar 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Maybe, but I can't see someone presenting with a serious case - it has fairly identifiable symptoms - saying it was a good few weeks since they had been in China and the doctor just thinking _no point in testing, then_.



That is what happened in northern Italy, though (edit: at least the "no point in testing" bit).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

smokedout said:


> It was more the implication that many people have had it and are now immune rather than currently have it, and the calls for urgent antibody testing to see if this was the case.  That doesn't seem plausible to me, much as I think antibody testing would be a very good idea, and I think it's possible the journalist decided on their own elaboration. I'd like to read a more nuanced report.


You may very well be right. But it's just a hypothesis till it's tested anyway, and as you say, antibody testing should be done asap anyway, so we'll soon find out who's right. The idea in and of itself doesn't do harm, but yes, the reporting of it could.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 24, 2020)

There were some really nasty bugs going round in late January.   5 colleagues off ( who are never off)  daughter I'll etc   but if it had been C19 that rampant in the community back then surely there would have been an earlier spike in elders dying at the point?


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

smokedout said:


> This doesn't make sense to me.  If half the population has had it at some point since January then surely it's peaked?  So why the growing rise in hospitalisations now?  I think (hope, and I'm completely unqualified to even comment) it's likely there is a much greater level of infection than is currently indicated by testing in some places, and I think the figures from Germany and South Korea where mass testing is happening, point to there being a lower CFR than is feared.  And this may mean that some form of herd immunity is a possibility without hundreds of thousands of UK deaths, but the fact they seem to be over-egging the pudding with talk of half the population immune already doesn't fill me with confidence and suggests they are as interested in headlines as in what their anaysis actually found.



I had a migraine earlier so although I have read the study, I dont know if I will fumble the detail. But I'll have a quick go with a couple of points, there are probably others I might want to go on about repeatedly when I feel more lively.

I will skip past the FT report and concentrate on what I got out of my first reading of the actual modelling study (which is linked to in the FT article).

The model is run with several different input parameters. One of them is the basic reproductive rate of the virus. Another other is the proportion of the population at risk of severe disease. Other inputs include timing of first cases, infectious period etc.

Differences in what you set these parameters to before running the model make a big difference to the models estimates of how many people were infected by 19th March. The report says:



> In both R0 scenarios, by the time the first death was reported (05/03/2020), thousands of individuals (~0.08%) would have already been infected with the virus (as also suggested by [5]). By19/03/2020, approximately 36% (R0=2.25) and 40% (R0=2.75) of the population would have already been exposed to SARS-CoV2. Running the same model with R0=2.25 and the proportion of the population at risk of severe disease being distributed around 0.1%, places the start of transmission at 4 days prior to first case detection and 38 days before the first confirmed death and suggests that 68% would have been infected by 19/03/2020



They then go on to say that those results underscore how the inferred epidemic curve is rather dependent on what value you pick for the proportion of the public at risk of severe disease. And they suggest that we could use this in a different direction, if we use serology studies or other means to measure the proportion of the population already exposed to the virus, then the model could be used to get a better idea of what the real fraction of the public vulnerable to severe disease is.

I'm sure there is much temptation to over-egg the pudding from all manner of quarters when it comes to this sort of thing. So I wait impatiently for actual data from things like antibody tests.


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> There were some really nasty bugs going round in late January.   5 colleagues off ( who are never off)  daughter I'll etc   but if it had been C19 that rampant in the community back then surely there would have been an earlier spike in elders dying at the point?



When looking at the situation several months ago, and suggestions about how huge a number could be affected by now since then, its important to remember the way epidemic curves get steeper and steeper. The number of cases in January could still be really quite small, without being incompatible with the idea that there are a huge number now/more recently. 

Plus going back to an earlier point I used to make by saying 'seek and you will find', most healthcare systems could easily be expected to completely miss a bunch of deaths from a novel virus if they were sufficiently low in number and frequency, and lacked really obviously unusual clinical characteristics.

Having said that, I dont know how good this model is. And until proper testing is done, some of the numbers that are fed into these models are guesses. That wont stop journalists running with the stories as if they are something else, some solid proof or even a particular theory, as opposed to a model that is begging to have better data fed into it.

So these sorts of studies dont give me a sense that humanity is in some way off the hook. They do represent one possible reality that hasnt had much attention recently, and they do hold tantalising potential within them. Buts that more reason for me to take it easy and not place too much faith in them at this stage, they are interesting, but the waiting game and quest for knowledge and a better picture continues.


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

Should say that dont be surprised if I got some things completely backwards in terms of what were the model inputs and outputs. Brain is well fried at the moment.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I did, It was late, I was pissed, I rushed in. Hope you are ok.



You too TC.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

smokedout said:


> It was more the implication that many people have had it and are now immune rather than currently have it, and the calls for urgent antibody testing to see if this was the case.  That doesn't seem plausible to me, much as I think antibody testing would be a very good idea, and I think it's possible the journalist decided on their own elaboration. I'd like to read a more nuanced report.


We have pretty accurate computer modelling available these days. Leo Varadkar said that over half the population of Ireland could contract the virus. Other countries have mentioned figures of around 50 - 70%. Those figures weren't plucked from an hyperbolic handbook, they were results from computer modelling, and I think a lot of/most societies actually have no idea as to the extent of the virus. It's virulent, and only time will tell.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> When looking at the situation several months ago, and suggestions about how huge a number could be affected by now since then, its important to remember the way epidemic curves get steeper and steeper. The number of cases in January could still be really quite small, without being incompatible with the idea that there are a huge number now/more recently.
> 
> Plus going back to an earlier point I used to make by saying 'seek and you will find', most healthcare systems could easily be expected to completely miss a bunch of deaths from a novel virus if they were sufficiently low in number and frequency, and lacked really obviously unusual clinical characteristics.
> 
> ...


Retrofit surely?


----------



## Azrael (Mar 24, 2020)

agricola said:


> No idea, though that article did read as if the study had suggested one thing but then the journalist wanted to get herd immunity in as well.


God how I wish we could go back to only hearing that damn phrase when hosing antivaxers with slime.

The hypothetis is simply the one that's been doing the rounds for weeks: going by current deaths, wider the infection, lower the fatality rate (with a lotta caveats about controls). Mass testing in South Korea, China and now Germany suggests that Covid-19 isn't that widespread yet, which would fit with the curves rising at similar rates across countries.

Maybe the Oxford team's right. I don't see any grounds to believe they are, but it's possible. What's unspeakably irresponsible is publicising this now, before they've a shred of mass testing data to back their speculation, especially when they know how badly fatally flawed abstract modeling has already twisted policy.


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Retrofit surely?



You will have to expand on that point, my brain is too evaporated right now to read into it properly.


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Maybe the Oxford team's right. I don't see any grounds to believe they are, but it's possible. What's unspeakably irresponsible is publicising this now, before they've a shred of mass testing data to back their speculation, especially when they know how badly fatally flawed abstract modeling has already twisted policy.



I dont want scientific stuff to be kept under wraps or not brought to my attention because of the timing.

Plus, given the immense scale of the shutdown of large chunks of the economy, I am under no illusions that there will be all manner of immense pressures for solutions that bring a 'return to normality' (or something vaguely approaching what we used to know as normality) as soon as possible. These are inevitable, I will not spend energy fighting their initial appearence on the scene or the timing of anything they seize on as a source of hope and the sort of exit strategy they would most love.

What I will do is go crazy if any of that stuff is used to affect policy prematurely. Models are more useful when we can feed better facts into them, and when we have more ways to judge them properly.

I can reach very few conclusions about this pandemic until I have a better sense of the amount of mild and asymptomatic cases. When that reality is better understood then I will find it easier to judge so many things, from policies to models. I'm not too happy that I've heard nothing about this for a month, I thought there might be more answers by now. As a result I havent been able to narrow down the likely outcomes, other than the inevitable hospital and deaths situation in the short term.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> You will have to expand on that point, my brain is too evaporated right now to read into it properly.


I am not an epidemiologist but it looks like they assumed that only a small number of people is susceptible to a serious disease and then proceeded to posit that an exponential growth in a population with a small number of susceptible people looks like an exponential growth in a population with lots of susceptible people, so one (they really) could argue that over a longer period of time we'll all have/had it.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont want scientific stuff to be kept under wraps or not brought to my attention because of the timing.
> 
> Plus, given the immense scale of the shutdown of large chunks of the economy, I am under no illusions that there will be all manner of immense pressures for solutions that bring a 'return to normality' (or something vaguely approaching what we used to know as normality) as soon as possible. These are inevitable, I will not spend energy fighting their initial appearence on the scene or the timing of anything they seize on as a source of hope and the sort of exit strategy they would most love.
> 
> ...


No problem whatsoever with them throwing resources at investigating asymptomatic spread. Data from elsewhere suggests it's crucial. My issue's that their phrasing it this way, at this time, could be catastrophic. Calls to lift the lockdown ASAP will soon be overwhelming. Trump's already suggesting dropping it by Easter. That could be used to pile on pressure to community test and contact trace. Or, if their angle gains traction, could be used to do nothing, which is what the laissez-faire crowd already want.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Fuck me, you're trying your hardest to justify your selfish attitude, aren't you. Personally, I couldn't give a fuck what you do, but every one of those 212 people took up valuable hospital time. I couldn't give a flying fuck how many lived in Cornwall, but FFS, try thinking about somebody that isn't you.



Just what's needed here, someone who posts up links to an official report, but can't even grasp the meaning of the most basic data contained within it - useful contribution, well done


----------



## little_legs (Mar 24, 2020)

Azrael said:


> No problem whatsoever with them throwing resources at investigating asymptomatic spread. Data from elsewhere suggests it's crucial. My issue's that their phrasing it this way, at this time, could be catastrophic. *Calls to lift the lockdown ASAP will soon be overwhelming.* Trump's already suggesting dropping it by Easter. That could be used to pile on pressure to community test and contact trace. Or, if their angle gains traction, could be used to do nothing, which is what the laissez-faire crowd already want.


It's all over Facebook _let's get this over with so we can enjoy summer_


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

Those calls would come anyway, I'd rather at least that some of those calls were at least based on a theory and model that we could actually test. As opposed to the vast amount that would have come anyway, regardless of their lack of any actual merit or scientific testability.


----------



## smokedout (Mar 24, 2020)

Isn't the Diamond Princess relevant here? Around 3000 people, 700 cases and 10 deaths so far I think.  I'm guessing that they are generally older but I'm assuming they tested everyone they could find who'd been on it, that should give some data.  Has there been any published analysis of how many cases were asymptomatic/mild?


----------



## Azrael (Mar 24, 2020)

little_legs said:


> I am not an epidemiologist but it looks like they assumed that only a small number of people is susceptible to a serious disease and then proceeded to posit that an exponential growth in a population with a small number of susceptible people looks like an exponential growth in a population with lots of susceptible people, so one (they really) could argue that over a longer period of time we'll all have/had it.


My reading too. _If_ they're right, it's still a public health scandal, but the govt got relatively lucky and the consequences are a lot less widespread than feared. (No comfort to the victims and their families, mind.) If they're wrong, I dread to think how many ExCel Centres we'll be filling. Precautionary principle's screaming at us not to roll these dice.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 24, 2020)

Azrael said:


> No problem whatsoever with them throwing resources at investigating asymptomatic spread. Data from elsewhere suggests it's crucial. My issue's that their phrasing it this way, at this time, could be catastrophic. Calls to lift the lockdown ASAP will soon be overwhelming. Trump's already suggesting dropping it by Easter. That could be used to pile on pressure to community test and contact trace. Or, if their angle gains traction, could be used to do nothing, which is what the laissez-faire crowd already want.


Yeah, but mass testing is the way, regardless, so in a sense this idea doesn't point at doing anything differently right now. 

It does highlight how bonkers the idea was that you should limit testing here in the UK until just very recently, though. Meanwhile, Germany got busy mass-producing tests.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> Those calls would come anyway, I'd rather at least that some of those calls were at least based on a theory and model that we could actually test. As opposed to the vast amount that would have come anyway, regardless of their lack of any actual merit or scientific testability.


They're inevitable. But world of difference between channeling the frustration into setting up a surveillance and quarantine regime based on clinical data, and false hope from a model that its authors admit is hypothetical.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> Just what's needed here, someone who posts up links to an official report, but can't even grasp the meaning of the most basic data contained within it - useful contribution, well done


Just what's needed here... someone who doesn't understand that 212 hospitalised cases means 212 hospitalised cases. Just because some weren't born in Cornwall, doesn't mean the statistics aren't FROM Cornwall.
But you carry on only giving a fuck about yourself, you selfish "my surfboarding is more important than the lives of others" cunt


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

little_legs said:


> I am not an epidemiologist but it looks like they assumed that only a small number of people is susceptible to a serious disease and then proceeded to posit that an exponential growth in a population with a small number of susceptible people looks like an exponential growth in a population with lots of susceptible people, so one (they really) could argue that over a longer period of time we'll all have/had it.



Yeah pretty much, as best my brain can tell tonight. One day I might go back and see if I was spouting some half-baked, poorly described version of this theory myself. Assumptions are fine so long as they are one of the parts of the theory that you actually want to test, as opposed to dogmatically adhered to truths.

Theres plenty in the world of science and modelling meets politics and economics where I am left uncertain whether the tail is wagging the dog. Maybe time will tell on that front too, like it surely needs to tell on so many others for us to get the right grip on this thing in the medium to long term.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, but mass testing is the way, regardless, so in a sense this idea doesn't point at doing anything differently right now.
> 
> It does highlight how bonkers the idea was that you should limit testing here in the UK until just very recently, though. Meanwhile, Germany got busy mass-producing tests.


Unless policy's changed in last few hours, they're still limiting testing to gravely ill hospital cases. Not even NHS staff are being tested, potentially turning them into superspreaders. No attempt's being made to contract trace, and we've lost nearly two weeks in charting the virus' spread.

Pressure to all these things will be irresistible if they're viewed as the only realistic hope of easing the lockdown. But a govt obsessed with laissez-faire, "survival of the fittest", and the immunity that dare not speak its name will jump on the slightest excuse to do nothing.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> Just what's needed here, someone who posts up links to an official report, but can't even grasp the meaning of the most basic data contained within it - useful contribution, well done


I can't believe you're so fucking thick that you're trying to justify your selfish attitude. "I love surfing, so fuck everybody else!" NO...FUCK YOU!... and fuck your selfish as fuck attitude! You sound like a fucking thick yank with a gun... "It's my gun... I can use it"


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2020)

Azrael said:


> No attempt's being made to contract trace, and we've lost nearly two weeks in charting the virus' spread.



If you think there is some picture that we've only been missing for 2 weeks, then I think you had the wrong impression about how effective the testing regime was before they changed it to be mostly hospital-only cases.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> I can't believe you're so fucking thick that you're trying to justify your selfish attitude. "I love surfing, so fuck everybody else!" NO...FUCK YOU!... and fuck your selfish as fuck attitude! You sound like a fucking thick yank with a gun... "It's my gun... I can use it"



You on the sauce ?


----------



## Azrael (Mar 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> If you think there is some picture that we've only been missing for 2 weeks, then I think you had the wrong impression about how effective the testing regime was before they changed it to be mostly hospital-only cases.


I certainly did before the herd immunity conference, but not since. There was at least some data before. Now even that's been cut off. I note that several institutions are being forced to step in with their own resources, but to really work, this needs the power of the state.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 24, 2020)

cantsin said:


> You on the sauce ?


You a complete selfish cunt who doesn't give a fuck about anybody but themself?


----------



## cantsin (Mar 24, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> You a complete selfish cunt who doesn't give a fuck about anybody but themself?



Yr. a timewasting plonker, squawking nonsense, go to bed or sthn


----------



## little_legs (Mar 25, 2020)

smokedout said:


> Isn't the Diamond Princess relevant here? Around 3000 people, 700 cases and 10 deaths so far I think.  I'm guessing that they are generally older but I'm assuming they tested everyone they could find who'd been on it, that should give some data.  Has there been any published analysis of how many cases were asymptomatic/mild?


The ship is an example where a large proportion of an entire population needed hospital treatment.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 25, 2020)

cantsin said:


> Yr. a timewasting plonker, squawking nonsense, go to bed or sthn


And you're a self-centred cunt, who thinks his surfboarding is more important than the lives of others. But you carry on, eh. You show others how important you are, and don't forget to wear your Omega Seamaster, just to prove to everyone else that you're better than them, and that normal rules don't apply to you, because you're so fucking special and entitled.
Whaaaaa... I need my surfboard time... whaaaaa!!!!! WANKER!!!


----------



## cantsin (Mar 25, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> And you're a self-centred cunt, who thinks his surfboarding is more important than the lives of others. But you carry on, eh. You show others how important you are, and don't forget to wear your Omega Seamaster, just to prove to everyone else that you're better than them, and that normal rules don't apply to you, because you're so fucking special.
> Whaaaaa... I need my surfboard time... whaaaaa!!!!! WANKER!!!



Try looking at the report again when yr sober, maybe get someone to talk you through the  numbers and what they mean,  and I'll quietly get on with my contactless, near risk free ( as per the report )  ' single exercise' option, 100 +' yds from the handful of others doing likewise, before returning home, having not once stopped along the way. 

Gnight 🤡


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 25, 2020)

cantsin said:


> before returning home, having not once stopped along the way.


Until you have an accident whilst surfing, or need to stop for a piss, or need to stop to show someone how important you are!
You know there's absolutely no need for you to go surfing, yet you're going to do it anyway, despite the fact that it could negatively affect others (in a death kinda way), because you're better than everyone else. Well done you. I bet you're gonna tell all your mates at the golf club how you don't give a fuck that you endangered the proles, because your sense of entitlement trumps all.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 25, 2020)

cantsin said:


> You on the sauce ?


All of us...


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 25, 2020)

TopCat said:


> All of us...


Fuck me, how could do this sober!


----------



## TopCat (Mar 25, 2020)

When do the numbers get released?


----------



## Saul Goodman (Mar 25, 2020)

TopCat said:


> When do the numbers get released?


Results | The National Lottery


----------



## TopCat (Mar 25, 2020)

Our deaths up 87 according to BBC.


----------



## editor (Mar 25, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> And you're a self-centred cunt, who thinks his surfboarding is more important than the lives of others. But you carry on, eh. You show others how important you are, and don't forget to wear your Omega Seamaster, just to prove to everyone else that you're better than them, and that normal rules don't apply to you, because you're so fucking special and entitled.
> Whaaaaa... I need my surfboard time... whaaaaa!!!!! WANKER!!!


This is a thread about a deadly virus, you fucking muppet. Take a week off this thread.


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 25, 2020)

smokedout said:


> That is another possibility
> 
> Hack: So you mean half the population could have had it already then?
> Scientist: Well, no, not really, I don't think that, that's not what our work suggested
> ...


I haven't read the report but I think this is quit a likely scenario.

I've no idea how the science of the Oxford work stands up or how it compares to the ICL work but it is absolutely correct that different models should be tested, and that different groups should test each others work. One of the reasons we are now so confident in climate change is precisely because the modelling has undergone such rigourous testing. And it is entirely unsurprising that for a system with so many unknowns as COVID-19 has that there will be range of results. This work is yet another reason why the "trust the experts" line is so problematic.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> just got a UK govt text saying you must stay at home, is this the one for very vulnerable, max confinement, etc.


It's a letter you get if you're in one or more of the vulnerable categories, my dad got his on Monday


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Look after yourself treelover


----------



## bimble (Mar 25, 2020)

treelover i got this text yesterday and am not in any vulnerable group. If yours said the same as this then it was just the standard text they are sending to everybody.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Do you have anyone who can bring you stuff treelover?


----------



## weltweit (Mar 25, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> question for you all..?
> 
> I havent been out of the house since Thursday , Im doing fine , but my wages go in at 4pm tomorrow , and  i need to get food and some beer if I'm honest. so ,can someone who has been out and about, would it be wise to go shopping then or wait til the morning? I want to go out as little as possible  , but really am getting low on stuff
> 
> Ta in advance, ( I think i know the answer but you know... )



ruffneck23 are you in one of the vulnerable groups, over 70 or with an existing health issue? If so I would advise you to stay put and instead have a look at your local facebook groups because many will be organising help for shopping and the like for people like you so that you don't have to leave your home.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 25, 2020)




----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 25, 2020)

weltweit said:


> ruffneck23 are you in one of the vulnerable groups, over 70 or with an existing health issue? If so I would advise you to stay put and instead have a look at your local facebook groups because many will be organising help for shopping and the like for people like you so that you don't have to leave your home.


no mate , thanks for asking though  , just after advice


----------



## fishfinger (Mar 25, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> View attachment 203220


Fake news


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 25, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> View attachment 203220


"Her Majesty" in 1664? I think not.


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 25, 2020)

fishfinger said:


> Fake news


----------



## bimble (Mar 25, 2020)

low res pron incoming  
(not for me my internets rubbish anyway and theres nobody for miles)








						UK telecoms firms unite on campaign to avoid network outage
					

Seven tips offered to reduce pressure on broadband, phone and mobile services during coronavirus lockdown




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Blitz spirit 









						More than 170,000 people sign up to volunteer for NHS, hours after appeal launched
					

Programme offers support to vulnerable people during outbreak




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> low res pron incoming
> (not for me my internets rubbish anyway and theres nobody for miles)
> 
> 
> ...



EE have told me I’ve got free data for accessing NHS stuff.


----------



## bimble (Mar 25, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Blitz spirit
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is encouraging.
Link to sign up:





						GoodSAM
					

GoodSAM




					www.goodsamapp.org
				




eta if you haven't got a car you can do phone support .


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Run out of coffee


----------



## Cid (Mar 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> Those calls would come anyway, I'd rather at least that some of those calls were at least based on a theory and model that we could actually test. As opposed to the vast amount that would have come anyway, regardless of their lack of any actual merit or scientific testability.





smokedout said:


> Isn't the Diamond Princess relevant here? Around 3000 people, 700 cases and 10 deaths so far I think.  I'm guessing that they are generally older but I'm assuming they tested everyone they could find who'd been on it, that should give some data.  Has there been any published analysis of how many cases were asymptomatic/mild?



There's a (dropbox) link to the study in the twitter thread. Does seem to be saying what the FT are saying... Academics are far from immune to bias in any case, and these crossovers between policy and science are always going to be susceptible to that, at least until it's possible to carry out more rigorous studies. There's some criticism on twitter mentioning things like the Diamond Princess, or Bergamo. Also that they lack confidence bands, haven't published their code, and have developed the model relying on a few huge assumptions <I'm parroting this to an extent>.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Tea. 

I hate this


----------



## weltweit (Mar 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> low res pron incoming
> (not for me my internets rubbish anyway and theres nobody for miles)
> 
> 
> ...


My BT internet has become intermittent yesterday pm and last week on Friday. I wonder if it is related. 

I would have been doing as much browsing and making as many voip phone calls at work though so my network requirements have actually gone down - using mobile for calls now.


----------



## Maltin (Mar 25, 2020)

Did everyone get those alerts from the government? I got a new SIM card on Monday but only got a text from 3 yesterday telling me that their stores were closing. In the US they use an alert system on the phones a lot which could be quite useful during a lockdown. It seems that the UK government ones were texts rather than an alert but still wondering if I should have got one or not.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 25, 2020)

I'm presuming I got one but since I don't have mobile reception at home and I'm not going out of the house .....


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 25, 2020)

I've not had any communication of any kind from anything other than my gp to say the surgery is closed.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 25, 2020)

My last order of coffee beans is trapped on my desk at work, so I reordered (25 days' supply) from Hasbean - fingers crossed this vital mail gets to me - I'm close to using my emergency beans...


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 25, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> I've not had any communication of any kind from anything other than my gp to say the surgery is closed.


One consolation of all this is my surgery will hopefully never pester me again about my marginally high blood pressure and statins.
The risks attached to shopping have already killed my appetite somewhat - so hopefully by the time things settle down I will be 10KG lighter and with BP 10 points lower... I'll give it a couple of weeks before starting to sneak out for 20 milers on my new bike ...


----------



## Numbers (Mar 25, 2020)

TopCat said:


> When do the numbers get released?


We’re both good brother thanks.  We have all we need until our release date.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I'm presuming I got one but since I don't have mobile reception at home and I'm not going out of the house .....



The fluoride toothpaste is doing it’s job then


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is encouraging.
> Link to sign up:
> 
> 
> ...



I would love to be able to do this.  I have a car which is just sat there doing nothing, I'm sat here doing nothing.  Unfortunately I'm still technically working so have to be sat in front of my laptop with my phone on with nothing to do.  Grrrr.


ETA: Fuck, this.  I have bollocks all to do anyway.  I'm going to tell my company I want to do this.  Lets see how they react, lets see how much they actually give a shit about corporate responsibility.  Watch this space...


----------



## two sheds (Mar 25, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> The fluoride toothpaste is doing it’s job then



Too right, I think it might be the microwave-resistant protective lead casing round the phone that's impairing reception though.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Emergency provisions of tin foil hats much needed right now


----------



## two sheds (Mar 25, 2020)

They're the only protection we have


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 25, 2020)

Confirmation at last.


----------



## Anju (Mar 25, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> question for you all..?
> 
> I havent been out of the house since Thursday , Im doing fine , but my wages go in at 4pm tomorrow , and  i need to get food and some beer if I'm honest. so ,can someone who has been out and about, would it be wise to go shopping then or wait til the morning? I want to go out as little as possible  , but really am getting low on stuff
> 
> Ta in advance, ( I think i know the answer but you know... )



First thing in the morning has been best in our area, Lewisham, if you want meat, eggs, flour and that elusive essential toilet roll. Shelves have been mostly empty in the afternoon so unless you  are creative enough to make a meal out of saltfish and wasabi be prepared for an early start and some queues. Might have to accept that it will take more than 1 visit. 

Local mutual aid groups are good for information. This morning ours has some reports on what local supermarkets have and how busy they are. Apparently Aldi are doing well on social distancing measures.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Confirmation at last.




If id known this I would have kept my banger for longer instead of spending 7k I didn't have on a new car


----------



## PursuedByBears (Mar 25, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Confirmation at last.



Just had the fecking car MOT'd!


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 25, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> If id known this I would have kept my banger for longer instead of spending 7k I didn't have on a new car


got mine mot-ed a couple of weeks ago, doh


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

To be fair other XR branches seem as horrified by this as everyone else on the planet


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

Fucks sake


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 25, 2020)

That's proper mad "the end of the world is nigh" stuff. Hateful.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 25, 2020)

I see the mps admit parliament not an essential body


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> I see the mps admit parliament not an essential body



Never has been.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Well it’s been useful in challenging the emergency legislation re health and social care.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 25, 2020)

PursuedByBears said:


> Just had the fecking car MOT'd!



Mine is booked in for Friday - I rang the garage yesterday to check whether they’d still be open, & they will be. The walk from work to pick it up can count as my daily exercise.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 25, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> To be fair other XR branches seem as horrified by this as everyone else on the planet View attachment 203239


That's got to be fake.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Good to be optimistic in times like these I guess


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

Prince Charles has tested positive. 

* Breaking on Sky News.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

But Harry remains covid-safe 🤔


----------



## Raheem (Mar 25, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Confirmation at last.



Why is the messaging so consistently shit?

Is this an extension only for people still travelling to work, or has he thrown in a reminder that people should only be doing so if they have to, just to create ambiguity?


----------



## Buckaroo (Mar 25, 2020)

Thoughts and prayers to the virus.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 25, 2020)




----------



## bimble (Mar 25, 2020)

the whole thing of who gets a test and who doesn't in this country is just so in your face.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 25, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Why is the messaging so consistently shit?
> 
> Is this an extension only for people still travelling to work, or has he thrown in a reminder that people should only be doing so if they have to, just to create ambiguity?



It’s a 6 month waver for all car owners whether using car or not.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 25, 2020)

Raheem said:


> That's got to be fake.



It would seem so:


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Yeah they are somewhat bait about it


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Those bloody parliamentarians Petition: We would like the government to consider social care as equally important to NHS


----------



## Cid (Mar 25, 2020)

That symbol they’re using is quite... Nordic.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

Cid said:


> That symbol they’re using is quite... Nordic.



The APPG on social care?


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> treelover i got this text yesterday and am not in any vulnerable group. If yours said the same as this then it was just the standard text they are sending to everybody.
> View attachment 203218


Yeah, I had that as well, and as far as I know I'm not in any of the vulnerable groups. They must be sending it to every UK mobile there is.


----------



## Aladdin (Mar 25, 2020)

Irish government have announced that testing will now only be for certain groups who show high temperature and cough. Both symptoms are required. And testing only for
Medical personnel, close contacts of a known c19 patient and vulnerable (elderly and people with underlying conditions) 
Is this not herd immunity by another route? Up to now they were testing/going to test everyone who was referred by their gp after a phone consultation.


----------



## Anju (Mar 25, 2020)

Broken promises and backpedaling already.

eta bunch of cunts. Probably going to try and get out of every promise they're making at the moment. 









						UK eviction ban promise broken, say critics
					

Coronavirus bill extends notice for possession from two to three months but government stresses no renter can be evicted




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

Sugar Kane said:


> Irish government have announced that testing will now only be for certain groups who show high temperature and cough. Both symptoms are required. And testing only for
> Medical personnel, close contacts of a known c19 patient and vulnerable (elderly and people with underlying conditions)
> Is this not herd immunity by another route? Up to now they were testing/going to test everyone who was referred by their gp after a phone consultation.



Probably mainly to do with a lack of capacity for testing.


----------



## Maltin (Mar 25, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Yeah, I had that as well, and as far as I know I'm not in any of the vulnerable groups. They must be sending it to every UK mobile there is.


I’m on Three but did not receive anything yet.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Never has been.


but rarely have its members said so clearly it isn't


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 25, 2020)

Maltin said:


> I’m on Three but did not receive anything yet.


you didn't miss anything

i've blocked the number now


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Probably mainly to do with a lack of capacity for testing.


Yep. There's been a disappointing lack of international cooperation/coordination over getting tests done so far. It's becoming increasingly clear that testing early and often is the way to go, but it appears to be every country for themselves at the moment. In the US, it's been every state for themselves.


----------



## Aladdin (Mar 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Probably mainly to do with a lack of capacity for testing.




Hope so.


----------



## editor (Mar 25, 2020)




----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 25, 2020)

Anju said:


> Broken promises and backpedaling already.
> 
> eta bunch of cunts. Probably going to try and get out of every promise they're making at the moment.
> 
> ...


Yeah, real scum. It's all very well saying posession proceedings can't begin, but people will still be being issued with Section 21 and Section 8 eviction notices as far as I can see. You can stay put for a bit, but with an eviction notice hanging over your head for the end of lockdown. What a load of shit.


----------



## editor (Mar 25, 2020)

This is where the greed of landlord scum has led us, and it's causing more problems now because of the virus 



> Some landlords put basic cooking and washing facilities in rooms that are barely a few square metres in size so that they can do away even with a kitchen, let alone a living room. “While we all need, and like, time alone, we are basically social creatures – we enjoy company and need spaces that are conducive to relaxing with other people,” says Park. “That’s much easier in a room that is dedicated for that shared purpose. So we should be very concerned that it’s become so normal for HMOs not to provide a room for flatmates to socialise outside of their bedrooms.” There are concerns about the long-term impact of these homes on the wellbeing of tenants.
> 
> “It’s generally bad for our mental health to spend too much time in one space, and the quality of the space matters too – it’s even more damaging to spend long periods in a room that is very small or dark, for example,” says Park. “It’s also important to have different spaces for different activities – it doesn’t take long to feel cooped up.”











						Nine out of 10 shared houses don’t have a living room. Here’s why we need them
					

Landlords are turning communal space into bedrooms, depriving tenants of somewhere to socialise. What does this mean for the health and happiness of Generation Rent?




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)




----------



## xes (Mar 25, 2020)

Prince Charles has tested positive.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

xes said:


> Prince Charles has tested positive.



Again?


----------



## baldrick (Mar 25, 2020)

editor said:


> This is where the greed of landlord scum has led us, and it's causing more problems now because of the virus
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's fucking disgusting. Every time a large family home comes up for sale in my area landlords pounce and turn it into an HMO. There's a six bedroom home round the corner which is being turned into an 11 bedroom HMO. Lots of us objected but of course it's been approved. There are new regulations coming for the whole city but they're not here yet and in the meantime we're getting one of these planning notices through every few weeks. I could go on but things are depressing enough at the moment.


----------



## editor (Mar 25, 2020)

baldrick said:


> It's fucking disgusting. Every time a large family home comes up for sale in my area landlords pounce and turn it into an HMO. There's a six bedroom home round the corner which is being turned into an 11 bedroom HMO. Lots of us objected but of course it's been approved. There are new regulations coming for the whole city but they're not here yet and in the meantime we're getting one of these planning notices through every few weeks. I could go on but things are depressing enough at the moment.


I hope that people's righteous anger about how capitalism and ruthless profiteering will translate into real social change after this all calms down.
Well, I can dream.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 25, 2020)

editor said:


> I hope that people's righteous anger about how capitalism and ruthless profiteering will translate into real social change after this all calms down.
> Well, I can dream.


I share that dream


----------



## editor (Mar 25, 2020)

Meanwhile stupid people keep on being stupid


----------



## xes (Mar 25, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Again?


Reinfection in lizards proven?


----------



## Favelado (Mar 25, 2020)

Close the parks though.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 25, 2020)

editor said:


> I hope that people's righteous anger about how capitalism and ruthless profiteering will translate into real social change after this all calms down.
> Well, I can dream.



Yeah, there seems to be some optimism that this can lead to systemic change. Look how a lot of people have behaved during this crisis though. We'll be back to full on raging capitalism within a year or so of the pandemic being under control. We've seen that people just care about the here and now. I think there'll be a lot of Guardian articles about the new Post-Corona world - but it won't be much more than a interesting dinner party talking point.


----------



## baldrick (Mar 25, 2020)

editor said:


> I hope that people's righteous anger about how capitalism and ruthless profiteering will translate into real social change after this all calms down.
> Well, I can dream.


It's just pure wealth extraction. These landlords don't live here with the social problems created by their HMOs - rubbish uncollected because the tenants don't understand they should separate into bins, not enough bins, missed bin collections, huge churn of residents so community links aren't being made and no real desire to make friends with neighbours because they're not here long enough. No they all live in Harborne or Edgbaston or Sutton, somewhere green outside the city or abroad.


----------



## muscovyduck (Mar 25, 2020)

Not sure if this is the right thread for it but I'm still managing to get out for my daily exercise, staying the fuck off the paths away from everyone else. I saw someone who lives about 20 miles away in a more remote area casually roaming around here earlier. Her manager lives around the corner so I suspect they're circumventing the work from home guidance by opperating out of his house. Fuckers


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

Home testing from next week, kits to be delivered by amazon apparently.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 25, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Home testing from next week, kits to be delivered by amazon apparently.


not in murica









						Amazon workers test positive for coronavirus at six US warehouses
					

‘We are following guidelines and taking extreme measures to ensure the safety of all employees at our sites,’ says spokeswoman




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## bimble (Mar 25, 2020)

This sounds like great news apart from the bit where if your test says you’ve had it’s just ‘likely’ that you’re immune so you can go happily about as if you’re safe. 
What do you do with that just hope it’s true? i don’t know. 








						UK coronavirus home testing to be made available to millions
					

Test to be validated this week, then made available to healthcare workers and general public




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## mauvais (Mar 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> This sounds like great news apart from the bit where if your test says you’ve had it’s just ‘likely’ that you’re immune so you can go happily about as if you’re safe.
> What do you do with that just hope it’s true? i don’t know.
> 
> 
> ...


I don't understand what these are going to actually achieve.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 25, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I don't understand what these are going to actually achieve.


Rampant over-ordering, hoarding and profiteering opportunities?


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

I'm sure elbows or somebody who has a grasp of science can shed light, but the issue is surely that nobody can actually confirm previous infection creates immunity, or greater resistance, for a period of time as this is all new but that it is likely this is the case based on other viruses and corona viruses specifically. The article is clear that, subject to testing, there tests will at least confirm yay or nay, which has to be better than eg asymptomatic NHS front line staff dealing with vulnerable people


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

(whether availability of tests when immunity/resistance not assured should result in loosening of this strange new social order we find ourselves in is a different matter though tbf)


----------



## 2hats (Mar 25, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> I'm sure elbows or somebody who has a grasp of science can shed light, but the issue is surely that nobody can actually confirm previous infection creates immunity, or greater resistance, for a period of time as this is all new but that it is likely this is the case based on other viruses and corona viruses specifically. The article is clear that, subject to testing, there tests will at least confirm yay or nay, which has to be better than eg asymptomatic NHS front line staff dealing with vulnerable people


If it is an antibody test it will indicate previous recent exposure and that is all.

If positive it raises the *possibility* that you *might* still be distributing viable virions. If positive it raises the *possibility* that you *might* have some degree of immunity. To what degree and for how long is unknown; this is an ongoing field of research.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> This sounds like great news apart from the bit where if your test says you’ve had it’s just ‘likely’ that you’re immune so you can go happily about as if you’re safe.
> What do you do with that just hope it’s true? i don’t know.



The general thinking seems to be that re-infection is highly unlikely, but could happen, as it does occasionally with chicken pox.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 25, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I don't understand what these are going to actually achieve.



If it confirms what I suspect in that I've already had it, this will be very useful to me and presumably plenty others like me.  I can then volunteer my services to those who need it knowing that I'm almost certainly not a risk to them or at least a much reduced risk then simply not knowing.

Also from a science data perspective it would be nice to actually get a handle on some numbers instead of just guessing.

What is your objection?


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 25, 2020)

I was out delivering C19 mutual aid leaflets last night.  In one of the blocks of flats some people have an extra porch area behind a door but still outside their front door.   One of these porches had loads of 5l oil and boxes of flour and toilet rolls.   I guess people really have been hording.  I feel greedy for having six tins of tomatoes and 6 soya milk 

i guess the person _might_ have been shopping for others or making bread for their block...


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

2hats said:


> If it is an antibody test it will indicate previous recent exposure and that is all.
> 
> If positive it raises the *possibility* that you *might* still be distributing viable virions. If positive it raises the *possibility* that you *might* have some degree of immunity. To what degree and for how long is unknown; this is an ongoing field of research.



Well yeah that's what I just said really isn't it. 

I mean I still think it is better to be testing people out there working and if they are positive then saying quarantine for a month or whatever then not testing at all


----------



## editor (Mar 25, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I was out delivering C19 mutual aid leaflets last night.  In one of the blocks of flats some people have an extra porch area behind a door but still outside their front door.   One of these porches had loads of 5l oil and boxes of flour and toilet rolls.   I guess people really have been hording.  I feel greedy for having six tins of tomatoes and 6 soya milk
> 
> i guess the person _might_ have been shopping for others or making bread for their block...


_Six? _I've only got three. Do I need more? 
*heads off to local shop aisles with extra large bag


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I was out delivering C19 mutual aid leaflets last night.  In one of the blocks of flats some people have an extra porch area behind a door but still outside their front door.   One of these porches had loads of 5l oil and boxes of flour and toilet rolls.   I guess people really have been hording.  I feel greedy for having six tins of tomatoes and 6 soya milk
> 
> i guess the person _might_ have been shopping for others or making bread for their block...



Tbf they could be recent purchases left for a day or two in case of infection on the packaging - I did a food run for somebody a couple of days ago and her plan was to leave the bags untouched in a spare room before emptying


----------



## mauvais (Mar 25, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> If it confirms what I suspect in that I've already had it, this will be very useful to me and presumably plenty others like me.  I can then volunteer my services to those who need it knowing that I'm almost certainly not a risk to them or at least a much reduced risk then simply not knowing.
> 
> Also from a science data perspective it would be nice to actually get a handle on some numbers instead of just guessing.
> 
> What is your objection?


If you get a positive result, yeah OK, let's assume you can't get it again. You're still a risk to other people through normal contamination, just not human contact from you directly. You can deal with that to some extent through good practices.

But if it's negative, then what? Do you keep taking tests periodically until you have it?

This is being touted in some places as a way for life to get back to normal, but I can't see how it is.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

I mean I dunno, am not a science type, the ability to test easily is surely part of the solution tho


----------



## mauvais (Mar 25, 2020)

Oh yeah, I think it has specific uses, I just don't see that it's a complete game changer.


----------



## bimble (Mar 25, 2020)

If they stick thousands of these in boots shops throughout the land I hope they come with very clear instructions of what to do with either result.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 25, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Yeah, there seems to be some optimism that this can lead to systemic change. Look how a lot of people have behaved during this crisis though. We'll be back to full on raging capitalism within a year or so of the pandemic being under control. We've seen that people just care about the here and now. I think there'll be a lot of Guardian articles about the new Post-Corona world - but it won't be much more than a interesting dinner party talking point.


In the UK, maybe, where we're basically happy to be told what to do, but in places like Brazil I think the consequences could be much larger.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 25, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> In the UK, maybe, where we're basically happy to be told what to do, but in places like Brazil I think the consequences could be much larger.


are we? doesn't look like it so far, and Brazil elected a fascist, who famously like telling people what to do


----------



## Favelado (Mar 25, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> In the UK, maybe, where we're basically happy to be told what to do, but in places like Brazil I think the consequences could be much larger.



Brazil has so many different factors at play, It would be very hard to guess how things will pan out. A return to power by Lula or someone of his ilk may ultimately lead to the Brunozinhos and Patricinhas getting all angry again and some kind of counter-counter-reaction. The anger at Bolsonaro wouldn't mean a healing of the schism between right and left - just different leaders.

O Brazil nao é para principiantes (Brazil is not for beginners) - Tom Jobim


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 25, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Oh yeah, I think it has specific uses, I just don't see that it's a complete game changer.



Agreed.  Its not a game changer but its part of the start of the solution.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

At last some good news.   









						Coronavirus: Off-licences added to list of 'essential' retailers
					

Government updates list of shops allowed to open during the pandemic to include those selling alcohol.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 25, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> are we? doesn't look like it so far, and Brazil elected a fascist, who famously like telling people what to do


Once the scientists started giving the orders we (mostly) fell into line, but Bolsonaro is still not even admitting there's a problem. Once he's killed millions of his own people, we'll see how electable he is.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 25, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Once the scientists started giving the orders we (mostly) fell into line, but Bolsonaro is still not even admitting there's a problem. Once he's killed millions of his own people, we'll see how electable he is.



He has been startlingly shite even by his standards. Nice to see protests gaining momentum.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 25, 2020)

cantsin said:


> *METHODS:*
> The details of patients presenting (with injuries sustained while surfboard/bodyboard riding) to the Emergency Department (ED) of the Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro (UK), from* September 2004 until August 2006 *were recorded prospectively. The notes were then retrospectively reviewed by a senior ED physician. The records of each visit were scrutinized for date, age, sex, injury type, and injury severity and outcome; in addition, the patient's residential status (Cornish resident or visitor) was recorded.
> 
> *RESULTS:*
> ...



Here's a message for you from Surfing England:









						Coronavirus latest: Do not go Surfing - Surfing England
					

UPDATE: 24/03/2020 The Prime Minister made an urgent call to action last night and introduced new rules on staying at home and away from others, as well as new powers to enforce those rules.  See www.gov.uk for the full breakdown. The message is clear. Don’t go surfing. None of us should be...




					www.surfingengland.org


----------



## PrincessIcepick (Mar 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> At last some good news.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


you joke {i hope) but my m8 works in a big wine seller and they have no ppe and are told they don't get paid if they sick aren't can't go in. he's got asthma too, it's fucked up imo.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

PrincessIcepick said:


> you joke {i hope) but my m8 works in a big wine seller and they have no ppe and are told they don't get paid if they sick aren't can't go in. he's got asthma too, it's fucked up imo.



No, I am not joking, some people are dependent on alcohol, and it would be dangerous for them to be forced to give up overnight, because there's none in the supermarkets since the pub closures came. Others, whilst not dependent, will need a drink to help dealing with being forced to stay at home. It will also take some pressure of the supermarkets & smaller food outlets.

In case you hadn't noticed, PPE is not provided for the likes of those working in supermarkets, local shops, post offices, banks, etc.

Sorry to hear your mate has asthma, their employer should take that into consideration, but it's not a reason to starve the country of alcohol, resulting in health problems & deaths.


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

PrincessIcepick said:


> you joke {i hope) but my m8 works in a big wine seller and they have no ppe and are told they don't get paid if they sick aren't can't go in. he's got asthma too, it's fucked up imo.



They shouldn't be wearing PPE, it's more dangerous for them if they do. There's no need for it among the general population, and it's a limited resource too and needs to be saved for people at higher risk. AFAIK asthma, if it's at a mild level, is also not counted as among the conditions making you vulnerable.


----------



## treelover (Mar 25, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> To be fair other XR branches seem as horrified by this as everyone else on the planet View attachment 203239



a couple of people i know are coming out with stuff like this.


----------



## PrincessIcepick (Mar 25, 2020)

the supermarkets sell alcohol though. surely the wine sellers don't need to be working too? and those workers you mentioned should be getting ppe too. i'm assuming its not ok with you that they aren't getting any?


cupid_stunt said:


> At last some good news.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They shouldn't be wearing PPE, it's more dangerous for them if they do. There's no need for it among the general population, and it's a limited resource too and needs to be saved for people at higher risk. AFAIK asthma, if it's at a mild level, is also not counted as among the conditions making you vulnerable.


i mean like msks, hand sanitsier and gloves. they handling transported goods and deliveries.


----------



## andysays (Mar 25, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Here's a message for you from Surfing England:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Charlie, don't surf


----------



## treelover (Mar 25, 2020)

> *Coronavirus and Social Care*
> 17th March, 2020
> 
> It is hard to overstate how important a plan for social care is in the ongoing public health crisis. Many people who rely on social care will be at particular risk from the coronavirus and we must do all we can to prevent them from becoming infected.
> ...



from Louise Haigh's site, wish she was my MP


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

PrincessIcepick said:


> the supermarkets sell alcohol though. surely the wine sellers don't need to be working too?



Which part of 'SOLD OUT', do you not understand? 



> i mean like msks, hand sanitsier and gloves. they handling transported goods and deliveries.



Which part of 'SOLD OUT', do you not understand?


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

PrincessIcepick said:


> the supermarkets sell alcohol though. surely the wine sellers don't need to be working too? and those workers you mentioned should be getting ppe too. i'm assuming its not ok with you that they aren't getting any?
> 
> 
> i mean like msks, hand sanitsier and gloves. they handling transported goods and deliveries.



Sanitizer yes, no gloves or masks though, they shouldn't be wearing them. I work in a hospital and I don't wear them ffs.


----------



## BigTom (Mar 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sanitizer yes, no gloves or masks though, they shouldn't be wearing them. I work in a hospital and I don't wear them ffs.



Why is it more dangerous to wear gloves or masks? Since they have to handle products that have been handled by customers, wouldn't regularly changed gloves protect them from infection from an infected customer (and help them to not touch their face)? And masks protect customers from being infected if the shop worker is, although I suppose the 2m distancing stops that anyway?


----------



## PrincessIcepick (Mar 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Which part of 'SOLD OUT', do you not understand?
> 
> 
> 
> Which part of 'SOLD OUT', do you not understand?



i wonder if these businesses could come up with a solution that endangers the least amount of workers and allows them  to pay their rent. might be better than us going "oh well, nothing to be done" and relaxing while they're feeling stressed about dieing.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 25, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Here's a message for you from Surfing England:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



yep, just seen this avo - guess it's about the distinction between ' walking out to the beach '  and ' driving for 7 mins / no stops etc along way ' - as I posted yday, govt advisor on Beeb yday said in response to a question from member of the public, driving " 5 miles " to get to an empty space for exercise is far preferrable to walking to a busy local park.

My reservations are based on optics / social cues ... lots of ( local ) surfers visibly hanging about  will send the wrong message / could attract others to travel, however risk free the whole thing is - it hasn't happened yet ( v sparse numbers, and little hanging about ), but won't be going again anyway after a bit of a ding dong involving some Londoners  ( who were supposed to be building one of the beach front houses ) and locals today, + the Surf England piece


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

BigTom said:


> Why is it more dangerous to wear gloves or masks? Since they have to handle products that have been handled by customers, wouldn't regularly changed gloves protect them from infection from an infected customer (and help them to not touch their face)? And masks protect customers from being infected if the shop worker is, although I suppose the 2m distancing stops that anyway?



Yes, a mask of some description might help them remember to not touch their face, but afaik evidence shows it creates a higher risk of infection if members of the public wear them generally, for a number of reasons. Gloves pretty much the same. And again, they're all in short supply.

Social distancing, don't touch your face, wash/sanitize your hands, social isolate if you have symptoms.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 25, 2020)

FFS some people don't even know how much 1m is let alone 2!! had to shout at 3 lots of people in space of 10 mins


----------



## BigTom (Mar 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes, a mask of some description might help them remember to not touch their face, but afaik evidence shows it creates a higher risk of infection if members of the public wear them generally, for a number of reasons. Gloves pretty much the same. And again, they're all in short supply.
> 
> Social distancing, don't touch your face, wash/sanitize your hands, social isolate if you have symptoms.


Cheers, I get the short supply thing, but thought that gloves in particular were really useful for reducing cross infection... if used properly - so is the issue that they are not used properly? Like I see food workers with gloves not changing them when handling cash which makes them totally pointless in terms of food hygiene stuff... or is it that with covid-19 specifically gloves aren't useful?


----------



## treelover (Mar 25, 2020)

editor said:


> I hope that people's righteous anger about how capitalism and ruthless profiteering will translate into real social change after this all calms down.
> Well, I can dream.











						We Shouldn’t Go Back to the Way Things Were
					

Capitalism has always been the crisis.




					www.teenvogue.com
				



In Teen Vogue, yes, Teen vogue


----------



## treelover (Mar 25, 2020)

editor said:


> Meanwhile stupid people keep on being stupid




Did the police push it over?!


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 25, 2020)

ddraig said:


> FFS some people don't even know how much 1m is let alone 2!! had to shout at 3 lots of people in space of 10 mins



I ventured to the supermarket today out of necessity.  I was quite pleased with how many people were trying their best to give each other as much space as possible.  I did notice three distinct demographics that were just ignoring the 2m thing completely.  Firstly those 55+.  It has been a bit of joke that this age group is bad for ignoring these instructions but it was really noticeable today.  Secondly was posh mum with young kids in tow and lastly were people wearing masks.  They seemed to get the closest, one bloke seemed to want to attach himself to me like a limpet.

People are strange.


----------



## treelover (Mar 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> This sounds like great news apart from the bit where if your test says you’ve had it’s just ‘likely’ that you’re immune so you can go happily about as if you’re safe.
> What do you do with that just hope it’s true? i don’t know.
> 
> 
> ...



wonder how much they cost, GP thinks i am C19 positive.


----------



## fishfinger (Mar 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> Did the police push it over?!


It fell down the stairs.


----------



## NoXion (Mar 25, 2020)

editor said:


> Meanwhile stupid people keep on being stupid




Bunch of selfish fucking Yank cunts moaning in the comments about "muh freedumbz". Dying of the plague is too good for 'em.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 25, 2020)

ddraig said:


> FFS some people don't even know how much 1m is let alone 2!! had to shout at 3 lots of people in space of 10 mins


I am sure your shouting w a s appreciated


----------



## two sheds (Mar 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> wonder how much they cost, GP thinks i am C19 positive.



You'd imagine a positive would mean people phone NHS 111, a negative would mean you still don't really know whether you've got it so you'd continue social distancing.


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

BigTom said:


> Cheers, I get the short supply thing, but thought that gloves in particular were really useful for reducing cross infection... if used properly - so is the issue that they are not used properly? Like I see food workers with gloves not changing them when handling cash which makes them totally pointless in terms of food hygiene stuff... or is it that with covid-19 specifically gloves aren't useful?



Yeah, not used properly.


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> You'd imagine a positive would mean people phone NHS 111, a negative would mean you still don't really know whether you've got it so you'd continue social distancing.



No, don't need to do anything if you're positive. We're turning people away from hospitals who are likely (or confirmed) positive unless they're very ill. This is one reason why generally avaliable tests comes with some problems. Thousands of people with very mild symptoms who test positive flooding healthcare providers demanding treatment. Which is happening a bit anyway already.


----------



## Callie (Mar 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> You'd imagine a positive would mean people phone NHS 111, a negative would mean you still don't really know whether you've got it so you'd continue social distancing.


nah phoning 111 is for those that require medical assistance ONLY.

A positive on this test may well just show past exposure to the virus (days/weeks/months ago) so not an active infection. 

Sort of depends if it can differentiate between IgG and IgM antibodies. IgM would indicate recent/current infection.

If they are using it for healthcare workers it will be a way to get them back to work more quickly. No value for those with mild illness or who have had mild illness other than it will give us a better idea of the true number of cases - assuming large numbers of the population are tested.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 25, 2020)

Ta for correction both


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

I'm mildly concerned that the news that the tests are going to be arriving soon is going to result in panicked crowds mobbing chemists demanding them.

The behaviour of quite large numbers of people recently is pretty shocking. Today the police had to go to a park near me to disperse crowds gathering and hanging out like it was warm bank holiday ffs.


----------



## iona (Mar 25, 2020)

I've been having the ppe argument with people for the last couple weeks, even staff in my pharmacy are wearing badly fitted surgical masks and adjusting them with dirty gloves on. Would like to think the cleaning company staff I saw get out of their van and into a block of flats already wearing full kit head to toe are being v careful about how/when they remove that when they leave, but...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm mildly concerned that the news that the tests are going to be arriving soon is going to result in panicked crowds mobbing chemists demanding them.



It's been confirmed that these tests will not be available to the general population, just the likes of critical workers.


----------



## bimble (Mar 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's been confirmed that these tests will not be available to the general population, just the likes of critical workers.


Where? The newspapers are saying they’ll be in boots.


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> Where? The newspapers are saying they’ll be in boots.



Saw hints that only for key workers, maybe they'll need ID. Can foresee massive problems if that's the case. They need mobile testing teams going from workplace to workplace I think. They'll be riots at anywhere that stocks them.


----------



## bimble (Mar 25, 2020)

Yet again, brilliant communications by the gov.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 25, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I am sure your shouting w a s appreciated


Who gives a fuck? people need to at least try keeping distance!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> Where? The newspapers are saying they’ll be in boots.



BBC & Sky News, on the telly.

They will be available in the future at the likes of Boots, not now, not with these first 3+ million test kits.


----------



## iona (Mar 25, 2020)

Callie said:


> nah phoning 111 is for those that require medical assistance ONLY.


I looked up the advice for this today (staff where I live sent out a letter saying to phone 111 if you have symptoms) and they've changed the wording slightly:



			
				NHS website said:
			
		

> *Do not leave your home if you have coronavirus symptoms*
> Do not leave your home if you have either:
> 
> 
> ...


Don't think it's what they meant but last few lines read like they now want ANYONE with Sx to use 111 online, or phone if they can't use the online service.


----------



## andysays (Mar 25, 2020)

If testing does become more widely available, it would surely make more sense to be administering the tests in some sort of planned way across the whole population so that the results can tell us something about how the virus is spreading than simply making home testing kits available to buy in Boots


----------



## bimble (Mar 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> BBC & Sky News, on the telly.
> 
> They will be available in the future at the likes of Boots, not now, not with these first 3+ million test kits.



Lot of people will not know that, whether on purpose or not. But good that’s it’s going to people who can make use of it first.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 25, 2020)

Since I live alone, I was planning on going by temperature / blood oxygen should I get sick, but the oximeter I ordered is trapped in an Amazon locker at work 
Perhaps I should set up some sort of "dead man's handle" instead


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> Lot of people will not know that, whether on purpose or not. But good that’s it’s going to people who can make use of it first.
> 
> View attachment 203302



Looks like a cock-up by Prof Sharon Peacock.



> Prof Sharon Peacock, the director of the national infection service at PHE, told MPs on the science and technology committee that mass testing in the UK would be possible by next week.
> 
> The UK government has bought 3.5m tests, which the health secretary, Matt Hancock, mentioned on Tuesday with no suggestion that they would be available to the public so quickly, and is ordering millions more.
> 
> ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

The government's request for 250k NHS volunteers has been answered by over 400k coming forward.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 25, 2020)

"Look for the helpers"


----------



## Callie (Mar 25, 2020)

I guess its not beyond the realms of possibility that PHE will field the NHS staff management issue using the tests and do their epidemiological thing with as many as they need AND private enterprise are forking out the cash to buy tests too so they can reap the financial rewards? _raises eyebrow_


----------



## andysays (Mar 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looks like a cock-up by Prof Sharon Peacock.


How is that going to "restore many people's lives to a semblance of pre lockdown normality" though?


----------



## brogdale (Mar 25, 2020)

andysays said:


> How is that going to "restore many people's lives to a semblance of pre lockdown normality" though?


Are they hoping that the "immune" herd will start grazing again?


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

andysays said:


> How is that going to "restore many people's lives to a semblance of pre lockdown normality" though?



Yeah, I hope she gets a bollocking, and the press have been irresponsible over the testing thing. It could quite easily cause massive chaos and problems.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

andysays said:


> How is that going to "restore many people's lives to a semblance of pre lockdown normality" though?



It's not in the short-term, Peacock spoke out of line, and the press went with it.


----------



## andysays (Mar 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's not in the short-term, Peacock spoke out of line, and the press went with it.


I'm not sure if it's intended as a direct quote from Peacock or just wishful thinking on someone else's part.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 25, 2020)

My local park today...Moving people on.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 25, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> My local park today...Moving people on.
> 
> View attachment 203304


Gotta say; that seems fucking stupid. When we're being herded into shops to survive, walking/sitting in the park with loads of space around seems like a healthy option.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 25, 2020)

There's only 2 people there and they're 20 metres apart?


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 25, 2020)

Only 150 new cases in the uk today? Can that be right?


----------



## xes (Mar 25, 2020)

I just had someone ring the bell selling fish door to door.  

From dining solutions direct. My neighbour's out there buying some right now.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 25, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Only 150 new cases in the uk today? Can that be right?


From Worldometer? It updates throughout the day.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Gotta say; that seems fucking stupid. When we're being herded into shops to survive, walking/sitting in the park with loads of space around seems like a healthy option.



I like to think it's because people were sitting around or sunbathing. If these blokes were just out for some air or exercise it does seem over the top.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 25, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> My local park today...Moving people on.
> 
> View attachment 203304



am confused - why would they be moved on ?


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 25, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> I like to think it's because people were sitting around or sunbathing. If these blokes were just out for some air or exercise it does seem over the top.



Cops probably just wanted an excuse to spend their day in the park.


----------



## agricola (Mar 25, 2020)

xes said:


> I just had someone ring the bell selling fish door to door.
> 
> From dining solutions direct. My neighbour's out there buying some right now.



please tell me you told them they'd come to the wrong plaice


----------



## klang (Mar 25, 2020)

agricola said:


> please tell me you told them they'd come to the wrong plaice


Wrong door, trout on!


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 25, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> To be fair other XR branches seem as horrified by this as everyone else on the planet View attachment 203239


Notwithstanding the existence of enough fruitloops who actually believe this with the wherewithal to knock up a sticker, this is the sort of provocative and divisive message that, for example, the FBI's COINTELPROs historically used to discredit groups, and very successful it could be, too. 

Whether in this case the blame lies with the former (sincere fuckwits), or the latter (insincere dishonest actors), it is somewhat irrelevant - either way it is incumbent on the groups and networks of XR to ensure that things like this don't ever again go out under their name.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 25, 2020)

xes said:


> I just had someone ring the bell selling fish door to door.



Obviously an oceantial worker.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 25, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Notwithstanding the existence of enough fruitloops who actually believe this with the wherewithal to knock up a sticker, this is the sort of provocative and divisive message that, for example, the FBI's COINTELPROs historically used to discredit groups, and very successful it could be, too.
> 
> Whether in this case the blame lies with the former (sincere fuckwits), or the latter (insincere dishonest actors), it is somewhat irrelevant - either way it is incumbent on the groups and networks of XR to ensure that things like this don't ever again go out under their name.



Do XR have the wherewithal (or even the desire) to deal with such threats?


----------



## klang (Mar 25, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Obviously an oceantial worker.


I sea what you did there.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> Did the police push it over?!



Yes they did.



> The crowd refused to disperse even when reminded about the need for social distancing, police said.
> 
> Officers had to tip the barbecue over to put an end to the gathering.











						Coronavirus: Coventry barbecue crowd dispersed
					

More than 20 people were "freely mingling and standing shoulder to shoulder round a buffet".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 25, 2020)

littleseb said:


> I sea what you did there.


Trawl in it together


----------



## two sheds (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Gotta say; that seems fucking stupid. When we're being herded into shops to survive, walking/sitting in the park with loads of space around seems like a healthy option.



And if people can't surf they shouldn't fucking be riding horses


----------



## two sheds (Mar 25, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Whether in this case the blame lies with the former (sincere fuckwits), or the latter (insincere dishonest actors), it is somewhat irrelevant - either way it is incumbent on the groups and networks of XR to ensure that things like this don't ever again go out under their name.



Not sure how they'd do that.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Only 150 new cases in the uk today? Can that be right?



The UK wide figure hasn't been updated, that's just figures from some of the smaller nations, looks like they are still counting the figures for England.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2020)

I note that Johnson was keen to bring up the Oxford model in the press conference, but Vallance was on hand to point out that it doesnt prove anything on its own, we need data from antibody tests.

I was pleased that various journalists were giving them a hard time on the UK response, lack of tests etc.


----------



## magneze (Mar 25, 2020)

andysays said:


> If testing does become more widely available, it would surely make more sense to be administering the tests in some sort of planned way across the whole population so that the results can tell us something about how the virus is spreading than simply making home testing kits available to buy in Boots


That makes sense. My guess is that this probably won't happen then.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 25, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> My local park today...Moving people on.
> 
> View attachment 203304


Ah that used to be my local park. Lived just down a bit to the right.  Fantastic view from there.

That is absurd tbh. I went for a walk earlier. It's really very easy to stay away from people. There were people reading, sat on park benches, well away from anybody else. I think it's more about people not being supposed to be enjoying themselves. You should be marching your daily constitutional, head down, being suitably miserable. If you don't have a garden, that's just tough.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Not sure how they'd do that.


Firstly they would have to _want_ to do it.


----------



## magneze (Mar 25, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Only 150 new cases in the uk today? Can that be right?


I don't think the figures have been released yet?

It used to be 2pm every day. Now it's just whenever really. Not like anyone's interested.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 25, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Firstly they would have to _want_ to do it.



Well they denied it was them when they saw it. But it'd be pretty well impossible for any group to prevent the hard right going round putting up posters claiming to be that group, photographing them and putting them on facebook.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

agricola said:


> please tell me you told them they'd come to the wrong plaice



That would knock them off their perch


----------



## brogdale (Mar 25, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> I like to think it's because people were sitting around or sunbathing. If these blokes were just out for some air or exercise it does seem over the top.


I like to think it's OK to walk to the park to have a nice sit down/sunbathe tbh, despite the restrictions on our freedoms.
People have to keep body & soul together and we don't all have lovely gardens.


----------



## xes (Mar 25, 2020)

agricola said:


> please tell me you told them they'd come to the wrong plaice


I just haddock got it in me to do something like that.


----------



## T & P (Mar 25, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> My local park today...Moving people on.
> 
> View attachment 203304


Good. Brockwell Park yesterday resembled a sunny Sunday afternoon crowds-wise.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I like to think it's OK to walk to the park to have a nice sit down/sunbathe tbh, despite the restrictions on our freedoms.
> People have to keep body & soul together and we don't all have lovely gardens.



There's a video circulating of police shouting at people to leave the another London park ...'It's not a holiday'

Shown here:









						'It's not a holiday' Police clear sunbathers from park amid coronavirus lockdown
					

Boris Johnson said parks would remain open for exercise but police have been filmed ordering people sitting in the sunshine to "go home".




					www.dailyrecord.co.uk


----------



## eoin_k (Mar 25, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Only 150 new cases in the uk today? Can that be right?


Yeah, they don't seem to be in a rush to release the data today.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I like to think it's OK to walk to the park to have a nice sit down/sunbathe tbh, despite the restrictions on our freedoms.
> People have to keep body & soul together and we don't all have lovely gardens.



People shouldn't gather in parks. You only go out for exercise, not to lounge about.

A few people sunbathing becomes a few more, and then you risk having some of the typical interactions that occur in busy parks.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 25, 2020)

They think Gwent, Wales (the bit to the left of most of you) is heading to be on a par with Italy. 300 cases they have no idea of why they're happening.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 25, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> They think Gwent, Wales (the bit to the left of most of you) is heading to be on a par with Italy. 300 cases they have no idea of why they're happening.


link?

e2a


			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-wales-52031047
		

17:07
*'The pattern in Gwent is the same seen in Italy'*
The NHS in Gwent could be "following Italy" and faces being overwhelmed by a rapid increase in coronavirus cases, a senior official has warned.
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, has seen 309 confirmed cases of Covid-19 - almost half the total for Wales and more than twice the number in any other area.
No explanation has been given by the Welsh Government for the "random" cluster.
Sarah Aitken, the board's director of public health, has urged people to stay at home to give the NHS "essential time" to increase capacity.
"In Gwent we are seeing a rapidly rising increase in the number of cases of coronavirus in the community, the number of people being admitted to hospital and the number of people dying of the virus," she said.
"The pattern we are seeing in Gwent is the same pattern seen in Italy where their healthcare system is now overwhelmed.
"Without a huge effort by all of us we are heading to the moments where our health service will be overwhelmed too.
"We won't have enough hospital beds for everyone who needs life-saving ventilators and intensive care.


----------



## Threshers_Flail (Mar 25, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> They think Gwent, Wales (the bit to the left of most of you) is heading to be on a par with Italy. 300 cases they have no idea of why they're happening.



My part of the world, is worrying.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> They think Gwent, Wales (the bit to the left of most of you) is heading to be on a par with Italy. 300 cases they have no idea of why they're happening.



Yeah it's weird isn't it, well in front in wales, obv not pop density as cardiff behind it


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 25, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ah that used to be my local park. Lived just down a bit to the right.  Fantastic view from there.
> 
> That is absurd tbh. I went for a walk earlier. It's really very easy to stay away from people. There were people reading, sat on park benches, well away from anybody else. I think it's more about people not being supposed to be enjoying themselves. You should be marching your daily constitutional, head down, being suitably miserable. If you don't have a garden, that's just tough.



You think they should wait until everyone cottons on, and the park fills up? And then they should try and disperse the large crowd of sunbathers that have been there for hours?  

Better to disperse a few scattered people and nip it in the bud.


----------



## Spandex (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I like to think it's OK to walk to the park to have a nice sit down/sunbathe tbh, despite the restrictions on our freedoms.
> People have to keep body & soul together and we don't all have lovely gardens.


The trouble is that, while a small handful of people well spread out in a park isn't a problem, when it gets to the weekend and all the home workers, homeschoolers and everyone else in the local area decide they want to go sunbathing in the local park - look how empty those pictures make it look, won't do any harm - then it'll end up packed and that would be a problem.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2020)

ddraig said:


> link?











						'Gwent seeing same pattern as Italy' as coronavirus cases rise | ITV News
					

There are now 309 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Aneurin Bevan health board area, nearly half of the total number of cases in Wales. | ITV News Wales




					www.itv.com
				




I havent looked at the data, for all I know this comment could be made about plenty of other places in the UK too. But I shall try to inform myself about the actual numbers and compare them to elsewhere before spouting anything else about that. In any case, motives for saying it include trying to get people to take the thing with the appropriate level of seriousness.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> 'Gwent seeing same pattern as Italy' as coronavirus cases rise | ITV News
> 
> 
> There are now 309 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Aneurin Bevan health board area, nearly half of the total number of cases in Wales. | ITV News Wales
> ...


thanks
found more info on the live reporting thread on BBC for Wales
I have edited my post above


----------



## Cid (Mar 25, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> People shouldn't gather in parks. You only go out for exercise, not to lounge about.
> 
> A few people sunbathing becomes a few more, and then you risk having some of the typical interactions that occur in busy parks.



Yep... It's this situation of lockdown colliding with a bit of lovely weather, and the British instinct to make the most of it. 3 weeks ago no fucker would be venturing out for anything other than a brisk walk.

It's stupid; get some exercise, keep your distance, go home. Also flouting these rules will inevitably result in harsher clampdowns, don't be a dick.


----------



## editor (Mar 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yes they did.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


In my area, there's a long tradition of Caribbean families gathering together for barbecues and all day drinking outside whenever the sun comes out. So far I've seen a group of about 6 drinking around a park bench today, but I can't imagine there won't be bigger street gatherings coming up when the mercury rises. 
#flashpoint


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2020)

London woman dies of suspected Covid-19 after being told she was 'not priority'
					

Kayla Williams, 36, from Peckham, south London, died a day after calling 999 Coronavirus – all updates




					www.theguardian.com
				






> A 36-year-old woman died at her flat in south London of suspected Covid-19 a day after calling 999 and being told to look after herself at home.
> 
> Kayla Williams, a mother of three, died on Saturday 21 March, a day after paramedics were called to her home in Peckham.





> When the paramedic arrived at 8.32am she carried out some tests, Williams said. “She told me the hospital won’t take her, she is not a priority. She did not stay very long and she went outside to write her report and posted it through the door.”


----------



## Anju (Mar 25, 2020)

Guy working on the temporary hospital. As well as the 4000 beds there are going to be 2 morgues. Says he wasn't taking it seriously until he saw the size of it


----------



## prunus (Mar 25, 2020)

Have they said anything about why they’ve not released the figures for England yet?


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> London woman dies of suspected Covid-19 after being told she was 'not priority'
> 
> 
> Kayla Williams, 36, from Peckham, south London, died a day after calling 999 Coronavirus – all updates
> ...



Heartbreaking. Partner and mother of your children dies and its stay in the flat and isolate. Poor family.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2020)

Its one of those stories where I dont even know what to say, I am so crap at finding the right words for that sort of circumstance.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 25, 2020)

There aren't any, it's a tragedy


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 25, 2020)

How many more will die at home like this or alone.? It's been the thing that is giving me some fear for a few days.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 25, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> People shouldn't gather in parks. You only go out for exercise, not to lounge about.
> 
> A few people sunbathing becomes a few more, and then you risk having some of the typical interactions that occur in busy parks.


Yeah, I get that completely.
But walking to the park (observing the 2m rule & all that), sitting on a bench/the grass and feeding the ducks does not have to constitute 'gathering'. If going to parks is the issue, there's an obvious response that the authorities could take.

Looking as though it's OK to work inclose proximity to others, but not to rest or recreate.

If this really is going to be months, people's mental and physical well-being cannot be completely overlooked.


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Yeah, I get that completely.
> But walking to the park (observing the 2m rule & all that), sitting on a bench/the grass and feeding the ducks does not have to constitute 'gathering'. If going to parks is the issue, there's an obvious response that the authorities could take.
> 
> Looking as though it's OK to work inclose proximity to others, but not to rest or recreate.
> ...



Sitting in the park is not exercise. Feeding the ducks is not exercise. Reading in the sun is not exercise. Having a BBQ is not exercise.

It's fucking simple. People are interpreting the guidance to fit what they would like to do.

People doing these things could result in a cluster of cases and possibly deaths. They just need to stop it. This isn't some fucking game.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sitting in the park is not exercise. Feeding the ducks is not exercise. Having a BBQ is not exercise.
> 
> It's fucking simple. People are interpreting the guidance to fit what they would like to do.


Indeed.
But then staying sane/healthy for some people involves slightly less strenuous activity than jogging or running etc.
I'd like to think that we'd retain some perspective and accept that, (given observance of the distancing guidance) we'd allow folks who may live in cramped flats with no other outside space the chance to sit in the park in the sun.


----------



## chilango (Mar 25, 2020)

If I sit in my yard I'm closer to people than if I sit in the park 

(Not that I'm doing either)


----------



## toblerone3 (Mar 25, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> My local park today...Moving people on.
> 
> View attachment 203304



I did some sunbathing in my local park today, but it was only because I was exhausted from exercising all day.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Mar 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, don't need to do anything if you're positive. We're turning people away from hospitals who are likely (or confirmed) positive unless they're very ill. This is one reason why generally avaliable tests comes with some problems. Thousands of people with very mild symptoms who test positive flooding healthcare providers demanding treatment. Which is happening a bit anyway already.



Yeah that's not good is it. Hope things are going as best as they can for you all. 

I do think a test avaliable to the public would be a significant risk tbh. There's also a lot of people who on first feeling symptoms will pop out for tests which really defeats the point of self isolation and makes it all so much worse. Negative results would also give people false confidence and they would be less diligent in hygiene and distancing measures. It could cause a lot of problems. 

I do think an antibody test would be very useful though. In terms of social care especially. If I knew Ive had it I can do a better risk assessment on going to provide caring duties for people in the family who are elderly or ill or get coronavirus themselves. Having the option would be great and eleviate a lot of stress all round and take pressure of other services. I have care experience and would also be happy to volunteer in hospitals if I knew I'd already had it. I'd be Well aware that's there still some risk to myself even with the antibodies but a risk I would be willing to take if I knew the risk of being infectious was minimal. Obviously people can still carry it about so would need training on how to manage that but knowing that it's likely you are not shedding it would be very helpful in a lot of situations I think. 

So antibody tests I think could be great in a lot of circumstances. But just letting whoever buy the covid tests from the pharmacy could well be a poor judgement.


----------



## RTWL (Mar 25, 2020)

toblerone3 said:


> I did some sunbathing in my local park today, but it was only because I was exhausted from exercising all day.



I was doing some as well.... but in a forest with nobody around .

<----lucky git


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2020)

eoin_k said:


> Yeah, they don't seem to be in a rush to release the data today.



It does my head in. Many countries manage to stick to routine times, which is important for several reasons.

The UK does seem to have some history of delivering bad news, or news that has particular implications, late, so I always get extra nervous when the numbers are late, and todays are very late indeed. But that isnt necessarily a sign, and this is one of the reasons its better to be consistent about timing!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 25, 2020)

They've closed all the parks in Hammersmith & Fulham completely anyway, so if you want to go for a walk you have to pick your way past random weirdos on the street, hanging around smoking like it's an increasingly complex stealth game and you have to find a way past their activation radius.

Just as you think you've planned a course, oh no, here comes a jogger! GAME OVER


----------



## weltweit (Mar 25, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> They think Gwent, Wales (the bit to the left of most of you) is heading to be on a par with Italy. 300 cases they have no idea of why they're happening.


Yes I saw Gwent as a dark patch on the UK map and wondered what was going on. 
The effect of Newport perhaps?


----------



## brogdale (Mar 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sitting in the park is not exercise. Feeding the ducks is not exercise. Reading in the sun is not exercise. Having a BBQ is not exercise.
> 
> It's fucking simple. People are interpreting the guidance to fit what they would like to do.
> 
> People doing these things could result in a cluster of cases and possibly deaths. They just need to stop it. This isn't some fucking game.


Again, i agree completely with the sentiment of what you say. 
I just don't see why the activity that an individual understates to keep mind & body together has to be running. If some ultra fit types are allowed out in the strange clothing, can't quite see why a bookish type, observing the same distancing discipline, should not sit on the grass reading a novel.
But maybe I'm just not getting this?


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2020)




----------



## little_legs (Mar 25, 2020)

the people who are saving/treating the sick have to _qualify_. fuck me.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

Figure just reported on Sky, 'just' 28 further deaths in England, which with the 13 elsewhere in the UK, takes it to 41.


----------



## Cid (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Again, i agree completely with the sentiment of what you say.
> I just don't see why the activity that an individual understates to keep mind & body together has to be running. If some ultra fit types are allowed out in the strange clothing, can't quite see why a bookish type, observing the same distancing discipline, should not sit on the grass reading a novel.
> But maybe I'm just not getting this?



I'm assuming you managed not to sit in a park reading for most of the winter. You certainly didn't enjoy the sun, there wasn't any. It's clearly harmless for one person to sit on their own, in a park. But we're not looking at one person, we're looking at patterns of behaviour. One person sitting reading in a park shows that it's fine for people to go and sit in the park, or sunbathe. And, given that most people are off work, that will lead to people congregating in those spaces.

Also dunno where you're getting this running thing from, walking is entirely acceptable. The point is to minimise contact time with other people, to minimise time spent in public spaces - not to extend it.


----------



## agricola (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Again, i agree completely with the sentiment of what you say.
> I just don't see why the activity that an individual understates to keep mind & body together has to be running. If some ultra fit types are allowed out in the strange clothing, can't quite see why a bookish type, observing the same distancing discipline, should not sit on the grass reading a novel.
> But maybe I'm just not getting this?



You can sit and read a novel at home, though.  Going out - to run, go for a daily walk, get food, see your child if it doesn't live with you or go to work - are exceptions at the moment to the normality of staying at home.  

Hopefully once this has passed the parks will be so full of people reading that the runners are forever being tripped over, but not now.


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Again, i agree completely with the sentiment of what you say.
> I just don't see why the activity that an individual understates to keep mind & body together has to be running. If some ultra fit types are allowed out in the strange clothing, can't quite see why a bookish type, observing the same distancing discipline, should not sit on the grass reading a novel.
> But maybe I'm just not getting this?



Yeah run, brisk walk, hobble, whatever, but you're right, I think you're not getting it. There are extra risks with sitting down in the the park, even 2m away from someone. One of the obvious ones is that what people are supposed to be doing _isn't _normal, it is hard, and it is going to take both collective and individual effort to do, and a few people doing normal things very, very quickly creates a collective feeling that rules can be ignored around this.

Two people kicking a football, a few reading in the sun, and a couple on the swings very quickly will just become a normal park and people will not behave as they should be doing. Also this is going to be a long haul, if people can't do it now then we're fucked in the long term when people are _really_ going to want to go for, rather than just fancy, a sit in the park.

This is going to be hard, but do it, it's to save lives.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sitting in the park is not exercise. Feeding the ducks is not exercise. Reading in the sun is not exercise. Having a BBQ is not exercise.
> 
> It's fucking simple. People are interpreting the guidance to fit what they would like to do.
> 
> People doing these things could result in a cluster of cases and possibly deaths. They just need to stop it. This isn't some fucking game.



The whole lockdown is being mishandled by the government. The rules are way too lax in the first place, and they are then being stretched even further. It's a mess.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Again, i agree completely with the sentiment of what you say.
> I just don't see why the activity that an individual understates to keep mind & body together has to be running. If some ultra fit types are allowed out in the strange clothing, can't quite see why a bookish type, observing the same distancing discipline, should not sit on the grass reading a novel.
> But maybe I'm just not getting this?



You are not getting it, because you are ignoring the replies you are getting, so I doubt you'll ever get it.

People are fucking dying, it maybe tough to stay at home, but it'll save lives, fuck the selfish cunts that don't get it.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 25, 2020)

Cid said:


> I'm assuming you managed not to sit in a park reading for most of the winter. You certainly didn't enjoy the sun, there wasn't any. It's clearly harmless for one person to sit on their own, in a park. But we're not looking at one person, we're looking at patterns of behaviour. One person sitting reading in a park shows that it's fine for people to go and sit in the park, or sunbathe. And, given that most people are off work, that will lead to people congregating in those spaces.
> 
> Also dunno where you're getting this running thing from, walking is entirely acceptable. The point is to minimise contact time with other people, to minimise time spent in public spaces - not to extend it.


Fair points.
I'm conscious that my concern for those with no access to outside space may reflect a certain degree of guilt that I'm extremely fortunate to have my own, modest but lovely garden to sit in as long as I choose. I just feel really sorry for the many folk with kids living in flats etc. and hate the way that the "exercise" exemption appears to pander to the fit and sporty (or dog owners) and yet those cooped up with kids in flats through what could be a warm, sunny period are expected to watch TV.

Probs best if I shut up about this now, as I can see the arguments against what I'm saying.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Probs best if I shut up about this now, as I can see the arguments against what I'm saying.


 Yep.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Again, i agree completely with the sentiment of what you say.
> I just don't see why the activity that an individual understates to keep mind & body together has to be running. If some ultra fit types are allowed out in the strange clothing, can't quite see why a bookish type, observing the same distancing discipline, should not sit on the grass reading a novel.
> But maybe I'm just not getting this?


Ask yourself why prisoners are permitted exercise.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They shouldn't be wearing PPE, it's more dangerous for them if they do. There's no need for it among the general population



More on this please. I have a box of latex gloves, and wore a pair to go shopping this evening. Should I be saving them for when I get symptoms? Finding a way to get them to an NHS worker?


----------



## killer b (Mar 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Fair points.
> I'm conscious that my concern for those with no access to outside space may reflect a certain degree of guilt that I'm extremely fortunate to have my own, modest but lovely garden to sit in as long as I choose. I just feel really sorry for the many folk with kids living in flats etc. and hate the way that the "exercise" exemption appears to pander to the fit and sporty (or dog owners) and yet those cooped up with kids in flats through what could be a warm, sunny period are expected to watch TV.


People with kids are able to take them out for a walk too. That's what I did yesterday.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 25, 2020)

For every ten 'responsible' walks or runs - one of them is going to go wrong. It's such a daft strategy. Or it's not one in ten, it's one in 5, or one in twenty, but it's so frustrating that people are taking the word of an idiot prime minister as their guide. Use your brain, use your conscience.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 25, 2020)

Raheem said:


> More on this please. I have a box of latex gloves, and wore a pair to go shopping this evening. Should I be saving them for when I get symptoms? Finding a way to get them to an NHS worker?



I am using gloves as well when shopping because of all the stuff I need to touch. I personally think this is a good idea. A squirt of sanitiser, rub your gloved hands together and over the handle of the trolley or basket too.


----------



## LDC (Mar 25, 2020)

Raheem said:


> More on this please. I have a box of latex gloves, and wore a pair to go shopping this evening. Should I be saving them for when I get symptoms? Finding a way to get them to an NHS worker?



Why would you wear them if you have symptoms? If you have symptoms you'll be self-isolating at home with no contact. Don't wear them, just wash your hands and don't touch your face. Go and drop them at a nearby care home or something.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 25, 2020)

Not 100% sure if this is the correct thread for this so apologies if not, but .....

I've been getting plenty of information about what it's like in locked-down London from various Urbans posting in this thread**, but I found Barney Ronay's article describing Day One well worth a read (it focuses on my old neck of the woods, SE17, as well as other  parts of South London).

Without actually specifying how poorly understood (by some) the Government's rules are,  he sums up pretty well (IMO) how different reactions in behaviour are from different people.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Don't wear them, just wash your hands and don't touch your face.



But why? Couldn't the gloves prevent me from bringing the virus into my house, or from shedding it all over Morrissons?


----------



## Favelado (Mar 25, 2020)

Raheem said:


> But why? Couldn't the gloves prevent me from bringing the virus into my house, or from shedding it all over Morrissons?



The virus can live on the gloves too, and you could bring it into your house or shed it all over Morrissons on your gloves. It's washing your hands as soon as you get in, without touching your face that matters.

The advantage of gloves for healthcare workers is that they are sterile - and hands aren't, even coronavirus free ones.


----------



## Celyn (Mar 25, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> are we? doesn't look like it so far, and Brazil elected a fascist, who famously like telling people what to do


And they dress in black.  Whereas priests...


----------



## xes (Mar 25, 2020)

Favelado said:


> For every ten 'responsible' walks or runs - one of them is going to go wrong. It's such a daft strategy. Or it's not one in ten, it's one in 5, or one in twenty, but it's so frustrating that people are taking the word of an idiot prime minister as their guide. Use your brain, use your conscience.


unfortunately those things seem to be in short supply. I've seen my 76 year old neighbour going in and out the house a few times this evening, off out in the car again.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 25, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Tim Martin is a scumbag
> 
> *View attachment 203084*


Wow.









						Win! Wetherspoons performs U-turn and agrees to pay staff
					

Workers welcome the change of heart but say they will not forget how they were abandoned by the company



					www.union-news.co.uk


----------



## magneze (Mar 25, 2020)

Today the fancy dashboard has been updated before the basic figures website: Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

9529, up 1542


----------



## Favelado (Mar 25, 2020)

Favelado said:


> The virus can live on the gloves too, and you could bring it into your house or shed it all over Morrissons on your gloves. It's washing your hands as soon as you get in, without touching your face that matters.
> 
> The advantage of gloves for healthcare workers is that they are sterile - and hands aren't, even coronavirus free ones.




eta - it is true that you're not allowed in the supermarket here without sanitising your hands at the door and they do provide you with gloves before you get inside. Maybe that makes sense. There's no point putting them on until you get to the supermarket door with freshly sanitised hands.


----------



## xes (Mar 25, 2020)

Favelado said:


> eta - it is true that you're not allowed in the supermarket here without sanitising your hands at the door and they do provide you with gloves before you get inside. Maybe that makes sense. There's no point putting them on until you get to the supermarket door with freshly sanitised hands.


My dad's in Cyprus, he says they're doing the same thing there.


----------



## mx wcfc (Mar 25, 2020)

Favelado said:


> eta - it is true that you're not allowed in the supermarket here without sanitising your hands at the door and they do provide you with gloves before you get inside. Maybe that makes sense. There's no point putting them on until you get to the supermarket door with freshly sanitised hands.


Mrs mx went to the supermarket today.  Workers were sanitising the trolleys before letting people take them, and dispensing hand sanitiser to all shoppers as they went in.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 25, 2020)

I took gloves with me to the shops today then put them in the bin when i got home and washed my hands
e2a I put them on outside the first shop I went in


----------



## xes (Mar 25, 2020)

ddraig said:


> I took gloves with me to the shops today then put them in the bin when i got home and washed my hands


Yeah, this is what I do too. Wearing a mask in the shop too. (I'll wear the same one about 5 or so times, spray with iso to clean. I know it's not ideal but it'll make them last longer.) gloves i dispose of in a bag in the foot well of my car.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 25, 2020)

Really shocked to learn that a 21 year old girl from my village has died from Covid 19. An old school friend and neighbour posted about it last night


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 25, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> are we? doesn't look like it so far, and Brazil elected a fascist, who famously like telling people what to do


All politicians like telling people what to do, it's not something peculiar to fascists.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 25, 2020)

Favelado said:


> The virus can live on the gloves too, and you could bring it into your house or shed it all over Morrissons on your gloves.


But I disposed of the gloves before I went back into the house. And I find it hard to see how you can shed (as opposed to spread), the virus through gloves. 

Not wishing to be argumentative about it, but I want to make informed decisions.


----------



## Callie (Mar 25, 2020)

When you are wearing gloves in a healthcare setting you change them every time they may have become contaminated. You get through a lot of gloves. You also wash hands each time you change gloves.

I think in the scenarios people are describing here gloves are being worn for ?an hour or two, potentially contaminated then going about doing tasks, touching things etc wearing the contaminated gloves . If there is no changing or cleaning going on you are just essentially having dirty hands that you peel off. It's not really good infection control. If the aim is to protect yourself just clean or sanitise your hands more frequently.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 25, 2020)

The last time I went to the supermarket I just washed my hands when I got home. There could have been virus on the tins, packets etc, but I wash my hands during the day also so hopefully they would be taken care of that way. 

tbh in a supermarket I am more concerned with all the other people getting too close and breathing all over me than I am about my hands.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 25, 2020)

Callie said:


> When you are wearing gloves in a healthcare setting you change them every time they may have become contaminated. You get through a lot of gloves. You also wash hands each time you change gloves.
> 
> I think in the scenarios people are describing here gloves are being worn for ?an hour or two, potentially contaminated then going about doing tasks, touching things etc wearing the contaminated gloves . If there is no changing or cleaning going on you are just essentially having dirty hands that you peel off. It's not really good infection control. If the aim is to protect yourself just clean or sanitise your hands more frequently.




I can only speak for myself and I am also doing that loads especially because I work in GP Practices.


----------



## xenon (Mar 25, 2020)

can someone knowledgeable please point me or describe for an idiot, how a virus might live longer say on stainless steel then say jeans or a sofa? for some arbitrary reason I thought hard Smoove services might present a more hostile environment for viruses. or are when they saying the virus could live on hard surfaces for up to 17 days, it is actually longer for say a blanket.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 25, 2020)

I'm a bit worried about this myself.


----------



## Supine (Mar 25, 2020)

xenon said:


> can someone knowledgeable please point me or describe for an idiot, how a virus might live longer say on stainless steel then say jeans or a sofa? for some arbitrary reason I thought hard Smoove services might present a more hostile environment for viruses. or are when they saying the virus could live on hard surfaces for up to 17 days, it is actually longer for say a blanket.



I don't know and have no expertise but hard metal surfaces may be drier and less absorbant. Just a guess. There are some studies that show life time of the virus on various materials but I don't remember the details.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 25, 2020)

xenon said:


> can someone knowledgeable please point me or describe for an idiot, how a virus might live longer say on stainless steel then say jeans or a sofa? for some arbitrary reason I thought hard Smoove services might present a more hostile environment for viruses. or are when they saying the virus could live on hard surfaces for up to 17 days, it is actually longer for say a blanket.


Details given here.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 25, 2020)

Bit positive on news at 10??


----------



## brogdale (Mar 25, 2020)

Meanwhile...in “lockdown” London...


----------



## Cid (Mar 25, 2020)

Fucking hell. Construction work already has a higher incidence of respiratory problems too.


----------



## prunus (Mar 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Figure just reported on Sky, 'just' 28 further deaths in England, which with the 13 elsewhere in the UK, takes it to 41.



(edited to fix the Italy daily numbers)

To be fair in the context of expectations this is 'just' (43 now it looks like) - assuming this doesn't continue to grow (and quite significantly really to not be interestingly low).

Compare with Italy, as being where we feared we were and didn't want to be going; since the '233 total deaths day' (ie when it looked like we might be 2 weeks behind them) following then (not contemporaneous with us) they recorded 133, 97, 168,196  deaths; here it's been 48, 54, 87 and now this 43.  It's not, off these limited data at this point, looking like the same curve - albeit I have to add 'yet'.  It's certainly interesting.


----------



## iona (Mar 25, 2020)

Re gloves, think of it like wet paint. You go out to the shop and basically everything you touch could've had other people touching it, breathing on it, (hopefully not, but potentially) coughing/sneezing on it... You go out to the shop and loads of stuff is covered in paint. You put gloves on and they get covered in paint. You transfer paint to your shopping, your phone, your wallet and keys, everything you touch while you're out. You take the gloves off and wash your hands as you get home. Then you empty your pockets, unpack your shopping etc. It's still covered in paint. Now there's paint on your hands and whatever else you touched too. You give your nose a scratch, because you washed your hands when you came in so it's safe to do that. There's paint in your nostril now. Etc.

Obvs not saying all of these surfaces will be covered in virus and it'll survive long enough there to be a risk, but not taking notice of what you're touching because you're wearing gloves and gloves=safe is a massive risk too. People do it all the time, to the extent that some guidance (for food safety that I remember reading, but expect also for some healthcare/other contexts too) explicitly advises against the use of disposable gloves for the reason that they can encourage complacency around other hygiene measures.

(Also potential issues of fucking up your skin by wearing gloves for long periods of time; contamination though resuse of gloves, not putting them on / taking off correctly or not washing hands properly both before and after; waste of resources in need elsewhere...)

Unless you actually have open & uncovered wounds on your hands or something, washing them is just as good as wearing gloves.


----------



## iona (Mar 25, 2020)

Also just to be a pedant coz someone mentioned it, disposable gloves used in healthcare aren't necessarily sterile.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 25, 2020)

Thanks Iona, that's a helpful way of thinking about it.

Next question: does anyone know how in demand gloves are? All I have is an opened, not sterile, part used box of 100 pairs. But I've seen stories about health are workers using makeshift masks. Do I try to get these gloves to someone or not worry about it?


----------



## agricola (Mar 25, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Thanks Iona, that's a helpful way of thinking about it.
> 
> Next question: does anyone know how in demand gloves are? All I have is an opened, not sterile, part used box of 100 pairs. But I've seen stories about health are workers using makeshift masks. Do I try to get these gloves to someone or not worry about it?



I'd have thought anyone in the NHS or the emergency services has more gloves than they'd ever need, given how often they are disposed of / double-gloving etc.  In fact there are probably more displosable gloves in the UK than there are fingers.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 26, 2020)

As of Tuesday, we have gloves at work for anyone in want, but I'm refusing to wear them. I was sanitising my hands regularly long before this viral outbreak, as I can't not see dirty people doing dirty things everywhere, and I'm absolutely not a germophobe, and I don't have OCD. We all know people at work who don't wash their hands after pissing/shitting, and I don't think many of them have changed recently. Similarly, people at work, still licking banknotes, bags; picking their noses; rubbing their hands through their hair and accross their faces just as they usually do


----------



## editor (Mar 26, 2020)

Interesting piece 



> *Why we act irrationally during a pandemic*
> Let's set aside our fundamental attribution error, and consider other options. While the odd person might be acting out of selfishness or malice, some other reasons why we may not heed advice to socially distance include that:
> 
> 
> ...












						Why Some People Are Still Not Staying at Home
					

Research explains our psychological response to COVID-19.




					www.psychologytoday.com


----------



## editor (Mar 26, 2020)

This is worth a read. All speculative of course, but there's some thought-provoking stuff in there:


> In less than a fortnight, Britain has experienced the kind of social and political upheaval that normally only comes when you guillotine some royals, or storm a winter palace. But is this a brief moment of national solidarity, or a 'new normal'?
> 
> That all depends on how long the coronavirus crisis lasts. Experts believe a vaccine for Covid-19 (the disease caused by the Sars-CoV-2 virus) is still at least 18 months away, which makes Donald Trump's promises that the US will "reopen" in three weeks seem optimistic at best. In the UK, the more likely reality was laid out in a report by researchers at Imperial College London, which estimated that elements of the new normal – social distancing, self-isolation, rolling lockdowns – could last until September 2021. So what’s likely to happen as the coronavirus crisis continues?





> This could be the moment the British high street dies, believes Nusbacher. Coronavirus won’t be the underlying cause, but it will usher in the age of on-demand delivery and centralised warehouses sooner than might have happened organically. As Amazon and friends eat up even more market share, the impact on everyone else will be enormous. Nearly three million people are employed in the retail sector and although some of them will end up working as pickers for online deliveries, automation means a large proportion of those jobs will cease to exist. “A lot of people will be left out,” says Nusbacher.











						This Is How Experts Think Coronavirus Will Change The World Over The Next 18 Months
					

Whether the coronavirus pandemic lasts for two months or two years, the ways that we live and work are going to change forever




					www.esquire.com


----------



## editor (Mar 26, 2020)

On a related note:


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 26, 2020)

xenon said:


> can someone knowledgeable please point me or describe for an idiot, how a virus might live longer say on stainless steel then say jeans or a sofa? for some arbitrary reason I thought hard Smoove services might present a more hostile environment for viruses. or are when they saying the virus could live on hard surfaces for up to 17 days, it is actually longer for say a blanket.


 Google “fomites”


----------



## andysays (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They've closed all the parks in Hammersmith & Fulham completely anyway, so if you want to go for a walk you have to pick your way past random weirdos on the street, hanging around smoking like it's an increasingly complex stealth game and you have to find a way past their activation radius.
> 
> Just as you think you've planned a course, oh no, here comes a jogger! GAME OVER


That's a bizarre decision by H&F, TBH.

I know in Hackney they're hoping to keep parks open, unless it becomes utterly unmanageable. We're also expecting any green spaces on housing estates to be in use by residents and the wider public.

As has been said already, people need to use whatever public green spaces there are, especially in inner cities and urban areas, so closing them at this point seems counter-productive


----------



## brogdale (Mar 26, 2020)

prunus said:


> To be fair in the context of expectations this is 'just' (43 now it looks like) - assuming this doesn't continue to grow (and quite significantly really to not be interestingly low).
> 
> Compare with Italy, as being where we feared we were and didn't want to be going; since the '233 total deaths day' (ie when it looked like we might be 2 weeks behind them) following then (not contemporaneous with us) they recorded 230, 168,196, 189 deaths; here it's been 48, 54, 87 and now this 43.  It's not, off these limited data at this point, looking like the same curve - albeit I have to add 'yet'.  It's certainly interesting.


This reporting on ‘Newsnight’ would suggest that reading the UK’s daily death toll is very difficult, if not impossible. Quite why consent has to be sought for inclusion in anonymised totals is not immediately obvious.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 26, 2020)

Hackney friend on FB this morning with crying emoji announcing,  'Victoria Park is closed'.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 26, 2020)

Whereas in Haringey ...


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 26, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Quite why consent has to be sought for inclusion in anonymised totals is not immediately obvious.


That doesn't make sense to me either.  Notifiable diseases have to be reported to PHE and the patient can't object, so it's odd they're saying consent is needed for death figures.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> That's a bizarre decision by H&F, TBH.
> 
> I know in Hackney they're hoping to keep parks open, unless it becomes utterly unmanageable. We're also expecting any green spaces on housing estates to be in use by residents and the wider public.
> 
> As has been said already, people need to use whatever public green spaces there are, especially in inner cities and urban areas, so closing them at this point seems counter-productive


They did it on Sunday night just after the "OMG people in PARKS" outrage in social media and just before the lockdown which banned the gathering parts anyway - I suspect that if they'd not done it then they wouldn't have done so after that.

(Just realised I can still walk to/in Holland Park, which is K&C, but that's because I'm close to the border; a lot of people won't be.)


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 26, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Whereas in Haringey ...



I have to say that 2m is actually a lot further than people think. I suspect most people would estimate it at about 1-1.5m. (I mean there's no particular reason that you would learn to judge this on a regular basis unless, say, you did street photography using zone focus, which I do.)


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I have to say that 2m is actually a lot further than people think. I suspect most people would estimate it at about 1-1.5m. (I mean there's no particular reason that you would learn to judge this on a regular basis unless, say, you did street photography using zone focus, which I do.)


BBC Breakfast started out by separating their presenters by a bit, and only actually stretched it to 2m after they did a segment showing how far it actually was.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2020)

Thunderbirds Ventilators are go!



> Dyson, along with a separate consortium of manufacturers led by Airbus, is expecting the government to give it the green light to start making up to 30,000 medical ventilators from next week, after finalising plans to supply thousands of devices to help the NHS fight Covid-19.
> 
> The proposals differ, with the Airbus-led Ventilator Challenge UK consortium planning to scale up production of existing models and also expected to win backing from Westminster.
> 
> ...



Some people laughed when the government requested manufacturers to switch production to ventilators, and yet here we are, ready to go.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 26, 2020)

For fucks sake - what's wrong with these fucking idiots.  









						People are having barbecues on the moors - and the fire service aren't happy
					

"Now - more than ever - we need people to stay safe and be sensible!"




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## weltweit (Mar 26, 2020)

There are a few private sector companies doing TV and PR pieces about how they are involved in the process to make ventilators. These look like puff pieces, I saw one of the F1 companies doing one yesterday. 

I would prefer that they don't do PR until they have actually successfully delivered 10,000 approved ventilators rather than before they have produced even one. 

Only small mention of existing manufacturers being asked to make more - to up their output. 

And only passing comment that NHS would like more ECMO beds. I wonder how many they have at the moment?


----------



## brogdale (Mar 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Thunderbirds Ventilators are go!
> 
> 
> 
> Some people laughed when the government requested manufacturers to switch production to ventilators, and yet here we are, ready to go.


Don’t know about laughing, but plenty facepalmed when Johnson first made this request a full 43 days after the authorities in Wuhan had completed building their 2 emergency Coronavirus hospitals. Dyson is not yet producing , let alone shipping any devices.
Medics on R4 this am saying that those cases now surging in London result from infections from 2 to 3 weeks ago when Johnson said it was OK for this to sweep through the population.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 26, 2020)

On social media Tory MPs are celebrating the claim that Dyson (personal wealth £13bn) is 'only' seeking to make a profit on 50% of the ventilator order.


----------



## bimble (Mar 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Thunderbirds Ventilators are go!
> 
> 
> 
> Some people laughed when the government requested manufacturers to switch production to ventilators, and yet here we are, ready to go.


Great that they've ordered a load of ventilators but before cheering too loudly don't forget the timing - imo its unforgivable that this wasn't done weeks ago, or in January. If we are expecting a peak of cases in / from some 2 or 3 weeks from now how many of these things will be ready to save lives by then lets see.


----------



## lefteri (Mar 26, 2020)

brogdale said:


> On social media Tory MPs are celebrating the claim that Dyson (personal wealth £13bn) is 'only' seeking to make a profit on 50% of the ventilator order.



why does he insist on designing from scratch?  Surely that just wastes time and risks problems - will they be more reliable than his shitty hoovers?


----------



## brogdale (Mar 26, 2020)

lefteri said:


> why does he insist on designing from scratch?  Surely that just wastes time and risks problems - will they be more reliable than his shitty hoovers?


This is primarily Johnson bestowing favours to the cunterati; public health considerations coming a poor second.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 26, 2020)

brogdale said:


> This is primarily Johnson bestowing favours to the cunterati; public health considerations coming a poor second.


Compare and contrast:


----------



## bimble (Mar 26, 2020)

brogdale said:


> This is primarily Johnson bestowing favours to the cunterati; public health considerations coming a poor second.


That and also the political shambles that results from him being in the job as the get brexit done Pm. He _chose_ not to join in the EU's massive joint procurement process for vital medical kit and PPE the week before last because didn't want to be seen as asking Brussels for help. Instead it's all spitfire metaphors and plucky little britain building her own.




__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 26, 2020)

Personally I'm not too keen on runners continuing their activities at the moment. Had several passed here this morning, huffing and puffing some even spitting. Like mobile germ trains. Stay at home and do some fuckin star jumps you cunts.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 26, 2020)

festivaldeb had an email from Sainsbury's today. Same message as on their website. [massive URL -- hope it's not borked]
Most important two bits are these :




			
				Sainsbury's said:
			
		

> From Wednesday 25 March, we are limiting the number of people in our stores and at our ATMs at any one time. This includes putting queuing systems in place. We ask customers to keep at a safe distance of 2 metres apart
> From Thursday 26 March, we are reducing the number of checkouts in supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol stations. We will be introducing safety screens at manned checkouts and are regularly sanitising customer areas of our stores



We'd been thinking they were a bit slack the other day ... in a few days, when we go next, we'll see how well it's enforced at our local one.


----------



## bimble (Mar 26, 2020)

Other countries have been doing that for weeks - controlling how many in store at any one time, making distancing in queues easy with markings on the floor, providing hand sanitiser and screens to protect checkout staff.
We are really slow, relying on the shops to do it all themselves.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 26, 2020)

Has anyone mention the symptom tracker yet? I found out about it by accident. Has to be worthwhile?








						UK app aims to help researchers track spread of coronavirus
					

Covid Symptom Tracker will also help experts understand who is most at risk of disease




					www.theguardian.com
				











						ZOE Health Study
					

Fight major diseases like COVID & cancer logging your health daily with millions of community scientists supporting global health research.




					covid.joinzoe.com


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> festivaldeb had an email from Sainsbury's today. Same meesage as on their website. [massive URL -- hope it's not borked]
> Most important two bits are these :
> 
> 
> ...



They've also been asking for a good few days now that households only send _one_ person to shop.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 26, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Has anyone mention the symptom tracker yet? I found out about it by accident. Has to be worthwhile?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I don't get how that works. Most people with symptoms will not have COVID-19, so surely it's only useful if used by people who have been tested?


----------



## Raheem (Mar 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Thunderbirds Ventilators are go!
> 
> 
> 
> Some people laughed when the government requested manufacturers to switch production to ventilators, and yet here we are, ready to go.


Not sure how many people laughed, but there were people who understand manufacturing saying it would be unlikely to meet demand quickly enough. Hopefully, that's proved wrong in time.


----------



## andysays (Mar 26, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Hackney friend on FB this morning with crying emoji announcing,  'Victoria Park is closed'.


Victoria Park is run by Tower Hamlets, though obviously used by lots of Hackney residents too.

I wonder if all TH parks are closed, and if Hackney will follow suit. Springfield was open this morning and Clissold is open right now...


----------



## toblerone3 (Mar 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> Victoria Park is run by Tower Hamlets, though obviously used by lots of Hackney residents too.
> 
> I wonder if all TH parks are closed, and if Hackney will follow suit. Springfield was open this morning and Clissold is open right now...



London Fields is open, other TH parks are supposedly still open according to the notices on the park gates.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 26, 2020)

prunus said:


> To be fair in the context of expectations this is 'just' (43 now it looks like) - assuming this doesn't continue to grow (and quite significantly really to not be interestingly low).
> 
> Compare with Italy, as being where we feared we were and didn't want to be going; since the '233 total deaths day' (ie when it looked like we might be 2 weeks behind them) following then (not contemporaneous with us) they recorded 230, 168,196, 189 deaths; here it's been 48, 54, 87 and now this 43.  It's not, off these limited data at this point, looking like the same curve - albeit I have to add 'yet'.  It's certainly interesting.


These Italy numbers are wrong FWIW. The 230 deaths were over two days. 133 and 97.

Most countries have had a drop at points, like Spain going from 98 to 48 to 191.

As for comparison with the curve, we're still in the 'foothills' and the next few days will be telling. You can't make conclusions from single days but I see no reason why it won't follow the trend.


----------



## Callie (Mar 26, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I don't get how that works. Most people with symptoms will not have COVID-19, so surely it's only useful if used by people who have been tested?


It's real time tracking of people and their symptoms, it may well be possible to confirm who did and who didn't have COVID-19 at a later date but you would not be able to track new cases and symptom exhibition etc real time...unless you do it now. So it may not be useful per se right now but could be very valuable later.

Also may help to identify increases in viral illness symptoms Vs normal seasonal symptoms rates. During normal flu season this symptom data is recorded and used to monitor flu rates. It's not possible, practical or useful (going to reduce flu rates) to actually formally diagnose everyone with flu... similar with COVID-19


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> They've also been asking for a good few days now that households only send _one_ person to shop.


We haven't heard that (I've just rechecked the link I put up).
festivaldeb's on the mailing list, but that wasn't mentioned in any recent message she got, she says 

It does make absolute sense though, and we'll pay attention to that from now on. I'll go on my own at the w/e.
Sainsbury's by far our nearest supermarket other than Lidl's (are they all urging the same I wonder?? -- no matter, see above), so one or other of those is where we both go _normally_.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 26, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> We haven't heard that(I've just rechecked the link I put up).
> festivaldeb's on the mailing list, but that wasn't mentioned in any recent message she got, she says
> 
> It does make absolute sense though, and we'll pay attention to that from now on. I'll go on my own at the w/e.
> Sainsbury's by far our nearest supermarket other than Lidl's (are they all urging the same I wonder?? -- no matter, see above), so one or other of those is where we both go normally.


Went shopping yesterday and there was a worker at the entrance who told the couple who went in just before me "for future reference" that only one person should shop at a time. 

So fucking British. Given the situation, it really wouldn't be the end of the world to send one of them back to the car.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> We haven't heard that (I've just rechecked the link I put up).
> festivaldeb's on the mailing list, but that wasn't mentioned in any recent message she got, she says
> 
> It does make absolute sense though, and we'll pay attention to that from now on. I'll go on my own at the w/e.
> Sainsbury's by far our nearest supermarket other than Lidl's (are they all urging the same I wonder?? -- no matter, see above), so one or other of those is where we both go _normally_.



Yep, all the same.
I've had emails from various supermarkets and lots of those have specifically mentioned it within those emails but it's also been fairly standard stuff that's been reported in the news, too (although I appreciate that there's a deluge of stuff to get your head around!).

It's common sense, really - you just do everything you can to minimize any opportunities to spread infection, so the fewer people you interact with, the better.


----------



## andysays (Mar 26, 2020)

toblerone3 said:


> London Fields is open, other TH parks are supposedly still open according to the notices on the park gates.


Thanks


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Mar 26, 2020)

Re: the supermarkets I think we are now restricting numbers. Not sure how as I'm not at work today but it may be a "one in, one out" situation.

As for couples /families I believe 'polite' inquiries are made whether more than one person is needed and depending on the answer given that are key in or 'asked' to wait outside.

Tuesday morning was ridiculous. We had families of 5 and 6 people coming in and at least one couple who had so much in their trolley they could hardly push it.

I'd rather see the same person buying a little each day than able bodied couples or families where one parent can stay at home.


----------



## hot air baboon (Mar 26, 2020)

getting worried if I suddenly get a really bad tooth ache - pretty sure my dentist isn't doing alot atm


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It's common sense, really - you just do everything you can to minimize any opportunities to spread infection, so the fewer people you interact with, the better.


I think there's a tendency to see one trip to the shops, one hour's exercise etc as a daily entitlement - I guess that's understandable, but there could be more done to encourage people to think more widely and strategically about the actions they could take to reduce contact further.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 26, 2020)

People not happy with the messing around with the daily reporting of UK death figures:


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 26, 2020)

Anyone here heard of Lucy Johnstone?

No? You lucky sods. 









						Why it's healthy to be afraid in a crisis
					

Letter: Dr Lucy Johnstone, a clinical psychologist, says it is wrong to view our natural fears as mental health disorders




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## keybored (Mar 26, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Because it's not the name of the virus, it's the type. There are many coronoviruses, this one is COVID-19. It just causes confusion.
> 
> I'm a librarian and a pedant, these things matter to me



Apparently COVID-19 is the *disease* caused by SARS-CoV-2 (the *virus*).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

[


platinumsage said:


> People not happy with the messing around with the daily reporting of UK death figures:



UK also not releasing full data on age/sex etc of victims like many other countries are. ffs everyone around the world needs as much data as possible here. It's all anonymised. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but families ought not to have the right to withhold such information from the wider world.


----------



## chainsawjob (Mar 26, 2020)

Hampshire (where I live) has mostly been at the top of the list for number of diagnosed cases, and I've been wondering why, if there are greater risk factors in the population or not. Hampshire figures don't include the unitary authorities of Portsmouth and Southampton or the Isle of Wight, which are listed separately, but are also in Hampshire. I realise number of people diagnosed doesn't necessarily tell us much, as it only relates to people who have been tested (who are those admitted to hosptial by and large), so doesn't reflect how many people actually have it.  And that a finte numbers of cases are not as informative as percentage of cases per number of population or per number of people tested. My hunch is that more wealthy places generally have more people who will have travelled from abroad. Age of population too, although I think Dorset has the highest percentage of retired people. I'm hoping it's not related to the care home in Basingstoke (with 75 residents) that was the first case in a care home, there's been no further news on that. 

This article (10 days old) suggests a couple of reasons Experts offer insight into high number of Hampshire coronavirus cases




			
				article said:
			
		

> Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at Southampton University, suggests the UK picture needs to evolve before judgements can be made.
> 
> He says: "It is important to remember that we are still at an early stage of the outbreak, and thus numbers are building and may not be representative of the overall picture in a few weeks and months’ time. There is not a huge difference between Hampshire and elsewhere, 10-20 cases or so.
> 
> ...



So I guess not a lot can be read into the figures, is the upshot of all that.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Mar 26, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I don't get how that works. Most people with symptoms will not have COVID-19, so surely it's only useful if used by people who have been tested?



I think any data is potentially useful provided it's treated appropriately and the gaps are understood. I know a couple of people whose research specialities are about working round incomplete data in big data sets. I can't claim to understand the techniques they use but the more data available the more they can do with it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I think any data is potentially useful provided it's treated appropriately and the gaps are understood. I know a couple of people whose research specialities are about working round incomplete data in big data sets. I can't claim to understand the techniques they use but the more data available the more they can do with it.


Yep absolutely. They'll have baseline numbers for various symptoms and will be able to spot variations from that. If nothing else, it should help direct the next moves towards tracking  down the clusters. Knowing where to look is a biggie at the moment, isn't it.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think there's a tendency to see one trip to the shops, one hour's exercise etc as a daily entitlement - I guess that's understandable, but there could be more done to encourage people to think more widely and strategically about the actions they could take to reduce contact further.



Yes! I had a bit of a barney on Tuesday with my son, who is wfh, who was imagining a little stroll to the corner shop every day during his lunch hour, _to replenish snacks,_ was ok. 
He's grasped that it's not now   and I've just added a ton of bottles of pop and extra crisps etc to my online delivery to accommodate him there - although then I also feel bad for doing that (and the likelihood is that none of it'll actually turn up anyway).

I've also added some extra stuff for my bezzer, which she will pick up from outside my door while she's walking the dog. 

She's a key worker (as am I, but we only have 12 kids in in our school, so they've made alternative arrangements to feed them for the time being) although she's only rota'd in to do one day a week atm but she also has high blood pressure (varying evidence or increased there, so far, I know). But of course there's the further risk she then presents to the kids of the NHS workers she's around for that one day a week, too.
So again, I feel that's better, when it stops another supermarket visit and _seems_ to be following best practise, except that her dog walk route will then be along more residential streets than it would otherwise (although still encountering a ton less people than a supermarket visit would involve).

I'm also going to phone someone I know who is elderly to see if I could do the same for them - order extra shopping with mine - but that would involve a fairly long walk for me to deliver it to them (I don't drive). 
I suspect his kids will be seeing to it but I'm not actually sure how locally they live. 
I'm also still slightly worried I shouldn't be going out yet anyway as I've had very mild possible symptoms (but with no temp and no significant cough), although I'm now nine days since those started and my daughter also has similar symptoms now which started on Sunday.

I know in _theory_ this means I'm fine - but I don't want to take any risks over other people's health either and the 7 day rule looks more like a '_should_ be ok' rather than explicitly, definitely being so - and I've not signed up for the NHS volunteer thing yet on that basis either (I hate speaking on the phone but would happily drop off shopping etc if I knew I was safe to do it).

If/when the testing rolls out, beyond those that it urgently needs to go to first, all of this stuff will at least get a little less confusing, I guess (not that I think it should lead to any dramatic change in lockdown rules - although I won't be surprised if it does  )!


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Yes! I had a bit of a barney on Tuesday with my son, who is wfh, who was imagining a little stroll to the corner shop every day during his lunch hour, _to replenish snacks,_ was ok.
> He's grasped that it's not now   and I've just added a ton of bottles of pop and extra crisps etc to my online delivery to accommodate him there - although then I also feel bad for doing that (and the likelihood is that none of it'll actually turn up anyway).
> 
> I've also added some extra stuff for my bezzer, which she will pick up from outside my door while she's walking the dog.
> ...


I'm shopping for my mum and dad, and for a friend who can't get out, and I've volunteered with a local group to help out anyone who's in quarantine without support etc... I'm starting to second guess myself whether this is motivated by altruism or a desire to have a reason to be out of the house though tbh.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 26, 2020)

No doubt already posted somewhere but havent seen - 8pm NHS Make Some Noise thing happening today








						How the Clap For Our Carers nationwide round of applause honours our key workers
					

The Clap For Our Carers campaign has seen people across the UK applaud key workers on Thursday nights




					inews.co.uk


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm shopping for my mum and dad, and for a friend who can't get out, and I've volunteered with a local group to help out anyone who's in quarantine without support etc... I'm starting to second guess myself whether this is motivated by altruism or a desire to have a reason to be out of the house though tbh.




I don't think it matters - it's helpful and sensible, either way!


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

Also on the updated numbers thing - just ftr - the PHE tracker dashboard thingy, which had the updated new cases added when they were released late last night, has only JUST amended the daily deaths (from 422 to 463 - those being deaths up until 9am _yesterday)_.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> People not happy with the messing around with the daily reporting of UK death figures:




Its a complete disgrace, and they have done it in such a blatant way. The only thing that has prevented my brain from completely exploding over this is that it was true to form and thus somewhat expected that they would try pulling stunts like this. I went on about this sort of thing in the original thread (though nothing specific), when some people suggested that China would inevitably be so dodgy with their public info compared to other countries.

This is the proud traditon of the United Kingdom. With extra layers of absurdity given that we can see the numbers from other countries, and yet they still insist on weaving an impression for the UK public as if we exist in a vacuum.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 26, 2020)

Numbers are useful but with no testing or much reporting being difficult, this has to be good


hash tag said:


> Has anyone mention the symptom tracker yet? I found out about it by accident. Has to be worthwhile?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## souljacker (Mar 26, 2020)

The figures are not that important to most people though apart from the need to see if there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel or to remind us that we are still deep in the middle of a crisis. That's why I look at them. I keep hoping they may show some positive news.

Regarding shopping, I went to our local Waitrose this morning at 8.45. Had to join a queue while the elderly/vulnerable had their hour but was in and shopping by just after 9. It was one in/one out. Lots of distancing going on but still, some clowns seemingly ignoring this and reaching across me to grab their shopping.   People just need to chill the fuck out. There was plenty of food and loo roll although eggs, beer and paracetomol were cleaned out.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

The figures are vital. Comparisons to the epidemics in other countries are important. The magnitude and the timing is important.


----------



## prunus (Mar 26, 2020)

mauvais said:


> These Italy numbers are wrong FWIW. The 230 deaths were over two days. 133 and 97.
> 
> Most countries have had a drop at points, like Spain going from 98 to 48 to 191.
> 
> As for comparison with the curve, we're still in the 'foothills' and the next few days will be telling. You can't make conclusions from single days but I see no reason why it won't follow the trend.



Ah I was wondering why there was that big lumpy one - took the data from worldometers. All data is a bit flaky on this and needs to be read with caution.


----------



## souljacker (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> The figures are vital. Comparisons to the epidemics in other countries are important. The magnitude and the timing is important.



I agree. They are vital to people who, like you, can work out what they mean and what it means for the population. But like I said, I use them to give myself hope this might end at some point.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

Its also important that the figures be somewhat believable, otherwise people fill the void with their own ideas about the true state of play. 

I'm pretty sure these things are supposed to be acknowledged by basic public health communication principals, but it doesnt seem to stop this sort of thing from happening, especially from governments/states with a long traditions of particular flavours of bullshit.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 26, 2020)

keybored said:


> Apparently COVID-19 is the *disease* caused by SARS-CoV-2 (the *virus*).


That's been my understanding, too. I've just had to get used to people talking about "the coronavirus" and *not* responding "Er, actually, it's SARS-CoV-2" )


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 26, 2020)

existentialist said:


> That's been my understanding, too. I've just had to get used to people talking about "the coronavirus" and *not* responding "Er, actually, it's SARS-CoV-2" )



It's a pretty pathetic attempt at a name. HIV/AIDS was a lot simpler but even then years were spent explaining the difference.

Perhaps a common-name approach to the disease name could have taken a leaf from history, e.g. "The Great Sweat" of the 1550s.


----------



## keybored (Mar 26, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It's a pretty pathetic attempt at a name. HIV/AIDS was a lot simpler but even then years were spent explaining the difference.
> 
> Perhaps a common-name approach to the disease name could have taken a leaf from history, e.g. "The Great Sweat" of the 1550s.


The 2020 Panicdemic.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 26, 2020)

existentialist said:


> That's been my understanding, too. I've just had to get used to people talking about "the coronavirus" and *not* responding "Er, actually, it's SARS-CoV-2" )


Tbf, it is The Coronavirus, in the same way Elizabeth Windsor is The Queen. No correction needed.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Yes I saw Gwent as a dark patch on the UK map and wondered what was going on.
> The effect of Newport perhaps?



Here is an attempt to explain this:

 2h ago 10:25 



> Asked about Aitken’s warning at a Welsh government press conference on Thursday morning, Atherton said: “It is closer to England. The hot spot in the UK is around London and so being on the border with England is an issue. The second reason is there has been a lot more testing in that health board. The fact that we have been doing more testing has led to an increase in the number of cases identified.
> 
> “The virus is circulating in all parts of Wales. At the moment it may be circulating to a higher degree in south Wales but that may change over time.”



To which I would raise the question - is there more testing because there are more hospitalised cases? If so, the testing aspect does not explain the high figures, the higher number of tests reflects the reality. But then that opens up other potential factors, eg is the bar for hospital admission set differently there? Or is this stuff really a sign that they are further ahead with their epidemic?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

Sorry but 'being on the border with England is an issue'? Wtf??? Are they blaming the _Forest of Dean_ for its extensive connections with London???

tbh local clusters may have their origin in just one or two original spreaders. Luck is bound to be playing a huge role here.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

keybored said:


> The 2020 Panicdemic.



Maybe in future with the benefit of hindsight we could call it capitalisms last gasp.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sorry but 'being on the border with England is an issue'? Wtf??? Are they blaming the _Forest of Dean_ for its extensive connections with London???
> 
> tbh local clusters may have their origin in just one or two original spreaders. Luck is bound to be playing a huge role here.



And one institutional outbreak that sweeps through its vulnerable residents can make a big difference to the numbers, especially early on. We arent hearing all of those stories at the moment. Can sometimes find them in the local press but its exhausting looking.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> And one institutional outbreak that sweeps through its vulnerable residents can make a big difference to the numbers, especially early on. We arent hearing all of those stories at the moment. Can sometimes find them in the local press but its exhausting looking.


Yeah. tbf we're humans and we look for patterns, then look for reasons to explain those patterns. But randomness is inherently clumpy - the pattern of infection outside London looks very random to me, even with all its clumpiness.

Why is Gwent a hotspot? Bad luck.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

Yeah, although stuff that looks random is sometimes just because we are looking at the wrong level of detail - if we knew every case, every affected institution and all the vectors of transmission then more sense could be made of it. Its not usually practical to get the total picture, but some of the aspects that could be demonstrated by such a comprehensive picture would surely reveal lessons to be learnt. But the way the UK handled the early phases, and our current testing capacity, makes us poorly placed to be a good source of such detail and lessons.


----------



## Epona (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> They've also been asking for a good few days now that households only send _one_ person to shop.



That's all very well if you have a car, but if I go shopping by myself I can only carry half as much, so have to shop twice as frequently.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

Perhaps if certain words hadnt come out of Johnsons mouth, fewer people would have got the impression that the following activities were ok.


----------



## editor (Mar 26, 2020)

Yes, really   











						Person flies big sports kite in Brockwell Park during the coronavirus lockdown
					

Sometimes we really despair. Despite several London parks already being closed to the public because of people failing to follow government social distancing rules, this guy thought he’d spen…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

I saw the other day that the USA did some tests on masks in storage that had gone past their use by date, and determined that a lot of them were still operating to spec and could be used. Scotland now offers comments along the same lines:


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 26, 2020)

One of only a handful of neighbours in a street-based Facebook group wants us to step out the front at 8pm to applaud the NHS ....
I commend the sentiment but am somewhat unsure about this ...


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 26, 2020)

weltweit said:


> ruffneck23 are you in one of the vulnerable groups, over 70 or with an existing health issue? If so I would advise you to stay put and instead have a look at your local facebook groups because many will be organising help for shopping and the like for people like you so that you don't have to leave your home.


It went pretty well , got beer from tiny local store ( cheapest in town ) , then went to massive tesco , hardly anyone there , got everything I needed , apart from loo roll , which is a given , seemed to have ended up with quite a lot of booze , I dont normally drink, vodka and red wine  

and some food...

Thanks for all your help 


( did i post this last night ? i think i may of have , but beer...)


----------



## editor (Mar 26, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> One of only a handful of neighbours in a street-based Facebook group wants us to step out the front at 8pm to applaud the NHS ....
> I commend the sentiment but am somewhat unsure about this ...


I've had that sent to me too. I'll take a look but I'm not sure the estate will have got the memo.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 26, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> One of only a handful of neighbours in a street-based Facebook group wants us to step out the front at 8pm to applaud the NHS ....
> I commend the sentiment but am somewhat unsure about this ...


Same. I'm feeling pretty cynical today but I feel like this is symbolic of something rotten with England - come out to clap for the NHS, feel better about yourselves, and then continue voting Tory to destroy it. Prove me wrong you fucks.


----------



## xenon (Mar 26, 2020)

Seems a pretty stupid idea. Even a lot of neighbouring houses have front doors less than 2m apart. Let alone flats with everyone crowding around the entry point.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Same. I'm feeling pretty cynical today but I feel like this is symbolic of something rotten with England - come out to clap for the NHS, feel better about yourselves, and then continue voting Tory to destroy it. Prove me wrong you fucks.



Very much so. 

I think the 8pm balcony thing makes more sense here because we really are in genuine lockdown and it's a chance for neighbours to shout encouragement at each other from the balconies as well as applaud medical staff. Think it's nice if it happens in Britain to but I couldn't agree more with you Mauvais.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> The figures are vital. Comparisons to the epidemics in other countries are important. The magnitude and the timing is important.




A little more on that. It doesnt really add anything, apart from yesterday having been a 'cross-over' day.



> *The spokesman confirmed that the way UK coronavirus deaths are recorded and made public is changing (see 11.07am), but he was unable to give details of how. *He said Public Health England is moving to a different reporting time. Yesterday was “a cross-over day” in the way they were recording the numbers, he said. But he was unable to explain what would change.



                            2h ago    08:37                   

Much like the time they suggested they would only publish a whole bunch of figures weekly instead of daily, and then said it was just a comms error and they would stick to daily, it may be possible for me to quickly calm down and get past this shit as though it were just a small bump in the road. It would have been nice if they had a clue about the detail though, I am still none the wiser as to what to expect or at what time. Doesnt inspire confidence!


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

xenon said:


> Seems a pretty stupid idea. Even a lot of neighbouring houses have front doors less than 2m apart. Let alone flats with everyone crowding around the entry point.



Oh true. The dynamics of it are different to here too aren't they? Yeah, maybe it's best left to the balconies.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 26, 2020)

Epona said:


> That's all very well if you have a car, but if I go shopping by myself I can only carry half as much, so have to shop twice as frequently.


You only need one person to actually go into the shop, though.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

> A care home in Hove where around three-quarters of the residents are suffering symptoms of Covid-19 has been refused protective equipment by the government.
> 
> After the local MP intervened, the prime minister apparently promised that protective equipment for all care home staff will be distributed by tomorrow. *Peter Kyle*, the MP for Hove, has said he will “be watching the situation and ensure this materialises”.





> About three-quarters of residents and seven members of staff at Oaklands Nursing Home, in Hove, Brighton, are reportedly displaying symptoms of Covid-19 with one resident testing positive yesterday.
> 
> But despite the symptoms first appearing 15 days ago, the government has so far failed to issue the home the proper protective equipment it has asked for.



                            8m ago    14:14


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

When people look for reasons why things have gone somewhat differently in places like South Korea so far, dont overlook the vastly different standards of protection for hospital workers (and other measures to reduce spread within the hospital) there. The video in this piece contrasts rather strongly with the stories we have been told recently about UK nurses having to put aprons round their heads.


*Coronavirus: Inside a Covid-19 intensive care unit*
In a South Korean ICU, nurses wearing heavy self-contained respiratory systems work two-hour shifts.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Perhaps if certain words hadnt come out of Johnsons mouth, fewer people would have got the impression that the following activities were ok.



Tbf, some of those activities are OK if you live in the Peak District and are not driving into it. Not clear that everyone filmed there needs to feel guilty.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 26, 2020)

Raheem said:


> You only need one person to actually go into the shop, though.


But if 3 go, you can get three of everything....ration breaking innit


----------



## Epona (Mar 26, 2020)

Raheem said:


> You only need one person to actually go into the shop, though.



The other is then waiting around outside, so there are 2 of you breathing in different places.  Neither is ideal, but people without cars are definitely at a disadvantage when it comes to minimising contact with the outside world while making sure they have food to eat


----------



## Numbers (Mar 26, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> One of only a handful of neighbours in a street-based Facebook group wants us to step out the front at 8pm to applaud the NHS ....
> I commend the sentiment but am somewhat unsure about this ...


Our road doesn’t seem that type of road and we’ve lived here 16 years, I hardly know anyone sadly, but I’ll give it a go cos you never know, even if it is on my own and a tad subdued.  

My wife works for the NHS, she’s not front line but sure is under it at the moment, I shall applaud her whilst I’m in her company and think and thank all of those on the front line.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 26, 2020)

Epona said:


> The other is then waiting around outside, so there are 2 of you breathing in different places.  Neither is ideal, but people without cars are definitely at a disadvantage when it comes to minimising contact with the outside world



The difference is that outside you can easily keep 2 metres away from anyone and you are one less person for the staff to worry about.

True, it does mean you are a bit more inconvenienced than people with cars, but when was that not the case?


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 26, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Tbf, some of those activities are OK if you live in the Peak District and are not driving into it. Not clear that everyone filmed there needs to feel guilty.



I suspect the location is such that you either have to drive or go on a very very long walk.  Neither of which qualifies.  Anyway its not about making people feel guilty is about trying to change a nationwide mindset of 'oh, its OK if I just do this...'  'The rules don't apply to me when I'm doing this...'


----------



## Epona (Mar 26, 2020)

hash tag said:


> But if 3 go, you can get three of everything....ration breaking innit



So 2 people go to the supermarket separately and buy a the limit of loo roll each then don't go shopping for the next week.  Or 1 person goes on Friday and the same person goes on Tuesday and buys the limit of loo roll each time - same difference.  Without ration books and a check on what everyone is buying, it makes no difference which of these happens.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Tbf, some of those activities are OK if you live in the Peak District and are not driving into it. Not clear that everyone filmed there needs to feel guilty.



There are already signs that no matter why or how that sort of impression about what is reasonable and allowed has been created, that level of flexibility is not part of how this lockdown is going to be policed.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

Epona said:


> That's all very well if you have a car, but if I go shopping by myself I can only carry half as much, so have to shop twice as frequently.



Yes, I understand that it's difficult (I don't drive either but have been lucky/selfish enough to be able to book weekly slots as far ahead as I can - but am then thinking about ways to use those to reduce the impact of other people venturning into supermarkets, too).
It's also harder for large households, who will need more food on a daily basis (especially when lots more people are at home all day, so more meals/everything else needs to be provided).
Beyond that, it's _also_ difficult to do it so that you can utilise careful meal plans etc to see you through as many days as possible, with the least load to carry, when you can't know what will be available until you get there.

I guess that's potentially a better reason in itself for one person to do more frequent shopping than two/multiple trying to do a larger shop though?  I dunno _brain explosion_

It IS hard, of course it is, but we just have to use as much common sense as possible, really, because there are many, many practical reasons for _everything_ being more difficult when we're so restricted in our movements.

It's a good, straightforward question though (although largely irrelevant when the supermarkets are already having to implement these procedures) - what's best - two people visiting once a week, or one twice (for eg)?


----------



## Epona (Mar 26, 2020)

Raheem said:


> The difference is that outside you can easily keep 2 metres away from anyone and you are one less person for the staff to worry about.



Oh I am not disagreeing, it's just with a car it would be so much easier to load up for say a month of isolation!  A lot of the advice about shopping kind of assumes you can truck a large amount back at a time.


----------



## Epona (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Yes, I understand that it's difficult (I don't drive either but have been lucky/selfish enough to be able to book weekly slots as far ahead as I can - but am then thinking about ways to use those to reduce the impact of other people venturning into supermarkets, too).
> It's also harder for large households, who will need more food on a daily basis (especially when lots more people are at home all day, so more meals/everything else needs to be provided).
> Beyond that, it's _also_ difficult to do it so that you can utilise careful meal plans etc to see you through as many days as possible, with the least load to carry, when you can't know what will be available until you get there.
> 
> ...



I dunno, this (bolded) is what I am wondering - possibly if I go out Friday and then go out Tuesday, I am going to be in the supermarket with a different lot of people on each day, hence assuming x number of people allowed in the supermarket at once, I am in the building with 2x.  So seems to make more sense for us both to go Friday, carry more, I can have Nate get his daily exercise around the quiet back roads while I am in there and then meet me round the corner from the supermarket when I am done - does that seem sensible?  I think it sounds preferable to me going out twice

(I am not sending Nate into a supermarket by himself, we'll end up without any actual meals)


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Same. I'm feeling pretty cynical today but I feel like this is symbolic of something rotten with England - come out to clap for the NHS, feel better about yourselves, and then continue voting Tory to destroy it. Prove me wrong you fucks.



I have sworn like a FUCKING trooper, every time that stupid cunt starts banging on about our great NHS and how it's fit for the job (and/or how it's likely to be swamped if we don't all _behave ourselves_ - depending on what they decide we need to hear on any given day) and how we must all support them... when they've been brutally destroying it for all this time - god, how can he even bring himself to utter the words without hanging his head in deep, deep shame.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sorry but 'being on the border with England is an issue'? Wtf??? Are they blaming the _Forest of Dean_ for its extensive connections with London???
> 
> tbh local clusters may have their origin in just one or two original spreaders. Luck is bound to be playing a huge role here.


I don't think they've put it very well, but there is a big traffic flow between Newport and places like Bristol. Newport's cheap to live in, and commutable to the much more expensive Bristol, so there could be the potential for quite a lot of infection travelling back and forth. Bristol becomes Newport's "reservoir".


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> 8m ago    14:14



That was reported (with those numbers) _several days ago_ here. I've not heard any updates.


----------



## gosub (Mar 26, 2020)

Anyone coughing at UK police, shop workers faces two years in jail
					

Anyone claiming to have coronavirus who deliberately coughs at emergency workers faces being jailed for two years, Britain's Director of Public Prosecutions said on Thursday.




					www.reuters.com
				





Fair enough.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I don't think they've put it very well, but there is a big traffic flow between Newport and places like Bristol. Newport's cheap to live in, and commutable to the much more expensive Bristol, so there could be the potential for quite a lot of infection travelling back and forth. Bristol becomes Newport's "reservoir".


Yes, and also commuting to Cardiff, which is also quite expensive and is much closer to Newport. afaik Bristol isn't a particular hotspot. It's making up reasons, really, where there are no reasons, with the ludicrous twist that this is the _English Virus_.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes, and also commuting to Cardiff, which is also quite expensive and is much closer to Newport. afaik Bristol isn't a particular hotspot. It's making up reasons, really, where there are no reasons, with the ludicrous twist that this is the _English Virus_.


I haven't encountered that attitude in my own Welsh circles, but they could of course be being very - and unusually  - polite to this expat Sais.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 26, 2020)

I just don't get how people have both stocked up massively but still have to go shopping.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I just don't get how people have both stocked up massively but still have to go shopping.


Bogroll. Most people will not have stocked up on it because it became impossible to find very quickly.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> 8m ago    14:14



In actual fact, there's an update here, which includes the fact that agency staff in the home had been working across the city - 









						Agency staff at coronavirus-stricken nursing home had been working across the city
					

AGENCY staff at a care home with a coronavirus outbreak have been working at other homes across the city, it has been revealed.




					www.theargus.co.uk


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I just don't get how people have both stocked up massively but still have to go shopping.



I think it's interesting that society has become so materialistic that it's the only way they can think of to both react to a crisis, and maintain a feeling of normality in their lives. There's also the more boring answer that not everyone panic bought, so a lot of the people who are going shopping are the ones who were doing it right all along. Conversely the panic buyers will turn into mega-hoarders - accumulating more and more as their avarice demands of them.


----------



## fishfinger (Mar 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I just don't get how people have both stocked up massively but still have to go shopping.


How else are they going to fill their second, third, or fourth freezers?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 26, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I think it's interesting that society has become so materialistic that it's the only way they can think of to both react to a crisis, and maintain a feeling of normality in their lives. There's also the more boring answer that not everyone panic bought, so a lot of the people who are going shopping are the ones who were doing it right all along. Conversely the panic buyers will turn into mega-hoarders - accumulating more and more as their avarice demands of them.


So we didn't do it right? A bit extra every time we went to a shop in order to be able to ride out a lockdown without going outside?


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I just don't get how people have both stocked up massively but still have to go shopping.


The supermarkets have been rationing staples for weeks so stocking up has been a fairly incomplete process - and lots of people can't afford to stock up too.


----------



## Epona (Mar 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I just don't get how people have both stocked up massively but still have to go shopping.



LOL same reasons - don't have a car, can't carry much, don't have a garage with 10 freezers in it, supermarkets out of basics for much of last week, and money - OH paid weekly, I get paid when people can be arsed to pay my invoices - although no pay at all right now  (I can't do more than a weeks worth of shopping in 1 go during normal times - and I didn't stock up massively)


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> I went and played on my mum and dads drive with my baby son today so they could watch him through the window. Obviously we didn't go in and they didn't come out but it was nice to see his face when he saw them and theirs when they saw him.


What a lovely idea


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> So we didn't do it right? A bit extra every time we went to a shop in order to be able to ride out a lockdown without going outside?


tbf, as posted by killerb earlier, this is likely the real reason for the shortages, combined with the supermarkets not being prepared for it. Won't make my arse feel any better when I'm wiping it on the Evening Standard. I'm about a week away...


----------



## souljacker (Mar 26, 2020)

Even if you panic bought, you'd still need fresh stuff like eggs and fruit and veg. Most people don't have those big chest freezers either.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I think it's interesting that society has become so materialistic that it's the only way they can think of to both react to a crisis, and maintain a feeling of normality in their lives. There's also the more boring answer that not everyone panic bought, so a lot of the people who are going shopping are the ones who were doing it right all along. Conversely the panic buyers will turn into mega-hoarders - accumulating more and more as their avarice demands of them.


Sorry this is silly. It's not materialistic to _buy food_. And in more 'traditional', non-materialistic societies, it is often normal practice to buy food daily.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

Well this has been one of the many contradictions in advice/lack of any basic planning, hasn't it? DON'T hoard, but then 'sudden' shutdown (I'm sure it DID feel like that to lots and lots of people, irrespective of many of us seeing it coming - and wishing it had come sooner) and DON'T go shopping, more or less. See also - use online services for deliveries instead (even ignoring issues with affordability there in terms of how some people are forced to shop otherwise), when online services are all booked up.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Well this has been one of the many contradictions in advice/lack of any basic planning, hasn't it? DON'T hoard, but then 'sudden' shutdown (I'm sure it DID feel like that to lots and lots of people, irrespective of many of us seeing it coming - and wishing it had come sooner) and DON'T go shopping, more or less. See also - use online services for deliveries instead (even ignoring issues with affordability there in terms of how some people are forced to shop otherwise), when online services are all booked up.


And tbh I'm kicking myself for not buying a 12-pack of bog roll. I would have done if I had known.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 26, 2020)

Surely the whole point of stocking up is so you have stocks for when you can't buy what you need.

If you can currently buy what you need, you keep doing so, retaining the stocks for if and when things get worse and you can't.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Surely the whole point of stocking up is so you have stocks for when you can't buy what you need.
> 
> If you can currently buy what you need, you keep doing so, retaining the stocks for if and when things get worse and you can't.


So they buy _moar bog_ roll as soon as it appears?? 

I'm doomed.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 26, 2020)

Tbh i'm so glad I panicked about 5 weeks ago. You can never rely on society to support you.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Surely the whole point of stocking up is so you have stocks for when you can't buy what you need.
> 
> If you can currently buy what you need, you keep doing so, retaining the stocks for if and when things get worse and you can't.



The problem with that is that you don't actually know you can buy what you _need_ either, whether that's in store OR online, so you then have people accomodating for _that_, too... by buying _even_ _more_... and that's only amplified when we're supposed to be staying in!


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 26, 2020)

Yeah the ‘let’s all clap for the NHS’ thing is a wanky idea, but it’s hardly the first bit of wank surrounding the NHS. And it’s really not fair to attack the public for wanting to demonstrate support for NHS staff just because they don’t vote ‘correctly’ in general elections.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And tbh I'm kicking myself for not buying a 12-pack of bog roll. I would have done if I had known.


Kicking yourself won't really work, you need to find something else to wipe with!


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

The failure to join in with the EU equipment scheme is getting more attention.









						Coronavirus: 'Mix-up' over EU ventilator scheme
					

Labour demands an "urgent explanation" from ministers over why they did not join EU equipment plan.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The government is facing a backlash from MPs for not joining an EU scheme to get extra ventilators during the coronavirus outbreak.
> 
> The bloc has said the UK can take part in the project, which will use the EU's buying power to purchase more stock.
> 
> ...


----------



## keybored (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Perhaps if certain words hadnt come out of Johnsons mouth, fewer people would have got the impression that the following activities were ok.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sorry this is silly. It's not materialistic to _buy food_. And in more 'traditional', non-materialistic societies, it is often normal practice to buy food daily.



You understood what I meant and just decided to pull me up on the dictionary definition of a word I misused. My point stands doesn't it?


----------



## two sheds (Mar 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, don't need to do anything if you're positive. We're turning people away from hospitals who are likely (or confirmed) positive unless they're very ill. This is one reason why generally avaliable tests comes with some problems. Thousands of people with very mild symptoms who test positive flooding healthcare providers demanding treatment. Which is happening a bit anyway already.



& Callie 

Just got my NHA letter for people at risk and they do say use online coronavirus service or NHS 111 as soon as you get symptoms. But that's anyway for people at risk.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> So we didn't do it right? A bit extra every time we went to a shop in order to be able to ride out a lockdown without going outside?



Middle ground. Do a decent shop without panic buying. As normal.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 26, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Middle ground. Do a decent shop without panic buying. As normal.



Very few people shop for both 1) having all meals at home, and 2) to cover a two week period of confinement for the whole family, possibly not beginning until just before the next shopping trip.

No one should be shopping "as normal" because this would leave them unprepared and possibly reliant on community help.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Very few people shop for both 1) having all meals at home, and 2) to cover a two week period of confinement for the whole family, possibly not beginning until just before the next shopping trip.
> 
> No one should be shopping "as normal" because this would leave them unprepared and possibly reliant on community help.




Okay. I meant a middle ground - again - you get what I meant - not a panic and not picking up a pint a milk and some fags.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 26, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Okay. I meant a middle ground - again - you get what I meant - not a panic and not picking up a pint a milk and some fags.



I think it's very hard to judge whether some other person is buying a sufficient quantity for their needs given the circumstances, and that they are doing so with suitable rationality and are succeeding in keeping any anxiety they may have from clouding their thinking.

Basically I think it's best not to judge other shoppers, and to let supermarkets ration the sale of goods where they are incapable satisfying demand.


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Okay. I meant a middle ground - again - you get what I meant - not a panic and not picking up a pint a milk and some fags.


This is what actually happened - Demand has apparently been about what demand is like in the run up to christmas, but without the supermarkets being able to prepare for it, and carefully balanced supply chains haven't been able to cope.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

I totally think we should judge shoppers based on some of the ridiculous behaviour we've seen. Judge them into the ground.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I just don't get how people have both stocked up massively but still have to go shopping.


I've had 2 reports from people today that our local Tesco Extra was almost empty of people, and shelves well stacked, including loo roll, but not pasta. 

I am hoping that the madness has come to an end, and I feel a visit to that place could now be safe, having avoided it for over two & half weeks.


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I totally think we should judge shoppers based on some of the ridiculous behaviour we've seen. Judge them into the ground.


that's what the purpose of printing those photos and and sticking those videos in the news bulletins is, yeah.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

To expand onmy own last post (and apologies for what will be a very dreary post around my own shopping habits!) - I _always_ do meal plans, often several weeks ahead and I often start my online deliveries weeks ahead based on those.
I have done that for years and years because I don't like and also cannot afford to waste food.
I like to eat nice (as in tasty, not expensive) food but am also tired and constantly scrabbling to catch up with everyday things and have a general need to do that, that is positive for my own mh, where life has been fairly testing over the last few years.
I do a lot of bulk cooking but I also stick in some shit dinners  for when I just cba.

I always think ahead and I never, never run out of anything.
When I run out of things, it's also a good sign that everything has come on top.

When our home burnt down, it was pretty much the first _normal_ thing that became obvious to me, as a loss - the inability to _feed us_ as I would've done before (no stocks and supplies - lots and lots of dried beans/lentils and jars of things I would use anyway, bought on offer - no herbs and spices, no salt and pepper! no cutlery, no plates, no mugs, no equipment to cook with) and no normal stocks of everyday essentials (which _definitely_ included toilet roll, tbf  - but also sanitary towels for my daughter, general toileteries, washing up liquid or sponges etc etc) - it made me feel really, really unsettled.

It also made me question what we actually _needed_ though  but it turns out I _did_ still need to buy a ten kilo bag of basmati rice (way before this kicked off), because it _was_ cheaper per kilo, that I did still want to have enough _and more_ of other essentials etc etc (and I have long thought that some of that reflects the home_ I_ was brought up in, by a war baby, where we always had some tins etc), so I think it's normal for me to 'hoard' to a small degree and I can't complain about others feeling the need to do that, in response to such a bizarre situation.

I am NOT buying any of those things now - I am trying to only buy what we need but to illustrate what happens with online shopping, every time you edit an order, there will be maybe 10 - 20 _other _things missing and those will be removed from your basket when you 'checkout' again to update it, rather than just being left until the day the delivery will be picked and sent out (when they MAY be in stock) so it's easy to get caught up in a loop of ordering more and more, on the grounds that you may only get some of it, too. I've wondered whether it may be more sensible to leave original orders as they are, if that can be easily done. Online orders then have the same access to what was on their original list, if they happen to be in stock, as in store shoppers will, without online shoppers then covering every missing product by ordering multiples of alternatives instead, if that makes sense? 

I also saw something on the news here about a trade supplier (for schools/restaurants, where there will be limited need atm), where they were suggesting making deliveries direct to hospitals/NHS staff, which sounded really sensible, so long as that could be safely implemented - and obvs more needs to be done to sort out deliveries to vulnerable people who are having to isolate for far longer (is there any news on how that's going?) and also to other vulnerable groups who won't be picked up there - homeless and/or charities looking out for them being an obvious one.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> This is what actually happened - Demand has apparently been about what demand is like in the run up to christmas, but without the supermarkets being able to prepare for it, and carefully balanced supply chains haven't been able to cope.



I did used to work in supply chain in the retail world and I'm not sure that once you break it down, the overall demand and the specifics of it are the same. Particularly in terms of the balance of fresh goods at Christmas compared to to dry foods and household toiletries. Definitely different.There certainly was panic buying of lines where the careful baance you speak of wouldn't have been as much of a factor. I don't really agree with you. I think there was some irrational behaviour on the part of the public - although like anything. It's grey and not black and white isn't it?


----------



## weltweit (Mar 26, 2020)

I have been doing my normal shop plus a few extras, I built up my extras over a period of perhaps 3 weeks such that I could probably last 1-2 weeks without returning to the shops, but I would run out of milk and bread in that time so not really self sufficient. 

But assuming everyone did that the shelves would still be bare because the JIT supply chain wasn't expecting it. By now they should have adjusted and the shelves should be better replenished. 

Bet the supermarket sales numbers are looking good at the moment.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> that's what the purpose of printing those photos and and sticking those videos in the news bulletins is, yeah.



My post was not totally serious.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> The failure to join in with the EU equipment scheme is getting more attention.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



But, this is bollocks...



> The EU scheme will use the bloc's joint procurement agreement, which helps member states get the medical supplies it needs to tackle cross-border pandemics.
> 
> It has also created a stockpile of medical equipment - 90% of it financed by the European Commission - to help EU countries.



When Italy was begging for help weeks ago, nothing came from the EU, nor any member states, the only help came from China.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 26, 2020)




----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 26, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> One of only a handful of neighbours in a street-based Facebook group wants us to step out the front at 8pm to applaud the NHS ....
> I commend the sentiment but am somewhat unsure about this ...


I think they are all going to be doing this on our street. Someone has leafletted all the houses and set up a WhatsApp support group that I've joined but they are sending all manner of crap round and it's annoying me. Good on them for doing it but my phone is going off every 5 minutes with inspirational quotes and other nonsense.

I feel pressure to join in. Like they will be looking at who comes out of their houses and who doesn't. I'm in me fucking dressing gown (WFH) and am a bit cynical about the whole thing - despite working for the NHS myself.


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

Favelado said:


> My post was not totally serious.


I know, but it's what you're doing anyway. 

There was a small number of people doing photogenic panic shopping, sure: but what's put the strain on the system isn't those people, it's everyone else who's assessed their cupboards and realised there's zero chance they'd last more than a few days, and stocked up. I did this - everyone else I know did this. And the supermarkets fell over. This piece on Novara is good

There are dickheads, and they'll always be with us - but there aren't enough dickheads to fuck things up this much - it's everyone else, taking totally rational actions after looking at what's coming up, that did it.


----------



## strung out (Mar 26, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I think they are all going to be doing this on our street. Someone has leafletted all the houses and set up a WhatsApp support group that I've joined but they are sending all manner of crap round and it's annoying me. Good on them for doing it but my phone is going off every 5 minutes with inspirational quotes and other nonsense.
> 
> I feel pressure to join in. Like they will be looking at who comes out of their houses and who doesn't. I'm in me fucking dressing gown (WFH) and am a bit cynical about the whole thing - despite working for the NHS myself.


Tell them you're going to be out.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 26, 2020)

Go out and bask in the dressing gowned glory - acknowledge their applause and bow and wave and smile and say 'thank you everyone'


----------



## little_legs (Mar 26, 2020)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I'm in me fucking dressing gown (WFH) ...



I had one of these zoom online meetings early yesterday morning, first ever, all clever stuff, but all the other fuckers were dressed, I was the only one in a bathrobe.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 26, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Go out and bask in the dressing gowned glory - acknowledge their applause and bow and wave and smile


Like the Queen?


----------



## two sheds (Mar 26, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Like the Queen?


EXACTLY like the queen 

particularly the dressing gown, shame you don't have curlers


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Mar 26, 2020)

Christ. I wonder how long we are expected to stand and clap for?


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 26, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




I have a strong feeling that this is not going to be a place you want to be.  Its going to be like covid-19 ground zero in there.


----------



## phillm (Mar 26, 2020)

fishfinger said:


> How else are they going to fill their second, third, or fourth freezers?


----------



## andysays (Mar 26, 2020)

Coronavirus: Police get new powers to enforce protection


> Anyone continuing to break coronavirus lockdown rules will be breaking the law and faces arrest. People ignoring tougher restrictions on movement could be hit with a £60 fine initially and another for £120 for a second offence. New powers given to police in England mean no-one will be allowed to leave their home "without reasonable excuse".





> ...However, the Home Office, in announcing the new rules, said that "in the first instance, the police will always apply their common sense and discretion."...


----------



## phillm (Mar 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> Coronavirus: Police get new powers to enforce protection


----------



## kebabking (Mar 26, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Christ. I wonder how long we are expected to stand and clap for?



They'll be watching to see who stops clapping first -  there'll be looks, there'll be whispers, there'll be Facebook groups.....

In two weeks the demand will be that there's a clapping session every night - two perhaps - and the names of those without joy on their faces will be reported...

The whole thing makes me want to vomit - I'm also very aware that this type of thing is how it can start.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 26, 2020)

People arent always rational on account of being people. Especially when people are stressed and anxious and dont know wtf is going on.

Obviously there are some dickheads out there of course and those dickheads are magnified by the emphasis on them but I don't like this constant blaming of ordinary people for behaving like people. I think one silver living of this whole shit show is the opportunity to (re)build social solidarity and to some degree communities that have been fragmented rather than this constant fury at each other. The dickheads are the ones taking risks with our lives for political or commercial gain while their own families are safely away in massive town houses and country retreats with larders and chest freezers


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> People arent always rational on account of being people. Especially when people are stressed and anxious and dont know wtf is going on.
> 
> Obviously there are some dickheads out there of course and those dickheads are magnified by the emphasis on them but I don't like this constant blaming of ordinary people for behaving like people. I think one silver living of this whole shit show is the opportunity to (re)build social solidarity and to some degree communities that have been fragmented rather than this constant fury at each other. The dickheads are the ones taking risks with our lives for political or commercial gain while their own families are safely away in massive town houses and country retreats with larders and chest freezers


there's been a seamless pivot from _hating people for shopping_ to _hating people for walking down the street_ in my orbit.


----------



## andysays (Mar 26, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK government unveils aid for self-employed


> Self-employed workers will be able to apply for a grant of up to £2,500 a month to help them cope with the financial impact of coronavirus, the chancellor has announced.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I know, but it's what you're doing anyway.
> 
> There was a small number of people doing photogenic panic shopping, sure: but what's put the strain on the system isn't those people, it's everyone else who's assessed their cupboards and realised there's zero chance they'd last more than a few days, and stocked up. I did this - everyone else I know did this. And the supermarkets fell over. This piece on Novara is good
> 
> There are dickheads, and they'll always be with us - but there aren't enough dickheads to fuck things up this much - it's everyone else, taking totally rational actions after looking at what's coming up, that did it.



The article misunderstands just in time supply chain to an extent but fine.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> there's been a seamless pivot from _hating people for shopping_ to _hating people for spreading death in the street_ in my orbit.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> there's been a seamless pivot from _hating people for shopping_ to _hating people for walking down the street_ in my orbit.


"Dealing with stress via self-righteousness aimed at available targets" is a pretty well-observed phenomenon, particularly on the internet - can't say I've never done it myself - but it's going into overdrive right now.


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

I've no idea why the people walking past my house today are out. Some of them are no doubt going to or from their jobs in key services (someone told me it's something like 20% of the workforce, but I've not verified it yet). Some are probably out to run errands for their housebound neighbours, others are likely out for their daily exercise, or going to the shop for the first time in a couple of days for essential supplies. Before we even get to people taking the piss that could be lot of people isn't it?


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

UK Gov press conference notes:

The economy and self employed - think I'll save that for later or another thread.

FT question about why we stopped testing every case were met with a shit response including awful attempts to distort the words of the WHO and pointing out that the W stands for world 

Shitty questions from the Telegraph about whether the cure is worse than the virus.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> there's been a seamless pivot from _hating people for shopping_ to _hating people for walking down the street_ in my orbit.


Yep...all about _hating people..._the non-politician ones.


----------



## andysays (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I've no idea why the people walking past my house today are out. Some of them are no doubt going to or from their jobs in key services (someone told me it's something like 20% of the workforce, but I've not verified it yet). Some are probably out to run errands for their housebound neighbours, others are likely out for their daily exercise, or going to the shop for the first time in a couple of days for essential supplies. Before we even get to people taking the piss that could be lot of people isn't it?


You may have no idea, but clearly Favelado does and will insist on repeating it, over and over again.


----------



## campanula (Mar 26, 2020)

My offspring have made banners out of sheets, to hang from their balconies (Yep, they have them too). They have been making them with the smalls...so inevitably, rainbows and hearts feature a lot. I think a sincere thank you to our keyworkers (drivers, shop workers,  DWP) as well as NHS workers is a positive act.  And can be subversive, challenging, needful. I gave my pharmacist tulips because I feel desperate to show my gratitude and respect.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I've no idea why the people walking past my house today are out. Some of them are no doubt going to or from their jobs in key services (someone told me it's something like 20% of the workforce, but I've not verified it yet). Some are probably out to run errands for their housebound neighbours, others are likely out for their daily exercise, or going to the shop for the first time in a couple of days for essential supplies. Before we even get to people taking the piss that could be lot of people isn't it?


I stood in the front porch today having a smoke, partly to see how busy it is because our road is usually reasonably busy.  2 people walked by and up the road another guy went into the park.  I was quite surprised that was all in 10 mins.  At the top of our road (maybe 100m away) it leads onto a main road it was a different story.  In the 10 mins I was stood watching at least 50 people walked by.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Shitty questions from the Telegraph about whether the cure is worse than the virus.


It's basically taken over from The Express nowadays, hasn't it?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 26, 2020)

I live under a flight path and am enjoying the silence, shame I can't fucking sleep cos of this shit though


----------



## weltweit (Mar 26, 2020)

I toyed with working from the garden yesterday but the birdsong was so loud it would have been audible over my phone


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I stood in the front porch today having a smoke, partly to see how busy it is because our road is usually reasonably busy.  2 people walked by and up the road another guy went into the park.  I was quite surprised that was all in 10 mins.  At the top of our road (maybe 100m away) it leads onto a main road it was a different story.  In the 10 mins I was stood watching at least 50 people walked by.


I went for my daily constitutional today - head down, marching, serious face, staying away from people - and I decided to do a bit of an urban tour rather than head for green space. Probably half the people I saw were construction workers. A couple on bikes taking photos of themselves. The homeless are now a sizeable proportion of those still on the streets. In short, hardly anyone was out. People are very largely doing this thing, and if they were to shut down construction work, there would be even fewer people around.

tbh I think anger at the odd dickhead is out of proportion. Given that the object of this is to reduce social contact to a small fraction of what it was, rather than eliminate it entirely, it's surely doing its job.


----------



## Epona (Mar 26, 2020)

campanula said:


> My offspring have made banners out of sheets, to hang from their balconies (Yep, they have them too). They have been making them with the smalls...so inevitably, rainbows and hearts feature a lot. I think a sincere thank you to our keyworkers (drivers, shop workers,  DWP) as well as NHS workers is a positive act.  And can be subversive, challenging, needful. I gave my pharmacist tulips because I feel desperate to show my gratitude and respect.



I was considering making one along the lines of "Supporting the NHS for 30 years by not voting Tory - clapping isn't enough"


----------



## phillm (Mar 26, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Christ. I wonder how long we are expected to stand and clap for?


----------



## emanymton (Mar 26, 2020)

Just fuck of with this shit. While I still have to go to work on a bus surrounded by people and sit in an office surrounded by people. I don't care about walking down the fucking street.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I had one of these zoom online meetings early yesterday morning, first ever, all clever stuff, but all the other fuckers were dressed, I was the only one in a bathrobe.



Just to add, one had found a fancy background function, and added a back drop of earth, I got a laugh when I said, 'welcome to Stacey, who's joining us live from the international space station.'


----------



## ChrisD (Mar 26, 2020)

Shit. My street What’s Up Group has all signed up for this gimmick...I’m v conflicted about supporting neighbours, NHS etc but it’s not my style.      Where did this “invitation” come from in UK?  A friend in Nantes tells me it’s been happening a while at hers.  One thing in dense city but I’m in a leafy suburb. It won’t sound impressive here.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

ChrisD said:


> Shit. My street What’s Up Group has all signed up for this gimmick...I’m v conflicted about supporting neighbours, NHS etc but it’s not my style.      Where did this “invitation” come from in UK?  A friend in Nantes tells me it’s been happening a while at hers.  One thing in dense city but I’m in a leafy suburb. It won’t sound impressive here.



It was always going to happen here, once it had been seen happening in other countries.


----------



## N_igma (Mar 26, 2020)

Still nothing for supply teachers don’t like it.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

campanula said:


> My offspring have made banners out of sheets, to hang from their balconies (Yep, they have them too). They have been making them with the smalls...so inevitably, rainbows and hearts feature a lot. I think a sincere thank you to our keyworkers (drivers, shop workers,  DWP) as well as NHS workers is a positive act.  And can be subversive, challenging, needful. I gave my pharmacist tulips because I feel desperate to show my gratitude and respect.



Yeah - I'm going to clap - but it'll be for all the people working way harder and with way more pressure and no more pay.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 26, 2020)

It is of course absolutely standard that any natural disaster results in massive media pushes to blame the people undergoing it - hoarders, looters, curfew-breakers, all these always get huge amounts of time, as opposed to any failures of or deliberate malpractice by the powerful.

I can't think of a recent example where this hasn't been the case and we definitely see it right now - with a few exceptions, liberal politicians and journos are banging out articles about people going to parks etc and how if it wasn't for the failures of the populace we wouldn't need lockdowns, written without irony while staring into the massive elephant-in-the-room face of the overwhelmingly bad factor of London life for disease transmission being commuting and working in shared spaces, bringing together people from all over the city in insanely close proximity on a daily basis. Which is still going on. (Schools, too, though those have at least been shut now.)


----------



## prunus (Mar 26, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I feel pressure to join in. Like they will be looking at who comes out of their houses and who doesn't. I'm in me fucking dressing gown (WFH) and am a bit cynical about the whole thing - despite working for the NHS myself.



Wait til they’ve all started clapping then come out of your door and bow extravagantly.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 26, 2020)

Not good news today 



Spoiler



The number of people in the UK who have died with coronavirus has jumped by more than 100 in a day for the first time.

The death toll has risen from 475 to 578, health officials have confirmed.









						UK virus deaths rise by more than 100 in a day
					

The death toll has risen from 475 to 578, the Department of Health and Social Care confirms.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## prunus (Mar 26, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I live under a flight path and am enjoying the silence, shame I can't fucking sleep cos of this shit though



Haha ditto and ditto!


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

What's the (real) deal with the new measures for self-employed people then?

Nothing until June, whatever happens now (and I know people having to apply for UC are already coming up against huge issues, too) - and what happens with people on specific benefits who were allowed to top up by doing a small amount of work, in addition to their exisiting benefits, but who can't do so now and wouldn't be counted as SE (I think?)?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 26, 2020)

Joggers really don't pay enough fucking attention or give a shit about moving, it's always you has to move for them..

Twats.


----------



## ash (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I've no idea why the people walking past my house today are out. Some of them are no doubt going to or from their jobs in key services (someone told me it's something like 20% of the workforce, but I've not verified it yet). Some are probably out to run errands for their housebound neighbours, others are likely out for their daily exercise, or going to the shop for the first time in a couple of days for essential supplies. Before we even get to people taking the piss that could be lot of people isn't it?


 I agree I’m sat here watching herds if joggers breathing and puffing everywhere (now with the chief medical officers approval!!) and just to many people out there.  People don’t seem to be getting the message.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Not good news today
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sadly thats not too surprising given yesterdays low number and all the talk that yesterday was some kind of switch-over between two different systems (or timing) of compiling the death figures.

By the way, has anyone else had enough of how much stuff is going in this one thread? I think I'm about ready to stop trying to even post here any more, but I havent the mental energy at this present moment to come up with the right ideas about how exactly to separate the different subjects any more.


----------



## prunus (Mar 26, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Not good news today
> 
> 
> 
> ...



To be fair this isn’t really bad bad news (although obviously it’s not good) - individual day figures are going to be lumpy for all sorts of reasons - not least they keep changing how they count things  - really one wants to look at a 3 day or more moving average to get an idea (though one will lag obviously slightly).  By that measure, given yesterday’s number was freakily low, the growth trend isn’t yet too bad. Not saying it won’t get there, but this naked number isn’t too significant on its own. In my opinion of course.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Not good news today
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Does that accomodate the new way of logging deaths, too?
Is that whole of UK deaths up until 9am today?


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Does that accomodate the new way of logging deaths, too?
> Is that whole of UK deaths up until 9am today?



Timing change.



> As of 9am on 26 March 2020, a total of 104,866 people have been tested, of which 93,208 were confirmed negative and 11,658 were confirmed positive.
> 
> As of 5pm on 25 March 2020, 578 patients in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) have died.











						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Does that accomodate the new way of logging deaths, too?
> Is that whole of UK deaths up until 9am today?


_Guardian_:



> But the department is changing the way it releases the figures so the death toll figure is a change from the figure at 9am yesterday to the figure at 5pm yesterday, not a change over 24 hours.











						UK Covid-19 death toll reaches 578 after biggest recorded daily rise – as it happened
					

Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces new measures for self-employed; police get new powers to enforce lockdown - as it happened




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Does that accomodate the new way of logging deaths, too?
> Is that whole of UK deaths up until 9am today?



It's for 24 hours, but the ones yesterday were for 8 hours:


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sadly thats not too surprising given yesterdays low number and all the talk that yesterday was some kind of switch-over between two different systems (or timing) of compiling the death figures.
> 
> By the way, has anyone else had enough of how much stuff is going in this one thread? I think I'm about ready to stop trying to even post here any more, but I havent the mental energy at this present moment to come up with the right ideas about how exactly to separate the different subjects any more.



I agree elbows 

Come on fellow urbs there is a separate thread for chat.  Can we try and keep this as clear as possible for valuable information on how the situation is progressing. Please.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

Assuming they stick to a 6pm release then that means they've now bought themselves a 25 hour delay between the period and the reporting of it. I suppose I can live with that so long as that improves accuracy and consistency.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 26, 2020)

campanula said:


> My offspring have made banners out of sheets, to hang from their balconies (Yep, they have them too). They have been making them with the smalls...so inevitably, rainbows and hearts feature a lot. I think a sincere thank you to our keyworkers (drivers, shop workers,  DWP) as well as NHS workers is a positive act.  And can be subversive, challenging, needful. I gave my pharmacist tulips because I feel desperate to show my gratitude and respect.



We've made rainbows with coloured paper and those i heart nhs symbols on, it's an organised thing, stick them in widows etc. Tbh I always feel a bit errr at the romanticisation of the nhs as an institution but I also see it as a bulwark against the worst excesses of the freemarket why should pavements be publicly owned types and in this exact moment I think that it's reinforcing an existing political sentiment that has the potential to alter our direction as a society. Also fair fucks to the people working in these conditions so it's good they know how valued and appreciated they are even if that involves sickly sentiment for a massive flawed institution. Dunno if this makes sense now I've written it


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Timing change.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ok, so those 'new' deaths - are those from 9am on 24/03-5pm on 25/03 - so we're looking at figures from 24 hours earlier now, instead of the usual 5-9 hours earlier (as of a few days when reporting seemed to be at 2pm and 6pm, for figures up until 9am earlier the same day)?

ETA - ok got it, I think - and apologies for thread clogging, too.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I agree elbows
> 
> Come on fellow urbs there is a separate thread for chat.  Can we try and keep this as clear as possible for valuable information on how the situation is progressing. Please.



Thanks. I think the original merging was a mistake too - I dont expect the actual merged posts from the past to be fixed, thats impossible and it doesnt matter, but I absolutely believe that the lockdown and the epidemic should not be in the same thread going forwards. Lockdown and its issues inevitably generates no end of talk.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

prunus said:


> To be fair this isn’t really bad bad news (although obviously it’s not good) - individual day figures are going to be lumpy for all sorts of reasons - not least they keep changing how they count things  - really one wants to look at a 3 day or more moving average to get an idea (though one will lag obviously slightly).  By that measure, given yesterday’s number was freakily low, the growth trend isn’t yet too bad. Not saying it won’t get there, but this naked number isn’t too significant on its own. In my opinion of course.


Yep, absolutely. Looking at the stats from a few countries, it's very consistent across the data that you can get an idea of what is going on by comparing three-day chunks with one another, but that it needs to be at least three days.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> What's the (real) deal with the new measures for self-employed people then?



May be worth checking out this thread - Freelancers during this crisis


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

Following on from my previous thoughts, I think in terms of keeping everyone roughly on topic, it will be simplest just to take the discussions and conversation about the actual epidemic (eg the number of cases, number of deaths, trends in the numbers, comparisons with other countries epidemics and the reporting and government/public health institutions comments about them) to their own thread.

If some people agree then please will one of you start such a thread, maybe with an intro to the timing changes?  I would do it myself but I just had another migraine and have used up whats left of my brain on my last few posts. Cheers.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> ETA - ok got it, I think - and apologies for thread clogging, too.



I wouldnt even call it thread clogging, its just we've got a whole forum and people have done a fine job of some of the topics having their own thread to live in. And the organic nature of conversations makes some drift inevitable. I just think there are too many different sorts of news and discussion that are currently invited to belong in this thread, so I'm looking for the most obvious candidates to take elsewhere. Partly to avoid awkward juxtapositions, eg if we are talking about the number of deaths at one moment and then a lockdown-related annoyance the very next post it ends up feeling a bit weird to me, but maybe thats just me. Oh my brain. I'm saying much of this for selfish reasons, the lack of focus scrambles my bonce, and makes it harder to find things later.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

Having completely thrown myself into reading every single post relating to this for a few weeks now, I've found it quite hard to both follow and/or respond on the _correct_ threads for a while now, tbf, but I appreciate that that's more confusing/irritating for the posters who are adding more consistently and valuably to them too, so I'm just going to stfu and carry on reading (and liking) instead.
I would like to say though, that we are ALL stuck indoors atm and all in need of info _and_ all available, open lines of communication, so I do think that should be kept in mind, too - especially when not everyone may be as confident at posting their own thoughts/queries as others, to start with (I'm not remotely arsed at getting knocked back myself, tbf - I do talk a right load of bollocks and I'm ok with having that all swirling about in my head as a usual thing - but I think it's worth saying anyway).


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> I wouldnt even call it thread clogging, its just we've got a whole forum and people have done a fine job of some of the topics having their own thread to live in. And the organic nature of conversations makes some drift inevitable. I just think there are too many different sorts of news and discussion that are currently invited to belong in this thread, so I'm looking for the most obvious candidates to take elsewhere. Partly to avoid awkward juxtapositions, eg if we are talking about the number of deaths at one moment and then a lockdown-related annoyance the very next post it ends up feeling a bit weird to me, but maybe thats just me. Oh my brain. I'm saying much of this for selfish reasons, the lack of focus scrambles my bonce, and makes it harder to find things later.



It's fine, I get it.  X


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I would like to say though, that we are ALL stuck indoors atm and all in need of info _and_ all available, open lines of communication, so I do think that should be kept in mind, too - especially when not everyone may be as confident as posting their own thoughts/queries as others, to start with (I'm not remotely arsed at getting knocked back myself, tbf - I do talk a right load of bollocks and I'm ok with having that all swirling about in my head as a usual thing - but I think it's worth saying anyway).



Yeah, thats why I only want to remove some very specific and narrow and clearcut stuff from this thread in future, and why I would think a general appeal to cut down on the chatter would not be clear or likely to work. And it wouldnt matter so much if people posted some of the same stuff here as well, it just matters to me that such stuff in particular has its own space too.

Anyway I will stop overthinking it. If nobody else does anything then when UK numbers come out tomorrow, I'll start a new thread for them then. If it doesnt catch on then so be it.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah, thats why I only want to remove some very specific and narrow and clearcut stuff from this thread in future, and why I would think a general appeal to cut down on the chatter would not be clear or likely to work. And it wouldnt matter so much if people posted some of the same stuff here as well, it just matters to me that such stuff in particular has its own space too.
> 
> Anyway I will stop overthinking it. If nobody else does anything then when UK numbers come out tomorrow, I'll start a new thread for them then. If it doesnt catch on then so be it.



Don't stress elbows - the level of time and thought and research you put in is appreciated - and it's what's made the threads here really valuable resources.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Having completely thrown myself into reading every single post relating to this for a few weeks now, I've found it quite hard to both follow and/or respond on the _correct_ threads for a while now, tbf, but I appreciate that that's more confusing/irritating for the posters who are adding more consistently and valuably to them too, so I'm just going to stfu and carry on reading (and liking) instead.
> I would like to say though, that we are ALL stuck indoors atm and all in need of info _and_ all available, open lines of communication, so I do think that should be kept in mind, too - especially when not everyone may be as confident at posting their own thoughts/queries as others, to start with (I'm not remotely arsed at getting knocked back myself, tbf - I do talk a right load of bollocks and I'm ok with having that all swirling about in my head as a usual thing - but I think it's worth saying anyway).


Half the time I don’t know what thread I’m reading.  Doesn’t matter tho’ - multi-thread inculcation is working for me.


----------



## editor (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah, thats why I only want to remove some very specific and narrow and clearcut stuff from this thread in future, and why I would think a general appeal to cut down on the chatter would not be clear or likely to work. And it wouldnt matter so much if people posted some of the same stuff here as well, it just matters to me that such stuff in particular has its own space too.
> 
> Anyway I will stop overthinking it. If nobody else does anything then when UK numbers come out tomorrow, I'll start a new thread for them then. If it doesnt catch on then so be it.


If everyone is OK with the idea, you could get a dedicated thread just for posting up updates, with people invited to respond in other threads?


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Don't stress elbows - the level of time and thought and research you put in is appreciated - and it's what's made the threads here really valuable resources.


I've been able to pompously lecture all my family and friends over this for weeks now, and it's all down to elbows hard work. 

I'll be clapping him at 8pm, never mind the NHS.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I've been able to pompously lecture all my family and friends over this for weeks now, and it's all down to elbows hard work.
> 
> I'll be clapping him at 8pm, never mind the NHS.



ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY!!! * _sanitises hands vigorously in preparation_ *


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 26, 2020)

my colleague was saying this to me today - that I was well ahead of the curve in talking this through weeks ago and they didn't believe me.    I kept saying, someone off the internet has been collecting all the information and informing us.  

I believe it _really_ helped me feel prepared for things now.    Heck,  I even did some shopping for my cupboard weeks ago before the panic buying started.  I never usually have more than two days food or toilet roll in as I'm so used to shopping on a daily basis.   It made me order in rubbing alcohol and start making my own sanitizer.    And it helped me agitate for us to WAH.    It made me think though issues for my parents and that I should stay away from them.    And that I should level with them that they must stay away from crowds.   

Thank you elbows it's been a great service


----------



## DexterTCN (Mar 26, 2020)

I've just found out that self-employed people are to be given 80% of their monthly income as (it seems) averaged over 3 years (or more likely added up and divided by 3).

They've been absolutely shafted by this.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 26, 2020)

seems unfair they get that much compared to UC claimants. Guess they're potential voters.


----------



## Cid (Mar 26, 2020)

I do also realise that stuff like that may be a huge problem in


editor said:


> If everyone is OK with the idea, you could get a dedicated thread just for posting up updates, with people invited to respond in other threads?



Scuse me for answering for elbows , but that would probably overcomplicate things a bit... Having a 'UK lockdown and general discussion' thread and a separate 'UK epidemic and news'* thread would probably be more organic.

*that one doesn't quite work, lockdown is also news... but yeah.


----------



## Cid (Mar 26, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> seems unfair they get that much compared to UC claimants. Guess they're potential voters.



The fuck was the point in that?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 26, 2020)

Cid said:


> The fuck was the point in that?


To prevent them voting differently next time


----------



## T & P (Mar 26, 2020)

GET READY TO CLAP AT 8 PM YOU FUCKERS!


----------



## two sheds (Mar 26, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> my colleague was saying this to me today - that I was well ahead of the curve in talking this through weeks ago and they didn't believe me.    I kept saying, someone off the internet has been collecting all the information and informing us.
> 
> I believe it _really_ helped me feel prepared for things now.    Heck,  I even did some shopping for my cupboard weeks ago before the panic buying started.  I never usually have more than two days food or toilet roll in as I'm so used to shopping on a daily basis.   It made me order in rubbing alcohol and start making my own sanitizer.    And it helped me agitate for us to WAH.    It made me think though issues for my parents and that I should stay away from them.    And that I should level with them that they must stay away from crowds.
> 
> Thank you elbows it's been a great service



Yep thanks elbows and people for all the work. Urban in general and the coronavirus forum in particular have been spectacular for information, clarifications, and general support and entertainment.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 26, 2020)

Just wanted to add my big thanks to elbows -- superbly informative posts that have taught me, and loads of people, a lot. Great stuff!

<virtual    atcha! >


----------



## Anju (Mar 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I had one of these zoom online meetings early yesterday morning, first ever, all clever stuff, but all the other fuckers were dressed, I was the only one in a bathrobe.



At least you weren't zoom bombed.
'Zoombombers' disrupt online classes with racist, pornographic content


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 26, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> To prevent them voting differently next time


Yeh cos obvs people who are self-employed all vote tory


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

More clogging - but the actual example I used from here when I was arguing with talking to my son the other day, was danny la rouge saying how frustrated he was with his own family - that they were reading up themselves, then reading stuff back to him - but still finding excuses to do things a different way. But that came from a point of feeling really well informed in the first place - to insist on making that point.



Orang Utan said:


> seems unfair they get that much compared to UC claimants. Guess they're potential voters.



Wtf?

UC claimants getting fuck all doesn't equate to it being right that SE people get fuck all, too! 
Your pay is potentially protected up to at least 80% of your current income - what do you see as being different for you?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> seems unfair they get that much compared to UC claimants. Guess they're potential voters.



Well, you can fuck right off, we are only getting the same as those employed, i.e. capped at £2,500 pm..


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Wtf?
> 
> UC claimants getting fuck all doesn't equate to SE people getting fuck all, too.
> Your pay is potentially protected up to at least 80% of your current income - what do you see as being different for you?


ah, wasn't thinking - didn't know that. though it does seem unfair that UC is barely enough to live on and only those with jobs get loads more than out of work UC claimants.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> More clogging - but the actual example I used from here when I was arguing with talking to my son the other day, was danny la rouge saying how frustrated he was with his own family - that they were reading up themselves, then reading stuff back to him - but still finding excuses to do things a different way. But that came from a point of feeling really well informed in the first place - to insist on making that point.


To be fair, they’ve taken it seriously since then. But it took the lock down really.  

In hindsight, I think I probably had C-19 before the official outbreak. I think when I had arranged to go to @editor’s gig in Mono but then felt too rough to keep the date that was probably it. It floored me. But we didn’t have the rules then, so who knows what I did wrong.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> ah, wasn't thinking - didn't know that. though it does seem unfair that UC is barely enough to live on and only those with jobs get loads more than out of work UC claimants.


UC is unfair, full stop. It was before and still is now. 

These measures are basically aping the systems of benefits they have in many European countries, where you receive x% of your wage for y months after losing your job. They are only right and fair. They don't make UC any less unfair.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 26, 2020)

The sooner we have UBI the better imo


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 26, 2020)

Wow, quite the outburst of applause and cheering on my estate for NHS workers.


----------



## danski (Mar 26, 2020)

Yeah, same. Was a really lovely moment


----------



## Ax^ (Mar 26, 2020)

People are cool sometimes  

had forgotten about that till i heard it


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 26, 2020)

danski said:


> Yeah, same. Was a really lovely moment


Ditto my street!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 26, 2020)

I didn't realise the time... Sat at the kitchen window....massive cheers and applause started across the back of the gardens from other streets....Went out the front...half the street out, cheering and applauding. It felt nice.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 26, 2020)

Fuck this tory bullshit tbh. I'm even more angry now than I was previously, which was a lot.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

Yep, clapping and whooping. Surprisingly touching, tbh.


----------



## xes (Mar 26, 2020)

Yeah, didn't expect it round here as it's quite rural, but there was quite a few in the street, it was rather loud!  

(even louder with Mr Pink!  and whilst many of you have had your lips on my big pink horn, I don't think it'd be a good idea in the current climate)


----------



## andysays (Mar 26, 2020)

It's worth remembering that what currently counts as "self employed" covers a very wide range of situations. 

It's by no means just people who run their own businesses, and it's frequently people who are effectively working for a large employer, but with none of the security generally associated with conventional employment. 

One of the reasons there are still so many construction workers going to work is that many/most will be "self employed" on paper, meaning if they don't work they don't get paid. 

If these new measures, which I haven't studied in detail, mean that even some of them don't need to continue working, that will be a good thing.

And if the rules which enable the so-called self employed to be treated so badly are changed when all this is over, it won't be a moment too soon.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 26, 2020)

That was terrific. People at every window clapping. And knowing it was happening everywhere! Absolutely marvellous. Go NHS!


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> ah, wasn't thinking - didn't know that. though it does seem unfair that UC is barely enough to live on and only those with jobs get loads more than out of work UC claimants.



That is always the case, isn't it - very much not fair, but nothing to with self-employed workers being less desrving either, iyswim.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> It's worth remembering that what currently counts as "self employed" covers a very wide range of situations.
> 
> It's by no means just people who run their own businesses, and it's frequently people who are effectively working for a large employer, but with none of the security generally associated with conventional employment.
> 
> ...


Yep. My mate's a courier and has now just been rescued by this. Very low-paid, treated like shit by employers who basically cheat the system.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 26, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> That was terrific. People at every window clapping. And knowing it was happening everywhere! Absolutely marvellous. Go NHS!



A bit more restrained in my street - neighbour had their Xmas lights on ... I may come up with an illuminated NHS sign for my political illuminated 
windows...
a few fireworks.

Early days yet ...


----------



## T & P (Mar 26, 2020)

Shit loads of people on our street joined the clap-in


----------



## editor (Mar 26, 2020)

That was fucking beautiful. Loads of people on the estate came out to applaud the NHS


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Fuck this tory bullshit tbh. I'm even more angry now than I was previously, which was a lot.



Absolutely no one is clapping for the Tories.


----------



## T & P (Mar 26, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> A bit more restrained in my street - neighbour had their Xmas lights on ... I may come up with an illuminated NHS sign for my political windows...


It was a bit like that here at 7.59 and a bit but I and a few neighbours nearby started banging saucepans which seemed to break the ice and got many more to join in


----------



## andysays (Mar 26, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> ...In hindsight, I think I probably had C-19 before the official outbreak...


Hipsters, hipsters everywhere...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 26, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> Absolutely no one is clapping for the Tories.


It's been organised and promoted by the government.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> UK Gov press conference notes:
> 
> The economy and self employed - think I'll save that for later or another thread.
> 
> ...


Egregiously, this lethal exceptionalism came not from a politician, but from the _deputy CMO_, who's supposed to be scrupulously impartial and guided by medical best practice.

She's a medical doctor, not a polician. She swore to do no harm. Her impartiality's a crucial safeguard, a potential break on dangerous policy that can be enforced with a threat to resign. This goes beyond even regulator capture. What in the hell's happened to her?


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> Hipsters, hipsters everywhere...


 I think it’s been in the country longer than we think. We have no idea what the spread is because you don’t get tested unless you’re a celebrity.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

I didn’t hear a thing! But it’s been heard in Orkney elsewhere. 
That’s nice.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

Now wondering if it did happen round here and I missed it, damn.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's been organised and promoted by the government.



It started in other countries.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

It was quite audible here, pretty close to the town centre of Nuneaton. Church bells got in on the act too, and I believe I heard a few fireworks.

In regards to the idea of my own thread, and the very nice things people said, thanks a million! I will sleep on it, because in some ways I've always preferred forums to blogging etc in the first place because I like the conversational nature and it not being all about my words alone. And I'm not sure if we are already well past the point where I could actually be especially informative to people. But like I said, I will sleep on it, and I might not rush to a decision tomorrow either. Cheers.


----------



## RTWL (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's been organised and promoted by the government.



Well they can f*ck off the c*nts and bloody well start paying people danger money and giving them tests, and ppe .


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

Properly ace, that - there's something in just hearing so much noise when everything feels so quiet and shut down that is really amazing on a personal level, too - that everyone is still out there. 
We live up a hill, looking out across a dip in the hill and up another, so it was a real chorus from afar - drums, too.
I know our NHS staff here were a bit mortified at the idea  but I hope they do take some resillience in being appreciated and also, knowing that it makes everyone feel more connected on a general level, too - made me well up a bit, tbf!


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's been organised and promoted by the government.


Pretty sure it was organised independently. Official social media accounts did then back it.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 26, 2020)

I'm almost in tears, here. That was unexpectedly wonderful. Didn't expect there to be much noise but the applause was all round my streets when I opened my door. People at windows, whistles and shouts. Even a few fireworks. A foghorn from the docks. Sod the cynicism. It was lovely.


----------



## chilango (Mar 26, 2020)

Yep. I'd not paid much attention to this clapping thing till our street erupted at 8. 

Neighbours speaking (at a safe distance obvs) who've never spoken before.

NHS + Community.

If that's the Tory plan they'll be hoist by their own petard.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 26, 2020)




----------



## Ax^ (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet sort of has a point they need more support financial , logistically and more kit for hospitals

not clapping


Still it was nice to see how many people love the NHS in the Country  

Lets just hope the same people remember that when the head to the voting booth and vote for a government who want to dismantle it and sell it to American Big Pharma
for a favourable Trade deal that fuck over the population of the united kingdom



* Shakes fist at the Sky*


----------



## souljacker (Mar 26, 2020)

Lots of people out in our little street. Bought a tear to my eye if I'm honest. The lady across the road is an intensive care nurse so I hope it gave her a bit of a lift because she must be fucking exhausted.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

Loads of new connections being made in Orkney nonetheless, albeit remote ones. I think when all is over we must have a huge perty. People have been pretty sound, everyone trying to help out, very conscious of infection control etc. Hard to know who is buying all the toilet rolls, as I seem to encounter less twats than heroes atm. The foodbank is well stocked with toilet rolls. There must be a small number of people hoarding fuckloads of toilet paper somewhere.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 26, 2020)

Lovely vids being posted. Friends on megaphones, adding to the scene, making sure political context is added. Listing key workers, expressing solidarity with all, reminding people to hold the government to account!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 26, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> It started in other countries.


In this country it has been organised and promoted by the government who are criminally responsible in terms of crippling the NHS to the extent that it was broken _before_ the virus. The aim is obviously to detract from what have done and are still doing, a question-free environment. Entirely in concert with all the rest of their propaganda over ten years - everyone applaud the wonderful angels, don't look behind the curtain at _why_ this is such an hard job. Fuck that. That doesn't help anyone in the NHS.


----------



## T & P (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's been organised and promoted by the government.


The BBC featured today an interview with a Dutch woman who lives here who is credited for this. Apparently she was the first person to suggest on social media doing the tribute here, after hearing of similar efforts in Holland and elsewhere in the Continent.

in any event, even if it had been a government initiative (which it isn’t), the applause and gratitude is meant for NHS & care workers staff alone- nobody else. Everyone is aware of Tory NHS cuts and this wouldn’t have fooled anyone into believing they now care about the NHS anyway. This is all about the healthcare workers.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 26, 2020)




----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> In this country it has been organised and promoted by the government who are criminally responsible in terms of crippling the NHS to the extent that it was broken _before_ the virus. The aim is obviously to detract from what have done and are still doing, a question-free environment. Entirely in concert with all the rest of their propaganda over ten years - everyone applaud the wonderful angels, don't look behind the curtain at _why_ this is such an hard job. Fuck that.



I am fully aware of what the gov think they will manage with promoting this. I don't think it will work though. Lot's of people are aware, neighbours are doing for themselves, communities are organising like we need them to.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> In this country it has been organised and promoted by the government who are criminally responsible in terms of crippling the NHS to the extent that it was broken _before_ the virus. The aim is obviously to detract from what have done and are still doing, a question-free environment. Entirely in concert with all the rest of their propaganda over ten years - everyone applaud the wonderful angels, don't look behind the curtain at _why_ this is such an hard job. Fuck that. That doesn't help anyone in the NHS.



The government seized on it but they dont own it, they dont control its energy or the agendas and perspectives it may foster. They would like to harness it, but joining in with it does not mean we are complicit with their agendas past, present and future.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 26, 2020)

T & P said:


> Shit loads of people on our street joined the clap-in



Wish that had been in my street here in Swansea  

I see from danny's post that this happened in his part of Scotland, so it's clearly not just an NHS England thing.
So I hope it happened elsewhere in Swansea/Wales, as well as in England


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> In this country it has been organised and promoted by the government who are criminally responsible in terms of crippling the NHS to the extent that it was broken _before_ the virus. The aim is obviously to detract from what have done and are still doing, a question-free environment. Entirely in concert with all the rest of their propaganda over ten years - everyone applaud the wonderful angels, don't look behind the curtain at _why_ this is such an hard job. Fuck that. That doesn't help anyone in the NHS.


I get what you're saying, and in a way I'm surprised to find myself disagreeing, but I do disagree. This just now was an actual genuine act of solidarity. A small one. A futile one in many ways. But that nevertheless, and just that. A rare thing these days.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> View attachment 203511


FUCKIN LIVID AT YER PRAXIS COMRADE 




William of Walworth said:


> Wish that had been in my street here in Swansea
> 
> I see from danny's post that this happened in his part of Scotland, so it's clearly not just an NHS England thing.
> So I hope it happened elsewhere in Swansea/Wales, as well as in England


It’s come as far as Orkney in at least the toon  and reports of it being all over Inverness. I had no idea it would take off like that.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> The government seized on it but they dont own it, they dont control its energy or the agendas and perspectives it may foster. They would like to harness it, but joining in with it does not mean we are complicit with their agendas past, present and future.


It is intrinsically an unquestioning "apolitical" (political) liberal mess; it's not surprising that they jumped on it and promoted it.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I get what you're saying, and in a way I'm surprised to find myself disagreeing, but I do disagree. This just now was an actual genuine act of solidarity. A small one. A futile one in many ways. But that nevertheless, and just that. A rare thing these days.


My feeling exactly.

Hard-headed expansion on that: many NHS staff furiously saying that if they're appreciated, where's their testing and PPE? The chasm between government tokenism and their criminal neglect just serves to make criticisms of Whitehall's gross complacency and indifference all the starker.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 26, 2020)

I'm not going to argue this back and forward; I think I've made my point.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It is intrinsically an unquestioning "apolitical" (political) liberal mess; it's not surprising that they jumped on it and promoted it.



I have always believed that there were many valid reasons and explanations for cynicism in this country. But its a rotten dead end like so many others if people do not know when to place it to one side and do something in spite of their reservations.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I'm not going to argue this back and forward; I think I've made my point.


You have. I share your concern, I share your cynicism, I don't however think that this is a master stroke for the Tory overlords. There is far more to it than that IMO.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

Azrael said:


> My feeling exactly.
> 
> Hard-headed expansion on that: many NHS staff furiously saying that if they're appreciated, where's their testing and PPE? The chasm between government tokenism and their criminal neglect just serves to make criticisms of Whitehall's gross complacency and indifference all the starker.



How about if we alternate between cheering the NHS and other key workers one night, and booing the government the next?


----------



## editor (Mar 26, 2020)

I don't give a shit how the government are trying to associate themselves with this because I don't believe people are that stupid. Maybe in the past the Tories' dodgy NHS flog off deals were things they didn't think about too much, but right now the NHS is right there in the centre ground being applauded, appreciated and needed. 

I believe the Tories are going to find it a lot harder to continue their dodgy deals now that everyone has been reminded of how important the NHS is, and how important previously dismissed small cogs in the big machine are.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> How about if we alternate between cheering the NHS and other key workers one night, and booing the government the next?


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

Turns out it was all over my village too. I could have been basking in some applause there guys


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

editor said:


> I don't give a shit how the government are trying to associate themselves with this because I don't believe people are that stupid. Maybe in the past the Tories' dodgy NHS flog off deals were things they didn't think about too much, but right now the NHS is right there in the centre ground being applauded, appreciated and needed.
> 
> I believe the Tories are going to find it a lot harder to continue their dodgy deals now that everyone has been reminded of how important the NHS is, and how important previously dismissed small cogs in the big machine are.


Exactly. The Tories join in with this at their peril!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Fuck this tory bullshit tbh. I'm even more angry now than I was previously, which was a lot.



Tory bullshit?

Around here it was just normal people clapping the NHS workers, took me by surprise TBH, I opened my back door, not expecting anything, and there was loud clapping from everywhere, I was happy to join in.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I get what you're saying, and in a way I'm surprised to find myself disagreeing, but I do disagree. This just now was an actual genuine act of solidarity. A small one. A futile one in many ways. But that nevertheless, and just that. A rare thing these days.



It's not much different to the NHS volunteers either is it? The NHS shouldn't need a quarter of a million extra people to support it, even in times of crisis. People should be employed to do all of the jobs that need doing to make it fit for purpose and paid to do that but as it is, right now, it doesn't follow that the people who have signed up to do that are doing it while they are simultaneously supporting Tory policies which stripped the NHS in the first place - they're doing it because they care about the staff and the patients and their communities. I can't think of much else to do but to take strength from that.


----------



## chilango (Mar 26, 2020)

Remember as well that the dominant narrative over the last week or so has been of selfish individualism. Of atomised choice and it's consequences.

Anything physically bringing people together, collectively, undermines that.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 26, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It's not much different to the NHS volunteers either is it? The NHS shouldn't need a quarter of a million extra people to support it, even in times of crisis. People should be employed to do all of the jobs that need doing to make it fit for purpose and paid to do that but as it is, right now, it doesn't follow that the people who have signed up to do that are doing it while they are simultaneously supporting Tory policies which stripped the NHS in the first place - they're doing it because they care about the staff and the patients and their communities. I can't think of much else to do but to take strength from that.


Yep. The tories love charity, of course, and volunteering, and volunteering is in some ways a privilege - means you have some spare energy and resources. But later is the time to take them to task - right now, there is the right now to deal with.


----------



## Fedayn (Mar 26, 2020)

Am not usually a fan of this kinda stuff, find it all a bit isolating. That said, my auntie who is a retired nurse when back to work as a nurse on a ward. Not sure doing why exactly. Her daughter, my wee cousin is also pregnant who she won't be ble to see her mum too often if she starts coughing. That kind of rather decent behaviour I am, as a socialist, public sector union rep l and her nephew, rather proud of her for doing it. And also am rightly proud of the NHS workers who do their utmost to save lives all too oftn at their own cost.


----------



## editor (Mar 26, 2020)

Make you realise how things have changed when you get a message from your bank saying: 

2. Please don’t call us if you can at all avoid it

3. Stay away from our branches if you can


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 26, 2020)

Someone just told me they had people shouting 'fuck the tories' with the cheering on their road. I suggest we could all do the same if there's a next time


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's been organised and promoted by the government.



No it wasn't, you twat.


----------



## xes (Mar 26, 2020)

Maybe we can applaud the NHS, and also shout a little slogan like 'fuck the Tories and their NHS cuts' Or something more child friendly. 

Then everyone can be happy.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 26, 2020)

Genuinely didn't know this was happening. Heard some racket from the tory voters next door and then looked on here. Was this announced or was it a FB sort of thing?


----------



## xes (Mar 26, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Someone just told me they had people shouting 'fuck the tories' with the cheering on their road. I suggest we could all do the same if there's a next time


----------



## klang (Mar 26, 2020)

I forgot about it, but just happened to take the rubbish out when everybody started cheering. I was a bit pissed off for a mo - as if I'd never taken the rubbish out before 
Then I remembered and joined in.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Tory bullshit?
> 
> Around here it was just normal people clapping the NHS workers, took me by surprise TBH, I opened my back door, not expecting anything, and there was loud clapping from everywhere, I was happy to join in.


YEH BUT WERE THEY GENUINE MARXISTS


----------



## T & P (Mar 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I'm not going to argue this back and forward; I think I've made my point.


I think most people would agree with your sentiment of disliking cynical government initiatives for causes they don’t give a shit about, but I genuinely believe you are wrong to believe the government was behind it. See here



			https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/clap-for-our-carers_uk_5e7b444ac5b620022ab3f145/
		


And if you accept this wasn’t a government initiative, you mustn’t dismiss it simply because they have jumped on the bandwagon. I can assure you nobody is either thanking the government in the smallest way or crediting it for this tribute.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 26, 2020)

I would also like to add my thanks to elbows for his informative posting from which I have learnt an awful lot. Cheers! Keep posting please

Nice to see the appreciation being shown for the people in the front line too. 

If anything good comes from this it will be the change in attitude from many about the state funded wonder that is the NHS which won't be taken for granted any more. People will be a lot more protective of it and hold the cunts in power to account more than they have done. 

I look at the situation in the US and thank the nonexistent spirittual entity that I do not live there. Least we are not talking about Brexit!


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Genuinely didn't know this was happening. Heard some racket from the tory voters next door and then looked on here. Was this announced or was it a FB sort of thing?


Yeah, for last couple of days on FB, that’s how most of us saw it anyway.


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

T & P said:


> I can assure you nobody is either thanking the government in the smallest way or crediting it for this tribute.


You might not be, but the government and the prime minister are polling very well atm


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

littleseb said:


> I forgot about it, but just happened to take the rubbish out when everybody started cheering. I was a bit pissed off for a mo - as if I'd never taken the rubbish out before
> Then I remembered and joined in.


Ha!


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> You might not be, but the government and the prime minister are polling very well atm


Christ who the hell has time for polling. I keep forgetting to even eat atm


----------



## Ax^ (Mar 26, 2020)

hmm appears they use the 8 o clock clap in to enforce the lock down

got in from just before 8pm and was doing someone a favour from the house of a lit to the shops down the road

and the cops are blocking the road and shut all the shops


----------



## xes (Mar 26, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> hmm appears they use the 8 o clock clap in to enforce the lock down
> 
> got in from just before 8pm and was doing someone a favour from the house of a lit to the shops down the road
> 
> and the cops are blocking the road and shut all the shops


It's a trap!

In other news, loads of fireworks going off now


----------



## brogdale (Mar 26, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Yeah, for last couple of days on FB, that’s how most of us saw it anyway.


Ah, right.
All the tories round here clapping the NHS....interesting times.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 26, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Ah, right.
> All the tories round here clapping the NHS....interesting times.


Hey now! “Tories” as a descriptor should only used to describe the vermin themselves


----------



## Ax^ (Mar 26, 2020)

xes said:


> It's a trap!
> 
> In other news, loads of fireworks going off now



Appears i had not heard of them putting out roadblocks  today



so road blocks on the way to work in the morning interesting times


----------



## T & P (Mar 26, 2020)

Does anyone know if this is meant to be this a one-off, or a daily thing? In some countries in the Continent they’re doing it every evening.


----------



## eoin_k (Mar 26, 2020)

Well that brought a tear to my eye. Then the missus came back from a twelve-hour shift in the local hospital. She doesn't seem so sentimental, just a bit knackered and burned out.


----------



## xenon (Mar 26, 2020)

I missed the time, I have been listening to a lot of TV stuff on headphones to avoid reading here all the time. Heard some cheering in the background and twigged oh yeah. I am on the ground floor so went and clapped for a bit stood at front door. I could hear people over the road and round the corner, it’s all flats around here. that’s where the cheering was.  A neighbour  in the flats next door joined in as well.


----------



## treelover (Mar 26, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




Awful to think many will be coming out the other side.


----------



## bimble (Mar 26, 2020)

"Late on Thursday, the government said it would also join an EU scheme to procure ventilators, having initially said it would not take part because it had missed an invitation to do so owing to a “communication problem”..
a No 10 spokesman clarified that it had missed out because of an error and would consider participating in future. *It is understood the UK claims not to have received an email from the EU asking it to participate.*
 
what?








						No 10 accused of putting 'Brexit over breathing' in Covid-19 ventilator row
					

Government clarifies position after critics accuse Boris Johnson of putting ‘Brexit over breathing’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Smangus (Mar 26, 2020)

bimble said:


> "Late on Thursday, the government said it would also join an EU scheme to procure ventilators, having initially said it would not take part because it had missed an invitation to do so owing to a “communication problem”..
> a No 10 spokesman clarified that it had missed out because of an error and would consider participating in future. It is understood the UK claims not to have received an email from the EU asking it to participate.
> 
> what?
> ...



That's Gvt speak for paniky wtf u turn big stylee.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 26, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> FUCKIN LIVID AT YER PRAXIS COMRADE


Ha! The class co-opted the stunt.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 26, 2020)

editor said:


> I believe the Tories are going to find it a lot harder to continue their dodgy deals now that everyone has been reminded of how important the NHS is, and how important previously dismissed small cogs in the big machine are.


They'll find it as easy as ever without a change in/challenge to the balance of power. Next year it could easily be : look how much money we spent on everyone's wages etc, sorry but we've got to balance the books now. Privatisation ahoy.
Yes there's a massive opportunity opening up to rewrite the logic of UK politics in the coming year or two, but I wouldn't presume anything based on sentiment.
Anyhow a lot of water to flow under the bridge yet


----------



## treelover (Mar 26, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> ah, wasn't thinking - didn't know that. though it does seem unfair that UC is barely enough to live on and only those with jobs get loads more than out of work UC claimants.



disabled and sick get nothing, 

maybe slight rise in housing benefit.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 26, 2020)

treelover said:


> disabled and sick get nothing,
> 
> maybe slight rise in housing benefit.


they get what they had before ie very little


----------



## ChrisD (Mar 26, 2020)

Having been rude about it earlier in the thread I joined in my street clapping ( for the first minute) no idea how long they lasted.  Seemed quite emotional and I felt good about it,......until just now I see my local liberal has retweeted Kensington Palace tweet about it.   Now I feel queasy. ( I won’t embed the tweet)


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 26, 2020)

ChrisD said:


> Having been rude about it earlier in the thread I joined in my street clapping ( for the first minute) no idea how long they lasted.  Seemed quite emotional and I felt good about it,......until just now I see my local liberal has retweeted Kensington Palace tweet about it.   Now I feel queasy. ( I won’t embed the tweet)


Mrs SI just showed me the three little toffs clapping. I couldn't help myself when my daughter asked what they were clapping for.

"No idea. It's not like they'll ever use the NHS".

She's now showing me famous people and other royals applauding


----------



## friendofdorothy (Mar 26, 2020)

I received this earlier - but unfortunately I couldn't act on it.



> *Stand Up to Racism
> South London    26 March 2020
> 
> Join the #ClapForOurCarers #MigrantsMakeOurNHS   tonight at 8pm *
> ...


----------



## donkyboy (Mar 26, 2020)

Got to laugh. a large number of those clapping had no problem taking food and supplies from NHS workers doing tiring long shifts and hoarding it for themselves


----------



## killer b (Mar 26, 2020)

ripped it from their sore aching hands and ran of cackling no less. the fucking liberty.


----------



## donkyboy (Mar 26, 2020)

sure did rip it from their hands. we wouldn't need 1 hour priority access for NHS workers for supermarket shopping, would we?


----------



## brogdale (Mar 26, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Hey now! “Tories” as a descriptor should only used to describe the vermin themselves


Fair enough.
Perhaps fairer to say _All the cunts round here that voted for the fucking tories that are intent on destroying socialised universal healthcare that’s free at the point of delivery _clapping the NHS.


----------



## strung out (Mar 26, 2020)

donkyboy said:


> Got to laugh. a large number of those clapping had no problem taking food and supplies from NHS workers doing tiring long shifts and hoarding it for themselves


Which ones? Name and shame them.


----------



## donkyboy (Mar 26, 2020)

john, sharon, lisa and tracy


----------



## weepiper (Mar 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Mrs SI just showed me the three little toffs clapping. I couldn't help myself when my daughter asked what they were clapping for.
> 
> "No idea. It's not like they'll ever use the NHS".
> 
> She's now showing me famous people and other royals applauding


Oh, I don't know. Charles and his entourage used the Scottish NHS just the other day.

Clapping and cheering all over Edinburgh and Glasgow, from the looks of my twitter feed. Loads on my street, cars driving past tooting etc.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2020)

This story deals with the high numbers in the West Midlands but then moves on to stuff that we must consider when looking at the UK data for deaths:









						West Midlands emerges as a hotspot for coronavirus deaths
					

Latest daily figures show region reported more than a third of UK’s fatal infections




					www.theguardian.com
				






> However, some prominent cases do not appear to be reflected in the figures, such as that of Kayla Williams, a 36-year-old mother from Peckham, who died just before paramedics arrived and was recorded by them as a possible Covid-19 case.
> 
> Chloe Middleton, the 21-year-old from Buckinghamshire whose family said on Wednesday she died after contracting coronavirus, also does not appear to be recorded in the figures.





> An NHS England source said the likely cause of people missing from the statistics is that the daily figures only include those who tested positive in hospital.
> 
> The UK is only testing people for coronavirus in hospital, so people dying at home or in care homes with symptoms of the disease will be missing from the overall figures.
> 
> The number of omissions are likely to be low at the moment but could increase as the pandemic worsens in the coming weeks.





> A Public Health England spokesman said the overall figures published daily represented all those who had tested positive for coronavirus, and there was no systemic testing of those who had died with symptoms but no confirmed diagnosis.



I probably do not need to say what I think about that.


----------



## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

Birmingham and Black County coronavirus deaths reach 40 in 9 days
					

Deaths have included Saltley dad-of-eight Afsar Hussain, who passed away at weekend




					www.birminghammail.co.uk
				






> One pathologist said testing the living and NHS workers had to be the priority but added: “Ideally, more should be done to really investigate what’s going on in the fatalities in the community, rather than the current system in a sense just sweeping them under the carpet.
> 
> The key thing for the coronial system is to gain information for society about why its members die.
> “If we, in the middle of something of this sort, are not testing, it seems a derogation of some of that responsibility for future generations.”


----------



## Azrael (Mar 27, 2020)

Even in terms of the most cynical, amoral realpolitik, cooking the books now is idiotic. It's already being exposed and will fuel public rage as more and more are affected.

Why did Beijing mobilize every resource at their dispoal to attempt to crush the outbreak? They didn't suddely become humanitarians: they took a hardheaded look at the situation and realized that allowing an epidemic to burn outa control could imperil their grip on power. The Mandate of Heaven is always precarious. Not even the mandate of the _Mail_ is unshakable.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Fair enough.
> Perhaps fairer to say _All the cunts round here that voted for the fucking tories that are intent on destroying socialised universal healthcare that’s free at the point of delivery _clapping the NHS.



Doesn't stuff like this give a platform to make the points that the essential workers, the people that when it comes to it we can't get by without, are the carers, retail staff, bin men, nurses and that people in these occupations should be rewarded not just with gestures but economically, rather than just calling them cunts for voting tory. Look forward not backward. Strikes me as an opportunity in the crisis to build something


----------



## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

Also from that last story, a case that could maybe be a useful warning for people in regards one mistake of judgement that is possible due to some perceptions about the virus.



> ‘Fit and healthy’ banker Tim Galley died alone at home while in self-isolation for coronavirus.
> 
> Mr Galley, from Wrexham, reportedly refused to call an ambulance as his health became worse, telling his girlfriend he had no underlying health conditions, and that medics would be busy dealing with other patients.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 27, 2020)

One of the many reasons that community testing is so crucial.

I see there's ongoing research investigating possible links between viral load and severity of infection (which might be a factor in explaining critical cases among young, fit medics exposed to massive contamination as they treat Covid-19 patients). That's all provisional. We can say that being young and fit is no guarantee.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 27, 2020)

I read that one common symptom is losing your sense of smell. One of my students caught it and has that symptom too.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 27, 2020)

andysays said:


> You may have no idea, but clearly Favelado does and will insist on repeating it, over and over again.



Damn right in the circumstances.


----------



## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Even in terms of the most cynical, amoral realpolitik, cooking the books now is idiotic. It's already being exposed and will fuel public rage as more and more are affected.



A lot of it is the orthodox approach shining through again. In many ways this comes down to the long-term UK medical establishment approach towards testing in general, as well as testing at different stages of epidemics, pandemics and observing the seasonal Influenza-like-illness picture every year.

Theres no emphasis on, expectation of or capacity for mass testing. Instead they go for various surveillance systems, testing a small subset of people within communities and extrapolating the wider picture. Vigorous testing of every possible case is normally reserved for the very early phase only, where limited numbers apply and there is specific data they are trying to obtain. Later testing goes back to the sample-based approach, with some exceptions along certain lines, including some clinical need ones.

I believe that related orthodox thinking also shows up in some other healthcare phenomenon in this country. There are a bunch of common conditions that GPs dont seem terribly interested in testing for upon initial presentation, and from what I've experienced it seems the first approach is usually to have a look at the patient and pick the thing it is most likely to be, rather than testing to see what it actually is. A different sort of numbers game, one where you deal with the most common possibility without much fuss or testing resources. But where some of your patients will end up with the wrong treatment and some frustrating follow-ups and lost time trying to get far enough along the path of possibilities to actually stumble on the right cause, or if all else fails then very well, finally test. And I'm sure many people who have dealt with the passing of a frail relative might have experienced the cause of death being recorded in terms of a combination of their existing health conditions, and something like pneumonia. Perhaps some pathogens that actually caused the pneumonia were formally ruled in or out by testing, perhaps not. The pathogens actually responsible certainly cant be relied upon to always make it onto the official cause of death of that person.

Obviously there are areas of exception to what I've said about testing and routine healthcare. Some pathogens and diseases and patient conditions evoke a very different approach. I'm sure there are some areas that have just the sort of testing protocols we would ideally like to see universally. That they are missing from this pandemic so far in the UK is bad but sadly not surprising.

To compensate for the fact that the system wont properly identify and record every case of everything, the data from cases they did directly detect and data from sampling/surveillance schemes tends to be combined with the excess mortality statistics, in order to estimate the number of deaths that a particular epidemic has caused.

So yeah, thats my opinion of the nature of some relevant parts of the orthodoxy. Mostly the same themes I've gone on about before. And plenty of areas where we can clearly see the ugly and awkward contrast between how they are used to conducting these matters, and what this pandemic calls for.

In this particular context, given their testing capacity limits right now, they could at least publish a separate 'suspected deaths' or 'possible community deaths' figure.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 27, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



I can remember the day when MPS' finest spent the day battering people in that very spot for trying to close down a torture fair. 

Things came to a tense standstill as news of the 9/11 attack filtered through, until over the course of a few hours many people (including police, exhibitors, demonstrators and locals) drifted away.

There then remained but a few dozen people at the front, with the banner below (pictured elsewhere) discreetly propped up to frame a clutch of officers for a sly photo op.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 27, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> I can remember the day when MPS' finest spent the day battering people in that very spot for trying to close down a torture fair.
> 
> Things came to a tense standstill as news of the 9/11 attack filtered through, until over the course of a few hours many people (including police, exhibitors, demonstrators and locals) drifted away.
> 
> ...


Swords to plough cough-shares


----------



## TopCat (Mar 27, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Damn right in the circumstances.


Hey. I'm more round to your point of view. I was thinking. I wasn't grumpy. I was stressed.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 27, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> I can remember the day when MPS' finest spent the day battering people in that very spot for trying to close down a torture fair.
> 
> Things came to a tense standstill as news of the 9/11 attack filtered through, until over the course of a few hours many people (including police, exhibitors, demonstrators and locals) drifted away.
> 
> ...


I rather liked those comic tank police piss takes.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 27, 2020)

The idea of dying on a bunk bed in Excel.


----------



## Celyn (Mar 27, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I think it’s been in the country longer than we think. We have no idea what the spread is because you don’t get tested unless you’re a celebrity.


or a prince.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 27, 2020)

bimble said:


> "Late on Thursday, the government said it would also join an EU scheme to procure ventilators, having initially said it would not take part because it had missed an invitation to do so owing to a “communication problem”..
> a No 10 spokesman clarified that it had missed out because of an error and would consider participating in future. *It is understood the UK claims not to have received an email from the EU asking it to participate.*
> 
> what?
> ...



Probably went into the junk folder.


----------



## bimble (Mar 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Probably went into the junk folder.


I woke up still angry about that. The fucking shamelessness of lying about something so important. i sincerely hope that after this is over he is tried for whatever might be relevant legally.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 27, 2020)

donkyboy said:


> Got to laugh. a large number of those clapping had no problem taking food and supplies from NHS workers doing tiring long shifts and hoarding it for themselves


I’m sure there will be an overlap somewhere between hoarders and NHS workers. Just use kitchen rolll on yer arse and stop moaning.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 27, 2020)

I do find that bemusing when i go to the shop. BIG GAP- aha kitchen roll! One time there was 4 wee packets of tissues just sat there for the taking.


----------



## prunus (Mar 27, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> I’m sure there will be an overlap somewhere between hoarders and NHS workers. Just use kitchen rolll on yer arse and stop moaning.



Don’t flush it down the loo though, use a bin, like old fashioned holidays.

Kitchen roll doesn’t disintegrate when wet in the same way as lavatory paper, so risks blocking up the sewer pipes. Not an eventuality to be desired during a lockdown.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 27, 2020)

prunus said:


> Don’t flush it down the loo though, use a bin, like old fashioned holidays.
> 
> Kitchen roll doesn’t disintegrate when wet in the same way as lavatory paper, so risks blocking up the sewer pipes. Not an eventuality to be desired during a lockdown.


Aye I ken. Or use docken leaves like when you were a kid ...... depending on size of erse


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 27, 2020)

I knew as soon as typing i’d be pulled up for that.  never change urban


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 27, 2020)

prunus said:


> Don’t flush it down the loo though, use a bin, like old fashioned holidays.
> 
> Kitchen roll doesn’t disintegrate when wet in the same way as lavatory paper, so risks blocking up the sewer pipes. Not an eventuality to be desired during a lockdown.



Yep, sewer companies have started issuing warnings along the lines of "If you flush anything but toilet paper, the pipes will clog and shit will emerge from all the toilets, sinks, and tubs in your neighbourhood, and nobody will be able to come out to fix it, and also the shit will be contaminated with COVID-19." One backup in California was caused by somebody flushing the cut-up old T-shirts they'd been using.


----------



## bellaozzydog (Mar 27, 2020)

Saw the clip of Boris clapping outside No 10.....all I could think was 

Take the shot, TAKE THE SHOT


----------



## Dogsauce (Mar 27, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Christ. I wonder how long we are expected to stand and clap for?



first person to stop clapping HATES the NHS and will be summarily shamed on social media.


----------



## Dogsauce (Mar 27, 2020)

Anyway, we‘re in the basement flat with a small yard out front, all these clappers at the windows/on the balconies above waving their diseased hands and gobs around and shedding virus downwards into the only open space the kids can play in right now. Not sure they’ve thought this through...


----------



## Numbers (Mar 27, 2020)

Wow, even our road took part.

Most amazing thing.  2 doors down from us is an old boy Tony, used to talk with him and his wife all the time years ago when we moved into the road, she died 8 years ago and since then he’s been a hermit, now and again I’d see him pass by the window or around the hood, he’s in his late 70s, rattles around with old age and we think MS.  

We’ve been trying to connect with him again the last few weeks to no avail, but tonight at 8pm he and his daughter were out the front clapping.  We never met his daughter before (NHS MH nurse it turns out) but she now has our numbers, Tony waved and smiled, connection re-established.

He’s being looked after but his daughter works long hours so we’ve told her to call any time day or night if they need help in any way.


----------



## bimble (Mar 27, 2020)

a good thing: no evictions of any kind for (at least) three months starting now - basically all landlords have to give you 3 months notice, all existing attempts to evict people are void and no new cases allowed.





						[Withdrawn] COVID-19 and renting: guidance for landlords, tenants and local authorities
					

Non-statutory guidance for landlords, tenants and local authorities in the private and social rented sectors in the context of Coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 27, 2020)

A bit of clapping in the street doesn't excuse the vast majority of people who voted tory for their responsibility for fucking the nhs in the last 10 years.


----------



## prunus (Mar 27, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> A bit of clapping in the street doesn't excuse the vast majority of people who voted tory for their responsibility for fucking the nhs in the last 10 years.



TBF it’s not been a majority for 100 years, let alone a vast majority. Though absolutely does apply to the sizeable minority that did.

(unless you’re saying that it does excuse a small minority of Tory voters, in which case I have to disagree with you. There’s no excuse for voting Tory)


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 27, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> A bit of clapping in the street doesn't excuse the vast majority of people who voted tory for their responsibility for fucking the nhs in the last 10 years.



I'm ambivalent on the clapping. On Bristol Reddit there was a thread where everyone was patting themselves on the back for how great it was. I inserted a solidarity fund for H&S workers that is running into the thread along with a general post and it didn't get one interaction not even a share. False platitudes  for many I reckon!


----------



## killer b (Mar 27, 2020)

I didn't clap, but I regret not going out now. It's an opportunity to build solidarity and links with people in our communities, whatever else it might be.


----------



## killer b (Mar 27, 2020)

As a friend posted on facebook, _Nobody will be aided by decent people doing little but being perfectly right in their analysis. After this is all over, those people who need a hand won't be thanking you for your thoughts, either. _


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Doesn't stuff like this give a platform to make the points that the essential workers, the people that when it comes to it we can't get by without, are the carers, retail staff, bin men, nurses and that people in these occupations should be rewarded not just with gestures but economically, rather than just calling them cunts for voting tory. Look forward not backward. Strikes me as an opportunity in the crisis to build something


Yes, I think you're right that it does afford an opportunity to build upon, and I notice that my excellent local campaign to save our Hospital from Tory 'improvement' (losing its acute services) has latched onto this straight away. Good.
As I said in the post that HoratioCuthbert responded to, this all makes for 'interesting times' and potential problems for the vermin's narrative.
But...all that said...the anger I felt about the hypocrisy I saw from known Tory voting neighbours last night was a genuine affective response. I know it doesn't move things forward, but (kept to myself) it doesn't hinder either; it was just how I felt about all the smug, self-interested, tory voting twats out there making the easy, empty gesture of clapping on their doorstep for 1 minute. Going back inside thinking they'd done something for the NHS.

I'm also very conscious that our own personal reactions to this event may well be context/socio-economic geographical specific.


----------



## killer b (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I'm also very conscious that our own personal reactions to this event may well be context/socio-economic geographical specific.


Yeah, I would probably have found it easier to step outside and join in if I wasnt surrounded by tories. Got to suck it up tho I think.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> Yeah, I would probably have found it easier to step outside and join in if I wasnt surrounded by tories. Got to suck it up tho I think.


I think so.
Although, this morning I feel, if anything, a little angrier about it.
Is this likely to be a nightly/weekly happening?


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 27, 2020)

I didn't clap, didn't know about it. And deplore the way the torys have bled services dry to prop up finance.  A 12 hour shift caring for people is no way to run things, far too stressful for the workers.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> Yeah, I would probably have found it easier to step outside and join in if I wasnt surrounded by tories. Got to suck it up tho I think.


Where I live in Newham is 70% Lab and 16% Con.  Our road is as diverse as it gets.  Last night for the first time everyone was acknowledging everyone else, it was great.


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 27, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Where I live in Newham is 70% Lab and 16% Con.  Our road is as diverse as it gets.  Last night for the first time everyone was acknowledging everyone else, it was great.



I think that's the real positive.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 27, 2020)

bimble said:


> a good thing: no evictions of any kind for (at least) three months starting now - basically all landlords have to give you 3 months notice, all existing attempts to evict people are void and no new cases allowed.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is not so great imo. The landlord will still send you an eviction letter, they just won't be able to act on it yet. So shitloads of people will have that eviction letter hanging over them for the lockdown period, knowing it will kick in as soon as the lockdown is over.

They should have banned landlords from starting eviction proceedings, not just the possession bit of it.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> This is not so great imo. The landlord will still send you an eviction letter, he just won't be able to act on it yet. So shitloads of people will have that eviction letter hanging over them for the lockdown period, knowing it will kick in as soon as the lockdown is over.
> 
> They should have banned landlords from starting eviction proceedings, not just the possession bit of it.


Not great, probs an understatement.
At a time when the rentier scum are enjoying a mortgage 'holiday', the same should apply to rents, without prejudice.
Of course, this can be no surprise from the party of unearned income.


----------



## bimble (Mar 27, 2020)

Not great but am glad of it still, been on a month to month contract now at least I know I’m here till end of June.


----------



## cantsin (Mar 27, 2020)

while we're on Landlords, I see poor Lloyd Russell Moyle is getting a bit of stick for bravely standing up for the rights of his class in HoC yesterday


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

cantsin said:


> while we're on Landlords, I see poor Lloyd Russell Moyle is getting a bit of stick for bravely standing up for the rights of his class in HoC yesterday



£80k not enough, eh?


----------



## cantsin (Mar 27, 2020)

apparently not it seems,


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 27, 2020)

bimble said:


> Not great but am glad of it still, been on a month to month contract now at least I know I’m here till end of June.


Yeah, it's a small improvement. An important thing to be reminding people at this time is that you don't have to move out on the date your landlord says (even if it is after the lockdown period and the notice period is valid). You can stay in the house until they get a possession order from the court. Which is going to be a sloooow process after the lockdown, so you will potentially get months extra if you choose to just sit tight.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 27, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Aye I ken. Or use docken leaves like when you were a kid ...... depending on size of erse



Or it’s hirsute-ness


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> first person to stop clapping HATES the NHS and will be summarily shamed on social media.


Bit worried that the Queen will die and anyone who doesn't stand outside singing the national anthem at 8 pm will be put on some sort of list.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Bit worried that the Queen will die and anyone who doesn't stand outside singing the national anthem at 8 pm will be put on some sort of list.



Just tell them you have a sore throat so will dance instead


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 27, 2020)

I'm now very glad  to find out that despite no-clapping yesterday evening in my particular street, there was *PLENTY* in a large area of Swansea where my friends live (on a hill, so the applause echoed all around  )

And as for Tories turning out to clap  , at least that's almost certainly exceeded by *anti-Tories*  not joining in who live in remote areas, or in areas which were predominantly quiet.
Or who didn't join in because they were busy with essential things, or (not least!!) because they were ill, etc.


----------



## Sprocket. (Mar 27, 2020)

prunus said:


> Don’t flush it down the loo though, use a bin, like old fashioned holidays.
> 
> Kitchen roll doesn’t disintegrate when wet in the same way as lavatory paper, so risks blocking up the sewer pipes. Not an eventuality to be desired during a lockdown.


We have already prepared for using  kitchen roll, dog poo bags and binning it.
Just like we do whenever we are in Greece. The only difference is we considered putting used bags in our neighbour’s bin!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 27, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> Saw the clip of Boris clapping outside No 10.....all I could think was
> 
> Take the shot, TAKE THE SHOT


Tbf he had ABSOLUTELY NO CHOICE but to join in. It's one for the files when this is all over.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 27, 2020)

Thoughts treelover (hope you’re doing ok btw) Thread by @SteveBroach: This is the new regulation which prohibits people from leaving their homes ‘without reasonable excuse’. What does it mean for disabled peopl…


----------



## weepiper (Mar 27, 2020)

6 month ban on evictions in Scotland.








						Scottish Government to ban all evictions for six months
					

Emergency coronavirus legislation will include a six-month ban on evictions from social and private rented sector accommodation, the Scottish Government has announced.




					www.scottishhousingnews.com


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 27, 2020)

I bet all those clappy bastards voted brexit as well


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 27, 2020)

Millions to need food aid in days as virus exposes UK supply
					

Food charities warn of spiral of hunger unless government intervenes




					www.theguardian.com
				




In news that may surprise nobody...


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 27, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> A bit of clapping in the street doesn't excuse the vast majority of people who voted tory for their responsibility for fucking the nhs in the last 10 years.



No, it doesn't. But this is also what community solidarity looks like, you know, the kind of thing anarchists, socialists and communists should be looking to be building on.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 27, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> No, it doesn't. But this is also what community solidarity looks like, you know, the kind of thing anarchists, socialists and communists should be looking to be building on.


You are right. But without votes there is no representation, without finger pointing there is no blame.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 27, 2020)

Boris Johnson has tested positive.


----------



## kalidarkone (Mar 27, 2020)

I'm pretty sure if we all got tested most of us would be.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Boris Johnson has tested positive.



Will Laura Kuenssberg be in charge now?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 27, 2020)

Hard to feel sorry for him tbh


----------



## Idris2002 (Mar 27, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> Hard to feel sorry for him tbh


My schaden is extremely freuded right now.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 27, 2020)

Given how close he has been to Whitty et al could be a few more showing symptoms soon - he failed to model his own advice about distancing from the outset, in the briefings for example, so it is not really surprising.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Mar 27, 2020)

I appreciate the capitals


----------



## Sprocket. (Mar 27, 2020)

I for one am sending well-wishes to Johnson, as in I wish he’d fall in one.


----------



## keybored (Mar 27, 2020)

bellaozzydog said:


> Saw the clip of Boris clapping outside No 10.....all I could think was
> 
> Take the shot, TAKE THE SHOT






			
				SARS-CoV-2 said:
			
		

> Ok, hold my beer...


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 27, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Will Laura Kuenssberg be in charge now?



If anus to tongue transmission has been proven she stands no chance.  She'll be super-corona'd


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 27, 2020)

keybored


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

He'll milk it for all it's worth, the murderous, bumbling Weeble.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 27, 2020)

Don't worry Boris we'll beat it together.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Will Laura Kuenssberg be in charge now?


----------



## prunus (Mar 27, 2020)

So Boris is in hospital?  One has to assume, as he’s been tested. Not jumping the queue I hope. We’re all in this together and so on.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> View attachment 203584




Dover? What's that?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 27, 2020)

I wonder if cummings has also got it.


----------



## Mr Moose (Mar 27, 2020)

I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but at least there isn’t much chance he’ll give it to his kids.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Mar 27, 2020)

I might actually have to start drinking a bit earlier than I had planned...

TBF I dont really need an excuse but Its nice to be given an unexpected one.

Il wait til 12


----------



## phillm (Mar 27, 2020)

The problem is everybody wants this to be mild because if he got it and dies then what hope would there be for the rest of us  ?


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 27, 2020)

phillm said:


> The problem is everybody wants this to be mild because if he got it and dies then what hope would there be for the rest of us  ?



It doesn't work like that.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Mar 27, 2020)

Link to unrollled thread.



> Learned yesterday lockdown in Italy was on public sector/services, individuals not manufacturing. Many factories esp. in Lombardy/ North carried on. Acted as #COVID19 incubators? Yesterday in UK 'stop non essential work' hadn't banned manufacture/construction as above. Lessons?
> 
> Only action by workers, wild cat and national strike by some unions put a stop to this. In UK many unionised workers are organising and won sick pay for all from day1, PPE, closures of libraries on full pay etc. Join Facebook Corinavirus workers support group to share activism


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 27, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> I wonder if cummings has also got it.


Does Cummings not have some undisclosed medical condition ?  - certainly looks a bit odd ... wasn't he due for some sort of hospital treatment a while back ?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 27, 2020)

prunus said:


> So Boris is in hospital?  One has to assume, as he’s been tested.


They'll have been regularly testing the most important people in the country - I doubt it was making much of a dent in the supply of tests.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 27, 2020)

It'll keep Johnson away from people for a while. I wonder if this will knock his wedding plans and the sprog comes first?


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 27, 2020)

hash tag said:


> It'll keep Johnson away from people for a while. I wonder if this will knock his wedding plans and the sprog comes first?


If she loses the sprog, he'll dine out on it for years ...


----------



## pesh (Mar 27, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> I might actually have to start drinking a bit earlier than I had planned...
> 
> TBF I dont really need an excuse but Its nice to be given an unexpected one.
> 
> Il wait til 12


i bet this is exactly what went through Theresa May's head too


----------



## AverageJoe (Mar 27, 2020)

Ugh. 

My son got THE LETTER from the government telling him he's in the at risk group and has to self isolate from the family for twelve weeks. 

He's nine.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Ugh.
> 
> My son got THE LETTER from the government telling him he's in the at risk group and has to self isolate from the family for twelve weeks.
> 
> He's nine.


No advice enclosed for you on how to achieve this?


----------



## D (Mar 27, 2020)

weepiper said:


> 6 month ban on evictions in Scotland.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Glad to hear this.  We got 90 days no evictions in a city with serious wealth and housing inequality and the current epicenter of the virus in the US.  And no rent relief so far.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 27, 2020)

Hes just doing his bit towards herd immunity


----------



## treelover (Mar 27, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> If she loses the sprog, he'll dine out on it for years ...




wft!


----------



## prunus (Mar 27, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> They'll have been regularly testing the most important people in the country - I doubt it was making much of a dent in the supply of tests.



But they haven’t been testing the most important people in the country, that’s the point. They’re testing Boris, and Charles, and not intensive care nurses and doctors.

What difference does it make to Boris? He’s got symptoms, so he follows the rules and isolates. He’s going to continue running the country (hollow laugh) remotely, over IT systems, like everyone else. If it gets serious, he calls 111.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 27, 2020)

Has Johnson really got the big? Is this his way of saying he is just like the rest of us and really knows what it means to go into self isolation and when he says he knows it's tough he really means it.   
Bet his girlfriend is pleased to get a break for a week or two.


----------



## AverageJoe (Mar 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> No advice enclosed for you on how to achieve this?



Nah. I think the letter is a standard one sent from their database of "At Risk" patients, and so doesnt take into account his age,

As a family, we've been self isolating since Saturday, and only left the house three times in that time (and he's only been out once of those three times).

However, we arent going to do more than what we are doing (staying in as much as possible, home schooling, garden time, cleanliness etc) and even if we did it would be pointless as BaronessJoe is a nurse working in a Covid environment. She's going to work in scrubs, and getting changed at work, and then reversing that to come home. She then puts her clothes into a 60 Degree wash.

Ironically, Ted probably has more chance of getting it at home than he does outside, so we are just Keeping Calm and Carrying On the best we can.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 27, 2020)

prunus said:


> But they haven’t been testing the most important people in the country, that’s the point. They’re testing Boris, and Charles, and not intensive care nurses and doctors.


This is the crux of the biscuit.  And sadly why we as a country are staggering further into this shitstorm.


----------



## xes (Mar 27, 2020)

I've poured a rather large lunchypoos drink, good job I'm just a stones throw from work. Roll a joint for the walk back over the fields. Going to be a fun, and hopefully short afternoon. All on my own in a lab. 

Chin chin everyone!


----------



## Wilf (Mar 27, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> I wonder if cummings has also got it.


Cummings _is_ a virus.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 27, 2020)

Matt Hancock, health sec., has also got it.


----------



## oryx (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> View attachment 203584


It's posts like this that increasingly convince me we need to add  to the list of 'like' smilies.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Matt Hancock, health sec., has also got it.


Good luck to our microscopic comrades.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 27, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> If she loses the sprog, he'll dine out on it for years ...


jesus fuckin christ


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 27, 2020)

Whos for a game of cabinet bingo

fingers crossed for p patel


( ed to add ... this is in v poor taste , but have just had a lockdown cocktail, poor excuse too)


----------



## D (Mar 27, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Nah. I think the letter is a standard one sent from their database of "At Risk" patients, and so doesnt take into account his age,
> 
> As a family, we've been self isolating since Saturday, and only left the house three times in that time (and he's only been out once of those three times).
> 
> ...



My brother and his wife have a similar situation.  Wife is severely immune compromised.  Brother is pathologist in lab at NYC hospital (though not working directly with patients).  THey have a 4 month old, but wife is currently too ill (not from COVID, but from other illness) to care for the baby while my brother is at work, so they have someone driving to them each day to help (at least she has access to a car and is not on the subway).  May you all stay healthy, AverageJoe and fam.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 27, 2020)

Johnson’s got it. Hancock’s got it. Something something.


----------



## AverageJoe (Mar 27, 2020)

Cheers D, thats very kind of you. Hope your family stays safe too


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

Old guy (83, lives on own) from Sutton called George phoned in to R5 this am asking if he got in his car to drive to his fave spot nearby with his flask & sarnie and never got out...was it OK? (he didn't want to break the 'law'). Police bod on programme said, sorry, but 'No'; not an essential journey.
They relplayed George's question on R4 (without Police reply) & the 'expert' responding said...'Yeah'...fine for George to go out in the car like that as long he didn't get out/meet others & spread virus.

What a fucking dogs dinner.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Old guy (83, lives on own) from Sutton called George phoned in to R5 this am asking if he got in his car to drive to his fave spot nearby with his flask & sarnie and never got out...was it OK? (he didn't want to break the 'law'). Police bod on programme said, sorry, but 'No'; not an essential journey.
> They relplayed George's question on R4 (without Police reply) & the 'expert' responding said...'Yeah'...fine for George to go out in the car like that as long he didn't get out/meet others & spread virus.
> 
> What a fucking dogs dinner.



Since George's proposed trip didn't involve any exercise it was clearly illegal. But that's Radio 4 for you.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 27, 2020)

Continuing to deliver LOLs, nothing else


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Since George's proposed trip didn't involve any exercise it was clearly illegal. But that's Radio 4 for you.


As an aside, (& I'm really not trying to revive the parks argument   )...my 87YO FiL went out in his car yesterday and when he went to leave the shop...the battery was flat. Something that all car owners, esp. the elderly, will have to be aware of. If the vehicle sits for ages without moving this could really become a problem in emergencies & quite a widespread issue for AA etc.

An AA bod once told me that to bring the battery back up really requires 40mins of the engine running...don't know if that's right, mind?


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Matt Hancock, health sec., has also got it.


Maybe the virus thinks it is actually trying to save the NHS, rather than collapse it.


----------



## A380 (Mar 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Good luck to our microscopic comrades.


I want this on a tee shirt!


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Johnson’s got it. Hancock’s got it. Something something.


Even educated fleas got it.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Even educated fleas got it.



Voulez vous un cigarette


----------



## little_legs (Mar 27, 2020)

keybored


----------



## AverageJoe (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> As an aside, (& I'm really not trying to revive the parks argument   )...my 87YO FiL went out in his car yesterday and when he went to leave the shop...the battery was flat. Something that all car owners, esp. the elderly, will have to be aware of. If the vehicle sits for ages without moving this could really become a problem in emergencies & quite a widespread issue for AA etc.
> 
> An AA bod once told me that to bring the battery back up really requires 40mins of the engine running...don't know if that's right, mind?



I said this to the Baroness, so I turn the engine over for five minutes every few days. You dont have to move the car, just sit in it, listen to a couple of tunes on the radio and then thats it


----------



## little_legs (Mar 27, 2020)

The Great Escape


----------



## Smangus (Mar 27, 2020)

1st rat off the ship...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 27, 2020)

Sky News is reporting UK deaths, as of 5 pm yesterday, now stands at 759, up from 578.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:
			
		

> ..the battery was flat. Something that all car owners, esp. the elderly, will have to be aware of. If the vehicle sits for ages without moving this could really become a problem in emergencies & quite a widespread issue for AA etc.
> 
> An AA bod once told me that *to bring the battery back up really requires 40mins of the engine running...don't know if that's right, mind?       *





AverageJoe said:


> I said this to the Baroness, so I turn the engine over for five minutes every few days. You dont have to move the car, just sit in it, listen to a couple of tunes on the radio and then thats it



From our experience with The Van reaching *near*-flat-battery, I'd be more cautious than just a couple of tunes. 
Listen to more (good!  ) ones, ideally while (if possible) driving for 40 minutes or so at least. 
Just to be safe like


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 27, 2020)

Who's going to take over from Johnson then? 
I'm not yet going to assume that he'll be doing all the work from home, because we all know he's a lazy, detail-averse twat anyway


----------



## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

He is still in charge/slacking from home at the moment. It has previously been reported that Raab is the backup. It is also reported that Gove will do the press conference today.


----------



## Fez909 (Mar 27, 2020)

Big increases each day now....proper growth incoming


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Voulez vous un cigarette


I'm guessing this is a reference to something I'm in the dark about. Otherwise: Oui merci, mais laissez-la sur le pas de ma porte et reculez.


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 27, 2020)

Bet you’ve got the soft hands of a bourgeois intellectual too


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 27, 2020)

little_legs said:


> The Great Escape


----------



## weltweit (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> ..
> An AA bod once told me that to bring the battery back up really requires 40mins of the engine running...don't know if that's right, mind?


brogdale are you sure they said 40 minutes because that seems a long time to me. Monday to Friday my commute is way less than that and my battery never goes flat  - I am perhaps just 15 minutes in each direction.


----------



## belboid (Mar 27, 2020)

weltweit said:


> brogdale are you sure they said 40 minutes because that seems a long time to me. Monday to Friday my commute is way less than that and my battery never goes flat  - I am perhaps just 15 minutes in each direction.


iirr, its 40 minutes to get a reasonably full charge, but a few mins should be enough to get enough to get you going in the first place.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

weltweit said:


> brogdale are you sure they said 40 minutes because that seems a long time to me. Monday to Friday my commute is way less than that and my battery never goes flat  - I am perhaps just 15 minutes in each direction.


from flat.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 27, 2020)

belboid said:


> iirr, its 40 minutes to get a reasonably full charge, but a few mins should be enough to get enough to get you going in the first place.



Good distinction -- I would have said the same in my post above re our van experience, if  I'd remembered


----------



## Wilf (Mar 27, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> View attachment 203609
> 
> Big increases each day now....proper growth incoming


Yes, that's up 181 today I think.  Bit grim of me to turn this into anti-tory bashing, but anybody dying today probably caught the virus when johnson's line was 'carry on as normal, go to work but wash your hands'.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 27, 2020)

Don't idle your car for 40 minutes, other people need to breathe you know.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> from flat.


40 minutes driving from flat? After you've jump-charged it, then definitely, yes. Best to be safe than sorry/unsound, there'd be no need to cut corners anyway 

**Our experience was from near-flat with no jump-charging needed, just about,  but you get the point.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 27, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Don't idle your car for 40 minutes, other people need to breathe you know.



Fair point, but I think the thought was about driving it?? That's what we'd do if necessary.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 27, 2020)

I'm slightly annoyed about Vicky Park closing because it seems much more sensible to keep a big park open, where people can socially distance. I guess the small parks mean people don't walk as far to get there, but they'd be harder for cops to patrol and disperse groups. Vitamin D helps fight against infections, and a lot of people here have no outside space and tiny homes.

Glad the council has decided to keep a few markets open - for essential goods stalls only, of course. Shopping at outdoor markets rather than going inside to a supermarket seems like a good way of helping stop the spread. Plus the workers almost always live nearby (I'm not counting farmers' markets - they've been closed). Some people on my local covid support group though were reporting the market traders for being there.  



Chilli.s said:


> I've not had any communication of any kind from anything other than my gp to say the surgery is closed.



Me neither. And I'd be really surprised if I weren't counted as being in a vulnerable group - on immunosuppresants, bad asthma, heart defect, plus a slew of other health problems. I live with my autistic daughter who can help with some things but not all. Feels really weird that I haven't been sent a text or letter.



iona said:


> I've been having the ppe argument with people for the last couple weeks, even staff in my pharmacy are wearing badly fitted surgical masks and adjusting them with dirty gloves on. Would like to think the cleaning company staff I saw get out of their van and into a block of flats already wearing full kit head to toe are being v careful about how/when they remove that when they leave, but...



The staff in my pharmacy the other day weren't wearing masks or gloves, but in the supermarket nearby they were wearing gloves. 



two sheds said:


> And if people can't surf they shouldn't fucking be riding horses



Those were the cops dude 



Favelado said:


> eta - it is true that you're not allowed in the supermarket here without sanitising your hands at the door and they do provide you with gloves before you get inside. Maybe that makes sense. There's no point putting them on until you get to the supermarket door with freshly sanitised hands.



That's a really good idea. Not sure we have enough gloves (and definitely not enough hand sanitiser) to do it at the moment but it's a sensible precaution where possible assuming there's a bin to dispose of the gloves as you leave.



hot air baboon said:


> getting worried if I suddenly get a really bad tooth ache - pretty sure my dentist isn't doing alot atm



Pretty sure they'll still do emergency dentistry, because tooth infections can kill if they're not treated. Might not be at your usual dentist, but at the hospital, but it would be treated.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> I didn't clap, but I regret not going out now. It's an opportunity to build solidarity and links with people in our communities, whatever else it might be.


Opportunity to give each other the lurgy.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 27, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> If she loses the sprog, he'll dine out on it for years ...


Mm. This is unusual for you? You ok?


----------



## two sheds (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Those were the cops dude



One law for them another for us


----------



## TopCat (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> As an aside, (& I'm really not trying to revive the parks argument   )...my 87YO FiL went out in his car yesterday and when he went to leave the shop...the battery was flat. Something that all car owners, esp. the elderly, will have to be aware of. If the vehicle sits for ages without moving this could really become a problem in emergencies & quite a widespread issue for AA etc.
> 
> An AA bod once told me that to bring the battery back up really requires 40mins of the engine running...don't know if that's right, mind?


Trickle charge the battery.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 27, 2020)

My local GP surgery is closed but manned by the reception staff if you need to collect medicines. I had to knock at the door and she came out, in facemask and gloves, to see what I wanted then returned with my meds to hand them to me across the porch.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Me neither. And I'd be really surprised if I weren't counted as being in a vulnerable group


Look after you and yours, can't rely on the state.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 27, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Look after you and yours, can't rely on the state.



I will, but I'd rather have a back-up. One of my friends got the text just for being overweight. My history of always somehow being lost in the system seems to be true yet again.


----------



## Helen Back (Mar 27, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Opportunity to give each other the lurgy.



I love The Goon Show and that word is its ever-lasting pop culture legacy.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I will, but I'd rather have a back-up. One of my friends got the text just for being overweight. My history of always somehow being lost in the system seems to be true yet again.



I think they said if you don't get the letter and think you should (and you surely should!) there was a way of self-refering? It might've been to go through your GP - I can't remember!  There was also a timescale given for receiving it, too, I think - which will no doubt be longer than would be ideal atm.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

It's here scifisam -

Guidance on shielding and protecting people defined on medical grounds as extremely vulnerable from COVID-19 - so if you haven't received the letter by Sunday (not sure if that means they're delivering on Sundays, or that it hasn't come with Saturday's post). then discuss with your GP or hospital clinician.

ETA - and you can then go through the application to get assistance with food and med deliveries, too (in actual fact, that says 'If you’re not sure whether your medical condition makes you extremely vulnerable, register anyway. ' so you could do that now) -






						COVID-19: guidance for people whose immune system means they are at higher risk
					

Guidance for people aged 12 and over whose immune system means they are at higher risk of serious illness if they become infected with coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## treelover (Mar 27, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


>




like  a bat out of hell

waiting for the benny hill music next


----------



## treelover (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I will, but I'd rather have a back-up. One of my friends got the text just for being overweight. My history of always somehow being lost in the system seems to be true yet again.



I didn't get the letter, the text was a generic stay home one, still not sure whetther i am in it, though would like to get out soon.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 27, 2020)

treelover said:


> like  a bat out of hell
> 
> waiting for the benny hill music next



"scuttle" gives the clue


----------



## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

treelover said:


> I didn't get the letter, the text was a generic stay home one, still not sure whetther i am in it, though would like to get out soon.



You probably just got the government text that everyone else got.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> You probably just got the government text that everyone else got.



None of us have had that yet, ftr (not nearly as important for us as for people with health problems who're due the letters, obvs - just saying).


----------



## scifisam (Mar 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I think they said if you don't get the letter and think you should (and you surely should!) there was a way of self-refering? It might've been to go through your GP - I can't remember!  There was also a timescale given for receiving it, too, I think - which will no doubt be longer than would be ideal atm.



I registered via this link a few days ago: Get coronavirus support as an extremely vulnerable person (thanks to Nagapie posting it) but it's weird that I have to do that, and that site can't have been live for long enough to be the reason people are getting these texts and letters. 

I'm not that worried about food right now, because we have a decent amount in and lots of locals are offering help (and J can go out, too, because she's not bad at shopping, though that would mean the flat isn't locked down), and for prescriptions I have a friend who I know will go and get them for me (when they have them in and I don't have to go in in person and beg because they've fucked it up again, grr). 

But it's still slightly concerning that someone with my health conditions isn't automatically counted and someone fit and healthy, but very overweight, is. I know weight is a consideration but she really is healthy otherwise - she was surprised to get the text. I guess there will be fuck-ups with every major system.


----------



## PD58 (Mar 27, 2020)

This may have been posted but an interesting perspective (amongst many) from a humanist (yes i know it is the Spectator but let's not jump to conclusions)

How deadly is coronavirus? It's still far from clear


----------



## BCBlues (Mar 27, 2020)

Live updates - Coronavirus death toll reaches 759 and morgue to open at Birmingham Airport

Live Prime Minister Boris coronavirus#ICID=Android_BMNewsApp_AppShare

Brum airport as a morgue is scary, talk of the NEC to be used as a hospital too similar to set up down the Nightingale.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I registered via this link a few days ago: Get coronavirus support as an extremely vulnerable person (thanks to Nagapie posting it) but it's weird that I have to do that, and that site can't have been live for long enough to be the reason people are getting these texts and letters.
> 
> I'm not that worried about food right now, because we have a decent amount in and lots of locals are offering help (and J can go out, too, because she's not bad at shopping, though that would mean the flat isn't locked down), and for prescriptions I have a friend who I know will go and get them for me (when they have them in and I don't have to go in in person and beg because they've fucked it up again, grr).
> 
> But it's still slightly concerning that someone with my health conditions isn't automatically counted and someone fit and healthy, but very overweight, is. I know weight is a consideration but she really is healthy otherwise - she was surprised to get the text. I guess there will be fuck-ups with every major system.



Yeah, they were definitely planning for people to fall through the net, weren't they (by setting up the alternative method). I did also hear something about where they were drawing that info from - and why it probably wouldn't include everyone it should - but I can't remember what it was 
The weight thing was a BMI of over 40, I think - so again, I guess it's just shot out to everyone on record they have down as that, regardless of their general state of health.
Maybe it'll still turn up by Sunday - but I can well imagine the concern when you've had such a dire experience of joined up services already - and that this is all with you being aware that you should be listed as vulnerable, when others might not.
Very glad you're getting help with deliveries etc. x


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 27, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> If she loses the sprog, he'll dine out on it for years ...


You disgust me.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 27, 2020)

Witty also self isolating


----------



## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> Live updates - Coronavirus death toll reaches 759 and morgue to open at Birmingham Airport
> 
> Brum airport as a morgue is scary, talk of the NEC to be used as a hospital too similar to set up down the Nightingale.



Yeah there were clues about that a week ago, although they were being deliberately vague then.









						Military helicopters training over airport amid Covid-19 crisis
					

RAF pilots are on manoeuvres around the airport as part of plans to assist in transporting patients




					www.birminghammail.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Mar 27, 2020)

weltweit said:


> brogdale are you sure they said 40 minutes because that seems a long time to me. Monday to Friday my commute is way less than that and my battery never goes flat  - I am perhaps just 15 minutes in each direction.


40 minutes to recharge the battery from flat.

Which sounds about right - most batteries are in the 40-60Ah range, which would mean that fully charging in 15 minutes would involve currents of up to 240A. Trust me, alternators don't kick out that much!


----------



## MrSki (Mar 27, 2020)

treelover said:


> like  a bat out of hell
> 
> waiting for the benny hill music next


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Trickle charge the battery.


What's that involve?


----------



## T & P (Mar 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News is reporting UK deaths, as of 5 pm yesterday, now stands at 759, up from 578.


I get the feeling that because the death rate in the UK has until now been relatively very small compared with the likes of Italy and Spain that some idiots think this thing is going to pass us by somehow.

I'd love to be wrong but unfortunately in three weeks time the figures are almost certainly going to be extremely grim. I hope that will bear on the minds of the people who are still treating this as a joke and a free holiday to enjoy the countryside or have outdoor parties and BBQs with friends.


----------



## keybored (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> What's that involve?


A battery charger and a fair bit (like, 12-16 hours) of time. Just in case that wasn't a rhetorical question


----------



## campanula (Mar 27, 2020)

Bloody hell, youngest ordered back to work on monday (he is a fabricator!) yet his partner is in the 1.5 million 'shielded group (Cancer,  totally. immune deficient.  Told it's work or he gets nothing! I looked at the guidance and it's just some crap about using separate bathrooms (ffs).They are privately renting and have not been given a rent holiday.
I dunno why the shop is even staying open (tools and hardware) as well as the metal workshop. There is a possibility to self-isolate in the workshop as long as he can stop his idiot boss from wandering around but really, being told he has to work or else seems brutal, given the risks.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

keybored said:


> A battery charger and a fair bit (like, 12-16 hours) of time. Just in case that wasn't a rhetorical question


No, genuine q.
I don't have any charger, so I guess it's just going to have to be a bit of drive occasionally to keep the thing topped up.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 27, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> You disgust me.



gentlegreen, your post was disgusting, and your reaction to this reply was to laugh.

This is a post from a doctor, fighting on the front-line, who is now self isolating, because they are showing symptoms.

You need to get an fucking grip & apologise for your disgusting behaviour.

And, grow the fuck up.


----------



## redsquirrel (Mar 27, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> You disgust me.


Bit harsh. I don't think gentlegreen is saying he wants her to lose the kid just that if it does happen it will be used for political gain. Maybe I'm just a horrible cynical bastard but I agree with him on that, after all there is precedence.


----------



## kropotkin (Mar 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> gentlegreen, your post was disgusting, and your reaction to this reply was to laugh.
> 
> This is a post from a doctor, fighting on the front-line, who is now self isolating, because they are showing symptoms.
> 
> ...


Thanks. 

I was a bit judgemental there, sorry. Just feel a bit crap so not on form today.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 27, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> You disgust me.



He would though. It wouldn't be like other people losing their kids. It wouldn't even be like Gordon Brown losing his kid or possibly even David Cameron (and they both did lose kids while in government). Brown did his best to mourn in privacy and it was shameful how the tabloids treated the situation. Cameron used his son's condition and death for political gain. He used his disabled son in arguments about cutting disability benefits, arguing for cuts, not against them, on the grounds that he knew what it was like. 

Boris doesn't give a tiny shit about the kids he already has, doesn't even know how many there are, never sees them, and would use his dead baby shamelessly. The vast majority of parents, even if they're otherwise despicable people, would be utterly devastated when they lost a baby (his GF probably would be one of them) but Boris is not one of them. 

Acknowledging that doesn't mean you want the unborn child to suffer. Poor fucker's going to suffer enough with the family it has.


----------



## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

Press conference mentions that two further emergency hospitals have been given the go ahead. At the Birmingham NEC and Manchester Central Convention Complex.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> He would though. It wouldn't be like other people losing their kids. It wouldn't even be like Gordon Brown losing his kid or possibly even David Cameron (and they both did lose kids while in government). Brown did his best to mourn in privacy and it was shameful how the tabloids treated the situation. Cameron used his son's condition and death for political gain. He used his disabled son in arguments about cutting disability benefits, arguing for cuts, not against them, on the grounds that he knew what it was like.
> 
> Boris doesn't give a tiny shit about the kids he already has, doesn't even know how many there are, never sees them, and would use his dead baby shamelessly. The vast majority of parents, even if they're otherwise despicable people, would be utterly devastated when they lost a baby (his GF probably would be one of them) but Boris is not one of them.
> 
> Acknowledging that doesn't mean you want the unborn child to suffer. Poor fucker's going to suffer enough with the family it has.


Exactly how I meant it.


----------



## Dogsauce (Mar 27, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Will Laura Kuenssberg be in charge now?



I did have to tell myself off for snorting the other evening when Kuessenberg started her piece on the evening news with the sentence ‘Boris Johnson was very firm tonight...”


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

campanula said:


> Bloody hell, youngest ordered back to work on monday (he is a fabricator!) yet his partner is in the 1.5 million 'shielded group (Cancer,  totally. immune deficient.  Told it's work or he gets nothing! I looked at the guidance and it's just some crap about using separate bathrooms (ffs).They are privately renting and have not been given a rent holiday.
> I dunno why the shop is even staying open (tools and hardware) as well as the metal workshop. There is a possibility to self-isolate in the workshop as long as he can stop his idiot boss from wandering around but really, being told he has to work or else seems brutal, given the risks.



It's fucking insane, the guidance, when those of us with no existing health problems are all, correctly, being advised to STAY AT HOME.
If your son was in that category - being able to wfh, it'd be a little easier to manage - but there should be rigid guidlines to support people - financially (and to protect their jobs and their housing) - who are _not_ in that situation, when they live with people at huge risk and likely in small (errr..._normal_-sized) properties where it's _impossible_ to adapt in the suggested ways.

The advice so muddled - could his employer theoretically claim for the 80% of his wages - or is that automatically out on the basis of the boss keeping it open on the grounds of it being a business that is exempt (hardware)?


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

Not really sure, but isn't the 80% just for businesses in categories that have been ordered to close?


----------



## killer b (Mar 27, 2020)

I don't know exactly what the employer has to prove to get the 80% paid to furloughed staff, but they dont have to have closed, only experienced a drop in business.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> No, genuine q.
> I don't have any charger, so I guess it's just going to have to be a bit of drive occasionally to keep the thing topped up.



I haven't touched my car for a fortnight now, bit worried, might have to go for a drive tomorrow just to stop it dying which is fucking silly really


----------



## little_legs (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> He would though. It wouldn't be like other people losing their kids. It wouldn't even be like Gordon Brown losing his kid or possibly even David Cameron (and they both did lose kids while in government). Brown did his best to mourn in privacy and it was shameful how the tabloids treated the situation. Cameron used his son's condition and death for political gain. He used his disabled son in arguments about cutting disability benefits, arguing for cuts, not against them, on the grounds that he knew what it was like.
> 
> Boris doesn't give a tiny shit about the kids he already has, doesn't even know how many there are, never sees them, and would use his dead baby shamelessly. The vast majority of parents, even if they're otherwise despicable people, would be utterly devastated when they lost a baby (his GF probably would be one of them) but Boris is not one of them.
> 
> Acknowledging that doesn't mean you want the unborn child to suffer. Poor fucker's going to suffer enough with the family it has.


I've not heard anyone say anything about the child, but a week ago, when we were forced to go to work, a few people on my office said _I hope Boris dies during childbirth_. At first I was like what did you just say? but then I thought yeah, ok, I can understand that line of reasoning.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Not really sure, but isn't the 80% just for businesses in categories that have been ordered to close?


Apart from non essential retail shops, pubs clubs gyms etc - other businesses and factories haven't really been told to close. People have been told to work from home wherever possible, and workers have been told to maintain 2m distance between people (social distancing), and people in the high risk groups have been told to isolate at home, but employers haven't clearly been told to stop work (even in Italy) which makes things tricky.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

Ball firmly in employers court:



So my eldest, who temps, asked his agency employer if they had any intention of engaging with this scheme and they told him no. Why would they? They don't give a fuck about their hirelings...rather than bother to engage with the state admin to retain, they'll let them apply for UC and pick up loads of (desperate) folk when their contracts pick up.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't know exactly what the employer has to prove to get the 80% paid to furloughed staff, but they dont have to have closed, only experienced a drop in business.


Just been Googling, and it seems like it is for businesses forced to or claiming that jobs are not immediately viable. Not clear what has to be shown to prove that. Remembering that it was announced pre-lockdown, it looks like there is nothing in the case where a business just takes a decision that closing is the right thing to do. If that happens, all you have is a UC claim. Or it looks like that, anyway.


----------



## BCBlues (Mar 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah there were clues about that a week ago, although they were being deliberately vague then.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



While we're here elbows thanks for all your informative and balanced posts. You are a credit to U75.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> I haven't touched my car for a fortnight now, bit worried, might have to go for a drive tomorrow just to stop it dying which is fucking silly really


But...on a more serious note...I'm not fucking risking it at all...Mrs B is in a very risky COPD cohort and I'm not banking on a ambulance actually turning up...if it comes to that. Sorry for the drama, but this is stressing me a bit.


----------



## klang (Mar 27, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> While we're here elbows thanks for all your informative and balanced posts. You are a credit to U75.


seconded. Thanks elbows.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> But...on a more serious note...I'm not fucking risking it at all...Mrs B is in a very risky COPD cohort and I'm not banking on a ambulance actually turning up...if it comes to that. Sorry for the drama, but this is stressing me a bit.


Are you in the RAC or whatever? They are probably going to carry on working throughout, even though they're not going to be immune from staff shortages. Appreciate it's an expense.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Ball firmly in employers court:
> 
> View attachment 203634
> 
> So my eldest, who temps, asked his agency employer if they had any intention of engaging with this scheme and they told him no. Why would they? They don't give a fuck about their hirelings...rather than bother to engage with the state admin to retain, they'll let them apply for UC and pick up loads of (desperate) folk when their contracts pick up.



This comes from a fantasy world where, when an employer says "regretfully due to circumstances we must let you go, if there was any other way believe me we would take it", they actually _mean_ it.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 27, 2020)




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## brogdale (Mar 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Are you in the RAC or whatever? They are probably going to carry on working throughout, even though they're not going to be immune from staff shortages. Appreciate it's an expense.


Yep, I've got cover with the Direct Line car ins...but, you know...I just want to know that the car will fire, if and when.
I really can't see it coming to the OB stopping folk in GL, but even if they did, the obvious answer is 'going shopping'.
So, fuck it... the car will moved fairly regularly.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 27, 2020)




----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 27, 2020)

(Actually if I was eligible I'm pretty sure my would-be employer _would_ put me on furlough, but then I'm relatively privileged in the job market.)


----------



## little_legs (Mar 27, 2020)




----------



## xenon (Mar 27, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> Thanks.
> 
> I was a bit judgemental there, sorry. Just feel a bit crap so not on form today.



Take care fella.
I'll buy you a pint next time you're in the the Cori.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

So, realistically, it simply relies on your employer _giving a shit_ to begin with (hollow laugh) - it doesn't protect jobs and it definitely doesn't protect people's health and/or the strain on the NHS.
So it needs _enforcing_, to work?


----------



## little_legs (Mar 27, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> A bit of clapping in the street doesn't excuse the vast majority of people who voted tory for their responsibility for fucking the nhs in the last 10 years.



I am the person who said *I don't know*


----------



## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

Personal protective equipment scandal has been looming for a while, looks like some background work is being done on establishing how this situation came to be exactly. The answers probably wont surprise many if this is anything to go by.


----------



## scifisam (Mar 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Ball firmly in employers court:
> 
> View attachment 203634
> 
> So my eldest, who temps, asked his agency employer if they had any intention of engaging with this scheme and they told him no. Why would they? They don't give a fuck about their hirelings...rather than bother to engage with the state admin to retain, they'll let them apply for UC and pick up loads of (desperate) folk when their contracts pick up.



They should, really, because they'll get 80% back. Agencies are employers and eligible for the scheme. It'd probably cost them less in the medium term than losing employees and having to redo things like DBS checks, proof driving licence, etc.

Will he be eligible for universal credit? If he's also registered as self-employed (most people I know who do some agency work are), the income floor has been dropped, for three months (possibly longer, but three months for now), which is a very bad way of putting it, but it means the govt won't assume he earns a full-time minimum wage before paying him universal credit on top. 

I know everyone's having trouble getting their universal credit applications sent through right now, but it's worth bearing in mind that the eligibility date doesn't start from when you complete the application, it's from when you start it. Can't remember the limit for the application window, but IIRC it was at least a week (I think it might be 31 days but I'll say a week because I'm sure it's not less than that. It was some reasonable time lag to allow people to complete their forms). I can't find any links for that right now because there are so many other stories about universal credit. 

So if you can get registered for a claim, even if you haven't submitted a full form, your claim starts from the date you started trying to claim.

It's also very important to remember that universal credit is not just the per person payment. You get some money for rent and council tax too, plus top-ups for kids. Tat seemed obvious to me, but I've seen a hell of a lot of people panicking about paying their rent out of £90 a week.


----------



## killer b (Mar 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Just been Googling, and it seems like it is for businesses forced to or claiming that jobs are not immediately viable. Not clear what has to be shown to prove that. Remembering that it was announced pre-lockdown, it looks like there is nothing in the case where a business just takes a decision that closing is the right thing to do. If that happens, all you have is a UC claim. Or it looks like that, anyway.


well... I'm a little sus about how many businesses actually took that decision based purely on altruism. Plenty have said it's why they're closing, but in the vast majority of cases they'll also have experienced a catastrophic drop in business.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> well... I'm a little sus about how many businesses actually took that decision based purely on altruism. Plenty have said it's why they're closing, but in the vast majority of cases they'll also have experienced a catastrophic drop in business.


No doubt. But I think it's the drop in business that allows them to qualify. I don't claim that my interpretation of things is infallible. But I think Argos, for example, might find it hard to say business has been slow recently and they can't pay the wages. So they probably can't claim the 80%.


----------



## xes (Mar 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Are you in the RAC or whatever? They are probably going to carry on working throughout, even though they're not going to be immune from staff shortages. Appreciate it's an expense.


We've got to get the AA out tomorrow can the other half left his lights on and the battery is now a bit flat. I might jump start instead it and take it out for a drive in the country.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Personal protective equipment scandal has been looming for a while, looks like some background work is being done on establishing how this situation came to be exactly. The answers probably wont surprise many if this is anything to go by.




Lots of very stark and disturbing new advice that our posters who work in the NHS are currently having to prepare to work with, re the lack of appropriate PPE and their ability to work without it, while it's urgent that they keep themselves as well as possible, too.
It's utterly disgraceful - both the awful position they find themselves in and the absolute cost to lives it'll undoubdtedly cause, when they will be clearly unable to treat people they otherwise could.
I know this isn't a surprise but fuck, it's grim.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> No doubt. But I think it's the drop in business that allows them to qualify. I don't claim that my interpretation of things is infallible. But I think Argos, for example, might find it hard to say business has been slow recently and they can't pay the wages. So they probably can't claim the 80%.



But equally, for some smaller buisnesses, that if they can find reasons to stay open (and keep the money coming in), they might just _not be arsed_ to claim, even while they put their own workers families/cohabitees at direct risk, when those are in the vulnerable groups - and when the gov advice is specific on them not needing to do that either.


----------



## Lorca (Mar 27, 2020)

Folks worried about relying on their cars could fit a battery isolator for a fiver from ebay if they dont mind having parcel deliveries.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 27, 2020)

Stupid fucking moronic cunts 









						Huge fire 'caused by BBQ' rips through Winter Hill near Bolton
					

Smoke could be seen for miles around the area




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
				




Also, they're planning new Nightingale's in Manchester and Birmingham.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

On testing, btw - I got this email today (from FluSurvey, who my daughter and I signed up with a couple of years ago) -

*To better understand the spread of coronavirus and improve its response, we would like to invite you to take part in a self testing survey. We will randomly select a proportion of Flusurvey participants who agree to participate as well as members of their households. If selected, you will receive a home test kit for yourself, as well as for your family members if you agree for them being tested.

The test kit(s) will contain instructions of how to self swab and should be used as soon as possible whether or not you and/or your household members are feeling unwell. Please follow the instructions and return the swab in the reply-paid envelope supplied as quickly as possible. The tests can be posted back to Public Health England using the pre-stamped return envelope included in the kit.

Please note that not everyone who agrees to participate will receive a test and the purpose of this testing is to understand the spread of coronavirus in the community. The testing survey is not designed to be an individual testing service and we may not be able to give you the result of your test. If you would like to help Public Health England better fight the spread of coronavirus and you/your household members consent to being selected to receiving home test kits, please click the link below to take part.*


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Also, they're planning new Nightingale's in Manchester and Birmingham.


For a split second, I thought you were talking about a shop. I actually did.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 27, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Stupid fucking moronic cunts


One of the two flag-flying neighbours opposite has been lighting fires over the past couple of nights and I swear I kept hearing air weapon fire ...

I assumed it was "military Land Rover man" at first, but it turned out to be "George Cross and LFC" man ...


----------



## Raheem (Mar 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> But equally, for some smaller buisnesses, that if they can find reasons to stay open (and keep the money coming in), they might just _not be arsed_ to claim, even while they put their own workers families/cohabitees at direct risk, when those are in the vulnerable groups - and when the gov advice is specific on them not needing to do that either.


Yes, totally. I'm not trying to defend the idea of businesses staying open, other than those that really are essential.


----------



## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> On testing, btw - I got this email today (from FluSurvey, who my daughter and I signed up with a couple of years ago) -
> 
> *To better understand the spread of coronavirus and improve its response, we would like to invite you to take part in a self testing survey. We will randomly select a proportion of Flusurvey participants who agree to participate as well as members of their households. If selected, you will receive a home test kit for yourself, as well as for your family members if you agree for them being tested.*



Excellent, these sorts of surveys are very important. They cannot give the same picture that antibody ones would, but they could still offer clues that could point in a similar direction.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Yes, totally. I'm not trying to defend the idea of businesses staying open, other than those that really are essential.



Oh, I know you weren't - I was querying it in my own mind as much as anything! 
It's something else that needs to be urgently responded to and dealt with isn't it?


----------



## scifisam (Mar 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> well... I'm a little sus about how many businesses actually took that decision based purely on altruism. Plenty have said it's why they're closing, but in the vast majority of cases they'll also have experienced a catastrophic drop in business.



If a company is going through a severe downturn due to having to coronavirus, that sounds like a good reason to apply for the grant. Unless you meant something else, KillerB.



sheothebudworths said:


> On testing, btw - I got this email today (from FluSurvey, who my daughter and I signed up with a couple of years ago) -
> 
> *To better understand the spread of coronavirus and improve its response, we would like to invite you to take part in a self testing survey. We will randomly select a proportion of Flusurvey participants who agree to participate as well as members of their households. If selected, you will receive a home test kit for yourself, as well as for your family members if you agree for them being tested.
> 
> ...



Awesome! I mean swabs sent from home aren't going to be 100% reliable statistically, but they'll likely be reliable for you, and they'll be better than nothing as opposed to not testing and won't require people breaking lockdown to get tested by medical professionals who have other things to do.

It's probably not a bad way of getting some participants, too. 

As long as it's definitely from the right website, obvs.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Excellent, these sorts of surveys are very important. They cannot give the same picture that antibody ones would, but they could still offer clues that could point in a similar direction.



I hope it follows that that means that testing will be absolutely thrown towards frontline workers and carers and vulnerable households etc, too (I know appropiate tests may differ there).


----------



## killer b (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> If a company is going through a severe downturn due to having to coronavirus, that sounds like a good reason to apply for the grant. Unless you meant something else, KillerB.


I was replying to Raheem posting that companies that closed for 'the safety of their staff' or whatever might not be eligible - I'm fairly sure most of them are.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> If a company is going through a severe downturn due to having to coronavirus, that sounds like a good reason to apply for the grant. Unless you meant something else, KillerB.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Oh, it's a safe site, afaik - just tracks flu - and I don't expect to get results back!

ETA - https://flusurvey.net/en/ (we signed up in Dec 2018 when they judged that we DID have actual flu, fwiw * take that _work/school_ * )


----------



## kebabking (Mar 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah there were clues about that a week ago, although they were being deliberately vague then.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



JHC have deployed three Puma medium lift helicopters to RAF Kinloss near Inverness in preparation for civil contingency ops, with a further deployment to RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire. an RAF Chinook heavy lift helicopter carried out a medivac from the Scilly isles, an RAF A400M did a medivac from Shetland to Aberdeen, and an RAF C-130J has conducted familiarisation landings at London City Airport - which just happens to be next to the Excel Centre NHS Nightingale...

(Incidentally, the Birmingham Mail decided to use a picture of a coastguard helicopter in their piece - different colour, different type, and with HM Coastguard written on it - but I'm sure that their journalism is to be trusted....).


----------



## scifisam (Mar 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Oh, it's a safe site, afaik - just tracks flu - and I don't expect to get results back!
> 
> ETA - https://flusurvey.net/en/ (we signed up in Dec 2018 when they judged that we DID have actual flu, fwiw * take that _work/school_ * )



Oh, that's interesting. If it's just testing for flu that might also be a good idea now too, to get a better idea of how widespread flu is compared to corona.

Though I wonder if one positive side-effect of all this might be temporary lower rates of flu. Plus other coronaviruses, but that would be harder to keep track of, since nearly everyone gets one now and then, and we don't test for them, and they probably won't die off even with really intense lockdowns.


----------



## Petcha (Mar 27, 2020)

Hi, I'm in a slightly tricky situation and wondered if anyone could offer some advice.

My landlady/flatmate gave me notice a week or so before shit really hit the fan here and I found a new room pretty quickly. I'm not particularly keen on the new place but I paid my deposit and am due to move on Sunday. It's living with four other people and isn't huge whereas my current place is more spacious and it's just the two of us. So isolation is obviously easier.

The reason my landlady asked me to leave was because she wanted the room for a friend who was coming to stay from abroad, she's not coming now so she's said I can stay. Do you think I can get my deposit back? 

This article sort of suggests I shouldn't move:









						Can you still move house during the coronavirus lockdown?
					

Housing Secretary clarifies guidance for renters.




					www.homesandproperty.co.uk
				




But I don't know about my legal footing as the new place was just a three month sublet and she's already got my deposit in her account. Sorry for the long post, got carried away! I think I'm going to stay where I am but I'd like to get my 300 quid back.


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## keybored (Mar 27, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Hi, I'm in a slightly tricky situation and wondered if anyone could offer some advice.
> 
> My landlady/flatmate gave me notice a week or so before shit really hit the fan here and I found a new room pretty quickly. I'm not particularly keen on the new place but I paid my deposit and am due to move on Sunday. It's living with four other people and isn't huge whereas my current place is more spacious and it's just the two of us. So isolation is obviously easier.
> 
> ...


Tell your current landlady you'll stay if it helps her out, but she's going to have to knock £300 off the rent for messing you around and losing you your deposit. Otherwise you'll just move and she will get nothing as she won't be renting that room out to anyone for a while.


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## Azrael (Mar 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> A lot of it is the orthodox approach shining through again. In many ways this comes down to the long-term UK medical establishment approach towards testing in general, as well as testing at different stages of epidemics, pandemics and observing the seasonal Influenza-like-illness picture every year.
> 
> Theres no emphasis on, expectation of or capacity for mass testing. Instead they go for various surveillance systems, testing a small subset of people within communities and extrapolating the wider picture. Vigorous testing of every possible case is normally reserved for the very early phase only, where limited numbers apply and there is specific data they are trying to obtain. Later testing goes back to the sample-based approach, with some exceptions along certain lines, including some clinical need ones.
> 
> ...


Thanks for that, illustrates that the roots of Britain's disastrous response go far deeper than regulator capture by Cummings and his weirdos (run, Cummings, run, Cummings, run, run, run).

Orthodoxy in every sense, now being given the weight of religious dogma, despite being based on modelling for a different disease, and being contradicted by a spreading mountain of clinical data. Science isn't meant to have orthodoxies, just hypotheses and paradigms that shift according to new evidence, and this is why.

There's some reckoning ahead.


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Hi, I'm in a slightly tricky situation and wondered if anyone could offer some advice.
> 
> My landlady/flatmate gave me notice a week or so before shit really hit the fan here and I found a new room pretty quickly. I'm not particularly keen on the new place but I paid my deposit and am due to move on Sunday. It's living with four other people and isn't huge whereas my current place is more spacious and it's just the two of us. So isolation is obviously easier.
> 
> ...



The advice from your post that looks most relevant is - 

Mr Jenrick advises: *“If moving is unavoidable because you’re contracted and the parties aren’t able to agree a delay, you must follow advice on social distancing when moving.”*

David Cox, chief executive at ARLA Propertymark, the letting agents’ industry regulatory body, says *house moves should be put on hold for now to adhere to government guidance that people should stay home.*

He said:* “We are asking tenants to stay put for the duration of this period,* *continue paying rent, and to seek government assistance if they’re struggling with their rent costs.”*

Housing charity *Shelter says tenants should negotiate with both their old and new landlords over their start and end dates.* The current tenancy would then usually continue as a periodic tenancy – rolling on a monthly basis – rather than a fixed-term contract.

So I reckon you quote all of that to the new one, at the very least - that you must adhere to the regs and will need your deposit back to pay the rent where you are now?
It's something else that's not clear (am wondering if housing benefit would cover it otherwise for eg, if you do still have to commit to moving later, in theory, due to the contract but while you're also down £300 on a deposit for a room you're supposed to be moving into now). I'm making this up as I go along, tbf - but I'd say it's worth calling them in case.

Was your current landlady allowed to give a weeks notice, btw?!


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

keybored said:


> Tell your current landlady you'll stay if it helps her out, but she's going to have to knock £300 off the rent for messing you around and losing you your deposit. Otherwise you'll just move and she will get nothing as she won't be renting that room out to anyone for a while.



I _always_ choose the more _complicated_ route


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## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Oh, that's interesting. If it's just testing for flu that might also be a good idea now too, to get a better idea of how widespread flu is compared to corona.
> 
> Though I wonder if one positive side-effect of all this might be temporary lower rates of flu. Plus other coronaviruses, but that would be harder to keep track of, since nearly everyone gets one now and then, and we don't test for them, and they probably won't die off even with really intense lockdowns.



No, it is a test for coronavirus, not the flu. Probably some confusion because of the name of the site and what their usual activities involve.

The main UK influenza season was very early this year so its too late to spot dramatic effect of lockdowns on that. Australia and some other countries will head into winter in the coming months so depending on timing of lockdowns we might yet get to see a dramatic effect on other illnesses there.


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## keybored (Mar 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I _always_ choose the more _complicated_ route


I was thinking mine might be a bit overly simplistic, but if Petcha can combine the two approaches, get their deposit back _and_ get a £300 rent holiday, that's a good outcome.


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## Petcha (Mar 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Was your current landlady allowed to give a weeks notice, btw?!



No, she gave me three weeks, I just moved really quickly on gettin a new flat as I was worried about the apocalypse. Happy ending though, I messaged the girl I was gonna sublet from and she's going to refund me. I feel fucking terrible as the reason she was subletting it for three months was because she was going for a cancer operation in Poland. And now she's gonna really struggle to find a replacement.... This fucking virus.


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## killer b (Mar 27, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Happy ending though, I messaged the girl I was gonna sublet from and she's going to refund me.


your landlady doesn't need to know this, mind.


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## ddraig (Mar 27, 2020)

One thing that's puzziling me is why on the news last night did they say there may be less than 20,000 (a lot still of course) deaths in the uk now?
Obviously this doesn't seem possible compared to other countries and the escalating death rate here as well as these new mega morgues being built 
Why give that false hope on the 10 o clock news??


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## Petcha (Mar 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> your landlady doesn't need to know this, mind.



Oops! I already told her. I'm not that smart. They're both nice people though.


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## weltweit (Mar 27, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Oops! I already told her. I'm not that smart. *They're both nice people *though.


As it seems are you also


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Oh, that's interesting. If it's just testing for flu that might also be a good idea now too, to get a better idea of how widespread flu is compared to corona.
> 
> Though I wonder if one positive side-effect of all this might be temporary lower rates of flu. Plus other coronaviruses, but that would be harder to keep track of, since nearly everyone gets one now and then, and we don't test for them, and they probably won't die off even with really intense lockdowns.



Sorry, tbc, it's a site that DID track _flu like illnesses_ but looks now to be tracking covid illnesses alongside that, with some testing.
Gave the link earlier but will do it again - we joined up solely out of interest when we were last ill (cos we were _ill_) but it's actually way more relevant that I would've realised even at the time and is defo worth signing up to because it is a site that logs and tracks spread so you complete the surveys whether you have symptoms or not (I didn't even take it in until today that it's a PHE survey, alongside the London school of hygiene and tropical medicine - I recognised the latter but not PHE when we signed up originally). Look like a really useful tool now, tbf.



			https://flusurvey.net/en/


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## campanula (Mar 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> So, realistically, it simply relies on your employer _giving a shit_ to begin with (hollow laugh) - it doesn't protect jobs and it definitely doesn't protect people's health and/or the strain on the NHS.
> So it needs _enforcing_, to work?


Exactly so. The firm my son works for made £24,000 in ONE NIGHT, selling Swarfega...so yep, they want to stay open. They are claiming to be 'a vital supply line for the NHS (they are a fucking hardware and toolshop). They have an online presence and warehouse...but nope, they still want counter customers! I fucking hope there will be public naming and shaming - my son would be grateful for 80% of payroll and a healthy living partner...not all his (measly) wages so his boss can continue to rake in more!
So yeah, it looks like we are going to have to fall back on the goodwill and public spiritedness of the capitalist class

CUNTS


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

Petcha said:


> No, she gave me three weeks, I just moved really quickly on gettin a new flat as I was worried about the apocalypse. Happy ending though, I messaged the girl I was gonna sublet from and she's going to refund me. I feel fucking terrible as the reason she was subletting it for three months was because she was going for a cancer operation in Poland. And now she's gonna really struggle to find a replacement.... This fucking virus.



Maybe_ she_ would be due some housing benefit/council tax ben? You could suggest she looks into it and we could try and help find out more info (as/when we get it) if she struggles and/or can give you more info?


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## scifisam (Mar 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It's here scifisam -
> 
> Guidance on shielding and protecting people defined on medical grounds as extremely vulnerable from COVID-19 - so if you haven't received the letter by Sunday (not sure if that means they're delivering on Sundays, or that it hasn't come with Saturday's post). then discuss with your GP or hospital clinician.
> 
> ...



Sorry, didn't see this when you originally posted it. I've already registered. 

It's an interesting list and makes a lot of sense - it's quite limited. Like saying that not all pregnant women are extra vulnerable for example, only a small subset of them. Obviously all pregnant women are going to be extra worried, and they'd benefit from not taking any extra risks that would cause other issues that might lead to them being in hospital, and their employers should prioritise them for working at home. But they don't have to be on complete lockdown for twelve weeks just because they're pregnant.

I'm still in two of the categories though, and my friend isn't in any of them. So it's weird. 



little_legs said:


> I've not heard anyone say anything about the child, but a week ago, when we were forced to go to work, a few people on my office said _I hope Boris dies during childbirth_. At first I was like what did you just say? but then I thought yeah, ok, I can understand that line of reasoning.


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Sorry, didn't see this when you originally posted it. I've already registered.
> 
> It's an interesting list and makes a lot of sense - it's quite limited. Like saying that not all pregnant women are extra vulnerable for example, only a small subset of them. Obviously all pregnant women are going to be extra worried, and they'd benefit from not taking any extra risks that would cause other issues that might lead to them being in hospital, and their employers should prioritise them for working at home. But they don't have to be on complete lockdown for twelve weeks just because they're pregnant.
> 
> I'm still in two of the categories though, and my friend isn't in any of them. So it's weird.



That advice is definitely changing faster that they can send letters out (you're right that it was ALL pregnant women a week or so ago), so letters are also going to go to people who shouldn't get them, too, by the sounds of it.
Neither of those is preferable is it, not getting one when you should, or getting one when you shouldn't - when there _was_ time to prepare for this.


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## tommers (Mar 27, 2020)

Fair play to him. Quickly become a central part of our daily routine and now donating all his takings to the NHS.


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

campanula said:


> Exactly so. The firm my son works for made £24,000 in ONE NIGHT, selling Swarfega...so yep, they want to stay open. They are claiming to be 'a vital supply line for the NHS (they are a fucking hardware and toolshop). They have an online presence and warehouse...but nope, they still want counter customers! I fucking hope there will be public naming and shaming - my son would be grateful for 80% of payroll and a healthy living partner...not all his (measly) wages so his boss can continue to rake in more!
> So yeah, it looks like we are going to have to fall back on the goodwill and public spiritedness of the capitalist class
> 
> CUNTS



Fucking hell!  DO they supply the NHS or is it blatant profiteering (I can well imagine the general public buying all sorts, atm)?


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## farmerbarleymow (Mar 27, 2020)

little_legs said:


> The Great Escape



Oh where is that righteous bolt of lightning?


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## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 27, 2020)

iona said:


> Re gloves, think of it like wet paint. You go out to the shop and basically everything you touch could've had other people touching it, breathing on it, (hopefully not, but potentially) coughing/sneezing on it... You go out to the shop and loads of stuff is covered in paint. You put gloves on and they get covered in paint. You transfer paint to your shopping, your phone, your wallet and keys, everything you touch while you're out. You take the gloves off and wash your hands as you get home. Then you empty your pockets, unpack your shopping etc. It's still covered in paint. Now there's paint on your hands and whatever else you touched too. You give your nose a scratch, because you washed your hands when you came in so it's safe to do that. There's paint in your nostril now. Etc.
> 
> Obvs not saying all of these surfaces will be covered in virus and it'll survive long enough there to be a risk, but not taking notice of what you're touching because you're wearing gloves and gloves=safe is a massive risk too. People do it all the time, to the extent that some guidance (for food safety that I remember reading, but expect also for some healthcare/other contexts too) explicitly advises against the use of disposable gloves for the reason that they can encourage complacency around other hygiene measures.
> 
> ...


May I share these words locally?


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## Aladdin (Mar 27, 2020)

Full lockdown announced in Ireland.
No travel further than 2 km from your home. Can go out  for food shopping, medical needs and to help a vulnerable person or family  member. Everyone's to stay at home and not visit anyone apart from vulnerable family member who may need help. 
Travel is for work only and only for essential key workers.

This ... up to 12th April.


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## campanula (Mar 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Fucking hell! DO they supply the NHS or is it blatant profiteering (I can well imagine the general public buying all sorts, atm)?


 They do actually supply mechanical parts which are used by the NHS...and have an employer (who also lives in staff accommodation) to deal with those orders. No need to keep the whole shop open. Suddenly, an awful lot of caveats and loopholes into Sunak's breathless promise come to light. Can some employees be furloughed...or must it be all of them.  The whole essential worker category is vague.  I don't think there will be much enforcement into who stays open or not and I can't see anyway there will be enough quarantining to get atop of this until it literally has ran through the entire population, over months and months.


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## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

ddraig said:


> One thing that's puzziling me is why on the news last night did they say there may be less than 20,000 (a lot still of course) deaths in the uk now?
> Obviously this doesn't seem possible compared to other countries and the escalating death rate here as well as these new mega morgues being built
> Why give that false hope on the 10 o clock news??



Who said it?

The government said they wanted to keep deaths below 20,000 so its no surprise that there will be some talk around this number. Including talk that involves hope and optimism. 

Personally I would not have set a target like that, although I recognise that it is helpful to give some sort of indication to the public as to what sort of scale of things you are anticipating.

I'm not a big fan of premature hope nuggets myself, although I can see why they are considered important, especially during a lockdown when you are trying to encourage people that their actions are making a difference.

I dont have all the numbers that governments have, so it is also possible that I will not spot more genuine and sustainable hope nuggets as soon as they arrive on the scene, I might mistake them for false hope or stuff that isnt based on actual data.

As for the actual number of UK deaths to expect, I dont have a number in mind myself. Especially when Italy and Spain, who are ahead of us, are not really slowing their number of deaths in a way I could draw conclusions from yet.


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## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 27, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Just tell them you have a sore throat so will dance instead


That’s quite an avatar


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## killer b (Mar 27, 2020)

campanula said:


> Can some employees be furloughed...or must it be all of them.


it doesn't need to be all employees - you can furlough one at a time as business declines or work runs out.


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## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> As a friend posted on facebook, _Nobody will be aided by decent people doing little but being perfectly right in their analysis. After this is all over, those people who need a hand won't be thanking you for your thoughts, either. _


Awesome


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## Proper Tidy (Mar 27, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> That’s quite an avatar



Olden but golden. Got bored of mason, this one is a holding page


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> it doesn't need to be all employees - you can furlough one at a time as business declines or work runs out.



So potentially, workers who have households at greater risk could be furloughed first (but it's purely down to employers to work out how to do that sensibly, if they want to).


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## killer b (Mar 27, 2020)

Yes, and also yes.


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## killer b (Mar 27, 2020)

The scheme isn't primarily about protecting workers - it's about protecting businesses. And while you might hope businesses would be humane and sensitive in who they furlough first, a lot of them will just be putting their least productive staff out to pasture to start off with.


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 27, 2020)

campanula said:


> They do actually supply mechanical parts which are used by the NHS...and have an employer (who also lives in staff accommodation) to deal with those orders. No need to keep the whole shop open. Suddenly, an awful lot of caveats and loopholes into Sunak's breathless promise come to light. Can some employees be furloughed...or must it be all of them.  The whole essential worker category is vague.  I don't think there will be much enforcement into who stays open or not and I can't see anyway there will be enough quarantining to get atop of this until it literally has ran through the entire population, over months and months.



Essential workers living with vulnerable people has got to be different to vulnerable people living with workers who are  either wfh or able to self isolate otherwise.


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## campanula (Mar 27, 2020)

One of the counter staff was sent home after 3 days in hospital, on Monday - not even sure if the H&S (or whatever body deals with notifiable diseases has been informed)...nor was any decontaminating and cleaning done. Of course, staff member was told (after 3 days in hospital) that he 'probably' had it but wasn't tested.  So leaving his employers in an ambiguous position. I swear I am seeing deliberate acts of wilful negligence on so many levels. A continuation, of exploitation and couldn't give a shit, attitudes which has been inculcated into the boss class as being virtuous business ethics. We are not undoing 40 years of laissez-faire economics with some mealy-mouthed exceptionalism and nor will sentimental clapping offer up any fucking reparation for treating working people as expendable rubbish - mere units of profit until they are effectively valueless.


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## elbows (Mar 27, 2020)

Yeah that sounds about right, and even if we stripped away the numerous decades of laissez-faire economics and management shit I believe the 'old Britain', say of the war and post-war period, was always notoriously absurd and broken.


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## ddraig (Mar 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Who said it?
> 
> The government said they wanted to keep deaths below 20,000 so its no surprise that there will be some talk around this number. Including talk that involves hope and optimism.
> 
> ...


Think it was just in a narrative at one point during the news


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## Azrael (Mar 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah that sounds about right, and even if we stripped away the numerous decades of laissez-faire economics and management shit I believe the 'old Britain', say of the war and post-war period, was always notoriously absurd and broken.


In many respects yes, but it had a public health infrastructure that was devasted in the '70s along with the rest of local government, and had achieved some remarkable successes, such as the  complete suppression of the bubonic plague in 1900.


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## LeytonCatLady (Mar 27, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Supermarkets need to change to reduced hours, open early in the morning for the olds and vulnerable and NHS workers, open again in the late afternoon.


I was in Morrisons earlier and it was announced that currently, all their branches are now only open between 8am and 8pm Mon - Sat, and not open at all on Sundays. No idea if that applies to other supermarkets.


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## weltweit (Mar 27, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> I was in Morrisons earlier and it was announced that currently, all their branches are now only open between 8am and 8pm Mon - Sat, and not open at all on Sundays. No idea if that applies to other supermarkets.


Thanks for the heads up.


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## LeytonCatLady (Mar 27, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Thanks for the heads up.


No problem. Here's a more detailed list I just found. Here's how supermarket opening times have been affected by coronavirus pandemic


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## The39thStep (Mar 27, 2020)

Azrael said:


> In many respects yes, but it had a public health infrastructure that was devasted in the '70s along with the rest of local government, and had achieved some remarkable successes, such as the  complete suppression of the bubonic plague in 1900.


In what way was local government devastated in the 1970s ?


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## Azrael (Mar 28, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> In what way was local government devastated in the 1970s ?


Centralization and mergers of existing local authorities , making power remoter, and destroying local autonomy.

Local government as we know it basically started as a Victorian public health measure. All that's been lost. If the old public health departments still existed, testing and contact tracing would very likely have continued regardless of what Whitehall said, and we could be in a much better place.

Subsidiarity's desperately overdue a comeback!


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## kebabking (Mar 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Who said it?
> 
> The government said they wanted to keep deaths below 20,000 so its no surprise that there will be some talk around this number. Including talk that involves hope and optimism.
> 
> ...



elbows  - James Forsyth, pod ed at Spectator, is saying that 'government' are saying they now expect the peak to be around mid-April.

Whether that is true, or comes to pass, I don't know, but I'd put good money on JF being correct in that mid-April is what he's being told.


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## bimble (Mar 28, 2020)

Isn't it likely that they're saying the peak will come aproximately 3 weeks after social distancing was enforced because they think that these measures, prolonged to some degree for months to come, will mean that the worst bit will be when everyone who was infected before lockdown began gets sick?


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## andysays (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> Isn't it likely that they're saying the peak will come aproximately 3 weeks after social distancing was enforced because they think that these measures, prolonged to some degree for months to come, will mean that the worst bit will be when everyone who was infected before lockdown began gets sick?


That would make sense.

It also follows that if they'd introduced proper social distancing etc measures 2 or 3 weeks earlier, the peak would have arrived earlier, but been a significantly lower peak


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## bimble (Mar 28, 2020)

If true it also makes their ventilator situation that much worse though. Hoover guy is going to supply ten thousand of these things from scratch in 2 weeks ? dont think so.


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## LDC (Mar 28, 2020)

kebabking said:


> elbows  - James Forsyth, pod ed at Spectator, is saying that 'government' are saying they now expect the peak to be around mid-April.
> 
> Whether that is true, or comes to pass, I don't know, but I'd put good money on JF being correct in that mid-April is what he's being told.




FWIW that's fits with what we're seeing in hospital, it seems to have escalated much faster than our briefings even a few days ago were saying.


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## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

kebabking said:


> elbows  - James Forsyth, pod ed at Spectator, is saying that 'government' are saying they now expect the peak to be around mid-April.
> 
> Whether that is true, or comes to pass, I don't know, but I'd put good money on JF being correct in that mid-April is what he's being told.




An effect of the downturn starting earlier would be that the peak is smaller but comes sooner.


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## LDC (Mar 28, 2020)

Athos said:


> An effect of the downturn starting earlier would be that the peak is smaller but comes sooner.



See what I wrote in the NHS workers thread this morning. We're pretty much _already _at capacity, so I'm not convinced a smaller peak in a few weeks will seem much less bad given the state of things already.


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## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> See what I wrote in the NHS workers thread this morning. We're pretty much _already _at capacity, so I'm not convinced a smaller peak in a few weeks will seem much less bad given the state of things already.


Going over capacity will be bad. But the less were go over, the better, surely?


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## iona (Mar 28, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> May I share these words locally?


Yeah of course. (I'm not a doctor/virologist/ppe expert or anything though!)


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## bimble (Mar 28, 2020)

Nothing but an anecdote but this past week / 5 days in my fairly tiny circle of acquaintance a whole bunch of people seem to have come down with relevant symptoms, after weeks of it just looming on the horizon somewhere. 
Latest is my sister who suddenly lost her sense of smell yesterday (nothing, not even when sticking her nose over a bottle of vinegar which must be really weird).

A major point of lockdown was to buy time to get in the equipment that's needed wasn't it, so an earlier than expected peak before you've got anything like what you need would be really bad news.


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## kebabking (Mar 28, 2020)

It's the difference between a train crash this morning that kills 50, and a train crash in 2 months that kills 200.

Both are bad things, but one is worse than the other.

If it peaks in April instead of May we will be less ready - but we'll also have less patients presenting with serious symptoms, and therefore fewer deaths.


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## LDC (Mar 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> See what I wrote in the NHS workers thread this morning. We're pretty much _already _at capacity, so I'm not convinced a smaller peak in a few weeks will seem much less bad given the state of things already.



Yes, on paper and in the statistics for sure, just not convinced it will feel that different in the healthcare system.


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## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> A major point of lockdown was to buy time to get in the equipment that's needed wasn't it, so an earlier than expected peak before you've got anything like what you need would be really bad news.



But still likely to better than a much bigger later peak.


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## bimble (Mar 28, 2020)

kebabking said:


> It's the difference between a train crash this morning that kills 50, and a train crash in 2 months that kills 200.
> 
> Both are bad things, but one is worse than the other.
> 
> If it peaks in April instead of May we will be less ready - but we'll also have less patients presenting with serious symptoms, and therefore fewer deaths.



I think i'm still not really getting it. In the train crash metaphor.. the 50 people killed this morning how does that prevent the 200 in two months? (I mean unless lockdown goes on indefinitely).


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## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think i'm still not really getting it. In the train crash metaphor.. the 50 people killed this morning how does that prevent the 200 in two months? (I mean unless lockdown goes on indefinitely).


If it peaks at 50, then, by definition, it can't grow to 200.


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## bimble (Mar 28, 2020)

Athos said:


> If it peaks at 50, then, by definition, it can't grow to 200.


Yeah but how will you know when it’s peaked?
If lockdown is lifted in say May,  why would we not peak again and higher? Sorry I may be being thick.


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## Proper Tidy (Mar 28, 2020)

Athos said:


> If it peaks at 50, then, by definition, it can't grow to 200.



Not sure about this. Have you heard the phrase peaks and troughs. Or twin peaks.


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## Proper Tidy (Mar 28, 2020)

Anyway clearly if a reduced spike, or peak, is possible by introducing strict social distancing measures then obviously a loosening of those measures could result in a subsequent spike. Isn't the whole point of social distancing about this deferment instead of overwhelming health infrastructure


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## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yeah but how will you know when it’s peaked?
> If lockdown is lifted in say May,  why would we not peak again and higher? Sorry I may be being thick.



I suppose it depends on your definition of peak. But measures to slow the spread to a level with which the NHS can cope will need to continue until either there's sufficient community immunity, or there's a vaccine.  Those could be less restrictive than currently if, for instance, the antigen tests shows that lots of people have had it and can go out again, or if NHS capacity can be increased further.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 28, 2020)

Athos said:


> If it peaks at 50, then, by definition, it can't grow to 200.



Peaks are things you can only identify retrospectively. We will only know where 'the' peak was months or years after the fact. Anyone waiting for the death rate to tail off slightly on the basis that this would mark the point at which it's all over would be wise to do a little expectation management.

The information we'd need to make longer-term predictions simply doesn't exist yet. The range of confidence about how much of the population has already been exposed to the virus is vast, and without an idea of that we don't know if we're likely to see one peak, two or a dozen before this fucking thing finally starts to ease up.


----------



## bimble (Mar 28, 2020)

Ok I think I do get it then. This doesn’t really mean that this mornings train crash prevents a worse one next month though does it? 
It continues unless we had a perfect system of absolutely everybody staying home the whole time for some weeks and then the virus would just die in the dead ends of everyone’s home unit. But that’s not a possibility.


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

Athos said:


> But still likely to better than a much bigger later peak.


I thought the point of a later peak was that the curve would be flatter, and it wouldn't be as big?


----------



## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Peaks are things you can only identify retrospectively. We will only know where 'the' peak was months or years after the fact. Anyone waiting for the death rate to tail off slightly on the basis that this would mark the point at which it's all over would be wise to do a little expectation management.



Quite.  I'm certainly not proposing that.


----------



## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ok I think I do get it then. This doesn’t really mean that this mornings train crash prevents a worse one next month though does it?
> It continues unless we had a perfect system of absolutely everybody staying home the whole time for some weeks and then the virus would just die in the dead ends of everyone’s home unit. But that’s not a possibility.



It doesn't need to die, just tail off to a point where it can be kept below a level with which the NHS can cope with the minimal measures in place.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 28, 2020)

Athos said:


> Quite.  I'm certainly not proposing that.



No I didn't think you were. A lot of people are though. This idea that the death rate is basically guaranteed to climb for the next ten days at least is hard to put across, not least because of how grim a notion that is on so many levels.


----------



## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> I thought the point of a later peak was that the curve would be flatter, and it wouldn't be as big?


That's true if an peak is unmitigated. But a low early peak i.e. it peaks lower than it would have, because of really effective measures to prevent transmission, is a bit different.


----------



## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> No I didn't think you were. A lot of people are though. This idea that the death rate is basically guaranteed to climb for the next ten days at least is hard to put across, not least because of how grim a notion that is on so many levels.



Yeah, especially with current rates meaning that's doubling three times i.e. x 8.


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

Athos said:


> That's true if an peak is unmitigated. But a low early peak i.e. it peaks lower than it would have, because of really effective measures to prevent transmission, is a bit different.


do... do you think those really effective measures are in place..?


----------



## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> do... do you think those really effective measures are in place..?



Not sure.  Too early to judge their effects.  But, if it'd been up to me, I'd have carried out more testing, contact tracing and isolation, and put stricter measures in place, sooner, on the basis that it's easier to gradually loosen them than it is to put the genie back in the bottle.


----------



## bimble (Mar 28, 2020)

its great isnt it how we are all epidemiologists now when just a few short months ago we were all constitutional lawyers.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think i'm still not really getting it. In the train crash metaphor.. the 50 people killed this morning how does that prevent the 200 in two months? (I mean unless lockdown goes on indefinitely).


I don't know whether it's the point kebabking was making, but we need to bear in mind that the two peaks could both happen, much as seems to have happened in Italy. It would be a very foolish government that went, "ah, there we go, peak passed, relax all restrictions" and ended up with a bounce.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> its great isnt it how we are all epidemiologists now when just a few short months ago we were all constitutional lawyers.


People do a lot of learning


----------



## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> its great isnt it how we are all epidemiologists now when just a few short months ago we were all constitutional lawyers.





Though, the epidemiology isn't particularly complicated; the decisions are largely political - the trade off between lives, the economy, and popularity.


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

Well, the arse just fell out of the industry I've worked in for the past two decades, so it's probably best I work on diversifying my skillsets into a growing market.


----------



## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> Well, the arse just fell out of the industry I've worked in for the past two decades, so it's probably best I work on diversifying my skillsets into a growing market.



The funeral business.


----------



## zahir (Mar 28, 2020)

An attempt at analysing where the initial UK response went wrong.






						EU Referendum
					






					eureferendum.com
				




It refers to this FT article.









						How the UK got coronavirus testing wrong |  Free to read
					

Government at first seemed to want a concerted contact tracing effort, but it eased up




					www.ft.com


----------



## andysays (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> do... do you think those really effective measures are in place..?


I don't think we have fully effective measures in place now, but we certainly have better measures now than we did, say, two weeks ago. 

And if the measures we have now had been put in place two weeks earlier, we'd be in a significantly better position than we are.

From both points of view, lessening the extent to which the nhs is overwhelmed, and reducing the rate of spread and therefore the number of deaths overall, the earlier the measures had been introduced and the more restrictive they are/were, the better. 

But realistically it's about the best measures we can achieve,  rather than perfect measures, and it's about reducing the speed of transmission rather than being able to stop it altogether.


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

Athos said:


> The funeral business.


I've always assumed undertaking is one of those sewn up family businesses, but I guess anyone with a black van and some big cardboard boxes can probably get in on it right now.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> Hoover guy



I bet he hates that


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> I guess anyone with a black van and some big cardboard boxes can probably get in on it right now



At a time of global crisis let us support our ailing hen party and school prom services industry


----------



## TopCat (Mar 28, 2020)

_The government will on Saturday begin the delivery emergency food parcels to thousands of the 1.5 million people it has identified as particularly vulnerable.

The boxes will contain basic essentials such as pasta, toilet roll, cans of soup and beans, teabags and custard cream biscuits._

I look forward to my parcel. I love a good parcel.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 28, 2020)

Custard creams though. Bourbons are same price ffs


----------



## Athos (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> I've always assumed undertaking is one of those sewn up family businesses, but I guess anyone with a black van and some big cardboard boxes can probably get in on it right now.



Won't be long and you'll be able to go door-to-door with a wheelie bin, bellowing "bring out your dead".


----------



## existentialist (Mar 28, 2020)

TopCat said:


> _The government will on Saturday begin the delivery emergency food parcels to thousands of the 1.5 million people it has identified as particularly vulnerable.
> 
> The boxes will contain basic essentials such as pasta, toilet roll, cans of soup and beans, teabags and custard cream biscuits._
> 
> I look forward to my parcel. I love a good parcel.


I am well provided for in every case except for the custard creams. Does that mean these are now essential, and I can tour all the supermarkets looking for some?


----------



## tommers (Mar 28, 2020)

Basic essentials such  as custard cream biscuits.


----------



## prunus (Mar 28, 2020)

TopCat said:


> ... _basic essentials such as ... custard cream biscuits._


----------



## TopCat (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> I've always assumed undertaking is one of those sewn up family businesses, but I guess anyone with a black van and some big cardboard boxes can probably get in on it right now.


Hard to get into it, that ol' game. Getting planning approval on a new mortuary / embalming basement is impossible.


----------



## Proper Tidy (Mar 28, 2020)

Shit biscuits. Suppose could be plain digestives.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 28, 2020)

There is a specific government page to refer others or yourself as vulnerable. I don't think they are just sending parcels out to everyone who is on the health vulnerability list.






						COVID-19: guidance for people whose immune system means they are at higher risk
					

Guidance for people aged 12 and over whose immune system means they are at higher risk of serious illness if they become infected with coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Hard to get into it, that ol' game. Getting planning approval on a new mortuary / embalming basement is impossible.


reckon it's suddenly got a whole lot easier


----------



## bimble (Mar 28, 2020)

Quite a clever thing in switzerland starting today (where my parents are supposed to be not leaving their flat): Some of the local restaurants / hotels (all closed) are being paid by the government to cook and deliver daily meals to the over 65s. Might be nicer than just cans of soup but i dont know if they get any biscuits.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 28, 2020)

Local councils are setting up their own stuff. Here is Lambeth's new helpline for example.


*Lambeth coronavirus helpline*
A helpline is available for people in Lambeth who are over 70 or have an existing medical condition which makes them more vulnerable to coronavirus. You or someone acting on your behalf can call the helpline to get advice on issues you are having, including access to medicines and food. The call handler will help you to connect with the right department in the council or to other organisations, such as Age UK, who can help you get support.
The helpline number is 020 7926 2999.
The helpline is open from 8am - 8pm everyday









						Help for residents
					

Get help with things like food, medicine, benefits and financial support.




					www.lambeth.gov.uk


----------



## Yossarian (Mar 28, 2020)

Cops in Derbyshire seem very proud of themselves for pouring dye into the water at swimming spots so people will be less tempted to congregate there. - if they want to prevent people getting infected, going to the shops for old people might be a more effective use of their time.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 28, 2020)

FFS


----------



## mauvais (Mar 28, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> Cops in Derbyshire seem very proud of themselves for pouring dye into the water at swimming spots so people will be less tempted to congregate there. - if they want to prevent people getting infected, going to the shops for old people might be a more effective use of their time.
> 
> 
> View attachment 203725


Yeah, except this has little to do with CV19. Note the date.









						Toxic Derbyshire 'Blue Lagoon' dyed black
					

A pool at a disused quarry in Derbyshire which has caustic water is changed from inviting blue to off-putting black.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Shechemite (Mar 28, 2020)

Grim


----------



## bendeus (Mar 28, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> While we're here elbows thanks for all your informative and balanced posts. You are a credit to U75.


This ^^^

Thanks, elbows for all the considered posts from what seems like a lifetime ago but only turns out to be a few months. As a result I felt so much better prepared and able to take an informed lead in terms of ensuring my family and friends were, too. Without meaning to sound hyperbolic you may well have helped to ensure that some of the Urban family manage to avoid being infected. Respect, dude.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 28, 2020)

What the actual fuck is going on?









						Gtech told not to produce much-needed ventilators by the government, chief executive says
					

CITY-BASED manufacture Gtech has been told by the government to not produce much-needed ventilators less than a week after getting the go-ahead, the…




					www.worcesternews.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

teqniq said:


> What the actual fuck is going on?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


the key sentence in that article is this: 

_“We will still complete and publish our design as there has been a lot of interest for it from around the world. _

I'm not sure you can assume this chief exec is giving a full picture of what's gone on here tbh.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 28, 2020)

teqniq said:


> What the actual fuck is going on?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I can't make any sense of that page, it just seems to be a mass of irrelevant advertising.


----------



## Cid (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> the key sentence in that article is this:
> 
> _“We will still complete and publish our design as there has been a lot of interest for it from around the world. _
> 
> I'm not sure you can assume this chief exec is giving a full picture of what's gone on here tbh.



Yeah, I just had a look on their website - they do have a prototype ventilator, but it is very much a prototype going off first impressions. Rushing something like that into service would be pretty cavalier. It's a tricky balance of course, but I would be looking at other avenues.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> the key sentence in that article is this:
> 
> _“We will still complete and publish our design as there has been a lot of interest for it from around the world. _
> 
> I'm not sure you can assume this chief exec is giving a full picture of what's gone on here tbh.


Yes, I read that. I thought it meant that they'll stil be getting overseas contracts. Lot of speculation on the Twitter thread I got the article from that the government wants to give the contract to Dyson. Also someone says that Dyson and Nick Grey of Gtech don't get on at all.


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

The idea that the government is going to let thousands of people die so they can give the respirator contract to their brexit mates is verging on conspiracy theory. Actually, it _is_ conspiracy theory.


----------



## agricola (Mar 28, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> Cops in Derbyshire seem very proud of themselves for pouring dye into the water at swimming spots so people will be less tempted to congregate there. - if they want to prevent people getting infected, going to the shops for old people might be a more effective use of their time.
> 
> 
> View attachment 203725



Still not convinced this wasn't some new probationer being welcomed onto a team with a traditional windup.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 28, 2020)

agricola said:


> Still not convinced this wasn't some new probationer being welcomed onto a team with a traditional windup.


I look forward to seeing what use the tartan paint, the long weights and elbow grease get put to


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> The idea that the government is going to let thousands of people die so they can give the respirator contract to their brexit mates is verging on conspiracy theory. Actually, it _is_ conspiracy theory.



And on small suppliers complaining they haven't been given any orders - I'm sure thousands of very simple identical ventilators that have been produced to a single certified design is preferable to random job-lots of things from numerous small companies ranging up to complicated anesthesia machines. Especially when you have loads of staff to train in a short period.


----------



## Cid (Mar 28, 2020)

Having a quick read up there are two major projects ongoing; Dyson and Airbus. Airbus is working as part of a consortium of engineering firms to increase production of existing designs. Dyson has developed a new design in collaboration The Technology Partnership, which already develops scientific and medical equipment.

The Gtech design has advantages - it's assembled from off-the-shelf components and relatively easy to CNC parts. But it is quite crude, at least on first impressions... It's the kind of thing where you really need someone there who understands the system, and can tweak it if a component fails, or an air line (an air line with pure oxygen mind) gets knocked loose. It may still be very useful for countries that desperately need a large number of ventilators at a relatively low cost... But it seems far from ideal. Again, this is just a surface impression, I have some knowledge/experience of engineering but yeah...

I'm a little dubious of the Dyson approach too tbh, but can't find many details on their design.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 28, 2020)

I didn't know Airbus were involved, though their output I assume will go to EU demands no?


----------



## Cid (Mar 28, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I didn't know Airbus were involved, though their output I assume will go to EU demands no?



It's specifically a UK thing - called 'Ventilator Challenge UK', led by Airbus with various UK based engineering companies (including McLaren, so expect bits to fall off) effectively picking up slack on an existing design produced by Smiths medical. But yeah, it may be that Airbus is also able to extend that to Europe.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 28, 2020)

I think if I was at death's door struggling to breath then I wouldn't give a shiney one what type of ventilator was tried, just that a ventilator was there might be enough to save some patients.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 28, 2020)

Do we have a timescale on how long it will be before there's a burgeoning black market trade in government-issue custard creams? Anyone offering an estimate on when the first breathless news stories about ridiculously high reserve prices on eBay will start appearing?


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> I think if I was at death's door struggling to breath then I wouldn't give a shiney one what type of ventilator was tried, just that a ventilator was there might be enough to save some patients.


So just chuck money at anyone who says they can make a ventilator then? Or perhaps do you assess each design and decide which ones are actually suitable before putting the order in? I mean... the article is just quotes from the chief exec of a company who just didn't get an  order. He's just missing out the bit where they said 'actually, we don't think your design is going to work. sorry.'


----------



## Cid (Mar 28, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> I think if I was at death's door struggling to breath then I wouldn't give a shiney one what type of ventilator was tried, just that a ventilator was there might be enough to save some patients.



Would you give a shiney one if the hospital you were in was hit by an oxygen fuelled fire?


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 28, 2020)

Cid said:


> Would you give a shiney one if the hospital you were in was hit by an oxygen fuelled fire?


Tbh I'd not be smoking at the time.  Hospitals have very strict rules for electrics and fire prevention not sure if it would make any difference.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 28, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Do we have a timescale on how long it will be before there's a burgeoning black market trade in government-issue custard creams? Anyone offering an estimate on when the first breathless news stories about ridiculously high reserve prices on eBay will start appearing?


Not long before there's a Tunnocks black market either: Coronavirus in Scotland: Tunnock's halts production amid pandemic


----------



## Cid (Mar 28, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Tbh I'd not be smoking at the time.  Hospitals have very strict rules for electrics and fire prevention not sure if it would make any difference.



Yeah, rules which presumably include the design of equipment used in them. We're talking about the roll-out of 10,000+ units into an overworked, overstretched system. It is inevitable people will take shortcuts, inevitable they'll make mistakes... It makes sense to ensure the equipment they're using is as safe as possible.


----------



## xenon (Mar 28, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> I think if I was at death's door struggling to breath then I wouldn't give a shiney one what type of ventilator was tried, just that a ventilator was there might be enough to save some patients.



Sure. But as said above. If you're ordering these things on mass for our rapid national deployment context,  you want familiarity, reliable supply chains for parts. Standard training and knowledge sharing. You don't want someone looking for the manual as patients are hurtling down the corridor.


----------



## keybored (Mar 28, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Yeah, except this has little to do with CV19. Note the date.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That was then though, this is now.


> However in this case police have confirmed that the action is a direct response to people disobeying social isolation rules.











						Police dye the water in Buxton 'Blue Lagoon' to deter swimmers during coronavirus lockdown
					

Police have dyed the waters in the ‘Blue Lagoon’ at Harpur Hill, Buxton following reports of groups of people meeting there to swim during the coronavirus lockdown.




					www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk
				




The same force that took a drive to the peak so they could unleash their drone on walkers and boast about it on Twitter.









						Coronavirus: Peak District drone police criticised for 'lockdown shaming'
					

Derbyshire Police is accused of "nanny policing" after sharing aerial shots of Peak District walkers.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2020)

kebabking said:


> elbows  - James Forsyth, pod ed at Spectator, is saying that 'government' are saying they now expect the peak to be around mid-April.
> 
> Whether that is true, or comes to pass, I don't know, but I'd put good money on JF being correct in that mid-April is what he's being told.




Thanks for the info.

Personally I'm waiting to see what the numbers do in countries like Italy and Spain that are ahead of us with their epidemics and lockdowns, before I think about the timing of the UK peak, how long and large the epidemic wave is likely to be and other related matters.

Given how woefully off some of the publicly stated timescales were just a few weeks ago (the whole 4 weeks behind Italy thing when it was actually more like.2 weeks) I suppose I shouldnt be surprised that other timings and plans based around them were off too.


----------



## bimble (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> The idea that the government is going to let thousands of people die so they can give the respirator contract to their brexit mates is verging on conspiracy theory. Actually, it _is_ conspiracy theory.



Is it a conspiracy theory to not believe them when they say -literally - that they didn’t get the email inviting UK to join in the EU procurement and that’s why we have to build our own?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it a conspiracy theory to not believe them when they say -literally - that they didn’t get the email inviting UK to join in the EU procurement and that’s why we have to build our own?



Tbf Matt Hancock is looking after the Inbox so it could just be absolute total fucking stupidity


----------



## kebabking (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it a conspiracy theory to not believe them when they say -literally - that they didn’t get the email inviting UK to join in the EU procurement and that’s why we have to build our own?



This requires the belief that such devices are available for export.

Do you believe that the UK government would, or should, allow a UK based manufacturer to export ventilators to a customer outside the UK while the NHS is screaming for them?

If you - presumably - believe that it shouldn't, why would you believe that any other government wouldn't feel the same way?
It might all be a bit _British ventilators for British lungs, _thats what happens when the shit hits the fan...


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2020)

zahir said:


> An attempt at analysing where the initial UK response went wrong.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Interesting stuff. Contains links to minutes I've never read, I will post about that bit again later if I find anything worthy of quoting from them.

I suppose the two main things I think are missing from this analysis both involve orthodox approaches that I spoke about way too much already in recent weeks:

If they study things like the UK approach to 2009 Swine Flu, they will find all sorts of similarities that help explain why the UK approach this time around went the way it did.

If they study regional pandemic protocols and planning, they will find the numerous areas where the UK was actually still pretty much in tune with the EU approach. At the EU level, the signs of some shift from the orthodox approach started to emerge around the same time it started to shift in individual countries, often with only a few days variation in timing, despite whatever rhetoric was coming out of different leaders mouths at the time. Which reminds me, I need to check whether any subsequent ECDC documents have been released since I last looked.


----------



## bimble (Mar 28, 2020)

Let’s see what the EU ventilator procurement effort gets them. Their joint purchasing power is being used for a reason presumably else they’d be doing everything country by country. Our gov has now (yesterday) said after this innocent email mistake and missing out on the first chance they do want to join in from now on.





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


----------



## Raheem (Mar 28, 2020)

kebabking said:


> This requires the belief that such devices are available for export.
> 
> Do you believe that the UK government would, or should, allow a UK based manufacturer to export ventilators to a customer outside the UK while the NHS is screaming for them?
> 
> ...


If companies are proposing designs which the NHS is rejecting for whatever reason (and there may be lots of good reasons, from 'this is shit' to 'how much??' to 'no we do not have the time and resources for you to train every nurse in the country to use it safely'), then surely it makes perfect sense to allow them to export if they can find other buyers.


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2020)

A little reminder


----------



## keybored (Mar 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it a conspiracy theory to not believe them when they say -literally - that they didn’t get the email inviting UK to join in the EU procurement and that’s why we have to build our own?


Exactly. I mean c'mon, who here hasn't blacklisted a former partner's email address after a messy break-up so their missives end up in the spam folder?


----------



## Raheem (Mar 28, 2020)

editor said:


> A little reminder
> 
> View attachment 203770


Not to mention supermarket staff, couriers, care workers, bin workers etc.


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Not to mention supermarket staff, couriers, care workers, bin workers etc.


Funny how all those vital movers and shakers, on-trend entrepreneurs, wealth creators and self-declared important business leaders are as much use as a wet fart in whisky bottle right now.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 28, 2020)

keybored said:


> That was then though, this is now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I mean that it's something already done regularly. Not really sure what the issue is, tbh. People shouldn't be on long walks in the Peaks, and definitely not swimming where they could get into trouble and use up more NHS resources.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 28, 2020)

editor said:


> A little reminder
> 
> View attachment 203770


I thought that was for people coming to work in the UK, not people already here


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I thought that was for people coming to work in the UK, not people already here


It reflects the government's perceived value of those on the lower end of the pay scale.


----------



## andysays (Mar 28, 2020)

keybored said:


> That was then though, this is now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





andysays said:


> Coronavirus: Police get new powers to enforce protection
> ...However, the Home Office, in announcing the new rules, said that "in the first instance, the police will always apply their common sense and discretion."...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

\


killer b said:


> The idea that the government is going to let thousands of people die so they can give the respirator contract to their brexit mates is verging on conspiracy theory. Actually, it _is_ conspiracy theory.


Is it? The initial policy was to allow hundreds of thousands of people to die. But this isn't a case of intentional murder, more manslaughter through criminal neglect and the pursuit of profit and political goals over people (and there's a reason why the highest jail term for manslaughter is life). That's not conspiracy theory. That's standard practice. How many thousands of people have been allowed to die during 'austerity' to line the pockets of the rich?

In this instance, what is the first thought? 'We must do whatever it takes to ensure as few people die as possible', or some variation of 'how do we further our own interests in this crisis?' Again, it is not conspiracy theory to think that govt actions are at least in part driven by the latter sentiment even now. It's actually more like a conspiracy theory to think that they are not, to think that there is suddenly a conspiracy in those in power to act purely for the common good.


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2020)

Let's not forget the rail workers!









						Key railway workers enable 370,000 tonnes of vital food, medicine and other supplies to be moved in a week
					

This week alone key workers from Network Rail have enabled more than 370,000 tonnes of freight to be moved between west London and Cornwall and into and across Wales to support the economy, the NHS, petrol at the pumps and food in shops.




					www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk


----------



## teqniq (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> The idea that the government is going to let thousands of people die so they can give the respirator contract to their brexit mates is verging on conspiracy theory. Actually, it _is_ conspiracy theory.


Conspiracy or not (and I'm not suggesting there is), this thread is interesting:



This is the guy who who drew attention to Saudi bot accounts and later MAGA types retweetting opinions/memes favourable to their interests.


----------



## D (Mar 28, 2020)

D said:


> My brother and his wife have a similar situation.  Wife is severely immune compromised.  Brother is pathologist in lab at NYC hospital (though not working directly with patients).  THey have a 4 month old, but wife is currently too ill (not from COVID, but from other illness) to care for the baby while my brother is at work, so they have someone driving to them each day to help (at least she has access to a car and is not on the subway).  May you all stay healthy, AverageJoe and fam.


 
Update!  Pathologists, orthopedists, gynecologists, nurses from every discipline called to all hands on deck situation in NYC.  It remains to be seen whether my brother will be doing critical care, stepping into other clinical work, or merely taking up more responsibility in the lab as colleagues also shuffle around and everything changes every day/hour/etc.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 28, 2020)

260 deaths in the last 24 hours.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 28, 2020)

260 deaths yesterday, 1019 total deaths now and we're still only in a soft lockdown.


----------



## Hollis (Mar 28, 2020)

Worrying that it is so far focussed on the urban areas... if the provinces catch up then that's a much older demographic at risk.


----------



## D (Mar 28, 2020)

Hollis said:


> Worrying that it is so far focussed on the urban areas... if the provinces catch up then that's a much older demographic at risk.


In this country as well, we have significant issues in terms of rural hospital capacity/proximity of rural communities to already overtaxed hospitals.  But at least density (or lack thereof) is in the favor of rural communities in terms of community spread.  There are lots of seniors affected in urban areas as well.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 28, 2020)

little_legs said:


> 260 deaths yesterday, 1019 total deaths now and we're still only in a soft lockdown.



181 deaths the day before. Oh dear that rate of increase is terrifying.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 28, 2020)

D said:


> In this country as well, we have significant issues in terms of rural hospital capacity/proximity of rural communities to already overtaxed hospitals.  But at least density (or lack thereof) is in the favor of rural communities in terms of community spread.  There are lots of seniors affected in urban areas as well.


Hello D! (Waves)


----------



## little_legs (Mar 28, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Oh dear that rate of increase is terrifying.


It'll keep increasing for at least a week because of the long incubation period. We'll probably then get months of mini outbreaks. When the government will tell everyone to go back to work some will still be carriers. I totally expect to get it because our office does not have a single window that opens and our air con system is dire.


----------



## xes (Mar 28, 2020)

TopCat said:


> 181 deaths the day before. Oh dear that rate of increase is terrifying.


And they need to test people more than once anyway. It's well documented that people test negative 5 or 6 times before a positive test, then they can test negative a whole bunch of other times before testing positive again. And so on and so forth.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 28, 2020)

little_legs said:


> It'll keep increasing for at least a week because of the long incubation period.


Which makes it very likely that we are soon going to be in an Italy/Spain situation.

Sorry for sharing that.


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2020)

xes said:


> And they need to test people more than once anyway. It's well documented that people test negative 5 or 6 times before a positive test, then they can test negative a whole bunch of other times before testing positive again. And so on and so forth.



Sort of. False negatives are a real issue. Sometimes thats down to timing of when the test samples were taken. And plenty of people still probably test positive on their first test, its not a long drawn out affair for all cases.


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Is it? The initial policy was to allow hundreds of thousands of people to die. But this isn't a case of intentional murder, more manslaughter through criminal neglect and the pursuit of profit and political goals over people (and there's a reason why the highest jail term for manslaughter is life). That's not conspiracy theory. That's standard practice. How many thousands of people have been allowed to die during 'austerity' to line the pockets of the rich?
> 
> In this instance, what is the first thought? 'We must do whatever it takes to ensure as few people die as possible', or some variation of 'how do we further our own interests in this crisis?' Again, it is not conspiracy theory to think that govt actions are at least in part driven by the latter sentiment even now. It's actually more like a conspiracy theory to think that they are not, to think that there is suddenly a conspiracy in those in power to act purely for the common good.


I don't think those in power are acting only for the common good, of course not. But to immediately assume that because some manufacturer you've never heard of before today's MD is moaning because he hasn't won an NHS contract it's because Boris Johnson wants to give it to his mates is pretty crude stuff.


----------



## platinumsage (Mar 28, 2020)

Survey results:


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

Nation of Bootlickers.









						Coronavirus: Exercise rule-breakers spark surge in police calls
					

Northamptonshire Police gets "dozens and dozens" of calls from people reporting their neighbours.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## little_legs (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> Nation of Bootlickers.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The best bit: 





> He said other queries included... ...a man who asked: *"My wife doesn't think her job is essential but I do and she's working from home. Is there anything I can do?*"


----------



## keybored (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> Nation of Bootlickers.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This wouldn't be happening if the police enforced the law more ruthlessly.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 28, 2020)

Government press conference 

Again if we have less than 20,000 deaths we will have done well!

Where do they get these figures from? 

20,000 deaths would be 20k individual family disasters.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 28, 2020)

Did anyone listen to the public part of Any Questions on BBC R4? 

It was very sad, a few OAPs rang in saying they had DNR statements and didn't want to be put on ventilators in front of younger people and that in many cases they had not told their families.


----------



## Supine (Mar 28, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Government press conference
> 
> Again if we have less than 20,000 deaths we will have done well!
> 
> ...



When estimates are in the range 20,000 to 550,000 you can say 20k is a good job.


----------



## killer b (Mar 28, 2020)

people were posting this on facebook the other day as if it was satire... after reading that story I'm not sure.


----------



## zahir (Mar 28, 2020)

I’m not sure whether this has already been posted but here’s Richard Horton writing in the Lancet.



			https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2930727-3
		



> I asked NHS workers to contact me with their experiences. Their messages have been as distressing as they have been horrifying. “It’s terrifying for staff at the moment. Still no access to personal protective equipment [PPE] or testing.” “Rigid command structures make decision making impossible.” “There’s been no guidelines, it’s chaos.” “I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel protected.” “We are literally making it up as we go along.” “It feels as if we are actively harming patients.” “We need protection and prevention.” “Total carnage.” “NHS Trusts continue to fail miserably.” “Humanitarian crisis.” “Forget lockdown—we are going into meltdown.” “When I was country director in many conflict zones, we had better preparedness.” “The hospitals in London are overwhelmed.” “The public and media are not aware that today we no longer live in a city with a properly functioning western health-care system.” “How will we protect our patients and staff...I am speechless. It is utterly unconscionable. How can we do this? It is criminal...NHS England was not prepared... We feel completely helpless.”





> The NHS has been wholly unprepared for this pandemic. It’s impossible to understand why. Based on their modelling of the Wuhan outbreak of COVID-19, Joseph Wu and his colleagues wrote in The Lancet on Jan 31, 2020: “On the present trajectory, 2019-nCoV could be about to become a global epidemic...for health protection within China and internationally... preparedness plans should be readied for deployment at short notice, including securing supply chains of pharmaceuticals, personal protective equipment, hospital supplies, and the necessary human resources to deal with the consequences of a global outbreak of this magnitude.” This warning wasn’t made lightly. It should have been read by the Chief Medical Officer, the Chief Executive Officer of the NHS in England, and the Chief Scientific Adviser. They had a duty to immediately put the NHS and British public on high alert. February should have been used to expand coronavirus testing capacity, ensure the distribution of WHO-approved PPE, and establish training programmes and guidelines to protect NHS staff. They didn’t take any of those actions. The result has been chaos and panic across the NHS. Patients will die unnecessarily. NHS staff will die unnecessarily. It is, indeed, as one health worker wrote last week, “a national scandal”. The gravity of that scandal has yet to be understood.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think those in power are acting only for the common good, of course not. But to immediately assume that because some manufacturer you've never heard of before today's MD is moaning because he hasn't won an NHS contract it's because Boris Johnson wants to give it to his mates is pretty crude stuff.


However, I find it perfectly plausible that neither the never-heard-MD nor the celebrity tory donor should really be getting these contracts to develop sleek, revolutionary new ventilator designs, when even an idiot could tell you that it is far better to work from tried and tested blueprints. And yet one of them is.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 28, 2020)

zahir said:


> I’m not sure whether this has already been posted but here’s Richard Horton writing in the Lancet.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2820%2930727-3


Terrible scaremongering, all you need to do is give your hands a quick rinse while singing happy birthday.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 28, 2020)

.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Government press conference
> 
> Again if we have less than 20,000 deaths we will have done well!
> 
> ...


20k is the equivalent of a bad 'ordinary' flu year. It's not unreasonable to put that as a figure indicating 'not catastrophic'. But it's a weird thing to aim for. A good 'ordinary' flu year is more like 2,000. Could have aimed for that if they'd prepared better. Now it's impossible. As we're all going logarithmic nowadays, I'd put 2k as a good result, 20k as a not catastrophic result, and 200k as a catastrophic result. After all, a bad ordinary flu year is actually very bad.

There is also politics in play here. It's not exactly aiming at 20k. It's more likely that 20k is going to happen on latest projections, so spinning that as success. If they'd started preparations two months ago, maybe they could have 'aimed at' 2k.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

Raheem said:


> However, I find it perfectly plausible that neither the never-heard-MD nor the celebrity tory donor should really be getting these contracts to develop sleek, revolutionary new ventilator designs, when even an idiot could tell you that it is far better to work from tried and tested blueprints. And yet one of them is.


Yep. Basic, reliable, easy to make, easy to use, quick to be made available. This isn't rocket science.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> 20k is the equivalent of a bad 'ordinary' flu year. It's not unreasonable to put that as a figure indicating 'not catastrophic'. But it's a weird thing to aim for. A good 'ordinary' flu year is more like 2,000. Could have aimed for that if they'd prepared better. Now it's impossible. As we're all going logarithmic nowadays, I'd put 2k as a good result, 20k as a not catastrophic result, and 200k as a catastrophic result. After all, a bad ordinary flu year is actually very bad.
> 
> There is also politics in play here. It's not exactly aiming at 20k. It's more likely that 20k is going to happen on latest projections, so spinning that as success. If they'd started preparations two months ago, maybe they could have 'aimed at' 2k.


But total worldwide deaths so far are only 29,881*, and even Italy is only at 10,023 ..

*with caveats that this may actually be lower than reality.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

weltweit said:


> But total worldwide deaths so far are only 29,881, and even Italy is only at 10,023 ..


'only'? It's at nearly 1,000 per day at the moment. Italy is going to end up considerably over 20,000 (it has roughly the same population as the UK, so we can use the same figure). It has reached the UK's 'good flu' _year_ figure in the last three _days_.

And that's not even taking into account the fact that the real figure is bound to be higher than the official figure, sadly, because the health authorities are overwhelmed.


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2020)

Can also consider those numbers int he context of the latest Imperial College report, which tookk their previous work on mitigation and suppression modelling estimates and applied it to regions of the world.

If someone fancies having a stsb at estimating when UK rates were at 0.2 deaths per 100,000 population per week, and when they were at 1.6 deaths per 100,000 population per week, that would help us determine where in this chart the UK would be estimated to fall. I didnt do a proper calculation, I have a vague stab at it and decided that the uk rate changed quickly and that we are only talking about a matter of days timing difference. But I didnt check my sums at all.





			https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-Global-Impact-26-03-2020.pdf
		


By the way, according to a small record I kept of certain UK claims, they have been talking about limiting it to 20,000 or less deaths since somewhere around 11th-15th March.

edit - my timing was a little off with regards the 20,000 claim, that date range I gave was for the shitstorm 'herd immunity narrative and plan went down badly'. It looks like it was the following Monday 16th, when the Imperial College report on having to go for suppression instead arrived, that was also the original source of the 20,000:



> Imperial’s researchers presented their latest analysis after the prime minister’s press conference at 10 Downing Street on Monday. Modelling a scenario similar to the new measures — including social distancing of the whole population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their families — might bring total deaths down to about 20,000 if they were observed strictly, said Azra Ghani, a member of the Imperial team.



(Quote from Subscribe to read | Financial Times )


----------



## teqniq (Mar 28, 2020)

What a total prick. He has been reprimanded and no further action was taken.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

Plod's famed 'common sense and discretion' in action


----------



## bumpkinbeans (Mar 28, 2020)

I am infected with cronic hep c viris and awaiting liver skan and took my self out of work a week ago as a precaution and as my workplace is classed as an essential buisness the store manager has already been on the phone to me threatning not to pay me unless i can get an exeption note off the doctor. My company i work for is band q and a low wage earner and thats how they treat you. No  customers allowed in store but staff still expected to work doing shelf filling and the like. Worked there for a lot of years and i would like to take unpaid leave untill this lockdown is over and will see when he phones me again on monday to pressure me again to return. I am 62 and my wife says stay away if i feel scared and that they cannot lay me off with whats going on but i do not trust the company.Band q an essential buisness ffs.My doctor has told me hep c is not on the list to excuse you from the workplace and really said nothing else when i phoned. What you saying folks??


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

Shit really sorry to hear that, bumpkinbeans. Employer and doctor are both cunts. I say stay away if you don't feel safe going in. Hope your boss does the right thing.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Mar 28, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Tbf Matt Hancock is looking after the Inbox so it could just be absolute total fucking stupidity



When Jeremy Hunt was in charge I remember thinking the barrel is really being scraped. 

And then along came Hancock.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 28, 2020)

bumpkinbeans  and welcome.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Mar 28, 2020)

TopCat said:


> 181 deaths the day before. Oh dear that rate of increase is terrifying.



I'm not great with numbers. 

Does that mean essentially 1 in 17 of those that have been admitted to hospital and tested positive have died?

Working on approx 17k positive with approx 1k dying.


----------



## bumpkinbeans (Mar 28, 2020)

teqniq said:


> bumpkinbeans  and welcome.


Hello my friend hope you are well


----------



## bumpkinbeans (Mar 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Shit really sorry to hear that, bumpkinbeans. Employer and doctor are both cunts. I say stay away if you don't feel safe going in. Hope your boss does the right thing.


We will see but its a nasty company these days and staff are all disposable


----------



## bumpkinbeans (Mar 28, 2020)

Size of that excell hospital in london is scary. The storm about to hit us in the uk is serious and very scary and so fast moving its overwhelming.


----------



## zahir (Mar 28, 2020)

Advice on protective gear for NHS staff was rejected owing to cost
					

Exclusive: DoH dismissed call for eye protection – now needed for coronavirus – in 2017




					www.theguardian.com
				





> Documents show that officials working under former health secretary Jeremy Hunt told medical advisers three years ago to “reconsider” a formal recommendation that eye protection should be provided to all healthcare professionals who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients.
> 
> The expert advice was watered down after an “economic assessment” found a medical recommendation about providing visors or safety glasses to all hospital, ambulance and social care staff who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients would “substantially increase” the costs of stockpiling.
> 
> The documents may help explain a devastating shortage of protective gear in the NHS that is hampering efforts by medical staff to manage the Covid-19 virus pandemic.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 28, 2020)

bumpkinbeans said:


> Size of that excell hospital in london is scary. The storm about to hit us in the uk is serious and very scary and so fast moving its overwhelming.


Whys that then?


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2020)

Coronavirus: new figures on intensive care deaths revealed
					

Findings of new report raise concerns about how effective new facilities will be




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The mortality rate for patients put in intensive care after being infected with Covid-19 is running at close to 50%, a report has revealed.
> 
> Data from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) showed that of 165 patients treated in critical care in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since the end of February, 79 died, while 86 survived and were discharged. The figures were taken from an audit of 775 people who have been or are in critical care with the disease, across 285 intensive care units. The remaining 610 patients continue to receive intensive care.





> The report also found that though the majority of those who have died from coronavirus across the UK were over 70, nine of the 79 who died in intensive care were aged between 16 and 49, as were 28 of the 86 who survived.
> 
> The audit suggested that men are at much higher risk from the virus – seven in ten of all ICU patients were male, while 30% of men in critical care were under 60, compared to just 15% of women. Excess weight also appears to be a significant risk factor; over 70% of patients were overweight, obese or clinically obese on the body mass index scale.


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2020)

Also from the same article:



> The high death rate raises questions about how effective critical care will be in saving the lives of people struck down by the disease. As a top priority, the NHS is opening field hospitals in London, Birmingham and Manchester, which will incorporate some of the biggest critical care units ever seen in Britain.
> 
> “The truth is that quite a lot of these individuals [in critical care] are going to die anyway and there is a fear that we are just ventilating them for the sake of it, for the sake of doing something for them, even though it won’t be effective. That’s a worry,” one doctor said.



Well, maybe when talking about that dont forget to focus on all those it did save rather than all those it didnt help.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

One note on that 70 per cent overweight, national statistics records that 64 per cent of the English population is overweight, obese or clinically obese on the body mass index scale.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 28, 2020)

Still no unassailable logic as to why men are dying more than women?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Still no unassailable logic as to why men are dying more than women?


Shit genes.

It's the most likely explanation as it appears to be a worldwide pattern. Just the one X chromosome, no back-up copies of important genes to do with immune response. Women are often more resilient in conditions of extreme deprivation for similar reasons. My money would be on that.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 28, 2020)

French expert earlier suggesting the "median age for successful recoveryl in ICU" is 58.
I can't find it explained anywhere...

Elysée Facebook PM's press conference today.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> French expert earlier suggesting the "median age for successful recoveryl in ICU" is 58.
> I can't find it explained anywhere...
> 
> Elysée Facebook PM's press conference today.


What do you want explained?


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> What do you want explained?


Seemed to suggest that as many people under 58 would die as over 58 ?

First expert - approx 6 mins in.


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2020)

I recommend looking at the report that Guardian article about UK intensive care patient data was based on.

report

As for the question, I dont know, I'm mostly not watching videos.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Seemed to suggest that as many people under 58 would die as over 58 ?
> 
> First expert - approx 6 mins in.



No, it means as many people under 58 will recover as over 58. There may be many more people over 58 dying. 

EG: You might have 100 people in ICU, 80 over 58, 20 under 58. If 40 people recover, including all those under 58, that makes the median age of recovery 58, but every single death  will be over 58.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> I recommend looking at the report that Guardian article about UK intensive care patient data was based on.
> 
> report
> 
> As for the question, I dont know, I'm mostly not watching videos.


Bloody hell that's grim.
I'm a fit, but moderately overweight 60 year old with BP 10 points over ideal


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Bloody hell that's grim.
> I'm a fit, but moderately overweight 60 year old with BP 10 points over ideal


By c19 standards, you're still relatively young. You're fit, which is a biggie. And weight is only slightly indicated as a risk factor by those raw numbers - 70 per cent vs 64 per cent in the general population. Being male is way more important.


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Bloody hell that's grim.
> I'm a fit, but moderately overweight 60 year old with BP 10 points over ideal



Although please do note that with a report like that which focuses only on intensive care, its important to balance what it says with info from elsewhere about all the cases that share some of the characteristics mentioned, but never end up anywhere close to intensive care.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 28, 2020)

I will probably risk the supermarket for more veggies then. 
Several doctors recently stressing it's all about hand washing rather than airborne risks... Though one biologist has bought a pile of bandanas.
Pretty sure I'm not a carrier.


----------



## Hollis (Mar 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> people were posting this on facebook the other day as if it was satire... after reading that story I'm not sure.
> 
> View attachment 203797



It can't be much longer before joggers are spotted flying over rooftops on broomsticks.


----------



## editor (Mar 28, 2020)

Comes to something when a fetish wear company are so angry that they have to let rip at the government









						Fetish company donates its entire 'medical' clothing stock to the NHS to help fight coronavirus
					

You know things are bad when the NHS is asking a medical fetishwear company to donate clothing.




					www.indy100.com


----------



## Wilf (Mar 28, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> French expert earlier suggesting the "median age for successful recoveryl in ICU" is 58.


Phew!


----------



## Wilf (Mar 28, 2020)

Looks like we are heading for a stricter lockdown:








						Boris Johnson to warn UK: tougher lockdown may be necessary
					

Outbreak will get worse before it gets better, PM tells nation as death toll hits 1,000




					www.theguardian.com
				



Our hand shaking PM will be writing to us.

Not sure what the stricter conditions will be? Stopping the one form of exercise? Banning all forms of work outside of war work?  More powers for plod?  A curfew? 

Seems to me the govt not only should have started all this 10 days earlier and the testing even earlier still, but they should have had some kind of strategy for spreading the message. There's johnson's spectacular lack of consistency, from happy birthday through to a lockdown, but also no real sense of how to get the message out, how to reinforce it, how to use existing institutions.  'Behavioural nudges', lol.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Looks like we are heading for a stricter lockdown:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'd like to see the evidence base for a stricter lockdown, tbh. Stopping construction, etc, sure, that's going to reduce social contact, but stopping people going for walks? Is that going to add anything? This was always going to get worse before it got better even where social distancing measures are working. We've known that for a while now. Getting tough now strikes me as mostly about looking tough as the numbers get bad rather than actually making a material difference. There was too little early on, now there's a danger of too much too late.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

Also, lol at the 'PM tells nation' crap. Like we didn't already know.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> No, it means as many people under 58 will recover as over 58. There may be many more people over 58 dying.
> 
> EG: You might have 100 people in ICU, 80 over 58, 20 under 58. If 40 people recover, including all those under 58, that makes the median age of recovery 58, but every single death  will be over 58.


Pedantry perhaps but this isn't necessarily right - the median age _could _be 58. Whether it actually is or not depends on the distribution of ages.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'd like to see the evidence base for a stricter lockdown, tbh. Stopping construction, etc, sure, that's going to reduce social contact, but stopping people going for walks? Is that going to add anything? This was always going to get worse before it got better even where social distancing measures are working. We've known that for a while now. Getting tough now strikes me as mostly about looking tough as the numbers get bad rather than actually making a material difference. There was too little early on, now there's a danger of too much too late.


Fully agree, it very much feels like being seen to do something. I'm not sure about the exercise thing, I've been out walking for the last 3/4 days, mainly in the afternoons. There are probably more walkers/joggers/families on bikes and sometimes it's quite difficult to get more than a pavements's width away. Hard to say if that's risky or not. But yeah, on the wider point I'd prefer to see more effort to get existing measures working properly. That's not just stopping idiots acting as if nothing had happened it really is about getting a mindset out there. TBH, at the moment, the shops and supermarkets are the riskiest areas of life in the UK, for shoppers and, even more so, staff. To make real changes in terms of the layout of shops, improving online services and getting more vans/drivers is very 'logistical', but is probably the one single thing government could do to make a difference.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Pedantry perhaps but this isn't necessarily right - the median age _could _be 58. Whether it actually is or not depends on the distribution of ages.


That's massive pedantry.  Alright, in that mix, there are two people who are actually 58, numbers 20 and 21 respectively of the survivors, as they are all lined up.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Also, lol at the 'PM tells nation' crap. Like we didn't already know.


His own contribution has been to go into the hospitals, get the virus on his own sweaty mits and then take it back out into the country. Churchillian.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Fully agree, it very much feels like being seen to do something. I'm not sure about the exercise thing, I've been out walking for the last 3/4 days, mainly in the afternoons. There are probably more walkers/joggers/families on bikes and sometimes it's quite difficult to get more than a pavements's width away. Hard to say if that's risky or not. But yeah, on the wider point I'd prefer to see more effort to get existing measures working properly. That's not just stopping idiots acting as if nothing had happened it really is about getting a mindset out there. TBH, at the moment, the shops and supermarkets are the riskiest areas of life in the UK, for shoppers and, even more so, staff. To make real changes in terms of the layout of shops, improving online services and getting more vans/drivers is very 'logistical', but is probably the one single thing government could do to make a difference.


Thing is we don't yet know how well existing measures are working. We can know that they have reduced social contact massively already. We can't know if reducing it a bit more by being draconian will make much more difference. The govt could stop treating people like idiots and try explaining the time lag between effective social distancing and the numbers coming under control.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 28, 2020)

In about 10 years, just as johnson decides to go and spend more time with his families, there'll be a report finally coming out after being long grassed for 3 or 4 years. Somehow, written as it will be in civil service language, it will manage to say they got every fucking thing wrong without blaming anyone in government.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Looks like we are heading for a stricter lockdown:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Prick will probably lick the envelopes too


----------



## agricola (Mar 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'd like to see the evidence base for a stricter lockdown, tbh. Stopping construction, etc, sure, that's going to reduce social contact, but stopping people going for walks? Is that going to add anything? This was always going to get worse before it got better even where social distancing measures are working. We've known that for a while now. Getting tough now strikes me as mostly about looking tough as the numbers get bad rather than actually making a material difference. There was too little early on, now there's a danger of too much too late.



Indeed, and we will probably see a much more effective lockdown as the death rate spikes anyway.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 28, 2020)

For me, working from home, the greatest risk of infection has to be shopping for food. 

But for others that can't work from home I imagine their risks are partly from food shopping and also from mixing with people in the workplace. I know many employers are trying to enforce the 2m social distancing but that does not cater for the possibility of picking up the infection from surfaces. 

A tighter lock down could be stopping non essential working at workplaces.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 28, 2020)

Partly about being seen to be doing something, definitely. Partly perhaps fear that we're going to end up as bad as Italy. But if we do end up as bad as Italy, that will be due to decisions taken weeks ago. Nothing done now can change that. Something else they're hardly likely to be honest about.


----------



## xenon (Mar 28, 2020)

From that Guardian article.
"33%) think there should be a ban placed on all public transport."

Stupid fucking cunts. Not realising how many NHS staff, social carers, supermarket workers etc have to use public transport.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 28, 2020)

xenon said:


> ..
> Stupid fucking cunts. Not realising how many NHS staff, social carers, supermarket workers etc have to use public transport.


In Wuhan they stopped public transport and instead got volunteers to drive medical staff to hospitals.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

weltweit said:


> In Wuhan they stopped public transport and instead got volunteers to drive medical staff to hospitals.


Don't want to sound too London-centric, but there is zero chance of that working in London. atm when I've been out for walks, I've seen very empty buses with people sitting nowhere near one another. Not been near the tube so I can't say how that is, but the buses are not so bad. 

And I can only really repeat the question - how much difference would such a measure make? test-trace-isolate is still the best strategy here. They're still only testing 5,000 a day I believe. This is mostly just deflection from their serial failings.


----------



## xenon (Mar 29, 2020)

weltweit said:


> In Wuhan they stopped public transport and instead got volunteers to drive medical staff to hospitals.



Yeah and supermarket workers social carers? Did they do all that or just leave vunrible housebound people to starve?

It's bullshit.

Stop construction workers having to travel to build cunt hutches by supporting zero hour contracters and self employed now, not in June.


----------



## xenon (Mar 29, 2020)

Sorry I'm a bit sensitive about this as some of my dad's carers in greater London get the bus.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

xenon said:


> Sorry I'm a bit sensitive about this as some of my dad's carers in greater London get the bus.


Yep there is a real risk to people from measures for a tougher lockdown. And for what benefit on top of what there is? Around London atm a very large proportion of the people on the streets are construction workers. That needs to change first.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 29, 2020)

Apparently,  blood group seems to be a factor in susceptibility and symptomology.

The paper has not yet been peer reviewed though.

"The results showed that blood group A was associated with a higher risk for acquiring COVID-19 compared with non-A blood groups, whereas blood group O was associated with a lower risk for the infection compared with non-O blood groups. This is the first observation of an association between the ABO blood type and COVID-1"









						Relationship between the ABO Blood Group and the COVID-19 Susceptibility
					

The novel coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has been spreading around the world rapidly and declared as a pandemic by WHO. Here, we compared the ABO blood group distribution in 2,173 patients with COVID-19 confirmed by SARS-CoV-2 test from three hospitals in Wuhan and Shenzhen, China with that...




					www.medrxiv.org
				













						Coronavirus: are people with blood group A really at higher risk of catching COVID-19?
					

There’s no need to panic if you are in this blood group.




					www.google.com


----------



## weltweit (Mar 29, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Apparently,  blood group seems to be a factor in serious symptomology.
> ..


Yes, I remember reading about this. Very interesting. 
And of course now I can't remember what my own blood group is


----------



## two sheds (Mar 29, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Apparently,  blood group seems to be a factor in susceptibility and symptomology.
> 
> The paper has not yet been peer reviewed though.
> 
> ...



I saw that but someone pointed out that the Chinese go a bit over the top with blood groups. I'm blood group A and year of the snake for example: 



> Strong Points: They are stable and upright, sometimes heroes in other people’s eyes. They have sufficient patience and persistence. As long as the goals are set, they will try their best to fulfill them. They are bold and capable in work, and they are always the people who come up with new ideas. Good at inspiring people to work together, they can easily stand out in career circle. With acute sense for chance and broad horizon, their talk is full of humor and wit, which can touch other people easily.



which is uncannily accurate as it happens


----------



## xenon (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep there is a real risk to people from measures for a tougher lockdown. And for what benefit on top of what there is? Around London atm a very large proportion of the people on the streets are construction workers. That needs to change first.



Yep, it's a fucking joke. Whilst people are being told not to go to parks, quite rightly IMO,  that those companies employing people to  build luxury apartments, hotels are implicitly told to carry on.


----------



## xenon (Mar 29, 2020)

How do you know what blood group you are anyway, is it on your birth certificate?


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I saw that but someone pointed out that the Chinese go a bit over the top with blood groups. I'm blood group A and year of the snake for example:
> 
> 
> 
> which is uncannily accurate as it happens



I'm a snake too! A wood snake.

But blood groups are science. Biochemistry. Well, haematology. But anyway not philosophy or metaphysics or theory.

So if they're finding that cases are skewed amongst blood groups that could give a clue to a way to interfere with the way the virus attaches to cell proteins.

But it's one study, not peer reviewed, so might not be useful at all.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 29, 2020)

xenon said:


> How do you know what blood group you are anyway, is it on your birth certificate?



Not in the UK. You have to either ask when they check you before having surgery or donate blood, or pay to get a test.


----------



## gosub (Mar 29, 2020)

Wilf said:


> In about 10 years, just as johnson decides to go and spend more time with his families, there'll be a report finally coming out after being long grassed for 3 or 4 years. Somehow, written as it will be in civil service language, it will manage to say they got every fucking thing wrong without blaming anyone in government.











						Exercise Cygnus uncovered: the pandemic warnings buried by the Government
					

Exercise Cygnus dramatically exposed the gaps in Britain’s pandemic response but its ‘terrifying’ findings have yet to be published




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 29, 2020)

xenon said:


> How do you know what blood group you are anyway, is it on your birth certificate?


I got mine when I donated blood - common as much O for me.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 29, 2020)

gosub said:


> Exercise Cygnus uncovered: the pandemic warnings buried by the Government
> 
> 
> Exercise Cygnus dramatically exposed the gaps in Britain’s pandemic response but its ‘terrifying’ findings have yet to be published
> ...


paywall, but i got the gist.


----------



## editor (Mar 29, 2020)




----------



## Part-timah (Mar 29, 2020)

editor said:


>




Should have locked then in for 2 weeks.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 29, 2020)

xenon said:


> From that Guardian article.
> "33%) think there should be a ban placed on all public transport."
> 
> Stupid fucking cunts. Not realising how many NHS staff, social carers, supermarket workers etc have to use public transport.


How much do you want to bet every singe person in that 33% has a car?


----------



## wayward bob (Mar 29, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Looks like we are heading for a stricter lockdown:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


when we all return to sender he'll never be able to dig his way back out of downing street, right?


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'd like to see the evidence base for a stricter lockdown, tbh. Stopping construction, etc, sure, that's going to reduce social contact, but stopping people going for walks? Is that going to add anything? This was always going to get worse before it got better even where social distancing measures are working. We've known that for a while now. Getting tough now strikes me as mostly about looking tough as the numbers get bad rather than actually making a material difference. There was too little early on, now there's a danger of too much too late.


Worse, if could fuel a backlash that sees the whole thing called off prematurely.

See that even the _Sunday Boris_ (nee _Telegraph_) has articles kicking the govt for ignoring warnings that the NHS wasn't ready for a pandemic, alongside a Jeremy Hunt op-ed demanding mass testing. His libertarian groupies loathe this, and won't be giving him his usual fawning.


----------



## bimble (Mar 29, 2020)

The bit quoting Jeremy Hunt's piece published in the telegraph surprises me. he is saying mass testing & contact tracing is the way to go . Is he saying that because that is the plan? 

"The restaurants are open in South Korea. You can go shopping in Taiwan. Offices are open in Singapore,” Hunt wrote. “These countries learned the hard way how to deal with a pandemic after the deadly Sars virus. They now show us how we can emerge from lockdown..
“Where you find it, you can isolate and contain it,” Hunt wrote “And where you don’t [find the virus], vital services continue to function. _With mass testing, accompanied by rigorous tracing of every person a Covid-19 patient has been in touch with, you can break the chain of transmission.”_

Is he speaking out of line there or is this the gov line ?


----------



## brogdale (Mar 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> The bit quoting Jeremy Hunt's piece published in the telegraph surprises me. he is saying mass testing & contact tracing is the way to go . Is he saying that because that is the plan? I am confused.
> 
> "The restaurants are open in South Korea. You can go shopping in Taiwan. Offices are open in Singapore,” Hunt wrote. “These countries learned the hard way how to deal with a pandemic after the deadly Sars virus. They now show us how we can emerge from lockdown..
> “Where you find it, you can isolate and contain it,” Hunt wrote “And where you don’t [find the virus], vital services continue to function. _With mass testing, accompanied by rigorous tracing of every person a Covid-19 patient has been in touch with, you can break the chain of transmission.”_
> ...


AFAICS he's ostensibly speaking for himself as chair of the H&SC select committee, but in reality it shows the depth of his resentment at rejection by the party and the degree of his delusion about his future chances. Very much not Johnson.


----------



## killer b (Mar 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> The bit quoting Jeremy Hunt's piece published in the telegraph surprises me. he is saying mass testing & contact tracing is the way to go . Is he saying that because that is the plan?
> 
> "The restaurants are open in South Korea. You can go shopping in Taiwan. Offices are open in Singapore,” Hunt wrote. “These countries learned the hard way how to deal with a pandemic after the deadly Sars virus. They now show us how we can emerge from lockdown..
> “Where you find it, you can isolate and contain it,” Hunt wrote “And where you don’t [find the virus], vital services continue to function. _With mass testing, accompanied by rigorous tracing of every person a Covid-19 patient has been in touch with, you can break the chain of transmission.”_
> ...


Hunt isn't in government - hes been critical of their response and calling for more widespread testing for weeks


----------



## bimble (Mar 29, 2020)

Oh yeah, he sort of flounced after Johnson was elected i forgot. Is he right though ? I mean in a parallel world where we had all the tests needed and the people to do them.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> Oh yeah, he sort of flounced after Johnson was elected i forgot. Is he right though ? I mean in a parallel world where we had all the tests needed and the people to do them.


Common sense would suggest so. 
For one, if we could test all health-care/social care frontliners there wouldn't be the depth of the emerging staffing crisis resulting from precautionary isolation etc.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> The bit quoting Jeremy Hunt's piece published in the telegraph surprises me. he is saying mass testing & contact tracing is the way to go . Is he saying that because that is the plan?
> 
> "The restaurants are open in South Korea. You can go shopping in Taiwan. Offices are open in Singapore,” Hunt wrote. “These countries learned the hard way how to deal with a pandemic after the deadly Sars virus. They now show us how we can emerge from lockdown..
> “Where you find it, you can isolate and contain it,” Hunt wrote “And where you don’t [find the virus], vital services continue to function. _With mass testing, accompanied by rigorous tracing of every person a Covid-19 patient has been in touch with, you can break the chain of transmission.”_
> ...


Been speaking outa line for weeks, ever since the "herd immunity" cluster a few weeks back. Suspect men in grey suits are circling if this rudderless govt keeps up the blundering as the casualties rise.

Who knows what the govt line is ATM, as the Whitehall sicklist grows by the day, there barely is a functioning government (what's new, but even worse). Half-hearted attempt at suppression via a lockdown appears to be it, maybe as cover for herd immunity by stealth, but don't know if they're even capable of having a coherent policy ATM. The CMO's in his Covid-19 funk hole, and his deputy has some unhinged personal belief that mass testing's only for poor countries. Chaos reigns.


----------



## killer b (Mar 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> Oh yeah, he sort of flounced after Johnson was elected i forgot. Is he right though ? I mean in a parallel world where we had all the tests needed and the people to do them.


If/when the current pandemic is under control then something like that'll realistically be the only way of returning to some kind of normality, until theres a vaccine


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 29, 2020)

Its obvious though, the testing. Hunt is just taking a punt at being able to further his own ambitions.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

brogdale said:


> AFAICS he's ostensibly speaking for himself as chair of the H&SC select committee, but in reality it shows the depth of his resentment at rejection by the party and the degree of his delusion about his future chances. Very much not Johnson.


May not be so delusional, he clearly has powerful Tory allies if Boris' own house rag is giving him a platform to attack government inaction. Tim Shipman reported that him and Rory Stewart speaking out gave others in Cabinet guts to threaten resignation if suppression measures weren't stepped up. If nothing else, he's useful for piling pressure on the Whitehall mess.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Its obvious though, the testing. Hunt is just taking a punt at being able to further his own ambitions.


Very likely, but it's a punt that helps us all, so more power to him on this. He heaped praise on Johnson when he was stuck on the sick and bundled into No. 11, so Al should be really worried!


----------



## hash tag (Mar 29, 2020)

If this were near you, would you not have a slight urge to go and see this one off thing? Peak District’s toxic ‘Blue Lagoon’ dyed black to deter gatherings during coronavirus lockdown


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Gove flailing around about testing on _Guardian_'s live blog, praising Germany, usual guff about now not the time to look back, Britain rising up league table. U-turn ahead? We'll see.

If so, please make the deputy CMO make the announcement, and explain how it's not just for poor countries without the NHS.

And in the most morbid of Freudian slips, live blog says government's aim is to increase the death toll ...


----------



## bimble (Mar 29, 2020)

well spotted.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Can't stand the sight and sound of Wormtongue, so not watching, but assume he didn't actually say that ('cause these days ...).


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Now Blair's on Sky calling for mass testing ASAP as route back to semblance of normality. Midas touch in reverse among most people, but the Westminster bubble still worship him, so worthwhile. If nothing else should drive up interest among the PLP.


----------



## Edie (Mar 29, 2020)

I’ve been quite impressed with the Government so far in the crisis. They are taking, and acting on, scientific and medical advice. On the whole they’ve communicated clearly. They have not been afraid to make big decisions, such as the 80% wages, closing non-essential business, and constructing with the Army and the NHS a massive new covid hospital NHS Nightingale very quickly.

After a slightly beurocratic and slow start, NHS England appears to be doing a reasonable job at making us as ready as possible. Yes, we need more PPE, more testing, more ventilators- but visible steps leading to procurement as quickly as possible appears to have occurred. Overall, I feel as if we have leadership and there is a national effort underway.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 29, 2020)

Wormtongue - Good call


----------



## lefteri (Mar 29, 2020)

hash tag said:


> If this were near you, would you not have a slight urge to go and see this one off thing? Peak District’s toxic ‘Blue Lagoon’ dyed black to deter gatherings during coronavirus lockdown



goths would overcome their natural social distancing instincts to descend en masse


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

I've said plenty about the government's strategy (if you can dignify it as such) elsewhere, but if nothing else, their tone's abysmal. Went for Churchillian, landed on the bastard son of Quisling and the Grim Reaper without the charm. Fatalistic surrender isn't how you inspire people for a common fight, lads.


----------



## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

It’s probably worth remembering that when Hunt bangs on about testing, he was health sec from 2012-2018, then foreign sec, and there is presumably a reason we don’t have enough tests.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’ve been quite impressed with the Government so far in the crisis. They are taking, and acting on, scientific and medical advice. On the whole they’ve communicated clearly. They have not been afraid to make big decisions, such as the 80% wages, closing non-essential business, and constructing with the Army and the NHS a massive new covid hospital NHS Nightingale very quickly.
> 
> After a slightly beurocratic and slow start, NHS England appears to be doing a reasonable job at making us as ready as possible. Yes, we need more PPE, more testing, more ventilators- but visible steps leading to procurement as quickly as possible appears to have occurred. Overall, I feel as if we have leadership and there is a national effort underway.


Compare and contrast with Germany. UK govt has been shit and now playing catchup. Not the only one . France Spain equally shit.  Worth noting that many other European countries wouldn't need that 80% pay emergency legislation cos that's already their system. What are the chances of us keeping it when this ends?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> It’s probably worth remembering that when Hunt bangs on about testing, he was health sec from 2012-2018, then foreign sec, and there is presumably a reason we don’t have enough tests.


And ppe.  And ventilators...


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

All true, as he well knows, so expect he hopes he can redeem himself with this. If it motivates him to pressure a U-turn, small price to pay.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’ve been quite impressed with the Government so far in the crisis. They are taking, and acting on, scientific and medical advice. On the whole they’ve communicated clearly. They have not been afraid to make big decisions, such as the 80% wages, closing non-essential business, and constructing with the Army and the NHS a massive new covid hospital NHS Nightingale very quickly.
> 
> After a slightly beurocratic and slow start, NHS England appears to be doing a reasonable job at making us as ready as possible. Yes, we need more PPE, more testing, more ventilators- but visible steps leading to procurement as quickly as possible appears to have occurred. Overall, I feel as if we have leadership and there is a national effort underway.


Strikes me as being consistent - in as, consistently a day late and a dollar short. Their entire strategy had to be ditched after an outcry from people who inexplicably could see the dangers inherent in it ages before them. The WHO's line was "test, test, test" and the gov have only just cranked that up and nowhere near enough. We WILL be short of ICU beds and ventilators and PPE for health-care professionals because the gov sat on their hands for weeks just waiting to see if the UK was miraculously differently affected by C19 than every other country. The half-arsed lockdown with its perpetually confusing mixed messages has undoubtedly been badly thought out and terribly implemented. And worst of all everything that's going wrong or will go wrong will be blamed on everyone but those who had the powers to deal with it all much, much better.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> And in the most morbid of Freudian slips, live blog says government's aim is to increase the death toll ...



The other day that blog had a headline saying 'the NHS should *not *be able to cope'.

Took 30 mins for them to change it to 'the NHS should *now *be able to cope'


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

It's consistently been the most self-defeating disaster they could engineer. Prioritize the economy above lives, end up tanking it anyway, and with a spiraling death toll. If they'd imposed a rigourous surveillance, test and quarantine system, there's every chance we could now be where South Korea are, or even where Taiwan is. The right thing to do would've been the smart thing to do. But no, Cummings just had to go for his Strangelove tribute act.


----------



## killer b (Mar 29, 2020)

S☼I said:


> And worst of all everything that's going wrong or will go wrong will be blamed on everyone but those who had the powers to deal with it all much, much better.


there's an interesting bit in the latest Talking Politics podcast, where they're talking about cholera epidemics of the 19th century (the whole thing is pretty interesting, but this bit struck me in particular) where it turns out the poor - with their carelessness, immorality and promiscuity - were blamed for the spread of the disease.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> On the whole they’ve communicated clearly.


Even if I could buy the rest of what you say, which I don't, this is absolute fantasyland. You must be occupying some parallel reality to me. I literally don't understand how you can think this.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

killer b said:


> there's an interesting bit in the latest Talking Politics podcast, where they're talking about cholera epidemics of the 19th century (the whole thing is pretty interesting, but this bit struck me in particular) where it turns out the poor - with their carelessness, immorality and promiscuity - were blamed for the spread of the disease.


Thanks a lot for that, been drawing attention to our failure to learn from Victorian public health measures in recent days, podcast should be a salutary (if depressing) reminder of the disasters that led to their creation. We're having to relearn forgotten lessons. Without going too _Battlestar Galactica_, all this has happened before, and will happen again.


----------



## kebabking (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’ve been quite impressed with the Government so far in the crisis. They are taking, and acting on, scientific and medical advice. On the whole they’ve communicated clearly. They have not been afraid to make big decisions, such as the 80% wages, closing non-essential business, and constructing with the Army and the NHS a massive new covid hospital NHS Nightingale very quickly.
> 
> After a slightly beurocratic and slow start, NHS England appears to be doing a reasonable job at making us as ready as possible. Yes, we need more PPE, more testing, more ventilators- but visible steps leading to procurement as quickly as possible appears to have occurred. Overall, I feel as if we have leadership and there is a national effort underway.



I take a similar view - I've been involved in the military response and support to PHE and the NHS since the beginning of January, and as a general rule I tend the think the worst of politicians just to save time - HMG has been switched on to the dangers of this since the beginning, and has never shyed away from morally/ideologically difficult, terrifyingly expensive and bitter tasting decisions, but the communication and public education element of this has been utterly woeful, particularly of late. You've also had public bodies directly working against each other with absolutely no ministerial grip.

I've been pleasantly surprised (albeit from a somewhat low baseline) with Johnson's willingness to not be the populist moron that Trump has been - he has followed what the CMO, CSA and PHE were telling him, he hasn't flinched at taking decisions that could, given the uncertainties involved, come back to haunt him - but again the communication, and understanding how critical public education would be has been crap.

Sunak and Hancock have been the stand-out performers, both publicly and in government. Jon Ashworth has been Labours star - Hancock wants him appointed as his deputy at health if there's a COBR 'national government'- Corbyn has been dreadful, and surprisingly, McDonnell has only been marginally better.


----------



## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And ppe.  And ventilators...



To be fair I think the ventilator situation was a little less predictable. At least there don’t seem to be any other countries that prepared for that.


----------



## bimble (Mar 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> To be fair I think the ventilator situation was a little less predictable. At least there don’t seem to be any other countries that prepared for that.


Germany ordered an extra 10,000 new ventilators weeks ago, despite having many times more than we do already (adjusted for population). Why were we so much slower?


----------



## xes (Mar 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> To be fair I think the ventilator situation was a little less predictable. At least there don’t seem to be any other countries that prepared for that.


Oh I don't know, compared to other countries we've not got many. I mean, Italy has twice the amount we do per 100,000 people.  (going by this image) Looks like something we've needed to increase for a long time. Did a bit after SARS but not enough. I think we increased the units that oxygenate the blood from 5 to 30. That's woeful.


----------



## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

kebabking said:


> I take a similar view - I've been involved in the military response and support to PHE and the NHS since the beginning of January, and as a general rule I tend the think the worst of politicians just to save time - HMG has been switched on to the dangers of this since the beginning, and has never shyed away from morally/ideologically difficult, terrifyingly expensive and bitter tasting decisions, but the communication and public education element of this has been utterly woeful, particularly of late. You've also had public bodies directly working against each other with absolutely no ministerial grip.
> 
> I've been pleasantly surprised (albeit from a somewhat low baseline) with Johnson's willingness to not be the populist moron that Trump has been - he has followed what the CMO, CSA and PHE were telling him, he hasn't flinched at taking decisions that could, given the uncertainties involved, come back to haunt him - but again the communication, and understanding how critical public education would be has been crap.
> 
> Sunak and Hancock have been the stand-out performers, both publicly and in government. Jon Ashworth has been Labours star - Hancock wants him appointed as his deputy at health if there's a COBR 'national government'- Corbyn has been dreadful, and surprisingly, McDonnell has only been marginally better.



He wanted to go the Trump line though. Just realised he had to flip... pressure from Europe, and from various parts of the scientific community. And populism here is very different than the US, sure he does have a libertarian base, but equally he has a lot of old school conservative and w/c voters that aren’t as attached to ideals of individual liberty.


----------



## Athos (Mar 29, 2020)

I'm sorry Edie, but I'm genuinely bemused at how you (or anyone) can praise this government's response.

Ok, they bought in the 80% thing, but that was slow in coming, patchy in coverage, and unclear. Plus, let's not kid ourselves that they won't use it as cover for even more brutal austerity when this is all over. 

And the fact is that we're now looking at a disaster as a result of the ridiculous 'herd immunity' strategy, and, wishy-washy measures after the u-turn.  If they cared about us, the plam would've been prompt and widespread testing, tracing, and isolation, backed up with early imposition of significant measures to arrest the spread.  But their instinctive reaction was to keep the economy going, and that lost lives were a price worth paying.

Worst of all, is the failure to protect NHS workers. It's been obvious that this is coming for months, with very little having to be done to provide essential PPE.  To me, that's unforgivable.

Communication has been abysmal; frequently, advice has changed hourly, and ministers have given contradictory statements.

Also, I don't entirely buy the "following medical advice" line.  We don't know what the advice was, or what pressure was exerted.  And, ultimately, it's not just a medical issue; there's lots of real-world and political factors that are taken into account.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

kebabking said:


> I take a similar view - I've been involved in the military response and support to PHE and the NHS since the beginning of January, and as a general rule I tend the think the worst of politicians just to save time - HMG has been switched on to the dangers of this since the beginning, and has never shyed away from morally/ideologically difficult, terrifyingly expensive and bitter tasting decisions, but the communication and public education element of this has been utterly woeful, particularly of late. You've also had public bodies directly working against each other with absolutely no ministerial grip.
> 
> I've been pleasantly surprised (albeit from a somewhat low baseline) with Johnson's willingness to not be the populist moron that Trump has been - he has followed what the CMO, CSA and PHE were telling him, he hasn't flinched at taking decisions that could, given the uncertainties involved, come back to haunt him - but again the communication, and understanding how critical public education would be has been crap.
> 
> Sunak and Hancock have been the stand-out performers, both publicly and in government. Jon Ashworth has been Labours star - Hancock wants him appointed as his deputy at health if there's a COBR 'national government'- Corbyn has been dreadful, and surprisingly, McDonnell has only been marginally better.


Genuine q. If they've been switched on from the beginning, how are they so much less well prepared than Germany? Where was the test and trace ? 

Regarding Johnson, he has finally ditched the trumplike populism but he only did that a couple of weeks ago. Before that all his rhetoric was still about how great he and his govt were.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Given that the Chief Scientist advocated enrolling the entire British population in a grotesque medical experiment to engineer "herd immunity" with a deadly virus, the CMO was reduced to a nodding dog before he was banished to his funk hole (I wish him a full recovery with lots of rest -- six months minimum), and his deputy thinks testing's only for loser countries, I'm not reassured by Johnson and co. deferring to their dubious expertise.


----------



## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

xes said:


> Oh I don't know, compared to other countries we've not got many. I mean, Italy has twice the amount we do per 100,000 people.  (going by this image) Looks like something we've needed to increase for a long time. Did a bit after SARS but not enough. I think we increased the units that oxygenate the blood from 5 to 30. That's woeful.



Yes, but all those are low compared to what we anticipate. Of course we have as few as possible... but we’re talking about increases of 30,000, which - I think - is an additional 50 beds/100,000.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Genuine q. If they've been switched on from the beginning, how are they so much less well prepared than Germany? Where was the test and trace ?
> 
> Regarding Johnson, he has finally ditched the trumplike populism but he only did that a couple of weeks ago. Before that all his rhetoric was still about how great he and his govt were.


He's succeeded in doing the seemingly impossible, and going one worse than the Don. Both were willing for Covid-19 to rip through their populations, but at least Trump wanted to try treating it with a cocktail of antimalarials and antibiotics that could show promise (it's in clinical trials and elements have already been added to some counties' treatment protocols). Johnson didn't even offer that, just Death without Binky.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Athos said:


> I'm sorry Edie, but I'm genuinely bemused at how you (or anyone) can praise this government's response.
> 
> Ok, they bought in the 80% thing, but that was slow in coming, patchy in coverage, and unclear. Plus, let's not kid ourselves that they won't use it as cover for even more brutal austerity when this is all over.
> 
> ...


Yeah I can forgive mistakes made with good intentions (and who'd want to be in govt right now). What I can't forgive is mistakes made with ill intentions or out of callous disregard for people. And I see both of those in play here.


----------



## Edie (Mar 29, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Even if I could buy the rest of what you say, which I don't, this is absolute fantasyland. You must be occupying some parallel reality to me. I literally don't understand how you can think this.


Because the press conferences that I’ve seen, with Boris and the advisors, I have been impressed by?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 29, 2020)

I don't understand how anyone can praise a government that was, until very recently, happy to just let the virus rip and kill 100s of thousands in the vain hope of "herd immunity", in the face of all the evidence from the far east, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into pursuing a less sociopathic strategy (if you can call it that) at least 2 weeks too late.

Seriously, its beyond my comprehension and I'm wondering if some people are inhabiting a different reality from me.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah I can forgive mistakes made with good intentions (and who'd want to be in govt right now). What I can't forgive is mistakes made with ill intentions or out of callous disregard for people. And I see both of those in play here.


It's the callous disregard that gets me, and worst of all, from our top scientists and physicians. Medical ethics has collapsed with terrifying speed and ease.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Compare and contrast with Germany. UK govt has been shit and now playing catchup. Not the only one . France Spain equally shit.  Worth noting that many other European countries wouldn't need that 80% pay emergency legislation cos that's already their system. What are the chances of us keeping it when this ends?


Looks to me like Germany are on the exact same path as Italy, France and the UK, about 4-5 days behind the UK.  It’s just that their better testing procedure allowed them to see the start and extent of the cases before other countries and more thoroughly.  It doesn’t stop their deaths following the same trend though.

if anything, I find it interesting from the other angle — Germany gives us a flavour of how much more widespread incidences if the disease are likely to be than our records show, and a better feel for the true mortality rate.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> I don't understand how anyone can praise a government that was, until very recently, happy to just let the virus rip and kill 100s of thousands in the vain hope of "herd immunity", in the face of all the evidence from the far east, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming into pursuing a less sociopathic strategy (if you can call it that) at least 2 weeks too late.
> 
> Seriously, its beyond my comprehension and I'm wondering if some people are inhabiting a different reality from me.


I'm glad for anyone who dodges the worst of Covid-19, even Johnson, but now he's apparently escaped with the mildest of mild cases, fear he'll be even more Woosterish about taking it on the chin.   Thankfully the public won't be in the mood to take lessons from someone preaching about what a breeze the celeb strain is.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Looks to me like Germany are on the exact same path as Italy, France and the UK, about 4-5 days behind the UK.  It’s just that their better testing procedure allowed them to see the start and extent of the cases before other countries and more thoroughly.  It doesn’t stop their deaths following the same trend though.
> 
> if anything, I find it interesting from the other angle — Germany gives us a flavour of how much more widespread incidences if the disease are likely to be than our records show, and a better feel for the true mortality rate.


TIme will tell on that. There are two crucial factors, aren't there. First the capacity of the health services and ability not to be overwhelmed, which we have seen in Italy causes deaths, and second when the exponential growth is arrested.

We have the example of S Korea where that growth was nipped in the bud right at the start. Germany hasn't done that, but they have been aggressively testing and tracing, and they've been in lockdown for more than a week now. So Germany's figures are much more encouraging than the UK's _if_ lockdown is an effective measure, because they've been in lockdown longer than us and their death rate is still much lower.

ETA: Another encouraging stat from Germany is the number now reported to have recovered, which has risen to 8,000-odd. That's an indication of how long the thing has been around in Germany - they _could_ be approaching their peak quite soon. 

(Of course, events may prove me wrong on all of the above points.)


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> TIme will tell on that. There are two crucial factors, aren't there. First the capacity of the health services and ability not to be overwhelmed, which we have seen in Italy causes deaths, and second when the exponential growth is arrested.
> 
> We have the example of S Korea where that growth was nipped in the bud right at the start. Germany hasn't done that, but they have been aggressively testing and tracing, and they've been in lockdown for more than a week now. So Germany's figures are much more encouraging than the UK's _if_ lockdown is an effective measure, because they've been in lockdown longer than us and their death rate is still much lower.



Infection control in hospitals and elsewhere is a third crucial factor.

I am not encouraged by Germanys figures at all. If, in 5 days time, they have way lower than 1000 deaths in total, then maybe I can start to be more optimistic about the way it will go there.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Infection control in hospitals and elsewhere is a third crucial factor.


Yes, this too. That's something the Koreans got very right.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> TIme will tell on that. There are two crucial factors, aren't there. First the capacity of the health services and ability not to be overwhelmed, which we have seen in Italy causes deaths, and second when the exponential growth is arrested.
> 
> We have the example of S Korea where that growth was nipped in the bud right at the start. Germany hasn't done that, but they have been aggressively testing and tracing, and they've been in lockdown for more than a week now. So Germany's figures are much more encouraging than the UK's _if_ lockdown is an effective measure, because they've been in lockdown longer than us and their death rate is still much lower.
> 
> ...


Well right now, Germany’s death trend is a precise mirror of Italy’s.  This is from the FT’s tracker:



the middle of the dark lines that have been picked out is Italy.  And thanks to France being next to Germany alphabetically, I’ve been able to include its graph in the crop too so you can see it’s just the same.

(Top dark line is Spain, bottom one is South Korea).

More comparisons: UK is also in Italy’s trend, US is even more fucked though


----------



## weltweit (Mar 29, 2020)

R4 Gove saying that they are now doing 10,000 tests a day.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

By the way due to data reporting delays, UK figures for deaths released each day does not mean all those deaths actually happened during that period.

eg:



> The data was collected from 5pm on Thursday to 5pm on Friday, but some of the actual deaths occurred as long ago as 18 March.











						Hospital deaths falling at fastest rate yet
					

Deaths from covid-19 in England's hospitals are declining at the fastest rate yet, as the whole South West region sees one death in seven days.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Well right now, Germany’s death trend is a precise mirror of Italy’s.  This is from the FT’s tracker:
> 
> View attachment 203913
> 
> ...


The exponential growth phase looks more or less the same everywhere. What that doesn't tell you is at what point along the line that phase will come to an end. Number of days since 10th death is a reasonable way to compare. But another way would be number of days since lockdown was imposed, assuming a general definition of lockdown as something akin to what the UK did on Monday, on the assumption that lockdown arrests exponential spread, bearing in mind that this shows up in the figures with a time lag of perhaps a week wrt new cases and two to three weeks wrt deaths.

For example, you can also say that Germany is currently more or less on China's line. But China has (if you believe the stats) ended up with just 3,000-odd deaths out of a population of more than 1 billion, compared to Italy with 10,000 and counting from a population of 60 million.

ETA: The figures from Italy do appear very tentatively as if they might bear out the idea that lockdown does end exponential growth. New cases has levelled out for the past week, and hopefully we are now seeing new deaths levelling out, too.


----------



## xes (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> By the way due to data reporting delays, UK figures for deaths released each day does not mean all those deaths actually happened during that period.
> 
> eg:
> 
> ...


just to be helpful. /shakes head...
Or is it because they're testing people after they've died and they're playing catch up?


----------



## brogdale (Mar 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Well right now, Germany’s death trend is a precise mirror of Italy’s.  This is from the FT’s tracker:
> 
> View attachment 203913
> 
> ...


Worth saying/repeating that the FT's Coronavirus tracker page, from which those graphics are taken, is free to access, without the usual paywall rigmarole.

Coronavirus tracked: the latest figures as the pandemic spreads | Free to read


----------



## editor (Mar 29, 2020)

Cyclists! Don't be twats!









						Warning that cycling could be banned if people don’t ride responsibly this weekend
					

‘Make sure bikes continue to be seen to be part of the solution to this crisis’ – Chris Boardman




					road.cc


----------



## xenon (Mar 29, 2020)

For anyone who just wants to see a number of cases in a given area.








						Covid-19 in the UK
					

Explore the data on coronavirus in the UK.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Has anyone found an official webpage where the daily NHS England deaths are listed (ie on a per hospital trust basis)? I keep seeing this data in local newspapers and health journals but I have yet to find the original source (it hasnt been on the NHS England website News section since about the 16th March).


----------



## Athos (Mar 29, 2020)

editor said:


> Cyclists! Don't be twats!



Lol.  Good luck with that.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The exponential growth phase looks more or less the same everywhere. What that doesn't tell you is at what point along the line that phase will come to an end. Number of days since 10th death is a reasonable way to compare. But another way would be number of days since lockdown was imposed, assuming a general definition of lockdown as something akin to what the UK did on Monday, on the assumption that lockdown arrests exponential spread, bearing in mind that this shows up in the figures with a time lag of perhaps a week wrt new cases and two to three weeks wrt deaths.
> 
> For example, you can also say that Germany is currently more or less on China's line. But China has (if you believe the stats) ended up with just 3,000-odd deaths out of a population of more than 1 billion, compared to Italy with 10,000 and counting from a population of 60 million.


The exponential growth phase doesn’t look more or less the same everywhere though — that’s the point of those graphs.  It just looks more or less the same across Europe with the exception of Spain, which is notably worse.  Europe looks quite different to Asia though, and different again to the US.

I think the good thing about measuring from the point of 10 deaths is that it gives you a baseline it which point the disease is established for long enough to be causing a noticeable number of deaths.  From that point onwards, its growth will depends on the lag elbows always talks about, regarding what measures were taken three weeks previously.  Whilst “lockdown“ can be officially put in place at different points on the graph, in truth, the populations across Europe all reacted similarly during their early phases.  France officially locked down relatively early, for example, but my uncle in Paris tells me loads of people were still out in cafes etc during the first week, so it wasn’t in reality much different to our week of “social distancing but not a lockdown”.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The exponential growth phase doesn’t look more or less the same everywhere though — that’s the point of those graphs.  It just looks more or less the same across Europe with the exception of Spain, which is notably worse.  Europe looks quite different to Asia though, and different again to the US.


I disagree with your interpretation of the graphs. Remember that in the first few days the numbers are so low that natural variation will put the lines in quite different places. As the numbers ramp up, the lines adopt a remarkably similar straight line behaviour while unchecked exponential growth is taking place. For instance, move Italy back a couple of days and it sits right on top of Spain for a good deal of its trajectory (Spain a bit worse if anything than Italy, now). But Spain and Italy are now curving, indicating that exponential growth is finally being tackled. (And the '10 deaths' marker has the big disadvantage that we're not comparing like with like - Italy is bigger than Spain: 10 deaths in Spain means something more serious than 10 deaths in Italy, so we are justified in moving Italy back a couple of days in order to compare them.)


----------



## agricola (Mar 29, 2020)

kebabking said:


> I take a similar view - I've been involved in the military response and support to PHE and the NHS since the beginning of January, and as a general rule I tend the think the worst of politicians just to save time - HMG has been switched on to the dangers of this since the beginning, and has never shyed away from morally/ideologically difficult, terrifyingly expensive and bitter tasting decisions, but the communication and public education element of this has been utterly woeful, particularly of late. You've also had public bodies directly working against each other with absolutely no ministerial grip.
> 
> I've been pleasantly surprised (albeit from a somewhat low baseline) with Johnson's willingness to not be the populist moron that Trump has been - he has followed what the CMO, CSA and PHE were telling him, he hasn't flinched at taking decisions that could, given the uncertainties involved, come back to haunt him - but again the communication, and understanding how critical public education would be has been crap.
> 
> Sunak and Hancock have been the stand-out performers, both publicly and in government. Jon Ashworth has been Labours star - Hancock wants him appointed as his deputy at health if there's a COBR 'national government'- Corbyn has been dreadful, and surprisingly, McDonnell has only been marginally better.



TBF though I think its important to distinguish between the different bits of HMG.

The organizations (armed forces, emergency services, local authorities and the wider NHS to a lesser extent) regularly test major incidents and other things more like this, so they and their staff had a better idea of what works and what doesn't, what their capabilities are and have a good chance of catching problems before they happen for real.  Lots of them (especially down here) have recent experience of major events, terrorist attacks and other disasters as well, and they also have clearly defined roles that are their sole focus right now.  This is why the response from all them has been, so far at least, relatively good.

The top of the Government on the other hand isn't as experienced, isn't as regularly tested, often has a sense of importance based on their apparent seniority and most importantly has to make decisions knowing that someone is going to be blamed for this greatest disaster of the last fifty years.  That is why the direction of the response was wrong initially (which mostly impacted the NHS as it was them who needed the most help ramping up), why they've panicked ever since that changed and why we've seen such a radical difference in the performance of ministers - the bad ones werent identified and retrained / reassigned when it became clear they needed help (edit: which exercises would probably have identified).


----------



## Edie (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah I can forgive mistakes made with good intentions (and who'd want to be in govt right now). What I can't forgive is mistakes made with ill intentions or out of callous disregard for people. And I see both of those in play here.


Really?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> Really?


Yes. The mistakes made up to about a week ago, absolutely. Totally callous disregard for life. That they are now doing better doesn't undo those mistakes.


----------



## Edie (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes. The mistakes made up to about a week ago, absolutely. Totally callous disregard for life. That they are now doing better doesn't undo those mistakes.


I say this respectfully but do you not think it might just be that it’s really fucking hard doing that job? People are so quick to jump in damning others, but it’s the man in the arena that counts. It’s like on the frontline of the NHS, mistakes will be made, but if your standing on the sidelines criticising, well...

I’m no Tory but I don’t think they are evil or completely incompetent. And I absolutely definitely think their aim is to preserve life.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> I say this respectfully but do you not think it might just be that it’s really fucking hard doing that job?


Yes, it's really hard. It's even harder to manage a crisis when you prioritise other things over life, which is what they were doing. Where is the ppe? Where are the testing kits? 

They have done a very difficult job very badly. And a big reason why they did it badly is because they had callous intentions.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Even if they largely get away with their botched timing and messages, I dont think they will get off the hook for the massive PPE scandal and the damage of the austerity years. I dont yet know how history will judge them regarding testing because so many other countries were similar, EC documents include plenty of testing caveats related to limited test capacity, etc.

Anyway there are now signs that they are going to try to blame China as much as possible. More thoughts and quotes on that shortly.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> And I absolutely definitely think their aim is to preserve life.


Now, yes I agree. Two weeks ago, not so much.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I disagree with your interpretation of the graphs. Remember that in the first few days the numbers are so low that natural variation will put the lines in quite different places. As the numbers ramp up, the lines adopt a remarkably similar straight line behaviour while unchecked exponential growth is taking place. For instance, move Italy back a couple of days and it sits right on top of Spain for a good deal of its trajectory (Spain a bit worse if anything than Italy, now). But Spain and Italy are now curving, indicating that exponential growth is finally being tackled. (And the '10 deaths' marker has the big disadvantage that we're not comparing like with like - Italy is bigger than Spain: 10 deaths in Spain means something more serious than 10 deaths in Italy.)


If there was variation in starting point, though, they wouldn’t all line up so perfectly a week or two down the line.  If you advanced Spain by a few days too, it would not line up on that curve — its growth rate is faster.  It seems pretty clear that to date, Germany, U.K. and France (as well as the Netherlands, Belgium and a bunch of others) are following very, very similar patterns.


----------



## prunus (Mar 29, 2020)

I have, because this is part of how I deal with anxiety and uncertainty, been trying to model what 'achieving' 20,000 deaths in the UK would look like in terms of peak time and size and daily deaths to get there.

Usual caveats apply - I have limited data with unknown error both systematic and random, I am not an epidemiologist, there are implicit assumptions (such as that death rates will not be increased by healthcare collapse, that lockdown measures here will have similar effects to elsewhere (not identical, but qualitatively similar) and that they continue in effect until at least the end of April,  and many more).  NB also like the government I am only counting deaths in hospitals, as that's the only data I have.  Small studies elsewhere have suggested that deaths outside hospitals may be 2, 3 or even 4 times the hospital number, but I assume also that the reported hospital number is the 20,000 'target'.  (Let's not think about how that target can be manipulated by just not taking people to hospital and letting them die at home).

Anyway, I thought I'd share my conclusions and predictions/targets for those who are interested.  It's something to compare the daily numbers to to see how we're doing in respect of that 20,000 number.  

*I could be completely wrong, this is just a bit of (and what a misnomer in the circumstances) fun, please don't promulgate this on social media as true or anything or as either good news or bad news depending on how it pans out.

Warning: distressing daily death totals predictions.*

Going to spoiler it so people who want to completely ignore it can.



Spoiler



So, in short:

The peak (daily deaths) looks like being around the 11th april (+/- about a day, day and a half), at 1300 (+/-5%).  The next few days (including todays) death figures should look something like 195, 240, 300, 375,470, after which the rate of increase of the rate of increase should hopefully start to drop off.  Approximate daily deaths to the 'peak' (actual data will likely be lumpy of course):

29/03/20    195
30/03/20    240
31/03/20    300
01/04/20    375
02/04/20    470
03/04/20    570
04/04/20    685
05/04/20    800
06/04/20    920
07/04/20    1035
08/04/20    1135
09/04/20    1215
10/04/20    1275
11/04/20    1305

This is, I think, quite a 'pessimistic' model, as that's how I roll, so if the numbers come out better than this it's less good than it is bad if the numbers come out higher.  Ie this is I think the top 'edge' of the range of death figures that we can sustain and keep deaths under 20,000.

*Again: I could be completely wrong!  Please take with a large pinch of salt!  *If you've got any left.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> If there was variation in starting point, though, they wouldn’t all line up so perfectly a week or two down the line.  If you advanced Spain by a few days too, it would not line up on that curve — its growth rate is faster.  It seems pretty clear that to date, Germany, U.K. and France (as well as the Netherlands, Belgium and a bunch of others) are following very, very similar patterns.


Germany is also following a similar pattern to China at the moment. That's the point - when will they come off exponential growth? Looks like Spain and Italy are finally coming off it now. Will others reach their levels of deaths before flattening out? I'm a lot more confident that Germany will than that the UK will (although I suspect both will be less bad than Spain or Italy because it looks like lockdowns do work).


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Michael Gove appears to blame China over lack of UK coronavirus testing
					

Minister says China was ‘not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness’ of virus




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Some of China’s reports on the virus were unclear about the “scale, nature and infectiousness” of the disease, the cabinet minister told the BBC.





> Asked on BBC One’s Andrew Marr show why Britain did not have sufficient testing, despite the first case in China being known about in December, Gove said: “We’ve been increasing the number of tests over the course of the last month.
> 
> “It was the case … [that] the first case of coronavirus in China was established in December of last year, but it was also the case that some of the reporting from China was not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness of this.”





> The Mail on Sunday reported that senior Downing Street officials and ministers expect a “reckoning” with China over misinformation in relation to the outbreak. It also claimed there was anger over perceived attempts by China to exploit the crisis for economic gain.



I'm sure I will have plenty to say about that. No time to do it justice now though, so here is a dangerously abbreviated version: Probably fair to blame China for about 3 weeks of lost time (start of year->Jan 20th when the public tone from China changed). Far less room to blame China or others for time lost after that point. And there are minutes from specialist UK advisory groups which we can already use to judge when the establishment started to take it seriously in this country. If data from other countries ends up clearly demonstrating extreme manipulation of Chinas number of reported deaths, then that is a fresh angle to fairly attack them over. Some of the propaganda stuff China has tried is also worthy of condemnation.

I dont think China can be blamed for our approach to testing, contact tracing etc. Thats all about the orthodox pandemic approach that was baked into UK thinking.


----------



## LDC (Mar 29, 2020)

prunus said:


> I have, because this is part of how I deal with anxiety and uncertainty, been trying to model what 'achieving' 20,000 deaths in the UK would look like in terms of peak time and size and daily deaths to get there.
> 
> Usual caveats apply - I have limited data with unknown error both systematic and random, I am not an epidemiologist, there are implicit assumptions (such as that death rates will not be increased by healthcare collapse, that lockdown measures here will have similar effects to elsewhere (not identical, but qualitatively similar) and that they continue in effect until at least the end of April,  and many more).  NB also like the government I am only counting deaths in hospitals, as that's the only data I have.  Small studies elsewhere have suggested that deaths outside hospitals may be 2, 3 or even 4 times the hospital number, but I assume also that the reported hospital number is the 20,000 'target'.  (Let's not think about how that target can be manipulated by just not taking people to hospital and letting them die at home).
> 
> ...



Today's figure is 209, so marginally higher than your figures but same ball park. Cheers for doing those calculations.


----------



## agricola (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Michael Gove appears to blame China over lack of UK coronavirus testing
> 
> 
> Minister says China was ‘not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness’ of virus
> ...



Indeed - and they are probably counting on (or already know that) the reported Chinese numbers are wrong so that they can say they lied about something, even if as you say its zero to do with our response.


----------



## killer b (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Now, yes I agree. Two weeks ago, not so much.


I dont think the original strategy was informed by a callous disregard for life so much as a technocratic 'long view' which tried to take in the damage to lives that closing down the economy might do. In the end I think it just became clear that allowing so many short term real deaths for the sake of some theoretical deaths further down the line wasnt actually politically possible.

Assuming government is in the hands of dick dastardly doesnt really help tbh.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’ve been quite impressed with the Government so far in the crisis. They are taking, and acting on, scientific and medical advice. On the whole they’ve communicated clearly. They have not been afraid to make big decisions, such as the 80% wages, closing non-essential business, and constructing with the Army and the NHS a massive new covid hospital NHS Nightingale very quickly.
> 
> After a slightly beurocratic and slow start, NHS England appears to be doing a reasonable job at making us as ready as possible. Yes, we need more PPE, more testing, more ventilators- but visible steps leading to procurement as quickly as possible appears to have occurred. Overall, I feel as if we have leadership and there is a national effort underway.


LOL and those who died before the lockdown and immediately after are just sacrificial lambs whose lives had to be dispensed with to make the government shook, right?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

killer b said:


> I dont think the original strategy was informed by a callous disregard for life so much as a technocratic 'long view' which tried to take in the damage to lives that closing down the economy might do.


That technocratic 'long view' _is_ a callous disregard for life. All the damage to the economy caused by a couple of months on a pandemic economy can be repaired in a year, given the will to do it. I hate the comparisons to war, and one reason is that those comparing it to WW2 fail to remember that that war lasted six years. This is nothing compared to that. It's a temporary inconvenience, or it would be if we had a sane system.

As for your 'dick dastardly' comment, well ffs where have you been for the last 10 years? 'Austerity' is another example of a policy borne of a callous disregard for life. That's a really stupid comment.


----------



## Taphoi (Mar 29, 2020)

I'd advise that people should take the trouble to try to understand the herd immunity thing, even if it sounds weird at first hearing, because the evidence is growing that it was the correct policy. They might discover it makes more sense than what is currently happening (imitating the Italian and Chinese policies). The latest figures (yesterday) report that only 12 people of 1019 deaths so far in the UK were outside high-risk groups. That means that a policy of stringently sheltering the 20% in high-risk groups would be 99% effective in preventing deaths. The problem with this virus is that it spreads to an average of 2.4 people in the next generation from every person infected. A vaccine can make people immune by getting people to generate antibodies to the virus. If you inoculate about 60% of the population, then only 1 in 2.4 people that an infectious person meets will be susceptible to infection. A bit more inoculation and the figure is less than one. That means that there will be fewer sick people in the next generation of the illness than in the current group of sick people. Over a few more generations the disease dies out in the population (and can never grow again). Unfortunately, a vaccine is a year away. However, people who get a mild dose of the virus (virtually all the 80% low-risk people) also develop antibodies when they recover and become immune. It would only take a couple of months of sheltering the high-risk people for more than 60% to develop immunity among the low-risk groups. So we could have both lowered the death rate by 99% and altogether stopped the virus spreading into the high-risk groups by following the government’s original policy. As it is, the social isolation is also stopping low-risk people developing immunity, so it is protracting the duration over which the disease can spread, meaning that the high-risk people and the low-risk people will have to socially isolate for much longer. The way disease dynamics works is complicated and people’s instincts do not necessarily tell them the best way forward. The reason the government abandoned its original policy was partly pressure from people who did not understand it and partly a risk that they could not sufficiently accurately identify the high-risk groups, but the latest statistics show that the high-risk groups have been sufficiently well identified to crash the death rates to negligible levels. The other thing to remember is that current daily death rates reflect infection rates three weeks ago, before any significant measures had been taken. It is important to wait long enough to see whether measures have any effect upon the death rate.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> Indeed - and they are probably counting (or already know) that the reported Chinese numbers are wrong so that they can say they lied about something, even if as you say its zero to do with our response.



We can conclude with some certainty that poor information from the early period in China cannot really be blamed for obscuring the UKs view of matters by late January.

Because, for example, if I look at the NERVTAG minutes from January 28th, they were not blind to the R0 estimates:





__





						Box
					






					app.box.com
				






> 2.14The  epi-update  included  the  estimated  reproduction  number  from  a  WHO Emergency  Committee  meeting  on  22  January  2020  where  they  stated that “Human-to-human  transmission  is  occurring  and  a  preliminary  R0  estimate  of 1.4-2.5 was presented. Amplification has occurred in one health care facility. Of confirmed  cases,  25%  are  reported  to  be  severe.  The  source  is  still  unknown (most likely an animal reservoir) and the extent of human-to-human transmission is still not clear.”





> 2.15 SPI-M group met yesterday and TI reported that the literature that was reviewed by SPI-M was of data from earlier in the epidemic and the R0 ranged from 2.2 to 3.1. The impact of the recent interventions by the Chinese Government on the R0  is  not  yet  known.  However,  there  seems  to  be  a  broad  consensus  across modelling groups worldwide that R0 seems to be ranging from 2.5 –3.0 based on the most up to date data.





> 2.17 NF noted that the case numbers seem to be doubling every three to four days. There is no evidence of it slowing so far but it is hard to tell given the delay in the incubation period and how long it is taking to confirm cases at the moment.





> 2.18 NF  noted  that  we  are  witnessing  much  greater  variability  in  transmissibility between  people  than we  would  expect  with influenza but  this  is  expected  with these types of virus. Although extensive person-to-person transmission outside of China has not yet been seen, in the early days of the influenza pandemic in 2009  it  was  difficult  to  detect  onward  transmission  and  it  is  likely  that  more information on nCoV person-to-person transmission outside of Chinawill come out in the next few weeks.


----------



## kebabking (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Now, yes I agree. Two weeks ago, not so much.



Disagree - the 'herd immunity' policy period was simply an understanding, put there by CMO/CSA/PHE and NHS, that huge numbers (anywhere between 250,000 and 500,000) were going to die, almost regardless of whether they went to ICU or lay in a wet field, with another 250,000 to 750,000 being only able to survive if they could get into an ICU/HDU. Policy during that period was aimed solely at flattening out the demand peaks so that as great a proportion of those who needed an ICU/HDU _and had a reasonable chance of survival _could access one as possible. It simply accepted that a huge number of people would die, but wanted to save who it could.

It was described as being like a cruise liner had sunk in the South Atlantic - you simply couldn't get to every lifeboat your AIS system saw before anyone in those lifeboats froze to death, so you used what resources you had to rescue both as many lifeboats as possible, but also to prioritise rescuing lifeboats with 50 people in them rather than lifeboats with 2 people in them.


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## xenon (Mar 29, 2020)

Remember the tac changed after that Impirial College report indicating up to 500,000 people could die if tougher measures weren't taken. Until this point, the herd immunity idea was live.

I'm not excusing the mistakes, the lack of PPE, ventelators, general, miscommunications etc and obviously I'm no fan of Johnson's. But this seeing Machiavillian evil intent is daft and juvenile.


----------



## agricola (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> We can conclude with some certainty that poor information from the early period in China cannot really be blamed for obscuring the UKs view of matters by late January.
> 
> Because, for example, if I look at the NERVTAG minutes from January 28th, they were not blind to the R0 estimates:
> 
> ...



I agree, and as you said this is nothing to do with the rubbishness of our response, the lack of information etc.   What it will be to do with is them being able to construct a narrative that says _the real number of deaths in China was X, China lied therefore they are to blame.      _


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## SpookyFrank (Mar 29, 2020)

Gove telling us that when this goes on for months it will be our fault for not behaving ourselves. And not the government's fault for not protecting hospital staff, allowing non-essential businesses to remain open, generally taking a half-arsed back-of-an-envelope approach to the whole thing. 

This is a special kind of evil we're seeing here. Gaslighting on a national scale.


----------



## Doodler (Mar 29, 2020)

What was the thinking behind the herd immunity plan? Interesting Q&A on Reddit with a 'UK Critical Care Physician':



> Over the past decade, eminent figures in public health developed complex models that would help inform the UK response to a pandemic. The response plan would allow slow spread through a population and a number of deaths that would be deemed acceptable in relation to low economic impact. Timing of population measures such as social distancing would be taken, not early, but at a times deemed to have maximal psychological impact. Measures would be taken that could protect the most vulnerable, and most of the people who got the virus would hopefully survive. Herd immunity would beneficially emerge at the end of this, and restrictions could relax. This was a ground-breaking approach compared to suppressing epidemics. It was an approach that could revolutionise the way we handled epidemics. Complex modelling is a new science, and this was cutting edge.
> 
> But a model is only ever as good as the assumptions you build it upon. The UK plan was based on models with an assumption that any new pandemic would be like an old one, like flu.


----------



## LDC (Mar 29, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Gove telling us that when this goes on for months it will be our fault for not behaving ourselves. And not the government's fault for not protecting hospital staff, allowing non-essential businesses to remain open, generally taking a half-arsed back-of-an-envelope approach to the whole thing.
> 
> This is a special kind of evil we're seeing here. Gaslighting on a national scale.



Don't now what you're seeing (or have seen) people on the streets and in the shops and bars doing round your way, but people not following the guidelines definitely will have played their part in this mess. Both government and the behaviour of individuals and groups can be partly to blame. Calling it gaslighting is ridiculous.


----------



## Edie (Mar 29, 2020)

killer b said:


> I dont think the original strategy was informed by a callous disregard for life so much as a technocratic 'long view' which tried to take in the damage to lives that closing down the economy might do. In the end I think it just became clear that allowing so many short term real deaths for the sake of some theoretical deaths further down the line wasnt actually politically possible.
> 
> Assuming government is in the hands of dick dastardly doesnt really help tbh.


This is broadly my view


little_legs said:


> LOL and those who died before the lockdown and immediately after are just sacrificial lambs whose lives had to be dispensed with to make the government shook, right?


Seb, it’s a fucking pandemic. People are going to die. The Tories can’t stop that and thinking that somehow better policies could have prevented that is magical thinking. Some things are beyond human control.

And to all those going, but where is the PPE, where are the tests etc There’s a global shortage. Frankly I think the fact we have these million tests coming this week is little short of a bloody miracle. But people who are so much in their own rigid bubble of “Tories are evil” just literally cannot see it. Sometimes I think the views on this site are so extreme that you don’t realise _how_ out there your thinking is.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> The reason the government abandoned its original policy was partly pressure from people who did not understand it and partly a risk that they could not sufficiently accurately identify the high-risk groups, but the latest statistics show that the high-risk groups have been sufficiently well identified to crash the death rates to negligible levels. The other thing to remember is that current daily death rates reflect infection rates three weeks ago, before any significant measures had been taken. It is important to wait long enough to see whether measures have any effect upon the death rate.



Define negligible level.

Isnt this a case of you wanting to have your cake and eat it? Problems with your stance:

You are inviting us to wait and see how the measures affect the numbers, and yet you seem to be suggesting those measures werent necessary in the first place.

The other big problem is that I have yet to find anyone who knows exactly what the governments original approach would have meant in terms of lockdown measures and timing. Their original approach still involved mitigation, and no matter what they pretended, we could all see school closures coming, it was mostly just a question of the exact timing of them. They were already softening us up for big things to happen, even before the impression was created that they had to suddenly shift approach completely.


----------



## editor (Mar 29, 2020)

No need to panic about eggs!


----------



## agricola (Mar 29, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Don't now what you're seeing (or have seen) people on the streets and in the shops and bars doing round your way, but people not following the guidelines definitely will have played their part in this mess. Both government and the behaviour of individuals and groups can be partly to blame. Calling it gaslighting is ridiculous.



Hard to see what other word would be appropriate; the messages they are sending out still contradict the advice they are giving out.  Look at those photos of him videoconferencing with a room full of people yesterday, for example.


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## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Pandemics are bad, thats why we plan seriously for them. Tories are bad, thats why they undermined the plans with their fiscal requirements and hollowing out of the health service.

People can believe what they like, but the public inquiry will not be charitable towards the failings of both the elected politicians, and the various other layers of the establishment. Or at least the evidence-based sessions wont be kind. The conclusions will likely be a fudge, unless we have already hung those responsible long before that time comes.


----------



## killer b (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> This is broadly my view
> Seb, it’s a fucking pandemic. People are going to die. The Tories can’t stop that and thinking that somehow better policies could have prevented that is magical thinking. Some things are beyond human control.
> 
> And to all those going, but where is the PPE, where are the tests etc There’s a global shortage. Frankly I think the fact we have these million tests coming this week is little short of a bloody miracle. But people who are so much in their own rigid bubble of “Tories are evil” just literally cannot see it. Sometimes I think the views on this site are so extreme that you don’t realise _how_ out there your thinking is.


I fucking hate the tories, don't get me wrong - but I think it's necessary to try and understand their motivations in a way that goes beyond 'bad man hate poor people', otherwise you miss stuff.


----------



## hegley (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Has anyone found an official webpage where the daily NHS England deaths are listed (ie on a per hospital trust basis)? I keep seeing this data in local newspapers and health journals but I have yet to find the original source (it hasnt been on the NHS England website News section since about the 16th March).


You mean the doc on this page?: COVID-19: track coronavirus cases


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> I say this respectfully but do you not think it might just be that it’s really fucking hard doing that job? People are so quick to jump in damning others, but it’s the man in the arena that counts. It’s like on the frontline of the NHS, mistakes will be made, but if your standing on the sidelines criticising, well...
> 
> I’m no Tory but I don’t think they are evil or completely incompetent. And I absolutely definitely think their aim is to preserve life.



I'd be interested in how you can look back at the last 10 years of Tory rule and not describe them as evil and callous. I know that you're not blind to what they have done to communities, workers, unwaged people and those that need help so how would you describe them? "Not very nice" doesn't really cut it does it?

They are fucking horrendous.


----------



## Taphoi (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Define negligible level.


Since deaths are 100 times less likely for the low-risk 80%, and the overall death rate is about 2% of infections (without any measures), I think we would see a death rate of 0.02% or one infected person in 5000. We will probably see a death rate higher than that under the current policy, because although the short term death rate may be crashed by the lock-down, the lock-down will be relaxed before herd immunity has been achieved so there will be a non-negligible lingering fatal disease plus re-infections from overseas.


----------



## Plumdaff (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> I say this respectfully but do you not think it might just be that it’s really fucking hard doing that job? People are so quick to jump in damning others, but it’s the man in the arena that counts. It’s like on the frontline of the NHS, mistakes will be made, but if your standing on the sidelines criticising, well...
> 
> I’m no Tory but I don’t think they are evil or completely incompetent. And I absolutely definitely think their aim is to preserve life.



It's a fucking hard job, no doubt, and any government of any political stripe would struggle. But they have been in power for ten years and are wholly responsible for the poor state our services were in going into this, the fact that we couldn't lockdown as fast as other places because not only ideologically our politicians weren't up for it but our welfare state isn't either, and that we should have had orders in for ventilators and PPE months ago. They know what state the NHS is in. They knew before the GE that the stories about it were true. They've known that austerity has killed 100,000 plus people in this country. Their politics is, by default, callous.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> Since deaths are 100 times less likely for the low-risk 80%, and the overall death rate is about 2% of infections (without any measures), I think we would see a death rate of 0.02% or one infected person in 5000. We will probably see a death rate higher than that under the current policy, because although the short term death rate may be crashed by the lock-down, the lock-down will be relaxed before herd immunity has been achieved so there will be a non-negligible lingering fatal disease plus re-infections from overseas.



Do you think the sort of hospitalisation and intensive care rate estimates in the table below are in any way compatible with going for the herd immunity/minimal mitigation approach?


----------



## Edie (Mar 29, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I'd be interested in how you can look back at the last 10 years of Tory rule and not describe them as evil and callous. I know that you're not blind to what they have done to communities, workers, unwaged people and those that need help so how would you describe them? "Not very nice" doesn't really cut it does it?
> 
> They are fucking horrendous.


I know it’s hard to believe but they just have a different *idea* of what is good for people. Of how to run a country. Of the role and size of the state. Of personal freedoms, independence, and responsibility. Many of their views are shared by the _majority_ of people in this country.

Your right in that I don’t share all right wing views, and my opinion on social security and health care is left wing. But this odd insistence that anyone who isn’t a big state socialist is evil is frankly absurd. This black and white thinking is a real problem.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 29, 2020)

killer b said:


> so much as a technocratic 'long view' which tried to take in the damage to lives that closing down the economy might do.



Have the Tories had a fundamental change in ideology since the Miner's strike then?




Edie said:


> but where is the PPE, ...There’s a global shortage.



Documents show that officials working under former health secretary Jeremy Hunt told medical advisers *three years ago* to “reconsider” a formal recommendation that eye protection should be provided to all healthcare professionals who have close contact with pandemic influenza patients.









						Advice on protective gear for NHS staff was rejected owing to cost
					

Exclusive: DoH dismissed call for eye protection – now needed for coronavirus – in 2017




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Edie (Mar 29, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> It's a fucking hard job, no doubt, and any government of any political stripe would struggle. But they have been in power for ten years and are wholly responsible for the poor state our services were in going into this, the fact that we couldn't lockdown as fast as other places because not only ideologically our politicians weren't up for it but our welfare state isn't either, and that we should have had orders in for ventilators and PPE months ago. They know what state the NHS is in. They knew before the GE that the stories about it were true. They've known that austerity has killed 100,000 plus people in this country. Their politics is, by default, callous.


They knew before the general election that there would be a global pandemic that would overwhelm our ICU capacity and therefore we should bulk order vents. Is that what you’re saying? (Surely not, thats batshit mate, have I misunderstood ?!!!).


----------



## agricola (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> They knew before the general election that there would be a global pandemic that would overwhelm our ICU capacity and therefore we should bulk order vents. Is that what you’re saying? (Surely not, thats batshit mate, have I misunderstood ?!!!).



Probably not, but there are contingency plans and exercises are run to identify what problems will occur if something like that happens.  Having an exercise, learning from it and then doing nothing about it isn't on.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

killer b said:


> I fucking hate the tories, don't get me wrong - but I think it's necessary to try and understand their motivations in a way that goes beyond 'bad man hate poor people', otherwise you miss stuff.


More like 'bad men (and women) don't give a shit about poor people and will see them suffer in order to keep the rich rich'. That's what they have been doing for years. The idea that such a thing isn't a callous disregard for life is absurd. You yourself have pointed out that these are choices.


----------



## klang (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> Seb, it’s a fucking pandemic.


i'm aware of that.
calling me out doesn't have legs


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Anyhow, I get it. The urge to rally round is strong. But let's not forget what they are like when this is over.


----------



## Taphoi (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Do you think the sort of hospitalisation and intensive care rate estimates in the table below are in any way compatible with going for the herd immunity/minimal mitigation approach?
> View attachment 203940


Yes. Because these figures are only using the age-dependence factor. When you take out all the people in each age group who have medical susceptibilities (transplant patients, type 2 diabetes etc) you are left with vey low hospitalisations at all ages up to at least 70 in what are then the government-defined low risk groups. I personally suspect that age-dependence is only a proxy for a smoking history. Five times as high a proportion of the elderly smoked as for current generations and twice as many elderly men smoked as women, thus explaining just why severe cases are twice as common among men and why severe cases are almost unknown among children. The Chinese data shows a strong smoking risk, but not enough people historically smoked in affected parts of China to see the full horror of this.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> Of the role and size of the state. Of personal freedoms, independence, and responsibility. .....
> 
> Your right in that I don’t share all right wing views, and my opinion on social security and health care is left wing.



These things are on so many levels fundamentally at odds, health care and social security are the most obvious examples but it impacts so much more.



> Many of their views are shared by the _majority_ of people in this country.



I simply don't believe this.

Many people vote for other parties or don't vote at all. Those figures make up the majority surely?  Also basing my opinion on how many people seem to change their hard line Tory minds when stuff affects them personally (directly or indirectly) 


Maybe I'm ears hard....


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Anyhow, I get it. The urge to rally round is strong. But let's not forget what they are like when this is over.



I'm not forgetting what they're like while it's still here. Fuck giving them a holiday.


----------



## treelover (Mar 29, 2020)

Athos said:


> Lol.  Good luck with that.



I wonder if they realise how lucky they are to be able to out everyday if they want, many disabled and sick people are now completely housebound, isolated, due to minimum care, etc.


----------



## treelover (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> I say this respectfully but do you not think it might just be that it’s really fucking hard doing that job? People are so quick to jump in damning others, but it’s the man in the arena that counts. It’s like on the frontline of the NHS, mistakes will be made, but if your standing on the sidelines criticising, well...
> 
> I’m no Tory but I don’t think they are evil or completely incompetent. And I absolutely definitely think their aim is to preserve life.



Try telling David Clapson that, or the bloke who cut his own throat before christmas, the many others not now with us due to the brutal welfare regime.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I'm not forgetting what they're like while it's still here. Fuck giving them a holiday.


Yeah well with the likes of Gove now trying to blame China. ffs. No humility. Just a tiny bit of contrition would go a very long way right now.


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> I know it’s hard to believe but they just have a different *idea* of what is good for people. Of how to run a country. Of the role and size of the state. Of personal freedoms, independence, and responsibility. Many of their views are shared by the _majority_ of people in this country.
> 
> Your right in that I don’t share all right wing views, and my opinion on social security and health care is left wing. But this odd insistence that anyone who isn’t a big state socialist is evil is frankly absurd. This black and white thinking is a real problem.



Just as an example they knew exactly what would happen from their approach to benefits and they stoked the fire via the media that allowed it to happen. I don't think anyone who isn't a big state socialist is evil, in fact I'd argue many big state socialists can be evil too, but many Tories don't give a shit about people of certain demographics, economical status and will continue to exploit us as they always have.

It's not black and white thinking it is thinking that has been learned through the things we have experienced, and are experincing today. We have every right to be angry, to resist them where we can, and to call them evil when they are. Just because we are in a crisis at the moment it doesn't mean that has to stop and it won't be forgotten. It's important to remember it even more now so we can prepare for what comes next.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Even if they largely get away with their botched timing and messages, I dont think they will get off the hook for the massive PPE scandal and the damage of the austerity years. I dont yet know how history will judge them regarding testing because so many other countries were similar, EC documents include plenty of testing caveats related to limited test capacity, etc.
> 
> Anyway there are now signs that they are going to try to blame China as much as possible. More thoughts and quotes on that shortly.


You're probably getting bored from hearing this now mate but I'm so grateful for your posts on this, its given me a source I can trust for balanced analysis and it's the reason  why I got my parents to isolate over a week early which could save their lives. 

It also meant I could make out I knew all about this at work and knew what was coming days before it happened which meant they listened when I said we needed to put in place procedures to keep people safe. Wasnt as much fun being right as it usually is for obvious reasons but there you go.

Thanks, after all this we should have an elbows party where everyone buys you a pint


----------



## Tankus (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I'm glad for anyone who dodges the worst of Covid-19, even Johnson, but now he's apparently escaped with the mildest of mild cases, fear he'll be even more Woosterish about taking it on the chin.   Thankfully the public won't be in the mood to take lessons from someone preaching about what a breeze the celeb strain is.


Maybe the lords will drop like flys  might put a bit of impetus  on gov responses


----------



## prunus (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> By the way due to data reporting delays, UK figures for deaths released each day does not mean all those deaths actually happened during that period.
> 
> eg:
> 
> ...



Oh good. I hope at least the official modellers have decent date-aggregated data to work with.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> Hard to see what other word would be appropriate; the messages they are sending out still contradict the advice they are giving out.  Look at those photos of him videoconferencing with a room full of people yesterday, for example.



Friend lives next door to a Tory MP and his wife, who are supposedly self-isolating. On Friday night the MP had visitors who drove over, spent a few hours having dinner and hanging out with them and then left because government guidance on a pandemic can be ignored if you're a smug Tory.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 29, 2020)

tfl emails are saying public transport is for essential workers only. Interesting that they are so openly refusing to be on the same page as the government - presumably under Khan's direction.


----------



## treelover (Mar 29, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> These things are on so many levels fundamentally at odds, health care and social security are the most obvious examples but it impacts so much more.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



yes, plenty of Tories out applauding on Thursday

though could be hypocrites.


----------



## treelover (Mar 29, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Just as an example they knew exactly what would happen from their approach to benefits and they stoked the fire via the media that allowed it to happen. I don't think anyone who isn't a big state socialist is evil, in fact I'd argue many big state socialists can be evil too, but many Tories don't give a shit about people of certain demographics, economical status and will continue to exploit us as they always have.
> 
> It's not black and white thinking it is thinking that has been learned through the things we have experienced, and are experincing today. We have every right to be angry, to resist them where we can, and to call them evil when they are. Just because we are in a crisis at the moment it doesn't mean that has to stop and it won't be forgotten. It's important to remember it even more now so we can prepare for what comes next.



it was partly political arguments and debates during the war that led to the welfare state


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> Yes. Because these figures are only using the age-dependence factor. When you take out all the people in each age group who have medical susceptibilities (transplant patients, type 2 diabetes etc) you are left with vey low hospitalisations at all ages up to at least 70 in what are then the government-defined low risk groups. I personally suspect that age-dependence is only a proxy for a smoking history. Five times as high a proportion of the elderly smoked as for current generations and twice as many elderly men smoked as women, thus explaining just why severe cases are twice as common among men and why severe cases are almost unknown among children. The Chinese data shows a strong smoking risk, but not enough people historically smoked in affected parts of China to see the full horror of this.



It is really easy to overstate the impact of smoking. Its likely a factor, but I highly doubt it explains the whole picture or is sufficient to completely explain the age and gender related aspects.





__





						COVID-19 and smoking: A systematic review of the evidence
					






					www.tobaccoinduceddiseases.org


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> It is really easy to overstate the impact of smoking. Its likely a factor, but I highly doubt it explains the whole picture or is sufficient to completely explain the age and gender related aspects.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yep. The initial figures coming out of China and S Korea with their massive bias by sex did indicate the possibility that smoking might be a big factor, but those numbers are now being replicated across the world where smoking differences by sex are far less pronounced. It does appear that 'being male' is a risk factor in and of itself.


----------



## Plumdaff (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> They knew before the general election that there would be a global pandemic that would overwhelm our ICU capacity and therefore we should bulk order vents. Is that what you’re saying? (Surely not, thats batshit mate, have I misunderstood ?!!!).



No, maybe I wasn't clear. They didn't know that, but they knew that the public services were on their knees and that has consequences. Even without the pandemic austerity has killed many people, they know about that.  They also knew in January and February that a global pandemic was likely, and didn't act quickly enough. We're seeing a massive historic crisis, but smaller, more mundane crises were playing out across the country before this. Look at the response (or lack of it) to the recent flooding for example.

I think you're wrong tbh about Tories thinking their way of doing it is best for everyone. Most Tories I know think it isn't possible to have a system that is best for everyone, that it's inevitable that there are winners and losers. They think that the cost exacted on the losers is worth paying because they are, or are likely to be, the winners. Some of them also believe the losers largely deserve it.


----------



## xes (Mar 29, 2020)

It still could be ACE2 related even without smoking, males have higher levels (IIRC) and they increase with age. So older males would be more at risk IF ACE2 receptors or whatever they are, have anything to do with it. 

Or am I way off?


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> You're probably getting bored from hearing this now mate but I'm so grateful for your posts on this, its given me a source I can trust for balanced analysis and it's the reason  why I got my parents to isolate over a week early which could save their lives.



Its not boring, it helps with my energy levels, but it is embarrassing to me and I think there are a bunch of other people who contributed significantly to the running commentary on this virus since the original thread started on Jan 20th.



> Thanks, after all this we should have an elbows party where everyone buys you a pint



If I liked pints then I might have had a social life and wouldnt have ended up learning enough about pandemics in the past to be of some use during this one!

If I make it through this pandemic (I dont like to make assumptions and my own survival is no exception to this) then perhaps I can come up with something that people could do to help me get a life! In the meantime, does anyone know sihhi and what happened to them? They dont seem to have posted for 10 days, and although people may have been inclined to ignore some of the stuff they said because it seemed a bit alarmist, it was correct to raise the alarm about some of the details they kept going on about.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

xes said:


> It still could be ACE2 related even without smoking, males have higher levels (IIRC) and they increase with age. So older males would be more at risk IF ACE2 receptors or whatever they are, have anything to do with it.
> 
> Or am I way off?


I read something that talked about the various possibilities, including men being vulnerable as they don't have two X chromosomes and so their immune response is prone to being weaker as a result of lacking backup copies of important genes, and that perhaps oestrogen might have some protective quality. All firmly in the realm of hypotheses atm.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

xes said:


> It still could be ACE2 related even without smoking, males have higher levels (IIRC) and they increase with age. So older males would be more at risk IF ACE2 receptors or whatever they are, have anything to do with it.
> 
> Or am I way off?



A bunch of ACE2 issues and implications are on the list of things that need urgent research.

Some recent mentions of this stuff in the latest ECDC Risk Assessment:



> Vulnerable groups: Data from Italy corroborate previously identified population groups at higher risk for having severe disease and death. These groups are elderly people above 70 years of age, and people with underlying conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease and cancer [8,18,20,56,57]. Men in these groups appear to be at a higher risk than females. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cardiovascular diseases, and hypertension have been identified as strong predictors for ICU admission [20].





> Higher ACE2 (angiotensin converting enzyme II) gene expression may be linked to higher susceptibility to SARS- CoV-2. It has been shown that ACE2 expression in lung tissues increases with age, tobacco use and with some types of antihypertensive treatment. These observations might explain the vulnerability of older people, tobacco users/smokers and those with hypertension; they also highlight the importance of identifying smokers as a potential vulnerable group for COVID-19 [54,58-60].





			https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/RRA-seventh-update-Outbreak-of-coronavirus-disease-COVID-19.pdf


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 29, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> You're probably getting bored from hearing this now mate but I'm so grateful for your posts on this, its given me a source I can trust for balanced analysis and it's the reason  why I got my parents to isolate over a week early which could save their lives.
> 
> It also meant I could make out I knew all about this at work and knew what was coming days before it happened which meant they listened when I said we needed to put in place procedures to keep people safe. Wasnt as much fun being right as it usually is for obvious reasons but there you go.
> 
> Thanks, after all this we should have an elbows party where everyone buys you a pint



After washing our hands and taking our temperatures 15000000 times.


----------



## weepiper (Mar 29, 2020)

Scotland to pay student nurses band 4 to tackle Coronavirus
					

The starting salary for a band 4 in Scotland is £22,700.



					nursingnotes.co.uk


----------



## blameless77 (Mar 29, 2020)

Edie said:


> They knew before the general election that there would be a global pandemic that would overwhelm our ICU capacity and therefore we should bulk order vents. Is that what you’re saying? (Surely not, thats batshit mate, have I misunderstood ?!!!).




Yes - they did know that, due to 2018 pandemic modeling exercises.


----------



## Plumdaff (Mar 29, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Scotland to pay student nurses band 4 to tackle Coronavirus
> 
> 
> The starting salary for a band 4 in Scotland is £22,700.
> ...


Same thing's happening in Wales. And I'm assuming like the Welsh, Scottish student nurses still have a bursary too.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 29, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Friend lives next door to a Tory MP and his wife, who are supposedly self-isolating. On Friday night the MP had visitors who drove over, spent a few hours having dinner and hanging out with them and then left because government guidance on a pandemic can be ignored if you're a smug Tory.


Name and shame please


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its not boring, it helps with my energy levels, but it is embarrassing to me and I think there are a bunch of other people who contributed significantly to the running commentary on this virus since the original thread started on Jan 20th.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think butchersapron knows him irl


----------



## bimble (Mar 29, 2020)

No such thing as irl anymore : ( 



blameless77 said:


> Yes - they did know that, due to 2018 pandemic modeling exercises.



This has some background on what was known and didn’t get acted upon. 








						UK strategy to address pandemic threat ‘not properly implemented’
					

Exclusive: Former government chief scientific adviser says getting the needed resources was impossible




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## little_legs (Mar 29, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Name and shame please


Have tried to get him to tell me who it is. I think he's worried because there aren't many other homes nearby so he thinks it'll be obvious it was him who passed it on. Have told him that if ever there was an appropriate moment to grass on someone this case qualifies.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 29, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> Yes - they did know that, due to 2018 pandemic modeling exercises.


It’s like Ebola never happened. Only happens to some far away obscure people.


----------



## editor (Mar 29, 2020)

The good folks and the scumbags 









						Which companies are coming through during the coronavirus crisis?
					

Some firms have stepped up to support employees, key workers and the NHS – but others have fallen well short




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## little_legs (Mar 29, 2020)

editor said:


> The good folks and the scumbags
> 
> 
> 
> ...



There a comprehensive list that is being updated daily about the worker abuse a ton of companies part take in.

Anyone interested it's here: *List of scumbags*

Edit: should have mentioned that you can filter the list and see those behaving in a decent manner as well


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

hegley said:


> You mean the doc on this page?: COVID-19: track coronavirus cases



Thanks for trying to find what I was after. But I was after the daily info that lists deaths per trust, and I cannot find that in any of the data on that page. But I might have missed something, I have been overloaded with info, just not the particular stuff I was after!

eg the stuff listed towards the end of this press article:









						Coronavirus death toll rises by 209 in 24 hours - where each patient died
					

The trust-by-trust breakdown shows deaths at The Dudley Group NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Wolverhampton NHS Foundation Trust, and Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust




					www.birminghammail.co.uk
				




ie this (that I am only quoting the first few entries for to illustrate what I'm on about):



> Every NHS Trust and number of deaths (Date of recent deaths in brackets)
> 
> AIREDALE NHS FOUNDATION TRUST: 1 (28.03)
> 
> ...



I would just be content to get it from the press but they vary in quite how they choose to report the detail, its often not a full list like that.


----------



## Taphoi (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> It is really easy to overstate the impact of smoking. Its likely a factor, but I highly doubt it explains the whole picture or is sufficient to completely explain the age and gender related aspects.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The paper you cite concludes against your own conclusion that "Although further research is warranted as the weight of the evidence increases, with the limited available data, and although the above results are unadjusted for other factors that may impact disease progression, smoking is most likely associated with the negative progression and adverse outcomes of COVID-19."
I would not myself have thought smoking to be a dominant factor, except that it is the only thing that readily explains the two to one male female ratio in severe symptoms for elderly patients in the UK and in Italy.


----------



## editor (Mar 29, 2020)

This online forum may be of interest to people who want to chat 









						Zoom online forum: “Lambeth Coronavirus Crisis: Act for People not for Profit,” Mon 30th March, 7pm
					

An open online forum themed as, “Lambeth Corona Virus Crisis – Act for People not for Profit,” is taking place on Monday, 30th March 2020, and it’s open to anyone wanting to discuss iss…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> I would not myself have thought smoking to be a dominant factor, except that it is the only thing that readily explains the two to one male female ratio in severe symptoms for elderly patients in the UK and in Italy.


No it's not. There are a few possible explanations kicking around to do with genetics, hormones and other aspects of physiology. Smoking may interplay with that, or it may not. We don't know.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> The paper you cite concludes against your own conclusion that



You obviously had trouble comprehending what I said. Heres a clue: I did not say it was not a factor at all. 

And it certainly doesnt support your contention that smoking is the only thing that explains the male to female ratio.


----------



## editor (Mar 29, 2020)

Blimey: 



> Hull Trains will temporarily suspend its services from 00.01 on Monday March 30, the operator has announced. This is to safeguard the future of the business due to ‘unprecedented circumstances’ surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, the company said. Passengers who already have tickets for Hull Trains will be able to travel with alternative services on the same date and route. Hull Trains is one of three open access operators in the UK, meaning it has not been offered additional financial support from the government.
> 
> With the country currently on lockdown, ticket sales for the company have dropped.











						Hull Trains suspends all services to 'protect business' amid coronavirus crisis
					

All services will stop running from Monday onwards.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 29, 2020)

little_legs said:


> There a comprehensive list that is being updated daily about the worker abuse a ton of companies part take in.
> 
> Anyone interested it's here: *List of scumbags*
> 
> Edit: should have mentioned that you can filter the list and see those behaving in a decent manner as well


Thanks for that list @littlelegs.This sort of information-sharing could in future go a long way towards mitigating the effects of Unions having practically disappeared across whole sectors e.g Logistics.


----------



## editor (Mar 29, 2020)

Another list: Coronavirus: Which shops have treated workers well?

(Wasn't there a dedicated thread somewhere for this?)


----------



## Mation (Mar 29, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Has anyone mention the symptom tracker yet? I found out about it by accident. Has to be worthwhile?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I was just coming to post that... I've not used it yet but probably will after I've got over my tinfoil-hattery response.




platinumsage said:


> I don't get how that works. Most people with symptoms will not have COVID-19, so surely it's only useful if used by people who have been tested?



They say explicitly that they can't know whether any reported symptoms are due to Covid-19. I think the idea is just to look at what sorts of 'symptoms' anyone has, where symptoms mean any health stuff you notice about yourself at the moment, regardless of the known or unknown cause. Then they might be able to see whether that's different to whatever data there are on what you might expect for this time of year/ subset of the population etc.









						Could non-classic symptoms indicate mild COVID?
					

Scientists and researchers from Kings College London report the state of the nation’s reported symptoms as of 3pm on 27th March 2020.




					covid.joinzoe.com
				





> What we don’t know at this stage is precisely how many of these symptoms are due to COVID-19, as very few people in our sample report are actually being tested for SARS CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19.  We are looking at combinations of symptoms to see how they might cluster together.  We are passing our analyses on to the NHS so that the anonymised citizen science data can be incorporated into our national understanding.
> 
> What is going to be critical is seeing how these symptoms develop over the next few days in the population, and which symptoms are early indicators of future severe disease versus mild COVID-19 or other conditions. If we can do this we might be able to stop the spread.  So keep logging!




And, as they say, they're looking at clusters of symptoms. I've seen a few people on here mentioning losing their sense of taste or smell, and that turns up in their app data...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 29, 2020)

editor said:


> Another list: Coronavirus: Which shops have treated workers well?
> 
> (Wasn't there a dedicated thread somewhere for this?)



Yep.









						Biggest Covid-19 crisis c-nt
					

Jesus christ what an arsehole :facepalm:




					www.urban75.net


----------



## hash tag (Mar 29, 2020)

little_legs said:


> There a comprehensive list that is being updated daily about the worker abuse a ton of companies part take in.
> 
> Anyone interested it's here: *List of scumbags*
> 
> Edit: should have mentioned that you can filter the list and see those behaving in a decent manner as well


I hope and suspect that's now out of date by a few days and in any case who will take notice of that? Some people simply don't care enough not to use some of those companies.
Without thinking about it there are 3 companies on the blacklist I have and would never use anyway.


----------



## Taphoi (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> You obviously had trouble comprehending what I said. Heres a clue: I did not say it was not a factor at all.
> 
> And it certainly doesnt support your contention that smoking is the only thing that explains the male to female ratio.


There wasn't enough smoking among elderly Chinese people relative to elderly Europeans to be confident one way or the other. How do you explain elderly males being twice as susceptible? This kind of male : female ratio is very rare except in smoking related disease normally. And this is especially true of diseases with a pulmonary focus (lungs).


----------



## Sue (Mar 29, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> There wasn't enough smoking among elderly Chinese people relative to elderly Europeans to be confident one way or the other. How do you explain elderly males being twice as susceptible? *This kind of male : female ratio is very rare except in smoking related disease normally. *And this is especially true of diseases with a pulmonary focus (lungs).



Off the top of my head, autoimmune conditions, for example, are much more prevalent in women than in men so a difference in immune response to covid 19 based on gender doesn’t seem that strange a concept. (Usual not a scientific/medical expert disclaimer.)


----------



## little_legs (Mar 29, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I hope and suspect that's now out of date by a few days and in any case who will take notice of that? Some people simply don't care enough not to use some of those companies.
> Without thinking about it there are 3 companies on the blacklist I have and would never use anyway.


Sir/ma'am, you can see some cases/responses recorded today, March 29th.


----------



## editor (Mar 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's not really the same though as these lists also include the good guys. Maybe they could be merged into a heroes and villains thread?


----------



## ignatious (Mar 29, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> How do you explain elderly males being twice as susceptible?


Exposure to pollutants, asbestos, mining residues etc? Plus smoking obviously; nobody is saying smoking is a non-factor.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 29, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Sir/ma'am, you can see some cases/responses recorded today, March 29th.


It doesn't open well on a phone


----------



## hash tag (Mar 29, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Friend lives next door to a Tory MP and his wife, who are supposedly self-isolating. On Friday night the MP had visitors who drove over, spent a few hours having dinner and hanging out with them and then left because government guidance on a pandemic can be ignored if you're a smug Tory.


name and shame








						Stephen Kinnock targeted by police for visiting father, Neil
					

South Wales force criticised for tweeting disapproval of MP defying coronavirus rules




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Taphoi (Mar 29, 2020)

ignatious said:


> Exposure to pollutants, asbestos, mining residues etc? Plus smoking obviously; nobody is saying smoking is a non-factor.


Exposure to traffic fumes and atmospheric pollutants is the same in men and women. Asbestos and mining are tiny segments of the population. Smoking is not just the biggie, it dominates by orders of magnitude. Social pressure and tobacco profits persuaded two thirds of the entire adult population to commit slow suicide in the forties, fifties and sixties. Normally, the annual flu epidemics would have killed many elderly people with smoking histories in recent years, but the annual flu jabs has saved them in huge numbers. So what happens when a respiratory disease comes along with a similar death rate to flu but with no jab? Cue Covid-19!


----------



## ignatious (Mar 29, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> Exposure to traffic fumes and atmospheric pollutants is the same in men and women.



is it? And was it when these 70+ people were of working age? 



Taphoi said:


> Asbestos and mining are tiny segments of the population.



Were they when these 70+ people were of working age?


----------



## weltweit (Mar 29, 2020)

> Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here.
> Subscribe to read | Financial Times
> 
> Another company, which asked not to be named, said it had written to the business department at the start of last week offering to provide hundreds of ventilators for $15,000 each, but had received no reply. “My concern is that the government actions don’t match their words,” said one executive there. “Matt Hancock stated that ‘if you produce a ventilator then we will buy it'. Instead the criteria seems to be 'if you can develop a new ventilator in the UK then we will buy it’.”A separate proposal that could have supplied the NHS with as many as 25,000 ventilators from China similarly went unanswered until it was too late, according to two companies behind it.


from Subscribe to read | Financial Times


----------



## Hollis (Mar 29, 2020)

For some reason I'm seeing far more racism, and in particular Islamophobia on my twitter timeline.. certain people seem to be blaming everything on immigation and muslims.


----------



## klang (Mar 29, 2020)

corona ray guns?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

ignatious said:


> Exposure to pollutants, asbestos, mining residues etc? Plus smoking obviously; nobody is saying smoking is a non-factor.


Nope. The pattern is being repeated across the world. It's probably to do with a sex-based difference wrt immune response. As pointed out before, it's not so unusual for there to be sex-based differences in immune responses. More women than men get MS, for instance, universally across cultures. Wherever a pattern is found to be common across cultures, that points to a cause that is independent of culture, so not smoking or work patterns or anything like that but something directly related to maleness or femaleness.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 29, 2020)

I was assuming things would be grim for about 3 months, bit shell-shocked by the government's daily briefing, and the deputy chief medical officer saying it's likely to be 6 months or more.


----------



## t0bytoo (Mar 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was assuming things would be grim for about 3 months, bit shell-shocked by the government's daily briefing, and the deputy chief medical officer saying it's likely to be 6 months or more.



When they started out with the '21 days' last week, it smelt like a lie. Their whole 'strategy' seems to be drip-feeding information to 'manage expectations'. This, incidentally, is what the government did in the 1660s plague. I've been reading Daniel Defoe's Year of the Plague


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was assuming things would be grim for about 3 months, bit shell-shocked by the government's daily briefing, and the deputy chief medical officer saying it's likely to be 6 months or more.


It'd be incredible if the government's current non-policy survives another three weeks, let alone six months. The deputy CMO appears to be running the government ATM, and has taken no account of the ruinous impact of months of rolling lockdowns and stagnation. If she honestly thinks she can keep Britain under house arrest 'til the Autumn, it makes her bigotry around testing look enlightened.

If nothing else, the market forces they love so much will be this policy's undoing. See that Ocado's just bought up thousands of tests for its staff, and tests should become cheaper and more available with time. Events are already outpacing them.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 29, 2020)

t0bytoo said:


> When they started out with the '21 days' last week, it smelt like a lie.



They didn't say it would last 3 weeks, but they would review it in 3 weeks, that was very clear.

That hasn't changed, the deputy chief medical officer has said the same today, it'll be reviewed every 3 weeks.


----------



## bimble (Mar 29, 2020)

It’s a bit like when you’re flights actually delayed by 17 hours but they only tell you bit by bit an extra hour at a time.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

t0bytoo said:


> When they started out with the '21 days' last week, it smelt like a lie. Their whole 'strategy' seems to be drip-feeding information to 'manage expectations'. This, incidentally, is what the government did in the 1660s plague. I've been reading Daniel Defoe's Year of the Plague


Expect the govt are, for their many, many sins, desperate to end lockdown ASAP, since every day it runs unnecessarily piles on untold debt and increases risk of a public mutiny. This insane notion of keeping lockdowns running for months, out of a pigheaded refusal to admit you're wrong about testing and contact tracing, looks far likelier to have come from the medical team, and is a perfect illustration of why technocracy's an awful idea.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They didn't say it would last 3 weeks, but they would review it in 3 weeks, that was very clear.
> 
> That hasn't changed, the deputy chief medical officer has said the same today, it'll be reviewed every 3 weeks.


But not being a politician, she blurted out her underlying plan, for which we should be grateful.

How does she think Britons will respond to being kept under needless house arrest by a doctor they never voted for while they see surrounding counties implement surveillance and testing regimes and end their lockdowns? Especially as summer arrives.

Even Gove was tapdancing around current testing policy and praising Germany earlier. If she thinks the govt will sit idly by and back her unconditionally while she appoints herself Gaoler in Chief for an entire country, she's in for a rude awakening, and in a lot less than six months.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> It'd be incredible if the government's current non-policy survives another three weeks, let alone six months. The deputy CMO appears to be running the government ATM, and has taken no account of the ruinous impact of months of rolling lockdowns and stagnation. If she honestly thinks she can keep Britain under house arrest 'til the Autumn, it makes her bigotry around testing look enlightened.
> 
> If nothing else, the market forces they love so much will be this policy's undoing. See that Ocado's just bought up thousands of tests for its staff, and tests should become cheaper and more available with time. Events are already outpacing them.


So the plan is to keep everyone in through summer until autumn and the start of the next flu season?


----------



## bimble (Mar 29, 2020)

I’d like to know how contact tracing would actually practically be done here, on a massive scale. I mean who would be doing it, would they try to get in touch with everyone that an infected person had sat near to in the last two weeks before they became ill? 
It seems impossible to be honest, or at least incredibly expensive once you’ve recruited an army of tracers.


----------



## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Expect the govt are, for their many, many sins, desperate to end lockdown ASAP, since every day it runs unnecessarily piles on untold debt and increases risk of a public mutiny. This insane notion of keeping lockdowns running for months, out of a pigheaded refusal to admit you're wrong about testing and contact tracing, looks far likelier to have come from the medical team, and is a perfect illustration of why technocracy's an awful idea.



The problem with test and trace is that the horse has already bolted, to a fairly massive extent. It would be impossible now to do what SK has done... It might be possible after a medium-long period of hard isolation (4 weeks) with extensive, nationwide testing. Also I don't think the existence of a technocratic element is particularly defining. After all it was the technocrats here who initially argued for less lockdown, not months of rolling lockdown. And I'm sure it was the technocrats in SK who argued that building up testing procedures post-SARS was a good idea.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> I’d like to know how contact tracing would actually practically be done here, on a massive scale. I mean who would be doing it, would they try to get in touch with everyone that an infected person had sat near to in the last two weeks before they became ill?
> It seems impossible to be honest, or at least incredibly expensive once you’ve recruited an army of tracers.


Not as expensive as paying 80 per cent of millions of people's wages for months. China had tens of thousands of people on the case. I don't know the logistics of it but someone does.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Reasons for her publicly going on about 6 months now might include the press repeatedly asking questions about the timescale, despite the obvious answer that they dont know until they evaluate what effect the measures have on the data, and what effect that data has on the modelling.

Sections of the press already soiled themselves in the process of looking for any news, reports, models which could possibly indicate a nice quick exit from this situation. Under those conditions, I too would be forced to go on about some rather long timescales in order to compensate for that.

It also likely reflects the Imperial College suppression idea where all measures dont necessarily stay in place for the entire duration of the main Covid-19 threat, they might turn them on and off over time based on certain indicators such as level of intensive care admissions.

I am not going to freak out about this aspect of the statements made today. Large amounts of the focus has been on testing of various sorts in recent days, that stuff is clearly part of the plan now. It will take them time to get their shit together on that front, and what they plan to do with the tests may still fall well short of the all-out suppression & testing & contact tracing approach. But we wont really know that until an actual opportunity to try that stuff arises again, and I think the government know that they have time to wait and see with that side of things too (in the sense of the contact tracing sort of suppression, cant do it properly in the midst of an epidemic wave). So it just goes into the large pile of issues that are in a state of suspended animation for me. Because I cant take them much further until we have seen the terrible data on hospitalisations and deaths from the first wave, and when and to what extent the lockdown makes a difference. Combine that with a few other things we might learn about the epidemic such as via testing to determine what order of magnitude of people were mild/asymptomatic cases, and it will be much easier to say exactly what the next step should be, and judge whether the government are going to do that or not.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> So the plan is to keep everyone in through summer until autumn and the start of the next flu season?


Exactly, the more you look, the madder it gets. Unless she's trying to be a politician and intends more than a year of rolling house arrest. And of course, every other political force just rolls over and plays doggo while arbitrary mass detention's imposed. And I thought the attitude to ending this without mass testing was magical thinking!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Reasons for her publicly going on about 6 months now might include the press repeatedly asking questions about the timescale, despite the obvious answer that they dont know until they evaluate what effect the measures have on the data, and what effect that data has on the modelling.
> 
> Sections of the press already soiled themselves in the process of looking for any news, reports, models which could possibly indicate a nice quick exit from this situation. Under those conditions, I too would be forced to go on about some rather long timescales in order to compensate for that.
> 
> ...


The thing about test and contact is that it's only needed where you have a very limited testing capability. The game-changer would be a test that can be rolled out to everyone, or at least millions and millions. That makes test and trace redundant. I don't know the likely timeframe for that to be possible.


----------



## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

It's worth noting that SK's test and trace policy does also include quite a heavy degree of intrusive tracking. If you have the disease your location is pinned to within 100m, and your previous movements are shown. Everyone near you will get an alert.

Other factors are; extensive availability of hand-cleaning stuff in public spaces. Everyone using masks (these are rationed, my friend already has some, but thinks you can buy 4/week now, was 2/week recently)... I know people think masks are ineffective, but that's mainly as protection. The idea in Asian countries has always featured an element of protecting those around you, which does have more evidence to support it (especially if literally everyone is wearing one).


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## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> It's worth noting that SK's test and trace policy does also include quite a heavy degree of intrusive tracking. If you have the disease your location is pinned to within 100m, and your previous movements are shown. Everyone near you will get an alert.
> 
> Other factors are; extensive availability of hand-cleaning stuff in public spaces. Everyone using masks (these are rationed, my friend already has some, but thinks you can buy 4/week now, was 2/week recently)... I know people think masks are ineffective, but that's mainly as protection. The idea in Asian countries has always featured an element of protecting those around you, which does have more evidence to support it (especially if literally everyone is wearing one).


Yep, some didn't realise at first that in East Asia it's the people with colds who wear them, not everyone else. Given how many you see, though, I have to say that it's not a great advert for their general effectiveness. an awful lot of people in East Asia still manage to catch colds.


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> The problem with test and trace is that the horse has already bolted, to a fairly massive extent. It would be impossible now to do what SK has done... It might be possible after a medium-long period of hard isolation (4 weeks) with extensive, nationwide testing. Also I don't think the existence of a technocratic element is particularly defining. After all it was the technocrats here who initially argued for less lockdown, not months of rolling lockdown. And I'm sure it was the technocrats in SK who argued that building up testing procedures post-SARS was a good idea.


It's medically sound, but politicians have embraced it. Jung Eun-kyeong reassures with regular public briefings, hasn't taken it on herself to sentence millions to indefinite house arrest, and the government haven't vanished from the scene due to falling down with the very disease they're supposed to be fighting. Very different situation.


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## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep, some didn't realise at first that in East Asia it's the people with colds who wear them, not everyone else. Given how many you see, though, I have to say that it's not a great advert for their general effectiveness. an awful lot of people in East Asia still manage to catch colds.



Yeah, but they're usually pretty limited in use... In China at least it's not often you'll see men wearing them. From what my friend says in SK at the moment it's literally everyone.


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## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah, but they're usually pretty limited in use... *In China at least it's not often you'll see men wearing them. *From what my friend says in SK at the moment it's literally everyone.


This is a good point. Thinking about it, I definitely saw more women than men wearing them in Japan. I think it's just considered polite as much as anything else (in non-corona times, that is). That said, in Japan it is considered rude to blow your nose in public, so people will sit there sniffing.


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> The problem with test and trace is that the horse has already bolted, to a fairly massive extent. It would be impossible now to do what SK has done... It might be possible after a medium-long period of hard isolation (4 weeks) with extensive, nationwide testing. Also I don't think the existence of a technocratic element is particularly defining. After all it was the technocrats here who initially argued for less lockdown, not months of rolling lockdown. And I'm sure it was the technocrats in SK who argued that building up testing procedures post-SARS was a good idea.


Leading epidemiologists and public health experts (such as Edinburgh's Devi Sridhar and Anthony Costello, formerly of the W.H.O.) don't believe it is, since infection's not uniform across the country, and by keeping people in place, a lockdown buys time to locate infected persons and contact trace, especially when geodata's factored in. If even half the cases are identified, that could massively slow the spread, buying more time to go after the rest. I see no reason to give up without even trying.


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## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Leading epidemiologists and public health experts (such as Edinburgh's Devi Sridhar and Anthony Costello, formerly of the W.H.O.) don't believe it is, since infection's not uniform across the country, and by keeping people in place, a lockdown buys time to locate infected persons and contact trace, especially when geodata's factored in. If even half the cases are identified, that could massively slow the spread, buying more time to go after the rest. I see no reason to give up without even trying.



Yes, that's what I said. If you have an extensive lockdown for a medium-long period of time (4 weeks) alongside nationwide testing, it may be possible.


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## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> It's medically sound, but politicians have embraced it. Jung Eun-kyeong reassures with regular public briefings, hasn't taken it on herself to sentence millions to indefinite house arrest, and the government haven't vanished from the scene due to falling down with the very disease they're supposed to be fighting. Very different situation.



Not really buying this. Much of the initial response here was ideology-led, Whitty seemed to be floundering in the dark a bit, to some extent giving the line the government wanted to hear. I don't think anything about his appearance on the select-committee showed him leading on policy.


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> It's worth noting that SK's test and trace policy does also include quite a heavy degree of intrusive tracking. If you have the disease your location is pinned to within 100m, and your previous movements are shown. Everyone near you will get an alert.
> 
> Other factors are; extensive availability of hand-cleaning stuff in public spaces. Everyone using masks (these are rationed, my friend already has some, but thinks you can buy 4/week now, was 2/week recently)... I know people think masks are ineffective, but that's mainly as protection. The idea in Asian countries has always featured an element of protecting those around you, which does have more evidence to support it (especially if literally everyone is wearing one).


True, it's a trade-off, and I've been open about the privacy costs when I've advocated it here. For me, medical surveillance is infinitely preferable to prolonged house arrest, but I suppose those who disagree could be allowed to opt out and bunker down for months.


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## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> True, and it's a trade-off, and I've been open about the privacy costs when I've advocated it here. For me, medical surveillance is infinitely preferable to prolonged house arrest, but I suppose those who disagree could be allowed to opt out and bunker down for months.



Yeah, absolutely agree on that. I think we'd still get a month of house arrest for that to be effective, but long-term - unless the Oxford model is right (big fucking risk there) - there don't seem to be any other solutions.


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> Not really buying this. Much of the initial response here was ideology-led, Whitty seemed to be floundering in the dark a bit, to some extent giving the line the government wanted to hear. I don't think anything about his appearance on the select-committee showed him leading on policy.


Not Whitty, I called him a follower earlier in the thread. From what we can piece together from reporting in _Times_ and elsewhere, herd immunity was initially pushed by a tag-team of Cummings and Vallance, but now it's collapsed as (open) policy, lockdown's all they've got left. Dynamic's also changed now top of govt have fallen ill with Covid-19.


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## bimble (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The thing about test and contact is that it's only needed where you have a very limited testing capability. The game-changer would be a test that can be rolled out to everyone, or at least millions and millions. That makes test and trace redundant. I don't know the likely timeframe for that to be possible.


This looks like a possible way forward, ‘pooled testing: 
You test large amount of samples at once (64 people at once in this case), if even one is positive it shows up and so you test each of them but if all are negative you move on. Could save loads of time and resources and be used to screen whole populations?









						The Israeli ‘Pooling’ Method That Could Rapidly Expand COVID-19 Testing
					

A new protocol makes it possible to test up to 64 people at the same time




					www.tabletmag.com


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## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Not Whitty, I called him a follower earlier in the thread. From what we can piece together from reporting in _Times_ and elsewhere, herd immunity was initially pushed by a tag-team of Cummings and Vallance, but now it's collapsed as (open) policy, lockdown's all they've got left. Dynamic's also changed now top of govt have fallen ill with Covid-19.



Oh, I see you said the deputy CMO, not CMO. Yeah, the Vallance-Cummings thing I can agree on.


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## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> This looks like a possible way forward, ‘pooled testing:
> You test large amount of samples at once (64 people at once in this case), if even one is positive it shows up and so you test each of them but if all are negative you move on. Could save loads of time and resources and be used to screen whole populations?
> 
> 
> ...


Great idea!


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yes, that's what I said. If you have an extensive lockdown for a medium-long period of time (4 weeks) alongside nationwide testing, it may be possible.


Ah, my apologies for the misunderstanding: and to clarify, I also support* a lockdown until a quarantine and surveillance regime's in place.

(* For "support", read "am willing to endure, while furious that gross incompetence has made it necessary".)


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Reasons for her publicly going on about 6 months now might include the press repeatedly asking questions about the timescale, despite the obvious answer that they dont know until they evaluate what effect the measures have on the data, and what effect that data has on the modelling.
> 
> Sections of the press already soiled themselves in the process of looking for any news, reports, models which could possibly indicate a nice quick exit from this situation. Under those conditions, I too would be forced to go on about some rather long timescales in order to compensate for that.
> 
> ...


In its claim that over a year of draconian mass detention may be needed, the Imperial "suppression" model completely overlooked the importance of testing and contact tracing: to be fair to him, Neil Ferguson's subsequently had a Damascene moment and is now advocating mass testing as a route to ending the lockdown.

Whitehall itself is, going by Gove's backtracking comments, willing to consider mass testing. They'll consider anything that offers hope of easing the lockdown. But it's not yet policy: dogmatic opposition appears to be coming from the medical and scientific factions, with both Vallance and the deputy CMO refusing to consider it.


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## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Doodler said:


> What was the thinking behind the herd immunity plan? Interesting Q&A on Reddit with a 'UK Critical Care Physician':



Its mostly correct, and only ends up slightly misleading in places because it omitted certain things. For example in regards things happening elsewhere, they mention 'very few governments chose to act' but then just go on about the UK inaction without the context of what many others were doing (or not doing). 

I suppose as a result I also disagree with the statement 'They chose to perform an experiment on an entire population, a trial of 'new epidemic mitigation strategy in UK' vs 'epidemic suppression in rest of the world'.'

It wasnt quite the rest of the world, there were a lot of countries that were originally taking the same approach as UK, and there were still some of those left by the time the UK had to u-turn.

I wouldnt have called it a new epidemic mitigation strategy either. From what I saw of the 2009 swine flu government plans and response, the plan this time round was just a slight variation on that existing orthodox approach. The UK does like to chuck some gimmicks into the mix, but usually in rather inconsequential ways that dont really differentiate the core approach from that of other countries. eg in 2009 they decided to attempt to delay things by throwing Tamiflu at the problem, an approach that looked more like it was just done to be seen to be doing something than a meaningful measure.

So yeah, rather than call it a new strategy, I'd suggest the new bits were gimmicks that should not distract from the fact that the plan was basically the same as the plan always is: Monitor the emergence of the epidemic, but dont try to scale that up past a certain point. Have a public information campaign, but dont do very much else apart from vaccination if available. Maybe shut schools and a few other things for a brief period, but dont necessarily bother to time that in a way that actually minimises the epidemic.

I certainly agree with what they said about the government pretending they didnt change strategy, bu this being bollocks. I complained about this at the time, but I dont know quite how far to take that complaint because it is difficult to determine precisely how much of the new approach the government have wholeheartedly adopted now, aside from the obvious bits that they have already done. I still dont know quite how far they want to take testing, and it would not surprise me if they are still struggling to think big about solving issues of practicality/scale. A fair chunk of the orthodox pandemic approach comes from assumptions about how impractical it is to scale all manner of things past a certain point, and its that sort of thinking that limited our options and narrowed our orthodoxy over many decades. Never mind, as per another recent post of mine, there is a period now where we wait for data from the horrible emerging reality to present itself and get fed into models and various thinking about the next steps, so I can also take some weeks to reach fresh judgement on what the government are doing and look likely to do next.


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## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> But it's not yet policy: dogmatic opposition appears to be coming from the medical and scientific factions, with both Vallance and the deputy CMO refusing to consider it.



Where are you getting that from? If you are inferring it from public comments at press conferences then no, I think you've got it wrong. If you have a different source then I'm all ears.


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## weltweit (Mar 29, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK ‘wasting time’ on NHS protective gear orders


> UK clothes makers say the government has wasted time in ordering personal protective equipment for NHS staff.
> 
> Fashion and textile firms believe they could have begun making gowns and masks for front-line workers 10 days ago.
> 
> ...


from UK ‘wasting time’ on NHS protective gear orders


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Where are you getting that from? If you are inferring it from public comments at press conferences then no, I think you've got it wrong. If you have a different source then I'm all ears.


In the presser a few days back, Deputy CMO explicitly said that W.H.O. advice on mass testing didn't apply to the U.K. 'cause our NHS is so wonderful; and Vallance likewise said it wasn't appropriate at this stage in a Radio 4 interview.


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## weltweit (Mar 29, 2020)

Hospitals have cleared the decks


> On Friday, the head of the NHS in England, Sir Simon Stevens, said: "We have reconfigured hospital services so that 33,000 hospital beds are available to treat further coronavrius patients."
> ..
> The NHS in England has 3,700 adult intensive care beds - a figure which rises to well over 4,000 if you factor in the rest of the UK.
> 
> ...



from Is the NHS ready for the surge in coronavirus cases?

Also mentions the London exhibition space and NEC and Manchester hospital extensions / field hospitals.


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## two sheds (Mar 29, 2020)

I don't even understand the theory behind herd immunity here. I'm vulnerable because of my asthma and am quite happy to social distance (strange term as a verb though it is) for 6 months or whatever. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to mix with people again until they've got a working vaccine and treatment. Without that, if I go on a bus where only 1 in 20 people have it then I'm likely to be fucked irrespective of herd immunity. It's not 80% of the population getting it that's going to protect me, it's always been vaccine and treatment.


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## Hollis (Mar 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was assuming things would be grim for about 3 months, bit shell-shocked by the government's daily briefing, and the deputy chief medical officer saying it's likely to be 6 months or more.



Unfortunately witnessed through my walls a blazing row next door... things are going to get nasty if people are having to self isolate for months - We're still in the honeymoon period with this.


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## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> In the presser a few days back, Deputy CMO explicitly said that W.H.O. advice on mass testing didn't apply to the U.K. 'cause our NHS is so wonderful; and Vallance likewise said it wasn't appropriate at this stage in a Radio 4 interview.



They are trying to save face, cover for the fact that the plan is evolving, and cover for the fact they havent got any capacity to test on the required levels yet. They are also deliberately avoiding committing themselves to the full on test-trace-suppress approach for now, but I cannot take that as a sign that they will continue to resist that. Some of the press conference responses should also be seen in the context of hostile questions from journalists demanding to know why we arent doing what WHO etc says we should, and its typical for such questions to be met with deflecting answers that feature the rhetoric of British exceptionalism (but possibly not the actual substance). Politics is not limited to elected politicians, other layers of the establishment have their own forms too. I have to look beyond the slippery trails to discover the actual policy substance.

Its quite possible they dont fully accept the approach yet either, but until some of these other aspects are dealt with, I wont actually be able to judge that. If we could flick a switch and have all the required capacity etc then of course I would be saying that they must urgently commit to everything required by the new approach. But since things have to be ramped up and that takes time, and I also want time to see some epidemic data and evidence of what lockdown in the current form can achieve, I can afford to wait and see and they can afford to take their time adjusting the public face of their policy.


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I don't even understand the theory behind herd immunity here. I'm vulnerable because of my asthma and am quite happy to social distance (strange term as a verb though it is) for 6 months or whatever. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to mix with people again until they've got a working vaccine and treatment. Without that, if I go on a bus where only 1 in 20 people have it then I'm likely to be fucked irrespective of herd immunity. It's not 80% of the population getting it that's going to protect me, it's always been vaccine and treatment.


It's been horribly misused: as you say, it's properly used in relation to vaccines, where a sufficiently high vaccination rate (around 90%, varies by disease) starves a disease of hosts and grants "passive immunity" to the tiny minority who, for medical reasons, are unable to get their shots. A concept designed to protect people has been twisted into a barbaric policy that places them in grave danger. 

What they should've said is "natural immunity", and yes, when sufficient numbers have been infected, this does rise (classic example of the difference is the devastating effects of novel diseases introduced to the Americas by Europeans). Trying to engineer it when any other option's available is monstrous.


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## little_legs (Mar 29, 2020)

Someone should mention the idea of universal basic income to the fuck-ups responsible for this shit show. This is not some Guardian or some lefty paper writing about the government's totally fucking things up, it's FT.



> *Self-employed forced on to breadline with no government help*
> 
> Larisa Bucur has been on hold for more than three hours trying to register for state benefit through the universal credit helpline. A London-based interpreter, she usually earns around £1,200 to £1,800 a month, translating between Romanian and English at mental health and social services appointments.
> 
> ...



Article link


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## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> What they should've said is "natural immunity", and yes, when sufficient numbers have been infected, this does rise (classic example of the difference is the devastating effects of novel diseases introduced to the Americas by Europeans). Trying to engineer it when any other option's available is monstrous.



What they were actually trying to engineer was an excuse for doing very little. They wanted to stick to the traditional script, but that script normally involves waiting for a vaccine with shorter lead times (eg a flu vaccine). It was supposed to fend off questions about why we wouldnt want to just 'push down a hell of a lot harder on that curve' than they intended to, but  it blew up in their face, due to the way they chose to talk about it, possibly the failure of Vallances slideshow to work in the press conference contributed too, but most of all the timing, the fact everyone else started shutting schools at the same time they were trying to sell the herd immunity line.


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## two sheds (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> What they were actually trying to engineer was an excuse for doing very little.



Yep, this. They listened to the experts who were saying what they wanted to hear, and not to those who weren't.


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## agricola (Mar 29, 2020)

So, Easyjet then?









						Cabin crew are to work alongside medics at Britain's first makeshift field hospital
					

Virgin Atlantic and easyJet have urged staff out of work because of the coronavirus to volunteer at the new NHS Nightingale hospitals




					www.telegraph.co.uk


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## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> What they were actually trying to engineer was an excuse for doing very little. They wanted to stick to the traditional script, but that script normally involves waiting for a vaccine with shorter lead times (eg a flu vaccine). It was supposed to fend off questions about why we wouldnt want to just 'push down a hell of a lot harder on that curve' than they intended to, but  it blew up in their face, due to the way they chose to talk about it, possibly the failure of Vallances slideshow to work in the press conference contributed too, but most of all the timing, the fact everyone else started shutting schools at the same time they were trying to sell the herd immunity line.


Your last two posts just illustrate the contempt in which they hold their audience. Maybe, just maybe, if they had been upfront and honest all along, they wouldn't look like such cunts now.


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> They are trying to save face, cover for the fact that the plan is evolving, and cover for the fact they havent got any capacity to test on the required levels yet. They are also deliberately avoiding committing themselves to the full on test-trace-suppress approach for now, but I cannot take that as a sign that they will continue to resist that. Some of the press conference responses should also be seen in the context of hostile questions from journalists demanding to know why we arent doing what WHO etc says we should, and its typical for such questions to be met with deflecting answers that feature the rhetoric of British exceptionalism (but possibly not the actual substance). Politics is not limited to elected politicians, other layers of the establishment have their own forms too. I have to look beyond the slippery trails to discover the actual policy substance.
> 
> Its quite possible they dont fully accept the approach yet either, but until some of these other aspects are dealt with, I wont actually be able to judge that. If we could flick a switch and have all the required capacity etc then of course I would be saying that they must urgently commit to everything required by the new approach. But since things have to be ramped up and that takes time, and I also want time to see some epidemic data and evidence of what lockdown in the current form can achieve, I can afford to wait and see and they can afford to take their time adjusting the public face of their policy.


I certainly factor in them covering themselves, but if they were committed to mass testing, or at least open to the idea, would expect something like Gove's response: ruling nothing out, praise foreign examples, blame lack of capacity, promise to do more. The answers of the Chief Scientist and deputy CMO are far more unequivocal and specific. They're "political" in the mundane sense of office politics, but utterly clueless when it comes to giving themselves the flexibility to change course. 

Neither of these people occupy political roles, nor expected to be thrust into the limelight like this, and it shows: they're independent professional advisors, and ex-ministers report that those occupying the posts have, in the past, used the threat of resignation to shut down bad policy.

If the deputy CMO and Chief Scientist haven't done this, it's reasonable to inter it's because they mean what they say they mean, especially when the personal and professional consequences of getting it wrong are so dire, far worse than those of resignation.


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## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yep, this. They listened to the experts who were saying what they wanted to hear, and not to those who weren't.


Absolutely. It's like the experts hired for court cases. If you want to plead insanity, you choose the expert who will say the defendant's insane, even if there are 20 others who will say he/she isn't. Those, you just pretend don't exist.


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## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I don't even understand the theory behind herd immunity here. I'm vulnerable because of my asthma and am quite happy to social distance (strange term as a verb though it is) for 6 months or whatever. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to mix with people again until they've got a working vaccine and treatment. Without that, if I go on a bus where only 1 in 20 people have it then I'm likely to be fucked irrespective of herd immunity. It's not 80% of the population getting it that's going to protect me, it's always been vaccine and treatment.



The idea would be that the 1 person on the bus would be much less likely to have it too, because the widespread number of immune people would rob the disease of the opportunity to infect all sorts of people who were not directly immune themselves.

A virus that remains just as potentially deadly to an individual as it ever was, but is robbed of many opportunities to find fresh people to infect, wont be scary in the way it was when it was capable of causing epidemics and pandemics. It really is a numbers game. Some of these numbers games may even offer us a way out in the end, just not via botched government comms about herd immunity or trying to turn a blind eye to hospital capacity during a pandemic. But later, things are possible.


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## two sheds (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> The idea would be that the 1 person on the bus would be much less likely to have it too, because the widespread number of immune people would rob the disease of the opportunity to infect all sorts of people who were not directly immune themselves.
> 
> A virus that remains just as potentially deadly to an individual as it ever was, but is robbed of many opportunities to find fresh people to infect, wont be scary in the way it was when it was capable of causing epidemics and pandemics. It really is a numbers game.



I tried to factor that in with the 1 in 20 having it. If they're aiming for 80% herd immunity then that's 20% who could be carrying and so people on buses, shops, supermarkets, and just people you meet in the street are all risks.


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## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Coronavirus: UK ‘wasting time’ on NHS protective gear orders
> 
> from UK ‘wasting time’ on NHS protective gear orders



Hmm... Bit skeptical on that. Scrubs maybe... But N95 masks?


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## William of Walworth (Mar 29, 2020)

Post #5205 above : Thanks for C & P'ing the text of that little_legs -- a few FT articles have become free to read right now, but most still not, including that one. But that's excellent reportage.

(And I *so* want to read up more about Universal Basic Income in my continued free time -- my instinct is to be a fan, but I know UBI has received sensible criticism too  )


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> The idea would be that the 1 person on the bus would be much less likely to have it too, because the widespread number of immune people would rob the disease of the opportunity to infect all sorts of people who were not directly immune themselves.
> 
> A virus that remains just as potentially deadly to an individual as it ever was, but is robbed of many opportunities to find fresh people to infect, wont be scary in the way it was when it was capable of causing epidemics and pandemics. It really is a numbers game. Some of these numbers games may even offer us a way out in the end, just not via botched government comms about herd immunity or trying to turn a blind eye to hospital capacity during a pandemic. But later, things are possible.


Indeed, but that's different in kind to herd immunity, since the virus is still circulating in the population, and no person vulnerable to infection's immune, they just run a lower risk.


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## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Someone should mention the idea of universal basic income to the fuck-ups responsible for this shit show. This is not some Guardian or some lefty paper writing about the government's totally fucking things up, it's FT.
> 
> 
> 
> Article link



I'm sure someone has. In fact I'm sure part of the reason that they've gone for this absurdly complex, income based, varying from profession to profession, bloody hard to administer, unfair approach is exactly because they want to avoid acknowledging that UBI might be quite a good idea.


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## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I tried to factor that in with the 1 in 20 having it. If they're aiming for 80% herd immunity then that's 20% who could be carrying and so people on buses, shops, supermarkets, and just people you meet in the street are all risks.



But if you think about chains of transmission, then the 80% who are immune have a notable impact on what proportion of the 20% who arent actually end up having opportunities to get infected.

And the results of this stuff, unless exceptionally successful or dealing with a disease that really can be cornered, is also a numbers game. It doesnt stop absolutely every person getting infected, but it stops things reaching anything close to epidemic scale, and that alone is enough to keep huge numbers of people safe.

Some of the logic of this stuff is also why pandemics are big scary things with huge consequences in the first place. Its all about the scale and their terrifying total potential to do harm because nobody is immune, all the numbers are on the side of the virus. Once the numbers are well below epidemic level, the very same virus, without needing to undergo any changes to its deadliness, doesnt end up posing the same burden to humanity at all.


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## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Absolutely. It's like the experts hired for court cases. If you want to plead insanity, you choose the expert who will say the defendant's insane, even if there are 20 others who will say he/she isn't. Those, you just pretend don't exist.


Exactly why I've been scornful of this appeal to authority from the start. This isn't "the science" (definite article, folks!), or science of any kind: it's religious dogma, with anyone questioning the infallible decrees of the magisterium denounced as a heretic.

As journalists parroting this silencing device ought to know, real science takes nothing on authority, presents its working, and actively seeks criticism and correction. That Britain's top scientist isn't making this point at every opportunity speaks to an extremely worrying breakdown in the British scientific community, one that must've been brewing for a while. Our leading scientists have gone awry at the worst possible time.


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## littlebabyjesus (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Exactly why I've been scornful of this appeal to authority from the start. This isn't "the science" (definite article, folks!), or science of any kind: it's religious dogma, with anyone questioning the infallible decrees of the magisterium denounced as a heretic.
> 
> As journalists parroting this silencing device ought to know, real science takes nothing on authority, presents its working, and actively seeks criticism and correction. That Britain's top scientist isn't making this point at every opportunity speaks to an extremely worrying breakdown in the British scientific community, one that must've been brewing for a while. Our leading scientists have gone awry at the worst possible time.


It's not so surprising, though. He's not really 'Britain's top scientist'. That would be someone who has absolutely no interest in working for the govt. Too busy doing science. He's a political appointment. 'Britain's most clubbable scientist', perhaps (or is that 'pliable'?). It's depressing, but it's not so different from the govt-appointed lawyer finding a legal excuse to go to war - if it's war they want, the lawyer will find it's legal miraculously.

We saw what happens to govt-appointed scientists who say things the govt doesn't want with Proffesor Nutt. Did they heed his advice? No, they sacked him.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Your last two posts just illustrate the contempt in which they hold their audience. Maybe, just maybe, if they had been upfront and honest all along, they wouldn't look like such cunts now.



If I ever sound frustrated during conversations on this front, its because the vast bulk of what I describe is establishment business as usual, and could be studied throughout large periods of history. The attitudes are all around, in normal times as well as exceptional times, and can be clearly seen in all manner of official documents from all sorts of corners of the establishment. And yet, when this stuff is thrust into the spotlight during some crisis, large numbers of people always seem surprised, and I feel compelled to go on and on about various details of how it works. I dont really get it, most of us have at least observed public inquiries on some matter or another, a lot of what I go on about shows up in evidence and lessons learnt, and subsequent inquiries about why the lessons to be learnt werent, and made very little difference to the establishment way of doing things. And we are familiar with bureaucracy and management failings and dodgy budget priorities and echo chambers and propaganda and meaningless reassurances and small cogs in big machines not questioning the established wisdom and people nailing themselves to the mast and going down with the ship.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> But if you think about chains of transmission, then the 80% who are immune have a notable impact on what proportion of the 20% who arent actually end up having opportunities to get infected.
> 
> And the results of this stuff, unless exceptionally successful or dealing with a disease that really can be cornered, is also a numbers game. It doesnt stop absolutely every person getting infected, but it stops things reaching anything close to epidemic scale, and that alone is enough to keep huge numbers of people safe.
> 
> Some of the logic of this stuff is also why pandemics are big scary things with huge consequences in the first place. Its all about the scale and their terrifying total potential to do harm because nobody is immune, all the numbers are on the side of the virus. Once the numbers are well below epidemic level, the very same virus, without needing to undergo any changes to its deadlines, doesnt end up posing the same burden to humanity at all.


Yes fair enough. But surely the way is to test people, isolate anyone who's been in contact (as they should have been doing from the start with people coming into the country), and keep the numbers as small as possible while building up the NHS ability to cope. 

I still see those graphs with peaks of cases drawn above a horizontal line showing NHS beds as hugely at fault. They gave a massively optimistic view of the NHS's ability to cope, making it look like they were following the right strategy. 

Keep numbers absolutely down to a minimum while you work on vaccines and treatment, surely.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's not so surprising, though. He's not really 'Britain's top scientist'. That would be someone who has absolutely no interest in working for the govt. Too busy doing science. He's a political appointment. 'Britain's most clubbable scientist', perhaps (or is that 'pliable'?). It's depressing, but it's not so different from the govt-appointed lawyer finding a legal excuse to go to war - if it's war they want, the lawyer will find it's legal miraculously.
> 
> We saw what happens to govt-appointed scientists who say things the govt doesn't want with Proffesor Nutt. Did they heed his advice? No, they sacked him.


It undoubtedly takes a certain kind of person to do the job, but his resume's extremely impressive, and these roles have traditionally gone to leaders in their fields, as Vallance is. The example of the wonderfully named David Nutt just goes to show that advisors have traditionally maintained their independence. He went further than most, but others have quietly directed policy away from bad science. Vallance could be doing this without speaking out as Nutt did, but he isn't.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 29, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Someone should mention the idea of universal basic income to the fuck-ups responsible for this shit show. This is not some Guardian or some lefty paper writing about the government's totally fucking things up, it's FT.
> 
> Article link


The FT aren't averse to criticising the establishment. I wouldn't like to try and pin down their prevailing political leanings but in practice it's probably not quite what you think.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> If I ever sound frustrated during conversations on this front, its because the vast bulk of what I describe is establishment business as usual, and could be studied throughout large periods of history. The attitudes are all around, in normal times as well as exceptional times, and can be clearly seen in all manner of official documents from all sorts of corners of the establishment. And yet, when this stuff is thrust into the spotlight during some crisis, large numbers of people always seem surprised, and I feel compelled to go on and on about various details of how it works. I dont really get it, most of us have at least observed public inquiries on some matter or another, a lot of what I go on about shows up in evidence and lessons learnt, and subsequent inquiries about why the lessons to be learnt werent, and made very little difference to the establishment way of doing things. And we are familiar with bureaucracy and management failings and dodgy budget priorities and echo chambers and propaganda and meaningless reassurances and small cogs in big machines not questioning the established wisdom and people nailing themselves to the mast and going down with the ship.


For my part, it's both the intent, and the people doing it. 

I expect and can take laziness, incompetence, and buck passing from the jobsworths of the world. I expect the scum of the Earth to enter politics and slither their way to the top. I'm unsurprised at the repulsive views Cummings and his weirdos.

But I absolutely cannot accept medical doctors and leading scientists knowingly inflicting thousands of avoidable deaths as a matter of deliberate policy. That's not normal behaviour, it's a scandal, and can't be allowed to pass.

It's precisely because we expect the worst of politicians that we have safeguards like independent advisors. The safeguards have collapsed and been turned against the very people they're supposed to protect.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes fair enough. But surely the way is to test people, isolate anyone who's been in contact (as they should have been doing from the start with people coming into the country), and keep the numbers as small as possible while building up the NHS ability to cope.
> 
> I still see those graphs with peaks of cases drawn above a horizontal line showing NHS beds as hugely at fault. They gave a massively optimistic view of the NHS's ability to cope, making it look like they were following the right strategy.
> 
> Keep numbers absolutely down to a minimum while you work on vaccines and treatment, surely.



Again, nearly everything I end up describing here is just to explain the background, the establishment, the orthodox thinking about pandemics. I'm not defending any of it or saying that the approach I am describing is the right one.

The graph with the peak being pushed down was orthodox thinking, it wasnt even a UK invention, it is in EU documentation and elsewhere, and it was still in the EU documentation until the period when countries started abandoning the purely orthodox approach, which was only days before the UK were also forced to change approach.

In this case I wasnt even describing the governments particular herd immunity approach in the context of this pandemic, I was just explaining a bit about levels of immunity and illness in general, and it applies both to vaccination and naturally acquired immunity. eg the natural version of it waxes and wanes with particular diseases over time for reasons I wont go into right now, which is why, left to their own devices, a whole bunch of infectious diseases would go in cycles of quiet years, and then occasional epidemics, and then a lull again due to the immunity acquired in the epidemic.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> ..
> But I absolutely cannot accept medical doctors and leading scientists knowingly inflicting thousands of avoidable deaths as a matter of deliberate policy. That's not normal behaviour, it's a scandal, and can't be allowed to pass.
> ..


Witty et al at the visible head of UK medicine was the swans body above the waters surface, while below him the medical advisory group I believe were deep in disagreement and massive angry argument over possible policies, the frantic paddling of the swan invisible below the waterline. My understanding is that there was and remains very little agreement among top UK medical advisors.


----------



## treelover (Mar 29, 2020)

what is Johnson doing, saying "there is such a thing as society"

Why is he attacking his party's icon Thatcher?


----------



## ddraig (Mar 29, 2020)

treelover said:


> what is Johnson doing, saying "there is such a thing as society"
> 
> Why is he attacking his party's icon Thatcher?


what do you think?
Trying to give the impression the tories do care maybe


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> But I absolutely cannot accept medical doctors and leading scientists knowingly inflicting thousands of avoidable deaths as a matter of deliberate policy. That's not normal behaviour, it's a scandal, and can't be allowed to pass.



I'm afraid this demonstrates complete naivety about the establishment and various professions and attitudes and state priorities.

You'll be left with the wrong impression if you think the things you are seeing on that front in this pandemic are exceptional. They arent, there are thousands of examples over hundreds of years. I'm going to get really worn out if you dont learn this sooner rather than later, or at least I will have to learn to resist the urge to reply to your points so often.

Can someone help out here? Is there a good book or website on the broader subject?


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

Current situation's simply unsustainable. Doctors are rightly furious at the death of colleagues, and continued inadequate PPE. There's also been horrific reports of infection control breaking down in hospitals, patients being infected, and Covid-19 inflicting a death toll far beyond what it should even among elderly patients. It's worse than the old septic wards. If it goes on like this, how long before increasing numbers of clinicians decide they'd better fulfil their oath by doing nothing until proper protection and segregation of Covid patients is put in place?


----------



## two sheds (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm afraid this demonstrates complete naivety about the establishment and various professions and attitudes and state priorities.
> 
> You'll be left with the wrong impression if you think the things you are seeing on that front in this pandemic are exceptional. They arent, there are thousands of examples over hundreds of years. I'm going to get really worn out if you dont learn this sooner rather than later, or at least I will have to learn to resist the urge to reply to your points so often.
> 
> Can someone help out here? Is there a good book or website on the broader subject?



I do take your point that they're not exceptional. It doesn't make them any less despicable though. Like the tories (in particular) running down the NHS. That's one of the thousands of examples, too. They knew exactly what they were doing though.


----------



## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm afraid this demonstrates complete naivety about the establishment and various professions and attitudes and state priorities.
> 
> You'll be left with the wrong impression if you think the things you are seeing on that front in this pandemic are exceptional. They arent, there are thousands of examples over hundreds of years. I'm going to get really worn out if you dont learn this sooner rather than later, or at least I will have to learn to resist the urge to reply to your points so often.
> 
> Can someone help out here? Is there a good book or website on the broader subject?



Much as he ended up being a moany labour-right tossbag; Ben Goldacre's Bad Science and Bad Pharma are pretty good.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I do take your point that they're not exceptional. It doesn't make them any less despicable though. Like the tories (in particular) running down the NHS. That's one of the thousands of examples, too. They knew exactly what they were doing though.



Yeah, I'm not interested in letting tories off the hook, but I seem to have to go on about the orthodox establishment stuff a lot because it affects my understanding of what our current and future plans may actually be, and what other people expect from the future too. I'm hoping to get a chance not to go on about it for a good while, but so far this opportunity has proven illusive.


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## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

In an effort to underline my point and move on, here are 2 posts I made a little over a month ago which are a look back at some of the UK's response to 2009 swine flu pandemic. You may notice certain familiar themes in the UK approach in 2009.

https://www.urban75.net/forums/thre...n-stats-updates-and-more.369129/post-16414021

https://www.urban75.net/forums/thre...n-stats-updates-and-more.369129/post-16414032

https://www.urban75.net/forums/thre...n-stats-updates-and-more.369129/post-16414063

Just clicking on the first one and then scrolling down a little to read my next 2 posts in that thread will also deliver the intended posts.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 29, 2020)

Lockdown seems to me to be something a government does after community transmission has reached epidemic levels, after test trace and isolate has been overrun by numbers. 

But is it possible to partially emerge from lockdown back into test trace and isolate with enlarged resources, both of testing and tracing, to emerge with a regime more like that of South Korea? 

And one might assume that an antibody test has by then become available and scaled to be available to the general public.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Lockdown seems to me to be something a government does after community transmission has reached epidemic levels, after test trace and isolate has been overrun by numbers.
> 
> But is it possible to partially emerge from lockdown back into test trace and isolate with enlarged resources, both of testing and tracing, to emerge with a regime more like that of South Korea?
> 
> And one might assume that an antibody test has by then become available and scaled to be available to the general public.



Yes those are some of the big questions, questions about whether such approaches will continue to work in South Korea, questions about which governments will actually be prepared to try this approach, questions about when and if the opportunity will present itself. Questions about technology and privacy and what we learn about how many people were actually infected during the current wave.


----------



## Cid (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yes those are some of the big questions, questions about whether such approaches will continue to work in South Korea, questions about which governments will actually be prepared to try this approach, questions about when and if the opportunity will present itself. Questions about technology and privacy and what we learn about how many people were actually infected during the current wave.



Yep, somewhat ironically we need extensive testing to know whether testing is viable.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 29, 2020)

mauvais said:


> The FT aren't averse to criticising the establishment. I wouldn't like to try and pin down their prevailing political leanings but in practice it's probably not quite what you think.


Liberal capitalists. Nudging for more philanthropic  action from the rich.  Pro EU and very anti right wing forces against the EU. Definitely looking for ways to save capitalism from itself.

Actually not that different to the Guardian. In fact Larry Elliot Guardians main economics writer is pro Brexit by contrast.


----------



## mauvais (Mar 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Liberal capitalists. Nudging for more philanthropic  action from the rich.  Pro EU and very anti right wing forces against the EU. Definitely looking for ways to save capitalism from itself.
> 
> Actually not that different to the Guardian. In fact Larry Elliot Guardians main economics writer is pro Brexit by contrast.


I don't substantively disagree but in my limited experience I found it to be pretty different to the Graun: much less self-indulgent or showy, and more pragmatic (defined within its own political framing). Of the mainstream papers I felt it was more open and honest about what it is & what it's pursuing. The Graun very much not.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Liberal capitalists. Nudging for more philanthropic  action from the rich.  Pro EU and very anti right wing forces against the EU. Definitely looking for ways to save capitalism from itself.



Very true, but the FT have published some pretty radical articles of late, which hints at how much the crisis is pushing more intelligent capitalist voices to start to accept that much more change will be necessary to save themeselves. With the side-effect that some of us may benefit .... </other threads ;>
Example though, a link to this FT piece (free to read) was posted in the 'How could coronavirus remake our economy and society?' thread (UK Politics).



> Actually not that different to the Guardian. *In fact Larry Elliot Guardians main economics writer is pro Brexit by contrast.*



Even as a non-Brexit person myself, I've found his articles really interesting and healthily differert from the Guardian average for that very reason


----------



## A380 (Mar 29, 2020)

treelover said:


> what is Johnson doing, saying "there is such a thing as society"
> 
> Why is he attacking his party's icon Thatcher?



Because he’s starting to realise that he isn’t Churchill, he’s Chamberlain.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm afraid this demonstrates complete naivety about the establishment and various professions and attitudes and state priorities.
> 
> You'll be left with the wrong impression if you think the things you are seeing on that front in this pandemic are exceptional. They arent, there are thousands of examples over hundreds of years. I'm going to get really worn out if you dont learn this sooner rather than later, or at least I will have to learn to resist the urge to reply to your points so often.
> 
> Can someone help out here? Is there a good book or website on the broader subject?


Except, as the _Guardian_ piece on disaster planning during the Blitz and Cold War made clear, there was, for all the incompetence, a genuine attempt to save lives. For me, this is different in kind, and I constantly fight the urge to nihilism. I fully understand if you don't wish to discuss this, these threads can get overwhelming, and I never expect replies.


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## elbows (Mar 30, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Except, as the _Guardian_ piece on disaster planning during the Blitz and Cold War made clear, there was, for all the incompetence, a genuine attempt to save lives. For me, this is different in kind, and I constantly fight the urge to nihilism. I fully understand if you don't wish to discuss this, these threads can get overwhelming, and I never expect replies.



But that misses the entire point of the Guardian piece! Honestly, read it again, please.









						When it comes to national emergencies, Britain has a tradition of cold calculation | David Edgerton
					

The government’s reluctance to put the health of citizens first has echoes in the 1940s and 50s, says author David Edgerton




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Azrael (Mar 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> But that misses the entire point of the Guardian piece! Honestly, read it again, please.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Have done so, but as I said when it first appeared, for me, this is the key quote:-


> Coronavirus is a current reality, not a future scenario. There is a huge difference between favouring a utilitarian calculus to minimise losses overall, and heeding this principle when dead bodies start piling up.


I don't sentimentalize these things. I can accept hard-headed calculations for not building shelters, both pre-WW2 and in the Cold War. In both cases, it would've been a massive undertaking of dubious value (the "bomber will always get through" thinking of the '30s had planners convinced that air raids would be apocalyptic; and even with Swiss levels of shelter provisions, how viable would survival be after a nuclear assault?).

I still see the crucial difference lying in the government doing everything in its power to avert the calamity it was ill-prepared for. When it came, in WW2, policy did shift, however sluggishly: after taking matters into their own hands, Londoners were allowed into the Tube, and deep shelters were eventually built (I've been in one, and it's an awesome undertaking).

I'd feel very differently if everything had been thrown at containment and it'd failed. But it wasn't.


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## Proper Tidy (Mar 30, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Post #5205 above : Thanks for C & P'ing the text of that little_legs -- a few FT articles have become free to read right now, but most still not, including that one. But that's excellent reportage.
> 
> (And I *so* want to read up more about Universal Basic Income in my continued free time -- my instinct is to be a fan, but I know UBI has received sensible criticism too  )



Just a little tip on FT articles. Even if behind a pay wall, if you then google the title of the article (which you can read before the pay wall kicks in or take from the URL) it bypasses the firewall and you can read whole piece for free


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## Proper Tidy (Mar 30, 2020)

Also don't agree FT is liberal or that it's edged towards any sort of radical critique of capitalism fwiw. It's the house paper of capital, it reflects the contemporary consensus of capital as a whole, and any perceived radicalism is because we are in a period of flux with the model of last few decades failed and a new model of capital emerging. Its also the only UK paper worth paying any attention to


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## Azrael (Mar 30, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Also don't agree FT is liberal or that it's edged towards any sort of radical critique of capitalism fwiw. It's the house paper of capital, it reflects the contemporary consensus of capital as a whole, and any perceived radicalism is because we are in a period of flux with the model of last few decades failed and a new model of capital emerging. Its also the only UK paper worth paying any attention to


"Liberal" in the free market sense is fair though. They're also socially liberal AFAIK. House paper of capital they undoubtedly are, but enlightened self-interest may see them supporting some radical policies to safeguard the entire system from collapse.


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## Proper Tidy (Mar 30, 2020)

Azrael said:


> "Liberal" in the free market sense is fair though. They're also socially liberal AFAIK. House paper of capital they undoubtedly are, but enlightened self-interest may see them supporting some radical policies to safeguard the entire system from collapse.



Yeah second point you make is exactly what I was getting at. It isn't radicalism as in a challenge, it's capitalism adapting instead of dying. It's perceived social liberalism imo just reflects the social liberalism of contemporary capital - something about weather vanes or something


----------



## eoin_k (Mar 30, 2020)

Angela Saini is good on differences between men and women's health. 








						Are women really stronger than men? | Angela Saini
					

When it comes to longevity, surviving illness and coping with trauma, one gender comes out on top. Angela Saini meets the scientists working out why




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Have done so, but as I said when it first appeared, for me, this is the key quote:-
> 
> I don't sentimentalize these things. I can accept hard-headed calculations for not building shelters, both pre-WW2 and in the Cold War. In both cases, it would've been a massive undertaking of dubious value (the "bomber will always get through" thinking of the '30s had planners convinced that air raids would be apocalyptic; and even with Swiss levels of shelter provisions, how viable would survival be after a nuclear assault?).
> 
> ...



Probably what would help would be to find stuff that would enable the study of UK establishment responses to previous pandemics, epidemics and public health emergencies. I've mostly only had time and brain space to go on about a couple of specific aspects of the 2009 swine flu pandemic response, and I'm unlikely to find time during this pandemic to investigate other examples, although I have name-dropped BSE in the past, and the infected blood scandal. But I would be surprised if there were not penty of other candidates out there that would give more than a glimpse of cold calculations applied directly to public health and epidemics.


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2020)

I'm not linking to this article because it is especially good, but mostly because it brings together a bunch of different media criticisms of Johnson and a bit of a simplified timeline of the evolving press attitudes.









						With parliament in recess, the press has a vital role in holding the government to account | Roy Greenslade
					

With parliament in recess, the press has a vital role in holding the government to account




					www.theguardian.com
				






> At the beginning of last week came the third phase: overt hostility. It was unsurprising to find the anti-Tory Daily Mirror in the vanguard with its accusation that Johnson and his government “were criminally slow to respond to the threat” and lamenting the “mixed messages and an absence of clarity”.
> 
> But the “Boris distancing” took hold even in papers previously sympathetic to the government’s plight and even in those noted as fervent cheerleaders for Johnson. Look, for instance, at the Sun’s unexpectedly pointed criticism in a leading article which echoed the Mirror’s viewpoint.
> 
> ...


----------



## Azrael (Mar 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Probably what would help would be to find stuff that would enable the study of UK establishment responses to previous pandemics, epidemics and public health emergencies. I've mostly only had time and brain space to go on about a couple of specific aspects of the 2009 swine flu pandemic response, and I'm unlikely to find time during this pandemic to investigate other examples, although I have name-dropped BSE in the past, and the infected blood scandal. But I would be surprised if there were not penty of other candidates out there that would give more than a glimpse of cold calculations applied directly to public health and epidemics.


The blood scandal is exactly what I expect from governments left to their own devices: insufficient funding for a service affecting a minority leading to reckless stopgaps and, when their negligence leads to tragedy, a cover-up. I guess a rough equivalent with the current situation would be if they'd gone out to deliberately infect people in some kinda bizarre medical experiment. Such horrors have certainly happened in democratic states (the Tuskegee syphilis experiment being perhaps the most infamous example), but can't recall one done so openly, and affecting so many.


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## chainsawjob (Mar 30, 2020)

tommers said:


> Fair play to him. Quickly become a central part of our daily routine and now donating all his takings to the NHS.



Us too, that gives me even more motivation to continue, so thanks, good to know. And it differentiates the weekdays from the weekend what with all days being essentially the same now, keeps the pattern of 'it's a schoolday'.


----------



## chainsawjob (Mar 30, 2020)

There was some discussion before the weekend of this thread becoming too unweildly. I agree. I'd like to keep up with UK developments, but decided to give myself a couple of day 'corona-news-free' over the weekend for the sake of my mh/sanity. Coming back to the thread this morning there's 15 pages to catch up on (given that up now). 

I think there are many posts here that would be more suited to the Pandemic Personal consequences thread, the Covid chat thread, or the memes thread. It would be good imo if this thread could just be kept to national information and discussion of policy and lockdown issues. I know it's tricky when a conversation runs off in tangental directions, but could we? It's hard to pick out the relevant posts from amongst the more 'chat' type content. 

(I may have contradicted what I've just said by replying to the Body Coach post above  , but yeah, going forward...).


----------



## LDC (Mar 30, 2020)

I agree, some of these threads are getting quite full of inappropriate posts, I'm reading and keeping on top of this as much as possible, but some of the threads are becoming unwieldy. Is there a way of managing this?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I agree, some of these threads of getting quite full of inappropriate posts, I'm reading and keeping on top of this as much as possible, but some of the threads are becoming unwieldy. *Is there a way of managing this?*


Sadly I don't think so, it would be like trying to herd cats.


----------



## bimble (Mar 30, 2020)

Two doctors have died of it in the uk now, already.
The outcry over the PPE issue for medical staff is going to be impossible for gov to mumble empty reassurances about now surely.








						Pressure to provide equipment grows after two UK doctors die
					

Concern is growing among health workers that they risk contracting and spreading coronavirus




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## chainsawjob (Mar 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sadly I don't think so, it would be like trying to herd cats.


But maybe chat type posts could be reported for a passing mod to move to a more suitable thread? Assuming they have the time/inclination, I know things must be  busier right now, there's a lot more traffic. And a reminder in thread from a mod to keep this thread for more serious discussion?


----------



## Cid (Mar 30, 2020)

chainsawjob said:


> There was some discussion before the weekend of this thread becoming too unweildly. I agree. I'd like to keep up with UK developments, but decided to give myself a couple of day 'corona-news-free' over the weekend for the sake of my mh/sanity. Coming back to the thread this morning there's 15 pages to catch up on (given that up now).
> 
> I think there are many posts here that would be more suited to the Pandemic Personal consequences thread, the Covid chat thread, or the memes thread. It would be good imo if this thread could just be kept to national information and discussion of policy and lockdown issues. I know it's tricky when a conversation runs off in tangental directions, but could we? It's hard to pick out the relevant posts from amongst the more 'chat' type content.
> 
> (I may have contradicted what I've just said by replying to the Body Coach post above  , but yeah, going forward...).



As I said upthread I reckon it might be helpful to have a 'UK lockdown and general chat', as well as this as something like 'UK news, science and policy'. Separating out lockdown as stuff like the NHS clap, and 'I've seen people doing x' generate a huge amount of chatter.


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## cupid_stunt (Mar 30, 2020)

chainsawjob said:


> But maybe chat type posts could be reported for a passing mod to move to a more suitable thread? Assuming they have the time/inclination, I know things must be  busier right now, there's a lot more traffic. And a reminder in thread from a mod to keep this thread for more serious discussion?



May be an idea to start a thread in the feedback forum for suggestions of how the situation could be improved, I am suggesting you do, as you were the first to raise it above.   

It would also stop us taking this thread further off topic.


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## Cid (Mar 30, 2020)

To be exact, and to avoid sticky creep:

This thread > UK News, science and policy
General Coronavirus (Covid-19) Chat > General Coronavirus and UK lockdown chat
Merge the two help threads... This one is a little tricky, but I think the 'offers of help' thread is probably a bit bloated to be useful anyway. We could just de-sticky that and people can look it up as a reference if they need to.


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## Cid (Mar 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> May be an idea to start a thread in the feedback forum for suggestions of how the situation could be improved, I am suggesting you do, as you were the first to raise it above.
> 
> It would also stop us taking this thread further off topic.


----------



## Cid (Mar 30, 2020)

Started one in feedback. sorry I usurped chainsawjob


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## Steel Icarus (Mar 30, 2020)

I'm supposed to be in court this week to give a witness statement but they can't make me, can they, what with self-isolating? Not even sure if courts are open. Haven't had a phone call.


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## bimble (Mar 30, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I'm supposed to be in court this week to give a witness statement but they can't make me, can they, what with self-isolating? Not even sure if courts are open. Haven't had a phone call.


Court situation evolving & really strange. Lawyers of twitter have been going mental for at least a week with the lack of clear guidance from gov but basically i think almost everything is being done remotely now.

eta its more complicated than that. Some essential hearings still going on face to face ..








						Priority courts to make sure justice is served
					

A network of priority courts will remain open during the coronavirus pandemic to make sure the justice system continues to operate effectively.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## TopCat (Mar 30, 2020)

_Thousands of EasyJet and Virgin airline staff are being offered work at the new NHS Nightingale Hospital in east London.

Those who sign up will support nurses and clinicians at the coronavirus field hospital, the NHS said.

Virgin Atlantic said furloughed staff who helped would be paid through the government retention scheme._


----------



## bimble (Mar 30, 2020)

Little group of doctors have set up a crowdfunder for essential PPE equipment for the NHS. ffs. 
Looks like they've raised huge amount (several hundred grand) in the last 3 days)









						Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for NHS Staff
					

Donate now to provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to protect healthcare workers




					www.crowdfunder.co.uk


----------



## tony.c (Mar 30, 2020)

Sky


----------



## Smangus (Mar 30, 2020)

Reports Cummings has it, never mind eh.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

As ever, thoughts and prayers are with the virus at this difficult time.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 30, 2020)

.


----------



## LDC (Mar 30, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> My embarrassingly crude meme attempt is out of date already
> We're into Enid Blyton territory now ...
> 
> View attachment 204061



No suitable in this thread, there's a meme thread.


----------



## klang (Mar 30, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> .


the virus is a lot smaller than that. you can't see it with bare eyes.


----------



## keybored (Mar 30, 2020)

Smangus said:


> Reports Cummings has it, never mind eh.


I just herd. Too bad.


----------



## klang (Mar 30, 2020)

Smangus said:


> Reports Cummings has it, never mind eh.





DotCommunist said:


> Comrade Covid strikes again


----------



## mystic pyjamas (Mar 30, 2020)

Rejoice. Rejoice. Prince Charles is out of his seven day isolation


----------



## TopCat (Mar 30, 2020)

mystic pyjamas said:


> Rejoice. Rejoice. Prince Charles is out of his seven day isolation


It gives hope. I would be alarmed if he died of this.


----------



## TopCat (Mar 30, 2020)

I want him strung up from the balcony.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 30, 2020)

Doodler said:


> What was the thinking behind the herd immunity plan? Interesting Q&A on Reddit with a 'UK Critical Care Physician':



So maybe there would be some  merit to this theory but to enact it with a desperately underfunded NHS that cant cope with a normal flu season is reckless in the extreme.


Edie said:


> I say this respectfully but do you not think it might just be that it’s really fucking hard doing that job? People are so quick to jump in damning others, but it’s the man in the arena that counts. It’s like on the frontline of the NHS, mistakes will be made, but if your standing on the sidelines criticising, well...
> 
> I’m no Tory but I don’t think they are evil or completely incompetent. And I absolutely definitely think their aim is to preserve life.








__





						Exercise Cygnus - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




Cygnus was a simulation exercise carried out in October 2016[1] to estimate the impact of a hypothetical influenza pandemic on the United Kingdom. The exercise showed that the pandemic would cause the country's health system to collapse from a lack of resources,[2][3] with the Chief Medical Officer at the time stating that a lack of medical ventilators was a serious problem.[4]

I don't think a Labour government would have met this report with inaction.


----------



## Doodler (Mar 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its mostly correct, and only ends up slightly misleading in places because it omitted certain things. For example in regards things happening elsewhere, they mention 'very few governments chose to act' but then just go on about the UK inaction without the context of what many others were doing (or not doing). [. . .]



Thanks for your reply elbows, I appreciate the well-informed posts you've been adding here on the subject.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 30, 2020)

This is an interesting article with a virologist who has dealt with swine flu and other things. Quite a reasoned perspective. 

Cambridge Independent Virologist interviewed


----------



## prunus (Mar 30, 2020)

"Current death statistics are from hospitals only, and from tomorrow the ONS will begin collating whole-UK figures including deaths in the community on a weekly basis." - from this morning's lobby briefing.    Hopefully they will break them down, otherwise trying to keep track of what's going on, and compare with other sources of data, becomes very difficult.


----------



## bimble (Mar 30, 2020)

Good article (with properly shocking graphs in it) explaining how the NHS has been stripped of capacity for ‘slack’ over the years: 









						The NHS at capacity - Tortoise
					

The British state is obsessed with efficiency. But this also makes it vulnerable – as coronavirus is showing – in times of crisis



					members.tortoisemedia.com


----------



## weltweit (Mar 30, 2020)

BBC News saying that the plan is now to test people that die at home to see if they had covid-19 and if so their numbers will be added to the national tally.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 30, 2020)

Leak reveals shortage of coronavirus PPE in Northern Ireland
					

And in Wales, senior nurse says some healthcare workers are writing letters in case they die




					www.theguardian.com
				






> ...Libby Nolan, a senior nurse currently assigned to an intensive treatment unit (ITU) in south Wales, told the Guardian that some healthcare workers have begun preparing letters to be used in case they die, putting into writing how they were told to work without adequate PPE. She said they were “thinking ahead for insurance and litigation purposes” to ensure their families receive sufficient compensation....


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2020)

weltweit said:


> BBC News saying that the plan is now to test people that die at home to see if they had covid-19 and if so their numbers will be added to the national tally.



Yeah, the ONS are supposed to report on these deaths on a weekly basis, I dont know when the first of those is due to be published.

Given issues and lag of death stats, and problems with test capacity affecting number of confirmed cases on any given day, the numbers I would actually like to see on a daily basis in order to track the epidemic are related to hospital admissions and intensive care rates.

After all, its those sorts of numbers that the experts use to tell us they see some signs. How about giving the public that data?

eg:



> He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “In the UK, we can see some early signs of slowing in some indicators. Less so in deaths because deaths are lagged by long time from when the measures come into force.
> 
> “But we look at the numbers of new hospital admissions today, for instance, that does seem to be slowing down a little bit now. It’s not yet plateaued as the numbers are increasing each day but the rate of that increase has slowed.



from Coronavirus: UK spread shows early signs of slowing – key adviser


----------



## magneze (Mar 30, 2020)

weltweit said:


> BBC News saying that the plan is now to test people that die at home to see if they had covid-19 and if so their numbers will be added to the national tally.


See if they 'had' or see if they 'died of'?

Quite a significant difference.


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2020)

magneze said:


> See if they 'had' or see if they 'died of'?
> 
> Quite a significant difference.



Given the amount of quibbling and uncertainty on that front, I would count them all, and then people can argue about whether all of them were valid later. This is still vastly preferable to leaving people with a sense the undercounting is distorting the numbers.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 30, 2020)

A team including Mercedes F1 have produced a breathing aid on which they are now hoping for approval, based on a modification to an existing design, Mercedes F1 say they could produce thousands a day once they have the go ahead. Apparently this equipment can be used before a patient needs a ventilator. 

And a consortium including Airbus and RR is awaiting approvals on a new ventilator which they will then manufacture.


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2020)

I'm still being driven mad by the fact I seem to have to rely on local media republishing info they got from the Press Association about the days NHS deaths.

Anyway, partly as a result of that I discovered this quite handy PA article about UK death statistics, it goes into quite some detail about various issues and changes to the stats the ONS will provide.









						What do the statistics really tell us about UK coronavirus deaths?
					

The figures do not give a real-time snapshot of how many are dying.




					www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk


----------



## editor (Mar 30, 2020)

This is a tough journey we're all on - there's some good advice and resources here Coronavirus: NHS guidance for mental wellbeing while staying at home


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Given the amount of quibbling and uncertainty on that front, I would count them all, and then people can argue about whether all of them were valid later. This is still vastly preferable to leaving people with a sense the undercounting is distorting the numbers.


Yep. There's going to be a ton of comorbidity so we're never going to separate everything out. But someone with, say, cancer who dies from c19 cos they're weakened by the cancer has still been killed by c19 in my book.


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep. There's going to be a ton of comorbidity so we're never going to separate everything out. But someone with, say, cancer who dies from c19 cos they're weakened by the cancer has still been killed by c19 in my book.



It sounds like the ONS figures will be based on coroners making some mention of Covid-19.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 30, 2020)

So, JCB CEO was on the news, assuming approval, they will be make 1,000 a day (or more) of a housing for the ventilator consortium which includes Dyson.


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2020)

I need data help.

It seems likely that the daily figures from NHS England, which breaks them down by hospital trust and includes dates of death, are being sent out as a press release which is not published online. I need this data. Sometimes, via the PA, local newspapers are publishing all the info in full, but I cannot rely on this happening every day and its messing up my ability to collate local data. If anyone can provide me with this data, or knows of someone else who is collating it online with the proper date of death info intact, please get in touch.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> It sounds like the ONS figures will be based on coroners making some mention of Covid-19.


Yes it does. Latest release stated that just four out of 159 of the latest deaths didn't involve underlying conditions. Of course that could range from final stage cancer to mild asthma or type 2 diabetes...


----------



## existentialist (Mar 30, 2020)

weltweit said:


> A team including Mercedes F1 have produced a breathing aid on which they are now hoping for approval, based on a modification to an existing design, Mercedes F1 say they could produce thousands a day once they have the go ahead. Apparently this equipment can be used before a patient needs a ventilator.
> 
> And a consortium including Airbus and RR is awaiting approvals on a new ventilator which they will then manufacture.


I think the Mercedes thing is a hack on the CPAP machines they use for people with sleep apnoea, etc...


----------



## Doodler (Mar 30, 2020)

The government need to get better public information films. Some people may think that Chris Whitty is just a weird-looking science teacher type so no need to pay attention to what he says. Advertising agencies have decades of experience making people worry about germs and hygiene.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

Report back on my daily walk. I passed a few places today that I passed last week and most of the construction/road work that was going last week has stopped this week. I'm very pleased to be able to report that.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Report back on my daily walk. I passed a few places today that I passed last week and most of the construction/road work that was going last week has stopped this week. I'm very pleased to be able to report that.



Any idea why the construction industry has been so slow? It's not like anyone us going to be moving into the space in a hurry.


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2020)

Jesus wept they cant even manage to show us the bloody slides that Vallance is talking about in the press conference.

edit - oh finally they manage to, after we've already missed 2.


----------



## quimcunx (Mar 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> I need data help.
> 
> It seems likely that the daily figures from NHS England, which breaks them down by hospital trust and includes dates of death, are being sent out as a press release which is not published online. I need this data. Sometimes, via the PA, local newspapers are publishing all the info in full, but I cannot rely on this happening every day and its messing up my ability to collate local data. If anyone can provide me with this data, or knows of someone else who is collating it online with the proper date of death info intact, please get in touch.



Is it worth contacting a local paper and asking them to share?


----------



## MrSki (Mar 30, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Any idea why the construction industry has been so slow? It's not like anyone us going to be moving into the space in a hurry.


Some sites need to be made safe before shutdown but a lot carried on working because they are outdoors.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Any idea why the construction industry has been so slow? It's not like anyone us going to be moving into the space in a hurry.


They weren't obliged to stop, I don't think, but it does appear that many have now stopped. Don't know if pressure was applied.

It hasn't all stopped, mind you.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 30, 2020)

Raab is so wooden, absolutely devoid of any personality.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 30, 2020)

Smangus said:


> Raab is so wooden, absolutely devoid of any personality.


I was just thinking the same, say what you like about Johnson, at least he is an animated performer.


----------



## xes (Mar 30, 2020)

This is quite a sweary video with a very angry woman. She's pissed off at people in hazmat suits coming round scaring people by saying that someone had died, when they hadn't. She'd seen the person being handled by the police and taken to hospital (drunk, not covid) a few minutes previous, they had been told he was dead a few hours before.









						ItemFix - Social Video Factory
					

Social Video Factory




					www.liveleak.com


----------



## keybored (Mar 30, 2020)

xes said:


> This is quite a sweary video with a very angry woman. She's pissed off at people in hazmat suits coming round scaring people by saying that someone had died, when they hadn't. She'd seen the person being handled by the police and taken to hospital (drunk, not covid) a few minutes previous, they had been told he was dead a few hours before.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Weird. Found this on the HA's website but it begs more questions than it answers.



> We were concerned to hear that a man who was sleeping rough in one of our buildings became ill with suspected coronavirus symptoms and was taken to hospital on Thursday evening. We were initially told that the man had sadly passed away and we acted quickly to instruct a deep clean of the building as a precaution. The reason we wrote to residents was not to create panic or spread fear but to notify them that we had organised cleaning of the building and to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our residents and staff. We are very sorry if this has caused distress and we apologise unreservedly for the mistake. We have urged residents to notify us or Street Link if they see anyone sleeping rough so they can get the support they need.


----------



## gosub (Mar 30, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Any idea why the construction industry has been so slow? It's not like anyone us going to be moving into the space in a hurry.



Coz there will be penalty for late completion clauses in their contracts, contracts that were drawn up without any thought of lockdowns or pandemics


----------



## BigTom (Mar 30, 2020)

gosub said:


> Coz there will be penalty for late completion clauses in their contracts, contracts that were drawn up without any thought of lockdowns or pandemics



Also the construction industry is filled with self-employed people (some actually self-employed, but many pushed into self-employment by the big contractors wanting to avoid the commitments that come with employment) and the govt. didn't sort out what they were doing to support self-employed people until after the lockdown I think so there will have been lots of people that needed to keep working until the measures for self-employed people were announced.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

BigTom said:


> Also the construction industry is filled with self-employed people (some actually self-employed, but many pushed into self-employment by the big contractors wanting to avoid the commitments that come with employment) and the govt. didn't sort out what they were doing to support self-employed people until after the lockdown I think so there will have been lots of people that needed to keep working until the measures for self-employed people were announced.


Yep that makes sense. Now those measures are there, they're finally stopping. Well done govt. On the case as ever.


----------



## Anju (Mar 30, 2020)

weltweit said:


> A team including Mercedes F1 have produced a breathing aid on which they are now hoping for approval, based on a modification to an existing design, Mercedes F1 say they could produce thousands a day once they have the go ahead. Apparently this equipment can be used before a patient needs a ventilator.
> 
> And a consortium including Airbus and RR is awaiting approvals on a new ventilator which they will then manufacture.


This is what I find inexcusable. These options should have been looked at already, ideally following the simulations or at least earlier in the outbreak. We could have had weeks of production at this stage. 

It would be interesting to know whether companies have approached the government or the other way around.


----------



## Red Cat (Mar 30, 2020)

bimble said:


> Good article (with properly shocking graphs in it) explaining how the NHS has been stripped of capacity for ‘slack’ over the years:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That was very good bimble, thanks.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 30, 2020)

Report by Netpol on the somewhat predictable response to the new powers by some officers:









						29/30 March Update
					

Police need to learn a thing or two about the internet, more specifically about the difference between live-streaming and playing pre-recorded material. Twelve officers turned up at the Hot Water C…




					policing-the-corona-state.blog


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Report by Netpol on the somewhat predictable response to the new powers by some officers:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Strikes me that too many coppers are at a loose end at the moment. Pubs shut, etc, not a lot to do. This thing is largely policing itself. A very small number of people not following it doesn't actually matter, really, in the wider scheme of things. They might as well just go home and take their 80 per cent. If they're not social distancing properly, we'd be better off if they just went home and took their 80 per cent.


----------



## xes (Mar 30, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Report by Netpol on the somewhat predictable response to the new powers by some officers:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Never mind bored coppers...



> Swindon residents with doorbell cameras or CCTV at their homes are being urged to register them with Wiltshire Police, who are setting up a database of private cameras.  Amazon Ring doorbells, many with motion-activated sensors, can be linked into other smart devices including mobile phones and Amazon’s Alexa. Is this project set up now just to catch thieves, as the police says, or would such a network come in handy to check on people going out, to assist the enforcement of the lockdown – as happens in other countries?


----------



## teqniq (Mar 30, 2020)

That's in the linked article.


----------



## xes (Mar 30, 2020)

I know, hence the 'never mind the bored coppers' (though people getting fined for stupid shit like being outside is fucked, I thought that the police getting people to register their door cams with them was more scary)


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

xes said:


> I know, hence the 'never mind the bored coppers' (though people getting fined for stupid shit like being outside is fucked, I thought that the police getting people to register their door cams with them was more scary)


Yeah. Not just scary and out of order but utterly unnecessary. Anyone would think that there was mass disobedience going on. At the moment there is the reverse - mass obedience. Just fuck the fuck off, coppers.

And I hate this encouragement of a culture to dob your neighbours in. All kinds of petty, vindictive people empowered to be wankers.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 30, 2020)

xes Ah apologies.


----------



## Mation (Mar 30, 2020)

I've been plotting confirmed Covid-19 positive tests for the last couple of weeks, just to see. It's from the cases in your area search feature on this page How many confirmed cases are there in your area?.

There aren't many data points and some are missing, as can be seen. It only includes cases tested positive at hospital (I think, given than ONS collection of home deaths doesn't start till tomorrow). It's only cases, not deaths.

I'm not in any way qualified to comment on whether/how that's a meaningful difference between Camden and Islington vs Lambeth and Southwark, but it does look it by eye, without further analysis.

Apologies if it's not helpful. Posting in case it prompts any useful questions.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 30, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Report by Netpol on the somewhat predictable response to the new powers by some officers:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Christ on a bike.


----------



## xes (Mar 30, 2020)

teqniq said:


> xes Ah apologies.


No need, honest. But thank you.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 30, 2020)

> In the UK, a Conservative MP has reported a pub in his constituency to the police, alleging they were allowing people in to drink despite the ban. *Lee Anderson* wrote on Facebook
> 
> Madness. On Saturday I was told the Blue Bell pub had been having lock-ins. I reported this to the police. Swift action caught them in the act and the culprits are being dealt with. I told you I would shop you and anyone else thinking of doing the same the think on.



Via guardian feed


----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 30, 2020)

Mation said:


> I've been plotting confirmed Covid-19 positive tests for the last couple of weeks, just to see. It's from the cases in your area search feature on this page How many confirmed cases are there in your area?.
> 
> There aren't many data points and some are missing, as can be seen. It only includes cases tested positive at hospital (I think, given than ONS collection of home deaths doesn't start till tomorrow). It's only cases, not deaths.
> 
> ...




stupid question, but whats the source of these numbers - if they are by hospital. thenwould the clustering of hositals make a difference iykwim ?


----------



## Mation (Mar 30, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> stupid question, but whats the source of these numbers - if they are by hospital. thenwould the clustering of hositals make a difference iykwim ?


Not stupid. They're from the search function in the link I posted, with the source on that page somewhat ambiguously given as: "UK public health bodies." Updated daily, but still a bit patchily.

I don't know how the figures per borough are calculated (as opposed to the figures per hospitals in a borough). I was assuming they're figures for the former, but I don't know the method.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Via guardian feed



I hope they lose their licence, the twats.


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 30, 2020)

Doodler said:


> The government need to get better public information films. Some people may think that Chris Whitty is just a weird-looking science teacher type so no need to pay attention to what he says. Advertising agencies have decades of experience making people worry about germs and hygiene.



They have the entire BBC who have been pumping at full speed propaganda for weeks.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 30, 2020)

Not good enough.


----------



## Doodler (Mar 30, 2020)

Part-timah said:


> They have the entire BBC who have been pumping at full speed propaganda for weeks.



You're right but not everyone watches the BBC or is inclined to accept what they put out.


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 30, 2020)

They gave us all a letter to show to the police today (at our on-line fashion distribution centre) confirming that we were doing "essential" work. They also reminded us that we could go home if we had vulnerable relatives (without pay naturally).


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 30, 2020)

Doodler said:


> You're right but not everyone watches the BBC or is inclined to accept what they put out.



What you consciously think you accept and what you’re actually hoovering up are not the same.


----------



## Doodler (Mar 30, 2020)

Part-timah said:


> What you consciously think you accept and what you’re actually hoovering up are not the same.



Maybe, but how do you know?


----------



## Doodler (Mar 30, 2020)

For some reason Hope Not Hate commissioned an opinion poll on public attitudes about the pandemic. Maybe they were worried about bigoted anti-Chinese sentiments gaining ground. It was quoted on the Guardian's website today. Some of the findings: 

A third of young people (30%) do not think Coronavirus is as serious as portrayed in the media
Two-thirds of people (65%) think it is important to seek alternative opinions about Coronavirus and not just rely on what we get told through the mainstream media
Close to half (42%) felt they would prefer to find the truth out about Coronavirus themselves than simply relying on the Government and their experts
Dated 27 March, source page here. No doubt open to criticism: how many people took part, how they were contacted etc.


----------



## Cid (Mar 30, 2020)

Doodler said:


> For some reason Hope Not Hate commissioned an opinion poll on public attitudes about the pandemic. Maybe they were worried about bigoted anti-Chinese sentiments gaining ground. It was quoted on the Guardian's website today. Some of the findings:
> 
> A third of young people (30%) do not think Coronavirus is as serious as portrayed in the media
> Two-thirds of people (65%) think it is important to seek alternative opinions about Coronavirus and not just rely on what we get told through the mainstream media
> ...



It says a bit further down:

_The results we’re publishing are based on a poll of 2,022 adults 18+ who were sampled from across Great Britain. The poll was carried out between 20th-23rd March, using an online interview administered by Focaldata. The data was weighted to be representative of the GB population._

Never heard of Focaldata, so no idea how good they are.


----------



## kazza007 (Mar 30, 2020)

Smangus said:


> Raab is so wooden, absolutely devoid of any personality.


I dozed off after about 2 minutes him speaking. Is there a highlights version online somewhere


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

Doodler said:


> For some reason Hope Not Hate commissioned an opinion poll on public attitudes about the pandemic. Maybe they were worried about bigoted anti-Chinese sentiments gaining ground. It was quoted on the Guardian's website today. Some of the findings:
> 
> A third of young people (30%) do not think Coronavirus is as serious as portrayed in the media
> Two-thirds of people (65%) think it is important to seek alternative opinions about Coronavirus and not just rely on what we get told through the mainstream media
> ...


tbh I'm not so surprised that 30 per cent of young people 18-24 don't think it's serious. It's highly unlikely to get them personally and people that age tend to feel invincible anyway. And until you reach your late 20s generally people don't have a fully developed sense of responsibility for the consequences of their actions for themselves and others. 30 % almost seems a low figure.

Other things in there are encouraging, given the tendency for people to back the authorities in a crisis eg

78% of people blame austerity and cuts to funding for the NHS struggling to cope with Coronavirus

That's a fantastic number. Why the fuck did a chunk of these same people vote for these fuckers in November though? But it's something to build on to get the NHS better funding in future.


----------



## xes (Mar 30, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Not good enough.
> 
> View attachment 204168


The date under that sticker says 2016


----------



## two sheds (Mar 30, 2020)

One thing that's doubtless been discussed above but I was thinking about today. For the 'herd immunity' to be a successful thing the government would have had to isolate all the vulnerable people from pretty well day one. 

Then, all the people who wouldn't be badly affected could spread it around happily amongst themselves to build up the herd immunity. As it was, they let the virus rip through the whole population, so we have the needless killing a lot of vulnerable people.  And of course nurses and doctors who didn't have proper PPE equipment.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> One thing that's doubtless been discussed above but I was thinking about today. For the 'herd immunity' to be a successful thing the government would have had to isolate all the vulnerable people from pretty well day one.
> 
> Then, all the people who wouldn't be badly affected could spread it around happily amongst themselves to build up the herd immunity. As it was, they let the virus rip through the whole population, so we have the needless killing a lot of vulnerable people.  And of course nurses and doctors who didn't have proper PPE equipment.


I think you're making the mistake here of thinking that they had thought that through. It's almost more shit than what we have now, though. Hey, old and sick people, shut yourselves away, don't contact your friends or family at all for the next six months. Fuck that's rough. 

I was thinking today of my friend who died from the flu last year when in final stages of cancer. If he'd stayed away from people, he might have lived another couple of (very poor quality) months. But fuck, I'm sure he would never have wanted that. Gimme a hug and fuck it if I catch something.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think you're making the mistake here of thinking that they had thought that through. It's almost more shit than what we have now, though. Hey, old and sick people, shut yourselves away, don't contact your friends or family at all for the next six months. Fuck that's rough.



True, but pretty well what we've got now.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> True, but pretty well what we've got now.


Kind of. Easier to do if everyone has to. And this won't last six months.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Kind of. Easier to do if everyone has to. And this won't last six months.



Dunno, I for one am not coming out until they've got a vaccine and some vaguely successful treatment.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Dunno, I for one am not coming out until they've got a vaccine and some vaguely successful treatment.


Fair enough. You do live in the sticks, mind. Harder to do that if you live in a city.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

My hope is getting a test scaled up quickly so that we can all be tested. That way you should be able to venture out cautiously before the vaccine.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 30, 2020)

I want my own tester so I can go out and aim it at everyone I come across to know who I should avoid.


----------



## Aladdin (Mar 30, 2020)

Didnt take long. Day 3 of lockdown and the joyriders are out doing wheelies and racing like mad. 
Its been months since they were around.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 30, 2020)

I thought the NHS CEO was a little lacking when he thanked the doctors and nurses for their work in getting the Nightingale hospital ready and failed to thank anyone else.

He omitted to mention the army and the absolute army of electricians and other workers who actually built the place out and connected everything up and of course the bed suppliers who had to have done some work to magic up 500 beds at short notice etc etc ..


----------



## Azrael (Mar 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> One thing that's doubtless been discussed above but I was thinking about today. For the 'herd immunity' to be a successful thing the government would have had to isolate all the vulnerable people from pretty well day one.
> 
> Then, all the people who wouldn't be badly affected could spread it around happily amongst themselves to build up the herd immunity. As it was, they let the virus rip through the whole population, so we have the needless killing a lot of vulnerable people.  And of course nurses and doctors who didn't have proper PPE equipment.


On practical grounds alone this would be impossible: given the risk to the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, the numbers to be "shielded" would be way above the government's estimates, possibly in the tens of millions. And even if you somehow did that, rich preppers and Howard Hughes excepted, people don't live in level four containment facilities. Many would inevitably get infected by asymptomatic delivery drivers, carers, and other visitors. You'd have to lock down every care home and have staff live on site: even then, just takes one to trigger a cluster.

That's without getting started on the psychological and economic tolls.

And if you don't know where the virus is, when the survivors are released, could all kick off again.

Thinking about this stuff in depth is one helluva rabbit hole ...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 30, 2020)

Azrael said:


> On practical grounds alone this would be impossible: given the risk to the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, the numbers to be "shielded" would be way above the government's estimates, possibly in the tens of millions. And even if you somehow did that, rich preppers and Howard Hughes excepted, people don't live in level four containment facilities. Many would inevitably get infected by asymptomatic delivery drivers, carers, and other visitors. You'd have to lock down every care home and have staff live on site: even then, just takes one to trigger a cluster.
> 
> That's without getting started on the psychological and economic tolls.
> 
> ...


A month ago I admit I wasn't paying this stuff as much attention as I should have been, and not heeding the warnings I had read. But it's not my job to pay it attention. It beggars belief now that 'let it rip' was ever even on the table as a possible policy, given what they already knew.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> A month ago I admit I wasn't paying this stuff as much attention as I should have been, and not heeding the warnings I had read. But it's not my job to pay it attention. It beggars belief now that 'let it rip' was ever even on the table as a possible policy, given what they already knew.


What comes from following a model built around a completely different disease!


----------



## Cid (Mar 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I want my own tester so I can go out and aim it at everyone I come across to know who I should avoid.



That is actually not far off what they did in Korea. I mean obviously you can’t spot test people around you, but very extensive testing plus their 100 meter app is as close as you get.

Also, yeah on the herd immunity thing. That’s what I never got about that policy. Just this assumption that 10-20% of the population would just shut themselves away for 6 months. No policy in place for funding, food delivery, exercise. No attention to the fact of how fundamentally bizarre it would be... I mean, sure, it’s weird now... but you’re not looking out the window seeing everything going on as it was around you.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 30, 2020)

Cid 

"Shielding" always tokenism: if they were serious about it, we'd have seen wartime level planning for months, coupled with a public info campaign that'd dwarf the spaffing over Brexit. Just PR to sell their "herd immunity" experiment to the public at minimum cost (to them).


----------



## Cid (Mar 30, 2020)

Azrael said:


> On practical grounds alone this would be impossible: given the risk to the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, the numbers to be "shielded" would be way above the government's estimates, possibly in the tens of millions. And even if you somehow did that, rich preppers and Howard Hughes excepted, people don't live in level four containment facilities. Many would inevitably get infected by asymptomatic delivery drivers, carers, and other visitors. You'd have to lock down every care home and have staff live on site: even then, just takes one to trigger a cluster.
> 
> That's without getting started on the psychological and economic tolls.
> 
> ...



And that of course... I mean... allocate 50% of NHS workers to full isolation maybe? And their families. Because of course those most vulnerable are also those most likely to need healthcare. Eventual result probably being a massive public health crisis anyway - mental health, physical health.


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 30, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Maybe, but how do you know?



The science of psychology.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 31, 2020)

two sheds said:


> One thing that's doubtless been discussed above but I was thinking about today. For the 'herd immunity' to be a successful thing the government would have had to isolate all the vulnerable people from pretty well day one.
> 
> Then, all the people who wouldn't be badly affected could spread it around happily amongst themselves to build up the herd immunity. As it was, they let the virus rip through the whole population, so we have the needless killing a lot of vulnerable people.  And of course nurses and doctors who didn't have proper PPE equipment.


I've read up on very little of the science (aka none ) but I remember posting at the level of common sense when the herd immunity thing was raised by vallance (?). It smacked of some kind of weird abstract modelling, totally devoid of any sense of how life works. Even more so, the notion that government could turn the tap of cases on and off to suit the capabilities of intensive care capacity was ridiculous. Government's don't have that degree of control over life, even in a 'democracy'. Andthat's not that they don't have enough powers, it's more that life, communities and human behaviour can't be finely tuned. Oh, yeah, and the absence of a vaccine. Must admit, without naming names (I can't actually remember who, anyway) I was surprised that a couple of people on here seemed to think it was an intriguing idea or was plausible.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 31, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I've read up on very little of the science (aka none ) but I remember posting at the level of common sense when the herd immunity thing was raised by vallance (?). It smacked of some kind of weird abstract modelling, totally devoid of any sense of how life works. Even more so, the notion that government could turn the tap of cases on and off to suit the capabilities of intensive care capacity was ridiculous. Government's don't have that degree of control over life, even in a 'democracy'. Andthat's not that they don't have enough powers, it's more that life, communities and human behaviour can't be finely tuned. Oh, yeah, and the absence of a vaccine. Must admit, without naming names (I can't actually remember who, anyway) I was surprised that a couple of people on here seemed to think it was an intriguing idea or was plausible.


I assume they took "herd immunity" to mean natural immunity, in which case, yes, it'll likely develop from an epidemic (how well, how widespread and how long no-one seems to know yet). Problem with that is it presupposes that an epidemic's inevitable, a fatalistic attitude that's alienated me from the start and continues to do so.

Our ancestors who had no choice but to endure unchecked pestilence would think us mad to have the tools to fight it, but to lay down our arms without trying. Our more recent forebears who achieved so much more with less would be certain of it.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 31, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And this won't last six months.


Do you mean the lockdown won't last 6 months? If you did, that's my guess as well. Apart from there being an element of expectation management in play with the 6 months, several things will work in a positive direction (they finally manage to do a bit of testing; the antibody test for medics and then maybe for larger groups; early launch of a vaccine/treatment options to bring people back from the brink, increased intensive care/dedicated treatment centres). Offset against that is the possibility of the NHS getting overwhelmed in the short term.  
Providing this doesn't run out of control in the latter scenario, various issues will push government into finding an exit strategy.  Things like concerns about every other medical condition being neglected; the staggering cost of the whole thing and a law of diminishing returns with people breaching the lockdown in 2 months or so.  At that point they'll just about convince themselves the NHS is resilient enough to stand a wave of reinfections and we'll all start drifting back to work, the park etc.
I can see something like the above leading to government taking us out of lockdown (not least to claim some political credit) though whether that actually kills of the virus is a another matter.


----------



## Part-timah (Mar 31, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I thought the NHS CEO was a little lacking when he thanked the doctors and nurses for their work in getting the Nightingale hospital ready and failed to thank anyone else.
> 
> He omitted to mention the army and the absolute army of electricians and other workers who actually built the place out and connected everything up and of course the bed suppliers who had to have done some work to magic up 500 beds at short notice etc etc ..



Thanking medical staff is part of communication tasks for pandemic planning.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 31, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Our ancestors who had no choice but to endure unchecked pestilence would think us mad to have the tools to fight it, but to lay down our arms without trying. Our more recent forebears who achieved so much more with less would be certain of it.


Edward III: _'I have visited Black Death victims and shook them all by the hand'_


----------



## Azrael (Mar 31, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Do you mean the lockdown won't last 6 months? If you did, that's my guess as well. Apart from there being an element of expectation management in play with the 6 months, several things will work in a positive direction (they finally manage to do a bit of testing; the antibody test for medics and then maybe for larger groups; early launch of a vaccine/treatment options to bring people back from the brink, increased intensive care/dedicated treatment centres). Offset against that is the possibility of the NHS getting overwhelmed in the short term.
> Providing this doesn't run out of control in the latter scenario, various issues will push government into finding an exit strategy.  Things like concerns about every other medical condition being neglected; the staggering cost of the whole thing and a law of diminishing returns with people breaching the lockdown in 2 months or so.  At that point they'll just about convince themselves the NHS is resilient enough to stand a wave of reinfections and we'll all start drifting back to work, the park etc.
> I can see something like the above leading to government taking us out of lockdown (not least to claim some political credit) though whether that actually kills of the virus is a another matter.


The six month timeline's down to the deputy CMO, who, with her immediate boss and his immediate bosses quarantined to experience their own bracing dose of herd immunity, appears to be running the government ATM. It's exactly the kinda impractical measure you'd expect a non-politician to blurt out, and appears rooted in her bizarre prejudice against even considering the South Korean approach.

With even the _Daily Boris_ bellowing about ending the lockdown, I don't expect her to be able to Canute her way through this for much longer.


----------



## bimble (Mar 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it a conspiracy theory to not believe them when they say -literally - that they didn’t get the email inviting UK to join in the EU procurement and that’s why we have to build our own?


Shockingly it turns out this was a blatant and really rubbish lie. Who'd have thunk it etc. 








						UK discussed joint EU plan to buy Covid-19 medical supplies, say officials
					

Exclusive: EU minutes seen by the Guardian reveal British official took part in eight EU health security meetings on coronavirus crisis




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Doodler (Mar 31, 2020)

Part-timah said:


> The science of psychology.



Looks better this way:

The Science ... _of Psychology!_


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Shockingly it turns out this was a blatant and really rubbish lie. Who'd have thunk it etc.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


To be fair, BJ was focussed on the really important job of "getting !"£$%^ done" and thus securing his place in history ...


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Mar 31, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I've read up on very little of the science (aka none ) but I remember posting at the level of common sense when the herd immunity thing was raised by vallance (?). It smacked of some kind of weird abstract modelling, totally devoid of any sense of how life works. Even more so, the notion that government could turn the tap of cases on and off to suit the capabilities of intensive care capacity was ridiculous. Government's don't have that degree of control over life, even in a 'democracy'. Andthat's not that they don't have enough powers, it's more that life, communities and human behaviour can't be finely tuned. Oh, yeah, and the absence of a vaccine. Must admit, without naming names (I can't actually remember who, anyway) I was surprised that a couple of people on here seemed to think it was an intriguing idea or was plausible.


My own GP told me it was a good idea  FFS
Changing my doctor after this


----------



## zahir (Mar 31, 2020)

British Medical Journal editorial.









						Covid-19: why is the UK government ignoring WHO’s advice?
					

Testing and tracing must resume urgently  On 24 February, there were nine confirmed cases of covid-19 in the UK. On the same day, the World Health Organization recommended countries outside China with imported cases or outbreaks “prioritize active, exhaustive case finding and immediate testing...




					www.bmj.com
				




Some comments on the institutional difficulties in applying test and trace in the UK.





__





						EU Referendum
					






					eureferendum.com


----------



## weltweit (Mar 31, 2020)

Smiths to ramp up Covid-19 ventilator output


> The Ventilator Challenge UK Consortium, which includes Airbus, Ford, Rolls-Royce and Thales, will work with the Smiths Group to ensure the supply of over 10,000 paraPAC plus ventilators.
> 
> Production is being ramped up at Smiths from hundreds a month to thousands in response to the UK government’s challenge to UK technology and engineering businesses to help save lives in the Covid-19 pandemic.
> 
> Already certified and used extensively in the UK and abroad, the paraPAC plus is a lightweight and portable ventilator that delivers oxygen to the lungs to help patients breathe.


from https://www.theengineer.co.uk/covid-19-ventilators-smiths-ventilator-challenge-uk/


----------



## brogdale (Mar 31, 2020)

Something hideously emblematic of the tories' shitshow of a response to the pandemic about NHS workers being gagged from speaking out about not being properly masked.

Some sort of nadir?


----------



## sptme (Mar 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> I need data help.
> 
> It seems likely that the daily figures from NHS England, which breaks them down by hospital trust and includes dates of death, are being sent out as a press release which is not published online. I need this data. Sometimes, via the PA, local newspapers are publishing all the info in full, but I cannot rely on this happening every day and its messing up my ability to collate local data. If anyone can provide me with this data, or knows of someone else who is collating it online with the proper date of death info intact, please get in touch.


Maybe this will be useful









						Hospital deaths falling at fastest rate yet
					

Deaths from covid-19 in England's hospitals are declining at the fastest rate yet, as the whole South West region sees one death in seven days.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## sptme (Mar 31, 2020)

Can any legal types tell me,  what law could these incompetent wankers be changed with.  Criminal negligence?  Corporate manslaughter? If there is a public inquiry won't they just choose a one of their mates to be the judge?


----------



## Azrael (Mar 31, 2020)

Our old friend "misconduct in public office" ought to do the job. Common law offence, so unlimited fine, potential sentence of life imprisonment.

The government would, of course, have to prosecute itself, and not even Grayling could be relied on to accidentally do that (probably). A different government and a bad enough crisis, who knows.

More hopeful is the GMC having a quiet word with the medical doctors who're acting as Cummings' enablers.


----------



## LDC (Mar 31, 2020)

sptme said:


> Can any legal types tell me,  what law could these incompetent wankers be changed with.  Criminal negligence?  Corporate manslaughter? If there is a public inquiry won't they just choose a one of their mates to be the judge?



Isn't there something in the recent emergency legislation/powers about no prosecutions will be allowed for Covid related issues for the NHS about care etc? Imagine that might well extend to other bodies and people employed by them.


----------



## Azrael (Mar 31, 2020)

This section? If so, looks like it revolves around protecting clinicians from civil claims if the NHS is swamped. Keep jogging, Dom! (But only after you've served your quarantine, full fat WHO version if you please, none of this skinny seven day malarkey.)


----------



## zahir (Mar 31, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK labs 'can process tens of thousands more tests'
					

Expert says university and big hospital labs can be used to reach German levels of testing




					www.theguardian.com
				





> The UK has the capacity to process tens of thousands more tests for coronavirus but has failed to organise itself properly, a former director at the World Health Organization has said.
> 
> Anthony Costello, a global health professor at University College London, called for the UK to make use of testing machines in every university and big hospital around the country, setting up mobile testing units like Ireland, which is testing far more people per head of population.





> Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Costello said a policy of mass community testing was essential to identify new hotspots and eventually end the lockdown, as has happened in South Korea.
> 
> “We have 44 molecular virology labs in the UK. If they were doing 400 tests a day we would be up to Germany levels of testing and that is perfectly feasible. Public Health England (PHE) was slow and controlled and only allowed non-PHE labs to start testing two weeks ago but that was only after the strategy shift to end community testing,” he said.
> 
> ...


----------



## weltweit (Mar 31, 2020)

Shocking if true zahir they need to get their act together pronto ..


----------



## Azrael (Mar 31, 2020)

Current inaction's clearly a remnant of the "let it rip" policy. If govt see it as only way to end lockdown, they'll be forced to change tack, especially when their natural supporters loathe the restrictions. 

Biggest problem is that, with most key figures locked away in quarantine, there's barely a government at present. The hapless _transport secretary_ was left doing the rounds this morning. That leaves a deputy CMO with a weird prejudice against testing and a Chief Scientist who trumpeted herd immunity.

Gove was making positive squeaks about Germany. He may push it through, especially if he sees a route to relieving Johnson of the burdens of office while his ex-boss enjoys a nice long convalescence.


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

sptme said:


> Maybe this will be useful
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks, that ones great for the totals but not the raw data which, at least on Sunday, included dates for each death rather than just the reporting date.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 31, 2020)

I see lots of reports of refuse collectors noticing all the hoarded food starting to be chucked out, despite claims on here that panic buying hadn't happened.


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I see lots of reports of refuse collectors noticing all the hoarded food starting to be chucked out, despite claims on here that panic buying hadn't happened.



Did people really claim that? I certainly made a point on the panic buying thread that it was not simply a question of irrational responses and panic buying, but also completely reasonable responses to the situation. I'll never change my mind about that, but thats easy for me to say because my claim did not deny that the other side of things was happening too. I was just sick of people describing the whole thing as stupid panic when actually there are many more reasons than that.

Some of the media language now reflects this. eg instead of just 'panic buying' we see 'stockpiling' and references to sensible reasons for shift in shopping patterns, eg:









						Coronavirus: Aldi, Morrisons, Waitrose and Asda lift some restrictions
					

Aldi, Morrisons, Waitrose and Asda ease limits on how many of some individual items people can buy.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Aldi, Morrisons and Waitrose are easing restrictions on some of their products which were imposed in the wake of stockpiling earlier this month.





> Mr McKevitt added: "It's inevitable that shoppers will add extra items to their baskets when faced with restrictions on their movement.
> 
> "With restaurants and cafes now closed, none of us can eat meals on the go any longer and an extra 503 million meals, mainly lunches and snacks, will be prepared and eaten at home every week for the foreseeable future."



I suspect the media were advised to go easy on the stories & images of panic, since dramatic reporting on that stuff is part of what feeds the endless loop of shortages that can be created in such situations.


----------



## Chilli.s (Mar 31, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I see lots of reports of refuse collectors noticing all the hoarded food starting to be chucked out, despite claims on here that panic buying hadn't happened.


I guess domestic refuse amounts will be higher with people being at home rather than out too. Refuse collection being very much an essential service.


----------



## Favelado (Mar 31, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> I guess domestic refuse amounts will be higher with people being at home rather than out too. Refuse collection being very much an essential service.



Refuse of unopened food being a particular issue though - not just the overall amount.


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

ONS deaths data. Has its own form of lag so ends up covering an earlier period.

 2h ago 10:00 
 1h ago 10:50 



> The ONS has published the first of its new weekly bulletin which will include all instances where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate and will include non-hospital deaths.
> 
> A total of 210 deaths in England and Wales that occurred up to and including 20 March (and which were registered up to 25 March) had Covid-19 mentioned on the death certificate, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics.
> 
> This compares with 170 coronavirus-related deaths reported by NHS England and Public Health Wales up to and including March 20.





> A quick note on the difference between the figures published by the ONS and those that have been published thus far by NHS England and Public Health Wales:
> 
> The ONS death figures are based on the number of deaths registered in England and Wales where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate as “deaths involving Covid-19”. The number includes all deaths, not just those in hospitals, although there is usually a delay of at least five days between a death occurring and registration.
> 
> The figures published by NHS England and Public Health Wales are for deaths only among hospital patients who have tested positive for Covid-19, but include deaths that have not yet been registered.





> Separate figures from the ONS show that for the 108 deaths registered up to 20 March where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, 45 (or 42%) were people aged 85 and over while 34 (31%) were people aged 75-84.
> 
> A total of 21 deaths (19%) were people aged 65-74, seven (6%) were people aged 45-64 and one death was aged 15-44 years.


----------



## andysays (Mar 31, 2020)

BigTom said:


> Also the construction industry is filled with self-employed people (some actually self-employed, but many pushed into self-employment by the big contractors wanting to avoid the commitments that come with employment) and the govt. didn't sort out what they were doing to support self-employed people until after the lockdown I think so there will have been lots of people that needed to keep working until the measures for self-employed people were announced.


Even though the measures have been announced, the payments won't be made until June, so loads of people like the scaffolders I spoke to the other day face three months with no money, and so will need to carry on working. 

Not good for them and not good for preventing the spread of the virus.


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

Sorry for the fucking Daily Mail front page, but I feel the need to keep up with how the tory press are judging this governments pandemic response.






From BBC newspapers thing 'Sickening abuse' and 'overzealous' police warning


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 31, 2020)

Isolation Policy Too Late for Some, as Pandemic Warnings were not taken Seriously - Ungagged! 

I wrote a thing


----------



## killer b (Mar 31, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I see lots of reports of refuse collectors noticing all the hoarded food starting to be chucked out, despite claims on here that panic buying hadn't happened.


no-one said this. We said that panic buying was being talked up by people eager to blame the public for the crisis, when the bigger strain on the system was people unused to stocking up for a week or so, stocking up for a week or so. 

That people unused to stocking up for a week or two might misjudge the amounts of food they need, or how long it will last shouldn't really be a surprise. It also shouldn't be a surprise that binmen might be noticing food waste a bit more this week, primed as they've been by two weeks headlines.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 31, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I see lots of reports of refuse collectors noticing all the hoarded food starting to be chucked out, despite claims on here that panic buying hadn't happened.


Would refuse collectors really be noticing that, though? Kitchen waste is in black sacks for the most part, so unless people are putting their unopened fruit and veg in the recycling bin, that sounds at least slightly made-up.


----------



## Raheem (Mar 31, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Smiths to ramp up Covid-19 ventilator output


Good for them. I'm still not going to buy Morrissey's new album, though.


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Isolation Policy Too Late for Some, as Pandemic Warnings were not taken Seriously - Ungagged!
> 
> I wrote a thing



Sorry for picking over detail:



> H5N1 bird flu was similarly no laughing matter. H5N1 is related to the strain of influenza which caused the notorious Spanish flu of 1918, which killed over 100 million people. There are two reasons why bird flu never became a pandemic like COVID-19, and they are nothing to do with the fact it was ‘no big deal’ or ‘a fuss about nothing’. Firstly, it never achieved widespread human-to-human transmission in the way COVID-19 has done and is rarely able to be passed any other way than contact with an infected animal. Secondly, H5N1 is so deadly it kills over 50% of people who catch it, within a very rapid space of time, so the epidemic was self-limiting and burned itself out quickly. If it had become a pandemic, the consequences could have been far more catastrophic than this one.



I dont think H5N1 is notably related to 1918 H1N1 pandemic flu. I mean they have the N1 in common, but so does the flu that reemerged in 1977 and the swine flu of 2009. And the devil is in detail well beyond the simple N classification. Nearly everything with notable mortality rates ends up getting compared to 1918 pandemic influenza anyway, because the 1918 thing is such an obvious reference point for bad pandemics.

It was never close to epidemic levels in any human populations, so I could not say 'the epidemic was self-limiting'. However, the term epidemic is fairly broad so its possible my definition of epidemic sets the bar for number of cases too high, not sure.

Its still out there, so I cannot claim it will never be a pandemic.

H7N9 is worth looking into for a similar story, but a bit more recently. I note that some of the incidents of human infection of H7N9 do seem to be referred to as epidemics, hence my caveat with my previous point about H5N1 not reaching epidemic proportions.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sorry for picking over detail:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks for the feedback, do I need to change it?


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 31, 2020)

Thanks for pointing it out tho, so the situation is actually worse than I made out!


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Thanks for the feedback, do I need to change it?



Up to you, if it were me I would probably change the 1918 bit, and maybe fiddle with some other wording so that you arent completely ruling out the possibility of it ever becoming a pandemic. Maybe there is something in the WHO FAQ's you could use instead.





__





						WHO | FAQs: H5N1 influenza
					






					www.who.int


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

A Scottish example of concerns about deaths being underreported.









						SNP Government facing claims coronavirus death total is 'much higher'
					

Critics believe that the lack of testing for Covid-19 is resulting in a 'misleading' picture of the number of coronavirus fatalities in Scotland.




					www.dailyrecord.co.uk


----------



## zahir (Mar 31, 2020)

Doctors being stopped from speaking out.









						Doctors claim they have been gagged over protective equipment shortages
					

Exclusive: Staff on frontline of pandemic warned not to speak out about concerns over lack of protective gear




					www.independent.co.uk
				





> One GP has been barred from working in a community hospital in Ludlow after making comments about the lack of equipment, while another in London said they were told to remove protective equipment they had purchased themselves.
> 
> NHS England confirmed it was controlling media communications, which it said was part of its national emergency incident planning to ensure the public received “clear and consistent information”.





> One intensive care doctor, who asked to remain anonymous, raised concerns with their managers about a shortage of protective masks after being told they would have to use less safe surgical masks. They claimed they were later warned in a meeting with trust bosses that their social media profiles would be watched.
> 
> The doctor said they were told: “If we hear of these concerns going outside these four walls, your career and your position here will not be tenable going forward.”


----------



## weepiper (Mar 31, 2020)

Scientists in Edinburgh are recruiting for a vaccine trial









						Coronavirus: Vaccine trial to start at Scottish university
					

SCOTTISH scientists are at the forefront of researching a vaccine to combat the coronavirus outbreak, it has emerged.




					www.thenational.scot


----------



## lefteri (Mar 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Did people really claim that? I certainly made a point on the panic buying thread that it was not simply a question of irrational responses and panic buying, but also completely reasonable responses to the situation. I'll never change my mind about that, but thats easy for me to say because my claim did not deny that the other side of things was happening too. I was just sick of people describing the whole thing as stupid panic when actually there are many more reasons than that.
> 
> Some of the media language now reflects this. eg instead of just 'panic buying' we see 'stockpiling' and references to sensible reasons for shift in shopping patterns, eg:
> 
> ...



there was a guy on ‘more or less’ on r4 this morning from an organisation that monitors 30,000 people’s shopping habits

he said that only 6% of people had been stockpiling hand sanitizers and that the rate for other items such as pasta and loo rolls was more like 3 or 4% - he concluded that the extreme shortages were down to much larger numbers of shoppers just buying an extra one of those items


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> They think Gwent, Wales (the bit to the left of most of you) is heading to be on a par with Italy. 300 cases they have no idea of why they're happening.











						Coronavirus: Why are the Gwent valleys a hotspot?
					

Why are there more cases of coronavirus in the Aneurin Bevan health board area?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Fairly interesting article about Gwent, the possible reasons for it being a hot spot, other hot spots, and the transmission that is going from East to West meaning I'm not going to be living in an outlier much longer.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 31, 2020)

lefteri said:


> there was a guy on ‘more or less’ on r4 this morning from an organisation that monitors 30,000 people’s shopping habits
> 
> he said that only 6% of people had been stockpiling hand sanitizers and that the rate for other items such as pasta and loo rolls was more like 3 or 4% - he concluded that the extreme shortages were down to much larger numbers of shoppers just buying an extra one of those items




I think he also said that while people were only buying one or two extra items on a shopping trip, they were making an extra 2 or 3 trips to the supermarket in that same week (the week the bars closed, then everything else).

That's exactly what I did, now that I reflect back on it. It seemed sensible at the time, and now that I'm digging into the store cupboard it still feels like a sensible thing to have done. I've not thrown any food out, but I suspect that some who are doing so were previously more likely to eat out, eat takeaway, eat at work etc so not accustomed to buying for cooking. It's obviously stupidly wasteful and foolish, but I reckon a lot of it was honest mistake rather than looting and hoarding.


----------



## Epona (Mar 31, 2020)

The BBC daily news updates are starting to wear a bit thin.
Today they are banging on about the tradition of policing in this country, and how some forces haven't been acting in line with what we expect.

Which tradition is that exactly?
The one where they wade in with batons and riot shields and then the BBC shows clips of the footage in the wrong order to deliberately misrepresent what happened?


----------



## editor (Mar 31, 2020)

Coronavirus: Millions of garden plants set to be binned
					

The Horticultural Trades Association says many producers could go bust because of the coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 31, 2020)

To help reduce the spread of C19 by using cash or pin pads, the limit on using contact-less payments is going up tomorrow from £30 to £45.


----------



## lefteri (Mar 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> To help reduce the spread of C19 by using cash or pin pads, the limit on using contact-less payments is going up tomorrow from £30 to £45.



the likelihood of having your card nicked has probably plummeted


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Up to you, if it were me I would probably change the 1918 bit, and maybe fiddle with some other wording so that you arent completely ruling out the possibility of it ever becoming a pandemic. Maybe there is something in the WHO FAQ's you could use instead.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The thing with H5N1 is that it never had sustained human to human transmission did it? If it had and had been slightly less lethal things could have been very bad indeed especially as iirc it's not that closely related to other flu.


----------



## andysays (Mar 31, 2020)

New thread started
Recycling and related subjects
To prevent the main COVID UK thread from being completely derailed, please use this one to tell the world what waste recycling arrangements exist in your local area and other associated fascinating subjects


----------



## Cid (Mar 31, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Our old friend "misconduct in public office" ought to do the job. Common law offence, so unlimited fine, potential sentence of life imprisonment.
> 
> The government would, of course, have to prosecute itself, and not even Grayling could be relied on to accidentally do that (probably). A different government and a bad enough crisis, who knows.
> 
> More hopeful is the GMC having a quiet word with the medical doctors who're acting as Cummings' enablers.



Nope:

‘without reasonable excuse or justification’

The scientific advice at the time was far from unanimous, or unambiguous.


----------



## smmudge (Mar 31, 2020)

I find something uneasy about the government's priorities - that is to get as many retired medical workers back, as many ventilators as possible made, testing but for front line workers to get them back to work so they're not self-isolating unnecessary. Not much on policies to actually stop the spread of the virus (well apart from the lockdown)... like they want to be able to manage as high a peak as possible. I don't know if I'm expressing myself so well. But I think what I'm getting at is although they ostensibly ditched the "herd immunity" idea, for me their actions seem to say otherwise? Like they want to be able to deal with the worst cases while letting it spread.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Mar 31, 2020)

smmudge said:


> I find something uneasy about the government's priorities - that is to get as many retired medical workers back, as many ventilators as possible made, testing but for front line workers to get them back to work so they're not self-isolating unnecessary. Not much on policies to actually stop the spread of the virus (well apart from the lockdown)... like they want to be able to manage as high a peak as possible. I don't know if I'm expressing myself so well. But I think what I'm getting at is although they ostensibly ditched the "herd immunity" idea, for me their actions seem to say otherwise? Like they want to be able to deal with the worst cases while letting it spread.



It's fair to be sceptical of the government's approach. I don't think there's any even vaguely sensible approach that wouldn't involve ramping up the medical capacity though.


----------



## xenon (Mar 31, 2020)

smmudge said:


> I find something uneasy about the government's priorities - that is to get as many retired medical workers back, as many ventilators as possible made, testing but for front line workers to get them back to work so they're not self-isolating unnecessary. Not much on policies to actually stop the spread of the virus (well apart from the lockdown)... like they want to be able to manage as high a peak as possible. I don't know if I'm expressing myself so well. But I think what I'm getting at is although they ostensibly ditched the "herd immunity" idea, for me their actions seem to say otherwise? Like they want to be able to deal with the worst cases while letting it spread.



It's not possible to stop it spreading at this stage. Only manage the rate it does and concentrate resources where they're most needed.
Those working in the front line, hospitals, carers etc, need to know if they have it or not.
There will be many, many more cases requiring hospitilisation.
Many mmore will die


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Can people really stop going on about fucking recycling and composting on this thread please.
> 
> Today, 381 dead. Discuss that.


Not so unexpected, possibly. Putting a positive spin on it, the numbers from the last few days - going down from 260 to 206 to 180 - always looked premature in terms of us hitting a peak of deaths. If we've hit a peak level of new cases (impossible to tell from the UK's woeful testing rate but new admissions to hospitals are levelling off, so we probably have) we should expect to hit a peak level in new deaths maybe 7-10 days later. Also daily figures can be erratic - you need to look at at least three days consecutively to see if there may be a pattern developing. 

So this could be a step up to a new level, but it might not be as bad as a doubling in size first appears - in terms of the overall pattern, it might be something of a correction for the last two days' suspiciously low numbers. If lockdown is working, we shouldn't expect daily deaths to reduce until next week. It's going to be a rough week regardless. Again, being optimistic, hopefully this week will be the worst week. 

I'm trying to stay positive!


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not so unexpected, possibly. Putting a positive spin on it, the numbers from the last few days - going down from 260 to 206 to 180 - always looked premature in terms of us hitting a peak of deaths. If we've hit a peak level of new cases (impossible to tell from the UK's woeful testing rate but new admissions to hospitals are levelling off, so we probably have) we should expect to hit a peak level in new deaths maybe 7-10 days later. Also daily figures can be erratic - you need to look at at least three days consecutively to see if there may be a pattern developing.
> 
> So this could be a step up to a new level, but it might not be as bad as a doubling in size first appears - in terms of the overall pattern, it might be something of a correction for the last two days' suspiciously low numbers. If lockdown is working, we shouldn't expect daily deaths to reduce until next week. It's going to be a rough week regardless. Again, being optimistic, hopefully this week will be the worst week.
> 
> I'm trying to stay positive!



I highly recommend looking at the list of data from the one day where we pretty much got to see the raw NHS press release data that isnt actually available for the general public to see unless newspapers decide to publish it in full.

Scroll down this article a bit to see it.









						Full list of UK hospitals with new COVID-19 deaths released
					

The figures include the first death at Addenbrooke's Hospital, as well as another at the North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust




					www.cambridge-news.co.uk
				




Just look at the range of dates of those deaths. 'deaths in the last 24 hours' (or more recently described as over a 24 hour period that ended the previous day) is often how the numbers are described, but its a highly misleading description. As such the rate of change of deaths per day is not very well reflected in the data.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 31, 2020)

xenon said:


> It's not possible to stop it spreading at this stage.


Well hopefully it is! That's what the lockdown is for. What we can't do is undo the spreading that happened pre-lockdown, whose effects are what we see now in terms of serious cases and deaths.


----------



## Plumdaff (Mar 31, 2020)

nm


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> I highly recommend looking at the list of data from the one day where we pretty much got to see the raw NHS press release data that isnt actually available for the general public to see unless newspapers decide to publish it in full.
> 
> Scroll down this article a bit to see it.
> 
> ...


Thanks. I thought as much. Alarming as it is, we need to be careful not to get too carried away about the daily updates. * looking at self here as much as anyone *


----------



## Edie (Mar 31, 2020)

£37.5k?!


----------



## agricola (Mar 31, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> It's fair to be sceptical of the government's approach. I don't think there's any even vaguely sensible approach that wouldn't involve ramping up the medical capacity though.



not any more there isn't, and it wasn't government policy anyway despite how often the government referred to it


----------



## Petcha (Mar 31, 2020)

Jesus christ LinkedIn is depressing right now in my industry. Any job that does pop up is greeted by thousands of applications and the number of even very senior people fishing around for work is even more depressing. We're fucked. This is unreal. All the recruitment consultants I used to get work with seem to have lost their jobs too. And I really can't see it recovering for a very, very long time. Nobody's got any budget for hires.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 31, 2020)

Edie said:


> £37.5k?!
> View attachment 204251


Not AfC mind


----------



## Thora (Mar 31, 2020)

Edie said:


> £37.5k?!
> View attachment 204251


What is that, as a job?


----------



## Edie (Mar 31, 2020)

Thora said:


> What is that, as a job?


I’ve no idea. Receptionist I thought?


----------



## Edie (Mar 31, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Jesus christ LinkedIn is depressing right now in my industry. Any job that does pop up is greeted by thousands of applications and the number of even very senior people fishing around for work is even more depressing. We're fucked. This is unreal. All the recruitment consultants I used to get work with seem to have lost their jobs too. And I really can't see it recovering for a very, very long time. Nobody's got any budget for hires.


Have you considered working on a Help Desk?


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 31, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’ve no idea. Receptionist I thought?


If so it would be approximately twice the salary for a B2 NHS A&C worker under AfC who does a comparable job.


----------



## Petcha (Mar 31, 2020)

Edie said:


> Have you considered working on a Help Desk?



I suspect that's IT for 37.5k. Which isn't my thing.


----------



## Thora (Mar 31, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I suspect that's IT for 37.5k. Which isn't my thing.


Yes, I was thinking it can't be reception/clerking for that money and must be IT or something.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Coronavirus: Why are the Gwent valleys a hotspot?
> 
> 
> Why are there more cases of coronavirus in the Aneurin Bevan health board area?
> ...


Yeah! It's edging from Bridgend to Swansea...I'm just hoping it's got a really crappy roadmap, gets to St Clears, and heads for Haverfordwest oblivious of the existence of my little corner of heaven here in Laugharne. I mean, it's not on the way anywhere, what would be the point in its coming here?


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Thanks. I thought as much. Alarming as it is, we need to be careful not to get too carried away about the daily updates. * looking at self here as much as anyone *



If they keep publishing the hospital admission data that they have used in very recent press conferences then we will have something more timely and properly dated to go by.









						Slides and datasets to accompany coronavirus press conference: 30 March 2020
					

Press conference slides and datasets used by Sir Patrick Vallance.




					www.gov.uk
				




After previously being reduced to squinting at small images of that data in slide form that the press used yesterday, I was pleased to see that it is available on a spreadsheet. At least the data used yesterday is.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 31, 2020)

ETA: sorry for the derail.


----------



## xenon (Mar 31, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well hopefully it is! That's what the lockdown is for. What we can't do is undo the spreading that happened pre-lockdown, whose effects are what we see now in terms of serious cases and deaths.



No, it's obviously going to continue spreading for months. The lock down is an attempt to slow it whilst the NHS copes with the most severe cases. But people will still be susceptible to Covid19 for a long time to come, after lock down ends.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 31, 2020)

Quote said:


> My stupid parents are stubbornly insisting on going on a coach tour to fucking Llandudno.



To see the goats?










						Goats take over empty Welsh streets during coronavirus lockdown – video
					

A herd of goats have taken over the deserted streets of Llandudno, north Wales, where the residents are in lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 31, 2020)

xenon said:


> No, it's obviously going to continue spreading for months. The lock down is an attempt to slow it whilst the NHS copes with the most severe cases. But people will still be susceptible to Covid19 for a long time to come, after lock down ends.


Oh ok. I misunderstood, sorry. The ambition is to reduce the number of people with it dramatically, though.


----------



## bimble (Mar 31, 2020)

Thora said:


> Yes, I was thinking it can't be reception/clerking for that money and must be IT or something.


It’s a reception job at the new excel center massive coronavirus hospital isn’t it? So risk money maybe.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> It’s a reception job at the new excel center massive coronavirus hospital isn’t it? So risk money maybe.



Would be an encouraging precedent if so, particularly for nurses


----------



## Thora (Mar 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> It’s a reception job at the new excel center massive coronavirus hospital isn’t it? So risk money maybe.


Isn't "helpdesk" an IT thing?  I've not seen NHS reception jobs advertised as helpdesk roles before.


----------



## bimble (Mar 31, 2020)

Yeah it’s weird. Just found the ad and it promises full ppe & sickness benefit as well. No mention of any skills required.


----------



## editor (Mar 31, 2020)

xenon said:


> Not in flats. At least not here. We have the black and green boxes but don't have to use the caddies for kitchen waste. (Thank fuck.)


OK, seeing as people can't stop posting about their personal recycling conditions from wherever they are in the country, I'm going to move the posts to that other thread. This is an important and useful thread, so let's keep in on topic, please.

*Update - all the recycling posts I found have been moved here: 








						COVID-19: Recycling and related subjects
					

Refuse of unopened food being a particular issue though - not just the overall amount.  Yeah that is just wrong. Should at least split it down to recycle compost and packaging, the lazy cunts.




					www.urban75.net
				




I don't like 'policing' content particularly, but it was one hell of a derail!


----------



## teqniq (Mar 31, 2020)

Gove caught out lying again.


----------



## circleline (Mar 31, 2020)

[/QUOTE]


Thora said:


> Isn't "helpdesk" an IT thing?  I've not seen NHS reception jobs advertised as helpdesk roles before.



Yes, definitely IT support role.  Worked on loads of 'helpdesks'  for other industries (sadly not at £37k) and this (sort of money) is definitely IT..


----------



## teqniq (Mar 31, 2020)

Junior doctor takes Johnson to task









						As a doctor I have to speak out: Johnson has contributed to thousands of deaths | Andrew Meyerson
					

The prime minister’s neglect of the NHS has resulted in too many tragedies. If he were a doctor, he would be struck off, says junior doctor Andrew Meyerson




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

In December.


----------



## teqniq (Mar 31, 2020)

Oops.


----------



## Cid (Mar 31, 2020)

I’d add that I believe the courts would be extremely unwanted


teqniq said:


> Gove caught out lying again.
> 
> View attachment 204269



Yeah my mum said that a couple of days ago one of the callers to R4's any answers was an epidemiologist who pointed out that actually the idea that the UK couldn't have enough tests, and couldn't rapidly step up production was a load of bollocks. Didn't raise it at the time because 'my mum heard on any answers' is probably the worst reference you can give... Actually I would have probably dug it out, but that would have involved listening to a full episode (may the lord preserve us).


----------



## Raheem (Mar 31, 2020)

Cid said:


> I’d add that I believe the courts would be extremely unwanted
> 
> 
> Yeah my mum said that a couple of days ago one of the callers to R4's any answers was an epidemiologist who pointed out that actually the idea that the UK couldn't have enough tests, and couldn't rapidly step up production was a load of bollocks. Didn't raise it at the time because 'my mum heard on any answers' is probably the worst reference you can give... Actually I would have probably dug it out, but that would have involved listening to a full episode (may the lord preserve us).


Any Answers can be pretty hilarious sometimes. Indistinguishable from satire.

I would not trust it as a source of any sort of information whatsoever, though.


----------



## Thora (Mar 31, 2020)

Apparently healthy 13 year old dies after testing positive:








						Boy, 13, dies in London after testing positive for coronavirus
					

Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, thought to be youngest victim in England, died in the capital on Monday




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## donkyboy (Mar 31, 2020)

man. just a kid. dying without his family with him. so sad.


----------



## Cid (Mar 31, 2020)

Julian Peto was the guy on any answers, professor at LSHTM, specifically a statistician and cancer epidemiologist... He was arguing that many labs could use their PCR machines (currently used for a vast array of purposes), enough to test everyone in Britain once/week. So I suppose a kind of lab crowd-sourcing.

About 28:50


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2020)

Ice rink mortuary plan, just like Spain.









						Coronavirus: Milton Keynes ice rink to be temporary mortuary
					

Planet Ice in Milton Keynes may be needed if there is a rise in coronavirus-related deaths.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 31, 2020)

UWE Bristol's exhibition centre -  (used to be HP's hard drive factory) -  is being gutted and prepared to act as a hospital ...


----------



## TopCat (Mar 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Ice rink mortuary plan, just like Spain.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


keep them cool


----------



## teqniq (Mar 31, 2020)

Not sure if this has already been posted, but here's a statement from the company concerned:


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Mar 31, 2020)

donkyboy said:


> man. just a kid. dying without his family with him. so sad.




A Brixton lad. My heart crumpled when I heard the news.


----------



## Mation (Apr 1, 2020)

Here we go. A solution! How we can save lives whilst preventing 6 months of lockdown. We'll be crying out for it.









						Coronavirus: UK considers virus-tracing app to ease lockdown
					

Study describes how app would alert citizens if someone they came into contact with tests positive.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




And it's being proposed by academics, too. Definitely not by the Government. No.



> The location-tracking tech would enable a week's worth of manual detective work to be done in an instant, they say.
> 
> But the academics say no-one should be forced to enrol - *at least initially*.
> 
> UK health chiefs have confirmed they are exploring the idea.


----------



## Epona (Apr 1, 2020)

Mation said:


> Here we go. A solution! How we can save lives whilst preventing 6 months of lockdown. We'll be crying out for it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah honestly I'd rather sit at home for the forseeable.  It was bad enough when one of my colleagues turned on google tracking on my phone for a laugh- I freaked out when I received a "here is where you have been this month" report


----------



## Mation (Apr 1, 2020)

Epona said:


> It was bad enough when one of my colleagues turned on google tracking on my phone for a laugh- I freaked out when I received a "here is where you have been this month" report


That doesn't sound very funny  

(My wow/wtf response was about what your colleague did, not about you preferring to stay home, btw. I'd rather stay home, too.)


----------



## Epona (Apr 1, 2020)

Mation said:


> That doesn't sound very funny



Oh all they did was tell it to log and send reports to me, it wasn't like they set it up to let them know where I was.  The whole thing had a context to it that made it funny


----------



## Mation (Apr 1, 2020)

What? 

"The result showed that 59% of the 1.5 million people who participated and tested positive, noticed a loss of smell and taste."

Surely just 1.5 million who participated. If they tested positive too, then testing is vastly under-reported.


----------



## bimble (Apr 1, 2020)

Christ. The words "even Trump" are trending on my twitter this morning because The President has just publicly criticised the UK's early strategy on this.



“If you remember they were looking at that in the UK and all of a sudden they went hard the other way because they started seeing things that weren’t good. They put themselves in a little bit of a problem..well you know it’s a concept, it’s a concept- if you don’t mind death.."


----------



## kabbes (Apr 1, 2020)

That’s bizarre given that Trump hasn’t done anything different, having still not imposed any kind of lockdown


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 1, 2020)

Of course it's bizarre, bizarre  is his middle name.


----------



## andysays (Apr 1, 2020)

Mation said:


> View attachment 204296
> 
> What?
> 
> ...


There's a report on that study on the BBC website ATM, based on 400,000 people with symptoms, only a small number had positive tests.


----------



## bimble (Apr 1, 2020)

What happened is probably that somebody tried to explain to him the herd immunity idea, as part of getting him to understand the numbers, just before he went on tv.


----------



## Cid (Apr 1, 2020)

Mation said:


> View attachment 204296
> 
> What?
> 
> ...



Apparently 1.5m who downloaded a symptom tracker app. I'm amazed they got that many people tbh, seen nothing about it. I suppose they're hoping to get a better idea if/when antigen testing rolls around. The BBC's reporting in that bit you quoted seems really fucking shoddy...


----------



## kabbes (Apr 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> Apparently 1.5m who downloaded a symptom tracker app. I'm amazed they got that many people tbh, seen nothing about it. I suppose they're hoping to get a better idea if/when antigen testing rolls around. The BBC's reporting in that bit you quoted seems really fucking shoddy...


They missed a trick by not linking to the app in that web story


----------



## bimble (Apr 1, 2020)

is it this one?








						ZOE Health Study
					

Fight major diseases like COVID & cancer logging your health daily with millions of community scientists supporting global health research.




					covid.joinzoe.com
				



Looks like they want everyone to join, even if you feel completely well.


----------



## Cid (Apr 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> is it this one?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think so, yeah.


----------



## Mation (Apr 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> I think so, yeah.


They do. I didn't notice the location tracking bit before, though.









						Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
					

You're probably getting bored from hearing this now mate but I'm so grateful for your posts on this, its given me a source I can trust for balanced analysis and it's the reason  why I got my parents to isolate over a week early which could save their lives.  It also meant I could make out I knew...




					www.urban75.net


----------



## Cid (Apr 1, 2020)

Mation said:


> They do. I didn't notice the location tracking bit before, though.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ah... I can see how that might be useful in identifying potential hotspots with minimal testing... If you could do community sampling and work out some band of symptoms that fits particularly well, you could see whether that pattern shows up elsewhere (e.g somewhere with a large percentage of fever, dry cough and loss of taste as opposed to somewhere with a high percentage of fever and blocked nose). Though that would also be affected by demographics and other factors, but I guess still useful.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 1, 2020)

I was eavesdropping on a conversation outside TK Maxx - a guy was passionately arguing that "they should just lock up all the over-70s" and let everyone else go back to normal. After the economic damage and job losses and increased poverty and evictions I think a lot of people will share that view. The bail-out money will be all used up on the government's priorities and the people at the bottom will suffer all over again - for them it will be austerity x 10.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 1, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I was eavesdropping on a conversation outside TK Maxx - a guy was passionately arguing that "they should just lock up all the over-70s" and let everyone else go back to normal. After the economic damage and job losses and increased poverty and evictions I think a lot of people will share that view. The bail-out money will be all used up on the government's priorities and the people at the bottom will suffer all over again - for them it will be austerity x 10.



Economy aside it's a total non-starter. For example there are 4 million 40-44 year olds, and this group has a hospitalisation rate of 4.3% which means 172,000 hospital beds needed just for them within a few weeks.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> is it this one?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yep. I've been on it for a week now. It's also useful to know who's still well, and of course if we then do start to develop symptoms, we're already being tracked even if we never make it to the hospital. Absent an effective testing regime, I can see all kinds of ways this study could be useful if enough people sign up to it.

I'm normally resistant to this kind of monitoring, but I think circumstances make this an exception.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 1, 2020)

Talking to a funeral director mate this morning, they are now dealing with their first 4 Covid-19 cases, two are local, one from London & the other from Hampshire, returning to Worthing for their funerals.   

Apparently the crematorium will be operating on Good Friday & Easter Monday, with plans in place for longer working hours & operating weekends, if required.


----------



## T & P (Apr 1, 2020)

An interesting and sobering short article in The Guardian about the care most Covid-patients that have to go to hospital are likely to receive, and the different sets of healthcare workers that will look after them and what they have to do








						From ambulance to physio: what a Covid-19 NHS patient should expect
					

Hospital and ambulance staff from paramedics to radiographers share their experiences




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 1, 2020)

What that article fails to say is that some of clinical staff will be sleep-deprived, having to deal with double the number of patients and perhaps not working in their usual specialism. There will be fuck-ups, standards of care will oscillate and some patients will have a far more unpleasant time than they should. Some will have worse outcomes than they should, with longer recovery periods and some deaths. (I'm not a clinician, just a one-time ICU patient when mistakes were made.)


----------



## zahir (Apr 1, 2020)

Anthony Costello talking about the need for testing.


----------



## weepiper (Apr 1, 2020)

All of Edinburgh's August festivals including the Fringe the Tattoo etc cancelled for 2020, thank fuck.


----------



## Doodler (Apr 1, 2020)

Gove must be thinking along the lines of cometh the hour cometh the man as he utters his measured and rehearsed sentences at the briefings.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 1, 2020)

I get these weekly emails. They're great right now... all sort of insider stuff on the banks/loans etc









						Latest weekly email: Mobile prices have HALVED in 2yrs
					

Over 50 ways to save, incl... HALVE mobile costs, free £40 M&S, £1 LISAs, £13 b'band, free McD's drink, urgent loan reclaim, £70 Boots skincare £27, Amazon code?, £40 investment cashback




					www.moneysavingexpert.com


----------



## robsean (Apr 1, 2020)

563


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 1, 2020)

woah


----------



## brogdale (Apr 1, 2020)

With a likely 15 days more until the impact of Johnson's pivot to 'lockdown' could impact on death rates.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 1, 2020)

Fuck. And given the UK's appalling lack of testing,  we have little idea how high it might go. was 5k a day, now 8k a day. Germany has tested more than 1 million people already.


----------



## LDC (Apr 1, 2020)

This thread is for lockdown news in theory not general news, the other thread I think is for that, although it's not helped by the fact there are 2 threads that have UK news in the title. Maybe we could make this one UK lockdown news and discussion and the other one UK general news and discussion editor


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This thread is for lockdown news in theory not general news, the other thread I think is for that, although it's not helped by the fact there are 2 threads that have UK news in the title. Maybe we could make this one UK lockdown news and discussion and the other one UK general news and discussion editor



The other one is not for general news or discussions. If the word epidemic was inserted into the title of the other thread then maybe it would help.

This thread is not just for lockdown news. The pace of this one moves faster than the other one because discussions are involved. I mostly use the other one as a reference point that it is not too hard to look back at later without being overwhelmed by discussion and other topics rather than the science, numbers, epidemic modelling etc that the other one is mostly managing to stick to so far. I dont think it matters if some of that news also ends up duplicated in this one.

I know its not perfect, there are other ways things could be divided, but I am against further mucking around at this stage, I think it will be fine.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 1, 2020)

That's 563+ iirc (doesn't include those who died outside of hospitals). And with the criminal lack of testing it's quite hard to know whether we are at peaks, flattened curves or what.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> That's 563+ iirc (doesn't include those who died outside of hospitals). And with the criminal lack of testing it's quite hard to know whether we are at peaks, flattened curves or what.


Yep we're totally in the dark. We have to try going by patterns from elsewhere in terms of how things are changing x days after lockdown. But we really still can have no idea how bad things were already at the point of lockdown, and that appears to be crucial wrt what level things reach before flattening.

They're now saying they'll have capacity for 25,000 tests per day _by the end of April_. That's not nearly good enough. Just in time, hopefully, for the peak to have come and gone already.


----------



## maomao (Apr 1, 2020)

I think the dips in death figures on Sunday and Monday (which happened last Sunday and Monday too) is probably down to some sort of paperwork bottleneck at the weekend.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2020)

As I've said before, the numbers released on a given day did not reflect the deaths within a 24 hour period, some of them were for much, much earlier. I dont know to what extent that will improve, since I am not fortunate enough to actually receive that data in full form every day, only the press get it


----------



## LDC (Apr 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> The other one is not for general news or discussions. If the word epidemic was inserted into the title of the other thread then maybe it would help.
> 
> This thread is not just for lockdown news. The pace of this one moves faster than the other one because discussions are involved. I mostly use the other one as a reference point that it is not too hard to look back at later without being overwhelmed by discussion and other topics rather than the science, numbers, epidemic modelling etc that the other one is mostly managing to stick to so far. I dont think it matters if some of that news also ends up duplicated in this one.
> 
> I know its not perfect, there are other ways things could be divided, but I am against further mucking around at this stage, I think it will be fine.



OK, I was told that myself a bit ago. Anyway fine but I'm finding I'm missing things and it feels a bit of a mess to follow now though. Maybe just the titles could be clearer.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 1, 2020)

Or we could just have one huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge thread so EVERYTHING's together and we can search for whatever we want on it.

Ah I see you can search by forum - as you were


----------



## treelover (Apr 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> Doctors being stopped from speaking out.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



incredible and alarming


----------



## treelover (Apr 1, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Jesus christ LinkedIn is depressing right now in my industry. Any job that does pop up is greeted by thousands of applications and the number of even very senior people fishing around for work is even more depressing. We're fucked. This is unreal. All the recruitment consultants I used to get work with seem to have lost their jobs too. And I really can't see it recovering for a very, very long time. Nobody's got any budget for hires.



i am still struggling for carers,. but I suppose people want to do this even less, now given possible risks.


----------



## treelover (Apr 1, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Gove caught out lying again.
> 
> View attachment 204269



So is Gove lying?

good work by Peston, could have done more of it during the GE.


----------



## treelover (Apr 1, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> UWE Bristol's exhibition centre -  (used to be HP's hard drive factory) -  is being gutted and prepared to act as a hospital ...



we made HD's?


----------



## treelover (Apr 1, 2020)

Mation said:


> View attachment 204296
> 
> What?
> 
> ...



lost smell but not taste, been awhile now, not back yet.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 1, 2020)

So what is the issue with getting testing going properly? Beyond 'Johnson/the Government are shit' which is no doubt true but doesn't really explain the situation. I've read a lot about how it isn't happening but I'm not clear what the obstacles are at this point?


----------



## keybored (Apr 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> Doctors being stopped from speaking out.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This Tweet (and the account that posted it) mysteriously disappeared but it's still in Google cache for now.


```
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8hu5kU0Xsm0J:https://twitter.com/MrBazJ/status/1244536919448596480+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-b-d
```



Spoiler: screenshot


----------



## weltweit (Apr 1, 2020)

It sounds like a lot of SMEs are going to fold, despite the announced government assistance, they are running out of working capital and without invoicing and regular income they can't afford to furlaugh at 80% of salaries.


----------



## souljacker (Apr 1, 2020)

keybored said:


> This Tweet (and the account that posted it) mysteriously disappeared but it's still in Google cache for now.
> 
> 
> ```
> ...



I thought the expiry date issue was sorted a while back? We have loads of mothballed masks that are officially out of date but they were tested and found to still be effective? The date thing was raised very early on in the pandemic as far as I remember.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 1, 2020)

treelover said:


> So is Gove lying?
> 
> good work by Peston, could have done more of it during the GE.


It looks like lying to me.


----------



## bimble (Apr 1, 2020)

This is long but it makes a proper attempt to explain how come Germany is so far ahead of us in testing. 








						Why is Germany able to test for coronavirus so much more than the UK?
					

It is now well known that Germany is able to test for coronavirus on a far greater scale than the rest of Europe. The way in which the country has managed to scale up its capacity is truly remarkable. It provides lessons for other European countries – such as France and the United Kingdom – […]



					reaction.life


----------



## two sheds (Apr 1, 2020)

teqniq said:


> It looks like lying to me.



He opened his mouth you mean?


----------



## Raheem (Apr 1, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> So what is the issue with getting testing going properly? Beyond 'Johnson/the Government are shit' which is no doubt true but doesn't really explain the situation. I've read a lot about how it isn't happening but I'm not clear what the obstacles are at this point?


Don't know. But I wonder if there's a nervousness about testing NHS workers (they can't start testing and not include NHS workers) and finding that the proption who then have to be sent into self-isolation is so great that it will cause a disaster. So, just maybe, they are stalling while they work out what they can do in that eventuality.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 1, 2020)

I keep feeling uneasy about this phrase 'protect the NHS'. Maybe partly because it's the Tories saying it and the hypocrisy brings up sick in my mouth, but it's more than that. I think I would rather they say 'protect other people'. That's what it really means after all. And there's something weird and weaselly about not saying that, like they assume people don't care about other people but that they do have some warm glow of nationalistic pride about the NHS. I can't help thinking it's because they don't have much genuine empathy themselves, but understand vague feelings of nationalistic pride. So they've decided to talk in that language. I find something horrible about it, but of course it's difficult to criticise because then they can say 'what, you don't want to protect the NHS?'


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 1, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I keep feeling uneasy about this phrase 'protect the NHS'. Maybe partly because it's the Tories saying it and the hypocrisy brings up sick in my mouth, but it's more than that. I think I would rather they say 'protect other people'. That's what it really means after all. And there's something weird and weaselly about not saying that, like they assume people don't care about other people but that they do have some warm glow of nationalistic pride about the NHS. I can't help thinking it's because they don't have much genuine empathy themselves, but understand vague feelings of nationalistic pride. So they've decided to talk in that language. I find something horrible about it, but of course it's difficult to criticise because then they can say 'what, you don't want to protect the NHS?'



Tbf their catchphrase does include 'save lives' as the ultimate goal. 

Our local council is using 'Protect Key Workers' in place of 'Protect the NHS' btw.


----------



## agricola (Apr 1, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I keep feeling uneasy about this phrase 'protect the NHS'. Maybe partly because it's the Tories saying it and the hypocrisy brings up sick in my mouth, but it's more than that. I think I would rather they say 'protect other people'. That's what it really means after all. And there's something weird and weaselly about not saying that, like they assume people don't care about other people but that they do have some warm glow of nationalistic pride about the NHS. I can't help thinking it's because they don't have much genuine empathy themselves, but understand vague feelings of nationalistic pride. So they've decided to talk in that language. I find something horrible about it, but of course it's difficult to criticise because then they can say 'what, you don't want to protect the NHS?'



Its a simple line and its true - we need to wherever possible prevent people getting sick with this.  "Protect other people" would be less likely to work; as you say they give the impression of not giving two figs about others and a lot of people seem (at least based on that Friday a couple of weeks ago) that they'd rather have a good time than do that.

I do wish they'd make more of the wartime parallels in the advertising for this though; not in the way that they've been doing but showing what people really did during the Blitz - ie: stay safe in the shelter, not walk around / go to the pub / buy easter eggs whilst the Luftwaffe was overhead.


----------



## agricola (Apr 1, 2020)




----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 1, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Tbf their catchphrase does include 'save lives' as the ultimate goal.


Yeah, they just say 'protect the NHS' much more, and 'save lives' is a more abstract way of putting it I think. The choice to focus on the NHS comes through quite strongly.

And it won't help protect the NHS for people to have warm fuzzy feelings about it - they are not in any way sabotaging their own goal of having the NHS as branding on a lot of privatised services.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 1, 2020)

Gove has so far been the only Johnson replacement - at the daily press conference - that has been in the least bit animated, the rest are pretty poor examples of public speaking imo. And Gove seems to have mislead us about reagents being in short supply, if Peston is to be believed.

I don't mind the simple slogan, though it was probably thought up by Johnson and Cummins and is therefore best when delivered by Boris.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 1, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I thought the expiry date issue was sorted a while back? We have loads of mothballed masks that are officially out of date but they were tested and found to still be effective? The date thing was raised very early on in the pandemic as far as I remember.



Yep, according to my SiS, who used to head up NHS labs, the dates are 'best before' rather than 'use by' dates, and thinks they will be absolutely fine, whilst also wondering WTF they are doing putting new date stickers over the original dates, as if that would fool anyone, and has basically caused paranoia.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 1, 2020)

It is about protecting the NHS, about saving healthcare as we know it because that, which we take for granted in our part of the world, is what ultimately makes and keep us 'civilised'. And of course the ultimate end of that is that it saves lives. But we can't save lives without the system to do so. Johnson saying 'protect the NHS' isn't some radical call to arms for socialist healthcare. It's just a genuine need for healthcare. The Italians, Spanish etc etc are all saying the same thing. Because the collapse of the healthcare system would be no fun for 'civilisation'.

The irony of this is 'protect the NHS' while not giving them tests (less than half of one per cent of NHS workers tested so far) and not giving them PPE. Total incompetence.


----------



## Cid (Apr 1, 2020)

weltweit said:


> It sounds like a lot of SMEs are going to fold, despite the announced government assistance, they are running out of working capital and without invoicing and regular income they can't afford to furlaugh at 80% of salaries.



Yeah, most of the SMEs near me (joinery, car repairs, shot blasting - general light industry) are just scaling back as best they can, running on skeleton crews and taking the little work there is going. It’s pretty standard to have leasing arrangements in place for machinery etc, on top of rents that have risen over the last few years... So really not sure they have much choice. To be fair to our own landlord, he's cut our rent by 20%, which will help a bit (My workshop is 4 self employed people, but the guys upstairs are a small partnership). We're hoping to get business rates grant, but no guarantee of that, and other stuff is fairly uncertain. So we'll keep working as long as we can.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> ..
> So we'll keep working as long as we can.


I think that is the secret, as long as your customers are still buying, keep working and keep getting paid!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> Its a simple line and its true - we need to wherever possible prevent people getting sick with this.  "Protect other people" would be less likely to work; as you say they give the impression of not giving two figs about others and a lot of people seem (at least based on that Friday a couple of weeks ago) that they'd rather have a good time than do that.
> 
> I do wish they'd make more of the wartime parallels in the advertising for this though; not in the way that they've been doing but showing what people really did during the Blitz - ie: stay safe in the shelter, not walk around / go to the pub / buy easter eggs whilst the Luftwaffe was overhead.


Agree with your first bit. And I also disagree with the idea floated that making people feel fuzzy about the NHS isn't going to undermine plans to privatise it. I think, at the very least, that the govt is going to feel obliged to up health spending considerably after this. Their plans for selling it off become a whole lot more difficult to sell/get away with on the sly, surely.

I totally disagree with your second bit though.  This isn't the Blitz. The danger then was to yourself, primarily, if you were out and about, not to others. The Blitz was genuinely terrifying and it took real courage to do the jobs that required staying above ground. Without seeking to downplay the brilliant work being done by key workers at the moment, this is really a whole order of magnitude less than that, and I'm not sure hyperbole is helpful.


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 1, 2020)

treelover said:


> we made HD's?


Apparently - or at least that's what I was always told ... perhaps they actually assembled far east HDs in network storage solutions ...


----------



## DaveCinzano (Apr 1, 2020)

Edie said:


> £37.5k?!
> View attachment 204251





Thora said:


> What is that, as a job?





Edie said:


> I’ve no idea. Receptionist I thought?





bimble said:


> It’s a reception job at the new excel center massive coronavirus hospital isn’t it? So risk money maybe.





Thora said:


> Isn't "helpdesk" an IT thing?  I've not seen NHS reception jobs advertised as helpdesk roles before.





bimble said:


> Yeah it’s weird. Just found the ad and it promises full ppe & sickness benefit as well. No mention of any skills required.


Well, NHS staff (excluding doctors and some senior managers and a few other exceptions, are paid according to the nationally agreed ‘Agenda for Change’ (AfC) framework. Whilst individual job specs throughout the 1.4million-strong workforce may differ, particularly across different sites, services and Trusts, they are meant to match up to national job profiles.

By way of an example: a typical Admin & Clerical job at a busy inner city hospital, in which staff perform both front desk ‘receptionist’ duties, but also back office administration duties...



Spoiler



...admitting, transferring and discharging patients from all wards across the Trust on the Patient Admission System; auditing bed movements; accurately recording cubicle occupancy and liaising with Infection Control; working with Hotel Services to ensure timely deep cleans where necessary; providing information to patients, visitors and members of the public; assisting patients with Outpatient appointments; taking delivery/ensuring proper collection of biomedical samples, urgently requested equipment from other hospitals etc; tracking outlier patients (i.e. those temporarily admitted onto ‘wrong’ wards at busy times) for bed management purposes; coordinating and booking taxis for deliveries, patient movement, staff transport and other purposes; managing Patient Transport for the 128 hours per week (76%) that the higher-paid Patient Transport team does not operate; tracing, collecting and delivering Medical Records to wards for the 118 hours per week (70%) that the much larger Medical Records team does not operate; working closely with House and Lodge Porters to ensure the smooth movement of patients and materials around sites; dealing directly with violent, angry, abusive, upset and sometimes just plain scary patients/visitors/random members of the public without safety equipment; and many, many more tasks, around the clock, for 12 hour shifts, often working alone even when the recommendation is for two or even three people to be covering the workload...



...is classified at the whopping grade of Band 2 (currently starting at £17,652, rising to £18,005 from this April). Oh, and Band 2 starting salary is _exactly the same_ as Band 1. The role would also typically require Enhanced DBS due to contact with vulnerable and young people.

You can see NHS AfC pay scales here:





__





						Annual pay scales 2020/21
					

Annual pay scales 2020/21 for staff under the NHS terms and conditions of service.




					www.nhsemployers.org
				




You can see National Job Profiles here:





__





						National job profiles
					

Find out how NHS jobs are matched to nationally evaluated job profiles.




					www.nhsemployers.org
				




A £37,500 starting salary would put the role towards the top of Band 6. Band 6 IM&T roles would include things like Information Analyst Specialist (Statistics/Information
Management/Public Health Intelligence), Technical Engineer and Team Leader (source). A standard IT Helpdesk Technician job would typically be Band 4 (starting salary: £21,892).


----------



## existentialist (Apr 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> Its a simple line and its true - we need to wherever possible prevent people getting sick with this.  "Protect other people" would be less likely to work; as you say they give the impression of not giving two figs about others and a lot of people seem (at least based on that Friday a couple of weeks ago) that they'd rather have a good time than do that.
> 
> I do wish they'd make more of the wartime parallels in the advertising for this though; not in the way that they've been doing but showing what people really did during the Blitz - ie: stay safe in the shelter, not walk around / go to the pub / buy easter eggs whilst the Luftwaffe was overhead.



I know just the man for the job!





Nigel, your time has come...!


----------



## weltweit (Apr 1, 2020)

Pretty shocking, a Welsh GP practice sent out letters to elderly and ill patients asking them to sign a DNR to free up the NHS for younger more deserving patients! wtf 

Probably posted somewhere but I reckon this thread needed it. 



> A GP surgery has apologised after sending a letter asking patients with life-limiting illnesses to complete a "do not resuscitate" form.
> 
> A letter, from Llynfi Surgery, Maesteg, asks people to sign to ensure emergency services would not be called if their condition worsened due to coronavirus.
> 
> "We will not abandon you.. but we have to be frank and realistic," it said.


from GP surgery apology over 'do not resuscitate' form

and 


> GPs’ practice backs down after bid to focus resources on those more likely to survive Covid-19
> ..
> An NHS health board has apologised after a GP surgery in Wales recommended patients with serious illnesses complete “do not resuscitate” forms in case their health deteriorated after contracting coronavirus.
> 
> Llynfi surgery, in Maesteg near Port Talbot, wrote to a “small number” of patients on Friday to ask them to complete a “DNACPR” – do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation – form to ensure emergency services would not be called if they contracted Covid-19 and their health deteriorated.





> “This is a very difficult letter for the practice to write to you,” it read, noting people with illnesses such as incurable cancer, motor neurone disease and pulmonary fibrosis were at a much greater risk from the virus.
> 
> “We would therefore like to complete a DNACPR form for you which we can share … which will mean that in the event of a sudden deterioration in your condition because [of] Covid infection or disease progression the emergency services will not be called and resuscitation attempts to restart your heart or breathing will not be attempted,” it continued.


from Welsh surgery apologises over 'do not resuscitate' instruction


----------



## existentialist (Apr 1, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Gove has so far been the only Johnson replacement - at the daily press conference - that has been in the least bit animated, the rest are pretty poor examples of public speaking imo. And Gove seems to have mislead us about reagents being in short supply, if Peston is to be believed.
> 
> I don't mind the simple slogan, though it was probably thought up by Johnson and Cummins and is therefore best when delivered by Boris.


Yes, Gove is quite a good - if blatant - liar.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 1, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I keep feeling uneasy about this phrase 'protect the NHS'. Maybe partly because it's the Tories saying it and the hypocrisy brings up sick in my mouth, but it's more than that. I think I would rather they say 'protect other people'. That's what it really means after all. And there's something weird and weaselly about not saying that, like they assume people don't care about other people but that they do have some warm glow of nationalistic pride about the NHS. I can't help thinking it's because they don't have much genuine empathy themselves, but understand vague feelings of nationalistic pride. So they've decided to talk in that language. I find something horrible about it, but of course it's difficult to criticise because then they can say 'what, you don't want to protect the NHS?'


What really matters is that, when this is all over, we are all still saying "Protect the NHS" back to *them*. And meaning it.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> I do wish they'd make more of the wartime parallels in the advertising for this though; not in the way that they've been doing but showing what people really did during the Blitz - ie: stay safe in the shelter, not walk around / go to the pub / buy easter eggs whilst the Luftwaffe was overhead.



I very much doubt they are keen to remind us what people really did in the Blitz.



> This was at odds with the experience of the people in the Working Class areas of London, who were now being systematically bombed day and night.
> 
> Stepney councillor Piratin, who became the post-War Communist MP for Stepney, took 50 workers and what Time magazine called ‘ill-clad children’ up to the Strand and forced his way into the Savoy on the second Saturday of the Blitz, September 14.
> 
> ...


----------



## agricola (Apr 1, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I totally disagree with your second bit though.  This isn't the Blitz. The danger then was to yourself, primarily, if you were out and about, not to others. The Blitz was genuinely terrifying and it took real courage to do the jobs that required staying above ground. Without seeking to downplay the brilliant work being done by key workers at the moment, this is really a whole order of magnitude less than that, and I'm not sure hyperbole is helpful.



I agree it isn't, but we have so many whoppers going around saying that it is that perhaps the way to explain to them is to point out what actually happened (including smokedout 's post above).


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2020)

I know I've made the point about the daily UK deaths not actually reflecting deaths that took place in a 24 hour period, but this detail from todays update of the HSJ map really illustrates how long the delays have been in some cases:



> The figures were collated between 5pm on Monday and 5pm on Tuesday, but due to the need to inform relatives and authenticate reports, many of the deaths occured earlier than this day (in this case as far back as 3 March)











						Hospital deaths falling at fastest rate yet
					

Deaths from covid-19 in England's hospitals are declining at the fastest rate yet, as the whole South West region sees one death in seven days.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

agricola said:


>



Policy decisions like that are way above his pay grade. I've never seen such unanimous condemnation of the government from across the political spectrum: even the _Mail_ and _Telegraph_ are denouncing inaction with the ruddy-faced fury of a saloon bar Blimp.

With the private sector moving unilaterally (those 100,000 Ocado test kits won't be the last), other European states like Denmark already looking to end their lockdown, and summer on the horizon, this is unsustainable.


----------



## Cid (Apr 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Policy decisions like that are way above his pay grade.



He was just fronting the daily briefing.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> He was just fronting the daily briefing.


Yes, which is why I don't share the Tweet's despair.

Piers Morgan's already given Johnson an exit strategy of his own in the _Mail_: dump the blame on the government's scientists like a King dismissing his bad advisors and switch to mass testing. Or less dramatically, claim the "science has changed" yet again.


----------



## Cid (Apr 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Yes, which is why I don't share the Tweet's despair.



Why not? You think the government wouldn't have briefed him if there was a testing plan waiting in the wings?


----------



## zahir (Apr 1, 2020)

More articles calling for mass testing.









						A public inquiry into the UK's coronavirus response would find a litany of failures | Anthony Costello
					

Any self-respecting pandemic crisis team should have realised the importance of mass testing from the outset, says Anthony Costello, a former director of maternal and child health at the WHO




					www.theguardian.com
				












						The lockdown only buys us time: to really defeat the virus we need mass testing now | Devi Sridhar
					

Instead of endless mass isolation or just waiting for a cure, the UK needs a data-driven, targeted approach to coronavirus testing, says Devi Sridhar of the University of Edinburgh




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> Why not? You think the government wouldn't have briefed him if there was a testing plan waiting in the wings?


Of course, but not if they hadn't changed policy yet. The plan follows on from that, and there's several outside the govt ready to go (such as repurposing university labs). Any U-turn is gonna be announced by Johnson, Gove, or the CMO/CS, no some placeholder minister most have never heard of.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> More articles calling for mass testing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nearly everyone's calling for it, including the right wing press who usually back the government unequivocally. The stumbling block's dogmatic resistance among the government's scientific and medical advisors and, following from that, the failure to acquire test materials early enough. Not having to stand for election, the advisors might be able to ignore public pressure, but very different dynamics apply to their bosses.


----------



## Callie (Apr 1, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> So what is the issue with getting testing going properly? Beyond 'Johnson/the Government are shit' which is no doubt true but doesn't really explain the situation. I've read a lot about how it isn't happening but I'm not clear what the obstacles are at this point?


I can't say for sure but I feel it's more of an issue of capacity and reagent resource.

Not enough chemical reagents is a bit misleading and sounds like someone doesn't know what they're talking about.

I think the NHS labs running the covid testing are running slightly different tests on slightly different analyser platforms. It's possible that there is one manufacturer/supplier for the reagent pack for the test which can be run in different analysers.

There may be no delay in supplying the chemical reagents required to produce the test reagent packs but manufacturers have to pass quality control for the reagent and each lab that takes on the testing will have to run a verification for the new test - dies this new test give us the results we expect, dies it make a confirmed/known positive positive and confirmed/known negative negative.

I think the test/assay by nature is a bit more sensitive to environmental changes, it's a bit more temperamental.

If you're running your analyser full pelt for most of the day but your quality control test fails you are going to lose half a days worth of results.

Yadda Yadda Yadda

There is also the issues the NHS us seeing all over the shop - staff are falling ill and having to isolate. This means fewer people to receive the samples for testing, book them into the lab system, prep them for testing, set up the analyser, run any analyser maintenance, run the QC, check the results, release the results, send the results to all the other labs that sent samples to you for testing who then gave to manually transcribe those results into their systems which need to be checked for errors then validated and released to the requesters.

Nothing is particularly automated, well linked IT wise or designed to aid fast and efficient workfloe because that costs money and why bother investing in NHS pathology. 

Sumfing like that. It was slow getting things off the ground. I think PHE have been working to verify/validate any new tests/assays so they can recommend which ones perform the best so labs can use those ones however this takes time but each lab then still has to verify for themselves.


----------



## agricola (Apr 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Nearly everyone's calling for it, including the right wing press who usually back the government unequivocally. *The stumbling block's dogmatic resistance among the government's scientific and medical advisors* and, following from that, the failure to acquire test materials early enough. Not having to stand for election, the advisors might be able to ignore public pressure, but very different dynamics apply to their bosses.



TBF I find this bit really hard to believe.  Yes, there might be a debate over a mass testing programme amongst those experts, but the problems with testing go far further than that and have done for weeks.   Even if the public weren't going to be tested, they should have at least ensured that any NHS person who came down with symptoms and self-isolated and had been in work recently had one ASAP.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> TBF I find this bit really hard to believe.  Yes, there might be a debate over a mass testing programme amongst those experts, but the problems with testing go far further than that and have done for weeks.   Even if the public weren't going to be tested, they should have at least ensured that any NHS person who came down with symptoms and self-isolated and had been in work recently had one ASAP.


I find it hard to believe too, but it's what the evidence discussed in these threads points to: Chief Scientist Vallance dismissed mass testing on a Radio 4 interview and of course defended "herd immunity", and the deputy CMO has expressed a dogmatic opposition to it that baffles public health experts. The Imperial modelling relied on by Whitehall didn't factor in mass testing, and they're working from a flu-based pandemic plan that assumes containment and eradication is impossible.

It's tempting to blame the current disaster on politicians overruling scientists and doctors for base economic motives, but that's not the whole story. Cummings and his weirdos may've been attracted to "herd immunity" for their own warped reasons, but it's been reported that he works closely and well with Vallance. They'd be nowhere without their enablers.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2020)

Its a question of both actual capacity and a consequence of their communications strategy so far trying to make it look like they didnt massively change plans a couple of weeks ago.

The latter now seems to be firmly on the press radar, because I saw language from both the BBC and the Guardian today which was questioning whether the government were actually committed to the future widespread testing of people and the strategy that goes with it or not. They were trying to figure that out from some of the press conference answers, with mixed results.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> TBF I find this bit really hard to believe.  Yes, there might be a debate over a mass testing programme amongst those experts, but the problems with testing go far further than that and have done for weeks.   Even if the public weren't going to be tested, they should have at least ensured that any NHS person who came down with symptoms and self-isolated and had been in work recently had one ASAP.


It's a fucking shambles. The 'total cases' figure on the running totals boards is now a total anomaly. _Everyone else_ appears to be testing more. The UK is uniquely shit.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2020)

eg BBC live page earlier (19:01) : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52115535



> *Questions remain over UK plans for testing*
> Leila Nathoo
> BBC political correspondent
> Upping the pace of coronavirus testing - it's the UK government’s "top priority” in the words of Business Secretary Alok Sharma.
> ...


----------



## agricola (Apr 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I find it hard to believe too, but it's what the evidence discussed in these threads points to: Chief Scientist Vallance dismissed mass testing on a Radio 4 interview and of course defended "herd immunity", and the deputy CMO has expressed a dogmatic opposition to it that baffles public health experts. The Imperial modelling relied on by Whitehall didn't factor in mass testing, and they're working from a flu-based pandemic plan that assumes containment and eradication is impossible.
> 
> It's tempting to blame the current disaster on politicians overruling scientists and doctors for base economic motives, but that's not the whole story. Cummings and his weirdos may've been attracted to "herd immunity" for their own warped reasons, but it's been reported that he works closely and well with Vallance. They'd be nowhere without their enablers.



I can believe that they are working to a plan, and I can even believe that Vallance, Whitty et al dismiss mass testing - but I'd be genuinely amazed if the plan, when discussing how many of the NHS would be affected, didn't say that they would see whether they had actually been affected or not.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2020)

> With testing levels still well below target, Labour called on Wednesday for Boris Johnson to publish a clear “national testing strategy” that sets out exactly how the government plans to expand its programme in the coming weeks.
> 
> As well as coming under fire over the logistical problems, No 10 and its advisers are facing questions about why they are refusing to commit to a future strategy of mass testing of the general population as well as of NHS workers and patients in hospitals.
> 
> ...











						Just 2,000 key NHS staff have been tested, UK government admits
					

Health officials urged to drop strict rules hampering introduction of mass testing




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a question of both actual capacity and a consequence of their communications strategy so far trying to make it look like they didnt massively change plans a couple of weeks ago.
> 
> The latter now seems to be firmly on the press radar, because I saw language from both the BBC and the Guardian today which was questioning whether the government were actually committed to the future widespread testing of people and the strategy that goes with it or not. They were trying to figure that out from some of the press conference answers, with mixed results.


They undoubtedly panicked two weeks ago when the Imperial numbers came out and "#boristhebutcher / #herdimmunityismurder" were trending hashtags on Twitter, but the underlying rationale doesn't seem to've kept pace with events, leaving us with today's testing debacle at the presser.

Biggest problem ATM appears to be rudderlessness in Whitehall, with the entire senior team either quarantined or discredited. Any vaguely functioning government would've immediately sacked Vallance to signal a change in policy, and ramped up mass testing long before even their most reliable media allies turned on them over their inaction.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> They undoubtedly panicked two weeks ago when the Imperial numbers came out and "#boristhebutcher / #herdimmunityismurder" were trending hashtags on Twitter, but the underlying rationale doesn't seem to've kept pace with events, leaving us with today's testing debacle at the presser.
> 
> Biggest problem ATM appears to be rudderlessness in Whitehall, with the entire senior team either quarantined or discredited. Any vaguely functioning government would've immediately sacked Vallance to signal a change in policy, and ramped up mass testing long before even their most reliable media allies turned on them over their inaction.


I agree. They're a weird mix of dithering and incompetence at the moment. For all the posturing, Johnson has a very soft underbelly and his cabinet of the nobodies and mediocrities who backed him last year is a reflection of that.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> I can believe that they are working to a plan, and I can even believe that Vallance, Whitty et al dismiss mass testing - but I'd be genuinely amazed if the plan, when discussing how many of the NHS would be affected, didn't say that they would see whether they had actually been affected or not.


The NHS part is just weird, and the first strand they're making a (horribly botched) effort to remedy. Maybe they thought that nosocomial infections would lead to a rapid spike and aid "herd immunity", or maybe Hanlon's razor applies and it's simple incompetence. Whichever it is, it just fuels the suspicions of those who, justifiably, see malign motives at work.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I agree. They're a weird mix of dithering and incompetence at the moment. For all the posturing, Johnson has a very soft underbelly and his cabinet of the nobodies and mediocrities who backed him last year is a reflection of that.


I've taken to calling Johnson a Quisling rather than a Chamberlain, as that's not only become a cliché, it's unfair even to old Neville (who at least pursued rearmament alongside Appeasement, which, it suits us to forget, had overwhelming public support at the time), but even this may be giving him too much credit. At least Quisling had a plan to sell out his country. Johnson's just overwhelmed by events, a void of panicked inactivity, holed up impotently in his Covid funkhole and wondering where it all went wrong.


----------



## agricola (Apr 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> The NHS part is just weird, and the first strand they're making a (horribly botched) effort to remedy. Maybe they thought that nosocomial infections would lead to a rapid spike and aid "herd immunity", or maybe Hanlon's razor applies and it's simple incompetence. *Whichever it is, it just fuels the suspicions of those who, justifiably, see malign motives at work.*



That is true, though if that is what it is then its so incompetent that I fully understand why people think that.  

The usefulness of people who have had it and have some kind of immunity (even if its only temporary, and obviously it needs to be confirmed) is massive, both in terms of doing things and preventing other people from having to do them.  Not identifying these people is madness.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> That is true, though if that is what it is then its so incompetent that I fully understand why people think that.
> 
> The usefulness of people who have had it and have some kind of immunity (even if its only temporary, and obviously it needs to be confirmed) is massive, both in terms of doing things and preventing other people from having to do them.  Not identifying these people is madness.


Searching desperately for some kinda logic to this fiasco, perhaps they feared that photos of drive-in testing for NHS staff would fuel demands for wider community testing. Given that mass testing and contact tracing have rocketed to top of the media agenda, it's at least feasible.

Also more than willing to accept no underlying reason to the lack of NHS testing beyond the criminal incompetence that's become this government's banner.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Nearly everyone's calling for it, including the right wing press who usually back the government unequivocally. The stumbling block's dogmatic resistance among the government's scientific and medical advisors and, following from that, the failure to acquire test materials early enough. Not having to stand for election, the advisors might be able to ignore public pressure, but very different dynamics apply to their bosses.



I've avoided the tory press even more than usual lately, are they genuinely on the attack over testing, protection for staff, NHS cuts etc? The BBC certainly aren't.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I've avoided the tory press even more than usual lately, are they genuinely on the attack over testing, protection for staff, NHS cuts etc? The BBC certainly aren't.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 1, 2020)

I even saw a Daily Mail front page that used word like 'fiasco' for lack of testing (I think it was).


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I've avoided the tory press even more than usual lately, are they genuinely on the attack over testing, protection for staff, NHS cuts etc? The BBC certainly aren't.


All over the _Mail_ and _Telegraph_. Can't speak for BBC in general, blood pressure won't tolerate their main T.V. news bulletins, but been getting fair bit of play on Radio 4.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> no-one said this. We said that panic buying was being talked up by people eager to blame the public for the crisis, when the bigger strain on the system was people unused to stocking up for a week or so, stocking up for a week or so.
> 
> That people unused to stocking up for a week or two might misjudge the amounts of food they need, or how long it will last shouldn't really be a surprise. It also shouldn't be a surprise that binmen might be noticing food waste a bit more this week, primed as they've been by two weeks headlines.


 
Additionally, people stuck out home might use this excess time they have to go through the cupboards and have a good clear out, also people may have bought food for parties/big family meals with relatives that then didn’t happen. Plenty of plausible/acceptable reasons for this.


----------



## Smangus (Apr 1, 2020)

The gvt fucked it right up. Shows they cannot govern, only throw out slogans. They cannot catch up with testing  now as the infrastructure is not there to do it and the whole world is now competing for the available resources to do it with. 

They look more and more incompetent by the hour and this cannot be blagged as per their usual MO.  I'm no expert by any means but everything I have read points to mass testing as being a very  basic requirement for managing this epidemic and they're failing. 

Reports of lack of ppe in hospitals are consistent and disgusting, yet all they do is parrot out pre-prepared lines on numbers of items issued,with no context.  

It doesn't wash and even the tory press are now questioning their competance. These tory shits  have always wanted their Battle of Britain legacy and now they have one are fucking it up big time. Guess what , it's not so easy to manage is it you fucks.


----------



## HAL9000 (Apr 1, 2020)

This claimed the empty supermarket shelves was caused by most people buying a little bit extra..









						More or Less - Supermarket stockpiling, A-level results and Covid-19 gender disparity - BBC Sounds
					

Is the coronavirus pandemic having a different impact on men and women?




					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Jump to 16 minutes and 8 seconds


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 1, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep. I've been on it for a week now. It's also useful to know who's still well, and of course if we then do start to develop symptoms, we're already being tracked even if we never make it to the hospital. Absent an effective testing regime, I can see all kinds of ways this study could be useful if enough people sign up to it.
> 
> I'm normally resistant to this kind of monitoring, but I think circumstances make this an exception.



I installed it and tried to sign up but I put in a password and click create account nothing happens. It just ignores me.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 1, 2020)

Smangus said:


> The gvt fucked it right up. Shows they cannot govern, only throw out slogans. They cannot catch up with testing  now as the infrastructure is not there to do it and the whole world is now competing for the available resources to do it with.
> 
> They look more and more incompetent by the hour and this cannot be blagged as per their usual MO.  I'm no expert by any means but everything I have read points to mass testing as being a very  basic requirement for managing this epidemic and they're failing.
> 
> ...


In a chink of light, university labs are saying they're ready to step in to help massively increase testing, and companies are offering the relevant products. Germany's decentralised approach has certainly helped (why I've lamented the '70s local govt reforms that destroyed our old independent public health departments).

Greatest block ATM appears to be policy, and the pressure to change that is ferocious.

Churchill's catalogue of errors is legendary, but at least he was willing to change course when it went wrong, fire advisors when they messed up, and for all his ranting, take criticism onboard. Frozen Johnson's the anti-Churchill.


----------



## Smangus (Apr 1, 2020)

Johnson is no Churchill. Any delusions about that should have been well and truly expunged. 

There will be a big political reckoning after this, it's at the start of his tenure too. He will not be remembered for Brexit now but for his response to Covid.


----------



## keybored (Apr 1, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I thought the expiry date issue was sorted a while back? We have loads of mothballed masks that are officially out of date but they were tested and found to still be effective? The date thing was raised very early on in the pandemic as far as I remember.


I don't doubt that (and if I needed PPE in my job I'd certainly sooner have some out of date masks than no protection at all) . I just thought it a bit suss that his 6 year old account disappeared not long after very publicly complaining about his PPE, in light of the post I quoted.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 1, 2020)

Does anyone (informed) have any actual idea of when the social distancing will be stopped?

I get that schools won't be open until sep/oct, that comes from informed sources but when can I go the pub?


----------



## Raheem (Apr 1, 2020)

Tbf, Churchill didn't go into WW2 with the idea you could just leave it to sort itself out and that talk of investing in aeroplanes was OTT.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 1, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone (informed) have any actual idea of when the social distancing will be stopped?
> 
> I get that schools won't be open until sep/oct, that comes from informed sources but when can I go the pub?


My guess is that pubs + entertainments and large gatherings will be just about the last thing to go back to normal.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> My guess is that pubs + entertainments and large gatherings will be just about the last thing to go back to normal.



Ok, when can I have my mates over for a bbq? Like 5 people.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 1, 2020)

Lockdown will become difficult once many people have had (or think they have had) the illness - how can people justifiably be kept in when they are immune? Yet if you let recovered individuals go about their business, how do you enforce who should or shouldn’t be out? ID cards or something? Certificates? People will start claiming they’ve had it just to get back out in the world, to get back to the pub. If it goes on long it will just breakdown in this way.


----------



## Sue (Apr 1, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Ok, when can I have my mates over for a bbq? Like 5 people.


No-one knows.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 1, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Ok, when can I have my mates over for a bbq? Like 5 people.



Just make sure you cook them all the way through.


----------



## zahir (Apr 1, 2020)

Remarkable really.









						Just 2,000 key NHS staff have been tested, UK government admits
					

Health officials urged to drop strict rules hampering introduction of mass testing




					www.theguardian.com
				












						'Absolutely wrong': how UK's coronavirus test strategy unravelled
					

Ministers shrugged off warnings a lack of tests could cost lives, until they were forced to change tack




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 1, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Lockdown will become difficult once many people have had (or think they have had) the illness - how can people justifiably be kept in when they are immune? Yet if you let recovered individuals go about their business, how do you enforce who should or shouldn’t be out? ID cards or something? Certificates? People will start claiming they’ve had it just to get back out in the world, to get back to the pub. If it goes on long it will just breakdown in this way.



Or people will just get sick of it. The police, having now done nearly a whole week's work and all without the vital support normally provided by the nation's kebab shops, must be near to complete collapse already.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Ok, when can I have my mates over for a bbq? Like 5 people.


Funerals are still allowed, and I'm not sure there's a specific rule against drinking, so that might be your earliest opportunity for something close.


----------



## treelover (Apr 2, 2020)

Hope cafes at least can be opened again at some point.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Apr 2, 2020)

Emergency hospital wards have today been set up in abandoned schools and gyms across Cumbria by the military, presumably due to our way above average infection/death rate.

Work on Tuesday was more organised/more to my liking due to actual suit-wearing, bald-headed bouncers arriving to police admittance/social distancing of the queues. Didn't even bother getting my usual weekly shop when I finished, as I am well stocked up (long in advance - paranoid, cynical, overly cautious nature not recent panic-buying). Still not wearing mask or gloves until work tells me I can dress as Scorpion.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

Smangus said:


> Johnson is no Churchill. Any delusions about that should have been well and truly expunged.
> 
> There will be a big political reckoning after this, it's at the start of his tenure too. He will not be remembered for Brexit now but for his response to Covid.


Gotta admit, even someone who loathes Al as much as I do am surprised he isn't doing a better impression. As shown by his Fleet Street run and wins in the mayoralty and election, the one skill he has is gift of the gab and the charisma to sell it. Instead, we get a perverse mix of frivolity and fatalism.

Even from the most cynical POV, he could've used this to bolster his national sovereignty rhetoric by imposing flight bans and quarantine at the borders. Instead he left passengers streaming in from hot spots, bunked off work for his monthly holiday, and hoped it'd all work itself out. Woeful, even judged by his own sorry terms.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 2, 2020)

treelover said:


> Hope cafes at least can be opened again at some point.


Don't see how you can get to a situation where anything can open again without a ton of testing.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 2, 2020)

Wilf said:


> My guess is that pubs + entertainments and large gatherings will be just about the last thing to go back to normal.



You're right, but a lot (generally) depends on how soon the Government end up being kicked to test people much, much more widely. Including antibody testing.
And on when or whether the death rate starts to drop and the new infections rate starts to drop.

No-one knows how long that will take to happen, but I still remain sceptical about six whole months of lock-down, let alone about wild talk of right until Xmas etc.

Some have even suggested eighteen months to two years! Probably with earlier talk of 'eighteen months until a vaccine' in mind, as if that's synonymous with a full-on lock-down for the same period, which IMO it isn't.

A full-on lock-down for periods as long as that seems virtually impossible to sustain.
Some form of relaxation of the rules will have to happen sooner.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Lockdown will become difficult once many people have had (or think they have had) the illness - how can people justifiably be kept in when they are immune? Yet if you let recovered individuals go about their business, how do you enforce who should or shouldn’t be out? ID cards or something? Certificates? People will start claiming they’ve had it just to get back out in the world, to get back to the pub. If it goes on long it will just breakdown in this way.











						Singing stops in Italy as fear and social unrest mount
					

Three weeks on from start of lockdown, Italians are seeing that everything is not all right




					www.theguardian.com
				



Under severe strain in Italy.

Country after country's copied Beijing like dominos falling, without noticing that lockdown wasn't their preferred solution, but a stopgap to buy time while they put in place a test-trace-isolate regime. Knowing its ruinous effect on people and the economy, they rushed to end mass quarantine as soon as possible.

If a government's reached the stage where a lockdown's necessary, they're already failed catastrophically.


----------



## gosub (Apr 2, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Lockdown will become difficult once many people have had (or think they have had) the illness - how can people justifiably be kept in when they are immune? Yet if you let recovered individuals go about their business, how do you enforce who should or shouldn’t be out? ID cards or something? Certificates? People will start claiming they’ve had it just to get back out in the world, to get back to the pub. If it goes on long it will just breakdown in this way.



Met someone on 17th March who had just recovered.  He can't be happy at the mo


----------



## Smangus (Apr 2, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Gotta admit, even someone who loathes Al as much as I do am surprised he isn't doing a better impression. As shown by his Fleet Street run and wins in the mayoralty and election, the one skill he has is gift of the gab and the charisma to sell it. Instead, we get a perverse mix of frivolity and fatalism.
> 
> Even from the most cynical POV, he could've used this to bolster his national sovereignty rhetoric by imposing flight bans and quarantine at the borders. Instead he left passengers streaming in from hot spots, bunked off work for his monthly holiday, and hoped it'd all work itself out. Woeful, even judged by his own sorry terms.



Winning elections and governing countries are 2 different skillsets though. As is being amply demonstrated.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> You're right, but a lot (generally) depends on how soon the Government end up being kicked to test people much, much more widely. Including antibody testing.
> And on when or whether the death rate starts to drop and the new infections rate starts to drop.
> 
> No-one knows how long that will take to happen, but I still remain sceptical about six whole months of lock-down, let alone about wild talk of right until Xmas etc.
> ...


The eighteen month-two year thing comes from the Imperial paper, which didn't plug mass testing and contact tracing into their magic modelling machine. To be fair, they did suggest rolling lockdowns, not continuous detainment.

Even contemplating mass house arrest for that length of time's madness born of panic. I daren't think of the ruinous cost to people's physical and mental health, their finances, and national infrastructure. It'd also have a terrifying mortality rate from ill health exacerbated by being cooped up, diseases undiagnosed, and suicide.

I'm not worried about it: the media were furiously pushing the government on their planned exit strategy today; and it'll be impossible to sustain as summer arrives and surrounding countries end their own lockdowns.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

gosub said:


> Met someone on 17th March who had just recovered.  He can't be happy at the mo


As mentioned on the other thread, I've probably had it (right time and place to be infected, symptoms and course closely tracked, including ones not publicised at the time), but being allowed out wouldn't do much good while the rest of society's shut down.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Singing stops in Italy as fear and social unrest mount
> 
> 
> Three weeks on from start of lockdown, Italians are seeing that everything is not all right
> ...


Yep. So during lockdown you need to have two priorities, which are both equally important, but only one of which is immediately urgent. Gearing up the health services to deal with the onslaught is the immediately urgent thing, but doing that is futile if you're not also working as hard on the second thing, which is the exit strategy. Surely that needs two basically separate teams to lead them. I don't see that at the moment. I just see chaos from a bunch of people trying to coordinate everything at once and inevitably favouring the immediately urgent thing. No lessons learned.


----------



## gosub (Apr 2, 2020)

Azrael said:


> As mentioned on the other thread, I've probably had it (right time and place to be infected, symptoms and course closely tracked, including ones not publicised at the time), but being allowed out wouldn't do much good while the rest of society's shut down.



Oh this bloke had had it, tested and everything and been in the paper


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

gosub said:


> Oh this bloke had had it, tested and everything and been in the paper


Envy him the test: even if I got one privately now, it could well come back negative; and very worrying if there's something _else_ out there that's so similar!


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep. So during lockdown you need to have two priorities, which are both equally important, but only one of which is immediately urgent. Gearing up the health services to deal with the onslaught is the immediately urgent thing, but doing that is futile if you're not also working as hard on the second thing, which is the exit strategy. Surely that needs two basically separate teams to lead them. I don't see that at the moment. I just see chaos from a bunch of people trying to coordinate everything at once and inevitably favouring the immediately urgent thing. No lessons learned.


Multiple commentators saying they need to appoint a minister to oversee mass testing. Since they'd inevitably appoint Grayling, after their swift work throwing up a hospital at the ExCel, lean towards letting the Army organize it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Multiple commentators saying they need to appoint a minister to oversee mass testing. Since they'd inevitably appoint Grayling, after their swift work throwing up a hospital at the ExCel, lean towards letting the Army organize it.


They've been so fucking slow on every single aspect of this. They do the right thing a few days or weeks after it became painfully obvious that it was the thing to do. Still. They're still fucking useless.

Letting the army lead any aspect of this would be the ultimate failure. It would mean we lose any pretence of a democratic system. Help out, sure. But it is not their job to organise it - handing to them is dereliction of duty. It's what Viktor Orban would do.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Apr 2, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Emergency hospital wards have today been set up in abandoned schools and gyms across Cumbria by the military, presumably due to our way above average infection/death rate.



I am quoting myself here, but I find it odd and troubling that the two new hospitals in London and Birmingham get so much press attention when Cumbria with less than 5% of the population of those two cities combined get 500 extra hospital beds overnight.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> They've been so fucking slow on every single aspect of this. They do the right thing a few days or weeks after it became painfully obvious that it was the thing to do. Still. They're still fucking useless.
> 
> Letting the army lead any aspect of this would be the ultimate failure. It would mean we lose any pretence of a democratic system. Help out, sure. But it is not their job to organise it - handing to them is dereliction of duty. It's what Viktor Orban would do.


One more ultimate dereliction to add to the sordid list, but yes, someone elected should be the figurehead, however nominal their authority is in reality.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> You're right, but a lot (generally) depends on how soon the Government end up being kicked to test people much, much more widely. Including antibody testing.
> And on when or whether the death rate starts to drop and the new infections rate starts to drop.
> 
> No-one knows how long that will take to happen, but I still remain sceptical about six whole months of lock-down, let alone about wild talk of right until Xmas etc.
> ...


Yeah, I agree, I was thinking along similar lines last night on some thread or other.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 2, 2020)

Some _learned_ people on this very thread had suggested widespread testing was dumb.


----------



## chainsawjob (Apr 2, 2020)

I'm using the symptom tracker app ( COVID Symptom Tracker - Help slow the spread of COVID-19 ) and I have a question if anyone can help. I submit daily updates on my phone, but if I wanted to do it on my laptop there seems to be a problem. I can't find a button or anything to 'submit your daily update'. Just the option to download the app (which it then tells me I already have installed). There must be a way to submit answers on a computer rather than a phone? I'm just not seeing where though. Asking on  behalf of people without a smartphone.


----------



## bimble (Apr 2, 2020)

This traces the timeline of our gov's fuckup /u-turn re testing and what that wasted time has cost:








						'Absolutely wrong': how UK's coronavirus test strategy unravelled
					

Ministers shrugged off warnings a lack of tests could cost lives, until they were forced to change tack




					www.theguardian.com
				





Front pages of Daily Mail & Telegraph are both properly attacking the gov today (in massive angry headlines about the lack of tests for NHS staff). 
That's quite something, the same papers that helped put these liars and chancers  into power .


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 2, 2020)

What was that phrase that the cunts were so keen on using to attack their opponents during the election? ‘Dither and Delay’. The press/opposition should be ramming this down Johnson’s throat, people are dying while he bumbles and fumbles.


----------



## bimble (Apr 2, 2020)

Fucks sake. Went to petrol station just now (for essential milk!) and this is stuck to all of the pumps. 


Bloke at the counter says that this past week people have been filling up and driving off in a way that he has never seen anything like it. 
Said over the years there's always been the occasional one usually at night but now its families, 'regular people' with kids in the car in the middle of the day etc. 
That's grim as fuck. This is a rich area, petrol station between two well heeled home counties towns full of range rovers. 
Don't know if its because people are too terrified to touch the door handle to get inside the shop to pay or what.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 2, 2020)

chainsawjob said:


> I'm using the symptom tracker app ( COVID Symptom Tracker - Help slow the spread of COVID-19 ) and I have a question if anyone can help. I submit daily updates on my phone, but if I wanted to do it on my laptop there seems to be a problem. I can't find a button or anything to 'submit your daily update'. Just the option to download the app (which it then tells me I already have installed). There must be a way to submit answers on a computer rather than a phone? I'm just not seeing where though. Asking on  behalf of people without a smartphone.


Not familiar with the app, but it's entirely possible that they made it work on mobile only. Tech industry tends to believe that everyone has a smartphone nowadays.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> ..
> Letting the army lead any aspect of this would be the ultimate failure. It would mean we lose any pretence of a democratic system. Help out, sure. But it is not their job to organise it - handing to them is dereliction of duty. It's what Viktor Orban would do.


I don't follow why that might be. The army has specific skills aligned to emergencies, did you not see the soldier on the news last night at the excel centre who basically said that building hospitals from scratch under emergency conditions was what he does!


----------



## Cid (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I think that is the secret, as long as your customers are still buying, keep working and keep getting paid!



The thing that gets me is that much of the funding for SMEs/self-employed is essentially arbitrary. E.g this is our situation. One building, top floor and bottom floor. Top floor is a small SME (partnership of 3, who've just taken on 2 employees), ground floor is me and three other small workshops. The funding states; 1 application per building, apply based on your rates account. Top and bottom floor have different unit names, so we can probably get away with it being two 'buildings'. And we have two separate rates assessments. But, we don't have separate rates assessments on the ground floor, so essentially we get £10k between 4, instead of £10k each. Granted this is probably fair... But 4 years ago, with a slightly different set up where we were rated individually, we'd have got 4 grants. Or possibly, since it was one larger building, 1 grant between 7 companies. So our current situation a claim of anywhere between £10k-£50k (between all 5) is possible. For us self-employed... well... we're probably fine tbh, so long as we can keep working. But upstairs has higher overheads. And obviously a company with still higher overheads, which just happens to occupy a building roughly the same size, gets exactly the same. Our council has been pretty good, they're generous with rates relief (our rateable value is just under the threshold, our rent is actually significantly over)... If they hadn't been we'd have subdivided further, and been eligible for more grants. It's just inconsistent.

For my part, the self-employment thing is also tricky... I was in China for (nearly) a year, my earnings then are I think about £6k. My earnings for last year are countered by the large expense of moving workshops (lost time, high expense). Taken over a 5 year period, or 10 year period, I'd be fine... But it just so happens that these particular 3 years I had much lower than average earnings. So that's what that's based on.

And, of course, all this assumes that whoever is there on the day ticks 'yes' to us being affected by the crisis. Sure, as I say, if we get the grants, we should be ok, and what we're going through is not much compared to those on 0 hours, or just dropped outright. And especially not compared to those losing family members... But the system is just inconsistent, and must require a huge amount of administration.


----------



## baldrick (Apr 2, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is a rich area, petrol station between two well heeled home counties towns full of range rovers.


 What's the relevance of the rich area?


----------



## bimble (Apr 2, 2020)

baldrick said:


> What's the relevance of the rich area?


just that i don't think people are doing it because they cant afford to pay for their petrol. I dont know though obvs.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep. So during lockdown you need to have two priorities, which are both equally important, but only one of which is immediately urgent. Gearing up the health services to deal with the onslaught is the immediately urgent thing, but doing that is futile if you're not also working as hard on the second thing, which is the exit strategy. Surely that needs two basically separate teams to lead them. I don't see that at the moment. I just see chaos from a bunch of people trying to coordinate everything at once and inevitably favouring the immediately urgent thing. No lessons learned.



Even as a lifelong anarchist I still find it hard to accept that there simply aren't any grown ups waiting to step in and start running shit properly when the circus clowns who are somehow the only people the system will allow us to elect have fucked up to the point of gross negligence manslaughter of thousands.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I don't follow why that might be. The army has specific skills aligned to emergencies, did you not see the soldier on the news last night at the excel centre who basically said that building hospitals from scratch under emergency conditions was what he does!


Building a hospital is one thing. Organising a programme of testing in which you are deciding who gets priority and how people need to be controlled while it happens is quite another. 

Much as I detest this government and its incompetence, there are at least mechanisms by which it can be held accountable.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 2, 2020)

RE drive-offs :


bimble said:


> just that i don't think people are doing it because they cant afford to pay for their petrol. I dont know though obvs.



Drive-offs are all idiots 
There's barely a single petrol station in the country that doesn't CCTV them, using ANPR.
They *will *get traced, unless they're 'smart' enough to be driving a vehicle that isn't theirs, or a vehicle that doesn't currently have an official keeper listed.

It's possible drive-offs know they'll be traced, but also know that catching up with them will take time, so go "Fuck it! Let's take some petrol on tick"

Still idiots though !


----------



## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Building a hospital is one thing. Organising a programme of testing in which you are deciding who gets priority and how people need to be controlled while it happens is quite another.
> 
> Much as I detest this government and its incompetence, there are at least mechanisms by which it can be held accountable.


I have lot more faith in our military than I do in elected politicians.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

Some questioning going on over the advice on masks, 2m may just not be enough.








						Coronavirus: Expert panel to assess face mask use by public
					

Experts are set to assess the value of face masks in helping slow the spread of coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (Apr 2, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Not familiar with the app, but it's entirely possible that they made it work on mobile only. Tech industry tends to believe that everyone has a smartphone nowadays.



They might also be wanting to track people as they move, so vulnerable people can be warned if they're near someone with cv.


----------



## alex_ (Apr 2, 2020)

bimble said:


> Don't know if its because people are too terrified to touch the door handle to get inside the shop to pay or what.




Happy to touch the pump though...


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Some questioning going on over the advice on masks, 2m may just not be enough.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



FFS. I can't just now find the post that Teaboy put up about masks and their non-usefulness, but ...




			
				BBC said:
			
		

> The WHO recommends keeping a distance of at least 1m from anyone coughing or sneezing to avoid the risk of infection.
> 
> It says people *who are sick and show symptoms* should wear masks.
> 
> But it advises that healthy people *only need to wear them if they are caring for others suspected of being infected or if they themselves are coughing or sneezing*.



Surely that's enough??


----------



## DexterTCN (Apr 2, 2020)

GIRUY


----------



## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> ..
> Surely that's enough??


Didn't you read the bit that said a sneeze can project droplets 8m? 

I know when I sneeze you better not be 1m away!!


----------



## chainsawjob (Apr 2, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Not familiar with the app, but it's entirely possible that they made it work on mobile only. Tech industry tends to believe that everyone has a smartphone nowadays.



Thanks. Yes I think that might be it. Nothing coming up for googling for a desktop version.



two sheds said:


> They might also be wanting to track people as they move, so vulnerable people can be warned if they're near someone with cv.



It asks you for your postcode. It wouldn't have actual tracking of your movements on it though would it? I keep location turned off so I guess it wouldn't work then, if it did? Perhaps this is a feature they could add in later if they go in that direction.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> FFS. I can't just now find the post that Teaboy put up about masks and their non-usefulness, but ...



Its on the 'covid-19 chat' thread.  I should add it was personal observation only though.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Didn't you read the bit that said a sneeze can project droplets 8m?
> 
> I know when I sneeze you better not be 1m away!!



Fair enough, but I haven't sneezed since about early February, genuinely.
If masks *are* going to be introduced more widely, my point was that people with CV symptoms, (or with general coughs/sneezes that might not be CV) should be the priority.

I was only objecting to the possibility that *EVERYONE* might have to wear masks.
Admittedly, that was only hinted at in the BBC story, not specified.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Didn't you read the bit that said a sneeze can project droplets 8m?
> 
> I know when I sneeze you better not be 1m away!!



I quite like the use of masks in a general manners sort of way.  They way I thought it was historically used in parts of Asia - 'I have a cold, which I don't want to spread'.  I quite like that idea and hope it spreads (ha).  I just don't think we should kid ourselves that they are much use in a global pandemic outside of a medical setting.


----------



## Doodler (Apr 2, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is a rich area, petrol station between two well heeled home counties towns full of range rovers.



The Range Rover is the regimental staff car of the sharp-elbowed and the self-entitled, especially with the meaner-looking models which are supposed to project 'presence'.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> FFS. I can't just now find the post that @Teaboy put up about masks and their non-usefulness, but ...





Teaboy said:


> Its on the 'covid-19 chat' thread.  I should add it was personal observation only though.



Yes, thanks, I've just found it -- bottom of page 29 in the General Covid-19 chat thread

Worth  a  re-read anyway, I'd say, for those interested in the mask issue.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Didn't you read the bit that said a sneeze can project droplets 8m?
> 
> I know when I sneeze you better not be 1m away!!


There is also a lot there about what you have to do to make the masks effective. ie most of the people wandering around in them that I see at the moment - ill-fitting, fiddling with their hands, lifting them to have a drink of something, getting them wet, etc, etc - render them effectively useless. Worse than that, they may be giving people a false sense of security.

The wearing a mask out of politeness cos you have a cold thing in East Asia does have some merit now,_ if you have it_, cos it'll catch your sneeze or cough, but not if you don't. However, the number of people you see walking down the street in masks in East Asia in normal non-c19 times shows that they don't really work even for that. It really is just a politeness thing rather than a serious public health measure.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> FFS. I can't just now find the post that Teaboy put up about masks and their non-usefulness, but ...
> 
> 
> 
> Surely that's enough??


I think mostly it's people who are worried and find the mask a reassurance. But there is a massive danger of false reassurance cos they have it the wrong way around - the mask really should be there to protect others from you, not you from others.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There is also a lot there about what you have to do to make the masks effective. ie most of the people wandering around in them that I see at the moment - ill-fitting, fiddling with their hands, lifting them to have a drink of something, getting them wet, etc, etc - render them effectively useless. Worse than that, they may be giving people a false sense of security.
> 
> The wearing a mask out of politeness cos you have a cold thing in East Asia does have some merit now,_ if you have it_, cos it'll catch your sneeze or cough, but not if you don't. However, the number of people you see walking down the street in masks in East Asia in normal non-c19 times shows that they don't really work even for that. It really is just a politeness thing rather than a serious public health measure.



Originally pollution related, though, although I'm not sure how effective they are for that.


----------



## Yossarian (Apr 2, 2020)

With some uncertainty still about how airborne the virus is, and the success of some mask-wearing East Asian countries in containing outbreaks, wearing masks seems like a no-brainer - maybe some people aren't wearing them properly, but since we've all had weeks of intensive reminders about hand-washing, it could be time for a crash course in mask-wearing.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Originally pollution related, though, although I'm not sure how effective they are for that.


Not in Japan afaik. People wear them when they have a cold. That's the cultural norm there, although it is followed more by women than men.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not in Japan afaik. People wear them when they have a cold. That's the cultural norm there, although it is followed more by women than men.



Interesting, didn't realize. A nice act to be honest, every year I get hit by some or other evil fucking cold. As I say, I'm tempted to keep up this avoiding people lark permanently.


----------



## keybored (Apr 2, 2020)

Doodler said:


> The Range Rover is the regimental staff car of the sharp-elbowed and the self-entitled, especially with the meaner-looking models which are supposed to project 'presence'.


'presence' of a twat, yes.


----------



## Yossarian (Apr 2, 2020)

There's been a lot of debate about the mask issue in Hong Kong recently - locals generally wear masks while Westerners don't, and a recent surge in cases has been linked to some dumb expats who came back from the UK and other European countries before the borders shut and then went to pubs, weddings, yoga classes etc. instead of self-isolating.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 2, 2020)

90-minute testing for hospital wards being rolled out to some hospitals: 









						New rapid coronavirus diagnostic testing technology to be deployed at Addenbrooke's Hospital
					

SAMBA II cutting-edge technology is described as a possible 'game-changer' in fight against Covid-19.




					www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Interesting, didn't realize. A nice act to be honest, every year I get hit by some or other evil fucking cold. As I say, I'm tempted to keep up this avoiding people lark permanently.


Thing is, Yossarian has a point - because it is the cultural norm there, people have some idea how to wear them. The masks I've seen around London in the past few weeks have been worn far more tidily and efficiently by the East Asians wearing them. They appear to actually know what they are doing.


----------



## zahir (Apr 2, 2020)

__





						Coronavirus: death management
					

Coronavirus: death management




					eureferendum.com
				





> The implementation of a large scale testing programme is really not that difficult, as long as it is planned well in advance, and there are more than sufficient resources. An emergency programme could easily have been arranged.
> 
> At the heart of the problem, therefore, is neither a lack of capacity nor capability. The real reason for the failure to mount an extensive programme lies in the document I introduced yesterday setting out the "Pandemic Influenza Strategic Framework".
> 
> ...


----------



## baldrick (Apr 2, 2020)

bimble said:


> just that i don't think people are doing it because they cant afford to pay for their petrol. I dont know though obvs.


Oh right. I'd have said it demonstrates a certain entitlement - common in rich areas ime. People aren't really supposed to be driving now but the fact they are and also helping themselves to petrol is very much congruent with the attitudes common in ppl who have money.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 2, 2020)

baldrick said:


> Oh right. I'd have said it demonstrates a certain entitlement - common in rich areas ime. People aren't really supposed to be driving now but the fact they are and also helping themselves to petrol is very much congruent with the attitudes common in ppl who have money.


That's exactly the same sort of attitude as someone thinking anyone on minimum wage must be a thicko who never finished school and probably has too many children.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 2, 2020)

I posted these videos on th chat thread a couple of days ago.

The first is made by a bloke who studies critical thinking, who has successfully nudged the population of Czechoslovakia to wear facemasks. The second is the video that made it happen.








This article makes it clear the Czechs are having a pretty similar general experience to everyone else (claims and counterclaims, not enough being done soon enough etc). And so far as I can tell, their early hope that the masks would keep numbers low, their numbers are climbing.









						Democracy Digest: Questions Over Czech COVID-19 Response
					

The Czech Republic took swift action to try to head off the coronavirus pandemic. But the government of populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis has still caught flak.




					balkaninsight.com
				




I know this is international not U.K. but the mask part of the story is pertinent to this thread.

weltweit elbows 
How do the Czech numbers compare to anywhere else?


ETA
Also, I note that’s #hash-tag makes an appearance in that first video.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

Czechoslovakia has 40 deaths, which is 4 deaths per million - worse than South Korea and Canada, both on 3, but better than many countries. 3,604 registered cases.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Czechoslovakia has 40 deaths, which is 4 deaths per million - worse than South Korea and Canada, both on 3, but better than many countries. 3,604 registered cases.



And when was their first recorded infection? How far along the curve are they?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 2, 2020)

Czech Republic and Slovakia are separate countries now so how has that been reported?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> And when was their first recorded infection? How far along the curve are they?


Afraid I don't have that info, perhaps elbows might have it. 

I also don't know how vigorous their testing is, 3,600 registered cases is quite a lot, and deaths do lag cases by a few weeks so their fatality figures could yet rise quite a lot.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Czech Republic and Slovakia are separate countries now so how has that been reported?


The worldometer numbers I quoted were for Czechia. from Coronavirus Update (Live): 950,708 Cases and 48,311 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> And when was their first recorded infection? How far along the curve are they?


First death was 22 March. They locked down early (before this death) and are testing widely (more than 50,000 tests in total now), so the overall figure for infections needs to be viewed in that light - they should be further along the curve than us even if their first infection was later if their measures arrested exponential growth.



> The number of daily tests was a record 5,313 on Monday, more than double the figure a week earlier, bringing the total number of tests to 48,811.
> 
> The government aims to increase the testing capacity to 10,000 per day and boost the tracking of contacts of infected people to improve the targeting of quarantine measures.



Czech Republic's coronavirus infections top 3,000

For comparison, Czechia population is just under 1/6 the size of the UK's, so 10,000 is the equivalent of 65,000 here. The UK govt is currently aiming at 25,000 tests per day by the end of April. So they are testing a lot more, and finding well under 10 percent to be positive. Their numbers are more comparable to those of Germany than those of the UK. They're doing better than us, possibly a lot better.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Apr 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Fair enough, but I haven't sneezed since about early February, genuinely.
> If masks *are* going to be introduced more widely, my point was that people with CV symptoms, (or with general coughs/sneezes that might not be CV) should be the priority.
> 
> I was only objecting to the possibility that *EVERYONE* might have to wear masks.
> Admittedly, that was only hinted at in the BBC story, not specified.


you haven't sneezed for 8 weeks AT ALL?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

The sun makes me sneeze. I have to be really careful atm stepping out on a sunny day. Usually twice as well, just for added alarm.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> First death was 22 March. They locked down early (before this death) and are testing widely (more than 50,000 tests in total now), so the overall figure for infections needs to be viewed in that light - they should be further along the curve than us even if their first infection was later if their measures arrested exponential growth.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




We won’t know till all the numbers crunching is completed afterwards but I wonder if the widespread use of masks as outlined in those clips will prove to be a material factor in any good outcomes, or if it’s only/primarily the testing. IE I wonder if, in the absence of testing, universal mask wearing (properly done) makes a difference.

I’m not wearing a mask but I often want to when I’m around those who don’t respect the distancing.

And I’ve seen plenty of mask touching, yanking, loosely fitting chin straps, smoking, phoning etc that just makes them worse than useless, so I’m sure masks would only work if there’s a huge increase in understanding about how to wear them.


----------



## Cid (Apr 2, 2020)

Coronavirus: sponsored by 3M.

I do actually think that masks + public info campaign is worth pursuing though.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The sun makes me sneeze. I have to be really careful atm stepping out on a sunny day. Usually twice as well, just for added alarm.




Photic sneeze reflex!

Or Achoo Symdrome.

It’s genetic.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Photic sneeze reflex!
> 
> Or Achoo Symdrome.
> 
> It’s genetic.


Yeah, my dad has it as well. It's even genetic how many times you sneeze. Stoopid genes.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 2, 2020)

It just keeps getting worse.









						UK discussed joint EU plan to buy Covid-19 medical supplies, say officials
					

Exclusive: EU minutes seen by the Guardian reveal British official took part in eight EU health security meetings on coronavirus crisis




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I have lot more faith in our military than I do in elected politicians.


To understand where you’re coming from, just how much faith do you have in elected politicians?


----------



## keybored (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The sun makes me sneeze. I have to be really careful atm stepping out on a sunny day. Usually twice as well, just for added alarm.


Me too, uncontrollably. Stepped out of a hospital I was working at yesterday, into the sun and let out about 5. I was so glad there was no one else around because I could picture people diving for cover or digging foxholes in the tarmac with their teeth, the way things are.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, my dad has it as well. It's even genetic how many times you sneeze. Stoopid genes.




That kind of precision seems quite clever !


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

keybored said:


> Me too, uncontrollably. Stepped out of a hospital I was working at yesterday, into the sun and let out about 5. I was so glad there was no one else around because I could picture people diving for cover or digging foxholes in the tarmac with their teeth, the way things are.


At the height of hayfever season, I can easily let rip ten in a row. What fun that will be.


----------



## prunus (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The sun makes me sneeze. I have to be really careful atm stepping out on a sunny day. Usually twice as well, just for added alarm.



edit: too slow, oh well, will leave the link here anyway

Aha, Autosomal Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst (ACHOO) syndrome, or photosneezia. Dominant genetic trait, little understood.









						Photic sneeze reflex - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Some _learned_ people on this very thread had suggested widespread testing was dumb.



Such as? 

I dont remember such claims, though there probably have been far more nuanced versions expressed from time to time.

For example, I have spoken frequently about the UK orthodox approach which would never do testing on the required scale. I have spoken frequently of my concerns about whether the approach taken by some countries is sustainable, whether their gains will last. None of that means I think testing would be a bad idea, especially given that with our current knowledge, its one of the few things that can unlock more possible options for how we tackle the virus in future.

Its also one of the biggest clues as to what the UK government approach in future is actually going to be - if they dont embrace mass testing etc then it likely means they are still on a modified mitigation approach (ie harder mitigation) rather than a genuine suppression approach.


----------



## MickiQ (Apr 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> RE drive-offs :
> 
> 
> Drive-offs are all idiots
> ...


It's only a crime if you 'intended' to drive off, forgetting to pay is just that forgetting to pay and the onus is on the petrol station to prove it was intentional. 
There is an easy way to totally wipe out fuel theft and that is pay in advance either at the pump wit a card or with cash at the till.
Trouble is most garages aren't keen on that since they get extra income from people coming into the shop and buying more stuff along with their fuel and they would lose most of that trade if people were just sticking cards in the pump and not coming into the shop, the odd drive off is built into their costs.
This is why supermarkets are the big adopters of automated pumps since they sell fuel at cost as a loss leader relying on making money from the punters also doing their shopping at the same time. At least one police force in this country will not even investigate drive offs on the grounds it's not their job to act as debt collection agencies for oil companies.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 2, 2020)

Just when you thought the clown car couldn't get any worse...guess who's doing the death-toll presser this afternoon?



Spoiler


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> It's only a crime if you 'intended' to drive off, forgetting to pay is just that forgetting to pay and the onus is on the petrol station to prove it was intentional.


Really? It's very different from shoplifting law, then. If you leave a shop with a thing you haven't paid for, the onus is not on the shop to prove it was intentional - the fact you have left with it in and of itself is taken to indicate intent. Why is this different - once your car has left the premises, that's the same as you having physically left a shop, no?


----------



## MickiQ (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Really? It's very different from shoplifting law, then. If you leave a shop with a thing you haven't paid for, the onus is not on the shop to prove it was intentional - the fact you have left with it in and of itself is taken to indicate intent. Why is this different - once your car has left the premises, that's the same as you having physically left a shop, no?


They  have to prove it was intentional if they pursue it through a civil case, if plod investigate tis a crime, but a lot of police forces just won't these days including I think the Met


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 2, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> you haven't sneezed for 8 weeks AT ALL?



OK I exaggerated a tad , but only slightly.
Answer to the above question : Scarcely, and certainly not within 2 metres of anyone, nor into the open air -- big tissues always available. I've been lucky I suppose.

Hope that's not a problem officer


----------



## little_legs (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Such as?
> 
> I dont remember such claims, though there probably have been far more nuanced versions expressed from time to time.
> 
> ...


It wasn't you, if anything you referenced the test, test, test calls a few times on on this and the world covid news thread. 

The governor of Veneto has launched a population-wide testing for covid-19, hopefully the UK government will follow suit.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Really? It's very different from shoplifting law, then. If you leave a shop with a thing you haven't paid for, the onus is not on the shop to prove it was intentional - the fact you have left with it in and of itself is taken to indicate intent. Why is this different - once your car has left the premises, that's the same as you having physically left a shop, no?



There is no special shoplifting law, it's simple theft which requires a dishonest intention.


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

little_legs said:


> It wasn't you, if anything you referenced the test, test, test calls a few times on on this and the world covid news thread.
> 
> The governor of Veneto has launched a population-wide testing for covid-19, hopefully the UK government will follow suit.



Cheers, I never miss a chance to repeat my main points on the subject!

Veneto is in a much better position than many places to make that change to their approach already, because they went further than most with their testing etc earlier on, so they didnt end up in a Lombardy type situation in the first place. I've started collecting data from Lombardy and Veneto in order to see the results more clearly, but I'm not quite ready to share it yet and this is the wrong thread for it. I'll stick it in the Italy thread when I'm ready.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

> Most opinion polling about coronavirus has suggested the public broadly approves of the government’s handling of the crisis. But that could change as case numbers increase and it comes under greater criticism on the availability of tests and the supply of health equipment.
> 
> A Deltapoll poll conducted on 26-27 March found that 75% thought the government was generally doing the right thing when it came to dealing with the coronavirus outbreak – up from 48% in the middle of the month. A similar shift has was found by other pollsters as well.
> 
> Levels of approval in the government and the prime minister also increased. For example, at the beginning of March, YouGov found that 33% of voters approved of the government’s record compared to 41% who disapproved. But figures from the end of March showed 52% approval and 26% disapproval.





> But a new Ipsos Mori poll, conducted from 27-30 March, might suggest that the British public could be starting to have doubts.
> 
> A total of 56% of respondents to the new poll said the restrictive measures put in place by the government on 23 March were taken too late. And only 35% of people said they were taken at the right time, with 4% saying they were taken too early.








From BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52130552


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Nosocomial spread was always looking likely to be quite a factor in the UK, and it probably is turning out that way. Another consequence of the terrible testing & PPE situation, and the years of underfunding.


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## planetgeli (Apr 2, 2020)

+569

= 2921


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## weepiper (Apr 2, 2020)

50 more deaths in Scotland since yesterday's numbers. 10 'new' and 40 previously unreported


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Sounds like Scotland will make some reporting changes too:



> Ms Sturgeon also said that there will be changes to the reporting system, with daily figures as of next week to include deaths presumed to be caused by coronavirus as well as those confirmed to be.











						45 new coronavirus cases confirmed in Lothians as Scotland death toll rises by 50
					

New figures have revealed 45 new confirmed case of people with coronavirus in the NHS Lothian area, as the death toll of people with the virus in Scotland increased to 126.




					www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com


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## BlanketAddict (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The sun makes me sneeze. I have to be really careful atm stepping out on a sunny day. Usually twice as well, just for added alarm.



Me too!

Dreading Hay Fever season this year...


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Based on what I saw in the 2009 pandemic, I expected Scotland to do some aspects of public health data communication better than England/the UK overall. I have never had time to research the reasons behind this properly, although I suspect one aspect will involve attitudes including political/governance attitudes, and slightly fewer wanky aspects to their public health orthodoxy.

Today is a good day to mention this, in view of the steps they have taken to improve death data and public confidence in it.

I would invite people to watch at least the first 5 minutes of this video, in order to hear some of this for yourself. There is more detail about how they are going to change the death reporting, and how todays numbers need to be spread out over a wider period of recent history.

And there is other clear, important data that Scotland have been routinely sharing recently mentioned in this speech. I refer specifically to the fact that Sturgeon gives updates about the number of intensive care cases in Scotland, and the number of hospitalisations (which also includes the aforementioned ICU cases).


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Based on what I saw in the 2009 pandemic, I expected Scotland to do some aspects of public health data communication better than England/the UK overall. I have never had time to research the reasons behind this properly, although I suspect one aspect will involve attitudes including political/governance attitudes, and slightly fewer wanky aspects to their public health orthodoxy.
> 
> Today is a good day to mention this, in view of the steps they have taken to improve death data and public confidence in it.
> 
> ...



Doesn't surprise me. Not as wrapped up in self-justification as Westminster, for starters. Sturgeon is also personally a very capable operator. Can't think of anyone in the Westminster govt who compares.


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Doesn't surprise me. Not as wrapped up in self-justification as Westminster, for starters. Sturgeon is also personally a very capable operator. Can't think of anyone in the Westminster govt who compares.



Sturgeon was also the health minister when the 2009 pandemic happened, I think that was the first time I became aware of her.

And yeah, it should come as no surprise that if we want a guide to some of the additional levels of slippery weasel shit that is present in the English/UK establishment, comparisons to Scotland are often illuminating, and a pandemic is no exception.


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## keybored (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> At the height of hayfever season, I can easily let rip ten in a row. What fun that will be.


I'm lucky in that I don't get hay fever, it's just the sun. Normally I enjoy a nice sneeze really, just not so much lately. Oh and not when driving, that can get sketchy.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

keybored said:


> I'm lucky in that I don't get hay fever, it's just the sun. Normally I enjoy a nice sneeze really, just not so much lately. Oh and not when driving, that can get sketchy.


Yeah, I sometimes provoke it by looking at a very bright thing. Nothing worse than a sneeze frustrated. Normally.


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## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

It seems the UK fashion industry is getting going making clothing and masks for the NHS, or for material suppliers to the NHS as apparently the NHS itself hasn't been so prompt coming forward.


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

I'm linking to this not just because of the Johnson news, but because of something said at the end.









						Boris Johnson still has Covid-19 symptoms and may stay in isolation
					

PM has been self-isolating at No 11 for six days and still has mild symptoms




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Downing Street also confirmed the government was looking at the idea of “immunity passports” to allow some people who have had coronavirus to leave the lockdown.
> 
> The spokesman said: “That’s something other countries have done. We are always watching what other countries are doing and looking to learn.”


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## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> ..
> How do the Czech numbers compare to anywhere else?
> ..


SheilaNaGig you can also get an idea of Czech's trend from the below graph:









						Covid Trends
					

Visualizing the exponential growth of COVID-19 across the world.




					aatishb.com
				




You can add or remove countries from the plot at the right hand side, China and South Korea display results that show them escaping exponential growth while UK, Italy Spain, Germany USA all are still stuck in it, Czech numbers don't look so great though on this particular chart, although they are starting to be below the curve.


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Regarding what I was saying earlier about Scotland, there are more details about the deaths reporting changes and issues in this piece:









						Scottish Government changes how COVID-19 deaths are counted
					

In future “suspected” deaths both in hospital and in the community will be counted in the official figures




					www.holyrood.com
				




Not that I'm claiming Scotland is perfect, later in that piece the resistance to a new strategy based on massively increased testing capacity is quite apparent.



> She estimated that capacity for testing across Scotland at present was around 1,900 a day, and the Scottish Government aimed to up that capacity to 3,000 a day “by the end of April”.
> 
> But Calderwood said debate over Scotland and the UK’s ability to test high numbers of people was a “distraction” from what measures were required to slow the spread of the virus.
> 
> Asked by a journalist if she accepted the Scottish and UK governments had underperformed on testing, especially compared with countries like Germany, Sturgeon said “no”.





> She added: “It’s important we don’t overstate what testing can and can’t achieve.”
> 
> Calderwood said she had been warning “for several weeks now” about “the distraction that testing could become”
> 
> ...





> Sturgeon said the government would look again at the role that testing could play once the lockdown measures began to be lifted. But she said she would not be drawn in to speculation as to when that would be.


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## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

Does Matt Hancock seem a bit breathless and shaky or is it just me


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does Matt Hancock seem a bit breathless and shaky or is it just me



I avoided watching him so much in the past that I find myself without a baseline to measure his current state against.


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## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> I avoided watching him so much in the past that I find myself without a baseline to measure his current state against.



He's normally a very smooth operator. He's stumbling over his words and his voice is shaky.


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Confessional level of detail about why the testing has been shit so far. No existing heritage of massive diagnostics capacity got a mention, including a comparison to Germany, so I can stop going on about that point now.


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## Numbers (Apr 2, 2020)

Has he just wiped the NHS debt?


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Sounds like some of the tests they were looking at ordering have failed their validation tests.


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Has he just wiped the NHS debt?



Yes!


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## SpineyNorman (Apr 2, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> That's exactly the same sort of attitude as someone thinking anyone on minimum wage must be a thicko who never finished school and probably has too many children.


A much better reflection of reality though


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## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

scratch that


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## binka (Apr 2, 2020)

I like the way that when they fail to meet a testing target they just announce an even bigger target instead


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## lefteri (Apr 2, 2020)

had to turn off the radio as i was shouting too much


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## Numbers (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yes!


Is it a case of ‘you don’t have to give us back that money we took from you’?


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

The five pillars of testing implies an end to the old, limited diagnostics testing orthodoxy that has taken up so much of my discussion time here.

I'm just writing this from memory of the press conference, will post link to proper press writeups later.

1) Existing testing regime (included some lies about how every serious case that needed a test got one)
2) Commercial partnerships for new swabbing facility for NHS staff
3) Home antibody tests for people finding out of they've already had it
4) Porton Down highly accurate antibody tests on a limited scale that they will use to do the serological surveys that will give indications of what %age of population have had it.
5) Someone put in charge of this stuff.


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## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

So just to be clear (on behalf of my gf who is a nurse), the NHS is now out of debt??


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## Buckaroo (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sounds like some of the tests they were looking at ordering have failed their validation tests.


Sounds like an excuse for not ordering said tests.


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Buckaroo said:


> Sounds like an excuse for not ordering said tests.



No, I am a huge advocate of antibody tests and have been droning on about serological surveys for ages, but I dont want tests that give too many false negatives and there has already been shown to be all manner of issues with that in this pandemic so far.


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Some blatant lying going on about how they always planned to ramp up testing.


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## Supine (Apr 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So just to be clear (on behalf of my gf who is a nurse), the NHS is now out of debt??



Yes but presumably they're paying a huge amount for ppe!


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## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

Supine said:


> Yes but presumably they're paying a huge amount for ppe!



Well she's told me that she and her colleagues have spent the last ten years scrimping and saving to try to avoid increasing this debt so she's over the moon right now. 'this changes everything'


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## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

The BBC cut away when a journalist asked him why he got a test .. anyone see his answer?


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## Supine (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> The BBC cut away when a journalist asked him why he got a test .. anyone see his answer?



Was a stupid question - from the reporter. He's in charge of the covid response so of course he's going to get a feckin test.


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## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> The BBC cut away when a journalist asked him why he got a test .. anyone see his answer?











						Watch Sky News Live
					

Watch Sky News Live




					news.sky.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> The BBC cut away when a journalist asked him why he got a test .. anyone see his answer?



The answer was the the CMO came up with testing rules and they include key decision makers being tested.


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## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

The BBC pushes the news back for a penalty shoot out in the FA Cup but not for a press conference on the biggest crisis we've faced since WW2. Lol


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## belboid (Apr 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The BBC pushes the news back for a penalty shoot out in the FA Cup but not for a press conference on the biggest crisis we've faced since WW2. Lol


they've said the important bits already. There isn't really any reason it has to go out live, not doing so gives time to check some of the 'facts' they come out with too


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## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

belboid said:


> they've said the important bits already. There isn't really any reason it has to go out live, not doing so gives time to check some of the 'facts' they come out with too



I disagree. They're still going with some pretty important shit.


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## cupid_stunt (Apr 2, 2020)

The BBC are fucking idiots for cutting away from the briefing, thank christ for Sky.


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Various newspapers and other media run their own livestreams of the press conferences on youtube too, for future reference.


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## belboid (Apr 2, 2020)

still on bbc news24 and red button and online.  Neither the bbc online update or the guardian one have written anything of note since 6, and there is whats happening in the rest of the world too.

If they actually say anything important you'll just find out fifteen minutes later.


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## cupid_stunt (Apr 2, 2020)

belboid said:


> still on bbc news24



No it's not, hence I switch from that to Sky News.


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## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

belboid said:


> still on bbc news24 and red button and online.  Neither the bbc online update or the guardian one have written anything of note since 6, and there is whats happening in the rest of the world too.
> 
> If they actually say anything important you'll just find out fifteen minutes later.



I'd personally prefer the national broadcaster broadcast what is a pretty fucking important presser live rather than relying on Rupert Murdoch, but hey.


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## Pickman's model (Apr 2, 2020)

Buckaroo said:


> Sounds like an excuse for not ordering said tests.


Glad to see you posting


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I'd personally prefer the national broadcaster broadcast what is a pretty fucking important presser live rather than relying on Rupert Murdoch, but hey.



Murdoch doesn't have anything to do with Sky in the UK, and hasn't done for some time now.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Murdoch doesn't have anything to do with Sky in the UK, and hasn't done for some time now.



Oops. But my point stands. It's pretty absurd.

He's just discussed the impact on domestic violence in this crisis which I think might be more important than news of Eddie Jones' contract renewal as england rugby coach which is currently going out on the beeb.


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## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

In a way it doesn't matter if his target of 100,000 daily tests isn't achieved by the end of the month because the mere fact of having such a large target means it is likely significantly larger testing will by then be available. Big hairy goals have that effect so even a failure to achieve the absolute target can still be a success if we manage to test 60,000 a day or 80,000 a day, compared to what we are doing at the moment.


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> In a way it doesn't matter if his target of 100,000 daily tests isn't achieved by the end of the month because the mere fact of having such a large target means it is likely significantly larger testing will by then be available. Big hairy goals have that effect so even a failure to achieve the absolute target can still be a success if we manage to test 60,000 a day or 80,000 a day, compared to what we are doing at the moment.



Thanks to the rubbish traditional capacity in this part of our system they've now had to roll out the phrase megalabs.


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## two sheds (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> In a way it doesn't matter if his target of 100,000 daily tests isn't achieved by the end of the month because the mere fact of having such a large target means it is likely significantly larger testing will by then be available. Big hairy goals have that effect so even a failure to achieve the absolute target can still be a success if we manage to test 60,000 a day or 80,000 a day, compared to what we are doing at the moment.



If that were true he should have made the target 1 million daily then they'd be testing 600,000 or 800,000 a day 

One of the problems with targets is that you need some way to reach them, otherwise they're no good. Plucking targets out of the air is useless, as with teaching targets.


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## teqniq (Apr 2, 2020)

Wrt the NHS 'There is no magic money tree'. Except when there is.


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## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

And on that note the last question brought up that Johnson was on about 250,000 tests a day, and they were wondering if that target had now beed dropped.

Answer was basically that they still aspire to that, but 100,000 is the commitment for the end of the month, and Hancock didnt want to go further than that with the commitment now.


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Wrt the NHS 'There is no magic money tree'. Except when there is.



With everything, not just the NHS. All the bullshit that was dusted off and wheeled out for the austerity years went straight down the shitter because, as we always knew, its about political will and economic ideology and choice of priorities and whether things can be gotten away with if you stretch them out over a long period. Much like the rates of various things make big differences to epidemics, so the rate at which people are sacrificed under capitalisms austerity measures are key as to whether its a sustainable approach for the powers that be or not. In this situation, the rules changed overnight, and it is a strange new world that features the return of some old friends that went missing after what was labelled in this country as the death of the post-war consensus.


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## belboid (Apr 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I'd personally prefer the national broadcaster broadcast what is a pretty fucking important presser live rather than relying on Rupert Murdoch, but hey.


Why would they rely on Rupert Murdoch?  They're there and watching it and _broadcasting _it (on various channels) already.  What has been said of note?  On DV all he said was "I will look at all options to keep people safe - especially women and children in homes where somebody is abusive,"


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## smokedout (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sounds like some of the tests they were looking at ordering have failed their validation tests.



We haven't heard much mention in recent days of the 3.5 million antibody tests that were supposed to be available in Boots a week ago.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 2, 2020)

smokedout said:


> We haven't heard much mention in recent days of the 3.5 million antibody tests that were supposed to be available in Boots a week ago.



Those tests needed testing first, the government had hope they could be used within about a week, they never said they would be available in Boots in that time frame.


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## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> If that were true he should have made the target 1 million daily then they'd be testing 600,000 or 800,000 a day


Targets have to have some basis in reality though. 



two sheds said:


> One of the problems with targets is that you need some way to reach them, otherwise they're no good. Plucking targets out of the air is useless, as with teaching targets.


I think he does think he can see a way to get to 100,000 tests per day, time will tell if he is misguided.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> If that were true he should have made the target 1 million daily then they'd be testing 600,000 or 800,000 a day
> 
> One of the problems with targets is that you need some way to reach them, otherwise they're no good. Plucking targets out of the air is useless, as with teaching targets.


Yep. Same with the 'deaths target' of 20,000. Aside from being dismally unambitious, it was flawed in its very concept. The target should be zero. You don't get that, but it's what you aim for.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 2, 2020)

The other problem with targets is that they can be used just to deflect criticism "well we've got a target now" and when the target isn't met "ah well there was a problem with the supplier, we've got another target now"


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The other problem with targets is that they can be used just to deflect criticism "well we've got a target now" and when the target isn't met "ah well there was a problem with the supplier, we've got another target now"


Or, as in the case of deaths, you set a 'target' at a place you think there is a good chance of being better than anyway. Look - fewer than 20,000 dead in this first wave, didn't we do well!


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 2, 2020)

My brother works in policy in the NHS. I told him they could have written off the debt any time they felt like it. He didn't believe me.


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## two sheds (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep. Same with the 'deaths target' of 20,000. Aside from being dismally unambitious, it was flawed in its very concept. The target should be zero. You don't get that, but it's what you aim for.



A target of zero doesn't help either though. You have to calculate backwards from what you can actually achieve to make them realistic and achievable. They never do this - they just pluck them out of the air. Control limits (process behaviour limits) versus targets as per W. Edwards Deming. I know it looks like an abstract point but it's fundamental.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> A target of zero doesn't help either though. You have to calculate backwards from what you can actually achieve to make them realistic and achievable. They never do this - they just pluck them out of the air. Control limits (process behaviour limits) versus targets as per W. Edwards Deming. I know it looks like an abstract point but it's fundamental.


At the start, a target of zero could have made sense. It's basically what South Korea did, and it's got its cases right down with fewer than 200 dead. That's as good as zero in the wider scheme of things.

Of course, the later you leave setting any target, the more realistic you have to be about how things have already spread, but then you set a target of 'not letting it get any worse than it is now' (bearing in mind the time lag). And - crucially - not allowing a single person to die because there wasn't the equipment or personnel to help them with, which is about what Germany is currently achieving. So you redefine your zero to 'no unnecessary excess deaths from the point when we realised what we needed to do'. The UK is failing in that as well of course.

But then here in the UK any target is meaningless due to the lack of testing. Nobody knows how bad it really is.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 2, 2020)

How can the man in charge of the NHS wipe its own debts? I would like to know so I can wipe my own debts


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> But then here in the UK any target is meaningless due to the lack of testing. Nobody knows how bad it really is.



I await the first release of results from Porton Down serological surveys (antibody tests) with much interest - a matter of days apparently, although I dont know how indicative the first results will be, I will always want more data.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Or, as in the case of deaths, you set a 'target' at a place you think there is a good chance of being better than anyway. Look - fewer than 20,000 dead in this first wave, didn't we do well!



Yes indeed sorry, fair point. Also a target of 20,000 deaths is is effectively saying they're planning to allow 20,000 people to die.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How can the man in charge of the NHS wipe its own debts? I would like to know so I can wipe my own debts



Shift+Delete on the spreadsheet file.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> At the start, a target of zero could have made sense. It's basically what South Korea did, and it's got its cases right down with fewer than 200 dead. That's as good as zero in the wider scheme of things.
> 
> Of course, the later you leave setting any target, the more realistic you have to be about how things have already spread, but then you set a target of 'not letting it get any worse than it is now' (bearing in mind the time lag). And - crucially - not allowing a single person to die because there wasn't the equipment or personnel to help them with, which is about what Germany is currently achieving. So you redefine your zero to 'no unnecessary excess deaths from the point when we realised what we needed to do'. The UK is failing in that as well of course.
> 
> But then here in the UK any target is meaningless due to the lack of testing. Nobody knows how bad it really is.


Exactly. South Korea tried to save every life, and even after they had terrible luck with that cult, their achievement to date's remarkable. Whitehall knowingly allowed containment to fail, accepting a horrific death toll to in pursuit of a goal so politically toxic not even Trump dare refer to it by name now. Fundamentally different thinking.

And now they admit they don't even know how long any acquired immunity lasts!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

Anyhow. Didn't feel like clapping tonight. Feel like Fridgemagnet did last week. Just too angry to clap. Partly just in a foul mood today, partly due to seeing The S*n this morning telling everyone to do it. Feels like an empty gesture this week, clapping an organisation that has been betrayed. Felt like booing.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

Azrael said:


> And now they admit they don't even know how long any acquired immunity lasts!


We've known all along that we don't know that, though. Yet again, they _reveal_ something anybody with internet access has known for weeks.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 2, 2020)

It's worse than it was last week - it's been declared as a fucking state ritual.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Regarding what I was saying earlier about Scotland, there are more details about the deaths reporting changes and issues in this piece:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"The thought that [testing] somehow slows the virus or is a part of strategy to prevent transmission is a fallacy, I’m afraid." Dr Catherine Calderwood, CMO of Scotland.

Wow, just wow. This statement not only ignores a ton of clinical data, it ignores basic infection control measures that've been with us for over a century. It directly contradicts the advice of the WHO, the _Lancet_ and the _BMJ_. Incredibly, it appears that Bute House are now more dogmatic about this than Whitehall.

Just goes to show the problem isn't Cummings and his weirdos: it goes deep into the medical establishment, while being at-odds with our most prestigious medical journals. Due to the extraordinary weight doctors' words have, the orthodoxy you've highlighted before can be best fought by medical authorities, and they've got to move fast.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We've known all along that we don't know that, though. Yet again, they _reveal_ something anybody with internet access has known for weeks.


Of course, but those in power admitting it themselves is a helluva step.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 2, 2020)

Azrael I forget the name of the medical advisory committee group in England but I do recall that they had apparently been having massive arguments amongst themselves about ideal policy, while at the time Whitty was presenting to the cameras as if opinions were established. Perhaps this Scottish CMO is one of the outliers, where opinions are concerned?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 2, 2020)

bradlux said:


> Britain’s health minister promised a tenfold increase in the number of daily tests for coronavirus by the end of the month after the government faced criticism for failing to roll out mass checks for health workers and the public.



We'll do it for real this time pinkie swear


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Azrael I forget the name of the medical advisory committee group in England but I do recall that they had apparently been having massive arguments amongst themselves about ideal policy, while at the time Whitty was presenting to the cameras as if opinions were established. Perhaps this Scottish CMO is one of the outliers, where opinions are concerned?


She'll certainly be challenged by Devi Sridhar, Professor of Public Heath at Edinburgh, who, along with three of her colleagues, have joined the Scottish Government's advisory group.

That's positive, but doesn't change how incredible it is for Scotland's CMO to make such an unequivocally wrong statement at this stage, when even the _Mail_'s publishing leaders demanding mass testing. Only dogma can explain this, and any inquiry will have to discover how it went so deep, with such disastrous consequences.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

I won't link the _Mail_ here, but their front page has an article titled: "*So who IS to blame for testing fiasco? Medical chief Chris Whitty and science adviser Patrick Vallance are in the firing line as Public Health England passes the buck insisting it has 'done its part' "*

That they couldn't see they were being set up if it all went wrong speaks volumes for their political naivete. Can't say I've an ounce of sympathy, they deserve it, but can't allow a _cordon sanitaire_ to protect the politicians who bowed to their advice.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How can the man in charge of the NHS wipe its own debts? I would like to know so I can wipe my own debts


If it was money the government owed to itself they can do what the hell they want with it. The only issue with cancelling such debt at some point is the confidence of markets, but since markets are fucked anyway why worry about that now? You could probably get inflation if you cancelled too much (because you're kind of printing money), but that also seems an unlikely problem right now.

They could have cancelled it before but they were using it to 'discipline' the NHS. The pricks.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> If it was money the government owed to itself they can do what the hell they want with it. The only issue with cancelling such debt at some point is the confidence of markets, but since markets are fucked anyway why worry about that now? You could probably get inflation if you cancelled too much (because you're kind of printing money), but that also seems an unlikely problem right now.
> 
> They could have cancelled it before but they were using it to 'discipline' the NHS. The pricks.


Yep. Exactly this. In theory all the money made with QE will be destroyed at some point by paying it back. But if the economy is tanking, you don't need to cos nobody else is borrowing anyway - hence the near-zero interest rate.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 2, 2020)

And next .... pay rises for nurses that the tories denied them with proper naming and shaming?









						Full list of MPs who voted against giving nurses and firefighters 'fair' pay rise
					

Tories and DUP vote against Labour ammendment to end 1% public sector annual pay increase cap.




					www.ibtimes.co.uk


----------



## Ax^ (Apr 2, 2020)

and just remember this when Boris and the other fucking tory scum are trying to fucking claim credit for how They responded after this is all over


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

> One senior MP told MailOnline that Mr Johnson was 'going to have to find someone to blame' for abandoning community testing, with public anger growing.
> 
> 'It really is the wrong decision. A bad decision,' they said. The MP said too often in PHE it was a case of 'nice title, get a gong, and move on'.


Those John Ashton calls the pointy-heads are so comprehensively and unequivocally screwed every which way. Good. I'll take what tiny measure of catharsis I can get ATM.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 2, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Exactly. South Korea tried to save every life, and even after they had terrible luck with that cult, their achievement to date's remarkable. Whitehall knowingly allowed containment to fail, accepting a horrific death toll to in pursuit of a goal so politically toxic not even Trump dare refer to it by name now. Fundamentally different thinking.
> 
> And now they admit they don't even know how long any acquired immunity lasts!



Yeah, I wonder what the ‘do nothing’ strategy is called?


----------



## Ax^ (Apr 2, 2020)

Herd Immunity strategy was it not



this cunts idea


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

"... well you know it’s a concept, it’s a concept -- if you don’t mind death". 

Not even Trump can stomach it now.


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Azrael said:


> She'll certainly be challenged by Devi Sridhar, Professor of Public Heath at Edinburgh, who, along with three of her colleagues, have joined the Scottish Government's advisory group.
> 
> That's positive, but doesn't change how incredible it is for Scotland's CMO to make such an unequivocally wrong statement at this stage, when even the _Mail_'s publishing leaders demanding mass testing. Only dogma can explain this, and any inquiry will have to discover how it went so deep, with such disastrous consequences.



Often the absolute dog shit worst timing from these sorts of officials stems from the fact they say a lot of this stuff when they are on the defensive. In this case, that applies and the timing was especially bad, could not have picked a worse day to come out with that shit given the UK government feeling the need to go in hard with a new '5 pillars' PR face to their plans.


----------



## BCBlues (Apr 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The other problem with targets is that they can be used just to deflect criticism "well we've got a target now" and when the target isn't met "ah well there was a problem with the supplier, we've got another target now"



What's known in football terms as " moving the goalposts". Trouble is, you move them too many times they dont stand up at all.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 2, 2020)

Public health in the U.K. has seen a big shift in recent years from disease outbreaks to things like sugar taxes and minimum alcohol pricing. I really think it has been a mistake to have these things under one umbrella.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 2, 2020)

binka said:


> I like the way that when they fail to meet a testing target they just announce an even bigger target instead


I guess it's a kind of twist on the sunk cost fallacy...


----------



## two sheds (Apr 2, 2020)

Hadn't heard of that - but also why people can stay in cults, particularly if they've spent money on them.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

Is it a stupid question to ask - why have we already bought millions of these antibody tests but still testing whether they actually work? I'm a layman, but isnt that a bit arse about face?


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Is it a stupid question to ask - why have we already bought millions of these antibody tests but still testing whether they actually work? I'm a layman, but isnt that a bit arse about face?



It will mostly have been contracts to supply, that only go ahead in full if the tests pass their validation test, which some have clearly failed to do.


----------



## killer b (Apr 2, 2020)

because if they wait until it's confirmed they work, every other country in the world will be competing to buy them too. It's gambling.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> It will mostly have been contracts to supply, that only go ahead in full if the tests pass their validation test, which some have clearly failed to do.



So why did we pay for shit that we didn't know worked? Even if it's just a down payment.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So why did we pay for shit that we didn't know worked? Even if it's just a down payment.



panic buying - like toilet paper


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Often the absolute dog shit worst timing from these sorts of officials stems from the fact they say a lot of this stuff when they are on the defensive. In this case, that applies and the timing was especially bad, could not have picked a worse day to come out with that shit given the UK government feeling the need to go in hard with a new '5 pillars' PR face to their plans.


Contender for worst timing ever. Not to mention that making such an unequivocal statement at this time potentially opens her to all kinds of liability. 

As Whitehall's blown a chance to match their borders rhetoric with action, so too have Bute House squandered an opportunity for Scotland to chart a different course to Whitehall. With health and criminal justice devolved, they could've introduced early distancing and massive testing and tracing. The right thing to do would've also been the politically smart thing to do. Wasted.


----------



## Tankus (Apr 2, 2020)

https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-getting-wrong-about-the-toilet-paper-shortage-c812e1358fe0
		


the joys of just in time


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Those trying to follow trends in deaths statistics, who have been thwarted by the nature of the data, now have a new way to get an accurate picture over time.

I am still waiting for signs that they will successfully publish this data every day, but it looks like for England there is now a way to see the hospital deaths totals so far for the date they actually took place, rather than the date they were reported. This does mean that they have to keep going back and updating totals for previous dates, as the info comes in. But at least we get to see the historical picture gradually emerge.





__





						NHS England » Total number of COVID-19 deaths in England by date of death
					






					www.england.nhs.uk
				




I will talk about Scotlands new approach once they have started doing it properly on a daily basis, and once I've had time to look to see whether they updated the figures so far yet, to incorporate the additional historical deaths announced earlier today.

For Wales I am out of date as to the format of their released data, and Northern Ireland I havent investigated yet either.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

Tankus said:


> https://marker.medium.com/what-everyones-getting-wrong-about-the-toilet-paper-shortage-c812e1358fe0
> 
> 
> 
> the joys of just in time


I found bog roll yesterday! I was on my last roll as well. Didn't panic, just bought a pack of four... Good point about people using more though, cos we're stuck at home.


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

The updated Scottish numbers with the 40 additional deaths incorporated across 3 days instead of all being added to todays total in one go:









						New process for reporting COVID-19 deaths
					

New system in place.




					www.gov.scot
				






> The data below shows the running total of the number of deaths reported, under the old and new systems, of those confirmed to have died from Coronavirus across the last few days. There are now 126 deaths confirmed using the new system.





> HPS old data collation approach
> Tuesday 31 March - 60
> Wednesday 1 April - 76
> Thursday 2 April - 86





> HPS new approach using NRS records linked to laboratory data
> Tuesday 31 March - 69
> Wednesday 1 April - 97
> Thursday 2 April - 126


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Looks like some questions about the governments testing approach still remain, including one I will quote because it fits into the discussion about how much they have or havent really changed approach.









						No 10 seeks to end coronavirus lockdown with 'immunity passports'
					

Fresh criticism over testing plan as Matt Hancock says early antibody results ‘poor’




					www.theguardian.com
				






> However, the government was also forced to acknowledge it was not likely to have the capacity to embark on a programme of mass testing for live cases in the general public, as advocated by the World Health Organization and public experts.
> 
> Instead, No 10 and health department sources confirmed the general public would primarily have to rely on the potential for an antibody test – but these are “ideally” done 28 days after an infection, to give the clearest indication of whether someone has already had the virus, according to Prof John Newton, a senior Public Health England official.
> 
> Newton said the idea of testing all those that have symptoms in the country was “unrealistic” and the as yet unproven antibody test was more likely to be used by people at home.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

Expect the _Mail_ to add John Newton to their list of scapegoats-in-waiting alongside their hit piece on the Chief Scientist and CMO.

I guess we can be grateful they keep blurting this stuff out, but it boggles the mind they appear to have no idea what's heading their way.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

> Conservative backbenchers voiced concern in private about the government’s failure to roll out testing faster, saying there was anxiety that the public mood could turn against the government if it appeared there was no end to the lockdown as a result.
> 
> A former supporter Johnson in the leadership contest said they were worried sentiment could turn rapidly: “I think the government could get blown away if people are still inside after Easter and there is no progress on testing.”


Bingo. Keep the pressure on.


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2020)

Part of the reason they seem stuck on that critical issue is that over the decades there has been much interplay between orthodoxy and establishment and actual capacity. That cannot be undone in weeks, even when the penny drops. Even a modest ramp-up of swab tests is difficult for them, so well beyond that, the task of doing that on a truly massive scale to match the genuine full-on suppression strategy still seems like an alien world that is mission impossible for them, especially considering current global supply-demand imbalances in almost every key area. They admitted today that we just dont have the heritage of mass diagnostics to build on like Germany has, and that inevitably affects their perceptions of what is possible in future.

And I still question whether the full on suppression approach has actually been adopted in principal at all. I suppose if I were running the show I would want to keep some of my options open on this front, at least for a matter of weeks while various key data comes in. But I think sufficient time has passed since they u-turned, allowing for some face saving rhetoric, to determine that beyond that there is still some fundamental resistance to the real suppression approach.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Part of the reason they seem stuck on that critical issue is that over the decades there has been much interplay between orthodoxy and establishment and actual capacity. That cannot be undone in weeks, even when the penny drops. Even a modest ramp-up of swab tests is difficult for them, so well beyond that, the task of doing that on a truly massive scale to match the genuine full-on suppression strategy still seems like an alien world that is mission impossible for them, especially considering current global supply-demand imbalances in almost every key area. They admitted today that we just dont have the heritage of mass diagnostics to build on like Germany has, and that inevitably affects their perceptions of what is possible in future.
> 
> And I still question whether the full on suppression approach has actually been adopted in principal at all. I suppose if I were running the show I would want to keep some of my options open on this front, at least for a matter of weeks while various key data comes in. But I think sufficient time has passed since they u-turned, allowing for some face saving rhetoric, to determine that beyond that there is still some fundamental resistance to the real suppression approach.


A key breaking point could come a few weeks from now if things turn out Spain-scale badly, which they still could. (I'm ranking Spain as the worst-hit in Europe now - its indicators are now a lot worse than Italy's.) With other countries like Germany likely to be getting a grip on their own situations, the time may come when the UK govt has no choice but to beg for help.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Part of the reason they seem stuck on that critical issue is that over the decades there is much interplay between orthodoxy and establishment and actual capacity. Even a modest ramp-up of swab tests is difficult for them, so well beyond that, the task of doing that on a truly massive scale to match the genuine full-on suppression strategy still seems like an alien world that is mission impossible for them, especially considering current global supply-demand imbalances in almost every key area. They admitted today that we just dont have the heritage of mass diagnostics to build on like Germany has, and that inevitably affects their perceptions of what is possible in future.
> 
> And I still question whether the full on suppression approach has actually been adopted in principal at all. I suppose if I were running the show I would want to keep some of my options open on this front, at least for a matter of weeks while various key data comes in, but I think sufficient time has past since they u-turned, allowing for some face saving, to determine that beyond that there is still some fundamental resistance to the real suppression approach.


English politicans seem increasingly onboard, especially backbench MPs (who knows with Scotland, Sturgeon did appear on stage with her "mass testing = hopeless" CMO). There's clearly dogmatic resistance in PHE, but the right-wing press are increasingly turning against them, which is an easy path as they instinctively loathe quangos.

Politicians are both desperate to drive down the death toll as rapidly as possible and to make the lockdown as short as possible. And, of course, to take no responsibility for us being here in the first place. Can't see any other path these overwhelming dual pressures lead to but a suppression approach.

They've had their exit route baked in from the start: "the science" misled them, they're as innocent as kings misled by wicked advisors. Don't expect it to work anything like that neatly, but the chief scientists and doctors should be under no illusion about how far politicians will go to save their skin, and how dispensible they're gonna be viewed by those who've been pushed them into the limelight.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Those trying to follow trends in deaths statistics, who have been thwarted by the nature of the data, now have a new way to get an accurate picture over time.
> 
> I am still waiting for signs that they will successfully publish this data every day, but it looks like for England there is now a way to see the hospital deaths totals so far for the date they actually took place, rather than the date they were reported. This does mean that they have to keep going back and updating totals for previous dates, as the info comes in. But at least we get to see the historical picture gradually emerge.
> 
> ...


Is it just me, or does that imply the peak of deaths has passed?

or are there just deaths that haven’t made it into the system yet?


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> A key breaking point could come a few weeks from now if things turn out Spain-scale badly, which they still could. (I'm ranking Spain as the worst-hit in Europe now - its indicators are now a lot worse than Italy's.) With other countries like Germany liekly to be getting a grip on their own situations, the time may come when the UK govt has no choice but to beg for help.


Exactly what was said in the article, you can't just ride out those horrific numbers, especially when MPs are now losing relatives. They've got their leading advisors on camera defending this as deliberate policy. It does not end well for them.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Is it just me, or does that imply the peak of deaths has passed?
> 
> or are there just deaths that haven’t made it into the system yet?


No, the latter. 



> Confirmation of COVID-19 diagnosis, death notification and reporting in central figures can take up to several days,


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

Wow, _Mail_ leads with "Poorly-looking Boris Johnson takes to his doorstep ..."

"Don't you think [he] looks tired?"


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 2, 2020)

Fuck the Mail. Of course he looks tired. He's got corvid19 ffs. I know two people who almost certainly have it and are at home suffering because even 'mild' cases are not fucking pleasant. How tired that cunt looks is utterly fucking irrelevant to anything.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

_Telegraph_ lead headline: "The systematic failures in the Government's coronavirus pandemic strategy laid bare: Senior advisors admit lack of investment in mass testing 'may have been a mistake' as they believed influenza was a bigger treat"

May have? _May have_.

So comprehensively screwed.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Fuck the Mail. Of course he looks tired. He's got corvid19 ffs. I know two people who almost certainly have it and are at home suffering because even 'mild' cases are not fucking pleasant. How tired that cunt looks is utterly fucking irrelevant to anything.


Just to clarify, it's their framing I'm highlighting, not making light of its effect on him at all (as detailed on the other thread, I've probably had it, and whatever it was, it was indeed deeply unpleasant). They've not framed it as something like "heroic Boris bounces back". The quote's from a noughties _Doctor Who_ where a PM was brought down with six words.

The _Mail_ are the shit of the world, why I refuse to link them here, but am keeping a very close eye on how they're presenting this. More they turn against Johnson, higher the chance this corrupted government might actually fall.


----------



## killer b (Apr 2, 2020)

Azrael said:


> More they turn against Johnson, higher the chance this corrupted government might actually fall.


This is pre-December 14th 2019 chat. This government isn't falling for another 5 years.


----------



## Humberto (Apr 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> This is pre-December 14th 2019 chat. This government isn't falling for another 5 years.



Depends how bad things get


----------



## Azrael (Apr 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> This is pre-December 14th 2019 chat. This government isn't falling for another 5 years.


Maybe, maybe not: given events why rule anything out? Who could've imagined the _Telegraph_ and _Mail_ ripping into them like this even a fortnight ago?


----------



## killer b (Apr 2, 2020)

They have a 60 seat majority in parliament. Nothing is shifting that this side of a general election or a revolution, however bad the headlines get.


----------



## Humberto (Apr 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> They have a 60 seat majority in parliament. Nothing is shifting that this side of a general election or a revolution, however bad the headlines get.



Their own party would have to turn on them quite badly.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 3, 2020)

Which could well happen. It's reported in the Guardian piece that Tory MPs fear it could all fall apart with dizzying speed. Chamberlain was driven from office after a mass rebellion cut into a much larger majority. That's the scale of events we could be talking. No possibility is closed off.


----------



## killer b (Apr 3, 2020)

You mean Johnsons leadership could be at risk to a challenge from a different tory? Who cares? 

Whatever, right now they're on 50%+ in most opinion polls so they can take quite a sustained amount of bad press before they have to start worrying.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Is it just me, or does that imply the peak of deaths has passed?
> 
> or are there just deaths that haven’t made it into the system yet?



Lots of deaths havent made it into that system. It will only become a decent picture over time, and when we ignore the most recent dates covered by it.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 3, 2020)

Words I thought I'd never write: thank God for Matt Hancock | John Crace
					

The health secretary wrote off £13bn of NHS debt, promised 100,000 tests and acted like a grownup




					www.theguardian.com
				




Unbelievably, this is actually true. I noticed he actually let journos, in fact actually invited them to ask follow up questions. And yeh - no idea why the BBC cut away from the most informative press conference in a week to talk about sport and weather.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> This is pre-December 14th 2019 chat. This government isn't falling for another 5 years.



This is pre-pandemic chat. Honestly, there is no way I would be making narrow predictions about what is or isnt possible in these times.


----------



## killer b (Apr 3, 2020)

I think they just like to give the conspiracy theorists something to shout about


----------



## Humberto (Apr 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> You mean Johnsons leadership could be at risk to a challenge from a different tory? Who cares?
> 
> Whatever, right now they're on 50%+ in most opinion polls so they can take quite a sustained amount of bad press before they have to start worrying.



i don't care about johnson, i care about a panicked and disordered heavy majority Tory government falling apart.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> You mean Johnsons leadership could be at risk to a challenge from a different tory? Who cares?
> 
> Whatever, right now they're on 50%+ in most opinion polls so they can take quite a sustained amount of bad press before they have to start worrying.


Another Tory, a national unity government, who knows. Loathe the Tories as I do, there's something particularly odious about this gang of eugenicist spivs, and clearing the advocates of "herd immunity" from Whitehall can only be a good thing.


----------



## killer b (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> This is pre-pandemic chat. Honestly, there is no way I would be making narrow predictions about what is or isnt possible in these times.


I dont think it's a narrow prediction to say that the tories will be in power until at least 2025. The pandemic will have profound and unpredictable effects, but unless one of those unpredictable effects is killing off a lot of tory MPs in marginal seats then that majority isn't shifting.


----------



## killer b (Apr 3, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Another Tory, a national unity government, who knows. Loathe the Tories as I do, there's something particularly odious about this gang of eugenicist spivs, and clearing the advocates of "herd immunity" from Whitehall can only be a good thing.


The spivs are the dominant current in the tories now - itll just be another spiv.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> I dont think it's a narrow prediction to say that the tories will be in power until at least 2025. The pandemic will have profound and unpredictable effects, but unless one of those unpredictable effects is killing off a lot of tory MPs in marginal seats then that majority isn't shifting.



Theres more than one way to lose a majority, or power. We'll see, whatever happens I dont think it will take all that long for possibilities to emerge.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

I'd love to believe you.


----------



## Humberto (Apr 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> The spivs are the dominant current in the tories now - itll just be another spiv.



Some spivs are worse than others. You have to spiv to enter.


----------



## keybored (Apr 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I found bog roll yesterday!



Finally, a breakthrough. This is the glimmer of hope we need right now.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

Anyway whatever stripe of fucker is in power, they probably face having to operate in an unexpected big government, tax and spend world. At least those seem like strong contenders for a new post-pandemic consensus, a consensus that they may have to come up with in order to try to avoid more radical forms of change.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

Oh dear.









						Police called as 'up to 100 mourners' defy six-person funeral limit
					

Those present included Birmingham MP Tahir Ali - who attended two on the same day




					www.birminghammail.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh dear.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I really really hate this limit. We all get as close to people just going shopping. Let mourners mourn, ffs. Lockdown is not and can never be 100%. Allowing people to grieve is a pretty fucking important thing to allow in part of the small fraction of 1% that it represents.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I really really hate this limit. We all get as close to people just going shopping. Let mourners mourn, ffs. Lockdown is not and can never be 100%. Allowing people to grieve is a pretty fucking important thing to allow in part of the small fraction of 1% that it represents.



Large funeral gatherings have been implicated in known clusters elsewhere. I dont share your optimistic 'a magical mild liberal lockdown would work just as well' stance in general so I'm bound not to agree with you on this specific example. The comparison to shopping is a reason to be stricter about shopping, not to allow larger funeral gatherings.

I know its terrible and tragic and people should have a right to have these funerals, and that its an important part of the grieving process for some. But in terms of epidemic control, I prefer to err mostly on the side of reducing the number of future funerals by way of less people catching it and dying.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 3, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Just to clarify, it's their framing I'm highlighting, not making light of its effect on him at all (as detailed on the other thread, I've probably had it, and whatever it was, it was indeed deeply unpleasant). They've not framed it as something like "heroic Boris bounces back". The quote's from a noughties _Doctor Who_ where a PM was brought down with six words.
> 
> The _Mail_ are the shit of the world, why I refuse to link them here, but am keeping a very close eye on how they're presenting this. More they turn against Johnson, higher the chance this corrupted government might actually fall.


Friend, the only reason why the Fleet Street is pretending to be awake is because non-essential workers like Peston and his types are scared that eventually press owners are going to realise they can replace their reporter pool with a speech-to-text bot reading from Whatsapp and save themselves millions.



Azrael said:


> Which could well happen. It's reported in the Guardian piece that Tory MPs fear it could all fall apart with dizzying speed. Chamberlain was driven from office after a mass rebellion cut into a much larger majority. That's the scale of events we could be talking. No possibility is closed off.


Do you see anyone rushing to take over from the panto clown on the back of a disaster and the countless deaths he will have presided over. They are going to let him joke and stutter his way through this fiasco and then some.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Large funeral gatherings have been implicated in known clusters elsewhere. I dont share your optimistic 'a magical mild liberal lockdown would work just as well' stance in general so I'm bound not to agree with you on this specific example. The comparison to shopping is a reason to be stricter about shopping, not to allow larger funeral gatherings.
> 
> I know its terrible and tragic and people should have a right to have these funerals, and that its an important part of the grieving process for some. But in terms of epidemic control, I prefer to err mostly on the side of reducing the number of future funerals by way of less people catching it and dying.


There are ways and means of controlling funerals. Everyone doesn't need to be huddled together. It's not about magic. It's about numbers. If anything the magical thinking comes from thinking that bashing down hard on things like funerals makes much difference at all.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

Well I would not leave epidemic control to the whims of liberal gut instincts, no matter how well intentioned they might be. You've shown your hand several times in this regard already, with Germany and with Sweden, although your stance is nuanced and you are not calling for a laid back approach, you clearly hope for and recommend things that fit your existing established views on how things should be. And looking at the practicalities some of these points we could argue about are likely to be moot soon anyway as the whole death management system is forced into an emergency reconfiguration by the sheer number of deceased that need to be handled.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

And let me be clear that when I say that, there may well come a time for the nuances and the flexible approach. But dont call for that approach before the proof it works exists, what you hope to see from certain other countries is not proven yet. If a time comes when it is, then you can more fairly make the sorts of recommendations that are dear to your politics etc.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

One more point, I should explain the context of my thoughts on this a little more.

I'm in the midlands. The numbers here are really quite bad. The story about the funeral is a midlands story. People are looking for explanations for the midlands numbers and clusters in particular places that were especially visible earlier on, explanations for which I'm sure there are many. Some of them are along the lines of fears that certain cultural and religious practices are leaving some groups at much greater risk, groups that are strongly represented in this region.

If the epidemic evolves at a different rate in these groups, and fails to slow down as much after lockdown measures because of some obvious holes in adherence, then this is a tragedy in its own right. And at some point if it is the case and is significant, things will be done to try to fix it. I'd rather that happen sooner than later because time is lives.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I really really hate this limit. We all get as close to people just going shopping. Let mourners mourn, ffs. Lockdown is not and can never be 100%. Allowing people to grieve is a pretty fucking important thing to allow in part of the small fraction of 1% that it represents.


I hate it too, but I can see the logic for it.  Perhaps there could be a bit more creativity around funerals, allow a few more mourners, maybe even stream them, dunno. But yeah, its all very sad.

By the by, the Labour MP in the story sounded a right prick. 'Observing' funerals.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I really really hate this limit. We all get as close to people just going shopping. Let mourners mourn, ffs. Lockdown is not and can never be 100%. Allowing people to grieve is a pretty fucking important thing to allow in part of the small fraction of 1% that it represents.



I hate it too, and a strict limit of 6 seems odd, some common sense flexibility should be allowed, but certainly nowhere near 80-100, which would be a massive increase risk for the likes of the funeral directors and crematorium/cemetery staff, who are key workers in this crisis.  

Many, probably most, funeral directors can stream services, so mourning can take place elsewhere, in much smaller groups, not ideal, but we are where we are.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 3, 2020)

Funerals are notorious for hugging and blubbing, and so probably far more dangerous than other gatherings of similar numbers. They are also difficult situations in which to enforce social distancing. Not many people that preside over a funeral are likely to be comfortable with haranguing people as they reach out to comfort each other.

Much better to get the basics done quickly with minimal attendees and have whatever memorial event is desired when this is over.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 3, 2020)

Immunity passports being mulled over by govt.  Think this idea is also being considered in America.









						Boris Johnson faces questions over 'immunity passports' for recovered coronavirus patients — Evening Standard
					

Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed the government is considering handing out the documents to allow people to "get back, as much as possible, to normal life” amid a nationwide lockdown.




					apple.news


----------



## muscovyduck (Apr 3, 2020)

I was on the street coming home from a walk last night durring the clap, it was horrible to feel trapped outside durring it


----------



## existentialist (Apr 3, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Immunity passports being mulled over by govt.  Think this idea is also being considered in America.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's a can of worms they'd be well advised to consider with great caution...


----------



## kabbes (Apr 3, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> I was on the street coming home from a walk last night durring the clap, it was horrible to feel trapped outside durring it


Nobody wants to be caught out in a dose of the clap


----------



## keybored (Apr 3, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> I was on the street coming home from a walk last night durring the clap, it was horrible to feel trapped outside durring it


I find the whole thing mawkish and sinister now.




existentialist said:


> It's a can of worms they'd be well advised to consider with great caution...


Because there is no proven (yet) immunity?


----------



## existentialist (Apr 3, 2020)

keybored said:


> I find the whole thing mawkish and sinister now.
> 
> 
> 
> Because there is no proven (yet) immunity?


That, and a million more - mostly psychosocial - reasons. It'd be a nightmare to enforce, just for a start.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Apr 3, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> I was on the street coming home from a walk last night durring the clap, it was horrible to feel trapped outside durring it



It was much noisier and more angry than previously; it gave me a lift at the end of a long and tiring day. I'd like to see it get a lot louder and more demanding.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 3, 2020)

existentialist said:


> It's a can of worms they'd be well advised to consider with great caution...



Yeah, wonder how it would work?  Papers please or a access all areas lanyard?


----------



## newbie (Apr 3, 2020)

When this is all over comparisons will be made between discarded PPE and the size of Wales.

I've seen no coverage of how a sudden huge increase in potentially dangerous waste is currently being dealt with by the refuse industry- separation for reuse, recycling or composting, or are they just incinerating everything?


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 3, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Funerals are notorious for hugging and blubbing, and so probably far more dangerous than other gatherings of similar numbers. They are also difficult situations in which to enforce social distancing. Not many people that preside over a funeral are likely to be comfortable with haranguing people as they reach out to comfort each other.
> 
> Much better to get the basics done quickly with minimal attendees and have whatever memorial event is desired when this is over.



We had a family funeral last week, my partner's mum. It was my partner, his dad, his sister and her children and her partner. There was an unexpected friend of his dad. I stayed home with my younger children and watched it on video stream. It was awful, but done safely. It was safe for his dad. We'll have a memorial later.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 3, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> I was on the street coming home from a walk last night durring the clap, it was horrible to feel trapped outside durring it


Horrible to have the clap at any time.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 3, 2020)

newbie said:


> When this is all over comparisons will be made between discarded PPE and the size of Wales.
> 
> I've seen no coverage of how a sudden huge increase in potentially dangerous waste is currently being dealt with by the refuse industry- separation for reuse, recycling or composting, or are they just incinerating everything?



It would be classed as clinical waste, there are strict rules on keeping it separate from general waste, how it is stored, then transported and incinerated.


----------



## redsquirrel (Apr 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> I dont think it's a narrow prediction to say that the tories will be in power until at least 2025. The pandemic will have profound and unpredictable effects, but unless one of those unpredictable effects is killing off a lot of tory MPs in marginal seats then that majority isn't shifting.


This. 
The national unity government or split of the conservative party stuff is total nonsense - theTories have a whacking majority. Moans from disgruntled backbenchers need to be seen for what they are.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 3, 2020)

After four or five false starts my employer is now making parts for UK ventilators. Now we are part of the effort to support the NHS I feel better about continuing to work through the lockdown.


----------



## killer b (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Anyway whatever stripe of fucker is in power, they probably face having to operate in an unexpected big government, tax and spend world. At least those seem like strong contenders for a new post-pandemic consensus, a consensus that they may have to come up with in order to try to avoid more radical forms of change.


Yeah, this could certainly be true. We've seen generation after generation of social democrat politicians crushed under the wheel of neoliberal orthodoxy, either at the ballot box or by the demands of power on the occasions they do win - one effect of this crisis could be to see a reversal of this effect... I'm suspicious Boris Johnson came into possession of a magic monkey's paw shortly before the 2019 general election.


----------



## bimble (Apr 3, 2020)

Can somebody explain what this means and how they have come to the conclusion that things got bad here earlier than we knew?
Will they be adjusting our numbers upwards retrospectively?
Coronavirus took hold in UK earlier than thought, data reveals


----------



## ska invita (Apr 3, 2020)

Sunday has the first proper warm sunny day, rest of the week after that not too bad either.
Really hope people dont fuck it up and force a stricter lockdown


----------



## weepiper (Apr 3, 2020)




----------



## Numbers (Apr 3, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Sunday has the first proper warm sunny day, rest of the week after that not too bad either.
> Really hope people dont fuck it up and force a stricter lockdown
> 
> View attachment 204620


I have a gut feeling there may be a tightening on things with today’s briefing.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 3, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> If it was money the government owed to itself they can do what the hell they want with it. The only issue with cancelling such debt at some point is the confidence of markets, but since markets are fucked anyway why worry about that now? You could probably get inflation if you cancelled too much (because you're kind of printing money), but that also seems an unlikely problem right now.
> 
> They could have cancelled it before but they were using it to 'discipline' the NHS. The pricks.


How can an institution owe money to itself? 13 bn? Doesn’t make sense


----------



## weltweit (Apr 3, 2020)

bimble said:


> Can somebody explain what this means and how they have come to the conclusion that things got bad here earlier than we knew?
> Will they be adjusting our numbers upwards retrospectively?
> Coronavirus took hold in UK earlier than thought, data reveals


Hi bimble, I think they are revising their estimates for early cases based on this first death. So the virus first started in Wuhan in mid to late December 2019 and then spread, this UK death on 28th Feb 2020 suggests the individual could have been infected possibly 4 weeks or more previously, which would mean the virus was in the UK towards the end of January.


----------



## killer b (Apr 3, 2020)

bimble said:


> Can somebody explain what this means and how they have come to the conclusion that things got bad here earlier than we knew?
> Will they be adjusting our numbers upwards retrospectively?
> Coronavirus took hold in UK earlier than thought, data reveals


presumably post mortem testing has found people who died at home earlier than the first hospital death - isn't this the data elbows was talking about earlier?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Hi bimble, I think they are revising their estimates for early cases based on this first death.
> ..


And it has made some of us question other assumptions, someone I know had a hacking dry cough in late January that went on for a couple of weeks, they later assumed it couldn't be the virus as it was too early but now I wonder if it could have been it. Of course we won't know until there is public antibody testing, and we may have to wait a long time for that.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 3, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> We had a family funeral last week, my partner's mum. It was my partner, his dad, his sister and her children and her partner. There was an unexpected friend of his dad. I stayed home with my younger children and watched it on video stream. It was awful, but done safely. It was safe for his dad. We'll have a memorial later.


Very sorry to hear this. Please pass on my condolences to Blagsta. Funerals are one time we do need people around us. You and he have community here, and though he no longer posts he’s still well regarded here.

I’ll quietly toast to Blagsta’s mum this evening.


----------



## ignatious (Apr 3, 2020)

existentialist said:


> That, and a million more - mostly psychosocial - reasons. It'd be a nightmare to enforce, just for a start.


Once the sun comes out those who believe themselves to be immune and people who are, let’s say, under 30 and don’t see themselves as particularly at risk are going to get very restless.

Will there not come a time when the difficulties of enforcing this, and the ‘unintended consequences’ of the testing system begin to look like the lesser of two evils? Enforcement of any kind is soon going to become a nightmare, and there will be psychosocial consequences to locking down people who’s risk, actual or perceived, is zero or negligible too, won’t there?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 3, 2020)

It remains tricky to maintain the 2m social distance in the village shop. 

I found myself walking towards someone just now and they panicked and turned almost at a run to keep their distance. I think they should be limiting the number of people in at any point in time, they have been a little tardy in making changes like this so far though.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How can an institution owe money to itself? 13 bn? Doesn’t make sense


Well, no, it never did make sense. They gave a budget to NHS trusts that was not enough to run services, then when the trusts overspent they pretended the overspend was a 'debt' owed by the NHS trusts to central government, and that the trusts now had to repay that debt. But that was a political decision, partly about forcing cost cutting on the trusts, partly about getting them to act as independent bodies so at some point private companies could get to run them.

More here: Writing off NHS debt of £13.4 billion is a charade. What is required instead is the renationalisation of the NHS: nothing less will do


----------



## Cid (Apr 3, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> This.
> The national unity government or split of the conservative party stuff is total nonsense - theTories have a whacking majority. Moans from disgruntled backbenchers need to be seen for what they are.



Yep. It's going to strike many people on urban as odd, but they seem to be doing well on the basis of their coronavirus strategy. Latest yougov polling says the government approval rating is positive for the first time in a decade. With disapproval only at 26%. We follow current affairs to an almost ridiculous degree here... Most people are seeing a bit of BBC coverage, advice popping up in their facebook feed, and getting some information on grants etc. Are people going to realise that giving that advice a week after they should have might have a huge effect on the outcome of this? Are they going to know there were other avenues that should have been pursued? That the scientific advice was far from unanimous, and followed a different path than that given to other countries?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 3, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Sunday has the first proper warm sunny day, rest of the week after that not too bad either.
> Really hope people dont fuck it up and force a stricter lockdown



If there is a stricter lockdown it will not have been 'forced' by people going outside. Not like the government has people with clipboards lurking in the bushes beside every footpath in the land taking notes on how many people are out and about. If lockdown measures are tightened it will be for two reasons; firstly the government didn't act soon enough in the first place, secondly the initial lockdown meaures were half-arsed, poorly communicated and irrational.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

bimble said:


> Can somebody explain what this means and how they have come to the conclusion that things got bad here earlier than we knew?
> Will they be adjusting our numbers upwards retrospectively?
> Coronavirus took hold in UK earlier than thought, data reveals



A bit fucking stupid that they don't seem to be telling us where it was (that article doesn't, anyway).


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 3, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yep. It's going to strike many people on urban as odd, but they seem to be doing well on the basis of their coronavirus strategy. Latest yougov polling says the government approval rating is positive for the first time in a decade. With disapproval only at 26%. We follow current affairs to an almost ridiculous degree here... Most people are seeing a bit of BBC coverage, advice popping up in their facebook feed, and getting some information on grants etc. Are people going to realise that giving that advice a week after they should have might have a huge effect on the outcome of this? Are they going to know there were other avenues that should have been pursued? That the scientific advice was far from unanimous, and followed a different path than that given to other countries?



I think people just don't see that as party-political. No one thinks Labour or the LibDems would have done a better lockdown on account of their political philosophies. By 2024 no one will be talking about how people should vote Labour because they would have ramped up testing more quickly back in March 2020. There will be a whole load other stuff by then that emerges from this about employment/debt/society etc.


----------



## LDC (Apr 3, 2020)

Edited: Wrong thread, better off elsewhere I think.


----------



## ignatious (Apr 3, 2020)

Cid said:


> Are people going to realise that giving that advice a week after they should have might have a huge effect on the outcome of this? Are they going to know there were other avenues that should have been pursued? That the scientific advice was far from unanimous, and followed a different path than that given to other countries?


Early days. If we have either a significantly higher death rate or a longer period in lockdown than other similar countries, questions are going to be asked about the Govt’s decision making abilities in a crisis, particularly as they went against so much of the advice being provided internationally.

Against a backdrop of widespread anger at the state of the NHS and a probable climate of anger and mistrust in Westminster as the various players fall over themselves to justify their decisions via resignations, off the record briefings and book deals, things could get very ugly for the Govt.

By the autumn most people will know someone who has been killed by this. Some MPs have already lost close relatives and journalists will be in a similar position. Everybody will have been severely effected, so it’s not suddenly going drift out of the public consciousness once the football season returns. We are all going to live with the decisions they made for decades to come, and they are going to be made to live with them too.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 3, 2020)

The Financial Times said: 

*



			With Johnson under fire, blame game begins over virus crisis
		
Click to expand...

*


> Media criticism intensifies after disclosure that only 2,000 NHS staff have been tested
> 
> For the first time since becoming prime minister, Boris Johnson woke to universally negative newspaper headlines on Thursday morning — including from some titles usually supportive of his leadership.
> 
> ...


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 3, 2020)

I saw something about self isolation and keeping your rubbish in your room and it would be disposed of seperately. I'm pretty sure that's not happening.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 3, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I saw something about self isolation and keeping your rubbish in your room and it would be disposed of seperately. I'm pretty sure that's not happening.



I do that anyway, if only so people don't see the stockpile of empty pringles tubes I've accumulated.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How can an institution owe money to itself? 13 bn? Doesn’t make sense


the government making the government take out a loan from the government to cripple a part of the government.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

bimble said:


> Can somebody explain what this means and how they have come to the conclusion that things got bad here earlier than we knew?
> Will they be adjusting our numbers upwards retrospectively?
> Coronavirus took hold in UK earlier than thought, data reveals



Its mostly just a story about the detail of the death reporting lag. These deaths were mostly already included in the total, but with the wrong date (date of reporting after various delays including family liason, instead of date of death).

There is now an attempt to attribute the correct date to the deaths, as seen in this attempt from April 1st:





__





						NHS England » Total number of COVID-19 deaths in England by date of death
					






					www.england.nhs.uk
				




Quite how often they will actually bother updating that remains to be seen.

The timing of the first deaths is generally used as one of a bunch of indicators that give strong clues about the stage of an outbreak. If you miss a bunch, or some happened earlier than had previously been indicated, then that skews things a bit. But, to be honest, when using that stuff as a guide it should already have been assumed that its very easy to miss some early deaths, due to the low numbers involved and the fact that authorities make arbitrary decisions about when to actually start looking properly for those deaths. Do not be surprised if, when I go and check the timeline, the new earliest death date that article provides, Feb 28th, turns out to be not far away from the date the UK actually started to test people with pneumonia who were hospitalised, even if they didnt have the relevant travel history. I will have a look shortly.

So, the modified dates for some of the early deaths dont really end up changing my sense of UK epidemic timing much, I was already assuming some lag and missed cases and we have plenty of other indications as to the state of the epidemic right now, which can be extrapolated backwards in time if we are that curious about the scale of things much earlier on. I am not equipped to perform that exercise but I would assume it would lead to a modest reappraisal of epidemic timing here, nothing too major.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 3, 2020)

It was said in yesterday's briefing that 3 out 4 testing kits were missing positive cases, so the government is no longer accepting applications to place test kits on the market most probably because they were inundated with scammers and profiteers. Free market, insert smug face, etc.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Do not be surprised if, when I go and check the timeline, the new earliest death date that article provides, Feb 28th, turns out to be not far away from the date the UK actually started to test people with pneumonia who were hospitalised, even if they didnt have the relevant travel history. I will have a look shortly.



Yeah. Feb 26th:









						Coronavirus: Hundreds of flu patients to be tested by UK hospitals and GPs
					

It comes as several schools close and some office workers are sent home due to virus fears.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Up to now, people have only been tested if they displayed symptoms having recently returned from one of the countries where there has been an outbreak, including China, South Korea and northern Italy.
> 
> Public Health England said it was now working with some hospitals and GP surgeries to conduct tests on some other patients.
> 
> In eight hospitals, patients in intensive care with severe respiratory infections will be tested for the virus.


----------



## xes (Apr 3, 2020)

little_legs said:


> It was said in yesterday's briefing that 3 out 4 testing kits were missing positive cases, so the government is no longer accepting applications to place test kits on the market most probably because they were inundated with scammers and profiteers. Free market, insert smug face, etc.


Wasn't there something the other day that said a whole load of test kits coming our way was actually contaminated with covid-19? 

And I think when it comes to getting actual fatality numbers, we're going to have to cross reference lots of other illnesses and see if there have been spikes in deaths contributed to them that could have been this. (Flu, pneumonia etc)


----------



## Wilf (Apr 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I do that anyway, if only so people don't see the stockpile of empty pringles tubes I've accumulated.


You heard it here first: the next Turner Prize winner will be a construction of Pringles Tubes and other self isolator's rubbish.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 3, 2020)

xes said:


> Wasn't there something the other day that said a whole load of test kits coming our way was actually contaminated with covid-19?
> 
> And I think when it comes to getting actual fatality numbers, we're going to have to cross reference lots of other illnesses and see if there have been spikes in deaths contributed to them that could have been this. (Flu, pneumonia etc)


Good God.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 3, 2020)

Can any of you good folk explain to a non-native speaker what dying *of *covid-19 and dying *with *covid-19 mean? I see this in the news and I am like uh what? Do they mean the same thing?


----------



## clicker (Apr 3, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Can any of you good folk explain to a non-native speaker what dying *of *covid-19 and dying *with *covid-19 mean? I see this in the news and I am like uh what? Do they mean the same thing?


At a guess you could die because you have covid 19. That would be dying 'of' it.
Or you could die due to falling down the stairs,  but tests show you had it. So you died with it but not because of it.
Eta total speculation on my part tho.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 3, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Can any of you good folk explain to a non-native speaker what dying *of *covid-19 and dying *with *covid-19 mean? I see this in the news and I am like uh what? Do they mean the same thing?



Dying of means killed directly by it. Dying with means they had it but the death might have been caused by something else.


----------



## killer b (Apr 3, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Can any of you good folk explain to a non-native speaker what dying *of *covid-19 and dying *with *covid-19 mean? I see this in the news and I am like uh what? Do they mean the same thing?


it's a formulation used by conspiracy theorists who think it's being used to create a police state, and neoliberals who think everywhere should still be open to try and put doubt in people's minds about how serious the pandemic actually is.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

clicker said:


> At a guess you could die because you have covid 19. That would be dying 'of' it.
> Or you could die due to falling down the stairs,  but tests show you had it. So you died with it but not because of it.



Unless you passed out at the top of the stairs because of the virus and _then_ fell down the stairs. That would be of it rather than with it.


----------



## Athos (Apr 3, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Can any of you good folk explain to a non-native speaker what dying *of *covid-19 and dying *with *covid-19 mean? I see this in the news and I am like uh what? Do they mean the same thing?


It's the government's cynical attempt to imply that all these people would've died anyway i.e. it's nothing to do with their mishandling of the situation.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 3, 2020)

clicker Monkeygrinder's Organ killer b Athos  thank you


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Can any of you good folk explain to a non-native speaker what dying *of *covid-19 and dying *with *covid-19 mean? I see this in the news and I am like uh what? Do they mean the same thing?



Eddie Large is the most obvious recent example - was in hospital with heart failure, and then caught Covid-19. Not sure if the choice of 'with' was family-led.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

little_legs said:


> clicker Monkeygrinder's Organ killer b Athos  thank you



Don't thank me then


----------



## little_legs (Apr 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Don't thank me then


thank you and elbows


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

thank you thank you


----------



## newbie (Apr 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It would be classed as clinical waste, there are strict rules on keeping it separate from general waste, how it is stored, then transported and incinerated.


The stuff arising in hospitals and other significant settings will be, although the ramp up of scale calls into question their capacity.  But there are huge numbers of gloves and masks being used in less formal settings.  They can be seen in bushes, blowing along pavements and overflowing from bins in takeways.  How many individual items per capita are we going through atm? 

Discarded PPE used by someone infectious are likely to be a greater hazard than other items they discard into the waste stream.  People are infectious without knowing it. So this stuff matters, no?

Sfaics the specific UK waste industry advice makes no mention of potentially contaminated PPE, loose or in bins, other than from isolating households or specific sites. 

As no-one can know which bits of discarded community PPE are actually contaminated, the entire waste disposal chain is perhaps more risky than this outline makes it appear, because there is no 72 hour quarantine for the 'business as usual' stream shown on this outline.

There is, however, potential for recovery from waste streams to be sent to eg a  Veoila washed PPE recycling facility, so there's that as well.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

Dorries on testing  I didnt notice this yesterday so its a day or so behind the other latest news/Hancocks 5 pillars of testing.









						FactCheck: UK health minister contradicts WHO on testing
					

The claim that testing for coronavirus “won’t cut the number of deaths” directly contradicts statements made by the head of the World Health Organization




					www.channel4.com
				






> “Testing is not a cure, it won’t cut the number of deaths, it won’t make people feel better or stop them catching coronavirus”
> 
> That was the claim from junior health minister Nadine Dorries last night.





> It’s true that taking a coronavirus test will not itself cure or treat someone suffering from Covid-19 symptoms.
> 
> But Ms Dorries’ claim that testing “won’t cut the number of deaths … or stop them catching coronavirus” is wrong, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
> 
> In a statement to world leaders on 16 March, WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus “explains why coronavirus testing saves lives”.





> The director-general said: “the most effective way to prevent infections and save lives is breaking the chains of transmission. And to do that you must test and isolate.”
> 
> He added: “We have a simple message for all countries Test, test, test. Test every suspected case”.
> 
> Asked about Dr Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ comments, England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said: “Of course we completely agree with the secretary general that testing is absolutely critical”.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Those tests needed testing first, the government had hope they could be used within about a week, they never said they would be available in Boots in that time frame.



It's been over a week and this is the latest:  UK still searching for reliable antibody test - Health Minister

Meanwhile someone in the Treasury has spent the week frantically googling to see if anyone, anywhere, has ever managed to get a refund out of corona-pharm.ru


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 3, 2020)

Saw this, maybe a good pressure on the wound...
Revoke the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and renationalise the NHS








						Petition: Revoke the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and renationalise the NHS
					

Restore the responsibility of the Secretary of State to provide a comprehensive, integrated, publicly owned NHS free at the point of need.




					petition.parliament.uk


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Apr 3, 2020)

My neighbour (works in admin between nhs and private medicine) reckons that most nhs beds outside of the big cities won’t be required for covid19, because social isolation will reduce infections enough. The problem will then be pressure to restart surgery for other serious conditions, which will lead to reinfection, and to reduce social isolation, which will have the same effect. In the absence of a vaccine, and without total heavy lockdown, how will you ever stop this cycle?

Is he being both optimistic (beds not full) and pessimistic (Reinfection)?

He also thinks that social isolation will be relaxed in time for VE Day. Cynical or realistic?


----------



## Anju (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Dorries on testing  I didnt notice this yesterday so its a day or so behind the other latest news/Hancocks 5 pillars of testing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Is this a level of understanding thing or a deliberate attempt to make a disconnect between government failure to implement testing and the negative impact of that on our ability to try and control/contain the spread. First thought is the second option but there do still seem to be plenty of people who haven't quite got to grips with the bigger medium to long term solutions.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 3, 2020)

bimble said:


> Can somebody explain what this means and how they have come to the conclusion that things got bad here earlier than we knew?
> Will they be adjusting our numbers upwards retrospectively?
> Coronavirus took hold in UK earlier than thought, data reveals



We currently know, at least down to the nearest order of magnitude, the number of covid 19 deaths, and the number of serious cases requiring hospital admission. What we don't know is the rate of infection or exposure in the general population. Existing tests measure viral load which may be zero or negligible in people who have had contact with the virus but seen it off with few or no symptoms, and in any case the current rate of testing is so low that it effectively gives us no useful information at all. Without that number for people exposed to the virus, we can't say even approximately what percentage of those who get exposed get sick, how many of those require hospitalisation, and how many die. We also don't know how many people are yet to be exposed, which is a huge factor in deciding what to do with lockdown measures and future control of the outbreak. 

Good news would be, half the population has been exposed to the virus already, with only the relatively small numbers currently seen getting seriously ill. That might mean that the peak in deaths we are approaching would be the worst, and possibly only peak we see in this pandemic. I'm not convinced the information from other countries, particularly in Asia, supports this possiblity. More likely somewhere in the region of 10% of people in the UK have been exposed, concentrated in London and a couple of other places. That would mean the virus became life-threatening in a higher percentage of cases, and it would mean the pandemic could drag on for a lot longer and cost many more lives. 

If the virus had been circulating in the UK longer than previously thought, that could be evidence that levels of exposure in the general population are higher than expected. This _could_ be good news for the likely duration and severity of the pandemic, but like everything else it must be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Only accurate, large scale testing will give us anything useful to work with.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

Anju said:


> Is this a level of understanding thing or a deliberate attempt to make a disconnect between government failure to implement testing and the negative impact of that on our ability to try and control/contain the spread. First thought is the second option but there do still seem to be plenty of people who haven't quite got to grips with the bigger medium to long term solutions.



Both. The old orthodox approach only got toppled from its pedestal less than 3 weeks ago, plenty of establishment figures need more time to come to terms with that. And there is resistance. But since they have been on the defensive and that twists the rhetoric, and it will take time to ramp up capacity to the extent that the new approach would actually be viable and conceivable in the UK, I am prepared to give it a bit longer to see what the real establishment position turns out to be on this.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 3, 2020)

Anju said:


> Is this a level of understanding thing or a deliberate attempt to make a disconnect between government failure to implement testing and the negative impact of that on our ability to try and control/contain the spread. First thought is the second option but there do still seem to be plenty of people who haven't quite got to grips with the bigger medium to long term solutions.


She's just wrong. To be expected being part of the lying party.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> If the virus had been circulating in the UK longer than previously thought, that could be evidence that levels of exposure in the general population are higher than expected. This _could_ be good news for the likely duration and severity of the pandemic, but like everything else it must be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Only accurate, large scale testing will give us anything useful to work with.



Sampling/surveys on a much smaller scale can actually do a reasonable job of estimating some of the key things you mention, ie percentage of population already infected. So I await results from the Porton Down population sampling antibody tests, the first results of which are due within days.


----------



## LDC (Apr 3, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Is he being both optimistic (beds not full) and pessimistic (Reinfection)?



Given the already near capacity of my hospital with a way to go before the peak, he's being ridiculously optimistic I'd say.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Given the already near capacity of my hospital with a way to go before the peak, he's being ridiculously optimistic I'd say.



And even if they somehow turned out to be right, the planners cant work on that basis, so we end up with stories like this:









						Military to turn leisure centres and school into temporary hospitals in Cumbria | ITV News
					

The care facilities in Carlisle, Whitehaven, Penrith, Kendal and Barrow will provide 500 beds for those recovering from the virus. | ITV News Border




					www.itv.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sampling/surveys on a much smaller scale can actually do a reasonable job of estimating some of the key things you mention, ie percentage of population already infected. So I await results from the Porton Down population sampling antibody tests, the first results of which are due within days.



Aren't the antibody tests most effective from a month or so after exposure? In which case any initial results could be of limited value. They've got smart people at Porton Down though, I'm sure they're using better controls and better experimental design than I could come up with from my position of knowing fuck all and still being in my pyjamas.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Given the already near capacity of my hospital with a way to go before the peak, he's being ridiculously optimistic I'd say.



Also I live in a town which has already reported 21 hospital deaths from Covid-19, and since that data lags I dont know how many more there may actually have been already. And I dont have data about hospital & intensive care capacity, but I'd say this is not a promising indicator.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Aren't the antibody tests most effective from a month or so after exposure? In which case any initial results could be of limited value. They've got smart people at Porton Down though, I'm sure they're using better controls and better experimental design than I could come up with from my position of knowing fuck all and still being in my pyjamas.



If I had a good picture of how many people were infected in the UK at the start of March then that would still be really useful info. And all the model-based stuff that is having to be relied on will improve as soon as such real data is able to be fed into it, even if the data tells the story of a month earlier.


----------



## zahir (Apr 3, 2020)

Does anyone have an explanation for this? (report from a week or so ago)



> In January 2020, public health officials in the UK designated Covid-19 a HCID, using the information they had access to in the early stages of the country's outbreak. However, the experts have now reconsidered that definition and, as of 19 March 2020, Covid-19 is no longer considered to be a HCID. This decision was based on a review of the most up to date information we now have about the nature of the coronavirus strain, and how it spreads.











						Covid-19 is not considered a High Consequence Infectious Disease - but it is still vital to observe lockdown
					

The UK government no longer classifies coronavirus as a High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID), but this doesn't mean it's safe to resume normal life quite yet.




					www.scotsman.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 3, 2020)

Another issue with testing is that it is, understandably, focussed on sick people and people with known exposure to the virus. This is close to the opposite of what you'd want to do in order to draw conclusions about the wider population, which would be random sampling. 

Ideally you'd have antigen testing for patients, medical staff and others in contact with patients, and people with suspected covid-19 symptoms. And then alongside that, antibody tests for a randomised sample of the population. Of course it would only be worth doing that once enough antibody tests have been done on known subjects to calibrate the data from them.


----------



## LDC (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Also I live in a town which has already reported 21 hospital deaths from Covid-19, and since that data lags I dont know how many more there may actually have been already. And I dont have data about hospital & intensive care capacity, but I'd say this is not a promising indicator.



Anecdotally given how many seem to be dying daily in our relatively small hospital I think the lag might be significant. We'll find out soon enough.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

zahir said:


> Does anyone have an explanation for this? (report from a week or so ago)
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Bureaucratic systems and their practical effects, and the need to sometimes fudge things for practical reasons. HCIDs have their own standards for protective equipment, treatment in specialist hospitals, etc. I havent looked at the history of them but they are probably part of a system designed to cope with infections on a limited scale, and as such are not really in tune with what you have to end up doing in an epidemic/pandemic. The timing of the change likely reflected the stage the UK epidemic had reached by that point, and I cannot rule out the possibility that it was also done for some very specific reasons related to the PPE scandal.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 3, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> My neighbour (works in admin between nhs and private medicine) reckons that most nhs beds outside of the big cities won’t be required for covid19, because social isolation will reduce infections enough. The problem will then be pressure to restart surgery for other serious conditions, which will lead to reinfection, and to reduce social isolation, which will have the same effect. In the absence of a vaccine, and without total heavy lockdown, how will you ever stop this cycle?
> 
> Is he being both optimistic (beds not full) and pessimistic (Reinfection)?
> 
> He also thinks that social isolation will be relaxed in time for VE Day. Cynical or realistic?


Your neighbour might be in possession of information we can only guess at so he might know more what is happening. 

I know that they haven't kitted out the next 1500 beds at Nightingale London yet - and I don't know if they have started to use the private beds and ventilators yet, he would likely know that. 

VE day is 08 May 2020 - I can't see social isolation being lifted by then myself.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Another issue with testing is that it is, understandably, focussed on sick people and people with known exposure to the virus. This is close to the opposite of what you'd want to do in order to draw conclusions about the wider population, which would be random sampling.
> 
> Ideally you'd have antigen testing for patients, medical staff and others in contact with patients, and people with suspected covid-19 symptoms. And then alongside that, antibody tests for a randomised sample of the population. Of course it would only be worth doing that once enough antibody tests have been done on known subjects to calibrate the data from them.



Thats another reason a lot of my focus is on the Porton Down tests. These are wider sampling efforts, community serology surveys. The press dont seem to have done a very good job of writing up the detail from yesterdays press conference, I might have to do it myself for the Porton Down bit, watch this space, I may transcribe that part of what Hancock said.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 3, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> She's just wrong. To be expected being part of the lying party.


She is misguided.

Yes there is no cure, but testing can reduce infection because it can help remove infected people from circulation where they would otherwise infect others. So testing and social isolation can save people from being infected in the first place.

Is she lying, perhaps, more likely she hasn't grasped the nuance of test test isolate!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Also I live in a town which has already reported 21 hospital deaths from Covid-19...



Is there a site reporting deaths at that levels? Or, how have you found that data?

I've looked, but can't find any figures for here, I know there's at least 2, as I know a funeral director dealing with them, but there's loads of FD's here, so it must be a lot more.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Is there a site reporting deaths at that levels? Or, how have you found that data?
> 
> I've looked, but can't find any figures for here, I know there's at least 2, as I know a funeral director dealing with them, but there's loads of FD's here, so it must be a lot more.



The full data is sent to the press, I cant see it. So, for example, I am unable to access the full data about what days those deaths actually occured on, as opposed to when they were reported. However, I can look at the overall reported totals for each hospital trust thanks to the work the HSJ are doing to collate this info. For trusts that operate more than one hospital, I cannot separate them. The data from HSJ article is usually updated quite late in the day, some time after 4pm I think, I usually look in the evening.









						Hospital deaths falling at fastest rate yet
					

Deaths from covid-19 in England's hospitals are declining at the fastest rate yet, as the whole South West region sees one death in seven days.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## treelover (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh dear.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




the critics never seem to realise that they being there as well, are part of the problem.


----------



## treelover (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Anyway whatever stripe of fucker is in power, they probably face having to operate in an unexpected big government, tax and spend world. At least those seem like strong contenders for a new post-pandemic consensus, a consensus that they may have to come up with in order to try to avoid more radical forms of change.



A consensus which Starmer i am sure will be happy to facilitate.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> The full data is sent to the press, I cant see it. So, for example, I am unable to access the full data about what days those deaths actually occured on, as opposed to when they were reported. However, I can look at the overall reported totals for each hospital trust thanks to the work the HSJ are doing to collate this info. For trusts that operate more than one hospital, I cannot separate them. The data from HSJ article is usually updated quite late in the day, some time after 4pm I think, I usually look in the evening.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Cheers, elbows, so we have 11 across the south of West Sussex, so that would be at St Richards Hospital in Chichester & Worthing Hospital, I doubt they would be treating cases at Southlands Hospital in Shoreham, as there's no A&E or ITC departments, so any cases there would come over to Worthing.

Oh, and another 10 just over the border in the Brighton & Hove city council area.


----------



## treelover (Apr 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> If there is a stricter lockdown it will not have been 'forced' by people going outside. Not like the government has people with clipboards lurking in the bushes beside every footpath in the land taking notes on how many people are out and about. If lockdown measures are tightened it will be for two reasons; firstly the government didn't act soon enough in the first place, secondly the initial lockdown meaures were half-arsed, poorly communicated and irrational.



police are everywhere here, i'm sure they will documenting all what is happening, traffic levels, etc.


----------



## editor (Apr 3, 2020)

The lockdown in graphs 





			https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-03-29_GB_Mobility_Report_en.pdf


----------



## weltweit (Apr 3, 2020)

Amazing the data they have on all of us.. 

Bit worrying also ..


----------



## Smangus (Apr 3, 2020)

584 😔


----------



## Cid (Apr 3, 2020)

Smangus said:


> 584 😔



684


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 3, 2020)

Cid said:


> 684



Liked for being right, not for the actual number.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 3, 2020)

The number 684 does not do justice to what is happening for me, what does 684 mean? it is just a sterile number. If instead I try to visualise 684 individuals laid out on hospital beds, all of them dying just in the last 24 hours, and I think that this is more than all the 500 beds in the new Nightingale hospital just in one 24 hour period and continuing repeating every day, then perhaps does it start to become real for me!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 3, 2020)

Everything is going to be fine, the Queen will be addressing the nation at 8 pm on Sunday.   

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> The number 684 does not do justice to what is happening for me, what does 684 mean? it is just a sterile number. If instead I try to visualise 684 individuals laid out on hospital beds, all of them dying just in the last 24 hours, and I think that this is more than all the 500 beds in the new Nightingale hospital just in one 24 hour period and continuing repeating every day, then perhaps does it start to become real for me!



The numbers dont reflect the number that actually died within a 24 hour period, even though the way the press report it often still claims that. However, it still gives some indication of the scale so if it helps you to make that visualisation then fair enough.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Everything is going to be fine, the Queen will be addressing the nation at 8 pm on Sunday.
> 
> YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!



I wonder if they had a data-based trigger for when her speech would be rolled out to the nation. Just like pandemic response phases and the lockdown measures are supposed to be activated when you hit a milestone such as a certain number of deaths in total, or increasing rate of deaths, or some threshold for hospital admissions, I expect the Queens speech was being saved for a point where the daily death figures or overall total enter especially stark territory. Or some measure of how 'restless' people are becoming over lockdown, timescales etc.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 3, 2020)

Apparently it was recorded today, for transmission on Sunday.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 3, 2020)

Can't wait for the queen to tell us how united we all must be from her luxury seclusion in a building full of stuff more valuable than all the houses and cars in my town combined


----------



## prunus (Apr 3, 2020)

For what it's worth the total number of deaths reported is still following fairly closely a strict exponential, at least the one I made based on total deaths from a somewhat arbitrarily-chosen 17.3.20 to 27.3.20 (inc.): here are the 7 days following total model and reported deaths:



y=68.8e^0.221x if you're interested.

Based on my almost-certainly-wrong can-we-top-out-at-20,000-deaths model, I would hope to see the reported numbers start to fall away from that unadjusted exponential line over the next 2 or 3 days, for a total of approx. 2,500 deaths (3 day total) as opposed to 3,500 (on the strict exponential).

Wanring: model based on unreliable data and unreliable assumptions and created by an unreliable mind with an unreliable recall of his days studying retroviruses.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Apparently it was recorded today, for transmission on Sunday.



It felt like the press had been going about it for some weeks, but then my sense of time has gone a bit wonky in this pandemic.

So I checked. This is from March 23rd:



> According to reports however the Queen is ‘waiting for the right moment’ to address the nation in an unexpected speech. Her aim? To ‘calm Britain’s nerves’.
> 
> ‘It has been agreed the address will happen at a key moment in the crisis and that it will be a hugely important way to lift the nation’s morale,’ a source explained via Woman and Home. ‘There is no one more experienced than Her Majesty and she will know exactly the right moment to address the country.’











						The Queen is 'waiting for the right moment' to speak out and calm the nation | Marie Claire
					

Coronavirus has changed life as we know it. And with the current global diagnosed case rate at 341,334, extreme measures are being taken. The UK The Queen is reported to be preparing a speech to 'calm Britain's nerves'. Here's everything you need to know about it...




					www.marieclaire.co.uk


----------



## lefteri (Apr 3, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> STILL IN STOCK at 13:01.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Did you order this one?  I did and it never arrived and the seller is no longer registered with ebay - tbh I never really looked at it properly, just ordered, but now notice that it claimed to be 25L for £7 which is preposterous


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 3, 2020)

lefteri said:


> Did you order this one?  I did and it never arrived and the seller is no longer registered with ebay - tbh I never really looked at it properly, just ordered, but now notice that it claimed to be 25L for £7 which is preposterous


No, I didn't. We had about 1.5l in stock (I use it to dry sweaty hands before handling stamps).

Sorry you got ripped off.


----------



## treelover (Apr 3, 2020)

Just read(on Acorn page) that on last weeks,Qt Robert Jenrick, Communities Secretary announced that no evictions at all would be alllowed during crisis, is this correct?


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

lefteri said:


> Did you order this one?  I did and it never arrived and the seller is no longer registered with ebay - tbh I never really looked at it properly, just ordered, but now notice that it claimed to be 25L for £7 which is preposterous



Does that mean you can't claim back off ebay?


----------



## lefteri (Apr 3, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> No, I didn't. We had about 1.5l in stock (I use it to dry sweaty hands before handling stamps).
> 
> Sorry you got ripped off.



It's fine i'm sure I'll get the money back off paypal or ebay or whatever
was gonna order some more but it's quite expensive when it's (presumably) genuine!


----------



## ddraig (Apr 3, 2020)

treelover said:


> Just read(on Acorn page) that on last weeks,Qt Robert Jenrick, Communities Secretary announced that no evictions at all would be alllowed during crisis, is this correct?


If you've read it on a page you can copy the link and post it, thanks


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 3, 2020)

treelover said:


> police are everywhere here, i'm sure they will documenting all what is happening, traffic levels, etc.



Any further lockdown measures will be entirely the result of the death rate in the coming days, which will have no relation to the behaviour of the public in the past week. Any such measures will not even be designed to actually improve the situation, only to shift the blame for it onto the general public.


----------



## treelover (Apr 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Everything is going to be fine, the Queen will be addressing the nation at 8 pm on Sunday.
> 
> YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!



No monarchist, but pleased she is doing this, people are cracking already and its only a couple of weeks, slightly premature though, unless some deeper measures are coming.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

lefteri said:


> It's fine i'm sure I'll get the money back off paypal or ebay or whatever
> was gonna order some more but it's quite expensive when it's (presumably) genuine!



True, but I've put mine in a spray and just use it to spray incoming mail and packages and shared doorhandles and things. Rest is soap


----------



## Smangus (Apr 3, 2020)

Cid said:


> 684



Oops my bad  soz.


----------



## lefteri (Apr 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> True, but I've put mine in a spray and just use it to spray incoming mail and packages and shared doorhandles and things. Rest is soap


yeah that's what I was going to do and to be honest I'd use it for electronics stuff as well so I should just get some


----------



## lefteri (Apr 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> True, but I've put mine in a spray and just use it to spray incoming mail and packages and shared doorhandles and things. Rest is soap


yeah that's what I was going to do and to be honest I'd use it for electronics stuff as well so I should just get some


----------



## gosub (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> I wonder if they had a data-based trigger for when her speech would be rolled out to the nation. Just like pandemic response phases and the lockdown measures are supposed to be activated when you hit a milestone such as a certain number of deaths in total, or increasing rate of deaths, or some threshold for hospital admissions, I expect the Queens speech was being saved for a point where the daily death figures or overall total enter especially stark territory. Or some measure of how 'restless' people are becoming over lockdown, timescales etc.



We have been shadowing Spain's trajectory pretty closely (with about a week lag).  That was their 1,000 recorded deaths a day point.  They actually look past the peak there now (touch wood)


 - then wash hands)


----------



## killer b (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Or some measure of how 'restless' people are becoming over lockdown, timescales etc.


The roads seem a lot busier than they have been recently today fwiw


----------



## Wilf (Apr 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Any further lockdown measures will be entirely the result of the death rate in the coming days, which will have no relation to the behaviour of the public in the past week. Any such measures will not even be designed to actually improve the situation, only to shift the blame for it onto the general public.


Yep and that's the narrative the tories will be using against the justifiable line that delays in testing killed people.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Dorries on testing  I didnt notice this yesterday so its a day or so behind the other latest news/Hancocks 5 pillars of testing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Johnson: 'we need to start pushing back against all this testing stuff'
Hancock: 'indeed we do prime minister'
Johnson: 'we'll have to use a useful idiot to blow some smoke out of their arse on this'.
Hancock': 'yes but who my liege?'
Johnson: 'erm'
Hancock: 'gosh, who to go with?'
Johnson: _*DORRIE*_*S!*


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 3, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Johnson: 'we need to start pushing back against all this testing stuff'
> Hancock: 'indeed we do prime minister'
> Johnson: 'we'll have to use a useful idiot to blow some smoke out of their arse on this'.
> Hancock': 'yes but who my liege?'
> ...



I think the notion that they'd have to scrabble around to find an idiot patsy is pretty far-fetched. Just go into a cobra meeting and throw a rock ffs.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Everything is going to be fine, the Queen will be addressing the nation at 8 pm on Sunday.
> 
> YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!


She should get us all to do exercises like that Joe guy.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

She'll be announcing in true bulldog spirit that she's turning over the East Wing to become a hospital ward


----------



## Wilf (Apr 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I think the notion that they'd have to scrabble around to find an idiot patsy is pretty far-fetched. Just go into a cobra meeting and throw a rock ffs.


Of course Dorries has extra special authority on medical matters as a trainee nurse...

Amid all the coronavirus stuff you can sometimes forget that we are not only ruled by cunts, but spectacularly stupid cunts at that. Dorries, a minister and fucking Williamson in the _cabinet_!


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> it's a formulation used by conspiracy theorists who think it's being used to create a police state, and neoliberals who think everywhere should still be open to try and put doubt in people's minds about how serious the pandemic actually is.



There are also the operations that might have to be cancelled because the beds are taken up by coronavirus patients. Any deaths there could possibly be ascribed to cv too.


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thats another reason a lot of my focus is on the Porton Down tests. These are wider sampling efforts, community serology surveys. The press dont seem to have done a very good job of writing up the detail from yesterdays press conference, I might have to do it myself for the Porton Down bit, watch this space, I may transcribe that part of what Hancock said.



OK SpookyFrank I transcribed the relevant bits from yesterdays press conference:

Hancock opening speech: 



> The 4th pillar is surveillance.
> 
> We're conducting some of the biggest surveys in the world, to find out what proportion of the population already have the virus. This is done using an ultra-high accuracy antibody test, operated by PHE at their Porton Down science campus. We have capacity for 3500 of these tests a week, enough for population sampling to begin with. Robust population surveillance programmes are essential to understanding the rate of infection and how the virus is spreading across the country. We'll use these tests to help strengthen our scientific understanding, and inform us on the big choice we'll have to make about social distancing and how we'll exit from this crisis.



AP question (shortened and paraphrased by me): Is the Porton Down test similar to an opinion poll where you sample randomly?

Hancock:



> Yes it is a bit like doing an opinion poll, and we have one in the field already, but I'll ask John (Newton) to set out more details....



John Newton:



> Porton Down is a PHE lab that already does ELISA testing for antibodies. Its a well establish, highly accurate test, but it can only be done in relatively small numbers, about three and a half thousand a week. So those tests are being used in a programme of research, coordinated by the Wellcome trust, theres a whole range of different studies going on. And some of these are looking at groups of people right now looking across the population, and others are what we call cohort studies where we take a group of people and test them periodically to see whether they are getting infected without getting symptoms. So in fact there are a whole range of studies being undertaken, driven by this testing facility. Its a relatively small capacity so it would be great to have more of such tests, we would love to get more. And if we did get more capacity to do those sorts of tests we could probably do more of these investigative studies. I was told that the first results of these serology studies will be available in the next few days. So its an impressive programme and it will help a lot when we get the results.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 3, 2020)

Hancock has just said the UK daily deathrate could peak on Easter Sunday with 1,000 on that day. If that was anything like the case and the curve down was anything like the curve up, that would be a total death rate around 20,000? Which was, iirc, the figure one of the science bods was claiming would be a good outcome a week ago.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> The roads seem a lot busier than they have been recently today fwiw


Yeah, that was my impression. The main road near our house features in most of my walks, so I've probably been on it 10 times since the lockdown. Today particularly looked like a normal day.


----------



## killer b (Apr 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> There are also the operations that might have to be cancelled because the beds are taken up by coronavirus patients. Any deaths there could possibly be ascribed to cv too.


Sure - I was reading this harsh story on the graun earlier and was reminded that around this time last year we were told that the chemotherapy hadn't worked on Mrs B's oesophageal cancer and as surgery was too risky to be viable we were looking at palliative options, and she wasn't likely to see Christmas. A couple of weeks later the surgeon had a change of heart and decided to have a crack at removing it despite the risks - thank fuck cause it worked (so far) and she's still here (although I can't actually see her till this bullshit is done). 

If we were in the same position this year, would the surgeon be prepared to have a crack? Would it even be possible to schedule it, considering it was a 14 hour operation with a week in intensive care afterwards? No chance - she'd have had to go home and sit by herself waiting to die like this guy. And there'll be hundreds of cases like hers, borderline risky cases which hinge on their consultant being willing to have a crack or not, who won't get those choices this year. Pretty horrendous tbh.


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 3, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Very sorry to hear this. Please pass on my condolences to Blagsta. Funerals are one time we do need people around us. You and he have community here, and though he no longer posts he’s still well regarded here.
> 
> I’ll quietly toast to Blagsta’s mum this evening.



Thank you danny la rouge, that's very kind of you. I'll let him know.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 3, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Hancock has just said the UK daily deathrate could peak on Easter Sunday with 1,000 on that day. If that was anything like the case and the curve down was anything like the curve up, that would be a total death rate around 20,000? Which was, iirc, the figure one of the science bods was claiming would be a good outcome a week ago.



The back end of the curve will be longer than the front edge. I'd say 30,000 is optimistic from here.


----------



## BigTom (Apr 3, 2020)

treelover said:


> Just read(on Acorn page) that on last weeks,Qt Robert Jenrick, Communities Secretary announced that no evictions at all would be alllowed during crisis, is this correct?



Yes: Complete ban on evictions and additional protection for renters


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> The back end of the curve will be longer than the front edge. I'd say 30,000 is optimistic from here.


If the figures from China are to be believed at all, the back end was much steeper than the front end. It'll be long because it will tail off for ages, but it could tail off at very low levels.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 3, 2020)

Jesus, this is a shitshow.

eta - the daily briefing, not the thread!
Didn't that just get progressively worse and worse? The DNR question dodged - an important one to address, ffs (unless I'm wrong that that will be/already is a fucking reality in terms of conversations that health professionals are having to have with patients), the questions on testing (money doesn't matter/oh wait, money does matter, over any answer, target figures being confusing) the FIVE PILLARS 'strategy' seeming to be nothing more than an exercise in thinking up fucking names which ultimately result in even less actual answers and then the question re testing in comparison to Germany and Korea, countries with greater testing/lower death rates, resulting in a response around * France * _not_ testing so much (deliberately ignoring the question) and a quick handover to the PHE (?) bod who then talked about the _quality_ of tests, which came about from the previous question.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Hancock has just said the UK daily deathrate could peak on Easter Sunday with 1,000 on that day. If that was anything like the case and the curve down was anything like the curve up, that would be a total death rate around 20,000? Which was, iirc, the figure one of the science bods was claiming would be a good outcome a week ago.


Potentially worse than Italy, then?

ETA: Sorry, that's exaggerating. Adjusting for population size, potentially as bad as Italy, then?


----------



## Wilf (Apr 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> The back end of the curve will be longer than the front edge. I'd say 30,000 is optimistic from here.


That sounds reasonable, both with general blips and geographical blips. Apparently Hancock is distancing himself from this comment now (haven't seen him action, just reports)


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 3, 2020)

treelover said:


> Just read(on Acorn page) that on last weeks,Qt Robert Jenrick, Communities Secretary announced that no evictions at all would be alllowed during crisis, is this correct?


Well. It depends how you want to view it. A landlord is still allowed to send an eviction letter to a tenant. It could be either Section 21 (no fault eviction) or Section 8 (for non-payment of rent). The letter must have a 3 month notice period instead of the usual 2 month period (ooh, how fucking generous). And courts will not process possession orders for a while, and when they do they will push landlords to agree to repayment schedules rather than evicting due to unpaid rent.

It's actually a bit shit and not what I would call an evictions ban. I would have banned landlords sending eviction letters at all - just think of the stress when you've already lost your job, even if you know possession proceedings won't start for a while. Also the Scottish govt has promised a 6 month pause in evictions, which seems better. The fact is, when you get an eviction letter from your landlord in the next few months you should sit tight and go nowhere, as they won't be able to action it, but a lot of people won't know that. They'll think they have to leave with the 3-month notice period.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Apr 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> The roads seem a lot busier than they have been recently today fwiw



That was certainly my impression both on my journeys to and from work and while out and about at work; also more groups of people (including playing football in a local park). 

The flip side is that there are more people really keeping themselves to themselves on my delivery route; including taping up their letter boxes. 

It seems to me that people are unable or unwilling to stay at a consistent level of physical distancing and either become laxer or more strict; maybe it is  due to our need to do something/affect some change/exercise some control. 

Whatever is happening, the good weather coming up this weekend and the upcoming bank holiday weekend will test the government's current measures. Apologies for being a bit downbeat but today has left me feeling tired and gloomy.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Cheers, elbows, so we have 11 across the south of West Sussex, so that would be at St Richards Hospital in Chichester & Worthing Hospital, I doubt they would be treating cases at Southlands Hospital in Shoreham, as there's no A&E or ITC departments, so any cases there would come over to Worthing.
> 
> Oh, and another 10 just over the border in the Brighton & Hove city council area.



Just to follow up on that, when I said I dont get the full data, if the press would publish it in full every day then I would be able to figure out the picture much better. But the only time I got to see that full list was, I believe, last Sunday. Well, I am posting about this again because it turns out that yesterdays data was published by some press, so if you are interested you can take a look at the format.

Scroll down this article a bit to see the list. And note that contrary to what their misleading title for that section says, its not a list of all deaths from every hospital, just the deaths that were announced on that day. But note that after each hospital it lists the number of cases and which dates they actually died on, so it would be possible to eventually build a proper picture, albeit one that always lags even further behind the current moment, but at least accurate. But since I dont get to see this list every day, I cannot actually build that picture.









						Where 2,698 virus patients have died in England so far
					

561 more people have died from coronavirus in England




					www.hertfordshiremercury.co.uk
				




And one obvious example of how much a bunch of deaths reported from one hospital on one day can actually be spread out in time:

SANDWELL AND WEST BIRMINGHAM HOSPITAL NHS TRUST: 25 (5 X 29/3; 8 X 30/3; 1 X 25/3; 1 X 28/3; 2 X 23/3; 1 X 27/3; 2 X 26/3; 2 X 24/3; 1 X 22/3; 1 X 21/3; 1 X 18/3)


----------



## zahir (Apr 3, 2020)

With all the government talk about testing has there been any suggestion that they intend to start contact tracing at some point?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 3, 2020)

BigTom said:


> Yes: Complete ban on evictions and additional protection for renters


Technically no _new_ proceedings for evictions are allowed; existing ones can go ahead.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> That was certainly my impression both on my journeys to and from work and while out and about at work; also more groups of people (including playing football in a local park).
> 
> The flip side is that there are more people really keeping themselves to themselves on my delivery route; including taping up their letter boxes.
> 
> ...


Yeah. I was like that yesterday. 

Roads here in London were also busier today when I went for my walk this afternoon. I don't know exactly what that means, but there were lots of cars on the Euston Road with single people in them - if they're key workers going home, I didn't see them the rest of the week. Some very fancy cars at that - these aren't nurses. 

I'm kind of resigned to it now. I had kept hoping that the UK would just get lucky. It felt at least possible. But no. Fuck things up and you get a fucking bad result.


----------



## eoin_k (Apr 3, 2020)

zahir said:


> With all the government talk about testing has there been any suggestion that they intend to start contact tracing at some point?



I think that precise question has been answered with both an emphatic 'no' and a reluctant 'yes' by Matt Hancock at different points today. Make of that what you will.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

eoin_k said:


> I think that precise question has been answered with both an emphatic 'yes' and 'no' by Matt Hancock at different points today. Make of that what you will.


'we're learning from other countries', they say.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 3, 2020)

zahir said:


> With all the government talk about testing has there been any suggestion that they intend to start contact tracing at some point?


I listened to all the press conference today and didn't hear him talk about contact tracing, yesterday I only had half of the conference so if he spoke about it I didn't hear it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I listened to all the press conference today and didn't hear him talk about contact tracing, yesterday I only had half of the conference so if he spoke about it I didn't hear it.


Presumably this is still about capacity. If there are 5,000 new admissions every day, that's most of the tests accounted for there and then. And NHS staff should still also be prioritised for testing, for their sake and because of the damage they will cause if infected. They're trying to firefight with just a trickle of water coming out of the pipe.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 3, 2020)

Fucking idiots.









						Despite what Matt Hancock says, the government's policy is still herd immunity | Anthony Costello
					

We need a community surveillance programme to stop the spread of Covid-19, says Anthony Costello, professor of global health at UCL




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## rubbershoes (Apr 3, 2020)

It's completely made up. They've got no idea just possible projections.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 3, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Fucking idiots.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Good article .. 

One comment, Hancock will probably have a plan for contact tracing for the time in the future when it will be needed, but I think he is only talking about a few days time in these press conferences, in this one the key message was just - yes it might be sunny at the weekend, but stay at home!


----------



## smokedout (Apr 3, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> That was certainly my impression both on my journeys to and from work and while out and about at work; also more groups of people (including playing football in a local park).
> 
> The flip side is that there are more people really keeping themselves to themselves on my delivery route; including taping up their letter boxes.
> 
> ...



I went up to Hampstead today to do some shopping and pick up some meds for someone and can confirm that most rich people do not think social distancing applies to them.  I also walked down a street of posh houses and five of them had current construction jobs ongoing.  I fucking really hate rich people today.

It did seem busier everywhere though to be fair, and a different mood, people seemed less cautious and were taking less care.  My hope is that the chance of getting it from someone you pass in the street or even in a shop is actually likely to be very low and that shutting down schools, workplaces and social gatherings will be enough to turn the tide. Because if it's not then we're fucked.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 3, 2020)

Mrs SI went to the shops earlier and said everyone seemed very cautious about getting too close to anyone else, which reassured her.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Good article ..
> 
> One comment, Hancock will probably have a plan for contact tracing for the time in the future when it will be needed, but I think he is only talking about a few days time in these press conferences, in this one the key message was just - yes it might be sunny at the weekend, but stay at home!


The article itself says that an app's being worked on, and on Twitter, there's been reports from various people in the tech sector that the government's pushing for research into contact-tracing. We'll see.

Costello's been excellent throughout, but a note of caution: we don't, at present, know what the government's policy is. It may still be herd immunity, but there's been furious pushback across the political spectrum, and signs of many politicians and commentators turning against PHE and the CMO/Chief Scientist. This isn't set in stone.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

Isn't contact tracing a bit fucking late if we've got 40,000 odd cases and everybody's been moving around and mixing? A bit more useful right at the beginning I'd have thought.


----------



## killer b (Apr 3, 2020)

the general idea (I think) should be to get past the peak and get the numbers of infections down via the current lockdown, then when you start re-opening you do testing, isolation and contact tracing of any new cases.


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## Azrael (Apr 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Isn't contact tracing a bit fucking late if we've got 40,000 odd cases and everybody's been moving around and mixing? A bit more useful right at the beginning I'd have thought.


That's why, in addition to slowing transmission, a lockdown was necessary after they lost control, to buy time to make tracing viable again. Many will have run through the course and recovered while they're behind closed doors, or if asymptomatic, ceased to be infectious. Easing it will require locating remaining clusters, and perhaps lifting restrictions at different times in different places. 

Even Herd Immunity Vallence has admitted that contact-tracing is necessary towards the end of an epidemic. Without it, we'll have no idea where the virus is concentrated, and will just end up with rolling lockdowns and spiking deaths until a vaccine's available. If only motivated by the basest self-interest, no government wants that.


----------



## Supine (Apr 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Isn't contact tracing a bit fucking late if we've got 40,000 odd cases and everybody's been moving around and mixing? A bit more useful right at the beginning I'd have thought.



There are probably hundreds of thousands of cases when you add up the majority who don’t need hospitalisation.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

The first batch of analysis is in from COVID Symptom Tracker - Help slow the spread of COVID-19 

They have found evidence backing up their earlier suggestion that losing smell/taste is a very common early sign. They've produced a map of those of its 2.5 million followers who have lost sense of smell. It matches up impressively with the known hotspots, just on sense of smell alone. Sometimes a crude test can be the most effective in capturing useful data.









Obviously the sample is biased. I'm symptom-free and signed up, but I would guess people are more likely to sign up to it if they have symptoms. But this kind of thing would be a great tool if there were the tests available. All 50,000 identified so far by the app to be likely with c19 undiagnosed could be tested. Not only might it efficiently find a ton of people who have it, but it would also help them enormously to understand if their assumptions are accurate and help them to make the survey more useful. 

All kinds of things become possible with enough testing capacity.


----------



## Callie (Apr 3, 2020)

Lost my log in info for the app post update a few days back so unable to tell them I'm mostly back to normal bar the loss of smell/taste.

I have had anosmia previously with a cold/flu like illness so I still have some caution over the possibility of it not being COVID causing it. Hoping I'll be able to be antibody tested at work (we've got some kits to try out). Perhaps the app users could have some priority for testing when capacity allows because the app data would then be so much more valuable.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

I don't quite understand why this app isn't being promoted by the government. Surely it's a fantastically useful tool, and like most useful tools, it's really quite simple. Presumably the upgrade was to cope with demand? But they could easily deal with demand with some IT support from the government.

It is easy to use but doesn't treat people like idiots. It doesn't make false promises. It just does what it says on the tin.


----------



## Humberto (Apr 3, 2020)

This 'herd immunity' gamble seems a bit, 'if the witch drowns, she's innocent'. Are they being reasonable? If they act like madmen, why should we be surprised? Trump is their model. Where is the market now to solve all problems?


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

Tempted to use it - I don't have a usable portable telephone but I do have a tablet.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Tempted to use it - I don't have a usable portable telephone but I do have a tablet.


You log in every day and self-report. It's dead quick and easy.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's dead quick



Unfortunate turn of phrase there


----------



## elbows (Apr 3, 2020)

I havent tried to read the original source for this because I dont have the stomach for it right now (the mail argh), but anyway:



> Nearly two-thirds of people think Boris Johnson got the timing of the coronavirus lockdown wrong.
> 
> A new poll found 66 per cent felt he left it too late to enforce stricter rules aimed at reducing social interaction and slowing the spread of Covid-19.
> 
> ...











						Nearly two-thirds think Boris Johnson got lockdown timing wrong
					

A total of 38% want the government to go further believing that current measures have "fallen short"




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## Azrael (Apr 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't quite understand why this app isn't being promoted by the government. Surely it's a fantastically useful tool, and like most useful tools, it's really quite simple. Presumably the upgrade was to cope with demand? But they could easily deal with demand with some IT support from the government.
> 
> It is easy to use but doesn't treat people like idiots. It doesn't make false promises. It just does what it says on the tin.


NHS are working on their own, so presumably they'll be promoting that one. A shame, because the available one's highly impressive, especially given the speed with which it was rolled out.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

Azrael said:


> NHS are working on their own, so presumably they'll be promoting that one. A shame, because the available one's highly impressive, especially when given the speed with which it was rolled out.


Yeah well, there's no rush, is there?


----------



## Callie (Apr 3, 2020)

]





littlebabyjesus said:


> You log in every day and self-report. It's dead quick and easy.



For the asymptomatic I think a daily prompt along the lines of 'are you well? Yes/no' might get more data. No would open the app for more info.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

Callie said:


> ]
> 
> For the asymptomatic I think a daily prompt along the lines of 'are you well? Yes/no' might get more data. No would open the app for more info.


Good point. I did forget one day. It's well done, though, given how quickly they must have got it together. And perfect is not what we need. Good enough and good to go. That's what we need.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 3, 2020)

you'd think they'd interpolate if you enter 'no symptoms' on monday and again on saturday.


----------



## Callie (Apr 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Good point. I did forget one day. It's well done, though, given how quickly they must have got it together. And perfect is not what we need. Good enough and good to go. That's what we need.


Yes good to see how 'simple' technology can provide important epidemiological data even if not proven to be linked when there is no remit for testing.

Presumably the app structure would be easy to recycle should this happen again.

Only downside would be if everyone and their dog releases a symptom tracking app data would be to patchy so NHS support/approval/promotion would be needed to direct users


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> you'd think they'd interpolate if you enter 'no symptoms' on monday and again on saturday.


Hopefully. 

Big data like this is what we desperately need. The workings of the virus are really very poorly understood, but with enough data points you can bash down on biases and identify patterns that allow effective, targeted action without needing to understand why the data is quite like that. You can only get that with big numbers, though.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 3, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Fucking idiots.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's completely damming. This is just about the biggest public policy scandal in decades. Measured against the Iraq invasion this will cost many, many more UK lives (though of course our actions contributed ultimately to about 1 million Iraqi dead). The sad thing is, with the usual caveats about who knows how things will play out, I'd put money on Johnson or some other tory being PM after 2025.


----------



## Labourite (Apr 3, 2020)

Scary stuff this coronavirus. Deaths and cases going up every day in the UK and the government still cannot provide PPE and ventilators in adequate numbers. Meanwhile Germany is putting us to shame on testing. And still no real support for the self-employed and those on zero-hours contracts. 

They were also way to slow to act to this and should have had these lockdown measures in earlier. Then maybe this virus could have been contained better. Boris's first big test as PM and he is failing.


----------



## Anju (Apr 4, 2020)

I see BBC TV news are saying the nightingale hospital has opened to treat 4000.


----------



## bendeus (Apr 4, 2020)

lefteri said:


> Did you order this one?  I did and it never arrived and the seller is no longer registered with ebay - tbh I never really looked at it properly, just ordered, but now notice that it claimed to be 25L for £7 which is preposterous


Lol. I got done by the exact same seller. Commiserations. Makes me feel better that I'm not the only one, mind.


----------



## gosub (Apr 4, 2020)

two sheds said:


> There are also the operations that might have to be cancelled because the beds are taken up by coronavirus patients. Any deaths there could possibly be ascribed to cv too.


From a corooner's report ,no, from hospital culpability waver point of view yes.   Shouldn't show in the official stats as that


----------



## lefteri (Apr 4, 2020)

bendeus said:


> Lol. I got done by the exact same seller. Commiserations. Makes me feel better that I'm not the only one, mind.



i’ve just ordered a different one but have a feeling that might be a scam too


----------



## two sheds (Apr 4, 2020)

gosub said:


> From a corooner's report ,no, from hospital culpability waver point of view yes.   Shouldn't show in the official stats as that



That's what I meant  though, they wouldn't show in the official stats as caused by coronavirus but they would be as a result of it. So it to some extent balances the undercounting by some of those who die with existing conditions.  (Or am I misunderstanding you?)


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Apr 4, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Mrs SI went to the shops earlier and said everyone seemed very cautious about getting too close to anyone else, which reassured her.


This is very much the case at work. Plus we have staff stationed around the store reminding people about the 2m rule, as well as taped out measurements on the floor. Also I would say that 80% of people coming into the store now wear face covering of some kind.

Though the reason we are able to do have staff on the shop floor to remind people is because so many staff, me included, are not now doing our normal jobs. It wouldn't surprise me if some supermarkets start  furlouging staff if this goes on much longer.

We've also found that Friday is now one of our busiest, days. Coincides with paydays maybe and people want to stock up before the weekend? That may help to account for more cars on the road.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 4, 2020)

Anju said:


> I see BBC TV news are saying the nightingale hospital has opened to treat 4000.



If you read the fine print it’s actually 500 initially, with up to 4000 eventually.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 4, 2020)

Wilf said:


> That's completely damming. This is just about the biggest public policy scandal in decades. Measured against the Iraq invasion this will cost many, many more UK lives (though of course our actions contributed ultimately to about 1 million Iraqi dead). The sad thing is, with the usual caveats about who knows how things will play out, I'd put money on Johnson or some other tory being PM after 2025.



Quick, wheel out the Queen to keep the growing scandal off the front pages.

i was thinking earlier how the lack of PPE for healthcare workers is analogous to Blair sending ’our boys’ off to die in Iraq without appropriate body armour, but suspect it won’t become the same right-wing talking point.


----------



## Anju (Apr 4, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> If you read the fine print it’s actually 500 initially, with up to 4000 eventually.



Yes, I just thought it was deliberately misleading in a half hearted way. Also I'm sure I saw reports saying the total number would actually end up as 2800.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 4, 2020)

Anju said:


> Yes, I just thought it was deliberately misleading in a half hearted way. Also I'm sure I saw reports saying the total number would actually end up as 2800.



I’m just not sure how it’s going to get enough staff myself, it’ll be sucking a lot from other hospitals


----------



## Anju (Apr 4, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I’m just not sure how it’s going to get enough staff myself, it’ll be sucking a lot from other hospitals


Yes, I saw 16,000 staff were needed for full capacity. Including support roles I'm assuming.n


----------



## brogdale (Apr 4, 2020)

Behind the _Telegraph_ £wall, so no link, but...unsurprisingly Hancock was talking bollocks...


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 4, 2020)

Quelle surprise ...


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 4, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> We had a family funeral last week, my partner's mum. It was my partner, his dad, his sister and her children and her partner. There was an unexpected friend of his dad. I stayed home with my younger children and watched it on video stream. It was awful, but done safely. It was safe for his dad. We'll have a memorial later.


All best wishes to you and Blagsta at this difficult time


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 4, 2020)

two sheds said:


> you'd think they'd interpolate if you enter 'no symptoms' on monday and again on saturday.




Yes, but one of the characteristics of coronaviruses generally is that they can be intermittent, so you feel rotten, then okay the next day and think it was a passing thing, go back into the community, then feel poorly again, back and forth. Plenty of  people reporting intermittent symptoms with C-19.


NB Some of this is anecdotal, coming from my own observations and from my colleagues. But also from literature, none of which can I now find : the relevant info is swamped by more recent internet stuff around this pandemic. But plenty of peop,e will be able to look to their own personal experience of coronaviruses over the years, when you feel poorly, stay home feel better, go back to work, feel wretched again... That’s not a second cold, that’s the same cold bouncing back.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 4, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Yes, but one of the characteristics of coronaviruses generally is that they can be intermittent, so you feel rotten, then okay the next day and think it was a passing thing, go back into the community, then feel poorly again, back and forth. Plenty of  people reporting intermittent symptoms with C-19.
> 
> 
> NB Some of this is anecdotal, coming from my own observations and from my colleagues. But also from literature, none of which can I now find : the relevant info is swamped by more recent internet stuff around this pandemic. But plenty of peop,e will be able to look to their own personal experience of coronaviruses over the years, when you feel poorly, stay home feel better, go back to work, feel wretched again... That’s not a second cold, that’s the same cold bouncing back.



I was particularly thinking of before you actually get symptoms, but yes that's true once you've had them.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 4, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Quick, wheel out the Queen to keep the growing scandal off the front pages.
> 
> i was thinking earlier how the lack of PPE for healthcare workers is analogous to Blair sending ’our boys’ off to die in Iraq without appropriate body armour, but suspect it won’t become the same right-wing talking point.




It was certainly a comparison that was drawn in the news reports I was listening to last week.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 4, 2020)

And lo, Professor Graham Medley, the Dr. Strangelove who mused about carting the elderly off to Scotland while the epidemic ripped through the poor souls left in England, is sounding off to the _Times_ about trying herd immunity again, complete with a false choice between children's well-being and protecting the vulnerable.

I must thank these unworldly government scientists for continuing to blurt out what politicans would never dare, alongside incriminating themselves in neon letters. Keep it up!


----------



## Doodler (Apr 4, 2020)

Azrael said:


> And lo, Professor Graham Medley, the Dr. Strangelove who mused about carting the elderly off to Scotland while the epidemic ripped through the poor souls left in England, is sounding off to the _Times_ about trying herd immunity again, complete with a false choice between children's well-being and protecting the vulnerable.
> 
> I must thank these unworldly government scientists for continuing to blurt out what politicans would never dare, alongside incriminating themselves in neon letters. Keep it up!



I read that. He claims lockdown will paint Britain into a corner with no obvious exit except the herd immunity route.

Would it not make more sense to learn from Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong, since their approaches seem to be working, more or less? Lockdown is surely the only way to shrink the total number of infected people by bringing the virus's replication rate below replacement levels (R0 < 1 ).  Then you'd have lots of little infection bush fires to run around and deal with, which is probably doable through tracing and quarantining, instead of one huge firestorm.


----------



## zahir (Apr 4, 2020)

A reminder that planning for failure is long-standing and not just about the current government.



> Typically, the media has turned the lack of testing into a political scandal, and the fringe media is luxuriating in ever-more lurid conspiracy theories, but I'm afraid we will have to be content with that reliable old workhorse for an explanation – government (and professional) incompetence.
> 
> So far, I have managed to review government pandemic planning documents going back to 2005, such as this and this, both under Labour health secretaries, respectively John Reid and Patricia Hewitt.
> 
> ...







__





						Coronavirus: no walk in the park
					

Coronavirus: no walk in the park




					eureferendum.com


----------



## Azrael (Apr 4, 2020)

Doodler said:


> I read that. He claims lockdown will paint Britain into a corner with no obvious exit except the herd immunity route.
> 
> Would it not make more sense to learn from Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong, since their approaches seem to be working, more or less? Lockdown is surely the only way to shrink the total number of infected people by bringing the virus's replication rate below replacement levels (R0 < 1 ).  Then you'd have lots of little infection bush fires to run around and deal with, which is probably doable through tracing and quarantining, instead of one huge firestorm.


Yup, even Neil Ferguson of the infamous Imperial paper now accepts massive testing and contact tracing is the answer. (And 
admitted in a _New Scientist_ piece a few days back that they didn't plug test-trace-isolate into their models 'cause the government didn't have the necessary kit.) Either Medley's somehow ignorant of it, or prefers letting the virus tear through the population until it burns itself out.

I encourage government scientists to continue to be as frank as possible.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 4, 2020)

Doodler said:


> ..
> Would it not make more sense to learn from Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong, since their approaches seem to be working, more or less?
> ..


I would add South Korea to that list ..


----------



## Doodler (Apr 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I would add South Korea to that list ..



Yes definitely, an oversight on my part.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I would add South Korea to that list ..


The go-to example (along with, tentatively, Germany) of getting control of an outbreak. The other countries are certainly where we could be aiming for next, then ultimately, Iceland/New Zealand, if they manage to eradicate Covid domestically (far from guaranteed, but here's hoping).


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> All best wishes to you and Blagsta at this difficult time



Thank you Pickman's model. He says thanks to all of you, we both really appreciate your thoughts and wishes.


----------



## T & P (Apr 4, 2020)

I posted this on the hateful celebrities thread in General, but I thought it was worth posting it here too. What fuckwits some people are... 









						Broadband engineers threatened due to 5G coronavirus conspiracies
					

EE suspects telephone mast engulfed by fire in Birmingham was an arson attack as celebrities claim Covid-19 caused by new network




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 4, 2020)

When's Betty's All Together Now speech on?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 4, 2020)

S☼I said:


> When's Betty's All Together Now speech on?




Sunday at 8 pm, was the last I read about that.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 4, 2020)

Azrael said:


> The go-to example (along with, tentatively, Germany) of getting control of an outbreak. The other countries are certainly where we could be aiming for next, then ultimately, Iceland/New Zealand, if they manage to eradicate Covid domestically (far from guaranteed, but here's hoping).


They're slightly different examples, though. South Korea is an example of how to snuff out an outbreak before it spreads. Germany is an example of how to act early to prepare for and control an outbreak after it has spread considerably. Both share the characteristic of extensive testing, of course.

The thing to compare the UK to in terms of how they _could_ have dealt with this really is Germany. South Korea's approach may be for next time, as it requires a change in overall thinking. Meanwhile, the UK and  Germany have acted with the same amount of information available at roughly the same time - and at every step, Germany has been way ahead, from the longer term with provision of spare capacity built into their system, to the medium term with decisions being made early to invest in a testing regime and to enact social distancing, to the immediate term, in which, as a result of the first two measures, its health care system is coping, thus minimising deaths. They have an idea of what they are facing, and are facing up to it. They have turned exponential growth in deaths to linear growth very early on along the curve, and they have now flattened out new infections.

Talk last week and the week before was about how far behind Germany is on its curve. The question now has to be 'how far ahead is Germany?' It has decisively changed the shape of its curve compared other countries, while the UK has hurtled along up Italy's curve, or even Spain's curve. Not a single lesson learned.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 4, 2020)

I wish it were true that we could say that Germany has changed the shape of its curve.  It may have done but the data doesn’t yet show it, at least from today’s set of FT curves









						Coronavirus tracker: the latest figures as countries fight the Covid-19 resurgence | Free to read
					

The FT analyses the scale of outbreaks and tracks the vaccine rollouts around the world




					www.ft.com


----------



## Azrael (Apr 4, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> They're slightly different examples, though. South Korea is an example of how to snuff out an outbreak before it spreads. Germany is an example of how to act early to prepare for and control an outbreak after it has spread considerably. Both share the characteristic of extensive testing, of course.
> 
> The thing to compare the UK to in terms of how they _could_ have dealt with this really is Germany. South Korea's approach may be for next time, as it requires a change in overall thinking. Meanwhile, the UK and  Germany have acted with the same amount of information available at roughly the same time - and at every step, Germany has been way ahead, from the longer term with provision of spare capacity built into their system, to the medium term with decisions being made early to invest in a testing regime and to enact social distancing, to the immediate term, in which, as a result of the first two measures, its health care system is coping, thus minimising deaths. They have an idea of what they are facing, and are facing up to it. They have turned exponential growth in deaths to linear growth very early on along the curve, and they have now flattened out new infections.
> 
> Talk last week and the week before was about how far behind Germany is on its curve. The question now has to be 'how far ahead is Germany?' It has decisively changed the shape of its curve compared other countries, while the UK has hurtled along up Italy's curve, or even Spain's curve. Not a single lesson learned.


South Korea had a bad outbreak thanks to that church. Germany's is undoubtedly worse (probably due to people coming back from Italy, it's been reported that the average age of cases was lower at first), but as you say, they do seem to be getting control of it now. If outbreaks can be halted and reversed, should be possible to have a second chance at employing strategies we missed.

All these comparisons are inexact (especially since S. Korea never had a lockdown). I look at it mostly as finding different ways to implement the fight-with-quarantine approach, whether that's lockdown, contact tracing, mass testing, or a mixture.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 4, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I wish it were true that we could say that Germany has changed the shape of its curve.  It may have done but the data doesn’t yet show it, at least from today’s set of FT curves
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There's been promising signs with new cases, but yes, Germany is definitely early days.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 4, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I wish it were true that we could say that Germany has changed the shape of its curve.  It may have done but the data doesn’t yet show it, at least from today’s set of FT curves
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's little, but it is showing. In deaths in the past week, growth has been linear, hence the line curving just at the end. In new cases, there has been no growth in the last week. It has flattened out, also now showing up in the rolling weekly averages, so you would tentatively expect deaths to flatten out over the next week or so. And we have to bear in mind how much more testing is being done in Germany. 50,000 per day, with just over 10 per cent of those testing positive over the past week. Well over a million tests have been carried out now, and they have a much better idea of where it is than, say, us.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 4, 2020)

I think we should be wearing masks, everyone when outside or with other people. 

We are not being told to wear masks or other face coverings because government is worried there are already not enough masks for NHS workers, and if the general population was to wear them - well there wouldn't be enough for NHS frontline workers and the wider population.


----------



## magneze (Apr 4, 2020)

The virologist that was on BBC News earlier this morning seemed pretty adamant that the relative risk of catching the virus outdoors is low because the 'viral aura' disperses quickly. Indoors is the issue.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 4, 2020)

magneze said:


> The virologist that was on BBC News earlier this morning seemed pretty adamant that the relative risk of catching the virus outdoors is low because the 'viral aura' disperses quickly. Indoors is the issue.


They need to analyse and release the data on contact tracing to show exactly who it is that has caught it from known cases. I saw something from Germany a while back showing that, in their contact tracing, most people contacted hadn't caught it. In large part it was close friends and family rather than colleagues.

There is a danger of paranoia setting in here. You're not going to catch it by just walking past someone on the street. It's a new flu virus, but it's not a magic flu virus.

ETA: There's also a danger of constantly ramping up measures because the figures are getting worse when those figures are the result of what was done (or not done) two weeks ago, not what is being done or not done now.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 4, 2020)

Wtf? 









						NHS worker quit when she was stopped from wearing face mask
					

Tracy Brennan chastised superiors at hospitals trust for making her remove her own mask




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> They need to analyse and release the data on contact tracing to show exactly who it is that has caught it from known cases. I saw something from Germany a while back showing that, in their contact tracing, most people contacted hadn't caught it. In large part it was close friends and family rather than colleagues.



I think elbows mentioned there were some ongoing serological surveys in the UK... Tbh those would probably actually be more helpful than simple mass testing+contact tracing. At least in establishing the way the virus spreads, and - if conducted more widely - potentially in identifying hotspots etc.



> There is a danger of paranoia setting in here. You're not going to catch it by just walking past someone on the street.



I think it there was a bit of discussion of this in that Atlantic article that was doing the rounds. <looks up article> Yeah, some tests in Wuhan that only showed limited amounts of virus in the air, even in some relatively crowded locations (by limited, probably not enough to be infectious). Though a runner breathing in your face is probably a bit different. One of the scientists quote in there does say to think of it like avoiding a smoker's breath though, probably on the cautious side, but that's still a fair distance. At least it's not avoid a vaper's vast plumes.



> It's a new flu virus, but it's not a magic flu virus.



It's not a new flu virus, c'mon, sort it out.  



> ETA: There's also a danger of constantly ramping up measures because the figures are getting worse when those figures are the result of what was done (or not done) two weeks ago, not what is being done or not done now.



Yeah, been thinking about this... Some of the measures across Europe do seem to be more reactive and 'look, we're doing more' than actually based in evidence. The only example of long-term, full lockdown we have is China, and it's difficult to draw useful conclusions from that alone. There is a degree of play-it-safe of course, and I think we do need at least the measures currently imposed. But yeah, going further I suspect would be more panicked reaction. And we'll see if measures clamp down on outside activity, or impose tighter restrictions on businesses and how we use supermarkets. Because, if the former, it's probably more a token to looking better, especially if the latter remains as-is.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 4, 2020)

Cid said:


> It's not a new flu virus, c'mon, sort it out.


Technically not an influenza virus. But in general terms as we normally talk of 'flu' (by symptoms rather than cause), it is really. In normal times if you came down with this, you'd call in to work and say you have the flu.


----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> They're slightly different examples, though. South Korea is an example of how to snuff out an outbreak before it spreads. Germany is an example of how to act early to prepare for and control an outbreak after it has spread considerably. Both share the characteristic of extensive testing, of course.
> 
> The thing to compare the UK to in terms of how they _could_ have dealt with this really is Germany. South Korea's approach may be for next time, as it requires a change in overall thinking. Meanwhile, the UK and  Germany have acted with the same amount of information available at roughly the same time - and at every step, Germany has been way ahead, from the longer term with provision of spare capacity built into their system, to the medium term with decisions being made early to invest in a testing regime and to enact social distancing, to the immediate term, in which, as a result of the first two measures, its health care system is coping, thus minimising deaths. They have an idea of what they are facing, and are facing up to it. They have turned exponential growth in deaths to linear growth very early on along the curve, and they have now flattened out new infections.
> 
> Talk last week and the week before was about how far behind Germany is on its curve. The question now has to be 'how far ahead is Germany?' It has decisively changed the shape of its curve compared other countries, while the UK has hurtled along up Italy's curve, or even Spain's curve. Not a single lesson learned.



I'm not sure about this... I mean SK does still have quite a high number of cases... It's been at more than 7.5k active cases since March 10, and has had an essentially steady daily increase since then (i.e about the same number of new cases/day). I say that because it may give some hope that these measures could be used effectively, even after an uncontrolled outbreak (as Europe is seeing now). That might be possible with a month of lockdown, followed by a programme of back-to-work testing, and maybe an app that assigns you a test based on your contact - so you'd answer questions like; 'were you classed as a key worker', 'if not, have you been working around others for the past few weeks'. Combined with extensive randomly sampled surveys, and that form of testing where they were thinking of analysing samples from multiple people at once (64?).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 4, 2020)

Cid said:


> I'm not sure about this... I mean SK does still have quite a high number of cases... It's been at more than 7.5k active cases since March 10, and has had an essentially steady daily increase since then (i.e about the same number of new cases/day).


Not true. Its active cases have been declining daily now from a peak of 7.5k since March 11. The figure is now half that - fewer active cases than the UK is discovering new cases in one day. These are relatively tiny numbers. They haven't eradicated it, but they have very effectively squashed out the spread.

If we're being properly cautious, we could say that the 'safe' place to say that whatever measures you're enacting are working / the entirely population's had it! is the point at which a rolling weekly average of active cases starts to come down. SK hit that point more than two weeks ago, with still fewer than 200 dead. (And it never reached a high number of cases, btw - that peak of active cases is under 10 percent of many places still on the up.)


----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not true. Its active cases have been declining daily now from a peak of 7.5k since March 11. The figure is now half that - fewer active cases than the UK is discovering new cases in one day. These are relatively tiny numbers. They haven't eradicated it, but they have very effectively squashed out the spread.



Oh yeah, sorry - was looking at total cases. Though they did still have that peak.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 4, 2020)

Cid said:


> Oh yeah, sorry - was looking at total cases. Though they did still have that peak.


The point is that this was their peak. The daily cases of about 100-odd now is actually something you can sustain rather well until vaccine. Assuming 1 per cent fatality, that's one death a day. Relatively tiny. If it takes off again in SK that ought to be considered a different outbreak, I would say. At the very least, they have bought themselves a massive chunk of time while avoiding mass death.

By comparison, we don't know what the UK's peak will be. 34,000 is the declared figure at the moment, but the true figure will be way higher, and it is going to continue to grow for a good while yet. And we can also say with confidence that SK's true figure will be much closer to their declared figure than the UK's both because they tested so much and because their death rate is still relatively tiny.


----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The point is that this was their peak. The daily cases of about 100-odd now is actually something you can sustain rather well until vaccine. Assuming 1 per cent fatality, that's one death a day. Relatively tiny. If it takes off again in SK that ought to be considered a different outbreak, I would say. At the very least, they have bought themselves a massive chunk of time while avoiding mass death.
> 
> By comparison, we don't know what the UK's peak will be. 34,000 is the declared figure at the moment, but the true figure will be way higher, and it is going to continue to grow for a good while yet. And we can also say with confidence that SK's true figure will be much closer to their declared figure than the UK's both because they tested so much and because their death rate is still relatively tiny.



Yeah, but my point is that it's not necessarily impossible to follow SK's model, at least to some extent. It would just have to be off the back of a long lockdown and enough data to actually know what's going on. It is hugely dependent on what the situation is, of which we have fuck all idea. But should it turn out that infection rates are on the low end I don't see much choice. Alternative is rolling lockdowns until vaccine.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 4, 2020)

Up to 4313 deaths in hospitals:








						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					www.gov.uk
				




Edit: that's up 708 from yesterday.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 4, 2020)

Nicked from a friend on FB, says it all really:


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I think we should be wearing masks, everyone when outside or with other people.
> 
> We are not being told to wear masks or other face coverings because government is worried there are already not enough masks for NHS workers, and if the general population was to wear them - well there wouldn't be enough for NHS frontline workers and the wider population.



This mask thing is getting on my nerves. The medical advice by the WHO is that general mask wearing is not necessary and indeed may be counter productive. The only peple who should be wearing masks are those with Covid19 or those treating them. Who cares what Trump says. Cloth masks and wearing scarfs over your face are no good anyway.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> ..
> This mask thing is getting on my nerves. The medical advice by the WHO is that general mask wearing is not necessary and indeed may be counter productive. THe only peple who should be wearing masks are those with Covid19 or those treating them. Who cares what Trump says. Cloth masks and wearing scarfs over your face are no good anyway.


If you watch the interview with the top South Korean Medic he says, masks can cut infection because they reduce the droplet cloud when someone coughs or sneezes, and the reason some EU and the USA aren't saying you should wear them is because they don't have enough for their health services - not that they aren't effective.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 4, 2020)

By my maths the three-day average for the number of deaths has been increasing at a steadily declining rate over the past four days. By eyeball prediction I would expect this average to be reaching a plateau point by Monday, with an average of fewer than 800 deaths per day. That would put us somewhere between Italian and Spanish territory.

e2a: Comparable analysis of what has happened in Italy shows one peak and then a second, higher peak a week later. The death rate in Spain, who we seem to be exactly a week behind, has not so much levelled off as oscillated a bit with a slight upward trend.


----------



## Anju (Apr 4, 2020)

Definitely an increase in people out and about today. We live in Deptford and people using the river path have to come down our road a little way then turn off just before our house to get to the next section as there's no river access for a small stretch. I can tell they're not local as where you have to turn off it's not entirely clear and probably looks a bit menacing so  non local people tend to stop and look confused for a bit. Everyone I have seen on my frequent fag breaks has got to there and stopped to work out which way to go. 

I can see it being worse tomorrow as the people who were borderline on having a day out today think fuck it everyone else is out. 

Found out this morning that a friend who works for the NHS, not frontline, has it and has been very ill for the last 4 days and symptoms are getting worse daily. 

The government failure to get the message across properly, with one TV ad and Hancock and Johnson yesterday ordering and pleading respectively is just more proof of their utter incompetence.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 4, 2020)

Yeah, had to pop out earlier to get some essentials, people everywhere, didn’t seem like a lock down to me.


----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> This mask thing is getting on my nerves. The medical advice by the WHO is that general mask wearing is not necessary and indeed may be counter productive. The only peple who should be wearing masks are those with Covid19 or those treating them. Who cares what Trump says. Cloth masks and wearing scarfs over your face are no good anyway.



The WHO advice is actually that they can help protect others against infection by someone who already has it (if the infectious person is wearing it). And I suppose the point with this disease specifically is that there is a potentially massive number of people who are asymptomatic, and an extensive campaign of mask-wearing could have an effect on that if/when we come out of lockdown. Or in supermarkets etc.


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> If you watch the interview with the top South Korean Medic he says, masks can cut infection because they reduce the droplet cloud when someone coughs or sneezes, and the reason some EU and the USA aren't saying you should wear them is because they don't have enough for their health services - not that they aren't effective.



Yes, when someone who as Covid19 sneezes. Their is evidence to show the general wearing of masks isn't effective and can lead to false sense of security. There anecdotal observations of mask wearers using them incorrectly, touching their face to adjust, remove etc. Using the wrong type of mask and so on.

Handwashing, social distancing, self isolation if you have the symptoms. I mean wear a mask if you want but let's not have this insisting against the evidence that we all should. That's mad and a bit dangerous, the logic of it.


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

Cid said:


> The WHO advice is actually that they can help protect others against infection by someone who already has it (if the infectious person is wearing it). And I suppose the point with this disease specifically is that there is a potentially massive number of people who are asymptomatic, and an extensive campaign of mask-wearing could have an effect on that if/when we come out of lockdown. Or in supermarkets etc.



That's what I said.


----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> That's what I said.



It isn't, but there we go.


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

Cid said:


> It isn't, but there we go.



Er it is. The WHO don't recommend general wearing of masks. But those with Covid19 and those treating them should.

"The medical advice by the WHO is that general mask wearing is not necessary and indeed may be counter productive. The only peple who should be wearing masks are those with Covid19 or those treating them."


----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> Er it is. The WHO don't recommend general wearing of masks. But those with Covid19 and those treating them should.
> 
> "The medical advice by the WHO is that general mask wearing is not necessary and indeed may be counter productive. The only peple who should be wearing masks are those with Covid19 or those treating them."



And how do you know whether you have a disease that potentially has a vast number of asymptomatic cases?


----------



## treelover (Apr 4, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Sunday at 8 pm, was the last I read about that.



needed more than ever, never thought I would say that.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 4, 2020)

It is Asian countries that have managed their coronavirus episodes best so far, and they all use face masks, plus they have experience of earlier slightly similar diseases, facemasks aren't at all alien for them. I think they know what they are doing, and I think we should be learning from them in this and other respects.

eta at least we should if we could get enough face masks and if people wouldn't panic buy them! There are some initiatives where people and even some clothes manufacturers are making face masks in the UK at the moment, they were in the news a bit when HMG was apparently considering changing the advice on masks. I suspect HMG didn't change their advice because they know that there is no way for the majority of the UK population to get their hands on masks!


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

Cid said:


> And how do you know whether you have a disease that potentially has a vast number of asymptomatic cases?



What does the WHO say about that? I was talking about their advice which you seemed to hink I wasn't.


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> It is Asian countries that have managed their coronavirus episodes best so far, and they all use face masks, plus they have experience of earlier slightly similar diseases, facemasks aren't at all alien for them. I think they know what they are doing, and I think we should be learning from them in this and other respects.



They wear face masks when they have colds, because of pollution. The reason they have seemingly managed this a lot better isn't to do with masks ffs. 

But fine, order your masks, probably getting the wrong type, fail to clean / manage them properly if it makes you feel better.


----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> What does the WHO say about that? I was talking about their advice which you seemed to hink I wasn't.



I see what you mean, but wasn't really the substance of my post.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> They wear face masks when they have colds, because of pollution. The reason they have seemingly managed this a lot better isn't to do with masks ffs.
> ..


Have you seen the interview with the Korean doctor well he's actually the head of infectious diseases?


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Apr 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> It is Asian countries that have managed their coronavirus episodes best so far, and they all use face masks, plus they have experience of earlier slightly similar diseases, facemasks aren't at all alien for them. I think they know what they are doing, and I think we should be learning from them in this and other respects.



They also understand why they are wearing masks better than we do: 

“My mask protects you - Your mask protects me” 

so any move here towards general mask wearing would need a proper education campaign: why to wear, what to wear, how to wear...

There’s another argument for wearing a mask when outside to exercise or food shop: it reminds people that we’re living through a lockdown, not a normal sunny weekend.

We don’t all have to walk around looking / being miserable, but life should not feel normal at the moment.

I know it’s an argument that may be greatly outweighed by other factors (like - if wearing a crap homemade mask is actually worse at protecting those around you than nothing at all, plus any other Bad Science...)


----------



## elbows (Apr 4, 2020)

Doodler said:


> I read that. He claims lockdown will paint Britain into a corner with no obvious exit except the herd immunity route.
> 
> Would it not make more sense to learn from Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong, since their approaches seem to be working, more or less? Lockdown is surely the only way to shrink the total number of infected people by bringing the virus's replication rate below replacement levels (R0 < 1 ).  Then you'd have lots of little infection bush fires to run around and deal with, which is probably doable through tracing and quarantining, instead of one huge firestorm.



Singapore didnt have a proper lockdown to start with, but they are worried that their early gains are going to be lost, so in the past week they have moved much closer to a full lockdown, and non-essential businesses are now being closed.

The situation in Japan is evolving too, but I am out of date so cannot comment on that right now.


----------



## elbows (Apr 4, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There is a danger of paranoia setting in here. You're not going to catch it by just walking past someone on the street. It's a new flu virus, but it's not a magic flu virus.



Yes please do keep calling it flu, it might alert people to the amount of other shit you talk about the subject.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 4, 2020)

Government daily briefing on now!


----------



## little_legs (Apr 4, 2020)

Fucking hell, what a briefing. They are whispering and keep thanking each other & reporters. Gove is talking like a little naughty girl who shat herself on purpose despeately trying to speak RP English. No one listening to these losers is going to stay at home.

Meanwhile:


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> Singapore didnt have a proper lockdown to start with, but they are worried that their early gains are going to be lost, so in the past week they have moved much closer to a full lockdown, and non-essential businesses are now being closed.
> 
> The situation in Japan is evolving too, but I am out of date so cannot comment on that right now.




An interesting bit of local observation on From Our Own Correspondent on R4 re: Japan .

Starts at 17’45”









						From Our Own Correspondent - India's Forgotten Migrant Workers - BBC Sounds
					

India's drastic pandemic lockdown has trapped migrant workers desperate to return home.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Boru (Apr 4, 2020)

And still large gaterings are happening.. this makes infections very hard to isolate and at this stage this should not be happening.








						Car park closed after 'thousands' risk their lives and others by flocking to Cassiobury Park
					

Cassiobury Park car park has been closed after “thousands” of people risked their lives and others by choosing to flout government Covid-19…




					www.harrowtimes.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 4, 2020)

Boru said:


> And still large gaterings are happening.. this makes infections very hard to isolate and at this stage this should not be happening.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's fucking selfish pricks like that, that are going to result in harsher restrictions for the rest of us, and more deaths, the cunts.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 4, 2020)

And a longer lockdown. Cunts.


----------



## Boru (Apr 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's fucking selfish pricks like that, that are going to result in harsher restrictions for the rest of us, and more deaths, the cunts.



That's for sure and to take a longview no one is going anywhere till cases are isolated and infections cease because obviously it will only start again if allowed.. tis brutal situation..


----------



## little_legs (Apr 4, 2020)




----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




Fuck. I expect the real impact of this isn't going to be at all clear until we're able to see total mortality figures for this period, and set them against previous years.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 4, 2020)

Cid said:


> Fuck. I expect the real impact of this isn't going to be at all clear until we're able to see total mortality figures for this period, and set them against previous years.


As I posted on the world thread, it's likely the real death toll will be double and perhaps up to four times as much as the official figures, from stats coming out of Italy. And we appear now to be doing a full-Italy here.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 4, 2020)

Boru said:


> And still large gaterings are happening.. this makes infections very hard to isolate and at this stage this should not be happening.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I agree, of course, that there shouldn't be large gatherings or picnics. However, although I don't know how big this park is, there seemed to be an element of hyperbole in the article. Things like there were '_reports of'_ thousands attending in a single morning.


----------



## maomao (Apr 4, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I agree, of course, that there shouldn't be large gatherings or picnics. However, although I don't know how big this park is, there seemed to be an element of hyperbole in the article. Things like there were '_reports of'_ thousands attending in a single morning.


It's a big park. 190 acres. 'Thousands' could still be less than ten people per acre.


----------



## elbows (Apr 4, 2020)

If I sound in a bad mood recently, its because of the data. I'm in the midlands.


----------



## treelover (Apr 4, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Fucking hell, what a briefing. They are whispering and keep thanking each other & reporters. Gove is talking like a little naughty girl who shat herself on purpose despeately trying to speak RP English. No one listening to these losers is going to stay at home.
> 
> Meanwhile:




powerful stuff, clap harder next thursday and shout more PPE higher wages, etc.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 4, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's a big park. 190 acres. 'Thousands' could still be less than ten people per acre.


Fair enough. I wondered that but rejected the idea due to the mention of what sounded like a single car park (must be a bi 'un).  But having said all that I still have my doubts that there were literally thousands there on a single morning.  Bit of a police press office/council type story.


----------



## Labourite (Apr 4, 2020)

Another 708 deaths today bringing the total to more than 4,000.

Still quite a few cars on the roads and people walking about. Sadly it's these muppets that will lead to an even more stringent lockdown. 

Jokers.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> Yes, when someone who as Covid19 sneezes. Their is evidence to show the general wearing of masks isn't effective and can lead to false sense of security. There anecdotal observations of mask wearers using them incorrectly, touching their face to adjust, remove etc. Using the wrong type of mask and so on.
> 
> Handwashing, social distancing, self isolation if you have the symptoms. I mean wear a mask if you want but let's not have this insisting against the evidence that we all should. That's mad and a bit dangerous, the logic of it.



The WHO are reviewing their advice based on new evidence.  It would surely be mad and a bit dangerous to ignore that.  There does appear to be quite a bit of both evidence and expert opinion that supports wearing any form of face covering as likely to reduce infections, some of which is summarised here.

As someone entirely unqualified to comment it does seem quite likely to me that a very small and so far only theoretical possibility of increased risk of contact infection is significantly outweighed by almost eliminating infection from droplets which are thought to be the main means of transmission.  And to be honest if someone is going to cough all over me, or a shelf of food in a supermarket, I'd rather they were wearing any kind of mask when they did.  Seems like a bit of a no brainer to be honest and people saying oh no but someone might touch something with the virus on and then touch their mask and then it might get in their mouth, as opposed to just touching something and then touching their mouth, or someone might not wear one properly and then thats really worse than not wearing a mask because, well reasons, isn't very persuasive.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 4, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I agree, of course, that there shouldn't be large gatherings or picnics. However, although I don't know how big this park is, there seemed to be an element of hyperbole in the article. Things like there were '_reports of'_ thousands attending in a single morning.



Half of them journalists reporting on how many people were there no doubt.


----------



## hash tag (Apr 4, 2020)

I'm surprised Spymaster hasn't posted this Cyclists ignore UK coronavirus lockdown rules as they ride together in the sun


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 4, 2020)

All this talk about the general population moving to wearing masks is pointless, there's not enough for front-line workers.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 4, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I'm surprised Spymaster hasn't posted this Cyclists ignore UK coronavirus lockdown rules as they ride together in the sun
> 
> View attachment 204974



Just one BMW or Audi could take out those cunts.


----------



## editor (Apr 4, 2020)

Cops turfing out sunbathers in Brixton/Herne Hill


----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I'm surprised Spymaster hasn't posted this Cyclists ignore UK coronavirus lockdown rules as they ride together in the sun
> 
> View attachment 204974



That is a very cynical picture. They're clearly random cyclists stopped at a junction, and the telephoto lens is massively exaggerating how close together they are. That shows a full cycle ASL, and a crossing. I.e that front spotted line to the parallel white continuous line at the back? It's more than 10 meters.

e2a: I don't mean the end of the cycle lane you can see through the woman's legs btw, that's about 35 meters away.


----------



## hash tag (Apr 4, 2020)

NAh. There's other pictures of them sitting around chatting in a park.


----------



## elbows (Apr 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> All this talk about the general population moving to wearing masks is pointless, there's not enough for front-line workers.



Thats one of the traditional arguments against advising the public to wear them. But there are others, and the traditional western view on this issue is crumbling before our eyes. 

I will not be surprised if the UK eventually follows, but I also wont be surprised if there is much UK establishment resistance still.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Apr 4, 2020)

hash tag said:


> NAh. There's other pictures of them sitting around chatting in a park.


Not in that article there aren't.


----------



## hash tag (Apr 4, 2020)

Other articles


----------



## hash tag (Apr 4, 2020)

One of those hire bikes has just ridden near my window....bet they are not being disinfected between being used.


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Have you seen the interview with the Korean doctor well he's actually the head of infectious diseases?



Not that specifically. But I have heard and read a few things about the usage of masks. I'm not disagreeing with the medical scientific advice regarding their useage but going by what the WHO say.


----------



## Cid (Apr 4, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Other articles



Go on then.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 4, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's a big park. 190 acres. 'Thousands' could still be less than ten people per acre.



Except like any park it will have pinch points like car parks and favoured views where its harder to avoid contact.


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

Chatting to a mate earlier. He mentioned it's speculated the large number of cases in the Cardif / Gwent area was perhaps down to a rugby international and the Cheltenham festival a week or so before the lock down. (was in relation to the post about the gathering at car park's on prev page.)


----------



## Plumdaff (Apr 4, 2020)

Main issue I would have against masks at this point is where the hell are you meant to get them for a reasonable price? Making something mandatory that most people won't be able to find seems deeply unfair....


----------



## weltweit (Apr 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> Not that specifically. But I have heard and read a few things about the usage of masks. I'm not disagreeing with the medical scientific advice regarding their useage but going by what the WHO say.


Do you not think that the WHO might be being pragmatic, what would be the point in telling people to wear masks if they can't get any and if health services even are struggling to get enough?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

I'm just utterly fed up of cunts taking the piss, we need a proper lockdown, now. Enforced with fucking guns.  No going out. Full stop. Don't care where you live, city or countryside. One person only to go to the shops. Fuck your exercise, fuck your oh so important walk. Stay indoors you stupid, stupid cunts.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 4, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I'm surprised Spymaster hasn't posted this Cyclists ignore UK coronavirus lockdown rules as they ride together in the sun
> 
> View attachment 204974


what do you expect from regular folk when the Health Secretary comes out of self-isolation after 6 days because he thinks he feels better


----------



## Plumdaff (Apr 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> Chatting to a mate earlier. He mentioned it's speculated the large number of cases in the Cardif / Gwent area was perhaps down to a rugby international and the Cheltenham festival a week or so before the lock down. (was in relation to the post about the gathering at car park's on prev page.)



Locally lots of talk about air pollution rates, types of employment and demographics also being possible factors.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> Chatting to a mate earlier. He mentioned it's speculated the large number of cases in the Cardif / Gwent area was perhaps down to a rugby international and the Cheltenham festival a week or so before the lock down. (was in relation to the post about the gathering at car park's on prev page.)


Yes, I have just been reading a mention that the Cheltenham festival, which had 250,000 people close together, over a few days may well have infected lots of people. Perhaps that in part explains Gwent.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I'm just utterly fed up of cunts taking the piss, we need a proper lockdown, now. Enforced with fucking guns.  No going out. Full stop. Don't care where you live, city or countryside. One person only to go to the shops. Fuck your exercise, fuck your oh so important walk. Stay indoors you stupid, stupid cunts.


probably tomorrow, from 8pm onwards


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Do you not think that the WHO might be being pragmatic, what would be the point in telling people to wear masks if they can't get any and if health services even are struggling to get enough?



No, I don't think they moderate their advice based on market conditions.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

little_legs said:


> probably tomorrow, from 8pm onwards


Too fucking late. The weather tomorrow will have idiots out in their thousands.


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

But TBF I do take smokedout point above. I just don't want to see it being made mandatory and as Plumdaff describes, healthy people potentially being ostrosized for not wearing them.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I'm just utterly fed up of cunts taking the piss, we need a proper lockdown, now. Enforced with fucking guns.  No going out. Full stop. Don't care where you live, city or countryside. One person only to go to the shops. Fuck your exercise, fuck your oh so important walk. Stay indoors you stupid, stupid cunts.



Totally agree, £60 fines should be increased to £500.

Second offence, and send the fuckers off to prison camps, there's plenty of Pontins sites to use.


----------



## xenon (Apr 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Yes, I have just been reading a mention that the Cheltenham festival, which had 250,000 people close together, over a few days may well have infected lots of people. Perhaps that in part explains Gwent.



Yep. I was at a couple of fairly crowded gigs, the weekend just before Cheltenham. I was mindful of being in a crowded place and had obviously bought the tickets last year. It did feel a bit uncomfortable.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> All this talk about the general population moving to wearing masks is pointless, there's not enough for front-line workers.



True, although there seems to be opinion from some experts that anything is better than nothing, including a scarf or homemade mask.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 4, 2020)

I had to pop out for some essentials and there were a few people with surgical masks on, but none of them seemed to have pinched the wire frame around their noses so they may as well not have bothered


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

What we need is crappy, shitty weather. Pouring rain, freezing cold winds.


----------



## editor (Apr 4, 2020)

The biggest park in the area is now closed tomorrow









						Brockwell Park to be closed today (Sunday 5th April) because of ‘unacceptable’ behaviour
					

After over 3,000 people visited Brockwell Park yesterday, Lambeth Council has announced that the park is to be closed today, Sunday 5th April 2020.



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## editor (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I'm just utterly fed up of cunts taking the piss, we need a proper lockdown, now. Enforced with fucking guns.  No going out. Full stop. Don't care where you live, city or countryside. One person only to go to the shops. Fuck your exercise, fuck your oh so important walk. Stay indoors you stupid, stupid cunts.


Got a nice garden? Lots of space in your house? Nice views?  Great mental health?  Safe home environment? Jolly good.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

editor said:


> Got a nice garden? Lots of space in your house? Nice views?  Great mental health?  Safe home environment? Jolly good.


No, I live in a second floor flat and not being able to be as active as I usually am is utterly shit. But, you know, slightly less shit than thousands of people dying that don't bloody well need to.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I'm just utterly fed up of cunts taking the piss, we need a proper lockdown, now. Enforced with fucking guns.  No going out. Full stop. Don't care where you live, city or countryside. One person only to go to the shops. Fuck your exercise, fuck your oh so important walk. Stay indoors you stupid, stupid cunts.



Violators whipped, shot dead, locked in dog cages or sprayed with bleach? Take your pick:









						Teargas, beatings and bleach: the most extreme Covid-19 lockdown controls around the world
					

Violence and humiliation used to police coronavirus curfews around globe, often affecting the poorest and more vulnerable




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## zahir (Apr 4, 2020)

Or the Greek police - handing out €150 fines to the homeless for breaking the lockdown rules.









						Greek police fines homeless for “unnecessary movement” during lockdown - Keep Talking Greece
					

Greek police works with extensive zeal in implementing the lockdown restrictions and fines those vio




					www.keeptalkinggreece.com


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Apr 4, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Violators whipped, shot dead, locked in dog cages or sprayed with bleach? Take your pick:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Weren’t you listening? It’s got to be guns, and not just any old guns, but fucking guns. Obviously we will need to have loads of police on the streets everywhere to make this work, and let’s face it, additional vigilantes to make up the numbers. If we can kill enough of these so-called ‘ramblers’ they can’t possibly catch any virus. Pandemic sorted!


----------



## Looby (Apr 4, 2020)

One of my colleagues still thinks it’s ok to drive out to the forest and spend the day walking. She even called it self-isolating on Facebook!


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I'm just utterly fed up of cunts taking the piss, we need a proper lockdown, now. Enforced with fucking guns.  No going out. Full stop. Don't care where you live, city or countryside. One person only to go to the shops. Fuck your exercise, fuck your oh so important walk. Stay indoors you stupid, stupid cunts.



I assume you've been out and about checking who has and hasn't been behaving themselves?


----------



## killer b (Apr 4, 2020)

fucking hell bees.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> No, I live in a second floor flat and not being able to be as active as I usually am is utterly shit. But, you know, slightly less shit than thousands of people dying that don't bloody well need to.



It has yet to explained how me riding my bike out to the middle of nowhere and back, not touching a single thing I didn't bring with me nor coming within ten feet of a living soul, is supposed to kill thousands.

Im my experience the vast majority of people are behaving themselves as they've been asked to. At the risk of stating the obvious, shooting people would actually increase the death toll.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

killer b said:


> fucking hell bees.


Just pissed off with cunts that fuck things up for everyone else as per bloody usual. If I had a rifle I'd be taking potshots from my window by now.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> At the risk of stating the obvious, shooting people would actually increase the death toll.


You'd only really need to shoot a few at random, then the fear of _potentially_ getting shot should keep the rest indoors


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Just pissed off with cunts that fuck things up for everyone else as per bloody usual. If I had a rifle I'd be taking potshots from my window by now.



First person to spot the irony here wins a shiny penny.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> First person to spot the irony here wins a shiny penny.


There are people who _need_ to be out and about. The rest of us - myself included - need to stay the fuck inside, thus meaning the former group can do what they need to do at a lower risk. How is this so bloody hard for people to grasp?


----------



## existentialist (Apr 4, 2020)

The weird thing is that I can see both sides from here, but I can't agree with either of you


----------



## killer b (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> If I had a rifle I'd be taking potshots from my window by now.


Who at? Which ones are selfishly flouting the lockdown, and which ones are going to their shift at the supermarket? I struggle to tell the difference. 

I wouldn't take reports in the rightwing press at face value tbh - they were savaging the british public only last week for eating too many toilet rolls, and it turns out that was 99% bullshit. Pound to a piece of shit this is too.


----------



## Athos (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Just pissed off with cunts that fuck things up for everyone else as per bloody usual. If I had a rifle I'd be taking potshots from my window by now.



There's a place in Edinburg still open to buy ammunition.  HTH.



			https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/dented-council-ego-perhaps.370204/page-2


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

killer b said:


> Who at? Which ones are selfishly flouting the lockdown, and which ones are going to their shift at the supermarket? I struggle to tell the difference.
> 
> I wouldn't take reports in the rightwing press at face value tbh - they were savaging the british public only last week for eating too many toilet rolls, and it turns out that was 99% bullshit. Pound to a piece of shit this is too.


I can literally see them out of my window. Groups hanging out on the grass by my block, someone had a sodding picnic thing going on the other day.


----------



## killer b (Apr 4, 2020)

take some photos and send them in to The Express.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

I'd rather just go with the rifle option tbh.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> No, I live in a second floor flat and not being able to be as active as I usually am is utterly shit.



Must be hell for you.



			https://urban75.net/forums/threads/2020-fitness-and-exercise-thread-goals-training-and-achievements.368918/page-16#post-16479058


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Must be hell for you.
> 
> 
> https://urban75.net/forums/threads/2020-fitness-and-exercise-thread-goals-training-and-achievements.368918/page-16#post-16479058


I'm making the best of what I've got, so what? It's not going out, it's not the 6 miles of walking I used to do every day, it's still staring at 4 walls. But, you know, better than dying.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I'm making the best of what I've got, so what?



I've nothing whatsoever against you making the best of what you've got.

I just think



> No, I live in a second floor flat and not being able to be as active as I usually am is utterly shit.



is an utterly disingenuous answer to being asked about your living conditions. Particularly when you're calling for people to be shot.


----------



## killer b (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I'd rather just go with the rifle option tbh.


It's just a bit of a waste of your energy. Most people are sticking by the restrictions. The minority of idiot who aren't, they were always going to ruin it for you. The same people flouted the restrictions in every other country in the world too, because there's always a minority of idiots, everywhere. You might as well be angry at the tide coming in.


----------



## editor (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Just pissed off with cunts that fuck things up for everyone else as per bloody usual. If I had a rifle I'd be taking potshots from my window by now.


He's going boat happy!


----------



## bimble (Apr 4, 2020)

This is completely impossible to enforce - fines would not work and threatening people with a criminal record for trying to picnic would just be mad. Seriously, expecting everyone not at work to stay indoors _indefinitely_ apart from when they are buying food it was just never going to happen. Most people are keeping to the rules, you just don't see them for obvious reasons.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 4, 2020)

editor said:


> He's going boat happy!



flat happy


----------



## killer b (Apr 4, 2020)

I guess everyone's getting a bit stressed by it all tbf


----------



## editor (Apr 4, 2020)

Tragic stuff. Bus drivers should be given full protection, FFS









						Coronavirus: Five London bus workers die, union confirms
					

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, described the deaths as "devastating".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## smokedout (Apr 4, 2020)

I think it's easy to over-estimate how busy it is in London and other city centres, despite my own posts moaning about it.  I went out  today for a bit and it seemed packed, but in reality buses were running past nearly empty, round the shops at Holloway Road there was a steady trickle of people but it's normally absolutely packed round there on a Saturday and at one point I was wandering down the middle of Seven Sisters Road for ages because there was so little traffic.  Fifty or so people on a street you expect to be empty seems like loads, until you consider that under normal conditions there could well be a couple of thousand people in the same space.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 4, 2020)

Very, very quiet in Swansea too (we cycled just to the supermarket -- this was the first time on bikes rather than walking! )

Quieter than Friday in fact, despite the weather being better today.

(And before anyone starts going on, we've become increasingly to the point of _insanely_ careful about mega-distancing, when outside -- and we're outside for short spells only).


----------



## killer b (Apr 4, 2020)

smokedout said:


> I think it's easy to over-estimate how busy it is in London and other city centres, despite my own posts moaning about it.  I went out  today for a bit and it seemed packed, but in reality buses were running past nearly empty, round the shops at Holloway Road there was a steady trickle of people but it's normally absolutely packed round there on a Saturday and at one point I was wandering down the middle of Seven Sisters Road for ages because there was so little traffic.  Fifty or so people on a street you expect to be empty seems like loads, until you consider that under normal conditions there could well be a couple of thousand people in the same space.


I think the conditions of the lockdown do bad things to the psyche, turn you a bit stasi. The other day I was stood in my bedroom overlooking the road - it's a pretty busy road, and I'm a block away from the spar in one direction and the park in the other so there's a regular stream of people passing doing their daily mandated walk or shop: and even though I know they're probably all totally within their rights to be out there, I found myself judging each person as they passed.


----------



## Part-timah (Apr 4, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> My neighbour (works in admin between nhs and private medicine) reckons that most nhs beds outside of the big cities won’t be required for covid19, because social isolation will reduce infections enough. The problem will then be pressure to restart surgery for other serious conditions, which will lead to reinfection, and to reduce social isolation, which will have the same effect. In the absence of a vaccine, and without total heavy lockdown, how will you ever stop this cycle?
> 
> Is he being both optimistic (beds not full) and pessimistic (Reinfection)?
> 
> He also thinks that social isolation will be relaxed in time for VE Day. Cynical or realistic?



Admin?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 4, 2020)

I'm not immune to the judging thing a bit, so I'm glad we live in a cul-de-sac. 

(That was for our former/late cats' safety, originally  )


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think the conditions of the lockdown do bad things to the psyche, turn you a bit stasi. The other day I was stood in my bedroom overlooking the road - it's a pretty busy road, and I'm a block away from the spar in one direction and the park in the other so there's a regular stream of people passing doing their daily mandated walk or shop: and even though I know they're probably all totally within their rights to be out there, I found myself judging each person as they passed.


Oh I’ve been judging people in a stasi like manner for a long time before this shit kicked off


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 4, 2020)

I've just been reminded now of what Kevbad the Bad posted a while back :




			
				Kevbad the Bad said:
			
		

> He also thinks that social isolation will be relaxed in time for VE Day. Cynical or realistic?



Even me, ever the optimist, has *big *doubts about that! VE Day is May 8th .....


----------



## killer b (Apr 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Oh I’ve been judging people in a stasi like manner for a long time before this shit kicked off


the martial law thing is new though, I'm fairly sure.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 4, 2020)

killer b said:


> the martial law thing is new though, I'm fairly sure.


I’ve considered it more than once since I’ve had to start commuting by train in the rush hour.


----------



## Thora (Apr 4, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think the conditions of the lockdown do bad things to the psyche, turn you a bit stasi. The other day I was stood in my bedroom overlooking the road - it's a pretty busy road, and I'm a block away from the spar in one direction and the park in the other so there's a regular stream of people passing doing their daily mandated walk or shop: and even though I know they're probably all totally within their rights to be out there, I found myself judging each person as they passed.


I overheard a couple of people who clearly knew each other saying hello and stopping to chat on the street outside my window earlier and I got up to check they were staying 2 metres away   (they were)

My town is pretty deserted though the supermarkets are busy.  Usually the market place would be packed with cars and people on a Saturday.  Only one death here as far as I've heard (so far).


----------



## killer b (Apr 4, 2020)

Thora said:


> I overheard a couple of people who clearly knew each other saying hello and stopping to chat on the street outside my window earlier and I got up to check they were staying 2 metres away   (they were)


I stopped (2 metres away) to chat to a friend I bumped into on the street yesterday, and people tutted at us as they passed.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 4, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is completely impossible to enforce - fines would not work and threatening people with a criminal record for trying to picnic would just be mad. Seriously, expecting everyone not at work to stay indoors _indefinitely_ apart from when they are buying food it was just never going to happen. Most people are keeping to the rules, you just don't see them for obvious reasons.



I get the need for outdoor exercise but I don't think going out for a _picnic_ is ok, personally and I'm a bit baffled that anyone would, although I do obviously understand why people would _want_ to.

I've not left the house for 18 days, along with my daughter, but we do have a garden (and I've also managed to secure weekly shopping slots by some usual but also selfish planning ahead) and my family is also quite sloth like, in general.
On top of that my kids are older and other issues have meant we've had less money/time to go out prior to this, so this is an easier extension to that than it might have been otherwise, albeit that we were coming to the end of that.
I've had a few arguments with my son, who is wfh, re his lunch time strolls only apparently taking place when he wants to visit the corner shop, too. 

I would prefer to leave outdoors for people who have no option but to go out and/or who will just benefit far more than we would for it.

beesonthewhatnow - one _adult_ to shop, though, not one _person_. Single parents, or two parent families where one person is having to self-isolate within their own home, with kids too young to be safely left home alone (or who wouldn't understand the isolation rules in the second example) would obviously have to accompany the adult shopping, too.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 4, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Very, very quiet in Swansea too (we cycled just to the supermarket -- this was the first time on bikes rather than walking! )
> 
> Quieter than Friday in fact, despite the weather being better today.
> 
> (And before anyone starts going on, we've become increasingly to the point of _insanely_ careful about mega-distancing, when outside -- and we're outside for short spells only).



And did you both go in, again? _definitely judging_


----------



## weepiper (Apr 4, 2020)

Yeah, but listen, right, there really are some stupid fucking _idiots_ out there though.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 4, 2020)

Also, on judging - I noticed that my neighbours (who have a lovely garden) had fucking _wetsuits_ hanging out to dry today... '  '


----------



## two sheds (Apr 4, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Also, on judging - I noticed that my neighbours (who have a lovely garden) had fucking _wetsuits_ hanging out to dry today... '  '



PPE kit


----------



## Plumdaff (Apr 4, 2020)

We had that. We saw one of El's classmate's and were having a socially distanced chat and some bloke started shouting at us from the other side of the road


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 4, 2020)

two sheds said:


> PPE kit



(there WERE goggles, too, tbf  )


----------



## killer b (Apr 4, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> We had that. We saw one of El's classmate's and were having a socially distanced chat and some bloke started shouting at us from the other side of the road


was it bees?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 4, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> And did you both go in, again? _definitely judging_



Not this time ..... 
We'd devised a list between us, it was my time to go in today.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 4, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> (there WERE goggles, too, tbf  )



flippers and snorkel?


----------



## xes (Apr 4, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Also, on judging - I noticed that my neighbours (who have a lovely garden) had fucking _wetsuits_ hanging out to dry today... '  '


under the sea
under the sea
social distancing's better
down where it's wetter take it from me
on the shore 2 meters you must be
under the waves it's 0.3

etc


(I was just wondering where they'd been and why)


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 4, 2020)

There's just so much to despise, isn't there - beyond people going out. 
The acknowledgment yesterday and today that SSP payments are too low to live on (Hancock agreeing, Gove _swiftly moving on_ from the question today, the cunt), UC having been adjusted upwards, by £20 a week, even to meet that shitty rate...like it was ok_ before?_
I'm frustrated at people not taking measures which are comparitvely easier, for a time, when our health system is so overwhelmed because it's been so deliberately run down, when there are staff there working themselves into the ground, without any remotely safe precautions in place for themselves, where that inevitably reflects on their capabilities to save lives - when money and magic IS so easily found, when acknowledgments ARE made in light of this. Homelessness, DV, it's all shot out into the light. What went before and what comes later are important. In the meantime, there are things we can do, though and it's not having fucking picnics or driving off to 'secluded' places and we shouldn't need policing in that.


----------



## campanula (Apr 4, 2020)

It is so easy to whip up hate at the moment... I think this will be a conscious decision, to prepare the grounds for the general public being 'to blame' when numbers continue to rise. In todays frankly unbelieveable press briefing, this deflection was used (by Gove) in textbook style. After his medical colleague went off piste, mentioning the words 'avoiding the question', not once but twice, Gove swiftly swooped in with some irrelevant guff (answering nothing). When the journalist continued to press about uncomfortable details (testing, iirc) (again ignored), another hack appears on screen  to insist the govt flag up conspiraloonery regarding setting fire to 5gmasts...because obviously, it is essential that the public are made cognisant that there are loons on social media.
So yep, I think it is almost inevitable that the public will be scapegoated, the police will be as heavy-handed as they can get away with and there will be public naming and shaming. 
We need to allocate blame where it is most due - to the greedy, lazy incompetents (and their enablers) who have consistently failed to put people before profit...on every single level, for 4 decades of  exploitation...not some dogwalker on the common.


----------



## elbows (Apr 4, 2020)

I'm avoiding the whole scapegoating issue until such a time as it might actually happen.

Because it strikes me that the things government etc are saying that people suspect are setting the scene for scapegoating, are mostly the same things that would be said in a desperate plea to actually get people to do their bit and adhere to the restrictions. Maybe there are some exceptions, but generally I'd say good luck separating these phenomenon.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 4, 2020)

I caught only the latter part of that press conference live, and switched off before they started asking questions. 
Am I right though in picking up that Gove said nothing at all about testing?


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2020)

It's still so strange to see long trains with no passengers pass my house.  Rail travel in London down by 95%, and buses are down by 85%.



> According to TfL numbers, around 162,000 unique payment cards – either contactless or Oyster – were used on Tube and rail services across London on Wednesday 1st April. This compares to around two million unique payments cards used on the same services on a typical day.
> 
> On the London Underground, including all other tickets, where there was previously around four million journeys per day at this time last year, TfL is now just seeing around 210,000 journeys per day on the Tube.
> 
> ...


----------



## campanula (Apr 5, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Am I right though in picking up that Gove said nothing at all about testing?


masterful obfuscation. no substance...then did that thing he does at the end where he practically runs off screen


----------



## campanula (Apr 5, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Am I right though in picking up that Gove said nothing at all about testing?


masterful obfuscation. no substance...then did that thing he does at the end where he practically runs off screen


----------



## campanula (Apr 5, 2020)

O FFS,  what's going on now?


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

O FFS, what's going on now?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 5, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I get the need for outdoor exercise but I don't think going out for a _picnic_ is ok, personally and I'm a bit baffled that anyone would, although I do obviously understand why people would _want_ to.
> 
> I've not left the house for 18 days, along with my daughter, but we do have a garden (and I've also managed to secure weekly shopping slots by some usual but also selfish planning ahead) and my family is also quite sloth like, in general.
> On top of that my kids are older a





elbows said:


> I'm avoiding the whole scapegoating issue until such a time as it might actually happen.
> 
> Because it strikes me that the things government etc are saying that people suspect are setting the scene for scapegoating, are mostly the same things that would be said in a desperate plea to actually get people to do their bit and adhere to the restrictions. Maybe there are some exceptions, but generally I'd say good luck separating these phenomenon.



Tomorrow - warmest day of the year forecast - if today’s fuckwittery was owt to go by, tomorrow will be a clusterfuck of gigantic proportions!


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm avoiding the whole scapegoating issue until such a time as it might actually happen.
> 
> Because it strikes me that the things government etc are saying that people suspect are setting the scene for scapegoating, are mostly the same things that would be said in a desperate plea to actually get people to do their bit and adhere to the restrictions. Maybe there are some exceptions, but generally I'd say good luck separating these phenomenon.



It's the difficulty we have though - in separating personal responsibilty, where that is meaningful and where it makes a direct difference, against a gov who have actively dismantled all the means we have to do it.
It's an _enormous_, new health crisis, in addition to an existing political/social crisis.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

Trekking to Everest base camp – by climbing the stairs at home
					

Virtual expedition team ascends 5,364 metres over five days in indoor mountain climbing challenge




					www.theguardian.com
				




The environmentally sensitive everest climb


----------



## weltweit (Apr 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Trekking to Everest base camp – by climbing the stairs at home
> 
> 
> Virtual expedition team ascends 5,364 metres over five days in indoor mountain climbing challenge
> ...


 love it !!


----------



## Wilf (Apr 5, 2020)

I once did an Everest climb on a stairmaster at the gym in my healthier days. Not sure I managed it in 5 days. In fact the real Everest climbers who the whole thing was supposed to shadow had probably been up and fucked off home for their tea by the time I huffed and puffed to the 'top'.

Edit: actually I've just watched the video, they only went to _base camp_, soft shites.  I went all the way to the top!


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 5, 2020)

Learning disabilities patients told they may be ‘too frail’ for mechanical ventilation if they get covid-19
					

People with learning disabilities have been told by GP surgeries they are unlikely to be prioritised for hospital care if they contract covid-19, because they could be too "frail".




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## kabbes (Apr 5, 2020)

The tiny village I live in normally has hundreds of people turn up at the weekend to go for walks, cycle rides etc.  Just before the lockdown, it was utterly crazy busy.  Last weekend and this, is been really quiet.  So people are generally being good.  The pub is closed, the shop only opens for an hour or so first thing in the morning and the car parks are all shut, so it’s very much “don’t come here at the moment”.

Despite all this, though, there was a pair of guys who turned up in a van with two trail (motor)bikes, which is inappropriate right now for a bunch of reasons, not least if they were non-housemates.   I also saw two groups out with picnics and a few cars turn up and park before a bunch of people got out to go for a walk.  I mean, it’s a perfectly fine place for them to keep their distance from others. But if everybody did it, we’d be back to hundreds of people milling around in the village again.  It’s very selfish to take the view that you can get away with it because everybody else is being good.


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Learning disabilities patients told they may be ‘too frail’ for mechanical ventilation if they get covid-19
> 
> 
> People with learning disabilities have been told by GP surgeries they are unlikely to be prioritised for hospital care if they contract covid-19, because they could be too "frail".
> ...


bloody hell. So the ventilators will be allocated according to a "frailty scale". Anyone know what that scale looks like?


----------



## zahir (Apr 5, 2020)

More on the policy background.



> The point that so many miss is that policies to deal with major events such as pandemics take decades to develop. The genesis of the current UK policy seems to lie in the response of the Blair government in 2005 to a call by the WHO for increased preparedness for pandemics, with the production of strategy documents.
> 
> Going through several iterations, but with only minor changes, we ended up with the policy in its final form in 2014, supplemented by multiple planning documents for all levels of government – with the EU taking a close interest in developments. And, with policy essentially locked in stone, any government would have been committed to following it.







__





						Coronavirus: the smoking gun
					

Coronavirus: the smoking gun




					eureferendum.com


----------



## Supine (Apr 5, 2020)

zahir said:


> More on the policy background.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That article is terrible. It's trying to sensationalise the government's pandemic plan - which is actually turning out to be a good basis for dealing with covid. There is no smoking gun.


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

I have a really bad feeling about how this lockdown might play out over the coming weeks. Over 2,000 arrests in Spain so far apparently for breaking the rules. They close Brockwell park in Lambeth today, where only a tiny percentage of people have a back garden so where is everyone supposed to go for their daily exercise apart from the narrow pavements? If this goes on for a long time, which I think it will, there's going to massive issues.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> I have a really bad feeling about how this lockdown might play out over the coming weeks. Over 2,000 arrests in Spain so far apparently for breaking the rules. They close Brockwell park in Lambeth today, where only 1 in 10 people live in a house so 90% left with nowhere to go for their daily exercise apart from the narrow pavements?



When going for exercise I try and choose the days and times when there will be least people. 7am, 8pm, cold, dark, wet etc..

People thinking they can just pop to the park on a sunny weekend lunchtime need to clue up.


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> When going for exercise I try and choose the days and times when there will be least people. 7am, 8pm, cold, dark, wet etc..
> 
> People thinking they can just pop to the park on a sunny weekend lunchtime need to clue up.



Clue up how, by being fined / arrested ? I am not at all saying its fine for people to go for a picnic just that there is no way this will play out for weeks and weeks in densely populated urban areas where people have no access to outdoor space without very significant problems, of both enforcement and health outcomes for people including children living in tiny crowded flats etc. Just grim.


----------



## LDC (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> bloody hell. So the ventilators will be allocated according to a "frailty scale". Anyone know what that scale looks like?



Google the Rockwood clinical frailty scale. AFAIK that's not the only way of allocating them if it's needed, it's just one of the ways that will be used to assess who gets the limited resources. Other issues such as current clinical condition, age, and co-morbidities will also be taken into account from what I've heard.

It's brutal but it makes sense I'm afraid.


----------



## hegley (Apr 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Google the Rockwood clinical frailty scale. AFAIK that's not the only way of allocating them if it's needed, it's just one of the ways that will be used to assess who gets the limited resources. Other issues such as current clinical condition, age, and co-morbidities will also be taken into account from what I've heard.
> 
> It's brutal but it makes sense I'm afraid.


More on frailty here: NHS England » Identifying frailty


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

The inconsistency of how the lockdown is being carried out is going to make things worse. Brockwell park has just been closed by decision of Lambeth council 




meanwhile Camden chose to just move people on from leafy primrose hill..


----------



## tommers (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> Clue up how, by being fined / arrested ? I am not at all saying its fine for people to go for a picnic just that there is no way this will play out for weeks and weeks in densely populated urban areas where people have no access to outdoor space without very significant problems, of both enforcement and health outcomes for people including children living in tiny crowded flats etc. Just grim.



That's exactly what the govt. said right at the start and everybody screamed at them.


----------



## LDC (Apr 5, 2020)

The need to not die or cause other people to die is a greater priority than the desire for some green space.

It is totally unfair, and this situation is going to exacerbate the obvious differences between people, but that's just the way it is currently. Maybe afterwards it'll result in those differences being sorted out, but for the moment it's just shitter for some people and there's no way round that.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 5, 2020)

> Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has said the government could ban exercise outdoors if people flout lockdown rules.
> After saying earlier that sunbathing is against lockdown rules, he told Andrew Marr that if people flout them “we might have to take further action”.
> “I understand how difficult these measures are, of course I do. But the truth is the more people go out from home, the more the virus spreads,” he said.
> “We’ve said because of the positive benefits to your physical and your mental health that it’s ok to exercise on your own or with members of your own household.
> ...



Lockdowns going to be stricter by end of the week.


----------



## zahir (Apr 5, 2020)

Supine said:


> It's trying to sensationalise the government's pandemic plan - which is actually turning out to be a good basis for dealing with covid.


Would you defend the absence of a testing programme?


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

😐


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

Round here park and woods still open and most, but not everyone, are behaving themselves, hardly saw anyone yesterday. It's not the park that's the problem its the narrow path down to the river which is nerve racking. That and the fact that a lot of  people in my road dont seem to think it applies to them at all and are carrying on having workmen over ffs.


----------



## LDC (Apr 5, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Lockdowns going to be stricter by end of the week.



Yeah, I agree, think we'll get tighter restrictions very soon.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> View attachment 205031
> 😐



Easy to self discipline when you live in a fucking castle in the middle of a thousand acres plus garden.



frogwoman said:


> Round here park and woods still open and most, but not everyone, are behaving themselves, hardly saw anyone yesterday. It's not the park that's the problem its the narrow path down to the river which is nerve racking. That and the fact that a lot of  people in my road dont seem to think it applies to them at all and are carrying on having workmen over ffs.



Wife has just left for her morning walk in Epping forest, apparently it's heaving already


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The need to not die or cause other people to die is a greater priority than the desire for some green space.
> 
> It is totally unfair, and this situation is going to exacerbate the obvious differences between people, but that's just the way it is currently. Maybe afterwards it'll result in those differences being sorted out, but for the moment it's just shitter for some people and there's no way round that.



I know. I am one of the people for whom this is a total breeze because of where I moved to last summer but if I was still in Lambeth would be pretty devastated at losing access to that wide open space for 1hr a day. Hampstead Heath Greenwich park still open, just seems so arbitrary and deeply unfair.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 5, 2020)

Three road cyclists queuing outside the local shop this morning for their lattes and cappuccinos


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Easy to self discipline when you live in a fucking castle in the middle of a thousand acres plus garden.
> 
> 
> 
> Wife has just left for her morning walk in Epping forest, apparently it's heaving already



Idk I live in a very middle class area and I've been shocked at how people are behaving whereas my mates in london are taking it a lot more seriously


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 5, 2020)

The government keep saying "based on the science", so if they're going for a stronger lockdown I'd like to see some reports from contact-tracing in other countries where the virus was contracted in passing while outdoors.


----------



## LDC (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Idk I live in a very middle class area and I've been shocked at how people are behaving whereas my mates in london are taking it a lot more seriously



Yeah, some of the ways it's being flouted by different demographics are kinda interesting.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

I hope they dont ban walks mainly as I dont drive and I have to get to the shop somehow. My mum has chronic pain and needs to walk a lot although we can set up exercise stuff in the garden I guess. Although that is a bit nerve racking itself as we've got a shared driveway with the neighbour whose been having workmen round this week


----------



## kabbes (Apr 5, 2020)

...and now they’re each going to sit on the village green to drink them


----------



## kabbes (Apr 5, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> The government keep saying "based on the science", so if they're going for a stronger lockdown I'd like to see some reports from contact-tracing in other countries where the virus was contracted in passing while outdoors.


It’s not just in passing though, is it?  Those cyclists have come from God knows where and have now potentially spread the virus into this local shop, which the local residents— mostly elderly — are relying on for their supplies.

But hey, they’re okay and they haven’t had to interrupt their hobby


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

I'm a bit worried about how it will affect my mum if they ban walking etc, I mean we will deal with it but the lockdown rules already causing quite a bit of tension tbh.


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

Do cappuccinos count as essential items down there kabbes ? The shop could perhaps just not.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

I guess it would still be ok to walk to the shops every few days?


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Easy to self discipline when you live in a fucking castle in the middle of a thousand acres plus garden.


The self discipline of having several palaces to choose from and the RAF to fly you to whichever one you fancy and servants to carry on providing you with the fucking lifestyle you fucking have all the fucking time anyway.

“Here in Balmoral one really notices nobody is out and about on the private grouse moors”. As usual.


----------



## Plumdaff (Apr 5, 2020)

Here in Cardiff it seems as quiet as ever (although we're only venturing around our local streets for walks) but a friend's sister who lives in Pwllheli says that once again they have had an influx of holidaymakers


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The need to not die or cause other people to die is a greater priority than the desire for some green space.


the _need_ for some green space can prevent deaths by suicide. but i guess those people were never important/useful enough in the first place to count.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

I 100% agree tbh but i dont think anyone where I live is in that position (yet) and I've seen some unbelievable shit in the last week. Like a guy fishing on a stretch of pavement less than 1 metre wide next to a busy road, where as far as I know fishing is illegal anyway.

Or my neighbour having workmen round to do his carpets.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> Do cappuccinos count as essential items down there kabbes ? The shop could perhaps just not.


I really wish they wouldn’t.  They’re clinging on financially, though, and I guess they don’t want to give up any revenue they can avoid.  I don’t really feel I’m in a position to tell them to stop it.  Seems outrageously stupid to me, though.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I 100% agree tbh but i dont think anyone where I live is in that position (yet) and I've seen some unbelievable shit in the last week. Like a guy fishing on a stretch of pavement less than 1 metre wide next to a busy road, where as far as I know fishing is illegal anyway.



You should have pushed him in.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

I didn't wanna get that close  there was a car coming as well. 


cupid_stunt said:


> You should have pushed him in.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I guess it would still be ok to walk to the shops every few days?


It’ll need to be. Because no fucker has any delivery slots.

I have a slew of underlying health issues. I really, really, _really_ don’t want to go to the shops.  But having decided not to stockpile toilet roll, I have to. Because even the one delivery I did manage to get, they just left toilet roll off the order. No swaps. Not even bizarre ones.  Like pineapple instead. Just ignored the request entirely.

People who think they’re invincible in the aisle and just walk right up to you don’t seem the care that it’s not about them catching it or not. It’s about them being potential carriers and giving it to me. The selfish cunts.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> It’ll need to be. Because no fucker has any delivery slots.
> 
> I have a slew of underlying health issues. I really, really, _really_ don’t want to go to the shops.  But having decided not to stockpile toilet roll, I have to. Because even the one delivery I did manage to get, they just left toilet roll off the order. No swaps. Not even bizarre ones.  Like pineapple instead. Just ignored the request entirely.
> 
> People who think they’re invincible in the aisle and just walk right up to you don’t seem the care that it’s not about them catching it or not. It’s about them being potential carriers and giving it to me. The selfish cunts.



On the other side a guy did stick his head out the window of his car and yell at people in the bakery queue i was standing in to go home.  dont know where he was going that was so important!


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> It’ll need to be. Because no fucker has any delivery slots.
> 
> I have a slew of underlying health issues. I really, really, _really_ don’t want to go to the shops.  But having decided not to stockpile toilet roll, I have to. Because even the one delivery I did manage to get, they just left toilet roll off the order. No swaps. Not even bizarre ones.  Like pineapple instead. Just ignored the request entirely.
> 
> People who think they’re invincible in the aisle and just walk right up to you don’t seem the care that it’s not about them catching it or not. It’s about them being potential carriers and giving it to me. The selfish cunts.



Dodging people in the supermarket is turning into a fuckin military operation.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Dodging people in the supermarket is turning into a fuckin military operation.



Esp. when fuckwits stop in the middle of the aisle to check their bloody phone.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

Like a woman came into the aisle to look for something, I moved two metres away to do more shopping to almost bump into someone else who was just standing there!


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

Supermarket isles should be made one way traffic for now. That would be simple & help a fair bit .


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Esp. when fuckwits stop in the middle of the aisle to check their bloody phone.



Yes! I dont know why people are doing that, I'm trying to be in and out as quickly as possible!


----------



## Supine (Apr 5, 2020)

zahir said:


> Would you defend the absence of a testing programme?



I applaud science for testing methodology to even exist so quickly. I hope our Gov can sort out getting materials and trained staff ASAP which cant be easy with every country after the same things.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Lockdowns going to be stricter by end of the week.



On paper maybe, but the police can't even enforce what's already in place so what it'll amount to is collective punishment for those who give a shit and free rein for those who don't.


----------



## tommers (Apr 5, 2020)

it's actually quite difficult to keep 2m away from everybody else in the middle of a shop.  I think people are trying their best.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

I'm also getting weird looks for wearing a scarf round my face and gloves ffs


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yes! I dont know why people are doing that, I'm trying to be in and out as quickly as possible!



To be far too kind, maybe they have a shopping list. Ok, I’ll grant that’s unlikely.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

tommers said:


> it's actually quite difficult to keep 2m away from everybody else in the middle of a shop.  I think people are trying their best.



I think so too tbh I'm just having a rant


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2020)

So sad that a hospice has to beg for protective gear 








						St Christopher’s Hospice posts urgent appeal for protective gear – can you help?
					

St Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham have put out an urgent appeal for any protective gear that could be donated. They’re asking for surgical masks, gloves, aprons, visors or goggles (i…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## tommers (Apr 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> To be far too kind, maybe they have a shopping list. Ok, I’ll grant that’s unlikely.



I do! Still got half of it wrong apparently


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

tommers said:


> it's actually quite difficult to keep 2m away from everybody else in the middle of a shop.  I think people are trying their best.



Yeah, I agree with that. I think in general I’m doing my best to be forgiving, even regarding joggers. Too much tension in the air.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> On paper maybe, but the police can't even enforce what's already in place so what it'll amount to is collective punishment for those who give a shit and free rein for those who don't.



No change from normal then really.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It’s not just in passing though, is it?  Those cyclists have come from God knows where and have now potentially spread the virus into this local shop, which the local residents— mostly elderly — are relying on for their supplies.
> 
> But hey, they’re okay and they haven’t had to interrupt their hobby



Excercise isn't a hobby it's a necessity. Transportation is also not a hobby and just because someone is on a bike doesn't mean they're not going somewhere they need to be. HTH.


----------



## tommers (Apr 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah, I agree with that. I think in general I’m doing my best to be forgiving, even regarding joggers. Too much tension in the air.



My wife just showed me a picture of somebody out measuring pavements


----------



## weltweit (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yes! I dont know why people are doing that, I'm trying to be in and out as quickly as possible!


My shopping list is on my phone!


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

Yeah I am too and most people are trying their best. You do get some highly visible pisstakers though like my neighbours and so that may be skewing my vision a bit. I was woken up last week at 8 by builders working on his roof


----------



## kabbes (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Excercise isn't a hobby it's a necessity. Transportation is also not a hobby and just because someone is on a bike doesn't mean they're not going somewhere they need to be. HTH.


Did you not read what I wrote?  How is it a necessity for them to stop and go into a village shop for a latte and then sit drinking it in the village green?  How is that part of exercise?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

tommers said:


> it's actually quite difficult to keep 2m away from everybody else in the middle of a shop.  I think people are trying their best.



Indeed. In a typical visit to a supermarket you encounter maybe one person barging around like they don't give a shit, out of maybe dozens of people who are in there. Supermarket aisles not being two metres wide in most cases, and there being no viable alternative for most people but to shop in supermarkets, there's only so much people can do with the best will in the world.

I'm getting sick and tired of this 'nobody cares about this but me' stuff tbh. It's obviously complete bollocks and it's extremely harmful to already grievously wounded public morale.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Excercise isn't a hobby it's a necessity. Transportation is also not a hobby and just because someone is on a bike doesn't mean they're not going somewhere they need to be. HTH.



I like the fact you ignored that they went in a shop to get a coffee, not essential, and there was three of them, so highly unlikely from the same household, so that's two examples of them breaking the rules, the twats,


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Did you not read what I wrote?  How is it a necessity for them to stop and go into a village shop for a latte and then sit drinking it in the village green?  How is that part of exercise?



A cynic might suggest that your notional cyclist was made of straw.


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2020)

I can see signs of this already: 



> The coronavirus lockdown could crumble as public frustration builds in the weeks ahead, a crime commissioner warned on Saturday night as police stepped up calls for people to stay at home during this weekend’s sunny weather.
> 
> The Derbyshire police and crime commissioner, Hardyal Dhindsa, said “isolation fatigue” could set in and pose a genuine threat to the lockdown, especially after the likely decision to extend the measures beyond the current three-week period.
> 
> Dhindsa, whose force was criticised for “nanny policing” after using a drone to “lockdown shame” Peak District hikers , said: “In this early phase of isolation, people’s awareness is quite high, but the longer it goes on, people’s frustration at not being able to do what they want to will grow. The real test will be in two or three weeks’ time. How long can we keep a lockdown going?”












						UK’s Covid-19 lockdown could crumble as frustration grows, police warn
					

Isolation fatigue could set in if period is extended beyond three weeks




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## kabbes (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> A cynic might suggest that your notional cyclist was made of straw.


Oh ffs. I was literally just in the village centre going to the shop for supplies and reporting on what I saw in real time.  Accusing me of lying about that is the action of a right cunt.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Oh ffs. I was literally just in the village centre going to the shop for supplies and reporting on what I saw in real time.  Accusing me of lying about that is the action of a right cunt.



And you know for a fact they don't live in the same house? And that the village shop was not their village shop?


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

Yeah I mean I think most people are following the rules or at least trying to, there's a few who arent and it's a bit frustrating. I'd never dream of grassing them up or yelling at them but its incredibly annoying. Especially when you literally live next door to some of them.


----------



## LDC (Apr 5, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> the _need_ for some green space can prevent deaths by suicide. but i guess those people were never important/useful enough in the first place to count.



Individually, but how can that be managed on a population level? The rules have got to be simple and general. And still people find them confusing. Can you imagine the chaos if they tried to say, yeah you can go out/do this/do that if you feel like it's better for your mental health?


----------



## tommers (Apr 5, 2020)

How do we know that we're not just living in a computer simulation? Hmm?


----------



## weepiper (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Excercise isn't a hobby it's a necessity. Transportation is also not a hobby and just because someone is on a bike doesn't mean they're not going somewhere they need to be. HTH.


I agree with this but also with kabbes that they shouldn't be going into the shop and then hanging out on the village green drinking coffee. Go out on your bike, keep 2m away from everyone (including pedestrians walking on the pavement), have a careful ride within your abilities, fine. The coffee stop is not compulsory. Stop doing that bit, it's selfish to take your potential infection into a community you don't live in.


----------



## Looby (Apr 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Esp. when fuckwits stop in the middle of the aisle to check their bloody phone.


Their lists are probably on the phone.

ETA should have read on. 😄


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Excercise isn't a hobby it's a necessity. Transportation is also not a hobby and just because someone is on a bike doesn't mean they're not going somewhere they need to be. HTH.



Oh come on. Quite apart from you ignoring the fact they're in a group of three, using the shop for non-essential purposes, and sitting on the green, it's quite easy to exercise at home. They're just selfishly prioritising not having to compromise their fun over the lives of others. Cunts.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

Looby said:


> Their lists are probably on the phone.



That wouldn't explain the selfish women that stopped right at the exit, meaning no one could leave without coming within 2m of her.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Oh come on. Quite apart from you ignoring the fact they're in a group of three, using the shop for non-essential purposes, and sitting on the green, it's quite easy to exercise at home. They're just selfishly prioritising not having to compromise their fun over the lives of others. Cunts.



You are allowed to ride a bike. You are allowed to go in shops. The queen is apparently still alive, ergo nobody has died and made you king.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> And you know for a fact they don't live in the same house? And that the village shop was not their village shop?


Well they were all queuing 2m apart and split up afterwards.  And yes, I know everyone in this village.  There’s about 100 of us.  Why is it so hard for you to believe I intimately know the immediate environment I’ve lived in for 10 years?  I know passing cyclists when I see them.

This spot is a Mecca for road cyclists.  We get hundreds of thousands through each year.  It’s on every top ten list and every website.  That’s fine (kind of) but now is not the time to go off for 50 mile cycles around the countryside.  90% seem to understand that, because the cycle traffic has almost disappeared.  But there is a hard core of don’t-give-a-shit cunts who are carrying on their hobby as if nothing is happening.  And the point is that they aren’t harming nobody by keeping distant in passing, they are stopping off to buy lattes as they go through villages.


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The rules have got to be simple and general. And still people find them confusing.


the rules are simple and general. yet those who _are_ following the rules  still get shamed and shouted at. the people doing the shaming and the shouting presumably find being a self-righteous prick is a boost to their mental health 🤷


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah I mean I think most people are following the rules or at least trying to, there's a few who arent and it's a bit frustrating. I'd never dream of grassing them up or yelling at them but its incredibly annoying. Especially when you literally live next door to some of them.


Yeah. I’m sorry for having a rant really. But I’m having a bit of a spin out this morning. Nothing serious, just frustration that the advice conflicts with the reality.  I’d _love_ to rely on  delivery services.  But I can’t.  Which means braving a shop where other people simply just will enter your two meter exclusion zone. Because it’s incredibly difficult to change a lifetime of experience of crowded milling.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> the _need_ for some green space can prevent deaths by suicide. but i guess those people were never important/useful enough in the first place to count.



In a public health emergency, we need all need to follow a course of action that saves most lives. There's plenty of evidence that the virus will kill tens of thousands absent rigorous isolation, but I haven't seen any evidence that such measures will cause more deaths by suicide.


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 5, 2020)

danny i've had some occasional luck getting shopping spots. if you'd like me to try for you just pm postcode x


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You are allowed to ride a bike. *You are allowed to go in shops.* The queen is apparently still alive, ergo nobody has died and made you king.



Only for shopping for necessities, so stop being a plank.


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> I haven't seen any evidence that such measures will cause more deaths by suicide.


will make sure to send <whoever does the statistics> an explanatory note


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

weepiper said:


> I agree with this but also with kabbes that they shouldn't be going into the shop and then hanging out on the village green drinking coffee. Go out on your bike, keep 2m away from everyone (including pedestrians walking on the pavement), have a careful ride within your abilities, fine. The coffee stop is not compulsory. Stop doing that bit, it's selfish to take your potential infection into a community you don't live in.



This is what I'm doing. I take food and water with me, and I stop in the middle of nowhere if at all.

Maybe have a word with the shopkeeper about selling non-essential lattes? I dunno. I miss getting a paper cup of disappointing coffee, like I miss so many trivial things. Maybe if I saw the prospect of getting one, and with it a five-minute window of relative normality, I might be tempted to do so.

I'm really not interested in making excuses for anyone I just think that there is genuine evil at work in the midst of all this and drinking coffee on the village green, while a bit thoughtless, is not the same as that at all. It's going to be hard work to stay sane through all this and walking round in a constant miasma of rage is not going to help with that. If you're worried about people misusing the village shop, maybe instead be glad you're in a village and not an inner city where all of this lockdown stuff is much, much worse.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You are allowed to ride a bike. You are allowed to go in shops. The queen is apparently still alive, ergo nobody has died and made you king.



You're allowed to shop for essentials, not lattes!

You're supposed to exercise locally, not risk spreading the virus to other communities.

And I bet they were out for more than an hour, too.

Selfish pricks.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge Morrison's are doing a pre packed box (chose vegetarian or meat)  of basics.   Apparently easier to get these slots than a regular shop


----------



## Anju (Apr 5, 2020)

One of my wife's friends is staying with her new partner in Twickenham. She's reconsidering as they went shopping, with her assuming it would be the supermarket with properly organised queueing only to end up at a busy farmers market where people seemed oblivious. She retreated to the car but he insisted on shopping there, so she was still put at risk.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Google the Rockwood clinical frailty scale. AFAIK that's not the only way of allocating them if it's needed, it's just one of the ways that will be used to assess who gets the limited resources. Other issues such as current clinical condition, age, and co-morbidities will also be taken into account from what I've heard.
> 
> It's brutal but it makes sense I'm afraid.



bimble

As I write this I’m trying to remember where I heard it, so I can post the link...

I listened to an interview with an American doctor about how such choices are made in a crisis. He went through the algorithms they apply when using drugs that are in limited supply, saying that the same frameworks would be used for vents etc during the pandemic. The first criteria was whether there is proven efficacy for this treatment for patients within certain physiological parameters. He was absolutely clear that things like income (this was America...) status etc are not part of the algorithm. He was very clear that the homless guy who would derive more physiological benefit than the CEO would be given the treatment, regardless of an other factor. He said that we only become more widely aware of these situations when a crisis occurs, like this one.


Also, words like “frailty” may have slightly different nuances in clinical language compared to how we’d use the word in everyday conversation.

None of which makes any of this easier to accept or assimilate. It’s all awful. But as someone said elsewhere, “It’s a fucking pandemic, people are going to die!”


Still can’t recall where I heard the interview. If I do remember I’ll come back and post it.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Only for shopping for necessities, so stop being a plank.



I take it there's no coffee in your house at the time of writing then?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I take it there's no coffee in your house at the time of writing then?



Yeah, that would be exactly the same as buying a take-away coffee.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Yeah. I’m sorry for having a rant really. But I’m having a bit of a spin out this morning. Nothing serious, just frustration that the advice conflicts with the reality.  I’d _love_ to rely on  delivery services.  But I can’t.  Which means braving a shop where other people simply just will enter your two meter exclusion zone. Because it’s incredibly difficult to change a lifetime of experience of crowded milling.



Given that the government has identified and communicated with at risk persons, there seems to be no reason why they couldn't if they wanted to allocate those same people some kind of priority code for supermarket deliveries. By all accounts the government has had basically zero communication with supermarkets though.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I'm really not interested in making excuses for anyone I just think that there is genuine evil at work in the midst of all this and drinking coffee on the village green, while a bit thoughtless, is not the same as that at all.



It's not thoughlesness; it's selfishness. And it will kill thousands of the most vulnerable people in our society, including those in the NHS who are risking their lives to help others despite being put at greater risk by lycra-clad cunts.


----------



## LDC (Apr 5, 2020)

I'm one of the worst for being pissed off with people 'breaking the rules' or whatever, but it is worth bearing in mind this is all totally new for us all and we're all adapting at different rates and in different ways. Not to excuse obviously selfish behaviour, but let's try and be a _bit_ reasonable with people if we can.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yeah, that would be exactly the same as buying a take-away coffee.



It's still non essential.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm one of the worst for being pissed off with people 'breaking the rules' or whatever, but it is worth bearing in mind this is all totally new for us all and we're all adapting at different rates and in different ways. Not to excuse obviously selfish behaviour, but let's try and be a _bit_ reasonable with people if we can.


Totally agree.

And thanks for the offers of help all.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> It's still non essential.



Not if brought at the same time as food, you uneducated potato.


----------



## Looby (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Given that the government has identified and communicated with at risk persons, there seems to be no reason why they couldn't if they wanted to allocate those same people some kind of priority code for supermarket deliveries. By all accounts the government has had basically zero communication with supermarkets though.


The government are sending supermarkets the list of the most vulnerable who are then being contacted to offer online slots.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not if brought at the same time as food, you uneducated potato.



What if these lads bought a tube of pringles to go with their lattes?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Looby said:


> The government are sending supermarkets the list of the most vulnerable who are then being contacted to offer online slots.



I'm glad they're finally reading my posts on here and immediately taking action.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> danny i've had some occasional luck getting shopping spots. if you'd like me to try for you just pm postcode x


Thanks so much. It’s comforting just to know I have a community here of kind people who’ll offer to help in this way. I  think my partner and I will just about manage, but if things get desperate its good to know I can ask.

😎


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> What if these lads bought a tube of pringles to go with their lattes?



You're a fucking idiot.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> It's not thoughlesness; it's selfishness. And it will kill thousands of the most vulnerable people in our society, including those in the NHS who are risking their lives to help others despite being put at greater risk by *lycra-clad cunts*.



Right there look, right there was where you showed your true interest in this debate. Fucking shame on anyone using this situation to shit on any group of people they simply don't like for whatever unrelated reason.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 5, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> danny i've had some occasional luck getting shopping spots. if you'd like me to try for you just pm postcode x



Does this include Tesco?

I tried twice this week. I found out Tesco slots come on at midnight. We have a cheap subscription, meaning we can get slots on Tue, Wed, Thu. So I logged on at 11.55 to get a message telling me I was in a queue. At 12.12am I got through - to all slots gone for Wed.

So I tried the next night. Logged on at 11.20pm. I was in. But of course the slots weren't up. At 11.50pm the message came up again about being in a queue. At 12.25am I was through - to no slots available again.

Coincidentally the next morning I got an email saying my subscription was on hold, they are giving money back for March, but I can still get slots for free within my subscription time frame (Tue, Wed, Thu).

Yeah. Course I can.  

These slots are for 3 weeks from now.


----------



## seventh bullet (Apr 5, 2020)

A dickhead co-worker is having a barbecue today with another dickhead co-worker and others I don't know who are probably dickheads as well.  

Management at work (night shift at Morrisons) aren't taking social distancing seriously, expecting five or six people to cram into a small space to put out stock. Refused to do it.  Not interested in him looking good in the morning for getting rid of excess ice cream.  

I am already pissed off as I am keeping away from my mum, in her seventies with poor health who normally relies on me for everyday things, but feel it's the right thing to do.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> On the other side a guy did stick his head out the window of his car and yell at people in the bakery queue i was standing in to go home.  dont know where he was going that was so important!



Maybe driving home after a hospital shift. Edie said she had an urge to do exactly that when she was driving home after a rough shift,


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

Yeah I  mean I'm getting unreasonably annoyed and I know i need to calm down. Shit i had to go out the house twice yesterday and feel really guilty about it. This thing is affecting us all in different ways


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Right there look, right there was where you showed your true interest in this debate. Fucking shame on anyone using this situation to shit on any group of people they simply don't like for whatever unrelated reason.



I don't like people who prioritise their hobby over others' lives.


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Does this include Tesco?


sainsbury's only i'm afraid. most of the time it tells me to go away (fair enough) or click-and-collect (never once seen a spot), but if they have free slots (usually a day or two in advance) they let me book.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah I  mean I'm getting unreasonably annoyed and I know i need to calm down. Shit i had to go out the house twice yesterday and feel really guilty about it. This thing is affecting us all in different ways



If you have to, you have to e.g. to buy food or medicine. Nobody has to ride a push bike for fun, though though.  My kids are able to understand why they can't go out on their bikes, but some grown men don't seem to get it, or to care.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yeah, that would be exactly the same as buying a take-away coffee.


Tbf, rightly or wrongly, it's within the rules to sell a takeaway coffee, so buying one must be allowed. Even if it needn't be.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> If you have to, you have to e.g. to buy food or medicine. Nobody has to ride a push bike, though though.



What about essential workers who need to get to work and don't have a car? A bike is transportation.

Plenty of people are driving around for amusement purposes only, many treating the half-empty roads as some sort of erstaz racetrack and directly putting lives at risk in the process. You're not moaning about on them because they're not people you hated before this pandemic thing happened.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

The people I work(ed) for have a project to give free bikes to essential workers who need them. You get less exposure risk on a bike than on public transport. The scheme has proven very popular.


----------



## hegley (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Nobody has to ride a push bike, though though.


Walking, running and *cycling *were the three forms of exercise that Boris Johnson said were okay.


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Oh come on. Quite apart from you ignoring the fact they're in a group of three, using the shop for non-essential purposes, and sitting on the green, it's quite easy to exercise at home.



In what way is it easy to exercise at home?


----------



## Sprocket. (Apr 5, 2020)

There was a chief constable I think for Devon & Cornwall, on the tv on Friday.
Saying how dismayed he was that the fear of being fined for making unnecessary journeys had more effect than the fact that nearly 700 people had died in the previous twenty four hours.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> In what way is it easy to exercise at home?



How is it not?

Joke post.


----------



## Anju (Apr 5, 2020)

I wouldn't buy a takeaway coffee because to drink it I have to put my lips on something someone has just had their hands all over. Same with things like using my phone when in the supermarket, seems a pointless risk to put something to my face after touching a load of stuff others have been touching yet plenty of people seemed to be using theirs when I shopped a couple of days ago.

Eta. Are people thinking gloves offer protection?


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> What about essential workers who need to get to work and don't have a car? A bike is transportation.
> 
> Plenty of people are driving around for amusement purposes only, many treating the half-empty roads as some sort of erstaz racetrack and directly putting lives at risk in the process. You're not moaning about on them because they're not people you hated before this pandemic thing happened.



If you have to ride a bike to work, then that's essential. Quite different from hobby riding.

I've seen no evidence whatsoever of the latest phenomenon; if it's happening, I think that's stupid and selfish, too.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> If you have to ride a bike to work, then that's essential. Quite different from hobby riding.



So your assertion that 'nobody has to ride a push bike' was bollocks then? Interesting.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

hegley said:


> Walking, running and *cycling *were the three forms of exercise that Boris Johnson said were okay.



Oh, well, if Boris says it, it must be true.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

Establishment shithead indulging in behaviour that suggests 'rules dont apply to me'.









						Scotland's chief medical officer quits over second home row
					

Catherine Calderwood steps down after visiting second home twice despite advice to stay in




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Scotland’s chief medical officer (CMO) has been photographed visiting her family’s second home in Fife during the coronavirus pandemic, despite herself issuing advice to stay at home.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> So your assertion that 'nobody has to ride a push bike' was bollocks then? Interesting.



I had credited you with the wit to understand (from the context) that we were talkng about hobby riding, rather than essential transport. But I've edited it now, just in case anyone else is similarly hard of thinking.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> There was a chief constable I think for Devon & Cornwall, on the tv on Friday.
> Saying how dismayed he was that the fear of being fined for making unnecessary journeys had more effect than the fact that nearly 700 people had died in the previous twenty four hours.



Apparently they've had police stationed at junction 27 turning back anyone with a car full of people and luggage. I don't approve of people going on holiday to Devon during a pandemic, but I'd have to admit that's at least 60% because I grew up in Devon and so I hate everyone who goes there on holiday anyway.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> In what way is it easy to exercise at home?



Sit ups, press ups, homemade weights, jogging on the spot.  Christ.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> I had credited you with the wit to understand (from the context) that we were talkng about hobby riding, rather than essential transport. But I've edited it now, just in case anyone else is similarly hard of thinking.



I always (used to) enjoy my cycle commute to work. Did that somehow render it non-essential?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 5, 2020)

Coronavirus: Public urged to follow 'mission-critical' rules
					

The health secretary criticised "unbelievable" behaviour after people packed into sunny public parks.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Today’s sunny weather will be the test.


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Sit ups, press ups, homemade weights, jogging on the spot.  Christ.




Yeah jogging on the spot is a perfect replacement for a half hour run. And assuming you don’t have a downstairs neighbour to piss off.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I always (used to) enjoy my cycle commute to work. Did that somehow render it non-essential?



If it was during the pandemic and you had a job you couldn't do from home, then no.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Sit ups, press ups, homemade weights, jogging on the spot.  Christ.



So just fuck off all the psychological benefits of outdoor excercise because you don't approve of it.

There will be suicides as a result of this lockdown, there will be permanent harm to the mental health of large numbers of people. Just saying 'stay inside or people die' doesn't cut it. It's lazy bullshit, and it's lazy bullshit that comes directly from a government in a state of desperation at their own failure to manage this situation properly, and at the political rather than the public health implications of that failure.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah jogging on the spot is a perfect replacement for a half hour run. And assuming you don’t have a downstairs neighbour to piss off.



Fucking improvise, then!  Of course it's not the same.  Nothing is.  We all have to recognise that and make sacrifices accordingly.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Today’s sunny weather will be the test.



No it won't. the decisions have already been made. Sunny weather is just the pretext.


----------



## LDC (Apr 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah jogging on the spot is a perfect replacement for a half hour run. And assuming you don’t have a downstairs neighbour to piss off.



FFS there's like a million exercise things online to show you what can do in your home that aren't jogging on the spot.


----------



## Labourite (Apr 5, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Coronavirus: Public urged to follow 'mission-critical' rules
> 
> 
> The health secretary criticised "unbelievable" behaviour after people packed into sunny public parks.
> ...


Down to stupid morons having a BBQ like those on Brighton beach. Clowns.


----------



## weepiper (Apr 5, 2020)

Tbf Athos you're not considering that other people live in different circumstances to your own. I've lived in a tenement flat where there literally is not enough clear floor space to do press ups, and where if you jog on the spot your downstairs neighbour will lose patience with you very quickly. Where I've struggled to keep children acceptably quiet for the neighbours even when they're not trapped inside all day.


----------



## Sue (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> The self discipline of having several palaces to choose from and the RAF to fly you to whichever one you fancy and servants to carry on providing you with the fucking lifestyle you fucking have all the fucking time anyway.
> 
> “Here in Balmoral one really notices nobody is out and about on the private grouse moors”. As usual.


Oops, started typing, changed my mind then accidentally posted.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> So just fuck off all the psychological benefits of outdoor excercise because you don't approve of it.
> 
> There will be suicides as a result of this lockdown, there will be permanent harm to the mental health of large numbers of people. Just saying 'stay inside or people die' doesn't cut it. It's lazy bullshit, and it's lazy bullshit that comes directly from a government in a state of desperation at their own failure to manage this situation properly, and of the political rather than the public health implications of that failure.



Even Singapore has moved to a state of lockdown (although there is always devil in detail as to how far a particular lockdown goes) and they cannot be accused of botching the initial response.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Establishment shithead indulging in behaviour that suggests 'rules dont apply to me'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The rules are obviously for the plebs not for her, reminds me of Kinnock jr who visited his dad to wish him happy birthday!! 

I have only been out to go food shopping, and to collect more work so I can continue to work from home.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> So just fuck off all the psychological benefits of outdoor excercise because you don't approve of it.
> 
> There will be suicides as a result of this lockdown, there will be permanent harm to the mental health of large numbers of people. Just saying 'stay inside or people die' doesn't cut it. It's lazy bullshit, and it's lazy bullshit that comes directly from a government in a state of desperation at their own failure to manage this situation properly, and of the political rather than the public health implications of that failure.



Tens of thousands of people in the UK will die of Covid-19.  What's lazy is just brushing that aside with some vague waffle about suicide.  You're essentially suggesting that the cure is worse than the disease, without offering any empirical evidence for such a claim.  I mean,  what's to say that losing loved ones won't be a bigger driver for suicide than isolation? And you're the one hiding behind government advice to justify hobby cycling.


----------



## Sue (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Apparently they've had police stationed at junction 27 turning back anyone with a car full of people and luggage. I don't approve of people going on holiday to Devon during a pandemic, but I'd have to admit that's at least 60% because I grew up in Devon and so I hate everyone who goes there on holiday anyway.


Hang on, you were posting on here before about leaving where you live to meet up with your partner and then both heading off to another destination, despite knowing doing so was against all advice. IIRC, you only didn't do so because circumstances intervened. So sorry, but think it's a bit rich for you to be coming out with this stuff now.


----------



## xenon (Apr 5, 2020)

[/QUOTE]


frogwoman said:


> I'm a bit worried about how it will affect my mum if they ban walking etc, I mean we will deal with it but the lockdown rules already causing quite a bit of tension tbh.



Well assuming they still allow going out for food, I've been combining a walk with that. Not daily. I actually felt a bit guilty for taking a prolonged walk into town and back the other day. (NO way I wanted to risk the bus.) It was a necessary journey TBF bank / food. I did quite enjoyed being out for that long though. Otherwise I'm just sat in the flat with the windows open.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Even Singapore has moved to a state of lockdown (although there is always devil in detail as to how far a particular lockdown goes) and they cannot be accused of botching the initial response.



But our government has been accused of exactly that and I maintain that it's that, and not people sunbathing in parks, that they're responding to with threats of increased restrictions. Every news story about people on Brighton seafront talking to each other is a story not about inadequately protected, overworked nurses dying. That is is the driving factor here.

The latest adverts say stay home to protect the NHS, and show nurses in belt-and-braces PPE staring ominously into the camera. The message couldn't be clearer, 'we're not failing to protect the NHS, you are'.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Tbf Athos you're not considering that other people live in different circumstances to your own. I've lived in a tenement flat where there literally is not enough clear floor space to do press ups, and where if you jog on the spot your downstairs neighbour will lose patience with you very quickly. Where I've struggled to keep children acceptably quiet for the neighbours even when they're not trapped inside all day.



Do them on your bed, then. Christ, I'm sure people can come up with solutions if they want to. And, to be honest, the packs of pricks riding their bikes round here probably pay more for them than most families do for their cars!  There's no way it's essential; they want to keep up their hobby, and fuck everyone else.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> But our government has been accused of exactly that and I maintain that it's that, and not people sunbathing in parks, that they're responding to with threats of increased restrictions. Every news story about people on Brighton seafront talking to each other is a story not about inadequately protected, overworked nurses dying. That is is the driving factor here.
> 
> The latest adverts say stay home to protect the NHS, and show nurses in belt-and-braces PPE staring ominously into the camera. The message couldn't be clearer, 'we're not failing to protect the NHS, you are'.



It's both. The government fucked it up. But people are helping the spread.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

Sue said:


> Hang on, you were posting on here before about leaving where you live to meet up with your partner and then both heading off to another destination, despite knowing doing so was against all advice. IIRC, you only didn't do so because circumstances intervened. So sorry, but think it's a bit rich for you to be coming out with this stuff now.



Yes I remember that. Cornwall, when they were begging people not to come due to low hospital capacity in that region.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Sue said:


> Hang on, you were posting on here before about leaving where you live to meet up with your partner and then both heading off to another destination, despite knowing doing so was against all advice. IIRC, you only didn't do so because circumstances intervened. So sorry, but think it's a bit rich for you to be coming out with this stuff now.



The circumstances were a change in the guidelines, which we could easily have ignored as they were not yet being enforced, but chose not to.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 5, 2020)

All banning exercise will achieve is a load of confrontations between jobsworth old bill and people going shopping for food or to work and is likely to escalate the chances of the quarantine breaking down completely.  Shutting down call centres, unnecessary online stores and construction sites would be likely to have a much bigger impact on reducing transmission than creating a near police state where the mostly likely person to give you coronavirus is the copper who stops you to demand to see your papers.

Surely just saying only one person out at a time would be a much better solution, with caveats for people with kids/carers obviously.  That would stop all the family days out, picnics, mates meeting up in parks etc without creating a potential social timebomb that could prove explosive and ultimately counter-productive if it goes on for a long time. Policing for once has to genuinely be about consent, because they can't hold this without the support and agreement of the population and telling people they can't go for a walk or take the dog out when many people are still being expected to go to work, often in unsafe conditions, doesn't seem very sustainable to me.  And much as I love a good riot now is probably not the time.


----------



## weepiper (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Do them on your bed, then. Christ, I'm sure people can come up with solutions if they want to. And, to be honest, the packs of pricks riding their bikes round here probably pay more for them than most families do for their cars!  There's no way it's essential; they want to keep up their hobby, and fuck everyone else.


Your idea of 'easy' is different to mine then. Maybe you just want to be angry at someone and faceless lycra cyclists seem like the answer.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> The circumstances were a change in the guidelines, which we could easily have ignored as they were not yet being enforced, but chose not to.



Well done, you.  People should be out applauding you at 8pm.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Your idea of 'easy' is different to mine then. Maybe you just want to be angry at someone and faceless lycra cyclists seem like the answer.



Nah, I'm never short of people to be angry at!  But, seriously, it may not be as easy, but making that sacrifice is better than the alternative.


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

No-one is going to argue that groups of people meeting up for whatever reason is justified. But this idea that somehow just riding a bike is going to dramatically increase risk is utter bollocks. The most risky part of that proposition is the bit where you’re leaving the flat and touching communal surfaces.

The construction sector is still running. SMEs are still running. Restrictions on shopping times are half-arsed. These are where the big risks are. Indoors, in restricted spaces. Absolutely break up outside groups, absolutely close areas where there’s abuse of rules. But we have more than one public health crisis, and this may be something we need to manage over the course of this year, and half of next. Has to be balanced.


----------



## xenon (Apr 5, 2020)

I was silently raging other day waiting outside a small local shop I wanted to go in, to get tea and milk, (this was my walk.) The counter's by the door so I waited as I could hear a customer in there. He kept faffing about, going back to the shelves, bantering with the owner. I was just thinking, hurry the fuck up you dozy cunt.

Some peple are just gormless fuckwits and probably aren't reading / watching the news as much as us.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> In what way is it easy to exercise at home?


Tennis court.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 5, 2020)

I've just seen Michael Gove on tv telling me to exercise restraint. Just as I was thinking of breaking the rules and going for a booty call with my gf. 

They should get him to front birth control campaigns. That little mouth. Telling me to restrain myself. I'll never get horny again I don't think.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

seventh bullet said:


> Management at work (night shift at Morrisons) aren't taking social distancing seriously, expecting five or six people to cram into a small space to put out stock.


I’m hearing lots of that kind of story. My sister in law is a school dinner lady.  She’s feeding children of key workers who are at school as well as kids who get free school meals. But she says the expectations of management in the kitchen are unacceptable.  And then people sit around the same table for their break.  She has two kids and my brother, all with asthma, at home who are being put at risk.

It’s this mismatch between expectation and reality that has got me down this morning.

I’m angry on behalf of people like yourself who are being put in impossible situations.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Well done, you.  People should be out applauding you at 8pm.



I wasn't asking for applause, I wasn't the one who brought it up on an unrelated thread.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Nah, I'm never short of people to be angry at!  But, seriously, it may not be as easy, but making that sacrifice is better than the alternative.


How exactly are cyclists spreading the virus? Sorry I don't get that. What is the mechanism?

I went for quite a long walk yesterday and managed very easily to avoid any contact with anybody at all. I walked up to Regent's Park in London, one of the parks that is still open, and did a big walk right around it. I stayed well away from everyone, which was easy to do, and I did a bit of a social distancing audit while I was there.

I was surprised tbh, that on a sunny Saturday afternoon and without a single copper in sight, I saw virtually 100 per cent compliance - single people, couples or family groups out relaxing and playing and staying well away from everyone else. In my whole walk around the park, which took about an hour, I saw one group that looked like two separate families together, who may have been breaking the rules (only may - maybe they live together, I don't know). Out of the total people I saw to find just one suspect group was pretty remarkable, I'd say. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a good 9.8.

It's a non-issue, utterly irrelevant compared to the scandal that is the lack of testing and proper PPE in hospitals.

And many of those people out will have been like me - live relatively nearby but in a very urban environment, in flats with no outdoor space and very little opportunity to exercise - I'm one of those for whom running on the spot would be an antisocial thing to do. The opportunity to get into some greenery for a while is of not inconsiderable benefit, and I'm sorry but I reject the idea that those people I saw out yesterday were spreading the virus.


----------



## chilango (Apr 5, 2020)

editor said:


> I can see signs of this already:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not just "fatigue" but a real sense of injustice as those making the rules will have large gardens, home gyms etc etc. and spacious homes.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> How exactly are cyclists spreading the virus? Sorry I don't get that. What is the mechanism?



Asked this question many times on here. Answer, as they say, came there none.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

My sister is being made to go out to work


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

Can we stop arguing with each other about this? It’s understandable that we have a good old vent, but it’s not productive to be shouting each other down. I’d join back up to Nextdoor if I wanted to read a load of people cussing each other out about cycling or parking.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yes I remember that. Cornwall, when they were begging people not to come due to low hospital capacity in that region.



And hands up who here hasn't considered doing something they shouldn't do, at any point in this whole shitshow? 

Right now we've put that to bed, maybe we can dispense with the cross-thread beef. Because the next person who brings it up I'm just fucking leaving these boards for the forseeable.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's a non-issue, utterly irrelevant compared to the scandal that is the lack of testing and proper PPE in hospitals.



Yeah but you make all sorts of claims that you think support your view that a wishy washy lockdown would be almost as effective.

You take very good points, such as the large role that spread of the virus in hospitals has, and twist them to imply that therefore all the other measures are small beans in comparison, that all the other stuff is mostly irrelevant.

This is stupid and dangerous thinking, and I am so glad that you are not involved with policy decisions on this front.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah but you make all sorts of claims that you think support your view that a wishy washy lockdown would be almost as effective.
> 
> You take very good points, such as the large role that spread of the virus in hospitals has, and twist them to imply that therefore all the other measures are small beans in comparison, that all the other stuff is mostly irrelevant.
> 
> This is stupid and dangerous thinking, and I am so glad that you are not involved with policy decision on this front.


This is just a needless swipe. As I said, I was looking very carefully and saw virtually no mixing of groups of people who didn't live together. This virus is a real threat. But it is not a magic virus. Parks are being closed for basically no reason.


----------



## chilango (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Can we stop arguing with each other about this? It’s understandable that we have a good old vent, but it’s not productive to be shouting each other down. I’d join back up to Nextdoor if I wanted to read a load of people cussing each other out about cycling or parking.



Yep.

But it wont just be us getting tetchy will it?

Imagine as the lockdown continues and gets tighter. The weather warms up. People, especially younger people, crammed inside spaces not big enough to contain the numbers forced to inhabit them, being chided daily by those for whom the lockdown has no real spatial issue.  Facing an uncertain future at best. Simmering. Simmering, Simmering...


----------



## treelover (Apr 5, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Yes, I have just been reading a mention that the Cheltenham festival, which had 250,000 people close together, over a few days may well have infected lots of people. Perhaps that in part explains Gwent.



it was crazy allowing that


----------



## Threshers_Flail (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Can we stop arguing with each other about this? It’s understandable that we have a good old vent, but it’s not productive to be shouting each other down. I’d join back up to Nextdoor if I wanted to read a load of people cussing each other out about cycling or parking.



Yep. Sad to see a bunch of broadly left wing people pointing fingers at a few dickheads sunbathing rather than the absolute shit show the gov't have made of this. The people dying now contracted the virus weeks ago; when pubs, non-essential shops and fucking Cheltenham festival was open.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yep.
> 
> But it wont just be us getting tetchy will it?
> 
> Imagine as the lockdown continues and gets tighter. The weather warms up. People, especially younger people, crammed inside spaces not big enough to contain the numbers forced to inhabit them, being chided daily by those for whom the lockdown has no real spatial issue.  Facing an uncertain future at best. Simmering. Simmering, Simmering...


Absolutely.


----------



## treelover (Apr 5, 2020)

Looby said:


> One of my colleagues still thinks it’s ok to drive out to the forest and spend the day walking. She even called it self-isolating on Facebook!



Dob her in


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yep.
> 
> But it wont just be us getting tetchy will it?
> 
> Imagine as the lockdown continues and gets tighter. The weather warms up. People, especially younger people, crammed inside spaces not big enough to contain the numbers forced to inhabit them, being chided daily by those for whom the lockdown has no real spatial issue.  Facing an uncertain future at best. Simmering. Simmering, Simmering...



Could definitely see that happening but that's not tallying with the stuff I'm seeing on a daily basis and people in London and other cities who are (so far) taking this much more seriously - and having the lockdown enforced much more seriously too


----------



## treelover (Apr 5, 2020)

i have been out in the communal garden precisely three times in over two week, i have no idea what the rest of my city on near environ looks like


if i have to do it, why can't others limit their outings?


----------



## Favelado (Apr 5, 2020)

It's the Tories fault for creating this debate.  The wishy-washy approach they've taken has created the space for people to argue about it all. These arguments are not taking place where governments have imposed a real lockdown from day one.


----------



## killer b (Apr 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> Dob her in


I think if you find yourself having this kind of reaction, you might need to have a gentle word with yourself.


----------



## treelover (Apr 5, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> There's just so much to despise, isn't there - beyond people going out.
> The acknowledgment yesterday and today that SSP payments are too low to live on (Hancock agreeing, Gove _swiftly moving on_ from the question today, the cunt), UC having been adjusted upwards, by £20 a week, even to meet that shitty rate...like it was ok_ before?_
> I'm frustrated at people not taking measures which are comparitvely easier, for a time, when our health system is so overwhelmed because it's been so deliberately run down, when there are staff there working themselves into the ground, without any remotely safe precautions in place for themselves, where that inevitably reflects on their capabilities to save lives - when money and magic IS so easily found, when acknowledgments ARE made in light of this. Homelessness, DV, it's all shot out into the light. What went before and what comes later are important. In the meantime, there are things we can do, though and it's not having fucking picnics or driving off to 'secluded' places and we shouldn't need policing in that.



Not one pence extra for disabled and sick people, despite having extra costs, dispensable?


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is just a needless swipe. As I said, I was looking very carefully and saw virtually no mixing of groups of people who didn't live together. This virus is a real threat. But it is not a magic virus. Parks are being closed for basically no reason.



No, my repeated swipes at your stance in recent days have been quite necessary for me, I could not keep quiet about your dangerous bullshit any longer.

And stop using the word magic like that - you only started doing it after I criticised your magical liberal bullshit stance, get over it.

There will probably be a time for subtle nuances of policy later on, and you can probably find a place in that scene that I wont call dangerous. Because the timing will be more appropriately in tune with the stage our epidemic is at by then. But I think you allowed your instincts and beliefs to cloud your judgement on this stuff at just the wrong time, at just the time that we needed a very hard application of the brakes, a time that has no place for so many exceptions that the whole thing ends up resembling a colander rather than a shield.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is just a needless swipe. As I said, I was looking very carefully and saw virtually no mixing of groups of people who didn't live together. This virus is a real threat. But it is not a magic virus. Parks are being closed for basically no reason.



Closing parks piecemeal and at random while telling people they can still excercise outdoors using the much reduced space now available in which to do so is a classic example of how incoherent all these measures are. And yet most people are still trying to adhere to them.

No, people haven't adjusted overnight nor have they done so 100% effectively, but name me one major change in human behaviour that happened overnight and with 100% of the population playing along? What we've actually seen is the fastest, largest-scale and most comprehensive change in human behaviour possibly ever. Only someone who had never met a human would be surprised or angry about the fact we haven't yet hit 100%. It's only been two fucking weeks. Two miserable and terrifying weeks for a lot of people. And still, _still_ society is functioning despite this vast upheaval. Focus on that for fuck's sake, for your own sanity if not for the fact I'm sick of hearing about what cunts people are.

e2a: Not at you littlebabyjesus, just for the benefit of the room at large.

e3a: Also, threatening to prevent outdoor excercise if people excercise outdoors is batshit insane. Obviously if everyone thinks that this could be the last day they see sunlight for two months, everyone will go outside. I'm convinced this is a feature, not a bug and that the decision to tighten restrictions has already been made. I'm also convinced that if that happens the relevant data will not show a significant improvement in the situation as a result, when this is all picked apart months or years down the line.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 5, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yep.
> 
> But it wont just be us getting tetchy will it?
> 
> Imagine as the lockdown continues and gets tighter. The weather warms up. People, especially younger people, crammed inside spaces not big enough to contain the numbers forced to inhabit them, being chided daily by those for whom the lockdown has no real spatial issue.  Facing an uncertain future at best. Simmering. Simmering, Simmering...


Frightening to think about it.


----------



## treelover (Apr 5, 2020)

campanula said:


> It is so easy to whip up hate at the moment... I think this will be a conscious decision, to prepare the grounds for the general public being 'to blame' when numbers continue to rise. In todays frankly unbelieveable press briefing, this deflection was used (by Gove) in textbook style. After his medical colleague went off piste, mentioning the words 'avoiding the question', not once but twice, Gove swiftly swooped in with some irrelevant guff (answering nothing). When the journalist continued to press about uncomfortable details (testing, iirc) (again ignored), *another hack appears on screen  to insist the govt flag up conspiraloonery regarding setting fire to 5gmasts...because obviously, it is essential that the public are made cognisant that there are loons on social media.*
> So yep, I think it is almost inevitable that the public will be scapegoated, the police will be as heavy-handed as they can get away with and there will be public naming and shaming.
> We need to allocate blame where it is most due - to the greedy, lazy incompetents (and their enablers) who have consistently failed to put people before profit...on every single level, for 4 decades of  exploitation...not some dogwalker on the common.



Joe anderson Liverpool Mayor, has had death threats, as have others, engineers screamed at, but i get your point


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

Threshers_Flail said:


> Yep. Sad to see a bunch of broadly left wing people pointing fingers at a few dickheads sunbathing rather than the absolute shit show the gov't have made of this. The people dying now contracted the virus weeks ago; when pubs, non-essential shops and fucking Cheltenham festival was open.


That's the whole point. Get everyone angry at cyclists rather than the scum that have been screwing the NHS for the last decade and longer. So that when they ban us from going out for exercise it'll be our fault for being naughty not theirs for bringing in an ill-defined lockdown too late.

Allowances should be made for people who don't have access to any outside space in their home. There are families of four crammed into one and two bedroom flats throughout London. No-one in my house except me has left the building in 16 days but if we didn't have a garden we'd be in the park keeping our distance daily.


----------



## killer b (Apr 5, 2020)

Favelado said:


> These arguments are not taking place where governments have imposed a real lockdown from day one.


This isn't true - everywhere people are complaining about how strict their particular regime is, complaining about their neighbours flouting it, and flouting it. 

Which isn't to say that some of this stuff is UK specific, and to do with poor communication from the government - but those big posters we were all laughing at from China telling people not to visit their in-laws, the massive figures for arrests in italy are all evidence of this problem existing elsewhere. It's people, not just us.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> This isn't true - everywhere people are complaining about how strict their particular regime is, complaining about their neighbours flouting it, and flouting it.



Yes it is true.

I have heard absolutely zero complaints here - and if there are any - they are not making a ripple amongst my friends, colleagues or on my social media. There have been breaches and arrests - but the difference between here and the UK is the debate amongst the majority that is going on. You are having one. We aren't.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 5, 2020)

Threshers_Flail said:


> Yep. Sad to see a bunch of broadly left wing people pointing fingers at a few dickheads sunbathing rather than the absolute shit show the gov't have made of this.


It is possible to point at both...


----------



## keybored (Apr 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Esp. when fuckwits stop in the middle of the aisle to check their bloody phone.


I'm in Tesco right now and can confirm there are loads of idiots doing this.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> This isn't true - everywhere people are complaining about how strict their particular regime is, complaining about their neighbours flouting it, and flouting it.
> 
> Which isn't to say that some of this stuff is UK specific, and to do with poor communication from the government - but those big posters we were all laughing at from China telling people not to visit their in-laws, the massive figures for arrests in italy are all evidence of this problem existing elsewhere. It's people, not just us.



Anecodtally London seems to be worse than everywhere else.

Probably completely unrelated to the fact London is the most densely populated part of the country and the basic maths of avoiding everyone is highly unfavourable.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> It is possible to point at both...



You weren't threatening the shoot the government though.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 5, 2020)

Worth nothing that here they are going to loosen the lockdown as things improve. Because that's obviously the right way to do it. Do your tough lockdown first and then ease it up and let people go for walks bit-by-bit once you've passed the peak.

It makes total sense to do it this way. I've been so surprised by the debate on here. This is the place where I'd have most faith in people's attitudes.


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2020)

Interesting piece here: 








						Opinion: Was Lambeth right to close Brockwell Park today (Sun 5th April)?
					

Yesterday, Lambeth Council announced that it was closing Brockwell Park today in response to what it described as  “unacceptable” behaviour from a minority who were “sunbathing or…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## teqniq (Apr 5, 2020)

from

Well, there's a thing:









						Full list of MPs who voted against giving nurses and firefighters 'fair' pay rise
					

Tories and DUP vote against Labour ammendment to end 1% public sector annual pay increase cap.




					www.ibtimes.co.uk


----------



## Plumdaff (Apr 5, 2020)

I just chafe against the hypocrisy of focusing on parks (living in an inner city terrace I'll be in much closer proximity to my neighbours if we're stuck using only our backyards for the foreseeable) when much more obvious vectors of infection such as factory and supermarket work remain unpoliced. Let's criminalise making people work without social distancing and PPE. But stopping people having a walk doesn't affect profits.


----------



## nyxx (Apr 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> i have been out in the communal garden precisely three times in over two week, i have no idea what the rest of my city on near environ looks like
> 
> 
> if i have to do it, why can't others limit their outings?




Has it occurred to you that many others don’t have a communal garden to go to. 
That the square foot area people live in might be smaller. walls thinner. windows smaller. 
That the number of people that area is shared with makes a huge difference.

Sorry this probably comes off as overly harsh but consider that my neighbours in a tower block only last year got rehoused from a one bedroom flat, family of 4. After 7 years. No communal gardens.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

nyxx said:


> Has it occurred to you that many others don’t have a communal garden to go to.
> That the square foot area people live in might be smaller. walls thinner. windows smaller.
> That the number of people that area is shared with makes a huge difference.



Obviously the number of people dying is inversely correlated to how small your home is. If you live in a room 2m square. Stay in it.


----------



## treelover (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> I have a really bad feeling about how this lockdown might play out over the coming weeks. Over 2,000 arrests in Spain so far apparently for breaking the rules. They close Brockwell park in Lambeth today, where only a tiny percentage of people have a back garden so where is everyone supposed to go for their daily exercise apart from the narrow pavements? If this goes on for a long time, which I think it will, there's going to massive issues.



There have been significant incidents of social unrest in the South Of italy according to the Observer,


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Worth nothing that here they are going to loosen the lockdown as things improve. Because that's obviously the right way to do it. Do your tough lockdown first and then ease it up and let people go for walks bit-by-bit once you've passed the peak.
> 
> It makes total sense to do it this way. I've been so surprised by the debate on here. This is the place where I'd have most faith in people's attitudes.



Yes, and the Spanish government have already been trying to give people hope and hints about that next stage for them too. Talk of what the new normal will look like there, involving masks.

I very much look forward to the time when things can be loosened here too. When its done reasonably and at the right time, I will cheer it. This is not the right moment for that here, and I do recall that Italy tightened things further before they contemplated going in the other direction, eg I seem to remember a day arrived where they banned the use of vending machines and something else at the same time?


----------



## Favelado (Apr 5, 2020)

editor said:


> Interesting piece here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think that British people's behaviour in this crisis is possibly the culmination of decades of the type of politics we've had. Enough of the population feel so little solidarity with others that they're happy to act in the way that suits them.

Of course, other theories are available - but I feel like there's at least some truth in that.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 5, 2020)

There's an interesting comparison of the different measures taken across Europe here: Europe’s coronavirus lockdown measures compared

Assuming it's correct only Spain has banned exercise completely, and even then it seems some groups are exempt.


----------



## treelover (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> View attachment 205031
> 😐



i think her speech was to be valuable, but it now looks like it is partly Govt led, maybe by that creep, Isaac Levido


----------



## nyxx (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Obviously the number of people dying is inversely correlated to how small your home is. If you live in a room 2m square. Stay in it.



Please note my edit. 
I’m not talking about my own situation, I’m addressing treelover’s question of how or why it might be more of a challenge for others. 
Also note I am not advocating that people flout the lockdown. I’m addressing the fact that it puts pressure on people in different ways depending on their circumstances.


----------



## chilango (Apr 5, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> I just chafe against the hypocrisy of focusing on parks (living in an inner city terrace I'll be in much closer proximity to my neighbours if we're stuck using only our backyards for the foreseeable) when much more obvious vectors of infection such as factory and supermarket work remain unpoliced. Let's criminalise making people work without social distancing and PPE. But stopping people having a walk doesn't affect profits.



Yep. A quick play with the tape measure suggests that if I sit the middle of my small back garden there's a good chance I'll be sat within 2m of my neighbours on both sides.

Whereas when I've walked a few hundred metres to the local park I've managed to keep at least 10 metres away from anyone else at any point. Usually more.

But, yeah, I'm to blame for killing thousands of people's grandmas.

Moralistic messages won't work if they fly in the face of people's lived experience.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> There have been significant incidents of social unrest in the South Of italy according to the Observer,



The 2,000 arrests here in Spain, I think I'd be right in saying, happened early on. There is very strong compliance with the lockdown now.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 5, 2020)

nyxx said:


> Please note my edit.
> I’m not talking about my own situation, I’m addressing treelover’s question of how or why it might be more of a challenge for others.
> Also note I am not advocating that people flout the lockdown. I’m addressing the fact that it puts pressure on people in different ways depending on their circumstances.



But again, in Hong Kong, Spain, and Italy most people will be in tiny flats with no communal garden. This is the default for most people in lockdown. The fact that a lot of British people have gardens is lucky rather than the norm


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

nyxx said:


> Please note my edit.
> I’m not talking about my own situation, I’m addressing treelover’s question of how or why it might be more of a challenge for others.
> Also note I am not advocating that people flout the lockdown. I’m addressing the fact that it puts pressure on people in different ways depending on their circumstances.



You seem quite reasonable. But none of it matters. All leaving the house should be restricted to a minimum. Their personal circumstances are irrelevant.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> I just chafe against the hypocrisy of focusing on parks (living in an inner city terrace I'll be in much closer proximity to my neighbours if we're stuck using only our backyards for the foreseeable) when much more obvious vectors of infection such as factory and supermarket work remain unpoliced. Let's criminalise making people work without social distancing and PPE. But stopping people having a walk doesn't affect profits.


Exactly. I have no garden. I walk to the park and then in it.  I have absolutely no problem with somebody, having got there, then lying down and sunbathing if it’s not too crowded.  If they’re keeping their distance from others, where’s the harm in that?  If they live around here they live in a flat.

But go to work and cram into a tiny space. Yeah, that’s “essential”.


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2020)

smokedout said:


> There's an interesting comparison of the different measures taken across Europe here: Europe’s coronavirus lockdown measures compared
> 
> Assuming it's correct only Spain has banned exercise completely, and even then it seems some groups are exempt.


Interesting comparison


----------



## chilango (Apr 5, 2020)

Luxury flats still being built.

People in big expensive detached houses still getting their gardeners in and builders working on extensions.


----------



## treelover (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Yeah. I’m sorry for having a rant really. But I’m having a bit of a spin out this morning. Nothing serious, just frustration that the advice conflicts with the reality.  I’d _love_ to rely on  delivery services.  But I can’t.  Which means braving a shop where other people simply just will enter your two meter exclusion zone. Because it’s incredibly difficult to change a lifetime of experience of crowded milling.



The mutual aid groups, age uk, sorry Danny, , are alsos providing food and essentials parcels, I've had a fair few.

Oh, and if you are on the Gov't register Tesco Online will be contacting you, onlive services have been atrocious, a real wake up call.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

editor said:


> Interesting comparison



Oh that reminds me to say dont pay too much attention to the version that measures the number of days since the first reported death.

Because, for example, it turns out that the first UK recorded death that was announced on March 5th, actually happened on February 28th.

Six coronavirus patients died in UK in February - days before ...www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk › News › UK News › Coronavirus


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Obviously the number of people dying is inversely correlated to how small your home is. If you live in a room 2m square. Stay in it.


How big is your home? Garden y/n?


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> How big is your home? Garden y/n?



I Share a two bedroom flat in Zone 2 peckham with my flatmate from a private landlord I have no connection with and earn 35k. How big do you reckon it is?

No garden.


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> I Share a two bedroom flat in Zone 2 peckham with my flatmate from a private landlord I have no connection with and earn 35k. How big do you reckon it is?
> 
> No garden.


More than 2m x 2m. Hope you're getting enough exercise.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 5, 2020)

I'm not getting enough exercise. It doesn't matter this month.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)




----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> More than 2m x 2m. Hope you're getting enough exercise.



I dont do exercise. But say I did everyday. Would it matter if I didnt for 3 months. What do people do when they cant because they are ill. They wont be exercising when they are in intensive care with corona virus.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> I dont do exercise. But say I did everyday. Would it matter if I didnt for 3 months. What do people do when they cant because they are ill. They wont be exercising when they are in intensive care with corona virus.





Favelado said:


> I'm not getting enough exercise. It doesn't matter this month.



If it was ebola. People wouldnt be jogging would they? 😀 its just others that will die so they dont care.


----------



## Plumdaff (Apr 5, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I'm not getting enough exercise. It doesn't matter this month.



My point is not that I'm unwilling to stay in, but that the state, at least here in the UK, is focusing on individual behaviour that is unlikely to flatten the curve while not taking action against employers and to support the self employed that could really help. And it's because of politics. That's what annoys me.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Apr 5, 2020)

How about mandatory face masks in public? There's an emerging view that if we adopt this, it might allow a loosening of some of the lockdown elements and make social distancing in places like shops more effective? Seems to have worked in S Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 5, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> My point is not that I'm unwilling to stay in, but that the state, at least here in the UK, is focusing on individual behaviour that is unlikely to flatten the curve much while not taking action against employers and to support the self employed that could really help. And it's because of politics. That's what annoys me.



Okay. The government should do that too. Individual behaviour makes a massive difference too though.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You weren't threatening the shoot the government though.


I think wanting to see the government swinging from lampposts can be taken as a given.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 5, 2020)

Leighsw2 said:


> How about mandatory face masks in public? There's an emerging view that if we adopt this, it might allow a loosening of some of the lockdown elements and make social distancing in places like shops more effective? Seems to have worked in S Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.



Supply issues. Also, you need to be at the point where you're ready to do that. The U.K. needs to get over its peak first. As tight as possible - and then ease up.


----------



## Plumdaff (Apr 5, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Okay. The government should do that too. Individual behaviour makes a massive difference too though.



The absolutely vast majority of people are adhering to social distancing. Criminalising someone for sitting on a bench in an empty park in the sunshine helps no one, especially when tomorrow we're telling him he has to go work on a construction site with 50 people to a sink.


----------



## treelover (Apr 5, 2020)

nyxx said:


> Has it occurred to you that many others don’t have a communal garden to go to.
> That the square foot area people live in might be smaller. walls thinner. windows smaller.
> That the number of people that area is shared with makes a huge difference.
> 
> Sorry this probably comes off as overly harsh but consider that my neighbours in a tower block only last year got rehoused from a one bedroom flat, family of 4. After 7 years. No communal gardens.



tbh, i don't mean people who have fuck all living in constrained locations in urban areas, i am talking about the middle class affluent nr me, who are still getting in cars with their bikes, who have gardens, balconies, etc.


----------



## HalloweenJack (Apr 5, 2020)

Does this mean if I jog to the shops, I will be arrested for exercising rather than making a food trip?
Therefore a maximum speed for pedestrian movement has to be instituted.
Or, all trips to the supermarket must be accompanied with a large and visible branded shopping trolley or bag.
Any signs of sweat or aerobic fitness will be punishable by fines.

And shopping must be under 5lb in weight, as this is the threshold at which it contributes to muscle toning,
*which can be construed as exercise.*


----------



## Favelado (Apr 5, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> The absolutely vast majority of people are adhering to social distancing. Criminalising someone for sitting on a bench in an empty park in the sunshine helps no one.



It helps the people who don't die of Covid-19 from the accidental infection caused by people passing on the way to the park. You can't do this social distancing thing without it going wrong quite often.

I'm so surprised at people's attitudes. Sorry for repetition. Even here. What a shame.


----------



## treelover (Apr 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> tbh, i don't
> mean people who have fuck all living in contrained locations in urban areas, i am talking about the middle class affluent nr me, who are still getting in cars with their bikes, who have gardens, balaconies, etc.



Oh, and i have been in the garden twice, in 14 days, i can't do exercise with my condition.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)




----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> I dont do exercise. But say I did everyday. Would it matter if I didnt for 3 months. What do people do when they cant because they are ill. They wont be exercising when they are in intensive care with corona virus.



42k under 75s died from heart disease in 2017. More than 3 million with type II diabetes. Estimates for undiagnosed type 2 diabetes at 950k. 5 million with high blood pressure. 28% obesity. Those are obvious metrics directly related to lack of exercise... there are others of course.

I don’t really have a problem with lockdown. And I can see the argument that light lockdowns are just harder to enforce. But, as many have noted on this thread, transmission just by being outdoors doesn’t really have a lot behind it. And we still have many companies open, we still have supermarket workers in close proximity. It needs a consistent, carefully guided approach. If we’re going to tell people not to go outdoors, probably don’t also tell them they have to go to work.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> 42k under 75s died from heart disease in 2017. More than 3 million with type II diabetes. Estimates for undiagnosed type 2 diabetes at 950k. 5 million with high blood pressure. 28% obesity. Those are obvious metrics directly related to lack of exercise... there are others of course.
> 
> I don’t really have a problem with lockdown. And I can see the argument that light lockdowns are just harder to enforce. But, as many have noted on this thread, transmission just by being outdoors doesn’t really have a lot behind it. And we still have many companies open, we still have supermarket workers in close proximity. It needs a consistent, carefully guided approach. If we’re going to tell people not to go outdoors, probably don’t also tell them they have to go to work.



Good irrelevant stats. How much heart disease or diabetes killed other people?

Like I said if it was ebola. You’d be hiding away.


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> I dont do exercise. But say I did everyday. Would it matter if I didnt for 3 months. What do people do when they cant because they are ill. They wont be exercising when they are in intensive care with corona virus.


People who don't exercise die younger.


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Good irrelevant stats. How much heart disease or diabetes killed other people?
> 
> Like I said if it was ebola. You’d be hiding away.



That makes no sense.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Good irrelevant stats. How much heart disease or diabetes killed other people?
> 
> Like I said if it was ebola. You’d be hiding away.



Plus the lockdown will be longer the more people flout it. Lefties being selfish cunts. I’m not surprised.


----------



## blameless77 (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> If you have to, you have to e.g. to buy food or medicine. Nobody has to ride a push bike for fun, though though.  My kids are able to understand why they can't go out on their bikes, but some grown men don't seem to get it, or to care.



Actually how is going for a cycle around your neighbourhood different to going for a walk?


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 5, 2020)

I don't think it's just hypocrisy or scapegoating, if sunbathing in a park you're occupying a public space in a different way than if you're moving through it. As you are if you're sitting on a bench having a coffee after a bike ride. Actions have symbolic resonance - taking up space publically right now seems counter to the idea that you limit your life as much as possible to your home.

Of course, I appreciate all the arguments about scapegoating, dangerous working conditions that aren't visible and public, privileged and entitled people continuing to enact their privilege and entitlement, the unfairness of the limits. It's all those things, but I still don't think it's ok to sunbathe in a park just now.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> People who don't exercise die younger.



Good. At least they won’t have killed someone else.
If your wife dies of corona virus because she came into contact with exercising. Let me know what you think then.


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2020)

Scum


> The owners of the ExCeL centre in east London are charging the NHS millions of pounds in rent to use it as a temporary hospital for coronavirus patients.
> 
> The ExCeL, owned by the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (Adnec), is charging the health service £2m-£3m a month, according to industry sources.
> 
> ...


[via Times paywall]


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> I don't think it's just hypocrisy or scapegoating, if sunbathing in a park you're occupying a public space in a different way than if you're moving through it. As you are if you're sitting on a bench having a coffee after a bike ride. Actions have symbolic resonance - taking up space publically right now seems counter to the idea that you limit your life as much as possible to your home.
> 
> Of course, I appreciate all the arguments about scapegoating, dangerous working conditions that aren't visible and public, privileged and entitled people continuing to enact their privilege and entitlement, the unfairness of the limits. It's all those things, but I still don't think it's ok to sunbathe in a park just now.



Yeah, definitely agree with that.


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> if it was ebola. You’d be hiding away.


No I wouldn't because ebola isn't very infectious. And I'm not convinced that coronavirus is infectious enough to be passed from human to human outdoors at a distance of a few feet.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> No I wouldn't because ebola isn't very infectious. And I'm not convinced that coronavirus is infectious enough to be passed from human to human outdoors at a distance of a few feet.



Keep it up then. When you get it. Let me know.

Sadly you wont know how many you killed if you are asymptomatic.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 5, 2020)

editor said:


> Scum
> [via Times paywall]



Excel has always been an overpriced shit hole.


----------



## Doodler (Apr 5, 2020)

Reading the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre's report on UK Covid patients' outcomes in ICUs.

In brief: try not to end up in an ICU.

Itchy feet? Check out the report first. This page then the 'report' link in the first para opens a PDF.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 5, 2020)

editor said:


> Scum
> [via Times paywall]


This is over various tech forums and may not be true, there's apparently a statement from the owners saying the opposite. All a bit confused.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 5, 2020)

A quick reminder as the one who started this whole cycling discussion earlier in this thread: it wasn’t the cycling I was objecting to, it was the fact that the cyclists stopped in the village to buy a coffee.  If cyclists can manage to keep moving, keep distant, avoid touching things and return home, I can’t see that there’s a huge problem.  There is a chance that they are spreading the virus more widely than a walker would, but if they are minimising the chance of spreading it at all, this seems acceptable.  But when they stop to buy a coffee, that means they are increasing the risk of transmission to a new location, which is really selfish.


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Keep it up then. When you get it. Let me know.
> 
> Sadly you wont know how many you killed if you are asymptomatic.


If you could catch it at a distance of two metres outdoors then everyone would already have it.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 5, 2020)

Favelado said:


> It helps the people who don't die of Covid-19 from the accidental infection caused by people passing on the way to the park.



This is the rub though isn't it.  There is no real evidence that this kind of transmission is happening or even likely to happen.  People meeting up, talking face to face, all this is a problem, and perhaps that cannot be prevented without strict measures, but those measures are not cost free.  If people end up losing their shit, or bored kids break free and start to kick off, or fights happen both within and outside of the house, then any slight benefit gained from stopping people walking past each other is lost to increased hospitalisations, pressures on mental health services, and other essential services.  It's just not as simple as saying stay in your home whatever the circumstances potentially for months on end, as the authorities in both Italy and Spain now seem to be recognising.


----------



## Plumdaff (Apr 5, 2020)

Favelado said:


> It helps the people who don't die of Covid-19 from the accidental infection caused by people passing on the way to the park. You can't do this social distancing thing without it going wrong quite often.
> 
> I'm so surprised at people's attitudes. Sorry for repetition. Even here. What a shame.



Everyone here takes this very seriously, they just disagree on certain elements of how to handle it. I think there are serious issues with social distancing around shops, pharmacies, public transport etc and I want them sorted. I'm not aware of any objective evidence backing up what you say about people passing at a distance out walking as a disease vector. There's degrees of inherent risk in everything beyond complete solitary isolation at the moment, I don't think stopping people taking socially distanced walks should be the main focus right now. 



Red Cat said:


> I don't think it's just hypocrisy or scapegoating, if sunbathing in a park you're occupying a public space in a different way than if you're moving through it. As you are if you're sitting on a bench having a coffee after a bike ride. Actions have symbolic resonance - taking up space publically right now seems counter to the idea that you limit your life as much as possible to your home.
> 
> Of course, I appreciate all the arguments about scapegoating, dangerous working conditions that aren't visible and public, privileged and entitled people continuing to enact their privilege and entitlement, the unfairness of the limits. It's all those things, but I still don't think it's ok to sunbathe in a park just now.



I think buying coffees when you're out is ridiculous, and I don't think people should take a picnic to a park or stay for a lengthy period of time, but if someone is taking a few minutes to feel the sun on their skin, who may possibly have been inside for several days, I can't honestly begrudge someone that.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> If you could catch it at a distance of two metres outdoors then everyone would already have it.



You can catch it at 2m outdoors.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 5, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> I think buying coffees when you're out is ridiculous, and I don't think people should take a picnic to a park or stay for a lengthy period of time, but if someone is taking a few minutes to feel the sun on their skin, who may possibly have been inside for several days, I can't honestly begrudge someone that.



A lot of people who need to exercise the most due to health conditions might need to stop and have a short break.  The assumption that exercise means a brisk two mile walk or half hour cycle ride without stopping seems to be based on the idea that exercise is just for the young and healthy.


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

smokedout said:


> A lot of people who need to exercise the most due to health conditions might need to stop and have a short break.  The assumption that exercise means a brisk two mile walk or half hour cycle ride without stopping seems to be based on the idea that exercise is just for the young and healthy.



That’s absolutely true... but I don’t think anyone is talking about the odd person taking a quick rest on a park bench (though... touch risk there). Sunbathing, using that bench when you don’t need to. That’s more the problem.


----------



## Spandex (Apr 5, 2020)

This whole debate around people going out is about individual vs collective behaviour.

What harm does one person sunbathing in an empty park, a couple having a picnic on an empty beach or someone going for a bike ride on an empty country road do? None really. But why is that beach, park and road empty? Because most people are doing what they've been told to and stayed home. Why are those individuals so fucking special that they get to flout the lockdown? If everyone decided to go to that empty park or beach or for a ride on that empty road, they wouldn't be empty. They'd be packed with people sharing each others germs.

In a country of 68 million bored people social distancing is only possible if everyone plays their part and only goes out if they have to.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 5, 2020)

Coronavirus: Sophie Raworth's deserted London
					

BBC presenter's photographs of deserted streets as she runs to work in central London.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






Judging by these photos of Cemtral London (and I’m assuming it’s the same up and down the country) the lockdown is pretty comprehensive. All the people who would ordinarily be thronging the streets are in their home locale. It’s no wonder local parks are busy. While it annoys and frustrates me as much as anyone else to see so many people out and about, it’s pretty clear that it’s still a minority of people who are going out. A large minority, and too many. But it’s not the same numbers that are usually in the streets and offices in the City and West end. Even if you remove the numbers of tourists/visitors from the equation, it’s still a shit tonne of humans who normally move around the central parts of cities. I’m not seeing those people milling about in (say) Brixton. I reckon the lockdown is working as well as it’s possible to work right now.

That’s not good enough, it needs to be better for sure. But it happened very suddenly, with a huge amount of really hard emotional stuff to deal with, often very tricky personal circumstances on top. Like turning a huge ship around, getting everyone to comply has to overcome inertia, momentum, all the other stuff that gets in the way of radical change. So, while I’m furious and frustrated with my own experiences of breaches of the lockdown and proper distancing, having seen these photos, I'm now dialling down that stuff and feeling glad and relieved, and also just a little bit proud of how the crowds have poured out of the city and gone home.

(It’s also really eerie to see the empty streets in daylight like that. Makes me want to go up Town and gawp at it (of course I won’t). Also makes me remember my visceral horror at the idea of the neutron bomb during the Cold War...)


----------



## Cold Harbour (Apr 5, 2020)

editor said:


> Scum
> [via Times paywall]


Also:  Union outrage as company that failed to pay cleaners is awarded new coronavirus hospital contract


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 5, 2020)

Spandex said:


> This whole debate around people going out is about individual vs collective behaviour.
> 
> What harm does one person sunbathing in an empty park, a couple having a picnic on an empty beach or someone going for a bike ride on an empty country road do? None really. But why is that beach, park and road empty? Because most people are doing what they've been told to and stayed home. Why are those individuals so fucking special that they get to flout the lockdown? If everyone decided to go to that empty park or beach or for a ride on that empty road, they wouldn't be empty. They'd be packed with people sharing each others germs.
> 
> In a country of 68 million bored people social distancing is only possible if everyone plays their part and only goes out if they have to.





I know without any doubt that my stepmother would have been nagging my dad to take advantage of the opportunity to have a picnic or a walk in empty Richmond or Windsor Great Park this weekend. She’s a selfish narcissist by nature, she’d  absolutely be thinking of this as a chance to have her own desires met and bugger wider society.

Being really honest, I’d probably be of a similar mind when I was in my teens and twenties. I’d be sneaking off to meet friends in the Brompton Cemetery and the derelict Chiswick Lido.

In any population you’re going to have more and fewer self serving people. Suddenly, we have a situation where the more thoughtless are much more obvious and visible.

Doesn’t mean we should pick them off with sniper fire though, cos it’s inevitable that we’d be destroying the people on mercy missions alongside the arseholes.


----------



## belboid (Apr 5, 2020)

There really does seem to be an outcry against people taking forms of exercise that they might _enjoy.  _How dare they do something they find fun when I can only do boring exercise!  Same fuckers were undoubtedly those who deliberately deprive NHS staff of shopping by panic buying and hoarding. 

Of course, they barely exist and the real problems and issues are elsewhere, but hey, why think about that when we can turn on each other and proclaim our moral superiority to all instead!


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> How exactly are cyclists spreading the virus? Sorry I don't get that. What is the mechanism?



Because, with the best will in the world they're not going to be able to avoid pinch points.  And, panting over pedestrians and e.g. car door handles.

Plus there's always the temptation to e.g. stop for a coffee.   Also, they tend to go out for longer than an hour, and cover a wider area than, say, walkers, and (round here at least) seem to do it in groups.

Alo, if they come off their bike they might need hospital, which is a vector for spreading the illness, and an unnecessary use of medical resources.

At the end of the day, even if it's only a small risk, it's still much greater than the risk associated with complete self- isolation, and even one infection can lead to hundreds more.

Whilst key workers are literally risking their lives, I don't think it's too much to expect someone to endure a temporary dip in their Strava figures.

I'm not calling for a police state; I'm appealing to people's own sense of social responsibility. And, in doing so,  that's not to say they're the only issue, or to give the government a free ride.


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> You can catch it at 2m outdoors.


People shouldn't go in their gardens then. I'm regularly less than two metres away from my neighbours while in my garden.


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

619 deaths added to the figures today. Usual weekend dip so not necessarily indicating an actual drop in death rate.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> People shouldn't go in their gardens then. I'm regularly less than two metres away from my neighbours while in my garden.



Are they sneezing over the fence. You seem to want to do what you want. If someone you love dies. Let me know how it goes.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 5, 2020)

Scottish CMO is getting a roasting at Scottish FM Press conference


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 5, 2020)

elbows said:


>




Astonishing she just admitted going there two weekends in a row but won’t resign.


----------



## belboid (Apr 5, 2020)

What I meant to do about he kids over the road, by the way?  They live in ridiculously overcrowded houses, 8 or 9 in a not that big terrace, so the fact that they spill out onto the streets every day, mucking around in each others' front yards, in and our of each others' houses. Should i be screaming at them for putting everyone else at risk?  Or just get on with my own life and accept that they aren't in circumstances that allow them to isolate properly.  And it is them that is likely to pay the bigger price.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> 619 deaths added to the figures today. Usual weekend dip so not necessarily indicating an actual drop in death rate.



Yes, I am watching the Scottish press conference, where Calderwood is being roasted. Sturgeon was frank about aspect of their death reporting system not yet working 7 days a week, and that their numbers today and tomorrow would be artificially low as a result. (they only added 2 deaths to their total today).

They should have removed Calderwood from her post straight away. Instead they are going on about the vital work she is doing and are trying to get through the shitstorm.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 5, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Scottish CMO is getting a roasting at Scottish FM Press conference



Not just the CMO either. Brutal stuff.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

belboid said:


> What I meant to do about he kids over the road, by the way?  They live in ridiculously overcrowded houses, 8 or 9 in a not that big terrace, so the fact that they spill out onto the streets every day, mucking around in each others' front yards, in and our of each others' houses. Should i be screaming at them for putting everyone else at risk?  Or just get on with my own life and accept that they aren't in circumstances that allow them to isolate properly.  And it is them that is likely to pay the bigger price.



Them plus the people they infect. The should clearly be in their houses.


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Astonishing she just admitted going there two weekends in a row but won’t resign.


Nice to have two homes to swan around in.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> You can catch it at 2m outdoors.


This is (surprise) an ongoing and hot area of aerosol biophysics research. But most recent work (DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.4756) suggests potentially up to 8 metres. Note that this is (to some approximation) a probability cloud of sorts (drawn out and biased by the countervailing background air motion), the seed of which is, to a large degree, a function of the dominant respiratory aerosolisation mechanism (bronchiolar fluid film burst, laryngeal, oral), which itself in turn depends on the expiratory mode - breathing, talking, singing, exercising, sneezing, coughing, etc. (DOI:10.1080/02786826.2020.1749229, DOI: 10.1016/j.jaerosci.2011.07.009). The turbulent multiphase nature of respiratory clouds further complicates this and has been shown (DOI: 10.1017/jfm.2014.88) to extend the range of pathogens as virion bearing droplets are kept in suspension for longer.


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> You seem to want to do what you want. If someone you love dies. Let me know how it goes.


Seriously thats your response to someone saying that they go outside _into their own back garden_? If this sort of righteous spite is commonplace we are in for serious trouble .


----------



## Raheem (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> People shouldn't go in their gardens then. I'm regularly less than two metres away from my neighbours while in my garden.


That doesn't mean you can't go into your garden but, obviously, you should keep in mind that distancing still applies (unless you have a six-foot high wall between you, I suppose).


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> Seriously thats your response to someone saying that they go outside _into their own back garden_? If this sort of righteous spite is commonplace we are in for serious trouble .



Thats what I said but not in response to them going in their back garden.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> Seriously thats your response to someone saying that they go outside _into their own back garden_? If this sort of righteous spite is commonplace we are in for serious trouble .



Lets see your righteous indignation when someone like maomao infects you and kills your boyfriend.


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Are they sneezing over the fence. You seem to want to do what you want. If someone you love dies. Let me know how it goes.


Sounds like you're enjoying the excuse to keep your fat arse on the sofa. Let me know how your loved ones feel when you die of heart disease.

We are staying in thanks but we have a garden and are being quite disciplined about things. There is a massive health cost to staying indoors, potentially alone, for long periods of time and this shouldn't be ignored. I think we'll all find out just how bad that need for fresh air and sunlight is if the temperature hits the high twenties with even stricter lockdown rules.

Personally I think registering for exercise and keeping it within a certain distance of your home without the right paperwork/phone app/whatever would be the way to go. In case of hot weather park access could be restricted to people without gardens through the same systems.


----------



## belboid (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Them plus the people they infect. The should clearly be in their houses.


Yeah cos more overcrowding never hurt anyone.  And they very obviously are not going to just 'be in their houses,'  so what do you think, or any other _responsible citizen_, should do?  Grass them up?  Shout at them? Throw rocks to drive them inside?


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> No I wouldn't because ebola isn't very infectious. And I'm not convinced that coronavirus is infectious enough to be passed from human to human outdoors at a distance of a few feet.




We don't know for sure but there is sufficient legitimate concern to warrant making the assumption that it could be that contagious.









						Is the coronavirus airborne? Experts can’t agree
					

The World Health Organization says the evidence is not compelling, but scientists warn that gathering sufficient data could take years and cost lives.




					www.nature.com


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

belboid said:


> Yeah cos more overcrowding never hurt anyone.  And they very obviously are not going to just 'be in their houses,'  so what do you think, or any other _responsible citizen_, should do?  Grass them up?  Shout at them? Throw rocks to drive them inside?



They should be in just their houses. Have you seen the news. Its lockdown.


----------



## Thora (Apr 5, 2020)

belboid said:


> What I meant to do about he kids over the road, by the way?  They live in ridiculously overcrowded houses, 8 or 9 in a not that big terrace, so the fact that they spill out onto the streets every day, mucking around in each others' front yards, in and our of each others' houses. Should i be screaming at them for putting everyone else at risk?  Or just get on with my own life and accept that they aren't in circumstances that allow them to isolate properly.  And it is them that is likely to pay the bigger price.


You can't control what other people are doing.  As I am always saying to my 6 & 9 year olds when they start grassing each other up "just make sure _you_ are doing the right thing and don't worry about everyone else".


----------



## belboid (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> They should be in just their houses. Have you seen the news. Its lockdown.


Yes, I have seen the news, and it says households can be out in their yards.

What do you think I should actively *do*?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 5, 2020)

aren't we a nation of wretched curtain-twitchers


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

belboid said:


> Yeah cos more overcrowding never hurt anyone.  And they very obviously are not going to just 'be in their houses,'  so what do you think, or any other _responsible citizen_, should do?  Grass them up?  Shout at them? Throw rocks to drive them inside?



If there was a facility to grass them up. That should be the course of action.

Whats your plan let everyone do what they want until the virus has finished infecting everyone.


----------



## Plumdaff (Apr 5, 2020)

Nm


----------



## belboid (Apr 5, 2020)

Thora said:


> You can't control what other people are doing.  As I am always saying to my 6 & 9 year olds when they start grassing each other up "just make sure _you_ are doing the right thing and don't worry about everyone else".


Absolutely and when they come over to ask if they can help with gardening I send them away and give them a brief reminded of government advice.  All I can do.  Some seem to think more should be done to get them off the street though.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> No I wouldn't because ebola isn't very infectious. And I'm not convinced that coronavirus is infectious enough to be passed from human to human outdoors at a distance of a few feet.




Ebola is fantastically infectious.

 It is also very contagious via body fluids. The only good thing with ebola is that it's not a respiratory disease, so it doesn't spread via sneezing, coughing etc.









						Ebola transmission: Can Ebola spread through the air?
					

Ebola virus: A Mayo Clinic expert explains how the virus spreads




					www.mayoclinic.org
				








__





						What's the Difference Between Infectious and Contagious?  (for Teens) - Nemours KidsHealth
					

Find out what the experts have to say.




					kidshealth.org


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 5, 2020)

A lot of countries are limiting who goes out shopping by the first letter of people’s surnames, even by gender. Of course that requires enforcement, whether by police or shop staff.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

belboid said:


> Yes, I have seen the news, and it says households can be out in their yards.
> 
> What do you think I should actively *do*?



What I think you should do? I dont care.
What do you want to do?


----------



## Raheem (Apr 5, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> A lot of countries are limiting who goes out shopping by the first letter of people’s surnames, even by gender. Of course that requires enforcement, whether by police or shop staff.


Also requires ID cards.


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 5, 2020)

Can we all at least agree to exercise our collective responsibility and not respond to BIG?


----------



## Raheem (Apr 5, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> Can we all at least agree to exercise our collective responsibility and not respond to BIG?


Or maybe leave a gap of at least 2 posts.


----------



## belboid (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> If there was a facility to grass them up. That should be the course of action.
> 
> Whats your plan let everyone do what they want until the virus has finished infecting everyone.


I think we can safely say you'd be part of Milgram's 37.

I think we should recognise that not everyone can follow the guidance as easily as others, and that we should be finding ways to support such people not screaming condemnation at them.  And, if and when necessary, give those who can't self-isolate 'properly' a slightly wider berth than I would others.  It's not rocket science.  Or quite so dictatorial.


----------



## sunnysidedown (Apr 5, 2020)

Biggest. Idiot. Going


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Ebola is fantastically infectious.
> 
> It is also very contagious via body fluids. The only good thing with ebola is that it's not a respiratory disease, so it doesn't spread via sneezing, coughing etc.
> 
> ...


My error on vocabulary but fact remains that it's quite hard to get ebola without close physical contact. And airborne would mean transmittable by tidal breathing in enclosed spaces and unless it was fantastically contagious would still be quite hard to pick up outdoor.


----------



## HalloweenJack (Apr 5, 2020)

There are 2 things threatened by Sunlight
Vampires and unworkable policies.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> My error on vocabulary but fact remains that it's quite hard to get ebola without close physical contact. And airborne would mean transmittable by tidal breathing in enclosed spaces and unless it was fantastically contagious would still be quite hard to pick up outdoor.




You can catch ebola in the same way that you can catch C-19, by touching any surface that has become contaminated and then touching your own face. It's present in all body fluids, including spit, tears, sweat, piss, shit, blood, vomit etc. And when someone has ebola they are exuding fluids of all kinds, everywhere. If you help someone sit up to drink water, or change their sheets, or adjust their pillows, or assist them while they vomit or take a shit, you're going to be exposed directly to the virus unless you're wearing appropriate protection. Even the ebola dead are contagious. 

And if you look at that Nature link I posted, you'll see that it is considered possible that C-19 is transmitted simply by breathing, yawning, talking over some distance.

It's easy to stay safe by taking certain measures. It's easy to get infected if you don't take certain measures.

It's not especially useful to be comparing ebola with C-19


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> It's not especially useful to be comparing ebola with C-19


----------



## andysays (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Lets see your righteous indignation when someone like maomao infects you and kills your boyfriend.


I've now lost count of the number of times you have effectively wished death on someone on this thread or someone close to them, and it appears to be a habit of yours across multiple threads.

I don't wish covid19 on you, but I do hope a virus takes out your computer and stops you posting here, you utter arsehole.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> I've now lost count of the number of times you have effectively wished death on someone on this thread or someone close to them, and it appears to be a habit of yours across multiple threads.
> 
> I don't wish covid19 on you, but I do hope a virus takes out your computer and stops you posting here, you utter arsehole.



Would you wish death on me if I went out my way to spread viruses in your direction?


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

belboid said:


> I think we can safely say you'd be part of Milgram's 37.
> 
> I think we should recognise that not everyone can follow the guidance as easily as others, and that we should be finding ways to support such people not screaming condemnation at them.  And, if and when necessary, give those who can't self-isolate 'properly' a slightly wider berth than I would others.  It's not rocket science.  Or quite so dictatorial.



Everyone can stay in.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 5, 2020)




----------



## existentialist (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Would you wish death on me if I went out my way to spread viruses in your direction?


Most people wouldn't, but certainly not in the middle of a pandemic a lot of people are very worried about.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Most people wouldn't, but certainly in the middle of a pandemic a lot of people are very worried about.



Exactly. Stay in. Save lives.

Or according to some. Go out and do what you want because of a need. Kill people.


----------



## maomao (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Everyone can stay in.


Stay in your cage and shut up?

This should be _exactly_ the time to make a fuss about housing inequality in London.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> Stay in your cage and shut up?
> 
> This should be _exactly_ the time to make a fuss about housing inequality in London.



Of course. Home owners in the suburbs being at the forefront.


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

I read somewhere that in France some hotels are now being used as refuges for domestic violence victims as the lockdown is causing a huge increase in violence in the home. 
Anyone heard any similar initiatives being talked about in this country ?

Eta








						French Government To House Victims Of Domestic Violence In Hotels, Amid Rising Number of Cases
					

Paris has seen a 36% increase in the number of cases and a 32% rise throughout the rest of France.




					time.com


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> I read somewhere that in France some hotels are now being used as refuges for domestic violence victims as the lockdown is causing a huge increase in violence in the home.
> Anyone heard any similar initiatives being talked about in this country ?
> 
> Eta
> ...




God I hope so.

I feel really haunted by this aspect of it all.

My niece apparently went to her mum feeling sad about this too, saying how glad she is that her aunt (me) got out of that dreadful hellish situation before this happened, and feeling really weepy about the people who are stuck.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> A lot of countries are limiting who goes out shopping by the first letter of people’s surnames, *even by gender*.



Fucking hell, let's not open that can of worms!


----------



## existentialist (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Exactly. Stay in. Save lives.
> 
> Or according to some. Go out and do what you want because of a need. Kill people.


I'm sure you can see that, in reality, the situation is somewhat more nuanced. And, to some extent, has to be. The argument has to be about which way the nuance goes, but your absolutist position isn't a realistic one.


----------



## belboid (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> I read somewhere that in France some hotels are now being used as refuges for domestic violence victims as the lockdown is causing a huge increase in violence in the home.
> Anyone heard any similar initiatives being talked about in this country ?
> 
> Eta
> ...


the central concern  here, at the moment, is ensuring existing refuge's are safe, rather than looking at expanding provision - yet.  France is very backward when it comes to refuge provision, or indeed wider support for people fleeing DV, so there need for extra spaces is greater than ours.  But the lockdown undoubtedly will see a significant increase in DV, especially where people are in ludicrously overcrowded homes, and the search for extra places is due in the next week or two.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Sit ups, press ups, homemade weights, jogging on the spot.  Christ.


I can't manage any of those, for various health reasons. Along with lots of elderly people who will be in the same situation. Going out for a short walk is my only option.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 5, 2020)

Went for a bike ride this morning to blow the cobwebs off. Nearly had the city to myself

Lower Thames St:


Strand


Mall


Brixton


Only other vehicles out were emergency services, empty buses and other bikes. Spooky and serene.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I can't manage any of those, for various health reasons. Along with lots of elderly people who will be in the same situation. Going out for a short walk is my only option.



Could you walk on the spot?  Or do without exercise for, say, a couple of weeks?


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Individually, but how can that be managed on a population level? The rules have got to be simple and general. And still people find them confusing. Can you imagine the chaos if they tried to say, yeah you can go out/do this/do that if you feel like it's better for your mental health?



Any scope you reckon for organised walks through local support groups?

I ask because there’s a group local to me thinking along this lines?


----------



## Wilf (Apr 5, 2020)

smokedout said:


> All banning exercise will achieve is a load of confrontations between jobsworth old bill and people going shopping for food or to work and is likely to escalate the chances of the quarantine breaking down completely.  Shutting down call centres, unnecessary online stores and construction sites would be likely to have a much bigger impact on reducing transmission than creating a near police state where the mostly likely person to give you coronavirus is the copper who stops you to demand to see your papers.
> 
> Surely just saying only one person out at a time would be a much better solution, with caveats for people with kids/carers obviously.  That would stop all the family days out, picnics, mates meeting up in parks etc without creating a potential social timebomb that could prove explosive and ultimately counter-productive if it goes on for a long time. Policing for once has to genuinely be about consent, because they can't hold this without the support and agreement of the population and telling people they can't go for a walk or take the dog out when many people are still being expected to go to work, often in unsafe conditions, doesn't seem very sustainable to me.  And much as I love a good riot now is probably not the time.


Seems to me, the social distancing message would go a lot better if it was an actual campaign by government not just stark messages and the odd threat. Get different social and community organisations on board for actually talking to people (online, from the end of the garden etc.), make it into something that gets embedded in a meaningful way.  Seems like a random thing to suggest but Starmer should take it as task 1, getting labour back into its own communities to spread this message and check that people are okay,, but also as a marker for winning the peace. of course he won't.


----------



## andysays (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Would you wish death on me if I went out my way to spread viruses in your direction?


No one on this thread has gone or is going out of their way to spread viruses in your or anyone else's direction, you silly prick.

Why are you so keen to wish death on so many people who you haven't even met?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

Those two pricks having a barbecue on Brighton beach yesterday, and refusing to move on even after the cops extinguished it by pouring water over it, weren't issued with the £60 on the spot fines each, but instead have been charged & will be summoned to appear in court instead.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Seems to me, the social distancing message would go a lot better if it was an actual campaign by government not just stark messages and the odd thread. Get different social and community organisations on board for actually talking to people (online, from the end of the garden etc.), make it into something that gets embedded in a meaningful way.  Seems like a random thing to suggest but Starmer should take it as task 1, getting labour back into its own communities to spread this message and check that people are okay,, but also as a marker for winning the peace. of course he won't.



Well there was the campaign using footballers, that instantly had additional unexpected impact when Grealish crashed his vehicle.


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Those two pricks having a barbecue on Brighton beach yesterday, and refusing to move on even after the cops extinguished it by pouring water over it, weren't issued with the £60 on the spot fines each, but instead have been charged & will be summoned to appear in court instead.


Charged with what offence do you know ? (civil or criminal?)


----------



## Wilf (Apr 5, 2020)

Threshers_Flail said:


> Yep. Sad to see a bunch of broadly left wing people pointing fingers at a few dickheads sunbathing rather than the absolute shit show the gov't have made of this. The people dying now contracted the virus weeks ago; when pubs, non-essential shops and fucking Cheltenham festival was open.


… and the prime minister was shaking their hands.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> No one on this thread has gone or is going out of their way to spread viruses in your or anyone else's direction, you silly prick.
> 
> Why are you so keen to wish death on so many people who you haven't even met?



People not staying in are risking others lives. Should they be exempt from the same risk?


----------



## belboid (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> Charged with what offence do you know ? (civil or criminal?)


breaching the Coronvirus Act, thus, criminal


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> Charged with what offence do you know ? (civil or criminal?)



I assume criminal, as they have been charged for breaching Schedule 21 of the Coronavirus Act 2020. 









						Pair charged over breaching new Coronavirus Act after beach barbecue
					

TWO people have been summoned to court to become the first in Brighton and Hove to be charged under the new Coronavirus Act.




					www.theargus.co.uk


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> You're allowed to shop for essentials, not lattes!
> 
> You're supposed to exercise locally, not risk spreading the virus to other communities.
> 
> ...



He has a point. Why is the shop selling lattes if they are not essential?


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Does this include Tesco?
> 
> I tried twice this week. I found out Tesco slots come on at midnight. We have a cheap subscription, meaning we can get slots on Tue, Wed, Thu. So I logged on at 11.55 to get a message telling me I was in a queue. At 12.12am I got through - to all slots gone for Wed.
> 
> ...



Replying to a bit of an old post now but are you vulnerable and if so have you tried Sainsbury's? I signed on to the government's on-line register a couple of weeks ago and suddenly last week I quickly got a Sainsbury's slot. 

And a phone call today to tell me I'm on their list for priority deliveries. While as you say Tesco slots are three  weeks ahead if then, Morrisons just not available which is a shame because I was hoping to use them because of their good treatment of staff recently. I was planning to set alarm for just before midnight for Tesco otherwise.


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

belboid said:


> breaching the Coronvirus Act, thus, criminal



Coronavirus act seems to only have these provisions:


Members of the public who refuse to comply with these rules could be issued with a fixed penalty notice of £60, which will be lowered to £30 if paid within 14 days.
Second-time offenders could be issued a fixed penalty notice of £120, doubling each time there is another offence.
Those who do not pay the penalty can be taken to court, with magistrates able to impose unlimited fines.
*Officers will be able to arrest you if you refuse to give a name or address to avoid being given a fine.*

Would be good if they had clearly publicised the penalties to everyone wouldn't it.
Maybe the bbq people arrested under some other older law?


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I assume criminal, as they have been charged for breaching Schedule 21 of the Coronavirus Act 2020.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


ah yep. "“The man was initially arrested after allegedly refusing to provide his details. .'


----------



## andysays (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> People not staying in are risking others lives. Should they be exempt from the same risk?


I'm not staying in because I'm a key worker, as are many others on these boards. 

Lots of others have to go out to get food and other necessities for themselves, their families and their neighbours.

Most people who are not literally housebound are going out to exercise, some once a day, some less often.

All of these people all following the government guidelines (for what they're worth) but all of them are, to some extent, risking the health and even perhaps the life of themselves and others, primarily those close to them, rather than those they may fleetingly pass close to in the street, park or supermarket.

Do you wish death on all of them too, or do even you realise how ridiculous that would make you?


----------



## Wilf (Apr 5, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Would you wish death on me if I went out my way to spread viruses in your direction?


To be honest, I wish you'd fuck off this thread.


----------



## killer b (Apr 5, 2020)

guys, put the weirdo on ignore.


----------



## BCBlues (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> I read somewhere that in France some hotels are now being used as refuges for domestic violence victims as the lockdown is causing a huge increase in violence in the home.
> Anyone heard any similar initiatives being talked about in this country ?
> 
> Eta
> ...



I think The39thStep mentioned this in the football thread.









						Chelsea team up with Refuge to help those at risk of domestic abuse
					

Chelsea have teamed up with the domestic abuse charity Refuge to help provide support for people forced to self-isolate in vulnerable situations




					www.google.com
				




Let's hope initiatives like this and others targeting help for vulnerable groups can make an impact.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Could you walk on the spot?  Or do without exercise for, say, a couple of weeks?


Walking on the spot for more than a couple of  minutes would be painful given my joint/rheumatological problems (as an 'unnatural movement'). In terms of exercise, I'm _supposed _to do it regularly, on medical advice. Admittedly, part of that is stretches, which I can do at home, but I am advised - medically - to walk. And as far as I know, that's 100% in line with current government Covid advice.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> I'm not staying in because I'm a key worker, as are many others on these boards.
> 
> Lots of others have to go out to get food and other necessities for themselves, their families and their neighbours.
> 
> ...



Maybe you could not say I said the opposite of what I said. But thanks for agreeing with me.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 5, 2020)

I appreciate that some people are upset but can we cut out personal attacks on this thread please? Don't really want to name names right now to avoid exacerbating the situation myself.


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

The police’s guidelines for how to enforce the lockdown are quite interesting. Very tentative. Reads as though they know that consent hasn’t been tested with this.





__





						Coronavirus Act 2020 | College of Policing
					






					www.college.police.uk


----------



## kabbes (Apr 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> He has a point. Why is the shop selling lattes if they are not essential?


They shouldn’t be.  But two wrongs don’t make a right


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

Whoever provides the UK gov press conference stream to the media didnt press the button at the right time and everyone missed the start, they were already into the Q&A section by the time the feed appeared.


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> ah yep. "“The man was initially arrested after allegedly refusing to provide his details. .'


I quite like this enterprising thinking . It's the sort of thing you'd expect a 1950s cop to do. 



> After several minutes of discussions between the force and the two beach-goers, a police officer poured a helmet filled with water over the barbecue to extinguish it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> ah yep. "“The man was initially arrested after allegedly refusing to provide his details. .'



And, both were charged, even after he was de-arrested, for breaching Schedule 21 of the Coronavirus Act 2020. 

I assume this bit...



> *Offences
> 88(1)A person commits an offence if the person—
> 
> (a)fails without reasonable excuse to comply with any direction, reasonable instruction, requirement or restriction given to or imposed on the person under this Part of this Schedule,*
> ...



Level 3 allows for fines of up to £1000 each, rather than £60 on the spot fines, the twats,.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 5, 2020)

kabbes said:


> They shouldn’t be.  But two wrongs don’t make a right



Not relevant. Food and drink retailers can remain open. There's no point quibbling about whether it's ok to buy milk but not coffee, or a sandwich with ciabatta bread vs sliced white.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 5, 2020)

What annoys me [about this discussion] is that I'm 100% in favour of social distancing, exercising (pun not intended) some restraint and making adjustments to your life for the social good. It just seems like it would be better if we got to that point with a sense of community and collectivity, with a bit of 'education' even and less misanthropy. I'd also rather all that energy went into getting some safety equipment and safe working conditions for supermarket workers, for example.  Shops (and hospitals) are where people are catching Covid 19, not footpaths.


----------



## agricola (Apr 5, 2020)

Went out for a walk today and the most people lounging about I saw were in the gardens on Eaton Square, though because they are IIRC private its obviously ok.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

editor said:


> I quite like this enterprising thinking . It's the sort of thing you'd expect a 1950s cop to do.



Carry On Locking Down!


----------



## Petcha (Apr 5, 2020)

This medical expert in the press conference is incredibly irritating. Loves the sound of her own incredibly annoying voice. Bring back the weird bald guy!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Not relevant. Food and drink retailers can remain open. There's no point quibbling about whether it's ok to buy milk but not coffee, or a sandwich with ciabatta bread vs sliced white.



Take-away coffee is not an essential purchase, which my local Tesco shop seems to understand, having switched off their Costa coffee machine & put a note on it saying, 'We are currently unable to sell hot drinks', sorry that you are struggling to understand this simple fact.



Raheem said:


> Tbf, rightly or wrongly, it's within the rules to sell a takeaway coffee, so buying one must be allowed. Even if it needn't be.



Nope.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This medical expert in the press conference is incredibly irritating. Loves the sound of her own incredibly annoying voice. Bring back the weird bald guy!



Its the substance of what they say that bothers me. This isnt the first time that Jenny Harries the Deputy CMO has wound me up when the WHO comes up. The other day it was a patronising response about how the W stands for world, and how we are world-leaders who share our experience with other, less capable countries. Avoiding the point, which was UK resistance to the WHO stance on mass testing.

And now she said this today, in the context of protective equipment:



> The basic guidance was entirely appropriate, as I say endorsed by WHO despite I think some media reporting about differences



Bollocks.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its the substance of what they say that bothers me. This isnt the first time that Jenny Harries the Deputy CMO has wound me up when the WHO comes up. The other day it was a patronising response about how the W stands for world, and how we are world-leaders who share our experience with other, less capable countries. Avoiding the point, which was UK resistance to the WHO stance on mass testing.
> 
> And now she said this today, in the context of protective equipment:
> 
> ...



Yes, she was more adept at avoiding pretty basic questions than the politician standing beside her. Which is a little worrying. Surely there's better people who could be put up for these conferences. Perhaps the Scottish one could drive down to London with her extended family and friends next time.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 5, 2020)

I wonder if the angry people have considered how almost any form of economic activity will generate potentially infectious activity. Have they not had a takeaway, or ordered something non-essential online, or rang a call centre for something that could probably wait, or are only eating the most basic foods from the nearest local shop?  

It's interesting that potentially infectious activity that is contracted out on someone's behalf, due in part to economic privilege, doesn't seem to generate anywhere near the anger aimed at a few bored kids messing about or someone going for a walk because they feel lonely or depressed.  Wonder how many posh people ranting away on twitter like Piers Morgan have contacted their accountants and said don't worry about getting a return this year, just put my money where it can be best used to fight the virus?  Because rich people getting richer is the least esssential activity I can possibly imagine at the moment.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Take-away coffee is not an essential purchase, which my local Tesco shop seems to understand, having switched off their Costa coffee machine & put a note on it saying, 'We are currently unable to sell hot drinks', sorry that you are struggling to understand this simple fact.



I understand fully that some people may regard all sorts of takeaway food and drink as non-essential. However the government has not legislated on this basis, which is a good thing imo.


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> He has a point. Why is the shop selling lattes if they are not essential?



The shouldn't be.  Government should get much tougher with businesses.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Replying to a bit of an old post now but are you vulnerable and if so have you tried Sainsbury's? I signed on to the government's on-line register a couple of weeks ago and suddenly last week I quickly got a Sainsbury's slot.
> 
> And a phone call today to tell me I'm on their list for priority deliveries. While as you say Tesco slots are three  weeks ahead if then, Morrisons just not available which is a shame because I was hoping to use them because of their good treatment of staff recently. I was planning to set alarm for just before midnight for Tesco otherwise.



Thanks for the thought two sheds but no, not vulnerable I think. 56, two cancer operations in the last 6 years, including one 9 months ago, but more than that I have PVD (two blocked arteries in my leg meaning I can't walk more than 200m and puts me first in line for a heart attack - but not vulnerable). I'm fairly confident if I get the virus I'll be in some trouble because of the PVD.

We don't even have Sainsburys. Nearest one is 30 miles away and they won't deliver here.

Tesco are wankers. I'm fairly sure they got massively greedy, took on more than they could (literally) deliver, and fuck the customer like me who has been having home delivery for 2 years now.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 5, 2020)

smokedout said:


> I wonder if the angry people have considered how almost any form of economic activity will generate potentially infectious activity. Have they not had a takeaway, or ordered something non-essential online, or rang a call centre for something that could probably wait, or are only eating the most basic foods from the nearest local shop?
> 
> It's interesting that potentially infectious activity that is contracted out on someone's behalf, due in part to economic privilege, doesn't seem to generate anywhere near the anger aimed at a few bored kids messing about or someone going for a walk because they feel lonely or depressed.  Wonder how many posh people ranting away on twitter like Piers Morgan have contacted their accountants and said don't worry about getting a return this year, just put my money where it can be best used to fight the virus?  Because rich people getting richer is the least esssential activity I can possibly imagine at the moment.


SPOT. ON.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yes, she was more adept at avoiding pretty basic questions than the politician standing beside her. Which is a little worrying. Surely there's better people who could be put up for these conferences. Perhaps the Scottish one could drive down to London with her extended family and friends next time.



I did laugh when someone from the Scotsman asked if Harries had a 2nd home. Sadly Hancock did not let her answer that one.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> I did laugh when someone from the Scotsman asked if Harries had a 2nd home. Sadly Hancock did not let her answer that one.



Yes, that was very dodgy. I'm sure someone will be factchecking that. And I'm sure she's fairly well compensated for her time so probably does while nurses are getting paid 25k.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 5, 2020)

Hancock's a terrible speaker when he gets surprised by the slightest curveball question, isn't he?


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Hancock's a terrible speaker when he gets surprised by the slightest curveball question, isn't he?



I have trouble differentiating between most of the tories that have been doing these press conferences, when it comes to prevarication levels and abilities.


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

I went for a bike ride... had a quick swing by nearby park, just to be nosey. Quiet. Sheffield central ish, gets joggers from universities, and a more w/c element from some tower blocks/area around them. All seemed well. Did a little time on the river path to meadowhell, again not too bad. 95% of people out being respectful, keeping distance. Actually decent feeling of solidarity.

Which makes me somewhat more fucked off about people posting those extreme telephoto tabloid pics designed to make people look clustered. And still more fucked off about the papers themselves. Playing out their pissy little antagonisms, deliberately trying to set people against each other. Digging up dirt. In the middle of this fucking crisis.

I hasten to add I don’t mean people having a moan about ‘I saw x today’, do that myself. Just actively trying to stir up shit on a national level.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 5, 2020)

You should have left it as 'I hasten toads', Cid.


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

Raheem said:


> You should have left it as 'I hasten toads', Cid.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 5, 2020)

Let's ramp it up. All of it. Whatever it is. Let's fucking ramp it.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

Raheem said:


> You should have left it as 'I hasten toads', Cid.


I mean, at some level, don’t we all?


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I mean, at some level, don’t we all?



He said hasten, not hypnotize.


----------



## prunus (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I mean, at some level, don’t we all?



Yeah, fuckin toads, why won’t they just get a move on?


----------



## Raheem (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I mean, at some level, don’t we all?


Well, perhaps. But it's a bit of a thing to admit to in the current climate.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 5, 2020)

Crispy said:


> Went for a bike ride this morning to blow the cobwebs off. Nearly had the city to myself
> 
> Lower Thames St:
> View attachment 205073
> ...


Yes, I cycled into the centre yesterday just to see it and the Strand was particularly striking - usually one of the worst streets to cycle in the whole of London. I wish the cars could be prevented from returning.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Well, perhaps. But it's a bit of a thing to admit to in the current climate.


Look, those amphibious little fucking animated coin purses should get a cunting move on!


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 5, 2020)

Can't see if anyone's posted this To help stop coronavirus, everyone should be wearing face masks. The science is clear | Jeremy Howard

What do people think of it? Should the government mandate wearing masks to protect people from asymptomatic carriers?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 5, 2020)

Crispy said:


> Went for a bike ride this morning to blow the cobwebs off. Nearly had the city to myself
> 
> Lower Thames St:
> View attachment 205073
> ...



It did strike me that the City - abnormally empty and spooky on Sundays generally - must be completely 28 Days Later now. Maybe next weekend I'll take a trip down there if I can not fall off my scooter.


----------



## Hollis (Apr 5, 2020)

Interesting article on tensions within the scientific community... 

Coronavirus: tensions rise over scientists at heart of lockdown policy


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> I went for a bike ride... had a quick swing by nearby park, just to be nosey. Quiet. Sheffield central ish, gets joggers from universities, and a more w/c element from some tower blocks/area around them. All seemed well. Did a little time on the river path to meadowhell, again not too bad. 95% of people out being respectful, keeping distance. Actually decent feeling of solidarity.
> 
> Which makes me somewhat more fucked off about people posting those extreme telephoto tabloid pics designed to make people look clustered. And still more fucked off about the papers themselves. Playing out their pissy little antagonisms, deliberately trying to set people against each other. Digging up dirt. In the middle of this fucking crisis.
> 
> I hasten to add I don’t mean people having a moan about ‘I saw x today’, do that myself. Just actively trying to stir up shit on a national level.


I've seen a few videos on Twitter which have really pissed me off - designed to exaggerate how close people are in parks, shot with a long lens (which always constricts distance) from a straight angle and usually parallel to the direction that people are walking, so it makes a dozen people on a path look like a close-packed crowd. This isn't accidental, they aren't phone shots, they're taken with proper cameras and put out on major media channels - there is definitely editorialising going on.


----------



## chilango (Apr 5, 2020)

Athos said:


> Could you walk on the spot?  Or do without exercise for, say, a couple of weeks?



It's not gonna be "a couple of weeks" though is it?


----------



## campanula (Apr 5, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Can't see if anyone's posted this To help stop coronavirus, everyone should be wearing face masks. The science is clear | Jeremy Howard
> 
> What do people think of it? Should the government mandate wearing masks to protect people from asymptomatic carriers?


The wearing of masks was downgraded when it became obvious that none were to be had. As soon as a supply appears, profiteering can be ramped up and yep, suddenly, 'the science' will say we should all be wearing them.

One thing has become crystal clear for me - the  objective, impartial, politically neutral scientist or indeed, scientific method, is a  comforting myth. Science has been as deeply corrupted as any other activity which  is predicated on neo-liberal doctrine. There is no profit in curing people...just  maintaining chronic conditions in a state of permanent medication.  

By the way, I spent several hours on a totally empty allotment plot today...because I understand the difference between my individual rights versus the collective good.  A nuanced argument which is not developed by being hectored by the privileged...but emerges from a deep sense of community and responsibility. And most people appear to be operating on remarkably similar principles. So when there are the usual selfish arse wipes around,  I find it is generally more effective to have a reasoned discussion rather than saying 'i hope you die'.  I couldn't give a single flying fuck about wankers on TV, snotty journos or our mendacious rulers and lawgivers... but do care quite a lot for my friends, neighbours and especially those who have not been offered any sort of choice whatsoever, whether they are allowed to stay safe at home. Priorities right...and we do what we have always done, at least on the left, which is to know where our loyalties lie and understand what we mean by solidarity (and, in these times, empathy and kindness)..


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Apr 5, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It did strike me that the City - abnormally empty and spooky on Sundays generally - must be completely 28 Days Later now. Maybe next weekend I'll take a trip down there if I can not fall off my scooter.


One of my favourite things used to be a job around Croydon or through london on Christmas morning. Nobody out at all. Haven't been home for Christmas for four years now though. Lovely and spooky. My parents village was oddly aways disappointingly busy though. Last three years have been in borovits where they don't really do Christmas at all. I'd like to take a cycle ride or jog now, but I'm on the danger list so can't really go out.


----------



## bimble (Apr 5, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I've seen a few videos on Twitter which have really pissed me off - designed to exaggerate how close people are in parks, shot with a long lens (which always constricts distance) from a straight angle and usually parallel to the direction that people are walking, so it makes a dozen people on a path look like a close-packed crowd. This isn't accidental, they aren't phone shots, they're taken with proper cameras and put out on major media channels - there is definitely editorialising going on.



Just watched this one - apparently of Richmond riverside yesterday afternoon - and thought it might be fake (from some other day I mean) until the old bloke at the end walks past in a facemask.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 5, 2020)

Scottish CMO no longer to be face of campaign. 

Sort of removed, though not completely.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 5, 2020)

Wow... the scottish one's kept her job. Insane. The day after warning people not to travel she jumps in her car and heads to her holiday home. And then does it again. 

I once got sacked for nicking a pie.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

campanula said:


> One thing has become crystal clear for me - the  objective, impartial, politically neutral scientist or indeed, scientific method, is a  comforting myth. Science has been as deeply corrupted as any other activity which  is predicated on neo-liberal doctrine. There is no profit in curing people...just  maintaining chronic conditions in a state of permanent medication.



Whilst I have some sympathy with this view, it's worth remembering that doctors and scientists and researchers are not the ones running pharmaceutical companies. There are a lot, a lot of very clever people working very hard and in good faith for the general good of humankind, neo-liberal doctrine or no.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

Hollis said:


> Interesting article on tensions within the scientific community...
> 
> Coronavirus: tensions rise over scientists at heart of lockdown policy



Thanks, that was interesting. We've discussed several of the Imperial papers here, and the Oxford one when the press seized on it, but it sounds like there are other models and estimates out there that I havent heard much about.

I am uneasy about reliance on one model, and I wish we had a bunch of better, somewhat tested ones ready before this virus emerged on the human scene. Well really I wish we had a massive existing routine surveillance systems so that we could rely on data more than models from the start, or at least models that had better quality of assumptions and data fed into them to increase their chances of being right.

This stuff is one of the reasons I dont have much to say about the medium to long term yet, and why I wont yet spend too much time considering what the exit strategies will consist of, I just dont know enough facts. And its one of the reasons I am glued to the actual daily data even though we know about various lags and flaws in the data.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> Just watched this one - apparently of Richmond riverside yesterday afternoon - and thought it might be fake (from some other day I mean) until the old bloke at the end walks past in a facemask.



That was one of them. It's not "fake" as such but it's massively deceptive - it makes everyone look far closer than they are. The shots which aren't taken in the direction of travel, you can see that people are generally a few metres away from each other unless they are together, and you're allowed to be close to people you live with. If I was going to make a video deliberately to distort the situation I would do it like that. (I might actually try - I have the equipment.)


----------



## Athos (Apr 5, 2020)

chilango said:


> It's not gonna be "a couple of weeks" though is it?



It could be, if we can get a lid on things, and then releasing controls gradually - with limited exercise being an obvious contender for early relaxation.


----------



## LDC (Apr 5, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> That was one of them. It's not "fake" as such but it's massively deceptive - it makes everyone look far closer than they are. The shots which aren't taken in the direction of travel, you can see that people are generally a few metres away from each other unless they are together, and you're allowed to be close to people you live with. If I was going to make a video deliberately to distort the situation I would do it like that. (I might actually try - I have the equipment.)



Some of those points are fair, but there's still loads of people lying in the sun and sitting down, etc. And from friends I know in London they are almost all meeting up with people outside their household for a walk or cycle and justifying it with some spurious self-interested reasoning.


----------



## campanula (Apr 5, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Whilst I have some sympathy with this view, it's worth remembering that doctors and scientists and researchers are not the ones running pharmaceutical companies. There are a lot, a lot of very clever people working very hard and in good faith for the general good of humankind, neo-liberal doctrine or no.


 Comes down to the individual versus corporate power though, doesn't it.  We have been lilled with the concept of peer reviews, academic freedom etc etc when corporate pharma, R&D, just about all funding for anything at all, is utterly tainted by capitalism...so yep, individual scientists  are not really where I am directing my ire...but the over-arching principles which dictate profit above all and any considerations. From the top.


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 5, 2020)

From Bristol Police via local councillor  :-


> Over the last 8 days there have been 391 breaches reported in Bristol. 30 fixed penalties (1.4% of incidents attended) issued & there have been 3 arrests.
> 
> Officers are attending a growing number of neighbour disputes mostly over issues around social distancing. Police officer abstractions remain low, major investigations continue, and neighbourhood teams are out and about.
> People have rightly raised concerns about the potential for disproportionality when it comes to the enforcement of restrictions. The Police will be working with community members to alleviate those concerns.


----------



## chilango (Apr 5, 2020)

The view in both directions the other day in a popular local green space.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 5, 2020)

Meet London's new emergency services — Evening Standard
					

When this is over, London will owe a debt to its frontline services so vast we’ll probably have to bake them that massive Wembley lasagne just to say thank you. They are some of the important key workers keeping the city moving — as are a new emergency service: the delivery drivers. From taxi...




					apple.news
				




👏👏👏


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

I can see at least two people literally kicking thousands of nurses to death right there look.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Thanks for the thought two sheds but no, not vulnerable I think. 56, two cancer operations in the last 6 years, including one 9 months ago, but more than that I have PVD (two blocked arteries in my leg meaning I can't walk more than 200m and puts me first in line for a heart attack - but not vulnerable). I'm fairly confident if I get the virus I'll be in some trouble because of the PVD.
> 
> We don't even have Sainsburys. Nearest one is 30 miles away and they won't deliver here.
> 
> Tesco are wankers. I'm fairly sure they got massively greedy, took on more than they could (literally) deliver, and fuck the customer like me who has been having home delivery for 2 years now.



Sorry to hear that. No, unless you're on protein kinase inhibitors or PARP inhibitors or immunosuppression therapy doesn't look like you are  (Do you live in England? - GOV.UK) 

And yes @ Tesco wankers I've (reluctantly) had home deliveries from them but they don't seem to take that into account. It has to settle down soon though, they must be getting vans and drivers. Like I say I'm hoping Morrisons will deliver soon. Coop only seem to do major cities.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

Wilf said:


> What annoys me [about this discussion] is that I'm 100% in favour of social distancing, exercising (pun not intended) some restraint and making adjustments to your life for the social good. It just seems like it would be better if we got to that point with a sense of community and collectivity, with a bit of 'education' even and less misanthropy. I'd also rather all that energy went into getting some safety equipment and safe working conditions for supermarket workers, for example.  Shops (and hospitals) are where people are catching Covid 19, not footpaths.



I've been walking up and down the road outside my house with the dog once a day. 

Occasionally get walkers, cyclists, horseriders so I step back with dog a good 3-4 yards and we exchange pleasantries. Is different here though because there are so few people round.


----------



## BristolEcho (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I'm also getting weird looks for wearing a scarf round my face and gloves ffs



How affective are gloves? When would you put them on? In the house before leaving or just before coming into the shop? Not aimed at you, but I'm not sure on how effective they are if not used in a specific way.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> How affective are gloves? When would you put them on? In the house before leaving or just before coming into the shop? Not aimed at you, but I'm not sure on how effective they are if not used in a specific way.


They stop you touching your face?


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> They stop you touching your face?



I put them on just before leaving? And put them and the face covering in the wash as soon as I get back? Then go wash my hands? Should I be doing something different?


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Sorry to hear that. No, unless you're on protein kinase inhibitors or PARP inhibitors or immunosuppression therapy doesn't look like you are  (Do you live in England? - GOV.UK)



First two are cancer drugs I'm not on. Immunosuppression therapy includes autoimmune diseases. But not PVD. Which is an autoimmune disease.

No-one gives a fuck about PVD. It's crippled my life. But its barely heard of or spoken about and not enough to get me on any list. Oh well, never mind.


----------



## BristolEcho (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I put them on just before leaving?





frogwoman said:


> They stop you touching your face?



Makes some sense. I'm not really sure how much more effective they are to stopping spread unless used properly as they would be in a workplace. EG different task, change in environment etc. 

 I am chronic face toucher though so I'd probably still touch my face.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 5, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Makes some sense. I'm not really sure how much more effective they are to stopping spread unless used properly as they would be in a workplace. EG different task, change in environment etc.
> 
> I am chronic face toucher though so I'd probably still touch my face.



Yea i keep them on for a walk and wash them every time, i don't reuse the same pair.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> First two are cancer drugs I'm not on. Immunosuppression therapy includes autoimmune diseases. But not PVD. Which is an autoimmune disease.
> 
> No-one gives a fuck about PVD. It's crippled my life. But its barely heard of or spoken about and not enough to get me on any list. Oh well, never mind.



I'd be tempted to phone your doctor and say you'd appreciate it if they'd class you as vulnerable (tell them you want "other continuing antibody treatments" for cancer as per the website).


----------



## Looby (Apr 5, 2020)

I saw someone driving with gloves and a mask on today which I thought was odd. Surely you put them on when you get where you’re going and take off when you leave. 

I also saw a fucking arsehole spitting in the car park at Sainsburys. I mean that’s gross at any time but fucking hell.
They’ve asked only one person to go in to supermarkets to get shopping. So I saw two couples leaving together with a trolley each and getting in the car together. Those selfish fuckers have now got double the amount of coconut rings they deserve. 😡
I love people watching but people were really annoying today.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

I've always found footballers spitting on the ground as somewhat gross. Perhaps this will put an end to it.


----------



## LDC (Apr 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> First two are cancer drugs I'm not on. Immunosuppression therapy includes autoimmune diseases. But not PVD. Which is an autoimmune disease.



Peripheral vascular disease? I didn't think that was an autoimmune condition at all? Or do you mean something else?


----------



## BristolEcho (Apr 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yea i keep them on for a walk and wash them every time, i don't reuse the same pair.


 
Yeah sorry I didn't mean it to come across as a questioning of you personally. I've been wondering how people have been using them generally. It's been ages since I've needed to use PPE at work. 

I'm glad people can still go for a walk to be honest. I know some here are angry about it, but it's one of the most effective thing that I can encourage people to do to help maintain routine. I do have some fear if lockdown bites harder.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 5, 2020)

I wonder if these people out and about are just people that don't follow current affairs. I do know people that never watch the news, usually in their 20s, never buy a serious paper etc, they might not even know about the lockdown in any detail?


----------



## Looby (Apr 5, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I wonder if these people out and about are just people that don't follow current affairs. I do know people that never watch the news, usually in their 20s, never buy a serious paper etc, they might not even know about the lockdown in any detail?


Everyone knows. You don’t need to watch the news. It’s all over social media, there’s adverts on tv and everyone is talking about it.


----------



## LDC (Apr 5, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I wonder if these people out and about are just people that don't follow current affairs. I do know people that never watch the news, usually in their 20s, never buy a serious paper etc, they might not even know about the lockdown in any detail?



Yeah, I think there is some of that, or at least there was in the early days. Not sure people can claim that now though.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 5, 2020)

Looby said:


> Everyone knows. You don’t need to watch the news. It’s all over social media, there’s adverts on tv and everyone is talking about it.


I had no idea  sensible I suppose.


----------



## agricola (Apr 5, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I wonder if these people out and about are just people that don't follow current affairs. I do know people that never watch the news, usually in their 20s, never buy a serious paper etc, they might not even know about the lockdown in any detail?



A lot of it might just be reflex behaviour - for example there seem to have been loads more people trying to shop at the weekend, even though most of the country were off all week.


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I think there is some of that, or at least there was in the early days. Not sure people can claim that now though.



Wandering around baffled as to why there's fuck all people on the streets and why you have to queue to get into supermarkets.


----------



## DJWrongspeed (Apr 5, 2020)

I was in Downe, Kent today and it was probably busier than Picadilly circus i.e just a normal no. of walkers/cyclists in 1 & 2s etc I think the issue is with urban areas where loads of people are all in one place and social distancing falls down. It'd be mad to blank ban people excercising across the country.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Peripheral vascular disease? I didn't think that was an autoimmune condition at all? Or do you mean something else?



Sorry I meant my PVD was onset by vasculitis which is an autoimmune disease.

TBH, I'm fairly sick of everything this minute, including my PVD (from which I've had a bad day trying to exercise). So yeah, technically I'm talking shit. Ignore me.


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 5, 2020)

Interesting double bill from Birrell - care crisis in the UK (independent) and bloody China bastards in the Mail 









						Carers and elderly people have been abandoned to catch coronavirus
					

People with dementia and profound disabilities such as my daughter have been deserted by our national authorities




					inews.co.uk
				













						The head of the WHO stands accused of putting lives at risk
					

IAN BIRRELL: The Great Hall of the People has held many historic events since it was built six decades ago as a symbol of Communist Party power.




					www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## Supine (Apr 5, 2020)

I've just commuted from Cumbria to London and I've got to say the country seems to be doing this lock down thing really well. We should be proud of ourselves for just how much staying in, or socially distanced going out, there is. 

I haven't been within meters of anyone over the last 6 hrs. The streets are deserted.


----------



## seventh bullet (Apr 5, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I’m hearing lots of that kind of story. My sister in law is a school dinner lady.  She’s feeding children of key workers who are at school as well as kids who get free school meals. But she says the expectations of management in the kitchen are unacceptable.  And then people sit around the same table for their break.  She has two kids and my brother, all with asthma, at home who are being put at risk.
> 
> It’s this mismatch between expectation and reality that has got me down this morning.
> 
> I’m angry on behalf of people like yourself who are being put in impossible situations.



Don't get me wrong,  we certainly aren't in the same bracket as those currently caring, at great risk to themselves, the sick in hospitals and makeshift facilities up and down the country, but I am getting angry that management, despite the irritating propaganda we get from company emails each day on what a great job they're doing to keep customers and employees safe, just think it's business as usual.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Apr 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I think there is some of that, or at least there was in the early days. Not sure people can claim that now though.


Yeah, I know it seems unbelievable but there are loads of people who just aren’t on the ball. They may be loners, or lonely, or mentally ill, or Aspergers, or functionally illiterate, or too young, or demented, or junkies, or simply uninterested. It takes time to get through to a lot of people. It’s also true that so much of the complexity goes straight over some people’s heads. What does 2 metres distance mean to someone brought up with imperial measurements? How long to self-isolate? 12 weeks? 14 days? 7 days? (Why, incidentally do viruses think in weeks?). It’s all too complicated to be absorbed by some in a very short space of time.


----------



## editor (Apr 5, 2020)

Here she is


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 5, 2020)

Fox News lol


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 5, 2020)

Did she not use the opportunity to drop a fire new mixtape


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 5, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Did she not use the opportunity to drop a fire new mixtape


"And finally I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you all to check out my soundcloud"


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 5, 2020)

"We will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again." is a pretty good payoff, particularly after the  not amazingly subtle humblebrag of first having addressed the nation in 1940.


----------



## souljacker (Apr 5, 2020)

chilango said:


> The view in both directions the other day in a popular local green space.
> View attachment 205086View attachment 205087



Is that Palmer Park or TV Park chilango ? Either way looks like the good people of Reading are being sensible because either one would have been heaving today in normal times.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 5, 2020)

Supine said:


> I've just commuted from Cumbria to London and I've got to say the country seems to be doing this lock down thing really well. *We should be proud of ourselves for just how much staying in, or socially distanced going out, there is*.
> 
> I haven't been within meters of anyone over the last 6 hrs. The streets are deserted.



Thanks Supine 
But the above conforms with most of our (anecdotal!) impressions.
I haven't been put of Swansea since Sunday 22nd March (  at prior to that  ), so travel's not relevant for us.
But we've seen utterly tiny proportions of arseholeish behaviours over the limited stretches of time that we've been out.
The vast majority of people round here are staying in, judging by the miniscule numbers of people we see whilst out.
In supermarkets, pretty much everybody (and they seem to be there in small numbers) appears to be doing their absolute best to conform with the distancing rules.

*SO* : I've been catching up with the past seven or eight pages of this thread, and I think those posters fingerpointing at individual arseholes that they see, might have a calmer experience by focussing much more on how much people *are* conforming to the rules.
Not to condone the arseholes at all, and I fully appreciate there's no consistency about how many blatant rule-breakers there are in different areas.
But most people in most places are, probably, conforming very well.
Let's hear a bit more appreciation on Urban of them


----------



## Anju (Apr 5, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Scottish CMO no longer to be face of campaign.
> 
> Sort of removed, though not completely.



Should have sacked her with as much fanfare as possible. It would have been a good way of driving home the importance of social distancing measures.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

Anju said:


> Should have sacked her with as much fanfare as possible. It would have been a good way of driving home the importance of social distancing measures.


not to mention having a second home


----------



## chilango (Apr 5, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Is that Palmer Park or TV Park chilango ? Either way looks like the good people of Reading are being sensible because either one would have been heaving today in normal times.



TVP.

Palmer Park is a little busier, but still easy to stay a good 10m plus away from anyone else.

ETA: That's on the path. the inner grassy bits are even quieter.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Does this include Tesco?
> 
> I tried twice this week. I found out Tesco slots come on at midnight. We have a cheap subscription, meaning we can get slots on Tue, Wed, Thu. So I logged on at 11.55 to get a message telling me I was in a queue. At 12.12am I got through - to all slots gone for Wed.
> 
> ...



And yeah, just to add, Tesco have withdrawn their customer services email. So you have to ring them. And when you ring them you get two minutes of garbled computer message followed by a swift cut-off. So, they're uncontactable.

Utter fucking wankers.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

Mind you, Sainsbury's phone number gives you at least 10 minutes of pressing 1 for 'do you wish to register for our vulnerable service' while repeating the message that you heard first time in case you didn't hear it and then (once) gives you a phone number really quickly for the number you actually need to dial but you don't have a pen at that point and they don't repeat it and then they hang up


----------



## smmudge (Apr 5, 2020)

On our infrequent walks we've found the best place to walk and keep furthest away from others is the golf course just down the road! Huge open space, loads of sunshine, plus the grass is lush and green. You can walk on long grass and short grass, or sand, over little hills etc. Great fun


----------



## weltweit (Apr 5, 2020)

Boris Johnson has been taken to hospital. 

source BBC News


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 5, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Boris Johnson has been taken to hospital.
> 
> source BBC News


Just came to post that.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 5, 2020)

> The Department of Health said on Sunday there had been 621 more coronavirus-related deaths in the UK in the past day.
> 
> The latest deaths include 12 more in Wales, seven in Northern Ireland and two in Scotland.


Out of interest, why are the death numbers so low outside of England? 15% of the UK population, but only 3% of daily deaths. Is it just London having a disproportionate impact, or are they actually doing anything different?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 5, 2020)

Because symptoms persist after 10 days, he has gone for tests on the advice of his doctor.


----------



## smmudge (Apr 5, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Out of interest, why are the death numbers so low outside of England? 15% of the UK population, but only 3% of daily deaths. Is it just London having a disproportionate impact, or are they actually doing anything different?



Something about there's delays in reporting at weekends for some regions.


----------



## tommers (Apr 5, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Because symptoms persist after 10 days, he has gone for tests on the advice of his doctor.


That's code for "he's actually quite fucking ill"


----------



## phillm (Apr 5, 2020)

So what's his chances now - roughly speaking ?

www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/76a7364b-4b76-ea11-9124-00505601089b

50/50 for those who received critical care.

84% survival for those receiving basic respiratory support, 33% survival for those receiving advanced respiratory support.

If he's just there for 'tests', then he won't fall into those stats at all.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2020)

Die you piece of shit die.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Mind you, Sainsbury's phone number gives you at least 10 minutes of pressing 1 for 'do you wish to register for our vulnerable service' while repeating the message that you heard first time in case you didn't hear it and then (once) gives you a phone number really quickly for the number you actually need to dial but you don't have a pen at that point and they don't repeat it and then they hang up



Fuck yes that was as annoying as fucking hell.

Especially as the first 2 times I spent 10 minutes on hold and they then told me they couldn't help and hung up on me. That 30 second constant repeat of "have you tried online" was at the right tempo to give me a panic attack as well.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 5, 2020)

> The Department of Health said on Sunday there had been 621 more coronavirus-related deaths in the UK in the past day.
> The latest deaths include 12 more in Wales, seven in Northern Ireland and two in Scotland.





Buddy Bradley said:


> Out of interest, why are the death numbers so low outside of England? 15% of the UK population, but only 3% of daily deaths. Is it just London having a disproportionate impact, or are they actually doing anything different?



My maths is terrible , but to what extent are those Wales,, NI and Scotland figures proportionate to their populations?
And is the England figure disproportionately high by comparison, in population numbers terms??



smmudge said:


> Something about there's delays in reporting at weekends for some regions.



I'm sure that's a factor, but I'd be surprised if it's the only one.


----------



## hash tag (Apr 5, 2020)

Bet he is not in an NHS hospital, experiencing it like the rest of us would


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Fuck yes that was as annoying as fucking hell.
> 
> Especially as the first 2 times I spent 10 minutes on hold and they then told me they couldn't help and hung up on me. That 30 second constant repeat of "have you tried online" was at the right tempo to give me a panic attack as well.



Indeed  

but having said that ... 

<breathes in and out in measured fashion > 

it was an 0800 number and I was trying (but failing if I'm honest) to do things at the same time and I've got a wine and grocery but mainly wine delivery coming tomorrow 

I forgive them


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 5, 2020)

From the end of this Times article**, posted up by Hollis earlier :

**seems to be free to read




			
				The Times said:
			
		

> Other modellers have drawn similarly dire conclusions. One of them is Osnat Zaretsky of DataClue, a company that has helped Israel, which has seen only 40 deaths so far, draw up a response. *He believes Britain’s modellers have grossly underestimated the pandemic and predicts that Britain will see 95,000 deaths by May 1, rising to 288,000 by late June.*
> “The numbers are extremely alarming —they are doubling every couple of days and this is what our projections are based on,” said Zaretsky, a UK-born Israeli whose research suggests that the UK is not even counting deaths accurately. “There seems to be a vacuum of reliable information in the UK. It’s apparent that many sick people or even ones that passed away showed Covid-19 symptoms but have never been tested. This creates a false sense that the curve and the spread is far lower than they really are. *As soon as the UK ramps up testing we’ll see a sharp increase in diagnosed cases*.”



I get his general point about unreliable numbers, but are those projected (and bolded) figures for deaths realistic???


----------



## Cid (Apr 5, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> My maths is terrible , but to what extent are those Wales,, NI and Scotland figures proportionate to their populations?
> And is the England figure disproportionately high by comparison, in population numbers terms??
> 
> 
> ...



England has roughly 10x the population of Scotland, 17x population of Wales, 34x NI. What are the figures? don't seem to be separate on worldometers.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 5, 2020)

Cid : I was only going on the figures posted above (in my post #6559, they'd been put up earlier in Buddy Bradley 's post).

ETA : And thanks for those population percentages, which (on a very quick read/headcount) do suggest the Wales and Scotland are a lot lower .... who knows why


----------



## Supine (Apr 5, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Bet he is not in an NHS hospital, experiencing it like the rest of us would



NHS is a very good place to go if you get it...

It’s announced he is still running the government. How long will that last?


----------



## phillm (Apr 5, 2020)

Keeping him in overnight is a logistical nightmare. Due to security requirements, and people not being allowed near him for security reasons.
They will have admitted him because they had to.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 5, 2020)

May I be the first to wish that the Prime Minister's lack of a heart does not lead to him being incorrectly declared dead, then buried alive.


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 5, 2020)

Anju said:


> Should have sacked her with as much fanfare as possible. It would have been a good way of driving home the importance of social distancing measures.



She’s resigned


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

phillm said:


> Keeping him in overnight is a logistical nightmare. Due to security requirements, and people not being allowed near him for security reasons.



Thousands wanting to get at him?


----------



## tommers (Apr 5, 2020)

phillm said:


> Keeping him in overnight is a logistical nightmare. Due to security requirements, and people not being allowed near him for security reasons.
> They will have admitted him because they had to.



Exactly. "precautionary, few tests" is bollocks


----------



## killer b (Apr 5, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I get his general point about unreliable numbers, but are those projected (and bolded) figures for deaths realistic???


I'm guessing the London School of Tropical Medicine have a better understanding of how this stuff works than anyone here, so if they say those are realistic figures, they're realistic figures. Big, but realistic.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Cid : I was only going on the figures posted above (in my post #6559, they'd been put up earlier in Buddy Bradley 's post).
> 
> ETA : And thanks for those population percentages, which (on a very quick read/headcount) do suggest the Wales and Scotland are a lot lower .... who knows why



One possibility is that they are earlier in their epidemics. But that also implies that lockdowns and the other previous measures happened at an earlier phase of their epidemics, which should end up making a difference to the total number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths there.

For example, on the day that England reached 99 recorded/reported hospital deaths, Wales had only had 2 at that point, Scotland 3, and Northern Ireland was a day away from reporting its first.

It can also be helpful to look at England broken down into broad regions, so you can see the epidemics varying a bit along those lines too. I will post some numbers later.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm guessing the London School of Tropical Medicine have a better understanding of how this stuff works than anyone here, so if they say those are realistic figures, they're realistic figures. Big, but realistic.



They try to come up with realistic ranges, and people inevitably focus on the ones at the most dramatic end of the range.

All the same...



Spoiler


----------



## little_legs (Apr 5, 2020)




----------



## phillm (Apr 5, 2020)

Cumming's Uncle has died of it.









						Retired judge and Cummings' uncle Sir John Laws dies after contracting Covid-19
					

Relative of No 10 adviser hailed as ‘one of the greatest lawyers of his generation’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## phillm (Apr 5, 2020)

The Guardian was told last week that Johnson was more seriously ill than either he or his officials were prepared to admit, and that he was being seen by doctors who were concerned about his breathing.









						Boris Johnson admitted to hospital with coronavirus
					

Move follows rumours that prime minister’s condition had been worsening




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 5, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> A lot of countries are limiting who goes out shopping by the first letter of people’s surnames, even by gender. Of course that requires enforcement, whether by police or shop staff.



I’ll change my name by deed poll to ‘Mr X-ray’ so I get to have the supermarket to myself when my hour comes up.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

phillm said:


> The Guardian was told last week that Johnson was more seriously ill than either he or his officials were prepared to admit, and that he was being seen by doctors who were concerned about his breathing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've been concerned about him breathing for a while now .


----------



## Celyn (Apr 5, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> I’ll change my name by deed poll to ‘Mr X-ray’ so I get to have the supermarket to myself when my hour comes up.


Just you and Xavier/a and Xanthippe.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 5, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Cid : I was only going on the figures posted above (in my post #6559, they'd been put up earlier in Buddy Bradley 's post).
> 
> ETA : And thanks for those population percentages, which (on a very quick read/headcount) do suggest the Wales and Scotland are a lot lower .... who knows why


I think we are probably at the start of our curve as it were, and also we have far more access to open space- nowhere in Scotland is really on a par with London, not even Glasgow, not by a long shot.  I’m not sure about Wales, 1  it’s not typically a point of entry from the continent right? 
Confirmed cases in Orkney only popped up at the start of this week, then began rising. 5 now. Shetland had a couple arrive from Italy and there were ten confirmed cases before they decided to stop testing.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 5, 2020)

It seems strange that people in London are surprised that there’s lots of people outside. If you are only going out for essentials, that’s a lot of people. When they stopped people driving to exercise, that’s when I started meeting 15 people if I set off on foot from a council estate in Orkney. Would have been safer for us to drive out to the back o beyond. 
Everyone following these rules to letter =high chance of seeing someone whilst out on foot.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 5, 2020)

And I do wonder if B.I.G is someone that’s taking up delivery slots that could
Do a 12 week isolator. Because from doing mutual aid stuff in a remote place for a couple a weeks, I can tell you that’s a conversation we could do with fucking having. *throws judgemental hat in ring”


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 5, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> And I do wonder if B.I.G is someone that’s taking up delivery slots that could
> Do a 12 week isolator. Because from doing mutual aid stuff in a remote place for a couple a weeks, I can tell you that’s a conversation we could do with fucking having. *throws judgemental hat in ring”



I walk down to the local butcher / baker / greengrocer when I need to replenish the fridge. 

Lots of people wishing BJ dead. Im not in the minority anymore.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 5, 2020)

London has areas with the densest population of anywhere in the UK, so not surprising there will be proportionally more people out within an area. Also will have contributed to the spread.

I’m wondering if there is less spread in Wales/Scotland and west of the country because the weather has been so shit until recently, so people might have stayed in more too. I know London and the east of the country is generally drier, could have made a small difference. Hasn’t been that nice a weekend here in Bristol, some sunshine but still quite cool and the wind harsh today. Saw a few people out on the downs when I did a bike ride earlier (50 mins only, forum nazis) but well spaced. Enjoying the empty roads.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Apr 5, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> It seems strange that people in London are surprised that there’s lots of people outside. If you are only going out for essentials, that’s a lot of people. When they stopped people driving to exercise, that’s when I started meeting 15 people if I set off on foot from a council estate in Orkney. Would have been safer for us to drive out to the back o beyond.
> Everyone following these rules to letter =high chance of seeing someone whilst out on foot.




I have caused outrage to some in my local area and on a local FB group by drawing a fucking hopscotch outside my place for people to have a little fun with as they walk up or down the road to shops or park... I have encouraged others to do the same regardless and pointed out that as a key worker I still have to go to work and am at more risk by having to commute by train and bus/mix with colleagues etc...










I have discovered private messages from strangers with memes of 'STAY AT HOME< SAVE LIVES' despite the fact it's not a main road. People do not congregate, they simply hop, jump, hop and go on their way. I will keep doing this...it's making people smile, laugh, mostly used by adults.


----------



## Septimus Rufiji (Apr 5, 2020)

missed a bit of a trick by not making it a spunking cock, though


----------



## two sheds (Apr 5, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> I have caused outrage to some in my local area and on a local FB group by drawing a fucking hopscotch outside my place for people to have a little fun with as they walk up or down the road to shops or park... I have encouraged others to do the same regardless and pointed out that as a key worker I still have to go to work and am at more risk by having to commute by train and bus/mix with colleagues etc...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



they're clearly concerned about people giving themselves coronavirus by breathing over themselves playing hopscotch


----------



## keybored (Apr 5, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> I have caused outrage to some in my local area and on a local FB group by drawing a fucking hopscotch outside my place for people to have a little fun with as they walk up or down the road to shops or park... I have encouraged others to do the same regardless and pointed out that as a key worker I still have to go to work and am at more risk by having to commute by train and bus/mix with colleagues etc...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Treacle Toes (Apr 5, 2020)

keybored said:


> View attachment 205138




Yeah right... 

I always have a stash of pavement chalk for some reason.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Apr 5, 2020)

Septimus Rufiji said:


> missed a bit of a trick by not making it a spunking cock, though




OMG the spunking cock version...Jump, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop..


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2020)

The numbers I mentioned I would share earlier. I've shared these before but this is the latest version. Sorry about the various holes in the data. Date that deaths were reported is not indicative of actual date of death. Other disclaimers may apply.





One of my sources for the data is this page going into deaths per hospital trust and region in England. It includes a graph that shows deaths per region over time, adjusted so it shows deaths per 100,000 of the population.









						Hospital deaths falling at fastest rate yet
					

Deaths from covid-19 in England's hospitals are declining at the fastest rate yet, as the whole South West region sees one death in seven days.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 5, 2020)

I don't wish to be premature, but where can I buy fireworks for the next traditional Windrush Square celebration to honour a late Conservative Prime Minister?


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 6, 2020)

Some fucker took a KOM off me on Strava today, and when I looked at it they‘d been on a ride lasting over two hours, exceeding the state’s allotted time allowance. Should I shop them to the rozzers?


----------



## two sheds (Apr 6, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Some fucker took a KOM off me on Strava today, and when I looked at it they‘d been on a ride lasting over two hours, exceeding the state’s allotted time allowance. Should I shop them to the rozzers?



The Hobbit Kingdom of Middle Earth??


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 6, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> I have caused outrage to some in my local area and on a local FB group by drawing a fucking hopscotch outside my place for people to have a little fun with as they walk up or down the road to shops or park... I have encouraged others to do the same regardless and pointed out that as a key worker I still have to go to work and am at more risk by having to commute by train and bus/mix with colleagues etc...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Haha! Awesome. I’m a keyworker too. I’m perhaps evilly glad that my only son will have kids joining him after Easter as our school becomes a “west mainland hub” - prior to  our school being opened for only him!
Social isolation on my own I find easy, imposing it on a kid, heartbreaking, I feel that we are lucky I am a carer to be honest. I’ve managed to not flout lockdown rules outside of what I do. But I honestly feel for people who are confined to the house most days


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 6, 2020)

Great stuff 👏👏👏









						Coronavirus: Former F1 boss Ron Dennis paying for one million free meals for NHS workers — The Independent
					

Former McLaren boss has launched the SaluthetheNHS.org initiative to provide free meals for those on the frontline battling to combat the coronavirus pandemic




					apple.news


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 6, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I don't wish to be premature, but where can I buy fireworks for the next traditional Windrush Square celebration to honour a late Conservative Prime Minister?


Some went off in Bristol 5 last night at 20.15..


----------



## Raheem (Apr 6, 2020)

keybored said:


> View attachment 205138


The cop in the picture is writing something down. Forming a halo just above his hat, we see 'Holy Words' in Latinised Hebrew. This ticket is clearly personally sanctioned by the Almighty, and I'm not sure you know what you're messing with.


----------



## BigTom (Apr 6, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> The people I work(ed) for have a project to give free bikes to essential workers who need them. You get less exposure risk on a bike than on public transport. The scheme has proven very popular.



Mine are doing the same here.

Over the weekend, Cycling UK started offering 3 month free membership to nhs workers also.


----------



## bimble (Apr 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> I’d like to know how contact tracing would actually practically be done here, on a massive scale. I mean who would be doing it, would they try to get in touch with everyone that an infected person had sat near to in the last two weeks before they became ill?
> It seems impossible to be honest, or at least incredibly expensive once you’ve recruited an army of tracers.


oh. there are thousands of people trained and skilled in doing exactly this but nobody asked them to do it. 








						UK missed coronavirus contact tracing opportunity, experts say
					

Thousands of council workers could have been deployed by the government but were not asked




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## teqniq (Apr 6, 2020)




----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 6, 2020)

teqniq said:


> View attachment 205162



Not enough face palms.


----------



## bimble (Apr 6, 2020)

I think that article is a bit misleading, not sure but they didn’t actually buy the tests because they wanted to check that they work first.
Still crap news, no working tests for antibodies exist so far , really depressing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 6, 2020)

The reports at the time said they had not actually bought them, but placed orders "subject to testing”.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 6, 2020)

And the Telegraph is going with the blame the NHS for lockdown line this morning


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 6, 2020)

And, like it's going so fucking well in America.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 6, 2020)

Charles Moore - cunt of the day award.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 6, 2020)

Lockdown to cost £2.4bn a day as economy crashes — The Times and The Sunday Times
					

The coronavirus lockdown will cost the economy £2.4 billion a day for as long as it lasts and consumer confidence has crashed to its lowest level since the financial crisis, according to two gloomy new reports about the state of the economy. Shutting down the economy will reduce Britain’s gross...




					apple.news


----------



## Grace Johnson (Apr 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> bloody hell. So the ventilators will be allocated according to a "frailty scale". Anyone know what that scale looks like?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 6, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Die you piece of shit die.


Tell us what you really think.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Apr 6, 2020)

Rutita1 said:


> OMG the spunking cock version...Jump, hop, hop, hop, hop, hop..


If I can find some chalk I'm going to draw a spunking cock on the pavement outside our house in the middle of the night so I can watch reactions thru the window. Will report back with pictures and feedback


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 6, 2020)

teqniq said:


> And the Telegraph is going with the blame the NHS for lockdown line this morning
> 
> View attachment 205168


"Always liked The Telegraph - until now!"


----------



## treelover (Apr 6, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Great stuff 👏👏👏
> 
> 
> 
> ...




thats great, but are any of these rich philanthropists donanting to food banks, or other places where people can get some food?


----------



## elbows (Apr 6, 2020)

treelover said:


> thats great, but are any of these rich philanthropists donanting to food banks, or other places where people can get some food?



Some football clubs United and City donate combined £100,000 to Manchester food banks | Football | The Guardian


----------



## treelover (Apr 6, 2020)

Brilliant


----------



## lefteri (Apr 6, 2020)

treelover said:


> thats great, but are any of these rich philanthropists donanting to food banks, or other places where people can get some food?



it’s always starting something new, like dyson, and usually puts the spotlight on themselves, like geldof


----------



## Petcha (Apr 6, 2020)

The BBC does it again. Cutting away to fucking weather half way through Sturgeon talking about the 'resignation' of her CMO

Whos editing the bbc news?!


----------



## belboid (Apr 6, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The BBC does it again. Cutting away to fucking weather half way through Sturgeon talking about the 'resignation' of her CMO
> 
> Whos editing the bbc news?!


why cant you cut away from something that has already happened? I really dont get this notion that we must hang on the every word of some politician, and hear it absolutely live even though it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 6, 2020)

belboid said:


> why cant you cut away from something that has already happened? I really dont get this notion that we must hang on the every word of some politician, and hear it absolutely live even though it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.



Because they're the national broadcaster and it's the second news story on the current news cycle. As I said previously it's a common occurance to bump the news or god forbid even homes under the hammer for an FA Cup penalty shootout. 

Sky didn't cut away.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 6, 2020)

At some point we'll need a C19 civil unrest thread...probably too soon now, only thing Ive heard of is growing strain (mainly food nicking) in Southern Italy - though if someone knows more please start a thread.

 Related to that, the rest of this post is  purely anecdotal in the worst sense, but in the 15 minute journey I just had to make I saw on separate occasions 3 police cars, one police van, and something I have never seen before on these particular suburban streets, a Territorial Support Group van!


----------



## belboid (Apr 6, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Because they're the national broadcaster and it's the second news story on the current news cycle. As I said previously it's a common occurance to bump the news or god forbid even homes under the hammer for an FA Cup penalty shootout.
> 
> Sky didn't cut away.


so she added absolutely nothing to what she said on BBC breakfast hours earlier.  What she said will change absolutely nothing.  That's why it isn't that important it goes out live.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 6, 2020)

belboid said:


> so she added absolutely nothing to what she said on BBC breakfast hours earlier.  What she said will change absolutely nothing.  That's why it isn't that important it goes out live.



So what exactly should go out live on the national broadcaster? I would have thought the sacking, and the explanation for the sacking, of the face of Scotland's response to the the nation's biggest crisis since WW2 was a little more important than the weather.


----------



## belboid (Apr 6, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So what exactly should go out live on the national broadcaster? I would have thought the sacking, and the explanation for the sacking, of the face of Scotland's response to the the nation's biggest crisis since WW2 was a little more important than the weather.


And all that did go out, it went out when it actually happened a few hours earlier. And then was incorporated into the main news broadcast with all the relevant details but none of the politicians waffle. 

What benefit do you think you would have gained by listening to her repeating information already given?  And that was about to be given again, in a more consise form?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 6, 2020)

belboid said:


> And all that did go out, it went out when it actually happened a few hours earlier. And then was incorporated into the main news broadcast with all the relevant details but none of the politicians waffle.
> 
> What benefit do you think you would have gained by listening to her repeating information already given?  And that was about to be given again, in a more consise form?



The point of live news is that she might say something she didn't say on the breakfast cycle


----------



## maomao (Apr 6, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Whos editing the bbc news?!



Someone sat at home with their Zoom changed to a still picture.


----------



## quiet guy (Apr 6, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The BBC does it again. Cutting away to fucking weather half way through Sturgeon talking about the 'resignation' of her CMO
> 
> Whos editing the bbc news?!



But we must know what the weather is going to be before we go out... Doh!!


----------



## belboid (Apr 6, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The point of live news is that she might say something she didn't say on the breakfast cycle


No it isn't.  Showing a well trained and practised politician in the hope that they'll say something different to five minutes ago it exactly why things get recorded.  Cos they very probably wont say anything different.  Exactly as Sturgeon failed to do.


----------



## zahir (Apr 6, 2020)

Tony Lloyd in hospital.


----------



## editor (Apr 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> Some football clubs United and City donate combined £100,000 to Manchester food banks | Football | The Guardian


Pocket change.


----------



## editor (Apr 6, 2020)

Doofus of the day 








						Coronavirus: Man jailed for breathing on police officer
					

Luke Courtney told the officer he had coronavirus before deliberately breathing in their face.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 6, 2020)

What a complete arsehole.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 6, 2020)

Local to me, but horrifyingly emblematic of all that is wrong with the vermin's 'preparation' for the rona.
The useless cunts can't even line up the body bags for our dead.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 6, 2020)

Cancel holiday plans abroad indefinitely.









						Coronavirus: Brits told to cancel holidays 'indefinitely' as Foreign Office changes travel advice — LBC News
					

Brits have been told to avoid going abroad "indefinitely" after the Foreign Office changed its travel advice surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.




					apple.news


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Local to me, but horrifyingly emblematic of all that is wrong with the vermin's 'preparation' for the rona.
> The useless cunts can't even line up the body bags for our dead.
> 
> View attachment 205215









"Rona"...?

When did that start?


----------



## kabbes (Apr 6, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> "Rona"...?
> 
> When did that start?


I've been using it since early March.  It was kind of jokey at first and then it stuck.  It's "the rona" though, not just "rona".


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 6, 2020)

Here's a post to say a big fat Thank You to weltweit .

Thank you for trawling the world's media and posting links so I don't have to go and look for myself. Thank you for asking questions on threads so that elbows LynnDoyleCooper and others can answer , saving me from having to do that too. And thank you for engaging with these threads back when it all started, which kept the discussion bouncing across the top of the boards, which helped me to get ahead of the curve and be better informed than a lot of people around me IRL.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 6, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> "Rona"...?
> 
> When did that start?





The Rona....









						Estate Agents Essex - Property Experts | Hair & Son LLP
					

Property professionals, Auctioneers and Estate Agents since 1922. Providing exceptional service & advice in estate agency & property management across Essex




					hairandson.co.uk
				









						Home | Rona Sailing Project
					






					www.ronasailingproject.org.uk
				












						Rona (1892) - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				






Also:
The Rona
A period of time in 2020 where the Corona Virus (CV19) ravaged the world, forcing the planets inhabitants to self quarantine. During this period, the gold and oil standard of currency was replaced by toilet paper and hand sanitizer.
In history class, we learned about the Rona, and how toilet paper companies came to power.
#rona#cv19#coronavirus
by Spaynkd April 02, 2020




__





						Urban Dictionary: The Rona
					

A period of time in 2020 where the Corona Virus (CV19) ravaged the world, forcing the planets inhabitants to self quarantine. During this period, the gold and oil standard of currency was replaced by toilet paper and hand sanitizer.




					www.urbandictionary.com


----------



## belboid (Apr 6, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> The Rona....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I believe it was going to be 'Coro' but people confused it with Coronation Street.


----------



## N_igma (Apr 6, 2020)

The Orange Order have decided to cancel the 12th July parades this year so every sky has a silver lining and all that


----------



## Anju (Apr 6, 2020)

439 UK deaths announced. Is a two day reduction significant?


----------



## LDC (Apr 6, 2020)

Anju said:


> 439 UK deaths announced. Is a two day reduction significant?



IMO no, not really, after the weekend the figures are less reliable due to data processing issues, and it also doesn't include deaths out of hospital which is growing in numbers and will continue to do so.


----------



## magneze (Apr 6, 2020)

Anju said:


> 439 UK deaths announced. Is a two day reduction significant?


Hope so, need to see if it's a pattern this week. 🤞


----------



## Anju (Apr 6, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> IMO no, not really, after the weekend the figures are less reliable due to data processing issues, and it also doesn't include deaths out of hospital which is growing in numbers and will continue to do so.


Thanks. I was surprised given the stage we're at.


----------



## LDC (Apr 6, 2020)

Anju said:


> Thanks. I was surprised given the stage we're at.



I'm a very long way from an expert though, I'd be happy (_very _happy!) to be corrected.


----------



## emanymton (Apr 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> What a complete arsehole.


Yeah. 
But am I the only one not happy about breathing on a copper being classed as assault?


----------



## andysays (Apr 6, 2020)

belboid said:


> I believe it was going to be 'Coro' but people confused it with Coronation Street.


I thought everyone knew that the accepted diminutive for Coronation Street was 'Corrie'


----------



## Anju (Apr 6, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm a very long way from an expert though, I'd be happy (_very _happy!) to be corrected.


Even the experts are a long way from being experts on the numbers. I spent the first few days assuming the figures would be adjusted for per capita testing and other factors to make them a bit more useful.


----------



## LDC (Apr 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Yeah.
> But am I the only one not happy about breathing on a copper being classed as assault?



It wasn't just 'breathing' on a police officer. They did it while boasting that they were carrying a potentially deadly virus. So no, I'm very happy that if anyone says that and does that like that on anyone else to be charged and jailed. They're potentially opening up loads of other people to dying, fuck them.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Yeah.
> But am I the only one not happy about breathing on a copper being classed as assault?



*



			A man who told a police officer he had coronavirus before deliberately breathing in their face
		
Click to expand...

*
If you think that's acceptable, you too are an arsehole.,


----------



## magneze (Apr 6, 2020)

> Angela McLean, the deputy chief scientific Adviser, is now speaking at the Downing Street press conference.
> 
> She says the growth in the number of people admitted to hospital with Covid-19 symptoms is not as bad at it would have been if lockdown measures had not been put in place.
> 
> ...


UK coronavirus news: Dominic Raab says Boris Johnson leading country from hospital as death toll reaches 5,373


----------



## belboid (Apr 6, 2020)

andysays said:


> I thought everyone knew that the accepted diminutive for Coronation Street was 'Corrie'


you would have thought so, but no.  Obviously I stopped speaking to anyone who used such debased terminology, but I still have them on file.


----------



## bimble (Apr 6, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Cancel holiday plans abroad indefinitely.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Could you please stop posting links to apple news and just do the actual articles you want people to see? It is really annoying, just forces me to app store an app that I don't want every time I foolishly click on one of your links.


----------



## killer b (Apr 6, 2020)

They're calling it _the 'ronies_ round here.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 6, 2020)

magneze said:


> UK coronavirus news: Dominic Raab says Boris Johnson leading country from hospital as death toll reaches 5,373



Wow, what an absolute legend


----------



## emanymton (Apr 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> If you think that's acceptable, you too are an arsehole.,


Well I'm assuming he was just being a gobby dick rather than thinking he actually has it.

And behaving like a cunt is not the same as assault.


----------



## LDC (Apr 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Well I'm assuming he was just being a gobby dick rather than thinking he actually has it.
> 
> And behaving like a cunt is not the same as assault.



It's pretty similar to spraying blood at someone and saying "Ha, I have HIV."


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 6, 2020)

deffo assault


----------



## keybored (Apr 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> Could you please stop posting links to apple news and just do the actual articles you want people to see? It is really annoying, just forces me to app store an app that I don't want every time I foolishly click on one of your links.


I actually find it serves as a useful filter.

When you see


> For the best reading experience, open this story on a device with Apple News. It may also be available on the publisher’s website.



Simply train yourself to see


> You seem to have clicked on one of Marty1's links. Are you sure you meant to do that? It's probably going to be a puff-piece for Trump or a Breitbart story or some bollocks like that. For the best reading experience, why don't you just close this tab and move on, eh?


----------



## keybored (Apr 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> They're calling it _the 'ronies_ round here.


beervirus


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Well I'm assuming he was just being a gobby dick rather than thinking he actually has it.
> 
> And behaving like a cunt is not the same as assault.



So, you are an arsehole.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Apr 6, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It wasn't just 'breathing' on a police officer. They did it while boasting that they were carrying a potentially deadly virus. So no, I'm very happy that if anyone says that and does that like that on anyone else to be charged and jailed. They're potentially opening up loads of other people to dying, fuck them.


Completely agree with this.  Fuck em.

But fuck me, Raab is a terrible public speaker.  Sounds like a schoolboy being bollocked by the headmaster - and he's foreign sec.


----------



## emanymton (Apr 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, you are an arsehole.


If you say so.


----------



## Looby (Apr 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Well I'm assuming he was just being a gobby dick rather than thinking he actually has it.
> 
> And behaving like a cunt is not the same as assault.


I lived with a twat who was diabetic. He used to go around stabbing people with his needles and telling them he was HIV+ and the needles were used.
They weren’t and he wasn’t but we still had the worry and the testing and the wait.
That officer had no way of knowing if this was just a gobby dick or someone who genuinely thought it was ok to do that when they have a potentially deadly virus.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 6, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Here's a post to say a big fat Thank You to weltweit .
> 
> Thank you for trawling the world's media and posting links so I don't have to go and look for myself. Thank you for asking questions on threads so that elbows LynnDoyleCooper and others can answer , saving me from having to do that too. And thank you for engaging with these threads back when it all started, which kept the discussion bouncing across the top of the boards, which helped me to get ahead of the curve and be better informed than a lot of people around me IRL.


Hi SheilaNaGig, thank you for that, I am just trying in my own way to keep up with events and learn what is going on. I won't ever have the medical or scientific knowledge of many on here but I am learning more than I expected to. As to doing things so that you don't have to, that certainly isn't my intention!  believe me there is bucket loads of interesting questioning articles out there and your comments and commentary are always knowledgeable interesting and very welcome. Also it is fascinating which media are producing good content, who would have thought I might actually have considered paying to read the Financial Times ..


----------



## emanymton (Apr 6, 2020)

Looby said:


> I lived with a twat who was diabetic. He used to go around stabbing people with his needles and telling them he was HIV+ and the needles were used.
> They weren’t and he wasn’t but we still had the worry and the testing and the wait.
> That officer had no way of knowing if this was just a gobby dick or someone who genuinely thought it was ok to do that when they have a potentially deadly virus.


Seriously? I think Stabbing someone is a bit different to breathing.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Well I'm assuming he was just being a gobby dick rather than thinking he actually has it.
> 
> And behaving like a cunt is not the same as assault.



And how are the police able to ascertain that this individual was ‘just being a hobby dick’ when he was claiming to have coronavirus?


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 6, 2020)

It's like announcing you've got a bomb to airport security - people shouldn't be surprised when their threats are taken seriously.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 6, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> hobby dick



Anyone else noticing a rise in comic misspellings?

Or were you just bashing one out quickly (pun intended) so you could claim a post with the number 666 at the end Marty1?


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 6, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Anyone else noticing a rise in comic misspellings?
> 
> Or were you just bashing one out quickly (pun intended) so you could claim a post with the number 666 at the end Marty1?



Predixtive text on iPhones just isn’t what it used to be.


----------



## editor (Apr 6, 2020)

Coronavirus: Man fined for 240-mile round trip 'to buy bread'
					

The man was stopped on the M1 northbound by Leicestershire Police on Sunday night.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Seriously? I think Stabbing someone is a bit different to breathing.



And you’ve never heard of ‘death breath’?


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 6, 2020)

If the UK had a professional far-sighted government, would we have been able to use contact tracing to minimise the lockdown and avoid crippling our economy? This is what I want to know. Other, more sophisticated countries seem to be succeeding at this. 

The follow on question is, should we have a national contact tracing system and a more ordered society with constrained civil liberties so we can avoid crippling the economy when future coronaviruses arrive?


----------



## zahir (Apr 6, 2020)

> If there is a lesson to learn, this might be it. There is nothing to say that Covid-19 is the only epidemic this nation will suffer. The growth in international air traffic and the mobility of the world's population (to say nothing of its growth), might make pandemics a routine event.





> For my part, I'm beginning to get to grips with this issue. I would not say I'm there yet as the last time I looked at the epidemiological system for dealing with a communicable disease – for my PhD thesis – it took me five years. However, I am tending to the view that the first mistake in a fatal cascade started with the promulgation by the World Health Organisation of the 2005 International Health Regulations. It was these which, for the first time, specifically listed pandemic influenza and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) as potential "events of international public health concern". This formal status required member nations to "develop, strengthen and maintain… the capacity to detect, assess, notify and report" these diseases, and then to the develop "the capacity to respond promptly and effectively to [the] public health risks".





> This led to the rash of the preparedness plans produced by members, including the UK, then under the Blair government, supposedly based on WHO guidelines. Where it all went wrong, in my view, is that members were allowed to produce influenza plans and use them as the template for dealing with SARS which, as it now transpires, demands a very different approach.
> 
> To that extent, we might have the right plan – for influenza – but it is being used to fight the wrong disease. Covid-19 is not influenza - it is a SARS. And as we record 47,806 cases and 4,934 dead, that represents the true failure, and why we are now having to embark on costly lockdowns.







__





						Coronavirus: the wrong disease
					

Coronavirus: the wrong disease




					eureferendum.com


----------



## zahir (Apr 6, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> If the UK had a professional far-sighted government, would we have been able to use contact tracing to minimise the lockdown and avoid crippling our economy? This is what I want to know. Other, more sophisticated countries seem to be succeeding at this.


Maybe more to the point is that other less sophisticated countries have succeeded at this. If the Faroe Islands can do it you have to ask why all the years of planning here led to such a botched response.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 6, 2020)

Apparently there may be 5,000 more coronviruses in bat caves, waiting to be introduced to us. How China’s “Bat Woman” Hunted Down Viruses from SARS to the New Coronavirus


----------



## elbows (Apr 6, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> If the UK had a professional far-sighted government, would we have been able to use contact tracing to minimise the lockdown and avoid crippling our economy? This is what I want to know. Other, more sophisticated countries seem to be succeeding at this.
> 
> The follow on question is, should we have a national contact tracing system and a more ordered society with constrained civil liberties so we can avoid crippling the economy when future coronaviruses arrive?



It is questionable whether those countries can maintain their current approach. This is a constant theme of mine and there are usually multiple opportunities every week to demonstrate it. Singapore and Japan are recent examples of countries having to introduce more aspects of lockdown. And, even before things approaching fuller lockdowns have happened in these countries, their economies have still take a big hit.

Having said that, the steps they took early can still have made a rather large difference to the scale and timing of their epidemics. Its too early to know quite how much, but it would be very disappointing if they ended up exactly the same as everywhere else that didnt do these things.

My stance is also flawed if I dont point out that some of the problems these countries have now, stem from the fact many other countries didnt do those things, and have ended up causing cases that then travel back to these other countries. Perhaps if everyone had done the best test & trace thing in the first place, the picture would be a fair bit different. Perhaps not though, it might be that all these measures could ever have hoped to achieve at that stage was to buy time and change the scale of their epidemics, but not completely suppress the virus without at least some periods of lockdown. I say that because its easy for there to be too much focus on all the successes - ie all the cases they did manage to find via lots of testing & tracing, at the expense of properly considering how many cases these countries were still likely failing to spot.

Anyway, even if that stuff done at earlier stages wasnt enough on its own, I think you are correct to consider that such things are likely to come back onto the agenda again, because they could be a very important part of some later stages too. Countries will be watching other countries that are starting to get past their peaks closely to see what 'exit strategies' are being proposed and implemented, and then what actually happens in different places with different approaches. 

The UK government should plan for a good number of different things now, but are trying to resist publicly getting into the possibilities or which ones they will actually go for at this stage. But the press keep asking questions about this already. Which is understandable, but a bit too early in my book, if I were the government I'd still be trying to hedge my bets rather than committing to a particular approach publicly.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 6, 2020)

Johnson in intensive care.

Won't be running the country from there, I'd imagine.

<edit: sorry, forgot there was a dedicated thread>


----------



## Supine (Apr 6, 2020)

zahir said:


> Maybe more to the point is that other less sophisticated countries have succeeded at this. If the Faroe Islands can do it you have to ask why all the years of planning here led to such a botched response.



you can hardly compare the Faroe Islands with the UK in terms of population density, interconnectedness or industry.


----------



## TopCat (Apr 6, 2020)

_Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been moved to intensive care in hospital after his coronavirus symptoms worsened, Downing Street has said.

Mr Johnson has asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to deputise for him, a spokesman added.
_


----------



## existentialist (Apr 6, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Wow, what an absolute legend


Your trolling is becoming increasingly blatant. In case you hadn't realised


----------



## existentialist (Apr 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Well I'm assuming he was just being a gobby dick rather than thinking he actually has it.
> 
> And behaving like a cunt is not the same as assault.


If he gave the copper any reason to believe that his threat was credible, then it was assault.

Same as if you wander up to one and say "I've got a knife", they're not likely to say "get away with you, of course you haven't". They're going to treat you as if you've got a knife until they can definitively prove otherwise.

I LIKE the idea that someone threatening someone else with infecting them with a potentially fatal disease gets busted for it. Whether or not it's a copper they're threatening. It's a cunt's trick, but it is also totally out of order...and if the hook it's hung on is "assault", well, that's just fine by me.


----------



## elbows (Apr 6, 2020)

zahir said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Its true that pandemic influenza planning is able to rest on a couple of things that allow them to cut corners and avoid thinking the unthinkable on certain fronts.

For example, they have a reasonable idea of timescales for infleunza vaccines, and there are other antivirals for influenza that they can chuck around in the meantime.

However I would suggest that in the event of a bad influenza pandemic, the results could easily have been comparable to what we are seeing with this coronavirus pandemic. So I dont think it was simply a case of a reasonable influenza plan being attached to the wrong disease.

For example, the 2009 pandemic, even without the subsequent austerity and its effects on the NHS and other parts of the system, could still have massively overloaded hospitals in the same way this pandemic is, if the influenza in question had been much nastier and if far less people had any natural immunity to it. But the 2009 influenza turned out to be somewhat similar to a strain older people had seen before, so it ended up largely as a disease of the young, and that made a really huge difference to the picture, including the hospital situation.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 6, 2020)

existentialist said:


> If he gave the copper any reason to believe that his threat was credible, then it was assault.
> 
> Same as if you wander up to one and say "I've got a knife", they're not likely to say "get away with you, of course you haven't". They're going to treat you as if you've got a knife until they can definitively prove otherwise.
> 
> I LIKE the idea that someone threatening someone else with infecting them with a potentially fatal disease gets busted for it. Whether or not it's a copper they're threatening. It's a cunt's trick, but it is also totally out of order...and if the hook it's hung on is "assault", well, that's just fine by me.



Yep, sure someone robbed a bank years ago with a banana in a carrier bag.  Got done for armed robbery.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 6, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Your trolling is becoming increasingly blatant. In case you hadn't realised



No, I’ve just had a pint.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Apr 6, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Yep, sure someone robbed a bank years ago with a banana in a carrier bag.  Got done for armed robbery.


tragically this did lead to the death of Harry Stanley in 1999 in Hackney - he'd only joked about it in the pub


----------



## zahir (Apr 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its true that pandemic influenza planning is able to rest on a couple of things that allow them to cut corners and avoid thinking the unthinkable on certain fronts.
> 
> For example, they have a reasonable idea of timescales for infleunza vaccines, and there are other antivirals for influenza that they can chuck around in the meantime.
> 
> However I would suggest that in the event of a bad influenza pandemic, the results could easily have been comparable to what we are seeing with this coronavirus pandemic. So I dont think it was simply a case of a reasonable influenza plan being attached to the wrong disease.


So the UK pandemic planning wasn’t really adequate for a serious flu pandemic then?


----------



## treelover (Apr 6, 2020)

editor said:


> Coronavirus: Man fined for 240-mile round trip 'to buy bread'
> 
> 
> The man was stopped on the M1 northbound by Leicestershire Police on Sunday night.
> ...




Surely that is some form of excuse, you just don't travel that far for a bit of a a saving


----------



## elbows (Apr 6, 2020)

zahir said:


> So the UK pandemic planning wasn’t really adequate for a serious flu pandemic then?



That is my opinion, yes. Obviously it comes down to where the threshold is set for serious, but yes, its perfectly possible to imagine influenza pandemics that are well within the bounds of possibility, that the plans would not have coped with. Many of the issues would have been the same - number of intensive care beds, ventilators, availability and distribution of PPE in a timely fashion, limited testing capacity, no real genuine attempt to contain the spread (only to delay).

The big difference would have been, in theory, the timescale. There would have been more confidence about the exit strategy, a vaccine-based one. But that fact alone wouldnt have prevented at least one horrendous wave of overwhelmed hospitals and death. There are reasons people always go on about the 1918 pandemic and the fact we hadnt had one of that severity since was mostly considered to be luck.

In my opinion the main flaw with modern influenza pandemic planning was the built in limits due to an inability to 'think the unthinkable', with the thinkable consisting of both establishment and medical dogma, but also various rather large limits imposed by neoliberalism and other related aspects of the modern world. For example much earlier in this pandemic I knew people would be surprised when I told them in advance that the WHO's response would include lots of language about how nations should not impose travel restrictions and close borders. And that did turn out to be their original stance, and it was easy for me to predict it because I knew what their priorities were. Later they were still making announcements about the work they were doing with the World Tourism Organisation. Its all UN stuff setup for a world we know only too well. A world that considered itself incompatible with many of the draconian measures on a scale that would be needed to tackle a pandemic in a highly pro-active, virus-suppressing manner. Well now this virus took a giant shit in their comfort zone and now the unthinkable is the new normal.


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 6, 2020)

Fuck 



‪Two patients have died under the care of a mental health trust after they tested positive for coronavirus.‬

‪https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/n...-wear-valleys-nhs-trust-records-first-death/‬


----------



## elbows (Apr 6, 2020)

My browser/the forum software didnt like your link.









						Coronavirus latest: Two patients die at mental health trust in the North-East
					

TWO patients have died under the care of a mental health trust after they tested positive for coronavirus.




					www.thenorthernecho.co.uk


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 6, 2020)

Thanks


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 6, 2020)

This honestly feels like the train is running off the track and SARS-COV-2 is the driver


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 6, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Fuck
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Roseberry Park hospital is right next to The James Cook University hospital, I’ve delivered to both but not since Xmas.

When we had our coronavirus debrief off Amazon a few drivers expressed concern about delivering to TJCU hospital as they said they had to walk past a coronavirus isolation ward to get to the Amazon locker in the staff corridor.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

Why do they keep describing this thing as 'indiscriminate'? Er, no shit.... Like it's supposed to read your CV before it kills you? 'Oh you went to Eton?? Well then - I'll move on to the next pleb'


----------



## Wilf (Apr 7, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Fuck
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I live 2 miles from there. There look to have been a lot of deaths at James cook hospital which is next door.


----------



## Part-timah (Apr 7, 2020)

Just one more for the road...


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 7, 2020)

Fears that Britons self-isolating with Covid-19 may seek help too late


----------



## bimble (Apr 7, 2020)

The german system described in there makes so much sense.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 7, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> No, I’ve just had a pint.


I'd make a point of stopping at one, then, if I were you


----------



## teqniq (Apr 7, 2020)

'Trusted information' lol.


----------



## hegley (Apr 7, 2020)

teqniq said:


> 'Trusted information' lol.



And #DontBuytheSun trending in response.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 7, 2020)

This may have already been posted but not for the first time in this crisis the Scottish government's strategy is diverging from Westminster's and going further with their restrictions:









						Scottish sites ordered to close unless on essential list
					

Scottish government publishes list of what construction work can carry on: Full details




					www.constructionenquirer.com


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> My browser/the forum software didnt like your link.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



a couple of questions have been asked (to which I don’t know the answer)

were these patients moved to an ICU?

were these patients ‘informal’ (ie voluntary) or ‘formal’ (ie detained)?


----------



## Anju (Apr 7, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It's like announcing you've got a bomb to airport security - people shouldn't be surprised when their threats are taken seriously.



It's a bit different as you would know whether you had a bomb or not. This idiot could have had the virus without knowing it.


----------



## kalidarkone (Apr 7, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Here's a post to say a big fat Thank You to weltweit .
> 
> Thank you for trawling the world's media and posting links so I don't have to go and look for myself. Thank you for asking questions on threads so that elbows LynnDoyleCooper and others can answer , saving me from having to do that too. And thank you for engaging with these threads back when it all started, which kept the discussion bouncing across the top of the boards, which helped me to get ahead of the curve and be better informed than a lot of people around me IRL.


Yes this! I was able to prepare the best I could because of urban and people mentioned. Xxx


----------



## ska invita (Apr 7, 2020)

teqniq said:


> View attachment 205162


we really need a facepalm 'like' respond button
jesus


----------



## editor (Apr 7, 2020)

Front line report: 









						Lambeth councillor and nurse shares her front line experience in the battle against coronavirus
					

A Lambeth councillor and intensive care unit nurse has been helping tackle the coronavirus on two fronts: working to help patients with severe symptoms, as well as representing her local community …



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## prunus (Apr 7, 2020)

prunus said:


> I would say no, not yet at least, on the basis that my co-worker* was tested at home just this morning.
> 
> * Who I sit next to for 8 hours a day.



She has just been taken into hospital with severe breathing difficulties.  This is exactly 1 month after onset of symptoms.  She never got her test result - was one of the very last swabs taken just as they stopped community testing and it seems it got binned - medics are pretty sure she has it on clinical presentation though.  She's been having difficulty breathing for at least 4 weeks, but has gone downhill in the past few days after it seemed the worst had passed.  Fingers crossed.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

ska invita said:


> we really need a facepalm 'like' respond button
> jesus



Not really. If I'd been the government I would have done exactly the same thing with the tests - the main thing I would have done differently would be not to let anyone make stupid comments about how quickly such tests could be available.

Validating such tests was always going to be an important part of the process, and one where many of the tests would not have been expected to live up to the claims of the manufacturers. Partly because the manufacturers dont have as much available to actually do full and thorough testing evaluation with.

Would I have purchased over 17 million tests of various sorts if I thought there was a chance they wouldnt work? No, I wouldnt want to waste that money or have a warehouse full of useless stuff. But I doubt thats what the government did, they probably signed contracts for those quantities but only on the basis that they passed validation. If they dont pass then the contract should have get-out clauses for that.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

To all the sanctimonious cunts wearing masks. You do realise that wearing a mask isnt preventing you getting the disease right? It's just preventing you giving it to me. And even then it's pretty much pointless given the quality of your fucking mask. As you were.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> To all the sanctimonious cunts wearing masks. You do realise that wearing a mask isnt preventing you getting the disease right? It's just preventing you giving it to me. And even then it's pretty much pointless given the quality of your fucking mask. As you were.



These sorts of masks are fast becoming the new normal in countries that are planning ways to slightly relax their lockdowns.

The UK seems especially resistant to the idea. I will be interested to see whether this attitude persists.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It's just preventing you giving it to me.


How dare they.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> To all the sanctimonious cunts wearing masks. You do realise that wearing a mask isnt preventing you getting the disease right? It's just preventing you giving it to me. And even then it's pretty much pointless given the quality of your fucking mask. As you were.



I haven’t seen anyone wear a mask sanctimoniously.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I haven’t seen anyone wear a mask sanctimoniously.



Then you haven't been to my local supermarket. There's a huge misunderstanding in the general public that they're protecting themselves. They're not.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> To all the sanctimonious cunts wearing masks. You do realise that wearing a mask isnt preventing you getting the disease right? It's just preventing you giving it to me. And even then it's pretty much pointless given the quality of your fucking mask. As you were.


While we're swearing, fuck off


----------



## killer b (Apr 7, 2020)

how does their sanctimony show itself in the supermarket aisles?


----------



## LDC (Apr 7, 2020)

killer b said:


> how does their sanctimony show itself in the supermarket aisles?



They buy quinoa, vegan bacon, and oat milk.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 7, 2020)

I have also noticed that the mask wearers are the worst for respecting distancing.  Its an odd one.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

The WHO has advised people not to wear them. I can see it's a natural human reaction to want to wear them but the cynic in me suggests most people are wearing them to protect themselves, not others. They're not protecting themselves, in fact putting themselves more at risk.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I have also noticed that the mask wearers are the worst for respecting distancing.  Its an odd one.



There is a 'false sense of security' argument against masks but it gets mixed up with all the humbug reasons not to support mask wearing in this country. So I will keep an open mind about how masks and the attitudes around them may evolve.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> There is a 'false sense of security' argument against masks but it gets mixed up with all the humbug reasons not to support mask wearing in this country. So I will keep an open mind about how masks and the attitudes around them may evolve.



They don't help. This virus doesn't just enter through the nose and mouth and the masks most people are wearing are not going to block the virus anyway. A lot of people don't know how to put them on properly, hence the WHO advice. As you say they give people a false sense of security and even putting the mask on involves more touching of your face.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

I consider the idea that they dont help to be complete bullshit.









						Austria is making everyone who goes inside a supermarket wear a face mask
					

"I am fully aware that masks are alien to our culture," Austria's chancellor said. "This will require a big adjustment."




					www.cbsnews.com


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> There is a 'false sense of security' argument against masks but it gets mixed up with all the humbug reasons not to support mask wearing in this country. So I will keep an open mind about how masks and the attitudes around them may evolve.



I can certainly see their advantages but I really think its need to be done within a cultural understanding of how they are used and to what aim.  I don't think we have that in Europe at the moment whereas they may have in places such as China.  My gut feeling is that the UK government has it right at the moment with their advice but quite frankly I'm no more qualified to make this judgement than the average man who shouldn't be on the Clapham Omnibus without a very good reason.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

It was part of the cultural resistance to wearing them. Part of a previous age. Over. The bullshit will linger on, but necessity is the mother of invention and we will see plenty of countries make this new choice in the weeks ahead.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

ska invita said:


> While we're swearing, fuck off



Sorry, my wording was a bit strong there. I've just got back from the shops and been asked by a fellow shopper why I wasn't wearing one.


----------



## andysays (Apr 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They buy quinoa, vegan bacon, and oat milk.


I actually bought oat milk a couple of weeks ago to see what it was like, in case it became difficult to get normal semi skimmed. 

It's OK in coffee, but not so good in cereal, and fortunately it doesn't seem like there's any problem getting normal milk. 

_sanctimonious grin_


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 7, 2020)

Almond milk in coffee ftw. Keeps the bitterness.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> It was part of the cultural resistance to wearing them. Part of a previous age. Over. The bullshit will linger on, but necessity is the mother of invention and we will see plenty of countries make this new choice in the weeks ahead.



I've mentioned on here previously that I like the idea of masks in general as a good manners thing if nothing else.  We are very poor in a lot of the West in managing winter colds and flu etc.  People spluttering everywhere at their desks or on bus etc.  I do think there is something in wearing masks and this could lead to adopting this behaviour.  I just think that from personal observation people are going to need to understand how to use them and they're limitations.

One thing I just can't shake though is this feeling that if they could be proven to work than why haven't they?  The market for managing coughs and colds is massive in the wealthiest countries, absolutely vast.  If a mask manufacturer could say 'yes our product works and here's the proof', why has this not already happened?  Why is it not happening now?

There is a solution in here somewhere.


----------



## LDC (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> I consider the idea that they dont help to be complete bullshit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I was skeptical about their general use, but it does seem they do reduce cross infection.

In hospital in the past if someone had flu we'd make then wear a mask in the department to lessen them spreading it, so maybe it doesn't lessen the risk to the person wearing it, but makes droplet spread less likely surely.


----------



## lefteri (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The WHO has advised people not to wear them. I can see it's a natural human reaction to want to wear them but the cynic in me suggests most people are wearing them to protect themselves, not others. They're not protecting themselves, in fact putting themselves more at risk.



it seemed to me that the WHO was too slow to declare a pandemic and this may have given western countries a false sense of security (i may be completely wrong on this) and the advice on masks seems also to be behind the curve


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I was skeptical about their general use, but it does seem they do reduce cross infection.
> 
> In hospital in the past if someone had flu we'd make then wear a mask in the department to lessen them spreading it, it's just the same surely? Maybe it doesn't lessen the risk to the person wearing it, but makes droplet spread less likely surely.



The UK and WHO guidance is not to bother but if it makes people feel safer then so be it!



> At a Downing Street briefing on Friday, England's Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van Tam made clear: "There is no evidence that general wearing of face masks by members of the public who are well affects the spread of the disease in our society."
> 
> Professor Van Tam acknowledged that use of face masks is "wired into" some cultures in Asia, but added: "In terms of the hard evidence, and what the UK government recommends, we do not recommend face masks for general wearing."
> 
> ...


----------



## editor (Apr 7, 2020)

Private Eye piece:



> *Numbers game*
> SO far this year, as the Eye went to press 159,987 people had died in the UK, 1,228 (and rising rapidly) with coronavirus, and 158,759 of things that don’t make the news. Assorted Imperial College professors predict that if we continue lockdown until June and turn the NHS into a Covid-19 service, deaths with coronavirus could be restricted to 5,700-20,000. Roughly, out of every 10,000 people in the UK, 9,996-9,999 would not die with coronavirus.
> 
> However, all 10,000 will be affected by social and economic lockdown, and many by cuts to other health and social services. Far more than 5,700 could die from the side effects of our strategy. And yet if the government had continued with its “herd immunity” plan (as Donald Trump is doing), 260,000 people could have died with the virus. Some may have died soon of something else, but the headline figure was a little on the high side even for Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s brain (“chief adviser”, surely? Ed). This sudden surge in demand would crash the health service; hence the decision to crash the economy instead. But could we have stopped the pandemic if we’d got a grip earlier?





> Home has always been a risky place to be confined in, particularly for those who lack the luxury of space. Falls and fractures are likely to increase, with a toxic combination of a crowded house, toys and toddlers on the stairs, anger, alcohol and domestic abuse. Stray cigarette butts will start some house fires. And an estimated 7,100 people may die prematurely from this home confinement due to poor diet, poverty, inactivity, rickets and suicide. If we focus all our resources and attention on reducing the risk of Covid-19, other equally unpleasant risks may rise up. Child abuse is a major concern.
> 
> On the plus side, home confinement is leading to a reduction in pollution, littering, road traffic accidents and dog shit on the pavements (only one a day allowed), and an increase in birdsong and the life expectancy of asthmatics (if they escape the virus). It’s beautiful out there without humans.











						Private Eye | Corporate governance : It's a Plessis business
					

THE incoming head of the Financial Reporting Council, tasked with



					www.private-eye.co.uk


----------



## belboid (Apr 7, 2020)

editor said:


> Private Eye piece:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


keeping deaths down to '5,700' is looking rather laughable now. 

And lets not forget PE was a significant driver in support for Andrew Wakefields MMR bullshit


----------



## treelover (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> These sorts of masks are fast becoming the new normal in countries that are planning ways to slightly relax their lockdowns.
> 
> The UK seems especially resistant to the idea. I will be interested to see whether this attitude persists.



i have been wearing a surgical one, they are very uncomfortable,, sticky, make it harder to breathe if you have any such issues, thats indoors, i suspect wearing it outside would even more alienating, etc. esp on a nice day


----------



## treelover (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> It was part of the cultural resistance to wearing them. Part of a previous age. Over. The bullshit will linger on, but necessity is the mother of invention and we will see plenty of countries make this new choice in the weeks ahead.



The chinese students won't come back to study unless they consider we are using them and effectively.


----------



## killer b (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The UK and WHO guidance is not to bother but if it makes people feel safer then so be it!


The important qualifier in the UK govt advice is 'in people who are well'. We know that people who appear and feel well ,may, in fact, not be well. And if they are wearing a mask, they're less likely to spread the disease in the asymptomatic stage. That's what this is about.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

killer b said:


> The important qualifier in the UK govt advice is 'in people who are well'. We know that people who appear and feel well ,may, in fact, not be well. And if they are wearing a mask, they're less likely to spread the disease in the asymptomatic stage. That's what this is about.



Yes, and one of the reasons we are only hearing more about it now is that there was a general reluctance to focus properly on the asymptomatic side of this, despite signs of its relevance since the early days.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It's just preventing you giving it to me. And even then it's pretty much pointless given the quality of your fucking mask. As you were.


Reducing onward transmission is the whole point of the exercise.

It's not entirely pointless (DOI: 10.1017/dmp.2013.43, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002618), it's source control; drive R0 towards unity, or lower. Not just for those recovering but the asymptomatic too.

Sure, efficacy clearly improves with fit and density of the material used, the aim being to dampen gas cloud momentum and thus curb the propagation of the turbulent multiphase, virion infected, expiratory droplet cloud (DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.4756). But a cycling grade pollution mask which filters substantially at PM10 (better, down to PM2.5) will make a significant difference to transmission rate given the bulk of longer lived transmissible expiratory droplets are at that scale or greater dimensions.


----------



## mx wcfc (Apr 7, 2020)

lefteri said:


> it seemed to me that the WHO was too slow to declare a pandemic and this may have given western countries a false sense of security (i may be completely wrong on this) and the advice on masks seems also to be behind the curve


Exactly this.  The WHO advised against closing China's borders at a time when doing so would have stopped all of this, so I'm not inclined to pay much attention to them.  I suspect the guidance about face masks is largely because there aren't enough of them to go round so telling people to wear them would cause fear amongst those without.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

2hats said:


> Reducing onward transmission is the whole point of the exercise.
> 
> It's not entirely pointless (DOI: 10.1017/dmp.2013.43, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002618), it's source control; drive R0 towards unity, or lower. Not just for those recovering but the asymptomatic too.
> 
> Sure, efficacy clearly improves with fit and density of the material used, the aim being to dampen gas cloud momentum and thus curb the propagation of the turbulent multiphase, virion infected, expiratory droplet cloud (DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.4756). But a cycling grade pollution mask which filters substantially at PM10 (better, down to PM2.5) will make a significant difference to transmission rate given the bulk of longer lived transmissible expiratory droplets are at that scale or greater dimensions.



I have to admit I didn't understand most of that but my god you know your stuff!

Are you a scientist/doctor?


----------



## Part-timah (Apr 7, 2020)

editor said:


> Front line report:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Get certificate warns in your site


----------



## lefteri (Apr 7, 2020)

2hats said:


> Reducing onward transmission is the whole point of the exercise.
> 
> It's not entirely pointless (DOI: 10.1017/dmp.2013.43, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002618), it's source control; drive R0 towards unity, or lower. Not just for those recovering but the asymptomatic too.
> 
> Sure, efficacy clearly improves with fit and density of the material used, the aim being to dampen gas cloud momentum and thus curb the propagation of the turbulent multiphase, virion infected, expiratory droplet cloud (DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.4756). But a cycling grade pollution mask which filters substantially at PM10 (better, down to PM2.5) will make a significant difference to transmission rate given the bulk of longer lived transmissible expiratory droplets are at that scale or greater dimensions.



i presume this thing would be quite effective (filters are for aerosol paint) but i’m not sure i could take the strange looks


----------



## crossthebreeze (Apr 7, 2020)

editor said:


> Private Eye piece:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Actually from my experience at work there's more dogshit than before and still plenty of litter (now with added disposable gloves and masks) - in an area close to local shops anyway.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Sorry, my wording was a bit strong there. I've just got back from the shops and been asked by a fellow shopper why I wasn't wearing one.


To which the only possible answer can be "That's my business, and not yours. Good day to you, sir."


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

killer b said:


> The important qualifier in the UK govt advice is 'in people who are well'. We know that people who appear and feel well ,may, in fact, not be well. And if they are wearing a mask, they're less likely to spread the disease in the asymptomatic stage. That's what this is about.



Good point. However I did see an interview with a senior bod at the WHO who was adamant that the cons outweighed the pros. That basically it was a mental safety blanket in most cases.  I assume to become a senior bod at the WHO you should know what you're talking about. I also remember during SARS which was much less wide-spread hearing the same. That masks didn't really do anything. Given that there was no shortage of masks during that it kind of dispels the theory that the reason governments are advising against using them is to leave a bigger supply for health professionals.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 7, 2020)

andysays said:


> I actually bought oat milk a couple of weeks ago to see what it was like, in case it became difficult to get normal semi skimmed.
> 
> It's OK in coffee, but not so good in cereal, and fortunately it doesn't seem like there's any problem getting normal milk.
> 
> _sanctimonious grin_


Sorry, didn't see you were grinning under your mask


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

The NHS England data that I have been moaning about not having access to in recent weeks is actually available, yay.

This data will allow me to build a picture of hospital deaths where the date is the actual date of death, rather than the date of reporting. Lag is still there, but unlike the daily overall numbers, the accuracy of past days numbers will improve over time.





__





						Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths
					

Health and high quality care for all,  <br />now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk
				




When time allows, I will try to turn this data into something more instantly readable. How quickly that happens likely depends on how interesting the picture that emerges from my first poke at this turns out to be. Its possibly still a bit early to get the most out of even the March figures, not sure yet.

Obviously this data is only for hospitals so I'll have to merge in ONS data too to get the most complete picture possible, or frankly I could jsut wait a very long time and use the ONS data on its own.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Sorry, my wording was a bit strong there. I've just got back from the shops and been asked by a fellow shopper why I wasn't wearing one.


I dont believe you


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

I don't care


----------



## treelover (Apr 7, 2020)

Senior heart surgeon at Cardiff hospital dies from coronavirus
					

Jitendra Rathod, 62, thought to be first health worker in Wales to die after Covid-19 diagnosisCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverage




					www.theguardian.com
				




another senior consultant dies from C19


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Apr 7, 2020)

I’ve just been told that some tossers are organising a ‘clap for Boris’ event tonight at 8pm. I don’t know if it’s local or national. You have been warned.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 7, 2020)




----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 7, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> I’ve just been told that some tossers are organising a ‘clap for Boris’ event tonight at 8pm. I don’t know if it’s local or national. You have been warned.



National, seeing that it’s trending in second place on the twatter.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 7, 2020)

2hats said:


> Reducing onward transmission is the whole point of the exercise.
> 
> It's not entirely pointless (DOI: 10.1017/dmp.2013.43, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002618), it's source control; drive R0 towards unity, or lower. Not just for those recovering but the asymptomatic too.
> 
> Sure, efficacy clearly improves with fit and density of the material used, the aim being to dampen gas cloud momentum and thus curb the propagation of the turbulent multiphase, virion infected, expiratory droplet cloud (DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.4756). But a cycling grade pollution mask which filters substantially at PM10 (better, down to PM2.5) will make a significant difference to transmission rate given the bulk of longer lived transmissible expiratory droplets are at that scale or greater dimensions.


Ah bollox 2hats I just came on to post the same thing.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> The NHS England data that I have been moaning about not having access to in recent weeks is actually available, yay.
> 
> This data will allow me to build a picture of hospital deaths where the date is the actual date of death, rather than the date of reporting. Lag is still there, but unlike the daily overall numbers, the accuracy of past days numbers will improve over time.
> 
> ...


I’m certain you’re at least 5 or 6 people. 

2hats and 6elbows for the win.


----------



## Anju (Apr 7, 2020)

Gove looks to be in a bit of a state. Either the virus or he's seen those memes saying coke kills it.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 7, 2020)

FWIW, 854 new deaths reported today.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 7, 2020)

scratch that


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

Well the difference in hospital death data for England is quite pronounced.

The column on the left shows the total number of deaths in hospitals in England that were reported at the time. Because this daily figure is referring to the previous day, I have displaced it by one day to be fairer, eg the final figure of 4897 was reported on March 6th but refers to the period of March 5th so thats where I have put it.

The column on the right shows the new, imporved data, where deaths are actually placed on the day they happened, rather than the day they made it through the reporting system. Unlike the column on the left, the numbers for any particular date are being revised as time goes on. So they eventually give a much more time-accurate picture, but there is still the same lag really. So for example the numbers currently shown for recent dates are likely to increase a lot in future, and even the numbers of deaths from earlier in March can still increase.

So yeah, big differences, even though this is still only hospital deaths. It didnt take very long before lag means the cumulative totals given each day were haf the actual number of hospital deaths that had actually been reached at that point.

Cumulative hospital deaths:


----------



## prunus (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well the difference in hospital death data for England is quite pronounced.
> 
> The column on the left shows the total number of deaths in hospitals in England that were reported at the time. Because this daily figure is referring to the previous day, I have displaced it by one day to be fairer, eg the final figure of 4897 was reported on March 6th but refers to the period of March 5th so thats where I have put it.
> 
> ...



Thank you so much for doing this, it really illustrates just how much garbage in is going into anything I am modelling (using just the announced figures).  I think I might just stop now.

I don't know how you have the data organised, but if it's easy to extract, a matrix of how each day's total evolves over time would be really useful... (ie 'death day' as the row headings in column one, with 'estimate for deaths on day' as the row headings - each would start with the announced number on day n+1 and evolve over time until stabilises at the truth.  I suspect the data availabilty may not be amenable to such a presentation.  but maybe...?  Basically I'm asking for a way to model the 'true' deaths from the announced figure I guess!  Maybe just 2x, as you say...


----------



## editor (Apr 7, 2020)

Dealers having to adapt 









						How Are Crack and Heroin Dealers Operating Under Lockdown?
					

We examined the impact of coronavirus and social distancing on Britain’s lucrative street heroin and crack trade.




					www.vice.com


----------



## andysays (Apr 7, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Sorry, didn't see you were grinning under your mask


----------



## maomao (Apr 7, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> I’ve just been told that some tossers are organising a ‘clap for Boris’ event tonight at 8pm. I don’t know if it’s local or national. You have been warned.


Should do a clap for the virus one at 9.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

prunus said:


> Thank you so much for doing this, it really illustrates just how much garbage in is going into anything I am modelling (using just the announced figures).  I think I might just stop now.
> 
> I don't know how you have the data organised, but if it's easy to extract, a matrix of how each day's total evolves over time would be really useful... (ie 'death day' as the row headings in column one, with 'estimate for deaths on day' as the row headings - each would start with the announced number on day n+1 and evolve over time until stabilises at the truth.  I suspect the data availabilty may not be amenable to such a presentation.  but maybe...?  Basically I'm asking for a way to model the 'true' deaths from the announced figure I guess!  Maybe just 2x, as you say...



Thanks. I'm not someone who attempts modelling or clever predictions or even sophisticated presentation of data. I just muck around with the raw data and comparisons to other raw data. I dont really propose 2X as a rule that could be used for modelling, its just the typical sort of observation I was able to make by looking at the raw numbers.

I am very interested in the results of anything other people can do on that front though, I just cant help much other than to point at the most pertinent data sources.

In this case, I manually collected the daily announced England totals over time, and then I would just used the England row in the COVID19 total deaths by region tab of this, keeping in mind that any of the entries from it may change in future:

COVID 19 total announced deaths 7 April 2020 (from Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths )

When I did my above numbers that one for the 7th was not yet available, I will re-do my exercise and see how it compares after just one days changes.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 7, 2020)

prunus said:


> Thank you so much for doing this, it really illustrates just how much garbage in is going into anything I am modelling (using just the announced figures).  I think I might just stop now.
> 
> I don't know how you have the data organised, but if it's easy to extract, a matrix of how each day's total evolves over time would be really useful... (ie 'death day' as the row headings in column one, with 'estimate for deaths on day' as the row headings - each would start with the announced number on day n+1 and evolve over time until stabilises at the truth.  I suspect the data availabilty may not be amenable to such a presentation.  but maybe...?  Basically I'm asking for a way to model the 'true' deaths from the announced figure I guess!  Maybe just 2x, as you say...


That's going to be really tricky, I think. At some point, as we pass peak, the daily figure is going to be more than the actual figure for a while. Is there enough information in there to predict when that might be?

It's a good illustration of how hard it is to judge where we're at. I'm increasingly thinking that the single number showing 'how many people are currently in hospital' is probably the best measure of that.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

Yes, I am using hospital data for the best balance of near-realtime clues right now. Plus I look at it on a regional basis so that I do not miss trends happening in particular regions which could distort the overall national picture. Luckily we actually get that data now, via the slides and datasets that are published in connection with the daily number 10 press briefings. 





__





						Slides, datasets and transcripts to accompany coronavirus press conferences
					

Slides, datasets and transcripts from press conferences at 10 Downing Street in response to coronavirus.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

I completed my update of the previous figures. Added todays published data as a 3rd column so we can see how much the numbers have been corrected compared to yesterday. Note that sometimes there will be a revision downwards, one of the earlier dates had 1 death removed from it compared to yesterday by the looks of it.

By the way, the raw data from the NHS shows number of deaths per day, rather than the cumulative totals I always seem to go for when I reformat & share data here.


----------



## Anju (Apr 7, 2020)

I wouldn't be thrilled to have a young banker in charge of the country during a global health crisis but looks like number 10 might be regretting Raab taking over. Wonder when they'll send him to sit, PPE free, at Boris's bedside for the day.
Rishi Sunak will take over PM duties if Dominic Raab incapacitated, says No 10

Just worked out that it's only 9 days until my turn


----------



## 2hats (Apr 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's a good illustration of how hard it is to judge where we're at. I'm increasingly thinking that the single number showing 'how many people are currently in hospital' is probably the best measure of that.


Moving average from Day-7 to Day-3 (say) for deaths and/or hospital admissions to get an idea of the trend. Everything else (in the public domain anyway) is probably fairly pointless.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> They're not protecting themselves, in fact putting themselves more at risk.


Tell that to the nurses.

You are wrong.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 7, 2020)

854


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Tell that to the nurses.
> 
> You are wrong.



Well given that my partner is a nurse, yes I'll pass it on.

They (mostly) are wearing proper masks. The public (mostly) aren't.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 854



To be expected after the low numbers from the last two days sadly. The general trend is still towards a levelling off of the death rate though. In another week or so we should be seeing a consistent downward trend.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

prunus said:


> Basically I'm asking for a way to model the 'true' deaths from the announced figure I guess!  Maybe just 2x, as you say...



Although I'm not planning to do anything fancy myself, when looking at the data again I suppose the most obvious thing I am struck by is that it might be possible to get a fair estimate of how many days behind the hospital death reality the daily figures actually are. This wont be a constant rate over time but there are certainly some clues about this in the data I share.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> To be expected after the low numbers from the last two days sadly. The general trend is still towards a levelling off of the death rate though. In another week or so we should be seeing a consistent downward trend.



Not really. Those numbers are misleading. Thats what my recent tables of data have been about. 

Thats not to say that what you are suggesting we will see cannot possibly happen, only that the data has extra lag and unreliability, especially in terms of data for the last 5 days at any moment in time, which will be missing more cases due to reporting delays.

I will try to do a graph showing number of hospital deaths that people are given every day, and what the actual number of deaths on each day in hospital turned out to be once the data improved. I can only do England though rather than the whole of the UK, because I dont have the data to do the others.


----------



## Edie (Apr 7, 2020)

(Before I say this, I do appreciate that those who are sick or infirm are not walking about).

Virus aside, my god it’s _lovely_ out there. The sun is shining, it’s like an English summers day, the flowers are out, the trees are budding. People are walking about smiling, talking at a distance. Neighbours are offering to help each other, complete strangers are helpful (when I broke down yesterday on way home after my night shift, a workman went into Wilkos and bought me oil and his pal put it in my car). There’s hardly any cars about, people are cycling. Everyone looks relaxed and so bloody _well_. The world outside, if you didn’t know there was a pandemic, is about 150% nicer!


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

OK so the first graph is the number of deaths reported to the public on each day.

The 2nd graph has the deaths actually listed by the day they died, not the day the death was reported.

England only, due to data for other nations not being available to me in the same way. Daily figures, rather than the cumulative stuff I normally go for.

The 2nd graph can improve a lot over time, the first cannot. In particular the 2nd graph reveals how much less refined the data for recent days is, and todays data for actual hospital deaths yesterday is pretty much useless right now. I dont mean that the data quality suddenly reduced in recent days, I mean this is an ongoing phenomenon, the picture of recent days will continue to be very incomplete until the further passage of time.




edited to add - so the 2nd graph is more accurate, but there is lag. It gives a much more correct picture of march, but I cannot really say the same for april yet.

If I didnt make any mistakes with the data then the area taken up by the bars should actually be the same for both graphs, just more accurately distributed in the 2nd one. And the 2nd one makes it much more obvious how incomplete the total for yesterday and several days prior currently is.


----------



## Edie (Apr 7, 2020)

In fact as soon as this is over, all key workers should be given a months holiday opportunity to “wfh“, whilst everyone else runs the show


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

One last graph.

This one shows where the new number published today, which is the very long final bar in the first graph in my previous post, actually ends up being distributed on the 2nd graph in that post.

Assuming the same sort of reporting delays continue, when you hear a figure for how many people died in hospital yesterday, this is how those particular deaths were actually likely to have been spread out over time.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

I think I picked the wrong day to miss the press conference. WIll have to go back and watch it.



> _Q: The increase in deaths in Germany is much slower than in other EU countries. What can we learn from them?_
> 
> *Vallance *says he does not have a clear answer to that. Two factors apply: the virus and the society it hits. He suggests Germany might be different.
> 
> *Whitty* says Germany got ahead on terms of testing. There are lessons to be learnt from that.



 23m ago 17:17


----------



## belboid (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> I think I picked the wrong day to miss the press conference. WIll have to go back and watch it.
> 
> 
> 
> 23m ago 17:17


that was the only interesting bit.  It is a good bit though. Otherwise lots of Raab not saying what would happen if he had to actually be in real charge


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Apr 7, 2020)

Jesus, Raab has a proper creepy smile doesn't he?


----------



## little_legs (Apr 7, 2020)

he should have said actual 80% higher


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 7, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Jesus, Raab has a proper creepy smile doesn't he?



Second only to Hancock, on the creepy scale.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

little_legs said:


> he should have said actual 80% higher




Yeah the same thing I've been going on about with my tables and graphs. Nicer presentation of the same thing my earlier tables showed, albeit I used slightly more recent data but presented it in a less useful manner.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows - Mobile posting be damned. Aye, I saw you posting your own tables and feedback 2 pages ago and this was in response to them. Your detailed posts on reporting are super informative and helpful.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

I'm glad you posted it, I was so busy creating my own versions of the data that I wasnt looking at how it was being covered elsewhere.

The other reason its being reported on today is the related ONS data had its weekly release today. So here is another related graph:


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 7, 2020)

little_legs said:


> he should have said actual 80% higher



Fuck that is a rather perfect exponential curve.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Apr 7, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Second only to Hancock, on the creepy scale.


Nah, I reckon Raab's ahead.  He asks a question then that weird serial-killer fake smile that says 'now I'll extract your eyeballs and eat them'


----------



## editor (Apr 7, 2020)

Good stuff from Lambeth. 









						Lambeth Council and coronavirus: keep your dogs on leads in the park, and joggers will be fined £150 for spitting
					

Lambeth Council have tweeted a message asking people to keep their dogs on leads when walking in the park. In a subsequent tweet, they reminded joggers that anyone caught spitting in the park could…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 7, 2020)

little_legs said:


> he should have said actual 80% higher




Yes '80% too low' to me suggested that the reported figures were only 20% of the real totals, which was an alarming prospect.

And if the discrepancy is caused largely by people dying at home and not in hospital, how many of those deaths could have been prevented if hospital capacity and testing and monitoring of patients were at the level they should have been? So far the narrative is still very much 'the NHS is coping' but I fear the true story, or as much of it as ever gets heard, will be very different. 

I really really hope people end up on trial for their willfull sabotage of the NHS. Hunt and Lansley first off.


----------



## zahir (Apr 7, 2020)

> World-leading disease data analysts have projected that the UK will become the country worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic in Europe, accounting for more than 40% of total deaths across the continent.
> 
> The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle predicts 66,000 UK deaths from Covid-19 by August, with a peak of nearly 3,000 a day, based on a steep climb in daily deaths early in the outbreak.





> The analysts also claim discussions over “herd immunity” led to a delay in the UK introducing physical distancing measures, which were brought in from 23 March in England when the coronavirus death toll stood at 54. Portugal, by comparison, had just one confirmed death when distancing measures were imposed.
> 
> The newly released data is disputed by scientists whose modelling of the likely shape of the UK epidemic is relied on by the government. Prof Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College, said the IHME figures on “healthcare demand” – including hospital bed use and deaths – were twice as high as they should be.











						Coronavirus: UK will have Europe's worst death toll, says study
					

IHME analysis is disputed by scientists whose modelling is relied on by UK government




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yes '80% too low' to me suggested that the reported figures were only 20% of the real totals, which was an alarming prospect.
> 
> And if the discrepancy is caused largely by people dying at home and not in hospital, how many of those deaths could have been prevented if hospital capacity and testing and monitoring of patients were at the level they should have been? So far the narrative is still very much 'the NHS is coping' but I fear the true story, or as much of it as ever gets heard, will be very different.
> 
> I really really hope people end up on trial for their willfull sabotage of the NHS. Hunt and Lansley first off.



This particular discrepancy is not actually about deaths that didnt happen in hospital. The numbers shown by that graph are both for hospital deaths. Its just one shows them on the day they were reported, and one shows them on the day they actually died. Thats also why that graph ends in March, because the blue ones, which are the corrected ones, the actual date of death, lag behind due to reporting delays so the data for April isnt that good yet, it would spoil the graph.


----------



## bimble (Apr 7, 2020)

zahir said:


> Coronavirus: UK will have Europe's worst death toll, says study
> 
> 
> IHME analysis is disputed by scientists whose modelling is relied on by UK government
> ...


Fuck. 
Is that based on good predicting ?


----------



## zahir (Apr 7, 2020)

I’ve no idea really. I was hoping elbows would give us his opinion on it.


----------



## Cid (Apr 7, 2020)

Did anyone else get a high-risk text?

I am not, as it happens, actually on the list of extremely vulnerable conditions they link to. It's a bit grim... essentially just says stay at home for 12 weeks, there is some support available.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

zahir said:


> I’ve no idea really. I was hoping elbows would give us his opinion on it.



The only way is know really is to test the models against the reality over time. Quite possibly they have got some things wrong, and as we have been discussing today with NHS England hospital deaths data, there can be a big difference between deaths reported on a day, and actual number of deaths in hospitals that day. If they have fed the former into their model, then I would expect it to be wrong. But maybe there are other things built into the model to correct for that, or maybe they are accidentally wrong about certain things in a way that compensates for other mistakes.

Anyway the model they are talking about is one that we can actually see online. I was looking at it in regards the USA the other day, but their UK version does indeed seem to be available.









						IHME | COVID-19 Projections
					

Explore forecasts of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospital resource use.




					covid19.healthdata.org
				




The large shaded areas reflect the range of uncertainty in the predictions, and I often talk about how a lot of these numbers we should be thinking of in terms of ranges rather than single numbers, because there is often a lot of uncertainty in science and modelling.

I havent actually studied their UK projections yet, I might end up thinking they are likely to be way off, but I think I used up all my brain already today so these thoughts will have to wait.


----------



## Supine (Apr 7, 2020)

bimble said:


> Fuck.
> Is that based on good predicting ?



Time will tell. Models do their best to make predictions but their results are based on inputted data which comes from incomplete scientific studies and assumptions. 

Anyone telling you 'facts' about how things will turn out are bullshitting.


----------



## Edie (Apr 7, 2020)

little_legs said:


> he should have said actual 80% higher



Oh my god that is frightening.

Wait is that cumulative deaths, or daily death counts on the x?


----------



## two sheds (Apr 7, 2020)

Cid said:


> Did anyone else get a high-risk text?
> 
> I am not, as it happens, actually on the list of extremely vulnerable conditions they link to. It's a bit grim... essentially just says stay at home for 12 weeks, there is some support available.



I got a government veg box delivery today  

I told him I felt a bit of a fraud because I'm perfectly ok at the moment so he said he could give it to someone else who needed it  I then felt a bit guilty because he'd phoned me to tell me he couldn't find my house so I gave him instructions and eventually he did find me at which point he took them back


----------



## keybored (Apr 7, 2020)

lefteri said:


> i presume this thing would be quite effective (filters are for aerosol paint) but i’m not sure i could take the strange looks
> 
> View attachment 205345


Not really (I use those sometimes). The air is filtered breathing in (through the cartridges on either side) but when you breathe out it goes through the exhaust (the red circle/grey membrane in the middle), which is unfiltered. If you sneezed, your germy droplets would simply be diffused in several sideways and up/down  directions rather than straight ahead.

Might offer you some protection (depending on choice of cartridge), but will offer no protection to your fellow humans if you are asymptomatic.

It's basically a "Fuck you" mask.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

Supine said:


> Time will tell. Models do their best to make predictions but their results are based on inputted data which comes from incomplete scientific studies and assumptions.
> 
> Anyone telling you 'facts' about how things will turn out are bullshitting.



Yes. I just checked this model we are talking about now, and its using uncorrected daily deaths data, so it means even less to me than it would have otherwise. Having just spent half the day gawping at the corrected data, I just cannot take the old graphs seriously any more.

But how the uncorrected and corrected data compare to the data that has been reported in other countries I cannot say, so its not like I even have a solid basis for comparing countries at the moment either. Can still spot broad, strong emerging trends once enough recent days of similar stuff have passed in countries, so I do feel like we have a broad overview of how things are going in places, but its so easy for the detail to be highly misleading t this stage.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

Edie said:


> Oh my god that is frightening.
> 
> Wait is that cumulative deaths, or daily death counts on the x?



Its cumulative. At the point that graph ends, around March 27th, the highest number of deaths in hospitals in England on single day was around 316, and a week earlier than that it was still under 100 per day. (although that might still change a little as late data gets added).

I have slightly more recent data, although it still doesnt show the April picture very well. But by the last day or two in March the number of daily hospital deaths in England had gone over 500. I dont know how high it is currently, 3-7 days for the data to improve enough that I'd have a better clue.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 7, 2020)

Edie said:


> Oh my god that is frightening.
> 
> Wait is that cumulative deaths, or daily death counts on the x?


It's still bad as it's a perfect exponential curve - each day's growth that little bit higher than the previous day's growth. But, to try to be positive about this, pretty much all of those deaths will be of people who contracted the virus before lockdown. We already knew that this was spreading exponentially at that point, so we should expect there to be an exponential growth in deaths right through that graph. It is merely confirming what we were already pretty sure about. 

It does mean that the late action taken here has and will cost lives - thousands of them - but data from the next two weeks after that graph, when it finally comes, will start to tell us at what point the exponential spread was halted and how effectively it was slowed. I think we can safely say that locking down one week earlier would have made a huge difference, but we can't say how much of a difference yet.

The UK's pitiful testing has left us in the dark on this. The absence of test-trace-isolate and failure to test NHS staff have surely been a massive folly.


----------



## lefteri (Apr 7, 2020)

keybored said:


> Not really (I use those sometimes). The air is filtered breathing in (through the cartridges on either side) but when you breathe out it goes through the exhaust (the red circle/grey membrane in the middle), which is unfiltered. If you sneezed, your germy droplets would simply be diffused in several sideways and up/down  directions rather than straight ahead.
> 
> Might offer you some protection (depending on choice of cartridge), but will offer no protection to your fellow humans if you are asymptomatic.
> 
> It's basically a "Fuck you" mask.



i’m sure a sneeze wouldn’t travel 8m going down and sideways through those small holes but i take your point - wouldn’t have the balls to wear it unless things got really desperate anyway


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 7, 2020)

Edie said:


> Oh my god that is frightening.
> 
> Wait is that cumulative deaths, or daily death counts on the x?



Remember that's only up to the 27th. We're falling away from exponential growth in the total number of deaths at present, assuming the reported figures have any bearing on reality.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Remember that's only up to the 27th. We're falling away from exponential growth in the total number of deaths at present, assuming the reported figures have any bearing on reality.


The only thing we can be sure of is that the reported figures are way out. It will be hard to tell when we've reached peak because the reported deaths will continue to go up for a while after peak as they fill in the gaps. Number of hospitalisations is the better guide, I think.


----------



## keybored (Apr 7, 2020)

lefteri said:


> i’m sure a sneeze wouldn’t travel 8m going down and sideways through those small holes


No it wouldn't. Just a couple of meters to the left, right and below then (just checked mine, there's no hole at the top of the exhaust).


----------



## xes (Apr 7, 2020)

bimble said:


> Fuck.
> Is that based on good predicting ?


If it's from J-IDEA then probably.


----------



## Cid (Apr 7, 2020)

keybored said:


> Not really (I use those sometimes). The air is filtered breathing in (through the cartridges on either side) but when you breathe out it goes through the exhaust (the red circle/grey membrane in the middle), which is unfiltered. If you sneezed, your germy droplets would simply be diffused in several sideways and up/down  directions rather than straight ahead.
> 
> Might offer you some protection (depending on choice of cartridge), but will offer no protection to your fellow humans if you are asymptomatic.
> 
> It's basically a "Fuck you" mask.



They also have a tendency to drip with extended use.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 7, 2020)

zahir said:


> Coronavirus: UK will have Europe's worst death toll, says study
> 
> 
> IHME analysis is disputed by scientists whose modelling is relied on by UK government
> ...


Hmmm. This makes no sense at all. Ok setting aside the UK stats, the rest of their figures don't make any sense.



> Spain is projected to have 19,209 deaths by the same date [4 August], Italy 20,300 and France 15,058.



Now even just taking the reported figures, which will go up for similar reasons why the UK's current figures will go up, Spain currently stands at 14,000 with 550 today, Italy at 17,000 with 600 today, France 10,000 with 1,400 today. Will they have just 6,000, 3,000 and 5,000 more deaths respectively on current trends?

These figures are obviously way out. 

Sorry, the more I look at that the more I'm scratching my head. The Guardian has basically just chosen to publish something that is obviously utter drivel. France will pass its '4 August' figure by the end of the week. I had to check the date - yes, they published that today. Fuck me.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 7, 2020)

Do the models assume that everyone will be exposed to the virus before a vaccine is found?


----------



## lefteri (Apr 7, 2020)

keybored said:


> No it wouldn't. Just a couple of meters to the left, right and below then (just checked mine, there's no hole at the top of the exhaust).


no, cos then it would steam up your specs, the reason I ditched disposable ones in favour of this one for work


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Do the models assume that everyone will be exposed to the virus before a vaccine is found?



Yes, but not that many of the models we are currently hearing about run off that far into the future anyway. And even if they do, they try to take account of the lockdowns etc that countries have done, so they are tending to focus on the upcoming period and this first peak in countries, and the subsequent decline we expect to see because of lockdown. The models that ran much further into the future were mostly used to estimate total possible deaths if countries did nothing or did much less than full lockdowns. Some were done to try to estimate what might happen over the medium term if we switch lockdown on and off at certain times, or if we only have one lockdown and then relaxed things totally, how a 2nd wave could emerge. The one we are currently talking about runs up to August but seems to be based on the idea that the deaths per day will fall to a trickle fairly quickly.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Hmmm. This makes no sense at all. Ok setting aside the UK stats, the rest of their figures don't make any sense.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've not had time to look, but you might be able to find people online moaning about how previous real data for the USA quickly required them to adjust their model, because the daily death rate in the USA exceeded their maximum predicted range on a particular day.

When criticising this model, we do have to consider the data they are feeding into it. For example the figures you are using for deaths in France that have already been reported, are not the same as theirs. Theirs lags behind and contains numbers each day that I am not familiar with, I dont know where they got them from. They might be better than my numbers for all I know. Or they might be worse. And Frances daily numbers were complicated recently by the arrival in the daily figures of large amounts of deaths in care homes being reported in very large batches. If they have some data that assigns deaths in France to the proper date, like I was going on about all day in regards the NHS England numbers, then I would have at least one reason to be confident about their stuff.

I'll keep looking at their model to see how much they have to correct it, not sure which countries I will pick to keep up with yet. Even if they are way off with the actual numbers, I will be interested to see if their dates of predicted peaks in various countries are ever close to the mark.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> I've not had time to look, but you might be able to find people online moaning about how previous real data for the USA quickly required them to adjust their model, because the daily death rate in the USA exceeded their maximum predicted range on a particular day.
> 
> When criticising this model, we do have to consider the data they are feeding into it. For example the figures you are using for deaths in France that have already been reported, are not the same as theirs. Theirs lags behind and contains numbers each day that I am not familiar with, I dont know where they got them from. They might be better than my numbers for all I know. Or they might be worse. And Frances daily numbers were complicated recently by the arrival in the daily figures of large amounts of deaths in care homes being reported in very large batches. If they have some data that assigns deaths in France to the proper date, like I was going on about all day in regards the NHS England numbers, then I would have at least one reason to be confident about their stuff.
> 
> I'll keep looking at their model to see how much they have to correct it, not sure which countries I will pick to keep up with yet. Even if they are way off with the actual numbers, I will be interested to see if their dates of predicted peaks in various countries are ever close to the mark.


Sure but even with all those caveats, they still are way off. Just those people who are seriously ill right now and are going to die will pretty much make up those totals. More than 6,000 in intensive care in Spain right now, for instance. Sadly they can't even be close to right. The reporter should have picked up on that before publishing it.

Even on the most optimistic ideas about where transmission is at now and the outcomes of those already ill, they're out, but if they were right and a sudden stop in deaths were about to happen in these countries, then why wouldn't it also happen in the UK post-peak? Clearly they can't think it will if the UK is going to end up with triple these numbers. It's just drivel.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sure but even with all those caveats, they still are way off. Just those people who are seriously ill right now and are going to die will pretty much make up those totals. More than 6,000 in intensive care in Spain right now, for instance. Sadly they can't even be close to right. The reporter should have picked up on that before publishing it.



I suppose I'm more interested in the shape and the timing their model gives than the exact totals, though obviously there is quite a relationship between those things. Certainly its not hard to see how they are coming up with such a 'low' figure when you see the shape of their prediction for Spain. And at least I recognise the daily figures they've put into the Spain one. And me being interested in it doesnt mean I think it will turn out to be right, but the shape does interest me.

Since this is the UK thread I will post their UK and the Spanish one rather than just the Spanish one that I was talking about. But I havent even really given the UK one any thought yet.

UK first:



Spain:


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 7, 2020)

Deaths down to 0 or so by earlyish June in both UK and Spain??

And that IMHE modelling is supposed to be a bad projection (possibly even an unrealisticly bad one)? 

I think I must be missing something very important. 
Apologies for any stupidity on my part ....


----------



## kalidarkone (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The WHO has advised people not to wear them. I can see it's a natural human reaction to want to wear them but the cynic in me suggests most people are wearing them to protect themselves, not others. They're not protecting themselves, in fact putting themselves more at risk.


I wear one when I go to the supermarket and it is totally to protect others cus of working in an acute hospital department. I get pretty cagey cus people get too close......I had to explain this to a staff member working on the scab tills.....I asked her to give me notice when she was getting close so I could distance myself (she sidled up to me and removed a can of butter beans from my bag cus I had 1 more then my permitted 3. I had a go at her for touching my stuff) I apologised for being harsh but honestly........


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 7, 2020)

Given that 9 London bus drivers have already died, I have zero faith in any of the models.


----------



## Supine (Apr 7, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Deaths down to 0 or so by earlyish June in both UK and Spain??
> 
> And that IMHE modelling is supposed to be a bad projection (possibly even an unrealisticly bad one)?
> 
> ...



No comment on the shape or timing but presumably it only goes to 0 if social distancing stays in force and followed. The reality is the rules will get reduced as nhs capacity becomes free to process more casualties. It's all about controlling the flow into hospital.


----------



## Supine (Apr 7, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Given that 9 London bus drivers have already died, I have zero faith in any of the models.



Have you seen a model specifically for bus drivers?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 7, 2020)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> Deaths down to 0 or so by earlyish June in both UK and Spain??
> And that IMHE modelling is supposed to be a bad projection (possibly even an unrealisticly bad one)?
> 
> I think I must be missing something very important.
> Apologies for any stupidity on my part ....





Supine said:


> No comment on the shape or timing but presumably it only goes to 0 if social distancing stays in force and followed. The reality is the rules will get reduced as nhs capacity becomes free to process more casualties. It's all about controlling the flow into hospital.



OK, thank you. 
I was actually assuming that full lockdown will end up being extended (and maybe made stricter?) for a good while longer, at least until the end of May -- and probably longer.
It does seem a bit weird though to model projections that suggest a fully successful -- 0 deaths by June!? -- isolation and distancing regime doesn't it?
But as I said, I expect I'm missing something vitally important

(Would be interested to hear elbows ' take on my question too, when he has time)


----------



## weltweit (Apr 7, 2020)

Three and a bit months Wuhan was in lockdown, about the same size as London, just emerging from lockdown now. (details in worldwide thread). Their lockdown was more stringent than London's is thus far. 

So, could be 3 months perhaps more in London.


----------



## mauvais (Apr 7, 2020)

Fuckin' ell. That total prediction is about the same as the UK civilian death toll in WWII.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> OK, thank you.
> I was actually assuming that full lockdown will end up being extended (and maybe made stricter?) for a good while longer, at least until the end of May -- and probably longer.
> It does seem a bit weird though to model projections that suggest a fully successful -- 0 deaths by June!? -- isolation and distancing regime doesn't it?
> But as I said, I expect I'm missing something vitally important
> ...



I've already said nearly everything I had to say about that model for now.

Two reasons why articles calling that model a bad projection:

There are parts to the model that show estimated number of hospital and ICU beds. Some of those might sounds rather high, I dont know, I've been completely ignoring that side of things so far from that model.

The shaded areas on their graphs represent the range of uncertainty of their models forecast. If journalists focus on the upper bounds of that range, the number will usually be rather high, and if they focus on the lower bounds the numbers may be rather low.


----------



## elbows (Apr 7, 2020)

And as for whether its got anything right about the timescales involved, thats why I said I was interested in the shape and timing of this model, and will be interested to see how it compares to the reality. The clues will likely come most obviously and quickest from the actual numbers we get from Italy and Spain, and UK hospital data. This next week isnt just likely to be a grim week, its also one which could give us more clues about the future than we've had before. But I dont know, maybe it will take a week longer than that, it depends what trends emerge and their pace.

Now, I have severely overloaded on data today so thats it from me on that model for some days.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 7, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I wear one when I go to the supermarket and it is totally to protect others cus of working in an acute hospital department. I get pretty cagey cus people get too close......I had to explain this to a staff member working on the scab tills.....I asked her to give me notice when she was getting close so I could distance myself (she sidled up to me and removed a can of butter beans from my bag cus I had 1 more then my permitted 3. I had a go at her for touching my stuff) I apologised for being harsh but honestly........



Yes, I'm sorry for the callousness of my original post there. I was just a bit frustrated because I already had enough on my plate trying to buy things without someone butting their beak in at me. 

You work in the hospitals so you'd know much more about this than me. I'm just going on what they say on TV. I'm also a bit sick of people increasingly swerving me because I'm on crutches as if having a broken ankle marks me out as a carrier! Before all this people certainly werent making room for me. This thing has sent the whole world insane.

What are the scab tills btw?


----------



## mx wcfc (Apr 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> What are the scab tills btw?


Those tills where you scan your purchases yourself.  They put people out of work.


----------



## Annonymouse1 (Apr 7, 2020)

Why the fuck are we prioritising tests when the majority of the population is left unable to be tested spreading the shit and the deterioration comes around 8-10 days into the infection so we have to isolate then wait until we’re nearly fucking dead before they’ll admit us and test us uk is bullshit


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 7, 2020)

Annonymouse1 said:


> *Why the fuck are we prioritising tests* when the majority of the population is left unable to be tested spreading the shit and the deterioration comes around 8-10 days into the infection so we have to isolate then wait until we’re nearly fucking dead before they’ll admit us and test us uk is bullshit



I'm not convinced that "we" are ....


----------



## Annonymouse1 (Apr 7, 2020)

We 


William of Walworth said:


> I'm not convinced that "we" are ....


we as in the uk the pregnant woman who’s just died could of been tested earlier yet only front lines workers can be tested or people after 10 days of being infected or rich cunts


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 7, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Given that 9 London bus drivers have already died, I have zero faith in any of the models.



I find this odd. Of all inside essential workers i'd have thought bus drivers were fairly well protected behind a screen and most buses I see going past on my busy bus route have 0 1 2 maybe 3 people at most on them.  

I wonder then how many shop workers are affected.  I would expect it to be many thousands with hundreds of deaths.  I havent seen anything about it.


----------



## zahir (Apr 8, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I wonder then how many shop workers are affected.  I would expect it to be many thousands with hundreds of deaths.  I havent seen anything about it.


I just saw this report from the US. I wouldn’t expect things to be much different here.



			https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/06/supermarket-workers-deaths-coronavirus-/


----------



## Petcha (Apr 8, 2020)

This is an absolutely stunning piece about this whole shitstorm we find ourselves in and the repercussions on the global psyche









						'The impossible has already happened': what coronavirus can teach us about hope
					

The long read: In the midst of fear and isolation, we are learning that profound, positive change is possible




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 8, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I find this odd.


Quite. Maybe some of the assumptions about transmission or viral load are wrong.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 8, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I find this odd. Of all inside essential workers i'd have thought bus drivers were fairly well protected behind a screen and most buses I see going past on my busy bus route have 0 1 2 maybe 3 people at most on them.
> 
> I wonder then how many shop workers are affected.  I would expect it to be many thousands with hundreds of deaths.  I havent seen anything about it.


The explanation is that they contracted the virus before the lockdown. Most of the people dying at the moment will have done so. tbh I hate to think how many people caught it on the Tube pre-lockdown.

That's one of the most frustrating things at the moment - we can't know for sure how well the changes made two weeks ago have worked even now.

There's a very good interview with a South Korean doctor on the Science thread where he explains how the virus can be transmitted in closed environments via aerosols, but also, crucially, how it can survive for days on certain kinds of hard surfaces. People tapping in on the bus, then the driver touching that surface any time that day or even the day after could do it. Not like buses were ever being disinfected.

It did occur to me that they should just make the buses free at the moment to avoid any tapping in. Not like it would even cost much given how few people there are on them.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 8, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is an absolutely stunning piece about this whole shitstorm we find ourselves in and the repercussions on the global psyche
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's comforting to read but I feel it's way, way too early for these big think pieces. Editors cannot resist commissioning them because they are accustomed to the usual rapid fire news cycle where disasters are familiar within a few hours of them starting. With this pandemic the news cycle lasts for a year or two. These articles are like trying to review a rollercoaster when you're still on the first climb.  Too many people are subscribing to the notion that things are known and controlled. I would say we are still at the 'flailing around in chaos' stage. Nine London bus drivers dead already! We're stuck in a horror movie...but it's real.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 8, 2020)

I’ve not read this thread since yesterday. It was nice to have a break. I’ve skipped ahead so I may have missed some useful / important stuff.

Anyway, I wanted to add this new detail. I’m putting on this thread because it seems to get most traffic and I think it’s important.

Pink eye, conjunctivitis, is now recognised as an early symptom of COVID-19.

It’s not common, so not getting conjunctivitis does not mean you don’t have the virus.

But it’s common enough that it needs to be recognised as a possible symptom of the coronavirus.

The virus is definitely found in tears, and we can catch the virus by touching our eyes with contaminated hands.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 8, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> It's comforting to read but I feel it's way, way too early for these big think pieces. Editors cannot resist commissioning them because they are accustomed to the usual rapid fire news cycle where disasters are familiar within a few hours of them starting. With this pandemic the news cycle lasts for a year or two. These articles are like trying to review a rollercoaster when you're still on the first climb.  Too many people are subscribing to the notion that things are known and controlled. I would say we are still at the 'flailing around in chaos' stage. Nine London bus drivers dead already! We're stuck in a horror movie...but it's real.



I kinda agree but the writer here is probably the best placed person I can imagine to write about it at this point having written extensively about the effects of disasters on society.









						Rebecca Solnit - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




She's a truly wonderful writer.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> it can survive for days on certain kinds of hard surfaces.


How long for laptop keyboards? I've volunteered to fix them for people. Got 6 in my sitting room.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 8, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> The virus is definitely found in tears, and we can catch the virus by touching our eyes with contaminated hands.



That's actually really profound... maybe not in the way you meant it to be


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 8, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> How long for laptop keyboards? I've volunteered to fix them for people. Got 6 in my sitting room.


The example the doctor gave was of a table. He then compared that to soft surfaces such as clothes on which the virus could still survive for hours, but not days. A keyboard sounds to me more like a table than a jumper. It also survives much longer in the cold - if they're in a warm room that will help.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 8, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yes, I'm sorry for the callousness of my original post there. I was just a bit frustrated because I already had enough on my plate trying to buy things without someone butting their beak in at me.
> 
> You work in the hospitals so you'd know much more about this than me. I'm just going on what they say on TV. I'm also a bit sick of people increasingly swerving me because I'm on crutches as if having a broken ankle marks me out as a carrier! Before all this people certainly werent making room for me. This thing has sent the whole world insane.
> 
> What are the scab tills btw?




Maybe they’re swerving you because they think that being on crutches makes it tricky for you to swerve them. So they’re not shunning you, they’re trying to be helpful. 

We all have to assume that we’re all carrying the virus and capable of passing it on to each other.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 8, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> How long for laptop keyboards? I've volunteered to fix them for people. Got 6 in my sitting room.




That New England Journal of Medicine study that was being discussed about a week ago is still the only real study that’s been done.

It says 72 hours for plastic.



*How long does coronavirus live on objects?*
We know now, thanks to a study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine - that the coronavirus was still detectable on copper for up to four hours, on cardboard for up to 24 hours, and on plastic and steel for up to 72 hours.

Viruses generally live longer on non-porous surfaces such as metals and plastics, meaning phones and keyboards are particularly rife with germs.








						Coronavirus: How often should you clean your keyboard and mouse?
					

Coronavirus: The symptoms




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## Raheem (Apr 8, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Why do they keep describing this thing as 'indiscriminate'? Er, no shit.... Like it's supposed to read your CV before it kills you? 'Oh you went to Eton?? Well then - I'll move on to the next pleb'


It definitely descriminates between nurses and people who have people paid to go ahead of them opening doors and wiping surfaces.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Apr 8, 2020)

teqniq said:


> And the Telegraph is going with the blame the NHS for lockdown line this morning
> 
> View attachment 205168


In my inbox today:


----------



## Saul Goodman (Apr 8, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Ok, when can I have my mates over for a bbq? Like 5 people.


The first Tuesday in June. The coronavirus sent out a memo stating such. Did you not get it?


----------



## Saul Goodman (Apr 8, 2020)

bimble said:


> Fucks sake. Went to petrol station just now (for essential milk!) and this is stuck to all of the pumps.
> View attachment 204448
> 
> Bloke at the counter says that this past week people have been filling up and driving off in a way that he has never seen anything like it.
> ...


That's shocking, and I find it almost impossible to believe that rich people could be cunts...


----------



## DaveCinzano (Apr 8, 2020)

editor said:


> Dealers having to adapt
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> Yet street dealers know they cannot push prices too high, because lockdown is strangling the means by which many of the most prolific buyers of crack and heroin fund their habits: begging, shoplifting and sex work. Some drug workers I spoke to said drug users have become so desperate for drugs and cash *they have started robbing drug dealers*.



Coronar comin'


----------



## bimble (Apr 8, 2020)

Long but really good piece of writing here - examining why exactly the UK gov response was how it was. It is a really damning catalogue of errors and missed opportunities. In part because their advisors treated it as if it were the flu, for ages, and also took it as a baseline fact that people here just would not accept / abide by a strict lockdown.









						Special Report: Johnson listened to his scientists about coronavirus - but they were slow to sound the alarm
					

It was early spring when British scientists laid out the bald truth to their government. It was "highly likely," they said, that there was now "sustained transmission" of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom.




					uk.reuters.com


----------



## Callie (Apr 8, 2020)

Prof Karol Sikora on BBC news this morning saying the hold up with antibody testing is not enough sera to validated with? We've had >50k pos cases in UK alone and most labs will have saved serum from before Nov 2019 to use as neg controls. The tests are shit mate. They only cost a fiver, they only take 20 mins BUT THE TESTS DON'T WORK. who the fuck is this prick. Don't give him airspace he's dangerous. "Everyone can go to the park when we've determined that they're immune with the antibody test" FUCK OFF


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 8, 2020)

Callie said:


> Prof Karol Sikora on BBC news this morning saying the hold up with antibody testing is not enough sera to validated with? We've had >50k pos cases in UK alone and most labs will have saved serum from before Nov 2019 to use as neg controls. The tests are shit mate. They only cost a fiver, they only take 20 mins BUT THE TESTS DON'T WORK. who the fuck is this prick. Don't give him airspace he's dangerous. "Everyone can go to the park when we've determined that they're immune with the antibody test" FUCK OFF



It's always informative listening to experts on the telly until they get an expert in who is supposedly an expert in a field you know something about.


----------



## paddywac22 (Apr 8, 2020)

WHO - Dr Ryan says .. "we should go into the homes of people and take away the children". This is why I appreciate the Americans have Guns.



Spoiler: Shit video posted by a shithead


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 8, 2020)

Fuck off.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 8, 2020)

Rebel News hmmm....



> *Rebel News Network, Ltd.*,[1] stylized as _*Rebel News*_, and previously known as _The Rebel Media_, _The Rebel_ and _The Rebel News Network, Ltd._, is a Canadian far-right[7] political and social commentary media website. It was founded in February 2015 by former Sun News Network personalities Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley. It has been described as a "global platform" for the anti-Muslim ideology known as counter-jihad.[8][9][10]....











						Rebel News - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## bimble (Apr 8, 2020)

Yeah this is too much he has to go now. Please report him. The 'wuhan flu is a globalist commie conspiracy' vids is not what we need here.


----------



## miss direct (Apr 8, 2020)

Here in Turkey people are restricted to the city/region they are in. Road blocks have been set up at county borders and only those with permission and official papers are allowed to enter. I can’t understand why the UK isn’t doing something similar considering it’s Easter week.


----------



## bimble (Apr 8, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Here in Turkey people are restricted to the city/region they are in. Road blocks have been set up at county borders and only those with permission and official papers are allowed to enter. I can’t understand why the UK isn’t doing something similar considering it’s Easter week.


I don't know but from that article above it appears that some of the decision making was based on an assumption inside government that the populance here just 'would not tolerate' severe restrictions on their freedom of movement. Maybe also a matter of personel - a very quick google suggests the army in Turkey is ten times bigger than in uk?


----------



## kebabking (Apr 8, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Here in Turkey people are restricted to the city/region they are in. Road blocks have been set up at county borders and only those with permission and official papers are allowed to enter. I can’t understand why the UK isn’t doing something similar considering it’s Easter week.



Resources, culture, effectiveness and public psychology.

Firstly, there simply aren't anything like enough police/army/traffic wardens to actually police such a policy.

Secondly - and I don't think this is a bad thing - even half-wits and loons like Derbyshire Constabulary would quail at the idea. It's fundamentally against our political culture, you can argue about it's _necessity, _but you'd struggle - I think - to argue that it's a good thing in itself.

Thirdly, the existing restrictions are surprisingly effective at massively reducing person-person contact from its normal baseline, and despite yammering on Facebook, they are overwhelmingly being observed - some big hand/small map announcement probably wouldn't have any noticeable effect.

Fourthly, the government is hugely wary of measures that the population know that the government can't possibly enforce - that if the government announced some huge, infrastructure intensive scheme, and the public then saw endless pictures of other people flaunting that ban/scheme, the public would then start to ignore all the other restrictions which are undoubtedly more effective.

There's also the significant issue of media freedom - you'd have to ask whether if there was defiance of the travel ban in Turkey, it would be reported, or if there was some _enthusiastic _policing of it, that would be reported either...


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> These sorts of masks are fast becoming the new normal in countries that are planning ways to slightly relax their lockdowns.
> 
> The UK seems especially resistant to the idea. I will be interested to see whether this attitude persists.


Sorry because I can’t be bothered trawling through pages- does wearing a mask- say if you’re an old person and need to just go to the shop- inside that closed space provide any protection at all if just used for that trip? That’s generally who I have seen wearing masks in shops and I can’t see it would do any harm? 

I had gloves on in Lidl’s the other day. Put shopping in car took them off before getting in drivers seat. At home, put on another pair to put shopping away(box in car) , removed, washed hands. Not great but I thought it was better than the opportunities to wash hands between the Lidl’s carpark and my house- 0.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 8, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Sorry because I can’t be bothered trawling through pages- does wearing a mask- say if you’re an old person and need to just go to the shop- inside that closed space provide any protection at all if just used for that trip? That’s generally who I have seen wearing masks in shops and I can’t see it would do any harm?
> 
> I had gloves on in Lidl’s the other day. Put shopping in car took them off before getting in drivers seat. At home, put on another pair to put shopping away(box in car) , removed, washed hands. Not great but I thought it was better than the opportunities to wash hands between the Lidl’s carpark and my house- 0.



If you're wearing one it should be for a short period of time and a specific purpose, ie going to the shop, and then immediately disposed of. Gloves are probably just a good way to transfer nasties onto 'clean' hands and other surfaces.


----------



## zahir (Apr 8, 2020)

bimble said:


> Long but really good piece of writing here - examining why exactly the UK gov response was how it was. It is a really damning catalogue of errors and missed opportunities. In part because their advisors treated it as if it were the flu, for ages, and also took it as a baseline fact that people here just would not accept / abide by a strict lockdown.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Some comments on that report.




__





						EU Referendum
					






					eureferendum.com


----------



## Cid (Apr 8, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Sorry because I can’t be bothered trawling through pages- does wearing a mask- say if you’re an old person and need to just go to the shop- inside that closed space provide any protection at all if just used for that trip? That’s generally who I have seen wearing masks in shops and I can’t see it would do any harm?
> 
> I had gloves on in Lidl’s the other day. Put shopping in car took them off before getting in drivers seat. At home, put on another pair to put shopping away(box in car) , removed, washed hands. Not great but I thought it was better than the opportunities to wash hands between the Lidl’s carpark and my house- 0.



The general line on masks is that non-n95 ones provide no personal protection, but do limit transmission from an infected person wearing one somewhat. N95 ones require proper training in how to use ppe to be effective and should generally only be used by medical professionals while there’s limited supply. Particularly bad practice with masks (fidgeting, not covering the full face, not properly fitting with the nose clip, moving it to speak etc) may be worse than useless. May also give a false sense of security.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> If you're wearing one it should be for a short period of time and a specific purpose, ie going to the shop, and then immediately disposed of. Gloves are probably just a good way to transfer nasties onto 'clean' hands and other surfaces.


Yeah, I know how to take gloves off without touching them, so I thought possibly the oft used steering wheel might be safe. I didn’t touch my face or anything either in the shop. However, my son who wanted to use gloves as well, did everything wrong. This was quite amusing. It was on his face, up his nose, he instantly grabbed the other glove with his ungloved hand upon removal....


----------



## bimble (Apr 8, 2020)

Re masks, the checkout staff in the supermarket yesterday were all wearing things like this, sort of full face visor type screens. Is that a thing people are seeing around more generally?


----------



## DotCommunist (Apr 8, 2020)

the shops round here have masked up workers and plastic shields in front of the desk where you pay. 
No visors spotted as yet, but then you'll appreciate that I'm limited in my investigatory powers what with a lockdown going on.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 8, 2020)

DotCommunist said:


> the shops round here have masked up workers and plastic shields in front of the desk where you pay.
> No visors spotted as yet, but then you'll appreciate that I'm limited in my investigatory powers what with a lockdown going on.


IS THIS NOT KEYWORK


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 8, 2020)

Ooh yeah,visors on some Lidl’s staff.

This is Orkney, back to you London.


ETA: I had to think there to separate memory from the weird dreams I’m having. No joke.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 8, 2020)

Tesco at the weekend, the girl didn't even have a mask, just gloves but there was a plastic screen separating her and the customers.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Tesco at the weekend, the girl didn't even have a mask, just gloves but there was a plastic screen separating her and the customers.


No plastics screens have made it up to the chain stores here at all, just lines that are impossible not to cross when paying etc. The local shops and pharmacy though have a 2 or 1 customer only policy, garages and pharmacy are entirely shut so customers can only come in the door way- most had this in place two weeks ago.


----------



## belboid (Apr 8, 2020)

My tesco is all screened up, no gloves on anyone tho.  They've just introduced one way aisles as well, tho no one notices until they're at least half way round and the staff dont mention it at all


----------



## 2hats (Apr 8, 2020)

2hats said:


> Reducing onward transmission is the whole point of the exercise.


I just noticed this (loathe as I am to link to this twitter account, but the points about masks made by Openshaw are relevant):


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 8, 2020)

2hats said:


> I just noticed this (loathe as I am to link to this twitter account, but the points about masks made by Openshaw are relevant):




Im not sure the correlation is relevant. There could be numerous common factors between these countries, from genetics to experience with SARS. Also note the high mask wearing in HK yet thr low mask wearing in Singapore etc.


----------



## Boudicca (Apr 8, 2020)

I think the visors make a lot of sense for till workers.  Offers some protection and hopefully more comfortable for all day wearing.  I see schools and other 3D printer owners are making them.

My local Tesco has a screen up, but it's not in line with the till and not where the customers stand and pay.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 8, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Im not sure the correlation is relevant. There could be numerous common factors between these countries, from genetics to experience with SARS. Also note the high mask wearing in HK yet thr low mask wearing in Singapore etc.


Yeah, and there are a lot of contradictory opinions out there. Some of the more consistent opinions relate to the proper wearing of masks and the nullifying of their benefit to you if you don't use them correctly, while even a badly worn mask may protect others from you somewhat by intercepting at least some of your breath. Singapore is currrently reversing its advice, but the general thrust of its previous advice seemed about right to me - unless you're going to follow very strict procedures, don't think of a mask when you're out and about as protecting you from others, but rather as protecting others from you.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 8, 2020)

2hats said:


> I just noticed this (loathe as I am to link to this twitter account, but the points about masks made by Openshaw are relevant):



Watching the video, all makes sense to me. I’m wondering about the dose of the virus too, does this determine how severe your symptoms are? I think the lack of availability is the biggest problem really.... if it wasn’t, arguments like “only professionals can use them properly” wouldn’t hold water if these guidelines were widely available. Lower skilled workers will have to use them too, myself included- when we get them, if we get them


----------



## editor (Apr 8, 2020)

They came out in their ones


----------



## weepiper (Apr 8, 2020)

Pretty grim graph from the NRS figures released today. Nicola Sturgeon has been at pains in every press conference I've watched to say the figures they're announcing every day are lower than the true figures because of the way deaths are registered but this is stark.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 8, 2020)

belboid said:


> My tesco is all screened up, no gloves on anyone tho.  They've just introduced one way aisles as well, tho no one notices until they're at least half way round and the staff dont mention it at all



I find that touch screens don't react when I'm wearing gloves. Might that be why checkout staff aren't wearing them?


----------



## elbows (Apr 8, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Pretty grim graph from the NRS figures released today. Nicola Sturgeon has been at pains in every press conference I've watched to say the figures they're announcing every day are lower than the true figures because of the way deaths are registered but this is stark.



Thanks for the heads up about that.









						Coronavirus: New figures suggest higher death toll
					

New figures suggest that 354 deaths have been linked to coronavirus in Scotland since the outbreak began.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 8, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I find that touch screens don't react when I'm wearing gloves. Might that be why checkout staff aren't wearing them?


You need special ones with fingertip conductive surfaces.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 8, 2020)

Public Health England figures seem to be very slow updating.


----------



## elbows (Apr 8, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Public Health England figures seem to be very slow updating.



Can you expand on what you mean exactly?


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thanks for the heads up about that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Helpful info re where I live,  there’s been a  couple of  deaths in my unit we weren’t sure about so this confirms they didn’t have it.


----------



## belboid (Apr 8, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I find that touch screens don't react when I'm wearing gloves. Might that be why checkout staff aren't wearing them?


aah, v possible!


----------



## trashpony (Apr 8, 2020)

My disposable gloves work with a touch screen but they're useless if you have to do anything fiddly


----------



## treelover (Apr 8, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> Those tills where you scan your purchases yourself.  They put people out of work.



never use them, have to chide my carers as well for using them.


----------



## belboid (Apr 8, 2020)

are they still scab tills if you steal more than you pay for though?


----------



## bimble (Apr 8, 2020)

oh. Police and councils all over  are encouraging us to report on our neighbours.   
Probably mostly being done to reduce the amount of arseholes phoning 999 to because the woman across the road has gone to the shop again. 
eg)








						Breach of coronavirus (Covid-19) measures
					

Report a breach of Coronavirus (Covid-19) rules.




					www.met.police.uk
				











						Report a breach of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Restrictions | West Yorkshire Police
					






					www.westyorkshire.police.uk
				











						Report a breach of coronavirus (COVID-19) safety guidance | Lambeth Council
					






					www.lambeth.gov.uk


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Can you expand on what you mean exactly?


Their site shows yesterday's 0900 figures it's 30 hours on from that.


----------



## mauvais (Apr 8, 2020)

editor said:


> They came out in their ones


John Bercow's let himself go, hasn't he.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 8, 2020)

I think today's figure is 896, FWIW.


----------



## elbows (Apr 8, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Their site shows yesterday's 0900 figures it's 30 hours on from that.



The dashboard? I dont use it. Depending on which figures you want, there is usually not much point looking anywhere till 2pm.

A bit more on the corrected hospital data for england, comparing yesterday to today.

So yesterday the corrected data gave this:


Now with the deaths that have been reported and added to the data today, it looks like this:


Because the deaths in England that were announced today were actually distributed across time like this:


So a similar story to yesterdays update really - the deaths announced on a day are actually a fraction of the deaths that happened the day previously, lots of deaths from the several days prior to that, and still a small quantity of much earlier deaths, in this case including a few additional hospital deaths as far back as March 4th-6th.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 8, 2020)

Thank you elbows for all your work sorting through this and answering so many questions, it is much appreciated.

Fwiw I've abandoned traditional news sources and only use U75 to keep informed.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 8, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I think today's figure is 896, FWIW.


I've barely followed the stuff on the different ways Corvid deaths are counted, the non-inclusion of care home deaths etc. However, in broad brush strokes does this mean we can say over/well over 1000 people a day have been dying from the virus all in for the last week or 10 days? And maybe even more if we include those with the virus but getting something else as cause of death on the death certificate?

Edit: I really should read the stuff that's even on this page, from elbows.   But still the question stands, are we able to make a 'valid generalisation' as to how many might be dying each day?


----------



## elbows (Apr 8, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I've barely followed the stuff on the different ways Corvid deaths are counted, the non-inclusion of care home deaths etc. However, in broad brush strokes does this mean we can say over/well over 1000 people a day have been dying from the virus all in for the last week or 10 days? And maybe even more if we include those with the virus but getting something else as cause of death on the death certificate?
> 
> Edit: I really should read the stuff that's even on this page, from elbows.   But still the question stands, are we able to make a 'valid generalisation' as to how many might be dying each day?



The ONS data lags even further behind than the hospital data, which is why I've only focussed on the hospital data so far. I need at least one more week before the ONS stuff will begin to be ripe enough to have a guesstimate, and it will still be firmly stuck in the past rather than the current rate. Although I will look at it later just in case I can make something of what is already available.

As my graphs show, for English hospital deaths I do not yet have the data to say that we have reached 600 deaths per day. But over the coming days I wont be surprised if further data pushes some days rate over 600. But that is only England, I havent been able to do exactly the same thing for Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland yet. And as I said, I dont have a guesstimate for community deaths in mind.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> The ONS data lags even further behind than the hospital data, which is why I've only focussed on the hospital data so far. I need at least one more week before the ONS stuff will begin to be ripe enough to have a guesstimate, and it will still be firmly stuck in the past rather than the current rate. Although I will look at it later just in case I can make something of what is already available.
> 
> As my graphs show, for English hospital deaths I do not yet have the data to say that we have reached 600 deaths per day. But over the coming days I wont be surprised if further data pushes some days rate over 600. But that is only England, I havent been able to do exactly the same thing for Wales or Scotland or Northern Ireland yet. And as I said, I dont have a guesstimate for community deaths in mind.


Ta, appreciated. Part of my interest is just a kind of 'how should we be thinking about it', but its also a before and after effect.  Before the outbreak it would have been staggering to think that perhaps 20,000 people might die, particularly at the point where johnson started off singing happy birthday and doing just about zilch in terms of testing and contact tracing. We're now in the middle of it and there's relatively little sign that there's any widespread criticism of the government, though that's understandable as people have yet to really focus on the issue of blame and information is still rather fragmented. Also of course people are more worried about sorting their shop for the week or symptoms that a relative might have. But afterwards there will be a battle for the narrative. That won't be defined by the figures but the figures will be an important part of it.


----------



## Smangus (Apr 8, 2020)

There will be a massive political reckoning after this I think when people have had time to recover and think.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 8, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Ta, appreciated. Part of my interest is just a kind of 'how should we be thinking about it', but its also a before and after effect.  Before the outbreak it would have been staggering to think that perhaps 20,000 people might die, particularly at the point where johnson started off singing happy birthday and doing just about zilch in terms of testing and contact tracing. We're now in the middle of it and there's relatively little sign that there's any widespread criticism of the government, though that's understandable as people have yet to really focus on the issue of blame and information is still rather fragmented. Also of course people are more worried about sorting their shop for the week or symptoms that a relative might have. But afterwards there will be a battle for the narrative. That won't be defined by the figures but the figures will be an important part of it.


tbh 'about the same as Italy' doesn't even feel like a bad result from where we were. Elbows' stats are consistent with that. Three weeks ago, as we tracked Italy day-for-day, I was struggling to think of reasons why we might not continue to track them. Still am.

By the end of this, it is likely that there will be a very stark compare and contrast between the UK (and others) and the likes of Germany, Austria and even Switzerland. Problem there may be that the UK won't be the only 'Italy' by a long chalk. The reckoning should be that the UK had two weeks on Italy and still did as badly. But that will be the reckoning in a lot of places.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh 'about the same as Italy' doesn't even feel like a bad result from where we were. Elbows' stats are consistent with that. Three weeks ago, as we tracked Italy day-for-day, I was struggling to think of reasons why we might not continue to track them. Still am.
> 
> By the end of this, it is likely that there will be a very stark compare and contrast between the UK (and others) and the likes of Germany, Austria and even Switzerland. Problem there may be that the UK won't be the only 'Italy' by a long chalk. The reckoning should be that the UK had two weeks on Italy and still did as badly. But that will be the reckoning in a lot of places.


 Absolutely the underlined bit. But somehow I don't see this playing out as mass street protests in 6 months, much more the way Tony Blair's reputation slowly ebbed away over several mealy mouthed reports over several years. Maybe even attempts to bring legal actions against johnson (if he survives) by groups of bereaved relatives, equally like the Iraq war and equally unlikely to succeed.


----------



## andysays (Apr 8, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I’ve not read this thread since yesterday. It was nice to have a break. I’ve skipped ahead so I may have missed some useful / important stuff.
> 
> Anyway, I wanted to add this new detail. I’m putting on this thread because it seems to get most traffic and I think it’s important.
> 
> ...


If you're going to post stuff like this, could you please say what your source for the information is, and if possible provide a link.

Cheers


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 8, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Absolutely the underlined bit. But somehow I don't see this playing out as mass street protests in 6 months, much more the way Tony Blair's reputation slowly ebbed away over several mealy mouthed reports over several years. Maybe even attempts to bring legal actions against johnson (if he survives) by groups of bereaved relatives, equally like the Iraq war and equally unlikely to succeed.


Yep. Certain people will be demonised as cover for others more culpable. Dominic Cummings is the obvious one who'll be thrown under the bus, but he didn't make a single decision. I suspect you're right and that the actual decision-makers will get away with it.


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 8, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Absolutely the underlined bit. But somehow I don't see this playing out as mass street protests in 6 months, much more the way Tony Blair's reputation slowly ebbed away over several mealy mouthed reports over several years. Maybe even attempts to bring legal actions against johnson (if he survives) by groups of bereaved relatives, equally like the Iraq war and equally unlikely to succeed.


speaking of reports, whatever happened to the reports about russian interference in uk politics and boris johnson taking his american friend on all those junkets?


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 8, 2020)

andysays said:


> If you're going to post stuff like this, could you please say what your source for the information is, and if possible provide a link.
> 
> Cheers


this from 19 march (A joint statement from The Royal College of Ophthalmologists and College of Optometrists) Viral conjunctivitis and COVID-19


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 8, 2020)

andysays said:


> If you're going to post stuff like this, could you please say what your source for the information is, and if possible provide a link.
> 
> Cheers




Just do a google search. It’s all over the place.






__





						Viral conjunctivitis and COVID-19 – a joint statement from The Royal College of Ophthalmologists and College of Optometrists - The Royal College of Ophthalmologists
					

Recent reports have suggested that COVID-19 may cause conjunctivitis, and it is known that viral particles can be found in tears, which has caused some concern amongst eye health professionals.




					www.rcophth.ac.uk
				












						Pence’s Red Eye Raises COVID Concerns
					

The possibility that Pence has pinkeye is then more significant given the coronavirus outbreak now hitting the White House.




					www.webmd.com
				












						Characteristics of Ocular Findings of Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Hubei Province, China
					

This case series investigates the ocular manifestations and viral prevalence in the conjunctiva of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).




					jamanetwork.com
				













						Pink eye may be an overlooked symptom of COVID-19
					

Pink eye, or conjunctivitis, and other abnormal eye conditions could be a less common symptom of COVID-19 and also a possible source of transmission, according to several recent studies.




					www.ctvnews.ca
				





Etc


ETA
Mation
MrCurry 

Info re: conjunctivitis


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 8, 2020)

bimble said:


> oh. Police and councils all over  are encouraging us to report on our neighbours.
> Probably mostly being done to reduce the amount of arseholes phoning 999 to because the woman across the road has gone to the shop again.
> eg)
> 
> ...



If our city council isn't aware that it's got dozens of people still at work building the new library/bus station (and what an inspired combination of things that is) in the middle of town, I doubt snitching is going to help.


----------



## andysays (Apr 8, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Just do a google search. It’s all over the place.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's a long standing and generally accepted convention on Urban that people making statements like



> I wanted to add this new detail. I’m putting on this thread because it seems to get most traffic and I think it’s important.
> 
> Pink eye, conjunctivitis, is now recognised as an early symptom of COVID-19.


should back those statements up with a source and where possible a link. It's a matter of courtesy, when introducing new information into the thread, to say where you got that information from.

I'm not saying this because I didn't believe you, or because I want to have a go at you, but because I think this convention is one we should stick to.


----------



## lefteri (Apr 8, 2020)

just had to switch off that platitudinous load of tripe sunak was spouting

he really is vile, even more of a tory blair than cameron, probably a shoe-in for next tory leader


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 8, 2020)

lefteri said:


> just had to switch off that platitudinous load of tripe sunak was spouting
> 
> he really is vile, even more of a tory blair than cameron, probably a shoe-in for next tory leader



But he can read a prepared statement without shitting himself from the strain, and can even do a passable job of looking sad-yet-resolute when announcing 936 deaths. Dangerous.


----------



## lefteri (Apr 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> But he can read a prepared statement without shitting himself from the strain, and can even do a passable job of looking sad-yet-resolute when announcing 936 deaths. Dangerous.



exactly, he’s dangerously slick


----------



## Supine (Apr 8, 2020)

I needed to show my key worker letter to stay in a hotel tonight. Council and Police are now sniffing around to ensure no leisure guests are staying.


----------



## elbows (Apr 8, 2020)

I've been messing around with data again. I've already posted the official slides of the hospitalised and critical care numbers from the 10 downing street press conference, but here are a couple of my own graphs of those same numbers.

People in hospital beds with Covid-19 (I dont have any Northern Ireland data for this one yet):



People in critical care with Covid-19:



Data from Slides and datasets to accompany coronavirus press conference: 8 April 2020


----------



## existentialist (Apr 8, 2020)

2hats said:


> I just noticed this (loathe as I am to link to this twitter account, but the points about masks made by Openshaw are relevant):



Sadness in his eyes #coronavirus


----------



## elbows (Apr 8, 2020)

I note that we are starting to be told more about care home deaths.









						Coronavirus: Fifteen die at care home during pandemic
					

The people were residents at a 69-bed care home in Luton.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				












						Coronavirus: Seven residents of east London care home die
					

Almost half of the people living at Hawthorn Green care home are displaying Covid-19 symptoms.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




And some from recent days in Scotland:









						Coronavirus: Eight dead after outbreak at Dumbarton care home
					

The residents who died at Castle View Care Home in Dumbarton were showing symptoms of coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				












						Coronavirus: Thirteen Glasgow care home residents die in one week
					

Staff at the Glasgow home said they were "closely monitoring" the health of other people in their care.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## belboid (Apr 8, 2020)

We got the second communication from our elected, Labour, council leader yesterday.  There was one three weeks ago saying the council was going to work very hard and no one would be evicted and lets all pull together.  Not a word since, until yesterday.

When she wanted everyone to know that she, and all of us, wish Boris well and a speedy recovery.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> I note that we are starting to be told more about care home deaths.



I was in a Zoom meeting earlier today, the solicitor mentioned one of his clients has died in a Brighton care home, together with another 5, can't find anything on the local rags' websites, but hardly surprising when so many local reporters have been furloughed.

A care home owner said she had been contacted by the hospital asking if she could take a couple of patients in, she said she would but only if they had been tested & are negative, so that was the end of that conversation.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 8, 2020)

And these care home deaths, awful, are they appearing in the national stats, I don't think so.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 8, 2020)

weltweit said:


> And these care home deaths, awful, are they appearing in the national stats, I don't think so.



Not in the daily figures from the NHS across the four nations.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 8, 2020)

Corporate manslaughter anyone?









						Bus driver killed by coronavirus 'told his pay would be cut if he missed work'
					

Emeka Nyack Ihenacho, 36, is one of at least 14 transport workers in London to die after catching coronavirus and his devastated family say all drivers should be given personal protective equipment such as masks




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 8, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Corporate manslaughter anyone?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



These cases are clearly very sad, but just because a small number of transport staff, out of thousands, have died, doesn't mean they caught it whilst working, they could have got infected anywhere.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 8, 2020)

True but it's the 'pay would be cut if he missed work' bit that I'm thinking of.


----------



## elbows (Apr 8, 2020)

Belgium has quite a large increase in deaths reported on a single day recently, so I went to look at whether their data was also available in refined form, where the deaths are allocated to their proper dates. It is available in graph form in their official report, so I am able to compare it to the england hospitals graphs I've been making.




So its the same sort of story really, due to reporting delays most of the deaths announced on a particular day are not actually for the previous day, and it takes a number of days until the data for those recent days comes in.

I know this is the UK thread but since my graphs from england are in this thread, and my main point is that we can probably make the same assumptions about other countries hospital deaths data when we are seeking to compare their to the UKs, I'm putting this here.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 8, 2020)

Highly unsurprisingly .....

UK Covid-19 lockdown "to be extended beyond next week"


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 8, 2020)

editor said:


> Dealers having to adapt
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fks sake - hope I don’t keep getting pulled over by the fuzz thinking I’m a smack dealer in disguise


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> These cases are clearly very sad, but just because a small number of transport staff, out of thousands, have died, doesn't mean they caught it whilst working, they could have got infected anywhere.


I dunno. 14 out of how many in London? 1,000 perhaps. I don't know how many people in London are transport staff, but it has to be significantly less than 1.5 per cent. And as they're workers and so under 70 and mostly under 60, they should be under-represented if anything, not over-represented.

However, those who have died of it to date probably caught it pre-lockdown when transport was packed. Very, very different now.

In fact, we're all less likely to have it now than we were two weeks ago, if we weren't ill then and we're still not ill. It's one of the weird things about this, that as the numbers in hospital and dying get worse and worse, we're all in our daily lives actually getting safer and safer. Not only less contact with people but less chance that anyone you do have contact with will be infected.

I can totally see how, after this has all sunk in at the end, we will be far more likely to respond like East Asia did this time at the next outbreak - knowing that the most dangerous period for all of us is right at the beginning when measures start to be taken, the very period when most of us here this time were really not that bothered.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 8, 2020)

This does not make an awful lot of sense, save for the airlines and their shareholders:


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 8, 2020)

In South Korea, everyone getting off a plane currently is tested and quarantined until the test comes back. Test positive, and they're off to hospital. And they're put into self-isolation for two weeks _if the test comes back negative_. At the very least, we could be doing the first half of that. Oh wait, no we don't have the testing capacity.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep. Certain people will be demonised as cover for others more culpable. Dominic Cummings is the obvious one who'll be thrown under the bus, but he didn't make a single decision. I suspect you're right and that the actual decision-makers will get away with it.


Expect Cummings will dump blame on Vallance. Witty's also front and centre. No wonder they looked so nervous at the presser the other day, especially Witty. Note that, while Vallance equivocated, Witty's begun to praise Germany's testing regime, presumably to put distance between him and Cummings' bagman.

While politicians mustn't escape blame, I'm far more interested to learn what went so disastrously wrong at the top of our medical and scientific establishments, how these "orthodoxies" were formed, and how they became so entrenched. Did anyone try to raise the alarm earlier? What responsibilities do institutions have for enabling these beliefs? And so on.

Governments come and go, and must be held to account for their choices: but if these smelly little orthodoxies aren't torn out our scientific and medical establishments root and branch, they'll fester, and this'll happen again.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> In South Korea, everyone getting off a plane currently is tested and quarantined until the test comes back. Test positive, and they're off to hospital. And they're put into self-isolation for two weeks _if the test comes back negative_. At the very least, we could be doing the first half of that. Oh wait, no we don't have the testing capacity.


All non-essential travel should be stopped at least until there's an international surveillance system capable of tracking Covid-19 cases, and anyone crossing borders should be quarantined for the necessary period, at least 14 days, perhaps longer. Our supposedly border-obsessed government has been lethally laissez faire.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 8, 2020)

Azrael said:


> All non-essential travel should be stopped at least until there's an international surveillance system capable of tracking Covid-19 cases, and anyone crossing borders should be quarantined for the necessary period, at least 14 days, perhaps longer. Our supposedly border-obsessed government has been lethally laissez faire.


A requirement of a fortnight's self-isolation would pretty much put paid to non-essential travel all on its own, I would think. 

I dunno if I would advocate that, though, as it only really makes sense as a measure if, like SK, you're actually in a position to realistically aim for zero new infections. But testing of everyone at borders is sensible - the heuristic to work with here at the moment has to be 'don't travel around any more than you need to' whether that travel involves crossing borders or not.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> A requirement of a fortnight's self-isolation would pretty much put paid to non-essential travel all on its own, I would think.
> 
> I dunno if I would advocate that, though, as it only really makes sense as a measure if, like SK, you're actually in a position to realistically aim for zero new infections. But testing of everyone at borders is sensible - the heuristic to work with here at the moment has to be 'don't travel around any more than you need to' whether that travel involves crossing borders or not.


We should at the very least aim for zero new infections, even if it's never achieved, and the virus keeps circulating at a low level. Until there's a vaccine, the old school public health approach of suppressing the virus by denying it hosts is the best hope we have.

Even when a vaccine arrives, rollout will take a while, so travel restrictions may well have to remain in place until the kind of herd immunity that doesn't come with a six figure bodycount can be achieved.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 8, 2020)

FT has a report about the latest thinking going on in government about lifting the lockdown. Schools back after Easter hols is one bit, thats been getting trailed for a few days now, and the other key idea is only young people under thirty being allowed back to work:

"
Separate work is being carried out on whether younger workers might be allowed back into the labour market before others. One of the ideas being studied in Whitehall is to remove restrictions initially on people based on age and living arrangements, drawing on what one Whitehall official called a “rather good” paper from economists at Warwick University. 

The paper, by Andrew Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee, suggests removing restrictions on 20 to 30 year olds who do not live with their parents, estimating this would release 4.2m people who would be unlikely to become seriously ill and are suffering disproportionately from the lockdown. 

Getting younger people back to work would be a boon for the economy “A young workforce release of this kind would lead to substantial economic and societal benefits without enormous health costs to the country,” the paper argues, although it envisages this would not be risk free for the young and could come at the cost of 630 premature deaths. 

Sounds really really stupid to me


----------



## Azrael (Apr 8, 2020)

Any easing of the lockdown before a comprehensive surveillance and mass testing system's in place would be idiotic. And that comes from someone who loathes the concept of a lockdown on general principle.

Encouragingly, Anthony Costello (ex-WHO) reports much behind the scenes work among public health experts to create this.

If only for the basest self-interest, don't expect government scientists to roll the dice a second time. What they conspired to do is getting out. If they've any hope of mitigating the personal consequences, they must now be seen to do all they can to save lives.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 9, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Any easing of the lockdown before a comprehensive surveillance and mass testing system's in place would be idiotic.


Yes and no. What I'm not confident about is where the easing will start and the priorities that will be given. There are many important things re, for instance, social services that have ground to a halt at the moment. They are what need to be prioritised because to be blunt, not getting them going also costs lives. It is again, like before lockdown, not primarily an economic calculation but a human one. Or it should be.


----------



## editor (Apr 9, 2020)

Stub out yer fags 



> Professor John Newton, Director of Health Improvement at Public Health England (PHE), said: ‘In light of this unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, there has never been a more important time to stop smoking. Not only for your own health but to protect those around you. It will also help alleviate the huge pressures on the NHS.’











						Smokers told to quit now as they are '14 times more at risk from coronavirus'
					

But the warning comes as one expert predicts an increase in ex-smokers relapsing.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 9, 2020)

Single care home sees 15 residents die in coronavirus crisis
					

The deaths at Castletroy Residential home in Luton, which has 69 beds for elderly people with nursing or personal care needs, were announced by Public Health England today.




					www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 9, 2020)

andysays said:


> It's a long standing and generally accepted convention on Urban that people making statements like
> 
> 
> should back those statements up with a source and where possible a link. It's a matter of courtesy, when introducing new information into the thread, to say where you got that information from.
> ...




You’re quite right. 

I was very busy today and posted in haste, both the information about conjunctivitis and my later reply with the links.

Apologies for being abrupt.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Stub out yer fags
> 
> 
> 
> ...


_looks down at half rolled spliff_


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 9, 2020)

Bong for Britain!


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 9, 2020)

Vape for Victory?


----------



## andysays (Apr 9, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> You’re quite right.
> 
> I was very busy today and posted in haste, both the information about conjunctivitis and my later reply with the links.
> 
> Apologies for being abrupt.


Apologies accepted.

And thanks for the info, which I hadn't seen anywhere until you posted it.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes and no. What I'm not confident about is where the easing will start and the priorities that will be given. There are many important things re, for instance, social services that have ground to a halt at the moment. They are what need to be prioritised because to be blunt, not getting them going also costs lives. It is again, like before lockdown, not primarily an economic calculation but a human one. Or it should be.


If it can be done safely, of course: I'm simply concerned about dropping it prematurely and landing up back where we started, which would not only have devastating health and psychological consequences, but would fuel those who've never given up on the herd immunity idea. That's why I'm constantly alert to anything that might create a backlash.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 9, 2020)

Haven't seen it on the thread, but reports yesterday (Grauniad) that Wales is unilaterally extending lockdown anyway.

We could end up with Les Mis style barricades if there's any great influx of holidaymakers  - the mood around here regarding lockdown-breakers swanning into towns and villages, and onto beaches, is pretty grim. Lots of reports to police, and here in Laugharne, there have been people going up to picnic parties, berating them, and telling them to fuck off home.

And growing anger at owners of holiday lets who have rented accommodation during lockdown...


----------



## bimble (Apr 9, 2020)

This says that the easter weekend coming will see more visible policing and enforcement as they expect an increasing minority of people to have 'lockdown fatigue' sounds like. 








						Police chiefs call on No 10 to tighten UK coronavirus lockdown
					

Easter weekend will be major test of compliance, say forces as they encourage public to report breaches




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Azrael (Apr 9, 2020)

People overwhelmingly support lockdown at the moment as deaths rise by the day and they view it as the only way to stay safe. Most dangerous time will be immediately after that cursed peak finally passes and people start to get demob happy. Unless there's a clear exit strategy laid out, can see compliance starting to break down.

European countries past their peak are already giving dates and clear plans. People can be patient if there's an end on the horizon: indefinite detention without release in sight is a different beast entirely.


----------



## andysays (Apr 9, 2020)

UK isn't yet past its peak, hasn't even reached it.

While I agree that there are issues around maintaining a lockdown with no end date in sight, it would be quite premature to try to set or even speculate about a date ATM


----------



## Azrael (Apr 9, 2020)

A fixed date, sure. But nothing wrong with laying out a provisional timetable for as soon as the peak has passed (emphasis on provisional), and timing aside, explaining clearly what your exit strategy is and what you're doing to get there.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 9, 2020)

Azrael said:


> A fixed date, sure. But nothing wrong with laying out a provisional timetable for as soon as the peak has passed (emphasis on provisional), and timing aside, explaining clearly what your exit strategy is and what you're doing to get there.



It's not until the peak has passed that it will be clear which aspects of the lockdown might be eased first. It would be very unhelpful to lay out anything provisional that would be subject to change - best to give a clear direction once the final decision has been made.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 9, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It's not until the peak has passed that it will be clear which aspects of the lockdown might be eased first. It would be very unhelpful to lay out anything provisional that would be subject to change - best to give a clear direction once the final decision has been made.


We can look to what other countries further along deem the lowest infection risks, but details aren't the biggest factor: it's about communicating the desired goal. There's still massive anxiety that the government will lurch back to herd immunity, managed via rolling lockdowns. I don't personally believe that's the plan, but I'm forced to infer. State clearly that's not the case, and a surveillance and suppression system based on testing and tracing will be implemented, and it'll be a weight off everyone's shoulders.


----------



## redsquirrel (Apr 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They buy quinoa, vegan bacon, and oat milk.


2 out of 3, damn


----------



## teqniq (Apr 9, 2020)

SleazyJet.











						UK Gov: Now is the time to protect people and invest in our future
					

Join us in demanding a sustainable economic recovery that works for *everyone*, and protects the planet for the long term.




					secure.greenpeace.org.uk


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Apr 9, 2020)

My prediction is that we will never see the levels of mass testing needed to make truly informed decisions about moving away from the current lockdown. Instead the UK government will rely on modelling with data available from other comparable economies which are ahead of the UK with regard to the progress of the virus. It will be sold to us on the basis that this:

is a sensible example of international co-operation - the virus respects no borders and neither will we in terms of the resources we draw on;
is playing to the UK's strengths - we are world leaders in the science of infection modelling;
it is the economically responsible thing to do - we need to get people back to work as soon as possible, paying their way, paying their taxes, paying for the NHS;
it is the best way to get things back to normal - these have been horrific days and weeks and we need to put them, and all that they entail, behind us as soon as we can.
I'll probably be proven wrong; I hope so. If I am I just hope the reality is rather better than my prediction and not a whole lot worse.

All the best - Louis MacNeice


----------



## weltweit (Apr 9, 2020)

Azrael said:


> People overwhelmingly support lockdown at the moment as deaths rise by the day and they view it as the only way to stay safe. Most dangerous time will be immediately after that cursed peak finally passes and people start to get demob happy. Unless there's a clear exit strategy laid out, can see compliance starting to break down.
> 
> European countries past their peak are already giving dates and clear plans. People can be patient if there's an end on the horizon: indefinite detention without release in sight is a different beast entirely.


Wuhan maintained its lockdown, a more stringent one than the UK has, for more than 3 months. I can't see UK coming out much before that either. Sorry .. [eta this 3 months is incorrect] ..


----------



## ska invita (Apr 9, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Wuhan maintained its lockdown, a more stringent one than the UK has, for more than 3 months. I can't see UK coming out much before that either. Sorry ..


and the notion lockdown being over there isnt true either...intercity travel allowed, some shops opening, but most people still at home, from what i read


----------



## teqniq (Apr 9, 2020)

Worth a watch, highlights the complete unpreparedness, the decline of the NHS, the need for heads to roll etc..


----------



## Azrael (Apr 9, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Wuhan maintained its lockdown, a more stringent one than the UK has, for more than 3 months. I can't see UK coming out much before that either. Sorry ..


I've been working on a two-three month minimum timescale myself, but who knows: if any circumstantial evidence that China's outbreak was bigger than Beijing claims turns out to be true, it may be possible to ease British restrictions earlier than China did. And of course China took a regional approach from the start: must all of the U.K. be treated uniformly? 

Alternatively, we may be delayed due to the woeful state of our testing and tracing infrastructure. Just saying that this is the plan, and that Whitehall's now dedicated to halting and reversing the virus' spread, would be a great step forward.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> and the notion lockdown being over there isnt true either...intercity travel allowed, some shops opening, but most people still at home, from what i read


Yes, people from non infected residential blocks are being allowed out, and people with a clean CR Health Code on their mobiles as I understand it but you are right, not everyone ..


----------



## Yossarian (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> and the notion lockdown being over there isnt true either...intercity travel allowed, some shops opening, but most people still at home, from what i read



Yep - doesn't sound as if intercity travel from Wuhan is a breeze either, people need to get a "green light" on a mandatory smartphone app that states they are in good health and have not been in recent contact with anybody who tested positive for the virus, apparently their neighourhood needs to have been declared virus-free before this can happen. And when travelers from Wuhan get to their destination, they are still being required to get tested for the virus and spend 14 days in quarantine, at least in some places.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 9, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I've been working on a two-three month minimum timescale myself, but who knows: if any circumstantial evidence that China's outbreak was bigger than Beijing claims turns out to be true, it may be possible to ease British restrictions earlier than China did. And of course China took a regional approach from the start: must all of the U.K. be treated uniformly?


Yes, personally I thought we might have taken a regional approach here also, but now the spread is such that this is now irrelevant. But perhaps on lifting restrictions it could be done regionally, I don't see why not, is there a political imperative to only do things nationally, perhaps some idea of national unity? 



Azrael said:


> Alternatively, we may be delayed due to the woeful state of our testing and tracing infrastructure. Just saying that this is the plan, and that Whitehall's now dedicated to halting and reversing the virus' spread, would be a great step forward.


It will certainly be interesting how many tests per day we do achieve at the end of the month!


----------



## ska invita (Apr 9, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> Yep - doesn't sound as if intercity travel from Wuhan is a breeze either, people need to get a "green light" on a mandatory smartphone app that states they are in good health and have not been in recent contact with anybody who tested positive for the virus, apparently their neighourhood needs to have been declared virus-free before this can happen. And when travelers from Wuhan get to their destination, they are still being required to get tested for the virus and spend 14 days in quarantine, at least in some places.


the technological and bureaucratic process for that is, I would expect, beyond the UK <and in all honesty I'm glad of that, fearful as I am of the introduction of any of the instruments of techno-totalitarianism. My paranoia aside Id be surprised if the UK government could get the necessary kit and processes up and running before a vaccine is created anyway


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 9, 2020)

Coronavirus: Passport Office staff told to go back to work
					

Staff say their lives are being put at risk because of demands they return to work next week.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 9, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Wuhan maintained its lockdown, a more stringent one than the UK has, for more than 3 months. I can't see UK coming out much before that either. Sorry ..



Listening to the R4 news last night talking about the easing of the lockdown there, it sounds like what they’re now permitted to do is what we’ve been doing the whole time. So they’re now allowed to go out for limited exercise, some of them are going to work, some are meeting in small groups for outdoor picnics.

Even if our comparatively modest lockdown measures have worked, I expect to see some bouncing in the figures that reflect stuff like that first weekend when the parks were so crowded.



And Belarus has a world of pain to look forward to in a week or so...









						Coronavirus: Belarus president refuses to cancel anything - and says vodka and saunas will ward off COVID-19
					

Professional football has ground to a halt around the world because of the coronavirus pandemic, with one notable exception.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

Coronavirus: Greater Manchester Police warning after 660 parties shut down
					

Greater Manchester Police says some house parties even featured bouncy castles, DJs or fireworks.



					www.bbc.com
				




660 parties broken up in one region in just one weekend.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 9, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Coronavirus: Greater Manchester Police warning after 660 parties shut down
> 
> 
> Greater Manchester Police says some house parties even featured bouncy castles, DJs or fireworks.
> ...


House parties i can imagine people thinking they could get away with...166 street parties in Manchester?  Seems really unlikely to me. Since when has Manchester become Rio?
Unless "street party" means drinking White Lightning on a bench


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> In South Korea, everyone getting off a plane currently is tested and quarantined until the test comes back. Test positive, and they're off to hospital. And they're put into self-isolation for two weeks _if the test comes back negative_. At the very least, we could be doing the first half of that. Oh wait, no we don't have the testing capacity.


Same in china. Even if we dont test we could quarantine.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

So the Aussies (50 deaths) and the Kiwis (1 death) managed to figure out how to stop this very quickly by observing what was happening in China, Italy and Spain.. While the brilliant medical minds here in the UK fucked around for weeks. In fact are still fucking around. They've got blood on their hands.









						Have Australia and New Zealand stopped Covid-19 in its tracks?
					

Southern hemisphere neighbours have developed different strategies but both are working – for now




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Anju (Apr 9, 2020)

Public schools clearly not teaching the meaning of the words we or together. 
MPs given an extra £10,000 to work from home


----------



## strung out (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> House parties i can imagine people thinking they could get away with...166 street parties in Manchester?  Seems really unlikely to me. Since when has Manchester become Rio?
> Unless "street party" means drinking White Lightning on a bench


Hopefully they were breaking up shit like this


----------



## ska invita (Apr 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So the Aussies (50 deaths) and the Kiwis (1 death) managed to figure out how to stop this very quickly by observing what was happening in China, Italy and Spain.. While the brilliant medical minds here in the UK fucked around for weeks. In fact are still fucking around. They've got blood on their hands.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Brilliant medical minds of the Tory cabinet you mean yes?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Medical minds of the Tory cabinet you mean yes?



Well yes. They are ultimately responsible for accepting the advice of these senior medical bods they keep wheeling out to the press conferences. Once the dust settles there has to be a reckoning.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Well yes. They are ultimately responsible for accepting the advice of these senior medical bods they keep wheeling out to the press conferences. Once the dust settles there has to be a reckoning.


As already discussed at length (to the point I can barely bring myself to type this) we don't know for a fact that this is how the dynamic has been: medical advice diligently followed by the government. Its a narrative that greatly diminishes the agency of the cabinet, and places the key blame on "senior medical bods". We do know that there was medical advice presented that both advised lockdown, and predicted catastrophic deaths and overwhelming of the NHS, and it was sidelined


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

As I say. There will have to be a serious reckoning. It's obviously nuanced. Of course the economic impact was taken into account for not locking down sooner, but I can see the rationale for that. We need an economy to recover which I assume was the cabinet's thinking. But someone, surely, who understood the science should have overruled this. As they apparently did downunder.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> House parties i can imagine people thinking they could get away with...166 street parties in Manchester?  Seems really unlikely to me. Since when has Manchester become Rio?
> Unless "street party" means drinking White Lightning on a bench



True. But White Lightning? Surely that's our generation. Do kids still drink that?

Manchester is alright but certainly not Rio, _cara._


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Coronavirus: Greater Manchester Police warning after 660 parties shut down
> 
> 
> Greater Manchester Police says some house parties even featured bouncy castles, DJs or fireworks.
> ...


As I said on the police thread, it isn't 660 parties broken up - it was 660 reports of parties. They don't give the number of actual parties broken up, so we can safely assume it's a much, much lower figure.


----------



## Supine (Apr 9, 2020)

Before you get to angry about UK policy we need to see if the peak demand on NHS services overwhelms it. If not the UK timing will have been well called - but it's too soon to determine. 

Maybe Oz/NZ can shut their countries off but they will still be getting  the majority of their population infected at some point. The current game is all about timings rather than containing which is impossible.


----------



## ruedas (Apr 9, 2020)

strung out said:


> Hopefully they were breaking up shit like this



Next door neighbour is a doctor and a paediatrician he has been at home playing his effing guitar since mid March, I wonder how many lives he has saved?


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> Before you get to angry about UK policy we need to see if the peak demand on NHS services overwhelms it. If not the UK timing will have been well called - but it's too soon to determine.



Yes, although that also has to be combined with the subject of whether we have left too many people at home who are then at risk of dying without overwhelming the NHS. Since this data lags more severely than the hospital deaths, we mostly have anecdotal evidence at this stage but that will eventually change (via the ONS data releases).

I need to severely reduce the amount of time I spend reading and posting here in the subject, for about the next 7-10 days. I havent managed to keep up with all the news and science for weeks anyway, and now that will get worse. I'll still post a little, but unless something big happens I might miss it.

In the meantime, if anyone wants to feel like they are a bit ahead in terms of european & uk responses and 'lockdown reviews', I highly recommend the latest ECDC rapid risk assessment for the pandemic, the 8th update of which came out yesterday. There are lots of clues in there and since the UK was largely sticking to these plans in the past, I would not be surprised if they still have far more relevance to the next UK steps than the press or government would ever acknowledge.



			https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19-rapid-risk-assessment-coronavirus-disease-2019-eighth-update-8-april-2020.pdf


----------



## editor (Apr 9, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Coronavirus: Greater Manchester Police warning after 660 parties shut down
> 
> 
> Greater Manchester Police says some house parties even featured bouncy castles, DJs or fireworks.
> ...


Are they fucking stupid or what?



> That included 494 house parties - some with DJs, fireworks and bouncy castles - and 166 street parties.


----------



## editor (Apr 9, 2020)

Never thought I'd be nodding my head in agreement with Emily Maitlis 









						Maitlis praised for 'extraordinary' opening to Newsnight
					

Coronavirus: the symptoms




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## prunus (Apr 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Are they fucking stupid or what?



Yes.


----------



## Taphoi (Apr 9, 2020)

There are some very illogical theories of an exit strategy. The most illogical and dangerous is that recovered Covid sufferers could be given certificates of immunity and go forth to rescue society. Firstly, this would create first and second class citizens and the same principle could be extended to using genetic testing to discriminate against those at heightened risk of other diseases, a profound threat to everyone who doesn't own a large chunk of a health insurance company. Secondly, it would incentivise people to catch the disease to become first class citizens. Thirdly, it cannot be done because reliable antibody testing is not available and is currently unlikely to be sufficiently proved on a short enough timescale. Fourthly, by the time you have identified a large enough number of immune people to be economically useful in recovery, you would be getting up towards 60% immunity above which the disease cannot spread and it is safe for everyone to come back out, i.e. this approach is not economically helpful. Fifthly, you would delay low risk groups catching mild cases and getting us towards the 60% immunity level, so you would perpetuate the duration of the crisis. The only sensible early way out is to release low risk people from lock-down as soon as possible and to allow 60% immunity to be approached. This should be facilitated by identifying high risk groups more accurately using the growing death statistics. In particular, it is obvious that the omission of people with a heavy smoking history from high risk groups is a terrible mistake, as witness the case of poor old Boris Johnson.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> As I said on the police thread, it isn't 660 parties broken up - it was 660 reports of parties. They don't give the number of actual parties broken up, so we can safely assume it's a much, much lower figure.


It gives the number of 494 parties broken up.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

Favelado said:


> It gives the number of 494 parties broken up.


it doesn't. It says

_There were 1,132 coronavirus-related breaches *reported* between Saturday and Tuesday, the force said.

That included 494 house parties - some with DJs, fireworks and bouncy castles - and 166 street parties._


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> it doesn't. It says
> 
> _There were 1,132 coronavirus-related breaches *reported* between Saturday and Tuesday, the force said.
> 
> That included 494 house parties - some with DJs, fireworks and bouncy castles - and 166 street parties._



I suppose they meant there were 1,132 reports of cornavirus-related breaches.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> it doesn't. It says
> 
> _There were 1,132 coronavirus-related breaches *reported* between Saturday and Tuesday, the force said.
> 
> That included 494 house parties - some with DJs, fireworks and bouncy castles - and 166 street parties._



In the BBC headline in your quote it says 494 house parties broken up. So it could be bad sub-editing but it does say that.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

The reporting is very bad, but read what the police actually say here. They've given the number of reported breaches, not the number of actual breaches.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> The reporting is very bad, but read what the police actually say here. They've given the number of reported breaches, not the number of actual breaches.


Agreed.


----------



## editor (Apr 9, 2020)

Parks and the virus opinion piece 








						Opinion: ’12 sensible reasons to keep parks open during the Covid-19 crisis’
					

Last Sunday, Lambeth Council sparked off a lively debate when they closed Brockwell Park in response to what they described as “unacceptable” behaviour from a minority who were “sunbathing or in la…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

Why are more people from BAME backgrounds dying from coronavirus?
					

People from ethnic minorities have been impacted more by coronavirus, but why?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Agreed.


If they'd wanted to, and if the numbers were significant enough, they could have given the actual numbers of parties broken up, like they've given the actual number of 'gatherings on parks' they've dealt with (presumably they'll count every old man told to move on from a park bench in this particular number though).

Fact is, they don't have the numbers to enforce this lockdown, so one of the ways they're making us behave is by shaming us through stories like this - don't play up to it.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Why are more people from BAME backgrounds dying from coronavirus?
> 
> 
> People from ethnic minorities have been impacted more by coronavirus, but why?
> ...


I had noticed - I'm sure everyone else had too - that most if not all of the doctors who've died from the virus so far are from ethnic minority backgrounds - has there been any explanation of this?


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19-rapid-risk-assessment-coronavirus-disease-2019-eighth-update-8-april-2020.pdf



By the way, they found a way to say herd immunity without saying herd immunity. Population protection threshold!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Never thought I'd be nodding my head in agreement with Emily Maitlis
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow. That's some intro. She's bang on


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> I had noticed - I'm sure everyone else had too - that most if not all of the doctors who've died from the virus so far are from ethnic minority backgrounds - has there been any explanation of this?



The BBC article contains a bunch of plausible reasons for the broader picture, and when it comes to healthcare, there is this:


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> If they'd wanted to, and if the numbers were significant enough, they could have given the actual numbers of parties broken up, like they've given the actual number of 'gatherings on parks' they've dealt with (presumably they'll count every old man told to move on from a park bench in this particular number though).
> 
> Fact is, they don't have the numbers to enforce this lockdown, so one of the ways they're making us behave is by shaming us through stories like this - don't play up to it.



I don't have a problem with them reporting the number of reports. I'm disappointed people need to be 'made to behave' in a situation like this. I know we're at loggerheads on this. I also know what you're getting at. Not a fan of the police.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I don't have a problem with them reporting the number of reports. I'm disappointed people need to be 'made to behave' in a situation like this. I know we're at loggerheads on this. I also know what you're getting at. Not a fan of the police.


I don't have a problem with them reporting the number of reports either, as long as it's done honestly. It isn't being here, and there's people going wild about this story all over the country right now because of the way it's reported.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 9, 2020)

Favelado said:


> I don't have a problem with them reporting the number of reports. I'm disappointed people need to be 'made to behave' in a situation like this. I know we're at loggerheads on this. I also know what you're getting at. Not a fan of the police.


Do you think people need to be made to behave? I've seen very little evidence of it personally. I think it's rather the reverse regarding the police, that they are frustrated by the way that they are not really needed to enforce the lockdown. No good for a police force to have people _policing themselves_.


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Do you think people need to be made to behave? I've seen very little evidence of it personally. I think it's rather the reverse regarding the police, that they are frustrated by the way that they are not really needed to enforce the lockdown. No good for a police force to have people _policing themselves_.



Talk about only seeing what you want to see. There have been many violations.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> The BBC article contains a bunch of plausible reasons for the broader picture, and when it comes to healthcare, there is this:
> 
> View attachment 205670


I guess the ratio is higher in the metropolitan areas which tend to be the covid hot spots too?


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Do you think people need to be made to behave? I've seen very little evidence of it personally. I think it's rather the reverse regarding the police, that they are frustrated by the way that they are not really needed to enforce the lockdown. No good for a police force to have people _policing themselves_.



Do I think people need to be made to behave in general?
No, I wouldn't want to be associated with such a statement. I was quoting another poster. That's why it was in quotation marks.

I am disappointed that a signifcant proportion of people are ignoring the lockdown. It's not the majority or anything close to it, but it's worse than I expected. I don't know that the police aren't needed for this. I guess they might be. I don't feel cheerful typing that.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

the proportion isn't significant - it's actually a very small percentage (I've seen local data suggesting activity is down 95%). But even a small percentage of the entire population of the country is a shitload of people, and still needs policing. I don't think lying about data is a good way of going about that though.


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> the proportion isn't significant - it's actually a very small percentage (I've seen local data suggesting activity is down 95%). But even a small percentage of the entire population of the country is a shitload of people, and still needs policing. I don't think lying about data is a good way of going about that though.



And I was already beyond bored and frustrated that, before this pandemic, a rather high proportion of the local print news was just rehashed police press releases.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> the proportion isn't significant - it's actually a very small percentage (I've seen local data suggesting activity is down 95%). But even a small percentage of the entire population of the country is a shitload of people, and still needs policing. I don't think lying about data is a good way of going about that though.



It just comes down to semantics about significant then. Again, I see what you mean.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 9, 2020)

Yesterday my next but one neighbour was having a nice chat over her three foot garden gate with her son, his wife with baby in a pram, and two random kids on bikes who had stopped to stroke her dogs.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think lying about data is a good way of going about that though.



Particularly when people are going to notice the rulebreakers a lot more than they're going to notice people who aren't there at all, because they're at home. That on top of the fact that humans naturally pick up on, and thus amplify the perceived importance of, outliers of all kinds. 

The single biggest pisstake is construction sites still operating. That will dwarf the impact of any number of sunbathers or kickabouts.


----------



## bimble (Apr 9, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> .. The only sensible early way out is to release low risk people from lock-down as soon as possible and to allow 60% immunity to be approached. .


Thats exactly what they are touting now isn't it? But who are these low risk people exactly though who would be sent back to work in order to help us reach herd immunity?


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> The single biggest pisstake is construction sites still operating. That will dwarf the impact of any number of sunbathers or kickabouts.



Having a league table of dumbarsery doesn't help. Better to cut it all out. *However,* it's out and out insanity to have construction sites up and running. Is there any reason given for that? It's baffling.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

Favelado said:


> It just comes down to semantics about significant then. Again, I see what you mean.


Well, the 5% includes permitted activity, so the actual % of rule breaking is even smaller. It isn't semantics - we have wide, almost total compliance with the lockdown restrictions. To call that tiny % of people taking the piss 'a significant proportion' isn't semantics.


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> Well, the 5% includes permitted activity, so the actual % of rule breaking is even smaller. It isn't semantics - we have wide, almost total compliance with the lockdown restrictions. To call that tiny % of people taking the piss 'a significant proportion' isn't semantics.



God. Is there any other forum where you can agree with someone and get this back?


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

you didn't agree with me, you said it was semantics!


----------



## Favelado (Apr 9, 2020)

Fine.


----------



## editor (Apr 9, 2020)

This bloke was interviewed on TV yesterday and it was as moving as hell 









						Coronavirus survivor: 'I'm still asking myself why I'm here and others aren't'
					

Hylton Murray-Philipson was in intensive care and on a ventilator for five days




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 9, 2020)

Favelado said:


> Having a league table of dumbarsery doesn't help. Better to cut it all out. *However,* it's out and out insanity to have construction sites up and running. Is there any reason given for that? It's baffling.



Still the official line is that you can go to work if you can't work from home. There seems to be no list of stuff that's non-essential and should be closed down. It's been left up to individual companies basically. Retailers that don't want to take the PR hit from staying open have closed, but many construction contractors don't seem to give a fuck. The biggest site near me says 'Carillion' on the hoardings so fuck knows who is actually doing the work.


----------



## clicker (Apr 9, 2020)

bimble said:


> Thats exactly what they are touting now isn't it? But who are these low risk people exactly though who would be sent back to work in order to help us reach herd immunity?


I'm sure I read somewhere they were thinking of healthy people between 20-30. They also had to live alone. 
I've no idea how that would pan out. Would these healthy bods not be able to have contact with anyone else? Elderly parents, neighbour with diabetes, bus driver with asthma?
It sounds to me like a desperate and unworkable stab at an exit strategy.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

So, my mates have a group email thread. One of them has just posted this.



> The new "Nightingale" hospital is not close to full and other hospitals have spare capacity. If we don't act now we can predict the new infection rate will head for a dip in a few weeks - an unacceptable waste of time. Perhaps a healthy kill rate of 1000-1500 a day should be our national target. A "Britain 2020" campaign as in 2020 kills per day?



Should I block this guy? He's one of my oldest friends. But... well. words fail me.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 9, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Wuhan maintained its lockdown, a more stringent one than the UK has, for more than 3 months. I can't see UK coming out much before that either. Sorry ..


 they went into lockdown on 23 january. It hasnt been 3 months yet and they are beginning to open up.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> House parties i can imagine people thinking they could get away with...166 street parties in Manchester?  Seems really unlikely to me. Since when has Manchester become Rio?
> Unless "street party" means drinking White Lightning on a bench



It could mean so many things and anything above 2 people.  I'm sure there have been a handful of parties including more than one household attending. Some outdoor gatherings where all attenddes were not from the same household but 660 seems a lot and I suspect most were pretty modest affairs. Not that it's ok but hmm.


----------



## sptme (Apr 9, 2020)

__





						Coronavirus UK: Police threaten to search public's shopping trolleys
					

Chief Constable Nick Adderley said his force is only 'days away' from extreme measures as people continue to flout lockdown rules.



					metro.co.uk
				




Checking Shopping trolleys? Can't see any problems with this!


----------



## treelover (Apr 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> If our city council isn't aware that it's got dozens of people still at work building the new library/bus station (and what an inspired combination of things that is) in the middle of town, I doubt snitching is going to help.



The Indie on Sunday once reported there were over 100 ways to snitch to the authorities, this will make 101.


----------



## treelover (Apr 9, 2020)

belboid said:


> We got the second communication from our elected, Labour, council leader yesterday.  There was one three weeks ago saying the council was going to work very hard and no one would be evicted and lets all pull together.  Not a word since, until yesterday.
> 
> When she wanted everyone to know that she, and all of us, wish Boris well and a speedy recovery.



Dore, no real legitimacy, wasn't she resigning soon.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Never thought I'd be nodding my head in agreement with Emily Maitlis
> 
> 
> 
> ...


its great but shes reading it off an autocue, call me a cynic but i cant imagine she wrote it. shes staying on the list


----------



## treelover (Apr 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was in a Zoom meeting earlier today, the solicitor mentioned one of his clients has died in a Brighton care home, together with another 5, can't find anything on the local rags' websites, but hardly surprising when so many local reporters have been furloughed.
> 
> A care home owner said she had been contacted by the hospital asking if she could take a couple of patients in, she said she would but only if they had been tested & are negative, so that was the end of that conversation.



friend of mine, with lots of medics in family says nine died in care home here, can't find verification though.


----------



## keybored (Apr 9, 2020)

sptme said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's been going on in Bristol already.


----------



## Plumdaff (Apr 9, 2020)

clicker said:


> I'm sure I read somewhere they were thinking of healthy people between 20-30. They also had to live alone.


I don't know anyone in that age range who lives alone.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 9, 2020)

I am generally impressed with how people are adhering to the lockdown. That doesn't mean I haven't spotted groups of people doing silly things or gathering from time to time. But I'm aware that the parks close to me have probably around 100,000 within walking distance of them (if I go in both directions). So if I spot 20 people being idiots, I think '20 out of 100,000, that's pretty good going'. And I know those few idiots won't be enough to undo the good work of everyone else. So I'm feeling impressed with people, all except the people screaming 'omg close the parks now, people are meeting their friends' because I can see it's about 20 people meeting their friends, and I think the health and mental health effects of stopping exercise will be far more damaging than allowing those idiots to be idiots.

Edit to add: obviously my numbers are made up, but the point is it's about realising how large urban populations are and how the few flouting the rules stand out.


----------



## clicker (Apr 9, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> I don't know anyone in that age range who lives alone.


Nor me tbh. Maybe it's more prevalent in other countries.


----------



## treelover (Apr 9, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Corporate manslaughter anyone?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Apparently he only had mild asthma as well, said to his mum, "I am not going to make it."


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> its great but shes reading it off an autocue, call me a cynic but i cant imagine she wrote it. shes staying on the list



I think she did write it.


----------



## treelover (Apr 9, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Worth a watch, highlights the complete unpreparedness, the decline of the NHS, the need for heads to roll etc..




who is behind this?


----------



## belboid (Apr 9, 2020)

treelover said:


> Dore, no real legitimacy, wasn't she resigning soon.


she was/is.  You'd still have thought she'd make a bit of an effort, take a change to look properly leaderly.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

treelover said:


> who is behind this?


very little info, it's a new youtube account which leads to this (also new) The Citizens


----------



## treelover (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> House parties i can imagine people thinking they could get away with...166 street parties in Manchester?  Seems really unlikely to me. Since when has Manchester become Rio?
> Unless "street party" means drinking White Lightning on a bench



find those figures dubious.


----------



## treelover (Apr 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Never thought I'd be nodding my head in agreement with Emily Maitlis
> 
> 
> 
> ...



NewsNight last night was incredible, back to its heydays in the 80's before they broadcast authored pieces by the architect of workfare, etc, it was like a electric shock, woke me up, the Govt/Tories are not going to be happy.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> very little info, it's a new youtube account which leads to this (also new) The Citizens



It's Carole Cadwalladr if you believe the stuff she says on her twitter account.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

anyway, it's a good video, and worth watching / listening to


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

treelover said:


> New,snight last night was incredible back to its heydays in the 80's before they broadcast authored pieces by the architect of workfare, etc, it was like a electric shock, woke me up, the Govt/Tories are not going to be happy.



Its part of a wider phenomenon. The neoliberal shit died. It had been in poor health since the financial crisis, but the old interests prevented it from being killed off in the manner it clearly needed to be. So it staggered on, with heavy life support. But now the illusions seem impossible to sustain, so welcome back to reality.


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

I will not be doing the graph stuff I did recently every day, but I will post an update on it every so often, once more than a day or twos new data is added.

But I note that the Guardian, when reporting todays death figure for England, did point out the range of dates that these deaths actually happened on, and that was the main phenomenon I was trying to show with my graphs anyway:

 6m ago 14:32 



> Of the 765 new hospital deaths announced today by NHS England, 140 occurred on April 8 while 568 took place between April 1 and April 7.
> 
> The remaining 57 deaths occurred in March, including two on March 19 and one on March 16.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 9, 2020)

sptme said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Defining what's essentials is impossible, they could decide alcohol isn't, but as a functioning alcoholic it's fucking essential, sudden withdrawal could result in serious medical problems or even death.


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

Northern Ireland!









						Coronavirus: Vets 'could help in hospital' if situation worsens
					

Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots says vets from his department are on standby if required.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Vets could help out in hospital intensive care units if the coronavirus crisis worsens, an executive minister has said.
> 
> Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots said staff were on standby if required.
> 
> He told a Stormont committee that they could be used to alleviate staffing pressures and help with some clinical roles.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Defining what's essentials is impossible, they could decide alcohol isn't, but as a functioning alcoholic it's fucking essential, sudden withdrawal could result in serious medical problems or even death.



They've backed up on this pretty rapidly since it was brought to their attention that they have no legal right to do it and no basis on which to decide what is an essential purchase and what isn't. 

And besides, if you're already in the shop you might as well buy whatever you like. Avoiding the booze and crisps won't make a blind bit of difference to anything. There seems to be an idea, shared by several people on these boards but never quite voiced in such terms, that lockdown will only be effective if it's made to be as miserable and austere an experience as possible. To me the exact opposite is true, and we should encourage people to be as happy and content as possible within the already grim parameters that have had to be set.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 9, 2020)

Fuck, I've agreed with Spooky, I must be ill, I hope it's not C-19.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 9, 2020)

Back peddle!


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 9, 2020)

"Food" is already defined in the relevant law as a basic necessity. So it's perfectly legal to leave home solely to buy champagne truffle ice cream.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 9, 2020)

DWP saying 1.2 million people have applied for UC since March 16th!


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 9, 2020)

Intersting read on the behind the scenes scramble to get PPE and also the consequences for older peoples care in the private sector 









						The ‘Wacky Races’ scrabble to find masks and gloves for social care staff
					

From last-minute van dashes to appeals for donations, anxious councils are pulling out every stop to find protection equipment




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## ska invita (Apr 9, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Worth a watch, highlights the complete unpreparedness, the decline of the NHS, the need for heads to roll etc..



At one point in this video it mentions a minister who (yesterday?) when asked Why aren't we testing and tracing said this was something for poor countries to do < a response described by the panel as imperialist arrogance, or words to that effect. Sorry I cant find the bit now. Does anyone know to whom that was referring to?


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> At one point in this video it mentions a minister who (yesterday?) when asked Why aren't we testing and tracing said this was something for poor countries to do < a response described by the panel as imperialist arrogance, or words to that effect. Sorry I cant find the bit now. Does anyone know to whom that was referring to?



I think that was the Deputy CMO Jenny Harries.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> At one point in this video it mentions a minister who (yesterday?) when asked Why aren't we testing and tracing said this was something for poor countries to do < a response described by the panel as imperialist arrogance, or words to that effect. Sorry I cant find the bit now. Does anyone know to whom that was referring to?


It was a week or so ago, and it was the deputy chief medical officer


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> It was a week or so ago, and it was the deputy chief medical officer



March 26th.

31 minutes into this video, up until about 33 minutes 22 seconds.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> March 26th.
> 
> 31 minutes into this video, up until about 33 minutes 22 seconds.



Thanks so much
Fuck me
She also goes on to say "'we did contact tracing loads actually, and its not worth it anymore" 
Worrying


----------



## bimble (Apr 9, 2020)

Coronavirus: Doctor who warned prime minister about PPE dies with COVID-19
					

In March he urged the PM to "urgently" ensure personal protective equipment for "each and every NHS worker in the UK".




					news.sky.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

Raab in todays press conference "I think you've certainly made us all think long and hard about who the key workers are in our lives".


----------



## ska invita (Apr 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Raab in todays press conference "I think you've certainly made us all think long and hard about who the key workers are in our lives".


Has his housemaid quit?


----------



## bimble (Apr 9, 2020)

Apparently Germany is sending the UK 60 ventilators, for free, to be delivered by their army.


----------



## shifting gears (Apr 9, 2020)

bimble said:


> Apparently Germany is sending the UK 60 ventilators, for free, to be delivered by their army.


----------



## editor (Apr 9, 2020)

Here's a whole bunch of extra-special fucking twats in action









						Large brawl erupts on busy road as scrappers break social distancing rules
					

South Wales Police were called to a street in Cardiff on Tuesday after a fight broke out between two groups of young men, who seemed unaware of social distancing rules




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## weltweit (Apr 9, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> they went into lockdown on 23 january. It hasnt been 3 months yet and they are beginning to open up.


Oh quimcunx, if that is right I must have made a mistake somewhere .. I was sure I had read 3 months .. :-/


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 9, 2020)

LBC: "Would you like to suggest how NHS staff might be rewarded"
Raab: "no"


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Here's a whole bunch of extra-special fucking twats in action
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There's been a spate of arson attacks in Bristol - cars, Iceland delivery van.
And several reports of appalling driving around cyclists.


----------



## editor (Apr 9, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> LBC: "Would you like to suggest how NHS staff might be rewarded"
> Raab: "no"


"Is Raab a fucking twat?"
"Yes"

😤


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Raab in todays press conference "I think you've certainly made us all think long and hard about who the key workers are in our lives".



Yeah, my ears pricked up at that too.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 9, 2020)

They did not really answer the guy from Reuters questions at the end today- here is the article he is referring to 

Special Report: Johnson listened to his scientists about coronavirus - but they were slow to sound the alarm


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 9, 2020)

More here on the work going on at Porton Down:









						Why the coronavirus tests you've never heard of hold the key to exit from lockdown
					

Scientists working at the high security laboratories at Porton Down are testing blood samples from across Britain




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				




Mentions an initial sample group of 800, which will presumably have been used to calibrate the tests themselves and check their reliability. They're now looking to study a randomised sample up to 20,000 people who will be tested repeatedly over a period of time. This should allow some conclusions about how many people have been exposed, how many of those exposed develop symptoms, and how long acquired immunity might persist. We're looking at a timescale of months rather than weeks for that data though.


----------



## ddraig (Apr 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Here's a whole bunch of extra-special fucking twats in action
> 
> 
> 
> ...


yup dickheads, can only see it getting worse
apparently 2 of them had their bikes nicked and confronted the others, surprised it wasn't worse tbh


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 9, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> There's been a spate of arson attacks in Bristol - cars, Iceland delivery van.
> And several reports of appalling driving around cyclists.



But the police have made damn sure there ain't no cunt putting the wrong things in their shopping trolley, and that's what really matters.


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> More here on the work going on at Porton Down:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Good, nice to see the subject written up, especially as I'm about worn out with explaining it for months.

Its a shame that the first results arent actually going to be available on the timescale John Newton suggested in the press conference last week. Never mind, at this rate we will have plenty of clues from other countries long before then.

Vallance actually mentioned more from other studies in other places than I thought he might today. He was prepared to suggest that it was likely the pproportion of asymptomatic cases was under 50 percent, not over 50, and could be around 30. And that percentage of people infected in various places so far was looking to be low single digit numbers, with a few examples of it being a bit higher than that in some places.

Other science stuff of note from todays press conference would be WHittys comments about how the doubling rate for things like intensive care cases had gone from about 3 days when he first spoke about the subject, to something more like 6 days now. And Vallance pointed out that there now should not be a doubling time at all in the community (but this will take longer to filter on to intensive care numbers and then deaths no longer doubling).


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Apr 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Do you think people need to be made to behave? I've seen very little evidence of it personally. I think it's rather the reverse regarding the police, that they are frustrated by the way that they are not really needed to enforce the lockdown. No good for a police force to have people _policing themselves_.



As someone who works in a local shop I can tell you first hand that the abidance of the lockdown is fucking atrocious. In normal times my job is easy, it still is now compared to the NHS workers going through this, but I have never been as stressed out as I have been the past month because so many people just barely even give a fuck about the lockdown. They can't even have the common sense to do social distancing. The amount of people that just pop in several times a day for a can of beer or a packet of crisps is infuriating, I have to really bite my tongue.

That's not to say everyone is like this. I'd say it's about 50/50 but it needs to be a lot better than that. Working in a role like this at a time like this is, frankly, fucking terrifying. You swing between moments of 'I'll be alright even if I do get the virus' to being actually afraid that you're gonna end up in serious trouble all because some cretin leaning over the counter and breathing in your face because they can't go five minutes without a fucking beer. Forty years of me, me, me society played out in daily interaction during a pandemic.

In answer to your question, yes people do need to be made to behave. I fully support giving everyone a permit that only allows them one weekly shop. Didn't get enough beer during that shop? Tough shit. This is a fucking health crisis not a minor inconvenience.

Sorry, I just really needed to have this rant and it's not aimed at you.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 9, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> people do need to be made to behave.


This. We're all cunts, basically.


----------



## editor (Apr 9, 2020)

Lambeth Council Leader Jack Hopkins demonstrates exactly how not to wear a mask


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> But the police have made damn sure there ain't no cunt putting the wrong things in their shopping trolley, and that's what really matters.



No they haven't, you total plank.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> No they haven't, you total plank.



No I know they haven't. That's what makes it sarcasm.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> No I know they haven't. That's what makes it sarcasm.



It's impossible to know it's sarcasm with you, when your general attitude towards the police is on a par with a baby throwing their toys out of their pram.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Here's a whole bunch of extra-special fucking twats in action
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Clifton St, Cardiff innit. Only in Clifton St.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 9, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> This. We're all cunts, basically.


Our Bees is back, y'all 🐝


----------



## ska invita (Apr 9, 2020)

This is interesting








						UK lockdown could end 'with sector-by-sector plan' for firms
					

Industries like manufacturing could return to normal before entertainment companies, according to Whitehall sources




					www.theguardian.com
				



"Industries like manufacturing could return to normal before entertainment companies, according to Whitehall sources "

on my daily allotted bike ride I go through an industrial estate and ive noticed  some welders making steel girders havent stopped working...i often wonder if they're just chancing it or have permission


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> This. We're all cunts, basically.


speak for yourself yo


----------



## Cid (Apr 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Good, nice to see the subject written up, especially as I'm about worn out with explaining it for months.
> 
> Its a shame that the first results arent actually going to be available on the timescale John Newton suggested in the press conference last week. Never mind, at this rate we will have plenty of clues from other countries long before then.
> 
> Vallance actually mentioned more from other studies in other places than I thought he might today. He was prepared to suggest that it was likely the pproportion of asymptomatic cases was under 50 percent, not over 50, and could be around 30. And that percentage of people infected in various places so far was looking to be low single digit numbers, with a few examples of it being a bit higher than that in some places.



That's in line with Ferguson/Imperial stuff right? The % of infections at least... And I suppose might mean restrictions for a while yet, and a cycle of lockdowns that is going to leave a lot of bereaved people, and a lot of exhausted health workers.


----------



## Labourite (Apr 9, 2020)

All these lemons in Manchester having street and house parties...words fail me.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> speak for yourself yo


It’s true though. Everyone’s got an excuse, everyone’s got a need. I rode my bike to my mums to have a chat (albeit via the window in their conservatory) with them today and picked up beer on the way home. Because I could. 

We’re all idiots in this, there’s just a sliding scale some are further down.


----------



## Cid (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> This is interesting
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Remember the actual guidance is that 'must work from home' doesn't apply if you can't work from home. I think most companies around where my workshop is are running to some degree. Particularly smaller ones.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 9, 2020)

PM out of IC....


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> It’s true though. Everyone’s got an excuse, everyone’s got a need. I rode my bike to my mums to have a chat (albeit via the window in their conservatory) with them today and picked up beer on the way home. Because I could.
> 
> We’re all idiots in this, there’s just a sliding scale some are further down.


my conscience is clear tbh


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> my conscience is clear tbh


You’ll have done something


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

Sure, but I'm doing my best, that's all anyone can do. And so are most people. The rush to indignation over every tiny - and often imagined - infraction is really depressing.


----------



## Anju (Apr 9, 2020)

Here's one to be justifiably pissed off about.

Tried to defend himself by saying he was dropping off food and medication, despite the fact that local volunteers had been delivering their food. I know there are people who post here that are not visiting elderly relatives and see the same on my local mutual aid Facebook group. People from Sydenham asking for help for relatives in Catford.

Also this.

"In an article for the Mail on Sunday just over two weeks ago, Jenrick argued that rather than relatives travelling, local communities should help out. “While we create physical distance between ourselves, we must at the same time have closer social support for our neighbour,” he wrote."

Selfish hypocritical wanker.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/cabinet-minister-robert-jenrick-visited-his-parents-during-covid-19-lockdown?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 9, 2020)

Whole street out tonight, pans and spoons, fireworks, foghorns from the docks, be as cynical as you want, it was just great to see everyone smiling and being together in a way that never happens usually.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> Sure, but I'm doing my best, that's all anyone can do. And so are most people. The rush to indignation over every tiny - and often imagined - infraction is really depressing.


I just go with a base assumption that our best is basically rubbish, we’re all useless, and quite frankly fuck it. It’s all uphill with the occasional pleasant surprise from there


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 9, 2020)

Last week I was the only one at my end of the street, so I didn't go out - though my NHS window lights up on a time switch ... but this week everyone was out - I think partly because of another week cooped-up. 
Fireworks, all sorts ...


----------



## strung out (Apr 9, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Whole street out tonight, pans and spoons, fireworks, foghorns from the docks, be as cynical as you want, it was just great to see everyone smiling and being together in a way that never happens usually.


Fireworks, air raid siren and saucepans in my neighborhood


----------



## weltweit (Apr 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> ..
> "Industries like manufacturing could return to normal before entertainment companies, according to Whitehall sources "


We are working (manufacturing), albeit with changes for extra safety, I talk with others daily, lots are working after a fashion with some exceptions. Medical companies, as one might expect, are busy - while in aerospace there have been closures (possibly furloughed for now). I find it hard to generalise, sometimes staff are all WFH, sometimes they are furloughed and sometimes the company is just shut with no one answering calls.



ska invita said:


> on my daily allotted bike ride I go through an industrial estate and ive noticed  some welders making steel girders havent stopped working...i often wonder if they're just chancing it or have permission


Under the current lockdown regime you are allowed to go to work, if your work cannot be done at home. Hence lots of office workers are WFH while manufacturing with machinery requires companies stay open.

For the company it probably depends a lot on what your customers are doing, if they are still expecting deliveries then the worry is if you don't deliver and someone else can - you might return to work sometime later to find you don't have any customers left.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 9, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Whole street out tonight, pans and spoons, fireworks, foghorns from the docks, be as cynical as you want, it was just great to see everyone smiling and being together in a way that never happens usually.


We had an Elvis impersonator (full circa 1970 style white jumpsuit) and speaker/amp booming along whole road...unfortunately caused a bit of a crowd.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 9, 2020)

strung out said:


> Fireworks, air raid siren and saucepans in my neighborhood


Mrs SI found a PE teacher's whistle from somewhere. Had to go to the end of my garden to avoid going deaf


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 9, 2020)

Saucepans, bagpipes, I hammered my front door for masel


----------



## weltweit (Apr 9, 2020)

I was the only one out last time, though I could hear some pans being rattled down the lane, I leant out of my window tonight but not much going on here. _(shame)_


----------



## ruffneck23 (Apr 9, 2020)

pots , pans , fireworks round my way , its quite heart warming.


----------



## killer b (Apr 9, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I just go with a base assumption that our best is basically rubbish, we’re all useless, and quite frankly fuck it. It’s all uphill with the occasional pleasant surprise from there


my best is pretty good. sorry you're so shit.


----------



## scifisam (Apr 9, 2020)

I haven't been going out to clap because I look so awful that I would rather not be seen TBH   And there's a baby living in the flat above me, and a toddler next door, and 8pm is probably after their bedtimes. Haven't heard much either, but the sound insulation in this flat is amazing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 9, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Whole street out tonight, pans and spoons, fireworks, foghorns from the docks, be as cynical as you want, it was just great to see everyone smiling and being together in a way that never happens usually.



Having hurt my hands clapping so hard the last couple of weeks, I ended up banging a couple of pans together tonight instead.   

I have family & friends working at the local hospital, talking to them & some of my mother's carers, they are emotional moved by this clapping shit, and appreciate it, so I am happy to join in.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 9, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Worth a watch, highlights the complete unpreparedness, the decline of the NHS, the need for heads to roll etc..



Seems a much more measured and coherent assessment than some others.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 9, 2020)

I see from social media that the OB think that the clapping is for them too.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

Jesus fuck. Where did they find the Scottish 'musician' ranting on question time right now? And why isn't he just being cut off?!?


----------



## brogdale (Apr 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Jesus fuck. Where did they find the Scottish 'musician' ranting on question time right now? And why isn't he just being cut off?!?


There's a QT thread if you want to comment on the quality of the guests. 
Personally, I turned off when the vile woman La Reeves opened her mouth.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

brogdale said:


> There's a QT thread if you want to comment on the quality of the guests.
> Personally, I turned off when the vile woman La Reeves opened her mouth.



Ok, thanks. It's pretty dire. It could use a stronger host who's more comfortable cutting in. I know the video chat thing doesn't make that easier.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 9, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I see from social media that the OB think that the clapping is for them too.



And people don't get why I hate those pathetic cunts.


----------



## xsunnysuex (Apr 9, 2020)

Ok absolutely no idea where to be putting this.  So i'll just leave it here.     
Free films if you get bored.  







						All Movies » Nites TV » Movies Online Free
					

Search all movies online free available on Nites TV here. All movies in HD quality




					nites.tv


----------



## Mation (Apr 9, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I’ve not read this thread since yesterday. It was nice to have a break. I’ve skipped ahead so I may have missed some useful / important stuff.
> 
> Anyway, I wanted to add this new detail. I’m putting on this thread because it seems to get most traffic and I think it’s important.
> 
> ...


I had that, for the first time ever, about 6 weeks ago. Do you have a source?


----------



## brogdale (Apr 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> And people don't get why I hate those pathetic cunts.


Shame on you...our brave boys & girls in blue running towards, not running away from....sunbathers in parks and beaches...old folks sitting on benches....and you can't even be bothered to get out there and clap for them.


----------



## Mation (Apr 9, 2020)

bimble said:


> Re masks, the checkout staff in the supermarket yesterday were all wearing things like this, sort of full face visor type screens. Is that a thing people are seeing around more generally?
> 
> View attachment 205475


I saw Superdrug staff wearing these last week.


----------



## Buckaroo (Apr 9, 2020)

Mation said:


> I had that, for the first time ever, about 6 weeks ago. Do you have a source?


#6,906


----------



## Mation (Apr 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> More here on the work going on at Porton Down:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sorry, but every time I see the words Porton Down in connection with this, I am really not reafuckingssured 

Can't they rename it Windscale, or something?


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 9, 2020)

Mation said:


> I had that, for the first time ever, about 6 weeks ago. Do you have a source?



I tagged you in the post where I gave links.

Have you had any other symptoms?


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 9, 2020)

.


----------



## editor (Apr 9, 2020)

For FUCK'S SAKE









						Explore projects | Crowdfunder.co.uk
					

Crowdfunder have raised over £70 million for start-ups, business ideas, charities, community groups, social enterprises, sports clubs, political movements and so much more through crowdfunding. Get extra funding, learn about crowdfunding, and learn h




					www.crowdfunder.co.uk
				




*please let it be a pisstake


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Jesus fuck. Where did they find the Scottish 'musician' ranting on question time right now? And why isn't he just being cut off?!?



That's Darren McGarvey. He's a good guy.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> That's Darren McGarvey. He's a good guy.



He wouldn't let anyone else speak


----------



## brogdale (Apr 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> He wouldn't let anyone else speak


You wanted to listen to Brandon Lewis or Rachel Reeves?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

brogdale said:


> You wanted to listen to Brandon Lewis or Rachel Reeves?



Ha, well...hmmm.. good call. It was a completely shit line-up all in all. But he was the most irritating.


----------



## Mation (Apr 9, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I tagged you in the post where I gave links.
> 
> Have you had any other symptoms?


Thank you 

Don't think I've had other symptoms. No cough, bar my usual. Felt a bit hot, on and off, but thermometer says normal. Bit short of breath, but could be anxiety-related. Not breathless. Had some headaches a couple of weeks ago.

It's all a bit hard to tell without testing.  I doubt I've got it/had it, but fuck knows.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 9, 2020)

editor said:


> For FUCK'S SAKE
> 
> 
> 
> ...



A James Purdey to blow his fuckin head off crowd funder!


----------



## brogdale (Apr 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Ha, well...hmmm.. good call. It was a completely shit line-up all in all. But he was the most irritating.


Didn't watch the programme; what was it that McGarvey said that you found irritating?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Didn't watch the programme; what was it that McGarvey said that you found irritating?



I dont even remember what he was saying. He just ranted and wouldn't let anyone else talk so I tuned him out. A monologue. Anyway. I'm sure there's more interesting things to discuss!


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> He wouldn't let anyone else speak


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

What a bullshit explanation... if you watch it you could see he just didn't want to let anyone else speak. I'm sure he had some valid points but personally I had to put it on mute and change windows whenever it went to him and a few minutes later switch back and he will still ranting away.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

Clearly the coke dealers haven't been practising social isolation up there!


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 9, 2020)

Mation said:


> Thank you
> 
> Don't think I've had other symptoms. No cough, bar my usual. Felt a bit hot, on and off, but thermometer says normal. Bit short of breath, but could be anxiety-related. Not breathless. Had some headaches a couple of weeks ago.
> 
> It's all a bit hard to tell without testing.  I doubt I've got it/had it, but fuck knows.



This virus is tricksy, eh!


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Clearly the coke dealers haven't been practising social isolation up there!



Go fuck yourself for that comment.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 9, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> Go fuck yourself for that comment.



If you a) have ever sat in a room with a load of coked up people (and in the past ive often been one of them) and b) observed his performance you might know what I'm talking about.

Oh. And go fuck yourself.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 9, 2020)

There was fuck all wrong with it - I thought he was great - and it was very clear that there were issues with him hearing what was being said, too.
Maybe you'd have got that if you'd actually bothered to watch/listen instead of muting it every time he was speaking. 
Makes it even more bizarre that you then came on here to slag him right off, too - wtf?


----------



## DaveCinzano (Apr 10, 2020)

Press release on the Bristol Nightingale:                  

*NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol*

NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSEI) South West region has asked North Bristol NHS Trust to oversee the new NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol alongside its existing group of hospitals.

The specialist hospital based at the University of West of England Frenchay campus, will care for up to 1,000 people affected by COVID-19, and is due to accept its first patient week commencing 20 April 2020. The NHS Nightingale Hospital Bristol will enhance and support critical care capacity across the Severn network.

North Bristol NHS Trust has an established and resilient group operating model which could embrace a fifth hospital without detriment to the services the Trust currently provides. In addition, the site is situated within the Trust’s catchment area in Frenchay.

The Trust’s Chief Executive Officer, Andrea Young, will be the Accountable Officer for the hospital’s services, and Marie-Noelle Orzel, has been seconded to lead the management team, which is being assembled from a number of NHS bodies in the south west.

Elizabeth O’Mahoney, NHS Regional Director for the South West, said: “This is the single biggest challenge facing our country for generations. We can learn from what is happening across the country and we want the NHS in the South West to be as well prepared as possible.

“The Nightingale Bristol will support our hospitals to care for critically ill patients as and when needed. We would prefer never to even admit a patient, but it will be in place if needed. We would ask that everyone in the south west follows the national recommendations to stay at home, observe social distancing, protect your local NHS and each of you will help save lives.”

Andrea Young, Chief Executive of North Bristol NHS Trust, said: “We are deeply grateful to NHS staff and partners across the region for the support they are providing at this very challenging time. The Nightingale Bristol will enhance and support our critical care capacity across the South West and is a real collaborative partnership between all NHS providers, commissioners and partner agencies and organisations.

“On behalf of the NHS I want to thank the public for their extraordinary support in maintaining self-isolation if symptomatic or vulnerable and through social distancing. Those actions are definitely helping us manage this pandemic and we need everyone to sustain them."

The full leadership team is:


Marie-Noelle Orzel, Hospital Chief Officer
Paula Clarke, Deputy Chief Officer/COO (Director of Strategy and Transformation at United [sic] Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust)
Mr Tim Whittlestone, Medical Director (Deputy Medical Director at North Bristol NHS Trust)
Hayley Peters, Nursing Director (Chief Nurse at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust)                            
Brian Johnson, Director of Estates and Facilities (Royal United Hospitals Bath Foundation Trust)                        
Catherine Phillips, Finance Director (Director of Finance at North Bristol NHS Trust)
Neil Darvill, IM&T Director (Chief Information Officer at North Bristol NHS Trust)
Jane Harris, Communications Director (Head of Communications and Engagement at Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group)
Steve Aumayer, HR Director (EKIM Consulting Limited, former UHBFT)
Xavier Bell, Director of Governance (Director of Corporate Governance and Trust Secretary at North Bristol NHS Trust)
Adrian Coombs, Programme Director (Major Events Boss Limited)
 
This senior team is made up of people seconded from their own organisations for an initial three month period or volunteering their skills and experiences for the project.

The Severn network region includes:


Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
North Bristol NHS Trust
Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust
Somerset NHS Foundation Trust
University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust*
Yeovil District Hospitals NHS FoundationTrust                  

* University Hospitals Bristol, which runs the BRI, Bristol Children's Hospital, St Michael's maternity, and various other specialist hospitals, mostly in central Bristol, had been planning to take over engage in an equal partnership with the Weston Trust for some time, though COVID put the brakes on for a while. Some bright spark obviously thought April Fool's was a great day to marry the two together.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Clearly the coke dealers haven't been practising social isolation up there!


You’ve clearly not read his book.


----------



## bimble (Apr 10, 2020)

What is this, is it right?
Claims to show - from leaked home office phonecalls - that the government is still convinced by the herd immunity idea and will act accordingly.
If this is right then they (home office officials) are assuming that no vaccine will come along, we will all get it sooner or later and the main thing is to get the economy back up and running. 




__





						COVID-19 SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Leaked Home Office Call Reveals Government wants Economy to ‘Continue Running’ as ‘We Will All Get’ COVID-19 Anyway – Byline Times
					

Nafeez Ahmed reports on Home Office private advice suggesting a 'zombie herd immunity' policy risking hundreds of thousands of deaths.




					bylinetimes.com


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 10, 2020)

There is no exit from lockdown without some kind of testing and tracing of further outbreaks. Well, no exit that doesn't include a high probability of going back to an out of control outbreak. 

There is no solid proof that re-infection doesn't happen. Therefore any immunity is just a hopeful guess. 

Nice to see the NHS being funded a bit more sensibly ,a real change.  How about some pay rises?


----------



## LDC (Apr 10, 2020)

Warning: early morning wild speculation time....

There are some things not quite adding up for me with this. The dates of the projected peak, the way public expectations of lock-down and length of time it'll be there for, the construction of all these mega-hospitals around the country that won't be ready for quite a while, the already near collapse some hospitals seem to be in, and a few other things.

I can't quite articulate it exactly, but it does make me feel that this is going to be a much longer and more destructive and chaotic period of time than is being generally acknowledged at the moment.... or am I way off the mark?


----------



## Supine (Apr 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Warning: early morning wild speculation time....
> 
> There are some things not quite adding up for me with this. The dates of the projected peak, the way public expectations of lock-down and length of time it'll be there for, the construction of all these mega-hospitals around the country that won't be ready for quite a while, the already near collapse some hospitals seem to be in, and a few other things.
> 
> I can't quite articulate it exactly, but it does make me feel that this is going to be a much longer and more destructive and chaotic period of time than is being generally acknowledged at the moment.... or am I way off the mark?



It's going to be going on until the majority of the population has had it. The Gov don't seem keen to discuss this though. 2020 is going to be shite all year


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> What is this, is it right?
> Claims to show - from leaked home office phonecalls - that the government is still convinced by the herd immunity idea and will act accordingly.
> If this is right then they (home office officials) are assuming that no vaccine will come along, we will all get it sooner or later and the main thing is to get the economy back up and running.
> 
> ...



I've always been of the opinion their reluctance to move to lockdown was entirely rooted in a belief of the importance of the economy over people's safety and health. I would not be at all surprised to see a move back to 'herd immunity' at some point with the justification of 'we just can't afford this anymore'.



LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Warning: early morning wild speculation time....
> 
> There are some things not quite adding up for me with this. The dates of the projected peak, the way public expectations of lock-down and length of time it'll be there for, the construction of all these mega-hospitals around the country that won't be ready for quite a while, the already near collapse some hospitals seem to be in, and a few other things.
> 
> I can't quite articulate it exactly, but it does make me feel that this is going to be a much longer and more destructive and chaotic period of time than is being generally acknowledged at the moment.... or am I way off the mark?



I thought the UK government pissed-offness with Wales for 'jumping the gun' on extending lockdown spoke volumes yesterday. As if the whole country doesn't realise nothing has changed, except for the worse. As if it was a major shock that Wales should announce what it did. It's politics isn't it? Most of us can see we're in for a long period of chaos, whatever form that takes. But the government feel they can't let that particular cat out of the bag yet. Partly because they don't want to freak everyone out (social unrest?). And partly because they are an incompetent bunch of fuckwits managing this on the hoof.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 10, 2020)

Tell you what, it'll be a brave MP of any stripe who goes private for so much as an ingrown toenail for the next forever.


----------



## redsquirrel (Apr 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> What is this, is it right?
> Claims to show - from leaked home office phonecalls - that the government is still convinced by the herd immunity idea and will act accordingly.
> If this is right then they (home office officials) are assuming that no vaccine will come along, we will all get it sooner or later and the main thing is to get the economy back up and running.
> 
> ...


Again this website is making claims that its own evidence does not back up. Even if all those quotes given to Shute are correct (and they probably are otherwise they are going to have a huge lawsuit on their hands), at no point does anything said indicate that this is government policy rather than Shute's own views

EDIT: I mean Rupert Shute sounds like a bit of a prick and does not appear to have any background in the area of biosciences, epidemiology or public behaviour but I'm more and more convinced that the Byline Times is as shite as Skwawkbox.


> *Rupert Shute*
> Rupert is Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser at the Home Office. His career has spanned the development of robotic systems for nuclear decommissioning, pioneering the application of VR and AR to engineering design and developing distributed sensor networks. He began his career as an Electronic Engineering Apprentice, following which he won a prestigious Sir Joseph Whitworth Scholarship to undertake academic studies.
> 
> In addition to his Engineering career, Rupert has a keen interest in community ownership business models and has been a guest speaker on this topic at the Henley Business School. In a voluntary capacity, he chaired a community co-operative with over 500 hundred members; during his six-year tenure, the organisation won the BBC Food and Farming Awards – Best Retail Initiative.


----------



## mx wcfc (Apr 10, 2020)

and the estate agents, being estate agents, are doing everything they can to help them.    









						Coronavirus: Londoners escaping to Winchester in bid to find rural space despite lockdown rules
					

ESTATE agents in Winchester have seen a sharp increase in the number of people from London seeking to flee the capital to move to the local area…




					www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk


----------



## zahir (Apr 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Warning: early morning wild speculation time....
> 
> There are some things not quite adding up for me with this. The dates of the projected peak, the way public expectations of lock-down and length of time it'll be there for, the construction of all these mega-hospitals around the country that won't be ready for quite a while, the already near collapse some hospitals seem to be in, and a few other things.
> 
> I can't quite articulate it exactly, but it does make me feel that this is going to be a much longer and more destructive and chaotic period of time than is being generally acknowledged at the moment.... or am I way off the mark?




The preparations for temporary mortuaries would fit in with this.



> But if this goes to confirm that the Covid-19 death rate is being deliberately underplayed, it seems there are no official illusions about the real magnitude of the problem. While ministers have been quick to parade the creation of the so-called "Nightingale Hospitals", with no fanfare at all an emergency programme has been running in parallel to build a national network of temporary mortuaries.
> 
> Although we are aware of the new facility in East London as well as Birmingham Airport, what has not been announced centrally is the sheer scale of this new programme, even though it is being planned and coordinated by the Cabinet Office alongside local authorities.





> The first clue came from my own local paper, the Bradford _Telegraph & Argus_ which yesterday devoted its front page to a plan to turn the "iconic" Richard Dunn sports complex into a mortuary.
> 
> A spokesman for Bradford Council is cited as saying: "All Local Authorities across the country are having to make arrangements for temporary mortuaries as a precaution, to cover all eventualities in the current medical emergency".







__





						Coronavirus: 'til death do us park
					

Coronavirus: 'til death do us park




					eureferendum.com


----------



## Spandex (Apr 10, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I've always been of the opinion their reluctance to move to lockdown was entirely rooted in a belief of the importance of the economy over people's safety and health. I would not be at all surprised to see a move back to 'herd immunity' at some point with the justification of 'we just can't afford this anymore'.
> 
> 
> 
> I thought the UK government pissed-offness with Wales for 'jumping the gun' on extending lockdown spoke volumes yesterday. As if the whole country doesn't realise nothing has changed, except for the worse. As if it was a major shock that Wales should announce what it did. It's politics isn't it? Most of us can see we're in for a long period of chaos, whatever form that takes. But the government feel they can't let that particular cat out of the bag yet. Partly because they don't want to freak everyone out (social unrest?). And partly because they are an incompetent bunch of fuckwits managing this on the hoof.


The government's whole approach does seem to be: wait until even the slowest person in the country has figured out what is going to happen before announcing anything.

That was true before they admitted the catastrophe was on us in the UK, that schools were going to close, that the lockdown was happening, that the PM was critically ill in hospital. Whatever is coming next we'll all have guessed before they announce it. I suppose it's one way of building consensus. Or maybe they're just clueless, or paralised by fear or hoping it'll all go away or that a cheaper alternative will show up or all of these at once. Whatever it is they're a useless shower of shitbags that I wouldn't trust to lead me across a pedestrianised road.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 10, 2020)

Spandex said:


> The government's whole approach does seem to be: wait until even the slowest person in the country has figured out what is going to happen before announcing anything.
> 
> That was true before they admitted the catastrophe was on us in the UK, that schools were going to close, that the lockdown was happening, that the PM was critically ill in hospital. Whatever is coming next we'll all have guessed before they announce it. I suppose it's one way of building consensus. Or maybe they're just clueless, or paralised by fear or hoping it'll all go away or that a cheaper alternative will show up or all of these at once. Whatever it is they're a useless shower of shitbags that I wouldn't trust to lead me across a pedestrianised road.



It's not just a question of when they announce it, it's the fact that they announce something first and then work out how to do it. They must have known lockdown was coming but they seemed to have no concrete measure in place at all. No plan to secure food supplies, to protect vulnerable people, no plan for enforcement of anything. That was cobbled together on the hoof, or just ignored altogether.

I'm increasingly thinking this government cant survive this calamity. We're a few bad days away from taking the mantle of worst outbreak in Europe, even with the fudged numbers. They can't possibly spin their way out of that.


----------



## Cerberus (Apr 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> It's not just a question of when they announce it, it's the fact that they announce something first and then work out how to do it. They must have known lockdown was coming but they seemed to have no concrete measure in place at all. No plan to secure food supplies, to protect vulnerable people, no plan for enforcement of anything. That was cobbled together on the hoof, or just ignored altogether.
> 
> I'm increasingly thinking this government cant survive this calamity. We're a few bad days away from taking the mantle of worst outbreak in Europe, even with the fudged numbers. They can't possibly spin their way out of that.



In a normal world I’d make you correct SpookyFrank but unfortunately I disagree (re: govt survival).

I’m replying because i had the same conversation with my brother and sister-in-law
last night (their view was that once this was over there would have to be a reckoning - I disagreed). Maybe the bubbles and echo chambers we live in have been amplified in this age of lockdown. The kind of chat we have here on Urban and within our social media groups - sharing well researched articles written by experts and backed up by data - isn’t a reflection of society as a whole.

I’m sure I’m insulting your intelligence here and you are well aware of the above. This is a country after all that gave an overwhelming majority to Johnson’s Tory’s only months ago. People really don’t seem to see the irony in clapping for the NHS having voted Conservative. Look at the front pages of the shit rags this morning - all deliriously happy for Boris and imploring their readers to give him the love. like it or not, the media sometimes determines the narrative yet at other times, acts as a weathervane.

On dial ins at work and chatting with friends on WhatsApp and family members on the phone this week I’ve asked people what they think of certain govt policies and decisions and by and large the consensus has been ‘trying to do a near impossible job in v trying circumstances’ and ‘isn’t that Rishi Sunak an excellent public speaker’. This from a range of voters and with attitudes that range from engaged to apathetic.

Long time lurker on these COVID threads (which really have been excellent and an example of much that is great about U75) first time caller and I share your sense of blame toward the Government. I just don’t think anything will change. In fact, if you offered me a free bet, I’d bet that in the long term Boris and his pals will come out of this smelling of roses


----------



## Anju (Apr 10, 2020)

Out for my morning dog walk and just seen a B&Q delivery van with two people in it. I would think that a whole day together in the cab plus carrying heavy deliveries huffing and puffing all over the place would be really high risk.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 10, 2020)

Cerberus said:


> In a normal world I’d make you correct SpookyFrank but unfortunately I disagree (re: govt survival).
> 
> I’m replying because i had the same conversation with my brother and sister-in-law
> last night (their view was that once this was over there would have to be a reckoning - I disagreed). Maybe the bubbles and echo chambers we live in have been amplified in this age of lockdown. The kind of chat we have here on Urban and within our social media groups - sharing well researched articles written by experts and backed up by data - isn’t a reflection of society as a whole.
> ...



Well yes and I'm aware that the bubble/echo chamber effect did make me wildly overestimate Corbyn's prospects at the last GE. But I don't think this is the same at all.

There is a point at which the scale of the problem becomes impossible to hide. I don't think that will be during the current peak, which I'm still expecting to level off a bit in the near future, but months down the line when nations with proper testing, contact tracing and community healthcare are returning to something like normality and the UK is still seeing large numbers of deaths_ and_ huge levels of disruption. The plan to get this over with at whatever cost and come out the other side first to get a jump on our competitors will have had the exact opposite effect.

More importantly, the tories are losing their media allies. Johnson's brush with death will have bought him a week's grace at best, but in that week the issues the people were attacking him over have all continued to get worse. Maitliss' monologue has gained a lot of traction, but I don't think that in itself is the watershed moment some people are thinking it is. When they have to say on the six o clock news that we now have the highest death toll in Europe, that'll be a watershed moment. The point where even those shameless bootlickers at the BBC can't continue to back the tories, that won't be one idenfitifable moment but I believe it will come sooner or later.

I should point out here that I'm not spooling out some fantasy version of events. This is not how change should happen. The 'post war consensus' wasn't really a consensus, it was a compromise. And it was vulnerable because of that. Whatever politics emerges from this whole shitshow it will still have the stain of neoliberalism on it, because that ideology has been ground in too deep for too long. Landlordism will survive. Financial speculation will survive, and will continue to be a driving force. The work that's needed to ensure this is already being done, they've got on it much quicker than they have the work needed to defeat the actual outbreak. The income protection stuff is all there to make sure there doesn't need to be a rent freeze, or worse rent strikes. It is protection for banks and speculators, not workers. I do expect Sunak to emerge from this with some credit to his name, and to be an ongoing danger as a result. I'm not going to call 'Sunak/Starmer national government' just yet but it doesn't seem like a totally absurd propostion.

And of course in Starmer we have the ideal Labour leader to help create a new neoliberal-lite fake consensus. He might as well have been built in a factory for that exact purpose.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:
			
		

> Warning: early morning wild speculation time....
> 
> There are some things not quite adding up for me with this. The dates of the projected peak, the way public expectations of lock-down and length of time it'll be there for, the construction of all these mega-hospitals around the country that won't be ready for quite a while, the already near collapse some hospitals seem to be in, and a few other things.
> 
> I can't quite articulate it exactly, but it does make me feel that this is going to be a much longer and more destructive and chaotic period of time than is being generally acknowledged at the moment.... or am I way off the mark?





Supine said:


> It's going to be going on until the majority of the population has had it. The Gov don't seem keen to discuss this though. 2020 is going to be shite *all year*



I'm concurring with Lynn's pessimistic outlook broadly, but "all year"? 
There's surely still a danger of over-accentuating the negatives, timescale wise ..... ??


----------



## kebabking (Apr 10, 2020)

Weapons grade shit-gibbons are still out I see...


You'd think that after the CC of Northants police was publicly chastised by the Home Secretary for 'policing' well outside the law just yesterday, a little circumspection would have been in order from our _esteemed _Constabulary, but apparently not....


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 10, 2020)

They're really trying to police 'non-essential' shopping, despite having no mandate to do that? Jesus christ.


----------



## LDC (Apr 10, 2020)

Apparently it was Tweeted just after a thank you for a delivery of 'essential' sweets to their station.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm concurring with Lynn's pessimistic outlook broadly, but "all year"?
> There's surely still a danger of over-accentuating the negatives, timescale wise ..... ??


Yes, all year. And into the next. This isn’t going away in a couple of months. And the things you like the most - the gigs, festivals etc  will be in the very last wave to go back to normal.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 10, 2020)

kebabking said:


> Weapons grade shit-gibbons are still out I see...
> View attachment 205828
> 
> You'd think that after the CC of Northants police was publicly chastised by the Home Secretary for 'policing' well outside the law just yesterday, a little circumspection would have been in order from our _esteemed _Constabulary, but apparently not....



So they were in the shop just checking to see who was in which aisle? They're not quite grasping this concept of 'essential' are they?


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm concurring with Lynn's pessimistic outlook broadly, but "all year"?
> There's surely still a danger of over-accentuating the negatives, timescale wise ..... ??



What do you think is going to happen?


----------



## zahir (Apr 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm concurring with Lynn's pessimistic outlook broadly, but "all year"?
> There's surely still a danger of over-accentuating the negatives, timescale wise ..... ??


If you don’t see this going on “all year” then what exit strategy do you see that could end it sooner?


----------



## LDC (Apr 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm concurring with Lynn's pessimistic outlook broadly, but "all year"?
> There's surely still a danger of over-accentuating the negatives, timescale wise ..... ??



I get that's there's a danger of looking at the planning and steps that are being taken for the worst case scenario and thinking that's the one that'll happen. But some initial research is showing that a much smaller percentage of people have it asymptomatically, and a much smaller percentage of the population generally have had it already than thought.

What with that and a vaccine at least 12 months away (at best, and even if it's possible) and even assuming immunity is good once you've had it, and that it doesn't mutate into anything worse this is going to be something that goes beyond this year I'd bet.


----------



## killer b (Apr 10, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> What do you think is going to happen?


He's still holding out for some late summer festivals


----------



## elbows (Apr 10, 2020)

There are reasons I'm just taking it one week at a time. I dont want to deviate from that too much, at least not this month.

But we arent supposed to go back to 'normal' after the first wave, so in the broadest sense this will go on for a long time. 

One of the reasons I am taking something of a break for the next days is that the press are driving me mad with all the questions about exit strategy. I shall be ignoring that as much as possible, and instead looking at what other countries, which are further ahead than us or managed to lockdown when their epidemics were a fraction of the size of ours, will do about relaxing of measures.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 10, 2020)

kebabking said:


> Weapons grade shit-gibbons are still out I see...
> View attachment 205828
> 
> You'd think that after the CC of Northants police was publicly chastised by the Home Secretary for 'policing' well outside the law just yesterday, a little circumspection would have been in order from our _esteemed _Constabulary, but apparently not....



they have deleted this tweet, probably realised it wasn't a good look


----------



## LDC (Apr 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> There are reasons I'm just taking it one week at a time. I dont want to deviate from that too much, at least not this month.
> 
> But we arent supposed to go back to 'normal' after the first wave, so in the broadest sense this will go on for a long time.
> 
> One of the reasons I am taking something of a break for the next days is that the press are driving me mad with all the questions about exit strategy. I shall be ignoring that as much as possible, and instead looking at what other countries, which are further ahead than us or managed to lockdown when their epidemics were a fraction of the size of ours, will do about relaxing of measures.



Yeah, the press fixation on the lockdown being relaxed soon and the 'exit strategy' is doing my head in too. I think it's adding to a bit of a public feeling that maybe we're nearing the end of it and things can be relaxed.


----------



## Supine (Apr 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm concurring with Lynn's pessimistic outlook broadly, but "all year"?
> There's surely still a danger of over-accentuating the negatives, timescale wise ..... ??



To clarify - when I say all year I don't mean complete lock down. I think measures will be relaxed as nhs capacity becomes available. I suspect the Gov will try to find ways to relax measures that get younger people free first to protect the more vulnerable until herd or vaccines protects them.


----------



## kebabking (Apr 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


> they have deleted this tweet, probably realised it wasn't a good look



Yeah, they did a two-tweet 'clarification' as well - apparently the officer had been _spoken to,_ and described as _overly exuberant._ One hopes he was described as other things to his face, and the spoken to didn't revolve around not getting caught....


----------



## elbows (Apr 10, 2020)

The Guardian had a go at trying to figure out what sort of number of deaths there may have been in care homes:









						Covid-19: Hundreds of UK care home deaths not added to official toll
					

Exclusive: Industry body estimates up to 1,000 people may have died in care homes so far




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Doodler (Apr 10, 2020)

A family friend has worked on the shop floor at our local Tesco for over 25 years. She says the shelves there have been emptied by shoppers once again for all sorts of foodstuffs, reckons this is because many people are planning little family get-togethers this Easter weekend. Some have been trying to ignore the one shopper per household rule and are being arrogant and obnoxious to the till staff when reminded of it.


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, the press fixation on the lockdown being relaxed soon and the 'exit strategy' is doing my head in too. I think it's adding to a bit of a public feeling that maybe we're nearing the end of it and things can be relaxed.


,

Totally irresponsible when people need to develop some acceptance of current reality. But that's not what the press does, it's all about generating excited states of mind.


----------



## xenon (Apr 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> There are reasons I'm just taking it one week at a time. I dont want to deviate from that too much, at least not this month.
> 
> But we arent supposed to go back to 'normal' after the first wave, so in the broadest sense this will go on for a long time.
> 
> One of the reasons I am taking something of a break for the next days is that the press are driving me mad with all the questions about exit strategy. I shall be ignoring that as much as possible, and instead looking at what other countries, which are further ahead than us or managed to lockdown when their epidemics were a fraction of the size of ours, will do about relaxing of measures.



Those questions are infuriating aren't they? 
"Are we there yet?.... Are we there yet?.."


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Apr 10, 2020)

If you go on newspaper comment sections you can already see  government outriders suggesting lockdown will only last two, at the most 3 more weeks and the choice then will be “lift lockdown or face total economic collapse” 
I hope I am wrong, but our prospects do not look good either economically or in avoiding runaway outbreak with 5% plus mortality as health facilities overwhelmed. This is where the eugenicists, herd immunity speculators and comparative advantage fantasists have led us.


----------



## clicker (Apr 10, 2020)

The South Korean stats are imo as trustworthy as we can hope for and they are now showing at least 90 'recovered' covid patients are still 'infected'.
If that pattern continues globally then we're in for the long haul.
The temp hospitals and over 30 temp morgues aren't going to be pulled down anytime soon.
The clamouring, from a minority, for lifting of restrictions are I think borne from panic. Without any data yet to show what is likely to happen they're just whistling in the wind.
Without a vaccine and serological tests (that work) it's a waiting game.
The non essential construction and online shopping isn't helping. How is it right that I could sit in the garden ordering a bloody summer dress, some poor sod is having to go to work to package that up and send it to me. A postman has to deliver it etc....yet still people will be doing just that.


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> He's still holding out for some late summer festivals



I heard there's one happening in la la land.


----------



## Cerberus (Apr 10, 2020)

I do have some sympathy for government - any government anywhere in fact. (I said only some...).

While I understand that it’s irresponsible to speculate on ending lockdown, even to the extent of hinting at two more weeks (via media leaks) it would also be irresponsible to begin communicating plans for indefinite lockdown/s and life changing immeasurably. The latter would trigger panic, fear, mental health issues, redundancies etc..

Atm the tension lies between those that advocate lifting lockdown in a couple of weeks and those that warn of being in it ‘for the long haul’.

I don’t really think anyone in government, the Civil Service, healthcare, education, business, supply chain can adequately comprehend what a year long (for example) lockdown might mean for society. When you add on to that the absence of physical human relationships and contact plus the removal of all of those leisure activities which we hold dear (& that others rely on for work) - sport, live music, theatre, cinema, festivals etc etc - then no one can be blamed for speculating...


----------



## editor (Apr 10, 2020)

Anju said:


> Out for my morning dog walk and just seen a B&Q delivery van with two people in it. I would think that a whole day together in the cab plus carrying heavy deliveries huffing and puffing all over the place would be really high risk.


If there was only one person there would soon be no truck.


----------



## Anju (Apr 10, 2020)

editor said:


> If there was only one person there would soon be no truck.



Has there been a rise in thefts of delivery vehicles? All the courier vans I've seen only have the driver and same for post office. 

I wouldn't fancy having to spend a day in such a confined space with someone who could be ignoring social distancing guidelines.


----------



## editor (Apr 10, 2020)

Anju said:


> Has there been a rise in thefts of delivery vehicles? All the courier vans I've seen only have the driver and same for post office.
> 
> I wouldn't fancy having to spend a day in such a confined space with someone who could be ignoring social distancing guidelines.


I'm not saying it's a good thing that they have to sit together, but I wouldn't fancy being a delivery driver working on my own.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 10, 2020)

Just like the government, the cops are making the rules up as they go


----------



## teqniq (Apr 10, 2020)

What's the betting she gets ticked off back at base?


----------



## Raheem (Apr 10, 2020)

teqniq said:


> What's the betting she gets ticked off back at base?


Undoubtedly, but tbf the bigger issue is sending cops who don't really understand what they're supposed to be doing out onto the streets with vague instructions.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 10, 2020)

Police apologise for telling Rotherham family they weren't allowed in their own front garden
					

Officer’s warning ‘well-intentioned but ill-informed’, says force




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (Apr 10, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Police apologise for telling Rotherham family they weren't allowed in their own front garden
> 
> 
> Officer’s warning ‘well-intentioned but ill-informed’, says force
> ...



"well intentioned"


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 10, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Undoubtedly, but tbf the bigger issue is sending cops who don't really understand what they're supposed to be doing out onto the streets with vague instructions.



In this case, as with a few others, we see a fucking thick copper, with no bloody common sense at all, they shouldn't be in the job.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 10, 2020)

There's only so many officious traffic wardens needed at any one time though.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> In this case, as with a few others, we see a fucking thick copper, with no bloody common sense at all, they shouldn't be in the job.


But she is, and there's thousands like her and worse. You can't expect a cop to be any cleverer than the Home Secretary.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 10, 2020)

You have set the bar very low there.


----------



## Cid (Apr 10, 2020)

South Yorkshire Police. Don’t really need to know much more than that.


----------



## treelover (Apr 10, 2020)

Historically yes, but since Hillsborough, they applied a soft touch, reclaim the streets here was very differently policed than say Leeds, though the G8 finance ministers meeting was very robustly policed.,


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Apr 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Just like the government, the cops are making the rules up as they go




This just highlights the utter fuckwittery of our lockdown. The bloke says 'where does it say we can't go on out front garden?' and he's right, it doesn't say that anywhere.  The copper, otoh, is trying to police with the vaguest of vague guidelines. It's a fucking shambles.

The government should just come out and say you can't go out beyond the boundary of your front garden except for shopping once a week and 30 mins exercise once a day. To go into any shop you need a permit that you're allowed once a week.  Anyone not abiding by that gets fined. It's really fucking simple. China managed it, better still South Korea has managed to get this under control without even a lock down. Us? Total fucking shambles while the bodies pile up each day.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Tell you what, it'll be a brave MP of any stripe who goes private for so much as an ingrown toenail for the next forever.


Oh, but they'll do it. They'll either just brazen it out, or it'll be some kind of "I'm going private to keep the burden off the NHS" shore story.


----------



## Cid (Apr 10, 2020)

treelover said:


> Historically yes, but since Hillsborough, they applied a soft touch, reclaim the streets here was very differently policed than say Leeds, though the G8 finance ministers meeting was very robustly policed.,



Oh I’m glad I rarely see them. But didn’t work out too well in Rotherham around 10 years ago.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 10, 2020)

kebabking said:


> Yeah, they did a two-tweet 'clarification' as well - apparently the officer had been _spoken to,_ and described as _overly exuberant._ One hopes he was described as other things to his face, and the spoken to didn't revolve around not getting caught....


Do you think he got any biscuits with the cup of tea he got at the interview?

Or even a cup of tea?


----------



## existentialist (Apr 10, 2020)

Doodler said:


> A family friend has worked on the shop floor at our local Tesco for over 25 years. She says the shelves there have been emptied by shoppers once again for all sorts of foodstuffs, reckons this is because many people are planning little family get-togethers this Easter weekend. Some have been trying to ignore the one shopper per household rule and are being arrogant and obnoxious to the till staff when reminded of it.


...and THAT is how we could end up with police officers in supermarkets. Cunts (the obnoxious people, not specifically the police officers)


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Apr 10, 2020)

To further highlight just how fucking shit people are being with this. The little shop I work in took substantially more money than we do on a normal night before a bank holiday and we've been closing 3 hours earlier than normal since 'lockdown' started.

The social conscience in this country us utterly bizarre. Lots of lovely things like mutual aid and clapping for carers but 'oh, gotta keep buying shit because I don't know what else to do.' I can now, more than ever, see just how spot on Romero was in dawn of the dead with the zombies aimlessly wandering around a shopping mall.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> To further highlight just how fucking shit people are being with this. The little shop I work in took substantially more money than we do on a normal night before a bank holiday and we've been closing 3 hours earlier than normal since 'lockdown' started.
> 
> The social conscience in this country us utterly bizarre. Lots of lovely things like mutual aid and clapping for carers but 'oh, gotta keep buying shit because I don't know what else to do.' I can now, more than ever, see just how spot on Romero was in dawn of the dead with the zombies aimlessly wandering around a shopping mall.



Why wouldn't you be busier? Literally no one is away on holiday and people have to queue to get into supermarkets, doesn't mean people are shit.


----------



## Mation (Apr 10, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Police apologise for telling Rotherham family they weren't allowed in their own front garden
> 
> 
> Officer’s warning ‘well-intentioned but ill-informed’, says force
> ...


"appurtenance"

Never heard the word before. You learn something new etc...


----------



## existentialist (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> To further highlight just how fucking shit people are being with this. The little shop I work in took substantially more money than we do on a normal night before a bank holiday and we've been closing 3 hours earlier than normal since 'lockdown' started.
> 
> The social conscience in this country us utterly bizarre. Lots of lovely things like mutual aid and clapping for carers but 'oh, gotta keep buying shit because I don't know what else to do.' I can now, more than ever, see just how spot on Romero was in dawn of the dead with the zombies aimlessly wandering around a shopping mall.


Maybe it's a long reach, but I can't help but feel that this is the unintended consequence of two generations of "every man for him/herself" social policy, driven by a largely right-wing and extremely neoliberal series of governments. The concept of "social responsibility" - doing (or not doing) something because it serves a greater good - has been lost to us. Maybe we never really had it, but now it seems OK to be proudly "fuck you, I'm doing what I want to do" in a way I don't recall from my younger days to nearly the same extent.


----------



## Spandex (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> The social conscience in this country us utterly bizarre. Lots of lovely things like mutual aid and clapping for carers but 'oh, gotta keep buying shit because I don't know what else to do.'


It's not that bizarre. There's 68 million people in the country. If 10% are heroes and 10% are cunts you'll find endless examples of both the good and the bad, while the other 80% of the population just try to get on the best they can.


----------



## treelover (Apr 10, 2020)

There are huge amounts of people helping in many ways, many of them quite young, a number saying it has opened up their eyes to the levels of inequality, the NHS volunteers list is over 750, 000!, 
though many are still kicking their heels waiting to be called up.


----------



## killer b (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> To further highlight just how fucking shit people are being with this. The little shop I work in took substantially more money than we do on a normal night before a bank holiday and we've been closing 3 hours earlier than normal since 'lockdown' started.
> 
> The social conscience in this country us utterly bizarre. Lots of lovely things like mutual aid and clapping for carers but 'oh, gotta keep buying shit because I don't know what else to do.' I can now, more than ever, see just how spot on Romero was in dawn of the dead with the zombies aimlessly wandering around a shopping mall.


local shops are busier because lots of people are shopping closer to home - also I've found that a lot of the staples the supermarkets are struggling to keep on the shelves are still available in local shops. Expect plenty of other people are discovering that too.


----------



## Doodler (Apr 10, 2020)

existentialist said:


> ...and THAT is how we could end up with police officers in supermarkets. Cunts (the obnoxious people, not specifically the police officers)



Unfortunately it's not a new thing. Some people will exploit the 'I'll tell your manager' angle so they can be rude and arrogant with impunity. If you're a shop worker you have to cheer yourself up by remembering the friendly customers you encounter.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 10, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Unfortunately it's not a new thing. Some people will exploit the 'I'll tell your manager' angle so they can be rude and arrogant with impunity. If you're a shop worker you have to cheer yourself up by remembering the friendly customers you encounter.


And I have been making a point of being friendly, even though I usually am anyway, for that reason (amongst others). Like my old granny used to say (she wouldn't shut the fuck up), "Manners cost nothing".


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Apr 10, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Why wouldn't you be busier? Literally no one is away on holiday and people have to queue to get into supermarkets, doesn't mean people are shit.



Yeah you say that when you have to work there, pal and when people are in and out several times a day buying a pack of crisps and beer.

It's not the busyness that bothers me and it's not what people buy that bothers me it's the frequent ducking in and out all day and not having the common sense to wait outside when there's a couple of people in the shop, even when there's signs up and when you can look into the shop through the big open door way and see for yourself.

Most people are alright, as I said, but there's enough of a minority that makes it noticeable that people aren't taking the 'lockdown' on board. I'll repeat too, you try working in it, with reduced staff, no protection beyond hand sanitiser and see how you feel about people making multiple trips and buying one item at a time.


----------



## Doodler (Apr 10, 2020)

existentialist said:


> And I have been making a point of being friendly, even though I usually am anyway, for that reason (amongst others). Like my old granny used to say (she wouldn't shut the fuck up), "Manners cost nothing".



Thank you and it will make a difference!


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Apr 10, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Maybe it's a long reach, but I can't help but feel that this is the unintended consequence of two generations of "every man for him/herself" social policy, driven by a largely right-wing and extremely neoliberal series of governments. The concept of "social responsibility" - doing (or not doing) something because it serves a greater good - has been lost to us. Maybe we never really had it, but now it seems OK to be proudly "fuck you, I'm doing what I want to do" in a way I don't recall from my younger days to nearly the same extent.



It's not a long reach at all I made that very point in my rant yesterday! I get why it's happening but what underlines all my posts on this is fear. Not just for me but mainly other people, especially older people which I see a lot. I'm delivering to them and they're pretty scared too.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Apr 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> local shops are busier because lots of people are shopping closer to home - also I've found that a lot of the staples the supermarkets are struggling to keep on the shelves are still available in local shops. Expect plenty of other people are discovering that too.



I may be coming across wrong. It's not the busyness that bothers me it's people coming in for one or two items several times a day that gets my back up. What you describe is exactly the case but I just wish people would get what they need for one or two days at a time and not one or two hours at a time.


----------



## tim (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> This just highlights the utter fuckwittery of our lockdown. The bloke says 'where does it say we can't go on out front garden?' and he's right, it doesn't say that anywhere.  The copper, otoh, is trying to police with the vaguest of vague guidelines. It's a fucking shambles.
> 
> The government should just come out and say you can't go out beyond the boundary of your front garden except for shopping once a week and 30 mins exercise once a day. To go into any shop you need a permit that you're allowed once a week.  Anyone not abiding by that gets fined. It's really fucking simple. China managed it, better still South Korea has managed to get this under control without even a lock down. Us? Total fucking shambles while the bodies pile up each day.




I liked the attempt to criminalise standing in your hall with the door open.

"Are you going indoors, or are you refusing to go indoors?"

"I am indoors"


----------



## ddraig (Apr 10, 2020)

Right, so I've got Easter eggs for my parents who live a couple of kilometres away, was thinking of using my one outing of the day to cycle over there, put them outside the door, let them know and maybe have a quick chat from over the road on opposite pavement then go straight home, not going anywhere else.
One of them is shielding.

Wondering whether I should however, be nice to check on them IRL too.
Would you do this and think it ok or not? Cheers


----------



## editor (Apr 10, 2020)

And off you fuck









						French police turn back private jet of holidaymakers from UK
					

Party of 10 flew into Marseille-Provence airport to be taken by helicopter to luxury Cannes villa




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## teqniq (Apr 10, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Right, so I've got Easter eggs for my parents who live a couple of kilometres away, was thinking of using my one outing of the day to cycle over there, put them outside the door, let them know and maybe have a quick chat from over the road on opposite pavement then go straight home, not going anywhere else.
> One of them is shielding.
> 
> Wondering whether I should however, be nice to check on them IRL too.
> Would you do this and think it ok or not? Cheers


Seems fair enough to me


----------



## andysays (Apr 10, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Right, so I've got Easter eggs for my parents who live a couple of kilometres away, was thinking of using my one outing of the day to cycle over there, put them outside the door, let them know and maybe have a quick chat from over the road on opposite pavement then go straight home, not going anywhere else.
> One of them is shielding.
> 
> Wondering whether I should however, be nice to check on them IRL too.
> Would you do this and think it ok or not? Cheers


It was my MiL's birthday last Sunday, so my wife and I walked over with some presents, left them on the door step, then watched through the window and sang happy birthday while she opened them. She really seemed to appreciate it.

I say take your folks their Easter eggs


----------



## Raheem (Apr 10, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Right, so I've got Easter eggs for my parents who live a couple of kilometres away, was thinking of using my one outing of the day to cycle over there, put them outside the door, let them know and maybe have a quick chat from over the road on opposite pavement then go straight home, not going anywhere else.
> One of them is shielding.
> 
> Wondering whether I should however, be nice to check on them IRL too.
> Would you do this and think it ok or not? Cheers


I'm increasingly wondering if 'saying hello to old people' shouldn't be counted as 'necessary'. Appreciate it's not. But this is going to go on for a while and there are people literally not seeing a soul all day, no Internet. Seems like it wouldn't hurt for them to have a relative to talk to now and again at a safe distance, given that we're allowed to go shopping and skateboarding as much as we like.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Apr 10, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Right, so I've got Easter eggs for my parents who live a couple of kilometres away, was thinking of using my one outing of the day to cycle over there, put them outside the door, let them know and maybe have a quick chat from over the road on opposite pavement then go straight home, not going anywhere else.
> One of them is shielding.
> 
> Wondering whether I should however, be nice to check on them IRL too.
> Would you do this and think it ok or not? Cheers



Seems fair enough to me too.

It seems to me that if you're actually putting some thought into things then the chances are you're doing alright, and that is the majority of people I think. It's people just popping in and out of places as if things are normal that need to have a word with themselves. They're in a minority though, albeit still a significant one for now.


----------



## keybored (Apr 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> "appurtenance"
> 
> Never heard the word before. You learn something new etc...



I had to Google it.

All I took from this is I am now allowed take hard drugs


----------



## kebabking (Apr 10, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Right, so I've got Easter eggs for my parents who live a couple of kilometres away, was thinking of using my one outing of the day to cycle over there, put them outside the door, let them know and maybe have a quick chat from over the road on opposite pavement then go straight home, not going anywhere else.
> One of them is shielding.
> 
> Wondering whether I should however, be nice to check on them IRL too.
> Would you do this and think it ok or not? Cheers



I would absolutely do that. If one of them is shielding I'd make sure that they didn't bring out a drink that you'd then give back with your filthy outside germs all over the glass, but apart from the 2/3m rule, I'd have no problems with what you propose to do.

(Wider point) Mental health is going to be a huge casualty of this - there's no point avoiding any chance of getting C-19 if you then top yourself through loneliness and despair....


----------



## killer b (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I may be coming across wrong. It's not the busyness that bothers me it's people coming in for one or two items several times a day that gets my back up. What you describe is exactly the case but I just wish people would get what they need for one or two days at a time and not one or two hours at a time.


I don't want to tell you what it's like where you work, but for my part I think we notice transgressions a lot more than we notice people behaving themselves. So we don't notice the vast majority of our neighbours who're abiding by the lockdown because there's nothing to notice, only the ones who have a loud party in their garden... we don't really notice the hundreds of people who pass through the shop once, only the two people who make multiple trips, the one or two who take the piss with social distancing, etc etc. 

So even though the vast majority of people are sticking by the rules, because the ones who don't are the ones we remember, they take up more space in our heads than they really should do.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Apr 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't want to tell you what it's like where you work, but for my part I think we notice transgressions a lot more than we notice people behaving themselves. So we don't notice the vast majority of our neighbours who're abiding by the lockdown because there's nothing to notice, only the ones who have a loud party in their garden... we don't really notice the hundreds of people who pass through the shop once, only the two people who make multiple trips, the one or two who take the piss with social distancing, etc etc.
> 
> So even though the vast majority of people are sticking by the rules, because the ones who don't are the ones we remember, they take up more space in our heads than they really should do.



Yeah I expect you're correct to a large extent. It's fear and stress that underlies it all though. Interestingly, just had a supermarket worker on LBC call in tears about the same thing. It's people coming in every day and the blase attitudes that some people have to it. While you are probably correct in what you say it doesn't change the fact these people do exist and they're causing unnecessary fear amongst people who work in these environments.


----------



## ddraig (Apr 10, 2020)

Cheers all
No I wouldn't accept  anything that would go back in the house and would hope my dad would be careful with the bag and contents I leave outside


----------



## killer b (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Yeah I expect you're correct to a large extent. It's fear and stress that underlies it all though. Interestingly, just had a supermarket worker on LBC call in tears about the same thing. It's people coming in every day and the blase attitudes that some people have to it. While you are probably correct in what you say it doesn't change the fact these people do exist and they're causing unnecessary fear amongst people who work in these environments.


absolutely - tbh, even though it is a tiny minority, if you've got hundreds of people passing through each day it still makes your job suddenly a lot more dangerous than it used to be. 

But whatever the government does - and it could do better - some of these people will still exist, and they'll still be coming into the shops and putting workers in danger. Difficult to know what can be done other than giving the workers as many ways to protect themselves as possible, and giving them the power - and backup - to exclude the dickheads when necessary.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> To further highlight just how fucking shit people are being with this. The little shop I work in took substantially more money than we do on a normal night before a bank holiday and we've been closing 3 hours earlier than normal since 'lockdown' started.
> 
> The social conscience in this country us utterly bizarre. Lots of lovely things like mutual aid and clapping for carers but 'oh, gotta keep buying shit because I don't know what else to do.' I can now, more than ever, see just how spot on Romero was in dawn of the dead with the zombies aimlessly wandering around a shopping mall.




I completely get where you’re coming from. I’ve been covering the odd shift in a local shop and I arrive home wiped out exhausted from the low level chronic anxiety about how shit everyone is about keeping their distance and the effort of taking extra-extra measures to keep safe.

And I’ve been saying for at least a year “This is what the zombie apocalypse looks like, we are living it now”. Beer zombies, phone zombies, trash culture zombies, climate change zombies, political inertia zombies, people sleepwalking and shuffling towards doom.

In the past I always mostly loved everyone just by virtue of their Beingness. I’m far less tolerant of wanton idiocy nowadays.

And the thing about “I’m alright Jack” and everyone out for themselves: that’s no doubt a huge factor, I reckon, but consumerism is a major factor too: being able to just nip out to get something, click and have it turn as if by magic the next day, never having wait, instant gratification, credit etc all means we’ve not had to plan ahead or anticipate. For decades. But also, really importantly, with so much penury, a huge number of us have been living hand to mouth and just in time for decades too, especially since the 2008 shitstorm. So it’s a synthesis of not having to think ahead, and not being able to plan ahead.








ddraig said:


> Right, so I've got Easter eggs for my parents who live a couple of kilometres away, was thinking of using my one outing of the day to cycle over there, put them outside the door, let them know and maybe have a quick chat from over the road on opposite pavement then go straight home, not going anywhere else.
> One of them is shielding.
> 
> Wondering whether I should however, be nice to check on them IRL too.
> Would you do this and think it ok or not? Cheers



I would definitely do that.


----------



## editor (Apr 10, 2020)

More shit news 









						Coronavirus: 980 dead in UK hospitals in deadliest day of pandemic yet
					

Figure is exceeded in Europe only by France’s 1,417, taking total number of UK dead to almost 9,000




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 10, 2020)

By the way...

I went out to bring my bins in the other morning and an elderly lady was sitting on my front wall having a bit of a rest. I said I would go around her to get my bins so she didn’t have to move and she was keen to reassure me that she wouldn’t give me the virus because she was fine. She insisted that without symptoms, she’s not going to pass on the virus. I changed tack and told her I could give it to her and she again insisted that because I was clearly not suffering with any symptoms it was impossible to give her the virus. I tried several times to tell her you can pass it on without symtoms. No idea if it went home. 

But it made me realise that probably some significant proportion of the population just don’t grasp or understand how contagious this is.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 10, 2020)

Looks like we have wankers here too...



> Police in Worthing have warned the coronavirus lockdown is ‘not a holiday’ after officers were deliberately spat and coughed on. In a statement posted on Facebook yesterday (April 9), a spokesman for Worthing and Adur Police said: “We are frustrated that we are having to attend numerous reports of BBQs and parties in Worthing.
> 
> “Lives are at risk because of a selfish few who continue to ignore advice and deliberately spit and cough on our officers who are trying to save lives.” He warned ‘people are dying’ and pledged to take action against those who ‘continue to flout the law and endanger others’.
> 
> ...



WTF is wrong with people?


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 10, 2020)

.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 10, 2020)

I've seen references and headlines around... what the fuck is this medal bullshit??


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 10, 2020)

I thought better of it cupid_stunt ....


Gallows humour.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 10, 2020)

Arrest the fuckers, and send them off to Pontins, that will teach them.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Apr 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> absolutely - tbh, even though it is a tiny minority, if you've got hundreds of people passing through each day it still makes your job suddenly a lot more dangerous than it used to be.



I am really amazed at just how differently I've felt about my job in the space of weeks. Before it was an easy, friendly place to work with regulars I can chat to in a nice community shop. Don't get me wrong it's still like that but it's so much more stressful now.

As SheilaNaGig said it's the low level anxiety that constantly bubbles away under the surface that's the most knackering, along with the busyness too. Every cough is noticed ten fold now and there are times when I actually feel people breathe on me. What are normal things that people do, like sighing, has become a sudden source of anxiety. It's horrible. I hope there's not too big a residue of social distancing left after this. I really miss hugs


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 10, 2020)

Me too Doctor Carrot 

I was kinda coasting along with things like living alone and not being able to socialise til my little sister rang to say she was worried about how lonesome I was on my own. She did it with love and support but it tipped me into realising how much I’m missing my the company of loved ones. And now I’m feeling it quite hard...


----------



## yield (Apr 10, 2020)

Cerberus said:


> Long time lurker on these COVID threads (which really have been excellent and an example of much that is great about U75) first time caller and I share your sense of blame toward the Government.
> 
> I just don’t think anything will change. In fact, if you offered me a free bet, I’d bet that in the long term Boris and his pals will come out of this smelling of roses


I'll take that bet. £20 to the server fund or The Trussell Trust?


----------



## two sheds (Apr 10, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Right, so I've got Easter eggs for my parents who live a couple of kilometres away, was thinking of using my one outing of the day to cycle over there, put them outside the door, let them know and maybe have a quick chat from over the road on opposite pavement then go straight home, not going anywhere else.
> One of them is shielding.
> 
> Wondering whether I should however, be nice to check on them IRL too.
> Would you do this and think it ok or not? Cheers


are you a government minister?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 10, 2020)

I'm really sorry it's so scary for you Doctor Carrot - I totally understand why. 
_So many_ keyworkers working without enough/any protection, while health workers are still not anything like adequately equipped with them, on the frontline.

The essential shopping thing is difficult - vulnerable people who don't make 'the list', people still attemptiing to live on very little/ekeing out a pittance on a day by day basis, larger households, only one adult to shop, only one adult to shop with small kids, households with no car, households without shops close by etc etc - I'm not sure how we manage that better?

It _looked_ like China, under lockdown, relied much more heavily on deliveries (with at least _some_ protection offered to workers making deliveries).
How has it worked with other countries with fuller and/or better thought out lockdowns than us?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 10, 2020)

Also...

((( Doctor Carrot )))
((( SheilaNaGig )))

 X


----------



## prunus (Apr 10, 2020)

kebabking said:


> (Wider point) Mental health is going to be a huge casualty of this - there's no point avoiding any chance of getting C-19 if you then top yourself through loneliness and despair....



This is going to sound callous, but actually yes there is. If you don’t get it you can’t pass it on to anyone else. The kind of thinking in the above is illustrative of the wrongness of the mindset of people about the lockdown/distancing rules, largely because the utter shower of shite that are our ‘leaders’ are not putting the right message across.

The rules are not to protect YOU. They are to protect other people. The risk to any individual person from getting this is low to very low on the whole, however the risk that _someone_ will die from spreading the disease is approaching certainty.

The message shouldn’t be some mealy mouthed abstract protect the nhs, it should be

Obey the rules, or you are killing people. 

In my opinion, of course


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I am really amazed at just how differently I've felt about my job in the space of weeks. Before it was an easy, friendly place to work with regulars I can chat to in a nice community shop. Don't get me wrong it's still like that but it's so much more stressful now.
> 
> As SheilaNaGig said it's the low level anxiety that constantly bubbles away under the surface that's the most knackering, along with the busyness too. Every cough is noticed ten fold now and there are times when I actually feel people breathe on me. What are normal things that people do, like sighing, has become a sudden source of anxiety. It's horrible. I hope there's not too big a residue of social distancing left after this. I really miss hugs



I feel for you both (& all workers in shops large & small all over) lately just being temporarily trapped inside a shop - even just stuck in a queue, or trying to find everything on the list to avoid a 2nd shop - makes me anxious, a whole day of it would be  .

The only place I didn't feel anxious was in the local post-office where the lady who works there was (as always) behind a glass screen - both safe from each other's breath, we had a proper cheery chat.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 10, 2020)

There's enough PPE to go around but only use it when its needed. IT'S YOUR FAULT.

What a cunt.

Briefing right now. Hancock.


----------



## elbows (Apr 10, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> There's enough PPE to go around but only use it when its needed. IT'S YOUR FAULT.
> 
> What a cunt.
> 
> Briefing right now. Hancock.



And 'a front door is better than any mask'.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 10, 2020)

prunus said:


> The rules are not to protect YOU. They are to protect other people.


I want to tattoo this on the eyeballs of every fucking person in the country.


----------



## elbows (Apr 10, 2020)

I reckon it would have had more impact if he'd dressed up as an easter bunny and burst out of a giant chocolate egg.

And then sang 'picture a front door, smashing into a human face, forever'.

These thoughts are sponsored by the way he spoke unconvincingly of a thing called 'normal life' and they way he said 'stay well'.


----------



## prunus (Apr 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> And 'a front door is better than any mask'.



Fucking unwieldy to get down the aisle at Sainsbury’s though.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 10, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I want to tattoo this on the eyeballs of every fucking person in the country.


That would be a serious breach of the distancing guidance.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm concurring with Lynn's pessimistic outlook broadly, but "all year"?
> There's surely still a danger of over-accentuating the negatives, timescale wise ..... ??



I'll quote my own post so as to most easily respond to everyone who's responded to it.

First, to clarify, I do *not* think that everything's going to be hunky-dory by June or even August/September, or anything. One or two responses to me were hinting at that being my position -- not true.

What I *do* think is at least _possible_, is that there'll be _SOME_ degree of relaxation of the lock-down by summer. Late summer maybe. And OK, gradual, and not too soon.
I can't possibly say exactly when with any confidence, and neither can any of you, but I still don't really think that a full-on lock-down right up to and including Xmas is all that likely.

I also think theres a general danger from knowing *now* that we're approaching the worst levels of hospitalisations and deaths . in coming weeks/months .
That danger might be that we end up over-assuming things from that.
Over-assuming that things will never get better until Xmas or even right into next year, for instance.

So anyone assuming from my earlier post (above) that I'm "going round" thinking that it'll all be over by June, please understand that my actual position is a fair bit more nuanced than that.
There's a danger of being over-pessimistic as well as one of being over-optimistic.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Apr 10, 2020)

Thanks for the virtual hugs and words of understanding it does help


----------



## 2hats (Apr 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> everything's going to be hunky-dory by June or even August/September


Yes it is. By August/September.

2021.

Maybe.


----------



## bimble (Apr 10, 2020)

Theres a lot more people around here today than I’ve seen for the last 2 weeks, seem to be cycling mostly. Looking at those diagrams of giant wedges of infectious spores trailing in the wake of cyclists has made me scowl at them pointlessly whilst holding my breath.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 10, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Yes, all year. And into the next. This isn’t going away in a couple of months. And the things you like the most - the gigs, festivals etc  will be in the very last wave to go back to normal.



Gigs/festivals will end up being the lowest priority agreed.  And I wouldn't complain at that either -- 100% understandable.
I still think that timescalewise, you're overdoing the pessimism though.

Nick Cave's people have just mailed people to rearrange his tour (originally April/May this year) to *April 2021*.
Are they being over-optimistic? I actually doubt that, and quite strongly.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> everything's going to be hunky-dory by June or even August/September





2hats said:


> Yes it is. By August/September.
> 
> 2021.
> 
> Maybe.



Great "quoting" therre Mr hats


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 10, 2020)

Red Cat said:
			
		

> What do you think is going to happen?





killer b said:


> He's still holding out for some late summer festivals



ETA after seeing quote, because RC as well as kb misunderstand my position :  



			
				Red Cat said:
			
		

> I heard there's one happening in la la land.



killer b  : You've left out that I've accepted for ages that I could very well be wrong.
My positition remains only that it's _possible _for mid to late September -- no more than that, and I now think no earlier.
For almost certain


----------



## xenon (Apr 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looks like we have wankers here too...
> 
> 
> 
> WTF is wrong with people?



They're just you're 365 days a year scum. Would be doing other antisocial shit any other time.

The spitting especially makes me go all a bit shoot on sight.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, the press fixation on the lockdown being relaxed soon and the 'exit strategy' is doing my head in too. I think it's *adding to a bit of a public feeling that maybe we're nearing the end of it and things can be relaxed*.



There's very few on here (maybe no-one?) who shares that misapprehension! Certainly not me ....
</looks very sternly at certain other Urbans    >


----------



## existentialist (Apr 10, 2020)

kebabking said:


> (Wider point) Mental health is going to be a huge casualty of this - there's no point avoiding any chance of getting C-19 if you then top yourself through loneliness and despair....


The counselling service I help run is looking quite hard at this - there has been a huge drop in the number of people attending, many of whom are uneasy about video/phone counselling, and we strongly suspect that they will return, along with a lot of people who have developed difficulties during lockdown, in a tsunami of demand, once this is over. On top of health professionals who will be burned out and experiencing PTSI/"moral injury", and people who have been bereaved, or developed anticipatory grief around severely ill friends or relatives.

Added to which, the local mental health support services have simply shut down, which means that there are quite a lot of moderate-to-severe cases out there who are currently unsupported, and who will remain that way until they become acute.

I am quite nervous about just how bad this could be. I mean, we'll handle it, but I very strongly suspect that we will be overwhelmed. And I am not optimistic about the possibility of the Trust providing commensurate funding


----------



## agricola (Apr 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> And 'a front door is better than any mask'.



TBF this bit is true - absolutely loads of bank robbers have been caught wearing masks but none wearing front doors.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 10, 2020)

xenon said:


> The spitting especially makes me go all a bit shoot on sight.



So, you're joining beesonthewhatnow on the corona-happy boat.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 10, 2020)

Well Hancock just sprung into life on the question relating to the _economy_ there - _waafles through a few points then gets to the gist_ - that's _something he worries about_. Cunts.

edited to correct name - dur


----------



## existentialist (Apr 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, you're joining beesonthewhatnow on the corona-happy boat.


Somebody bumped a thread the other day which had that twat "Boat happy" chymaera posting quite near the top.

And I briefly wondered what he'd be like on here with all this going on...you can just imagine it, can't you?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Well Raab just sprung into life on the question relating to the _economy_ there - _waafles through a few points then gets to the gist_ - that's _something he worries about_. Cunts.



Rabb?

Are you watching yesterday's briefing?


----------



## bimble (Apr 10, 2020)

Is it right that today’s announced death toll is higher than any single day in any other European country? And they are just blathering on about Johnson’s good spirits.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it right that today’s announced death toll is higher than any single day in any other European country? And they are just blathering on about Johnson’s good spirits.



France has had several days in the thousands. The reported figures there have been very much up one day and down the next however, so that could be an artefact of how they report or collate the data. 980 tops the worst single day in either Italy or Spain. 

We have now gone past the point where we might still hope that our death toll might be _only _as bad as Spain's IMO.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it right that today’s announced death toll is higher than any single day in any other European country? And they are just blathering on about Johnson’s good spirits.


France peak daily figure 1417. Italy 919. Spain peak 961. Obviously all numbers are subject to refinement (once the data eventually trickles through) plus error.


----------



## ddraig (Apr 10, 2020)

Not sure if it was on here but read about a courier being busy dropping off suitcases to holiday homes that people had sent so they didn't get grief if pulled on the way!!

Also english dickhead in his jag and union jack t shirt moving road closed signs and cones so he can get down a blocked off road to go kayaking, tries to say it's totally different in rural places!


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 10, 2020)

Just realised that Ramadan is early this year, starts in a fortnight. That could well play havok with lockdown, round here at least.


----------



## zahir (Apr 10, 2020)

> Matt Raw, 38, is enjoying life in lockdown in Knutsford, but said if he’d known how bad the outbreak was going to get in Britain, he would have stayed in China.
> 
> “It feels a little bit like out of the pot, into the fire,” said Raw, who was living in Wuhan with his wife, Ying, and 75-year-old mother, Hazel, who suffers from dementia. “We made the wrong decision coming back here. We should have stayed in China.”
> 
> He said the UK was “slow to act” and he was surprised the UK didn’t quarantine people flying into the country. “I just sat watching the news incredulously every single day. What was the point of putting us in quarantine?”











						Britons evacuated from Wuhan regret coming home
					

Some who left Chinese city as coronavirus hit wish they were still there now that lockdown has lifted




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## weltweit (Apr 10, 2020)

Annoyingly the BBC News cut from the press conference for the 6 O'clock News. Just as Hancock was being asked about running meetings in which participants were closer together than social distancing rules. Did anyone see his response to that question?


----------



## mauvais (Apr 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> France has had several days in the thousands. The reported figures there have been very much up one day and down the next however, so that could be an artefact of how they report or collate the data. 980 tops the worst single day in either Italy or Spain.
> 
> We have now gone past the point where we might still hope that our death toll might be _only _as bad as Spain's IMO.


_Some _of the unexpectedly high French numbers were the belated introduction en masse of non-hospital deaths that had occurred up until that point. On some such days (April 2, 3) it was explicitly explained. On subsequent days, not, so I'm not sure whether it was more of the same.


----------



## elbows (Apr 10, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Annoyingly the BBC News cut from the press conference for the 6 O'clock News. Just as Hancock was being asked about running meetings in which participants were closer together than social distancing rules. Did anyone see his response to that question?



He claimed he practiced social distancing at work and went on about how many fewer chairs they had round his table.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 10, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Annoyingly the BBC News cut from the press conference for the 6 O'clock News. Just as Hancock was being asked about running meetings in which participants were closer together than social distancing rules. Did anyone see his response to that question?


The briefings, news conferences are all (eventually) available from BBC Parliament channel via iPlayer:









						BBC Parliament - Briefings, Downing Street Coronavirus News Conference, 09/04/2020
					

Coverage of the latest government news conference on the coronavirus epidemic.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## xes (Apr 10, 2020)

Raheem said:


> That would be a serious breach of the distancing guidance.


blow darts?


----------



## Raheem (Apr 10, 2020)

xes said:


> blow darts?


I think you'd have to fire them from a hand-bellows. But yeah, OK, I'll authorise that.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Rabb?
> 
> Are you watching yesterday's briefing?



No, I got it wrong - corrected it now (I do get confused between the two - it's the generic * young Tory face * - I must remember that Hancock looks a _little_ bit less like he needs to loosen his tie when he's lying).


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> No, I got it wrong - corrected it now (I do get confused between the two - it's the generic * young Tory face * - I must remember that Hancock looks a _little_ bit less like he needs to loosen his tie when he's lying).


Someone should stand behind him and tighten his tie every time he lies.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 10, 2020)

mauvais said:


> _Some _of the unexpectedly high French numbers were the belated introduction en masse of non-hospital deaths that had occurred up until that point. On some such days (April 2, 3) it was explicitly explained. On subsequent days, not, so I'm not sure whether it was more of the same.



They started including care home (?) figures then, I think.
There was a question in the briefing a few days ago which related to why we aren't including all our deaths, where the response was that it wouldn't match international data.
The FT graphs, which spread deaths over 7 days (I think!) removed those new French figures, on that basis, a couple of days ago - we still look to be at a steeper curve than France.
Only my own reading of it all.


----------



## mauvais (Apr 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> They started including care home (?) figures then, I think.
> There was a question in the briefing a few days ago which related to why we aren't including all our deaths, where the response was that it wouldn't match international data.
> The FT graphs, which spread deaths over 7 days (I think!) removed those figures, on that basis, a couple of days ago - we still look to be at a steeper curve than France.
> Only my own reading of it all.


That sounds right. This suggests they're still collating & introducing historical data so the high figures aren't accurate dailies.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> The FT graphs, which spread deaths over 7 days (I think!)


7 day moving average.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 10, 2020)

FT charts, which use 7 day rolling-averages plus - *April 9:* All maps and charts now exclude nursing home deaths from France’s totals to maintain cross-national comparability









						Coronavirus tracker: the latest figures as countries fight the Covid-19 resurgence | Free to read
					

The FT analyses the scale of outbreaks and tracks the vaccine rollouts around the world




					www.ft.com
				




ETA - updated at 7pm, daily. Also to add that of course this does ignore loads more deaths - like deaths of elderly people, dying alone, don't matter while they may statistically skew numbers.


----------



## Cerberus (Apr 10, 2020)

yield said:


> I'll take that bet. £20 to the server fund or The Trussell Trust?



£10 to each?


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 10, 2020)

existentialist said:


> The counselling service I help run is looking quite hard at this - there has been a huge drop in the number of people attending, many of whom are uneasy about video/phone counselling, and we strongly suspect that they will return, along with a lot of people who have developed difficulties during lockdown, in a tsunami of demand, once this is over. On top of health professionals who will be burned out and experiencing PTSI/"moral injury", and people who have been bereaved, or developed anticipatory grief around severely ill friends or relatives.
> 
> Added to which, the local mental health support services have simply shut down, which means that there are quite a lot of moderate-to-severe cases out there who are currently unsupported, and who will remain that way until they become acute.
> 
> I am quite nervous about just how bad this could be. I mean, we'll handle it, but I very strongly suspect that we will be overwhelmed. And I am not optimistic about the possibility of the Trust providing commensurate funding



Is the local MH service not wfh? 

What do you do with those who don't want phone/vid counselling? Will some accept a check in phone call at the same time as their usual session?


----------



## Labourite (Apr 10, 2020)

More deaths in the UK in one day than Italy and Spain's highest total.

Scary - when is this government going to get a grip on this?


----------



## tommers (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> To further highlight just how fucking shit people are being with this. The little shop I work in took substantially more money than we do on a normal night before a bank holiday and we've been closing 3 hours earlier than normal since 'lockdown' started.
> 
> The social conscience in this country us utterly bizarre. Lots of lovely things like mutual aid and clapping for carers but 'oh, gotta keep buying shit because I don't know what else to do.' I can now, more than ever, see just how spot on Romero was in dawn of the dead with the zombies aimlessly wandering around a shopping mall.



My step mum works for M&S and her boss got called in to their shop in Bluewater.  Said their food hall was pretty much the only shop open but there were still loads of people just wandering aimlessly around.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 10, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> Is the local MH service not wfh?
> 
> What do you do with those who don't want phone/vid counselling? Will some accept a check in phone call at the same time as their usual session?


Any who do we're treating. But the word from our liaison is that they're all either redeployed or awaiting redeployment - it may be that there are aspects of the service that are still operating, but certainly from the primary care point of view there doesn't appear to be anything. I was fairly surprised, to say the least.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 10, 2020)

Labourite said:


> More deaths in the UK in one day than Italy and Spain's highest total.
> 
> Scary - when is this government going to get a grip on this?


Novara just doing a show on how the media seem to be treating the higher death figures here as less serious than they treated the death figures in Spain and Italy. There is something odd about the coverage, like journalists have been instructed not to get people too worked up (and I am hypothesising that this might actually have happened).


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 10, 2020)

.


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Apr 10, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Novara just doing a show on how the media seem to be treating the higher death figures here as less serious than they treated the death figures in Spain and Italy. There is something odd about the coverage, like journalists have been instructed not to get people too worked up (and I am hypothesising that this might actually have happened).


Wonder how many D notices are flying around?


----------



## bimble (Apr 10, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> Wonder how many D notices are flying around?


What do you mean like journalists being told to not tell us that 980 is a large number? Don’t think so. Think it’s more of a boiled frog thing, every days numbers so big and so little human detail that we don’t feel shock anymore.


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Apr 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> What do you mean like journalists being told to not tell us that 980 is a large number? Don’t think so. Think it’s more of a boiled frog thing, every days numbers so big and so little human detail that we don’t feel shock anymore.


D notices more likely on news of “demoralising” govt fuck-ups than data or figures. Would guess back channels to editors and owners of MSM channels being used to urge “responsible” coverage in the “national interest” Hence the bollocks focus on Johnson’s health status even when he is allegedly on the mend, while everything else is going to hell.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 10, 2020)

Labourite said:


> More deaths in the UK in one day than Italy and Spain's highest total.
> 
> Scary - when is this government going to get a grip on this?



How do you get a grip on a runaway train though.




Jeremiah18.17 
What's a D notice please?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 10, 2020)

Labourite said:


> More deaths in the UK in one day than Italy and Spain's highest total.
> 
> Scary - when is this government going to get a grip on this?


Those are reported deaths over the last few weeks - most of them will be from two or more days ago. Still not good at all, but we're still at the point where most of the people in those figures will have caught it pre-lockdown.

So the answer to your question is the slightly unsatisfactory one that their failure to get a grip on this a month ago or before is the direct cause of today's figures. Things may actually have started easing off by the time they have all the PPE in place, all the new hospitals open, the testing ability ramped up, the ventilators in place, etc. They should be well prepared in a month's time for the situation they found themselves in three weeks ago.

ETA: Because of the lack of testing, we really had no idea exactly (or even vaguely) how bad things were here three weeks ago at lockdown. Only now are we getting the answer to that question.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 10, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> What's a D notice please?




Here's Wiki on this, now called a DSMA Notice apparantly.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Here's Wiki on this, now called a DSMA Notice apparantly.


Oh, a gagging order...?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 10, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Oh, a gagging order...?


 Spot on!


----------



## agricola (Apr 10, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> Wonder how many D notices are flying around?



At a guess?  Probably none.   There are enough things that are literally staring them in the face at this point that pass without challenge, or even comment, to make such things pointless.

Most of the British media are doing the same thing they've done for ages - the only surprise is finding out how many of us thought there would come a time that would be so obviously and unbearably bad that they would actually stop doing it.  I was one of these people and I'd like to apologise to everyone, most of all myself.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 10, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> D notices more likely on news of “demoralising” govt fuck-ups than data or figures. Would guess back channels to editors and owners of MSM channels being used to urge “responsible” coverage in the “national interest” Hence the bollocks focus on Johnson’s health status even when he is allegedly on the mend, while everything else is going to hell.


I _strongly _suspect that this is going on constantly right now.


----------



## killer b (Apr 10, 2020)

the focus on johnson's health isn't because they've been told to, it's because they love eating shit.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> the focus on johnson's health isn't because they've been told to, it's because they love eating shit.


Oh it's that as well. No doubt about it. They love the taste.

I don't think the D-notices or nudges to editors would go as far as telling them what to run instead of EVERYBODY IS DYING stories. Even British editors might baulk at that. It would just be about toning down the disaster angle so as not to worry the common folk too much. In the interests of national unity and keeping calm and carrying on etc, you know?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 10, 2020)

Labourite said:


> Scary - when is this government going to get a grip on this?



Not really how it works. What is happening now is the result of what the policies were weeks ago. Even if the government suddenly started doing shit that made sense tomorrow morning, we'd still be in for another month of chaos and death before anything good happened. HTH.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Not really how it works. What is happening now is the result of what the policies were weeks ago. Even if the government suddenly started doing shit that made sense tomorrow morning, we'd still be in for another month of chaos and death before anything good happened. HTH.


Yep.
For at least another week, many of those dying will be from pre-'lockdown' infection and then there's the reporting lag on top of that.


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 10, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Any who do we're treating. But the word from our liaison is that they're all either redeployed or awaiting redeployment - it may be that there are aspects of the service that are still operating, but certainly from the primary care point of view there doesn't appear to be anything. I was fairly surprised, to say the least.



I'm getting the impression that managers are having to both argue forcefully and evidence that MH services are able to continue to provide a service/ that the service is needed to avoid extensive or even full redeployment.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 10, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> I'm getting the impression that managers are having to both argue forcefully and evidence that MH services are able to continue to provide a service/ that the service is needed to avoid extensive or even full redeployment.


That is shocking. There really ought to be a presumption that services will continue, not the other way around.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 10, 2020)

FT's 'Coronavirus latest' free page now includes a 'How the world locked down' map.
This screenshot of the day that the WHO declared Europe the epicentre of the pandemic shows the UK (still 11 days away from 'lockdown') out of step with most European nations and scoring like many African nations on the Government response stringency index.

Many of the deaths being recorded now relate to that two week period of fatal delay and dither.


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 10, 2020)

existentialist said:


> That is shocking. There really ought to be a presumption that services will continue, not the other way around.



It's an impression that's all, but I've been told that staff at a MH trust near to us have all been redeployed. How accurate that is I can't be sure. 

With PBR there is a need to evidence that 'contacts' are still happening even if wfh. My trust is very well set up for wfh but that's not the case everywhere.


----------



## bimble (Apr 10, 2020)

What does redeployed mean in this context (Red Cat existentialist )?


----------



## treelover (Apr 10, 2020)

Cid said:


> Oh I’m glad I rarely see them. But didn’t work out too well in Rotherham around 10 years ago.



The left, civil society not exactly coming out well there either.


----------



## Red Cat (Apr 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> What does redeployed mean in this context (Red Cat existentialist )?



Moved to other areas of healthcare to cover staff shortage or sickness or staff self-isolating in areas that are assessed as most in need, staff might be moved to Covid critical care units and nightingale hospitals.


----------



## treelover (Apr 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Yeah you say that when you have to work there, pal and when people are in and out several times a day buying a pack of crisps and beer.
> 
> It's not the busyness that bothers me and it's not what people buy that bothers me it's the frequent ducking in and out all day and not having the common sense to wait outside when there's a couple of people in the shop, even when there's signs up and when you can look into the shop through the big open door way and see for yourself.
> 
> Most people are alright, as I said, but there's enough of a minority that makes it noticeable that people aren't taking the 'lockdown' on board. I'll repeat too, you try working in it, with reduced staff, no protection beyond hand sanitiser and see how you feel about people making multiple trips and buying one item at a time.



Front line hero, genuinely mean it, hopefullly be a re-evaluation of who matters after is all done.


----------



## treelover (Apr 10, 2020)

editor said:


> And off you fuck
> 
> 
> 
> ...



a little peak into how the super rich live, note the age ranges as well.


----------



## treelover (Apr 10, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I've seen references and headlines around... what the fuck is this medal bullshit??



think its a great idea, not just NHS imo, drivers, care workers, shop workers, Dr Carrot, etc.


----------



## treelover (Apr 10, 2020)

tommers said:


> My step mum works for M&S and her boss got called in to their shop in Bluewater.  Said their food hall was pretty much the only shop open but there were still loads of people just wandering aimlessly around.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Wow. That's some intro. She's bang on



She certainly is.  Rang home for me where she mentioned that people working in public (key workers) are more likely to be infected as they are the most exposed.

I’ll just throw this out there fwiw:  Amazon are now threatening to sack drivers on the spot if they find any suggestion that any driver has broken the 2 metre distancing rule whilst delivering, yet have increased route volume to Xmas peak levels putting drivers under massive pressure to complete routes within 9hrs, instead of reducing the route sizes and setting on more drivers.

Most drivers don’t stop for breaks so work 9hrs flat out - mistakes can be made under these conditions but Amazon clearly think drivers are robots.


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 10, 2020)

Seems like a reasonable decision, but no doubt very distressing for the patient involved Judge orders mental health patient to vacate bed for Covid-19 cases


----------



## Santino (Apr 11, 2020)

bimble said:


> What do you mean like journalists being told to not tell us that 980 is a large number? Don’t think so. Think it’s more of a boiled frog thing, every days numbers so big and so little human detail that we don’t feel shock anymore.


I think it's because the majority of the UK media are servile boot-lickers who follow the lead of their overlords.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 11, 2020)




----------



## little_legs (Apr 11, 2020)




----------



## sparkybird (Apr 11, 2020)

For the Love of Scrubs : Thousands of sewers around the UK are making scrubs for NHS workers. If you are able to donate even a few quid for this vital PPE please do. £5 can buy enough material for 1 set of scrubs
National appeal








						Help raise £35000 to For The Love Of Scrubs - Our NHS Needs You
					

Weʼre raising money to For The Love Of Scrubs - Our NHS Needs You. Support this JustGiving Crowdfunding Page.




					www.justgiving.com
				



South London appeal (run by a friend of mine)








						For the Love of Scrubs, organized by Alexandra Anna
					

I'm making scrubs for South London hospitals who are running out. I'm fund raising to buy fabric… Alexandra Anna needs your support for For the Love of Scrubs



					www.gofundme.com
				




If you sew you can join the main FB group or your local one.
Thanks x


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 11, 2020)

My mum is going to make some home-made face masks for the local care home. Sanitised properly etc


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 11, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Oh it's that as well. No doubt about it. They love the taste.
> 
> I don't think the D-notices or nudges to editors would go as far as telling them what to run instead of EVERYBODY IS DYING stories. Even British editors might baulk at that. It would just be about toning down the disaster angle so as not to worry the common folk too much. In the interests of national unity and keeping calm and carrying on etc, you know?



Is there not some value in frightening people into behaving themselves and staying indoors?

I’ve noticed some prominence given in the press to the deaths of younger people, presumably to emphasise that ‘yes, it can happen to you’ (because spreading it around and killing other people isn’t enough of a disincentive) and also of NHS deaths to nudge the guilt of those who might be not taking it seriously.

Probably is a balance out there somewhere, though a cynic might say that the quantity of deaths thing might be something that the government can be blamed for so they’ll let them off the hook and point the finger at the minority of assholes blatantly ignoring the rules to divert attention.

Because we have Clowns running the show thousands more will die. It’s not a failure that can be shrugged off like an abandoned bridge project or a poorly designed bus, there is a huge human consequence to this.


----------



## Boudicca (Apr 11, 2020)

sparkybird said:


> For the Love of Scrubs : Thousands of sewers around the UK are making scrubs for NHS workers. If you are able to donate even a few quid for this vital PPE please do. £5 can buy enough material for 1 set of scrubs
> National appeal
> 
> 
> ...


Is south London up and running?  We've got an army ready and waiting in East Dorset, but Bournemouth hospital is being fussy about pattern and fabric, so nobody is actually sewing anything yet.  As individuals it is very difficult to source fabric as most of the usual suppliers are now out of stock.  My feeling is that we should be sewing for areas in more urgent need.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 11, 2020)

& it won’t matter so much about the press, what matters will be people’s own experience of losing friends and relatives, I already know people this is happening to and they are angry and upset more wasn’t done to protect people. Millions will lose people they care about and there are consequences, no matter what narrative is pushed.


----------



## prunus (Apr 11, 2020)

prunus said:


> She has just been taken into hospital with severe breathing difficulties.  This is exactly 1 month after onset of symptoms.  She never got her test result - was one of the very last swabs taken just as they stopped community testing and it seems it got binned - medics are pretty sure she has it on clinical presentation though.  She's been having difficulty breathing for at least 4 weeks, but has gone downhill in the past few days after it seemed the worst had passed.  Fingers crossed.



Well, some good news to report, she’s out of hospital and seeming on the mend, though on twice-daily check-in watch with her GP in case she relapses again.

She was not in ICU at all, just oxygen and IV (don’t know what, possibly just fluids, possibly antibiotics for secondary?). She says it was terrifying in there, 3 people died in her ward while she was there, everyone clearly stressed and massively overstretched .  She’s very glad to be home. Fingers still crossed she gets to stay there.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 11, 2020)

sparkybird said:


> Thousands of *sewers* around the UK



Unfortunate homophone.


----------



## maomao (Apr 11, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Unfortunate homophone.


Heteronym not homophone.

Sorry


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> Heteronym not homophone.
> 
> Sorry



Technically a homographic heteronym.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 11, 2020)

Whilst moving a tree right now may not be exactly necessary, arresting the guy is completely OTT imo:



also...good question here:


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 11, 2020)

I see nobody has told the filth that if you're not working from home, you can't just show up in loungewear. 

Other things nobody has told them include 'don't be a bunch of mouth-breathing shit gibbons'.


----------



## A380 (Apr 11, 2020)

Off the FaceBooks

When Johnson is eventually discharged from hospital I hope he is taken aside by one of the senior staff and given one absolute bollocking, the sort you’d give to a teenager who drank bleach for a laugh and a dare and ended up in A&E diverting valuable staff. Something like;

“Okay, “Boris”? Feeling better, are we? We’re so glad, truly we are. In very good spirits are we? That’s nice. You’re quite the hero surviving this thing, aren’t you? Like St George smiting the dragon, eh? Boris the Battler, bursting with the can-do Blitz spirit, right? Nearly took one for the team, didn’t you?

“Well listen here, you grinning lump of fuck. You didn’t battle for a second. You lay there while the team, a brilliant, underfunded team, the sort of people who don’t scuttle and hide in a fucking fridge battled for you, to save your sorry fucking life. A team led by an Italian doctor and immigrant nurses who risked their own lives, as they do day in, day out because you and your clown car of a cabinet are too incompetent to provide them with the most basic protections. A team featuring the sort of foreigners you and your cynical, far right band of ministers subject to a drip-feed of cheap, nasty xenophobic hostility even though you know full well how essential we are, because you know how well that sort of rhetoric plays to the tabloids and your core of elderly white voters, who incidentally had better be taking this fucking crisis seriously if they know what’s fucking good for them, something you could have fucking impressed on them a few weeks ago rather than turning up at the fucking rugger or barging into fucking hospitals and shaking every sweaty paw you could lay your fucking ham fists on.

“You fucking survived. Hundreds, thousands didn’t, including fucking colleagues of ours, the lowest paid of whom is worth ten thousand of the likes of you and your smirking, complacent fucking pals, some of whom are creaming fucking profits off this tragedy as we fucking speak.

“You can’t undo the fucking damage you’ve done already with your manifest unfitness for fucking office, but maybe after this, that memory of when you nearly went under and experienced the first moment of fucking terror of your pampered, charmed, super-entitled fucking existence, that moment when you gasped for oxygen and instead of oxygen your lungs were filled with a black, crushing fucking void; maybe that’ll stick. “Operation Last Gasp”, eh? You’re a fucking card, aren’t you? You’re not a card, are you. You’re a cunt, what are you? Yeah, that’s right. A cunt. You’re not Winston Churchill. You’re not even Captain Mainwaring. You’re Captain Cunt. But maybe now you’ll realise how serious this shit is and you’ll cut out the boy’s own, bully beef bullshit and take the fucking job you were so bafflingly elected to do by a nation of Sun-addled serfs fucking seriously. Or better, step down. Let someone else do it. Let the fucking Downing Street cat do it. And then retire. In disgrace. Which is what you fucking are.” Davis Stubbs.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 11, 2020)

A380 said:


> You’re not Winston Churchill. You’re not even Captain Mainwaring.


----------



## xenon (Apr 11, 2020)

A380 said:


> Off the FaceBooks
> 
> When Johnson is eventually discharged from hospital I hope he is taken aside by one of the senior staff and given one absolute bollocking, the sort you’d give to a teenager who drank bleach for a laugh and a dare and ended up in A&E diverting valuable staff. Something like;
> 
> ...






If only.


----------



## sparkybird (Apr 11, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> Is south London up and running?  We've got an army ready and waiting in East Dorset, but Bournemouth hospital is being fussy about pattern and fabric, so nobody is actually sewing anything yet.  As individuals it is very difficult to source fabric as most of the usual suppliers are now out of stock.  My feeling is that we should be sewing for areas in more urgent need.


Boudicca 
Yes we are sewing and donating to Kings, Lewisham etc. Places other than hospitals are now needing scrubs and aren't so fussy - you should be able to search in the main FB page for stuff local to you?


----------



## Boudicca (Apr 11, 2020)

sparkybird said:


> Boudicca
> Yes we are sewing and donating to Kings, Lewisham etc. Places other than hospitals are now needing scrubs and aren't so fussy - you should be able to search in the main FB page for stuff local to you?


We are in the least hit region, so not much demand (as yet).  We are not sewing because we are waiting for a set of Bournemouth hospital scrubs to be copied and fabric to be sourced.  I'd rather be making now and sending to Kings.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 11, 2020)

You know things have come to a sorry pass when Alistair Cambell, the master of spin is advising reporters on the sort of questions that need to be asked at government briefings:


----------



## elbows (Apr 11, 2020)

Been surveyed from the air today, no idea whether its actually lockdown related.


----------



## Supine (Apr 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Been surveyed from the air today, no idea whether its actually lockdown related.
> 
> View attachment 206070



There is a 3M factory in Atherstone. Maybe someone is looking for face masks


----------



## elbows (Apr 11, 2020)

Supine said:


> There is a 3M factory in Atherstone. Maybe someone is looking for face masks



Its presence in Atherstone is not very subtle!


----------



## teqniq (Apr 11, 2020)

A little light relief:









						"It was exhausting, sweaty, and one of the worst things I've ever experienced," says Coronavirus, as it finally recovers from Boris Johnson. - The Rochdale Herald
					

The Coronavirus responsible for the current global pandemic, Covid-19, has described its recent infection of Prime Minister Boris Johnson as "exhausting, -




					rochdaleherald.co.uk


----------



## mauvais (Apr 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Been surveyed from the air today, no idea whether its actually lockdown related.
> 
> View attachment 206070


What was it? Helicopter?


----------



## 2hats (Apr 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Been surveyed from the air today, no idea whether its actually lockdown related.
> 
> View attachment 206070


That aerial surveying work has been going on for weeks. It's an outfit that specialises in such out of Liverpool Airport. Several days ago they were conducting a campaign over east London. I think it's just aerial surveying/photogrammetry. But I suppose the missions over urban areas _could_ always be IMSI fishing exercises to model degree of mobility and compliance during lockdown; though I know the main carriers are handing aggregated data of such subscriber movements over to government/researchers for analysis anyway, so unlikely.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 11, 2020)

Police helicopter has done a lap of Brighton just a moment ago. I suspect those that were sat down the Level earlier won’t be for much longer!


----------



## sparkybird (Apr 11, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> We are in the least hit region, so not much demand (as yet).  We are not sewing because we are waiting for a set of Bournemouth hospital scrubs to be copied and fabric to be sourced.  I'd rather be making now and sending to Kings.


I think one of the issues is delivery, local pick-ups are happening here. Could you sew scrubs bags? Can me made of any cotton/poly fabric even old sheets etc and any colours. They are just as important
Take care xx


----------



## Grace Johnson (Apr 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Been surveyed from the air today, no idea whether its actually lockdown related.
> 
> View attachment 206070



I saw a few of these a week or 2 ago. One over north Wales, one over Manchester and one over south London. Couldnt figure out what they were doing. They all set off within about 5 minutes of each other. My friend said maybe checking for Moor fires. Not sure though. The Manchester one and the South London one looked like they were over urban areas.

This was the 27th of March.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 11, 2020)

It's the 5G hypnotising pilots.


----------



## LDC (Apr 11, 2020)

Grace Johnson said:


> I saw a few of these a week or 2 ago. One over north Wales, one over Manchester and one over south London. Couldnt figure out what they were doing. They all set off within about 5 minutes of each other. My friend said maybe checking for Moor fires. Not sure though. The Manchester one and the South London one looked like they were over urban areas.
> 
> This was the 27th of March.



Has to be mapping/survey work flying patterns like that surely?


----------



## 2hats (Apr 11, 2020)

Grace Johnson said:


> I saw a few of these a week or 2 ago. One over north Wales, one over Manchester and one over south London. Couldnt figure out what they were doing. They all set off within about 5 minutes of each other. My friend said maybe checking for Moor fires. Not sure though. The Manchester one and the South London one looked like they were over urban areas.


Ravenair out of Liverpool conduct aerial photographic surveys. Bioflight, based at East Midlands, conduct environmental monitoring. The OS also operate regular aerial photographic survey flights out of EMA to refine their mapping.


----------



## spitfire (Apr 11, 2020)

Pretty wide range of possibilities (posted at the same time as 2hats).





__





						Aerial Survey – Ravenair
					






					ravenair.co.uk
				




Ravenair currently provides services to major energy, oil, petrochemical companies, Global IT organisations, government departments, wildlife and conservation organisations. Other customers include airport authorities, rail infrastructure organisations, television and news production, newspapers and specialist digital image data collection companies. Current operations include pipeline and powerline inspection and survey, environmental survey data collection (birds and other wildlife), tracking of tagged birds, air-to-surface and air-to-air photography, aerodrome lighting inspection,radar testing, global mapping, LiDAR and other types of capture with specialist, bespoke sensors.


----------



## spitfire (Apr 11, 2020)

Raheem said:


> It's the 5G hypnotising pilots.



Yeah. Or that.


----------



## elbows (Apr 11, 2020)

From the entirely predictable but no less tragic and disgraceful department:









						Coronavirus cases 'in half of Scottish care homes'
					

The industry says the impact of the virus on residents alongside high staff absence levels has put care homes under huge strain.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Quote (Apr 11, 2020)

Pretty sure the government (here in England) have told care homes they have to accept positive Covid people to ease the strain on hospitals. So if there were care homes without it, they soon will have.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 11, 2020)

Quote said:


> Pretty sure the government (here in England) have told care homes they have to accept positive Covid people to ease the strain on hospitals. So if there were care homes without it, they soon will have.



I would suggest this is bollocks.

I know a care home owner, who was contacted by the local hospital to see if she could take in a couple of non-C19 patients, she said she would, but only if they were tested first & shown to be negative, and that was the end of the conversation.


----------



## Quote (Apr 11, 2020)

Not trying to spread misinformation. I saw this elsewhere, no idea how trustworthy it is.



			https://www.carehome.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1623968/Anger-amongst-care-home-owners-told-to-accept-people-with-coronavirus


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 11, 2020)

Quote said:


> Not trying to spread misinformation. I saw this elsewhere, no idea how trustworthy it is.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.carehome.co.uk/news/article.cfm/id/1623968/Anger-amongst-care-home-owners-told-to-accept-people-with-coronavirus



Even if this bit is true - 'government’s latest guidance telling them to accept people with COVID-19 from hospital' - guidance doesn't equal forcing them.


----------



## elbows (Apr 11, 2020)

Also some of the first billions of sudden new funding thrown around in this crisis were to do with bed blocking. A problem that could no doubt have been much improved by that money if there was enough time to spend it properly over a longer period, but I dont know what they've actually managed to achieve in the short term.

Priti Patel is going to be doing todays press conference, which I believe is due to start any time now.


----------



## treelover (Apr 11, 2020)

Just been out to bottom of garden, self isolating, no shielding though, can't believe how many people are out, i can see down the main road groups of three four people, mostly teenagers, stuidents, etc, coninuous stream, much busier than a normal bank holiday,  it doesn't look like SD is working here,

oh, and  a delivery driver just walked right up to me, trying to hand me a parcel that wasn't for me, no time to maintain SD, pretty angry, really

dread to think what the parks are like.


----------



## treelover (Apr 11, 2020)

little_legs said:


>





see my post, wonder what she would make of it


----------



## Part-timah (Apr 11, 2020)

How awful is Patel doing? I can’t force myself to watch her attempt at being human.


----------



## Cid (Apr 11, 2020)

treelover said:


> Just been out to bottom of garden, self isolating, no shielding though, can't believe how many people are out, i can see down the main road groups of three four people, mostly teenagers, stuidents, etc, coninuous stream, much busier than a normal bank holiday,  it doesn't look like SD is working here,
> 
> oh, and  a delivery driver just walked right up to me, trying to hand me a parcel that wasn't for me, no time to maintain SD, pretty angry, really
> 
> dread to think what the parks are like.



Well I swung by the ponderosa earlier and it was practically empty. Also not many on the river path out to Meadowhall.

Might be possible that people are sticking to their own areas but still want to go out. So you’d see far more out and about in residential bits than usual.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 11, 2020)

Someone has obviously provided a speech and said stick to it...lets see how she gets on with the questions...


----------



## DotCommunist (Apr 11, 2020)

I too wonder how notorious empath priti patel is doing


----------



## treelover (Apr 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> Well I swung by the ponderosa earlier and it was practically empty. Also not many on the river path out to Meadowhall.



Good, but the people i saw were not maintaining SD


----------



## Cid (Apr 11, 2020)

treelover said:


> Good, but the people i saw were not maintaining SD



See my edit... maybe people just sticking near home? But yeah, some do seem to be taking the piss.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 11, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Whilst moving a tree right now may not be exactly necessary, arresting the guy is completely OTT imo:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Aaaand they've admitted it wasn't dealt with in a proffessional way:


----------



## teqniq (Apr 11, 2020)

DotCommunist said:


> I too wonder how notorious empath priti patel is doing


here she is


----------



## keybored (Apr 11, 2020)

DotCommunist said:


> notorious empath


----------



## treelover (Apr 11, 2020)

> Aaron Walawalkar
> 
> *England’s* half a million “empty homes” should be opened up to health workers on the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic who need accommodation close to their workplaces, campaigners have urged.
> 
> ...



Absolutely


----------



## Petcha (Apr 11, 2020)

Jesus. Never actually seen Priti Patel speak for any length of time. What a total fucking idiot. She's not answered a single one of the questions served up to her.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 11, 2020)

Wow, this is quite a performance. No wonder they've been keeping her away from the cameras. The amount of bullshit spilling from her mouth... yccch


----------



## PD58 (Apr 11, 2020)

Is it me or are the daily briefings growing exponentially in terms of hot air and bullshit...this is up there with the worst of them.


----------



## campanula (Apr 11, 2020)

Yep, another one I would be happy to see in a hearse


----------



## Petcha (Apr 11, 2020)

Hancock and Rishi are usually better value than this clown at least. But yeh. I think they're running out of bullshit lines to defend why the fuck we have no tests or PPE.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 11, 2020)

Nope, can't watch anymore of this. She's just claimed personal credit for extending the visas of immigrant nurses and doctors. The ones she'll be kicking out as soon as is over as part of brexit. As if she's the one doing THEM a favour. Fucking jesus.


----------



## A380 (Apr 11, 2020)

2hats said:


> That aerial surveying work has been going on for weeks. It's an outfit that specialises in such out of Liverpool Airport. Several days ago they were conducting a campaign over east London. I think it's just aerial surveying/photogrammetry. But I suppose the missions over urban areas _could_ always be IMSI fishing exercises to model degree of mobility and compliance during lockdown; though I know the main carriers are handing aggregated data of such subscriber movements over to government/researchers for analysis anyway, so unlikely.


Lots of aerial surveying going on just now. I think it's to take advantage of the much quieter airspace. Well that and the contrail spraying planes that have been adapted to distribute the virus obvs.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 11, 2020)

At the end of this crisis someone needs to analyse all these briefings - the findings will be fascinating.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 11, 2020)

A380 said:


> I think it's to take advantage of the much quieter airspace.


They usually operate at 8-15kft anyway. Perhaps taking advantage of the weather and relatively clear skies.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 11, 2020)

Was that a question from LadBible? Not a bad question, tbf.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Apr 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Has to be mapping/survey work flying patterns like that surely?



Yeah I thought they were probably doing maps. The small aircraft like that wouldn't usually be able to fly over the areas they were because of usually busy air traffic so I think they have got a chance to do areas they couldn't now.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 11, 2020)

Grace Johnson said:


> Yeah I thought they were probably doing maps. The small aircraft like that wouldn't usually be able to fly over the areas they were because of usually busy air traffic so I think they have got a chance to do areas they couldn't now.


Not really a problem as ATC just route accordingly to accommodate survey profiles. Only when on finals does commercial traffic spend much time at those altitudes. General aviation has tailed off but most of that is at yet lower flight levels anyway.


----------



## elbows (Apr 11, 2020)

William of Walworth I know it was another thread we were talking on earlier about lockdown timetables etc, but since I am adding a UK story I am continuing on this thread instead.









						Coronavirus lockdown: When will it end and how?
					

What is the path to normality as coronavirus leaves countries in lockdown?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> We cannot simply return to normal after cases peak or even after they are reduced to very low levels.
> 
> The best estimate of the proportion of people infected (and potentially immune) in the UK is just 4%. Or to put that another way - more than 63 million are still vulnerable to the infection.
> 
> If we just lift the lockdown, then another explosive outbreak is inevitable





> The fundamentals of the virus have not changed either - one person infected will, without a lockdown, pass it onto three others on average.
> 
> Cutting those infections by 60-70% is what it takes to keep cases down. At the moment that means cutting our human contact by that amount.
> 
> If we lift social distancing measures then something else has to come in to suppress the virus instead or at least to prevent people ending up in intensive care.



There is too much else in there to attempt to quote all the bits of relevance.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 11, 2020)

And that, ladies and gentleman, was the Secretary of State for the Home Department...!!!!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 11, 2020)

Patel really thinks she's ace, doesn't she?


----------



## Grace Johnson (Apr 11, 2020)

2hats said:


> Not really a problem as ATC just route accordingly to accommodate survey profiles. Only when on finals does commercial traffic spend much time at those altitudes. General aviation has tailed off but most of that is at yet lower flight levels anyway.



Ta. Didn't know that


----------



## Petcha (Apr 11, 2020)

PD58 said:


> And that, ladies and gentleman, was the Secretary of State for the Home Department...!!!!



Her performance is going down a storm on twitter. Methinks she won't be doing another one of these.


----------



## Sue (Apr 11, 2020)

I fucking hate these 'fuck you' non-apologies. FFS.

*'Patel*, when pressed to apologise to NHS workers over a lack of personal protective equipment, couldn’t quite do it. She said:


> I’m sorry if people feel that there have been failings.


After being asked twice if she would apologise to NHS staff and their families over the lack of “necessary PPE” that has been linked to NHS workers becoming infected and dying, she said:


> I’ve been very clear in what I have said and I’m sorry that people feel that way.'











						Coronavirus UK live: Priti Patel – 'I am sorry if people feel there have been failings' on PPE - as it happened
					

Home secretary gives daily Downing Street briefing on day UK’s death toll rises 917 to 9,875




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Petcha (Apr 11, 2020)

Sue said:


> I fucking hate these 'fuck you' non-apologies. FFS.
> 
> *'Patel*, when pressed to apologise to NHS workers over a lack of personal protective equipment, couldn’t quite do it. She said:
> 
> ...



This bit's pretty good too.



> *Patel*, asked where she had been in recent weeks, said she had been working “virtually every single day” on a range of policy areas related to the pandemic.
> 
> 
> 
> > Whether it’s through the visa changes that I’ve brought in over the last three weeks or whether it’s the work of the Border Force where we were absolutely prioritising medical equipment, these are the changes that I have been working on.



'virtually every single day'... Er, maybe you should be working every single day on the biggest crisis facing the country since the second world war??


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 11, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Is it me or are the daily briefings growing exponentially in terms of hot air and bullshit...this is up there with the worst of them.



Tomorrow's is gonna be done by Ronnie Pickering.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 11, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This bit's pretty good too.
> 
> 
> 
> 'virtually every single day'... Er, maybe you should be working every single day on the biggest crisis facing the country since the second world war??


Use of 'I' is instructive as well. The first instinct is self-justification and self-aggrandisement. They can't help it.

tbh the answer I'd most like to hear from Patel would be 'I've made myself scarce - was just getting in the way.'


----------



## editor (Apr 11, 2020)

That's the spirit!









						Group drives 109 miles to Beachy Head because they 'heard the view was nice'
					

A CAR-LOAD of people travelled more than 100 miles down to the Sussex coast after hearing the view was “nice”.




					www.theargus.co.uk


----------



## editor (Apr 11, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



The Sun is getting its shitty arse handed to it on that Twitter thread


----------



## Labourite (Apr 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Those are reported deaths over the last few weeks - most of them will be from two or more days ago. Still not good at all, but we're still at the point where most of the people in those figures will have caught it pre-lockdown.
> 
> So the answer to your question is the slightly unsatisfactory one that their failure to get a grip on this a month ago or before is the direct cause of today's figures. Things may actually have started easing off by the time they have all the PPE in place, all the new hospitals open, the testing ability ramped up, the ventilators in place, etc. They should be well prepared in a month's time for the situation they found themselves in three weeks ago.
> 
> ETA: Because of the lack of testing, we really had no idea exactly (or even vaguely) how bad things were here three weeks ago at lockdown. Only now are we getting the answer to that question.



Could not agree more. The number of deaths will be a lot higher and the daily figure of course excludes deaths in care homes.

I just can't believe that anyone would want to clap Boris Johnson. It's his failure to test enough people, to ensure there are enough ventilators, and to provide an adequate number of PPE for NHS workers, that have left the UK staring down the barrel at being one of the worst countries in the world for coronavirus deaths. It's also the Tories, who since 2010, have cut the NHS and social care down to the bare bones, creating the conditions where services have been unable to cope with this pandemic.


----------



## Labourite (Apr 11, 2020)

And Owen Jones hits the nail on the head as ever with this tweet yesterday. Why is the media not asking the government tough questions?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 11, 2020)

Labourite said:


> Could not agree more. The number of deaths will be a lot higher and the daily figure of course excludes deaths in care homes.
> 
> I just can't believe that anyone would want to clap Boris Johnson. It's his failure to test enough people, to ensure there are enough ventilators, and to provide an adequate number of PPE for NHS workers, that have left the UK staring down the barrel at being one of the worst countries in the world for coronavirus deaths. It's also the Tories, who since 2010, have cut the NHS and social care down to the bare bones, creating the conditions where services have been unable to cope with this pandemic.


Yep. France has started adding those now. From looking at France and elsewhere, we can probably add about a quarter to the stated UK figure for care homes. And then there will be the additional deaths of people without C19 who couldn't get the appropriate treatment or service. Parts of Italy have had increases in overall death rates more than double the stated headline figure of deaths from C19 in hospital. I see no reason why it won't be the same story here, sadly.

Your second paragraph is spot on in every regard. This is the thing we need to try to hold them to account for.


----------



## xes (Apr 11, 2020)

editor said:


> That's the spirit!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


aah that's nuffink








						French police turn back private jet of holidaymakers from UK
					

Party of 10 flew into Marseille-Provence airport to be taken by helicopter to luxury Cannes villa




					www.theguardian.com
				




FFS


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 11, 2020)

I haven't been watching the daily briefings every day, but do they always use that graph of deaths - the one showing how every country is following the same trajectory apart from China and South Korea? Have any of the journalists ever asked "What did we get wrong that they got right, and why aren't we doing that now?"


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep. France has started adding those now. From looking at France and elsewhere, we can probably add about a quarter to the stated UK figure for care homes. And then there will be the additional deaths of people without C19 who couldn't get the appropriate treatment or service. Parts of Italy have had increases in overall death rates more than double the stated headline figure of deaths from C19 in hospital. I see no reason why it won't be the same story here, sadly.
> 
> Your second paragraph is spot on in every regard. This is the thing we need to try to hold them to account for.



Yes, of course. But how?

They're buffered by crap soft soap questions, by the press, by the fact that we’re all locked in, by the necessity for the opposition to allow them to get on with the job at hand, by the Disneyfiquation of Johnson because he was ill, by their huge stupid majority and by the fact that the next election is 4 years off.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 11, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I haven't been watching the daily briefings every day, but do they always use that graph of deaths - the one showing how every country is following the same trajectory apart from China and South Korea? Have any of the journalists ever asked "What did we get wrong that they got right, and why aren't we doing that now?"


Yes, I have wondered because usually South Korea is on the chart with it's very low numbers of deaths etc why journalists aren't asking about this difference! ? But they don't ask the question ..


----------



## Yossarian (Apr 11, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I haven't been watching the daily briefings every day, but do they always use that graph of deaths - the one showing how every country is following the same trajectory apart from China and South Korea? Have any of the journalists ever asked "What did we get wrong that they got right, and why aren't we doing that now?"



It's bizarre - 6 weeks or so ago, the attitude seemed to be "this is an East Asian problem, it couldn't possibly get as bad here." Now, when it is worse in Britain it was in any East Asian country and the government apparently did a worse job of containing it than any other Western country, authorities don't seem to consider the experiences of Asian countries relevant.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 11, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> .. authorities don't seem to consider the experiences of Asian countries relevant.


I have heard a couple of times in the press briefings someone say that they are learning all the time from what others are doing, but no detailed examples for example of South Korea .. which has to be the gold standard.


----------



## kebabking (Apr 11, 2020)

South Korea instituted a very clever, but incredibly invasive surveillance apparatus - you can argue whether that apparatus would be acceptable to the UK _now, _but 3 months ago? Probably not...

China just welded people's doors shut. Admirably efficient perhaps, but almost certainly fatal for a huge number of people who's deaths China won't tell you about.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 11, 2020)

9,875 died in hospitals in the UK from coronavirus / covid-19 

That isn't counting deaths in the care sector, in the community or where for whatever reason a positive covid-19 test was not carried out - in a hospital. 

I have not been noting UK numbers for a while, whilst I looked more at worldwide issues, so Sunday there will almost certainly have been more than 10,000 deaths in UK hospitals. That is pretty awful.


----------



## Cid (Apr 11, 2020)

oops.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 11, 2020)

kebabking said:


> South Korea instituted a very clever, but incredibly invasive surveillance apparatus - you can argue whether that apparatus would be acceptable to the UK _now, _but 3 months ago? Probably not...
> 
> China just welded people's doors shut. Admirably efficient perhaps, but almost certainly fatal for a huge number of people who's deaths China won't tell you about.


SK's system could be adapted, though. And it's basically a soft version of that that Germany instituted early on. Has worked exceedingly well so far.

Problem is that it's no good saying how they're learning now. They needed to learn two months ago at least. Now, who do they learn from about dealing with panic stations? Italy?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 11, 2020)

kebabking said:


> South Korea instituted a very clever, but incredibly invasive surveillance apparatus - you can argue whether that apparatus would be acceptable to the UK _now, _but 3 months ago? Probably not...
> ..


But they avoided lockdown so far. I think if in the future a surveillance regime was proposed for the UK, as an alternative to a lot more lockdown, and that this would be removed once covid-19 was neutralised by vaccine, the UK population might think neutrally or even slightly positively about it.


----------



## Cid (Apr 11, 2020)

kebabking said:


> South Korea instituted a very clever, but incredibly invasive surveillance apparatus - you can argue whether that apparatus would be acceptable to the UK _now, _but 3 months ago? Probably not...
> 
> China just welded people's doors shut. Admirably efficient perhaps, but almost certainly fatal for a huge number of people who's deaths China won't tell you about.



N.b - I am drunk. But really? I mean fuck. I really think part of this is a superior 'western democracy' type thing. And I'm not really convinced it's something other than some self-justifying bullshit. Apologies to you kebabking, I don't mean specifically your post... It's just this thing that keeps cropping up, and really I'm not sure I buy it. We bang on about the fucking blitz spirit, about in this together. And yet - when the shit hits the fan - it's all 'oh no, they'd never do that'. Not this Free, Democratic, Society, where we've always held politicians to account, with our amazing free press, with our constant challenging of authority. Arse, I say. Arse.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 11, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Yes, of course. But how?
> 
> They're buffered by crap soft soap questions, by the press, by the fact that we’re all locked in, by the necessity for the opposition to allow them to get on with the job at hand, by the Disneyfiquation of Johnson because he was ill, by their huge stupid majority and by the fact that the next election is 4 years off.


Yeah I know. And I don't know. Maybe it won't happen. I would say that it can't really happen right now. It'll have to await a situation of at least stability. Then, we'll see. They can't spin the death figures. They cannot hide the fact that they fucked this all up.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 11, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Whilst moving a tree right now may not be exactly necessary, arresting the guy is completely OTT imo:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Fucking wankers (coppers).

If that fuzz didn’t know he was been recorded he’d have roughed the guy up.


----------



## Anju (Apr 11, 2020)

kebabking said:


> South Korea instituted a very clever, but incredibly invasive surveillance apparatus - you can argue whether that apparatus would be acceptable to the UK _now, _but 3 months ago? Probably not...
> 
> China just welded people's doors shut. Admirably efficient perhaps, but almost certainly fatal for a huge number of people who's deaths China won't tell you about.



South Korea are looking at using wristbands for people who violate quarantine after some were found to have gone out without their phones. No law to force the wearing of them but widespread support for their use.

Coronavirus: South Korea to strap tracking wristbands on those who violate quarantine orders


----------



## Tankus (Apr 11, 2020)

Hmmm.... the a470 has police roadblocks  on it... to checkout and stop the valley commandos   heading for the 'diff.

Think I may run up to Culverhouse and get a last big shop in to last me well into  May before the Vale gets shut down


----------



## Totoro303 (Apr 11, 2020)

Loo


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 11, 2020)

Wut


----------



## Azrael (Apr 11, 2020)

weltweit said:


> But they avoided lockdown so far. I think if in the future a surveillance regime was proposed for the UK, as an alternative to a lot more lockdown, and that this would be removed once covid-19 was neutralised by vaccine, the UK population might think neutrally or even slightly positively about it.


The gold standard should surely be what New Zealand's attempting: slam your borders, impose 14 day quarantine on new arrivals to stop imports, and throw every resource of the state into the most aggressive testing and contact tracing possible until the virus is starved of hosts and eliminated domestically. Not kept manageable, not mitigated, destroyed. It's what happened with the first SARS, and should, in principle, be repeatable with this coronavirus.

The direct benefits -- no more deaths from Covid-19 -- speak for themselves, but just think of the collateral benefits: the ruinous psychological consequences of fatalism and learned helplessness are replaced with a sense of victory; if it succeeded, domestic life could return to near-normal until a vaccine's available; and even if it fails, cases could be driven so low that restrictions can be substantially relaxed. Any "second wave" could be immediately attacked with the infrastructure established.

I can see no reason whatsoever to not at least try, with every resource we can muster.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 11, 2020)

Azrael said:


> ..
> I can see no reason whatsoever to not at least try, with every resource we can muster.


I agree, with the proviso that we have to get the effect of this present lockdown established probably before we might be able to try such an approach. 

If you have any articles on New Zealand's approach please post them to the worldwide thread. I haven't read up about them at all yet. Might see what I can find also.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> William of Walworth I know it was another thread we were talking on earlier about lockdown timetables etc, but since I am adding a UK story I am continuing on this thread instead.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Very concerning that the article doesn't even mention total domestic elimination of SARS-CoV-2 as a possibility. Why should we learn to live with a virus when we could be throwing our vast resources into exterminating it? Succeed or not, we can at least try.

If New Zealand and other countries do pull it off, pressure to join this fight can only grow.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 11, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I agree, with the proviso that we have to get the effect of this present lockdown established probably before we might be able to try such an approach.
> 
> If you have any articles on New Zealand's approach please post them to the worldwide thread. I haven't read up about them at all yet. Might see what I can find also.


Yes, current priority's undoubtedly to drive down mortality and spread. But given the scale of national campaign to completely eliminate the virus domestically, preparations can't start soon enough.

The N.Z. article I posted is about the best I've seen on how their fight's going. There's been a few pieces in journals, but they're speculative. I'll be following it closely, and will definitely post up any interesting developments in the other thread.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

And in some much needed positive news (via the _Telegraph_ unfortunately, but confirmed in a statement), at least one London NHS Trust has set aside government "advice" to not treat Covid cases with drugs outside clinical trials, and has rolled out antimalerial and immunosuppressive medicines in appropriate cases.

Whitehall may be continuing their unerring trend of advising the worst possible thing at the worst possible time, but thanks to the Trust for showing that we don't have to simply accept it.


----------



## LDC (Apr 12, 2020)

Azrael said:


> The gold standard should surely be what New Zealand's attempting: slam your borders, impose 14 day quarantine on new arrivals to stop imports, and throw every resource of the state into the most aggressive testing and contact tracing possible until the virus is starved of hosts and eliminated domestically. Not kept manageable, not mitigated, destroyed. It's what happened with the first SARS, and should, in principle, be repeatable with this coronavirus.
> 
> The direct benefits -- no more deaths from Covid-19 -- speak for themselves, but just think of the collateral benefits: the ruinous psychological consequences of fatalism and learned helplessness are replaced with a sense of victory; if it succeeded, domestic life could return to near-normal until a vaccine's available; and even if it fails, cases could be driven so low that restrictions can be substantially relaxed. Any "second wave" could be immediately attacked with the infrastructure established.
> 
> I can see no reason whatsoever to not at least try, with every resource we can muster.




I have sympathy for that approach, assuming it was possible given the differences between the UK and NZ in terms of population size and density, and global movement, and how quickly it got here and spread. But then what about once it's eliminated domestically (assuming it can be)? A permanent 14 day quarantine for new arrivals until a vaccine is there? Ongoing monitoring of these somewhat vague symptoms in the whole population?


----------



## existentialist (Apr 12, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This bit's pretty good too.
> 
> 
> 
> 'virtually every single day'... Er, maybe you should be working every single day on the biggest crisis facing the country since the second world war??


I imagine she had to fight hard to work at ALL - civil servants will have been busting a gut to keep her away from anything she might comprehensively fuck up. Perhaps they thought that a waffer-thin briefing was something even she couldn't fuck up...


----------



## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I have sympathy for that approach, assuming it was possible given the differences between the UK and NZ in terms of population size and density, and global movement, and how quickly it got here and spread. But then what about once it's eliminated domestically (assuming it can be)? A permanent 14 day quarantine for new arrivals until a vaccine is there? Ongoing monitoring of these somewhat vague symptoms in the whole population?


Temporary 14 day quarantine for all new arrivals until (sigh, I'll have to use the dread phrase, albeit accurately) herd immunity's been achieved via vaccination.

Regardless of whether elimination or ongoing suppression's the goal, constant monitoring will be essential if we ever want to leave lockdown without this nightmare becoming cyclical, with the country enduring rolling lockdowns to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed.

As for whether it's possible, given that the lockdown in effect turned the clock back by driving down the infection rate, it should be. Regarding scalability, whatever the truth of their original stats, China now appears to be close to eradicating the virus domestically.

And even if elimination failed, suppression would be a lot further along. Can see nothing that makes it worse than other approaches, and much that makes it better.


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 12, 2020)

PD58 said:


> And that, ladies and gentleman, was the Secretary of State for the Home Department...!!!!


thought elbows had been rightfully promoted for a sec


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 12, 2020)

Obviously I'm biased against Tories, but I am really amazed by what a bunch of talentless, narcissistic no-marks this cabinet is.

I can see Sunak getting to be PM not because he's particularly impressive - he has the air of a junior minister in the Blair regime - but because compared to the rest of the worthless shitgibbons, he manages to give off an aura of vague competence. Though come to think of it, that will count against him with the party faithful.


----------



## Thora (Apr 12, 2020)

Sunak’s only been around for 5 minutes and all he’s had to do so far is promise to give us all money. There’s still time to see his incompetence.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 12, 2020)

Title of the graph...._America First _or _Special relationship?_

(Selected early lockdowners in dark blue)

__


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

Sunday Times reckons the government are going to try us to get that tracking app :




Ministers have ordered the creation of an NHS mobile phone app the government hopes will help end the coronavirus lockdown.

The app would allow mobile phones to trace users who have come into contact with infected people, alerting them to get tested.

This would make it possible to start lifting the most stringent social-distancing measures from late next month, ministers hope.

 

Senior sources say NHSX, the health service’s technology arm, has been working on the app with Google and Apple at “breakneck speed”. The system will use Bluetooth technology to alert those who download the app if they have been in close proximity with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.

Combined with a vast expansion in testing, which ministers claim will hit 100,000 a day by the end of the month, the app is a central plank in the government’s push to lift the lockdown. “We believe this could be important in helping the country return to normality,” a Whitehall source said.



Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is considering how to incentivise people to install the app. Experts say the “track and trace” concept only works effectively if 60% of people adopt it.
One idea under consideration would mean people being told they could resume normal work and home life if they installed it on their phones.

The details emerged as Lord Evans, the former head of MI5, said technology — similar to the kind intelligence chiefs use to track terrorist suspects — is key to combating the coronavirus. But he warned that it was a “severe intrusion into personal privacy”.
The government will forfeit public trust unless it comes clean about what it is planning and imposes time limits on the use of data, Evans writes in The Sunday Times today.
“People may consider the kind of surveillance needed to keep Covid-19 at bay a price worth paying, but public confidence will only be retained in the longer term if the right controls and accountability are in place,” he writes in


_______
I don't want it. If this comes to pass it will be interesting to see if there is pressure from employers never mind government, to use it


----------



## brogdale (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Sunday Times reckons the government are going to try us to get that tracking app :
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Fuck that.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

I think it's China that has a similar app already?


----------



## mauvais (Apr 12, 2020)

I write mobile applications for a living. I can't see how that's going to work, either from a technical perspective or a holistic, process one.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 12, 2020)

What do all the people without smartphones do?


----------



## brogdale (Apr 12, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> What do all the people without smartphones do?


More productive, life enriching stuff?


----------



## redsquirrel (Apr 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I have sympathy for that approach, assuming it was possible given the differences between the UK and NZ in terms of population size and density, and global movement, and how quickly it got here and spread. But then what about once it's eliminated domestically (assuming it can be)? A permanent 14 day quarantine for new arrivals until a vaccine is there? Ongoing monitoring of these somewhat vague symptoms in the whole population?


And the implementation of an incredibly strict immigration policy.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 12, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> What do all the people without smartphones do?


Probably buy a second phone.


----------



## bimble (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I think it's China that has a similar app already?


Think South Korea more similar but not quite the same.
But anyway wouldn’t people just turn off location tracking or even (!) leave phone at home?


----------



## existentialist (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Sunday Times reckons the government are going to try us to get that tracking app :
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I won't say, "if it were any other government, I'd sign up", because that's probably not true. But I can safely say that I'd rather eat my own shit than sign up to something like this while the shower of fucking idiots we currently have is in charge. It's not just that I don't trust them - I do trust them.

I trust them to abuse, fuck up, and completely reverse any possible advantages that doing something like this might bring, and I trust them faithfully to cling on to overweening powers long after the need for them has passed, just because.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 12, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Probably buy a second phone.



And who is giving them the money to do this? The Government?


----------



## tommers (Apr 12, 2020)

Spoke to my mate in south korea yesterday (and again in about fifteen minutes). He said you just get a text if somebody near to you has tested positive. They close shops that they have been in for two days to clean, then they reopen again. You can get tested if you need to be. He wasn't sure if that was charged or not, or just in some circumstances. He did not seem very bothered about coronavirus to be honest. 

He said the background to it is that one of the political parties lost an election due to fucking up the response to SARS and since then they have made sure they are ready for this shit. Apparently the people there dont see the response as a "triumph" or rather they know the reason why it is the way it is. They also have a very different attitude to the state watching their citizens.


----------



## tommers (Apr 12, 2020)

Oh and everybody wears masks.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Matt Hancock, the health secretary, is considering how to incentivise people to install the app.



App Mancock.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 12, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> And who is giving them the money to do this? The Government?


Yeah as a plan it's got some holes in it. Big holes. My old parents can not even operate the simplest of phones with any consistency.


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Sunday Times reckons the government are going to try us to get that tracking app :
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Just in practical terms, it's utterly pie in the sky to imagine something like that could work, given the woefully low level of testing. Maybe if far more widespread testing had started a month or so ago, together with earlier moves to practice widespread social distancing etc

And that's before we even get on to the other issues, which probably don't need pointing out to anyone here.


----------



## PursuedByBears (Apr 12, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Yeah as a plan it's got some holes in it. Big holes. My old parents can not even operate the simplest of phones with any consistency.


I imagine they don't get released from a tighter version of lockdown then


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

I imagine the advice for older people will be to shield to some extent. As to the rest of the population, they're saying it doesn't require full uptake. 60% is pretty high, but I think smart phone ownership is higher than 80% now. Think about the demographics too - most risk of spread is going to come from people who go to work... Especially commuters on public transport etc. And smartphone ownership in that group is likely also high.

I'm sure it will be totally mismanaged, but don't really have a problem with it in principle. There aren't really many other options.


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2020)

Meanwhile, director of Wellcome Trust saying UK could be worst hit country in Europe, because of lack of testing and tracing


----------



## keybored (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I think it's China that has a similar app already?


Singapore uses one. 




__





						Singapore to open-source national Coronavirus encounter-tracing app and the Bluetooth research behind it
					

Team explains privacy preservation plan and how smartphones' wireless prowess is wildly variable




					www.theregister.co.uk
				




I saw a claim on a forum (so take this with a dash of salt) that this app has a quarantine mode for people who have been tested positive or come into contact with those who have; it's used to make sure you stay put for 2 weeks. If your phone doesn't move in the day for a certain time (uses accelerometer) you would get a knock on your door, so no good thinking you could pop out and leave your phone at home.

Harsh penalties for those trying to evade quarantine by sellotaping the phone to their cat.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

brogdale said:


> More productive, life enriching stuff?





andysays said:


> Just in practical terms, it's utterly pie in the sky to imagine something like that could work, given the woefully low level of testing. Maybe if far more widespread testing had started a month or so ago, together with earlier moves to practice widespread social distancing etc
> 
> And that's before we even get on to the other issues, which probably don't need pointing out to anyone here.


100,000 tests a day asap supposedly.
With all those tests that dont work though isnt it?


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Meanwhile, director of Wellcome Trust saying UK could be worst hit country in Europe, because of lack of testing and tracing



There is no way testing and tracing will work without something like this. It basically is the tracing element.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 12, 2020)

PursuedByBears said:


> I imagine they don't get released from a tighter version of lockdown then


Good, I'd prefer them to be at home together, safe.  One went out for a walk the other day, they have difficulty following the simplest of instruction.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

Not sure how this works if your commute looks like this




Shut down the station for two days of cleaning every time someone infected goes on a train?


----------



## bimble (Apr 12, 2020)

Good thread here. She’s pointing out that England has more than double the deaths (adjusted for population) than Ireland and that the difference is our late lockdown, Ireland’s schools were closed whilst we were still being told to go to that horse thing.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 12, 2020)

100,000 tests a day is c600 days for the whole population or about a year for 60% - we may have a vaccine by then. Plus govts track record to date re testing/PPE  does not inspire any belief this will work. 

We probably cannot compare to South Korea but we can to Germany and once again we may have won a war but sure as shit we are losing the peace.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Apr 12, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Fuck that.


Fuck that , indeed


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

PD58 said:


> 100,000 tests a day is c600 days for the whole population or about a year for 60% - we may have a vaccine by then. Plus govts track record to date re testing/PPE  does not inspire any belief this will work.


Then again who you test and app up means primarily starting with workers of a certain age - that doesn't take as long. But I agree, once this is ready and practicable we'll very likely be in winter flu season.


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

The Korean app was launched on 11th February by the way. I believe from an independent developer (using government data).


----------



## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Just in practical terms, it's utterly pie in the sky to imagine something like that could work, given the woefully low level of testing. Maybe if far more widespread testing had started a month or so ago, together with earlier moves to practice widespread social distancing etc
> 
> And that's before we even get on to the other issues, which probably don't need pointing out to anyone here.


Assume it'll be tied to targeted testing. Hugely encouraging news if true, but will await confirmation.

As for "persuading" people to install it, this is a SARS pandemic, and the alternatives are indefinite house arrest of the entire population or an epidemic leading to deaths in the hundreds of thousands. If the government can try to engineer "herd immunity" at the cost of 250,000-500,000 lives, they're more than capable of mandating contact tracing measures in public, whether it's the app, a GPS tracker, or something else. I detest such measures, but they're less intrusive than the current lockdown, and if I can force myself to support that, same must go for less oppressive alternatives.

As an alternative, I suppose people could agree to hole up in their homes if they want to wait for vaccination. I'd even agree with paying them to do so, as I doubt there'd be many takers!


----------



## editor (Apr 12, 2020)

Worth knowing: Coronavirus: What happens if you break the social distancing rules?


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

This was predicted/expected but its no less horrible to hear about:









						Coronavirus: 'Local shortages' of intensive care drugs
					

Some painkillers and sedative drugs used in intensive care are "a bit stretched", the BBC learns.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> On the same day, four leading royal colleges and health organisations asked staff to "act immediately" and use alternatives to some "first line" medications in new guidance on changes to specific anaesthetic drugs facing "pandemic pressures".
> 
> Dr Ron Daniels, an intensive care consultant in the West Midlands, says his hospital is "running low" on propofol, a commonly used anaesthetic, and alfentanil, an opioid painkiller which is used in intensive care.


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> This was predicted/expected but its no less horrible to hear about:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fuck that's grim.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 12, 2020)

editor said:


> Worth knowing: Coronavirus: What happens if you break the social distancing rules?



TBF the £60 fines (£30 if paid in 30 days) are tiny compared to many other countries.

People need to understand the stages:
1 - You get asked to move on, if you get mouthy & refuse -
2 - You will be asked for your details, so an on spot the fine can be issued, if you continue to be mouthy & refuse -
3 - You will be arrested, until your details can be confirmed, most likely charged & summoned to court, where the maximum fine is £1000 + court costs & victims surcharge.

Those 2 twats having a BBQ on Brighton beach last weekend managed to get themselves charged & are off to court.


----------



## mauvais (Apr 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Just in practical terms, it's utterly pie in the sky to imagine something like that could work, given the woefully low level of testing. Maybe if far more widespread testing had started a month or so ago, together with earlier moves to practice widespread social distancing etc
> 
> And that's before we even get on to the other issues, which probably don't need pointing out to anyone here.


This might have worked at about the point at which those people came back from China on the Horseman coaches, if it had been coupled with other restrictions like full lockdown and proper isolation.

The fundamentals are that there are four ways to do location on modern mobile phones:

Actual GPS
Wi-Fi network identification (you know or can crowdsource where a Wi-Fi router is)
Bluetooth, a bit like Wi-Fi
Cell tower triangulation
GPS only works with line of sight to a sufficient area of sky, so not indoors. Cell tower location is generally much too imprecise to tell you anything other than partial postcode.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are potentially promising. However even the very best scenario is weak compared to supposed social distancing guidelines. Wi-Fi location only has high accuracy in carefully designed physical environments (supporting using Google Maps in a shopping centre full of access points), and Bluetooth might tell you more about personal contact but its range is too high.

So you will go to Tesco and you'll be ID'd as having contacts with pretty much everyone in there. Then, a week or two later, when you've got symptoms and self-report, it will alert everyone you were ID'd with in Tesco _and everywhere else since_, and this will cascade out, and oh look the whole country will be in lockdown.

There are myriad other boring technical barriers to this going well but it's fundamentally difficult to see how it can work from a technical perspective.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

Azrael said:


> As an alternative, I suppose people could agree to hole up in their homes if they want to wait for vaccination. I'd even agree with paying them to do so, as I doubt there'd be many takers!


Im in that category tbh. But I doubt my work would be happy about it if everyone else was happy to go back to work with their apps
eta: as with so many proposals floating around, it only works financially if everyone is back in circulation - half the work force and half the customers etc doesnt add up in practical terms, for my business at least. Would rather be closed and take basic income


----------



## 2hats (Apr 12, 2020)

Have just noticed (Worldometers) that there is no country with as high a death rate per million population as the UK (145) that is testing so little per million (4934). And we already know the UK is undercounting deaths (the ONS won't backfill the numbers for days, weeks).


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> There are myriad other boring technical barriers to this going well but it's fundamentally difficult to see how it can work from a technical perspective.


Well that's also my pessimistic reaction...yet apps have been used in east asia, so.... ?? I dont know. I guess its a long time to go till then anyway, maybe not worth getting too far into hypotheticals


----------



## mauvais (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Well that's also my pessimistic reaction...yet apps have been used in east asia, so.... ?? I dont know. I guess its a long time to go till then anyway.


Most of these have very few cases and strict control measures. It's too late for Western countries unless they manage to magic up universal daily testing.


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Im in that category tbh. But I doubt my work would be happy about it.



What choice do we actually have though? It's either a very long lockdown until a viable vaccine or phased back to work with test and trace (and probably some level of lockdown).


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> What choice do we actually have though? It's either a very long lockdown until a viable vaccine or phased back to work with test and trace (and probably some level of lockdown).


and if thats the choice id rather #1, if Im not happy about the look of #2 . im sceptical about #2 working, but lets see


----------



## treelover (Apr 12, 2020)

London park on Saturday, it really isn't working is it?


----------



## mauvais (Apr 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/97a5ffd00a08088d5ac86f30ce0fd0126e9d1adb/20_98_3921_2353/master/3921.jpg?width=1920&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=750e5149b501e4cb2232d4e7b4a7bf54


It's not clear that anyone in this photo is breaching distancing guidelines. Whether those guidelines are sufficient is another matter.


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Most of these have very few cases and strict control measures. It's too late for Western countries unless they manage to magic up universal daily testing.



There are ways of spinning out relatively sparse material into more useful data though... I remember batch testing being talked about earlier, though no idea on the specifics of that. Combine testing with extensive symptom tracking, looking for clusters of symptoms associated with covid to get an idea of where outbreaks are taking place. That kind of thing.

I'm not optimistic mind you. I just think a move away from lockdown may _technically_ be possible. But I'm not even sure whether our current form of lockdown is sufficient to set the groundwork for that...


----------



## 2hats (Apr 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> our current form of lockdown


It's not lockdown. Merely voluntary self-isolation.


----------



## treelover (Apr 12, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Fuck that.



DWP will love it, and then 'encourage' its ongoing use

its crossing a rubicon.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> View attachment 206269
> 
> London park on Saturday, it really isn't working is it?


How so? Can you point to groups of people from different households interacting in ways that could spread infection? I can't.


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> This might have worked at about the point at which those people came back from China on the Horseman coaches, if it had been coupled with other restrictions like full lockdown and proper isolation.
> 
> The fundamentals are that there are four ways to do location on modern mobile phones:
> 
> ...


Yeah, just in case people are in any doubt about my position, I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, I'm saying the whole testing, tracing, tracing, testing cycle should have been started weeks ago. 

That the government is only now thinking about/preparing to implement this means that far, far more people will have it, and the job of tracing and testing everyone who has been in contact with someone who tests for it, then tracing and testing everyone who has been in contact with them, etc, becomes *hugely* more difficult than it might have been.


----------



## mauvais (Apr 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Yeah, just in case people are in any doubt about my position, I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, I'm saying the whole testing, tracing, tracing, testing cycle should have been started weeks ago.
> 
> That the government is only now thinking about/preparing to implement this means that far, far more people will have it, and the job of tracing and testing everyone who has been in contact with someone who tests for it, then tracing and testing everyone who has been in contact with them, etc, becomes *hugely* more difficult than it might have been.


I'd look at it in a slightly different way: that the government is still seriously entertaining ideas like this as our apparent future means it neither has a coherent idea of what to do nor is talking to anyone who does.


----------



## treelover (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> It's not clear that anyone in this photo is breaching distancing guidelines. Whether those guidelines are sufficient is another matter.



look at the crowds behind the tree's on the left.


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> View attachment 206269
> 
> London park on Saturday, it really isn't working is it?





> Would you report people to the police for for breaking the conditions of the Covid 19 lockdown?


I suggest you report them all.

How dare they be outside, the London dwelling bastards


----------



## existentialist (Apr 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> DWP will love it, and then 'encourage' its ongoing use
> 
> its crossing a rubicon.


I was thinking more "thin end of the wedge", but yes - I cannot see how this government, with its reputation for tearing up conventions, would ever let go of these wonderful powers, having got them. "Mission creep" is a given with them, and would be the case with this. In spades.


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> It's not lockdown. Merely voluntary self-isolation.



Hmm... It's certainly not a proper lockdown. But every time I go out the difference between things as they are and as they were is striking. I do think there's wide adherence to the rules. As we all keep saying though, whether those rules are sufficient is another matter. Thing is, I suspect it has had a genuine and profound effect on transmission. The effects of closing pubs, leisure stuff, public meeting, many jobs etc will be far greater than many of the more stringent measures. But all that depends on where you want the restrictions to take you, and we have fuck all idea what the government has planned in that regard.


----------



## treelover (Apr 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> I suggest you report them all.
> 
> How dare they be outside, the London dwelling bastards



Just wondering, are you in the shielding or at risk group?

btw, there was a gathering next to me as i posted on that thread, didn't report it, but boy am i going ot vent when i get a chance.


----------



## mauvais (Apr 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> look at the crowds behind the tree's on the left.


All I see is a perspective-compressed photo taken with a telephoto lens, making it very difficult to judge separation. If you want to figure it out for yourself you can find the Street View location in Vicky Park and judge how far apart the trees really are.



If you go out in any park and are careful to maintain your distance, you can still end up in one of these shots, which amongst other reasons is why it irritates me.


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> All I see is a perspective-compressed photo taken with a telephoto lens, making it very difficult to judge separation. If you want to figure it out for yourself you can find the Street View location in Vicky Park and judge how far apart the trees really are.
> 
> View attachment 206272
> 
> If you go out in any park and are careful to maintain your distance, you can still end up in one of these shots, which amongst other reasons is why it irritates me.



Yeah, I was about to post about that again. The people taking these pictures are fucking reprehensible.


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I'd look at it in a slightly different way: that the government is still seriously entertaining ideas like this as our apparent future means it neither has a coherent idea of what to do nor is talking to anyone who does.


I'd agree with you on that.

This idea seems to be viewed as a magic bullet, but the practicalities of it don't suggest it will be of much help, now that so many people are likely to be infected. 

The way these things work, to the extent they do work, is that once someone has tested positive, they go into isolation, then the job is to trace everyone who they've been in contact with for the past how ever many days (at least 7, maybe more). 

Then all of *those* people have to be tested, those who test positive go into isolation and everyone each of them has been in contact with for the past 7 days has to be traced and tested.

And then all of *those* people have to be tested, those who test positive go into isolation and everyone each of them has been in contact with for the past 7 days has to be traced and tested.

The job would be made theoretically easier if a magic app could identify everyone a given carrier had been within a set distance of in the last week, but the job would still be to actually test all those people.

The most recent figures I can immediately find suggest that over 60,000 people had tested positive on April 9th. Finding and testing even the direct contacts, far less contacts of contacts etc, is a task way beyond not only current testing capability, but our likely capability for the foreseeable future.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> The most recent figures I can immediately find suggest that over 60,000 people had tested positive on April 9th. Finding and testing even the direct contacts, far less contacts of contacts etc, is a task way beyond not only current testing capability, but our likely capability for the foreseeable future.


Reminds me of this 








						The Rice and Chessboard Legend
					

An ancient legend about some rice and a chessboard goes as follows: “A wise old ruler wanted to reward his servant for an act of extraordinary bravery. The servant said:...




					www.mathscareers.org.uk


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> Just wondering, are you in the shielding or at risk group?
> 
> btw, there was a gathering next to me as i posted on that thread, didn't report it, but boy am i going ot vent when i get a chance.


No, I'm a keyworker, so I'm going out every day, funnily enough maintaining public green spaces so that people can get out of their homes and use them to exercise.

And although I've seen a few people doing things which suggest they might not be following the letter of the guidelines, I've got more important things to do and more important things to think about than looking at photos of people in a park hundreds of miles from where I live and playing "guess the infractor".


----------



## magneze (Apr 12, 2020)

As far as I see, yes, people are out but they're keeping their distance. Apart from younger, male joggers who really don't seem to give a shit.


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> I'd agree with you on that.
> 
> This idea seems to be viewed as a magic bullet, but the practicalities of it don't suggest it will be of much help, now that so many people are likely to be infected.
> 
> ...



Yeah, to clarify my own view on this... I think it _could_ potentially be workable. But only off the back of an extended, severe lockdown aimed at getting active cases down as low as possible. And fuck knows if we could maintain that. I doubt it on current evidence. A competent government might be able to though.

The actual impression I get is that we're basically still following the herd immunity strategy, just with some measures to stop the NHS actually collapsing, but not really with much concern as to the final toll.


----------



## kebabking (Apr 12, 2020)

The only people I've seen not doing the 2/3m social distancing is old people in Bewdley. Standing about and gassing in groups of half a dozen...

And coppers obviously. Christ they really are thick as fucking dogshit.


----------



## zahir (Apr 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> The actual impression I get is that we're basically still following the herd immunity strategy, just with some measures to stop the NHS actually collapsing, but not really with much concern as to the final toll.



This is my impression as well. The messaging may have changed but I don’t see much sign of a change in the underlying plan.


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> The actual impression I get is that we're basically still following the herd immunity strategy, just with some measures to stop the NHS actually collapsing, but not really with much concern as to the final toll.



For weeks it was hard to tell because of their apparent need to avoid the impression of a u-turn when doing the daily briefings. But they foolishly threw around the 20,000 number of deaths as being some sort of target we could judge them by. And there are some signs that the old orthodox approach is actually dead, they are just hedging their bets a bit about what happens instead. eg Whitty recently acknowledging that there were lessons to be learnt from Germany. Its still not enough for me to be highly confident about what strategy they are now following, but I'm reasonably confident it isnt herd immunity any more. Even if for no other reason than the numbers game just doesnt work on this front, not unless they eventually get serological survey data that shows a much higher proportion of the country have already been infected than is currently assumed to be the case.


----------



## xenon (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Reminds me of this
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's just binary. If cases doubled every X days, after 32 x days, you'll have 4 billion + cases.

(Thank you IPV4.)


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Apr 12, 2020)

magneze said:


> As far as I see, yes, people are out but they're keeping their distance. Apart from younger, male joggers who really don't seem to give a shit.


 
I can only find one male jogger in that photo & couldn't say for sure, that he isn't at least trying to keep 2m distance.

(I do think it's irresponsible to go running along the main paths of a park that busy - but that's only because of the article I read on this site about runners & cyclists possibly shedding over a much larger area.  Since then I've kept a much bigger distance - either as a runner myself or walking near a runner / cyclist.
If he's trying to keep 2m away then he's within the guidance, whether that's a safe distance or not is a different question


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 12, 2020)

We really need VAR for correct social decisions on  distancing infringements


----------



## magneze (Apr 12, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> I can only find one male jogger in that photo & couldn't say for sure, that he isn't at least trying to keep 2m distance.
> 
> (I do think it's irresponsible to go running along the main paths of a park that busy - but that's only because of the article I read on this site about runners & cyclists possibly shedding over a much larger area.  Since then I've kept a much bigger distance - either as a runner myself or walking near a runner / cyclist.
> If he's trying to keep 2m away then he's within the guidance, whether that's a safe distance or not is a different question


I'm talking in general rather than that particular picture. It's become quite noticeable around here.


----------



## editor (Apr 12, 2020)

treelover said:


> View attachment 206269
> 
> London park on Saturday, it really isn't working is it?


It probably is, because the photo is deceptive.

When you use a long telephoto lens it compresses perspective, so it's most likely that everyone is correctly social distancing.

*Ah I see others have pointed it out as well!


----------



## editor (Apr 12, 2020)

Tragic


> Sara Trollope, 51, had dedicated her entire 33-year career to the NHS and was just months from retirement when she died from coronavirus.











						Proud hospital matron who posed with Boris Johnson loses life to coronavirus
					

EXCLUSIVE: Tragic Sara Trollope was 'devoted' to her NHS job, and was just months away from retirement when she contracted the killer coronavirus




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Apr 12, 2020)

Oh... here too in general tbf. Really wish there was some basic instruction like 'keep *more than *2m distance if running, slow to a walk if you must pass at 2m from other people'

Lot round here seem to _aim_ to pass at exactly 2m even on a wide path 
(will take it to the joggers thread... )


----------



## teqniq (Apr 12, 2020)

They just can't bring themselves to apologise can they?


----------



## Wilf (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> It's not clear that anyone in this photo is breaching distancing guidelines. Whether those guidelines are sufficient is another matter.


Yep, this. In fact that photo, as much as you can tell with foreshortening, looks to show that people _are _managing to observe 2 metre gaps.


----------



## klang (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Not sure how this works if your commute looks like this
> 
> View attachment 206236
> 
> ...


i like how the guy bottom right seizes the moment to roll a quick spliff


----------



## weltweit (Apr 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> ..
> even the direct contacts, far less contacts of contacts etc, is a task way beyond not only current testing capability, but our likely capability for the foreseeable future.


Hence why it may only be possible after our lockdown period after which there should be far fewer cases to test and trace and isolate.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah, to clarify my own view on this... I think it _could_ potentially be workable. But only off the back of an extended, severe lockdown aimed at getting active cases down as low as possible. And fuck knows if we could maintain that. I doubt it on current evidence. A competent government might be able to though.


I agree with this, the current lockdown to reduce the numbers of infections to tiny amounts followed by test trace and isolate and if it gets away from us a return to lockdown, perhaps only for specific hot spots. 



Cid said:


> The actual impression I get is that we're basically still following the herd immunity strategy, just with some measures to stop the NHS actually collapsing, but not really with much concern as to the final toll.


I don't agree with this though I think herd immunity has been abandoned, what we are doing at the moment seems to be an attempt to supress the infections by starving the virus of new hosts.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 12, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I don't agree with this though I think herd immunity has been abandoned, what we are doing at the moment seems to be an attempt to supress the infections by starving the virus of new hosts.


But it's a bit like the ending to Finding Nemo where they're all in plastic bags in Sydney Harbour. We won't have solved the problem. A herd immunity strategy is what you are following by default if you are not following anything else.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yep, this. In fact that photo, as much as you can tell with foreshortening, looks to show that people _are _managing to observe 2 metre gaps.


And I can back this up with my experience of being in London parks in the last couple of weeks. The vast majority of people are being very good about social distancing in parks. If anything the behaviour of people in parks is good evidence that this thing _is_ working.


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK death toll tops 10,000


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK death toll tops 10,000


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

Lower figure today. I hope that's not just an Easter Sunday effect, but I fear it may be. We may need to wait until Wednesday or Thursday to get a proper grip on the figures for last week.


----------



## Mation (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Sunday Times reckons the government are going to try us to get that tracking app :
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There'd be an information black hole over all the prisons, given that staff can't take their phones in.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 12, 2020)

Hancock mentioned a tracing app for phones in the No 10 press briefing today.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 12, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Hancock mentioned a tracing app for phones in the No 10 press briefing today.


Ready to be delivered any day now, just like the 100,000 tests a day were, and the tests for all distributed by Amazon/available in Boots?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> Ready to be delivered any day now, just like the 100,000 tests a day were, and the tests for all distributed by Amazon/available in Boots?



And that ppe so desperately needed...

<broken record>


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Lower figure today. I hope that's not just an Easter Sunday effect, but I fear it may be. We may need to wait until Wednesday or Thursday to get a proper grip on the figures for last week.



Yes, although having to wait is a constant feature anyway.

If people remember the FT graph that showed cumulative deaths up to March 27th by reporting date, and then by actual date of death, and my equivalents, here is my latest version:

Its only for deaths in English hospitals. And the fact the green and blue bars become closer and then the same at the end is the reporting delays in effect - over time the blue bars for those dates will continue to grow, but since the green ones are the totals reported on one day in particular, they cannot change later.



There is at least a degree of consistency in terms of how underreported deaths are on a particular day.

As for how this looks in terms of number of deaths per day in hospitals in England, here is the latest version of that, but again we should expect the more recent bars to grow in the coming days, they are artificially low right now due to reporting delays.


I dont know if the last day of the month represents additional reporting issues, but there are no signs of whatever made the numbers on March 31st much lower than days before and after being corrected.


----------



## treelover (Apr 12, 2020)

editor said:


> Tragic
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Wonder if  he shook her hand?


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> Ready to be delivered any day now, just like the 100,000 tests a day were, and the tests for all distributed by Amazon/available in Boots?


Yeah I reckon a lot of the stories and announcements are We're Doing Stuff noise and hot air. Got to say something other than how much Johnson is improving.
None of it will come to much any time soon


----------



## weltweit (Apr 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> Ready to be delivered any day now, just like the 100,000 tests a day were, and the tests for all distributed by Amazon/available in Boots?


Hancock got an easy ride again, no questions on testing afaict


eta just 12,000 approx. tests in last 24 hours


----------



## agricola (Apr 12, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Hancock mentioned a tracing app for phones in the No 10 press briefing today.



Didn't watch it, but the Guardian reports the following about the app:



> Today I wanted to outline the next step: a new NHS app for contact tracing. If you become unwell with the symptoms of coronavirus, you can securely tell this new NHS app and the app will then send an alert anonymously to other app users that you’ve been in significant contact with over the past few days, even before you had symptoms, so that they know and can act accordingly.
> 
> All data will be handled according to the highest ethical and security standards, and would only be used for NHS care and research, and we won’t hold it any longer than it’s needed. And as part of our commitment to transparency we’ll be publishing the source code, too.
> 
> We’re already testing this app and as we do this we’re working closely with the world’s leading tech companies and renowned experts in digital safety and ethics.”



Surely it would make more sense for the app to tell you who has developed symptoms for it, so you can work out who you've seen since your contact with that person and what action you need to take?   This would especially be true for people who still work in big workplaces (like callcentres) where one person getting symptoms might generate alerts to everyone else and make them all think they needed to self isolate.


----------



## zahir (Apr 12, 2020)

Twitter thread and new paper which tbh are probably beyond my level of understanding.


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

Wriggling, blame-shifting scum when the question of whether we could keep deaths below 20,000 came up:



> One last post from Sunday's Downing St briefing: the UK's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance previously said it would be a "good outcome" for the UK if the number of deaths from the virus could be kept below 20,000.
> 
> The health secretary is asked whether it's still possible to achieve that "good outcome", given the death toll exceeded 10,000 today.
> 
> ...



From BBC live updates page at 16:52 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52259683


----------



## 2hats (Apr 12, 2020)

agricola said:


> Didn't watch it, but the Guardian reports the following about the app:


I'm familiar with some of the behind the scenes discussions regarding this app.

Let's just say I won't be installing it on my phone.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Wriggling, blame-shifting scum when the question of whether we could keep deaths below 20,000 came up:
> 
> 
> 
> From BBC live updates page at 16:52 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52259683



IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!


----------



## weltweit (Apr 12, 2020)

elbows I am quizzical you are surprised Hancock didn't answer the question? UK politicians of all stripes are renowned for not answering questions, indeed I expect they are trained in doing this, so expert at it they become.

South Korea apparently made a point of being transparent and honest with their public in order to generate maximum co-operation in their efforts (so I read in an article at least) I don't think UKG is doing the same at all, rather they are trying to manage public knowledge and nudge reactions, talking only about immediate issues and what they want the public to do now rather than for example painting a picture as to how we might emerge from this outbreak further along in time etc etc ..


----------



## Wilf (Apr 12, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!


Herd immunity? Lack of PPE? Lack of ventilators? Lack of testing?
- *'NO, YOU LET WENT IN THE PARK!*


----------



## ska invita (Apr 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> I'm familiar with some of the behind the scenes discussions regarding this app.
> 
> Let's just say I won't be installing it on my phone.


can you say just a little? general area of problems?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

weltweit said:


> elbows I am quizzical you are surprised Hancock didn't answer the question? UK politicians of all stripes are renowned for not answering questions, indeed I expect they are trained in doing this, so expert at it they become.
> 
> South Korea apparently made a point of being transparent and honest with their public in order to generate maximum co-operation in their efforts (so I read in an article at least) I don't think UKG is doing the same at all, rather they are trying to manage public knowledge and nudge reactions, talking only about immediate issues and what they want the public to do now rather than for example painting a picture as to how we might emerge from this outbreak further along in time etc etc ..


And why might that be, do you think? It's surely because they really are as clueless as they appear to be. Been saying for weeks that real leadership in a crisis like this involves showing a huge degree of honesty, even where that makes you look bad, especially where that makes you look bad. They don't get that, and probably never will.

Instead, the persist with insulting lies. The majority of people who die from this thing in the next month will have caught it before today, so it is demonstrably wrong that 'our behaviour' determines whether or not we stay under that arbitrary 20,000 figure.


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

I did not say I was surprised, I was just adding it to the record of shit.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> can you say just a little? general area of problems?


'fraid not.


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

zahir said:


> Twitter thread and new paper which tbh are probably beyond my level of understanding.




Thanks for bringing this to our attention, I dont find enough time these days to spot all these studies.

I wouldnt worry too much about the technical details of the modelling, only the emerging reality will tell us how good any of the models are anyway.

In terms of the conclusions, the standout bits so far are that maximum 20% of the UK might be immune by the end of the first wave, and cumulative deaths could be almost 50,000.


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

agricola said:


> Surely it would make more sense for the app to tell you who has developed symptoms for it, so you can work out who you've seen since your contact with that person and what action you need to take?   This would especially be true for people who still work in big workplaces (like callcentres) where one person getting symptoms might generate alerts to everyone else and make them all think they needed to self isolate.



Huge privacy issues if it did that. And people not reporting symptoms for fear of community shame etc.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 12, 2020)

Worth a read.









						Professor mocked as 'ranting lefty' is right on coronavirus
					

Professor John Ashton was written off by many, but his words and warnings appear to have been on the money so far




					www.liverpoolecho.co.uk


----------



## agricola (Apr 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> Huge privacy issues if it did that. And people not reporting symptoms for fear of community shame etc.



It would be a breach of privacy, albeit one that would have to take place for the system to work and one that had really good reasons why it should be breached.   Given how the system would know who to actually alert there are probably pretty major breaches of privacy already going on with it anyway.


----------



## Cid (Apr 12, 2020)

agricola said:


> It would be a breach of privacy, albeit one that would have to take place for the system to work and one that had really good reasons why it should be breached.   Given how the system would know who to actually alert there are probably pretty major breaches of privacy already going on with it anyway.



Just to check, do you mean that you think the app should explicitly name someone who has the disease and that you might have come into contact with? To me that is a huge step up from e.g how the Korean app works - I believe that allows you to see travel history of someone who had the disease, and alerts you if you're within 100m. It is still a major intrusion on privacy of course, but actually naming just seems a step beyond that.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 12, 2020)

If people who are known to be sick are properly quarrantined then what's the percentage in telling everyone else about it?


----------



## agricola (Apr 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> Just to check, do you mean that you think the app should explicitly name someone who has the disease and that you might have come into contact with? To me that is a huge step up from e.g how the Korean app works - I believe that allows you to see travel history of someone who had the disease, and alerts you if you're within 100m. It is still a major intrusion on privacy of course, but actually naming just seems a step beyond that.



I think to be effective its either got to tell you a name and/or when and where (and how often) your contact with them was, either of which would be enough to work someones identity out quite a lot of the time.   Just getting an alert would be useless, especially somewhere like London where people could get multiple alerts every day from tube, train, bus, office, supermarket queue encounters etc a few days previously .

The system is going to know who you've been in contact with anyway, I'd have thought, so it should really tell you as well.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And why might that be, do you think? It's surely because they really are as clueless as they appear to be.


It certainly isn't a cabinet of intellectual giants, nor of polished public speakers.



littlebabyjesus said:


> Been saying for weeks that real leadership in a crisis like this involves showing a huge degree of honesty, even where that makes you look bad, especially where that makes you look bad. They don't get that, and probably never will.


Politics and honesty (certainly in the UK) are not phrases that rub together very often.



littlebabyjesus said:


> Instead, the persist with insulting lies. The majority of people who die from this thing in the next month will have caught it before today, so it is demonstrably wrong that 'our behaviour' determines whether or not we stay under that arbitrary 20,000 figure.


I am not sure I understand you, people getting infected today could still make up a larger death toll.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 12, 2020)

zahir said:


> Twitter thread and new paper which tbh are probably beyond my level of understanding.



Interesting. Little difference between the two key models used (Markov and ODE) other than in subsequent post wave overall population susceptibility estimates (which then feeds through to number of waves required to reach herd immunity); though not a huge disparity.

They agree on:

~50K dead at the end of the first wave of infection (UK),
that it will take several such waves to reach herd immunity (the golden 60%) - anything up to 12 waves for the UK,
that most countries are near the peak case rate (France about now, Ireland within the next 2 weeks, the UK within the next 3 weeks, all others in this study already past their peaks),
herd immunity at the end of the first wave across all countries considered anticipated to be around 6%; at best 20% for the UK.
Other comments - likely it will need somewhere between 8-12 cycles of lockdown for the UK to achieve herd immunity. Alternatively, if we want to try to test extensively in order to protect the vulnerable, quarantine the infected and facilitate the well&recovered going back to work then we are probably looking at >600,000 tests per day (cf the government's current goal of 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month). Outcomes of the modelling presented obviously will vary with the degree of immunity that infected people go on to develop (not yet clear).

Numbers broadly chime with those coming out of Imperial and LSHTM models.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I am not sure I understand you, people getting infected today could still make up a larger death toll.


Of course they could. But they are utterly irrelevant to the UK's prospects of avoiding 20,000. 

Let's be super-optimistic here and say that the real total today is around 12,000. Conservatively add a quarter for the care home and sundry other deaths that have yet to be factored in and you have 15,000 dead today from C19. Let's continue with the super-optimism and say that we have, without detecting it yet, reached peak death right now, and that the measures introduced three weeks ago were super-effective, meaning that deaths over the next two weeks will decline from current rates to perhaps half of where they are now. 

Even a super-optimist would calculate that total deaths will pass 20,000 long before anybody contracting c19 today has been added to the statistics. 

It's a tactic called deflection. Don't look at that, consider this instead. And shame on the scientist stood next to him who went along with it.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 12, 2020)

Ok, I see you are saying - we are already going to get to 20,000 - yes you are probably right.


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## 2hats (Apr 12, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Ok, I see you are saying - we are already going to get to 20,000 - yes you are probably right.


Various models suggest almost 50,000 in the first wave (see recent posts).


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## weltweit (Apr 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> Various models suggest almost 50,000 in the first wave (see recent posts).


Grim


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> ~50K dead at the end of the first wave of infection,
> 
> that it will take several such waves to reach herd immunity (the golden 60%) - anything up to 12 waves for the UK,
> that most countries are near the peak case rate (France about now, Ireland within the next 2 weeks, the UK within the next 3 weeks, all others in this study already past their peaks),
> ...



Regarding point 2, the summary was unhelpful with the language used to describe peak dates, because it didnt indicate what date the author wrote it on. But later in the main body of the work, it says:



> For the UK, the peak case rate predictions were estimated at April 11th for the HMM and April 17th for the ODE model.



As for point 1, I will wait to see whether the ODE model or the MDP model turns out to be more accurate, since there are big variations in estimates for population infected after the first wave (5% or 20%), and their number of waves thing seems to just be another way of describing this level. When they spoke about this, they chose to highlight as few as 3 waves possible for UK (since they are trying to get to 60% and 3 x 20% would do that) and as many as 12 for Germany because of the low estimates for infection there.

Also, relating to my last point and your point 3, I dont think I would not quite say 20% is their best case scenario for the UK because I think one of the graphs has red error bars and they cover rather a large range for the ODE model that the 20% comes from.


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## planetgeli (Apr 12, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Grim



Not just grim but those words 'first wave' just don't seem to be being understood by a lot of people. 

"When's lockdown finishing bruv?"

"Any time now surely?"

"And that's it then right? All over with that?"


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Grim


Well we had no firm idea how bad things were three weeks ago when they were touting 20,000 (but we were tracking Italy - the clues were that it was bad). The truth about the state we were in then is only emerging now with the current death rates. Truth is that we were doomed to reach 20,000 dead from infections pre-lockdown alone. It never was a realistic target, however people behaved in the last three weeks, let alone however people behave from today onwards. And that's just_ too bad a truth_ for this govt to admit to.


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## Mr.Bishie (Apr 12, 2020)

I take it that Italy, Spain, France, like the U.K. haven’t tallied figures from deaths outside of hospital?


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> I take it that Italy, Spain, France, like the U.K. haven’t tallied figures from deaths outside of hospital?


France has started doing so from care homes. I believe that Italy hasn't. Don't know about Spain. 

Another potential discrepancy comes from comorbidities. The UK and I believe many others are counting anyone dying with c19, regardless of the comorbidities. I did read somewhere that Germany and Austria may not be doing that, but I didn't see firm evidence presented.


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> I take it that Italy, Spain, France, like the U.K. haven’t tallied figures from deaths outside of hospital?



France started including theirs recently.

So their totals as of numbers released today are 14393 deaths, of which 9253 were hospital deaths.


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## teqniq (Apr 12, 2020)

Has Piers Morgan had a road to Damascus moment? This is just one example of him taking the government to task:


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> For weeks it was hard to tell because of their apparent need to avoid the impression of a u-turn when doing the daily briefings. But they foolishly threw around the 20,000 number of deaths as being some sort of target we could judge them by. And there are some signs that the old orthodox approach is actually dead, they are just hedging their bets a bit about what happens instead. eg Whitty recently acknowledging that there were lessons to be learnt from Germany. Its still not enough for me to be highly confident about what strategy they are now following, but I'm reasonably confident it isnt herd immunity any more. Even if for no other reason than the numbers game just doesnt work on this front, not unless they eventually get serological survey data that shows a much higher proportion of the country have already been infected than is currently assumed to be the case.


Belief in engineering "herd immunity" via controlled mass infection appears to be pervasive among government scientific advisors (just this week, Passport Office staff were told to return to work because 80% of the population would eventually become infected with Covid-19), but like you, I'm not at all convinced that it remains policy. Hancock appears to realize that rolling lockdowns and hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths would be, at the least, politically catastrophic for any government, and raises the real prospect of civil and criminal liability for anyone who attempted it.

As ever, I want to know how this belief spread like wildfire through government scientific and medical advisors. Their relying on the old flu modelling alone doesn't explain it, as they know a SARS coronavirus behaves differently, and there's much that remains unknown about its ability to confer natural immunity. Lots more investigation into the roots of this lethal orthodoxy needed.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Has Piers Morgan had a road to Damascus moment? This is just one example of him taking the government to task:
> 
> View attachment 206368


Much to many's surprise, he's been travelling it for weeks, attacking ministers and their advisors for their deadly complacency. To spin a colourful phrase, he's a sonuvabitch, but at present, he's a useful sonuvabitch.


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## keybored (Apr 12, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Has Piers Morgan had a road to Damascus moment? This is just one example of him taking the government to task:
> 
> View attachment 206368


2020 keeps getting more bizarre.


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## editor (Apr 12, 2020)

More twats










						Coronavirus: Family fined for London to Devon fishing trip
					

The family was escorted out of Devon and fined by police before being sent home to London.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## Mation (Apr 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Regarding point 2, the summary was unhelpful with the language used to describe peak dates, because it didnt indicate what date the author wrote it on. But later in the main body of the work, it says:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Why are those error bars so big on the ODE model? Why aren't they on the MDP model?

(Going off to read up now, but asking in case it's straightforward to explain the difference.  )


----------



## brogdale (Apr 12, 2020)

[This is in no way meant to be an offensive post & I really hope it causes none]

But...last year I was fortunate enough to be able to visit Etaples CWGC just South of Boulogne and, even though I've been to quite a few WW1 cemeteries, I was genuinely shocked at the vast scale and sprawl of senseless waste.

Anyway, having 'officially' now reached the 10k covid death figure, (the real one will, of course be much higher) I was reminded of Etaples with its 11k graves. My pic only shows one portion of the site as my camera was just not up to the task of capturing the whole thing...in fact I think you'd need an aerial shot to do it justice.

Apols for ramble & dark thoughts...but it does possibly help give some idea of the human tragedy that has befallen us?


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## editor (Apr 12, 2020)

I was talking to a paramedic who works at Kings College Hospital today (he's a neighbour) and he painted a very grim picture. He said it's basically a lottery who survives and most of the time they're helpless to stop people dying, so all they can do is make them comfortable. 

It must be so traumatic for the hospital staff - they're in the business of saving lives and for much of the time there's nothing they can do. 

He told me that he'd also contracted the virus a few weeks back. He described his case as 'moderate' but what he went through sounded really fucking grim and made my memory of getting the flu (the worst illness I've ever had) sound very mild indeed.


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## Anju (Apr 12, 2020)

Not yet clear how this has affected PPE supplies as the stockpiled stuff includes vaccines and other drugs but the majority is PPE so this will have had an impact on supplies to healthcare workers. 

Revealed: value of UK pandemic stockpile fell by 40% in six years


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

editor said:


> I was talking to a paramedic who works at Kings College Hospital today (he's a neighbour) and he painted a very grim picture. He said it's basically a lottery who survives and most of the time they're helpless to stop people dying, so all they can do is make them comfortable.
> 
> It must be so traumatic for the hospital staff - they're in the business of saving lives and for much of the time there's nothing they can do.
> 
> He told me that he'd also contracted the virus a few weeks back. He described his case as 'moderate' but what he went through sounded really fucking grim and made my memory of getting the flu (the worst illness I've ever had) sound very mild indeed.


Went into detail in the other thread, but if I did have it (and the symptoms and course tracked so closely I expect I did), "moderate" doesn't do it justice. While I've certainly been sicker, lingering symptoms went on for weeks after fever broke for last time, and I've still got intermittent wheeziness. And if it was C-19, that was a supposedly "mild" case that never led to the infamous broken glass cough. Most of all, having experienced a shadow of what those pour souls in hospital are going through has me constantly thinking of them. 

One London NHS Trust has now junked the government "advice" to not try drugs against Covid until clinical trials are completed (far as I've been able to find, England's alone in Europe in mandating this), so can but hope that King's joins them. The effect of forced helplessness on medics will be horrific.


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well we had no firm idea how bad things were three weeks ago when they were touting 20,000 (but we were tracking Italy - the clues were that it was bad). The truth about the state we were in then is only emerging now with the current death rates. Truth is that we were doomed to reach 20,000 dead from infections pre-lockdown alone. It never was a realistic target, however people behaved in the last three weeks, let alone however people behave from today onwards. And that's just_ too bad a truth_ for this govt to admit to.



Its probably time for me to review some of those mid-march claims again soon, as we reach a month since some of them were made.

I need to check some facts before I do that properly.

But in terms of the 20,000 claim, it came from the Imperial College team, stemming from their 'influential' report that ended up changing the government strategy around March 16th. It was described in an FT article (which I cannot currently read but quoted from at the time Subscribe to read | Financial Times ): 



> Imperial’s researchers presented their latest analysis after the prime minister’s press conference at 10 Downing Street on Monday. Modelling a scenario similar to the new measures — including social distancing of the whole population, home isolation of cases and household quarantine of their families — might bring total deaths down to about 20,000 if they were observed strictly, said Azra Ghani, a member of the Imperial team.



I have forgotten when Vallance first mentioned this number in a press conference, but the press quoted him at a Commons health committee on Tuesday 17th March:









						20,000 UK Coronavirus Deaths Would Be 'Good' If 'Horrible' Outcome, Says Patrick Vallance
					

Chief scientific adviser tells MPs it is "reasonable" to assume there are currently 55,000 cases in the UK.




					www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
				






> Vallance said: “Every year in seasonal flu the number of deaths is thought to be 8,000.
> 
> “If we can get this down to numbers 20,000 and below, that is a good outcome in terms of where we would hope to get to with this outbreak. It is still horrible. That is still an enormous number of deaths.”



If I look at the actual Imperial paper from the time, the 20,000 isnt highlighted in particular, but rather it, and other numbers somewhat close to it, appear in a range of tables which look at different triggers used to switch suppressive social distancing measures on and off and different rates of virus reproduction.

PC=school and university closure, CI=home isolation of cases, HQ=household quarantine, SD=social distancing of the entire population




from pages 13 & 14 of https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf

I will review more claims of a month ago and various models as time goes on.


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## Raheem (Apr 12, 2020)

Presumably, one reason the Imperial College modelling might not pan out is the gap between it being conducted and the lockdown starting.


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Presumably, one reason the Imperial College modelling might not pan out is the gap between it being conducted and the lockdown starting.



The triggers they used were when numbers of new Covid-19 patients in ICU over a week crossed a threshold. I do have some ICU data from March 21st onwards but it isnt quite sufficient for me to judge the new case threshold for that period accurately.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

If Vallance considers 20,000 deaths, while "still horrible", to be a relatively "good outcome", tells you all you need to know about the man.

Reuters reported that the government and its creatures were well aware that the death toll would run into the hundreds of thousands when they launched their "herd immunity" strategy. The Imperial paper didn't tell them anything new: it just revealed to the public what'd been kept hidden.

So yes, Sir Patrick, I expect 20,000 does seem a "good outcome" right now. When more people connect the dots, and the government needs scapegoats, you may reconsider your position.


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## weltweit (Apr 12, 2020)

Azrael said:


> ..
> So yes, Sir Patrick, I expect 20,000 does seem a "good outcome" right now. When more people connect the dots, and the government needs scapegoats, you may reconsider your position.


I am very aware the politicians are making a point of saying that they are following the scientific advice at every opportunity. It's an arse covering for the investigations and public enquiries that are likely to follow.


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## killer b (Apr 12, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Worth a read.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


this from the article is good, and true I think - they left everything too late, then suddenly found themselves on the brink of the pandemic kicking in here without enough PPE, without enough testing kits, and with the whole world in front of them in the queue to get them. So they found themselves with very limited options - as they still do now. 

_Professor Ashton believes the herd immunity theory was something the government had effectively forced itself into because of its failures to prepare - and crucially begin mass testing - from an early stage.

He said: "They basically stopped testing on March 12, they then were very much on the backfoot and that was where you got all this herd immunity stuff, which I think was a kind of after-the-event explanation to make it look like they hadn't cocked it up."_


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## sheothebudworths (Apr 12, 2020)

Nm.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I am very aware the politicians are making a point of saying that they are following the scientific advice at every opportunity. It's an arse covering for the investigations and public enquiries that are likely to follow.


Yup. And the Dr. Strangeloves somehow didn't realize what was happening (think Whitty has now, no wonder he's looking so ashen). If that's how this goes, we should at least discover how these orthodoxies sank so deep and spread so wide (Scotland's medical and scientific establishment have been every bit as awful as England's, so whatever Cummings' enthusiasms, he's not patient zero).


----------



## kabbes (Apr 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> Interesting. Little difference between the two key models used (Markov and ODE) other than in subsequent post wave overall population susceptibility estimates (which then feeds through to number of waves required to reach herd immunity); though not a huge disparity.
> 
> They agree on:
> 
> ...


I think those timescales are from the end point of the data period, ie 5 April, no?  So it’s now a week on from the start point of the model, which means 2 rather than 3 weeks for the U.K.


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> this from the article is good, and true I think - they left everything too late, then suddenly found themselves on the brink of the pandemic kicking in here without enough PPE, without enough testing kits, and with the whole world in front of them in the queue to get them. So they found themselves with very limited options - as they still do now.
> 
> _Professor Ashton believes the herd immunity theory was something the government had effectively forced itself into because of its failures to prepare - and crucially begin mass testing - from an early stage.
> 
> He said: "They basically stopped testing on March 12, they then were very much on the backfoot and that was where you got all this herd immunity stuff, which I think was a kind of after-the-event explanation to make it look like they hadn't cocked it up."_



Sort of. I dont think it does the period justice to think it was mostly a question of them leaving it too late though.

They followed the orthodox approach, tuned to what capacity for testing they had. The orthodox approach was pretty much identical in all but name and rhetorical angle to their herd immunity stuff. The orthodox approach only started to shift in europe at the same time (coinciding with Italy going into lockdown). On the 12th when they went on about herd immunity, it looked like they were going to stick with the traditional approach, and stopping certain kinds of testing on that date was also part of the orthodox approach. An approach that only died over the subsequent weekend, and then the Imperial modelling was released to the public after the press conference of the following Monday, where it was clear something major changed.

He is right in so much as I suspect some within the group were already realising by March 12th, when they activated the next phase that their orthodox approach called for, the delay phase, that the whole thing was looking a bit dodgy compared to the unorthodox approach some countries were taking in europe etc. I dont even rule out the possibility that the herd immunity rhetoric was an act of self-sabotage of the orthodox approach in some way, but far more dull possibilities are probably more plausible.

They certainly were dicking around with the publicly stated timetable on the same day as the herd immunity stuff though - again it was the ill fated March 12th when the claim we were '4 weeks behind Italy' emerged.

Speaking of that claim, since more than 4 weeks has passed since then, I can look at the stupid claim another way:

On March 12th when it was made, Italy had reported 1016 deaths. 4 weeks later, on April 9th, UK had reported 7978 deaths. But if I close the gap to what the claim should have been, that we were 2 weeks behind Italy, by instead taking the total number of deaths from Italy as reported on March 26th, their number is 8165. I know thats a slightly unusual way round to do it, but we'd previously already looked at it in the other ways available at the time and in the subsequent 2 weeks.


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I think those timescales are from the end point of the data period, ie 5 April, no?  So it’s now a week on from the start point of the model, which means 2 rather than 3 weeks for the U.K.



Yes I already quoted this bit from later in the report, which means its even closer than that:



> For the UK, the peak case rate predictions were estimated at April 11th for the HMM and April 17th for the ODE model.


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Yup. And the Dr. Strangeloves somehow didn't realize what was happening (think Whitty has now, no wonder he's looking so ashen). If that's how this goes, we should at least discover how these orthodoxies sank so deep and spread so wide (Scotland's medical and scientific establishment have been every bit as awful as England's, so whatever Cummings' enthusiasms, he's not patient zero).



Apart from my brief foray just now into a few specific aspects of this stuff as it pertains to shit being said a month ago, I am no longer available to discuss this topic in detail at the moment, because I spent so many hours on it already, too big a chunk of my March went into it. After the first wave is done, I would like to compare notes with other people on this topic though. And as I've said many times, other countries, institutions and pandemics are available with which to demonstrate the nature and extent of the orthodox approach. EU documents and the 2009 swine flu pandemic are the two largest sources of my own knowledge at this time on the topic. So there should be quite a lot of long, heavy background reading out there if you are interested.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> On March 12th when it was made, Italy had reported 1016 deaths. 4 weeks later, on April 9th, UK had reported 7978 deaths. But if I close the gap to what the claim should have been, that we were 2 weeks behind Italy, by instead taking the total number of deaths from Italy as reported on March 26th, their number is 8165. I know thats a slightly unusual way round to do it, but we'd previously already looked at it in the other ways available at the time and in the subsequent 2 weeks.


Good spot. And doing 'subtract 14 days and look at Italy's number' still works. It's an unerringly simple way to look at things really. We were tracking 2 weeks behind Italy at lockdown and locked down two weeks after Italy. And we've been tracking Italy ever since. How could we not?

One difference that perhaps we should worry about is that Italy has managed a lot more testing than the UK. We might do well to continue tracking closely.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

Europe junking the orthodoxy en masse  -- with a handful of outliers like Sweden and maybe the Netherlands (some provinces rebelled) -- makes any prospect of carrying it through in Britain with rolling lockdowns politically fantastical. They expected to rack up their obscene death toll in one horrific burst, justified with dire warnings of a more deadly second wave, and given cover by equivalent horrors unfolding in Ireland and on the Continent.

Now, they'd have to run Britain through at least five lockdowns, of around 50,000 deaths each, while other countries contain or even eliminate the coronavirus. How is this politically sustainable? Dictatorships have fallen over less.

Naivete about realpolitik has always been the Achilles's heel of the monstrous scientists and doctors who plotted this foul experiment. Locked safely in their vacuum world of models and theories, it never occurred that people aren't a herd to be culled, and might rebel. Their dehumanization of us is their undoing. They're so used to thinking of citizens as faceless figures of a graph that they forget they're people who value their lives and the lives of their loved ones every bit as they do theirs, and will fight to live with all they have.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Apart from my brief foray just now into a few specific aspects of this stuff as it pertains to shit being said a month ago, I am no longer available to discuss this topic in detail at the moment, because I spent so many hours on it already, too big a chunk of my March went into it. After the first wave is done, I would like to compare notes with other people on this topic though. And as I've said many times, other countries, institutions and pandemics are available with which to demonstrate the nature and extent of the orthodox approach. EU documents and the 2009 swine flu pandemic are the two largest sources of my own knowledge at this time on the topic. So there should be quite a lot of long, heavy background reading out there if you are interested.


Fair enough, there will, unfortunately, be more than enough time for inquests down the line. I don't know how much I'll be following them myself, it gets overwhelming.


----------



## zahir (Apr 12, 2020)

A suggestion here that the herd immunity idea lingered on after the denials.









						Documents contradict UK government stance on Covid-19 'herd immunity'
					

List of possible interventions included simulating impact of allowing majority to be infected




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

zahir said:


> A suggestion here that the herd immunity idea lingered on after the denials.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Unsurprising, the British scientific establishment is lousy with it.

The government giving their stamp of approval to a digital contact tracing app in today's presser may be the biggest sign to date that they've finally accepted that trying to generate herd immunity by running a live virus through the population is politically impossible.


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Good spot. And doing 'subtract 14 days and look at Italy's number' still works. It's an unerringly simple way to look at things really. We were tracking 2 weeks behind Italy at lockdown and locked down two weeks after Italy. And we've been tracking Italy ever since. How could we not?
> 
> One difference that perhaps we should worry about is that Italy has managed a lot more testing than the UK. We might do well to continue tracking closely.



I was actually somewhat surprised at how closely we continued tracking, given that there are a number of possible answers to 'how could we not?', such as:

Differences in infection control and staff protection in hospitals.
Differences in lockdown detail, including timing differences that are slightly more complicated than us doing the same things exactly 2 weeks later.
Differences in the number of covid19 patients in hospital and in critical care at the times the lockdowns were implemented - I have only just started looking into this in terms of a UK-Italy comparison, because I have quite a lot more data now. Will share results in some days. There are differences for sure.
Regional epidemic size & timing differences - eg about half of Italys reported hospital deaths so far are from Lombardy. To make the same sort of claim about the UK, we would need to combine London and the midlands into one. More thoughts on this topic another day.

Likely some of these differences are minor or end up cancelling each other out to some extent. Will have to wait for broader, more accurate data about deaths in order to do a proper final comparison, and I suppose I still expect more differences to emerge than the crude hospital death indicators currently suggest.


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## mauvais (Apr 12, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Europe junking the orthodoxy en masse -- with a handful of outliers like Sweden and maybe the Netherlands (some provinces rebelled) -- makes any prospect of carrying it through in Britain with rolling lockdowns politically fantastical. They expected to rack up their obscene death toll in one horrific burst, justified with dire warnings of a more deadly second wave, and given cover by equivalent horrors unfolding in Ireland and on the Continent.


So what do you think will happen?


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## zahir (Apr 12, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Unsurprising, the British scientific establishment is lousy with it.
> 
> The government giving their stamp of approval to a digital contact tracing app in today's presser may be the biggest sign to date that they've finally accepted that trying to generate herd immunity by running a live virus through the population is politically impossible.


I’m speculating here but I wonder if the app is being seen as an alternative to actually having to set up teams of people at a local level to carry out contact tracing.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 12, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I think those timescales are from the end point of the data period, ie 5 April, no?  So it’s now a week on from the start point of the model, which means 2 rather than 3 weeks for the U.K.


I believe the paper was completed on 9 April and published 10 April. So those week counts are from the 9th, which seems to tie in with the plots.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> So what do you think will happen?


Judging by the contact tracing app they've announced today, something resembling the South Korean approach of using geolocation tech to suppress the virus' spread until a vaccine's available.

This being Whitehall, expect to see a string of blunders along the way, and the need for constant pressure to get a functioning system in place, but at least the intent now appears to be there.


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## mauvais (Apr 12, 2020)

As I previously mentioned the app is mostly balls. It's turning out to basically be a framework around an anonymous 'sorry I might have given you corona' tip-off system for people who you know you were in prolonged contact with.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

zahir said:


> I’m speculating here but I wonder if the app is being seen as an alternative to actually having to set up teams of people at a local level to carry out contact tracing.


Exactly my thoughts, contact tracing on the cheap. Won't be enough, South Korea combined their tech with rigorous physical tracing and testing, and will need to apply pressure to get same here, but at least they've accepted the principle now.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

zahir said:


> I’m speculating here but I wonder if the app is being seen as an alternative to actually having to set up teams of people at a local level to carry out contact tracing.


Sadly this was exactly my thought as well. And beyond that, is it an alternative to setting up teams to provide ongoing support to those isolating?


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> I believe the paper was completed on 9 April and published 10 April. So those week counts are from the 9th, which seems to tie in with the plots.



Have you got me on ignore or something?

From the body of the report:



> For the UK, the peak case rate predictions were estimated at April 11th for the HMM and April 17th for the ODE model.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> As I previously mentioned the app is mostly balls. It's turning out to basically be a framework around an anonymous 'sorry I might have given you corona' tip-off system for people who you know you were in prolonged contact with.


The app may be junk, or it may be useful, but the concept of anonymous alerts is one used by other countries. If this particular app fails, others will be working on them (Apple and Google are already at it).

It's Whitehall and IT, my hopes aren't high for the first attempt. What's crucial is the shift in underlying thinking, to seeing the lockdown not as a temporary measure to ease strain on the NHS before we're back to unchecked spread, but a tool to buy time to get a suppression system in place. That's a major shift.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sadly this was exactly my thought as well. And beyond that, is it an alternative to setting up teams to provide ongoing support to those isolating?


We expect this gang of incompetent spivs to try and do it on the cheap. Important thing's that the principle'e conceded, and uncontrolled spread is no longer being pursued, whether covertly or overtly. 

There's now ample scope to set up volunteer teams to aid contact tracing if the government drags their feet, although I'd want to check the volunteers closely!


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## mauvais (Apr 12, 2020)

I'm not sure I agree with any of that unfortunately. Forget the app in this country IMO, and not just because it's government technology procurement. I'm not sure it demonstrates a coherent plan about anything, I think it's more a belief that there is some magic bullet to get us out of this and back to normal. Well there ain't.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I'm not sure I agree with any of that unfortunately. Forget the app in this country IMO, and not just because it's government technology procurement. I'm not sure it demonstrates a coherent plan about anything, I think it's more a belief that there is some magic bullet to get us out of this and back to normal. Well there ain't.


There's no "magic bullet", but a range of interlinked measures to improve the situation. Ultimately, normality can only be achieved via elimination of the virus in the general population, which will come via it being starved of hosts via test-trace-isolate and vaccination (although if countries like New Zealand and Iceland succeed in eliminating SARS-CoV-2 domestically via quarantine and testing, they may get close to normality by shutting their borders and riding it out until a vaccine's available).


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

zahir said:


> A suggestion here that the herd immunity idea lingered on after the denials.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ah, we wondered at the time whether it lingered on. I'm not surprised there were still traces of it for another couple of weeks, and I will have to continue to keep an eye on the broader data, modelling, antibody survey and international picture to see if any opportunities for such policy to come back on the radar emerge at any future point.

Its funny that the March 11th BBC article that Guardian story links to, featuring quotes from the nudge unit bloke, includes this:

from Care home residents could be 'cocooned' over virus



> "There's a lot of goodwill, let's try and figure out what that will be and if they need training let's get it in place before we hit the summer."



Given it was only a month ago, there sure were some strange suggestions about when the peak would be back then. I can find other examples too, once I've had more time to prepare.

But I mention it now because it reminds me of something else. There is a graph from the influential Imperial College report of March 16th which shows critical care beds occupied over time. The orange and green lines on the lower graph are of note. Note that the green one peaks around now, the orange one, which didnt involve school & uni closures, peaks in summer. Please ignore the length of the lockdown measures (shaded area) and the 2nd peak in winter, thats not my focus and we've already moved on to considering more nuanced approaches for what comes next, my point is only about the first wave.



OK so that is interesting in itself, maybe that helps explain these strange variations in rhetoric describing wave timing (easter vs summer). But now lets take a look at a BBC article that was discussing the change of approach the government suddenly had to take. Oh its got a graph in it that looks familiar. But oh, they've tacked some 'explanations' onto it, and hmmm, they havent used the green line from the Imperial report, they've used the orange one!









						Coronavirus: UK changes course amid death toll fears
					

Ministers were warned hundreds of thousands of people in the UK would die without stronger measures.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 2hats (Apr 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Have you got me on ignore or something?
> 
> From the body of the report:


No. I only refresh periodically.

(Slightly) interestingly those dates don't appear to quite tally with their summary or plots. But one would have to run the MATLAB code to check the precise numbers. Obviously, the actual trend over the UK window of interest won't be clear for the best part of another week, at least. Or two.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

Given that the government were pushed into acting by organizations like the Premier League closing unilaterally and parents withdrawing kids from school, picture appears to be emerging that lockdown was imposed without a coherent justification beyond appearing to be in control of events.

They've now been left with roughly three short term choices: indefinite lockdown until a vaccine's available, which if it's even possible, would be socially, medically and economically ruinous; go back to generating "herd immunity" via rolling lockdowns, with the attendant death toll; or attempting an open suppression strategy like Germany's or South Korea's.

Don't see a way in which even the most ruthless politician would be able to pull off "herd immunity" in this fashion, leaving only suppression, however incompetently they go about it.


----------



## zahir (Apr 12, 2020)

I’m not sure how relevant this is but here’s a report on Exercise Winter Willow, an influenza pandemic modelling exercise in 2007. There was a follow up to this, Exercise Cygnus, in 2016 but as far as I know reports on it haven’t been released.



			http://iaem.com/documents/winter_willow_lessons.pdf


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## SpookyFrank (Apr 12, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Given that the government were pushed into acting by organizations like the Premier League closing unilaterally and parents withdrawing kids from school, picture appears to be emerging that lockdown was imposed without a coherent justification beyond appearing to be in control of events.
> 
> They've now been left with roughly three short term choices: indefinite lockdown until a vaccine's available, which if it's even possible, would be socially, medically and economically ruinous; go back to generating "herd immunity" via rolling lockdowns, with the attendant death toll; or attempting an open suppression strategy like Germany's or South Korea's.



I expect them to pick option two while pretending to do option three.


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> No. I only refresh periodically.
> 
> (Slightly) interestingly those dates don't appear to quite tally with their summary or plots. But one would have to run the MATLAB code to check the precise numbers. Obviously, the actual trend over the UK window of interest won't be clear for the best part of another week, at least. Or two.



Sorry if I sounded arsy, its just I did an initial reply much earlier where I first mentioned those dates and then started going on about error bars, so I got a bit frustrated that the date uncertainty was continuing.            #7,524          

By the way in comparison to their modelling, it was only a few days ago that Vallance suggested that only a low single digits percentage of people had had it in the UK so far, with maybe some examples of it being a bit higher in some places (I'm assuming he was referring to the likes of London and the Midlands possibly being higher, and certainly I'd like to start to look at this stuff more regionally than as a whole country since the variations might be quite appreciable).


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I expect them to pick option two while pretending to do option three.


Even if they wanted to, how would they pull it off? During each subsequent lockdown, calls to impose a suppression strategy would grow to screams, you'd soon see judicial reviews and extraordinary efforts to remove the government from power. And we'd stand alone, with the world looking on in horror. For what gain?

The whole point of "herd immunity" was to avoid a lockdown and keep the economy running. It was callous, not homicidal for its own sake. That's now been lost. The Dr. Strangeloves may still be wedded to it, but it's lost all its political appeal.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I expect them to pick option two while pretending to do option three.


I don't think that's politically viable. There will be too many examples of other countries doing waaaay better than the UK.

I actually do think that they finally realised three weeks ago that the only politically viable thing to do was to go all out attack on control and suppress. They've just been unable thus far to do it very well, partly due to incompetence, and partly due to only having realised this three weeks ago.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't think that's politically viable. There will be too many examples of other countries doing waaaay better than the UK.
> 
> I actually do think that they finally realised three weeks ago that the only politically viable thing to do was to go all out attack on control and suppress. They've just been unable thus far to do it very well, partly due to incompetence, and partly due to only having realised this three weeks ago.


Exactly my thoughts. I suspect that many in the scientific and medical establishments secretly want to attempt their Nuremberg Code-flouting medical horror show, but its political appeal's gone. They sold it to a ruthless government as a means to avoid lockdown, save the economy, and, if you're feeling particularly cynical, cut spending on welfare and care homes.

They failed.

All they can offer ministers now are waves of deaths on a biblical scale, with no guarantee that "herd immunity" will ever be achieved, and none of the economic benefits. The government are amoral spivs, not homicidal maniacs. Nothing in it for them any more, and much to lose.


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## mauvais (Apr 12, 2020)

I agree with Frank. Until lockdown is extended (or you know, implemented) we're still very much on 2. I think there are ways of disguising the realities of it, long short of conspiracy theories, although I wouldn't like to assert that they'll be a political success.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I agree with Frank. Until lockdown is extended (or you know, implemented) we're still very much on 2. I think there are ways of disguising the realities of it, long short of conspiracy theories, although I wouldn't like to assert that they'll be a political success.


Here is where I disagree. There would be no way to disguise the reality of continued death. The govt is getting a bit of a free pass at the moment because we're in panic mode, but as that wears off, things can and will change.


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## Azrael (Apr 12, 2020)

Especially if European countries get control of the situation, and even push towards eliminating the virus from their borders.

Would British citizens simply remain quiet as lockdown two commenced and a second wave of deaths piled up? Even Cummings sold "herd immunity" on the basis of avoiding a deadlier second wave.

Even attempting this is inviting your removal from power and prosecution for whatever your replacement in Whitehall thinks they can get away with. They're the actions of a comic book villain, not a government, however incompetent or ruthless.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 12, 2020)

A repost from Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE): Coronavirus (COVID-19) response

SPI-M-O: Consensus view on behavioural and social interventions (16 March 2020) (PDF, 43.4KB, 1 page)


> 4. It was agreed that a policy of alternating between periods of more and less strict social distancing measures could plausibly be effective at keeping the number of critical care cases within capacity. These would need to be in place for at least most of a year. Under such as policy, at least half of the year would be spent under the stricter social distancing measures.


from 16/03/2020 https://assets.publishing.service.g...w-on-behavioural-and-social-interventions.pdf


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## SpookyFrank (Apr 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Here is where I disagree. There would be no way to disguise the reality of continued death. The govt is getting a bit of a free pass at the moment because we're in panic mode, but as that wears off, things can and will change.



I certainly hope you're right.


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

weltweit said:


> A repost from Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE): Coronavirus (COVID-19) response
> 
> SPI-M-O: Consensus view on behavioural and social interventions (16 March 2020) (PDF, 43.4KB, 1 page)
> 
> from 16/03/2020 https://assets.publishing.service.g...w-on-behavioural-and-social-interventions.pdf



Yes that good evidence of the Monday where everything changed, and the extent to which the necessary change had sunk in at that level.

I wont take what they envisaged as being the medium term plan then too seriously now, since the coming months will likely to be filled with all sorts of interesting developments and the evolution of these ideas. And the ideas they had back then were very limited, eg the switching the measures on and off stuff was covered in a basic way by the usual Imperial College report that always comes up in connection with events of that day. All the other options and more nuanced variations of that plan have taken time to be considered in many other countries, and some of them are going to be tried for economic and psychological reasons. A picture where they try to compensate for certain relaxations via new measures (eg reopening some stuff but making the public wear masks as the most obvious example, but I'm sure there will be others).


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

So no, putting it in the terms other have been using in this conversation recently, I dont think they are going to go for a pure version of option 2. 

But so much depends on how things go with other countries, and what sort of numbers we can get down to, and how quickly. And to what extent they actually manage to scale up testing. And to what extent hospital acquired cases continue, and so many related things. 

Even without the more advanced options around testing and tracing, there are all sorts of ways to fiddle about with the lockdown parameters without resorting back to the crude 'switch the measures on and off over periods' approach. Switch just some bits on and off, try to compensate for relaxations. There are all sorts of things they could try which wont see us go back to anything like normal, but will give some people something, and wont lead us straight back to the sorts of levels of death we are currently experiencing.

Thats not to say I trust them to do the right thing, there are plenty of things they could get wrong as well as right. And its still a numbers game, but I think the order of magnitude of 'tolerable death' changed, and there is no avoiding that for them, especially since Johnson nearly ended up as part of those statistics.

Its very hard for me to estimate what relaxations would be reasonable for the UK soon, since we are only recently into the period where existing measures should make a difference to stats such as critical care beds occupied by Covid-19 cases. And despite the various models, I dont like to assume I have a proper sense of how quickly and how far various numbers will drop.


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I agree with Frank. Until lockdown is extended (or you know, implemented) we're still very much on 2. I think there are ways of disguising the realities of it, long short of conspiracy theories, although I wouldn't like to assert that they'll be a political success.



Certainly over time we can expect there to be more and more dramatic and pressing examples of some of the people that are suffering terrible outcomes that have been caused by lockdown, fear of attemding health facilities for non-Covid-19 reasons, and related matters. I am glad I do not have to predict the exact political equations right now, but I suppose I expect the picture to get messier as time goes on and these different sorts of human tragedy come in and out of focus, media attention etc.

Yet more reasons for me to take things one week at a time. This coming week sure is an important one in terms of hospital-related numbers in the UK.


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## Doodler (Apr 13, 2020)

Now that the weather is getting warmer, might it not be an idea to start selling food and other goods in the open air? That way people's exhalations would be more quickly dispersed. You could keep your distance more easily than in supermarkets with narrow aisles and blind corners. Supermarkets themselves often have large car parks that could be used to set up outdoor stalls selling the most commonly bought items. You could even get your hair cut outdoors.


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## cupid_stunt (Apr 13, 2020)

Doodler said:


> You could even get your hair cut outdoors.



The hairdressers/barbers with need scissors with bloody long handles!


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## Doodler (Apr 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The hairdressers/barbers with need scissors with bloody long handles!



They could wear gloves and get masked up.


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## kabbes (Apr 13, 2020)

Doodler said:


> They could wear gloves and get masked up.


It’s alright, I think I’ll just put up with long hair, thanks


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## Doodler (Apr 13, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It’s alright, I think I’ll just put up with long hair, thanks



Get it cut mate!


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## andysays (Apr 13, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Now that the weather is getting warmer, might it not be an idea to start selling food and other goods in the open air? That way people's exhalations would be more quickly dispersed. You could keep your distance more easily than in supermarkets with narrow aisles and blind corners. Supermarkets themselves often have large car parks that could be used to set up outdoor stalls selling the most commonly bought items. You could even get your hair cut outdoors.


Last weekend I managed to get a Sainsburys click and collect slot, which basically meant collecting my order, already selected and bagged, from a van set up in the car park. 

Much more effective than loads of people milling around inside the supermarket, attempting to keep two metres apart while the queue outside grows ever longer...


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## Doodler (Apr 13, 2020)

andysays said:


> Last weekend I managed to get a Sainsburys click and collect slot, which basically meant collecting my order, already selected and bagged, from a van set up in the car park.
> 
> Much more effective than loads of people milling around inside the supermarket, attempting to keep two metres apart while the queue outside grows ever longer...



Outdoors definitely seems safer. Well done on managing to get a c&c slot.


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## Taphoi (Apr 13, 2020)

Many more lives are being lost in the lockdown than is being admitted by the government. We are all going to lose at least six weeks of our lives as if we had been thrown in jail. That is 0.15% of our entire life, given that life expectancy is around 80 years. There are about 70 million people in the UK, so that is a total of 100,000 lives lost or about five times more lives than are likely to be lost to Covid-19. It might be argued that these are not the same kind of lives. That is true: the 100,000 are all full eighty-year lives whereas many of the Covid-19 victims are people nearing the ends of their lives. It is also accurate to say that there might have been up to 250,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the absence of any measures, but only a fool would advocate no measures at all. However, 99% of all deaths are among the 20% of the population in identified high-risk groups, so up to 99% of any further fatal infections could be avoided by only sheltering the high-risk groups. And this measure could be bolstered by widespread testing in the community as pioneered with great success by Germany. Not only would the 100,000 lost lives from the lockdown itself be avoided, but the high-risk groups are not very economically active, so much of the economic damage could be averted. Ironically, this was the government’s original policy and the fact that the death rate is already flattening is strong evidence that it would have succeeded, since it takes 4 weeks for the death rate to respond to measures and it was the isolation of high-risk groups (only) that happened 4 weeks ago. An economic depression will impoverish and kill millions. There needs to be balance in policy.


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## Labourite (Apr 13, 2020)

This data compiled by Johns Hopkins University makes for sobering reading, placing the UK as one of the worst for coronavirus cases and deaths in the world. COVID-19 Map

And some people think the government are doing a good job!?


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## prunus (Apr 13, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> Many more lives are being lost in the lockdown than is being admitted by the government. We are all going to lose at least six weeks of our lives as if we had been thrown in jail. That is 0.15% of our entire life, given that life expectancy is around 80 years. There are about 70 million people in the UK, so that is a total of 100,000 lives lost or about five times more lives than are likely to be lost to Covid-19. It might be argued that these are not the same kind of lives. That is true: the 100,000 are all full eighty-year lives whereas many of the Covid-19 victims are people nearing the ends of their lives. It is also accurate to say that there might have been up to 250,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the absence of any measures, but only a fool would advocate no measures at all. However, 99% of all deaths are among the 20% of the population in identified high-risk groups, so up to 99% of any further fatal infections could be avoided by only sheltering the high-risk groups. And this measure could be bolstered by widespread testing in the community as pioneered with great success by Germany. Not only would the 100,000 lost lives from the lockdown itself be avoided, but the high-risk groups are not very economically active, so much of the economic damage could be averted. Ironically, this was the government’s original policy and the fact that the death rate is already flattening is strong evidence that it would have succeeded, since it takes 4 weeks for the death rate to respond to measures and it was the isolation of high-risk groups (only) that happened 4 weeks ago. An economic depression will impoverish and kill millions. There needs to be balance in policy.



I don’t know about other people, but I don’t consider having to stay in my home only going out for exercise and shopping the same as being in jail; I also don’t consider being in jail the same as being dead. All in all I think I think your thesis rests on unsound propositions.


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## Cid (Apr 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> So no, putting it in the terms other have been using in this conversation recently, I dont think they are going to go for a pure version of option 2.
> 
> But so much depends on how things go with other countries, and what sort of numbers we can get down to, and how quickly. And to what extent they actually manage to scale up testing. And to what extent hospital acquired cases continue, and so many related things.
> 
> ...



I think for me one of the major problems with really understanding the uk approach is the serious lack of information. We may know some of the science it’s based on, but that isn’t necessarily presenting a solution, just models and info based on current science. The solution itself is going to be a combination of that, evidence from other countries and - crucially - a coherent political coordination between a number of scientific and tech bodies.

From what we know there is likely to be an app, and the government is trying to increase testing. Or saying they are. We also know that lockdown will be reviewed soon (graun says this week). To me this smacks of hubris... there is no reason to tie review of lockdown to the possible peak. The only thing any review should be tied to is a coherent solution. Maybe there is one in the wings... but I just cannot see it. At the moment all I can see is a hotchpotch of on-trend ideas. Saying ‘we’ll increase testing’, saying ‘we have an app!’, throwing around ‘data-mining, startups’.

Again, what the government _has_ said is that there will be no relaxation until we are definitely past the peak. That is disturbing. Maybe it isn’t a coherent back room strategy of the disease tap thing. I certainly don’t see conspiracy. But I think there is a fair chance that on/off infection-lockdown is what it ends up being, at least until various organisations just pull together in spite of a lack of central coordination. It’s the easy route. It’s something they now know works... and it feeds into the blame thing they keep putting out.


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## LDC (Apr 13, 2020)

Exit strategies get talked about a fair bit. To my mind there's an exit strategy that's approaching sooner than the other more generally talked about one, and that's the one for the vulnerable people that are currently being shielded with the 12 weeks isolation. What's the options for them when that 12 weeks expires? Surely given the current trajectory going back to normal won't be an option. But what is?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 13, 2020)

Cid said:


> ..
> Again, what the government _has_ said is that there will be no relaxation until we are definitely past the peak. That is disturbing.
> ..


I find the suggestion that the peak will mean more than a peak disturbing also. All a peak, let's say of deaths, will mean is that some of the measures in place currently have had an effect, I don't see that a peak in deaths should suggest any relaxation of measures. Perhaps once we emerge somewhat post peak and cases and deaths have reduced significantly then some relaxation - perhaps regionally - might be considered.

And I am aware of the delays involved. 

But ministers have not worded their communications subtly enough, they are in danger of having linked or associated relaxation to a peak which I think is not clever.


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## belboid (Apr 13, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Exit strategies get talked about a fair bit. To my mind there's an exit strategy that's approaching sooner than the other more generally talked about one, and that's the one for the vulnerable people that are currently being shielded with the 12 weeks isolation. What's the options for them when that 12 weeks expires? Surely given the current trajectory going back to normal won't be an option. But what is?


They’ll be locked in for longer than everyone else, simple as.


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## LDC (Apr 13, 2020)

belboid said:


> They’ll be locked in for longer than everyone else, simple as.



Yes, that's the only workable option I can see currently as well. But I've not seen it (or any suggested alternatives) mentioned anywhere, so was trying to see if other people had thoughts on it. I can't see that being a welcome announcement when it comes...


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## Cid (Apr 13, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Exit strategies get talked about a fair bit. To my mind there's an exit strategy that's approaching sooner than the other more generally talked about one, and that's the one for the vulnerable people that are currently being shielded with the 12 weeks isolation. What's the options for them when that 12 weeks expires? Surely given the current trajectory going back to normal won't be an option. But what is?



Well that warning only went out last Tuesday, so plenty of time to shift goalposts. Or hope for more coherent solutions. And to me that feeds directly into a minimum effort cycle of lockdowns... because just blame the most vulnerable for venturing out of the house.


----------



## Cid (Apr 13, 2020)

Incidentally I know I’m just speculating here... could be many things, could just be fitting stuff to my own biases. Just... i was going to say interesting to think about. But that’s not quite right. We have to think about it. Frankly I’d rather just be able to have a degree of trust.


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> Many more lives are being lost in the lockdown than is being admitted by the government. We are all going to lose at least six weeks of our lives as if we had been thrown in jail. That is 0.15% of our entire life, given that life expectancy is around 80 years. There are about 70 million people in the UK, so that is a total of 100,000 lives lost or about five times more lives than are likely to be lost to Covid-19. It might be argued that these are not the same kind of lives. That is true: the 100,000 are all full eighty-year lives whereas many of the Covid-19 victims are people nearing the ends of their lives. It is also accurate to say that there might have been up to 250,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the absence of any measures, but only a fool would advocate no measures at all. However, 99% of all deaths are among the 20% of the population in identified high-risk groups, so up to 99% of any further fatal infections could be avoided by only sheltering the high-risk groups. And this measure could be bolstered by widespread testing in the community as pioneered with great success by Germany. Not only would the 100,000 lost lives from the lockdown itself be avoided, but the high-risk groups are not very economically active, so much of the economic damage could be averted. Ironically, this was the government’s original policy and the fact that the death rate is already flattening is strong evidence that it would have succeeded, since it takes 4 weeks for the death rate to respond to measures and it was the isolation of high-risk groups (only) that happened 4 weeks ago. An economic depression will impoverish and kill millions. There needs to be balance in policy.



Previously you were obsessed with smoking as a main factor, so in addition to the other dubious aspects to your stance, you are also inconsistent. Unless you think smokers are 'not very economically active'. The governments original strategy put no emphasis on smokers either.

The figure of 250,000 deaths was with mitigation. It was more like 500,000 without any measures at all.


----------



## GarveyLives (Apr 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> I had noticed - I'm sure everyone else had too - that most if not all of the doctors who've died from the virus so far are from ethnic minority backgrounds - has there been any explanation of this?



The issue has certainly been noted, included in the following pieces:

Why were black NHS staff _whitewashed out_ of Clap For Our Carers?

Why are _a third_ of UK COVID-19 patients ethnic minority?

Coronavirus: Ethnic minorities _'are a third'_ of patients

If coronavirus doesn't discriminate, _how come black people are bearing the brunt?[_/url]


----------



## magneze (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Especially if European countries get control of the situation, and even push towards eliminating the virus from their borders.


Which countries are attempting to do that?


----------



## teqniq (Apr 13, 2020)

I note that the replies are by and large derogatory/negative wrt to C4. Anyone elso noticing a lot of this anytime someone relatively high-profile is critical of the government?


----------



## Gerry1time (Apr 13, 2020)

teqniq said:


> View attachment 206485
> 
> I note that the replies are by and large derogatory/negative wrt to C4. Anyone elso noticing a lot of this anytime someone relatively high-profile is critical of the government?



Most of Twitter is organisations posting things, then astro turfing accounts run by opposing organisations replying to them.


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## treelover (Apr 13, 2020)

andysays said:


> Last weekend I managed to get a Sainsburys click and collect slot, which basically meant collecting my order, already selected and bagged, from a van set up in the car park.
> 
> Much more effective than loads of people milling around inside the supermarket, attempting to keep two metres apart while the queue outside grows ever longer...



many people are struggling to get online delivery or even click and collect, for disabled and sick who are self isolating, that is a disaster.


----------



## treelover (Apr 13, 2020)

belboid said:


> They’ll be locked in for longer than everyone else, simple as.




many disabled and sick people have been very isolated before the virus, the opportunity to go out once or twice a week now lost, is more than some than bear, hearing reports of people under real strain


----------



## treelover (Apr 13, 2020)

Labourite said:


> This data compiled by Johns Hopkins University makes for sobering reading, placing the UK as one of the worst for coronavirus cases and deaths in the world. COVID-19 Map
> 
> And some people think the government are doing a good job!?




The public seem to think so, and if labour go in hard they will be seen to be 'politicising the crisis' 

strange times.


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## teqniq (Apr 13, 2020)

Starmer has no intention of doing anything of the sort. Not now anyway, and when? Who knows?


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## andysays (Apr 13, 2020)

treelover said:


> many people are struggling to get online delivery or even click and collect, for disabled and sick who are self isolating, that is a disaster.


Sainsburys have reorganised their deliveries specifically to focus on those who are vulnerable. Have you attempted to register with them?


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## two sheds (Apr 13, 2020)

andysays said:


> Sainsburys have reorganised their deliveries specifically to focus on those who are vulnerable. Have you attempted to register with them?



This. I registered on the government site and after a couple of weeks got a phone call from sainsburys and delivery within three or four days. Must try again in fact.


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## andysays (Apr 13, 2020)

two sheds said:


> This. I registered on the government site and after a couple of weeks got a phone call from sainsburys and delivery within three or four days. Must try again in fact.


Glad to hear it's working, at least for you


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## xenon (Apr 13, 2020)

andysays said:


> Sainsburys have reorganised their deliveries specifically to focus on those who are vulnerable. Have you attempted to register with them?



You have to register via the government website. That's where they're getting their list of vunrible people. If you can actually get through on the phone, you might be able to register directly but you'd have to argue the case.


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## andysays (Apr 13, 2020)

xenon said:


> You have to register via the government website. That's where they're getting their list of vunrible people. If you can actually get through on the phone, you might be able to register directly but you'd have to argue the case.


Thanks for the clarification.

Have you tried this treelover ?


----------



## xenon (Apr 13, 2020)

two sheds said:


> This. I registered on the government site and after a couple of weeks got a phone call from sainsburys and delivery within three or four days. Must try again in fact.



There are quite a few blind and partially sighted people who have always done online shopping. However, you're not classed as vunrible according to the gov site. This is reasonable except, you can't really do social distancing if going to a supermarket in person and there's no guarantee staff will help you due to the same. (In normal times, a staff member might guide you around the store.)

This is varying across the country. I've heard of one visually impaired person who was simply turned away by the CoOp.

I managed to get one delivery by emailing someone at Sainsburries but that was seemingly a one off. (No slots on any of the supermarkets I'm registered with.) I'll be alright as there are local shops and people have offered to pick stuff up for me but it's definitely a problem for a lot of folk.


----------



## xenon (Apr 13, 2020)

But yes treelover, if you can't get registered on gov.uk here:





						COVID-19: guidance for people whose immune system means they are at higher risk
					

Guidance for people aged 12 and over whose immune system means they are at higher risk of serious illness if they become infected with coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk
				




I'd suggest emailing who ever you can at the supermarkets in question.

You may find your council has set up a volunteer scheme to help people who can't go out as well.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 13, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> Many more lives are being lost in the lockdown than is being admitted by the government. We are all going to lose at least six weeks of our lives *as if we had been thrown in jail*.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> They've now been left with roughly three short term choices: indefinite lockdown until a vaccine's available, which if it's even possible, would be socially, medically and economically ruinous; go back to generating "herd immunity" via rolling lockdowns, with the attendant death toll; or attempting an open suppression strategy like Germany's or South Korea's.Don't see a way in which even the most ruthless politician would be able to pull off "herd immunity" in this fashion, leaving only suppression, however incompetently they go about it.





SpookyFrank said:


> I expect them to pick option two while pretending to do option three.


...leading them to have to go back to #1 as the death toll rises.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 13, 2020)

xenon said:


> But yes treelover, if you can't get registered on gov.uk here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes to volunteer scheme. Also could try registering as vulnerable on that government website, perhaps contacting your doctor for a reference if that's needed. As treelover says you're somewhat vulnerable if you can't see properly to do social distancing.


----------



## Anju (Apr 13, 2020)

Just stay at home and isolate for 14 days or...

Anger as Michael Gove managed to get daughter tested while NHS staff still wait


----------



## The Pale King (Apr 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The hairdressers/barbers with need scissors with bloody long handles!



Get Edward Scissorhands on the case!


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

Vallance was asked about masks for the public (to stop asymptomatic people spreading it) and his response was that it is currently in review. Some tentative signs of a shift there.


----------



## Labourite (Apr 13, 2020)

We can expect weeks more of this lockdown I imagine... Don't expect changes to UK lockdown yet, says Raab


----------



## Cid (Apr 13, 2020)

Labourite said:


> We can expect weeks more of this lockdown I imagine... Don't expect changes to UK lockdown yet, says Raab



That's a little more reassuring then.


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

It was acknowledged in the press conference today that the basic reproductive number of the virus should be below 1 in the community now, but that they do not assume the same for hospitals or care homes.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Vallance was asked about masks for the public (to stop asymptomatic people spreading it) and his response was that it is currently in review. Some tentative signs of a shift there.


And (for once) they were also asked about South Korea. They offered evasive answers to both questions.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> It was acknowledged in the press conference today that the basic reproductive number of the virus should be below 1 in the community now, but that they do not assume the same for hospitals or care homes.


Yes. It will vary with different isolation/lockdown measures, circumstances and attitudes to them. So it will vary geographically sub-nationally and across different environments (as a consequence). Relax the restrictions and it will climb again.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 13, 2020)

In fact it is strange Vallance has South Korea on his chart of deaths if he isn't prepared to respond to questions about it. There are plenty of other countries that aren't on the chart - he could have just left SK out but he didn't and yet he declines to comment on it?


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

magneze said:


> Which countries are attempting to do that?


To date, SFAIK, just New Zealand, although there's heavy lobbying for it in Australia. If both succeeded, and if Asian countries that took action fast also pursue the policy, I expect to see more interest shown in Europe. It'd require a coordinated plan, but if it can be done, would beat constant domestic surveillance until a vaccine's available.


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

2hats said:


> Yes. It will vary with different isolation/lockdown measures, circumstances and attitudes to them. So it will vary geographically sub-nationally and across different environments (as a consequence). Relax the restrictions and it will climb again.



Yes, and it was known before the epidemic here got going that care homes and hospitals would be vulnerable, and that infection control in those environments was important (and that we were ill equipped to score highly on this front). Higher R0's in hospitals and care homes long after the R0 has fallen elsewhere is an implicit acknowledgement of this.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

weltweit said:


> In fact it is strange Vallance has South Korea on his chart of deaths if he isn't prepared to respond to questions about it. There are plenty of other countries that aren't on the chart - he could have just left SK out but he didn't and yet he declines to comment on it?


"No comment."


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

I note that the slide & associated data for intensive care numbers has been entirely missing in recent days. This better just be a easter weekend phenomenon, with it returning soon, otherwise I am going to moan a lot.


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

weltweit said:


> In fact it is strange Vallance has South Korea on his chart of deaths if he isn't prepared to respond to questions about it. There are plenty of other countries that aren't on the chart - he could have just left SK out but he didn't and yet he declines to comment on it?



I only listen to Vallance if I want clues about current establishment thinking and areas where there are signs of a shift in rhetoric/thinking/policy.

If I wanted a proper answer that touched on testing, contact tracing, isolation, and a completely different standard of infection control in hospitals in South Korea, I would be more likely to get that from Whitty. He will very occasionally go into such realms, if asked the right question, but its still very sporadic with a degree of political calculation. So I wouldnt often expect all that much from Whitty either and the question has to be given a medical angle to make it to him instead of Vallance in the first place.


----------



## souljacker (Apr 13, 2020)

Whats this R0 thing about elbows? Must have missed it being mentioned previously.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 13, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Whats this R0 thing about elbows? Must have missed it being mentioned previously.



It is the average number of people who will be infected by an infected person. Was reckoned to be somewhere between 2 and 3 pre lockdown.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 13, 2020)

I am coming to the conclusion the daily No 10 briefings (most of which I have watched) are just an exercise for the restating of current advice, stay home, protect the NHS and save lives! It usually takes them approaching an hour to restate that multiple times and they use the excuse of any tricky question to just repeat the statement rather than address the detail of the question.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I am coming to the conclusion the daily No 10 briefings (most of which I have watched) are just an exercise for the restating of current advice, stay home, protect the NHS and save lives! It usually takes them approaching an hour to restate that multiple times and they use the excuse of any tricky question to just repeat the statement rather than address the detail of the question.


And setting up scapegoats for the blame game down the road. Vallance, the very stable genius who openly promoted the "herd immunity" policy, is particularly useful for this, although in recent days even he appears to have realized it'd be wise to start spinning for all he's worth. Too late, Pat, much too late.


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

He's always been spinning, thats part of the problem. Its the underlying equations, assumptions and policies that have changed, and that has an effect on the nature of the spin. I dont expect him to change, if he made a habit of farting in the direction of sacred cows then he probably wouldnt have become a Sir in the first place.


----------



## magneze (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> To date, SFAIK, just New Zealand, although there's heavy lobbying for it in Australia. If both succeeded, and if Asian countries that took action fast also pursue the policy, I expect to see more interest shown in Europe. It'd require a coordinated plan, but if it can be done, would beat constant domestic surveillance until a vaccine's available.


Whilst their final level is called 'Eliminate', is that practical? Seems more aspirational ..








						About the Alert System
					

Information about our Alert Level system, and summaries of the measures that may be applied at each Alert Level.




					covid19.govt.nz


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

Vallance is belatedly spinning (Whitty's better at this), but only after he laid out "herd immunity" in excruciating detail on camera. No one with an ounce of political skill would ever have been so explicit, which is why Hancock denied it was government policy a few days after it was announced via the scientists and medics.


----------



## Cid (Apr 13, 2020)

magneze said:


> Whilst their final level is called 'Eliminate', is that practical? Seems more aspirational ..
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It seems to be a response thing rather than a final stage... i.e if shit gets really bad, they do the stuff under the 'eliminate' heading.

e2a: so eliminate is kind of defcon 1. If there's sustained and nationwide spread, they go to Level 4 in an attempt to eliminate as much spread as possible. Full lockdown... Well, looks a little less harsh than some, but probably the most strict measures aren't as needed given their population density etc.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

magneze said:


> Whilst their final level is called 'Eliminate', is that practical? Seems more aspirational ..
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's certainly aspirational, but given their geography and low case numbers, ought to be a realistic goal. We should remember that the original SARS was eliminated from multiple countries by these methods. Its successor has of course spread much further, but where its elimination's practical, it should be pursued with all we have.


----------



## agricola (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Vallance is belatedly spinning (Whitty's better at this), but only after he laid out "herd immunity" in excruciating detail on camera. No one with an ounce of political skill would ever have been so explicit, which is why Hancock denied it was government policy a few days after it was announced via the scientists and medics.



TBF there are plenty of people who claim to have political skill currently going around saying herd immunity was never the policy, often right before suggesting herd immunity is the only way out of this crisis.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

agricola said:


> TBF there are plenty of people who claim to have political skill currently going around saying herd immunity was never the policy, often right before suggesting herd immunity is the only way out of this crisis.


Emphasis on "claim"!


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

A little more on todays signs of an evolving stance on masks:



> The UK's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance told the daily Downing Street news conference an ongoing review was considering the guidance on whether people should wear face masks.
> 
> Asked by the BBC's David Shukman whether the government could change its advice to the British public on wearing face masks while outside, Sir Patrick said that, if evidence supported it, the guidance could change.
> 
> He added that the government had already seen "more persuasive" data suggesting masks can stop a person passing the virus to someone else, rather than preventing them from catching it.











						Coronavirus: Don't expect changes to UK lockdown this week - Dominic Raab
					

The government says it could change its advice on using face masks if evidence supported such a move.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## weltweit (Apr 13, 2020)

The press briefings are treating us the public like fools, that all we can take in is the most simple of immediate instructions and we don't qualify as discerning enough for the full picture of the virus and our actions against it both past, now and the future. 

I have read in South Korea and New Zealand government is being much more transparent with their populations. However I have only read this, I haven't seen it in action. If we are to believe our own politicians at these briefings we can only see as far as next week and they have not made a mistake, however small, permitted a hospital to run out of PPE, started with the wrong policy, whatever, perhaps they are insulated because they don't have the opposition questioning them in parliament. 

I don't know when parliament will resume sitting, perhaps in the chamber it may be some way off if social distancing is to be observed and therefore too late to hold government to account in real time. After all this no doubt there will be public enquiries and the like, but the horse will have bolted by then.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> A little more on todays signs of an evolving stance on masks:


If masks didn't have an effect, in both directions, ICU staff would not be wearing them. 

The issue remains, where can the public obtain suitable masks easily enough so that it does not limit supplies to the NHS and it permits it to be a requirement for the population to have to wear them when out of their houses.


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I don't know when parliament will resume sitting, perhaps in the chamber it may be some way off if social distancing is to be observed and therefore too late to hold government to account in real time. After all this no doubt there will be public enquiries and the like, but the horse will have bolted by then.











						'Hybrid' virtual parliament plans to be put to MPs next week
					

MPs likely to be able to speak in Commons via video conferencing technology under plans




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

weltweit said:


> If masks didn't have an effect, in both directions, ICU staff would not be wearing them.
> 
> The issue remains, where can the public obtain suitable masks easily enough so that it does not limit supplies to the NHS and it permits it to be a requirement for the population to have to wear them when out of their houses.



Broadly speaking we are talking about a different standard of mask for the public. Some countries do seem to have have used supplies of basic masks like surgical masks, not N95 level stuff. Others are talking about a far more DIY approach, eg the USA.

The orthodox approach involved denying the usefulness of such measures. But that orthodoxy also tended to rely on asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic cases not being an important transmission vector, and all that thinking is out of the window now, so masks for the public are very much on the agenda.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Broadly speaking we are talking about a different standard of mask for the public. Some countries do seem to have have used supplies of basic masks like surgical masks, not N95 level stuff. Others are talking about a far more DIY approach, eg the USA.


Yes, I know 

My belief is national government and WHO level organisations sitting on the fence as regards masks are doing so out of the practical reason that there are not enough masks to go around [1] rather than the medical reason which is that my mask protects you and your mask protects me etc ..

[1] not enough for medical staff and the general public


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

I see Nassim Taleb has taken up public use of masks as a personal crusade. Given all the double talk about it, I'm not surprised.

A modest suggestion to immediately improve our science: any scientist who even implies the concept of orthodoxy, let alone uses the word in relation to their discipline, is immediately converted to a doctor of theology and packed off to the church. We'd all be much happier.


----------



## agricola (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I see Nassim Taleb has taken up public use of masks as a personal crusade. Given all the double talk about it, I'm not surprised.
> 
> A modest suggestion to immediately improve our science: any scientist who even implies the concept of orthodoxy, let alone uses the word in relation to their discipline, is immediately converted to a doctor of theology and packed off to the church. We'd all be much happier.



If there is one thing the world has never needed any more of, its doctors of theology.   The only advance that theology has ever made is that nowadays books like _The City of God_ can be printed small enough to carry but the text ensures they are dense enough to be thrown at theologists accurately.


----------



## tim (Apr 13, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> Many more lives are being lost in the lockdown than is being admitted by the government. We are all going to lose at least six weeks of our lives as if we had been thrown in jail. That is 0.15% of our entire life, given that life expectancy is around 80 years. There are about 70 million people in the UK, so that is a total of 100,000 lives lost or about five times more lives than are likely to be lost to Covid-19. It might be argued that these are not the same kind of lives. That is true: the 100,000 are all full eighty-year lives whereas many of the Covid-19 victims are people nearing the ends of their lives. It is also accurate to say that there might have been up to 250,000 deaths from Covid-19 in the absence of any measures, but only a fool would advocate no measures at all. However, 99% of all deaths are among the 20% of the population in identified high-risk groups, so up to 99% of any further fatal infections could be avoided by only sheltering the high-risk groups. And this measure could be bolstered by widespread testing in the community as pioneered with great success by Germany. Not only would the 100,000 lost lives from the lockdown itself be avoided, but the high-risk groups are not very economically active, so much of the economic damage could be averted. Ironically, this was the government’s original policy and the fact that the death rate is already flattening is strong evidence that it would have succeeded, since it takes 4 weeks for the death rate to respond to measures and it was the isolation of high-risk groups (only) that happened 4 weeks ago. An economic depression will impoverish and kill millions. There needs to be balance in policy.



Fuck off and fellate Toby Young.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

Needs must agricola , the Strangeloves would do infinitely less damage debating the soft shoe shuffle of angels with Welby. You'd hope.


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Yes, I know
> 
> My belief is national government and WHO level organisations sitting on the fence as regards masks are doing so out of the practical reason that there are not enough masks to go around [1] rather than the medical reason which is that my mask protects you and your mask protects me etc ..
> 
> [1] not enough for medical staff and the general public



Hence the emphasis on DIY solutions. The traditional orthodox approach was a mixture of supply issues/costs combined with 'cultural reasons' why masks were considered a no-no. You are right to expect this to evolve as the practical equations change and old attitudes evaporate.


----------



## agricola (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Needs must agricola , the Strangeloves would do infinitely less damage debating the soft shoe shuffle of angels with Welby. You'd hope.



Vainly hope, I fear.  Look at the Romans; nearly 900-years of theology-free success and then all gone once people started to make forty-year lucrative careers out of debating things that they told everyone else were unknowable.  

The Dark Age collapse in the West must have come as a relief initially, until people found out that theologists were the one group of people who managed to survive relatively intact.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 13, 2020)

I don't think these slices of investigation  has been linked to yet??

Documents contradict UK Government stance on Covid-19 'herd immunity'

This second article is actually the more detailed one

They relate to NHSX (NHS's digital planning department) working with "Faculty, a British artificial intelligence company" -- the articles are mainly about use of NHS data.

Some very interesting stuff -- well worth a read.

(Rob Evans** [correction : Paul Lewis!!] is pretty good at investigations, as is David Conn)

(**Rob Evans is pretty good as well though)


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I don't think these slices of investigation  has been linked to yet??
> 
> Documents contradict UK Government stance on Covid-19 'herd immunity'
> 
> ...


A toxic brew of the medical establishment's obsession with "herd immunity" and big data shortcomings that've dogged Whitehall for decades.

Key to any investigation will be discovering why Vallance and Whitty decided SARS-CoV-2 was a suitable candidate for uncontrolled spread and "herd immunity". We know an old flu plan was repurposed, but why did they make that decision for this specific disease? It wouldn't apply to every disease. Not even a freak like Vallance would've countenanced uncontrolled spread of, say, Ebola, nor MERS. I doubt they'd have done it with the original SARS either. So what made its successor different in their eyes?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 13, 2020)

And a new article by Paul Lewis, about tracing apps :





			
				The Guardian said:
			
		

> *NHS coronavirus app : memo discussed giving ministers power to 'de-anonymise' users *



Bit too technical for me, but interesting nevertheless ......


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

This is situation where you really need a government that's transparent and subject to rigorous safeguards, 'cause identifying individuals to quarantine will be essential.

Unfortunately we have them.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 13, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> And a new article by Paul Lewis, about tracing apps :





> the memo explained how an NHS app could work, using Bluetooth LE, a standard feature that runs constantly and automatically on all mobile devices


Er.., no.


> Ross Anderson, a professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, recently wrote that “anyone who’s worked on abuse will instantly realise that a voluntary app operated by anonymous actors is wide open to trolling”.


Good ol' Ross. Raspberry Pi and a handful of lines of Python, anyone?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 13, 2020)

2hats said:


> Er.., no.



I did warn that the article was a bit too technical for me  
Still worth a read though, I'd say.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 13, 2020)

Last article to quote here, for now, I promise! 
It's just that The Guardian was quite investigation-heavy today.
This one concerns PPE (and other) shortages :



			
				Guardian said:
			
		

> *Revealed : value of UK pandemic stockpile fell by 40% in six years *
> *£325m wiped off value of health department’s emergency stockpile including PPE*


----------



## Proper Tidy (Apr 13, 2020)

Seen this William? 









						Coronavirus: What's happening to the beer left in pubs?
					

Millions of pints of ale and lager could be lost if pub closures last into the summer.



					bbc.in


----------



## two sheds (Apr 13, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Seen this William?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I phoned the local pub today to ask whether it was a problem they were having and if so do they deliver flagons? 

It's Easter Monday though so they didn't answer


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 13, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Seen this William?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




No-- completely new to me that story!  
It's a pretty good one, loads of detail 

We were aware of the issue in general, because we talk online with a couple of people in the trade, but we didn't know the scale of this  ......

I hope no breweries go bust. 
Except shite ones


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 13, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> No-- completely new to me that story!
> It's a pretty good one, loads of detail
> 
> We were aware of the issue in general, because we talk online with a couple of people in the trade, but we didn't know the scale of this  ......
> ...


The shite ones would survive a nuclear winter. You'll see. _Greene King_ will take over every pub in the country.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 13, 2020)

Anyone have any feelings on when we'll likely see an easing of the lockdown?


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The shite ones would survive a nuclear winter. You'll see. _Greene King_ will take over every pub in the country.


And Brew Dog did make that hand gel ...


----------



## 8ball (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> And Brew Dog did make that hand gel ...



I can't diss them for that, myself.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

8ball said:


> Anyone have any feelings on when we'll likely see an easing of the lockdown?


When cases and mortality are in decline, and when alternative suppressive measures are in place.*

* If Vallance is pig headed enough to disregard these and attempt to sell Britain his "herd immunity" snake oil a second time, don't expect him to stay Chief Scientist for much longer.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 13, 2020)

8ball said:


> Anyone have any feelings on when we'll likely see an easing of the lockdown?


Not till the start of May at the earliest, I would have thought. One advantage the UK has in being behind most others is that they can see the results of other countries' easing (although it will take a few weeks for those results to become apparent, tbf). But Austria and Spain are easing up a little this week, Switzerland plans to ease in two weeks if all goes well, I'd expect Germany to ease soon as well if their good numbers continue. 

It will be interesting to see how the atmosphere changes as this happens.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> When cases and mortality are in decline, and when alternative suppressive measures are in place.*
> 
> * If Vallance is pig headed enough to disregard these and attempt to sell Britain his "herd immunity" snake oil a second time, don't expect him to stay Chief Scientist for much longer.



I wasn't getting the sense they would go down this route personally. 
I think a lot of eyes will be on how things go down in Spain.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

8ball said:


> I can't diss them for that, myself.


Me neither, I'll skip the beer but gladly use their alcohol to combat Covid.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not till the start of May at the earliest, I would have thought. One advantage the UK has in being behind most others is that they can see the results of other countries' easing (although it will take a few weeks for those results to become apparent, tbf). But Austria and Spain are easing up a little this week, Switzerland plans to ease in two weeks if all goes well, I'd expect Germany to ease soon as well if their good numbers continue.
> 
> It will be interesting to see how the atmosphere changes as this happens.



I thought I was getting ahead of things but the start of May would still surprise me.
I guess there is a lot of data-gathering going on re: what small risks would be worthwhile.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> When cases and mortality are in decline, and when alternative suppressive measures are in place.*
> 
> * If Vallance is pig headed enough to disregard these and attempt to sell Britain his "herd immunity" snake oil a second time, don't expect him to stay Chief Scientist for much longer.


Sustained reduction in hospitalised cases is the best measure for the UK, I would suggest, given the paucity of meaning in current UK testing figures. That's where we are in a bad place compared to others - as Germany's new cases reduce, or Switzerland's, or Italy's for that matter, they can be confident that means something, and can combine it with other indicators to have confidence where they're at.

France has been shite about testing as well. Don't think it's a coincidence that France plans a longer and harder lockdown. I don't know the details of France's response, but it sounds like they've been as crap as the UK.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Me neither, I'll skip the beer but gladly use their alcohol to combat Covid.



They can keep their alcohol, but I think Nanny State is the best thing out there with practically none of it in.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

8ball said:


> I wasn't getting the sense they would go down this route personally.
> I think a lot of eyes will be on how things go down in Spain.


I've no doubt that Vallance would if given half a chance, but don't expect him to be. It'll be impossible to shut him up about "herd immunity" if a surveillance and suppression system isn't in place, undoing weeks of government denial and gaslighting. They'll be watching Italy, Spain and France like hawks.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I've no doubt that Vallance would if given half a chance, but don't expect him to be. It'll be impossible to shut him up about "herd immunity" if a surveillance and suppression system isn't in place, undoing weeks of government denial and gaslighting. They'll be watching Italy, Spain and France like hawks.


Problem is, though, as we know, that negative results of any easing, if there are any, won't show up for weeks. There is a danger here - those countries that ease are almost bound to see improved results in the first week or two weeks after easing regardless. That's why a clear track and trace system ought to be in place first...


----------



## 8ball (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I've no doubt that Vallance would if given half a chance, but don't expect him to be. It'll be impossible to shut him up about "herd immunity" if a surveillance and suppression system isn't in place, undoing weeks of government denial and gaslighting. They'll be watching Italy, Spain and France like hawks.



With the almost total lack of immunological data I'm astonished that such a line could be taken.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sustained reduction in hospitalised cases is the best measure for the UK, I would suggest, given the paucity of meaning in current UK testing figures. That's where we are in a bad place compared to others - as Germany's new cases reduce, or Switzerland's, or Italy's for that matter, they can be confident that means something, and can combine it with other indicators to have confidence where they're at.
> 
> France has been shite about testing as well. Don't think it's a coincidence that France plans a longer and harder lockdown. I don't know the details of France's response, but it sounds like they've been as crap as the UK.


Not as crap as "we're gonna deliberately unleash a virus we know will slaughter 250,000+ to generate 'herd immunity', so take it on the chin, serfs" -- not even Trump managed that, which speaks volumes -- but yes, France had serious shortcomings, which Macron, to his credit, has now acknowledged and apologized for. They're looking to massively step up contact tracing and testing, so have at least learned the right lessons.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

8ball said:


> With the almost total lack of immunological data I'm astonished that such a line could be taken.


Likewise. Apparently it's an "orthodoxy", which by its nature, rests on dogma, not evidence: but that orthodoxy related specifically to influenza, which is why it's crucial to know what lay behind the decision to extend it to a novel SARS virus.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Not as crap as "we're gonna deliberately unleash a virus we know will slaughter 250,000+ to generate 'herd immunity', so take it on the chin, serfs" -- not even Trump managed that, which speaks volumes -- but yes, France had serious shortcomings, which Macron, to his credit, has now acknowledged and apologized for. They're looking to massively step up contact tracing and testing, so have at least learned the right lessons.


Not as crap in words, but perhaps as crap in action. But yes I saw that from Macron. How long will we have to wait for similar from the UK's clown cabinet?


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Problem is, though, as we know, that negative results of any easing, if there are any, won't show up for weeks. There is a danger here - those countries that ease are almost bound to see improved results in the first week or two weeks after easing regardless. That's why a clear track and trace system ought to be in place first...


Absolutely, would be criminally negligent to release the lockdown without one. The first indication's come with the contact tracing app, but that's just one component.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Likewise. Apparently it's an "orthodoxy", which by its nature, rests on dogma, not evidence: but that orthodoxy related specifically to influenza, which is why it's crucial to know what lay behind the decision to extend it to a novel SARS virus.



Which related specifically to an influenza VACCINE.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not as crap in words, but perhaps as crap in action. But yes I saw that from Macron. How long will we have to wait for similar from the UK's clown cabinet?


22nd century pencilled in, provisionally ...


----------



## xes (Apr 13, 2020)

8ball said:


> Anyone have any feelings on when we'll likely see an easing of the lockdown?


2-3 weeks. Maybe 4.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

8ball said:


> Which related specifically to an influenza VACCINE.


In any epidemiology worth the name, yes; but tragically, not in what passes for the minds of the medical establishment. Including Scotland's chief doctors and public health officials, so goes far beyond Cummings' fanboys. Discovering just how this belief became so entrenched while flying under the RADAR is perhaps the Rosetta that'll unlock the whole sorry mess.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 13, 2020)

xes said:


> 2-3 weeks. Maybe 4.



Interesting.  Also kind of sooner than I was thinking, and among people I've spoken to IRL (not experts, just like I'm not), I've been feeling a bit like an outlier by saying maybe early June.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> In any epidemiology worth the name, yes; but tragically, not in what passes for the minds of the medical establishment. Including Scotland's chief doctors and public health officials, so goes far beyond Cummings' fanboys. Discovering just how this belief became so entrenched while flying under the RADAR is perhaps the Rosetta that'll unlock the whole sorry mess.



Epidemiology is one of the things I have a tangential link to some kind of background in, that's maybe influencing me, but the first thing you need in order to base ANYTHING on has to be the immunology data, surely?


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

Even setting aside the substantial medical and economic consequences, as indicated by the string of reports into house parties and trips over the Easter weekend, there's a limit to how long you can keep lockdowns going before they start to fall apart.

Mass house arrest was always awful, and that it needed to be imposed speaks of a public health failure on an epic scale: it's just that, thanks to that failure, the alternative was even worse.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

8ball said:


> Epidemiology is one of the things I have a tangential link to some kind of background in, that's maybe influencing me, but the first thing you need in order to base ANYTHING on has to be the immunology data, surely?


Absolutely. What data did "the science" (for which I read, "the magisterium") employ to advise uncontrolled spread of SARS-CoV-2? Was there anything specific, or did they just work off the influenza plan? 

That some of Britain's top doctors and scientists advised this (and regardless of how compliant they may be, both Vallance and Whitty have impressive résumés) indicates systemic failings in medicine and academia, failings that we weren't warned of.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Even setting aside the substantial medical and economic consequences, as indicated by the string of reports into house parties and trips over the Easter weekend, there's a limit to how long you can keep lockdowns going before they start to fall apart.
> 
> Mass house arrest was always awful, and that it needed to be imposed speaks of a public health failure on an epic scale: it's just that, thanks to that failure, the alternative was even worse.


Take those reports with a generous pinch of scepticism, though. I've no doubt that they are happening, but they are being highlighted in the press a) because it makes a good story, and b) because these stories are being fed to the press in order perhaps to _discipline_ us and, I increasingly suspect, as a diversion tactic to distract from the govt's failures in the face of terrible death rates. Headlines about reckless parties are far preferable to the govt than headlines about its incompetence.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Take those reports with a generous pinch of scepticism, though. I've no doubt that they are happening, but they are being highlighted in the press a) because it makes a good story, and b) because these stories are being fed to the press in order perhaps to _discipline_ us and, I increasingly suspect, as a diversion tactic to distract from the govt's failures in the face of terrible death rates. Headlines about reckless parties are far preferable to the govt than headlines about its incompetence.


They're certainly useful to those who want to obfuscate, and I'm ignoring nonsense about hikers alone in national parks, but police did report (going from memory) over a hundred house parties broken up in one city. There's been similar reports of tensions in other countries with lockdowns. That, along with the fact that not even China tried to keep it going for more than a few months indicates that lockdown's not a long-term solution, but an emergency measure to get those solutions in place.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Absolutely. What data did "the science" (for which I read, "the magisterium") employ to advise uncontrolled spread of SARS-CoV-2? Was there anything specific, or did they just work off the influenza plan?
> 
> That some of Britain's top doctors and scientists advised this (and regardless of how compliant they may be, both Vallance and Whitty have impressive résumés) indicates systemic failings in medicine and academia, failings that we weren't warned of.



I said this weeks ago, but if there was a shred of evidence for "herd immunity" being a viable plan we would have been deluged with stats, information, broadcasts, leaflets and friendly animations with more data than even the most avid kickball fan could crunch.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> They're certainly useful to those who want to obfuscate, and I'm ignoring nonsense about hikers alone in national parks, but police did report (going from memory) over a hundred house parties broken up in one city.


Hmmm. If you're referring to reports a few days ago from Manchester, that's a classic case in point. The Manchester Police's numbers were about house parties reported to them (so how many people phoned in with complaints about noisy neighbours). By the time it made it to the front page of the BBC's website, the headline had magically transformed this into the police having broken up that number of parties. It wasn't true.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

8ball said:


> I said this weeks ago, but if there was a shred of evidence for "herd immunity" being a viable plan we would have been deluged with stats, information, broadcasts, leaflets and friendly animations with more data than even the most avid kickball fan could crunch.


Of course, it wasn't evidence based, it was dogma, but that dogma didn't just come from Cummings' fevered imagination, it was given to him by the government's medical and scientific advisors, apparently as the only option. (There's no indication they even suggested a containment and viral elimination plan.)

To repurpose a phrase that's all too relevant, the origins of this dogma need to be traced, before it's rooted out from medicine and academia.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Hmmm. If you're referring to reports a few days ago from Manchester, that's a classic case in point. The Manchester Police's numbers were about house parties reported to them (so how many people phoned in with complaints about noisy neighbours). By the time it made it to the front page of the BBC's website, the headline had magically transformed this into the police having broken up that number of parties. It wasn't true.


This is GMP'S report from before the Easter weekend, which of course depends on how they're defining house parties (insert irreverent answers here!).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 13, 2020)

Azrael said:


> This is GMP'S report from before the Easter weekend, which of course depends on how they're defining house parties (insert irreverent answers here!).


Yep that's it. Complete misreporting by the BBC. 'reports of' not 'breaking up'. There was another article on the same thing in the Manchester local press that gave the same figures and gave a similar misrepresentation of them, although not quite as blatant as the BBC's spin.

As I said on another thread, I could have added a dot to that map if I'd known, just by phoning in a report.

The police are also seeking to talk up their importance here, of course. See, people are misbehaving, but aren't we doing well? Aren't you grateful we're here otherwise the lockdown would fall apart.

Irony of that is that I've seen more coppers violating the distancing rules than anybody else over the last few weeks. Useless muppets.


----------



## xenon (Apr 14, 2020)

8ball said:


> Interesting.  Also kind of sooner than I was thinking, and among people I've spoken to IRL (not experts, just like I'm not), I've been feeling a bit like an outlier by saying maybe early June.



I'm mentally trying to accept end of June. Based on if I recall, some vague mention of 3 months. The science might idealy require longer than that but I don't think a prolonged lock down into summer an autumn is politically or socially acceptable. Even if lifted then, I do not expect to see mass gatherings, gigs, unfettered travel returning for a lot longer.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 14, 2020)

Raab suggests UK lockdown could last at least another month
					

PM’s deputy backs chief scientific adviser, saying public must stay in until peak has passed




					www.theguardian.com
				




Yes I can't see it lasting less than a month.


----------



## xenon (Apr 14, 2020)

But who knows. If there's no testing, contact tracing, PPE for front line staff, suitable masks for *everyone else, lock down or further spikes in deaths could be the options.

*Despite earlier posts I made regarding my skeptisism about masks, if it's a necessary component of lifting our lock down, so be it.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 14, 2020)

I've heard nothing about contact tracing.  Surely there must be something on that front before easing things.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 14, 2020)

8ball said:


> I've heard nothing about contact tracing.  Surely there must be something on that front before easing things.


Hancock announced this automatic contact tracing app in yesterday's presser, which is clearly modelled on South Korea's and Singapore's. Crucial that it's joined to other measures and boots on the ground -- could just see them trying to trace on the cheap -- but it's a start.

There's signs that dogmatic medical resistance is weakening. Even Vallance, one of the chief architects of this public health disaster, has admitted that tracing and testing would be useful at the end of an epidemic. Whitty's no less involved, but had the sense to praise Germany last week, so is opening the door to a u-turn. The deputy-CMO appears implacably opposed for some reason I neither know nor particularly care about, but can presumably be overruled.

How the British medical establishment fell so badly out of step with international norms is gonna be one of the central questions at any inquiry.


----------



## 8ball (Apr 14, 2020)

Azrael said:


> How the British medical establishment fell so badly out of step with international norms is gonna be one of the central questions at any inquiry.



Yeah, but some grounds for hope, I guess.

Thanks for the info.


----------



## scifisam (Apr 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep that's it. Complete misreporting by the BBC. 'reports of' not 'breaking up'. There was another article on the same thing in the Manchester local press that gave the same figures and gave a similar misrepresentation of them, although not quite as blatant as the BBC's spin.
> 
> As I said on another thread, I could have added a dot to that map if I'd known, just by phoning in a report.
> 
> ...



Yup. There's a huge difference between reports of parties and actual parties. Like I did a zoom karaoke session the other day - it could easily sound like multiple people were in my flat. And the houses across the road are mostly shared houses where there might well be five or six youngish people all hanging out playing music and having a barbeque in their back garden on a warm day, but they already live together and share a kitchen and bathroom. There's not only no rule against them going into their garden together, it would make no sense if there was. But I bet some of them got reported.


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2020)

Azrael said:


> The deputy-CMO appears implacably opposed for some reason I neither know nor particularly care about, but can presumably be overruled.



There is plenty of variation in how slippery with words and substance and politics the various press conference participants are. But broadly speaking they are all there to articulate and justify the government position on various things at that moment in time. It is therefore important to consider then when, even more than the who. What she said then was a defence of their stance on those issues in the past and up till that moment. When the government stance changes, all these people are likely to sing the new tune, in their own style.



> How the British medical establishment fell so badly out of step with international norms is gonna be one of the central questions at any inquiry.



As I've said many times, they really didnt fall badly out of step with those norms. The international norms had some obvious weaknesses in terms of pandemic assumptions, and also certain areas of flexibility, where all manner of national circumstances and competing interests were accomodated for in the recommendations. This is why, in many respects, EU countries followed broadly the same approach, but exceptions to this were to be found in countries that had some vastly different capacity on some fronts. Germany is the obvious example, and they could follow the same ECDC advice as everyone else, but could simply take certain aspects of it further than many other nations because they had a large, flexible, decentralised diagnostics/testing setup already in place, that could respond on a scale that unlocked certain other options. The international and regional norms allowed for this, but also allowed for all the countries that utterly failed on this front due to their lack of existing diagnostics scaleability.

The failures in this country cover a long period of time, and I'm sure an argument could also be made that the British establishments tendency towards top down control freakery, centralised power with somewhat superficial and token layers of devolved power doesnt lend itself for the mostly timely and flexible response. It might have been easier to still respond somewhat effectively with such a rigid system, if it had at least properly funded all the required services and facilities for the last 40 years. Its so much harder to make decent choices when the priorities for decades have set us up for failure.


----------



## Part-timah (Apr 14, 2020)

Plod being nobheads:


----------



## Supine (Apr 14, 2020)

Azrael said:


> When cases and mortality are in decline, and when alternative suppressive measures are in place.*
> 
> * If Vallance is pig headed enough to disregard these and attempt to sell Britain his "herd immunity" snake oil a second time, don't expect him to stay Chief Scientist for much longer.



you don’t half talk some misguided crap


----------



## scifisam (Apr 14, 2020)

Part-timah said:


> Plod being nobheads:




TBF to the plod they handled his anger really well. I mean, it's understandable to be angry and sweary when your door's knocked down for no reason, but some other police forces would have reacted with force. They shouldn't be breaking down doors just on one call but that might not have been the whole story.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 14, 2020)

Supine said:


> you don’t half talk some misguided crap


Undoubtedly, but unless you outline what you disagree with and why, this isn't going anywhere but ignore.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 14, 2020)

scifisam said:


> TBF to the plod they handled his anger really well. I mean, it's understandable to be angry and sweary when your door's knocked down for no reason, but some other police forces would have reacted with force. *They shouldn't be breaking down doors just on one call but that might not have been the whole story.*


This individual is lucky he doesn’t live in America. 

Out of curiosity, do police wear body cameras in this country? Presumably if there was another side of the story, the local police force would have released footage to provide some balance?

Either way, from a totally selfish point of view, even if the pigs were completely wrong in this case, I wouldn't want to live next to this individual.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> There is plenty of variation in how slippery with words and substance and politics the various press conference participants are. But broadly speaking they are all there to articulate and justify the government position on various things at that moment in time. It is therefore important to consider then when, even more than the who. What she said then was a defence of their stance on those issues in the past and up till that moment. When the government stance changes, all these people are likely to sing the new tune, in their own style.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If the various doctors were setting aside their clinical judgement to parrot a government line they believed to be wrong, however much we may expect such behaviour, it'd be a scandal in its own right (and a breach of their duty to candour), but not nearly as concerning as the alternative explanation that they believe what they say. Corruption to keep a job is easily understood: a genuine belief in a discredited approach is far more insidious.

Regarding the ECDC guidelines, yes, there's superficial similarities to the "herd immunity" plan, but beyond them, stark differences that point to a fundamental difference in the underlying justifications. The ECDC emphasize that there should be a "strong focus" on testing and contact tracing throughout the epidemic, and take as their "baseline scenario" the maintenance of social distancing until a vaccine or other game changer's available. There's references to natural immunity and "cocooning" the vulnerable: but not as part of a deliberate policy goal to accelerate the epidemic to create "herd immunity". Abandoning testing and tracing and ignoring social distancing in order to engineer a fast peak and population-wide immunity appears different in kind.

So are the lines taken by the various chiefs primarily a result of government pressure? The available evidence doesn't seem to point that way. We've had no indication that Vallance or Whitty advocated an aggressive suppression strategy as an alternative only to be overruled by Cummings: Cummings and Vallance were reported to work well together, with Cummings obsessed with avoiding a "second peak" to justify the death toll to himself. Nor, if the advisors had offered suppression via testing and tracing, is there any obvious reason why the government wouldn't jump on it; if nothing else, it'd be a lot easier to sell to the public than the "herd immunity" plan with its horrific death toll. The devolved governments are also telling. Scottish politicans and chiefs, with every political motive to break from Westminster, instead fell into lockstep. Why would Bute House do this if their advisors were furiously resisting Whitehall's approach?

I'll of course change my mind if more evidence comes to light.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 14, 2020)

8ball said:


> With the almost total lack of immunological data I'm astonished that such a line could be taken.



This is it really, no evidence at all yet that herd immunity is even a thing with this virus.  Chinese doctors saying that immunity may only last a few weeks and only in young/children is the closest to fact driven research that I've seen.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 14, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> This is it really, no evidence at all yet that herd immunity is even a thing with this virus.  *Chinese doctors saying that immunity may only last a few weeks and only in young/children* is the closest to fact driven research that I've seen.



Is there a link for that, please?
More investigation is going to need to be done into this particular factor anyway. 
Especially if antibody testing ever becomes a workable thing.


----------



## zahir (Apr 14, 2020)

Some thoughts on lifting the lockdown.



> In fact, it was only a few days ago, widely reported by the media, that the World Health Organisation set out its criteria for easing restrictions. It lists not one but six "important factors to consider". Only the first is that transmission is controlled. Secondly, sufficient public health and medical services, which includes the ability quickly to detect, test, isolate and treat new cases as well as to trace close contacts. Thirdly, outbreak risks in special settings like long-term care facilities must be minimised, fourthly preventive measures must be in place in workplaces, schools and other places where it's essential for people to go, fifth, importation risks must be managed; and sixth, communities are fully aware and engaged in the transition.





> Arguably, the UK currently fulfils none of these criteria and even if we saw transmission declining, there would be considerable difficulty in coming up to specification on the other factors – and especially the "test and trace" elements of the public health system.
> 
> If, however, the media are content to boil down the criteria into the one factor – whether the transmission rate is down – ministers once again will have been allowed to fudge issue and allow to country to drift into a relaxation of the lockdown, for which it will be almost completely unprepared.







__





						Coronavirus: a lack of preparation (again)
					

Coronavirus: a lack of preparation (again)




					eureferendum.com


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 14, 2020)

zahir said:


> Some thoughts on lifting the lockdown.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's a really good article 
IMO it's well worth ignoring the fact that Dr. North's blog has been posted on "eureferendum.com", because that site's been posting some pretty good stuff relating to Covid-19 only.


----------



## keybored (Apr 14, 2020)

little_legs said:


> This individual is lucky he doesn’t live in America.



So are the cops, there are plenty of instances of people shooting police who have broken into their homes.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 14, 2020)

'Are people dispensable?': care home manager tells how third of residents have died from Covid-19


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 14, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Either way, from a totally selfish point of view, even if the pigs were completely wrong in this case, I wouldn't want to live next to this individual.



Why? Nasty working class man who understandably swears when his door is broken down and his home invaded? At least he maintains social distancing, unlike, ironically, the police who have come three-handed, all standing together, who have come round to have a go at him about, erm, social distancing.

I have a feeling there would be little chance of you ever living next door to him, and not just because you live in the U.S.

Also, "pigs"? That's what 13 year olds at my school call them.

Not sure I'd want to live next door to you tbh.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 14, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Is there a link for that, please?
> More investigation is going to need to be done into this particular factor anyway.
> Especially if antibody testing ever becomes a workable thing.


I'm sorry I can't find it! Sadly disappeared into history, I did read it a couple of weeks to 10 days ago and it seemed as credible as anything at the moment. China having seen cases since november that are now assumed to be early ones seems the logical place to look for any immunity and oppinions of it though.


----------



## kalidarkone (Apr 14, 2020)

I've just posted this on the PPE thread...but I'm posting it again....








						UK missed three chances to join EU scheme to bulk-buy PPE
					

Britain not part of €1.5bn order for kit to protect against Covid-19 despite shortages in NHS




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## treelover (Apr 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not till the start of May at the earliest, I would have thought. One advantage the UK has in being behind most others is that they can see the results of other countries' easing (although it will take a few weeks for those results to become apparent, tbf). But Austria and Spain are easing up a little this week, Switzerland plans to ease in two weeks if all goes well, I'd expect Germany to ease soon as well if their good numbers continue.
> 
> *It will be interesting to see how the atmosphere changes as this happens.*




In what way


----------



## treelover (Apr 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sustained reduction in hospitalised cases is the best measure for the UK, I would suggest, given the paucity of meaning in current UK testing figures. That's where we are in a bad place compared to others - as Germany's new cases reduce, or Switzerland's, or Italy's for that matter, they can be confident that means something, and can combine it with other indicators to have confidence where they're at.
> 
> France has been shite about testing as well. Don't think it's a coincidence that France plans a longer and harder lockdown. I don't know the details of France's response, but it sounds like they've been as crap as the UK.



Huge amount of care home deaths from C19, this is the main story today in the Guardian and elsewhere.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 14, 2020)

keybored said:


> So are the cops, there are plenty of instances of people shooting police who have broken into their homes.



True.



planetgeli said:


> Why? Nasty working class man who understandably swears when his door is broken down and his home invaded? At least he maintains social distancing, unlike, ironically, the police who have come three-handed, all standing together, who have come round to have a go at him about, erm, social distancing.
> 
> I have a feeling there would be little chance of you ever living next door to him, and not just because you live in the U.S.
> 
> ...


LOL, covid-19 has cops treating white people like minorities and they lasted a day or so before declaring it unprecedented abuse of power.


----------



## treelover (Apr 14, 2020)

zahir said:


> Some thoughts on lifting the lockdown.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



they are not even putting cursory measures in for unlock, slow as ever.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 14, 2020)

little_legs said:


> LOL, covid-19 has cops treating white people like minorities and they lasted a day or so before declaring it unprecedented abuse of power.



Do you talk shit for a living?


----------



## Cid (Apr 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Do you talk shit for a living?



Better than doing it gratis like you.

(sorry, I don't mean that, it was just too tempting)


----------



## klang (Apr 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Do you talk shit for a living?


probably not. after tax and paying for ever rising utility bills talking shit is barely lucrative any more and is largely seen as a time consuming hobby.


----------



## keybored (Apr 14, 2020)

littleseb said:


> probably not. after tax and paying for ever rising utility bills talking shit is barely lucrative any more and is largely seen as a time consuming hobby.


Piers Morgan seems to be doing alright.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 14, 2020)

Proper Tidy said:


> Seen this William?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You bastard! You can't do things like that to William - it'll break his heart!


----------



## killer b (Apr 14, 2020)

The ONS have released some figures which may be of interest - see this twitter thread:



these two tweets in particular caught my attention:



so 6082 more deaths than average in week ending 3rd April, but only 3475 coronavirus deaths: implying either there's a big undercount, or there's a substantial number of people dying from other things because they can't or won't access healthcare (I think? Someone pick me up on this if I'm reading it wrong)


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> The ONS have released some figures which may be of interest - see this twitter thread:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Probably both.


----------



## editor (Apr 14, 2020)

Unexpected consequence: Coronavirus: Gambling addicts 'at greater risk during lockdown'

With luck, a few of them will escape the stranglehold of betting.


----------



## weepiper (Apr 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> The ONS have released some figures which may be of interest - see this twitter thread:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Same thing happened with Scottish figures last week.



> Over the past five years, an average of 1,098 people died in the first week of April. This year the figure had risen to 1,741, although the report only linked 282 of those deaths to Covid-19.
> 
> Ms Sturgeon said there was not yet enough information to explain this, although she said it may partly be down to the fact registration offices had been closed the previous week.











						Coronavirus: New figures suggest higher death toll
					

New figures suggest that 354 deaths have been linked to coronavirus in Scotland since the outbreak began.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## maomao (Apr 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> The ONS have released some figures which may be of interest - see this twitter thread:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So exactly the opposite of what a lot of the media have been suggesting. The overall rate of death has increased by considerably more than the amount of official coronavirus deaths. The BBC in particular have been plugging the idea that the majority of deaths were people near the end of their lives anyway. I guess there could be a corresponding dip (or smaller raise given there will be coronavirus deaths anyway) later in the year if the virus runs out of easy targets but I doubt it'll be as big as that.


----------



## editor (Apr 14, 2020)

Depressing stuff 









						Coronavirus pushes England and Wales death rate to record high
					

Office for National Statistics said death rate for week to 3 April is 6,000 more than five-year average




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 14, 2020)

maomao said:


> So exactly the opposite of what a lot of the media have been suggesting. The overall rate of death has increased by considerably more than the amount of official coronavirus deaths. The BBC in particular have been plugging the idea that the majority of deaths were people near the end of their lives anyway. I guess there could be a corresponding dip (or smaller raise given there will be coronavirus deaths anyway) later in the year if the virus runs out of easy targets but I doubt it'll be as big as that.


Yeah we're in a fog, information-wise, aren't we? When they report 'pre-existing underlying conditions', that could mean final-stage cancer or it could mean asthma. There are going to be all kinds of gruesome things to look out for this year, sadly. Survival rates for various other conditions are one. 

Figures from Italy on potential sources of non-reported deaths and comparisons with expected death rates make for difficult reading. All we can really know for sure is that whatever the number is they're reporting now, the reality is to some unknown degree worse than that.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 14, 2020)

Purely anecdotal but I live on a major A road and there has  been a big increase in ambulances haring past last few weeks, unsurprisingly, however the last few days has been quieter. I've only noticed 2 today so far.  I would often notice 2 in half an hour recently.  Maybe it's a good sign.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 14, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Purely anecdotal but I live on a major A road and there has  been a big increase in ambulances haring past last few weeks, unsurprisingly, however the last few days has been quieter. I've only noticed 2 today so far.  I would often notice 2 in half an hour recently.  Maybe it's a good sign.


I've been trying to get up-to-date hospitalisation figures for the UK. Not as easy to do as for many other countries. But overall levels do appear to be coming down from a peak a few days ago. Alongside the dying , hopefully that is the result of a combination of discharges and a big reduction in new admissions.

If lockdown has worked, this week is when we should expect to see new cases reducing significantly. Big week.


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## Cid (Apr 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah we're in a fog, information-wise, aren't we? When they report 'pre-existing underlying conditions', that could mean final-stage cancer or it could mean asthma. There are going to be all kinds of gruesome things to look out for this year, sadly. Survival rates for various other conditions are one.
> 
> Figures from Italy on potential sources of non-reported deaths and comparisons with expected death rates make for difficult reading. All we can really know for sure is that whatever the number is they're reporting now, the reality is to some unknown degree worse than that.



I had a look at how many people in the UK have a pre-existing health condition a few weeks ago (or maybe days/months, who the fuck knows these days?) - it's somewhere from 15-24 million. I think depending on definition. That's for long-term conditions/chronic disease.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 14, 2020)

Cid said:


> I had a look at how many people in the UK have a pre-existing health condition a few weeks ago (or maybe days/months, who the fuck knows these days?) - it's somewhere from 15-24 million. I think depending on definition. That's for long-term conditions/chronic disease.


It will include 'everyone over 80', for starters.


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## PD58 (Apr 14, 2020)

In terms of easing lockdown, when it might happen and the impact if we are watching elsewhere then the BBC is briefly reporting that Hokkaido may be experiencing the start of a second wave with the number of cases higher than at the beginning of the first wave with shut down only for a month...

_It looks like Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido is starting to experience exactly what many epidemiologists had predicted; after the successful suppression of an initial outbreak, the relaxing of restrictions has led to a second wave.

Hokkaido was the first place in Japan to be hit badly by the virus. In mid-February the governor declared a state of emergency, schools were closed and people were urged to stay at home. The shutdown hit in the middle of the ski-season, the worst possible time. I was there myself at the beginning of March and the ski resorts were completely deserted. But it worked, and by the middle of March the infection rate had fallen to a handful of infections a day.

At the end of March schools re-opened and life in Hokkaido began to return to some sort of normality. But now just two weeks later a new state of emergency has been declared. By the end of last week new infections had climbed to between 15 and 20 a day which is higher than during the first wave in February. Schools have again been closed and people asked to stay at home._


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## zahir (Apr 14, 2020)




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## elbows (Apr 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I've been trying to get up-to-date hospitalisation figures for the UK. Not as easy to do as for many other countries. But overall levels do appear to be coming down from a peak a few days ago. Alongside the dying , hopefully that is the result of a combination of discharges and a big reduction in new admissions.
> 
> If lockdown has worked, this week is when we should expect to see new cases reducing significantly. Big week.



I couldnt say they are coming down yet. And I am wary of interpreting these figures in isolation, because the number of hospital deaths obvious affects the current numbers of hospitalised patients too, and this must be taken into account when looking at plateaus in hospital figures.

The intensive care figures have stopped being published in recent days, if that does not change soon then I am going to go nuts about being denied crucial data on a crucial week.

So I can only give the hospitalised figures at the moment, not ICU ones. And the hospitalisation data still lacks Northern Ireland figures. Also their own slide about this indicates that there is data missing from some hospitals for April 9th, so that bar should actually be higher than shown here.








__





						Slides, datasets and transcripts to accompany coronavirus press conferences
					

Slides, datasets and transcripts from press conferences at 10 Downing Street in response to coronavirus.




					www.gov.uk


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## elbows (Apr 14, 2020)

Without wishing to downplay the ONS data at all (I intent to do quite the opposite once I've analysed it myself) there are a couple of things that should be kept in mind when you hear a phrase like 'highest week since records began'.

Crucially, when did records begin? It seems the system changed at some point, and so a BBC article about the ONS data says:



> The 16,000 weekly deaths is the highest number seen since the ONS started publishing data in 2005 and tops the highest toll during the 2015 flu outbreak.



from One in five deaths now linked to coronavirus

So this is still terribly bad, but I still prefer to see it in context anyway. I expect that if I use older data that goes back further, I will currently be able to find flu epidemics that took a higher toll. But if I do this exercise, it certainly wont be to downplay this pandemic.

Later I will take my corrected hospital death figures (corrected to show date of death instead of date of reporting) and will compare this to the ONS data for that period to see how many extra deaths the ONS data is actually revealing.


----------



## treelover (Apr 14, 2020)

UK coronavirus: Sunak warns of 'unprecedented challenge' as questions persist over economy and care homes – as it happened
					

UK hospital deaths rise by 778 to 12,107 amid questions over care home figures; forecast says unemployment could soar by 2 million




					www.theguardian.com
				





Guardian reporting lock down could shrink GDP by 39%, unemployment up  by 2 million, lots of new great depression articles in the media,

terrifying really, what would a new depression mean? bartering like in Argentina decade ago.


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Regarding the ECDC guidelines, yes, there's superficial similarities to the "herd immunity" plan, but beyond them, stark differences that point to a fundamental difference in the underlying justifications. The ECDC emphasize that there should be a "strong focus" on testing and contact tracing throughout the epidemic, and take as their "baseline scenario" the maintenance of social distancing until a vaccine or other game changer's available. There's references to natural immunity and "cocooning" the vulnerable: but not as part of a deliberate policy goal to accelerate the epidemic to create "herd immunity". Abandoning testing and tracing and ignoring social distancing in order to engineer a fast peak and population-wide immunity appears different in kind.



That is the 8th edition of the ECDC rapid risk assessment. That one was written weeks after the old orthodox approach fell apart. You need to go back and look at earlier editions to see the evolution of the orthodox stance.

The sixth edition from March 12th, when things had started to shift, still contains stuff like this in its executive summary:



> If resources or capacity are limited, rational approaches should be implemented to prioritise high-yield actions, which include: rational use of confirmatory testing, reducing contact tracing to focus only on high-yield contacts, rational use of PPE and hospitalisation and implementing rational criteria for de-isolation. Testing approaches should prioritise vulnerable populations, protection of social and healthcare institutions, including staff.
> National surveillance systems should initially aim at rapidly detecting cases and assessing community transmission. As the epidemic progresses, surveillance should monitor the intensity, geographical spread and the impact of the epidemic on the population and healthcare systems and assess the effectiveness of measures in place. In circumstances with capacity shortages and strict implementation of social distancing measures, surveillance should focus on severe acute respiratory infections, sentinel surveillance in outpatient clinics or collection of data through telephone helplines.



But the clearest shift visible in the 6th edition (March 12th, so just after Italy locked down and just before the UK approachs last stand via herd immunity rhetoric) is the following paragraph, which as far as I know was a new addition that was not present in the 5th edition:



> The evidence for the effectiveness of closing schools and workplaces, and cancelling mass gatherings is limited. However, one modelling study from China estimated that if a range of non-pharmaceutical interventions, including social distancing, had been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier in the country, the number of COVID-19 cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86%, and 95%, respectively, together with significantly reducing the number of affected areas [72].



I havent spent time going back and reading the 5th or earlier editions, but the standard orthodox approach should be highly visible in those, and the evolution between 5th edition and 8th edition should demonstrate much of my point.


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2020)

treelover said:


> terrifying really, what would a new depression mean? bartering like in Argentina decade ago.



Big government, tax and spend, new deal, new consensus, possibly a new attitude towards how much we should work, and all sorts of things that probably should have been done after the financial crisis but were not. Expect these new realities to be blended in with the energy and climate situation, and the fact that neoliberalism and globalisation had already started coming off the tracks this century.


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> So this is still terribly bad, but I still prefer to see it in context anyway. I expect that if I use older data that goes back further, I will currently be able to find flu epidemics that took a higher toll. But if I do this exercise, it certainly wont be to downplay this pandemic.



OK I'm not going to have the time or the right data to do this properly, so here is something based on excess winter mortality instead. So wont be able to compare it like-for-like with the stuff in the latest ONS data, but it will still provide a little bit of broader context:





__





						Highest number of excess winter deaths since 1999/2000 - Office for National Statistics
					





					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## treelover (Apr 14, 2020)

editor said:


> Unexpected consequence: Coronavirus: Gambling addicts 'at greater risk during lockdown'
> 
> With luck, a few of them will escape the stranglehold of betting.



Massive amounts of gambling ads across broadcast media, and I imagine social media.


----------



## treelover (Apr 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Big government, tax and spend, new deal, new consensus, possibly a new attitude towards how much we should work, and all sorts of things that probably should have been done after the financial crisis but were not. Expect these new realities to be blended in with the energy and climate situation, and the fact that neoliberalism and globalisation had already started coming off the tracks this century.



very optimistic,  so its a lot different than the GFC.


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## elbows (Apr 14, 2020)

treelover said:


> very optimistic,  so its a lot different than the GFC.



Its a much bigger thing than the financial crisis, so I dont think they have the same options open to them. Therefore, even if I stripped the optimism and my own political beliefs out of what I said, there will still inevitably be very large changes, earthquakes on every front of politics and economics.


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## teqniq (Apr 14, 2020)

Have a look at this precis of a briefing, pick a quote, almost any quote.


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## Labourite (Apr 14, 2020)

I've been reading all this bull from people on the right and the opposition leader about now not being the time to ask tough questions of the government's coronavirus approach and criticise. 

Never heard so much rubbish in my life.


----------



## yield (Apr 14, 2020)

A lot of rightists are hiding their Ayn Rand and have had a timely Damascene conversion. Better late then never suppose.


----------



## phillm (Apr 14, 2020)

Sort of good news.

*Nightingale largely empty as ICUs handle surge*

Senior figures said 19 patients being treated at temporary Nightingale hospital over the weekend

Docklands facility designed to have 2,900 intensive care beds

Data seen by HSJ suggests London’s established hospitals have doubled their ICU capacity, and are so far coping with surge

Exclusive: Nightingale largely empty as ICUs handle surge


----------



## Azrael (Apr 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> That is the 8th edition of the ECDC rapid risk assessment. That one was written weeks after the old orthodox approach fell apart. You need to go back and look at earlier editions to see the evolution of the orthodox stance.
> 
> The sixth edition from March 12th, when things had started to shift, still contains stuff like this in its executive summary:
> 
> ...


The first few editions don't appear that relevant (since so little was known about the virus at the time), but the 5th edition -- thanks for highlighting that -- is very interesting. 

Throughout, it's driven by practical concerns, not dogma. Even in p.7's worst case "scenario four", which envisions overwhelmed healthcare systems, "The objective at this stage is still to mitigate the impact of the outbreak, decrease the burden on healthcare services, protect populations at risk of severe disease and reduce excess mortality." While it does recommend against universal systematic testing in scenarios three and four, this is purely on practical grounds, and as indicated by your quote, representative samples should still be taken. P.14's section on contact tracing is again dictated by practicality, and recommends ongoing tracing for healthcare workers and those who may expose vulnerable people to SARS-CoV-2. Most strikingly, social distancing is recommended throughout, as is consideration of a ban on mass gatherings in scenarios 3 and 4 (if containment's failed).

Britain ceased testing and tracing long before it was practically unfeasible. No attempt to track the disease's spread with representative samples was made. And crucially, the ECDC don't recommend abandoning containment as a deliberate choice, but when it's no longer practical. They were driven by what they considered possible: we were driven by a lethal, untested theory. Britain's approach looked superficially similar, but below the waterline, it was anything but.


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## zahir (Apr 15, 2020)




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## elbows (Apr 15, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Britain's approach looked superficially similar, but below the waterline, it was anything but.



My main point was that it is a good idea to compare versions of the ECDC document so that you can see the evolution of the orthodox thinking, and then compare that with what happened in the UK. And that such supra-national guidelines leave plenty of wiggle room for individual nations to adjust their measures to suit local circumstances. Those include capacity issues and issues about when things are 'no longer practical'. Also, note that something you quoted uses the word mitigate - thats the old language of pandemic plans and is entirely compatible with the UK approach before plans had to change around March 16th. Mitigate is the crap 'push the curve down a bit' plan, that falls well short of suppression. Your analysis seems to feature extremely favourable interpretations of these and other phrases and concepts when the ECDC uses them, in stark contrast to the interpretations you make in regard UK moves. Which misses the point of how most of the crap things the UK did were entirely compatible with the language and concepts enshrined in these guides, if we pay attention to the dates each edition were published and allow for the UK dragging its heels and being some days behind.

So no, it is not the case at all that the UK approach was only superficially similar looking. It was compatible with and patially a product of the same world as the ECDC documents represent. This is not the same as me claiming that the UK would get a special medal for being the 'best in class' when it came to how seriously it treated everything and what capacity it had to achieve in full everything that the ECDC docs recommend. Far from it, we were pretty crappy. Germany were much better on at least 2 fronts, testing and contact tracing, maybe more, but its still too early for me to really know how well they have done with infection control in hospitals and care homes. But both nations approaches were compatible with these docs and the existing orthodoxy. Because the orthodoxy allowed for countries with limited diagnostics capabilities, it advises them where to prioritise where they can, and we did a poor job with those priorities too, but its still the same universe of thinking.

You have to read between the lines a bit with documents like the ECDC ones. And you have to understand what triggers countries use to move to another phase of the long established plans. For example you mention that we abandoned various things before they became unfeasible, but I dont think you have considered how these feasibility assumptions are baked into national plans, in the same way certain triggers for moving to another phase are. Again I'm not defending the UK system on this, a lot of our plans werent granular enough, but there was usually some internal logic to them that was compatible with mainstream thinking on modern pandemic responses.

Here is an example from the ECDC 5th editions surveillance section, what should be done in scenario 2:



> Case-based national surveillance and reporting should continue even in the face of increasing numbers of cases for as long as resources allow, at least until a clear description of the disease, severity spectrum and outcomes has been obtained.



The 'clear description of the disease' stuff is a perfect fit for the 'First few hundred (FF100)' clinical studies. And such studies are a big part of the initial 'containment' phase in UK plans, which is the phase where you actually try and test every case and hospitalise them.

I've also spoken before about how phase labelled 'contain' is often only really delay. I first learnt about this because it was one of the criticisms of the UK response to 2009 swine flu pandemic, that their contain phase should actually have been called a delay phase and communicated to the public as such. Well, such obfuscations were aline and well this time, and oh look, they are in the 5th edition of the ECDC doc too:



> Containment measures *intended to slow down the spread* of the virus in the population are therefore extremely important as outlined below in the ‘Options for response’ and recent ECDC guidance documents





> Scenario 1 describes a situation with multiple introductions and limited local transmission in the country. Despite the introductions there is no apparent sustained transmission (only second generation cases observed or transmission within sporadic contained clusters with known epidemiological links). In this situation, the objective is containment of the outbreak by blocking transmission opportunities, through early detection of imported and locally-transmitted COVID-19 cases in order to try to avoid* or at least delay* the spread of infection and the associated burden on healthcare systems. Delaying the start of local transmission will allow the current influenza season to end, freeing up some healthcare capacity. As of 2 March 2020, several EU/EEA countries had reported limited local transmission and were considered to be in this scenario.



That ECDC description of scenario 1 is not exactly a confident battle cry to genuinely contain and suppress the infection is it? It has failure, turning this into a delay rather than a contain phase, baked into it! And then more of the same into scenario 2:



> In this situation, the objective remains to contain where practicable and otherwise slow down the transmission of the infection.



'Where practicable' is an example of just the sort of wiggle room that my point relies upon to be valid - this is where the action is, in phrases like that.

By scenario 3, we get the relatively feeble (compared to the lockdowns we actually ended up with) mitigation:



> The objective at this stage is to *mitigate* the impact of the outbreak by *decreasing the burden on healthcare systems* and protect *populations at risk of severe disease*.



If you strip away the particular herd immunity rhetoric the UK used, scenario 3 was entirely compatible with our previous 'get the most vulnerable to stay at home but otherwise try to carry on' approach that was dead by March 16th. Likewise the final worst case end-game scenario 4:



> The objective at this stage is still to mitigate the impact of the outbreak, decrease the burden on healthcare services, protect populations at risk of severe disease and reduce excess mortality.



Mitigate is not suppress, it is not the strong measures you are horrified we werent going to do, its the weak stuff Johnson originally favoured (that would still have featured some stronger stuff eventually, but quite a bit later, and for less time).


----------



## elbows (Apr 15, 2020)

And yes it is true that when we get onto subsequent sections where it describes options for response in each of the scenarios(phases), the UK falls well short on all sorts of best practices and recommendations. For example in the testing section they are recommending various things we didnt do, including rolling out capacity to a local lab level and having the special designated labs do additional confirmation of a proportion of samples taken by the less certified local labs.

But here are yet more examples where the suggested responses in the 5th edition of the ECDC document are really quite feeble and fall well short of what even the UK ended having to do later. So again, further evidence that our original plan was quite in tune with ECDC thinking, and further examples of having to pay close attention to some of the language used in order to judge how these concepts really stack up to original UK plans. 



> School and day care measures or closure
> Evidence originating from seasonal and pandemic influenza modelling studies have shown that proactive school closures before the peak of influenza virus activity have had a positive impact in reducing local transmission and delaying the peak of the influenza activity [60]. COVID-19 does not appear to cause important illness or severity in children; however, it is not known if children play an important role in transmission of the virus. Therefore, proactive school closures to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 should be *carefully considered on a case-by-case assessment, weigh the expected impact of the epidemic against the adverse effects of such closures on the community.* If influenza is circulating in the community, proactive school closures may be considered to reduce the burden of influenza cases on healthcare systems, and thereby create capacity for managing cases of COVID-19 in scenarios 2 and 3. Before *or instead of closures*, health authorities should also plan to reduce transmission opportunities within schools, while children continue to attend with other measures, which may include smaller school groups, increasing physical distance of children in the class, promotion of washing of hands and outdoor classes. In the event of illness, strict isolation of sick children and staff at home or healthcare facilities is advisable in all the scenarios.





> During scenarios 1 and 2, the cancellation of mass gatherings in the EU/EEA may be* justified in exceptional cases* (e.g. large conferences with a significant number of participants from an affected area).





> Data originating from seasonal and pandemic influenza models indicate that during the mitigation phase, cancellations of mass gatherings before the peak of epidemics or pandemics may reduce virus transmission; the cancellation of mass gatherings during the scenarios 3 and 4 is therefore recommended.





> Due to the *significant secondary effects (social, economic, etc.) of social distancing measures*, the decision on their application should be based on a case-by-case risk assessment, depending on the impact of the epidemic and the local epidemiological situation





> Travellers who develop acute respiratory symptoms within 14 days of returning from areas with ongoing local transmission should be advised to seek immediate medical attention, ideally by phone first, and indicate their travel history to the healthcare specialist.





> Although WHO considers that the comprehensive measures taken by local authorities in China, which included severe travel restrictions have had a delaying effect on the epidemic within China and internationally, in general, travel restrictions at international borders or within national borders are neither efficient nor effective against outbreaks of respiratory disease, unless they can be implemented comprehensively. *During the 2009 influenza pandemic, such comprehensive measures were shown to be feasible and effective only on isolated, small island countries*.





> Modelling work by ECDC has assessed the *effectiveness of entry screening in detecting travellers infected with COVID-19 to be low*.



If I now go and compare some of those sections from the 5th edition with the 6th edition and later editions still, I'm pretty sure we will see the tune changing in those just like we saw it changing in the UK. But dont worry, I've already quoted too much again, so I wont actually make that comparison right now, I will go back to leaving this subject alone.


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## elbows (Apr 15, 2020)

By the way, there is another way we can judge what the UKs original stance might have ended up looking like in terms of how long the first wave would have lasted and when it might have peaked. Look at what timescales they were giving us when they started to describe the original plan. So I'm talking about March 12th, rather than March 16th when they had to change after the weekend of doom for 'herd immunity'.

At the time I fixated on Vallance saying the UK was 4 weeks behind Italy (when it was really 2). But he said something else at the same time, that may seem even more bizarre given the actual timing we are hoping our peak has now:


*Vallance said that the outbreak in the UK could be about four weeks behind the outbreak in Italy. *
*Vallance said the peak of the epidemic in the UK was “something like 10 to 14 weeks away”*
*from  12 Mar 2020 19:06*

The way to make sense of that crazy timing suggestion of the peak is to compare original modelling based on the mitigation approach that was originally envisaged, with the new 'lockdown/sort of suppression' model that Imperial came out with on the 16th. The date of peak around now that we are experiencing (hopefully) and the 'something like 10 to 14 weeks away' do seem to be represented fairly well.

Mitigation, lets perhaps assume the blue curve was similar to their original plan a.



Suppression, where the hope is that our epidemic will this month follow the same sort of trend as the green line.


It is also somewhat plausible to consider that at some stage they might have been hoping to get away with something that went further than the blue mitigate option, but not as far as the green suppress option. eg perhaps only involving temporary school closures (eg extending their holidays), an option that might therefore have resembled the orange option on the suppress graph.

I hope my point is clear. That if anyone is scratching their head about certain timing pronouncements about the epidemic wave just over a month ago, compared with the timing that has been suggested to us more recently, there are clues in the modelling of different policies. And once we have tested the model against the real data we'll get from this horrible April, we might also be able to figure out quite how bad it would have been if the original plan had been adhered to. And we can look at things like how much NHS surge capacity they created in recent weeks, and how much was actually needed, and see how that compares to the models for plans old and new too.


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## Azrael (Apr 15, 2020)

I'm certainly not praising the early ECDC response elbows : as I agreed weeks ago, countries throughout the West were complacent about a SARS virus and their citizens have paid the price. I'm just seeing different kinds of failure at work. In not emulating the fast, aggressive exclusion and suppression measures of several Asian countries, the ECDC can be accused of negligence.

By contrast Whitehall's plan, even if most of it currently has to be inferred from circumstantial evidence, appears to have been something else: after "delay," deliberately facilitating viral spread to achieve a rapid peak, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths, in order to keep the economy moving and, to be charitable, on the assumption that a "second wave" would be even worse. If that's what they did, it goes beyond negligence.

I hope that the inferences are wrong, they didn't intend any such thing, and were simply implementing a particularly botched version of the ECDC plan that they explained abysmally, I truly do.


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## chainsawjob (Apr 15, 2020)

I'm guessing this may already have been posted, but I searched and couldn't spot it









						UK hunger crisis: 1.5m people go whole day without food
					

Councils and charities report ‘double whammy of austerity and Covid-19’ and urge government to step in




					www.theguardian.com
				




 and


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## Buddy Bradley (Apr 15, 2020)

Starmer interviewed on the BBC this morning was the first politician I've seen basically saying, "Clapping every week is all very well, but what we should be doing is paying these people more and fundamentally changing the way we think about what essential work is."


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## philosophical (Apr 15, 2020)

All the stats have become a fog to me.
However I am curious about the stats regarding those hospitalised with the virus, get treated and then get through it and are discharged.
Also any stats for those at home identified with the virus who recover, verses those identified who die in situ (like in care homes).
On a personal level it would influence any future decision as to whether to go to hospital.
The Excel facility frankly makes me shudder.


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## William of Walworth (Apr 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:
			
		

> Starmer interviewed on the BBC this morning was the first politician I've seen basically saying, "Clapping every week is all very well, but what we should be doing is paying these people more and fundamentally changing the way we think about what essential work is."



So he's actually said something!! 

"Well done boy, but you must try much harder. See me after class!"


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## SheilaNaGig (Apr 15, 2020)

philosophical said:


> All the stats have become a fog to me.
> However I am curious about the stats regarding those hospitalised with the virus, get treated and then get through it and are discharged.
> Also any stats for those at home identified with the virus who recover, verses those identified who die in situ (like in care homes).
> On a personal level it would influence any future decision as to whether to go to hospital.
> The Excel facility frankly makes me shudder.



Could you clarify your concern?
I’m not sure what your question is.

What specifically worries you about the Excell Nightingale facility?


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## Petcha (Apr 15, 2020)

Even I know the figure was way above 19 by this morning. I think it was in the 30s a couple of days ago.

And she's the Care Minister. Where do the tories find these people.


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## DotCommunist (Apr 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Even I know the figure was way above 19 by this morning. I think it was in the 30s a couple of days ago.
> 
> And she's the Care Minister. Where do the tories find these people.



oxford or cambridge (whately's oxford) via one of the elite private schools usually. Cunt factories.


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## philosophical (Apr 15, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Could you clarify your concern?
> I’m not sure what your question is.
> 
> What specifically worries you about the Excell Nightingale facility?



Probably stress on my part (I am old) but the excel thing comes across as a processing facility, a death warehouse.


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## Teaboy (Apr 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Even I know the figure was way above 19 by this morning. I think it was in the 30s a couple of days ago.
> 
> And she's the Care Minister. Where do the tories find these people.




Well, you know.  She may just be fibbing a bit.  Had she given a number the obvious follow up question would have been '...and how may could have been saved by proper PPE?'.  

Also if the number is high, really high than that's going to be toxic for morale.  Got to keep the spirits up etc.  War footing stuff isn't it?  Easier all round to just dodge the question, she is a politician after all.


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## Petcha (Apr 15, 2020)

I know the fact the Skype feed was freezing did her no favours. But still. You'd think before going up against one of the toughest interviewers going around (and he went quite easy on her really) you might have some basic facts to hand.


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## belboid (Apr 15, 2020)

philosophical said:


> Probably stress on my part (I am old) but the excel thing comes across as a processing facility, a death warehouse.


its a hospital. If you get proper ill, go to hospital, simple as that.  People have died because they're avoiding hospitals, the daft cunts.


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## Chilli.s (Apr 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Starmer interviewed on the BBC this morning was the first politician I've seen basically saying, "Clapping every week is all very well, but what we should be doing is paying these people more and fundamentally changing the way we think about what essential work is."


And about time too.  Too little too late I feel.


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## keybored (Apr 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Even I know the figure was way above 19 by this morning. I think it was in the 30s a couple of days ago.
> 
> And she's the Care Minister. Where do the tories find these people.



Worst Paul Hardcastle mix ever.


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## Teaboy (Apr 15, 2020)

philosophical said:


> Probably stress on my part (I am old) but the excel thing comes across as a processing facility, a death warehouse.



I understand this.  The place looks like a war hospital.  Actually though it looks to have partitions and a level of privacy so probably better than a lot of existing hospital wards.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I know the fact the Skype feed was freezing did her no favours.


I don't understand why the national news is still constantly struggling with video chat. Why don't they just put up a static photo and just use the audio feed, like they do in plenty of other situations? For some reason they seem to think if we can't see the spare room bookshelves in a choppy video it's not a real "pandemic interview".


----------



## Petcha (Apr 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I don't understand why the national news is still constantly struggling with video chat. Why don't they just put up a static photo and just use the audio feed, like they do in plenty of other situations? For some reason they seem to think if we can't see the spare room bookshelves in a choppy video it's not a real "pandemic interview".



I'm quite enjoying the 'Battle of the Bookshelves'. Who can look the most well read/pretentious/intellectual/full of shit.

I'm pretty sure some of them are binge shopping on Amazon when they learn they've been booked for an interview.


----------



## andysays (Apr 15, 2020)

belboid said:


> its a hospital. If you get proper ill, go to hospital, simple as that.  People have died because they're avoiding hospitals, the daft cunts.


Not wanting have a go, but I can understand why at least some people might want to steer clear of hospitals ATM, and it isn't necessarily because they're daft cunts


----------



## Numbers (Apr 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I'm quite enjoying the 'Battle of the Bookshelves'. Who can look the most well read/pretentious/intellectual/full of shit.
> 
> I'm pretty sure some of them are binge shopping on Amazon when they learn they've been booked for an interview.


In my background is a life/nude painting of my wife from behind.


----------



## philosophical (Apr 15, 2020)

belboid said:


> its a hospital. If you get proper ill, go to hospital, simple as that.  People have died because they're avoiding hospitals, the daft cunts.


Which is why I would be reassured by percentages of virus hospitalisations treated and recovered. I would personally rather die at home than in excel where the message I get is about frightened staff.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 15, 2020)

Numbers said:


> In my background is a life/nude painting of my wife from behind.


Our CTO has a painting of Will Ferrell and John C Reilly from the movie _Step Brothers_ behind his desk.


----------



## LDC (Apr 15, 2020)

philosophical said:


> Which is why I would be reassured by percentages of virus hospitalisations treated and recovered. I would personally rather die at home than in excel where the message I get is about frightened staff.



What? I think you're wildly and inaccurately speculating about these things you know very little about.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 15, 2020)

andysays said:


> Not wanting have a go, but I can understand why at least some people might want to steer clear of hospitals ATM, and it isn't necessarily because they're daft cunts


Is it because of the intractability of the Irish border?


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 15, 2020)

the coronavirus pandemic could be followed by a measles epidemic as loads of children haven't had their injections because of the current situation 









						LocalGov.co.uk - Your authority on UK local government - Officials warn coronavirus impact could trigger measles outbreak
					

The UK is at risk of a measles outbreak if routine vaccinations are delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Measles & Rubella Initiative has warned.




					www.localgov.co.uk


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What? I think you're wildly and inaccurately speculating about these things you know very little about.


you say it like it's a bad thing when it is the urban way


----------



## philosophical (Apr 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What? I think you're wildly and inaccurately speculating about these things you know very little about.


Yes
 You are right


----------



## editor (Apr 15, 2020)

SIX MILLION QUID!

Proper hero.
















						Hero Tom Moore's fundraiser passes £9,000,000 for the NHS
					

Captain Tom Moore, 99, has raised an incredible £8,000,000 for the NHS, smashing his original target to raise £1,000.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Petcha (Apr 15, 2020)

Numbers said:


> In my background is a life/nude painting of my wife from behind.



It would be amazing if one of them showed up with something totally inappropriate behind them... suggestions on a postcard...

I've not been asked to appear on the beeb yet but this would be mine. The Brazillian Institute for Oriental Studies. Lighten the mood a little.






any excuse to post that


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 15, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Is it because of the intractability of the Irish border?


I'd be apprehensive about going to hospital for a non-covid19 matter at the moment, tbf.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 15, 2020)

philosophical said:


> Which is why I would be reassured by percentages of virus hospitalisations treated and recovered. I would personally rather die at home than in excel where the message I get is about frightened staff.



There was a some stats thrown around on the 'Johnson is ill thread' which suggested your chances are decent if you can stay out of ICU and and stay of a respirator.  Your chances are not great (50/50 or worse) if both those things happen.  Ending up in hospital doesn't mean ICU though.

But all this is pretty meaningless because there will be factors personal to you which cannot be reflected in raw data.  

My mum is in a situation where she has decided that she will not be going to a hospital regardless of how ill she gets.  Its an individual decision but either way you need to make sure someone can advocate for you and respect your decisions.  Crappy times to say the least.


----------



## treelover (Apr 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I'm quite enjoying the 'Battle of the Bookshelves'. Who can look the most well read/pretentious/intellectual/full of shit.
> 
> I'm pretty sure some of them are binge shopping on Amazon when they learn they've been booked for an interview.



american prof on sky news today, and behind him, was a small bust, of well a bust, with glowing breasts, it may have been some kind of art, not sure.


----------



## treelover (Apr 15, 2020)

andysays said:


> Not wanting have a go, but I can understand why at least some people might want to steer clear of hospitals ATM, and it isn't necessarily because they're daft cunts



its a shocking comment, many people with M.E, etc, are terrified of hospitals, superbugs, etc, that they won't come out, Belboid has form unfortunately,  blinker on in some cases.


----------



## elbows (Apr 15, 2020)

Scotlands equivalent of the ONS gives further hints about the true scale of deaths:









						Quarter of Scottish coronavirus deaths in care homes
					

New figures from the National Records of Scotland suggest a total of 962 deaths have been linked to Covid-19.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The majority of these deaths occurred in hospital, but 25% were in care homes and 13% in other settings.
> 
> In the week from 6 to 12 April, the virus was mentioned in 31% of all deaths registered in Scotland.


----------



## bimble (Apr 15, 2020)

The excel Nightingale facility, far as I can see it’s to be staffed by nurses and doctors from the existing nhs staff? Anybody read anything about how that works (I mean given that we had serious shortages of both before this virus was even born)?


----------



## treelover (Apr 15, 2020)

I think it has military medical personel as well.

Was the 10 day build hospital in China fully utilised?


----------



## killer b (Apr 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> The excel Nightingale facility, far as I can see it’s to be staffed by nurses and doctors from the existing nhs staff? Anybody read anything about how that works (I mean given that we had serious shortages of both before this virus was even born)?


Redeployment from other specialisms which aren't operating fully / at all due to covid 19 mostly I'd imagine.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Redeployment from other specialisms which aren't operating fully / at all due to covid 19 mostly I'd imagine.


Fully staffed with acupuncture specialists...


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Fully staffed with acupuncture specialists...




This is borderline or casual something or other.

Certainly lazy stereotyping.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 15, 2020)

There are a few new questions on the end of the latest flusurvey/PHE questionnaire which are interesting in the context of decisions re relaxing lockdown...

Since the beginning of COVID-19 lockdown measures, do you carry out a professional activity? (Select all the relevant answers)

                     Yes, I work from home
                     Yes, I work outside from home
                     No, I have a leave of absence to take care of my kid(s)
                     No, I have a sick leave (because of Covid-19)
                     No, I have another situation (retired, job-seeker, student, house-wife/husband, other sick-leave, partial unemployment, forced leave…)



How many days a week do you work outside from home?

1
2
3
4
5
6
7



Over recent days, at which frequency did you go out of home to buy products, on average?

                         I do not go out of home anymore
                         Less than once a week
                         Once a week
                         2 to 6 times a week
                         Once a day
                         Several times per day



Over recent days, at which frequency did you go out of home to get fresh air or exercise (outside your home, balcony, garden, private courtyard), on average?

                         I do not go out of home anymore
                         Less than once a week
                         Once a week
                         2 to 6 times a week
                         Once a day
                         Several times per day



Over the course of yesterday, how many people (outside your household) did you approach at a distance lower than 1 meter?

                         0
                         1
                         2 to 5
                         6 to 10
                         More than 10



If lockdown measures were lifted up, but collective childcare/schools/university were closed, what would be your situation? (Select all the relevant answers)

                     I would work from home
                     I would work outside from home
                     I would have a leave of absence to take care of my kid(s)
                     I would have a sick leave (because of Covid-19)
                     I would be in another situation (retired, job-seeker, student, house-wife/husband, other sick-leave, partial unemployment, forced leave…)
                     I don’t know



How many days a week would you work outside from home?

1
2
3
4
5
6
7



If lockdown measures were extended (that is to say, continued beyond the date announced by the government), do you think you would follow the recommendations with as much rigour as you do now?

                         Yes, absolutely
                         Yes, moderately
                         No, not really
                         No, not at all
                         I don't know


----------



## Cid (Apr 15, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> This is borderline or casual something or other.
> 
> Certainly lazy stereotyping.



Anti-Complimentarytherapistism? Frankly they’re not a particularly vulnerable group.


----------



## LDC (Apr 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Redeployment from other specialisms which aren't operating fully / at all due to covid 19 mostly I'd imagine.



Our Trust has been asked to supply a variety of staff to the Nightingale near us, we've been asked for a small number of doctors, nurses, HCAs, etc. Small numbers from each Trust in the area that the hospital is based to spread the load of staffing, and then some extra from the military or voluntary organisations like St. John's Ambulance I think.

There have been 'issues' around command of these new hospitals, and differences of opinion about what type of patient they take. I think they've generally settled on being places for non-ICU Covid patients, rather than those that are critically ill.


----------



## LDC (Apr 15, 2020)

treelover said:


> its a shocking comment, many people with M.E, etc, are terrified of hospitals, superbugs, etc, that they won't come out, Belboid has form unfortunately,  blinker on in some cases.



ME is not on the list of conditions that make you more vulnerable to Covid. You might feel more scared but you're not actually at a higher risk.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> ME is not on the list of conditions that make you more vulnerable to Covid. You might feel more scared but you're not actually at a higher risk.


Given that the medical establishment treated ME for decades as if it didn’t really exist at all, I wouldn’t imagine that’s particularly reassuring to sufferers of it.


----------



## killer b (Apr 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> There have been 'issues' around command of these new hospitals, and differences of opinion about what type of patient they take. I think they've generally settled on being places for non-ICU Covid patients, rather than those that are critically ill.


I was listening to an interview with a dr last night who said the patients will mostly be those who're out of serious danger but still on ventilators, transferred from nearby hospitals.


----------



## LDC (Apr 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> I was listening to an interview with a dr last night who said the patients will mostly be those who're out of serious danger but still on ventilators, transferred from nearby hospitals.



Yeah, totally, my understanding is the same, that they didn't want critically ill patients there as it would be bad PR and bad for morale for the places just to be full of the dead and dying.


----------



## philosophical (Apr 15, 2020)

I don't know how true it is, but I heard the excel facility is almost exclusively for palliative care.
I also heard that it is pretty empty at the moment.
I enquired above, but is there any way of finding out about the numbers and percentages of those having to go to hospital because of the virus, then get better/well, and then get discharged?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 15, 2020)

Missed this, too!

*                 In your opinion, how this coronavirus is transmitted? (select all the relevant answers)

                     Breathing the same air as someone sick (for example being in a room or a public transport where someone sick was before)
                     Eating in a restaurant run by people who could have links with a country affected by the coronavirus epidemic
                     Contact with stools coming from someone sick
                     Contact with the saliva of someone sick
                     Receiving a package sent from a country affected by the coronavirus epidemic
                     Contact with the blood of someone sick
                     Contact with surfaces on which sick individuals just coughed or sneezed
                     Ingestion of contaminated food
                     Contact with an infected pet
                     Sitting next to a person who could have links with a country affected by the coronavirus epidemic
                     Inhalation of infected droplets expelled during sneezing or coughing by someone sick
                     Sexual transmission
                     By an infected insect bite
                     Mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy
                     Contact with the skin of someone sick
                     I don’t know







*                 In your opinion, what is the contagiousness* of this coronavirus ?

-0 - Not contagious at all12345678910 - Very contagious                     






*                 In your opinion, what is the gravity of this coronavirus?

-0 - Not grave at all12345678910 - Very grave                     






*                 In your opinion, what is the mortality rate of this coronavirus?

-0%Between 0 (excluded) and 1% (included)Between 1 (excluded) and 3% (included)Between 3 (excluded) and 5% (included)Between 5 (excluded) and 10% (included)Between 10 (excluded) and 20% (included)Between 20 (excluded) and 50% (included)More than 50%                     






*                 Are you worried about this coronavirus epidemic?

-0 - Not worried at all12345678910 - Very worried                     






*                 In your opinion, out of 100 people in the UK, how many of them will have caught this coronavirus by the end of this epidemic?

-Between 0 (excluded) and 1% (included)Between 1 (excluded) and 3% (included)Between 3 (excluded) and 5% (included)Between 5 (excluded) and 10% (included)Between 10 (excluded) and 20% (included)Between 20 (excluded) and 30% (included)Between 30 (excluded) and 40% (included)Between 40 (excluded) and 50% (included)Between 50 (excluded) and 60% (included)Between 60 (excluded) and 70% (included)Between 70 (excluded) and 80% (included)Between 80 (excluded) and 90% (included)Between 90 (excluded) and 100% (included)                     






*                 What is the risk for yourself of catching this coronavirus in the coming weeks?

-0%Between 0 (excluded) and 1% (included)Between 1 (excluded) and 3% (included)Between 3 (excluded) and 5% (included)Between 5 (excluded) and 10% (included)Between 10 (excluded) and 20% (included)Between 20 (excluded) and 30% (included)Between 30 (excluded) and 40% (included)Between 40 (excluded) and 50% (included)Between 50 (excluded) and 60% (included)Between 60 (excluded) and 70% (included)Between 70 (excluded) and 80% (included)Between 80 (excluded) and 90% (included)Between 90 (excluded) and 100% (included)I think that I already had this disease                     


*                 Because of this coronavirus, since the beginning of lock down measures, did you change some of your habits?

                         Yes, absolutely
                         Yes, moderately
                         No, not really
                         No, not at all
                         I don't know


Because of this coronavirus, since the beginning of lock down measures, did you:

Reduce the time spent at work-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedReduce or change the way you use public transportation-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedWash your hands more frequently-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedClean or disinfect things you might touch more often than usual-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedCarry sanitising hand gel when going out more often than usual-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedUse sanitising hand gel to disinfect your hands more often than usual-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedReduce the amount you touch your eyes, nose, or mouth-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedFollow a healthy diet or took vitamin supplements more often than usual-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedTry to avoid people who looked sick-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedCarry disposable tissues with you when out more often than usual-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedUse disposable tissues when sneezing or coughing more often than usual-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedBuy protection masks (surgeon mask sold at pharmacist, mask FFP1, FFP2, FFP3)-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedWear a protection mask (surgeon mask sold at pharmacist, mask FFP1, FFP2, FFP3)-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedAvoid shaking hands, hugging and/or kissing on both cheeks-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedAvoid approaching people you meet closer than 1 meter-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedLower the frequency you buy food-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedStock food-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedIncrease the number of days in which you work at home-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concernedDelay or cancel a travel to a foreign country-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concerned


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 15, 2020)

*                 If you thought you were sick from this coronavirus, which of these actions would you take first? (single choice)(if you think you already had this disease, please answer with the first action you took)

                         I would consult my general practitioner
                         I would ask to my general practitioner to come and visit me
                         I would call my general practitioner or contact him for a teleconsultation
                         I would call NHS 111
                         I would call the toll-free number implemented by the government, if it is available
                         I would go to emergency room
                         I would go to a pharmacy
                         I would contact another health professional (please specify)
                         None of these answers



*                 Do you think you have received clear enough information from the health authorities regarding the coronavirus epidemic?

                         Yes, absolutely
                         Yes, moderately
                         No, not really
                         No, not at all
                         I don't know



*                 Do you think that the place taken by the coronavirus in the media is excessive in relation to the risk it represents?

                         Yes, absolutely
                         Yes, moderately
                         No, not really
                         No, not at all
                         I don't know



*                 Do you think you should be able to follow the recommendations and instructions issued by the health authorities during the next week?

                         Yes, absolutely
                         Yes, moderately
                         No, not really
                         No, not at all
                         I don't know



*                 Do the following prevention measures appear to you restrictive or hard to implement for you?

Regular use of hydro-alcoholic solution, or regular hand washing with soap-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concerned                     Use of disposable mask in case of respiratory symptoms-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concerned                     Have to cancel daily commutes-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concerned                     Have to stay at home and/or work from home-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concerned                     Have to keep your children at home because of school closing-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concerned                     Have to cancel outings because of recommendations (concerts cancelled, avoid trips to certain places…)-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concerned                     Limit sport activities-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't knowNot concerned                     


*                 Do the following prevention measures appear to you useful or necessary to implement?

Regular use of hydro-alcoholic solution, or regular hand washing with soap-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't know                     Use of disposable mask in case of influenza-like-illness symptoms-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't know                     Have to cancel daily commutes-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't know                     Have to stay at home and/or work from home-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't know                     Have to keep your children at home because of school closing-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't know                     Have to cancel outings because of recommendations (concerts cancelled, avoid trips to certain places…)-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't know                     Limit sport activities-Yes, absolutelyYes, moderatelyNo, not reallyNo, not at allI don't know                     


*                 In your opinion, about the lock down of population, currently implemented by public authorities: (select all answers with which you agree)

                     It is a necessary and useful measure
                     It should be strengthened
                     It should be softened
                     It should concern only infected people and their close circle
                     It should be accompanied by more severe sanctions against people who do not respect it
                     It should be accompanied by less severe sanctions against people who do not respect it
                     It will allow to reduce significantly the number of deaths due to COVID-19
                     It will prevent an immunity from developing into the population
                     It will allow to reduce the total number of COVID-19 cases over the entire epidemic
                     It should have been implemented earlier
                     You don’t understand the benefit of this generalized lock down
                     None of these answers






*                 Which total duration of lock down would be bearable for you?

                         One week
                         Two weeks
                         Three weeks
                         Four weeks
                         Five weeks
                         Six weeks
                         More than six weeks
                         I don’t know
                         None of these answers


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 15, 2020)

Sorry for such long posts - too many characters for a single one.


----------



## LDC (Apr 15, 2020)

philosophical said:


> I don't know how true it is, but I heard the excel facility is almost exclusively for palliative care.



Not true. Where did you hear that from, Facebook?


----------



## philosophical (Apr 15, 2020)

From an ambulance driver, but on the internet. I am not on Twitter or Facebook.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 15, 2020)

philosophical said:


> I don't know how true it is, but I heard the excel facility is almost exclusively for palliative care.



From what I've heard and read and backed up by the comments immediatly above yours its actually quite the opposite.  Its for those on the mend.



> I also heard that it is pretty empty at the moment.



That's what I understand, lets hope it stays that way.



> I enquired above, but is there any way of finding out about the numbers and percentages of those having to go to hospital because of the virus, then get better/well, and then get discharged?



I think you are going to need to be more specific in what you are asking here.  Do you want the stats on people who go to hospital with suspected / confirmed covid-19 but recover and go home?  Presumably broken down into sex and age groups?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 15, 2020)

The care & nursing homes situation is going to get so much worst, I read an article this morning that says deaths in homes account for around half the totals in France, Italy & Spain. 

I was speaking to a care home owner this morning, her small home is fine ATM, but she's is very worried, as she's aware of breakouts in at least half dozen homes in Worthing. Bearing in mind we are currently still a very low risk area, our local trust, a group of 3 hospitals, has 'only' had 42 deaths so far, I can understand why she is worried. 

Also the first case found, up the road, at Ford open prison, apparently around 60 prisons have cases, not sure if that's just England or UK wide, but that's likely going to be a major problem too.


----------



## NoXion (Apr 15, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> This is borderline or casual something or other.
> 
> Certainly lazy stereotyping.



Oh no, people are being mean about professional bullshit-peddlers, we can't have that!


----------



## andysays (Apr 15, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Is it because of the intractability of the Irish border?


I heard that a possible solution to the Irish border was admitted to hospital at the same time as Johnson, though with far less publicity.

Unfortunately Brexiteers weren't able to come up with a strong enough argument to convince a certain poster it was really viable, and so it sadly passed away about the same time Johnson was well enough to leave the ICU.


----------



## Sue (Apr 15, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Oh no, people are being mean about professional bullshit-peddlers, we can't have that!



No, think people were responding to:



Buddy Bradley said:


> Fully staffed with acupuncture specialists...



in response to this post about the staffing of Nightingale hospitals:



killer b said:


> Redeployment from other specialisms which aren't operating fully / at all due to covid 19 mostly I'd imagine.



As killer b's says, medical staff will be redeployed to these hospitals, nothing to do with acupuncture. For example, if you're a surgeon specialising in hip replacements, it's likely you won't be doing many of these at the moment -- perhaps only those stemming from accidents rather than those that are generally done on an elective basis. So makes sense that your skills as a doctor are utilised, if outside your specialism.


----------



## philosophical (Apr 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> From what I've heard and read and backed up by the comments immediatly above yours its actually quite the opposite.  Its for those on the mend.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I suppose I mean all people who are suffering enough with the virus, get put in the hospital, then get out well again.
The totally unscientific gossip I have heard is once you go in your chances overall are 50/50. Sounds wrong, but there is no way as far as I can see to find out what's right.
Purely personally if going to hospital with a 50/50 chance of getting out I would rather live or die at home.
The front line are suffering and are burdened terribly (so I understand) so I don't want to enter that environment.
If there was a bit of good news coming out of the NHS work it would be encouraging, but hearing that young staff have a template to decide who gets treated and how, and virtually deciding who lives or dies, makes me personally want to steer clear and not be an extra burden.


----------



## Smangus (Apr 15, 2020)

50/50 if you are put on ventilation in ICU.


----------



## treelover (Apr 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> ME is not on the list of conditions that make you more vulnerable to Covid. You might feel more scared but you're not actually at a higher risk.



see kabbes post,, also PWME have to have the flu jab, so what is that all about?


----------



## teuchter (Apr 15, 2020)

Sue said:


> No, think people were responding to:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I took it as a misunderstanding that the joke about acupuncturists was in reference to the Chinese emergency hospitals rather than the UK ones.


----------



## maomao (Apr 15, 2020)

treelover said:


> see kabbes post,, also PWME have to have the flu jab, so what is that all about?


All neurological conditions qualify for free flu jab. ME patients aren't particularly vulnerable to it but they try to offer it to large groups so some level of herd immunity occurs.


----------



## andysays (Apr 15, 2020)

Lots of people who qualify for free flu jab, e.g. people with diabetes, are still expected to work.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 15, 2020)

Smangus said:


> 50/50 if you are put on ventilation in ICU.


I've not seen the UK's rates but they're likely to be similar to the rates in other countries such as Switzerland and Austria, which I have seen, where a pretty steady 20-25% of hospital cases across districts are in ICU, and the vast majority of these end up on a ventilator (Johnson was an exception to this  ).

Swiss stats found here.


So probably something like a 10-15% chance of dying if you end up in hospital. However, it could be a bit lower than that because those in ICU are likely to stay much longer.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 15, 2020)

andysays said:


> Lots of people who qualify for free flu jab, e.g. people with diabetes, are still expected to work.


To be fair, early on government themselves were responsible for using 'has a flu jab on medical advice' as a marker of vulnerability (and thus the 12 week self isolation).  I know that has changed with letters and lists of conditions, but you can see how it sticks in people's minds.


----------



## andysays (Apr 15, 2020)

Wilf said:


> To be fair, early on government themselves were responsible for using 'has a flu jab on medical advice' as a marker of vulnerability (and thus the 12 week self isolation).  I know that has changed with letters and lists of conditions, but you can see how it sticks in people's minds.


Yeah, a couple of people I work with were sent home for that reason, then told they had to return to work a couple of weeks later when the advice changed.

They're regarded as more vulnerable than those without eg diabetes, but not extremely vulnerable.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 15, 2020)

editor said:


> SIX MILLION QUID!
> 
> Proper hero.
> 
> ...



Over EIGHT million now.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 15, 2020)

Fair play to him but i think it's come to a sorry pass that a 99-year old guy feels compelled to do this whilst the vermin have starved the NHS of cash.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 15, 2020)

And i notice that Sunak said in yesterday's briefing that to paraphrase: 'We are not considering introducing basic income, Universal Credit is just fine' along with hinting a great deal more austerity to pay for the spending happening now.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 15, 2020)

Ventilators: why it is so hard to produce what’s needed to tackle coronavirus


> Firstly, not just anyone can make a medical device. Manufacturers have to be registered with the relevant regulator. In the UK, that’s the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
> ..
> The simplest approach to increase ventilator numbers is for a government to contact existing ventilator manufacturers and understand what’s needed to increase production rates.





> For example, there may be issues with the supply of materials, a need for new machine tools or a lack of funding needed to order thousands more components.
> 
> These companies already have the respective approvals and quality procedures in place. Efforts should be made to determine the bottlenecks that inhibit increased production, and then find the solutions.


from 15/04/2020 Ventilators: why it is so hard to produce what's needed to tackle coronavirus | The Engineer


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 15, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I really hope the coach drivers were genuine volunteers.
> 
> View attachment 197201



That picture seems as if it is from a lifetime ago.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 15, 2020)

teqniq said:


> View attachment 206939
> 
> And i notice that Sunak said in yesterday's briefing that to paraphrase: 'We are not considering introducing basic income, Universal Credit is just fine' along with hinting a great deal more austerity to pay for the spending happening now.


NZ govt ministers have also taken a six-month 20 per cent pay cut as an act of solidarity. UK MPs voted themselves a £10,000 per head working from home bonus.   Shows up the good and the bad, doesn't it, a crisis like this?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 15, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> NZ govt ministers have also taken a six-month 20 per cent pay cut as an act of solidarity. UK MPs voted themselves a £10,000 per head working from home bonus.   Shows up the good and the bad, doesn't it, a crisis like this?


WTF? when did this happen?


----------



## Quote (Apr 15, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Fair play to him but i think it's come to a sorry pass that a 99-year old guy feels compelled to do this whilst the vermin have starved the NHS of cash.



Knowing our government they’ll have him doing push up’s to fund the fire brigade once he’s finished this.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 15, 2020)

weltweit said:


> WTF? when did this happen?


Saw it today in Twitter, i think


----------



## bimble (Apr 15, 2020)

This was posted on the twitter with ‘expect this’ and that is exactly how I think it’ll go. I suppose we should say hopefully.


----------



## LDC (Apr 15, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Saw it today in Twitter, i think



It's not quite that afaik. It's to cover costs they might have to enable them to work from home such as setting up IT systems etc.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 15, 2020)

weltweit said:


> WTF? when did this happen?



It didn't

a) MPs didn't vote on it,

b) It's additional funds available to allow constituency staff to work securely from home.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 15, 2020)

weltweit said:


> WTF? when did this happen?


Er, weeks ago at the start of lockdown. They're squirming about it now, describing it as merely a £10,000 increase in their expenses limit. Some lovely new computers for everyone, no doubt. 

No, MPs aren't 'paying themselves £10,000 extra' to work from home


----------



## teqniq (Apr 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's not quite that afaik. It's to cover costs they might have to enable them to work from home such as setting up IT systems etc.


I was talking about the New Zealand thing not the UK.









						Jacinda Ardern and NZ ministers take 20% pay cut amid virus crisis
					

Coronavirus: the symptoms Read our LIVE updates on the coronavirus here




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## weltweit (Apr 15, 2020)

Thousands sign petition demanding MPs’ £10,000 work-from-home fund is scrapped


> More than 162,000 people have signed a petition calling for MPs to be stripped of their £10,000 work-from-home allowance.
> 
> MPs have been offered an additional £10,000 each by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) – the body that audits expenses of those in the Commons – to pay for increased costs as they and their staff move to working from home during the Covid-19 lockdown.


from 12/04/2020 Thousands sign petition demanding MPs’ £10,000 work-from-home fund is scrapped

No, MPs have not ‘given themselves’ £10,000 to work from home


> The biggest change was that the existing office costs budget that MPs can claim expenses on will increase by £10,000 'to cover any additional costs you may incur to set up working remotely as a result of coronavirus'. The existing office costs budget (found here, along with all the budgets for MPs' spending) is up to £28,800 for London MPs, and £25,910 for all the rest. This covers renting a constituency office, and filling it with desks, computers, printers and so on, as well as equipment for the Westminster office (staffed by different people) and constituency surgerie


from 10/04/2020 No, MPs have not 'given themselves' £10,000 to work from home | The Spectator

Oh yes they have! 
What a cheek to add 10k to their allowances while tens of thousands are losing their jobs!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 15, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> It didn't
> 
> a) MPs didn't vote on it,
> 
> b) It's additional funds available to allow constituency staff to work securely from home.


You're right, they didn't vote on it. But you do remember the expenses scandal, yes? The noses in the trough. The way they're talking now, all offended by the idea people might think they're taking advantage, laying it on thick about how it's their distressed constituents who will benefit. Makes me want to puke. To their credit, some MPs have stated that they won't be using it, just as some mps, and it was only a few, didn't previously abuse their expenses.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 15, 2020)

brogdale said:
			
		

> I really hope the coach drivers were genuine volunteers.
> 
> View attachment 197201





Sasaferrato said:


> That picture seems as if it is from a lifetime ago.



I get your point Sas, but the coach in that picture is 2015-registered ....


----------



## phillm (Apr 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Over EIGHT million now.


9 million quid now - if he keeps it up we might be able to buy a rocket motor on a Polaris nuclear missile  by the end of the week.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 15, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I get your point Sas, but the coach in that picture is 2015-registered ....



Stop being a bloody pedant William!


----------



## DexterTCN (Apr 15, 2020)

When are we going to address the haircut issue?


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 15, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> When are we going to address the haircut issue?



Had mine done last week. Mrs Sas with the clippers as always.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 15, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You're right, they didn't vote on it. But you do remember the expenses scandal, yes? The noses in the trough. The way they're talking now, all offended by the idea people might think they're taking advantage, laying it on thick about how it's their distressed constituents who will benefit. Makes me want to puke. To their credit, some MPs have stated that they won't be using it, just as some mps, and it was only a few, didn't previously abuse their expenses.



_shrug_ It wasn't me who managed two errors of fact in 12 words. You know what constituency staff do, right?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 15, 2020)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> _shrug_ It wasn't me who managed two errors of fact in 12 words. You know what constituency staff do, right?


I stand by characterising it as a bonus. If I was given an extra 10k expenses by my work to buy a load of kit for my home, I'd see that as a bonus. So they didn't actually vote on it. So what?

oink oink


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 15, 2020)

From the foot of the previous page of this thread (sorry) :



			
				Wilf said:
			
		

> To be fair, early on government themselves were responsible for using 'has a flu jab on medical advice' as a marker of vulnerability (and thus the 12 week self isolation).  I know that has changed with letters and lists of conditions, but you can see how it sticks in people's minds.





andysays said:


> Yeah, a couple of people I work with were sent home for that reason, then told they had to return to work a couple of weeks later when the advice changed.
> 
> They're regarded as more vulnerable than those without eg diabetes, but not extremely vulnerable.



There was quite a bit of early confusion about people categorised as vulnerable.
I'm in one of the *non*-extremely vulnerable categories (there's a fair few of the standard vulnerability conditions).
An early message that reached me online, that I didn't keep  and was subsequently unfindable, contained the flu-jab reference and stated that I'd need to be off work for twelve weeks.
I've been feeling in rude health all through (and I've been very careful too), so that long off work seemed embarassing.
But after telling my bosses that 12 weeks was being specified, that became their understanding when they sent me home on a Civil Service thing called 'special leave'.
Not long afterwards (on the Thursday before full lockdown came in, Monday 23rd March), all my CS colleagues were sent home.
When they're called back -- not soon, I'm sure --  I'll go back, even if that's before 'my twelve weeks' is up.
(The time will have to be agreed with PCS anyway)
(ETA later : *Apologies* -- the above was a bit too personal, more for the 'Pandemic personal consequences' thread really . Just responding to other posts earlier up, was all  )


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 15, 2020)

Jesus mothertwatting christ. They honestly don't see how offensive this is.



(Apologies if this has already been covered elsewhere, I did have a quick look.)


----------



## two sheds (Apr 15, 2020)

Perhaps a 'cunt' badge for tory mps


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 15, 2020)

Fuck me, it gets worse!



Hasn't realised it was supposed to identify all care workers so they the get the same 'perks' as NHS staff.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 15, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Perhaps a 'cunt' badge for tory mps


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 15, 2020)

Screw Matt Hancock bigging himself up over a  badge.

That's timewasting when he can't even manage to get top-standard PPE prioritised and distributed. 
And full testing of all workers prone to being exposed to the virus 

*Both* PPE and testing are what are really needed  for all careworkers and all NHS staff ...
I read somewhere today that the number of careworkers who've been tested is vastly lower than the number of NHS staff who've been tested, is that correct?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 15, 2020)

It's mad -_ that's_ what they've been doing with their time? Felt a lot like they just wanted to announce a BIG POSITIVE PROUD BADGE THING. 
I'm all for it if it means the difference, to the police, between distinguishing who's actually NHS and who isn't - since they seem to have struggled with that - but just look after people, eh, get the tests done, don't waste time on pointless shit.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 15, 2020)

Hancock being interviewed by Piers Morgan tomorrow morning. Could be .... interesting.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 15, 2020)

Lot of people upset with Morgan at the moment.

Apparently he's actually been doing a decent job of holding people to account, and they don't know what to do with that because he's usually such a twat


----------



## teqniq (Apr 15, 2020)

Indeed, things have taken a turn for the strange.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 16, 2020)

treelover said:


> I think it has military medical personel as well.
> 
> Was the 10 day build hospital in China fully utilised?





killer b said:


> Redeployment from other specialisms which aren't operating fully / at all due to covid 19 mostly I'd imagine.





Buddy Bradley said:


> Fully staffed with acupuncture specialists...




-Was the 10 day build hospital in China fully utilised?
-Redeployment from other specialisms which aren't operating fully / at all due to covid 19 mostly I'd imagine.
-Fully staffed with acupuncture specialists...


The series of posts went as quoted above. It looked to me like lazy bantz that amounted to “Chinese people do acupuncture”.

Why was acupuncture mentioned at all? It was completely out of the blue and had no bearing on the discussion.


Apologies if I read it wrongly, but it still makes no sense to have mentioned acupuncture.


NoXion
Cid


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2020)

Looks like we werent the only ones talking about this aspect ten day ago. 









						Warning as UK coronavirus outbreak leads to sharp rise in deaths at home
					

A&E chiefs believe many people who could be saved are too scared to go to hospital




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The minutes of the online meeting, held on Monday 6 April, said that “some patients [are] coming to harm as not coming in or being brought in”.
> 
> “Patients with conditions that are time critical re not presenting and concerns rising as to how we manage these patients, eg, no longer able to perform an open appendectomy [for an inflamed appendix],” they continue.
> 
> A&E doctors believe that many of the extra deaths from cardiac arrest are due to Covid-19 which, by making it difficult for someone to breathe, puts serious strain on their heart. “Of these 85 extra cardiac arrest deaths a day in London, they must be mainly Covid,” said the head of one A&E department


----------



## andysays (Apr 16, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It's mad -_ that's_ what they've been doing with their time? Felt a lot like they just wanted to announce a BIG POSITIVE PROUD BADGE THING.
> I'm all for it if it means the difference, to the police, between distinguishing *who's actually NHS and who isn't* - since they seem to have struggled with that - but just look after people, eh, get the tests done, don't waste time on pointless shit.



But ironically*, most care workers *don't* work for the NHS, because care work has been separated out and mostly privatised.

This crisis and the government's responses to it are making a strong argument that various services and industries which are currently run for private profit need to be run explicitly for the public good, with those working in them paid properly and with proper job security.

This crisis has been described somewhere as the current equivalent to WW11. It's not a perfect analogy, but it could inspire a reorganisation of society on a more social democratic model in a similar way. It's up to all of us to start pointing this out now, and to push for it once it's over.

*Ironically for Hancock, not having a go at you


----------



## kabbes (Apr 16, 2020)

This crisis and our leadership’s response has a better analogy in WW1.

“Over the top you go, cannon fodder.”


----------



## Cid (Apr 16, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> -Was the 10 day build hospital in China fully utilised?
> -Redeployment from other specialisms which aren't operating fully / at all due to covid 19 mostly I'd imagine.
> -Fully staffed with acupuncture specialists...
> 
> ...



I don't think treelover's post was relevant to that string, killer b quoted bimble who was talking about who would staff Nightingale hospitals... When the shit hits the fan complimentary therapies aren't good for much, which is what I read BB's post as implying. Could have been 'fully staffed with homeopaths etc'. I can see who it would be read the other way though.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 16, 2020)

.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 16, 2020)

Cid said:


> I don't think treelover's post was relevant to that string, killer b quoted bimble who was talking about who would staff Nightingale hospitals... When the shit hits the fan complimentary therapies aren't good for much, which is what I read BB's post as implying. Could have been 'fully staffed with homeopaths etc'. I can see who it would be read the other way though.


^^ This. I wasn't making any reference to anything Chinese, just a joke about NHS resources being redeployed. Don't know about homeopaths, but I have been offered acupuncture on the NHS. No need to get your knickers in a twist about it.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

Piers Morgan just absolutely destroyed Matt Hancock on good morning britain. I'm sure it will be posted later. Apparently the New Zealand prime minister has announced her government are all taking a 20% paycut. When asked if the UK would follow it was a flat 'No', despite him nailing footballers for not doing their bit. Which they actually have in most cases.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Lot of people upset with Morgan at the moment.
> 
> Apparently he's actually been doing a decent job of holding people to account, and they don't know what to do with that because he's usually such a twat



He's been doing a brilliant job actually. Without Cummings there the Govt is finally exposing cabinet ministers to him


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Piers Morgan just absolutely destroyed Matt Hancock on good morning britain. I'm sure it will be posted later. Apparently the New Zealand prime minister has announced her government are all taking a 20% paycut. When asked if the UK would follow it was a flat 'No', despite him nailing footballers for not doing their bit. Which they actually have in most cases.



In this country it's only people who aren't working who have had a 20% pay cut. You might not like how good they are at their jobs, but the government are continuing to work. I can't see any rationale for demanding they take a pay cut, unless perhaps you're a journalist looking to score cheap points. 

Piers Morgan is a twat.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> In this country it's only people who aren't working who have had a 20% pay cut. You might not like how good they are at their jobs, but the government are continuing to work. I can't see any rationale for demanding they take a pay cut, unless perhaps you're a journalist looking to score cheap points.
> 
> Piers Morgan is a twat.



Because he demanded footballers take a pay cut. Which they did.

As to your second point, yes he probably is, but hes a formidable interviewer. The government blocked cabinet ministers from GMB Monday to Wednesday as that's when he presents.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 16, 2020)

I didn’t think Morgan destroyed him at all.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 16, 2020)

TBF though, what practical good does it do for MPs to take a pay cut? That money wouldn't go anywhere near the NHS. It would be more relevant to be asking them about whether they are furloughing any of their constituency office staff, which was the issue at the root of the argument over footballers.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I didn’t think Morgan destroyed him at all.



That's just one clip. It was a long interview.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> That's just one clip. It was a long interview.


I watched it all.  Was expecting more from Morgan, don’t know what exactly but just more.


----------



## Ted Striker (Apr 16, 2020)

Morgan's been annoyingly good at pressing this shitshow Govt - It is currently the time of day he is stuck on.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2020)

Hancock: "I'm going to work every hour that there is". Sleep deprivation could be a problem


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 16, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> TBF though, what practical good does it do for MPs to take a pay cut? That money wouldn't go anywhere near the NHS. It would be more relevant to be asking them about whether they are furloughing any of their constituency office staff, which was the issue at the root of the argument over footballers.


They could donate 20% of their wage to various charities and other causes, most of which ironically wouldn't need as much support if the government had done their job in the first place.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> They could donate 20% of their wage to various charities and other causes, most of which ironically wouldn't need as much support if the government had done their job in the first place.



Good idea. Charities are utterly fucked right now and seem to have slipped through the cracks.

'We're all in this together'. Really Mr Hancock? New Zealand's only had 5 deaths or something. We've got 800 a day.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Hancock: "I'm going to work every hour that there is". Sleep deprivation could be a problem


Matt Hancock working could be a problem.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 16, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Matt Hancock working could be a problem.


Matt Hancock working certainly doesn't seem to have been working up to this point.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 16, 2020)

kabbes said:


> This crisis and our leadership’s response has a better analogy in WW1.
> 
> “Over the top you go, cannon fodder.”



I've been using that exact analogy in conversation with my partner.


----------



## Mation (Apr 16, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> ^^ This. I wasn't making any reference to anything Chinese, just a joke about NHS resources being redeployed. Don't know about homeopaths, but I have been offered acupuncture on the NHS. No need to get your knickers in a twist about it.


I'd probably have believed you had you not included that last sentence.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 16, 2020)

Mation said:


> I'd probably have believed you had you not included that last sentence.


Luckily I don't give a toss whether or not you believe me.


----------



## Mation (Apr 16, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Luckily I don't give a toss whether or not you believe me.


Clearly.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 16, 2020)

I thought our MP's got given an extra £10k to cope with the trauma of working from home?  The selfless servants of the people they are.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 16, 2020)




----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I thought our MP's got given an extra £10k to cope with the trauma of working from home?  The selfless servants of the people they are.



That was to buy a laptop (or ten) and get broadband. Coz most of them don't have either of those.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 16, 2020)




----------



## platinumsage (Apr 16, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> They could donate 20% of their wage to various charities and other causes, most of which ironically wouldn't need as much support if the government had done their job in the first place.



Surely they should be continuously judged on their record as a government, not on whether they acquiesce to having a drop in the ocean transferred to various charities? 

I reckon 20% of the salaries of the 50 government ministers can't be much more than 1 million. They announced the other day 250 million for charities involved with the response. The kudos they would get from that 1 million would be totally disproportionate and probably let them off the hook for a lot of other stuff.


----------



## NoXion (Apr 16, 2020)

It's disgusting that public money is still being spent on snake-oil bullshit like acupuncture. If you want some hippie to stick needles in random places on your body, you should pay for it entirely out of your own pocket.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> That was to buy a laptop (or ten) and get broadband. Coz most of them don't have either of those.


To be fair, it was for their offices as a whole, so their admin staff, etc. On a smaller scale, my work have been sending out company laptops and buying us all headsets; there are admin costs to switch to working from home.

Not saying they all need £10k, or that they'll all use it 'responsibly', but it's not like the individual MPs have just been given a £10k bonus to their salary.


platinumsage said:


> Surely they should be continuously judged on their record as a government, not on whether they acquiesce to having a drop in the ocean transferred to various charities?


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 16, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


>



You want to join Piers Morgan in campaigning for the government to give themselves a PR coup and deflect from the actual issues, go ahead.


----------



## Sue (Apr 16, 2020)

NoXion said:


> It's disgusting that public money is still being spent on snake-oil bullshit like acupuncture. If you want some hippie to stick needles in random places on your body, you should pay for it entirely out of your own pocket.


What has this got to do with the Nightingale hospitals?


----------



## teuchter (Apr 16, 2020)

Has Piers Morgan given away any of his salary or wealth?


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 16, 2020)

NoXion said:


> It's disgusting that public money is still being spent on snake-oil bullshit like acupuncture. If you want some hippie to stick needles in random places on your body, you should pay for it entirely out of your own pocket.



I'm of the opinion that if it works for some people than its a whole lot cheaper in the long run than the patient constantly presenting at their GP / hospital.  In this context the mechanism of how it works becomes less relevant.  Than again I also think GP's should be allowed to prescribe placebos so make of that what you will.

Anyway, we digress.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 16, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Has Piers Morgan given away any of his salary or wealth?



He certainly gave away a lot of the Mirror groups wealth when he was hacking peoples phones for fun.  Anyway, I continue to digress.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Has Piers Morgan given away any of his salary or wealth?



Yeh. He gave 10k away yesterday to that old man and was paying any parking fines from NHS staff who contacted him.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yeh. He gave 10k away yesterday to that old man and was paying any parking fines from NHS staff who contacted him.


i hope everyone in the NHS goes out and parks illegally today


----------



## keybored (Apr 16, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> i hope everyone in the NHS goes out and parks illegally today


Are traffic wardens still working? I know some were fairly recently (well after "lockdown" was first announced), which surprised me.


----------



## killer b (Apr 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Than again I also think GP's should be allowed to prescribe placebos so make of that what you will.


OT, but this is bullshit. Loads of people (women and minorities for the most part) already struggle to get GPs to take their undiagnosed but sometimes serious medical complaints seriously. Giving GPs the choice of giving them a placebo is a recipe for disaster.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 16, 2020)




----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 16, 2020)

I strongly agree with platinumsage .... I didn't see the Hancock interview, but focussing too much on a 10% rise for MPs and their staff runs the danger of over-focussing on populist bollocks at the expense of concentrating on care home deaths, PPE shortages, testing deficiencies.

All three of those are vastly more important than the MPs stuff**, IMO. To what extent did Morgan cover those subjects?

**I should emphasise that I'm not in any way defending what Partliament did, but that's a tabloid-type issue compared to the key Covid-19/NHS stuff


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 16, 2020)

keybored said:


> Are traffic wardens still working? I know some were fairly recently (well after "lockdown" was first announced), which surprised me.


it won't be traffic wardens giving out fines in hospital car parks


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 16, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it won't be traffic wardens giving out fines in hospital car parks



Correct -- car park company's security, usually ANPR-enabled


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I strongly agree with platinumsage .... I didn't see the Hancock interview, but focussing too much on a 10% rise for MPs and their staff runs the danger of over-focussing on populist bollocks at the expense of concentrating on care home deaths, PPE shortages, testing deficiencies.
> 
> All three of those are vastly more important than the MPs stuff**, IMO. To what extent did Morgan cover those subjects?
> 
> **I should emphasise that I'm not in any way defending what Partliament did, but that's a tabloid-type issue compared to the key Covid-19/NHS stuff



It's not a 10% rise, it's a 20% cut he was banging on about, which Hancock bollocked footballers for not taking. And they subsequently have. And refuses to take himself. Bit unfair to focus on footballers really IMO. What about cityboys?

And yes, he did focus on other stuff but Hancock is quite the master of bullshit.



Apparently we were one of the most prepared countries in the world!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I strongly agree with platinumsage .... I didn't see the Hancock interview, but focussing too much on a 10% rise for MPs and their staff runs the danger of over-focussing on populist bollocks at the expense of concentrating on care home deaths, PPE shortages, testing deficiencies.
> 
> All three of those are vastly more important than the MPs stuff**, IMO. To what extent did Morgan cover those subjects?
> 
> **I should emphasise that I'm not in any way defending what Partliament did, but that's a tabloid-type issue compared to the key Covid-19/NHS stuff


I agree to an extent, but the 10k extra expenses thing is symptomatic of a wider malaise - one of the speediest actions of parliament in a crisis is to make sure they have looked after themselves, and to be rather generous to themselves. The contrast with the NZ government's response is stark and revealing, imo.


----------



## keybored (Apr 16, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it won't be traffic wardens giving out fines in hospital car parks


You said "illegally" so I assumed you meant on public highways.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It's not a 10% rise, it's a 20% cut he was banging on about, which Hancock bollocked footballers for not taking. And they subsequently have. And refuses to take himself. Bit unfair to focus on footballers really IMO. What about cityboys?



To be fair, I do agree with this, Hancock's earlier footballers' stuff in particular was bollocks IMO.



> And yes, *he did focus on other stuff* but Hancock is quite the master of bullshit.



To what extent though?  
The three things I mentioned above (re NHS and care homes) should have been the absolute prime focus, I'd say.

But as I missed the interview   maybe I'm getting this wrong, please correct me if so.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 16, 2020)

keybored said:


> You said "illegally" so I assumed you meant on public highways.


i mispoke


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I agree to an extent, but the 10k extra expenses thing is symptomatic of a wider malaise - one of the speediest actions of parliament in a crisis is to make sure they have looked after themselves, and to be rather generous to themselves. The contrast with the NZ government's response is stark and revealing, imo.



Can't disagree, but I'm just resistant to the possibility that Morgan overfocussed on it, compared to the *really* important questions.


----------



## LDC (Apr 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> OT, but this is bullshit. Loads of people (women and minorities for the most part) already struggle to get GPs to take their undiagnosed but sometimes serious medical complaints seriously. Giving GPs the choice of giving them a placebo is a recipe for disaster.



Prescribing placebos makes no sense at all. What for? Imaginary illnesses? Illnesses that have no treatment or cure? Alongside the appropriate medication? It's just nonsense suggesting they should be prescribed. If you want a placebo go to a homeopath or some other quack.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> .  Than again I also think GP's should be allowed to prescribe placebos so make of that what you will.
> 
> Anyway, we digress.


Why?


----------



## strung out (Apr 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> OT, but this is bullshit. Loads of people (women and minorities for the most part) already struggle to get GPs to take their undiagnosed but sometimes serious medical complaints seriously. Giving GPs the choice of giving them a placebo is a recipe for disaster.


When my teetotal wife was struggling to get a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome diagnosis, her (white, middle aged, male) GP told her that she just needed to 'tough it out and go to the pub with your mates'. I shudder to think what would happen if people like him were given the power to prescribe placebos.


----------



## keybored (Apr 16, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



Audio here 
	
	



```
https://voca.ro/o2CrkdAL0FL
```
He starts stropping a couple of minutes before the end. I hope Morgan increased the pressure later.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I'm of the opinion that if it works for some people than its a whole lot cheaper in the long run than the patient constantly presenting at their GP / hospital.  In this context the mechanism of how it works becomes less relevant.  Than again I also think GP's should be allowed to prescribe placebos so make of that what you will.
> 
> Anyway, we digress.



I was going to post something similar (fewer side effects than drugs too) but thought I'd get too much shit for saying it.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 16, 2020)

Re: the Care badges. According to this it gets worse (not sure of the veracity of this site, anyone know would be appreciated).


----------



## killer b (Apr 16, 2020)

strung out said:


> When my teetotal wife was struggling to get a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome diagnosis, her (white, middle aged, male) GP told her that she just needed to 'tough it out and go to the pub with your mates'. I shudder to think what would happen if people like him were given the power to prescribe placebos.


yeah, it's a problem I've been aware of for years, but it was particularly painfully underlined last year when the gastro-intestinal issues mrs b had been trying to get her Dr to take seriously for a couple of years turned out to be cancer.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 16, 2020)

Burger King, KFC and Pret announce limited UK reopenings hmmm


----------



## manji (Apr 16, 2020)

Our hospital sold a bit of their land to one of the parasite companies ( Serco ?) the nurses had to use it . In was in hospital for 4 months last year and it was definitely run by Security Guards. Obviously they knew the staffs shift patterns and where a lot of nurses worked extra hours they would wait for them to be late coming back to the cars. And would fine . They had a limit of health workers they would fine each day to make it less obvious. Plus take turns to share the fine bonus around.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 16, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Why?



I should have qualified it with a statement about certain conditions only and when more traditional forms of treatment are failing.  But anyway I've seen numerous times people close to me put onto the merry go round of very often strong chemicals.  The full and only arsenal a GP has at their disposal.  Chemicals which in many cases cause quite serious side affects let alone the long term complications.  I've seen the damage this does to a person and exasperation of the GP as they just suggest another strong chemical that's come onto the market.

I've also seen how effective alternative treatments have had with people.  How homeopathy genuinely changed people's lives when the chemicals had failed.  How effective acupuncture has been.  In fact I've seen it happen an awful lot.

So, as someone, who errs always towards a more scientific approach I cannot square the circle of the efficacy of alternative medicine against its continual failure to pass any passing level of scientific rigor.  So my conclusion is that the placebo affect is very powerful yet its the one tool GP's are not allowed to use accept in this alternative sphere, which they then get attacked for.  So to my mind with a small handful of conditions if the traditional approach is failing where is the harm in trying alternative? And to that aim the placebo pill is as good as anything and even if it doesn't work it won't be adding to the long lasting and crippling damage the current approach is doing to some people.  How that placebo is delivered I'm less fussed about but pill format is simplest and works in homeopathy (though in reality its about the care of the consultation rather than the pill).  To my mind the other option is to just accept these alternative treatments work and stick them on the NHS.

I do take killer b point about how these things can and would be miused but it's weighing up pro's and cons.  I'll leave this here as its a major distraction but as you might of guessed this is very personal to me and I'd rather no more people close to me end up gibbering and shaking wrecks because of prescribed medicine which didn't do what it's supposed to do.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 16, 2020)

Oh dearie me:









						Watch Police Accuse a Man of 'Killing People' for Filming Them
					

It's the police lockdown power-trip of the week!




					www.vice.com


----------



## Aladdin (Apr 16, 2020)

editor said:


> SIX MILLION QUID!
> 
> Proper hero.
> 
> ...



He got a guard of honour today and he has now raised 13 million. 
Amazing.


----------



## LDC (Apr 16, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Burger King, KFC and Pret announce limited UK reopenings hmmm



Yeah, for some of that I was making the same 'hmmmm.' Mostly opening for delivery though and plenty of places already doing that.


----------



## Diatribe (Apr 16, 2020)

Not having perused a newspaper since the demise of Auberon Waugh in 2001, or viewed a television set since the 2005 Oval Test Match,  I can't help but wonder if the overwhelming urge for the now, not so huddled, masses to stock up on toilet paper was a direct result of their watching too much Sky news  which culminated in giving them the shits.

There are a litany of conflicting views and differing death rate statistics relating to the current Coronavirus  outbreak, with the only matter so called experts agreeing upon is that the casualties of the effects will far exceed those of the cause. During this recent mass hysteria generated by the media, has there been any mention of the circa 30,000 annual winter deaths  incurred by elderly UK citizens as a direct result of hyper inflated heating costs, the aforementioned not being inclusive of those having died of normal common colds.

As I understand the current rules of engagement mandated by the gov.  people should distance themselves from others by 2 meters. However, I have noticed that people are exaggeratedly crossing the street when approaching each other, or walking in the middle of the road to avoid potential contact. Is this an additional media recommendation, or is it merely a further self preservation precaution being practised as a result of fear being instilled by the aforementioned.

I actually find this latter practice to be a tad ironic, particularly in the vein that people are normally so fixated talking puerile detritus on their phones , they don't see a foot in front of them, thereby causing one to take evasive action to avoid bumping into them. Perhaps the old adage  ''Every cloud has a silver lining'' has some merit after all.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 16, 2020)




----------



## NoXion (Apr 16, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> There are a litany of conflicting views and differing death rate statistics relating to the current Coronavirus  outbreak, with the only matter so called experts agreeing upon is that the casualties of the effects will far exceed those of the cause. During this recent mass hysteria generated by the media, has there been any mention of the circa 30,000 annual winter deaths  incurred by elderly UK citizens as a direct result of hyper inflated heating costs, the aforementioned not being inclusive of those having died of normal common colds.



The Covid deaths are happening on top of those things you mention. There's no conflicting views regarding the immense pressure that it is putting on the NHS.


----------



## spitfire (Apr 16, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Not having perused a newspaper since the demise of Auberon Waugh in 2001, or viewed a television set since the 2005 Oval Test Match,  I can't help but wonder if the overwhelming urge for the now, not so huddled, masses to stock up on toilet paper was a direct result of their watching too much Sky news  which culminated in giving them the shits.
> 
> There are a litany of conflicting views and differing death rate statistics relating to the current Coronavirus  outbreak, with the only matter so called experts agreeing upon is that the casualties of the effects will far exceed those of the cause. During this recent mass hysteria generated by the media, has there been any mention of the circa 30,000 annual winter deaths  incurred by elderly UK citizens as a direct result of hyper inflated heating costs, the aforementioned not being inclusive of those having died of normal common colds.
> 
> ...



2 metres *minimum* innit mate.


----------



## killer b (Apr 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I should have qualified it with a statement about certain conditions only and when more traditional forms of treatment are failing.  But anyway I've seen numerous times people close to me put onto the merry go round of very often strong chemicals.  The full and only arsenal a GP has at their disposal.  Chemicals which in many cases cause quite serious side affects let alone the long term complications.  I've seen the damage this does to a person and exasperation of the GP as they just suggest another strong chemical that's come onto the market.
> 
> I've also seen how effective alternative treatments have had with people.  How homeopathy genuinely changed people's lives when the chemicals had failed.  How effective acupuncture has been.  In fact I've seen it happen an awful lot.
> 
> ...


I agree that strong chemicals shouldn't be a first resort for lots of conditions - I too know people who've ended up on a similar merry-go-round, mostly via anti-depressants. But it's a resource problem as much as anything else - when doctors inappropriately prescribe ADs, they do so not because they love doling out pills, but because that's the only immediately available - and affordable - course of action they have. They could refer you on for a 6 week course of CBT (starting in 6 months), or they could give you a course of SSRIs. Possibly ruinous in the long run, but you can see how it happens - people end  up at the dr when they are in crisis, not when they have 6 months to wait.

The placebo effect is poorly understood, and as you recognise may have as much to do with the care given during the consultation as anything else - does giving overworked and under-resourced GPs another way of saying _here's some pills - next patient please_ really make you think this would be effectively harnessing the power of placebo? It's just another sticking plaster - what's needed isn't sugar pills, it's more GPs, better and more accessible psych services, etc etc.


----------



## editor (Apr 16, 2020)

I think we're going to lose a lot of pubs and venues when this is over Campaigners urges pub companies to cancel rent during the coronavirus crisis


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, for some of that I was making the same 'hmmmm.' Mostly opening for delivery though and plenty of places already doing that.


Yeh tbh if it reduces pressure on supermarkets it might not be bad


----------



## treelover (Apr 16, 2020)

Morgan has had his moments, the Daily Mirror fully backed the Iraq war protests during his tenure, I think he lost his job over some point of principle as well, might be wrong.


----------



## treelover (Apr 16, 2020)

editor said:


> I think we're going to lose a lot of pubs and venues when this is over Campaigners urges pub companies to cancel rent during the coronavirus crisis



0ne of my carers also works in local pub, both her and her work colleagues think they will just go back there when it opens, i'm not so sure.


----------



## treelover (Apr 16, 2020)

little_legs said:


>





crass that even for them, five weeks in the house is not the same as six years of war

though ofd course there have been many casualties, RIP.


----------



## Diatribe (Apr 16, 2020)

[QUOTE="NoXion, post: 16499861, member: 25664" There's no conflicting views regarding the immense pressure that it is putting on the NHS.
[/QUOTE]

Do you think that is because this island, the size of a postage stamp is grossly overpopulated. After all, when the NHS was introduced in 1948, the pop. of the UK was circa 48, as opposed to the circa 66 million of today.

Canada and Australia have populations of circa 38 and 25 million respectively,  both countries containing a land mass where the UK could be deposited and never found. I am of course exaggerating to prove a point, no doubt some intrepid explorer a la Captain James Cook would one day happen across it.


----------



## DotCommunist (Apr 16, 2020)

treelover said:


> Morgan has had his moments, the Daily Mirror fully backed the Iraq war protests during his tenure, I think he lost his job over some point of principle as well, might be wrong.



It was over the faked photos of british forces abusing detainees not long after the abu grhaib prisoner abuse pics came out.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Prescribing placebos makes no sense at all. What for? Imaginary illnesses? Illnesses that have no treatment or cure? Alongside the appropriate medication? It's just nonsense suggesting they should be prescribed. If you want a placebo go to a homeopath or some other quack.



Are you saying the placebo effect doesn't work?


----------



## NoXion (Apr 16, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Do you think that is because this island, the size of a postage stamp is grossly overpopulated. After all, when the NHS was introduced in 1948, the pop. of the UK was circa 48, as opposed to the circa 66 million of today.
> 
> Canada and Australia have populations of circa 38 and 25 million respectively,  both countries containing a land mass where the UK could be deposited and never found. I am of course exaggerating to prove a point, no doubt some intrepid explorer a la Captain James Cook would one day happen across it.



Population density has nothing to do with it. Hong Kong have managed deal with this outbreak better than the UK, and they have a greater density of people stuffed into a smaller space.


----------



## LDC (Apr 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Are you saying the placebo effect doesn't work?



It 'works' as you say (although quite how you can use that word I'm not sure) in a very, very limited way, and not in a way that means people should be prescribing placebos for people that are actually ill.

Anyway, this and similar such nonsense is a derail on the thread, let's not go into it here.


----------



## NoXion (Apr 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Are you saying the placebo effect doesn't work?



If it really worked, then we'd have crystal therapists instead of oncologists working the cancer wards.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Do you think that is because this island, the size of a postage stamp is grossly overpopulated. After all, when the NHS was introduced in 1948, the pop. of the UK was circa 48, as opposed to the circa 66 million of today.


No agenda here. Nosirree. Totally innocent question.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 16, 2020)

editor said:


> I think we're going to lose a lot of pubs and venues when this is over Campaigners urges pub companies to cancel rent during the coronavirus crisis



That list in this article about OK landlords (almost all actual breweries) and bad landlords (many of them evil pubcos like Punch Taverns) is very telling


----------



## Diatribe (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> No agenda here. Nosirree. Totally innocent question.




No agenda whatsosever, littlebabyjesus, I was merely making an observation whilst asking a salient question.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 16, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Re: the Care badges. According to this it gets worse (not sure of the veracity of this site, anyone know would be appreciated).



Yup, it's taken from the badge's website:


> Badges cost £1.20 each including VAT and there is a minimum order size of 100, with a choice of three fixing styles; butterfly pin, magnetic and brooch to suit both care and non-care settings.
> ...
> *How much of what’s raised goes to charity?*
> Between 30p and 45p in the £1.20 (inc VAT) is distributed to charities, depending upon the mix of fastening types chosen (for example magnetic fastenings are more expensive than butterfly), as well as postage and taxes.
> ...


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2020)

NoXion said:


> If it really worked, then we'd have crystal therapists instead of oncologists working the cancer wards.



Who's saying it works for cancer? Pure strawman. 

And you know it's been tested more times than all the drugs on the market combined. If it didn't work they wouldn't test drugs against it. 

But ok is a derail.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I thought our MP's got given an extra £10k to cope with the trauma of working from home?  The selfless servants of the people they are.



The poor lambs are only on 80k


----------



## NoXion (Apr 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Who's saying it works for cancer? Pure strawman.



I take it you've never heard any of those stories of people dying after deciding that quackery is better than medicine.









						Jessica Ainscough - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




People who use such nonsense die more than those who don't:









						'Alternative cancer therapies' may increase your risk of death
					






					www.nhs.uk
				












						Cancer patients who choose alternative medicine die sooner, study finds
					

Complementary therapies may sound good, but they don't cure cancer.




					www.nbcnews.com
				






> And you know it's been tested more times than all the drugs on the market combined. If it didn't work they wouldn't test drugs against it.



Placebo isn't a treatment. It's literally meant to be all the trappings and appearance of treatment, without actually having any clinical effects. Sugar pills. Water.

Placebo "works" because there is such a thing as regression to the mean. Cancers do go into remission. People recover on their own. But if you want effective medicine, then whatever you're testing must do better than that.


----------



## editor (Apr 16, 2020)

Awesome logic 











						Weekly round of applause for NHS staff – as it happened
					

Applause takes place after Dominic Raab leads meetings on Covid-19 physical distancing measures




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Hollis (Apr 16, 2020)

editor said:


> SIX MILLION QUID!
> 
> Proper hero.
> 
> ...



I don't dispute for a minute the good intention behind this, and I donated myself afew days ago... There are several things about it that make me less than totally comfortable... NHS should not be relying on charity funding for what are core services, and also a number of NHS charities are already sitting on millions and millions of investments.


----------



## editor (Apr 16, 2020)

Hollis said:


> I don't dispute for a minute the good intention behind this, and I donated myself afew days ago... There are several things about it that make me less than totally comfortable... NHS should not be relying in charity funding for what are core services, and also a number of NHS charities are allready sitting on millions and millions of investments.


Fourteen million quid now.

What a brilliant swansong for the guy.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 16, 2020)

editor said:


> Awesome logic
> 
> View attachment 207097
> 
> ...


im sure there is lots of logic there, thats the worrying bit - i would like to know what specifically they had in mind. Crash out Brexit here we come?


----------



## andysays (Apr 16, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




If they really think it's important to try to ease the restrictions before May 8th, just because it's the 75th fucking anniversary of VE day, then we truly are all doomed.


----------



## LDC (Apr 16, 2020)

Hollis said:


> I don't dispute for a minute the good intention behind this, and I donated myself afew days ago... There are several things about it that make me less than totally comfortable... NHS should not be relying on charity funding for what are core services, and also a number of NHS charities are already sitting on millions and millions of investments.



Yeah, while I don't dispute he's probably a great bloke and it's a good effort the whole thing makes me a bit angry and pissed off the way it's being covered in the media and the fawning it's getting. Ditto with some of coverage and stuff over clapping.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2020)

NoXion said:


> I take it you've never heard any of those stories of people dying after deciding that quackery is better than medicine.



Of course I'm not suggesting anything like that. People do all sorts of shit to themselves but I'm talking about in GP environment and has to be suitably prescribed. If people have life-threatening or painful or degenerative illnesses you obviously wouldn't use it.



> Placebo isn't a treatment modality. It's literally meant to be all the trappings and appearance of treatment, without actually having any clinical effects. Sugar pills. Water.



Quite. The mind believes the body is being treated and in some way that in itself can bring remission.



> Placebo "works" because there is such a thing as regression to the mean. Cancers do go into remission. People recover on their own. But if you want effective medicine, then whatever you're testing must do better than that.



But using placebos has more of an effect than no treatment at all. If placebos didn't "work" then drugs wouldn't be tested against them. In a certain percentage of people placebos are effective.

We don't know that it's purely regression to the mean. For example, even the colour of drugs can have an effect (first sentence of quote below), which would suggest there's something deeper going on:









						Effect of colour of drugs: systematic review of perceived effect of drugs and of their effectiveness.
					

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of the colour of a drug's formulation on its perceived effect and its effectiveness and to examine whether antidepressant drugs available in the Netherlands are different in colour from hypnotic, sedative, and anxiolytic ...




					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
				






> CONCLUSIONS: Colours affect the perceived action of a drug and seem to influence the effectiveness of a drug. Moreover, a relation exists between the colouring of drugs that affect the central nervous system and the indications for which they are used. Research contributing to a better understanding of the effect of the colour of drugs is warranted.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, while I don't dispute he's probably a great bloke and it's a good effort the whole thing makes me a bit angry and pissed off the way it's being covered in the media and the fawning it's getting. Ditto with some of coverage and stuff over clapping.


Yep, it's one of those things with a dual (or multiple) meaning. At one level, clapping and donating, the odd free coffee is great. It's a way of saying thanks to people who are stressed and risking their own health. But even at that level I'd be happier if care workers and supermarket workers were included in the same warm fuzzy feeling. At the other level, it's an ideological fog, a pretence that the government and the odd billionaire who has chipped a few quid in are on board with the idea of publicly funded health and wellbeing, when they've done nothing but destroy that idea. 

I've no idea how long the fuzzy feeling will last and how much it will restrict the ability of johnson et al to further fragment public services and allow US firms into the drugs market. Whatever happens next will largely depend on what is left of the economy. However, leopards don't change their ideological spots. Fuck 'em.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> No agenda here. Nosirree. Totally innocent question.


Yeah, I got a whiff of "" off this one...


----------



## existentialist (Apr 16, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> No agenda whatsosever, littlebabyjesus, I was merely making an observation whilst asking a salient question.


Course you were.


----------



## lefteri (Apr 16, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Do you think that is because this island, the size of a postage stamp is grossly overpopulated. After all, when the NHS was introduced in 1948, the pop. of the UK was circa 48, as opposed to the circa 66 million of today.



The UK is not overpopulated, there is an argument that the population could be better spread out i suppose, given that so little of the land mass is built on

japan, to take one example, has double the population on 150% of the area of the UK and has much more challenging terrain for habitation meaning that most of the people are situated in dense urban areas - i wouldn’t call japan ‘overpopulated’ either


----------



## NoXion (Apr 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Of course I'm not suggesting anything like that. It obviously People do all sorts of shit to themselves but I'm talking about in GP environment and has to be suitably prescribed. If people have life-threatening or painful or degenerative illnesses you obviously wouldn't use it.



There is no such thing as "suitably prescribing" quackery. That's for medicine. The fact that most people don't use that kind of bullshit for anything serious should be a massive clue as to the real nature of it.



> Quite. The mind believes the body is being treated and in some way that in itself can bring remission.
> 
> But using placebos has more of an effect than no treatment at all.



Only for the kinds of complaints that tend to go away on their own in the first place. Headaches and such, not things like leukemia or broken bones. Even then, the "effectiveness" is less than 50%. That's rubbish.



> If placebos didn't "work" then drugs wouldn't be tested against them. In a certain percentage of people placebos are effective.



There's no reason to believe that the recovery has anything to do with the placebo itself, as opposed to coincidence. Ruling that out is the entire point of using placebos is as part of a control group; subjects get all the pomp and ceremony _except_ for the treatment being tested.



> We don't know that it's purely regression to the mean. For example, even the colour of drugs can have an effect (first sentence of quote below), which would suggest there's something deeper going on:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



How is that relevant? The studies referenced weren't investigating placebos.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 16, 2020)

FFS, can we keep this important thread on fucking topic?


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2020)

It's difficult when the responses are packed with insults but yeh fair enough I'll let it go.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yep, it's one of those things with a dual (or multiple) meaning. At one level, clapping and donating, the odd free coffee is great. It's a way of saying thanks to people who are stressed and risking their own health. But even at that level I'd be happier if care workers and supermarket workers were included in the same warm fuzzy feeling. At the other level, it's an ideological fog, a pretence that the government and the odd billionaire who has chipped a few quid in are on board with the idea of publicly funded health and wellbeing, when they've done nothing but destroy that idea.
> 
> I've no idea how long the fuzzy feeling will last and how much it will restrict the ability of johnson et al to further fragment public services and allow US firms into the drugs market. Whatever happens next will largely depend on what is left of the economy. However, leopards don't change their ideological spots. Fuck 'em.



Yep. Whenever I hear how much a billionaire has donated to this, that or the other, my first response is invariably 'is that all?'


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Yeah, I got a whiff of "" off this one...


Fucking stench. 2 metres isn't far away enough.


----------



## Diatribe (Apr 16, 2020)

lefteri said:


> The UK is not overpopulated,



It is with regards to the NHS whose resources haven't kept pace with the dramatic increase in the population. The great British public consider the NHS to be sacrosanct,  therefore it cannot be consigned to the annals of history overnight, nevertheless, as has been the case with civil liberties, it is being disassembled./run down piecemeal.

One only has to look at the significant rise in the private healthcare sector to perceive where successive govs. over the past 30 odd yrs. are heading. Prior to this, it would have been unthinkable for an ordinary person to consider taking out private healthcare insurance, now its a common place occurrence.  The likes of Harley St. physicians would have been the preserve of the rich and famous, most notably the monarchy and their entourage, paid for of course by the peasants, now its anyone above the rank of dish washer who can afford the insurance premiums. People are being given incentives and covertly coerced into patronising the private healthcare sector.

The NHS used to be up there with the best healthcare systems on the planet, now its way, way down the list, despite the dedication of its staff, some of whom are also employed in the private sector.


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 16, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> It is with regards to the NHS whose resources haven't kept pace with the dramatic increase of the population. The great British public consider the NHS to be sacrosanct,  therefore it cannot be consigned to the annals of history overnight, nevertheless, as has been the case with civil liberties, it is being disassembled./run down piecemeal.
> 
> One only has to look at the significant rise in the private healthcare sector to perceive where successive govs. over the past 30 odd yrs. are heading. Prior to this, it would have been unthinkable for an ordinary person to consider taking out private healthcare insurance, now its a common place occurrence.  The likes of Harley St. physicians would have been the preserve of the rich and famous, most notably the monarchy and their entourage, paid for of course by the peasants, now its anyone above the rank of dish washer who can afford the insurance premiums. People are being given incentives and covertly coerced into patronising the private healthcare sector.
> 
> The NHS used to be up there with the best healthcare system on the planet, now its way, way down the list, despite the dedication of its staff, some of whom are also employed in the private sector.



Idiot. Underfunding something doesnt make a country overpopulated.


----------



## NoXion (Apr 16, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> It is with regards to the NHS whose resources haven't kept pace with the dramatic increase of the population. The great British public consider the NHS to be sacrosanct,  therefore it cannot be consigned to the annals of history overnight, nevertheless, as has been the case with civil liberties, it is being disassembled./run down piecemeal.
> 
> One only has to look at the significant rise in the private healthcare sector to perceive where successive govs. over the past 30 odd yrs. are heading. Prior to this, it would have been unthinkable for an ordinary person to consider taking out private healthcare insurance, now its a common place occurrence.  The likes of Harley St. physicians would have been the preserve of the rich and famous, most notably the monarchy and their entourage, paid for of course by the peasants, now its anyone above the rank of dish washer who can afford the insurance premiums. People are being given incentives and covertly coerced into patronising the private healthcare sector.
> 
> The NHS used to be up there with the best healthcare system on the planet, now its way, way down the list, despite the dedication of its staff, some of whom are also employed in the private sector.



That's because the NHS is being starved of resources by Tory and Blairite cunts. If more people are choosing to go private as a result, then that's all part of the plan as far they're concerned.


----------



## LDC (Apr 16, 2020)

At least 3 more weeks of lockdown at this level just been announced. No surprise, but there we go.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 16, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Population density has nothing to do with it. Hong Kong have managed deal with this outbreak better than the UK, and they have a greater density of people stuffed into a smaller space.



I think population density does come into play but only if you've fucked your response.  London and New York being great examples.  I can't see anywhere (hopefully) in the UK being hit as hard as London even on a per capita basis.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> At least 3 more weeks of lockdown at this level just been announced. No surprise, but there we go.



At the very minimum.  Still strapping myself in for end of May.


----------



## bimble (Apr 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> At least 3 more weeks of lockdown at this level just been announced. No surprise, but there we go.


I’m relieved to see this. Really didn’t trust them not to just wing it and see what happens or try to save money by sending a bunch of people back to work next week.


----------



## treelover (Apr 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> At least 3 more weeks of lockdown at this level just been announced. No surprise, but there we go.



I think mental health issues will come to the fore now, my friends son,a M/H practioner says it has been unusually quiet, but I reckon now things change.


----------



## treelover (Apr 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> At the very minimum.  Still strapping myself in for end of May.



So hardly any summer, then its back to grey days, massive depression, this will impact on MH.


----------



## andysays (Apr 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> At the very minimum.  Still strapping myself in for end of May.


Nah mate, it'll be over before May 8th because...








... VE Day


----------



## LDC (Apr 16, 2020)

treelover said:


> So hardly any summer, then its back to grey days, massive depression, this will impact on MH.



No other option though.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2020)

treelover said:


> So hardly any summer, then its back to grey days, massive depression, this will impact on MH.



Lovely spring so far though


----------



## flypanam (Apr 16, 2020)

andysays said:


> Nah mate, it'll be over before May 8th because...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


VE and VC19 day


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

So three weeks time is a bank holiday i think?

there's no fucking way they'll let us loose on a bank holiday.


----------



## killer b (Apr 16, 2020)

andysays said:


> Nah mate, it'll be over before May 8th because...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


nope, we'll all have to stand on our doorsteps waving union flags singing _we'll meet again_.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Apr 16, 2020)

Score. Got some eggs. Still no flour though, can you make bread with oats?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

Walking around London this week, loads of construction work and road work has restarted this week, and the roads are definitely busier with cars and vans - roofers, scaffolders and others back to it. Lockdown may have been extended, but it is definitely changed this week back to something like it was in the first week. Parks still empty, people still observing social distancing impeccably almost universally. People that is who aren't working. Construction/road workers, as in the first week, not so much.


----------



## Supine (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So three weeks time is a bank holiday i think?
> 
> there's no fucking way they'll let us loose on a bank holiday.



The mood music from today's breifing is a start to relax some measures at some point. Don't make any expectations that all measures will be relaxed on one day. Most likely schools will open or something while pubs and clubs remain shut for quiet some time.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 16, 2020)

treelover said:


> I think mental health issues will come to the fore now, my friends son,a M/H practioner says it has been unusually quiet, but I reckon now things change.


That is pretty much the canonical view within the mental health practitioner community. There will be a lot of pent-up demand, plus the fallout from a sustained period of strangeness and anxiety.

My lot are gearing up to be able to respond effectively when that happens, but a lot depends on funding, and health boards are not famous for their gung-ho approach to mental health resourcing.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

Supine said:


> The mood music from today's breifing is a start to relax some measures at some point. Don't make any expectations that all measures will be relaxed on one day. Most likely schools will open or something while pubs and clubs remain shut for quiet some time.



There'll still be utter chaos if they relax social distancing. Even I think letting the British public loose for the first time in 2 months on (a possibly) sunny bank holiday weekend might not be the wisest decision to take. But then this government's not exactly been noted for its wisdom during this!


----------



## existentialist (Apr 16, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Score. Got some eggs. Still no flour though, can you make bread with oats?


You'll have to mill them to meal, and what you will get is a very heavy, dense bread.

A trick you could try, if you're urban, is - go to one of those Indian minimarts, and you should be able to get chapati flour - or possibly even white flour, which if it's for flatbreads and the like should be strong enough for breadmaking.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> There'll still be utter chaos if they relax social distancing. Even I think letting the British public loose for the first time in 2 months on (a possibly) sunny bank holiday weekend might not be the wisest decision to take. But then this government's not exactly been noted for its wisdom during this!


No country is just relaxing everything at once. It will still be work from home if you can, some shops but not all to be reopened, pubs shut, no big groups, no gigs, no theatre, etc. 

But we'll see. Having started so late, and being so behind on its curve, the UK will have the advantage of seeing how other places fare with their relaxation measures first. I suspect that might even be one of the motivations for this length of extension - it's just about enough time to evaluate any negative impacts of relaxation in other countries such as Austria and Spain.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Walking around London this week, loads of construction work and road work has restarted this week, and the roads are definitely busier with cars and vans - roofers, scaffolders and others back to it. Lockdown may have been extended, but it is definitely changed this week back to something like it was in the first week. Parks still empty, people still observing social distancing impeccably almost universally. People that is who aren't working. Construction/road workers, as in the first week, not so much.


I took a walk out and about for a bit today, holy fuck, social distancing me arse.  

Shops only letting 2 people in at a time no chance, 2m between those waiting outside no chance.  Local park had groups of people.  Streets had groups of kids.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I took a walk out and about for a bit today, holy fuck, social distancing me arse.
> 
> Shops only letting 2 people in at a time no chance, 2m between those waiting outside no chance.  Local park had groups of people.  Streets had groups of kids.


Interesting. Not like that around me. Is this a change from last week? The most noticeable thing for me today was the amount of building work now going. Most of it has restarted from what I can see.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 16, 2020)

A couple of things I picked up on today wrt Covid-19:

Men are much more likely to die than women. 

And BAME people are also more likely to die.

But so far no one knows why.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Interesting. Not like that around me. Is this a change from last week? The most noticeable thing for me today was the amount of building work now going. Most of it has restarted from what I can see.


Didn’t seem to be fully adhered to from the off around here but today was noticeably different.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Interesting. Not like that around me. Is this a change from last week? The most noticeable thing for me today was the amount of building work now going. Most of it has restarted from what I can see.



Yeh, it's nothing like that around me either. You see the odd group of idiot teenagers standing around probably believing they're invincible but that's about it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> And BAME people are also more likely to die.
> 
> But so far no one knows why.


The first thing you need to do is eliminate certain confounding factors - firstly, to correct for social class and kind of housing, second to correct for type of job (BAME heavily represented in transport and NHS, for instance). Have you seen anything that does this?


----------



## editor (Apr 16, 2020)

Gibberish. And I'm getting fed up finding myself in agreement with Piers fucking Morgan.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yeh, it's nothing like that around me either. You see the odd group of idiot teenagers standing around probably believing they're invincible but that's about it.


Yeah, that's exactly how I'd characterise things around me. tbh I would probably have been one of those idiot teenagers.


----------



## xes (Apr 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> A couple of things I picked up on today wrt Covid-19:
> 
> Men are much more likely to die than women.
> 
> ...


Back to ACE2 levels again. I vaguely remember a chart with ACE2 levels by race and that showed that there was a difference between the races and the levels of ACE2 receptors. I have no idea how valid it was, and at the time called whoever posted it several cunts as it was at the time where the fuckwits were saying that it's only affecting Asian people. (because the outbreak was in fucking China, but that had nothing to do with it, noooo)


----------



## killer b (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Interesting. Not like that around me. Is this a change from last week? The most noticeable thing for me today was the amount of building work now going. Most of it has restarted from what I can see.


It looked pretty busy out today to me, lots of (small) groups. I don't think I'm in a position to assess this very accurately though, and I'm certainly in no position to assess whether people in a small group live together or not.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The first thing you need to do is eliminate certain confounding factors - firstly, to correct for social class and kind of housing, second to correct for type of job (BAME heavily represented in transport and NHS, for instance). Have you seen anything that does this?



BAME are also disproportionately represented in type 2 diabetes and heart disease (which is possibly related to 'social class') . Neither of which exactly help dealing with their recovery.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Apr 16, 2020)

existentialist said:


> You'll have to mill them to meal, and what you will get is a very heavy, dense bread.
> 
> A trick you could try, if you're urban, is - go to one of those Indian minimarts, and you should be able to get chapati flour - or possibly even white flour, which if it's for flatbreads and the like should be strong enough for breadmaking.



Probably won't go anywhere far as I am on the danger list, and I don't want to ask the wife to go anywhere out of her comfort zone (which is currently tesco metro and waitrose).


----------



## weltweit (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The first thing you need to do is eliminate certain confounding factors - firstly, to correct for social class and kind of housing, second to correct for type of job (BAME heavily represented in transport and NHS, for instance). Have you seen anything that does this?


I think the BAME thing is international, I have seen news items on this from New York, Chicago and other places in the US. The men dying more than women I heard on the UK radio today, don't know if it is international.



xes said:


> Back to ACE2 levels again. I vaguely remember a chart with ACE2 levels by race and that showed that there was a difference between the races and the levels of ACE2 receptors. I have no idea how valid it was, and at the time called whoever posted it several cunts as it was at the time where the fuckwits were saying that it's only affecting Asian people. (because the outbreak was in fucking China, but that had nothing to do with it, noooo)


If you come across it again please post it. You don't recall which publication it was do you?


----------



## little_legs (Apr 16, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I took a walk out and about for a bit today, holy fuck, social distancing me arse.
> 
> Shops only letting 2 people in at a time no chance, 2m between those waiting outside no chance.  Local park had groups of people.  Streets had groups of kids.


Sounds familiar. The majority of people in my area don’t give two shits about social distancing. I get the impression that people are either completely oblivious or actually don’t know what’s going on.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> BAME are also disproportionately represented in type 2 diabetes and heart disease (which is possibly related to 'social class') . Neither of which exactly help dealing with their recovery.


It is related to social class, among other things. Most chronic illnesses are. 

I don't know the answer, but all these things need to be eliminated first before you can see whether race is a causative factor, because on the face of it, given the enormous variation in genetic makeup of 'BAME' (much more varied than within the 'white' population), that's not the first answer I'd be suspecting to be true.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 16, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Probably won't go anywhere far as I am on the danger list, and I don't want to ask the wife to go anywhere out of her comfort zone (which is currently tesco metro and waitrose).


Ah, OK. It is frustrating - both times I've been to Tesco the flour shelves have been bare. I've got about 750g of Lidl white bread flour left, and that's my lot. Oh, and the chapati flour - I might try baking a loaf with that, just out of curiosity.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I think the BAME thing is international, I have seen news items on this from New York, Chicago and other places in the US. The men dying more than women I heard on the UK radio today, don't know if it is international.


afaik men dying more than women is universal everywhere. Probably is something to do with a genetic difference, given how it is a pattern across cultures.

But I'd be very surprised if black people in the US were not being hit harder by this on average than the general population if you're only measuring people by their race, for purely non-genetic reasons.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Lovely spring so far though


Yeah, must admit I've been on more walks in the sun than I ever did at this time of year. All round the streets here, so a bit monotonous, but still. All of which has been good for my dodgy joints/conditions. So far at least the MH toll for me personally hasn't been as bad as I expected.  Not great being stuck in and having no sense of direction (I'm working from home, but that's just same old shit in a different package, not a sense of direction), but I expected it to be worse. 

Same time, there will be lots of people who are too scared to go out, haven't got their carers, experiencing very bad MH. And indirectly, that's another way in which the crisis plays out along class lines.  My Mum's stuck in a care home with a potentially fractured hip and the 111 doc won't let her into hospital for an xray*, along with having Parkinson's and dementia. So that's not so great.   

* Maybe for good reasons.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 16, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I took a walk out and about for a bit today, holy fuck, social distancing me arse.
> 
> Shops only letting 2 people in at a time no chance, 2m between those waiting outside no chance.  Local park had groups of people.  Streets had groups of kids.



No idea where you live, but this is the complete opposite to what's happening here, in Worthing, even the smallest shops are operating a 'one out, one in' policy, and everyone outside are at least 2m apart.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 16, 2020)

editor said:


> Gibberish. And I'm getting fed up finding myself in agreement with Piers fucking Morgan.



Some rather tougher questions than Hancock gets at the daily press briefing. 

Why has no one asked Hancock how many tests were done today?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> afaik men dying more than women is universal everywhere. Probably is something to do with a genetic difference, given how it is a pattern across cultures.





littlebabyjesus said:


> But I'd be very surprised if black people in the US were not being hit harder by this on average than the general population if you're only measuring people by their race, for purely non-genetic reasons.


They are, NY Chicago and New Orleans all have had press reports citing these differences in death rates. Sometimes the articles have tried to explain in terms of prevalent underlying health issues like high blood pressure or diabetes or socio economic factors .. some articles just mentioned the stats and didn't try to explain them.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Some rather tougher questions than Hancock gets at the daily press briefing.
> 
> Why has no one asked Hancock how many tests were done today?



These guys get a very easy ride at the daily press conferences. The US media gives Trump more shit at his than the kittens Raab has to deal with.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 16, 2020)

I read some police ground rules earlier which said you could drive short distances to go for walks. The qualifier was the walk should be a lot longer than the time taken to drive to the place. Hadn't seen that before. So, on one level we've got major restrictions in place in terms of work, pubs, restaurants, sport etc. But in reality, provided you don't do anything dickish you've really got the opportunity to go out a couple of times a day and even go for short drives. Realise that's NOT the actual policy, but it is something most people could easily get away with if they wanted.

I'm genuinely unsure whether that makes it a 'commonsense lockdown' or whether it's already a bit too frilly round the edges.  Sometimes the problem with frilly ragged things is not how messy they are now, but whether the original ragged edges allow full on unravelling later.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Apr 16, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Ah, OK. It is frustrating - both times I've been to Tesco the flour shelves have been bare. I've got about 750g of Lidl white bread flour left, and that's my lot. Oh, and the chapati flour - I might try baking a loaf with that, just out of curiosity.


Well bread itself is actually available, but I want to make my own, plus I also use flour fairly often for making a roux. 
I guess in this lockdown situation we have more time to bake. . . and it's quite nice. Seems crazy that I've seen no flour in the shops for four weeks or more now. I was lucky to have two bags in the house. What a strange thing to become so precious.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> These guys get a very easy ride at the daily press conferences. The US media gives Trump more shit at his than the kittens Raab has to deal with.


indeed. 

Do you think the journalists and perhaps their questions are somehow vetted for the No 10 briefings? Certainly they know in advance who will be asking the questions.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> indeed.
> 
> Do you think the journalists and perhaps their questions are somehow vetted for the No 10 briefings? Certainly they know in advance who will be asking the questions.



I think the fact it's not face to face anymore and instead video conferenced has helped the politicians. Trump still has to deal with journos interrupting him.

But no, I highly doubt the questions are vetted.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> But no, I highly doubt the questions are vetted.


Yes it seems unlikely, but perhaps they pick which journalists are on and permit only those who are less combative?


----------



## magneze (Apr 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Some rather tougher questions than Hancock gets at the daily press briefing.
> 
> Why has no one asked Hancock how many tests were done today?


It's published every day?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 16, 2020)

magneze said:


> It's published every day?


Where?


----------



## magneze (Apr 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Where?


Was thinking it'd be on here: Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the UK

But it isn't. The total number of tests is in the daily briefing though.


----------



## magneze (Apr 16, 2020)

The total is here Number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and risk in the UK


----------



## weltweit (Apr 16, 2020)

magneze said:


> The total is here Number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and risk in the UK


Good find, thank you. 


> with 18,665 tests carried out on 15 April.



I wonder if that suggests we are on track for 100,000 tests per day by the end of the month?


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 16, 2020)

How long do people think this is going to go on for? The lockdown?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

editor said:


> Gibberish. And I'm getting fed up finding myself in agreement with Piers fucking Morgan.




He's been attacking the Tories for a long time... to the point where they won't appear on his show. He's a strange character. You'd think he was right wing but he most definitely doesn't seem to be most of the time. I can't abide BBC breakfast so have resorted to GMB recently. It's definitely more entertaining!

He's just written an article for the Mail which I assume will mean he'll no longer be one of the 44 people Trump follows.



> This was worse than just a meltdown.
> 
> This was the most undignified and pathetic display I have ever seen from any world leader, let alone the President of the United States – in the middle of a global crisis.
> 
> ...











						PIERS MORGAN: America doesn't want a King Trump
					

It's become an increasingly nauseating spectacle and last night, President Trump reached a new low with a press briefing performance that was frankly an utter disgrace.




					www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## editor (Apr 16, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How long do people think this is going to go on for? The lockdown?


Another three weeks, absolute minimum


----------



## magneze (Apr 16, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How long do people think this is going to go on for? The lockdown?


We could be at some level of lockdown until vaccination.

Seems likely that some restrictions will lift next month though. Temporarily I'd guess.


----------



## JimW (Apr 16, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How long do people think this is going to go on for? The lockdown?


Sixty seven days with no new cases in our district and partial restrictions are still in force, most restaurants still shut, schools too etc. Can go out and about locally though. Had to go to the tax office in town the other day and needed to have temperature check and show health code on my phone to get it. Then had to go to bank next door to pay and do the same. Been some new clusters in NE China and officials called in for dressing down over slack enforcement. Would think the UK might try to get back going quicker but not sure you should.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 16, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> How long do people think this is going to go on for? The lockdown?


At least another month. Then it will be relaxed, and three - five weeks after that lots of people will start being admitted to Itu and it will all happen again.


----------



## bimble (Apr 16, 2020)

If this is even a bit accurate its pretty amazing evidence of the lockdown's effect - this is that self report ap, and it says that there's been a 70% reduction in symptomatic cases since the end of last month(?!)
Can that be right or is it just that at the start when the ap was launched everyone was self reporting but they've all got bored of it now?









						Latest Daily UK COVID-19 Data: Vaccines, Cases, Trends | ZOE
					

COVID infection & vaccination rates in the UK today, based on public data and reports from millions of users of the ZOE Health Study app




					covid.joinzoe.com


----------



## ska invita (Apr 16, 2020)

Regarding easing of lockdown, there a good article here




__





						The Coronavirus Crisis: Take Back Control – Byline Times
					

Molly Scott Cato argues that the public-school approach of fighting COVID-19 like a wartime enemy results in needless casualties and no exit strategy.




					bylinetimes.com
				



agree with this completely. Basic premise is

"herd immunity is still suffusing much of what we’re hearing about the government’s response. For example, the message from the daily press conference is not that we should stop transmission and contain the virus, but rather that we should ‘protect the NHS’, the implication being that the ultimate number of deaths may be the same but that the sick can be offered an ICU bed and a ventilator if they are part of the unlucky 5% whose life will be threatened by the Coronavirus, along with the 50% survival chance that comes with it. "

We have clues what the coming easing of lockdown will mean, because messages are being dripped out buy the Tories. Schools look set to go back, or at least those outside of London. Some more shops will be added to the allowed to open list.

Going back to that article above, this is what opening schools means in practice:

"A key question that should be put to government scientists and ministers is: do you think that everybody will have caught the disease before a vaccine becomes available? It seems clear that the working assumption of government scientific advisors in the UK is that this is so. Therefore all you are trying to do is to spread out that incidence of disease — and the 1% mortality rate it entails — across the next 12 or 18 months. _*Given that assumption, it makes sense to allow schoolchildren and young people to be the first out of quarantine. They will spread the virus without putting undue pressure on the health service.*_

But for a policy based on containment and control, the young, as asymptomatic carriers, are some of the most dangerous citizens, since they make it hard to trace the spread of the virus. So reopening schools and allowing children to share the virus with granny only makes sense if your ideal is to work towards 60% of the population having encountered the virus, and accept the death toll that goes along with such a policy.

A strategy based on containment would keep schools closed and would, instead, identify industries and economic sectors that are most essential and can most easily introduce reliable social distancing and shut down other workplaces to protect employees. I would hope that the HSE has already requested all employers to draw up plans for social distancing that can be signed off by local environmental health departments."

-Easing of lockdown is in practice filling up hospitals and killing off (maybe immunising - we dont actually know that) more of the herd.
If you're hoping to go to a party or a pub, dont get too excited. Jims post is a good benchmark I think


JimW said:


> Sixty seven days with no new cases in our district and partial restrictions are still in force, most restaurants still shut, schools too etc. Can go out and about locally though. Had to go to the tax office in town the other day and needed to have temperature check and show health code on my phone to get it. Then had to go to bank next door to pay and do the same. Been some new clusters in NE China and officials called in for dressing down over slack enforcement. Would think the UK might try to get back going quicker but not sure you should.


----------



## tommers (Apr 16, 2020)

That clapping thing is starting to really freak me out. 

Not like the "donate a fiver to the NHS" thing. Im angry about that, the clapping thing freaks me out.


----------



## andysays (Apr 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Walking around London this week, loads of construction work and road work has restarted this week, and the roads are definitely busier with cars and vans - roofers, scaffolders and others back to it. Lockdown may have been extended, but it is definitely changed this week back to something like it was in the first week. Parks still empty, people still observing social distancing impeccably almost universally. People that is who aren't working. Construction/road workers, as in the first week, not so much.


TBH, many of those of us who are still working find it more or less impossible to observe social distancing impeccably whilst carrying out our work to keep delivering the services that the rest of you depend on.

And as has been mentioned before, many working in construction and related fields (who may still be carrying out urgent and essential work, even if that isn't obvious to you) only get paid if they carry on working - no furlough and 12 week holiday on 80% pay for them.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 16, 2020)

tommers said:


> That clapping thing is starting to really freak me out.
> 
> Not like the "donate a fiver to the NHS" thing. Im angry about that, the clapping thing freaks me out.


Out the front of our house/on our road tonight numbers have dwindled.

Out the back tho’ there’s a lot of merriment in the gardens.


----------



## AverageJoe (Apr 16, 2020)

Interesting things I learned today from my sons specialist who is a world leader in blood disorders and works at Tommies. Some are trivial and some are pretty interesting. Some are deffo being withheld to stop more panic.


BJ was never on a ventilator but was on a cpap machine and was "really quite poorly"
BJs hospitalisation coincided with a "massive" increase in "gardeners" working the hospital grounds
there are 138 ventilated patients and 330 patients on cPap
none of these are over 70. None of them are under 30
intakes into Tommies for Covid19 are decreasing
Covid19 came to the country from Birmingham Airport.
from tracing the bloods they now know the virus has about 400 strains in UK.
this is why some people show different symptoms. It's entirely possible to be exposed to hundreds of these strains and none of them will affect you.
the mutated strains seem to be where an infected person infects another person who has something wrong with them. This creates a mutation. Depending on the recipients underlying illness or combination of this creates a new mutation.
priority is to find a common strand for all mutations and halt that strand
the PPE we ordered was from China. There was enough for everyone but on testing it was found to be only 95% accurate.
Donald Trump invoked a law from after the second World War to prioritise buying all the stock from Roche in Germany.
our PPE and testing is behind because we had to wait for more stock from Roche.

Some interesting points in there, some of could explained the lack of pure public information in order to stop adverse public reaction in many forms


----------



## AverageJoe (Apr 16, 2020)

Oh yeah. She estimated early June before the lockdown is lifted


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Oh yeah. She estimated early June before the lockdown is lifted



There's some really interesting stuff to mull over there, thanks


----------



## LDC (Apr 16, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> At least another month. Then it will be relaxed, and three - five weeks after that lots of people will start being admitted to Itu and it will all happen again.



This. None of this is a guess, it's all in the Imperial report. 12-18 months of varying lockdown to manage ICU capacity until we get a vaccine and/or we have some level of population immunity. That was more at you Mrs Miggins


----------



## AverageJoe (Apr 16, 2020)

Oh yeah, another thing. It's believed that like MERS and SARS you can't be reinfected. So although finding a vaccine is a priority, testing to see if people have already had it is just as important. If you've had it and survived it then you will most likely be allowed out of lockdown.

This will protect people still in isolation whilst at the same time allowing Herd Immunity to take a more controlled hold. General consensus is that HI is generally a Good Thing but that Covid19 moves and mutates too quickly at the moment to allow everyone out.

More when I remember! (but I think that's it)


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Apr 16, 2020)

tommers said:


> That clapping thing is starting to really freak me out.
> 
> Not like the "donate a fiver to the NHS" thing. Im angry about that, the clapping thing freaks me out.



Why? Tonight for a couple of minutes  I beat the crap out of a big old saucepan with a large metal spoon, just to get rid of some of my anger and sadness...it worked a bit.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## AverageJoe (Apr 16, 2020)

Ooh. One last thing.

It's very unlikely to be manufactured as its so complex in the way it evolves. It's most likely a byproduct of an infection in a Chinese Market where they store live animals for Chinese medicine - hence the origin thought to being Bat to Pangolin and then to human due to the percentage of shared dna (my word, I can't remember the real word) in the original version of it. Although (and this was the disclaimer) "none of us really believe the figures or anything that's coming out of China so we can't completely discount it"

And that's all from me


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Covid19 came to the country from Birmingham Airport.



It came to the country from many independent sources. There were many 'seeds' over time. Many cases were missed, and they were expected to be missed. There is no meaning to trying to identify a single airport, our epidemic didnt start with one single case coming into the UK.



> from tracing the bloods they now know the virus has about 400 strains in UK.



Many small changes happen. A whole bunch of UK samples genomes are available on the web and are visualised by the likes of nextstrain.



> this is why some people show different symptoms. It's entirely possible to be exposed to hundreds of these strains and none of them will affect you.



At best a misleading oversimplification, at worst a complete load of rubbish.



> the mutated strains seem to be where an infected person infects another person who has something wrong with them. This creates a mutation. Depending on the recipients underlying illness or combination of this creates a new mutation.



That isnt how mutations work with this virus. It is posssible that aspects of peoples underlying conditions may make them more susceptible to the virus being able to reproduce in far higher quantities. This means there may be more opportunities for mutation within such hosts, and more opportunities to shed a lot of the virus and infect others. But the mutations themselves are random errors, and indeed the rate of mutations for this sort of virus is reduced by the fact it does have some error checking built into its replication abilities. That reduces the speed of mutations, but does not prevent them completely. Point is, the sort of underlying condition you have does not determine what sort of mutations occur.



> priority is to find a common strand for all mutations and halt that strand



Well when developing a vaccine you will want it to cover a broad range of the variants of the virus that are actually circulating in people. I expect thats what that point is supposed to be getting at.



> the PPE we ordered was from China. There was enough for everyone but on testing it was found to be only 95% accurate.



PPE is a complex subject and there were a bunch of different failings, some of them over many years. There was never enough for everyone, there were some specific shipments from China that failed quality control checks but thats just one small piece of the story.



> Donald Trump invoked a law from after the second World War to prioritise buying all the stock from Roche in Germany.
> 
> our PPE and testing is behind because we had to wait for more stock from Roche.



Half truths and misinformation. Our testing was behind because our entire attitude towards diagnostics testing in normal times and during pandemics was one that was rather limited by our general attitudes, funding and management structures relating to diagnostics labs. We simply didnt envisage testing on the mass scale that now seems entirely sensible and necessary. Once we decided that actually we needed to ramp up our testing capacity, then we ran into all sorts of supply issues and other bottlenecks, but these were not the original reason for our strategy and doing so badly compared to Germany.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 16, 2020)

Any news as to whether it's transmitted by 5G towers built by Huawei?

To me that seems totally logical.


----------



## AverageJoe (Apr 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> It came to the country from many independent sources. There were many 'seeds' over time. Many cases were missed, and they were expected to be missed. There is no meaning to trying to identify a single airport, our epidemic didnt start with one single case coming into the UK.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Im not hear to argue with you mate. Just telling you what a world leading blood specialist who has three books released and is one of the most senior in her field told me over the phone today after she called to see how my son is getting on. 

I've no dog in this fight.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2020)

Why are you not off your head yet by the way elbows ?


----------



## xes (Apr 16, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I read some police ground rules earlier which said you could drive short distances to go for walks. The qualifier was the walk should be a lot longer than the time taken to drive to the place. Hadn't seen that before. So, on one level we've got major restrictions in place in terms of work, pubs, restaurants, sport etc. But in reality, provided you don't do anything dickish you've really got the opportunity to go out a couple of times a day and even go for short drives. Realise that's NOT the actual policy, but it is something most people could easily get away with if they wanted.
> 
> I'm genuinely unsure whether that makes it a 'commonsense lockdown' or whether it's already a bit too frilly round the edges.  Sometimes the problem with frilly ragged things is not how messy they are now, but whether the original ragged edges allow full on unravelling later.


That would explain why all the country lanes are chock full of parked cars, because they've closed all of the car parks to stop people driving out to nice walking places.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 16, 2020)

andysays said:


> TBH, many of those of us who are still working find it more or less impossible to observe social distancing impeccably whilst carrying out our work to keep delivering the services that the rest of you depend on.
> 
> And as has been mentioned before, many working in construction and related fields (who may still be carrying out urgent and essential work, even if that isn't obvious to you) only get paid if they carry on working - no furlough and 12 week holiday on 80% pay for them.


Right. Not sure where you got this 'even if that isn't obvious to you' crap from. I didn't say anything about the essential or not nature of the work. However, it seems unlikely that all that work that was non-essential last week has suddenly changed to become essential this week. There has been a wholesale shift from last week to this.

Nice digs, though, matey.  

We all rely on other people's work, and props to those delivering essential services right now. Shame on those who control the system that leads to workers doing non-essential construction work, though. Selfish, greedy fuckers.



Po


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 16, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Im not hear to argue with you mate. Just telling you what a world leading blood specialist who has three books released and is one of the most senior in her field told me over the phone today after she called to see how my son is getting on.
> 
> I've no dog in this fight.


A haematologist is not a public health consultant, epidemiologist or a virologist. People should understand the limits of their knowledge and stop pretending to know things they don't.

Even "world famous" experts in a topic are guilty of this. In my experience those least connected with actually dealing with the pandemic seem to make the most noise.


----------



## killer b (Apr 16, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Im not hear to argue with you mate. Just telling you what a world leading blood specialist who has three books released and is one of the most senior in her field told me over the phone today after she called to see how my son is getting on.
> 
> I've no dog in this fight.


I don't think elbows is arguing with you, just correcting some of the misleading stuff your leading blood specialist friend has told you.


----------



## MickiQ (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Any news as to whether it's transmitted by 5G towers built by Huawei?
> 
> To me that seems totally logical.


You're safe now that enough of them have been torched.
Mrs Q, Youngest and I took part in tonights clap, spoke to my neighbour across the road (seperated by the width of the road) making it the first time I have spoken to someone in the flesh for almost 4 weeks. Most houses are turning out in our cul-de-sac but there seem to be fewer on the main road. Some idiot was letting fireworks off in the distance.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Point is, the sort of underlying condition you have does not determine what sort of mutations occur.



I should probably expand on this point, because in theory some truth may be found if we change the angle of the claim, turn it on its head.

A lot of the mutations that are seen have no particular consequences. Mutations in some specific areas of the virus are of more interest though, some specific ones can change the way the virus interacts with humans, eg how effectively it binds to certain human tissues. In theory, a mutation in this area could make people with certain conditions even more susceptible to the virus. So a small fraction of the mutations can have implications for people, but it still isnt their other conditions that affect the mutation, its that the mutation could affect how bad the virus is for people with those conditions. Or more likely, for people in general, since thats where the largest evolutionary pressure is, how the virus gets on with people in general, not a subset with underlying conditions.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 16, 2020)

Maybe the  government and media would be better calling out employers and  police could be better deployed visiting open businesses to check up on what levels of cuntery employers are up to rather than harassing people out for a walk.


----------



## AverageJoe (Apr 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> I should probably expand on this point, because in theory some truth may be found if we change the angle of the claim, turn it on its head.
> 
> A lot of the mutations that are seen have no particular consequences. Mutations in some specific areas of the virus are of more interest though, some specific ones can change the way the virus interacts with humans, eg how effectively it binds to certain human tissues. In theory, a mutation in this area could make people with certain conditions even more susceptible to the virus. So a small fraction of the mutations can have implications for people, but it still isnt their other conditions that affect the mutation, its that the mutation could affect how bad the virus is for people with those conditions. Or more likely, for people in general, since thats where the largest evolutionary pressure is, how the virus gets on with people in general, not a subset with underlying conditions.



Thank you. I think this is kinda what she was saying but I couldn't explain it properly.

Hell, I still clap in amazement when I open the fridge and the light comes on.

I always appreciate your insights, you and a few others really help me (try to) understand the more in depth aspects of this


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 16, 2020)

Obviously we dont know because were doing bugger all testing or tracing but I'd love to know the numbers and types on transmission since the first week of lockdown. Is it 95% within households and care settings? 80%? 40%?    50% care settings, 20 % shops, 20% households?  10% construction sites? 80% breath 20% surfaces? 

My feeling is that if I pass 100 people in a week of walks and shop trips then most likely none of them even have it.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> A lot of the mutations that are seen have no particular consequences. Mutations in some specific areas of the virus are of more interest though, some specific ones can change the way the virus interacts with humans, eg how effectively it binds to certain human tissues. In theory, a mutation in this area could make people with certain conditions even more susceptible to the virus. So a small fraction of the mutations can have implications for people, but it still isnt their other conditions that affect the mutation, its that the mutation could affect how bad the virus is for people with those conditions. Or more likely, for people in general, since thats where the largest evolutionary pressure is, how the virus gets on with people in general, not a subset with underlying conditions.



Actually if I push some of those concepts to their extreme, then it probably is possible to envisage a scenario where, if evolutionary pressure had a long time to do its thing with a particular virus within a particular host with particular conditions, something along the lines of the original point could be seen. ie the virus mutates randomly a lot, but some of those random mutations just happen to be a lot better suited to further reproduction within that particular host, so they gain the upper hand where others fail. And then if that version is shedded a lot and other people catch it, and it does well everywhere else too, it may become the dominant strain. Thats sort of as close as I can get to getting a logical theory out of the original point, but I wouldnt consider it to be a specially notable factor in this pandemic really. Indeed its not a subject I feel especially well equipped to discuss in a completely accurate way, so who knows how many mistakes I made with my attempt. But the original concept, as presented, I still consider to be misleading and thats the only reason I replied to that and some of their other points.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> I always appreciate your insights, you and a few others really help me (try to) understand the more in depth aspects of this



Thanks. I'm sorry I had to point out some things I didnt like about the original statements, I couldnt help myself. 

Also I'm at the stage with this pandemic that I got to with the Fukushima nuclear disaster - I start to get concerned that if I got something wrong and went on about it here, would anyone notice and be prepared to point out my mistake? The answer of course depends on what the mistake in question was.


----------



## tommers (Apr 16, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Why? Tonight for a couple of minutes  I beat the crap out of a big old saucepan with a large metal spoon, just to get rid of some of my anger and sadness...it worked a bit.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice



Yeah im not saying its a bad thing or i cant understand why anybody gets anything good out of it - i guess it just reinforces that everything is different. Hearing people cheering every thursday at a set time just makes everything much weirder to me. Its become a ritual i suppose, every Thursday night we go and bang things and shout. This has been going on long enough that we now have rituals about it and that upsets me.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 16, 2020)

elbows you might be interested in an article Marty1 just posted in the worldwide thread in which researchers explain that they have identified bat dna mutations in the NY strain which amongst other things pretty much rules out the virus having emerged from a Chinese lab in Wuhan.


----------



## Supine (Apr 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Any news as to whether it's transmitted by 5G towers built by Huawei?
> 
> To me that seems totally logical.



yeah. Much worse than the shingles caused by 4G.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> A haematologist is not a public health consultant, epidemiologist or a virologist. People should understand the limits of their knowledge and stop pretending to know things they don't.
> 
> Even "world famous" experts in a topic are guilty of this. In my experience those least connected with actually dealing with the pandemic seem to make the most noise.



Seems like a good opportunity for me to reiterate that I consider myself a generalist, and its thanks to the sharing of knowledge and specific data by specialists, and the discussions between them, generalists, interested members of the public, journalists etc that I have been able to have anything resembling a clue.

One of the more painful aspects for me as this pandemic slowly unfolded, was how much better a job various countries could have done if their largely formal and behind closed doors mix of experts from various disciplines, civil servants and politicians, had instead more closely resembled the efforts I saw publicly online from the aforementioned groups. At the very least what I saw in the open was not so far behind the 'pandemic reality curve' as the chosen ones were in many countries were. The fact the actual authorities have to factor the known limitations of their nations resources into their thinking is not enough in itself to fully explain the difference.


----------



## keybored (Apr 16, 2020)

tommers said:


> That clapping thing is starting to really freak me out.
> 
> Not like the "donate a fiver to the NHS" thing. Im angry about that, the clapping thing freaks me out.


Likewise. Could hear a pin drop last week but this week it sounded like the whole village was out, clapping like robotic sea lions and banging pots. A few rockets went off. I suspect my name is now on some parish list.


----------



## lefteri (Apr 16, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> It is with regards to the NHS whose resources haven't kept pace with the dramatic increase in the population. The great British public consider the NHS to be sacrosanct,  therefore it cannot be consigned to the annals of history overnight, nevertheless, as has been the case with civil liberties, it is being disassembled./run down piecemeal.
> 
> One only has to look at the significant rise in the private healthcare sector to perceive where successive govs. over the past 30 odd yrs. are heading. Prior to this, it would have been unthinkable for an ordinary person to consider taking out private healthcare insurance, now its a common place occurrence.  The likes of Harley St. physicians would have been the preserve of the rich and famous, most notably the monarchy and their entourage, paid for of course by the peasants, now its anyone above the rank of dish washer who can afford the insurance premiums. People are being given incentives and covertly coerced into patronising the private healthcare sector.
> 
> The NHS used to be up there with the best healthcare system on the planet, now its way, way down the list, despite the dedication of its staff, some of whom are also employed in the private sector.


so the nhs is underfunded, it’s got nothing to do with overpopulation


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> elbows you might be interested in an article Marty1 just posted in the worldwide thread in which researchers explain that they have identified bat dna mutations in the NY strain which amongst other things pretty much rules out the virus having emerged from a Chinese lab in Wuhan.



I can't read the article at the moment and I dont want to give undue attention to the lab stuff at the moment. But I can say that the virus can be a 100% unaltered bat virus of bat origin, without that in itself ruling out any lab involvement. Because under one scenario all you need to do is collect specific viruses from bats and take those samples to the lab, and then at some later point have a lab accident, such as a lab workers getting infected by it but not noticing, and then spreading it to their community beyond the lab.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 16, 2020)

Just an observation on today's briefing - the govt, Inc advisers, i think, know they fucked up big time in the inital stages of the pandemic regarding, well, most aspects.  So, my take is that they will be very conservative on the first wave end game because if they also fuck this up who knows where this goes, hence they will not go public until the actual changes happen, plus Brexit will not be able to mask this, especially if the major European players come out of this better than us... happy to be contradicted on this?


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Why are you not off your head yet by the way elbows ?



I wasnt really planning to anyway. But then I got a slight headache which stopped me using my synth. And then instead of managing almost a full days rest from following & posting about the topic here, Vallance decided to wind me up in the press conference. By uttering the words, as part of a long-winded reply to a journalists question, 'you can see that theres a flattening off of ICU cases'. When actually no, I bloody well cannot see that because the UK havent published ICU data in the daily briefing slides since April 10th! They did go back and correct the error they made in the last few releases of that data, when they got the numbers for Scotland and Wales the wrong way round, but I've had no new data since. Well I still get the number for Scotlands ICU because they publish that number seperately, but the rest of the UK data is unavailable to me and I am pissed off about it. Heaven forbid they actually show us that data on a week where its really important.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2020)

He mentioned 3-4 weeks behind Italy again as well, when a journalist included it in their question.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Why are you not off your head yet by the way elbows ?


Yeah, birthday boy!


----------



## scifisam (Apr 16, 2020)

KFC and Burger King opening is fine by me - they're only opening a few sites to begin with anyway, in areas where they can do delivery (Burger King has done delivery for a couple of years where I live). Most of the independent chicken shops here haven't closed at all. KFC and Burger King are scrutinised way more than those independent takeaways; they've promised to provide PPE and maintain social distancing as far as possible, and they'll be checked on that more than your local PFC will be.



LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Prescribing placebos makes no sense at all. What for? Imaginary illnesses? Illnesses that have no treatment or cure? Alongside the appropriate medication? It's just nonsense suggesting they should be prescribed. If you want a placebo go to a homeopath or some other quack.



As a kid I was once given a placebo _asthma inhaler._ Had an attack, the inhaler didn't work. Read the ingredients on the canister and it said "aqua." I guess my shithead doctor thought a nine-year-old was too thick to know what aqua meant, and presumably he was one of those rare doctors who thinks asthma is all psychosomatic. That's one of the dangers with allowing doctors to prescribe placebos - some of them will take it too far.


----------



## treelover (Apr 16, 2020)

I wonder if they will unlock a bit for VE day anniversary they would like a patriotic feeling, etc.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 16, 2020)

treelover said:


> I wonder if they will unlock a bit for VE day anniversary they would like a patriotic feeling, etc.



75 years ago - all those who were there are high risk so will not be 'let out'...and why would we wish to celebrate 'winning' a war at this at the current time? It's like Fogle's happy birthday singing idea, totally irrelevant.


----------



## xenon (Apr 16, 2020)

treelover said:


> I wonder if they will unlock a bit for VE day anniversary they would like a patriotic feeling, etc.



No, course not.


----------



## newbie (Apr 16, 2020)

magneze said:


> The total is here Number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases and risk in the UK


I've been spreadsheeting the perfectly reasonable table they published as a csv file, daily until the day before yesterday, when it all changed.  Yesterday there was no file, today there's's a ridiculous, long, badly structured list that it's going to take an age to persuade Excel to swallow and spit out in a sensible format. Why would they do that?

e2a that's ambiguous- the table format was perfectly reasonable, I'm not talking about the data itself.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2020)

Khan wants face masks to be compulsory for people travelling in London. Another sign of the shift in thinking over this issue. Given the somewhat more favourable noises made by government, CMO etc recently compared to the previous stance, I suppose I do expect the UK to adopt some form of this at some point.









						Coronavirus: London mayor Sadiq Khan calls for 'compulsory' face masks
					

Sadiq Khan wants the UK government to follow the likes of New York in changing protection guidelines.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## lefteri (Apr 16, 2020)

PD58 said:


> 75 years ago - all those who were there are high risk so will not be 'let out'...and why would we wish to celebrate 'winning' a war at this at the current time? It's like Fogle's happy birthday singing idea, totally irrelevant.


we would be celebrating fogle’s stringing up day in years to come if there was any justice


----------



## chainsawjob (Apr 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> A couple of things I picked up on today wrt Covid-19:
> 
> Men are much more likely to die than women.
> 
> ...



With regards to the higher number of BAME people dying of Covid-19, I thought this letter in the Guardian about the role of vitamin D was interesting:




			
				Guardian said:
			
		

> I am not alone in being alarmed at the preponderance of deaths from Covid-19 among those with dark skin (UK government urged to investigate coronavirus deaths of BAME doctors, 10 April). While Covid-19 is likely to magnify the effect of social deprivation, I don’t think this is the whole story.
> 
> Vitamin D is needed for many reasons, including correct functioning of the immune system. It is converted to its active form by the action of sunlight on the skin. This is impeded by having dark skin and leads to low levels of vitamin D. Supplementing with vitamin D3 at 5000iu daily corrects this deficiency, and it is now an urgent need for all people with dark skin (and most with white). There is a reasonable chance that vitamin D replacement could help reduce the risk we are seeing playing out so tragically in the BAME community.
> 
> ...











						Vitamin D deficiency could have role in Covid risk to BAME community | Letter
					

Letter: Vitamin D is needed for many reasons, including correct functioning of the immune system, writes Dr Colin Bannon




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## brogdale (Apr 16, 2020)

Am I missing something here?
WTAF...a gathering from the people that brought you _Don’t sit on the park bench Grandad.

_


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Am I missing something here?
> WTAF...a gathering from the people that brought you _Don’t sit on the park bench Grandad.
> 
> _




Good comments by Damir Rafi.


----------



## zahir (Apr 16, 2020)

Twitter thread on care homes and testing.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 16, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Am I missing something here?
> WTAF...a gathering from the people that brought you _Don’t sit on the park bench Grandad.
> 
> _




Last week all the local filth parked up outside the main hospital and set off all their sirens at once. They posted a video of it, it was the most appalling din. I seriously doubt that either the staff or the patients would have enjoyed the experience. People with sensory issues would most likely have suffered considerable distress. And yeah, none of them were keeping their distance, just stood there in a big crowd like the shit-eating halfwits they are.


----------



## Supine (Apr 16, 2020)

scifisam said:


> As a kid I was once given a placebo _asthma inhaler._ Had an attack, the inhaler didn't work. Read the ingredients on the canister and it said "aqua." I guess my shithead doctor thought a nine-year-old was too thick to know what aqua meant, and presumably he was one of those rare doctors who thinks asthma is all psychosomatic. That's one of the dangers with allowing doctors to prescribe placebos - some of them will take it too far.



Placebo have no identifying markings and are only used in clinical trials. You could not be prescribed it by a doctor without informed consent.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

chainsawjob said:


> With regards to the higher number of BAME people dying of Covid-19, I thought this letter in the Guardian about the role of vitamin D was interesting:


If that is a factor, then more sunbathing is needed. And the darker your skin, the longer you need to do it to produce the vitamin D. Shame there are no outdoor spaces where you can safely do it away from other people...

Let the sunshine in: We need Vitamin D more than ever


----------



## scifisam (Apr 17, 2020)

Supine said:


> Placebo have no identifying markings and are only used in clinical trials. You could not be prescribed it by a doctor without informed consent.



OK, but an asthma inhaler with the only ingredient being "aqua" is clearly a placebo. Placebos aren't only used in clinical trials anyway, hence people getting homeopathy on the NHS until that was stopped.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

Surely if you tell someone it's a placebo, you ruin the placebo effect. Whole point is that they think it's going to do them good. In that sense, the deceitful (and fucking shocking) way the doc did it for sam was the right way to do it.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

Can we stop derailing this important thread with the fucking placebo effect? 

What idiot started it anyway??


----------



## Smangus (Apr 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> What idiot started it anyway??



You'll never know , it was a blind trial. One real idiot and a placebo.


----------



## scifisam (Apr 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Surely if you tell someone it's a placebo, you ruin the placebo effect. Whole point is that they think it's going to do them good. In that sense, the deceitful (and fucking shocking) way the doc did it for sam was the right way to do it.



Some studies say the placebo effect works even when people know it's a placebo. There are complicated reasons for this, and I don't think there's any consensus on how it works; increased attention from doctors is part of it, and that's put down to less stress, but I've never seen anything where they separated out the increased attention from doctors meaning that they reported symptoms sooner, too.

FWIW I'm absolutely certain in my memory of this "aqua" inhaler. I was really angry. But there's not a lot you can do about that when you're nine.

I participated in a clinical trial regarding the link between asthma and eczema at around the same time (yes, as a child) so maybe this was part of it - too long ago for me to remember the timelines (and even if they were at somewhat different times, the same consent might have applied - not that it would have been me giving the "informed consent"). The rest of the trial was pissing in a pot every day, getting extra blood tests and pinprick tests and keeping a diary. I don't think they were connected, because I didn't get given inhalers at the hospital and I picked up my own prescriptions at the chemist, but possibly they were. 

Still, giving someone a fake asthma inhaler is a very dangerous thing to do, not something that should ever be part of a clinical trial outside a hospital in-patient unit. And it's the sort of thing a very small but very dangerous number of doctors would do if encouraged to prescribe placebos outside clinical trials. Which is what we were talking about.


----------



## Grace Johnson (Apr 17, 2020)

So, this post has been kicking about on local Facebook pages for a week or so now. Seems like the catering for the nightingale hospital in Manchester has been contracted out. Which to be expected obviously. But appears the company that has been contracted is trying to recruit people to work for free under the guise of volunteering for the NHS. They are posting on the local covid support groups asking for help and volunteers. They are a large private company. This is minging. Does anyone know if there's anything I can do about it because this doesn't seem right to me and would hope this is at least illegal enough that someone proper can have a word with them


----------



## chainsawjob (Apr 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If that is a factor, then more sunbathing is needed. And the darker your skin, the longer you need to do it to produce the vitamin D. Shame there are no outdoor spaces where you can safely do it away from other people...
> 
> Let the sunshine in: We need Vitamin D more than ever


Are you able to quote the article please, it's paywalled? The start is interesting.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 17, 2020)

tommers said:


> Yeah im not saying its a bad thing or i cant understand why anybody gets anything good out of it - i guess it just reinforces that everything is different. Hearing people cheering every thursday at a set time just makes everything much weirder to me. Its become a ritual i suppose, every Thursday night we go and bang things and shout. This has been going on long enough that we now have rituals about it and that upsets me.



It's virtue signalling bullshit. If you really care about the NHS maybe stop voting for the eugenicist party that thinks healthcare workers don't deserve money or equipment.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 17, 2020)

keybored said:


> Likewise. Could hear a pin drop last week but this week it sounded like the whole village was out, clapping like robotic sea lions and banging pots. A few rockets went off. I suspect my name is now on some parish list.


Too late. Already reported you to the local plod, just open that door when they come for a visit.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 17, 2020)

I've got over it now, it doesn't drive me up the wall like it did the first couple of times. I didn't even shout "FUCK THE TORIES" out the window like I did before, just rolled my eyes a bit.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 17, 2020)

bimble said:


> If this is even a bit accurate its pretty amazing evidence of the lockdown's effect - this is that self report ap, and it says that there's been a 70% reduction in symptomatic cases since the end of last month(?!)
> Can that be right or is it just that at the start when the ap was launched everyone was self reporting but they've all got bored of it now?
> 
> 
> ...



I’ve used the app since it’s inception pretty much. It was updated maybe a week or two weeks ago to tell you how many people were contributing every day. It’s remained steadily between 2.3 - 2.5 million since they’ve introduced the number thing so I do think they’re getting good reporting figures.


----------



## bimble (Apr 17, 2020)

When did all the staff in tescos start having to wear t shirts that say We’re All In This Together?


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 17, 2020)

is it one _really_ big t-shirt? with head-holes every 2m...


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 17, 2020)

This is the biggest public gathering i've seen since the lock-down started:


----------



## brogdale (Apr 17, 2020)

Apols if posted elsewhere...but this clip of Johnson speaking just 73 days ago is quite instructive when attempting to understand the early, recent history of the government's response to Covid-19:


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> This is the biggest public gathering i've seen since the lock-down started:



Why aren’t those cops arresting themselves?


----------



## brogdale (Apr 17, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Why aren’t those cops arresting themselves?


Wouldn't have been an intelligence-led operation.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 17, 2020)

During the clapping last night my neighbour started chanting 'Pay nurses more, pay doctors more.'  Where I am almost nobody votes Tory so I'm feeling okay with the clapping and am joining in. I think I'd find it hard to stomach in a Tory-voting suburb.


----------



## scifisam (Apr 17, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> During the clapping last night my neighbour started chanting 'Pay nurses more, pay doctors more.'  Where I am almost nobody votes Tory so I'm feeling okay with the clapping and am joining in. I think I'd find it hard to stomach in a Tory-voting suburb.



Yeah, I did it for the first time last night and it was quite moving tbh, but it does help that we're a very Labour borough and pretty much everyone I saw out was youngish, so the odds of them being hypocritical Tory voters is low.


----------



## tommers (Apr 17, 2020)

I csnt be bothered to find it but the woolwich ferry did donuts yesterday in support of the NHS. 

Im going back to bed.


----------



## keybored (Apr 17, 2020)

bimble said:


> When did all the staff in tescos start having to wear t shirts that say We’re All In This Together?


The patent expired on Every Little Helps.


----------



## spitfire (Apr 17, 2020)

It's all getting a bit weird(er).


----------



## keybored (Apr 17, 2020)

Just... no.

Edit: He deleted the tweet but Google cache delivers some of the warm replies.


----------



## keithy (Apr 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Khan wants face masks to be compulsory for people travelling in London. Another sign of the shift in thinking over this issue. Given the somewhat more favourable noises made by government, CMO etc recently compared to the previous stance, I suppose I do expect the UK to adopt some form of this at some point.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I hope they're planning on getting nhs/care/essential workers sorted out first


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

chainsawjob said:


> Are you able to quote the article please, it's paywalled? The start is interesting.


_The sun’s rays are even more essential to health than we thought. But how do you know if you’re getting enough?_


IT IS an annual ritual, as reliable as the spawning of frogs or the return of migrating birds. On the first sunny, warm day following winter, pale-skinned denizens of the high latitudes slough off excess clothing and expose their blanched bodies to the sun’s rays.


Most of us love sunshine. Yet the standard health advice tells us to cover up and slather on the suncream for fear of developing skin cancer. That is still good advice, but the latest research suggests that sunshine – or rather the vitamin D it generates – may be more essential for health than we previously recognised.











Most people are familiar with the idea that extreme vitamin D deficiency causes rickets, a softening of the bones that can bow and distort them. It’s also known that even a moderate lack of vitamin D can boost the risk of fractures. What’s new is the idea that vitamin D is not just about bones. Mounting evidence indicates that if we don’t get enough of it, we could leave ourselves more susceptible to infections, increase our risk of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes, and even raise the risk of certain cancers.


All that suggests a rethink of official advice about how much vitamin D is enough. “The UK guidelines have traditionally been targeted at trying to prevent rickets,” says Julia Pakpoor, a vitamin D researcher at the University of Oxford. “Higher doses – perhaps five times higher – are almost certainly safe, and more beneficial.” Time to get out in the sun?


We get vitamin D in two ways: by eating it, and by exposing our skin to the ultraviolet B (UVB) rays in sunlight. Technically, vitamin D made in the skin is a hormone, as a vitamin is defined as an organic compound that the body cannot produce in adequate quantities. Cells in the outermost layer of skin, the epidermis, make a substance called 7-dehydrocholesterol, which reacts with UVB light to form a precursor of vitamin D. Our kidneys convert this into the active form, which binds to receptors in the intestines and bones and helps regulate levels of calcium, a crucial building block of bone.


Along with the kidneys, various types of immune cell can convert vitamin D into its active form, and many also possess vitamin D receptors. The first hints that vitamin D might play an active part in the immune system came as early as the 1960s from studies of multiple sclerosis. MS is characterised by the immune system attacking the fatty sheaths around nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Epidemiologists noticed that cases seemed to cluster at high latitudes, where people were exposed to less sunshine. “At first, the link seemed kind of improbable,” says George Ebers, a neurologist at Oxford. “But gradually, there has been more and more data to support the notion that it has something to do with sunshine.”


In 2011, a group led by Steve Simpson at the University of Tasmania, Australia, combined the results of hundreds of studies investigating MS and sun exposure, and concluded that the trend is real, with a few exceptions. Scandinavia, for instance, has far fewer cases of MS than its latitude should predict – but then Scandinavians eat a lot of oily fish, a food packed with vitamin D.


There could be other explanations for this clustering. People living at higher latitudes might have other genetic predispositions that would boost their MS risk, although the team controlled for one such gene variant. But recent studies of people living in Iran have bolstered the idea that sun exposure is directly involved. From the 1950s through to the 1970s, Iran was a country heavily influenced by the fashions and culture of the West. With the Islamic revolution of 1979, however, that changed. Men dressed more modestly and women covered their bodies almost completely, so skin previously bathed in sun was suddenly in darkness.


There is no MS data from before the revolution, but the period 1989 and 2006 saw an eightfold rise in cases, to nearly 6 per 100,000 people. “This is a very high, rapid rise,” says Pakpoor, especially for such a sunny country. “It must be because of an environmental risk factor, and one that is specific to Iran, because this isn’t something we’ve seen across the Western world,” she says. “The only thing I can think of is the revolution.”

*Protective effects*

That’s still only a highly suggestive correlation, but there is other evidence. Earlier this year, Alberto Ascherio of the Harvard School of Public Health published data from people with the earliest symptoms of MS, suggesting that those with lower levels of vitamin D in their blood were more likely to develop full-blown symptoms, and to have a poorer prognosis. Ascherio has also reported that young adults with low vitamin D are about twice as likely to develop type 1 diabetes as those with higher levels.


“Young adults with low vitamin D are about twice as likely to develop diabetes”






It’s not yet entirely clear how vitamin D might protect against autoimmune diseases. From his own work on MS, Ebers suspects vitamin D may enhance the ability of immune cells to distinguish between foreign material and the body’s own cells. Other research hints at a link with the blood-brain barrier, the protective layer that prevents certain harmful chemicals and cells from reaching the brain. A recent study of mice given an MS-like disease suggested that one kind of immune cell was unable to cross the barrier and mount an attack against nerve cells if the animals’ diet was supplemented with vitamin D. When these supplements were stopped, the cells started appearing in their brains.


Whatever the answer, it seems the immune benefits don’t stop with autoimmune conditions. Vitamin D also seems to ramp up the body’s defence against viruses, including those responsible for causing flu and colds. Possibly it increases the production of natural antimicrobial substances by various cells, including immune T-cells and cells lining the respiratory tract. The research is still young, but these findings suggest that low levels of vitamin D may be one reason why we are generally more susceptible to infection in winter, when there is less sunshine – although other factors that affect viral survival, such as temperature, humidity and the gloopiness of the protective mucus in our noses, could also be in play.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

Part 2

So how much vitamin D should we really be getting? There is currently no agreement on the optimal level. UK and US government guidelines focus on getting enough vitamin D to build healthy bones and teeth, and suggest the aim should be around 20 nanograms per millilitre of blood. But for a strong immune system we may need more. The Endocrine Society, a medical organisation dedicated to the study of hormones, says it could be anywhere between 30 and 100 ng/ml.


Even assuming 20 ng/ml is enough, if you live at latitudes above around 35 degrees – north of San Francisco, Seville and Seoul or south of Melbourne, roughly speaking – the chances are that you’re deficient in vitamin D for at least some of the year. Between November and March (or June to August in the southern hemisphere), the angle of the sun means that few UVB rays hit the Earth at high latitudes, making it very difficult to synthesise vitamin D in skin. Neither can you stockpile enough vitamin D to tide you over the winter months, as bodily stores typically dwindle after around 30 days.


One study of white Britons found that in winter and spring, around half have vitamin D levels below the recommended UK figure, and 15 per cent are deficient year-round. The risk is even greater for people with darker skin living at high latitudes, who need more UVB exposure to make the same amount of vitamin D. Few people have levels low enough to cause the adult equivalent of rickets. But given how even a small deficiency increases the risk of bone fractures, and growing evidence for the role in our immune system, should we be doing more to get more?


Fear of skin cancer means many people are understandably keen to cover up during the summer months, and even moisturisers and make-up now often contain sun protection. That’s despite growing evidence that more sun exposure could reduce the risk of getting other cancers – a positive effect also attributed to vitamin D (see “Don’t be modest“).


The good news is that, unless you are housebound, it should be easy enough to get enough vitamin D on a sunny day without getting a dangerous dose of sun. A fair-skinned person in the UK need only expose their face and arms to the midday summer sun for 10 minutes to generate more than twice the amount they need for the whole day, while a dark-skinned person would need closer to 40 minutes (see map). Apps and gadgets have also appeared recently that calculate how long you should stay in the sun at any given time and location to get enough vitamin D while not getting burned.


But the sun doesn’t shine every day, and we can’t all go outside when we want. What if it’s cloudy or you’re stuck in an office? Dense cloud and shade roughly halve the amount of vitamin D you synthesise, while glass blocks it almost entirely. UVB rays also dwindle in the early morning and evening, even though UVA rays continue to penetrate. Sunbeds provide lots of UVA exposure, but very little UVB.

*Supplement your sun*

So can you eat your way to vitamin D health? Current UK and US guidelines suggest adults need the equivalent of between 15 and 25 micrograms of vitamin D per day from all sources combined, including the sun and diet. A 100-gram packet of smoked salmon would get you there, as would three 160-gram tins of tuna. But if you don’t eat a lot of oily fish, it’s unlikely you’d meet these requirements through diet alone (see “How to get your daily dose“). In the US, where milk is supplemented with vitamin D, the average intake from diet is around a third of the recommended dose. In the UK, where this is not common practice, the figure is lower.


That leaves vitamin D supplements as a possibility. The UK National Health Service already recommends supplements for children, and suggests that certain groups of adults should take around 10 micrograms of vitamin D per day. These include pregnant and breastfeeding women, those aged 65 and over, and people who “aren’t exposed to much sun”. It also points out that dark-skinned people are at greater risk of vitamin D deficiency, though it stops short of recommending supplements.


Taking supplements is not risk-free. You can’t overdose on vitamin D from sunshine, as any excess made by the skin is degraded. But ingesting too much vitamin D can cause high blood calcium levels, which can damage the kidneys – although it’s unclear at what dosage this becomes a genuine concern.


Some think there is a case for much more widespread use of supplements, at higher doses. Current UK advice is to take no more than 25 micrograms of vitamin D per day in supplement form, while the US Institute of Medicine suggests an upper limit of 100 micrograms. “That’s what I take,” says Pakpoor.


Such higher limits could become the norm, both to help healthy people get enough, and also to help treat a growing number of ills. Clinical trials are under way in which vitamin D supplements are being given both to people with cancer and multiple sclerosis to see if they have an effect. Early results suggest it might ease the symptoms of MS.


A stroll in the sun is always a joy for body and soul. But as we learn more about the sunshine vitamin and how it works, it seems that our cells are glad of its benefits, too. So get out there and enjoy – like all things, in moderation, of course.


*Don’t be modest*
How much sun is too much? While sunbathing until your skin burns is clearly going too far, evidence is emerging that covering up too much could be counterproductive. People living in sunnier low latitudes are less likely to develop certain cancers, including breast, prostate and colorectal cancer, than those in more northern climes.
Why is that? The presence of receptors for vitamin D on a range of tumour cells suggest they respond to it, and vitamin D is known to influence the expression of genes that regulate cell growth. Studies on animals also show that vitamin D can slow tumour growth, and even encourages certain types of malignant cell to commit suicide. Once again, it seems the sunshine vitamin is at work.

*How to get your daily dose*
Each of the following will provide you with 15 micrograms of vitamin D – the daily dose recommended by the US Institute of Medicine
*0.5* tablespoon of cod liver oil
*88* g smoked salmon
*10* tablespoons of margarine
*15* eggs
*15* bowls of fortified cereal
*2.8* kg swiss cheese

Read more: Let the sunshine in: We need Vitamin D more than ever


----------



## keybored (Apr 17, 2020)

spitfire said:


> It's all getting a bit weird(er).



Seems like mass gatherings are state-sanctioned if it's to clap at the hospital which saved that clown.


----------



## spitfire (Apr 17, 2020)

tommers said:


> I csnt be bothered to find it but the woolwich ferry did donuts yesterday in support of the NHS.
> 
> Im going back to bed.



I have nothing better to do.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Part 2
> 
> So how much vitamin D should we really be getting? There is currently no agreement on the optimal level. UK and US government guidelines focus on getting enough vitamin D to build healthy bones and teeth, and suggest the aim should be around 20 nanograms per millilitre of blood. But for a strong immune system we may need more. The Endocrine Society, a medical organisation dedicated to the study of hormones, says it could be anywhere between 30 and 100 ng/ml.
> 
> ...



Gonna start eating 10 tablespoons of margarine or 2.8kg swiss cheese every day instead of taking the supplement


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 17, 2020)

keybored said:


> Seems like mass gatherings are state-sanctioned if it's to clap at the hospital which saved that clown.



Or just to clap anywhere:



Or take pics with a z-list celeb:


----------



## andysays (Apr 17, 2020)

keithy said:


> I hope they're planning on getting nhs/care/essential workers sorted out first


As the article mentions, the essential workers Khan is directly responsible for don't all have adequate PPE.

That isn't necessarily his fault, I'm sure there are supply and logistical issues, but it does demonstrate the idiocy of any suggestion that masks should be compulsory


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

spitfire said:


> I have nothing better to do.




I thought tommers meant they gave out doughnuts to people


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2020)

This is the kind of thing that makes me uncomfortable about the Thursday evening clap.

It’s Militaristic and totalitarian in tone.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 17, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Gonna start eating 10 tablespoons of margarine or 2.8kg swiss cheese every day instead of taking the supplement



I'm going for 15 eggs a day.


----------



## xes (Apr 17, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> This is the kind of thing that makes me uncomfortable about the Thursday evening clap.
> 
> It’s Militaristic and totalitarian in tone.



I must say it is starting to feel like I'm part of a large Swiss clock. Spin out of my house clap, spin back in on a little metal rail.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Gonna start eating 10 tablespoons of margarine or 2.8kg swiss cheese every day instead of taking the supplement



15 eggs a day surely 

I'd like to eat salmon but most of it in the UK is I presume farmed off the coast of Scotland and Private Eye has pointed out the nastiness in them and pollution from the farms for several years.

I do take 25 micrograms/day of Vit D supplement (1000 IU) cos I'm always getting fucking colds in the winter and have asthma so they go to my chest. May well multiply that by 4 in winter as recommended in the US, and short sleeved shirts in the garden in summer look favourite. 

Thanks for that littlebabyjesus was interesting/useful article


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> This is the kind of thing that makes me uncomfortable about the Thursday evening clap.
> 
> It’s Militaristic and totalitarian in tone.



Yeah, first week it felt spontaneous and was really rather touching. It's still far from militaristic in tone in my street - people banging pots and pans and whooping raucously - but then like others, I live in a highly non-Tory borough, so it doesn't feel hypocritical. But the thing that did it for me in the second week was seeing the front page of The Sun ordering everyone to do it. It's started to stick in my craw now. Haven't joined in since. Feel bad about that, but I'd feel bad about joining in as well. Can't win.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> This is the kind of thing that makes me uncomfortable about the Thursday evening clap.
> 
> It’s Militaristic and totalitarian in tone.




There were loads of pictures of Johnson "clapping for the NHS" in the newspapers when he was blocking an NHS bed after being an irresponsible cunt, too, pure fucking propaganda.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> 15 eggs a day surely
> 
> I'd like to eat salmon but most of it in the UK is I presume farmed off the coast of Scotland and Private Eye has pointed out the nastiness in them and pollution from the farms for several years.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I try to avoid farmed fish nowadays - it's miserable for the fish themselves and something of an environmental disaster. Wild Alaskan smoked salmon would be the way to go but it is £££.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 17, 2020)

andysays said:


> As the article mentions, the essential workers Khan is directly responsible for don't all have adequate PPE.
> 
> That isn't necessarily his fault, I'm sure there are supply and logistical issues, but it does demonstrate the idiocy of any suggestion that masks should be compulsory



Exactly, it was a proper _get your own house in order_ moment.  Open goal for his political opponents at a time when people like Khan are supposed to be putting pressure on the government.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> 15 eggs a day surely
> 
> I'd like to eat salmon but most of it in the UK is I presume farmed off the coast of Scotland and Private Eye has pointed out the nastiness in them and pollution from the farms for several years.
> 
> ...


I'm on a stupidly high dose right now cos of an insufficiency - my GP said that everyone should be taking it during the autumn and winter months but I guess during lockdown too


----------



## strung out (Apr 17, 2020)

spitfire said:


> I have nothing better to do.



Might do donuts in my car on the cul de sac I live on next Thursday night.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's still far from militaristic in tone in my street - people banging pots and pans and whooping raucously - but then like others, I live in a highly non-Tory borough


Yeah, I live in G20, so very much non Tory. I was specifically meaning the clip that I shared in that tweet. (For those of you not able to view it, it’s serried ranks of cops on Edinburgh castle esplanade doing an impersonation of the military tattoo).


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

strung out said:


> Might do donuts in my car on the cul de sac I live on next Thursday night.



I like doughnuts I'll be there


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 17, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> This is the kind of thing that makes me uncomfortable about the Thursday evening clap.
> 
> It’s Militaristic and totalitarian in tone.


Just needs a few ICBMs on the backs of trucks.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 17, 2020)

Pity this is in the New York Times as more people in the UK ought to read it. There again the sort of people that need to read it probably would dismiss it out of hand.


Opinion | People Are Dying and All Britain Can Talk About Is Boris Johnson


----------



## andysays (Apr 17, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Just needs a few ICBMs on the backs of trucks.


Give it a couple of weeks...


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> *How to get your daily dose*
> Each of the following will provide you with 15 micrograms of vitamin D – the daily dose recommended by the US Institute of Medicine
> *0.5* tablespoon of cod liver oil
> *88* g smoked salmon
> ...



So is it OK if I eat 7 and a half eggs and 1.4 kg of Swiss cheese? If I promise to fry them both in margarine?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 17, 2020)

Does anyone know why the BBC wastes 45 minutes a day on Sturgeon's update? It's devolved. Why does the entire UK need to listen to her drone on? I'm in London.

They do regional news so clearly they have the capability to filter it. If we're getting hers why aren't we getting the Wales and NI updates.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know why the BBC wastes 45 minutes a day on Sturgeon's update? It's devolved. Why does the entire UK need to listen to her drone on? I'm in London.


Well for one thing because she will, through her statements and actions, give a heads up on COBRA discussions, thinking and decisions that those in Westminster will otherwise hide from the public.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know why the BBC wastes 45 minutes a day on Sturgeon's update? It's devolved. Why does the entire UK need to listen to her drone on? I'm in London.
> 
> They do regional news so clearly they have the capability to filter it. If we're getting hers why aren't we getting the Wales and NI updates.



Now you know how everyone else in the country feels having to hear about all the shit that happens in London.


----------



## Diatribe (Apr 17, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Idiot. Underfunding something doesnt make a country overpopulated.



Not on its own, it doesn't, but coupled with the fact that the UK is no longer an industrial nation with its economy based almost entirely on a banking centre and service industry, an increase in population by 20 million with at least 10 million less meaningful jobs does.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know why the BBC wastes 45 minutes a day on Sturgeon's update? It's devolved. Why does the entire UK need to listen to her drone on? I'm in London.
> 
> They do regional news so clearly they have the capability to filter it. If we're getting hers why aren't we getting the Wales and NI updates.



Because she clearly has a better handle on the situation then our shower of cunts?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> an increase in population by 20 million


Since when?


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

keithy said:


> I hope they're planning on getting nhs/care/essential workers sorted out first





andysays said:


> As the article mentions, the essential workers Khan is directly responsible for don't all have adequate PPE.
> 
> That isn't necessarily his fault, I'm sure there are supply and logistical issues, but it does demonstrate the idiocy of any suggestion that masks should be compulsory



The idea, at least in countries with inadequate supply, is for the public to wear non-medical grade masks/mask equivalents. And that is not a stupid idea.









						Coronavirus: UK to be 'guided by scientists' on face masks
					

There are growing calls for the public to wear face masks but ministers insist the evidence is mixed.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> It comes after London Mayor Sadiq Khan called for people to wear non-medical face masks - such as scarves or bandanas - in public as "additional protection" to social distancing.
> 
> Masks have been made compulsory in some places, including in New York.





> On Friday Mr Khan - who has urged the UK government to change its guidelines on face masks - said masks should be worn when people cannot keep two metres apart such as on public transport or while shopping.
> 
> "Wearing a non-medical facial covering makes it less likely you may inadvertently give somebody else Covid-19," he told BBC Breakfast.
> 
> ...


----------



## Petcha (Apr 17, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Now you know how everyone else in the country feels having to hear about all the shit that happens in London.



Good point


----------



## B.I.G (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Not on its own, it doesn't, but coupled with the fact that the UK is no longer an industrial nation with its economy based almost entirely on a banking centre and service industry, an increase in population by 20 million with at least 10 million less meaningful jobs does.



Idiot.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know why the BBC wastes 45 minutes a day on Sturgeon's update? It's devolved. Why does the entire UK need to listen to her drone on? I'm in London.
> 
> They do regional news so clearly they have the capability to filter it. If we're getting hers why aren't we getting the Wales and NI updates.



I assume this is on the BBC News Channel? 

If so, that's not configured for regional splits, only BBC 1 is.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Not on its own, it doesn't, but coupled with the fact that the UK is no longer an industrial nation with its economy based almost entirely on a banking centre and service industry, an increase in population by 20 million with at least 10 million less meaningful jobs does.


Hi there Captain Agenda. 

Little point of order for you before you get too carried away. While you would have been right if you had said that UK manufacturing has declined somewhat - from 25% total output in the 1970s to just under 20% now - it is still nearly three times larger than the financial services sector. 

Here are the stats on manufacturing. I'll leave it to you to find the stats on financial services. Hint: they're not hard to find.

hth


----------



## Diatribe (Apr 17, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Idiot.



I think you'd be more usefully employed as a specimen in a test tube at a Zurich laboratory


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Not on its own, it doesn't, but coupled with the fact that the UK is no longer an industrial nation with its economy based almost entirely on a banking centre and service industry, an increase in population by 20 million with at least 10 million less meaningful jobs does.



Firstly it's fewer meaningful jobs, not less.

Secondly, fuck off.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

Yes _fewer _


----------



## Diatribe (Apr 17, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Since when?



The pop. of the UK at the inception of the NHS in 1948 was 49.4 million. The current pop. of the UK is 67.8 million. If its any consolation, I'll amend the 20  to circa 20 million.


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

> A new poll suggests that most people in the UK will want to alter their lives in some way after the coronavirus pandemic.
> 
> In fact, only 9% of people say they want life to return to how it was before. Some 54% agreed with this statement: "I hope to change some things about my life and I hope we will have learned from this as a country."





> Some respondents (51%) said they had noticed the air was cleaner and others (27%) said they had seen more wildlife. Four in 10 said there had been a stronger sense of community and the feeling of neighbours looking out for each other.
> 
> And 39% are more in touch with friends and family, aided by the boom in video-chats.



From BBC live updates page at 9:07 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52319956/page/2


----------



## belboid (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> The pop. of the UK at the inception of the NHS in 1948 was 49.4 million. The current pop. of the UK is 67.8 million. If its any consolation, I'll amend the 20  to circa 20 million.


Do none of those extra 20m pay taxes that could go toward the NHS?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 17, 2020)

belboid said:


> Do none of those extra 20m pay taxes that could go toward the NHS?


And have there been no advances in medicine/care that evens this rise out?


----------



## Diatribe (Apr 17, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Firstly it's fewer meaningful jobs, not less.
> 
> Secondly, fuck off.



''Firstly it's fewer meaningful jobs, not less.''

Don't you mean Firstly, it's fewer meaningful jobs, not less.


''Secondly, fuck off.''

Unless you are the owner of this site, in which case you'll undoubtedly delete my account, I fail to understand how a neanderthal such as yourself should feel they have the supreme right to tell anyone to ''fuck off.''


----------



## bimble (Apr 17, 2020)

Bloody immigrants coming over here dying in our nhs. 








						Doctors, nurses, porters, volunteers: the UK health workers who have died from Covid-19
					

We are launching a project to remember those who lost their lives working in hospitals, surgeries and care homes during the coronavirus outbreak




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## belboid (Apr 17, 2020)

S☼I said:


> And have there been no advances in medicine/care that evens this rise out?


That cuts both ways, tbh. Some advances save money some mean we can do things we never could before so it costs money.  

I must get round to doing that thread on the birth of the NHS, to get over some fallacies, like on ‘overspending’ and the tories supposed support for its establishment.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Unless you are the owner of this site, in which case you'll undoubtedly delete my account, I fail to understand how a neanderthal such as yourself should feel they have the supreme right to tell anyone to ''fuck off.''



And yet, fuck off.


----------



## editor (Apr 17, 2020)

Interesting document here: 









						What are the reasonable excuses to leave your home during the coronavirus lockdown?
					

There still remains plenty of confusion about what it and what is not permitted during the lockdown, and a document published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the professional stan…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 17, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> So is it OK if I eat 7 and a half eggs and 1.4 kg of Swiss cheese?



There's holes in that argument.


----------



## belboid (Apr 17, 2020)

editor said:


> Interesting document here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I can’t quite work out from that.... I do need to get some paint for the fence as it needed a new coat two years ago. That seems fine,but I wouldn’t be allowed to pick up paint for the kitchen (well, bathroom actually) even though I could get it from the same place at the same time.


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

Now we seem to be having the absurd situation where test capacity has increased but is not being used due to lack of demand in some areas!

Anyway, despite these ridiculous aspects and past failures, it does point to what can happen next:



> Mr Hancock said the government had prioritised testing for hospital patients and NHS workers before expanding it to residents and staff in social care.
> 
> He added some 50,000 NHS workers had so far been tested.
> 
> ...





> Mr Hancock said he hoped anyone with symptoms would be able to be tested "relatively soon".
> 
> "Now we've got the curve under control, I want to be able to get back to the position that we can test everybody with symptoms and I anticipate being able to do that relatively soon because we're increasing capacity as I say," he said.











						Coronavirus testing to be rolled out to more public service staff
					

Capacity is rising "sharply" but fewer NHS staff than expected are coming forward, Matt Hancock says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Not on its own, it doesn't, but coupled with the fact that the UK is no longer an industrial nation with its economy based almost entirely on a banking centre and service industry, an increase in population by 20 million with at least 10 million less meaningful jobs does.


Does that fiddle only play the one tune?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> I think you'd be more usefully employed as a specimen in a test tube at a Zurich laboratory


Frank was being kind to you, tbh.

Fuck off, you cunt. 

We can all see what you are.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> ''Firstly it's fewer meaningful jobs, not less.''
> 
> Don't you mean Firstly, it's fewer meaningful jobs, not less.
> 
> ...


You don't know Urban all that well, then, do you?

And allow me to join the chorus of "fuck off" aimed at you. You're not going to last long here, and we like to play with our food.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 17, 2020)

belboid said:


> I can’t quite work out from that.... I do need to get some paint for the fence as it needed a new coat two years ago. That seems fine,but I wouldn’t be allowed to pick up paint for the kitchen (well, bathroom actually) even though I could get it from the same place at the same time.


Surely the rule has to be that if a shop is allowed to sell bathroom paint, then a customer is allowed to buy it.


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

> "Love letters" to the NHS, written by stars including Sir Paul McCartney and Dame Emma Thompson, are to appear in a new charity book.
> 
> Dear NHS: 100 Stories to Say Thank You, will also feature contributions by Stephen Fry and Ricky Gervais.
> 
> ...











						Sir Paul McCartney and Dame Emma Thompson write 'love letters' to NHS
					

Stars including Stephen Fry and Ricky Gervais also say thank you to the NHS in Adam Kay's new book.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I'm glad celebrities love the NHS, presumably this means we wont hear a negative peep out of them when they get impressively large tax bills in the post-pandemic future


----------



## ice-is-forming (Apr 17, 2020)

So my dad, who's a very with it and active 93 year old living in London, let me know today that his 'old people lockdown' has been extended to the end of June. Personally I think this is crazy! Here in Aus the earliest we'll get out of lockdown is July 31st. The earliest. It'll likely carry on without change until September.

Now look at the stats for Australia versus the UK and you'll see where my confusion lays...


----------



## Fruitloop (Apr 17, 2020)

Does Hancock seriously believe that the Uk has the curve under control? I don't see how he could possibly know that.


----------



## xsunnysuex (Apr 17, 2020)

Dunno if this has been posted already.  Free London bus travel.









						Sadiq Khan announces free bus travel in London to protect drivers
					

Follow our live coronavirus updates HERE Coronavirus: The symptoms




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## PD58 (Apr 17, 2020)

NS view today on the 5 tests and exit...

Good morning. It's official: the government has extended the lockdown and set out five tests that must be met before the lockdown will end.

Those tests are: 1) can the NHS function? That metric is crucial and often-forgotten: the big reason why the British government changed approach and went for lockdown is that Plan A would have overwhelmed the health service, essentially meaning the end of 20th century healthcare, not only for people with Covid-19 but for anyone requiring hospital care.

2) We have moved beyond the peak, seeing a consistent and daily fall in the death rate. We may well have reached this point already - in any case, you can achieve this target with or without lockdown. It's the knock-on effects for healthcare in general that caused government to go down this route.

3) We know the rate of infection is decreasing. A simple one this - how many new cases does each Covid-19 patient beget?

But it's the fourth and fifth tests that are really worth watching and highlight the government's exit strategy.

4) We have a supply of testing and personal protective equipment to meet demand. At the moment, we simply don't know how many people in the United Kingdom have had the novel coronavirus, because we have a limited testing regime. The first priority of testing is to prevent hospitals becoming vectors of infection due to asymptomatic staff and patients spreading the disease. But in the long term, if you want to emulate the only models that, thus far, have been shown to allow a measure of normality to return - that is, if you want the UK at the end of 2020 to look a lot like Taiwan and South Korea now - you need a major increase in the level of testing equipment and personal protective equipment.

And 5) we do not risk a second peak - that is to say, we don't exit lockdown only to trigger a fresh spike in cases.

That would appear to leave just two exit strategies available to the government: a long and indefinite wait for a vaccine or a long but not indefinite wait for the necessary infrastructure around test and trace to be put in place. Neither option is risk-free but they are the only exit strategies that meet the government's objectives here.

Which should give those people confidently asserting that you can't publish an exit strategy with so many known unknowns some pause - the fact is the government has essentially ruled out all by two ways out of the maze.


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

Fruitloop said:


> Does Hancock seriously believe that the Uk has the curve under control? I don't see how he could possibly know that.



They've got more data than me but even with what I have got, the signs are there. But it depends what people think counts as the curve being under control. It would be too easy to overstate the 'under control' point, but I couldnt call it a lie.



For example, the above graph shows promising signs, but it would also be easy to misinterpret it by forgetting that large numbers of hospital deaths contribute to the data looking that way.

(source Slides and datasets to accompany coronavirus press conference: 16 April 2020 )


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

PD58 said:


> NS view today on the 5 tests and exit...
> 
> Good morning. It's official: the government has extended the lockdown and set out five tests that must be met before the lockdown will end.
> 
> ...


Yep. I felt that 4) was a key factor in the three-week extension. It allows them more time to get their act together. It's been a pitiful effort so far, but perhaps with peak hospital take-up probably passed, they will be able to focus on it now. They singularly failed to establish a system wherein they focused both on the immediate crisis and the planning for exit.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

xsunnysuex said:


> Dunno if this has been posted already.  Free London bus travel.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Good. Should have done this three weeks ago, but good that they finally have.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> ''Firstly it's fewer meaningful jobs, not less.''
> 
> Don't you mean Firstly, it's fewer meaningful jobs, not less.
> 
> ...


The important bit to focus on here is FUCK OFF.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 17, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Now you know how everyone else in the country feels having to hear about all the shit that happens in London.


Urban: all in it together.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 17, 2020)

ice-is-forming said:


> So my dad, who's a very with it and active 93 year old living in London, let me know today that his 'old people lockdown' has been extended to the end of June. Personally I think this is crazy! Here in Aus the earliest we'll get out of lockdown is July 31st. The earliest. It'll likely carry on without change until September.
> 
> Now look at the stats for Australia versus the UK and you'll see where my confusion lays...



Sounds like the 12 week lockdown for those who are most vulnerable to the virus.  It was just an initial 12 weeks with a review to come.  Depends what the situation looks like then.


----------



## NoXion (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> The pop. of the UK at the inception of the NHS in 1948 was 49.4 million. The current pop. of the UK is 67.8 million. If its any consolation, I'll amend the 20  to circa 20 million.



You've already been told that the problems with the NHS have fuck-all to do with population. So are you one of those neo-Malthusian cunts, or are you one of those eugenicist cunts?


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

ice-is-forming said:


> So my dad, who's a very with it and active 93 year old living in London, let me know today that his 'old people lockdown' has been extended to the end of June. Personally I think this is crazy! Here in Aus the earliest we'll get out of lockdown is July 31st. The earliest. It'll likely carry on without change until September.
> 
> Now look at the stats for Australia versus the UK and you'll see where my confusion lays...



Where are you getting July 31st as earliest lockdown release from for Australia? I've seen police and others say the lockdown was for 90 days, which is the end of June. But all of that can change if the numbers change. And there could be regional variations too - eg if some cities are still having a problem then their lockdowns might last longer than elsewhere.

I dont think I would like to take a guess at this myself because there are two potentially conflicting factors - on the one hand Australias epidemic was so much smaller than the UKs one at the moment lockdowns were introduced. But obviously Australias seasons are the other way round to ours, so there will be unease about what winter could mean for Australia and this pandemic.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 17, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Urban: all in it together.


Cancel HS2, Build the Wall.


----------



## andysays (Apr 17, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> The pop. of the UK at the inception of the NHS in 1948 was 49.4 million. The current pop. of the UK is 67.8 million. If its any consolation, I'll amend the 20  to circa 20 million.


Many people might see the fact that the population has been able to grow by circa 20 million in the last 70 years as a positive consequence of the creation of the NHS and other social and economic reforms dating from the same time as its creation.

You appear to view it rather differently


----------



## editor (Apr 17, 2020)

xsunnysuex said:


> Dunno if this has been posted already.  Free London bus travel.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Should have happened ages ago.


----------



## xenon (Apr 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, first week it felt spontaneous and was really rather touching. It's still far from militaristic in tone in my street - people banging pots and pans and whooping raucously - but then like others, I live in a highly non-Tory borough, so it doesn't feel hypocritical. But the thing that did it for me in the second week was seeing the front page of The Sun ordering everyone to do it. It's started to stick in my craw now. Haven't joined in since. Feel bad about that, but I'd feel bad about joining in as well. Can't win.



Yeah. I haven't joined in the last couple of times. I did stand on the door step and record (audio) it last night. Just for posterity. A few pots and pans, kids cheering. People clapping from their windows in the flats opposite as far as I can tell.



ice-is-forming said:


> So my dad, who's a very with it and active 93 year old living in London, let me know today that his 'old people lockdown' has been extended to the end of June. Personally I think this is crazy! Here in Aus the earliest we'll get out of lockdown is July 31st. The earliest. It'll likely carry on without change until September.
> 
> Now look at the stats for Australia versus the UK and you'll see where my confusion lays...



Was chatting to my mate in Sidney last weekend. He's from New Zealand originally. Says the lock down is much tighter in NZ. In terms of places that are closed I think. He's mostly working from home but as working in industrial sales, he's had to go out occasionly to meet a client for fear of losing business down the line.

Are the restrictions the same across all states?


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Part 2
> 
> So how much vitamin D should we really be getting? There is currently no agreement on the optimal level. UK and US government guidelines focus on getting enough vitamin D to build healthy bones and teeth, and suggest the aim should be around 20 nanograms per millilitre of blood. But for a strong immune system we may need more. The Endocrine Society, a medical organisation dedicated to the study of hormones, says it could be anywhere between 30 and 100 ng/ml.
> 
> ...




Further to this, it’s important to know that at U.K. latitudes it’s not possible to use the sun to make Vitamin D during some months of the year. Also, if your shadow is longer on the ground than your own height, there isn’t enough UVB rays to make Vitamin D.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 17, 2020)

editor said:


> Should have happened ages ago.


And they should stay free after all this too.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Further to this, it’s important to know that at U.K. latitudes it’s not possible to use the sun to make Vitamin D during some months of the year. Also, if you’re shadow is longer on the ground than your own height, there isn’t enough UV rays to make Vitamin D.
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 207264


Yeah, maybe in that NS article or a related one, they actually outline the benefits of going out in the midday sun in the UK, and without any suncream, but just for enough time to get your Vit D. I've been trying to do it when I can ever since reading the article, and was moved on from a park bench the other day when I was doing just this.


----------



## xenon (Apr 17, 2020)

Reckon I'm low on vit D. I don' bother going out in the sun much at the best of times and CBA just walking around the streets during this. I take a multivit (when I remember.) OTOH I eat eggs, cheese and tuna quite often.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, maybe in that NS article or a related one, they actually outline the benefits of going out in the midday sun in the UK, and without any suncream, but just for enough time to get your Vit D. I've been trying to do it when I can ever since reading the article, and was moved on from a park bench the other day when I was doing just this.




Yes, it’s does say to go out in the midday sun. But it’s worth adding in the understanding that the reason for this is because the rays of the sun need to be of a certain wavelength to be used to make Vitamin D. Some people will think “Welli I prefer to walk the dog at dawn/ in the late afternoon and I’m getting my sun then, I’m in the sun for more than 10 minutes, I’m sure that’s the equivalent of 10 minutes at midday” and that’s not right.

Also, I speak with people who say yes, they go out in the sunshine but then it turns out they’re covered up, sitting in the shade, or going out of the house but then indoors (cinema, shopping, visiting friends, at a cafe...).  Once you know something, it becomes common sense (like not touching a mask, taking off gloves correctly) but it’s really easy to misinterpret or misuse information if you don’t have the full picture.


ETA
Also some people find it easier to take in information if it’s in a visual form like that that chart rather than the than the written word. I found that chart memorable when I first saw it,so I thought I’d share it.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 17, 2020)

xenon said:


> Reckon I'm low on vit D. I don' bother going out in the sun much at the best of times and CBA just walking around the streets during this. I take a multivit (when I remember.) OTOH I eat eggs, cheese and tuna quite often.




We can absorb and use the vitamin d in meat and dairy and eggs but my understanding is  that the vitamin D we make ourselves is more easily available to us. We don’t need to extract it from another source if we’vemade it ourself, it’s instantly available.

And/but also the whole thing is further complicated by the different forms of vitamin D (D2, D3 are the main ones) and the fact that we need other cofactors in order to utilise vitamin D properly (vitamin K, boron, magnesium...)

And we make it from cholesterol. Vitamin D is actually a hormone but the “vitamin” but has stuck and it’s kinda pointless trying to change that now.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> And/but also the whole thing is further complicated by the different forms of vitamin D (D2, D3 are the main ones) and the fact that we need other cofactors in order to utilise vitamin D properly (vitamin K, boron, magnesium...)



I learned on here that drinking enough milk means you don't need the vitamin K at least.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 17, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Some people will think “Welli I prefer to walk the dog at dawn/ in the late afternoon and I’m getting my sun then, I’m in the sun for more than 10 minutes, I’m sure that’s the equivalent of 10 minutes at midday” and that’s not right.


You'd have to be out for something like 4 times longer at 7am this morning to have any chance of getting the same levels as around midday today (and that assumes comparable cloud cover and ozone column length which are time varying anyway).


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

We've been scammed  









						UK pays £16 million for coronavirus tests that don't work
					

‘The UK is likely to be certainly one of the worst, if not the worst affected, country in Europe’ says Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust medical research fund




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 17, 2020)

tommers said:


> This has been going on long enough that we now have rituals about it and that upsets me.



That's one of the most thought-provoking things I've read about this whole mess.


----------



## Fruitloop (Apr 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> They've got more data than me but even with what I have got, the signs are there. But it depends what people think counts as the curve being under control. It would be too easy to overstate the 'under control' point, but I couldnt call it a lie.
> 
> View attachment 207252
> 
> ...


True (thanks for all the charts and updates by the way!)
I guess my concern is that because there hasn't been the mass testing that there ought to have been, they're using what are essentially proxy figures. I would love to believe that this curve correlates with the number of total coronavirus cases, but it seems to me that there is very little certainty that this is the case.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 17, 2020)

2hats said:


> You'd have to be out for something like 4 times longer at 7am this morning to have any chance of getting the same levels as around midday today (and that assumes comparable cloud cover and ozone column length which are time varying anyway).




If your shadow is longer than you are tall (is that the case at 7AM at the moment? ) then you’re not going to  be mad making Vitamin D, regardless of how long you’re standing there naked.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I learned on here that drinking enough milk means you don't need the vitamin K at least.




Full fat milk is a much better source for Vitamin K than skimmed milk.


However, there are issues with too much milk. The excess calcium seems to be a risk factor for heart disease in some people. And children given too much milk can end up anaemic. Also, because micronutrients like calcium etc need to be in the correct ratio to their cofactors and other micronutrients, too much milk can oblige the body draw down from the body’s stores to correct the imbalance, which can then cause other problems.










						Are You Taking Too Much Calcium, A or D?
					

Overdoing supplements can hurt you




					health.clevelandclinic.org
				












						Milk may be linked to bone fractures and early death
					

"Drinking more than three glasses of milk a day may not protect bones against breaking – and may even lead to higher rates of death," the Mail Online reports. Do not be alarmed – your milkman is no Hallowe'en death-bringer…




					www.nhs.uk
				












						Dairy monsters: Just how healthy is milk?
					

We used to take it for granted that milk was good for us. But now the industry faces a crisis, with the public questioning such assumptions. So just how healthy is milk? Anne Karpf investigates.




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## 2hats (Apr 17, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> If your shadow is longer than you are tall (is that the case at 7AM at the moment? ) then you’re not going to  be mad making Vitamin D, regardless of how long you’re standing there naked.


I was referring to levels of UV-B not epidermal vitamin-D production. The UV-B level may well need a trigger point to initiate vitamin-D synthesis but shadow length is meaningless for a cut off level of any given wavelength of incident sunlight.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 17, 2020)

2hats said:


> I was referring to levels of UV-B not epidermal vitamin-D production. The UV-B level may well need a trigger point to initiate vitamin-D synthesis but shadow length is meaningless for a cut off level of any given wavelength of incident sunlight.




I thought the length of the shadow is a good rough indicator that the wavelength was insufficient to trigger vitamin d synthesis...?


Okay, I’ve just found this wiki so I’m going to work on my understanding of vitamin d with this website.






						Vitamin D Myths - SUN | VitaminDWiki
					

Science-based Vitamin D




					vitamindwiki.com


----------



## 2hats (Apr 17, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I thought the length of the shadow is a good rough indicator that the wavelength was insufficient to trigger vitamin d synthesis...?
> 
> 
> Okay, I’ve just found this wiki so I’m going to work on my understanding of vitamin d with this website.
> ...


It might be a decent handwaving rule of thumb for guesstimating adequate circumstances for vitamin D synthesis, but it's most definitely not a factor for computing incident solar radiation (at any wavelength)!


----------



## Petcha (Apr 17, 2020)

Great to see the curve flattening on the briefing today. Now can someone please explain to me why 250,000 people were allowed to attend Cheltenham over three days and they let thousands of Madrid fans into Liverpool for the football and subsequent mingling in the city centre and pissup? When even Madrid clubs were playing behind closed doors?

Idiots.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I learned on here that drinking enough milk means you don't need the vitamin K at least.


Vitamin _K_, I didn't know it went that high.  Thought it was like the musical scale, G sharp and that's yer lot.


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Great to see the curve flattening on the briefing today. Now can someone please explain to me why 250,000 people were allowed to attend Cheltenham over three days and they let thousands of Madrid fans into Liverpool for the football and subsequent mingling in the city centre and pissup? When even Madrid clubs were playing behind closed doors?
> 
> Idiots.



Because plan A was shit, and was u-turned on after those events took place.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Apr 17, 2020)

Some perspective on the numbers: everyone in this stadium would be dead.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Great to see the curve flattening on the briefing today. Now can someone please explain to me why 250,000 people were allowed to attend Cheltenham over three days and they let thousands of Madrid fans into Liverpool for the football and subsequent mingling in the city centre and pissup? When even Madrid clubs were playing behind closed doors?
> 
> Idiots.


Well, this seems relevant:


brogdale said:


> Apols if posted elsewhere...but this clip of Johnson speaking just 73 days ago is quite instructive when attempting to understand the early, recent history of the government's response to Covid-19:


----------



## Petcha (Apr 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Because plan A was shit, and was u-turned on after those events took place.



And the same 'experts' are the same ones who keep turning up to these briefings. Why don't they just import a German, a kiwi, an aussie, a Korean... anywhere where they seem to have it relatively under control. these people clearly didn't know what the fuck they were doing then so cannot be trusted to take us out of this lockdown competently.

Even I was astonished when they let that Liverpool game go ahead. Madrid was rapidly becoming overrun with the virus. Many liverpool fans did stay away for that very reason but the government gave it the green light. Astonishing.


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

Fruitloop said:


> True (thanks for all the charts and updates by the way!)
> I guess my concern is that because there hasn't been the mass testing that there ought to have been, they're using what are essentially proxy figures. I would love to believe that this curve correlates with the number of total coronavirus cases, but it seems to me that there is very little certainty that this is the case.



Thanks. Hospitalisation & ICU data has a pretty good correlation with the total number of infections, the main problem with it is the lag of several weeks involved. Which means the trends we can see in it tell the story of infections some weeks ago, and if the infection trend started going in the wrong direction we would not see it in the hospital data for a while.

I wouldnt use the hospital numbers to make exact predictions about number of infected people, but it should be fine for judging the overall trends. Exceptions to this would be if there was, at some point in time, a change in what percentage of people who actually had Covid-19 ended up in hospital. We know that there have been many deaths at home in the UK so far, and I am not happy with that side of the picture. As more capacity in hospitals and for tests becomes available, I would like more precautionary approaches on this front to happen. But so far it is perhaps reasonably safe to assume that the hospitalisation rate, and related things such as people not seeking care, has been fairly constant over the period so far.


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> And the same 'experts' are the same ones who keep turning up to these briefings. Why don't they just import a German, a kiwi, an aussie, a Korean... anywhere where they seem to have it relatively under control. these people clearly didn't know what the fuck they were doing then so cannot be trusted to take us out of this lockdown competently.



The problem was the orthodox approach, our capacity, and some of the political decisions. The old orthodox approach is dead, so I dont have quite the same concerns about future policy as I did about past ones. Well thats not exactly true, probably what I should say is that I need to judge each policy and the timing of them as they pop up, and right now there isnt much for me to judge. They started making the right noises about testing in recent weeks, and they didnt rush us out of lockdown at the first possible opportunity. The PPE scandal will continue, and there are a few other issues, but nothing on my future radar that I can rant about at this time.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 17, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Apols if posted elsewhere...but this clip of Johnson speaking just 73 days ago is quite instructive when attempting to understand the early, recent history of the government's response to Covid-19:



Just on this, like others on here I remember posting that the UK government's initial woeful response was about neo-liberalism. brexit and getting a competitive advantage. That was an obvious point to make, but I've not seen anything from johnson till that clip that makes that case so starkly. Fwiw, my guess is there won't be a reckoning or significant changes towards some other/better form of governance at the end of all this. However, if there was to be, that clip would be Exhibit 1 for the prosecution.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 17, 2020)

Why don't they just answer the question. Like Merkel did.



Just explain it to us, it took her two fucking minutes. These idiots haven't answered the question of 'when/why is it taking so long' in two weeks.


----------



## Mation (Apr 17, 2020)

xsunnysuex said:


> Dunno if this has been posted already.  Free London bus travel.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It also says in there that they're thinking about having passengers only board by the middle doors, where that's possible. Initially on trial on 12 routes.

Hmmm. Three weeks ago, when it started being heavily urged that no one should be making non-essential journeys, the only place you could touch in was at the front, with the middle and back Oyster machines disabled (though the doors opened). I wanted to get on a 91 via the back door and had to go all the way to the driver to touch in. I wonder what the logic was behind it at the time?


----------



## brogdale (Apr 17, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Just on this, like others on here I remember posting that the UK government's initial woeful response was about neo-liberalism. brexit and getting a competitive advantage. That was an obvious point to make, but I've not seen anything from johnson till that clip that makes that case so starkly. Fwiw, my guess is there won't be a reckoning or significant changes towards some other/better form of governance at the end of all this. However, if there was to be, that clip would be Exhibit 1 for the prosecution.


Wouldn't it just.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 17, 2020)

Wow, even by this government's standards. This business secretary is an idiot. 

Asked very specifically about HS2 and why we're still doing it while we're broke he just kept repeating the same totally unrelated bullshit about giving businesses help and then legged it.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Wow, even by this government's standards. This business secretary is an idiot.
> 
> Asked very specifically about HS2 and why we're still doing it while we're broke he just kept repeating the same totally unrelated bullshit about giving businesses help and then legged it.


Not an idiot; he's a psychopath.


----------



## Crispy (Apr 17, 2020)

Mation said:


> It also says in there that they're thinking about having passengers only board by the middle doors, where that's possible. Initially on trial on 12 routes.
> 
> Hmmm. Three weeks ago, when it started being heavily urged that no one should be making non-essential journeys, the only place you could touch in was at the front, with the middle and back Oyster machines disabled (though the doors opened). I wanted to get on a 91 via the back door and had to go all the way to the driver to touch in. I wonder what the logic was behind it at the time?


They were going to disable all-doors boarding on the New buses cos of fare evasion. It was being trialed on a few routes


----------



## Petcha (Apr 17, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Not an idiot; he's a psychopath.



My instinct so far, watching all these briefings, is that Rishi Sunak is the only one with any competence. The rest are, as you say, psychopaths or just plain idiots. Although some are both (Priti).


----------



## xsunnysuex (Apr 17, 2020)

Mation said:


> It also says in there that they're thinking about having passengers only board by the middle doors, where that's possible. Initially on trial on 12 routes.
> 
> Hmmm. Three weeks ago, when it started being heavily urged that no one should be making non-essential journeys, the only place you could touch in was at the front, with the middle and back Oyster machines disabled (though the doors opened). I wanted to get on a 91 via the back door and had to go all the way to the driver to touch in. I wonder what the logic was behind it at the time?


They stopped allowing people to tap in at the middle doors,  because people weren't bothering to tap in.   So were getting free travel.   Tfl were loosing thousands .  
There won't be any oyster machines in the middle soon.   They will be taking them all away.


----------



## xenon (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Wow, even by this government's standards. This business secretary is an idiot.
> 
> Asked very specifically about HS2 and why we're still doing it while we're broke he just kept repeating the same totally unrelated bullshit about giving businesses help and then legged it.



Stay at home. Protect the NHS and save lives, ok?

Mind you, a lot of the questions are fucking daft. When can we go on holiday etc.


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

xenon said:


> Stay at home. Protect the NHS and save lives, ok?
> 
> Mind you, a lot of the questions are fucking daft. When can we go on holiday etc.



Yeah, if I have to stop watching these briefings for my own sanity, it will be because of the questions as much as the non-answers.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 17, 2020)

xenon said:


> Mind you, a lot of the questions are fucking daft. When can we go on holiday etc.



It's all about the exit strategy.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> My instinct so far, watching all these briefings, is that Rishi Sunak is the only one with any competence. The rest are, as you say, psychopaths or just plain idiots. Although some are both (Priti).


Casting any of the cabinet as idiots carries the risk of excusing their conscious ideological decisions.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> My instinct so far, watching all these briefings, is that Rishi Sunak is the only one with any competent ruthlessness.



cfy


----------



## andysays (Apr 17, 2020)

Crispy said:


> They were going to disable all-doors boarding on the New buses cos of fare evasion. It was being trialed on a few routes


Yeah, I remember hearing announcements on the bus I normally took to work, after the virus had started to become an issue

"from next week, you will only be able to enter this bus through the front door"

Don't know if it was ever implemented on that route, because the next week I started bringing my work van home so I no longer had to travel on the bus.

(that was only four weeks ago, but it seems like another era now  )


----------



## weltweit (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Great to see the curve flattening on the briefing today. Now can someone please explain to me why 250,000 people were allowed to attend Cheltenham over three days and they let thousands of Madrid fans into Liverpool for the football and subsequent mingling in the city centre and pissup? When even Madrid clubs were playing behind closed doors?
> 
> Idiots.


And The Cheltenham Festival 300,000


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Wow, even by this government's standards. This business secretary is an idiot.
> 
> Asked very specifically about HS2 and why we're still doing it while we're broke he just kept repeating the same totally unrelated bullshit about giving businesses help and then legged it.



Yes he is a total idiot for not inventing HS2 policy on the fly in response to a pointless question from a hack at a press conference.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 17, 2020)

HS2 policy is "this sector is a big contributor to the Tory party".


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

weltweit said:


> And The Cheltenham Festival 300,000



Johnson went to a rugby match just before that, which was apparently instrumental in them going ahead with Cheltenham.









						Cheltenham cited Boris Johnson's rugby outing as a reason for Festival go-ahead
					

The organisers of the Cheltenham Festival cited the presence of Boris Johnson at an England rugby match shortly before the meeting was due to begin in a letter explaining why it was going ahead




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Mation (Apr 17, 2020)

Crispy said:


> They were going to disable all-doors boarding on the New buses cos of fare evasion. It was being trialed on a few routes





xsunnysuex said:


> They stopped allowing people to tap in at the middle doors,  because people weren't bothering to tap in.   So were getting free travel.   Tfl were loosing thousands .
> There won't be any oyster machines in the middle soon.   They will be taking them all away.


That seems an incredibly poor decision, to keep it going after social distancing was in place


----------



## weltweit (Apr 17, 2020)

Ashloch Sharma is useless, I don't think he answered a single question properly today. While politicians might think that a desirable skill, on a televised Q&A it is totally transparent. He has the charisma of an empty bucket.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Why don't they just answer the question. Like Merkel did.
> 
> 
> 
> Just explain it to us, it took her two fucking minutes. These idiots haven't answered the question of 'when/why is it taking so long' in two weeks.



Cos Germany has had a plan from the start. Cos she isn't afraid of her lies and incompetence being exposed, because she hasn't lied and isn't incompetent. So she can just speak the truth as she understands it without having to constantly self-censor in case she says something that makes her look bad. 

The alternative approach if you've fucked up is to do what Macron did the other day and admit that you fucked up. Once you've done that, again, you don't have to constantly self-censor in your answers. 

Likelihood of honesty, competence or contrition coming from the UK government?


----------



## Mation (Apr 17, 2020)

xenon said:


> Mind you, a lot of the questions are fucking daft. When can we go on holiday etc.


I thought so too, but on the other hand, if they ask and have that kind of thing answered specifically, then it would help people realise really clearly that it's too soon to plan anything for the summer.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 17, 2020)

"When can we go on holiday?"

"We don't know. Probably when people stop fucking dying. Next question."

Job done.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Cos Germany has had a plan from the start. Cos she isn't afraid of her lies and incompetence being exposed, because she hasn't lied and isn't incompetent. So she can just speak the truth as she understands it without having to constantly self-censor in case she says something that makes her look bad.
> 
> The alternative approach if you've fucked up is to do what Macron did the other day and admit that you fucked up. Once you've done that, again, you don't have to constantly self-censor in your answers.
> 
> Likelihood of honesty, competence or contrition coming from the UK government?



Yeh. I think it's time someone from this cabinet did a Macron. Just come out to the briefing, apologise, say we fucked up and tell us what we all know anyway really, that because of that fuck up we're gonna be locked down for quite a while longer than three weeks. Just say it. How hard is it. 

We're currently the laughing stock of Europe. I saw an Austrian politician presenting a slide yesterday showing that the UK is by far on course to be the worse affected in Europe. Even Austria has managed this better than us. You would have thought this country would have some of the best scientific minds in the world. I don't buy for a minute that it was just Boris and Cummings overruling them. They were being given piss-poor advice in my opinion. Once the dust settles I assume we'll learn which of those two things are true.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 17, 2020)

Oh we have the experts. But we're done with them, remember?


----------



## PD58 (Apr 17, 2020)

My overriding concern is that it seems like policy is being thought up on the hoof. I understand that the response to a degree has to be fluid, however, why has it taken 4 weeks to set up a vaccine task force, surely this should have been done at the outset as it is going to be vital? The politicians show an incredible lack of understanding of the science and strategic overview of the reasoning behind the approach, other than the  3 part mantra and 'relying on expert advice' is neither policy or plan. I'm afraid the scientists are also underwhelming, why is the chief science officer presenting graphs on transport figures for example, and them being present at most of the briefings actually allows the government off the hook. I get part of the problem is a daily briefing but 'you makes your bed'...it feels that the situation is getting worse by the week and is only being held together by those working at the frontline and all those in the full range of supporting roles.


----------



## editor (Apr 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Now can someone please explain to me why 250,000 people were allowed to attend Cheltenham over three days and they let thousands of Madrid fans into Liverpool for the football and subsequent mingling in the city centre and pissup? When even Madrid clubs were playing behind closed doors?


Because this government is a bunch of fucking idiots whose reckless indifference to the advice given to them by medical professionals and their refusal to learn from other countries directly led to the deaths of thousands of UK citizens.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 17, 2020)

PD58 said:


> My overriding concern is that it seems like policy is being thought up on the hoof. I understand that the response to a degree has to be fluid, however, why has it taken 4 weeks to set up a vaccine task force, surely this should have been done at the outset as it is going to be vital? The politicians show an incredible lack of understanding of the science and strategic overview of the reasoning behind the approach, other than the  3 part mantra and 'relying on expert advice' is neither policy or plan. I'm afraid the scientists are also underwhelming, why is the chief science officer presenting graphs on transport figures for example, and them being present at most of the briefings actually allows the government off the hook. I get part of the problem is a daily briefing but 'you makes your bed'...it feels that the situation is getting worse by the week and is only being held together by those working at the frontline and all those in the full range of supporting roles.



Yeh, that daily slide about how many people are using their cars... what the actual fuck.

Maybe you should have a slide showing you're not testing ANYONE arriving at our airports, even from China, Spain and Italy while you've got Hancock saying we have 'spare capacity' on tests.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

editor said:


> Because this government is a bunch of fucking idiots whose reckless indifference to the advice given to them by medical professionals and their refusal to learn from other countries directly led to the deaths of thousands of UK citizens.


And who are still more interested in covering their arses over that fact than facing up to the business of trying to fix it. They are truly pathetic, every single one of them. Reason we don't have any firm exit date yet? Cos there isn't an exit plan in place yet, nor even a timetable for one. Cos they've been shit. Just admit it. We all already know.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 17, 2020)




----------



## planetgeli (Apr 17, 2020)

At last some coverage of the deaths in Wales in reference to where they have been. And it's interesting. Of the 506 deaths in hospitals confirmed by a lab test, 494 have been in the health authorities covering the area between Swansea and the English border with just 12 in other areas.

*More detail of where deaths are across Wales*
Aneurin Bevan has 37.5% of Covid-19 deaths so far

BBCCopyright: BBC
Public Health Wales for the first time has started to break down where the deaths from coronavirus have occurred so far.
Of the 506 deaths, 190 have taken place in the Aneurin Bevan health board area - which was identified as a hot-spot earlier on in the pandemic.
The area, covering Newport, the old Gwent valleys and rural Monmouthshire, has 18% of the population of Wales - but this is where 37.5% of the deaths have occurred so far.
Cardiff and Vale (112) and Cwm Taf Morgannnwg (110) areas are next, followed by Swansea Bay (82).
There are another 12 deaths spread across three other health board areas but details are being masked, PHW says, to protect patient confidentiality.
It does admit however that the number of actual deaths will be higher.
Deaths are not included which may have happened due to Covid-19 but have not been confirmed by a laboratory test.
PHW also adds that the majority of deaths are in hospitals but says a "proportion" took place in care homes.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 17, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> And they should stay free after all this too.



they pretty much are in London, go as far as you like for £1.50, hey even jump on another bus and go further if you like for no extra. Rest of us paying £4 to go six miles.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 17, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> they pretty much are in London, go as far as you like for £1.50, hey even jump on another bus and go further if you like for no extra. Rest of us paying £4 to go six miles.


I support buses being free - and nationalised - across the entire country of course.


----------



## kenny g (Apr 17, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> they pretty much are in London, go as far as you like for £1.50, hey even jump on another bus and go further if you like for no extra. Rest of us paying £4 to go six miles.


£3 for a return journey doesn't feel like free.


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> At last some coverage of the deaths in Wales in reference to where they have been. And it's interesting. Of the 506 deaths in hospitals confirmed by a lab test, 494 have been in the health authorities covering the area between Swansea and the English border with just 12 in other areas.
> 
> *More detail of where deaths are across Wales*
> Aneurin Bevan has 37.5% of Covid-19 deaths so far



Ah the Wales dashboard is actually useful in places!

They've even got the 'confirmed positive deaths' displayed by actual date of death, rather than just by date of reporting.






						Tableau Public
					






					public.tableau.com


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 17, 2020)

Presumably making today’s press conference about investing in vaccine research was just trying to push the focus onto the future because they’re making such a fuck up of things at the moment. Classic bit of diversion.


----------



## elbows (Apr 17, 2020)

On the subject of data, there is more Scotland data available than I had realised too. Sometimes half the challenge is finding the right website & pages in the first place. There is even a spreadsheet link on the page that contains interesting stuff including ambulance and care home related daily figures.









						Coronavirus (COVID-19): data for Scotland
					

Information on COVID-19 data sources in Scotland. This page is no longer updated with the latest daily data on COVID-19.




					www.gov.scot


----------



## teqniq (Apr 17, 2020)

No PPE
Gets coughed on by a patient sick with Covid-19
Starts experiencing syptoms
Told to self-isolate
Tries ringing 111 when at home but can't get through.
Gets found dead by police afer a relative pleads with them to break in
Nerver married as was supporting his four nieces and nephew in the Philippines.

I am fucking angry.









						Filipino nurse in London found dead alone while in COVID-19 quarantine
					

Fifty-one-year-old Donald Suelto, a Filipino nurse in London who got infected with COVID-19, died alone in his flat while on quarantine.




					cnnphilippines.com
				




E2a notice the reportage is from CNN Philipines. It happened on 5th April - and it's the first I've heard of it.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 17, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> And they should stay free after all this too.


Ken Livingstone had it right all those years ago...


----------



## Wilf (Apr 17, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> At last some coverage of the deaths in Wales in reference to where they have been. And it's interesting. Of the 506 deaths in hospitals confirmed by a lab test, 494 have been in the health authorities covering the area between Swansea and the English border with just 12 in other areas.
> 
> *More detail of where deaths are across Wales*
> Aneurin Bevan has 37.5% of Covid-19 deaths so far
> ...


That info would be gold dust if combined with, oh, I don't know, a bit of community testing, contact tracing...


----------



## weltweit (Apr 17, 2020)

Germany plans to produce 50 million face masks a week in the coming period. 

Anyone know if there are any projects in the UK to do the same?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Germany plans to produce 50 million face masks a week in the coming period.
> 
> Anyone know if there are any projects in the UK to do the same?


I think they've got Vivienne Westwood working on a new design. Should be ready end of next year.


----------



## Supine (Apr 17, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I think they've got Vivienne Westwood working on a new design. Should be ready end of next year.



£600 per mask?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 17, 2020)

Supine said:


> £600 per mask?


Ach no. This is for the public good, you know. £400.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

With discount for nurses £300


----------



## zahir (Apr 17, 2020)




----------



## zahir (Apr 17, 2020)

> Kate Hills, the founder of Make It British, which promotes brands that manufacture in the UK, said the government was ignoring less well-known textile specialists in favour of household names that play well with the public. “They’re just picking out brand names,” she said.
> 
> “The people who can make this PPE are not well-known names, they are contract manufacturers behind the scenes. They’ve filled in the government’s request forms and heard nothing back.”











						Government 'ignores' UK textiles firms desperate to make PPE
					

Too much emphasis placed on brand names to help during coronavirus crisis, say industry sources




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## weltweit (Apr 17, 2020)

zahir yes, government seems initially to have gone for recognised names in their search for more ventilators also. Despite that existing manufacturers could have been scaled up more easily. On that matter I believe Dyson's ventilator still isn't approved for manufacture.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 17, 2020)

Covid-19: why we need a national health and social care service


> Neglect of social care during the pandemic shames the UK
> Covid-19 outbreaks in care homes expose serious inadequacies in social care services across the UK. Data from across the world show that deaths from covid-19 mainly occur among older people, particularly those over 80.1 By 12 April 10 612 deaths had been reported in the UK2—40% of deaths have occurred in those aged 60-79 and 52% in those 80 years or over.3





> ..
> Many residents in care homes are trapped in their rooms, with no visits from relatives and minimal interactions with staff. The decision to exclude relatives means that care homes have become closed institutions, increasing the risk that people are inappropriately denied hospital admission as well as the risk of neglect and abuse.56 Of equal concern are plans to transfer patients recovering from covid-19 from the NHS into empty nursing home beds.7





> ..
> Staff on zero hour contracts do not receive sick pay and often go to work when sick. The sector is 120 000 workers short,13 and agency staff moving from one home to another further increases the risk of covid-19 transmission. Social care has been a low priority for personal protective equipment despite the high risks for residents and staff.14
> ..
> etc


from 14/04/2020 Covid-19: why we need a national health and social care service


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 17, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Presumably making today’s press conference about investing in vaccine research was just trying to push the focus onto the future because they’re making such a fuck up of things at the moment. Classic bit of diversion.



Also they should really have put people to work on the vaccine thing a while ago anyway.


----------



## zahir (Apr 17, 2020)

> We have donned our double gloves, face masks and eye shields – Covid-19’s fashion essentials. The biosafety cabinets whirr reassuringly in the background, the robots hum, and the radio blasts rock tunes. All systems are go. Then comes the call: “We are finished. No more swabs. You can go home.” It’s midday. Our shift had only started at eight.
> 
> Much fanfare has been made of the need to scale up Covid-19 testing. But the truth is: the country’s capacity to test for coronavirus is being wasted.





> And yet at our testing centre on Tuesday this week, we processed just over 1,000 samples. The day before, the total was 1,300, and three days ago 1,800.
> 
> Our shifts were meant to be excruciating 12-hour marathons. In reality, they are rather more like laid-back morning jogs. Dozens of academics and laboratory personnel from all over the UK languish in a hotel with nothing to do. Millions of pounds of equipment borrowed from universities and companies rests silently in the evening hours, when the noise of our collective toil should be deafening.











						I am a swab tester – but we have barely any swabs to test | Gianmarco Raddi
					

The response here is hampered by lack of political will, says molecular biologist Gianmarco Raddi




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Gerry1time (Apr 17, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> At last some coverage of the deaths in Wales in reference to where they have been. And it's interesting. Of the 506 deaths in hospitals confirmed by a lab test, 494 have been in the health authorities covering the area between Swansea and the English border with just 12 in other areas.
> 
> *More detail of where deaths are across Wales*
> Aneurin Bevan has 37.5% of Covid-19 deaths so far
> ...



Any coincidence that the reddest bit is the bit closest to Cheltenham?


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 17, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> they pretty much are in London, go as far as you like for £1.50, hey even jump on another bus and go further if you like for no extra. Rest of us paying £4 to go six miles.


I have to pay £4.20 for 3 miles.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 17, 2020)

An interesting read about post-pandemic state-society relationships

The Worry of Governance: Coronavirus and Emergency Politics - From Poverty to Power


----------



## ska invita (Apr 17, 2020)

xenon said:


> Reckon I'm low on vit D. I don' bother going out in the sun much at the best of times and CBA just walking around the streets during this. I take a multivit (when I remember.) OTOH I eat eggs, cheese and tuna quite often.


Vit D is rarely in a multivit, and if is in it, it'll be at a low amount. B12 and D are ones i get in special on top of a multi vit


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

I just ordered some 5000 IU vit D for reasonable price for 120 gel type tablet things


----------



## weltweit (Apr 17, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Vit D is rarely in a multivit, and if is in it, it'll be at a low amount. B12 and D are ones i get in special on top of a multi vit


My Boots multivitamin includes 5 ?g Vit D which is apparently 100% of my daily requirement. 
I take it mainly because I want Vit A for which I get 50% my RDA but I get loads of others which I probably don't need.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I just ordered some 5000 IU vit D for reasonable price for 120 gel type tablet things


my local polish shop does soluble ones you can drop in a pint of water for £2


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 17, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> Any coincidence that the reddest bit is the bit closest to Cheltenham?



Yes. Coincidence. There are many better explanations. People are a bit fixated on Cheltenham.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

weltweit said:


> My Boots multivitamin includes 5 ?g Vit D which is apparently 100% of my daily requirement.
> I take it mainly because I want Vit A for which I get 50% my RDA but I get loads of others which I probably don't need.



That is presumably going to be 5 mcg which is 5 microgram which is 200 IU (International Units). They're now talking about up to 125 mcg or 5000 IU during winter months, which as I say is what I've ordered.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 17, 2020)

wont derail this any further, but a colleague suffering with depression started taking 10,000 IU Vit D daily and it helped enormously, now off SRIs. Just an anecdote, of course nothing is simple


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

ska invita said:


> my local polish shop does soluble ones you can drop in a pint of water for £2


These were £12 for 120 which looks good although they're coming from the US and they do say I may have to pay duties and they might be held up in customs in perpetuity even though they say 'easy uk delivery'. 

We shall see.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 17, 2020)

Can we keep this thread for updates & news? Not where you get your multi vits from, even if it is from tax dodging fucking co’s like Boots,


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

ska invita said:


> wont derail this any further, but a colleague suffering with depression started taking 10,000 IU Vit D daily and it helped enormously, now off SRIs. Just an anecdote, of course nothing is simple



Interesting - I have seen high doses recommended. I'm reluctant to try that even though they're not supposed to be harmful in excess. I'm still quite wheezy after coldy type thing am tempted to overdose to see whether that affects it.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 17, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Can we keep this thread for updates & news? Not where you get your multi vits from, even if it is from tax dodging fucking co’s like Boots,



oops sorry will do


----------



## ice-is-forming (Apr 18, 2020)

So in Australia the messaging is very clear.

Mandated  on a federal level are..

Closure of  the national borders to all non Aus residents, and strict quarantine for Australians arriving back here.

Closure of state borders and strict quarantine and rules for those who have to  travel, for essential reasons, from one state to another.

The announcement of a (very likely to be)  mandatory phone app for contact tracing.

The testing stations.

The closure of places,  events meetings etc.. and the physical distancing and non essential travel ( even Anzac Day and the State of Origin Football, which shows how seriously it's being taken )

The economic stimulus and supports, and the change of rules around tenancy, work and welfare.

The exit plan... To start reducing restrictions we'd need to have in place...

*Tests to detect COVID-19 within the community would need to be expanded

*The Government's ability to trace the movements of infected people.

*Greater ability to respond to local outbreaks would also be needed

Until those three benchmarks are met, the restrictions will remain.

None of those are up for discussion.

But at a state, regional and local level things are more flexible and place based. For example..

Western Australia have much stricter travel rules.

The beaches in populated places are closed, but not in quieter places.

Schools are reopening in Qld, but not in other states.

Fines for breaking rules are decided by the state rather than at a federal level.

Different distances are considered essential travel in different regions.

The latest announcement was this one Coronavirus restrictions to last at least four more weeks, PM says

elbows  I know it says that they'll look at reducing restrictions in four weeks, but currently the reality is that any reduction will happen at the end of July at the earliest. And we are actually prepared for it to be September. We need to get through Winter, and our flu season. The reason I feel confident in saying this is because I work for the federal government in a health related program, and our internal messaging is different to the external messaging.

I can imagine the government are saying four weeks, and then review, as psychologically it's easier for people to hear and stick with.

I hope it's shorter as I'm missing my family, but having said that I look at where Australia is in this whole thing, and for once I actually have some faith in government, they've adopted a very bipartisan approach so far and it's working.

Here's the current status,





I think that aprox 90% of cases have been traced back to contact with  international travelers. Most of those arrived on a cruise ship at the start of all this, and were allowed to disembark untested. This is now a huge criminal investigation. I think that aprox 30% of deaths are passengers from that ship









						Australia’s coronavirus victims: Covid-19 related deaths across the country
					

As the number of cases rises, so does the number of those who have died. Here is a state-by-state list of virus-related fatalities




					www.theguardian.com
				




Looking at those images up-thread of the crowds, including the police, on Westminster Bridge is shocking! If that was happening here the police would be dispersing people giving on the spot fines of over $1000.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 18, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Germany plans to produce 50 million face masks a week in the coming period.
> 
> Anyone know if there are any projects in the UK to do the same?


The UK is definitely producing masks. Who is buying them is the question.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 18, 2020)

Raheem said:


> The UK is definitely producing masks. ..


Do you know any of the companies involved?


----------



## zahir (Apr 18, 2020)

This looks like a reprisal for speaking out.









						Professor critical of government receives formal complaints
					

Professor John Ashton has called out the government's handling of the crisis, he says he is now being investigated




					www.liverpoolecho.co.uk


----------



## weltweit (Apr 18, 2020)

Apparently Captain Tom has now raised more than £20,000,000 

I think he risks wearing a path in the tarmac of his garden


----------



## Raheem (Apr 18, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Do you know any of the companies involved?


I know someone who works at the 3M factory in Co Durham making face masks. I could ask what he knows about where they are ending up.


----------



## Mation (Apr 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think they've got Vivienne Westwood working on a new design. Should be ready end of next year.


I laughed (as it was very funny) but now I'm terrified. They're just promoting British industry, aren't they? Whilst still pursuing herd immunity.


----------



## Mation (Apr 18, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Apparently Captain Tom has now raised more than £20,000,000
> 
> I think he risks wearing a path in the tarmac of his garden


Good on him 

Awful that he had to.

I am thankful that he didn't make Major


----------



## andysays (Apr 18, 2020)

Mation said:


> Good on him
> 
> Awful that he had to.
> 
> I am thankful that he didn't make Major


Yeah, because someone would have been bound to make a terrible joke about Ground Control 

Thankfully we've avoided that now...


----------



## peterkro (Apr 18, 2020)

ska invita said:


> wont derail this any further, but a colleague suffering with depression started taking 10,000 IU Vit D daily and it helped enormously, now off SRIs. Just an anecdote, of course nothing is simple


10,000 iu per day is recommended by the Vit D council as a safe dose which will help raise levels to the optimum level.


----------



## Smangus (Apr 18, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Apparently Captain Tom has now raised more than £20,000,000
> 
> I think he risks wearing a path in the tarmac of his garden


----------



## mwgdrwg (Apr 18, 2020)

So the BBC got it's story wrong and the "Boss of an NHS Trust" wasn't anything of the sort.

That is either the shoddiest journalism in the world, or someone's had a word about how a government mouthpiece should behave.


----------



## zahir (Apr 18, 2020)

zahir said:


> I’m speculating here but I wonder if the app is being seen as an alternative to actually having to set up teams of people at a local level to carry out contact tracing.



.
And yes it really does look like this is what they’re thinking:




__





						EU Referendum
					






					eureferendum.com
				




From the article:

By coincidence, one assumes, in yesterday's hearing of Jeremy Hunt's health committee, Clive Betts - chair of the communities and local government committee – was co-opted to question Hancock on precisely that issue. And the results were not encouraging.

Betts actually started off with the assumption that local authority environmental health departments were going to have "a major role to play" in contact tracing, "It isn't just going to be about apps", Betts said. "There's going to be a lot of physical hands-on work that local councils are going to be fully compensated for that".

But Hancock responded with some equivocation, leaving it open as to whether local authorities were to be used at all for contact tracing. Betts, however, asserted that "public health and environmental health officers are going to be absolutely key to getting that done". He thus asked: "It's going to be done at a local level isn't it, if we're going to get it right?"

It is there that the real Hancock emerged: "We haven't made that decision", he said, "not least because the interaction with the e-contact tracing". The app, he said, "is critical and whether it's done locally or whether it's done through phone banks that are national level, that decision is not yet made".

Betts was not at all happy with that. He asked Hancock to accept that, although apps were "clearly an important part of this as a way forward", many people, perhaps those who are most vulnerable – the elderly for example – are not always comfortable using new technology.

For them, Betts said, "physical contact tracking and tracing done at a local level may be in the end the only way you're going to get a comprehensive approach to it".

But, while Hancock conceded that "the role of people in contact tracing" was "very, very important", he thought that much of the work would be "done over the phone". Going round to somebody's house, he said, "isn't always necessary". He could "see the point about having a local angle to it" but given the scale of contact tracing that is likely to be needed, "doing this nationally over the phone has a lot of advantages".

And there we have it. Despite his claim not to have made up his mind, it is clear which way Hancock is moving. He believes that he can exploit mobile phone technology to track people's movements.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 18, 2020)

How the fuck will contact tracing apps work with children for example? How will it protect me (in the shielded group) who works in a primary school? This thing needs to be heavily squashed before we all come out again.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 18, 2020)

mwgdrwg said:


> So the BBC got it's story wrong and the "Boss of an NHS Trust" wasn't anything of the sort.
> 
> That is either the shoddiest journalism in the world, or someone's had a word about how a government mouthpiece should behave.



It's an interesting one. The "Boss" was unnamed in the original story, so its not like they were going to sue. The BBC appears, however, to have completely removed the original article, at least from search engines (I've tried - the story was referenced by many other news organisations, all of which appear in searches, but not the BBC story). And the apology was huge, the second biggest story this morning on the BBC website. Looks like government pressure to me.


----------



## zahir (Apr 18, 2020)




----------



## Mation (Apr 18, 2020)

andysays said:


> Yeah, because someone would have been bound to make a terrible joke about Ground Control
> 
> Thankfully we've avoided that now...


Eh? 

I was thinking that we'd have been hearing Space Oddity everywhere and that I wouldn't have liked it to be associated with this.


----------



## andysays (Apr 18, 2020)

Mation said:


> Eh?
> 
> I was thinking that we'd have been hearing Space Oddity everywhere and that I wouldn't have liked it to be associated with this.


That as well


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 18, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Apparently Captain Tom has now raised more than £20,000,000
> 
> I think he risks wearing a path in the tarmac of his garden


Need to get a few of these old people out crowdfunding for Trident


----------



## existentialist (Apr 18, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> I have to pay £4.20 for 3 miles.


That's nothin'. I had to build my OWN t'bus out of twigs and bits that had fallen off cars, and then I had to t'pedal, AND pay £40,000 for the privilege.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> No PPE
> Gets coughed on by a patient sick with Covid-19
> Starts experiencing syptoms
> Told to self-isolate
> ...


Remains of NHS workers who died of coronavirus lost for days


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

mwgdrwg said:


> So the BBC got it's story wrong and the "Boss of an NHS Trust" wasn't anything of the sort.
> 
> That is either the shoddiest journalism in the world, or someone's had a word about how a government mouthpiece should behave.





planetgeli said:


> It's an interesting one. The "Boss" was unnamed in the original story, so its not like they were going to sue. The BBC appears, however, to have completely removed the original article, at least from search engines (I've tried - the story was referenced by many other news organisations, all of which appear in searches, but not the BBC story). And the apology was huge, the second biggest story this morning on the BBC website. Looks like government pressure to me.


What story is this? If you have a link for the original, have you tried the wayback machine?


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 18, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yeh, that daily slide about how many people are using their cars... what the actual fuck.
> 
> Maybe you should have a slide showing you're not testing ANYONE arriving at our airports, even from China, Spain and Italy while you've got Hancock saying we have 'spare capacity' on tests.


there's a year-old presentation of whitty's on pandemic planning on youtube.



the takeaway points for me were 1) that he figured anything to do with limiting or closing airports is impossible and/or useless, never to be considered and 2) that "waiting for a vaccine" is a pretend answer in terms of how to get out of it 

(apols if repeat post//previously discussed at length, wrong thread etc...)


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> What story is this? If you have a link for the original, have you tied the wayback machine?











						BBC correction on Burberry coronavirus plea
					

An article about PPE for health workers mistakenly attributed a claim to the boss of an NHS trust.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




That's the apology.









						NHS boss begs for help from Burberry to help make PPE
					

The unnamed trust chief described Health Secretary Matt Hancock's denial of a PPE shortage as a ‘fantasy’.




					metro.co.uk
				




That's the Metro version of the original story. As you can see, it paints Hancock in a bad light and calls his version of the PPE shortage 'a fantasy'.

Smacks of government interference in the, ahem, impartiality of the BBC.

What's 'wayback'?


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

__





						Internet Archive: Wayback Machine
					





					archive.org
				



Independent cache of web pages. Great for finding stuff that has been deleted/changed. If you know the url of the original BBC article it'll most likely still be there.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 18, 2020)

Wonder if there’s any major heists going on at present? I bet you could totally pull off some of that Hatton Garden type shit at the moment what with no fucker being about, although might be more detectable at street level due to less background noise.


----------



## elbows (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Here:









						NHS boss: 'I need gowns, can I call Burberry?'
					

The director of an NHS Trust says staff only have enough protective gowns to last them for 24 hours.




					web.archive.org


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

Nice one elbows


----------



## Petcha (Apr 18, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> there's a year-old presentation of whitty's on pandemic planning on youtube.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I think it's been conclusively been proven that this guy is an incompetent idiot


----------



## Numbers (Apr 18, 2020)

I liked him at first and thought we were safe in his consultary hands.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

Pretty much as suspected, it's all about protecting capital and fuck the ordinary people:


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 18, 2020)

It's hard to satirise, this. It really is. You think you've said something crazy then reality pops up to match it.

Mark Steel hit the nail on the head a couple of days ago. 

Mark Steel: Now’s no time for hard questions about coronavirus – save them for when there's nothing the government can do about it



> Matt Hancock also understands you have to be cruel to be kind, which is why he told NHS staff the “shortages” of protective equipment were because they weren’t using it properly. “We need everyone to treat PPE like the precious resource it is,” he said, and “use the equipment they clinically need, in line with the guidelines.”
> I hope they take notice, because he knows so much more than medical staff, about how to use medical equipment. Maybe he should pop into a hospital and show them how to carry out a liver transplant, without wasting bandages and paracetamol like they usually do.



Hancock probably will do something exactly that mad now.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Nice one elbows



Yes, spot on  -- I was also quite mystified earlier about these references to an erroneous BBC story ....


----------



## little_legs (Apr 18, 2020)

LOL


----------



## elbows (Apr 18, 2020)

little_legs said:


> LOL




Thats an interesting version of history. I'm about to take a break for the rest of the weekend but a couple of things I can add to it:

It wasnt just media and public pressure - it was what other countries started doing at the time that caused a lot of the pressure. For example there was the situation in Ireland where Ireland closed its schools but Northern Irelands were still open at the time. And Macron claimed to have influenced the UK decision, and although I take that claim with a large pinch of salt, it was part of the picture at the time.

It was public pressure in the sense that 'Boris the butcher' started trending during the period where their 'herd immunity' approach was announced, and quickly destroyed.

Was the tail wagging the dog in regards the science and the timing of it? It was certainly of interest that the key Imperial College report came out the Monday after the weekend where the previous strategy was going down in flames. I expect the full reality was a bit messy and complicated, rather than such a simple tale. The influence likely works in both directions, its not a one way street.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 18, 2020)

little_legs said:


> LOL











						Cabinet ministers admit there is no lockdown exit plan as they wait for Boris Johnson's return
					

One insider said 'there can be no exit strategy until Boris is back in business'




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				





Spoiler: Full article.



Cabinet ministers admit there is no lockdown exit plan as they wait for Boris Johnson's return
One insider said 'there can be no exit strategy until Boris is back in business'

By Gordon Rayner,  POLITICAL EDITOR; Camilla Tominey,  ASSOCIATE EDITOR ; Anna Mikhailova, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR and Charles Hymas
17 April 2020 • 10:00pm

Ministers have admitted they do not have an agreed strategy for ending the coronavirus lockdown as they wait for Boris Johnson to return to work and take charge of the policy. 
Government sources have told The Daily Telegraph that the exit strategy is still at the “modelling” stage and there is not a document “sitting on a shelf ” waiting to be put into action. One insider said there was “no exit plan at the moment because ... there can be no exit strategy until Boris is back in business”. Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, said scientists would review the evidence at the end of the month, meaning it will be a fortnight before there is “clarity” on the way forward. Alok Sharma, the Business Secretary, warned the public to get used to a “new normal” for the foreseeable future because Britain would not go back to “the way we were” even when restrictions begin to be eased. It came as Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, said it was time to treat the public like “grown ups” by keeping them informed of the latest thinking on the strategy. The UK death toll has risen to 14,576 following the announcement of 847 deaths on Friday. 

Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, said he expected deaths to “continue at a plateau for a little while, and then to come down slowly after that”. While Dominic Raab, who is standing in for Mr Johnson, has set out five tests that must be met before any of the restrictions can be lifted, there is no agreement about how a gradual easing of the lockdown would happen. One Cabinet minister said: “The real decisions are being made in No10 – and that’s where it gets so difficult in the absence of the Prime Minister, because who has the authority to make those decisions? The truth is they can’t be made until he comes back.” The minister said Mr Raab’s five point plan “basically allows the Government to do what it wants to do when it wants to do it – to only announce an exit strategy when we are ready”. The Prime Minister’s spokesman said it was “just wrong” to suggest that the Cabinet was delaying decisions on the lockdown until Mr Johnson returned to work, insisting that “work is taking place across Whitehall” to decide what to do next. Mr Johnson spoke to Dominic Raab on Thursday but is not doing any Government work and is “focused on his recovery”, Downing Street said. Another Cabinet source said: “We don’t have a strategy sitting on the shelf, we need to have a lot of internal discussions first. A lot of it will have to come from the scientists. The plan will be affected by what happens in the coming weeks in countries that are lifting lockdown measures.” 

A third Cabinet source said: “There’s no exit plan at the moment because they don’t want to do anything without the boss’s say so. “Not a huge amount is going on in these Cabinet meetings.” The source added: “They are waiting for the public to change their minds. “We didn’t want to go down this route in the first place – public and media pressure pushed the lockdown, we went with the science. “The lockdown will only start coming loose when the public wants it to – not ministers.” Advice given to the Cabinet by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) would be pivotal, according to another Cabinet insider, who said this was expected at the end of the month. “The belief is that the key decisions on any exit strategy will be taken by the PM, his No 10 team and Sage,” the source added. Mr Shapps hinted at the current impasse by saying there would be “a review by the scientists at the end of this month … We’ll be in a position to provide greater clarity”. Ms Sturgeon said she would set out over the next week how the Scottish government would ease the restrictions, “so that we are treating the public like the grown-ups that they are”. Asked if the Government was treating the public like children, a Downing Street spokesman said: “We have set out our five tests but we are at a critical point and we want people to remain focused on that core message of the need to stay at home.”


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 18, 2020)

ffs this fucking 'the boss' thing again. 

Pathetic at every conceivable level if there is any truth in it at all.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> 'the boss'


Likely an autocorrect of 'the bozo'.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 18, 2020)

PHE could be recruiting and training an army of contact tracers to go into action as restrictions are eased, aligned with expanded testing to test in the community on demand. These measures to continue downward pressure on the virus as people are permitted more freedom. 

Once restrictions are eased there will still be small amounts of infections (probably) and these should be aggressively contact traced and contacts tested and isolated. This is what we should have been continuing with from the start and is the only way (bar a vaccine) to keep on top of our own national epidemic. 

No mention of this from government sources at the moment though, no mention of relaxation of measures either as government spokespeople focus only on repeating the current mantra of stay at home protect the NHS and save lives.


----------



## treelover (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Pretty much as suspected, it's all about protecting capital and fuck the ordinary people:




damning, i wonder if anyone can distill what he said, so all people can see what he was upto.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thats an interesting version of history. I'm about to take a break for the rest of the weekend but a couple of things I can add to it:
> 
> It wasnt just media and public pressure - it was what other countries started doing at the time that caused a lot of the pressure. For example there was the situation in Ireland where Ireland closed its schools but Northern Irelands were still open at the time. And Macron claimed to have influenced the UK decision, and although I take that claim with a large pinch of salt, it was part of the picture at the time.
> 
> ...


The point here, I believe, is that every action they took was reactionary, and that neither the press nor the opposition are interested in challenging govt's inaction.


----------



## zahir (Apr 18, 2020)




----------



## little_legs (Apr 18, 2020)

2hats said:


> Cabinet ministers admit there is no lockdown exit plan as they wait for Boris Johnson's return
> 
> 
> One insider said 'there can be no exit strategy until Boris is back in business'
> ...


'we went with the science' -> behavioural science


----------



## elbows (Apr 18, 2020)

The nudge, nudge, wink, wink unit.


----------



## ricbake (Apr 18, 2020)

Domonic Minghella's blog on suffering Corona Virus - 
1 April 2020 Archives 

His subsequent blog slates the quality of the tests...

There does seem to be a huge problem with false negative tests


----------



## ricbake (Apr 18, 2020)

What coronavirus tests does the world need to track the pandemic? | Free to read
					

Chinese companies predominate in race to ramp up production of two different Covid-19 diagnostics




					www.ft.com
				




* How reliable are the tests? *
The PCR test is extremely accurate when carried out carefully by experienced technicians in a well-equipped lab. Because it specifically detects genes found only in the Sars-CoV-2 virus, it will produce very few false positives, said Andrew Preston, reader in microbial pathogenesis at the University of Bath.   
False negatives — which indicate wrongly that someone is clear of infection — are more of a problem. They often result from problems with collecting and processing patient samples. For other viruses, false negative rates of 10 per cent are widely accepted and they can reach as high as 30 per cent. Therefore PCR tests “have more often been used to confirm an infection rather than give someone the all clear”, said Dr Gill at Warwick Medical School


----------



## Treacle Toes (Apr 18, 2020)

888 deaths since yesterday.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 18, 2020)

UK NO 10 press briefing 18/04/2020 

888 UK fatalities since yesterday


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

Please sign









						We are not disposable - Proper PPE Now
					

This is an Open Letter to Matt Hancock, Dominic Raab and UK Cabinet initiated by "People Before Profit Health Worker Covid Activists  Group".  As Health and care workers and their friends and families from across the country, we are outraged at latest news that NHS Trusts across UK may run out...




					docs.google.com


----------



## editor (Apr 18, 2020)

You fucking greedy WANKERS





__





						Peers demand their daily £323 'attendance' fee to log into virtual Lords claiming not paying would be age discrimination
					





					www.msn.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 18, 2020)

weltweit said:


> UK NO 10 press briefing 18/04/2020
> 
> 888 UK fatalities since yesterday



Reported since yesterday. 784 of them were in hospitals in England. And these are the dates that the reported England hospital deaths in todays number actually happened on:


from Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths

You can probably see why I am hesitant to take even the hospital death numbers at face value until some weeks have passed to allow reporting delays to have much less impact.

So far, the peak rate of hospital Covid-19 deaths in England is the 8th April with 799 deaths. No other day is close yet, the nearest currently being the day before with 729. These numbers should be expected to increase a bit too.

In terms of ONS data and the equivalents for Scotland and Northern Ireland, where non-hospital deaths are included, I cannot see beyond April 3rd with any clarity yet. So I shall wait till the next weeks release of data from them before making any posts going into detail about that side of the picture.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> Reported since yesterday. 784 of them were in hospitals in England. And these are the dates that the reported England hospital deaths in todays number actually happened on:



As presumably opposed to figures from England Wales & N Ireland 



elbows said:


> You can probably see why I am hesitant to take even the hospital death numbers at face value until some weeks have passed to allow reporting delays to have much less impact.


elbows I am not completely clear what the numbers in the table you posted represent?


----------



## elbows (Apr 18, 2020)

weltweit said:


> elbows I am not completely clear what the numbers in the table you posted represent?



The numbers given each day are not simply the deaths that happened in hospital the day before. They are a bunch of deaths over a much longer period of time. The table I posted shows when all the England deaths announced today actually happened. 150 of them happened yesterday, 320 the day before that, etc. So it requires numerous days of reported deaths to be rearranged by actual date of death, in order to work out how many people died in hospital on a particular day.

I am working on a graph to show this in a different way, but it is not ready yet and I'm supposed to be taking a break (but am so far mostly failing).


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Pretty much as suspected, it's all about protecting capital and fuck the ordinary people:



damning indeed


----------



## two sheds (Apr 18, 2020)

funny all that seemed to go out the window when he actually got it


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 18, 2020)

This link gives daily deaths in England, by day.

Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths

It's very certainly levelled out over the last two weeks, fluctuating between 600 and 800, but shows little sign of going down yet.

ETA: Combining this with falling hospital occupancy levels, I think we can say with some confidence that we are at 'peak death' now, and reached it a while ago. Problem is that 'peak death' appears to last for a long period of time, and not just here. However, that model that predicted the UK's peak death to reach 3,000 was way, way off. _About as bad as Italy_, it is, as it looked like it would be.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> The numbers given each day are not simply the deaths that happened in hospital the day before. They are a bunch of deaths over a much longer period of time. The table I posted shows when all the England deaths announced today actually happened. 150 of them happened yesterday, 320 the day before that, etc. So it requires numerous days of reported deaths to be rearranged by actual date of death, in order to work out how many people died in hospital on a particular day.


so I am trying to understand.. 
You aren't saying the total number of deaths in hospital yesterday is 150? 
You are saying 150 is all they have reported for yesterday so far - but that this will increase in coming days as more deaths for yesterday are reported? 

So the 880 deaths reported for the last 24 hours, is deaths reported, not deaths that actually took place yesterday .. 

How much of a difference is there between reported death per day and actual deaths on the day? 



elbows said:


> I am working on a graph to show this in a different way, but it is not ready yet and I'm supposed to be taking a break (but am so far mostly failing).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 18, 2020)

weltweit said:


> So the 880 deaths reported for the last 24 hours, is deaths reported, not deaths that actually took place yesterday ..


Yes. That. Follow my link and there's a spreadsheet there with daily deaths by day of death rather than day of report. Out of yesterday's number, only 150 (in England) actually died yesterday. One of the reasons I suspected the lower figures last weekend - the last few days' high numbers are in large part a result of catching up on Easter weekend.

Generally, reports are delayed by the weekend and even longer by a bank holiday, but some deaths are only reported weeks later.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 18, 2020)

weltweit said:


> So the 880 deaths reported for the last 24 hours, is deaths reported, not deaths that actually took place yesterday ..



Yes, that has always been the case.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's very certainly levelled out over the last two weeks, fluctuating between 600 and 800, but shows little sign of going down yet.


Looking at the latest output of Imperial's Bayesian model, based on current inputs one might (at the 95% credible interval) begin to notice some dip in death figures by Tuesday this coming week (maybe clearer by Thursday considering data lag over the weekend).


weltweit said:


> So the 880 deaths reported for the last 24 hours, is deaths reported, not deaths that actually took place yesterday ..


The government briefing daily figures are, as has been explained several times, misleading. The ONS figures are correctly binned (well, eventually over time +/- some small, inevitable errors).


----------



## tim (Apr 18, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Not having perused a newspaper since the demise of Auberon Waugh in 2001, or viewed a television set since the 2005 Oval Test Match,  I can't help but wonder if the overwhelming urge for the now, not so huddled, masses to stock up on toilet paper was a direct result of their watching too much Sky news  which culminated in giving them the shits.
> 
> There are a litany of conflicting views and differing death rate statistics relating to the current Coronavirus  outbreak, with the only matter so called experts agreeing upon is that the casualties of the effects will far exceed those of the cause. During this recent mass hysteria generated by the media, has there been any mention of the circa 30,000 annual winter deaths  incurred by elderly UK citizens as a direct result of hyper inflated heating costs, the aforementioned not being inclusive of those having died of normal common colds.
> 
> ...



I'd give you as wide a berth as possible, in the hope that one of those clouds also had a silver lightening bolt that might take you out. The last thing this place needs is a wannabe Auberon Waugh fogeying up the threads.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 18, 2020)

tim said:


> I'd give you as wide a berth as possible, in the hope that one of those clouds also had a silver lightening bolt that might take you out. The last thing this place needs is a wannabe Auberon Waugh fogeying up the threads.



I tried to run the first paragraph of Diatribe's original text through a verbose generator





__





						Verbose Generator to Extend Writing
					

Explore how you can make your paper longer by the use of our simply effective verbose text generator and don't get penalized again. Click here & get the best!




					www.paraphrasegenerator.org
				




but it just hung up and broke it


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I tried to run the first paragraph of Diatribe's original text through a verbose generator
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Diatribe is a fine example of that particular kind of troll that is really very thick but genuinely thinks it is clever. It doesn't realise that its stupidity is exposed by every sentence of every post.


----------



## andysays (Apr 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> ...Combining this with falling hospital occupancy levels, I think we can say with some confidence that we are at 'peak death' now, and reached it a while ago. *Problem is that 'peak death' appears to last for a long period of time*, and not just here. However, that model that predicted the UK's peak death to reach 3,000 was way, way off. _About as bad as Italy_, it is, as it looked like it would be.


More of a plateau than a peak then


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 18, 2020)

andysays said:


> More of a plateau than a peak then


Yeah. It's a pattern repeating everywhere, pretty much. As all the other indicators get better, new deaths stays at a high level for quite a stubbornly long period.

It's a flat-topped peak, but it should still be a peak.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Diatribe is a fine example of that particular kind of troll that is really very thick but genuinely thinks it is clever. It doesn't realise that its stupidity is exposed by every sentence of every post.



I edit and there you want to get across the most information you can in the fewest words. Not the least information in the most words  .

Eta: I think that's why I find his style so annoying


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 18, 2020)

andysays said:


> More of a plateau than a peak then



Yeah, it's more Table Mountain than Matterhorn. I expect there'll be a few more plateaus/peaks before this is over though.


----------



## elbows (Apr 18, 2020)

My graph is ready.

So, as usual, this is only for hospital deaths in England because I dont have the right data to do exactly this for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland at the moment.

So the dates on the x axis are the actual date of death. The colours are the date that the death was reported to us, the public, as part of the daily number. So the light purple bars on the far right of the graph are from the daily number that was given today. And the nearer to that right side of the graph we get, the more there is missing data that we wont get for a number of days (so be careful reading too much into the shape of the graph for the last ~5 days).


As I've said before, dont ask me what the story is with the end of March. I can only work with the data they provide, I dont know what mistakes they made along the way, and that period also coincided with when they started offering the data in 'actual date of death' form.


----------



## kazza007 (Apr 18, 2020)

How long is the peak death rate supposed to last given we've been lockdown for nearly a month? The mortality rate appears to be not dropping in the overall picture.


----------



## Part-timah (Apr 18, 2020)

editor said:


> Another three weeks, absolute minimum



If the Imperial study is anything to go by there will be periods of relaxation followed by lockdowns. This may go on for many, many months.


----------



## elbows (Apr 18, 2020)

kazza007 said:


> How long is the peak death rate supposed to last given we've been lockdown for nearly a month? The mortality rate appears to be not dropping in the overall picture.



I dont have 'actual date of death' graphs for key countries like Italy and Spain, so I will have to use 'deaths reported per day' instead. If you compare those to the UK equivalent, say from a site like worldometer, then a picture emerges, one where we probably shouldnt expect number of deaths to decline really quickly.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

This guy pulls no punches


----------



## editor (Apr 18, 2020)

Thanks for your help in keeping us all updated and making sense of the stats
elbows


----------



## editor (Apr 18, 2020)

Here's some real stupidity from Lambeth 









						Campaigners call for a halt to Olive Morris House demolition, citing safety fears and lack of consultation
					

Lambeth Council have been big on their coronavirus message: stay at home, save lives, protect the NHS.  When people visited Brockwell Park, the council shut it claiming park users weren’t social di…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## two sheds (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> This guy pulls no punches




Not sure he'll have a job for much longer


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Not sure he'll have a job for much longer


Yes, i wondered that too.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)




----------



## mwgdrwg (Apr 18, 2020)

Why isn't the BBC reporting total number of deaths? How odd.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

Good article on the growing anger amongst healthcare workers with a particular focus on Wales.









						“We are being sacrificed” - Furious NHS Workers Turn on the Government Over Mounting Covid Deaths — VOICE.WALES
					






					www.voice.wales


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 18, 2020)

NHS rationing oxygen with doctors instructed to downgrade blood saturation targets
					

Exclusive: Demand due to coronavirus crisis has pushed oxygen systems close to their limit




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## steveo87 (Apr 18, 2020)

See, one of the specific parts of the lockdown that's getting to me, is that I'm 'lucky' because I get to leave the house, because of work. 

As long as I socially isolate myself, which really isn't difficult for me, and maintain hygiene standards, _in theory_ I should be fine.

The thing I'm finding most difficult (apart from the slow-burn anxiety of 'If I get it, then I'm bound to pass it on to Baby87 - and then we really fucked') is that there's no 'weekend' anymore. 
What I mean is that there's nothing to break up the weeks, to the point where it feels like I've been working constantly, when in reality it's the same as it was before. 

Don't get me wrong, there are a myriad of people on worse situation for me, and as I write it feels a bit 'first world problems', but it's just how I'm feeling.


----------



## zahir (Apr 18, 2020)

> Key scientific data and advice the UK government is using to guide its covid-19 response won’t be published until the pandemic ends. Documents used to make decisions and the minutes of meetings of the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies (SAGE) will only be made public when the current outbreak is brought under control, according to Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser.
> 
> In a letter sent earlier this month to MP Greg Clark, who chairs the House of Commons science and technology committee, Vallance said: “Once SAGE stops convening on this emergency the minutes of relevant SAGE meetings, supporting documents and the names of participants (with their permission) will be published.”





> “I think they should be sharing who the key people are and minutes of their meetings,” says Devi Sridhar, a public health scientist at the University of Edinburgh, UK, who also signed the letter published in _The Lancet_. “I think transparency is incredibly important and we’ve taken this route in the Scottish Government Covid-19 Advisory Group. We share the names of members and minutes.”
> 
> The refusal to publish minutes of the advisory group meetings until the pandemic is over also contradicts the UK government’s own guidance. The 2011 Code of Practice for Scientific Advisory Committees says meeting minutes should be published “as soon as possible” and written in an “unattributable form” – meaning there is no need to identify members. Advisory committees “should operate from a presumption of openness” the code says, and also publish meeting agendas and final advice.











						UK’s coronavirus science advice won’t be published until pandemic ends
					

The UK government says its coronavirus strategies are based on science, but the scientific advice it has received won’t be made public until after the pandemic




					www.newscientist.com


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

Withering article in the Sunday Times. What has Johnson done or more likely not done to piss Murdoch off?


----------



## Wilf (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Withering article in the Sunday Times. What has Johnson done or more likely not done to piss Murdoch off?



Paywall. Do you have screenshots or summat? We could all do with seeing a bit of cunt on cunt violence in these dark times.

Edit: just found this:


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Paywall. Do you have screenshots or summat? We could all do with seeing a bit of cunt on cunt violence in these dark times.


I can do screenshots, yes.



Spoiler: Screenshots


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

Spoiler: Screenshots cont.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

Spoiler: Screenshots cont. 2


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Paywall. Do you have screenshots or summat? We could all do with seeing a bit of cunt on cunt violence in these dark times.
> 
> Edit: just found this:



Lol


----------



## Wilf (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Lol


Ooops (but thanks anyway. Your screenshots are much better!).


----------



## Raheem (Apr 18, 2020)

mwgdrwg said:


> Why isn't the BBC reporting total number of deaths? How odd.


888. They abolished it when TV went digital.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Ooops (but thanks anyway. Your screenshots are much better!).




Apologies to all, I missed a big chunk towards the end. Added now to screenshots cont 2


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 18, 2020)

Nice one teqniq  thanks.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 18, 2020)

Confirms that we are led by a bunch of self serving arseholes who are way out of their depth on this.


----------



## treelover (Apr 18, 2020)

Mirror reporting fears from medics they will run out of oxygen

its just incredible, and disagraceful.


----------



## prunus (Apr 18, 2020)

Fucks sake.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Withering article in the Sunday Times. What has Johnson done or more likely not done to piss Murdoch off?



The Thunderer has always had an unusual degree of editorial independence for a Murdoch rag -- notably when they went against him over Brexit -- this directly affects everyone, including journalists, and many if not most of their readers will be in their senior years. _Mail_ and even _Telegraph_ have also broken ranks.

They're setting up Johnson to come riding in to save the day. Which, as he's incapable of saving an email, will mean handing policy off to someone vaguely competent. Screw up again and may be time to activate men in grey suits, "Boris" with greatest regret to step down for sake of health and family/ies, etc.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 18, 2020)

It may be that Murdoch prefers Gove and with Johnson's abysmal non-handling of the pandemic the writing is on the wall.


----------



## zahir (Apr 18, 2020)

> Boris Johnson claims his Covid-19 response is “led by the science”. But one look at the expert advice his Cobra committee received suggests his government resisted being led too quickly. Advice to the government in February recommended closing bars and schools – actions the government didn’t take until late March.





> The earliest paper, from 11 February, on “stopping large public gatherings”, makes a strong case that while cancelling big events would not be particularly effective, “stopping all leisure activities, including public gatherings such as at bars and restaurants, would be expected to have a much larger effect”. Johnson did not close pubs until 20 March, well over a month later.





> Subsequent papers show there was much debate among experts and the argument was not cut and dried. But they give a distinct impression of early advice being much stronger than the actions the prime minister actually took.











						Private Eye | Freeports: Sunlit Update
					

THE freeport plan has come a long way since, as a fresh MP in 2016, Rishi Sunak announced his arrival with his report The Free Ports Opportunity for the Centre for Policy Studies think tank. The new areas, he wrote, would allow



					www.private-eye.co.uk


----------



## Azrael (Apr 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> It may be that Murdoch prefers Gove and with Johnson's abysmal non-handling of the pandemic the writing is on the wall.


Yup, Gove very popular among Westminster bubble, which tells you all you need to know about them.

He's also smart enough to know he wants to keep a very low profile ATM, so that'd be an absolute last resort.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 18, 2020)

zahir said:


> Private Eye | Freeports: Sunlit Update
> 
> 
> THE freeport plan has come a long way since, as a fresh MP in 2016, Rishi Sunak announced his arrival with his report The Free Ports Opportunity for the Centre for Policy Studies think tank. The new areas, he wrote, would allow
> ...


Well to a point, not seen any evidence that an aggressive suppression and elimination strategy was even suggested by "the science", nor, if it was, any reason that the government would've rejected it in favour of "herd immunity" and the horrors of its attendant death toll.

Going by Johnson's speech in early Feb and anonymous comments from a cabinet minister in the _Telegraph_, we know they wanted to avoid a lockdown. Several strategies compatible with doing that, and if they chose the most politically costly one, must've come with strong backing from their scientific advisors.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 18, 2020)

This piece by Dominic Minghella seems to have the perfect title for a documentary about Johnson's criminal negligence.


----------



## zahir (Apr 18, 2020)

Azrael I was wondering if the papers referred to in the Private Eye article are publicly available somewhere or are still unreleased.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 18, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Yup, Gove very popular among Westminster bubble, which tells you all you need to know about them.
> 
> He's also smart enough to know he wants to keep a very low profile ATM, so that'd be an absolute last resort.


Gove's decision to 'self-isolate' always looked significant.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 18, 2020)

zahir said:


> Azrael I was wondering if the papers referred to in the Private Eye article are publicly available somewhere or are still unreleased.


They are all available here, including the 11 February and 26 February papers mentioned in the article.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 18, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Gove's decision to 'self-isolate' always looked significant.


He managed to get the affected party tested, (which irritated some) the test was negative and he was later photographed out running. So he hasn't been isolating for some time.


----------



## brogdale (Apr 18, 2020)

weltweit said:


> He managed to get the affected party tested, (which irritated some) the test was negative and he was later photographed out running. So he hasn't been isolating for some time.


Time enough to get his ducks in a row and avoid some of the growing shitstorm.


----------



## kropotkin (Apr 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Not sure he'll have a job for much longer


No, too valuable a resource at the moment


----------



## little_legs (Apr 19, 2020)

the clown is already taking back the control of your lives


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

zahir said:


> Azrael I was wondering if the papers referred to in the Private Eye article are publicly available somewhere or are still unreleased.


While some papers are out there, _New Scientist_ reported that all "the science" (or "the magisterium" as I prefer to call the secretive SAGE cabal) won't be released until the pandemic's over. Draw conclusions as appropriate ...


----------



## Gerry1time (Apr 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Screw up again and may be time to activate men in grey suits, "Boris" with greatest regret to step down for sake of health and family/ies, etc.



In many ways he's served his purpose now. Thumping tory majority achieved, his only other purpose was to get as close to a no deal brexit as possible, but now they can sneak that through under the radar anyway. So he may get punted off to the lords to see out his days with a media career and more shagging. The only truth about the tory party is its constant sense of self preservation, no matter what politics they have to adopt.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> While some papers are out there, _New Scientist_ reported that all "the science" (or "the magisterium" as I prefer to call the secretive SAGE cabal) won't be released until the pandemic's over. Draw conclusions as appropriate ...



By which point the timeline of who was told what when will be much harder to unpick.


----------



## ricbake (Apr 19, 2020)

Thanks elbows
The numbers in post #16503568 show most deaths being reported within a week but a significant number take up to 10 to 14 days to arrive in the statistics, 15% take a couple of weeks more. So the 8th April total of 784 for England may rise because of the reporting lag by perhaps 15% over the next two weeks. So the England only hospital only number of deaths for the 8th April will probably be above 900.
How many deaths outside hospitals wil the ONS eventually add to this.

From being told to take it seriously from the 23rd March, that weekend before we knuckled down to proper social distancing and lock down, the virus must have spread far and wide. It appears for those for whom it is fatal, from infection to symptoms is up to 2 weeks, symptoms to hospitalisation another week, hospitalisation to death a final week. That is this week...
Hopefully next week there will start to be fewer deaths.

Among all the emergency planning officers, civil protection officers, civil contingencies officers, resilience officers, or risk manager did no one ever add up the amount of PPE needed for a virulent epidemic. Or did the Government always say you can't spend that much.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> This piece by Dominic Minghella seems to have the perfect title for a documentary about Johnson's criminal negligence.


Hits like a punch to the gut, but it's even worse: according to Reuters, the government's advisors knew the likely death toll of pursuing controlled spread and "herd immunity" at least two weeks before the Imperial paper errupted onto the scene. All it did was let the public in on their dirty little secret.

Oh, and even better, according to the _World Tonight _ (April 2 edition, 18 minutes in), the government tried to ban doctors from treating Covid patients with any drugs but paracetamol, in order to have an untreated data pool for clinical trials. They had no power to do interfere with the practice of medicine in this way, and conscientious doctors ignored them, but it's clear that many hospitals are relying on oxygen alone, despite the govt being forced to clarify that physicians have final say.

Yes, politicians must be held to account, but so too must those at the top of our scientific and medical establishments.


----------



## editor (Apr 19, 2020)

Pretty much nailed it









						How did Britain get its coronavirus response so wrong?
					

As the warnings grew louder, the government was distracted by Brexit. On testing, contact tracing and equipment supply, there was a failure to prepare




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 19, 2020)

ricbake said:


> Among all the emergency planning officers, civil protection officers, civil contingencies officers, resilience officers, or risk manager did no one ever add up the amount of PPE needed for a virulent epidemic.



Yes they did this back in 2016. It then got parked on account of brexit and the 'threat' of no deal. All the emergency planning work went into preparing us for a crisis which, had it occurred, would have been created by the government _on purpose. _That seemed pretty stupid at the time, now it's starting to look more like the opening phase of a crime against humanity.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Pretty much nailed it
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Devastating piece, from which emerges two striking conclusions:-

not only were the scientific advisors basing their responses on influenza modelling, they assumed a SARS virus would act like the flu. And
Two senior advisors were on the brink of resigning before Johnson finally changed tack
So, switching from "contain" to "mitigation" was inextricably tied to flu pandemics. Even in the U.K., there's no scientific consensus for applying it to a SARS virus. And government advisors are not mere spokespeople, nor at the mercy of ministers: they're experts who're highly influential in shaping policy, and can be expected to threaten resignation if they disagree. This goes far beyond ministers.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> we know they wanted to avoid a lockdown. Several strategies compatible with doing that, and if they chose the most politically costly one, must've come with strong backing from their scientific advisors.


Seriously, why do you think this follows?


----------



## Raheem (Apr 19, 2020)

weltweit said:


> He managed to get the affected party tested, (which irritated some) the test was negative and he was later photographed out running. So he hasn't been isolating for some time.


Getting the affected party tested may not have been his idea.


----------



## gawkrodger (Apr 19, 2020)

The Times putting Johnson and crew on blast









						Coronavirus: 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster | News | …
					

archived 18 Apr 2020 18:20:37 UTC




					t.co


----------



## belboid (Apr 19, 2020)

gawkrodger said:


> The Times putting Johnson and crew on blast
> 
> 
> 
> ...


it abso-fucking-lutely kills them!


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Seriously, why do you think this follows?


Because if only for reasons of self-interest, not even the most evil elected politician wants hundreds of thousands of their own voters to die needlessly and indiscriminately from disease. As shown from the hostile reporting in their media allies, they can't hide this calamity as they have the horrific human cost of austerity.

The _Times_ investigation reports that pandemic planning was modelled on influenza, and letting it spread to generate "herd immunity" was advocted by scientific advisors, not forced on them by ministers. It also notes the scientific divide between Asia, which treated SARS-CoV-2 as a deadly respiratory infection that must be suppressed at all cost, and the West, which treated it as the flu.

If evidence emerges that scientific advisors advocated aggressive quarantine to keep the virus from Britain's shores, followed by using all means necessary to stop, reverse and ultimately eradicate the disease, I'll of course change my mind. To date, their every plan, action and statement suggests the exact opposite.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 19, 2020)

gawkrodger said:


> The Times putting Johnson and crew on blast
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It might be a nice gesture for the Times to disable their paywall for a bit


----------



## Petcha (Apr 19, 2020)

This is actually real. Good to see No.10 focusing on the important issues facing the country.


----------



## prunus (Apr 19, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is actually real. Good to see No.10 focusing on the important issues facing the country.




They presumably know that flour is like hen’s teeth at the moment? I mean, they are on top of things and have half an idea what’s actually going on I imagine?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 19, 2020)

prunus said:


> They presumably know that flour is like hen’s teeth at the moment? I mean, they are on top of things and have half an idea what’s actually going on I imagine?



Well given they don't seem to realise that PPE is like hen's teeth at the moment, I'm not sure they noticed the flour supply is also a bit low


----------



## Supine (Apr 19, 2020)

The Times article in full









						Coronavirus: 38 days when Britain sleepwalked into disaster | News | …
					

archived 18 Apr 2020 18:20:37 UTC




					archive.is


----------



## ricbake (Apr 19, 2020)

gawkrodger said:


> The Times putting Johnson and crew on blast
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you for putting this up gawkrodger - it is a damning indictment of Hancock and Johnson, Whitty and Valance appear to have been useless as well.
The efforts of Devi Sridhar and Neil Ferguson on 16 & 17 of January, if heeded , could have made such a difference.

This disease hasn't affected Johnson enough yet

The Times article should be read by everyone.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 19, 2020)

We're officially through the looking glass...


----------



## Mation (Apr 19, 2020)

Eurgh. I made the mistake of watching a couple of minutes of the Andrew Marr show, currently on.

"Well, perhaps a little less of the high politics, eh? Hindsight is a wonderful thing." 

Really drilling down, there.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Apr 19, 2020)

gawkrodger said:


> The Times putting Johnson and crew on blast
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Came over here to share this. The best, most forensic, analysis so far of the government’s response, planning and strategy to tackle the pandemic.

As such the article is absolutely damming. No doubt this piece has been assembled with insider commentary and as such we should ask why now? The answer is clearly that the government want to take the hit now before lockdown is eased and whilst people are understandably focussed on other issues - like their health and keeping a roof over their heads.

Let’s hope the media keep pursuing this because a) what is emerging is a story of criminal negligence and manslaughter. Avoidable deaths, a failure to command the economy to support the NHS and Social Care system, a failure to contact trace or secure borders and an abject and arrogant failure to even pay attention. But also b) the Labour Party are,_ supporting, _the government and merely asking questions about the strategy for post lockdown.


----------



## zahir (Apr 19, 2020)

> This is where the _ST_ report starts to go wrong, because it states that "a central part of any pandemic plan is to identify anyone who becomes ill, vigorously pursue all their recent contacts and put them into quarantine".
> 
> That, it says, "involves testing and the UK initially seemed to be ahead of the game". In early, it adds, "February Hancock proudly told the Commons the UK was one of the first countries to develop a new test for the coronavirus", declaring, "Testing worldwide is being done on equipment designed in Oxford".





> The error here is in asserting that the "test, track and trace" programme is a central part of a pandemic plan. It certainly should have been but, as we have seen by reference to the influenza plan on which the government relied, contact tracing was confined to the initial stages, with a view to demonstrating that community spread had become established.
> 
> At that point, it was always planned that contact tracing would be abandoned, as indeed it was, as the government ramped up the NHS "surge" capability to deal with the expected torrent of cases.





> But what seems to elude so many commenters is that, having established a faulty paradigm for dealing with a Sars pandemic, there was very little the government could do in the short-term to remedy matters.
> 
> To change strategy, the government would have had to call upon a resource to track down contacts which simply did not exist. While, even a decade ago, it could have relied on a network of 10,000 local authority environmental health staff for the purpose, operating from 342 local council offices, transfer of the function to Public Health England presaged a savage contraction of the service, now entrusted to 226 staff in public health protection teams operating out of nine offices.





> Thus, even if the government had decided to change tack and major on contact tracing, the infrastructure no longer existed and, even now, months into the epidemic, provision is still not in place and there are plans to develop a completely new and untried system.
> 
> And then, since there was going to be no systemic contract tracing, there was going to be only minimal testing, so it was never thought necessary to build up a capability for mass testing. And again, as we are seeing, it is not easy from a standing start, to ramp up testing from the low base with which we entered this crisis.





> In other words, trying to change the machinery for dealing with a pandemic is the classic example of trying to change the direction of a supertanker. You can spin the wheel, but it takes an awful long time before anything happens. Governments are unwieldy things and cannot turn on a sixpence.
> 
> While we can applaud the enthusiasm of the _Sunday Times_ team for their work, like so many others they are missing the point. In looking at the sequence of failures that led to this current debacle, we cannot start in late January as this narrative does.







__





						Coronavirus: perpetuating the errors
					

Coronavirus: perpetuating the errors




					eureferendum.com


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

Yes, they repurposed the flu pandemic plan, more or less what they implemented in 2009. Difference was there were antivirals available from the start, infectivity wasn't the same, and a vaccine was available in a few months (although we may have that if the Oxford team pull it off, that'd just be a major stroke of luck).

I'm not defending the plan for flu, but to repurpose it for a damn SARS virus was negligent in the extreme.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 19, 2020)

The COVID research app from KCL has been updated this morning asking further questions about how often you’ve left the house in the past week. Be interesting to see how this influences the outcomes.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> The COVID research app from KCL has been updated this morning asking further questions about how often you’ve left the house in the past week. Be interesting to see how this influences the outcomes.


Bit apprehensive about that. Bit more snooping. But the qs seem fair. And yeah can see that the info could be really useful regarding working out the next stages of what to do. Be interesting to see the sickness numbers for those who tick the last category - leave the house regularly - compared to the rest.


----------



## Mation (Apr 19, 2020)

belboid said:


> it abso-fucking-lutely kills them!


I don't think it does. It uses some of the language of hard-hitting piece whilst providing all of the excuses that will be used to let the government and Johnson off.

Unusual for the PM not to chair cobra; unprecedented flooding; work-life balance/pregnant partner; sending ppe aid abroad to a nation in crisis; issue bumped due to Brexit negotiations. 

For every failing, an arguable reason given.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 19, 2020)

See I would expect the last group to be the most likely to report symptoms as we’re the group out and about more than anyone else. It’ll be interesting to see what it shows for sure.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 19, 2020)

The actual Prime Minister legs it down the steps


----------



## Mation (Apr 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Because if only for reasons of self-interest, not even the most evil elected politician wants hundreds of thousands of their own voters to die needlessly and indiscriminately from disease.


And if that's a false premise..?


----------



## andysays (Apr 19, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is actually real. Good to see No.10 focusing on the important issues facing the country.



Let them bake cakes


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> And if that's a false premise..?


Then we are ruled by comic book villains after all.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> I don't think it does. It uses some of the language of hard-hitting piece whilst providing all of the excuses that will be used to let the government and Johnson off.
> 
> Unusual for the PM not to chair cobra; unprecedented flooding; work-life balance/pregnant partner; sending ppe aid abroad to a nation in crisis; issue bumped due to Brexit negotiations.
> 
> For every failing, an arguable reason given.


Imagine missing Cobra meetings and then catching Corona


----------



## little_legs (Apr 19, 2020)




----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 19, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is actually real. Good to see No.10 focusing on the important issues facing the country.




I've got an oven ready plan to fix social care right here.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Because if only for reasons of self-interest, not even the most evil elected politician wants hundreds of thousands of their own voters to die needlessly and indiscriminately from disease. As shown from the hostile reporting in their media allies, they can't hide this calamity as they have the horrific human cost of austerity.



These deaths need to go on the balance sheet of austerity as well.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

Well. _Sunday Telegraph_ produce some quality journalism.

They've got hold of the pandemic plans from Southeast Asian countries who've successfully contained SARS-CoV-2, and compared them with the British document and its soul-sucking defeatism.

Key quote: "[Beijing] are very conscious that their legitimacy is based on protecting the Chinese People and therefore had to act. In the west, it has never been viewed in those terms. Scientists are fatalistic. They say you just can't do it [contain the virus]."


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Well. _Sunday Telegraph_ produce some quality journalism.
> 
> They've got hold of the pandemic plans from Southeast Asian countries who've successfully contained SARS-CoV-2, and compared them with the British document and its soul-sucking defeatism.
> 
> Key quote: "[Beijing] are very conscious that their legitimacy is based on protecting the Chinese People and therefore had to act. In the west, it has never been viewed in those terms. Scientists are fatalistic. They say you just can't do it [contain the virus]."


Once every hundred years or so


----------



## treelover (Apr 19, 2020)

teqniq said:


> I can do screenshots, yes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




fantastic journalism, and very damning, but soon it won't exist anymore if people don't buy papers, companies block ads on articles on c19, etc,


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 19, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is actually real. Good to see No.10 focusing on the important issues facing the country.



I...I'm just going to float this idea, but like, maybe people have already thought of this? I mean, maybe that's one reason you can't buy flour or yeast in the shops? I dunno. I suppose there might be some people who haven't thought of it before now, in which case this will come as an amazing bright idea. I can tell those people that the best place to get bread yeast at the moment is from China via ebay. 

But these people do not exist do they? That's what's so scary. The government have in mind a fantasy public that they learned about in public school.


----------



## killer b (Apr 19, 2020)

treelover said:


> fantastic journalism, and very damning, but soon it won't exist anymore if people don't buy papers, companies block ads on articles on c19, etc,


are you advocating we subscribe to The Times treelover?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



tbf, every European country that is currently or will imminently be relaxing lockdown is doing so 'running hot', if this is taken to mean not waiting for daily death figures to drop significantly. Given the time lags from infection to death, the only alternative is to do what China did and seal people in for three months.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbf, every European country that is currently or will imminently be relaxing lockdown is doing so 'running hot', if this is taken to mean not waiting for daily death figures to drop significantly. Given the time lags from infection to death, the only alternative is to do what China did and seal people in for three months.


There's surely other alternatives. I'd support any measures that can mitigate the lockdown -- such as, possibly, allowing a limited number people to sit in the parks or on beaches -- if they can be done safely. Any lifting can't be countenanced until a rigorous virus surveillance system's in place, proved reliable, and has detected all infection clusters, or we'll be right back where we started and enduring another lockdown with equally horrific death toll.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> are you advocating we subscribe to The Times treelover?


I haven't, just for the record.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 19, 2020)

belboid said:


> it abso-fucking-lutely kills them!


Apart from the bit where it makes zero electoral impact


----------



## treelover (Apr 19, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It might be a nice gesture for the Times to disable their paywall for a bit



might be an idea for people to contribute, otherwise no more brilliant investigations like these.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

Azrael said:


> There's surely other alternatives. I'd support any measures that can mitigate the lockdown -- such as, possibly, allowing a limited number people to sit in the parks or on beaches -- if they can be done safely. Any lifting can't be countenanced until a rigorous virus surveillance system's in place, proved reliable, and has detected all infection clusters, or we'll be right back where we started and enduring another lockdown with equally horrific death toll.


Well yes, they need to have been working on a system for that from day 1 of lockdown. Test, trace, isolate is the long-term way to control this, in whatever form that takes (doesn't necessarily need to involve heavy-handed coercion, if done with sensitivity and sufficient daily support networks in place). That's been obvious from the start. 

And that is probably the honest answer to the UK's lack of a lockdown end date. They can't announce one until they've got their act together on a testing regime. But they can't admit that they don't have their act together yet, so they'll keep deflecting and _blaming us_ for not keeping to the rules. 

The excuses will wear thin. Germany has all that testing cos they've got 70 years of tradition and infrastructure to draw on, apparently. So what's the excuse for not being able to match Portugal,  then?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 19, 2020)

treelover said:


> fantastic journalism, and very damning, but soon it won't exist anymore if people don't buy papers, companies block ads on articles on c19, etc,



Murdoch's papers don't exist to make money, they exist to exert control.

e2a: And it should go without saying but Murdoch can have a penny off of me when hell freezes over and not before.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well yes, they need to have been working on a system for that from day 1 of lockdown. Test, trace, isolate is the long-term way to control this, in whatever form that takes (doesn't necessarily need to involve heavy-handed coercion, if done with sensitivity and sufficient daily support networks in place). That's been obvious from the start.
> 
> And that is probably the honest answer to the UK's lack of a lockdown end date. They can't announce one until they've got their act together on a testing regime. But they can't admit that they don't have their act together yet, so they'll keep deflecting and _blaming us_ for not keeping to the rules.
> 
> The excuses will wear thin. Germany has all that testing cos they've got 70 years of tradition and infrastructure to draw on, apparently. So what's the excuse for not being able to match Portugal,  then?


At least the centralised testing people are, at last, cooperating with smaller labs, although through gritted teeth. Most worried they'll try and wing contact tracing with that app and a central phone bank, instead of getting on with recruiting the small army of contact tracers they're gonna need to make it work.

And yes, undoubtedly, the line about us not being able to keep discipline if we discuss exit strategy (while we seem to be doing nothing but) is paper-thin cover for their woeful lack of prep (which is the other thing we never stop talking about). Some comms gurus they've got.


----------



## killer b (Apr 19, 2020)

treelover said:


> might be an idea for people to contribute, otherwise no more brilliant investigations like these.


Jesus christ.


----------



## treelover (Apr 19, 2020)

anyway, i wonder if the thursday claps will get more angry and robust about letting NHS staff down?


----------



## little_legs (Apr 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Jesus christ.



lol, the comments under that tweet are 👌


----------



## treelover (Apr 19, 2020)

> I am so relieved that at long last UK media are beginning to react to this shitshow. I live in Belgium, and have key worker family in London and the Midlands.I spent 5 weeks becoming ever more incredulous and frantic at the dithering, denial, and failure to act by this govt.
> 
> I saw no reporting in the UK of what went on the weekend before Johnson finally closed pubs, etc that Monday evening. He had to be dragged kicking and screaming into action. Read this, just one of the reports of those events over here -
> 
> ...



Posted on CIF, How Macron gave Johnson an ultimatum on C19 action


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 19, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Apart from the bit where it makes zero electoral impact


Well if the Times are attacking Johnson it does at least give Starmer permission to , if he so wishes.


----------



## Supine (Apr 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Well if the Times are attacking Johnson it does at least give Starmer permission to , if he so wishes.



With the job being done by the Times at the moment Starmer just needs to sit back and look like a competent leader in waiting.


----------



## treelover (Apr 19, 2020)

little_legs said:


> lol, the comments under that tweet are 👌




interesting that 'Mike Carter' in his reply doesn't include any images of the Daily Express attacking benefit claimants' which it also did/does all the time.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Well if the Times are attacking Johnson it does at least give Starmer permission to , if he so wishes.



Is that how the Labour Party works then? "Alright lads, Murdoch has given us the green light."

Yeah. It probably is.


----------



## killer b (Apr 19, 2020)

little_legs said:


> lol, the comments under that tweet are 👌



_Fund the Times' daily attacks on you so that once a month we can publish some investigative journalism! _doesn't sound like the best deal to me.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 19, 2020)

This is far more relevant than that Sunday Times piece








						Donald Trump: 'I could shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters'
					

Republican frontrunner is so supremely confident that he believes he could commit murder and maintain his lead over his opponents




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 19, 2020)

ska invita said:


> This is far more relevant than that Sunday Times piece
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Over 4 years of old news.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 19, 2020)

Supine said:


> With the job being done by the Times at the moment Starmer just needs to sit back and look like a competent leader in waiting.



The height of Labours political ambition


----------



## ska invita (Apr 19, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Over 4 years of old news.


and yet completely relevant

sorry, feeling grumpy, will stop now


----------



## Cid (Apr 19, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Is that how the Labour Party works then? "Alright lads, Murdoch has given us the green light."
> 
> Yeah. It probably is.



A return to the sterling traditions of the Blair years.


----------



## Smangus (Apr 19, 2020)

Cunts , all.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Bit apprehensive about that. Bit more snooping. But the qs seem fair. And yeah can see that the info could be really useful regarding working out the next stages of what to do. Be interesting to see the sickness numbers for those who tick the last category - leave the house regularly - compared to the rest.



**


----------



## kalidarkone (Apr 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Not sure he'll have a job for much longer


He will. I'm pretty sure if he went others would walk out.
I think he may be a union rep?
Branch secretary for  unison Barnett branch. 
I actually hope they do try to remove him because then it would properly kick off.....


----------



## keybored (Apr 19, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> If your shadow is longer than you are tall (is that the case at 7AM at the moment? ) then you’re not going to  be mad making Vitamin D, regardless of how long you’re standing there naked.


You would if you stood there for 5 hours, provided you hadn't been arrested by then.


treelover said:


> interesting that 'Mike Carter' in his reply doesn't include any images of the Daily Express attacking benefit claimants' which it also did/does all the time.


Well he does ("KICK OUT ALL FOREIGN BENEFIT CHEATS"), but the collage was clearly put together to highlight the way The Express consistently attempts to stir up hatred towards migrants. If you want to highlight their bias against benefits claimants you could compile your own collage. It shouldn't take long.


----------



## zahir (Apr 19, 2020)

Universal weekly testing as the UK COVID-19 lockdown exit strategy



			https://marlin-prod.literatumonline.com/pb-assets/Lancet/pdfs/S0140673620309363.pdf


----------



## Cid (Apr 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well yes, they need to have been working on a system for that from day 1 of lockdown. Test, trace, isolate is the long-term way to control this, in whatever form that takes (doesn't necessarily need to involve heavy-handed coercion, if done with sensitivity and sufficient daily support networks in place). That's been obvious from the start.
> 
> And that is probably the honest answer to the UK's lack of a lockdown end date. They can't announce one until they've got their act together on a testing regime. But they can't admit that they don't have their act together yet, so they'll keep deflecting and _blaming us_ for not keeping to the rules.
> 
> The excuses will wear thin. Germany has all that testing cos they've got 70 years of tradition and infrastructure to draw on, apparently. So what's the excuse for not being able to match Portugal,  then?



Couple of thoughts that have been spinning around my head re the UK approach... What's kind of striking is that - after a decade of Tory rule - the government is leaning more heavily than ever on large, centralised public bodies and a limited, technocratic approach hinged around political appointees. It absolutely flies in the face of their professed ideology of encouraging independent innovation. Where they do seek to outsource, they are stymied by their attachment to a limited number of businesses that have - coincidentally I'm sure - lined their pockets in the past.

In terms of public discipline there seems to be a huge disconnect between them and the populace as a whole. They are heavily reliant on police action rather than community solidarity... There have been some successes; like it or not I do think the Thursday clap serves as a reminder of the general state of things. But contrast the general situation with e.g that Merkel explanation of R0 significance, communication of the facts around the disease has been abysmal.

They have put the lie to two fundamental pillars of their party; a dynamic free market, and the promotion of traditional community values. The former turns out to be a kind of limited sycophantocracy (  ). The latter has been fractured by years of austerity and a deliberate dismantling of long-standing communities and modes of organisation.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

Cid said:


> Couple of thoughts that have been spinning around my head re the UK approach... What's kind of striking is that - after a decade of Tory rule - the government is leaning more heavily than ever on large, centralised public bodies and a limited, technocratic approach hinged around political appointees. It absolutely flies in the face of their professed ideology of encouraging independent innovation. Where they do seek to outsource, they are stymied by their attachment to a limited number of businesses that have - coincidentally I'm sure - lined their pockets in the past.
> 
> In terms of public discipline there seems to be a huge disconnect between them and the populace as a whole. They are heavily reliant on police action rather than community solidarity... There have been some successes; like it or not I do think the Thursday clap serves as a reminder of the general state of things. But contrast the general situation with e.g that Merkel explanation of R0 significance, communication of the facts around the disease has been abysmal.
> 
> They have put the lie to two fundamental pillars of their party; a dynamic free market, and the promotion of traditional community values. The former turns out to be a kind of limited sycophantocracy (  ). The latter has been fractured by years of austerity and a deliberate dismantling of long-standing communities and modes of organisation.


The centralisation is key here. And it's something the Tories often do while pretending to do the reverse. 'Free' schools and academies are a good illustration  of that.

Countries with very decentralised control systems, like Germany or Switzerland,  are not coincidentally coping much better.

Blair was bad for this as well tbf.


----------



## Cid (Apr 19, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> *View attachment 207607*



They're well-worded I think... In a way where even if you are leaving the house regularly, you're framing it in a way that is socially acceptable, and probably more likely to answer.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Apr 19, 2020)

There's a lot of people still having to go to work - both key workers and people doing non-essential jobs - and often contact with people part of that work (whether care worker or builder) - and I doubt there's any sort of accurate figure available.  So i think that question is well-worded and can understand what they're trying to find out through it.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 19, 2020)

Cid said:


> Couple of thoughts that have been spinning around my head re the UK approach... What's kind of striking is that - after a decade of Tory rule - the government is leaning more heavily than ever on large, centralised public bodies and a limited, technocratic approach hinged around political appointees. It absolutely flies in the face of their professed ideology of encouraging independent innovation. Where they do seek to outsource, they are stymied by their attachment to a limited number of businesses that have - coincidentally I'm sure - lined their pockets in the past.
> 
> In terms of public discipline there seems to be a huge disconnect between them and the populace as a whole. They are heavily reliant on police action rather than community solidarity... There have been some successes; like it or not I do think the Thursday clap serves as a reminder of the general state of things. But contrast the general situation with e.g that Merkel explanation of R0 significance, communication of the facts around the disease has been abysmal.
> 
> They have put the lie to two fundamental pillars of their party; a dynamic free market, and the promotion of traditional community values. The former turns out to be a kind of limited sycophantocracy (  ). The latter has been fractured by years of austerity and a deliberate dismantling of long-standing communities and modes of organisation.


Some good points here Cid,. I'd throw in an inefficient stratgey of relying on brand names rather than harnessing the collective will of smaller businesses,  a flawed and increasingly technocratic state backed up by Police powers ,add the suspension of Parliament to that (which if you didnt know it was suspended you frankly wouldnt be aware.)


----------



## Cid (Apr 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The centralisation is key here. And it's something the Tories often do while pretending to do the reverse. 'Free' schools and academies are a good illustration  of that.
> 
> Countries with very decentralised control systems, like Germany or Switzerland,  are not coincidentally coping much better.
> 
> Blair was bad for this as well tbf.



Hmm... I'm not really sure I agree that centralism is key. I mean two most powerful states; China and the US. One an extreme example of centralism, the other an extreme of federalism. I'm not about to say China is great, the early failings here were pretty damning. But the ability to close specific regions, to have extremely well-controlled lockdowns does show some benefits of that system. They are definitely not worth it. Just to be very clear... And also they do rely on some things that are arguably decentralised in an odd sense (local party cadres and the like), which certainly help in terms of adherence to lockdown rules etc. In contrast the US is... just fucked. Well... an unclear picture as yet, genuinely hope they blag it somehow.

SK afaik is also not particularly decentralized (I mean half the population live in Seoul and the cities around it). And it has certainly relied on a degree of central power in operating regional closures, quickly rolling out various aspects of its test and trace policy and the like. 

That said I can kind of see it in those terms. The UK tory lead government is centralised in a particularly stultifying way... Massive power in the hands of a very small group of people. Very little in the hands of local government. In a way that is totally at odds with the ideology they profess.


----------



## Cid (Apr 19, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> There's a lot of people still having to go to work - both key workers and people doing non-essential jobs - and often contact with people part of that work (whether care worker or builder) - and I doubt there's any sort of accurate figure available.  So i think that question is well-worded and can understand what they're trying to find out through it.



There are quite a few people (myself included) who are... On the borderlines. I definitely can't work from home (cabinet-maker), but equally certainly nothing essential about my job. I have to keep working as I've not really got any clear picture of what's happening for the rest of the year; did get the rates grant (shared between 4, so £2.5k) which is obviously helpful, but yeah. I felt entirely comfortable answering that question honestly, I might have been... less inclined to... if they'd worded it differently.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 19, 2020)

Cid said:


> Couple of thoughts that have been spinning around my head re the UK approach... What's kind of striking is that - after a decade of Tory rule - the government is leaning more heavily than ever on large, centralised public bodies and a limited, technocratic approach hinged around political appointees. It absolutely flies in the face of their professed ideology of encouraging independent innovation. Where they do seek to outsource, they are stymied by their attachment to a limited number of businesses that have - coincidentally I'm sure - lined their pockets in the past.
> 
> In terms of public discipline there seems to be a huge disconnect between them and the populace as a whole. They are heavily reliant on police action rather than community solidarity... There have been some successes; like it or not I do think the Thursday clap serves as a reminder of the general state of things. But contrast the general situation with e.g that Merkel explanation of R0 significance, communication of the facts around the disease has been abysmal.
> 
> They have put the lie to two fundamental pillars of their party; a dynamic free market, and the promotion of traditional community values. The former turns out to be a kind of limited sycophantocracy (  ). The latter has been fractured by years of austerity and a deliberate dismantling of long-standing communities and modes of organisation.




I reckon the mainstay of compliance to stay indoors is not to obey government but to protect the NHS.


----------



## treelover (Apr 19, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> *View attachment 207607*



The DWP will love this app.


----------



## Diatribe (Apr 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Frank was being kind to you, tbh.
> 
> Fuck off, you cunt.
> 
> We can all see what you are.




Whilst internet fora undoubtedly provides some intellectual discussion and occasional erudite wit, unfortunately, it also provides a platform to a number of insignificant people who in the real world wouldn't even give one a second glance, never mind confront them with derogatory remarks. These people (I'm being kind in using the word ''people'') spend their entire waking lives flitting between so called ''social media'' sites, hiding behind the cloaks of anonymity for the sole purpose of scribing at best, one liner puerile insults aimed primarily at those who don't happen to concur with their narrow minded beliefs.  In some cases, there doesn't even have to be a reason for this type of behaviour pattern, it may be as simple as having being bullied at school, or being an underachiever et al.

Then of course there are the ''Politically Correct'' apparatchiks who police the internet in the vain hope they might find some form of minor indiscretion which they can capitalise on to forward their Orwellian agendas. A typical example falling foul of the aforementioned being the ex Essex cricketer, Don Topley, who was dismissed from the BBC commentary team for reciting a harmless cricketing ode at a ''private'' college after dinner speech. Apparently he had incurred the wrath of some feminist drudge, no man would afford a second glance to, who seized upon the opportunity to grab her 15 mins. of fame by walking out and complaining on Twitter, or some other such media platform.

If its any consolation, I think you're right, I should and will fuck off, if for no other reason, I don't subscribe to Mutual Admiration Societies.


----------



## Cid (Apr 19, 2020)

Get on with it and fuck off back to the Jordan Peterson appreciation society then. Going on ignore for now, but if this idiot sticks around maybe a thread ban if not a full ban.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 19, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Whilst internet fora undoubtedly provides some intellectual discussion and occasional erudite wit, unfortunately, it also gives a platform to a number of insignificant people who in the real world wouldn't even give one a second glance, never mind confront them with derogatory remarks. These people (I'm being kind in using the word ''people'') spend their entire waking lives flitting between so called ''social media'' sites, hiding behind the cloaks of anonymity for the sole purpose of scribing at best, one liner, puerile insults aimed primarily at those who don't happen to concur with their narrow minded beliefs.  In some cases, there doesn't even have to be a reason for this type of behaviour pattern, it may be as simple as having being bullied at school, or being an underachiever et al.
> 
> Then of course there are the ''Politically Correct'' apparatchiks who police the internet in the vain hope they might find some form of minor indiscretion which they can capitalise on to forward their Orwellian agendas. A typical example falling foul of the aforementioned being the ex Essex cricketer, Don Topley, who was dismissed from the BBC commentary team for reciting a harmless cricketing ode at a ''private'' college after dinner speech. Apparently he had incurred the wrath of some feminist drudge, no man would afford a second glance to, who seized upon the opportunity to gain her 15 mins. of fame by walking out and complaining on Twitter, or some other such media platform.
> 
> If its any consolation, I think you're right, I should and will fuck off, if for no other reason, I don't subscribe to Mutual Admiration Societies.


TLDR, but fuck off anyway.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Apr 19, 2020)

treelover said:


> The DWP will love this app.


The DWP are not getting the data (, and there are completely legal reasons why people might be leaving the house and coming into contact with others.
I do know that the DWP does carry out surveillance, but it is scaremongering to say that is the point of this app.
Summary of the app's privacy policy:


> Your data is protected under GDPR, and can only be used for the purpose that you consent to. That means it can only be used for medical science and to help the NHS.
> This is a not-for-profit initiative, and your data will not be used for commercial purposes.
> We try to minimise the amount of personally identifiable information we collect (eg. year of birth but not date of birth), while recognising that the research requires it.
> The data you share will be used for research purposes by King's College London, Guys & St Thomas' Hospitals and data scientists at ZOE Global Ltd. It may also be shared with the the UK National Health Service.
> Anonymised data may be shared with partner research institutions. To do so, an anonymous code will be generated to replace your personal details. Our partner institutions include: Harvard University, Stanford University, Massachusetts General Hospital, Tufts University, Berkeley University, Nottingham University, University of Trento and Lundt University. Some of these research institutions are in the US, and so are not governed by GDPR, and our privacy policy explains this.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

Wilf said:


> TLDR, but fuck off anyway.


This^^^


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

treelover said:


> The DWP will love this app.


That was an immediate concern for me as well. I think they have worded it with that in mind, though. eg there are plenty of people not working with entirely legitimate reasons to be leaving the home regularly, including people who are official or unofficial carers and need to drop in on/run errands for vulnerable people on a daily basis. I think this info, as worded, is ok.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 19, 2020)

treelover said:


> The DWP will love this app.



Have KCL said they will be sharing the individual data with the DWP? They aren’t listed in the ‘privacy’ section as one of the organisations listed that will be reviewing the data. Public Health haven’t been listed either.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> Have KCL said they will be sharing the individual data with the DWP? They aren’t listed in the ‘privacy’ section as one of the organisations listed that will be reviewing the data. Public Health haven’t been listed either.


I don't entirely trust organisations who collect data not to share it more widely than they say they will, tbf. However, I don't think this particular wording could be used as a stick to beat people with - I think it shows they're sensitive to the issue.


----------



## Cid (Apr 19, 2020)

Like it or not this kind of data is going to be vital for any serious effort to manage post-lockdown outbreaks. Even with a comprehensive test program.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

Cid said:


> Like it or not this kind of data is going to be vital for any serious effort to manage post-lockdown outbreaks. Even with a comprehensive test program.


Totally. Which is why I'm signed up. We need a lot more of it. We also still need to keep one eye on privacy issues, though.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't entirely trust organisations who collect data not to share it more widely than they say they will, tbf. However, I don't think this particular wording could be used as a stick to beat people with - I think it shows they're sensitive to the issue.



Have you downloaded the app to asses the level of personal information it asks you for when you first set it up?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> Have you downloaded the app to asses the level of personal information it asks you for when you first set it up?


Sorry I don't understand the question. I'm on this thing. Have been for a while. I don't think treelover should worry about this particular instance (though I could be wrong), but I don't think it's wrong to be worried in general about such things, especially as the govt is apparently working on a similar thing of its own.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sorry I don't understand the question. I'm on this thing. Have been for a while. I don't think treelover should worry about this particular instance (though I could be wrong), but I don't think it's wrong to be worried in general about such things, especially as the govt is apparently working on a similar thing of its own.



Do you think from the level of personal info you had to supply that it would be possible for the DWP to trace one particular individual?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> Do you think from the level of personal info you had to supply that it would be possible for the DWP to trace one particular individual?


Oh I see. iirc I gave my postcode, sex and age. 

I do tend towards tinfoilhattery wrt data, I admit, although it's not entirely without reason. We know that data about us is collected without our consent all the time.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Oh I see. iirc I gave my postcode, sex and age.
> 
> I do tend towards tinfoilhattery wrt data, I admit, although it's not entirely without reason. We know that data about us is collected without our consent all the time.



I think because I know so much is collected about me without my knowledge that I tend not to get so worked up as I imagine they have enormous levels of information about me anyway. I probably should get worked up more tbh. 

I never give my actual postcode for these things - I use a shop or restaurant / business postcode instead. I know they need the geographical data but that doesn’t mean they need my home details.


----------



## Cid (Apr 19, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> I think because I know so much is collected about me without my knowledge that I tend not to get so worked up as I imagine they have enormous levels of information about me anyway. I probably should get worked up more tbh.
> 
> I never give my actual postcode for these things - I use a shop or restaurant / business postcode instead. I know they need the geographical data but that doesn’t mean they need my home details.




Your postcode usually covers more than just you in any case... mine covers about 45 flats for example. But yeah, could have just used the pub at the bottom of the road, unlikely to make any difference.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Apr 19, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> Have you downloaded the app to asses the level of personal information it asks you for when you first set it up?


When you set it up it:
Asks you to agree to privacy policy etc
Asks for an email address
Gets you to create a password
Optionally asks for you name and phone number 
Are you are part of the Twins UK, UK Biobank, or Guys & St Thomas Hospital Trust poulation studies or organisations
Are you are a healthcare worker )including hospital, elderly care, or in the community)[No/Yes, I currently interact with patients/Yes, but I do not currently interact with patients]
Do you care for multiple people in the community, with direct contact with your parents [No/Yes]
What yearwere you born?
What sex were you assigned at birth? [male/ female/ intersex/ prefer not to say]
What gender do you most identify with? [male/ female/ prefer not to say / other, please specify]
Question on ethnicity with fairly standard tick boxes
Height
Weight
Postcode (first part is sufficient)
Have you EVER been exposed to someone with documented or suspected COVID-19 infection (such as co-workers, family members, or others) [Yes, documented COVID-19 cases only/ Yes, suspected COVID-19 cases only/ Yes both documented and suspected COVID-19 cases/ Not that I know of]
In general, do you have any health problems that require you to stay at home? [No/ Yes]
If you need help, can you count on someone close to you? [No/ Yes]
Do you regularly use a stick, walking frame or wheelchair to get around? [No/Yes]
In general, do you have any health problems that require you to limit your activities? [No/Yes]
Are you pregnant?
Do you have heart disease?
Do you have diabetes?
Do you have lung disease or asthma?
Do you smoke? [Never/ not currently/ yes]
Do you have kidney disease?
Are you living with cancer?
Do you regularly take asprin?
Do you regularly take NSAIDs
Are you regularly taking blood pressure medications?
Have you felt unwell in the month before you started reporting on this app?
Do you think you have already had COVID-19, but wer not tested?
How much have you been self-isolating over the last week [answers as above]
Have you had a test for COVID-19?


----------



## editor (Apr 19, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Whilst internet fora undoubtedly provides some intellectual discussion and occasional erudite wit, unfortunately, it also provides a platform to a number of insignificant people who in the real world wouldn't even give one a second glance, never mind confront them with derogatory remarks. These people (I'm being kind in using the word ''people'') spend their entire waking lives flitting between so called ''social media'' sites, hiding behind the cloaks of anonymity for the sole purpose of scribing at best, one liner puerile insults aimed primarily at those who don't happen to concur with their narrow minded beliefs.  In some cases, there doesn't even have to be a reason for this type of behaviour pattern, it may be as simple as having being bullied at school, or being an underachiever et al.
> 
> Then of course there are the ''Politically Correct'' apparatchiks who police the internet in the vain hope they might find some form of minor indiscretion which they can capitalise on to forward their Orwellian agendas. A typical example falling foul of the aforementioned being the ex Essex cricketer, Don Topley, who was dismissed from the BBC commentary team for reciting a harmless cricketing ode at a ''private'' college after dinner speech. Apparently he had incurred the wrath of some feminist drudge, no man would afford a second glance to, who seized upon the opportunity to grab her 15 mins. of fame by walking out and complaining on Twitter, or some other such media platform.
> 
> If its any consolation, I think you're right, I should and will fuck off, if for no other reason, I don't subscribe to Mutual Admiration Societies.


Off you pop then.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

They've changed it since I did it. Definitely don't remember anything like that many questions - wasn't asked about aspirin, for instance, or which gender you most identify with. Or ethinicity, I don't think.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 19, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> When you set it up it:
> Asks you to agree to privacy policy etc
> Asks for an email address
> Gets you to create a password
> ...



I feel like I wasn't asked as much when I signed up (literally the day it was released) - possibly they’ve added more as it’s gone on. Or maybe they did and I’ve forgotten. Thanks for sharing.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> I feel like I wasn't asked as much when I signed up (literally the day it was released) - possibly they’ve added more as it’s gone on. Or maybe they did and I’ve forgotten. Thanks for sharing.


They've definitely added a lot more. I would have remembered a few of those questions.


----------



## Cid (Apr 19, 2020)

I forgot them. Never trust your memory


----------



## Taphoi (Apr 19, 2020)

The data on hospital deaths is telling a really important story. It looks as though hospital-deaths-per-day peaked at Easter and are starting slowly to decline. This is ENORMOUSLY SIGNIFICANT. A study published in the Lancet (reported here: When will we know if the UK lockdown is working?) shows that there is a 4-week delay between a fatal infection and publication of the resultant fatality as a hospital death (see attached graph). That means the peaking of deaths at Easter CANNOT have been in response to the broad lockdown, because that only happened 3-weeks before Easter. What happened 4-weeks before Easter was the lockdown of high-risk groups ONLY. So it looks as though that measure was already sufficient to bring FATAL infections onto a declining trend line. It achieved this in combination with the early-March government instruction to isolate at home with symptoms, which can also be seen to have induced a slowing in the growth rate of deaths-per-day from around 2nd April. Note that you have to plot the log of deaths per day against the reporting date to see this, as shown in the attached graph of UK Hospital deaths-per-day as published by the Department of Health & Social Care. This is because the rate of spread (e.g. doubling time for deaths-per-day) is proportional to the slope of a straight line fit to the logarithm of deaths-per-day. This suggests that if the broad lockdown were ended today but the high-risk groups continued to isolate AND people with symptoms continued to isolate, deaths-per-day would continue to decline. In fact, we should from April 19th, 4-weeks after the broad lockdown, expect to see an increase in the rate of decline of deaths-per-day, assuming the broad lockdown was effective in respect of the death rate. However, it is possible that the broad lockdown will not have been effective as judged in terms of a further increase in the rate of decline of deaths per day, because we know it omitted to isolate people in care homes, which was probably a more important factor influencing the deaths-per-day figures than locking down low risk people. My guess is therefore that the broad lockdown will only have been slightly effective and the death rate per day will now halve every 6 days, but this could easily be pessimistic.


----------



## ricbake (Apr 19, 2020)

Why is there a sixth former on work experience giving the Downing St briefing?


----------



## existentialist (Apr 19, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> The data on hospital deaths is telling a really important story. It looks as though hospital-deaths-per-day peaked at Easter and are starting slowly to decline. This is ENORMOUSLY SIGNIFICANT. A study published in the Lancet (reported here: When will we know if the UK lockdown is working?) shows that there is a 4-week delay between a fatal infection and publication of the resultant fatality as a hospital death (see attached graph). That means the peaking of deaths at Easter CANNOT have been in response to the broad lockdown, because that only happened 3-weeks before Easter. What happened 4-weeks before Easter was the lockdown of high-risk groups ONLY. So it looks as though that measure was already sufficient to bring FATAL infections onto a declining trend line. It achieved this in combination with the early-March government instruction to isolate at home with symptoms, which can also be seen to have induced a slowing in the growth rate of deaths-per-day from around 2nd April. Note that you have to plot the log of deaths per day against the reporting date to see this, as shown in the attached graph of UK Hospital deaths-per-day as published by the Department of Health & Social Care. This is because the rate of spread (e.g. doubling time for deaths-per-day) is proportional to the slope of a straight line fit to the logarithm of deaths-per-day. This suggests that if the broad lockdown were ended today but the high-risk groups continued to isolate AND people with symptoms continued to isolate, deaths-per-day would continue to decline. In fact, we should from April 19th, 4-weeks after the broad lockdown, expect to see an increase in the rate of decline of deaths-per-day, assuming the broad lockdown was effective in respect of the death rate. However, it is possible that the broad lockdown will not have been effective as judged in terms of a further increase in the rate of decline of deaths per day, because we know it omitted to isolate people in care homes, which was probably a more important factor influencing the deaths-per-day figures than locking down low risk people. My guess is therefore that the broad lockdown will only have been slightly effective and the death rate per day will now halve every 6 days, but this could easily be pessimistic.


Well, that's a big slab of text, and welcome to Urban.

What are you getting at? Are you seriously arguing that lockdown was pointless?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 19, 2020)

Who is Harries referring to when she says 'we' need to have _a more adult conversation_ re PPE, while she goes on to excuse the shortages. Shush now, _children_. 

Also, Williamson - send us _another_ email, eh?


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 19, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Whilst internet fora undoubtedly provides some intellectual discussion and occasional erudite wit, unfortunately, it also provides a platform to a number of insignificant people who in the real world wouldn't even give one a second glance, never mind confront them with derogatory remarks. These people (I'm being kind in using the word ''people'') spend their entire waking lives flitting between so called ''social media'' sites, hiding behind the cloaks of anonymity for the sole purpose of scribing at best, one liner puerile insults aimed primarily at those who don't happen to concur with their narrow minded beliefs.  In some cases, there doesn't even have to be a reason for this type of behaviour pattern, it may be as simple as having being bullied at school, or being an underachiever et al.
> 
> Then of course there are the ''Politically Correct'' apparatchiks who police the internet in the vain hope they might find some form of minor indiscretion which they can capitalise on to forward their Orwellian agendas. A typical example falling foul of the aforementioned being the ex Essex cricketer, Don Topley, who was dismissed from the BBC commentary team for reciting a harmless cricketing ode at a ''private'' college after dinner speech. Apparently he had incurred the wrath of some feminist drudge, no man would afford a second glance to, who seized upon the opportunity to grab her 15 mins. of fame by walking out and complaining on Twitter, or some other such media platform.
> 
> If its any consolation, I think you're right, I should and will fuck off, if for no other reason, I don't subscribe to Mutual Admiration Societies.



Tbf, that really is superb.

You are quite the wordsmith and I applaud this post.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 19, 2020)

I find it quite frustrating when they talk about things being complicated in terms of the science - I know it is but could they not make some sort of attempt to explain it? I am fully aware that sometimes what seems x on the surface is actually y but how are we meant to decipher that without having some of it explained to us. 😕


----------



## LDC (Apr 19, 2020)

The whole tone is patronizing as fuck, Williamson is terrible.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 19, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> I find it quite frustrating when they talk about things being complicated in terms of the science - I know it is but could they not make some sort of attempt to explain it? I am fully aware that sometimes what seems x on the surface is actually y but how are we meant to decipher that without having some of it explained to us. 😕


When people tell you that something is "complicated in terms of the science", they're using science's supposed complexity to cloud the issue. There's _always _a way to explain the science clearly, provided there's a willingness to do so, and a willingness to listen when they do. Just look at Angela Merkel's clear, unambiguous setting out of the realities as an example.

This shower are more than happy to hide behind the "complicated...science", because it suits their _laissez-faire_ agenda very nicely to do so.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 19, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Tbf, that really is superb.
> 
> You are quite the wordsmith and I applaud this post.


Of course you do


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 19, 2020)

Are they  not just  saying that isolating high risk and symptomatic accounts for the biggest proportion of any reduction in death rates, rather than general lockdown and that the effect of the general lockdown wont look as dramatic as it could because care home deaths have not been so effectively curbed?

E2a Claiming that anyway.


----------



## Taphoi (Apr 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Well, that's a big slab of text, and welcome to Urban.
> 
> What are you getting at? Are you seriously arguing that lockdown was pointless?


I am not making that case and I do expect the broad lockdown to have some additional effect. I am merely showing what the figures show on the basis of Lancet-published data on the delay between infections and death reports. If you think the Lancet author was wrong and infections lead to reported deaths in 3 weeks, then you are free to believe that the main lockdown caused deaths-per-day to peak. But I think the Lancet was right, because it is very hard to see how the timescales could be contracted to get from an initial infection to death being reported by the government in three weeks. And the growth in the death rate slowed considerably at the beginning of April. That must have been due to the instruction to isolate at home with symptoms in early March, tending to confirm the 4-week response time of the death rate to policy measures.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> When people tell you that something is "complicated in terms of the science", they're using science's supposed complexity to cloud the issue. There's _always _a way to explain the science clearly, provided there's a willingness to do so, and a willingness to listen when they do. Just look at Angela Merkel's clear, unambiguous setting out of the realities as an example.
> 
> This shower are more than happy to hide behind the "complicated...science", because it suits their _laissez-faire_ agenda very nicely to do so.



Indeed. Never since my dad dying has the hole felt greater. He would have explained it so clearly. So frustrating.


----------



## Taphoi (Apr 19, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Are they  not just  saying that isolating high risk and symptomatic accounts for the biggest proportion of any reduction in death rates, rather than general lockdown and that the effect of the general lockdown wont look as dramatic as it could because care home deaths have not been so effectively curbed?


Thanks quimcunx. That is exactly what the figures seem to be saying.


----------



## LDC (Apr 19, 2020)

Williamson used to be Defence Secretary too, ffs. "Now then General, this is what's called a tank, I'm afraid it's very complicated, but please listen carefully and you might just understand what I'm telling you."


----------



## 2hats (Apr 19, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> A study published in the Lancet (reported here: When will we know if the UK lockdown is working?) shows that there is a 4-week delay between a fatal infection and publication of the resultant fatality as a hospital death (see attached graph).


Which study in The Lancet is that then?


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 19, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> I find it quite frustrating when they talk about things being complicated in terms of the science - I know it is but could they not make some sort of attempt to explain it? I am fully aware that sometimes what seems x on the surface is actually y but how are we meant to decipher that without having some of it explained to us. 😕



Not without lying more or exposing lies I expect.


----------



## philosophical (Apr 19, 2020)

Is there any way of finding out the percentage of people hospitalised in the UK because of the virus who eventually get discharged having recovered?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> When people tell you that something is "complicated in terms of the science", they're using science's supposed complexity to cloud the issue. There's _always _a way to explain the science clearly, provided there's a willingness to do so, and a willingness to listen when they do. Just look at Angela Merkel's clear, unambiguous setting out of the realities as an example.
> 
> This shower are more than happy to hide behind the "complicated...science", because it suits their _laissez-faire_ agenda very nicely to do so.


My first thought when I hear that is to translate it to mean 'The science seems complex. I don't understand it.'

Of course, Merkel is herself a scientist, which helps.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 19, 2020)

'If I happened to be working on the frontline, today...I would need to understand the agreed guidance on PPE...'
'It's actually quite complex, which is why as a professional there is a responsibilty on me to understand that.'... _more guilt trips around reusing PPE_

She's NOT working on the fucking frontline though, is she?

Shameless.


----------



## Taphoi (Apr 19, 2020)

2hats said:


> Which study in The Lancet is that then?


The link to the BBC News website publication of the 4-week delay is in my post. The BBC's graph cites "The Lancet, PHE" as their source.


----------



## ricbake (Apr 19, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> I am not making that case and I do expect the broad lockdown to have some additional effect. I am merely showing what the figures show on the basis of Lancet-published data on the delay between infections and death reports. If you think the Lancet author was wrong and infections lead to reported deaths in 3 weeks, then you are free to believe that the main lockdown caused deaths-per-day to peak. But I think the Lancet was right, because it is very hard to see how the timescales could be contracted to get from an initial infection to death being reported by the government in three weeks. And the growth in the death rate slowed considerably at the beginning of April. That must have been due to the instruction to isolate at home with symptoms in early March, tending to confirm the 4-week response time of the death rate to policy measures.


Infection rate slowed the 1st week of April, not the mortality rate...
4 weeks from lock down takes us to today. Weekend death reports have additional lag and will take at least 2 weeks to be anything like complete.
While the virus is out there and there is no vaccine, infection risk remains for anyone not isolating.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 19, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> I am not making that case and I do expect the broad lockdown to have some additional effect. I am merely showing what the figures show on the basis of Lancet-published data on the delay between infections and death reports. If you think the Lancet author was wrong and infections lead to reported deaths in 3 weeks, then you are free to believe that the main lockdown caused deaths-per-day to peak. But I think the Lancet was right, because it is very hard to see how the timescales could be contracted to get from an initial infection to death being reported by the government in three weeks. And the growth in the death rate slowed considerably at the beginning of April. That must have been due to the instruction to isolate at home with symptoms in early March, tending to confirm the 4-week response time of the death rate to policy measures.



But, many thousands of deaths in care/nursing homes, and indeed in the wider community, are not included in those figures, which are mainly just deaths in hospitals.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

ricbake said:


> Infection rate slowed the 1st week of April, not the mortality rate...


Daily death rate levelled off first week of April. It's been pretty much level for the last two weeks. I think it is right that the weak measures in place in the two weeks before lockdown probably did have an effect.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, many thousands of deaths in care/nursing homes, and indeed in the wider community, are not included in those figures, which are mainly just deaths in hospitals.


afaik, it's only deaths in hospitals in those figures at them moment, not just mainly. We should still be able to spot trends, though. eg the fact that the numbers in hospital with c19 are finally falling is indicative of a reduction in wider infection rates over the past two to three weeks.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 19, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Tbf, that really is superb.
> 
> You are quite the wordsmith and I applaud this post.


Oh, lord, you've got yourself a little friend now.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 19, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> The link to the BBC News website publication of the 4-week delay is in my post. The BBC's graph cites "The Lancet, PHE" as their source.


I think you might have to do slightly better than that. I don't know how much of this thread you've read before you posted, but you will note that there are one or two contributors whose attitude towards attribution and data could be quite reasonably described as "rigorous, and then some". They're probably worth a careful read. Word to the wise _taps nose_


----------



## 2hats (Apr 19, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> The link to the BBC News website publication of the 4-week delay is in my post. The BBC's graph cites "The Lancet, PHE" as their source.


Methinks you need to look up the definitions of cite and credit.

The chart you proffer up is a BBC graphic of an "example" case. It's not from a Lancet paper which isn't even cited properly in the BBC piece you link to.


Taphoi said:


> A study published in the Lancet (reported here: When will we know if the UK lockdown is working?) shows that there is a 4-week delay between a fatal infection and publication of the resultant fatality as a hospital death (see attached graph).


The most relevant study in The Lancet (DOI: 10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30243-7) indicates a "mean duration from onset of symptoms to death to be 17·8 days (95% credible interval [CrI] 16·9–19·2)". Add on to that varying times for reporting, and then incubation being anything from 1-5, or even up to 14 days, and you have too broad a peak to draw conclusions.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 19, 2020)

Not relevant to the virus discussion but it needs to be said; having worked in education for 40 years he is the worst Secretary of State in this time, who  appointed him...embarrassing.


----------



## treelover (Apr 19, 2020)

I applied for a European Health Card last year, within 2 weeks i had a DlA to PIP form, co-incidence, the application form said it would share, I have family senior in the Dept, who tell me all govt depts now share, the DWP at their Long Benton Labs are developing bots to do this, think cummings but more, sharing is the holy grail now.

I wonder how many of its supporters, of the app, have things to be concerned about, for many disabled and sick people it can be a matter of life and death, but then social security just hasn't been a priority for some time with them.


----------



## Maltin (Apr 19, 2020)

2hats said:


> Methinks you need to look up the definitions of cite and credit.
> 
> The chart you proffer up is a BBC graphic of an "example" case. It's not from the Lancet paper which isn't even cited properly in the BBC piece you link to.
> 
> The most relevant study in The Lancet (DOI: 10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30243-7) indicates a "mean duration from onset of symptoms to death to be 17·8 days (95% credible interval [CrI] 16·9–19·2)". Add on to that varying times for reporting, and then incubation being anything from 1-5, or even up to 14 days, and you have too broad a peak to draw conclusions.


Interesting with the 17.8 days mean duration per their study.  The peak daily reported deaths so far in Italy, UK and Spain came 16, 17 and 18 days respectively after their lockdowns, so fairly close to their figures. As you say, reporting times have an impact on when the peaks actually were and obviously the peak may be in the future too when things start to open up again.


----------



## treelover (Apr 19, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Not relevant to the virus discussion but it needs to be said; having worked in education for 40 years he is the worst Secrretary of State in this time, who i appointed him...embarrassing.



You appointed him?


----------



## kalidarkone (Apr 19, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> 'If I happened to be working on the frontline, today...I would need to understand the agreed guidance on PPE...'
> 'It's actually quite complex, which is why as a professional there is a responsibilty on me to understand that.'... _more guilt trips around reusing PPE_
> 
> She's NOT working on the fucking frontline though, is she?
> ...


And it's not that complex....just the guidance is bullshit. If there was an accessible and unlimited supply of ppe the guidance would be different.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> 'If I happened to be working on the frontline, today...I would need to understand the agreed guidance on PPE...'
> 'It's actually quite complex, which is why as a professional there is a responsibilty on me to understand that.'... _more guilt trips around reusing PPE_
> 
> She's NOT working on the fucking frontline though, is she?
> ...


We're also an "international exemplar" of preparedness, and apparently our testing policy has been correct all along.

Harries has always been one of the biggest roadblocks to suppressing the coronavirus via community testing and tracing, and infuriating to see she's not accepted her earlier errors. Even her boss and Vallance have been less stubborn. How a medical doctor formed these egregiously wrongheaded views is a question for an inquiry/trial/inquisition: crucial now is that she's overruled once and for all, because she's clearly dug deep into her foxhole and isn't budging.

After today's comments, if the GMC don't step in, they're enabling this disaster.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Apr 19, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Tbf, that really is superb.
> 
> You are quite the wordsmith and I applaud this post.



I reported it.. 

"some feminist drudge, no man would afford a second glance to"


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> And it's not that complex....just the guidance is bullshit. If there was an accessible and unlimited supply of ppe the guidance would be different.


Worse, this has been admitted!

Harries' string of disastrous misjudgments go beyond merely shilling for the government. She goes further than ministers, and even the original advocates of "herd immunity" have shown more willingness to consider alternatives.

Her M.D. infuses what she says with a dangerous level of authority. If the medical profession's regulators don't step in, it could sway ministers who'd started edging towards improved policy, and lead to untold disaster.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 19, 2020)

But


littlebabyjesus said:


> afaik, it's only deaths in hospitals in those figures at them moment, not just mainly. We should still be able to spot trends, though. eg the fact that the numbers in hospital with c19 are finally falling is indicative of a reduction in wider infection rates over the past two to three weeks.



But we _do_ also have to account for the fact that there is also, apparently, a drop downwards in people accessing emergency health care in general (where cases may or may not be covid-19 related) out of fear, I think?
Along with that, that the situation in care homes follows that, too, when we have no numbers to illustrate the growth in cases and/or deaths there, while care homes have largely been left to manage this alone.
Isn't it right that lockdown may have offered a decrease in cases and deaths in wider society but that it also ignores lots of others, when we have such shit data on that (the average deaths, over time, however they are currently recorded, seeming to be more important in terms of all of that).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 19, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> But
> 
> 
> But we _do_ also have to account for the fact that there is also, apparently, a drop downwards in people accessing emergency health care in general (where cases may or may not be covid-19 related) out of fear, I think?
> ...


Yeah, there's all kinds of stuff to account for. Some of it no doubt won't be accounted for a long time yet. All we can know is that the reality is worse than the stated figures.

But those figures are all we have to go on atm, and I don't see a reason why the _general shape_ of the official figures won't reflect the general shape of the infection's progress.

I agree with you about non-c19 deaths and general hardship, though. I know from the situation of someone close to me that social services have ground to a halt - people aren't getting emergency housing, for instance. Not to mention all the other operations put on hold. There is a lot of collateral damage going on.


----------



## Weller (Apr 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The whole tone is patronizing as fuck, Williamson is terrible.


Hes my local MP where I now live in Souths Staffs  they call him Alan Partridge or Private Pike  here
Ive seen him 3 times local events hes utterly useless at speaking we did have a few funny videos of him wandering around looking at potholes with 3 big security chaps couple of years back they were carrying buckets with a few tools in which included a large tin of wd40 spray paint and some motor oil for some reason they didnt seem to have done anything this was before he got sacked from defense and dont see much of him now unless he visits his office which used to be the police head quarters for donkeys years until he moved in and sent them to offices in the council head quarters almost everyone Ive spoke to here is agreed that he clueless
He moved here from Yorkshire apparently as it is an extremely safe tory seat so is  bound to remain he talks about his pet tarantula a lot and posts this sort of stuff on local groups 

I think its worth noting that the world cup was in summer and he appeared to have a cosy blanket ready on his chair and strategically placed Historically local beers including the Speckled Hen which is named after the shutdown MG Rover Factory where many worked and the Staffordshire Marstons pedigree yeah hes a bit of a cockwomble


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 19, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> ''Politically Correct'' apparatchiks... Orwellian agendas... feminist drudge, no man would afford a second glance to...


Yeah I can't see this working out for any of us, really.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 19, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> And it's not that complex....just the guidance is bullshit. If there was an accessible and unlimited supply of ppe the guidance would be different.





Azrael said:


> We're also an "international exemplar" of preparedness, and apparently our testing policy has been correct all along.
> 
> Harries has always been one of the biggest roadblocks to suppressing the coronavirus via community testing and tracing, and infuriating to see she's not accepted her earlier errors. Even her boss and Vallance have been less stubborn. How a medical doctor formed these egregiously wrongheaded views is a question for an inquiry/trial/inquisition: crucial now is that she's overruled once and for all, because she's clearly dug deep into her foxhole and isn't budging.
> 
> After today's comments, if the GMC don't step in, they're enabling this disaster.



Yep, to be clear - I understand how massively goalposts have been moved in the changing explanations of how PPE is supposed to be used and also how she's manipulating our 'preparedness' measures, based on plans and stocks put in place before austerity, over ten years ago, before those stocks were massively diminished by the huge shortages in funding, allowing them to go out of date and/or not be replenished.
It's equivalent to me, on an individual scale (they like that, don't they) telling my children I have been well prepared for this by having a head of broccoli in the fridge for the last ten years.

Solid lies. Big, sad faces - soft and understanding, or stark/warning voices, to 'the viewers' (I find it interesting how they each relate to 'us' very differently - also how different ministers are rolled out and/or kept back for a time, after they _always_ fuck up) - it's _always __briefing hour rage_ for me.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

Loathsome as they are, I can endure the ministers, I expect them to BS their way through it, and they deploy the usual vague sloganeering to duck questions.

The doctors are another league of danger. I've had people who sneer at ministers tell me how much they like the medics (and a look on Twitter confirms that Harries' fanclub -- invariably laypeople -- is undented by the latest briefing). They sound so sure and authoritative. It's dangerous beyond the telling of it, and can only be stopped if the GMC or their college sets aside procedure and steps in before they take the county down another ruinous path.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 19, 2020)

Weller said:


> Hes my local MP where I now live in Souths Staffs  they call him Alan Partridge or Private Pike  here
> Ive seen him 3 times local events hes utterly useless at speaking we did have a few funny videos of him wandering around looking at potholes with 3 big security chaps couple of years back they were carrying buckets with a few tools in which included a large tin of wd40 spray paint and some motor oil for some reason they didnt seem to have done anything this was before he got sacked from defense and dont see much of him now unless he visits his office which used to be the police head quarters for donkeys years until he moved in and sent them to offices in the council head quarters almost everyone Ive spoke to here is agreed that he clueless
> He moved here from Yorkshire apparently as it is an extremely safe tory seat so is  bound to remain he talks about his pet tarantula a lot and posts this sort of stuff on local groups
> 
> I think its worth noting that the world cup was in summer and he appeared to have a cosy blanket ready on his chair and strategically placed Historically local beers including the Speckled Hen which is named after the shutdown MG Rover Factory where many worked and the Staffordshire Marstons pedigree yeah hes a bit of a cockwomble



I don't see him ever featuring on any lists of the 1,000,000 greatest Yorkshire folk....


----------



## two sheds (Apr 19, 2020)

Weller said:


> Hes my local MP where I now live in Souths Staffs  they call him Alan Partridge or Private Pike  here
> Ive seen him 3 times local events hes utterly useless at speaking we did have a few funny videos of him wandering around looking at potholes with 3 big security chaps couple of years back they were carrying buckets with a few tools in which included a large tin of wd40 spray paint and some motor oil for some reason they didnt seem to have done anything this was before he got sacked from defense and dont see much of him now unless he visits his office which used to be the police head quarters for donkeys years until he moved in and sent them to offices in the council head quarters almost everyone Ive spoke to here is agreed that he clueless
> He moved here from Yorkshire apparently as it is an extremely safe tory seat so is  bound to remain he talks about his pet tarantula a lot and posts this sort of stuff on local groups
> 
> ...


His dog loves him though ((( Gavin)))


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> When people tell you that something is "complicated in terms of the science", they're using science's supposed complexity to cloud the issue. There's _always _a way to explain the science clearly, provided there's a willingness to do so, and a willingness to listen when they do. Just look at Angela Merkel's clear, unambiguous setting out of the realities as an example.
> 
> This shower are more than happy to hide behind the "complicated...science", because it suits their _laissez-faire_ agenda very nicely to do so.




It’s also very patronising and belittling: to assume that no one listening knows eneoug( to know better.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 19, 2020)

This is a sobering read....with no answers

How does coronavirus kill? Clinicians trace a ferocious rampage through the body, from brain to toes


----------



## Weller (Apr 19, 2020)

PD58 said:


> I don't see him ever featuring on any lists of the 1,000,000 greatest Yorkshire folk....


forgot about this "Putin shut up " when he was defense secretary  maybe we  should just tell the virus to go away and shut up too


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 19, 2020)

The Stones were remarkably prescient when they recorded this in 1972.



When your spine is cracking and your hands, they shake
Heart is bursting and your butt's gonna break
Woman's cussing, you can hear her scream
Feel like murder in the first degree
Ain't nobody slowing down no way
Everybody's stepping on their accelerator
Don't matter where you are
Everybody's gonna need a ventilator
When you're trapped and circled with no second chances
Code of living is your gun in hand
Can't be browed by beating, can't be cowed by words
Messed by cheating, ain't gonna ever learn
Everybody walking 'round
Everybody trying to step on their Creator
Don't matter where you are, everybody, everybody gonna
Need some kind of ventilator, some kind of ventilator
Come down and get it
What you gonna do about it, what you gonna do?
What you gonna do about it, what you gonna do?
Gonna fight it, gonna fight it
Gonna fight it, gonna fight it
Gonna fight it, gonna fight it
Gonna fight it, gonna fight it
Gonna fight it, gonna fight it
Gonna fight it, gonna fight it
Gonna fight it, gonna fight it


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 19, 2020)

Coronavirus memes thread thataway ------------------>


----------



## LDC (Apr 19, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> The Stones were remarkably prescient when they recorded this in 1972.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




FFS, not news and not even interesting non-news.


----------



## treelover (Apr 19, 2020)

Disabled people left off coronavirus vulnerable list go without food
					

Large numbers excluded from government’s food delivery scheme due to strict criteria




					www.theguardian.com
				




not good



> “We’re hearing from people that their GP won’t put them on the list after they tried to self-register as MND isn’t listed,” said Susie Rabin, the head of policy and campaigns for the MND Association. “I’ve seen responses from MPs to people saying that not everyone with MND needs to be in the list as ‘some may have a mild form’. I’ve never seen a mild form of a terminal illness.”



FFS, MND is horrendous.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, there's all kinds of stuff to account for. Some of it no doubt won't be accounted for a long time yet. All we can know is that the reality is worse than the stated figures.
> 
> But those figures are all we have to go on atm, and I don't see a reason why the _general shape_ of the official figures won't reflect the general shape of the infection's progress.
> 
> I agree with you about non-c19 deaths and general hardship, though. I know from the situation of someone close to me that social services have ground to a halt - people aren't getting emergency housing, for instance. Not to mention all the other operations put on hold. There is a lot of collateral damage going on.



I'm not just talking about non-c19 deaths, I'm talking about the potential there is for the rest to have been higher while we've tested less, along with the drop in figures for people presenting at hospital.
I do know that while we use (for eg) Spain and Italy as a measure, there is a comparison to be made - that they also had significant numbers of people dying in care homes, for eg - but it's difficult for us to measure those extra deaths, or growth in cases outside, when we continue to have such little information given on those, or on much relevant data in general.

Separately, I know of someone who works in homelessness - they were tasked in finding homes for all of their registered homeless population, in one London borough, in_ one day_ - and guess what, they managed to do it.
Before lockdown, obvs - and with an insane amount of work - but fuck, I'm so angry at how well the gov can provide _now_. Those homes already existed, they were already available and those people were already sleeping on fucking pavements, for years before this.
Just how well they're able to scrabble together their shitty solutions and chuck money at it, during a crisis that they have only escalated, while they happily sit on them otherwise.


----------



## Sue (Apr 19, 2020)

sheothebudworths, I was thinking that exact same thing earlier. Where I live (Hackney), the number of people sleeping on the streets has increased massively in the last few years. That it takes a pandemic to find those people places to stay is absolutely disgusting. And what happens when this is over? Will they end up back on the streets?


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 19, 2020)

Weller said:


> forgot about this "Putin shut up " when he was defense secretary  maybe we  should just tell the virus to go away and shut up too




Don't worry, we'll have a deal with COVID-19 after the 14 day transition period.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 19, 2020)

Sue said:


> sheothebudworths, I was thinking that exact same thing earlier. Where I live (Hackney), the number of people sleeping on the streets has increased massively in the last few years. That it takes a pandemic to find those people places to stay is absolutely disgusting. And what happens when this is over? Will they end up back on the streets?



It's all of that, isn't it? 
What happens to the NHS, to their staff, to careworkers, what happens to the homeless, what happens to people who were already living on such disgustingly low incomes, people reliant on food banks, at the mercy of DWP staff being forced to implement financial punsishments leaving people with nothing to live on, people who are unwell and/or not fit to work jumping through endless hoops set up to see them fail, the general, unwritten rule around sickness at work being frowned upon and dealt with by increasing stages of disciplinaries attached to them, to self-employed people, or zero-hour workers and many others with no entitlement to sick pay or holidays - this magic, now, that looks to incorporate all of that (I know it doesn't) while we ARE all staying in - while we don't need telling to do that, funnily enough - what happens _later_, too?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 19, 2020)

Also, we (UK) seem to have been failing to give either recovery figures, _at all_, or updated serious/critical figures (iirc, they were stuck at 150, odd, for a while and have now been stuck on 1,559 for ages - no record of jumps in between). 
Anyone know why? I might be looking at the wrong place to collate figures, tbf (worldometer).


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 19, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Also, we (UK) seem to have been failing to give either recovery figures, _at all_, or updated serious/critical figures (iirc, they were stuck at 150, odd, for a while and have now been stuck on 1,559 for ages - no record of jumps in between).
> Anyone know why? I might be looking at the wrong place to collate figures, tbf (worldometer).



That would interest me too, Germany saying 88,000 recovered, our last figure was 436?


----------



## Taphoi (Apr 19, 2020)

2hats said:


> Methinks you need to look up the definitions of cite and credit.
> 
> The chart you proffer up is a BBC graphic of an "example" case. It's not from a Lancet paper which isn't even cited properly in the BBC piece you link to.
> 
> The most relevant study in The Lancet (DOI: 10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30243-7) indicates a "mean duration from onset of symptoms to death to be 17·8 days (95% credible interval [CrI] 16·9–19·2)". Add on to that varying times for reporting, and then incubation being anything from 1-5, or even up to 14 days, and you have too broad a peak to draw conclusions.


What you detail merely supports the basic analysis. The mean time from infection to death reporting would have to be around 28 days and you are showing that the width of the distribution of this duration is only a few days. That means that the effects of policy changes will appear over just a few days around 28 days after the policy change. And that is what we see in the data. And it means that the early focussed policies were sufficient to cause the fatal infections to start to decline. So you too are arguing in support of my analysis that the broad lockdown was unnecessary.


----------



## Taphoi (Apr 19, 2020)

Maltin said:


> Interesting with the 17.8 days mean duration per their study.  The peak daily reported deaths so far in Italy, UK and Spain came 16, 17 and 18 days respectively after their lockdowns, so fairly close to their figures. As you say, reporting times have an impact on when the peaks actually were and obviously the peak may be in the future too when things start to open up again.


The reason peak deaths came about the same time after broad lockdown as in the UK in other countries is that they too had focussed measures a week or two before their broad lockdowns. For example Italy had local lockdowns in the districts of high infection. Clearly, those focussed measures were probably responsible for the early peaking of deaths per day in those countries too. The lesson is that properly focussed measures are much more cost-effective than broad lockdowns and can do the whole job in themselves.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 19, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Also, we (UK) seem to have been failing to give either recovery figures, _at all_, or updated serious/critical figures (iirc, they were stuck at 150, odd, for a while and have now been stuck on 1,559 for ages - no record of jumps in between).
> Anyone know why? I might be looking at the wrong place to collate figures, tbf (worldometer).


Probably lack of community testing and testing hospital patients on discharge. They weren't even routinely testing patients discharged to care homes until the scandal broke (another criminally negligent policy to add to the sordid list).

Even if they started testing all hospital patients on discharge, given the prognosis if you end up in hospital, it could cause mass panic if people thought that was the universal recovery rate. Can't really be done until mass testing testing starts and there's enough capacity to test twice.

Important thing to emphasize is that while vast majority of people will recover, the consequences are so severe for the minority who deteriorate that the virus' spread must be suppressed.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 19, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> What you detail merely supports the basic analysis. The mean time from infection to death reporting would have to be around 28 days and you are showing that the width of the distribution of this duration is only a few days. That means that the effects of policy changes will appear over just a few days around 28 days after the policy change. And that is what we see in the data. And it means that the early focussed policies were sufficient to cause the fatal infections to start to decline. So you too are arguing in support of my analysis that the broad lockdown was unnecessary.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 20, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> What you detail merely supports the basic analysis. The mean time from infection to death reporting would have to be around 28 days and you are showing that the width of the distribution of this duration is only a few days. That means that the effects of policy changes will appear over just a few days around 28 days after the policy change. And that is what we see in the data. And it means that the early focussed policies were sufficient to cause the fatal infections to start to decline. So you too are arguing in support of my analysis that the broad lockdown was unnecessary.


Your argument undermines your conclusion. 28 days after 'full' lockdown in the UK is tomorrow and the latest modelling indicates we are most likely just arriving at the peak.

The research referred to informs us that 'mean' time from infection to death is just under 18 days. Further research, which underpins WHO advice, identifies a typical 'mean' incubation time of 5 days (that used for the 'no symptoms' stage of the BBC graphic). So that's typically just under 23 days from infection to death.

A very small number of cases have been reported to have incubation periods as long as 24 days. A very small number of cases have seen incubation periods of under 2 days.

The data itself is incomplete and disparate across different administrative regions;  as was each 'lockdown'.

Furthermore it tells us absolutely nothing about asymptomatic spread, which is likely some 30-50% of all infections.

It's folly to build conclusions about a randomly (if at all) enforced and varyingly respected, hand-waving lockdown on such wide ranges of numbers with large unknowns.


> So you too are arguing in support of my analysis that the broad lockdown was unnecessary.


One thing is for sure though, I'm not supporting your analysis. A full, proper lockdown is absolutely necessary.

Your propensity to misrepresent others has been noted.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

I feel that all the published numbers are giving us false assurances of control and predictability. There are still huge unknowns about herd immunity, mortality rates and vaccines. Seems to me that total UK deaths could be anything from 60,000 to 600,000. Have I got that wrong?


----------



## 2hats (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I feel that all the published numbers are giving us false assurances of control and predictability. There are still huge unknowns about herd immunity, mortality rates and vaccines. Seems to me that total UK deaths could be anything from 60,000 to 600,000. Have I got that wrong?


Modelled fatalities in the first wave are currently put at around 49K (four separate models suggest this).

Right now (likely near peak) reported hospital plus some care home plus some community deaths are just over 16K. Likely with all cohorts this number is presently something in the 20-25K range. Expect (very rough rule of thumb) as many deaths rolling down off the peak of a given wave as climbing it.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

You've just proved my point.


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 20, 2020)

Psychiatric hospitals in Northampton report six deaths between them "since outbreak" of coronavirus
					

An update from two of Northampton's non-acute care hospitals




					www.northamptonchron.co.uk


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> You've just proved my point.



Where are you getting *600,000* deaths from though?  (in post #8532)


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> You've just proved my point.


Not really. Sadly I think 2hats is probably right that the toll all told from this first wave is likely to be close to the 50k mark once all the counting is in. 

So that represents a first wave. 

Hard to predict anything with much certainty beyond that, but I would predict one thing, which is that if there are further waves they will have much lower peaks. If the government is not entirely useless (big IF, I know), then there is no reason why the UK's future waves shouldn't be the size of Germany's first wave or smaller. It would be gross negligence to allow anything worse than that. 

And I would suggest that the above is the worst-case scenario: a series of further outbreaks, each with much lower peaks than this first one. Other possibilities remain, including that a large percentage of us have either already had it or been exposed to it and have resistance to catching it, meaning that there won't be significant further waves.


----------



## zahir (Apr 20, 2020)

.


----------



## scifisam (Apr 20, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> But we _do_ also have to account for the fact that there is also, apparently, a drop downwards in people accessing emergency health care in general (where cases may or may not be covid-19 related) out of fear, I think?



Some people have died through fear of going to hospital. I saw a leaflet (that I can't find now) encouraging parents not to ignore symptoms of other illnesses, and it included a boy who'd died of liver failure because he was waiting for a transplant and his parents didn't take him to hospital when his condition got worse, and a kid who died of meningitis because his parents didn't take him to hospital, plus some other cases I can't remember now.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 20, 2020)

I suppose the absence of confirmed recovered case figures would show the dreadful lack of tests as each statistic would require a test to confirm infection and two more to confirm the virus gone and patient recovered.


----------



## DexterTCN (Apr 20, 2020)

I was making a baked pancake and needed a lemon so added it to the shopping list.  I needed a firm one as they're sweet and soft ones are bitter.  No gloves on so I had to keep taking the useless ones until I got one I wanted.  sCouldn't put 'em back, could I?  Sigh.



Spoiler: pancake


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

that's not a pancake and why is it on this thread?


----------



## scifisam (Apr 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> that's not a pancake and why is it on this thread?



Baked pancakes are an American dish that's different to other sorts of pancakes - cooking is one of the areas where our languages _really_ diverge. Presumably it's just in the wrong thread.


----------



## treelover (Apr 20, 2020)

Wish i could cook like that, 

goes off to jack monroes site.


----------



## tim (Apr 20, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Baked pancakes are an American dish that's different to other sorts of pancakes - cooking is one of the areas where our languages _really_ diverge. Presumably it's just in the wrong thread.



Baked pancakes are Yorkshire puddings.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> that's not a pancake and why is it on this thread?



It looks like one, literally. I think us Brits are the illogical ones here.

edited to say sorry I thought this was a food thread not the main coronavirus one I’ll shut up.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It looks like one, literally. I think us Brits are the illogical ones here.


A Brit (Scotch variety) posted it!


----------



## treelover (Apr 20, 2020)

​
Surely he should have more substantial PPE?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 20, 2020)

So the gov casually dropped this









						Oak National Academy
					

Oak National Academy offers nearly 10,000 free lessons and resources covering many subjects, from Early Years Foundation Stage to Year 11.




					www.thenational.academy
				




No idea who was involved/consulted, how the teachers were selected, if they get paid, if unions were informed, anything. 

Tells me schools aren't reopening any time soon


----------



## little_legs (Apr 20, 2020)




----------



## zahir (Apr 20, 2020)

The editor of the Lancet (thread)


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Apr 20, 2020)

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: What's Going On? Stories from the Frontline. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.
					

7:30PM TUESDAY 21 APRIL ONLINE    Speakers:  Prof John Ashton  Dr Mona Kamal Consultant Psychiatrist  Dr Rita Issa Clinical Fellow GP  Dr Tom Gardener Junior Doctor currently working in A&E  We are living in unprecedented times. The covid19 crisis has affected us all in ways we had never...




					zoom.us


----------



## scifisam (Apr 20, 2020)

tim said:


> Baked pancakes are Yorkshire puddings.



Huh, I thought Yorkshire Puddings were called popovers in the US.


----------



## Mation (Apr 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> So the gov casually dropped this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I know the number of BME teachers is disproportionately low in the UK - lots of problems with racism - but that is really, _really_ starkly white. This would be a great opportunity for some diversity of all kinds.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Hard to predict anything with much certainty beyond that, but I would predict one thing, which is that if there are further waves they will have much lower peaks.


This isn't a taken. Factors (behavioural, societal, mutagenic) can conspire to make subsequent waves worse (as per the Spanish Flu). Pay attention to Japan (though it's not entirely clear yet if this is a second wave of some flavour or an artefact of 'politically modified data flow').


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

Last week when that weeks provisional ONS numbers came out, one of the stories they told about the data was:



> “The deaths that were registered in England and Wales during the week ending 3 April is the highest weekly total since we started compiling weekly deaths data in 2005,” said Nick Stripe, head of health analysis and life events at the ONS.



Which was reported on by the press eg Coronavirus pushes England and Wales death rate to record high

At the time I thought 'your weekly deaths data only goes back to 2005?' and I decided to try to get a broader sense of the historical context. I've ended up with yearly figures going back to 1838, quarterly going back to 1966. And I filled in some weekly gaps for a couple of earlier periods, although with variable quality. Some of it is derived from graphs of some key flu epidemic years so it isnt precise but it at least shows me the shape and I can do some estimates.

Anyway, when I was looking at various datasources it turned out that the ONS themselves had weekly data going back to week 31 of 1999 in one of their spreadsheets. And since the winter of 98/99 and 99/00 had bad flu seasons with a high toll on the elderly, I found the 'since records began' thing to be rather odd. Well it turns out they corrected theit original narrative, it doesnt go on about 2005 any more:



> “The 16,387 deaths that were registered in England and Wales during the week ending 3 April is the highest weekly total since Week 2 (early January) 2000.”



(from updated Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics )

As far as I can tell, the England and Wales registered weekly deaths in that millenium period were 18,581 in week 52 of 1999 and 17,970 in week 1 of 2000.

I dont have good ONS data for the flu a year earlier, but there were old press articles that gave a provisional weekly figure of 20,508 for week 1 1999. I found an old paper of influenza epidemics that gave a weekly figure of all deaths of 19,553 for the peak week of a 1997/98 epidemic and 19,180 for the peak week of 1989/90. 

I dont have a number for the epidemic of early 1976, the pandemics of 1968 (1969 in the UK I think) or 1957/58, or the epidemic of 1950/51, or other notable epidemic years. I do have ONS estimated winter excess mortality figures for winter 1950/51 (terribly high numbers!) through to 2018. In terms of total yearly deaths for England/Wales, as far as I can tell, no matter the change in population size over time, the number only went above 600,000 in 1918, although there were some years in the 1970's which got quite close to breaching 600,000. It fell a little below 500,000, for the first time since the early 1950's, from 2009-2012 after several decades of decline, but has been heading back towards 550,000's since. 

Anyway this is just some general context because I am preparing myself for tomorrows ONS release, as I expect some of the numbers in it to be quite horrible. I dont know if ONS have weekly data available to them for earlier record weeks, so I dont know what they will compare the numbers in the next report to. But I will want to put it in context myself, as best I can.


----------



## editor (Apr 20, 2020)

Some timely clean air activism








						London charities launch #BuildBackCleanerAir campaign
					

Campaigners are asking residents of Lambeth and Southwark to talk about their experiences during the coronavirus lockdown (positive or negative) as part of their #BuildBackCleanerAir campaign.



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

Northern Ireland managed to impress me by having ICU data on their new dashboard:





__





						Microsoft Power BI
					






					app.powerbi.com


----------



## oryx (Apr 20, 2020)

I see others have mentioned this on this thread, but what we're doing in the UK isn't really 'lockdown', is it....?

What prompted me to start thinking this is hearing an interview on BBC Radio London yesterday with a woman living in Emilia Romagna, Italy. Her description of life under a real lockdown was grim - no being allowed out at all except for essential shopping and a few other things. Police with loudspeakers and drones everywhere enforcing it. In Spain, there are moves to relax the lockdown for children, who haven't been allowed out since 14 March. I did know about this, it was just that hearing/reading those two things, coupled with a walk outside immediately afterwards, really brought it home to me.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any means, but (in common with most on here, I would suspect) I don't trust this government. Is the use of the term 'lockdown' in the UK a form of propaganda to make us believe we're doing more than we should be doing? While I feel very much for those unable to see relatives, people trying to homeschool their kids etc., and obviously many things are shut or cancelled, a lot of life is going on as normal.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

Lockdown wasnt really the governments preferred term, it was the media etc that called our version that, despite it lacking some features of an actual lockdown.

I take each week at a time, but so far since they are not rushing to end the measures they imposed, I dont see the need for propaganda on this front in the direction you suggest. Times will change at some stage though.


----------



## oryx (Apr 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Lockdown wasnt really the governments preferred term, it was the media etc that called our version that, despite it lacking some features of an actual lockdown.



Thanks - that's interesting to know.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

By the way I was taking a break when everyone was talking about that Sunday Times article. It was useful for piecing some details & timing together so that I could better judge where the orthodox establishment/scientific/medical side of things getting in the way ended, and the shit politics of Johnson etc began. The article has some things missing that I would have included. Such as when they say alarm bells were ringing on Feb 28th, thats actually also the date that the first confirmed death that was actually noticed took place (since they just started testing pneumonia cases without the travel history at the time).


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## Raheem (Apr 20, 2020)

Possibly the main reason for the gov not using the term "lockdown" is that BJ had been on TV the week before saying that having a lockdown was a silly idea and it wouldn't be happening.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

oryx said:


> Thanks - that's interesting to know.



I might be out of date though. I know 'social distancing measures' was mostly the preferred term to start with, but they might have started saying lockdown more recently, I've lost track a bit.


----------



## editor (Apr 20, 2020)

One for you drivers









						Driving during coronavirus lockdown: FAQs answered – Which? News
					

From keeping on the right side of the law to ensuring your car is safe and roadworthy, we answer your most frequently asked motoring questions



					www.which.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

There was discussion earlier about ethnic minorities being disproportionately affected by covid 19. I thought this might be of interest in that. Allowing for the fact that in 10% of cases, ethnicity is not stated, in the other 90%, the non-white proportion of deaths reported in England is almost identical to the figure in the 2011 census: 19%. Given that the biggest outbreaks have generally been in parts of the country with much higher BAME populations - West Mids, London - this raw data doesn't support the idea that it's hitting BAME people harder. In fact, it supports the assertion that race/ethnicity is not really a factor.




ETA: I suspect this idea came about because of the high-profile cases of younger doctors, nurses and transport workers dying. Within that relatively small sub-group, BAME people are bound to be highly represented even if race isn't itself a risk factor cos of how many BAME people work in the NHS/transport.


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## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Possibly the main reason for the gov not using the term "lockdown" is that BJ had been on TV the week before saying that having a lockdown was a silly idea and it wouldn't be happening.



I've got in my notes that when Italy did a nationwide lockdown, Johnson said other countries were 'overreacting'. But I dont seem to have a source, if anyone finds reference to that please let me know, cheers. It would have been within a day or so of March 11th, possibly even on that day.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Where are you getting *600,000* deaths from though?  (in post #8532)


If the whole population is exposed to it, which is inevitable, and there's a 1% mortality rate, almost no immunity and no vaccine.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> View attachment 207909



I see you got that from the daily NHS numbers.





__





						Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths
					

Health and high quality care for all,  <br />now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk
				




I also see they have just today started adding a chart that shows hospital deaths by date of death, and colour to indicate which of those deaths were announced today. So thats one less graph for me to feel the need to do myself very often!


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I might be out of date though. I know 'social distancing measures' was mostly the preferred term to start with, but they might have started saying lockdown more recently, I've lost track a bit.


For me, the distinction is exemplified by the difference between the UK and Sweden currently. 

So in Sweden, they've closed some but not all schools, and banned big gatherings and visits to care homes. But bars, restaurants and shops are open, subject to new rules spacing out tables, etc, non-essential workers are recommended but not obliged to work from home. 

Here, all bar food shops, pretty much, are closed, all schools shut, all bars, restaurants closed, all gatherings of anyone not of the same household are banned, people are moved on in parks, all non-essential workers not supposed to travel, in London at least, buses and tubes empty, drivers stopped and asked where they're going, people encouraged to tell on neighbours having visitors, a whole nation communicating via Zoom.

While we might not literally be sealed in like they were in Wuhan, I'd call what we have 'lockdown' and what Sweden has 'social distancing measures'.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I see you got that from the daily NHS numbers.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, much better. Their spreadsheets are horrible to look at!


----------



## ddraig (Apr 20, 2020)

please add sources otherwise it could be made up, thanks


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 20, 2020)

.


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There was discussion earlier about ethnic minorities being disproportionately affected by covid 19. I thought this might be of interest in that. Allowing for the fact that in 10% of cases, ethnicity is not stated, in the other 90%, the non-white proportion of deaths reported in England is almost identical to the figure in the 2011 census: 19%. Given that the biggest outbreaks have generally been in parts of the country with much higher BAME populations - West Mids, London - this raw data doesn't support the idea that it's hitting BAME people harder. In fact, it supports the assertion that race/ethnicity is not really a factor.
> (...)
> ETA: I suspect this idea came about because of the high-profile cases of younger doctors, nurses and transport workers dying. Within that relatively small sub-group, BAME people are bound to be highly represented even if race isn't itself a risk factor cos of how many BAME people work in the NHS/transport.




Race and pandemic you say ? Why it must be time for an article by Trevor Phillips. Today's Times.

*We need to solve ethnic puzzle of Covid-19
Could religion explain why some ethnic minorities seem to be more susceptible than others?*



Spoiler: Text of the fucking article



Trevor Phillips
Monday April 20 2020, 12.01am, The Times

You do not need to hail from the Indian subcontinent to feel pride and sorrow at the selflessness shown by Asian heritage doctors and nurses who have died from Covid-19. Nor do you need to be a product of plantation slavery for the report that black Americans are dying in huge numbers to send a shiver down your spine. But both pieces of news have prompted an urgent question, now being raised every day at Downing Street briefings: are people of colour more at risk than others? And if so, why?

Research linking race with disease is explosive. Many believe it should be off limits as a matter of principle. I don’t agree. The families of minority health workers are daily watching the mounting toll of dark faces in horror. Try persuading them that race is merely “a social construct” And knowledge about our differences can be revelatory. In the late 1990s a Pakistani-heritage medical researcher, Sadaf Farooqi, pointed out that Asian families, despite suffering higher infant mortality than average, were significantly less prone to sudden infant death syndrome, a fatal respiratory condition. Her brilliant insight into the way that Asian infants were positioned in their cots contributed to research that reduced the annual death of some 1,500 babies by more than half. In the case of coronavirus, we need to know everything we can. Unwarranted sensitivities could mean some other family grieving for a loved one; political squeamishness could block the path to a treatment.

So far our experts have had little to say about whether the virus has been doling out its grisly rations evenly. Their reluctance to guess is understandable. The combination of medicine, race and politics does not have a happy history. In 1932, American researchers, some of them black, concerned about the effects of syphilis on minorities, undertook a publicly funded programme of research in which they deliberately withheld treatment from 399 African-American men. The ghastly experiment was only terminated after 40 years, by which time 28 of the men had died of the disease, a further 100 perished from related causes, 40 wives had been infected and 19 children born with syphilis. More recently, the suave, British-educated president of South Africa Thabo Mbeki, citing his country’s history of blaming black people for previous epidemics, scoffed at evidence that Aids was a viral infection. His health minister prescribed quack remedies — garlic, beetroot, lemon juice. It is estimated that as a result, over 350,000 people died unnecessarily.

A month ago, rumours began to circulate on social media that black people were unusually resistant to Covid-19. Asked about this, I joked that history suggests we wouldn’t be that lucky. But the grim consequence of this misinformation may have been that African-Americans were slower than others to respond to the threat. In Chicago, a city one-third black, over two thirds of virus deaths have occurred in the black community. Non-urban areas have shown a similar pattern.

Concern about this known unknown was etched on the face of the chief medical officer as he addressed the issue at the weekend; factors like genetics, culture, language and religion could be quietly undermining scientists’ attempt to predict the spread of infection. Public Health England has rightly begun an inquiry. But however hard they try, scientists can’t keep pace with the rumour mill and must ensure the emerging conspiracy theories and knee-jerk victimhood do not go unchallenged.

I have worked with my friend and colleague, Professor Richard Webber, perhaps Britain’s most distinguished geodemographer, to see what public sources can tell us. You can see the detail in our preliminary paper at webberphillips.com. But our headline finding is that, on a per capita basis, coronavirus has struck London boroughs such as Brent, Southwark, Lambeth and Harrow far harder than it should have done; broadly speaking, the higher the proportion of non-whites in an area, the higher the rate of infection.

The pattern isn’t easy to explain. Assumptions about racial biology are unlikely to hold good across a range of non-white groups who are in most ways more unlike each other than they are different from whites. As for poverty, the list of the seventeen most afflicted local authorities includes low-income Brent, but also features multi-ethnic Wandsworth, where median weekly earnings, at £720, are 50 per cent above the national average. And of the virus hotspots, only two appear in the list of England’s ten most overcrowded boroughs. The most significant hotspots outside the capital, Liverpool and Sheffield, are 35th and 107th respectively out of 126 boroughs in order of population density.

So what might explain these data? First, age. Britain’s non-whites are, in general, younger than average. In the multigenerational households common in some minority communities young people, more likely to have had the virus without symptoms, might unknowingly have infected older relatives. Second, many minorities work in high exposure occupations — retail, public transport and the health service. And most intriguingly, might some minority communities have complied more readily with government guidance than others?

One puzzling finding in our report concerns not who is being infected, but is who is not. Were poverty the key determinant, we would expect the virus to be running rampant among Britain’s Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim communities. Yet they are conspicuous by their absence in the list of hotspots — no Blackburn or Bradford, no Rotherham, Rochdale or Luton. The London borough of Tower Hamlets is more than a third Muslim — the highest density of any in England — and is sandwiched between two Covid-19 hotspots, Newham and Southwark, both home to substantial non-Muslim minority communities. Yet Tower Hamlets lies in the bottom third of the capital’s infection list: 22nd out of the 32 boroughs.

Maybe there is a revelation to be had here; if one key to stopping transmission of the virus is hand washing, might a faith community many of whose members ritually wash before five-times-a-day prayers have something to teach the rest of us? And does an ethnic group where almost 40 per cent are economically inactive — and therefore not regularly using public transport, for example — merely underline the protective value of social isolation? Many believe that only faith will deliver us from this particular evil but even they must know that only science will tell us how.





> Maybe there is a revelation to be had here; if one key to stopping transmission of the virus is hand washing, might a faith community many of whose members ritually wash before five-times-a-day prayers have something to teach the rest of us? And does an ethnic group where almost 40 per cent are economically inactive — and therefore not regularly using public transport, for example — merely underline the protective value of social isolation? Many believe that only faith will deliver us from this particular evil but even they must know that only science will tell us how.









The comments thread underneath it is particularly "choice" :


----------



## Raheem (Apr 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I've got in my notes that when Italy did a nationwide lockdown, Johnson said other countries were 'overreacting'. But I dont seem to have a source, if anyone finds reference to that please let me know, cheers. It would have been within a day or so of March 11th, possibly even on that day.


Think it may be this you are thinking of



Which isn't directly from Johnson, but it has been referred to by other journalists in a way that suggests the 'senior government source' is actually the PM.

There is also a second quote which comes directly from Johnson, where he says something like "A lockdown would be draconian and it's not the way to go". Can't find it at the moment, though, because Googling anyhing including the terms Boris, Johnson and lockdown is a nightmare.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

So the whole article is based on the premise that  *"some ethnic minorities seem to be more susceptible than others"*

But those NHS stats are only a google away. Did he not check first?


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> So the whole article is based on the premise that  *"some ethnic minorities seem to be more susceptible than others"*
> 
> But those NHS stats are only a google away. Did he not check first?





> I have worked with my friend and colleague, Professor Richard Webber, perhaps Britain’s most distinguished geodemographer, to see what public sources can tell us.


I doubt Trevor did anything except apply deep thought.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> I doubt Trevor did anything except apply deep thought.


Yeah, wouldn't have made for much of an article.

'Some people have been saying that some ethnic minorities in the UK are more susceptible to covid 19. I've checked, and they're not.'

Bit short.


----------



## Maltin (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> If the whole population is exposed to it, which is inevitable, and there's a 1% mortality rate, almost no immunity and no vaccine.


The uk has a population of 67.9 million currently.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 20, 2020)

Maltin said:


> The uk has a population of 67.9 million currently.



Hence his 600,000 (and 79 as Priti Patel would say)


----------



## two sheds (Apr 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Hence his 600,000 (and 79 as Priti Patel would say)



600,079 thousand, surely


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> 600,079 thousand, surely



You may speak better Patellian than me.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 20, 2020)

Dishy Rishi is clearly about 1,000,000 times more competent than his boss. What fucking terrible timing having Boris 'in charge' of this fucking situation.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> You've just proved my point.


The upper bound on the death count, like any aspect of it, depends on the effective reproduction number, which in turn, in the absence of pharmaceutical interventions, depends on societal behavioural modifications (or absence thereof) ie mitigations.

The effective reproduction number would currently appear to be around 0.7±0.1. This is down from ~3, pre-'lockdown', which would have led to hundred of thousands of deaths (in the event that everyone carried on 'as normal').


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, wouldn't have made for much of an article.
> 
> 'Some people have been saying that some ethnic minorities in the UK are more susceptible to covid 19. I've checked, and they're not.'
> 
> Bit short.


I was wondering what "Professor Richard Webber, perhaps Britain’s most distinguished geodemographer" might have brought to the table. An absolutely hilarious 2004 interview in the advertising and marketing industry journal Campaign gives us a clue. 


> Half the time I think of myself as a marketing person and the other half as a geographer.


Why is the "the originator of the UK-based geodemographic classifications, Acorn and Mosaic" not already leading a pandemic task force ? Perhaps they are saving him for the expert panel at the public inquiry.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Some timely clean air activism
> 
> 
> 
> ...



On a related note:









						Coronavirus: Banning cars made easier to aid social distancing
					

Councils in England can now ban cars from streets more easily to allow space for social distancing.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Edmund King, president of the AA, said: “We remain generally supportive of measures to encourage more cycling and walking both during and after lockdown.
> 
> “It’s heartening to see more children taking to the roads on bikes.
> 
> ...


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 20, 2020)

I can see more people cycling post-lockdown as that’ll be less risky than the tube/bus, although I used to see pretty dense crowds of bikes at lights on my commute, dozens crammed in the advance box.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 20, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> I used to see pretty dense crowds of bikes at lights on my commute, dozens crammed in the advance box.


All the more reason to get ride of the cars and let the bikes spread out a bit


----------



## weltweit (Apr 20, 2020)

I have been surprised at the gov chart which seems to show vehicular traffic still often at 40% of normal levels, where I live traffic might be as little as 10% of normal levels.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I have been surprised at the gov chart which seems to show vehicular traffic still often at 40% of normal levels, where I live traffic might be as little as 10% of normal levels.


Just from my wanderings, London is busier today than it was last week (although still way quieter than normal) and it was busier last week than it was the week before. Lockdown is cracking somewhat - there are definitely more people back at work. Outside one construction site, they had marked out 2 metre distancing for workmen queuing to enter the site. Quite what difference that will make once they're inside, I'm not sure.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 20, 2020)

According to the Guardian

*How the cabinet stands on easing restriction*

Keep lockdown

Johnson
Hancock

In the middle

Raab
Williamson
Sharma

Ease lockdown

Sunak 
Gove
Truss


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Just from my wanderings, London is busier today than it was last week (although still way quieter than normal) and it was busier last week than it was the week before. Lockdown is cracking somewhat - there are definitely more people back at work. Outside one construction site, they had marked out 2 metre distancing for workmen queuing to enter the site. Quite what difference that will make once they're inside, I'm not sure.


I'd agree with that. Loads more people out and about today. Loads more in the hospital foyer when I got to work and the busses were almost full - one person on every double seat on the way home. 

That could be because the busses are now free as you have to get on via the middle doors and there is a big sign saying "no need to tap in". 

It doesn't explain why there are generally more people around though.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

Even by Grauniad standards, that's a terrible graphic.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I've got in my notes that when Italy did a nationwide lockdown, Johnson said other countries were 'overreacting'. But I dont seem to have a source, if anyone finds reference to that please let me know, cheers. It would have been within a day or so of March 11th, possibly even on that day.


There was this, posted by brogdale . Doesn't use the word overreacting and was well before the date you mention, so probably not what you are after. However it very much expresses the same sentiment:


brogdale said:


> Apols if posted elsewhere...but this clip of Johnson speaking just 73 days ago is quite instructive when attempting to understand the early, recent history of the government's response to Covid-19:


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> The upper bound on the death count, like any aspect of it, depends on the effective reproduction number, which in turn, in the absence of pharmaceutical interventions, depends on societal behavioural modifications (or absence thereof) ie mitigations.
> 
> The effective reproduction number would currently appear to be around 0.7±0.1. This is down from ~3, pre-'lockdown', which would have led to hundred of thousands of deaths (in the event that everyone carried on 'as normal').


So what? The whole population eventually gets exposed. A lower R number means it takes longer, but it still happens.


----------



## Sue (Apr 20, 2020)

The NHS thread didn't seem the right place to put this.









						On the frontline: meet the NHS workers tackling coronavirus
					

From emergency arrivals to critical care, photojournalist Jonny Weeks was given extraordinary access to University hospital in Coventry to document the Covid-19 pandemic. This photo essay captures the contributions of those who save our lives




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

Maltin said:


> The uk has a population of 67.9 million currently.


I know. But there is always at least a small amount of immunity, with any virus.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I'd agree with that. Loads more people out and about today. Loads more in the hospital foyer when I got to work and the busses were almost full - one person on every double seat on the way home.
> 
> That could be because the busses are now free as you have to get on via the middle doors and there is a big sign saying "no need to tap in".
> 
> It doesn't explain why there are generally more people around though.


On the scientific measure of 'how long I'm waiting to cross main roads', there is far more traffic on the roads now. Two weeks ago I was crossing Euston Road (to non-Londoners, that's a very busy road) whenever I liked. Now, it's recognisably a busy road again, and you have to wait for the green man as normal.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Even by Grauniad standards, that's a terrible graphic.



Shut up.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> On the scientific measure of 'how long I'm waiting to cross main roads', there is far more traffic on the roads now. Two weeks ago I was crossing Euston Road (to non-Londoners, that's a very busy road) whenever I liked. Now, it's recognisably a busy road again, and you have to wait for the green man as normal.


Yes. 2 weeks ago* I could cross Brixton Hill without waiting for a pedestrian crossing. Not today.

(*I was WFH last week - I didn't go out so I don't know what the traffic was like)


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Shut up.


I see they didn't bother asking Patel.  'What's lockdown?'


----------



## Cribynkle (Apr 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Last week when that weeks provisional ONS numbers came out, one of the stories they told about the data was:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What was the population in 1918? 





__





						U.K. Death Rate 1950-2021
					

Chart and table of the U.K. death rate from 1950 to 2021.  United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.




					www.macrotrends.net
				




This website shows UK annual mortality rate since 1950.
1978 was the worst year in the range with a death rate of 11.92 per thousand, last year was 9.398.


----------



## Mation (Apr 20, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> Race and pandemic you say ? Why it must be time for an article by Trevor Phillips. Today's Times.
> 
> *We need to solve ethnic puzzle of Covid-19
> Could religion explain why some ethnic minorities seem to be more susceptible than others?*
> ...


If I make an effort to mentally subtract out the way he says things, what's wrong with the content of what he said? (Christ, these are weird times!)

Isn't he saying that supposed racial biology can't be the answer, but that some cultural practices might account for some communities being less hit than others? And therefore that social distancing/isolation/hygiene is effective where it's possible for people to do that (i.e. those not on the front line)?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I'd agree with that. Loads more people out and about today. Loads more in the hospital foyer when I got to work and the busses were almost full - one person on every double seat on the way home.
> 
> That could be because the busses are now free as you have to get on via the middle doors and there is a big sign saying "no need to tap in".
> 
> It doesn't explain why there are generally more people around though.


fucking hell, people are still getting buses?


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I see they didn't bother asking Patel.  'What's lockdown?'



They told her it involved a Pie Chart.

You won't believe what happened next...


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

think it's just London that is busy. Still dead up here


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> fucking hell, people are still getting buses?


Loads today.

When the lockdown started, there was hardly anyone on the bus. One morning it was just me and 1 other person. Today - really full.

I have no other way of getting to work but I think I will walk home tomorrow and probably for the rest of the week. It takes an hour or an hour and a half depending on which hospital I am at that day.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I know. But there is always at least a small amount of immunity, with any virus.



Immunity might not be the best word for that. Its one of the subjects I need to look into more. I expect 'proportion of population that is susceptible' is sort of unknown and a bit of a guess up till now. If entirely the wrong presumptions have been made about this, then the picture will change when/if we learn something closer to the truth. Or maybe the presumptions borrowed from flu will turn out to be close to reality. Its not clear to me whether we will ever actually find out, since the most obvious way of doing so involves letting epidemics carry on. But other ways to estimate at some point may exist.

Some of the people that were originally hoping to discover much higher percentages of people already infected, have moved on to these 'unknown ceilings of maximum susceptibility'. Because so far the levels of prior infection that have been demonstrated in several small studies arent very impressive, are not what those people wanted to hear. But maybe there is another aspect to the story that is poorly understood. I have no way to judge, beyond say the clues and limits of accidental experiments like the Diamond Princess cruise ship.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Loads today.
> 
> When the lockdown started, there was hardly anyone on the bus. One morning it was just me and 1 other person. Today - really full.
> 
> I have no other way of getting to work but I think I will walk home tomorrow and probably for the rest of the week. It takes an hour or an hour and a half depending on which hospital I am at that day.


Are you allowed to refuse? I doubt I’d be able to get on a bus. I’d probably pass out


----------



## emanymton (Apr 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> fucking hell, people are still getting buses?


For many people (Like me) bus or train is the only way to get to work. What would you suggest they do?


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Are you allowed to refuse? I doubt I’d be able to get on a bus. I’d probably pass out


Um...difficult given I'm working for the NHS. I suppose I could refuse but I want to go in when I'm needed. We have a rota of being in and WFH so it's not too bad.

It's fine in the morning but the journey home made me very uncomfortable today. I will walk from now on. It will do me good anyway.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

emanymton said:


> For many people (Like me) bus or train is the only way to get to work. What would you suggest they do?


Not go to work. This is fucked. I hadn’t realised that people were still using public transport as it seems impossible to practice social distancing on it


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Um...difficult given I'm working for the NHS. I suppose I could refuse but I want to go in when I'm needed. We are having a rota if being in and WFH so it's not too bad.
> 
> It's fine in the morning but the journey home made me very uncomfortable today. I will walk from now on. It will do me good anyway.


Good on you. I feel pathetic now moaning about having to work from home!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

Mation said:


> If I make an effort to mentally subtract out the way he says things, what's wrong with the content of what he said? (Christ, these are weird times!)
> 
> Isn't he saying that supposed racial biology can't be the answer, but that some cultural practices might account for some communities being less hit than others? And therefore that social distancing/isolation/hygiene is effective where it's possible for people to do that (i.e. those not on the front line)?


Isn't it a bit of an 'evo psych' style problem? You assume the question - that ethnicity has a measurable effect - and then look at possible differences and crowbar them in as the explanation, when in this case, the simplest explanation is that the raw data doesn't immediately support the idea of ethnic differences at all. 

So in this case, he ends up talking about muslims washing their hands. Earlier on this thread, the suggestion was that it was something to do with vit D. The most dangerous kind of explanation is this kind because they appear plausible - they're based on a grain of truth (washing your hands helps fight infection, good levels of vit D helps fight infection) - but in reality their overall effect on this pandemic wrt ethnic differences is likely to be minimal and in all likelihood below measurability.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 20, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Um...difficult given I'm working for the NHS. I suppose I could refuse but I want to go in when I'm needed. We have a rota of being in and WFH so it's not too bad.
> 
> It's fine in the morning but the journey home made me very uncomfortable today. I will walk from now on. It will do me good anyway.



My gf's been walking too (nurse). She's actually quite enjoying it.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 20, 2020)

I am now highly skilled at using buses without touching anything!   o


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

I used to walk from Brixton to Westminster and White City (esp the latter as I can’t stand commuting at rush hour on the Central Line) quite often when my bike was out of action. I rather enjoyed it but resented the time it took, esp as I used to work 12 hour shifts


----------



## Petcha (Apr 20, 2020)

This whole fucking thing must be doing wonders for the air quality in London. One silver lining.


----------



## emanymton (Apr 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Not go to work. This is fucked. I hadn’t realised that people were still using public transport as it seems impossible to practice social distancing on it


To make it even better all the services have been cut so they are busier than they could be. 

As a crowning achievement the train before mine this morning had 4 carriages but 2 of them were not in use so there were 2 full ones and 2 empty ones.


----------



## Mation (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Isn't it a bit of an 'evo psych' style problem? You assume the question - that ethnicity has a measurable effect - and then look at possible differences and crowbar them in as the explanation, when in this case, the simplest explanation is that the raw data doesn't immediately support the idea of ethnic differences at all.
> 
> So in this case, he ends up talking about muslims washing their hands. Earlier on this thread, the suggestion was that it was something to do with vit D. The most dangerous kind of explanation is this kind because they appear plausible - they're based on a grain of truth (washing your hands helps fight infection, good levels of vit D helps fight infection) - but in reality their overall effect on this pandemic wrt ethnic differences is likely to be minimal and in all likelihood below measurability.


I didn't read it like that. I read it as saying if there were race based differences you'd expect some places to be affected that aren't especially and that the lower (not higher) than average infection rate could be cultural. Hes not arguing that race or ethnicity makes anyone more susceptible. He's saying that although it might look like that at first glance, it's not the case.

I think


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Some of the people that were originally hoping to discover much higher percentages of people already infected, have moved on to these 'unknown ceilings of maximum susceptibility'.


For example the Swedish health boss? What do you make of his projection about herd immunity in Stockholm by next month?


----------



## oryx (Apr 20, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This whole fucking thing must be doing wonders for the air quality in London. One silver lining.


This may just be me, but...

When I went for my state-permitted walk yesterday, I looked up at the trees and houses and noticed that it was as if I was seeing them in high definition. I mentioned this to my OH and he said he'd noticed the same thing.

For context, we're in an inner London borough but not central London. Makes me wonder what sort of fug we are used to wandering around in without noticing.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> For example the Swedish health boss? What do you make of his projection about herd immunity in Stockholm by next month?



I was not impressed by Swedens approach. But since I am not in a position where I have to make or contribute towards such decisions, I can afford to keep an open mind. A lot of assumptions had to be made by countries and experts, they had no choice. I've got no clue which ones will stand the test of time and which ones will turn out to have been a massive misreading of the situation. Sweden already failed to have a tiny, controllable outbreak with relatively few deaths though, that much is clear. Its the 'how bad can it actually get?' side of things that is much less clear to me.

My hunch is that there is something that will turn out to be rather important about this pandemic that we dont understand at all yet. But if I try to guess, my own bias towards particular areas of interest will probably cloud my judgement. For example I have a particular interest in what other coronaviruses, that are now seasonal illnesses that are some of the causes of the various illnesses we call 'the common cold', looked like for humanity when they first arrived in humans. Were they pandemics? In what ways were they bad and notable, if at all? How many people can actually get ill from them? All sorts of questions and topics like that, but despite my interest in it, I dont know much about this yet. And I certainly dont know whether it will turn out to be an important element of this pandemic. Maybe, if we are lucky.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 20, 2020)

oryx said:


> This may just be me, but...
> 
> When I went for my state-permitted walk yesterday, I looked up at the trees and houses and noticed that it was as if I was seeing them in high definition. I mentioned this to my OH and he said he'd noticed the same thing.
> 
> For context, we're in an inner London borough but not central London. Makes me wonder what sort of fug we are used to wandering around in without noticing.



When I came down to London last year, I was absolutely astounded at the improvement in air quality from 30 years ago when we lived there.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Immunity might not be the best word for that.


Maybe 'resistance' would fit, given that your susceptibility varies with the strength of your immune system? Also, I suppose someone who is exposed to it but doesn't get it, and thinks they are immune, might later on have their immune system weakened by some other illness, and then catch it the next time they are exposed.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Maybe 'resistance' would fit, given that your susceptibility varies with the strength of your immune system? Also, I suppose someone who is exposed to it but doesn't get it, and thinks they are immune, might later on have their immune system weakened by some other illness, and then catch it the next time they are exposed.



Whats tended to happen when I have tried to look at historical research and understanding of such themes, is that I discover as always how little we actually know. And people often gravitate towards their particular favoured theories. However, there is probably still much out there that I can use to at least somewhat improve my understanding of the wider topic, as long as I dont try to narrow it down to this family of coronaviruses. Its on my list of things to do. 

In the meantime I still quite like the word susceptibility for this context, mentioning it should hopefully make clear that we arent just talking about immunity as a result of having antibodies against the virus.


----------



## oryx (Apr 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> When I came down to London last year, I was absolutely astounded at the improvement in air quality from 30 years ago when we lived there.


That's an interesting point. I lived in London 30 years ago and haven't noticed a difference but that may be because it was subtle and living there full-time I didn't notice.

There are more cars on the road then thirty years ago, but if you go back further than that London was notorious for pea-souper fogs and had a lot more factories, plus more people using coal fires and chimneys etc.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 20, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I'd agree with that. Loads more people out and about today. Loads more in the hospital foyer when I got to work and the busses were almost full - one person on every double seat on the way home.
> 
> That could be because the busses are now free as you have to get on via the middle doors and there is a big sign saying "no need to tap in".
> 
> It doesn't explain why there are generally more people around though.



I noticed last week the buses were busier and I think they are running fewer buses. Prior to last week it seemed like there were loads of buses all with 0 1 2 or 3 people on them.  Last week it was more like between 5 and 10 people on each. Would you say the are fewer buses?


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## cupid_stunt (Apr 20, 2020)

I did a care visit for mother today, traffic on the short journey from Worthing to her village was at around 10% of normal, I passed 2 Coastliner buses at bus stops, which would normally have around 60-70% seats occupied* on that part of their route, at that time of day, both had less than half a dozen on-board.

The Coastliner buses are double-deckers, route 700 between Brighton & Portsmouth.

* ETA - Mind you, most of those would normally be pensioners, so on reflection the drop in numbers is not surprising.


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## The39thStep (Apr 20, 2020)

Ask the experts 3mins 6 seconds


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## Sasaferrato (Apr 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I did a care visit for mother today, traffic on the short journey from Worthing to her village was at around 10% of normal, I passed 2 Coastliner buses at bus stops, which would normally have around 60-70% seats occupied* on that part of their route, at that time of day, both had less than half a dozen on-board.
> 
> The Coastliner buses are double-deckers, route 700 between Brighton & Portsmouth.
> 
> * ETA - Mind you, most of those would normally be pensioners, so on reflection the drop in numbers is not surprising.



Mrs Sas has adopted the hobby of commenting on the passing busses we can see from the back garden. Most have fewer than six people on board.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 20, 2020)

oryx said:


> That's an interesting point. I lived in London 30 years ago and haven't noticed a difference but that may be because it was subtle and living there full-time I didn't notice.
> 
> There are more cars on the road then thirty years ago, but if you go back further than that London was notorious for pea-souper fogs and had a lot more factories, plus more people using coal fires and chimneys etc.



Cats have no doubt helped.

In 1984 I was staying in the Union Jack Club in Waterloo. I persuaded the manager to let me onto the roof (must see if I can find the photos, a vastly different skyline) to take some photos.

When I got the prints back, they were murky, so I took them back to the shop. The shop guy, looking puzzled, said they were fine. The problem of course was the London 'air'.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> When I came down to London last year, I was absolutely astounded at the improvement in air quality from 30 years ago when we lived there.



I remember you commenting on that, when we were having a drink outside a pub on a busy road crossing, good job you were up wind from me, when I farted.


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## two sheds (Apr 20, 2020)

Have noted before but when I was in New Jersey in 86 I looked out of the window at the New York skyline and there was a defined line where above it was greyish cloud and below it was brown. I thought they'd just not cleaned the window


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## Mation (Apr 20, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> In 1984 I was staying in the Union Jack Club in Waterloo.


That's just about the most Sass thing you could post


----------



## teqniq (Apr 20, 2020)

Can of worms (read thread)



started off with:


----------



## weltweit (Apr 20, 2020)

this was supposed to be in the world thread sorry


----------



## nagapie (Apr 20, 2020)

All staff at my school have been offered testing if we or a family member has symptoms. Email came this evening. What's going on, is mass testing finally getting off the ground?!


----------



## Azrael (Apr 20, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Ask the experts 3mins 6 seconds



And at yesterday's presser, she was pouring cold water on any prospect of returning to contact tracing, grudgingly saying the app touted by Hancock at the select committee may be useful, but not to get our hopes up. The importance of testing again downplayed.

If she were merely a government shill, she wouldn't be saying any of this. It directly undermines the political messaging. She's saying it because she really believes it.

Medical and scientific advisors aren't hapless shields for unscientific policy. This isn't regulator capture. All available evidence suggests the truth is far more disturbing: they've been driving policy with disastrously bad science.


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## cupid_stunt (Apr 20, 2020)

Mation said:


> That's just about the most Sass thing you could post



TBF, the Union Jack Club is basically a youth hostel for serving or ex-servicemen.


----------



## Mation (Apr 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBF, the Union Jack Club is basically a youth hostel for serving or ex-servicemen.


What's your point, caller?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 20, 2020)

I hate to refer to a S*n story , but their front page scream-headline today was *'Pubs could stay closed until Xmas!*'
A somewhat more measured version of this appears in today's Metro -- their version of the story also gives the source for the shitrag's headline :




			
				Metro said:
			
		

> *Pubs and restaurants will be ‘among the last’ to see lockdown restrictions lifted – and may not be running as normal until Christmas.*
> Cabinet secretary Michael Gove this weekend said the hospitality industry will be subject to social distancing measures for a longer period than others in a bid to prevent a second wave of the virus hitting Britons later this year.
> Frank Maguire, from Truman’s brewery in London, told The Sun he thinks it is ‘unlikely’ that pubs will be able to open again *as normal *before Christmas.
> 
> He later clarified to Metro.co.uk : ‘I expect pubs won’t reopen before July – and only once scientists advise the Government it is safe to do so. *I don’t envisage normal levels of trade returning until the end of the year. *We (pubs and breweries) were the first to be hit by the lockdown and we’ll be the last to reopen, which is completely understandable.’


So unsurprisingly, it seems that The S*n were sensationalising/exaggerating it.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> So what? The whole population eventually gets exposed. A lower R number means it takes longer, but it still happens.


No.

If you keep the effective reproduction number below one then the outbreak will fizzle out.

Furthermore, by taking longer it buys more time for development of pharmaceutical interventions, vaccines, therapeutics, better ICU techniques, improved and more effective mitigations (eg careful redesign of the urban environment).

That's what.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 20, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I hate to refer to a S*n story , but their front page scream-headline today was *'Pubs could stay closed until Xmas!*'



And today's story on the British Beer and Pub Association website does not mention when they think pubs will re-open
(July, as the Metro//Truman Brewery guy suggested, seems possible -- or maybe August).




			
				BBPA said:
			
		

> *British Beer & Pub Association says urgent support targeted at pubs is needed to ensure they can survive extended COVID-19 lockdown*
> The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) is pressing the Government to announce extra support just for pubs, to ensure they can survive an extended COVID-19 lockdown.
> The trade body’s plea comes after cabinet minister Michael Gove warned that the nations pubs would be ‘among the last’ to see restrictions placed upon them relaxed.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 20, 2020)

oryx said:


> This may just be me, but...
> 
> When I went for my state-permitted walk yesterday, I looked up at the trees and houses and noticed that it was as if I was seeing them in high definition. I mentioned this to my OH and he said he'd noticed the same thing.
> 
> For context, we're in an inner London borough but not central London. Makes me wonder what sort of fug we are used to wandering around in without noticing.



Oh I notice it.

Maybe this is mother nature's way of sayin fuck you. Remember who's in charge.









						Himalayas come into view as lockdown leads to drop in air pollution
					

Follow our live coronavirus updates HERE Coronavirus: The symptoms




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## Azrael (Apr 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> No.
> 
> If you keep the effective reproduction number below zero then the outbreak will fizzle out.
> 
> ...


Well said.

We must reach a consensus going forward. Embrace the old school public health approach of suppressing any outbreak of a novel communicable disease by using border quarantine to keep the virus out, and if it gets in, deploy the most rigorous contact tracing/isolation to break chains on transmission to eliminate the virus among the general population.

It's the sheerest arrogance that this was ever departed from.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 20, 2020)

Plasma treatment to be trialled


> The UK is gearing up to use the blood of coronavirus survivors to treat hospital patients ill with the disease.
> 
> NHS Blood and Transplant is asking some people who recovered from Covid-19 to donate blood so they can potentially assess the therapy in trials.
> 
> The hope is that the antibodies they have built up will help to clear the virus in others.





> The US has already started a major project to study this, involving more than 1,500 hospitals.
> ..
> "If fully approved, the trials will investigate whether convalescent plasma transfusions could improve a Covid-19 patient's speed of recovery and chances of survival.


from 20/04/2020 Coronavirus blood treatment to be tried


----------



## Azrael (Apr 20, 2020)

I've signed up for this.

Given the grave prognosis for hospitalised Covid cases, if they intend to deny 50% of patients the treatment for a double blind trial, it's the duty of hospitals to rebel (as one London NHS Trust has already done by approving therapies for immediate use), and offer it to all.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 20, 2020)

I am hearing that the government has appointed someone to focus on getting PPE made in the UK. Does anyone know about this? and who this person is?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

nagapie said:


> All staff at my school have been offered testing if we or a family member has symptoms. Email came this evening. What's going on, is mass testing finally getting off the ground?!


colleagues who have been working with the public have been offered the test too, but only if you have a car ffs as it's a drive through service - i wonder if they let you cycle through!


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I am hearing that the government has appointed someone to focus on getting PPE made in the UK. Does anyone know about this? and who this person is?


it's you. get on with it, will you


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I am hearing that the government has appointed someone to focus on getting PPE made in the UK. Does anyone know about this? and who this person is?



The guy that headed-up organising the London Olympics, and pulled it off, despite so many thinking it would be a total cock-up.


----------



## nagapie (Apr 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> colleagues who have been working with the public have been offered the test too, but only if you have a car ffs as it's a drive through service - i wonder if they let you cycle through!


I don't have a car either🤔


----------



## Azrael (Apr 20, 2020)

With a substantial part of their capacity unused, they've belatedly realized that they must expand the testing criteria to have a hope of meeting their 100,000 tests a day target.

Teachers and other frontline workers is good. Crucial is linking this to contact tracing, which Hancock already said he wants to do. With even Whitty making positive noises about Germany's successes (and Vallance having apparently abandoned the field to focus on the much safer vaccine policy), the roadblock's likely to be the deputy-CMO, whose antipathy to testing and tracing is as undimmed as it is inexplicable.

Most helpful would be her colleagues in the scientific and medical communities speaking to her in private, drilling down to the root of her opposition, and doing all they can to change her mind.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> No.
> 
> If you keep the effective reproduction number below zero then the outbreak will fizzle out.
> 
> ...


Wrong again. You just keep proving my original point.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Wrong again. You just keep proving my original point.


How is he doing that?


----------



## Azrael (Apr 20, 2020)

Eh? Is someone actually disputing the fact that, if you break the chains of transmission of a communicable disease in a country with no known natural reservoir, it's starved of hosts and dies out? This is epidemiology 101.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I don't have a car either🤔


I know - fucked innit


----------



## 2hats (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Wrong again. You just keep proving my original point.


Fuck me. You certainly chose the right tagline.


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 20, 2020)

Mation said:


> If I make an effort to mentally subtract out the way he says things, what's wrong with the content of what he said? (Christ, these are weird times!)
> 
> Isn't he saying that supposed racial biology can't be the answer, but that some cultural practices might account for some communities being less hit than others? And therefore that social distancing/isolation/hygiene is effective where it's possible for people to do that (i.e. those not on the front line)?


Before I start, apologies if what follows is a bit grumpy. It's not aimed at you but is because this is Trevor Phillips talking crap about where I live.

Setting aside 'the way' he says things is IMO a bit of a big ask. The bullshit use of 'culture' as an alternative to 'race' as an 'explanation' for why some group 'is different'/'should be treated differently' is long established. He knows this perfectly well.

He uses the work of an acadamarketing expert, his partner in a "specialist research and insight consultancy", to identify 'hotspots' linked to boroughs. He specifically cites the Borough I live in Tower Hamlets


> One puzzling finding in our report concerns not who is being infected, but is who is not. Were poverty the key determinant, we would expect the virus to be running rampant among Britain’s Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim communities. Yet they are conspicuous by their absence in the list of hotspots — no Blackburn or Bradford, no Rotherham, Rochdale or Luton. The London borough of Tower Hamlets is more than a third Muslim — the highest density of any in England — and is sandwiched between two Covid-19 hotspots, Newham and Southwark, both home to substantial non-Muslim minority communities. Yet Tower Hamlets lies in the bottom third of the capital’s infection list: 22nd out of the 32 boroughs.



Boroughs all contain populations which are diverse in many ways including ethnicity and wealth. Tower Hamlets contains extremes of poverty and wealth. Places at the other end of that extreme, including the finance hub at Canary Wharf, the wealthier parts of the population, and the facilities and transport  hubs in the borough which service them, will be used by people whose 'cultural practices' will be different to those found in many other Boroughs which don't contain their equivalent, and will presumably help 'balance out' the effects of 'hand washing' among the Borough's Muslim. I don't believe you could meaningfully quantify that effect either.

The very notion that 'hotspots' can be reliably plotted by Borough boundaries - even assuming that his acadamerchandising chum had meaningful and accurate Borough statistics to work with - is utter jibber jabber in itself. But then there is what he draws from this.

Tower Hamlets has a large Muslim community as he points out. The problems begin right there with that statement. The largest component of that is within the Bengali community. But there are a number of other ethnic groups within it as well. The notion that a religion implies that the 'cultural practices' of those who profess it are homogenous is nonsense.

There is also a sizeable portion of the population (30% in the 2011 census) which describes itself as christian. But the 'cultural practises' in the Roman Catholic part of that are somewhat different to those in the C of E, or Methodist, or Orthodox elements of that group. No-one who wasn't a fucking idiot would suggest that common Christian 'cultural practises' accounted for anything significant in terms of viral spread. There's church going of course. Which <sarcasm> is entirely different </sarcasm> to people going to the pub weekly. Of course perhaps I'm looking at this the wrong way round. Perhaps <sarcasm>the 'well known' cultural practice of 'luvable cockernees' to wet their whistle multiple times a day is another part of the 'geodemographic' explanation of why Tower Hamlets is 'different'. </sarcasm>

Even more important is the question of what actually it means to be Muslim (or indeed to profess adherence to any kind of religion).


> Maybe there is a revelation to be had here; if one key to stopping transmission of the virus is hand washing, might a faith community many of whose members ritually wash before five-times-a-day prayers have something to teach the rest of us? And does an ethnic group where almost 40 per cent are economically inactive — and therefore not regularly using public transport, for example — merely underline the protective value of social isolation? Many believe that only faith will deliver us from this particular evilbut even they must know that only science will tell us how.



He singles out the practise of handwashing. The injunctions of Islam about this have been the subject of a good deal of 'commentary' since the pandemic started. (A simple search on google will throw up multiple articles addressing the question of whether 'some' 'Muslim' nurses are 'refusing' to obey hygiene rules or to use to alcohol based hand sanitizers. Of course <sarcasm> Muslims aren't a race so this isn't racism </sarcasm>). His musings on the subject imply that all Muslims have a common understanding of what 'being observant' means, actually practise that and indeed are in jobs where they can 'be observant' if they wanted to. News flash: Muslims aren't like the fucking Borg. I'm not Muslim but fwiw my observations among my Muslim neighbours and friends in Tower Hamlets over the last thirty years is that many of them take the same 'sophisticated' attitude to 'observance' that I have seen among my Roman Catholic friends and neighbours, even devout ones.

Not for the first time reading articles by Trevor Phillips I find myself wondering to what extent he is trolling wiberals and to what extent he simply has his head up his arse and imagines that the 'common sense' stereotypes he DARES TO ADDRESS, are different to the breezy bollocks said at any golf club bar, simply because he's 'TREVOR FUCKING PHILLIPS'. For what little it's worth I'd guess a bit of both but perhaps more out of column B.

Can 'cultural practices' explain differences in viral spread. I don't see why not. Will we ever be in a position to (a) have accurate enough statistics to work with and (b) be able to isolate them out as more than mere possibilities. I strongly doubt it myself.

(Incidentally I omitted to link to Phillips and Webber's 'report'. It's here PDF file. Myself I can't even be bothered.)


----------



## agricola (Apr 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I am hearing that the government has appointed someone to focus on getting PPE made in the UK. Does anyone know about this? and who this person is?



Fantastic news this, it will give them plenty of time to get stocks in and ensure security of supply.  Or it would have done in February.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> How is he doing that?


Because he's very optimistically filtering the numbers he's reading in the press and concluding that the virus will go away before there's mass vaccination.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Wrong again. You just keep proving my original point.


Lots of us are learning new things here. Rnought is a new term I've learned. The beauty of it is that the maths is simple and it's really easy to understand. Basically get the R0 under 1 - ie on average each infected person infects less than one other person, say 0.9 - and the virus will eventually disappear. Anything above 1 and it spreads.

It is that simple. 

What Is R0? Gauging Contagious Infections


----------



## Mation (Apr 20, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> Before I start, apologies if what follows is a bit grumpy. It's not aimed at you but is because this is Trevor Phillips talking crap about where I live.
> 
> Setting aside 'the way' he says things is IMO a bit of a big ask. The bullshit use of 'culture' as an alternative to 'race' as an 'explanation' for why some group 'is different'/'should be treated differently' is long established. He knows this perfectly well.
> 
> ...


Ok. For clarity, are you reading him as saying religion/cultural practices are responsible for more cases, or fewer? I read him as saying fewer.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Eh? Is someone actually disputing the fact that, if you break the chains of transmission of a communicable disease in a country with no known natural reservoir, it's starved of hosts and dies out? This is epidemiology 101.


Wishful thinking. You're overlooking the fact that we don't know who's carrying it. We don't know how many people are getting it or how many of those have no symptoms. Those are just a couple of the huge unknowns.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 20, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This whole fucking thing must be doing wonders for the air quality in London. One silver lining.



Alpine quality?


----------



## 2hats (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Lots of us are learning new things here.


Sadly, some aren't.


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 20, 2020)

Mation said:


> Ok. For clarity, are you reading him as saying religion/cultural practices are responsible for more cases, or fewer? I read him as saying fewer.


Fewer. It's still IMO speculative nonsense based on objectionable stereotypes.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Wishful thinking. You're overlooking the fact that we don't know who's carrying it. We don't know how many people are getting it or how many of those have no symptoms. Those are just a couple of the huge unknowns.


That's exactly why we need test and trace. And why test-trace-isolate is such an effective way to drive down and keep down the infection rate. That isn't theoretical. Look at the examples of South Korea and now what's happening in Germany. Even without perfect understanding, indeed even without perfect tests or even perfect compliance with quarantine orders, you can get the R0 under 1 and know that it is down at that level from the lead indicators, primarily the number of people getting sick, which after all is the only thing that actually matters in the end.


----------



## Mation (Apr 20, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> Fewer. It's still IMO speculative nonsense based on objectionable stereotypes.


Ok. I'll read it again.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Lots of us are learning new things here. Rnought is a new term I've learned. The beauty of it is that the maths is simple and it's really easy to understand. Basically get the R0 under 1 - ie on average each infected person infects less than one other person, say 0.9 - and the virus will eventually disappear. Anything above 1 and it spreads.
> 
> It is that simple.
> 
> What Is R0? Gauging Contagious Infections


It might be that simple if you know the R numbers, but you don't. You just think you do.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> Fuck me. You certainly chose the right tagline.


This riposte will not stand the test of time unless you screengrab his image/tagline and edit it in here


----------



## nagapie (Apr 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I know - fucked innit


Taxi!  😂


----------



## Azrael (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Wishful thinking. You're overlooking the fact that we don't know who's carrying it. We don't know how many people are getting it or how many of those have no symptoms. Those are just a couple of the huge unknowns.


Yes, of course there's unknowns. As littlebabyjesus says, this is why a national programme of intensive contact tracing and targeted testing is needed, along with quarantine of anyone crossing our borders. 

Australia and New Zealand are now close to eliminating community transmission via a combination of these methods. Given the major cities in Oz, this isn't down to luck and population density, but policy. As an island, we're ideally suited to doing the same, and should start at once.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Taxi!  😂


I think that's acceptable as long as you sit in the back on the driver's side. how fucking insane is it that i even typed that sentence. Felt so weird the other day when I found some yeast - let out a yelp of triumph and it made my day


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> It might be that simple if you know the R numbers, but you don't. You just think you do.


There's a time lag admittedly, but unless you have an idea different from this, the number of people reporting symptoms of Covid 19 is very tightly correlated to the number of people becoming infected with Covid 19 virus. You speak of this as if it were some magically hidden process, but it's not. We can measure it well enough by measuring the thing we don't want that is a direct result of it.

That holds true however many people there are who are symptomless or who are resistant to catching it in the first place, so long as the proportions of such people in a large population are the same across time and place, which they likely are at the population level, again unless you know different.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 20, 2020)

This shouldn't even be a debate: we have clinical data from other countries, we know how the virus spreads, we know how to contain and reverse its spread, and countries that can effectively seal their borders can work towards eliminating the virus in the general population. Given the horror it inflicts on a minority of its victims, there's absolutely no reason to delay pursuing this goal with all we have.

If a state can't (or worse won't) protect the lives of those within its borders, what's the point of it?


----------



## Mation (Apr 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Felt so weird the other day when I found some yeast


Where did you find it?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

Mation said:


> Where did you find it?


In a BP garage! (not on anyones's genitalia, though it is apparently possible: HuffPost is now a part of Verizon Media )


----------



## two sheds (Apr 20, 2020)

Mation said:


> Where did you find it?



feet?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> This shouldn't even be a debate: we have clinical data from other countries, we know how the virus spreads, we know how to contain and reverse its spread, and countries that can effectively seal their borders can work towards eliminating the virus in the general population. Given the horror it inflicts on a minority of its victims, there's absolutely no reason to delay pursuing this goal with all we have.
> 
> If a state can't (or worse won't) protect the lives of those within its borders, what's the point of it?


Certainly, New Zealand may be close to total elimination. But they will have to exist in perfect isolation for the next couple of years unless others follow suit. If they manage it, I think it will certainly change the discussions elsewhere, although tbf East Asia has always been after that goal. It is a bit odd really how little anyone talks about South Korea here, like it's some totally different problem they faced.

It's interesting reading NZ's stats. They aim for a full history of every single infection. 'Source under investigation' just 2%.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That's exactly why we need test and trace. And why test-trace-isolate is such an effective way to drive down and keep down the infection rate. That isn't theoretical. Look at the examples of South Korea and now what's happening in Germany. Even without perfect understanding, indeed even without perfect tests or even perfect compliance with quarantine orders, you can get the R0 under 1 and know that it is down at that level from the lead indicators, primarily the number of people getting sick, which after all is the only thing that actually matters in the end.



We'll never, ever have global, reliable test and trace. So outbreaks will continue, indefinitely. The virus will continue to cross borders. Lockdowns will be eased, and every time they are, the virus will spread again. Only mass vaccination can reduce the number of infections to the level where we can say the virus has been 'beaten', not that it will ever go away completely. 

We're not likely to have mass vaccination in developed countries until the end of next year.  That's why I think the total number of deaths from Covid in the UK by the end of next year will be somewhere between 60,000 and 600,000.  If you take Jan 1 this year as the starting point we'd have had roughly 1.2 miilion deaths by the end of next year without Covid. We can't know how long the people who die of covid would have lived. But in a few months there'll be enough data to make some quite accurate assumptions.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I think the total number of deaths from Covid in the UK by the end of next year will be somewhere between 60,000 and 600,000.


tbf you're not really saying that much there. Care to plump for a single order of magnitude?


----------



## Azrael (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Certainly, New Zealand may be close to total elimination. But they will have to exist in perfect isolation for the next couple of years unless others follow suit. If they manage it, I think it will certainly change the discussions elsewhere, although tbf East Asia has always been after that goal. It is a bit odd really how little anyone talks about South Korea here, like it's some totally different problem they faced.


If Oz pull it off too (and it's a massive debate there, dominating much of their briefings), there's talk from N.Z. of a "protective bubble" between the two nations. If Southeast Asian countries also manage to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 within their borders, no reason they couldn't join it.

That _Sunday Telegraph_ piece I linked the other day was surprisingly on point: the Asian countries had a fundamentally different approach from the start, whereas we, disgracefully, took a fatalistic approach and treated mass infection as inevitable.

This is a long-standing failing, reaching back to the New Labour years and flu pandemic prep. We should never have entertained it, and having witnessed what this new SARS virus is capable of, it'd be straight-up criminal to revert to it now.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 20, 2020)

My new hobby is to leave a thread for a few pages then jump to the last page. This one is now about stats, cars, yeast and feet/genitals.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> If Oz pull it off too (and it's a massive debate there, dominating much of their briefings), there's talk from N.Z. of a "protective bubble" between the two nations. If Southeast Asian countries also manage to eliminate SARS-CoV-2 within their borders, no reason they couldn't join it.
> 
> That _Sunday Telegraph_ piece I linked the other day was surprisingly on point: the Asian countries had a fundamentally different approach from the start, whereas we, disgracefully, took a fatalistic approach and treated mass infection as inevitable.
> 
> This is a long-standing failing, reaching back to the New Labour years and flu pandemic prep. We should never have entertained it, and having witnessed what this new SARS virus is capable of, it'd be straight-up criminal to revert to it now.


Yeah, I was thinking just that. A covid-free travel zone. Rest of us? 2 weeks quarantine. If that were to persist for, say, two or more years, it could significantly remake the world political map.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> We'll never, ever have global, reliable test and trace. So outbreaks will continue, indefinitely. The virus will continue to cross borders. Lockdowns will be eased, and every time they are, the virus will spread again. Only mass vaccination can reduce the number of infections to the level where we can say the virus has been 'beaten', not that it will ever go away completely.
> 
> We're not likely to have mass vaccination in developed countries until the end of next year.  That's why I think the total number of deaths from Covid in the UK by the end of next year will be somewhere between 60,000 and 600,000.  If you take Jan 1 this year as the starting point we'd have had roughly 1.2 miilion deaths by the end of next year without Covid. We can't know how long the people who die of covid would have lived. But in a few months there'll be enough data to make some quite accurate assumptions.


Forget this defeatism. Borders stay closed until a vaccine's available or, like the first SARS, its successor is contact traced into oblivion (that was a globally reliable test and trace; so too was the elimination of Smallpox, which failed while mass vaccination was relied on).

Anything else is a deliberate choice to allow untold thousands of preventable deaths. It's unconscionable, I won't for a second consider it, and neither should you.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 20, 2020)

Wilf said:


> My new hobby is to leave a thread for a few pages then jump to the last page. This one is now about stats, cars, yeast and feet/genitals.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, I was thinking just that. A covid-free travel zone. Rest of us? 2 weeks quarantine. If that were to persist for, say, two or more years, it could significantly remake the world political map.


Yup, although I'm growing increasingly optimistic for a vaccine long before then. Previous work on a coronavirus jab, as with SARS, was dropped not for technical reasons, but lack of will and funding. With money no object and resources unlimited, we're in a radically different situation now.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Yup, although I'm growing increasingly optimistic for a vaccine long before then. Previous work on a coronavirus jab, as with SARS, was dropped not for technical reasons, but lack of will and funding. With money no object and resources unlimited, we're in a radically different situation now.


That's the bonkers thing, isn't it? There have actually been years to have been working on this, just nobody could be bothered/there was no money in it. But yeah I do agree - a worldwide effort could easily see some dramatic results.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 20, 2020)

Wilf said:


> My new hobby is to leave a thread for a few pages then jump to the last page. This one is now about stats, cars, yeast and feet/genitals.


The honeypot 'Meat eaters are destroying the planet' thread is now debating how best to cook steaks


----------



## Wilf (Apr 20, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> The honeypot 'Meat eaters are destroying the planet' thread is now debating how best to cook steaks


Right, that's it, I'm going to post my bagel, beans and veggie sausage breakfast on _The Sacred FEB _thread. And that Saul Goodman can just swivel!


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbf you're not really saying that much there. Care to plump for a single order of magnitude?


That's what I originally said, so I'm just reminding you! And it would be  a mistake to be more specific...which is my whole point. We should keep an open mind, and avoid attaching too much significance to this or that headline. If you read elbows' posts you'll see detailed reasons for why he or she is keeping an open mind. Elbows' posts are the most valuable resource in the thread. All I'm suggesting is that people should compare those posts with the media narrative, mostly in the papers, which says that after the current surge there may be a second surge, and...then...problem solved? I suspect lots of people are telling themselves that a second surge will, with a bit of luck, be the end of the disaster. They're understandably desperate for the lockdown to end and for the economy and employment to be salvaged. But these surges are mostly about the virus overwhelming the NHS. If the NHS can cope, that's not a surge in many people's minds.  When hospitals stop being charnel houses there will be a perception that things are back to normal. But deaths will continue at a high rate, with covid continuing to suck up a high proportion of hospital resources, with wards and theatres repurposed as ICUs until the end of next year. That will be the new normal.  And as the months go by while we wait for vaccines, the number of deaths may reach a much, much bigger number than the most popular figures in the papers, which so far don't seem to be higher than forty-something thousand. The papers are also desperate for survival, let's not lose sight of that.  They know that if they start with the big, bleak numbers, readers won't thank them. It's a difficult balance for a paper to get right.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 20, 2020)

There's an interesting debate going on on Twitter about fake NHS accounts


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 20, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> There's an interesting debate going on on Twitter about fake NHS accounts
> 
> View attachment 207981


??? need a link, not a screenshot to see what this is about


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 20, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> That's what I originally said, so I'm just reminding you! And it would be  a mistake to be more specific...which is my whole point. We should keep an open mind, and avoid attaching too much significance to this or that headline. If you read elbows' posts you'll see detailed reasons for why he or she is keeping an open mind. Elbows' posts are the most valuable resource in the thread. All I'm suggesting is that people should compare those posts with the media narrative, mostly in the papers, which says that after the current surge there may be a second surge, and...then...problem solved? I suspect lots of people are telling themselves that a second surge will, with a bit of luck, be the end of the disaster. They're understandably desperate for the lockdown to end and for the economy and employment to be salvaged. But these surges are mostly about the virus overwhelming the NHS. If the NHS can cope, that's not a surge in many people's minds.  When hospitals stop being charnel houses there will be a perception that things are back to normal. But deaths will continue at a high rate, with covid continuing to suck up a high proportion of hospital resources, with wards and theatres repurposed as ICUs until the end of next year. That will be the new normal.  And as the months go by while we wait for vaccines, the number of deaths may reach a much, much bigger number than the most popular figures in the papers, which so far don't seem to be higher than forty-something thousand. The papers are also desperate for survival, let's not lose sight of that.  They know that if they start with the big, bleak numbers, readers won't thank them. It's a difficult balance for a paper to get right.


Paragraphs, David, paragraphs. 

But you've kind of ignored a lot of what's been said to you there. Why, for instance, would the UK continue to fuck up each new wave as badly as it did the first one? Even with the current clown cabinet, that seems unlikely.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> ??? need a link, not a screenshot to see what this is about











						John O'Connell on Twitter
					

“@DHSCgovuk Addendum :  I quoted "28 fake #NHS Staff accounts" for clarity.  In actuality, there are 128 confirmed, 9 probables and 14 possibles, and amongst those, there are 16 which do not claim an #NHS connection.  43 accounts use actual photos of actual NHS staff.”




					is.gd


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> That's what I originally said, so I'm just reminding you! And it would be  a mistake to be more specific...which is my whole point. We should keep an open mind, and avoid attaching too much significance to this or that headline. If you read elbows' posts you'll see detailed reasons for why he or she is keeping an open mind. Elbows' posts are the most valuable resource in the thread. All I'm suggesting is that people should compare those posts with the media narrative, mostly in the papers, which says that after the current surge there may be a second surge, and...then...problem solved? I suspect lots of people are telling themselves that a second surge will, with a bit of luck, be the end of the disaster. They're understandably desperate for the lockdown to end and for the economy and employment to be salvaged. But these surges are mostly about the virus overwhelming the NHS. If the NHS can cope, that's not a surge in many people's minds.  When hospitals stop being charnel houses there will be a perception that things are back to normal. But deaths will continue at a high rate, with covid continuing to suck up a high proportion of hospital resources, with wards and theatres repurposed as ICUs until the end of next year. That will be the new normal.  And as the months go by while we wait for vaccines, the number of deaths may reach a much, much bigger number than the most popular figures in the papers, which so far don't seem to be higher than forty-something thousand. The papers are also desperate for survival, let's not lose sight of that.  They know that if they start with the big, bleak numbers, readers won't thank them. It's a difficult balance for a paper to get right.



Well there are a whole bunch of reasons why I only believe in taking it one week a time at the moment. If there was a time where it looked like I knew what would happen next in the first few months, its only because I knew what the traditional approach to pandemics was, so I knew what the original plan was likely to be. And I realised how transmissible the virus was, and quickly found the right experts to listen to. This made it possible for even a fast-moving pandemic to appear to be unfolding in a predictable, slow-motion way from my vantage point. But by mid-March it was clear that even the UK establishment could not stick with plan A, and at that point all bets were off as far as I was concerned, we were into uncharted territory (or at least uncharted in modern times in the west).

Some things are still predictable in this strange new world, very much including the media getting bored and moving to the 'whats the next step, the exit strategy and timing?'. And some bits of detail they are rehashing comes from earlier plans and earlier narratives. There are a bunch of reasons why 2nd waves in general may be mentioned in regards to epidemics and pandemics. And there were a bunch of different reasons why the spectre of a 2nd wave came up in the context of earlier versions of the plan too - including when the likes of Imperial College were modelling various sorts of measures, what happens when you lift them, and the idea of switching a bunch of them on and off in response to the number of intensive care patients.

Right now in the world of the press I see that different cabinet ministers are being described in terms of whether they want to end lockdown quickly. And part of the Johnson political response to various recent articles criticising Johnsons first months of pandemic 'leadership' at the weekend seems to involve letting it be known that 'he fears a 2nd wave and will not end lockdown'. Well no shit. Hell if we ended it as early as some in the press quack on about then the results wouldnt even count as a 2nd wave, they would more likely be a 2nd peak of the first wave because we wouldnt even have got down to a level that suggested the end of the first wave before things went back up again. So it would be more tempting to call it a spike than a 2nd wave. I think I heard this spike language used on the BBC on Monday when they were discussing some countries that are starting to relax certain very specific things, and what people are watching for nervously as a result.

But beyond the press talk, it will be rare to find me considering a 2nd wave at the moment because I mostly believe in seeing the first wave fall considerably first, and there is no reason for me to go on about a second wave unless we somehow tried to go back to 'the old normal', or if the 2nd wave we were talking about was much smaller than the first. In various countries around the world some leaders have spoken about a new normal to try to reach after lockdown is lifted, and this is more uncharted territory where few assumptions are safe right now. So I dont really understand your stance in some ways.

Specifically the 'deaths will continue at a high rate' thing you said. One of the bigger reasons I take things one week at a time and dont want to look much beyond the first wave yet is because there are all sorts of options which start to become available once the rate of death dwindles to a rather low level compared to what it has been in recent weeks. Its not supposed to remain anything like a high, constant rate, even if there will be weeks where the reduction in death rate may seem painfully slow as we watch the numbers day by day. Yes the concept of a plateau is often mentioned, but this isnt supposed to last for a very long time either.

I dont utterly rule out having reasons to speak of other waves eventually, perhaps as a result of bad human decisions, perhaps as a result of certain seasons. But who knows what else we will have learnt or come to terms with by then. I suppose there is a quite dull template in my mind for the rest of the year and beyond, but I dont believe in dwelling on it now because the chances are at least one major variable will be different from my present understanding by then, and so the template will be invalid. But even if the reality ends up fitting the template, some of the standard equations the powers that be use have been changed. I am likely to speak more about one particular aspect of that, involving numbers of deaths placed in a number of historical and seasonal contexts, when the latest ONS figures come out on Tuesday.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> It might be that simple if you know the R numbers, but you don't. You just think you do.



If you dont think the R0 has fallen a lot then you have to offer a different explanation for why hospital admissions and deaths have been the way they have in recent weeks, rather than continuing to soar in the way they would have done if the number of people an infected person was infecting on average remained well above 1. Anything that doesnt resemble continued exponential growth is noteworthy, and so various numbers in recent weeks have been noteworthy.

The really horrible numbers of deaths we started to see were things 'really getting started'. But they would have been dwarfed by continual exponential growth. It didnt happen, humans intervened, behavioural changes robbed the virus of many people that would otherwise have already caught it by now. I can make all these claims about the past and present without implying anything stupid and reckless about the future, there is no complacency in my statement. If R0 did not plummet in a lockdown then lockdown would be pointless!


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 21, 2020)

I'm not saying the number hasn't fallen...of course it has to fall because of the lockdown..what I'm saying is the spottiness of testing and contact tracing doesn't encourage confidence in the published numbers.  Plus there's the distortion and extrapolation of the numbers by journalists. Reliable numbers from health authorities and academics tend to get hurriedly mangled by journalists who are making clicks their priority.  Hardly any of the journalists have any sort of clinical background. Sometimes doctors write a column but they don't cover the news.


----------



## MrSki (Apr 21, 2020)

Hopefully it is settling down. Just heard a Dr from the NW on 5Live saying they have only had one Covid-19 admission today which is a good sign but is only one person's pov. & only from one part of the country. I have been trying to socially isolate but have had five nurses, four paramedics & one doctor round my gaff in the last 24 hours. I am waiting for the partridge in the non existant pear tree!


----------



## krtek a houby (Apr 21, 2020)

Diatribe said:


> Whilst internet fora undoubtedly provides some intellectual discussion and occasional erudite wit, unfortunately, it also provides a platform to a number of insignificant people who in the real world wouldn't even give one a second glance, never mind confront them with derogatory remarks. These people (I'm being kind in using the word ''people'') spend their entire waking lives flitting between so called ''social media'' sites, hiding behind the cloaks of anonymity for the sole purpose of scribing at best, one liner puerile insults aimed primarily at those who don't happen to concur with their narrow minded beliefs.  In some cases, there doesn't even have to be a reason for this type of behaviour pattern, it may be as simple as having being bullied at school, or being an underachiever et al.
> 
> Then of course there are the ''Politically Correct'' apparatchiks who police the internet in the vain hope they might find some form of minor indiscretion which they can capitalise on to forward their Orwellian agendas. A typical example falling foul of the aforementioned being the ex Essex cricketer, Don Topley, who was dismissed from the BBC commentary team for reciting a harmless cricketing ode at a ''private'' college after dinner speech. Apparently he had incurred the wrath of some feminist drudge, no man would afford a second glance to, who seized upon the opportunity to grab her 15 mins. of fame by walking out and complaining on Twitter, or some other such media platform.
> 
> If its any consolation, I think you're right, I should and will fuck off, if for no other reason, I don't subscribe to Mutual Admiration Societies.



Boredom and pseuds. The pandemic has a lot to answer for.


----------



## Spandex (Apr 21, 2020)

Aaarrrggh. I'm sick of hearing the phrase _Following Scientific Advice_. It's the new G_et Brexit Done_, a seemingly meaningful form of words that a few seconds thought reveal to be meaningless. We'll continue hearing it endlessly as it's used by everyone in government to dodge all responsibility for everything that's gone wrong. And I suspect it'll be quite effective. What hope do we have? Sir Keir's forensic brain? I'm not putting any hope in that.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I noticed last week the buses were busier and I think they are running fewer buses. Prior to last week it seemed like there were loads of buses all with 0 1 2 or 3 people on them.  Last week it was more like between 5 and 10 people on each. Would you say the are fewer buses?


I don't think so. There are certainly fewer buses than normal but I don't think the frequency has changed since the start of the lockdown. I'm waiting the same amount of time for the 133 as I was 3 weeks ago which is around 10-15 mins rather than 5-6. There are just more people out.

Traffic on Brixton Hill this morning is almost at pre-lockdown levels. Big queue of cars stretching all the way up and down the hill.


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Not go to work. This is fucked. I hadn’t realised that people were still using public transport as it seems impossible to practice social distancing on it



In Birmingham it’s easy. In the mornings most of the time there’s only four or five people on. In the afternoons maybe 10 on a really busy day. Sometimes I have been the only one on a bus. I wear gloves so I’m not directly touching any surfaces, wash my hands when I get into work and shower as soon as I get home.


----------



## peterkro (Apr 21, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I don't think so. There are certainly fewer buses than normal but I don't think the frequency has changed since the start of the lockdown. I'm waiting the same amount of time for the 133 as I was 3 weeks ago which is around 10-15 mins rather than 5-6. There are just more people out.
> 
> Traffic on Brixton Hill this morning is almost at pre-lockdown levels. Big queue of cars stretching all the way up and down the hill.


Traffic on The Embankment considerably heavier than recently as well.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 21, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Traffic on Brixton Hill this morning is almost at pre-lockdown levels. Big queue of cars stretching all the way up and down the hill.



This concerns me. Lockdown advice hasn't changed so who are all these people? Its rush hour so more likely to be work related than visiting elderly relatives. Maybe its middle management who think it's only me in the office but I must go in! 

Maybe the police should be checking on this demographic rather concentrating on people sat on a bench.


----------



## ash (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> This concerns me. Lockdown advice hasn't changed so who are all these people? Its rush hour so more likely to be work related than visiting elderly relatives. Maybe its middle management who think it's only me in the office but I must go in!
> 
> Maybe the police should be checking on this demographic rather concentrating on people sat on a bench.



And on the ‘daily briefing’ we are big told that public transport numbers are way down on normal !


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 21, 2020)

ash said:


> And on the ‘daily briefing’ we are big told that public transport numbers are way down on normal !



I suppose it could be people who  normally use PT to get to work, then seeing how busy buses are now are using their cars to distance,  but I suspect both bus passenger and cars have increased for the same reason. I'd like to know what that reason is.


----------



## Cid (Apr 21, 2020)

I noticed an increase in traffic in Sheffield too yesterday... At about 14:10, so fuck knows who they all were - Small business stuff probably. Town also not as empty as it was (I popped in to fail to go to the bank, though I live 15 minutes away in any case).


----------



## Numbers (Apr 21, 2020)

My wife and I had to go to the vet y/day.  We were both utterly flabbergasted as to how busy it was, both cars & pedestrians.  Whilst some of the shops had queues outside people were no more than a cpl of feet from one another, other shops had multiple people in, groups of people hanging out/talking (and didn’t look like they were from the same household).  

This was Canning Town.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> This concerns me. Lockdown advice hasn't changed so who are all these people? Its rush hour so more likely to be work related than visiting elderly relatives. Maybe its middle management who think it's only me in the office but I must go in!
> 
> Maybe the police should be checking on this demographic rather concentrating on people sat on a bench.


I don't know and it is extremely concerning. Ive been fine going to work on the bus because the buses were empty. Now I'm uncomfortable. I may have to start walking both ways as it was not possible to properly social distance this morning.

They don't look like middle management. They all look like ordinary people. Most probably going to work - to regular jobs. Maybe a lot of them were walking before but jumping on the bus now it's free. That doesn't explain the increased traffic though.

I'm upset this morning. Very upset. I've had a little weep after picking up my scrubs from the big marquee at the back of the hospital.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 21, 2020)

Numbers said:


> My wife and I had to go to the vet y/day.  We were both utterly flabbergasted as to how busy it was, both cars & pedestrians.  Whilst some of the shops had queues outside people were no more than a cpl of feet from one another, other shops had multiple people in, groups of people hanging out/talking (and didn’t look like they were from the same household).
> 
> This was Canning Town.



People have reached breaking point. If the government could figure out how to be, well, a government, and gave us a proper target date I think people would be more compliant.

In saying that, in my area we don't have any of what you describe. Everyone seems to be being good. Although personally I really don't how much longer I can last.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 21, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Aaarrrggh. I'm sick of hearing the phrase _Following Scientific Advice_. It's the new G_et Brexit Done_, a seemingly meaningful form of words that a few seconds thought reveal to be meaningless. We'll continue hearing it endlessly as it's used by everyone in government to dodge all responsibility for everything that's gone wrong. And I suspect it'll be quite effective. What hope do we have? Sir Keir's forensic brain? I'm not putting any hope in that.



It sounds like they mean, we are doing what the science tells us (science, it's important to note here, is not just a big instruction manual for the universe; it's a process and and one which is designed to continually dismantle orthodoxies, not create them) but they're actually saying, a scientist told us a thing and now we're doing a thing.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 21, 2020)

ash said:


> And on the ‘daily briefing’ we are big told that public transport numbers are way down on normal !


Oh they are! Believe me. The buses in the morning are usually rammed. You often have to wait for several absolutely packed buses to go by before you are able to get on one.

Numbers are way, way down but they are creeping up and I'm feeling like I am no longer able to safely use them.


----------



## LDC (Apr 21, 2020)

Seems to be much busier where I am as well (northern city), I have no idea about public transport, but there's a noticeable increase in car traffic and people on the streets. Noisier and more 'normal' feeling generally.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Seems to be much busier where I am as well (northern city), I have no idea about public transport, but there's a noticeable increase in car traffic and people on the streets. Noisier and more 'normal' feeling generally.


As we were driving my wife said how normal it was too.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 21, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I don't know and it is extremely concerning. Ive been fine going to work on the bus because the buses were empty. Now I'm uncomfortable. I may have to start walking both ways as it was not possible to properly social distance this morning.
> 
> They don't look like middle management. They all look like ordinary people. Most probably going to work - to regular jobs. Maybe a lot of them were walking before but jumping on the bus now it's free. That doesn't explain the increased traffic though.
> 
> I'm upset this morning. Very upset. I've had a little weep after picking up my scrubs from the big marquee at the back of the hospital.



I meant in the cars.  One way or another it looks like there is more pressure to go to work now than two weeks ago.  Where are the stark warnings on our TVs and SM about this?  The scolding of employers?

Is there anyone you can borrow a bike from? Or could getting an earlier or later bus help?

If I'm up early enough I'll try to monitor bus busyness.

What does brixton tube look like when you pass?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 21, 2020)

Petcha said:


> People have reached breaking point. If the government could figure out how to be, well, a government, and gave us a proper target date I think people would be more compliant.
> 
> In saying that, in my area we don't have any of what you describe. Everyone seems to be being good. Although personally I really don't how much longer I can last.


Why should they give a date? Seems a bit over confident


----------



## LDC (Apr 21, 2020)

Petcha said:


> People have reached breaking point. If the government could figure out how to be, well, a government, and gave us a proper target date I think people would be more compliant.
> 
> In saying that, in my area we don't have any of what you describe. Everyone seems to be being good. Although personally I really don't how much longer I can last.



It'd be fucking stupid and dishonest to give a date, it depends on how it goes the next few weeks for infection rates, hospitalizations, and deaths.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 21, 2020)

Government 'ignores' UK textiles firms desperate to make PPE


> The government has been too slow to enlist British textile firms to make protective gear for the NHS, according to industry figures, who say they have been desperate to contribute to the “war effort”.
> ..
> “The people who can make this PPE are not well-known names, they are contract manufacturers behind the scenes. They’ve filled in the government’s request forms and heard nothing back.”





> A separate source with knowledge of the fashion industry’s efforts said: “You can’t put all your eggs in that one Burberry basket.”
> 
> Hills said UK firms had been clamouring to help supply the NHS for more than a month, but that the government had instead focused on brands such as Burberry, as well as sourcing equipment from overseas.


from 16/04/2020 Government 'ignores' UK textiles firms desperate to make PPE

And 

'Enormous strain' on protective kit for NHS - Williamson


> Gavin Williamson was asked by the BBC why British suppliers offering to make protective kit had not been contacted.
> ..
> The education secretary said "every resource of government" had been deployed to expand supplies of PPE and ventilators.





> ..
> Public Health England changed its advice on Friday to allow the NHS to re-use gowns if stock was running low, saying "some compromise" was needed "in times of extreme shortages".
> 
> It asked staff to reuse "(washable) surgical gowns or coveralls or similar suitable clothing (for example, long-sleeved laboratory coat, long-sleeved patient gown or industrial coverall) with a disposable plastic apron for AGPs (aerosol-generating procedures) and high-risk settings with forearm washing once gown or coverall is removed".


from 19/04/2020 'Enormous strain' on protective kit for NHS

If gowns are washable and recyclable - why hasn't this been common practice from the start? 

And

Olympics chief brought in to boost PPE production


> Lord Deighton will lead the national effort to produce essential personal protective equipment for frontline health and social care staff.
> ..
> Paul Deighton, London 2012 Chief Exec, has been appointed by Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock to lead the national effort to produce essential personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline health and social care staff.





> He will coordinate the end-to-end process of design through to manufacture, including streamlining the approvals and procurement process to ensure new domestic PPE supplies are rapidly approved and get to where they are needed. The “make” programme will start to deliver PPE supplies in the next week.


from 19/04/2020 Olympics chief brought in to boost PPE production


----------



## Petcha (Apr 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It'd be fucking stupid and dishonest to give a date, it depends on how it goes the next few weeks for infection rates, hospitalizations, and deaths.



Give us some idea. Other governments have. This shower seem to have no fucking idea whatsoever.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 21, 2020)

Loads of people on the street where I live who could care less about distancing.

I suspect the government will simply let people spill out onto the streets like it all happened naturally out of public's own unruly deviant behaviour. And then they'll say oh well, it's too late to reconstitute a lockdown, not our fault that you insist on packing the trains and buses like sardines in a can, if you want to socially distance then figure out by yourselves. Also, if you happen to die, oh well, it's a pandemic, mate, people will die.


----------



## Cid (Apr 21, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Give us some idea. Other governments have. This shower seem to have no fucking idea whatsoever.



There is no way of knowing. 

There are things in terms of communication they're doing very, very badly (as is quite obvious from this), but putting some time limit on lockdown measures would be daft. Explaining how they might eventually arrive at a point where things can be slackened, probably not so daft.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 21, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Give us some idea. Other governments have. This shower seem to have no fucking idea whatsoever.


No one knows though.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 21, 2020)

Cid said:


> There is no way of knowing.
> 
> There are things in terms of communication they're doing very, very badly (as is quite obvious from this), but putting some time limit on lockdown measures would be daft. Explaining how they might eventually arrive at a point where things can be slackened, probably not so daft.



This. We know what needs to be done/happen to facilitate easing lockdown, they know what needs to be done,  but they're (still) not equipped to do it so they can't communicate that without showing themselves up as ill equipped and exposing their own bullshit/opening themselves up to awkward questions.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> No one knows though.



I'm not asking for a specific date. But some kind of rough timeframe. Other governments, governments who have managed this thing far far better (Australia, NZ, Germany) seem to be able to do so. I hope this government is receiving advice from mental health specialists and not just epidemiologists... 

I'm lucky, I've got a garden but I cannot imagine what it must be like if say you're in a cramped council flat with a couple of kids. Just give us some idea. They must know... You'd hope the best scientific minds in the country have some clue.


----------



## zahir (Apr 21, 2020)

Problems with the NHS testing.









						Exclusive: NHS using ‘flawed’ COVID-19 test – missing 25% of positives
					

Hancock under pressure to resign as leaked documents show NHS is using knowingly flawed tests for coronavirus




					www.opendemocracy.net


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I meant in the cars.  One way or another it looks like there is more pressure to go to work now than two weeks ago.  Where are the stark warnings on our TVs and SM about this?  The scolding of employers?
> 
> Is there anyone you can borrow a bike from? Or could getting an earlier or later bus help?
> 
> ...


Thanks Quimmy. 

I don't even look at the tube - there's absolutely no way I'm getting on the tube at the moment though. Reckon that's probably the highest infection risk place anywhere in London. 

And.....I have actually got a bike. It just needs fixing up a bit. I've been reluctant because of traffic and the fact that I'm a natural walker and can listen to podcasts/music while I walk. Cycling would solve the whole problem. I've just been told that Halfords are doing free (or cut price?) servicing for NHS staff. I should take it down there tomorrow....


----------



## zahir (Apr 21, 2020)

Setting up contact tracing.



> Whether it likes it or not, the government will certainly have to re-introduce the abandoned programme of contact tracing. And while secretary of state Hancock is putting his faith in a mobile app, it is extremely unlikely that system proposed will work.








						EU Referendum
					






					eureferendum.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It'd be fucking stupid and dishonest to give a date, it depends on how it goes the next few weeks for infection rates, hospitalizations, and deaths.



I don't think it's quite that, though.

At a very similar stage on its curve  - deaths at a peak, number in hospital finally starting to come down - the Swiss announced a further one-week extension from the lockdown that was one week away from ending with a statement about plans to ease lockdown as long as the numbers kept improving. Their numbers have kept improving and they're on course to change things next week now.

The reason they could do that is because they had a plan. They had been testing a lot and had test and trace mechanisms in place. That's the real reason for the silence - the lack of a plan. Earlier in the thread, the Guardian was quoted reporting that the cabinet is totally split on what to do. Meanwhile there is an ongoing deafening silence about any potential test-trace-isolate programme, which they should have been working on for a month already at least.

Compare and contrast with Switzerland's detailed three-stage plan to end things. The timing of each phase is dependent on how the previous phase has gone, so everything is provisional and subject to change. But a plan it certainly is.


----------



## zora (Apr 21, 2020)

Wasn't quite sure where to put this, pertaining partly to Germany and to the UK but as it's relevant to any potential loosening of lockdown, I will put it here.
There's obviously been a lot of praise for Angela Merkel's simple and clear yet grown-up explanation of the r-number. Further to this, I just watched her press conference from a couple of days ago in which she expressed some concern about the possibility of undoing the good work of the past weeks should the loosening of restrictions lead to people feeling too secure and to be less careful about the continued social distancing. She also made crystal clear that this loosening can only happen supported by meticulous contact tracing. I was amazed in how much detail she described the measures that are being put in place. Apart from the app that is being developed (and that participating in will be voluntary, but a large uptake is hoped for and expected, as I understand), she said precisely how the contact tracing will be supported. Five public health employees will be dedicated to contact tracing forevery 20000 people in the population, and 105 teams of 5 medical students will be supporting the tracing and containment measures where needed. Of course, the issue of face masks for the public was being raised, especially as one of the German states (Sachsen) has made wearing a (homemade) face mask in shops and on public transort compulsory. From what I understand, this will continue to be looked at, yet it's always been made clear that this should not increase competition for the medical face masks for the health sector, and masks would only be made compulsory if the state is in a position to provide them, and that it will need to be accompanied by a big public awareness campaign in using them correctly and safely.
It was all so...sensible, and transparent...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

zora said:


> Wasn't quite sure where to put this, pertaining partly to Germany and to the UK but as it's relevant to any potential loosening of lockdown, I will put it here.
> There's obviously been a lot of praise for Angela Merkel's simple and clear yet grown-up explanation of the r-number. Further to this, I just watched her press conference from a couple of days ago in which she expressed some concern about the possibility of undoing the good work of the past weeks should the loosening of restrictions lead to people feeling too secure and to be less careful about the continued social distancing. She also made crystal clear that this loosening can only happen supported by meticulous contact tracing. I was amazed in how much detail she described the measures that are being put in place. Apart from the app that is being developed (and that participating in will be voluntary, but a large uptake is hoped for and expected, as I understand), she said precisely how the contact tracing will be supported. Five public health employees will be dedicated to contact tracing forevery 20000 people in the popultation, and 105 teams of 5 medical students will be supporting the tracing and containment measures where needed. Of course, the issue of face masks for the public was being raised, especially as one of the German states (Sachsen) has made wearing a (homemade) face mask in shops and on public transort compulsory. From what I understand, this will continue to be looked at, yet it's always been made clear that this should not increase competition for the medical face masks for the health sector, and masks would only be made compulsory if the state is in a position to provide them, and that it will need to be accompanied by a big public awareness campaign in using them correctly and safely.
> It was all so...sensible, and transparent...


This isn't rocket science. That's what gets me. That all sounds very good, but it's pretty obvious how to do it. It's an exercise in basic logistics, essentially, and yeah, you don't even need fully qualified medics to carry out the daily checking. 

And it's not like people haven't been calling for exactly the above here for at least the last month.


----------



## BCBlues (Apr 21, 2020)

Brum firm 'shipping PPE abroad after UK gov ignored offer of help' Brum firm 'shipping PPE abroad after UK gov ignored offer of help'

From the (not so) local rag. Expect some of the usual swerving of answers should this be bought up at the briefings. Coupled with the fake NHS staff twitter revelations, this govt are proving that yes, they can and are getting worse.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 21, 2020)

zora said:


> Wasn't quite sure where to put this, pertaining partly to Germany and to the UK but as it's relevant to any potential loosening of lockdown, I will put it here.
> There's obviously been a lot of praise for Angela Merkel's simple and clear yet grown-up explanation of the r-number. Further to this, I just watched her press conference from a couple of days ago in which she expressed some concern about the possibility of undoing the good work of the past weeks should the loosening of restrictions lead to people feeling too secure and to be less careful about the continued social distancing. She also made crystal clear that this loosening can only happen supported by meticulous contact tracing. I was amazed in how much detail she described the measures that are being put in place. Apart from the app that is being developed (and that participating in will be voluntary, but a large uptake is hoped for and expected, as I understand), she said precisely how the contact tracing will be supported. Five public health employees will be dedicated to contact tracing forevery 20000 people in the popultation, and 105 teams of 5 medical students will be supporting the tracing and containment measures where needed. Of course, the issue of face masks for the public was being raised, especially as one of the German states (Sachsen) has made wearing a (homemade) face mask in shops and on public transort compulsory. From what I understand, this will continue to be looked at, yet it's always been made clear that this should not increase competition for the medical face masks for the health sector, and masks would only be made compulsory if the state is in a position to provide them, and that it will need to be accompanied by a big public awareness campaign in using them correctly and safely.
> It was all so...sensible, and transparent...


Imagine a person in charge of a country with a degree in Physics who saves you from getting sick and going insane. Nothing like some suicidal  cunt who did Classics at Oxford who can't even string a couple of sentences together.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Imagine a person in charge of a country with a degree in Physics who saves you from getting sick and going insane. Nothing like some suicidal  cunt who did Classics at Oxford who can't even string a couple of sentences together.


Thatcher had a degree in chemistry, tbf. Just being a scientist isn't enough on its own. But yeah, I agree with the general thrust. At least Merkel understands the problem.

That said, Thatcher would probably have done better. Pretty much anyone could have done better.


----------



## MickiQ (Apr 21, 2020)

Petcha said:


> People have reached breaking point. If the government could figure out how to be, well, a government, and gave us a proper target date I think people would be more compliant.
> 
> In saying that, in my area we don't have any of what you describe. Everyone seems to be being good. Although personally I really don't how much longer I can last.


The longer this goes on the less effect this is going to have, 'Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives' is a good slogan but like all slogans it is going to become less and less effective.
A lot of people are increasingly going to find themselves suffering economically, socially and mentally without seeing any personal benefit too and as time goes on, they're going to feel that is more important than feeling they are protecting the lives of complete strangers.
OK we Brits are bit more socially cohesive that the Trumpists demanding their rights to buy guns and get their hair cut but it is going to get harder to get voluntary compliance as people yearn to return to normal.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> The longer this goes on the less effect this is going to have, 'Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives' is a good slogan but like all slogans it is going to become less and less effective.
> A lot of people are increasingly going to find themselves suffering economically, socially and mentally without seeing any personal benefit too and as time goes on, they're going to feel that is more important than feeling they are protecting the lives of complete strangers.
> OK we Brits are bit more socially cohesive that the Trumpists demanding their rights to buy guns and get their hair cut but it is going to get harder to get voluntary compliance as people yearn to return to normal.


Hopefully it is also becoming harder for people to stomach the obvious incompetence of the government. That's surely the main reason why that slogan is starting to wear thin. I certainly hope so. I don't see how anyone can fail to realise how fucking shit they are now.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 21, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Imagine a person in charge of a country with a degree in Physics who saves you from getting sick and going insane. Nothing like some suicidal  cunt who did Classics at Oxford who can't even string a couple of sentences together.



Boris is fucking incompetent but I don't think the blame can be entirely laid at his door. The Australian PM is a total fucking idiot as well but must have been getting better advice. Don't know much about the NZ one, and yeh, Merkel is a very very good leader who could probably grasp the science a bit better than the buffoon we seem to have ended up with.


----------



## zora (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This isn't rocket science. That's what gets me. That all sounds very good, but it's pretty obvious how to do it. It's an exercise in basic logistics, essentially, and yeah, you don't even need fully qualified medics to carry out the daily checking.
> 
> And it's not like people haven't been calling for exactly the above here for at least the last month.



I know it's not - as it turns out you literally only have to watch the first half hour of the movie Contagion to grasp this; it's how it's being communicated, and the fact that it's actually being implemented that is striking to me in contrast!

Another point of contrast is wrt to the disingenuous "We are just following the science"-thing from the UK government that I have seen more and more people highlight here. I have been following the excellent podcasts from German virologist Christian Drosten (audio and pdf archive here, albeit only in German), that have been produced almost daily since 3 March for 30 - 40 mins, dozens of hours of high quality content, discussing in detail yet accessible to the interested lay audience all the latest studies and scientific findings, putting them into context and answering questions that arose in the wider public in response to news headlines. But in amongst this, he is always at great pains not only to stress the limitations of individual studies and findings, but also of the limits of the role of science in what are ultimately political decisions.

And in response to little_legs (and I will stop here with my Merkel-love, although I have always admitted that despite my different politics I have not been immune to the Mutti-complex...), whatever one might think of her politics, you just don't get the feeling that she's _inconvenienced _by having to govern through this situation, gravely and genuinely concerned yes, but not that's in an imposition to her unlike with this lot.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

Merkel gained some respect from me over the refugee decision. She didn't have to do that. In fact, it hurt her politically to do it. Her politics are a long way from mine, but I recognise that she has principles and a degree of humanity that are completely lacking in the Tories.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 21, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Boris is fucking incompetent but I don't think the blame can be entirely laid at his door.



Well not entirely but I think he can be wholeheartedly blamed for being fucking incompetent. 

Fucking incompetent and driven by ambition to take charge of the country while being a fraudulent, lying, irresponsible, philandering, hypocritical (I'm sure I've left lots out) little shit.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 21, 2020)

I'm not a scientist. But at the time I was flabbergasted when this went ahead when even Atletico's own stadium was closed. Let's just bring 3,000 people from one of the epicentres of the virus into one of our biggest cities for a couple of nights partying. Brilliant idea.









						Liverpool v Atlético virus links 'interesting hypothesis', says government scientist
					

Links between the outbreak of coronavirus in Liverpool and the Champions League tie at Anfield attended by more than 3,000 Atlético Madrid supporters should be explored, a government scientist acknowledged




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 21, 2020)

Just an aside on New Zealand and Australia....it was much easier for them to close their borders quickly and get people to self isolate. 
After all, literally nobody is "passing through" either of those countries and the populations are tiny in comparision to Europe.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 21, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Just an aside on New Zealand and Australia....it was much easier for them to close their borders quickly and get people to self isolate.
> After all, literally nobody is "passing through" either of those countries and the populations are tiny in comparision to Europe.



It's about the rate per capita. They're way below what we have. 

Sydney is a heavily populated city and they still contained it relatively well. I accept New Zealand must have had it easier because as you say, you don't pass through it, but I understand their lockdown was far faster and far more hardcore than ours and also by nature I think Kiwis might be more compliant than us. 9 deaths or something there.


----------



## maomao (Apr 21, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Sydney is a heavily populated city


430 people per square km compared to London's 4 and a half thousand.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> 430 people per square km compared to London's 4 and a half thousand.



A similar population is what I meant. 5.5 million there. But I accept it's more spread out.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 21, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I'm not a scientist. But at the time I was flabbergasted when this went ahead when even Atletico's own stadium was closed. Let's just bring 3,000 people from one of the epicentres of the virus into one of our biggest cities for a couple of nights partying. Brilliant idea.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


To be fair, johnson must be an Atletico fan given that he, literally, walked round a hospital wiping the virus onto his hands.


----------



## treelover (Apr 21, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I don't have a car either🤔



There is meant to be one at meadowhall nr sheffield, but hard to find info.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 21, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It's about the rate per capita. They're way below what we have.
> 
> Sydney is a heavily populated city and they still contained it relatively well. I accept New Zealand must have had it easier because as you say, you don't pass through it, but I understand their lockdown was far faster and far more hardcore than ours and also by nature I think Kiwis might be more compliant than us. 9 deaths or something there.



All I'm saying is it is a much easier decision to take to close your borders when hardly anybody is coming in anyway. They are very isolated countries in the first place. They quickly stopped everyone who was not resident from coming in and asked returning residents to self isolate as soon as they came home. Tourists as well who came in before they actually closed the borders and they had police out and about enforcing that. 



Petcha said:


> A similar population is what I meant. 5.5 million there. But I accept it's more spread out.


The bigger cities yes - they are fairly densely populated but the countries as a whole? Nah - there's nobody there! It's a lot easier to self-isolate when there is nobody living very close to you in the first place.

In no way am I saying they've had it easy - it just feels less complicated to enforce such measures so those decisions can be made more quickly. And good for them!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> 430 people per square km compared to London's 4 and a half thousand.


I think the main variable here is the point in transmission at which you intervene. In Aus and NZ, they've got in early enough to limit movement and track and trace each transmission. Do that, and whatever your population density, you have a chance of containment. Hong Kong and Singapore are two of the most densely populated cities in the world. Seoul is also much more densely populated than London.


----------



## belboid (Apr 21, 2020)

treelover said:


> There is meant to be one at meadowhall nr sheffield, but hard to find info.


It’s at the arena rather than Meadowhall, but is for people referred by hospital/gp. Non drivers still go to hospital


----------



## treelover (Apr 21, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I don't know and it is extremely concerning. Ive been fine going to work on the bus because the buses were empty. Now I'm uncomfortable. I may have to start walking both ways as it was not possible to properly social distance this morning.
> 
> They don't look like middle management. They all look like ordinary people. Most probably going to work - to regular jobs. Maybe a lot of them were walking before but jumping on the bus now it's free. That doesn't explain the increased traffic though.
> 
> I'm upset this morning. Very upset. I've had a little weep after picking up my scrubs from the big marquee at the back of the hospital.



what is the answer though, many people look down at those who report such things, it was quiet where i live, maybe as Cid says people are now  going back to city centre.









						Photos appear to show lack of social distancing at Plusnet's Sheffield HQ amid coronavirus crisis
					

More staff working at Plusnet’s Sheffield city centre headquarters have voiced their fears over coronavirus, as fresh photos appear to show social distancing guidelines being flouted.




					www.thestar.co.uk
				




btw, this is Plusnets national HQ, not good


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 21, 2020)

treelover said:


> what is the answer though, many people look down at those who report such things, it was quiet where i live, maybe as Cid says people are now  going back to city centre.


I don't know what the answer is. I have no idea how people can be stopped from using public transport and I'm certainly not going start challenging them or calling the fuzz. People are back out though and they are out in increasing numbers. More today than yesterday.

I'm just going to have to try to protect myself and get my bloody bike working.


----------



## treelover (Apr 21, 2020)

zora said:


> Wasn't quite sure where to put this, pertaining partly to Germany and to the UK but as it's relevant to any potential loosening of lockdown, I will put it here.
> There's obviously been a lot of praise for Angela Merkel's simple and clear yet grown-up explanation of the r-number. Further to this, I just watched her press conference from a couple of days ago in which she expressed some concern about the possibility of undoing the good work of the past weeks should the loosening of restrictions lead to people feeling too secure and to be less careful about the continued social distancing. She also made crystal clear that this loosening can only happen supported by meticulous contact tracing. I was amazed in how much detail she described the measures that are being put in place. Apart from the app that is being developed (and that participating in will be voluntary, but a large uptake is hoped for and expected, as I understand), she said precisely how the contact tracing will be supported. Five public health employees will be dedicated to contact tracing forevery 20000 people in the population, and 105 teams of 5 medical students will be supporting the tracing and containment measures where needed. Of course, the issue of face masks for the public was being raised, especially as one of the German states (Sachsen) has made wearing a (homemade) face mask in shops and on public transort compulsory. From what I understand, this will continue to be looked at, yet it's always been made clear that this should not increase competition for the medical face masks for the health sector, and masks would only be made compulsory if the state is in a position to provide them, and that it will need to be accompanied by a big public awareness campaign in using them correctly and safely.
> It was all so...sensible, and transparent...




Parliament is back soon, in some form, let's hope the PLP/Starmer, really interogate the Govts atrocious performance, which is costing lives.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 21, 2020)

zora said:


> I know it's not - as it turns out you literally only have to watch the first half hour of the movie Contagion to grasp this; it's how it's being communicated, and the fact that it's actually being implemented that is striking to me in contrast!
> 
> Another point of contrast is wrt to the disingenuous "We are just following the science"-thing from the UK government that I have seen more and more people highlight here. I have been following the excellent podcasts from German virologist Christian Drosten (audio and pdf archive here, albeit only in German), that have been produced almost daily since 3 March for 30 - 40 mins, dozens of hours of high quality content, discussing in detail yet accessible to the interested lay audience all the latest studies and scientific findings, putting them into context and answering questions that arose in the wider public in response to news headlines. But in amongst this, he is always at great pains not only to stress the limitations of individual studies and findings, but also of the limits of the role of science in what are ultimately political decisions.
> 
> And in response to little_legs (and I will stop here with my Merkel-love, although I have always admitted that despite my different politics I have not been immune to the Mutti-complex...), whatever one might think of her politics, you just don't get the feeling that she's _inconvenienced _by having to govern through this situation, gravely and genuinely concerned yes, but not that's in an imposition to her unlike with this lot.


On the contrary, love, do continue posting about how Merkel handles the situation. If anything, I am just jealous that there is a country in Europe that isn't a total fuck up when it comes to healthcare.

Merkel's handling of the refugee crisis and covid-19 outbreak deserves praise and offers hope that maybe, just maybe human race is not doomed.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I meant in the cars.  One way or another it looks like there is more pressure to go to work now than two weeks ago.  Where are the stark warnings on our TVs and SM about this?  The scolding of employers?



I think there is more pressure for a lot of people to work now - lots of businesses closed at first then reopened when they got clarification from government, or once they had come up for a plan for social distancing and hygeine measures.  The construction industry guidelines were watered down 2 weeks ago. This week B&Q announced they are re-opening some of their stores to the public, Fenwicks (big department store in Newcastle) has reopened its website for online ordering.  Lots of self-employed people who could deal with maybe 3 weeks without an income but are going to run out of cash well before June, so will now be doing what work they can. 
Its exactly the opposite to stark warnings and scolding employers - after the first few days government has repeatedly said that most businesses SHOULD keep running.
There's also more essential work going on as well which would have taken a couple of weeks to set up - more delivery drivers and warehouse staff being taken on by supermarkets, factories and workshops reopening to make PPE

Round my way it seems a bit quieter this week than last - I honestly think there must have been some people who thought that lockdown had ended last Tuesday because the three weeks were up.  The way those police/CPS guidelines have been reported too: I know a few people who've driven somewhere for a long walk or driven to a shop not in their immediate neighbourhood in the last few days who had exercised or shopped close to home since lockdown. Road outside my flat is less buy than last week, but busier than it was a fortnight ago.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 21, 2020)

Wilf said:


> To be fair, johnson must be an Atletico fan given that he, literally, walked round a hospital wiping the virus onto his hands.


... reminds me of the stages we've gone through. After it was decided that shaking hands wasn't a particularly good idea, didn't we briefly get into elbow bumps? 








						Elbow-bumps and footshakes: the new coronavirus etiquette
					

Virus means handshakes, cheek-kisses, hugs may not be welcome




					www.theguardian.com
				



Actually, even at 3rd March, the UK was still saying hand shakes were okay. ^
 And then we had johnson and his science bods with 3 lecterns less than 2 metres apart, which was 'okay because they weren't facing each other'. Not surprisingly, the rate of infection amongst johnson's immediate circle of cabinet ministers, advisers and (current) family has been higher than just about any other group in the UK. Lions led by utter craven, neoliberal, venal, fuckwits.

It would be nice to see johnson in a court or doing the Mussolini lampost adornment after this, but the first thing will have to be a Brass Eye special.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 21, 2020)

treelover said:


> Parliament is back soon, in some form, let's hope the PLP/Starmer, really interogate the Govts atrocious performance, which is costing lives.



They're going to be far too busy trying to bury all traces of their own perfidious conduct.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 21, 2020)

crossthebreeze I think that is not _necessarily_ a bad thing or doesn't have to be, but there has to be some mechanism to ensure employers are not unduly risking their empoyees' health. And even if the workplace is ok people must be able to travel while distancing.  And being in a building for 7 hours or on a bus with someone 2m away for 20 mins is not the same as passing someone on the street 2m away.  Not sure what guidance is out there but even if businesses stay open they should be working fewer hours, fewer staff on site, more hygiene measures etc. whatever is necessary to reasonably protect workers.  I suspect a lot of workers rights are actually being trampled over.  And if so where is that in the media?  Or shall we just stick to calling the police out to harass parents and toddlers sitting on some grass eating a biscuit 50 feet away from anyone else?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 21, 2020)

The BBC news just said that there were something like 8,000 more UK deaths over the Easter weekend than in previous years. That is all deaths in 2020 compared to previous years. Seems a large difference, anyone know if this is right or did I mishear?


----------



## NoXion (Apr 21, 2020)

Second wave, here we come.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> The BBC news just said that there were something like 8,000 more UK deaths over the Easter weekend than in previous years. That is all deaths in 2020 compared to previous years. Seems a large difference, anyone know if this is right or did I mishear?



Over the easter weekend or up to the easter weekend?  There will be non covid deaths because people didnt seek medical attention when they would have normally as well as covid deaths.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> The BBC news just said that there were something like 8,000 more UK deaths over the Easter weekend than in previous years. That is all deaths in 2020 compared to previous years. Seems a large difference, anyone know if this is right or did I mishear?



8,000 extra is in the week up to April 10th, not just easter weekend.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Over the easter weekend or up to the easter weekend?  There will be non covid deaths because people didnt seek medical attention when they would have normally as well as covid deaths.


I only heard it in the background so wasn't clear .. 


SpookyFrank said:


> 8,000 extra is in the week up to April 10th, not just easter weekend.


Aha, well perhaps that is less worrisome but still, a big number.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> crossthebreeze I think that is not _necessarily_ a bad thing or doesn't have to be, but there has to be some mechanism to ensure employers are not unduly risking their employees' health. And even if the workplace is ok people must be able to travel while distancing.  And being in a building for 7 hours or on a bus with someone 2m away for 20 mins is not the same as passing someone on the street 2m away.  Not sure what guidance is out there but even if businesses stay open they should be working fewer hours, fewer staff on site, more hygiene measures etc. whatever is necessary to reasonably protect workers.  I suspect a lot of workers rights are actually being trampled over.  And if so where is that in the media?  Or shall we just stick to calling the police out to harass parents and toddlers sitting on some grass eating a biscuit 50 feet away from anyone else?


There's some construction workers doing a Shut the Sites campaign against non-essential building sites (because almost impossible to maintain social distancing and hygiene in many trades on site).  HSE and police ignoring the problem, government actively encouraging work to continue, campaign not getting any traction in the media.  Hearing lots of awful stories in facebook groups about other industries too - factories, warehouses, call centres - some of which are essential, but social distancing and workers rights trampled.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 21, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> There's some construction workers doing a Shut the Sites campaign against non-essential building sites (because almost impossible to maintain social distancing and hygiene in many trades on site).  HSE and police ignoring the problem, government actively encouraging work to continue, campaign not getting any traction in the media.  Hearing lots of awful stories in facebook groups about other industries too - factories, warehouses, call centres - some of which are essential, but social distancing and workers rights trampled.



Building sites confound me a bit.  Who are they hurrying for?  Unless they have people chomping at the bit to move into those offices or Russian oligarchs needing that luxury apartment so they can leave it empty for instance it hardly seems essential.


----------



## xenon (Apr 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I only heard it in the background so wasn't clear ..
> Aha, well perhaps that is less worrisome but still, a big number.



Also said just now that even that figure might be on the low side as registrars were off for Easter. (According to a bloke on R4 just now. Missed his name.)

But the gist is a 20 year high in the total number of deaths in the week leading up to the 10th of April.








						Coronavirus: Deaths at 20-year high but peak may be over
					

Numbers dying nearly double above what would be expected, but peak may now be over, say experts.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## xenon (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Building sites confound me a bit.  Who are they hurrying for?  Unless they have people chomping at the bit to move into those offices or Russian oligarchs needing that luxury apartment so they can leave it empty for instance it hardly seems essential.



Late completion penalty clauses in the contracts may be playing a part. The sort of people commissioning these blocks aren't the type to forego legal action.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> Late completion penalty clauses in the contracts may be playing a part. The sort of people commissioning these blocks aren't the type to forego legal action.



I wouldn't have thought it beyond construction companies to approach the government to ask for a suspension of such actions.


----------



## xenon (Apr 21, 2020)

Political interference in civil court proceedings? Someone would have a fit over that.


----------



## xenon (Apr 21, 2020)

I agree of course. Mental that these things are still being built anyway.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> Also said just now that even that figure might be on the low side as registrars were off for Easter. (According to a bloke on R4 just now. Missed his name.)
> 
> But the gist is a 20 year high in the total number of deaths in the week leading up to the 10th of April.
> 
> ...



Are they comparing 10 april to 10 april or easter to easter as easter was a week earlier this year so a weeks worth (and the normal catchups) still to be added.


----------



## keybored (Apr 21, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Can of worms (read thread)
> 
> 
> 
> ...





The39thStep said:


> There's an interesting debate going on on Twitter about fake NHS accounts
> 
> View attachment 207981





The39thStep said:


> John O'Connell on Twitter
> 
> 
> “@DHSCgovuk Addendum :  I quoted "28 fake #NHS Staff accounts" for clarity.  In actuality, there are 128 confirmed, 9 probables and 14 possibles, and amongst those, there are 16 which do not claim an #NHS connection.  43 accounts use actual photos of actual NHS staff.”
> ...




This looks extremely murky doesn't it?




DHSC denying it and dismissing it in the same way they would 5G conspiracies. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.


----------



## ignatious (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Building sites confound me a bit.  Who are they hurrying for?  Unless they have people chomping at the bit to move into those offices or Russian oligarchs needing that luxury apartment so they can leave it empty for instance it hardly seems essential.


There‘s a sort of quid pro quo at work. If contractors don’t work they don’t get paid, if the builder doesn’t complete on time they don’t get paid, if the developer doesn’t sell they can’t repay their loans. It’s not really in anybody in the chain’s interest to shut it down.


----------



## xenon (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Are they comparing 10 april to 10 april or easter to easter as easter was a week earlier this year so a weeks worth (and the normal catchups) still to be added.



I'm not sure. I think I've just logically linked it with Elbows post last night about the high flu death rates in 99 - 00. So it kinda made sense.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 21, 2020)

keybored said:


> This looks extremely murky doesn't it?
> 
> View attachment 208041
> 
> ...



I think a lot of these have been taken down now, but yes very murky.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I'm not saying the number hasn't fallen...of course it has to fall because of the lockdown..what I'm saying is the spottiness of testing and contact tracing doesn't encourage confidence in the published numbers.  Plus there's the distortion and extrapolation of the numbers by journalists. Reliable numbers from health authorities and academics tend to get hurriedly mangled by journalists who are making clicks their priority.  Hardly any of the journalists have any sort of clinical background. Sometimes doctors write a column but they don't cover the news.



I hae completely ignored the number of test results almost all the way through this, its a pretty meaningless number to me for several reasons. So I end up looking at hospital and death figures instead, which have additional lag, but will be be realistic.

What we might discover as the rate of community infections drops, is how high the number is remaining in certain settings like care homes and hospitals. The R0 in hospitals and care homes might still be a fair bit above 1, for example. They might have to take additional steps in order to sort that side of the picture out. But first they will wait until the numbers drop to a more manageable level, that should bring some f this detail into more focus eventually.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> Also said just now that even that figure might be on the low side as registrars were off for Easter. (According to a bloke on R4 just now. Missed his name.)
> 
> But the gist is a 20 year high in the total number of deaths in the week leading up to the 10th of April.
> 
> ...


tbh the only thing I'm surprised by there is that it's only a 20-year high. That's about exactly peak death from c19 - actual peak day was April 8, I think, and it was high all that week.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 21, 2020)

keybored said:


> This looks extremely murky doesn't it?
> 
> View attachment 208041
> 
> ...




Haha they made their sock puppet deaf AND trans?


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 21, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Haha they made their sock puppet deaf AND trans?



and FBPE. Probably a 4chan-style troll.


----------



## keybored (Apr 21, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> and FBPE. Probably a 4chan-style troll.


Worth considering ( "Fantastic news, an unborn baby will *hopefully* meet their father." has elements of satire  ) but the guy who uncovered this claims he found well over a hundred of these accounts that were controlled by a few people with software that's used for astroturfing. All accounts deleted simultaneously.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Are they comparing 10 april to 10 april or easter to easter as easter was a week earlier this year so a weeks worth (and the normal catchups) still to be added.





xenon said:


> I'm not sure. I think I've just logically linked it with Elbows post last night about the high flu death rates in 99 - 00. So it kinda made sense.



Several comparisons are made. When they speak of the most registered deaths in a week since such and such a date in the past, they are talking about any week, not just comparisons to that week in April. In this case the provisional number of weekly registrations of 18,516 for w/e April 10 2020 has beaten the 17,970 registered deaths of week 1 in the year 2000, but not the 18,581 deaths of the week before, week 52 of 1999.

In terms of when they say things like '8000 more deaths than normal', thats comparing the weeks number to the average for the corresponding week over the previous 5 years. So in this case, an average of 10,520 compared to w/e April 10 2020s 18,516.

These figures are all for England and Wales, Scotland have their own stats office and their weekly report comes out on a different day. Northern Ireland have one too but its not very detailed.

In terms of the overall death toll, we are pretty much on track to have an entire 'extra winters excess mortality' during the first wave of this pandemic (obviously without it being winter, and on top of what we had from flu etc last winter). This century so far, excess mortality estimates for winters have tended to range from around 24,000 to 32,000, although there are exceptions such as 17,280 and 49,410. Before this century, it was more usual to find plenty of higher excess mortality winters that were getting on towards the upper 40,000s. Back in the 1950s and 1960s it was not unusual to see estimates of 60-70,000, 1962/63 saw nearly 90,000 and 1950/51 (first year I have an excess winter estimate for) was over 100,000!

I partly bring that up not to try to downplay the deaths from this pandemic, but to illustrate how much death is 'tolerated' seasonally without people kicking up much of a stink about it. We are not world-leaders at that side of things either, our excess winter mortality sucks compared to some countries, and there are lots of theories why. Complex subject, but it would not surprise me if some of the things we got wrong in this pandemic are things we always get wrong during normal times too.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh the only thing I'm surprised by there is that it's only a 20-year high. That's about exactly peak death from c19 - actual peak day was April 8, I think, and it was high all that week.



Limits to the death registration system, easter, and the fact these numbers are for 'week that the death was registered' rather than actual date of death (although they do include other numbers in the spreadsheet that involve actual date of death).

It wouldnt have taken much more for the 99/00 and 98/99 peak weeks figures to have been beaten, which would also have beaten 96/97 and 1989/90. But since I dont have most weekly records for most of the 20th century, I cannot do further comparisons. The 1950's, 60's, 70's and 80's all had some very bad overall years and it would not be surprising if there were record-breaking weeks in any of those decades. Hopefully I wont get to find out via this pandemic, because hopefully the number of deaths dropped past the peak enough that there wont be other weekly records to be broken in future from this.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> Late completion penalty clauses in the contracts may be playing a part. The sort of people commissioning these blocks aren't the type to forego legal action.



Probably true in many cases, but here we've got major ongoing projects comissioned by...the city council.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 21, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Haha they made their sock puppet deaf AND trans?



And a remainer of course.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 21, 2020)

As I see it, this:

1. 'Lockdown' needs to continue for another four weeks. 

2. We are NOT going to have a vaccine for this, the rate of reinfection and absence of, or very low, antibody titre in those who have recovered makes this likely.

3. The death toll in old folks homes will top 50% of the inhabitants... if not more.

4. This fucking thing has been on the go for far longer than is realised.*

5.  When this dies back; I don't think it will ever die out; a Judicial Review must be conducted into the complete clusterfuck that has been caused by governmental incompetence.


* Towards the end of last year my BIL and the mother of a friend were very ill, stricken by what in the case of my friend's mother was stated as 'Influenza A' 


*Influenza A symptoms*

Unlike a common cold, the flu typically occurs with a sudden onset of symptoms. Common signs of an influenza infection include:


coughing
runny or stuffy nose
sneezing
sore throat
fever
headache
fatigue
chills
body aches

In both cases, a hard dry cough was present, fever and headache. No sneezing, no runny nose, no sore throat. In the case of the lady, three people died of this on the ward she was on. All elderly people. I appreciate that an anecdotal sample of two people is hardly a robust sample, has anyone else encountered similar, starting from around the beginning of November last year?


----------



## manji (Apr 21, 2020)

Same in Southampton lots of major building work going on.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

The world has changed but Kuenssberg remains the same:









						Coronavirus: The political mood is becoming more scratchy
					

Opposition parties are supportive of lockdown measures, but the government is coming under more scrutiny.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> On the day of that cabinet meeting on 17 March - the last when life was perhaps relatively normal - just 71 people had died in hospital of the virus.



Thats how many had been reported, not how many had actually died in hospital by that point. Based on latest figures, by March 16th 153 had died in hospital, by March 17th it was 192, and those are just for England.



> As we have discussed here before, it will be a long time - perhaps years rather than months - before a reasoned consensus can be reached about which countries took the best approaches to this and which made the most egregious mistakes.
> 
> Across the board, our politicians seem to agree with that.



Bollocks. Some details will take a long time, but the broad mistakes can already be judged and thats been the case for quite some time.



> But you can feel more broadly that the political mood is becoming more scratchy.



Itchy chin.



> And those discussions can take place because ministers believe they have achieved the two biggest goals they set out at the start of all of this - to slow the spread of the disease, flattening the curve, and to stop the NHS from being completely overwhelmed.
> 
> Of course, in an event on this scale, ministers believe, there would be some problems.
> 
> But in those two vital regards, they have achieved what they wanted to do. And not so long ago, it wasn't certain that either of those outcomes would be achieved.



Fuck that narrative:

It was never in doubt that, so long as they actually did something other than an impression of the mayor from Jaws, the spread of the disease would be slowed. Rather its a question of by how much, and how timely the actions were. If they acted week(s) later than they did then there would have been more death, if they had acted week(s) earlier than they did, there would have been less deaths.

As for the NHS not being overwhelmed, thats a complex issue. Some important parts of it are the very same timing issue mentioned in my first point, and we can be relieved about aspects of that. But I've already said before that I am concerned about the number of people who were not admitted to hospital and died at home. And the government failed to protect those who worked in the NHS and those who were in hospital for other reasons but ended up catching Covid-19 due to poor infection control and limited testing of suspected cases and staff.

The narrow and deliberate framing in that article, for political purposes, makes me sick.


----------



## treelover (Apr 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> As I see it, this:
> 
> 1. 'Lockdown' needs to continue for another four weeks.
> 
> ...



I am immune compromised, i had a very nast flu type virus three days after trip to Spain back late september, and another around xmas, so much at my sisters i was begging her to ring the doctor while i was staying there, she didn't do so. many people with M.E had the very virulent Xmas time one.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> 2. We are NOT going to have a vaccine for this, the rate of reinfection and absence of, or very low, antibody titre in those who have recovered makes this likely.



Its not wise to make confident predictions in either direction regarding vaccines right now.



> This fucking thing has been on the go for far longer than is realised.*





> In both cases, a hard dry cough was present, fever and headache. No sneezing, no runny nose, no sore throat. In the case of the lady, three people died of this on the ward she was on. All elderly people. I appreciate that an anecdotal sample of two people is hardly a robust sample, has anyone else encountered similar, starting from around the beginning of November last year?



A much earlier arrival of Covid-19 is inconsistent with how everything actually unfurled. It would not have taken so long to reach a peak number of deaths in April if the virus had been widespread long before the commonly accepted timetable of this pandemics spread. And there was a clear period where the normal influenza season dropped off, before the deaths from Covid-19 then started to rise up and become really obvious in the statistics.

The flu season was early this winter, which fits with your talk about November.

It is perfectly normal for people to attribute illnesses they have had in recent memory, with the big new disease thats in the news. Doesnt make it actually true, its mostly a mental phenomenon, dot joining.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...al_influenze_report_16_April_2020_week_16.pdf


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> The world has changed but Kuenssberg remains the same:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thank you for your understandable and accurate analysis.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 21, 2020)

With regard to vaccines.

Generally, actively suffering an infection produces a better antibody response than vaccination. The reports of very low antibody titres in recovered patients do cast a bit of a doubt on an effective vaccine. I may of course be entirely wrong, and hope that I am.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

Can also see the normal winter/flu peak in the weekly death registrations for England/Wales.

Unfortunately the nature of the weekly data means that the figure for near the end of 2019 is artificially low, until I get a final version of the 2019 weekly figures, so please ignore the much shorter bar for one of the weeks.

Anyway this graph covers week 42 2019 to week 15 2020 (w/e April 10th). Because the flu season was early this year, there was plenty of time for the figures to return to 'normal' levels before the horrible Covid-19 death figures climb began. Some countries like Italy had a later flu season so the boundary may be less distinct for them, I havent had time to look.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> With regard to vaccines.
> 
> Generally, actively suffering an infection produces a better antibody response than vaccination. The reports of very low antibody titres in recovered patients do cast a bit of a doubt on an effective vaccine. I may of course be entirely wrong, and hope that I am.



Its a concern, but its too early in the process of investigating vaccines for me to dwell on it much. I certainly dont assume we'll get a brilliant vaccine, but nor do I rule it out. Rarely has there been quite this much impetus to find something, and I have no idea what that will mean in practice!


----------



## Raheem (Apr 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> The reports of very low antibody titres in recovered patients do cast a bit of a doubt on an effective vaccine.


Where have you seen these reports?


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 21, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Where have you seen these reports?



Various news reports. Your question though, reminds me of the stupidity of giving credence to ANY newspaper report.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a concern, but its too early in the process of investigating vaccines for me to dwell on it much. I certainly dont assume we'll get a brilliant vaccine, but nor do I rule it out. Rarely has there been quite this much impetus to find something, and I have no idea what that will mean in practice!



I suppose that even a vaccine that ameliorates the disease is better than nothing. A bit of a decrease in severity would certainly save lives.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Various news reports. Your question though, reminds me of the stupidity of giving credence to ANY newspaper report.


There's lots of reports today about a low percentage of the world's population carrying antibodies, but I haven't seen anything about people having recovered not carrying antibodies or carrying low quantities. That would be noteworthy, but are you completely sure it is what you have seen?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 21, 2020)

They've got the guy from the BBC's 'Reality Check' on 5live right now.

His name? Chris Morris. Quite unfortunate.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 21, 2020)

Raheem said:


> There's lots of reports today about a low percentage of the world's population carrying antibodies, but I haven't seen anything about people having recovered not carrying antibodies or carrying low quantities. That would be noteworthy, but are you completely sure it is what you have seen?



Absolutely. I'm a retired nurse, so things like that 'pop out' when reading.

Have a gander at this:









						Low antibody levels raise questions about coronavirus reinfection risk
					

Scientists in Shanghai say some recovered patients show no signs of the neutralising proteins.




					www.scmp.com


----------



## 2hats (Apr 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Absolutely. I'm a retired nurse, so things like that 'pop out' when reading.
> 
> Have a gander at this:
> 
> ...


I covered that Fudan paper some days ago here.


----------



## agricola (Apr 21, 2020)

have we had this yet?



> UK ministers took a political decision not to be involved in an EU ventilator scheme, *Sir Simon McDonald*, the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary said today, so challenging previous claims that the UK did not take part due to missed emails.
> 
> McDonald was asked by a Labour MP, Chris Bryant, at the foreign affairs select committee whether the ventilator scheme was put to ministers. He said:
> 
> ...











						UK coronavirus live: Hancock says human vaccine trials start this week as death toll rises by 823 - as it happened
					

UK hospital deaths up to 17,337; MPs vote for virtual parliament sessions; Boris Johnson speaks to Trump




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

agricola said:


> have we had this yet?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well we already knew that, but good to have it confirmed. 

As for the brexit extension, first step in a climbdown process, I guess. _Definitely no extension _becomes _Probably no extension_ becomes _Hopefully no extension_ becomes _We have an extension_.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 21, 2020)

agricola said:


> have we had this yet?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



As far as I know, there have been no reports of ventilator shortages, PPE shortages, yes, ventilators, no.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 21, 2020)

Hancock loves a list, especially one with pillars. What a nob!


----------



## weltweit (Apr 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> As far as I know, there have been no reports of ventilator shortages, PPE shortages, yes, ventilators, no.


Yes, I think if they accept the ventilators made by industry, each of which seems to have interest in 10,000 there could even be a glut.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 21, 2020)

Far more people out and about today down here in the west cuntry.


----------



## agricola (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well we already knew that, but good to have it confirmed.
> 
> As for the brexit extension, first step in a climbdown process, I guess. _Definitely no extension _becomes _Probably no extension_ becomes _Hopefully no extension_ becomes _We have an extension_.



apparently we don't know it now:



Kind of hard to square that with Hancock claiming just now that he was aware of the scheme and said yes to it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

agricola said:


> apparently we don't know it now:
> 
> 
> 
> Kind of hard to square that with Hancock claiming just now that he was aware of the scheme and said yes to it.



It wasn't a political decision. It was a decision made by politicians.

totally different

* led by science *


----------



## andysays (Apr 21, 2020)

Testing appears to be about as poorly organised as you might expect...

Coronavirus: NHS and care staff struggling to access tests


> Home tests for coronavirus should be available to NHS staff across the UK "very soon", according to the government's testing co-ordinator. Prof John Newton acknowledged that health and care workers have struggled to access testing sites.





> The government said lack of "demand" rather than capacity was behind the slow growth in testing numbers. But the British Medical Association (BMA), the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and Unison have challenged this. They say long drives or difficulty accessing drive-through sites without a car were preventing staff from being tested.





> The prospect of a home test offers some hope when it comes to another major barrier for staff: the test has to be done within the first few days of experiencing symptoms. Some have been missing out because people have been too unwell to drive to a testing centre, according to Saffron Cordery, head of NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts.


----------



## Roadkill (Apr 21, 2020)

Philip Pullman suggested earlier today that ministers should face conspiracy to murder charges over PPE shortages.  That's just a straw in the wind, but David Allen Green's take is potentially interesting...


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 21, 2020)

Had to go to the shops today. No queue at all but some really crappy customer behaviour. Got leant over by an unhealthy person who didn’t get the concept of waiting til the other customers move on. 
also saw two women with double black eyes


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> I see you got that from the daily NHS numbers.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Today on the BBC Fergus Walsh was showing off the BBC version of this graph. He made some comment about how today we could see this picture of the hospital deaths for the first time. No, people here will have very occasionally seen my version of the graph in the past. Because the NHS published all the figures required to create it since the start of April. And for a while before that, if you were on the press list, the same data was also available in a more cumbersome format.

Anyway at least it is being seen by people generally now so the April 8th peak is noted and obvious, for example.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Apr 21, 2020)

Note to self: Read first, then ask question.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 21, 2020)

Fuck off, George.









						George Osborne, Architect of U.K. Austerity, Says New Cuts Needed Post-Crisis
					

The architect of the controversial austerity drive in Britain after the financial crisis said another period of belt-tightening will eventually be needed to deal with the fiscal damage wrought by the coronavirus shock.




					www.bloomberg.com


----------



## teqniq (Apr 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Philip Pullman suggested earlier today that ministers should face conspiracy to murder charges over PPE shortages.  That's just a straw in the wind, but David Allen Green's take is potentially interesting...



Here's the full piece by Pullman. Can't fault him really:





__





						Philip Pullman on Covid-19: 'It's all got to change'
					

The Covid-19 crisis should lead to the radical reform of our political system, argues the author of His Dark Materials.




					www.penguin.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> View attachment 207893
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Listening to this now. Sadly John Ashton is frozen - looks like he's not going to appear. 

Points so far. Sorry bit scattergun:

Nightingale - glad it was done but did it divert too many resources? Mostly empty so far.

The lack of testing for nurses/doctors is shocking, and is leading to community spread. 

Seven-day isolation from onset of symptoms probably not wise! Confusion about why advice conflicts with that in other countries.

Mystification about test and trace. The doctors being interviewed just don't know where it is, or where it could be coming from. 

Dyson ventilators not appeared yet. Nurses will need training for them anyway. But will they ever happen? A basic wtf about that.

PPE: Point about it not being just hospitals that need it, and that the biggest problem is among social care workers. Emergency stockpiles lost pre-epidemic: point made that NHS instead relied on having a 'procurement chain' in place - ie some form of 'just in time ordering' - which has now broken down due to crisis. 

They're insulted by Hancock preaching at them about how to use ppe. 

They've made the point about the importance of migrant key workers. Need end to hostile environment. Also point about ending the practice of hospitals giving immigrant details to the home office. Plus need to capitalise on public appreciation to fight privatisation. 

Need for some spare capacity in ICU before lockdown is lifted in case of a second surge. Also, need for test and trace first. 


Got bored now. Don't think John Ashton is coming.


----------



## Callie (Apr 21, 2020)

andysays said:


> Testing appears to be about as poorly organised as you might expect...
> 
> Coronavirus: NHS and care staff struggling to access tests


Yunno the people taking the tests need appropriate PPE

I think it's all well and good having the testing capacity but if you don't have good infrastructure to support it ain't gonna wirky. Selecting who has a test, trained staff with PPE to take the samples, couriers etc to take the sample from the testing sites to the labs. But if an oversight I think.


----------



## zora (Apr 21, 2020)

I am a bit concerned about this "soft" opening this week as well that has been noted by others upthread.
Had an email from my work last week (retail), asking for volunteers to come back from furlough to support the online shopping operation which is currently being run just from a central warehouse, but is usually also fulfilled by some stores. Now in some ways this makes sense, and in fact prior to lockdown I had wondered - and even wanted - our mail order service to continue. There is certainly enough space to make the distancing very feasible if only a handful of staff are in on any given day. Otoh I strongly disagree with it because of the can of worms it opens in terms of travelling, especially in London where so many people live a long way from the centre. Now I happen to live within walking distance, but I count myself as excluded per their criteria by sharing a household with someone with increased risk (and because I am only just starting to enjoy sitting on the balcony now that I am not in perma-panic anymore!)
It was all very much couched in the language of being on a voluntary basis, and they were asking for people who can walk/bike as a priority...but then also said "or use public transport if comfortable with it". But the whole point is, it's not just about an individual's risk assessment, but about the wider effects (plus, in my understanding, Tfl are still asking to absolutely not use public transport in London, apart from actual key workers). And if this little bit is replicated amongst dozens, hundreds, thousands of businesses in London, even if it's within the parameters. .. it's a worry to me. Especially while there's no test and trace in place, and while I am sometimes getting the impression on my incredibly infrequent walks that some people haven't quite got that even with social distancing you are still not supposed to cough and sneeze at people...


----------



## Roadkill (Apr 21, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Fuck off, George.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fuck's sake. He really has learned nothing.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 21, 2020)

Raheem said:


> There's lots of reports today about a low percentage of the world's population carrying antibodies, but I haven't seen anything about people having recovered not carrying antibodies or carrying low quantities. That would be noteworthy, but are you completely sure it is what you have seen?



Probably this: Low antibody levels raise questions about coronavirus reinfection risk

Small sample (175) and not peer reviewed yet but a third of recovered patients, notably younger ones, had much lower levels of antibodies than would be expected and 11 had none at all.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 21, 2020)




----------



## Miss-Shelf (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Listening to this now. Sadly John Ashton is frozen - looks like he's not going to appear.
> 
> Points so far. Sorry bit scattergun:
> 
> ...


thank you for this - saved me doing it.

I'd just add that the first speaker called for the dependents of deceased NHS workers who are migrants to be given right to stay and be supported in UK


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

zora said:


> I am a bit concerned about this "soft" opening this week as well that has been noted by others upthread.
> Had an email from my work last week (retail), asking for volunteers to come back from furlough to support the online shopping operation which is currently being run just from a central warehouse, but is usually also fulfilled by some stores. Now in some ways this makes sense, and in fact prior to lockdown I had wondered - and even wanted - our mail order service to continue. There is certainly enough space to make the distancing very feasible if only a handful of staff are in on any given day. Otoh I strongly disagree with it because of the can of worms it opens in terms of travelling, especially in London where so many people live a long way from the centre. Now I happen to live within walking distance, but I count myself as excluded per their criteria by sharing a household with someone with increased risk (and because I am only just starting to enjoy sitting on the balcony now that I am not in perma-panic anymore!)
> It was all very much couched in the language of being on a voluntary basis, and they were asking for people who can walk/bike as a priority...but then also said "or use public transport if comfortable with it". But the whole point is, it's not just about an individual's risk assessment, but about the wider effects (plus, in my understanding, Tfl are still asking to absolutely not use public transport in London, apart from actual key workers). And if this little bit is replicated amongst dozens, hundreds, thousands of businesses in London, even if it's within the parameters. .. it's a worry to me. Especially while there's no test and trace in place, and while I am sometimes getting the impression on my incredibly infrequent walks that some people haven't quite got that even with social distancing you are still not supposed to cough and sneeze at people...



It's similar to the effects of 'panic buying', which in all probability weren't really due to panic buying at all, just the cumulative effect of lots of people buying a slightly bigger pack of bog roll or an extra tin of beans. So your work's email is very much a part of a wider process of small steps, and the cumulative effect is really evident now - from two weeks ago to today, a very distinct, clear difference on the streets. 

I've been on lots of walks around London in the last month, and up to this week, it's been as easy as anything to maintain a big distance scrupulously from everyone at all times on my wanderings. This week, that's not been the case. Out of courtesy, I'm waiting for people or moving aside, but I've noticed for the first time that others aren't always reciprocating. I'm struck by the rudeness of it, tbh, given the current situation.

From a purely selfish pov, my walks have lost the slightly magical edge they once had. (yeah, who cares!) But I didn't expect this change to occur so long before any formal easing of lockdown. The thing is very definitely cracking.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Seven-day isolation from onset of symptoms probably not wise! Confusion about why advice conflicts with that in other countries.



Originally 7 days struck me as the kind of compromise a state would reach when trying to balance between the actual infection risk, and what percentage of the workforce would be absent according to various models. I could sort of see the rationale behind it when they were mostly going for the 'anyone with any symptoms vaguely similar to Covid-19 should self-isolate'. But its not a number of days driven purely by medical knowledge, its a compromise. And then, just like with decisions to describe certain kinds of contacts as close only if they lasted at least 15 minutes, the arbitrary numbers we have chosen for a specific reason then end up getting treated as some kind of fundamental truth, rules the virus sticks to. When obviously it doesnt care about our rules and definitions. So its bloody stupid to take the 7 day value, which was a compromise for a particular situation, and then treat it as though this is the amount of time that actually confirmed cases who tested positive should isolate for, and that any longer is unnecessary. 

So yeah, I would say its not wise. Its possible that they can get away with such things without it making a really large difference because so much of the transmission between people actually tends to happen earlier, in which case it would be another numbers game, another factor that went into the earlier compromise calculation. But its not what you would choose to do if you were actually trying to minimise the risk for every single person, its the sort of thing you might get away with if only looking at the very largest picture, and trying to dodge the very scariest scenarios with their terrible orders of magnitude. If tens of thousands of lives lost now matters, but hundreds still dont, all sorts of sloppy decisions can be gotten away with in that numbers game, and it is tempting for me to put the 7 days thing in that camp


----------



## Raheem (Apr 21, 2020)

smokedout said:


> Probably this: Low antibody levels raise questions about coronavirus reinfection risk
> 
> Small sample (175) and not peer reviewed yet but a third of recovered patients, notably younger ones, had much lower levels of antibodies than would be expected and 11 had none at all.


If a third of people were vulnerable to re-infection, you'd think there would be a lot more examples of possible re-infection happening.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Nightingale - glad it was done but did it divert too many resources? Mostly empty so far.



These places could in principle free up existing hospitals to go back to more normal stuff without worrying about sealing off specific covid wards, but only if you've got enough staff. There aren't enough staff. Also diverting all covid patients to Nightingale hospitals is unrealistic when you consider there's going to be what, five of them? A large chunk of the population will not be within viable transport distance of one.


----------



## smmudge (Apr 21, 2020)

I think the problem is not that we don't have an end date as such, but we just have no other plan as an alternative to lockdown which would mean we could come out of it. 

It's plainly obvious to everyone, that as soon as either the govt say we can ease lockdown, or everyone just gets bored of it anyway, we're just going to see the numbers go up again because there are absolutely no other measures now to try and stop/slow the spread, ie test and trace.

Well except for a vaccine, but I don't think people are going to be happy to wait around in lockdown for 18 months at least for something that may or may not happen.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 21, 2020)

Raheem said:


> If a third of people were vulnerable to re-infection, you'd think there would be a lot more examples of possible re-infection happening.


I wonder about the integrity of the tests.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Originally 7 days struck me as the kind of compromise a state would reach when trying to balance between the actual infection risk, and what percentage of the workforce would be absent according to various models. I could sort of see the rationale behind it when they were mostly going for the 'anyone with any symptoms vaguely similar to Covid-19 should self-isolate'. But its not a number of days driven purely by medical knowledge, its a compromise. And then, just like with decisions to describe certain kinds of contacts as close only if they lasted at least 15 minutes, the arbitrary numbers we have chosen for a specific reason then end up getting treated as some kind of fundamental truth, rules the virus sticks to. When obviously it doesnt care about our rules and definitions. So its bloody stupid to take the 7 day value, which was a compromise for a particular situation, and then treat it as though this is the amount of time that actually confirmed cases who tested positive should isolate for, and that any longer is unnecessary.
> 
> So yeah, I would say its not wise. Its possible that they can get away with such things without it making a really large difference because so much of the transmission between people actually tends to happen earlier, in which case it would be another numbers game, another factor that went into the earlier compromise calculation. But its not what you would choose to do if you were actually trying to minimise the risk for every single person, its the sort of thing you might get away with if only looking at the very largest picture, and trying to dodge the very scariest scenarios with their terrible orders of magnitude. If tens of thousands of lives lost now matters, but hundreds still dont, all sorts of sloppy decisions can be gotten away with in that numbers game, and it is tempting for me to put the 7 days thing in that camp


Yep, spot on. The difference between '7 days from onset of symptoms' and '14 days from the cessation of symptoms' is obviously enormous. As you say, the former is to avoid calamity, but the latter is what places like South Korea and now New Zealand are insisting on as they aim for total elimination. That really struck me when I first heard of SK's current policy - test at the airport, ok, fair dos, but then 2 weeks in solitary _if you test negative_. Wow. But if you're after zero, that does make sense.

The right balance is going to depend on circumstances. SK's policy makes less sense here right now cos infection is still so widespread it would not be a sensible expenditure of resources. But the UK's 7-day rule is looking increasingly like a recipe for continuing spread. Worse, it looks like a cynical way to keep people working.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

smmudge said:


> I think the problem is not that we don't have an end date as such, but we just have no other plan as an alternative to lockdown which would mean we could come out of it.
> 
> It's plainly obvious to everyone, that as soon as either the govt say we can ease lockdown, or everyone just gets bored of it anyway, we're just going to see the numbers go up again because there are absolutely no other measures now to try and stop/slow the spread, ie test and trace.
> 
> Well except for a vaccine, but I don't think people are going to be happy to wait around in lockdown for 18 months at least for something that may or may not happen.


This is the frustration, yes. It's utterly mad. The docs in that zoom thing were all very polite and reasonable about it, but none of them had any idea how test and trace was going to be done. They'd clearly not been told/asked a thing about it. 

It looks like we might fall out of lockdown in a similar way to how we fell into it, with the government acting reactively in response to the actions of people and organisations taking the lead. They're beyond pathetic.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> These places could in principle free up existing hospitals to go back to more normal stuff without worrying about sealing off specific covid wards, but only if you've got enough staff. There aren't enough staff. Also diverting all covid patients to Nightingale hospitals is unrealistic when you consider there's going to be what, five of them? A large chunk of the population will not be within viable transport distance of one.


The point made by the doc who raised this (a GP who is lined up to work there but hasn't been needed yet) is that she worried that all the effort was put into these headline projects that look good on telly at the expense of other, more important things. She didn't think it was a bad thing per se, but she did question the priorities of the government that led to it.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 21, 2020)

smmudge said:


> I think the problem is not that we don't have an end date as such, but we just have no other plan as an alternative to lockdown which would mean we could come out of it.
> It's plainly obvious to everyone, that as soon as either the govt say we can ease lockdown, or everyone just gets bored of it anyway, we're just going to see the numbers go up again because there are absolutely no other measures now to try and stop/slow the spread, ie test and trace.
> *Well except for a vaccine, but I don't think people are going to be happy to wait around in lockdown for 18 months at least for something that may or may not happen.*



For the appearance of a workable vaccine, "18 months" (or "18 months at least"!!) is *not* set in stone.

That length of time is repeatedly suggested in all areas of the media, sometimes phrased as "a year to 18 months before we get a vaccine"

But on here, both elbows and Azrael (also others) have allowed for the _possibility_ that a vaccine _might_ become available sooner than that, given the vast amount of research now going on into vaccine development in various institutions in several countries.

Note the words I _emphasised_ though.
All I'm suggesting is that "18 months" isn't (necessarily) an unchanging given.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

You're right, William. However 18 months also isn't a given maximum either. It could take longer. 

I am also hopeful about the power of the energy being put into this and its potential to produce results. But we shouldn't be relying on it. Strikes me that the UK government is kind of relying on some miracle science way out of their mess, rather than proactively taking the steps needed in case  that doesn't happen.


----------



## Callie (Apr 21, 2020)

2hats said:


>


You'll give yourself a headache


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> For the appearance of a workable vaccine, "18 months" (or "18 months at least"!!) is *not* set in stone.
> 
> That length of time is repeatedly suggested in all areas of the media, sometimes phrased as "a year to 18 months before we get a vaccine"
> 
> ...



There's also a distinction between a tested, effective vaccine existing and it being available on the vast scale needed. International co-operation could also be a sticking point here.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You're right, William. However 18 months also isn't a given maximum either. It could take longer.
> 
> I am also hopeful about the power of the energy being put into this and its potential to produce results. But we shouldn't be relying on it. *Strikes me that the UK government is kind of relying on some miracle science way out of their mess, rather than proactively taking the steps needed in case  that doesn't happen*.



Oh, I definitely agree with that in terms of the Government. 
Just waiting for the vaccine is no policy at all


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> There's also a distinction between a tested, effective vaccine existing and it being available on the vast scale needed. International co-operation could also be a sticking point here.



Very fair point.
But (just IMO) I'm actually mildly positive about the prospects for international co-operation for something as vitally important and necessary as a (reliable) vaccine.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Oh, I definitely agree with that in terms of the Government.
> Just waiting for the vaccine is no policy at all


I'm increasingly reaching the conclusion that this has been their approach to lockdown as well. Stay home, protect the NHS, and build the shiny new facilities. There, job done. No, not job done. Disaster averted temporarily. That's all. Now the work starts...


----------



## weltweit (Apr 21, 2020)

I hope UK industry manufactures piles of PPE and we can become more independent of foreign suppliers. I think scrubs, gowns and aprons could be relatively easily made. Recyclable and sterilisable visors also are already being made but probably not yet in enough volumes, surgical masks could be made here but I don't know about the higher spec 3M type. Gloves might be an issue of tooling and specialist machines to manufacture. I think at the moment the majority of rubber gloves are made in Asia with a fairly high level of automation.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I hope UK industry manufactures piles of PPE and we can become more independent of foreign suppliers. I think scrubs, gowns and aprons could be relatively easily made. Recyclable and sterilisable visors also are already being made but probably not yet in enough volumes, surgical masks could be made here but I don't know about the higher spec 3M type. Gloves might be an issue of tooling and specialist machines to manufacture. I think at the moment the majority of rubber gloves are made in Asia with a fairly high level of automation.


Plus, the obvious point made in the zoomcast - lovely smooth procurement chains break down during a crisis, so there is really no substitute for a good old-fashioned stockpile. It may look inefficient, but this isn't a capitalist business you are running. It is a public service. Empty hospital beds may also look inefficient, but they are also a necessary part of a well-run health service.

It is painfully obvious that the NHS has been cut back to the bone following principles of business management. Probably on the instruction of management consultants without a single medical qualification.


----------



## Supine (Apr 21, 2020)

I'd be amazed if a vaccine was proved to work   - and widely available - within 2-3 years. I really hope it will be, but the scale up in manufacturing from CT to worldwide volume will be a huge logistical problem.

I'm sure vaccines will be manufactured at risk but even so I'd expect they will only be available to older or vulnerable people for quiet some time.

About 8 years ago I worked on a team to cost a government funded flu vaccine manufacturing factory. The idea was the facility would sit unused ready to manufacture something like this. We developed costs and a project plan but the investment never happened.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 21, 2020)

Supine said:


> *I'd be amazed if a vaccine was proved to work   - and widely available - within 2-3 years. *I really hope it will be, but the scale up in manufacturing from CT to worldwide volume will be a huge logistical problem.
> 
> I'm sure vaccines will be manufactured at risk but even so I'd expect they will only be available to older or vulnerable people for quiet some time.
> 
> About 8 years ago I worked on a team to cost a government funded flu vaccine manufacturing factory. The idea was the facility would sit unused ready to manufacture something like this. We developed costs and a project plan but the investment never happened.



My gut reaction to the bolded bit is that 2 to 3 years is on the outside edge of extreme pessimism -- given the amount of research currently going on.

I've no more knowledge or prediction skills than you, but let's just say that I'm (somewhat) less pessimistic.


----------



## Supine (Apr 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> My gut reaction to the bolded bit is that 2 to 3 years is on the outside edge of extreme pessimism -- given the amount of research currently going on.
> 
> I've no more knowledge or prediction skills than you, but let's just say that I'm (somewhat) less pessimistic.



You are. I've worked in the pharmaceutical supply chain and product development for almost thirty years. Hope your right though


----------



## zahir (Apr 21, 2020)

New episode of the Covid Report


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

Supine said:


> I'd be amazed if a vaccine was proved to work   - and widely available - within 2-3 years. I really hope it will be, but the scale up in manufacturing from CT to worldwide volume will be a huge logistical problem.


Isn't the logistical problem of scaling up the bit that could be expedited in a way we have never seen before? This thing has brought the world to a halt - there is incentive for governments around the world to invest billions in making sure a vaccine, once made, becomes available asap at least in the countries that can afford those billions.

 My worry would be less about us in the UK, and more about the distribution of a vaccine to poorer parts of the world. Bit like HIV drugs that took years and years to reach Africa. There will need to be pressure kept up to make this equitable.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I wonder about the integrity of the tests.


Or, it could be that there's nothing wrong with testing, but the results are mundane. As far as I understand (more than happy to be corrected), the presence of antibodies is something that develops over time post-infection, so variance between participants may not be so alarming. The article suggests that some people had levels below what was expected, but this is early research, so what would the yardstick be?


----------



## 2hats (Apr 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> My gut reaction to the bolded bit is that 2 to 3 years is on the outside edge of extreme pessimism -- given the amount of research currently going on.
> 
> I've no more knowledge or prediction skills than you, but let's just say that I'm (somewhat) less pessimistic.


One leading UK group with a novel vaccine is expecting 18-24 months at best to go from where they are (post animal model/pre human trials) to verification, (hopefully) approval and mass production.

Another UK group's vaccine will enter human clinical trials later this week at a London hospital. The lead researcher was talking earlier today of the issues they will have in scaling up and thought it would take 2+ years to get to hundreds of millions of units.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> surgical masks could be made here but I don't know about the higher spec 3M type.


I mentioned the other day that I know someone who works in a factory in Co Durham making the 95% 3M masks. Not sure, but I think that's the only place they are manufactured in Europe. 

I spoke to him yesterday. I wasn't able to get anything scandalous out of him, but the basic picture is that the masks are being sent all over Europe, including but not especially the UK. 

Think the issue, if there is one, is likely to be with the Government, though. There seems to be a pattern of supplies being offered and turned down. It would be unreasonable, in those circumstances, to expect manufacturers not to send their products to buyers that actually want them.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

2hats said:


> The lead researcher was talking earlier today of the issues they will have in scaling up and thought it would take 2+ years to get to hundreds of millions of units.


If I were a politician hearing that, I'd be asking what they would need to speed that up. Imagine you have the world's resources at your disposal, what could you do with them? Maybe it's nothing, but I  would doubt that.


----------



## Supine (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Isn't the logistical problem of scaling up the bit that could be expedited in a way we have never seen before



Yes and all the effort will be done. There is plenty of talk about starting to build manufacturing capability now - at risk - before the final product is determined. 

I'm sure it's worth doing but it's hard in the current climate. I'm working on projects at the moment that are stuck as pharma factories are not letting people on site or equipment suppliers can't staff equipment builds. It's a really difficult time to get stuff done.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 21, 2020)

2hats said:


> One leading UK group with a novel vaccine is expecting 18-24 months at best to go from where they are (post animal model/pre human trials) to verification, (hopefully) approval and mass production.
> 
> Another UK group's vaccine will enter human clinical trials later this week at a London hospital. The lead researcher was talking earlier today of the issues they will have in scaling up and thought it would take 2+ years to get to hundreds of millions of units.



Points taken 

Is it the mass production aspect that would be the biggest part of the delay then?

littlebabyjesus was suggesting just above (#8847) that the pressure to scale up vaccine production ASAP would be pretty large.

I'm convinced I've also seen recent discussion on here concerning shorter timeframes for vaccine verification -- meaning a shorter timeframe just as a possibility.

I'll let those who've talked (informedly) along those lines add their bit if they want to -- I'm no scientist .


----------



## Azrael (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You're right, William. However 18 months also isn't a given maximum either. It could take longer.
> 
> I am also hopeful about the power of the energy being put into this and its potential to produce results. But we shouldn't be relying on it. Strikes me that the UK government is kind of relying on some miracle science way out of their mess, rather than proactively taking the steps needed in case  that doesn't happen.


Exactly my position. Since so much of the failure to develop a (human) coronavirus vaccine to date rests on lack of will and resources, I'm cautiously optimistic that one will be available a lot sooner than the 18 months mantra.

But it can't be relied on, and its absence mustn't become an excuse for inactivity. Not only do we have the tools to fight SARS-CoV-2 without a vaccine, they successfully eliminated its predecessor from the face of the earth. Wish advocates of test/trace/isolate in the media made a lot more of this. Yes, it was a different disease, but you must fight your corner with all you have.

Thankfully it appears that New Zealand and now Australia's successes are having a real impact here, with the _Mail_ claiming that Johnson, terrified by his ICU experience, wants to get Britain close to where Australia is. We'll see.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 21, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Thankfully it appears that New Zealand and now Australia's successes are having a real impact here, with the _Mail_ claiming that Johnson, terrified by his ICU experience, wants to get Britain close to where Australia is. We'll see.


That does not fill me with confidence. First, we all had to suffer because of Johnson's arrogance and reckless disregard for this thing. Now, we all have to suffer because he's become born again. _It's not all about him_ ffs.


----------



## Supine (Apr 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm convinced I've also seen recent discussion on here concerning shorter timeframes for vaccine verification -- meaning a shorter timeframe just as a possIble



Shorter timeframes for repurposed medicines are much easier. Drugs like remdesivir or kaletra have already proven safe in humans so trials to determine efficacy with covid are shorter and can be fast tracked. 

New vaccines are a different ball game. They simply have to be proven safe before it's safe to prove that they work. There is lots of streamlining with regulators now so world records will be broken in getting vaccines through the regulatory hurdles. They must be proven safe and trials take time. The consequence of getting that wrong would be huge. 

Human trials are starting this week so it looks like the industry is stepping up. Remember though, most pharma products fail clinical trials so don't get too excited about any particular vaccine that makes it into the news.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If I were a politician hearing that, I'd be asking what they would need to speed that up. Imagine you have the world's resources at your disposal, what could you do with them? Maybe it's nothing, but I  would doubt that.


One of the novel vaccines lends itself to being scaled up massively, very quickly (it's synthetic so faster than cell line production plus it uses the recipients own body to manufacture the antigens rather than having to produce them all in vitro and then introduce them directly). But because it is novel they need to take the time to be sure it is safe. Though it's already demonstrated promise in animal models and is now scheduled for human trials later in June, perhaps yielding first results by September.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That does not fill me with confidence. First, we all had to suffer because of Johnson's arrogance and reckless disregard for this thing. Now, we all have to suffer because he's become born again. _It's not all about him_ ffs.


Unfortunately, while he's P.M., it is about him. I'd happily have Johnson quarantined to an island with anyone fool enough to move in, but when the alternative is "run it hot" hard right fanatics, I'll put up with the oaf if it moves Britain to the only policy that offers us a way out. 

All that currently stands between us and "let it rip" are Johnson and Hancock. Dear God, what a shite state of affairs to be in.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If I were a politician hearing that, I'd be asking what they would need to speed that up.



You'd be fuck all use in the British government then.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Is it the mass production aspect that would be the biggest part of the delay then?


One aspect. Before that there is collecting sufficient data to prove safety to the satisfaction of the regulatory authorities.


> I'm convinced I've also seen recent discussion on here concerning shorter timeframes for vaccine verification -- meaning a shorter timeframe just as a possibility.


Yes. So the entire process might only take 2 years, instead of 5, 8 or 10 years.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 21, 2020)

To illustrate how precarious things are, while the Torygraph news section's shockingly returned to reporting actual news, op-ed's split between those arguing for a return to the old school public health approach used so successfully in Asia, and laissez-faire fanatics who've engineered a false choice between years of lockdown and taking it on the chin.

They're deaf to the third option of suppressing the virus via contact tracing because making "hard choices" between horrific death tolls suits their faux-macho temperament, and their small state dogma makes them unable to conceive of effective government action.

This wretched defeatism is the opposite of the strongman image they have of themselves, but they're blind to that, too.


----------



## Part-timah (Apr 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> My gut reaction to the bolded bit is that 2 to 3 years is on the outside edge of extreme pessimism -- given the amount of research currently going on.
> 
> I've no more knowledge or prediction skills than you, but let's just say that I'm (somewhat) less pessimistic.



Have you learned nothing from the last few months? The safety blanket of what you want to believe isn’t real.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 21, 2020)

All these vaccine predictions are surely a needless distraction. Maybe it'll come in a few months, maybe a few years, who knows. We know multiple teams are working as fast as they can, and are being given resources. That's the important thing.

Focus is best spent on the two things that can help now: building up a robust suppression system so lockdown can be eased; and ensuring doctors have discretion to use any therapeutics they consider useful (alongside, not instead of, clinical trials).


----------



## two sheds (Apr 21, 2020)

Errrm when they trial corona vaccines do they give the vaccine and then actually infect them or let them wander round and see whether they get infected? 

The former seems the only practical one but a bit fucking dodgy for the people in the trial


----------



## editor (Apr 21, 2020)

Fucking landlord scum 



> Tenants who asked their billionaire landlord for a rent reduction during the coronavirus pandemic were told to use the money they would have spent on lunches and holidays to pay the full amount due.
> 
> More than 100 residents living in a block in Somerford Grove, east London, signed a letter addressed to their management estate agency and the building’s corporate landlords asking for a 20% reduction in rent and an agreement that no tenant would be evicted during the coronavirus pandemic.
> 
> ...











						Tenants told to use lunch and holiday savings to pay full rent
					

London agent for billionaire landlord turns down residents’ request for coronavirus relief




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## two sheds (Apr 22, 2020)

editor said:


> Fucking landlord scum
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> Christodoulou owns several properties and hotels across the UK and has appeared on the Sunday Times Rich List. There is no suggestion he was personally aware of the tenants’ request when it was initially made, or the agent’s response.



in which case they should have had his name in the headline to make him aware


----------



## Azrael (Apr 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Errrm when they trial corona vaccines do they give the vaccine and then actually infect them or let them wander round and see whether they get infected?
> 
> The former seems the only practical one but a bit fucking dodgy for the people in the trial


Oxford team sounded like they'd rely on people picking it up in the wild, but a suppression strategy would make that unlikely.

Considering our government planned to infect 60-80% of the population without their consent, in the circumstances, deliberately infecting young, fit volunteers with a low dose on the basis of informed consent, no co-morbidities and their choice of treatments should they deteriorate may be something a team would consider. Wouldn't like to get that past an ethics committee, but even so.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Errrm when they trial corona vaccines do they give the vaccine and then actually infect them or let them wander round and see whether they get infected?
> 
> The former seems the only practical one but a bit fucking dodgy for the people in the trial


Vaccine trial design can be an ethical minefield.

For high risk pathogens you would look for appropriate immune system response - immunogenicity testing - rather than intentionally exposing them to live virus.


----------



## Ms T (Apr 22, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Thanks Quimmy.
> 
> I don't even look at the tube - there's absolutely no way I'm getting on the tube at the moment though. Reckon that's probably the highest infection risk place anywhere in London.



I got the tube today. 3 people in my carriage at Brixton at 1030 and not even that when I got off at Oxford Circus. Central London was deserted. I did get a taxi home though because I wouldn’t have felt safe on the tube at 10pm, purely because it’s so empty.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 22, 2020)

This is true 2hats , but given that the regulating bodies of the medical profession have, to date, done nothing to censure its leaders for flouting the Nuremberg Code and enlisting the entire population in a grotesque medical experiment without their consent, any processed concern about "ethics" for a tiny group of consenting volunteers must be the ultimate example of form over substance!

I of course hope it's unnecessary, but don't want to hear any empty concern from any regulator willing to wave through "herd immunity". If our supposed guardians of medical ethics gave a damn about safeguarding patients, they'd have been screaming blue murder a month ago.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 22, 2020)

smmudge said:


> I think the problem is not that we don't have an end date as such, but we just have no other plan as an alternative to lockdown which would mean we could come out of it.
> 
> It's plainly obvious to everyone, that as soon as either the govt say we can ease lockdown, or everyone just gets bored of it anyway, we're just going to see the numbers go up again because there are absolutely no other measures now to try and stop/slow the spread, ie test and trace.
> 
> Well except for a vaccine, but I don't think people are going to be happy to wait around in lockdown for 18 months at least for something that may or may not happen.




And then we'll see a situation develop where the dead are seen to be a price worth paying so long as life can get back to normal, and a richer/poorer binary situation getting entrenched in which the rich can self isolate more easily than poor people (doorstep deliveries of everything, big comfortable cars, paying for tests, second homes, exclusive shops, decent PPE, private open spaces and gyms, gated communities, paid for security...)

Sorry. I guess this should go on the Endtimes thread rather than here.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> There's also a distinction between a tested, effective vaccine existing and it being available on the vast scale needed. International co-operation could also be a sticking point here.



Not to mention possible injurious effects of the vaccine itself. A quick gallop through safety testing could be a problem in the longer term.

Please note this is not an anti vaccination post. Adverse reactions can and do occur.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Points taken
> 
> Is it the mass production aspect that would be the biggest part of the delay then?
> 
> ...




We haven't even got through the research and development stage yet.  Trying to develop an effective vaccine will just take as long as it takes. Throwing money at that bit of the problem won't help it go very much faster. They can be working on manufacture and distribution and setting up testing etc in advance, having all that ready to go at a moments notice. But the R&D bit can't be skimped or rushed.


ETA
Although, hopefully, some of the work done so far might yield good results.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 22, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Exactly my position. Since so much of the failure to develop a (human) coronavirus vaccine to date rests on lack of will and resources, I'm cautiously optimistic that one will be available a lot sooner than the 18 months mantra.
> 
> But it can't be relied on, and its absence mustn't become an excuse for inactivity. Not only do we have the tools to fight SARS-CoV-2 without a vaccine, they successfully eliminated its predecessor from the face of the earth. Wish advocates of test/trace/isolate in the media made a lot more of this. Yes, it was a different disease, but you must fight your corner with all you have.
> 
> Thankfully it appears that New Zealand and now Australia's successes are having a real impact here, with the _Mail_ claiming that Johnson, terrified by his ICU experience, wants to get Britain close to where Australia is. We'll see.




This is the thing. We DO have the tools and weapons to get ahead of the virus. We are equipped. But some countries just don't seem to have the determination or the basic wit to do the necessaries.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 22, 2020)

2hats said:


> Vaccine trial design can be an ethical minefield.
> 
> For high risk pathogens you would look for appropriate immune system response - immunogenicity testing - rather than intentionally exposing them to live virus.




So it doesn't get tested with a real vector til it's used in the population?


----------



## 2hats (Apr 22, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> So it doesn't get tested with a real vector til it's used in the population?


A latter stage of a trial programme might involve various groups of volunteers from the community during an outbreak. Precise details up to the ethics committee.

Consider ebola. A vaccine candidate was offered on a voluntary basis to people in the area of an outbreak (ring vaccination strategy) - an efficacy trial justified under compassionate use. Subjects weren't intentionally exposed to ebola. Monitoring of the outbreak and serological testing determined how effective it was. It did appear to work but the findings are still challenged by some in the field (it has since been used in large scale vaccination trials and has subsequently received approval from regulatory agencies).


----------



## 2hats (Apr 22, 2020)

(awaits their working)


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 22, 2020)

2hats said:


> A latter stage of a trial programme might involve various groups of volunteers from the community during an outbreak. Precise details up to the ethics committee.
> 
> Consider ebola. A vaccine candidate was offered on a voluntary basis to people in the area of an outbreak (ring vaccination strategy) - an efficacy trial justified under compassionate use. Subjects weren't intentionally exposed to ebola. Monitoring of the outbreak and serological testing determined how effective it was . It did appear to work but the findings are still challenged by some in the field (it has since been used in large scale vaccination trials and has subsequently received approval from regulatory agencies).




So even if the preliminary findings look promising we’ll have to wait to find out if a vaccine actually works in practice...?

And there will be various different vaccines all beings rolled out by different teams?


----------



## 2hats (Apr 22, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> So even if the preliminary findings look promising we’ll have to wait to find out if a vaccine actually works in practice...?
> 
> And there will be various different vaccines all beings rolled out by different teams?


Research takes time. Thorough research takes longer.

There are at least 18 vaccine frontrunners right now, of which 4 or 5 have been approved for human trials at this time. Maybe half have started some sort of trial. The rest are hoping to start conducting trials in the second half of this year.









						COVID-19 Vaccine Frontrunners
					

Stay up-to-date on the progress of dozens of vaccine candidates that are currently undergoing clinical testing.




					www.the-scientist.com


----------



## weltweit (Apr 22, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Or, it could be that there's nothing wrong with testing, but the results are mundane. As far as I understand (more than happy to be corrected), the presence of antibodies is something that develops over time post-infection, so variance between participants may not be so alarming. The article suggests that some people had levels below what was expected, but this is early research, so what would the yardstick be?


I was meaning antigen tests not being 100% reliable. A false negative during recovery could persuade people that they had recovered, (only thing is I gather in many settings they want two negatives to establish recovery) when in fact perhaps they hadn't yet done so.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 22, 2020)

Supine said:


> Shorter timeframes for repurposed medicines are much easier. Drugs like remdesivir or kaletra have already proven safe in humans so trials to determine efficacy with covid are shorter and can be fast tracked.


Do you know Supine if these trials are under way? 



Supine said:


> New vaccines are a different ball game. They simply have to be proven safe before it's safe to prove that they work. There is lots of streamlining with regulators now so world records will be broken in getting vaccines through the regulatory hurdles. They must be proven safe and trials take time. The consequence of getting that wrong would be huge.


Supine which stages that would normally be done are being missed in these new faster trials / approval programs? and what is the implication of skipping these steps? I mean there must have been a reason to have had these steps in normal trials process for vaccines?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

Piers Morgan has a rematch with care minister Helen Whately on GMB in a bit. Credit to her for putting herself through it again after the last car crash!


----------



## weltweit (Apr 22, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Piers Morgan has a rematch with care minister Helen Whately on GMB in a bit. Credit to her for putting herself through it again after the last car crash!


What channel is GMB on?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> What channel is GMB on?



ITV. Tony Blair's on in a minute too.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 22, 2020)

Buckle up folks


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

I have to say. After watching that I'd far prefer to have Blair running the show right now.


----------



## maomao (Apr 22, 2020)

Alistair Campbell has been going around suggesting Blair should be brought back as the only person experienced enough to deal with the crisis. As if things weren't bad enough.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> Alistair Campbell has been going around suggesting Blair should be brought back as the only person experienced enough to deal with the crisis. As if things weren't bad enough.



Well he did make some excellent points about completely rethinking the bureaucracy of government, and quickly. And admitted he made some mistakes in the early days of foot and mouth but learned a lot of lessons from it that could be useful right now.


----------



## scifisam (Apr 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> in which case they should have had his name in the headline to make him aware



If he's the CEO, yup, definitely. He can guide his groundlings who are actually doing the work.

It's a bit of an odd one, TBF. I don't really get why they're arguing for a 20% reduction rent across the board - presumably it's because furlough is at 80% of your pay, but that's a simplistic way of looking at things. It looks like a lot of these tenants are high earners living in flats that were overpriced to begin with, but they'd have needed to have substantial income just to move in. 

Still, maybe it could help other private tenants with less clout. Encourage relatively rich tenants to do a rent boycott, and the tenants who aren't rich will have more backing to keep it going.



Ms T said:


> I got the tube today. 3 people in my carriage at Brixton at 1030 and not even that when I got off at Oxford Circus. Central London was deserted. I did get a taxi home though because I wouldn’t have felt safe on the tube at 10pm, purely because it’s so empty.



That's a point I'd not really considered about quieter tube services. Maybe it's one of the reasons some people are using buses, because at least the driver is there.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

You might have though Whately would have shown up with the correct figures after last week's mauling by Morgan. Asked the exact same question she tripped up on last week about how many workers had died, she had no idea again...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 22, 2020)

__





						UK coronavirus deaths  more than double official figure, according to FT study | Free to read
					






					amp.ft.com
				




I was talking to a funeral director mate earlier, and from cases they have dealt with, he says 50% are from the care sector & wider community, so he's sure the true death rate is about double what the hospital deaths are, which basically fits in with the FT's estimate.

And, a care home owner told me they now have to login to a website daily to report any deaths, and how many are suspected C-19 cases, so more regular updates on care home deaths are likely to start appearing.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Buckle up folks





That thread and the questions that follow is a sobering read.


----------



## pesh (Apr 22, 2020)

Petcha said:


> ITV. Tony Blair's on in a minute too.


nuke the site from orbit.


----------



## spitfire (Apr 22, 2020)

2hats said:


> (awaits their working)




Looks like a run through of their workings here.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The report in the FT is a good one and, no doubt, an accurate one.

But even so there is still one bit that says



> The ONS data showed that deaths registered in the week ending April 10 were 75 per cent above normal in England and Wales, the highest level for more than 20 years.



And you may ask yourself, well what happened 20 years ago? The answer, if I'm reading elbows correctly from an earlier post, is that is the time we started counting *weekly *deaths for the first time. Before that it was monthly, before that quarterly. So it's not just "20 years".

Which is just another reiteration of how the figures, even in this good report, are not really telling us the fuller picture.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Buckle up folks




Interesting that flu vaccines are only 50% effective but reduce effect of the flu - I wonder whether that's what laid me out a couple of months ago. Also wonder whether that 50% covers new flu strains that aren't yet in the vaccine.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> The report in the FT is a good one and, no doubt, an accurate one.
> 
> But even so there is still one bit that says
> 
> ...


Ah! That would explain it. That said, a monthly total is probably more revealing here, given that deaths ramped up over a couple of weeks from low to high but have since plateaued. We will have at least a month's worth of very high weekly figures, which will presumably add up to a record month going back a lot longer. April taken as a whole will make for extremely grim reading.

The rough rule 'take the deaths in hospital, double it and add a bit' was also noted in Italy a couple of weeks ago when they released figures for all deaths in March. That adds weight to this - it's probably a decent rule of thumb.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 22, 2020)

This article gives an overview of the reasons why a vaccine may not work.









						We Might Never Get a Good Coronavirus Vaccine
					

There’s never been a vaccine for a member of this family of viruses, and even if one is found for COVID-19, it may be imperfect — like the flu shot.




					nymag.com


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 22, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I have to say. After watching that I'd far prefer to have Blair running the show right now.


I'd rather have Atlee


----------



## philosophical (Apr 22, 2020)

Whately on LBC says she didn't know about Exercise Cygnus.
She worked previously in the healthcare division of MacKinley according to Wikipedia and both of her parents were Doctors and she is the Care minister.
Barefaced liar in my view, another Tory minister holding plebs in contempt.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I'd rather have Atlee


I'm trying to think of the current world leaders I wouldn't rather have over Johnson. Trump and Bolsonaro. Duterte. Orban. Kim Jong-un. Um. It's a pretty short list.


----------



## maomao (Apr 22, 2020)

philosophical said:


> Whately on LBC says she didn't know about Exercise Cygnus.
> She worked previously in the healthcare division of MacKinley according to Wikipedia and both of her parents were Doctors and she is the Care minister.
> Barefaced liar in my view, another Tory minister holding plebs in contempt.


I wouldn't underestimate any Tory's stupidity, laziness or incompetence.


----------



## maomao (Apr 22, 2020)

I think they think the 'market' s going to come up with the perfect solution any minute so they should just keep shovelling on the bullshit till it does.


----------



## zahir (Apr 22, 2020)

> In this uncertainty, countries that are actively working to contain this virus and keep numbers as low as possible are buying time to build a more informed policy response while also protecting their economies and societies. Others, by letting the virus spread slowly through their populations (only flattening the curve instead of completely stopping the spread), are just gambling with people’s lives, and will be caught in cycles of lockdown/release that will destroy the economy and cause social unrest, as well as increased Covid-19- and non-Covid-19-related deaths.











						Crunching the coronavirus curve is better than flattening it, as New Zealand is showing | Devi Sridhar
					

Countries that are actively working to contain coronavirus are buying themselves time, says Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

pesh said:


> nuke the site from orbit.



He really couldn't fuck it up more than this lot. We're now the 2nd worst in the world under these fucking idiots.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

zahir said:


> Crunching the coronavirus curve is better than flattening it, as New Zealand is showing | Devi Sridhar
> 
> 
> Countries that are actively working to contain coronavirus are buying themselves time, says Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
> ...



It beggars belief that a country as small as NZ has come up with a better strategy than 'Great' Britain. I know all the arguments about how australia and nz are so much smaller population wise but regardless they seemed to figure it out so much faster than us. I blame the scientists here. Channel 4 showed a clip of that chief medical officer giving a presentation a month ago, smiling and joking that he would be up before a select committee if he was wrong about the strategy. Shocking. Damn right you fucking will.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm convinced I've also seen recent discussion on here concerning shorter timeframes for vaccine verification -- meaning a shorter timeframe just as a possibility.


Here's your chance to help (if you qualify):





__





						childrens trial list
					






					covid19vaccinetrial.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 22, 2020)

I'm finding this week probably the toughest so far.  Obviously the death toll is massive and at or around the peak (hopefully) which is grim enough in itself but its also just the growing realization of what a total mess of it our government has made and how they seem to have very little idea of how they are going to come out of lockdown or deal subsequent waves.  This is just being highlighted by how much more competent other governments seems to be and how jealous I am of their citizens who will slowly be getting some freedom back.

I'm working from home at the moment and have been going out for an evening walk most days.  Yesterday it was as busy as I've seen it since the lockdown started.  In fact the only way you could tell the lockdown was still on because there is still less traffic (but lot more than there was just a few days ago) and the pubs were shut.  It would have been impossible to tell otherwise.

I won't be going out at that time again.  I need another strategy.  As lbj said upthread it feels like the country will just stumble out of lockdown in the same way we stumbled in with the government being reactive without much clue on how to manage it all.   I feel another ramping it up to blame the people coming on.  I almost expect the government to launch a special 'grass your neighbour' hotline soon.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I'm finding this week probably the toughest so far.  Obviously the death toll is massive and at or around the peak (hopefully) which is grim enough in itself but its also just the growing realization of what a total mess of it our government has made and how they seem to have very little idea of how they are going to come out of lockdown or deal subsequent waves.  This is just being highlighted by how much more competent other governments seems to be and how jealous I am of their citizens who will slowly be getting some freedom back.
> 
> I'm working from home at the moment and have been going out for an evening walk most days.  Yesterday it was as busy as I've seen it since the lockdown started.  In fact the only way you could tell the lockdown was still on because there is still less traffic (but lot more than there was just a few days ago) and the pubs were shut.  It would have been impossible to tell otherwise.
> 
> I won't be going out at that time again.  I need another strategy.  As lbj said upthread it feels like the country will just stumble out of lockdown in the same way we stumbled in with the government being reactive without much clue on how to manage it all.   I feel another ramping it up to blame the people coming on.  I almost expect the government to launch a special 'grass your neighbour' hotline soon.


One of the main reasons I watched that doctors webcast last night was to find out what they know about government plans. I got the answer I feared I would get. They know exactly as much as I know, ie fuck all. There is no plan.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 22, 2020)

Semi-good news on hospitalisaiton figures. They're falling, most sharply in London, which is showing a curve similar to those I've seen in better-managed countries like Switzerland, down now by around 25% from peak. Bit concerning that other areas are not falling as much/at all, but hopefully that's just a bit of a time lag, London being the first, and hardest hit, area.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Apr 22, 2020)

Ms T said:


> I got the tube today. 3 people in my carriage at Brixton at 1030 and not even that when I got off at Oxford Circus. Central London was deserted. I did get a taxi home though because I wouldn’t have felt safe on the tube at 10pm, purely because it’s so empty.


Well that's very interesting. Perhaps the tube is safer after all.

I just imagine this miasma of disease swirling around down there and it puts me off.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Semi-good news on hospitalisaiton figures. They're falling, most sharply in London, which is showing a curve similar to those I've seen in better-managed countries like Switzerland, down now by around 30% from peak. Bit concerning that other areas are not falling as much/at all, but hopefully that's just a bit of a time lag, London being the first, and hardest hit, area.



Yes, hopefully just the way a lot of the country seems to be behind London by a week or two.  One of the few good things the government did was put the country into shutdown at the same time.  It did look initially like they were going to do a phased approach starting with London.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'm trying to think of the current world leaders I wouldn't rather have over Johnson. Trump and Bolsonaro. Duterte. Orban. Kim Jong-un. Um. It's a pretty short list.


How do you think Teresa May would  have handled it?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> How do you think Teresa May would  have handled it?


Better than Johnson, probably. She probably would not have taken two weeks off work in February, for starters.

It is an exceedingly low bar, though. Johnson wasn't asleep at the wheel. He was parked up in a lay-by making out with his girlfriend in the back seat.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Better than Johnson, probably. She probably would not have taken two weeks off work in February, for starters.
> 
> It is an exceedingly low bar, though.


I'm not convinced a May/Javid partnership would have splashed as much  cash tbh


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 22, 2020)

I think Theresa May would have at least grasped the severity of the situation and tried her best to do something about it. She probably would have done a bad job but she wouldn't have just tried to bluster it away.


----------



## robsean (Apr 22, 2020)

Strongly and stably?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I'm not convinced a May/Javid partnership would have splashed as much  cash tbh



I agree. May would have never loosened the purse strings to this extent.


----------



## DotCommunist (Apr 22, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> she wouldn't have just tried to bluster it away.


Nothing has changed


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 22, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I think Theresa May would have at least grasped the severity of the situation and tried her best to do something about it. She probably would have done a bad job but she wouldn't have just tried to bluster it away.


busted by the cops trying to run through a wheat field on a non-essential journey


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I'm not convinced a May/Javid partnership would have splashed as much  cash tbh


I don't see how they could have done much different tbh. There was no real alternative to the 80 percent pay thing, and before we big that up too much, it's well to remember that many other European countries didn't need such a degree of emergency legislation because that's their system already. 

Would have been May/Hammond, btw.


----------



## killer b (Apr 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I'm not convinced a May/Javid partnership would have splashed as much  cash tbh


May's chancellor was Philip Hammond (remember him??)

I'm not sure tbh. I think the money that's been put in place is what was necessary to make a lockdown even possible. How does it compare internationally?


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> And you may ask yourself, well what happened 20 years ago? The answer, if I'm reading elbows correctly from an earlier post, is that is the time we started counting *weekly *deaths for the first time. Before that it was monthly, before that quarterly. So it's not just "20 years".



Not quite. My point was that *I *have only got weekly data going back to 1999. Data from much earlier periods should of existed at the time, its just a question of how its been stored since - I'm not convinced I can get it electronically, but if I could attend national archives in person (which is obviously not a viable plan right now) then I may be able to get it manually. I dont know, I have never seen any of the old 'surgeon generals quarterly review' of whatever it was called back then. I think there was a yearly review too but I dont know if weekly numbers are in that, I dont even know if weekly figures are in the quarterly reviews. But I'm pretty sure weekly figures existed at the time, because very occasionally I stumble upon an old paper about influenza epidemics that has weekly figures graphed.

eg:



In any case even if I had all the historical figures, the figure that came out this week for w/e April 10th does not beat the number for the last week in 1999. So this large lack of historical data doesnt actually make any difference from a 'highest since ....' perspective.

Limits to the death registration system are another issue - all of the weekly data is by date of registration, not date of death. And registration service closures over Christmas probably often affect the numbers and increase the spike the week afterwards. In the case of this Covid-19 pandemic, part of the easter holiday probably caused the numbers to end up lower than they would have done, and I dont know how much the system is backlogged by the high volume.


----------



## Supine (Apr 22, 2020)

Vaccine manufacturing capability has started. A collaboration between universities and pharmaceutical companies.









						Construction of the UK’s New Vaccines Centre Starts Well Ahead of Schedule as Timelines are Fast Tracked Due to Covid-19 — VMIC UK
					

Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre Fast Tracked as Works Progress at Harwell Campus       Tuesday 21st April, Harwell, Oxfordshire:   Construction work has begun ahead of schedule to build the highly specialist facility that will house the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC




					www.vmicuk.com


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't see how they could have done much different tbh. There was no real alternative to the 80 percent pay thing, and before we big that up too much, it's well to remember that many other European countries didn't need such a degree of emergency legislation because that's their system already.
> 
> Would have been May/Hammond, btw.


Also true to say that other european  countries also have a lesser percentage  of state contribution to wages for furloughed workers .but yes I suspect that she would have followed a similar if less bold approach with economic interventions.


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> For the appearance of a workable vaccine, "18 months" (or "18 months at least"!!) is *not* set in stone.
> 
> That length of time is repeatedly suggested in all areas of the media, sometimes phrased as "a year to 18 months before we get a vaccine"
> 
> ...



I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic about a vaccine. My point has been that there is rather an incredible amount of pressure to find a pharma solution with this one, and that necessity is the mother of invention. But that wont necessarily translate into anything on the vaccine front, it could be something else that shows the initial promise. I just dont know, and I tend to ignore all articles that speculate off into the medium term future.

I might have been more optimistic if the years since SARS in 2003 (or other human coronaviruses being discovered in the 1960s) had actually yielded more fruit - our coronavirus knowledge is still rather crappy on some fronts.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> May's chancellor was Philip Hammond (remember him??)
> 
> I'm not sure tbh. I think the money that's been put in place is what was necessary to make a lockdown even possible. How does it compare internationally?


Tbh I'd completly forgotten aboput Hammond. Across Europe swings and roundabouts I suspect but it would be intersting to find some comparisons by head of pop rather than just numbers.I think Portugals formula for furloughed staff is 66% , half state , half company


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Also true to say that other european  countries also have a lesser percentage  of state contribution to wages for furloughed workers .but yes I suspect that she would have followed a similar if less bold approach with economic interventions.


May might have gone for a slightly smaller percentage, perhaps - 70%, say - but otherwise, she would have done much the same because she would have had to. It's nothing to do with ideology, after all, just basic maintenance of order (and not being thrown out of power).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Tbh I'd completly forgotten aboput Hammond. Across Europe swings and roundabouts I suspect but it would be intersting to find some comparisons by head of pop rather than just numbers.I think Portugals formula for furloughed staff is 66% , half state , half company


In Belgium, it's 70%, paid entirely by the state. Employers are free to top that up.

But you're right - 80% is probably about as generous as could have been hoped for.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> I'm convinced I've also seen recent discussion on here concerning shorter timeframes for vaccine verification -- meaning a shorter timeframe just as a possibility.





2hats said:


> Here's your chance to help (if you qualify):
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sadly not -- that particular trial appears to be across England only, and I live in Swansea ....


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> One of the main reasons I watched that doctors webcast last night was to find out what they know about government plans. I got the answer I feared I would get. They know exactly as much as I know, ie fuck all. There is no plan.


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2020)

Regarding the FT article that others have already mentioned...

       Coronavirus death toll in UK twice as high as official figure | Free to read     

I certainly believe in looking at all the excess mortality in the period rather than only the deaths that have been officially attributed to Covid-19. So the exercise they performed where they did this for the period up till April 10th is one I agree with and have done (rather roughly) myself. Unlike the FT I am not prepared to extrapolate this forwards to work out how many deaths there might have been by April 21st. Partly because I dont have a sense of how backlogged the death registration system is, I dont really know quite what size to expect the figure we get next week to be. I'd rather wait for the lag of the actual numbers than try to guesstimate now, and frankly I dont need to know right now, the approximate sense of the scale of things is good enough.

I will quote something from 1951 again (I did so on another thread on Monday) to illustrate why I believe its always been important to use all cause excess mortality for situations like this, rather than deaths directly attributed to the disease.



> "The total mortality from all causes during influenza epidemics rises much more than can be accounted for merely by the number of deaths certified due to influenza. This is something that has been noticed for a very long time. Farr commented on it in regard to the influenza of 1847, mentioning, incidentally, that a similar sort of thing had happened during the Great Plague of 1665. It was discussed by Stevenson in the Registrar-General's report on the 1918-19 epidemic, and was studied in some detail sixteen years ago by Stocks."





> In terms of numbers of deaths there were 6,000 more deaths from influenza registered in the Great Towns in the first eight weeks of 1951 than of 1950, but the total deaths from all causes increased by 25,000. The weather during the early weeks of this year was not exceptionally cold-as it was in 1947 with the resulting increase in total mortality shown in Fig. 2-so that the increase in numbers of deaths in 1951 must be presumed due in some way to the influenza epidemic. Various suggestions have been put forward from time to time to account for the excess of deaths from all causes that regularly occurs during epidemics of influenza. The explanation that at once comes to mind is that the additional deaths were really due to influenza but were either not recognized as such or, if so recognized, were not stated by the certifier as being associated with influenza. This is not necessarily the whole story, however, and other suggestions that have been made hypothesize an "epidemic constitution" or else a separate epidemic of the secondary bacterial invaders of virus influenza.



from Discussion: Influenza 1951 - SAGE Journalsjournals.sagepub.com › doi › pdf › 003591575104400903


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 22, 2020)

robsean said:


> Strongly and stably?




I initially read that as Strangely and Stabbily.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> My gut reaction to the bolded bit is that 2 to 3 years is on the outside edge of extreme pessimism -- given the amount of research currently going on.
> 
> I've no more knowledge or prediction skills than you, but let's just say that I'm (somewhat) less pessimistic.





Part-timah said:


> Have you learned nothing from the last few months? The safety blanket of what you want to believe isn’t real.



I'm catching up with this thread again right now after my posts from last night, and I've been reading this thread daily, and other very useful/informative ones.
As it goes I have been (and still am) learning a great deal from other posters here.

Not from your post though. Cheap abuse isn't information.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

Quite painful... she's completely and utterly incompetent. Prior to this clip she still didn't know how many care workers had passed away despite failing to answer the exact same question a week before. This government...


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2020)

Have they blamed lack of demand for the low number of daily tests yet?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Have they blamed lack of demand for the low number of daily tests yet?



Does anyone know why they can't do the tests on staff in the actual hospitals they work in and instead force them to drive out to distant locations? a) doesn't seem an efficient use of their time and b) not everyone's got a car, particularly in london.


----------



## Spandex (Apr 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Have they blamed lack of demand for the low number of daily tests yet?


Funnily enough,  Matt Hancock is making a statement to parliament right now and has literally just done that.

Prick.


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Funnily enough,  Matt Hancock is making a statement to parliament right now and has literally just done that.
> 
> Prick.



Ah, cheers for the info. I'm not watching it, but I thought this sort of thing was coming. I think someone said it in Wales yesterday too.


----------



## LDC (Apr 22, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know why they can't do the tests on staff in the actual hospitals they work in and instead force them to drive out to distant locations? a) doesn't seem an efficient use of their time and b) not everyone's got a car, particularly in london.



It wasn't very many days ago when our Trust that employs around 8500 people was being allocated 8 tests a day for staff.


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Not quite. My point was that *I *have only got weekly data going back to 1999. Data from much earlier periods should of existed at the time, its just a question of how its been stored since - I'm not convinced I can get it electronically, but if I could attend national archives in person (which is obviously not a viable plan right now) then I may be able to get it manually. I dont know, I have never seen any of the old 'surgeon generals quarterly review' of whatever it was called back then. I think there was a yearly review too but I dont know if weekly numbers are in that, I dont even know if weekly figures are in the quarterly reviews. But I'm pretty sure weekly figures existed at the time, because very occasionally I stumble upon an old paper about influenza epidemics that has weekly figures graphed.



Just a quick follow-up to that. The data for earlier does exist, I can see it expressed by all the blue dots on this graph from the FT article:


Obviously in this format I dont know which year each dot is for, so for example I dont know which year the very highest dot for week 1 is, way off at the top, well beyond 20,000. But I know January 1976 had a rather large amount of flu death, and I do have quarterly figures for 1966-1999 which show the first quarter of 1976 as being by far the highest quarterly figure for this range of time, so I'm going to guess that the highest dot is for week 1 January 1976. I was 9 months old at that time.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 22, 2020)

<posted in error -- sorry>


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Semi-good news on hospitalisaiton figures. They're falling, most sharply in London, which is showing a curve similar to those I've seen in better-managed countries like Switzerland, down now by around 25% from peak. Bit concerning that other areas are not falling as much/at all, but hopefully that's just a bit of a time lag, London being the first, and hardest hit, area.



It's possible that the steady-ish level observed in non-London bits of the country reflects the numbers that they're physically able to admit to hospital. So assuming cases are starting to fall, it could be that a higher proportion of those with severe symptoms are going into hospital, or that people are able to be hospitalised earlier. If so this should be reflected in improved survival rates a week or so down the line.


----------



## killer b (Apr 22, 2020)

I've not heard anything to suggest many (any?) hospitals are physically unable to admit any more patients tbh.


----------



## nagapie (Apr 22, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Funnily enough,  Matt Hancock is making a statement to parliament right now and has literally just done that.
> 
> Prick.


I and many of my colleagues in a London school have not taken up the offer as we needed the tests weeks ago when we actually believed we had the virus. It's a bit bloody late!


----------



## zora (Apr 22, 2020)

Yes, I have heard this (can't remember source) about lack of demand for tests being blamed, with no mention of the 200 mile round trips some people would have to take to their nearest test center, nevermind some people not having a car or being too poorly to travel.
Also was just about to post the same point that nagapie just made:  Seems to me, it would have made sense to test NHS staff in the first wave of so many isolating due to them or a family member being symptomatic, so at least we'd now know who among them has already had it, rather than later on relying on antibody tests...but what do I know...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> It's possible that the steady-ish level observed in non-London bits of the country reflects the numbers that they're physically able to admit to hospital. So assuming cases are starting to fall, it could be that a higher proportion of those with severe symptoms are going into hospital, or that people are able to be hospitalised earlier. If so this should be reflected in improved survival rates a week or so down the line.


I don't think so. afaik the various nightingale hospitals are not full. What has happened, as explained last night by the psychiatrist in the doctors' talk, is that non-covid patients have been discharged as and when necessary to make room for covid patients, so for instance a lot of psychiatric patients have been released into the community at the moment.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't think so. afaik the various nightingale hospitals are not full. What has happened, as explained last night by the psychiatrist in the doctors' talk, is that non-covid patients have been discharged as and when necessary to make room for covid patients, so for instance a lot of psychiatric patients have been released into the community at the moment.



I keep trying to think of explanations for things based on a world where grown ups are in charge


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> the various nightingale hospitals are not full.



Bit hard to fill them up TBH, the one in London has only taken in about 40, and turned away about another 60, because of the lack of nurses.


----------



## IC3D (Apr 22, 2020)

If they tested hospital staff there would be massive shortages.
I am beginning to think that herd immunity is actively being implemented on NHS staff to prepare for the long haul


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2020)

IC3D said:


> If they tested hospital staff there would be massive shortages.
> I am beginning to think that herd immunity is actively being implemented on NHS staff to prepare for the long haul



The thought has crossed my mind more than once, mostly as a consequence of the original plan and various PPE & infection control disasters, but also the tendency of some for cold calculations and certain establishment instincts.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 22, 2020)

Meanwhile in Scotland, about a third of the deaths have been recorded in care homes, which is more in line with reports from the rest of Europe, showing 35-50% of cases are in the care sector.



> The National Records of Scotland figures include all deaths where coronavirus was believed to have been present, rather than just confirmed cases.
> 
> A third of the deaths were recorded in care homes.
> 
> Of the 1,616 deaths where the virus has been mentioned on the death certificate either as a confirmed or suspected factor, 910 (56%) were in hospitals, while 537 (33%) were in care homes and 168 (10%) were at home or in non-institutional settings.











						Coronavirus in Scotland: Total number of deaths rises to more than 1,600
					

A third of all deaths linked to the virus have been recorded in care homes, new figures show.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 22, 2020)

IC3D said:


> If they tested hospital staff there would be massive shortages.
> I am beginning to think that herd immunity is actively being implemented on NHS staff to prepare for the long haul



I certainly think the way they are opening up these drive thru testing centres for NHS staff is certainly a trial run for releasing it onto the public.  Otherwise it doesn't really make much sense.  Why not test them where they work?  

A new drive thru one has opened near me recently.  I know its not all about hospitals but I live in a London Borough that has no hospitals and besides that testing facility at Ikea Wembley is not far.  Odd.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Meanwhile in Scotland, about a third of the deaths have been recorded in care homes, which is more in line with reports from the rest of Europe, showing 35-50% of cases are in the care sector.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



There must be people out there with relatives that would benefit from being in a home who just wont be able to get them the care they need at the moment, I can’t see anyone sticking a parent in a home knowing how prevalent infections are at the moment and what that would mean. Hard decision to make and feel for anyone facing it.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Have they blamed lack of demand for the low number of daily tests yet?



She hinted at it in that Piers Morgan video by saying we need the capacity _and_ the number of people going forward.



God that was atrocious.


----------



## LDC (Apr 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I certainly think the way they are opening up these drive thru testing centres for NHS staff is certainly a trial run for releasing it onto the public.  Otherwise it doesn't really make much sense.  Why not test them where they work?



Because you have to be symptomatic to be tested. If you're symptomatic you're not at work.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Apr 22, 2020)

This is how the track and trace app will work in Aus


The Government's coronavirus app will track contact with other people, not your location
It will automatically collect the phone number, name, age and postcode of a person you are physically near for more than 15 minutes
This information is encrypted and stored locally on your phone. It will only be uploaded to a central government server if you test positive to coronavirus









						Here's what you need to know about Australia's coronavirus tracking app
					

The Federal Government wants people to sign up to a new coronavirus app to track contacts. But what are the implications for you and your data?




					www.abc.net.au


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> She hinted at it in that Piers Morgan video by saying we need the capacity _and_ the number of people going forward.
> 
> 
> 
> God that was atrocious.



I know I keep banging on about Piers Morgan. But why the FUCK isn't our national broadcaster working them over like him. Switching between the beeb and GMB is like night and day. She got away with not even being asked about the care industry at all on her radio 4 interview. She's the care minister.

They've totally screwed this up. Also, I know it was Starmer's first PMQs and a bizarre situation to find himself in but put the gloves on. Raab got a free ride.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 22, 2020)

ice-is-forming said:


> This is how the track and trace app will work in Aus
> 
> 
> The Government's coronavirus app will track contact with other people, not your location
> ...



I can see low take-up for that, especially amongst the lower age groups who are already fucked off enough because they don't think this virus really applies to them much. As this is a UK thread I'll also point out that I have no faith in the UK government to build an app like this that is robust and no faith that other agencies, such as Police etc, would seek to take advantage of the data it produces.


----------



## LDC (Apr 22, 2020)

Track and trace isn't a solution is it though? It's a tactic that has to fit within a wider strategy.

And the only strategic solutions that I can make sense that there are is either total suppression or a managed population infection/immunity until a vaccine comes available (if possible).

Both require different things to be done, and maybe the first is only possible if grabbed and acted on swiftly early on in the outbreak (like NZ). I think the reality for the UK is we have to go with 'herd immunity', just in a managed way. But it is very grim, my understanding is that there will be a very high death toll, just spread out and managed so as not to overwhelm the NHS.

Corrections please?


----------



## treelover (Apr 22, 2020)

> Eddie's last farewell: a funeral in the time of coronavirus – photo essay



This photo essay of an ex miners last days and funeral is both powerful and moving, sometimes the Guardian gets it right


----------



## Part-timah (Apr 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm catching up with this thread again right now after my posts from last night, and I've been reading this thread daily, and other very useful/informative ones.
> As it goes I have been (and still am) learning a great deal from other posters here.
> 
> Not from your post though. Cheap abuse isn't information.



Do you want me to dig out the abuse you threw at me? For having the temerity of suggesting Glasto was not going ahead this year.  I better not mention its unlikely to happen next year either.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 22, 2020)

So the plane from Turkey finally arrives. What a fucking circus.

I presume this was a political stunt a bit like those repatriation flights for asylum seekers where they’d spend a fortune chartering a jet, invite the media along to get it on the front page so it would look like they were doing something. Meanwhile British-made stuff is being exported for lack of orders. Clowns.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 22, 2020)

oryx said:


> That's an interesting point. I lived in London 30 years ago and haven't noticed a difference but that may be because it was subtle and living there full-time I didn't notice.
> 
> There are more cars on the road then thirty years ago, but if you go back further than that London was notorious for pea-souper fogs and had a lot more factories, plus more people using coal fires and chimneys etc.


The congestion charge made a massive difference (though it is getting worse again now). I was out of the country for two years when it was enacted and the change was really noticeable in central London. Of course it would have been gradual.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 22, 2020)

ice-is-forming said:


> This is how the track and trace app will work in Aus
> 
> 
> The Government's coronavirus app will track contact with other people, not your location
> ...



Aside from 'our government is bound to fuck it up' which has already been pointed out, the main thing that occurs to me from that is the massive divide between 15 minutes of close proximity here, and the 'you can't even go past someone in the park' message that's been put out everywhere for the last few weeks. Maybe I'm missing something but I can't see how that can be compatible?


----------



## LDC (Apr 22, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Aside from 'our government is bound to fuck it up' which has already been pointed out, the main thing that occurs to me from that is the massive divide between 15 minutes of close proximity here, and the 'you can't even go past someone in the park' message that's been put out everywhere for the last few weeks. Maybe I'm missing something but I can't see how that can be compatible?



It will be used when social distancing rules relax. Although as I've said above, I'm not convinced it fits into the most likely strategy the UK will use. I think they're throwing everything out there in case it proves useful at some point.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 22, 2020)

So, Labour have been contacted by 36 UK companies all saying they've tried contacting the government about providing PPE and have not even received a reply.

What's going on here? My original question was going to be is it about cost. But if they haven't even received replies then...what the fuck is going on? And instead of these stupid long-winded questions journalists are asking at the conferences, all with get out clauses for the government, why the fuck isn't someone (no, not you Laura, don't be silly) just standing up and asking;

What the fuck is going on? 

Are you just making this all up as you go along?

Because that's what I'd ask.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It will be used when social distancing rules relax. Although as I've said above, I'm not convinced it fits into the most likely strategy the UK will use. I think they're throwing everything out there in case it proves useful at some point.



Sorry I wasn't very clear there. I didn't mean in terms of them both being in force at the same time. More that it seems to me that based on the apparent logic of the two things, either this is going to be totally useless, because anyone with the virus will have left a swathe of infection across the land before getting tested and this will pick up just a handful of people, or that all the recent angst about 2m distancing is actually a bit pointless. Maybe there's a very finely-balanced point where this could identify just about enough infected people to keep a lid on things, I don't know. But the messages look very contradictory to me.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> So, Labour have been contacted by 36 UK companies all saying they've tried contacting the government about providing PPE and have not even received a reply.
> 
> What's going on here? My original question was going to be is it about cost. But if they haven't even received replies then...what the fuck is going on? And instead of these stupid long-winded questions journalists are asking at the conferences, all with get out clauses for the government, why the fuck isn't someone (no, not you Laura, don't be silly) just standing up and asking;
> 
> ...



A few details of what's been offered and not even replied to.

Issa Exchange Ltd in Birmingham that told Labour it offered a quarter of a million aprons and masks.

Network Medical Products in Ripon, which says it can provide 100,000 face visors per week.

CQM Learning, which says it can provide 8,000 face shields per day.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> So, Labour have been contacted by 36 UK companies all saying they've tried contacting the government about providing PPE and have not even received a reply.
> 
> What's going on here? My original question was going to be is it about cost. But if they haven't even received replies then...what the fuck is going on? And instead of these stupid long-winded questions journalists are asking at the conferences, all with get out clauses for the government, why the fuck isn't someone (no, not you Laura, don't be silly) just standing up and asking;
> 
> ...



I've been thinking about this.  The problem seems so simple and the solution seems so simple so I just can't work out how it has got to this stage.  An interesting question would be who is in charge of the procurement of the additional PPE required?  Is it the government is it part of an outsourcing chain?


----------



## LDC (Apr 22, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Sorry I wasn't very clear there. I didn't mean in terms of them both being in force at the same time. More that it seems to me that based on the apparent logic of the two things, either this is going to be totally useless, because anyone with the virus will have left a swathe of infection across the land before getting tested and this will pick up just a handful of people, or that all the recent angst about 2m distancing is actually a bit pointless. Maybe there's a very finely-balanced point where this could identify just about enough infected people to keep a lid on things, I don't know. But the messages look very contradictory to me.



Yeah, my suspicion is the track and trace thing will be useless here at any point in the near future, and it's something for the government to talk about at the moment.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 22, 2020)

Eh...?

Head of armed forces is on the briefing today.  Will he threaten to put the tanks on the streets if people don't stay at home?


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Eh...?
> 
> Head of armed forces is on the briefing today.  Will he threaten to put the tanks on the streets if people don't stay at home?



I'm assuming it's going to be "Our boys give good test" (with inadequate PPE) - but let's see.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 22, 2020)

Or it could be about PPE distribution.

Meanwhile, here's an incredible tale about the PPE stockpile. 









						Revealed: Private firm running UK PPE stockpile was sold in middle of pandemic
					

Movianto was also involved in legal disputes with firm that built warehouse to store equipment




					www.theguardian.com
				




Has to be read to be believed. Guardian won't reveal exactly where it is but give enough clues (including a nice picture) for mauvais to find it on google maps in about 3 seconds. 

But that's not the story.

The story is about the outsourcing to a private (American, surprise, surprise) healthcare company, the selling of that company bang in the middle of this pandemic, that company's legal battles with the warehouse owner, and the holding and distribution rights being sold further to a French company. 

All seems legit.


----------



## mauvais (Apr 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Has to be read to be believed. Guardian won't reveal exactly where it is but give enough clues (including a nice picture) for mauvais to find it on google maps in about 3 seconds.


 

Here, innit: Google Maps


----------



## Supine (Apr 22, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Here, innit: Google Maps



Bloody hell your good!


----------



## 2hats (Apr 22, 2020)

Supine said:


> Bloody hell your good!


Guess what happens if you type 'Movianto, Merseyside' into Google Maps?


----------



## mauvais (Apr 22, 2020)

Not really - you can just search 'Movianto' and look for the one by the motorway 

If you look in the right place there's a big sign saying 'Morley' too.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 22, 2020)

Don't give away your secrets!


----------



## existentialist (Apr 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Don't give away your secrets!


It's OK - 2hats already gave them away a minute earlier...


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Or it could be about PPE distribution.



Yup, you were right.  Logistics in general.  Sounds like there were no workable plans in place on the logistics front and they're having to design everything from scratch. Quite interesting the army guy on the where they are contributing and telling of how unprepared we were as a country.


----------



## phillm (Apr 22, 2020)

Whitty just said in the Press Conference that in the absence of a vaccine or a reliable therapeutic drug combo which he saw as very unlikely in this calendar year that the reliance would be on social distancing measures for the foreseeable.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 22, 2020)

phillm said:


> Whitty just said in the Press Conference that in the absence of a vaccine or a reliable therapeutic drug combo which he saw as very unlikely in this calendar year that the reliance would be on social distancing measures for the foreseeable.



Yes.  They've not been hiding from saying that for while.  Its just what those measures are which they are not able to say at the moment.


----------



## LDC (Apr 22, 2020)

phillm said:


> Whitty just said in the Press Conference that in the absence of a vaccine or a reliable therapeutic drug combo which he saw as very unlikely in this calendar year that the reliance would be on social distancing measures for the foreseeable.



That's been clear in the plan from the outset if people read the research papers, but in the midst of the mess, shit press questions, and the understandable stress we've seen in the last few weeks it has been a bit sidelined, but yes it did come out tonight more clearly. It is grim and it's going to be harsh when this seeps into the public consciousness.


----------



## LDC (Apr 22, 2020)

phillm said:


> Whitty just said in the Press Conference that in the absence of a vaccine or a reliable therapeutic drug combo which he saw as very unlikely in this calendar year that the reliance would be on social distancing measures for the foreseeable.



Social distancing to manage the infection spread. Slow and manage that and the corresponding death rate until we get immunity from either a vaccine and/or population exposure and immunity. Testing and track and trace and all the rest of those things are almost red herrings I think to the wider plan.


----------



## Mation (Apr 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Or it could be about PPE distribution.
> 
> Meanwhile, here's an incredible tale about the PPE stockpile.
> 
> ...


So does that mean that there is currently a stock of PPE sitting in that warehouse that remains undistributed? It's not clear (to me) from the article.


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2020)

phillm said:


> Whitty just said in the Press Conference that in the absence of a vaccine or a reliable therapeutic drug combo which he saw as very unlikely in this calendar year that the reliance would be on social distancing measures for the foreseeable.



Yes this is the expected picture unless some surprising new revelation about the virus emerges.

It doesnt mean that all the same measures will carry on continually through the year. Some will, but others will be tinkered with, different things will be balanced, there are quite a lot of possibilities really. None of them are a 'return to the old normal', but neither is everything supposed to carry on just like it is right now for the rest of the year.

Quite a lot could be read into things Whitty said today. Still no good news in terms of antibody data from Porton Down, it was hard to tell if Whitty was suggesting the tests at Porton Down werent good enough either, or whether he was talking about other antibody tests. I'm a bit out of date on that topic.

I have to say that when Whitty was talking about improved testing in future, I did not detect a concrete commitment to a full on test, track, trace every person type scheme. Rather he was talking about using increased testing to detect increases in infection in communities quickly once we reach some future stage, so we didnt have the lag of waiting for hospital admissions to show an increase. That is important so that you know if something has gone wrong as a consequence of relaxing certain measures, but it is not the same as actually trying to utterly suppress and eradicate the virus by finding every single case you can. This doesnt mean they will never do that, but I still dont really detect a full commitment to it so far. Probably they are still hedging their bets and hoping to get away without going down that route. 

Whitty also went on about how the peak we've just had was not a natural epidemic peak, because of the social distancing interventions, it was an artificial peak. So the peaks would be expected to happen around the country at about the same time, unlike what can happen with natural epidemics. Because the 'lockdown' happened at the same time all across the land. And of course that also means that places that had smaller/later epidemics brewing at the moment when lockdown came, fared much better in terms of deaths. Their emerging epidemics were 'nipped in the bud' in a way that couldnt be said of London or various other places. Anyway Whitty didnt quite say all of that, I added a bit to the subject he brought up.


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Social distancing to manage the infection spread. Slow and manage that and the corresponding death rate until we get immunity from either a vaccine and/or population exposure and immunity. Testing and track and trace and all the rest of those things are almost red herrings I think to the wider plan.



No, population expose is not thought to have been great enough, and cannot be allowed to become great enough again in future, for the 'we get immunity gradually' plan to make any sense at all. All sorts of governments would have preferred if it did make sense, if the hospitalisation and death rates was low enough to allow it, so that we could treat it like the flu pandemics of the 20th century and only do some basic mitigation rather than suppression. But that was not the case (as best we can tell and the models suggest) so they had no choice, the neo-liberal compatible template shrivelled and we got good old fashioned economically destructive social distancing measures instead. 

There has been a problem getting sufficient data about rates of actual infection so far, and maybe with estimating how many people are really susceptible in general too. But those would still need to change dramatically from what picture they have indicated so far, in order for any versions of the 'herd immunity' plan to find fresh merit, currently its defunct and so I cannot agree with your vision of the future.


----------



## LDC (Apr 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> No, population expose is not thought to have been great enough, and cannot be allowed to become great enough again in future, for the 'we get immunity gradually' plan to make any sense at all. All sorts of governments would have preferred if it did make sense, if the hospitalisation and death rates was low enough to allow it, so that we could treat it like the flu pandemics of the 20th century and only do some basic mitigation rather than suppression. But that was not the case (as best we can tell and the models suggest) so they had no choice, the neo-liberal compatible template shrivelled and we got good old fashioned economically destructive social distancing measures instead.
> 
> There has been a problem getting sufficient data about rates of actual infection so far, and maybe with estimating how many people are really susceptible in general too. But those would still need to change dramatically from what picture they have indicated so far, in order for any versions of the 'herd immunity' plan to find fresh merit, currently its defunct and so I cannot agree with your vision of the future.



Yeah, the level seems to be low percentage wise, but it will increase whether that's the plan or not as social distancing measures flex right? And if there's no vaccine then that as a managed option is the only possible route unless total suppression is possible?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

So, forgive me I'm wrong. I'm catching up... but they did actually gently suggest we're going to be in social lockdown until the end of the year, minimum?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 22, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So, forgive me I'm wrong. I'm catching up... but they did actually gently suggest we're going to be in social lockdown until the end of the year, minimum?



There's bound to be some lifting of the lockdown over the coming month or so, but mass gatherings & the likes of pubs, clubs, restaurants, etc., are likely to remain closed for a longer period IMO.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 22, 2020)

Mation said:


> So does that mean that there is currently a stock of PPE sitting in that warehouse that remains undistributed? It's not clear (to me) from the article.



Yes, but some isn't of use against Covid apparently (though a lot is).



> That stockpile is made up of around 52,000 pallets of equipment worth an estimated £500m. While it contains antiviral medicines and flu vaccines which are of limited use against Covid-19, the bulk of stocks are said to be PPE and hygiene products.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's bound to be some lifting of the lockdown over the coming month or so, but mass gatherings & the likes of pubs, clubs, restaurants, etc., are likely to remain closed for a longer period IMO.



How will that even work for white collar workers? Getting in lifts etc? Never mind sitting at your desk next to your colleague.

I lost my job anyway but I assume it'll be WFH until at the next year?


----------



## Mation (Apr 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Yes, but some isn't of use against Covid apparently (though a lot is).


Ok, so does the legal/sale situation mean that the stockpile is currently prevented from being distributed?


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 22, 2020)

Mation said:


> Ok, so does the legal/sale situation mean that the stockpile is currently prevented from being distributed?



That, like so many PPE questions, remains unanswered.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> How do you think Teresa May would  have handled it?


Dunno, but if she'd been PM we'd have johnson and fellow headbangers trying to fuck the whole thing from the sidelines blaming Brussels the WHO, whilst trying to finely calibrate the moment when he used the crisis to get the job himself.


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2020)

Another comment by Whitty today made it sound like I could read between the lines in regards something else I have been wondering about. He was going on about the Nightingale hospitals giving them more options in terms of how NHS resources are deployed in future, even if their raw capacity didnt end up being required for this epidemic wave. I do wonder if at some point they will try to segregate Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patient care in a manner that could make a useful difference to infection control and the rate of R in clinical settings.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Another comment by Whitty today made it sound like I could read between the lines in regards something else I have been wondering about. He was going on about the Nightingale hospitals giving them more options in terms of how NHS resources are deployed in future, even if their raw capacity didnt end up being required for this epidemic wave. I do wonder if at some point they will try to segregate Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patient care in a manner that could make a useful difference to infection control and the rate of R in clinical settings.



Yeah, I took it as, these Nightingale hospitals could take most C-19 cases, allowing many other hospitals to return to normal service.


----------



## LDC (Apr 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Another comment by Whitty today made it sound like I could read between the lines in regards something else I have been wondering about. He was going on about the Nightingale hospitals giving them more options in terms of how NHS resources are deployed in future, even if their raw capacity didnt end up being required for this epidemic wave. I do wonder if at some point they will try to segregate Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patient care in a manner that could make a useful difference to infection control and the rate of R in clinical settings.



I think something like that is about right once this main wave has past.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 22, 2020)

Bit like the old infectious diseases hospitals then? Do we even have any proper ones of those anymore? There used to be one over the fence from my school, occasionally you‘d get helicopters landing with patients fresh out of Africa with yellow fever or whatever (sometimes reported on the news)


----------



## weltweit (Apr 22, 2020)

We have to face it, testing is shambolic, they apparently now have a capacity of 40k per day but are only testing 20k, it looks like they will be miles away from their 100k per day target, of capacity or actual tests carried out. If they can't get to 100k by the end of the month should there be consequences?


----------



## killer b (Apr 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Whitty also went on about how the peak we've just had was not a natural epidemic peak, because of the social distancing interventions, it was an artificial peak. So the peaks would be expected to happen around the country at about the same time, unlike what can happen with natural epidemics. Because the 'lockdown' happened at the same time all across the land. And of course that also means that places that had smaller/later epidemics brewing at the moment when lockdown came, fared much better in terms of deaths. Their emerging epidemics were 'nipped in the bud' in a way that couldnt be said of London or various other places. Anyway Whitty didnt quite say all of that, I added a bit to the subject he brought up.


I was wondering about this today - while many of my contacts elsewhere in the country report relatives, neighbours, workmates and friends struck down, I've seen almost no similar reports in my immediate area. The North West is supposed to be badly affected, but I think perhaps it's not been that bad outside of the Liverpool and Manchester metropolitan areas - my local NHS trust (Lancashire) is reporting 80-odd deaths so far - some of the Liverpool & Manchester trusts are reporting 2-3 times as many.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Apr 22, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know why they can't do the tests on staff in the actual hospitals they work in and instead force them to drive out to distant locations? a) doesn't seem an efficient use of their time and b) not everyone's got a car, particularly in london.


My Trust, which provides services to people across half-a-dozen counties and unitary authority areas, has apparently managed to provide five (5) tests to staff per day* since the testing regime was finally opened up at Easter - involving staff getting themselves (by driving, walking or cycling - but NOT public transport) to either Bristol or Swindon for a drive-thru swabbing 

At that rate, we might all be tested by sometime around next Spring Bank Holiday.

* And that might actually be overestimating how many have been tested


----------



## LDC (Apr 22, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> My Trust, which provides services to people across half-a-dozen counties and unitary authority areas, has apparently managed to provide five (5) tests to staff per day* since the testing regime was finally opened up at Easter - involving staff getting themselves (by driving, walking or cycling - but NOT public transport) to either Bristol or Swindon for a drive-thru swabbing
> 
> At that rate, we might all be tested by sometime around next Spring Bank Holiday.
> 
> * And that might actually be overestimating how many have been tested



Yeah, I mentioned up-thread that my Trust (employs 8500 or so) was getting 8 a day until recently.


----------



## phillm (Apr 22, 2020)

For the love of scrubs ! there is something very sad and very touching about this. Very sad that the NHS in a pandemic should have in some instances have come to this very touching at the hearts and hands outstretched to help.





__





						Facebook Groups
					

For The Love Of Scrubs - Original Group has 48,793 members. The Original For The Love Of Scrubs Group that was set up by nurse Ashleigh Linsdell in March 2020 in response to the COVID - 19 pandemic....




					www.facebook.com
				




This board represents the current processing state of hospitals and whether they accept donations of scrubs from the public.





__





						Trello
					

Organize anything, together. Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, know what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process.




					trello.com


----------



## bimble (Apr 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's been clear in the plan from the outset if people read the research papers, but in the midst of the mess, shit press questions, and the understandable stress we've seen in the last few weeks it has been a bit sidelined, but yes it did come out tonight more clearly. It is grim and it's going to be harsh when this seeps into the public consciousness.


I fully expected life not to be ‘normal’ until sometime next year but him saying it out loud today has somehow still managed to make me feel shocked and sad. 
Wonder if it was planned and intended to start saying this instead of Johnson’s ‘we’ll turn the tide in weeks’ refrain.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> We have to face it, testing is shambolic, they apparently now have a capacity of 40k per day but are only testing 20k, it looks like they will be miles away from their 100k per day target, of capacity or actual tests carried out. If they can't get to 100k by the end of the month should there be consequences?



Indeed there will be consequences. They'll announce a target of 200k by the end of next month and start talking about that instead.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Track and trace isn't a solution is it though? It's a tactic that has to fit within a wider strategy.
> 
> And the only strategic solutions that I can make sense that there are is either total suppression or a managed population infection/immunity until a vaccine comes available (if possible).
> 
> ...


Herd immunity has been tragically misapplied here. It's achieved via vaccination, and is about protecting the tiny number who can't get jabs by starving a disease of hosts. A benign term for protecting the vulnerable has been twisted into its opposite, killing them in droves to allow the most healthy to avoid restrictions. It's morally and linguistically atrocious. I remain appalled that any doctor advocated it.

If nothing else, what evidence is there that it's even possible? Is there a single example, ever, of an uncontrolled epidemic conferring "herd immunity"? That doesn't mean that a majority build up a degree of natural immunity, it means a disease vanishes.

This isn't just a depraved choice, it's a false choice. Lockdown has turned back the clock by driving down community transmission. We can, and must, exit only via an aggressive suppression. Until this is in place, we can't exit. We shouldn't even consider any other option.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 22, 2020)

Thing is, testing in massive numbers isn’t as helpful now that the numbers infected has likely dropped, it won’t confirm that people who think they had it did have it, only had they been tested when they thought they did would it have given some clarity. I know (via gf’s family) that in Portugal anyone can get a test if they think they have it, and it’s been this way for a while, giving peace of mind and some idea about the spread of the infection. 

There will be a lot of people out there certain that they’ve had it (see the numerous people on here and elsewhere swearing blind they or someone they know had it last September/November or whatever - people with the same symptoms more recently will be even more sure even though there’s plenty of other nasties about giving a similar effect). These people will perhaps be out there being a bit less careful than they should, falsely confident, maybe a danger to themselves or others. Given the reported sketchiness of antibody testing not sure how this will be resolved.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 22, 2020)

As for Whitty, he appears dogmatically opposed to suppressing the virus, and was, according to the _Times_, talking about the unscientific nonsense of "herd immunity" back in January (on the basis of the old flu pandemic plan). It boggles the mind how one of our leading epidemiologists has come to believe this lethal nonsense.

Whitty isn't, much as he may think he is, running the government. Hancock is now talking about contact tracing and testing and isolating Covid patients, and Johnston's reported to be impressed by Australia's successes. As is Sturgeon in Scotland, who's now under overwhelming political pressure to atone for allowing the Scottish government to be led astray by a dentist and a gynaecologist (seriously).

Either Whitty gets behind suppressing the virus, or there's going to be moves to replace him with someone who is.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 22, 2020)

Anthony Costello explains the situation well here. Far from being pliant spokespeople shilling unscientific policy invented by "run it hot" gamblers, the medical establishment are the ones in the driving seat, dragging their feet and undermining Hancock's efforts to implement a suppression regime. They invented fake "herd immunity" and they sold it to SPADs and ministers.

There's been far too much focus on ministers, based on the assumption that they've overruled advisors, and not nearly enough on the power and influence of those advisors. Look how Scotland shifted after her CMO was forced to resign over her roadtrips. The advisors aren't the solution, they're the problem, and they need to go.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 22, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Dunno, but if she'd been PM we'd have johnson and fellow headbangers trying to fuck the whole thing from the sidelines blaming Brussels the WHO, whilst trying to finely calibrate the moment when he used the crisis to get the job himself.


Depends I suppose on how sidelined they would have been.No doubt the same public health advice would have been given.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 22, 2020)

Meanwhile north of the border, Scotland's exit plan is out tomorrow, based on "suppression" and "test, trace, isolate".



Devi Sridhar and other leading epidemiologists and public health experts from Edinburgh have now replaced the dentist and gynecologist in shaping Bute House's policy. Advisors matter, with ministers heavily dependent on their thinking. We must focus on who they are and what they're saying.


----------



## zahir (Apr 22, 2020)

John Ashton sums up the UK response.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 22, 2020)

Hancock in the House today, committing to intensive contact tracing linked to testing and isolating cases. He clearly understands the theory and explains it well. I loathe him as an oleaginous Toryboy of the kind we're all too familiar with, but on this, he's right, and has been pushing back against the advisors ever since he first rejected "herd immunity" after the weekend of terror.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 22, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Well that's very interesting. Perhaps the tube is safer after all.
> 
> I just imagine this miasma of disease swirling around down there and it puts me off.



South london makerspace are making those plastic face shields.  you could apply to get one.


----------



## Maltin (Apr 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Just a quick follow-up to that. The data for earlier does exist, I can see it expressed by all the blue dots on this graph from the FT article:
> 
> View attachment 208196
> Obviously in this format I dont know which year each dot is for, so for example I dont know which year the very highest dot for week 1 is, way off at the top, well beyond 20,000. But I know January 1976 had a rather large amount of flu death, and I do have quarterly figures for 1966-1999 which show the first quarter of 1976 as being by far the highest quarterly figure for this range of time, so I'm going to guess that the highest dot is for week 1 January 1976. I was 9 months old at that time.


The source of that FT chart refers to Harry Kennard who I googled.

From a section of his blog (statistics – Harry Kennard), there is a link to an ONS page with daily deaths in England and Wales from 1970 to 2014. That peak in January is January 1970.





__





						Daily death occurrences, England, regions of England and Wales: 1970 to 2014 - Office for National Statistics
					





					www.ons.gov.uk
				




The peak weeks (using Saturday to Friday as a week as they did for the recent reporting) were the week 1 January 1970 (20,444), week 51 December 1989 (18,791), week 1 January 2000 (18,731). Week 50 December 1989 also had over 18,000 deaths reported with 18,258. Highest death total for a day in that period is 2 January 1970 with 3,255 deaths reported.

The blog also refers to another ONS page with an article on excess winter deaths since 1950/51 where you can download the data (not weekly figures) from 1950/51 to 2015/16.





__





						Excess winter mortality in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics
					

Excess winter mortality in England and Wales, by region, sex, age group and local authority.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## Petcha (Apr 22, 2020)

Why has the BBC cut away from the live bonkers Trump conference to get an opinion from their commentator on how its going so far. Fucking terrible.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

See that Whitty's counsel of despair today has got the laissez-faire brigade screaming to end lockdown to let virus move through population to generate "herd immunity". Andrew Lilico probably most egregious example, but plenty others. Misusing this scientific term has been unfathomably dangerous.

Best case scenario is that Whitty's so tone deaf he doesn't realize the unintended consequences of his words. Regardless, he's a menace, and needs to go.


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

Maltin said:


> The source of that FT chart refers to Harry Kennard who I googled.
> 
> From a section of his blog (statistics – Harry Kennard), there is a link to an ONS page with daily deaths in England and Wales from 1970 to 2014. That peak in January is January 1970.
> 
> ...



Thank! I've been absent for much of the afternoon and evening because I managed to get that daily data by speaking to him on twitter (since I hadnt seen the blog), and was doing the same sort of thing as you with it. Its a shame the numbers only start at such a key moment at the start of 1970, when the country was experiencing its largest wave of H3N2 flu that became pandemic in 1968 but was rather late here. In some ways I do think of the H3N2 flu that began back then as our worst pandemic, if I stop looking at such a pandemic as a singular event, and instead consider all the deaths there have been from that type of flu ever since. Most of the bad days in that daily data throughout the decades since is a story of H3N2.


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 23, 2020)

Don't know if it's of interest elbows but Ed Conway (Sky News Economics Editor) has also been producing his own charts, including this interactive graphic of weekly deaths since 1970 :





__





						Nugget
					






					nuggetcharts.com
				



(cursor over each grey dot to see the date). No idea if the data is sound but I think the chart itself is an interesting form of presentation.

Details of his workings on his twitter feed


----------



## teuchter (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> See that Whitty's counsel of despair today has got the laissez-faire brigade screaming to end lockdown to let virus move through population to generate "herd immunity". Andrew Lilico probably most egregious example, but plenty others. Misusing this scientific term has been unfathomably dangerous.


How exactly do you think the term has been misused? Herd immunity can be achieved via a vaccine or via widespread exposure to the virus itself.


----------



## Maltin (Apr 23, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> Don't know if it's of interest elbows but Ed Conway (Sky News Economics Editor) has also been producing his own charts, including this interactive graphic of weekly deaths since 1970 :
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That chart also credits Harry Kennard so it is the same data. I guess he submitted a request previously for this data which is on the ONS site.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

teuchter said:


> How exactly do you think the term has been misused? Herd immunity can be achieved via a vaccine or via widespread exposure to the virus itself.


Do you have any examples of an epidemic generating "herd immunity" and eliminating a virus from the general population? Even if you do, what evidence did the government have that it was even possible with SARS-CoV-2?

They could've said "natural immunity", which is, I assume, what they meant. It's anyone's guess what the virus would do at this point. Would it merge with other coronaviruses, become milder, cycle through the population alongside the common cold? Would it do so while retaining its lethal symptoms? Perhaps people can become reinfected: prior exposure could even make their condition worse.

We just don't know, and it was grossly negligent to try.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

Adding to the above, there is an older, pre-WW2 use of the term, which applied to a disease decreasing when people built up natural immunity. Post-WW2, it's usually applied to unvaccinated people being protected by vaccination programmes. Anyone who's argued back and forth with anti-vaxers will be familiar with this.

If Whitty and Vallance were using "herd immunity" in its old sense, it was a comms disaster. Given the nihilistic presser of doom the CMO treated us to yesterday, I'm willing to believe that, but if they didn't even believe that the "free riders" would be protected, it'd make the policy even more monstrous.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Do you have any examples of an epidemic generating "herd immunity" and eliminating a virus from the general population? Even if you do, what evidence did the government have that it was even possible with SARS-CoV-2?
> 
> They could've said "natural immunity", which is, I assume, what they meant. It's anyone's guess what the virus would do at this point. Would it merge with other coronaviruses, become milder, cycle through the population alongside the common cold? Would it do so while retaining its lethal symptoms? Perhaps people can become reinfected: prior exposure could even make their condition worse.
> 
> We just don't know, and it was grossly negligent to try.


Herd immunity is simply a term used to talk about the effects of a significant proportion of the population becoming immune to an infection. There's nothing to say that it can only be used when talking about total eradication, or only when it offers a certain level of protection, nor that it can't be used when discussing potential strategies before you know whether or not it will be effective.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Herd immunity is simply a term used to talk about the effects of a significant proportion of the population becoming immune to an infection. There's nothing to say that it can only be used when talking about total eradication, or only when it offers a certain level of protection, nor that it can't be used when discussing potential strategies before you know whether or not it will be effective.


Yes, I noted the old use already. That's not how it's commonly used today, and if they did intend the old use, it makes the strategy even more incomprehensible.

It's also tied to the characteristics of a specific disease. SARS-CoV-2 is simply too new -- for all its impact, discovered just a few months ago -- to even contemplate such an approach. We were calling it the novel coronavirus for good reason.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> there is an older, pre-WW2 use of the term, which applied to a disease decreasing when people built up natural immunity. Post-WW2, it's usually applied to unvaccinated people being protected by vaccination programmes.



Who says there's been a change in usage? Natural immunity is one form of herd immunity. Checking in a current medical dictionary, there's no mention of herd immunity only referring to vaccine-related immunity.









						Definition of HERD IMMUNITY
					

a reduction in the risk of infection with a specific communicable disease (such as measles or influenza) that occurs when a significant proportion of the population has become immune to infection (as because of previous exposure or vaccination) so that susceptible… See the full definition




					www.merriam-webster.com


----------



## teuchter (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Yes, I noted the old use already. That's not how it's commonly used today, and if they did intend the old use, it makes the strategy even more incomprehensible.
> 
> It's also tied to the characteristics of a specific disease. SARS-CoV-2 is simply too new -- for all its impact, discovered just a few months ago -- to even contemplate such an approach. We were calling it the novel coronavirus for good reason.


You might disagree with its appropriateness as a strategy, but that isn't the same as the term being misused.

My understanding was that they were indeed originally talking about a strategy that involved building up natural immunity. Natural immunity is one way of creating herd immunity, so it was not a misuse of the term. How could it have been anything else, unless they believed that a vaccine would be available in a matter of days or weeks?


----------



## philosophical (Apr 23, 2020)

I love my neighbour's cat calling round on his daily scrounge patrol.
He does a lot of winning wriggling on his back, purring, and rubbing against me.
I keep a bag of Dreamies to treat him.
Anyway does anybody know if the Rona can be caught by stroking and head scratching a passing cat?


----------



## Supine (Apr 23, 2020)

Like it or not herd immunity is the best thing we can hope for with covid. From vaccine would be ideal but built up from infection is also beneficial. 

The mistake of government was thinking of it as a possible strategy rather than as a desired end game.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 23, 2020)

philosophical said:


> I love my neighbour's cat calling round on his daily scrounge patrol.
> He does a lot of winning wriggling on his back, purring, and rubbing against me.
> I keep a bag of Dreamies to treat him.
> Anyway does anybody know if the Rona can be caught by stroking and head scratching a passing cat?


I don't know, but there was a tiger at the Bronx Zoo that got infected, which maybe suggests social distancing between cats and humans is a good idea.


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 23, 2020)

i think it only re-confirms what we already knew about social distancing between tigers and humans


----------



## hegley (Apr 23, 2020)

. scratch that - bob beat me to it.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 23, 2020)

Raheem said:


> I don't know, but there was a tiger at the Bronx Zoo that got infected, which maybe suggests social distancing between cats and humans is a good idea.




Blimey!









						8 big cats have tested positive for coronavirus at the Bronx Zoo | CNN
					

Seven more big cats have coronavirus at the Bronx Zoo, in addition to a tiger that tested positive earlier this month, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced.




					edition.cnn.com


----------



## Smangus (Apr 23, 2020)

I don't think it's a misuse but the term "Herd Immunity" as used has taken on a significant political meaning beyond the medical which is emotive and unhelpful.


----------



## zahir (Apr 23, 2020)

> Thus, it seemed an entirely logical, if not a somewhat delayed, response of the government to commission a network of so-called Nightingale Hospitals to provide care for Covid-19 patients. It also seemed to accord with the Chinese practice of using purpose-built "shelter hospitals".
> 
> Furthermore, this appeared to conform with the principles set out in the WHO checklist for influenza pandemic preparedness planning, published in 2005. This advised members to determine potential alternative sites for medical care, such as schools, gymnasiums, nursing homes, day-care centres or tents in hospital grounds.





> Members were also to determine the level of care that might be provided in alternative healthcare facilities, and to develop a contingency plan for providing these alternative facilities with the equipment and supplies adequate for the level of care that would be provided.
> 
> It turns out, though – and not for the first time – that the UK was singing to its own tune. Rather than the Nightingale Hospitals being treated as alternative sites, keeping infection out of the existing hospitals, they have become overspill units, with the NHS hospital service still taking the brunt of referrals.








						EU Referendum
					






					eureferendum.com


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> No, population expose is not thought to have been great enough, and cannot be allowed to become great enough again in future, for the 'we get immunity gradually' plan to make any sense at all. All sorts of governments would have preferred if it did make sense, if the hospitalisation and death rates was low enough to allow it, so that we could treat it like the flu pandemics of the 20th century and only do some basic mitigation rather than suppression. But that was not the case (as best we can tell and the models suggest) so they had no choice, the neo-liberal compatible template shrivelled and we got good old fashioned economically destructive social distancing measures instead.
> 
> There has been a problem getting sufficient data about rates of actual infection so far, and maybe with estimating how many people are really susceptible in general too. But those would still need to change dramatically from what picture they have indicated so far, in order for any versions of the 'herd immunity' plan to find fresh merit, currently its defunct and so I cannot agree with your vision of the future.



You say herd immunity is dead in the water but I cannot see any other approach our government is currently taking.  The CMO doesn't seem keen on detecting, tracing, tracking etc (whether that's because personal bias or belief that the country just isn't up to it). So what other option is there for them?

It seems to me herd immunity was the plan and still is the plan.  Why else are they still keeping building sites open?  Why else are international flights still arriving every day and there is zero obligation on those arriving to undergo any form of quarantine?

If they don't believe in herd immunity the only strategy I can see is 'ride it out, don't overwhelm the NHS and see who and what is left at the end'.  That doesn't seem like a strategy to me.

What am I missing here?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> You say herd immunity is dead in the water but I cannot see any other approach our government is currently taking.  The CMO doesn't seem keen on detecting, tracing, tracking etc (whether that's because personal bias or belief that the country just isn't up to it). So what other option is there for them?
> 
> It seems to me herd immunity was the plan and still is the plan.  Why else are they still keeping building sites open?  Why else are international flights still arriving every day and there is zero obligation on those arriving to undergo any form of quarantine?
> 
> ...


Isn't the truth that there is no clear strategy because there is still no clear agreement on what the strategy should be? So we just stumble along aimlessly. Meanwhile, most of the rest of Europe is in the process of implementing their strategies. My impression is that they're holding off announcing anything resembling a strategy until the results start coming in from the rest of Europe.


----------



## bimble (Apr 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> Like it or not herd immunity is the best thing we can hope for with covid. From vaccine would be ideal but built up from infection is also beneficial.
> 
> The mistake of government was thinking of it as a possible strategy rather than as a desired end game.


Possible it wasn’t ever really a strategy as such just the most easily achievable outcome on the table, the route of least intervention and least expenditure, which would have appealed. Their mistake at least in part was using the word herd out loud on tv.


----------



## LDC (Apr 23, 2020)

Novara is a bit hit and miss, but this latest interview with Dr Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard, is excellent imo. Covers the problems with 'herd immunity' and possible ways out of the current situation, and more.


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 23, 2020)

The Times write up of the plan for how


> An army of thousands of coronavirus contact tracers is to be trained within weeks to help Britain to exit lockdown.



*Army of thousands to help trace coronavirus victims* - Times (paywalled)

Archived version here



> Council staff and civil servants are among those who will be drafted in as part of a three-tier system to ensure that every infected person is isolated before they pass the virus on to others.


(...)


> The aim would be to track more than 80 per cent of people with whom an infected person had been in contact within 24 hours of diagnosis. Infected people and those they had contact with would be quarantined until the risk that they could get the illness had passed.


(...)


> They acknowledge that it will require a huge workforce and that setting one up is crucial. A Cabinet Office official said that the plan was to have the scheme running before May 7, when ministers must review the lockdown. “We cannot announce any easing of the lockdown until we know that testing and contact tracing is working effectively,” they said.



To what extent this is about creating mechanisms for actual tracking and tracing, as distinct from having a strategy in place to justify easing the lockdown, we shall no doubt see. Well most of us will.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 23, 2020)

Smangus said:


> I don't think it's a misuse but the term "Herd Immunity" as used has taken on a significant political meaning beyond the medical which is emotive and unhelpful.



Someone else on here was talking about the government 'actively implementing' herd immunity. That is very definitely not a thing.


----------



## zahir (Apr 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> Like it or not herd immunity is the best thing we can hope for with covid.



Does this just apply to the UK or does it go for the rest of the world as well? Are South Korea, Greece, New Zealand, the Faroes getting it wrong?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 23, 2020)

I don't think herd immunity has ever actually been a strategy tbh. What it was was an excuse for inaction - it seems pretty clear to me that the government's unwillingness to act came before anything to do with herd immunity. So I don't think it makes sense to talk about some sort of secret herd immunity strategy being implemented in the background, it's just a combination of a general lack of direction and unwillingness to put a stop to some activities, particularly where there is a lot of money involved.


----------



## LDC (Apr 23, 2020)

zahir said:


> Does this just apply to the UK or does it go for the rest of the world as well? Are South Korea, Greece, New Zealand, the Faroes getting it wrong?



The point made in the video I posted above is that all the different strategies taken by countries that have been reasonably successful need to be followed by 'so far'.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 23, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I don't think herd immunity has ever actually been a strategy tbh. What it was was an excuse for inaction - it seems pretty clear to me that the government's unwillingness to act came before anything to do with herd immunity. So I don't think it makes sense to talk about some sort of secret herd immunity strategy being implemented in the background, it's just a combination of a general lack of direction and unwillingness to put a stop to some activities, particularly where there is a lot of money involved.



If it was a strategy they wouldn't have changed course in response to the increasing fatality rate as that would have been all part of the plan. 

A plan which, if it existed, would basically be a war crime without the war.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> The Times write up of the plan for how
> 
> 
> *Army of thousands to help trace coronavirus victims* - Times (paywalled)
> ...


So they're just about to start doing the thing they should have started doing five weeks ago? Fuck me.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Isn't the truth that there is no clear strategy because there is still no clear agreement on what the strategy should be? So we just stumble along aimlessly. Meanwhile, most of the rest of Europe is in the process of implementing their strategies. My impression is that they're holding off announcing anything resembling a strategy until the results start coming in from the rest of Europe.



Its certainly the right thing to do to let your plan / strategy be informed by the experience of others.  Surely though, there has to be some sort of plan in the first place?  I'm becoming increasingly concerned that it is going to be virtually impossible for the vast majority of the country to not become infected at some point.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> So they're just about to start doing the thing they should have started doing five weeks ago? Fuck me.



Well, that army bloke was talking more about their role in planning and devising logistics rather than actually delivering stuff with their trucks.  I think what will become apparent is that there were no systems or plans in place, no contingencies for how something like this could be done even if they wanted to.  All the plans are starting from scratch and take time to develop.  Pretty mad stuff.


----------



## Doodler (Apr 23, 2020)

The government are like the team on the middle management outdoor adventure course who keep fucking up all their tasks: building the rope bridge, reading the map properly, finding the buried clues etc.


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I don't think herd immunity has ever actually been a strategy tbh. What it was was an excuse for inaction - it seems pretty clear to me that the government's unwillingness to act came before anything to do with herd immunity. So I don't think it makes sense to talk about some sort of secret herd immunity strategy being implemented in the background, it's just a combination of a general lack of direction and unwillingness to put a stop to some activities, particularly where there is a lot of money involved.



There is what became the 20th century norm of 'mitigation' during pandemics, and there is the more dramatic suppression that we ended up doing. 

Herd immunity was just a way to try to justify the former, because it does form part of the underlying rationale for that approach, or at least a description of what happens in practice. But that wasnt viable for this pandemic, so they had to switch to the other approach, which is one that gradually slows the rate of infection to the point that you 'never' expect the required proportion of the country to get infected and gain immunity.


----------



## killer b (Apr 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> So they're just about to start doing the thing they should have started doing five weeks ago? Fuck me.


There's a paragraph in Stephen Bush's mailout this morning (about facemasks, but I think pertinent to a lot of the wider changing strategy) which I think probably throws some light onto this.

_Across the world, governments have been engaging in the same dance: the science on the benefits of mask-wearing is  “finely balanced” up until the point when they become confident that they have sufficient and guaranteed supply of masks to maintain the supply into their healthcare system, at which point, who'd have thought it: it turns out masks are a sensible precaution after all! _


----------



## ska invita (Apr 23, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I don't think herd immunity has ever actually been a strategy tbh. What it was was an excuse for inaction - it seems pretty clear to me that the government's unwillingness to act came before anything to do with herd immunity. So I don't think it makes sense to talk about some sort of secret herd immunity strategy being implemented in the background, it's just a combination of a general lack of direction and unwillingness to put a stop to some activities, particularly where there is a lot of money involved.


Broadly agree they were driven by excuses for inaction, but they were having regular meetings to work out a strategy, and this is what they came up with. That's still a strategy to all intents and purposes. 

It "doesn't make sense to talk about some sort of secret herd immunity strategy being implemented " because it wasn't a secret - Johnson talked about it on breakfast TV sofa over cornflakes.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> It "doesn't make sense to talk about some sort of secret herd immunity strategy being implemented " because it wasn't a secret - Johnson talked about it on breakfast TV sofa over cornflakes.



Yes but they aren't doing that now - but people are still referring to a herd immunity strategy being implemented somehow on the quiet.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 23, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Yes but they aren't doing that now - but people are still referring to a herd immunity strategy being implemented somehow on the quiet.


As you've correctly pointed out, it was part of an excuse for inaction. We're now in a situation where something is being done, but not anything that offers a way out of lockdown. You can bet your behind there are still influential voices arguing that a way has to be found to make it politically acceptable to just give up and let the virus take its toll. Not a strategy being implemented at present, but also not something that has gone away, in all likelihood.


----------



## zahir (Apr 23, 2020)

.


> This is the clearest evidence we have that the different approaches to tackling the Covid-19 outbreak are resulting in different outcomes. This may change as the pandemic progresses but for now it is reasonable to assume that the North’s higher death rates result from lower rates of testing, the lack of contact tracing and the slower application of lockdown measures compared with the Republic.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

zahir said:


>



That does need a few caveats, though, to make sure you're comparing like with like. It might be more revealing to specifically compare Belfast with Dublin.

For instance, the reason Belgium has been more badly hit than the Netherlands isn't really down to anything better that the Dutch have done. It's mostly just down to bad luck, tbh. It's not evidence on its own that the Belgian stricter lockdown was a bad idea.

We've got to be really careful not to cherry-pick data that serves our desired conclusions.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That does need a few caveats, though, to make sure you're comparing like with like. It might be more revealing to specifically compare Belfast with Dublin.
> 
> For instance, the reason Belgium has been more badly hit than the Netherlands isn't really down to anything better that the Dutch have done. It's mostly just down to bad luck, tbh. It's not evidence on its own that the Belgian stricter lockdown was a bad idea.



Yeah and just comparing countries covid death rate just seems a like a minefield anyway.  As elbows has mentioned numerous times total death rates seem really important in all this and potentially a more thorough way of comparing like for like.   Mind, I would still expect the a similar looking graph.


----------



## hegley (Apr 23, 2020)

Scottish government has published their framework now, including exit strategy:
https://www.gov.scot/binaries/conte...avirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making.pdf


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

hegley said:


> Scottish government has published their framework now, including exit strategy:
> https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/strategy-plan/2020/04/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making/documents/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making/govscot:document/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making.pdf



Fans of me boring on about ECDC pandemic documents will no doubt be delighted to see that organisation mentioned in the Scottish paper:



> Scotland is a responsible global citizen – an outward-facing, connected nation which listens to the advice and expertise of the World Health Organization, to the European Union and its Centre for Disease Control, and to our UK and Scottish sources of expertise, evidence and advice. It is by acting and learning with others that the most effective ongoing public health response to COVID-19 for Scotland will be found.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> There's a paragraph in Stephen Bush's mailout this morning (about facemasks, but I think pertinent to a lot of the wider changing strategy) which I think probably throws some light onto this.
> 
> _Across the world, governments have been engaging in the same dance: the science on the benefits of mask-wearing is  “finely balanced” up until the point when they become confident that they have sufficient and guaranteed supply of masks to maintain the supply into their healthcare system, at which point, who'd have thought it: it turns out masks are a sensible precaution after all! _


tbh moronically it may be that this latest delay is mostly due to Johnson being ill. If the rumours about the balance of opinion and power in cabinet are correct, it took Johnson coming back into action for Hancock's test and trace plan to become an actual plan (if that is indeed what has just happened). And it took Johnson actually getting ill, and making his pregnant girlfriend ill, for him to start taking it seriously. What a fucking shower of clowns.


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

More from the Scottish document:



> The Scottish Government publishes on a daily basis: the number of new cases; number of hospitalisations; numbers requiring ICU care; and new deaths related to the virus. In recent days, there are signs that the rate of growth in new cases has slowed. This slowing has only been made possible by the actions of the public in adhering to physical distancing measures.



Whatever happened to the ICU numbers for NHS England eh? In this respect Scotland put England to shame, since England committed a data crime - to publish those numbers for a while, and then just stop. Imagine if that had happened in some other countries, people would have gone nuts about what they were hiding or why they treated the public with such a lack of respect. Did anyone even ask why this data stopped? If not, then so much for our press holding those in power to account.

Also of interest in the Scottish document:


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

Ta for that. The top graph is a good one as it reveals the moment a step-change took place in cases two weeks after lockdown, about when you'd expect if lockdown is working. Maybe not as steep a change as we might have hoped for, but a very clear one nonetheless.


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

I'm not sure how much steeper it could have been, though this is in part a consequence of the fact I havent seen such graphs for any other places, I am not sued to that particular graph at all, my expectations were sort of blank going in, other than the obvious of expecting to see notable change.

A lot of the document is waffle, but here are a few other bits that caught my eye:



> Innovative approaches to maintain and enhance physical distancing
> Continued focus on strong hygiene practices
> High public community awareness of symptoms and prompt action in
> response
> ...





> 1. Effective disease surveillance. We need to understand where the virus is and how prevalent it is.
> 2. Early identification and isolation of possible cases. High population awareness of symptoms, clear action on what to do if you have them, high propensity to act.
> 3. Early and rapid testing to confirm cases.
> 4. Early and effective tracing of everyone a confirmed case has been in contact with over a certain period. This will need to involve digital tools and require active support from the public, as well as support from contact tracing teams.
> 5. Early and sustained isolation of contacts. Chains of transmission can only be broken if those who could transmit the disease to others are isolated so they cannot do so, and get the support they need to maintain that isolation.





> We will also, with the other nations across the UK, need to carefully consider ‘port health’ – the impact of international travel on transmission of the virus. It is unlikely that we will be able to contain the virus domestically, without some form of surveillance of those coming into the country from elsewhere. We will urge the UK Government to have this as a part of their approach.





> Before this crisis we were focussed on our mission of making Scotland a greener, fairer and more prosperous country and this has not changed. But the place from where we are starting has.
> 
> The pandemic has changed the way societies and economies across the world operate and Scotland is no different. In some ways this has driven forward changes that we have already been pursuing such as using online tools to reduce the need for travel. In others it has meant radical action to change how we use our NHS or to tackle social problems such as homelessness.





> We must take these lessons into how we recover from this crisis. The austerity driven response to the 2008 financial crash did not work and worsened the inequality that was part of its cause; we must not repeat those mistakes. Inequality is also worsening the outcomes for those people impacted by the coronavirus. Our younger people deserve a fairer and more secure economic future.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

I've not seen an equivalent graph for Switzerland, but if you look at the progress of their new cases on worldometer, it's clear that their line would be steeper than that. Of course, it's all skewed as well by how many tests you're carrying out and what criteria you're using to choose whom to test.


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

From BBC Scotland live updates page at 13:24: 

uk-scotland-52326197



> Gary Gibbon from Channel 4 News asks whether it will only be the shielded group who will be segmented from the rest of the population. He also wonders whether it was the “wrong call” stop stop track and trace in the first place, given its importance going forward.





> Regarding track and trace, the first minister says: “We all took the best decision we could for the best reasons as we’ve gone through this uncharted territory.”
> 
> We are not through the pandemic yet, she says, though I’m sure we will learn lessons for this for the future but no government anywhere will be declaring success or victory yet.
> 
> She emphasises contact tracing will be a key part of the approach going forward.


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

By the way I may have mentioned this before, but Scotlands daily info includes ambulance data.






__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19): trends in daily data - gov.scot
					

Scottish Government past data and trend charts for the daily updates on COVID-19.




					www.gov.scot


----------



## treelover (Apr 23, 2020)

major news i think, at Pressers, Hancock said all essential workers and their families can now request a test, website coming onstream soon.


----------



## LDC (Apr 23, 2020)

The general plan for the coming months is becoming much clearer bit by bit, and I don't mean that as a criticism of the government particularly, it is a complex situation. Daily briefing today feels much clearer around testing and tracing as a part of that too, some impressive announcements involving that as well. Clear we've passed the initial first peak as well.


----------



## Sue (Apr 23, 2020)

As a vague aside, when did 'presser' come to mean 'press conference'? It feels like a very recent and (to my mind anyway) rubbish innovation.  (See also 'staffer' which seems to mean 'member of staff' or 'employee'.)


----------



## treelover (Apr 23, 2020)

18,000 hired for contract tracing, moving at last.


----------



## treelover (Apr 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> As a vague aside, when did 'presser' come to mean 'press conference'? It feels like a very recent and (to my mind anyway) rubbish innovation.  (See also 'staffer' which seems to mean 'member of staff' or 'employee'.)



I got it from here!


----------



## Raheem (Apr 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> As a vague aside, when did 'presser' come to mean 'press conference'? It feels like a very recent and (to my mind anyway) rubbish innovation.  (See also 'staffer' which seems to mean 'member of staff' or 'employee'.)


It's an Americanism, I think, along with 'staffer'.


----------



## Sue (Apr 23, 2020)

Raheem said:


> It's an Americanism, I think, along with 'staffer'.


And are we American? No*, we're not.

* For the most part.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> As a vague aside, when did 'presser' come to mean 'press conference'? It feels like a very recent and (to my mind anyway) rubbish innovation.  (See also 'staffer' which seems to mean 'member of staff' or 'employee'.)


I think it's a Transatlantic thing. And I don't like either of those, too.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> And are we American?


No siree, dude, we ain't.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 23, 2020)

Raheem said:


> It's an Americanism, I think, along with 'staffer'.



and 'fucker'


----------



## killer b (Apr 23, 2020)

I think it's entered british parlance via the Guardian politics live feed tbh


----------



## existentialist (Apr 23, 2020)

two sheds said:


> and 'fucker'


If that's American, I'll forgive them that. I like "fucker".


----------



## treelover (Apr 23, 2020)

Coronavirus: HMS Queen Elizabeth stays in Portsmouth for crew tests
					

The carrier had been due to sail from Portsmouth on Tuesday with 800 crew members onboard.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Apparently The defence minister authorised the carrier to leave without testing the 800 personel, 

In 2003 didn't the UK Govt basically move an army and its resources half way across the world, something more than incompetence, ideology?


----------



## existentialist (Apr 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think it's entered british parlance via the Guardian politics live feed tbh


It's like some kind of....VIRUS, or something!


----------



## two sheds (Apr 23, 2020)

existentialist said:


> If that's American, I'll forgive them that. I like "fucker".



No I think that's British I was just doing a back formation from staffer


----------



## existentialist (Apr 23, 2020)

two sheds said:


> No I think that's British I was just doing a back formation from staffer


Phew.


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Whatever happened to the ICU numbers for NHS England eh? In this respect Scotland put England to shame, since England committed a data crime - to publish those numbers for a while, and then just stop. Imagine if that had happened in some other countries, people would have gone nuts about what they were hiding or why they treated the public with such a lack of respect. Did anyone even ask why this data stopped? If not, then so much for our press holding those in power to account.



Sometimes my timing in this pandemic has been surreal and I've had to question whether I had a nasty bang on the head and have been dreaming the entire thing.

The intensive care numbers returned this evening for, I believe, the first time in about 2 weeks.

Although I have to say that arent in the same form they used to be in at all, so there was still a story via the old data that has been lost to me since April 10th, but never mind.


from https://assets.publishing.service.g...-23_COVID-19_Press_Conference_Slides__10_.pdf
(via Slides and datasets to accompany coronavirus press conferences )

Below is the last of the old versions for comparison. You can see that regional detail, and the actual raw numbers, are not part of the new version compared to the old. So for example for all I know, the new graph could be heavily affected by changes in critical care capacity over the period. Although Nightingale not being included ought to make that less of a phenomenon.


----------



## Doodler (Apr 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> As a vague aside, when did 'presser' come to mean 'press conference'? It feels like a very recent and (to my mind anyway) rubbish innovation.  (See also 'staffer' which seems to mean 'member of staff' or 'employee'.)



'Presser' does not belong in British English. It's like when young uns say and write 'ass' when they mean 'arse'. Schools need to address this.


----------



## Sue (Apr 23, 2020)

Doodler said:


> 'Presser' does not belong in British English. It's like hearing young uns say and write 'ass' when they mean 'arse'. Schools need to address this.



Absolutely agree. It's a slippery slope -- you let them get away with 'presser', next thing we're all saying drapes and pants and burglarize.


----------



## chilango (Apr 23, 2020)

So are the Tories gonna force everyone back to work but keep the pubs shut then?


----------



## Sue (Apr 23, 2020)

chilango said:


> So are the Tories gonna force everyone back to work but keep the pubs shut then?


Just heard that they may be planning on keeping pubs closed for longer. FFS, only way I get through work some days.


----------



## chilango (Apr 23, 2020)

They don't mind us taking a risk to bring them profits but we won't be allowed to take the risk of social life.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 23, 2020)

Doodler said:


> 'Presser' does not belong in British English. It's like when young uns say and write 'ass' when they mean 'arse'.


Apparently, there's nothing the police can do.


----------



## editor (Apr 23, 2020)

The twats keeping coming 
















						Coronavirus: Police hunt man who pretended to thank care worker and then licked her face
					

The suspect hugged the victim, 23, in Derbyshire, before assaulting her.




					uk.news.yahoo.com


----------



## Sue (Apr 23, 2020)

A step beyond watering the workers' beer....


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

editor said:


> The twats keeping coming
> 
> 
> 
> ...


tbh that sounds like something beyond being a twat, and more towards some very strange and disturbing thoughts rattling around in his head. He may need help more than anything.


----------



## emanymton (Apr 23, 2020)

chilango said:


> They don't mind us taking a risk to bring them profits but we won't be allowed to take the risk of social life.


They have reduced us to mere existence. Eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work and nothing more. That's how my life feels right now.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh that sounds like something beyond being a twat, and more towards some very strange and disturbing thoughts rattling around in his head. He may need help more than anything.



Well yes but more than that he needs keeping out of the way of the rest of us.


----------



## Sue (Apr 23, 2020)

emanymton said:


> They have reduced us to mere existence. Eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work and nothing more. That's how my life feels right now.


Feel exactly the same. And doesn't feel any different at weekends either.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 23, 2020)

I've been reduced to eat, sleep, try to make a nine year-old do algebra until he tantrums. It's better, to be honest.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Well yes but more than that he needs keeping out of the way of the rest of us.


Indeed. Possibly not coincidentally, psychiatric patients across the country have been discharged from hospital earlier than they would have been to make way for c19 patients.


----------



## Part-timah (Apr 23, 2020)

treelover said:


> 18,000 hired for contract tracing, moving at last.



Remember this Government have talked a good game but haven’t delivered. Don’t get yer hopes up.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> As a vague aside, when did 'presser' come to mean 'press conference'? It feels like a very recent and (to my mind anyway) rubbish innovation.  (See also 'staffer' which seems to mean 'member of staff' or 'employee'.)


The first Westminster outbreak was in June 2017. Containment failed



			https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/words-slang-expressions-of-2017.350099/page-4#post-15158711


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

Unlike some days, I quite liked the questions asked in the press conference today. Sadly most of the answers were slippery and uninteresting, but since we have gotten at least some proper clues about their test, track, trace plans going forwards (ie we know they are actually going to bother with that stuff) I suppose I can live with that for today.

Peston asked Vallance about the 20,000 deaths figure he used to wheel out. No replacement number was forthcoming.


----------



## killer b (Apr 23, 2020)

Part-timah said:


> Remember this Government have talked a good game but haven’t delivered. Don’t get yer hopes up.


yeah, they haven't actually recruited the 18,000 contact tracers yet treelover - consider it the next _100,000 tests a day_ until they actually wheel them out.


----------



## Sue (Apr 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> yeah, they haven't actually recruited the 18,000 contact tracers yet treelover - consider it the next _100,000 tests a day_ until they actually wheel them out.


Ah yes. Any mention of how that's going? Last I saw, they were up to about 20,000 and there's only a week to go...


----------



## killer b (Apr 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> Ah yes. Any mention of how that's going? Last I saw, they were up to about 20,000 and there's only a week to go...


well, they keep saying they have capacity for 40,000 a day, but not enough people are going to get tested so they're only doing 20,000 - presumably the testing criteria is currently too tight. So they announced testing for teachers and families, which will definitely boost the numbers I'd imagine.


----------



## Sue (Apr 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> well, they keep saying they have capacity for 40,000 a day, but not enough people are going to get tested so they're only doing 20,000 - presumably the testing criteria is currently too tight. So they announced testing for teachers and families, which will definitely boost the numbers I'd imagine.


So even at capacity, 60, 000 short.


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

Yeah (answer to previous point, not the 60,000 short one), and some of todays slides have testing info on them, including this one about testing capacity. I note it doesnt break the capacity down by pillar, so there are some extra limits to what I could say about the claims or the likely reality.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/880989/2020-04-23_COVID-19_Press_Conference_Slides__10_.pdf


----------



## killer b (Apr 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> So even at capacity, 60, 000 short.


They also announced some further sites to open, and some mobile testing units - I dunno how close they are tho.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> Absolutely agree. It's a slippery slope -- you let them get away with 'presser', next thing we're all saying drapes and pants and burglarize.


Correctamundo.


----------



## Callie (Apr 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> well, they keep saying they have capacity for 40,000 a day, but not enough people are going to get tested so they're only doing 20,000 - presumably the testing criteria is currently too tight. So they announced testing for teachers and families, which will definitely boost the numbers I'd imagine.


As mentioned early only if those people can actually access the testing.

They're going to have to consider self testing at home because I suspect the throughput of a drive through centre is too low to increase numbers significantly. Then PHE have the issue of how to get swabs from suspected covid patients from people's homes to the testing facilities whilst complying with their biological specimen transportations regulations.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh that sounds like something beyond being a twat, and more towards some very strange and disturbing thoughts rattling around in his head. He may need help more than anything.


Hard to know, of course, but I wouldn't 'medicalise' it without knowing more. Weird misogynists do vile things like this routinely i.e. assault women.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 23, 2020)

INFINITE testing capacity - if people aren't taking advantage by driving 100 miles that's their fault


----------



## Callie (Apr 23, 2020)

Testing facilities might have the capacity and the ability to expand on that but that's no use if we can't actually take that amount of swabs per day (and then get them to the testing facility to go onto the test run/batch). 

I think most of the testing facilities are run in batches because the test and machinery doesn't allow 'random access' (sample turns up, stuck it on the analyser....if the analyser is running you have to wait for the run to finish to get the next run on) therefore there are limited windows if opportunity to get the sample on the test run and unless you've got couriers going back and forth constantly transport if samples to testing facility will be batches too.


----------



## bimble (Apr 23, 2020)

I can hear someone down in the village banging a pot with a stick or something and saying woo. Is it that time?


----------



## two sheds (Apr 23, 2020)

get your guns out and go 'bang'


----------



## killer b (Apr 23, 2020)

Callie said:


> As mentioned early only if those people can actually access the testing.
> 
> They're going to have to consider self testing at home because I suspect the throughput of a drive through centre is too low to increase numbers significantly. Then PHE have the issue of how to get swabs from suspected covid patients from people's homes to the testing facilities whilst complying with their biological specimen transportations regulations.


oh sure, capacity by itself is pretty meaningless.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Who says there's been a change in usage? Natural immunity is one form of herd immunity. Checking in a current medical dictionary, there's no mention of herd immunity only referring to vaccine-related immunity.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Far from claiming it "only" referred to vaccination programmes, I was the one who raised and noted its older use! The epidemiologists and public health officials expressing outrage at the time were similarly taken aback.

So yes, "herd immunity" can be used to refer to the effects of "natural immunity" on the patterns of epidemics. I've been saying for weeks that they must mean natural immunity. That usage is different in kind from its usage as regards vaccinations, and employing an already obscure technical term in an even more obscure fashion remains atrocious public information.


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 23, 2020)

Slightly more activity at my end of the street this week...


----------



## killer b (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Far from claiming it "only" referred to vaccination programmes, I was the one who raised and noted its older use! The epidemiologists and public health officials expressing outrage at the time were similarly taken aback.
> 
> So yes, "herd immunity" can be used to refer to the effects of "natural immunity" on the patterns of epidemics. I've been saying for weeks that they must mean natural immunity. That usage is different in kind from its usage as regards vaccinations, and employing an already obscure technical term in an even more obscure fashion remains atrocious public information.


I don't think herd immunity is a particularly obscure concept - it's been a key part of the very widespread and high profile pro/anti-vax debates of the past decade or so.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think herd immunity is a particularly obscure concept - it's been a key part of the very widespread and high profile pro/anti-vax debates of the past decade or so.


Absolutely, as I said, anyone who's argued with anti-vaxers will be familiar with it. Not everyone has. From their comments at the time, it was clear that several journalists had never heard of it; and those laissez faire fundies who continue to tout it still haven't grasped its basics.


----------



## killer b (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Absolutely, as I said, anyone who's argued with anti-vaxers will be familiar with it. Not everyone has. From their comments at the time, it was clear that several journalists had never heard of it; and those laissez faire fundies who continue to tout it still haven't grasped its basics.


Most people who've had their child vaccinated in the last ten years or so is likely to have come across the concept IMO, not just people who argue with anti-vaxers.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Hard to know, of course, but I wouldn't 'medicalise' it without knowing more. Weird misogynists do vile things like this routinely i.e. assault women.


Neither would I. Best not to jump to either conclusion.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

hegley said:


> Scottish government has published their framework now, including exit strategy:
> https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/strategy-plan/2020/04/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making/documents/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making/govscot:document/coronavirus-covid-19-framework-decision-making.pdf


Notable is the barely coded denunciation of "herd immunity" in all its cold, technocratic evil.


> While it is obvious that government cannot guarantee that no-one will become infected with this virus in future, we are clear that an assumption that there is a proportion or section of the population that it is safe or acceptable to allow to be infected forms no part of the Scottish Government's policy or approach.
> 
> Every individual member of Scottish society matters and our entire strategy is focused on preventing every avoidable death. There is no such thing as a level of "acceptable loss". That is an approach which reflects our commitment to safeguarding human rights and upholding human dignity. It is the ethically correct approach to take. And it reflects the caring, compassionate and inclusive ethos of Scottish society.


The Scottish government allowed themselves to be dragged into the moral sewer by Whitehall and their advisors, but have, after weeks in the midden, pulled themselves out again. It's never too late to force change, and we must never allow nihilism to dim our outrage or hope for something better.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 23, 2020)

Noticed a few aircraft today, looked like ordinary passenger planes. Are airports going to be open to travellers without some kind of screening or quarantine ?


----------



## LDC (Apr 23, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Noticed a few aircraft today, looked like ordinary passenger planes. Are airports going to be open to travellers without some kind of screening or quarantine ?



Plenty of freight still flying. And I think there has been some passenger flights all this time too, albeit at much, much reduced levels.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

interesting paraphrase from the presser (I use the awful neologism to mock it: briefing gives the spin-fest way too much credit).

"Vallance says the scientists from the four nations all work together. It is a unified approach, he says."

Well, Scotland just unequivocally denounced "herd immunity" for the ethical horror it is, so either one of its foremost defenders has finally dropped it, or the approach isn't near as unified as Vallance thinks.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 23, 2020)

Encouraging though the contact tracing recruitment - after a number of us have been banging on about it for a while I wonder if someone in government actually reads urban75


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 23, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Noticed a few aircraft today, looked like ordinary passenger planes. Are airports going to be open to travellers without some kind of screening or quarantine ?


An online accquaintance was flown from London to two US cities the Canada then back to London just last week. He works in international banking in some capacity


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Encouraging though the contact tracing recruitment - after a number of us have been banging on about it for a while I wonder if someone in government actually reads urban75


Well if they do, there's certainly quite a time lag. Anything between a few days and a couple of months between being infected by urban and understanding of the words reaching their brains.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Encouraging though the contact tracing recruitment - after a number of us have been banging on about it for a while I wonder if someone in government actually reads urban75


And we in turn read WHO advice and a century's worth of disease control 101. Like to think it's Urban wot swung it though!

Scuttlebutt's that Hancock's at war with Whitty over a suppression strategy, and has been from the start (he's the one who first denied that "herd immunity" was government policy after days of Whitty and Vallance flogging it to any hack they could collar). Notable that he hauled Vallance along today, separating the homicidal policy's Mad Men.

Whatever else Whitty is, he's no politician, and day by day, is being forced to watch while suppression via testing, tracing and isolating becomes a fait accompli. If it succeeds in driving down Covid infections, it'll become plain beyond doubt that tens of thousands died needlessly on his advice.

Embrace that nihilism, Whitty. You're gonna need it.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> And we in turn read WHO advice and a century's worth of disease control 101. Like to think it's Urban wot swung it though!
> ..


I very much like watching the WHO press conferences. They are calm and reasoned and logical and I find them reassuring. After Trump's hissy fit and stopping of funding, the DG made the point that WHO only works with the co-operation of member countries, the WHO can't force any country to do anything.


----------



## miss direct (Apr 23, 2020)

There are still flights from Turkey, but not regular flights. Special ones to repatriate.


----------



## mauvais (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Whatever else Whitty is, he's no politician, and day by day, is being forced to watch while suppression via testing, tracing and isolating becomes a fait accompli. If it succeeds in driving down Covid infections, it'll become plain beyond doubt that tens of thousands died needlessly on his advice.
> 
> Embrace that nihilism, Whitty. You're gonna need it.


I haven't followed Whitty closely enough to have formed an enormously strong opinion, whereas you clearly have formed one.

What I will say is that history is littered with intelligent, educated characters with very high levels of expertise in their field who are then unable to handle a situation that significantly diverges from their training. You see this in military history, air accidents, industrial disasters, etc etc. - HBO's Chernobyl in a recent pop culture example. People who got a kind of target fixation on conformity to their expected model despite evidence to the contrary. These are smart people but at some point they might as well be on rails. I can see why it's a human behaviour you can easily fall into for a wide variety of reasons.

I wonder if that's what we're looking at with people like Whitty - the inescapable gravitational field of planned-for flu pandemics.


----------



## agricola (Apr 23, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I haven't followed Whitty closely enough to have formed an enormously strong opinion, whereas you clearly have formed one.
> 
> What I will say is that history is littered with intelligent, educated characters with very high levels of expertise in their field who are then unable to handle a situation that significantly diverges from their training. You see this in military history, air accidents, industrial disasters, etc etc. - HBO's Chernobyl in a recent pop culture example. People who got a kind of target fixation on conformity to their expected model despite evidence to the contrary. These are smart people but at some point they might as well be on rails. *I can see why it's a human behaviour you can easily fall into for a wide variety of reasons*.
> 
> I wonder if that's what we're looking at with people like Whitty - the inescapable gravitational field of planned-for flu pandemics.



TBF explaining that such behaviours exist, why they exist, how they are exploited and getting people to experience themselves doing it is something that really should be taught to people - probably not at school (as it is much more of an adult behaviour) but at least by the age of 25. 

I'd almost describe it as_ the_ defining human behaviour, given that in addition to fuckups like this it is at a wider level also the driving force behind almost every horrific act that you can think of.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I haven't followed Whitty closely enough to have formed an enormously strong opinion, whereas you clearly have formed one.
> 
> What I will say is that history is littered with intelligent, educated characters with very high levels of expertise in their field who are then unable to handle a situation that significantly diverges from their training. You see this in military history, air accidents, industrial disasters, etc etc. - HBO's Chernobyl in a recent pop culture example. People who got a kind of target fixation on conformity to their expected model despite evidence to the contrary. These are smart people but at some point they might as well be on rails. I can see why it's a human behaviour you can easily fall into for a wide variety of reasons.
> 
> I wonder if that's what we're looking at with people like Whitty - the inescapable gravitational field of planned-for flu pandemics.


Pretty much sums it up. The only pandemic plan they had was for influenza, so they stubbornly tried to fit the disease to the plan, and treated Covid-19 like the flu, instead of like what it was, a deadly SARS virus that had to be suppressed as rapidly and aggressively as resources allow.

I understand why they did it. They must now be held to account for doing it.


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I wonder if that's what we're looking at with people like Whitty - the inescapable gravitational field of planned-for flu pandemics.



Yes, most of the 'developed' world was stuck on those rails for far too long. Combine this desire to keep following a mitigation approach rather than a suppression approach with 'suppression is the old fashioned way that is a poor fit with neoliberal bollocks' and we ended up will all this death and suppression measures that have to last for longer than they would have done if we had used a genuine containment approach in the first place.

I used the word orthodox a hell of a lot when I was trying to describe what had probably happened in March. The governments communication strategy since then has made it more difficult to see quite how much of the suppression (and related things like test, track, trace) had actually been adopted properly, but this week we have more clarity on the testing & tracing plan and the old orthodox approach is indeed dead, and has been for longer than we could be sure of at the time.


----------



## Supine (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I understand why they did it. They must now be held to account for doing it.



You really need to tone down your anger squire. This is a developing situation and you would not have done a better job yourself would you. Whitty knows a fuck ton more about epidemics than you.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 23, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> The Times write up of the plan for how
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Just quoting this to remind people that with this new plan detailed in The Times, a workforce is already available. Council staff and civil servants -- a very large proportion of people in both groups are either WFH, or currently not working.
Not working meaning they're either on a CS thing called "special leave" (paid), as in my case and a lot of others.
Or furloughed, as in some other categories of civil servant -- generally not PCS-unionised I gather! 

So watch this space, because in my part of the CS, we're at the moment being updated weekly - usually on Fridays.
I've already been hearing unofficial rumours that we (or at least some of us) will be brought back in to do Covid-related work.
Rumour only for now, but my prediction was that I and colleagues could well be redeployed pretty soon .... we'll see!
I'm now predicting this a fair bit more, but who knows how soon .....


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

As for that original influenza pandemic plan, it also assumed a horrific death toll, and was riddled with the defeatism that led to containment being reduced to a mere "phase", instead of a vital safeguard that must be maintained, and if lost, rapidly reacquired.

I hope that SARS-CoV-2 is ground into the history books alongside its predecessor, but regardless, we must root out this sub-Medieval fatalism once and for all.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 23, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Just quoting this to remind people that with this new plan detailed in The Times, a workforce is already available. Council staff and civil servants -- a very large proportion of people in both groups are either WFH, or currently not working.
> Not working meaning they're either on a CS thing called "special leave" (paid), as in my case and a lot of others.
> Or furloughed, as in some other categories of civil servant -- generally not PCS-unionised I gather!
> 
> ...


Fuck, that’s scared the shit out of me


----------



## mauvais (Apr 23, 2020)

agricola said:


> TBF explaining that such behaviours exist, why they exist, how they are exploited and getting people to experience themselves doing it is something that really should be taught to people - probably not at school (as it is much more of an adult behaviour) but at least by the age of 25.


Yeah. It's something (well, not just a single thing) that they go out of their way to teach some disciplines like pilots now. For example Crew Resource Management (CRM) training has you speak up when you think something is wrong but where the human environment - e.g someone with more seniority proceeding as normal - seems not to support your opinion being valid. Similarly I believe you get it drilled into you to do things like cross-check sources of information and be aware that usual human yardsticks for 'this seems fine' may provide completely useless information. But even these are sort of 'set piece' behaviours to apply either regularly or when a particular concern emerges, where safety  is established through a coherent set of little procedural actions, and not necessarily a tool to sanity check an entire strategy.

I imagine it must be very difficult to spend vast amounts of your life planning for one enormous thing in particular and then be presented with something very similar but which doesn't actually fit. However it's one thing to unilaterally make irrational confirmation-bias-driven decisions when you must act on your own; it's another to do so in the face of highly visible alternative strategies elsewhere. When the average person seems to have a more realistic handle on things than the supposedly scientifically-led government, it's hard to have a great deal of sympathy for the 'experts'.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> You really need to tone down your anger squire. This is a developing situation and you would not have done a better job yourself would you. Whitty knows a fuck ton more about epidemics than you.


And, apparently, the WHO, the global epidemiological and public health communities, and the Asian countries that first fought and contained the pandemic.

I'll disregard this tone policing, but in the infinitesimall unlikely case that Whitty and Vallance were right that SARS-CoV-2 can't be suppressed and must be allowed to move through the population to generate "herd immunity", will offer both an apology.

Think I'll ever have to offer it?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Fuck, that’s scared the shit out of me



Really? I can never tell when you're taking the piss 
But if you are, fair fucks 
And if not, do me a bloody favour -- there's been a number of people on Urban showing me disrespect, man, and it can be a tad annoying.
I actually *want* to go back to work to do something to help.
Anyway, there's a fair chance (in the bit of the CS where I am) that we'd just be doing data processing (??), or communications relating to tracing could be another possibility (??).
I have no idea yet though -- we'll see.

ETA : for safe distancing in our offices -- we're a big employer -- we'd almost certainly have to have fewer people in at any one time, maybe a quarter (or third?) of us at a time. 
So logically, even more part-time than my usual hours?? I'm guessing though


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Scuttlebutt's that Hancock's at war with Whitty over a suppression strategy, and has been from the start (he's the one who first denied that "herd immunity" was government policy after days of Whitty and Vallance flogging it to any hack they could collar). Notable that he hauled Vallance along today, separating the homicidal policy's Mad Men.



Such a misreading of the situation, as usual. I dont know what you will really learn from all this if you insist on not making a distinction between public rhetoric from any particular official at moments in time and the actual behind the scenes opinions and plans.

Scientific advisors and politicians combined to come up with the original approach, the original communication, the replacement approach and the replacement communication. There is much at fault with how it all worked out. Its a failure of the entire establishment. Individuals should be singled out when various evidence is available, not just what we read into comments from one person on one particular day. Especially as some of the measures the government eventually implemented were planned for a while before they actually triggered them, and before we got any real sense they were actually going to happen.

By all means criticise what happened and the timing of it and specific things people said. But please understand that it is difficult for us to genuinely judge what individual experts beliefs were, as opposed to them doing the part of their job that involves towing a particular line in public to fit the agreed approach and comms strategy of the moment. There are faults with this side of the system too, more to be included in the post-mortem of the establishment in this country that in some key ways is every bit as crap as it was before the alleged death of derence many decades ago. Absurd and broken Britain, more than a day late and more than a pound short, as ever. Shit priorities, crap management cultures, too much energy put into pride and established wisdoms of the modern age that have now been found wanting.

Honestly, if you care so much about the narrow orthodox thinking on these issues and the effect its had in terms of death, may I strongly advise not limiting yourself to this pandemic. Even on the infectious respiratory disease front there is much else of related note that can be studied and condemned. Have a look at excess winter mortality figures every year, especially in years where H3N2 influenza is getting nasty. Tens of thousands of excess deaths every winter. How many of those could be prevented if established thoughts and processes and resources and attitudes towards testing and infection control and all manner of other things combined into a better approach? And not just from those experts in their field who have to deal with this stuff directly, also the economics and the numbers games on various other levels, certain other professional and management attitudes and what are deemed to be the priorities of a nation. Public health in this country needs a lot of work, and a lot of the top down control-freakery and long-established attitudes and beliefs are part of the problem.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 23, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Really? I can never tell when you're taking the piss
> But if you are, fair fucks
> And if not, do me a bloody favour -- there's been a number of people on Urban showing me disrespect, man, and it can be a tad annoying.
> I actually *want* to go back to work to do something to help.
> ...


of course, does it not scare you?


----------



## zahir (Apr 23, 2020)

The UK response as seen from the US


> The government’s influential Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies — known by its soothing acronym, SAGE — operates as a virtual black box. Its list of members is secret, its meetings are closed, its recommendations are private and the minutes of its deliberations are published much later, if at all.
> 
> Yet officials invoke SAGE’s name endlessly without ever explaining how it comes up with its advice — or even who these scientists are.











						The Secretive Group Guiding the U.K. on Coronavirus
					

The British government frequently says it’s “guided by the science,” but the members of its scientific advisory group, SAGE, are a secret.




					www.nytimes.com


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## William of Walworth (Apr 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> of course, does it not scare you?



Not especially, *if* safe distancing in the offices is carefully enforced.
I should have emphasised that proviso more though.
I also imagine that relevant staff would *really* have to be tested themselves.
I want and need to find out details!


----------



## Supine (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I'll disregard this tone policing, but in the infinitesimall unlikely case that Whitty and Vallance were right that SARS-CoV-2 can't be suppressed and must be allowed to move through the population to generate "herd immunity", will offer both an apology.



How about you provide some evidence that Whitty or Vallance said that “covid must be allowed to move through the population”.

The UK experts may have lots to learn from this pandemic, but that discussion will be appropriate in a few years time, when we can stand back and analyse how things worked out based on each countries actions and timings. IMHO no conclusions can be currently drawn - so talking about people having deaths on their hands is totally out of order.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Such a misreading of the situation, as usual. I dont know what you will really learn from all this if you insist on not making a distinction between public rhetoric from any particular official at moments in time and the actual behind the scenes opinions and plans.
> 
> Scientific advisors and politicians combined to come up with the original approach, the original communication, the replacement approach and the replacement communication. There is much at fault with how it all worked out. Its a failure of the entire establishment. Individuals should be singled out when various evidence is available, not just what we read into comments from one person on one particular day. Especially as some of the measures the government eventually implemented were planned for a while before they actually triggered them, and before we got any real sense they were actually going to happen.
> 
> ...


This 'Guardian' report has the exact same "misreading". As have a string of reports released since the 'Times' expose of the government's initial response. In recent days, there's been a clear pattern of advisors attempting to undermine ministers. I posted a detailed thread from Anthony Costello, formerly of the W.H.O., outlining the splits, and who's been driving policy, which fits with what I've long suspected. If this interests you I can only suggest you read it. Here it is:-



As for influenza, I said weeks ago we as a society have been too lax about this, a failing I certainly apply to myself. I've also said weeks ago that the collapse of local public health (and local government in general) as been a major contributing factor to this disaster. Beyond the policial analysis, we don't appear to disagree that much.


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## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> How about you provide some evidence that Whitty or Vallance said that “covid must be allowed to move through the population”.
> 
> The UK experts may have lots to learn from this pandemic, but that discussion will be appropriate in a few years time, when we can stand back and analyse how things worked out based on each countries actions and timings. IMHO no conclusions can be currently drawn - so talking about people having deaths on their hands is totally out of order.


You really want me to go and dredge up their interviews from the days after the "containment" phase was dropped?

I will if you won't stipulate, but it's hard to see how anyone following this is detail could doubt this in good faith.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> How about you provide some evidence that Whitty or Vallance said that “covid must be allowed to move through the population”.
> 
> The UK experts may have lots to learn from this pandemic, but that discussion will be appropriate in a few years time, when we can stand back and analyse how things worked out based on each countries actions and timings. IMHO no conclusions can be currently drawn - so talking about people having deaths on their hands is totally out of order.


If you watch the interview with the epidemiologist currently advising in Sweden on the Sweden thread, that is exactly how he characterises Sweden's approach (along with protecting the old as it happens) and it is exactly how he characterises the Uk's approach before the uey taken shortly before lockdown - he expresses his disappointment that the UK changed tack. 

It's not such an outlandish suggestion from azrael here.


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## little_legs (Apr 23, 2020)

chilango said:


> So are the Tories gonna force everyone back to work but keep the pubs shut then?



The casualty figure for the first night all the pubs reopen at once will surpass the entire Corona virus death toll.


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## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If you watch the interview with the epidemiologist currently advising in Sweden on the Sweden thread, that is exactly how he characterises Sweden's approach (along with protecting the old as it happens) and it is exactly how he characterises the Uk's approach before the uey taken shortly before lockdown - he expresses his disappointment that the UK changed tack.
> 
> It's not such an outlandish suggestion from azrael here.


[YouTube]

Here's a video Patrick Vallance from 13 March. From four minutes in, he clearly lays out that the British government will make no attempt to stop the virus moving through the population, that "herd immunity" is the goal, and that 60% infection is needed to achieve it. The presenter is visibly horrified at the potential death toll.

It was a monstrous plan from the start, born of defeatism that ignored clinical data from Asia, and its architects must be held to account for what they've done.


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## William of Walworth (Apr 23, 2020)

little_legs said:


> The casualty figure for the first night all the pubs reopen at once will surpass the entire Corona virus death toll.



I somehow have this feeling that not all the pubs will be allowed to open at once! 
Or for a lot of ages ......


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## Azrael (Apr 23, 2020)

As for Sweden, just as here, there's been an outbreak in care homes due to inadequate (or absent) PPE and staff isolation. 

According to its advocates, "herd immunity" seeks to "shield" the vulnerable from infection; yet its foremost practitioners have failed spectacularly at this goal.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> [YouTube]
> 
> Here's a video Patrick Vallance from 13 March. From four minutes in, he clearly lays out that the British government will make no attempt to stop the virus moving through the population, that "herd immunity" is the goal, and that 60% infection is needed to achieve it. The presenter is visibly horrified at the potential death toll.
> 
> It was a monstrous plan from the start, born of defeatism that ignored clinical data from Asia, and its architects must be held to account for what they've done.



Yep. That's very clear. tbf we have been over this before so the criticism of you on this point is misplaced. This was the UK's policy up to about six weeks ago and it is still Sweden's policy today. Protect the vulnerable, slow the spread so that it doesn't overwhelm the health service (the 'flatten the curve' shit they no longer talk about), but allow it to spread as widely as possible, ultimately.


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## Ax^ (Apr 23, 2020)

I'm slightly annoyed to of just watched a Barclays self promotion ad for granting funds to business

they have enough money for this ballocks but will not lend to any small business that does not break over 100 grand a year

why a national ad where basically fuck all people apply for the funds


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## elbows (Apr 23, 2020)

Azrael said:


> This 'Guardian' report has the exact same "misreading". As have a string of reports released since the 'Times' expose of the government's initial response. In recent days, there's been a clear pattern of advisors attempting to undermine ministers. I posted a detailed thread from Anthony Costello, formerly of the W.H.O., outlining the splits, and who's been driving policy, which fits with what I've long suspected. If this interests you I can only suggest you read it. Here it is:-
> 
> 
> 
> As for influenza, I said weeks ago we as a society have been too lax about this, a failing I certainly apply to myself. I've also said weeks ago that the collapse of local public health (and local government in general) as been a major contributing factor to this disaster. Beyond the policial analysis, we don't appear to disagree that much.




There is a reasonable chunk of overlap between us in places, which is probably why I cant help arguing with you over some specific areas repeatedly, rather than just leaving alone.

I'm not always happy with the totality of my descriptions of things, sometimes some important aspect seems missing. Sometimes its because I am conservative with certain details I dont know, I dont like to assume, especially when there are conflicting indicators. For example, I will normally point out when someone says something noteworthy for its lack of commitment, such as Whitty and certain aspects of testing the other day. But then some time before that Whitty was also the one that made clear there were lessons to learn from Germany. I should presume that Costello actually gets to talk to certain people involved in a way that I cannot, I have no special access and can only operate in the way I do because of the stuff that comes out through journalists and these days certain parts of the web featuring individuals who have decided to be open. From that timeline I cannot tell quite how much more he knows, he is mostly relying on the same clues I have had to, but I'm wary of reading too much into them. I guess he knows more about SAGE splits than me, although some of that also seems clear only because one or two members arent afraid to voice some of their opinions in public. The rest remains a mystery to me.

Probably the reason I chose to focus so much on describing these things in terms of 'the orthodoxy', and why I take comments and even glimpses of actual opinions from officialdom with a pinch of salt, is that I expect them to be slow and plodding and stuck in their ways. Hell much of science ends up like that, which is a whole topic in itself. Science is not in reality a pure thing that can be isolated from individual and group phenomenon ranging from general ineptitude to lazy thinking to vested interests to dogma to basic human ego, pride, saving face and protecting reputations and positions. Some scientists, doctors etc retain a degree of open-mindedness and flexibility of thought, but specialisation in general does tend to invite a narrowing of mind that can have unfortunate implications.

Politicians have various orthodoxies too. But a big difference is on display at a time like this - given certain circumstances, all the political equations may change radically overnight. When that happens, politicians have to adapt and embrace the new political normal in order to survive, potentially at a speed that far outruns the orthodoxy of scientific and medical officialdom. The political orthodoxy could have been completely dumped before officialdom has even gotten round to their initial defence their own orthodox position. Thats probably part of what we see now, and yes some of awkwardness that results could be studied via old episodes of Yes Minister. But I dont have the real inside info, so I am limited in how much of this I can dissect in near-realtime. So I largely prefer not to bother, so long as it has become clear enough what the official policy really is. Because even if the non-elected-politician parts of officialdom arent really up for it, they will still end up getting dragged along for the ride, and eventually even their own dogmas will evolve or die.

As I've said before, I suppose I am acutely aware of the power of orthodoxy because its the only reason I was able to sound like I knew what would happen next in February. That side of things was all so very predictable! I do consider it a bit of a miracle that we even managed to change approach when we did, imagine how much better it would have been if done a few weeks earlier, and how much worse if done a week or so even later than it was. And I'm not even convinced that the country had all the ingredients on its own to make that miracle come about, I think we are still too stunted by the top-down petty bullshit this country is renowned for. Rather its thanks to the far more worldly realtime view of things we have these days that disaster was partially averted. Broken Britain with the wrong approach is so much harder to disguise when people are able to look at what other countries were doing, and when, and make the right noises at the right volume in the nick of time!


----------



## hipipol (Apr 23, 2020)

This may already have been posted, if so, sure it will be pointed out. its odd but when I heard that  the dried poo of covid patient, if it got blown around as air born and infectious.. I wondered about this...


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## andysays (Apr 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Fuck, that’s scared the shit out of me


Why has it scared the shit out of you?

Many essential workers, way beyond the NHS and other medical/care workers, are still going to work every day and carrying out their work like distributing food and clearing away rubbish, without which society would quickly struggle to function.

Why is it so scary to think that some civil servants and local government workers who are currently at home on special leave on full pay might be transferred into different work helping to do contact tracing and other tasks related to combating corona virus?


----------



## mauvais (Apr 24, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Not especially, *if* safe distancing in the offices is carefully enforced.
> I should have emphasised that proviso more though.
> I also imagine that relevant staff would *really* have to be tested themselves.
> I want and need to find out details!


I've not followed the context of this and I'm no expert but I don't think safe distancing in a modern office environment is feasible. Air conditioning and so on makes it impossible. I think you could only safely put select people back there en masses and it becomes so complicated that it can't be done in practice.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 24, 2020)

Doctor pleads for PPE on his ward in hospital, is refused because 'supplies need to be used sensibly' (remember that line?) and because, get this for management speak, of 'business continuity'.

Dies.

His son has published his emails.









						Emails reveal doctor's plea for PPE before Covid-19 death
					

Dr Peter Tun’s messages show he warned Royal Berkshire hospital about lack of vital equipment




					www.theguardian.com
				






> In one, Tun said: “We do not have any basic surgical masks for Caversham ward neuro-rehab medical team. The ward stock has been taken by ICU [intensive care], according to a staff nurse … We do not have eye protection kits, gowns nor scrubs.”
> 
> However, one manager emailed the ward team to refuse his requests. They said: “Matron … will confirm that you don’t have any ‘hot’ [confirmed Covid-19] patients on your ward. You do not require PPE currently. It’s ‘business continuity’ at this time.”
> 
> ...


----------



## teqniq (Apr 24, 2020)




----------



## platinumsage (Apr 24, 2020)

Amendments to The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020 have been made. They include permitting livestock auctions, and a requirement for outdoor swimming pools to close. People are also now allowed to leave home for the purpose of visiting a burial ground or garden of remembrance to pay respects to a member of their household, a family member or friend.


----------



## zahir (Apr 24, 2020)

> Despite that, Hunt is relatively forgiving of the government's tardy response, generously asserting that: "No one can reasonably expect governments to have a crystal ball with a brand new virus, so full credit to the government for being willing to learn from international best practice, first on ramping up testing and now on mass contact tracing".
> 
> Bearing in mind that Hunt himself is part of the failed planning process, however, there must surely be an element of back-covering here. The government didn't need a crystal ball. It had been warned by the WHO to prepare for SARS and, instead the British government (along with many others, it must be said) chose to lump this very different disease in with influenza.
> 
> ...





> Its report, published in 2008, recalled "sobering" advice from government ministers that: "While there has not been a pandemic since 1968, another one is inevitable". It had been estimated that the next pandemic could kill between two and 50 million people worldwide, and between 50,000 and 75,000 deaths in the UK.
> 
> Twelve years later, we are in the grip of that pandemic and will be able to count ourselves fortunate if the death rate can be contained between 50,000 and 75,000. As for the socio-economic disruption, the Committee was uncannily prescient: "massive" is almost an understatement.
> 
> Despite Hunt's generosity, therefore, this pandemic was both predictable and predicted. But when it came to the crunch, government was unprepared. And while it is all very well being wise after the event, there were an awful lot of people wise before it happened. This and many other governments chose not to listen.







__





						Coronavirus: paying the price
					

Coronavirus: paying the price




					eureferendum.com


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 24, 2020)

andysays said:


> Why has it scared the shit out of you?
> 
> Many essential workers, way beyond the NHS and other medical/care workers, are still going to work every day and carrying out their work like distributing food and clearing away rubbish, without which society would quickly struggle to function.
> 
> Why is it so scary to think that some civil servants and local government workers who are currently at home on special leave on full pay might be transferred into different work helping to do contact tracing and other tasks related to combating corona virus?


Cos I don’t want to catch it if I get reassigned


----------



## andysays (Apr 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cos I don’t want to catch it if I get reassigned


No one wants to catch, even those of us who are still working more or less as normal while the majority are having a paid holiday.

Don't worry, I doubt you will be reassigned to anything dangerous anyway, you can just hide away at home while others deal with it.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 24, 2020)

andysays said:


> No one wants to catch, even those of us who are still working more or less as normal while the majority are having a paid holiday.
> 
> Don't worry, I doubt you will be reassigned to anything dangerous anyway, you can just hide away at home while others deal with it.


i'm working from home anyway. if they're reassigning people to do this contact tracing, i will have to refuse as I live with my 77 year old pa and don't want to expose him to any danger


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 24, 2020)

andysays said:


> No one wants to catch, even those of us who are still working more or less as normal while the majority are having a paid holiday.
> 
> Don't worry, I doubt you will be reassigned to anything dangerous anyway, you can just hide away at home while others deal with it.


This is out of line. How about you stop assuming you know about other people's lives when you don't?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 24, 2020)

indeed. nothing wrong being concerned for the safety of me and my loved ones. I need to 'hide away' at home to keep safe.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 24, 2020)

You shouldn't have to justify yourself. Andy needs to shut the fuck up with this nasty shit.


----------



## killer b (Apr 24, 2020)

andysays said:


> No one wants to catch, even those of us who are still working more or less as normal while the majority are having a paid holiday.
> 
> Don't worry, I doubt you will be reassigned to anything dangerous anyway, you can just hide away at home while others deal with it.


don't be an absolute prick andy.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 24, 2020)

and I AM working  - i'm answering calls from isolated people and putting them in contact with volunteers


----------



## redsquirrel (Apr 24, 2020)

What littlebabyjesus said. You are out of order here andysays. 
Yes it is absolutely shit that some people are having to work as normal, and have their safety compromised, but we don't fight that by having a race to the bottom.


----------



## xenon (Apr 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh that sounds like something beyond being a twat, and more towards some very strange and disturbing thoughts rattling around in his head. He may need help more than anything.



And a kicking...


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## William of Walworth (Apr 24, 2020)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> Not especially, *if* safe distancing in the offices is carefully enforced.
> I should have emphasised that proviso more though.
> I also imagine that relevant staff would *really* have to be tested themselves.
> I want and need to find out details!





mauvais said:


> I've not followed the context of this and I'm no expert but I don't think safe distancing in a modern office environment is feasible. Air conditioning and so on makes it impossible. I think you could only safely put select people back there en masses and it becomes so complicated that it can't be done in practice.



Thanks for pointing out the air-conditioning aspect -- I'd not thought of that at all, to be honest 

In itself, that may make it a fair bit less likely that we're asked back in. 
So maybe they'll have WFH plans? 
Those would require a works laptop (and probably other bits) to be sent to me, as their policy is only to trust people to work outside works HQ with works IT, understandably.

You've given me more questions to ask now anyway, if I do get the call. 
Cheers


----------



## xenon (Apr 24, 2020)

emanymton said:


> They have reduced us to mere existence. Eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work and nothing more. That's how my life feels right now.



Was thinking about this, when they start easing the restrictions, it won't be pubs, cinemas, gigs that can open for a long time. That's basically the only places I go apart from work and shops. I think we'll be WFH for quite a while at our place anyway and shops are still a bit of a challenge. Bet even the gym's won't re-open in the first easing.

<makes list of friends with garden access>


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## William of Walworth (Apr 24, 2020)

andysays said:


> Why has it scared the shit out of you?
> 
> Many essential workers, way beyond the NHS and other medical/care workers, are still going to work every day and carrying out their work like distributing food and clearing away rubbish, without which society would quickly struggle to function.
> 
> *Why is it so scary to think that some civil servants and local government workers who are currently at home on special leave on full pay might be transferred into different work helping to do contact tracing and other tasks related to combating corona virus?*




I'd be *VERY* happy to be working if required and I'm sure that a lot of my colleagues will be thinking similarly.
We don't know yet whether or not it will happen, and the difficulties of doing it in the offices will have to be taken into account. 
ETA : And whether ir not WFH is even possible ... who knows?
Luckily, most of us are PCS, and their Covid newsletter emphasises how much the union insists on being involved with working conditions discussion.
But I'd be glad to work if able! 
ETA : and if safe, obviously.


----------



## scifisam (Apr 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> Was thinking about this, when they start easing the restrictions, it won't be pubs, cinemas, gigs that can open for a long time. That's basically the only places I go apart from work and shops. I think we'll be WFH for quite a while at our place anyway and shops are still a bit of a challenge. Bet even the gym's won't re-open in the first easing.
> 
> <makes list of friends with garden access>



Gyms might be fucked because people are getting used to working out at home. OTOH, people are working out at home, so might be more into it when the lockdown eases.

But gyms tend to be virtually airtight, IME. And people sweat everywhere, and breathe heavily. Yup, even if they're allowed to open, people won't go there.

Does anyone on here have a gym membership? Are they still expecting people to keep paying when the gym's shut?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 24, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Thanks for pointing out the air-conditioning aspect -- I'd not thought of that at all, to be honest
> 
> In itself, that may make it a fair bit less likely that we're asked back in.
> So maybe they'll have WFH plans?
> ...


My employer sent out 7000 laptops in the first week of lockdown - they don't want us at home sitting idle!


----------



## xenon (Apr 24, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I've not followed the context of this and I'm no expert but I don't think safe distancing in a modern office environment is feasible. Air conditioning and so on makes it impossible. I think you could only safely put select people back there en masses and it becomes so complicated that it can't be done in practice.



Minor anecdotal blah. Our office doesn't have aircon. It's a modern building, designed to be a bit more efficient I think. Maximum there's about 9 of us in at any one time, usually far fewer than that, often in on my own. As such we could probably easily do SD but not much actually requires us to be present in the office. Only inviting people in for meetings etc. We share facilities with other tenants though. I'll be interested to see if they renew the rent...


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 24, 2020)

andysays said:


> No one wants to catch, even those of us who are still working more or less as normal while the majority are having a paid holiday.
> 
> Don't worry, I doubt you will be reassigned to anything dangerous anyway, you can just hide away at home while others deal with it.



WTF is this shit?

Nicely playing into divide and rule there.


----------



## xenon (Apr 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Gyms might be fucked because people are getting used to working out at home. OTOH, people are working out at home, so might be more into it when the lockdown eases.
> 
> But gyms tend to be virtually airtight, IME. And people sweat everywhere, and breathe heavily. Yup, even if they're allowed to open, people won't go there.
> 
> Does anyone on here have a gym membership? Are they still expecting people to keep paying when the gym's shut?


Mine have been really good. I mean, I wasn't like there every day.  but was going to carry on paying as it's local, the staff are good, I was just getting back into going before this. But they've suspended payments so far. People were happy to carry on and they've suggested they donate to a public defibrlator thing they're acquiring.

Working out at home isn't the same. Well in a flat anyway. I miss the crosstrainers and stuff.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> My employer sent out 7000 laptops in the first week of lockdown - they don't want us at home sitting idle!



There was never any suggestion of that for most of us, which did puzzle me at first.
But then I thought about how my normal work is very paper (real post! actual documents!), and printing based, as well as PC based.
So maybe they decided the logistics of us WFH was all too complex, and data protection issue laden.
Another thing for me to ask about though, soon!


----------



## JimW (Apr 24, 2020)

I know it was done to death pages back, but I heard "presser" used twenty five years ago when I got an intern job at Reuters here after my university year abroad, always assumed it's long-standing journo jargon that's been allowed to leak into the mainstream.


----------



## xenon (Apr 24, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'd be *VERY* happy to be working if required and I'm sure that a lot of my colleagues will be thinking similarly.
> We don't know yet whether or not it will happen, and the difficulties of doing it in the offices will have to be taken into account.
> ETA : And whether ir not WFH is even possible ... who knows?
> Luckily, most of us are PCS, and their Covid newsletter emphasises how much the union insists on being involved with working conditions discussion.
> ...



I'd been meaning to look for another, second job. Only work part time and could do with the cash. I'm hoping they might be taking on call centre / WFH type jobs for this contact tracing stuff, I'd do that.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 24, 2020)

JimW said:


> I know it was done to death pages back, but I heard "presser" used twenty five years ago when I got an intern job at Reuters here after my university year abroad, always assumed it's long-standing journo jargon that's been allowed to leak into the mainstream.



I've heard quite a bit of leakage during the lockdown. On the BBC News channel the presenter let slip that they would soon go the quarterlines, which turned out to be the headlines as presented at quarter past and quarter to the hour.


----------



## LDC (Apr 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Gyms might be fucked because people are getting used to working out at home. OTOH, people are working out at home, so might be more into it when the lockdown eases.
> 
> But gyms tend to be virtually airtight, IME. And people sweat everywhere, and breathe heavily. Yup, even if they're allowed to open, people won't go there.
> 
> Does anyone on here have a gym membership? Are they still expecting people to keep paying when the gym's shut?



I have one, and I cancelled it before lock-down came it as it was obvious that was the sensible option. The gym suspended membership charges when lock-down started, I guess partly to makes sure people come back when things ease. I'm a keen gym goer, but I think it'll be the last thing that I go back to of that type tbh, especially as you say I'll have got used to other ways of exercising.


----------



## JimW (Apr 24, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I've heard quite a bit of leakage during the lockdown. On the BBC News channel the presenter let slip that they would soon go the quarterlines, which turned out to be the headlines as presented at quarter past and quarter to the hour.


I suspect with some people they used it for the insider aura but suppose that's gone now it's mainstream.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 24, 2020)

New gov test booking website, which went live last night, has closed due to too much demand.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 24, 2020)

weltweit said:


> New gov test booking website, which went live last night, has closed due to too much demand.



It's going to be like getting a Tesco delivery slot isn't it.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 24, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> It's going to be like getting a Tesco delivery slot isn't it.



Let's hope it's just initial teething problems of a new system. 
I'm not confident though


----------



## weltweit (Apr 24, 2020)

I wonder how many requests they decided was too much, or how many it took to crash the website. Assuming they expect to get to 100,000 a day I would have expected the site should have been able to take massive numbers. Would be interesting to know how many caused it to be withdrawn if that is what happened.


----------



## clicker (Apr 24, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> It's going to be like getting a Tesco delivery slot isn't it.


Yes and at the last minute it'll be substituted for an eye test.


----------



## Callie (Apr 24, 2020)

weltweit said:


> New gov test booking website, which went live last night, has closed due to too much demand.


It's entirely possible they overestimated how useful/practical/necessary it was for NHS staff and have underestimated the need for all keyworkers?

I wonder how they manage inappropriate testing? This test may not be suitable/appropriate for those who have been ill in the past but are well now for example


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 24, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Thanks for pointing out the air-conditioning aspect -- I'd not thought of that at all, to be honest
> 
> In itself, that may make it a fair bit less likely that we're asked back in.
> So maybe they'll have WFH plans?
> ...



most air conditioning brings in air from outside, it’s usually only on planes etc. where you have a closed system. Otherwise oxygen depletion might be an issue! I believe most systems also have decent filtration.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 24, 2020)

Callie said:


> It's entirely possible they overestimated how useful/practical/necessary it was for NHS staff and have underestimated the need for all keyworkers?


Whatever, it is now down which doesn't fill one with confidence. 



Callie said:


> I wonder how they manage inappropriate testing? This test may not be suitable/appropriate for those who have been ill in the past but are well now for example


Yes, indeed, except if you had the virus, you might want to know you were clear so you could return to work no?


----------



## editor (Apr 24, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> most air conditioning brings in air from outside, it’s usually only on planes etc. where you have a closed system. Otherwise oxygen depletion might be an issue! I believe most systems also have decent filtration.


Planes are surprisingly safe compared to offices etc 



> Nowadays, airplanes have hospital-grade HEPA filtering systems that entirely recirculate the air in the cabin every three minutes. While flying, the air coming out of the air vent is actually a mixture of filtered fresh and recirculated air, where the recirculated stuff increases the air humidity—and your comfort. It may even be healthier than in most office buildings, schools and residences, according to one 2017 study examining air quality in 69 flights.











						You are no more likely to get coronavirus on an airplane than in any other crowded space
					

But whatever you're doing, make sure you wash your hands.




					qz.com


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 24, 2020)

Callie said:


> It's entirely possible they overestimated how useful/practical/necessary it was for NHS staff and have underestimated the need for all keyworkers?
> 
> *I wonder how they manage inappropriate testing?* This test may not be suitable/appropriate for those who have been ill in the past but are well now for example



I was idly wondering that just now. 
If this test booking site is aimed only for NHS and other designated key workers, how the hell do they control who's able to log on and who's not?? 
Urbans with inside or user knowledge of this thing?


----------



## Callie (Apr 24, 2020)

Depends how long ago you were I'll. It could be possible to detect viral RNA in the swab but for there to be no viable virus present and therefore not be infectious. ?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 24, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> most air conditioning brings in air from outside, it’s usually only on planes etc. where you have a closed system. Otherwise oxygen depletion might be an issue! I believe most systems also have decent filtration.



Cheers, that's a very fair point.
But if we're not put on WFH, that factor is something I will ask about at our place, because our building isn't very new at all ... and I've no idea whether or not the air conditioning was refurbished when all the office interiors were redone.


----------



## andysays (Apr 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> and I AM working  - i'm answering calls from isolated people and putting them in contact with volunteers


Apologies, my response to you was out of order.

I'm a little stressed out and scared at being responsible for my own safety and that of my team, all of whom have loved ones at home we are concerned we might infect, and  while it sometimes appears that much of the population is going about oblivious to that, enjoying the sunshine as if it's just an extended holiday. 

Your post maybe triggered something of that, but it was wrong to direct my feelings at you in that way.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 24, 2020)

No worries - we're all doing our best to deal with a very bad and uncertain situation.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 24, 2020)

I put my details on the site at 7:30 this morning, haven’t had any kind of text or email back. My son had a serious fever two weeks ago (but no other symptoms other than a couple of days of splutttery coughs), and although I haven’t had any definite signs of infection (I did move out for a week when he got sick) I have been very tired with muscle aches and occasional headaches so wanted to be sure I’m OK. It’s possibly just the effects of my Crohns which is kicking off a bit at the moment or from having crap sleep.

Work are asking me about coming in to do a few tasks (safety critical stuff that nobody else could pick up easily) which I’m into doing if I can, and having the reassurance I’m not contagious would make that possible.  I’m actually in the shielding group but generally well and would be going into the building late on a Sunday with nobody else having been there for 48 hours so minimal risk with a bit of PPE.


----------



## killer b (Apr 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> No worries - we're all doing our best to deal with a very bad and uncertain situation.


I think this is one thing we all should try and bear in mind - literally everyone is struggling with this, even people who might seem not to be.


----------



## scifisam (Apr 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think this is one thing we all should try and bear in mind - literally everyone is struggling with this, even people who might seem not to be.



TBH I've been pretty impressed with Urban75 over this. Maybe it's because we are in general the kind of site where we argue on one thread and agree on another thread, and occasionally tell each other to fuck off, then also support each other when times are bad, like a messy argumentative family, but I've seen a lot of examples of people saying something slightly mean under stress, being called on it mildly without being piled on, apologising, and that's it. It's nice


----------



## Wilf (Apr 24, 2020)

I think the lack of testing so far makes the actual testing regime less workable, in the sense that there isn't an orderly, managed and 'educated' queue. Don't mean people are 'uneducated' but that there isn't a commonly understood/established set of criteria as to whether you should book a test. The vast, vast majority of people seeking a test will be doing it for very real and very important reasons. But there's going to be an element of panic or uncertainty. I'm not a key worker, but to take me as an example, I had a very weird dry cough that came and went for 24 hours, along with a worsening of my fybromyalgia. I'm 90+% certain it wasn't the virus, though there's an outside chance I had the virtually symptom free version.  Didn't make much difference as I'm working from home and we've been just about self isolating anyway. But... not about me  , you could imagine a fair few people who have had a similar minor non-event might now be rushing for a test.  Again, that's not people being irrational - it's actually a rational thing to do at the individual level - but the government's shitshow on testing has led to everything being an unmanaged mess. Tests are now where bog rolls were 6 weeks ago.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 24, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I think the lack of testing so far makes the actual testing regime less workable, in the sense that there isn't an orderly, managed and 'educated' queue. Don't mean people are 'uneducated' but that there isn't a commonly understood/established set of criteria as to whether you should book a test. The vast, vast majority of people seeking a test will be doing it for very real and very important reasons. But there's going to be an element of panic or uncertainty. I'm not a key worker, but to take me as an example, I had a very weird dry cough that came and went for 24 hours, along with a worsening of my fybromyalgia. I'm 90+% certain it wasn't the virus, though there's an outside chance I had the virtually symptom free version.  Didn't make much difference as I'm working from home and we've been just about self isolating anyway. But... not about me  , you could imagine a fair few people who have had a similar minor non-event might now be rushing for a test.  Again, that's not people being irrational - it's actually a rational thing to do at the individual level - but the government's shitshow on testing has led to everything being an unmanaged mess. Tests are now where bog rolls were 6 weeks ago.


Shorter way of saying all that is that testing and contact tracing should have been top priority from the start. Doing it now makes it less effective and less targeted.


----------



## 20Bees (Apr 24, 2020)

I work in a supermarket and the link to apply for key worker tests was on our staff intranet this morning. The notification states that it is for ‘key workers with symptoms of Corornavirus, and people who live with them and have symptoms’. It is not aimed at key workers simply because they are key workers. I wonder if all this morning’s applicants do actually have symptoms, or live with someone who does (I don’t).


----------



## 2hats (Apr 24, 2020)

Callie said:


> I wonder how they manage inappropriate testing? This test may not be suitable/appropriate for those who have been ill in the past but are well now for example


Quite. It appears, at this time, to be the viral RNA PCR swab test and not a serological AB test. So will come back positive (most of the time, if performed correctly) for those currently infected and for _some_ post-infection. It won't identify _all_ those who have been infected in the past. It will tell you nothing about the state of your immune system and degree of immunity.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 24, 2020)

20Bees said:


> I work in a supermarket and the link to apply for key worker tests was on our staff intranet this morning. The notification states that it is for ‘key workers with symptoms of Corornavirus, and people who live with them and have symptoms’. It is not aimed at key workers simply because they are key workers. I wonder if all this morning’s applicants do actually have symptoms, or live with someone who does (I don’t).


Yeah, that's what I was getting at ^.


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 24, 2020)

Leaked map shows postcode next to Cheltenham Racecourse had highest number of coronavirus hospital admissions on April 3 - Gloucestershire Live










> A postcode neighbouring Cheltenham Racecourse had the highest number of coronavirus hospital admissions in Gloucestershire earlier this month, according to leaked official data. (...) The data also shows GL51, where Cheltenham Spa Railway Station is based, was the second highest in the county and the two postcodes made up nearly a quarter of county-wide hospital admissions as of April 3. (...) More than 250,000 people attended the four-day event from March 10-13, which ended 10 days before UK lockdown measures began on March 23 and three days before social distancing measures were announced on March 16.





> The Jockey Club (...) said it had followed clear guidance from the Government and science experts.
> Gloucestershire is currently the most affected county in the least affected region - the South West - in Great Britain with 989 cases of the virus and 147 deaths in the county as of yesterday (April 22).


However


> A Government spokeswoman said there are "many factors that could influence the number of cases in a particular area" and that comparisons between hospital trusts "can't be made."


so that's all right then.


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

BBC live updates page says 20,000 applications were made before the website closed (15,000 drive through, 5000 home).

13:37 entry on https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52391744


----------



## zahir (Apr 24, 2020)

> Ministers were warned last year the UK must have a robust plan to deal with a pandemic virus and its potentially catastrophic social and economic consequences in a confidential Cabinet Office briefing leaked to the Guardian.
> 
> The detailed document warned that even a mild pandemic could cost tens of thousands of lives, and set out the must-have “capability requirements” to mitigate the risks to the country, as well as the potential damage of not doing so.





> Marked “official, sensitive”, the 2019 National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) was signed off by Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, as well as a senior national security adviser to the prime minister whom the Guardian has been asked not to name.
> 
> The recommendations within it included the need to stockpile PPE (personal protective equipment), organise advanced purchase agreements for other essential kit, establish procedures for disease surveillance and contact tracing, and draw up plans to manage a surge in excess deaths.





> The Cabinet Office document, which runs to more than 600 pages, not only analysed the risk of a viral flu pandemic but also specifically addressed the potential for a coronavirus outbreak (the earlier Sars and Mers were both coronaviruses)...





> Drawing on previous security assessments and health risk registers, the document implicitly warned ministers they could not afford to be complacent. “A novel pandemic virus could be both highly transmissible and highly virulent,” it said. “Therefore, pandemics significantly more serious than the reasonable worst case … are possible.”





> But one source with knowledge of the Cabinet Office document said the UK had not properly focused on the pandemic threat, and had been caught flat-footed.
> 
> “The really frustrating thing is that there were plans. But over the last few years emergency planning has been focused on political drivers, like Brexit and flooding. There was a national plan for dealing with a pandemic that should have been implemented. But who took control of that? And who was responsible for making sure that plans were being made at a local level? The truth is, I am not sure anyone was doing this.”











						Revealed: UK ministers were warned last year of risks of coronavirus pandemic
					

Briefing, which recommended stockpiling PPE among other measures, intensifies focus on No 10’s handling of outbreak




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 24, 2020)

A genuine public notice today from Reckitt Benckiser Group plc (link)


----------



## andysays (Apr 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think this is one thing we all should try and bear in mind - literally everyone is struggling with this, even people who might seem not to be.


I agree, everyone *is* struggling with this, even people who might seem not to be, but it's also worth pointing out that the risk, the burden and the stress are falling disproportionately on some, mostly low paid manual workers and those in insecure employment. 

With that in mind, it isn't entirely unreasonable that some eg civil servants who are currently not working and on special leave with full pay, as William of Walworth described, might be asked to make a contribution to helping with contact tracing and other work to combat the spread of the virus with, of course, all possible measures in place to reduce the risks that puts them under.

That was the point I was trying to make, though I agree that my second post to Orang Utan was out of order and detracted from the point intended.


----------



## andysays (Apr 24, 2020)

...News already posted...


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 24, 2020)

Why has north Wales only just announced a month's worth of deaths in one go? Seems bizarre. This now leaves Hywel Dda (my board) and Powys as the outliers with _apparently _only 14 deaths between them. Or are they suddenly going to announce chunks of deaths in the coming days?

These figures throw up a new sick joke almost every day.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 24, 2020)

Lots of isolated single people are going to be found dead in their homes after all of this. Will they be counted as  victims? Will post-mortems be able to tell if a person has died from CV19?


----------



## Wilf (Apr 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Lots of isolated single people are going to be found dead in their homes after all of this. Will they be counted as  victims? Will post-mortems be able to tell if a person has died from CV19?


Yep.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 24, 2020)

With the poor to inaccurate death toll figures and the lack of testing ability do the daily figures seem likely to be worth reading as "over the initial peak"? It strikes me as a hopeful or even misleading situation.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 24, 2020)

wtf is this? The last insect repellent I used, was banned in the early 90’s (iirc) as it could cause cancer. kebabking is this the same stuff?


----------



## kebabking (Apr 24, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> wtf is this? The last insect repellent I used, was banned in the early 90’s (iirc) as it could cause cancer. kebabking is this the same stuff?




Nope, this stuff has a lemon flavoured washing up liquid smell. It's reasonably good for the normal stuff, but has so-so results against the Demon Midge of Olde Scotlandshire Town. To say it's C-19 proof sounds a bit Trumpian to me...

The stuff that took away our fingerprints and melted rifles was deet (iirc). I can still taste it.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 24, 2020)

Got a test booked for tomorrow up at Lulsgate. I was also offered a slot at 4:30-5:00 today, though as it was already 4:30 would have been little chance of making it. I’ll report back with how it all works.

I wonder what difference this widening of eligibility will make to testing numbers? Isn’t the bottleneck in testing with the actual labs? What’s the betting that they still haven’t got the lab capability for 100,000 by the end of the month, but will temporarily have the infrastructure to actually take 100,000 on one day so that they can crow about meeting the target, while the labs struggle under a backlog for a few days?


----------



## 2hats (Apr 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> Quite. It appears, at this time, to be the viral RNA PCR swab test and not a serological AB test. So will come back positive (most of the time, if performed correctly) for those currently infected and for _some_ post-infection. It won't identify _all_ those who have been infected in the past. It will tell you nothing about the state of your immune system and degree of immunity.


The deputy CMO has effectively confirmed this at today's briefing.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 24, 2020)

Press briefing told no point in getting tested if you had it weeks ago - What Rubbish

You might be wanting to return to work and need the all clear!


----------



## 2hats (Apr 24, 2020)

weltweit said:


> You might be wanting to return to work and need the all clear!


That requires a serological test, which isn't what is on offer (at least yet).


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> With the poor to inaccurate death toll figures and the lack of testing ability do the daily figures seem likely to be worth reading as "over the initial peak"? It strikes me as a hopeful or even misleading situation.



If you dont trust the death figures for that then use the hospitalisation and intensive care number (or number of ambulance call outs in Scotland) as additional evidence. The all point in the same direction, absolute peak in deaths was weeks ago (around April 8th) but the decline since then is somewhat slow and modest, which sadly was expected.

In terms of judging actual number of deaths and exact timing, I will wait for data that takes longer to accumulate, such as ONS data (and equivalents for Scotland and Northern Ireland). Final numbers with which I could judge entire excess deaths over the period, thus not missing any deaths that havent been listed as Covid-19 related, take a long time. But provisional ones come out every week, and so there are already some signs of scale of other deaths. I'll know quite a bit more about Aprils peak of deaths when the provisional monthly report for April comes out from ONS on May 28th, because if the format is the same as their March report, it will have some numbers I can use to ascertain daily figures from (for all deaths, not just ones actively labelled as Covid-19 on death certificates, which will still be an undercount).

With data thats available now, peak number of deaths from NHS England & Wales hospital figures is 831 on 8th April, though this number is still being adjusted every day (it was still below 800 last time I mentioned it). If I use provisional ONS data instead, I inevitably get a higher number for that date because ONS figures arent just hospital deaths, a figure of 1,021 as of last Tuesdays published ONS data. If I add in Scotlands data from National Records of Scotland then I get a figure of 1111 deaths for that day. The five days before that date will also end up being over 1000 (a few are currently just 2 or 5 below 1000), but these numbers will all evolve further in future and I can say less about days after 8th April since such dates have even more data yet to come in for them.

Anyway I dont like assumptions so it is always possible the absolute peak day of deaths may change a bit in future, but I would be a bit surprised if it turns out not to have been very close to the date indicated by the current data.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> That requires a serological test, which isn't what is on offer (at least yet).


A negative result on an antigen test would suffice to return to work.


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

weltweit said:


> A negative result on an antigen test would suffice to return to work.



Time alone is supposed to be enough to have already had the all-clear in the scenario you describe.

There is no point wasting test capacity on people that are rather unlikely to test positive. If we had lots of spare capacity and we running a system where you actually want to properly check that people are clear of the virus before they return to work then your ideas have more merit, but thats not the system here so surely its a pointless exercise!


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 24, 2020)

kebabking said:


> The stuff that took away our fingerprints and melted rifles was deet (iirc). I can still taste it.



Ah, Deet! That’s the stuff! Like you i can still taste & smell that shite


----------



## 2hats (Apr 24, 2020)

weltweit said:


> A negative result on an antigen test would suffice to return to work.


Yes a serological test. A RNA negative test could be a false negative. It also tells you nothing about your susceptibility to infection going forward and thus you can happily be moving around asymptomatic but infectious.

Ideally one would have, at least, both a swab test (for viral RNA) and a serological test performed. This would provide a better idea for any given subject as to what their options are.

As it stands it will just indicate exactly (only) who is infected right now (and thus should be isolated from everyone else). It just provides a few more data points for scientific research to inform lockdown release more generally (not individually) and otherwise is a bit wasteful of resources.

e2a: to correct.


----------



## treelover (Apr 24, 2020)

Coronavirus detected on particles of air pollution
					

Exclusive: Scientists examine whether this route may enable infections at longer distances




					www.theguardian.com
				




Has anyone posted this yet, very very worrying.


----------



## treelover (Apr 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Lots of isolated single people are going to be found dead in their homes after all of this. Will they be counted as  victims? Will post-mortems be able to tell if a person has died from CV19?



were sanctions lifted for those on benefits, i do think there will be people found dead in the coming months.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> Time alone is supposed to be enough to have already had the all-clear in the scenario you describe.


If that is enough, all well and good, there are people who are infected with no symptoms who could be identified by a test though if enough critical workers are tested they might be identified. 


elbows said:


> There is no point wasting test capacity on people that are rather unlikely to test positive. If we had lots of spare capacity and we running a system where you actually want to properly check that people are clear of the virus before they return to work then your ideas have more merit, but thats not the system here so surely its a pointless exercise!


Capacity is interesting certainly, at the moment they seem to have headroom, a few weeks back it was different, my ex went to A&E with a temperature cough and breathing difficulties and was given a chest xray but no antigen test. I suppose now with expanded capacity they would test someone like her? 


2hats said:


> Yes a serological test. A RNA negative test could be a false negative. It also tells you nothing about your susceptibility to infection going forward and thus you can happily be moving around asymptomatic but infectious.


It would be nice to pick up asymptomatic cases, but it seems they are unlikely to come forward and indeed may be refused tests exactly because they don't have symptoms. How likely is a false negative? 


2hats said:


> Ideally one would have, at least, both a swab test (for viral RNA) and a serological test performed. This would provide a better idea for any given subject as to what their options are.


Agreed, I wonder if we will get there. 


2hats said:


> As it stands it will just indicate exactly (only) who is infected right now (and thus should be isolated from everyone else). It just provides a few more data points for scientific research to inform lockdown release more generally (not individually) and otherwise is a bit wasteful of resources.
> 
> e2a: to correct.


I suppose the home testing kits may work for people suffering from covid-19, because it seems many people are too poorly to travel to a drive through test location for a test. Although perhaps if they are too poorly they should be in a hospital.


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> By all means criticise what happened and the timing of it and specific things people said. But please understand that it is difficult for us to genuinely judge what individual experts beliefs were, as opposed to them doing the part of their job that involves towing a particular line in public to fit the agreed approach and comms strategy of the moment.



I saw a big chunk of a youtube stream of a committee meeting today where Whitty was being grilled. I was reminded of several themes that I was going on about last night. I even transcribed one bit that is sure to make Azrael explode later! But its turned out rather long, and my brain hurts, so that bit will have to wait.

Anyway here is a bit where I was reminded of the 'towing the line' aspect, and where Whitty pretty much admitted something about the science they are prepared to talk to us about:

He was asked about the public wearing masks and stuff relating to the updated SAGE position on that and his own opinion:



> So very atypically, cos I never like doing this, this is one I'm going to body swerve. Only because this has not yet properly gone to ministers for them to consider. But absolutely the evidence we need to talk about, but we'd need to do that in the context of how ministers have taken a view on this.



So yeah thats no revelation to me, but I'm using it as supporting evidence for one of the aspects I like to drone on about.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 24, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> Leaked map shows postcode next to Cheltenham Racecourse had highest number of coronavirus hospital admissions on April 3 - Gloucestershire Live
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sorry but this is bollocks. Those two postcodes make up nearly 25% of the population of Gloucestershire. So where is the  surprise in those two postcodes making up, guess what, nearly 25% of the hospital admissions?

I'm never defending that meeting going ahead. But people are constantly looking for 'facts' and statistics that prove their confirmation bias. It's a massive red herring and it's detracting from the wider debate on Covid.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 24, 2020)

Jeez.









						Coronavirus: State surveillance 'a price worth paying'
					

The Tony Blair Institute says a "dramatic" increase in surveillance is better than the other available options.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 2hats (Apr 24, 2020)

This needs to be here:









						Revealed: Dominic Cummings on secret scientific advisory group for Covid-19
					

Exclusive: Leaked list reveals presence of Johnson adviser and Vote Leave ally on supposedly independent body




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

That should spice up the dodgy political aspects of all that happened in the key month. Now they are lacking the impression of 'independent science' that is often used as a cover.


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 24, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Jeez.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's a moderate version of this sort of thing. Here's Cameron's former speechwriter expressing a more robust perspective, including biometric ID cards.

We need Big Brother to beat this virus - Clare Foges - The Times (archived version)



> The health secretary has suggested that, down the line, immunity passports may be used to prove the status of those who have overcome the virus. Yet wouldn’t these be too vulnerable to forgery or theft? Far better to have an unforgeable, untransferable, unique document. ID cards would also provide a much richer source of data with which to trace the infected; South Korea’s comprehensive national identity system has been an important part of its success.





> The creation of a national ID card system would not exactly be fast work, but who knows how long this crisis will continue or if future pandemics will occur? Besides, this a good idea beyond the current crisis; a stone to kill multiple birds, from voter fraud to welfare abuse, identity theft to illegal immigration (once citizens need a card to access bank accounts, housing and healthcare it will be much harder to melt into anonymity).



Just the start of a long debate I'd imagine.


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## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

The recriminations and defensive positioning were certainly in evidence during the part of the committee questioning of Whitty that I transcribed. And other bits too, but it was too time consuming to do more than I did. There was one bit where he went out of his way to make it clear that vaccinations were the only context in which he would go on about herd immunity, for example. Anyway, the bit I transcribed, from earlier today:

Jeremy Hunt:

On the 5th of March professor Whitty you told the health select committee that it was important not to lockdown too early. And I just wondered, did you continue to advise that we should not be locking down right up until 24th March when we did do our national lockdown?

Whitty:

Well I think that well firstly the answer is no. Secondly what we did, and I think its, you know people kind of have again a rather 'theres a pre lockdown stage and theres just lockdown' - actually multiple things happened in stages all the way through that month. As SAGE advised that different things are brought in, starting with the ones that have big impacts but almost no negative downsides. People may laugh at things like washing hands, actually they work a lot more effectively than many of the more draconian measures that people think of. But the first of those was individual isolation followed by household isolation and shielding, then into strong recommendations about people working from home, and then on into closing schools, pubs and clubs and so on and then onto final lockdown. There were various points along the way, each one of which was advised by SAGE that that was the thing to do. And the difficult question with this was firstly what is the right combination to do, and the second was what is the exact timing by which this should happen?

And I note in the last week that I am my colleagues have been berated by one set of professors in one newspaper for going too late, and another professor in another newspaper for doing too much too early. And in reality we will in due course have to go back and look over this and say exactly whats the best way to do this, sort of have to do a post-action review and say exactly how do we do this. But what we did was we did this phased, staged approach all the way through basically March, from quite early on in March, through to final lockdown on the 23rd.

Hunt:

So I suppose my last question on this, chair if I may, is the thing I think that is difficult to understand is that on that point on the 24th of March, the analysis showed that the number of people with the disease was doubling every 5 days. So if you had done that two weeks earlier you would potentially have more than halved the number of people who got the disease and I just wondered what the rationale was for not going a bit earlier with the heavier measures, given what we saw came later?

Whitty:

Well I think this is one of the ones where I can give an incredibly long answer that will take the rest of this session, going through the discussions that were in SAGE. I think this is an area where it is unbelievably easy to be facile if I'm honest, and I'm not saying you're doing this, but I'm just saying some of the commentary in the press, you think, actually, have you thought this through? And to go back for example to the previous question about 'have you thought through the downsides of a lockdown too early', just in narrow health terms, leaving aside anything else. Getting this right, between going too early and going too late was a very difficult judgement call. This thing moved actually very fast, you talked about a doubling time of 5 days, actually by the time that it was moving quickly in the UK it was in fact shorter than that, so it moved really quite quickly. There was a point at, you know, the path that was followed was one we were predicting. The speed of upswing was a bit faster than I would have predicted if I'd been asked on the 5th March, not by a huge amount but by enough to be appreciable. And I think thats clear from SAGE, I think even SAGE datas already out there, it will be from other ones. The difference was one of a relatively small degree, on this, in that window of time between early March and late March. And this will be gone upon over multiple times but I think that the end of the epidemic is the time frankly to do this properly and in a technical way and in a non-partisan way.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 24, 2020)

It is a wonder Whitty Hancock Vallance etc have any time to do their work, the amount of time they spend giving evidence or appearing on No 10 broadcasts.


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

weltweit said:


> It is a wonder Whitty Hancock Vallance etc have any time to do their work, the amount of time they spend giving evidence or appearing on No 10 broadcasts.



Those are important aspects of the job, ones that are done too little in this country, not too much. Its a thing called accountability, and my complaint would be in regards the amount of time and effort spent trying to be slippery and relatively unaccountable to the public in settings where they should actually be accountable.


----------



## bimble (Apr 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> This needs to be here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


“His own interpretation of Sage advice”. 

Did they think they were being clever when they made up the acronym ?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 24, 2020)

Masks

Healthcare workers should wear them - because they have an effect

China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea public wear them, why if they don't have an effect?

My mask protects you, your mask protects me, simple logic .. 

But there are not enough to go around in UK, hence gov and even WHO falls short of recommending them for the public. They don't want production to be redirected from health workers. 

Patently masks work, if not health workers wouldn't wear them. 

gov could encourage the UK production of lesser (but still useful) masks for public use, which would transform their potential practical advice for the public, if public masks were widely available they could be used in public and would likely reduce transmission. 

Make your own by all means.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 24, 2020)

I don't think the masks we are buying en masse are suitable for medical use, so it may not be true that medical personnel are being denied PPE by consumer action


----------



## Doodler (Apr 24, 2020)

New York doctors have been treating some Covid-19 patients by lying them prone on special mattresses and giving them oxygen, instead of going for full Alien Facehugger-style intubation.

Warrington hospital in Cheshire has come up with its own alternative using fairly inexpensive CPAP machines meant for treating sleep apnea. These devices have an internal fan to pump out air for pressurised breathing. The hospital modifies them so they deliver oxygen.









						Coronavirus: Hospital cuts COVID-19 death rates with 'black boxes' for sleep disorder
					

Clinicians say there has been less need for the more intrusive ventilators and they have had a far quicker patient recovery rate.




					news.sky.com
				




Obviously these won't do it for everyone.


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## Dogsauce (Apr 24, 2020)

Tbh I can see Cummings and the data monkey bloke being on the SAGE thing as possibly benign - these are people good at messaging and getting information/ideas across to the public - surely that’s a fairly crucial thing needed in responding to this situation? The simple ‘stay at home, protect the NHS’ message smells like their work. Not sure it’s a bad thing to have them pushing messages out there if the messages are beneficial.

(of course, alongside this there is a fairly determined operation to ‘protect the government’ with spin, fake on-message twitter accounts and so on, but that might not be interfering with the science/response)


----------



## weltweit (Apr 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I don't think the masks we are buying en masse are suitable for medical use, so it may not be true that medical personnel are being denied PPE by consumer action


Have you got some OU? Do you wear one when in public? 

All I am railing against is the practicality which says, not for the public because we might not have enough for health care workers, and that this is medical advice. It isn't medical advice, it is pragmatic practical advice based on there potentially not being enough to go round.


----------



## treelover (Apr 24, 2020)

Doesn't Cummings have some interest in eugenics, maybe that spilled over into the SAGE decision making?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 24, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Have you got some OU? Do you wear one when in public?
> 
> All I am railing against is the practicality which says, not for the public because we might not have enough for health care workers, and that this is medical advice. It isn't medical advice, it is pragmatic practical advice based on there potentially not being enough to go round.


waiting for some to be delivered - taking ages though cos they're handmade in the US


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 24, 2020)

Surely any face covering will help reduce the spread? Doesn’t have to be some surgical grade shit, just something that reduced the velocity of expelled breath or sneezes.

if they make masks compulsory, just wait for the Faragist bellends to weaponise this in their ongoing weird thing about burkas, “you can’t tell if they’re wearing a mask under that thing”. 5 points for the first person to spot this argument in the wild.


----------



## belboid (Apr 24, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Tbh I can see Cummings and the data monkey bloke being on the SAGE thing as possibly benign


with the greatest respect...

lol


----------



## belboid (Apr 24, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Surely any face covering will help reduce the spread? Doesn’t have to be some surgical grade shit, just something that reduced the velocity of expelled breath or sneezes.
> 
> if they make masks compulsory, just wait for the Faragist bellends to weaponise this in their ongoing weird thing about burkas, “you can’t tell if they’re wearing a mask under that thing”. 5 points for the first person to spot this argument in the wild.


its the balance of practical use and false confidence.  If we start going out twice as much cos we think we are protected/protecting with masks, then we're probably in exactly the same place as we are now


----------



## Callie (Apr 24, 2020)

weltweit said:


> A negative result on an antigen test would suffice to return to work.


Not the if the test is shite. Plus we don't fully understand if or how long for that a positive antibody test might produce any immunity.

PCR viral throat swab testing is said to be around 80% accurate

And you might get "false" positives in the sense that genetic material from the pathogen is detected but no viable pathogen is present therefore the person is "positive" but not infectious. And that could go on for say three weeks post infection? So do you make all those people isolate? I mean you could?


----------



## little_legs (Apr 24, 2020)

I legit don't get the level of cognitive dissonance of these people


----------



## little_legs (Apr 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> This needs to be here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


'we went with the behavioural science'


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Apr 24, 2020)

Fuck it, end lockdown


----------



## little_legs (Apr 24, 2020)

And definitely clap more


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 24, 2020)

This thread's discussion has moved on wildly  since I was chatting about a possible return to Civil Service work, involving, perhaps, testing and tracing and related data processing. Rumours had genuinely reached me .....

*But!*
Today's update ......

In my part of the CS, we're (almost all of us) remaining off work until the official lock-down period is next reviewed.
That is Thursday 7th May (so, in effect, Monday 11th May is the very earliest they can now bring us back)
With a fair chance of extension beyond this.

So *apologies *to all for my thinking that the rumours we'd go back sooner were true


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 24, 2020)

Callie said:


> Not the if the test is shite. Plus we don't fully understand if or how long for that a positive antibody test might produce any immunity.
> 
> PCR viral throat swab testing is said to be around 80% accurate
> 
> And you might get "false" positives in the sense that genetic material from the pathogen is detected but no viable pathogen is present therefore the person is "positive" but not infectious. And that could go on for say three weeks post infection? So do you make all those people isolate? I mean you could?


Yeah 80% is really useless. Do you know if they have hopes to improve it? 

I mean 80% isn't completely useless, but it depends what they're aiming for. Put it this way, the New Zealand government or the South Korean government would consider it to be useless in terms of public policy.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 24, 2020)

Not sure this is the best thread for this news, so apologies if this is being already discussed elsewhere.
But after May 7th, the Welsh Government are now planning a traffic light system for reducing lock down restrictions.
Coronavirus : "Traffic light" system to lift lock-down in Wales

Drakeford (First Minister) is really hedging his bets though. Quotes are his  :



			
				BBC said:
			
		

> Ending lockdown could be in phases, "like a traffic light in reverse".
> There would be a move from red - some "careful and controlled" relaxation - to green, which would be "much more like the lives we had before the crisis hit".
> 
> The amber zone would see more restrictions lifted and, if the virus is not re-emerging, Wales could then move to the green zone, he said.
> ...


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah 80% is really useless. Do you know if they have hopes to improve it?
> 
> I mean 80% isn't completely useless, but it depends what they're aiming for. Put it this way, the New Zealand government or the South Korean government would consider it to be useless in terms of public policy.



Problems with false negative PCR tests were an issue all over the place as far as I know. Countries that did a lot of testing and tried to be thorough ended up testing the same patients quite a lot if they didnt get positive results but still suspected Covid-19 anyway.

However I am out of date on this, and more recently there was the thing that suggested lower test quality happening sometimes with the PHE tests in this country, whatever that letter was the other day that suggested they were trying to move to commercial tests as a result. But beyond that, there was a broader issue, I'm just a bit rusty on this and whether things have evolved.


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Not sure this is the best thread for this news, so apologies if this is being already discussed elsewhere.
> But after May 7th, the Welsh Government are now planning a traffic light system for reducing lock down restrictions.
> Coronavirus : "Traffic light" system to lift lock-down in Wales
> 
> Drakeford (First Minister) is really hedging his bets though. Quotes are his  :



Different countries are dressing it up in different language, and some are more prepared to discuss some detail with the public than others (England is shit, no surprise). But the approaches amount to about the same thing everywhere from what we've heard so far. Its not a surprise, no other really obvious ways forward exist, and all manner of wiggle room, triggers and relaxations can be part of the mix.

One of the things the likes of Whitty have been going on about recently is that the vitally important R0 (which needs to be kept below 1) is currently being measured using hospital, intensive care and death data. He was on about how they need to get a particular test-based surveillence system going that can enable them to measure the R0 by this other means, that suffers from leg lag than the hospital/death indicators. They will have a first result from this in days that gives them a baseline (rather than the rate), and then subsequent data will be used to judge the rate of transmission, R0 at various moments in time from then on. So although a lot of these lockdown relaxing systems are currently using hospital and death data as a key indicator that tells them they can proceed to relax something (or the reverse, demonstrating a need to get stricter again), they will probably be modified to make use of more timely and detailed data as systems to collect it finally come online.


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## Callie (Apr 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah 80% is really useless. Do you know if they have hopes to improve it?
> 
> I mean 80% isn't completely useless, but it depends what they're aiming for. Put it this way, the New Zealand government or the South Korean government would consider it to be useless in terms of public policy.


What is the efficacy of the NZ and SK PCR tests? I'm not sure that this is a UK thing rather than a base rate effectiveness for this type of test?

In the UK we are mainly doing nose or throat viral swabs. Ideally you want to be doing nasopharyngeal aspirates (aerosol generating procedures....extreme PPE and training required!) Or nasopharyngeal swabs - again bit more intimate, bit more specialist equipment +special bendy swabs). 

Soon we're looking at people self testing at home, there will be increased variation in the technique used and therefore this will also (probably detrimentally) impact the efficacy of the testing.

But no test is 100%


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## little_legs (Apr 24, 2020)

The disgusting Sun has been circulating that traffic light thing for more than a week now


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

Callie said:


> What is the efficacy of the NZ and SK PCR tests? I'm not sure that this is a UK thing rather than a base rate effectiveness for this type of test?
> 
> In the UK we are mainly doing nose or throat viral swabs. Ideally you want to be doing nasopharyngeal aspirates (aerosol generating procedures....extreme PPE and training required!) Or nasopharyngeal swabs - again bit more intimate, bit more specialist equipment +special bendy swabs).
> 
> ...



Yeah I think its been an issue everywhere, its part of the reason why the number of tests conducted is far higher than the number of individual people tested. There was some UK-specific (PHE test-specific) issue too at some point, but I've not seen all that much about it and they seemed to think the commercial tests were less prone to at least one of the issues that affected PHE at some point.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 24, 2020)

little_legs said:


> The disgusting S*n [corrected for you  ] has been circulating that traffic light thing for more than a week now



That's ridiculously over-specific!  Particularly with dates.
I'm *very* critical generally of Mark Drakeford here in Wales, but he was being much looser about timings for the Welsh traffic light system -- he was even avoiding saying that the red phase would start after May 7th ......


----------



## Supine (Apr 24, 2020)

Regarding Covid testing results - if you want to get geeky this is a very good article that explains some of the complications of test result analysis. It's well written. 









						Bayes’ Rule, Decision Making, And Containing COVID-19 With Unreliable Diagnostic Tests
					

How false-negatives  in diagnostic testing leads to release of infected people, and why extreme containment measures have been implemented.




					towardsdatascience.com


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 24, 2020)

Supine said:


> Regarding Covid testing results - if you want to get geeky this is a very good article that explains some of the complications of test result analysis. It's well written.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That article looks pretty good on the general complications and possible inaccuracies of testing 

But a lot of the detail is a very tough read, so much of the graphs and algebra were beyond this mere humanities type's grasp 

I hope some of the more specialist-minded on here grasp it better!


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 24, 2020)

Btw, when I registered for my test this morning, at no point did they ask me what I did for a living or any proof of this. It’s basically working on trust. Suspect this will be abused, particularly if people become aware that there’s no verification. I suppose there is a benefit to keeping the system simple and efficient, but open to piss-taking by self-important twats.


----------



## Supine (Apr 24, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I hope some of the more specialist-minded on here grasp it better!



How about this - the test result shouldn't be seen as a simple positive / negative result - it should be used alongside a clinical diagnosis by a doctor to either increase or decrease the doctors confidence in their assessment of whether covid is present.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah 80% is really useless. Do you know if they have hopes to improve it?


You can re-test. But even single measurements, providing error rates are know, are useful for plugging into models to get a handle on what is going on more broadly in given cohorts.


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> You can re-test. But even single measurements, providing error rates are know, are useful for plugging into models to get a handle on what is going on more broadly in given cohorts.



I think Whitty was on about one of the antibody tests in this regard today too, but I tried to take on too much info and may have misremembered. I think he was suggesting that some of the antibody testing they've got which has ok accuracy rates but not great enough to give a particular individual the all clear etc, will still be useful for some of their broader population surveys, for reasons you describe (known error rates etc).


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 24, 2020)

There's some new evidence published today that the virus might be airborne. If so (a big if) that would change the mask argument Coronavirus detected on particles of air pollution


----------



## keybored (Apr 24, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Jeez.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change


Never heard of it - I thought "Oh wow, who the fuck would call it that". Then the penny dropped.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 24, 2020)

Dyson Covid-19 ventilators are 'no longer required'
from 24/04/2020 Dyson Covid-19 ventilators are 'no longer required'

afaik they haven't been approved yet either.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 24, 2020)

Callie said:


> What is the efficacy of the NZ and SK PCR tests? I'm not sure that this is a UK thing rather than a base rate effectiveness for this type of test?
> 
> In the UK we are mainly doing nose or throat viral swabs. Ideally you want to be doing nasopharyngeal aspirates (aerosol generating procedures....extreme PPE and training required!) Or nasopharyngeal swabs - again bit more intimate, bit more specialist equipment +special bendy swabs).
> 
> ...


My point really was to do with what it was being used for. If it's being used as the basis of people being able to do stuff again, I think a lot people would not like that as a number for all their colleagues to pass as a basis for changing the rules of social engagement. For broader surveys, sure. If you're aiming at elimination of the virus, it's not great. If you're aiming at containment it might be.


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> My point really was to do with what it was being used for. If it's being used as the basis of people being able to do stuff again, I think a lot people would not like that as a number for all their colleagues to pass as a basis for changing the rules of social engagement. For broader surveys, sure. If you're aiming at elimination of the virus, it's not great. If you're aiming at containment it might be.



Here is an article from February 13th about this issue, including some example from different countries.









						Are coronavirus tests flawed?
					

Concerns are being raised about the accuracy of the tests for the coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## tim (Apr 24, 2020)

treelover said:


> Doesn't Cummings have some interest in eugenics, maybe that spilled over into the SAGE decision making?




Why would it? The others might tolerate his presence and perhaps take advantage of his supposed communications skills, but they wouldn't kow-tow to his inferior knowledge.The type of academics and civil servants who end up dominating these committees are not noted for their tolerance if those they consider fools.


----------



## elbows (Apr 24, 2020)

tim said:


> Why would it? The others might tolerate his presence and perhaps take advantage of his supposed communications skills, but they wouldn't kow-tow to his inferior knowledge.The type of academics and civil servants who end up dominating these committees are not noted for their tolerance if those they consider fools.



Yes I expect to find ample evidence of this when I scour the minutes of the POMPOUS (Politically Observant Mandarins Promote Orthodoxy Under Science) committee for clues about their pandemic response


----------



## keybored (Apr 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Does anyone on here have a gym membership? Are they still expecting people to keep paying when the gym's shut?


Mine sent out letters to say they put all our direct debits on hold. Pretty decent, but it's an independent gym so not sure how fucked they'll be come the end of this.


----------



## Sue (Apr 24, 2020)

keybored said:


> Mine sent out letters to say they put all our direct debits on hold. Pretty decent, but it's an independent gym so not sure how fucked they'll be come the end of this.


Mine too. And they've sorted out some online classes* that are free to members/key workers and quite cheap for other people who just want to sign up for that just now.

*Not that I've actually done any yet.


----------



## agricola (Apr 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Does anyone on here have a gym membership? Are they still expecting people to keep paying when the gym's shut?



Mine sent out an email offering three options - either cancel it, suspend it for the duration (which was the default) or keep paying and they give 50% to a charity.


----------



## scifisam (Apr 24, 2020)

Thanks. I asked a friend too, and she said they had suspend for three months but keep your membership (ie no joining fee), keep paying just because you're nice, and keep paying but get a free personal trainer session. Plus cancellation. 

Most gyms are small businesses, but even those that aren't, like GLL, are going to be in trouble, because they tend to also run leisure centres with swimming pools. Despite swimming itself being really safe, it's going to feel very unsafe getting into a communal swimming pool for a while, esp after paddling through the mess of the changing area.


----------



## keybored (Apr 25, 2020)

Sue said:


> Mine too. And they've sorted out some online classes* that are free to members/key workers and quite cheap for other people who just want to sign up for that just now.
> 
> *Not that I've actually done any yet.


I just checked mine's website to see if they were offering anything like this. Nothing going, but I did note that anyone who cancelled off their own initiative (before the gym decided to) will have to pay the joining fee if/when they come back. That's gonna cause some gnashing of teeth.


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## Sue (Apr 25, 2020)

keybored said:


> I just checked mine's website to see if they were offering anything like this. Nothing going, but I did note that anyone who cancelled off their own initiative (before the gym decided to) will have to pay the joining fee if/when they come back.


Mine doesn't have a joining fee. Have to say they've been pretty decent.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 25, 2020)

Nurses 'trolled' online for raising concerns about Covid-19 and PPE | Nursing Times wtf???


----------



## 2hats (Apr 25, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> So even if the preliminary findings look promising we’ll have to wait to find out if a vaccine actually works in practice...?


Some more details, including timelines, from lead investigators' comments and the study registration: the phase I/II Oxford trial (COV001) involves random injection with the ChAdOx1 (chimp adenovirus based) nCoV-19 candidate vaccine or a control (actually a standard meningitis ACWY vaccine).

Initial candidates (two) were injected on Thursday. Another six will be injected today (Saturday). They are all monitored for the first 48 hours each. If ok, on Monday the main campaign begins and eventually around 1000 subjects will receive shots.

The earliest they could hope to be able to see any results is July. However if the national campaign to suppress transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is successful, obviously, ironically, this study could have to run till October (or even longer) in order to be able to see any effect the vaccine might be having as regards combatting infections in this cohort. Several months are also required to monitor subjects for adverse reactions, safety, tolerability, and degree and longevity of antibody production.

At any time, if the study appears futile, it could be terminated early.

If this phase shows promise then the next stage would be to carry out a further study abroad (Kenya has been suggested).

The study completion date is currently expected to be May 2021.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Apr 25, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Dyson Covid-19 ventilators are 'no longer required'
> from 24/04/2020 Dyson Covid-19 ventilators are 'no longer required'
> 
> afaik they haven't been approved yet either.


I think he might be telling porkies. My nephew works for Airbus. He's been pulled off his normal work and theyre flat out busy producing ventilators for a company called Penlon. Ford are in on the job too. I doubt they're doing it for the good of their health, no pun intended
Maybe it's just _his_ ventilators that are no longer required.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 25, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> I think he might be telling porkies. My nephew works for Airbus. He's been pulled off his normal work and he's flat out busy producing ventilators for a company called Penlon. Ford are in on the job too. I doubt they're doing it for the good of their health, no pun intended
> may be it's just _his_ that are no longer required.


Penlon's ventilator is approved and being delivered. Dyson's prototype hasn't even been approved. There are also other consortia with ventilators at various stages, but I think demand is not what was once expected. I expect most of them won't get firm purchase orders now.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Apr 25, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Penlon's ventilator is approved and being delivered. Dyson's prototype hasn't even been approved. There are also other consortia with ventilators at various stages, but I think demand is not what was once expected. I expect most of them won't get firm purchase orders now.


That'd make sense. If Airbus and Ford are flat out producing an approved ventilator, there's not much point spending on one that hasn't even been approved.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Apr 25, 2020)

I don't know if this was posted already but it's quite worrying if it's true.
*



			UK coronavirus deaths more than double official figure, according to FT study
		
Click to expand...

*


> The coronavirus pandemic has already caused as many as 41,000 deaths in the UK, according to a Financial Times analysis of the latest data from the Office for National Statistics. The estimate is more than double the official figure of 17,337 released by ministers on Tuesday, which is updated daily and only counts those who have died in hospitals after testing positive for the virus. The FT extrapolation, based on figures from the ONS that were also published on Tuesday, includes deaths that occurred outside hospitals updated to reflect recent mortality trends.











						UK coronavirus deaths  more than double official figure, according to FT study | Free to read
					

FT estimate has been updated to reflect latest mortality trends




					www.ft.com


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 25, 2020)

Not surprising really. The focus on the official daily death announcements has encouraged lots of wishful thinking by the media and the public. Most countries will have similar issues with the announced numbers lagging well behind the reality. Let's just hope that the scientists, who all know that the official number has to be taken with a pinch of salt, can persuade the politicians to be sensible. The 41,000 number has been in lots of newspapers since the 22nd, but I haven't yet found any response from a minister about it. Rudderless government continues.

Edit: finally found one in a Reuters story:


> When asked about the 41,000 death figure from the FT, Helen Whately, a junior health and social care minister, said: “That is not a figure that I recognise. We know that people are dying in care homes and we know that more people than usual are dying in care homes,” Whately said, adding that the government would next week publish data on deaths in care homes.











						FT analysis sees UK coronavirus death toll at 41,000
					

The novel coronavirus outbreak has caused as many as 41,000 deaths in the United Kingdom, according to a Financial Times analysis of statistics office data.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## Looby (Apr 25, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Thanks. I asked a friend too, and she said they had suspend for three months but keep your membership (ie no joining fee), keep paying just because you're nice, and keep paying but get a free personal trainer session. Plus cancellation.
> 
> Most gyms are small businesses, but even those that aren't, like GLL, are going to be in trouble, because they tend to also run leisure centres with swimming pools. Despite swimming itself being really safe, it's going to feel very unsafe getting into a communal swimming pool for a while, esp after paddling through the mess of the changing area.


I think we had three options, I was going to cancel altogether because I don’t actually use my membership but we’re having our bathroom done whenever this nightmare is over so I didn’t want to have to join again to use the showers. 😄


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 25, 2020)

little_legs said:


> I legit don't get the level of cognitive dissonance of these people




Fucking. Idiots.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 25, 2020)

They probably all think they've got it so it doesn't matter. Or they've all not got it so it doesn't matter. Or that some have and some haven't so errm they're working on herd immunity for the benefit of mankind.


----------



## Ms T (Apr 25, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think it's entered british parlance via the Guardian politics live feed tbh



It’s a term that’s been very commonly used by journalists among themselves for the past twenty years or so. I wasn’t aware it had passed into common speech.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 25, 2020)

More grist to the rumour mill

Revealed: Dominic Cummings on secret scientific advisory group for Covid-19

Also more incompetence

Revealed: UK ministers were warned last year of risks of coronavirus pandemic


​


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 25, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Penlon's ventilator is approved and being delivered. Dyson's prototype hasn't even been approved. There are also other consortia with ventilators at various stages, but I think demand is not what was once expected. I expect most of them won't get firm purchase orders now.



the whole dyson thing smacked of a political stunt from the start, re-inventing the wheel was just pointless and arrogant, wanting to play the hero. Those who’ve quietly invented simple/open source versions (which can be easily manufactured in developing countries) or repurposed other equipment have been more beneficial to society.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 25, 2020)

Penlon’s ESO2 device becomes first model to get green light from UK’s healthcare regulator
from 15/04/2020


> Penlon’s ESO2 device, developed under the codename Project Oyster, will become the first model to get the green light from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), with an announcement expected as soon as Thursday.
> ..
> The government had placed a provisional order for 5,000 of the ESO2 ventilators from the Oxfordshire-based Penlon, which is part of the Ventilator Challenge UK consortium involving manufacturers such as Airbus and Rolls-Royce.





> ..
> The order was conditional on MHRA sign-off because, while the ESO2 is a proven ventilator, it had to be tweaked slightly to allow it to be mass-produced.
> ..
> Consortium member Airbus has replicated Penlon’s production line at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Facility in north Wales, next to the Broughton site where it makes wings for jet aircraft.





> Ventilator Challenge UK has said it could be producing 1,500 ventilators a week by early May, including a separate model, the paraPac designed by Luton-based Smiths Medical.


from 15/04/2020 Coronavirus ventilator wins UK approval in run-up to NHS rollout


----------



## teqniq (Apr 25, 2020)

If true the admin side of the NHS should have their act together more than this. Why have they not?









						Army 'appalled' at way NHS have handled PPE crisis and 'want to take over'
					

A senior source claimed NHS logistics were 'knackered' and questioned why certain key items were not being rationed.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Doodler (Apr 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> Doesn't Cummings have some interest in eugenics, maybe that spilled over into the SAGE decision making?



If he does he has kept pretty quiet about it, assuming we take eugenics to mean using state power to play cattle breeder with humans. It's Toby Young who can't keep his trap shut on whatever his current enthusiasm happens to be.


----------



## elbows (Apr 25, 2020)

In the BBC version of the Cummings story, signs that the same shitty game that the government were playing before the pandemic is back:



> He [A No 10 spokesman] added: "'Public confidence in the media has collapsed during this emergency partly because of ludicrous stories such as this."











						Coronavirus: Cummings attended meetings of key scientific group
					

Downing Street confirms the PM's chief adviser attended Sage meetings but denies he is a member.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> In the BBC version of the Cummings story, signs that the same shitty game that the government were playing before the pandemic is back:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



i was going to post the same thing here, very Trumpish.

tbh the statement preceding that comment in the article didn’t seem that unreasonable, and Cummings portrayal as the liberal’s bogeyman can get a bit hysterical.


----------



## elbows (Apr 25, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> tbh the statement preceding that comment in the article didn’t seem that unreasonable, and Cummings portrayal as the liberal’s bogeyman can get a bit hysterical.



That aspect can get a bit panto, but there is probably a bigger situation emerging now. Various scientific advisors and others are positioning themselves defensively, trying to prepare to deflect criticism over the slow and botched response away from themselves and towards those they think are to blame. The tories in general probably sense the opportunity to weave in their traditional 'its the bureaucrats fault, need more business people running the show' angle (have already seen some of that directed towards Public Health England). And this can play into the agenda that Cummings had in regards the civil service before the pandemic. Hopefully it will blow up in their face.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 25, 2020)

Charity is it


----------



## little_legs (Apr 25, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Apr 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> Coronavirus detected on particles of air pollution
> 
> 
> Exclusive: Scientists examine whether this route may enable infections at longer distances
> ...



I'll file it in 'the virus that ate cars' pile of stuff with interesting implications for the future. Given the agenda we were already going to face this century (relating to energy & climate) I would not be surprised if the timing & trajectory of these inevitable radical changes has already been altered by this pandemic, and several aspects of virus-pollution interaction may add to this considerably.


----------



## agricola (Apr 25, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




It is maddening that the media regurgitates that sort of rubbish without comment, even though anyone who has ever taken part in a meeting - of any kind - knows what the effect of having the boss or their representative present is.  

I don't want to agree accidentally with Cummings, but that the media do this is precisely why noone trusts them any more.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 25, 2020)

agricola said:


> It is maddening that the media regurgitates that sort of rubbish without comment, even though anyone who has ever taken part in a meeting - of any kind - knows what the effect of having the boss or their representative present is.
> 
> I don't want to agree accidentally with Cummings, but that the media do this is precisely why noone trusts them any more.


that representative was behind _protect the economy and if that means some pensioners will die, too bad._


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Apr 25, 2020)

UK just passed 20,000 fatalities “officially”....... not counting those who died at home, in care, were not tested etc etc 😢


----------



## Wilf (Apr 25, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> UK just passed 20,000 fatalities “officially”....... not counting those who died at home, in care, were not tested etc etc 😢


Just heard my Mum's care home has 3 confirmed cases and 1 suspected.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 25, 2020)




----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 25, 2020)

Dunno if we've had this yet - apologies if so - new weekly surveillance reports...



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/880925/COVID19_Epidemiological_Summary_w17.pdf


----------



## existentialist (Apr 25, 2020)

teqniq said:


> If true the admin side of the NHS should have their act together more than this. Why have they not?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think a large part of the problem - and I say this as someone peripherally involved with NHS - is that the administrative hierarchy's mission has crept (or rather, charged) in the direction of costcutting and change management. Every new health secretary has a big pile of pet plans for the NHS, every new Trust chairman has a big pile of pet plans for his Trust, and the whole thing ends up being an ongoing farrago of Orders From The Top, confirming, countermanding, chopping, changing, and generally making it so that nobody gets to go, "Right. Good, all set, now we can start building up some stability and resilience into this show". Because as soon as they get to that point, some daft twat in a suit has decided that the beds should all face West and appointed a team of project managers to work out how to do it.

The organisation I work for has had its funding frozen for years, because the "change for growth" or whatever bullshit name it had that year plan was "just around the corner", heralding a Brave New World of joined-up care, 24/7 mental health hubs - "oh, will your [counselling] service run in nights?" - and telephone hotlines. Heralding. Not actually creating.

No wonder the first blow the NHS took put it on its knees.


----------



## elbows (Apr 25, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Dunno if we've had this yet - apologies if so - new weekly surveillance reports...
> 
> 
> 
> https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/880925/COVID19_Epidemiological_Summary_w17.pdf



Thanks. One of the graphs in it of note:


----------



## teuchter (Apr 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thanks. One of the graphs in it of note:
> 
> View attachment 208898


Do we expect the black line to fall under the blue line for a while after this epidemic has passed (if and when that happens)?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 25, 2020)

Pritti Patel did the press conference today, managed not to fluff any of the numbers and didn't misspeak at all really. Death toll as reported in hospitals now exceeds 20,000 - fairly easy questions as usual. 

I notice she is not tall enough to stand at the lectern without an extra step, reminds me of my ex who is also tiny.


----------



## elbows (Apr 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Do we expect the black line to fall under the blue line for a while after this epidemic has passed (if and when that happens)?



Its quite plausible but I dont have much to say about it until we see quite how low we can get the number of infections (and deaths).

If this were a new influenza strain then I might have more confidence talking about other related things, like how the excess deaths will carry on seasonally for years and how the burden is therefore an ongoing thing. But I barely want to look more than a week in front with this coronavirus pandemic, so I'm very limited in what claims about the future I would make right now. I think I expect at least one twist to the story, but I dont know what or when, and this might just be a silly feeling.

This BBC article does cover a bunch of stuff including the aspect you mention, albeit only briefly.









						Coronavirus: Does 20,000 hospital deaths milestone mean failure for UK?
					

Limiting the outbreak to 20,000 deaths was meant to be a 'good outcome'. How bad will it get?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 25, 2020)

Aside from the health side of covoid , this is quite an interesting article on the potential economic  strategy of those on the right wing of the Tories 




__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


----------



## yield (Apr 25, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Aside from the health side of covoid , this is quite an interesting article on the potential economic  strategy of those on the right wing of the Tories
> 
> 
> 
> ...


paywalled. Any chance of a cut and paste?


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 25, 2020)

> The people at the centre of the UK government “don’t talk about an exit strategy”, says someone who is well placed to know. “They talk about learning to live with this.” That is clearly true. Without a vaccine or proven treatments there is no exit from coronavirus, only management. As yet, there is also no settled strategy.  The government has a sense of how lockdown might be eased and phased. All agree that the only viable approach for easing lockdown is mass community testing and contact tracing. But ministers are tussling over how far to drive the virus spread down before easing restrictions. Matt Hancock, health secretary, argues that squashing the rate of spread before easing will help efforts to control it. Michael Gove, the government’s chief fixer, and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, want to move earlier to minimise the economic hit.  Yet those arguing for early easing are doing so without the necessary infrastructure. Testing capacity is still too low. A planned app to warn those who have come into contact with a carrier is not yet ready to deploy. Thousands of contact-tracing staff must be recruited and trained. Arguments for face-mask use look more about supply than science. Without the tools of virus suppression in place, this is less a strategy than a suck-it-and-see approach.  It is also true, however, that debate is afflicted by political divisions, with the ending of restrictions becoming a proxy battle for the fight over the nature of post-lockdown society. For now, those at the extremes of the argument are not those at the centre of the decision-making. But those erring on the dovish side worry about the increasing hawkishness of Tories, who fear not only the economic cost but a return to Big Statism.  It is striking how many of the hawks come from one of two often intersecting Conservative camps, the leading lights of the Leave campaign and a claque of the government’s media outriders clustered around the Spectator magazine, an outfit whose diaspora also includes Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, and his chief strategist, Dominic Cummings. One lockdown sceptic, Toby Young, a Gove ally and associate editor at the magazine, has set up a website to argue that the lives saved are being overvalued and the costs understated.  Both Mr Johnson and Mr Cummings are less hawkish and worry premature easing may lead to a second peak and more economic damage. But the instincts of the Spectocracy are often aligned and find favour with this government. Even so, there is something else going on here, beyond a debate about lockdown, which is why the influence of those pushing it matters. Having seen the left use the crisis to demand policy changes from higher taxes to nationalisation, the right is fighting back. Its thinkers see an opportunity to use fears over jobs to drive a deregulatory, free market agenda and oppose social policies they dismiss as “wokery”.
> 
> 
> 
> Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Daniel Hannan, one of the founders of Vote Leave, took aim at diversity targets: “When a million more people are on the dole, does anyone think it will be a priority to publish gender pay gaps? . . . Or whether the chief scientific adviser and chief medical officer are privately educated white men?” He went on to liken the lockdown to the dream state for climate change activists, adding: “It will be awkward, after this, to argue that . . . we should all be prepared to suffer a little for the sake of the planet.” Mr Hannan’s argument is typically puckish but also telling. He is right that resurrecting the economy is going to take precedence over many other issues. It will be speedily endorsed by those with other agendas. Companies will call for the lifting of tiresome regulations, measures to hit the 2050 target for a carbon-zero economy will be assailed for loading extra costs on business, risking jobs and hobbling recovery.  Even more telling, though, is the attempt to set up gender equality and ethnic diversity as the enemies of prosperity. Equal pay or food on plates is not really the choice. Can it be that culture wars are even infecting the coronavirus crisis? It is a troubling harbinger. The crisis will be used as an excuse to hammer pet peeves, so tackling injustice or fighting climate change will now be depicted as inimical to jobs and growth.  Mr Johnson has not reached this place and may not. But his ideological outriders have. After weeks in which the left made the running, the post-lockdown battle lines are being drawn. As hardship bites, the worry will be whether he listens to those offering not just economic arguments but a new culture war as a route out of unpopularity.  Battle has been rejoined. Everything may have changed, but there’s a lot that looks the same.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 25, 2020)

Fuck Daniel Hannan. I wish I could kill him with a sword. If I ever see him on the street I shall try to throttle him. Then I suppose I'll go to prison. I wonder if he has a bodyguard.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 25, 2020)

Fks sake.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 25, 2020)

Thursday next week. 

100,000 tests carried out ..

That is Hancock's target


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 25, 2020)

Anything got a decent source for this new test?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 25, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I notice she is not tall enough to stand at the lectern without an extra step, reminds me of my ex who is also tiny.


One of the funniest moments of my career so far was several years ago when I was doing the sound for a political event of some kind, where Hazel Blears was the keynote speaker. Except nobody had told us that she's only about 5' tall. She walked out onto the stage and was completely obscured by the lectern. You literally couldn't see her, never mind hear her from the mic that was aimed a good 8 inches over the top of her head. A stagehand had to run out with a flightcase for her to stand on.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Apr 25, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> One of the funniest moments of my career so far was several years ago when I was doing the sound for a political event of some kind, where Hazel Blears was the keynote speaker. Except nobody had told us that she's only about 5' tall. She walked out onto the stage and was completely obscured by the lectern. You literally couldn't see her, never mind hear her from the mic that was aimed a good 8 inches over the top of her head. A stagehand had to run out with a flightcase for her to stand on.


Heightist


----------



## treelover (Apr 25, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Anything got a decent source for this new test?




is anything based on fact in that rag?


----------



## weepiper (Apr 25, 2020)

The lives saved are being _over-valued._


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 25, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Anything got a decent source for this new test?



If that is worth anything, presumably the press around the world will be jumping on it as a major step forwards. Maybe I will be pleasantly surprised, but currently my money would not be on the UK coming up with the game-changer technology in this thing. Just sounds like chauvinistic fluff from a chauvinistic paper.


----------



## smmudge (Apr 25, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> One of the funniest moments of my career so far was several years ago when I was doing the sound for a political event of some kind, where Hazel Blears was the keynote speaker. Except nobody had told us that she's only about 5' tall. She walked out onto the stage and was completely obscured by the lectern. You literally couldn't see her, never mind hear her from the mic that was aimed a good 8 inches over the top of her head. A stagehand had to run out with a flightcase for her to stand on.











						Feminism and a world designed for men
					

Following on from JudithB 's thread again. Thanks to Poot for bringing up the subject of how the world is designed for men and and Winot for linking to this book  Invisible Women Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women  It’s a smart strategy...




					www.urban75.net
				




5' isn't that short.


----------



## Sue (Apr 25, 2020)

weepiper said:


> The lives saved are being _over-valued._


Probably people who're not economically active so obvs not worth saving...


----------



## zahir (Apr 25, 2020)

The Faroes offer help with testing.


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2020)

BBC marking the 20,000 milestone, since Vallance & co were stupid enough to keep using that number a while back. Even though it is freely acknowledged that we actually passed 20,000 deaths some time back, since various deaths are not included in that particular official number and it and the other ways to measure deaths are all subject to lag. At least that detail is mentioned in the article.









						Coronavirus: The 'good outcome' that never was
					

The UK's official coronavirus death tally has passed 20,000. How can we grasp the scale of such a loss?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I know some people here were worried that the government would blame the public if that number was exceeded, and I wasnt worried about that. Well, even if the lockdown goes a bit pearshaped now, the 20,000 number has been far exceeded within the period that can very much be pinned on the governments own timing, not our bad behaviour, so even if 'we' can be blamed for some proportion of later death or something else that goes wrong, they cannot pin this original tragedy on us. Some might still try, including in a revisionist way later. But their numbers and timing dont add up, if that claim is made then its bogus.


----------



## Mation (Apr 26, 2020)

2hats said:


> Some more details, including timelines, from lead investigators' comments and the study registration: the phase I/II Oxford trial (COV001) involves random injection with the ChAdOx1 (chimp adenovirus based) nCoV-19 candidate vaccine or a control (actually a standard meningitis ACWY vaccine).
> 
> Initial candidates (two) were injected on Thursday. Another six will be injected today (Saturday). They are all monitored for the first 48 hours each. If ok, on Monday the main campaign begins and eventually around 1000 subjects will receive shots.
> 
> ...


Why abroad?


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> BBC marking the 20,000 milestone


Yes, but every time they mention 20,000 or whatever the hospital death number is, they should say, in the next fucking clause, that the figure including deaths elsewhere is more than twice as big. Why don't the dickheads do it? It's not just the Beeb, it's all the media except the bleeding paywalled FT. Don't the other 25,000 dead people matter? Maybe a few more journalists' parents need to die.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 26, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Fks sake.
> 
> View attachment 208975



I am surprised they are only now moving to 7-days a week operation, ours made that move at the start of April, and was even operating on Good Friday & Easter Monday.


----------



## andysays (Apr 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> BBC marking the 20,000 milestone, since Vallance & co were stupid enough to keep using that number a while back. Even though it is freely acknowledged that we actually passed 20,000 deaths some time back, since various deaths are not included in that particular official number and it and the other ways to measure deaths are all subject to lag. At least that detail is mentioned in the article.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Also perhaps worth noting alongside passing the 20.000 mark that the official worldwide figure yesterday was given as 200,000 on the BBC website.

Obviously both of those figures are underestimates, but even I can see that it means the UK currently has one tenth of the official total worldwide figure of deaths.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 26, 2020)

smmudge said:


> 5' isn't that short.


A quick google says she's actually 4’10”, which is


----------



## Mation (Apr 26, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> A quick google says she's actually 4’10”, which is


Oh well that's all right then. Hahaha stupid her for being so undeniably short. How can anyone be expected to plan for having speakers whose height can be established by a quick Google?


----------



## weepiper (Apr 26, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> A quick google says she's actually 4’10”, which is


It's pretty normal for women to be under 5'2". Maybe you all need to adjust your internal bias.


----------



## andysays (Apr 26, 2020)

Just as well you weren't setting up for Iggy, beesonthewhatnow 



(yes, I know that's not his real height...)


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 26, 2020)

smmudge said:


> Feminism and a world designed for men
> 
> 
> Following on from JudithB 's thread again. Thanks to Poot for bringing up the subject of how the world is designed for men and and Winot for linking to this book  Invisible Women Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez – Invisible Women  It’s a smart strategy...
> ...


was literally about to post same thread.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 26, 2020)

The virus doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon and the unreliable gov.co figures don't fill me with any confidence that my chances of survival are any higher than last month. So I'm not lifting any personal lockdown even if I have to try to cope with neighbors gardeners and their interpretation of social distance.

Those poor healthcare workers, their unions and the LP should be starting discussions about payrises now.

Think I'll stay locked down till the pubs open again...


----------



## zahir (Apr 26, 2020)

> And yet, with what we already know, we can surmise that over 60,000 deaths in the UK is a realistic proposition. And, at this stage, it would be unwise to presume that would be the full extent of an epidemic that could easily bounce back if lockdown restrictions are eased.
> 
> What makes this a distinct possibility is the way the epidemic has been handled so far, with hospitals having become reservoirs of infection, with staff becoming infected and freely circulating in the community, unwittingly reseeding the population and keeping the epidemic going. Add to that the way the hospitals have passed on infection to care homes, these too have become reservoirs with their staff members also reseeding the population.







__





						EU Referendum
					






					eureferendum.com


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 26, 2020)

Scotland should consider social and economic reform post-virus, Sturgeon says - The Courier
					

Scotland should “look seriously at social and economic reform” in its planning for recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon has said.




					www.thecourier.co.uk
				




Nice to see this being said.


----------



## killer b (Apr 26, 2020)

I think this story and this story in the graun today, taken together, are very bad news for the government. As discussed elsewhere, diligent observation of the lockdown is crumbling, but if a) the lockdown has yet to have a significant impact in the hospitalisation figures, and b) trust in the government is plummeting, it's difficult to know what the next steps are.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 26, 2020)

Mation said:


> Why abroad?


Well for a start you would want to test the vaccine in numerous other populations (countries) to get as much data as possible. But I would imagine here they have prior, existing relationships with various government and health authorities in other countries where they have previously been involved in vaccination programmes, so those would potentially be fairly easy to spin up quickly.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 26, 2020)

'Suggests'. Fucking useless.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think this story and this story in the graun today, taken together, are very bad news for the government. As discussed elsewhere, diligent observation of the lockdown is crumbling, but if a) the lockdown has yet to have a significant impact in the hospitalisation figures, and b) trust in the government is plummeting, it's difficult to know what the next steps are.



I’m struggling to see how the word “plummets” applies to the graphs in that first article tbh.


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2020)

They are probably only going on about port controls now because Sturgeon was piling pressure on them to have this side of things in the plan for the next stage.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think this story and this story in the graun today, taken together, are very bad news for the government. As discussed elsewhere, diligent observation of the lockdown is crumbling, but if a) the lockdown has yet to have a significant impact in the hospitalisation figures, and b) trust in the government is plummeting, it's difficult to know what the next steps are.


They are in a bit of a corner (gov) deaths and hospitalisations are still way too high to end the lockdown #1, we haven't supressed it in any significant way yet .. if they lifted lockdown now cases would I think rise quickly which would mean they would be looking at lockdown #2 which would not be popular ..


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## Mation (Apr 26, 2020)

2hats said:


> Well for a start you would want to test the vaccine in numerous other populations (countries) to get as much data as possible. But I would imagine here they have prior, existing relationships with various government and health authorities in other countries where they have previously been involved in vaccination programmes, so those would potentially be fairly easy to spin up quickly.


But why not here?


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think this story and this story in the graun today, taken together, are very bad news for the government. As discussed elsewhere, diligent observation of the lockdown is crumbling, but if a) the lockdown has yet to have a significant impact in the hospitalisation figures, and b) trust in the government is plummeting, it's difficult to know what the next steps are.


It depends where the new infections are coming from. Are they a result of the crumbling lockdown, or are they a result of the ongoing failures of the testing and ppe regimes? Or a combination of both, and if so, what combination? 

The next steps the govt needs to take have not changed now for more than a month. They desperately need to sort out ppe and hospital infection control in general, and, related to that because it's impossible to do without it, they need to sort out a test-trace-isolate regime. 

I think a focus on the crumbling at the edges of lockdown is a distraction, tbh. Those countries that have seen infection rates drop - what is it they have done that the UK hasn't done? The answer is almost certainly to do with ppe, infection control and testing.


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## editor (Apr 26, 2020)

Depressing. What kind of wanker does this to an ex partner?



> The lockdown has caused a surge in the number of people contacting the UK's Revenge Porn Helpline - a government-funded service for adults experiencing intimate image abuse.
> 
> Traffic to the helpline's website nearly doubled in the week beginning 23 March and more cases were opened in the following four weeks than in any previous four-week period.
> 
> ...





			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52424263?fbclid=IwAR0mrcST3Ofeiyh6YkCYsu7sWD8JhN9JY1MbTNeagY4fL9du9j0irHtQQck


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## 2hats (Apr 26, 2020)

Mation said:


> But why not here?



A study started here (in Oxford, London, Southampton and Bristol) on Thursday just. Runs until May 2021.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 26, 2020)




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## ignatious (Apr 26, 2020)

2hats said:


> A study started here (in Oxford, London, Southampton and Bristol) on Thursday just. Runs until May 2021.


I think the suspicion is that we export such trials so as to avoid potentially endangering our own population. I’m not sure that is justified, but that was my reading of the question. 

Is it a valid concern or are there other reasons (genetic, for example) why testing in multiple areas of the world would be beneficial?


----------



## butchersapron (Apr 26, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



Every single person named or posting in the above exchange went to oxbridge.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 26, 2020)

A Labour peer said this today:



Now I have no love of either regime but regardless of where the outbreak started, with the UK and US set to be amongst the higherst death tolls to suggest that capitalism had no part to play in that is disingeneous to say the least


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## killer b (Apr 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It depends where the new infections are coming from. Are they a result of the crumbling lockdown, or are they a result of the ongoing failures of the testing and ppe regimes? Or a combination of both, and if so, what combination?
> 
> The next steps the govt needs to take have not changed now for more than a month. They desperately need to sort out ppe and hospital infection control in general, and, related to that because it's impossible to do without it, they need to sort out a test-trace-isolate regime.
> 
> I think a focus on the crumbling at the edges of lockdown is a distraction, tbh. Those countries that have seen infection rates drop - what is it they have done that the UK hasn't done? The answer is almost certainly to do with ppe, infection control and testing.


I think you misunderstand me: I don't think the lockdown crumbling round the edges now will be showing in the new infections yet. But I think it crumbling while infection rates are still very high, before the numbers are low enough for a test/trace/isolate regime to be effective without being totally overun, and while trust in their abilities to deal with things is rapidly dropping makes their future options - even if they manage to sort out hospital infection control, PPE etc - pretty limited.


----------



## treelover (Apr 26, 2020)

Johnson is quoting Cicero, 'the health of the nation is supreme', looks like his NDE may have had an effect, not sure unlock is coming.


----------



## smokedout (Apr 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think this story and this story in the graun today, taken together, are very bad news for the government. As discussed elsewhere, diligent observation of the lockdown is crumbling, but if a) the lockdown has yet to have a significant impact in the hospitalisation figures, and b) trust in the government is plummeting, it's difficult to know what the next steps are.



Both Spain and Italy locked down non essential production and both have had shorter peaks than the UK has had so far.   I think the reason the decline here has been so slow here is that half the country is still going to work.  And rather than do anything about that it looks like if anything we'll get some stupid pointless rules about how far away from your hosue you can walk that won't make any difference as they are dong in Wales and will only build resentment.  All the evidence seems to show that face to face contact is the main driver of transmission, you are far more likely to get it from a friend, someone you live with or a colleague than in the street or the supermarket. Tinkering around with the least effective drivers of transmission whilst ignoring or even escalating the most likely by insisting people get back to work is only going to make everyone miserable and pissed off and prolong the time it takes to bring infections down - if that can even be achieved when construction sites, unnecessary call centres and many other workplaces are still open.


----------



## treelover (Apr 26, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Scotland should consider social and economic reform post-virus, Sturgeon says - The Courier
> 
> 
> Scotland should “look seriously at social and economic reform” in its planning for recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, Nicola Sturgeon has said.
> ...



The right are also planning a different future


----------



## treelover (Apr 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It depends where the new infections are coming from. Are they a result of the crumbling lockdown, or are they a result of the ongoing failures of the testing and ppe regimes? Or a combination of both, and if so, what combination?
> 
> The next steps the govt needs to take have not changed now for more than a month. They desperately need to sort out ppe and hospital infection control in general, and, related to that because it's impossible to do without it, they need to sort out a test-trace-isolate regime.
> 
> I think a focus on the crumbling at the edges of lockdown is a distraction, tbh. Those countries that have seen infection rates drop - what is it they have done that the UK hasn't done? The answer is almost certainly to do with ppe, infection control and testing.




Package on BBC news about South Africa, despite being poor country, hard to observe S/D, they have kept cases well down, by employing thousands of community nurses, we have district nurses, a substantial if fraying regional/local public health ecology, why haven't they use it?


----------



## killer b (Apr 26, 2020)

I don't think the district nurses have been sat idle this last month tbf


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## treelover (Apr 26, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




beneft bashing was pretty high during the new labour period as well.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 26, 2020)

treelover said:


> Johnson is quoting Cicero, 'the health of the nation is supreme', looks like his NDE may have had an effect, not sure unlock is coming.




Well they need to fucking police it properly then, and pay people so we can stay home, and test and trace, and provide PPE to carers and hospital staff.


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## treelover (Apr 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think the district nurses have been sat idle this last month tbf



of course, i am talking about scale.


----------



## Thora (Apr 26, 2020)

treelover said:


> Package on BBC news about South Africa, despite being poor country, hard to observe S/D, they have kept cases well down, by employing thousands of community nurses, we have district nurses, a substantial if fraying regional/local public health ecology, why haven't they use it?


I imagine district nurses are pretty busy at the moment, especially as lots of their patients were discharged from hospital at the beginning of this.


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## Marty1 (Apr 26, 2020)

Driver clocked doing 134mph in a 40 zone in London!!


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## killer b (Apr 26, 2020)

treelover said:


> of course, i am talking about scale.


there has been attempts made to increase the healthcare workforce by appeals for ex-healthcare workers to return to healthcare, and via early graduation, with some success. I'm not sure where else we'd find any fully trained nurses to increase the scale of the operation though, any ideas?


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## Taphoi (Apr 26, 2020)

Deaths-per-Day continues to tell a fascinating story. The attached chart uses NHS England statistics from Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths

Analysis is based on a 25-day interval between infection and death (with a standard deviation of just over a day) which is based on a Lancet study. Several facts emerge:


Until mid-March there was under-reporting of deaths related to Covid-19 in English hospitals
The initial unchecked spread-rate was such as to double deaths-per-day every 3.5 days
In early March the government instructed people with symptoms to isolate at home. This immediately reduced the spread-rate of fatal infections to doubling every 8.7 days, which was manifested in the trend of deaths-per-day from 29th March
On the weekend of 14th-15th March the government instructed high-risk groups (over 70’s plus those with health conditions) to isolate at home. This caused deaths-per-day to peak 25-days later on 8th April and to start to decline such as to halve every 38 days
The early evidence is that the broad lockdown caused a slight increase in the rate of decline of deaths-per-day to halving every 17 days, such that deaths-per-day in hospitals in England should fall below 100 in mid-May (the relatively small impact of the broad lockdown is probably due to unchecked spread within care homes and poor PPE in hospitals causing them to act as spread centres to some extent; also, it is hard for locking down low-risk people to influence fatal infections very much, because statistics continue to show that at least 99% of all deaths are in defined high-risk groups)
The broad lockdown did not save hospitals from being overwhelmed, because that had already been achieved by the isolation of high-risk groups
The only merit of the broad lockdown is to reduce virus incidence in the community at large to a level where a substitute test-and-trace policy can practicably replace it
If the broad lockdown were stopped tomorrow, but isolation with symptoms and isolation of high-risk groups were maintained, fatal infections would continue to decline
If the broad lockdown were replaced by a policy of promptly testing everyone with symptoms, isolating positive cases and tracing and isolating their contacts, then deaths-per-day would fall much more rapidly from 25-days forward of the implementation of that policy
(The 7-day weighted average is calculated as [(0.25*day-3+0.5*day-2+0.75*day-1+day+0.75*day+1+0.5*day+2+0.25*day+3)/4])


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## 2hats (Apr 26, 2020)

ignatious said:


> I think the suspicion is that we export such trials so as to avoid potentially endangering our own population. I’m not sure that is justified, but that was my reading of the question.
> 
> Is it a valid concern or are there other reasons (genetic, for example) why testing in multiple areas of the world would be beneficial?


You'd would ideally want to test in as wide and as varied samples of the global population as possible. Identify/control for/remove societal/cultural/genetic variables. In this instance time is of the essence so being able to call upon pre-existing networks, infrastructure, relationships is clearly going to help that.


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## Mation (Apr 26, 2020)

2hats said:


> A study started here (in Oxford, London, Southampton and Bristol) on Thursday just. Runs until May 2021.


You said small trial here, then large scale trial abroad. I was wondering why the large one won't be here.


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## Mation (Apr 26, 2020)

ignatious said:


> I think the suspicion is that we export such trials so as to avoid potentially endangering our own population. I’m not sure that is justified, but that was my reading of the question.
> 
> Is it a valid concern or are there other reasons (genetic, for example) why testing in multiple areas of the world would be beneficial?


Aye, this, including not being sure if this is likely.


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## Doodler (Apr 26, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Driver clocked doing 134mph in a 40 zone in London!!



Saw some mad driving on a big dual carriageway in east London recently. High-performance BMWs, Mercs etc racing each other, jumping in and out of lanes, never seen so much of that before on one stretch. Half-empty roads are like a dream come true for them.


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## spitfire (Apr 26, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Saw some mad driving on a big dual carriageway in east London recently. High-performance BMWs, Mercs etc racing each other, jumping in and out of lanes, never seen so much of that before on one stretch. Half-empty roads are like a dream come true for them.



Was it the A12? There are always complete fuckwits haring down there in normal times, can't imagine what they're like right now.


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## Doodler (Apr 26, 2020)

spitfire said:


> Was it the A12? There are always complete fuckwits haring down there in normal times, can't imagine what they're like right now.



Yes, it was the A12, Hackney to Bromley-by-Bow. It was like being inside GTA, eye-popping stuff.


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## spitfire (Apr 26, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Yes, it was the A12, Hackney to Bromley-by-Bow. It was like being inside GTA, eye-popping stuff.



That's the one. I drive back and fro from Leyton/Forest Gate quite a bit and it's mad what some of them think they can get away with, and do.

Our area is usually quite bad for dickheads but seems to be quieter since lockdown started.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 26, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> Deaths-per-Day continues to tell a fascinating story. The attached chart uses NHS England statistics from Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths
> 
> Analysis is based on a 25-day interval between infection and death (with a standard deviation of just over a day) which is based on a Lancet study. Several facts emerge:
> 
> ...


That is certainly a plausible story. It contains a few assumptions such that being so confident as to call your bullet points 'facts' is a little too strong, but I agree that the evidence does seem to be mounting that ongoing infection is due to spread in hospitals and social care.

For me, a very important question has to do with which bits of lockdown are the big ticket items wrt spread. I suspect that, in London, the ending of mass transit has been one of the biggest or the biggest factor. From what I understand of transmission, a packed tube train allows for at least three means of transmission - touching an infected surface then your face, being directly coughed/breathed at, and breathing in infected aerosol.


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## 2hats (Apr 26, 2020)

Mation said:


> You said small trial here, then large scale trial abroad. I was wondering why the large one won't be here.


I probably should have been clearer. I meant widening the overall study, rather than size of sample in any one geographically constrained trial within the study. They haven't published participant numbers for any trial beyond the initial, current, UK based one (not least because they are yet to negotiate with various authorities how that might proceed).

Read more here.


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## treelover (Apr 26, 2020)

My friend has just told me her neighbour had a barbeque yesterday with about 15 people there, not the first and where her partners boat is moored in Goole, every day is party day at the moment.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 26, 2020)

smokedout said:


> Both Spain and Italy locked down non essential production and both have had shorter peaks than the UK has had so far.   I think the reason the decline here has been so slow here is that half the country is still going to work.  And rather than do anything about that it looks like if anything we'll get some stupid pointless rules about how far away from your hosue you can walk that won't make any difference as they are dong in Wales and will only build resentment.  All the evidence seems to show that face to face contact is the main driver of transmission, you are far more likely to get it from a friend, someone you live with or a colleague than in the street or the supermarket. Tinkering around with the least effective drivers of transmission whilst ignoring or even escalating the most likely by insisting people get back to work is only going to make everyone miserable and pissed off and prolong the time it takes to bring infections down - if that can even be achieved when construction sites, unnecessary call centres and many other workplaces are still open.


Yep, totally agree. That said, we shouldn't overstate the differences between the UK's curve and those of Italy and Spain. UK deaths are still on a downward slide since the peak day of 8 April. Looking at the latest figures from today spread out over day of death, deaths in hospital are down by around a third from the peak week. In Italy at the same time after peak week, deaths in hospital were also down by about a third.

Latest totals allocated to day of death for England



We're still suffering sadly from the lack of testing. So we don't have any other reliable info on the current state of infection other than hospital admissions/deaths. In Italy and elsewhere, far more testing has been done and they can now see downward trends there as well.


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## elbows (Apr 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep, totally agree. That said, we shouldn't overstate the differences between the UK's curve and those of Italy and Spain.



In order to attempt to compare like for like, I've had to use reported hospital deaths per day instead of the corrected data showing deaths on the actual day they happened. I've also left out the care home numbers for France, and stuck to their original hospital deaths figures for the duration instead, otherwise there are some huge bumps in their data.



My main conclusion is that its still a little early in the UKs epidemic to do this comparison.

I was hoping to use intensive care data to do a similar comparison, but the way the UK reporting of this changed (after a lengthy absence) and also some issues with Spains ICU data has somewhat thwarted this. I will still look into it and report back if there is something useful that can be seen.

The other factor I want to look into in regards the UK is the possibility that the broader spread of infection in this country changes the picture compared to Italy and Spain, for example. Some analysis of specific regions is therefore also on my agenda, not sure when.


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## 2hats (Apr 26, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> Deaths-per-Day continues to tell a fascinating story. The attached chart uses NHS England statistics from Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths


Deaths in hospitals (of those who tested positive) doesn't tell us much about the wider national situation (it doesn't even give us the entire picture in hospital). We have patchy data for community, care home and other institutionalised settings. The data are incomplete, some incorrectly binned. Each cohort has a differing effective reproduction rate at any given instance and each of those is time varying. It is going to take many more weeks, months to build a sound dataset for detailed analysis.


> Analysis is based on a 25-day interval between infection and death (with a standard deviation of just over a day) which is based on a Lancet study


Which study?


----------



## wayward bob (Apr 26, 2020)

just looking at your curves elbows (sorry, can't help it ) we look a lot flatter in the tail of the "peak" so far...


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 26, 2020)

Using the incredibly crude, yet historically surprisingly effective, measure of 'take Italy and add 14 days' is still only a couple of days out for the UK. Italy passed 20,000 hospital deaths announced on 13 April. UK passed that figure 12 days later. Given that the UK's population is 10 percent bigger than Italy's, we're still pretty much on course to be more or less 'as bad as Italy'.


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## elbows (Apr 26, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> just looking at your curves elbows (sorry, can't help it ) we look a lot flatter in the tail of the "peak" so far...



I want one more week of that data before commenting much on that aspect. And as I said I want to look at it regionally as well, because in some countries it seems like a couple of regions bore the brunt of their epidemic wave.

The other problem is, as 2hats has said, the quality of the data and the time required for a better picture to emerge. I have a reasonable handle on the different sorts of UK death statistics, and the ones I used for those graphs are my 'least favourite' in many ways. And I am not as familiar with any specific issues with the similar data from certain other countries. But for comparisons sake at this stage, thats the data I had to use.

Total excess mortality data, which eliminates any issues with Covid-19 not being on the death certificate when it should be, are the numbers I will ultimately place most emphasis on. But its even earlier in the collection of those, so again we are still some way away from me being able to use those properly.


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## elbows (Apr 26, 2020)

2hats said:


> Which study?



Same shit as when they tried peddling similar theories a week ago, and you tried to point out the distortions in their analysis. A curious poster indeed, with an agenda I intend to look into a bit.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 26, 2020)

Another thing to bear in mind is that the various peaks represent quite different heights when measured per head of population. Spain's peak is the highest of all. It may look to be coming down quite sharply from there, but that is a very high high - about a third higher than the UK's high. If one country has had a particularly intense outbreak in one place, that might show itself as a sharp peak followed by a steep decline. But that might not reflect anything much to do with policy - it may simply reflect the intensity of infection in one particular area over one period of time. It's consistent with the idea that health services in Spain were overwhelmed at one particular point in certain areas, which they were. Germany, which was never overwhelmed, has peaked off in a very level way. But its peak is around 1/6 the height of Spain's peak.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Same shit as when they tried peddling similar theories a week ago, and you tried to point out the distortions in their analysis. A curious poster indeed, with an agenda I intend to look into a bit.


An agenda, or just overextending by declaring that their hypotheses are facts? I think those are interesting hypotheses in that post, tbh, if they are taken only as hypotheses.


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> An agenda, or just overextending by declaring that their hypotheses are facts? I think those are interesting hypotheses in that post, tbh, if they are taken only as hypotheses.



Read their other posts, there arent that many.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Apr 26, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> To be fair other XR branches seem as horrified by this as everyone else on the planet View attachment 203239


Motherboard/Vice suggests it was the work of “an anonymous white supremacist group called the Hundred-Handers, which was recently active in the UK”.

A recent _Guardian_ article cites a report by Zinc (formerly Breakthrough - the arms-length private sector comms agency favoured by the psyops spooks of RICU) which claims “far-right organisations are using the crisis to impersonate other groups... Fake Extinction Rebellion flyers have been found in several cities in the UK proclaiming “Corona is the cure – humans are the disease”.

Edit: I see there is a thread on Zinc's ‘This is WOKE’ campaign.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Apr 26, 2020)

Mation said:


> You said small trial here, then large scale trial abroad. I was wondering why the large one won't be here.




I heard something about this on the radio (maybe the Radio Four Worldwide coronavirus update) that said it’s possible that the background level of the virus in the U.K. isn't enough to give a good indication of how protective the vaccine would be. They need to try it in a population that’s very exposed and vulnerable, high R0 number, to get a good idea of how effectively protective it is.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 26, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I heard something about this on the radio (maybe the Radio Four Worldwide coronavirus update) that said it’s possible that the background level of the virus in the U.K. isn't enough to give a good indication of how protective the vaccine would be. They need to try it in a population that’s very exposed and vulnerable, high R0 number, to get a good idea of how effectively protective it is.


I touched on this in my original post (and previous) - the concern is that if isolation is effective in the UK (as we obviously would like it to be), then too few of the subjects would get exposed to the virus during the window of the trial for sound conclusions to be drawn. It's not ethical to infect them intentionally so one has to rely on chance infection in the community; you also want to get better evidence of how the vaccine performs in a natural community setting, as the population go about their everyday activities (for some notion of 'everyday', such as it is now). We have apparently driven Re down across various cohorts, so there is a distinct possibility that the UK trial alone may either take much longer to come to a conclusion or even not deliver clear results at all. To come to a credible conclusion, for the study to be rigorous, they may need more subjects in a higher Re environment.


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Another thing to bear in mind is that the various peaks represent quite different heights when measured per head of population. Spain's peak is the highest of all. It may look to be coming down quite sharply from there, but that is a very high high - about a third higher than the UK's high. If one country has had a particularly intense outbreak in one place, that might show itself as a sharp peak followed by a steep decline. But that might not reflect anything much to do with policy - it may simply reflect the intensity of infection in one particular area over one period of time. It's consistent with the idea that health services in Spain were overwhelmed at one particular point in certain areas, which they were. Germany, which was never overwhelmed, has peaked off in a very level way. But its peak is around 1/6 the height of Spain's peak.



I've used NHS England deaths by date of death, leaving out the last 5 days of data, to graph the picture by region.

I'm a bit nervous about the graphs because this data is still incomplete in various ways, and I have to be careful to consider other possible variations between regions, eg what if reporting delays are worse in some regions, and what if the picture of who is actually admitted to hospital varies across regions?

Regardless of those concerns, you can probably still see some thing in these charts which demonstrate the scale of epidemic in different places having an impact on the subsequent shape.

Too many graphs that will make this post a bit long, so I'm going to stick them behind a spoiler tag.



Spoiler


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## quimcunx (Apr 26, 2020)

I mentioned before, and there are no graphs, just anecdotal but 2 weeks ago I was seeing as many as 2 ambulances rushing to attend  per half hour but for the past week numbers have seemed more normal.  Maybe even less than normal which may be mixed news as it suggests people are not calling when otherwise they would. Also nb that 
a couple of times I've  seen lights but not sirens during the day now so might not be alerted to some if I'm not looking windowward. Also also NB not all ambulance calls lead to admission 2 weeks ago or now.


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## a_chap (Apr 26, 2020)

All these graphs!


If you take out the "spike" on April 10th then does it appear that the number of new infections each day in the UK is just not falling?


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 26, 2020)

a_chap said:


> All these graphs!
> 
> 
> If you take out the "spike" on April 10th then does it appear that the number of new infections each day in the UK is just not falling?
> ...


Problem with looking at the UK's new cases is the miserable rate at which the UK has been testing. So testing is slowly ramping up now, meaning they will be finding more cases than they were. That means that a levelling off probably represents a decline in the infection rate. But we can't be at all sure cos the testing has been so badly handled.

If they ever do get to testing 100,000 per day, within a week or so of that level of testing being reached, we should hopefully start to get a true idea of where we're at from testing results. Otherwise, number of hospital admissions and deaths are better measures, albeit with a longer time lag.

This graph on hospitalisations is a decent measure of where we are with infection rates. London well down, everywhere else gradually coming down, except Northern Ireland - there may be some special local issues there: it's gone from very low to a bit worrying in the last couple of weeks.


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2020)

I think there is also some risk of some people getting depressed about the slow decline, in part because they are comparing it to the peak. If it is instead compared to what the deaths per day would have been expected to do if there had been no measures and changes in behaviour, the difference now compared to what it likely would have been is still staggering.


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## elbows (Apr 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This graph on hospitalisations is a decent measure of where we are with infection rates. London well down, everywhere else gradually coming down, except Northern Ireland - there may be some special local issues there: it's gone from very low to a bit worrying in the last couple of weeks.



It matches with what was shown in my regional hospital death graphs pretty well too, so probably no need for me to repeat that exercise very often. Plus the hospital data obviously has less lag, though it does have some obvious errors from time to time (mostly missing data from specific hospitals on specific days).

I want to look into the Northern Ireland thing, I currently know nothing at all. I will want to check whether there has been a change in admissions policy there for a start I suppose.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> It matches with what was shown in my regional hospital death graphs pretty well too, so probably no need for me to repeat that exercise very often. Plus the hospital data obviously has less lag, though it does have some obvious errors from time to time (mostly missing data from specific hospitals on specific days).
> 
> I want to look into the Northern Ireland thing, I currently know nothing at all. I will want to check whether there has been a change in admissions policy there for a start I suppose.


Aside from the NI anomaly, they are encouraging figures. At last week's zoom doctor's conference thing, there was agreement that two conditions at least need to be met for lockdown to ease. First, capacity needs to be freed within the NHS in case of a second spike, and second, a test and trace regime needs to be in place. The latter still depends on our useless government pulling its finger out, but it is at least a controllable; the former isn't directly a controllable, but is coming together.


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2020)

The answer regarding the Northern Ireland data was contained in the notes included with the spreadsheet version of the data.

"The Northern Ireland data is a cumulative count of the number of hospital admissions. It is not comparable with the other data".

They also removed Northern Ireland from that graph today, probably just as well.


----------



## Sprocket. (Apr 26, 2020)

Thora said:


> I imagine district nurses are pretty busy at the moment, especially as lots of their patients were discharged from hospital at the beginning of this.


Around here district nurses were desperately understaffed before this pandemic. Patients need to be seriously ill and bedridden to get cover from the service. Practice nurses in local medical centres were being used by post-op patients and recently discharged patients. Of course all this has stopped too due to the current crisis.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 26, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> Deaths-per-Day continues to tell a fascinating story. The attached chart uses NHS England statistics from Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths
> 
> 
> If the broad lockdown were replaced by a policy of promptly testing everyone with symptoms, isolating positive cases and tracing and isolating their contacts, then deaths-per-day would fall much more rapidly from 25-days forward of the implementation of that policy



This is the nub of moving forward, yet given the track record to date on testing I cannot see us having a system/procedures in place that (i) quickly identifies those with symptoms and tests immediately (ii) ables us to identify contacts fast enough before possible further transmission (iii) monitors the isolation anytime soon - can you?


----------



## Smangus (Apr 26, 2020)

PD58 said:


> This is the nub of moving forward, yet given the track record to date on testing I cannot see us having a system/procedures in place that (i) quickly identifies those with symptoms and tests immediately (ii) ables us to identify contacts fast enough before possible further transmission (iii) monitors the isolation anytime soon - can you?



So much for learning from the German approach then


----------



## zahir (Apr 26, 2020)

Testing run by Serco (read the thread)


----------



## donkyboy (Apr 26, 2020)

i'm seeing more cars and people out and about now.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 27, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Saw some mad driving on a big dual carriageway in east London recently. High-performance BMWs, Mercs etc racing each other, jumping in and out of lanes, never seen so much of that before on one stretch. Half-empty roads are like a dream come true for them.


This is happening on residential supposedly 20mph streets in S London too. Especially but not exclusively late evening. It's mostly relatively expensive looking cars and it's mostly young men at the wheel. It's bringing out some quite strong tyre-slashing urges in me. What's particularly worrying about it is that the roads generally being quieter means that there are more vulnerable road users out and about. Kids on bikes for example. Elderly people (or anyone) crossing a road that seems quiet and at a place that seems safe until one of these cars suddenly appears at 50 or 60mph. Something very nasty is likely going to happen. I would like the police to leave sunbathers alone and take some of these drivers in and charge them. Make a load of publicity about it and make it clear it's totally socially unacceptable.


----------



## Doodler (Apr 27, 2020)

teuchter said:


> This is happening on residential supposedly 20mph streets in S London too. Especially but not exclusively late evening. It's mostly relatively expensive looking cars and it's mostly young men at the wheel. It's bringing out some quite strong tyre-slashing urges in me. What's particularly worrying about it is that the roads generally being quieter means that there are more vulnerable road users out and about. Kids on bikes for example. Elderly people (or anyone) crossing a road that seems quiet and at a place that seems safe until one of these cars suddenly appears at 50 or 60mph. Something very nasty is likely going to happen. I would like the police to leave sunbathers alone and take some of these drivers in and charge them. Make a load of publicity about it and make it clear it's totally socially unacceptable.



That is indeed totally unacceptable. (It seems incredible that still within living memory are times when it was considered safe for children to play on the road in many urban residential streets.)


----------



## lefteri (Apr 27, 2020)

planes flying over this morning seem almost back to normal pre-corona intervals, a very noticeable increase as of today - what is going on?


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 27, 2020)

zahir said:


> Testing run by Serco (read the thread)




I did a drive-through test on Saturday afternoon. Quite a long process, 1hr50 from joining the queue of cars to leaving. Most of the time you had to keep your car windows closed and engine off, so got pretty uncomfortable in the heat. A lot of the staff working seemed to be military.

There were four ‘checkpoints’, one to check/confirm your attendance (check ID, scan QR code from your phone), one where they issued the testing kit (in a plastic bag stuck under your wipers) and one where they gave instructions via phone on how to test yourself and dropped the test kit through your passenger side window. You then parked up in a parking bay and did the test, held the bag up to the window so someone could check you had everything in the bag correctly, then sealed the bag. This was then dropped in a bin at another checkpoint.  At the exit someone was holding up a sign telling you to register the test.

a few things to note:

1. Take hand sanitiser (I had some in car already) as you need to clean hands before testing, though I think they might supply this if you don’t have some - it wasn’t specified in the attendance instruction.

2. The instruction sheet has very small text, it’s been printed at six sheets per page size, it was a struggle for me to read even with my reading glasses, which luckily I’d brought with me. There are nine pages of fairly dense instructions, separate sections for if you’re doing the test on others or having the test administered by staff. This could be more concise, and I don’t know who decided to try and get it all on a single sheet of A4.

3. There is muddled information about registration, something was mumbled at the first or second checkpoint about not needing registration instructions as I had the QR code (from applying online), yet at the end they really seemed to emphasise registering your test number. I had no details on how to do this, so had to call the enquiries number which is hard to get through on (usually cuts off after one ring). When I eventually got through and went through my details with them they said I didn’t need to do anything as I’d had the QR code (which is what I suspected). 

No results or further communication from them yet, but they did say 48hrs to five days for results.

The queue of cars was much smaller when I left.

Have they given any further info on how many were tested on recent days? Wondering how that 100,000 target is looking. I reckon they might make it, as if they were in doubt about pulling it off they would have played the ‘Boris back to work’ card later in the week to distract from this failure.

(I am aware that the original ‘target’ was a bit dishonest as it was supposed to have included antibody testing with kits, which could easily be deployed at a large scale had they worked - so they’ve ended up having to work hard to get near this figure with conventional testing, which is a bonus really)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 27, 2020)

Looks like Johnson is going to speak outside No. 10 soon, the podium is out.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 27, 2020)

The instruction sheet. As mentioned, text is small, and you also have to read pages across in two rows, which isn’t immediately obvious. Wonder if someone was trying to save paper/money?


----------



## teuchter (Apr 27, 2020)

lefteri said:


> planes flying over this morning seem almost back to normal pre-corona intervals, a very noticeable increase as of today - what is going on?


I noticed a few planes coming over yesterday. Nowhere near 'normal' levels but the first time I've seen several in the course of the day for a few weeks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 27, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Have they given any further info on how many were tested on recent days?



The last I spotted, IIRC it was for Fri. or Sat., was just short of 30,000 in a day.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 27, 2020)

Doodler said:


> That is indeed totally unacceptable. (It seems incredible that still within living memory are times when it was considered safe for children to play on the road in many urban residential streets.)


I've actually seen some kids playing on the street during this time. Also a lot of people sitting out on their doorsteps or front gardens. I hope the experience might provide some momentum for support for street calming measures post crisis. I'm going off topic though.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 27, 2020)

Johnson says that is why people might be tempted to ease up now.

But now is not the moment, he says.

He says he understands the worries of shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, and everyone in business.

He knows why they think that, without an economy, there will be no way of funding the NHS.

He says he shares their urgency.



> "Yet we must also recognise the risk of a second spike ... and letting the reproduction rate go back over 1."


That would risk a “disaster”, he says.

He says that would cause lasting damage to the economy.

And so he refuses to throw that away, he says.



> "I ask you to contain you impatience because I believe now we are coming to the end of the first phase of this conflict."



Johnson says the government should only ease up on the lockdown when it is confident there will be no second peak.

He says he wants “maximum transparency” about how the decisions to relax restrictions are taken.

He says he wants to involve the opposition parties as much as possible.

He says measures are in place to win “phase two”, just as the UK is winning phase one.

He says if the UK can show the same sense of optimism shown by Capt Tom Moore, we will come through this.

And that’s it. He has finished.









						UK coronavirus live: some non-Covid NHS treatments to restart, as 360 hospital deaths take toll to 21,092 - as it happened
					

Families of NHS staff who die from coronavirus to get £60,000; Johnson says lockdown cannot yet end as second peak would be disaster




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 27, 2020)

Well, he seems to be saying the right things, let's hope his actions match those words.

Maybe as he was so ill, it has made a difference on what would have happened otherwise.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 27, 2020)

For anyone who missed it, here it is...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

Saying all the right things? Worries about the economy and nothing else by the sounds of it. He's saying all the things I would expect him to say, not necessarily all the _right_ things. 

As for words like 'conflict' and 'winning', a) this isn't a war and b) tell that to the thousands who've lost loved ones in the past month. Predictable and shite to invoke the spirit of Capt Tom Moore. He's still stuck on the 'stay in, save lives', with not much else to say. No hint of contrition over his myriad mistakes.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 27, 2020)

This is not good news...



> An urgent alert issued to doctors has raised concerns that a serious coronavirus-related syndrome may be emerging in children in the UK.
> 
> The alert states that in the past three weeks there has been a rise in children being hospitalised with a syndrome that has the characteristics of serious Covid-19, according to the Health Service Journal. Children have so far been deemed to be at low risk of serious ill health from the virus.
> The alert states:
> ...


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is not good news...



Definitely not! 
But you would think something similar might have been identified by now in other countries as well, wouldn't you? 
Maybe it has ....


----------



## lefteri (Apr 27, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I noticed a few planes coming over yesterday. Nowhere near 'normal' levels but the first time I've seen several in the course of the day for a few weeks.


this was about ten in the space of half an hour - of course not near the usual density but it felt like it for the first time since this started


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 27, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Definitely not!
> But you would think something similar might have been identified by now in other countries as well, wouldn't you?
> Maybe it has ....



It certainly has been across the pond...



> Last week, doctors at the Children’s National hospital in Washington DC said they had seen significant numbers of children admitted with coronavirus, with more than a quarter of them requiring admission, including critical care.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 27, 2020)

Wonder if Johnson encountered anyone dying around him while he was in ICU? Quite possible given the circumstances, although they might have sheltered him from it. It is the sort of thing that can change your perspective and fuck up your head a bit.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 27, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Definitely not!
> But you would think something similar might have been identified by now in other countries as well, wouldn't you?
> Maybe it has ....



Im wondering what the difference between a rise and “an apparent rise” is. Looking at the article they say “the absolute number of children affected is thought to be very small”, so perhaps it could even be a statistical anomaly due to the COVID-related changes in healthcare and reporting.


----------



## robsean (Apr 27, 2020)

Assuming you're in London and noticed more planes arriving yesterday this is because they were using the approach from the east which hasn't often been the case in recent weeks rather than an increase in their number.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Wonder if Johnson encountered anyone dying around him while he was in ICU? Quite possible given the circumstances, although they might have sheltered him from it. It is the sort of thing that can change your perspective and fuck up your head a bit.


Maybe. I don't care. This is not about him.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 27, 2020)

> *Boris Johnson* starts by saying he is sorry to have been away from his desk for longer than he wanted.
> 
> He thanks Dominic Raab for stepping up.
> 
> ...



Biggest challenge the country has faced since the war seems to happen on a pretty regular basis.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Saying all the right things? Worries about the economy and nothing else by the sounds of it. He's saying all the things I would expect him to say, not necessarily all the _right_ things.
> 
> As for words like 'conflict' and 'winning', a) this isn't a war and b) tell that to the thousands who've lost loved ones in the past month. Predictable and shite to invoke the spirit of Capt Tom Moore. He's still stuck on the 'stay in, save lives', with not much else to say. No hint of contrition over his myriad mistakes.



Certainly feels like a war of attrition to me.


----------



## killer b (Apr 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> No hint of contrition over his myriad mistakes.


You won't ever see contrition. It's not possible, because contrition involves admitting he's caused the needless deaths of tens of thousands of people.


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 27, 2020)

robsean said:


> Assuming you're in London and noticed more planes arriving yesterday this is because they were using the approach from the east which hasn't often been the case in recent weeks rather than an increase in their number.



Apparently of 11 passenger flights from New York yesterday, only one actually had passengers on, the others just freight with some carrying additional freight in the passenger compartment.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 27, 2020)

robsean said:


> Assuming you're in London and noticed more planes arriving yesterday this is because they were using the approach from the east which hasn't often been the case in recent weeks rather than an increase in their number.


I wondered about that. Have they been using the approach from the west in recent weeks due to wind direction or is it related to the reduced traffic?


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> > "I ask you to contain you impatience because I believe now we are coming to the end of the first phase of this conflict."



"Now this is not the end (of my term of office). It is not even the beginning of the end (of my term of office). But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning (of my term of office).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I wondered about that. Have they been using the approach from the west in recent weeks due to wind direction or is it related to the reduced traffic?


It will be wind direction. They try to land and take off into the wind. We've had an easterly right through this hot spell, which is not the prevailing wind, so it's not a surprise that it's felt different. Weather changed last night.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Maybe. I don't care. This is not about him.



not really meaning on a personal level, but whether it would influence policy, emphasise this is real and has consequences.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 27, 2020)




----------



## farmerbarleymow (Apr 27, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



Yeah, like they won't vet questions in advance.  You'd probably have to confirm you're a member of the tory party to get picked.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> not really meaning on a personal level, but whether it would influence policy, emphasise this is real and has consequences.


Maybe. I have experience of being very ill in hospital and people dying around me - dying right next to me, in fact. My experience of that was that I was so ill that I had pretty much no brain space to think about anything other than myself. Reflect on it later, yes, but as it's happening, it's mostly a case of 'Nurse! Me please.' Johnson doesn't strike me as the reflective type, but maybe.

Problem is, if this has caused him to reflect for the first time in his life, I wouldn't trust his reflection to come up with good things. After all, what was the first thing he did when he came out of hospital? Move to his second home, that's what. This is not someone who shows any signs of self-awareness about his privilege.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 27, 2020)

Fucking hell, some papers are making it out as if it's King Arthur himself arisen from the Isle of Avalon as if his talents and leadership were missed while he was away.


----------



## treelover (Apr 27, 2020)

This has just been posted on Big Up The NHS FB page, the page is constantly monitored and this has been confirmed as real, other medics have contributed before comments turned off, it is so worrying ands possibly a new direction for the outbreak.









						Exclusive: National alert as ‘coronavirus-related condition may be emerging in children’
					

A serious coronavirus-related syndrome may be emerging in the UK, according to an "urgent alert" issued to doctors, following a rise in cases in the last two to three weeks, HSJ has learned.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				




update now on HSJ, only small numbers thank god


----------



## little_legs (Apr 27, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> not really meaning on a personal level, but whether it would influence policy, emphasise this is real and has consequences.


if he wasn't sick there would have been zero difference in the way the government has handled the pandemic over the past weeks, if anything I fear it's straight back to even worse austerity as soon as the lockdown is lifted


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

little_legs said:


> if he wasn't sick there would have been zero difference in the way the government has handled the pandemic over the past weeks, if anything I fear it's straight back to even worse austerity as soon as the lockdown is lifted


And... I saw first hand how marvellous the NHS is. The idea that it is in crisis is a despicable lie.


----------



## Sprocket. (Apr 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And... I saw first hand how marvellous the NHS is. The idea that it is in crisis is a despicable lie.


I couldn’t agree with you more.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> I couldn’t agree with you more.


Not sure what reason we would have to think he would do anything other than use this to push his agenda to continue to fuck the NHS. It's what Cameron did with his sick son.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 27, 2020)

Aside from pay and conditions for nurses, and conditions for doctors.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

"How could I be fucking the NHS? It saved my life!"

Bluster, lie, bluster, lie, bluster, lie.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 27, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> The instruction sheet. As mentioned, text is small, and you also have to read pages across in two rows, which isn’t immediately obvious. Wonder if someone was trying to save paper/money?
> 
> View attachment 209217


Printing something that will be unreadable to a significant portion of the middle aged to elderly is staggering.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 27, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> test yourself


Hmm. Public self-swabbing for a RT-PCR test, you say?


 * Ponders false negatives *


----------



## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

To misquote Johnson, we are now at the phase where we wrestle the invisible mugger to the ground and then stick swabs up their nostrils.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 27, 2020)

elbows or 2hats do you have (or know where I can find) a breakdown of the UK deaths (from hospitals obviously) in terms of age demographics?

TIA

I've just seen indications the peak for all deaths was April 8th but for under 60s was April 11th btw. Would lockdown explain the difference? Or what?

Again, thanks.


----------



## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> elbows or 2hats do you have (or know where I can find) a breakdown of the UK deaths (from hospitals obviously) in terms of age demographics?
> 
> TIA
> 
> ...



There is a tab on the daily NHS England spreadsheet that has the numbers per day of actual death in hospital, by age ranges.

Download the latest one with 'total announced deaths' in its title from this page:





__





						Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths
					

Health and high quality care for all,  <br />now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk
				




ONS data that lags more but goes beyond hospitals is also available, a new version will be out tomorrow so I will mention it again then.

As for differences in peak timing, there are too many variables, and the differences, especially in the younger age groups, involve too small numbers which further decreases confidence. Plus there could be differences in how quickly different ages progress to serious illness and death. And I certainly wouldnt try to build any sort of case for anything based on a couple of days difference in peak deaths.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And... I saw first hand how marvellous the NHS is. The idea that it is in crisis is a despicable lie.




"If I as the PM used got queue jumping special VIP treatment via the NHS then everyone else must be fine!"


----------



## LDC (Apr 27, 2020)

2hats said:


> Hmm. Public self-swabbing for a RT-PCR test, you say?
> 
> 
> * Ponders false negatives *




Yeah, I've been wondering about poor test technique for the self tests. I've swabbed a couple of people and it's not pleasant (even to do tbh) and I imagine the chance of poor quality swabs if you do yourself is very, very high.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> There is a tab on the daily NHS England spreadsheet that has the numbers per day of actual death in hospital, by age ranges.
> 
> Download the latest one with 'total announced deaths' in its title from this page:
> 
> ...



Thank you, that's really helpful. Don't suppose there's another for Wales? (If not, why not btw?)


----------



## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Thank you, that's really helpful. Don't suppose there's another for Wales? (If not, why not btw?)



Every nation does it their own way, I cannot say why some are better than others.

Wales has a dashboard that will show deaths by actual day of death (rather than reporting date). But it doesnt include the same data broken down by age.






						Tableau Public
					






					public.tableau.com
				




There could be other sources for all I know, half the battle was trying to find these reports over time as nations changed their systems of reporting.

Certainly the ONS data includes Wales. But at this stage a lot of their data that is broken down by age etc, will only give weekly figures, not daily. And its often broken down by one criteria or another, not both, so you are more likely to see figures per age group per week that include England & Wales merged together as one number. And there are delays, so the report from last Tuesday, whilst covering the week ending April 10th, will have lower numbers for that period than tomorrows version will show.






						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional       - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, by age, sex and region, in the latest weeks for which data are available. Includes the most up-to-date figures available for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19).



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 27, 2020)

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/to...navirus-briefing-toby-helm-observer-1-6625055

Bit worrying.

_



			Sunday Times
		
Click to expand...

_


> reporters were reportedly prevented from asking questions at the latest briefing after the newspaper claimed 10 Downing Street “sleepwalked” into the coronavirus epidemic, and revealing how Boris Johnson failed to attend five COBRA meetings in the lead up to the outbreak.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Why has north Wales only just announced a month's worth of deaths in one go? Seems bizarre. This now leaves Hywel Dda (my board) and Powys as the outliers with _apparently _only 14 deaths between them. Or are they suddenly going to announce chunks of deaths in the coming days?
> 
> These figures throw up a new sick joke almost every day.



Here we go with an explanation:









						Coronavirus: Virus deaths error blamed on system 'glitch'
					

One health board "decided not to use" a reporting system set up for the Welsh NHS.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## SpineyNorman (Apr 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> "How could I be fucking the NHS? It saved my life!"
> 
> Bluster, lie, bluster, lie, bluster, lie.


This is why he really needed to die.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, he seems to be saying the right things, let's hope his actions match those words.
> 
> Maybe as he was so ill, it has made a difference on what would have happened otherwise.


While I've no interest in the Prince Hal redemption arc the press has written for Johnson (minus any admission of fault, naturally), there was some very interesting language in that speech: continuing to "suppress" the virus, keeping its R rate below one, and cautioning against losing control and allowing a second peak. The opposite of merely slowing the spread to keep the NHS within capacity and generate "herd immunity".

None of which says anything about their ability to make it work, of course, but at least the stated intent has changed.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

Azrael said:


> While I've no interest in the Prince Hal redemption arc the press has written for Johnson (minus any admission of fault, naturally), there was some very interesting language in that speech: continuing to "suppress" the virus, keeping its R rate below one, and cautioning against losing control and allowing a second peak. The opposite of merely slowing the spread to keep the NHS within capacity and generate "herd immunity".
> 
> None of which says anything about their ability to make it work, of course, but at least the stated intent has changed.


He's been shown a video of Angela Merkel.

(not even joking - bet that's what's happened)


----------



## PD58 (Apr 27, 2020)

Well...an interesting choice for the first public question!


----------



## Azrael (Apr 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> He's been shown a video of Angela Merkel.
> 
> (not even joking - bet that's what's happened)


Exactly what I was thinking!

Credit where it's due to Wales and Scotland for preempting Whitehall and publishing strategies that unequivocally committed to suppression of the virus via aggressive contact tracing and isolation. The government now know that if they want to continue with a "four nations" strategy, containment must be its objective.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Here we go with an explanation:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I know, I saw this earlier. Unbelievable isn't it?

For anyone not following, north Wales, run by Betsi Cadwaladr health board, *who are in special measures (i.e failing, and supposedly being monitored because they are failing) *had reported no deaths up until last week. On Friday they suddenly announced 84 deaths. Here's why.




> "When the epidemic first started earlier this year, Public Health Wales put in place a new electronic reporting system for health boards to use.
> 
> "That was to pull together the numbers so that we had an accurate figure.
> 
> ...



They've been in special measures since 2015. Guess they're not moving out of them anytime soon.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 27, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Well...an interesting choice for the first public question!



FFS.

"Can we hug our grandchildren?"

"Depends."

Jesus wept.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 27, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> FFS.
> 
> "Can we hug our grandchildren?"
> 
> ...


...and can be difficult to answer says Hancock - really!! Have not watched a briefing for a few days...they are still so poor. Backslapping about building a bunch of hospitals that we appear not to need yet but still no idea of any plan, testing nowhere near the target and trace & track still at the idea stage...just let's hope the select committees get on top of this.

Further, capacity it seems is all about number of beds - nothing about the stress and strain on the individual staff over the last two months, which never seems to get mentioned in the capacity context.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 27, 2020)

Anything about world travel and quarantine and testing at entry yet? What with that being the way the thing spreads round the world.


----------



## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Anything about world travel and quarantine and testing at entry yet? What with that being the way the thing spreads round the world.



It will become a more pressing issue when they get the domestic numbers down much below the current level, and when the next phases of response have to be activated. The issue has already come up, for example I think Scotland are pressuring to have this stuff done properly in future, and they need the UK government to get their act together on that front. So there are murmerings about it out there. But its hard for me to predict when anything will actually be fully addressed by this government, it has to be closer than it was, but perhaps still some weeks of waffle away.

edit - oh I see it did come up in the press conference questions, a somewhat similar answer to what I just said was given.


----------



## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

Whitty didnt want to touch Vallances '20,000 deaths would be a good outcome' with a bargepole, or provide a new figure, when it came up in questions today. Vallance was not there to squirm over it.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 27, 2020)

While border security may be a reserved power, nothing to stop Scotland mandating 14 days quarantine right now under devolved health powers. Nor, for that matter, setting up a compulsory testing station immediately after customs.


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## two sheds (Apr 27, 2020)

Azrael said:


> While border security may be a reserved power, nothing to stop Scotland mandating 14 days quarantine right now under devolved health powers. Nor, for that matter, setting up a compulsory testing station immediately after customs.



Close the border  

Tamar Bridge too.


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## Azrael (Apr 27, 2020)

But ask Berwick if they wish to be liberated first.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

Azrael said:


> While border security may be a reserved power, nothing to stop Scotland mandating 14 days quarantine right now under devolved health powers. Nor, for that matter, setting up a compulsory testing station immediately after customs.


There is a middle way here as well, between doing nothing and doing a Korea, which is to have mandatory testing, with as fast a turnaround as possible and of course quarantine until the results come back, and to allow people in if they come back negative. That may not be enough if you're aiming right now for total elimination, but it's enough to make a difference with suppression, R0 and reseeding the population.


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## two sheds (Apr 27, 2020)

Azrael said:


> But ask Berwick if they wish to be liberated first.



Freedom for Northumbria


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## Azrael (Apr 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There is a middle way here as well, between doing nothing and doing a Korea, which is to have mandatory testing, with as fast a turnaround as possible and of course quarantine until the results come back, and to allow people in if they come back negative. That may not be enough if you're aiming right now for total elimination, but it's enough to make a difference with suppression, R0 and reseeding the population.


Testing alone would be better than nothing, but as tests are imperfect, would also add on the quarantine period as a safety net.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Testing alone would be better than nothing, but as tests are imperfect, would also add on the quarantine period as a safety net.


I'm not sure that is proportionate at the moment, though, given community infection levels. A lot of effort for very little comparative gain.


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## Steel Icarus (Apr 27, 2020)

Mrs SI went to the shops today as she has every 4-5 days since "lockdown". Says it's patently obvious social distancing has largely gone for a burton, with kids all over the place, families shopping together, shoppers in aisles looking askance at her waiting for them to leave an aisle. Next door had a bbq at the weekend.


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## PD58 (Apr 27, 2020)

Anecdotally social distancing seems to be fraying but not of course in any govt data...I saw more people out today stood in groups that were not families; we are past the peak so what's to worry about...🤔😷


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## Petcha (Apr 27, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Mrs SI went to the shops today as she has every 4-5 days since "lockdown". Says it's patently obvious social distancing has largely gone for a button, with kids all over the place, families shopping together, shoppers in aisles looking askance at her waiting for them to leave an aisle. Next door had a bbq at the weekend.



My neighbours on either side of me seem to be having regular bbq's/garden parties. I find it difficult to believe all the voices coming over the fence live there.

The messaging from the government on this has been absolutely woeful. I'm not surprised at all people are giving up. Those daily briefings are a joke. Hancock seems to be answering completely different questions to what he's just been asked.


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## sheothebudworths (Apr 27, 2020)

The briefing today includes the fact that we are now exceeding daily testing compared to South Korea and are approaching the number that Germany undertakes, as if those numbers have any relevance while they have also been testing at massively higher rates for much longer and where they also employed vigorous track and trace - manipulative nonsense.

Hancock (and Johnson) also _really_ get on my tits with the constant arm movements to illustrate how _well_ we are doing - _down_ to imply EFFECTIVE SUPPRESSION and _up_ to imply GREATER TESTING.
Does this shit come from the behavioural scientists? 
I just find it really awkward and obvious and patronising - and Hancock's feels, particularly, like a really unnatural replication of what Boris does with such creepy ease - neither of them using any sort of similar body language to accompany the numbers on deaths, or any other growths or lack of growth that may be significant but not 'positives'. Urgh.


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## two sheds (Apr 27, 2020)

Sunak too in his speech. Looked like a puppet with strings jerking his arms up at the relevant points.


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## The39thStep (Apr 27, 2020)

Does this seem right? If it is Starmer hasnt hit the right spot has he?


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## LDC (Apr 27, 2020)

Anecdotally the Labour members and strong supporters I know think Starmer is on the wrong track with going on about a lockdown exit plan, so it's a believable survey to me. And personally I agree, I think we're nowhere near that stage yet. Giving out a plan or timetable for something that is so open to adaptation when/if the circumstances change just seems stupid and setting yourself up for criticism. Not to mention the confusion it will create with the public and it'll also be the excuse some people want to ease off on things now.


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## cupid_stunt (Apr 27, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Close the border
> 
> Tamar Bridge too.



I would be happy for a border to be set-up to protect us from the plague ridden areas in the north.  



Spoiler: The north


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anecdotally the Labour members and strong supporters I know think Starmer is on the wrong track with going on about a lockdown exit plan, so it's a believable survey to me. And personally I agree, I think we're nowhere near that stage yet. Giving out a plan or timetable for something that is so open to adaptation when/if the circumstances change just seems stupid and setting yourself up for criticism. Not to mention the confusion it will create with the public and the excuse some people want to ease off on things now.


I strongly disagree. The only reason not to lay out a plan in detail now is if you don't have a plan to lay out. With one week to go on its initial lockdown, Switzerland extended lockdown by a week alongside an assurance that things would change after that if the numbers continued to get better. A week later, as numbers were indeed still getting better, it announced its plan in detail, and phase one of that plan started today. Each phase is dependent on the first going well - everything is planned but nothing is set in stone. And people are being treated like grown-ups able to understand and deal with that.

But the Swiss could do that because the test and trace system they wanted was already well developed. By comparison, the UK, which locked down just one week after Switzerland, is miles behind in its preparations. The ongoing lack of a plan is an indication of the ongoing failure of the UK government. That needs calling out.


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## frogwoman (Apr 27, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Does this seem right? If it is Starmer hasnt hit the right spot has he?
> 
> View attachment 209374



Yeah exactly


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## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> But the Swiss could do that because the test and trace system they wanted was already well developed. By comparison, the UK, which locked down just one week after Switzerland, is miles behind in its preparations. The ongoing lack of a plan is an indication of the ongoing failure of the UK government. That needs calling out.



We arent 1 week behind Switzerland in terms of scale of epidemic though. They never went above 75 reported deaths a day. Now their numbers are down to more like 30-40 a day. So they are much closer to the point of changing phase & measures than we are.

I have mixed feelings about lack of detailed UK plan. I'm currently more bothered by the fact the media lost patience with lockdown before a lot of the public did, and drove the narrative ahead of where it should actually have been relative to the actual phase of epidemic here. They seem to have tired of bringing up PPE too


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## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

Or to put it another way, if the whole of the UK had the scale of epidemic, and current stage of epidemic that the South West region of England has, then we would be much closer to the Swiss timing, and I would be moaning a lot more about lack of published plan.

I will still moan more generally about the way the public are treated in England in terms of information and public communication, but I am not currently sat here desperate to know the details of the plan. It was sufficient for me, for a while to come at least, to be content with the discovery that they did not intend to recklessly end too many aspects of lockdown too quickly, and that they take testing & tracking seriously for the next phase.


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## Louis MacNeice (Apr 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I would be happy for a border to be set-up to protect us from the plague ridden areas in the north.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Are you mad! The north begins at Findon (village not valley).

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


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## campanula (Apr 27, 2020)

Ministers use COVID-19 to destroy children’s safeguards
					

A statutory instrument published this afternoon makes unprecedented changes to regulations (secondary legislation) relating to the care and protection of vulnerable children and young people. The c…




					article39.org.uk
				




This is demoralising. Not sure this is the right thread but  depressingly, the govt have seized an opportunity for further evisceration of local services.


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## LDC (Apr 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I strongly disagree. The only reason not to lay out a plan in detail now is if you don't have a plan to lay out. With one week to go on its initial lockdown, Switzerland extended lockdown by a week alongside an assurance that things would change after that if the numbers continued to get better. A week later, as numbers were indeed still getting better, it announced its plan in detail, and phase one of that plan started today. Each phase is dependent on the first going well - everything is planned but nothing is set in stone. And people are being treated like grown-ups able to understand and deal with that.
> 
> But the Swiss could do that because the test and trace system they wanted was already well developed. By comparison, the UK, which locked down just one week after Switzerland, is miles behind in its preparations. The ongoing lack of a plan is an indication of the ongoing failure of the UK government. That needs calling out.



They've given five points that need to be in place, imo that's enough, starting to talk specifics is a recipe for a disaster and confusion. The media are partly to blame for this I think, they've started going on about it, and Starmer has got caught up in that.

Calling out their failures in dealing with this is fine. Wanting a timetable for an exit plan for something we're right in the middle of is foolish (unless you just want to use it as a stick to beat the Tories with knowing full well it's a lose/lose for them either way) and also detracts from far more important issues we need to sort out now.


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## LDC (Apr 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm currently more bothered by the fact the media lost patience with lockdown before a lot of the public did, and drove the narrative ahead of where it should actually have been relative to the actual phase of epidemic here. They seem to have tired of bringing up PPE too



Exactly that. I think this call isn't coming from us (the public) it's coming from the media.


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## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

As for the longstanding attitude of the UK government in regards the level of detail, trust and sort of tone they use with the UK public, its been crap as standard for as long as I've known, and its worse under tories. Labour had different ways of treating us with contempt on this front, they did

There are still some days where I quite like a fair chunk of the medias press conference questions though. At the minimum we still tend to learn what questions the government and scientific/medical advisors want to dodge.

Peston messed up his R0 question today by thinking 0.5 was the stated goal, so that was a waste. Someone else asked a question I liked that was based on past press conference remarks - they had admitted in the recent past that they think R0 is below 1 in the community, but that isnt necessarily so of care homes and hospitals where they probably suspect it is sometimes still well above 1. So someone asked them what they thought R0 was in those places. They dodged the question via the fact that it wont be a single number, it will vary per individual setting. But it was notable that they steered well clear of giving an example of what it could be in a particular hospital that was struggling with infection control, and some of the hospital-related comments about it from Stephen Powis was potentially misleading (something along the lines of 'deaths in hospital are falling so it must be ok!'). Someone should press them further on this, and more on care homes, in the weeks ahead.

Oh well at least after what I said, Panorama is focussing on some PPE issues. Some of the detail isnt new to everyone but it should help raise awareness of some specific failings.









						Coronavirus: UK failed to stockpile crucial PPE
					

Failures in the preparation for the coronavirus pandemic are revealed by a BBC investigation.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## PursuedByBears (Apr 27, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Mrs SI went to the shops today as she has every 4-5 days since "lockdown". Says it's patently obvious social distancing has largely gone for a burton, with kids all over the place, families shopping together, shoppers in aisles looking askance at her waiting for them to leave an aisle. Next door had a bbq at the weekend.


Really? It's not like that here at all.


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## The39thStep (Apr 27, 2020)

If I was in the UK this world be the first sign of a light at the end of the tunnel








						Coronavirus: Greggs to begin reopening shops amid lockdown
					

The bakery chain plans to reopen a limited number of outlets next month in a "controlled trial".



					www.bbc.com


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 27, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> If I was in the UK this world be the first sign of a light at the end of the tunnel
> 
> 
> 
> ...


fuck yes - i need my morning coffee


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## fishfinger (Apr 27, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> fuck yes - i need my morning coffee


It's only in Newcastle. So you'll have a long bus ride to get your steak-bake and coffee


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## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Exactly that. I think this call isn't coming from us (the public) it's coming from the media.



To be fair, I could divide this up into a number of sections:

Media in general with their line of questioning in recent weeks. Maybe partly sponsored by the strange 'anti-climax' phenomenon which, no matter the feelings of bad taste, was a bit inevitable when hospitals were not utterly flooded and overwhelmed by patients. Not just a media feeling either, some people who work in them probably had the same strange sense, not like they were looking forward to a nightmare, but everyone got hyped up to deal with it and then it didnt come on the scale worst imagined.

Specific people with agendas using the media. The usual suspects who have long peddled shitty herd immunity and anti-lockdown lines. Or the different camps in cabinet who we are told had different ideas about priorities and ending lockdown, and have their media methods.

The public who actually want to know detail or are impatient. There are some. But there are also impatient people who dont care about the detail, the detail of the plan isnt what they are after, they just want to be told 'you can do this again now'. Its the actual timing of changes that is what interests them, and short of specific dates there isnt much in the detail that will help them cope in the meantime.


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## PD58 (Apr 27, 2020)

The problem about not outlining the thinking re a plan is that Raab's 5 points are vague and perceived as subjective and, as was asked today re R, there is no clear position that when reached (how they would know i am not convinced as they have no idea what is happening in care homes) lockdown will be reviewed. What are the metrics behind each of these which means the strategy can be reviewed:

Making sure the NHS can cope
Evidence showing a sustained and consistent fall in daily death rates
Reliable data showing the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels
Being confident in the range of operational challenges, like ensuring testing and the right amount of PPE, are in hand
Being confident any adjustments will not risk a second peak
Why not explain these in terms of actual figures, what is to lose if they do this, and then when attained we move to stage 2, which looks like...(next stage of plan, which i do not believe they currently have).

Every briefing though says the peak is past, hence it seems many folk think we are safe...it is all about smart communication, which has been sadly lacking, in fact it has been woeful.


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## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

From a psychological point of view, it is important to try to give people something at the earliest safe opportunity. But since some aspects of the UK lockdown are quite soft, and some aspects were driven by individual companies and organisations taking matters into their own hands via their own risk assessments, some of the 'R0 wiggle room' is probably going to be used up by changes on these fronts and some peoples somewhat relaxing behaviours, leaving less that the government can offer themselves directly. Partly this government might like aspects of that though, plus they meet with some of these other entities behind the scenes to plan next steps.


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## killer b (Apr 27, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Does this seem right? If it is Starmer hasnt hit the right spot has he?


I don't know if he's barking up the right tree, but I don't think it's Starmer's job at the moment to be in step with the mood of the country - it's to expose the failing and incompetence of the government.


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## William of Walworth (Apr 27, 2020)

S☼I said:
			
		

> Mrs SI went to the shops today as she has every 4-5 days since "lockdown". Says it's patently obvious social distancing has largely gone for a burton, with kids all over the place, families shopping together, shoppers in aisles looking askance at her waiting for them to leave an aisle. Next door had a bbq at the weekend.





PursuedByBears said:


> Really? It's not like that here at all.



Same for us too -- here in my part of Wales, things are nothing like how @S☼I was describing them in his area (?) .

There's probably major variations between different areas as to how well observed are the rules.

Which areas are more representative? The badly behaved ones or the well behaved ones?

Impossible to answer that just by judging from your own zone.


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## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

PD58 said:


> The problem about not outlining the thinking re a plan is that Raab's 5 points are vague and perceived as subjective and, as was asked today re R, there is no clear position that when reached (how they would know i am not convinced as they have no idea what is happening in care homes) lockdown will be reviewed. What are the metrics behind each of these which means the strategy can be reviewed:
> 
> Making sure the NHS can cope
> Evidence showing a sustained and consistent fall in daily death rates
> ...



Yeah the past the peak narrative should have been handled more carefully.

As for the detail of the numbers relating to those 5 points, Whitty has talked about the reliable rate of infection data one recently - they have new methods coming online for estimating R0, but this is just beginning now so I suspect we will hear more about that in the coming weeks. Some of the others are also related to that same measure really. Death rate falls I will want more detail on soon, but I'm not desperate yet because its clear the numbers are still too high right now.

But really I suspect that, as often happens with UK governments, they dont actually want to give journalists and the public all of the data, levels and threshold details that would allow us to actually judge for ourselves when the time had arrived for changes. Heaven forbid! And last time they gave us certain numbers and guides, it was shortly before the epidemic really ramped up, and their numbers were useless shit (4 weeks behind Italy etc etc).


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## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

Speaking of numbers, Hancock today seemed keener to bring up Johnsons original 250,000 tests target than his own 100,000 a day one. I think he wanted to demonstrate the scale of their ambition without the pesky timetable, since time has nearly run out for his target.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They've given five points that need to be in place, imo that's enough, starting to talk specifics is a recipe for a disaster and confusion. The media are partly to blame for this I think, they've started going on about it, and Starmer has got caught up in that.
> 
> Calling out their failures in dealing with this is fine. Wanting a timetable for an exit plan for something we're right in the middle of is foolish (unless you just want to use it as a stick to beat the Tories with knowing full well it's a lose/lose for them either way) and also detracts from far more important issues we need to sort out now.


The biggest hurdles in those 'five points' are the two things that are in the control of government and should have been sorted weeks ago - testing and tracing regime and adequate ppe. When will they have those two things sorted? They bloody well can and should give us a date for that because they are needed asap whatever you're doing about lockdown. About 23 March would have been nice. It's now 27 April. What the fuck have they been doing? That should be the only question to them every day. How are they sorting it? If there are delays, what is causing those delays? But they're still pretending they haven't fucked this whole thing up, so they deflect and dissemble and hide those controllables in among a bunch of non-controllables.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Speaking of numbers, Hancock today seemed keener to bring up Johnsons original 250,000 tests target than his own 100,000 a day one. I think he wanted to demonstrate the scale of their ambition without the pesky timetable, since time has nearly run out for his target.


It'll be a million a day soon. Meanwhile, back in the real world, it's currently at about 20,000.

This was Dominic Raab five days ago



> I've set the goal of 100,000 tests a day by the end of this month and I'm delighted to say that the expansion of capacity is ahead of plans, even though demand has, thus far, been lower than expected.



Fuck me. 'ahead of plans'. They're actually doing super-well! Better than even the high standards they set themselves.

The operation was a success. Unfortunately the patient died.


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## PD58 (Apr 27, 2020)

Looks like Panorama have been digging...missing kit, reclassifying Covid-19 etc etc - it would be hard to make this stuff up...

UK failed to stockpile crucial protective kit

Just seen posted above...but worth reading twice!!


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## 2hats (Apr 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Speaking of numbers, Hancock today seemed keener to bring up Johnsons original 250,000 tests target than his own 100,000 a day one. I think he wanted to demonstrate the scale of their ambition without the pesky timetable, since time has nearly run out for his target.


Given some trained healthcare workers can struggle to swab a subject correctly, consistently for the SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR test, I would guess having random members of the public performing the nasopharyngeal swab on themselves (step 2) is more about trying to hit targets rather than striving for accuracy and collecting useful data.


----------



## zahir (Apr 27, 2020)

2hats said:


> Given some trained healthcare workers can struggle to swab a subject correctly, consistently for the SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR test, I would guess having random members of the public performing the nasopharyngeal swab on themselves (step 2) is more about trying to hit targets rather than striving for accuracy and collecting useful data.



Is self-testing happening anywhere else or is it just in the UK?


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## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

2hats said:


> Given some trained healthcare workers can struggle to swab a subject correctly, consistently for the SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR test, I would guess having random members of the public performing the nasopharyngeal swab on themselves (step 2) is more about trying to hit targets rather than striving for accuracy and collecting useful data.



I also wont be surprised if they are deliberately building a backlog of swabs that are waiting to be processed, so that they can process a huge batch on one day to hit the target for at least a single day.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> I also wont be surprised if they are deliberately building a backlog of swabs that are waiting to be processed, so that they can process a huge batch on one day to hit the target for at least a single day.


My first thought on that was 'don't be so absurd', but quite a few tests are done on dead people, aren't they? Could hold those back a few days without harming anyone. Would also give them some nice low death figures in the lead-up to the glorious Day of the 100,000 Tests, as 31 April 2020 will be known from hence forth.


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## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

I havent thought that much about it, and there are a few different tests that are probably subject to some lag already. I dont even know as they are competent enough to try to hit it on a single day in the way I describe, I was just speculating. We'll see, but given that there are a number of different areas of capacity bottleneck that can affect their total throughput, some manipulation to temporarily work around that is something I will still keep in mind.

So far I have no reason to think they would want to manipulate a particular days death figures. There isnt much to gain from that, its the trends that matter on that one, and we are already used to seeing weekend-related dips.


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 27, 2020)

I wasn't being entirely serious, but this stuff is hard to satirise because reality pops up and trumps your imagined absurdity, as with the Raab quote above.


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## frogwoman (Apr 27, 2020)

How many self tests are being done compared to normal ones? Self testing seems like it could well go wrong especially as it seems quite painful


----------



## Humberto (Apr 27, 2020)

They fucking know what they've got to do. Reduce deaths short and long term number 1. Why aren't they going for the most aggressive countermeasures possible?


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## The39thStep (Apr 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't know if he's barking up the right tree, but I don't think it's Starmer's job at the moment to be in step with the mood of the country - it's to expose the failing and incompetence of the government.


I agree which makes it odd that one of his opening topics was about plans to end the lockdown


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> I also wont be surprised if they are deliberately building a backlog of swabs that are waiting to be processed, so that they can process a huge batch on one day to hit the target for at least a single day.



Is the target ‘number of samples taken’ or ‘number processed in lab’?  I think what they’ll actually do is claim they have the capability to take 100,000 (by some kind of dishonest extrapolation of the fastest time achieved in some location or other) but that not that many people turned up so it‘s all OK. Big cheers from the friendly press and so on.


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## elbows (Apr 27, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Is the target ‘number of samples taken’ or ‘number processed in lab’?  I think what they’ll actually do is claim they have the capability to take 100,000 (by some kind of dishonest extrapolation of the fastest time achieved in some location or other) but that not that many people turned up so it‘s all OK. Big cheers from the friendly press and so on.



There have been a few signs already of them testing how 'demand side excuses' will go down, I think I commented on this once, it might be part of the mix. But it also comes across as especially absurd. Absurdity is admittedly often to be found in this country, but I dont know if its the look they really want right now. There might be too much groaning!

They might also be planning to have other testing pillars come online and get added to the couple we are already used to seeing daily numbers from. Perhaps a bit of all of the above, and then perhaps still some way away from the target, but sort of closer than it looked like we could possibly muster for ages?


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## Dogsauce (Apr 27, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Does this seem right? If it is Starmer hasnt hit the right spot has he?
> 
> View attachment 209374


 
nobody going to comment that this is quite a leading question, bordering on push-polling? Makes an assumption that the situation will get clearer and that we don’t have enough information to make decisions now.


----------



## editor (Apr 28, 2020)

So the NHS wants to go it alone. If it burns battery life, people aren't going to use it. 



> Apple and Google are expected to release their contact tracing technology to developers tomorrow. But the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) says it won’t use the Apple-Google model, _BBC_ reports. While the two tech companies are working on a “decentralized” approach, in which the contact tracing matches will happen on users’ devices, the NHS is opting for a “centralized” model, in which the matching and alerts happen via a computer server.
> 
> Apple and Google have promoted the decentralized approach as a way to protect users’ privacy from authorities and hackers. According to the _BBC_, the NHS believes the centralized approach will allow it to more easily audit the system and adapt it as new scientific evidence comes in.
> 
> Another potential drawback, is that the centralized approach may eat up more power. Apple’s solution lets the contact tracing happen in the background, but the UK’s app has to be woken up every time the device detects another nearby device running the same software, _BBC_ explains.











						UK’s NHS won’t use Apple-Google approach to COVID-19 tracking | Engadget
					

The NHS is opting for a "centralized" approach to contact tracing, opposed to the "decentralized" Apple-Google model..




					www.engadget.com


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## littlebabyjesus (Apr 28, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Is the target ‘number of samples taken’ or ‘number processed in lab’?  I think what they’ll actually do is claim they have the capability to take 100,000 (by some kind of dishonest extrapolation of the fastest time achieved in some location or other) but that not that many people turned up so it‘s all OK. Big cheers from the friendly press and so on.


It's all just more deflection. Deflection away from the abysmal number of tests being carried out today, which is the number that actually matters - tests that actually exist. The press is being generally appallingly weak on this subject. The BBC repeats the government line that the UK cannot test like other countries cos we don't have the pre-existing infrastructure as fact, not reported from the govt, just plain fact. This was the excuse given wrt Germany. But what about the dozens of other countries that are testing far more than the UK? Portugal has a more advanced laboratory system than the UK?  And Switzerland and Austria and Norway and Italy and Spain, etc, etc, etc. They are getting away with deflection and outright lies.

As for the 'demand' excuse, well words fail me. No country had a pre-existing logistical infrastructure to carry out these tests at these levels, yet dozens of other countries have been many times more successful in this endeavour than the UK. What's their excuse for that?


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## sheothebudworths (Apr 28, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Is the target ‘number of samples taken’ or ‘number processed in lab’?  I think what they’ll actually do is claim they have the capability to take 100,000 (by some kind of dishonest extrapolation of the fastest time achieved in some location or other) but that not that many people turned up so it‘s all OK. Big cheers from the friendly press and so on.



'Capacity' has seemed to be the most recent measure - easily the largest - means fuck all when you don't have enough staff to test.
Reality now is that it falls to individuals to self test, without any professional input.
Have to hope that it'll bump up actual numbers of health staff needing to be tested for eg, but there's not much to be taken from the numbers when there's no commitment to how they're taken.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 28, 2020)

As dogsauce says, 'capacity' is just a piece of bullshit until it's actually been demonstrated. I would call that out as just an outright lie - having the staff to carry out the tests is an integral part of 'capacity'.


----------



## gosub (Apr 28, 2020)

Is Richard E Grant off his tits tonight or is it a normal thing


----------



## sptme (Apr 28, 2020)

Read the small print:

The number of tests includes: 
i. Tests conducted with a result
ii. Tests posted out to an individual at home. 

Why are those in (ii) being counted just now? Surely they should be counted when the samples are returned and tested otherwise there is a risk of double counting?

Easy to get to 100k tests this way.  Bung em in the post. Job done.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 28, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> If I was in the UK this world be the first sign of a light at the end of the tunnel
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No sign of McDonalds opening their drive-thru yet.









						Is McDonald's drive thru really reopening and when will McDonald's open again?
					

Just want her back...




					metro.co.uk
				




Their coffee is superb.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> As dogsauce says, 'capacity' is just a piece of bullshit until it's actually been demonstrated. I would call that out as just an outright lie - having the staff to carry out the tests is an integral part of 'capacity'.



I am sure this was posted at the time, but worth re-posting, as it illustrates there was massive under use of capacity even back on 17th April, at the Milton Keynes 'super lab'.



> A scientist testing for coronavirus at the Government’s first “super lab” says staff are being sent home early because there is so little to do and work is like a “leisurely jog rather than a marathon”.
> 
> Gianmarco Raddi, a molecular biologist volunteering at the Milton Keynes “Lighthouse Lab”, said as few as 1,000 swabs have been analysed for Covid-19 in a single day, dramatically lower than the “tens of thousands” it was told it would be processing.





> Despite the minister saying each laboratory would have “industrial capacity” to test samples from patients and frontline NHS staff each day, Mr Raddi has told how* academics and lab technicians are sent home after just four hours *because so few swabs are being sent there for analysis.
> 
> He asked: “We are ready. Why aren’t we being sent more swabs?” He continued: “*Our shifts were meant to be excruciating 12-hour marathons. *In reality, they are more like laid back morning jogs.”
> 
> “We were promised 5,000 samples ‘to begin with’,” he continued. “We never saw those numbers. *They told us we should prepare for a 24-hour operation, but we are done in four or five [hours]*.”











						Coronavirus 'super lab' staff sent home early due to so few samples sent for testing
					

Over a week since the first of three 'super labs' was opened, a volunteer reveals how staff are being  sent home early due to so few tested




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 28, 2020)

E t





sheothebudworths said:


> 'Capacity' has seemed to be the most recent measure - easily the largest - means fuck all when you don't have enough staff to test.
> Reality now is that it falls to individuals to self test, without any professional input.
> Have to hope that it'll bump up actual numbers of health staff needing to be tested for eg, but there's not much to be taken from the numbers when there's no commitment to how they're taken.



the other aspect is that the test centres are in out of town locations, and you have to go there in a car for the process to work (so you are isolated from staff at the test centre). In places like London car ownership is pretty low, plus you have to be actually well enough to drive there. That will thin out the numbers testing, and bias the population sampled more towards the ‘worried well’. They need to be bringing this into communities more, though I can see that being difficult to manage in terms of keeping people away from each other, you don’t need to encourage sick people to leave their homes. I suspect there will be a high number of negatives from the drive-through places for this reason, I hope they don’t build policies based on the low number of positives.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 28, 2020)

Please give this some consideration. I’ve just discovered from relatives in Australia that what we call lockdown they call lock up. Is this a Northern/Southern Hemisphere plughole direction type anomaly?


----------



## Yossarian (Apr 28, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Please give this some consideration. I’ve just discovered from relatives in Australia that what we call lockdown they call lock up. Is this a Northern/Southern Hemisphere plughole direction type anomaly?



Has their government's response been a massive fuckdown?


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 28, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> Has their government's response been a massive fuckdown?


Their government always fucks under the workers.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 28, 2020)

There's currently another poor Tory minister being demolished on ITV by Piers Morgan for fans of that kind of thing. I'm impressed they keep putting these people up for this.


----------



## danny la rouge (Apr 28, 2020)

Petcha said:


> There's currently another poor Tory minister being demolished on ITV by Piers Morgan for fans of that kind of thing. I'm impressed they keep putting these people up for this.


If it made any difference they wouldn’t.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 28, 2020)

'London is so strange and sad': the sacked hospitality workers sleeping rough


----------



## Petcha (Apr 28, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> If it made any difference they wouldn’t.



This one was particularly hapless. The worst so far. She had never even heard of the exercise the government ran four years ago simulating a pandemic. It was toe curling. I imagine she's gone for a stiff drink after that. I agree it might not make much difference to publicly humiliate these people every morning but it's still immensely satisfying watching the incompetent shitstains endure it.


----------



## Smangus (Apr 28, 2020)

Morgan's a twat but he's making a better job of holding these cunts to account than most of the supine media.


----------



## bimble (Apr 28, 2020)

robsean said:


> Assuming you're in London and noticed more planes arriving yesterday this is because they were using the approach from the east which hasn't often been the case in recent weeks rather than an increase in their number.



Just on this flights thing (yesterday’s news I know) I think this past few days has seen a large number of government chartered repatriation flights bringing people back here(from India Bangladesh loads of countries),flights that were arranged over the past few weeks from countries in lockdown.


----------



## killer b (Apr 28, 2020)

Petcha said:


> She had never even heard of the exercise the government ran four years ago simulating a pandemic.


That seems unlikely, it's been a regular part of the criticism of the government response for weeks. I guess its probably easier to pretend you dont know something than face the inevitably much more difficult follow up questions though.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Apr 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> My first thought on that was 'don't be so absurd', but quite a few tests are done on dead people, aren't they? Could hold those back a few days without harming anyone. Would also give them some nice low death figures in the lead-up to the glorious Day of the 100,000 Tests, as 31 April 2020 will be known from hence forth.


Mmmm.... How does it go now? “30 days hath September, April, June and November”


----------



## maomao (Apr 28, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Mmmm.... How does it go now? “30 days hath September, April, June and November”


Do it with your knuckles instead. You can make the poem scan and rhyme with loads of different months.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 28, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Mmmm.... How does it go now? “30 days hath September, April, June and November”




You spotted the deliberate mistake.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> That seems unlikely, it's been a regular part of the criticism of the government response for weeks. I guess its probably easier to pretend you dont know something than face the inevitably much more difficult follow up questions though.



No, she genuinely hadn't. And she's the Minister for Safeguarding. The govt press team is as incompetent as her for letting her go on national TV that unprepared. I know she's relatively inexperienced but still, shes a government minister. Even I had heard of it.

It's an utter disgrace they completely ignored the findings of Exercise Cygnus. And then have the cheek to stand outside their houses clapping the NHS every thursday.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> Do it with your knuckles instead. You can make the poem scan and rhyme with loads of different months.


Knuckles, you say?


----------



## Numbers (Apr 28, 2020)

Petcha said:


> There's currently another poor Tory minister being demolished on ITV by Piers Morgan for fans of that kind of thing. I'm impressed they keep putting these people up for this.


He ripped her a new one for sure.

She did say she remembered the exercise but not the name, but couldn’t give any info except about legislative blah blah.

As said, Morgan is a twat/annoying the best of times but it’s fantastic watching him rip these feckers apart.


----------



## maomao (Apr 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Knuckles, you say?


Left to right. Tops of knuckles are 31, fleshy gaps are 30 or February. Either continue on right hand or start again from August as Jul and Aug both 31.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 28, 2020)

Numbers said:


> He ripped her a new one for sure.
> 
> She did say she remembered the exercise but not the name, but couldn’t give any info except about legislative blah blah.
> 
> As said, Morgan is a twat/annoying the best of times but it’s fantastic watching him rip these feckers apart.



It gets my day off to a merry start, in a warped way.. I actually felt a bit sorry for that particular one in the end. She looked broken.


----------



## xenon (Apr 28, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> E t
> 
> the other aspect is that the test centres are in out of town locations, and you have to go there in a car for the process to work (so you are isolated from staff at the test centre). In places like London car ownership is pretty low, plus you have to be actually well enough to drive there. That will thin out the numbers testing, and bias the population sampled more towards the ‘worried well’. They need to be bringing this into communities more, though I can see that being difficult to manage in terms of keeping people away from each other, you don’t need to encourage sick people to leave their homes. I suspect there will be a high number of negatives from the drive-through places for this reason, I hope they don’t build policies based on the low number of positives.



How practicle would it be to book a test online if you're suffering the simptoms, have a test crew turn up, hand the kit over with instructions, safely and take samples back for testing.

Are swab tests time criticle, needing to be annalised within an impractically short time period to make this non viable.
(thinking aloud.)


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 28, 2020)

Piers Morgan could show Starmer how these following the science types need to be questioned.  He seems the only one doing so.


----------



## xenon (Apr 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> Left to right. Tops of knuckles are 31, fleshy gaps are 30 or February. Either continue on right hand or start again from August as Jul and Aug both 31.



That's actually quite brilliant. I usually have to ask the internet. That stupid poem you learn at school is useless for remembering.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 28, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It gets my day off to a merry start, in a warped way.. I actually felt a bit sorry for that particular one in the end. She looked broken.


She should never have smiled/laughed.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 28, 2020)

teqniq said:


> 'London is so strange and sad': the sacked hospitality workers sleeping rough



Those poor people, their situation is absolutely desperate.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 28, 2020)

xenon said:


> How practicle would it be to book a test online if you're suffering the simptoms, have a test crew turn up, hand the kit over with instructions, safely and take samples back for testing.


This exactly, unless swabs are taken properly the test can be inaccurate. Making already stressed people drive miles and then attempt to follow what looks like poorly written pages of instructions to do what can be an uncomfortable or painful process. Seems set up to fail.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 28, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> This exactly, unless swabs are taken properly the test can be inaccurate. Making already stressed people drive miles and then attempt to follow what looks like poorly written pages of instructions to do what can be an uncomfortable or painful process. Seems set up to fail.


My understanding of how it has been working in Germany is that you call them up and they come and test you at your home. Surely it's totally mad to ask _people who think they have symptoms of Covid 19 _to do anything other than stay put.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> My understanding of how it has been working in Germany is that you call them up and they come and test you at your home. Surely it's totally mad to ask _people who think they have symptoms of Covid 19 _to do anything other than stay put.


Yup, that arsehole being interviewed by Piers Morgan  went on about watching other countries, then they roll out this rubbish. I've no confidence in what's being done at all.


----------



## xenon (Apr 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> My understanding of how it has been working in Germany is that you call them up and they come and test you at your home. Surely it's totally mad to ask _people who think they have symptoms of Covid 19 _to do anything other than stay put.



I know already mentioned but it's incredible to think given how severe the simptoms can be, those people are expected to leave the house. A, even if they have a car and B are well enough to drive. 2 ridiculous assumptions to incorporate into a test regeme.

I'm gonna have a look later because surely this can't be the actual idea for test and trace. Get an uber to the test centre. or don't be counted.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 28, 2020)

xenon said:


> I know already mentioned but it's incredible to think given how severe the simptoms can be, those people are expected to leave the house. A, even if they have a car and B are well enough to drive. 2 ridiculous assumptions to incorporate into a test regeme.
> 
> I'm gonna have a look later because surely this can't be the actual idea for test and trace. Get an uber to the test centre. or don't be counted.


If you're healthy, stay home, save lives. If you're ill, get in your car and drive miles from your home. 

The whole thing is being organised by the Mad Hatter.


----------



## xenon (Apr 28, 2020)

Well there are home testing kits but surprise, probably in short supply and I think these were mentioned as only good in agrogate. i.e. as a survey tool, rather than diagnosis on an individual basis. A cursery Google shows news reports from 10 days ago, for plans to deliver these.
e2a








						Testing for coronavirus (COVID-19)
					

Find out how get a test to check if you have coronavirus (COVID-19), what testing involves and understand your test result.




					www.gov.uk
				




Though I think I have conflated something said in yesterday's pres conference regarding the accuracy of (these / some other?) tests) regarding individual diagnosis.


----------



## LDC (Apr 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If you're healthy, stay home, save lives. If you're ill, get in your car and drive miles from your home.
> 
> The whole thing is being organised by the Mad Hatter.



It would be _hugely_ more resource intensive to do home visits, and also subject the people doing the visits to a much higher risk of infection and other things.

It's not ideal at all, but there is some logic behind it in that if people are to unwell to travel then they're much more likely to have it (or it doesnt matter so much knowing as they're at home anyway), the testing this way is more to establish the infective status of people with mild symptoms, especially to see if they can go back to work or not.

I think eventually it will move to home testing, and that will be better, but the sheer volume of tests needed now makes that impossible.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 28, 2020)

3000 deaths in care homes in a week. It's criminal that these deaths haven't been included in the main numbers. Does anyone know if other countries are doing it differently? All those graphs showing our trajectory versus other countries, are they using hospital-only deaths for all countries? Or have all the comparisons been bollocks?


----------



## teuchter (Apr 28, 2020)

xenon said:


> That's actually quite brilliant. I usually have to ask the internet. That stupid poem you learn at school is useless for remembering.


Yes. I'm shocked that they wasted our time at school with the hopeless poem, when this solution was literally in front of us the whole time.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> Left to right. Tops of knuckles are 31, fleshy gaps are 30 or February. Either continue on right hand or start again from August as Jul and Aug both 31.



This is what I've always done.  Never known the stupid song.

As evidenced by not realising this was wrong.



Kevbad the Bad said:


> Mmmm.... How does it go now? “30 days hath September, April, June and November”


----------



## andysays (Apr 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It would be _hugely_ more resource intensive to do home visits, and also subject the people doing the visits to a much higher risk of infection and other things.
> 
> It's not ideal at all, but there is some logic behind it in that if people are to unwell to travel then they're much more likely to have it (or it doesnt matter so much knowing as they're at home anyway), the testing this way it more to establish the infective status of people with mild symptoms, especially to see if they can go back to work or not.
> 
> I think eventually it will move to home testing, and that will be better, but the sheer volume of tests needed now makes that impossible.


It also depends what the purpose of testing is.

I suspect ATM it's more about confirming that people don't have it, so they can continue working etc, rather than getting an accurate picture of exactly how many people currently have it.

We clearly don't have the capacity or the capability to do the latter, however useful or important that info might be.


----------



## Supine (Apr 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> 3000 deaths in care homes in a week. It's criminal that these deaths haven't been included in the main numbers. Does anyone know if other countries are doing it differently? All those graphs showing our trajectory versus other countries, are they using hospital-only deaths for all countries? Or have all the comparisons been bollocks?



Both sets of numbers have been presented for some time


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> 3000 deaths in care homes in a week. It's criminal that these deaths haven't been included in the main numbers. Does anyone know if other countries are doing it differently? All those graphs showing our trajectory versus other countries, are they using hospital-only deaths for all countries? Or have all the comparisons been bollocks?


It's a mixture. UK's official figures are hospital deaths only, as are Italy's. France switched to include care homes a little while back, and Belgium is trying to count all deaths everywhere, even including some that are suspected rather than confirmed. 

It's very hard comparing figures for that reason. Belgium looks awful but is probably about the same as here. France is probably a bit better than here. You can compare the UK with Italy directly as they use more or less the same criteria.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 28, 2020)

Supine said:


> Both sets of numbers have been presented for some time


But the headline figures are still quoted as hospital deaths, and I think it has been those on the comparison graphs between countries, no? The figure the guardian gives for UK deaths in their counter box is just over 20k. I don't understand why. Sorry if this has been covered already, but just trying to work out what it means that care home deaths are not included in the main count and whether the death numbers are actually comparable between countries.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's a mixture. UK's official figures are hospital deaths only, as are Italy's. France switched to include care homes a little while back, and Belgium is trying to count all deaths everywhere, even including some that are suspected rather than confirmed.
> 
> It's very hard comparing figures for that reason. Belgium looks awful but is probably about the same as here. France is probably a bit better than here. You can compare the UK with Italy directly as they use more or less the same criteria.


Ah, thanks. Still seems a bit of a propaganda coup for the government that they're allowed to get away with giving hospital-only deaths as the headline figure and the guardian, bbc etc just quote that as the death count.


----------



## killer b (Apr 28, 2020)

Hospital deaths are reported daily, other deaths much less regularly - I think it makes some sense to use the daily tally from hospital deaths as a guide (along with other metrics) to how we're doing - but it should be a lot more explicit that's what it's being used for.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> Hospital deaths are reported daily, other deaths much less regularly - I think it makes some sense to use the daily tally from hospital deaths as a guide (along with other metrics) to how we're doing - but it should be a lot more explicit that's what it's being used for.


It's even further complicated by the differing attitudes towards comorbidities in different countries. At least that aspect is clear here - everyone dying in hospital who has C19 is being included in the figures, regardless of any comorbidities.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> Hospital deaths are reported daily, other deaths much less regularly - I think it makes some sense to use the daily tally from hospital deaths as a guide (along with other metrics) to how we're doing - but it should be a lot more explicit that's what it's being used for.


The hospital deaths certainly measures something important and should be recorded and reported of course, but here is the Guardian's main coronavirus update page, which says: "the UK, which now has 21,092 fatalities from the virus. "









						Coronavirus 28 April: at a glance
					

A summary of the biggest developments in the global coronavirus outbreak




					www.theguardian.com
				




Which is just not true. 

They could say 21k hospital fatalities to make it more true. But really most people probably want to know how many people have died from covid-19 in the UK. Which is, what, 30k+ now? I'm just finding this approach odd.


----------



## maomao (Apr 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Which is, what, 30k+ now? I'm just finding this approach odd.


FT estimated 42k about a week ago. That would have us closing in on 50k by now.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Apr 28, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> FFS.
> 
> "Can we hug our grandchildren?"
> 
> ...


They were from my home town. I feel the need to apologise for the whole of Skipton.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> FT estimated 42k about a week ago. That would have us closing in on 50k by now.


So are any news outlets providing running totals of all the deaths we know about as one of their headline figures?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 28, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> They were from my home town. I feel the need to apologise for the whole of Skipton.


Why? It’s a good question


----------



## LDC (Apr 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Why? It’s a good question



It's a stupid question, the answer depends on so many ifs and buts it's meaningless. The answer is obvious, 'it depends'.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 28, 2020)

I get the feeling the press would like lockdown gone as soon as poss so they can sell more newspapers.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Apr 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Why? It’s a good question


LynnDoyleCooper answer puts it better than I could.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's a stupid question, the answer depends on so many ifs and buts it's meaningless. The answer is obvious, 'it depends'.


Not sure why it’s stupid. People are getting desperate. I want to hug my nieces and it’s getting tough


----------



## LDC (Apr 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Not sure why it’s stupid. People are getting desperate. I want to hug my nieces and it’s getting tough



Of course, but as a question to a government minister at a national press conference during the biggest crisis since WW2? Mawkish and idiotic nonsense.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Apr 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Not sure why it’s stupid. People are getting desperate. I want to hug my nieces and it’s getting tough


I want to hug my parents and I'm sure they want to hug their grandson but that doesn't negate it was a mawkish question.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 28, 2020)

I’m sure it’s something in the front of millions of people’s minds though


----------



## andysays (Apr 28, 2020)

I think it's an understandable question, but not one which it's possible to give a simple yes/no answer to.

If the answer that's given gives some appreciation of the complexities of the situation (haven't seen it, so don't know whether it did or not) then it's potentially useful question to respond to.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> So are any news outlets providing running totals of all the deaths we know about as one of their headline figures?


Lead story on Al-Jazeera right now. Pointing out on April 10 the official death count announced on the day (essentially entirely in hospitals) was 9K when the ONS figures reveal over 13K deaths. By April 17 the disparity was 14K versus 21K deaths. That would suggest up to 30K deaths today. And that's before one starts considering the excess all-cause mortality figures, which would inflate it further.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Apr 28, 2020)

Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. Any question I submitted would be about the government 's lackadaisical response to the pandemic!


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 28, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. Any question I submitted would be about the government 's lackadaisical response to the pandemic!


Most people just want to know when things will get back to normal. Of course there is no answer, but it’s still a reasonable thing to want to ask


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Why? It’s a good question



People are dying in their thousands through government incompetence. Health workers are dying through lack of PPE. These questions (one a day) were opened up to the public under the guise of transparency in govt decision making. "Ministers will not be able to see the question beforehand". Many people feel the questions being asked by journalists are failing to grill the government sufficiently. "Cabinet ministers will now get a grilling from members of the public".

It was a shit question in the context of all that.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 28, 2020)

I think a shit question to answer but not to ask


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Apr 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Most people just want to know when things will get back to normal. Of course there is no answer, but it’s still a reasonable thing to want to ask


I personally think there are other more reasonable things to ask first.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 28, 2020)

When are nurses going to get proper pay and conditions? would be my question. I'd expect the answer 'this is not the time to answer such a question' but that's always the way that once the emergency is over there's no pressure to improve things any more.


----------



## andysays (Apr 28, 2020)

two sheds said:


> When are nurses going to get proper pay and conditions? would be my question. I'd expect the answer 'this is not the time to answer such a question' but that's always the way that once the emergency is over there's no pressure to improve things any more.


That would be my question, though I think I'd broaden it far beyond nurses and other NHS workers


----------



## two sheds (Apr 28, 2020)

Yes low-paid essential workers indeed.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 28, 2020)

It makes one wonder if there were 15,000 quesiosn (i think Hancock said) how did this 'independent' PR firm come up with this selection...I suspect a random spin of the wheel. It allowed two of the participants to demonstrate their humanity, which as i see is not what the briefings are about...so it is fair enough for Lyne to submit the question as it is her concern but it should not have been chosen.


----------



## killer b (Apr 28, 2020)

Didn't the government get to choose which questions to answer? In which case, they were bound to choose the question with no real answer which allows them to emote, and not the the question with some very specific answers which puts them on the spot. Don't blame the questioner for it though - if that lady hadn't have said it, there'll have been a thousand others exactly the same to choose from.


----------



## killer b (Apr 28, 2020)

PD58 said:


> how did this 'independent' PR firm come up with this selection...I suspect a random spin of the wheel.


lol


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 28, 2020)

PD58 said:


> It makes one wonder if there were 15,000 quesiosn (i think Hancock said) how did this 'independent' PR firm come up with this selection...I suspect a random spin of the wheel. It allowed two of the participants to demonstrate their humanity, which as i see is not what the briefings are about...so it is fair enough for Lyne to submit the question as it is her concern but it should not have been chosen.


I doubt it was random as it was a safe question to answer cos it’s ‘we don’t know’. Of course they’re not going to answer the most pertinent questions about their competence


----------



## killer b (Apr 28, 2020)

The independent PR company being paid by the government to carry out a service know their job, and it isn't to let through difficult questions.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 28, 2020)

Anti-democracy dressed up as democracy. Very in vogue at the moment.


----------



## LDC (Apr 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Most people just want to know when things will get back to normal. Of course there is no answer, but it’s still a reasonable thing to want to ask



The answer to that question has been given to that many, many times and the reality is getting 'back to normal' is a long time off, but exactly when depends on a load of variables, until then we need to adjust to this.

It's shit, but constantly asking the same question isn't going to get any different answers for a while. It's like kids asking "Are we there yet?" incessantly when you've only just left the house.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 28, 2020)

SAGE update from the NS

Names of UK's coronavirus science advisers to be revealed


----------



## belboid (Apr 28, 2020)

andysays said:


> That would be my question, though I think I'd broaden it far beyond nurses and other NHS workers


It would just be brushed off with the usual guff tho. Without an option to follow up, pin down and tease out the contradictions between answers, they’re all going to be a bit rubbish really.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> But the headline figures are still quoted as hospital deaths, and I think it has been those on the comparison graphs between countries, no? The figure the guardian gives for UK deaths in their counter box is just over 20k. I don't understand why. Sorry if this has been covered already, but just trying to work out what it means that care home deaths are not included in the main count and whether the death numbers are actually comparable between countries.



The problem has been the lag in collecting data, there's under 300 NHS trusts that are feeding figures into their system daily, whereas IIRC there's over 50,000 care settings, and there was no reporting system, so the ONS had to wait for deaths to be registered & collate data that way, as they are still doing with community deaths. 

Someone I know that runs a care home told me last week, the Care Quality Commission had rolled out a new portal, for care homes to start reporting daily, which I guess is why the new ONS figures are for only up to 17/4/20, to include care homes AND community deaths, whereas the CQC announced care home deaths up to 24/4/20.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 28, 2020)

Catching up with some reading - an interesting blog from the LSE on the role of experts at the start of the crisis and going forward...

Science in inaction – The shifting priorities of the UK government’s response to COVID-19 highlights the need for publicly accountable expert advice.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The problem has been the lag in collecting data, there's under 300 NHS trusts that are feeding figures into their system daily, whereas IIRC there's over 50,000 care settings, and there was no reporting system, so the ONS had to wait for deaths to be registered & collate data that way, as they are still doing with community deaths.


The lag is an issue for if you're trying to look at the trends over time. It's an issue if you want to report x number died per day. It's not an issue for reporting a total. I just find it strange the total known deaths aren't being reported very much. In fact, I don't know the total reported deaths up to now, even though that is clearly a figure both government and journalists have access to. I understand why the government wouldn't jump to report it, less clear on why journalists aren't.

Edit to add: of course there are always problems in definitions. But the point of this whole line of thought is that it is looking like hospital deaths is a poor proxy for full figures. Hospital deaths plus care home deaths would get closer, and if we have any decent figures on people who have died at home it should be hospital deaths + care home deaths + home deaths.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 28, 2020)

Final piece: an update on the Jenner Institute vaccine

In Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine, an Oxford Group Leaps Ahead


----------



## maomao (Apr 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I understand why the government wouldn't jump to report it, less clear on why journalists aren't.


The press are against the lockdown generally as it presents a pretty immediate threat to their livelihoods. Keeping numbers low is in their interests too.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> The press are against the lockdown generally as it presents a pretty immediate threat to their livelihoods. Keeping numbers low is in their interests too.


Not sure guardian gets much of its income from shops, and their website income has probably risen during lockdown. I don't really think it's a conspiracy or anything. I think it's just sloppiness in taking the figures the government offers them rather than doing a bit of work of their own. It's a really shit thing to be sloppy about.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> Left to right. Tops of knuckles are 31, fleshy gaps are 30 or February. Either continue on right hand or start again from August as Jul and Aug both 31.


Because Emperor Augustus was not happy about having a month with fewer days than his bro' Julius.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Of course, but as a question to a government minister at a national press conference during the biggest crisis since WW2? Mawkish and idiotic nonsense.


I agree but I don't blame the questioner, the people that chose that question out of the hundreds they received are to blame.


----------



## andysays (Apr 28, 2020)

belboid said:


> It would just be brushed off with the usual guff tho. Without an option to follow up, pin down and tease out the contradictions between answers, they’re all going to be a bit rubbish really.


Sure, it would be brushed off, I'm not naive enough to think it would be answered by the minister saying "of course, Andy, we will immediately and completely rethink and revise the way work and workers are valued in the way this crisis has conclusively demonstrated we should do".

But that doesn't mean it isn't worth asking, even if only so we could all see them attempt to brush it off.

I doubt anyone will be allowed to put that question or a similar one to the relevant minister, for reasons already discussed.


----------



## quimcunx (Apr 28, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Catching up with some reading - an interesting blog from the LSE on the role of experts at the start of the crisis and going forward...
> 
> Science in inaction – The shifting priorities of the UK government’s response to COVID-19 highlights the need for publicly accountable expert advice.



See even if you accept their concerns about people not accepting lockdown or it being unpopular then the answer to that would have been to start the 'messaging' earlier.  They could have been putting out regular messaging in February for instance that companies should be putting plans in place to have some or all employees working from home at some point in the coming weeks.  Depending on company decision-makers' attitudes to the risk loads more people could have been working from home part or full time  in the weeks before official lockdown with little or no adverse effect on the economy, but a potentially large reduction in transmission. Many employers did this in the previous week despite the messaging not being there.  Again depending on individuals' risk appetite stockpiling might have started earlier and been less panicked.  That last minute panic probably increased transmission.  etc etc.


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Not sure guardian gets much of its income from shops, and their website income has probably risen during lockdown. I don't really think it's a conspiracy or anything. I think it's just sloppiness in taking the figures the government offers them rather than doing a bit of work of their own. It's a really shit thing to be sloppy about.



One of the problems is that data journalists who want to cover this side of things properly are rather aware of lag and issues with historical comparisons.

The ones doing this properly are keenly aware that there is no point only looking at the deaths that actually ended up with Covid-19 on the death certificate. You have to look at excess mortality as a whole, because many deaths relating to pandemics and epidemics are never recorded as such, and this has been known for hundreds of years! So a better guide is to compare total deaths against the normal range of deaths for that time of year.

In recent weeks I immersed myself in historical data so that I could put current rate of death in context. Unfortunately there are issues with the format of historical data, so I am not always comparing like for like. I will explain a little using the latest number:

22,351 deaths were registered in England & Wales in the week ending 17th April. This compares to an average for that week over the previous 5 years of 10,497.

22,351 is a huge number for deaths registered in a week. But directly comparable, robust figures in that format only go back to 1993. And I currently only have such weekly figures going back to 1999. Using these, the highest I'd previously seen was 18,581 for the last week of 1999 when a nasty H3N2 flu epidemic was raging.

I do have daily death figures going back to the start of 1970. But these are based on actual date of death, not date of registration. I wont have equivalent daily total death figures for April 2020 for another month, so quite the wait to do a direct comparison. If I turn daily numbers into weekly numbers then I can get some clues, but still potentially misleading because the 2020 weekly figures I have are for registration date, not actual date of death. Even so, I can say that we are very much into the realm of the sorts of numbers of total deaths last seen when the H3N2 influenza pandemic of the late 1960s was doing its worst in England & Wales at the end of 1969 and start of 1970.

Anyway I am aware that this sort of historical analysis is just one way of looking at things, and it would be cause for single headlines, rather than ongoing front page news. There is nothing surprising about the fact that other, more readily accessible figures are being used daily, even though they dont come close to telling the whole story.

The actual picture in other countries also takes time to emerge. I dont even have equivalent numbers for Germany for March yet, let alone April.

Anyway, even though I prefer to look at all cause mortality, I still sometimes have to make do with Covid-19 specific ONS numbers instead when studying certain aspects. Because I do actually have daily numbers by date of death (not just date of registration) for those. For example here is an informative graph from the latest ONS release.





__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19), by age, sex and region, in the latest weeks for which data are available.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				





This will be missing many deaths that were likely Covid-19 related but where it isnt mentioned ont he death certificate. So I use it more for a sense of proportions and timing rather than absolute magnitude.


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2020)

Looks like Scotland arent just going to sit around waiting for SAGE etc to come to some agreement about the public wearing masks:









						Coronavirus: Scottish government suggests covering face in shops
					

Nicola Sturgeon says there may be "some benefit" in wearing a cloth face covering in enclosed areas.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## teuchter (Apr 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> They could say 21k hospital fatalities to make it more true. But really most people probably want to know how many people have died from covid-19 in the UK. Which is, what, 30k+ now? I'm just finding this approach odd.



Does it actually matter though?

Whether it's 20k or 30k or 40k - does this meaningfully affect anyone's decisions at present? What is important at the moment is the rate of change, and its direction.

The absolute numbers are useful in some extent to compare with what's going on in other countries, and I think you can come to some kind of useful conclusion when one country's number per capita is 10 or 100 times greater than another's - but beyond that, there are so many variables in how the numbers are reported, and in the implications of the numbers according to what ind of places the outbreaks are appearing in, that it's a fool's errand to try and extract much useful info from them. 

The true numbers will undoubtably be important to establish in retrospect, and there will be a multitude of papers published which try and untangle some kind of meaning from the enormous amount of data that will come out of this crisis, and hopefully discover things that will be useful for future epidemics.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 28, 2020)

Am I right in thinking that people who are sadly dying in care homes won't actually be tested?  I mean in that if they've not been tested already and they pass on no one is going to do an autopsy or anything?  It'll just be the view of whomever writes up the death certificate, typically a local doctor?


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Am I right in thinking that people who are sadly dying in care homes won't actually be tested?  I mean in that if they've not been tested already and they pass on no one is going to do an autopsy or anything?  It'll just be the view of whomever writes up the death certificate, typically a local doctor?



Thats one of the reasons I will ultimately use all cause excess mortality rather than cases that actually had Covid-19 on the death certificate.

Its always this way, including in normal times. Many people will have experienced a relative passing away in non-pandemic times and the cause being described somewhat vaguely as pneumonia, rather than the actual influenza-like-illness having been properly identified. And especially during pandemics, there are plenty of deaths which are caused by the virus but present in slightly untypical ways without major obvious lung involvement. In this particular pandemic, it seems rather likely that some people are dying via a stroke, for example.


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2020)

Scotland again. This is from the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52450742



> Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced that over 70s will now be tested for Covid-19 on admission to hospital. They will also be tested every four days throughout their stay.
> 
> The first minister said the tests would help show the extent to which the virus is being transmitted within hospitals.


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2020)

The following chart covering care homes is another example of why we should consider all cause mortality rather than just those identified as Covid-19 on death certificates.



From









						Coronavirus: Care home deaths up as hospital cases fall
					

Outbreaks in care homes claiming 2,000 lives a week, but hospital fatalities are going down.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 28, 2020)

I'm just not getting (understanding) some of this Welsh stuff. As I've mentioned, I live under the Hywel Dda health board. We 'appear' to have one of the lowest death rates in the UK. But as I've also mentioned, I don't trust the figures because a) they are so low and b) the same applied to Betsi Cadwaladr (north Wales) who then mentioned 84 deaths last week, up from 0 as they hadn't implemented the new computer system and nobody seemed to notice the anamoly in their zero figure.

Now for Hywel Dda we have this today.

"The Welsh health minister *Vaughan Gething* told a press conference there had been “challenges in communication” between Betsi Cadwaladr health board and Public Health Wales, and * there had also been a “material under-reporting issue” in the Hywel Dda health board area, where 31 deaths were not reported and did not appear in Public Health Wales figures.*"

"Gething said “individual family communication” had not been affected, with those who had lost loved ones informed of the deaths at the time, *and that figures would now be “fully up to date”.*

So figures now fully up to date. So we're looking for a figure somewhere above 31 for Hywel Dda right?

Here's the latest figures.





__





						Tableau Public
					






					public.tableau.com
				




That says *Hywel Dda 5.*

Figures now fully up to date eh?

Farce.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 28, 2020)

Numbers said:


> He ripped her a new one for sure.
> 
> She did say she remembered the exercise but not the name, but couldn’t give any info except about legislative blah blah.
> 
> As said, Morgan is a twat/annoying the best of times but it’s fantastic watching him rip these feckers apart.


In terms of showing up the powerful, yeah, I'll take what I can get in these shitty times. However I'm not really a fan of the 'ask cutting question... get 3 seconds of reply.... shout... rinse and repeat' technique.  Sometimes it really works, like James O'Brien's evisceration of farage, which was a thing of beauty, but usually it ends up not much more than a score draw.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> Hospital deaths are reported daily, other deaths much less regularly - I think it makes some sense to use the daily tally from hospital deaths as a guide (along with other metrics) to how we're doing - but it should be a lot more explicit that's what it's being used for.


This really. An honest presentation of data would present the daily hospital figures for what they are, but give more prominence to the 'all in' figure at the point it is presented (each week?).


----------



## zahir (Apr 28, 2020)

Not that surprising really...



> Key workers and NHS staff have raised concerns about the management of a national network of drive-in coronavirus testing centres, with doctors at one London hospital trust “actively discouraging” staff from using them.





> The expansion in testing at the weekend has led to long queues at some facilities, with motorists – many of them already feeling unwell with symptoms of Covid-19 – stuck in their cars in hot weather for hours, forbidden from opening windows and unable to use toilets or find water.
> 
> The Guardian was contacted about multiple concerns, including queues of up to five hours, workers with appointments turned away because of delays, leaking test vials, wrongly labelled samples, and lost test results at Nottingham and Wembley.
> 
> A doctor at the Royal Free NHS trust, which operates three hospitals in north London, said they were so concerned about the drive-in facility located in the Ikea car park in Wembley that staff had been told not to use it.





> People attending a number of drive-in facilities reported being left with no choice but to take their own swabs, having expected the procedure to be carried out by a trained professional.











						Concerns over delays and errors at UK drive-in coronavirus test centres
					

Staff at one NHS trust have been told not to use the facilities after expansion of testing




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> The following chart covering care homes is another example of why we should consider all cause mortality rather than just those identified as Covid-19 on death certificates.


Indeed - unseasonal deaths has to be CV19 - or flu - and presumably there's plenty of stats on flu deaths ?


----------



## treelover (Apr 28, 2020)

Dead out across the sheffield suburbs today, middle class bits, rubbish weather though, did notice many more young people wearing masks, which is surprising.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> lol


----------



## teqniq (Apr 28, 2020)

Quelle surprise:


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Indeed - unseasonal deaths has to be CV19 - or flu - and presumably there's plenty of stats on flu deaths ?



Flu deaths are generally underreported too, which is one of the reasons we have winter excess mortality statistics every year, to compensate for the underreporting phenomenon. 

What we do have is various flu surveillance systems which were able to tell us that our main flu season had passed before the Covid-19 deaths started to increase. That doesnt mean there are currently no flu deaths at all every week, but it would not be expected to be a significant part of the picture at this point in the year, so we can probably afford to assume that the excess deaths so far are largely from Covid-19. As time goes on, indirect deaths as a result of the lockdown and fear of attending healthcare facilities are likely to become more of the picture, but we will have to dig down into the various causes of death to get a handle on that. Whitty often goes on about the indirect deaths, its not something that will be overlooked when judging the pandemics toll as a whole.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 28, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Quelle surprise:
> 
> View attachment 209505


Still looks too close mind


----------



## emanymton (Apr 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If you're healthy, stay home, save lives. If you're ill, get in your car and drive miles from your home.
> 
> The whole thing is being organised by the Mad Hatter.


The advice we got at work was to only get tested if you believe you may have symptoms and have to leave the house. Otherwise just stay indoors.


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> 3000 deaths in care homes in a week. It's criminal that these deaths haven't been included in the main numbers. Does anyone know if other countries are doing it differently? All those graphs showing our trajectory versus other countries, are they using hospital-only deaths for all countries? Or have all the comparisons been bollocks?



I'm not watching the press conference but I see that they are going to start reporting a wider array of deaths in the daily figures from Wednesday onwards, so that should have a knock-on effect in terms of how the media report on deaths.



> Addressing deaths outside hospitals, Mr Hancock says 4,343 deaths in care homes have been recorded since Easter.
> 
> Deaths in care homes account for a sixth of the total death toll, he says, suggesting that they are in line with yearly averages.
> 
> ...



From BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52450742


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 28, 2020)

emanymton said:


> The advice we got at work was to only get tested if you believe you may have symptoms and have to leave the house. Otherwise just stay indoors.


Sure but we need to move along from that stage. That's 'stay home, save lives'. If we're to move towards a semblance of normality, we need to know every case we can know. Everyone who thinks they might have it needs to be tested, and their families and close contacts as well.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm not watching the press conference ..
> ..


You missed a decent attack on Hancock wrt care home deaths, the journalist asked him to apologise for not doing enough to prevent deaths etc etc .. Hancock was well out of his depth!


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm not watching the press conference but I see that they are going to start reporting a wider array of deaths in the daily figures from Wednesday onwards, so that should have a knock-on effect in terms of how the media report on deaths.
> 
> 
> 
> From BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52450742


Thanks, appreciate your posts. I see over a third of deaths are in care homes now, and rising as a proportion, so it would be increasingly weird to carry on reporting as they were.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 28, 2020)

So, they now have 17 mobile testing units on the road, manned by the army, and that will increase to 70 by the weekend.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The problem has been the lag in collecting data, there's under 300 NHS trusts that are feeding figures into their system daily, whereas IIRC there's over 50,000 care settings, and there was no reporting system, so the ONS had to wait for deaths to be registered & collate data that way, as they are still doing with community deaths.
> 
> Someone I know that runs a care home told me last week, the Care Quality Commission had rolled out a new portal, for care homes to start reporting daily, which I guess is why the new ONS figures are for only up to 17/4/20, to include care homes AND community deaths, whereas the CQC announced care home deaths up to 24/4/20.



Hancock has confirmed they will be reporting on the number of deaths recorded by the new CQC portal, on a daily basis from tomorrow.


----------



## zahir (Apr 28, 2020)

A longer report on the handling of the crisis in Scotland:



> But why did Scotland, where cases were far less numerous than in England, agree to the COBRA decision on 12 March to abandon contact tracing? At that point, there were few confirmed cases in Scotland though reporting of cases does not appear to have begun until 17 March. Our public health colleagues tell us that Public Health England rapidly found it had no capacity to undertake contact tracing: it had fewer than 300 staff to do contact tracing operating out of just 9 regional hubs - there are 343 local authorities. The lack of capacity is down to budget cuts and structural changes that removed and fragmented local public services for communicable disease control in England.





> PHE now controls the decimated workforce for communicable disease control including the 300 or so field epidemiologists who, instead of being largely based in local authorities, have been centralised in regional hubs, thereby, reducing their numbers and their effectiveness on the ground. Meanwhile, although there are over 5,000 environmental officers in local authorities, some of whom had indicated that they were ready to go and start contact tracing if called upon, no one made contact with them.





			https://www.scer.scot/wp-content/uploads/Pollock-Harding-Edgar-April-2020-pdf.pdf


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Apr 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm not watching the press conference but I see that they are going to start reporting a wider array of deaths in the daily figures from Wednesday onwards, so that should have a knock-on effect in terms of how the media report on deaths.
> 
> 
> 
> From BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52450742


The key questions surely are around why there have been so many deaths in care homes and whether this is part of the reason for the number dying in hospitals (and hence the headline figure used to compare with other countries) plateauing or reducing? There have obviously been issues with PPE in care homes, but there are also questions to ask about people returning from hospitals to care homes (too early or untested after admission for non-Covid issues in hospitals with major Covid outbreaks?)  and whether there has been deliberate policy, locally or nationally, to avoid admitting elderly people with Covid symptoms to hospital, hence reducing strain on NHS capacity? There is also the whole issue around DNR decisions.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 28, 2020)

much good it may do but please sign and share









						Petition: Provide COVID19 financial assistance only to companies paying UK corporation tax
					

COVID19 is a terrible thing to happen to the world, but it also gives us a chance to work together and shine a spotlight on corporate greed.  We rarely get a chance to hold big corporations to account & many of the nations biggest tax avoiders will ask the UK government for financial help




					petition.parliament.uk


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If we're to move towards a semblance of normality, we need to know every case we can know. *Everyone who thinks they might have it needs to be tested, and their families and close contacts as well.*



There doesn't seem to have been much talk about the tracking and tracing side of testing lately.
But this by John Naughton in the Observer last Sunday provides good, easy to understand technical information on smartphone apps for that purpose.



			
				The Observer said:
			
		

> *Contact apps won't end lockdown. But they might kill off democracy *
> *A tech solution to the crisis of the type being pursed by the UK government will be both ineffective and a civil rights nightmare *



Even someone very non-techie like me, who doesn't even _have_ a bloody smartphone (and I'm only 57  ), found it useful in terms of grasping what's involved. So good on him for emphasising this :



			
				John Naughton said:
			
		

> Then there’s the problem that not everyone has a smartphone, even though it’s commonly supposed in tech circles that they do. The pandemic has revealed that a significant minority of the population (mostly older people) still relies on olde-worlde feature phones. Moreover, it turns out that not all smartphones are created equal: one estimate is that 50% of all smartphones can’t use the proximity-sensing systems being developed by Apple and Google. Given that any proximity-sensing system would probably have to cover at least 60% of the population to be truly effective, does this mean that Matt Hancock is going to be giving out Huawei handsets like Smarties to the Nokia-using poor?



Article is also good on the civil liberties implications.


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> The key questions surely are around why there have been so many deaths in care homes and whether this is part of the reason for the number dying in hospitals (and hence the headline figure used to compare with other countries) plateauing or reducing? There have obviously been issues with PPE in care homes, but there are also questions to ask about people returning from hospitals to care homes (too early or untested after admission for non-Covid issues in hospitals with major Covid outbreaks?)  and whether there has been deliberate policy, locally or nationally, to avoid admitting elderly people with Covid symptoms to hospital, hence reducing strain on NHS capacity? There is also the whole issue around DNR decisions.



Yes there are many important questions on those fronts.

However I think its important to say that when considering 'why so many deaths in care homes' that this was entirely predictable and expected. Its a subject that came up plenty before this was even officially called a pandemic. Of course this fact is not an excuse, its a reason to be even harder on those people and systems that utterly failed to do anything about this, to prepare and protect.

Countries vary in how they report deaths but lots of them have similar gaps in their statistics. The gain from governments from deliberately fudging the numbers is actually limited in some ways because the care home numbers are not hidden, they are just slower to collect, the public do ultimately discover them and its not months or years after the event. And now we reached the stage where they are going to be reported on daily anyway.

Infection control in hospitals (or rather lack of it) and the way this interacts with care homes via people being transferred between them is certainly a really important area.

In terms of deliberate policies regarding admission, to be honest a lot of this is just an extension of the way this sort of thing is also done during normal times. It would not be surprising to learn that they pushed it even further than normal during this pandemic, but many of the underlying principals are built on standard attitudes in regards frailty and treatment. There were already some examples that came out where some organisations handled aspects of this too blatant and insensitive manner, and it got some press. But the subject seems incomplete without the detail of how this stuff is dealt with in this country in non-pandemic times.

When it comes to bad things that have happened as a result of the 'protect the NHS' emphasis, I expect that in addition to various care home related aspects, theres also been a disaster in terms of not tracking the health of those who were infected and stayed in their own homes. Then didnt call for help in time/at all when they deteriorated, or did call for help but were failed by the admissions policy. Too many deaths in general at home during this pandemic so far, though it is of course impossible for me to know quite how many of them were preventable.


----------



## Mation (Apr 28, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I personally think there are other more reasonable things to ask first.


Depends on whether you want lockdown to continue reasonably successfully or not.

If you do, then it's probably a good idea to try to address the questions that some people have (at some of their more stressful times), even if you personally don't feel they need to/can't be answered right now (from your current position of being able to cope sufficiently well enough to keep on with these measures, while not knowing).


----------



## PD58 (Apr 28, 2020)

Lest we forget...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 28, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> There doesn't seem to have been much talk about the tracking and tracing side of testing lately.
> But this by John Naughton in the Observer last Sunday provides good, easy to understand technical information on smartphone apps for that purpose.
> 
> 
> ...


It's a tricky one. Testing and contact tracing can also be done in a 'soft' way, with support networks in place for those testing positive to self-isolate. It does worry me somewhat that this idea seems to be being passed by in favour of far more authoritarian measures, which may end up being imposed more in response to fear than anything else. I'm more optimistic than many about the possibilities of voluntary isolation if it is properly supported, which means a lot of effort - daily visits and checkups, etc. I think the way the lockdown has been observed by the vast majority without any need for active enforcement is evidence in support of that optimism. I think some policy decisions are being made on the basis of too dim a view of the willingness and ability of people to act in the wider good by carrying out short-term measures such as voluntary self-isolation.


----------



## Hollis (Apr 28, 2020)

Just thought through the way 'heroes' are used to deflect from mass incompetence and cynicism.. The way the NHS is currently being fetishised by certain elements of the media and the sector of politicians more used to dishing it, is very similar to the use of 'heroes' in Helmand. - Mass incompetence and poor equipment being covered up by 'our heroes'.  As you were.


----------



## elbows (Apr 29, 2020)

The BBC had a look at various mortality data by region. Including a comparison between a 4 week period of deaths in London and the deadliest 4 week period of the Blitz.









						Coronavirus: Which regions have been worst hit?
					

Reality Check examines the weekly deaths figures for nations and regions across the UK.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




They also mention that the number of all-cause deaths registered in London for the week ending April 17th was the highest since a week in January 1968. I dont have that historical data (data I have isnt down to the regional, town or city level and only goes back to start of 1970), but I checked what the story was with Jan 68. An influenza epidemic, which I suppose was H2N2, since this was still a couple of years before the H3N2 pandemic got round to really affecting the UK. It was certainly quite a bad epidemic but I dont have many detailed figures. I do have one chart for that 1968 UK flu epidemic which also illustrates again the point about proper diagnosis of underlying infectious agents behind many deaths often being missed, and having to rely on broader mortality data to tell a truer story as a result.


(from https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC2130729&blobtype=pdf )


----------



## Maltin (Apr 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> They also mention that the number of all-cause deaths registered in London for the week ending April 17th was the highest since a week in January 1968. I dont have that historical data (data I have isnt down to the regional, town or city level and only goes back to start of 1970)


The ONS file with the daily deaths since 1970 has a tab with the regional figures since 1981. With the national archives making more content free and accessible online, it is possible that the London data that the BBC obtained going back to WWII is within that. Will see if I can find a link.


----------



## Part-timah (Apr 29, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Does this seem right? If it is Starmer hasnt hit the right spot has he?
> 
> View attachment 209374



It’s almost as if Mr Starmer is not there to be an effective leader of the opposition. Who would have thought it?


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 29, 2020)

Wearing masks in public after lockdown might be a good idea.









						It’s finally time you considered wearing a face mask
					

As countries across Europe start to ease their lockdowns, many are starting to recommend citizens wear face masks. It might be time for the UK to follow suit




					www.wired.co.uk


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 29, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Wearing masks in public after lockdown might be a good idea.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




[Slow clap]


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 29, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Wearing masks in public after lockdown might be a good idea.


Just ordered a few more, in the expectation that the UK is going to finally catch up to the rest of the world in the next week or so.

It's weird to think that there are plenty of people still around who will remember the last time we all had to carry masks around with us.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 29, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Does this seem right? If it is Starmer hasnt hit the right spot has he?
> 
> View attachment 209374



Despite that I think Starmer is weary of politicising the pandemic as it would likely backfire on him - perfect example of this is in the US where the daily onslaught of media attacks on Trump are having the reverse intended effect.

Also understand that Boris has just recovered from the virus and may have a lot of support/public sympathy.

I think Starmer is keeping his powder dry and is probably wise to do so - reverence not rhetoric.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 29, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Just ordered a few more, in the expectation that the UK is going to finally catch up to the rest of the world in the next week or so.
> 
> It's weird to think that there are plenty of people still around who will remember the last time we all had to carry masks around with us.


Where and which did you buy Buddy?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 29, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Quelle surprise:
> 
> View attachment 209505



I do like 'intentionally photshopped' as distinct from simply spilling coffee on your laptop and c&p'ing James Cracknell's dad eight feet to the right by accident, which I'm sure has happened to all of us.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 29, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Despite that I think Starmer is weary of politicising the pandemic as it would likely backfire on him - perfect example of this is in the US where the daily onslaught of media attacks on Trump are having the reverse intended effect.
> 
> Also understand that Boris has just recovered from the virus and may have a lot of support/public sympathy.
> 
> I think Starmer is keeping his powder dry and is probably wise to do so - reverence not rhetoric.


I think the notion of keeping the powder dry at a time when there are vtal issues to raise about the wokers safety during the lockdown and when it is eased abdicates the leadership that is needed. Its also contradicted by Thomas-Symonds and Reeves raising the outcome of the Patel inquiry which in the scale of things for most people isnt a key issue in their lives. Not so much keeping the powder dry but firing blanks imo.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 29, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I think the notion of keeping the powder dry at a time when there are vtal issues to raise about the wokers safety during the lockdown and when it is eased abdicates the leadership that is needed. Its also contradicted by Thomas-Symonds and Reeves raising the outcome of the Patel inquiry which in the scale of things for most people isnt a key issue in their lives. Not so much keeping the powder dry but firing blanks imo.


I agree with you about Patel. Reading that this morning, it was ill-judged. Things have moved on even with Patel - her failure to apologise for lack of ppe is more relevant now, I would have thought, especially as the figures for the late onslaught of covid19 through care homes come to light, which really can be laid at the government's door. imo labour could and should have been pushing hard on the two key issues of testing and ppe right from the start of lockdown. It has been obvious for a long while now that these would be key to easing lockdown, for a long time from before the government started talking about it. At the moment, Nicola Sturgeon is essentially the leader of the opposition.

How much of the above is going to be down to the age-old issue of Labour leaders being ignored by the media when they say such things, I don't know, but labour's transition from Corbyn came at a very bad time. Pre-lockdown, Jeremy Cunt was the opposition ffs, and now it's Sturgeon. Labour are all but invisible and irrelevant.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I agree with you about Patel. Reading that this morning, it was ill-judged. Things have moved on even with Patel - her failure to apologise for lack of ppe is more relevant now, I would have thought, especially as the figures for the late onslaught of covid19 through care homes come to light, which really can be laid at the government's door. imo labour could and should have been pushing hard on the two key issues of testing and ppe right from the start of lockdown. It has been obvious for a long while now that these would be key to easing lockdown, for a long time from before the government started talking about it. At the moment, Nicola Sturgeon is essentially the leader of the opposition.
> 
> How much of the above is going to be down to the age-old issue of Labour leaders being ignored by the media when they say such things, I don't know, but labour's transition from Corbyn came at a very bad time. Pre-lockdown, Jeremy Cunt was the opposition ffs, and now it's Sturgeon. Labour are all but invisible and irrelevant.


I'm still quite surprised how quickly the whole Corbynista  bubble has just burst tbh.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 29, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I personally think there are other more reasonable things to ask first.



“now is not the time, the government needs to focus on the immediate crisis” seems to be the standard response from bootlickers on facebook etc., as though any slightly challenging question to Matt Hancock would reduce the amount of time he has to personally intubate patients at the local Nightingale Hospital.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 29, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Despite that I think Starmer is weary of politicising the pandemic as it would likely backfire on him - perfect example of this is in the US where the daily onslaught of media attacks on Trump are having the reverse intended effect.
> 
> Also understand that Boris has just recovered from the virus and may have a lot of support/public sympathy.
> 
> I think Starmer is keeping his powder dry and is probably wise to do so - reverence not rhetoric.


Unrelentingly pressuring Whitehall to adopt the safest exit strategy possible is probably the best thing Labour could be doing right now. Good that they've consistently raised contact tracing for weeks now, and Wales have published an exit plan based on it.

With "lockdown sceptics" getting louder by the day, polling producing worrying reports of the population being split between stoics and sufferers, and the undoubted health costs of lockdown, I remain extremely worried that it could collapse before a surveillance system's in place. If Labour help avert that calamity, all power to them.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 29, 2020)

China, with its strict lockdown has now got daly new cases in the single figures. They are the example of how a lockdown can work, three months of harsh, but a result at the end. If we could struggle on till the end of June we could be in a similar position with only the ports as a way of reinfecting. I'm amazed the NHS has coped but worried that to sustain the level of workload for it may not be sensible.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 29, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> China, with its strict lockdown has now got daly new cases in the single figures. They are the example of how a lockdown can work, three months of harsh, but a result at the end. If we could struggle on till the end of June we could be in a similar position with only the ports as a way of reinfecting. I'm amazed the NHS has coped but worried that to sustain the level of workload for it may not be sensible.


Important to remember that even China, who takes centralization to the extreme of a national timezone over a good chunk of a continent, always took a regional approach, with the most Draconian lockdowns seen in Wuhan and Hubei.

So long as Whitehall sticks dogmatically to a one-size-fits-all "lockdown" across England in the name of national unity, there's no hope of replicating the Chinese containment model here. Imposing the measures needed to drive cases down to near elimination levels in major urban areas will never been accepted if they're also imposed in towns and villages which haven't seen a single case.

Best outcome I can see is an aggressive suppression system keeping the R rate below one and achieving a much slower decline.


----------



## LDC (Apr 29, 2020)

Have the five tests now been slightly but significantly adjusted?

Exhibit A:


----------



## LDC (Apr 29, 2020)

Compared to Exhibit B:


----------



## elbows (Apr 29, 2020)

Yes that could be of note, especially as they've aced questions in the last week or two about whether they intended to try to fully suppress things, or just keep the levels below NHS capacity.


----------



## maomao (Apr 29, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> China, with its strict lockdown has now got daly new cases in the single figures. They are the example of how a lockdown can work, three months of harsh, but a result at the end. If we could struggle on till the end of June we could be in a similar position with only the ports as a way of reinfecting. I'm amazed the NHS has coped but worried that to sustain the level of workload for it may not be sensible.


Chinese schools 'back to normal' :


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 29, 2020)

Point 5 is vague to the point of meaninglessness anyway. At least with the addition of the last bit, you have added something that can be measured - namely wanting to have spare capacity released at the point of easing so that the NHS is not overwhelmed by an uptick. 

It's also rather different from other countries' approaches. In Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere, they've stressed their relative, and necessary, lack of confidence in the measures being taken, meaning that they need to monitor them very carefully to ensure they're the right thing to do. 

The absence of mention of spare capacity in the NHS is an omission, I think. It would be a better thing to have in point 2 - sustained fall in hospitalisation is a more relevant measure than daily deaths. That's another point of difference between those 5 points and the criteria being used elsewhere.


----------



## Cid (Apr 29, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> China, with its strict lockdown has now got daly new cases in the single figures. They are the example of how a lockdown can work, three months of harsh, but a result at the end. If we could struggle on till the end of June we could be in a similar position with only the ports as a way of reinfecting. I'm amazed the NHS has coped but worried that to sustain the level of workload for it may not be sensible.



Our lockdown is really nothing like theirs though. Nor, afaik, do we have post lockdown measures in place.


----------



## treelover (Apr 29, 2020)

> Coronavirus has made it even easier to forget about disabled people
> 
> 
> Understanding that structural inequality means some will be hurt more than others is vital if we hope to slow this pandemic, says Guardian columnist Frances Ryan
> ...





> More disabled adults said they were “very worried” about the effects of coronavirus on their lives than non-disabled adults (45.1% compared with 30.2%). Nearly two-thirds of disabled people said coronavirus-related concerns were affecting their wellbeing, from loneliness and problems at work, to worsening mental health. This is all too predictable when you consider disabled people are more likely to be in low income and insecure work, isolated, and at higher risk from the virus itself (even more so if you’re disabled and BAME).
> 
> When I first argued that coronavirus would impact disabled and marginalised people hardest, some readers responded by pointing out a virus doesn’t check a victim’s bank balance before striking. But understanding that structural inequality means a pandemic will hurt some more than others is crucial if we hope to slow the impact of the virus.


----------



## treelover (Apr 29, 2020)

> while others can’t even access Facebook or Zoom; in a survey by Glasgow Disability Alliance  only just over a third of disabled people reported having home broadband during the pandemic.



Very worrying, I wonder if those in Scotland could help here.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> Our lockdown is really nothing like theirs though. Nor, afaik, do we have post lockdown measures in place.


Yes quite, but theirs is the only example of anyone getting through this and back to work so far.


----------



## Anju (Apr 29, 2020)

Dominic Raab not getting what the U in UBI stands for. 

"The SNP’s Dave Doogan asks what advice Raab has for a constituent who has lost his job. He says the government should back a universal basic income.

Raab says a UBI could not be targeted"


----------



## zahir (Apr 29, 2020)

Events management branching out into running temporary mortuaries.









						Concerns over training at emergency morgues run by UK festival firm
					

Recruits allege lack of training at sites in London and say they were ordered to sign NDAs




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Azrael (Apr 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Point 5 is vague to the point of meaninglessness anyway. At least with the addition of the last bit, you have added something that can be measured - namely wanting to have spare capacity released at the point of easing so that the NHS is not overwhelmed by an uptick.
> 
> It's also rather different from other countries' approaches. In Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere, they've stressed their relative, and necessary, lack of confidence in the measures being taken, meaning that they need to monitor them very carefully to ensure they're the right thing to do.
> 
> The absence of mention of spare capacity in the NHS is an omission, I think. It would be a better thing to have in point 2 - sustained fall in hospitalisation is a more relevant measure than daily deaths. That's another point of difference between those 5 points and the criteria being used elsewhere.


Yes, thanks to the information vacuum, media had one of their periodic bouts of Kremlinology last night and inferred an imminent end of lockdown from a slide. They've varied between the two for weeks.

Of far more note are repeated references to keeping the R rate below one, references to "suppressing" and controlling the virus replacing "slowing" its spread (including in Johnson's speech), and the fact the government's pouring resources into contact tracing and their app.

Just now in PMQs we've had Raab praising a Scottish government plan that unequivocally commits to containing the virus with an aggressive test, trace and isolate strategy.

I suppose it could all be cover for a return to "herd immunity", but not seeing anything pointing that way, or how they could possibly sell hundreds of thousands of deaths to the media when European outbreaks are being suppressed with methods like France's newly announced surveillance system.

They originally went with "herd immunity" 'cause it looked like a quick fix that'd allow them to avoid lockdown. All its political selling points have crumbled to ash. My biggest concern now's that the lockdown will collapse -- either through mass flouting or someone getting a judge to quash it -- before they get their surveillance system working (it is, dear Lord, a Whitehall I.T. project).


----------



## JimW (Apr 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> Chinese schools 'back to normal' :
> 
> View attachment 209633View attachment 209634


Does look vaguely like a Tang Court official's hat! Is that something theyve made in crafts to get used to the distance? Won't be every day once habit is set you'd hope.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 29, 2020)

And after SAGE's public health poverty was exposed, govt now putting out urgent request for experts in "global public health, health systems, epidemiology, infectious diseases, emerging diseases, and social or behavioural sciences".


----------



## clicker (Apr 29, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Compared to Exhibit B:
> 
> View attachment 209620


That doesn't look reassuring.  Or maybe I've misread it?
We know the Nightingales are thankfully not full, so does that mean if easing lockdown measures result in a second peak it's acceptable?
I consider the NHS overwhelmed,  until all hospital wards reopen for their intended purpose and the backlog of cancelled treatments are no more.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 29, 2020)

A "second peak" (or more specifically, a fresh outbreak on the scale of the current one) is the last thing Whitehall wants. If this change was deliberate, at a guess, it's to give them political cover if their surveillance system fails. We know from Germany that even the best systems offer no guarantees, let alone some government IT project run up in a hurry.


----------



## Combustible (Apr 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> Chinese schools 'back to normal' :
> 
> View attachment 209633View attachment 209634



In my colleague's son's school, one kid had a fever  and was apparently whisked away for COVID test while the rest of the class remained 'locked down' in the classroom until the test results came back (within the same day thankfully)


----------



## maomao (Apr 29, 2020)

Anyone notice that when the toff cunt was in hospital the figures started coming out on time and now he's back they're much later every day. I'm not saying he's fiddling them but it makes me think he's engaging in the same kind of innefectual and pointless micromanagement that every public schoolboy I've ever worked for has.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 29, 2020)

Went past our local drive through testing area.  All looked quiet, maybe a handful of cars.

If the lab capacity is there and there are facilities which are clearly underused anyone any thoughts on why they are so reluctant to make the test available to more people?  On a slightly different note I see construction workers can now be tested.  I wonder how they can tell one way or another whether everyone is being truthful about their job?


----------



## elbows (Apr 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> Anyone notice that when the toff cunt was in hospital the figures started coming out on time and now he's back they're much later every day. I'm not saying he's fiddling them but it makes me think he's engaging in the same kind of innefectual and pointless micromanagement that every public schoolboy I've ever worked for has.



Which figures? I havent noticed the NHS England daily figures being late, but then again I am not usually looking at exactly 2pm so I could be wrong. The UK-wide figures announced each day might vary in their timing much more, but that could be down to one of the other nations for all I know, I havent really been looking at those figures directly every day.


----------



## maomao (Apr 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Which figures? I havent noticed the NHS England daily figures being late, but then again I am not usually looking at exactly 2pm so I could be wrong. The UK-wide figures announced each day might vary in their timing much more, but that could be down to one of the other nations for all I know, I havent really been looking at those figures directly every day.


The UK total hospital death figure was out within ten minutes of 2 o'clock almost every weekday for the last few weeks. I've just seen that they've chucked an extra 3-4k on for care home and community deaths today. That's a lot less than other estimates.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 29, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I'm just not getting (understanding) some of this Welsh stuff. As I've mentioned, I live under the Hywel Dda health board. We 'appear' to have one of the lowest death rates in the UK. But as I've also mentioned, I don't trust the figures because a) they are so low and b) the same applied to Betsi Cadwaladr (north Wales) who then mentioned 84 deaths last week, up from 0 as they hadn't implemented the new computer system and nobody seemed to notice the anamoly in their zero figure.
> 
> Now for Hywel Dda we have this today.
> 
> ...



Ok so today Hywel Dda has added those previously unreported 31 deaths to the 5 they already had.

So the total is now 34.

I'm not making this up.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> The UK total hospital death figure was out within ten minutes of 2 o'clock almost every weekday for the last few weeks. I've just seen that they've chucked an extra 3-4k on for care home and community deaths today. That's a lot less than other estimates.



I read something relating to that this morning which confused me because I'd thought we had already been including suspected covid related deaths _already_  
I guess the change was just that death certificates were allowed to LIST covid related reasons, without a test, but that it follows that there has been no reporting of those (inside and outside of hospital settings?) prior to April 24th.

*COVID-19 Daily Deaths*
This section contains information on deaths of patients who have died in hospitals in England and had tested positive for COVID-19 at time of death or where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. All deaths are recorded against the date of death rather than the date the deaths were announced.

*The Daily file contains only deaths from the latest reporting period, 5pm 2 days prior to publication until 5pm the day before publication. The Total file contains all reported deaths.*

_*From Tuesday 28 April, NHS England and NHS Improvement started to report the number of patient deaths where there has been no COVID-19 positive test result, but where COVID-19 is documented as a direct or underlying cause of death on part 1 or part 2 of the death certification process.   This change has been introduced for deaths that occurred on 24th April and subsequently and is shown separately in the region data table only. When making comparisons over time these figures should not be included.*_

Interpretation of the figures should take into account the fact that totals by date of death are likely to be updated in future releases for more recent dates. For example, a positive result for COVID-19 may occur days after confirmation of death. Cases are only included in the data when the positive COVID-19 test result is received, or death certificate confirmed with COVID-19 mentioned. This results in a lag between a given date of death and exhaustive daily death figures for that day.

These figures will be updated at 2pm each day and include confirmed death cases reported at 5pm the previous day. Confirmation of COVID-19 diagnosis, death notification, death certificates and reporting in central figures can take up to several days and the hospitals providing the data are under significant operational pressure. This means that the totals reported at 5pm on each day may not include all deaths that occurred on that day or on recent prior days.

These figures do not include deaths outside hospital, such as those in care homes. This approach makes it possible to compile deaths data on a daily basis using up to date figures.



I'm watching the briefing now - very unsurprised at the attempts to diminish how large our death toll is, comparatively, by firstly comparing to the US, with the adjusted 'all settings' data (and despite that only including positive tests?) and then to point to the lack of clarity as to whether Spain was including all settings - when it turns out that every other country on the chart is (I knew France were but not the others - Italy, Germany, the US etc).
Also that it's _good news_ - just down to having slightly more realistic data.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 29, 2020)

Does anyone know why the FT boffins have analysed everything and come up with a figure of 44,000 and the government is at 26,000?

The FT's not exactly an anti-Tory paper. Can't quite figure out the discrepancy.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 29, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know why the FT boffins have analysed everything and come up with a figure of 44,000 and the government is at 26,000?
> 
> The FT's not exactly an anti-Tory paper. Can't quite figure out the discrepancy.



Allowing for delays in reporting?  Looking closer at excess deaths in total compared to previous years?


----------



## elbows (Apr 29, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I read something relating to that this morning which confused me because I'd thought we had already been including suspected covid related deaths _already_
> I guess the change was just that death certificates were allowed to LIST covid related reasons, without a test, but that it follows that there has been no reporting of those (inside and outside of hospital settings?) prior to April 24th.



The daily numbers didnt used to include these. But the weekly ONS numbers did, so we have already heard about suspected deaths before, but not every day. Now we get those daily as well.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 29, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Allowing for delays in reporting?  Looking closer at excess deaths in total compared to previous years?



It's a long read. And a little complicated for me. But yesterday the FT had it at 41,000.





__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com
				




Fucking paywall!


----------



## elbows (Apr 29, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know why the FT boffins have analysed everything and come up with a figure of 44,000 and the government is at 26,000?
> 
> The FT's not exactly an anti-Tory paper. Can't quite figure out the discrepancy.



It was a projection based on numbers that we already had and estimates of numbers that werent available yet.

Some articles will also look at total excess deaths, rather than deaths that had a test or something about Covid-19 on the death certificate. I know all this can get confusing.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 29, 2020)

I've copied and pasted it.



> If data are included from Scotland and Northern Ireland, where the dates do not entirely match, 29,751 excess deaths were recorded by mid-April, far above the government’s latest daily running total of 21,678.
> 
> The official figures verified Financial Times modelling that suggested 41,000 people across the UK had died by last Tuesday either directly or indirectly as a result of coronavirus, with the death registrations higher than expected by the FT's model.
> 
> With almost 30,000 excess deaths by mid-April across the UK, approximately two weeks ago, the number of total deaths now is likely to be about 47,000, according to the FT model.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 29, 2020)

The Scottish government's objective is now to eliminate Covid-19. Just a month ago, Bute House had run up the white flag and allowed the "herd immunity" fatalists to do their worst.

That's some journey.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> The daily numbers didnt used to include these. But the weekly ONS numbers did, so we have already heard about suspected deaths before, but not every day. Now we get those daily as well.




In terms of inclusion to the reported deaths though, am I missing something?   

From Tuesday 28 April, NHS England and NHS Improvement started to report the number of patient deaths where there has been no COVID-19 positive test result, but where COVID-19 is documented as a direct or underlying cause of death on part 1 or part 2 of the death certification process.   *This change has been introduced for deaths that occurred on 24th April and subsequently* and is shown separately in the region data table only. When making comparisons over time these figures should not be included. 

The weekly ONS figures haven't been included in that, have they - so do we now have figures that will include daily deaths where covid was mentioned on the death certificate from 24/04 onwards but without them being adjsuted on that basis from before that date (based on the weekly figures)? I hope that makes sense!


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 29, 2020)

Azrael said:


> The Scottish government's objective is now to eliminate Covid-19. Just a month ago, Bute House had run up the white flag and allowed the "herd immunity" fatalists to do their worst.
> 
> That's some journey.




Sure it’s the usual politics, they say this in the expectation that any deaths that do happen can be blamed on Westminster and being part of the uk.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 29, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know why the FT boffins have analysed everything and come up with a figure of 44,000 and the government is at 26,000?
> 
> The FT's not exactly an anti-Tory paper. Can't quite figure out the discrepancy.



Even with the daily care home deaths now being reported, the overall figures still seem to only include confirmed cases, mainly tested, but maybe also where C-19 is on the the death certificates without a test. 

A funeral director mate has told me that many doctors locally are not putting C-19 on deaths certificates, unless they have been tested, despite them having shown symptoms.

Care Homes using this new portal to report daily deaths, have been asked to report both confirmed & suspected C-19 cases, but separately, I suspect only confirmed cases are being included in the government figures.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 29, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Sure it’s the usual politics, they say this in the expectation that any deaths that do happen can be blamed on Westminster and being part of the uk.


If that was "the usual politics", Bute House wouldn't have allowed a dentist to mouth off to anyone who'd listen about the merits of "herd immunity"! 

It's an ongoing irony of this mess that both Whitehall and the Scottish Government initially took a position directly contrary to their political interests: Whitehall threw away the opportunity to make the case for strong borders; and Bute House signed Scotland up to the "four nation" approach.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 29, 2020)

What we do know from some other European counties, deaths in care homes & the community are around 50% of all cases, so double that of hospital cases.

As elbows has said, we'll never know the true figures, the best we will get is the total deaths compared to the average of the last 5 years, over the same weeks.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Even with the daily care home deaths now being reported, the overall figures still seem to only include confirmed cases, mainly tested, but maybe also where C-19 is on the the death certificates without a test.
> 
> A funeral director mate has told me that many doctors locally are not putting C-19 on deaths certificates, unless they have been tested, despite them having shown symptoms.
> 
> Care Homes using this new portal to report daily deaths, have been asked to report both confirmed & suspected C-19 cases, but separately, I suspect only confirmed cases are being included in the government figures.


It is only confirmed cases, yes.

I don't blame them for that, but it really does make many of the international comparisons almost meaningless. I kind of applaud Belgium for trying to be as honest as it can be about the extent of its deaths, but it's been jumped on by many, including me a while back, as demonstrating that Belgium's having a particularly awful time of it. It isn't. Reality is that a bunch of countries, including the UK, are about as bad as Belgium.


----------



## Lurdan (Apr 29, 2020)

Covid-19 death rates are comparable to ebola for hospital cases, NHS finds - The Times (Paywalled - archived version)

Setting aside the clickbait headline this isn't great


> Researchers gathered data from almost 17,000 patients admitted to 166 NHS hospitals between February 6 and April 18.(...) By that time 49 per cent had been discharged alive, 33 per cent had died and 17 per cent continued to receive care. The study is continuing and the scientists behind it said they had found Covid to be a complex disease quite unlike other respiratory viruses. The details of how it kills people were still unclear, they said.


(...)


> The new study, the largest conducted in Europe, confirmed several previous findings: Covid-19 is more dangerous for older people and men fare worse than women. However, it found symptoms to be far more diverse than the cough and fever that the public had been asked to look out for. (...) The study has not yet been peer-reviewed but Professor Semple said a preliminary analysis of the data suggested that worse outcomes seen among some ethnic minorities could probably be attributed to social deprivation rather than underlying biological causes. (...) The most common underlying health conditions were chronic cardiac disease (seen in 29 per cent of patients), uncomplicated diabetes (19 per cent), non-asthmatic chronic pulmonary disease (19 per cent) and asthma (14 per cent). However, almost half of the patients had no reported underlying illness.


(...)


> *Coronavirus in numbers *_Study of NHS patients_
> *72* — The median age of patients admitted to hospital
> *80 *—The median age of those who died
> *0.8 per cent* of patients were were aged under five and* 1.4 per cent *were under 18
> ...





> But *47 per cent* of those admitted into hospital had no underlying condition
> For patients who received care on a general ward, *55* *per cent* were discharged alive, *31* *per cent *died and *14* *per cent* remained in hospital.
> For those admitted to critical care *31* *per cent* were discharged alive, *45 per cent *died and *24 per cent* continued to receive care.
> *61 *— median age of those on ventilation. Only *20 per cent *had been discharged alive by April 4, *53* *per cent *have died and *27* *per cent *are still receiving care. By contrast, for influenza patients ventilated in ICUs in 2009 the death rate was *31per cent*





> The case definition of cough and fever, if strictly applied, would miss *7 per cent *of hospitalised patients
> *4* *per cent* of patients presented with only stomach problems or other intestinal symptoms
> Pregnancy was not associated with a higher risk of mortality, unlike influenza. The share of pregnant women mirrored the proportion in society.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 29, 2020)

Daily deaths is not the stat I'm looking at, as its so easily corrupted. Daily new cases is the more telling. I get the feeling that they are all being twisted though.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 29, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Daily deaths is not the stat I'm looking at, as its so easily corrupted. Daily new cases is the more telling. I get the feeling that they are all being twisted though.


Number of people in hospital with C19 is a pretty robust guide to where things are going. It didn't pick up on the care home tidal wave of the last couple of weeks, of course, but it's a decent general guide to the direction of things nonetheless.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 29, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Daily deaths is not the stat I'm looking at, as its so easily corrupted. Daily new cases is the more telling. I get the feeling that they are all being twisted though.


Of all the figures provided, daily new cases is the most meaningless.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 29, 2020)

2hats said:


> Of all the figures provided, daily new cases is the most meaningless.


Why's that then?


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 29, 2020)

2hats said:


> Of all the figures provided, daily new cases is the most meaningless.


lies, damned lies, and coronavirus statistics


----------



## 2hats (Apr 29, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Why's that then?


It is self selecting and capped by availability of testing. Consequently tells you nothing about numbers of infections.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 29, 2020)

2hats said:


> It is self selecting and capped by availability of testing. Consequently tells you nothing about numbers of infections.


Just like the death one then.


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Number of people in hospital with C19 is a pretty robust guide to where things are going. It didn't pick up on the care home tidal wave of the last couple of weeks, of course, but it's a decent general guide to the direction of things nonetheless.


no it isn't. it's a guide to how things are going while certain conditions obtain. it tells us nothing about how things will proceed if certain decisions are made, eg schools reopening, people stop abiding by the lockdown etc


----------



## elbows (Apr 29, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> In terms of inclusion to the reported deaths though, am I missing something?
> 
> From Tuesday 28 April, NHS England and NHS Improvement started to report the number of patient deaths where there has been no COVID-19 positive test result, but where COVID-19 is documented as a direct or underlying cause of death on part 1 or part 2 of the death certification process.   *This change has been introduced for deaths that occurred on 24th April and subsequently* and is shown separately in the region data table only. When making comparisons over time these figures should not be included.
> 
> The weekly ONS figures haven't been included in that, have they - so do we now have figures that will include daily deaths where covid was mentioned on the death certificate from 24/04 onwards but without them being adjsuted on that basis from before that date (based on the weekly figures)? I hope that makes sense!



The daily NHS England data has numbers that carry on just the same as ever (require positive test), and also some additional numbers that are still hospital deaths, but not requiring a test, only from that date in April onwards.

The daily number 10 slides & data go further as of today. They have UK numbers in several formats, including an attempt to give a daily figure for reported Dovid-19 deaths in the UK in any setting. However these are probably dated by reporting date, rather than actual date of death, which is how I prefer to see such data. But that introduces some lag, and I can still use daily reported deaths to see trends over time.

I think they messed up the final entry in that data too. Unless 25300 + 765 = 26097 oh dear!

I dont think I will make much use of those particular numbers, because the numbers are still thousands behind what I end up with cumulatively on earlier dates for which I already have the proper ONS data by day of death, rather than by day death was registered. eg the number 10 data has a number of 16,872 for 17/4/2020 but I can already come up with a number more like 24,359 for the total by that date.

Bottom line for me is that ultimately I still rely most on the ONS & Scottish & NI equivalent data with which to eventually build the most accurate set of figures. Much of this data comes out once a week but does include Covid-19 deaths by date of death. Ultimately, with much greater lag, I should also be able to see ONS daily figures for all deaths, not just ones where Covid-19 is mentioned on death certificate, by date of death. eg I can already see such numbers for March, and towards the end of May I should be able to see them for April. In the meantime when it comes to total deaths from all causes, I can see weekly figures.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 29, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> no it isn't. it's a guide to how things are going while certain conditions obtain. it tells us nothing about how things will proceed if certain decisions are made.


Sorry, try reading my post again. Yes, it absolutely is a guide to where things are going. Looked at across various countries, you see repeated shapes, where number of people in hospital levels off then starts to steadily fall. We're now in that steadily falling phase, with the number falling a bit more quickly in London. What I said was 'it is a guide to where things are going', present tense, direction of current travel, which it is. There is a time lag, of course, allowing for the time it takes for the infection to take hold, but all measures have a time lag.


----------



## elbows (Apr 29, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Daily deaths is not the stat I'm looking at, as its so easily corrupted. Daily new cases is the more telling. I get the feeling that they are all being twisted though.



Cases in the UK is a number I consistently ignore because it tells you more about testing regime than actual number of new cases. If they eventually end up with huge testing capacity that is actually utilised then the numbers will mean more, but I wont fairly be able to compare them to the previous data from when testing was limited.


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sorry, try reading my post again. Yes, it absolutely is a guide to where things are going. Looked at across various countries, you see repeated shapes, where number of people in hospital levels off then starts to steadily fall. We're now in that steadily falling phase, with the number falling a bit more quickly in London. What I said was 'it is a guide to where things are going', present tense, direction of current travel, which it is.


a guide to where things are going, no matter how you dress it up, refers to the future. and where the curve goes in the future depends very much on decisions made whether by groups of people to no longer abide by the lockdown or by the government to eg reopen schools. it's not all that robust a guide if in defending it you say it's only a guide to the present.


----------



## Mation (Apr 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> Chinese schools 'back to normal' :
> 
> View attachment 209633View attachment 209634


I don't have children, so feel free to shoot me down, but that looks like quite a sweet and doable way to at least encourage something that seems mightily difficult at best.

They need front and back blades too, though, to truly be the helicopter* generation 

But I wonder why those few kids towards the back don't have the blades too 

* helicovter?


----------



## Cid (Apr 29, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Just like the death one then.



We now have much better estimates of the IFR, so the deaths one can give you some idea of the total number of cases. I mean with fairly massive margins for error... Ok, too massive. At the very least they tell you how many people have definitely died of coronavirus in hospital though. Which is something. The new cases figures are completely useless.


----------



## PD58 (Apr 29, 2020)

Campbell on the mark again... from the BBC

Former director of communications to Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, said he congratulated Boris Johnson on the birth of his baby boy but  he should have taken part in Prime Minister's Questions earlier today.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Campbell said he was not "mean-spirited" but  it was important to "keep our perspective on the scale of the challenge" the UK was facing, citing the latest death figures in care homes and BA job losses.

He said there had been "too much of a focus on this almost like a personal soap opera, rather than one of the biggest national catastrophes that we've seen in our lifetime".

He added that he was worried the media coverage, mostly by  newspapers, would be "disproportionate" and that it was possible to wish Mr Johnson well but "they’re not the Royal Family".


----------



## 2hats (Apr 29, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Just like the death one then.


Correctly binned deaths starts to give you a vague idea of trend. But none of the daily numbers provide a clear picture of what really is going on, as has been pointed out several times now.

Better ideas of overall transmission are being derived from analysis of sewage.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 29, 2020)

NHS staff coronavirus inquests told not to look at PPE shortages
					

Exclusive: guidance to avoid examining systemic failures is ‘very worrying’, says Labour




					www.theguardian.com
				




what cunts eh. Do inquests ever ignore "guidance" like this?


----------



## agricola (Apr 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> NHS staff coronavirus inquests told not to look at PPE shortages
> 
> 
> Exclusive: guidance to avoid examining systemic failures is ‘very worrying’, says Labour
> ...



TBF I am not sure "guidance" like that has ever gone out - even deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan where equipment was lacking were dealt with by coroners (edit: that article mentions one case but there were others).

If its apparent that someone in the NHS died because their Trust couldn't get PPE what on earth is the Coroner meant to do?  Blame God?


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (Apr 29, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> On a slightly different note I see construction workers can now be tested.  I wonder how they can tell one way or another whether everyone is being truthful about their job?



If the testing centre needs to check, every construction worker will have a CSCS card with their photo on.


----------



## Mation (Apr 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> NHS staff coronavirus inquests told not to look at PPE shortages
> 
> 
> Exclusive: guidance to avoid examining systemic failures is ‘very worrying’, says Labour
> ...


Does this mean that inquests into the effects of coronavirus on NHS staff will not look at the contribution of lack of PPE to staff outcomes, or that they won't consider any political/policy decisions that lead to those outcomes?

I read the headline as the former but the article itself as the latter.

[edited for clarity]


----------



## two sheds (Apr 29, 2020)

Yes looks like you're right, although as agricola said inquests have passed comment on government policy type decisions:



> However, coroners have in the past ruled on the provision of protective equipment. When the Oxfordshire assistant deputy coroner Andrew Walker investigated the death of Steve Roberts, a tank commander who died in Iraq when he was not supplied with enhanced body armour, he concluded that the lack of appropriate basic equipment was “unforgivable and inexcusable and represents a breach of trust that those soldiers have in the government”.


----------



## agricola (Apr 29, 2020)

Mation said:


> Does this mean that inquests into the effects of coronavirus on NHS staff will not look at the contribution of lack of PPE to staff outcomes, or that they won't consider any political/policy decisions that contributed to those outcomes?
> 
> I read the headline as the former but the article itself as the latter.



It seems to mean that the Coroner could look at where a Trust had failed to supply PPE to a person in its employ who subsequently caught this (because of the lack of PPE) and then died.  

The Coroner could not however look at _why_ the Trust didn't have the PPE if that was because of failures of policy / the national supply chain / lack of equipment and the reasons whereof.


----------



## Mation (Apr 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> It seems to mean that the Coroner could look at where a Trust had failed to supply PPE to a person in its employ who subsequently caught this (because of the lack of PPE) and then died.
> 
> The Coroner could not however look at _why_ the Trust didn't have the PPE if that was because of failures of policy / the national supply chain / lack of equipment and the reasons whereof.


Yep, that's how I read it.

This seems useful, imo.

Get the evidence of exactly what happened and the result of that first. Then you've got something to go at the policy-makers (government) with. Try to do both in one and there's all sorts of room for 'evidence' that what did happen wasn't technically anyone's fault above local level, and didn't even technically happen, because of whatever blah blah bullshit.


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 29, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I wonder how they can tell one way or another whether everyone is being truthful about their job?



They‘re not even asking the question, I did a test last Saturday and it doesn‘t come up on the application, though at the beginning it does refer you to a list of eligible occupations. I guess if there isn’t huge demand at the drive-in sites it’s not a problem.


----------



## agricola (Apr 29, 2020)

Mation said:


> Yep, that's how I read it.
> 
> This seems useful, imo.
> 
> Get the evidence of exactly what happened and the result of that first. Then you've got something to go at the policy-makers (government) with. Try to do both in one and there's all sorts of room for 'evidence' that what did happen wasn't technically anyone's fault above local level, and didn't even technically happen, because of whatever blah blah bullshit.



I don't think it is, unless the advice allows coroners to issue narrative findings saying that the person died because of a national lack of PPE (and the reasons for that would need to be established by a fully constituted public inquiry).


----------



## Mation (Apr 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> I don't think it is, unless the advice allows coroners to issue narrative findings saying that the person died because of a national lack of PPE (and the reasons for that would need to be established by a fully constituted public inquiry).


I was thinking of a public enquiry based on a multitude of individual coroners' reports that all say that a local lack of PPE was a factor. That begs a big question of why all these similar cases everywhere.


----------



## Shechemite (Apr 29, 2020)

Bastards


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 29, 2020)

It’s not just the coroner, according to a risk assessment thing that’s been put together for us at work, COVID deaths are reportable under RIDDOR. This should apply to healthcare workers as with anyone else.



> HSE has issued details of when and how you should report coronavirus incidents under RIDDOR (the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013). For information this is as follows:
> 
> • an unintended incident at work has led to someone’s possible or actual exposure to coronavirus. This must be reported as a dangerous occurrence.
> • a worker has been diagnosed as having COVID-19 and there is reasonable evidence that it was caused by exposure at work. This must be reported as a case of disease.
> • a worker dies as a result of occupational exposure to coronavirus.


----------



## agricola (Apr 29, 2020)

Mation said:


> I was thinking of a public enquiry based on a multitude of individual coroners' reports that all say that a local lack of PPE was a factor. That begs a big question of why all these similar cases everywhere.



That is what would be needed, but of course the advice doesn't say that and could be read to say that the Coroner cannot look into that (which might mean they couldn't use it as a finding).


----------



## Mation (Apr 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> That is what would be needed, but of course the advice doesn't say that and could be read to say that the Coroner cannot look into that (which might mean they couldn't use it as a finding).


Now I'm confused 

I thought we'd both agreed that the advice would allow the what but not the why of lack of PPE?


----------



## Mation (Apr 29, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Bastards


This is something we can all get behind.


----------



## agricola (Apr 29, 2020)

Mation said:


> Now I'm confused
> 
> I thought we'd both agreed that the advice would allow the what but not the why of lack of PPE?



The advice appears to allow the lack of PPE to be something the coroner might find, but not why the PPE was lacking unless it is something specific to that unit / Trust.  

If the fault lies with the national supply chain etc then the Coroner may not be able to say that the death was caused by a (national) lack of PPE.


----------



## Mation (Apr 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> The advice appears to allow the lack of PPE to be something the coroner might find, but not why the PPE was lacking unless it is something specific to that unit / Trust.
> 
> If the fault lies with the national supply chain etc then the Coroner may not be able to say that the death was caused by a (national) lack of PPE.


Yes, that's where we started. I've already said my follow-on bits, so I'll leave it there


----------



## Dogsauce (Apr 29, 2020)

I can foresee lawsuits aplenty for hospital-acquired infections, that’ll cost a few bob.


----------



## zahir (Apr 29, 2020)




----------



## two sheds (Apr 30, 2020)

From Michael R on that thread - don't know how true it is because I've not been watching the news but I like the sentiment.


----------



## weepiper (Apr 30, 2020)

Edinburgh is starting to close roads to create better social distancing space for pedestrians and cyclists









						Emergency closure of three Edinburgh roads for walkers and cyclists
					

The city council is to shut Silverknowes Road, Braid Road and Links Gardens within days.




					www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com


----------



## ash (Apr 30, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Edinburgh is starting to close roads to create better social distancing space for pedestrians and cyclists
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Lambeth have  said they will be doing this


----------



## ash (Apr 30, 2020)

ash said:


> Lambeth have  said they will be doing this



Looks like they’ve started 👍🏻


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes looks like you're right, although as agricola said inquests have passed comment on government policy type decisions:



I would consider a tank to be a pretty high standard of PPE, but that's just me. I'm sure the people he was fighting would have gladly traded their kit (some rocks, apparently) for his.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 30, 2020)

Amazon are extending their extra £2 per hour to workers and associates for another 2 weeks after which they will review it.

Will the lockdown be eased by then?  🤷‍♂️


----------



## Raheem (Apr 30, 2020)

Anyone have a serious explanation as to why Tory backbenchers seem fixated on the re-opening of garden centres?


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 30, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Anyone have a serious explanation as to why Tory backbenchers seem fixated on the re-opening of garden centres?



10% off every Wednesday for B&Q over 65yr old diamond card members.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 30, 2020)

The M4 - top pic April 27th, bottom pic April 10th



Been reading some media reports claiming that an unofficial end of lockdown is slowly emerging as people people want to feel a sense of normal again.


----------



## emanymton (Apr 30, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> The M4 - top pic April 27th, bottom pic April 10th
> 
> View attachment 209736
> 
> Been reading some media reports claiming that an unofficial end of lockdown is slowly emerging as people people want to feel a sense of normal again.


10th April was a bank holiday so not a working day. Also were the 2 pictures taken at the same time of day?


----------



## maomao (Apr 30, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> reading some media reports claiming that an unofficial end of lockdown is slowly emerging



Where?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Anyone have a serious explanation as to why Tory backbenchers seem fixated on the re-opening of garden centres?



As a first step, it would be a logical one, as they can easily introduce social distancing based on the model used by the supermarkets & the DIY sheds, such as B&Q.


----------



## komodo (Apr 30, 2020)

Not heard much re 111 call centres. advice to the public is to ring them andnot trouble their GP re C19. Round here at least,  callers  are split into Covid and non- Covid when the ring111.Also they are supporting those looking after very ill people at home - helping them to assess breathing and advising when they should call 999. They are doing a very good job on that from what I’ve heard. So should have some useful data on spread. Is this available?


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 30, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Anyone have a serious explanation as to why Tory backbenchers seem fixated on the re-opening of garden centres?



Used overwhelmingly but not exclusively by an older cohort. So, playing to their voters.

The same older people who are disproportionately affected badly by coronavirus.


----------



## Doodler (Apr 30, 2020)

Prediction corner: many working-age people from 50 year-olds onwards will drop out of the labour force for a long time, even permanently.

Due to reluctance to work during a possible second wave of infections during the summer. Fear of increasing restlessness and transmission from people who don't feel at risk and who care little for others. Low confidence in the government to act decisively. High unemployment plus discrimination against older people trying to re-enter the jobs market. Raiding of pension pots (for those that have them) from age 55 as an alternative source of income, although the value of many may have taken a big hit.


----------



## Marty1 (Apr 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Where?



Apple news feed.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Apple news feed.


 No, where?


----------



## Numbers (Apr 30, 2020)

Captain, or Colonel Tom on the flypast earlier.

“I am one of the few people here who’ve seen the Hurricane and Spitfire flying past in anger, and fortunately today they’re all flying peacefully - that’s what’s outstanding”


----------



## maomao (Apr 30, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Apple news feed.


That's basically saying 'I saw it on my phone'. Bit crap especially when you're the only person claiming to have seen this. Apple news provides news based on what you're interested in so yours is probably mostly alt-right nonsense and animal sex.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 30, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Anyone have a serious explanation as to why Tory backbenchers seem fixated on the re-opening of garden centres?



Maybe it's code for BDSM dungeons.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 30, 2020)




----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


>



They're never going to admit fault or apologise, are they?


----------



## zahir (Apr 30, 2020)

Conservative Friends of Israel going after John Ashton



			https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/bbc-urged-to-stop-featuring-zionist-tweet-public-health-expert-1.499321


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 30, 2020)

zahir said:


> Conservative Friends of Israel going after John Ashton
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/bbc-urged-to-stop-featuring-zionist-tweet-public-health-expert-1.499321



Nah, I'm jewish, those comments arent good imo and he needs to explain them at least, although it doesn't necessarily mean the bbc should stop inviting him on


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> They're never going to admit fault or apologise, are they?



He's deleted it now.


----------



## zahir (Apr 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Nah, I'm jewish, those comments arent good imo and he needs to explain them at least, although it doesn't necessarily mean the bbc should stop inviting him on



This is his version of it:


Then again I don’t know what he actually said.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 30, 2020)

zahir said:


> This is his version of it:
> 
> 
> Then again I don’t know what he actually said.



The tweet in which he says 'Jews need to reflect' is the problematic one, as it doesn't say 'Israelis need to reflect' or 'Zionists need to reflect', simply 'Jews'. The rest of it is fair comment, imo. Whether or not you agree with him, he's entitled to call Gaza a ghetto and to compare Zionists to Nazis. Anti-Zionism, even in its strongest 'they're Nazis' form, is not the same as anti-Semitism.

He's right, of course, that this is being used to discredit him by people who aren't actually outraged by his tweets at all. But he's also a bit naive to think it wouldn't be used like that, and he fucked up with the 'Jews need to reflect' tweet.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 30, 2020)

I think that's highly debatable, no it's not necessarily antisemitism but most jews, including myself, find Nazi comparisons highly offensive despite despising the Israeli govt


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 30, 2020)

In any case he needs to explain his comments, 'Jews need to reflect' and bringing nazis into it isn't a good look.

In general it's a good idea to leave the jews out of it tbh


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think that's highly debatable, no it's not necessarily antisemitism but most jews, including myself, find Nazi comparisons highly offensive despite despising the Israeli govt


It's not a comparison I would make as I don't think it's accurate. Comparisons with Apartheid South Africa are more accurate. We don't necessarily have a right not to be offended, though, and I would defend his right to say it even if I don't think it's a wise thing to say.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's not a comparison I would make as I don't think it's accurate. Comparisons with Apartheid South Africa are more accurate. We don't necessarily have a right not to be offended, though, and I would defend his right to say it even if I don't think it's a wise thing to say.



If I were you id maybe step back a bit from this one.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think that's highly debatable, no it's not necessarily antisemitism but most jews, including myself, find Nazi comparisons highly offensive despite despising the Israeli govt


Of course


----------



## platinumsage (Apr 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The tweet in which he says 'Jews need to reflect' is the problematic one, as it doesn't say 'Israelis need to reflect' or 'Zionists need to reflect', simply 'Jews'. The rest of it is fair comment, imo. Whether or not you agree with him, he's entitled to call Gaza a ghetto and to compare Zionists to Nazis. Anti-Zionism, even in its strongest 'they're Nazis' form, is not the same as anti-Semitism.
> 
> He's right, of course, that this is being used to discredit him by people who aren't actually outraged by his tweets at all. But he's also a bit naive to think it wouldn't be used like that, and he fucked up with the 'Jews need to reflect' tweet.



He has a history of this, it's not a fuck-up:









						John Ashton (public health director) - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Apr 30, 2020)

That’s the height of me charging in on my horse this week Froggie


----------



## treelover (Apr 30, 2020)

> Sheffield volunteers required for contact tracing group:
> 
> 
> Volunteers in Sheffield are being recruited and will be supervised by doctors and public health officials.
> Retired health staff start virus contact tracing



Not even getting paid?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

So the Mail is reporting we're going into June with the lockdown... fucking hell









						Boris Johnson set to dash hopes of an early end to coronavirus curbs
					

Having chaired Cabinet this morning, Boris Johnson said on Twitter that he 'understands the impatience' of people to end the draconian restrictions crippling the economy.




					www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So the Mail is reporting we're going into June with the lockdown... fucking hell
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's the mail tho?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It's the mail tho?



Their sources are as good as anyone elses


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So the Mail is reporting we're going into June with the lockdown... fucking hell
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not surprising if true.  It always seemed like from the get go it would be end of May / early June at the earliest and that's just the start of the easing.  Thing is though, its unofficially already happening.  We've already seen the likes of B&Q decide to start opening.  Fast food joints are slowly coming back on-line.  I also think you'll see a big uptick in construction activity in the coming weeks, remember the sites that are closed are only because decisions made by clients and contractors.  

We're going to have this weird situation where the cart is going to lead the donkey.  Question is, can this be considered a deliberate policy or the consequence of not having a policy?


----------



## belboid (Apr 30, 2020)

treelover said:


> Not even getting paid?


That is what volunteers means, yes.  Numbers involved would supposedly make it impractical and too costly for a ‘proper’ recruitment process.  It’s just Heeley & Meersbrook at the moment.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Their sources are as good as anyone elses



But everything they write is designed to serve an agenda, not to convey information. Phrases like 'draconian curbs crippling the economy' are not neutral. The fact that newspapers are bleeding money at the moment is I'm sure entirely incidental to this choice of words.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> But everything they write is designed to serve an agenda, not to convey information. Phrases like 'draconian curbs crippling the economy' are not neutral. The fact thaty newspapers are bleeding money at the moment is I'm sure entirely incidental to this choice of words.



I assume their journos have fairly high placed Tory sources. Sturgeon's on right now anyway, probably announcing June.

I also don't agree they're bleeding money right now. I would have though online papers' traffic has gone through the roof. Therefore advertising revenue will follow.


----------



## treelover (Apr 30, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Captain, or Colonel Tom on the flypast earlier.
> 
> “I am one of the few people here who’ve seen the Hurricane and Spitfire flying past in anger, and fortunately today they’re all flying peacefully - that’s what’s outstanding”



He comes across as a more conservative, small c, version of Leslie Harry Smith, a nice guy, though he should be aware he is starting to be used.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Not surprising if true.  It always seemed like from the get go it would be end of May / early June at the earliest and that's just the start of the easing.  Thing is though, its unofficially already happening.  We've already seen the likes of B&Q decide to start opening.  Fast food joints are slowly coming back on-line.  I also think you'll see a big uptick in construction activity in the coming weeks, remember the sites that are closed are only because decisions made by clients and contractors.
> 
> We're going to have this weird situation where the cart is going to lead the donkey.  Question is, can this be considered a deliberate policy or the consequence of not having a policy?



TBF, the likes of B&Q, take-a-ways, and construction sites never had to close anyway, just operate with consideration to the social distancing rules.


----------



## killer b (Apr 30, 2020)

He's been used from the very second his fundraiser started getting momentum.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBF, the likes of B&Q, take-a-ways, and construction sites never had to close anyway, just operate with consideration to the social distancing rules.



Of course, they wouldn't be allowed to open otherwise.  The thing is they did close though which they chose themselves (well, most of them closed).  They're all now running out of patience which will just give this sense that the country is coming out of lockdown and this is just amplified by the likes of Wetherspoon twat talking about June.

It's going to be hard for the government to keep a lid on it.  In that sense Johnson is right that he needs to give a longer date.  The current 'not sure, can't say' approach is causing problems.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2020)

Wetherspoons will certainly not be opening in June.


----------



## elbows (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I also don't agree they're bleeding money right now. I would have though online papers' traffic has gone through the roof. Therefore advertising revenue will follow.



Lots of advertisers have no reason to advertise right now (cruise ships etc) and lots of advertisers didnt want their adverts appearing next to pandemic stories. I have not analysed the state of the industry or the extent of these problems, but it has been suggested that the state of newspaper finances is very perilous right now, there are predictions of some going to the wall.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

Can you report cops for failing to socially distance? Almost lost my rag with a bunch of PCSOs and had to go for a walk to calm down


----------



## maomao (Apr 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Wetherspoons will certainly not be opening in June.


June 2021 more likely than June 2020.


----------



## elbows (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So the Mail is reporting we're going into June with the lockdown... fucking hell



On the 19th March Johnson said 'we can turn the tide within 12 weeks'. And this was after they had switched away from the original doomed plan & timing. June is therefore not surprising.


----------



## maomao (Apr 30, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Can you report cops for failing to socially distance? Almost lost my rag with a bunch of PCSOs and had to go for a walk to calm down


I wondered this last week after a pair of twats (proper filth, not specials) wandered through  socially spaced queue just to have a quick look in the door of a supermarket. They certainly don't think it applies to them.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> I wondered this last week after a pair of twats (proper filth, not specials) wandered through  socially spaced queue just to have a quick look in the door of a supermarket. They certainly don't think it applies to them.



I saw four of them jammed into a tiny little car yesterday. Wondered if they get exemption.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 30, 2020)

Sorry to bother you but we are just gonna let helpless people to die


----------



## NoXion (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So the Mail is reporting we're going into June with the lockdown... fucking hell
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That sounds way too fucking early to me.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 30, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Can you report cops for failing to socially distance? Almost lost my rag with a bunch of PCSOs and had to go for a walk to calm down



Report them to who, is the age-old question.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> I wondered this last week after a pair of twats (proper filth, not specials) wandered through  socially spaced queue just to have a quick look in the door of a supermarket. They certainly don't think it applies to them.


I have to work in the same place as them and share a canteen. They don’t even clear up after themselves.
The canteen is tiny and claustrophobic  and I only ever went in there on my own even before CV19 - it’s about 2 metres wide and and 3 metres long. And they sit in the breakout area in front of the canteen, all bunched up together round small tables as if everything is normal, but also blocking safe passage to the canteen ffs.
So I can’t have my dinner safely and I’ll have to bring in sandwiches instead of proper food if they don’t start behaving


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I have to work in the same place as them and share a canteen. They don’t even clear up after themselves.
> The canteen is tiny and claustrophobic  and I only ever went in there on my own even before CV19 - it’s about 2 metres wide and and 3 metres long. And they sit in the breakout area in front of the canteen, all bunched up together round small tables as if everything is normal, but also blocking safe passage to the canteen ffs.
> So I can’t have my dinner safely and I’ll have to bring in sandwiches instead of proper food if they don’t start behaving



Can't you have a word?


----------



## Doodler (Apr 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBF, the likes of B&Q, take-a-ways, and construction sites never had to close anyway, just operate with consideration to the social distancing rules.



Two things about why B&Q may have been one of the first big shed stores to close. They have quite a lot of older workers, and make a big deal now and then about being a wrinkle-friendly employer. Covid-19 disproportionately affects older people, as everyone knows. Their parent company Kingfisher have large cash assets (c. £400 million) so were well placed to weather a short period of closure.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Can't you have a word?



I recommend sticking to monosyllables if you do.


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 30, 2020)

I despise corbyn and don't think he'd have done any better with c19, starmer possibly, but that said, in a few months you can't put right the shit show that's been left by years and years of tory government and Blairite austerity lite a few years before that.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

I'd take a pic and sell it to the Mail


----------



## editor (Apr 30, 2020)

Here's one art career that I suspect wont be going much further



> She added: ‘I need my PPE kit to protect myself and for my art exhibition, and won’t donate it to the NHS. I am putting together an exhibition based on the coronavirus and the items the NHS use every day is my canvas. I make absolutely no apology because, as an artist, I have to stand by my work and my right to buy what I want.’
















						Artist who stashed £2,500 of PPE won't give any to NHS as she needs it for art
					

Becca Brown, 35, said they should have been more prepared, and she's now started selling the kit on - in some cases making a 500% profit.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## editor (Apr 30, 2020)

The pub that won't close









						Police close Sheffield pub disobeying lockdown laws - with customers hiding in cupboards
					

A Sheffield pub has been forced to close after police officers were tipped-off that it was still serving during lockdown and found customers hiding in cupboards.




					www.thestar.co.uk


----------



## little_legs (Apr 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I despise corbyn and don't think he'd have done any better with c19, starmer possibly, but that said, in a few months you can't put right the shit show that's been left by years and years of tory government and Blairite austerity lite a few years before that.


Anyone with a bit of common sense would have done better. And Corbyn would not get even a fraction of the favourable press coverage the suicidal clown is getting


----------



## Big Bertha (Apr 30, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Anyone with a bit of common sense would have done better. And Corbyn would not get even a fraction of the favourable press coverage the suicidal clown is getting


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Report them to who, is the age-old question.


Exactly - maybe I should just throw cans of soup at them until they fuck off out of my way. They’re not real cops and they mostly look well soft


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Can't you have a word?


I did!


----------



## treelover (Apr 30, 2020)

People are really struggling now, Newsnight has been bravely and documenting what it is like for those in flats, etc, children from poorer backgrounds no access to tech, those lost their jobs, etc, MH practioners are reporting clients are now starting to break, keeping L/D also has consequences,


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Exactly - maybe I should just throw cans of soup at them until they fuck off out of my way. They’re not real cops and they mostly look well soft


Though maybe it would be wiser if I threaten to take pics and post them to our local FB group for shaming


----------



## treelover (Apr 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> I wondered this last week after a pair of twats (proper filth, not specials) wandered through  socially spaced queue just to have a quick look in the door of a supermarket. They certainly don't think it applies to them.



That has been the case globally, look at film of the italian or spanish cops, overall they are being pretty brave.


----------



## maomao (Apr 30, 2020)

treelover said:


> That has been the case globally, look at film of the italian or spanish cops, overall they are being pretty brave.


Brave/stupid. Eye of the beholder. The two I'm on about were definitely just being arseholes. They walked in one door and walked out the one next to it fifteen seconds later. They can't have had any business in there.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

When I complained with this lot, they muttered and grumbled about having to work closely today so it was impossible to be socially distant, which may well be true, but that’s not the point is it?


----------



## weltweit (Apr 30, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> When I complained with this lot, they muttered and grumbled about having to work closely today so it was impossible to be socially distant, which may well be true, but that’s not the point is it?


I have always found it useless to reason with plod, as far as I can see they always think they are in the right.


----------



## treelover (Apr 30, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Sorry to bother you but we are just gonna let helpless people to die



whatever i think of interpal, this is the bank that was implicated in money laundering for drug cartels, etc, though as usual I don't think anyone was prosecuted.


----------



## treelover (Apr 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I despise corbyn and don't think he'd have done any better with c19, starmer possibly, but that said, in a few months you can't put right the shit show that's been left by years and years of tory government and Blairite austerity lite a few years before that.



You don't think he would have had a much better duty of care to NHS staff, i'm sorry but here I don't agree.


----------



## treelover (Apr 30, 2020)

editor said:


> The pub that won't close
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Few on here use that pub,

btw, imo, Sheffield is not now a heavy drinking city, like say Liverpool, it was in the past, mines steelworkers, with money, etc.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Apr 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Of course, they wouldn't be allowed to open otherwise.  The thing is they did close though which they chose themselves (well, most of them closed).  They're all now running out of patience which will just give this sense that the country is coming out of lockdown and this is just amplified by the likes of Wetherspoon twat talking about June.
> 
> It's going to be hard for the government to keep a lid on it.  In that sense Johnson is right that he needs to give a longer date.  The current 'not sure, can't say' approach is causing problems.


The construction sites are reopening because the government have significantly watered down the social distancing guidelines for construction.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 30, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Though maybe it would be wiser if I threaten to take pics and post them to our local FB group for shaming



They'll know who it was for reprisals then though, better just to do it if you're going to.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Of course, they wouldn't be allowed to open otherwise.  The thing is they did close though which they chose themselves (well, most of them closed).  They're all now running out of patience which will just give this sense that the country is coming out of lockdown and this is just amplified by the likes of Wetherspoon twat talking about June.
> 
> It's going to be hard for the government to keep a lid on it.  In that sense Johnson is right that he needs to give a longer date.  The current 'not sure, can't say' approach is causing problems.


At some point I think there is going to need to be some honesty about the practicality of maintaining social distancing rules as they are. Construction sites are a good example. Near me there is one with a lovely line of 2 metre markers at the entrance for workers to queue up along. Once inside the site, of course that goes out of the window as they work together on, for instance, windows. 

The hard question 'what level of risk are we prepared to accept?' needs to be asked. Some more information about where and how it has been transmitted would help in guiding that. The current blanket rules are based in large part on our lack of that knowledge. I think there's a danger of getting stuck. I think we are currently stuck.


----------



## belboid (Apr 30, 2020)

editor said:


> The pub that won't close
> 
> 
> 
> ...


One of my locals! A friend tried to organise a wedding anniversary do there but was told no - despite them advertising as being available for functions.

“Aye, but that only means funerals”


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> They'll know who it was for reprisals then though, better just to do it if you're going to.


They’ll know who it was anyway cos I’m not invisible


----------



## two sheds (Apr 30, 2020)

Yes fair play.


----------



## teqniq (Apr 30, 2020)

Fuck the tories. I suspected they would find some way of making Liverpool pay.









						Liverpool facing bankruptcy after govt virus funding failure
					

City Council facing a £44m cliff edge is considering filing notice to impose emergency spending ban




					www.liverpoolecho.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 30, 2020)

With regard to the police they must find the whole idea of social distancing a bit of a running joke.  Its an essential part of the job to be up close and personal with each other and the general public.  You wouldn't be able to do the job otherwise plus they've got fuck all ppe and a taser isn't much use against a virus.

I can see why they don't keep 2m apart from each other at all times because of this.  This being said though they certainly have an obligation to observe the rules when they are out and about and people are just going about their business.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> With regard to the police they must find the whole idea of social distancing a bit of a running joke.  Its an essential part of the job to be up close and personal with each other and the general public.  You wouldn't be able to do the job otherwise plus they've got fuck all ppe and a taser isn't much use against a virus.
> 
> I can see why they don't keep 2m apart from each other at all times because of this.  This being said though they certainly have an obligation to observe the rules when they are out and about and people are just going about their business.


aye, I may be classified as a key worker but I’m not supposed to be front line, though if they can’t stay away from other staff I might as well be frontline


----------



## maomao (Apr 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> With regard to the police they must find the whole idea of social distancing a bit of a running joke.  Its an essential part of the job to be up close and personal with each other and the general public.  You wouldn't be able to do the job otherwise plus they've got fuck all ppe and a taser isn't much use against a virus.
> 
> I can see why they don't keep 2m apart from each other at all times because of this.  This being said though they certainly have an obligation to observe the rules when they are out and about and people are just going about their business.


I spoke to a fireman yesterday and he seemed to understand social distancing from the public despite not being able to with his colleagues. Police just tend to be wankers on the whole.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> I spoke to a fireman yesterday and he seemed to understand social distancing from the public despite not being able to with his colleagues. Police just tend to be wankers on the whole.


This is of course one of the reasons we desperately need more testing. We have to accept realistically that colleagues are not going to be able to keep 2 metres away from each other all day. At the very least, if they've all been tested, they can know that their colleagues probably don't have it (though some basic measures are still wise of course). And that testing probably needs to be done weekly. We've still got a very long way to go.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is of course one of the reasons we desperately need more testing. We have to accept realistically that colleagues are not going to be able to keep 2 metres away from each other all day. At the very least, if they've all been tested, they can know that their colleagues probably don't have it (though some basic measures are still wise of course). And that testing probably needs to be done weekly. We've still got a very long way to go.


They’ve offered testing for us, but only if we’re symptomatic and have a car. Tough shit, it seems, if you don’t


----------



## frogwoman (Apr 30, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Anyone with a bit of common sense would have done better. And Corbyn would not get even a fraction of the favourable press coverage the suicidal clown is getting






treelover said:


> You don't think he would have had a much better duty of care to NHS staff, i'm sorry but here I don't agree.



I think the media blaming would have been a sight to behold tbh. but he would probably have been a bit more amenable to cooperation with other countries I guess. You don't just turn the damage done by 10 years of the Tories round in a few months tho


----------



## agricola (Apr 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> With regard to the police they must find the whole idea of social distancing a bit of a running joke.  Its an essential part of the job to be up close and personal with each other and the general public.  You wouldn't be able to do the job otherwise plus they've got fuck all ppe and a taser isn't much use against a virus.
> 
> I can see why they don't keep 2m apart from each other at all times because of this.  This being said though they certainly have an obligation to observe the rules when they are out and about and people are just going about their business.



TBF it would be really interesting to see how the COVID sickness rates for the three London emergency services compare vs the rest of the London NHS and also wider business. 

At at guess, I think people might find that the emergency services have had lower sickess rates, and that this has been helped by how they were working already - ie: that for most of the day you might be within 2m of a colleague / colleagues, but that its usually the same colleague / colleagues; that a lot of time is spent outside, that sensible social distancing measures have been brought in within the workplace and (probably most importantly) that they all recognize that people who are infectious should not come to work and should still be paid whilst they are off.   

Take crowded areas away and ask the right questions before deployment, and the risk to staff when they go to a call can be reduced a lot as well (though obviously random encounters on the street are still a problem).


----------



## 2hats (Apr 30, 2020)

A UK pilot trial of various home SARS-CoV-2 (lgG/lgM) antibody self-testing kits (Lateral Flow Method immunochromatographic assays) is about to start. The aims are to establish how accurate these kits are and how easily the public can use them to test themselves and thus, hopefully, overall infection rates across the population.

Home testing for coronavirus to track levels of infection in the community
Imperial College London is to lead a major programme of home testing for COVID-19 to track the progress of the infection across England


			https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/197217/home-testing-coronavirus-track-levels-infection/


----------



## treelover (Apr 30, 2020)

Everything is so slow, compared to most other EU countries, the test won't be available to the general public for some time

waiting is tolerable if nothing else can be done, but other countries have had these in place for some time.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 30, 2020)

treelover said:


> Everything is so slow, compared to most other EU countries, the test won't be available to the general public for some time
> 
> waiting is tolerable if nothing else can be done, but other countries have had these in place for some time.



Not the antibody test they don't.  Or if they do it'll likely be an unreliable one.  This is the test to see whether you've already had it not whether you currently have it.

In general the antibody test would be so useful for understanding spread and how many people have actually been exposed.  Though as has been mentioned on here it does risk the danger of creating a two tier system and would likely make any lockdown even harder to enforce.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 30, 2020)

treelover said:


> the test won't be available to the general public for some time


That's because the accuracy and usability need to be evaluated.


> but other countries have had these in place for some time.


Can you point me to another country that has been offering reliable large scale (>= 100,000) antibody tests of individuals at home? Many plan to, indeed would like to.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 30, 2020)

editor said:
			
		

> The pub that won't close
> 
> 
> 
> ...





treelover said:


> *Few on here use that pub,*
> btw, imo, Sheffield is not now a heavy drinking city, like say Liverpool, it was in the past, mines steelworkers, with money, etc.



I'm not at all surprised -- I looked it up on What Pub? (the CAMRA guide) and it looks pretty skanky -- *no real ale* 
Same is true of the other Sheffield pub the same idiotic licensee got into trouble over (The Staffordshire Arms).

And Sheffield is (in normal times, obvs) a great beer and good pub paradise, more generally!


----------



## belboid (Apr 30, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm not at all surprised -- I looked it up on What Pub? (the CAMRA guide) and it looks pretty skanky -- *no real ale*
> Same is true of the other Sheffield pub the same idiotic licensee got into trouble over (The Staffordshire Arms).
> 
> And Sheffield is (in normal times, obvs) a great beer and good pub paradise, more generally!


Both fairly close to each other.  

god knows where the idea Sheffield isn’t a heavy drinking city comes from.  It’s utter rubbish, the city still haswell above average alcohol disease rates.


----------



## redsquirrel (Apr 30, 2020)

Big Bertha said:


> ..


By sections I take it you/they mean overwhelming majorities


----------



## SpineyNorman (Apr 30, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Can you report cops for failing to socially distance? Almost lost my rag with a bunch of PCSOs and had to go for a walk to calm down


You only ever see them when you havent got your gun.


----------



## zahir (Apr 30, 2020)




----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 30, 2020)

What's happening with the NHS army of volunteers?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Apr 30, 2020)

If they had it in GP surgeries how would the tories funnel public money their backers?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 30, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What's happening with the NHS army of volunteers?



Someone I work with tried to volunteer. After loads of hassle getting registered they never gave him anything to do. He gave up in the end (as you would).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2020)

81,611 tests yesterday.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 30, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Someone I work with tried to volunteer. After loads of hassle getting registered they never gave him anything to do. He gave up in the end (as you would).


Two mates of mine had exactly the same experience.

They've had volunteers being given amateur cop badges and moving people on from park benches around me.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

Why do they keep saying Boris is 'the best communicator in the government'?

He's barely coherent most of the time. Everything is punctuated with 'er'. 'er. 'er'.


----------



## Cerberus (Apr 30, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What's happening with the NHS army of volunteers?



Not a lot it would seem. I volunteered and was set up on the app fairly quickly. Since then I’ve clocked up 532 hour’s ‘on duty’ without a call. From the map which is part of the app I can see a lot of Volunteers in my area. I’d be willing to bet none have been called.

I’ve received a few emails from ‘Goodsamapp’ NHS Volunteers. One of them suggested that DBS checks were slowing things down and asked people who were already checked to let them know. I am and I did. Still nothing.

I can only assume that we were not required and that the NHS plus other carers and support networks were able to respond without calling on volunteers.


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 30, 2020)

He suggests the ventilators were a distraction and the Nightingales surplus to requirements and there is massive cross-infection within hospitals and into care-homes.
And that the virus should not have been downgraded - hospital deaths almost on ebola scale


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

Cerberus said:


> Not a lot it would seem. I volunteered and was set up on the app fairly quickly. Since then I’ve clocked up 532 hour’s ‘on duty’ without a call. From the map which is part of the app I can see a lot of Volunteers in my area. I’d be willing to bet none have been called.
> 
> I’ve received a few emails from ‘Goodsamapp’ NHS Volunteers. One of them suggested that DBS checks were slowing things down and asked people who were already checked to let them know. I am and I did. Still nothing.
> 
> I can only assume that we were not required and that the NHS plus other carers and support networks were able to respond without calling on volunteers.



My other half is a nurse. She tells me there's lots of actual NHS staff twiddling their thumbs so I've no idea what they'd do with volunteers. I think it was a PR stunt.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Two mates of mine had exactly the same experience.
> 
> They've had volunteers being given amateur cop badges and moving people on from park benches around me.


there are plenty of Volunteer Action groups to offer one's services - try your LA


----------



## maomao (Apr 30, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> If they had it in GP surgeries how would the tories funnel public money their backers?


I don't think they gave the testing to Deloitte just because they're mates. I just think the junior politicians responsible for that kind of decision genuinely believe all intelligent people work in financial services and that it was the right choice. Which is worse really.


----------



## maomao (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Why do they keep saying Boris is 'the best communicator in the government'?
> 
> He's barely coherent most of the time. Everything is punctuated with 'er'. 'er. 'er'.


Yes, he's only barely able to communicate at all. He does however remain the best communicator in government. Have you seen Patel or Raab?


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Yes, he's only barely able to communicate at all. He does however remain the best communicator in government. Have you seen Patel or Raab?



Yes. They're bad examples though. Patel makes me want to go on eBay for a sniper rifle and Raab.. well. He's clearly a psychopath. He gives me the shits.

Rishi's very good. Even Hancock communicates better than the bumbling idiot who just appeared on our screens.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yes. They're bad examples though. Patel makes me want to go on eBay for a sniper rifle and Raab.. well. He's clearly a psychopath. He gives me the shits.
> 
> Rishi's very good. Even Hancock communicates better than the bumbling idiot who just appeared on our screens.


The even scarier thing is that these idiots get _trained_ in media comms. Imagine what Patel or Raab were like before their training.


----------



## maomao (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Patel makes me want to go on eBay for a sniper rifle


You can't get them, I've looked. If you fancy trying with a crossbow or something you'll have all our best wishes.


----------



## andysays (Apr 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is of course one of the reasons we desperately need more testing. We have to accept realistically that colleagues are not going to be able to keep 2 metres away from each other all day. At the very least, if they've all been tested, they can know that their colleagues probably don't have it (though some basic measures are still wise of course). And that testing probably needs to be done weekly. We've still got a very long way to go.



It's worth pointing out here that the 2 metre thing isn't an absolute thing, it's a guide. Keeping 2 metres apart doesn't guarantee you won't catch it off someone, but it does reduce the risk significantly.

There *are* other measures work colleagues who are unable to keep 2 metres away from each other all day can take to reduce risk, and hopefully most organisations where this is relevant have implemented them, or will if/when there's a significant return to work.

I'll return to this when I've cooked and eaten my tea...


----------



## 2hats (Apr 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 81,611 tests yesterday.


But how many of those equate to unique, reliable test results from individuals? That is, after all, the entire point of the exercise.

There are multiple tests per individual being performed (for clinical reasons).
There are some fraction of tests being posted out but not (yet) returned, let alone producing a result.
Then only some fraction of the tests completed with results are accurate.
So the number of useful test results (== data points) is substantially lower than that still.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 30, 2020)

Well "herd immunity" Twitter's in meltdown right now over the announcement that it's government policy to use all necessary measures to keep the R rate below one. (Despite Johnson saying the exact same thing on Monday.) Apocalyptic visions of years of lockdown abounding, no sports, no pubs, no theatre, no weddings, a life not worth living.

Indeed. So now it actually affects you, perhaps you'll at last drop your laissez-faire fantasy of letting the virus rip, and get behind efforts to contact trace the damn thing into oblivion?


----------



## nagapie (Apr 30, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Fuck the tories. I suspected they would find some way of making Liverpool pay.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Let CV19 take out London by failing to implement a timely lockdown, bankrupt Liverpool in time of crisis; Manchester better watch out!


----------



## Azrael (Apr 30, 2020)

Bizarre experience to read the howling "herd immunity" mob from a conservative POV: obsessed with personal autonomy regardless of social cost, unable to conceive of effective government action, fatalistic through and through. If they'd been around in the 1840s (and I suspect quite a few were), you just know they'd be shrugging their shoulders and saying that famine relief would be an affront to Malthus and the market.


----------



## elbows (Apr 30, 2020)

Johnson may have given away how they intend to soon recommend face coverings - giving people confidence to go back to work etc.

When Whitty mentioned using all cause mortality to judge once this is over, it was joined by a couple of extra words. It is now 'all cause mortality adjusted for age'.

Vallance mentioned the proper surveying to get the R number that has started this week, and I think I heard Whitty mention that same thing at the end of last week.

Johnson evoked the old 500,000 deaths reasonable worst case number in order to make our current numbers sound a bit less horrible. Also wanted to make it sound like the idea we are beyond the peak is some kind of new announcement he got to make today.

Some vague talk about the ingenious ways we may come up with to keep R below 1. A new video about R. And Johnson saying something about his R soul looking like an alpine tunnel.

A lot of praise regarding how well this country has done at getting people to sign up for clinical trials.

Their rather obvious desire not to have us judge the UK pandemic response against other countries till its all over could actually be useful in saving some lives in future in this country I suppose. They might decide to try to do better on various key fronts than some countries will in later phases, somewhat compensating for the initial disasters.

Johnson couldnt help still comparing the UK to other countries whenever he wanted to make it sound like we were doing well though.

Johnson also claimed that we did our lockdown earlier (relative to the stage of epidemic) than France, Italy and Spain. I've not analysed that properly yet but its a bit of a stretch when it comes to Italy for a start. Depending on the detail, perhaps the idea is that we were 1 day earlier than Italy in relative terms, but I would need to check. I dont doubt that the much softer week before the lockdown announcement helped because there were already signs of quite widespread behavioural changes, so that helped the timing a little. But to try to make our timing sound good is definately a stretch. Its also dodgy for him to talk about the timing being reasonable because they wanted the measure to coincide with the peak as much as possible, because as other government experts pointed our recently, the peak we had was not the natural epidemic peak, it peaked at the time and level that it did because of the social distancing, lockdown etc. Locking down 1 or 2 weeks earlier than we did would change the shape and timing of things, but not in a way that would obviously be a case of 'oh no, we went too soon', thats not how it works.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 30, 2020)

France, Italy and Spain were all disaster zones, taken by surprise. Speaks volumes that we're comparing ourselves to the worst hit countries in Europe, countries that lacked both the warnings and accident of geography that we enjoyed, and squandered.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 30, 2020)

BA saying they may not restart operations at Gatwick following this period. 

And they may make 12,000 redundant. 

I suppose we knew the travel sector was fucked.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Apr 30, 2020)

Azrael said:


> France, Italy and Spain were all disaster zones, taken by surprise. Speaks volumes that we're comparing ourselves to the worst hit countries in Europe, countries that lacked both the warnings and accident of geography that we enjoyed, and squandered.


I agree except for the geography bit. I don't think being an island is particularly relevant. The fact that London is a major world city with huge numbers of people passing through it is more of a factor.

I can't bring myself to watch any government stuff atm. I assume there is still no hint of contrition?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 30, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Why do they keep saying Boris is 'the best communicator in the government'?
> 
> He's barely coherent most of the time. Everything is punctuated with 'er'. 'er. 'er'.



You seen the rest of them?

Michael fucking Gove, Dominic Raab and Priti Patel? 

Best is a low bar.


----------



## bimble (Apr 30, 2020)

If ‘r cannot go above 1’, is it not basically lockdown / severe social distancing until there’s a vaccine?


----------



## elbows (Apr 30, 2020)

In terms of press conference slides, today the one showing travel levels was not present! And they finally added one for Covid-19 hospital admissions (as opposed to current levels in hospitals which has been present for a while).


from Slides, datasets and transcripts to accompany coronavirus press conferences


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> You seen the rest of them?
> 
> Michael fucking Gove, Dominic Raab and Priti Patel?
> 
> Best is a low bar.



Yes. I've become a bit of a fanboy of these things. Watching between my fingers. The latest 'innovation' of allowing softball questions from the public is particularly hilarious.

'That's a great question, Dominic C from North London.'

Where the fuck is Rees-Mogg. That would basically make me ejaculate if he strolled out there.


----------



## weltweit (Apr 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> In terms of press conference slides, today the one showing travel levels was not present! And they finally added one for Covid-19 hospital admissions (as opposed to current levels in hospitals which has been present for a while).


I suspect the travel levels slide would have shown an uptick in vehicular travel, the news was on about it today saying that the roads are more busy than for a while.


----------



## Azrael (Apr 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I agree except for the geography bit. I don't think being an island is particularly relevant. The fact that London is a major world city with huge numbers of people passing through it is more of a factor.
> 
> I can't bring myself to watch any government stuff atm. I assume there is still no hint of contrition?


None, although Johnson generously allows that mistakes could've been made (from which, doubtless, lessons will be learned).

Fair point about London, but people still have to get in via aeroplane. Swift and expansive use of travel bans and quarantine could, as shown by Taiwan, have vastly reduced the number of carriers and clusters, giving our limited contact tracing resources a real chance of preventing an outbreak. Much easier to employ quarantine in airports than along vast land borders (especially with Schengen in operation).


----------



## Azrael (Apr 30, 2020)

bimble said:


> If ‘r cannot go above 1’, is it not basically lockdown / severe social distancing until there’s a vaccine?


Or until an aggressive suppression system eliminates the virus from the general population. Now the "herd immunity" crew have had their "run hot" hopes dashed, and find themselves forced to confront the horrific implications of relying on the cudgel of lockdown long term, expect to see a parade of converts to actually fighting the virus instead of surrendering to it.


----------



## bimble (Apr 30, 2020)

I spoke to someone today who lives in Guatemala City and he was describing how lockdown and mask wearing has been enforced there, for weeks, really massive fines for breaking the rules on either, police & army roadblocks everywhere.  It’s just so strange to see the choices each country makes faced with the same thing.


----------



## IC3D (Apr 30, 2020)

Boris is clearly recovering and cant catch his breath I doubt hes mentally fit to lead. if ever he was and right at the end looked completely disoriented.


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 30, 2020)

France's bureaucracy is paying off.
Do we not have anything like this in the UK ?
I bet they'll be looking at *Lot* to see what happened there ...


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2020)

Jesus christ. This shadow chancellor on question time looks like she's been mainlining dettol. I thought the election of starmer was supposed to make Labour electable at last.


----------



## Wilf (Apr 30, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> He suggests the ventilators were a distraction and the Nightingales surplus to requirements and there is massive cross-infection within hospitals and into care-homes.
> And that the virus should not have been downgraded - hospital deaths almost on ebola scale



That all sounds very sensible and certainly explains why it's like fucking Passchendaele in the care homes.


----------



## little_legs (Apr 30, 2020)

_'We mourn for the lives lost and we mourn for the economic damage as well' _

Can we have a minute of silence for the GDP.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> That all sounds very sensible and certainly explains why it's like fucking Passchendaele in the care homes.


_Sending people they knew were infected from hospital to care homes. _

Have I got that right? That's  what they did. On purpose. As a decision, as a policy. He's being very reasonable and mild calling that negligence. I don't quite have the words.


----------



## editor (May 1, 2020)

Much as it pains me to share a Mail article, it is enjoyable to see Boris's criminal handling of the crisis being exposed in a right wing rag, even when the message is coming the reigning Doublle Douche Of All Douchebags, Piers Morgan.



> We were scandalously slow and complacent in our response to its outbreak.
> 
> We were scandalously under-prepared for it, particularly when it came to stock-piling Personal Protection Equipment for health workers and securing enough coronavirus tests as soon as the severity of the crisis became clear.
> 
> ...












						PIERS MORGAN: Boris can boast but the death toll tells the real story
					

PIERS MORGAN: Boris is back! And everything's going to be great! That was the emphatic message sent to the country today.




					www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (May 1, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> _Sending people they knew were infected from hospital to care homes. _
> 
> Have I got that right? That's  what they did. On purpose. As a decision, as a policy. He's being very reasonable and mild calling that negligence. I don't quite have the words.



Yes, from 9:20 onwards. And patients who were in hospitals for non Corona illnesses became infected and then were moved out to care homes, so infecting them: "negligent". 

Jesus.


----------



## teqniq (May 1, 2020)

What kind of fuckery is this?









						Southmead Hospital workers in zero-hour contract 'nightmare'
					

One worker says she was told she could apply for Universal Credit when she asked how she was meant to support herself




					www.bristolpost.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 1, 2020)

editor said:


> Much as it pains me to share a Mail article, it is enjoyable to see Boris's criminal handling of the crisis being exposed in a right wing rag, even when the message is coming the reigning Doublle Douche Of All Douchebags, Piers Morgan.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I posted this in the world thread, but I think it's relevant here as well, in a 'compare and contrast' kind of way. This page, from Ireland, contains an excellent summary of the relevant stats plus links to the minutes of every meeting of the Govt Emergency Covid committee dating back to January. This is what democratic accountability looks like. Democracy in the UK is in real trouble at the moment.

Gov.ie - Latest updates on COVID-19 (Coronavirus)


----------



## kalidarkone (May 1, 2020)

teqniq said:


> What kind of fuckery is this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Bank and agency staff are on zero hours contracts. NHS has refused to furlough. But bank staff have been invited to apply for substantive posts.
Things will be back to normalish in a couple of weeks so there will be work.
Although given the nhs debt has been wiped they should at least furlough the bank staff.


----------



## existentialist (May 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes, from 9:20 onwards. And patients who were in hospitals for non Corona illnesses became infected and then were moved out to care homes, so infecting them: "negligent".
> 
> Jesus.


Be nice to think it was criminal negligence, and could be pinned on a policy decision, but that's a forlorn hope.


----------



## bimble (May 1, 2020)

I just got an advert email from this place where i once went to get a vaccination jab  - saying come and get a coronavirus test for £100. Is that normal is that where we are now?




__





						COVID-19 Antibody Tests | South London | Heath Hub
					

COVID-19 / Coronavirus antibody tests now available at HealthHub in Herne Hill, South London. Results available within 30 minutes.




					www.healthhub.london


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> I just got an advert email from this place where i once went to get a vaccination jab  - saying come and get a coronavirus test for £100. Is that normal is that where we are now?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



WTF? Private clinic at best, scam at worst?

Quick look at 'The Team', mostly quacks. Looks like a private clinic that's managed to source some anti-body tests and is flogging them among their usual services. Wouldn't trust the reliability of those tests at all. Nor would I give those cunts my money.


----------



## bimble (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> WTF? Private clinic at best, scam at worst?


it is a private medical clinic in a railway arch in herne hill. Just very wtf about them offering this .


----------



## sparkybird (May 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> I spoke to someone today who lives in Guatemala City and he was describing how lockdown and mask wearing has been enforced there, for weeks, really massive fines for breaking the rules on either, police & army roadblocks everywhere.  It’s just so strange to see the choices each country makes faced with the same thing.



Yup my friends said the same in Xela (second largest city) but also that food is becoming very expensive, many have no income, she has no idea how she'll pay her rent in June (thank goodness I'm in a position to help) and that supposed government food handouts are being taken by those who don't need them. 
The consequences of the much stricter lock down could be worse than the bloody virus...


----------



## bimble (May 1, 2020)

sparkybird said:


> Yup my friends said the same in Xela (second largest city) but also that food is becoming very expensive, many have no income, she has no idea how she'll pay her rent in June (thank goodness I'm in a position to help) and that supposed government food handouts are being taken by those who don't need them.
> The consequences of the much stricter lock down could be worse than the bloody virus...


Yes. Man i spoke to works in a charity, usually a school (next to the giant rubbish dump). For weeks now they’ve been bringing food parcels to families who are literally starving due to lockdown (dump is closed, they all work there picking out things to sell on). Definitely worse than the virus, from sounds of it.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes, from 9:20 onwards. And patients who were in hospitals for non Corona illnesses became infected and then were moved out to care homes, so infecting them: "negligent".
> 
> Jesus.



This is a massively complicated and emotive issue.

What do you suggest we do with people that come in from care homes with other medical issues and then get tested + for CV, or come in with CV symptoms that are mild and don't require them to need hospital care?

You can't keep them in hospital for weeks or months (and wouldn't be good for them) and it would completely bring the whole hospital system to a grinding halt. On top of CV care many of them obviously many of them need high levels of other non-CV related care that would take up huge amounts of resources and people, and that would impact on all other aspects of medical provision if it could be provided.

People being sent back to care homes were sent back with instructions to the home for care to lessen them spreading the infection. What are we supposed to have done (and do) with them, if you think that isn't right? Should they have all gone to some other newly set-up institution like one of the Nightingale hospitals? Somewhere else? Stayed in hospital, almost certainly with many of them picking up all sorts of other issues?

The care home system is fucked, but it's what we're stuck with in the here and now.


----------



## Cid (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This is a massively complicated and emotive issue.
> 
> What do you suggest we do with people that come in from care homes with other medical issues and then get tested + for CV, or come in with CV symptoms that are mild and don't require them to need hospital care?
> 
> ...



Wasn't that the point in the Nightingale hospitals? But basically the answer is 'anything but send them back to care homes with non CV positive residents'. I mean... 'Sending instructions' is never going to be sufficient in a complex environment that varies from home to home and carer to carer. I wouldn't for a moment blame whoever made those transfers, or even at a higher level in terms of hospitals simply enacting government policy. But that policy is _clearly_ flawed.


----------



## Jay Park (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This is a massively complicated and emotive issue.
> 
> What do you suggest we do with people that come in from care homes with other medical issues and then get tested + for CV, or come in with CV symptoms that are mild and don't require them to need hospital care?
> 
> ...



I dunno erm... Maybe expect the worst and copy exactly what the countries whom have been successful (so far) did.

Set up make-shift hospitals in February and put the state on red alert. Even these clowns ignoring that pandemic thing in 2016 would have still heard through the vine what Germany was up to. Wait no I give their capacity for awareness way too much slack there.


----------



## two sheds (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This is a massively complicated and emotive issue.
> 
> What do you suggest we do with people that come in from care homes with other medical issues and then get tested + for CV, or come in with CV symptoms that are mild and don't require them to need hospital care?
> 
> ...



The instructions don't seem to have been very successful, do you know what they were? And instructions aren't enough - care homes would need extra staff and extra equipment and financing and training, and it should have been properly supervised and monitored. As you say the care home system is already fucked - adding to that stress was bound to spread the infection around.

I presume the staff weren't given proper PPE, so staff will have caught it. Did they work exclusively for the cv patients? Again, instructions to do that wouldn't be enough if their usual residents would then have been ignored. You'd think people already in care homes are by definition vulnerable. It also looks as if visitors were allowed, again passing it around.

In hospitals they moved people out to free up beds. If they couldn't ensure isolated wards then perhaps dedicated care homes or open up some of the empty hotels, certainly strict rules to prevent cross contamination. As Ashton said, a lot of these people had gone into hospital in the first place for non-CV reasons and then been contaminated in hospital. Then to put them into care homes or anywhere else without ensuring there was no cross contamination he says is a "failure of basic biosecurity".


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> Wasn't that the point in the Nightingale hospitals? But basically the answer is 'anything but send them back to care homes with non CV positive residents'. I mean... 'Sending instructions' is never going to be sufficient in a complex environment that varies from home to home and carer to carer. I wouldn't for a moment blame whoever made those transfers, or even at a higher level in terms of hospitals simply enacting government policy. But that policy is _clearly_ flawed.


They were set up as overspill capacity, not as dedicated fever hospitals like China's. Whether as a consequence of the "herd immunity" insanity or simple incompetence, there's been no concerted national effort to isolate infectious cases from vulnerable groups, let alone the general population. "Shielding" was so much empty rhetoric.


----------



## Chilli.s (May 1, 2020)

The thing that makes any of these failed plans impossible to succeed is that in every situation there was the lack of all types of PPE.


----------



## Jay Park (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> They were set up as overspill capacity, not as dedicated fever hospitals like China's. Whether as a consequence of the "herd immunity" insanity or simple incompetence, there's been no concerted national effort to isolate infectious cases from vulnerable groups, let alone the general population. "Shielding" was so much empty rhetoric.



I can’t listen to that ‘herd immunity’ phrase anymore.

When I wing it I expect to be called out for doing so. When I’m being (poss in this case) nefandous, I expect to be hounded.


----------



## zahir (May 1, 2020)

> What is most likely to happen, therefore, is that when the prime minister allows a limited, cautious relaxation, the case and death rates will start to drift up again. The rise may be quite slow initially, as many of the disparate outbreaks have died out for lack of fresh meat. New ones may take time to get started.
> 
> And, of course, the government and its agencies will be fiddling the figures for all they are worth. When they can't get away with that, they will be blurring and obfuscating the data, aiming to confuse and distract, robbing the figures of meaning. They will try anything in an attempt to slow down and weaken the inevitable flood of adverse comment and political blowback.
> 
> ...







__





						Coronavirus: the politics of delusion
					

Coronavirus: the politics of delusion




					eureferendum.com


----------



## zahir (May 1, 2020)




----------



## gentlegreen (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> WTF? Private clinic at best, scam at worst?
> 
> Quick look at 'The Team', mostly quacks. Looks like a private clinic that's managed to source some anti-body tests and is flogging them among their usual services. Wouldn't trust the reliability of those tests at all. Nor would I give those cunts my money.


Indeed :-



> Nutritional therapy: how it works
> 
> 
> Nutritional Therapy is a patient-centred and evidence-based approach to healthcare that recognises the biological uniqueness of each patient. In Nutritional Therapy, protocols are tailored towards maintaining health and promoting vitality and wellness by identifying biochemical imbalances and nutrient depletions, and by incorporating nutrient rich foods and supplement protocols.
> ...



Gawd help us if this is what the Tories have in mind to placate the better-off ...


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> I can’t listen to that ‘herd immunity’ phrase anymore.
> 
> When I wing it I expect to be called out for doing so. When I’m being (poss in this case) nefandous, I expect to be hounded.


I still force myself to use it -- minus quote marks -- in its proper context of mass vaccination, but feel exactly the same, it sets off a Pavlovian response. Vaccinologists will need to create a replacement -- "community shield" or something similar -- because herd immunity's irreparably tainted now: a phrase that once meant protecting the vulnerable now means sacrificing them on the altar of junk science and therapeutic nihilism.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> I dunno erm... Maybe expect the worst and copy exactly what the countries whom have been successful (so far) did.
> 
> Set up make-shift hospitals in February and put the state on red alert. Even these clowns ignoring that pandemic thing in 2016 would have still heard through the vine what Germany was up to. Wait no I give their capacity for awareness way too much slack there.



Re: the make shift hospitals or using the Nightingale's and moving care home residents there.

So, you'd move them there out of their familiar environment, and to places that are quite likely to be far from unsuitable for their needs? Many patients with conditions such as dementia or physical needs like hoisting that makes their care very complex, even more so in unfamiliar places. How long would you put them there for, and who would look after them?

Would you give them this option or make it compulsory, as I am willing to bet most would want to take the risk and go back to their home.

I totally agree there's been some massive failings, but I also think there was no ideal answer with the care homes, just some less bad ones.


----------



## teqniq (May 1, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Bank and agency staff are on zero hours contracts. NHS has refused to furlough. But bank staff have been invited to apply for substantive posts.
> Things will be back to normalish in a couple of weeks so there will be work.
> Although given the nhs debt has been wiped they should at least furlough the bank staff.


Thanks for the precis which I should have put in. Also large parts of the hospital are empty. It's the refusal to furlough staff that gets me though as the government has stated as it says in the article that people on zero hours contracts are eligible for it.


----------



## andysays (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Re: the make shift hospitals or using the Nightingale's and moving care home residents there.
> 
> So, you'd move them there out of their familiar environment, and to places that are quite likely to be far from unsuitable for their needs? Many patients with conditions such as dementia or physical needs like hoisting that makes their care very complex, even more so in unfamiliar places. How long would you put them there for, and who would look after them?
> 
> ...


The risk of returning patients to care homes is that they infect others, so giving them the option doesn't really make sense.

It's a really difficult issue, made even more difficult by the private nature of care homes.

It's impossible in practice to separate and protect the non-infected from the infected, unless the latter are cared for in separate premises and by separate staff.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> The risk of returning patients to care homes is that they infect others, so giving them the option doesn't really make sense.



Do you have any idea of how complex and what a minefield it would be dealing with every single care home resident that wanted to go home but you needed to 'detain' and send to a dedicated CV+ place? And the corresponding uproar if that had happened?


----------



## andysays (May 1, 2020)

Returning to the issue of workplaces where strict 2 metre distancing isn't possible all the time, there are a number of measures that can be taken.

Firstly, people can minimise the time they spend in close proximity, and do it without directly facing and therefore breathing on each other.

And secondly, minimising the number of people each person is in close proximity to, so that one person can only infect the smallest number rather than the whole workforce. 

In my job, we normally work with teams of up to four people in one (large, with two rows of seats) van. Because some people are off and we've got a few extra vans, we are now able to work in teams of just two per van, and we're making sure we keep in the same team of two all the time, so each person is only in close proximity to one other person.

This doesn't eliminate risk, but it does reduce it to what I think is an acceptable level in the circumstances.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Regarding the discharge of elderly patients to care homes: if it can't be done safely, requisition some of the hotels currently lying empty, build temporary hospitals for the sickest elderly patients if needed, hire and train more carers if needed. The state's resources are vast. Decades of laissez-faire dogma has blinded us to what it can do when it wants to.


----------



## andysays (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Do you have any idea of how complex and what a minefield it would be dealing with every single care home resident that wanted to go home but you needed to 'detain' and send to a dedicated CV+ place? And the corresponding uproar if that had happened?


Sorry if my post wasn't clear, I'm not suggesting this can or should happen, mostly because of logistical issues.

But given the danger of one care home patient who returns infecting many others, I think there's a strong argument that the needs of the many uninfected should outweigh those of the few already infected if it were logistically possible. 

But that's not to say that's in any way an ideal or non-problematic way of attempting to deal with it.


----------



## Chilli.s (May 1, 2020)

So the system that we have built to look after our old ones is basically broken by this infection, what a pity no one saw that coming. Care homes as we have them now have generated a huge profit for their owners in the last 20 years.


----------



## teuchter (May 1, 2020)

We have a care home system that can not deal with this current crisis. Calling for decision makers who have to deal with the situation as it is to be sent to prison for negligence isn't going to help anything.


----------



## zahir (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Do you have any idea of how complex and what a minefield it would be dealing with every single care home resident that wanted to go home but you needed to 'detain' and send to a dedicated CV+ place? And the corresponding uproar if that had happened?



Surely the problem isn’t going to go away and there will have to be some system of quarantine care homes set up for people to stay between leaving hospital and returning to regular care homes.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> So the system that we have built to look after our old ones is basically broken by this infection, what a pity no one saw that coming. Care homes as we have them now have generated a huge profit for their owners in the last 20 years.



I think the care homes issue is like lots of things with CV, where it's exposed and exacerbated already existing problems. I guess the question is will it go back to how it was, or can we make something better from this mess?


----------



## Combustible (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Do you have any idea of how complex and what a minefield it would be dealing with every single care home resident that wanted to go home but you needed to 'detain' and send to a dedicated CV+ place? And the corresponding uproar if that had happened?



I genuinely find this hard to fathom. The UK has vast swathes of the economy shutdown, people are confined to their homes, and in general the whole country is in a massively unprecedented situation, yet it would have been beyond the pale to temporarily house infected care-home residents elsewhere. When care-homes is evidently a major source of transmission, which disproportionately leads to deaths. The lockdown itself is also a massively complex minefield, and I am sure would  have elicited uproar had it been suggested a few months ago


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> Surely the problem isn’t going to go away and there will have to be some system of quarantine care homes set up for people to stay between leaving hospital and returning to regular care homes.



And all similar institutions? And then the same for people in households that aren't care homes? Or would you treat care homes and the residents differently?


----------



## gentlegreen (May 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> Surely the problem isn’t going to go away and there will have to be some system of quarantine care homes set up for people to stay between leaving hospital and returning to regular care homes.


I'm still struggling to understand how the thousands of spare beds in the Nightingales are going to be excused.


----------



## Doodler (May 1, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Bank and agency staff are on zero hours contracts. NHS has refused to furlough. But bank staff have been invited to apply for substantive posts.
> Things will be back to normalish in a couple of weeks so there will be work.
> Although given the nhs debt has been wiped they should at least furlough the bank staff.



I've heard nothing off the Staff Bank since an offer of weekend work taking dirty scrubs to the laundry. Am now applying for a permanent part-time role at the hospital, fingers crossed. Yet recruitment agencies have been advertising temporary and part-time jobs for porters, ward hosts/hostesses and similar at the same hospital. It's a confusing picture.


----------



## Chilli.s (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think the care homes issue is like lots of things with CV, where it's exposed and exacerbated already existing problems. I guess the question is will it go back to how it was, or can we make something better from this mess?


That's the hopeful kind of answer I'm wanting!


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

Combustible said:


> I genuinely find this hard to fathom. The UK has vast swathes of the economy shutdown, people are confined to their homes, and in general the whole country is in a massively unprecedented situation, yet it would have been beyond the pale to temporarily house infected care-home residents elsewhere. When care-homes is evidently a major source of transmission, which disproportionately leads to deaths. The lockdown itself is also a massively complex minefield, and I am sure would  have elicited uproar had it been suggested a few months ago



The lockdown is being conducted largely willingly by the population as a whole. What you're talking about is not allowing people back to (or removing them from) where they live legally, and providing them with complex care on an indefinite time period. They're different things, and the later is much more complicated in a number of areas than you seen to realize.


----------



## weltweit (May 1, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I'm still struggling to understand how the thousands of spare beds in the Nightingales are going to be excused.


Surely it is better that we have them and they are empty than not having them and the NHS being full?


----------



## Chilli.s (May 1, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I'm still struggling to understand how the thousands of spare beds in the Nightingales are going to be excused.


I'm thinking that this was seen as doing something big to save us. I suppose it might involve spending a load of cash too, probably to a select firm who have donated to the tories in the past.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I'm still struggling to understand how the thousands of spare beds in the Nightingales are going to be excused.



Easily. And it's a good thing they're there empty. They were emergency capacity if things went to shit. They largely didn't so haven't been needed. Moaning that beds aren't full of people dying seems a very odd position to take.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Care homes were ridiculously easy risk factors to spot: everyone with the slightest knowledge of the virus knows it's a death sentence for all too many elderly patients; and care homes aren't infectious disease hospitals.

If the government had been remotely serious about "shielding" the vulnerable, they'd have ensured that care homes had the resources and support for staff to live on site for the duration (some have done this, with zero cases), and no-one was discharged to a home if there was the slightest risk they remained Covid-positive.

They didn't, so they weren't.


----------



## gentlegreen (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Easily. And it's a good thing they're there empty. They were emergency capacity if things went to shit. They largely didn't so haven't been needed. Moaning that beds aren't full of people dying seems a very odd position to take.


But they could be used to quarantine elderly patients returning to shared accommodation.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

Doodler said:


> It's a confusing picture.



Hello the NHS.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> But they could be used to quarantine elderly patients returning to shared accommodation.



You have no idea how complicated the reality is behind that simple suggestion.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And all similar institutions? And then the same for people in households that aren't care homes? Or would you treat care homes and the residents differently?


China removed suspected cases to requisitioned hotels, and if they tested potivie, moved them to temporary fever hospitals. Many countries have copied the lockdown in a panic but neglected the stringent infection control measures that accompanied it.


----------



## two sheds (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Moaning that beds aren't full of people dying seems a very odd position to take.



I've not noticed anybody here doing that.


----------



## weltweit (May 1, 2020)

Weasel wordie Hancock made a play to say that care homes were his priority from the start the last time he was there at the No 10 press conference. I didn't believe him, not a word and I doubt anyone else did either.


----------



## quimcunx (May 1, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> So the system that we have built to look after our old ones is basically broken by this infection, what a pity no one saw that coming. Care homes as we have them now have generated a huge profit for their owners in the last 20 years.



Probably more accurate to say the system is broken and this crisis has highlighted that.


----------



## weltweit (May 1, 2020)

They also got a lot of companies geared up to make ventilators - most of which in the end were not needed. Better to have the potential to have many more than many less.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> China removed suspected cases to requisitioned hotels, and if they tested potivie, moved them to temporary fever hospitals. Many countries have copied the lockdown in a panic but neglected the stringent infection control measures that accompanied it.



So there should have been a more authoritarian response with forced removal of suspected and confirmed CV+ patients to places, whether they need hospital care or not? Widespread testing across the nation and then quarantining in special institutions for all those that test +?


----------



## Chilli.s (May 1, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Probably more accurate to say the system is broken and this crisis has highlighted that.


That ignores the profit that's been made from the system. The owners always make money on their investment.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> So there should have been a more authoritarian response with forced removal of suspected and confirmed CV+ patients to places, whether they need hospital care or not?


I didn't say we should slavishly copy China: I highlighted our failure (shared across the West) to properly understand and implement their infection control model. Ironically, we've applied its most authoritarian element -- mass lockdown, on a scale that exceeds anything China did -- while neglecting more targeted measures.

I support the least coercive measures compatible with containing and ultimately eradicating the virus, which is why I endlessly praise Taiwan and South Korea. I've consistently said it's a disgrace we allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point that mass house arrest was needed to halt the spread of the virus.


----------



## GarveyLives (May 1, 2020)

Coronavirus: Black African deaths _three times higher_ than white Britons - study







(Source:  Associated Press)

*"It must be their watermelon smiles"*​


----------



## Combustible (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The lockdown is being conducted largely willingly by the population as a whole. What you're talking about is not allowing people back to (or removing them from) where they live legally, and providing them with complex care on an indefinite time period. They're different things, and the later is much more complicated in a number of areas than you seen to realize.



The lockdown may be conducted largely willingly, but it is still backed by unprecedented legal powers. I am also not convinced that many of the care-home residents would also not be willing to be housed temporarily, at least among those who are well enough to understand the situation, provided they were given a decent level of care.  I can't imagine they want to be spreading the virus to other vulnerable residents. It would require a considerable amount of state resources, but so does every day of the lockdown, And many of the same arguments were being deployed against the lockdown itself, right until it was implemented, that it would cause too many complex problems, that it was unprecedented, overly authoritarian, and that no-one would accept it.


----------



## andysays (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I didn't say we should slavishly copy China: I highlighted our failure (shared across the West) to properly understand and implement their infection control model. Ironically, we've applied its most authoritarian element -- mass lockdown, on a scale that exceeds anything China did -- while neglecting more targeted measures.
> 
> I support the least coercive measures compatible with containing and ultimately eradicating the virus, which is why I endlessly praise Taiwan and South Korea. I've consistently said it's a disgrace we allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point that mass house arrest was needed to halt the spread of the virus.


Describing what we have in Britain as authoritarian or mass house arrest is a bit ridiculous, TBH.

There are plenty of criticisms that can legitimately be made but this just makes you look a bit of a twat


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> I didn't say we should slavishly copy China: I highlighted our failure (shared across the West) to properly understand and implement their infection control model. *Ironically, we've applied its most authoritarian element -- mass lockdown, on a scale that exceeds anything China did -- while neglecting more targeted measures.*
> 
> I support the least coercive measures compatible with containing and ultimately eradicating the virus, which is why I endlessly praise Taiwan and South Korea. I've consistently said it's a disgrace we allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point that mass house arrest was needed to halt the spread of the virus.



This is a crazy claim, the lockdown in Hubei province, a similiar population to the UK, was on a much stricter level than here, it was off the scale.

Our lockdown is even much less harsh than some European countries.


----------



## JimW (May 1, 2020)

We have roadblocks in and out the village still here and we're well over a thousand kilometres north of Hubei.


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## gentlegreen (May 1, 2020)

The lockdown is definitely crumbling around here


----------



## clicker (May 1, 2020)

Sending cv+ people back to care homes was only ever  going to result in the virus spreading to the most vulnerable and staff.
It just appeared to me that this was accepted as if there was no alternative.
Empty Nightingale beds could have been used. Or at least the option tried. It would be preferable to have failed trying than fail without trying.


----------



## zahir (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And all similar institutions? And then the same for people in households that aren't care homes? Or would you treat care homes and the residents differently?



At the moment it might make sense to have some system of isolation and repeated testing for anyone leaving hospital, even if it’s just self-isolating for 14 days at home.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 1, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> The lockdown is definitely crumbling around here



Given that this is only the 1st of May, the chances of this lasting until June without enough people giving up on it to render the whole thing moot seem very high.

But an example has not been set. Individuals are forced into intolerable confinement, but companies are able to carry on as usual. People can suffer and die in lockdown, but we can't allow a construction firm to forfeit their early completion bonus. These contradictions will not stand up to the pressure they're being subjected to.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Describing what we have in Britain as authoritarian or mass house arrest is a bit ridiculous, TBH.
> 
> There are plenty of criticisms that can legitimately be made but this just makes you look a bit of a twat


The entire country's forbidden from leaving their homes without "reasonable excuse". It's the most sweeping and draconian curb on individual liberty in centuries, going far further than anything imposed in the world wars.

I force myself to say it's justified by the extraordinary circumstances, but won't downplay just how severe it is. Worry about those who don't share my view, and try and get it quashed in the courts before a surveillance and suppression system's in place, because its legal basis (an obscure public health act from 1984) is, at best, dubious.

I've said for weeks that I'd oppose all but the most minor and evidence-based easing (and perhaps not even that) until the virus can be suppressed by other means. That remains my view.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> So there should have been a more authoritarian response with forced removal of suspected and confirmed CV+ patients to places, whether they need hospital care or not? Widespread testing across the nation and then quarantining in special institutions for all those that test +?


That's not a fair characterisation of the charge levelled against the system re infection in hospitals and transfer of the virus to care homes. Specifically, the charge is that people infected with the virus have been knowingly transferred from hospital to previously virus-free care homes.

There are many other things that could have been done to avoid that - dedicated virus care homes, requisitioning hotels - get them in the top five-star ones, why not if it's practical to adapt them? They're all just sitting empty. 

I'm not going to have a go at them for making new hospitals that weren't needed, but given the expense of that, it's not unreasonable to suggest that a similar effort could have been made to create new facilities dedicated to c-19-positive vulnerable people in order to shield the rest. "We must protect the vulnerable" was the call from well before lockdown. It's not like they weren't aware of the issue.


----------



## little_legs (May 1, 2020)




----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is a crazy claim, the lockdown in Hubei province, a similiar population to the UK, was on a much stricter level than here, it was off the scale.
> 
> Our lockdown is even much less harsh than some European countries.


I'm judging it by its own merits, not relative to Hubei. And to emphasize again, I support it. Indeed, given the circumstances, I'd force myself to support something even more draconian, at least on a regional basis. Given the scale of the outbreak in the capital, the best policy would've probably been the suspension of the Tube and more severe lockdowns in specific London boroughs.


----------



## Supine (May 1, 2020)

Interesting article on covid spread in UK and genetic mutations being tracked

https://t.co/Gb66lpI8En?amp=1


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Describing what we have in Britain as authoritarian or mass house arrest is a bit ridiculous, TBH.



Much will depend on a person's response to the measures in place, which in turn may depend on their prior experience of actual authoritarian regimes. There are people who are genuinely afraid to leave their homes. Whether you consider that feeling to be is 'wrong' is irrelevant. 

There's a definite strain of thought around that says, 'I'm OK with this, so you should be too'. The reasons why that statement is bullshit seem too many and too obvious for me to even know where to start.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> The entire country's forbidden from leaving their homes without "reasonable excuse". It's the most sweeping and draconian curb on individual liberty in centuries, going far further than anything imposed in the world wars.


Is this really true? It’s more advice than orders. People are still able to go pretty much wherever they want


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## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Much will depend on a person's response to the measures in place, which in turn may depend on their prior experience of actual authoritarian regimes. There are people who are genuinely afraid to leave their homes. Whether you consider that feeling to be is 'wrong' is irrelevant.
> 
> There's a definite strain of thought around that says, 'I'm OK with this, so you should be too'. The reasons why that statement is bullshit seem too many and too obvious for me to even know where to start.


Exactly. I'm acutely aware of just how much people's experiences vary, depending on their dwellings and financial situation: I've been the phone to friends in the country who're doing fine, have access to open spaces, and are busy; and others cooped up in tiny flats in a fraught job situation who're suffering greatly.

And that's not touching on the health costs imposed by the lockdown itself. That's why I'm so keep to see an alternative system in place.


----------



## weltweit (May 1, 2020)

Supine said:


> Interesting article on covid spread in UK and genetic mutations being tracked
> 
> https://t.co/Gb66lpI8En?amp=1


Very interesting thanks for posting this.


> The data are consistent with a large number of independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions to the UK, from multiple locations around the world.


----------



## andysays (May 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Much will depend on a person's response to the measures in place, which in turn may depend on their prior experience of actual authoritarian regimes. There are people who are genuinely afraid to leave their homes. Whether you consider that feeling to be is 'wrong' is irrelevant.
> 
> There's a definite strain of thought around that says, 'I'm OK with this, so you should be too'. The reasons why that statement is bullshit seem too many and too obvious for me to even know where to start.


That's not what I've said at all.

I'm sure that lots of people are afraid to leave their homes, and lots of people are struggling and finding things difficult for all sorts of reasons.

Pointing out that no one is under literal house arrest and it's not helpful for anyone to describe it as such in no way diminishes the struggles many people are having.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Is this really true? It’s more advice than orders. People are still able to go pretty much wherever they want


It's a statutory instrument, backed up by fines and power of arrest.  People have already been convicted in extremely dubious circumstances (in one case, using a Welsh reg. in an English court! -- despite the plea, was thankfully quashed on urgent appeal).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Describing what we have in Britain as authoritarian or mass house arrest is a bit ridiculous, TBH.
> 
> There are plenty of criticisms that can legitimately be made but this just makes you look a bit of a twat


Next time you consider insulting another poster on these coronavirus threads, maybe have a bit of a think and give your posts a bit of an edit. Your posting style makes you look like a bit of a twat.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Pointing out that no one is under literal house arrest and it's not helpful for anyone to describe it as such in no way diminishes the struggles many people are having.



That's not your call to make either.


----------



## andysays (May 1, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Next time you consider insulting another poster on these coronavirus threads, maybe have a bit of a think and give your posts a bit of an edit. Your posting style makes you look like a bit of a twat.


----------



## maomao (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> The entire country's forbidden from leaving their homes without "reasonable excuse".


Or in other words you can leave your house for any reasonable excuse. Considerably less strict than China or other European countries and while social distancing was not necessary in the world wars, blackouts were far more rigorously enforced. It just sounds like you're personally very put out by being kept in. Which is fine, a lot of us are. But it's not 'mass house arrest'. I'm going out for food and urgent plumbing supplies this afternoon and there's a nice big park between me and Screwfix. I'm not going to feel guilty about going the prettier (and probably quieter) way. No one's checking. The rest of the time I'm staying in and keeping my kids in because I want an end to this with as few deaths as possible.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> That's not what I've said at all.
> 
> I'm sure that lots of people are afraid to leave their homes, and lots of people are struggling and finding things difficult for all sorts of reasons.
> 
> Pointing out that no one is under literal house arrest and it's not helpful for anyone to describe it as such in no way diminishes the struggles many people are having.


Characterizing it as "house arrest" is tied to the nature of the restrictions, with an expectation that you stay at home being the legal default, and the onus being placed on anyone outside to prove they're justified. "Reasonable excuse" flips the usual burden of proof. I wouldn't characterize, say, Germany's regs in the same way, as their public health purpose is much clearer.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> Or in other words you can leave your house for any reasonable excuse. Considerably less strict than China or other European countries and while social distancing was not necessary in the world wars, blackouts were far more rigorously enforced. It just sounds like you're personally very put out by being kept in. Which is fine, a lot of us are. But it's not 'mass house arrest'. I'm going out for food and urgent plumbing supplies this afternoon and there's a nice big park between me and Screwfix. I'm not going to feel guilty about going the prettier (and probably quieter) way. No one's checking. The rest of the time I'm staying in and keeping my kids in because I want an end to this with as few deaths as possible.


Not about me. I've had lingering Covid symptoms for over a month (telephone diagnosis only), haven't been tested to get the all clear, so have been under literal home confinement, mostly confinement to a single room to avoid infecting anyone else. I'm fine.

My concern's with those trying to end the lockdown before a replacement's in place. Surely they'll be best persuaded to hold off by acknowleding how bad it can be, and the urgent need to build up an alternative?


----------



## treelover (May 1, 2020)

> Covid-19 and Post-viral Fatigue Syndrome by Dr Charles Shepherd | 30 April 2020 : ME Association
> 
> 
> Post-viral fatigue is being reported following Covid-19 infection. We explain the issue and offer best management guidance.
> ...



as expected, post viral fatigue, M.E, etc developed with a number after swine flu


----------



## Orang Utan (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> It's a statutory instrument, backed up by fines and power of arrest.  People have already been convicted in extremely dubious circumstances (in one case, using a Welsh reg. in an English court! -- despite the plea, was thankfully quashed on urgent appeal).


Ok, but where I am, there’s no sign of any cops let alone enforcement, so it doesn’t feel like we’re living in a draconian state yet


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Ok, but where I am, there’s no sign of any cops let alone enforcement, so it doesn’t feel like we’re living in a draconian state yet


Yup, by all accounts it's a postcode lottery. Thanks to patchy enforcement that appears to be (mostly) sensible, we're not in a Draconian state, but the letter of the law itself is sever, and allows for disproportionate and arbitrary prosecutons. They're thankfully few, but it's not a sustainable solution in the medium-, let alone long-term.


----------



## Wilf (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Re: the make shift hospitals or using the Nightingale's and moving care home residents there.
> 
> So, you'd move them there out of their familiar environment, and to places that are quite likely to be far from unsuitable for their needs? Many patients with conditions such as dementia or physical needs like hoisting that makes their care very complex, even more so in unfamiliar places. How long would you put them there for, and who would look after them?
> 
> ...


 I say this in the spirit of your final sentence: I just think sending people home is 'less-less bad' than you suggest. It's not just the rate of infection in care homes, which is now rampant, it's the impact on the wider care in those homes. As an example, my Mum (in a care home, Parkinson's and dementia) had a fall and appears to have broken her hip. The home contacted me in the expectation she would be going in for an x-ray and even told me the likely ward she would end up in for surgery in North Manchester. They were then stopped from sending her by 111 along the lines that 'she'd be more in danger if she went into hospital'. Now that might be the right decision in terms of defending the NHS and might even be the right decision for her. I'm not having a go, there are no easy solutions. But there she is, in a home with 4 cases of the virus, on paracetamol with no GP access. Fwiw, the staff are very good and are doing their best with reasonable staffing levels. But a lot of care home residents won't even have that.


----------



## treelover (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Not about me. I've had lingering Covid symptoms for over a month (telephone diagnosis only), haven't been tested to get the all clear, so have been under literal home confinement, mostly confinement to a single room to avoid infecting anyone else. I'm fine.
> 
> My concern's with those trying to end the lockdown before a replacement's in place. Surely they'll be best persuaded to hold off by acknowleding how bad it can be, and the urgent need to build up an alternative?



same here, but isolation is 14 days or bit more,


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I say this in the spirit of your final sentence: I just think sending people home is 'less-less bad' than you suggest. It's not just the rate of infection in care homes, which is now rampant, it's the impact on the wider care in those homes. As an example, my Mum (in a care home, Parkinson's and dementia) had a fall and appears to have broken her hip. The home contacted me in the expectation she would be going in for an x-ray and even told me the likely ward she would end up in for surgery in North Manchester. They were then stopped from sending her by 111 along the lines that 'she'd be more in danger if she went into hospital'. Now that might be the right decision in terms of defending the NHS and might even be the right decision for her. I'm not having a go, there are no easy solutions. But there she is, in a home with 4 cases of the virus, on paracetamol with no GP access. Fwiw, the staff are very good and are doing their best with reasonable staffing levels. But a lot of care home residents won't even have that.



I obviously have no idea of the whole situation (and what was actually said by the care home staff, 111, etc.) but people should not be avoiding A&E because of that reason. They might not want to, but it's been made very clear that people need to get sorted for acute non-CV related problems.

I'd be on the phone to them asking some questions tbh. Was her fall witnessed? Why do they think the hip is broken? Has she been assessed by a HCP? What exactly did 111 say, and when, and to who? What's the plan for her now?


----------



## maomao (May 1, 2020)

I'd be happy enough with this fucker being shot given what he appears to have done during a national emergency. However I wont be happy to see the Tories using this story to shift a little blame for the PPE crisis away from them.









						Revealed: NHS procurement official privately selling PPE amid Covid-19 outbreak
					

NHS launches inquiry after undercover Guardian investigation exposes senior official trading protective gear




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Wilf (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> LOL, ho


?


----------



## Wilf (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I obviously have no idea of the whole situation (and what was actually said by the care home staff, 111, etc.) but people should not be avoiding A&E because of that reason. They might not want to, but it's been made very clear that people need to get sorted for acute non-CV related problems.
> 
> I'd be on the phone to them asking some questions tbh. Was her fall witnessed? Why do they think the hip is broken? Has she been assessed by a HCP? What exactly did 111 say, and when, and to who? What's the plan for her now?


I can see you've edited it out now, but why did you respond to my post with 'LOL, ho'?


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I can see you've edited it out now, but why did you respond to my post with 'LOL, ho'?



It was from a post to something else in another forum I never posted. It was saved and then ended up on the top of the post I wrote to you somehow. Luckily noticed it after I posted quickly. Not quick enough, obviously although have thought it was obviously a typo or glitch, sorry if it caused upset or confusion.


----------



## JimW (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It was from a post to something else in another forum I never posted. It was saved and then ended up on the top of the post I wrote to you somehow. Luckily noticed it after I posted quickly. Not quick enough, obviously although have thought it was obviously a typo or glitch.


My browser's always saving bits of half posts too, have to keep an eye out for them.


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2020)

I think it's the board software that saves it rather than the browser isn't it?


----------



## Cid (May 1, 2020)

Yeah, been annoying me that. Even if you delete a reply it will reappear on refresh. Specifically annoying on phone. Anyway, not much we can do about it.


----------



## PD58 (May 1, 2020)

Just reading an update in the NS on the Oxford vaccine, it seems that between 1998 & 2009 the average was 10.7 years to produce a vaccine and the fastest ever was for Ebola in 5 years.
At best it looks like 18 months but that will not allow for any long term study of possible side effects... quote from one epidemiologist waiting for a vaccine is 'not a strategy, it's a hope'.


----------



## teqniq (May 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah, been annoying me that. Even if you delete a reply it will reappear on refresh. Specifically annoying on phone. Anyway, not much we can do about it.


Click on the draft button and choose 'delete draft'.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Just reading an update in the NS on the Oxford vaccine, it seems that between 1998 & 2009 the average was 10.7 years to produce a vaccine and the fastest ever was for Ebola in 5 years.
> At best it looks like 18 months but that will not allow for any long term study of possible side effects... quote from one epidemiologist waiting for a vaccine is 'not a strategy, it's a hope'.



Yeah, if I was going to place a bet it wouldn't be on us having a vaccine for use in the next 18 months.


----------



## Jay Park (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Re: the make shift hospitals or using the Nightingale's and moving care home residents there.
> 
> So, you'd move them there out of their familiar environment, and to places that are quite likely to be far from unsuitable for their needs? Many patients with conditions such as dementia or physical needs like hoisting that makes their care very complex, even more so in unfamiliar places. How long would you put them there for, and who would look after them?
> 
> ...



Well I mean, yeah, but I’d like to think I’d have done anything and everything possible to see this wouldn’t have occurred to such an extent. I like to think that at least.


----------



## Jay Park (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Do you have any idea of how complex and what a minefield it would be dealing with every single care home resident that wanted to go home but you needed to 'detain' and send to a dedicated CV+ place? And the corresponding uproar if that had happened?



Everyone else should have been on quarantine too though, right?


----------



## xenon (May 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think it's the board software that saves it rather than the browser isn't it?



Yeah. I'ts a shit feature IMO.


----------



## xenon (May 1, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Just reading an update in the NS on the Oxford vaccine, it seems that between 1998 & 2009 the average was 10.7 years to produce a vaccine and the fastest ever was for Ebola in 5 years.
> At best it looks like 18 months but that will not allow for any long term study of possible side effects... quote from one epidemiologist waiting for a vaccine is 'not a strategy, it's a hope'.



Read a really good article explaining how the Ebola vaccine came about. The companies involved, the doggedness of a few individuals. It's hoped that the sheer effort and focus on this might expidite some of that, even if the scientific breakthroughs and work throw something up.

Was going to link to the article in question but it's on my work PC.

e2a here it is








						The inside story of how scientists produced an Ebola vaccine
					

For years, scientists poured their hearts into work to develop vaccines. And, for years, they saw promising work smash up against unscalable walls.




					www.statnews.com


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2020)

xenon said:


> Yeah. I'ts a shit feature IMO.


I don't think it's a bad feature altogether - it's easy to close a window or browsers crash, and if you're 8 paragraphs into an epic takedown it could be pretty galling to lose all that sweet vitriol... it should probably just be a draft you can click to stick in there though, rather than being automatically there whatever.


----------



## two sheds (May 1, 2020)

It's problematic because even if you delete the post in your browser it comes back again. If teqniq's suggestion works though that should sort it.


----------



## andysays (May 1, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Click on the draft button and choose 'delete draft'.


Which is the draft button?


----------



## zahir (May 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Which is the draft button?



Next to last icon at the top of the reply box.


----------



## two sheds (May 1, 2020)

Top left second line looks like a floppy disk. It works nice one teqniq  . Saves embarrassing mistakes

Eta oops depending how wide your browser window is - otherwise top right, what teqniq says below.


----------



## Numbers (May 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Ok, but where I am, there’s no sign of any cops let alone enforcement, so it doesn’t feel like we’re living in a draconian state yet


Same as here.  No cops enforcing anything and it has been a lockdown me arse


----------



## teqniq (May 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Which is the draft button?


----------



## Wilf (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It was from a post to something else in another forum I never posted. It was saved and then ended up on the top of the post I wrote to you somehow. Luckily noticed it after I posted quickly. Not quick enough, obviously although have thought it was obviously a typo or glitch, sorry if it caused upset or confusion.


Okay, cheers.


----------



## Wilf (May 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> It's problematic because even if you delete the post in your browser it comes back again. If teqniq's suggestion works though that should sort it.


It is a bit annoying and sometimes leads to you posting 2 versions of the same reply and/or an inadvertant combination of replies to 2 people (though only within the same thread afaik).  Same time, if you  are on something like a political theory thread and posting long answers, it has its uses.


----------



## two sheds (May 1, 2020)

I've posted a note to the feedback thread. I tried to insert a screenshot of what teqniq posted but failed miserably - he may want to add it again since I've tagged him


----------



## two sheds (May 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Same time, if you  are on something like a political theory thread and posting long answers, it has its uses.



Yes good point, I've lost text before like that if the browser crashes or I move off trying to find a reference to something.


----------



## Wilf (May 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I've posted a note to the feedback thread. I tried to insert a screenshot of what teqniq posted but failed miserably - he may want to add it again since I've tagged him


Something like the 'a copy of this message has been saved, do you want to keep it' that you get in outlook would be good (though I suspect it would be a right faff to set up). Anyway, I digress.


----------



## Cid (May 1, 2020)

Yes, enough of these sidetracks, let’s get back to general despair and snapping at each other in our impotence.

On which note it’s going to be devastating if a vaccine does prove difficult to bring into effect... though I suppose also depends hugely on how long immunity lasts, how the virus evolves medium-long term etc.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> Everyone else should have been on quarantine too though, right?



But they were quarantining (self-isolating) in their homes, also risking infecting other household occupants obviously.

What is being suggested by some is that people that lived in care or nursing care homes wouldn't have been allowed home once infected (or would have been removed from their home if infected there) but would have been sent somewhere else, whether they wanted to be or not. And that place would have to be single occupancy rooms, have a load of other structural stuff like catering and accessible toilets etc, with dedicated nursing and care staff, and able also to deal with the complex and resource intensive care that these patients would have needed.

I'm not saying it wasn't (or isn't) possible, but it's much more complex than it might seem.


----------



## zahir (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What is being suggested by some is that people that lived in care or nursing care homes wouldn't have been allowed home once infected (or would have been removed from their home if infected there) but would have been sent somewhere else, whether they wanted to be or not. And that place would have to be single occupancy rooms, have a load of other structural stuff like catering and accessible toilets etc, with dedicated nursing and care staff, and able also to deal with the complex and resource intensive care that these patients would have needed.
> 
> I'm not saying it wasn't (or isn't) possible, but it's much more complex than it might seem.



Yes, but we’re talking about somewhere for people to stay for, presumably, a couple of weeks until there’s some guarantee   that they aren’t going to spread the virus. I don’t see why that shouldn’t be possible.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Returning to the issue of workplaces where strict 2 metre distancing isn't possible all the time, there are a number of measures that can be taken.
> 
> Firstly, people can minimise the time they spend in close proximity, and do it without directly facing and therefore breathing on each other.
> 
> ...


I would imagine that the work situation described would benefit from FRSM (fluid resistant surgical masks) I have to wear them at work all the time because of working in a clinical area and because the nature of the job means one cant distance unless in the loo or on break.


----------



## prunus (May 1, 2020)

Here's a little vignette on the UK's testing regime.  It's only an anecdote obviously, but it has some interesting facets so I thought I'd share.

A family I know, two adults, two kids (under 10), one of the adults is a surgeon at a major NHS hospital; at the weekend the surgeon and one of the kids started showing symptoms of coronavirus, so they went to get the whole family tested on Monday.

They've only just received the results - that's 4 days later for someone who you'd think was a priority key worker surely?

The real kicker though - the two adults and the symptomatic kid tested negative - the asymptomatic kid tested positive.   How does one interpret those results?  And how does one apply the quarantine rules?  The current guidelines are still that you quarantine for 14 days after the start of someone in your household who has it's symptoms.  Should the surgeon now not go to work for a fortnight?  Or for 7 days from the start of their symptoms (which is what it would be if they'd tested positive)?  And when does the 14 days start if you apply that, as the only person tested positive has no symptoms?

I suppose strictly - start a 14 day quarantine for the 3 negative people from the day of the test, and a 7 day one for the positive kid from that same day.

Using the argument from personal incredulity is seems unlikely that the symptomatic cases are true negatives, under the circumstances (they've not been isolating from each other, and for those who haven't had under 10 year olds - snot goes everywhere); are the tests that unreliable?  And given that the subject is a doctor, surely 4 days is too long?

Anyway, just wanted to share.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> Yes, but we’re talking about somewhere for people to stay for, presumably, a couple of weeks until there’s some guarantee   that they aren’t going to spread the virus. I don’t see why that shouldn’t be possible.



I said it would be possible. I also said how much more complicated it would be than it might appear at first. If you haven't worked in this area I expect it's really easy to not understand how much more complicated it is than just somewhere for them to stay for a couple of weeks. Hospitals struggle with this area, and they're set up for it.

It was also be a very different standard for people in care/nursing homes (which isn't just 'old' people btw) than for anyone else. That might be the right thing to do, but I can see the uproar about that now tbh.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Regarding the discharge of elderly patients to care homes: if it can't be done safely, requisition some of the hotels currently lying empty, build temporary hospitals for the sickest elderly patients if needed, hire and train more carers if needed. The state's resources are vast. Decades of laissez-faire dogma has blinded us to what it can do when it wants to.


This would take years to do simply because there is not enough nursing and care staff. Let alone the fact that hotels would need special adaptations. But yeh this is what happens when the population of care staff are undervalued with shit pay,  terms and conditions and not replaced when they leave/retire/leave because of brexit/are deported.

The London Nightingale is unable to do what it should cus there are not enough icu nurses to carry out specialist care. Can have all the hospitals you like-redundent without properly trained ,paid staff.

Also even without there being a pandemic there has long been an issue regarding the quality of care for the elderly and anyone needing to be in a residential care setting.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 1, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> So the system that we have built to look after our old ones is basically broken by this infection, what a pity no one saw that coming. Care homes as we have them now have generated a huge profit for their owners in the last 20 years.


It was already broken!


----------



## maomao (May 1, 2020)

prunus said:


> Here's a little vignette on the UK's testing regime.  It's only an anecdote obviously, but it has some interesting facets so I thought I'd share.
> 
> A family I know, two adults, two kids (under 10), one of the adults is a surgeon at a major NHS hospital; at the weekend the surgeon and one of the kids started showing symptoms of coronavirus, so they went to get the whole family tested on Monday.
> 
> ...


Symptomatic cases could be virus free but body still dealing with the after effects of its own immune system.


----------



## maomao (May 1, 2020)

Well the lockdown is holding on East London/Essex borders. There are cars about but not many people on foot. Even small shops are policing social distancing and the bloke who lost it and swore at the Screwfix staff for not being allowed in without a confirmed order did it from a good five metres away.   I think a lot of the 'lockdown breaking down' stuff is either people sat at home worrying or people who actively want it to break down.

I also smelled fried chicken for the first time in six weeks but there was a queue so I didn't.


----------



## zahir (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I said it would be possible. I also said how much more complicated it would be than it might appear at first. If you haven't worked in this area I expect it's really easy to not understand how much more complicated it is than just somewhere for them to stay for a couple of weeks. Hospitals struggle with this area, and they're set up for it.
> 
> It was also be a very different standard for people in care/nursing homes (which isn't just 'old' people btw) than for anyone else. That might be the right thing to do, but I can see the uproar about that now tbh.



As things are maybe you could make the comparison between people coming out of hospital and people coming off cruise ships, with some system of isolation and testing needed until they are given the all clear. I don’t think this just applies to care home residents and I didn’t intend to suggest that it isn’t complicated.


----------



## Jay Park (May 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> But they were quarantining (self-isolating) in their homes, also risking infecting other household occupants obviously.
> 
> What is being suggested by some is that people that lived in care or nursing care homes wouldn't have been allowed home once infected (or would have been removed from their home if infected there) but would have been sent somewhere else, whether they wanted to be or not. And that place would have to be single occupancy rooms, have a load of other structural stuff like catering and accessible toilets etc, with dedicated nursing and care staff, and able also to deal with the complex and resource intensive care that these patients would have needed.
> 
> I'm not saying it wasn't (or isn't) possible, but it's much more complex than it might seem.



Im with ya.

We’re all upset aren’t we. We’re upset and we’re angry and we’re holding on to what could have/should have/might have been.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> Im with ya.
> 
> We’re all upset aren’t we. We’re upset and we’re angry and we’re holding on to what could have/should have/might have been.



Innit. I think the message yesterday that we're through the worst was shit too. It's very far from over, we won't be going back to any kind of normal for a long time as I think this is going to be grim for a good while longer.


----------



## Callie (May 1, 2020)

Well, well done Hancock. Step up to the podium and pat yerself on the back. Target achieved. Panic testing NHS staff to help get your numbers up putting more pressure on the already pressured system. Let's hope you don't get too many positive testing, asymptomatic frontline staff that someone then has to sort out


----------



## xenon (May 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well the lockdown is holding on East London/Essex borders. There are cars about but not many people on foot. Even small shops are policing social distancing and the bloke who lost it and swore at the Screwfix staff for not being allowed in without a confirmed order did it from a good five metres away.   I think a lot of the 'lockdown breaking down' stuff is either people sat at home worrying or people who actively want it to break down.
> 
> I also smelled fried chicken for the first time in six weeks but there was a queue so I didn't.



I've not long got back from town. Only going out every few days. Just a walk and to pick up a few basics. There were people out probably doing similar , road works in progress but definitely much quieter than a regular Friday afternoon would be. Obviously down to their being no where to go. A bbit eery walking past silent pubs and empty picnic tables, light traffic.


----------



## andysays (May 1, 2020)

teqniq said:


> View attachment 209974


I don't appear to have one of them.

Maybe this requires an enquiry in the Feedback forum...


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Callie said:


> Well, well done Hancock. Step up to the podium and pat yerself on the back. Target achieved. Panic testing NHS staff to help get your numbers up putting more pressure on the already pressured system. Let's hope you don't get too many positive testing, asymptomatic frontline staff that someone then has to sort out


And bizarrely, thanks to Hancock's enthusiasm for the South Korean approach, we're relying on this bumptious Toryboy to overcome Whitty and his soul-sucking defeatism. What a world.


----------



## andysays (May 1, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I would imagine that the work situation described would benefit from FRSM (fluid resistant surgical masks) I have to wear them at work all the time because of working in a clinical area and because the nature of the job means one cant distance unless in the loo or on break.


In my job, grounds maintenance, we're not having to be that close to each other that much and, perhaps more importantly, we're not interacting with people who are likely to be infected or who are highly vulnerable should they become infected.

The masks we have are standard dust mask type PPE, and given the apparent shortage of specialist PPE, I think it's better that it's reserved for those of you in frontline medical positions, but thanks for your suggestion.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

And to illustrate the point starkly, at the same briefing we have John Newton claiming that testing capacity doesn't make a difference to the necessity of lockdown and Hancock saying it's the route out.

Dear God, just how have our medical and scientific establishments become so dogmatically opposed not only to contact tracing, but the very concept of containing a communicable disease? They're having to be dragged kicking and screaming towards even a semblance of the South Korean approach.


----------



## IC3D (May 1, 2020)

Hospitals have not been able to ensure the safety of staff and with 24 HR waiting time for covid results on wards initially patients inevitably contracted it and went home before symptoms showed. 
From my experience in London covid tore through our hospitals and lessons now should be learned and systems improved.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 1, 2020)

6,201 new confirmed cases today - is this starting to decline now? Fucked if I can remember what it was previously.


----------



## zahir (May 1, 2020)

Does anyone know what proportion of new cases are coming from transmission in hospitals and care homes?


----------



## Lurdan (May 1, 2020)

ONS release this morning

Deaths involving COVID-19 by local area and socioeconomic deprivation: deaths occurring between 1 March and 17 April 2020

Provisional counts of the number of deaths and age-standardised mortality rates involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) between 1 March and 17 April 2020 in England and Wales. Figures are provided by age, sex, geographies down to local authority level and deprivation indices.



> Statistician's comment





> “By mid-April, the region with the highest proportion of deaths involving COVID-19 was London, with the virus being involved in more than 4 in 10 deaths since the start of March. In contrast, the region with the lowest proportion of COVID-19 deaths was the South West, which saw just over 1 in 10 deaths involving coronavirus. The 11 local authorities with the highest mortality rates were all London boroughs, with Newham, Brent and Hackney suffering the highest rates of COVID-19 related deaths.





> “People living in more deprived areas have experienced COVID-19 mortality rates more than double those living in less deprived areas. General mortality rates are normally higher in more deprived areas, but so far COVID-19 appears to be taking them higher still.”





> Nick Stripe, Head of Health Analysis, Office for National Statistics


----------



## agricola (May 1, 2020)

so they counted tens of thousands of tests because they'd been posted?

hurrah for the government


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

They've cooked the books, and were always gonna cook the books. If it boosts the chances of a halfway effective suppression strategy being implemented, venial among the government's string of mortal sins.


----------



## Petcha (May 1, 2020)

They promised to test 100,000 people. They've conducted 122,000 tests on 73,000 people. So so dodgy.


----------



## agricola (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> They've cooked the books, and were always gonna cook the books. If it boosts the chances of a halfway effective suppression strategy being implemented, venial among the government's string of mortal sins.



sets a fantastic precedent for the rest of us though - "yes boss, I have put the work in the post so it has been done"


----------



## Ax^ (May 1, 2020)

almost like you cannot trust the slimy Tory fuckers


----------



## PD58 (May 1, 2020)

BBC test reality check...

*What the UK government means by hitting its testing target*





Reality Check
Having set a target of 100,000 tests per day by the end of April, the government now says it reached 122,347 tests on Wednesday (the last day of the month).
The government had been averaging around 20,000 tests a day but this increased significantly over the last week.
When home testing kits became a significant part of the testing strategy last week, the Department of Health began counting those sent out as part of its daily test figures.
So, it doesn’t mean the test was actually used by someone on that day - or even received.
Previously, only instances in which the swab had been processed through a lab were counted as a test.
But the new definition - added on 27 April - included tests "posted to an individual at home".
On 29 April, the definition was extended yet further to also encompass "tests sent to... satellite testing locations".
According to figures released on 30 April, home testing kits accounted for over 18,000 of the daily tests, or a quarter of the total.

It looks like there were about 40,000 posted tests that are counted FFS...problem with setting a target is you have to meet it so counting methods are changed....but surely the data has to be tests distributed, tests processed, outcomes of tests...this is not rocket science...


----------



## prunus (May 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> sets a fantastic precedent for the rest of us though - "yes boss, I have put the work in the post so it has been done"



Closer to “someone’s put the instructions for the job in the post to me so the work’s been done”


----------



## zahir (May 1, 2020)

Government counts mailouts to hit 100,000 testing target
					

The government changed the way it counts the number of covid-19 tests in order to hit its target of 100,000 tests per day by the end of April, HSJ can reveal.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Petcha said:


> They promised to test 100,000 people. They've conducted 122,000 tests on 73,000 people. So so dodgy.


Extremely, but it's at least built up the capacity to, as he puts it, "unlock the lockdown" via aggressive contact tracing and isolation. 

As the alternative's indefinite detention in Whitty's pestilential hell, awaiting an "inevitable" second wave of a SARS virus that we must treat like the flu because that's what the pandemic plan says it is, I'll put up with Hancock's godawful Covid Oscars.


----------



## Petcha (May 1, 2020)

Surely these medical idiots they wheel out every day should be impartial?

I know they're covering their arses for the collosal fuck ups they've made so far, but they're doctors. Where's their integrity? They seem to out bullshit Boris at times.


----------



## 2hats (May 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> so they counted tens of thousands of tests because they'd been posted?


From the same briefing:

Hancock: 122,347 'tests'
Newton: 27,497 tests posted to individuals and 12,872 tests posted to 'satellite testing stations'

I think you can do the maths...

Then at exactly the same time Hancock was speaking:


----------



## Petcha (May 1, 2020)

Amazed they can keep a straight face


----------



## weltweit (May 1, 2020)

Deaths are still pretty significant, in fact isn't todays number the largest for the last week?


----------



## Chilli.s (May 1, 2020)

Looking at all those graphs and numbers, I can't see any peak, all I see is more and more.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

And bingo, Hancock explicitly links the new testing capacity to large scale contact tracing, the "new priority" for testing. 

Unctuous git that he is, I'll reluctantly admit that he's done a fair job of directing his Westminster scheming to outflanking the advisors' crushing nihilism and quietly building up a suppression system. While all the speculation was "herd immunity" by stealth, it was actually (a shadow of) South Korea by stealth.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Surely these medical idiots they wheel out every day should be impartial?
> 
> I know they're covering their arses for the collosal fuck ups they've made so far, but they're doctors. Where's their integrity? They seem to out bullshit Boris at times.


They applied an influenza plan to a coronavirus because it was all they had and got tens of thousands needlessly killed. They're in a world of shit and they know it. (Apart from Whitty, who appears to believe he can transmute SARS-CoV-2 into the flu by sheer force of will, and crush opposition with relentless waves of aggressive fatalism.)


----------



## Lurdan (May 1, 2020)

More detail from the ONS report I linked to above

Between 1 March and 17 April 2020, there were 90,232 deaths occurring in England and Wales that were registered by 18 April; 20,283 of these deaths involved the coronavirus (COVID-19).
When adjusting for size and age structure of the population, there were 36.2 deaths involving COVID-19 per 100,000 people in England and Wales.
London had the highest age-standardised mortality rate with 85.7 deaths per 100,000 persons involving COVID-19; this was statistically significantly higher than any other region and almost double the next highest rate.
The local authorities with the highest age-standardised mortality rates for deaths involving COVID-19 were all London Boroughs; Newham had the highest age-standardised rate with 144.3 deaths per 100,000 population followed by Brent with a rate of 141.5 deaths per 100,000 population and Hackney with a rate of 127.4 deaths per 100,000 population.
The age-standardised mortality rate of deaths involving COVID-19 in the most deprived areas of England was 55.1 deaths per 100,000 population compared with 25.3 deaths per 100,000 population in the least deprived areas
In Wales, the most deprived areas had a mortality rate for deaths involving COVID-19 of 44.6 deaths per 100,000 population, almost twice as high as the least deprived area of 23.2 deaths per 100,000 population.


----------



## Petcha (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> They applied an influenza plan to a coronavirus because it was all they had and got tens of thousands needlessly killed. They're in a world of shit and they know it. (Apart from Whitty, who appears to believe he can transmute SARS-CoV-2 into the flu by sheer force of will, and crush opposition with relentless waves of aggressive fatalism.)



It's astonishing. Even to a layman like me. I'd fall on my sword if I was one of these idiots who were supposed to be the experts on this shit. They've got just as much blood on their hands as the idiots they were 'advising'. They put that slide up every day showing the different countries' trajectories and unless I'm not mistaken, we're fucked. And they gloss over it. 

'next slide please'


----------



## SpineyNorman (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> The entire country's forbidden from leaving their homes without "reasonable excuse". It's the most sweeping and draconian curb on individual liberty in centuries, going far further than anything imposed in the world wars.
> 
> I force myself to say it's justified by the extraordinary circumstances, but won't downplay just how severe it is. Worry about those who don't share my view, and try and get it quashed in the courts before a surveillance and suppression system's in place, because its legal basis (an obscure public health act from 1984) is, at best, dubious.
> 
> I've said for weeks that I'd oppose all but the most minor and evidence-based easing (and perhaps not even that) until the virus can be suppressed by other means. That remains my view.


More draconian than anything in the two world wars is quite a claim too, what about being sent over the top?


----------



## Teaboy (May 1, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Looking at all those graphs and numbers, I can't see any peak, all I see is more and more.



My understanding was that it was never likely to be a peak but a plateau.  Maybe I have that wrong but in the last week or so it's become all about a peak.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> More draconian than anything in the two world wars is quite a claim too, what about being sent over the top?


Comment related specifically to civilian restrictions on movement, not conscription (although given our fruit picking woes, who knows ...).


----------



## maomao (May 1, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> More detail from the ONS report I linked to above
> 
> Between 1 March and 17 April 2020, there were 90,232 deaths occurring in England and Wales that were registered by 18 April; 20,283 of these deaths involved the coronavirus (COVID-19).
> When adjusting for size and age structure of the population, there were 36.2 deaths involving COVID-19 per 100,000 people in England and Wales.
> ...


Wtf is age standardised mortality? Are they literally counting old people as less than 1 death because they had less years left to live?


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It's astonishing. Even to a layman like me. I'd fall on my sword if I was one of these idiots who were supposed to be the experts on this shit. They've got just as much blood on their hands as the idiots they were 'advising'. They put that slide up every day showing the different countries' trajectories and unless I'm not mistaken, we're fucked. And they gloss over it.
> 
> 'next slide please'


I'd have done what the establishments in most European countries did: adapt the plan on the fly, impose swift lockdown, and use the time bought to throw resources into developing a suppression system. 

(Well, within the parameters advisors are operating in: given a free hand, my policy would've been swift travel bans and quarantine to try and keep the virus out as much as possible.)

Just our luck to get stuck with advisors who retreated into the thickets of denial and insisted that, if you just wished hard enough, this would turn into the flu and all would be well. One of the all time worst examples of fitting the terrain to the map.


----------



## Cid (May 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> My understanding was that it was never likely to be a peak but a plateau.  Maybe I have that wrong but in the last week or so it's become all about a peak.



It's supposed to be a peak... How that peak is shaped depends on various things, but certainly the idea is to get R0 as less than 1, i.e to create a situation where you still have transmission, but the rate of transmission is reducing rather than increasing. The idea of 'flattening the curve' was to have a more plateau-like peak, but it's still essentially increasing cases on one side, decreasing cases on the other. A continuous plateau effectively means you're getting nowhere - that might have been the ideal for the 'herd immunity' ideas early on - i.e just let it rip through the population at a constant but manageable rate. But when I say say 'ideal' I mean... yeah. That wasn't going to happen. So yes, the intention of most countries is absolutely to see a steady reduction after the sharp peak caused by poor initial control.


----------



## Cid (May 1, 2020)

I think with UK figures, especially with the weekend discrepancies, it's still really too early to get a useful idea of what's happening on that level.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

In more positive news, Scotland at least cleared out their "testing's for losers" CMO, and both they and Wales have helped drag England towards a suppression strategy. Speaking to those in the Westminster quarantine zone, everyone's sick of Whitty and his unrelenting negativity. He's not getting anything close to a free hand.

We are, achingly slowly, inching towards something resembling an effective suppression system, but dear Lord progress is hard fought.


----------



## Cid (May 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> Wtf is age standardised mortality? Are they literally counting old people as less than 1 death because they had less years left to live?



It seems to be a weighting method that adjusts mortality figures to a standard population. My brain isn't working at the moment, but some info here (WHO).


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 1, 2020)

GarveyLives said:


> Coronavirus: Black African deaths _three times higher_ than white Britons - study
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've seen some headlines that map inequality metrics to racial ones and tie them to covid deaths.

Thinking back I've also seen mostly white people in stories of covid deaths of illnesses aside from minorities who died while working directly for NHS.


----------



## Lurdan (May 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> Wtf is age standardised mortality? Are they literally counting old people as less than 1 death because they had less years left to live?


Well according to the ONS :


> Age-standardised mortality rates are used to allow comparisons between populations that may contain different proportions of people of different ages. The 2013 European Standard Population is used to standardise rates.



Having failed O level maths (more than once) I can't really comment.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> Does anyone know what proportion of new cases are coming from transmission in hospitals and care homes?



In the region of 20-25% I think.


----------



## Doodler (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> They applied an influenza plan to a coronavirus because it was all they had



If you've got yourself a nice new hammer everything looks like a nail, even lumps of nitroglycerine.


----------



## maomao (May 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> It seems to be a weighting method that adjusts mortality figures to a standard population. My brain isn't working at the moment, but some info here (WHO).


It actually doesn't seem to be what I thought but rather adjusts for unusually young or old populations (so I think it would actually show a higher rate in London as the population is young but the disease is hitting older than average).


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

As feared, serious judicial review of lockdown is launched.


----------



## two sheds (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> As feared, serious judicial review of lockdown is launched.



This could be interesting though: 



> He is also seeking minutes of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) meetings this year, some of which involved Boris Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Very.

Someone was gonna do it. Can't leave the population twisting in the wind with no clear exit strategy and not expect blowback. Exactly why Whitehall needed to transparently announce and build the alternative suppression system from the moment the lockdown was imposed.

If Whitty attempts the unhinged "leave people languishing indefinitely in a semi-locked down dystopia 'cause South Korea can't be right and this virus must be the flu" plan suggested by his hopeless briefings, we ain't seen nothing yet.


----------



## Cid (May 1, 2020)

I don't think that will go anywhere... I mean, I have a law degree (first class, open university), which qualifies me to know that I know fuck all about law... although generally; emergency, parliamentary supremacy. _But_ the disclosure and some of the reasons behind the case might make it interesting. Probably only in some tangential graun articles, and maybe some outraged DM articles though.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

As noted earlier on the thread, lockdown's imposed via secondary legislation enabled by an obscure public health act from (too perfectly) 1984. Courts can quash it all.

Parliament could, of course, enshrine a lockdown in primary legislation, but that'd be an extremely cumbersome process (any variation would require an amendment or fresh act), and there's no guarantee it'd pass Tory benches packed with people who'd like to "run hot".

Commentator and lawyer David Allen Green's asked to be kept informed, so at the least, it should be taken seriously.


----------



## Cid (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> As noted earlier on the thread, lockdown's imposed via secondary legislation enabled by an obscure public health act from (too perfectly) 1984. Courts can quash it all.
> 
> Parliament could, of course, enshrine a lockdown in primary legislation, but that'd be an extremely cumbersome process (any variation would require an amendment or fresh act), and there's no guarantee it'd pass Tory benches packed with people who'd like to "run hot".
> 
> Commentator and lawyer David Allen Green's asked to be kept informed, so at the least, it should be taken seriously.



As noted earlier, having a law degree qualifies you to know that you know fuck all about how the law works in practice, not having one... Just toss a coin.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> In my job, grounds maintenance, we're not having to be that close to each other that much and, perhaps more importantly, we're not interacting with people who are likely to be infected or who are highly vulnerable should they become infected.
> 
> The masks we have are standard dust mask type PPE, and given the apparent shortage of specialist PPE, I think it's better that it's reserved for those of you in frontline medical positions, but thanks for your suggestion.


FRSM are not specialist and we have plenty of those. It's the fp33 that in short supply.

How do you know who is likely to be infected or not? Or who is highly vulnerable? The answer is you dont and for that reason should be treating everyone including yourself as being positive for covid. Unless you have evidence otherwise It's the best way to keep yourself and others safe.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> As noted earlier, having a law degree qualifies you to know that you know fuck all about how the law works in practice, not having one... Just toss a coin.


Oh, I wouldn't be surprised to see a judge spike it all, whatever the law says. Judges are people (mostly). I suspect that the Dred Scott comparison was what made the prorogation case unanimous. But given Lord Sumption's scepticism about the lockdown, could go either way. 

If nothing else, hope this cans Whitty's opposition to the South Korean suppression system once and for all.


----------



## Cid (May 1, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Oh, I wouldn't be surprised to see a judge spike it all, whatever the law says. Judges are people (mostly). I suspect that the Dred Scott comparison was what made the prorogation case unanimous. But given Lord Sumption's scepticism about the lockdown, could go either way.
> 
> If nothing else, hope this cans Whitty's opposition to the South Korean suppression system once and for all.



I'll just say this: generally, if _parliament_ seems to be on board, the courts won't stir up trouble. That is the fundamental underpinning of the UK system. An individual judge's opinion will not necessarily reflect their legal opinion. I might do a bit more reading on it if I have time... But that's how the law works here. Judicial review isn't an easy track at the best of times, and in a situation of national emergency even less so. Like I said, echoing m'colleague Arthur Jackson, it may be more about trying to get disclosure wrt earlier discussions.


----------



## Azrael (May 1, 2020)

He's certainly after disclosure, and if it ends there, could be very useful. Sounds like he may accept the replacement of the "no leaving your home without reasonable excuse" regime with something like the German light-touch lockdown.

If it ends up aiding Hancock in getting his suppression system the support and resources it needs from PHE and advisors, good.


----------



## zahir (May 1, 2020)

Byline Times discussion with Anthony Costello and others.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 2, 2020)

I've not passed posts later that 4pm today but Wilf - how is your mum? She shouldn't be left with a broken hip, let alone in pain, as much as I appreciate the fear care homes must have around getting treatments for residents right now, alongside what sounds like panicked 111 advice, too. I am not a fucking doctor etc, obvs - but love sent, fwiw.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 2, 2020)

One of the things that has really stood out to me, particularly in the BBC's coronavirus coverage, is the phenomenal over-representation of ethnic minorities in the medical professions in the UK. It sometimes seems as if literally the only people saving lives in this country are immigrants (or the children or grandchildren of immigrants). I wonder if it will have any effect on the anti-immigration crowd.


----------



## Chilli.s (May 2, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> One of the things that has really stood out to me, particularly in the BBC's coronavirus coverage, is the phenomenal over-representation of ethnic minorities in the medical professions in the UK. It sometimes seems as if literally the only people saving lives in this country are immigrants (or the children or grandchildren of immigrants). I wonder if it will have any effect on the anti-immigration crowd.


Let's hope so, a proper reality check.


----------



## LDC (May 2, 2020)

Azrael what's your current job and background in this area if you don't mind saying?

Given the certainty of position and massive amounts of knowledge about this subject that you think you have I'd give Downing Street a quick call first thing Monday and tell them you'll have the CMO job. Maybe you could do head of PHE in the evenings too?

Let us know how it goes.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 2, 2020)

Let's hope we never hear the lie that the virus is indiscriminate in its effects again (it got to Boris and Charles!): covid-19-deaths-twice-as-high-in-poorest-areas-in-england-and-wales

Also anybody advocating an early easing of the lock down on the basis that we need to take risks to get the economy going (as the Telegraph does today...sorry no link), should step back from their keyboard, should bite their tongue, should shut the f up and think about who is actually taking the risks.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## LDC (May 2, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Let's hope we never hear the lie that the virus is indiscriminate in its effects again (it got to Boris and Charles!): covid-19-deaths-twice-as-high-in-poorest-areas-in-england-and-wales
> 
> Also anybody advocating an early easing of the lock down on the basis that we need to take risks to get the economy going (as the Telegraph does today...sorry no link), should step back from their keyboard, should bite their tongue, should shut the f up and think about who is actually taking the risks.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice



There was a good bit on the radio about that last night looking at what the factors were for this. and saying it should be looked at and taken into account when thinking of the measures and easing them or not.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> There was a good bit on the radio about that last night looking at what the factors were for this. and saying it should be looked at and taken into account when thinking of the measures and easing them or not.


What were the factors they talked about?


----------



## LDC (May 2, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> What were the factors they talked about?



Key workers being paid less, so they live where it's cheaper. Cheaper areas have denser housing, fewer green spaces, worse public transport so that they're reliable on that as they have a lower level of car ownership, which means need to shop more, which brings them into more contact with other people, and their jobs make contact more likely as well, and they're less able to work from home, etc.

They said health inequalities are known about but the CV rates of death massively exceeds all those previous metrics.

Air pollution, diet, and smoking weren't iirc mentioned surprisingly, it was much more focused on the clearer structural stuff which was good.


----------



## planetgeli (May 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Key workers being paid less, so they live where it's cheaper. Cheaper areas have denser housing, fewer green spaces, worse public transport so that they're reliable on that as they have a lower level of car ownership, which means need to shop more, which brings them into more contact with other people, and their jobs make contact more likely as well, and they're less able to work from home, etc.
> 
> They said health inequalities are known about but the CV rates of death massively exceeds all those previous metrics.
> 
> Air pollution, diet, and smoking weren't iirc mentioned surprisingly, it was much more focused on the clearer structural stuff which was good.



Yep. The phrase 'the virus does discriminate' actually peeves me a bit because it's attributing something to the virus itself when what we are really talking about are societies basic inequalities and injustice.


----------



## bimble (May 2, 2020)

Ffs. This is a fundraiser set up by a multi millionaire living in Monaco who want to sue the uk gov to end lockdown. Some people are just shit.








						Join the Legal Challenge to the UK Govt Lockdown
					

UK Entrepreneur fed up with the increasing Govt control being exerted.




					www.crowdjustice.com


----------



## Supine (May 2, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Yep. The phrase 'the virus does discriminate' actually peeves me a bit because it's attributing something to the virus itself when what we are really talking about are societies basic inequalities and injustice.



 And potentially genetic differences...


----------



## andysays (May 2, 2020)

Supine said:


> And potentially genetic differences...


There may be genetic differences*, but I think the differences in death rates can be explained quite sufficiently without them.

* I haven't seen any evidence for this, though it's obviously early days and such differences may indeed be demonstrated in time


----------



## The39thStep (May 2, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Let's hope we never hear the lie that the virus is indiscriminate in its effects again (it got to Boris and Charles!): covid-19-deaths-twice-as-high-in-poorest-areas-in-england-and-wales
> 
> Also anybody advocating an early easing of the lock down on the basis that we need to take risks to get the economy going (as the Telegraph does today...sorry no link), should step back from their keyboard, should bite their tongue, should shut the f up and think about who is actually taking the risks.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice


Deprivation ratings not in the formula for the Govts support to Councils apparantly


----------



## two sheds (May 2, 2020)

I think they are, just that they're rated negatively because deprived areas mainly Labour councils who have been starved of funds.


----------



## teqniq (May 2, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ffs. This is a fundraiser set up by a multi millionaire living in Monaco who want to sue the uk gov to end lockdown. Some people are just shit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


He can fuck right off.


----------



## teqniq (May 2, 2020)




----------



## elbows (May 2, 2020)

teqniq said:


> He can fuck right off.



He's got one of those wikipedia entries that sounds like he wrote it himself.





__





						Simon Dolan - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## elbows (May 2, 2020)

I wasl all set to rant about the misleading version of history in this article about testing:



> In the early days of the pandemic, the government was quick to boast about its testing capacity. The ability to carry out 1,000 tests was quickly increased to 3,000.
> 
> But as the outbreak spread, it quickly became clear the testing system was going to be overwhelmed.



But then it actually got somewhat closer to the truth, so I wont rant:



> Part of the problem was that the official approach until the middle of March was to let the virus spread in a controlled way.
> 
> That meant there was little incentive to expand testing much beyond hospital patients.
> 
> Containing local outbreaks, the reasoning behind the World Health Organization's "test, test, test" mantra, did not seem a top priority.



It wasnt even a low priority.









						Coronavirus: Why biggest challenge is yet to come on testing
					

The 100,000-a-day target may have been met, but there are still lots of questions about the strategy.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Raheem (May 2, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ffs. This is a fundraiser set up by a multi millionaire living in Monaco who want to sue the uk gov to end lockdown. Some people are just shit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Tbf, it's a pretty artful con. Rope in an actual lawyer (if you even need to) and you can knock up 30k worth of work in an afternoon. Plus the marks are all cunts, so no harm done.


----------



## teqniq (May 2, 2020)

A perspective from a temporarily grounded (I imagine she hopes) traveller.









						The Covid-19 Diaries — Episode #1: Roadside Mum
					

This post is a modest attempt to understand what it means to live through something like this, and to make sense of how it affects us as human beings.




					msunexpected.com


----------



## teqniq (May 2, 2020)

If true this is a fucking disgrace:





__





						The Government is Giving Away YOUR Money to the Mail and the Sun – Byline Times
					

The stench of corruption could hardly be stronger, says Brian Cathcart, on the bung Boris Johnson's Government is giving to his employers in the British press.




					bylinetimes.com


----------



## weltweit (May 2, 2020)

from 02/05/2020 Thousands signal interest in Covid-19 plasma trial


> More than 6,500 people have signed up for a trial to see if blood plasma from Covid-19 survivors can treat hospital patients who are ill with the virus.
> 
> It is hoped transfusing seriously ill patients with so-called convalescent blood plasma will give their struggling immune systems a helping hand.





> The plasma, the liquid portion of the blood, contains coronavirus antibodies.
> 
> Antibodies are proteins made by the immune system which can target the virus and neutralise it.
> 
> They build up over about a month after contracting Covid-19.





> Last week, NHS Blood and Transplant began collecting blood from survivors. So far in England 148 people have donated their plasma.


----------



## weltweit (May 2, 2020)

So it wasn't 120,000 tests done Thursday, it was about 80,000 tests done and about 40,000 sent out to be returned and completed later. Hancock is a cock, why am I not surprised?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 2, 2020)

teqniq said:


> If true this is a fucking disgrace:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not sure why it's a disgrace, the government often spends money on advertising campaigns across all media platforms, as they are with C-19 information, in most newspapers, on most radio stations & TV channels, and also online.


----------



## elbows (May 2, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Looking at all those graphs and numbers, I can't see any peak, all I see is more and more.



The peak is really quite clear, especially in hospital admission and death data. And broader ONS data hasnt contradicted it, although I will save talking further about that until the next ONS report on Tuesday. The peak was also long enough ago that we can have increased confidence in it being true rather than a data anomaly.

eg stuff quite well presented on this site, which is a few days out of date now but still useful:









						COVID-19: Death Data in England – Update 30th April - The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine
					

Jason Oke, Carl Heneghan NHS England releases data at 2 pm each day and reports daily count up to the




					www.cebm.net


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 2, 2020)

Interesting map from the ONS, you can select your local authority area, and see the total number of deaths occurring between 1 March and 17 April 2020, and how many C-19 deaths.





__





						Multiple variables map
					





					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (May 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Interesting map from the ONS, you can select your local authority area, and see the total number of deaths occurring between 1 March and 17 April 2020, and how many C-19 deaths.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



There is another visualisation from the same set that goes even more local!

https://ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsinvolvingcovid19bylocalareasanddeprivation/deathsoccurringbetween1marchand17april#middle-layer-super-output-areas…


----------



## teqniq (May 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not sure why it's a disgrace, the government often spends money on advertising campaigns across all media platforms, as they are with C-19 information, in most newspapers, on most radio stations & TV channels, and also online.


It would appear from the article that most of the money is going to big outfits mostly symapthetic to the tories, whilst smaller outlets are missing out.


----------



## Raheem (May 2, 2020)

teqniq said:


> If true this is a fucking disgrace:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If the Gov is favouring the Sun and Mail over other papers, as the headline suggests, then yes. But I can't see anything in the linked article to support that.


----------



## platinumsage (May 2, 2020)

The "Byline Times" comes out with some total bollocks at times, including complete fabricated bullshit with an agenda. Not saying this is that, maybe they happen to have some good stuff too. I gather they let whoever write whatever they want so a big sackfull of salt should be kept on hand.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 2, 2020)

teqniq said:


> It would appear from the article that most of the money is going to big outfits mostly symapthetic to the tories, whilst smaller outlets are missing out.



The link you posted came across as very bias TBH, the government is placing this advertising all over the place, some very small publications maybe missing out, if they are not represented by a national sales house, as it would be a logistical nightmare booking with small individual titles directly.

For example, More Radio in Sussex is own by a very small independent company, one of the few left in the radio sector, but they are carrying these government commercials, because they are represented by 'First Radio Sales' for national advertisers, who can book around 100 small stations with one order & one invoice.


----------



## teqniq (May 2, 2020)

Fair enough.


----------



## zahir (May 2, 2020)

I thought the video discussion I posted above from Byline Times was worth watching for the views from the experts but I wasn’t sure the journalists inspired much confidence.


----------



## SpineyNorman (May 2, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Let's hope we never hear the lie that the virus is indiscriminate in its effects again (it got to Boris and Charles!): covid-19-deaths-twice-as-high-in-poorest-areas-in-england-and-wales
> 
> Also anybody advocating an early easing of the lock down on the basis that we need to take risks to get the economy going (as the Telegraph does today...sorry no link), should step back from their keyboard, should bite their tongue, should shut the f up and think about who is actually taking the risks.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice


Nothing to add here, I'm just quoting this post because it deserves repeating.


----------



## SpineyNorman (May 2, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ffs. This is a fundraiser set up by a multi millionaire living in Monaco who want to sue the uk gov to end lockdown. Some people are just shit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Crucifixion is too good for some people


----------



## platinumsage (May 2, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ffs. This is a fundraiser set up by a multi millionaire living in Monaco who want to sue the uk gov to end lockdown. Some people are just shit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sounds like a freeman of the land type: “...contravention of basic Human Rights offered under English Law, that of the right to enjoy your property peacefully.” The capital letters are a big red flag.


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (May 2, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Sure I've seen something that says aspirin can increase viral shedding and make you more contagious. Don't give medical advice unless you're qualified ffs


In addition, Aspirin is a VERY bad idea for anyone with chronic gastric issues like GERD (which is quite a large percentage of the UK population, largely due to diet - though most do not even recognise they have the issue, hence the mass market for antacids, the calcium based ones of which have their own knock on effects, and the lansaprazole based ones heavily suspected of having carcinogenic properties if consumed for a prolonged period)☹️


----------



## frogwoman (May 2, 2020)

Covid also causes gastric issues in some patients.


----------



## two sheds (May 2, 2020)

Neighbour had knee operation and took aspirin and (I think) anti-inflammatories as part of healing. He ended up in hospital with severe internal bleeding. Was fucking lucky not to get coronavirus when he was in there tbh.





__





						Gastrointestinal ulcers, role of aspirin, and clinical outcomes: pathobiology, diagnosis, and treatment
					





					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
				






> Peptic *ulcer* disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the US with more than six million diagnoses annually. *Ulcers* are reported as the most common cause of hospitalization for upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding and are often a clinical concern due to the widespread use of *aspirin* and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, both of which have been shown to induce *ulcer* formation.


----------



## gentlegreen (May 2, 2020)

I actually bought some aspirin recently - I felt the need to explain to the sales person in the chemist that it was for stripping the enamel off of wire when soldering ...


----------



## planetgeli (May 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Also, you appear to be named after a burial mound, which may not be the best starting point for offering medical advice.


----------



## krtek a houby (May 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I actually bought some aspirin recently - I felt the need to explain to the sales person in the chemist that it was for stripping the enamel off of wire when soldering ...



Christ that's grim. I take the stuff along with statins for the ticker.


----------



## gentlegreen (May 2, 2020)

krtek a houby said:


> Christ that's grim. I take the stuff along with statins for the ticker.


To be fair, a lot of mundane things will change their nature when jabbed with a 370 degrees C soldering iron bit


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> To be fair, a lot of mundane things will change their nature when jabbed with a 370 degrees C soldering iron bit



Great for stirring your tea when it's gone cold though


----------



## magneze (May 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> To be fair, a lot of mundane things will change their nature when jabbed with a 370 degrees C soldering iron bit


If only we could do that sort of internally to the coronavirus. That seems like something we should investigate?


----------



## gentlegreen (May 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I don't think gentlegreen was actually arguing to be fair  .


Indeed, I was being Roger Irrelevant as per usual - I've been somewhat starved of conversation of late ...


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (May 2, 2020)

Taphoi said:


> These dots are very close together and I will leave people to decide whether they wish to join them.


Ah, "just join the dots". The basis of all top notch research and scientific endeavour. Gotcha.

Now fuck off.


----------



## two sheds (May 2, 2020)

Tangentianally relevant as always though  . Talking of which I read "asymptomatic infection" as "asymptotic infection" for ages and couldn't quite work out what the fuck it meant.


----------



## tony.c (May 2, 2020)

20 twats hold 'hug-in' to protest against lockdown outside Scotland Yard. One arrested.








						Coronavirus lockdown protesters defy rules with group hug outside Scotland Yard
					

A group of around 20 people have gathered outside Scotland Yard - the Metropolitan Police's headquarters in central London - to protest against the lockdown, which is designed to stop the spread of the infectious disease




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Lurdan (May 2, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> and the lansaprazole based ones heavily suspected of having carcinogenic properties if consumed for a prolonged period)☹


Well indeed, but as someone who takes the very similarly spelt lansoprazole because I have developed Barrett's esophagus, a condition which also carries a small increased risk of developing cancer, I'm not sure I find it all that helpful to respond to Taphoi's unwanted medico-jibber-jabber factoid bollocks with other uncontextualised statements.

Fuck off Taphoi you useless piece of crap should be quite good enough.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 2, 2020)

I've removed a whole load of unproven "medical advice" and posts quoting it. This isn't the covid treatment speculation thread. We don't have one of those.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 2, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Covid also causes gastric issues in some patients.


it's causing gastric issues with me and i don't even have it!


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 2, 2020)

Have we had this one yet? A bunch of mums in Basingstoke occupying a kids playground on the basis that the covid-19 death rate has been 'exemplified' to further the sinister agenda of parties unknown. Precisely which data they're basing their allegations of exemplification on, which analytical methods they have used and what they expect Basingstoke town council to do about it remains unclear.









						Mums occupy children's playground in protest against lockdown
					

'Why aren't these people being arrested?'




					metro.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 2, 2020)

tony.c said:


> 20 twats hold 'hug-in' to protest against lockdown outside Scotland Yard. One arrested.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fucking twats.   

But, at least they weren't armed, unlike across the pond.


----------



## editor (May 2, 2020)

Fuckwit blend


----------



## editor (May 2, 2020)

We've got a full house. Anti vaxx and 5G nutjobs!




















						Coronavirus lockdown protesters defy rules with group hug outside Scotland Yard
					

A group of around 20 people have gathered outside Scotland Yard - the Metropolitan Police's headquarters in central London - to protest against the lockdown, which is designed to stop the spread of the infectious disease




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (May 2, 2020)

It’s like they’ve taken their brains and distilled them down to the very essence of stupid.


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (May 2, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> Well indeed, but as someone who takes the very similarly spelt lansoprazole because I have developed Barrett's esophagus, a condition which also carries a small increased risk of developing cancer, I'm not sure I find it all that helpful to respond to Taphoi's unwanted medico-jibber-jabber factoid bollocks with other uncontextualised statements.
> 
> Fuck off Taphoi you useless piece of crap should be quite good enough.


Indeed, it is partly because the conditions surrounding GERD and Barrett’s themselves can lead to further illness in a non uniform manner that the effect of the medications being prescribed are difficult to isolate. Speaking as someone who was prescribed Lansoprazole long term for GERD, I know how difficult decisions around which medication or therapy to follow are very difficult and dependent upon individual circumstances and reactions. 
And as you say, Taphoi’s confident assertions should be seen in the light of the uncertainties and complicated individual responses to medication that our individual conditions reveal.  
(Have a look at Dr Jonathan Aviv’s Acid Watcher diet if you haven’t already tried it - doesn’t work for everyone, but has certainly helped me)


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (May 2, 2020)

Check your temperature before you go to work? And the suggested reducing social distancing measures smells of another episode of ignoring WHO and global responses in favour of British exceptionalism for economic reasons.....









						UK commuters may be asked to check temperature before travelling
					

Other ideas to ease lockdown reportedly include wearing face masks and a reduction from 2 to 1 metres distancing




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Raheem (May 2, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> Check your temperature before you go to work? And the suggested reducing social distancing measures smells of another episode of ignoring WHO and global responses in favour of British exceptionalism for economic reasons.....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Think one metre is what the WHO recommends. Not sure where 2 metres came from. Flu planning, possibly.


----------



## two sheds (May 2, 2020)

One metre is the measure of being able to take a swing at someone and not be able to reach them. So a good measure.


----------



## teqniq (May 2, 2020)

JC under new management and smearing proffessor John Ashton:









						Jewish Chronicle Back - And Smearing
					

After the Jewish Chronicle  apparently went bust, there was a brief and rather undignified battle for the title’s assets, this being won by ...




					zelo-street.blogspot.com


----------



## Raheem (May 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> One metre is the measure of being able to take a swing at someone and not be able to reach them. So a good measure.


Could make the boxing more interesting.


----------



## weltweit (May 2, 2020)

Plenty of bad news on the jobs front. BA saying 12,000 jobs are threatened and they may not restart operations at Gatwick at all. Ryanair says redundancies are inevitable. Not sure what Virgin Atlantic are saying or Easyjet but Rolls Royce are threatening large redundancies also.


----------



## not-bono-ever (May 2, 2020)

editor said:


> We've got a full house. Anti vaxx and 5G nutjobs!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Aladdin (May 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Maybe in future with the benefit of hindsight we could call it capitalisms last gasp.




Hindsight's 2020 
The Great Realisation


----------



## Mation (May 3, 2020)

Sugar Kane said:


> Hindsight's 2020
> The Great Realisation



I am entirely hung up on the bits that don't scan, but could have 😬😬


----------



## bimble (May 3, 2020)

The incompetence of it is sort of worse than the fact that they’re even trying:


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 3, 2020)

bimble said:


> The incompetence of it is sort of worse than the fact that they’re even trying:




You'd think they'd get someone to write a decent bit of spam at least. Why is "mood" in quote marks, not even inverted commas? Maybe it's deliberately bad, a bit of verisimilitude to help camouflage it within the sea of effluent that is twitter. 

Still though, a 'very difficult emergency' is a pretty annoying redundancy. If it was easy, it wouldn't be an emergency would it?


----------



## Tankus (May 3, 2020)

We should wait at least 3 to 4 weeks before lifting restrictions and see what happens in the making  America Great sacrifice states... 

Otherwise this last month or so will just have been a few extra weeks of life for far too many


----------



## Marty1 (May 3, 2020)

Interesting article showing areas in U.K with no C-19 cases.









						UK coronavirus map shows hundreds of towns and villages which have no deaths
					

Analysis from the Office of National Statistics shows large areas of England and Wales have been spared the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, with most deaths occurring in cities




					www.mirror.co.uk
				




Also mentions the Northeast is an area of high infection, including the area I work - Middlesbrough.



> New research shows that Middlesbrough and Walsall have the highest rates of infection in the country - with Wolverhampton, Gateshead and St Helens also among the places where the disease has spread widely.


----------



## zahir (May 3, 2020)

> “Half of all new infections reported last week were among healthcare workers,” she told the _Observer_. “This has now become the leading edge of the spread of the disease.”











						UK lockdown must not be lifted until Covid-19 transmission is understood, say scientists
					

Studies into spread of the disease will centre on those working in the health and social care sectors as cases continue to rise




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Tankus (May 3, 2020)

There's an interactive version of that map in the fail








						Map reveals location of hundreds of places to avoid a fatality
					

An interactive map using data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has revealed hundreds of towns and villages which have avoided a single Covid-19 fatality during the pandemic.




					www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## zahir (May 3, 2020)

Apologies for the Mail link.


----------



## Part 2 (May 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Plenty of bad news on the jobs front. BA saying 12,000 jobs are threatened and they may not restart operations at Gatwick at all. Ryanair says redundancies are inevitable. Not sure what Virgin Atlantic are saying or Easyjet but Rolls Royce are threatening large redundancies also.



Had a mate call yesterday who's a fireman at Manchester. When lockdown started he said they had 3 months before he might be out of a job but was saved by furlough and a 10% pay cut. He said there's speculation Gatwick could go completely. They've been told Manchester and Heathrow will remain open but others will shut down. Specifically mentioned Liverpool.

e2a: On reflection he's possibly picked out the worst of what they've been told. I think he said the information came via a meeting Manchester chief exec had with govt and reported back to them that they had nothing to worry about in terms of govt support, whereas the smaller airports might.


----------



## zahir (May 3, 2020)

Do you mean some airports could be closed altogether?


----------



## Part 2 (May 3, 2020)

zahir said:


> Do you mean some airports could be closed altogether?



Thats what he was saying yea. I guess it's a worst case scenario.


----------



## Marty1 (May 3, 2020)

On a local level - a new beauty salon near to me, spent months renovating the building it moved into (previously a newsagents) which must have cost a small fortune, opened for maybe less than a month before the lockdown came.  I drive by it every day to and from work, closed up with new fancy signage, windows, front door feeling sorry for the owners who couldn’t have possibly imagined that their venture would be interrupted so badly from the very offset.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 3, 2020)

zahir said:


> Apologies for the Mail link.




My whole life has had the BBC as its everyday soundtrack, in particular Radio 4 (that's what you get for being nearly 58 and growing up in a working class home with ideas above their station...just joking...a bit). Currently I can barely listen to the news. It is so small c conservative, timid, pro the status quo, uncritical and at times downright fawning (this morning's breathless dose of 'near death, new dad Boris is a changed man' was too sickly to stomach). And still the Tories aren't satisfied; it's as if they want complete control even over this...

Louis MacNeice


----------



## teqniq (May 3, 2020)

Nail on the head here:









						NHS doctor: Forget medals and flypasts – what we want is proper pay and PPE
					

All the government’s praise for health ‘heroes’ is a distraction from its abject failure to protect those at the Covid frontline




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 3, 2020)

Tankus said:


> We should wait at least 3 to 4 weeks before lifting restrictions and see what happens in the making  America Great sacrifice states...
> 
> Otherwise this last month or so will just have been a few extra weeks of life for far too many


Ignore America, or most of it. The examples to look at are all around Europe. We need to be studying Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Czechia, etc, and seeing what happens there as they go through their staged lifting. For a comparison with a country that fucked things up in a comparably bad way to the UK, how France manages its easing will be very relevant. 

Most immediate issue at the moment is the ongoing infection rate, due chiefly to infection taking place in the health care system. Yet another ongoing failure here as compared to many other European countries, even those that initially handled things badly. Hopefully the increased testing levels will help there. But 'wait and hope for the best' doesn't work. The UK's history in this pandemic thus far illustrates that well enough. You have to proactively plan and act.


----------



## teqniq (May 3, 2020)

Good interview with a doctor working at the Royal Gwent, Newport:









						Leading Welsh critical care consultant on his fears over lifting lockdown
					

Dr David Hepburn is an intensive care consultant at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport and says a surge in people going out will see us back where we were a month ago




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## kabbes (May 3, 2020)

Part 2 said:


> Thats what he was saying yea. I guess it's a worst case scenario.


Gatwick closing is the exact opposite of a worst case scenario


----------



## kabbes (May 3, 2020)

I have no sympathy at all for big mega-corporations who are crying poverty over a month or two’s lost income.  If they can’t carry enough liquidity to bear a totally foreseeable extreme case scenario, they’ve been imprudently managed to the point of negligence.  Private individuals with few resources are repeatedly lectured on the need to have savings  enough to survive a few months with no income.  Mega-corps are better placed than private individuals to manage this.


----------



## treelover (May 3, 2020)

Tankus said:


> There's an interactive version of that map in the fail
> 
> 
> 
> ...



five deaths near me, think it may be because of the nursing home, hundred metres away.


----------



## 2hats (May 3, 2020)

Tankus said:


> There's an interactive version of that map in the fail
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You can avoid soiling yourself with the Fail by going direct to the map here.


----------



## teuchter (May 3, 2020)

A direct link to that ONS map for those who don't want to go to Daily Mail links





__





						Deaths involving COVID-19 by local area and socioeconomic deprivation - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths and age-standardised mortality rates involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) between 1 March and 17 April 2020 in England and Wales. Figures are provided by age, sex, geographies down to local authority level and deprivation indices.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




Would be really interesting to see a map like this for the whole of Europe.

edit - 2hats beat me to it with a better link


----------



## planetgeli (May 3, 2020)

2hats said:


> You can avoid soiling yourself with the Fail by going direct to the map here.





teuchter said:


> A direct link to that ONS map for those who don't want to go to Daily Mail links
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I think it's worth pointing out to people who may search their own locality with these maps that,

*Points on the map are placed at the centre of the local area they represent and do not show the actual location of deaths. The size of the circle is proportional to the number of deaths*


----------



## teuchter (May 3, 2020)

They've also reallocated a few between neighbouring areas for privacy reasons. So zero might actually be two and vice versa.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 3, 2020)

zahir said:


> UK lockdown must not be lifted until Covid-19 transmission is understood, say scientists
> 
> 
> Studies into spread of the disease will centre on those working in the health and social care sectors as cases continue to rise
> ...


My department-post op recovery begins to go back to normal tomorrow.....therefore I'm expecting the numbers of people becoming infected with covid to rise in the next few weeks. It's too soon.


----------



## two sheds (May 3, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> My department-post op recovery begins to go back to normal tomorrow.....therefore I'm expecting the numbers of people becoming infected with covid to rise in the next few weeks. It's too soon.



Do you have proper ppe?


----------



## kalidarkone (May 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Do you have proper ppe?


Well yes as far as the PHE and trust are concerned however afaic its bullshit. If we had enough we would all be wearing gowns and respirator masks and hospital scrubs and we would all be treating EVERYONE as covid positive. What we have are useless flimsy aprons and FRSM and gloves. The ppe for suspected and positive patients is fp33 masks and gowns......but only when performing an aerosol generating procedure ( extubation, suction or if on high flow 02) if those are not happening then a FRSM (surgical mask) is seen as fine. Although coughing and puking are aerosol generating actions.....and actually I would argue that atm patients need to be protected from staff that may be positive but asymptomatic.

Everyone properly washing their hands would be great. Even now not everyone does.....in a hospital...staff are still wearing their uniforms in and home despite it being against hospital policy. Drs are still wondering around clinical areas in their civies.....some theatre staff are still being within a meter of patients without ppe.....

So it's only a matter of time


----------



## teuchter (May 3, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> .staff are still wearing their uniforms in and home despite it being against hospital policy.


Why do you think this is happening?


----------



## kalidarkone (May 3, 2020)

So for anyone going into any healthcare setting to have any procedure please be vigilant about:
 staff wearing standard ppe within a metre or more of you.
 Health/Any staff washing their hands prior to seeing you and immediately afterwards. 
You washing hands, then alcohol gel. 
Wear a FRSM the whole time you are there.

Also I use tissue from the dispensers to press lift buttons, touch door handles, etc and then when I get either to or away from the clinical area I wash my hands, alcohol gel and moisturiser and repeat each time I have to touch something. Until I can get to my home and then always wash hands before leaving the house and when coming home.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 3, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Why do you think this is happening?


Because they are selfish thick cunts who think rules do not apply to them. Everyone has a "special reason"


----------



## teuchter (May 3, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Because they are selfish thick cunts who think rules do not apply to them. Everyone has a "special reason"


Do they get challenged by other staff and/or management about it?


----------



## teqniq (May 3, 2020)

What with the brother of a friend of Cummings being awarded the contract with no tendering process, I think I'll pass on this:









						170 cybersecurity experts warn that British government's contact tracing app could be used to surveil people even after coronavirus has gone
					

Experts warn the app's data processing could create a database that could then be used to de-anonymize users.




					www.businessinsider.nl


----------



## Looby (May 3, 2020)

I noticed quite a few health care workers wearing their uniforms at Sainsburys yesterday including a paramedic. Not all would have been hospital staff I’m guessing but it was a significant number that I noticed, but I was there 2 hours!


----------



## 2hats (May 3, 2020)

teqniq said:


> What with the brother of a friend of Cummings being awarded the contract with no tendering process, I think I'll pass on this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If you follow that article, and then the links to sources, you'll realise that the original author didn't read them too carefully.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 3, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Do they get challenged by other staff and/or management about it?


Yes I've reported people. But the inequality is that if one has a sychophant for a matron then doctors doing this wont get challenged. Luckily I'm super assertive and dont give a fuck who you are.....so ask the docs to wash their hands after they have sneezed over a patients  notes....and wipe around them.......


----------



## 2hats (May 3, 2020)

Some of the doctors I work with have atrocious personal hygiene.


----------



## The39thStep (May 3, 2020)

Provisional SAGE launches









						Coronavirus lockdown: scientists challenge No 10 with rival advice on Covid‑19
					

The government’s former chief scientific adviser is convening a rival panel of experts to offer advice on easing the lockdown. Tomorrow Sir David King will chair the first meeting of the group, which is designed to act as an independent alternative to the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for




					www.thetimes.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (May 3, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Provisional SAGE launches
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> The move comes after weeks of unease about the transparency of Sage decision-making. It has emerged that 16 of the 23 known members of the committee, which meets in secret, are employed by the government.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 3, 2020)

2hats said:


> Some of the doctors I work with have atrocious personal hygiene.


Yeah its beyond belief......its almost as if they do not understand the basic principle of infection control !


----------



## Part 2 (May 3, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Gatwick closing is the exact opposite of a worst case scenario



Aye fair point


----------



## two sheds (May 3, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Gatwick closing is the exact opposite of a worst case scenario



But but but people will have to go all the way to ... Heathrow


----------



## Petcha (May 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> But but but people will have to go all the way to ... Heathrow



There are a shitload of people on low incomes either working at Gatwick or businesses reliant on the existence of Gatwick so that's a bit callous.


----------



## LDC (May 3, 2020)

Petcha said:


> There are a shitload of people on low incomes either working at Gatwick or businesses reliant on the existence of Gatwick so that's a bit callous.



Exactly my thought. People flying from Gatwick are a fraction of the total numbers of people that will be massively affected by this, loads of people that depend on it for employment will be fucked. Yeah, we might want less flying and less carbon emissions but cheering that it's happening this way as any kind of good thing is fucked up I think.


----------



## two sheds (May 3, 2020)

Petcha said:


> There are a shitload of people on low incomes either working at Gatwick or businesses reliant on the existence of Gatwick so that's a bit callous.



Yep agreed.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 3, 2020)

“Employment Figures. Gatwick and businesses within the airport employ roughly *21,000 *people. Of this number, only *2,500* work for Gatwick Airport itself. Gatwick estimates that businesses dependent on the airport employ another 10,000 people. 15 Jul 2015”

That’s a shed load of folks on the sausage roll! And not that many jobs in & around Crawley either.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 3, 2020)

Gatwick is not going to close, it will take a few years to fully recover, but will continue at a reduced operating level in the meantime.


----------



## kabbes (May 3, 2020)

Colour me shocked that the reduction in air travel necessary to prevent climate change and roll back the blight it creates for hundreds of square miles around the airport would lead to loss of employment.  Just like the disappearance of any number of other industries down the years and in the future.  And yet we all seem to do more work than ever.


----------



## Mation (May 3, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Provisional SAGE launches
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A very good idea.

Plus, "Provisional SAGE"


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 3, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Colour me shocked that the reduction in air travel necessary to prevent climate change and roll back the blight it creates for hundreds of square miles around the airport would lead to loss of employment.  Just like the disappearance of any number of other industries down the years and in the future.  And yet we all seem to do more work than ever.



So what are some realistic options for those facing losing their livelihoods? If we don't have some (and by we I mean those of us who are for working class self emancipation and have a bit of a heart) then we (and they) are fucked. 

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## kabbes (May 3, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> So what are some realistic options for those facing losing their livelihoods? If we don't have some (and by we I mean those of us who are for working class self emancipation and have a bit of a heart) then we (and they) are fucked.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice


I know.  I don’t say it because it makes it alright.  The fact is that the forces of history don’t give a fuck whether I cheer them on or boo them.  Gatwick will stay open or close regardless of if I’m happy about it either way.  So it’s irrelevant what I want to happen.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 3, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I know.  I don’t say it because it makes it alright.  The fact is that the forces of history don’t give a fuck whether I cheer them on or boo them.  Gatwick will stay open or close regardless of if I’m happy about it either way.  So it’s irrelevant what I want to happen.



No we are actors if only ever so marginal. If not, then let's just sit around and smear each other with faeces. Come on we are better than this.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## zahir (May 4, 2020)

Devi Sridhar on what ought to happen.









						This is what you should be demanding from your government to contain the virus | Devi Sridhar
					

Four months in, we know what works against coronavirus. These are eight important lessons from east Asia, says Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh




					www.theguardian.com
				





> Knowing how to control the spread of coronavirus is not rocket science. But actually doing it has proved elusive and difficult for many governments across the world. When China first alerted the World Health Organization about a novel coronavirus on 31 December, the countdown began for countries to each prepare. Some, such as South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, were scarred by their recent experiences with two other deadly coronaviruses, Mers and Sars, and so reacted quickly to the coming threat. Others, such as the UK and US, consumed with domestic political issues, watched and waited, anticipating that this new virus would be more similar to a bad flu strain.
> 
> We are now almost four months into this pandemic, and the lessons that can be drawn from east Asian countries on how best to control this coronavirus and keep daily new cases as low as possible are clear. Eight aspects in particular stand out as important for governments to recognise as they navigate difficult choices ahead. They also provide a guide for what the public should be expecting of and demanding from their governments.
> 
> ...


----------



## weltweit (May 4, 2020)

So, Government are trialling their Covid-19 App on the Isle of Wight this week. 

Will they get the 50-60% of the population to sign up? 
There will be a proportion that don't even have smartphones.


----------



## miss direct (May 4, 2020)

Could anybody please update me on public transport options in the UK at the moment? If I were to manage to fly back, how would I get anywhere, or are taxis the only option?


----------



## robsean (May 4, 2020)

There's a reduced level of all public transport.


----------



## zahir (May 4, 2020)

First Provisional SAGE meeting starts at 12.


----------



## Dogsauce (May 4, 2020)

They’ve produced some guidance on office working following lockdown. Part of this recommends against ‘hot desking’ for obvious reasons.

Quite amused by this because my old employer (big engineering consultancy firm) was pushing for this in all offices, whereby employers had a kind of locker/small cube somewhere where they were supposed to keep all their crap, finding an empty desk each morning and having to set everything up. It had some horrible term, ‘agile working’ I think, I guess the idea was to minimise number of desks required. There’s a reason they were known as the ‘sweatshop’ of engineering consultancy, with offices more like a call centre than a design office. Ignores that people like to stick pictures of their ugly kids on their desk, or like me fill the big bottom drawer of the desk with food and clothing to change into on arrival. Hope it puts a spanner in their inhuman ways.


----------



## Supine (May 4, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Could anybody please update me on public transport options in the UK at the moment? If I were to manage to fly back, how would I get anywhere, or are taxis the only option?



All transport is operating but with reduced timetables. It's lovely an empty in my experience. There are no checks but a couple of staff have asked if I'm a key worker. It's not being policed though so you'd be fine.


----------



## frogwoman (May 4, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> They’ve produced some guidance on office working following lockdown. Part of this recommends against ‘hot desking’ for obvious reasons.
> 
> Quite amused by this because my old employer (big engineering consultancy firm) was pushing for this in all offices, whereby employers had a kind of locker/small cube somewhere where they were supposed to keep all their crap, finding an empty desk each morning and having to set everything up. It had some horrible term, ‘agile working’ I think, I guess the idea was to minimise number of desks required. There’s a reason they were known as the ‘sweatshop’ of engineering consultancy, with offices more like a call centre than a design office. Ignores that people like to stick pictures of their ugly kids on their desk, or like me fill the big bottom drawer of the desk with food and clothing to change into on arrival. Hope it puts a spanner in their inhuman ways.



Lol many offices I've worked with have had an obsession about hot desking.


----------



## andysays (May 4, 2020)

zahir said:


> Devi Sridhar on what ought to happen.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


He's right to say it's not rocket science. There's nothing there that hasn't been suggested and discussed here weeks ago.

Unbelievable that government hasn't been able to work it out and start doing what's necessary.


----------



## killer b (May 4, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> They’ve produced some guidance on office working following lockdown. Part of this recommends against ‘hot desking’ for obvious reasons.
> 
> Quite amused by this because my old employer (big engineering consultancy firm) was pushing for this in all offices, whereby employers had a kind of locker/small cube somewhere where they were supposed to keep all their crap, finding an empty desk each morning and having to set everything up. It had some horrible term, ‘agile working’ I think, I guess the idea was to minimise number of desks required. There’s a reason they were known as the ‘sweatshop’ of engineering consultancy, with offices more like a call centre than a design office. Ignores that people like to stick pictures of their ugly kids on their desk, or like me fill the big bottom drawer of the desk with food and clothing to change into on arrival. Hope it puts a spanner in their inhuman ways.


there's two solutions to the 'no hotdesking' advice - increase capacity so all staff have a desk, or decrease staffing numbers until all staff have a desk.


----------



## rutabowa (May 4, 2020)

killer b said:


> there's two solutions to the 'no hotdesking' advice - increase capacity so all staff have a desk, or decrease staffing numbers until all staff have a desk.


Or keep everyone working from home.

I reckon a lot of places will be reconsidering if they really need to rent the offices they currently do.

I hope I can go back and get my shoes at least


----------



## Orang Utan (May 4, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Lol many offices I've worked with have had an obsession about hot desking.


We’re supposed to hot desk, but fuck that. Had to resort to this:


----------



## platinumsage (May 4, 2020)

zahir said:


> First Provisional SAGE meeting starts at 12.




I don't think it's going to have sufficient credibility with the media:









						Not-So-Independent, Activist-Stuffed Shadow SAGE
					

Committee includes Boris haters, 2 Labour Party donors, 2 literal Communists, assorted "anti-Zionists", Corbynistas and conspiracy theorists.




					order-order.com


----------



## Raheem (May 4, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Could anybody please update me on public transport options in the UK at the moment? If I were to manage to fly back, how would I get anywhere, or are taxis the only option?


Buses and trains are running, but often with reduced frequency. Might be difficult in rural areas.

Eta: I see I was a bit late with this, but that will give you a bit of acclimatisation if you are going to be using trans-pennine trains.


----------



## Raheem (May 4, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I don't think it's going to have sufficient credibility with the media:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Crikey! One of them's Greek, even.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 4, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I don't think it's going to have sufficient credibility with the media:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Guido Fawkes isn't going to say anything different, is he?

'promoted Ken Loach films'

By christ, these people should be locked up.

He's a nasty fucking cunt, isn't he, bringing up Shamima Begum as if that had anything to do with it. (Look, she's Muslim is the subtext there.)

ETA:

I wouldn't normally link to the Mail, but I think it's relevant here regarding credibility in the r/w media. The Mail is very much not on board with Fawkes' characterisation of this, using it instead to have a go at the secrecy of the 'real' SAGE.

Former chief scientific adviser sets up rival to Sage


----------



## quimcunx (May 4, 2020)

zahir said:


> First Provisional SAGE meeting starts at 12.




Argh. I can't seem to hide the idiot chat section at the side.

e2a ok I've got it.


----------



## little_legs (May 4, 2020)

rutabowa said:


> Or keep everyone working from home.



This.

There is absolutely no need for the majority of people to physically work at an office every day.

At our weekly Teams meeting today our management have said that all sorts of measures are being put in place for a smooth return to our open plan agile desk office. I told them that I'll return to work when (1) Boris and the entire cabinet can take a train journey with me during the morning rush hour and (2) when they open windows in the office that we are not allowed to open. The manager produced a sheepish laughter and said they'll get back to me. Twat.


----------



## SpineyNorman (May 4, 2020)

Guido was never going to be a fan who ever was on it though was he?


----------



## Azrael (May 4, 2020)

andysays said:


> He's right to say it's not rocket science. There's nothing there that hasn't been suggested and discussed here weeks ago.
> 
> Unbelievable that government hasn't been able to work it out and start doing what's necessary.


Wasn't a case of not working it out: the measures listed are for containment, and Whitehall were following a completely different objective, controlled spread, based on a pandemic plan for flu. What we still don't know is why SAGE made the crucial decision to recommend abandoning the containment of a completely different virus, and worse, a novel virus. 

They're now rushing to jury-right a containment system after the disastrous consequences of that decision.


----------



## Azrael (May 4, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Azrael what's your current job and background in this area if you don't mind saying?
> 
> Given the certainty of position and massive amounts of knowledge about this subject that you think you have I'd give Downing Street a quick call first thing Monday and tell them you'll have the CMO job. Maybe you could do head of PHE in the evenings too?
> 
> Let us know how it goes.


Given the woes of the current CMO, poorly I hope.

I'm heartened that you chose to make it personal, because by flying in two footed while the ball escapes you, you've just told me that the evidence is so against you that you can't even attempt to dragoon it to your cause (whatever that is: the authority fallacy?).


----------



## treelover (May 4, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Guido was never going to be a fan who ever was on it though was he?



order order is quite an influential site with a broad reach across the right.


----------



## teuchter (May 4, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Given the woes of the current CMO, poorly I hope.
> 
> I'm heartened that you chose to make it personal, because by flying in two footed while the ball escapes you, you've just told me that the evidence is so against you that you can't even attempt to dragoon it to your cause (whatever that is: the authority fallacy?).


No, it's not the authority fallacy.

LynnDoyleCooper is not the only one who is finding your blustering certainty, applied with hindsight to a context where evidence relating to the relative merits of different strategies was extremely patchy (and continues even now to be entirely incomplete), a little wearing.

Anyone claiming that a position taken at that point in the process was unequivocally wrong is in effect claiming some kind of superior knowledge, some expertise exceeding that held by the people involved in making the decisions. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder whether that's what you have.


----------



## treelover (May 4, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I don't think it's going to have sufficient credibility with the media:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I do think it needed to be much more broader.


----------



## treelover (May 4, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Guido Fawkes isn't going to say anything different, is he?
> 
> 'promoted Ken Loach films'
> 
> ...





> promoted Ken Loach films



Is that still there, cant see it.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Anyone claiming that a position taken at that point in the process was unequivocally wrong is in effect claiming some kind of superior knowledge, some expertise exceeding that held by the people involved in making the decisions. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder whether that's what you have.


don't post such awful tosh.

often enough people outside the corridors of power, operating without the expertise or knowledge of those in the corridors of power, come to better conclusions than the government.


----------



## Azrael (May 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> No, it's not the authority fallacy.
> 
> LynnDoyleCooper is not the only one who is finding your blustering certainty, applied with hindsight to a context where evidence relating to the relative merits of different strategies was extremely patchy (and continues even now to be entirely incomplete), a little wearing.
> 
> Anyone claiming that a position taken at that point in the process was unequivocally wrong is in effect claiming some kind of superior knowledge, some expertise exceeding that held by the people involved in making the decisions. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder whether that's what you have.


Allowing a deadly virus to spread through the population when you have the means to prevent it is unequivocally wrong. Are you claiming it isn't? If not, we don't even disagree.

As for "hindsight", my position's been unchanged from the moment I first posted on this when the government stopped trying to contain the infection: dropping classic public health measures would cause a disaster. How much I wish I'd been wrong.

If I'd claimed personal authority, all these criticisms would have weight. Instead I've consistently deferred to public health experts and the evidence from Southeast Asian countries. As, belatedly, is the British government in their efforts to cobble together a surveillance and suppression system. Even the advocates of the previous strategy have tacitly admitted it's been a disastrous failure.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> No, it's not the authority fallacy.
> 
> LynnDoyleCooper is not the only one who is finding your blustering certainty, applied with hindsight to a context where evidence relating to the relative merits of different strategies was extremely patchy (and continues even now to be entirely incomplete), a little wearing.
> 
> Anyone claiming that a position taken at that point in the process was unequivocally wrong is in effect claiming some kind of superior knowledge, some expertise exceeding that held by the people involved in making the decisions. So it doesn't seem unreasonable to wonder whether that's what you have.


by 'the people involved in making the decisions' you mean tory ministers.

and we've seen over many years how they manage to take the hard decisions and make the wrong choice every fucking time.


----------



## redsquirrel (May 4, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Guido was never going to be a fan who ever was on it though was he?


Of course Fawkes is a twat but nobody should be mugged that this is some sort of apolitical alternative - King can go fuck himself the twat (although the general idea of alternative SAGEs is good)


----------



## Azrael (May 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> don't post such awful tosh.
> 
> often enough people outside the corridors of power, operating without the expertise or knowledge of those in the corridors of power, come to better conclusions that the government.


Not to mention scores of public health experts outside the corridors of power, who from the moment that "mitigation" was adopted, were screaming that it'd be a disaster to drop containment and allow the virus to spread.

Given what's happened in Europe and America, and the fact that countries are rushing to create exactly the containment policies they advocated (policies that've coincided with vastly lower death tolls and transmission in all nations that've applied them), fair to say they've been vindicated, at a cost none would ever have wanted.


----------



## treelover (May 4, 2020)

Really worried about this, ex Washington Post science writer(now has M.E) is saying its young post covid patients are presenting with PVF, huge reddit on it, the medics really need to get on top of this. It can devastating and anti-anxiety/cbt/anti-depressants! is not the way fwd.


----------



## Azrael (May 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> by 'the people involved in making the decisions' you mean tory ministers.
> 
> and we've seen over many years how they manage to take the hard decisions and make the wrong choice every fucking time.


Including ignoring a report that Britain was dangerously unprepared for a pandemic, and failing to produce a dedicated plan for a coronavirus outbreak. The success of countries that'd experienced SARS and MERS in preparing for a novel coronavirus and then containing SARS-CoV-2 should banish any appeal to "hindsight" to get the government off the hook.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 4, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Including ignoring a report that Britain was dangerously unprepared for a pandemic, and failing to produce a dedicated plan for a coronavirus outbreak. The success of countries that'd experienced SARS and MERS in preparing for a novel coronavirus and then containing SARS-CoV-2 should banish any appeal to "hindsight" to get the government off the hook.


i find it disappointing but not surprising that teuchter thinks tory ministers should be believed, that they have some sort of expertise denied the rest of us.


----------



## LDC (May 4, 2020)

treelover said:


> Really worried about this, ex Washington Post science writer(now has M.E) is saying its young post covid patients are presenting with PVF, huge reddit on it, the medics really need to get on top of this. It can devasating and anti-anxiety/cbt/anti-depressants! is not the way fwd.




It's disingenuous and probably unhelpful to post loads of stuff about ME/CFS and how CV is likely to give people ME/CFS without mentioning the fact that ME/CFS is a highly controversial syndrome in terms of its causes and treatments.

Here the NHS page for it Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME)

Maybe take it to another specific thread if you want to talk about it rather than making this thread about ME/CFS?


----------



## The39thStep (May 4, 2020)

I havent a clue about these models but before anyone starts with 'well its in the Spectator so what do you expect?' is there anyone who can address this article?








						Six questions that Neil Ferguson should be asked | The Spectator
					

It was a tale of two interviews on the Today programme this morning. First up on the show was Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, who has been instrumental in forming the UK government’s response to the coronavirus crisis, and whose virus modelling led to...




					www.spectator.co.uk


----------



## teuchter (May 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> don't post such awful tosh.
> 
> often enough people outside the corridors of power, operating without the expertise or knowledge of those in the corridors of power, come to better conclusions than the government.


Azrael's attacks are specifically on the medical and scientific advisers rather than the government. Pay attention.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 4, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I havent a clue about these models but before anyone starts with 'well its in the Spectator so what do you expect?' is there anyone who can address this article?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


i see the sarah smith of paragraph 2 becomes the mr s of paragraph 4. and paragraph 5.

seems to me that the questions ignore the possibility of the warnings of bird flu etc prompting earlier action both here and in other countries.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Azrael's attacks are specifically on the medical and scientific advisers rather than the government. Pay attention.


i was responding to your post, not to azrael. pay attention yourself.


----------



## treelover (May 4, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's disingenuous and probably unhelpful to post loads of stuff about ME/CFS and how CV is likely to give people ME/CFS without mentioning the fact that ME/CFS is a highly controversial syndrome in terms of its causes and treatments.
> 
> Here the NHS page for it Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME)
> 
> Maybe take it to another specific thread if you want to talk about it rather than making this thread about ME/CFS?



ah, i think you have commented on this before, had it have you?, I have for a long time, anyway leave out the bit about M.E, post covid young people(who have never been seriously ill before)  are manifesting some horrendous symptoms, PVF, and are being treated badly by the NHS(i have mixed feelings when i clap for NHS) and are describing it in some detail on that Reddit and don't need gaslighting, the M,E charities can offer useful advice about PVF at least.


----------



## teuchter (May 4, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Allowing a deadly virus to spread through the population when you have the means to prevent it is unequivocally wrong. Are you claiming it isn't? If not, we don't even disagree.



We disagree. It depends on the cost (I don't mean only financial) of the containment, and it depends how deadly it is. These two things were some of the things unknown at the outset. They are in fact still unknown, although we now know a bit more.


----------



## Azrael (May 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Azrael's attacks are specifically on the medical and scientific advisers rather than the government. Pay attention.


Wrong: I've consistently said that ministers are responsible for the decisions they make, and when the death toll was made clear, had a duty to seek outside advice.

I've certainly said that scientific and medical advisors should be held accountable for bad advice, such as the deputy-CMO's bizarre claim that WHO advice on suppressing the outbreak via contact tracing didn't apply to Britain. Unless you're claiming that her assertion's justified, we don't even disagree on this.


----------



## Supine (May 4, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I havent a clue about these models but before anyone starts with 'well its in the Spectator so what do you expect?' is there anyone who can address this article?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's a bit shit tbh


----------



## teuchter (May 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> i was responding to your post, not to azrael. pay attention yourself.


You were making a banal statement of the obvious: that those in the corridors of power don't necessarily have the best knowledge or expertise, and you were also misrepresenting my criticism of Azreal's position by interpreting it in relation to the actions of politicians rather than advisers, a misrepresentation arising from your lack of attention.


----------



## Azrael (May 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> We disagree. It depends on the cost (I don't mean only financial) of the containment, and it depends how deadly it is. These two things were some of the things unknown at the outset. They are in fact still unknown, although we now know a bit more.


Yet Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, and other countries did know, acted swiftly, and crushed their outbreaks (Singapore is of course having to do it again thanks to failures over congested dorms for migrant workers). There's nothing inherently "deadly" about a surveillance system, travel bans and quarantine of incoming travellers. This is conjuring a dilemma up where none exists.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> You were making a banal statement of the obvious: that those in the corridors of power don't necessarily have the best knowledge or expertise, and you were also misrepresenting my criticism of Azreal's position by interpreting it in relation to the actions of politicians rather than advisers, a misrepresentation arising from your lack of attention.


whoa there. advisors do not make policy decisions. they brief the people involved in taking the decisions: politicians, and in this case tory politicians. so when you say 'the people involved in taking decisions' or some similar formulation it can only mean the actions of politicians.


----------



## 2hats (May 4, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I havent a clue about these models but before anyone starts with 'well its in the Spectator so what do you expect?' is there anyone who can address this article?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A quick glance at it tells me more about the author(s) lack of understanding of the scientific method than it does anything else.


----------



## elbows (May 4, 2020)

Supine said:


> It's a bit shit tbh



Yeah, do they not know what worst-case scenario means? 177 deaths from BSE falls within the 50-50,000 range. People who cant handle ranges and are only comfortable with single numbers that they then demand come true, probably shouldnt be involved with the heavy lifting of critiquing modellers.


----------



## 2hats (May 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah, do they not know what worst-case scenario means? 177 deaths from BSE falls within the 50-50,000 range. *People who cant handle ranges and are only comfortable with single numbers that they then demand come true, probably shouldnt be involved with the heavy lifting of critiquing modellers.*


Or indeed any aspect of science.


----------



## teuchter (May 4, 2020)

Azrael said:


> Wrong: I've consistently said that ministers are responsible for the decisions they make, and when the death toll was made clear, had a duty to seek outside advice.
> 
> I've certainly said that scientific and medical advisors should be held accountable for bad advice, such as the deputy-CMO's bizarre claim that WHO advice on suppressing the outbreak via contact tracing didn't apply to Britain. Unless you're claiming that her assertion's justified, we don't even disagree on this.


There's a consistent theme of criticism of the scientific/medical advisers. Below are just a few examples where you say the medical profession's leaders have flouted the Nuremberg code, enlisted the population in grotesque experiments, said that Whitty is dogmatically attached to unscientific nonsense, described advisors as "the problem not the solution" and more. But all this hyperbolic criticism is aimed at them without full knowledge of what they have actually said in all those sessions which influence government policy. Maybe once all those SAGE minutes come out, we can identify that some of them have been giving shockingly negligent advice, or that they have been pushing some kind of sinister ideological agenda. For now though, I think it's unfair, unless you have some kind of special inside info.



Azrael said:


> This is true 2hats , but given that the regulating bodies of the medical profession have, to date, done nothing to censure its leaders for flouting the Nuremberg Code and enlisting the entire population in a grotesque medical experiment without their consent, any processed concern about "ethics" for a tiny group of consenting volunteers must be the ultimate example of form over substance!
> 
> I of course hope it's unnecessary, but don't want to hear any empty concern from any regulator willing to wave through "herd immunity". If our supposed guardians of medical ethics gave a damn about safeguarding patients, they'd have been screaming blue murder a month ago.





Azrael said:


> As for Whitty, he appears dogmatically opposed to suppressing the virus, and was, according to the _Times_, talking about the unscientific nonsense of "herd immunity" back in January (on the basis of the old flu pandemic plan). It boggles the mind how one of our leading epidemiologists has come to believe this lethal nonsense.
> 
> Whitty isn't, much as he may think he is, running the government. Hancock is now talking about contact tracing and testing and isolating Covid patients, and Johnston's reported to be impressed by Australia's successes. As is Sturgeon in Scotland, who's now under overwhelming political pressure to atone for allowing the Scottish government to be led astray by a dentist and a gynaecologist (seriously).
> 
> Either Whitty gets behind suppressing the virus, or there's going to be moves to replace him with someone who is.





Azrael said:


> Anthony Costello explains the situation well here. Far from being pliant spokespeople shilling unscientific policy invented by "run it hot" gamblers, the medical establishment are the ones in the driving seat, dragging their feet and undermining Hancock's efforts to implement a suppression regime. They invented fake "herd immunity" and they sold it to SPADs and ministers.
> 
> There's been far too much focus on ministers, based on the assumption that they've overruled advisors, and not nearly enough on the power and influence of those advisors. Look how Scotland shifted after her CMO was forced to resign over her roadtrips. The advisors aren't the solution, they're the problem, and they need to go.





Azrael said:


> And we in turn read WHO advice and a century's worth of disease control 101. Like to think it's Urban wot swung it though!
> 
> Scuttlebutt's that Hancock's at war with Whitty over a suppression strategy, and has been from the start (he's the one who first denied that "herd immunity" was government policy after days of Whitty and Vallance flogging it to any hack they could collar). Notable that he hauled Vallance along today, separating the homicidal policy's Mad Men.
> 
> ...





Azrael said:


> Pretty much sums it up. The only pandemic plan they had was for influenza, so they stubbornly tried to fit the disease to the plan, and treated Covid-19 like the flu, instead of like what it was, a deadly SARS virus that had to be suppressed as rapidly and aggressively as resources allow.
> 
> I understand why they did it. They must now be held to account for doing it.





Azrael said:


> And, apparently, the WHO, the global epidemiological and public health communities, and the Asian countries that first fought and contained the pandemic.
> 
> I'll disregard this tone policing, but in the infinitesimall unlikely case that Whitty and Vallance were right that SARS-CoV-2 can't be suppressed and must be allowed to move through the population to generate "herd immunity", will offer both an apology.
> 
> Think I'll ever have to offer it?





Azrael said:


> Here's a video Patrick Vallance from 13 March. From four minutes in, he clearly lays out that the British government will make no attempt to stop the virus moving through the population, that "herd immunity" is the goal, and that 60% infection is needed to achieve it. The presenter is visibly horrified at the potential death toll.
> 
> It was a monstrous plan from the start, born of defeatism that ignored clinical data from Asia, and its architects must be held to account for what they've done.





Azrael said:


> And bizarrely, thanks to Hancock's enthusiasm for the South Korean approach, we're relying on this bumptious Toryboy to overcome Whitty and his soul-sucking defeatism. What a world.





Azrael said:


> And to illustrate the point starkly, at the same briefing we have John Newton claiming that testing capacity doesn't make a difference to the necessity of lockdown and Hancock saying it's the route out.
> 
> Dear God, just how have our medical and scientific establishments become so dogmatically opposed not only to contact tracing, but the very concept of containing a communicable disease? They're having to be dragged kicking and screaming towards even a semblance of the South Korean approach.





Azrael said:


> They applied an influenza plan to a coronavirus because it was all they had and got tens of thousands needlessly killed. They're in a world of shit and they know it. (Apart from Whitty, who appears to believe he can transmute SARS-CoV-2 into the flu by sheer force of will, and crush opposition with relentless waves of aggressive fatalism.)





Azrael said:


> I'd have done what the establishments in most European countries did: adapt the plan on the fly, impose swift lockdown, and use the time bought to throw resources into developing a suppression system.
> 
> (Well, within the parameters advisors are operating in: given a free hand, my policy would've been swift travel bans and quarantine to try and keep the virus out as much as possible.)
> 
> Just our luck to get stuck with advisors who retreated into the thickets of denial and insisted that, if you just wished hard enough, this would turn into the flu and all would be well. One of the all time worst examples of fitting the terrain to the map.





Azrael said:


> In more positive news, Scotland at least cleared out their "testing's for losers" CMO, and both they and Wales have helped drag England towards a suppression strategy. Speaking to those in the Westminster quarantine zone, everyone's sick of Whitty and his unrelenting negativity. He's not getting anything close to a free hand.
> 
> We are, achingly slowly, inching towards something resembling an effective suppression system, but dear Lord progress is hard fought.





Azrael said:


> Very.
> 
> Someone was gonna do it. Can't leave the population twisting in the wind with no clear exit strategy and not expect blowback. Exactly why Whitehall needed to transparently announce and build the alternative suppression system from the moment the lockdown was imposed.
> 
> If Whitty attempts the unhinged "leave people languishing indefinitely in a semi-locked down dystopia 'cause South Korea can't be right and this virus must be the flu" plan suggested by his hopeless briefings, we ain't seen nothing yet.


----------



## teuchter (May 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> whoa there. advisors do not make policy decisions. they brief the people involved in taking the decisions: politicians, and in this case tory politicians. so when you say 'the people involved in taking decisions' or some similar formulation it can only mean the actions of politicians.



Of course the advisors are involved in what decisions get made. Otherwise, why are we even talking about them? If they are not involved in the decision making process then they are off the hook.


----------



## Lurdan (May 4, 2020)

Posted at Buzzfeed :

*This Is The Government’s Draft Plan To Ease Coronavirus Lockdown Measures In The Workplace* - Buzzfeed


> Exclusive: BuzzFeed News has obtained all seven of the guidance documents drawn up by ministers that will form the basis for the government’s proposals to get people back to work in the coming weeks.



Alex Wickham who wrote this story has posted copies of some of the documents to a twitter thread - available here as a web page.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Of course the advisors are involved in what decisions get made. Otherwise, why are we even talking about them? If they are not involved in the decision making process then they are off the hook.


Advisors are responsible for their advice. Politicians are responsible for the decisions, though. 

That said, any advisor who feels strongly enough that the wrong decisions are being made has the option to resign their position and go public about what they know. 

In this case, of course, we still have no idea what advice was being given, or accepted or rejected, or why - which is partly the point, why the fuck are the minutes from these meetings not public? This is not a matter of national security, but a matter of public health policy, and the minutes of equivalent meetings in other countries are publicly available to all.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Of course the advisors are involved in what decisions get made. Otherwise, why are we even talking about them? If they are not involved in the decision making process then they are off the hook.


reread my post

advisors advise
politicians decide
which part of this is unclear to you?


----------



## Mattym (May 4, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> We’re supposed to hot desk, but fuck that. Had to resort to this:
> View attachment 210672



Could you imagine if they took that book?


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 4, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> They’ve produced some guidance on office working following lockdown. Part of this recommends against ‘hot desking’ for obvious reasons.
> 
> Quite amused by this because my old employer (big engineering consultancy firm) was pushing for this in all offices, whereby employers had a kind of locker/small cube somewhere where they were supposed to keep all their crap, finding an empty desk each morning and having to set everything up. It had some horrible term, ‘agile working’ I think, I guess the idea was to minimise number of desks required. There’s a reason they were known as the ‘sweatshop’ of engineering consultancy, with offices more like a call centre than a design office. Ignores that people like to stick pictures of their ugly kids on their desk, or like me fill the big bottom drawer of the desk with food and clothing to change into on arrival. Hope it puts a spanner in their inhuman ways.



Mine does the same thing, not sure why as we all sit at same desks anyway.


----------



## Doodler (May 4, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I havent a clue about these models but before anyone starts with 'well its in the Spectator so what do you expect?' is there anyone who can address this article?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The obvious critical approach would be to compare the Ferguson/Imperial College Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) estimate with actual data. The Spectator's questions 1 to 4 look like attempts to distract from this.  A generous description of their approach would be whataboutery, alternatively a smear job.

The Imperial College report (of which Ferguson was co-author) estimated IFR at 1% - see this summary on the Imperial College website dated 11 Feb.

For a summary of IFRs from other places, including New York, Geneva and the Netherlands, see this Bloomberg article from 24 April. The IFRs quoted range from 0.12% to 1.08%. The former is from a study in which John Ioannidis was involved (the same Ioannidis mentioned approvingly in the Spectator piece), the latter is an estimate for New York based on its recent excess deaths compared to an earlier period. The Bloomberg article concludes:



> So the range of IFRs derived from these surveys so far is 0.12% to 1.08%, and the latter result should probably be given much more credence than the former both because of the false-positives issue described above and the seeming flaws in the calculations used to arrive at 0.12%.



Given that British people tend to be somewhere between Europeans and Americans for obesity and other risk factors, a 1% IFR does not seem fantastical.

Q5 revolves around John Ioannidis who seems to have consistently argued for more optimistic outcomes (a recent Wired article describes him as a 'Covid contrarian') and Q6 is about methodology of which I know nothing about.


----------



## Azrael (May 4, 2020)

teuchter No special knowledge is necessary, it was based on public statements, given context by investigative reporting from journalists of diverse backgrounds. You presumably saw the video I posted of Patrick Vallance explicitly outlining a policy that would lead to "herd immunity", and acknowledging its likely death toll?

There exist but two possibilities: either the advisors honestly advocated letting the disease spread; or they advocated suppressing it, were overruled, and then advocated a policy they knew to be wrong instead of resigning and raising the alarm. Both are damning. Neither absolves ministers for their decisions.


----------



## Azrael (May 4, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Advisors are responsible for their advice. Politicians are responsible for the decisions, though.
> 
> That said, any advisor who feels strongly enough that the wrong decisions are being made has the option to resign their position and go public about what they know.
> 
> In this case, of course, we still have no idea what advice was being given, or accepted or rejected, or why - which is partly the point, why the fuck are the minutes from these meetings not public? This is not a matter of national security, but a matter of public health policy, and the minutes of equivalent meetings in other countries are publicly available to all.


I've consistently held open the possibility that advisors did recommend suppression, were overruled, but went along with a policy they knew to be a deadly error. It looks more remote by the day -- all the evidence, from their public statements (particularly Whitty's select committee appearance, where he speculated that 20% of Wuhan's population were infected), to their reliance on the flu plan, to weeks of investigative reporting points in the other direction -- but yes, it's possible. As it'd be if anything even worse to promote a policy you knew to be wrong, it wouldn't absolve anyone. As you say, we shouldn't be left to guess.


----------



## teuchter (May 4, 2020)

Azrael said:


> teuchter No special knowledge is necessary, it was based on public statements, given context by investigative reporting from journalists of diverse backgrounds. You presumably saw the video I posted of Patrick Vallance explicitly outlining a policy that would lead to "herd immunity", and acknowledging its likely death toll?


Yes, I saw it and you misrepresented what he said.


----------



## Azrael (May 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Yes, I saw it and you misrepresented what he said.


How have I "misrepresented" him?


----------



## The39thStep (May 4, 2020)

Doodler said:


> The obvious critical approach would be to compare the Ferguson/Imperial College Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) estimate with actual data. The Spectator's questions 1 to 4 look like attempts to distract from this.  A generous description of their approach would be whataboutery, alternatively a smear job.
> 
> The Imperial College report (of which Ferguson was co-author) estimated IFR at 1% - see this summary on the Imperial College website dated 11 Feb.
> 
> ...


Thanks thats useful.


----------



## Smangus (May 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> reread my post
> 
> advisors advise
> politicians decide
> which part of this is unclear to you?



Starting to sound dangerously like Boris there...


----------



## teuchter (May 4, 2020)

Azrael said:


> How have I "misrepresented" him?


For example you claim "he clearly lays out that the British government will make no attempt to stop the virus moving through the population".

In fact he says that we should "allow enough of those of us who are going to get mild illness....[to get it and gain immunity] to help with the whole population response"

That is not the same thing.

You also claim that he is laying out herd immunity as a goal. Well, it is clear that at that point, it was hoped that it would be a viable strategy, but he doesn't state it as a fixed goal, and he talks a fair bit about what was unknown at the time, for example the number of people who get it asymptomatically. He makes it fairly clear that the approach will depend on things like that. And at the end, he is quite clear that he is prepared to change his advice/opinion as more information becomes known.


----------



## BigTom (May 4, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> So what are some realistic options for those facing losing their livelihoods? If we don't have some (and by we I mean those of us who are for working class self emancipation and have a bit of a heart) then we (and they) are fucked.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice



I think a lot of this hangs on what you see as being realistic. We can probably agree that "one solution - revolution" would not be realistic, but getting a social democratic government in place after this? I don't see that as being out of the question. Rebuild a decent welfare state or get a universal basic income implemented as part of that? UBI is being talked about now more than ever before, but I don't think it'll happen here, but it might happen somewhere else. A better welfare state though, I think if we have a social deomcratic govt, we'll get that.

If that's realistic then we can manage this.
Those jobs won't be lost exactly, but they will move somewhere else. The jobs exist because of the demand for tourism, that demand will still exist though it's going to change. My guess is that there'll be more demand for domestic holidays and holidays in southern Europe. People will probably rather drive than fly or use trains. 
This would mean the jobs will shift from airports to seaports and UK holiday destinations. If there's enough of a shift from international to domestic tourism, that would actually give a net gain in jobs.

That doesn't help people in Crawley obviously, unless somehow it becomes a major tourist destination... but if there's a proper social security system then their basic material needs will be covered and they should be supported alongside this to have opportunities to work or do something socially valuable, or indeed to move to the places that have gained jobs, although a lot of them could probably take the jobs themselves - much of the south coast of England is in a pretty poor state I think, and would stand to gain a lot from the above scenario.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 4, 2020)

Smangus said:


> Starting to sound dangerously like Boris there...


I'm using short words by choice, johnson uses them by necessity


----------



## treelover (May 4, 2020)

BigTom said:


> I think a lot of this hangs on what you see as being realistic. We can probably agree that "one solution - revolution" would not be realistic, but getting a social democratic government in place after this? I don't see that as being out of the question. Rebuild a decent welfare state or get a universal basic income implemented as part of that? UBI is being talked about now more than ever before, but I don't think it'll happen here, but it might happen somewhere else. A better welfare state though, I think if we have a social deomcratic govt, we'll get that.
> 
> If that's realistic then we can manage this.
> Those jobs won't be lost exactly, but they will move somewhere else. The jobs exist because of the demand for tourism, that demand will still exist though it's going to change. My guess is that there'll be more demand for domestic holidays and holidays in southern Europe. People will probably rather drive than fly or use trains.
> ...




lots of tourist jobs will go in some of the poorest places as well around the globe.


----------



## ska invita (May 4, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> So what are some realistic options for those facing losing their livelihoods? If we don't have some (and by we I mean those of us who are for working class self emancipation and have a bit of a heart) then we (and they) are fucked.
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice








						Climate Jobs: Building a workforce for the climate emergency
					

The report Climate Jobs: Building a workforce for the climate emergency was produced by the Campaign against Climate Change trade union group. You can find out more about the work of the trade union group and how you can get involved here. Any trade union members are welcome to attend the online...



					www.campaigncc.org
				



1million climate jobs
reskilling people who lose work in the name of climate change
policy worked on by climate campaigners and trade unions and adopted by Corbyn and included in the last manifesto
Voting public didnt vote for it in sufficient numbers though so we cant have that, but still, we'll be Getting Brexit Done, so there is that to fall back on instead


----------



## belboid (May 4, 2020)

UBI & four day week for all


----------



## SpineyNorman (May 4, 2020)

treelover said:


> order order is quite an influential site with a broad reach across the right.


I doubt its followers are the intended audience for this group though. If everything needs to be guido approved now we're all fucked.


----------



## SpineyNorman (May 4, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Of course Fawkes is a twat but nobody should be mugged that this is some sort of apolitical alternative - King can go fuck himself the twat (although the general idea of alternative SAGEs is good)


Obviously, I don't think an apolitical body is possible or desirable. It ought to be an openly and proudly political body (with a completely different membership and composition) and any effort on that front should be used to expose the right wing/neoliberal biases and assumptions of SAGE.


----------



## elbows (May 4, 2020)

I note from the list of names that there is an entire sub group to look at hospital Covid-19 infections. Except it doesnt use the word nosocomial or mention hospital-acquired, the phrase used is 'hospital onset'. Because its important to get the priorities right eh. Maybe it could be justified as wanting to exclude cases where the source of infection is unclear but symptoms develop in hospital, to which I would ask whether they dont care about hospital-acquired cases as long as the onset of symptoms doesnt happen until after they leave hospital? Alternatively, they just preferred the acronym HOCI to HACI.

(near the bottom of List of participants of SAGE and related sub-groups )


----------



## quimcunx (May 4, 2020)

belboid said:


> UBI & four day week for all



Go for 3 day week.


----------



## eoin_k (May 4, 2020)

...


----------



## belboid (May 4, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Go for 3 day week.


i'm going for a 3 day week and £2k a month UBI.   Gives a little room to compromise


----------



## Mation (May 4, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Click on the draft button and choose 'delete draft'.


I've used this today. Didn't know it was possible before your post. You have saved me endless annoyance. Thank you!


----------



## two sheds (May 4, 2020)

UK government 'using pandemic to transfer NHS duties to private sector'
					

Critics claim Matt Hancock has accelerated dismantling of state healthcare




					www.theguardian.com
				




Now there's a surprise. 

Cunts


----------



## Marty1 (May 4, 2020)

rutabowa said:


> Or keep everyone working from home.
> 
> I reckon a lot of places will be reconsidering if they really need to rent the offices they currently do.
> 
> I hope I can go back and get my shoes at least



Yeah, my gf is loving working from home but her employer seems a bit coy when she asked if she could continue doing so after the lockdown.


----------



## rutabowa (May 4, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Yeah, my gf is loving working from home but her employer seems a bit coy when she asked if she could continue doing so after the lockdown.


They probably don't know themselves.... I was more thinking it would be the employers wanting people to work from home in the future, all that money on office rent must look a bit extravagant atm.


----------



## Mation (May 4, 2020)

two sheds said:


> UK government 'using pandemic to transfer NHS duties to private sector'
> 
> 
> Critics claim Matt Hancock has accelerated dismantling of state healthcare
> ...


There was a blog I came across a couple three years ago, likely linked from here, that had lots of detail about how the NHS was being packaged off.

In particular it had lots about NHS Trusts having to sell land and buildings in order to receive equipment, and how it was all going through a company that had NHS in its name (or something that would make you think it was actually public and NHS, even though it wasn't).

Can anyone remember what I'm on about and, if so, whether it's still going and, further, if it's collating any/all of this kind of shit too?

Someone put loads of effort into providing the kind of elbows- and 2hats-level detailed evidence that's useful for sharing, all in one place (and I lost the link  )


----------



## Mation (May 4, 2020)

It wasn't this site, but this looks interesting...









						Home - NHS for Sale
					

Is privatisation bad for your health?   We are researchers and journalists investigating and collecting the evidence about the impact and scope of NHS privatisation – in the public interest ... Read more




					www.nhscampaign.org
				





> *NHS For Sale?*
> We have launched a website to look at the evidence around the issue of NHS privatisation – * nhsforsale.info*.
> 
> On it there are a range of graphics, articles and reports to help explain what's happening.
> ...


----------



## frogwoman (May 4, 2020)

Woman told she's not allowed her test results 

 is there any truth to this story or is it just a miscommunication or something?


----------



## BigTom (May 5, 2020)

'Time has come' for universal basic income, says Sturgeon
					

Coronavirus prompts Scotland’s first minister to make UBI a policy priority




					www.independent.co.uk
				




Nicola sturgeon pushing for ubi in Scotland.


----------



## LDC (May 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Woman told she's not allowed her test results
> 
> is there any truth to this story or is it just a miscommunication or something?



Not heard that from anywhere else, and surely it'd be massive news if true, and it's from a bit ago too. It sounds like a misunderstanding, or she'd messed up the process in some way. Never heard that key worker/front line worker distinction before either.


----------



## Looby (May 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Woman told she's not allowed her test results
> 
> is there any truth to this story or is it just a miscommunication or something?


From what I’ve heard it’s the opposite so even if your employer requests the test for you, the results will only be given to you. 
Sounds like either she or the person she spoke to have got the wrong end of the stick.

My friend tried to book for our local centre and they had no available appointments. We’re assuming they’ve run out rather than being at capacity as it hasn’t been that busy.


----------



## Boudicca (May 5, 2020)

Looby said:


> From what I’ve heard it’s the opposite so even if your employer requests the test for you, the results will only be given to you.
> Sounds like either she or the person she spoke to have got the wrong end of the stick.
> 
> My friend tried to book for our local centre and they had no available appointments. We’re assuming they’ve run out rather than being at capacity as it hasn’t been that busy.


There's some talk about this on the local Covid FB page.  It sounds like an IT cock up - appointments aren't showing as available but if you just turn up you get a test as there is no-one there.  So worth double checking.


----------



## Looby (May 5, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> There's some talk about this on the local Covid FB page.  It sounds like an IT cock up - appointments aren't showing as available but if you just turn up you get a test as there is no-one there.  So worth double checking.


Oh thanks, I’ll let her know, I mostly avoid local FB groups but are they worth getting on?


----------



## Boudicca (May 5, 2020)

Looby said:


> Oh thanks, I’ll let her know, I mostly avoid local FB groups but are they worth getting on?


As with most FB groups, you have to wade through the endless repetitive questions & pointless posts but there is useful info buried in there too.  









						Covid-19 Community Support Group - Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole
					

Since this group started it has been amazing to see the help and support offered and given through a very stressful time. Well done to everyone involved.  As we move forward, though Covid 19 is a...




					www.facebook.com


----------



## Petcha (May 5, 2020)

Does anyone else see a risk here with the app of idiots reporting fake symptoms on it just for a laugh? A virtual version of coughing in supermarkets just to be a fuckwit?


----------



## Spandex (May 5, 2020)

With all the talk of easing lockdown, I can feel my stress levels rising again. Why would a government that was so incompetent getting us into the lockdown be any less incompetent getting us out?

As usual they're leaving the announcement of (hopefully) clear information to the last minute. It was assumed there'd be an announcement on Thursday when the lockdown was due for review, but it seems that Johnson now has some kind of speech to the nation planned for Sunday. In the meantime there's snippets of info coming out in dribs and dabs, so anything said on Sunday is likely to just be filling in the gaps of what everyone will have already figured out.

The testing program seems to have been driven purely by getting the highest numbers possible, putting quantity over quality, just so that Hancock wasn't embarrassed by missing his self imposed target. The tracking app seems cobbled together and rushed out. Isolating seems to be down to individual good will. The proposals for getting back to work seem to be driven by businesses desire to make money again, putting profit before people. There seems to be total confusion so far over how to safely open the schools again.

Maybe it'll all come together, but I'm worried that the desire to end the lockdown will see us all venturing out and the transmission rate going back up again.

Can anyone reassure me that it'll all be okay?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

As far as I know, thus far, every European country that has started easing has found it to be ok. All of them are easing slowly and have provisions to reverse decisions if infection rates rise, but none has seen it necessary to reverse any decision yet. 

At the very least, the idiots in charge here will be able to learn from the experiences of more competent administrations. Be more of a worry if the UK were one of the first to do it. As it is, we'll be one of the last.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 5, 2020)

Will using this app thing be mandatory? I have many qualms about the government using a private profit-driven company to do this


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Will using this app thing be mandatory? I have many qualms about the government using a private profit-driven company to do this


Don't see how it can be. Having a smartphone isn't mandatory.


----------



## Petcha (May 5, 2020)

It


Orang Utan said:


> Will using this app thing be mandatory? I have many qualms about the government using a private profit-driven company to do this



No, it's optional. And not particularly intrusive I don't think.

They turned down the Google/Apple option and are going it alone.









						NHS rejects Apple-Google coronavirus app plan
					

The UK's contact-tracing app is set to use a "centralised" system that worries privacy experts.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

I'm a bit torn on the app. I want to do it because it's the public-spirited thing to do, but I don't trust them not to use it for other things.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It
> 
> 
> No, it's optional. And not particularly intrusive I don't think.
> ...


It’s not the instrusiveness that concerns me


----------



## Cid (May 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone else see a risk here with the app of idiots reporting fake symptoms on it just for a laugh? A virtual version of coughing in supermarkets just to be a fuckwit?



Only ever likely to be a minority, they’ll probably use some complicated weighting thing to take it into account.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> No, it's optional. And not particularly intrusive I don't think.
> 
> They turned down the Google/Apple option and are going it alone.
> 
> ...



Is it the above that they're doing that pilot with on the Isle of Wight? 
I lot of older people there still use dial phones and drive Morris Minors  .... I don't exaggerate by much!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s not the instrusiveness that concerns me


Yeah, bit of intrusion short-term during an emergency situation is fine, as long as it is time-limited and all the data is then destroyed. It's that second bit I don't trust.


----------



## Petcha (May 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s not the instrusiveness that concerns me



Well it's not a private company doing it. They turned that down. Which personally I think was pretty stupid. Most other governments are going with Apple and Google so ours wont be compatible when/if we travel abroad


----------



## prunus (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, bit of intrusion short-term during an emergency situation is fine, as long as all the data is then destroyed. It's that second bit I don't trust.



What kind of thing are people worried they’ll use it for?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

prunus said:


> What kind of thing are people worried they’ll use it for?


It's detailed information about who you associate with, when and for how long. You don't see a problem with the government gathering that information?


----------



## Cid (May 5, 2020)

It says a lot that I’m less willing to trust the government with my data than sodding apple or google.


----------



## Cid (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's detailed information about who you associate with, when and for how long. You don't see a problem with the government gathering that information?



Depends what they ask for and contract terms. They will absolutely know that abusing that will mean a lot of expensive lawsuits.


----------



## Petcha (May 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> Depends what they ask for and contract terms. They will absolutely know that abusing that will mean a lot of expensive lawsuits.



It only asks for the first part of your postcode. In my case for example SW2. Otherwise it's completely anonymous.


----------



## two sheds (May 5, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Is it the above that they're doing that pilot with on the Isle of Wight?
> I lot of older people there still use dial phones and drive Morris Minors  .... I don't exaggerate by much!



You take that back. I don't live there and I don't drive a Morris Minor 

I did drive one years ago mind.


----------



## two sheds (May 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It only asks for the first part of your postcode. In my case for example SW2. Otherwise it's completely anonymous.



That's useless for tracking though isn't it? Huge areas.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> Depends what they ask for and contract terms. They will absolutely know that abusing that will mean a lot of expensive lawsuits.


tbh it's the latest in a long line of things that have crept in. My phone knows where I am anyway. My bank knows every time I take the tube. Anyone seeking to trace my activities has a wealth of data to use. This takes things up a level, though, in terms of resolution if nothing else.


----------



## Cid (May 5, 2020)

And bear in mind that something that is recommended to the entire country is going to be held to a very high legal standard. You’d need to have ‘this will be used for other stuff’ stuck right next to the ‘ok’ button for it to be valid.


----------



## LDC (May 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Will using this app thing be mandatory? I have many qualms about the government using a private profit-driven company to do this



No. AFAIK it only requires a certain % of the population to use it for it to be effective anyway.


----------



## Petcha (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh it's the latest in a long line of things that have crept in. My phone knows where I am anyway. My bank knows every time I take the tube. Anyone seeking to trace my activities has a wealth of data to use. This takes things up a level, though, in terms of resolution if nothing else.



This is decentralised, limited to your phone - ie, not like the fucking Google tracking thing that lets your other half see how often you pop into the pub for a sneaky pint after work


----------



## BigTom (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh it's the latest in a long line of things that have crept in. My phone knows where I am anyway. My bank knows every time I take the tube. Anyone seeking to trace my activities has a wealth of data to use. This takes things up a level, though, in terms of resolution if nothing else.



The only reason I'm not too bothered about it is because I think that GCHQ/NSA already have access (if/when they want it) to mobile phone location data. Google definitely do (since I'm on Android, Apple will I'm sure if you are on iPhone). I'm not sure this does take things up a level in that regard, unless it opens the info up to more govt. depts, as I doubt police have access to this info at the moment.


----------



## LDC (May 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone else see a risk here with the app of idiots reporting fake symptoms on it just for a laugh? A virtual version of coughing in supermarkets just to be a fuckwit?



Think that's been built in as it's not symptom based but positive test based. And even if people do manage to report things maliciously then it just means that the people they've contacted then self-isolate, so it's not a massive problem in some ways.


----------



## LDC (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's detailed information about who you associate with, when and for how long. You don't see a problem with the government gathering that information?



It apparently doesn't use or save any personal data like name or address.


----------



## Petcha (May 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Think that's been built in as it's not symptom based but positive test based. And even if people do manage to report things maliciously then it just means that the people they've contacted then self-isolate, so it's not a massive problem in some ways.



No, its symptom based. At first anyway. If the person gets the all clear a couple of days later it will alert you but until then you'll have to self isolate. As far as I understand it.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> You take that back. I don't live there and I don't drive a Morris Minor
> 
> I did drive one years ago mind.



festivaldeb's from the Island -- when we used to visit more often, it was noticeable how many 1960s and even 50s cars were driving about, and this was around 2007-2012 etc. ....

IoW seemed a strange place to do a smartphone-based pilot to me, given the demographics. Loads of oldies and retireds!


----------



## LDC (May 5, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> IoW seemed a strange place to do a smartphone-based pilot to me, given the demographics. Loads of oldies and retired!



That's a bonus as it shows if it's workable with a high % not using it. It's also enclosed, a decent sized population, and has good internet access.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's a bonus as it shows if it's workable with a high % not using it. It's also enclosed, a decent sized population, and has good internet access.



Fair dos -- I hadn't thought it through really, and I was going to ask here more sensibly. 
Above was just my instant gut reaction!


----------



## two sheds (May 5, 2020)

Those of us not leaving the house can just enter our landline numbers


----------



## andysays (May 5, 2020)

Spandex said:


> With all the talk of easing lockdown, I can feel my stress levels rising again. Why would a government that was so incompetent getting us into the lockdown be any less incompetent getting us out?
> 
> As usual they're leaving the announcement of (hopefully) clear information to the last minute. It was assumed there'd be an announcement on Thursday when the lockdown was due for review, but it seems that Johnson now has some kind of speech to the nation planned for Sunday. In the meantime there's snippets of info coming out in dribs and dabs, so anything said on Sunday is likely to just be filling in the gaps of what everyone will have already figured out.
> 
> ...


TBH, I think your concerns are entirely justified.


----------



## LDC (May 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> No, its symptom based. At first anyway. If the person gets the all clear a couple of days later it will alert you but until then you'll have to self isolate. As far as I understand it.











						Everything you need to know about the new NHS contact tracing app
					

The app behind the NHS Test and Trace project failed. A second NHS Covid-19 app was released on September 24. Here's how it works




					www.wired.co.uk
				




Yeah, my mistake. Here's a good article about it. Apparently stores no personal data.


----------



## souljacker (May 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> That's useless for tracking though isn't it? Huge areas.



It's not a tracker like GPS. All it does is record nearby bluetooth signals. If I test positive, it uses the records of the nearby bluetooth devices to compile a list of everyone I've been near then messages them. In theory, it's quite anonymous and doesn't really care if you met me in London or the lake district. 

But I'll be waiting for the security bods to rip it apart and check it out before I go anywhere near it.


----------



## maomao (May 5, 2020)

The app is Bluetooth based isn't it? So it works by recording who you've been physically close to. Relies on everyone having Bluetooth turned on all the time.


----------



## LDC (May 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> The app is Bluetooth based isn't it? So it works by recording who you've been physically close to. Relies on everyone having Bluetooth turned on all the time.



That's one of the problems, using Bluetooth and related battery issues. But apparently only requires more than 60% of people to use it. Suspect use will grow after initial concerns. It's likely to be a part of most of our lives in the coming months. If there's a surge in cases over the winter concerns (which I think there will be) concerns over the app will fade too.


----------



## souljacker (May 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> The app is Bluetooth based isn't it? So it works by recording who you've been physically close to. Relies on everyone having Bluetooth turned on all the time.



Yes, but it will use Bluetooth LE which uses lots less power than standard bluetooth. It's not very secure though.


----------



## prunus (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's detailed information about who you associate with, when and for how long. You don't see a problem with the government gathering that information?



I don’t like the idea of it at all, but when I try to examine that reaction for logical reasons the only one I can come up with is they’d lose the data and it would become publically available, which could be bad if I’d been up to something clandestine I didn’t want somebody to know about.

If think about whetherI’m worried that the govt will get all stasi-like, then I rapidly decide that if that’s the route they’re going down the existence or otherwise of this data/app isn’t going to make it more likely (and I don’t think they are going to go stasi-like).

But maybe I’m suffering from a failure of imagination?


----------



## Teaboy (May 5, 2020)

Neither of my (both retired) parents have smart phones.  My g/f's dad (early 60's) doesn't have a smart phone.


----------



## two sheds (May 5, 2020)

I have a smart phone but (nearly) never use it because I don't have mobile reception at home.


----------



## Spandex (May 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> The app is Bluetooth based isn't it? So it works by recording who you've been physically close to. Relies on everyone having Bluetooth turned on all the time.


As far as I've read, if your phone spends 15 minutes within 2 meters of the phone of someone who chooses to tell the app they have symptoms, you will get a message advising you to self-isolate. If that person gets the all clear, you get another message saying you're good.

It doesn't seem completely watertight at tracking transmissions.


----------



## souljacker (May 5, 2020)

prunus said:


> I don’t like the idea of it at all, but when I try to examine that reaction for logical reasons the only one I can come up with is they’d lose the data and it would become publically available, which could be bad if I’d been up to something clandestine I didn’t want somebody to know about.
> 
> If think about whetherI’m worried that the govt will get all stasi-like, then I rapidly decide that if that’s the route they’re going down the existence or otherwise of this data/app isn’t going to make it more likely (and I don’t think they are going to go stasi-like).
> 
> But maybe I’m suffering from a failure of imagination?



Just to reiterate, this doesn't record location data or personal details of who you have been in contact with. It also, obviously, doesn't know about what interaction you have had with the positive person. You could have been stood next to them on the tube or you could have been scoring off them. It won't know. 

Obviously, GCHQ and the NSA already have the location data and who you score off so you are already compromised.


----------



## Petcha (May 5, 2020)

I personally dont give a fuck about what they know about me anyway as as far as I know I'm not a terrorist or a pedo. If they want to sniff my underwear that's fine if it lets me go to the pub any earlier than 2021.


----------



## maomao (May 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I personally dont give a fuck about what they know about me anyway as as far as I know I'm not a terrorist or a pedo.


If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.


----------



## LDC (May 5, 2020)

Don't forget that people with smartphones are humans and also talk to each other!

So if someone gets a notification through the app to self isolate then they are highly likely to tell other people they've been in contact with, whether those other people are using the app or not, so hopefully they'll be people self isolating through being told by secondary normal conversations. In 'meat space' as the geeks say I think.


----------



## two sheds (May 5, 2020)

Anyone make any sense of this? I can't.









						Antibody tests would put up to quarter of those told they were immune at risk of infection, government advisers warn
					

Scientists have warned the government that even highly accurate antibody tests for coronavirus could leave more than a quarter of people who were told they were immune at risk of infection.




					www.independent.co.uk
				





> Scientists have warned the government that even highly accurate antibody tests for coronavirus could leave more than a quarter of people who were told they were immune at risk of infection.
> 
> New documents published today reveal the problem exists even for antibody tests that are 98 per cent accurate. Even if the tests are 99 per cent accurate almost 10 per cent of people who were told they were immune would be put at risk.
> 
> ...



I particularly don't understand the text from "68 people being told they had the virus ..."


----------



## xenon (May 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. AFAIK it only requires a certain % of the population to use it for it to be effective anyway.


Yeah but once you take out.
people who don't have smart phones, children, elderly, technophobes, other reasons;
Morons who seem not to have seen the news for the past 8 weeks and won't even be aware of this;
People with overriding suspicion of it's potential usage down the line;
People who CBA;

That could be quite a gap. I thought I heard a similar app in Singapore had a take up of less than 20%.


----------



## xenon (May 5, 2020)

Amongst other things, absolute transparency regarding the data processing, and storage is necessary to sell this thing to asm many as possible.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Anyone make any sense of this? I can't.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think it's missing that that is out of 1000 people. If 5% have had the virus, if the test was 100% accurate then you'd have 50 people testing positive and 950 testing negative. IN fact the test will give 68 people a positive result. So 18 of those people will have been given the wrong information.


----------



## two sheds (May 5, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I think it's missing that that is out of 1000 people. If 5% have had the virus, if the test was 100% accurate then you'd have 50 people testing positive and 950 testing negative. IN fact the test will give 68 people a positive result. So 18 of those people will have been given the wrong information.



Yes that's good, ta. That gives 1.8% of people the wrong information. I still don't understand the bit earlier though: 

"Even if the tests are 99 per cent accurate almost 10 per cent of people who were told they were immune would be put at risk."


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes that's good, ta. That gives 1.8% of people the wrong information. I still don't understand the bit earlier though:
> 
> "Even if the tests are 99 per cent accurate almost 10 per cent of people who were told they were immune would be put at risk."



It comes about because one section of the population (people who haven't been infected) is, in the assumed scenario, so much higher than the other (people who have been infected). If it's only returning 2% inaccurate returns wrt positive tests that doesn't seem too bad, right? But as it's 2% of a the much larger group the number of innaccurate returns is a much more significant number of the total number of positive returns than 2%.


----------



## LDC (May 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Anyone make any sense of this? I can't.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's a really badly written article. Looks like it was published quickly and I expect it'll get edited soon to make more sense!


----------



## two sheds (May 5, 2020)

Yes fair point I did wonder, and it says it'll be updated soon.


----------



## 2hats (May 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Anyone make any sense of this? I can't.


It might help if you read the original SAGE meeting paper rather than some journalist's half-baked understanding of it.

In particular the explanatory diagrams:


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Anyone make any sense of this? I can't.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No, it is confusing.

The figures at the end only make sense if both specificity and sensitivity are under 100%.

However, the claim from the Swiss company that's made the test is that it has 'at least' 99.8 % specificity and 100% sensitivity. If they're right, then everyone with the antibodies will be correctly identified, while 2 out of 1000 without them will be incorrectly told that they have them.

So addressing that claim instead, if 5 % of the population has the antibodies, then you'll expect 95 negative tests per 100. Out of those 95, 2/1000 will get the wrong result and be told they have the antibodies when they don't. So on average you'll get roughly 94.8 negative tests per 100 instead of 95. Everybody told they're immune will be immune, and only a relative handful will be told they are immune when they are not. Put another way, 50/52 of everyone testing positive would actually be positive. Seems pretty good to me, if the claim is correct.

Roche’s COVID-19 antibody test receives FDA Emergency Use Authorization and is available in markets accepting the CE mark

You might want to check my workings, but I think that's right.  It's actually a lot easier to work out if one of sensitivity or specificity is 100%.


----------



## two sheds (May 5, 2020)

2hats said:


> It might help if you read the original SAGE meeting paper rather than some journalist's half-baked understanding of it.
> 
> In particular the explanatory diagrams:
> View attachment 210866 View attachment 210867



Ta for that. Even that figure of 28% (19/68) error seems artificial though, we're still talking about 1000 people being tested so I don't see why the important figure isn't 19/1000.


----------



## platinumsage (May 5, 2020)

How the app doesn't work unless it's kept open:





__





						UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal
					

Herd immunity all over again




					www.theregister.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (May 5, 2020)

xenon said:


> That could be quite a gap. I thought I heard a similar app in Singapore had a take up of less than 20%.



Yes, that was the case but it was a few weeks ago now and before (or at least around the same time) as Singapore was going into a more widespread lockdown.  The locals may feel a bit different about it now if it is seen as tied into a release from lockdown strategy.



xenon said:


> Amongst other things, absolute transparency regarding the data processing, and storage is necessary to sell this thing to asm many as possible.



Absolutely.  I have some minor concerns about the practicality of it but by far and away my biggest concern is data security both from government misuse but more from hackers.  I just don't have much faith in government IT projects and certainly one that has been rushed like this.  Hopefully it will be a decent and effective tool but I fear the take up might be so low as to render it worthless.


----------



## smokedout (May 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Everything you need to know about the new NHS contact tracing app
> 
> 
> The app behind the NHS Test and Trace project failed. A second NHS Covid-19 app was released on September 24. Here's how it works
> ...



Here's another, apparently it wont work:  UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal



> But there is a problem with the NHS's approach: it probably won't that well work on your phone, and probably won't be terribly accurate at measuring the spread of the virus.
> 
> That's because the proposed system will only work in the way the UK government claims it will if everyone does what it says: a classic failing of the Whitehall mindset that stretches back to the World War One trenches and further back still to the days of Great Houses and Men Who Knew Better.
> 
> ...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Ta for that. Even that figure of 28% (19/68) error seems artificial though, we're still talking about 1000 people being tested so I don't see why the important figure isn't 19/1000.


It means that nearly a third of those told they're immune are not immune. So, knowing that, if you're told you're immune, you have to assume a 2:1 chance that you're actually not. It's told you a lot in terms of changing your knowledge cos it's changed your chances of being immune from 1/20 to 7/10, but you'd need another test to improve that knowledge more.

At the very least, with a test of that level of accuracy, all positive tests would need to be followed up by a second test, which would bring that figure right down and give something more like 99% confidence in the result.


----------



## Petcha (May 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I just don't have much faith in government IT projects and certainly one that has been rushed like this.  Hopefully it will be a decent and effective tool but I fear the take up might be so low as to render it worthless.



Yes, as much as I dislike Apple and Google, presumably they have some fairly good developers working for them. Almost certainly a cut above our government's. In a situation like this it seems bonkers to turn down the offer. I think Germany were going down our route then reversed and going with the actual market leaders in their field.


----------



## two sheds (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It means that nearly a third of those told they're immune are not immune. So, knowing that, if you're told you're immune, you have to assume a 2:1 chance that you're actually not. It's told you a lot in terms of changing your knowledge cos it's changed your chances of being immune from 1/20 to 7/10, but you'd need another test to improve that knowledge more.
> 
> At the very least, with a test of that level of accuracy, all positive tests would need to be followed up by a second test, which would bring that figure right down and give something more like 99% confidence in the result.



Ah ok ta (I think, although it's still a relatively small number given 1000 tested). 

And yes 99% confidence unless the same people give false positives/negatives for some reason.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Ah ok ta (I think, although it's still a relatively small number given 1000 tested).
> 
> And yes 99% confidence unless the same people give false positives/negatives for some reason.


Point is to do with the confidence you yourself can have in the result. There are tests for very rare diseases that, when they come back positive, still actually mean you probably still don't have it. In this instance, a 7/10 chance that you're immune isn't a great number if you're basing life choices around it.

Anyhow, if Roche's claims are correct, it's all rather moot. The test is a lot better than that.


----------



## treelover (May 5, 2020)

> Britain is in a state of emergency. So where are its emergency planners? | David Alexander
> 
> 
> A pandemic has been warned of for years. But the government’s flat-footed response betrays its lack of emergency experts, says academic David Alexander
> ...



Why, oh, why aren't they making more use of regional public health teams, planners, etc.


----------



## treelover (May 5, 2020)

Looby said:


> From what I’ve heard it’s the opposite so even if your employer requests the test for you, the results will only be given to you.
> Sounds like either she or the person she spoke to have got the wrong end of the stick.
> 
> My friend tried to book for our local centre and they had no available appointments. We’re assuming they’ve run out rather than being at capacity as it hasn’t been that busy.




need to book tests for carer, no car, how do I go about doing it?

I am also employing a new carer, however I didn't know she wasn't here in the city, but at her folks in Norwich, she seems to think she has to wait for restrictions to ease, but she is an essential worker, also her main home as a post grad is here as well, can't she just come back when she wants to


----------



## LDC (May 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> need to book tests for carer, no car, how do I go about doing it?
> 
> I am also employing a new carer, however I didn't know she wasn't here in the city, but at her folks in Norwich, she seems to think she has to wait for restrictions to ease, but she is an essential worker, also her main home as a post grad is here as well, can't she just come back when she wants to



They have to book their test online and they can post it out afaik. Look at the gov.uk website, it explains it all.









						Testing for coronavirus (COVID-19)
					

Find out how get a test to check if you have coronavirus (COVID-19), what testing involves and understand your test result.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## treelover (May 5, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> As with most FB groups, you have to wade through the endless repetitive questions & pointless posts but there is useful info buried in there too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I would have been in real difficulty without the mutual aid FB group, managed to help others as well.


----------



## treelover (May 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone else see a risk here with the app of idiots reporting fake symptoms on it just for a laugh? A virtual version of coughing in supermarkets just to be a fuckwit?



absolutely certain of it, but hopefully the mass of data will ameliorate it.


----------



## treelover (May 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They have to book their test online and they can post it out afaik. Look at the gov.uk website, it explains it all.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I thought it was down to the employer in some way, i am confused as it is only 2 people, not like a care home, etc.


----------



## not-bono-ever (May 5, 2020)

Coronavirus: Calls to charity double as children struggle in lockdown with alcoholic parents
					

Sky News has seen emails from children whose parents have relapsed after years of sobriety and report struggling mentally.




					news.sky.com
				




sad news that this is impacting kids


----------



## treelover (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh it's the latest in a long line of things that have crept in. My phone knows where I am anyway. My bank knows every time I take the tube. Anyone seeking to trace my activities has a wealth of data to use. This takes things up a level, though, in terms of resolution if nothing else.



Only if location is switched on?


----------



## treelover (May 5, 2020)

prunus said:


> I don’t like the idea of it at all, but when I try to examine that reaction for logical reasons the only one I can come up with is they’d lose the data and it would become publically available, which could be bad if I’d been up to something clandestine I didn’t want somebody to know about.
> 
> If think about whetherI’m worried that the govt will get all stasi-like, then I rapidly decide that if that’s the route they’re going down the existence or otherwise of this data/app isn’t going to make it more likely (and I don’t think they are going to go stasi-like).
> 
> But maybe I’m suffering from a failure of imagination?



DWP already act like them is some ways.


----------



## Teaboy (May 5, 2020)

smokedout said:


> Here's another, apparently it wont work:  UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal



I know little about how smart phones work but if that is accurate it's certainly a worrying article.  I was wondering more whether enough people would download it to be it viable.  The idea that you need to have the app open and in the forefront and your phone hasn't gone to sleep?  That would be unrealistic to say the least.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

treelover said:


> Only if location is switched on?


It knows where you are to within the nearest few hundred metres if it's switched on.


----------



## elbows (May 5, 2020)

The latest ONS data release continues to show what was expected.



That takes things to 29,710 Covid-19 deaths by week ending 24/4/2020 (when counting deaths by date of death rather than registration). However, if we look at excess deaths between weeks 13 and 17, there were 38,471 more deaths than the 5 year average for those weeks. It isnt possible at this stage for me to make any attempt to discern which of these were missed Covid-19 deaths, as opposed to indirect deaths, but based on history I would expect quite a lot of them to have been Covid-19 related without it getting mentioned on the death certificate. These figures dont include Scotland or Northern Ireland.





__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19), by age, sex and region, in the latest weeks for which data are available.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.


If you've done nothing wrong
You've got nothing to fear
If you've something to hide
You shouldn't even be here

Long live us
The persuaded we
Integral
Collectively
To the whole project
It's brand new
Conceived solely
To protect you

One world
One reason
Unchanging
One season

If you've done nothing wrong
You've got nothing to fear
If you've something to hide
You shouldn't even be here
You've had your chance
Now we've got the mandate
If you've changed your mind
I'm afraid it's too late

We're concerned
You're a threat
You're not integral
To the project

Everyone has
Their own number
In the system that
We operate under
We're moving to
A situation
Where your lives exist as
Information

One world
One life
One chance
One reason
All under
One sky
Unchanging
One season

If you've done nothing wrong
You've got nothing to fear
If you've something to hide
You shouldn't even be here
You've had your chance
Now we've got the mandate
If you've changed your mind
I'm afraid it's too late

We're concerned
You're a threat
You're not integral
To the project


----------



## PD58 (May 5, 2020)

Deleted - moved to world thread


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 5, 2020)

There's now a thread about the NHS app -









						UK coronavirus tracking app - discussion
					

I think this is worth a thread of its own - even more so since The Register published their damning critique  Britain is sleepwalking into another coronavirus disaster by failing to listen to global consensus and expert analysis with the release of the NHS COVID-19 contact-tracking app.   At the...




					www.urban75.net


----------



## blameless77 (May 5, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It only asks for the first part of your postcode. In my case for example SW2. Otherwise it's completely anonymous.




That’s rather naive! There’s no such thing as anonymity when using a device that tracks your exact location via gps. Additi ally, even ‘pseudo-anonymised’ data can be re-engineered if you over lay data sets by postcode.


----------



## elbows (May 5, 2020)

A load of waffle about testing system failures from Harries and Vallance, but at least the obvious reality is present in the BBC analysis, albeit as 'one school of thought':









						Coronavirus: Mass testing earlier 'would have been beneficial'
					

The UK's chief scientist tells MPs mass testing is "part of the system that you need to get right".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> One school of thought is that because the policy at the time was to manage the spread of the virus in the community, widespread testing was not needed to contain outbreaks and suppress the epidemic.


----------



## cybershot (May 5, 2020)

I’m amazed there’s no Dedicated Matt Hancock is a twat thread on here, so this seems the most apt place to post this.


----------



## elbows (May 5, 2020)

I have started wading through the SAGE papers and there is perhaps more in there on some specific issues of interest than I was expecting.

Take for example the crucial period leading up till mid-March when the whole herd immunity thing exploded and u-turns were made. For various reasons it was not previously possible to be completely sure what policies would actually have been implemented under their original plan, or what exactly drove various public statements made by the politicians and medical/scientific authorities before and immediately after the u-turn.

Well, I have some answers. and will probably find some more when I look at further documents later. But for now:

Meeting 12, 3rd March 2020:

Potential impact of behavioural and social interventions on an epidemic of COVID-19 in the UK (4 Martch 2020)

We can see that they did have a look at most of the possible measures in detail, and knew that a combination would be required. A graph that has shapes I broadly recognise from later public Imperial College papers that we got to see from March 16th is present.

But most of the words which are of interest are from a different document from March 4th that was presented in a March 5th meeting. Why am I not surprised that its from the behavioural sub group?

SPI-B insights on combined behavioural and social interventions (4 March 2020)

I cant be quoting the whole thing so some select highlights:



> SPI-B have a consensus view that school closures will be highly disruptive and likely to present an unequal burden to different sections of society. Our understanding of reports from Japan is that there is growing discontent around the policy. Isolation of entire households also poses a substantial, and unequal, burden on those affected.
> Given this, the combination of interventions most likely to be socially acceptable involves isolation of symptomatic cases and isolation of at-risk members of the public. These are also the most closely targeted, and therefore obviously legitimate, strategies.
> Following this, social distancing and prevention of public gathering measures are the next ‘easiest’ to add to the mix.





> School closure in conjunction with isolation of those aged 65+ will reduce the ability of grandparents to engage in childcare. This may be beneficial in terms of morbidity of those aged 65+, but will reduce the ability for parents to work. This may be particularly problematic for lower income families and single parents. Consideration should also be given to the impact on workers for critical national infrastructure.



Now then, get those facepalms ready, here comes the source of the herd immunity public comms disaster:



> SPI-B have divergent opinions on the impact of not applying widescale social isolation at the same time as recommending isolation to at-risk groups. *One view is that explaining that members of the community are building some immunity will make this acceptable*. Another view is that recommending isolation to only one section of society risks causing discontent.



Oops!

They also saw what was coming in terms of the backlash against us not doing the same thing as other countries:



> Expectations of how the Government will react will be set by media reports of public health strategies in other countries. This increases the risk of public concern if interventions that are perceived to be effective are not applied. A clear explanation as to why expected interventions are not being implemented may be necessary. Data from the Department of Health and Social Care weekly polling suggest that this may be particularly true for banning mass gatherings.





> Regardless of the decisions that are made, members of the public will have questions about all strategies listed in the table. Where policies are not applied, Government should be prepared to provide clear, honest advice that takes account of concerns in that area and suggests behaviours that reduce risk. For example, how will the risk to children within schools be managed.



School closures does seem to be the measure they were least keen on, they had some additional points about it at the end:



> The importance of schools during a crisis should not be overlooked. This includes
> o Acting as a source of emotional support for children
> o Providing education (e.g. on hand hygiene) which is conveyed back to families o Provision of social service (e.g. free school meals, monitoring wellbeing)
> o Acting as a point of leadership and communication within communities.



Further clues as to what measures they were hoping to combine and which they werent, may be partially deduced by looking at some of the tables in this document. There was an earlier version of the document that only looked at each measure on its own in the tables, but by this version of 9th March, they also had entries where several measures were combined.

Specifically, they looked at just 'home isation of symptomatic cases' and 'social distancing for those over 65' combined. And the same but with whole household isolation (when someone else in that household has symptoms) also added to those two. Missing from these combinations was closure of schools, stopping large events, and social distancing for those not over 65. There is quite a large degree of consistency between the combinations they mentioned, what was left out, and what was being said publicly in press conferences around the same time (eg 9th & 12th March), where they spent considerable time and energy saying why they didnt think school closures or the cancellation of mass gatherings were the way to go at that point.

Potential impact of behavioural and social interventions on an epidemic of COVID-19 in the UK (9 March 2020)

Next time I post about this, we will be into the period where some of this already blew up in their face and a hasty rethink was underway.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 5, 2020)

cybershot said:


> I’m amazed there’s no Dedicated Matt Hancock is a twat thread on here, so this seems the most apt place to post this.




A proper CUNT moment I have seen over the past week, was Hancock walking past waiting media, on the day that the bullshit over 100,000 tests were supposedly (but very much not) met, with the most disgusting, victorious smile on his face - a punch in the air, iirc - he may as well as have done a little jump in the air while he kicked his feet together, the self-serving dishonest, manipulative prick.

Also, predictably - UK government 'using pandemic to transfer NHS duties to private sector'


----------



## Marty1 (May 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.



Sounds like the slogan for techno-fascism.


cybershot said:


> I’m amazed there’s no Dedicated Matt Hancock is a twat thread on here, so this seems the most apt place to post this.




According to TalkRadio he’s doing a better job than London Mayor Sadiq Khan who is apparently ‘hiding’.


----------



## Fruitloop (May 5, 2020)

Re: the twitter thing above, I really want to know what an asymptotic health worker is. Do they tend towards something without actually ever quite getting there? Kind of like Matt Hancock then I guess.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 5, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> According to TalkRadio he’s doing a better job than London Mayor Sadiq Khan who is apparently ‘hiding’.



Murdoch owned TalkRadio.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 5, 2020)

cybershot said:


> I’m amazed there’s no Dedicated Matt Hancock is a twat thread on here, so this seems the most apt place to post this.



that's an issue which deserves to be resolved


----------



## two sheds (May 5, 2020)

Fruitloop said:


> Re: the twitter thing above, I really want to know what an asymptotic health worker is. Do they tend towards something without actually ever quite getting there? Kind of like Matt Hancock then I guess.



That confused me for a while until I realized that the correct (I think ) word is asymptomatic,.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 5, 2020)

Fucking hell, I do find it interesting seeing how the individual's react during briefings. Today we have the amazing team of Raab, who seems to be trying to stick another line in, 'SAVE THE ECONOMY'...in addition to the usual, along with Prof Mclean, who _always_ passes on questions thrown back to her 'No, I think you've answered that.' (she knows they haven't, obvs) but shot_ right in_ to embrace South Korea as the example, to test and trace, with ease.
I say 'interesting' but obvs mean 'extremely fucking alarming', when they vere so wildly between what's right to do next when they've specifically discounted the importance of such measures previously even allowing for the changing situation.


----------



## SpineyNorman (May 5, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Sounds like the slogan for techno-fascism.
> 
> 
> According to TalkRadio he’s doing a better job than London Mayor Sadiq Khan who is apparently ‘hiding’.



Why the fuck are you still here?


----------



## elbows (May 5, 2020)

The next few SAGE documents contain plenty of signs of u-turn. In a March 12th document, the behavioural sub group were responding to SAGE asking its subgroups to reconsider advice on public gatherings.

SPI-B: Insights on public gatherings (12 March 2020)

They reasserted what they had previously said about expectations of how government would react will be set by media reports of public health strategies in other countries. They provice some updating polling on related matters, and mention that since then public gatherings have been banned to varying degrees in multiple European countries. They also say:



> Acting in a way that does not meet expectations poses a risk that a section of the public will view Government actions as incompetent or not in the public’s best interests. It may also be taken as signifying that the situation is not expected to be severe for the UK. This could have knock-on implications for public attitudes to other recommendations made by Government.



And



> In our report of 25 February on the risk of public disorder, we noted that the risk of public disorder would be higher if there was a perception that the Government’s response was not competent.



They also repeat what they said on 4th of March, including the one view that no doubt lead to the herd immunity public comms disaster, and say that this position has not changed. I may as well quote it again too, since it is such a 'classic'.



> “SPI-B have divergent opinions on the impact of not applying widescale social isolation at the same time as recommending [protective] isolation to at-risk groups. One view is that explaining that healthy members of the community are building some immunity will make this acceptable. Another view is that recommending isolation to only one section of society risks causing discontent.”
> This position has not changed.



Finally they refer to two questions many members of the public have following the previous days COBR decision, one of which is “Why is the Government not recommending specific social distancing measures
when other countries are.” Their response was:



> SPI-B has pointed out repeatedly that trust will be lost in sections of the public if measures witnessed in other countries are not adopted in the UK and that not pursuing such routes needs to be well explained. Communications is not within SPI-B’s remit, but this point bears repeating again.



The other documents arent so quotable and may have been discussed before. But there is a paragraph and a grid in the following document from just before our full 'lockdown' that I should probably highlight. Read the whole thing if you want to understand the context better, I am very much cherry picking.

Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures (22 March 2020)



> Perceived threat: A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened; it could be that they are reassured by the low death rate in their demographic group (8), although levels of concern may be rising (9). Having a good understanding of the risk has been found to be positively associated with adoption of COVID-19 social distancing measures in Hong Kong (10). The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging. To be effective this must also empower people by making clear the actions they can take to reduce the threat.




All documents from this and my previous post on the subject are from Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE): Coronavirus (COVID-19) response


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

Thanks Elbows. 

More about herd management than herd immunity, then.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> The next few SAGE documents contain plenty of signs of u-turn. In a March 12th document, the behavioural sub group were responding to SAGE asking its subgroups to reconsider advice on public gatherings.
> 
> SPI-B: Insights on public gatherings (12 March 2020)
> 
> ...


no one will ever call them appeasers of course. not that anyone would make crass comparisons with the '39-'45 war


----------



## quimcunx (May 5, 2020)

involves isolation of symptomatic cases and isolation of at-risk members of the public

This bit that you quote elbows was never going to work without being backed up with  rigorous testing and tracing as you need to know who is at risk from contact with symptomatic cases. And because without tests people would  not self isolate. Putting it onto individuals to say to their boss I maybe have covid or a cold or something so see ya in a week!  when we have such a suspicious attitude to sick leave.  As the behaviour unit they should know what a shitty attitude we have.  They're not even succeeding at behavioural science let alone any other.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

Behavioural Science 

or BS for short.


----------



## quimcunx (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Behavioural Science
> 
> or BS for short.



It has its place I'm sure. A lot of behavioural scientists were vocal about how inappropriate this all was.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> It has its place I'm sure. A lot of behavioural scientists were vocal about how inappropriate this all was.


Sure. It appears here to be driving policy direction, rather than them saying 'right, this is what needs to be done, Behavioural Scientists, what do you think of these strategies/objectives and how best to implement them'. Not 'well others are doing stuff, it'll make people restless if we don't do it too'.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I know little about how smart phones work but if that is accurate it's certainly a worrying article.  I was wondering more whether enough people would download it to be it viable.  The idea that you need to have the app open and in the forefront and your phone hasn't gone to sleep?  That would be unrealistic to say the least.



Also it's a state-comissioned IT project and so even if they'd had ten years to work on it, it would still be a bag of shit. Also the contract for designing it seems to have been given to mates of Dominic Cummings who if they're anything like Gollum himself will be very good at thinking they're incredibly talented and very bad at everything else.


----------



## quimcunx (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sure. It appears here to be driving policy direction, rather than them saying 'right, this is what needs to be done, Behavioural Scientists, what do you think of these strategies/objectives and how best to implement them'. Not 'well others are doing stuff, it'll make people restless if we don't do it too'.



I said before too that bearing in mind the govt knew this was coming in January,  the alleged resistance to lockdown might be overcome,  from a behavioural pov, by earlier, clearer and stronger messaging to prepare us.  Not um ah thumb twiddling um  wash your hands ooh lockdown! surprise!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I said before too that bearing in mind the govt knew this was coming in January,  the alleged resistance to lockdown might be overcome,  from a behavioural pov, by earlier, clearer and stronger messaging to prepare us.  Not um ah thumb twiddling um  wash your hands ooh lockdown! surprise!


Well exactly. You don't ask the BS people to come up with your plan for you. You come up with your plan then ask them their advice on how to achieve it.


----------



## Ax^ (May 5, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Why the fuck are you still here?



TBF when you hear someone come out with Techno fascism 

it just makes me think they are a Third Position Fucktard


still have no idea why the he is still here


----------



## Cid (May 5, 2020)

We probably could have done with a lot more BS tbh. I mean... Well, let's leave aside BS for the moment. But I've said a few times before that the social science element of managing this crisis, of emphasising severity, propagating information, reinforcing behaviours etc has been profoundly lacking. Which is somewhat ironic given all the initial stuff about the mighty nudge unit.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well exactly. You don't ask the BS people to come up with your plan for you. You come up with your plan then ask them their advice on how to achieve it.



Not if they've already used their behavioural science voodoo to trick you into letting them run the show.

Not that Johnson would have needed much persuading to outsource all the decision making to the first bunch of charlatans to walk into his office.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> We probably could have done with a lot more BS tbh. I mean... Well, let's leave aside BS for the moment. But I've said a few times before that the social science element of managing this crisis, of emphasising severity, propagating information, reinforcing behaviours etc has been profoundly lacking. Which is somewhat ironic given all the initial stuff about the mighty nudge unit.


This is why you can't separate the social science from the politics.

'Minister, we need you to explain what is going on and tell people the truth...'

Instead, it seems to me that they've managed this as if it were literally a war, holding back information, misleading, misdirecting, being as transparent as full-fat milk. Loose talk costs... um, the virus may be listening.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (May 5, 2020)

Boffing boffin Prof Neil Ferguson has resigned after flattening a married lady's curves, and breaking lockdown rules.

Unsalacious BBC link


----------



## little_legs (May 5, 2020)

It's fucking hilarious that the British press seems to have been holding onto the story to release it today, the day when the UK has been declared the champion of the European covid deaths.


----------



## agricola (May 5, 2020)

little_legs said:


> It's fucking hilarious that the British press seems to have been holding onto the story to release it today, the day when the UK has been declared the champion of the European covid deaths.



odd that Michael Gillard's name is on the byline though, unless he was looking into something else


----------



## little_legs (May 5, 2020)

agricola said:


> odd that Michael Gillard's name is on the byline though, unless he was looking into something else


IDGI


----------



## agricola (May 5, 2020)

little_legs said:


> IDGI



of the original story (in the Telegraph)


----------



## little_legs (May 5, 2020)

agricola said:


> of the original story (in the Telegraph)


Is he some kind of notable figure? Spill.


----------



## agricola (May 5, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Is he some kind of notable figure? Spill.



he is a very good investigative journalist who specialises in serious corruption (including police corruption), not so much blokes seeing other blokes wives


----------



## little_legs (May 5, 2020)

agricola said:


> he is a very good investigative journalist who specialises in serious corruption (including police corruption), not so much blokes seeing other blokes wives


Good to know. The only things I found odd for the authors to bring up in the article is that the lady is a left wing campaigner and lives in a £1.9 mln house.


----------



## elbows (May 5, 2020)

Regarding Ferguson, I'm not sure how many facepalms I can handle in one day. Fuckwit on several levels, with an additional one given that he should have been aware that he would be a big target for critics of 'lockdown'. I wonder how many more people in pandemic response positions have behaved like Ferguson and previously Calderwood but havent been exposed.


----------



## bimble (May 5, 2020)

The fesguson fall from grace looks extremely convenient for the ‘it was the scientists fault we just followed the science’ plea from gov. Has all the factors of a perfect enemy of the people fall guy, open marriage leftie hypocrite traitor bingo.


----------



## elbows (May 5, 2020)

bimble said:


> The fesguson fall from grace looks extremely convenient for the ‘it was the scientists fault we just followed the science’ plea from gov. Has all the factors of a perfect enemy of the people fall guy, open marriage leftie hypocrite traitor bingo.



Ferguson cannot perform the proper role of fall guy for the original shit UK strategy, because his team were the ones that produced the paper that provided the 'scientific justification' for plan B, lockdown. They were involved at earlier stages too, but he is unlikely to be the right person to pin the blame for the original crap plan to.


----------



## elbows (May 5, 2020)

I'm glad there have not been too many moments where I had to keep going on about anal swabs (the few times I did were quite enough!) but I note some recent articles discussing the possibilities of sewage-based epidemic surveillance, so this broader angle hasnt entirely gone away!









						Coronavirus: Sewage study could predict second Covid-19 peak
					

Scientists are tracing infections by analysing sewage samples from water treatment works.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## hegley (May 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> I wonder how many more people in pandemic response positions have behaved like Ferguson and previously Calderwood but havent been exposed.


I can't believe that Robert Jenrick doesn't seem to have suffered any consequences for his similar idiocy.


----------



## elbows (May 5, 2020)

hegley said:


> I can't believe that Robert Jenrick doesn't seem to have suffered any consequences for his similar idiocy.



I for one tend to forget he exists!


----------



## tommers (May 5, 2020)

Fucking stupid cos we now have all the usual cunts screaming about how it's obvious that lockdown is not correct.

Almost like it was planned. 

I mean, for example:


----------



## Nine Bob Note (May 5, 2020)

No end of peeps waltzing into my work this week in shorts and flip-flops for crates of beer and BBQ shit, blocking aisles as they chat to their equally non-key worker friends about how great being furloughed on the state's dime is.

Relax the rules? No, fuck off, people are already treating this as an extended summer holiday, whilst the lower classes fill the shelves, clean the floors etc


----------



## Part-timah (May 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Everything you need to know about the new NHS contact tracing app
> 
> 
> The app behind the NHS Test and Trace project failed. A second NHS Covid-19 app was released on September 24. Here's how it works
> ...



The app is a privacy nightmare. Its is thoroughly disingenuous to say it “stores no personal data”. Give a few weeks and researchers will pull the app apart. Good things are unlikely to be said.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> The fesguson fall from grace looks extremely convenient for the ‘it was the scientists fault we just followed the science’ plea from gov. Has all the factors of a perfect enemy of the people fall guy, open marriage leftie hypocrite traitor bingo.



Thank god out fearless leader's record of infection control protocol and marital integrity is above reproach. Otherwise this whole Ferguson thing might look like a conspiracy between the state and the media to throw one guy under the bus to cover for the abject failure of the entire establishment.


----------



## little_legs (May 6, 2020)




----------



## elbows (May 6, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Thank god out fearless leader's record of infection control protocol and marital integrity is above reproach. Otherwise this whole Ferguson thing might look like a conspiracy between the state and the media to throw one guy under the bus to cover for the abject failure of the entire establishment.



Ferguson is not the person to go under that particular bus because he is seen as a major influence for plan B, lockdown, not plan A (Boris the butcher).

Thats why phrases such as 'Prof Ferguson, whose advice to the prime minister led to the UK lockdown' are prominent in BBC coverage of the story. Its those who hate the lockdown and the models that lead to it, or those that hate his own behaviour during lockdown, that would have it in for Ferguson.

No pressures on the government for any of their most obvious failings are relieved at all by what has happened to Ferguson.


----------



## Grace Johnson (May 6, 2020)

two sheds said:


> UK government 'using pandemic to transfer NHS duties to private sector'
> 
> 
> Critics claim Matt Hancock has accelerated dismantling of state healthcare
> ...



Interserve who have been awarded the logistics contracts for the nightingale hospitals have also been trying to recruit volunteer labour. Not openly, but quietly through a small recruitment firm that posts on small local covid help Facebook groups. 

Its sinister as fuck and I can remember being this angry about anything.


----------



## bimble (May 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> Ferguson is not the person to go under that particular bus because he is seen as a major influence for plan B, lockdown, not plan A (Boris the butcher).
> 
> Thats why phrases such as 'Prof Ferguson, whose advice to the prime minister led to the UK lockdown' are prominent in BBC coverage of the story. Its those who hate the lockdown and the models that lead to it, or those that hate his own behaviour during lockdown, that would have it in for Ferguson.
> 
> No pressures on the government for any of their most obvious failings are relieved at all by what has happened to Ferguson.


 Thats true, he’s ‘professor lockdown’, and the anti-lockdown lot are loving this, but at the same time any criticism from him is now entirely muted he’s likely been removed as a voice that anybody will listen to.


----------



## Roadkill (May 6, 2020)

little_legs said:


> It's fucking hilarious that the British press seems to have been holding onto the story to release it today, the day when the UK has been declared the champion of the European covid deaths.



Coupled with this BBC story which could almost have been designed to play down the significance of that fact. 

In principle I'm a big supporter of public service broadcasting, but I cancelled my TV licence two years ago because of the BBC's closeness to the May government and refusal to broadcast anything critical of what it was doing, and the situation has only become worse since.  BBC political news is basically just bluetooth speakers for 10 Downing Street.  Frankly, if the BBC collapsed completely I wouldn't be sorry.


----------



## Doodler (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> The fesguson fall from grace looks extremely convenient for the ‘it was the scientists fault we just followed the science’ plea from gov. Has all the factors of a perfect enemy of the people fall guy, open marriage leftie hypocrite traitor bingo.



Yes it seems he was being built up for the part over the last few days. Great good fortune for his detractors is that he looks like a Viz comic drawing of a male Guardian reader. Some Daily Mail website commenters have picked up on this scrawny-burly political distinction.


----------



## Marty1 (May 6, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> No end of peeps waltzing into my work this week in shorts and flip-flops for crates of beer and BBQ shit, blocking aisles as they chat to their equally non-key worker friends about how great being furloughed on the state's dime is.
> 
> Relax the rules? No, fuck off, people are already treating this as an extended summer holiday, whilst the lower classes fill the shelves, clean the floors etc



Apparently being furloughed could be an ‘addiction’!









						Rishi Sunak to cut coronavirus furlough scheme
					

Rishi Sunak is preparing to “wean” businesses and workers off the government’s furloughing scheme by cutting wage subsidies amid concerns that the nation has become “addicted”.The chancellor will announce plans next week to wind down the scheme from July as part of an attempt to get people back to w




					www.thetimes.co.uk


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

What a dick Ferguson is though mind, tory scum hits aside.


----------



## Dogsauce (May 6, 2020)

If as it seems the attack/exposé of Ferguson has come from the Telegraph then it must somehow be useful to Team Boris for him to be sidelined or discredited. I wonder what the game is?


----------



## kabbes (May 6, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> If as it seems the attack/exposé of Ferguson has come from the Telegraph then it must somehow be useful to Team Boris for him to be sidelined or discredited. I wonder what the game is?


He made Boris look bad in the first place, and that needed to be undermined.


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

He's actually been critical of the government in ways the other high profile science advisors just haven't been. That alone is probably enough.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 6, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> If as it seems the attack/exposé of Ferguson has come from the Telegraph then it must somehow be useful to Team Boris for him to be sidelined or discredited. I wonder what the game is?


Also a good opportunity for a _look over there!_


----------



## quimcunx (May 6, 2020)

What was the rule he broke anyway?


----------



## teuchter (May 6, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Coupled with this BBC story which could almost have been designed to play down the significance of that fact.


What's wrong with that piece?


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What was the rule he broke anyway?


having a visitor over from another household


----------



## LDC (May 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> having a visitor over from another household



More than that I think, he also traveled across the city to visit another household the news have said.

Dickhead thing to do, especially knowing he was in the spotlight and him getting caught was always going to be a big news story and be used to discredit the lockdown.


----------



## Roadkill (May 6, 2020)

teuchter said:


> What's wrong with that piece?



Nothing in itself.  In fact it's quite good, but on a day when other parts of the media are broadcasting the fact that the UK's death toll is now greater than Italy's the BBC's broadcasting something considerably more favourable is mighty convenient, and fits into a much wider and much more worrying pattern of behaviour whereby the BBC acts as No. 10's tame spin machine.


----------



## 2hats (May 6, 2020)

Ferguson (and his various modellers) will still have a huge influence on his peers who will be advising through SPI-M.

For me the 'highlight' of yesterday was when the deputy CSA, on looking at her own graph comparing deaths by country, stumbled before sputtering: "is higher than we would wish, is all I can say".


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 6, 2020)

So only 6,000 deaths in care homes recorded as Covid-19, and a whopping 10,000 more that must be virtually all as a result of Covid-19.


----------



## Teaboy (May 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> View attachment 211008
> 
> So only 6,000 deaths in care homes recorded as Covid-19, and a whopping 10,000 more that must be virtually all as a result of Covid-19.



Yes, either directly or indirectly.  Its the only reasonable assumption to be made.


----------



## treelover (May 6, 2020)

TV news is now saying 2m 'might' be relaxed for cafes, etc, something would have to be done, the economics of 2m S/D's just couldn't work.


----------



## treelover (May 6, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Nothing in itself.  In fact it's quite good, but on a day when other parts of the media are broadcasting the fact that the UK's death toll is now greater than Italy's the BBC's broadcasting something considerably more favourable is mighty convenient, and fits into a much wider and much more worrying pattern of behaviour whereby the BBC acts as No. 10's tame spin machine.



Welcome back Roadkill


----------



## bimble (May 6, 2020)

Is it yesterday the numbers came out saying that this country now has the highest death toll in europe?
You wouldn't know it from looking at these.


----------



## treelover (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> The fesguson fall from grace looks extremely convenient for the ‘it was the scientists fault we just followed the science’ plea from gov. Has all the factors of a perfect enemy of the people fall guy, open marriage leftie hypocrite traitor bingo.



While yes it touches all the bases, difficult for the Telegraph to moralise now given its fervent support for the new father and his family(s)

though they will attempt it of course.


----------



## little_legs (May 6, 2020)

Matt Hancock says he backs any police action against Neil Ferguson

Mission accomplished. Time to resume starving and yelling at people for not taking jobs that don't exist.


----------



## Supine (May 6, 2020)

treelover said:


> TV news is now saying 2m 'might' be relaxed for cafes, etc, something would have to be done, the economics of 2m S/D's just couldn't work.



If be happy with that. Having not had it I’d be reluctant to sit near other people. After I’ve had it I’d really appreciate the freedom to start getting life back to something like normal.


----------



## GarveyLives (May 6, 2020)

Sadly, this just about seems to sum it all up:








​


----------



## treelover (May 6, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> No end of peeps waltzing into my work this week in shorts and flip-flops for crates of beer and BBQ shit, blocking aisles as they chat to their equally non-key worker friends about how great being furloughed on the state's dime is.
> 
> Relax the rules? No, fuck off, people are already treating this as an extended summer holiday, whilst the lower classes fill the shelves, clean the floors etc



Furelough coming to an end, but yes, some people have done ok in this crisis.


----------



## treelover (May 6, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Coupled with this BBC story which could almost have been designed to play down the significance of that fact.
> 
> In principle I'm a big supporter of public service broadcasting, but I cancelled my TV licence two years ago because of the BBC's closeness to the May government and refusal to broadcast anything critical of what it was doing, and the situation has only become worse since.  BBC political news is basically just bluetooth speakers for 10 Downing Street.  Frankly, if the BBC collapsed completely I wouldn't be sorry.



same here, but its reporting and framing of the welfare reforms has been shameful.


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

treelover said:


> yes, some people have done ok in this crisis.


shut up - this is fucking poisonous bullshit.


----------



## andysays (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it yesterday the numbers came out saying that this country now has the highest death toll in europe?
> You wouldn't know it from looking at these.
> 
> View attachment 211045 View attachment 211046


Does anyone other than DM headline writers still use the word tryst, FFS?


----------



## andysays (May 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> shut up - this is fucking poisonous bullshit.


Maybe treelover has put it a little bluntly, but it's undoubtedly true that some have hard it easier, or perhaps less hard, than others. 

And there shouldn't be any surprise or argument about this, or about the fact that there's a class dimension to it.


----------



## Roadkill (May 6, 2020)

treelover said:


> same here, but its reporting and framing of the welfare reforms has been shameful.



Yes, this goes way back beyond covid-19, beyond Brexit and beyond even the Coalition.  Tbh the person I blame more for the sorry state of the BBC than anyone else is Alastair Campbell and what he did to it way back in 2003.


----------



## treelover (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it yesterday the numbers came out saying that this country now has the highest death toll in europe?
> You wouldn't know it from looking at these.
> 
> View attachment 211045 View attachment 211046



Considering the press is meant to be on the point of collapse, they still seem to be remarkably successful in setting the(their?) agenda.


----------



## little_legs (May 6, 2020)

Did I get this right, Johnson says that some changes he plans to announce on Sunday will take effect on Monday?


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

andysays said:


> Maybe treelover has put it a little bluntly, but it's undoubtedly true that some have hard it easier, or perhaps less hard, than others.
> 
> And there shouldn't be any surprise or argument about this, or about the fact that there's a class dimension to it.


It's pretty basic stuff this though, and it shouldn't need explaining - people furloughed on 80% of their normal income facing a very uncertain future are not 'doing well out of this', even if you're doing worse.


----------



## belboid (May 6, 2020)

andysays said:


> Maybe treelover has put it a little bluntly, but it's undoubtedly true that some have hard it easier, or perhaps less hard, than others.
> 
> And there shouldn't be any surprise or argument about this, or about the fact that there's a class dimension to it.


the better off will have had it a bit easier, obvs.  That is quite different to saying 'some people have done okay' and all that that implies.  The only people who have really done okay are the hedge fund managers and mega money parasites who run things like Somerset Capital.   

Anything else is just tuppence blaming tuppence ha'penny


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

I mean, shit - it's possible you might even want to get some beers in to distract yourself  from the looming doom, and affect a brave front when you bump into an acquaintance when you're picking them up. Keep your guns pointing in the right direction ffs.


----------



## maomao (May 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> I mean, shit - it's possible you might even want to get some beers in to distract yourself  from the looming doom, and affect a brave front when you bump into an acquaintance when you're picking them up. Keep your guns pointing in the right direction ffs.


To be fair the original poster who commented is a supermarket worker so probably got one of the shittest deals in the country outside of health and care work. I think when Andy says those who have it easy he's taking about those with cushy secure council jobs and safe outdoor work where they're unlikely to get the virus.


----------



## Petcha (May 6, 2020)

Thank you mr speaker. I would like to take the first twenty seconds of my short allotted time to ask my question during the worst crisis this country has seen since the Second World War to congratulate the prime minister on the birth of his 14th child and express my gratitude for him breathing again and taking his rightful place in the house. Now...


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> To be fair the original poster who commented is a supermarket worker so probably got one of the shittest deals in the country outside of health and care work. I think when Andy says those who have it easy he's taking about those with cushy secure council jobs and safe outdoor work where they're unlikely to get the virus.


lol


----------



## belboid (May 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> To be fair the original poster who commented is a supermarket worker so probably got one of the shittest deals in the country outside of health and care work. I think when Andy says those who have it easy he's taking about those with cushy secure council jobs and safe outdoor work where they're unlikely to get the virus.


'cushy secure council jobs'? are you taking the piss?  what do you think its like trying to work in a job where 40% of your funds have been cut, you're stretched further than you've ever been and _then _ a quarter of your colleagues  cant come in to work. you are technically allowed a test but it is impossible to get one and you are still going out delivering services, and get abused pretty much daily for doing it.  How do you think council employees - most of whom are badly paid - get to work?  And there is no such thing as 'safe outdoor work'.  ffs


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

belboid said:


> 'cushy secure council jobs'? are you taking the piss?  what do you think its like trying to work in a job where 40% of your funds have been cut, you're stretched further than you've ever been and _then _ a quarter of your colleagues  cant come in to work. you are technically allowed a test but it is impossible to get one and you are still going out delivering services, and get abused pretty much daily for doing it.  How do you think council employees - most of whom are badly paid - get to work?  And there is no such thing as 'safe outdoor work'.  ffs


he's not serious dude.


----------



## Roadkill (May 6, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Thank you mr speaker. I would like to take the first twenty seconds of my short allotted time to ask my question during the worst crisis this country has seen since the Second World War to congratulate the prime minister on the birth of his 14th child and express my gratitude for him breathing again and taking his rightful place in the house. Now...


----------



## treelover (May 6, 2020)

I was talking more about the middle class professionals, maybe mortage on the way to be paid off, working from home, etc, big garden, cycling in the countryside every day, i know a few, yes, they have had difficulties, especially if they have kids, but nothing like my neigbour, fine art graduate but cleaning 50 hours a week in a s/market, worried he may get Covid, watching idiots not S/D's, etc. all for bit more than minimum wage.


----------



## maomao (May 6, 2020)

belboid said:


> are you taking the piss?


Yes but you've spoiled it now.


----------



## belboid (May 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> Yes but you've spoiled it now.


sorry


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> Yes but you've spoiled it now.


I dunno, I think it worked out pretty well


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

treelover said:


> I was talking more about the middle class professionals, maybe mortage on the way to be paid off, working from home, etc, big garden, cycling in the countryside every day, i know a few, yes, they have had difficulties, especially if they have kids, but nothing like my neigbour, fine art graduate but cleaning 50 hours a week in a s/market, worried he may get Covid, watching idiots not S/D's, etc. all for bit more than minimum wage.


you were responding to a post complaining about some people on furlough picking up some beers though


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 6, 2020)

treelover said:


> I was talking more about the middle class professionals, maybe mortage on the way to be paid off, working from home, etc, big garden, cycling in the countryside every day, i know a few, yes, they have had difficulties, especially if they have kids, but nothing like my neigbour, fine art graduate but cleaning 50 hours a week in a s/market, worried he may get Covid, watching idiots not S/D's, etc. all for bit more than minimum wage.


people I know who've been furloughed are making the best of it. Why on earth wouldn't they? And yes perhaps having the occasional laugh about the situation. A laugh never without some irony behind it. But a number of them have serious doubts whether they will have any job to go back to, and many are reduced to borrowing from friends or family to pay the rent until the money comes through - self-employed haven't even been able to put their claims in yet. Plenty of low-paid workers are furloughed too, you know. And plenty have fallen through the gaps and don't qualify - newly changed jobs, etc. 

tbh you're not really saying much more than that 'the rich are still rich'.


----------



## magneze (May 6, 2020)

Went out for a lunchtime ride today and the increasing in traffic is quite striking now. Much much busier than last week.


----------



## BigTom (May 6, 2020)

magneze said:


> Went out for a lunchtime ride today and the increasing in traffic is quite striking now. Much much busier than last week.



Not noticing any difference in Birmingham, I work on site in the city centre 3 days/week and there are still no traffic jams, sunday levels of traffic if that, takes me 15 minutes to drive in when I have the van when it'd normally be anything from 30 - 90 minutes depending on traffic.


----------



## Roadkill (May 6, 2020)

magneze said:


> Went out for a lunchtime ride today and the increasing in traffic is quite striking now. Much much busier than last week.



Same round here.  People are still being pretty conscientious about social distancing, but there are more people out in the streets (both in cars and on foot) and the shops are busier.


----------



## Teaboy (May 6, 2020)

I've had colleagues in my team that have been furloughed and in many ways it does work out quite well for them, especially since they have been furloughed on full pay (company topping up the difference).

Its not though, without it's downsides.  Pretty much every single one of them sounds about as miserable as I've known them to be and they are all very keen to get back to work.  They are all shitting it big time as well thinking that being furloughed is some sort of indication as to who is going to be first out the door when the inevitable deep (and quite probably global) recession really kicks in.


----------



## Sue (May 6, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Did I get this right, Johnson says that some changes he plans to announce on Sunday will take effect on Monday?


And he's mentioning it on a Wednesday lunchtime so only this afternoon/tomorrow in the standard working week for people to do anything about it_ even if they knew what those changes were_.


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> They are all shitting it big time as well thinking that being furloughed is some sort of indication as to who is going to be first out the door when the inevitable deep (and quite probably global) recession really kicks in.


they're probably right too tbf.


----------



## Sue (May 6, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I've had colleagues in my team that have been furloughed and in many ways it does work out quite well for them, especially since they have been furloughed on full pay (company topping up the difference).
> 
> Its not though, without it's downsides.  Pretty much every single one of them sounds about as miserable as I've known them to be and they are all very keen to get back to work.  They are all shitting it big time as well thinking that being furloughed is some sort of indication as to who is going to be first out the door when the inevitable deep (and quite probably global) recession really kicks in.


I don't know anyone who's been furloughed that's getting their pay topped up. And most of them are pretty pessimistic about having a job once this is all over as they reckon their companies may never re-open/will get rid off people if they do. So yes, they're trying to make the best of things but in general are worried about money/jobs and are obviously still dealing with being shut up at home, trying to keep their kids occupied and all the rest of it. I don't think any of them are really doing ok or having fun or whatever.   (Not aimed at you Teaboy as I agree with your points, more some of the comments upthread.)


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (May 6, 2020)

BigTom said:


> Not noticing any difference in Birmingham, I work on site in the city centre 3 days/week and there are still no traffic jams, sunday levels of traffic if that, takes me 15 minutes to drive in when I have the van when it'd normally be anything from 30 - 90 minutes depending on traffic.


The centre is still quiet but the roads further out are noticeably busier again.


----------



## souljacker (May 6, 2020)

I've been furloughed, had a small top up to my wage but still had to take payment holidays on the mortgage to make sure I can still feed the family and cover all our other costs. I could stand in the garden punching myself in the face for an hour if that makes anyone else happier?


----------



## Teaboy (May 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> they're probably right too tbf.



Yeah, I'd probably think the same.  In the case of my company though they do appear to have followed the government advice to initially furlough those who are carers or have partners to key workers and those who have young children.


----------



## Supine (May 6, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I could stand in the garden punching myself in the face for an hour if that makes anyone else happier?



pics or it didn’t happen


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 6, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Same round here.  People are still being pretty conscientious about social distancing, but there are more people out in the streets (both in cars and on foot) and the shops are busier.


Yeah same here. Went to the park on Sunday and it was much busier despite the crap weather. But you couldn't really point at anyone being out of order.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 6, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I've had colleagues in my team that have been furloughed and in many ways it does work out quite well for them, especially since they have been furloughed on full pay (company topping up the difference).
> 
> Its not though, without it's downsides.  Pretty much every single one of them sounds about as miserable as I've known them to be and they are all very keen to get back to work.  They are all shitting it big time as well thinking that being furloughed is some sort of indication as to who is going to be first out the door when the inevitable deep (and quite probably global) recession really kicks in.


Yeah, I thought I wanted to be furloughed until last week, when I was told that I might be and I discovered that the idea worried me. I'm sure there are lots of companies like mine that are furloughing not because people can't work from home (we all can) but because orders are drying up.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 6, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I've been furloughed, had a small top up to my wage but still had to take payment holidays on the mortgage to make sure I can still feed the family and cover all our other costs. I could stand in the garden punching myself in the face for an hour if that makes anyone else happier?



Could you do a sideshow Bob style comedy rake routine?


----------



## Roadkill (May 6, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah same here. Went to the park on Sunday and it was much busier despite the crap weather. But you couldn't really point at anyone being out of order.



I wouldn't want to imply that anyone I've seen around was 'out of order' (well, aside from the group sitting around a bench drinking Special Brew), but it does look as if people in general are that little bit less willing to stop at home now than they were a week or two back.


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Could you do a sideshow Bob style comedy rake routine?


Whatever you do, don't go and get any beer in or make any ironic asides to a friend where someone might overhear.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 6, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I wouldn't want to imply that anyone I've seen around was 'out of order' (well, aside from the group sitting around a bench drinking Special Brew), but it does look as if people in general are that little bit less willing to stop at home now than they were a week or two back.


Sure, that's what I meant as well. I can't have a go at people for being in the park when the only reason I know they are there is because I'm in the park.

tbh this is mostly a sign of just how much people have been staying at home. The London parks I've visited since lockdown - I've toured a few - have until now all been far quieter than they would ever be normally on an iffy spring day let alone a glorious one.

It has been quite magical at times, tbh, especially before the construction work all restarted.

* punches self in face as penance *


----------



## Roadkill (May 6, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sure, that's what I meant as well. I can't have a go at people for being in the park when the only reason I know they are there is because I'm in the park.
> 
> tbh this is mostly a sign of just how much people have been staying at home. The London parks I've visited since lockdown - I've toured a few - have until now all been far quieter than they would ever be normally on an iffy spring day let alone a glorious one.
> 
> ...



Aye.  Its odd, though: despite living five minutes' walk from a very pleasant* park, it's about the one place I've not walked around during my daily ration of exercise.

* It's very pleasant in the daytime: at night there's so much activity that you might as well rename it the Dogger Bank.


----------



## andysays (May 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's pretty basic stuff this though, and it shouldn't need explaining - people furloughed on 80% of their normal income facing a very uncertain future are not 'doing well out of this', even if you're doing worse.


I didn't use the phrase 'doing well out of this', nor did I mention people furloughed. Clearly many (though not all) of them are facing a very uncertain future.

What I said, and what I stand by, is that there's a class dimension to how hard people are having it, in various ways. Amazed that some people appear to find that something to argue about.


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

andysays said:


> What I said, and what I stand by, is that there's a class dimension to how hard people are having it, in various ways. Amazed that some people appear to find that something to argue about.


no-one's arguing about that, apart from you.


----------



## Totoro303 (May 6, 2020)

A


----------



## belboid (May 6, 2020)

andysays said:


> I didn't use the phrase 'doing well out of this', nor did I mention people furloughed. Clearly many (though not all) of them are facing a very uncertain future.
> 
> What I said, and what I stand by, is that there's a class dimension to how hard people are having it, in various ways. Amazed that some people appear to find that something to argue about.


it was a reference to Nine Bob Note's earlier post, not your later one









						Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
					

It has its place I'm sure. A lot of behavioural scientists were vocal about how inappropriate this all was.  Sure. It appears here to be driving policy direction, rather than them saying 'right, this is what needs to be done, Behavioural Scientists, what do you think of these...




					www.urban75.net


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

belboid said:


> it was a reference to Nine Bob Note's earlier post, not your later one
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It wasn't, it was a reference to treelover's earlier post.


----------



## belboid (May 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> It wasn't, it was a reference to treelover's earlier post.


who was quoting and disagreeing with NBN's post - which is the one that mentioned furlough and having a beer.


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

anyway, whatever. It's obvious what I was challenging there, and also obvious it's not something that needs a 'what about class??' diversion.


----------



## belboid (May 6, 2020)

i dunno, original quotes get so lost its easy not to see what someone was responding to and so fail to see why what they're saying is bollocks,  leading you down a side path.  Obviously I've never done anything like that, but I can see where andy was getting... waylaid


----------



## editor (May 6, 2020)

Marty1 said:


> Sounds like the slogan for techno-fascism.
> 
> 
> According to TalkRadio he’s doing a better job than London Mayor Sadiq Khan who is apparently ‘hiding’.



And off this thread you go.


----------



## xenon (May 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> To be fair the original poster who commented is a supermarket worker so probably got one of the shittest deals in the country outside of health and care work. I think when Andy says those who have it easy he's taking about those with cushy secure council jobs and safe outdoor work where they're unlikely to get the virus.



unless I have misinterpreted, this is out of order. As KB says, let’s keep the guns pointing the right way. 
on the general point.  Not that I am immune from feeling pissed off at people simply swanning about. But I don’t know their circumstances. And it doesn’t do me any good getting wound up by then anyway.


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

xenon said:


> unless I have misinterpreted, this is out of order. As KB says, let’s keep the guns pointing the right way.
> on the general point.  Not that I am immune from feeling pissed off at people simply swanning about. But I don’t know their circumstances. And it doesn’t do me any good getting wound up by then anyway.


maomao was just highlighting how easy it is once you start talking about other workers having it better than you, for the same arguments to be used against you.


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

FWIW I'm totally pro _simply swanning about_. Everyone should have the opportunity to swan more, rather than hating on the swanners.


----------



## planetgeli (May 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> FWIW I'm totally pro _simply swanning about_. Everyone should have the opportunity to swan more, rather than hating on the swanners.



Absolutely. FWIW I'm on full pay for making a couple of phone calls a week to check the kids are alright. But in 'normal times' I get seriously underpaid for dealing with damaged kids from damaged homes - and their damaged and damaging parents too. I don't complain in those times that my job is considerably harder and more stressful than a lot of people's jobs who get paid a lot more than I do. Because that's not what solidarity is about. 

While respecting the fact that key workers, and particularly NHS key workers, are having the worst time of it right now I'm not going to feel guilty/punch myself in the face for having an unexpected break from stress, which I see as an occupational serendipity. Because pretty soon I'm going to be going back to that stress, with added danger of catching something that could kill me - and with no PPE. 

It's not an extended 'holiday'. Last time I checked I couldn't fly anywhere I wanted or go to the beach. I'm sitting on my arse and, fortunately, the sun keeps shining. But that's about it. When I do go back I won't be complaining about looking after kids welfare on the frontline - kids who some of you would cross the street to avoid. In normal times I don't have that luxury. Don't begrudge me not having to do that 5 days a week for this short period.


----------



## emanymton (May 6, 2020)

Supine said:


> pics or it didn’t happen


Video.


----------



## xenon (May 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> FWIW I'm totally pro _simply swanning about_. Everyone should have the opportunity to swan more, rather than hating on the swanners.



on the other hand, it’s fine to get it off your chest have a bit of a vent on here at people and their dozy ways. Especially if you have to work facing them every day. So no problem with nine bob note.


----------



## emanymton (May 6, 2020)

I'll hold my hand up. In a strictly short term financial sense I'm better off because of lockdown. I'm still working and getting my full salary but frankly I am spending a lot less than normal. In fact i have some debit i was planning to clear by the end of next year that I will now clear this year.

Which will probably come in handy when i see next years pay rise. 

Of course work is harder and busier than normal so my stress is much higher and I'm working longer hours.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> ...next years pay rise...


I wouldn't be counting any of next year's chickens just right now.


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> I wouldn't be counting any of next year's chickens just right now.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 6, 2020)

Apologies emanymton


----------



## miss direct (May 6, 2020)

WTF is going on in the UK? How can there be talk of "lifting lockdown" (what sodding lockdown?!) when there are over 500 deaths reported on a daily basis? I have never felt safer in Turkey than the UK but now I do  Down to around 50 deaths per day here and we are still on actual lockdown at weekends and over 65s not allowed out at all (they'll be allowed out for four hour on Sunday for the first time in weeks, while everyone else is at home.)


----------



## oryx (May 6, 2020)

miss direct said:


> How can there be talk of "lifting lockdown" (what sodding lockdown?!) when there are over 500 deaths reported on a daily basis?


Two words:
The 
Economy.


----------



## miss direct (May 6, 2020)

Just seems nuts. They needed to have had a proper "lockdown" in the first place  The news is so grim.


----------



## oryx (May 6, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Just seems nuts. They needed to have had a proper "lockdown" in the first place  The news is so grim.


Couldn't agree more and yes, what we have is not a real 'lockdown'.


----------



## Cid (May 6, 2020)

oryx said:


> Two words:
> The
> Economy.



That is certainly why, it doesn't actually make any sense though.


----------



## prunus (May 6, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I've been furloughed, had a small top up to my wage but still had to take payment holidays on the mortgage to make sure I can still feed the family and cover all our other costs. I could stand in the garden punching myself in the face for an hour if that makes anyone else happier?



You’ve got a garden?!?


----------



## teqniq (May 6, 2020)

Cid said:


> That is certainly why, it doesn't actually make any sense though.


It makes perfect sense if you factor in protecting the interests of capital. Doesn't make it right in any way whatsoever though.


----------



## chilango (May 6, 2020)

oryx said:


> Two words:
> The
> Economy.


One word:

Profit


----------



## LDC (May 6, 2020)

I wonder if this might backlash on them? Nobody I know thinks this is the right time to be easing things. Could they be misjudging this and end up looking like they're clearly putting the interests of capital above lives?


----------



## Orang Utan (May 6, 2020)

Gonna say it here though I said it elsewhere. Those of us who are still being paid in full could think about how much money they’ve been saving on not going out to pubs, cinemas etc and (if they can afford it) pay that same amount every month to a charity that is helping people who are struggling right now).


----------



## Cid (May 6, 2020)

teqniq said:


> It makes perfect sense if you factor in protecting the interests of capital. Doesn't make it right in any way whatsoever though.



I don't think it does tbh. A functioning economy isn't directly tied to 'get everyone back to work regardless of the consequences'. Cycles of work-outbreak-lockdown won't be good for the operation of capital. This (assuming 'this' actually is early end to lockdown) looks more like rolling the dice and hoping that existing levels of immunity mean further outbreaks aren't as bad.


----------



## Cid (May 6, 2020)

That tied to an ideological aversion to public health spending. Indeed public spending in general.


----------



## frogwoman (May 6, 2020)

I don't have a problem with stuff opening if it's safe to do so. Some local shops are really struggling. But the speed which everything is happening is terrifying


----------



## bimble (May 6, 2020)

Anybody feel like predicting what they’re going announce is changing exactly on Monday?


----------



## Cid (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> Anybody feel like predicting what they’re going announce is changing exactly on Monday?



Reopening of some shops with SD measures, and a timetable for cafes and restaurants. Accompanied by confirmation on winding down furlough/economic aid measures.


----------



## Thora (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> Anybody feel like predicting what they’re going announce is changing exactly on Monday?


Partial opening of schools from June
Outdoor cafes allowed
Socialising outside your household allowed outdoors
More use of parks/beaches etc - picnics allowed


----------



## bimble (May 6, 2020)

That’s further than I thought they’d go but you’re probably right. Thought it might just be extra things added to the list of acceptable reasons to be out, as an individual.


----------



## LDC (May 6, 2020)

Thora said:


> Partial opening of schools from June
> Outdoor cafes allowed
> Socialising outside your household allowed outdoors
> More use of parks/beaches etc - picnics allowed



I'm not sure about schools, but the rest I agree I think will happen. They'll pay lip service to social distancing in workplaces to get people back to work as well.


----------



## crossthebreeze (May 6, 2020)

Some details of the back to work proposals, and union objections: UK's plans to reopen workplaces: what are unions' concerns?


----------



## Thora (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> That’s further than I thought they’d go but you’re probably right. Thought it might just be extra things added to the list of acceptable reasons to be out, as an individual.


I think they're going to want as many shops and business operating again as possible.
I don't think schools will be fully reopened though - maybe Year 10 & 12 back and they will just widen the keyworker list further to anyone who can't really work from home.
Definitely no large gatherings and no pubs, clubs, sitting inside restaurants or cafes.  Social distancing still in shops and offices, self isolation for illness, masks in public.


----------



## Thora (May 6, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not sure about schools, but the rest I agree I think will happen. They'll pay lip service to social distancing in workplaces to get people back to work as well.


I don't think schools will reopen fully but in the interests of getting lots of parents off furlough I can see the list of children eligible for school including anyone working in shops, manufacturing, construction, but still with the message that if you can wfh you should keep children home.


----------



## PursuedByBears (May 6, 2020)

I think Year 6 will go back at the start of June to give them time to work towards the transition to secondary school.


----------



## killer b (May 6, 2020)

PursuedByBears said:


> I think Year 6 will go back at the start of June to give them time to work towards the transition to secondary school.


wilbur will be gutted if they do this.


----------



## maomao (May 6, 2020)

miss direct said:


> WTF is going on in the UK? How can there be talk of "lifting lockdown" (what sodding lockdown?!) when there are over 500 deaths reported on a daily basis? I have never felt safer in Turkey than the UK but now I do  Down to around 50 deaths per day here and we are still on actual lockdown at weekends and over 65s not allowed out at all (they'll be allowed out for four hour on Sunday for the first time in weeks, while everyone else is at home.)


It'll be garden centres opening and maybe a couple of changes like that aimed at specific industries IMO. More outdoor stuff allowed. They wont be sending schools back anytime soon. And with schools off people won't be able to work normally.

Oh, and facemasks I reckon.


----------



## weltweit (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> Anybody feel like predicting what they’re going announce is changing exactly on Monday?


Some more shops might be allowed to open.
Gatherings of up to 4 permitted outside. 
Can leave the house for other reasons. 

Face masks required for use of public transport, a solution for where to get them will be needed. 

People who can work from home should continue to do so.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 6, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I wonder if this might backlash on them? Nobody I know thinks this is the right time to be easing things. Could they be misjudging this and end up looking like they're clearly putting the interests of capital above lives?



If we get another spike, which seems likely given the absence of a viable testing and tracing strategy, then that's going to hurt them. Then we'll be back to square one, only with this time with severely depleted public support. We'll also get to watch the like of Germany getting back to relatively normality in an orderly fashion, while we fact the prospect of lockdown 2.0.


----------



## two sheds (May 6, 2020)

Police appeal after officer's bike snatched while enforcing social distancing measures
					

‘You just got robbed,’ someone shouts in video




					www.independent.co.uk
				




 have people no respect?



> Thames Valley Police said a group of men used “intimidating and threatening language” towards a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) and took his bicycle after they were approached while playing a game of cricket in Slough.


----------



## souljacker (May 6, 2020)

two sheds said:


> have people no respect?



For PCSOs? No.


----------



## two sheds (May 6, 2020)

Nicking his bike though  

He did get it back.


----------



## zahir (May 6, 2020)

How to mismanage a crisis.









						Special Report: In shielding its hospitals from COVID-19, Britain left many of the weakest exposed
					

On a doorstep in the suburbs of north London, three-year-old Ayse picked up a tissue to wipe away her grandmother's tears - tears for one more victim of the virus.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## Petcha (May 6, 2020)

Am I missing something with the banksy artwork. It looks to me like the kids about to throw the nurse in the bin?









						New Banksy piece celebrates superhero health workers
					

Artwork depicts child playing with nurse toy, with Batman and Spider-Man discarded in a bin




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## William of Walworth (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:
			
		

> Anybody feel like predicting what they’re going announce is changing exactly on Monday?





weltweit said:


> Some more shops might be allowed to open.
> Gatherings of up to 4 permitted outside.
> Can leave the house for other reasons.
> 
> ...



The above is roughly along the lines I'd guess, also.
And with the possible exception of gatherings of 4, too.
That is, nothing at all drastic yet.

As for schools, I'm not at all qualified to make any kind of informed guess  ........
..... but is not the risk (for the Govt.) that if they state that certain age-groups should go back in June, they'll end up with large numbers of parents simply rebelling? 
(I appreciate that plenty of parents won't be in an easy position to keep their kids away from school, but surely lots of those who don't want their kids to go back before September, will be in uproar at a June return plan??)


----------



## Orang Utan (May 6, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Am I missing something with the banksy artwork. It looks to me like the kids about to throw the nurse in the bin?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


aye, it's totally shit


----------



## chilango (May 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> Anybody feel like predicting what they’re going announce is changing exactly on Monday?



Businesses, shops etc. to reopen - with "advisory guidance" on social distancing. Furlough to end. Unions blamed for hampering the back to work effort.

Schools to partially reopen from June 1st. Starting with Primary schools and then maybe years 10 and 12. Schools responsible for their own social distancing policy, but will be expected to have some. Unions blamed for hampering the back to school effort. Some Private Schools will delay the start of the Summer holdays to get more weeks in. Academy Heads and Commentators will talk up the need for State schools to do the same - but realising that it's impossible will blame the Unions.

General Public will be urged to get back to work but not have social lives.

The FTSE will be up.


----------



## tommers (May 6, 2020)

I think it might be a lot more wide ranging than we expect. Virgin / Jaguar etc will have scared them shitless. Ferguson ignoring his own rules gives them a bit more scope


----------



## NoXion (May 6, 2020)

What will they do/say when the death rate starts climbing again? What fucking pathetic excuses will they be making for their sacrificial offerings to the Blind Idiot God they call The Economy?


----------



## NoXion (May 6, 2020)

Also fuck that scientist dude who was caught flouting the rules. What the fucking fuck is fucking wrong with you, you fucking stupid knobhead? Did you not fucking think for one fucking second that the moment you started appearing in public, that the fucking press would be sniffing around you? Fucking moron.


----------



## chilango (May 6, 2020)

Monday's briefing:


----------



## little_legs (May 6, 2020)

zahir said:


> How to mismanage a crisis.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The gerontricide party doesn't even care if they die comfortably. 

RCGP calls on Home Secretary to 'urgently relax' rules on controlled medication for patients at the end of life during COVID-19


----------



## little_legs (May 6, 2020)

Also, it's 10 years ago today the British people placed butchers in charge of their lives. Congrats.


----------



## elbows (May 6, 2020)

zahir said:


> How to mismanage a crisis.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So much of importance is discussed in that article that I feel a bit bad for zooming in on the following aspect, but I will do so anyway because I havent heard enough about it (and probably missed articles about it at the time) and its long been one of my concerns relating to the 'protect the NHS' approach, and people dying needlessly at home because they werent admitted.



> London’s ambulance service also issued new guidance.
> 
> Ambulance crews assess patients using a standard scoring system of vital signs. According to the Royal College of Physicians, a professional body for doctors, a patient who scores five or more on a 20-point scale should be provided with clinical care and monitored each hour. A patient scoring five would normally be taken to hospital.
> 
> But in early March, London’s ambulance service raised the bar for COVID-19 patients to seven.





> “I have never seen a score of seven being used before,” said one NHS paramedic interviewed by Reuters. The medic spoke on condition of anonymity.
> 
> On April 10, the required score was lowered to five. In a statement, the London Ambulance Service told Reuters its previous guidance was one of several assessments used and clinical judgment was the deciding factor. Asked if the guidance reflected the national approach, the NHS did not respond.





> Possible evidence of restrictions on admissions came in a study of 17,000 patients admitted for COVID-19 to 166 NHS hospitals between February 6 and April 1. The study showed that one-third of these patients died, a high fatality rate.
> 
> Calum Semple, the lead author and professor of outbreak medicine at Liverpool University, said, in an interview with Reuters, this indicated, among other things, that England set a “high bar” for hospital admission. “Essentially, only those who are pretty sick get in.” But, he said, there was no data yet on whether that high bar ultimately made people in Britain with COVID-19 worse off. The NHS didn’t comment.


----------



## zahir (May 7, 2020)

'We have had zero information': GPs in the dark over Covid-19 tests
					

Local authorities and GPs yet to receive detailed data and patient records from Deloitte tests




					www.theguardian.com
				





> The results of hundreds of thousands of coronavirus tests carried out at privately run drive-through centres in England have not yet been shared with GPs or local authorities, who complain they have “no idea” where local disease clusters are.
> 
> GPs told the Guardian they had been “totally left out of the conversation” after the government said it was still “working on a technical solution” to get Covid-19 test results into individual GP records in England, having promised to do so weeks ago.





> When the government began its pillar two testing scheme in late March it promised GPs that results would be linked to the medical records of patients in England.
> 
> But Nick Mann, a GP at the Well Street surgery in Hackney, London, is one of many doctors to complain this has not happened. “As a GP I’m absolutely fuming, not only with the way it’s been mishandled but with the unreliable information we are getting,” he said. “This government has developed a completely parallel system in order to bypass the NHS, and it’s failing.”





> Dominic Harrison, director of public health at Blackburn with Darwen council in Lancashire, said: “The Deloitte screening programme has now been running for a number of weeks and we have seen no data from that. So I have no idea whether 10, 100 or 1,000 Blackburn with Darwen residents have tested positive.
> 
> “I certainly hope they sort that out very very quickly because it is critical information for us in developing the strategy for case finding and contract tracing once the lockdown is lifted..”


----------



## elbows (May 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> No pressures on the government for any of their most obvious failings are relieved at all by what has happened to Ferguson.



I forgot about timing and one days front pages when I said that. Partly because I am out of tune with the daily death announcements-based news, because those numbers lag so badly and are out of tune with other sources, so I was not really thinking about the 'most deaths in Europe' stuff. For example if I add the last ONS numbers by date of death for England and Wales to the same numbers for Scotland and Northern Ireland, I get a total of over 32,000 deaths that happened by April 24th. Which makes it hard for me to take figures that havent reached that level 12 days later too seriously. I still have to use them to look at trends in a vaguely timely way, and its not like the ONS data I used for April 24th was actually available then, that version of the data only came out on Tuesday and the Scottish numbers on Wednesday. But all the same, once you see what sort of totals are actually reached on what dates, it makes it hard to treat seriously the headlines based on daily numbers as if the total deaths they state have only just been reached in reality.


----------



## scifisam (May 7, 2020)

Can anyone clarify how the NHS app is supposed to work? Does it really depend on only the first part of your postcode? That'd be pointless for me, given what a huge number of people, and two hospitals, the first part of my postcode covers.

Having to have the phone on _and unlocked_ would mean that any phone thief would have access to everything on your phone. 

It's supposed to use bluetooth, but even when I have bluetooth switched on, I only allow known devices to access my phone. Otherwise when I'm out in public I get sent random dick pics. No way am I ever going to open up my bluetooth to unknown devices.

I have tried googling but I'm getting contradictory information.


----------



## oryx (May 7, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Otherwise when I'm out in public I get sent random dick pics. No way am I ever going to open up my bluetooth to unknown devices.


  neither am I having read that.









						UK coronavirus tracking app - discussion
					

I think this is worth a thread of its own - even more so since The Register published their damning critique  Britain is sleepwalking into another coronavirus disaster by failing to listen to global consensus and expert analysis with the release of the NHS COVID-19 contact-tracking app.   At the...




					www.urban75.net
				




There's a thread on the app, if that's any help?


----------



## frogwoman (May 7, 2020)

Something that's bothering me a lot about COVID-19. In many other events involving needless death of large numbers of people like a terrorist attack or a natural disaster or something you'd have minutes silences ordered by the govt, flags at half mast, memorials announced etc. There doesn't seem to be anything like that with this unless I've missed it. There aren't many details about most of the people who died and I guess it's because there are just so many but it seems really sad and wrong


----------



## killer b (May 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> aye, it's totally shit


They're all always total shit. Basically Matt from the Telegraph with a joint and a spraycan.


----------



## Raheem (May 7, 2020)

I heard it mentioned in passing on the news that, having got the app to a stage where it is 'ready to go', they have realised that it will only work on iPhones while the phone is active, because iPhones will only receive and not send Bluetooth if the screen is not alive.

So, it's possibly a useless app.


----------



## little_legs (May 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Something that's bothering me a lot about COVID-19. In many other events involving needless death of large numbers of people like a terrorist attack or a natural disaster or something you'd have minutes silences ordered by the govt, flags at half mast, memorials announced etc. There doesn't seem to be anything like that with this unless I've missed it. There aren't many details about most of the people who died and I guess it's because there are just so many but it seems really sad and wrong


It does not help that the BBC and the rest of the press is failing to cover the pandemic as an emergency. The BBC is basically back to the wartime rules coverage. You go on the BBC's website and what you see is stories like '_I am 23, I hadn't realised Covid-19 can affect me too' _or_ 'Corona virus: I get dressed up every day but have nowhere to go', _etc. The general approach seems to be let's not dwell on the daily death rate and government's blunders, instead let's do a bit of public-health messaging and tell the public what is being done about testing. What you get after weeks of this sort of coverage is masses of people desensitized to the horror of covid-19, similar to when soldiers are dying in some distant conflict and you can't quite associate yourself with their deaths because no one talks about their deaths nor the reasons and causes of their deaths.

Life right now feels like two parallel running high speed trains. On one train everyone is dying and on the other people are just longing to arrive somewhere alive. There is a strange sense of cruelty and coldness about people waiting for others to stop dying so they can arrive somewhere to resume their normal lives.


----------



## planetgeli (May 7, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> So the plane from Turkey finally arrives. What a fucking circus.
> 
> I presume this was a political stunt a bit like those repatriation flights for asylum seekers where they’d spend a fortune chartering a jet, invite the media along to get it on the front page so it would look like they were doing something. Meanwhile British-made stuff is being exported for lack of orders. Clowns.



Now if only the gowns on board had been of usable quality.









						Coronavirus PPE: Gowns ordered from Turkey fail to meet safety standards
					

More than 2,000 gowns ordered by the UK do not meet British safety standards, the government confirms.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## bimble (May 7, 2020)

‘ unlimited rambles’ to be announced apparently. Don’t know how much use that is if you live in the middle of a narrow pavemented urban area. Stay home save lives to be ditched in favour of the utterly vague ‘stay safe’. 
If this is right then no imminent reopening of shops or outdoor cafes/ beer gardens. I wouldn’t be surprised if garden centres and golf are re opened though. 









						Picnics and sunbathing on cards as PM expected to allow more time outside
					

Restrictions to be eased from Monday and ‘Stay Home, Save Lives’ slogan is to be ditched




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## kabbes (May 7, 2020)

Rambles are already unlimited as you don’t go more than once.  Although various people have tossed around the idea of limiting outdoor activity to an hour, it’s never actually been policy.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 7, 2020)

zahir said:


> How to mismanage a crisis.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Good article and very much in line with what a local care home owner here told us in a Zoom meeting on Wednesday morning, whilst Worthing is still a fairly low risk area, in the bottom 11% of council areas according to the ONS, some local care homes have got cases, these are mainly bigger ones, and most had taken back residents from hospital that weren't showing symptoms, but were not tested. It is suspected they could have brought it onto these homes, but of course they can't say for sure, as it could have been a member of staff. And, of course, PPE has been a problem too.

Her home remains clear of it, it's a fairly small home, she banned visitors about 10 days before being told too, managing video calls instead. She has managed to source enough PPE, including face shields from a local company that has switched their production line to make them, and maintains a 10 day supply of all PPE. All her staff have been supplied with thermometers to check the temperature of themselves & others in their households before starting every shift. 

She even stopped the District Nurses coming in to do routine treatments & injections, as both her & her manager are qualified nurses anyway, that caused things to kick off a bit, but she wouldn't back down & finally got the CQC to agree to it.

Luckily she has had no residents in hospital during this period, she was contacted by the hospital in early April asking if she could take any new residents being discharged, she had two spare rooms, but would only take these new residents if they were tested, so that was the end of that conversation.


----------



## planetgeli (May 7, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Rambles are already unlimited



Not in Wales (I can't speak for England, funny country that place over there).



> exercise should be *limited* to a reasonable period only once a day











						COVID-19 alert levels | Sub-topic | GOV.WALES
					

The restrictions during our gradual move out of lockdown.




					gov.wales


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 7, 2020)

bimble said:


> I wouldn’t be surprised if garden centres and golf are re opened though.



There's certainly logic in allowing garden centres to re-open, following the social distancing measures used by supermarkets & the DIY sheds. 

I know someone that runs the bars & catering at some local sports clubs, he was saying on Wednesday that the golf club is expecting to be allowed to re-open the courses, with various restrictions on the number of players, but they don't expect to be able to open the club house, with the exception of the toilets.


----------



## kabbes (May 7, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Not in Wales (I can't speak for England, funny country that place over there).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A limit that comprises the idea of “just be reasonable, lads” isn’t really a limit.


----------



## bimble (May 7, 2020)

ffs.


----------



## chilango (May 7, 2020)

So that's all we get in return for going back to work whilst the Pandemic continues?


----------



## bimble (May 7, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Rambles are already unlimited as you don’t go more than once.  Although various people have tossed around the idea of limiting outdoor activity to an hour, it’s never actually been policy.


I thought you were supposed to ramble once a day and close to home , and maybe those are both changing? Looks like national trust likely to reopen its sites (which will be very inconvenient as I’ve gotten used to having  the whole place to myself)


----------



## purenarcotic (May 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Something that's bothering me a lot about COVID-19. In many other events involving needless death of large numbers of people like a terrorist attack or a natural disaster or something you'd have minutes silences ordered by the govt, flags at half mast, memorials announced etc. There doesn't seem to be anything like that with this unless I've missed it. There aren't many details about most of the people who died and I guess it's because there are just so many but it seems really sad and wrong



Ive seen loads of pieces on the BBC / ITV about the people who have died (and tbh I hate it; wheeling out newly bereaved people to make them cry on the telly and ask stupid questions like ‘how do you feel?’) , and there was that silence for the NHS workers who died the other week.


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Not in Wales (I can't speak for England, funny country that place over there).
> 
> 
> 
> ...



As with England there's no definition of what a 'reasonable period' is.


----------



## weltweit (May 7, 2020)

Cid said:


> As with England there's no definition of what a 'reasonable period' is.


I was sure I recollect an hour for exercise .. is that wrong?


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I was sure I recollect an hour for exercise .. is that wrong?



I think that came from a er... Gove? speech early on. It wasn't particularly specific, and doesn't carry any real authority.


----------



## planetgeli (May 7, 2020)

Cid said:


> As with England there's no definition of what a 'reasonable period' is.



England doesn't use the word 'reasonable'. It says this, which, if anything, is actually more definitive.



> You may leave your home to exercise once a day and combine this with walking your dog. When doing this you should *minimise* the time you are out











						National lockdown: Stay at Home
					

Coronavirus cases are rising rapidly across the country. Find out what you can and cannot do.




					www.gov.uk
				




Which doesn't logically extend to 'unlimited' does it?


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

This is the UK guidance:



> *17. Is there any time restriction on being outdoors for the purpose of exercise?*
> There is no *limit on how long you can exercise for*, but you should spend as short a time away from your home as possible. Stay local if you can and act responsibly at all times. Once you have undertaken exercise, you should go home immediately. Do not linger in public places. For example, after having gone for a run or a cycle, you should not sit down or rest away from your home, unless necessary for health reasons.


----------



## frogwoman (May 7, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> Ive seen loads of pieces on the BBC / ITV about the people who have died (and tbh I hate it; wheeling out newly bereaved people to make them cry on the telly and ask stupid questions like ‘how do you feel?’) , and there was that silence for the NHS workers who died the other week.



Yeah I agree, I just find it weird that there's not more made of it 'officially' etc


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> England doesn't use the word 'reasonable'. It says this, which, if anything, is actually more definitive.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, I mean we are arguing over semantics here, but there is a lot of latitude in how you interpret the advice. It certainly doesn't stop you going on an 8 hour hike, provided that 8 hour hike is out your door and could be considered reasonable.


----------



## planetgeli (May 7, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah, I mean we are arguing over semantics here, but there is a lot of latitude in how you interpret the advice. It certainly doesn't stop you going on an 8 hour hike, provided that 8 hour hike is out your door and could be considered reasonable.



It doesn't use the word 'reasonable'. It specifically says 'minimise'. 

How does that lead you to think an 8 hour (or 'unlimited') ramble is ok?


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

Hmmm.  This feels too early still to be easing lockdown.  After all their talk about avoiding a second wave at all costs this seems premature to say the least.  I really don't know why they aren't pushing it back to the end of May which is what a lot of people were geared up for because of the 12 week thing.

The papers today are a total mess.  Who on earth has been briefing them?  How absurd to be full of news about how its all going to end on Monday just before a sunny bank holiday weekend?  Any bets on what loads of people are going to do this weekend?

This is no way to run a country at any time let alone in the midst of a national crisis.  Flailing clowns have just condemned a few thousand more.


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> It doesn't use the word 'reasonable'. It specifically says 'minimise'.
> 
> How does that lead you to think an 8 hour (or 'unlimited') ramble is ok?



Because it also says there is 'no limit on how long you can exercise for'. Everything in there is open to interpretation.


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Hmmm.  This feels too early still to be easing lockdown.  After all their talk about avoiding a second wave at all costs this seems premature to say the least.  I really don't know why they aren't pushing it back to the end of May which is what a lot of people were geared up for because of the 12 week thing.
> 
> The papers today are a total mess.  Who on earth has been briefing them?  How absurd to be full of news about how its all going to end on Monday just before a sunny bank holiday weekend?  Any bets on what loads of people are going to do this weekend?
> 
> This is no way to run a country at any time let alone in the midst of a national crisis.



Yeah, it's fucking baffling tbh. Italy's peak for example was about 38 days ago (So ~35 days before they released lockdown a bit)... Ours about 16 days, and it's really too early to get a a good idea of exactly what the data is saying.

e2a: and, as has been said upthread, Italy's release is still potentially pretty risky.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 7, 2020)

Have the news completely given up on reporting death numbers now? No mention of it at all on the BBC News. Or do they just not want to shine a light on how the government have won 1st prize in the "how many of your people can you kill through you own incompetence" competition?


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

I keep ending up in with this fucking annoying feeling that the government should suffer for its fuckups, but since that would involve more people dying, also hoping they blag it.


----------



## Chilli.s (May 7, 2020)

Newspapers desperate to sell papers shocker. None bought if people are at home.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah, it's fucking baffling tbh. Italy's peak for example was about 38 days ago (So ~35 days before they released lockdown a bit)... Ours about 16 days, and it's really too early to get a a good idea of exactly what the data is saying.



Well yes.  And though London has seen a sharp decline in death rates the rest of the country seems to have plateaued, maybe even creeping up in some areas.



Buddy Bradley said:


> Have the news completely given up on reporting death numbers now? No mention of it at all on the BBC News. Or do they just not want to shine a light on how the government have won 1st prize in the "how many of your people can you kill through you own incompetence" competition?



Yup.  Don't mention the death rates now we're #1.  Also having spent weeks comparing our death rates to other countries its now all about how 'you can't compare death rates with other countries'.  I mean, that's right but it didn't stop them doing it for ages.


----------



## planetgeli (May 7, 2020)

'Minimise'.

'As short as possible'.

Look, I think the govt are being wankers, no question, but if anyone on here interprets that as "8 hour hike is fine", on a board that is nominally anti-State and believes in people taking their own decisions to act in a socially responsible way then...pfft. 

Call them wankers by all means but don't anyone pretend that because they're wankers we can all go looking for loopholes and interpretations and that's fine. Even their loose rules do not lead to the conclusion that an 8 hour or unlimited hike is fine.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 7, 2020)

Suspect we'll be getting a second wave in two weeks, that'll be fun.


----------



## LDC (May 7, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Suspect we'll be getting a second wave in two weeks, that'll be fun.



And so long as it doesn't overwhelm the NHS then we'll have followed the 5 guidelines.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 7, 2020)

TBH my feeling is that whether or not people spend a little bit longer in the park or a few people go out for exercise twice a day will probably have next to no effect on virus transmission. Keeping it vague and encouraging all the finger pointing around this stuff has been very useful for them in distracting attention away from the places where transmission risk really is high though.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And so long as it doesn't overwhelm the NHS then we'll have followed the 5 guidelines.



And one step closer to herd immunity.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 7, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> TBH my feeling is that whether or not people spend a little bit longer in the park or a few people go out for exercise twice a day will probably have next to no effect on virus transmission. Keeping it vague and encouraging all the finger pointing around this stuff has been very useful for them in distracting attention away from the places where transmission risk really is high though.



I'm expecting the lockdown rules to crumble to fucking dust.


----------



## LDC (May 7, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> TBH my feeling is that whether or not people spend a little bit longer in the park or a few people go out for exercise twice a day will probably have next to no effect on virus transmission. Keeping it vague and encouraging all the finger pointing around this stuff has been very useful for them in distracting attention away from the places where transmission risk really is high though.



Yeah, statistically it's not outdoor activities that are riskiest. Afaik the big ones are schools, workplaces, public transport (especially in London), and large gatherings (and households and institutions obviously). I think that the concern is that the restrictions around the first 2 are being relaxed prematurely for the sake of the economy, and under pressure from some industries.


----------



## Petcha (May 7, 2020)

I agree it’s too early. Even though I’m going fucking insane and will quite possibly murder my flat mate within days. We’ve got this far. I think we should see out another few weeks or otherwise the last six weeks of hell will have been pointless.

Thankfully the weathers tanking on Sunday and Monday which will keep some people in.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I'm expecting the lockdown rules to crumble to fucking dust.



That was my thought.  Its already beginning to crumble round my way.  This weekend is now going to be very interesting.


----------



## chilango (May 7, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> TBH my feeling is that whether or not people spend a little bit longer in the park or a few people go out for exercise twice a day will probably have next to no effect on virus transmission. Keeping it vague and encouraging all the finger pointing around this stuff has been very useful for them in distracting attention away from the places where transmission risk really is high though.



Yep.

It wasn't forcing everyone back into cramped workspaces with bosses disregarding social distancing wot done it. It was people picnicking too close together.


----------



## chilango (May 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> That was my thought.  Its already beginning to crumble round my way.  This weekend is now going to be very interesting.



Yep.


----------



## LDC (May 7, 2020)

Feels like all the talk in the media this morning is the economy and suffering businesses, and encouraging things back to normal for the sake of them asap.


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> 'Minimise'.
> 
> 'As short as possible'.
> 
> ...



I don't think anyone here is actually going on 8 hour hikes. It's just that there is a huge degree of latitude in how you interpret the advice. That's kind of the point; the government _could_ have introduced actual restrictions on form of exercise and length if it wanted (as other countries have). But it didn't. It's not there. Why? See above for various interpretations.


----------



## weltweit (May 7, 2020)

I am hearing on the news that the shipment of gowns (PPE) from Turkey which was in the news recently, well apparently the gowns are not up to standard and so won't be distributed to users. Hopefully we can get our money back!! ?


----------



## Petcha (May 7, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I am hearing on the news that the shipment of gowns (PPE) from Turkey which was in the news recently, well apparently the gowns are not up to standard and so won't be distributed to users. Hopefully we can get our money back!! ?



I’d also like to know what happened to the 2 million antibody tests we ordered from China before they were even tested.


----------



## planetgeli (May 7, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I've always been of the opinion their reluctance to move to lockdown was entirely rooted in a belief of the importance of the economy over people's safety and health. I would not be at all surprised to see a move back to 'herd immunity' at some point with the justification of 'we just can't afford this anymore'.





LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Feels like all the talk in the media this morning is the economy and suffering businesses, and encouraging things back to normal for the sake of them asap.



Sorry those quotes should be the other way around. Mine's from April 10th. It's no great surprise that capital wants to get back to business.


----------



## maomao (May 7, 2020)

I'm torn between thinking it's going to be some headline grabbing popular easing of garden centres and family picnics and remembering that they wouldnt be tories if they weren't always looking for the next opportunity to fuck us all over in the name of profit. They're not called vermin for nothing.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'm torn between thinking it's going to be some headline grabbing popular easing of garden centres and family picnics and remembering that they wouldnt be tories if they weren't always looking for the next opportunity to fuck us all over in the name of profit. They're not called vermin for nothing.



Well if the mirror is to be believed its going to be a timetable which will have us back in pubs by August.  I don't think the mirror is to be believed.


----------



## ice-is-forming (May 7, 2020)

Aus is one of the least affected countries , and we're only just starting to tentatively reduce restrictions. Not sure what the UK are playing at


----------



## teuchter (May 7, 2020)

Cid said:


> I don't think anyone here is actually going on 8 hour hikes. It's just that there is a huge degree of latitude in how you interpret the advice. That's kind of the point; the government _could_ have introduced actual restrictions on form of exercise and length if it wanted (as other countries have). But it didn't. It's not there. Why? See above for various interpretations.


I'd be quite comfortable that an '8 hour hike' could be perfectly socially responsible in certain circumstances. If I lived somewhere I could do that from my home, without venturing to risky places (like climbing mountains etc), and without going anywhere crowded or where I couldn't keep a distance from others, I don't see a problem. I think it's almost certainly less harmful than going to the supermarket to buy something non essential like beer. 
I decided some time ago to ignore the fictional '1 hour' rule and have been doing a couple of 3-4 hour walks or bike rides on quiet roads per week rather than spending an hour every day running round a busy park.


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

I think for me it's this:


There is no pattern in decline for new cases. Obviously that may represent a real decline (because more testing), but with at least 5k new cases/day... um.
The picture for deaths is still unclear. Does seem to be a decline, but really needs another week to see how that plays out.
US deaths may be coming up. Again, really needs a week to be clear, and exactly what that represents is difficult to say.

Broadly though, the theme there is 'let the data clarify itself (themselves?) a bit'. Monday week might be the right time for some (cautious) announcement, I just don't see how Monday can be.


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I'd be quite comfortable that an '8 hour hike' could be perfectly socially responsible in certain circumstances. If I lived somewhere I could do that from my home, without venturing to risky places (like climbing mountains etc), and without going anywhere crowded or where I couldn't keep a distance from others, I don't see a problem. I think it's almost certainly less harmful than going to the supermarket to buy something non essential like beer.
> I decided some time ago to ignore the fictional '1 hour' rule and have been doing a couple of 3-4 hour walks or bike rides on quiet roads per week rather than spending an hour every day running round a busy park.



Yeah, essentially agree with that. It's very shit in that if you live in a city centre block of flats, just going in and out is probably more risky than someone who lives in a detached house near a footpath deciding to run a marathon, but it is the reality.

(I do live in a city centre block of flats incidentally, but once I'm out tend to take ~1 hour of moderate exercise on the bike)

Oh, and probably more at risk from the people I share workshop space with than I am from anything else.


----------



## Raheem (May 7, 2020)

bimble said:


> View attachment 211227
> ffs.


The Mail at least showing some awareness of its own history with 'Hurrah'.


----------



## PD58 (May 7, 2020)

Come on guys what are we worrying about 🤔.....tomorrow we can celebrate the 75th anniversary of 'stuffing' the Germans with a bank holiday🥳 and Monday we can bugger off out 🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️ to try and catch the virus...it's what the last 6 weeks has been about isn't it? Meanwhile our Churchillian PM continues to make promises 🤥🤥 that..........................


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 7, 2020)

Cid said:


> I think for me it's this:
> 
> 
> There is no pattern in decline for new cases. Obviously that may represent a real decline (because more testing), but with at least 5k new cases/day... um.
> ...


The hospitalization is on its way down, though more sharply in London. I agree about the new cases though. With testing ramped up to these levels Germany found this kind of level of new cases around 3 to 4 weeks ago. My biggest worry is the evident failure to stop spread in hospitals. How long people are outside or if they're having picnics is as good as irrelevant compared to that, yet this will be the focus rather than the ongoing infection protocol failures.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The hospitalization is on its way down, though more sharply in London. I agree about the new cases though. With testing ramped up to these levels Germany found this kind of level of new cases around 3 to 4 weeks ago. My biggest worry is the evident failure to stop spread in hospitals. How long people are outside or if they're having picnics is as good as irrelevant compared to that, yet this will be the focus rather than the ongoing infection protocol failures.



Seems to me outside of London the situation is largely plateaued.  General trend is downwards with both deaths and hospitalisations but not in any great way.  It would be interesting to see the trend line for the country if London was removed?

The start of lockdown was driven by the situation in London.  Is the phasing out of lockdown being driven in the same way?


----------



## maomao (May 7, 2020)

I'm not going to read The Sun to get details but if the bit on that front page about being allowed to have picnics with your friends were true it would be an incitement to break the (so-called) lock down _because_ people are observing it. As it is it's the thugs at The Sun shit stirring


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 7, 2020)

I'm sure I read guidelines somewhere about walking for an hour, cycling for half an hour and running somewhere between the two per day.


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I'm sure I read guidelines somewhere about walking for an hour, cycling for half an hour and running somewhere between the two per day.



As I recall that was a part of a Gove speech, and never actually turned up in any guidance.


----------



## zahir (May 7, 2020)

Hospitals as a source of transmission.





__





						EU Referendum
					






					eureferendum.com


----------



## teuchter (May 7, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I'm sure I read guidelines somewhere about walking for an hour, cycling for half an hour and running somewhere between the two per day.


Discussed here








						Your interpretation of non-essential "leaving the house" acceptability parameters
					

In the absence of clear official guidance I want to see what the groupthink is, on what is and isn't OK, in terms of being out of the house for what is being broadly described as "exercise time". In other words, not including things like going to the shops or doctors or helping other people with...




					www.urban75.net


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Seems to me outside of London the situation is largely plateaued.  General trend is downwards with both deaths and hospitalisations but not in any great way.  It would be interesting to see the trend line for the country if London was removed?
> 
> The start of lockdown was driven by the situation in London.  Is the phasing out of lockdown being driven in the same way?


Yeah, the lack of progress outside London is a worry. Only thing I would say about that, having spent waaaaay too much time looking at these things, is that there is a general (although not universal) pattern across countries that the more severe your outbreak, the steeper the initial curve down is, simply because it was so high to start with.

The pattern here would actually be consistent with the idea that hospitals are now the main source of reinfection. It's worrying - if they can't sort it out, infection levels could remain at a certain level for ages yet. Has anybody in government even admitted that this is a thing that needs sorting out?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 7, 2020)

It occurs to me that, in the lead-up to lockdown, the papers released on SAGE stuff indicate that a major consideration was that 'everybody else is dong it, so people will expect us to do it'. Is the same logic being applied here? Is there any more thinking behind it than that?


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It occurs to me that, in the lead-up to lockdown, the papers released on SAGE stuff indicate that a major consideration was that 'everybody else is dong it, so people will expect us to do it'. Is the same logic being applied here? Is there any more thinking behind it than that?



Yeah, that was my instinct... 'Italy is easing up, we need to keep up with Europe'.


----------



## 2hats (May 7, 2020)

A Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk and ex-president of the Royal Statistical Society writes:


----------



## NoXion (May 7, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah, that was my instinct... 'Italy is easing up, we need to keep up with Europe'.



If that's true, then it's absolutely sophomoric logic. Aren't at least some of the SAGE folks supposed to have a scientific background? Sounds like they should be fired. Out of a cannon.


----------



## Cid (May 7, 2020)

NoXion said:


> If that's true, then it's absolutely sophomoric logic. Aren't at least some of the SAGE folks supposed to have a scientific background? Sounds like they should be fired. Out of a cannon.



Yep... and there are some good scientists and statisticians on it. But there are a lot of them, they need to agree on the advice they're giving, and even if that advice is absolutely spot in it's then getting shunted through a set of people who probably need 'my valet' to tie their shoelaces.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 7, 2020)

NoXion said:


> If that's true, then it's absolutely sophomoric logic. Aren't at least some of the SAGE folks supposed to have a scientific background? Sounds like they should be fired. Out of a cannon.



I think you may be looking for where there is none. More like the already quasi-religious genuflection before 'the economy' descending to the level of a cargo cult, human sacrifices and all.


----------



## teuchter (May 7, 2020)

You can't pretend that what other countries are deciding to do is irrelevant to what the best decision is for the UK.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 7, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yep... and there are some good scientists and statisticians on it. But there are a lot of them, they need to agree on the advice they're giving, and even if that advice is absolutely spot in it's then getting shunted through a set of people who probably need 'my valet' to tie their shoelaces.



Signal-to-noise ratios must also be pretty poor with so many behavioural voodoo priests and big-data soothsayers lurking about.


----------



## treelover (May 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Something that's bothering me a lot about COVID-19. In many other events involving needless death of large numbers of people like a terrorist attack or a natural disaster or something you'd have minutes silences ordered by the govt, flags at half mast, memorials announced etc. There doesn't seem to be anything like that with this unless I've missed it. There aren't many details about most of the people who died and I guess it's because there are just so many but it seems really sad and wrong



There was the Trade Union initiated minutes silence for front line workers.


----------



## treelover (May 7, 2020)

little_legs said:


> It does not help that the BBC and the rest of the press is failing to cover the pandemic as an emergency. The BBC is basically back to the wartime rules coverage. You go on the BBC's website and what you see is stories like '_I am 23, I hadn't realised Covid-19 can affect me too' _or_ 'Corona virus: I get dressed up every day but have nowhere to go', _etc. The general approach seems to be let's not dwell on the daily death rate and government's blunders, instead let's do a bit of public-health messaging and tell the public what is being done about testing. What you get after weeks of this sort of coverage is masses of people desensitized to the horror of covid-19, similar to when soldiers are dying in some distant conflict and you can't quite associate yourself with their deaths because no one talks about their deaths nor the reasons and causes of their deaths.
> 
> Life right now feels like two parallel running high speed trains. On one train everyone is dying and on the other people are just longing to arrive somewhere alive. There is a strange sense of cruelty and coldness about people waiting for others to stop dying so they can arrive somewhere to resume their normal lives.



Broadcast News, especially Sky News,  has portraits of victims of Covid every night, as does the Guardian, quite moving as well.


----------



## chilango (May 7, 2020)

treelover said:


> There was the Trade Union initiated minutes silence for front line workers.



There was, and I think it was quite widely observed. We did it, and it wasn't me that brought it up.


----------



## treelover (May 7, 2020)

bimble said:


> I thought you were supposed to ramble once a day and close to home , and maybe those are both changing? Looks like national trust likely to reopen its sites (which will be very inconvenient as I’ve gotten used to having  the whole place to myself)



i had a to go a bit further to get my weekly hobble, there were large amounts of middle class families out and about.



bimble said:


> I thought you were supposed to ramble once a day and close to home , and maybe those are both changing? *Looks like national trust likely to reopen its sites *(which will be very inconvenient as I’ve gotten used to having  the whole place to myself)



Desperate for that to happen, well the gardens.


----------



## NoXion (May 7, 2020)

teuchter said:


> You can't pretend that what other countries are deciding to do is irrelevant to what the best decision is for the UK.



But neither can you ignore the context for why those countries are doing what they're doing in the first place. Like having fewer deaths, better testing regimes and more pro-active infection control than our feckless PPE wanker government ever bothered to do.


----------



## maomao (May 7, 2020)

bimble said:


> Looks like national trust likely to reopen its sites


Where did you get this from? It seems really really unlikely.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 7, 2020)

NoXion said:


> But neither can you ignore the context for why those countries are doing what they're doing in the first place. Like having fewer deaths, better testing regimes and more pro-active infection control than our feckless PPE wanker government ever bothered to do.


exactly. What other countries are doing, how and when they are doing it, and what effects it is having are all obviously crucial factors to consider for any country that finds itself at the rear of the race.

From those considerations, we're around three weeks behind where Germany was when it started easing, with no guarantees we'll ever get where they are now because of the ongoing ppe disaster. I don't mind the idea that they might ease some restrictions that are probably now (and possibly always were) irrelevant to the ongoing struggle, but only if combined with a massive effort to tackle the current shortcomings. They won't even acknowledge the current shortcomings, so what hope is there of that?

ETA: Their 'five tests' thing always smelled of total bullshit. And indeed it was.


----------



## chilango (May 7, 2020)

maomao said:


> Where did you get this from? It seems really really unlikely.



Outdoor space first I suspect.


----------



## teuchter (May 7, 2020)

Is there any reliable summary of where we are at with PPE by the way? Like how many hospitals are currently short, etc? With numbers and stuff?


----------



## maomao (May 7, 2020)

chilango said:


> Outdoor space first I suspect.


There's nothing about the National Trust in any of the papers. Maybe limited openings of some completely outdoor sites but unless they just throw open the gates there's going to be pinch points. And public toilets. And ice cream vans with queues. It sounds really unlikely to me.

Any major leisure focused easings will be an incitement to break what has been a remarkably peaceful lockdown with none of the public disorder that was predicted 6 weeks ago.


----------



## andysays (May 7, 2020)

If I remember right, bimble lives in a house on a National Trust site, so may be informed about this before it's made public.

Apologies if I've got it wrong, and will happily delete this post if required, so please don't quote me.


----------



## zahir (May 7, 2020)

I find it hard to see the National Trust woodland near me opening up anytime soon. In fact there’s nothing really stopping anyone going there apart from a sign saying the car park and cafe are closed. There’s nothing to actually stop anyone parking in the main car park and I’ve noticed more people are doing this. The car park ticket machines are covered up and out of operation - and as you have to touch them to use them I can’t see how they would be brought back into use without creating a hazard. Reopening the toilets must also create a risk, for the public and for whoever has to clean and maintain them. The footpaths are still open and there are people about but I think mostly locals. At the moment it’s manageable. I’m not sure it would be if it reopened officially. Most of the money for running it must come from the car parking charges and unless these can be reintroduced safely then I can’t see much commercial reason to reopen.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And so long as it doesn't overwhelm the NHS then we'll have followed the 5 guidelines.


Exactly this. Everyone seems to be thinking that "relaxing lockdown" = "it's now safer to be around other people", when in fact it just means "when people inevitably get sick and die, we're not worried any more about having enough hospital beds to put them in".


----------



## elbows (May 7, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Have the news completely given up on reporting death numbers now? No mention of it at all on the BBC News. Or do they just not want to shine a light on how the government have won 1st prize in the "how many of your people can you kill through you own incompetence" competition?



Number-based stories have been major headline news items in recent days. Some numbers reaching nearly 30,000, then going past 30,000, and being the first in Europe to reach that toll, and numbers relating to care home deaths have all been major stories this week.

Since the media are often milestone and comparison based, I would expect a bit of a lull with those sorts of stories in the wake of those stories earlier this week, but I dont think it will last. But even when there is no lull, its usually later in the day that such stories emerge because 2pm and a little after 5pm are the sort of times the data comes out every day.


----------



## elbows (May 7, 2020)

Although so far today there is already one such story, because new ONS analysis on Covid-19 deaths and ethnic background is big news.

The 12:44 entry on the BBC live page for example https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52568948


----------



## Dogsauce (May 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Feels like all the talk in the media this morning is the economy and suffering businesses, and encouraging things back to normal for the sake of them asap.



This BBC article (presumably on behalf of the government as usual) seems to be pivoting us back towards the ‘herd immunity’ strategy again. All out of facepalms.



> Coronavirus: Is it time to free the healthy from restrictions? Is it time to free the healthy from restrictions?


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52543692


----------



## bimble (May 7, 2020)

andysays said:


> If I remember right, bimble lives in a house on a National Trust site, so may be informed about this before it's made public.
> 
> Apologies if I've got it wrong, and will happily delete this post if required, so please don't quote me.


It’s true I do but I have not got any inside knowledge that was just a guess based on the rumoured encouragement of picnics & rambling.


----------



## CNT36 (May 7, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> There is contention over ace 2 inhibitors ...
> The European cardiologists reckon there's research that shows that ace inhibitors can actually be protective ...



In his latest updates he has been talking a lot about Ace inhibitors, ARBs, oxidative stress and the role of Endothelial cells. I've done a little reading about it and still getting my head around the mechanism involved but  it appears that although ACE inhibitors increase the amount of ACE 2 available it does not seem to be increasing the chance of developing Covid-19. Sars-cov 2 does bind to ACE 2 but there are other factors in play. A lot of deaths are due to cardiovascular rather than respiratory issues and it is through their role in this cardiovascular mechanism that ACE inhibitors are making a difference.  The virus binds to ACE 2 reducing the amount available to bond to angiotensin 2 receptors. Angiotensin 2 is a vasoconstrictor and if it is able to bond to its receptor can increase blood pressure. This along with damage to the endothelium can increase the likelihood of thrombosis. Angiotensin 2 also increases oxidative stress through its interaction with enzymes that play a role in producing reactive oxygen species that damage the endothelium and release coagulation factors. This is all affected by preexisting conditions.  Ace inhibitors help to prevent this. By reducing the amount of ACE available to convert the less potent vasoconstrictor angiotensin 1 into the more potent angiotensin 2 it keeps blood pressure lower and stops the reactive oxygen species from damaging the endothelium. ARBs block angiotensin 2 receptors and ACE2 is able to convert more angiotensin 2 into Angiotensin 1 7 helping to lower blood pressure. This mechanism of the virus and its associated risk factors appears to be quite important in hospital admissions and there is some evidence that cardiovascular conditions such as hypertension are playing more of a role in admissions than respiratory conditions such as asthma.


----------



## bimble (May 7, 2020)

maomao said:


> Where did you get this from? It seems really really unlikely.


Nowhere just wild speculation sorry. Nt will be eager though as are losing loads of money


----------



## phillm (May 7, 2020)




----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> Number-based stories have been major headline news items in recent days. Some numbers reaching nearly 30,000, then going past 30,000, and being the first in Europe to reach that toll, and numbers relating to care home deaths have all been major stories this week.


I only tend to watch BBC Breakfast news, and there was nothing on there today. Anecdote!=data, though.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

Just spoke to a work colleague who has received a letter from the NHS saying he has been selected at random for covid-19 test.  All a bit strange and out of the blue considering there are people out there with symptoms that can't get a test.  

Because I'm cynical my initial thought was _well that's one way to get the test numbers up, just test a load of randoms by post_.  Thinking about it though I wonder if its part of a larger study to find out how many people may have it and be asymptomatic?  If the study was big enough the results would be interesting.

It all seems legit and not a scam.


----------



## 2hats (May 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Just spoke to a work colleague who has received a letter from the NHS saying he has been selected at random for covid-19 test.  All a bit strange and out of the blue considering there are people out there with symptoms that can't get a test.


Random sampling is now starting to be conducted to improve modelling and understanding of transmission.


----------



## LDC (May 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Just spoke to a work colleague who has received a letter from the NHS saying he has been selected at random for covid-19 test.  All a bit strange and out of the blue considering there are people out there with symptoms that can't get a test.
> 
> Because I'm cynical my initial thought was _well that's one way to get the test numbers up, just test a load of randoms by post_.  Thinking about it though I wonder if its part of a larger study to find out how many people may have it and be asymptomatic?  If the study was big enough the results would be interesting.
> 
> It all seems legit and not a scam.



As 2hats said, sampling is going on. I know someone that also had an email.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 7, 2020)

Cid said:


> As I recall that was a part of a Gove speech, and never actually turned up in any guidance.



Not even part of a speech iirc. Someone asked him what 'reasonable' was and he came up with something off the top off his head.


----------



## teuchter (May 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Just spoke to a work colleague who has received a letter from the NHS saying he has been selected at random for covid-19 test.  All a bit strange and out of the blue considering there are people out there with symptoms that can't get a test.
> 
> Because I'm cynical my initial thought was _well that's one way to get the test numbers up, just test a load of randoms by post_.  Thinking about it though I wonder if its part of a larger study to find out how many people may have it and be asymptomatic?  If the study was big enough the results would be interesting.
> 
> It all seems legit and not a scam.



That's exactly what we urgently need to start doing, as soon as there is testing capacity, isn't it? Health workers first, but mass (ie random) testing is essential to understand where things are at in the population at large.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

teuchter said:


> That's exactly what we urgently need to start doing, as soon as there is testing capacity, isn't it? Health workers first, but mass (ie random) testing is essential to understand where things are at in the population at large.



Yes.  As I say the results will be interesting.

General question not aimed at you.  Can anyone who has symptoms now access a test via the post?  Is it just the drive-thru places that are regulated?


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The pattern here would actually be consistent with the idea that hospitals are now the main source of reinfection. It's worrying - if they can't sort it out, infection levels could remain at a certain level for ages yet. Has anybody in government even admitted that this is a thing that needs sorting out?



Of course not, because that would mean admitting that they'd fucked up.


----------



## kabbes (May 7, 2020)

maomao said:


> Where did you get this from? It seems really really unlikely.


They've reopened their car parks near us today.  Not publicising it (whoops) but the police have asked them to do it because increasingly people are just parking up on the roads next to the car parks instead.


----------



## bimble (May 7, 2020)

kabbes said:


> They've reopened their car parks near us today.  Not publicising it (whoops) but the police have asked them to do it because increasingly people are just parking up on the roads next to the car parks instead.


Same thing here. I mean the parking outside. The narrow road leading to the closed gate has had cars parked all along it for a couple of weeks now as people will come and see the bluebells.


----------



## kabbes (May 7, 2020)

It's been very tempting to take a bradawl on walks with me for their tyres and some notes saying "DON'T PARK HERE" with superglue to make sure the reason for the tyre-slashing is clear.  But, you know, deep breath, peace and harmony.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Just spoke to a work colleague who has received a letter from the NHS saying he has been selected at random for covid-19 test.  All a bit strange and out of the blue considering there are people out there with symptoms that can't get a test.
> 
> Because I'm cynical my initial thought was _well that's one way to get the test numbers up, just test a load of randoms by post_.  Thinking about it though I wonder if its part of a larger study to find out how many people may have it and be asymptomatic?  If the study was big enough the results would be interesting.
> 
> It all seems legit and not a scam.



Random testing is vital if we're to get any idea of how many people in the population have been exposed, how many of those exposed develop symptoms, how many people are susceptible to becoming infected by the virus at all and various other big unknowns.


----------



## bimble (May 7, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It's been very tempting to take a bradawl on walks with me for their tyres and some notes saying "DON'T PARK HERE" with superglue to make sure the reason for the tyre-slashing is clear.  But, you know, deep breath, peace and harmony.


I know, feel your pain.  It’s tough living in the middle of a renowned beauty spot where people come from miles around and clutter up the place.

Seriously though I think if the car parks (supermarket ones too though) blocked out alternate spaces then at least parking could be done safely.


----------



## kabbes (May 7, 2020)

I just internalise the hate and nurture my ulcers.


----------



## Supine (May 7, 2020)

bimble said:


> I know, feel your pain.  It’s tough living in the middle of a renowned beauty spot where people come from miles around and clutter up the place.
> 
> Seriously though I think if the car parks (supermarket ones too though) blocked out alternate spaces then at least parking could be done safely.



Up here in the lakes the police have been chasing tourists away and shaming them on Twitter. It’s still empty


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 7, 2020)

Supine said:


> Up here in the lakes the police have been chasing tourists away and shaming them on Twitter. It’s still empty



I for one am sick of people going to the middle of nowhere and wandering about a bit. I'm convinced it's this, and not inadequate infection protocols in hospitals and care homes stuffed to the gunwales with covid patients, that is permitting the ongoing spread of the virus. There is no reason to think that the police, with all their extensive scientific and medical training, would make the wrong call on this.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Random testing is vital if we're to get any idea of how many people in the population have been exposed, how many of those exposed develop symptoms, how many people are susceptible to becoming infected by the virus at all and various other big unknowns.



Yes I know all about the importance of random testing.  I'm just interested as access to testing has been very difficult for the vast majority of the population, can anyone who has symptoms now get access to a test?  If they can this must have changed very recently because I thought it was still certain groups.  I was wondering whether there is a grim irony that people without symptoms are being tested whilst those with symptoms still can't get access to one?


----------



## LDC (May 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes I know all about the importance of random testing.  I'm just interested as access to testing has been very difficult for the vast majority of the population, can anyone who has symptoms now get access to a test?  If they can this must have changed very recently because I thought it was still certain groups.  I was wondering whether there is a grim irony that people without symptoms are being tested whilst those with symptoms still can't get access to one?



Just look on the gov.uk website, it changes and the most up to date info is on there.


----------



## Supine (May 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I for one am sick of people going to the middle of nowhere and wandering about a bit. I'm convinced it's this, and not inadequate infection protocols in hospitals and care homes stuffed to the gunwales with covid patients, that is permitting the ongoing spread of the virus. There is no reason to think that the police, with all their extensive scientific and medical training, would make the wrong call on this.



How could going to the middle of nowhere cause spread? The quicker people can go to the countryside, sit on beaches or picnic in parks the better as far as I'm concerned. 

It's the workplace, hospitals, churches and shops that need good control measures as far as I can see.


----------



## two sheds (May 7, 2020)

Supine said:


> How could going to the middle of nowhere cause spread? The quicker people can go to the countryside, sit on beaches or picnic in parks the better as far as I'm concerned.
> 
> It's the workplace, hospitals, churches and shops that need good control measures as far as I can see.



read his last sentence again


----------



## teuchter (May 7, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It's been very tempting to take a bradawl on walks with me for their tyres and some notes saying "DON'T PARK HERE" with superglue to make sure the reason for the tyre-slashing is clear.  But, you know, deep breath, peace and harmony.


Do it, and key the paintwork too. Unless they've got a disabled badge. I bet most of them live close enough that they could have easily walked or cycled there.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 7, 2020)

Supine said:


> How could going to the middle of nowhere cause spread? The quicker people can go to the countryside, sit on beaches or picnic in parks the better as far as I'm concerned.



Yes. I was being sarcastic.

I strongly suspect the main reason the police are so keen to patrol beauty spots is it means they're getting paid to hang around the lake district all day instead of doing actual work.


----------



## The39thStep (May 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The hospitalization is on its way down, though more sharply in London. I agree about the new cases though. With testing ramped up to these levels Germany found this kind of level of new cases around 3 to 4 weeks ago. My biggest worry is the evident failure to stop spread in hospitals. How long people are outside or if they're having picnics is as good as irrelevant compared to that, yet this will be the focus rather than the ongoing infection protocol failures.


Health officials  were on Portuguese news this afternoon explaining that the rise in new cases in Lisbon and some other place may well be down to the increase in targeted testing . Portugal has carried out 459 thousand diagnostic tests  a testing rate of 44,000 tests per million inhabitants


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 7, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Health officials  were on Portuguese news this afternoon explaining that the rise in new cases in Lisbon and some other place may well be down to the increase in targeted testing . Portugal has carried out 459 thousand diagnostic tests  a testing rate of 44,000 tests per million inhabitants


Sure and hopefully that is the case here as well. The point of my comparison to Germany is precisely because they've been through this process - lots of targeted testing was at one point revealing 6,000 new cases a day quite a while after lockdown. Thing is, they've now got it down to 1,000 a day. We're probably some weeks away from that.


----------



## quimcunx (May 7, 2020)

Is this right, does anyone know? 



If this is correct why do we look so different?  Apart from because of the initial delay? Because we never had a strict lockdown?  Because workplaces remained open or reopened quite quickly? Because of all those terrible people who cycled 40 miles or drove to a hill for a walk or sat down on a patch of grass?


----------



## quimcunx (May 7, 2020)

Also I would quite like to see what sort of rates of covid there is in the police and what if any social distancing rules they've had.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Is this right, does anyone know?
> 
> View attachment 211295
> 
> If this is correct why do we look so different?  Apart from because of the initial delay? Because we never had a strict lockdown?  Because workplaces remained open or reopened quite quickly? Because of all those terrible people who cycled 40 miles or drove to a hill for a walk or sat down on a patch of grass?



Well, our peak was later than the others so will go down later.  Also the testing has been ramped upped massively and the more you test the more positives you'll find.  Also because the situation has gone to shit here.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Also I would quite like to see what sort of rates of covid there is in the police and what if any social distancing rules they've had.



Can I ask why?


----------



## quimcunx (May 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Can I ask why?



Because it seems like it should be more  feasible to get those numbers. Because they have been working throughout but not in hospitals or care homes.


----------



## kabbes (May 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Is this right, does anyone know?
> 
> View attachment 211295
> 
> If this is correct why do we look so different?  Apart from because of the initial delay? Because we never had a strict lockdown?  Because workplaces remained open or reopened quite quickly? Because of all those terrible people who cycled 40 miles or drove to a hill for a walk or sat down on a patch of grass?


Our upward curve would have been multiple times as steep if we’d have had the same testing regimes as those other countries.  Imagine something even steeper than Spain’s.  And then our numbers now would be on a downswing.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Because it seems like it should be more  feasible to get those numbers. Because they have been working throughout but not in hospitals or care homes.



Ah right.  So for comparison against other frontline workers.


----------



## treelover (May 7, 2020)

my house neigbour has just told me that his team of cleaners in  a supermkt, inc him are no longer using any kind of PPE, fatalistic, low wage, poor conditions, etc, i am pretty worried, we share the same front door, stairs, rails, etc its a HMO, and afaik, he doesn't clean when he leaves/aerrives, using wipes, etc, I am also concerned the guy downstairs is not wiping down the handle, etc and he is a Dr working below a Covid ward. Don't want to fall out with them, but have to do something, its urgent.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2020)

treelover said:


> my house neigbour has just told me that his team of cleaners in  a supermkt, inc him are no longer using any kind of PPE, fatalistic, low wage, poor conditions, etc, i am pretty worried, we share the same front door, stairs, rails, etc its a HMO, and afaik, he doesn't clean when he leaves/aerrives, using wipes, etc, I am also concerned the guy downstairs is not wiping down the handle, etc and he is a Dr working below a Covid ward. Don't want to fall out with them, but have to do someting, its urgent.



That sounds pretty stressful.  Are there steps you can take to protect yourself by having several pairs of gloves you use?  

I also live in block of flats with communal entrance / stairs.  Its not just the residents its all the delivery drivers etc.  Its an area that really can't be kept clean so probably have to do the best you can to protect yourself.


----------



## PD58 (May 7, 2020)

Just looked at check your county on the BBC and in mine we were at 211 cases for a few weeks and in the past 10 days or so have increased to 329 with 35 deaths - so we are not plateauing (pop is 192,000) but hey we will be out on Monday...


----------



## Supine (May 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I strongly suspect the main reason the police are so keen to patrol beauty spots is it means they're getting paid to hang around the lake district all day instead of doing actual work.



tbf they also live here!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Is this right, does anyone know?
> 
> View attachment 211295
> 
> If this is correct why do we look so different?  Apart from because of the initial delay? Because we never had a strict lockdown?  Because workplaces remained open or reopened quite quickly? Because of all those terrible people who cycled 40 miles or drove to a hill for a walk or sat down on a patch of grass?



Looks right, yep.

Cos of the delay in ramping up testing. But also cos of the emerging crisis of infection in hospitals. Last week, it was reported that half of new cases were known to be hospital-related. Of course, that's partly because hospital workers are finally being tested, but it also means hospital-related infection rates in the UK are at a very much higher level than in other countries right now. It is rather urgent to find out why and fix it. The testing will help in that, of course - far easier to fix a problem when you know what it actually is.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 7, 2020)

treelover said:


> my house neigbour has just told me that his team of cleaners in  a supermkt, inc him are no longer using any kind of PPE, fatalistic, low wage, poor conditions, etc, i am pretty worried, we share the same front door, stairs, rails, etc its a HMO, and afaik, he doesn't clean when he leaves/aerrives, using wipes, etc, I am also concerned the guy downstairs is not wiping down the handle, etc and he is a Dr working below a Covid ward. Don't want to fall out with them, but have to do something, its urgent.


So what you could do is make sure that when you leave your flat you wipe all the door handles and banisters as you leave then throw the wipe away and gel hands and then the same everytime you go back home. That's what I would do.


----------



## teuchter (May 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Is this right, does anyone know?
> 
> View attachment 211295
> 
> If this is correct why do we look so different?  Apart from because of the initial delay? Because we never had a strict lockdown?  Because workplaces remained open or reopened quite quickly? Because of all those terrible people who cycled 40 miles or drove to a hill for a walk or sat down on a patch of grass?


Here's similar data according the graphs I look at. I think the rolling averages are good for some things but can sometimes produce odd effects with erratic data. If you look at my top one, you'd say there's not a clear trend where we are suddenly doing worse.


----------



## teuchter (May 7, 2020)

I prefer to look at deaths, as it seems more reliable, and less affected by changes in testing regimes.
The jump in the UK line is, I think, caused by the sudden addition of care home data. The general gradient of the line remains very similar to those seen in France, Spain and Italy.


----------



## bimble (May 7, 2020)

What has caused their most trusty newspapers this morning to be apparently so out of step with what the government now says they plan to announce on Sunday? I am confused by it. The papers must have got it from somewhere. Seems a possibility that they changed their minds when they observed the general reaction? We have a pm who above all wants to be liked I think.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 7, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I prefer to look at deaths, as it seems more reliable, and less affected by changes in testing regimes.
> The jump in the UK line is, I think, caused by the sudden addition of care home data. The general gradient of the line remains very similar to those seen in France, Spain and Italy.
> 
> View attachment 211329


(((Belgium))) 

That is the better measure, with the usual caveats - Italy still just hospital deaths, Belgium off the scale but probably with the most realistic measure of deaths, including all confirmed and probable.


----------



## xenon (May 7, 2020)

treelover said:


> my house neigbour has just told me that his team of cleaners in  a supermkt, inc him are no longer using any kind of PPE, fatalistic, low wage, poor conditions, etc, i am pretty worried, we share the same front door, stairs, rails, etc its a HMO, and afaik, he doesn't clean when he leaves/aerrives, using wipes, etc, I am also concerned the guy downstairs is not wiping down the handle, etc and he is a Dr working below a Covid ward. Don't want to fall out with them, but have to do something, its urgent.



The main thing you can do for yourself is be assiduous about washing your hands when coming in and out. I sometimes clean the communal handles, mailboxes and stuff because I'm on the ground floor and they're near by. But moreso, I always wash my hands as soon as I come back in , before taking off jacket and outdoor shoes. Then wash them again.


----------



## teuchter (May 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> (((Belgium)))
> 
> That is the better measure, with the usual caveats - Italy still just hospital deaths, Belgium off the scale but probably with the most realistic measure of deaths, including all confirmed and probable.


Yeah, here it is with the scale altered to see belgium properly.

I wish this graph would let me see London individualy though - I expect it might look like the belgian line.

(Oh, and look at Sweden. These graphs are often presented with a log scale, which distorts things and makes a bunch of countries look more similar than they are. Actually sweden is doing quite a lot better than us at present.)


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 7, 2020)

I haven't looked for a while, but London on its own was getting nearer to 1,000 deaths per million last week. It won't be far off now, and will be above Belgium there. New York State on its own is the worst-hit Belgium-sized chunk of the world. Currently 1,344 per million.


----------



## elbows (May 7, 2020)

bimble said:


> What has caused their most trusty newspapers this morning to be apparently so out of step with what the government now says they plan to announce on Sunday? I am confused by it. The papers must have got it from somewhere. Seems a possibility that they changed their minds when they observed the general reaction? We have a pm who above all wants to be liked I think.



It could be anti-lockdown factions within the press and government trying to bounce the government into doing certain things. Or Johnson & co playing a game where they want to bolster their 'sticking to the lockdown' credentials by having a plan floated that they have no intention of following, so they can then come out with something else that makes them look tougher by comparison.

I dont know, all I really know is that I am mostly ignoring all of it, I wont let it wind me up, I will just wait and see what is actually announced.


----------



## editor (May 7, 2020)

bimble said:


> View attachment 211227
> ffs.


People have responded to this dangerous, reckless misinformation in the manner you might expect, and around me the parks are full of drinkers and the roads are pretty much as busy as they were before.


----------



## zahir (May 7, 2020)

Leaked report on Exercise Cygnus









						What was Exercise Cygnus and what did it find?
					

The 2016 simulation of a pandemic found holes in the UK’s readiness for such a crisis




					www.theguardian.com
				











						Revealed: the secret report that gave ministers warning of care home coronavirus crisis
					

Care providers say government did not discuss key Exercise Cygnus concerns with them




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Is this right, does anyone know?
> 
> View attachment 211295
> 
> If this is correct why do we look so different?  Apart from because of the initial delay? Because we never had a strict lockdown?  Because workplaces remained open or reopened quite quickly? Because of all those terrible people who cycled 40 miles or drove to a hill for a walk or sat down on a patch of grass?



Several reasons I suspect. One would be testing has been steadily but slowly increasing. Another is the fuzziness of our lockdown, and the high number of non-essential businesses staying open. Another is the hospital and care home infection routes which lockdown don't help with and on which little action seems to have been taken besides buying four billion quid's worth of PPE that doesn't work. 

It's not good though, and there's no way the scaling up of testing accounts for all of it.


----------



## crossthebreeze (May 7, 2020)

editor said:


> People have responded to this dangerous, reckless misinformation in the manner you might expect, and around me the parks are full of drinkers and the roads are pretty much as busy as they were before.



Yeah I work out and about my local area on Monday and Thursdays walking all over the place and most of today just saw people absolutely taking the piss in ways I haven't seen before (admittedly it was the warmest day of the year so far too) - big groups of obviously several households sitting outside drinking without even the pretence of social distancing, men outside the corner shop shaking hands and high fiving, loads of kids playing in the back lanes,  - until the police did the rounds at about 2pm after which it went quiet for a bit.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 7, 2020)

i'm terrified about this lockdown easing. it was never a fucking lockdown in the first place and they want to ease restrictions even further. It's so irresponsible and callous


----------



## Orang Utan (May 7, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Yeah I work out and about my local area on Monday and Thursdays walking all over the place and most of today just saw people absolutely taking the piss in ways I haven't seen before (admittedly it was the warmest day of the year so far too) - big groups of obviously several households sitting outside drinking without even the pretence of social distancing, men outside the corner shop shaking hands and high fiving, loads of kids playing in the back lanes,  - until the police did the rounds at about 2pm after which it went quiet for a bit.


I saw some street drinkers near my work sharing a can of commotion lotion and then when they parted, they cautiously bumped elbows. Clearly hard of thinking chaps.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Ah right.  So for comparison against other frontline workers.



Police are neither frontline nor workers.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Police are neither frontline nor workers.


they are frontline though, and i have the misfortune of having to work in the same building as the plastics and I would rather not be forced to breath their air and use the same toilets, as they have to go into the company of some quite unwell people or chaotic people who don't social distance. 
(they are lazy corrupt thick twats as well)


----------



## crossthebreeze (May 7, 2020)

From the Independant live updates:


> *Coronavirus rate of transmission is increasing, says chief government statistician*
> The critical ‘R’ rate measuring the spread of coronavirus infections is on the rise again, the chief national statistician says – raising fresh questions about any lockdown easing.
> Professor Ian Diamond of the ONS said he agreed with analysis by Professor John Edmunds that the 'R' rate in the UK has actually risen.
> "Professor Edmunds, I think, is right - the 'R' probably has gone up just a little bit from his last estimates, and that is driven by the epidemic in care homes," he said. "I would not demur from that.
> ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 7, 2020)

Reading posts on here, it does seem the lockdown has been breaking down over the last week or so, and from most of those posters saying so, it seems a problem mainly in cities & London in particular.

There's no signs of it happening around Worthing, the seafront & parks are almost dead, very little traffic on local roads, on a par with a Christmas day. Normally in this weather my neighbours & I would be having BBQ parties, whilst some have been having BBQs for their household, none could be described as 'parties', certainly no cars or taxis coming or going. 

Although, it's reported the 'A' roads in Sussex are busier over the last week or so, no idea where they are going or doing, but they don't seem to be heading towards the seafront.


----------



## Callie (May 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I’d also like to know what happened to the 2 million antibody tests we ordered from China before they were even tested.


In the bin


----------



## Grandma Death (May 7, 2020)

I got my car washed today and breezed into my local supermarket within minutes with zero security on the door and numbers not limited. This wasn't the state of affairs less than a few days ago. Im a little concerned to say the least


----------



## Orang Utan (May 7, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Reading posts on here, it does seem the lockdown has been breaking down over the last week or so, and from most of those posters saying so, it seems a problem mainly in cities & London in particular.
> 
> There's no signs of it happening around Worthing, the seafront & parks are almost dead, very little traffic on local roads, on a par with a Christmas day.
> 
> Although, it's reported the 'A' roads in Sussex are busier over the last week or so, no idea where they are going or doing, but they don't seem to be heading towards the seafront.


i think it must vary in urban areas too - the contrast between where I live and work is striking -  I live in a 'leafy suburb' where many have gardens, the streets are wider, the shops are bigger and many people are comfortably off and/or working from home, but where I work has one of the highest population densities in Europe, with few gardens and green spaces, overcrowded and insanitary housing, and a much higher proportion of people who cannot afford not to work or who are keyworkers. So of course there are way more people and traffic on the streets.


----------



## MrSki (May 7, 2020)

What a cunt.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 7, 2020)

Following a question from the same reporter that Raab called 'crafty' today, for asking more than one question, Harries gave an explanation about why temperature checks are unreliable/pointless in testing at borders or anywhere else - workplaces etc (in a comparison to S.Korea's success, iirc) - that it's not really meaningful because there is a 14 day incubation period - also based on 'reliable kit' (which is it, really, isn't it) - when our_ own_ instructions to self-isolate, based on symptoms, _continues to be_ (I think?!) a temp or a persistent cough, while we also head back towards lifting lockdown measures and returning people to work/school. Fuck sake. 

Also Raab calling a reporter 'crafty' for asking too many questions (after he also stopped reading, aloud, the first question from the member of public, to give the full context of the question.


----------



## frogwoman (May 7, 2020)

Around here people weren't really following it to begin with. I was pissed in the early weeks but now I just feel dead eyed rage at the government tbh. 

The lockdown is definitely causing hardship especially if it drags on indefinitely but the way its happening at such a speed is terrifying


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 7, 2020)

And 'prevelance is vital', to incorporate with the R value - when we have NOT been testing nearly enough.
It's really scary that they keep highlighting the issue of our new cases not dropping, that plateauing is good _because_ we're testing more, when we've consistently tested on such a diabolically low scale - even more so at this point that they look to be loosening everything.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 7, 2020)

bimble said:


> What has caused their most trusty newspapers this morning to be apparently so out of step with what the government now says they plan to announce on Sunday? I am confused by it. The papers must have got it from somewhere. Seems a possibility that they changed their minds when they observed the general reaction? We have a pm who above all wants to be liked I think.



We have a PM who likes plausible deniability and is happily going to pas blame on to those silly media types for chafing about lockdown (even though we briefed that we might let it wind down, what what) when the rate rises again in a week or two.


----------



## phillm (May 7, 2020)




----------



## weltweit (May 7, 2020)

zahir said:


> Leaked report on Exercise Cygnus
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Good the Cygnus report is coming out. I think I already read that it criticised UK ventilator stocks as being way too low, which they were and about which the recommendations were ignored. Will be interesting what else was recommended. Have you read it yet zahir?


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 7, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> We have a PM who likes plausible deniability and is happily going to pas blame on to those silly media types for chafing about lockdown (even though we briefed that we might let it wind down, what what) when the rate rises again in a week or two.



Surely there's only so many Boris Johnson arse-covering U-turns the press is willing to instantly forget about?

Although to be fair, if there was a limit on that it would have been reached long before he got as far as Downing Street.


----------



## elbows (May 7, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Good the Cygnus report is coming out. I think I already read that it criticised UK ventilator stocks as being way too low, which they were and about which the recommendations were ignored. Will be interesting what else was recommended. Have you read it yet zahir?



I havent got time to read it till tomorrow but I did have a vague stab at skimming the start of it. Phrases such as 'population triage' and 'reverse triage' leapt out at me.


----------



## zahir (May 7, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Good the Cygnus report is coming out. I think I already read that it criticised UK ventilator stocks as being way too low, which they were and about which the recommendations were ignored. Will be interesting what else was recommended. Have you read it yet zahir?



Not yet. I’ll need some time to read through it.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Surely there's only so many Boris Johnson arse-covering U-turns the press is willing to instantly forget about?
> 
> Although to be fair, if there was a limit on that it would have been reached long before he got as far as Downing Street.



Given the abysmal state of UK press that's a no.

As your second point makes clear.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 7, 2020)

phillm said:


> View attachment 211356View attachment 211357View attachment 211358



Blimey! Where are they from?


----------



## frogwoman (May 7, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Blimey! Where are they from?



Proper terrifying images that.


----------



## elbows (May 7, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Blimey! Where are they from?











						Wefail Art - Political Prints and Original Paintings
					

Wefail Art - Political art and prints for sale.




					wefail.art


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 7, 2020)

Very Bacon and Steadman


----------



## weltweit (May 7, 2020)

I see scare stories about a great recession, with perhaps a 14% drop in GDP in 2020. I don't get it, don't the economists realise we have had an epidemic and a lockdown? Obviously GDP will be down. What matters is how quickly the economy can come back when the virus is finally more under control!


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Proper terrifying images that.



Innit! Especially the Hancock one!


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 7, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I see scare stories about a great recession, with perhaps a 14% drop in GDP in 2020. I don't get it, don't the economists realise we have had an epidemic and a lockdown? Obviously GDP will be down. What matters is how quickly the economy can come back when the virus is finally more under control!


Sooner they get out there that _regrettably we must all tighten our belts and make sacrifices_ the better.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 7, 2020)

I just can't quite get my head around how surreal this all is. Tens of thousands dead even when the government had months to prepare. When a pandemic was deemed the biggest risk to the country. When Italy was being reported it was like day of the locust. Now it's worse here, in terms of numbers at least, there's a weird disconnect from it. The media today, again, tens of thousands of dead and it's 'ooh, we might be able to have a pint in the pub garden come Monday.' Happy Monday was even a fucking headline!

It's almost a sense of mass denial. Fuck even I feel in denial about it in some ways. I can't quite believe it's gone this badly wrong. There's a part of me that wants to have some sympathy because trying to deal with a crisis like this is unimaginable but that's only a small part. The rest of me says they're the fucking government. You put yourself in a position to be the government. Your main priority is to protect people but instead, you were more concerned with the economy.


----------



## yield (May 8, 2020)

It's surreal because - as has been said before on this thread - the government are gaslighting. 

"People making difficult decisions in extraordinary circumstances" ‘Herd immunity and let the old people die’ was policy. 

Will it be enough? Boris Johnson says 'MANY loved ones' will die and tells people to stay home if they have a COUGH as he brands coronavirus 'worst health crisis in a generation'... but still refuses to ban mass gatherings or shut schools
12 March 2020 

"We didn't know this could happen!" Yes, they did.



zahir said:


> Leaked report on Exercise Cygnus
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not to mention ten years of austerity and underfunding of the NHS to the extent where they didn't have basic equipment, PPE etc.


----------



## Raheem (May 8, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Innit! Especially the Hancock one!


It's got Hancock in it.


----------



## little_legs (May 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> i'm terrified about this lockdown easing. it was never a fucking lockdown in the first place and they want to ease restrictions even further. It's so irresponsible and callous


I reckon the daily briefings with updated death figures will be phased out pretty soon too


----------



## andysays (May 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Reading posts on here, it does seem the lockdown has been breaking down over the last week or so, and from most of those posters saying so, it seems a problem mainly in cities & London in particular.
> 
> There's no signs of it happening around Worthing, the seafront & parks are almost dead, very little traffic on local roads, on a par with a Christmas day. Normally in this weather my neighbours & I would be having BBQ parties, whilst some have been having BBQs for their household, none could be described as 'parties', certainly no cars or taxis coming or going.
> 
> Although, it's reported the 'A' roads in Sussex are busier over the last week or so, no idea where they are going or doing, but they don't seem to be heading towards the seafront.



My experience in my part of London is that it has been gradually but noticeably getting busier over the past couple of weeks at least. 

Most people are still practicing distancing measures as best they can, but there are far more people about and, most noticeably, far more cars on the roads.

There was a surge over Easter weekend, and I expect there will be a significant surge this weekend, partly because of good weather, partly because of anticipation of lockdown measures being eased on Sunday.


----------



## Sprocket. (May 8, 2020)

I feel nothing but dread regarding the slightest lift in restrictions. The percentage of selfish and uncaring individuals that are about leaves me fearful of the country stumbling, maybe free falling into a second overwhelming wave of illness and deaths. 
The government’s desire to be popular and it’s desire to stop the economic downfall, appears to outweigh the common sense to realise this pandemic is far from over. Despite the promise of rigorous testing and social distancing advice.
On a personal note I’m being shielded currently, but I would be really pissed off if I became an unnecessary victim of some populist politicians ego. Like so many unfortunate and needless deaths have over the last few months.


----------



## Doodler (May 8, 2020)

Here in 'Britain's most unequal city' pretty much all the homeless people have disappeared from the streets and green spaces. Round about now you would start to see tents and other shelters hidden away among bushes but I've only spotted two and they look long established.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 8, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Here in 'Britain's most unequal city' pretty much all the homeless people have disappeared from the streets and green spaces. Round about now you would start to see tents and other shelters hidden away among bushes but I've only spotted two and they look long established. Nearly all the beggars have gone as well.



Hopefully they have been found accommodation, certainly our council, working with our excellent local homeless charity, has found places for all known rough sleepers, some are being housed in one of our largest hotels.


----------



## gentlegreen (May 8, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> In his latest updates he has been talking a lot about Ace inhibitors, ARBs, oxidative stress and the role of Endothelial cells. I've done a little reading about it and still getting my head around the mechanism involved but  it appears that although ACE inhibitors increase the amount of ACE 2 available it does not seem to be increasing the chance of developing Covid-19. Sars-cov 2 does bind to ACE 2 but there are other factors in play. A lot of deaths are due to cardiovascular rather than respiratory issues and it is through their role in this cardiovascular mechanism that ACE inhibitors are making a difference.  The virus binds to ACE 2 reducing the amount available to bond to angiotensin 2 receptors. Angiotensin 2 is a vasoconstrictor and if it is able to bond to its receptor can increase blood pressure. This along with damage to the endothelium can increase the likelihood of thrombosis. Angiotensin 2 also increases oxidative stress through its interaction with enzymes that play a role in producing reactive oxygen species that damage the endothelium and release coagulation factors. This is all affected by preexisting conditions.  Ace inhibitors help to prevent this. By reducing the amount of ACE available to convert the less potent vasoconstrictor angiotensin 1 into the more potent angiotensin 2 it keeps blood pressure lower and stops the reactive oxygen species from damaging the endothelium. ARBs block angiotensin 2 receptors and ACE2 is able to convert more angiotensin 2 into Angiotensin 1 7 helping to lower blood pressure. This mechanism of the virus and its associated risk factors appears to be quite important in hospital admissions and there is some evidence that cardiovascular conditions such as hypertension are playing more of a role in admissions than respiratory conditions such as asthma.


So apparently there are ACE 2 receptors in the gut too ...
Anecdotal report by NY doctor that colleague thought she had shingles ...
Also this woman has naturally low body temperature and feels certain she got a whacking great viral load from a patient along with the colleague who is still knackered after 2 weeks, but she had modest symptoms and two antibody tests came up negative - so wonders about natural immunity ... I think she said she's taking ACE 2 inhibitors...

And "fever is good" - something I've always gone with. I take painkillers for headache, but never fever - and when I do it's paracetomol and codeine - as it happens I tend to have headache when I have fever... but using the codeine I rarely take anything like the safety limit for paracetomol - more usually 50 percent.
I _was _taking ibuprofen though - because my headaches are usually due to sinusitis - which in the past defeated even codeine ...


----------



## Cid (May 8, 2020)

It's hard to see how the government response could be worse at the moment. Ok, I mean it's short of Trump or Bolsonaro. But... well, that's not saying much. This continuing obfuscation of plans, of hints and teasers, of occasional orders by diktat. It isn't working, it's been clear for some time that it isn't working. I mean what would you expect to happen in a country with a press like ours? If you say you're thinking about some lockdown reviews, if you hint at what that will be, especially in the sieve-like environment of Westminster where every half-decent journalist has their source, of course you will get speculation. On a fucking sunny bank-holiday weekend. How is it possible to fuck that up more?

Secondly, really think the 'economy vs public health' thing needs to be called out more. The two are not mutually exclusive (I mean aside from the whole capitalism thing). An early end to lockdown with some 'great sacrifices to get Britain working' doesn't make economic sense. Future waves are unpredictable. The attitude of countries that have effectively managed their infections to doing business with countries that haven't is unpredictable... On a purely practical level you might see quarantine on entering those countries becoming routine. But beyond that (and more significantly) there are risks of further lockdowns to control the impact on health services, which makes for an unpredictable environment that even the hedge-fund managers will be eyeing with caution.

The ROK is doing a lot of legwork here as 'the good example'... I'm going to use it again, though mainly that's because I know people there and am more familiar with it than say China (where I also know people, but where the broader pictures is probably... less clear). Their economy _is_ functioning. It has been for much of the crisis. It will take a major hit, but I suspect will come out of this looking far better than most other places. We can't do what they did now of course. That would have been contingent on a timely lockdown and high public health spending to rapidly develop test and trace, and to find a way around the PPE problems. But some aspects of that are still open to us - PPE should be increasingly available. We know tests are. We know there are various avenues for tracing. Impose a more strict lockdown until the measures of infection are down. Work through ways in which infection rates in hospitals might be brought down. _Then_ gradually release lockdown.

There are other issues of course... Is the love of freedom that charaterises the west, and obviously only the west as opposed to those Asian places that trust their governments far too much, ever going to accept invasive tracing procedures? Well yeah, because that argument is arse. It just needs to be done in the right way... with consistency and respect for the population. I.e don't fucking consult someone linked to a highly controversial scandal, and a highly controversial individual. Don't even fucking have the appearance of that. Use the many tools you have; communicate properly. Form a cross-party committee, perhaps even throw in some judicial oversight. Make it look like you are making every effort to protect data in the long-term, while making essential short-term compromises to privacy. Frame it in terms of both individual responsibility and government responsibility.

Is this government capable of any of that? doubt it. Ideological opposition to public health spending. A view of any problem as two sided fostered in the debating societies of Eton and Oxbridge and finalised in the benches of Westminster. A view of 'the public' as some nebulous, stupid mass to be nudged about. But we should never forget that there were options. That there were even examples of countries that managed both public health and economy. And that British exceptionalism is as much of a lie as it is for our cousins across the pond.


----------



## tommers (May 8, 2020)

Sure, the Velociraptors Are Still On the Loose, But That’s No Reason Not to Reopen Jurassic Park
					

Our 3rd most-read article of 2020. - - -Originally published May 6, 2020. - - - “Trump is shrugging off warnings by scientists that the easing res...




					www.mcsweeneys.net
				




Targetted at the US but equally applicable here.


----------



## CNT36 (May 8, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> So apparently there are ACE 2 receptors in the gut too ...
> Anecdotal report by NY doctor that colleague thought she had shingles ...
> Also this woman has naturally low body temperature and feels certain she got a whacking great viral load from a patient along with the colleague who is still knackered after 2 weeks, but she had modest symptoms and two antibody tests came up negative - so wonders about natural immunity ... I think she said she's taking ACE 2 inhibitors...
> 
> ...



I'll watch that later. There have been some studies showing that those presenting with fever have had better outcomes. I can not remember the details for a second though. Binding to Ace 2 receptors in the digestive system are thought to play a role in infection through the fecal route and diarrhea.


----------



## treelover (May 8, 2020)

Thousands of renters could be evicted in June. Will the government protect them? | David Renton
					

The coronavirus-related freeze on evictions is ending – and the new ‘pre-action protocol’ relies on the kindness of landlords, says barrister David Renton




					www.theguardian.com
				





The eviction law ends in June, wonder if the Govt will extend it, lots of pressure to do so.


----------



## quimcunx (May 8, 2020)

Cid  the same story as in normal times when they cut services to the bone to save money etc. They never understand that a stitch in time saves nine.  

Apart from in the years leading up to this, all the things they could have done in those precious few weeks would have cost a lot of money like upscaling  test and trace,  managing the borders, quarantine, hotels for homeless quicker and stricter lockdown  etc etc but would have saved more lives and been cheaper than this ineffective shitshow that will demand more money for fewer results.


----------



## 2hats (May 8, 2020)

Government releases redacted SAGE papers in a show of, er, transparency.









						UK scientists condemn 'Stalinist' attempt to censor Covid-19 advice
					

Report criticising government lockdown proposals heavily redacted before release




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2020)

2hats said:


> Government releases redacted SAGE papers in a show of, er, transparency.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ah I was wondering what was in the blocked out section 3 of that document!

( https://assets.publishing.service.g...ncing-comments-suggestions-spi-b-01042020.pdf )


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2020)

Wales changes are minimal:









						Coronavirus: 'Modest' lockdown changes announced in Wales
					

People will be allowed to exercise outside more than once a day, First Minister Mark Drakeford says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (May 8, 2020)

Good graphic that. I think lots of people don't get the significance of that 0.1 above an R 1.0 and that's a nice illustration of it. Hope England copies it for the briefing on Sunday.


----------



## editor (May 8, 2020)

We're a global embarrassment 














						Countries beating Covid-19 — EndCoronavirus.org
					

See which countries are winning, nearly there, or need action, when it comes to COVID-19.




					www.endcoronavirus.org


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I see scare stories about a great recession, with perhaps a 14% drop in GDP in 2020. I don't get it, don't the economists realise we have had an epidemic and a lockdown? Obviously GDP will be down. What matters is how quickly the economy can come back when the virus is finally more under control!



The FT have resorted to going on about the great frost of 1709!


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Good graphic that. I think people don't get the significance of that 0.1 above an R 1.0 and that's a nice illustration of it. Hope England copies it for the briefing on Sunday.



Yes the R values need to be considered in light of the fact that what ever number it is gets raised to an arbitrary power, for every sick person, so anything above 1 basically means 'out of control'.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 8, 2020)

editor said:


> We're a global embarrassment
> 
> 
> View attachment 211425
> ...


As ever with these things, those are massively misleading. 

Not such a problem with the top lot. Those are indeed all places that have successfully stamped down on their first infection waves. 

But there is a massive range of cases in the second bunch, and they're pretty meaningless after being given different scales not for reasons of population differences but just to fit them at the same size. By those graphs, you'd think Finland was doing almost as badly as Sweden.


----------



## editor (May 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> As ever with these things, those are massively misleading.
> 
> Not such a problem with the top lot. Those are indeed all places that have successfully stamped down on their first infection waves.
> 
> But there is a massive range of cases in the second bunch, and they're pretty meaningless after being given different scales not for reasons of population differences but just to fit them at the same size. By those graphs, you'd think Finland was doing almost as badly as Sweden.


Either way, we're doing fucking shit.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 8, 2020)

editor said:


> Either way, we're doing fucking shit.


Certainly. In fact, those graphs seriously flatter the UK by making it look like others aren't doing that much better when in fact they are.


----------



## weltweit (May 8, 2020)

Starmer's question at PM questions was highly relevant - UK is worst in Europe, second worst worldwide, how did it come to this? I don't think Johnson answered the question.


----------



## editor (May 8, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Starmer's question at PM questions was highly relevant - UK is worst in Europe, second worst worldwide, how did it come to this? I don't think Johnson answered the question.


It makes me so fucking angry that this incompetent deadly cunt Boris seems to be blustering his way off the hook. Where's the national anger?


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 8, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Starmer's question at PM questions was highly relevant - UK is worst in Europe, second worst worldwide, how did it come to this? I don't think Johnson answered the question.



It's too early to compare countries, was Johnson's reply. I would suggest that such hand-wavings are of little use to those who already dead.


----------



## 2hats (May 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> It's too early to compare countries, was Johnson's reply.


Of course it's not. They themselves have been doing it for weeks, supplying a global death comparison chart. Well, until it was no longer convenient for their narrative.





Besides, one just has to look at the Z-scores (used to enable comparisons between different populations or between different time periods and are expressed in terms of standard deviations from the mean) for excess all-cause mortality across Europe to see what a disaster it has been in England in particular.

Spot the odd one out in this map of all causes excess mortality Z-scores:


England peaked at over 43 s.d. from the mean. Spain 35, Belgium 30, Netherlands 24, Italy 23, France 22.

Interactive plots of the clusterfuck here.


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2020)

2hats said:


> Of course it's not. They themselves have been doing it for weeks, supplying a global death comparison chart. Well, until it was no longer convenient for their narrative.



Their current line on comparisons is especially surreal these days because as of yesterday they were still showing a version of that graph, albeit they gave up showing the original UK line that was not for all settings, and just have the all settings one now (which is worse (higher numbers), obviously).


----------



## 2hats (May 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Their current line on comparisons is especially surreal these days because as of yesterday they were still showing a version of that graph, albeit they gave up showing the original UK line that was not for all settings, and just have the all settings one now (which is worse (higher numbers), obviously).


Which of course hugely under represents the true total anyway (the lower bound from adding most recent ONS data and subsequent (undercounted) government daily numbers easily reaches 42k whilst the FT estimates it north of 55k). I await with interest each day to see how they redraw the chart to try to lessen the widening gulf.


----------



## Doodler (May 8, 2020)

There's a growing line in some quarters about the economic effects of lockdown actually causing more deaths in the long run and casting a shadow for generations to come etc. Peter Hitchens is probably the most widely read UK newspaper columnist expressing this, doubtless many more pundits with similar views in the US. Hitchens writes well and has a large following.

The generations to come stuff sounds like bollocks. A recession yes but it's after-effects will surely be a matter of political choice. Many countries suffered enormous loss of life, industrial capacity and infrastructure during WW2 but they didn't end up as basket cases for ever more.


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2020)

2hats said:


> Which of course hugely under represents the true total anyway (the lower bound from adding most recent ONS data and subsequent government undercounting daily numbers easily reaches 42k whilst the FT estimates it north of 55k). I await with interest each day to see how they redraw the chart to try to lessen the widening gulf.



I havent yet recovered from the time that they just stopped showing intensive care data for two crucial weeks (which turned out to be roughly the two weeks following the peak hospital death day) and then it returned in a different format (percentages of capacity used, not raw numbers of patients).

Excess mortality numbers from ONS etc I follow closely, and its those that I will use to do the ultimate comparisons, but I've avoided trying to do them internationally myself due to variations in lag of this data between countries. Although I'm glad I can look at some FT articles for that in the meantime. I'm also glad they attempt to estimate whats happened since the last cutoff date of ONS data, although I dont tend to quote their numbers on that myself too much, I'd rather lag behind and not use estimates.


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2020)

Doodler said:


> There's a growing line in some quarters about the economic effects of lockdown actually causing more deaths in the long run and casting a shadow for generations to come etc. Peter Hitchens is probably the most widely read UK newspaper columnist expressing this, doubtless many more pundits with similar views in the US. Hitchens writes well and has a large following.
> 
> The generations to come stuff sounds like bollocks. A recession yes but it's after-effects will surely be a matter of political choice. Many countries suffered enormous loss of life, industrial capacity and infrastructure during WW2 but they didn't end up as basket cases for ever more.



It also fails to acknowledge the true scope of the other shadows already hanging over the future, such as stuff relating to energy transition, climate change etc. The century was never going to be a continuation of what came to be seen as normal by the latter part of the 20th century, it was only a question of how much of the old ways would be clung onto and for how long, and whether the rich are allowed to remain rich, the extent to which they would dodge the burden.

I would blend all this stuff together when looking for the sane way forwards. No point treating post-pandemic recovery as its own thing, isolated from the other big issues. I just have to hope that the scale of things this time is simply too large for austerity fuckers to get their way again. That was my initial calculation and I still hear mainstream sentiments that seem to acknowledge it, but at the very least there will be some ugly bumps along the road I'm sure.

Plus the Brexit shadow - we'll never get to see quite what that would have been like on its own now, although I'm sure some fresh post-pandemic implications of Brexit will be evident at various points.


----------



## 2hats (May 8, 2020)

Doodler said:


> There's a growing line in some quarters about the economic effects of lockdown actually causing more deaths in the long run and casting a shadow for generations to come etc.


Or not...

COVID-19 reduces economic activity, which reduces pollution, which saves lives.
(Marshall Burke, Prof. of Earth Systems, Stanford)



> Below I calculate that the reductions in air pollution in China caused by this economic disruption likely saved twenty times more lives in China than have currently been lost directly due to infection with the virus in that country.
> [...]
> Putting these numbers together yields some very large reductions in premature mortality.  Using the He et al 2016 estimates of the impact of changes in PM on mortality, I calculate that having 2 months of 10ug/m3 reductions in PM2.5 likely has saved the lives of 4,000 kids under 5 and 73,000 adults over 70 in China.  Using even more conservative estimates of 10% reduction in mortality per 10ug change, I estimate 1400 under-5 lives saved and 51700 over-70 lives saved.  Even under these more conservative assumptions, the lives saved due to the pollution reductions are roughly 20x the number of lives that have been directly lost to the virus (based on March 8 estimates of 3100 Chinese COVID-19 deaths.


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## elbows (May 8, 2020)

If it doesnt end up being a catalyst for things we were going to be very slowly dragged into doing this century anyway then I may retire from thinking. It certainly provides some interesting data for the cause.


----------



## Doodler (May 8, 2020)

2hats said:


> Or not...
> 
> COVID-19 reduces economic activity, which reduces pollution, which saves lives.
> (Marshall Burke, Prof. of Earth Systems, Stanford)



Well that just goes to show Hitchens was right all along. Lockdown is a Green Marxist plot to smash capitalism and replace the family with indiscriminate toad-like copulation.


----------



## Maltin (May 8, 2020)

Doodler said:


> There's a growing line in some quarters about the economic effects of lockdown actually causing more deaths in the long run





Spoiler



In the long run, everyone dies


----------



## Doodler (May 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> If it doesnt end up being a catalyst for things we were going to be very slowly dragged into doing this century anyway then I may retire from thinking. It certainly provides some interesting data for the cause.



In the short term you may be disappointed. Those changes which require other people (like the Chinese) to mend their ways will be the ones most warmly approved of here. 

Long term change from intelligent and persistemt action can happen.


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2020)

Doodler said:


> In the short term you may be disappointed. Those changes which require other people (like the Chinese) to mend their ways will be the ones most warmly approved of here.
> 
> Long term change from intelligent and persistemt action can happen.



Well I'm used to short term disappointment and things oscillating back into even worse territory. Scum can squawk all they like, I still think the arse has fallen off some of their ideological justifications, and the scale of things has gone beyond what is compatible with the managed decline at a 'tolerable rate' shit they've been indulging in for pretty much my entire life.


----------



## weltweit (May 8, 2020)

BAME deaths from Covid-19 

from 07/05/2020 Latest figures on Covid-19 deaths spark fresh calls to protect BME population | Nursing Times


> Analysts found people from all minority ethnic groups, apart from Chinese and mixed-race, are at greater risk of a Covid-19-related death than the white population, in England and Wales.
> 
> In particular, black males and females were nearly twice as likely as similar white people to experience a Covid-19 death, said the Office for National Statistics today in its latest update.



from 07/05/2020 Black people four times more likely to die from Covid-19, ONS finds


> It discovered that after taking into account age, measures of self-reported health and disability and other socio-demographic characteristics, black people were still almost twice as likely as white people to die a Covid-19-related death.
> 
> Bangladeshi and Pakistani males were 1.8 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white males, after other pre-existing factors had been accounted for, and females from those ethnic groups were 1.6 times more likely to die from the virus than their white counterparts.
> ..





> “People have very reasonably speculated that the increased risk among BME people might be due to people having higher risk of cardiovascular disease or diabetes,” said Ben Goldacre, the director of the DataLab in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford, who co-led on the study. “Our analysis shows that is actually not the case. That is not the explanation. We’ve been able to exclude one of the current preferred explanations for why BME people face higher risk.”



from 07/05/2020 Why are so many black and ethnic minority people dying from coronavirus – and what does it have to do with heart disease?


> Thirty four per cent of confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 32% of deaths in intensive care are amongst people with Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, according to statistics from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre, covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This compares with 14.5% of the total population who are of BAME origin (based on ONS 2016 population estimates).
> ..





> Earlier this year, Prof Michael Marmot published a report highlighting how these inequalities have widened over the past ten years and it is possible that these societal inequalities are now also having an impact on the number of BAME people dying of Covid-19.  For instance, those with ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to be affected by poverty in the UK, particularly those from Black African, Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds, though this varies widely from group to group.
> ..





> The Government has launched an inquiry to try to understand the impact of factors that affect your risk from Covid-19, including BAME background, gender and obesity and including a focus on levels of risk among NHS staff. The British Heart Foundation has welcomed this inquiry. We are also supporting the NIHR-UKRI call for research on Covid-19 and ethnicity; it is vital that more research is done to understand this trend and to find out what we can do to protect everyone.



These articles and others resulted from a recent report which explains that BAME individuals are at greater risk of death from a covid-19 infection, the articles draw on the stats in a similar way. Adjusting for the number of NHS staff that are BAME does not wholly explain the increased hospitalisation and deaths of BAME individuals, neither does demographic or class information. In the end the articles pretty much say, BAME individuals are more likely to die from covid-19 but we don't yet know why, and further studies are underway.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 8, 2020)

Maybe the standard ways of adjusting for class factors are not sufficiently robust. Many studies, e.g. The Spirit Level, show how inequality affects us all in ways which may be hard to explain. BAME individuals in British society may be far more likely to succumb to Covid-19 than whites not because of their ethnicity but their class and social status. How does this correlate with statistics in majority Black or Asian countries?


----------



## weltweit (May 8, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Maybe the standard ways of adjusting for class factors are not sufficiently robust. Many studies, e.g. The Spirit Level, show how inequality affects us all in ways which may be hard to explain. BAME individuals in British society may be far more likely to succumb to Covid-19 than whites not because of their ethnicity but their class and social status. How does this correlate with statistics in majority Black or Asian countries?


What I found frustrating about the articles I read and those I quoted was they said there are more BAME people in ICU, there are more BAME people in the NHS, the risk of death if you are BAME is higher than if you are white, but they go on to say, demographics don't explain it, genetics probably don't explain it … whatever metric they looked at they say didn't explain it. 

IIRC New York also said that BAME died more. 

If there are studies in majority BAME countries as you suggest that would certainly be interesting.


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2020)

Theres a little something in a recent BBC article about obesity being a risk that could be relevant:



> On top of everything else, the ability of the body to fight off the virus - known as the immune response - is not as good in people who are obese.
> 
> That's due to inflammation driven by immune cells called macrophages which invade our fat tissue. They interfere with how our cells respond to infection.
> 
> According to scientists, this can lead to a 'cytokine storm' - a potentially life-threatening over-reaction of the body's immune system which causes inflammation and serious harm.





> A specific type of fat tissue is prone to macrophage invasion. This may explain why people from black, African and ethnic minority backgrounds (BAME), who have more of this type of tissue, "have elevated rates of diabetes, and may be more vulnerable to the virus," Dr Sellayah says.











						Coronavirus: Does being overweight or obese affect how ill people get?
					

Could the amount of fat in our body increase complications with Covid-19?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (May 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> It also fails to acknowledge the true scope of the other shadows already hanging over the future, such as stuff relating to energy transition, climate change etc. The century was never going to be a continuation of what came to be seen as normal by the latter part of the 20th century, it was only a question of how much of the old ways would be clung onto and for how long, and whether the rich are allowed to remain rich, the extent to which they would dodge the burden.
> 
> I would blend all this stuff together when looking for the sane way forwards. No point treating post-pandemic recovery as its own thing, isolated from the other big issues. I just have to hope that the scale of things this time is simply too large for austerity fuckers to get their way again. That was my initial calculation and I still hear mainstream sentiments that seem to acknowledge it, but at the very least there will be some ugly bumps along the road I'm sure.
> 
> Plus the Brexit shadow - we'll never get to see quite what that would have been like on its own now, although I'm sure some fresh post-pandemic implications of Brexit will be evident at various points.



Retail was already in deep trouble in the last two quarters of 2019. We had one of the worst, if not the worst black Friday on record last year and my hours were already cut as a result.

This is the killer blow to many travel companies but the sector was already on the ropes at the start of the year


----------



## frogwoman (May 8, 2020)

And like travel and hospitality would be any less fucked without a lockdown. Plus all the jobs that depend on those sectors (which is ultimately most jobs). You can't force people to book holidays ffs


----------



## weltweit (May 8, 2020)

I agree frogwoman the travel industry is in real trouble and it will be a long time before they see any green shoots imo. 

I have recruitment companies in my LinkedIn feed, they are bleating because companies aren't recruiting.


----------



## frogwoman (May 8, 2020)

COVID related stock market wobbles were happening towards the end of January when the lockdown of Wuhan was still seen as a weird curiosity by most in Europe


----------



## Raheem (May 8, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Well that just goes to show Hitchens was right all along. Lockdown is a Green Marxist plot to smash capitalism and replace the family with indiscriminate toad-like copulation.


Social distancing. 

Socialist dancing. 

It's right there in plain sight.


----------



## maomao (May 8, 2020)

weltweit said:


> studies in majority BAME countries



There are no countries where ethnic minorities are a majority.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 8, 2020)

maomao said:


> There are no countries where ethnic minorities are a majority.


...brain working overtime...


----------



## xenon (May 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Theres a little something in a recent BBC article about obesity being a risk that could be relevant:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I saw a good YouTube vid on this same topic. Presented by a South African proff, though an honourery one he freely admitted. Imflamation, being brought on by diabetes etc, being an agrovating factor. The modern lifestyle diseases, refined food, sugar, doing harm generally. He was being interviewed about Covid19. Unfortunatley I can't find it now. Saw it via FB.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 8, 2020)

What does this mean (the bolded bit in today's notes)? It looks like it'd make the sense the other way around but not this. Unless this _does_ actually mean they have previously counted some tests as processed, when they were actually only sent out (and if so, how do we know how that reflects on the actual number of tests done, particularly in relation to the target set etc), I'm not getting it. 

*Pillar 2 breakdown of test types*

In-person (tests processed)Delivery (tests sent out)Total testsDaily31,98727,18359,170Cumulative403,140253,267656,407

Pillar 1: swab testing in PHE labs and NHS hospitals for those with a clinical need, and health and care workers
Pillar 2: swab testing for essential workers and their households, as well as other groups that meet the eligibility criteria as set out in government guidance
Pillar 4: serology and swab testing for national surveillance supported by PHE, ONS, Biobank, universities and other partners to learn more about the prevalence and spread of the virus and for other testing research purposes, for example on the accuracy and ease of use of home testing
See the government’s national testing strategy for more information on the different pillars and ‘Notes on testing’ section below.

See a time series of daily deaths: 8 May 2020 (CSV, 2.65KB)

*8 May notes*
The daily total for tests is 1 higher than the difference between today and yesterday’s cumulative totals. This is due to historic data revisions to Pillar 1.

*The split between ‘in-person’ (tests processed) and ‘delivery’ (tests sent out) has been adjusted. 16,704 historic tests have been moved from ‘in-person’ to ‘delivery’ in the cumulative tests totals to ensure the right allocation of tests from satellite locations. This means that the daily totals for the ‘in-person’ and ‘delivery’ routes will not add up to the difference in cumulative totals.*


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 8, 2020)

For further reference (and not dismissing the fact that I'm possibly just being dense - it's not like it's easy to follow/clear) -

*Notes on testing figures*
Tests in the UK are carried out via a number of different routes. Tests are measured and reported in different ways depending on the route and how they’re administered.

The tests that are within the control of the central programme are counted when they’re processed in our laboratories. For any tests that go outside the control of the central programme, they’re counted when they leave the programme, for example the tests that are mailed out to people at home and the tests that are sent out via satellite sites.

The length of time it takes tests to be concluded varies depending on the testing route and the different processes involved. This means tests carried out on a particular day will not always be measured and reported at the same time.

The daily figures on the number of tests include:

*Tests processed through our laboratories*
These are counted at the time of processing in the laboratory and not when they are issued to people. Tests are never double-counted. Tests counted in this way are used to calculate the ‘people tested’ figure. This includes:


all tests under Pillar 1
‘in-person’ testing routes under Pillar 2, for example tests carried out at the mobile testing units and the drive-through Regional Testing Sites
‘in-person’ testing routes under Pillar 4, for example tests carried out as part of surveillance testing where they are administered by nurses employed by the central programme
*Tests sent to individual at home or to satellite testing locations*
These are counted when tests are dispatched and not at the time of processing in the laboratory. Tests are never double-counted. Tests counted in this way do not contribute towards the ‘people tested’ figure. This includes:


‘delivery’ testing routes under Pillar 2, for example tests carried out by the satellite testing centres, and home testing kits delivered by post
‘delivery’ testing routes under Pillar 4, for example tests carried out as part of surveillance testing where they are administered by individuals, rather than nurses employed by the central programme.
For clinical reasons, some people are tested more than once. Therefore the number of tests completed may be higher than the number of people tested. For serology testing (Pillar 4), some protocols allow for samples to be tested repeatedly. Samples are anonymised prior to sending to the lab for testing, therefore the identification of individuals tested is not possible in the current reporting process, and so the number of people tested is not reported.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 8, 2020)

Also, just ftr, the gov.uk 'daily dashboard' numbers seem to have quietly changed, since yesterday, to include rate per million, across all lha's etc. 





__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Also, just ftr, the gov.uk 'daily dashboard' numbers seem to have quietly changed, since yesterday, to include rate per million, across all lha's etc.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Barrow noticed. Barrow has highest coronavirus infection rate in the country, new figures show

The fact I dont pay much attention to these sorts of numbers due to the testing regime here means I dont know whether to read anything into this at all.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 8, 2020)

Having just finished the busiest shift I've ever worked since I started that job around 5 years ago I can safely say few people really give a shit about the lockdown anymore. I still don't think it was ever implemented properly anyway. Regardless of what that mop headed fuckwit says or doesn't say Sunday, many people have already made up their mind anyway. If what I've seen today was replicated across the UK then I fully expect infections to keep rising or, at best, remain level for a good few weeks to come.


----------



## Doodler (May 8, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Having just finished the busiest shift I've ever worked since I started that job around 5 years ago I can safely say few people really give a shit about the lockdown anymore. I still don't think it was ever implemented properly anyway. Regardless of what that mop headed fuckwit says or doesn't say Sunday, many people have already made up their mind anyway. If what I've seen today was replicated across the UK then I fully expect infections to keep rising or, at best, remain level for a good few weeks to come.



Do you work in a shop or supermarket? Was in the supermarket queue today, people were talking about the lockdown and saying how fed up with it they were. The shoppers seemed less wary than a few weeks ago with maybe more not following the one way system. Must be dismaying to have to see that every day.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 8, 2020)

maomao said:


> There are no countries where ethnic minorities are a majority.


Actually a lot of countries, particularly in Africa, have no clear linguistic or ethnic majority. Because the state boundaries were created by the colonial powers they didn’t necessarily bear any relationship to ethnicity. You might still say that all Kenyans are Kenyan, or all Tanzanians are Tanzanian, or you might say that most Kenyans and Tanzanians speak Swahili, or that most of them are Black African. Or whatever. But it’s complicated and variable. BAME only makes sense, if it does, in the context of a particular country. That’s why I’m dubious about claims that BAME populations are genetically predisposed to Covid-19, because there is nothing genetically to link in the UK groups of, say, Somalis, Jamaicans, Chinese and Pakistanis.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Barrow noticed. Barrow has highest coronavirus infection rate in the country, new figures show
> 
> The fact I dont pay much attention to these sorts of numbers due to the testing regime here means I dont know whether to read anything into this at all.



Erm..per 100k, not a million  and actually now I'm even more confused - it's _deaths_ per 100k, not cases of infection.

I guess it obvs ignores how sparsely populated places are - like when you choose to read it like that on the worldwide list, so that San Marino is top of both of those lists, but the more measures the better, I suppose.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 8, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Do you work in a shop or supermarket? Was in the supermarket queue today, people were talking about the lockdown and saying how fed up with it they were. The shoppers seemed less wary than a few weeks ago with maybe more not following the one way system. Must be dismaying to have to see that every day.



I work in a corner shop. We've been much busier since lockdown started. I was really quite pissed off with people's attitude to it at the beginning but I had to stop doing that because it was only me it was bothering.

Throughout the lockdown I have frequently seen people make several appearances during my, on average, 8 hour shift and they'll buy one or two items a time. It was bloody terrifying at first but I feel a lot more at ease now I have a face shield. That behaviour continues of course, in fact it's more frequent, but I have a sort of dead eyed and rather weary response to it now.

From my limited anecdotal experience, I think most people have done OK and stuck with the very loose rules but a very significant minority have treated it more or less as business as usual. I've learned a hell of a lot about the country I live in these past few weeks. This pandemic has exposed so much. There is a severe lack of social conscience in this country and that's hardly surprising given the decades that have preceded this. I still think there is something there but the selfishness is strong. I'm now more sure than ever that I want to leave England though, just for a year or so but fat chance of that happening any time soon!


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 8, 2020)

I'm not convinced by all the 'look how shit people are here' stuff. Seems to me where there's been a stronger lockdown that's generally been enforced with a heavy police presence on the street.


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Erm..per 100k, not a million  and actually now I'm even more confused - it's _deaths_ per 100k, not cases of infection.



What is deaths per 100k? We were talking about the UK dashboard, and the stuff on it by local area etc, the table next to the map, the stuff with rates, is cases not deaths. The dashboard is no good for regional or local death info, thats one of the reasons I rarely use it, and the other being that I dont really know how much our case numbers mean, given testing limitations.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 8, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I'm not convinced by all the 'look how shit people are here' stuff. Seems to me where there's been a stronger lockdown that's generally been enforced with a heavy police presence on the street.



My view of it is definitely going to be different than most because I've been working amongst it throughout. There's quite a lot of green space where I live and all I know is those spaces and where I work have been way too busy for a place that's supposed to be on lockdown.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 8, 2020)

weltweit said:


> If there are studies in majority BAME countries as you suggest that would certainly be interesting.



Majority minority countries?


----------



## William of Walworth (May 8, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I'm not convinced by all the 'look how shit people are here' stuff.



I absolutely get why some people are posting here and in other threads about how bad their experiences are of people conforming really badly to lock-down rules.

I do think it's worth remembering though that different places can experience wildly different levels of rule-breaking.

Most of the time, here in Swansea, we see vastly fewer numbers of people behaving like arses.
There'll always be exceptions, and we've seen one or two, but most of the time we see people distancing well and doing their best.

And in the city centre especially, the streets largely remain near-empty of both traffic and people.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 8, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Actually a lot of countries, particularly in Africa, have no clear linguistic or ethnic majority. Because the state boundaries were created by the colonial powers they didn’t necessarily bear any relationship to ethnicity. You might still say that all Kenyans are Kenyan, or all Tanzanians are Tanzanian, or you might say that most Kenyans and Tanzanians speak Swahili, or that most of them are Black African. Or whatever. But it’s complicated and variable. BAME only makes sense, if it does, in the context of a particular country. That’s why I’m dubious about claims that BAME populations are genetically predisposed to Covid-19, because there is nothing genetically to link in the UK groups of, say, Somalis, Jamaicans, Chinese and Pakistanis.



I tried to come up with something useful to add here but I think I need to do more homework first. Suffice to say that I really don't think 'it's genetic' is a good enough explanation for the observed differences in susceptibility.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 8, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I absolutely get why some people are posting here and in other threads about how bad their experiences are of people conforming really badly to lock-down rules.
> 
> I do think it's worth remembering though that different places can experience wildly different levels of rule-breaking.
> 
> ...


I agree. Round our way there are more people about, but still nothing like normal, and nearly all social distancing. If you go for a long walk you hardly meet anyone. (That is just like normal - I don’t see why they made a fuss about only half an hour, cos so few ever do more than that anyway). A minority behaving badly always gets far more attention than they deserve.


----------



## IC3D (May 9, 2020)

I've been through Central London tonight it's really quiet, when considering how many people are here are cooped up in little flats and shared houses it's pretty striking. Still.


----------



## Sue (May 9, 2020)

IC3D said:


> I've been through Central London tonight it's really quiet, when considering how many people are here are cooped up in little flats and shared houses it's pretty striking. Still.


Where were you? Not very many people live in central London, think it's more people out in their local areas that's the problem...


----------



## IC3D (May 9, 2020)

Sue said:


> Where were you? Not very many people live in central London, think it's more people out in their local areas that's the problem...


Kings x on the canal, I actually started a thread ranting about social distancing here so I'll stfu but the estates round here are quiet too. It's young peeps with no family around are the problem


----------



## Nine Bob Note (May 9, 2020)

The local rag is reporting Barrow has the worst COVID-19 infection rate in the country. 50% higher than the second worst hit area (nearby Lancaster) and more than three times the national average. Wonderful. Herion, dead babies, legionnaires and plague. I fucking love it


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 9, 2020)

weltweit said:


> BAME deaths from Covid-19
> 
> from 07/05/2020 Latest figures on Covid-19 deaths spark fresh calls to protect BME population | Nursing Times
> 
> ...



I've been learning about vitamin d and how vital it is for immune function and I've come to the conclusion that it's an overlooked possibility as to why BAME people are more at risk of serious covid infection. 

People with darker skin produce vitamin d at a slower rate than white people and are often deficient in it as a result. Vitamin D has been shown, very convincingly IMO, to significantly reduce the risk of respiratory infections. It also reduces the rate at which a virus reproduces in your body if you do become infected and it reduces the risk of a cytokine storm.

This bloke's done a couple of videos on vitamin D and he takes you through all the evidence on it. His earlier video at the start of the pandemic convinced me enough to start taking vitamin D supplements.


----------



## Doodler (May 9, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I work in a corner shop. We've been much busier since lockdown started. I was really quite pissed off with people's attitude to it at the beginning but I had to stop doing that because it was only me it was bothering.
> 
> Throughout the lockdown I have frequently seen people make several appearances during my, on average, 8 hour shift and they'll buy one or two items a time. It was bloody terrifying at first but I feel a lot more at ease now I have a face shield. That behaviour continues of course, in fact it's more frequent, but I have a sort of dead eyed and rather weary response to it now.
> 
> From my limited anecdotal experience, I think most people have done OK and stuck with the very loose rules but a very significant minority have treated it more or less as business as usual. I've learned a hell of a lot about the country I live in these past few weeks. This pandemic has exposed so much. There is a severe lack of social conscience in this country and that's hardly surprising given the decades that have preceded this. I still think there is something there but the selfishness is strong. I'm now more sure than ever that I want to leave England though, just for a year or so but fat chance of that happening any time soon!



Thanks for your reply. It's strange about the people going into your shop several times a day.

I worked in a hardware store until late February so pre-lockdown. From about the beginning of February a few people who didn't look/sound like tradesmen started buying several facemasks at a time and asking about filtration ratings.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 9, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> My view of it is definitely going to be different than most because I've been working amongst it throughout. There's quite a lot of green space where I live and all I know is those spaces and where I work have been way too busy for a place that's supposed to be on lockdown.



People are being encouraged to go and exercise in parks. Whether that's right or wrong that's down to the government not some sort of mass civic failure on the part of the people. 

At the danger of getting a bit broken recordish all of this 'look at all these scumbags going to the park' stuff is taking up a lot of space that should be taken up with 'why are the government doing fuck all to stop this ripping through care homes/STILL not providing proper PPE for medical staff/encouraging companies to force people to work etc'


----------



## quimcunx (May 9, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> People are being encouraged to go and exercise in parks. Whether that's right or wrong that's down to the government not some sort of mass civic failure on the part of the people.
> 
> At the danger of getting a bit broken recordish all of this 'look at all these scumbags going to the park' stuff is taking up a lot of space that should be taken up with 'why are the government doing fuck all to stop this ripping through care homes/STILL not providing proper PPE for medical staff/encouraging companies to force people to work etc'



And safety at work. Barely a peep about that.  The unions are getting plenty of info I'm sure but even if I did bother watching the news I dont think there is anything on it. 

The increase in passengers on buses I'm seeing isn't going to be people travelling socially so much. Its going to be people forced to work for one reason or another.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 9, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I work in a corner shop. We've been much busier since lockdown started. I was really quite pissed off with people's attitude to it at the beginning but I had to stop doing that because it was only me it was bothering.
> 
> Throughout the lockdown I have frequently seen people make several appearances during my, on average, 8 hour shift and they'll buy one or two items a time. It was bloody terrifying at first but I feel a lot more at ease now I have a face shield. That behaviour continues of course, in fact it's more frequent, but I have a sort of dead eyed and rather weary response to it now.
> 
> From my limited anecdotal experience, I think most people have done OK and stuck with the very loose rules but a very significant minority have treated it more or less as business as usual. I've learned a hell of a lot about the country I live in these past few weeks. This pandemic has exposed so much. There is a severe lack of social conscience in this country and that's hardly surprising given the decades that have preceded this. I still think there is something there but the selfishness is strong. I'm now more sure than ever that I want to leave England though, just for a year or so but fat chance of that happening any time soon!


Get a mask to go with your face shield. On it's own its useless.


----------



## Numbers (May 9, 2020)

Better late than never...









						UK 'to bring in 14-day quarantine' for air passengers
					

An airline industry body says it has been told coronavirus quarantining will start from the end of May.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## maomao (May 9, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Better late than never...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Only flights into Heathrow T5 this morning are all from the US. It's completely nuts.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 9, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> A minority behaving badly always gets far more attention than they deserve.



Particularly in a situation where the well-behaved majority are, pretty much by definition, out of sight.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 9, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Better late than never...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



People will just end-up coming via mainland Europe, and ferries or Euro-Star.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 9, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I've been learning about vitamin d and how vital it is for immune function and I've come to the conclusion that it's an overlooked possibility as to why BAME people are more at risk of serious covid infection.
> 
> People with darker skin produce vitamin d at a slower rate than white people and are often deficient in it as a result. Vitamin D has been shown, very convincingly IMO, to significantly reduce the risk of respiratory infections. It also reduces the rate at which a virus reproduces in your body if you do become infected and it reduces the risk of a cytokine storm.
> 
> This bloke's done a couple of videos on vitamin D and he takes you through all the evidence on it. His earlier video at the start of the pandemic convinced me enough to start taking vitamin D supplements.



That’s certainly a possibility and well worth looking at. Unfortunately by lumping all minorities into one category, BAME, any possible nuance regarding skin colour gets lost. So Nigerians and Filipinos, Chinese and Zulus all count as one. Lack of sunlight for certain populations over winter, e.g. in Scotland, further complicates this investigation.

I’m taking vitamin D as well. There again the pharmaceutical industry and medical establishment usually poo-poo or ignore things as simple and straightforward (and commercially less profitable) as vitamin and mineral supplementation.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 9, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I've been learning about vitamin d and how vital it is for immune function and I've come to the conclusion that it's an overlooked possibility as to why BAME people are more at risk of serious covid infection.
> 
> People with darker skin produce vitamin d at a slower rate than white people and are often deficient in it as a result. Vitamin D has been shown, very convincingly IMO, to significantly reduce the risk of respiratory infections. It also reduces the rate at which a virus reproduces in your body if you do become infected and it reduces the risk of a cytokine storm.
> 
> This bloke's done a couple of videos on vitamin D and he takes you through all the evidence on it. His earlier video at the start of the pandemic convinced me enough to start taking vitamin D supplements.




I doubt this is an overlooked possibility. If anything it's _too _widely known that dark-skinned people are less efficient at producing vitamin D, to the point where people with all sorts of medical issues may get sent home from the doctors with nothing but vitamin D supplements, even if they've had blood tests done and been found to have plenty of the stuff already.

Also it is probably more fair to say that vitamin D is involved in processes which are useful in resisting viral infections, rather than 'vitamin D does this' or 'vitamin D does that'.


----------



## LDC (May 9, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> I’m taking vitamin D as well. There again the pharmaceutical industry and medical establishment usually poo-poo or ignore things as simple and straightforward (and commercially less profitable) as vitamin and mineral supplementation.



Largely as studies show again and again that if you're getting a balanced diet then they're an expensive waste of money, and sometimes are actually harmful. (They are massively pushed by a multi-billion pound industry btw, no sure where you get the less profitable thing from.) 

Vitamin D is one of the few that studies show decent evidence that some people should take a supplement, and the NHS often recommend and prescribe it as such, so it's far from ignored.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Largely as studies show again and again that if you're getting a balanced diet then they're an expensive waste of money, and sometimes are actually harmful. Vitamin D is one of the few that studies show decent evidence that some people should take a supplement.



Vitamin D is fat-soluble as well, so unlike say vitamin C which your body can get rid of in short order via urine if you're consuming more than necessary it will accumulate in the body if you take too much of it. If you're hyperdosing the stuff for any length of time without proper medical supervision it will make you sick.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Largely as studies show again and again that if you're getting a balanced diet then they're an expensive waste of money, and sometimes are actually harmful. Vitamin D is one of the few that studies show decent evidence that some people should take a supplement.


Trouble is that so many people don’t get a balanced diet, and never have. My mum used to say that fish, chips and peas was a balanced diet, protein, carbohydrate and vitamin c. It’s OK from time to time, but not everyday. A sensible multivitamin tablet once a day is cheaper than fags and won’t do you any harm.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 9, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Better late than never...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Don't shut that door yet, I can still just about see the horse disappearing over the horizon.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 9, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> A sensible multivitamin tablet once a day is cheaper than fags and won’t do you any harm.



There are all sorts of interactions related to how your body absorbs nutrients. Just putting everything in a pill and washing it down with chips and fanta is not ideal. Better than not taking the pill maybe, but not nearly as good as just eating some fresh veg now and then.


----------



## Supine (May 9, 2020)

I take B12 and D. I started D a couple of weeks ago due to immune response benefits.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> There are all sorts of interactions related to how your body absorbs nutrients. Just putting everything in a pill and washing it down with chips and fanta is not ideal. Better than not taking the pill maybe, but not nearly as good as just eating some fresh veg now and then.


Trouble is, fresh veg now and then doesn’t figure in many people’s diet. During lockdown even less likely. 

You mentioned medical supervision, but right now that hardly exists. If you were to ask a GP about multivitamins they would nearly all say not to bother anyway. Just eat a balanced diet, is the mantra, but like I said a lot of people don’t do that. 

Not ideal.


----------



## maomao (May 9, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> . Unfortunately by lumping all minorities into one category, BAME, any possible nuance regarding skin colour gets lost. So Nigerians and Filipinos, Chinese and Zulus all count as one.


They've released figures for different ethnicities. My wife did a little cheer when she heard Chinese women are least likely of all to die from coronavirus.


----------



## CNT36 (May 9, 2020)

Another hypothesis for different outcomes among ethnicity, blood type and gender once social factors are taken into account is differing levels of Von Willebrand factor.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 9, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> People are being encouraged to go and exercise in parks. Whether that's right or wrong that's down to the government not some sort of mass civic failure on the part of the people.



They are but they're not encouraging people to sit down and have fucking picnics though are they? And yes I have seen a lot of this. A customer even said to me yesterday 'oh I'll just buy a couple of cans for the park.' 

I'm not saying it's a mass civic failure on the part of the people. I'm saying a significant minority of people where I live haven't treated the lockdown as if it's an actual lockdown. Whether that's been repeated across the land I don't know but lots of, again, anecdotal reports suggest it has. 



> At the danger of getting a bit broken recordish all of this 'look at all these scumbags going to the park' stuff is taking up a lot of space that should be taken up with 'why are the government doing fuck all to stop this ripping through care homes/STILL not providing proper PPE for medical staff/encouraging companies to force people to work etc'



It's not really though is it? You can criticise both the government and the lack of civil responsibility a minority of people have in this country at the same time. A minority I grant you but it is a significant one. 

To bring things round to brexit again a lot of the vocally frothing people who voted brexit did it for reasons of 'we don't like being told what to do' and variances of it. I think that has played a huge part in both the government's messaging and people's response to it. 

At the end of the day I don't give a shit about people going to the park. I do give a shit about people coming in and out of where I work on the same day, putting my health at risk each time because they can't go five minutes without a beer and at the same time saying things like 'oh well done for staying open.'

I should add it's mainly at the weekend I've seen this and when the weather's nice and I wanna stress again it's a minority. It's probably also related to that whole phenomenon of noticing crap behaviour more than good behaviour but still! Gah! Just stay home so I can actually see my family this year.


----------



## Yossarian (May 9, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Better late than never...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



"Major coronavirus exporter unveils plans to limit coronavirus imports."


----------



## quimcunx (May 9, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Better late than never...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So they are going to tell people to self isolate and ask for an address. Quite what counts as a private address I dont know. 2 points. 1. It's not enforced bar maybe turning people back if they say I'll be staying in a hotel rather than just missing the hotel name off the address. Are any hotels open for private business? 2. Seems saying the words  'you must self isolate for 14 days' without any checks is a low cost, low effort measure that could have been implemented some time ago so why wasnt it?


----------



## CNT36 (May 9, 2020)

tommers said:


> That clapping thing is starting to really freak me out.
> 
> Not like the "donate a fiver to the NHS" thing. Im angry about that, the clapping thing freaks me out.


My 4 year old daughter, the wife and I got shouted and clapped at from inches away by someone in a car for not clapping this week. Fucking twat. We were taking her out on her new bike as we had promised to that afternoon. We didn't do it at the time as the pharmacy had a box of medication that needed to go before the bank holiday and no one else was available.


----------



## Shirl (May 9, 2020)

I knew this nutter would be out in town spreading his vileness. I dont know if you're on Twitter lazythursday but I thought you wouldn't want to miss him


----------



## tommers (May 9, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> My 4 year old daughter, the wife and I got shouted and clapped at from inches away by someone in a car for not clapping this week. Fucking twat. We were taking her out on her new bike as we had promised to that afternoon. We didn't do it at the time as the pharmacy had a box of medication that needed to go before the bank holiday and no one else was available.



Jesus christ. What a dickhead. Are you all ok?


----------



## CNT36 (May 9, 2020)

tommers said:


> Jesus christ. What a dickhead. Are you all ok?


Yeah, all fine thanks just irritated. Pretty low levels of infection down here just annoyed by the complete ignoring of social distancing especially when with a kid. She has only been out about 6 or 7 times since March. She's quite hard and not aware of the virus much beyond us saying there are more germs than usual but it would of upset some of her friends.


----------



## Raheem (May 9, 2020)

Shirl said:


> I knew this nutter would be out in town spreading his vileness. I dont know if you're on Twitter lazythursday but I thought you wouldn't want to miss him
> View attachment 211605


Wasn't 100% sure until I examined the background, but there's something about the people that tells you immediately that you are in Hebden.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 9, 2020)

Shirl said:


> I knew this nutter would be out in town spreading his vileness. I dont know if you're on Twitter lazythursday but I thought you wouldn't want to miss him
> View attachment 211605


Who are these pillocks?


----------



## Shirl (May 9, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Who are these pillocks?


Rainbow Ralf and his friends. Rainbow Ralf lives in Hebden Bridge and for as many years as I can remember, he walks around town offering Free Hugs. I have made it very clear that if he ever tries to hug me he'll get my knee in his bollocks. The people with him must be his happy band of followers.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 9, 2020)

Shirl said:


> The people with him must be his happy *HIPPY* band of followers.



Corrected.


----------



## Shirl (May 9, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Wasn't 100% sure until I examined the background, but there's something about the people that tells you immediately that you are in Hebden.


I can assure you that I look nothing like those people. 😡 I think they had their day in the 70's and just can't let go 🙄


----------



## ska invita (May 9, 2020)

Re: Lockdown breaking

I think theres a clear pattern from government here, of deliberatley saying one thing, then enacting the opposite. Its a ramping up of the Tories so called nudge unit, and its based on Johnsons personally philosophy: "Have Your Cake And Eat It". That was his position in relation to Brexit, its how he treats women, how he sees the world, and its how he treats this crisis.








						A brief history of having cake and eating it
					

How an old expression became one of the key phrases of Brexit.




					www.politico.eu
				




They know they cant be seen to ease lockdown at this moment, but like all governments wanting to keep capitalism on track they want lockdown eased as soon as possible. So what do they do? The feed the press the story lockdown will be eased on Monday:


That didnt happen by accident, it happened by designed.

Then literally the next day they say "Lockdown mustn't be eased, carry on locking down".
People get the message loud and clear, lockdown is easing and act accordingly.
Tories wipe their hands and say,"we've been saying it must carry on, its not our fault", then don't put any pressure to reprimand people for not following it as strictly.
Its manipulation, and its cake and eat it: they achieve both positions:decreasing lockdown and increasing "herd immunity strategy", whilst being able to hold their hands up and say we are maintaining lockdown.

A similar two faced approach summarises their position in the early months of this. People knew they should lockdown and did so of their own accord, while the government could keep it business as usual as long as possible.


----------



## Raheem (May 9, 2020)

Don't get me wrong, I've met some people in Hebden who don't even own a dream-catcher. But I don't reckon you'd see that group of people together anywhere else on earth.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 9, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Don't get me wrong, I've met some people in Hebden who don't even own a dream-catcher. But I don't reckon you'd see that group of people together anywhere else on earth.



Except Glastonbury.


----------



## killer b (May 9, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Don't get me wrong, I've met some people in Hebden who don't even own a dream-catcher. But I don't reckon you'd see that group of people together anywhere else on earth.


You'd see similar at loads of places in the south-west tbf


----------



## killer b (May 9, 2020)

although they'd probably be a bit more tanned


----------



## Raheem (May 9, 2020)

I know what you mean, but there's something I can't quite put my finger on.


----------



## bimble (May 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Re: Lockdown breaking
> 
> I think theres a clear pattern from government here, of deliberatley saying one thing, then enacting the opposite. Its a ramping up of the Tories so called nudge unit, and its based on Johnsons personally philosophy: "Have Your Cake And Eat It". That was his position in relation to Brexit, its how he treats women, how he sees the world, and its how he treats this crisis.
> 
> ...


I’ve been wondering about this too, definitely agree it wasn’t an accident that the press were given the story that we’d all be ‘liberated’ on Monday but I don’t know if it’s really herd immunity by stealth think it might just be them testing the waters to see what way the wind is blowing & then after the backlash of wtf are you doing they decided to stick with things as they are for a bit longer. The pm after all is the man who wrote those 2 articles one against one for brexit then picked which to publish at the last minute when he judged which would be the winning or most expedient side.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 9, 2020)

Don't get me wrong, I've met some people in Hebden who don't even own a dream-catcher. But I don't reckon you'd see that group of people together anywhere else on earth.
[/QUOTE]

Glastonbury.


----------



## belboid (May 9, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Don't get me wrong, I've met some people in Hebden who don't even own a dream-catcher. But I don't reckon you'd see that group of people together anywhere else on earth.



Glastonbury.
[/QUOTE]
anarchist bookfair


----------



## xenon (May 9, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I absolutely get why some people are posting here and in other threads about how bad their experiences are of people conforming really badly to lock-down rules.
> 
> I do think it's worth remembering though that different places can experience wildly different levels of rule-breaking.
> 
> ...



Traffic is definitely up in the last couple of weeks here in Bristol. I live on an A road. Educated guess says this is people going to work as yesterday morning, I was pleasantly surprised again as it was quiet, at least early on.

There are peple out shopping, walking and stuff but obviously I only know that because I'm one of them. Some peple do seem to be a bit blazay about the whole thing, chatting in the street, hanging about but again, I guess I wouldn't notice the rest just quickly going about their business.
A nearby flat sounds like they're having a party at weekends.
A few moans on local FB page about people not keeping their distance, joggers etc. e.g. Look at all these people here in this crowded place where I went to take my bike ride and got off to take a picture.

Busses are quiet.
City centre streets are quieter than the local ones simply because the bars and cafes are shut.

TL;DR there are some ignorant fuckwits who don't care or are too thick to understand but most people are doing what they're meant to. I don't reckon they're particularly British trates.
I have sympathy for anyone working in shops though. The fuckwits barging about, blocking isles, hanging around are going to stand out and wind you up.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Except Glastonbury.


What about Totnes?


----------



## MickiQ (May 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> They've released figures for different ethnicities. My wife did a little cheer when she heard Chinese women are least likely of all to die from coronavirus.


Mrs Q is half-Filipina, whilst our quarter-Filipina daughter (who is a nurse) has inherited Asian hair and eye colouring, she has fair skin (though she tans easily like her mother) combined with the fact she is only 26 has resulted in her mother clinging to this research like a drowning man clinging to a piece of flotsam.


----------



## maomao (May 9, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Mrs Q is half-Filipina, whilst our quarter-Filipina daughter (who is a nurse) has inherited Asian hair and eye colouring, she has fair skin (though she tans easily like her mother) combined with the fact she is only 26 has resulted in her mother clinging to this research like a drowning man clinging to a piece of flotsam.


Hope your daughter's okay mate. Can imagine how stressful that must be.


----------



## MickiQ (May 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> Hope your daughter's okay mate. Can imagine how stressful that must be.


She is so far, we haven't seen her (in person) since beginning of March, I do suspect though that she censors what she tells us for fear that the mother will react in the way that she almost certainly will do. (not that I am blaise about it either)


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 9, 2020)

Shirl said:


> I knew this nutter would be out in town spreading his vileness. I dont know if you're on Twitter lazythursday but I thought you wouldn't want to miss him
> View attachment 211605



Some people might think these people are just harmless fools, but what they're actually doing is standing there spitting in the faces of all those who have suffered from this virus, or lost loved ones to it. I've met loads of people like this, and the happy-clappiness is thinner than a coat of paint. As soon as you mention the idea that they might in some way not be able to do whatever the fuck they like, because other people exist, the shitty entitlement that makes up 99% of their worldview boils over.


----------



## zahir (May 9, 2020)

The importance of prolonged and multiple contact for transmission. I’d be interested in the views of elbows and others on whether this sounds as if it’s on the right track.





__





						EU Referendum
					






					eureferendum.com
				





> One point that immediately emerges from this was the flaw in the UK advice to people who believed they had been infected should stay at home, self-isolating with their families. The experience had already indicated that quarantining the first case, even after becoming symptomatic, reduced transmission to the rest of the family.



.
The article refers to this twitter thread:


----------



## CNT36 (May 9, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Don't get me wrong, I've met some people in Hebden who don't even own a dream-catcher. But I don't reckon you'd see that group of people together anywhere else on earth.


I've played gigs all over Cornwall to crowds just like that.


----------



## MickiQ (May 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Some people might think these people are just harmless fools, but what they're actually doing is standing there spitting in the faces of all those who have suffered from this virus, or lost loved ones to it. I've met loads of people like this, and the happy-clappiness is thinner than a coat of paint. As soon as you mention the idea that they might in some way not be able to do whatever the fuck they like, because other people exist, the shitty entitlement that makes up 99% of their worldview boils over.


Nope they're self-centred loons who whilst they aren't dangerous in the way a velociraptor might be are still dangerous in a more subtle way.


----------



## platinumsage (May 9, 2020)

zahir said:


> The importance of prolonged and multiple contact for transmission. I’d be interested in the views of elbows and others on whether this sounds as if it’s on the right track.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I don't know the qualifications of that EU Referendum blogger but they appear to just be cherry-picking studies that support their statement of the obvious while completely ignoring the phenomenon of super-spreaders.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 9, 2020)

zahir said:


> The importance of prolonged and multiple contact for transmission. I’d be interested in the views of elbows and others on whether this sounds af it’s on the right track.
> 
> 
> 
> ...






> Putting these and other data into the mix, Cevik (rightly) asserts that close and prolonged contact is required for Covid-19 transmission, suggesting that the risk is highest in enclosed environments: household; long-term care facilities; and public transport.
> 
> *From that, one can also conclude – as I have done – that casual, single contacts are unimportant.*



That conclusion does not follow from the evidence presented IMO. Less important maybe, and there are quite possibly lockdown-easing measures that would increase only those negligible risks from passing contact, while bringing significant benefits. The same thinking should also be justification to stop any non-essential high-risk activities still ongoing, namely any where large groups of people are regularly gathering together in close quarters. Construction sites are not a requirement for public health or mental wellbeing. Closing them could buy us enough wiggle room to remove some of the restrictions that are hurting people the most, without increasing the R number.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 9, 2020)

zahir said:


> The importance of prolonged and multiple contact for transmission. I’d be interested in the views of elbows and others on whether this sounds as if it’s on the right track.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This North bloke, who wrote the above, is a climate change denier. It doesn’t mean he has to be wrong on everything, but he needs to be read with extreme caution.


----------



## zahir (May 9, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> This North bloke, who wrote the above, is a climate change denier. It doesn’t mean he has to be wrong on everything, but he needs to be read with extreme caution.


Yes, fair enough.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 9, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> This North bloke, who wrote the above, is a climate change denier. It doesn’t mean he has to be wrong on everything, but he needs to be read with extreme caution.



I didn't particularly like the look of the website I have to say. But I thought I'd try and take the content as I found it. He's not wrong that there has been too much weight given to factors that aren't actually related to epidemiology.


----------



## ska invita (May 9, 2020)

bimble said:


> I’ve been wondering about this too, definitely agree it wasn’t an accident that the press were given the story that we’d all be ‘liberated’ on Monday but I don’t know if it’s really herd immunity by stealth think it might just be them testing the waters to see what way the wind is blowing & then after the backlash of wtf are you doing they decided to stick with things as they are for a bit longer. The pm after all is the man who wrote those 2 articles one against one for brexit then picked which to publish at the last minute when he judged which would be the winning or most expedient side.


i put "herd immunity" in speech marks, by which i meant, its not exactly contact and trace is it? Its push the capacity of who might get it to a "manageable" point. Its definitely not "lets stop people from catching it as a priority".


----------



## editor (May 9, 2020)

I was thinking about this recently - it must REALLY suck for teenagers right now. 



> A study of 60,000 people in lockdown by University College London found that the youngest in the sample, 18- to 24-year-olds, had the lowest levels of life satisfaction, while the highest was recorded in the over-60s.
> 
> “To some degree, this [the lockdown] is not a different experience for teenagers – but teenagers are more vulnerable,” says Dr Maria Loades, a senior lecturer and clinical psychologist at the University of Bath who studies the effect of social isolation and loneliness in young people.
> 
> ...











						'I'm losing my teenage years': young contend with life in lockdown
					

Teenagers affirm evidence that suggests they are particularly struggling with coronavirus crisis




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (May 9, 2020)

zahir said:


> The importance of prolonged and multiple contact for transmission. I’d be interested in the views of elbows and others on whether this sounds as if it’s on the right track.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I had already seen the Dr Muge Cevik thread, and a recent previous article from that eureferendum site that was focussing on things like hospital transmission. 

A lot of it is reasonable stuff that was already understood or assumed to be the case, hence various stories recently about the lower risks of various things if they are outdoors. Usually someone manages to take this stuff and run with it in a direction I dont like so much, such as focussing on the implications that various things are safe or not worth bothering about, instead of focussing on the riskier stuff without completely diminishing the other stuff. The role of asymptomatic spread still seems to be a problem for some people too, they always want to consign it to some negligible role, even though some studies in this pandemic suggest it had an important role. But its not like I have conducted a systematic review of the evidence on that one, I expect I have my own bias, and I'm very cautious about deeming things safe at the moment, even when some of the other, far greater risks should be relatively obvious and undeniable.

I hate pretty much everything about the UK response in terms of the management of cases. Its understandable that an emphasis was placed on vastly reducing transmission between households, but the way its been done at the expense of transmission within households, at the expense of everyone getting the best medical case, hell even at the expense of being able to produce daily statistics for numbers of recovered cases (stats which we do see from plenty of other counties) , it makes me angry. I made a cynical remark ages ago about 'protect the NHS, die at home' and several aspects of that have yet to be properly dwelt on by the media.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Re: Lockdown breaking
> 
> I think theres a clear pattern from government here, of deliberatley saying one thing, then enacting the opposite. Its a ramping up of the Tories so called nudge unit, and its based on Johnsons personally philosophy: "Have Your Cake And Eat It". That was his position in relation to Brexit, its how he treats women, how he sees the world, and its how he treats this crisis.
> 
> ...



Exactly right, I can't stand the fact we've essentially been gaslit by this government and have been very clearly since Brexit, and of course before it. I hate the fact that I'm knowingly playing into their hands by getting frustrated with people in the way I have been. We're all going through a crisis and we all deal with it in our own way. Having people in charge who are more concerned with their own political project than the welfare of the population makes things harder than they are already. 

This is the tory party though with a chorus of support from the scummiest right wing press in Europe and they all sing from the same hymn sheet. Why should I excpect anything different from them? For a brief moment, I did actually think the politics of it would be put to one side while we got through this but how naive of me eh?


----------



## gosub (May 9, 2020)

UK plans £250m boost for cycle lanes and fast-track e-scooter trials
					

Campaigners call for redesign of transport system to help prevent bounce-back in air pollution




					www.theguardian.com
				




FFS! Thermal imaging no, PPE no, testing eventually, Cycle lanes oh that will sort it


----------



## elbows (May 9, 2020)

gosub said:


> UK plans £250m boost for cycle lanes and fast-track e-scooter trials
> 
> 
> Campaigners call for redesign of transport system to help prevent bounce-back in air pollution
> ...



Its a great and really important thing, reclaim the streets 2020 pandemic edition is part of the solution. Of course it should not distract from other things that have been handled terribly, but nor should those things be allowed to diminish the importance of changes that need to happen to street layouts, transport, other issues of public health.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 9, 2020)

Lockdown on the Sussex coast became an issue yesterday, mainly from outsiders, many from London, deciding to come down to the likes of Brighton & Worthing. 

This was Worthing beach yesterday, nowhere near as busy as a normal sunny day, but certainly the worst since the start of lockdown, and at Easter...



So, today the police have set-up road checks, the one below is on the A27 into Brighton, apparently there's also one on the A24 into Worthing...



Anyone from 'the north' are being issued fines, and being turned around.  



We are a low risk/case area, despite being a urban area, unlike to the north of the national park, so we don't want visitors from 'the north' coming here and spreading the plague, thanks very much.


----------



## elbows (May 9, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> This is the tory party though with a chorus of support from the scummiest right wing press in Europe and they all sing from the same hymn sheet. Why should I excpect anything different from them? For a brief moment, I did actually think the politics of it would be put to one side while we got through this but how naive of me eh?



It was never going to stop the usual suspects from doing their usual shit. It might stop such things being as effective though. They cannot stop an era ending if the underlying fundamentals have really changed.

If this pandemic did turn out to be neoliberalisms last gasp, for example, then I would expect a very large amount of noise and desperate tactics from those wedded to seeing neoliberalism continue. It doesnt mean their efforts will actually succeed.


----------



## editor (May 9, 2020)




----------



## elbows (May 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a great and really important thing, reclaim the streets 2020 pandemic edition is part of the solution. Of course it should not distract from other things that have been handled terribly, but nor should those things be allowed to diminish the importance of changes that need to happen to street layouts, transport, other issues of public health.



Also:









						Coronavirus: Challenge of reshaping UK cities after lockdown
					

Replacing cars with bikes or walking will cut infection and address climate change, say campaigners.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				









> In London, a group of women calling themselves the Tactical Urbanistas took matters into their own hands. Last week they widened the pavement outside a busy high street supermarket, using painted circles on the road surface and makeshift barriers of tyres filled with soil and flowers.





> Residents in Tower Hamlets welcomed the change and the barriers were applauded on social media, the group say. However, the local council objectedand removed the tyres, citing safety reasons.
> 
> "London's streets are not safe for social distancing and a disproportionate amount of space is given to cars at the expense of other road users. This is a public health risk and needs to be treated urgently," Tactical Urbanistas told BBC News.



Transition catalyst. With a threat of even more cars if the opportunity is squandered.



> There are signs people will turn to their cars in greater numbers than pre-lockdown: 56% of drivers currently without a car plan to buy one post-lockdown, according to car sales company AutoTrader.
> 
> In Wuhan, China, private car usage nearly doubled when lockdown ended, rising from 34% before the outbreak to 66% after lockdown.
> 
> "There is an avalanche of private car usage coming if we don't do something about it," says Leo Murray from climate action charity Possible, which campaigns for green transport.


----------



## gosub (May 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a great and really important thing, reclaim the streets 2020 pandemic edition is part of the solution. Of course it should not distract from other things that have been handled terribly, but nor should those things be allowed to diminish the importance of changes that need to happen to street layouts, transport, other issues of public health.



Its fucking B-ARK what colour should the wheel be


----------



## elbows (May 9, 2020)

gosub said:


> Its fucking B-ARK what colour should the wheel be



No it isnt, sorry you havent got the message about what this century is actually all about.


----------



## elbows (May 9, 2020)

The overlap is just so immense. Conditions, crowding, pollution, transport, work, economy, equality, consumption, food. No end of opportunities to learn the right lessons and make the right changes, no end of opportunities to ignore that stuff and stubbornly try to carry on with more of the old way of doing things, despite its blatant unsustainability.

I've very little time for people who can balk at the amount of death due to this pandemic, but can still dismiss these other things that cause routine death in big ways as if they are irrelevant and should not be of primary concern. Learn the lessons of death and apply them to quality of life. Save more people than this pandemic kills. Do not allow the new normal to involve the old poisons.


----------



## PD58 (May 9, 2020)

So garden centres are going to open - now who is that for, errr, in the main middle/old aged, middle class, white folk with gardens (who can be outside anyway no problem), most of who vote Tory...are we surprised, are we fuck.  OK this might stereotype but you get the idea.


----------



## magneze (May 9, 2020)

They're also mostly used by high risk groups. 😬


----------



## wayward bob (May 9, 2020)

PD58 said:


> So garden centres are going to open - now who is that for, errr, in the main middle/old aged, middle class, white folk with gardens (who can be outside anyway no problem), most of who vote Tory...are we surprised, are we fuck.  OK this might stereotype but you get the idea.


lots of people who have outdoor space but have never "gardened" are picking up on the chance to green their surroundings atm. we're mostly yards (tiny out front, less tiny out back) but there's mature fruit trees and people who feed the birds and a shed that has enough of a dip in the roof to have a permanent bathing puddle for them - it's as good as being in the country 

i think it is too much of a stereotype tbh.

(eta: middle aged, middle class white person reporting )


----------



## souljacker (May 9, 2020)

This 14 day quarantine for incoming flights is bonkers. From what I can see, you need to tell them where you are staying and promise to stay there for 14 days. Then you, presumably, hop on the tube or bus and then go and do what you want. We should be actively discouraging people from flying here. There are loads of empty hotels around the airports. Put them in one for 14 days and tell them they can't come out. We'll put 3 meals a day outside your door and you have to stay put.


----------



## Sue (May 9, 2020)

souljacker said:


> This 14 day quarantine for incoming flights is bonkers. From what I can see, you need to tell them where you are staying and promise to stay there for 14 days. Then you, presumably, hop on the tube or bus and then go and do what you want. We should be actively discouraging people from flying here. There are loads of empty hotels around the airports. Put them in one for 14 days and tell them they can't come out. We'll put 3 meals a day outside your door and you have to stay put.


...and apparently not coming in till the end of the month...


----------



## PD58 (May 9, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> lots of people who have outdoor space but have never "gardened" are picking up on the chance to green their surroundings atm. we're mostly yards (tiny out front, less tiny out back) but there's mature fruit trees and people who feed the birds and a shed that has enough of a dip in the roof to have a permanent bathing puddle for them - it's as good as being in the country
> 
> i think it is too much of a stereotype tbh.
> 
> (eta: middle aged, middle class white person reporting )



As am I, and I do think it is stereotypical and, according to the press, more people are taking up gardening and given my own issues of trying to get veg seed this year this is no doubt true, but it is interesting that this one change has been leaked as it is of little help to those who are suffering most from lockdown i.e. urbanites with little or no garden space and certainly no spare cash for gardening... aren't most garden centers out of town...the cynic in me says it is to appease the shire Tories.


----------



## elbows (May 9, 2020)

souljacker said:


> This 14 day quarantine for incoming flights is bonkers. From what I can see, you need to tell them where you are staying and promise to stay there for 14 days. Then you, presumably, hop on the tube or bus and then go and do what you want. We should be actively discouraging people from flying here. There are loads of empty hotels around the airports. Put them in one for 14 days and tell them they can't come out. We'll put 3 meals a day outside your door and you have to stay put.



I suppose I'm looking at it from the point of view that absurdity is to be found in most UK responses, and that I should judge this one on the relative absurdity scale. ie Its not as absurd as doing nothing at all, the previous policy. And whilst laughably weak on its own, it might be enough given all the other factors in play at the same time - the vastly reduced amount of international travel there is at the moment, the number of people who will continue to avoid such things, the number of people who will either be put off from travelling here by this quarantine policy or will actually voluntarily comply with the self-quarantine.

It might still prove to be far too weak and require something stronger, so I am not declaring my love for this policy, I'm just trying to put it into the current and medium term context. Its still quite a big step for a country like this that tried to make an ideological & economic big deal out of its resistance to even considering the most basic of measures on this front in the past.


----------



## wayward bob (May 9, 2020)

when the alternative is buying compost in teeny bags from woollies and schlepping it home in a pushchair i'll admit i'm more than partial to an offer of a lift/"day out" to the garden centre


----------



## editor (May 9, 2020)

The responses are all you might expect and more. This one is good, mind


----------



## elbows (May 9, 2020)

Sue said:


> ...and apparently not coming in till the end of the month...



Again there will be inevitable absurdities in some of what I'm about to say but anyway.....

This stuff is on the list of things that would have made great sense to do properly before we had a raging epidemic, but once those opportunities were deliberately squandered by policy decisions, traditional attitudes and capacity issues, it was always going to take quite a while before we got back to a position where actually doing these things properly would make a notable difference to remaining levels of infection. Because the number of imported infections would seem like a drop in the bucket compared to ongoing spread within the population that would still have been sustained even if the borders had completely closed at that point.

As we move beyond that phase of raging community epidemic, a lot of these areas of failure will start to stick out like a sore thumb if they arent tackled by that point. So in some ways its similar to issues like infections continuing to spread in hospitals and care homes even when the picture in the wider community has improved. They've always been issues, but when we reach a stage where they are undeniably the main remaining drivers of infection, doing nothing is no longer an option.


----------



## LDC (May 9, 2020)

souljacker said:


> This 14 day quarantine for incoming flights is bonkers. From what I can see, you need to tell them where you are staying and promise to stay there for 14 days. Then you, presumably, hop on the tube or bus and then go and do what you want. We should be actively discouraging people from flying here. There are loads of empty hotels around the airports. Put them in one for 14 days and tell them they can't come out. We'll put 3 meals a day outside your door and you have to stay put.



Surely some kind of a tag at home would be possible to sort out? Be a good discouragement to travel here unless absolutely essential at the very least!


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 9, 2020)

souljacker said:


> This 14 day quarantine for incoming flights is bonkers. From what I can see, you need to tell them where you are staying and promise to stay there for 14 days. Then you, presumably, hop on the tube or bus and then go and do what you want. We should be actively discouraging people from flying here. There are loads of empty hotels around the airports. Put them in one for 14 days and tell them they can't come out. We'll put 3 meals a day outside your door and you have to stay put.



Iirc, that's exactly what Yu_Gi_Oh had to do on her return to China.

It's also what they briefyly pretended to do early on here, too - allocated hotels nearby airports, but with no insistence whatsoever that people do it (weren't people mostly not even made aware of the _option?_), so everyone just traipsed off home and the hotel rooms were left empty.

It's more stuff that's just said for effect, with no actual commitment to even begin to ensure it works, isn't it? No meaningful action, £££'s over lives - business as usual, more or less. 
I'm expecting the _magic app_ to turn out to be the same in the end (they've now handed out a whole new contract to see if we WOULD be best going with the alternative one after all, too, haven't they?) - that there won't be much at all put into actual contact tracing alongside it, despite all the scientific advisors constantly saying atm that it'll work very much alongside that.


----------



## Supine (May 9, 2020)

From the press conference just now - trains will only be able to have 1/10th if it’s previous capacity. People being urged to reduce travel wherever possible.

Also apps being developed to show estimated and live crowding levels on the transport system.


----------



## elbows (May 9, 2020)

By the way, in 2009 when the new swine flu influenza was discovered, the UK did have a period early on when they bothered to send official to airports to meet planes that came from Mexico. But this was not done as a serious attempt to contain the flu virus, the main reason they did it was to offer the public some reassurance. ie to be seen to be doing something.

Here are a few quotes from the review in to the UK's 2009 pandemic response:



> The containment phase of the response lasted for longer and consumed more resources than had been anticipated by those responsible for its implementation. There is an opportunity cost in carrying out tasks, such as meeting direct flights from Mexico, using skilled staff who then cannot be doing other work of more benefit in tackling the outbreak.





> initially meeting all direct flights from Mexico in order to ease public concerns, and maintaining a presence in airports during the hours that flights were arriving;



I'm not sure how much justice I'm doing to that subject by not going on about the broader context again. So a quick repeat of one of my central themes: Much in common between initial plan A with this coronavirus pandemic and the first phases of the 2009 pandemic response. Contain wasnt really contain, it was delay and learn. Which leads to this sort of stuff in the 2009 review:

What I would describe as the primary reason why they even bothered testing, contact tracing and hospitalising so many people in the first phase:



> The following additional surveillance mechanisms were used during the early stages of the response.
> The First Few Hundred (FF100) project enhanced the surveillance of cases and close contacts. Epidemiological analysis of information was used to determine the virological and clinical characteristics of the virus, as well as its potential spread and impact, and to provide information on susceptible groups and risk factors. All of this contributed to vaccine deployment decisions.
> Hospital surveillance of confirmed cases was used to identify and quantify risk factors for severe disease and to assist the detection of emerging changes in the epidemiology of the virus.
> During the containment phase, surveillance information was based on collection and analysis of data from confirmed cases of H1N1 gathered through laboratory testing and contact tracing. The focus was on characterising the clinical, epidemiological and virological features of the new disease.





> The UK maintained its initial approach to containment until 19 May 2009, at which point ministers agreed to end the practice of meeting all direct flights from Mexico. A further change was agreed by ministers on 10 June on the basis of evidence from the HPA that the measures were becoming increasingly resource-intensive and of diminishing value as the virus spread more widely. These changes involved:





> the use of clinical diagnosis (instead of laboratory testing) where there was a high probability that cases were positive;



Anyway all that sort of stuff is just evidence for why things relating to travel, borders etc were not a serious part of our initial response. But I cant use these past attitudes and failed plans to give me clues about the future. People are quite right to complain if measures finally being taken still seem weak, I'm not defending the weakness, but I am still gawping at the spectacle of the establishment actually having been forced into u-turns on all these fronts eventually. Some final quotes from the 2009 review to underline my point:



> International travel, border restrictions and screening
> 
> These aspects of pre-pandemic planning were informed both by the available scientific evidence on the efficacy of such measures and by the practical implications for economic, commercial and social activity of restricting international travel. Scientific evidence indicates that no practical level of travel restriction would prevent the arrival of a pandemic in the UK altogether, and that highly disruptive screening and restriction measures would only serve to delay a pandemic’s arrival by a matter of weeks, even if they were over 90% effective.
> 
> ...



Oh just one more, as further evidence of why I found the early 2020 response (till ~March 16th 2020) rather predictable based on my knowledge of the 2009 response:



> Recognising that there was little scientific evidence to support the widespread cancellation of large public gatherings as a measure to combat the spread of influenza, the planning assumption set out in the National Framework is that ‘the Government is unlikely to recommend a blanket ban on public gatherings. However, informed judgements by the event organiser and/or governing body in conjunction with the regulatory authority may become necessary at the time. If international events are due to be held in the UK with participants from affected areas, the Government may recommend postponement.’



So yeah, compared to the slow and constrained pace of attitude, policy & priority evolution for decades of my life, even the proposal of various weak things recently seems like a hyperspeed ultranew megasane transport spaceship between the planets u-turn and new turn by comparison.

All quotes are from https://assets.publishing.service.g...ile/61252/the2009influenzapandemic-review.pdf


----------



## Glitter (May 9, 2020)

editor said:


> The responses are all you might expect and more. This one is good, mind




Pretty certain I’m related to four people on that clip.


----------



## keybored (May 9, 2020)

A handy timeline of staggering hubris and arrogance. 









						A timeline of failure.
					

Through arrogance and incompetence, thousands have needlessly died.



					appeasement.org
				




I've noticed a coping mechanism emerging where the odd colleague or acquaintance will guiltily mutter something like "Yeah but I don't think a Labour government would have done anything any better".


----------



## keybored (May 9, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> woollies


I have some bad news...


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 9, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> when the alternative is buying compost in teeny bags from woollies and schlepping it home in a pushchair i'll admit i'm more than partial to an offer of a lift/"day out" to the garden centre



Woollies?

What year are you posting from?


----------



## MickiQ (May 9, 2020)

keybored said:


> A handy timeline of staggering hubris and arrogance.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's another dead cat argument, there is absolutely no evidence that a Corbyn-led Labour government would have been better and may very well have been even more useless but it's not a valid argument since there is no such thing. You might as well say that a LibDem Govt led by Death of Squirrels would be better/worse, we don't have one  of those either.
We do have a Tory Govt led by Boris Johnson and whilst they have done some things right, they have made some serious fuckups as well.
Since we live in a democracy we have an absolute right to call out our elected officials and are not required to praise them blindly (That's Trumpian thinking)


----------



## lazythursday (May 9, 2020)

Shirl said:


> I knew this nutter would be out in town spreading his vileness. I dont know if you're on Twitter lazythursday but I thought you wouldn't want to miss him
> View attachment 211605


Oh I've seen, Shirl - I have been keeping an eye on Ralph's facebook page, which has been getting increasingly deranged. Given the response in the town on social media I don't think he will be getting many hugs in the square in future! Sad to say I know a second one of these people, and they are close to someone really quite vulnerable to the virus who I really like - utterly infuriating. Trouble is they are not alone - I have a growing list of Hebden folk I will be treating with utter contempt when it's safe to get near enough to them to show it.


----------



## frogwoman (May 9, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> That's another dead cat argument, there is absolutely no evidence that a Corbyn-led Labour government would have been better and may very well have been even more useless but it's not a valid argument since there is no such thing. You might as well say that a LibDem Govt led by Death of Squirrels would be better/worse, we don't have one  of those either.
> We do have a Tory Govt led by Boris Johnson and whilst they have done some things right, they have made some serious fuckups as well.
> Since we live in a democracy we have an absolute right to call out our elected officials and are not required to praise them blindly (That's Trumpian thinking)



Yeah you might as well say 'John Major would have fucked it up worse'.


----------



## wayward bob (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Woollies?
> 
> What year are you posting from?


the last time i went to a garden centre was at least 10 years ago


----------



## quimcunx (May 9, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> That's another dead cat argument, there is absolutely no evidence that a Corbyn-led Labour government would have been better and may very well have been even more useless but it's not a valid argument since there is no such thing. You might as well say that a LibDem Govt led by Death of Squirrels would be better/worse, we don't have one  of those either.
> We do have a Tory Govt led by Boris Johnson and whilst they have done some things right, they have made some serious fuckups as well.
> Since we live in a democracy we have an absolute right to call out our elected officials and are not required to praise them blindly (That's Trumpian thinking)



What did they do right?


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 9, 2020)

Regarding schools, I had this email (clickable to read the report).



You have backed our calls for a detailed, science driven plan for schools so they can open more widely when it is safe to do so.

Today the National Education Union has published a report detailing the questions we been asking Government about the impact on children, families, staff and the wider community of proposals to reopen schools more widely. 

*Our report outlines the urgent questions that must be answered before any easing of the current lockdown.*​

*Read and share the report*​

Over the last six weeks, we have written three times to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education outlining concern that members and parents and carers of children in our schools have raised about the crisis.

We have asked the Government to share its evidence and modelling. We have asked for the publication of peer-reviewed science.

*So far, there has been no response.*

*This is not acceptable. *These questions must be addressed before any wider opening of schools is proposed or no educator or parent can have confidence in such proposals.

*Please read and share this report far and wide.*​


----------



## tim (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Lockdown on the Sussex coast became an issue yesterday, mainly from outsiders, many from London, deciding to come down to the likes of Brighton & Worthing.
> 
> This was Worthing beach yesterday, nowhere near as busy as a normal sunny day, but certainly the worst since the start of lockdown, and at Easter...
> 
> ...


Isn't it great living in a police state.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 9, 2020)

tim said:


> Isn't it great living in a police state.



It's not a police state, you twat.

The reason for a ban on non-essential travel is to avoid spreading this virus around, most people seem to get that, a small minority needs a kick up the arse, fuck them.

In other European countries, they would be getting beaten & much bigger fines.


----------



## brogdale (May 9, 2020)

tim said:


> Isn't it great living in a police state.


Funny how the old bill were so relaxed about all the Covid seeding street parties yesterday.


----------



## Raheem (May 9, 2020)

Turning people back is maybe OK, but it seems like there are a lot of people getting fined within the guidance that's been given. We're allowed to drive to our daily excercise now, aren't we?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 9, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> That's another dead cat argument, there is absolutely no evidence that a Corbyn-led Labour government would have been better and may very well have been even more useless


I don't really accept that. 

First, 'Even more useless' is very unlikely. How exactly would that have been possible? 

Second, while a Corbyn govt could not have undone things done over the last 10 years that contributed to this crisis, there are many things that this govt has done this year because of the particular nature of this govt. Their prevarication, lack of transparency, total lack of ability to admit mistakes, lack of ability to prioritise the wellbeing of people, lack of willingness to decentralise decision-making. All these are the product of a group used to treating people with contempt, and would have been different with a different government. As one simple, practical example, I would say it is highly unlikely that a Corbyn-led govt would have kept the contents of the Sage meetings secret. As indeed in many other countries, the details of equivalent meetings have been pubic throughout.


----------



## killer b (May 9, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Funny how the old bill were so relaxed about all the Covid seeding street parties yesterday.


All the photos from street parties yesterday I've seen people getting aerated about today had people in discrete household groups observing the social distancing guidelines. I don't think they will mostly have been particularly risky tbh.


----------



## MickiQ (May 9, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What did they do right?


I think they've got a few things right, mostly in the areas of preventing (or trying to prevent) non-pandemic damage to society such as the furlough schemes, mortgage holidays, bans on eviction, sweeping up and housing the homeless. I'm under no illusions that they're doing it for hard-headed business reason rather than the goodness of their hearts.
But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing. I don't think they have done too badly at managing the lockdown whilst trying not get to heavy about it.
We haven't had the army on the streets in this country. Yes with hindsight maybe something could have been managed better but they (and Labour would have been in the same position) have been in the position of always reacting to the virus rather than being out in front of it.
And that is where they have failed most abjectly, there was no planning ahead despite us being behind the rest of Europe never mind SE Asia. Opportunities to close borders, stock up on PPE etc were missed when they should have seen them coming, they dithered (not as badly as the US Govt) but definitely there seems to have been a hope it would just go away.


----------



## keybored (May 9, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What did they do right?


Boris making a selfless example of himself on "How not to do social distancing" was pretty inspired.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 9, 2020)

Van-Tam actually had to have _a quiet word with himself_ during today's briefing when he was talking about the app/track and trace and that only being part of the solution (after using the wonderful term 'foot-leather epidemiology'  ) 'How, how...I'm trying to get this right..'.

I think the cycling stuff is great, although I would say that the bike to work scheme offers nothing to workers on minimum wage/zero hours etc who don't earn enough to pay tax and/or NI in the first place, outside of an interest free loan.
Fwiw, I would cycle if there were fewer cars on the road/more cycle lanes - it's traffic that scares me - not that I drive anyway but in terms of keeping me off public transport.

But a scheme that offers a better reduction in the final cost, the _more you earn_ (being tax free), is not massively inclusive to a whole swathe of lower paid groups of workers, many of those who are also likely to be fulfilling essential roles.
Not writing it off as a good idea but there's still something in it that continues to ignore the reality of low/inconsistent wages for lots of people, too.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> In other European countries, they would be getting beaten & much bigger fines.



You're being ridiculous.


----------



## brogdale (May 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> All the photos from street parties yesterday I've seen people getting aerated about today had people in discrete household groups observing the social distancing guidelines. I don't think they will mostly have been particularly risky tbh.


Fair enough; I suppose there's always a danger of generalising from the specific...it's just the biggest one near me (next road) started at 1pm went on to midnight and with that much drinking time the social distancing discipline fell apart after a while.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 9, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Funny how the old bill were so relaxed about all the Covid seeding street parties yesterday.



You mean the ones where people were in their own front gardens, totally within the rules?



Raheem said:


> Turning people back is maybe OK, but it seems like there are a lot of people getting fined within the guidance that's been given. We're allowed to drive to our daily exercise now, aren't we?



Sussex police has made it clear that locals can drive a short distance to exercise, so I can drive the a mile or so to the south for the seafront, or the same north to the national park, all within the rules.

But, if you are driving fucking miles, or in one case over 150 miles, to get here, risk getting fined & being turned back, it's that simple.

It's policing by consent, and is fully supported locally.


----------



## brogdale (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> You mean the ones where people were in their own front gardens, totally within the rules?


No, I mean like the one in the road next to mine that had enough drinking time for any pretence at social distancing in the whole road to break down completely.   
The sorts that prompted a number of doctors/nurses to take to social media to despair at the potential covid seeding taking place.


----------



## Numbers (May 9, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Fair enough; I suppose there's always a danger of generalising from the specific...it's just the biggest one near me (next road) started at 1pm went on to midnight and with that much drinking time the social distancing discipline fell apart after a while.


Same as around here.  What virus?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 9, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> You're being ridiculous.



Have you not seen the videos of their militarized police, in the likes of Belgium, beating people up on the streets for breaking their much tougher lockdowns? 

Are you not aware of how big some of the fines are across Europe?

We've had it soft, not only in the actual lockdown, but also in the enforcement.


----------



## tim (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sussex police has made it clear that locals can drive a short distance to exercise, so I can drive the a mile or so to the south for the seafront, or the same north to the national park, all within the rules.
> 
> But, if you are driving fucking miles, or in one case over 150 miles, to get here, risk getting fined & being turned back, it's that simple.
> 
> It's policing by consent, and is fully supported locally.


----------



## spitfire (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Have you not seen the videos of their militarized police, in the likes of Belgium, beating people up on the streets for breaking their much tougher lockdowns?
> 
> Are you not aware of how big some of the fines are across Europe?
> 
> We've had it soft, not only in the actual lockdown, but also in the enforcement.



Indeedy.

My girlfriends uncle was fined €350 for being 1.2 km away from his home address (France) as the maximum permitted distance is 1km. Her 79 year old mum was stopped by the Gendarmes and questioned as to her journey to the supermarket. They then followed her to make sure she went where she said she was going.

My parents, in Dublin, left the house for the first time in 6 weeks on Tuesday for a short walk as restrictions were eased.

This country is lockdown lite by any measure.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> All the photos from street parties yesterday I've seen people getting aerated about today had people in discrete household groups observing the social distancing guidelines. I don't think they will mostly have been particularly risky tbh.



Yeah, I don't think _anything_ people have done this weekend is difficult to understand after what we've been drip fed all week. 
At yesterday's briefing, it pretty much _began_ by mentioning all the 'speculation' over lifting lockdown but they have continued to do fuck all to address that - we just _have to wait for Johnson_, tomorrow. 
All of that continued vagueness, but along with Sunak ('We will do WHATEVR it takes', lol) looking to wind down the furlough scheme for eg - isn't this _what they want_?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 9, 2020)

tim said:


>



Congratulations on making yourself out to be a complete cunt.

I wanted to go for my annual long spring weekend visit to see friends in Somerset over the Easter period, or even this weekend.

Did I? No, because I am not a selfish cunt.


----------



## Shirl (May 9, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Oh I've seen, Shirl - I have been keeping an eye on Ralph's facebook page, which has been getting increasingly deranged. Given the response in the town on social media I don't think he will be getting many hugs in the square in future! Sad to say I know a second one of these people, and they are close to someone really quite vulnerable to the virus who I really like - utterly infuriating. Trouble is they are not alone - I have a growing list of Hebden folk I will be treating with utter contempt when it's safe to get near enough to them to show it.


I'd quite to see your list when the time comes.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 9, 2020)

spitfire said:


> My girlfriends uncle was fined €350 for being 1.2 km away from his home address (France) as the maximum permitted distance is 1km.



And, the fines here are just £60, reduced to £30 if paid in 14 days. Although they keep on doubling for each offence thereafter. 

Police state, my arse.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Have you not seen the videos of their militarized police, in the likes of Belgium, beating people up on the streets for breaking their much tougher lockdowns?
> 
> Are you not aware of how big some of the fines are across Europe?
> 
> We've had it soft, not only in the actual lockdown, but also in the enforcement.



It's a stupid, lazy justification to back up you own argument.
I can think of many, more obvious, reasons for people feeling they can travel further now/the diminishing observance of social distancing rules which may happen over this weekend - can't you?

I don't think it follows, either way, that we should just count ourselves lucky that we're not being physically attacked by the police - wtf?!


----------



## keybored (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Have you not seen the videos of their militarized police, in the likes of Belgium, beating people up on the streets for breaking their much tougher lockdowns?


Do you mean the one where they're beating up people rioting after a teenager was killed by police, or is there actually footage of people being beaten for driving to the beach?


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 9, 2020)

keybored said:


> Do you mean the one where they're beating up people rioting after a teenager was killed by police...



I've not even read about that - fuck _sake_


----------



## Supine (May 9, 2020)

Raheem said:


> We're allowed to drive to our daily excercise now, aren't we?



Some people in the lakes drove miles to get here and their excuse was 'we're here to feed the ducks'. The police told them to fuck off down south (politely).


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt - fwiw, I think it's more difficult than ever not to go a bit fucking potty and that it's really easy to shoot that in the direction of what looks like obvious targets.
From my own pov that's not helped by the way this is all being so badly mismanaged by a bunch of incompetent, entitled arseholes, who are guided in _everything_ they do by profit over lives,
It's difficult not to get so caught up in the frustration and powerlessness and _worry_ of it all, that you find _easier_ enemies, iykwim. I do get that.


----------



## keybored (May 9, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I've not even read about that - fuck _sake_











						Dozens detained at Brussels riot after teen's death during police chase
					

Forty-three people have been detained by police in Brussels after a riot broke out in the Belgium capital, which has been in lockdown for four weeks.




					newseu.cgtn.com


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 9, 2020)

keybored said:


> Dozens detained at Brussels riot after teen's death during police chase
> 
> 
> Forty-three people have been detained by police in Brussels after a riot broke out in the Belgium capital, which has been in lockdown for four weeks.
> ...



Awful. 
There has definitely been a huge risk, throughout this, as to how some police will behave - with less to do and less people around to witness it - and how much easier it is to minimise it later, on vague lockdown/covid grounds. How that could escalate in built up areas where it's already more stressful and difficult to be sat in, confined to your home with no outdoor space, as well as going out and doing shopping and exercising when SD is obvs more difficult.
It's frightening, that extra potential for abuse of power.

I did read this today, too -









						Calls for ‘urgent’ review after police Taser man in front of child
					

Mayor questions whether action was justified or proportionate




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Lockdown on the Sussex coast became an issue yesterday, mainly from outsiders, many from London, deciding to come down to the likes of Brighton & Worthing.
> 
> This was Worthing beach yesterday, nowhere near as busy as a normal sunny day, but certainly the worst since the start of lockdown, and at Easter...
> 
> ...



You do know this whole outbreak started in Brighton and, had we nuked the place as I've been advocating for years anyway, it would all be gravy and roses right now.


----------



## tim (May 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Congratulations on making yourself out to be a complete cunt.
> 
> I wanted to go for my annual long spring weekend visit to see friends in Somerset over the Easter period, or even this weekend.
> 
> Did I? No, because I am not a selfish cunt.



Like you my plans for Easter and the Bank Holiday turned to shit and like you I've not been much more than a mile or so from home since March the 26th, although unlike you my mile's distance doesn't include either the South Coast or a National park. However, I do have the joys of the rather rather dull local park - six trees, no pond but lots of grass to not pick-nick on; I've crossed the North Circular on Pilgrimage to  Barking Curfew Tower (0.9 miles from home); ans tomorrow afternoon I might pack up the Kendal Mint Cake and make an assault on the summit of Beckton Alp. 

Unlike you I do no like living in a country where not only can the police stop you from travelling beyond an arbitrarily drawn line but they can also rob you for having the audacity to approach that line. Nor do I get any solace from knowing that in Belgium they steal even more and then beat the shit out of you.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 9, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Awful.
> There has definitely been a huge risk, throughout this, as to how some police will behave - with less to do and less people around to witness it - and how much easier it is to minimise it later, on vague lockdown/covid grounds. How that could escalate in built up areas where it's already more stressful and difficult to be sat in, confined to your home with no outdoor space, as well as going out and doing shopping and exercising when SD is obvs more difficult.
> It's frightening, that extra potential for abuse of power.
> 
> ...



Sod calling for a review, arrest the filths for assault and the attemted suicide bombing of a petrol station.


----------



## keybored (May 9, 2020)

As an aside, The Independent are that shit that they cannot even find the correct word _when it's their own fucking title_ [/rant]


----------



## DexterTCN (May 9, 2020)

He should have started singing We'll meet Again or pretending he was a Spitfire shooting down Germans.


----------



## Raheem (May 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> Some people in the lakes drove miles to get here and their excuse was 'we're here to feed the ducks'. The police told them to fuck off down south (politely).


Which, IMO is fine. But there also seems to be quite a bit of the filth making things up as they go along and penalising people for doing nothing unlawful. E.g. Fining people for crossing a demarcation line that wasn't there yesterday.


----------



## campanula (May 10, 2020)

But...but...but...I am  now a totally selfish cunt who wilfully drove 60 miles to our second home. From my city hometown to  rural  bucolic bliss.. It's fucking  dreadful, isn't it?  I have, to be fair, forgiven myself since the 'second home' is actually a horsebox and we were more at risk than the walkers, dog-owners, birdwatchers locals who share our woods. So yeah, I suppose we stepped into their 'space' whatever that might  mean, driving from Cambridge to near Norwich...and they certainly stepped into mine...but what the fuck does this mean. We stayed in our truck until we were in our wood, went nowhere else, chatted to a local dog-trainer, our neighbouring farmer and his cowman...at a respectable distance of several metres. We are fortunate to have a little pocket wood  and  re-opened a particularly lovely circular route between the river and village, previously closed to locals by private landowners. And made the gate combination known, to the vast annoyance of other landowners with whom we share a right of way.
And I had not seen my daughter and grand-daughter for 3 months 
Plus, there are worse cunts on the street where I live than some visiting random.  
So you know...I have a (nominal) respect for the rule of law...by consent... have both vulnerable family members and a sense of civic responsibility and understand how risk assessment works...while  seeing, at first hand, the utter fucking hypocrisy of non-distancing police.  And after weeks of going nowhere further than half a mile from my home (social housing in case you thought I was some rentier wanker). And no, I do not want to see the country breaking apart into even more divisions than the ones which already have and I certainly don't feel comfortable with the virulent blaming of outsiders.


----------



## Yu_Gi_Oh (May 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Iirc, that's exactly what Yu_Gi_Oh had to do on her return to China.
> 
> It's also what they briefyly pretended to do early on here, too - allocated hotels nearby airports, but with no insistence whatsoever that people do it (weren't people mostly not even made aware of the _option?_), so everyone just traipsed off home and the hotel rooms were left empty.
> 
> ...



Yes, I did. From the moment I landed in Beijing I was in something they call "closed loop isolation" and the airport had been sectioned-off so that all international arrivals were quarantined from domestic arrivals. They had a processing center at an Expo center near the airport that we were all taken to on coaches and then divided up according to our final destination. 

Once I arrived in my home city, I was taken to an initial quarantine hotel with incredibly high-level infection control and given a coronavirus test. After a few days, once I'd passed that test, I was taken to a nicer hotel, and had to pass two more coronavirus tests before the time was up. I had to report my temperature twice a day, and yep, they left breakfast, lunch, and dinner outside my door. 

Seven days after I got let out, I had to go an do another coronavirus test. 

I believe that in many places now, you have to do the 14 days in a quarantine hotel, and then an additional 14 at home. The whole thing is _serious_. Back in Feb and early March, the UK govt was talking the talk with their requisitioned hotels near airports, and their contact testing reports, but it was all bullshit. They lied to us. They lied to us and I don't know if we'll ever be able to hold them to account.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You do know this whole outbreak started in Brighton and, had we nuked the place as I've been advocating for years anyway, it would all be gravy and roses right now.



This outbreak didn't start in Brighton, it's just that guy was the first 'super-spreader', there was full contact tracing, and that little outbreak was stopped in its tracks.


----------



## Supine (May 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This outbreak didn't start in Brighton, it's just that guy was the first 'super-spreader', there was full contact tracing, and that little outbreak was stopped in its tracks.



Was it a sea gull?


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Which, IMO is fine. But there also seems to be quite a bit of the filth making things up as they go along and penalising people for doing nothing unlawful. E.g. Fining people for crossing a demarcation line that wasn't there yesterday.



Yup and the early payment discount is pretty clearly a bribe not to go to court, where a high proportion of these fines are likely to be thrown out.


----------



## phillm (May 10, 2020)

Johnson's new slogan leaked...

*Deny the evidence.*

_*Meaningless slogans.
*_
*Sacrifice lives.*


----------



## frogwoman (May 10, 2020)

Has SARS-COV-2 promised to chuck the Tories a few billion pounds in donations in return for helping them come up with that shite?


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

When he was going about washing hands thoroughly we should have known he meant "of all culpability"


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

_Stay alert_ though. Mrs SI has just said to wait for Johnson to explain it but I'd be very surprised if he can, given it's (deliberately?) vague. Stay alert FFS. It's not a man with a stripy top, mask and swag bag creeping up your drive


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

What are they actually thinking with this new totally pointless empty slogan replacing the stay at home message, what is the idea behind that? I just don’t get it. 
Boyfriend said yesterday he reckons that delaying quarantine for arrivals into the country until now was a plan to allow them to then point at the downward curve and say look it was foreigners that done it. I don’t know I’m not quite that cynical but couldn’t think of a better explanation for that either .


----------



## Sue (May 10, 2020)

Not going down well in Scotland:

'Sturgeon said: “The Sunday papers is the first I’ve seen of the PM’s new slogan. It is of course for him to decide what’s most appropriate for England, but given the critical point we are at in tackling the virus, #StayHomeSaveLives remains my clear message to Scotland at this stage.”

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader in Westminster, said: “What kind of buffoon thinks of this kind of nonsense? It is an invisible threat. Staying alert is not the answer.”









						Nicola Sturgeon leads chorus of disapproval over Johnson's 'stay alert' message
					

First minister hits out at No 10’s latest coronavirus messaging as ‘vague and imprecise’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> What are they actually thinking with this new totally pointless empty slogan replacing the stay at home message, what is the idea behind that? I just don’t get it.
> Boyfriend said yesterday he reckons that delaying quarantine for arrivals into the country until now was a plan to allow them to then point at the downward curve and say look it was foreigners that done it. I don’t know I’m not quite that cynical but couldn’t think of a better explanation for that either .



They really don't need an explanation for 'foreigners'. Plenty of anti-Chinese sentiment from day one of this.


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

What answer is there for why the quarantining of arrivals is basically 2 months late though? Seems unlikely it’s pure incompetence, airlines and travel industry totally fucked weeks ago anyway etc. Just strange.


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

Maybe 'stay alert' is a not so cryptic reference to 'keep shopping your neighbours'. 

200,000 phone calls to the police and rising.


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> What answer is there for why the quarantining of arrivals is basically 2 months late though? Seems unlikely it’s pure incompetence, airlines and travel industry totally fucked weeks ago anyway etc. Just strange.



The airlines are a powerful lobby. Look how they've reacted to this, fucked weeks ago or not.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Maybe 'stay alert' is a not so cryptic reference to 'keep shopping your neighbours'.
> 
> 200,000 phone calls to the police and rising.



And what tiny fraction of those will have been acted on?


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> And what tiny fraction of those will have been acted on?



An incredibly tiny amount I hope. I'm not really into police informant culture.


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> The airlines are a powerful lobby. Look how they've reacted to this, fucked weeks ago or not.


But 9/10 flights were already not flying this whole lockdown time, people just aren’t coming here anyway so not sure that’s the reason. Though that’s what all the news seems to be about, the Airline industry and not why it’s only happening now , 2 months late.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> An incredibly tiny amount I hope. I'm not really into police informant culture.



Luckily, neither are the police. Although that may simply be an artefact of their general aversion to doing anything resembling work.


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Luckily, neither are the police.



You must be joking.


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> But 9/10 flights were already not flying this whole lockdown time, people just aren’t coming here anyway so not sure that’s the reason. Though that’s what all the news seems to be about, the Airline industry and not why it’s only happening now , 2 months late.



It's my understanding that small amounts of business people have still been flying in, particularly from USA and China. Business. Mustn't disrupt business.

To start looking for anti-foreigner blaming mechanisms amongst the many incompetent policies we've followed, while dealing with a virus that simply screams 'CHINA' anyway to any xenophobe or racist who is looking for an excuse seems, to me, to be looking down conspiracy rabbit holes that have no need to exist.


----------



## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

Either they've given up even trying to pretend that their whole strategy isn't an incoherent mess born of indecision and tugging in opposite directions, or else they've decided that the only way out is to confuse enough people into abandoning the lockdown.

Maybe it's both.


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> It's not a man with a stripy top, mask and swag bag creeping up your drive



After reading that, any Cabinet Office comms manager tearing their hair out somewhere after endless fruitless team Zooms on how the hell the new slogan can be messaged to the public will be having a lightbulb moment right now


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> You must be joking.



Not really. I'm sure there are a few mad authoritarian zealots in the mix but most of them are just lazy, simple-minded arseholes.

And even authoritarians hate snitches. Everyone hates snitches.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Either they've given up even trying to pretend that their whole strategy isn't an incoherent mess born of indecision and tugging in opposite directions, or else they've decided that the only way out is to confuse enough people into abandoning the lockdown.
> 
> Maybe it's both.



It looks to me like giving up, but with deniability. Passing the buck in some form or another has been at the very core of everything this government has done at every stage of this crisis.


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Not really. I'm sure there are a few mad authoritarian zealots in the mix but most of them are just lazy, simple-minded arseholes.
> 
> And even authoritarians hate snitches. Everyone hates snitches.





> There *are* around 1,200 active registered *informants* in the country at any one time. *A* survey of CID officers found that 43 per cent had no registered *informants*, 22 per cent had one and 17 per cent had five or more


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

I _use _dental floss. Doesn't mean I don't hate it.


----------



## teqniq (May 10, 2020)

Get the proles back to work asap innit.









						Furlough announcement 'due on Tuesday' with plan for workers to return part-time
					

More than six million people have been furloughed in the UK as a result of the coronavirus pandemic but many of these might be made to work part-time, it's said




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 10, 2020)

PD58 said:


> As am I, and I do think it is stereotypical and, according to the press, more people are taking up gardening and given my own issues of trying to get veg seed this year this is no doubt true, but it is interesting that this one change has been leaked as it is of little help to those who are suffering most from lockdown i.e. urbanites with little or no garden space and certainly no spare cash for gardening... aren't most garden centers out of town...the cynic in me says it is to appease the shire Tories.




Your stereotype leaves out a huge number of people who don’t conform with your stereotype.

Poor people also have gardens, sometimes a little patch of balcony or a back yard, sometimes a decent plot of social housing garden, or lucky find private rental. People are growing food, using their patch of soil to deal with the misery of lockdown. I spoke with a woman of 27 yesterday who has dug over her rented back yard, built a raised bed and planted seeds for food . My 23 year old goddaughter and her boyfriend have planted seeds and cuttings (food and flowers) gifted to them from family. They’re both poor. I have a garden, thank fuck, and I’m poor. I have friends in Brixton with gardens who are poor. My neighbours are poor and they have gardens. Loads of poor people have gardens. Plenty of community gardens, communal gardens and allotments around Brixton that serve people living in flats. We have 2 little independent garden supply shops in the area, both are on their knees financially. 

It’s stupid to say “Since those in rabbit hutch flats are suffering, those lucky enough to have gardens be stopped from tending theirs”. 

People with gardens are not the enemy. Housing developers who build shit housing with no outdoor space and councils who sell off communal public land are the enemy.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK sent 50,000 Covid-19 samples to US for testing
					

The government says "operational issues" in the UK meant 50,000 samples had to be flown to US labs.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




 



> Meanwhile, the government has sent an urgent alert to hospitals recalling 15.8m protective goggles due to safety concerns.
> 
> Although the "Tiger Eye" protectors, purchased in 2009 during the swine flue pandemic, were in CE marked boxes - meaning they should have met European Union safety requirements - the goggles have since been retested and do not provide proper splash protection.


----------



## chilango (May 10, 2020)




----------



## elbows (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> But 9/10 flights were already not flying this whole lockdown time, people just aren’t coming here anyway so not sure that’s the reason. Though that’s what all the news seems to be about, the Airline industry and not why it’s only happening now , 2 months late.



Its one of the policies where it means something if you do it at the start, but then falls way down the priorities list once you have a raging epidemic in the country, because it isnt driving that epidemic. But, just like things like contact tracing, eventually the epidemic dwindles to the point that these things shoot back up the priorities list, because eventually these unplugged gaps will end up being a major driver of further infection, and the public will notice and become angry. So you have to tackle it properly at some stage.

Thats one part of it anyway. Another in this case is that Sturgeon made noises in public a little while back, when starting to talk about the next phase, about how the UK would need to act on this port quarantine side of things.


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

While recognising that gardeners cover a wide demographic it is not an outrageous suggestion to note that the average (modal) customer in a garden centre is a middle-class white female over 55, and that this might itself suggest the Tories are playing to an audience with this.


----------



## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Your stereotype leaves out a huge number of people who don’t conform with your stereotype.
> 
> Poor people also have gardens, sometimes a little patch of balcony or a back yard, sometimes a decent plot of social housing garden, or lucky find private rental. People are growing food, using their patch of soil to deal with the misery of lockdown. I spoke with a woman of 27 yesterday who has dug over her rented back yard, built a raised bed and planted seeds for food . My 23 year old goddaughter and her boyfriend have planted seeds and cuttings (food and flowers) gifted to them from family. They’re both poor. I have a garden, thank fuck, and I’m poor. I have friends in Brixton with gardens who are poor. My neighbours are poor and they have gardens. Loads of poor people have gardens. Plenty of community gardens, communal gardens and allotments around Brixton that serve people living in flats. We have 2 little independent garden supply shops in the area, both are on their knees financially.
> 
> ...


Who thinks people with gardens are the enemy?

But the strange obsession with garden centres probably is about the wants of comfortably-off constituents of Tory MPs who find themselves at home with time on their hands.


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2020)

The garden centre stuff is probably also because they havent got much wiggle room in regards what to reopen, and stuff that is outdoors is generally less risky, so its one of the few things they could possibly do at this stage.


----------



## chilango (May 10, 2020)

It might not be deliberate targeting though, it might just be because for their entire lives everybody they've ever known has big fuck off gardens.


----------



## Dogsauce (May 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


>



2009 was Brown, surprised they haven’t gone all trumpian and desperately pointed the finger at nu LIEbore. Has to be their fault somewhere.


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)




----------



## Ax^ (May 10, 2020)

just like churchilll


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Lockdown on the Sussex coast became an issue yesterday, mainly from outsiders, many from London, deciding to come down to the likes of Brighton & Worthing.
> 
> This was Worthing beach yesterday, nowhere near as busy as a normal sunny day, but certainly the worst since the start of lockdown, and at Easter...
> 
> ...



Eslewhere in 'good old Sussex filth protecting the public' news, they've made driving like a cunt legal.









						Police cancel speeding fines due to coronavirus
					

Speeding drivers have been let off fines as police struggle with their workloads during the coronavirus outbreak.




					www.sussexexpress.co.uk


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

Stay at Home is changing to Stay Alert


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Eslewhere in 'good old Sussex filth protecting the public' news, they've made driving like a cunt legal.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


and parking like a cunt in my LA


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

What a load of shit. Are we supposed to keep an eye on suspicious overseas viruses and phone the police when we see one? LOL.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Did anyone else get a text from 'the government' this morning about testing?


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

chilango said:


>


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




Where is that from? 'An increasingly formidable Keira starmer'    if I didnt laugh I'd cry.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Stay at Home is changing to Stay Alert



What's the difference between that and _Stay at Home_?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Eslewhere in 'good old Sussex filth protecting the public' news, they've made driving like a cunt legal.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The article refers to Essex police, not Sussex police, you twat. 



> According to the Times, Essex Police has written to at least one driver telling them that no further action will be taken “due to issues relating to the coronavirus”.


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

I am now officially and openly jealous of the people living in Scotland:


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Did anyone else get a text from 'the government' this morning about testing?



No, just another email from HMRC telling me to register for something I can't apply for yet, and for I which I already registered anyway.


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Where is that from? 'An increasingly formidable Keira starmer'    if I didnt laugh I'd cry.


It's from the Times. Not having read the entire article I am guessing it's a jokey dig at Starmer.


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What's the difference between that and _Stay at Home_?


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> The garden centre stuff is probably also because they havent got much wiggle room in regards what to reopen, and stuff that is outdoors is generally less risky, so its one of the few things they could possibly do at this stage.



I'm ok with garden centres opening as long the usual precautions.... yada yada.... But if you can have a saunter round a garden centre you can have a sit on the grass in the bloody park. I guess no one can make money out of sitting in parks though.

I sat on the grass in brockwell park this morning. #bloodonmyhands


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Eslewhere in 'good old Sussex filth protecting the public' news, they've made driving like a cunt legal.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not sure you read beyond the catchy clickbait headlines in that article.

Nowhere does it refer to Sussex police.

But it does say,

We (ESSEX police) are now enforcing all road traffic offences, including all speeding thresholds, and offenders will be prosecuted in line with national guidelines


----------



## editor (May 10, 2020)

Brixton last night, 2am. Well pissed people around the offie shouting and kicking off, cops turning up en masse. Just like the lockdown never happened.


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




Did they not think to look up alert in the dictionary first?


----------



## Dogsauce (May 10, 2020)

It’s all a bit ‘taking back control’ isn’t it? Like they only have one trick. Is this really the limit of Cumming’s genius?


----------



## Spandex (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



Stay Alert by staying home as much as possible?

After staying home for the last seven weeks trying to occupy 2 young kids the last thing I feel is alert.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> It’s all a bit ‘taking back control’ isn’t it? Like they only have one trick. Is this really the limit of Cumming’s genius?



It's a great slogan for a completely different crisis tbf.


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Did they think to look up alert in the dictionary first?



It's all coming from a single cell Johnson has got left in his mush brain:


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

A minute ago Johnson was supposedly the main voice in cabinet opposed to easing the lockdown too early as well. The man really is incapable of sticking to anything for more than a week.


----------



## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Where is that from? 'An increasingly formidable Keira starmer'    if I didnt laugh I'd cry.


It's all relative, though.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Stay at Home is changing to Stay Alert



Is this the roadmap out of lockdown, or is he gonna “address the nation” with that at some point later on? And if so anyone know what time? (Trying to plan my roast!).


----------



## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> A minute ago Johnson was supposedly the main voice in cabinet opposed to easing the lockdown too early as well. The man really is incapable of sticking to anything for more than a week.


He's really good at sticking to opposite and contradictory things.


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

Are we all in for a government mailshot of free amphetamines?


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is this the roadmap out of lockdown, or is he gonna “address the nation” with that at some point later on? And if so anyone know what time? (Trying to plan my roast!).



I assume 5pm ish but it all gets a bit vague when Johnson himself is involved. I assume it's mostly a function of when they can drag him away from his baby. And by baby I obviously don't mean his actual baby, I mean his drinks cabinet.


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> A minute ago Johnson was supposedly the main voice in cabinet opposed to easing the lockdown too early as well. The man really is incapable of sticking to anything for more than a week.



He just says yes to everyone, lies through his teeth and then does whatever he wants anyway. That's how you end up with however many families too.


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> I think they've got a few things right, mostly in the areas of preventing (or trying to prevent) non-pandemic damage to society such as the furlough schemes, mortgage holidays, bans on eviction, sweeping up and housing the homeless. I'm under no illusions that they're doing it for hard-headed business reason rather than the goodness of their hearts.
> But doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is still doing the right thing. I don't think they have done too badly at managing the lockdown whilst trying not get to heavy about it.
> We haven't had the army on the streets in this country. Yes with hindsight maybe something could have been managed better but they (and Labour would have been in the same position) have been in the position of always reacting to the virus rather than being out in front of it.
> And that is where they have failed most abjectly, there was no planning ahead despite us being behind the rest of Europe never mind SE Asia. Opportunities to close borders, stock up on PPE etc were missed when they should have seen them coming, they dithered (not as badly as the US Govt) but definitely there seems to have been a hope it would just go away.


Don't fall for this shit, lots of people already know that when furlough ends at the end of June, many of them won't have jobs to go back to.


----------



## sojourner (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is this the roadmap out of lockdown, or is he gonna “address the nation” with that at some point later on? And if so anyone know what time? (Trying to plan my roast!).


7pm on BBC1 Edie


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> The garden centre stuff is probably also because they havent got much wiggle room in regards what to reopen, and stuff that is outdoors is generally less risky, so its one of the few things they could possibly do at this stage.


It comes down to a simple Tory idea that almost everyone the virus kills is economically inactive anyway so it's totally fine if they die


----------



## weepiper (May 10, 2020)

New UK slogan going down like a cup of cold sick in Scotland.


----------



## andysays (May 10, 2020)

chilango said:


> It might not be deliberate targeting though, it might just be because for their entire lives everybody they've ever known has big fuck off gardens.


Although many of them will have big enough and/or fuck off enough gardens that they will employ gardeners and not have to actually go to the garden centre themselves.

I'm a gardener, both professionally and in my leisure time, and while there have been a few times in the past six weeks when I've wished I could pop to the nearest garden centre to pick up something I want, I've somehow managed to survive, and continue doing what gardening I need to do.

Along with others, I can help suspecting that this, especially the trailing it beforehand, is as much about been seen to do something which will play reasonably well with a significant proportion of their core constituency than because they're in the pocket of the Garden Centres.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

So what does the Urban massive have to say?

We have never been in this situation before, there are no previous protocols to follow.

You are the PM, we are where we are now, what are you going to do?


----------



## frogwoman (May 10, 2020)

I dont think it's a necessarily a bad thing garden centres are open tbh if it's safe to do so, I kind of want to get some seeds and be as self sufficient as possible.  Afaik Germany never closed harden centres and they were one of the first things to open in countries with stricter lockdowns. I dont have a problem with some stuff opening if it's safe to do so, and tbh in the uk non essential stuff was never shut down so you still have people working in highly unsafe environments to pack clothes up etc

To be honest some garden centres have been open even before the announcement, my sister said she went to one last weekend.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> So what does the Urban massive have to say?
> 
> We have never been in this situation before, there are no previous protocols to follow.
> 
> You are the PM, we are where we are now, what are you going to do?


If by some cruel mistake, I had somehow ended up PM, I'd have stepped aside and nominated Elbows back in February.


----------



## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> So what does the Urban massive have to say?
> 
> We have never been in this situation before, there are no previous protocols to follow.
> 
> You are the PM, we are where we are now, what are you going to do?


Resign.


----------



## Cid (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> So what does the Urban massive have to say?
> 
> We have never been in this situation before, there are no previous protocols to follow.
> 
> You are the PM, we are where we are now, what are you going to do?



We’ve had an enormous amount of discussion on here about different responses and the different models other countries have used.


----------



## Ax^ (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> You are the PM, we are where we are now, what are you going to do?



Line up the tory front bench against a wall and shoot them


Country need some good news in this situation


----------



## tommers (May 10, 2020)

Those are basically the same instructions we have had for the past couple of weeks but a bit vaguer. Keep contact to a minimum, stay at home as much as possible. No more "one exercise per day, no visiting relatives". 

The population do not respond well to vague instructions. Everybody's reaction to the specific instructions was how to bend them. This is just moving responsibility onto the general public. It's going to be a disaster.


----------



## Sue (May 10, 2020)

weepiper said:


> New UK slogan going down like a cup of cold sick in Scotland.


Same in Wales and NI -- they're going to ignore the new slogan too. 









						UK coronavirus: 'This is not the time to end the lockdown,' says Boris Johnson in address to nation – as it happens
					

Prime minister says from June some pupils could return to school in England; official UK death toll rises to 31,855




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## andysays (May 10, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I dont think it's a necessarily a bad thing garden centres are open tbh if it's safe to do so, I kind of want to get some seeds and be as self sufficient as possible.  Afaik Germany never closed harden centres and they were one of the first things to open in countries with stricter lockdowns. I dont have a problem with some stuff opening if it's safe to do so, and tbh in the uk non essential stuff was never shut down so you still have people working in highly unsafe environments to pack clothes up etc
> 
> To be honest some garden centres have been open even before the announcement, my sister said she went to one last weekend.


This is all true and fair enough, but I doubt the first question most people have been asking themselves over the past weeks is when the garden centres are going to re-open, so making a thing out of announcing that specifically seems curious...


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> You are the PM, we are where we are now, what are you going to do?



Protect the rights of workers who do not feel they can get to work safely or that their workplace will be safe. Immediate and effective action against any employers found to be compelling workers to return to work against their will.

Actually decide what is essential and what isn't, and close what isn't, at least until June. Reopening now will be all cost, little benefit for many businesses anyway.

Maintain support for furloughed workers, improve support for self-employed workers so you get more support if you were earning less, instead of the current system where people least in need of support get the most support. Reduce support for furloughed workers who make over 50,000 a year to a small slip of paper with the word 'cope' written on it.

Rent freeze and arrears amnesty covering April, May and June.

Stop punishing and threatening people doing stuff outdoors that has an infinitesimal, if any, chance of spreading the virus. A picnic with members of your household, a run on the beach, whatever. Change the messaging to 'avoid unecessary contact with others, but do so according to your own common sense and judgement'.

Prioritise reopening stuff people actually need. Like, opticians more than soft furnishings. Give important services/businesses proper PPE sourced by government procurement so that those critical to health and wellbeing are not fighting for supplies with businesses which are critical to nothing but their own existence.


----------



## Sue (May 10, 2020)

Went out briefly last night (first time in a week) and there were loads of people out and about. FFS.









						Hackney has third highest coronavirus death rate in country
					

Hackney has the third highest coronavirus mortality rate in England and Wales, according to the Office for National Statistics.




					www.hackneygazette.co.uk
				












						‘They're making it up as they go along’: confusion dilutes lockdown message
					

With picnics tolerated and even a pub doing takeaway drinks, it seems few in Hackney are obeying the stay-at-home rule




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2020)

tommers said:


> Those are basically the same instructions we have had for the past couple of weeks but a bit vaguer. Keep contact to a minimum, stay at home as much as possible. No more "one exercise per day, no visiting relatives".
> 
> The population do not respond well to vague instructions. Everybody's reaction to the specific instructions was how to bend them. This is just moving responsibility onto the general public. It's going to be a disaster.


It's explicitly so the public can be blamed. They've already realised they've fucked this worse than any Western European nation and are already lining up scapegoats.

I'd be in favour of distributing free vegetable gardening equipment to help take the strain off the supermarkets.


----------



## Petcha (May 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> Went out briefly last night (first time in a week) and there were loads of people out and about. FFS.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



A bar within spitting distance of Brockwell Park (Canopy) was doing takeaway pints yesterday. Huge queue. Tbf if there wasn't a queue I'd have probably partaken myself.


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 10, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> 2009 was Brown, surprised they haven’t gone all trumpian and desperately pointed the finger at *ZaNu* *LIEbore*.



If you're going there, the rules of engagement say you have to go all in


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

tommers said:


> Those are basically the same instructions we have had for the past couple of weeks but a bit vaguer. Keep contact to a minimum, stay at home as much as possible. No more "one exercise per day, no visiting relatives".
> 
> The population do not respond well to vague instructions. Everybody's reaction to the specific instructions was how to bend them. This is just moving responsibility onto the general public. It's going to be a disaster.


The disaster may be that the wrong things/people get blamed for the UK's lack of progress. Easing measures when new cases are still being found at a rate of 4k per day, having only ramped up testing to decent levels a week ago, means we're still learning where the ongoing problems are - mostly, it appears, centred around hospitals and inadequate infection control. 

Other countries have started easing following significant drops in new cases, at which point they could at least say that their previous measures had enabled them to get on top of things. I don't really call 4k new cases a day 'on top of things'.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If by some cruel mistake, I had somehow ended up PM, I'd have stepped aside and nominated Elbows back in February.



That is called 'passing the buck' I believe.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

Cid said:


> We’ve had an enormous amount of discussion on here about different responses and the different models other countries have used.



That's the whole point really. 

It really is a case of trying various strategies, eventually something will work.

Verry easy to sit on the sidelines and criticise, not so easy when you have to develop a strategy to get people back to work without provoking a second wave. Germany has had to reimpose lock down in some areas where things had been eased.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 10, 2020)

.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> Line up the Labour front bench against a wall and shoot them
> 
> 
> Country need some good news in this situation



FIFY


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

tommers said:


> Those are basically the same instructions we have had for the past couple of weeks but a bit vaguer. Keep contact to a minimum, stay at home as much as possible. No more "one exercise per day, no visiting relatives".
> 
> The population do not respond well to vague instructions. Everybody's reaction to the specific instructions was how to bend them. This is just moving responsibility onto the general public. It's going to be a disaster.



You are absolutely right there.


----------



## planetgeli (May 10, 2020)

As requested.


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2020)

Seal the borders properly. Apply a firm but fair lockdown with heavy fines and a proper appeals process.

Invest in a proper contact tracing system, with or without an app, I'd take advice on that. But the aim would be eradication of the virus New Zealand style.

Send the army in to seize all private country estates and turn them over to food production as soon as possible to ensure the people's food supply.

A food commission set up to plan long term food supplies and to put rationing in place if required.

UBI immediately.

Cancel all credit card debts, rents and first home mortgages. Landlords who fall in mortgage arrears due to the above will have their properties taken over by the state and remain in the possession of their tenants.

All companies that can't afford to pay their workers to be nationalised by force and turned into workers' cooperatives with wages covered by state until working again.

That should do it for now.


----------



## xenon (May 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What's the difference between that and _Stay at Home_?



You can go up the garden centre and go for a couple of jogs a day. Idealy on the way to work. Or sommat.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's explicitly so the public can be blamed. They've already realised they've fucked this worse than any Western European nation and are already lining up scapegoats.
> 
> I'd be in favour of distributing free vegetable gardening equipment to help take the strain off the supermarkets.



If you compare like with like, it is a different picture. The UK counts all deaths, Spain and Italy are counting hospital deaths only, which is a vast under-count. Lombardy has experienced 180% excess deaths, which is a better measure.

I'm not saying though that the government's response has been perfect, it has been far from it, especially with regard to care homes. The Scottish health secretary decanted people from hospitals to care homes to free up beds. Those patients took the virus with them. The care home death rate in Scotland has been dreadful, and is nowhere near finished.







There have been over 1000 Scottish care home deaths so far.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> That is called 'passing the buck' I believe.


Not really. The only sensible answer really is that I/we wouldn't have made such a hash of things in the first place, because my/our priorities/objectives would have been different from the start. There's a lot to be said for being broadly pro-people. 

If I were to inherit this total mess today, my first job would be to spend some time examining all the issues in order to sort the mess out. I don't have the necessary information to hand to do that. I can see where some of the problems lie - lack of ppe, lack of correct infection protocols/not following the correct ones - but to work out the solutions would require a look at the detail. 

At the very least, I'd be acknowledging that there is a problem here and things have not been done correctly to this point, which is more than anyone currently in government is prepared to do. That would be a start in and of itself. 

Otherwise, Raheem's answer stands - if I had brought the country to this stage today in this current crisis, the only thing for me to do would be to resign. I'm clearly not up to the job.


----------



## xenon (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is this the roadmap out of lockdown, or is he gonna “address the nation” with that at some point later on? And if so anyone know what time? (Trying to plan my roast!).



Yeah some changes, the garden centre stuff, road map and at 7.

I'm joining a virtual comedy night at half 7.
So will have a few laughs...

Then watch some comedians.


----------



## smokedout (May 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> The garden centre stuff is probably also because they havent got much wiggle room in regards what to reopen, and stuff that is outdoors is generally less risky, so its one of the few things they could possibly do at this stage.



It's not less risky for the people who work in garden centres, and the associated distribution and production chains. They all have to get to work now, and spend all day around both colleagues and the public, including those who've decided social distancing isn't for them.  And then go home to their families or people they live with.

It's a small sector and probably won't make a huge difference to overall national transmission, but every opening up of non essential production like this ramps up the number of people potentially exposed to some of the most likely means of transmission which are face to face contact and public transport, and there will be lots more people behind the scenes keeping these industries going than just those working the tills.  I agree that there's probably very little direct risk to customers though.

Most of what we've seen the last few days - people chatting at appropriate distance in the streets, or sitting around in parks having a drink - whilst very visible and annoying to some is probably not that risky really.  Going to work, getting on public transport and going to see family and friends in their home is.  As well the push to do the first two, with ministers calling this week for construction and fast food to open up again as well as whatever happens tonight (and to the furlough scheme), they now seem to be taking a lax approach to the third.  Limiting contact with other people can easily be read to mean go give your granny a hug, have a small birthday do and take the kids round to their friends to play, just you know, keep it down a bit.  There seems to be little emphasis on curbing what we know is most likely to drive infection, I imagine because that would involve hard truths about the dangers of trying to get the economy back to normal and people back to work.  I wasn't optimistic before but I think we might really be in trouble if they pursue this route.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> No, just another email from HMRC telling me to register for something I can't apply for yet, and for I which I already registered anyway.


Me too. Though it wasn't that hard, they seem to have made the process as awkward as they can. No link, just a message to go and search for the right page. Then a load of pointless text (stuff like, 'don't claim if the corona virus has not affected your business' and 'You can claim even if you are still working') before hitting the button that takes you to the place a link from the email should have. I am eligible apparently. Surely they just know that anyway from my tax records that I had to log into to check eligibility? They already have my phone, email, and bank details, they need all of them on file, why do they want them again?. So obviously after that you still have to register by filling in all your details again and your passport number for verification, even though they can only pay the money into your own account and they have already verified by email, text, your UTR and HMRC log in.
I 'think' I'll be getting the full amount, which is good, but not what I would have been earning during this period, and I doubt I will get anymore work this year.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not really. The only sensible answer really is that I/we wouldn't have made such a hash of things in the first place, because my/our priorities/objectives would have been different from the start. There's a lot to be said for being broadly pro-people.
> 
> If I were to inherit this total mess today, my first job would be to spend some time examining all the issues in order to sort the mess out. I don't have the necessary information to hand to do that. I can see where some of the problems lie - lack of ppe, lack of correct infection protocols/not following the correct ones - but to work out the solutions would require a look at the detail.
> 
> ...



The 'why' is for another day.*

What matters at the moment is the 'how'. I can only say that I am grateful that I don't have try and negotiate the way out of this, there is little point in protecting the populace if you kill their employment, there is little point in protecting the economy if you kill hundreds of thousands of people in doing so.

*There needs to be a thorough enquiry into what went wrong, and who was responsible, if for no other reason than one can have no confidence that this will not occur again.


----------



## treelover (May 10, 2020)

Seven arrested out of 40 having a party, including children in Bolton, GMP twitter.


----------



## keybored (May 10, 2020)

xenon said:


> I'm joining a virtual comedy night at half 7.


Belly Laughs?


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Me too. Though it wasn't that hard, they seem to have made the process as awkward as they can. No link, just a message to go and search for the right page. Then a load of pointless text (stuff like, 'don't claim if the corona virus has not affected your business' and 'You can claim even if you are still working') before hitting the button that takes you to the place a link from the email should have. I am eligible apparently. Surely they just know that anyway from my tax records that I had to log into to check eligibility? They already have my phone, email, and bank details, they need all of them on file, why do they want them again?. So obviously after that you still have to register by filling in all your details again and your passport number for verification, even though they can only pay the money into your own account and they have already verified by email, text, your UTR and HMRC log in.
> I 'think' I'll be getting the full amount, which is good, but not what I would have been earning during this period, and I doubt I will get anymore work this year.



I usually make most of my money in March through to July so this 'average month' thing really fucks me. Also in the first year that gets taken into account I made fuck all, while the relatively lucrative year up to this April doesn't count. All in all if you couldn't apply online and had to send off an envelope with a stamp on it then I'd probably come off better by just keeping the stamp.


----------



## treelover (May 10, 2020)

Seven people have been arrested following a birthday party in Bolton.
					

Shortly before 8pm on Saturday 9 May 2020, police were called to reports that a large group of people were fighting outside an address on Wemsley Grove, Tonge Moor.




					www.gmp.police.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> The 'why' is for another day.*
> What matters at the moment is the 'how'. I can only say that I am grateful that I don't have try and negotiate the way out of this, there is little point in protecting the populace if you kill their employment, there is little point in protecting the economy if you kill hundreds of thousands of people in doing so.



That's a false choice. The countries that have put saving lives first right from the start are the countries that are likely to suffer the least damage to their economies.


----------



## gosub (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> The 'why' is for another day.*
> 
> What matters at the moment is the 'how'. I can only say that I am grateful that I don't have try and negotiate the way out of this, there is little point in protecting the populace if you kill their employment, there is little point in protecting the economy if you kill hundreds of thousands of people in doing so.
> 
> *There needs to be a thorough enquiry into what went wrong, and who was responsible, if for no other reason than one can have no confidence that this will not occur again.



I am amazed you still have confidence in public enquires


----------



## klang (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> That's the whole point really.





SheilaNaGig said:


> .


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> That's the whole point really.
> 
> It really is a case of trying various strategies, eventually something will work.
> 
> Verry easy to sit on the sidelines and criticise, not so easy when you have to develop a strategy to get people back to work without provoking a second wave. Germany has had to reimpose lock down in some areas where things had been eased.


afaik every country that is easing lockdown is doing so in a way that involves the provision for reimposition of measures locally or nationally if there are signs of R0 going above 1. If that is happening in certain parts of Germany, that's not a sign of failure or mistake. It's simply the process, and recognition that we're past a point where 'one size fits all' regarding lockdown.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I usually make most of my money in March through to July so this 'average month' thing really fucks me. Also in the first year that gets taken into account I made fuck all, while the relatively lucrative year up to this April doesn't count. All in all if you couldn't apply online and had to send off an envelope with a stamp on it then I'd probably come off better by just keeping the stamp.


Shiiit, I forgot to check which year they were going by, which one is it? I might have the same problem. This is generally my busiest time, and I even had the pick of about three jobs from March until September. They have now all vanished an my calendar is completely clear. Annoying because I was booked to do a job that I have been told has been cut short, but I know it hasn't and that they actually have more work. It's just that they can now get someone else to do it that I assume is somehow more convenient for them. I think they hate me and only asked me to do it because another similar job booked for the same time was stealing all the editors. . . . that ones not happening now, freeing everyone up. The annoying thing is that I was actually double booked (the other job made me a better offer) and was going to tell them to do one (no loyalty because they screwed me three times the year before). Bah.


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If by some cruel mistake, I had somehow ended up PM, I'd have stepped aside and nominated Elbows back in February.



Lol cheers, I dont think it would have gone as I would have wanted if I'd had power then. I would have trodden on so many toes when heckling the orthodox approach. And my brain would have fallen out when I was informed about the NHS's 'reverse triage' plans. 

I dont think I'd have been able to alter many of the fundamental early failings to our approach. Most likely the most obvious difference that I would have been able to pull off would have been to lockdown 1-2 weeks earlier than we actually did. That would likely have made a rather notable difference to the number of deaths, but I would still have been left devastated by all the other failings in our approach


----------



## belboid (May 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> Seal the borders properly. Apply a firm but fair lockdown with heavy fines and a proper appeals process.
> 
> Invest in a proper contact tracing system, with or without an app, I'd take advice on that. But the aim would be eradication of the virus New Zealand style.
> 
> ...


You need to add something to ensure people stay entertained and sane whilst locked down.

Public execution of one tory MP a day should cover that.


----------



## Thora (May 10, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Shiiit, I forgot to check which year they were going by, which one is it? I might have the same problem. This is generally my busiest time, and I even had the pick of about three jobs from March until September. They have now all vanished an my calendar is completely clear. Annoying because I was booked to do a job that I have been told has been cut short, but I know it hasn't and that they actually have more work. It's just that they can now get someone else to do it that I assume is somehow more convenient for them. I think they hate me and only asked me to do it because another similar job booked for the same time was stealing all the editors. . . . that ones not happening now, freeing everyone up. The annoying thing is that I was actually double booked (the other job made me a better offer) and was going to tell them to do one (no loyalty because they screwed me three times the year before). Bah.


It's 18-19, 17-18 and 16-17


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Shiiit, I forgot to check which year they were going by, which one is it? I might have the same problem. This is generally my busiest time, and I even had the pick of about three jobs from March until September. They have now all vanished an my calendar is completely clear. Annoying because I was booked to do a job that I have been told has been cut short, but I know it hasn't and that they actually have more work. It's just that they can now get someone else to do it that I assume is somehow more convenient for them. I think they hate me and only asked me to do it because another similar job booked for the same time was stealing all the editors. . . . that ones not happening now, freeing everyone up. The annoying thing is that I was actually double booked (the other job made me a better offer) and was going to tell them to do one (no loyalty because they screwed me three times the year before). Bah.



It's the tax years 16-17, 17-18 and 18-19. You get 80% of what you made in an average month over those three years, per your profits as declared on your tax returns. In 16-17 I made almost fuck all, not least because I was waiting six fucking months for a DBS check to come through


----------



## xenon (May 10, 2020)

keybored said:


> Belly Laughs?


That's the one, yep. 








						Belly Laughs At Home
					

Weʼre supporting four amazing local charities: FareShare South West, Julian Trust, Bristol Old Vic, and Great Western Air Ambulance Charity.




					www.crowdfunder.co.uk


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2020)

belboid said:


> You need to add something to ensure people stay entertained and sane whilst locked down.
> 
> Public execution of one tory MP a day should cover that.


There's plenty of them now. Why not two!


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (May 10, 2020)

Thora said:


> It's 18-19, 17-18 and 16-17


I thought they only did one year (the last return?) and if you were not eligible on that one (over 50k) they looked at the last three years, added them up and divided, so that you had another chance to qualify.


----------



## belboid (May 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> There's plenty of them now. Why not two!


You're optimistic we'll be out that quickly!

And there are 365 of them, so it's just neat.


----------



## Thora (May 10, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> I thought they only did one year (the last return?) and if you were not eligible on that one (over 50k) they looked at the last three years, added them up and divided, so that you had another chance to qualify.


No, they average those three years profits and then pay you 80% of 3 months' worth.


----------



## keybored (May 10, 2020)

xenon said:


> That's the one, yep.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


My partner wants me to watch this later but Russell Howard is putting me off.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> I thought they only did one year (the last return?) and if you were not eligible on that one (over 50k) they looked at the last three years, added them up and divided, so that you had another chance to qualify.



As usual it's as clear as mud. I think it's those three years by default and if say you weren't self employed in 16-17 they'll ignore that and do an average over the other two years instead. I hope you're right though as 18-19 was my best year of the three.


----------



## Chilli.s (May 10, 2020)

Reely trying to be staying alert this afternoon.


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 10, 2020)

Via


----------



## treelover (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Not really. I'm sure there are a few mad authoritarian zealots in the mix but most of them are just lazy, simple-minded arseholes.
> 
> And even authoritarians hate snitches. Everyone hates snitches.



Except the DWP


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> If you compare like with like, it is a different picture. The UK counts all deaths, Spain and Italy are counting hospital deaths only, which is a vast under-count. Lombardy has experienced 180% excess deaths, which is a better measure.



There's a chart posted earlier by 2hats on excess mortality throughout Europe, here -









						Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
					

Here in 'Britain's most unequal city' pretty much all the homeless people have disappeared from the streets and green spaces. Round about now you would start to see tents and other shelters hidden away among bushes but I've only spotted two and they look long established.




					www.urban75.net


----------



## clicker (May 10, 2020)

I wish they'd stop wasting time talking about what will be opening , with vague hints about furlough ending. It's scaremongering imo.

Until they come up with a viable and workable solution re trains, tubes and buses to get people to work/park/beer garden it's all irrelevant . Public transport needs sorting first.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

clicker said:


> I wish they'd stop wasting time talking about what will be opening , with vague hints about furlough ending. It's scaremongering imo.
> 
> Until they come up with a viable and workable solution re trains, tubes and buses to get people to work/park/beer garden it's all irrelevant . Public transport needs sorting first.



I think the focus has to be on buses, not least because everywhere has buses but also because you don't need to navigate a cramped, badly ventilated environment to get on them. Mind you another heat wave like last year's and the tube could be rendered utterly sterile.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 10, 2020)

clicker said:


> I wish they'd stop wasting time talking about what will be opening , with vague hints about furlough ending. It's scaremongering imo.
> 
> Until they come up with a viable and workable solution re trains, tubes and buses to get people to work/park/beer garden it's all irrelevant . Public transport needs sorting first.



I was wondering, re ska invita's post about London, in particular, which pointed out that tubes (and everything else, tbf) would inevitably get filled to capacity very quickly at their first start points - whether it's possible to operate shorter shuttle services across all those services - so with lines/routes split up into smaller distances? 
Sure there'd be a lot wrong with it (and I don't know if that would present huge safety issues for tubes and trains anyway  ) and you'd still have a much reduced capacity, it'd make no difference to that - but maybe it'd encourage more people to walk from spots a little closer to work, along with freeing up the service for others further along?

I guess another problem with that though is that lots of people _would_ still be needing to cover much greater distances, so then you'd end up with more people gathering on platforms/stops for ongoing journeys - although I suppose you'd end up with more people gathering trying to get on to anything with enough free space anyway, so maybe that's no more of an issue than it will be anyway. * _brain explosion *_


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> As usual it's as clear as mud. I think it's those three years by default and if say you weren't self employed in 16-17 they'll ignore that and do an average over the other two years instead. I hope you're right though as 18-19 was my best year of the three.


Yeah me too.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That's a false choice. The countries that have put saving lives first right from the start are the countries that are likely to suffer the least damage to their economies.



Perhaps. We don't know yet what will happen when those countries lift lock down completely.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

gosub said:


> I am amazed you still have confidence in public enquires



I don't have a great amount of faith, but what else is there?


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> I don't have a great amount of faith, but what else is there?


England to join the people's republic of Scotland


----------



## Cid (May 10, 2020)

belboid said:


> You need to add something to ensure people stay entertained and sane whilst locked down.
> 
> Public execution of one tory MP a day should cover that.



I think some kind of contest held in the Houses of Parliament. Two of them released at opposite ends, only one survivor by day's end, or both are done in.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 10, 2020)

In theory, they could also encourage more people bringing bikes on tubes (would probably be _easier_ to observe SD if you could, too!) so that more people could cycle in from more central points, _or_ from routes further out that felt safer.

I dunno, the transport issue is just fucked really, isn't it?


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2020)

Cid said:


> I think some kind of contest held in the Houses of Parliament. Two of them released at opposite ends, only one survivor by day's end, or both are done in.


If we run out there's a week and a half's worth of Lib Dems. And half the current Labour front bench.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> afaik every country that is easing lockdown is doing so in a way that involves the provision for reimposition of measures locally or nationally if there are signs of R0 going above 1. If that is happening in certain parts of Germany, that's not a sign of failure or mistake. It's simply the process, and recognition that we're past a point where 'one size fits all' regarding lockdown.



Indeed. We would do well to watch those who are ahead of us, what happens there should guide what happens here. I did not state that this was a failure or a mistake on the part of Germany, they, like every one else are trying to make their way out of this.  Set backs are inevitable.

I would keep lock down in the UK for another four weeks, but I doubt if the economy could survive that.

There is going to be massive unemployment after this, an awful lot of shops, for example, will never reopen.


----------



## clicker (May 10, 2020)

@ sheothebudworths It really is and it doesn't seem to be spoken about much. And the people making the decisions are least likely to use it, so I don't trust their decision making.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> In theory, they could also encourage more people bringing bikes on tubes (would probably be _easier_ to observe SD if you could, too!) so that more people could cycle in from more central points, _or_ from routes further out that felt safer.
> 
> I dunno, the transport issue is just fucked really, isn't it?



It isn't viable.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> England to join the people's republic of Scotland


 Scotland has been no better than England, and in the case of care homes appears to be substantially worse.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 10, 2020)

clicker said:


> @ sheothebudworths It really is and it doesn't seem to be spoken about much. And the people making the decisions are least likely to use it, so I don't trust their decision making.



Yeah, I don't know what I'm wittering on about, tbf - there's no fucking way I'd be attempting any commute on the tube right now - and OBVIOUSLY more people are going to be driving (those who can, at least) if they start insisting people go to work and/or people are facing the threat of a complete loss of income/their jobs if they don't (which is clearly the plan, with stopping furlough, the cunts).


----------



## 2hats (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Scotland has been no better than England, and in the case of care homes appears to be substantially worse.


Wrong.


----------



## 8ball (May 10, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> View attachment 211868
> 
> Via



In the official Covid colours, too.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 10, 2020)

*No 10 publishes Sage material originally redacted showing tougher lockdown proposals rejected by experts*
On Friday my colleagues *Paul Lewis *and *David Conn* reported on how some members of Sage, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, were angered by the way the government readacted large chunks of a Sage document before publishing it last week.
*UK scientists condemn 'Stalinist' attempt to censor Covid-19 advice*


Read more
The scientists felt the redactions were unnecessary, because it seemed the content was just being hidden to prevent people learning that some government proposals had been dismissed by the experts, and at last one adviser was said to be considering resigning.
Now the government has relented - at least partially. This line has been added to the website page where all the Sage documents are published.


> Material was redacted from this document in accordance with the standard principles governing Freedom of Information when it was first published. However Sir Patrick Vallance [the government’s chief scientific adviser) and No 10 agree that such Sage documents relating to Covid should be published in full, in the interests of maximum transparency, with exceptions only for matters relating to national security.


Here is the document (pdf). It is a meeting note, dated 1 April, prepared for a Sage meeting on 2 April.
The newly-released material is everything from point 3, starting with the headline: “Specific comments about new suggestions for improving adherence within the Framework (27 March)”. It shows Sage rejected three proposals to toughen the lockdown.
Here is the key extract.


> The framework proposes four new suggestions for increasing adherence, numbered as options 17 to 20 that SPI-B have not commented on before. These focus on: 17) increasing the financial penalties imposed; 18) introducing self-validation for movements; 19) reducing exercise and/or shopping; 20) reducing non-home working. We have reservations about options 17 to 19.
> First, we are unclear what the evidence base is that the targeted behaviours are a substantial contribution to disease transmission, particularly given the high adherence rates currently observed in the community. Is there evidence, for example, that exercise conducted more than 1km away from the house leads to higher rates of transmission than exercise conducted within 1km of the house? Indeed, for this option, there is a risk that reducing the ability of people to apply some flexibility in choosing where to exercise will increase risk by preventing people from spreading out in nearby open space. Tightening restrictions without clear epidemiological need may lose support among people who have been attempting to adhere.
> Second, the implicit assumption underlying options 17 to 19 is that people lack motivation to adhere to current guidance. This may apply to some specific subgroups (the example of young men has been given), but broadly the current levels of adherence we are witnessing suggest this is not the issue.
> Third, there are equity issues within options 17 to 19. Any flat rate financial penalty will have a higher impact on poorer households, while the assumption that printing and completing paperwork is straightforward for all households can also be challenged. The assumption underlying restrictions on shopping frequency is that people can afford to buy in larger quantities. The risk of tension arising as the police are required to start penalising those who are not adhering should also be factored into considerations.


----------



## belboid (May 10, 2020)

8ball said:


> In the official Covid colours, too.


not quite the right font though.  

I've been trying to work it out, it seems to be a tweaked Arial, though the R &S aren't quite right.  They're more like Deja Vu Sans, but the I's in that are quite different.


----------



## 8ball (May 10, 2020)

belboid said:


> not quite the right font though.
> 
> I've been trying to work it out, it seems to be a tweaked Arial, though the R &S aren't quite right.  They're more like Deja Vu Sans, but the I's in that are quite different.



It looks kind of "road sign" to me, though I'm not wise in the way of fonts.
Mostly wondering how many people also get the yellow and green thing (early 1970s synaesthetic cohort).


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Scotland has been no better than England, and in the case of care homes appears to be substantially worse.



How many excess deaths in Scottish care homes?

According to the ONS it was about 16,000, up to a couple of weeks ago, in England & Wales, only 6,000 logged as being due to C-19.


----------



## 8ball (May 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> How many excess deaths in Scottish care homes?
> 
> According to the ONS it was about 16,000, up to a couple of weeks ago, in England & Wales, only 6,000 logged as being due to C-19.



We must be ahead of the States in the 'per capita' category.


----------



## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

8ball said:


> In the official Covid colours, too.


The most famous Norwich supporter right now.


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

Regardless of covid they could do more to discourage cars.  With covid complicating public transport as a solution do more to encourage lone travellers to use one/two person vehicles.  Bikes electric bikes mopeds electric scooters. 

If you can afford a £5000 car you can afford a £4000 car and another transport device.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (May 10, 2020)

With Self Employment payments does anyone know if you are eligible if you took other work. I've taken on PAYE agency stuff to support myself with all my work being cancelled. Obviously would be nice to get something on top.

Apparently I find out Thursday anyway...


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> With Self Employment payments does anyone know if you are eligible if you took other work. I've taken on PAYE agency stuff to support myself with all my work being cancelled. Obviously would be nice to get something on top.
> 
> Apparently I find out Thursday anyway...



I think eligibility is based on having a history of income from self-employment, and not so much what you're actually earning now. You're supposed to claim only if your income has been affected but anyone can say that and there's no real way of checking.

As long as you've delcared everything and answered whatever they ask honestly you should be fine.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I think eligibility is based on having a history of income from self-employment, and not so much what you're actually earning now. You're supposed to claim only if your income has been affected but anyone can say that and there's no real way of checking.
> 
> As long as you've delcared everything and answered whatever they ask honestly you should be fine.



Ta. Guess I'll see. Would certainly be handy. Been doing 50 to 70 hour weeks, for a while now, would be great to do some thing like normal hours.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If by some cruel mistake, I had somehow ended up PM, I'd have stepped aside and nominated Elbows back in February.


I’d have nominated elbows for PM back last November.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

UnderAnOpenSky said:


> With Self Employment payments does anyone know if you are eligible if you took other work.



Nobody knows, not even my accountant, let alone SpookyFrank, because the full details haven't been released, it should be more clear come Friday, when you can make a claim.

Probably best to keep this conversation to the specific thread, it'll get lost on this one.  









						Freelancers during this crisis and the Self Employment Income Support Scheme
					

Ive been self employed for 12 years, never tried to keep profits deliberately low, still working through this, not sure I've suffered 'hardship', but I'm certainly claiming this freebie when they screw us with national insurance next time.  do you write music?




					www.urban75.net


----------



## andysays (May 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> Went out briefly last night (first time in a week) and there were loads of people out and about. FFS.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Looks like the Guardian believes that Broadway Market is representative of Hackney, and everyone who lives there is a media consultant or an interior designer


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (May 10, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> To be honest some garden centres have been open even before the announcement, my sister said she went to one last weekend.



There's plenty that sell food and/or hardware so those ones always had the option to stay open I guess.


----------



## MickiQ (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Don't fall for this shit, lots of people already know that when furlough ends at the end of June, many of them won't have jobs to go back to.


Almost certainly but some will, no matter who is No 10, the belief that every job can be saved was never a realistic one.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> How many excess deaths in Scottish care homes?
> 
> According to the ONS it was about 16,000, up to a couple of weeks ago, in England & Wales, only 6,000 logged as being due to C-19.



It is hard to find figures.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 10, 2020)

Not sure if I agree the strategy is still herd immunity but fuck knows at this point. It's amazing how something so startlingly obvious as using different colours can go unnoticed though.

'Go, go on break the lockdown you're half way there anyway!'


----------



## prunus (May 10, 2020)

Utter bunch of useless venal fucking cunts.  Totally unworkable pointless and self-defeating set of ‘proposals’, and a roadmap to dismal failure and nothing else.

Just wanted to get this out there in advance of  7pm as I have a premonition I’m going to be too apoplectic to type then.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I think eligibility is based on having a history of income from self-employment, and not so much what you're actually earning now. You're supposed to claim only if your income has been affected but anyone can say that and there's no real way of checking.
> 
> As long as you've delcared everything and answered whatever they ask honestly you should be fine.



Having spent eight years making the self employed cough up what they were due in tax, this is going to be interesting. The chronic under-declarers are going to lose out, so are those who choose to take dividends (at 7.5% tax and no NI) rather than a salary.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Not sure if I agree the strategy is still herd immunity but fuck knows at this point. It's amazing how something so startlingly obvious as using different colours can go unnoticed though.
> 
> 'Go, go on break the lockdown you're half way there anyway!'




It's up to each of us what we do. I will not be coming out of lock down for at least another month. Isolation is the only way to avoid this bloody plague.

I can appreciate that the younger and fitter amongst us are desperate for life to recommence, but this wrinklie doubts if he would survive an attack of Covid 19.


----------



## Sue (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> It's up to each of us what we do. I will not be coming out of lock down for at least another month. Isolation is the only way to avoid this bloody plague.
> 
> I can appreciate that the younger and fitter amongst us are desperate for life to recommence, but this wrinklie doubts if he would survive an attack if Covid 19.


Some people may not have much of a choice -- it'll be go to work and put yourself at risk or not have a job to go to.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

8ball said:


> We must be ahead of the States in the 'per capita' category.



Greater London has an area of 605 square miles, and a population of 8.9 million.

New Jersey has roughly the same population, but has an area of 8,722 square miles.

I would imagine that outside of the big population density areas, there will be places in the states where there hasn't been a case in 100 miles.

When you look at the UK, all the 'hot spots' are in areas of large population density.

Islay, island, 4500 pop, zero cases. 238 square miles.


----------



## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Not sure if I agree the strategy is still herd immunity but fuck knows at this point. It's amazing how something so startlingly obvious as using different colours can go unnoticed though.
> 
> 'Go, go on break the lockdown you're half way there anyway!'



The advice does seem to overlap a bit with what was being fed in the initial 'herd immunity' phase. Emphasis on hand washing and noticeably flexible form of social distancing, plus go back to work.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 10, 2020)




----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Almost certainly but some will, no matter who is No 10, the belief that every job can be saved was never a realistic one.



The job losses will happen because of government's inaction, incompetence, and frankly, PM's diseased brain. So if you think it wouldn't have mattered anyway, I don't know what to tell you.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> It's up to each of us what we do. I will not be coming out of lock down for at least another month. Isolation is the only way to avoid this bloody plague.
> 
> I can appreciate that the younger and fitter amongst us are desperate for life to recommence, but this wrinklie doubts if he would survive an attack if Covid 19.



It's not up to each of us what we do. It's up to the government to give clear and concise messaging as to what we do to avoid catching and spreading the virus. It's up to the government to give clear and concise messaging as to what we can and can't do during lockdown. Protect the population and steer them through a crisis, that should be the main goal. Instead we've had let them take it on the chin... Oh actually maybe not... Start testing... Oh actually let's not bother.... We've got loads of PPE... Oh actually we haven't... You can do this if you like during lockdown... Oh actually maybe you shouldn't but you can sort of do that.

I'm younger and fitter than you I expect and yes, I want life to recommence, I live alone in a city none of my family live in and I'm desperate to leave it so I can go and see them but I can't because I risk bringing the virus into their house where two of them are at risk. The more the government dicks about with its vague bollocks the longer we all have to wait for life to recommence.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> Some people may not have much of a choice -- it'll be go to work and put yourself at risk or not have a job to go to.



I do appreciate that. Both Mrs Sas and me are very grateful indeed that work isn't a consideration.


----------



## ddraig (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Scotland has been no better than England, and in the case of care homes appears to be substantially worse.


bollocks
Scotland has been more honest and transparent, you just would never admit it


----------



## MickiQ (May 10, 2020)

I am planning to go and watch BoZo at 7pm, if anyone had told me 3 months ago that I would be waiting for a speech by Boris Johnson, I would have dimissed them as completely deranged, A sign of the times we live in.


----------



## andysays (May 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


>



Clearly unfit to be PM


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> I am planning to go and watch BoZo at 7pm, if anyone had told me 3 months ago that I would be waiting for a speech by Boris Johnson, I would have dimissed them as completely deranged, A sign of the times we live in.


Fuck that shit, why put yourself through it? it's bad enough reading the words.


----------



## MickiQ (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


> The job losses will happen because of government's inaction, incompetence, and frankly, PM's diseased brain. So if you think it wouldn't have mattered anyway, I don't know what to tell you.


Of course it matters and of course Boris must bear his share of whatever blame there is, not for the virus itself no-one could really forseen that but for any failing in how the UK reacted especially in the aftermath has we come out of lockdown. But do you really believe there is any way to avoid the economic and social consequences of this no matter what anyone does?


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 10, 2020)

I'm going to watch! Same as every day! I pretend to throw eggs (can't really, obvs - * egg shortage *).
Jesus, I'm feeling anxious though.


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Of course it matters and of course Boris must bear his share of whatever blame there is, *not for the virus itself no-one could really forseen that* but for any failing in how the UK reacted especially in the aftermath has we come out of lockdown. But do you really believe there is any way to avoid the economic and social consequences of this no matter what anyone does?


😁 😁 😁

And yes, UBI solves everything.


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> Some people may not have much of a choice -- it'll be go to work and put yourself at risk or not have a job to go to.


----------



## gosub (May 10, 2020)

ddraig said:


> bollocks
> Scotland has been more honest and transparent, you just would never admit it


So what % of Scots are going to 'exercise' more than once a day


----------



## wayward bob (May 10, 2020)

"half a million fatalities" is suddenly a thing that we're measuring against?


----------



## wayward bob (May 10, 2020)

he looks sooooo fucking ill. (hope he dies)


----------



## prunus (May 10, 2020)

He is a very poor performer isn’t he? No gravitas. No charisma.

Also a cunt.


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2020)

I told my wife if she left the telly on I would say bad words in front of the kids so she can't complain really. Useless sack of shit.


----------



## Numbers (May 10, 2020)

Testing 100s of thousands a day.  Fuck off cunt.


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2020)

I'm sure he started going on about sustained fools at one point, so I'm sure this country can meet that particular requirement.


----------



## Looby (May 10, 2020)

prunus said:


> He is a very poor performer isn’t he? No gravitas. No charisma.
> 
> Also a cunt.


And he’s had to pre-record because he’s even fucking worse when he’s live. Ah, um, err...


----------



## wayward bob (May 10, 2020)

i have a little stash of public "information" material relating to nuclear threat. the people who do the graphics have been mining the archive


----------



## andysays (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



I believe the preferred term on this thread for middle class people enjoying an increased range of leisure activities is "swanning about"


----------



## wayward bob (May 10, 2020)

"no" oh well, if you says so boz


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

Fines for picknickers. No fines for employers, just guidance.


----------



## Part 2 (May 10, 2020)

Has he got little hands aswell?


----------



## Looby (May 10, 2020)

I don’t really understand what the advice now is for people with underlying health conditions? He didn’t mention it at all.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

What a waste of 15 minutes of my life, can I make a claim for that?


----------



## gosub (May 10, 2020)

Looby said:


> I don’t really understand what the advice now is for people with underlying health conditions? He didn’t mention it at all.


Still on the 12 week lockdown that they were informed of by letter I imagine


----------



## flypanam (May 10, 2020)

So construction and manufacturing workers are joining the ranks of the sacrificed first, while the Mirror is reporting that the furlough scheme is going to be changed on Tuesday.


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

No mention of what most people are bothered about, seeing friends and family. Just back to work you proles.


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

Basic message I got from that is if you can work from home you’re fine to sunbathe and picnic if your work is not the kind that could be done from home go back out to work now, and walk or cycle to get there. Is that it?


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

Looby said:


> I don’t really understand what the advice now is for people with underlying health conditions? He didn’t mention it at all.



That's far too specific to go into there in a briefing for the whole country, people will get more specific info from their GP etc. There's no changes though for the highest categories afaik, still shielded etc. The letters from GPs say at least until the end of June.


----------



## Sue (May 10, 2020)

Looby said:


> I don’t really understand what the advice now is for people with underlying health conditions? He didn’t mention it at all.


That's because they don't matter obviously...


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

You can travel far as you like to enjoy outdoor stuff = national trust & beaches etc open i suppose?


----------



## Sue (May 10, 2020)

So if you can't work from home, go to work while avoiding public transport. That's going to work in London/big cities...


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> So if you can't work from home, go to work while avoiding public transport. That's going to work in London/big cities...


And then be at work while avoiding everyone else.


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> That's because they don't matter obviously...



There's plenty to criticize it for, that's not one of them I think. Too many different conditions with too many variables to give advice in a briefing to the whole country.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 10, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Scotland has been no better than England, and in the case of care homes appears to be substantially worse.


Oh I don't think that's true.  We've pretty much held to the lockdown...no spitfires or parties here afaik.

We'll see.


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No mention of what most people are bothered about, seeing friends and family. Just back to work you proles.



It's safe to spend 7 hours in the same room as 3/4/20 workmates but not walk to your sisters  and chat at the gate or have a socially distance walk with a friend. 

And we dont know the R do we? How can we?


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

No mention of garden centres. If anything would cause people have a genteel riot round here it’s that.


----------



## Sue (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> There's plenty to criticize it for, that's not one of them I think. Too many different conditions with too many variables to give advice in a briefing to the whole country.


No mention at all though? Not even a 'follow advice from your doctor' or 'if you're shielding, keep doing it'. I think that's very poor.


----------



## ruffneck23 (May 10, 2020)

get back to work , say the twat who cant even turn up for a live broadcast.

I'm sorry but I hope he really does get it at  some point.

The best thing for the planet would be for him and trump to a become a statistic


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> And we dont know the R do we? How can we?


I'd assume there are complex mathematical models where you can feed in the statistics we have about infections and deaths and locations and such, and it will spit out a reasonable estimate of the R number.


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> It's safe to spend 7 hours in the same room as 3/4/20 workmates but not walk to your sisters  and chat at the gate or have a socially distance walk with a friend.
> 
> And we dont know the R do we? How can we?



Yeah, totally bonkers. People are going to give up and make their own decisions about what's safe I expect.


----------



## keybored (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> You can travel far as you like to enjoy outdoor stuff = national trust & beaches etc open i suppose?


The nimbys in West Sussex aren't going to love that.


----------



## Humberto (May 10, 2020)

You can go outside as much as you want but social distancing must be maintained, is my main takeaway. Doesn't sound like a feasible approach, but I don't know. Not urging people to stay in doors as much as they still can.


----------



## PD58 (May 10, 2020)

Yet again a confused and less than clear menu of what can be done...let's hope there is more clarity tomorrow in Parliament but i doubt it. So we can drive to exercise but no mention of staying local so just to piss off the Derbyshire constabulary half of south Yorkshire and Greater Manchester will be heading to the Peak District next weekend.

They have had weeks to come up with this and again looks like fag packet thinking...


----------



## wayward bob (May 10, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> I'm sorry but I hope he really does get it at  some point.


you may be a _little_ out of the loop


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 10, 2020)

Looby said:


> And he’s had to pre-record because he’s even fucking worse when he’s live. Ah, um, err...



Recorded prior to the COBRA meeting today, as I understand it.



quimcunx said:


> Fines for picknickers. No fines for employers, just guidance.





flypanam said:


> So construction and manufacturing workers are joining the ranks of the sacrificed first, while the Mirror is reporting that the furlough scheme is going to be changed on Tuesday.



If they can avoid public transport, they should - if not, fuck em. 

WTF was that? _That's_ what we've been waiting for? 

Lolling at the newreaders trying to report back on it now... 'erm..'


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

Humberto said:


> You can go outside as much as you want but social distancing must be maintained, is my main takeaway. Doesn't sound like a feasible approach, but I don't know. Not urging people to stay in doors as much as they still can.


Yep no mention of stay home much as you can at all.


----------



## ruffneck23 (May 10, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> you may be a _little_ out of the loop


----------



## flypanam (May 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Recorded prior to the COBRA meeting today, as I understand it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And the fucking bosses won’t care if you can’t take public transport they’ll want you in an Uber or car share


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


>


Oh go on for entertainment, how did he get away with pretending to have it if that’s what you believe did he pay all the nurses and stuff?


----------



## A380 (May 10, 2020)

It was nice to let the work experience lad do the Powerpoint though...


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

Starmer failing to ask what fines employers will face for failing to keep their staff safe. 

I mean johnson didnt even threaten them with it even without any intention to police it.


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2020)

Reception back from June 1st? Really? We're in two minds as to whether we'll send her back seeing as I'm furloughed and Mrs maomao was made redundant in December. Huge risk for six weeks. Social distancing aged five is not really plausible. We'll be in a germ pool with thirty odd sets of parents.


----------



## ruffneck23 (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> Oh go on for entertainment, how did he get away with pretending to have it if that’s what you believe?


I dont really believe anything, just think he had a remarkably quick recovery for someone who was so seriously ill.

Just pissed musings on a sunday afternoon, I wouldnt take it seriously.


----------



## wayward bob (May 10, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> I dont really believe anything, just think he had a remarkably quick recovery...


have you seen the state of him? shell of a human being... (i know it's hard to tell, but these are the "after" pics)


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

This is the kind of advice that's going to kill people. 



> We said that you should work from home if you can, and only go to work if you must.
> 
> We now need to stress that anyone who can’t work from home, for instance those in construction or manufacturing, should be actively encouraged to go to work.
> 
> ...


----------



## ruffneck23 (May 10, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> have you seen the state of him? shell of a human being... (i know it's hard to tell, but these are the "after" pics)


thanks , you've convinced me


----------



## Looby (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's far too specific to go into there in a briefing for the whole country, people will get more specific info from their GP etc. There's no changes though for the highest categories afaik, still shielded etc. The letters from GPs say at least until the end of June.



I get that he can’t cover every eventuality but he didn’t even mention it. Even to say, for those deemed at higher risk there’ll be detail for you published tomorrow. 

There’s a huge group of people who aren’t in the shielding category and have had zero advice from their GP who now don’t know what to do tomorrow. As far as I’m concerned this still means stay at home for me but I don’t actually know. You can’t make an announcement on fucking Sunday night and expect people to act on it tomorrow with no detail.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

I don't want my Year 6 daughter going back to school. And neither does she.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I don't want my Year 6 daughter going back to school. And neither does she.


Don't send her then - what are they going to do?


----------



## wayward bob (May 10, 2020)

i really, _really_ want my kids back at school. and so do they.


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> Reception back from June 1st? Really? We're in two minds as to whether we'll send her back seeing as I'm furloughed and Mrs maomao was made redundant in December. Huge risk for six weeks. Social distancing aged five is not really plausible. We'll be in a germ pool with thirty odd sets of parents.



We'll be into the 2nd wave by then, or would be if we'd ever finished the 1st wave.


----------



## Lord Camomile (May 10, 2020)

Labourers and construction workers have been given less than 12 hours notice.

The rest of us have little to no idea if we're expected at work tomorrow, because this was done a fucking Sunday evening.

It takes me an hour and a quarter to get to work with public transport. Guess I should start walking now...


----------



## Sue (May 10, 2020)

And some hospitality places (so restaurants/pubs?) Open in July? Much as I miss both, I really can't imagine feeling like it'll be a good idea at that point.


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> And some hospitality places (so restaurants/pubs?) Open in July? Much as I miss both, I really can't imagine feeling like it'll be a good idea at that point.



At the earliest IIRC, but be willing to bet that won't happen if other countries loosening measures are anything to go by. And if it does it'll be in a very, very limited way.


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

On the quarantining arrivals thing , he just said he’s ‘giving notice’ that this is coming but didn’t even say when did I remember that right?


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> On the quarantining arrivals thing , he just said he’s ‘giving notice’ that this is coming but didn’t even say when did I remember that right?


clear as mud: PM address to the nation on coronavirus: 10 May 2020


----------



## Ax^ (May 10, 2020)

BBC trying to give clarity on his comments atm


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Don't send her then - what are they going to do?


Unfortunately I'm not her only parent, and the other one will do what she's told by the gov.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

what was the gist of the update?

Can we go out more than once for excercise?
Are we allowed to visit one other household as was suggested in the meedya?


----------



## Ax^ (May 10, 2020)

Go to work BTW Public transport is fucked


Good Luck


----------



## andysays (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


> This is the kind of advice that's going to kill people.


I had an email from my employer (a London council) on Friday afternoon saying that they had had no prior info on what changes might be announced this evening, so they would be continuing with existing arrangements, those who can working from home, those of us still coming to work continuing with the special distancing etc measures we've been following for the past seven weeks. They're going to take time to assess changes in advice and make sure clear and proper procedures are in place

But I'm sure lots of employers who depend on income through sales etc will be eager to get employees back in ASAP and won't be so keen to wait while safe (or as safe as possible) working practices are worked out and put in place.


----------



## wayward bob (May 10, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> i really, _really_ want my kids back at school. and so do they.


just an aside i'm not being funny. my kids rely on the external input they get from school & friends to function. without that input they're quite impressively demonstrating "help-me" type behaviours. that if i were in a position to help with i would have already done.


----------



## flypanam (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> what was the gist of the update?
> 
> Can we go out more than once for excercise?
> Are we allowed to visit one other household as was suggested in the meedya?


Get to work essentially.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 10, 2020)

Deliberately confusing messages so everybody else/anybody else can be held to blame for more and more deaths.
It is all about 'politics' and not about public safety.
It's a horror show.

Louis MacNeice


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> what was the gist of the update?
> 
> Can we go out more than once for excercise?
> Are we allowed to visit one other household as was suggested in the meedya?


Yes
No


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

flypanam said:


> Get to work essentially.



so not allowed to visit loved ones but get back to work?!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

They're _still_ just kind of hoping it will all go away, aren't they?


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> so not allowed to visit loved ones but get back to work?!


You can visit loved ones, just talk to them from a distance.


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2020)




----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> so not allowed to visit loved ones but get back to work?!


Unless visiting your loved ones keeps the economy going.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Unless visiting your loved ones keeps the economy going.


You can visit your loved ones, but only if you charge them a fiver?


----------



## not-bono-ever (May 10, 2020)

my gaff is desperate to get people back in but legal are having none of it because liability


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> just an aside i'm not being funny. my kids rely on the external input they get from school & friends to function. without that input they're quite impressively demonstrating "help-me" type behaviours. that if i were in a position to help with i would have already done.


I've amended my reaction emoji accordingly. Gist hard sometimes with text


----------



## MickiQ (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


> 😁 😁 😁
> 
> And yes, UBI solves everything.


Nope but UBI done properly (and I emphasise the last word) is something that I personally am massively in favour of, we're going to need it or something like it as more and more jobs are lost to machines rather than the virus. It would be one positive thing to come out of this crisis if it started politicians (even if reluctantly down this path). But that's a different discussion from how culpable Boris is over his handling of the crisis.


----------



## Ax^ (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> On the quarantining arrivals thing , he just said he’s ‘giving notice’ that this is coming but didn’t even say when did I remember that right?



Yup

Maybe he is going to lie down in front of the runway to stop the planes landing


----------



## Brainaddict (May 10, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Deliberately confusing messages so everybody else/anybody else can be held to blame for more and more deaths.
> It is all about 'politics' and not aout public safety.
> It's a horror show.


Yep, it's overall just a refusal to take responsibility for doing the difficult stuff. Johnson isn't interested in difficult stuff, he just wants to be popular. A lot of people are dying for his personality defects.


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> what was the gist of the update?
> 
> Can we go out more than once for excercise?
> Are we allowed to visit one other household as was suggested in the meedya?



Yes. No.


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

This was a pretty interesting read btw. If correct it may explain a few things including the wrongness of recent media briefings.









						How Boris Johnson Sided With "Doves" Over "Hawks" In His Government To Slow The UK's Exit From Lockdown
					

Some Number 10 advisers, cabinet ministers, top civil servants, and “a clear majority” of Tory MPs initially lobbied for a “rival” exit strategy, BuzzFeed News can reveal.




					www.buzzfeed.com


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> what was the gist of the update?
> 
> Can we go out more than once for excercise?
> Are we allowed to visit one other household as was suggested in the meedya?



Yes to the first. 

No to the second.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> They're _still_ just kind of hoping it will all go away, aren't they?



No they're hoping they don't get any blame for what is happening and that we can all get back to the status quo as soon as poss; there really doesn't seem to be much more going on at all. It is criminally selfish and irresponsible.

Louis MacNeice


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

andysays said:


> I had an email from my employer (a London council) on Friday afternoon saying that they had had no prior info on what changes might be announced this evening, so they would be continuing with existing arrangements, those who can working from home, those of us still coming to work continuing with the special distancing etc measures we've been following for the past seven weeks. They're going to take time to assess changes in advice and make sure clear and proper procedures are in place
> 
> *But I'm sure lots of employers who depend on income through sales etc will be eager to get employees back in ASAP and won't be so keen to wait while safe (or as safe as possible) working practices are worked out and put in place.*


True.


----------



## wayward bob (May 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I've amended my reaction emoji accordingly. Gist hard sometimes with text


tbf my reaction would have been the same no matter what they think  

but the impact on them is clear as a bell. they're "disadvantaged" in some way that we haven't been able to compensate for. their schools have bridged some of those gaps in a way we can only be grateful for - more so at primary/sixth, less so at secondary, but kid1's out now and kid2 has alllll the friends


----------



## Epona (May 10, 2020)

The more than once exercise or being allowed to sit in parks etc is from Wednesday btw, not from now.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> In theory, they could also encourage more people bringing bikes on tubes (would probably be _easier_ to observe SD if you could, too!) so that more people could cycle in from more central points, _or_ from routes further out that felt safer.
> 
> I dunno, the transport issue is just fucked really, isn't it?


Yes. Public transport is going to be one of the big potential vectors for a long time no matter what measures are taken, and regardless of what Mr Johnson says I will be avoiding it - which makes getting around London pretty hard.

Really need to learn to use that scooter.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

Can we travel for excercise? 

sorry my attention and short term memory is dreadful.


----------



## Supine (May 10, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> my gaff is desperate to get people back in but legal are having none of it because liability



I think that will be common. I'm very interested to see what the guidelines are that he mentioned for employers.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

Any idea how this will affect people who are currently claiming Uni credit and have being given the nod to not to have to job searching? I'm gonna assume if libraries aren't open for internet access a lot of people will be in trouble.


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> Can we travel for excercise?
> 
> sorry my attention and short term memory is dreadful.


Think he said yes. Travel to sunbathe even far as I understood it.
Eta yep here’s the bit.


----------



## MickiQ (May 10, 2020)

He has clearly read the opening chapter of "How To Act Like Your in Charge" by giving his speech from behind a desk in No 10 trying to act all Prime Ministerial. 
Speech was long on hyperbole and short on facts though, will need to see what detail there is tomorrow.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (May 10, 2020)

So now people can travel for exercise areas such as the Yorkshire Dales which until now have a low Covid19 presence will get an influx of visitors thus increasing the risk for people living there.


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> So now people can travel for exercise areas such as the Yorkshire Dales which until now have a low Covid19 presence will get an influx of visitors thus increasing the risk for people living there.


Yep. There may have been a calculation of what is going to happen to the already totally broken mental health system and this seemed worth it?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

If we had had a urban competition to come up with the most confusing message possible, I doubt we could have won against the floppy hair twat.


----------



## xes (May 10, 2020)

Hold on a tickedy boo, have I got to go to fucking work?   (been in the garden burning things all day, missed all news)


----------



## Mation (May 10, 2020)

BoJo The Clown might as well go round squirting virus water into people's faces from a comedy flower on his lapel.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 10, 2020)

It's been pointed out in various places that none of this changes the law - the whole thing about one exercise per day, not travelling etc was never in the law at all. So really it's an update of guidelines to coppers.


----------



## xes (May 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> BoJo The Clown might as well go round squirting virus water into people's faces from a comedy flower on his lapel.


This being the definitive post for me, but I take from other posts on this page that the message was less than clear?


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)




----------



## gosub (May 10, 2020)

xes said:


> Hold on a tickedy boo, have I got to go to fucking work?   (been in the garden burning things all day, missed all news)


Go back to work, but be alert, otherwise it's your fault and pubs and restaurants will stay closed. So try not to die, if you die then nobody will be able to go to the pub and it's all your fault.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

xes said:


> This being the definitive post for me, but I take from other posts on this page that the message was less than clear?


Look, there's a virus out there. You know it's there. But get back to work cos furlough holidays are over. So take care, whatever you do. You'll probably work something out. Or not. We don't care.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> If we had had a urban competition to come up with the most confusing message possible, I doubt we could have won against the floppy hair twat.


I thought it was very clear and quite sensible. Am always massively out of kilter on here. What was unclear about it?!


----------



## Humberto (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> I thought it was very clear and quite sensible. Am always massively out of kilter on here. What was unclear about it?!



Well if you can't work from home but can only travel to your workplace on public transport are you supposed to go or expected to?


----------



## platinumsage (May 10, 2020)

It’s going to take a long time to get the alert level down to 3, as it’s currently in the hundreds of thousands according to the equation on the slide.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (May 10, 2020)




----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Humberto said:


> Well if you can't work from home but can only travel to your workplace on public transport are you supposed to go or expected to?


Yes. It’s not rocket science. Just avoid public transport if possible.


----------



## emanymton (May 10, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's been pointed out in various places that none of this changes the law - the whole thing about one exercise per day, not travelling etc was never in the law at all. So really it's an update of guidelines to coppers.


Also the previous guidance was to work from home were possible. With the exception of some shops, pubs etc it was up to the individual employer if they shut down or not*. The factory opposite me has carried on going the whole time. Nothing has changed that I can see expect for a shift of emphasise in government communications.

*I suspect that for many of the places that did close it was mainly due to a lack of business for staying open to be worthwhile.


----------



## Duncan2 (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


>


Spot on littlelegs


----------



## Mation (May 10, 2020)

xes said:


> This being the definitive post for me, but I take from other posts on this page that the message was less than clear?


No end to lockdown until we meet the tests. We haven't met the tests. Lockdown is not ending. Go back to work this week if you can't work from home. Don't use public transport. Unless you do. Go and sit in the parks and it's a-ok to travel for exercise. As much as you want. Maintain social distance. Schools to start reopening before the summer holidays. Hospitality will be back soon. We're following the science. We're giving money to some chums to make up a red alert system so we don't have to talk about the science any more.

That sort of thing.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Yes. It’s not rocket science. Just avoid public transport if possible.


That's fine if enough people can that it's safe for those who can't. But that will need to happen by * magic *. It certainly doesn't sound like it's going to happen through any kind of planning. 

_Sort your own bloody lockdown. Christ.  _


----------



## Humberto (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Yes. It’s not rocket science. Just avoid public transport if possible.



Fair enough. What did he actually say though. 'Avoid' public transport. But don't?


----------



## Looby (May 10, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> So now people can travel for exercise areas such as the Yorkshire Dales which until now have a low Covid19 presence will get an influx of visitors thus increasing the risk for people living there.


Yeah! I don’t want people thinking Dorset beaches are fair game now. We already had idiots driving from London to see the sea. 😡


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

I don’t think it’s so much unclear as unworkable (go to work, without public transport, or childcare,  or any measures to ensure your safety)?


----------



## Mation (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Yes. It’s not rocket science. Just avoid public transport if possible.


What if it's not possible?


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

I hate to play devils avocado but whatever message he put out was going to be wrong, and would have been wrong regardless of political affiliation.

People are screaming out to be able to get back to work and back to normality, and others are desperate not to see any more deaths.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That's fine if enough people can that it's safe for those who can't. But that will need to happen by * magic *. It certainly doesn't sound like it's going to happen through any kind of planning.
> 
> _Sort your own bloody lockdown. Christ.  _


Well as many as can, should. Those that can’t will have to get public transport. It’s about trying to minimise not eliminate risk by everyone taking sensible precautions where possible. Not every journey or route or situation is planned for, people must use common sense. That’s necessary, and okay.


----------



## agricola (May 10, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> So now people can travel for exercise areas such as the Yorkshire Dales which until now have a low Covid19 presence will get an influx of visitors thus increasing the risk for people living there.



Going to be a lot of rows between those "exercising" and the locals who are not going to let them, then.


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> This was a pretty interesting read btw. If correct it may explain a few things including the wrongness of recent media briefings.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'd like to know which idiot said this:



> “We ditched herd immunity when we got spooked by the Imperial report, by which point the virus had already spread and it was probably too late to get the benefits of lockdown. Now we want to leave lockdown but we have no herd immunity. So we have a vast death toll as well as the perfect storm for an awful second wave,” the MP argued.


----------



## chilango (May 10, 2020)

Murdering public school bastards.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> What if it's not possible?


Jesus  then use public transport if you can’t work from home. It’s just not that complicated?


----------



## Epona (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Jesus  then use public transport if you can’t work from home. It’s just not that complicated?



I'm not getting in a fucking disease ridden metal container just so that the economy can get back to normal - fuck that.


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

agricola said:


> Going to be a lot of rows between those "exercising" and the locals who are not going to let them, then.


Doesn’t have to be exercise anymore, you can travel to lie down in the sun.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> What if it's not possible?



Sure there's something about not having to work in unsafe workplaces...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Well as many as can, should. Those that can’t will have to get public transport. It’s about trying to minimise not eliminate risk by everyone taking sensible precautions where possible. Not every journey or route or situation is planned for, people must use common sense. That’s necessary, and okay.


It's not really anything to do with common sense. In Paris they're giving people money to sort out bikes, changing traffic conditions to allow for bikes and walking and other things. In other words, whether it works or not, they recognise that this is a problem that needs a solution that is better than saying 'well, avoid the tube' to people who work on the other side of London. The choice for some will be 'keep your job' _or_ 'avoid the tube'.

I don't actually doubt that transport will still be massively down on numbers for a while yet, cos people will be making solutions for themselves as they did pre-lockdown. Apart from those who can't. 

_But well, you're young and healthy, you'll probably survive it. I did!!! Just stay away from your nan. _


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Epona said:


> I'm not getting in a fucking disease ridden metal container just so that the economy can get back to normal - fuck that.


Do you do a job that can’t be done from home? Cos if not don’t worry.


----------



## agricola (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> Doesn’t have to be exercise anymore, you can travel to lie down in the sun.



people will get a lot of opportunities as they wait for the recovery truck / fire brigade


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 10, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Yes. Public transport is going to be one of the big potential vectors for a long time no matter what measures are taken, and regardless of what Mr Johnson says I will be avoiding it - which makes getting around London pretty hard.
> 
> Really need to learn to use that scooter.



Yes, impossible to avoid for people who've noe been told they are expected back at work, though.

Schools have also been really clear in needing three weeks notice to even start to think about reopening - SD is impossible in loads of them, even with a reduced intake, with narrow corridors and not enough staff to teach in person, as well as online.
I work in a secondary school kitchen/canteen and there is no _way_ we can SD that I can think of, even if there was some way to get meals to kids who were in (and that's with our grounds being large enough that I can see that a really reduced number of kids in could eat while SD at least). I also have absolutely no trust in my direct manager.

Ftr, my union (GMB) had also come across some silence regarding whether staff and parents would even be told if there were positive covid cases - they've resolved it now, but only after a lengthy argument which stated, incorrectly, that it was usual for schools not to reveal cases of measles or nits.

My bezzer, a SEN TA, has been working throughout, looking after keyworkers kids. They've very normally been working with 4 adults and 16 kids (all the kids in, in a primary setting) in one room.
The unions are very focused on what they can do nationally (I have lolled loads at the constant suggestion that our Tory gov is working in conjuction with the unions) but are pretty much held captive when it comes to individual schools, where the governors ultimately make those decisions.

Schools are also shedding even more cash from their budgets due to this.

I say all this while I am bored shitless and my daughter is, too - but I wouldn't be sending her immediately back out either. Apart from the news about children increasingly presenting with other immune issues (Kawasaki disease etc) I'm not convinced that children are not a huge threat in passing the virus on, too, even if they generally have less severe syptoms (although even then, I read something, which sounded reasonable, about infection measurements being skewed in terms of children, when lots was caused by travel to begin with, so mainly between/from adults). 

It's all just really difficult to think about, balanced against other factors - good mental health for eg - when THIS is all we get.
I don't think I'm surprised  but it's brutally dishonest to have yet another staged Tory performance, while people are dying and while the population as a whole has continued to adhere to every rule set, when there has been no fucking direction and no consideration or care given to those who have _already_ worked throughout.


----------



## Duncan2 (May 10, 2020)

agricola said:


> Going to be a lot of rows between those "exercising" and the locals who are not going to let them, then.


Surely this would only be justifiable if there were no longer remote areas as yet untouched or relatively untouched by the virus?


----------



## Supine (May 10, 2020)

Epona said:


> I'm not getting in a fucking disease ridden metal container just so that the economy can get back to normal - fuck that.



Trains are using social distancing. Obviously if they get full there will be a crunch point but for now they are empty.


----------



## Mation (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Jesus  then use public transport if you can’t work from home. It’s just not that complicated?


You'd be happy to get on crowded public transport right now?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Jesus  then use public transport if you can’t work from home. It’s just not that complicated?



But, public transport has been cut right back, and they have said once it's back to normal schedules, the buses & trains will only be able to cope with about 10% of normal passenger levels, due to social distancing.

How does that work?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Supine said:


> Trains are using social distancing. Obviously if they get full there will be a crunch point but for now they are empty.


Of course they are, cos they haven't ended furlough yet. That's coming Tuesday.


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

It’s just your bad luck if you haven’t got a car or the kind of job that can be done from your living room. None of this is surprising though is it.
Will be curious to see if national trust open the gates here on Wednesday & if so what about the toilets etc.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's not really anything to do with common sense. In Paris they're giving people money to sort out bikes, changing traffic conditions to allow for bikes and walking and other things. In other words, whether it works or not, they recognise that this is a problem that needs a solution that is better than saying 'well, avoid the tube' to people who work on the other side of London. The choice for some will be 'keep your job' _or_ 'avoid the tube'.
> 
> I don't actually doubt that transport will still be massively down on numbers for a while yet, cos people will be making solutions for themselves as they did pre-lockdown. Apart from those who can't.
> 
> _But well, you're young and healthy, you'll probably survive it. I did!!! Just stay away from your nan. _


We need to make a difficult compromise here or we’re all gonna be out of a job and with no economy, income, or food. So yes some people are gonna have to take a bit more risk. There is no “safe” option, it’s a pandemic. Agree about more practical solutions though, although they may well come. There’s been plenty of practical help offered so far.


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

Supine said:


> Trains are using social distancing. Obviously if they get full there will be a crunch point but for now they are empty.


you mean as soon as the employers start telling their employees to get back to work or risk losing their jobs and go hungry.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> You'd be happy to get on crowded public transport right now?


I don’t think what I’d be prepared or not to do is of any significance tbh.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> It’s just your bad luck if you haven’t got a car or the kind of job that can be done from your living room. None of this is surprising though is it.
> Will be curious to see if national trust open the gates here on Wednesday & if so what about the toilets etc.



unsafe workplace!!


----------



## emanymton (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Jesus  then use public transport if you can’t work from home. It’s just not that complicated?


That is exactly the same position as yesterday so what was the point of today's big announcement if nothing has changed?

That's confusion.


----------



## Supine (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Of course they are, cos they haven't ended furlough yet. That's coming Tuesday.



I'm really not looking forward to that. I can see trains going to pre-booked tickets only with seat reservations. There would be chaos if trains got busy and people are refused travel.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

Tbf Johnson said public transport would not be crowded, that it'd be running with much smaller capacity


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

__





						Section44 – Employment Rights Act 1996 – the secret to getting safe working conditions in the UK
					





					section44.co.uk


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


> you mean as soon as the employers start telling their employees to get back to work or risk losing their jobs and go hungry.


And the dole starts telling people to take those jobs or they get nowt.


----------



## magneze (May 10, 2020)

bimble said:


> I don’t think it’s so much unclear as unworkable (go to work, without public transport, or childcare,  or any measures to ensure your safety)?


Agreed. It's actually pretty clear what's changing over the next few days. The issue is that it's impractical.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Tbf Johnson said public transport would not be crowded, that it'd be running with much smaller capacity


So you form an orderly physical distancing queue outside the station? 

They're basically just saying 'sort it out for yourselves'.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

emanymton said:


> That is exactly the same position as yesterday so what was the point of today's big announcement if nothing has changed?
> 
> That's confusion.


Listen again. Some things have changed. For example, if you have a job that can’t be done from home you should go back to work. And the bare bones of how those changes will progress if conditions are met was outlined.


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2020)

Supine said:


> I'm really not looking forward to that. I can see trains going to pre-booked tickets only with seat reservations. There would be chaos if trains got busy and people are refused travel.



Part of the amazing plan for that, if recent reports are to be believed (which isnt a safe bet given the amount of rubbish in the press about lockdown easing recently), is that there will be some great new apps that let the public see when their public transport hubs and services are too full. I imagine the experience will be similar to trying to get an online supermarket delivery slot, most of the time there would be no difference between a fancy app with accurate data and a static message saying 'you've got no chance'.


----------



## redsquirrel (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Do you do a job that can’t be done from home? Cos if not don’t worry.


Come on Edie you cannot be this naive. You don't think that there is going to be significant pressure on both businesses and employers to re-open. Many, many people are going to be forced to take public transport.

I've tried to avoid getting trapped in the simplistic anti-Tory nonsense but todays message just seemed absolutely confused. I mean whatever you think about the Welsh and Scottish measures to me they came across as at least reasonable


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> So you form an orderly physical distancing queue outside the station?
> 
> They're basically just saying 'sort it out for yourselves'.


Why is it beyond the wit of people to not be dilly fuckers when queuing? We're supposed to be champions at it


----------



## Mation (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> I don’t think what I’d be prepared or not to do is of any significance tbh.


Ok, not personally about you, but people are now potentially going to be pressured by employers into going back to work via a means that will likely not be safe unless it stays at current levels of use. 

The government has said go back to work if you can't work from home. What does that mean for furlough?

Can people refuse to go back to work if their route isn't safe? What happens to their jobs if they refuse?


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Listen again. Some things have changed. For example, if you have a job that can’t be done from home you should go back to work. And the bare bones of how those changes will progress if conditions are met was outlined.



Are you a Boris cheerleader or summat?


----------



## andysays (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> I don’t think what I’d be prepared or not to do is of any significance tbh.


If, as it appears, you're happy to suggest that others should be doing something that you aren't prepared to do yourself, then I think that certainly is of some significance, TBH.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> Are you a Boris cheerleader or summat?


Nope not keen on him, think he’s a self interested, unprincipled cunt. Why?


----------



## agricola (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> So you form an orderly physical distancing queue outside the station?
> 
> They're basically just saying 'sort it out for yourselves'.



TBF Johnson probably worded it as "look to your own defences".


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Jesus  then use public transport if you can’t work from home. It’s just not that complicated?


 No one should be forced to use public transport until this thing is well and truly gone


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Listen again. Some things have changed. For example, if you have a job that can’t be done from home you should go back to work.


That's the same as yesterday.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> Can people refuse to go back to work if their route isn't safe? What happens to their jobs if they refuse?


That's a question nobody has answered yet, and one I though of immediately during Johnson's speech.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

andysays said:


> If, as it appears, you're happy to suggest that others should be doing something that you aren't prepared to do yourself, then I think that certainly is of some significance, TBH.


It’s the opposite, but it’s not important.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Nope not keen on him, think he’s a self interested, unprincipled cunt. Why?



because you seem to be towing the line without regard for other peoples concerns e.g replying flippantly and bluntly.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> Are you a Boris cheerleader or summat?


Don't be silly man


----------



## emanymton (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Listen again. Some things have changed. For example, if you have a job that can’t be done from home you should go back to work. And the bare bones of how those changes will progress if conditions are met was outlined.


No that hasn't changed go to work if you cannot work from home has always been the policy.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

andysays said:


> If, as it appears, you're happy to suggest that others should be doing something that you aren't prepared to do yourself, then I think that certainly is of some significance, TBH.


Edie's on the front line you numpty.


----------



## Epona (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> because you seem to be towing the line without regard for other peoples concerns e.g replying flippantly and bluntly.



Including giving me a huge grin smilie and saying "don't worry" when Boris just said I should go back to work tomorrow and avoid public transport with no idea how to do that, it's ludicrous.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2020)

People would do well to avoid getting personal no matter what the argument


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> No one should be forced to use public transport until this thing is well and truly gone


Maybe you’re right. I dunno. It gets complicated really quickly tho if you start making it conditional. ‘You can stay at home on 80% pay if there’s no way of you getting to work without using public transport and you personally don’t want to take the risk but are happy others are doing so to support the economy’. Maybe it should be personal choice?


----------



## Mation (May 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> That's a question nobody has answered yet, and one I though of immediately during Johnson's speech.


Yes. It's one of many glaringly obvious unanswered questions that make tonight's (this afternoon's/whenever) performance even more of a weasly shit show.


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Tbf Johnson said public transport would not be crowded, that it'd be running with much smaller capacity


Do you honestly believe this? Even if he did say that, how can you trust someone who got all of his jobs because he was entitled to them and never took public transport.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> because you seem to be towing the line without regard for other peoples concerns e.g replying flippantly and bluntly.


Sure you can handle it


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

Public- facing jobs (food Hair retail sport tourism etc) are not expected to go back so it’s office jobs that for some reason can’t be done from home 
, factories building sites agriculture basically? I don’t know. Maybe it’s picked out with an idea it won’t overwhelm the public transport?


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

magneze said:


> Agreed. It's actually pretty clear what's changing over the next few days. The issue is that it's impractical.


Now that is fair enough.


----------



## Supine (May 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> No one should be forced to use public transport until this thing is well and truly gone



This thing won't ever be well and truly gone. It'll just join flu and other transmissible diseases that we learn to live with. Sorry to be so pessimistic. 

The gov position is that trains can run at 10% capacity while allowing social distancing. That is virtually impossible to reconcile with getting the economy back to full. I have no idea how this will be dealt with, but I'm sure Boris is the wrong person to be working on it.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

Epona said:


> Including giving me a huge grin smilie and saying "don't worry" when Boris just said I should go back to work tomorrow and avoid public transport with no idea how to do that, it's ludicrous.



and the confused emoji... As, I said it's just flippant.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> No one should be forced to use public transport* until this thing is well and truly gone*



TBF, that's unlikely to happen for over a year, perhaps never.


----------



## Roadkill (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Look, there's a virus out there. You know it's there. But get back to work cos furlough holidays are over. So take care, whatever you do. You'll probably work something out. Or not. We don't care.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBF, that's unlikely to happen for over a years, perhaps never.


Well quite. We can’t all hide under the beds til then.


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2020)

I can almost understand why b year six might want a few weeks prep before senior school but other than that why would they send the two youngest and least able to socially distance back unless they're purposely trying to spread it about? It's insane. Anyway, they can go fuck themselves. We'll think about it in September.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Sure you can handle it



I'm sure you've become a bit of a snob!!!

Agree to disagree.


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> You can stay at home on 80% pay


Soon to be 60% pay.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Maybe you’re right. I dunno. It gets complicated really quickly tho if you start making it conditional. ‘You can stay at home on 80% pay if there’s no way of you getting to work without using public transport and you personally don’t want to take the risk but are happy others are doing so to support the economy’. Maybe it should be personal choice?


I'm not happy that anybody gets put at unnecessary risk. That includes everyone. I've not been furloughed, but clearly plenty of people have. And yes, no doubt some have been rather enjoying aspects of it. Why the hell not? I've been enjoying aspects of lockdown, seeing the city in a new light, etc, as well as being immensely frustrated and at times depressed by it. I would think most people have been up and down in similar ways.

In most cases, people were furloughed for a reason, a reason beyond their control. That reason hasn't really been dealt with yet, again something not under their control. Being pissed off cos they're not working and you are is not good - it's attacking the wrong target.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> I'm sure you've become a bit of a snob!!!
> 
> Agree to disagree.


Nah you just don’t know me


----------



## chilango (May 10, 2020)

Imagine what a response would look like if money wasn't an issue....

....then expropriate the billionaires and make it happen.


----------



## 2hats (May 10, 2020)




----------



## frogwoman (May 10, 2020)

Hairdressers and beauticians cant work from home. What are they supposed to do, since they obviously cant go to work?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Well quite. We can’t all hide under the beds til then.



True, but people can't go to work on public transport, if they are restricting capacity to just 10% of normal.

That's just one reason why the floppy hair twat's announcement is so confusing.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'm not happy that anybody gets put at unnecessary risk. That includes everyone. I've not been furloughed, but clearly plenty of people have. And yes, no doubt some have been rather enjoying aspects of it. Why the hell not? I've been enjoying aspects of lockdown, seeing the city in a new light, etc, as well as being immensely frustrated and at times depressed by it. I would think most people have been up and down in similar ways.
> 
> In most cases, people were furloughed for a reason, a reason beyond their control. That reason hasn't really been dealt with yet, again something not under their control. Being pissed off cos they're not working and you are is not good.


But it’s not unnecessary. It’s necessary. Can you not see that? We have to restart the economy.


----------



## Epona (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> But it’s not unnecessary. It’s necessary. Can you not see that? We have to restart the economy.



Or we could organise society in a different way and tip the likes of Branson upside down and shake him until his pockets are empty.

Surely it should be clear to all now that the economy as it is is going to kill people and needs to be changed, not throwing loads of us under the Coronavirus wheels so we can go back to making profit for others.

Surely people can't still be so bloody... ugh I don't want to say anything too rude so I'll leave it there.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

chilango said:


> Imagine what a response would look like if money wasn't an issue....
> 
> ....then expropriate the billionaires and make it happen.


Have you ever noticed that billionaire money is not kept in the U.K.?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> But it’s not unnecessary. It’s necessary. Can you not see that? We have to restart the economy.


What we have to do is suppress transmission of this virus. The economy hasn't even been in slowdown for two months yet. That's nothing really. Can make up for the lost work within a year tops. Anything else, anything claiming we'll be paying for these couple of months not working for years to come is using this situation as an excuse to make/keep themselves rich. Already seen cheerleaders of that approach like George Osborne touting more years of 'austerity' as a result of C-19. Don't fall for it.


----------



## Supine (May 10, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Hairdressers and beauticians cant work from home. What are they supposed to do, since they obviously cant go to work?



Stay at home


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 10, 2020)

I'm a bit confused why so many people seem to think that "If Boris says I should go back to work, then I should go back to work immediately." Surely everyone should just be waiting for instructions from their employer, regardless of what the government messaging is now? There's no point rocking up at work Monday morning if there's nobody there to unlock the door, or the place hasn't been cleaned for weeks, or the catering contract has lapsed, or any of a hundred other reasons.


----------



## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

Looby said:


> Yeah! I don’t want people thinking Dorset beaches are fair game now. We already had idiots driving from London to see the sea. 😡


Expect we will get something contrary in the next few days, but if BJ is to be taken at his word, the seaside is on so long as it's for excercise. I would guess we will see coppers patrolling up and down saying 'Gimme 20, sunshine, or you're nicked'.


----------



## chilango (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Have you ever noticed that billionaire money is not kept in the U.K.?



It's a global Pandemic. The solution should be global too.


----------



## frogwoman (May 10, 2020)

The economy was fucked as soon as person to person transmission was confirmed as occurring outside China, before any other country even thought of locking down.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Maybe you’re right. I dunno. It gets complicated really quickly tho if you start making it conditional. ‘You can stay at home on 80% pay if there’s no way of you getting to work without using public transport and you personally don’t want to take the risk but are happy others are doing so to support the economy’. Maybe it should be personal choice?


Certainly, and if one expects people to use their common sense, you’d expect many to stay at home and not use public transport


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Maybe you’re right. I dunno. It gets complicated really quickly tho if you start making it conditional. ‘You can stay at home on 80% pay if there’s no way of you getting to work without using public transport and you personally don’t want to take the risk but are happy others are doing so to support the economy’. Maybe it should be personal choice?


 Btw I am going to work not to support the economy but to prevent people from dying, as are other keyworkers.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 10, 2020)

I've had to use Bus transport due to a bad shoulder. It's bad enough as it is, but it will be impossible now following the end of the lockdown and we aren't even out of the trees. Unless they massively step up the amount of capacity on the routes I guess but not heard anything yet? 

Those on low incomes will be most at risk as always, but make no mistake we are expandable as we have to get the economy going. 

Where do people sit with visiting loved ones? I'm kind of accepting I can't visit my parents for at least the rest of the year as they are old. Then there has always been a risk of taking a bug in that would make them ill?


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> But it’s not unnecessary. It’s necessary. Can you not see that? We have to restart the economy.


We have to radically reconstruct it


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I'm a bit confused why so many people seem to think that "If Boris says I should go back to work, then I should go back to work immediately." Surely everyone should just be waiting for instructions from their employer, regardless of what the government messaging is now? There's no point rocking up at work Monday morning if there's nobody there to unlock the door, or the place hasn't been cleaned for weeks, or the catering contract has lapsed, or any of a hundred other reasons.


I wouldn’t be surprised if a whole bunch of workers are getting texts from their gaffers this evening summoning them back


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> What we have to do is suppress transmission of this virus. The economy hasn't even been in slowdown for two months yet. That's nothing really. Can make up for the lost work within a year tops. Anything else, anything claiming we'll be paying for these couple of months not working for years to come is using this situation as an excuse to make/keep themselves rich. Already seen cheerleaders of that approach like George Osborne touting more years of 'austerity' as a result of C-19. Don't fall for it.


Really? Cos I personally know of at least three mates whose small business is about to go bust. Tell that to them.


----------



## ska invita (May 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> We have to radically reconstruct it


yes, restart now doesnt means turning it off and on again but time for a clean install.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

chilango said:


> It's a global Pandemic. The solution should be global too.


Back to reality


----------



## Mation (May 10, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I'm a bit confused why so many people seem to think that "If Boris says I should go back to work, then I should go back to work immediately." Surely everyone should just be waiting for instructions from their employer, regardless of what the government messaging is now? There's no point rocking up at work Monday morning if there's nobody there to unlock the door, or the place hasn't been cleaned for weeks, or the catering contract has lapsed, or any of a hundred other reasons.


He said "this week", and given that it's Sunday night, that's going to increase loads of people's anxiety and uncertainty even though, yes, we probably can't do anything without hearing from our employer first.

I only know there's nothing doing tomorrow where I work, as there's already a meeting scheduled for later in the week to talk about what we do in light of today's 'plan'.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I've had to use Bus transport due to a bad shoulder. It's bad enough as it is, but it will be impossible now following the end of the lockdown and we aren't even out of the trees. Unless they massively step up the amount of capacity on the routes I guess but not heard anything yet?
> 
> Those on low incomes will be most at risk as always, but make no mistake we are expandable as we have to get the economy going.
> 
> Where do people sit with visiting loved ones? I'm kind of accepting I can't visit my parents for at least the rest of the year as they are old. Then there has always been a risk of taking a bug in that would make them ill?


I'll be visiting as soon as practicable, which means not just yet but certainly  this year, this summer hopefully. My folks are old. But they would rather take the risk of seeing me, and the chances I'll be an asymptomatic infectious carrier at the point of visiting are small.

My mum's 88 and has respiratory problems. I don't doubt that c19 would finish her off. But I also know that she would want to see me. It's her risk in the end, but as long as I'm sensible - ie don't go if I think there's even a small chance I have c19 - it's not such a big risk. tbh you have to weigh up that risk with the chances that there might not be a next year.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I'm a bit confused why so many people seem to think that "If Boris says I should go back to work, then I should go back to work immediately." Surely everyone should just be waiting for instructions from their employer, regardless of what the government messaging is now? There's no point rocking up at work Monday morning if there's nobody there to unlock the door, or the place hasn't been cleaned for weeks, or the catering contract has lapsed, or any of a hundred other reasons.



But employers will use this to compel people to go back to work.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> But it’s not unnecessary. It’s necessary. Can you not see that? We have to restart the economy.



you're just coming across as bitter.


----------



## chilango (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Back to reality



You think the architects of the neo-liberal system got where they are by just sticking to what was commonly accepted as "realistic". Of course not.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 10, 2020)

So me and Mrs K can meet up with our son, who is one person, and we won’t be fined for breaking the rules. But our son is going to meet up with us, and we’re two people, so he gets fined? Or have I missed something?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> True, but people can't go to work on public transport, if they are restricting capacity to just 10% of normal.
> 
> That's just one reason why the floppy hair twat's announcement is so confusing.



Sorry Edie, but as you think the clown's message was so clear, perhaps you could square the circle on just this one point?


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> So me and Mrs K can meet up with our son, who is one person, and we won’t be fined for breaking the rules. But our son is going to meet up with us, and we’re two people, so he gets fined? Or have I missed something?



None of you are supposed to be meeting up. No mixing of households are allowed, that hasn't changed.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sorry Edie, but as you think the clown's message was so clear, perhaps you could square the circle on just this one point?


What’s the question?


----------



## Looby (May 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> I can almost understand why b year six might want a few weeks prep before senior school but other than that why would they send the two youngest and least able to socially distance back unless they're purposely trying to spread it about? It's insane. Anyway, they can go fuck themselves. We'll think about it in September.


Yeah I’ve been having this conversation with friends with reception and year 1 kids. 
One friend can’t wait for her kids to go back despite her having quite bad asthma and another really doesn’t want to risk it. 
The difference is for them they the one who isn’t going to send her kids back has a partner at home and only works part time for an understanding employer.
The other is trying to work from home full time in a telephone based role with two children in the house.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> So me and Mrs K can meet up with our son, who is one person, and we won’t be fined for breaking the rules. But our son is going to meet up with us, and we’re two people, so he gets fined? Or have I missed something?


?!


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> None of you are supposed to be meeting up. No mixing of households are allowed, that hasn't changed.


Meeting up in the open air whilst social distancing.


----------



## Mation (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Really? Cos I personally know of at least three mates whose small business is about to go bust. Tell that to them.


So they need financial support. Why haven't they got it? (The government can decide to afford it.)

Their businesses shouldn't be kept afloat by people risking their lives. That's the wrong answer on every level.


----------



## frogwoman (May 10, 2020)

Sweden is expecting its economy to contract by at least 6% and possibly up to 12% or more.


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Meeting up in the open air whilst social distancing.



No. You have never been supposed to be doing that. And you still can't. Surely you know that?


----------



## frogwoman (May 10, 2020)

Even with lockdown lifted you cant expect people to spend money in pubs etc or to book holidays. It's not going to happen.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Really? Cos I personally know of at least three mates whose small business is about to go bust. Tell that to them.


The economy is set up in such a way that this kind of thing happens. Capitalism is really really terrible in a crisis. That's not the only way to do things, though. fwiw the small company I work for could also go bust because of this. Already furloughed a third of the staff due to lack of new orders.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. You have never been supposed to be doing that. And you still can't. Surely you know that?


From Wednesday that’s precisely what we’re now told we can do, according to the Guardian, but only if we meet up outside with only one person, hence my confusion,


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

chilango said:


> You think the architects of the neo-liberal system got where they are by just sticking to what was commonly accepted as "realistic". Of course not.


No. And maybe this is a real opportunity for change for the better. But the reality is our Government needed a plan, today, of what is going to happen. In the context of the current global political and economic  situation. And taking money from billionaires is not realistically going to happen. Although would maybe not be a bad plan all else being equal.


----------



## redsquirrel (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. You have never been supposed to be doing that. And you still can't. Surely you know that?


Well according to the BBC you can from Wednesday

You can meet one person from outside your own household if you stay two metres apart
So, you can sit next to a single friend in the park, but you must socially distance


----------



## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Really? Cos I personally know of at least three mates whose small business is about to go bust. Tell that to them.


What's happening isn't about them being able to restart their businesses. Unless they're in the hospitality sector, they can do that anyway. Might be pointless in many cases, but they can. What's happening is that they are about to lose any financial support they have been getting from the government.


----------



## Thora (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. You have never been supposed to be doing that. And you still can't. Surely you know that?


The Guardian report says you can meet up with one other person outside so long as you maintain 2m distance.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> But the reality is our Government needed a plan, today, of what is going to happen. .



And, failed to come up with one.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> So they need financial support. Why haven't they got it? (The government can decide to afford it.)
> 
> Their businesses shouldn't be kept afloat by people risking their lives. That's the wrong answer on every level.


Do you realise that the government haven’t actually paid out any money towards furlough yet? And there have been a number of sly and concerning phrases that don’t install massive confidence that they will without question. Jobs are gonna be shed and hard, and businesses are gonna start to go bust at a rate of knots. I’m kinda surprised that the protection of livelihoods isn’t afforded a bit more importance on here given most of us have families to feed.


----------



## killer b (May 10, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> So me and Mrs K can meet up with our son, who is one person, and we won’t be fined for breaking the rules. But our son is going to meet up with us, and we’re two people, so he gets fined? Or have I missed something?


it's totally unenforceable, so it won't be enforced.

(I went for a walk with my folks today, three days early. In many ways, the relaxation they've announced is simply what people are doing anyway)


----------



## agricola (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> No. And maybe this is a real opportunity for change for the better. But the reality is our Government needed a plan, today, of what is going to happen. In the context of the current global political and economic  situation. And taking money from billionaires is not realistically going to happen. Although would maybe not be a bad plan all else being equal.



TBF it (or at least going after tax havens) is the only conceivable pot of money that could ever pay this lot off.


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Well according to the BBC you can from Wednesday
> 
> You can meet one person from outside your own household if you stay two metres apart
> So, you can sit next to a single friend in the park, but you must socially distance



Hadn't seen that, and it wasn't announced, that seems weird as it's a big change.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> it's totally unenforceable, so it won't be enforced.
> 
> (I went for a walk with my folks today, three days early. In many ways, the relaxation they've announced is simply what people are doing anyway)


Exactly. People are just ignoring it now anyway and voting with their feet.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> But it’s not unnecessary. It’s necessary. Can you not see that? We have to restart the economy.



You've been busy working through this and I'll bet you've seen lots that the rest of us haven't.
You also defo won't have been sat indoors pouring over comparitive figures from other countries, either, with the time to worry about how/why 'lessons' continue not to be learned, or to be completely ignored.
We can't stay in lockdown forever, of course but we can move out of it sensibly.
There will be a further loss of lives and an even greater impact on services (and therefore to the economy, too, as it goes - if that is even something worth keeping in mind as the priority) if we move too quickly.
It is NOT essential that builders, for eg, suddenly have to find their way, any way, to work tomorrow - it just isn't - and it's a really thoughtless, stupid new rule to have come up with after a week where we have been flooded with the idea that lockdown is over.
I feel like there is going to be a narrative, going forwards from now, that people are being lazy - that's _not_ what has been happening while you have been out there. <3
Do we have enough PPE for NHS staff yet? For careworkers? Wasn't that always one of the five rules? It's obscene that lockdown is being lifted right now, with the priority on non-essential (but profitable) work like building, with huge stress put onto those workers.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Do you realise that the government haven’t actually paid out any money towards furlough yet?



They have, several local business owners confirmed last week in a Zoom meeting that they have received their payments.


----------



## David Clapson (May 10, 2020)

Why can't we all do what we like, so long as we stay 2m apart?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Do you realise that the government haven’t actually paid out any money towards furlough yet? And there have been a number of sly and concerning phrases that don’t install massive confidence that they will without question. Jobs are gonna be shed and hard, and businesses are gonna start to go bust at a rate of knots. I’m kinda surprised that the protection of livelihoods isn’t afforded a bit more importance on here given most of us have families to feed.


You're setting up a false choice, though. _Either_ we're all forced back to work regardless of the virus situation _or_ we all lose our jobs.  

The Bank of England can print more money. 

That's a serious suggestion. It was done to bail out the banks. Do it now to bail out people. 

Oh, and take money off the rich. Lots of it.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Why can't we all do what we like, so long as we stay 2m apart?


can we buy drugs now?


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They have, several local business owners confirmed last week in a Zoom meeting that they have received their payments.


Oh really. Definitely not all though as both my ex and my current own businesses, have furloughed, and not got anything. Wages must still be paid.


----------



## bimble (May 10, 2020)

A thing that might be useful to know:





__





						Section44 – Employment Rights Act 1996 – the secret to getting safe working conditions in the UK
					





					section44.co.uk


----------



## Mation (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Do you realise that the government haven’t actually paid out any money towards furlough yet? And there have been a number of sly and concerning phrases that don’t install massive confidence that they will without question. Jobs are gonna be shed and hard, and businesses are gonna start to go bust at a rate of knots. I’m kinda surprised that the protection of livelihoods isn’t afforded a bit more importance on here given most of us have families to feed.


It's not _at all_ that's it's not important, Edie. Doesn't surprise me in the least that the government hasn't yet paid any furlough, but that still doesn't make it the right answer for people to have to risk their lives.


----------



## killer b (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Exactly. People are just ignoring it now anyway and voting with their feet.


I don't think it's that it's being totally ignored - I think it's more that people are making their own assessments of what's risky and acting accordingly. The principles of social distancing are - by and large - being adhered to, even if some specifics of the guidelines are being ignored.


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> From Wednesday that’s precisely what we’re now told we can do, according to the Guardian, but only if we meet up outside with only one person, hence my confusion,



Looks like that is maybe a bit speculative, will see what gets clarified this week.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You're setting up a false choice, though. _Either_ we're all forced back to work regardless of the virus situation _or_ we all lose our jobs.
> 
> The Bank of England can print more money.
> 
> ...


It’s not either or. It’s a graduated, conditional lifting of lockdown to ease the economic situation. That much must have at least been clear from the amazing graph shown


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> can we buy drugs now?


What’s changed?


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Why can't we all do what we like, so long as we stay 2m apart?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think it's that it's being totally ignored - I think it's more that people are making their own assessments of what's risky and acting accordingly. The principles of social distancing are - by and large - being adhered to, even if some specifics of the guidelines are being ignored.


Yep. Lots of people meeting up for a chat around here, and being sensible about it. That's not the problem wrt virus spread and probably never was. Stuff like hospital transmission, transport transmission, workplace transmission are way more important.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> What’s changed?


I haven't had any in a month. Could do with some sleep.


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Hadn't seen that, and it wasn't announced, that seems weird as it's a big change.



They are doing the drip drip like they did during a much earlier stage when initial measures were coming in (the various stuff that came well before the final dramatic 'lockdown' stuff).

There is more detail tomorrow, and it does infuriate me when sections of the press are given it first, especially as sections of the press have been giving out a load of other 'details' in recent weeks that turned out to not be true.

Gimpston Herdchills Flockdown Easing speech did not impress me much, to say the least.


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep. Lots of people meeting up for a chat around here, and being sensible about it. That's not the problem wrt virus spread and probably never was. Stuff like hospital transmission, transport transmission, workplace transmission are way more important.



Actually that's not strictly true. Social transmission and then into the other areas is a significant route.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think it's that it's being totally ignored - I think it's more that people are making their own assessments of what's risky and acting accordingly. The principles of social distancing are - by and large - being adhered to, even if some specifics of the guidelines are being ignored.


Which, tbf, is kinda what Boris is aiming at


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Actually that's not strictly true. Social transmission and then into the other areas is a significant route.


From sitting in separated chairs outside, chatting? Unless you know something I don't about transmission, that's not a high risk activity.l


----------



## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> You've been busy working through this and I'll bet you've seen lots that the rest of us haven't.
> You also defo won't have been sat indoors pouring over comparitive figures from other countries, either, with the time to worry about how/why 'lessons' continue not to be learned, or to be completely ignored.
> We can't stay in lockdown forever, of course but we can move out of it sensibly.
> There will be a further loss of lives and an even greater impact on services (and therefore to the economy, too, as it goes - if that is even something worth keeping in mind as the priority) if we move too quickly.
> ...


I would hate to be working in an NHS Covid ward in early June


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## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Really? Cos I personally know of at least three mates whose small business is about to go bust. Tell that to them.



What will happen to their business if they or their staff die or get ill for weeks and weeks or even if there is a 2nd wave and we need a 3 month lockdown to sort that one out because we lifted measures too soon this time.


The Tories lack of action and lack of speed is costing the precious economy more than if they'd cared more about us than the economy to start.  Lifting lockdown too soon will end up  costing more than keeping lockdown for another week.


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> From sitting in separated chairs outside, chatting? Unless you know something I don't about transmission, that's not a high risk activity.l



Someone on these boards caught it exactly like that.


----------



## killer b (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Which, tbf, is kinda what Boris is aiming at


You have the cart before the horse - this was happening already, and they didn't have the means to carry out enforcement, so an announcement of relaxation of the guidelines to allow what people are already doing makes it look like they're vaguely in control of _something_.


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Actually that's not strictly true. Social transmission and then into the other areas is a significant route.



Yes, only the special ones get the benefit of HMS Bubble.



> Twenty-two royal staff members sacrificed family life to remain isolated at Windsor Castle and to serve Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip for the duration of the coronavirus isolation.
> 
> A memo to the staff of householder Tony Johnstone-Burt, 62, a former Royal Navy officer, called the mission to protect the Queen and Prince Philip “HMS Bubble”.


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## LDC (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> From sitting in separated chairs outside, chatting? Unless you know something I don't about transmission, that's not a high risk activity.l



Not in that example, but that's not always what happens though. It's not high risk, but it's not only the activity you do, but also the travel to get there and the interactions you might not even notice on the way there and back. It might not be 'high risk' compared to other things, but the risk is there, and it's often more than people realize.


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## prunus (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'll be visiting as soon as practicable, which means not just yet but certainly  this year, this summer hopefully. My folks are old. But they would rather take the risk of seeing me, and the chances I'll be an asymptomatic infectious carrier at the point of visiting are small.
> 
> My mum's 88 and has respiratory problems. I don't doubt that c19 would finish her off. But I also know that she would want to see me. It's her risk in the end, but as long as I'm sensible - ie don't go if I think there's even a small chance I have c19 - it's not such a big risk. tbh you have to weigh up that risk with the chances that there might not be a next year.



But you (and she) are not assessing the entire risk by deciding that it’s worth the small risk that she dies if you transmit it to her by visiting, it’s not just her risk - it’s also that if she gets it, she’s more likely to get it severely (as you say), she’ll likely be taken to hospital, thereby exposing a number of paramedics, other medical staff, and patients to the virus. Some of these may succumb, or even die, but even if they don’t, they in turn will be taking it back to their homes and families, into the shops they visit, onto the buses they use, where other people may pick it up, and so on.

The reason ‘vulnerable’ people need to be strongly shielded is not, from the perspective of outbreak suppression, because their risk of dying is higher, but because their risk of spreading it, and spreading it in vulnerable places, if they get it is higher. A healthy young person can hole up with paracetamol and lucozade for a fortnight, dead-ending transmission. 

Or maybe you are, and still consider it worth it. It’s a personal call after all.


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## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

little_legs said:


> I would hate to be working in an NHS Covid ward in early June


Don't think it will happen that quickly. That's when we're supposed to go into the next phase - conveniently just before the consequences of entering the current phase become apparent.


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## LDC (May 10, 2020)

My two double whiskey take on it is we're a bit fucked, the economy has been given number 1 billing, brace ourselves for a upsurge in cases and deaths, lots of finger pointing, and then another lockdown and a hard rest of year.


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## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> So me and Mrs K can meet up with our son, who is one person, and we won’t be fined for breaking the rules. But our son is going to meet up with us, and we’re two people, so he gets fined? Or have I missed something?



No. Still only allowed to spend time with your household.  

But You can have gatherings of up to 2 people was said at some point so you cant meet him but you can as long as it's one at a time. #totallyclear


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## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My two double whiskey take on it is we're a bit fucked, the economy has been given number 1 billing, brace ourselves for a upsurge in cases and deaths, lots of finger pointing, and then another lockdown and a hard rest of year.


This.  😢


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## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

i think this sums it up well enough:


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## Kevbad the Bad (May 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My two double whiskey take on it is we're a bit fucked, the economy has been given number 1 billing, brace ourselves for a upsurge in cases and deaths, lots of finger pointing, and then another lockdown and a hard rest of year.


My two glasses of red wine and the a pint of scrumpy take on it is that you’re very optimistic.


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## Edie (May 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What will happen to their business if they or their staff die or get ill for weeks and weeks or even if there is a 2nd wave and we need a 3 month lockdown to sort that one out because we lifted measures too soon this time.
> 
> 
> The Tories lack of action and lack of speed is costing the precious economy more than if they'd cared more about us than the economy to start.  Lifting lockdown too soon will end up  costing more than keeping lockdown for another week.


So you’d be okay if all this was happening in a weeks time? If not, when? What conditions must be satisfied in your opinion? Cos genuinely, there isn’t a perfect solution, is there. Every decision has risks, and there’s risk associated with staying locked down too. Mass unemployment and a Great Depression will cost lives with poverty believe me.


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## SpookyFrank (May 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> No. Still only allowed to spend time with your household.
> 
> But You can have gatherings of up to 2 people was said at some point so you cant meet him but you can as long as it's one at a time. #totallyclear



Kevbad the Bad can meet his son, while his son can meet Mrs Kevbad. Just, sort of all at the same time. 

I should've been a lawyer.


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## Hollis (May 10, 2020)

So if public transport is going to be rammed/reduced capacity, am I meant to spend 2 hours walking each way to work, or go and get my bike repaired...


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## killer b (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Mass unemployment and a Great Depression


this is coming anyway tbf


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## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Kevbad the Bad can meet his son, while his son can meet Mrs Kevbad. Just, sort of all at the same time.
> 
> I should've been a lawyer.


it would be fun to Confuse-A-Cop with that argument


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> this is coming anyway tbf


Yes. It’s not gonna be pretty. So let’s try and minimise it, cos as of right now the NHS _is_ coping, and with capacity. What we’ve done so far _has_ worked. So it’s time to take the next step and cautiously move forward.


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## elbows (May 10, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Don't think it will happen that quickly. That's when we're supposed to go into the next phase - conveniently just before the consequences of entering the current phase become apparent.



They have an increasing number of data sources for doing things like attempting to measure R.

There are various degrees of lag in various ways we have to estimate things like R, and the ones available early on were especially crude and laggy. But even some of those arent quite as laggy as some people think, and the new ones that involve regular population surveys (including surveys based on actual tests of several varieties, not just the sorts of surveys people fill in themselves based on symptoms) should have less lag still.

But there is of course the question of how much of the new data we will get to see, and in what form. It looks a bit like they only want to give up simplified indicators, but its hard to predict what data might get added to daily press conference slides. So there may be a big difference between governments private view of the situation, and what we get to see and when.

Scotland already publishes various useful bits of data every day that are helpful to understanding the picture there. For example, daily number of NHS 111 calls, daily calls to the Coronavirus Helpline (oh they actually have one of those), proper ICU numbers, daily number of ambulance attendances overall, for COVID-19 suspected attendances and also number of suspected COVID-19 patients taken to hospital every day.





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19): trends in daily data - gov.scot
					

Scottish Government past data and trend charts for the daily updates on COVID-19.




					www.gov.scot
				




eg:


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## quimcunx (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> So you’d be okay if all this was happening in a weeks time? If not, when? What conditions must be satisfied in your opinion? Cos genuinely, there isn’t a perfect solution, is there. Every decision has risks, and there’s risk associated with staying locked down too. Mass unemployment and a Great Depression will cost lives with poverty believe me.



Enough  virology tests being done. Enough serology tests being done. Enough _appropriate_  PPE and social distancing for NHS, care workers and anyone else having to work outside the home. Points systems for admitting people to hospital or getting a ventilator set at a lower  level. Contact tracing happening. Quarantine for anyone entering the country.  Lorry drivers not crossing borders. Actually knowing what the R0 is.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> We need to make a difficult compromise here or we’re all gonna be out of a job and with no economy, income, or food. So yes some people are gonna have to take a bit more risk. There is no “safe” option, it’s a pandemic. Agree about more practical solutions though, although they may well come. There’s been plenty of practical help offered so far.



Not some people; it will disproportionately affect the people who are already disadvantaged through low wages, cramped living conditions, precarious employment contracts and under regulated working conditions. So more difficult compromises for those already compromised.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Not some people; it will disproportionately the people who are already disadvantaged through low wages, cramped living conditions, precarious employment contracts and under regulated wrking conditions. So more difficult compromises for those already compromised.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice


Agreed. What’s the alternative?


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> But it’s not unnecessary. It’s necessary. Can you not see that? We have to restart the economy.



What if the 'economy' isn't up to it?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Enough  virology tests being done. Enough serology tests being done. Enough _appropriate_  PPE and social distancing for NHS, care workers and anyone else having to work outside the home. Points systems for admitting people to hospital or getting a ventilator set at a lower  level. Contact tracing happening. Quarantine for anyone entering the country.  Lorry drivers not crossing borders. Actually knowing what the R0 is.


That’s a partial answer to the question, and I’d agree it would be good if all those things happened (with the exception of the lowering of the criteria for level 3 care, as far as I’m aware anyone who would clinically benefit from it has been given it and at no point have we not had capacity to do so. Not everyone would benefit from intensive care, it can be harmful if there’s not a realistic chance of survival to discharge?).


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Agreed. What’s the alternative?



Fundamentally change the economic settlement as was done after WW2; shift from economic liberalism to interventionist social democracy.  It would at least be a step in the right direction.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## Epona (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Oh really. Definitely not all though as both my ex and my current own businesses, have furloughed, and not got anything. Wages must still be paid.



All I keep hearing is "people I know who own businesses" - so what you are really saying is that you and yours need their employees to put themselves at risk to carry on making them profits so they themselves don't have to pack it in and go work in a supermarket.

(Have to say every time I hear the phrase "owns a business and may lose it" I feel less and less sympathy)


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> No. And maybe this is a real opportunity for change for the better. But the reality is our Government needed a plan, today, of what is going to happen. In the context of the current global political and economic  situation. And taking money from billionaires is not realistically going to happen. Although would maybe not be a bad plan all else being equal.



No they didn't need a plan today - there is nothing special about today -  and they haven't given a plan today. They have blathered and obfuscated in order to deflect and protect themselves. There are other alternatives.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Fundamentally change the economic settlement as was done after WW2; shift from economic liberalism to interventionist social democracy.  It would at least be a step in the right direction.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice


Economic interventionism might well be a way out. I’m afraid I don’t know enough about economics to know. You mean like the New Deal?


----------



## Duncan2 (May 10, 2020)

Yep-they don't really do plans-just as they left it to employers to decide whether to furlough-or not.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Epona said:


> All I keep hearing is "people I know who own businesses" - so what you are really saying is that you and yours need their employees to put themselves at risk to carry on making them profits so they themselves don't have to pack it in and go work in a supermarket.
> 
> (Have to say every time I hear the phrase "owns a business and may lose it" I feel less and less sympathy)


I’m ignoring you I’m afraid.


----------



## keybored (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Listen again. Some things have changed. *For example, if you have a job that can’t be done from home you should go back to work*. And the bare bones of how those changes will progress if conditions are met was outlined.


Hasn't that always been the advice?


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Economic interventionism might well be a way out. I’m afraid I don’t know enough about economics to know. You mean like the New Deal?



I mean like the post war settlement across western Europe which worked for decades.

Louis MacNeice


----------



## killer b (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Yes. It’s not gonna be pretty. So let’s try and minimise it, cos as of right now the NHS _is_ coping, and with capacity. What we’ve done so far _has_ worked. So it’s time to take the next step and cautiously move forward.


I think you're right and a lot of small businesses are on the brink right now (some large ones too tbf) - and much longer on lockdown _with current government support_ risks huge numbers of them going under. It feels like it's _that_ that's driving the push to reopen, not whether it's safe to do so - in which case, more wide-ranging support for businesses from the government so they can stay closed until it_ is_ safe to reopen is one option that you don't seem to be considering?


----------



## Duncan2 (May 10, 2020)

keybored said:


> Hasn't that always been the advice?


That is just one example of where the message has been deliberately left open to different interpretations.


----------



## MickiQ (May 10, 2020)

Epona said:


> All I keep hearing is "people I know who own businesses" - so what you are really saying is that you and yours need their employees to put themselves at risk to carry on making them profits so they themselves don't have to pack it in and go work in a supermarket.
> 
> (Have to say every time I hear the phrase "owns a business and may lose it" I feel less and less sympathy)


my nephew works for a small manufacturing company that employs about 3 dozen people that furloughed all its staff a month ago, The Govt may be paying my nephew (who has a mortgage, a partner and a child to support) but the company is still paying out rent, bank loans etc  and no money is coming in. (And they can't stop customers going elsewhere)
If it doesn't re-open soon it will probably not re-open at all. Now I have never met my nephew's boss and don't know whether he is a good employer or a bad one and whether anyone will feel sorry if his business goes bust.
But if it does my nephew (and presumably 35 other people) is in deep shit.
There are tens of thousands of companies like that employing millions of people not all business owners are Sir Philip Gropealot or the Bearded Wonder.


----------



## flypanam (May 10, 2020)

keybored said:


> Hasn't that always been the advice?


I was working from home till my employer decided I couldn’t work from home and put me on furlough. It’s not going to be a decision workers will get to make. Go in or lose the job. Is what we’re facing.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> I mean like the post war settlement across western Europe which worked for decades.
> 
> Louis MacNeice


A new Beveridge report?


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> A new Beveridge report?



Well the five giants are still with us and are only set to get a whole lot bigger in the future.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think you're right and a lot of small businesses are on the brink right now (some large ones too tbf) - and much longer on lockdown _with current government support_ risks huge numbers of them going under. It feels like it's _that_ that's driving the push to reopen, not whether it's safe to do so - in which case, more wide-ranging support for businesses from the government so they can stay closed until it_ is_ safe to reopen is one option that you don't seem to be considering?


Can we afford that though?


----------



## killer b (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Can we afford that though?


yeah.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Can we afford that though?


we always seem to be able to use the magic money tree to finance wars, so why not this one?


----------



## Epona (May 10, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> my nephew works for a small manufacturing company that employs about 3 dozen people that furloughed all its staff a month ago, The Govt may be paying my nephew (who has a mortgage, a partner and a child to support) but the company is still paying out rent, bank loans etc  and no money is coming in. If it doesn't re-open soon it will probably not re-open at all. Now I have never met my nephew's boss and don't know whether he is a good employer or a bad one and whether anyone will feel sorry if his business goes bust.
> But if it does my nephew (and presumably 35 other people) is in deep shit.
> There are tens of thousands of companies like that employing millions of people not all business owners are Sir Philip Gropealot or the the Bearded Wonder.



I think fundamentally I have a different view of the way society should be organised - there are tasks in society that either need doing or don't need doing and who owns the "business" is a matter down to the economic focus in society - I disagree with the notion of business owners as "job-creators" at a very fundamental level - it is in some way pertinent to this thread but possibly not the discussion that people want.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> yeah.


I’m gonna need to see some working out that doesn’t involve an international revolution and redistribution of billionaires wealth. Because I’m not that keen that people starve in food bank queues whilst people discuss theoretical possibilities.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

A reminder for workers:

Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996: you can walk out of your workplace with no repercussions or recriminations if you reasonably believe your health and safety is at risk

Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, Regulation 3: employers have to do a risk assessment to protect your safety, and they must provide these risk assessments to you under Regulation 10

Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992: your employer has to provide you with the right PPE


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’m gonna need to see some working out that doesn’t involve an international revolution and redistribution of billionaires wealth. Because I’m not that keen that people starve in food bank queues whilst people discuss theoretical possibilities.


redistributing billionnaires' wealth is not just a theoretical possibility


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> redistributing billionnaires' wealth is not just a theoretical possibility


You do recall that the Tories won the last GE do you?


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Can we afford that though?



Yes we aren't a poor country...far from it. In December, the Equality Trust reported that the UK's five richest families own more than the bottom 13 million people.

Louis MacNeice


----------



## killer b (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’m gonna need to see some working out that doesn’t involve an international revolution and redistribution of billionaires wealth. Because I’m not that keen that people starve in food bank queues whilst people discuss theoretical possibilities.


It involves the government choosing to raise the money - they can borrow it, tax rich people more, whatever. They have the means at their disposal. TBH there's going to be massive intervention of this sort into the economy for the next while whatever happens.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> You do recall that the Tories won the last GE do you?


Unfortunately


----------



## MickiQ (May 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> we always seem to be able to use the magic money tree to finance wars, so why not this one?


We are, If there is one thing that this crisis has proven is that Osborne was lying through his pearly whites about what the UK could and could not afford but even so it can't go on forever.
I don't know if we have reached the limit yet but there has to be one and at some point (and like you I don't know if that is now or a month from now) we will not be able to use it anymore. Perhaps now is not the right moment to re-open but will it better on the 10th June or the 10th July?


----------



## Humberto (May 10, 2020)

People are really struggling in many cases. Is the government helping them? Is it being reasonable in saying 'work from home if possible, but otherwise go to work' whilst people are dying because the state won't put its hand in its pocket? It's inimical to them. I don't see the benefit of meekly going into trouble because the government isn't able to take drastic measures. Why rush us, the working class? Because they have been so slow footed and behind the curve throughout this pandemic and its encroachment? As it stands we are heading for the worst of all worlds: economic collapse and a worse pandemic. We are stuck in permanent limbo until they do indeed get a grip on the situation, and the longer they dither, the worse the consequences.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> We are, If there is one thing that this crisis has proven is that Osborne was lying through his pearly whites about what the UK could and could not afford but even so it can't go on forever.
> I don't know if we have reached the limit yet but there has to be one and at some point (and like you I don't know if that is now or a month from now) we will not be able to use it anymore. Perhaps now is not the right moment to re-open but will it better on the 10th June or the 10th July?


Exactly. The issues will remain, and so will every argument on this thread.


----------



## Mation (May 10, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> We are, If there is one thing that this crisis has proven is that Osborne was lying through his pearly whites about what the UK could and could not afford but even so it can't go on forever.
> I don't know if we have reached the limit yet but there has to be one and at some point (and like you I don't know if that is now or a month from now) we will not be able to use it anymore. Perhaps now is not the right moment to re-open but will it better on the 10th June or the 10th July?


You talk as though the economy is  force of nature with natural bounds, rather than something that (some) people decide to do.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Perhaps now is not the right moment to re-open but will it better on the 10th June or the 10th July?


But that's the whole point, isn't it? We are where we are now due to a continual botching of the crisis right from the very start. Do the right things for a month - ie testing, ppe, tracing contacts when it becomes practical, etc - and there is no reason the UK couldn't drive its new cases down under 1,000 per day. So, it may not be better in a month's time, but if it still isn't much better, that will be due to failure of policy, as the shite state we're in today is due to failure of policy. They wasted weeks before lockdown pursuing the wrong policy, then they basically did fuck all in the first month of lockdown, thinking lockdown was the solution when it's merely the thing you do to buy time to work out the solution.

I don't want this to fail. I genuinely hope that new cases are down well under 1,000 per day in a month's time despite this government's appalling ineptitude, but it will be despite them not because of them. And the contradictory nonsense they came out with today merely signals a continuation of their incompetence. It's hard to believe, tbh, just how fucking useless they are.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> You talk as though the economy is  force of nature with natural bounds, rather than something that (some) people decide to do.



Exactly this!

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## killer b (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Exactly. The issues will remain, and so will every argument on this thread.


 Things could look very different in June or July. Cases might be low enough for a test/ contact trace/ isolate regime to work without getting swamped. There might be sufficient PPE for people to work safely. These things aren't the case now though, which is why people aren't 100% behind this.


----------



## Edie (May 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> Things could look very different in June or July. Cases might be low enough for a test/ contact trace/ isolate regime to work without getting swamped. There might be sufficient PPE for people to work safely. These things aren't the case now though, which is why people aren't 100% behind this.


Fair enough. Well, we’ll have to see what the numbers do I guess.


----------



## Cid (May 10, 2020)

Taking businesses off furlough is also going to create substantial problems. e.g any retail business that goes back to work is going to have the same tight margins and high expenses that they had before the pandemic, but now with vastly reduced customer base. Similar problems in manufacturing. Far fewer orders, far less activity. It's not as simple as 'lift lockdown, get back to normal'. Even if, as I just have, you totally ignore the risks associated with further outbreaks. What it would probably take is a carefully planned exit from lockdown (track, trace, regional response), combined with a major economic stimulus package. These things are possible, they've been done before, but the Tories are fundamentally ideologically opposed to them.


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## Raheem (May 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Do the right things for a month - ie testing, ppe, tracing contacts when it becomes practical, etc - and there is no reason the UK couldn't drive its new cases down under 1,000 per day.


I suspect part of the problem is that the goverment knows it has dropped the ball so badly that a month of doing things right is not on the cards anytime soon.


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## Duncan2 (May 10, 2020)

The UK death toll has been shocking and many of us have yet to be convinced that the Government have even the beginnings of a handle on this.


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## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

Cid said:


> Taking businesses off furlough is also going to create substantial problems. e.g any retail business that goes back to work is going to have the same tight margins and high expenses that they had before the pandemic, but now with vastly reduced customer base. Similar problems in manufacturing. Far fewer orders, far less activity. It's not as simple as 'lift lockdown, get back to normal'. Even if, as I just have, you totally ignore the risks associated with further outbreaks. What it would probably take is a carefully planned exit from lockdown (track, trace, regional response), combined with a major economic stimulus package. These things are possible, they've been done before, but the Tories are fundamentally ideologically opposed to them.


Exactly. It's not like I am going to go on a high street tomorrow to buy some clothes and books.

A colleague of mine from Genoa, Italy was telling me the other day that when their local authorities allowed stationary shops, baby clothing shops and hair dressers to re-open, literally no one went to these places. Common sense prevailed and the shops shut down again because there was no point in keeping the doors of a shop open if customers are not stupid enough to risk their health & shop. The hairdressers in Italy were also given a strict directive to disinfect the place after each customer, so they ended up needing a 30 min interval between customers. I've not seen any cleaning in this country yet.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 10, 2020)

Raheem said:


> I suspect part of the problem is that the goverment knows it has dropped the ball so badly that a month of doing things right is not on the cards anytime soon.


I get the impression they're still crossing their fingers and hoping this is a seasonal thing that will fade in June anyway. It might. But it might not. MERS doesn't. 

Johnson didn't get where he is today by not taking reckless risks that could have led to disaster but instead led to his promotion. And this is, in the end, still _all about him_.


----------



## Maggot (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> So you’d be okay if all this was happening in a weeks time? If not, when? What conditions must be satisfied in your opinion? Cos genuinely, there isn’t a perfect solution, is there. Every decision has risks, and there’s risk associated with staying locked down too. Mass unemployment and a Great Depression will cost lives with poverty believe me.


Poverty is man made and has an easy cure.

There is no cure for Covid 19.


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## xenon (May 10, 2020)

Well, didn't expect any big changes or announcements. But and I can't believe I'm saying this, at least there was something. A vague roadmap of how we get out of this. Points about get back to work, public transport accepted. Though, like someone else said earlier, I live in a city I didn't grow up in, - don't know when or how I'm going to visit family any time soon, 10% capacity on public transport.


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## BristolEcho (May 10, 2020)

The whole "encouraged to go back to work" line is pissing me off as basically your boss says you go back then you have to go back.


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## smokedout (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’m gonna need to see some working out that doesn’t involve an international revolution and redistribution of billionaires wealth. Because I’m not that keen that people starve in food bank queues whilst people discuss theoretical possibilities.



Scrap Trident. There, that was easy.


----------



## Athos (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> What we’ve done so far _has_ worked.



How can you possibly say that, given we have the second highest number of deaths in the world?


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## editor (May 10, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> The whole "encouraged to go back to work" line is pissing me off as basically your boss says you go back then you have to go back.


And thus releasing the govt of any obligation to pay any of your wages. RESULT!


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## xenon (May 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Why is it beyond the wit of people to not be dilly fuckers when queuing? We're supposed to be champions at it



It just won't work for commuters. Not because people are dicks (some are fo sure) but the infrastructure just can't accomidate people doing SD. I mean, you can't even keep 2m passing someone on the pavement let alone a ticket barrier, even if they left them open. Stair ways, station approaches, platforms etc.


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## xenon (May 10, 2020)

Edie said:


> Really? Cos I personally know of at least three mates whose small business is about to go bust. Tell that to them.



Print virtual money and support these people. THey did it for the banks and we're all loving that right. Inflatoin, yeah, but every country in the world is facing doing similar. Printing money is only an issue so far as it effects confidence in guilt bond investers. In this situation there's no shortage of manpower, raw materials. The inflationary pressures printing money would bring are entirely artificial, predicated on outmoded economic consensus. 

I reckon.


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## Weller (May 10, 2020)

Didn't catch it earlier so just watched it its extremely confusing and certainly is not just as simple for me to go back to my job in manufacturing as I was working through an agency that I usually work under the umbrella company  payment system *bit like self employment  but switched to PAYE as the company had a new contract with J.L.R .

We were all laid off due to no fresh orders , trials of all new items stopped and a backlog of stock due to J.L.R stopping production plus new build production area made it impossible to keep 2 metres , then the agency decided to furlough me themselves the following week so I could go back when the companies own furloughed staff returned again.
To late for me to contact agency obviously now about rushing back tomorrow not that Im too concerned but must be a fair few in same boat no idea about whats happening at their workplace etc , agency just said sit tight on furlough money if you can last week for another 3 weeks at least.
Now that all seems to have changed with Boris "get back to work" with approx 12 hours notice with people no idea about their furlough money etc as not supposed to do any work whilst on furlough job retention scheme

He seems well out of his depth and confused himself to me now since his "break" and more Trump like , dont know what all that keep glancing at his hands position was all about in middle of it either 
Just seems a crazy speech to record and release on a Sunday when it should have been well rehearsed "go back and work tomorrow walk there or else go out and travel to see a friend in a park as long as you want drive there and do some sunbathing"
but maybe I need to watch it a few more times to get the gist of it all


----------



## Maggot (May 10, 2020)




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## little_legs (May 10, 2020)

xenon said:


> Well, didn't expect any big changes or announcements. But and I can't believe I'm saying this, at least there was something. A vague roadmap of how we get out of this. Points about get back to work, public transport accepted. Though, like someone else said earlier, I live in a city I didn't grow up in, - don't know when or how I'm going to visit family any time soon, 10% capacity on public transport.


Publishing proper guidance for businesses and local councils would at the very least allow them to prepare opening for businesses.

I hope that eventually they copy the Irish road-map that has been written by adults and can be understood by everyone.


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## elbows (May 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Here is the document (pdf). It is a meeting note, dated 1 April, prepared for a Sage meeting on 2 April.
> The newly-released material is everything from point 3, starting with the headline: “Specific comments about new suggestions for improving adherence within the Framework (27 March)”. It shows Sage rejected three proposals to toughen the lockdown.
> Here is the key extract.



Its a sub group of SAGE, not SAGE as a whole. Specifically, it was the Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours.

Given what was in Johnsons speech today, I thought this bit was a key quote too:



> Second, we note that the additional suggestions largely operate at the level of the individual. We recommend that consideration also be given to ways to reduce disease transmission at a more organisational level. Are health and safety guidelines adequate (and adequately enforced) to ensure that where people do attend work, the risk of disease transmission is minimised by, for example, allowing sufficient breaks and facilities for hand hygiene, staggered office hours to reduce rush hour use of public transport, or enough space and guidance to allow within-work physical distancing?



Anyway thanks for bringing the unredacted version to our attention, it may have escaped my attention if you had not.


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## Shechemite (May 10, 2020)

good piece. Not just about LD- and autistic-people 





__





						People with autism and learning disabilities have been abandoned in the crisis
					

We also do not know how many people in psychiatric facilities have been killed by the virus as the data has not been released




					inews.co.uk


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## not-bono-ever (May 10, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Fundamentally change the economic settlement as was done after WW2; shift from economic liberalism to interventionist social democracy.  It would at least be a step in the right direction.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice




Capitalist Liberalism will consume its own offspring if left to its own devices- the capitalist pigdogs will support intervention without a qualm if it keeps them in the game.


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## kalidarkone (May 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> They're _still_ just kind of hoping it will all go away, aren't they?


No I think they are sending people to their deaths. Literally survival of the fittest seems to be the underlying narrative.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 11, 2020)

corporate manslaughter


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## not-bono-ever (May 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> corporate manslaughter



made thsi point earlier- I can see many large corporates with a proper legal team and risk management baulking at a return from a liability perspective. If you work for someone without that, then...


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## MickiQ (May 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> You talk as though the economy is  force of nature with natural bounds, rather than something that (some) people decide to do.


Nope  it is entirely a consequence of human actions both current and cumulative over centuries, entirely a construct of human society. Doesn't mean that doesn't have rules. And so long as most people are following the rules (which they are) it will continue on the way it is.


----------



## quimcunx (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a sub group of SAGE, not SAGE as a whole. Specifically, it was the Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours.



That makes more sense.  I wondered why actual experts in SAGE would do that.


----------



## Humberto (May 11, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Nope  it is entirely a consequence of human actions both current and cumulative over centuries, entirely a construct of human society. Doesn't mean that doesn't have rules. And so long as most people are following the rules (which they are) it will continue on the way it is.



The only constant is brutality, deception and force.


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## Mation (May 11, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Nope  it is entirely a consequence of human actions both current and cumulative over centuries, entirely a construct of human society. Doesn't mean that doesn't have rules. And so long as most people are following the rules (which they are) it will continue on the way it is.


There's a difference between rules and conventions, and the conventions of economics under this (any?) system look less and less like rules, given that they change according to (some) people's response to their application. It's a festering pile of silly putty.


----------



## belboid (May 11, 2020)

This was an official government slide, as displayed at the P M briefing today.

So we're actually at Alert Level 219,183.9432173 I believe


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## MickiQ (May 11, 2020)

Humberto said:


> The only constant is brutality, deception and force.


They've played their part certainly, but the whole of human society not just the economy works because most people believe in it,  It's a huge con trick that has no physical existence yet is real because the vast majority of people believe it is. It can only be changed when enough people believe it has changed and they don't.
The rules are completely arbitary and have grown up often by chance. They're still the rules and individuals and indeed entire nations play by these rules because everyone else does.
You want to change them fine so do I, how do you suggest we go about it?


----------



## MickiQ (May 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> There's a difference between rules and conventions, and the conventions of economics under this (any?) system look less and less like rules, given that they change according to (some) people's response to their application. It's a festering pile of silly putty.


Yep not arguing with you but we are stuck with it because almost all the rest of humanity goes along with it.


----------



## ddraig (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’m gonna need to see some working out that doesn’t involve an international revolution and redistribution of billionaires wealth. Because I’m not that keen that people starve in food bank queues whilst people discuss theoretical possibilities.


Could cover it by not buying a few weapons that'll never be used! (I know the 'defence expenditure' covers more stuff than weapons)
Point 3 on this gov doc for 2017








						Finance and economics annual statistical bulletin: international defence 2018
					






					www.gov.uk
				




"It can clearly be seen in Figure 1 that the USA maintains its position as the largest defence spender in NATO, with expenditure of $686 billion, representing 3.6% of their GDP in 2017. The USA spent more than twice as much on defence in 2017 than the rest of NATO combined. *The UK was the second highest spender in NATO in 2017, spending $55.3 billion on defence."*


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## keybored (May 11, 2020)

belboid said:


> So we're actually at Alert Level 219,183.9432173 I believe


219 thousand and 183 thousand point 943 teen hundred twentyonety 73 zillions


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## ddraig (May 11, 2020)

smokedout said:


> Scrap Trident. There, that was easy.


Exactly this! (hadn't read this far when I posted about covering it by not buying a few weapons)
Food NOT Bombs
Hospitals NOT Bombs
Doctors NOT Bombs
Nurses NOT Bombs
PPE NOT Bombs
etc etc


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## Petcha (May 11, 2020)

belboid said:


> View attachment 211913
> 
> This was an official government slide, as displayed at the P M briefing today.
> 
> So we're actually at Alert Level 219,183.9432173 I believe



That cannot be for real


----------



## 2hats (May 11, 2020)

Petcha said:


> That cannot be for real


----------



## two sheds (May 11, 2020)

Petcha said:


> That cannot be for real



Priti Patel got involved at some level.


----------



## 2hats (May 11, 2020)




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## editor (May 11, 2020)

belboid said:


> View attachment 211913
> 
> This was an official government slide, as displayed at the P M briefing today.
> 
> So we're actually at Alert Level 219,183.9432173 I believe


Here's another graphic from Brass Eye


----------



## gosub (May 11, 2020)

So well it is a recognised pandemic in which will be switching from the orange light-bulb to the yellow light-bulb and anyone who stupid enough to think anything in last couple of months warranted full on red lightbulbs has n't really grasped how bad things could be


----------



## Petcha (May 11, 2020)

I didn't see the presentation and to be honest assumed that was a joke Boris twitter feed. But with 2.6m followers it must be real. He's being ripped apart by boffins on there.


----------



## Edie (May 11, 2020)

Athos said:


> How can you possibly say that, given we have the second highest number of deaths in the world?


I don’t wanna get in the business of defending every government decision since the pandemic started. I only say that because the aim of lockdown was to flatten the curve and protect the NHS, and to that extent it’s done exactly as intended. I’m sure the analysis of exactly what and when should have happened will occur for decades, and the article in The Times was certainly instructive.

It is however a bit disingenuous to say second highest number of deaths. There’s a lot of ways of counting, and a lot of ways of presenting those statistics, as you know. For example,Coronavirus deaths per million by country | Statista


----------



## Edie (May 11, 2020)

That equation tho


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

editor said:


> Here's another graphic from Brass Eye
> 
> View attachment 211917


A bouncy covometer! It's gonna be great!


----------



## flypanam (May 11, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Could cover it by not buying a few weapons that'll never be used! (I know the 'defence expenditure' covers more stuff than weapons)
> Point 3 on this gov doc for 2017
> 
> 
> ...


That’s one way, but given they are not borrowing from international markets but printing money via the BofE, which means the government essentially could decide how much and for how long they want to pay it Back, So racking up debt isn’t really an issue.


----------



## andysays (May 11, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Edie's on the front line you numpty.


I know Edie is still working, so are lots of people. The question here is specifically about being obliged to go to work on public transport.

Edie seems to be suggesting that people should have to go to work on public transport if they can't get there any other way, and yet is unwilling to say if she would do that herself. I think it's reasonable to point that out.

(as an aside, under normal circumstances, I take a bus to work; since this began, I've been taking a work van home so that I don't have to take the bus. I've also been collecting and dropping off one of my colleagues so that he doesn't have to take the bus. I would not be happy about taking the bus, or even worse the tube, to work at the moment (ETA especially as it's likely to become even more crowded, whatever Boris says...), and I think it's perfectly reasonable for people to be unwilling, and unreasonable to dismiss people's fears and say they have to do it for the sake of the economy)

And it's *Eddy* who's on the frontline, you numpty


----------



## two sheds (May 11, 2020)

belboid said:


> View attachment 211913
> 
> This was an official government slide, as displayed at the P M briefing today.
> 
> So we're actually at Alert Level 219,183.9432173 I believe



Jesus they even got R as "rate of infection" wrong. As pointed out elsewhere on here it's not a rate it's a ratio. 

I hadn't realized though that R0 only refers to at the start of a contagious disease.



> R0, pronounced “R naught,” is a mathematical term that indicates how contagious an infectious disease is. It’s also referred to as the reproduction number. As an infection is transmitted to new people, it reproduces itself.
> 
> R0 tells you the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person with that disease. It specifically applies to a population of people who were previously free of infection and haven’t been vaccinated.





> The R0 for COVID-19 is a median of 5.7, according to a study published online in Emerging Infectious Diseases. That’s about double an earlier R0 estimate of 2.2 to 2.7











						What Is R0? Gauging Contagious Infections
					

R0 indicates how contagious a disease is. Learn how it works and the R0 values for various diseases.




					www.healthline.com
				




And as someone else pointed out, we can't really know what it is now because we're not testing people.


----------



## Edie (May 11, 2020)

andysays said:


> I know Edie is still working, so are lots of people. The question here is specifically about being obliged to go to work on public transport.
> 
> Edie seems to be suggesting that people should have to go to work on public transport if they can't get there any other way, and yet is unwilling to say if she would do that herself. I think it's reasonable to point that out.
> 
> ...



Oh goodness for the record then yes of course I’d be prepared to take public transport. I’ve been working with dying covid patients wearing a fucking surgical mask and a dinner lady apron, of course I’d sit upstairs on the number 6  My point is that doesn’t make my opinion any more or less valid than yours.

Like I said to Orang Utan maybe it should be down to personal choice for a period. Note this hasn’t been an option for nhs workers or supermarket staff or delivery drivers or police etc.


----------



## chilango (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> Like I said to Orang Utan maybe it should be down to personal choice for a period. Note this hasn’t been an option for nhs workers or supermarket staff or delivery drivers or police etc.



...and that's the problem. Most people won't get the choice. Their bosses will decide.


----------



## chilango (May 11, 2020)

Ok.

If ever there was a time for a general strike. This is it.


----------



## Doodler (May 11, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> So what does the Urban massive have to say?
> 
> We have never been in this situation before, there are no previous protocols to follow.
> 
> You are the PM, we are where we are now, what are you going to do?



I don't even know what's good for myself most of the time but seeing as this is just words on a screen ...

* Collect and publish open data on which environments and activities hold the highest risk of infection.

* Develop online risk calculators so people can anonymously input their age, sex, health and other details to see how vulnerable or not they might be. At the same time make sure they understand the risks they might pose to others if they become infected. Use easy to understand odds terms where possible.

* Ram home the risk to others angle in the most obvious way to get through the skulls of our more selfish fellow citizens. Lurching around pissed in public shouting the odds or trying to shove your way to the front of the Waitrose queue? You're responsible for old Fred dying alone in an ICU!

* Keep older and more vulnerable workers away from contact with the public. Pay them to stay away from work altogether where these measures aren't possible. Make it a criminal offence for employers to pressurise vulnerable workers into taking unacceptable risks.

* Require supermarkets to devote some of their car park space to open air sale of staple foodstuffs, bog roll etc.

* Is Britain so far down the path of de-industrialisation that it's not possible to set up a face mask factory here?


----------



## Athos (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> I don’t wanna get in the business of defending every government decision since the pandemic started. I only say that because the aim of lockdown was to flatten the curve and protect the NHS, and to that extent it’s done exactly as intended. I’m sure the analysis of exactly what and when should have happened will occur for decades, and the article in The Times was certainly instructive.
> 
> It is however a bit disingenuous to say second highest number of deaths. There’s a lot of ways of counting, and a lot of ways of presenting those statistics, as you know. For example,Coronavirus deaths per million by country | Statista



What does 'protect the NHS' even mean? As you know, there's inadequate PPE, leading to many deaths of doctors and nurses.

Even on deaths per million the UK is still 'top' four.

However you look at it, this government has failed in its handling of C19.  We've got the worst of both worlds: high deaths, and a massive disruption to our lives!

The strategy is what it's always been i.e. to let it rip, in the hope that it will burn out quickly with minimal disruption to the economy.  They've only tempered that to make it politically palatable.  What they really mean by flattening the curve is to keep the spread as fast as possible without going over NHS capacity i.e. they don't mind their being more deaths as long as they're not directly attributable to their decimation of the NHS.

We were fucked the moment their immediate instinct was to give up on squashing it (testing, tracing, isolation) in favour of accepting more deaths as a trade off for the economy AKA their interests.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 11, 2020)

chilango said:


> If ever there was a time for a general strike. This is it.


You misspelled "bloody revolution".


----------



## Edie (May 11, 2020)

chilango said:


> Ok.
> 
> If ever there was a time for a general strike. This is it.


Yes, what a brilliant solution. Jesus fucking christ I’m fucking glad your not my teammate


----------



## chilango (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> Yes, what a brilliant solution. Jesus fucking christ I’m fucking glad your not my teammate



I'm not cool with workers being sent back out into the middle of a Pandemic to make rich people richer.

If you are, then so be it.


----------



## Edie (May 11, 2020)

Athos said:


> What does 'protect the NHS' even mean? As you know, there's inadequate PPE, leading to many deaths of doctors and nurses.
> 
> Even on deaths per million the UK is still 'top' four.
> 
> However you look at it, this government has failed in its handling of C19.  We've got the worst of both worlds: high deaths, and a massive disruption to our lives!


As I said earlier... My understanding of it was that locking down flattened the curve so prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed (like Northern Italy). Not PPE. I think your being disingenuous tho and you know that.

As I said, I’m not here to defend every Government decision. But ftr the Government would have failed no matter what decisions it made, as there is no perfectly correct answer. It’s all trade off of risk. That said, there have been some major fuck ups (see The Times).


----------



## Athos (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> As I said earlier... My understanding of it was that locking down flattened the curve so prevented the NHS from being overwhelmed (like Northern Italy). Not PPE. I think your being disingenuous tho and you know that.
> 
> As I said, I’m not here to defend every Government decision. But ftr the Government would have failed no matter what decisions it made, as there is no perfectly correct answer. It’s all trade off of risk. That said, there have been some major fuck ups (see The Times).



Sorry, I edited my post before your quote, to address flattening the curve.

Yes, it's a trade off. One I think they got wrong by trading our lives for their interests.


----------



## Sprocket. (May 11, 2020)

Athos said:


> Yes, it's a trade off. One I think they got wrong by trading our lives for their interests.



And evermore shall be so.


----------



## Edie (May 11, 2020)

Athos said:


> Sorry, I edited my post before your quote, to address flattening the curve.
> 
> Yes, it's a trade off. One I think they got wrong by trading our lives for their interests.


I’ve read it. Do you honestly think there was a chance of squashing it (and keeping it squashed)? I’m not convinced. I think we were much more like Italy, France and Spain than NZ with our pre existing exposure and spread (before even February probably). And have comparable death rates despite slightly different responses. But I’m really no expert on this stuff.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’ve read it. Do you honestly think there was a chance of squashing it (and keeping it squashed)? I’m not convinced. I think we were much more like Italy, France and Spain than NZ with our pre existing exposure and spread (before even February probably). And have comparable death rates despite slightly different responses. But I’m really no expert on this stuff.



Well the response from very early on is a big part of the reason things are so shit now. You shouldn't really let the government off over that.


----------



## bmd (May 11, 2020)

I think it is a bit of a damned if you, damned if you don't situation. Like all crises, making a decision is the most important part and then following it through. What I do take issue with is how much those decisions seem to be driven by politics rather than, for example, health concerns or just simple common sense.

We need a leader during times like these and Johnson isn't a leader. He hasn't enough intelligence to see through the fog of these issues and not enough spine to make the tough calls. Look to Nicola Sturgeon for an example of a more coherent approach.


----------



## Edie (May 11, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Well the response from very early on is a big part of the reason things are so shit now. You shouldn't really let the government off over that.


I’m not. Mistakes were clearly made.


----------



## redsquirrel (May 11, 2020)

I absolutely agree with chilango, Louis MacNeice and others about the wider politics of the situation but even on the state's own terms this just seems to have been confused and badly handled.

Anyone listening to Raab's clusterfuck interview on R4 now? He was as confused as anyone about the few specific examples given by the interviewer - e.g. what does someone who works in England but lives in Wales do?

I mean when the government gets a harder time on the Today programme than a union gen sec, it pretty clearly indicated that the government has messed up on some level.


----------



## quimcunx (May 11, 2020)

They didnt have to fail. Other governments did not fail.


Edie said:


> That’s a partial answer to the question, and I’d agree it would be good if all those things happened (with the exception of the lowering of the criteria for level 3 care, as far as I’m aware anyone who would clinically benefit from it has been given it and at no point have we not had capacity to do so. Not everyone would benefit from intensive care, it can be harmful if there’s not a realistic chance of survival to discharge?).


Fair enough. I'd seen on here mention of points on who to treat and with what. Also suggestions that the line drawn over when to admit patients when attended by paramedics was too high. 

I think when this government talk about not overwhelming the NHS what they actually cared about avoiding was hospital footage similar to that of Italy being seen by the world.  

While the NHS has the appearance of not being overwhelmed by covid I suspect the govt have been successful, to a degree, in moving the fallout of an underfunded under prepared under protected NHS off the NHS centre  stage.  The covid sufferers who died in care homes, in private homes. The invisible people who are not getting their non covid related issues treated because they are too scared to go to hospital or treatment has been cancelled or wait too long to call about covid symptoms.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 11, 2020)

I've just checked the average daily reported deaths over the last week, and adjusting for population, we still have around twice as many as both Spain & Italy, who both went into lockdown earlier, and are only just now starting to lift restrictions.

We went in too late, we are coming out too early.

ETA - Average daily reported deaths - UK 487, Italy 239, Spain 194


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’ve read it. Do you honestly think there was a chance of squashing it (and keeping it squashed)? I’m not convinced. I think we were much more like Italy, France and Spain than NZ with our pre existing exposure and spread (before even February probably). And have comparable death rates despite slightly different responses. But I’m really no expert on this stuff.


I agree that a NZ-style response was not possible. But a Germany-style or Switzerland-style response was possible. Both countries hit relatively hard relatively early. The UK had a two-week head-start compared to Italy and will end up more or less the same. That's a failure. Spain fucked things up badly as well, but 'as bad as the other country that fucked things up really badly' is not doing well.

Probably the single thing that gets me the most is that this government has not and will not admit any mistakes. French president did that a few weeks ago, and France has been doing a lot better since then. It would help them to think, to act, to communicate, to everything, if they were to just come out and say what we all already know.

But then they appear not to know the difference between a plus sign and a multiply sign. Given that they're off school atm, why not just get Year 11 from Rotherham in to run things instead? I would have more confidence in them to a) be compassionate in their decisions, b) understand the science, and c) do the necessary sums.


----------



## weltweit (May 11, 2020)

Not as clear a slogan as before.

Not as clear an instruction as before either.

Many have been going to work in the last weeks anyhow.

While others, like me, have been working from home.

Many work places can be modified so there can be social distancing.

However, if you can't get to work without using public transport it isn't clear what you should do!


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## weltweit (May 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> ..
> We went in too late, we are coming out too early.


I tend to agree, too many daily new cases at the moment, and test track and trace isn't working yet!


----------



## platinumsage (May 11, 2020)

I'd like to know what the daily cases are excluding people in hospitals and care homes.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 11, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I'd like to know what the daily cases are excluding people in hospitals and care homes.



ONS figures are normally updated on Tuesdays.


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## Edie (May 11, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> They didnt have to fail. Other governments did not fail.
> 
> Fair enough. I'd seen on here mention of points on who to treat and with what. Also suggestions that the line drawn over when to admit patients when attended by paramedics was too high.
> 
> ...


I agree with respect to non-covid medical problems not being treated (pancreatitis not gall stones in SAU kinda thing), but let’s be honest, that’s easy to say in hindsight once we are confident we’re not going to have covid patients on CPAP in corridors or dying on trolleys with a non-rebreathe and scant else.

The dying at home and in care homes point is not straightforward. Hospital is not necessarily the right or preferred place to die. There’s a discussion to be had about whether more patients should have been hospitalised from the community, but having seen and worked alongside my Trusts covid admission algorithm it seems clinically right to me. There are good clinical and psychosocial reasons for and against admission, it isn’t right to think that the best decision is admission if possible.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (May 11, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> So me and Mrs K can meet up with our son, who is one person, and we won’t be fined for breaking the rules. But our son is going to meet up with us, and we’re two people, so he gets fined? Or have I missed something?


That was my question yesterday, and the consensus on here, eventually, was that one person in a family can meet up with one other from another household. This morning Raab said the same thing, and then went on to say that one child could meet up with both parents, as long as they kept 2 metres apart. Consistency? Who needs it? Clarity? Who needs it? Etc etc


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 11, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Anyone listening to Raab's clusterfuck interview on R4 now? He was as confused as anyone about the few specific examples given by the interviewer - e.g. what does someone who works in England but lives in Wales do?



The staggering lack of basic competence is the most striking feature.

There is logic for a gradual easing of the lockdown. There is a popular desire to see other people and to begin to return to some semblance of normal life at some point - including getting back to work.

However it’s on the question of returning to work where the Tories have spectacularly fucked up.

In respect of the longer term there was no vision whatsoever. In that sense the rush to end lockdown feels like a desperate attempt to increase the likelihood that the half living parts of old economic model can be stitched back together. A sort of frankenstein zombie economy staggering on somehow seems to be summit of ambition. There is a massive political space opening up for the sort of approach Louis MacNeice has suggested. The question of course is if Labour will take it.

In the short term the announcement was a disaster. Not only does the announcement clearly reveal the class dynamics at work during the pandemic - working class people should return to work, the middle class can stay at home and work from their laptops - but the fact that the PM and DPM now disagree about even the date on which working class people need to return to work is basic incompetence. The failure to build consensus with the TUC, the devolved nations and even it appears ‘business leaders’ is astonishing. A short delay, some cobbled together health and safety advice and a comms plan would probably have been enough to get most of the rest of the political class on board. Starmer hinted as much last night. The Government couldn’t even manage that. 

Most of the people I know want to get back to work. Mainly because they are worried that if they don’t soon they won’t have a job to return back to. In that sense the left demanding a ‘stay home’ line is irrelevant. But the least that people expect is a) some clarity, some instruction and some basic sense that the government knows what it’s doing and b) a proper approach to safety.

These are not massive demands. The fact the Johnson couldn’t even manage that is frankly staggering. We’ll see how this plays out but if/when the death toll begins to spike again in a fortnight there is a strong possibility of genuine anger at the administrative class bubbling up


----------



## Athos (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’ve read it. Do you honestly think there was a chance of squashing it (and keeping it squashed)? I’m not convinced. I think we were much more like Italy, France and Spain than NZ with our pre existing exposure and spread (before even February probably). And have comparable death rates despite slightly different responses. But I’m really no expert on this stuff.



Yes, we could've done much better.  We had advance warning of what was coming, but failed to heed it until too late.  The UK should've locked down harder and faster, then tested, traced and isolated much more vigorously (and not lifted lockdown too soon, as they seem to want to do, now).   And, even leaving aside the wider issue of the ideological basis of the economy, by: i) not having run down: a) the capacity of the NHS, and b) the manufacturing capacity of the UK; and,  ii) maintaining necessary stocks of PPE for a pandemic (which was inevitable sooner or later).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> I agree with respect to non-covid medical problems not being treated (pancreatitis not gall stones in SAU kinda thing), but let’s be honest, that’s easy to say in hindsight once we are confident we’re not going to have covid patients on CPAP in corridors or dying on trolleys with a non-rebreathe and scant else.
> 
> The dying at home and in care homes point is not straightforward. Hospital is not necessarily the right or preferred place to die. There’s a discussion to be had about whether more patients should have been hospitalised from the community, but having seen and worked alongside my Trusts covid admission algorithm it seems clinically right to me. There are good clinical and psychosocial reasons for and against admission, it isn’t right to think that the best decision is admission if possible.


My issue isn't so much with these clinical judgements. It's not even that they got it wrong with things like the Nightingale Hospitals or the ventilator panic - you're right about hindsight, when they were first building the hospitals, they didn't feel wrong then. My issue is with transmission in hospital and from hospitals to care homes. There have clearly been failures there. More worryingly, there appear still to be failures.


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## 2hats (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> It is however a bit disingenuous to say second highest number of deaths. There’s a lot of ways of counting, and a lot of ways of presenting those statistics, as you know. For example,Coronavirus deaths per million by country | Statista


Since the true death count is now at least in the 40k range and quite likely in the 50k range then, arguably we currently have the worst count globally when normalised by population (statistical anomalies such as San Marino, aside). Excess all-cause mortality, which eliminates any classification variation, confirms the UK, England in particular, as being far and away the worst in Europe.


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## andysays (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> Oh goodness for the record then yes of course I’d be prepared to take public transport. I’ve been working with dying covid patients wearing a fucking surgical mask and a dinner lady apron, of course I’d sit upstairs on the number 6  My point is that doesn’t make my opinion any more or less valid than yours.
> 
> Like I said to Orang Utan maybe it should be down to personal choice for a period. Note this hasn’t been an option for nhs workers or supermarket staff or delivery drivers or police etc.


This is rather different to your earlier dismissive response to at least one poster, but thanks for clarifying


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## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

Of course the transport thing isn't just about you catching it. It's also about you not giving it to others. I can pretty confidently say that I've not spent time close to anyone who works directly with C19 patients over the last seven weeks. For that reason, I can say that I probably don't have it with a lot more confidence than I could seven weeks ago. Would not be true if I were using public transport.


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## Edie (May 11, 2020)

2hats said:


> Since the true death count is now at least in the 40k range and quite likely in the 50k range then, arguably we currently have the worst count globally when normalised by population (statistical anomalies such as San Marino, aside). Excess all-cause mortality, which eliminates any classification variation, confirms the UK, England in particular, as being far and away the worst in Europe.


Those z scores don’t look good, I agree. The cause will be multi factorial, and clearly some of the factors contributing to the variation will have been modifiable by Government decisions.

And ftr I don’t doubt that the right-wing position on the economy-mortality sliding scale tilts towards the ‘herd-immunity and back at work’ end. I’m just not convinced the far left ‘absolutely everyone stay at home until there’s no covid or a vaccine’ stance is any more sensible.

The idea that anything whatsoever can be funded by scrapping trident or taxing billionaires is a comforting lie (and useful in an argument n all  ).


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## baldrick (May 11, 2020)

ONS have released their report into covid related deaths by occupation:

ONS

Only includes deaths up to 20th April, but some entirely predictable conclusions are drawn.


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## Athos (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> The idea that anything whatsoever can be funded by scrapping trident or taxing billionaires is a comforting lie..



Why?  If the political will was there these things would be achievable.


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## 2hats (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> Those z scores don’t look good, I agree. The cause will be multi factorial, and clearly some of the factors contributing to the variation will have been modifiable by Government decisions.


The signals of primary, secondary and tertiary COVID-19 related deaths are clear to see in the data.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> Those z scores don’t look good, I agree. The cause will be multi factorial, and clearly some of the factors contributing to the variation will have been modifiable by Government decisions.
> 
> And ftr I don’t doubt that the right-wing position on the economy-mortality sliding scale tilts towards the ‘herd-immunity and back at work’ end. I’m just not convinced the far left ‘absolutely everyone stay at home until there’s no covid or a vaccine’ stance is any more sensible.
> 
> The idea that anything whatsoever can be funded by scrapping trident or taxing billionaires is a comforting lie (and useful in an argument n all  ).


It's not a lie. It won't happen cos cunts. But it's not a lie. 

fwiw I don't think everyone stay home till there's no covid at all. But not forcing people back to work before you've got it under control (and the UK still doesn't really have it under control) is rather sensible, no? Some kind of planning, perhaps, for the return to work? 'Go to work but don't use public transport if possible, and best of British!' doesn't really constitute a plan.


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## frogwoman (May 11, 2020)

Are people actually saying that though? I think it's ok for stuff to open again provided it's safe but I'm not convinced that for many workplaces it will be, and the government help has been woefully inadequate so far so I don't blame people for going back.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Are people actually saying that though? I think it's ok for stuff to open again provided it's safe but I'm not convinced that for many workplaces it will be, and the government help has been woefully inadequate so far so I don't blame people for going back.


I don't blame people for going back to work at all. And in effect, my guess is that this won't actually change very much. But this is all about reducing the furlough money. And they've left people to work out how to cope with that for themselves.


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## Edie (May 11, 2020)

baldrick said:


> ONS have released their report into covid related deaths by occupation:
> 
> ONS
> 
> Only includes deaths up to 20th April, but some entirely predictable conclusions are drawn.


That’s interesting with respect to the PPE debate:

Healthcare workers, including those with jobs such as doctors and nurses, were not found to have higher rates of death involving COVID-19 when compared with the rate among those whose death involved COVID-19 of the same age and sex in the general population.
Maybe hospital PPE such as it is now really is sufficient, and the excess deaths among care workers in the community needs to be urgently addressed by giving them the same protection.

It’s also an argument for the safe use of public transport if adequate protection was available maybe?


----------



## Kaka Tim (May 11, 2020)

STAY ALERT!!
IF YOU SEE ANY COVID-19s  - REPORT THEM IMMEDIATELY TO THE AUTHORITIES!!


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## cupid_stunt (May 11, 2020)

Richard Burge, Chief Executive of the London Chamber of Commerce, on Sky News has said their members have been advised not to re-open, as there's not enough guidelines, and also what's the point in re-opening if there's no business to do.

That's embarrassing for the government.


----------



## Athos (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Are people actually saying that though? I think it's ok for stuff to open again provided it's safe but I'm not convinced that for many workplaces it will be, and the government help has been woefully inadequate so far so I don't blame people for going back.



Given they'll all inevitably contain pinch-points where people won't be able to keep 2m apart, and touch-points which are hotspots for transmission, I don't think any workplaces will be 'safe' whilst the virus is circulating; rather, some will be more or less risky.  That risk can be mitigated to some extent, but, ultimately it comes down to an appetite to accept that risk.  This government is willing to accept the risk to workers' lives, to protect the interests of those it truly represents i.e. the owners of capital.  The idea that we need to do this for 'the economy' is bullshit; we are the economy - all value had been created by workers.  If we can't generate more at present, then how about we user some if that which is stored in wealth?!


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> That’s interesting with respect to the PPE debate:
> 
> Healthcare workers, including those with jobs such as doctors and nurses, were not found to have higher rates of death involving COVID-19 when compared with the rate among those whose death involved COVID-19 of the same age and sex in the general population.
> Maybe hospital PPE such as it is now really is sufficient, and the excess deaths among care workers in the community needs to be urgently addressed by giving them the same protection.
> ...



Not all healthcare workers will be treating Covid patients.


----------



## kabbes (May 11, 2020)

My workplace has been somewhat clearer than Johnson in an email to us all this morning.



> For now, our working from home position remains unchanged and the offices remain closed until further notice.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

kabbes said:


> My workplace has been somewhat clearer than Johnson in an email to us all this morning.


That will be replicated across the country, no doubt. And the government is banking on that being the case. They want everybody else to lead.


----------



## Athos (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> That’s interesting with respect to the PPE debate:
> 
> Healthcare workers, including those with jobs such as doctors and nurses, were not found to have higher rates of death involving COVID-19 when compared with the rate among those whose death involved COVID-19 of the same age and sex in the general population.
> Maybe hospital PPE such as it is now really is sufficient, and the excess deaths among care workers in the community needs to be urgently addressed by giving them the same protection.
> ...



The fact that they're 'only' dying at the same rate as others the government has failed to protect is hardly something positive.


----------



## weltweit (May 11, 2020)

Athos said:


> Given they'll all inevitably contain pinch-points where people won't be able to keep 2m apart, and touch-points which are hotspots for transmission, I don't think any workplaces will be 'safe whilst the virus is circulating'; rather, some will be more or less risky.


A lot of manufacturers continued in the lockdown. Many doubled their shifts with the same workforce spread over the extra hours which halved the numbers at work at any one point in time. This allowed them to achieve social distancing.  



Athos said:


> That risk can be mitigated to some extent, but, ultimately it comes down to an appetite to accept that risk.  This government is willing to accept the risk to workers' lives, to protect the interests of those it truly represents i.e. the owners of capital.  The idea that we need to do this for 'the economy' is bullshit; we are the economy - all value had been created by workers.  If we can't generate more at present, then how about we user some if that which is stored in wealth?!


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Richard Burge, Chief Executive of the London Chamber of Commerce, on Sky News has said their members have been advised not to re-open, as there's not enough guidelines, and also what's the point in re-opening if there's no business to do.
> 
> That's embarrassing for the government.



All entirely predictable. Businesses, especially retailers, will be able to do the maths of vastly reduced footfall + risk of PR disaster + normal running costs = bad idea to reopen. Even if they can get their staff to show up.


----------



## Lord Camomile (May 11, 2020)

Guy I play football with is seemingly off to play cricket this morning. Am I being stupid or is that... really stupid?

He also took a photo of himself sitting at the wheel of his mate's car, with his mate in the passenger seat.

I just...


----------



## little_legs (May 11, 2020)




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## killer b (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’m just not convinced the far left ‘absolutely everyone stay at home until there’s no covid or a vaccine’ stance is any more sensible.


I don't think that is the far left stance tbh. I think if the infection rate was low enough for contact tracing etc to be effective (and a contact tracing system actually up and running), if there was sufficient PPE available, if if was possible to travel to and from work safely, there'd be a lot less opposition. As it is, reopening now, loosening restrictions now, makes the suspicion many people have had all along - that the government policy remains herd immunity, with the controls being used only to make sure the NHS isn't overwhelmed - look like it's true.


----------



## Athos (May 11, 2020)

weltweit said:


> A lot of manufacturers continued in the lockdown. Many doubled their shifts with the same workforce spread over the extra hours which halved the numbers at work at any one point in time. This allowed them to achieve social distancing.



I bet not everyone was 2m apart all the time, and I'm certain they were touching surfaces without cleaning in between e.g. door handles.


----------



## Edie (May 11, 2020)

Athos said:


> The fact that they're 'only' dying at the same rate as others the government has failed to protect is hardly something positive.


Maybe not for you


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

little_legs said:


>






Boris Johnson is going to become the legal precedent for the existence of a level of stupidity that constitutes a crime in itself.


----------



## xenon (May 11, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Guy I play football with is seemingly off to play cricket this morning. Am I being stupid or is that... really stupid?
> 
> He also took a photo of himself sitting at the wheel of his mate's car, with his mate in the passenger seat.
> 
> I just...



Yep. Stupid... Him, I mean.


----------



## clicker (May 11, 2020)

He appears to have watched an online tutorial in 'how to speech'...not one 'er', clenched fists, combed barnet and he even remembered (rather lately) to drop his tone level to insinuate personal concern.
However, subject wise it was embarrassing. It didn't need to happen yesterday and shouldn't have until it had some actual content. If clarity is on the agenda today, he should have held fire on the speech. It should have been live and it should have been followed by a Press q and a.


----------



## Athos (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> Maybe not for you



Not for anyone; a positive would be no avoidable deaths.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 11, 2020)

No briefing today apparently. He's doing a Q&A with the public instead (looks like straightforward questions directed to Number 10 today, so presumably just cherry picked ones, too). Not clear whether this will be the new thing.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



Wow. That's way busier than I would have imagined. 

That's where we have an information vacuum. How many people caught c19 pre-lockdown on busy public transport. How do we avoid that happening again? How many are catching it now? How dangerous are different kinds of transport - buses/trains/tube? Which mitigation methods are the most effective? These are the kinds of things we need to understand _before_ we return to this kind of picture.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> No briefing today apparently. He's doing a Q&A with the public instead (looks like straightforward questions directed to Number 10 today, so presumably just cherry picked ones, too). Not clear whether this will be the new thing.


Full-on democratic avoidance. That's the kind of thing a dictatorship does.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Full-on democratic avoidance. That's the kind of thing a dictatorship does.



Yeah, I'm just speechless - but not, iykwim. You keep thinking you can't get any angrier...


----------



## ddraig (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> <snip>
> The idea that anything whatsoever can be funded by scrapping trident or taxing billionaires is a comforting lie (and useful in an argument n all  ).


Why?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 11, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




Social distancing in action.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

Athos said:


> Not for anyone; a positive would be no avoidable deaths.


tbf I would have guessed that healthcare workers were at above average risk. If I were a healthcare worker, finding out that I was just average risk could be quite cheery news.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> And ftr I don’t doubt that the right-wing position on the economy-mortality sliding scale tilts towards the ‘herd-immunity and back at work’ end. I’m just not convinced the far left ‘absolutely everyone stay at home until there’s no covid or a vaccine’ stance is any more sensible.



I agree. The ‘stay at home’ line isn’t where most people are at. People are worried that if they can’t get back to their job soon that it won’t exist anymore. 

But, and leaving aside the question about the actual economy they’ll be going back to, the handling of it has been abysmal. 

How hard would It have been to announce a limited return to work for 1st June, and to have published a plan providing updated advice from HSE, DHSC, Department for Transport and to involved devolved areas and the metro mayors in drawing this up? 

I suspect the botched nature of the announcement reflects the spilts in the Cabinet and this explains the incoherence.


----------



## magneze (May 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Hadn't seen that, and it wasn't announced, that seems weird as it's a big change.


WTF, ok I take back my previous comment. The advice is now BOTH unclear AND impractical. FFS


----------



## killer b (May 11, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I suspect the botched nature of the announcement reflects the spilts in the Cabinet and this explains the incoherence.


The news yesterday was that the cabinet wasn't even consulted - the address was recorded, stuff sent to the printers etc ahead of the meeting to apparently decide the policy.


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## Cid (May 11, 2020)

Metro also talking about busy transport:







(and yeah, that image is tagged as this morning)


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

killer b said:


> The news yesterday was that the cabinet wasn't even consulted - the address was recorded, stuff sent to the printers etc ahead of the meeting to apparently decide the policy.


And Boris did his own powerpoint.


----------



## clicker (May 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And Boris did his own powerpoint.


I think he delegated that to one of his kids.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 11, 2020)

killer b said:


> The news yesterday was that the cabinet wasn't even consulted - the address was recorded, stuff sent to the printers etc ahead of the meeting to apparently decide the policy.



Yes, I saw that. It’s also clear that the media stories last week heralding the end of lockdown were briefed by the hawks in Cabinet who wanted to go much further than Johnson actually went yesterday.

The Tories will be getting heavy lobbying from capital who will be demanding a return to work to stave off defaults and mounting debt levels. Also, HMT could not be more clear that they want to choke off state support to business and individuals.

An attempt to restart the old economy is clearly being teed up, and the bifurcation between the advocates of that and the more far sighted representatives of capital will both intensify and become more visible


----------



## The39thStep (May 11, 2020)

Ideal time for Trade Unions and Labour to be putting adverts in newspapers, social media etc on the lines of protect people first, join a trade union offering discounted rates, real drive on heath and safety etc. , offering a 24 hour hot line and text  for advice/reassurance for those returning to work.


----------



## clicker (May 11, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Ideal time for Trade Unions and Labour to be putting adverts in newspapers, social media etc on the lines of protect people first, join a trade union offering discounted rates, real drive on heath and safety etc. , offering a 24 hour hot line and text  for advice/reassurance for those returning to work.


Totally this.


----------



## killer b (May 11, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Ideal time for Trade Unions and Labour to be putting adverts in newspapers, social media etc on the lines of protect people first, join a trade union offering discounted rates, real drive on heath and safety etc. , offering a 24 hour hot line and text  for advice/reassurance for those returning to work.


about this.


----------



## andysays (May 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Social distancing in action.


But Boris said it would be safe


----------



## cyril_smear (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> Metro also talking about busy transport:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


thats from today?


----------



## Cid (May 11, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> thats from today?



It's reported as from today, and the image is tagged as from today, yeah.


----------



## andysays (May 11, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> thats from today?


So it says. I'd be interested in seeing photo from same time last week as a comparison, as I suspect public transport has been getting gradually busier over past couple of weeks. 

And the idea that they can enforce social distancing measures on the Underground is clearly nonsense


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

killer b said:


> about this.




As much use as a fart in hurricance.


----------



## belboid (May 11, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Ideal time for Trade Unions and Labour to be putting adverts in newspapers, social media etc on the lines of protect people first, join a trade union offering discounted rates, real drive on heath and safety etc. , offering a 24 hour hot line and text  for advice/reassurance for those returning to work.


McCluskey has at least started saying that people should check with their H&S rep about whether it is safe to return, and invoking S44 (ERA) 1996 as the right to refuse unsafe work.


----------



## planetgeli (May 11, 2020)

Edie said:


> That’s interesting with respect to the PPE debate:
> 
> Healthcare workers, including those with jobs such as doctors and nurses, were not found to have higher rates of death involving COVID-19 when compared with the rate among those whose death involved COVID-19 of the same age and sex in the general population.
> Maybe hospital PPE such as it is now really is sufficient, and the excess deaths among care workers in the community needs to be urgently addressed by giving them the same protection.
> ...





littlebabyjesus said:


> tbf I would have guessed that healthcare workers were at above average risk. If I were a healthcare worker, finding out that I was just average risk could be quite cheery news.



Yeah, well it comes with a caveat that is being ignored here beyond the headline summary.

Notably,



> Some healthcare workers may have reduced exposure to COVID-19 during lockdown, for instance, because of people not having dental or optician appointments. It is also possible that some deaths among healthcare workers will be investigated by coroners, delaying the registration of these deaths. As more deaths are registered, it will be important to repeat these analyses to see if there are any changes in the rates of death involving COVID-19 among healthcare workers.



So I wouldn't go taking too many conclusions from a sample that analyses less than 10% of the recorded statistics and perhaps less than 5% of the actual deaths quite yet.


----------



## mauvais (May 11, 2020)

Yeah, we did this before. Without understanding the distribution of healthcare workers and therefore the distribution of potential exposure, generalised stats on them is really not useful.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 11, 2020)

andysays said:


> So it says. I'd be interested in seeing photo from same time last week as a comparison, as I suspect public transport has been getting gradually busier over past couple of weeks.
> 
> And the idea that they can enforce social distancing measures on the Underground is clearly nonsense



For fuck sake. It's not gonna work is it?


----------



## andysays (May 11, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> For fuck sake. It's not gonna work is it?


You seem surprised


----------



## editor (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> Metro also talking about busy transport:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There is no fucking way I would get on that tube) - although for many workers they have no choice. It's fucking criminal.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 11, 2020)

andysays said:


> You seem surprised



I don't know what to think frankly.


----------



## clicker (May 11, 2020)

Boris lacked vision before his bubble became blood stained. Now he's just spittle in the wind.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 11, 2020)

The New ONS report (published before the return to work announcement kicks in) makes sobering reasons and indicates, if there was any doubt, that social class remains a/the key risk factor with working class men 4 times more likely to die from the virus compared to middle class professionals






						Coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by occupation, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional analysis of deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19), by different occupational groups, among males and females aged 20 to 64 years in England and Wales.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 11, 2020)

cyril_smear said:


> I don't know what to think frankly.



Congratulations, we are pleased to offer you the job of Prime Minister.


----------



## bimble (May 11, 2020)

Went through a nearby small town this morning for first time since lockdown, noticed several shops not jut shut but totally empty, just took all their things and vacated. Made me realise that all the rent they won’t be paying to the commercial landlords is probably a big factor here too, the more businesses just give up the whole commercial rent thing collapses. Looked really sad, the sudden gaps in the high street.


----------



## little_legs (May 11, 2020)




----------



## killer b (May 11, 2020)

bimble said:


> Went through a nearby small town this morning for first time since lockdown, noticed several shops not jut shut but totally empty, just took all their things and vacant. Made me realise that all the rent they won’t be paying to the commercial landlords is probably a big factor here too, the more businesses just give up the whole commercial rent thing collapses. Looked really sad, the sudden gaps in the high street.


this doesn't necessarily mean they've shut up shop entirely - they might have just removed the stock so there's no security issues.


----------



## bimble (May 11, 2020)

killer b said:


> this doesn't necessarily mean they've shut up shop entirely - they might have just removed the stock so there's no security issues.


True. Time will tell. Is it true  they’re expected to pay full rent  whilst doing zero business for months? If so it’s got to be impossible for many.


----------



## planetgeli (May 11, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




I don't think that's his actual account.

It doesn't say (Sur)real UK Prime Minister.


----------



## little_legs (May 11, 2020)

Meanwhile in Scotland:


----------



## Petcha (May 11, 2020)

Bit of a rant. But a valid one.No idea who that guy is mind you. I think they've stopped putting Cabinet members up for the morning Morgan slaughter and sending in nobodies

.

For some reason that's not displaying on here but easily found on Twitter.


----------



## little_legs (May 11, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I don't think that's his actual account.
> 
> It doesn't say (Sur)real UK Prime Minister.


It would actually be useful and amazing if someone could hack his twitter account.


----------



## maomao (May 11, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Bit of a rant. But a valid one.No idea who that guy is mind you. I think they've stopped putting Cabinet members up for the morning Morgan slaughter and sending in nobodies
> 
> .
> 
> For some reason that's not displaying on here but easily found on Twitter.




I hadn't actually believed what I'd heard about the prick Morgan being quite good recently but that was really very good. I'm going to temporarily move him off my 'must die' list.


----------



## Petcha (May 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> I hadn't actually believed what I'd heard about the prick Morgan being quite good recently but that was really very good. I'm going to temporarily move him off my 'must die' list.



It's actually fairly bizarre that he's emerged as the Tories' worst nightmare..  the questions at the press conferences are pathetically soft. Raab did every show except Morgan this morning and instead sent that guy.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (May 11, 2020)

Are post offices currently taking parcels? The websites for my local ones seem to have the service blanked out. There is the print your own label option, but I don't have a printer.


----------



## clicker (May 11, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Are post offices currently taking parcels? The websites for my local ones seem to have the service blanked out. There is the print your own label option, but I don't have a printer.


I posted a couple last week with no problem. The P.O. weighed them and stamped them. They have both been delivered.


----------



## little_legs (May 11, 2020)




----------



## Ms Ordinary (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> Metro also talking about busy transport:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wait, wasnt *anything *at all said yesterday about social distancing on public transport?
Like sitting on alternate seats, maximum number of people per carriage? 

We can manage it in supermarkets so why not on the tube?

All the buses I've seen lately (including 'rush hour'*) have been at least half empty with people not sitting near each other.  

* The busiest ones lately seem to be at 5.30 or 6am ish, so am guessing cleaners, carers, nhs


----------



## MickiQ (May 11, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Are post offices currently taking parcels? The websites for my local ones seem to have the service blanked out. There is the print your own label option, but I don't have a printer.


I posted some documents on Saturday, there was a sign on the door saying only 2 customers at a time (though I was the only one) and marks on the pavement outside 2 metres apart.
The woman behind the counter had a mask and gloves on, I paid with GooglePay being careful to touch nothing other than what I had brought.
All in all a rather surreal experience.


----------



## Cid (May 11, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> Wait, wasnt *anything *at all said yesterday about social distancing on public transport?
> Like sitting on alternate seats, maximum number of people per carriage?
> 
> We can manage it in supermarkets so why not on the tube?
> ...



I mean... how would you? You'd need conductors coordinating how many people can get onto a train at once.


----------



## editor (May 11, 2020)

The guy is a fucking dangerous moron. 



> The Foreign Secretary started off by telling Sky News that scientists are now ‘looking at’ whether there can be ‘some limited contact’ between two households within the same family. He expressed his own disappointment about being unable to see his mum on her birthday at the weekend. He said: ‘We’ve asked [scientists] to give us some advice on what that would do to the transmission rate. Until we’ve got the advice back, we’re not in a position to say yes you can positively do that, but it is something we want to look at.’
> 
> However, within the same hour, Raab then went on to tell BBC Breakfast that people could meet with both parents separately, so long as they complied to social distancing measures and kept two metres apart.
> 
> When asked if people can meet their ‘mum in the morning and dad in the afternoon’, he replied: ‘Outside, in the outdoors, staying two metres apart, yes.’ He then went on to explain that households are still not able to mix ‘inside the home’, but confirmed Sage experts are attempting to work out a date ‘in the future’. But just minutes after the interview, Raab changed his guidance for a third time and told BBC Radio 4 that the public could meet both parents at the same time in the park, so long as they kept two metres apart.











						Chaos and confusion as Dominic Raab changes lockdown advice three times in hour
					

The Foreign Secretary shared conflicting guidance about meeting people outside of your household.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## gosub (May 11, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> Wait, wasnt *anything *at all said yesterday about social distancing on public transport?
> Like sitting on alternate seats, maximum number of people per carriage?
> 
> We can manage it in supermarkets so why not on the tube?
> ...



Public transport will only accommodate 10% capacity they said.



Face masks need mandating.


----------



## spitfire (May 11, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Are post offices currently taking parcels? The websites for my local ones seem to have the service blanked out. There is the print your own label option, but I don't have a printer.



I've been dropping of dozens of parcel in the last few weeks at the parcel post boxes.





__





						Parcel postboxes
					

Sending your parcels is now easier with new Parcel Postboxes from Royal Mail. See a list of where they are here.




					www.royalmail.com
				




Although you do need a printer for it.

My local post office is still open, I sent a Signed For last week, you'll have to check yours as some have closed.

First class is going well, few delays but nothing serious.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 11, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> Wait, wasnt *anything *at all said yesterday about social distancing on public transport?
> Like sitting on alternate seats, maximum number of people per carriage?
> 
> We can manage it in supermarkets so why not on the tube?
> ...



The transport secretary, at the daily briefing on Saturday, made it very clear that social distancing on public transport would be enforced, reducing capacity to just 10% of the normal, so get on your bike. 

Going well, isn't it?


----------



## little_legs (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> I mea... how would you? You'd need conductors coordinating how many people can get onto a train at once.


Damn those plebs, instead of riding their ministerial cars to work they insist on riding the tube.


----------



## Cid (May 11, 2020)

gosub said:


> Public transport will only accommodate 10% capacity they said.
> 
> 
> 
> Face masks need mandating.



Face masks should be worn, but it's dangerous to consider them as anything other than a precaution on top of other measures. Those scientists that are recommending then generally frame it as 'we don't have a great deal of evidence, but there's some, and it's worth doing _if you do everything else_'. They don't allow you to take extra liberties with other measures. Has to be controlled 10% _and_ facemasks.


----------



## frogwoman (May 11, 2020)

Surely they should put on more buses, trains etc rather than less to allow people to keep social distancing and keep transport below capacity. If they have a restricted service everyone will be rushing on and that will increase transmission of the virus.


----------



## gosub (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> Face masks should be worn, but it's dangerous to consider them as anything other than a precaution on top of other measures. Those scientists that are recommending then generally frame it as 'we don't have a great deal of evidence, but there's some, and it's worth doing _if you do everything else_'. They don't allow you to take extra liberties with other measures. Has to be controlled 10% _and_ facemasks.



If they'd told everyone without a facemask to fuck off home at the ticket barrier, would have got a lot closer to the 10%


----------



## Cid (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Surely they should put on more buses, trains etc rather than less to allow people to keep social distancing and keep transport below capacity. If they have a restricted service everyone will be rushing on and that will increase transmission of the virus.



I think I'd assumed that 10% was the goal for 'number of passengers on a specific thing'. If they're also running a reduced number of things, that does seem quite daft.


----------



## frogwoman (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> I think I'd assumed that 10% was the goal for 'number of passengers on a specific thing'. If they're also running a reduced number of things, that does seem quite daft.



That's also what went wrong in Milan, they announced restricted times for public transport so everyone rushed on and that meant covid got spread around even more.


----------



## magneze (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Surely they should put on more buses, trains etc rather than less to allow people to keep social distancing and keep transport below capacity. If they have a restricted service everyone will be rushing on and that will increase transmission of the virus.


Sure, but who is going to run them and how do they get to work.


----------



## frogwoman (May 11, 2020)

magneze said:


> Sure, but who is going to run them and how do they get to work.



Yeah I know  fucking shite all around.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Surely they should put on more buses, trains etc rather than less to allow people to keep social distancing and keep transport below capacity. If they have a restricted service everyone will be rushing on and that will increase transmission of the virus.


That would be too sensible


----------



## Ms Ordinary (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> I mean... how would you? You'd need conductors coordinating how many people can get onto a train at once.



Yes and that would be possible - it was done (more or less) in 2012 for the Olympics with an army of volunteers.  It was a huge thing to co-ordinate, but it was done.

If they cared about people, they could have done it now - they could even have used actual Army. (Not sure how I'd feel if they had, mind).


----------



## Cid (May 11, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> Yes and that would be possible - it was done (more or less) in 2012 for the Olympics with an army of volunteers.  It was a huge thing to co-ordinate, but it was done.
> 
> If they cared about people, they could have done it now - they could even have used actual Army. (Not sure how I'd feel if they had, mind).



True, though without keeping restrictions on people actually using the systems in total, you're always going to run into problems. Total mess really.


----------



## NoXion (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That's also what went wrong in Milan, they announced restricted times for public transport so everyone rushed on and that meant covid got spread around even more.



Fucking hell. Are they actually _trying_ to kill people?!


----------



## frogwoman (May 11, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Fucking hell. Are they actually _trying_ to kill people?!



I think it was 'just' a fuckup tbh.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 11, 2020)

Is omnishambles in the OED yet? Cos it definitely should be this year


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 11, 2020)

I don't see how you can coordinate the 10% thing without controls on who turns up and when (which they're not going to get). Once you've got a crowd at the station of people looking to get to work you're fucked. You can limit the number of people getting on but that crowd is still somewhere and they're not able to social distance. There's no point limiting the actual travellers if you've got a massive crowd on the platform/behind the barriers/in front of the station gates.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

I've been mostly waiting for more detail before commenting, and it sounds like the 50 page document is out. I dont have time to look yet, but from what the BBC have said it sounds like the face covering advice is indeed in there.


----------



## Sue (May 11, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I don't see how you can coordinate the 10% thing without controls on who turns up and when (which they're not going to get). Once you've got a crowd at the station of people looking to get to work you're fucked. You can limit the number of people getting on but that crowd is still somewhere and they're not able to social distance. There's no point limiting the actual travellers if you've got a massive crowd on the platform/behind the barriers/in front of the station gates.


And good luck with people changing from one tube line to another.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Oh apparently its 60 pages.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/884171/FINAL_6.6637_CO_HMG_C19_Recovery_FINAL_110520_v2_WEB__1_.pdf


----------



## jakethesnake (May 11, 2020)

This short piece is spot on I think


----------



## LDC (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh apparently its 60 pages.
> 
> 
> 
> https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/884171/FINAL_6.6637_CO_HMG_C19_Recovery_FINAL_110520_v2_WEB__1_.pdf



Some light reading. Bang goes my afternoon.


----------



## clicker (May 11, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I don't see how you can coordinate the 10% thing without controls on who turns up and when (which they're not going to get). Once you've got a crowd at the station of people looking to get to work you're fucked. You can limit the number of people getting on but that crowd is still somewhere and they're not able to social distance. There's no point limiting the actual travellers if you've got a massive crowd on the platform/behind the barriers/in front of the station gates.


The 60 page doc specifies now that social distancing won't be possible on public transport. So you make a mask out of an old t shirt and launch yourself down the Northern Line. What could possibly go wrong?


----------



## belboid (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> I've been mostly waiting for more detail before commenting, and it sounds like the 50 page document is out. I dont have time to look yet, but from what the BBC have said it sounds like the face covering advice is indeed in there.


yup, face covering, not masks, which are for proper people only!

"the Government is now advising that people should *aim *to wear a face-covering in enclosed spaces where social distancing is not always possible and they come into contact with others that they do not normally meet, for example on public transport or in *some *shops."

Clear as shit then


----------



## prunus (May 11, 2020)

It occurs to me that the messaging behind 'stay alert' (eg Stay alert by staying at home as much as possible,, by limiting contact with other people, etc etc (as per No.10 twitter))  pretty much makes sense in the context of a follow on message from the single 'stay home' if you reframe it as 'don't drop your guard'.  'Stay alert' and 'don't drop your guard' are similar in meaning - I wonder if what we're seeing is the result of a marketing-speak brainstorm on the message 'don't drop your guard' warping it to 'stay alert' (with its continuity of the 'stay...' message - possibly via 'stay on your guard'), without proper consideration that it in fact breaks the sense when linked with eg stay at home as much as possible.  If the committee (and I'm sure it was) responsible for this decided that 'stay alert' == 'don't drop your guard' (which it does in some semantic settings) they might not have noticed that the identity doesn't carry through to all settings - this can happen all too easily in 'brainstorming' sessions - things get 'set' early on that drive the direction of thinking and don't get properly examined in the light of the eventual results.

Just an idea.  Try it though - put 'don't drop your guard' in place of 'stay alert' in all the official communiques, I think it works.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

I'm just giving it an initial partial skim at the moment.



> Those in the clinically extremely vulnerable cohort will continue to be advised to shield themselves for some time yet, and the Government recognises the difficulties this brings for those affected. Over the coming weeks, the Government will continue to introduce more support and assistance for these individuals so that they have the help they need as they stay shielded. And the Government will bring in further measures to support those providing the shield - for example, continuing to prioritise care workers for testing and protective equipment.



Thats from page 22.


----------



## Sprocket. (May 11, 2020)

So pleased I am being shielded by these geniuses.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

> SAGE advise that the risk of infection outside is significantly lower than inside, so the Government is updating the rules so that, as well as exercise, people can now also spend time outdoors subject to: not meeting up with any more than one person from outside your household; continued compliance with social distancing guidelines to remain two metres (6ft) away from people outside your household; good hand hygiene, particularly with respect to shared surfaces; and those responsible for public places being able to put appropriate measures in place to follow the new COVID-19 Secure guidance.





> People may drive to outdoor open spaces irrespective of distance, so long as they respect social distancing guidance while they are there, because this does not involve contact with people outside your household.
> 
> When travelling to outdoor spaces, it is important that people respect the rules in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and do not travel to different parts of the UK where it would be inconsistent with guidance or regulations issued by the relevant devolved administration.



From page 27.


----------



## planetgeli (May 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Is omnishambles in the OED yet? Cos it definitely should be this year



I think with the move from 'stay home' to 'stay alert' it could be argued we are moving into the world of metashambles.


----------



## maomao (May 11, 2020)

There's an ice cream van in my street


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

> Second, the Government will require all international arrivals not on a short list of exemptions to self-isolate in their accommodation for fourteen days on arrival into the UK. Where international travellers are unable to demonstrate where they would self-isolate, they will be required to do so in accommodation arranged by the Government. The Government is working closely with the devolved administrations to coordinate implementation across the UK.





> These international travel measures will not come into force on 13 May but will be introduced as soon as possible. Further details, and guidance, will be set out shortly, and the measures and list of exemptions will be kept under regular review.



From page 29. I will stop with the mini quoting frenzy for now, might do a little bit more later.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> There's an ice cream van in my street



I started to hear the local one round here (midlands town) last week. Including during the 8pm Thursday clap.


----------



## Cid (May 11, 2020)

elbows have you seen any updates on community/serology tests? I mean from the POV of establishing spread through the population.


----------



## platinumsage (May 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> There's an ice cream van in my street



Neither food delivery nor food takeway businesses have ever been asked to close.


----------



## maomao (May 11, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Neither food delivery nor food takeway businesses have ever been asked to close.


It hasn't been in at least two months. Not even when it was 23 degrees. Now there's half a dozen people queueing on the coldest day of the month so far.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> elbows have you seen any updates on community/serology tests? I mean from the POV of establishing spread through the population.



I haven't found anything and I have been keeping an eye out. Last I heard they were moving to the community testing phase having got their testing protocol sorted, but that requires a cohort of randomly selected test subjects (16-20,000 was the number they were giving) and that those test subjects be tested at intervals over an extended period of time. Then everything needs to be analysed properly. It's not a quick process.

I'd actually rather get some solid information a month from now than some hints of this that or the other tomorrow. Particularly if policy is going to hinge on these results, which it absolutely should.


----------



## editor (May 11, 2020)

Nice'n'cosy does it















						Healthcare firm advised by Owen Paterson won £133m coronavirus testing contract unopposed
					

Randox Laboratories hired as part of Matt Hancock’s promise to carry out 100,000 tests a day




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## kebabking (May 11, 2020)

The new plan/guidance says that junior schools will (hopefully) start to go back from 1st June, for Y6, Y1 and reception, with phased introduction of the other years after that - however it states that this is down to headteachers discretion based on staffing and facilities available. Chris Mason, BBC news political correspondent, says that he's been told that if parents of those kids are uncomfortable with kids going back before September they will not be fined for non-attendance.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> From page 27.



Coppers throughout the land will be pissed off that they can no longer spend all day 'guarding' the nation's beauty spots and still get paid.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> elbows have you seen any updates on community/serology tests? I mean from the POV of establishing spread through the population.



I skipped quite a lot of daily press conferences in the last few weeks, and thats where occasional references to this sort of thing were sometimes made.

I'm pretty sure they started a version or two of this stuff some weeks ago now. Mostly of the 'survey' type, and also cohort studies. So not really intended to give individuals their results, but to monitor the situation in different places and circumstances over time. I dont know what format, if any, they will choose to share that data with the public in. The fact that in weeks gone by the likes of Vallance have sometimes given very vague estimates of the proportion of the public already infected so far (single digits or low teens) suggests they've had data on this front for some time, and whats likely changed in more recent weeks is a greater quality and quantity of such data. If any of it is public, I havent found it yet, but I havent really been looking as I found it increasingly hard to keep up with everything and needed a bit of a break. And some of the survey stuff they started doing recently is to have more timely ways to estimate R, but I presume these will also include the swab tests for current infections, as serology would be too laggy to help with estimates of R very recently.

Large serology study test results have really been the big, cruel tease for me during this pandemic, since at different points people from orgs like the WHO and from the UK government (eg John Newton and others going on about Porton Down) made it sound like I would get to see some numbers within weeks. But all I've mostly heard since is more 'soon' or silence or vague stuff. Still, as time has gone on some of the gaps globally have slowly started to be filled, there have been studies from specific locations in various countries, mostly tending to point in the same direction, with results mostly on the low end of things and nowhere even vaguely close to the high levels that some shits wanted to see to justify their anti-lockdown, pro herd-immunity stances. But I need to be careful that this picture so far does not set in my mind as some kind of absolute truth, I'm always eager for data that may change the understanding of reality.

Perhaps 2hats could say something more about this?


----------



## baldrick (May 11, 2020)

kebabking said:


> The new plan/guidance says that junior schools will (hopefully) start to go back from 1st June, for Y6, Y1 and reception, with phased introduction of the other years after that - however it states that this is down to headteachers discretion based on staffing and facilities available. Chris Mason, BBC news political correspondent, says that he's been told that if parents of those kids are uncomfortable with kids going back before September they will not be fined for non-attendance.


I expect a lot of parents will not send their kids in to school if they can possibly avoid it tbh. I don't see what has changed in terms of reduced danger since schools have closed. The govt say it's ok - why? The only reason is childcare for people who can't work from home. Social distancing is IMPOSSIBLE in primary school.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 11, 2020)

Fines are being increased from £60 to £100, doubling with every ticket to a maximum of £3200.


----------



## little_legs (May 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Coppers throughout the land will be pissed off that they can no longer spend all day 'guarding' the nation's beauty spots and still get paid.


Just gonna stay alert for our new robot dog overlords here.


----------



## Spandex (May 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Coppers throughout the land will be pissed off that they can no longer spend all day 'guarding' the nation's beauty spots and still get paid.


I saw a great bit of policing while out on my walk yesterday. A bloke was sat on a bench really obviously smoking a big, smelly skunk spliff. A police officer is walking along and sees him. She walks r e a l l y slowly round in front of him to give him a chance to notice her. He doesn't. She carrys on walking towards him even slower. You could see on her face she didn't want to deal with him and just wanted him to notice her. He still didn't. She slowed to a comically slow walk towards him. Finally he looks up, nearly jumps out of his skin, stubs his spliff out, nods and waves at her and goes on his way


----------



## Cid (May 11, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Just gonna stay alert for our new robot dog overlords here.






			
				Faranheit 451 said:
			
		

> The mechanical Hound slept but did not sleep, lived but did not live in its gently humming, gently vibrating, softly illuminated kennel back in a dark corner of the fire house. The dim light of one in the morning, the moonlight from the open sky framed through the great window, touched here and there on the brass and copper and the steel of the faintly trembling beast. Light flickered on bits of ruby glass and on sensitive capillary hairs in the nylon-brushed nostrils of the creature that quivered gently, its eight legs spidered under it on rubber padded paws.
> Nights when things got dull, which was every night, the men slid down the brass poles, and set the ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound and let loose rats in the fire house areaway. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentle paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fines are being increased from £60 to £100, doubling with every ticket to a maximum of £3200.



He's now just said, doubling to a maximum of £3600.   

So, we can add maths to the list of things he doesn't understand.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (May 11, 2020)

OK there is a plan for TFL - and it has marshals, one-way systems, disinfection, sanitizer points, queue markings, etc all being rolled out over the next few weeks, some of it already started.

All good, just sounds like they were caught out by yesterday's 'back to work tomorrow folks!' messaging 

They were shamefully slow with providing basic safety for bus drivers, but it looks they'd have been just about ready for around the time when easing of lockdown would have been sensible


----------



## planetgeli (May 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fines are being increased from £60 to £100, doubling with every ticket to a maximum of £3200.



Or £3,600 if you're following this on the BBC site, who seem to have 'Patelled' the number.



> This will double with each repeat offence, he adds, up to a maximum of £3,600.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> So pleased I am being shielded by these geniuses.



Yes I can only imagine how amazingly reassuring it is to observe the quality and capabilities of this administration to rise to these challenges.

Even the bit I quoted is full of it. Talking about 'further measures' but then giving an example which is simply continuing to do something they claim they've already been prioritising. Thats not new then is it? Except it is because the claim they've already been prioritising it is bullshit.

I'm referring to:



> And the Government will bring in further measures to support those providing the shield - for example, continuing to prioritise care workers for testing and protective equipment.


----------



## 2hats (May 11, 2020)

A daily figure for R is an estimate derived from modelling. Those models are fed with various proxies (eg measures of mobility from phone companies and the dominant phone handset ecosystem vendors, surveys, analysis of sewage, results from, mainly, antigen testing). There is no direct measurement of current R on a given day.

The widespread serological antibody testing is currently still in a preparatory phase. As best as I know, there have only been small studies in the UK thus far.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (May 11, 2020)

spitfire said:


> I've been dropping of dozens of parcel in the last few weeks at the parcel post boxes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Gah, it seems I have one very close to my house. Why don't I have a bloody printer!!!!!


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> SAGE advise that the risk of infection outside is significantly lower than inside, so the Government is updating the rules so that, as well as exercise, people can now also spend time outdoors subject to: not meeting up with any more than one person from outside your household; continued compliance with social distancing guidelines to remain two metres (6ft) away from people outside your household; good hand hygiene, particularly with respect to shared surfaces; and those responsible for public places being able to put appropriate measures in place to follow the new COVID-19 Secure guidance.



Unless there's actually more detail than this it doesn't clear it up much - as someone asked yesterday does that mean one household can meet a single person from another - but if so, isn't the individual from the other household is breaking the rule then?

Either way, won't we then just have whole households 'individually' meeting up with other whole households individually - for eg, myself and my daughter could meet two friends from a different household separately but in actual fact meeting at exactly the same time and place - and that'd potentially be legitimate, cos there is nothing to say my daughter and I have to go out together etc. I mean that's an endless loophole, isn't it? It could incorporate many people from multiple different households meeting in the same place with a tiny bit of working out, too (SD party in the park!). 

Maybe that's the point. 

In which case they just as well say fuck it, meet whoever the fuck you like, just stay two metres apart.


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

If it turns up in the water supply? Wtf is this clown on about???


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Unless there's actually more detail than this it doesn't clear it up much - as someone asked yesterday does that mean one household can meet a single person from another - but if so, isn't the individual from the other household is breaking the rule then?
> 
> Either way, won't we then just have whole households 'individually' meeting up with other whole households individually - for eg, myself and my daughter could meet two friends from a different household separately but in actual fact meeting at exactly the same time and place - and that'd potentially be legitimate, cos there is nothing to say my daughter and I have to go out together etc. I mean that's an endless loophole, isn't it? It could incorporate many people from multiple different households meeting in the same place with a tiny bit of working out, too (SD party in the park!).
> 
> ...


It's very, very sillly and totally unenforceable. Would be better, at the appropriate time, which is probably in a couple of weeks' time, to say 'no public gatherings of more than x people'. Something nice and low so the coppers can count them without having to take their shoes off. Say, six.


----------



## LDC (May 11, 2020)

Vaguely interesting political nerd point I noticed when reading this article...









						Top experts not asked to approve 'stay alert' coronavirus message
					

Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance had no role in signing off advice, Guardian has learned




					www.theguardian.com
				




"Speaking in a professional capacity, *Prof John Drury, *a social psychologist at the University of Sussex and a member of the scientific pandemic influenza group on behaviours (SPI-B), which feeds into Sage on issues including the best ways to communicate government strategy with the public, said the group had “considerable expertise” on health behaviour and emergency communications which had hardly been called on by the government. “Who is advising on the current messaging? Unfortunately it’s not us,” he said."

John Drury, almost certainly the same one as involved in _Aufheben _butchersapron and others.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 11, 2020)

I'm not sure whether this particular link's been put up yet, I don't think I've seen it in the pages above.
Apologies if I'm repeating though.

For what it's worth , this is the summary** of the more detailed and England-specific stuff on the gov.uk pages :




			
				gov.uk said:
			
		

> *Guidance*   :* Staying alert and safe (social distancing)  *
> Published Monday 11 May 2020



**summary, as opposed to the 67 page extended version that elbows was quoting from.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> *If it turns up in the water supply?* Wtf is this clown on about???



Please explain where this is coming from??


----------



## philosophical (May 11, 2020)

The cunt is going on about common sense, like the other cunt who went on about common sense over Grenfell.


----------



## planetgeli (May 11, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Please explain where this is coming from??



*Johnson* says, if Covid is detected in the water supply of a town (presumably he means in the sewage), new restrictions could be imposed locally.


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Please explain??


An MP asked whether the 'plan' was flexible enough to reintroduce the full lockdown (that hasn't been lifted) in 'hotspots' of covid-19 that might spring up. Bojo The Clown said yes, absolutely, they'll be able to re-introduce restrictions in places "where it turns up in the water supply, or ... whatever".

Wtf is he trying to do? (Yes, I know this is a stupid question.)

The utter contempt in which he holds our lives.


----------



## tim (May 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> There's an ice cream van in my street



There's been one foreverblowingbubbling down my street at some point in the afternoon for at least the past week.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 11, 2020)

planetgeli Mation : Thanks for that information -- sounds bonkers  
This is surely the first we've heard of the chance of anything turning up in the water?
I've missed something big if this has come up before ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 11, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> *Johnson* says, if Covid is detected in the water supply of a town* (presumably he means in the sewage)*, new restrictions could be imposed locally.



Perhaps we should all go and have a dump outside the Downing Street gates, and let him deal with our shit, instead of us having to deal with his.


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> *Johnson* says, if Covid is detected in the water supply of a town (presumably he means in the sewage), new restrictions could be imposed locally.


Presumably. But that's an _appalling _error_. _


----------



## pesh (May 11, 2020)

just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

I didn't see johnson's address and am a bit behind on this thread, so no doubt just repeating what others have said. Anyway... hearing the various things announced seems like a perfect psychological strategy to end the lockdown. All the bits of uncertainty, along with the weakening around seeing family members, driving, exercise and going to work (especially) come close to being a death by a 1000 cuts. Bound to be more people out, more people on public transport... a country with many bits of 'normal life' reviving, while millions of elderly, poor and disabled remain stranded and anxious.  Some are saying the messaging is awful (it clearly is) but it feels part of an actual strategy, where the government seek to get rid of the thing they never wanted in the first place.  I suspect there's some cognitive dissonance as well. Not even our government actually want the disease to flare up further, as it clearly will. But not surprisingly, their neoliberalism has come to the fore. I don't ignore how much this is costing the treasury (and who will pay for that), but these announcements are a clear example of the limits on health and life under capital.

Edit: the above is just a rant, but the key and obvious point is: *DON'T EVEN FUCKING THINK ABOUT LOOSENING THE LOCKDOWN TILL YOU'VE SORTED TESTING, CONTACT TRACING AND PPE!   *


----------



## planetgeli (May 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> Presumably. But that's an _appalling _error_. _



Add it to the list.


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Add it to the list.


Most of the things on that list are not errors. They're policy.


----------



## planetgeli (May 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> Most of the things on that list are not errors. They're policy.



Frightening isn't it?


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Frightening isn't it?


Yes. Terrifying.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> An MP asked whether the 'plan' was flexible enough to reintroduce the full lockdown (that hasn't been lifted) in 'hotspots' of covid-19 that might spring up. Bojo The Clown said yes, absolutely, they'll be able to re-introduce restrictions in places "where it turns up in the water supply, or ... whatever".
> 
> Wtf is he trying to do? (Yes, I know this is a stupid question.)
> 
> The utter contempt in which he holds our lives.









Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water? Invisible commie muggers are trying to impurify our precious bodily fluids.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> An MP asked whether the 'plan' was flexible enough to reintroduce the full lockdown (that hasn't been lifted) in 'hotspots' of covid-19 that might spring up. Bojo The Clown said yes, absolutely, they'll be able to re-introduce restrictions in places "where it turns up in the water supply, or ... whatever".
> 
> Wtf is he trying to do? (Yes, I know this is a stupid question.)
> 
> The utter contempt in which he holds our lives.


'the plan' is infinitely flexible, being as it doesn't exist


----------



## miss direct (May 11, 2020)

Are there any more details about the quarantine?


----------



## planetgeli (May 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Are there any more details about the quarantine?



Yes. If you come in via France you're cool to infect.

I haven't made that up.


----------



## maomao (May 11, 2020)

So if this does kick off a second wave, or breathe new life into the first wave when would we see that in numbers? First few days of June?


----------



## Combustible (May 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> He's now just said, doubling to a maximum of £3600.
> 
> So, we can add maths to the list of things he doesn't understand.



Think they've got better things to do at a time like this than understand exponential growth.


----------



## frogwoman (May 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> So if this does kick off a second wave, or breathe new life into the first wave when would we see that in numbers? First few days of June?



2 weeks time surely?


----------



## miss direct (May 11, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Yes. If you come in via France you're cool to infect.
> 
> I haven't made that up.


Considering the amount of covid in the UK, I can't see how I would be of any higher risk than any other person in the country right now. I don't mind complying with the requirements, but am struggling to find out what they actually are.


----------



## Supine (May 11, 2020)




----------



## gosub (May 11, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I don't see how you can coordinate the 10% thing without controls on who turns up and when (which they're not going to get). Once you've got a crowd at the station of people looking to get to work you're fucked. You can limit the number of people getting on but that crowd is still somewhere and they're not able to social distance. There's no point limiting the actual travellers if you've got a massive crowd on the platform/behind the barriers/in front of the station gates.



You go through somewhere like Oxford Circus on a normal rush hour Friday during normal times. LU have got some staff wiho can manage a crowd with a whistle - they can get there head round this -its different but they got the skills


----------



## teqniq (May 11, 2020)

Sleaze and corruption:









						Healthcare firm advised by Owen Paterson won £133m coronavirus testing contract unopposed
					

Randox Laboratories hired as part of Matt Hancock’s promise to carry out 100,000 tests a day




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## planetgeli (May 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Considering the amount of covid in the UK, I can't see how I would be of any higher risk than any other person in the country right now. I don't mind complying with the requirements, but am struggling to find out what they actually are.











						Coronavirus: French arrivals exempt from UK quarantine plans
					

The UK government says the new measures will not apply to those travelling from France.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

gosub said:


> You go through somewhere like Oxford Circus on a normal rush hour Friday during normal times. LU have got some staff wiho can manage a crowd with a whistle - they can get there head round this -its different but they got the skills


At rush hour, Holborn station regularly has a scrum of people outside waiting to get in as they limit numbers through the gates to avoid overcrowding on platforms. Anything approaching that would be utterly absurd and unmanageable.

The only way to realistically keep numbers down to 10% of normal is to _plan_ to only have 10% of normal people needing to travel. That means doing some work, crunching some numbers, putting provisions in place. It means the government working with people like tfl, who have lots of numbers to crunch, and companies and unions, to work out exactly who can safely go back to work, and who can't.

It's far from impossible. But it takes organisation, seeing that there's a need to do it, and well, just giving a shit.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 11, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Yes. If you come in via France you're cool to infect.


There's something so much more stylish about a French infection, though.


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> So if this does kick off a second wave, or breathe new life into the first wave when would we see that in numbers? First few days of June?


Yeah, but maybe a little later. At a pure guess, numbers on the tube, buses, in work increase this week onwards. New infections begin, which are then passed on to others and become testable (though non-emergency workers won't routinely get tested?). That has to get through to vulnerable people, older relatives and others before it starts to appear in new hospital admissions. Right through to increased deaths - all of which will take a few weeks. By which time the damage has been done.


----------



## Johnny Doe (May 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> At rush hour, Holborn station regularly has a scrum of people outside waiting to get in as they limit numbers through the gates to avoid overcrowding on platforms. Anything approaching that would be utterly absurd and unmanageable.
> 
> The only way to realistically keep numbers down to 10% of normal is to _plan_ to only have 10% of normal people needing to travel. That means doing some work, crunching some numbers, putting provisions in place. It means the government working with people like tfl, who have lots of numbers to crunch, and companies and unions, to work out exactly who can safely go back to work, and who can't.
> 
> It's far from impossible. But it takes organisation, seeing that there's a need to do it, and well, just giving a shit.



Yup, and doing that sort of detailed work, suggests responsibility. How can you too many people went back to work if you mandate exactly who does? How can you blame the behaviour of the general public if you tell them exactly what to do and when?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 11, 2020)

gosub said:


> You go through somewhere like Oxford Circus on a normal rush hour Friday during normal times. LU have got some staff wiho can manage a crowd with a whistle - they can get there head round this -its different but they got the skills



It's not really a question of managing the crowd though - it's more the basic fact of it just being a crowd. If you've got a large number of people in a confined space they're going to be close together, that's not something you can manage away.

You could just tell everyone to go away I suppose but then the whole back to work thing is out the window.


----------



## editor (May 11, 2020)




----------



## gosub (May 11, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> It's not really a question of managing the crowd though - it's more the basic fact of it just being a crowd. If you've got a large number of people in a confined space they're going to be close together, that's not something you can manage away.
> 
> You could just tell everyone to go away I suppose but then the whole back to work thing is out the window.



If they can own that space with large numbers they can manage it now


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

gosub said:


> If they can own that space with large numbers they can manage it now


I don't doubt they can manage it very well if the right number of people turn up wanting to travel (preferably well under maximum most of the day, just touching maximum at peak times). Anything higher than that will be total chaos, regardless of what they do inside the station. What do all the people outside the station do?

My guess, fwiw, is that it may well not come to that because everyone else will do the necessary work to avoid it. I hope I'm not being too optimistic, but it's not like the government has been in control of any aspect of this.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yeah, but maybe a little later. At a pure guess, numbers on the tube, buses, in work increase this week onwards. New infections begin, which are then passed on to others and become testable (though non-emergency workers won't routinely get tested?). That has to get through to vulnerable people, older relatives and others before it starts to appear in new hospital admissions. Right through to increased deaths - all of which will take a few weeks. By which time the damage has been done.



Half the point of the surveys (inluding test-based surveys) and the talk of sewage is to reduce the lag of R estimates. There will still be some lag, and I dont have any of the data on those fronts that they have so I cannot judge directly for myself, but their ability to have a closer-to-realtime picture should be quite a bit better than it was during the first months.

Other gaps in public knowledge of the outbreak bother me greatly too. For example local authorities were complaining that the 2nd tier (provided by companies etc) test results were not available to them so they couldnt tell how many people had tested positive locally recently.

And unlike some countries where we got to hear about specific outbreaks at specific workplaces (eg particular meat packing plants), it doesnt seem like the UK reports on such things often. We got to hear specific examples of deaths of certain kinds of workers in healthcare, social care, transport etc, and we get some general statistical analysis of those. But outbreaks amongst workers at specific companies?


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

This post from brogdale (the jonson clip) keeps coming to mind, particularly as we tumble towards business as usual, in the manner of that downhill cheese rolling competition in Gloucestershire :



brogdale said:


> Apols if posted elsewhere...but this clip of Johnson speaking just 73 days ago is quite instructive when attempting to understand the early, recent history of the government's response to Covid-19:


----------



## prunus (May 11, 2020)

Supine said:


> View attachment 212012



There's an erroneous right branch from the 'No' answer to 'Can you work from home?'  Otherwise that about gets it.  Though the question 'Can you maintain social distance?' contains a multitude of evils...


----------



## ddraig (May 11, 2020)

bullshit batshit colonial attitude cunt, fuck off!








						Coronavirus in Wales: All the news from Monday - BBC News
					

Welsh authorities warn of confusion as people in England are allowed to drive somewhere to exercise.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				





> 13:08
> *English 'can't get to their nearest coast' due to Welsh rules*
> Many people living in England cannot visit their nearest beach due to different coronavirus restrictions in Wales, a Conservative MP has said.
> Shrewsbury and Atcham MP Daniel Kawczynski said he was fed up of Wales having different rules to the UK government and called for the abolition of the Welsh Parliament.
> ...


----------



## IC3D (May 11, 2020)

Gen sec on bbc of some Black cab union doing a good bit of slating govt then goes in for the kill on uber. #Blackcabsafer


----------



## quimcunx (May 11, 2020)

2hats said:


> A daily figure for R is an estimate derived from modelling. Those models are fed with various proxies (eg measures of mobility from phone companies and the dominant phone handset ecosystem vendors, surveys, analysis of sewage, results from, mainly, antigen testing). There is no direct measurement of current R on a given day.
> 
> The widespread serological antibody testing is currently still in a preparatory phase. As best as I know, there have only been small studies in the UK thus far.



So probably presented as between .5 and .99 because this was the most optimistic guestimate. I imagine it was .99 on Thursday and 1.01 this evening taking into account the congas and overcrowded trains.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 11, 2020)

gosub said:


> If they can own that space with large numbers they can manage it now



How? I mean I've never noticed these people - in my experience Oxford Circus is a very densely packed mass crowd at peak times, I've never spotted any of these masters of crowd handling. But however good they are there's a basic maths involved here, you can't keep people more than a certain distance apart in an enclosed space, and tube stations basically function as inverted funnels, pushing people into tighter spaces as you go. Over a certain number of people getting in and you're going to have close packed crowds somewhere in that system.


----------



## quimcunx (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 2 weeks time surely?



Apparently the mode for symptoms is 2 days so could be even sooner.


----------



## Sue (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> And unlike some countries where we got to hear about specific outbreaks at specific workplaces (eg particular meat packing plants), it doesnt seem like the UK reports on such things often. We got to hear specific examples of deaths of certain kinds of workers in healthcare, social care, transport etc, and we get some general statistical analysis of those. But outbreaks amongst workers at specific companies?



Is that not the kind of thing that comes up in contact tracing though where they notice/identify clusters in certain places? (Not that that's something we're doing. )


----------



## 2hats (May 11, 2020)

ddraig said:


> bullshit batshit colonial attitude cunt, fuck off!
> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-wales-52613726/page/2


What's wrong with The Wirral?


----------



## spitfire (May 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> There's an ice cream van in my street



We get about 3 a day, caused a few meltdowns so far for my 7 year old. She's getting over it now but it's a trigger for her. She's been great overall but the ice cream van is a deal breaker.


----------



## 2hats (May 11, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Apparently the mode for symptoms is 2 days so could be even sooner.


Median is 5 days.


----------



## two sheds (May 11, 2020)

spitfire said:


> We get about 3 a day, caused a few meltdowns so far for my 7 year old. She's getting over it now but it's a trigger for her. She's been great overall but the ice cream van is a deal breaker.



Can you get some shop bought for such emergencies?


----------



## teqniq (May 11, 2020)




----------



## spitfire (May 11, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Can you get some shop bought for such emergencies?



I did pick up a big tub of ice cream and some cones but it's just not the same.

First world problem obviously but it's no fun.


----------



## maomao (May 11, 2020)

spitfire said:


> We get about 3 a day, caused a few meltdowns so far for my 7 year old. She's getting over it now but it's a trigger for her. She's been great overall but the ice cream van is a deal breaker.


My five year old still believes they only play music when they run out of ice cream. Don't think that'll last long though. Could see the woman opposite (who is a local Labour activist and has been vocally against easing lockdown on our street's whatsapp group) had been bullied into going by her two daughters.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 2 weeks time surely?



Any changes in behaviour will be gradual. So what the tube looked like this morning, it'll be worse by friday. And everything takes time to have an effect. By June 1st, when the school reopen, I'd expect us to be firmly back in oh fuck territory, only this time with reduced resources across the board and public morale grievously depleted.


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

This is a petition, started by the CEO of a charity, asking for the government to allow furloughed charity workers to volunteer at the charity they work for.









						Petition: Allow furloughed charity employees to volunteer for their charity
					

Charity services are needed now more than ever. Charities placing employees in temporary 'furlough' to obtain urgent financial relief cannot allow employees to continue any work on a voluntary basis. This will impact the ability of charities to serve the public in a time of national crisis.




					petition.parliament.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

spitfire said:


> We get about 3 a day, caused a few meltdowns so far for my 7 year old. She's getting over it now but it's a trigger for her. She's been great overall but the ice cream van is a deal breaker.



I'm on record about ice cream vans, I fucking hate them and they should be banned.


----------



## andysays (May 11, 2020)

gosub said:


> If they can own that space with large numbers they can manage it now


I think this is wildly optimistic as 

they don't have large numbers of staff to deploy
any new staff brought in would need to understand the complex systems of tunnels connecting the platforms and how passengers move along them when changing trains
the more staff they stick in the tunnels trying to stop people moving, which is realistically all they can do, the more pinch points they create
Unless they can successfully limit the number of people wanting to travel by tube, which would have been made rather easier if Johnson hadn't made his announcement at 7pm on a Sunday, it will be a huge struggle to manage it, especially given that there is still a reduced service running and it will take weeks to get it back to normal levels.


----------



## PD58 (May 11, 2020)

What does this actually mean?

*People may drive to outdoor open spaces irrespective of distance,* so long as they respect social distancing guidance while they are there, because this does not involve contact with people outside your household. pp27

Is it the driving that means you do not involve contact (which is obvious unless you crash) or is it the 2m rule when you get to wherever you are going? If it is social distancing why the final clause?


----------



## maomao (May 11, 2020)

2hats said:


> Median is 5 days.


Would require a few rounds of transmission with an R over 1 before it started curving up again though.


----------



## 2hats (May 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> Would require a few rounds of transmission with an R over 1 before it started curving up again though.


Yes. It will take something like 2-3 weeks to really start to show in the numbers.


----------



## Sue (May 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> This is a petition, started by the CEO of a charity, asking for the government to allow furloughed charity workers to volunteer at the charity they work for.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So what, you do your normal work while getting paid 80% of your wage? That sounds....an interesting proposition.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

2hats said:


> Yes. It will take something like 2-3 weeks to really start to show in the numbers.



Yeah and thats one sort of lag they cant do much about.


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

Sue said:


> So what, you do your normal work while getting paid 80% of your wage? That sounds....an interesting proposition.


Yup. Wonder why it hasn't had much support..!


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I'm on record about ice cream vans, I fucking hate them and they should be banned.


I'd allow them, but only if they played sleaford mods jingles.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

PD58 said:


> What does this actually mean?
> 
> *People may drive to outdoor open spaces irrespective of distance,* so long as they respect social distancing guidance while they are there, because this does not involve contact with people outside your household. pp27
> 
> Is it the driving that means you do not involve contact (which is obvious unless you crash) or is it the 2m rule when you get to wherever you are going? If it is social distancing why the final clause?



It means go where you like, as long as you steer clear of others when you get there.

One of the few bits of common sense in all this tbh. Fining someone for having a picnic or sunbathing 100 metres from anyone else when you've got thousands of people sat shoulder to shoulder on tube trains thanks to government policy would be a gross absurdity.


----------



## teqniq (May 11, 2020)

The whole statement appeares to be purposefully vague so that at no point later on can he be held to account for it.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 11, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Bit of a rant. But a valid one.No idea who that guy is mind you. I think they've stopped putting Cabinet members up for the morning Morgan slaughter and sending in nobodies
> 
> .
> 
> For some reason that's not displaying on here but easily found on Twitter.



Now THAT'S forensic.


----------



## magneze (May 11, 2020)

What a fucking mess. Completely inept.

I mean - just taking the TV appearance yesterday - ignoring the fact that Johnson is simply can't do anything serious - I thought it was fairly clear, if actually impractical and possibly the wrong things to be doing at this time.

However, soon after some additional changes seemed to have been given to news organizations which confuses things. Today there's a bunch more 'stuff' and the stuff announced yesterday (like going back to work) was actually only to start from Wednesday?


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 11, 2020)

The only thing that was starting from Wednesday according to last night's flannel soup was indefinite going outside


----------



## magneze (May 11, 2020)

S☼I said:


> The only thing that was starting from Wednesday according to last night's flannel soup was indefinite going outside


Today, going to work is only from from Wednesday, apparently 

I mean, this is simple stuff.

You can do X from this date. Y from that date.

They can't do that? Seriously? Gobsmacking.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

I was moaning about the Monday/this week stuff in the Starmer thread last night, but it turned out there was an earlier press release yesterday that did mention Monday for work stuff, which explains why opposition, unions and media yesterday were going on about a return to work with only 12 hours notice, despite the fact Johnson said 'this week' not Monday in his speech.

This is what I said last night before I knew about the press release:



> Johnson didnt actually say Monday, he said this week. The new guidelines for companies arent even published yet and there is supposed to be various hideous detail out during the week.
> 
> "And the first step is a change of emphasis that we hope that people will act on this week."
> 
> Its psychological stuff, trying to evolve the sense of what is the next new normal, and trying to ramp up various pressures on certain workers to return to work. In reality I'm sure that they know its going to be a long process. Psychological stuff they need to indulge in because neither they or the virus are in sole control of the timetable. The attitude of the masses towards the pandemic, risks to themselves or others, and a bunch of other stuff will also dictate the reality of how lockdown relaxes, at what pace, and what the new normals are along the way. I dont want opposition figures, unions etc to deliver criticisms that contain implicit acceptance of certain aspects of the governments position and message, and I feel a bit like thats what they've done by going for a 'he's only given people 12 hours notice' criticism this evening. I'd have been happier if they just said Monday was absurd and acted like even Johnson couldnt possibly have meant that! Keep the R below 1 and the Ridicule above 1.



And this is what I said when I heard about the press release:



> Got a bit more detail today that explains the context of the situation that lead to my previous complaint about the media & opposition figures treating the return to work stuff as something that should have started on Monday. Apparently there was a press release some hours before Johnson spoke yesterday, and that mentioned Monday. So even though Johnson only said this week in his speech, the earlier detail had already been picked up on by Starmer, unions and the media. Anyway, apparently it says Wednesday in todays document. The BBC news showed Starmer asking Johnson questions about this in parliament earlier, but didnt show Johnsons response.


----------



## Petcha (May 11, 2020)

Can anyone explain the government's obsession with reopening garden centres? It's fucking bizarre.


----------



## Chilli.s (May 11, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Can anyone explain the government's obsession with reopening garden centres? It's fucking bizarre.


Posh people have big gardens and need supplies.


----------



## Epona (May 11, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Can anyone explain the government's obsession with reopening garden centres? It's fucking bizarre.



Maybe there are some duck moats that need restocking with pond weed...


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Can anyone explain the government's obsession with reopening garden centres? It's fucking bizarre.


Mrs Trellis, from North Wales.


----------



## magneze (May 11, 2020)

It was going pretty badly, but today it feels like the government have lost control. And that's worrying for us all.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 11, 2020)

an email from work (a). it's plain that loads of people had been emailing senior management as the institution number 2 sent out an email saying 'nothing has changed. nothing will change for a long time. don't come in.' from work (b): the librarian has been gardening and pondering the history of ecclesiastical song in the uk. so we won't be back there soon either.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

teqniq said:


> The whole statement appeares to be purposefully vague so that at no point later on can he be held to account for it.



I fear that may not play out as he hopes it will. Another month or so of this clown show and even the likes of Kuenssberg will be forced to climb at least part of the way back out of Johnson's arsehole.


----------



## Thora (May 11, 2020)

Maybe childminders can open now.  Or on Wednesday.  Or on the 1st of June.
No one knows yet, which is nice.  They might be able to open if they can do social distancing.  But they might not have to.
Also nurseries.  Maybe they should be encouraging all children of keyworkers to be going in now (or from Wednesday).  Maybe they will be required to have smaller groups and social distancing or maybe not.  Probably from 1st June?
DfE might clarify later.


----------



## clicker (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> I was moaning about the Monday/this week stuff in the Starmer thread last night, but it turned out there was an earlier press release yesterday that did mention Monday for work stuff, which explains why opposition, unions and media yesterday were going on about a return to work with only 12 hours notice, despite the fact Johnson said 'this week' not Monday in his speech.
> 
> This is what I said last night before I knew about the press release:
> 
> ...


I thought he said ' tomorrow ' re going back to work. Which would be Monday, but he didn't say the word Monday. But I'm not 100% sure and haven't got the will to watch it again.


----------



## andysays (May 11, 2020)

magneze said:


> It was going pretty badly, but today it feels like the government have lost control. And that's worrying for us all.


Confusion in his eyes that says it all...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 11, 2020)

But if you can't get childcare and your employer says you need to come in anyway, they probably shouldn't do that, and maybe you should have a chat with them.


----------



## frogwoman (May 11, 2020)

I think he's still sick. Just looking at him it's obvious he's completely fucked.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

clicker said:


> I thought he said ' tomorrow ' re going back to work. Which would be Monday, but he didn't say the word Monday. But I'm not 100% sure and haven't got the will to watch it again.



He didnt (I used part of a transcript to check last night, and Starmer also made reference to this vagueness today). But the message was all about psychological pressure, they wanted to create a sense of immediacy and pressure, and being vague or creating the impression that they meant Monday was probably done deliberately to serve this cause.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think he's still sick. Just looking at him it's obvious he's completely fucked.



He looked like a sack of shit before this pandemic though, so I find it a bit hard to tell.

I'll be watching to see if he attempts to permanently lose some weight after his experience.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 11, 2020)

andysays said:


> Confusion in his eyes that says it all...


sadness. sadness in his eyes. 

actually make the dog pm


----------



## marshall (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think he's still sick. Just looking at him it's obvious he's completely fucked.



Agree. I think he wants out.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 11, 2020)

marshall said:


> Agree. I think he wants out.


with the number of firearms in and around downing street he should be able to arrange that


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

I havent seen much of his parliament performance today but honestly, I've seen that look from him plenty before. During various stages of his Brexit show he did not look at all comfortable  in parliament, did not seem to enjoy being questioned, was moody etc.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Meanwhile I was waiting to see how long it took for people to do serious estimates of how many lives would have been saved by locking down earlier, and for the media to report on it. Well now here we go, Scotland leads the way again!



> More than 2,000 coronavirus deaths could have been prevented if Scotland had locked down two weeks earlier, according to a new study.
> 
> A team of epidemiological scientists at University of Edinburgh produced the findings, which feature in a BBC Disclosure investigation.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: Earlier Scottish lockdown 'could have prevented 2,000 deaths'
					

Scientists suggest that earlier action could have reduced the Covid-19 death rate in Scotland by about 80%.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Petcha (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> I havent seen much of his parliament performance today but honestly, I've seen that look from him plenty before. During various stages of his Brexit show he did not look at all comfortable  in parliament, did not seem to enjoy being questioned, was moody etc.



He seems very comfortable with the new online format where the questioner has no opportunity to reply and he doesn't get barracked. Once or twice it was a simple 'No' and then he just sat down again.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think he's still sick. Just looking at him it's obvious he's completely fucked.



He was looking like death fried in dog shit long before he got sick tbf.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> He was looking like death fried in dog shit long before he got sick tbf.


i hope he's got trigeminal neuralgia.


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I fear that may not play out as he hopes it will. Another month or so of this clown show and even the likes of Kuenssberg will be forced to climb at least part of the way back out of Johnson's arsehole.


Oh christ. And I'd only just managed to get rid of this as an earworm


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

And now I must face more time listening to Johnson via the press conference that has just begun.


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> He looked like a sack of shit before this pandemic though, so I find it a bit hard to tell.
> 
> I'll be watching to see if he attempts to permanently lose some weight after his experience.


I like your other posts better.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> with the number of firearms in and around downing street he should be able to arrange that



I'll gladly pour him the traditional glass of scotch myself.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> And now I must face more time listening to Johnson via the press conference that has just begun.


that's what newspapers are for, to get between you and the shit


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 11, 2020)

Face coverings. The only clinical studies I've seen about cloth face coverings say they've made things worse for clinical staff vs nothing at all.


----------



## Epona (May 11, 2020)

"No later than July 4th but only if it is safe..."

Well is it going to be "no later than" or might it be later?

Is anyone else listening to this meaningless twaddle?


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Face coverings. The only clinical studies I've seen about cloth face coverings say they've made things worse for clinical staff vs nothing at all.



And I dunno about anyone else but if I've got something covering my mouth and nose my glasses immediately fog up. So I'm at slightly less risk of coronoavirus, but much greater risk of getting run over by a bus because I can't fucking see where I'm going.


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

It's an odd situation for johnson, the ultimate position of strength in parliament, opposition in disarray, fawning backbenchers on his own side, no obvious scenarios as to how any of that will change (at least pre virus). But then he's clearly fucking things up and pretty much killing people in the name of business-as-usual-neoliberalism.  This should be the point where an alternative opens up (well, at least at the end of the crisis, next year), but I don't see any of the things you'd need in place for that to happen. I really don't take it as read that this will strengthen anybody even vaguely on the side of the angels.


----------



## Epona (May 11, 2020)

Also I can go the park with my household and socially distance 2m from a household of strangers subathing next to me.

But I cannot go to the park and socially distance 2m from a household of relatives or friends.  I have to go by myself and socially distance from 1 other person if they are known to me.  But I can be in the park socially distancing from an entire household of strangers.

Have I understood that correctly?


----------



## clicker (May 11, 2020)

Epona said:


> Also I can go the park with my household and socially distance 2m from a household of strangers subathing next to me.
> 
> But I cannot go to the park and socially distance 2m from a household of relatives or friends.  I have to go by myself and socially distance from 1 other person if they are known to me.  But I can be in the park socially distancing from an entire household of strangers.
> 
> Have I understood that correctly?


Yes completely.


----------



## belboid (May 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> And I dunno about anyone else but if I've got something covering my mouth and nose my glasses immediately fog up.


That means you're wearing them wrong.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 11, 2020)

belboid said:


> That means you're wearing them wrong.


or there's something very strange about his physiology


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 11, 2020)

Epona said:


> Also I can go the park with my household and socially distance 2m from a household of strangers subathing next to me.
> 
> But I cannot go to the park and socially distance 2m from a household of relatives or friends.  I have to go by myself and socially distance from 1 other person if they are known to me.  But I can be in the park socially distancing from an entire household of strangers.
> 
> Have I understood that correctly?


Just getting my head round that myself. He really didn't know what the fuck to say to Scott .


----------



## not-bono-ever (May 11, 2020)

its just bollocks and filler isnt it?


----------



## Epona (May 11, 2020)

The thing is very occasionally Boris pauses mid sentence and a look comes across his face that makes me think he's had a brief moment of clarity and realised that he's talking utter nonsense, but he's already halfway down the log flume ride and can't stop now.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 11, 2020)

Epona said:


> The thing is very occasionally Boris pauses mid sentence and a look comes across his face that makes me think he's had a brief moment of clarity and realised that he's talking utter nonsense, but he's already halfway down the log flume ride and can't stop now.


It's just a burp.


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

belboid said:


> That means you're wearing them wrong.


Or that they don't have nose wire.


----------



## Numbers (May 11, 2020)

Embarrassing.


----------



## not-bono-ever (May 11, 2020)

jesus fucking christ, it just makes you realise how lucky we have been to have had PMs who can string a sentence together. its genuinely appalling


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 11, 2020)

Oh Christ. He should just deliver it all in French.


----------



## gosub (May 11, 2020)

What was the traffic like in London today, station carpark out here in the commuter belt was pretty much empty


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

Oh god


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 11, 2020)

Anyone else watching through their fingers.


----------



## The39thStep (May 11, 2020)

Wilf said:


> It's an odd situation for johnson, the ultimate position of strength in parliament, opposition in disarray, fawning backbenchers on his own side, no obvious scenarios as to how any of that will change (at least pre virus). But then he's clearly fucking things up and pretty much killing people in the name of business-as-usual-neoliberalism.  This should be the point where an alternative opens up (well, at least at the end of the crisis, next year), but I don't see any of the things you'd need in place for that to happen. I really don't take it as read that this will strengthen anybody even vaguely on the side of the angels.


Yup still 20 points ahead of Mr Forensic 'Real Deal ' Starmer


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

Epona said:


> The thing is very occasionally Boris pauses mid sentence and a look comes across his face that makes me think he's had a brief moment of clarity and realised that he's talking utter nonsense, but he's already halfway down the log flume ride and can't stop now.


It's a political persona that doesn't have to make sense. He's made a career out of talking to people in ways that are neither logical nor deal with detail, a kind of _Have I Got News For You + Get. Brexit. Done_.  Trump comparisons are often overdone in regard to Johnson, but not that.


----------



## NoXion (May 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fines are being increased from £60 to £100, doubling with every ticket to a maximum of £3200.



Making the advice more vague while bumping up the fines? "Stay Alert" reminds one of nothing. There's no fucking way that's not deliberate in some fashion. A green border, really? Fuck this stupid, arrogant, privately miseducated cuntdick government.

Utter shitbunglers. Those idiots are going to ruin us all with their incompetence, and then in their petty and self-serving malice they will shift the blame onto us and make us pay for their mistakes and crimes.

Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant. I wasn't impressed with how this outbreak is being handled in this country before, but I've been experiencing an increasing combination of disbelief and anger at how badly this thing is being handled right now.

Even a lot of businesses don't seem to be impressed. Certainly nothing has changed at my place of work.


----------



## Numbers (May 11, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> Anyone else watching through their fingers.


It’s utterly shocking.


----------



## quimcunx (May 11, 2020)

Sue said:


> So what, you do your normal work while getting paid 80% of your wage? That sounds....an interesting proposition.



Employers have the option to pay the 20%.  Either way the volunteering would have to be truly voluntary at least for the 80%.  I can sort if see the sense as furloughed workers have possibly volunteered for something. However charity employers can be as cunty as any other.  Also if the work can still be done and needs to be done then surely they shouldn't be furlough them anyway.  Argh. Brain hurts.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> I like your other posts better.



Sorry about that. I am overweight myself, and have terribly limited experience of discussing the subject beyond my own family etc where we all all familiar with talking about it in our own, relaxed, sometimes jokey manner, with various degrees of disregard of things that actually matter when discussing more broadly/publicly.

I am genuinely interested to see whether Johnson attempts to lose some weight after his Covid experience. I know that I am going to try to use it to scare myself into more seriously tackling my own weight.

Anyway since I am useless at discussing this subject there is every chance I will put my foot in it again now when seeking to explain myself. The whole reason I opened my gob on this in the first place is that I just dont get these comments about how ill Johnson looks these days. I should have just said he still looks the same to me. But then my mind starts to wander and I start thinking about things that I will probably start talking about in all the wrong way again. Such as the idea that if he is losing weight before our very eyes, some people might think that he actually looks more ill as a result, but I will be judging it differently. Oh dear, I'm sorry, there are reasons why I ended up as a nerd who can talk endlessly about certain narrow subjects, but who has a vast range of things I never want to try to talk about on u75. My comfort zone is rather narrow and I usually fall down when I step beyond it, sorry again.


----------



## Epona (May 11, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Making the advice more vague while bumping up the fines? "Stay Alert" reminds one of nothing. There's no fucking way that's not deliberate in some fashion. A green border, really? Fuck this stupid, arrogant, privately miseducated cuntdick government.
> 
> Utter shitbunglers. Those idiots are going to ruin us all with their incompetence, and then in their petty and self-serving malice they will shift the blame onto us and make us pay for their mistakes and crimes.
> 
> ...



Don't apologise for having a rant.  There's been a problem all along with the messages being given by the government, lack of clarity, and slogans/scheduled applause instead of addressing concerns and questions.

I am not sure whether to laugh or cry right now, probably a bit of both, maybe will have a rant myself later.  Go ahead and rant.


----------



## a_chap (May 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> This is a petition, started by the CEO of a charity, asking for the government to allow furloughed charity workers to volunteer at the charity they work for.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I work for a charity; I am not furloughed.

However we have many 100s of staff who are furloughed - some of them would jump at the chance to keep helping the charity fulfil its aims.



Sue said:


> So what, you do your normal work while getting paid 80% of your wage? That sounds....an interesting proposition.




1. No. The government pays 80% the charity pays the other 20%.

2. Who says they have to do their "normal work" (or their normal hours)?


Covid19 restrictions mean that many of our staff are unable to do their normal jobs. However there are *plenty* of other tasks which need doing that are not impacted by Covid19 restrictions.

I am currently advertising for volunteers; I would love for existing staff *- who chose to -* to help the work I'm undertaking. The rules around the government's Job Retention Scheme mean they are forbidden from helping the charity in any way at all.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

The BBC sign language bloke looks like he's trying to use his eyes to apologise for what he's obliged to translate.


----------



## belboid (May 11, 2020)

The how many people can you meet outdoors thing is like one of those irritating 'maths' puzzles that are all over Facebook cos everyone is so bored.


Boris lives with his partner and a baby.

Boris has two previous wives and at least seven children, as well as a mother, father and two siblings.

How many trips out must Boris make in order to see all his family?

Answer - none because they've all seen enough of the cunt.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

Responding with responses. Can't say fairer than that.

By which I mean this useless cunt would literally be able to say 'fairer than that' because it's too complex of a phrase.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> elbows have you seen any updates on community/serology tests? I mean from the POV of establishing spread through the population.



This came up again in the press conference, did you see it? Vallance talking about results (that are now out of date) along the lines of maybe 10% in London, more like 4% elsewhere, but I was only half listening and havent got time to go back and transcribe that bit properly at the moment so check those numbers before taking my word for it.


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> Anyone else watching through their fingers.


I just watched 20 seconds, which was enough. Only thing I'd say is that his waffle and non-answers are quite effective, in a limited sense. Nobody can, to say the least, be impressed with him but it does avoid getting into any of the difficult questions.

I think it's all about context. If there was a strong opposition ready to pounce along with a critical national broadcaster - and even more so a strong working class politics with its own infrastructure - he'd be weakening his own position with the waffle. But as none of those things are in place,, it just makes these events a waste of time, a neutral score draw really.


----------



## Epona (May 11, 2020)

HAHAHAHA

"Look, I didn't make these rules up"


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sorry about that. I am overweight myself, and have terribly limited experience of discussing the subject beyond my own family etc where we all all familiar with talking about it in our own, relaxed, sometimes jokey manner, with various degrees of disregard of things that actually matter when discussing more broadly/publicly.
> 
> I am genuinely interested to see whether Johnson attempts to lose some weight after his Covid experience. I know that I am going to try to use it to scare myself into more seriously tackling my own weight.
> 
> Anyway since I am useless at discussing this subject there is every chance I will put my foot in it again now when seeking to explain myself. The whole reason I opened my gob on this in the first place is that I just dont get these comments about how ill Johnson looks these days. I should have just said he still looks the same to me. But then my mind starts to wander and I start thinking about things that I will probably start talking about in all the wrong way again. Such as the idea that if he is losing weight before our very eyes, some people might think that he actually looks more ill as a result, but I will be judging it differently. Oh dear, I'm sorry, there are reasons why I ended up as a nerd who can talk endlessly about certain narrow subjects, but who has a vast range of things I never want to try to talk about on u75. My comfort zone is rather narrow and I usually fall down when I step beyond it, sorry again.


You do such an amazingly valuable job of pulling a lot of complicated and bitty information together clearly, that it just leapt out as a bit hunh??

I guess the context of your post didn't come across. (But then, nor should you have to justify yourself.)


----------



## bimble (May 11, 2020)

Pure anecdote but I was in the socially distanced queue to marks & fucking Spencer’s this morning in a small town in Hertfordshire that’s voted Tory since it was born and people were not just moaning about yesterday’s announcement they were saying they were going to disobey it (not send their 5 year olds to school & not go to work) . For the context it was pretty interesting that kind of defiance , this is not where you’d expect to see mass disobedience and I think there could be an interesting few weeks ahead.


----------



## Ax^ (May 11, 2020)

did he manage to outdo's yesterday shite show
Goes off to catch  up


----------



## Cid (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> This came up again in the press conference, did you see it? Vallance talking about results (that are now out of date) along the lines of maybe 10% in London, more like 4% elsewhere, but I was only half listening and havent got time to go back and transcribe that bit properly at the moment so check those numbers before taking my word for it.



No I didn't, cheers though. Difficult with out of date info, though I suppose it always will be... Given that New York City was reporting 25% it's either a) low or b) quite worrying. Or c) just not really enough info (given NYC's data is also somewhat open to interpretation). I can understand somewhat why this makes the job of advisers so tricky.

e2a: I haven't actually watched a single full conference, can't afford to be continuously replacing computer monitors...


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

bimble said:


> Pure anecdote but I was in the socially distanced queue to marks & fucking Spencer’s this morning in a small town in Hertfordshire that’s voted Tory since it was born and people were not just moaning about yesterday’s announcement they were saying they were going to disobey it (not send their 5 year olds to school & not go to work) . For the context it was pretty interesting that kind of defiance , this is not where you’d expect to see mass disobedience and I think there could be an interesting few weeks ahead.


_This is not just food a queue, this is a Marks and Spencer queue..._


----------



## Mation (May 11, 2020)

a_chap said:


> I work for a charity; I am not furloughed.
> 
> However we have many 100s of staff who are furloughed - some of them would jump at the chance to keep helping the charity fulfil its aims.
> 
> ...


I'm sure that it would be great for some people. But if I think about some of the charities I used to work for, I know that they would not be topping up that 20% and would certainly be pressurising people to come and do their full jobs on the 80%.

I'm glad your organisation isn't like that, but there are plenty of charity shit shows out there.

If people really want to volunteer but can't for their own organisation, can't they do it reciprocally, or for whichever charity they'd also like to support?


----------



## Thora (May 11, 2020)

Thora said:


> Maybe childminders can open now.  Or on Wednesday.  Or on the 1st of June.
> No one knows yet, which is nice.  They might be able to open if they can do social distancing.  But they might not have to.
> Also nurseries.  Maybe they should be encouraging all children of keyworkers to be going in now (or from Wednesday).  Maybe they will be required to have smaller groups and social distancing or maybe not.  Probably from 1st June?
> DfE might clarify later.


Oh wait, now they've re-clarified and it is 1st June.


----------



## The39thStep (May 11, 2020)

Must say that Starmers response  almost wanted me to check his pulse for signs of life. Woeful.


----------



## ddraig (May 11, 2020)

belboid said:


> The how many people can you meet outdoors thing is like one of those irritating 'maths' puzzles that are all over Facebook cos everyone is so bored.
> 
> 
> Boris lives with his partner and a baby.
> ...


----------



## two sheds (May 11, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Must say that Starmers response  almost wanted me to check his pulse for signs of life. Woeful.



That's what forensic means though isn't it? Checking over dead things.


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Must say that Starmers response  almost wanted me to check his pulse for signs of life. Woeful.


Even aside from his rubbish politics and shit positioning on brexit, he comes across as the 3rd in command, the boring bloke they drag out when there's something lawyerly to be said.

i.e.


----------



## philosophical (May 11, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Can anyone explain the government's obsession with reopening garden centres? It's fucking bizarre.



Bizarre? From this lot?
Hancock started a briefing the other day telling us he had great news.
An antibody test?
A vaccine?
Recovery treatment?

Nah.

IVF work is going to re-start.

Bizarre is how come nobody has chucked a milkshake in Patels face.


----------



## Ax^ (May 11, 2020)

So have we got the figures of how many test were posted on Sunday


or was that gathered tests finally being processed?


----------



## Epona (May 11, 2020)

philosophical said:


> Bizarre? From this lot?
> Hancock started a briefing the other day telling us he had great news.
> An antibody test?
> A vaccine?
> ...



Not so bizarre, they have to start planning how best to repopulate once half of the country has been wiped out by the "Nonsense Rhymes Book of Pandemic Planning" (ages 3 to 5) that they seem to be taking their current advice from.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 11, 2020)

two sheds said:


> That's what forensic means though isn't it? Checking over dead things.


_relating to or denoting the application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of crime._


----------



## two sheds (May 11, 2020)

S☼I said:


> _relating to or denoting the application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of crime._



mainly dead people though, I watch detective programmes


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Given the news about the Scottish study on how many deaths an earlier lockdown could have prevented, I thought I would quickly place it into a context I have mentioned before.

First the story about the Scottish study again:









						Coronavirus: Earlier Scottish lockdown 'could have prevented 2,000 deaths'
					

Scientists suggest that earlier action could have reduced the Covid-19 death rate in Scotland by about 80%.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




When trying to establish which aspects of the UKs initial plan and crap response were driven by the establishment expert orthodoxy as opposed to only being driven by the politicians, I was using the ECDC documents for clues. The March 12th edition of the document contained the following which was not present in earlier documents:



> The evidence for the effectiveness of closing schools and workplaces, and cancelling mass gatherings is limited. However, one modelling study from China estimated that if a range of non-pharmaceutical interventions, including social distancing, had been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier in the country, the number of COVID-19 cases could have been reduced by 66%, 86%, and 95%, respectively, together with significantly reducing the number of affected areas [72].



(from https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/sites/de...f-novel-coronavirus-disease-2019-COVID-19.pdf )

This is the study which is referred to there as reference 72:









						Effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions for containing the COVID-19 outbreak in China
					

Background The COVID-19 outbreak containment strategies in China based on non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) appear to be effective. Quantitative research is still needed however to assess the efficacy of different candidate NPIs and their timings to guide ongoing and future responses to...




					www.medrxiv.org
				




March 12th was also the last ill-fated press conference before the u-turn, where Vallances slideshow got stuck and the entire government approach was coming under fire and herd immunity was only days away from being denied as being government policy, and a new approach was thrown together, Imperial College report was made public on the 16th etc.

The timing of all of this is why I will say things like if I had been in charge, possibly the most obvious difference people could have hoped for was that I would have locked down 1-2 weeks earlier than we actually did. Because it would have been really hard to do a lockdown before this period around 8th-12th March, because thats when Italy decided to think the unthinkable and lockdown, the european orthodox approach suddenly shifted, and then people started to demand to know why the UK wasnt doing the same stuff. There are lots of other things that could have been handled very differently before this point, but it is somewhat hard to imagine a lockdown being accepted in the country well before this 8th-12th period I keep focussing on. But once this strange new world became possible, every day lost and wasted by not locking down at that moment made an inexcusable difference to the number if infections, serious illnesses and deaths that we subsequently suffered. Its of some small consolation that lots of people started changing their behaviour in the UK a week before the 'proper lockdown', so although some stuff was at least 2 weeks late, some lives were likely saved by actions taken a week before then. But if all those events had been 2 weeks earlier relative to our epidemic, oh what a difference it should have made, oh what very different numbers I'd have been studying ever since


----------



## gosub (May 11, 2020)

philosophical said:


> Bizarre? From this lot?
> Hancock started a briefing the other day telling us he had great news.
> An antibody test?
> A vaccine?
> ...




SHes managed to get the burglary and shoplifting figures right down


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

I feel like sticking a graph from the Scottish article in here. It makes me sad and angry, especially as if I go back and listen to what various UK government experts were saying throughout the first half of March, they kept going on about how timing would be critical. No wonder my brain nearly burst when they started going on about the UK being 4 weeks behind Italy, given we were actually 2 weeks behind Italy, and given what these models show 2 weeks earlier lockdown would likely have achieved. I still have no idea what data, if any, made them think we were 2 weeks earlier in the epidemic curve than we actually were.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

So the next question in the endless battle to get consistent and timely UK data.

A lot of the data used to come out in conjunction with the daily number 10 press conference slides. Are we not going to get any of that now that they have entered into a different phase of communications? We certainly havent had it for the last 2 days. Is there somewhere else I can see, for example, number of ICU cases daily? 

This country is infuriating.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

I'd also give the media very low marks for holding the government to account over daily data too.

I know certain data is not of interest to everyone. But it was very disheartening when the media were handling daily 'deaths by actual date of death' NHS England data for a while before it was made directly available to the public at the start of April, it was a patchy mess with no reporting consistency or attempts to graph stuff over time. And when the government changed what data was shown in daily slides, for example suddenly stopping the intensive care data that had been available for weeks, then not giving us any for a crucial 2 week period, then bringing it back in a different format. None of that was worthy of remark apparently. Not to mention the time the figures had Scotland and Wales  numbers the wrong way round for a few days, or the time recently when the daily deaths number didnt match the cumulative total for a particular day. Hell I'm not even sure the media reported on Vallances slideshow breaking on March 12th and not showing all the slides in the series.

The things that go under the radar unless we watch this stuff closely for ourselves. Stay alert indeed.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Ah but speaking of stats, this looks interesting, no brain energy now (had migraine earlier, doh) but I will try to look at it properly soon.



> Real-time tracking of a pandemic, as data accumulate over time, is an essential component of a public health response to a new outbreak. This document reports the work of a joint Public Health England (PHE)—University of Cambridge modelling group to nowcast and forecast COVID-19 infections and deaths, together with estimation of relevant epidemiological quantities for England (by NHS region) and Scotland. These estimates have provided the bases of forecasts supplied to the Scientific Pandemic Influenza sub-group on Modelling (SPI-M) and to regional PHE teams.



Most obvious comment I can make right now is - oh Its got regional estimates for R!



			https://joshuablake.github.io/public-RTM-reports/20200510.html


----------



## Cid (May 11, 2020)

gosub said:


> SHes managed to get the burglary and shoplifting figures right down



'We're please to report that Road Traffic Accident figures for April of this year are at an all time low'.


----------



## gosub (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> 'We're please to report that Road Traffic Accident figures for April of this year are at an all time low'.



The total number may be down but the whole thing looks like one massive car crash to me


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 11, 2020)

Cid said:


> 'We're please to report that Road Traffic Accident figures for April of this year are at an all time low'.



I'm not sure that's actually the case tbh. I would think that per mile travelled the accident rate will have actually gone up.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Ah but speaking of stats, this looks interesting, no brain energy now (had migraine earlier, doh) but I will try to look at it properly soon.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That tells a much better story than I had anticipated tbh. It's also a bit sobering to think that the weekend before lockdown, something like a million people caught it. It shows an amazing effect from lockdown. The bump up in infections at the end of April is presumably when it hit care homes? 

tbh that does paint a pretty positive picture for where we are now, particularly for London. An estimated 24 new infections a day in London now.

ETA: It also gives a very clear indication of how much better off we would have been if lockdown had come a week earlier, as it really should have, even if everything else had been just as craply done. If those figures are anywhere near right, lockdown a week earlier could have given us a Germany-style outcome. Starting the lockdown effect from around 0.5 million infected, rather than 2.5 million.


----------



## prunus (May 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That tells a much better story than I had anticipated tbh. It's also a bit sobering to think that the weekend before lockdown, something like a million people caught it. It shows an amazing effect from lockdown. The bump up in infections at the end of April is presumably when it hit care homes?
> 
> tbh that does paint a pretty positive picture for where we are now, particularly for London. An estimated 24 new infections a day in London now.
> 
> ETA: It also gives a very clear indication of how much better off we would have been if lockdown had come a week earlier, as it really should have, even if everything else had been just as craply done. If those figures are anywhere near right, lockdown a week earlier could have given us a Germany-style outcome. Starting the lockdown effect from around 0.5 million infected, rather than 2.5 million.



That is astonishingly low - the number of daily infections in London is of the order of 100 times lower (excuse the clumsy formulation) than most of the rest of the country?  I wonder what the mechanism for that is, if correct. London didn’t lock down earlier, I don’t think? Was there a voluntary shadow effective pre-lockdown effect? Was it just much better observed? Would anyone like to speculate?


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

Yeah if my brain hadnt fallen out earlier then I would be saying various things related to how the London numbers and graphs stick out far more than I was expecting - I was expecting some notable difference but I dont have the answers for some of what is shown.

I should save my thoughts until hopefully my brain is in better shape tomorrow, but the following seems to have splurted out now anyway:

In theory the key difference was that Londons epidemic was at a later stage by the time lockdown (& the start of other social distancing some days before that) were implemented. I'd expect that to make a notable diference. But I dont know much about the models or assumptions or data used, which made that difference look even more dramatic than I was expecting.

We have seen from actual data of things like deaths and hospital case levels, that places such as London that were going up very steeply to much higher peak rates, also fell the most abruptly. So this side of things is the sort of stuff I expected to see in this new study too, and the implications of it on the current infection rate, but perhaps they over-egged it. The current estimate for daily infections is so very low for London, its tempting to describe it as absurd but I suppose should allow time for other details and explanations to emerge before writing anything off.


----------



## two sheds (May 11, 2020)

Nice to know where the blame lies  









						Coronavirus guidance to government 'one of biggest failures of scientific advice in our lifetime,' Jeremy Hunt says
					

Lives could have been saved, former health secretary says




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (May 11, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> So have we got the figures of how many test were posted on Sunday
> 
> 
> or was that gathered tests finally being processed?


'Ere, Matt, how many tests did we get back in the post today?'
- Dunno de Pfeffel mate, 'bout 6 or 7.
'Shall we call it 100,000 then?'
- Yeah, s'pose.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

prunus said:


> That is astonishingly low - the number of daily infections in London is of the order of 100 times lower (excuse the clumsy formulation) than most of the rest of the country?  I wonder what the mechanism for that is, if correct. London didn’t lock down earlier, I don’t think? Was there a voluntary shadow effective pre-lockdown effect? Was it just much better observed? Would anyone like to speculate?


I don't quite know. The only thing I would say about those figures is that they're estimates of the real numbers, but they must include input from actual new positive tests (be absurd to give the estimated real figure as lower than the known), so at the very least, there must be next to no new positive tests coming from London at the moment.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

Hopefully what I say above is correct, and there is input from real test results in there. It would be very odd if there weren't. But sadly it does rather remind me of the models that came out a while ago showing death rates for various countries like Spain and Italy quickly dropping to near-zero by, well, by now. Those models looked impossibly wrong to me at the time, and indeed they were.


----------



## Raheem (May 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I'm not sure that's actually the case tbh. I would think that per mile travelled the accident rate will have actually gone up.


But, happily, fewer incidents will have been reported, so as you were.


----------



## elbows (May 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Hopefully what I say above is correct, and there is input from real test results in there. It would be very odd if there weren't. But sadly it does rather remind me of the models that came out a while ago showing death rates for various countries like Spain and Italy quickly dropping to near-zero by, well, by now. Those models looked impossibly wrong to me at the time, and indeed they were.



They only mention deaths in the data sources section as far as I can tell, there is nothing to indicate that other sorts of data are fed in too. So yeah, welcome again to the world of 'modelling should only be used as part of a balanced diet'.

Have you recently seen the projection tracking site that allows easy comparison between what the IHME model you refer to spat out over time? I mentioned just the other day that at least the UK didnt routinely make public pronouncements of expected total deaths based on that model, whereas Trump did for the USA and has had to mention ever larger numbers recently as a result (his 60,000 deaths claim came from that model in mid April but in recent days that model came up with over 130,000 as a total for the USA)





__





						COVID Projections Tracker
					






					www.covid-projections.com
				




By the way I note that site has also started tracking the LANL model too, which I dont think I have looked at properly yet at all.


----------



## David Clapson (May 11, 2020)

Just seen a new Excess Deaths total: 56,800. It's on twitter, from Chris Giles of the FT. He says the ONS will publish the number tomorrow.


----------



## Dogsauce (May 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Hairdressers and beauticians cant work from home. What are they supposed to do, since they obviously cant go to work?



Get on the B-Ark?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> They only mention deaths in the data sources section as far as I can tell, there is nothing to indicate that other sorts of data are fed in too. So yeah, welcome again to the world of 'modelling should only be used as part of a balanced diet'.
> 
> Have you recently seen the projection tracking site that allows easy comparison between what the IHME model you refer to spat out over time? I mentioned just the other day that at least the UK didnt routinely make public pronouncements of expected total deaths based on that model, whereas Trump did for the USA and has had to mention ever larger numbers recently as a result (his 60,000 deaths claim came from that model in mid April but in recent days that model came up with over 130,000 as a total for the USA)
> 
> ...


That's mad.

Right, from here, it's going to drop sharply to near-zero very soon. 

(few days later). Ok we were wrong last time, but from here, it's going to drop sharply to near-zero very soon.

(few days later). Ok we were wrong last time, but from here, it's going to drop sharply to near-zero very soon.

(few days later). Ok we were wrong last time, but from here, it's going to drop sharply to near-zero very soon.

(few days later). Ok we were wrong last time, but from here, it's going to drop sharply to near-zero very soon.

(few days later). Ok we were wrong last time, but from here, it's going to drop sharply to near-zero very soon.

(few days later) _penny finally drops_   Changes weights. From here, it's going to drop fairly sharply but not to zero any time soon.

Sorry, but what??? 

(that's the correct number of 'few days later', btw)


----------



## frogwoman (May 11, 2020)

elbows I've seen some claims recently on the lines of 'herd immunity is the strategy of every government' and I don't see how that can be when countries like New Zealand and South Korea are making such an effort to stamp out the virus, unless there's something I've missed. Do you know what could be meant by that? Surely the strategy of every government isn't to make everyone catch it until there's a vaccine?

Obviously having had it does give you some partial immunity but I don't see how the aim of every government can be herd immunity lol when policies have been introduced which seem to want to get rid of it entirely.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Just seen a new Excess Deaths total: 56,800. It's on twitter, from Chris Giles of the FT. He says the ONS will publish the number tomorrow.



Thats an estimate up to May 11th:



I'm very interested in their estimates, but I tend to rely mostly on the actual ONS numbers (the blue bits, which isnt just ONS but also the Scottish and Northern Ireland equivalents). And there are another weeks worth of those out on Tuesday (Wednesday for Scotland, Friday for NI), so I shall probably post again on this subject soon, and the estimate people will also update that estimate you mention to reflect the latest actual data.

edit: here is a larger version of that graph:



And a bit of nerdy detail that isnt really important at all but someone might be interested so I'll say it anyway:

The stepped nature of the blue facts ones are due to the weekly nature of reporting. Those weekly reports do include confirmed covid deaths by day, but do not include daily numbers for total deaths, only weekly numbers for those. However I'm hoping that the preliminary monthly report for April will include daily total deaths in the same way that the March report did, and then they can dispense with the earlier estimates that are currently used to smooth out the weekly stepping. Small bumps in the stepped values during a week are because Scotland and Northern Ireland have different days of the week for the start and ends of their weeks.


----------



## zahir (May 12, 2020)

If we follow Boris Johnson's advice, coronavirus will spread | David Hunter
					

A large-scale return to work without the ability to test, trace and isolate risks creating super-spreader events, says epidemiology professor David Hunter




					www.theguardian.com
				





> Those defending the government’s Covid-19 response have reasonably pointed out that policy mistakes are always clearer in retrospect. So let me make a prediction. If we take the prime minister’s advice and return to work in large numbers now – and without the ability to test, trace and isolate – then virus spread will increase, there will be super-spreader events and local or regional lockdowns will have to be reconsidered. The prime minister implied in his speech that relapse will somehow be our fault – we were not sufficiently “alert”. The responsibility will lie, however, with a government that has encouraged a premature return to work before the epidemiologic conditions and interventions were in place to make it safe to do so.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

On a related note, the rather different tone from Johnson today about going back to work compared to yesterdays message. 









						Coronavirus: PM 'not expecting' flood of people back to work
					

Boris Johnson says people should only return to the workplace if it is secure against coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> elbows I've seen some claims recently on the lines of 'herd immunity is the strategy of every government' and I don't see how that can be when countries like New Zealand and South Korea are making such an effort to stamp out the virus, unless there's something I've missed. Do you know what could be meant by that? Surely the strategy of every government isn't to make everyone catch it until there's a vaccine?
> 
> Obviously having had it does give you some partial immunity but I don't see how the aim of every government can be herd immunity lol when policies have been introduced which seem to want to get rid of it entirely.


Who's claiming that? It's bollocks. By most estimates, we've had 50k deaths with perhaps 10 million infected here. That still leaves another 55 million of us to go. On course for the initial estimates of perhaps 300,000 dead, in fact, if we had just let it rip. That particular model by Imperial is looking more and more like the right one, sadly, and could still hold some future terrors for the world.

There's no guarantee of any vaccine, but best hope long term may be that the virus itself evolves to become less deadly, which could very well happen, as it has happened before with other viruses. If that happens, killing a few hundred thousand people to give herd immunity to one of the common cold viruses will look rather silly.


----------



## not-bono-ever (May 12, 2020)

its lazy and irresponsible to chuck this back to the employers and workers with such wishy washy  and legally opaque guidelines- expecting a firm to do its own rought and ready background and then* voluntarily* publish its risk assesment, rather than mandating that a location is checked independently and signed off - there is so much scope for shitey employers to skim this just to tick the boxes. utter wank . show some fucking leadership and direction you utter weapon


----------



## donkyboy (May 12, 2020)

No-nonsense plumber hailed a hero for his response to BoJo lockdown plan
					

A NO-NONSENSE plumber has been hailed a hero after backing Boris Johnson’s lockdown plan, saying guidance for Brits is not “hard to understand”. Ryan Price defended the PM and sai…




					www.thesun.co.uk
				




Why does the sun think anyone cares what a random plumber thinks?


----------



## oryx (May 12, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> its lazy and irresponsible to chuck this back to the employers and workers with such wishy washy  and legally opaque guidelines- expecting a firm to do its own rought and ready background and then* voluntarily* publish its risk assesment, rather than mandating that a location is checked independently and signed off - there is so much scope for shitey employers to skim this just to tick the boxes. utter wank . show some fucking leadership and direction you utter weapon


I was thinking this earlier then saw Johnson mention plans to make workplaces 'Covid-secure' using HSE inspections.


However...can anyone imagine how long it will take to inspect businesses and workplaces? The announcements about going back to work are just licence to exploit and to put people's lives in danger.


----------



## Epona (May 12, 2020)

Honestly construction sites are pretty much (in normal times) the most dangerous places to work with bosses and foremen often showing a lackadaisical approach to health and safety at best - and that is when it is in respect to measures to prevent people having accidents involving piles of bricks or a JCB.

I don't trust construction firms to suddenly exhibit a perfect record when implementing social distancing.  We all know they are going to be "fuck that, get on with it".  They can barely manage "try not to drop that on someone" a lot of the time.

Sorry if that is a bit cynical.


----------



## not-bono-ever (May 12, 2020)

hes had months to develop and assign this HSE task. The same HSE that has been cut and been forced to dump its staff for years.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 12, 2020)

donkyboy said:


> Why does the sun think anyone cares what a random plumber thinks?



why link to the shite then?


----------



## Wilf (May 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> On a related note, the rather different tone from Johnson today about going back to work compared to yesterdays message.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Edit: can't stick little britain, but that was spot on.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> elbows I've seen some claims recently on the lines of 'herd immunity is the strategy of every government' and I don't see how that can be when countries like New Zealand and South Korea are making such an effort to stamp out the virus, unless there's something I've missed. Do you know what could be meant by that? Surely the strategy of every government isn't to make everyone catch it until there's a vaccine?
> 
> Obviously having had it does give you some partial immunity but I don't see how the aim of every government can be herd immunity lol when policies have been introduced which seem to want to get rid of it entirely.



There is probably nothing sensible in such claims that I could help explain. I'd expect any claims like that which are still being made now, to then go on to reveal some crappy agenda or worldview that explains the stance, rather than it being a fact-based stance.

Earlier on I would not quite have said this, for example there was quite a period on threads like this one where we couldnt be at all sure exactly what the UK stance really was. This was after they had u-turned from their original plan, but when they still hadnt tipped their hand about how far they wanted to go with testing, contact tracing etc in future. That moment passed some time ago though, although there are still some reasons to question the level of government commitment to certain things at times. I suppose theres always a chance that new virus facts or epidemic circumstances could eventually lead governments to a position where it might become somewhat relevant to talk about this stuff again, to have certain suspicions again. But for me at the moment it would be a waste of suspicion and my suspicion is more likely to turn towards the motives of those who want to make claims that herd immunity is the strategy of every government now. What else are they saying, are they just into being contrarian for the sake of it or is this stuff an essential ingredient for some larger story they are peddling?

If it wasnt already silly enough, the 'every government' bit is what makes me write it off so totally at this point. What possible basis is there for such a broad claim?

I'd be happy to claim that there would be a long list of governments who would have been really happy if the sort of 'dont do very much' strategy that has become known as the herd immunity approach was actually viable in this pandemic. But they mostly decided it wasnt and had to change tact pronto, and that was long enough ago now that it shouldnt have escaped anyones attention. A few countries are still giving it as much of a go as they dare. They might get away with it more than certain very worst case scenario modelling would have suggested, and I do not rule out the possibility that the rest of this year will not unfold quite as many imagine it will. But I just dont know, I take it one week at a time for this and other reasons. There is currently nothing on the radar that makes me think governments can try to revert to their old default position for flu pandemics in the next stages of this coronavirus pandemic.


----------



## frogwoman (May 12, 2020)

elbows littlebabyjesus well the guy i know whose saying this wants to lift the lockdown and that trying to restrict the spread is pointless since 'we're all going to get it anyway'.

But I've read similar stuff saying that 'every government's strategy is herd immunity' and that every government is ultimately aiming for everyone to catch covid in a controlled way, that locking down is ultimately aimed at a controlled number of people to get it rather than stopping the spread of the coronavirus altogether. And that therefore the controversy on herd immunity is misplaced. One person claiming this in an article I saw claims to be a scientist lol.

I don't really know how that can be true because South Korea and China seem to be pouring resources into making sure hardly anyone gets it, and therefore hardly anyone would be immune. Unless there's something I've missed about the argument?


----------



## zahir (May 12, 2020)

Assessing the government’s version of contact tracing.





__





						Coronavirus: malevolent stupidity
					

Coronavirus: malevolent stupidity




					eureferendum.com


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> elbows littlebabyjesus well the guy i know whose saying this wants to lift the lockdown and that trying to restrict the spread is pointless since 'we're all going to get it anyway'.
> 
> But I've read similar stuff saying that 'every government's strategy is herd immunity' and that every government is ultimately aiming for everyone to catch covid in a controlled way, that locking down is ultimately aimed at a controlled number of people to get it rather than stopping the spread of the coronavirus altogether. And that therefore the controversy on herd immunity is misplaced. One person claiming this in an article I saw claims to be a scientist lol.
> 
> I don't really know how that can be true because South Korea and China seem to be pouring resources into making sure hardly anyone gets it, and therefore hardly anyone would be immune. Unless there's something I've missed about the argument?


He's just a dick, and he's wrong.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Given the news about the Scottish study on how many deaths an earlier lockdown could have prevented, I thought I would quickly place it into a context I have mentioned before.
> 
> First the story about the Scottish study again:
> 
> ...


Interesting study...apart from the fact that there haven't been 2000 deaths in Scotland so far.


----------



## frogwoman (May 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Interesting study...apart from the fact that there haven't been 2000 deaths in Scotland so far.



Well it would also include cases where ppl caught it and spread it to people living elsewhere surely?


----------



## Yossarian (May 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Interesting study...apart from the fact that there haven't been 2000 deaths in Scotland so far.



2,795 deaths as of 3rd May, according to National Records of Scotland.





__





						Deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland | National Records of Scotland
					

National Records of Scotland




					www.nrscotland.gov.uk


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Well it would also include cases where ppl caught it and spread it to people living elsewhere surely?


No.  The 'study' reports 2800 deaths in Scotland so far, 1000 more than there has actually been.


----------



## frogwoman (May 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> No.  The 'study' reports 2800 deaths in Scotland so far, 1000 more than there has actually been.


. That might be including excess deaths of ppl who died without being tested tho.


----------



## maomao (May 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> . That might be including excess deaths of ppl who died without being tested tho.


No, it's the official figure. Just hasn't been on Wings Over Scotland's Twitter yet so Dexter doesn't believe it.


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)




----------



## bimble (May 12, 2020)

Somebody I know is getting a test today and says he thinks it’s because he reported feeling a bit unwell on that app day before yesterday. Says he’s been told to expect the result in ‘between 48 hours and 5 days”.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> . That might be including excess deaths of ppl who died without being tested tho.


Then it wouldn't be a scientific study.   (I'm not arguing with you frog, it's the bbc reporting I have problems with)

In Scotland corona is noted when someone has/had had it when they die, just the same as with any drugs/alcohol etc. found in the system when you die - it doesn't mean death by drugs/booze or corona, it's recording the patient's situation for more accurate long-term information.   

The bbc regularly use this difference in recording methods to try and make Scotland look worse statistacally.  England doesn't use this method afaik and only records offical cause of death.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


>


Is this easy enough to understand?


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 12, 2020)

Gus O'Donnell , crossbench peer and ex-cabinet secretary (i.e. top civil servant) was on Radio 4 just now. He made the point that what we should talk/should have been talking about about is physical distancing and social cohesion.

Physical distancing is a very simple and effective message. Social cohesion - listening to and looking after each other based on a respect for one another as equals - is very a laudable aim. Both are preferable to the potentially suspicious and alienating 'be alert' and 'social distancing'.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Is this easy enough to understand?
> View attachment 212088


My scottish dad says that's bullshit.


----------



## Cid (May 12, 2020)

wrt to Scotland it seems the 1800 figure is deaths that had a test, the 2,800 figure is deaths where covid is mentioned on the death certificate.


----------



## maomao (May 12, 2020)

The academy chain that runs my daughter's school has sent an email saying they will try for a 'phased reopening' but they may have trouble staffing it. I'm not sure whether this means they layed half the staff off already or  that they'll have trouble doing it while maintaining social distancing.

Our school is new and only has four out of seven years filled so presumably they could at least spread out across some extra classrooms. But I'm wondering what the point would be. Have they ever met a five year old?


----------



## Thora (May 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> The academy chain that runs my daughter's school has sent an email saying they will try for a 'phased reopening' but they may have trouble staffing it. I'm not sure whether this means they layed half the staff off already or  that they'll have trouble doing it while maintaining social distancing.
> 
> Our school is new and only has four out of seven years filled so presumably they could at least spread out across some extra classrooms. But I'm wondering what the point would be. Have they ever met a five year old?


Probably means lots of staff will be vulnerable or won’t come in, and they need double staff to cover twice as many classes as usual.


----------



## maomao (May 12, 2020)

Thora said:


> Probably means lots of staff will be vulnerable or won’t come in, and they need double staff to cover twice as many classes as usual.


We're not sending her back this year anyway. Her birthday's at the end of April so I don't think they could make us till September and by the sounds of it they'll be glad of an absence.


----------



## gentlegreen (May 12, 2020)

I'm lucky enough to work in a university where the VC trained as a hospital specialist and used to be dean of the nursing faculty where they have been training volunteers for the Nightingale hospital - , so I will be taking my cues about life in general from there.


----------



## andysays (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> My scottish dad says that's bullshit.


So-called Scottish dad...

If he's living in England he should clearly mind his own business.


----------



## The39thStep (May 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> Somebody I know is getting a test today and says he thinks it’s because he reported feeling a bit unwell on that app day before yesterday. Says he’s been told to expect the result in ‘between 48 hours and 5 days”.


I read somewhere that some tests have to go to the USA to be processed.


----------



## planetgeli (May 12, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I read somewhere that some tests have to go to the USA to be processed.











						Coronavirus: UK sent 50,000 Covid-19 samples to US for testing
					

The government says "operational issues" in the UK meant 50,000 samples had to be flown to US labs.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Aye. Totally prepared we were.


----------



## zahir (May 12, 2020)

Unless the government changes tack, the UK's lockdown will have been for nothing | Devi Sridhar
					

Easing social distancing without a proper programme of testing, contact tracing and isolating will lead to a second wave of coronavirus, asks Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh




					www.theguardian.com
				





> Governments have three choices in how they respond. The first and most difficult path is to contain the virus through a programme of mass testing, contact tracing and isolating. This requires a huge effort: building a large infrastructure to monitor cases of the virus and identify hotspots, ensuring this system runs efficiently, providing adequate PPE to everyone who needs it, and deploying border controls to vet who is entering the country. The second path is far simpler. It involves slowing the spread of the virus by using timed cycles of lockdown and release, with the government issuing guidance on how much social distancing is required. But the side effects of this path are very costly: it risks wrecking the economy, straining health and social care systems, and creating social unrest. The third and easiest path available to governments is simply to do nothing. The virus sweeps across the population, the economy remains open and whoever makes it through is lucky to still be alive. It’s almost impossible to decipher which path the UK government has chosen.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> My scottish dad says that's bullshit.


When you and your clueless mate are talking about a twitter account that doesn't exist...I'm the one calling bullshit son.  

Many Scots, including me, want a border with you lot just now.  Spitfire flying, vera lynne singing, union jack waving, conga dancing, lockdown breaking fuckwits.  Ask your dad if that's bullshit.


----------



## bimble (May 12, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I read somewhere that some tests have to go to the USA to be processed.


That is embarrassing.


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> When you and your clueless mate are talking about a twitter account that doesn't exist...I'm the one calling bullshit son.
> 
> Many Scots, including me, want a border with you lot just now.  Spitfire flying, vera lynne singing, union jack waving, conga dancing, lockdown breaking fuckwits.  Ask your dad if that's bullshit.


he also called you a racist.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> he also called you a racist.


Tell him he's an uncle tam.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)




----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> he also called you a racist.


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

What, there's racists in england too? My mind is blown.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> What, there's racists in england too? My mind is blown.


No you were calling me racist.  My mind is same as always.  

Just give your dad a thumbs up, tell him I wish him the best, look after him...just a pity he's a house jock.

But remember...you're a clueless twat...there is no Wings twitter account.  Better to shut your mouth and not show your ignorance, I'd suggest.  In fact if a wings twitter account annoyed you...lol just wait and see what happens soon.


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

what's a 'house jock'?


----------



## keybored (May 12, 2020)

Some kind of dance music DJ I think.


----------



## weepiper (May 12, 2020)

Jesus Christ Dexter, can you just not?


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Jesus Christ Dexter, can you just not?


Can I just not sit here and let some cunt call me a racist, are you asking?

I posted, disputing the bbc 'facts' and got called racist for it.   gtf


----------



## maomao (May 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Can I just not sit here and let some cunt call me a racist, are you asking?


Tbf it was his dad that called you racist and I don't think he posts here.


----------



## GarveyLives (May 12, 2020)

Very sad:

Station ticket office worker dies with Covid-19 after being spat at







*The Late Belly Mujinga*

*Anyone who saw Ms Mujinga being spat on at London's Victoria Station on 22 March 2020 can contact British Transport Police by texting 61016 or calling 0800 40 50 40 quoting reference 359 of 11/05/20.*​


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 12, 2020)

I hope they catch the cunt that did that.


----------



## little_legs (May 12, 2020)




----------



## little_legs (May 12, 2020)

Over 50K dead officially but _it's time to ease the lockdown_. And, as per usual, no mention of the deaths on the BBC.


----------



## teuchter (May 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Many Scots, including me, want a border with you lot just now.  Spitfire flying, vera lynne singing, union jack waving, conga dancing, lockdown breaking fuckwits.



I'm a scot who thinks this nonsense is a wee bit racist.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Then it wouldn't be a scientific study.   (I'm not arguing with you frog, it's the bbc reporting I have problems with)
> 
> In Scotland corona is noted when someone has/had had it when they die, just the same as with any drugs/alcohol etc. found in the system when you die - it doesn't mean death by drugs/booze or corona, it's recording the patient's situation for more accurate long-term information.
> 
> The bbc regularly use this difference in recording methods to try and make Scotland look worse statistacally.  England doesn't use this method afaik and only records offical cause of death.



The world of science does not limit itself to one form of measuring deaths. It does not require a positive test, or for everyone with an opinion to be satisfied that the deaths were all 100% caused by Covid-19 as opposed to Covid-19 being somewhat involved.

There are a bunch of different versions of the death stats, and Scotland is no exception. Experts will look at both deaths where Covid-19 is mentioned on a death certificate, but also total excess mortality. Total excess mortality is not some weird unscientific bullshit, it is a well established thing that countries look at every winter to get a measure of the impact of things like influenza or a really bad winter.

In this case I do not even have to resort to total excess deaths to get a figure close to 2800. I can just use the data from last Wednesdays National Records of Scotland data.





__





						Deaths involving COVID-19, Week 18 - 27th April to 3rd May | National Records of Scotland
					

National Records of Scotland




					www.nrscotland.gov.uk
				






> As at 3rd May, 2,795 deaths have been registered in Scotland where COVID-19 was mentioned in the death certificate, according to statistics published by National Records of Scotland (NRS) today.



I realise you may decide to quibble on about how these arent all Covid-19 deaths, and indeed they choose their language carefully with the 'where COVID-19 was mentioned in the death certificate' bit. Anyway England & Wales do just the same thing, just not necessarily in the daily stats. But daily stats are only good for viewing the death trends with slightly less lag, when it comes to more accurate figures the ONS of England & Wales, NR of Scotland and NISRA of Northern Ireland are the established sources, just with more lag. So I do not intend to spend further time today dealing with your misguided angle.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Can I just not sit here and let some cunt call me a racist, are you asking?
> 
> I posted, disputing the bbc 'facts' and got called racist for it.   gtf


No you got called a racist for the racist stuff, you absolute stem


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> elbows littlebabyjesus well the guy i know whose saying this wants to lift the lockdown and that trying to restrict the spread is pointless since 'we're all going to get it anyway'.
> 
> But I've read similar stuff saying that 'every government's strategy is herd immunity' and that every government is ultimately aiming for everyone to catch covid in a controlled way, that locking down is ultimately aimed at a controlled number of people to get it rather than stopping the spread of the coronavirus altogether. And that therefore the controversy on herd immunity is misplaced. One person claiming this in an article I saw claims to be a scientist lol.
> 
> I don't really know how that can be true because South Korea and China seem to be pouring resources into making sure hardly anyone gets it, and therefore hardly anyone would be immune. Unless there's something I've missed about the argument?



If I try really hard then I could pull some small grains of truth out of that stuff, but it would still leave them as the ones with the misplaced shit.

It is true that the medical establishment in many countries is not confident that the disease can simply be eradicated, indeed some recent UK documents have gone on about how Smallpox is the only human disease that we've ever managed to eradicate globally so far.

For this and some other reasons, the long term hopes are still vaccination, and if/when vaccination is in the picture as a viable option, then the concept of herd immunity, population immunity or whatever you want to call it will very much be back. But there is a world of difference between the concept of herd immunity without a vaccine, where immunity is driven only by people catching the disease, and being able to do a similar thing via vaccination. And there is also not always that much confidence that we will successfully reach the point of having a great vaccine, and we will sometimes see UK government experts talking about how we could end up with better drug treatment options instead. Thats the backup plan, if there is no complete suppression of the disease or vaccine, then they can at least make a big difference to how many people get severely ill or die when they catch it.

Its also true that a big chunk of the emphasis from many governments during their initial waves of infection has been to slow and reduce the size of those waves, to stop various things getting overwhelmed. But the hospitalisation rates for this illness mean that the extent to which they have to slow the disease in order to cope, is also a rate where population immunity will build much too slowly to be part of an actual solution of some kind. Because immunity to coronaviruses is not thought to last a terribly long time, so by the time the infection at a slow rate of spread got to 'everyone', people who'd had an infection early on would probably start to lose their immunity again.

As I indicated in previous response to this, I do think that many governments would really like it if they had an exit strategy that could come quickly and involved not doing too much. They would love there to be a viable strategy that allows population immunity to increase and much of normal life to return. But it just doesnt add up for them on this front at the moment, so most governments cannot act on these instincts and priorities, they had to embrace something very different. Will some of them jump on the chance if it presents itself in future for some reason? Yes. Do governments treat death as though a certain amount of it is tollerable to their populations? Yes, sort of, under certain conditions. But these arent normal times, people around the world have demonstrated that they will not accept inaction and high levels of death, and unless their attitudes also change on this, some options are just not viable for governments to attempt. But I do have to stay alert for shifts on this front in future.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

And never forget that a high degree of fatalism in regards 'everyone is going to catch it anyway' was actually one of the concepts that made many government responses pathetic in the first place, and likely also part of the reason they misjudged what the public response to their do little plans would be. Its certainly a primary reason why we have never seriously considered trying to eradicate things like influenza, or try to prevent a new strain of influenza that has really got going in a population somewhere from becoming a global pandemic. Its a reason why the 2009 swine flu influenza response first phase was a delay phase, not a real contain or suppress phase despite the labelling used at the time (they called it contain, but it was actually delay). And on those occasions people accepted that approach, but only because we think of flu as treatable and the seasonal deaths from it so normal.

But this is all part of the old normal, not the new normal. Most people still talking about stuff with no regard for these changed realities and norms have an agenda, usually an anti-lockdown agenda. They are on the margins for now so I wont waste much time on them. But if circumstances and priorities of people or governments change, will need to pay attention to whether their stance is gaining any momentum.


----------



## Cid (May 12, 2020)

Getting some concerning stuff doing the rounds at the moment, this was posted by someone I know as a sensible thing they've seen recently:




			
				Some Rando said:
			
		

> “Flattening the curve didn’t mean stop the infection, but spread it out so that the system could handle it. I am seeing so much anxiety about resuming business, and so much anger about continued regulations. People are feeling the need to catapult to one side or the other, then fight the opposition.
> 
> Here’s my perspective, from a mainstream medical model. I think a lot of folks have fallen into the idea that social distancing was meant to stop the viral spread. It wasn’t. It was meant to SLOW it while we put medical infrastructure in place. It’s not perfect, but it’s much better than it was seven weeks ago.
> 
> ...



I have a few responses to make to stuff like that, though tbh at the moment I'm starting to suffer from the same kind of 'looking at charts etc' fatigue that elbows has had for a while. Actually pretty empty in Sheffield today, so despite this and the fact some of my colleagues no longer seem to give a shit, I'm not entirely pessimistic.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

Those attitudes have always been there, its just as time goes on more of them will feel like it is safe to have another go at peddling that shit.

There are so many flaws to the thinking that I will not try to deal with them all. The most obvious one, from the fools who still think a 'shield the vulnerable' approach is viable, is that there is no way to actually shield vulnerable groups that live in institutions from the 'at much lower risk' population. The Queen had the luxury of HMS Bubble, staff kept in isolation with her so that they cannot bring the infection into her protective cocoon. The care sector does not have that luxury, hospitals do not have that luxury. Many families do not have that luxury.

Johnson getting really ill from Covid-19 did not help the cause of these people either. It made it much harder to draw neat, hideously oversimplified lines between those who should be safe to return to normal life and those for whom the implications of the illness are much more severe.

Its a bit like listening to libertarian scum who seem to have no idea how human societies actually function. Atlas coughed. Atlas laid prone in the ICU.


----------



## andysays (May 12, 2020)

Furlough scheme extended for another four months to October (according to the BBC website, so it's probably anti Scottish propaganda...)


----------



## maomao (May 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Furlough scheme extended to October (according to BBC website, so it's probably anti Scottish propaganda...)


Good. More swanning about for me then.


----------



## baldrick (May 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> That is embarrassing.


Isn't it. I had a covid test last Thursday, got my result Saturday. My colleague who went to a different centre for her test, last Wednesday, is still waiting.


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Furlough scheme extended for another four months to October (according to the BBC website, so it's probably anti Scottish propaganda...)


But with employers expected to pay towards the 80% from some point (end of July I think).


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (May 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Furlough scheme extended for another four months to October (according to the BBC website, so it's probably anti Scottish propaganda...)



Good. So many industries can’t really go back to work. Astonishing cost, currently something like £14bn a month. Gonna take donks to pay that back!


----------



## ruffneck23 (May 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Good. So many industries can’t really go back to work. Astonishing cost, currently something like £14bn a month. Gonna take donks to pay that back!


They might end up being forced into legalising and taxing weed.

Oh sorry this is the tories isnt it ?

Forget that


----------



## andysays (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> But with employers expected to pay towards the 80% from some point (end of July I think).


Yeah, more details emerging as we speak.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

Update on the excess mortality estimating we spoke of yesterday. With todays ONS data it turns out that the model used for the estimates came up with a figure that was lower than the reality.


----------



## Petcha (May 12, 2020)

The shadow chancellor looks absolutely insane. Jesus christ.


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The shadow chancellor looks absolutely insane. Jesus christ.


in what way?


----------



## Petcha (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> in what way?



I just saw her give a video interview. She looked like she'd just hoovered up a couple of grams. Wild eyes and basically shouting.


----------



## maomao (May 12, 2020)

Matt Han*cock* has broken it to the British people they may have to cancel their summer holidays this year 




			
				Matt Hancock said:
			
		

> “We will seek to reopen hospitality from early July if we keep successfully reducing the spread of this virus but I think social distancing of some kind is going to continue,” Han*cock* said.
> 
> “And the conclusion from that is that it’s unlikely big lavish international holidays are going to be possible for this summer. I just think that’s a reality of life.”
> [/quote}
> ...


----------



## flypanam (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> But with employers expected to pay towards the 80% from some point (end of July I think).


I’m probably being stupid here but doesn’t the extension of the scheme add more confusion to the waffle that came out on Sunday night? I’m furloughed so happy about it.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 12, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I just saw her give a video interview. She looked like she'd just hoovered up a couple of grams. Wild eyes and basically shouting.


She’s pissed off as she should be


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

flypanam said:


> I’m probably being stupid here but doesn’t the extension of the scheme add more confusion to the waffle that came out on Sunday night? I’m furloughed so happy about it.


It's certainly a retreat from wha Sunak was telegraphing last week, which was a cut to 60%


----------



## maomao (May 12, 2020)

flypanam said:


> I’m probably being stupid here but doesn’t the extension of the scheme add more confusion to the waffle that came out on Sunday night? I’m furloughed so happy about it.


A large amount of people who aren't working (like myself) are not working because there's no work to do. I can do my job from home but if there was no furlough I probably would have been made redundant.


----------



## flypanam (May 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Good. So many industries can’t really go back to work. Astonishing cost, currently something like £14bn a month. Gonna take donks to pay that back!


BofE is financing it by printing money, the gov can decide how much and for how long they want to pay it back, if at all. They are not borrowing from the international markets.


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> She’s pissed off as she should be


angry Labour politicians is what we kind of want right now isn't it?


----------



## LDC (May 12, 2020)

flypanam said:


> I’m probably being stupid here but doesn’t the extension of the scheme add more confusion to the waffle that came out on Sunday night? I’m furloughed so happy about it.



Why would it? If anything surely it makes it less stressful and easier, more options than just having to go straight back to work.


----------



## flypanam (May 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> A large amount of people who aren't working (like myself) are not working because there's no work to do. I can do my job from home but if there was no furlough I probably would have been made redundant.


Same for me only I can work from home but my employer decided I couldn’t. I suppose how long you’re on the scheme will depend on government advice and employers decisions.


----------



## flypanam (May 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why would it? If anything surely it makes it less stressful and easier, more options than just having to go straight back to work.


Just in terms of the different signals coming out of the gov, get to work, stay at home, extending furlough...I am having a doppy day.


----------



## little_legs (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> But with employers expected to pay towards the 80% from some point (end of July I think).


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

All cause deaths compared to Covid-19 on death certificate deaths continues to show the same sort of relationship during the decline phase as it did earlier.

Its completely correct to consider the indirect deaths that may be part of the picture, eg deaths caused by lockdown side-effects rather than the disease itself, when talking about excess mortality. However, when I see graph like this, my conviction that the bulk of the excess is from Covid-19 rather than indirect stuff remains intact. Whether it will be possible to spot more of what could be indirect deaths later on I cannot say, I suppose it depends what level the deaths return to once the Covid-19 deaths are no longer a very large part of the picture.






__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19), by age, sex and region, in the latest weeks for which data are available.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

I wonder if the terms of the furlough extension being more generous than expected has anything to do with the public reaction to the clusterfuck of the last 48 hours or so?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 12, 2020)

And, still they haven't confirmed help for the self-employed beyond the end of May, the cunts.


----------



## little_legs (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> I wonder if the terms of the furlough extension being more generous than expected has anything to do with the public reaction to the clusterfuck of the last 48 hours or so?


You mean the government got scared that it may be liable for the mass murder of the population and the ensuing class action?


----------



## andysays (May 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> A large amount of people who aren't working (like myself) are not working because there's no work to do. I can do my job from home but if there was no furlough I probably would have been made redundant.


I know a few furloughed people who were expecting to get made redundant when the current period came to an end so hopefully this buys a little time if nothing else.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> angry Labour politicians is what we kind of want right now isn't it?


Aye, not Starmer’s Droopy Dog wet farts


----------



## Raheem (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's certainly a retreat from wha Sunak was telegraphing last week, which was a cut to 60%


That was supposed to be the whole point of the mad unlockdown speech, wasn't it?


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> I wonder if the terms of the furlough extension being more generous than expected has anything to do with the public reaction to the clusterfuck of the last 48 hours or so?



Several possibilities I suppose.

General ineptitude leading to a forced rethink.
Games between competing factions within government (some ministers want faster lifting of lockdown etc).
Behavioural unit not having a clue what the public response will be so wanting stuff like this floated to test public sentiments.
Trying to sound pro-business to keep those types onside, but mostly just for show, because they had little of substance to offer them in terms of reopening.

Aside from those possibilities, I think my favourite remains the one where they actually understand how long it is going to take to return certain aspects of life to something approaching normal. So they start pushing some of the public messages far ahead of what they actually expect to achieve. Because its still a start. Maybe only a few percent of workers respond in the desired way and start to have different attitudes about whether they should try to go back to work, but its still a start. Its just groundwork, eg for a later step where they might get some kids back to school, increasing the number of workers who might be able to return because childcare issues are reduced. The schools reopening stuff is a similar kind of thing in itself, I bet they know that only a fraction of kids will actually go back when the opportunity to do so first arises, but its still something, and they need to start getting the idea into peoples heads early.


----------



## little_legs (May 12, 2020)




----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> I wonder if the terms of the furlough extension being more generous than expected has anything to do with the public reaction to the clusterfuck of the last 48 hours or so?



Or more than likely Gov have been made aware of what teachers have said via their union surveys. We ain’t coming back to work on June 1st.


----------



## little_legs (May 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> That was supposed to be the whole point of the mad unlockdown speech, wasn't it?


Doesn't mean it won't happen, if your employer is greedy or cash strapped, the 60% may still be on the cards.

Edit: from August 1st that is


----------



## ska invita (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> I wonder if the terms of the furlough extension being more generous than expected has anything to do with the public reaction to the clusterfuck of the last 48 hours or so?



I see a slight of hand here. If the government pays 60% and the employer makes up the rest, that'  basically a drop to 60% of state money as originally advertised isn't it?

ETA: will businesses be forced to pay a minimum 20% shortfall in order for the furlough money to be claimed?


----------



## Raheem (May 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I see a slight of hand here. If the government pays 60% and the employer makes up the rest, thats a drop to 60% as originally advertised isnt it?


The government is going to carry on paying 80% until August, then make an unspecified cut. The original plan seems to have been to make the cut to 60% on 1st June.


----------



## ska invita (May 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> The government is going to carry on paying 80% until August, then make an unspecified cut. The original plan seems to have been to make the cut on 1st June.


ah okay, so extended by a month then, thanks


----------



## Raheem (May 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> ah okay, so extended by a month then, thanks


Two months.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 12, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



Not coronavirus related, but it must be so weird for someone of Hancock's generation (and mine) to be interviewed by Phillip Schofield, after growing up watching him on kids TV.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> The government is going to carry on paying 80% until August, then make an unspecified cut. The original plan seems to have been to make the cut to 60% on 1st June.



No, it had already been extended to the end of June, before today's further announcement.


----------



## ska invita (May 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Two months.


original furlough was earmarked till end of June i think...certainly what i was told at my job.


----------



## maomao (May 12, 2020)

Anyone know if there's any extension to contributions based JSA planned or if that will just expire after six months as normal?


----------



## Raheem (May 12, 2020)

ska invita said:


> original furlough was earmarked till end of June i think...certainly what i was told at my job.


Yes, it was for four months, until the end of June, but I think what had been briefed to the press was a cut to 60% from 1st June.

The whole 'people should be encouraged to get back to work' thing seems to me to have been more-or-less entirely about paving the way for that announcement. But now it isn't happening.


----------



## keybored (May 12, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



I would dearly love to see his reasoning behind this.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (May 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> The government is going to carry on paying 80% until August, then make an unspecified cut. The original plan seems to have been to make the cut to 60% on 1st June.



I am reading it as 80% extended to October, so four months. With the chance to part time furlough people at some point.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (May 12, 2020)

keybored said:


> I would dearly love to see his reasoning behind this.




The same as everything else, "making up bollocks on the hoof"


----------



## Raheem (May 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> I am reading it as 80% extended to October, so four months. With the chance to part time furlough people at some point.


It is being spun as an opportunity to work part-time, but it's really a cut to the amount the government will pay, planned for August.


----------



## keybored (May 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> The same as everything else, "making up bollocks on the hoof"


He'd go into a 2 minute monologue repeating stuff about "R" over and over. They're all beginning to sound like demented pirates.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (May 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> It is being spun as an opportunity to work part-time, but it's really a cut to the amount the government will pay, planned for August.



80% will be staying until the end of October for all who need it.

The part time furlough would be if you take someone back to work for 50% of their normal hours, cos there's far less work for them to do than is normal, you get 50% of the furlough dough from govt.

This works well for me; guy I work with I have furloughed him, I am making up the extra 20% so he's not losing out at all. As we are a travel agency and no one is booking anything I can now keep him furloughed until the end of October. More than that though, I can't furlough myself as I need to administer the furlough and I still have a few other admin tasks and under furlough you can do nothing at all, except as a director perform statutory duties (file a return). So I will now be able to part time furlough myself and get a % of my salary back, whereas currently I am paying 100% of my salary.


----------



## little_legs (May 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> The same as everything else, "making up bollocks on the hoof"


Aye. 

Piers Morgan and Phillip Schofield providing more effective opposition than Labour. What a time to be alive.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 12, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Aye.
> 
> Piers Morgan and Phillip Schofield providing more effective opposition than Labour. What a time to be alive.


What a time to be dead


----------



## little_legs (May 12, 2020)

Some polls are showing that the eugenicist party is losing public support esp since that dreaded Sunday speech. Explains the furlough extension then.


----------



## killer b (May 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> 80% will be staying until the end of October for all who need it.
> 
> The part time furlough would be if you take someone back to work for 50% of their normal hours, cos there's far less work for them to do than is normal, you get 50% of the furlough dough from govt.
> 
> This works well for me; guy I work with I have furloughed him, I am making up the extra 20% so he's not losing out at all. As we are a travel agency and no one is booking anything I can now keep him furloughed until the end of October. More than that though, I can't furlough myself as I need to administer the furlough and I still have a few other admin tasks and under furlough you can do nothing at all, except as a director perform statutory duties (file a return). So I will now be able to part time furlough myself and get a % of my salary back, whereas currently I am paying 100% of my salary.


he's pretty specific that there will be an employer contribution from the start of August.

_1/ The job retention scheme will be extended, for four months, until the end of October.  By that point, we will have provided eight months of support to British people and businesses. Until the end of July, there will be no changes to the scheme whatsoever.

2/ From August to October the scheme will continue, for all sectors and regions of the UK, but with greater flexibility to support the transition back to work. Employers currently using the scheme will be able to bring furloughed employees back part-time.

3/ We will ask employers to start sharing, with the government, the costs of paying people’s salaries._

3/ isn't just for 2/. it would be much more clear if it was.


----------



## gosub (May 12, 2020)

flypanam said:


> BofE is financing it by printing money, the gov can decide how much and for how long they want to pay it back, if at all. They are not borrowing from the international markets.



Yes they are. Gilt auctions have still been happening. And we have had a credit rating downgrade from Fitch to AA-. (Credit Rating is important as below a certain threshold institutional buyers such as pensions can't hold investment)


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> he's pretty specific that there will be an employer contribution from the start of August.
> 
> _1/ The job retention scheme will be extended, for four months, until the end of October.  By that point, we will have provided eight months of support to British people and businesses. Until the end of July, there will be no changes to the scheme whatsoever.
> 
> ...




Yeah but no details on that until the end of May. So likely not happen as the backlash would be too much.


----------



## LDC (May 12, 2020)

keybored said:


> I would dearly love to see his reasoning behind this.



Tbh it makes sense to me. The line had to be put somewhere with this initial slight easing, and it's easier to make that line meeting up with one person than anything else.

Meeting up with one person makes it easy to social distance with them. Meeting up and hanging out with 2 (especially if walking about) makes keeping that distance from them both very difficult, as you're moving in reaction to 2 other people which is less predictable and more likely to result in <2m contact. And yeah it might seem bonkers that it's just one parent at a time, but what if your parents live in different houses, or you have some other situation that isn't just both parents living in the same house? And what about step-parents, do they count? How can you put all those situations in the guidelines without it being really complicated?

And if you're meeting both parents at the same time then why not two other people, and if two, why not three, etc? If loads of people meet up with 2 others then the social space they take up increases massively and then so does the risk, not to mention the fact that things would very quickly seem 'normal' and with that comes increased risk of people letting their caution slacken.

I think this is a really complex situation and it's basically impossible to create guidelines for all possibilities and if you search for things there's always going to be things that might seem totally illogical and annoying, that's the nature of trying to create rules for the complexities of social human interaction.

Plenty of things to criticize them on, 50,000+ dead, PPE, etc etc. "Why can't I meet up with both my parents at the same time, that seems ridiculous." is kinda not worthy of the airtime tbh.


----------



## ruffneck23 (May 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> A large amount of people who aren't working (like myself) are not working because there's no work to do. I can do my job from home but if there was no furlough I probably would have been made redundant.


same as and I'm expecting to be made redundant soon.


----------



## Wilf (May 12, 2020)

Edit: ah, fuck it, thread's moved on.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Plenty of things to criticize them on, 50,000+ dead, PPE, etc etc. "Why can't I meet up with both my parents at the same time, that seems ridiculous." is kinda not worthy of the airtime tbh.


The cynic might suspect that they're being deliberately obtuse about this point to avoid answering those other questions.


----------



## Doodler (May 12, 2020)

There must be a lot of empty hotel rooms right now. Something useful could be done with them, like offering them free of charge to people needing to self-isolate away from their families.


----------



## weepiper (May 12, 2020)

Doodler said:


> There must be a lot of empty hotel rooms right now. Something useful could be done with them, like offering them free of charge to people needing to self-isolate away from their families.


Edinburgh is using some of them to house rough sleepers. Edit, Glasgow too









						Edinburgh hotel provides rooms to 44 homeless people to keep them safe
					

Thanks to a massive effort and £300k from the Scots Government, Edinburgh's most vulnerable people have somewhere safe to stay




					www.google.com


----------



## Cid (May 12, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Edinburgh is using some of them to house rough sleepers. Edit, Glasgow too
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Same for a lot of England (and I imagine rest of uk) to be fair. I’ve even read that this crazy policy of putting people in safe, comfortable environments and giving them regular meals and access to washing facilities is - shockingly- helping them in other ways.


----------



## IC3D (May 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The cynic might suspect that they're being deliberately obtuse about this point to avoid answering those other questions.


The danger equates to the amount of covid in your area and without contact tracing they don't know how risky it is.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 12, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Edinburgh is using some of them to house rough sleepers. Edit, Glasgow too
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Same in Worthing, a posh one on the seafront too.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Good. So many industries can’t really go back to work. Astonishing cost, currently something like £14bn a month. Gonna take donks to pay that back!



Another few years of this and it'll equal the cost of nine feet of HS2 track.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (May 12, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Another few years of this and it'll equal the cost of nine feet of HS2 track.



Speaking of which, these are all over my town and the surrounding woodlands and so on...


----------



## belboid (May 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> Same for a lot of England (and I imagine rest of uk) to be fair. I’ve even read that this crazy policy of putting people in safe, comfortable environments and giving them regular meals and access to washing facilities is - shockingly- helping them in other ways.


it does get to  be a bit of a mess though.  Putting fucked up people all in one hotel without having enough staff to actually support them has its own problems.  Locally one hotel had half its room TV's cleared out and flogged on.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Speaking of which, these are all over my town and the surrounding woodlands and so on...
> 
> View attachment 212178


Think Trident.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Good. So many industries can’t really go back to work. Astonishing cost, currently something like £14bn a month. Gonna take donks to pay that back!


Would take nearly three years of that to equal the quantitative easing done in response to the banking crisis. 

It's not such a huge cost. It's less than 1% GDP per month.


----------



## Celyn (May 12, 2020)

It took me a minute to realise that TVs are no longer heavyweight enormous things but even so, I'd have thought it a bit tricky to wander out with a television.


----------



## The39thStep (May 12, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Speaking of which, these are all over my town and the surrounding woodlands and so on...
> 
> View attachment 212178


Quite right . Build the wall in Manchester


----------



## gosub (May 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Think Trident.


As a way of clearing woodland ahead of a civil engineering project?   I can see 1 or 2 snags


----------



## weepiper (May 12, 2020)

Some interesting Scotland/England/Wales numbers here









						Coronavirus: Number of 'excess deaths' during Covid crisis running 20 higher in England and Wales than Scotland
					

THE number of 'extra' deaths from any cause since the Covid outbreak began is a fifth lower in Scotland than in England and Wales.




					www.heraldscotland.com


----------



## andysays (May 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Would take nearly three years of that to equal the quantitative easing done in response to the banking crisis.
> 
> It's not such a huge cost. It's less than 1% GDP per month.


If those figures are correct (not doubting you) it really puts in perspective what value we as a society put on things. 

If we can use circa 10% of GDP to support the economy while we overcome Covid19, we could potentially use similar levels of support to rebuild for everyone's benefit once it's over.

Whether or not we do is, of course, a political decision,  but it's one we should be arguing for and fighting for now.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2020)

At least the daily data came back to the press conference today, with new ugly slideshow format. I wont moan about the looks too much though since they also included hospital admissions numbers for England which they have shown before but not very often. They even included ONS death data, but only for Covid-19 cases, not all deaths.

I laughed rather loudly when the Bloomberg journalist asked whether the tories would now drop their manifesto pledge to reduce the power of unions.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 12, 2020)

keybored said:


> He'd go into a 2 minute monologue repeating stuff about "R" over and over. They're all beginning to sound like demented pirates.


"Ah, our R are higher."


----------



## keybored (May 12, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> "Ah, our R are higher."


R=M8y


----------



## zahir (May 12, 2020)

The Independent SAGE report


----------



## Petcha (May 12, 2020)

I have a question that maybe someone here can answer. I have a young child with my estranged partner. She is not coping particularly well as she's also holding down her job working from home while trying to look after him. Am I now allowed to go over there and take him out for the day to give her a break in the form of 'exercise'?

The rules seem very confusing. I know it's limited to two people meeting, maintaining the 2 metre rule but does that apply here?


----------



## Mation (May 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> I wonder if the terms of the furlough extension being more generous than expected has anything to do with the public reaction to the clusterfuck of the last 48 hours or so?


Could be. Or could just be briefing on a worse-than-intended scenario in order to look benevolent and competent (in the eyes of anyone who tends toward that) when you reveal your actual schedule.


----------



## weepiper (May 12, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I have a question that maybe someone here can answer. I have a young child with my estranged partner. She is not coping particularly well as she's also holding down her job working from home while trying to look after him. Am I now allowed to go over there and take him out for the day to give her a break in the form of 'exercise'?
> 
> The rules seem very confusing. I know it's limited to two people meeting, maintaining the 2 metre rule but does that apply here?


Children have been allowed to move between separated parents from the beginning of lockdown, so you're fine to pick him up and look after him at your own home.


----------



## Petcha (May 12, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Children have been allowed to move between separated parents from the beginning of lockdown, so you're fine to pick him up and look after him at your own home.



Yes, well I live with flatmates - I assumed that complicated things?


----------



## weepiper (May 12, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yes, well I live with flatmates - I assumed that complicated things?


Ah. Yes, I think that makes it different. You're mixing households then, aren't you.


----------



## Petcha (May 12, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Ah. Yes, I think that makes it different. You're mixing households then, aren't you.



Yep. The rules around kids are immensely confusing. His nursery is supposed to open on June 1 and it's highly unlikely he'll suffer from the virus but I highly doubt the staff will want to return to work as kids can still carry it and pass it on to them. It's a total mess.


----------



## LDC (May 12, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yes, well I live with flatmates - I assumed that complicated things?




My understanding is that it does complicate things in terms of risk of infection, but it's the same as before, it's been allowed from the start as has been said. Children are allowed to move between different parental households, there's no specific need for them to be single parent living alone households.


----------



## Celyn (May 12, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Some interesting Scotland/England/Wales numbers here
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Dr Smith said: "If you have symptoms like coughing blood ... 
Coronavirus: Number of 'excess deaths' during Covid crisis running 20 higher in England and Wales than Scotland
Oh woe.   
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 Had  a bit of doing that. Still, it has stopped. Is that a Covid-19 thing also, then? Never mind eh? Still alive. Not fun at the time, though.

Problem is I ought to go to my Dad but trying to weigh risk and benefit. Feel I should be there to be there to do the cooking and provide company but not if I bring a plague with me. Guilty both ways.


----------



## Celyn (May 12, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> "Ah, our R are higher."



Or they don't know their Rs from Urban's elbows?


----------



## prunus (May 12, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Dr Smith said: "If you have symptoms like coughing blood ...
> Coronavirus: Number of 'excess deaths' during Covid crisis running 20 higher in England and Wales than Scotland
> Oh woe.
> 
> ...



I think they're saying don't not go to get checked up because of fear of covid-19 if you're coughing up blood as it's a potential sign of cancer (it is listed with other things to not ignore like unexplained lumps).


----------



## Celyn (May 12, 2020)

prunus said:


> I think they're saying don't not go to get checked up because of fear of covid-19 if you're coughing up blood as it's a potential sign of cancer (it is listed with other things to not ignore like unexplained lumps).


Just didn't want to be a "worried well" bothering busy NHS. Has gone now.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> If those figures are correct (not doubting you) it really puts in perspective what value we as a society put on things.
> 
> If we can use circa 10% of GDP to support the economy while we overcome Covid19, we could potentially use similar levels of support to rebuild for everyone's benefit once it's over.
> 
> Whether or not we do is, of course, a political decision,  but it's one we should be arguing for and fighting for now.


Yep. And equally we need to be arguing against all those who say a new austerity is needed cos covid. Those voices have already started. Not only is it not needed, but as you say, if we choose to we can do the opposite.

Be interesting how this pans out long term. I do see Johnson's government as potentially very different from previous tory govts. It is and will continue to be dishonest and functioning primarily for the rich, but it also very clearly wants to be popular and is prepared to spend money to that end.


----------



## Petcha (May 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My understanding is that it does complicate things in terms of risk of infection, but it's the same as before, it's been allowed from the start as has been said. Children are allowed to move between different parental households, there's no specific need for them to be single parent living alone households.



I don't really want to have that conversation with my flatmates tbh as it's such a grey area. I'd rather just go pick him up and take him to the park for the day but will the 2m thing still apply? Will I need to put him on a lead?


----------



## Cid (May 12, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I don't really want to have that conversation with my flatmates tbh as it's such a grey area. I'd rather just go pick him up and take him to the park for the day but will the 2m thing still apply? Will I need to put him on a lead?



I think it's one of those things where it's inevitably fuzzy... Maybe to talk to your er... EP, see how careful she's been being about distancing. It's never going to be perfect, but I suppose if you can come to some idea of taking all the steps you can to minimise transmission, might be a bit easier to justify to yourself. Also depends on age/situation of flatemates I suppose.


----------



## Petcha (May 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> I think it's one of those things where it's inevitably fuzzy... Maybe to talk to your er... EP, see how careful she's been being about distancing. It's never going to be perfect, but I suppose if you can come to some idea of taking all the steps you can to minimise transmission, might be a bit easier to justify to yourself. Also depends on age/situation of flatemates I suppose.



She's been very disciplined about it I think. But she doesn't follow the news much so will take my word for it if I say it's ok. So that's what I'll do. I'll blame you if I get busted 

There's gonna be a whole generation of kids with a huge whole in their formative years. That'll be the true second wave.


----------



## bimble (May 12, 2020)

So now i have got a bit of 'inside knowledge' about national trust plans, at least the local area. 
Staged re-opening, the first little car parks already yesterday, some other spots by Saturday (16th) and the bit i live in gates wont open until 1st June (email says its because this part will be hardest to manage social distancing in).
It says "We will operate it at 50% of the usual capacity and will turn people away once it is full. We will open the toilets; if people do not observe social distancing whilst using them, we will close them again. ."
That is a huge amount of staffing they'll need all of a sudden, when usually theres nobody around here policing anything. Maybe they 'll  get volunteers to stand there policing social distancing in the toilets idk.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 12, 2020)

Doodler said:


> There must be a lot of empty hotel rooms right now. Something useful could be done with them, like offering them free of charge to people needing to self-isolate away from their families.


that would be a good idea - if lockdown eases and i end up having to go work face-to-face with people without PPE, I would either have to stay at home and not work or go live somewhere where I can keep away from family


----------



## William of Walworth (May 12, 2020)

Doodler said:
			
		

> There must be a lot of empty hotel rooms right now. Something useful could be done with them, like offering them free of charge to people needing to self-isolate away from their families.





weepiper said:


> Edinburgh is using some of them to house rough sleepers. Edit, Glasgow too
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Housing rough sleepers has been happening in some hotels in Swansea also -- we think? we've heard in Cardiff, too 

But we know for definite that accomodation in hotels in Swansea is being arranged for newly-arrived asylum seekers as well ... Swansea is a so-called 'distribution centre' (a Home Office term) for asylum seekers.


----------



## miss direct (May 12, 2020)

I read a line that said arrivals without a place to self isolate/quarantine are to be put up by the government - that suits me.


----------



## two sheds (May 12, 2020)

At her majesty's pleasure?


----------



## miss direct (May 12, 2020)

Buckingham Palace is lying empty, so I heard.


----------



## The39thStep (May 12, 2020)

New Opposition leader


----------



## Raheem (May 12, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I don't really want to have that conversation with my flatmates tbh as it's such a grey area. I'd rather just go pick him up and take him to the park for the day but will the 2m thing still apply? Will I need to put him on a lead?


Assuming you're in England, think any two people can meet up as long as it's in public and you do social distancing. Think you're not supposed to go in the house or put him in a car, but other than that it should be OK.


----------



## Petcha (May 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Assuming you're in England, think any two people can meet up as long as it's in public and you do social distancing. Think you're not supposed to go in the house or put him in a car, but other than that it should be OK.



He's 3. And not seen his daddy in almost two months - so I don't think social distancing will be an option! I'm just gonna flout it, she can shepherd him out to me from the front door and I'll do the same when I return him. The rules make no sense. How do you socially distance from a toddler in the park.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 12, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> New Opposition leader



wow, and Bone is one of the most right wing reactionary Tories out there.


----------



## two sheds (May 12, 2020)

They are often sticklers for procedure  in this case


----------



## David Clapson (May 12, 2020)

Is there any reliable info on mortality rates yet? Especially for people thought to be low risk, e.g. the under 70s?


----------



## The39thStep (May 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> wow, and Bone is one of the most right wing reactionary Tories out there.


Absolutely,  but if we have a parliament then it should be used and respected.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> The world of science does not limit itself to one form of measuring deaths. It does not require a positive test, or for everyone with an opinion to be satisfied that the deaths were all 100% caused by Covid-19 as opposed to Covid-19 being somewhat involved.
> 
> There are a bunch of different versions of the death stats, and Scotland is no exception. Experts will look at both deaths where Covid-19 is mentioned on a death certificate, but also total excess mortality. Total excess mortality is not some weird unscientific bullshit, it is a well established thing that countries look at every winter to get a measure of the impact of things like influenza or a really bad winter.
> 
> ...


Neither do I.

You're obviously unaware of the fact that Scotland does not have the fiscal powers to pay benefits nor wages should they decide to send people home/lockdown.   Everyone up here is aware of it.  But hey...Scotland should have done it 2 weeks before the UK govt announced they'd pay people.  

You're scientifically correct apart from the numbers and what could actually be done about it by Scotland at that time.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 12, 2020)

two sheds said:


> They are often sticklers for procedure  in this case


I know. It just rankles when the most effective opposition comes from rabid Tories like him and breakfast tv presenters


----------



## prunus (May 12, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Is there any reliable info on mortality rates yet? Especially for people thought to be low risk, e.g. the under 70s?



There’s a long and complicated answer to that with all kinds of caveats and ifs ands and buts covering problems with data collection and comparison and case vs infection fatality rates and cohort definition methodologies and extrapolations.

Luckily though it can be boiled down to a short answer: no.


----------



## little_legs (May 12, 2020)

Austerity is comin'


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 12, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Austerity is comin'


I don't remember it going away?


----------



## William of Walworth (May 12, 2020)

little_legs : Out of the above three options that the Treasury are supposedly discussing ...

IMO the most likely is freezing public sector pay , least likely scrapping pensions triple lock .....


----------



## little_legs (May 12, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> I don't remember it going away?


Was just thinking that myself. I stand corrected.

Clap for the NHS while we freeze their wages.


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> little_legs : Out of the above three options that the Treasury are supposedly discussing ...
> 
> IMO the most likely is freezing public sector pay , least likely scrapping pensions triple lock .....



none of the 3 mentioned are necessary, they could just increase corporate tax and tax the rich. but that would be too humane.


----------



## Epona (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


> none of the 3 mentioned are necessary, they could just increase corporate tax and tax the rich. but that would be too humane.



I believe it was stated earlier in this thread, that they could carry on like this now for (lockdown, furlough etc) for 3 years before it matched the bank bailout in cost.  (Sorry if it was you who made that point and I am quoting it back at you!)


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

Epona said:


> I believe it was stated earlier in this thread, that they could carry on like this now for (lockdown, furlough etc) for 3 years before it matched the bank bailout in cost.  (Sorry if it was you who made that point and I am quoting it back at you!)


Heh, it wasn't me, lovely, and yep, I've seen the posts you are referring to.


----------



## editor (May 13, 2020)

A really sad tale 









						My sister died of coronavirus. She needed care, but her life was not disposable | Rory Kinnear
					

I hope our focus in future is the easing of lives such as Karina’s, says actor Rory Kinnear




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2020)

The bank bailout involved buying up bank assets most of which were later sold, didn't it? So not really comparable.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 13, 2020)

editor said:


> A really sad tale
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Read that this morning at work and cried my eyes out


----------



## Sprocket. (May 13, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Read that this morning at work and cried my eyes out


It had the same effect on me.
Really sad, but lots of love there too.


----------



## Epona (May 13, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The bank bailout involved buying up bank assets most of which were later sold, didn't it? So not really comparable.



Could be stuff like nationalisation of struggling airlines though.  I mean if we are paying for them from the public purse and all...


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 13, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The bank bailout involved buying up bank assets most of which were later sold, didn't it? So not really comparable.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (May 13, 2020)

Got a letter from the NHS/Ipsos Mori today asking me if I wanted to take part in a random swab test via home delivery kit. I hate to be that guy who barges into threads without reading the previous twenty pages, but is this a thing now? I'm in favour if so, I realise they need to know what percentage of the population have been infected/are asymptomatic etc, but I was surprised to see the letter as I haven't been near a doctor/dentist/hospital in fifteen years


----------



## Wilf (May 13, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Got a letter from the NHS/Ipsos Mori today asking me if I wanted to take part in a random swab test via home delivery kit. I hate to be that guy who barges into threads without reading the previous twenty pages, but is this a thing now? I'm in favour if so, I realise they need to know what percentage of the population have been infected/are asymptomatic etc, but I was surprised to see the letter as I haven't been near a doctor/dentist/hospital in fifteen years


'_Swab yer gob and get a chance to win an iphone_'?


----------



## quimcunx (May 13, 2020)

Epona said:


> Could be stuff like nationalisation of struggling airlines though.  I mean if we are paying for them from the public purse and all...



I'm not sure we should do anything much to help out airlines.If there are fewer flights in the future that's a good thing.  Virgin or whoever might go bust but the aeroplanes airports pilots etc will still exist in 2021. And there will still be lots of rich people.  If there is a need and desire for air travel then some plucky wealth creators will surely see the opportunity in buying bargain jets.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


> freezing public sector pay for 2 years


Who needs pay rises when you've got all that weekly applause to feed your family?


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2020)

Epona said:


> Could be stuff like nationalisation of struggling airlines though.  I mean if we are paying for them from the public purse and all...


It was the furlough scheme that was being discussed, rather than nationalising businesses.


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)




----------



## The39thStep (May 13, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I read a line that said arrivals without a place to self isolate/quarantine are to be put up by the government - that suits me.


Book in at a Garden Centre


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




I fear this isn't going to end well.


----------



## quimcunx (May 13, 2020)

Has there not been instructions that only x number of people are to be let on the bus?   We've spent enough time talking about the tube logistics.  Or is it just bus passengers are even more lowly.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




When the hell has any Cabinet Minister ever travelled on a bus at all? 
When Johnson announced his "plan" on Sunday, discouraging use of public transport while "encouraging" people back to work seemed like a feasible idea -- to him


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



I think it's a good plan to be cautious what you extrapolate from one video.
I am not in central London but the buses and trains (overground, and commuter services into Victoria) that pass me here are still virtually empty this morning.

Also, I counted about 35 people getting off the bus in the video. The capacity of a double decker bus is about 80-90 seated. So that means it's possible no-one was sitting next to each other.

I'm not saying there's no problem; I'm saying that looking at a single video is a rubbish way of assessing the situation.


----------



## maomao (May 13, 2020)

Hmmm. I wonder why commuter trains into Victoria might be slightly better taken care of than an early morning bus to Stratford 🤔


----------



## MickiQ (May 13, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Has there not been instructions that only x number of people are to be let on the bus?   We've spent enough time talking about the tube logistics.  Or is it just bus passengers are even more lowly.


Who is expected to stop passengers getting on the bus when x is reached? the driver? If the bus is half empty or even three-quarters empty and he/she tries to stop passengers getting on and filling those seats there will be aggro. Some people will accept the logic of it and wait though I suspect after waiting at the bus stop watching the third half empty bus drive away even the most patient of commuters are going to be getting wound up. Commuting in London is stressful even without the Rona and if I were a bus driver, I don't think I'd be that keen on getting my head kicked in for £10 a hour (or whatever they get).  Mostly I suspect they will pull up their mask, open the window and drive on.


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I think it's a good plan to be cautious what you extrapolate from one video.
> I am not in central London but the buses and trains (overground, and commuter services into Victoria) that pass me here are still virtually empty this morning.


I am not in Central London either, and the buses are teeming with people in my area. 

Got a text from someone who works for King's College Hospital who has to go to work and takes train to work: death is certain, stay at home.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 13, 2020)

TBF, ths buses here in Swansea were still virtually empty yesterday.
But this is Wales, where different return to work rules apply anyway .....


----------



## maomao (May 13, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Who is expected to stop passengers getting on the bus when x is reached? the driver? If the bus is half empty or even three-quarters empty and he/she tries to stop passengers getting on and filling those seats there will be aggro.


From what I've seen the whole front third of the bus, up to the stairs, is taped off so any driver would have difficulty communicating with the passengers in the first place.


----------



## Teaboy (May 13, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I think it's a good plan to be cautious what you extrapolate from one video.
> I am not in central London but the buses and trains (overground, and commuter services into Victoria) that pass me here are still virtually empty this morning.
> 
> Also, I counted about 35 people getting off the bus in the video. The capacity of a double decker bus is about 80-90 seated. So that means it's possible no-one was sitting next to each other.
> ...



Yup.  There was a lot of this around when lockdown started.  I had a couple of friends who were key workers having to go into central London.  They were sending photos of totally empty tube carriages yet photos were appearing here showing the exact opposite.  A mixed picture.


----------



## maomao (May 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yup.  There was a lot of this around when lockdown started.  I had a couple of friends who were key workers having to go into central London.  They were sending photos of totally empty tube carriages yet photos were appearing here showing the exact opposite.  A mixed picture.


Route and time will make a lot of difference obviously but it's shocking that the above scene happened _once_.


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

maomao said:


> From what I've seen the whole front third of the bus, up to the stairs, is taped off so any driver would have difficulty communicating with the passengers in the first place.


That's right, the front of the buses is taped off, so an area that could fit 10-12 people is cordoned off. I first saw it 3 weeks ago.

42 TFL workers died from covid-19, no way the families of these people are not suing the TFL.


----------



## quimcunx (May 13, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Who is expected to stop passengers getting on the bus when x is reached? the driver? If the bus is half empty or even three-quarters empty and he/she tries to stop passengers getting on and filling those seats there will be aggro. Some people will accept the logic of it and wait though I suspect after waiting at the bus stop watching the third half empty bus drive away even the most patient of commuters are going to be getting wound up. Commuting in London is stressful even without the Rona and if I were a bus driver, I don't think I'd be that keen on getting my head kicked in for £10 a hour (or whatever they get).  Mostly I suspect they will pull up their mask, open the window and drive on.



Well they manage it at my bus stop all the time. If no one on the bus rings the bell to get off they drive past without stopping. If a passenger does want to get off, even in normal times when we theoretically dont enter by the middle door, they drive past the stop a little bit and let them off. 

Anyway I'm usually up at 6.30 these days and 8 bus routes stop right outside mine but I'm having a lie in today.  This is probably the busiest bus they found. I'll be watching!


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


> That's right, the front of the buses is taped off, so an area that could fit 10-12 people is cordoned off. I first saw it 3 weeks ago.
> 
> 42 TFL workers died from covid-19, no way the families of these people are not suing the TFL.



I think it will hard to prove they caught it whilst working.



> He said: “I thought it might be worth updating the House on the latest information that I have about the number (of transport workers) who have sadly died with Covid-19, *though not necessarily through their jobs, we don’t know.*


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Who is expected to stop passengers getting on the bus when x is reached?


Just their libertarian, freedom loving solid British common sense I suppose. One can easily say: despite the govt's advice that it's safe to go work, I'll just skip work today, eat air and be totally fine.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 13, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The bank bailout involved buying up bank assets most of which were later sold, didn't it? So not really comparable.


Its lack of comparability isn't quite what you think, though. This time, instead of printing money and giving it to banks, who then lend it out (main effect of which was to push up house prices and stock values to record levels), they're giving the money directly to people to spend as they wish. A far more direct and effective use of printed/borrowed money wrt stimulating an economy and not just allowing the rich to get richer off the back of that stimulus. Putting the money in at the bottom rather than the top.

If anything what they're doing now is more sustainable. It's definitely more equitable. Done to support people rather than asset values. The bank bailouts could have been done like this as well, of course.

ETA: Also, what you say isn't really true. QE mostly involved the BoE effectively writing an IOU to itself and then lending that money out to banks at next-to-no interest with the intention of of stimulating the banks to start lending. It was a massive subsidy for the already-rich.


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I think it will hard to prove they caught it whilst working.


Of course he'll say that.


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)




----------



## andysays (May 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I think it will hard to prove they caught it whilst working.


Hard to prove conclusively perhaps, but if they've been isolating except when working it will be most likely that's where they've caught it.

And aren't civil cases decided on a balance of probability?


----------



## Cid (May 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yup.  There was a lot of this around when lockdown started.  I had a couple of friends who were key workers having to go into central London.  They were sending photos of totally empty tube carriages yet photos were appearing here showing the exact opposite.  A mixed picture.



Some of the pictures at that stage were misleading... as I recall some were off Twitter etc, some were from legit(ish) press but tagged ‘last week’ or something. These are generally being reported and labelled as recent photos, and are coming from a wider range of media.


----------



## MickiQ (May 13, 2020)

Epona said:


> Could be stuff like nationalisation of struggling airlines though.  I mean if we are paying for them from the public purse and all...


If we're going to start nationalising companies we want to nationalise some that can make a profit, Nationalising airlines at the moment is a bit like putting a dumpster on the runway at Heathrow filling it with £50's and setting it ablaze.


----------



## maomao (May 13, 2020)

Grant Shapps says he wouldn't get on a tube:









						Grant Shapps says he would not get on crowded bus or tube
					

Transport secretary urges people not to ‘flood back’ on to public transport as lockdown eases




					www.theguardian.com
				




He's also rephrased the 10% capacity claim as 'One in 10 people will be able to travel without overcrowding' which is a bit different from 10% capacity. It means 90% of services will be overcrowded.


----------



## Teaboy (May 13, 2020)

Bus drivers do seem to have been particularly hard hit.   A couple of days ago I was reading through the ONS figures relating to the age and jobs of those who had died to covid-19 (those who are not retired).  Bus driver was very high in the list as was security guard.  There may well be a viral load thing going on but also possible that the demographic of bus drivers (sex and age) plus not great baseline health as with the very sedentary nature of the job (as with security guard) made / makes them particularly vulnerable.  Either way tfl needs to be especially careful with their bus drivers.


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Its lack of comparability isn't quite what you think, though. This time, instead of printing money and giving it to banks, who then lend it out (main effect of which was to push up house prices and stock values to record levels), they're giving the money directly to people to spend as they wish. A far more direct and effective use of printed/borrowed money wrt stimulating an economy and not just allowing the rich to get richer off the back of that stimulus. Putting the money in at the bottom rather than the top.
> 
> If anything what they're doing now is more sustainable. It's definitely more equitable. Done to support people rather than asset values. The bank bailouts could have been done like this as well, of course.
> 
> ETA: Also, what you say isn't really true. QE mostly involved the BoE effectively writing an IOU to itself and then lending that money out to banks at next-to-no interest with the intention of of stimulating the banks to start lending. It was a massive subsidy for the already-rich.


I'm not arguing against the furlough scheme; I agree it's better putting the money in at the "bottom" - I just think that the argument "we could afford the bank bailout which cost X therefore we can afford this which will cost Y" isn't a very good one because you are comparing apples with oranges.


----------



## yield (May 13, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The bank bailout involved buying up bank assets most of which were later sold, didn't it? So not really comparable.





littlebabyjesus said:


> Its lack of comparability isn't quite what you think, though. This time, instead of printing money and giving it to banks, who then lend it out (main effect of which was to push up house prices and stock values to record levels), they're giving the money directly to people to spend as they wish. A far more direct and effective use of printed/borrowed money wrt stimulating an economy and not just allowing the rich to get richer off the back of that stimulus. Putting the money in at the bottom rather than the top.
> 
> If anything what they're doing now is more sustainable. It's definitely more equitable. Done to support people rather than asset values. The bank bailouts could have been done like this as well, of course.
> 
> ETA: Also, what you say isn't really true. QE mostly involved the BoE effectively writing an IOU to itself and then lending that money out to banks at next-to-no interest with the intention of of stimulating the banks to start lending. It was a massive subsidy for the already-rich.











						Quantitative easing
					

Quantitative easing is when we buy bonds to lower the interest rates on savings and loans. That helps us to keep inflation low and stable.




					www.bankofengland.co.uk
				





> Following the programme of QE announced in March 2020, our purchases of government bonds will total £645 billion.







__





						Taxpayer support for UK banks: FAQs - National Audit Office (NAO)
					

Introduction Between 2007 and 2010, HM Treasury made a series of large financial interventions to support the financial stability of UK banking. These interventions supported four broad aims: to protect depositors; maintain liquidity for UK banks; maintain capital for UK banks; and to encourage...




					www.nao.org.uk
				




Lloyds & RBS shares were sold off cheap to George Osborne's mates in the City. Even so RBS is still majority owned by the state 12 years on.


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2020)

andysays said:


> Hard to prove conclusively perhaps, but if they've been isolating except when working it will be most likely that's where they've caught it.
> 
> And aren't civil cases decided on a balance of probability?


You'd have to also look at what TfL did to mitigate - and I think they did quite a lot relatively rapidly. It's likely that some of those bus drivers became infected well before the lockdown when everyone was going about business as usual. And what were TfL's other options post lockdown - stop operating services altogether?


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




I am shocked I tell you, shocked.


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

maomao said:


> Grant Shapps says he wouldn't get on a tube:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Jump in the pool but don't get wet.


----------



## ska invita (May 13, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Has there not been instructions that only x number of people are to be let on the bus?   We've spent enough time talking about the tube logistics.  Or is it just bus passengers are even more lowly.


all talk has been just that...what happneed to 10% on trains? waffle

FT reports UK death toll passes 50k





__





						Excess UK deaths in Covid-19 pandemic top 50,000 - Google Search
					





					www.google.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




You have got to be fucking kidding me.


----------



## ddraig (May 13, 2020)

What an utter utter tory sniveling cunt!


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You have got to be fucking kidding me.



Its news but its been around slightly longer than that article, they arent the first to mention it. I wish I could tell you where and when I first heard about it, I know it wasnt that long ago, but it was before that story because I said this on Monday:



elbows said:


> Other gaps in public knowledge of the outbreak bother me greatly too. For example local authorities were complaining that the 2nd tier (provided by companies etc) test results were not available to them so they couldnt tell how many people had tested positive locally recently.



Increasingly on so many fronts in this country, new muddle is making its presence felt. Maybe we need to track the M as well as the R. When the ratio of muddle, M, is above 1, exponential growth of failure is expected. Stay Absurd, Control the Gravy Train, Save a Contract for your chums.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2020)

The North, especially the North West could probably do with more attention. Not that I really know what to say to add to this article at the moment:









						Exclusive: Virus persisting at higher rate in north of England
					

Coronavirus spread appears to be persisting at a higher rate in parts of the north of England - prompting warnings that the mortality gap between those more and less deprived will get bigger.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)




----------



## Dogsauce (May 13, 2020)

Any chance some of the reckless tube/bus commuters are people who’ve had the virus? There must be many in London who are pretty sure or have been confirmed to have had it, why would you bother with masks and distancing if there isn’t a risk to others or yourself.  I mean I understand the concept of setting an example and solidarity, but can’t expect everyone else to.


----------



## zahir (May 13, 2020)

Yesterday’s independent SAGE press conference


----------



## Orang Utan (May 13, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Any chance some of the reckless tube/bus commuters are people who’ve had the virus? There must be many in London who are pretty sure or have been confirmed to have had it, why would you bother with masks and distancing if there isn’t a risk to others or yourself.  I mean I understand the concept of setting an example and solidarity, but can’t expect everyone else to.


I don’t think it’s necessary to call them reckless. Surely they just don’t want to lose their jobs.
And surely it’s irrelevant if they’ve had CV-19 or not as they can still carry and spread the virus?


----------



## belboid (May 13, 2020)

Some fuckwit has started advertising one of those may 16th Mass Gatherings for Sheffield now.  I am tempted to go along with various bottles of piss.  It’s more essential than going to collect sourdough starter at least.


----------



## Humberto (May 13, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Any chance some of the reckless tube/bus commuters are people who’ve had the virus? There must be many in London who are pretty sure or have been confirmed to have had it, why would you bother with masks and distancing if there isn’t a risk to others or yourself.  I mean I understand the concept of setting an example and solidarity, but can’t expect everyone else to.



Plus catching it doesn't give future immunity as I understand it.


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

Coronavirus: Social distancing 'impossible' on London commute



> Trains at London Waterloo have been running at 45% of normal capacity since Monday, after reducing services by 75% since the earlier stages of the lockdown. Services are expected to rise to 82% from next Monday. Several of London's main roads experienced higher traffic than in recent weeks. Queues of up to 45 minutes were recorded on a five mile stretch along the East India Dock Road.


----------



## Teaboy (May 13, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I don’t think it’s necessary to call them reckless. Surely they just don’t want to lose their jobs.
> And surely it’s irrelevant if they’ve had CV-19 or not as they can still carry and spread the virus?



I'm no expert here but I would have thought if immunity exists it means that you can't transmit it to others.  Well I suppose it could live on your clothes or something but not through coughing and sneezing etc.



Humberto said:


> Plus catching it doesn't give future immunity as I understand it.



Pretty much everything I read suggests it will most likely give you immunity (mutations aside) but that immunity will not last especially long, maybe a couple of years or so. There have been a handful of cases where people might of got it twice but it could be explained by false positive tests or not fully recovered from the first bout.  There will no doubt be the odd unlucky person who gets it twice maybe three times but in theory they will be very rare.

Nothing is certain about all this of course.


----------



## Teaboy (May 13, 2020)

I suspect a lot of Londoners will think they have already had it.  It must have been running rampant through the city even in January let alone in February and public transport and density of living being what it is.  Just a shame none of us had access to testing back then.

I have no doubt that bringing the lockdown measures in countrywide at the same time meant exposure was reduced elsewhere in the country.  London was already fucked by then and probably why we see such a dramatic fall off on the London figures.  Almost a cliff edge.


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I suspect a lot of Londoners will think they have already had it.


No. 

But I suspect I *will* get it.


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 13, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> reckless tube/bus commuters



You mean people who've been told to get back to work, and it's a choice between that and being made homeless and starving to death?


----------



## Teaboy (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


> No.
> 
> But I suspect I *will* get it.



You may have.  Loads of people are asymptomatic.  You may have had a light case in January and put it down to a cold.


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

Sir/Ma'am, respectfully you know nothing about me. And just because some people reported a Christmas/January flu it does not mean at all that they had it.


----------



## Humberto (May 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Pretty much everything I read suggests it will most likely give you immunity (mutations aside) but that immunity will not last especially long, maybe a couple of years or so. There have been a handful of cases where people might of got it twice but it could be explained by false positive tests or not fully recovered from the first bout.  There will no doubt be the odd unlucky person who gets it twice maybe three times but in theory they will be very rare.
> 
> Nothing is certain about all this of course.



OK. Well that is better than I thought was the case.


----------



## Teaboy (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Sir/Ma'am, respectfully you know nothing about me. And just because some people reported a Christmas/January flu it does not mean at all that they had it.



OK I was just saying _maybe_.  And the first comment you replied to was me saying _I suspect a lot of Londoners_ not all.  I don't know anything about you that's why there are qualifications in my statements.  Not sure why you thought I was only talking about only you in a city of 8M.  Whatevs.  What a strange thing to write.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I'm no expert here but I would have thought if immunity exists it means that you can't transmit it to others.  Well I suppose it could live on your clothes or something but not through coughing and sneezing etc.


aye, that’s what I meant, and surely it doesn’t instantly die when it makes contact with skin either


----------



## little_legs (May 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> OK I was just saying _maybe_.  And the first comment you replied to was me saying _I suspect a lot of Londoners_ not all.  I don't know anything about you that's why there are qualifications in my statements.  Not sure why you thought I was only talking about only you in a city of 8M.  Whatevs.  What a strange thing to write.


Shut up. I don't have time for your weaseling out.


----------



## Numbers (May 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> OK I was just saying _maybe_.  And the first comment you replied to was me saying _I suspect a lot of Londoners_ not all.  I don't know anything about you that's why there are qualifications in my statements.  Not sure why you thought I was only talking about only you in a city of 8M.  Whatevs.  What a strange thing to write.


Was a bit odd alright.


----------



## yield (May 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Pretty much everything I read suggests it will most likely give you immunity (mutations aside) but that immunity will not last especially long, maybe a couple of years or so. There have been a handful of cases where people might of got it twice but it could be explained by false positive tests or not fully recovered from the first bout.  There will no doubt be the odd unlucky person who gets it twice maybe three times but in theory they will be very rare.
> 
> Nothing is certain about all this of course.


Honestly not piling in Teaboy but where have you read that?









						"Immunity passports" in the context of COVID-19
					

Scientific Brief




					www.who.int
				



April 24, 2020


> There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.



Maybe 2hats or elbows can put my fears to rest?


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2020)

A lack of evidence doesn't mean a lack of likelihood.


----------



## Teaboy (May 13, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Shut up. I don't have time for your weaseling out.



OK. This has got very odd.  Time for us both to leave it.  FWIW I hope you don't get it because you do sound very worried.


----------



## 2hats (May 13, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Any chance some of the reckless tube/bus commuters are people who’ve had the virus? There must be many in London who are pretty sure or have been confirmed to have had it, why would you bother with masks and distancing if there isn’t a risk to others or yourself.  I mean I understand the concept of setting an example and solidarity, but can’t expect everyone else to.


1. Anyone who has been exposed to and recovered from SARS-CoV-2 can still transfer fomites to naive hosts, just as can those who have not yet been infected.

2. Pretty much every person returning to work who has previously been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and developed moderate to mild symptoms, or was asymptomatic, will have had a low to negligible immune response (evidence thus far suggests). Those persons quite possibly will be more able to subsequently, respiratorily, briefly transmit SARS-Cov-2 (and increasingly so with degree of absence of symptoms).

Those who developed a strong immune response are likely to have been in the hospitalised/ICU cohort so aren't likely to be joining the hordes of returning commuters any time soon.

Time is required for more research.


----------



## Teaboy (May 13, 2020)

yield said:


> Honestly not piling in Teaboy but where have you read that?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I will admit it's been in general press but there has also some things that have been written on here.  But you're quite right that I can't say anything for certain, I'm just being optimistic from what I've read and from history which tells us that often exposure to viruses can lead to a level of immunity.  I know this is all new though.


----------



## Teaboy (May 13, 2020)

2hats said:


> 1. Anyone who has been exposed to and recovered from SARS-CoV-2 can still transfer fomites to naive hosts, just as can those who have not yet been infected.
> 
> 2. Pretty much every person returning to work who has previously been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and developed moderate to mild symptoms, or was asymptomatic, will have had a low to negligible immune response (evidence thus far suggests). Those persons quite likely will be more able to subsequently, respiratorily, transmit SARS-Cov-2 (and increasingly so with degree of absence of symptoms).
> 
> ...



That's fascinating.  So people who have had it are maybe more likely to pass it on?


----------



## MrSki (May 13, 2020)

So 50000 people have died. I remember as a kid going to Highbury that was supposed to be 38000 Thinking in these terms is fucking scary. Stay safe everyone.


----------



## 2hats (May 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> That's fascinating.  So people who have had it are maybe more likely to pass it on?


No. That's not what I wrote.

People who have have been infected with mild or no symptoms are probably more likely to transmit it (for some window of time) respiratorily than those with more severe episodes. Everyone can play a role in transporting fomites.


----------



## Teaboy (May 13, 2020)

2hats said:


> No. That's not what I wrote.
> 
> People who have have been infected with mild or no symptoms are probably more likely to transmit it (for some window of time) respiratorily than those with more severe episodes. Everyone can play a role in transporting fomites.



Thanks.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> The North, especially the North West could probably do with more attention. Not that I really know what to say to add to this article at the moment:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I spotted that when the NW seemed to move into first place - worrying given the levels of deprivation in cities and towns in the region.


----------



## Epona (May 13, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I'm not sure we should do anything much to help out airlines.If there are fewer flights in the future that's a good thing.  Virgin or whoever might go bust but the aeroplanes airports pilots etc will still exist in 2021. And there will still be lots of rich people.  If there is a need and desire for air travel then some plucky wealth creators will surely see the opportunity in buying bargain jets.



it was more a for instance and I agree not a particularly good example.  Was thinking along the lines that if Branson and the like are going to be getting a shitload of taxpayer money then maybe the taxpayer ought to own his fucking shit...


----------



## BCBlues (May 13, 2020)

The  744 'excess deaths' in and around Birmingham not linked to virus The 744 'excess deaths' in and around Birmingham not linked to virus

Some stats here on deaths in Brum &The  Black Country for April, not directly Covid 19 related, but the article looks into the fact that the sheer force of the pandemic caused  other issues that might have contributed to the deaths. Ill health related to lack of exercise, not necessarily going down the gym but stuff like not going round your mates for a walk or daily to your local shop. Smoking and Drinking more, stress related or just boredom. Anxiety and Stress levels through the roof knowing a killer disease is spreading fast and we have a massively incompetent govt in place to combat it.
Theres loads of things that could be the final straw for many not to mention suicide and domestic violence. It's hard when you look into individual cases, much harder for those enduring it of course.


----------



## Dogsauce (May 13, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> The  744 'excess deaths' in and around Birmingham not linked to virus The 744 'excess deaths' in and around Birmingham not linked to virus
> 
> Some stats here on deaths in Brum &The  Black Country for April, not directly Covid 19 related, but the article looks into the fact that the sheer force of the pandemic caused  other issues that might have contributed to the deaths. Ill health related to lack of exercise, not necessarily going down the gym but stuff like not going round your mates for a walk or daily to your local shop. Smoking and Drinking more, stress related or just boredom. Anxiety and Stress levels through the roof knowing a killer disease is spreading fast and we have a massively incompetent govt in place to combat it.
> Theres loads of things that could be the final straw for many not to mention suicide and domestic violence. It's hard when you look into individual cases, much harder for those enduring it of course.



There will be stuff going in the other direction too, fewer deaths from car accidents, drownings, sports etc.  Longer term perhaps less from air pollution too. A difficult job to make sense of it all, you can only talk in nett terms to get a general picture.


----------



## 2hats (May 13, 2020)

2hats said:


> People who have have been infected with mild or no symptoms are probably more likely to transmit it (for some window of time) respiratorily than those with more severe episodes. Everyone can play a role in transporting fomites.


I should, perhaps, expand a little on this.

Some epidemiologists have been wondering if, in the mild to asymptomatic cases (perhaps these are cases with smaller viral loads) the innate immune defences successfully deal with the infection and thus do not activate the adaptive immunity defence. In the meantime the subject is of course shedding virus. Roll forward to a second encounter with the virus and the innate immune defence fires up again. Or perhaps the viral load is far greater this time and the subject has both innate and adaptive immune responses. Either way there is viral shedding - those with previously mild/no apparent symptoms are still at risk of being re-infected and becoming contagious. (DOI: 10.1016/j.arth.2020.04.055)

This might also explain some degree of false negatives in antibody testing (some assays only look for innate IgM, others only adaptive IgG, and some both IgM and IgG) due to a less than optimal choice of time of testing during the infection episode.


----------



## Raheem (May 13, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> The  744 'excess deaths' in and around Birmingham not linked to virus The 744 'excess deaths' in and around Birmingham not linked to virus
> 
> Some stats here on deaths in Brum &The  Black Country for April, not directly Covid 19 related, but the article looks into the fact that the sheer force of the pandemic caused  other issues that might have contributed to the deaths. Ill health related to lack of exercise, not necessarily going down the gym but stuff like not going round your mates for a walk or daily to your local shop. Smoking and Drinking more, stress related or just boredom. Anxiety and Stress levels through the roof knowing a killer disease is spreading fast and we have a massively incompetent govt in place to combat it.
> Theres loads of things that could be the final straw for many not to mention suicide and domestic violence. It's hard when you look into individual cases, much harder for those enduring it of course.


The article seems a bit light on evidence, though, just speculation by Liam Byrne MP.


----------



## editor (May 13, 2020)

This lot seem to be going all libertarian 









						The State of Emergency as Paradigm of Government: Coronavirus Legislation, Implementation and Enforcement
					

‘It is clear that, beyond the emergency situation linked to a certain virus which may in the future leave room for another, at issue is the design of a paradigm of government whose effectiveness wi…




					architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk


----------



## NoXion (May 13, 2020)

editor said:


> This lot seem to be going all libertarian
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Jesus fucking Christ:



> In my seventh and most recent article about the coronavirus crisis, _Manufacturing Consensus_, I followed in detail how the official death toll from COVID-19 in the UK is being exaggerated many times above the actual deaths that can be attributed to the disease with any medical certainty through the creation and implementation of the following definitions and guidelines:



Had a quick skim and found this:



> On 5 May, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs brought our attention to the news that ‘there will always be some who seek to exploit a crisis for their own criminal and hostile ends’. This apparently takes the form of ‘cyber-attacks’ from criminal gangs, hackers, hostile states, and what in the cyber security world are known as ‘advanced persistent attack groups’ targeting national and international organisations responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘There are various objectives and motivations that lie behind these attacks’, the First Secretary explained, ‘from fraud on the one hand to espionage. But they tend to be designed to steal bulk personal data, intellectual property and wider information that supports those aims.’



How the fuck is this relevant? Criminal hackers and foreign agents taking advantage of this crisis aren't evidence that the UK government is plotting to take away all our freedoms.


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2020)

"architects for social housing" is really just two people - Simon Elmer and Geraldine Dening.
I used to follow them/him via a (closed) facebook group. Over time it moved from mainly just stuff (I thought largely pretty good) about social housing to other things, including constant attack on the labour party.
Simon Elmer writes nearly all the political essays - Geraldine Dening seems mainly to stick to the directly housing-related stuff.
A year or so back Simon Elmer started threatening to delete everyone from the group if they didn't state they agreed with certain things and commit to certain actions, and seemed paranoid that it was being infiltrated by labour party stooges. There seemed to be some crossover with Brexit party types in the comments being posted.
Eventually, he did delete everyone. Since then, I've not followed them.
It's a shame because I thought they did some really good, detailed stuff on social housing. Then it went a bit weird, and people like me no longer are in touch with what they do, and now start to doubt some of the housing work that seemed pretty grounded and pragmatic.


----------



## BCBlues (May 13, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> There will be stuff going in the other direction too, fewer deaths from car accidents, drownings, sports etc.  Longer term perhaps less from air pollution too. A difficult job to make sense of it all, you can only talk in nett terms to get a general picture.



Yeah I was thinking earlier that stress and anxiety comes in the workplace too and certain jobs cause ill health and deaths. Even if you balance these out though,  including the factors you mention, less car accidents etc, the jump in figures from last year is quite alarming.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 13, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> Yeah I was thinking earlier that stress and anxiety comes in the workplace too and certain jobs cause ill health and deaths. Even if you balance these out though,  including the factors you mention, less car accidents etc, the jump in figures from last year is quite alarming.


That's why the difference between total deaths and average deaths from the past is a good measure. You don't really need to think too much about why people have died, or indeed whether others haven't. The net effect is x excess deaths over what you would expect, and that's the measure of the c-19 effect in total, including any possible positive effects such as road deaths.


----------



## Epona (May 13, 2020)

So I can have estate agents and viewers come into my home but I can only meet 1 friend or relative in a public outdoor space, they can't come to my home...


----------



## Cerv (May 13, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Got a letter from the NHS/Ipsos Mori today asking me if I wanted to take part in a random swab test via home delivery kit. I hate to be that guy who barges into threads without reading the previous twenty pages, but is this a thing now? I'm in favour if so, I realise they need to know what percentage of the population have been infected/are asymptomatic etc, but I was surprised to see the letter as I haven't been near a doctor/dentist/hospital in fifteen years


yeah it's a thing. I know someone who got one. I suspect they more likely used the electoral roll to pick names - that's more centralised already than compiling different GPs surgeries info

have fun sticking the swab all the way down.


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2020)

Epona said:


> So I can have estate agents and viewers come into my home but I can only meet 1 friend or relative in a public outdoor space, they can't come to my home...


Make friends with lots of estate agents - problem sorted


----------



## teqniq (May 13, 2020)




----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 13, 2020)

Epona said:


> So I can have estate agents and viewers come into my home but I can only meet 1 friend or relative in a public outdoor space, they can't come to my home...



It's a good job no-one wants to be friends with any estate agents or it would get very confusing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2020)

Epona said:


> So I can have estate agents and viewers come into my home but I can only meet 1 friend or relative in a public outdoor space, they can't come to my home...



If you have a viewing, you're are supposed to leave the property whilst it's being viewed.


----------



## Epona (May 13, 2020)

Isn't it* more about landlords are now able (or soon) to evict tenants who haven't been able to pay their rent and mortgage lenders can resume repossession proceedings?  I tend towards cynicism.

EDIT for clarity: By "it" I mean starting to get the housing sector back to normal


----------



## Gramsci (May 13, 2020)

Been talking to a couple of people who work in schools ( my partner is one) They don't want to go back in June. Can't see how teaching is possible in safe way yet. Also think that means travelling on public transport to get to work. Which in London means being on bus or tube.

Partner reckons some parents are going to refuse to send children to school now.

What do posters think?


----------



## Gramsci (May 13, 2020)

Epona said:


> Isn't it* more about landlords are now able to evict tenants who haven't been able to pay their rent and mortgage lenders can resume repossession proceedings?  I tend towards cynicism.
> 
> EDIT for clarity: By "it" I mean starting to get the housing sector back to normal



I have friend who was given notice to quit few weeks ago by the agent who is managing the property for Landlord . Date to leave is the day after the no eviction period ends. Not behind on rent. Owner want property back.

There is a backlog of possession cases which could mean a lot of people losing homes.


----------



## andysays (May 13, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Been talking to a couple of people who work in schools ( my partner is one) They don't want to go back in June. Can't see how teaching is poosible in safe way yet. Also think that means travelling on public transport to get to work. Which in London means being on bus or tube.
> 
> Partner reckons some parents are going to refuse to send children to school now.
> 
> What do posters think?


Maybe some parents will refuse to send children back to school, but from the government's POV, they have to get children back at school so their parents can go back to work.

That, I suspect, is what's really driving this.


----------



## Petcha (May 13, 2020)

Fucking hell this Jennie Harries is more full of shit than any politician that's turned up to these bullshit briefings. Isn't she the one who said testing was 'inappropriate' or something a few weeks ago? Why is nobody asking her about that?

The waffle.


----------



## Petcha (May 13, 2020)

Oh and now the BBC has cut away to the fucking weather again. Jesus.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Oh and now the BBC has cut away to the fucking weather again. Jesus.



That's why I always watch it on Sky News now.


----------



## 20Bees (May 13, 2020)

Epona said:


> So I can have estate agents and viewers come into my home but I can only meet 1 friend or relative in a public outdoor space, they can't come to my home...



My daughter’s cleaner can go to her house but I can only meet her, at a distance, away from her home!



Gramsci said:


> Been talking to a couple of people who work in schools ( my partner is one) They don't want to go back in June. Can't see how teaching is possible in safe way yet. Also think that means travelling on public transport to get to work. Which in London means being on bus or tube.
> 
> Partner reckons some parents are going to refuse to send children to school now.
> 
> What do posters think?


My grandson’s nursery will open on 1 June. It’s too soon - little ones may be less likely to get COVID-19 but may spread it. All those 3 year olds will be in close physical contact with parents, some of whom may be returning to work and commuting on public transport, and some of those commuters may not get their hands washed and their work clothes out of the way before the 3 year old throws himself into their arms.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2020)

20Bees said:


> My grandson’s nursery will open on 1 June. It’s too soon - little ones may be less likely to get COVID-19 but may spread it. All those 3 year olds will be in close physical contact with parents, some of whom may be returning to work and commuting on public transport, and some of those commuters may not get their hands washed and their work clothes out of the way before the 3 year old throws himself into their arms.



I know someone that runs a nursery, she's remained open for key worker's & vulnerable kiddies, and will fully re-open from the 1st June, if that remains the date.

Clearly, there's no chance of social distancing, and the staff can't wear PPE, as that would freak the kiddies out, but they are checking the temperature of staff & kiddies when they arrive every day, and parents are banned from going in, the 'hand over' is carried out in the front garden. 

But, then we are lucky, as Worthing is a low risk area.


----------



## David Clapson (May 13, 2020)

Some Starbucks branches will be opening tomorrow. Takeaway only.


----------



## maomao (May 13, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Been talking to a couple of people who work in schools ( my partner is one) They don't want to go back in June. Can't see how teaching is possible in safe way yet. Also think that means travelling on public transport to get to work. Which in London means being on bus or tube.
> 
> Partner reckons some parents are going to refuse to send children to school now.
> 
> What do posters think?


We won't be sending ours back in June but that's because we know a five year old can't social distance and neither of us are working now anyway. Once we need to work again we won't have much choice about using childcare. A lot of people working from home with kids are desparate for a bit of school.


----------



## Buckaroo (May 13, 2020)

.


editor said:


> This lot seem to be going all libertarian
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Architects for nano-fomite truth seeking etc


----------



## wayward bob (May 13, 2020)

behind 20 pages or so on the thread, but genuinely shocked at the poor/mixed/contradictory official signalling of the new rules for england.

suddenly being "a bit behind" in the scheme of things feels like a much less scary place to be...


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 13, 2020)

editor said:


> This lot seem to be going all libertarian
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You know as soon as anyone uses the word 'Paradigm' that everything after it is going to be utter bollocks.


----------



## quimcunx (May 13, 2020)

_must learn how to delete drafts_




teuchter said:


> "architects for social housing" is really just two people - Simon Elmer and Geraldine Dening.
> I used to follow them/him via a (closed) facebook group. Over time it moved from mainly just stuff (I thought largely pretty good) about social housing to other things, including constant attack on the labour party.
> Simon Elmer writes nearly all the political essays - Geraldine Dening seems mainly to stick to the directly housing-related stuff.
> A year or so back Simon Elmer started threatening to delete everyone from the group if they didn't state they agreed with certain things and commit to certain actions, and seemed paranoid that it was being infiltrated by labour party stooges. There seemed to be some crossover with Brexit party types in the comments being posted.
> ...



I was going to say I had thought they were pretty sensible. I'd seen a couple of things in the past and thought quite good on social issues so was very confused to see this.


----------



## Wilf (May 13, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> You know as soon as anyone uses the word 'Paradigm' that everything after it is going to be utter bollocks.


Hey, buddy, can ya....

Coat.


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> _must learn how to delete drafts_
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There was some Assange stuff that may raise eyebrows some here, too.









						The Persecution, Incarceration, Torture and Extra-Territorial Extradition of Julian Assange: Template for a letter to your Member of Parliament
					

This is a template for an e-mail in response to the United Nations report published last month on the collective persecution of Julian Assange, to be sent to the Members of Parliament and Peers who…




					architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2020)

I always seem to get dragged back to that crucial period in March:









						Coronavirus: PM quizzed over 'unexplained' care home deaths
					

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says 10,000 extra deaths in April must be accounted for, as he questions the PM.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Nick Triggle analysis:



> The advice that was withdrawn in mid-March was based on the assumption at the time that the virus was not spreading widely in the community.
> 
> In hindsight, that assumption was wrong and the fear that the virus had taken hold was part of the reason the government ordered the lockdown. At that point the advice was withdrawn.



Elsewhere in that article, not part of the Nick Triggle analysis:



> The guidance at the centre of the row was issued on 25 February and withdrawn on 13 March, a time when the virus was not thought to be spreading in the community.



13th March eh. That was a key day in the shitstorm about how little the government was doing, and the herd immunity justification that the likes of Vallance came out with. They had decided to move to the next phase of their original plan (because the virus was spreading in the community), and their plan was a poor fit for what was needed and expected, so they were feeling the heat all through that week. By Friday 13th March things were looking desperate for their plan and I expect doubts were setting in even in their own minds. It was still well before the lockdown, still several days away from the u-turn that eventually resulted in lockdown. I wonder what Nick Triggle was saying on March 13th. Oh dear, that was the date of this notorious analysis from him:



> *'Keep calm and carry on'*
> 
> The worst health crisis in a generation. Lives will be lost. All this is true. But what got missed in the government's coronavirus message - understandably, given the scale of the challenge - is that we should also get on with our lives.
> 
> We should keep calm and carry on (while following the advice, of course). At the moment, there are two basic things to do - wash our hands regularly and isolate if we develop symptoms.





> We should still go out, play sport, attend events and keep children in school. Why? Short of never leaving your home and the rest of the household following suit, it's impossible to eliminate the risk of getting the virus. *It's circulating.*
> 
> Even if you skip your trip to a concert or the theatre, you may well catch it on your way to work or when you do the weekly shop.





> *This virus is with us now.* And it will be for the foreseeable future. Only when we have a vaccine or if herd immunity develops - if enough of the population is exposed to it - will we have protection.
> 
> There will no doubt be a time when drastic measures are needed - to flatten the peak, protect the most vulnerable at the time of highest risk and stop the NHS getting overwhelmed - but it's not now. That's the clear message.



That analysis did not last long in the BBC article, it was replaced by analysis from Pallab Ghosh sometime later on the afternoon of the 13th. Lets have a look at what that said.



> Many countries are taking tough measures such as school closures, cancelling mass gatherings and severe travel restrictions. But the UK has adopted relatively modest controls.
> 
> The difference can be explained partly by the fact some of countries are further into their epidemics.
> 
> Computer simulations indicate the UK is in the early stages. The government's top scientists believe it is too soon to impose severe restrictions.





> Such limitations might last several months and risk "self-isolation fatigue", with people leaving their homes when the epidemic reaches its height.
> 
> *Many elderly people, who are particularly at risk of developing severe symptoms, are already isolated. Cutting them off from their communities now, when the risks are still relatively low, would create unnecessary difficulties for them.*
> 
> School closures have also yet to be announced. Such measures are effective for controlling serious flu epidemics, but Covid-19 seems to affect children less. In addition, school closures would take many much needed NHS staff away from their jobs while they look after their children.



Oh what a mess that all was, much was said at the time that those involved probably have much cause to regret now. I'll keep requoting this sort of thing from time to time whenever I see recollections of recent history in the press that make my eyebrows wiggle.

Note the contradictory stuff I put in bold from the Ghosh analysis. Already isolated but not yet cut off from their communities, what nonsense.

I had to use archive.org to get the original Triggle stuff from an earlier version of the March 13th article, although I had also quoted it on this forum at the time. But here is the url for the current form of the March 13th story anyway UK virus measures will have the 'biggest impact'


----------



## nagapie (May 13, 2020)

I took a bus to work and back on Monday in London. There were 10 passengers downstairs so we all had a double seat but still no way you were 2m away from the person in front of you.
I did not have a mask or gloves. At first you couldn't buy them, then the advice on if they worked was so contradictory and after that i had been so exposed I didn't bother.
At school the number of key worker/vulnerable children has doubled this week. I expect another small increase but it's a secondary so not been told to open. I expect primaries will see a 50/50 split with those who want/need their children to attend and those who don't.
There is zero social distancing at my school or either of the key worker schools my sons go to, it's not possible.


----------



## editor (May 13, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> _must learn how to delete drafts_
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Me too. I've always respected and valued their work in the past but they seem to be on their way to going the full_ Festival Eye._


----------



## wayward bob (May 13, 2020)

20Bees said:


> My daughter’s cleaner can go to her house but I can only meet her, at a distance, away from her home!


maybe if you do her cleaning... ?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 13, 2020)

nagapie said:


> after that i had been so exposed I didn't bother.


That's not how it works - reducing potential exposure is still worthwhile, even if you know you're exposed in other ways.



nagapie said:


> There is zero social distancing at my school or either of the key worker schools my sons go to, it's not possible.


Why not? There are plenty of steps that schools can and should be taking, even if they can't manage complete social distancing. Just throwing up your hands and saying "this is impossible, fuck it why bother" is not an acceptable option.


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 13, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> maybe if you do her cleaning... ?


Yup, charge1p for washing a glass. Problem solved.
The ambiguity of the new rules makes everything possible and impossible at the same time. It's absolutely deliberate, so Johnson can say "yebbut I told you not to" when it all goes shit shaped.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 13, 2020)

I think we need to be very careful not to slip into character assassinations of those that are working and having to return to work by using public transport. It's already started online. 

Where are everyone buying their masks too by the way? I'll get one now I assumed they were all out of stock etc and until now the bus has been okay. I have a normal snood face covering, but it's obviously pretty pointless. This is fucking shit what a time to injure my shoulder and is I can't cycle.


----------



## nagapie (May 13, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> That's not how it works - reducing potential exposure is still worthwhile, even if you know you're exposed in other ways.
> 
> 
> Why not? There are plenty of steps that schools can and should be taking, even if they can't manage complete social distancing. Just throwing up your hands and saying "this is impossible, fuck it why bother" is not an acceptable option.


I don't run any of the schools. But i know my 6 year old gives a big hug to all his favourite teachers every day. I also know that telling teenagers to stay 2m apart from each other is never going to happen.
Maybe i could get gloves and a mask. I only have to be on site once every two weeks so i just try to keep my distance and wash well after. This may be more difficult with more people returning to work.


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 13, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I think we need to be very careful not to slip into character assassinations of those that are working and having to return to work by using public transport. It's already started online.


I can't believe I'm seeing it. Wankers having a go at people who have been told they have to return to work. Do they think people are doing it for the lulz?


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 13, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I don't run any of the schools. But i know my 6 year old gives a big hug to all his favourite teachers every day. I also know that telling teenagers to stay 2m apart from each other is never going to happen.
> Maybe i could get gloves and a mask. I only have to be on site once every two weeks so i just try to keep my distance and wash well after. This may be more difficult with more people returning to work.


Adults in supermarkets don't seem capable of working out how to stay away from others. What chance do we have of getting kids to do it.


----------



## Ax^ (May 13, 2020)

watching high of the latest briefing



has the Government suddenly so given up about the idea of getting 100000 test a day..


they now want to quote the total number of people tested




Moving to level 3 before the end of the week


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Where are everyone buying their masks too by the way?



There's loads available on Amazon.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's loads available on Amazon.



Are they actually any good? Most cheap things you can get on Amazon are of various quality.


----------



## Looby (May 13, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Are they actually any good? Most cheap things you can get on Amazon are of various quality.


All the decent ones I could find were hideously expensive or could deliver in July. Read the reviews carefully if you do buy some, I’ve seen some shockers.
Really wish I could get some more FFP3 from my friend but they can’t spare them understandably.
I’d like a couple of washable ones with filters.


----------



## Aladdin (May 13, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> That's not how it works - reducing potential exposure is still worthwhile, even if you know you're exposed in other ways.
> 
> 
> Why not? There are plenty of steps that schools can and should be taking, even if they can't manage complete social distancing. Just throwing up your hands and saying "this is impossible, fuck it why bother" is not an acceptable option.



Obviously you've never had to control a class for 6 hours. 

Kids...teens...will not manage 6 ft distance at all times..
What's more schools are not designed for that.
The only way they will open is part time for pupils. 
4 kids in a class. The rest online at home. Same lessons done on devices. No paper. 
And rotate every 2 days so different kids get a chance to come to school for practical subjects. 

But it will still be very nearly impossible to follow guidelines on social distancing. Kids on school buses? One per 2 rows? And they will  break rules. 
Teachers having to stay feet from pupils? How do you help a 5yr old with their shoes? 
Let alone the handwashing every hour. Everyone queuing for the toilet to wash their hands...and all 6 feet apart?.

I don't actually think it will work at all. 
We may open only for kids of essential workers.

 It's going to be unmanageable.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 13, 2020)

Looby said:


> All the decent ones I could find were hideously expensive or could deliver in July. Read the reviews carefully if you do buy some, I’ve seen some shockers.
> Really wish I could get some more FFP3 from my friend but they can’t spare them understandably.
> I’d like a couple of washable ones with filters.



Thanks! 

So then it makes me wonder the point. It's all well and good us being told  we should do this, and putting it on to us, but with very little guidance on what actually constitutes proper equipment. Seems like it'll lead to people using poor products and feeling safer. 

I'll still use my mask and one I buy, but in the grand scheme of things....


----------



## BristolEcho (May 13, 2020)

Sugar Kane said:


> Obviously you've never had to control a class for 6 hours.
> 
> Kids...teens...will not manage 6 ft distance at all times..
> What's more schools are not designed for that.
> ...



Yeah.... But have you tried or even thought about it, or did you just throw your arms up in the air?

In all seriousness we were talking about this for our niece. No way is she going to be able to commit to social distancing at the age of five. I mean their brains just don't work like that and she obviously doesn't understand exactly what's going on anyway.


----------



## Aladdin (May 13, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Yeah.... But have you tried or even thought about it, or did you just throw your arms up in the air?
> 
> In all seriousness we were talking about this for our niece. No way is she going to be able to commit to social distancing at the age of five. I mean their brains just don't work like that and she obviously doesn't understand exactly what's going on anyway.




I've given it lots of thought.
It will not work.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 13, 2020)

Sugar Kane said:


> I've given it lots of thought.
> It will not work.



I know you have and I totally agree!


----------



## Gramsci (May 13, 2020)

The NEU ( teachers union) have put out petition to the PM people can sign. This imo is asking all the right questions.









						Open schools only when it is safe
					

To The Prime Minister:  We, the undersigned, oppose any re-opening of schools before it is safe to do so. As a matter of urgency and certainly well before any proposal to re-open schools is published, please can you share with teachers and parents:   Your modelling of the increased number of...



					actionnetwork.org
				




CURRENT NUMBER OF SIGNATURES: 401,649

To The Prime Minister:

We, the undersigned, oppose any re-opening of schools before it is safe to do so. As a matter of urgency and certainly well before any proposal to re-open schools is published, please can you share with teachers and parents:


Your modelling of the increased number of cases and mortalities amongst children, their parents, carers and extended families, and their teachers and support staff as a result of the re-opening of schools.
Whether such modelling is based on some notion that social distancing could be implemented in schools (we ask this because many teachers think this would be a foolhardy assumption)?
Would your modelling be based on concrete plans to have regular testing of children and staff, availability of appropriate PPE and enhanced levels of cleaning - with all of which we are currently experiencing severe difficulties?
Whether your modelling would include plans for children and staff in vulnerable health categories, or living with people in vulnerable health categories not to be in school or college?
Your latest evidence on which people are most vulnerable to permanent consequences or death from the virus, for example the evidence of the impact on those who live in crowded accommodation, those with different comorbidities, those from different ethnic groups and of different ages and both sexes.
Are you developing plans for extensive testing, contact tracing and quarantine in society as a whole?
Teachers see that countries successfully implementing such strategies have many fewer cases and many many fewer mortalities than we do in the UK. Would you intend these plans be in place well before schools are re-opened, which seems essential to us?
If you are not developing such plans what is your overall approach and is it dependent on an assumption that those who have had the virus are then immune?


----------



## Aladdin (May 13, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I know you have and I totally agree!




This might work. If they got rid of the middle bit. And put a comode under each child.

😁


----------



## 20Bees (May 13, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> Yup, charge1p for washing a glass. Problem solved.
> The ambiguity of the new rules makes everything possible and impossible at the same time. It's absolutely deliberate, so Johnson can say "yebbut I told you not to" when it all goes shit shaped.


There’s a plan. The cleaner earns far more per hour than I do in a supermarket, but she also has the disadvantages of being self-employed!



Looby said:


> All the decent ones I could find were hideously expensive or could deliver in July. Read the reviews carefully if you do buy some, I’ve seen some shockers.
> Really wish I could get some more FFP3 from my friend but they can’t spare them understandably.
> I’d like a couple of washable ones with filters.



CommunityMasks4NHS is a local initiative with volunteers sewing fabric masks with tied elastic ear loops,muslin lining with a pocket for a disposable filter (tissue, or a coffee paper filter). No choice as to fabric but you can specify gender neutral! They suggest a donation of £4 per mask through their JustGiving page, all funds go to the NHS. I collected mine as they’re close to home but they will post. They have a Facebook page.


----------



## 20Bees (May 13, 2020)

Still on washable masks, there are plenty of YouTube tutorials on making no-sew masks from socks or t shirts!


----------



## Looby (May 13, 2020)

Ffs I can’t post the actual video.


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 13, 2020)

Looby said:


> I just saw this one.


I didn't.


----------



## David Clapson (May 14, 2020)

A national survey in Spain says about 2m of their 47m population have been infected. And they've had 30,700 excess deaths.  Ergo a mortality rate of about 1.5%.  It's a bit back-of-an-envelope but I think it might be the most reliable mortality figure I've seen. If you assume the same mortality rate here and you plug in our excess deaths figure of 50,900, you get a UK infected total of 3.4m, or 5% of our 68m population.

Eta: one big caveat is that the test used in Spain may not be accurate. 





__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com
				





> *Spanish herd immunity is still far off, study finds*. Just 5 per cent of Spaniards have been infected by coronavirus and “herd immunity” against the pandemic is a much more distant prospect than some had hoped, a government-backed report indicated on Wednesday. Preliminary findings in a high-profile national survey, based on antibody tests, suggested about 2m of Spain’s 47m inhabitants have contracted the virus, although infection rates in Madrid and the surrounding provinces in the centre of the country were much higher, at 10-14 per cent. Salvador Illa, Spain’s health minister, said the findings confirmed the government’s expectations and its cautious, staggered phase-out of the country’s tough two-month lockdown. However, the results, based on tests on more than 60,000 people across the country, are particularly significant because of the widespread hope that a large number of people in nations such as Spain are at least temporarily immune to the virus because they have contracted it without being tested or perhaps even displaying symptoms.  If a sufficiently big proportion of the population was immune to the virus — about 60 per cent — a country as a whole could develop “herd immunity” and so be relatively protected against a coronavirus second wave, which is widely feared in the autumn if not before. Spain has been one of the countries worst-hit by the pandemic, with over 27,000 documented deaths and an official tally of more than 228,000 cases. But Mr Illa said the results of the survey showed “there is no herd immunity”. The study will continue with two further rounds of tests of its participants. It found infection rates were much lower among children, and that 26 per cent of those people who had been infected had been asymptomatic. Infection rates for men and women were roughly the same. The survey’s findings contrasted with an influential report by Imperial College that estimated a mean average of 15 per cent of Spaniards — and perhaps as much as 41 per cent — had been infected as of March 28.  However, it was in line with research last week by the Italian Institute for International Political Studies that put the Spanish infection rate at 4.9 per cent. The Institute’s research, based on figures from European governments, indicated Belgium has the highest percentage of citizens with some degree of potential immunity in Europe, with 6.4 per cent, while the figure was 4.4 per cent for Italy, 3.8 per cent for the UK and only 0.7 per cent in Germany. The World Health Organisation’s chief scientist on Wednesday said there was “still a long way to go” for herd immunity.   Soumya Swaminathan told the FT’s Global Boardroom digital conference that rates higher than 10-20 per cent had not been observed anywhere in the world, with New York City probably representing the highest to date with 20 per cent. She added: “A vaccine is the best way to achieve quick herd immunity . . . without paying the price of [a large number of] deaths — which you would have to accept if you would go for a more natural herd immunity approach.”











						Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries
					

In many parts of the world, official death tolls undercount the total number of fatalities




					www.economist.com


----------



## Gramsci (May 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> "architects for social housing" is really just two people - Simon Elmer and Geraldine Dening.
> I used to follow them/him via a (closed) facebook group. Over time it moved from mainly just stuff (I thought largely pretty good) about social housing to other things, including constant attack on the labour party.
> Simon Elmer writes nearly all the political essays - Geraldine Dening seems mainly to stick to the directly housing-related stuff.
> A year or so back Simon Elmer started threatening to delete everyone from the group if they didn't state they agreed with certain things and commit to certain actions, and seemed paranoid that it was being infiltrated by labour party stooges. There seemed to be some crossover with Brexit party types in the comments being posted.
> ...




Just checked my FB and Im not on the ASH page any more. Wondered why it went quiet on the ASH FB. It now has just 33 people who can see the posts.

I agree with what you say. Its worse than Labour party stooges. The tone of later articles was anyone who admiited voting Labour was an enemy.

It spilled over into influencing some community groups. The hatred of the Labour party and anyone who admitted to vote for them was divisive imo.


----------



## Gramsci (May 14, 2020)

editor said:


> This lot seem to be going all libertarian
> 
> 
> 
> ...



As is usual with ASH Simon is right to raise issues about civil liberties - its that one has to wade through a lot of contrarian stuff to get to it.

There is the potential in the Covid times for governments / police to bring in measures that are a long term infringement of peoples right to privacy and freedom to go about daily life without undue interferance from the State.

I thought the lockdown would be a few months and then end. Now looks like the virus is going to be around for a while and social distancing is going to be the new normal. Even when lockdown is loosened. So what kind of changed State emerges out of the pandemic and its relationship with citizens is an issue imo.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 14, 2020)

The UK has approved use of the antibody test developed by Roche, which was recently approved by the US. 

According to experts at the Porton Down, it has a 100% accuracy rate.









						Coronavirus: New COVID-19 antibody test approved for use in UK
					

Boris Johnson has previously called antibody testing a "game-changer" as it may reveal how many people have had COVID-19.




					news.sky.com


----------



## nagapie (May 14, 2020)

The issue with schools is despite the NEU's petition and headteachers not being in agreement, there are already plans being made. I attended a meeting yesterday on getting students back into school and while there was a strong emphasis on risk assessment, the ball seemed to be rolling.
My area has a high number of ethnic minorities and i think there will be a lot of hesitation in sending children back; my school has already lost two parents to the virus.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The UK has approved use of the antibody test developed by Roche, which was recently approved by the US.
> 
> According to experts at the Porton Down, it has a 100% accuracy rate.
> 
> ...



100% specificity rate which I think is the return for people who have had it. Iirc from last week they were claiming that, plus 99.8% for the other one which identifies those who haven't. So I don't think '100% accurate' is 100% accurate.


----------



## kabbes (May 14, 2020)

Indeed, if 5% of the population have had the disease and the test gives a 0.2% chance of returning a false positive, that means the test is currently about 96% accurate in the way that the average layperson would understand the idea of “accurate”.

ETA: I suppose in addition, if it tells you that you HAVEN’T had it, that is 100%.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2020)

Yet more 'media can't understand simple science/maths' shocker. That's an atrocious headline.

I still think that's a very useful test, mind. 

Now  all we need to do is work out exactly what having those antibodies means wrt immunity.


----------



## Cid (May 14, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> A national survey in Spain says about 2m of their 47m population have been infected. And they've had 30,700 excess deaths.  Ergo a mortality rate of about 1.5%.  It's a bit back-of-an-envelope but I think it might be the most reliable mortality figure I've seen. If you assume the same mortality rate here and you plug in our excess deaths figure of 50,900, you get a UK infected total of 3.4m, or 5% of our 68m population.
> 
> Eta: one big caveat is that the test used in Spain may not be accurate.
> 
> ...



I suppose we’ll have to wait for more info on sampling and tests, but if that’s right it looks very very bad.

<examines self for negativity bias>

Still looks bad. I mean that would be an IFR > 1%. iirc even the (somewhat) less accurate serology tests are useful if you’re looking at a population level. It’s not in line with the New York study, but that had a much weaker sampling method and much smaller sample size.

Well, we’ll see.


----------



## kabbes (May 14, 2020)

There are some biases in the methodology that makes me think 1.5% would be an upper bound rather than the best estimate of the mortality rate. It actually makes me think the often mentioned 0.8%-1.0% sounds about right


----------



## 2hats (May 14, 2020)

The Roche Anti-SARS-CoV-2 electrochemiluminescence immunoassay is an IgG lab test with 99.81% (99.65-99.91% @95%CI) _specificity_ - this is effectively the likelihood of not returning a false positive ie the chance of this not flagging an antibody associated with a different pathogen.

The _sensitivity_ of the test varies with time from viral RNA PCR confirmation, reaching 100% (88.1-100% @95%CI) after 2 weeks - ie likelihood that this is not a false negative.


----------



## frogwoman (May 14, 2020)

0.8 is still catastrophic tho. The lowest estimate I've seen is 0.3%-0.4% which is still much higher than flu which is 0.1 or less


----------



## 2hats (May 14, 2020)

kabbes said:


> There are some biases in the methodology that makes me think 1.5% would be an upper bound rather than the best estimate of the mortality rate. It actually makes me think the often mentioned 0.8%-1.0% sounds about right


For comparison, MRC nowcasting for the UK currently estimates IFR as being 0.6% (0.5-0.8% @95%CI).


----------



## Teaboy (May 14, 2020)

With this antibody test the importance from a healthcare and policy perspective is clearly massive.  On the personal level in the immediate I'm wondering whether they have a practical use?  We talked about this at the start of the lockdown and how things like immunity passports have the potential to create an unpleasant 2 tier situation in the country.


----------



## LDC (May 14, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> With this antibody test the importance from a healthcare and policy perspective is clearly massive.  On the personal level in the immediate I'm wondering whether they have a practical use?  We talked about this at the start of the lockdown and how things like immunity passports have the potential to create an unpleasant 2 tier situation in the country.



You can buy them commercially online (won't post the link here though) and a couple of friends are thinking of getting it done (costs about £100), more for curiosity really as they're all HCPs that have had plenty of contact with CV+ patients but they've had no (or very mild non-specific) symptoms. Do think that a positive IgG test would almost inevitably make me less careful even with the best intentions.


----------



## Teaboy (May 14, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> You can buy them commercially online (won't post the link here though) and a couple of friends are thinking of getting it done (costs about £100), more for curiosity really as they're all HCPs that have had plenty of contact with CV+ patients but they've had no (or very mild non-specific) symptoms. Do think that a positive IgG test would almost inevitably make me less careful even with the best intentions.



Are the online ones the Roche ones that the government has just approved?  It seems like there are a lot of different ones out there presumably all with differing levels of accuracy.

With regards to personal interest in knowing whether you've had it, I agree.  I'm pretty convinced I've had it and am genuinely intrigued but as you say I'm probably already overconfident enough as it is.


----------



## LDC (May 14, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Are the online ones the Roche ones that the government has just approved?  It seems like there are a lot of different ones out there presumably all with differing levels of accuracy.
> 
> With regards to personal interest in knowing whether you've had it, I agree.  I'm pretty convinced I've had it and am genuinely intrigued but as you say I'm probably already overconfident enough as it is.



I did wonder that too, but not sure, I can't quite make out the logo on the box image online. I suspect not from the stuff I've read though.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> With this antibody test the importance from a healthcare and policy perspective is clearly massive.  On the personal level in the immediate I'm wondering whether they have a practical use?  We talked about this at the start of the lockdown and how things like immunity passports have the potential to create an unpleasant 2 tier situation in the country.


Well first we need to know whether antibody = immunity, and if so, for how long. Will depend on some unknowables as well, such as how the virus itself evolves over time.

But second, as pointed out, around four people out of every 100 given an immunity passport on the basis of this test would actually not be immune. You'd have to run all the positives through another round of testing to give a better level of confidence. Plus, if it is only around 5 per cent of the population, that's not really much use practically speaking in terms of such people being allowed to do stuff the rest can't. I guess it could mean international travel for a small minority, not the rest? 

I think it's a non-starter tbh.


----------



## GarveyLives (May 14, 2020)

GarveyLives said:


> Very sad:
> 
> Station ticket office worker dies with Covid-19 after being spat at
> 
> ...



More here:

Cops weren’t told about coronavirus spit attack on station worker _for 7 weeks _despite her ‘urging bosses to call police’

‘We are vulnerable and scared’, say colleagues of tragic Belly Mujinga

​


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 14, 2020)

Why the fuck didn't GTR report the assault to the cops at the time?

Even without C-19, such assaults should be reported.

Mind you, thinking about it, why didn't she report it herself?


----------



## Shechemite (May 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Mind you, thinking about it, why didn't she report it herself?



The Thought that she wouldn’t be believed.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> The Thought that she wouldn’t be believed.



Possible, but CCTV...


----------



## MickiQ (May 14, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> The Thought that she wouldn’t be believed.


She probably expected to be believed, she probably didn't expect that much would happen. It's a very sad reflection on our society that such behaviour has been become 'normalised' 
People in public facing  jobs tend to get abuse from assholes on a frequent basis. Sadly I can't imagine there is much chance of them finding this cunt and even then proving that he actually had it and gave it to her is effectively impossible. We can only hope that karma has succeeded where the justice system will not.


----------



## Santino (May 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Mind you, thinking about it, why didn't she report it herself?


What kind of answer are you looking for here?


----------



## frogwoman (May 14, 2020)

Because usually fuck all is done.


----------



## bimble (May 14, 2020)

What a time to be alive.


----------



## frogwoman (May 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> What a time to be alive.
> 
> View attachment 212489



Jesus, my mum ordered something similar for 89 quid. I really don't trust them at all especially because the one from Roche has only just been approved.


----------



## planetgeli (May 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why the fuck didn't GTR report the assault to the cops at the time?
> 
> Even without C-19, such assaults should be reported.
> 
> Mind you, thinking about it, why didn't she report it herself?



Who is GTR?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Who is GTR?



Govia Thameslink Railway.


----------



## Santino (May 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Govia Thameslink Railway.


Someone was paid, and paid well, to decide that name.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 14, 2020)

Santino said:


> Someone was paid, and paid well, to decide that name.



Not sure about that, as it was just a case of Govia taking over the Thameslink franchise.


----------



## chilango (May 14, 2020)

nagapie said:


> The issue with schools is despite the NEU's petition and headteachers not being in agreement, there are already plans being made. I attended a meeting yesterday on getting students back into school and while there was a strong emphasis on risk assessment, the ball seemed to be rolling.
> My area has a high number of ethnic minorities and i think there will be a lot of hesitation in sending children back; my school has already lost two parents to the virus.



Yep.

I've seen some of the re-opening and risk planning documents.


----------



## teuchter (May 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not sure about that, as it was just a case of Govia taking over the Thameslink franchise.


Not entirely, as the previous franchisee had dropped the "Thameslink" name.


----------



## Raheem (May 14, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yep.
> 
> I've seen some of the re-opening and risk planning documents.


Tbf, even if they are opposing re-opening, and even if the unions can stop it happening, schools do have to be planning for it.


----------



## maomao (May 14, 2020)

Have had a letter from our school saying they will be aiming for fifteen to a class with staggered drop off times. And have confirmed they won't be forcing anyone who doesn't want to.


----------



## teqniq (May 14, 2020)




----------



## andysays (May 14, 2020)

maomao said:


> Have had a letter from our school saying they will be aiming for fifteen to a class with staggered drop off times. And have confirmed they won't be forcing anyone who doesn't want to.


How will that work? How will they choose which 15 from a class of 30?

(I realise you may not have the answers, those are just the immediate questions which occur to me)


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 14, 2020)

andysays said:


> How will that work? How will they choose which 15 from a class of 30?
> 
> (I realise you may not have the answers, those are just the immediate questions which occur to me)



I assume, as only a couple of years are returning, half the class will be with their usual teachers(s), and the other half with another teachers(s) in a different class room.


----------



## andysays (May 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I assume, as only a couple of years are returning, half the class will be with their usual teachers(s), and the other half with another teachers(s) in a different class room.


Has the bit about only some years returning now been confirmed? I know it was suggested a few days ago...


----------



## chilango (May 14, 2020)

andysays said:


> Has the bit about only some years returning now been confirmed? I know it was suggested a few days ago...



I don't think it's be "confirmed confirmed" but probably "suggested confirmed" is usually what we get.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I assume, as only a couple of years are returning, half the class will be with their usual teachers(s), and the other half with another teachers(s) in a different class room.



Fine temporarily but the capacity of schools and the number of teachers needs doubling and I’m sceptical that many schools can manage it.

And fucked if they can double entire capacity by September


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 14, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Fine temporarily but the capacity of schools and the number of teachers needs doubling and I’m sceptical that many schools can manage it.
> 
> And fucked if they can double entire capacity by September



As they are hoping to start re-opening pubs, restaurants & cafes in a limited form from July, I guess they hope schools can return to normal come Sept.

Fuckloads of ifs & buts in all that.


----------



## chilango (May 14, 2020)

There is a concerted, and probably coordinated, attack on teachers going on right now to ensure blame/responsibility is diverted.


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 14, 2020)

chilango said:


> There is a concerted, and probably coordinated, attack on teachers going on right now to ensure blame/responsibility is diverted.


There's wankers all over Twitter having a go at teachers, demanding they get back to work immediately. Most of the cunts making the demands are saying "I have to return to work so you should too". I guess they think schools are just free childminders.


----------



## chilango (May 14, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> There's wankers all over Twitter having a go at teachers, demanding they get back to work immediately. Most of the cunts making the demands are saying "I have to return to work so you should too". I guess they think schools are just free childminders.



There's that.

Encouraged, whipped up, by the press. 

Obviously, the bosses want the schools to open to allow their workers to come back.

Also, there's a long-term desire in the Tory Party to smash the teaching unions. This is seen as a chance to do that.


----------



## Petcha (May 14, 2020)

andysays said:


> Has the bit about only some years returning now been confirmed? I know it was suggested a few days ago...



I'm sure they'll be 'guided by the science' which is their stock answer to virtually every difficult question


----------



## Wilf (May 14, 2020)

Santino said:


> Someone was paid, and paid well, to decide that name.


There may be a trend in naming public enterprises and buildings after current cabinet ministers. For example, the new _Patella Fracture Clinic... _Oh, and the_ 'Johnson' STD Unit..._


----------



## maomao (May 14, 2020)

andysays said:


> How will that work? How will they choose which 15 from a class of 30?
> 
> (I realise you may not have the answers, those are just the immediate questions which occur to me)


Normal classes are thirty odd with three staff (teachers and TAs) in reception. I assume this means that if everyone turns up they'll have TAs leading classes (our school has the luxury of being half empty anyway so has extra rooms). However surveys suggest 75% of people won't be sending their kids back so I doubt they'll need to. That may be lower where I live because we're pfwc round here and may not have a choice but there won't be anything like 100% attendance. Her teacher's just called and spoken to my wife. Apparently didn't seem surprised at our decision so must be pretty common.


----------



## maomao (May 14, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> There's wankers all over Twitter having a go at teachers, demanding they get back to work immediately. Most of the cunts making the demands are saying "I have to return to work so you should too". I guess they think schools are just free childminders.


I know some teachers must have been sent home but all the teachers at my kid's school worked through Easter looking after keyworkers' children and have had fuck all time off at all (I think TAs were furloughed).


----------



## Shechemite (May 14, 2020)




----------



## maomao (May 14, 2020)

Could you at least give us a clue? It's literally just a woman's face and a play button.


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 14, 2020)

maomao said:


> Could you at least give us a clue? It's literally just a woman's face and a play button.


I sat staring at it for a minute, wondering whether it was one of those videos where you press play and she turns into a demon and screams at you. I erred on the side of caution and declined.


----------



## Callie (May 14, 2020)

The Roche test afaik will require a proper blood sample, in a blood tube taken by a HCW and is run on a machine in a lab. Not a home test! 

PHE are going for throughput (lesson learnt?) which you will get with analysers. 

Any home testing antibody kit is likely to be a pinprick bloodspot test which in itself with impact accuracy.


----------



## MickiQ (May 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> What a time to be alive.
> 
> View attachment 212489


That needs the word "SCAM" printed on it in big red letters


----------



## Shechemite (May 14, 2020)

maomao said:


> Could you at least give us a clue? It's literally just a woman's face and a play button.



sorry meant to link the article not just the video



*Coronavirus: Fears for people with learning disabilities*
The Care Quality Commission says there has been a 175% increase in deaths of people with learning disabilities living in adult social care organisations in England, compared with the same period last year. 
But while elderly people are entitled to be tested for Covid-19, people with a learning disability are not.
BBC Breakfast spoke to disabilities campaigner, Sara Ryan, and Dr Dominic Slowie, former NHS national clinical director for learning disability.


----------



## Gramsci (May 14, 2020)

> Lambeth Labour have submitted a Motion to the next meeting of the Full Council calling for a number of measures to ensure safety and support children in the current circumstances and beyond. This motion will call on government to:
> 
> 
> Work with the trade union representatives of teachers and education workers to ensure that schools can return safely, including the need to meet the tests set out by the trade unions including the National Education Union that include clear scientific evidence, the need for a full rollout of the “test, trace and isolate” policy, enhanced school cleaning and quantifiable agreed standards on PPE and social distancing.
> ...



My Labour run Council have listened to Teaching unions and parents and decided the above









						Government must not put our families and school staff at further risk - Lambeth Labour
					

Cllr Ed Davie is the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People and a councillor in Thornton ward.  Lambeth’s education workers, including teachers, and families with school-aged children have responded brilliantly to this crisis. Children and their carers have had to take responsibility for...




					www.lambeth-labour.org.uk
				




Im a times at odds with my local Council but  during pandemic they have been surprisingly good. 

I dont know what Starmer is saying. The full text above shows that Boris announced opening of schools with no consultation. Even with sections of government itself not knowing about it.

I agree with posters here this is about the bosses wanting the workers back nose to the grindstone. Schools must open to achieve this.


----------



## 2hats (May 14, 2020)

Callie said:


> The Roche test afaik will require a proper blood sample, in a blood tube taken by a HCW and is run on a machine in a lab. Not a home test!





2hats said:


> The Roche Anti-SARS-CoV-2 electrochemiluminescence immunoassay is an IgG lab test with 99.81% (99.65-99.91% @95%CI) _specificity_ - this is effectively the likelihood of not returning a false positive ie the chance of this not flagging an antibody associated with a different pathogen.
> 
> The _sensitivity_ of the test varies with time from viral RNA PCR confirmation, reaching 100% (88.1-100% @95%CI) after 2 weeks - ie likelihood that this is not a false negative.


----------



## Shechemite (May 14, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> I sat staring at it for a minute, wondering whether it was one of those videos where you press play and she turns into a demon and screams at you. I erred on the side of caution and declined.



can you not


----------



## Shechemite (May 14, 2020)

COVID-19: leading nurse demands details of learning disability deaths
					

Nurse academic says figures are needed now to help prevent unnecessary deaths




					rcni.com


----------



## Shechemite (May 14, 2020)

Every death counts
					

We are crowdfunding to raise funds to challenge NHS England's decision not to publish data about the deaths of learning disabled and autistic people.




					www.crowdjustice.com


----------



## Callie (May 14, 2020)

2hats     Sorry what point are you making? I'm confused!


----------



## 2hats (May 14, 2020)

Callie said:


> 2hats     Sorry what point are you making? I'm confused!


I'm confirming that it is a _lab based_ electrochemiluminescence immunoassay, as previously posted.


----------



## frogwoman (May 14, 2020)

Callie said:


> The Roche test afaik will require a proper blood sample, in a blood tube taken by a HCW and is run on a machine in a lab. Not a home test!
> 
> PHE are going for throughput (lesson learnt?) which you will get with analysers.
> 
> Any home testing antibody kit is likely to be a pinprick bloodspot test which in itself with impact accuracy.



Exactly.


----------



## frogwoman (May 14, 2020)

Yep that's the only one I would trust! And even then!


----------



## oryx (May 14, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> My Labour run Council have listened to Teaching unions and parents and decided the above
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A rushed opening of schools is just begging for a second spike/the situation in schools replicating that in care homes.

And yes, it's not about education, it's about schools being used as free childcare so their parents can go back to work.


----------



## LDC (May 14, 2020)

Callie said:


> The Roche test afaik will require a proper blood sample, in a blood tube taken by a HCW and is run on a machine in a lab. Not a home test!
> 
> PHE are going for throughput (lesson learnt?) which you will get with analysers.
> 
> Any home testing antibody kit is likely to be a pinprick bloodspot test which in itself with impact accuracy.



The test posted above that the image is from is lab based. You take a sample and send it to their labs and then they send you the result.

AFAIK it is legit in terms of it not being a scam. Whether it's worth it, and whether the results are accurate enough to be reliable is another question.


----------



## xenon (May 14, 2020)

to be fair I saw that the first time but still don’t know what it means. Will google it later.


----------



## teqniq (May 14, 2020)

good article imo.









						Right now, the only thing staving off a collapse in the social order is the state | Aditya Chakrabortty
					

There can be no return to the austerity of pre-coronavirus Britain, despite the siren calls of the right, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Roadkill (May 14, 2020)

I've just got back from a short walk and a bit of shopping, and I'm alarmed.  Loads of people seem to have decided that the worst is over and they don't need to worry any more.  There are far more people about on the streets than even a few days ago, some shops are actively busy and not enforcing social distancing (though in fairness a majority still seem to be), and quite a few businesses which have been closed look to be preparing to reopen.  Even a couple of pubs look as if they're having a spring clean in readiness for the doors opening again.  Given that the outbreak took hold relatively late here and infections are still rising fast, I fear for what is going to happen in a week or two.


----------



## little_legs (May 14, 2020)

TfL sent this yesterday. Next week is going to be interesting. 




			
				TfL said:
			
		

> Dear blah-blah,
> 
> We have a plan to help London re-open carefully, safely and sustainably.
> 
> ...


----------



## teuchter (May 14, 2020)

I've not had time to read this yet, but London Reconnections pieces are usually very well informed and well written.









						TfL: THE IMPOSSIBLE FINANCES OF FIGHTING A PANDEMIC - London Reconnections
					

The leading source for independent news and analysis about transport in London and beyond. Award-winning coverage of transport infrastructure and politics alongside stories about the history of the Capital's transport networks.




					www.londonreconnections.com


----------



## planetgeli (May 14, 2020)

148,000 in England infected with coronavirus in last two weeks
					

First national snapshot estimates that 0.27% of population currently positive




					www.theguardian.com
				




And that's with 'lockdown'.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 14, 2020)

little_legs said:


> TfL sent this yesterday. Next week is going to be interesting.



It all sounds very reasonable as long as you've never been anywhere near any actual London public transport.


----------



## little_legs (May 14, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> It all sounds very reasonable as long as you've never been anywhere near any actual London public transport.


I know right.


----------



## CNT36 (May 14, 2020)

teqniq said:


> View attachment 212366


As a taxpayer I endorse their life choices.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (May 14, 2020)

little_legs said:


> TfL sent this yesterday. Next week is going to be interesting.



I had the same one. I'm still going to avoid public transport for a while longer. Only when the pubs reopen will I consider it even _remotely_ safe to go and mingle again!


----------



## Teaboy (May 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> 148,000 in England infected with coronavirus in last two weeks
> 
> 
> First national snapshot estimates that 0.27% of population currently positive
> ...



I don't know what to make of that.  It does make me wonder what the infection rates was in the 3 - 4 weeks before lockdown.


----------



## quimcunx (May 14, 2020)

Right at the bottom of this article from 12 may it says Germany's infection rate is 1000 cases a day and that the UK's  'is thought to be' 20,000 a day.  Not sure if that is just bad reporting but if true easing lockdown seems  maybe a little premature. 









						Coronavirus: Germany not alarmed by infection rate rise
					

The virus reproduction rate is above 1.0 in Germany - but experts believe it can be controlled.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## wayward bob (May 14, 2020)

The bathroom item scientists hope could stop coronavirus from spreading
					

Researchers claim this it is an 'under-researched area of major clinical need'




					www.walesonline.co.uk
				




or neat rum, say, as an alternative measure...


----------



## planetgeli (May 14, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> The bathroom item scientists hope could stop coronavirus from spreading
> 
> 
> Researchers claim this it is an 'under-researched area of major clinical need'
> ...



I'm liking the caption on the first photograph, in case we didn't know what was happening there.

*Young woman rinsing mouth, leaning over sink, close-up *


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I'm liking the caption on the first photograph, in case we didn't know what was happening there.
> 
> *Young woman rinsing mouth, leaning over sink, close-up *


Copy and pasted from the cheapo pic library it was sourced at.


----------



## wayward bob (May 14, 2020)

oi the only money i ever earn is from cheapo pic libraries


----------



## Petcha (May 14, 2020)

I've never actually watched Sky News before this shitstorm but it's far far better than the beeb. And doesn't cut off press conferences to report on the possible location of Dele Alli's rolex.









						Watch Sky News Live
					

Watch Sky News Live




					news.sky.com


----------



## wayward bob (May 14, 2020)

i turned over too. wtf bbc?


----------



## wayward bob (May 14, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I've never actually watched Sky News before


but now ?someone ?boris is bungee jumping for the coronas?


----------



## Petcha (May 14, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> but now ?someone ?boris is bungee jumping for the coronas?



Hmm... a big pair of scissors might need to be at hand if that came to pass. 

(I also secretly wish one of those nurses had stood on his tube for a while)


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 14, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I've never actually watched Sky News before this shitstorm but it's far far better than the beeb. And doesn't cut off press conferences to report on the possible location of Dele Alli's rolex.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think their overall news coverage is far better than the BBC, and even better now Murdoch doesn't own it.


----------



## Petcha (May 14, 2020)

I do appreciate the BBC has had its budget slashed of course so that would go some way to explain why their news cycle is far more repetitive than Sky's. What a time to axe Victoria Derbyshire. Idiots.


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 14, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I do appreciate the BBC has had its budget slashed of course so that would go some way to explain why their news cycle is far more repetitive than Sky's.


I think if you sit with Sky News on in the background, you'll soon think it's groundhog day.


----------



## Petcha (May 14, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> I think if you sit with Sky News on in the background, you'll soon think it's groundhog day.



They currently have the Chinese ambassador to the UK live getting a little bit of a grilling. It's the same old shit on the beeb I'm sure.


----------



## killer b (May 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've not had time to read this yet, but London Reconnections pieces are usually very well informed and well written.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


this is very good, thanks.


----------



## editor (May 14, 2020)

It still seems so weird to see the Torygraph ripping into the Tories every day.



> It’s always the toughest stage of The Apprentice: the interviews round. A slick-haired young telemarketer in a shiny suit will swagger in, and start bragging about the foolproof business idea he’s had – only for the interviewer to take him apart like a Duplo train set.
> 
> In no time, the candidate has dissolved into a puddle of babbling neurosis, unable to give a convincing answer to any question, up to and including the spelling of his own name.
> 
> This is what it’s like, these days, watching Sir Keir Starmer grill Boris Johnson at PMQs. Labour’s new leader is calm, polite, and utterly merciless.











						Keir Starmer took Boris Johnson apart like a Duplo train set
					

At PMQs, the new Labour leader asked a series of calmly factual questions – and the Prime Minister visibly struggled




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## oryx (May 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've not had time to read this yet, but London Reconnections pieces are usually very well informed and well written.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 Whole situation is very worrying. Just read via the Twitter link at the bottom of their page that Tfl have been given a £1.6m bailout but with conditions attached including the resumption of 100% of services and government appointments to the Tfl board. 

How on earth can Tfl return to 100% of services with staff needing to self-isolate etc.?


----------



## Cid (May 14, 2020)

kabbes said:


> There are some biases in the methodology that makes me think 1.5% would be an upper bound rather than the best estimate of the mortality rate. It actually makes me think the often mentioned 0.8%-1.0% sounds about right



I couldn't find much on the methodology... On figures most recently I'd been hearing 0.35-0.75 after New York study etc. At any rate even 0.35 didn't present a particularly rosy picture, and it certainly leaves me concerned about the clusterfuck that is policy in the UK.


----------



## Mation (May 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I'm liking the caption on the first photograph, in case we didn't know what was happening there.
> 
> *Young woman rinsing mouth, leaning over sink, close-up *


Maybe intended primarily as alt text for people using screen readers, but got reused?


----------



## Cid (May 14, 2020)

oryx said:


> Whole situation is very worrying. Just read via the Twitter link at the bottom of their page that Tfl have been given a £1.6m bailout but with conditions attached including the resumption of 100% of services and government appointments to the Tfl board.
> 
> How on earth can Tfl return to 100% of services with staff needing to self-isolate etc.?



Fuck me, it's like they're giving it a good ticking off for not working properly.


----------



## andysays (May 14, 2020)

oryx said:


> Whole situation is very worrying. Just read via the Twitter link at the bottom of their page that Tfl have been given a £1.6m bailout but with conditions attached including the resumption of 100% of services and government appointments to the Tfl board.
> 
> How on earth can Tfl return to 100% of services with staff needing to self-isolate etc.?



For what it's worth



> Most TfL services are still running, but* 7,000 staff - about 25% of the workforce - have been furloughed to cut costs*.



If anything, I'd have thought they'd need extra staff to ensure social distancing measures are followed on the Tube


----------



## oryx (May 14, 2020)

Cid said:


> Fuck me, it's like they're giving it a good ticking off for not working properly.


It's exactly that. 

You can be sure it will be used as a stick to beat Khan come the postponed mayoral election. Especially around him having frozen fares, which is (obviously to most on here, I'm sure, but probably not to your average Daily Mail reader) blatantly not the cause of this situation.


----------



## andysays (May 14, 2020)

oryx said:


> It's exactly that.
> 
> You can be sure it will be used as a stick to beat Khan come the postponed mayoral election. Especially around him having frozen fares, which is (obviously to most on here, I'm sure, but probably not to your average Daily Mail reader) blatantly not the cause of this situation.


I was reading the story about this on the BBC a few hours ago and the Tory candidate for Mayor (whose name I have forgotten*) was already laying in to Khan over this.

It's been updated since the money was agreed and that bit seems to have disappeared

*ETA Sean Bailey, I think


----------



## oryx (May 14, 2020)

andysays said:


> I was reading the story about this on the BBC a few hours ago and the Tory candidate for Mayor (whose name I have forgotten*) was already laying in to Khan over this.
> 
> It's been updated since the money was agreed and that bit seems to have disappeared
> 
> *ETA Sean Bailey, I think


Yes, I saw that too.

I think just before the postponed mayoral election in May, Khan was something like 25% ahead in the polls. It would be criminal if he was wrongly pilloried over this.

Although it's probably not a huge factor, the detailed and interesting article teuchter linked to mentions the not inconsiderable amount spunked away on the failed Garden Bridge project. Which is a good example of how to completely and utterly waste public money, unlike freezing fares which actually helps people...


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 14, 2020)

Callie said:


> The Roche test afaik will require a proper blood sample, in a blood tube taken by a HCW and is run on a machine in a lab. Not a home test!
> 
> PHE are going for throughput (lesson learnt?) which you will get with analysers.
> 
> Any home testing antibody kit is likely to be a pinprick bloodspot test which in itself with impact accuracy.



As a fair chunk of my income comes from my Roche pension, glad to see them doing well.


----------



## Callie (May 14, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> As a fair chunk of my income comes from my Roche pension, glad to see them doing well.


I am reasonably sure there will be other similar assays joining them soon enough (Abbott, Ortho, Diasorin). Again we have to keep in mind this is a global pandemic of a novel virus. 

They're going to want to test everyone. Probably a few times each. We need the supply line infrastructure and production capability. It's a bloody big thing. Everyone one and their dog probably wants an antibody test.

Matt Hancock will be along shortly to set an unobtainable daily antibody testing target any second now.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 14, 2020)

ddraig said:


> bollocks
> Scotland has been more honest and transparent, you just would never admit it



I would hardly call the suppression of information re the Nike conference good management.

The time it took to actually inspect the home on Skye was not good management. Legal bid to remove owners of virus-hit care home

The discharge of patients from hospital to care homes, without testing them, is hardly good management.

29/04/2020

National Records of Scotland (NRS) statistics showed that care homes accounted for 338 of the 656 cases recorded on death certificates last week - the equivalent of a resident dying every 30 minutes.

Freeman's gross incompetence has sentenced people to death.


----------



## weltweit (May 14, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> ..
> The discharge of patients from hospital to care homes, without testing them, is hardly good management.
> ..


I can remember some care home managers standing up to the NHS and refusing to take untested patients, and that wasn't so very long ago.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 14, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I can remember some care home managers standing up to the NHS and refusing to take untested patients, and that wasn't so very long ago.



It didn't happen in Scotland.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 14, 2020)

oryx said:


> Yes, I saw that too.
> 
> I think just before the postponed mayoral election in May, Khan was something like 25% ahead in the polls. It would be criminal if he was wrongly pilloried over this.
> 
> Although it's probably not a huge factor, the detailed and interesting article teuchter linked to mentions the not inconsiderable amount spunked away on the failed Garden Bridge project. Which is a good example of how to completely and utterly waste public money, unlike freezing fares which actually helps people...



I would not be surprised if two things happen.

1. the abolition of the post of London Mayor.

2. The tube becoming driverless asap.


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 14, 2020)

FFS .
Anybody heard anything about this . Apparently not official yet 
Homeless people put up in hotels amid pandemic to be kicked out


----------



## zahir (May 14, 2020)

Drivers tell of chaos at UK's privately run PPE stockpile
					

Allegations raise questions over Movianto’s management of government stocks during coronavirus outbreak




					www.theguardian.com
				





> The private firm contracted to run the government’s stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE) was beset by “chaos” at its warehouse that may have resulted in delays in deploying vital supplies to healthcare workers, according to sources who have spoken to the Guardian and ITV News.
> 
> The allegations from delivery drivers and other well–placed sources raise questions about whether Movianto, the subsidiary of a US healthcare giant, was able to adequately manage and distribute the nation’s emergency stockpile of PPE for use in a pandemic.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why the fuck didn't GTR report the assault to the cops at the time?
> 
> Even without C-19, such assaults should be reported.
> 
> Mind you, thinking about it, why didn't she report it herself?



She was assaulted at work, it wasn't her job to report it.


Re schools and transmission - didn't the ONS report today show little difference between varying age groups in recent infections?

I know that there's been an ongoing lack of response from the gov to many/any of the questions from the various education unions, so I'm assuming that's followed all over, despite the claim that they have been _embracing_ working with unions.


----------



## ddraig (May 14, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> I would hardly call the suppression of information re the Nike conference good management.
> 
> The time it took to actually inspect the home on Skye was not good management. Legal bid to remove owners of virus-hit care home
> 
> ...


Compared to westminster


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 14, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> FFS .
> Anybody heard anything about this . Apparently not official yet
> Homeless people put up in hotels amid pandemic to be kicked out



That is fucking despicable.


----------



## Gramsci (May 14, 2020)

oryx said:


> Whole situation is very worrying. Just read via the Twitter link at the bottom of their page that Tfl have been given a £1.6m bailout but with conditions attached including the resumption of 100% of services and government appointments to the Tfl board.
> 
> How on earth can Tfl return to 100% of services with staff needing to self-isolate etc.?



I see the Tories are using the pandemic to undermine Mayors control of TFL appointments to its board.


----------



## Wilf (May 14, 2020)

editor said:


> It still seems so weird to see the Torygraph ripping into the Tories every day.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't see this leading to some kind of Blair moment, where he was summoned to meet Rupert Murdoch. Same time, if the deathtoll and story of how the tories have killed so many lead to them getting behind in the polls (something I'm not convinced will happen even now, tbh) the press might cast a serious eye over starmer. They'd want him to weed out every inch of Corbynism first and I don't see it happening in reality, but various editors will be thinking about post 'boris' scenarios at some point, blue or 'red'.


----------



## Gramsci (May 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've not had time to read this yet, but London Reconnections pieces are usually very well informed and well written.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks for this.

Fares to be hiked after TfL secures £1.6bn emergency bailout deal

The article was finished before the deal. The LR article was correct in its forecast what the Tories might do. They are using the London vs rest of England as a stick to beat TFL and the  "profligate" Mayor Khan. And Londoners in general is how I read what Shapps says.

So we arent all this together is what I get from this Tory imposed deal on Khan.

Fares will go up, senior citizens lose some of Freedom pass.

This bailout with strings is first step in Tories telling ordinary people they are now going to have to pay for this crisis.

The LR article shows how working class and Black Londoners have little access to cars and depend on public transport. Transport is a class issue in London.


----------



## David Clapson (May 14, 2020)

Regarding today's numbers fromn the ONS, how can 0.27% of people in England be infected when it's 5% in Spain and 4.4% in France? Are we measuring different things? 148,000 in England infected with coronavirus in last two weeks


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 14, 2020)

andysays said:


> How will that work? How will they choose which 15 from a class of 30?


----------



## Wilf (May 14, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> View attachment 212624


_2 men entered for Sats Key Stage 2, one man..._


----------



## frogwoman (May 15, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Regarding today's numbers fromn the ONS, how can 0.27% of people in England be infected when it's 5% in Spain and 4.4% in France? Are we measuring different things? 148,000 in England infected with coronavirus in last two weeks



Think Spain and France are measuring total infections including recovered patients with antibodies or those who had it previously whereas the ONS is measuring people who are currently ill


----------



## 2hats (May 15, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Regarding today's numbers fromn the ONS, how can 0.27% of people in England be infected when it's 5% in Spain and 4.4% in France? Are we measuring different things? 148,000 in England infected with coronavirus in last two weeks


You've misread the ONS information. Or the journalists involved have. The 0.27% is number of current cases, ie persons with COVID symptoms. Not overall number/fraction of infected persons from this wave.


----------



## frogwoman (May 15, 2020)

0.27 doesn't seem very high though? I guess that's because of the social distancing measures?


----------



## 2hats (May 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 0.27 doesn't seem very high though? I guess that's because of the social distancing measures?


Correct. It is well into [soft] 'lockdown'.


----------



## frogwoman (May 15, 2020)

2hats said:


> Correct. It is well into [soft] 'lockdown'.



I guess the number could start to go up again now ? The question is whether one can put the fires out


----------



## little_legs (May 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> There's that.
> 
> Encouraged, whipped up, by the press.
> 
> ...


----------



## 2hats (May 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I guess the number could start to go up again now ? The question is whether one can put the fires out


Needs a comprehensive, well organised, test-trace-isolate programme.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 15, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




Insane,


----------



## little_legs (May 15, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Thanks for this.
> 
> Fares to be hiked after TfL secures £1.6bn emergency bailout deal
> 
> ...


I don't know for sure, but it strikes me that a tonne of over 60's in London have no choice but to work to support themselves and their families, so they are probably using their Freedom Passes to get to work, not for some leisurely activities, and many of them are not even earning that much. So cruel.


----------



## Wilf (May 15, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



I'm sure Daily Mail Editor Geordie Gregg (Born 16 December 1960 in Lambeth, London,[1][2] Greig is the son of Sir Carron Greig and Monica Stourton, granddaughter of the 24th Lord Mowbray, Segrave and Stourton. Members of his father's family have been royal courtiers for three generations — including his twin sister Laura, who was a lady-in-waiting to Diana, Princess of Wales.[3] He attended Eton College and St Peter's College, Oxford.[2] ) and owner, Viscount Rothermere (Hurrah!) have been putting themselves in harms way over the last few weeks, maybe working in a care home? Out helping the homeless? Yeah?


----------



## editor (May 15, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



LET THEM DIE!

I didn't think it was possible to hate the Mail any more, but this is a new barrel scraping low for them.


----------



## 2hats (May 15, 2020)

A second antibody laboratory test has been approved in the UK - Abbott's SARS-CoV-2 IgG chemiluminescent immunoassay claims _specificity_ of 99.63% (99.05-99.90% @95%CI) and _sensitivity_ of 100% (95.89-100% @95%CI) after 14 days.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I can remember some care home managers standing up to the NHS and refusing to take untested patients, and that wasn't so very long ago.



The care home owner that I know refused to take in discharged NHS patients unless they were tested, but these would have been new residents, not ones that had gone into hospital from her home.


----------



## Cerv (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> I would not be surprised if two things happen.
> 
> 1. the abolition of the post of London Mayor.
> 
> 2. The tube becoming driverless asap.



abolishing it entirely would injure the PM's ego. you'd be saying the 8 years he spent in the role amounted to nothing too. better for them to keep the post but put more restrictions on his already very limited powers to do anything against central government direction. neuter Khan or any other Labour mayor.

2 requires £ billions of investment up front, but the government is already preparing for another round of austerity sadly


----------



## kabbes (May 15, 2020)

2hats said:


> A second antibody laboratory test has been approved in the UK - Abbott's SARS-CoV-2 IgG chemiluminescent immunoassay claims _specificity_ of 96.63% (99.05-99.90% @95%CI) and _sensitivity_ of 100% (95.89-100% @95%CI) after 14 days.


Do you mean 99.63%?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2020)

What is it will these idiots that think they can spit in the faces of coppers, whilst claiming they have C-19?

We have had at least 4 cases across Sussex, one got a suspended sentence, one jailed for 3 months, and another for 6 months. Now we have this fourth twat, who has been convicted of spitting in the faces of two coppers and a nurse, and is facing a sentence of longer than 12 months.



> Sussex Police said Sarah Clarkson-Rose, of New Barn Lane, Ridgewood, Uckfield, pleaded guilty to assaulting two police officers and an A&E nurse at Eastbourne District General Hospital, when she appeared at a virtual hearing in custody at Brighton Magistrates Court on Wednesday (May 13).
> 
> The 42-year-old, who is unemployed, was remanded in custody for sentencing next month, the force said. A police spokesman said: “District Judge Amanda Kelly remanded her in custody to Lewes Crown Court for sentencing on June 10, as she felt the offence merited a longer period in custody than 12 months.”
> 
> SOURCE



So, she's basically going to be shitting herself in custody for a month, before the case is moved up to Crown Court, panicking about how long she will have to serve, what a fucking twat.


----------



## kabbes (May 15, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



That’s a great illustration of the danger of a “heroes” popular discourse.  You don’t need to feel guilty about putting a hero in harm’s way because that’s what a hero does.  So actually you can feel good and righteous for helping the hero actualise themself.  Turn a class of people into heroes and you don’t need to pay them, protect them, worry about their emotional needs or do any of the other pesky things that get in the way of their destiny of sacrifice.

It’s utter bullshit.  We’ve seen it play out with soldiers, with medical staff, with care staff and now it’s the teachers’ turn.  If you don’t like it, you need to resist the rhetoric at _every_ stage.  Don’t fall into any of the traps, including the Poppy Day idealisation of the soldier identity, the clapping for the NHS, the use of words like “angels” and “heroes” etc etc.  Use the opportunity instead to express anger that the very reason these things are seen as necessary is because we haven’t fulfilled our social duty of care to those we are creating heroes of.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 15, 2020)

kabbes said:


> That’s a great illustration of the danger of a “heroes” popular discourse.  You don’t need to feel guilty about putting a hero in harm’s way because that’s what a hero does.  So actually you can feel good and righteous for helping the hero actualise themself.  Turn a class of people into heroes and you don’t need to pay them, protect them, worry about their emotional needs or do any of the other pesky things that get in the way of their destiny of sacrifice.
> 
> It’s utter bullshit.  We’ve seven it play out with soldiers, with medical staff, with care staff and now it’s the teachers’ turn.  If you don’t like it, you need to resist the rhetoric at _every_ stage.  Don’t fall into any of the traps, including the Poppy Day idealisation of the soldier identity, the clapping for the NHS, the use of words like “angels” and “heroes” etc etc.  Use the opportunity instead to express anger that the very reason these things are seen as necessary is because we haven’t fulfilled our social duty of care to those we are creating heroes of.



This.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 15, 2020)

editor said:


> LET THEM DIE!
> 
> I didn't think it was possible to hate the Mail any more, but this is a new barrel scraping low for them.


They must be shit scared because this is a great opportunity for unions to increase their powers. So join a union, those of you who are not already in one


----------



## Boudicca (May 15, 2020)

Honeywell to make 70 million facemasks:








						70 million face masks for NHS and care workers through new industry deal
					

More than 70 million face masks will be manufactured in the UK and delivered to frontline health and care workers following an agreement with a global technology company.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> Honeywell to make 70 million facemasks:
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> FFP2 and FFP3 *masks will be produced over an 18-month period *at Honeywell’s site in Newhouse, Scotland, with production set to begin as early as July. Each month will see up to 4.5 million masks roll off the production line, ready for distribution to frontline NHS and social care workers.



Which, I guess, proves that we are going to be in the shit for a bloody long time.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Which, I guess, proves that we are going to be in the shit for a bloody long time.



Or that this government loves a nice big headline figure.


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Thanks for this.
> 
> Fares to be hiked after TfL secures £1.6bn emergency bailout deal
> 
> ...



It's a class issue across the UK, not just London.

It's annoyed me that the advice is "drive to work".

Also, that unlimited length car journeys are now ok. So if you own a car, you have freedom, and if you don't, you have to stay at home, and furthermore if you want to try and walk or cycle places, increased traffic makes it even worse for you.

It's not unreasonable for residents of seaside resorts to be worried about a bunch of people showing up from other parts of the country bringing infection. And in general terms, it's a myth that travelling by car is somehow risk free. It encourages people to travel more, and further (because they feel safe) and what happens at the destinations of all those journeys gets ignored.

It's notable to me that so much of the imagery of "irresponsible behaviour" on the news is pictures of people in urban parks, or supposedly crowded public transport in London. Not people in cars.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It's annoyed me that the advice is "drive to work".



I don't agree with that, if it helps to reduce people using public transport, and reduces the risk to those that have no choice, under the current circumstances, I think that's good advice.

But, I agree with the rest.


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I don't agree with that, if it helps to reduce people using public transport, and reduces the risk to those that have no choice, under the current circumstances, I think that's good advice.
> 
> But, I agree with the rest.


It depends on local circumstances. 
In urban areas it can mean that if you're better off and own a car you can simply bypass the risk that everyone else has to take. Public transport is left for those who have no option, and you start to see resentment at funding going to keep systems like TfL going, because the people that can afford to bypass reliance on those systems are less invested in protecting them. Same pattern as you see in non pandemic times. I'm going a little off topic - this is probably for the anti car thread.


----------



## maomao (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I don't agree with that, if it helps to reduce people using public transport, and reduces the risk to those that have no choice, under the current circumstances, I think that's good advice.
> 
> But, I agree with the rest.


It's a crap plan in London. Even if everyone who could did it would never work. Imagine every retail worker in the west end going to work by car.


----------



## Roadkill (May 15, 2020)

FT reporting that Tory MPs are pressing for a return of MPs to the Commons because BoJo can't cope without his braying mob behind him.


----------



## Gramsci (May 15, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> FFS .
> Anybody heard anything about this . Apparently not official yet
> Homeless people put up in hotels amid pandemic to be kicked out



My summary of article is that the government expect Councils to deal with homelessness and the Tories aren't going to put any money into this. 

One of the things about the pandemic is that its local Councils along with volunteers who have stepped in to deal with the social consequences of the pandemic/ lockdown. With little support from Boris.

 What support there is the Tories are making clear now is temporary. The lifting of the lockdown will see government telling Councils its your problem now. 

Also the article points out the no eviction period ends soon and its likely there will be an increase in people made homeless.


----------



## andysays (May 15, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's a crap plan in London. Even if everyone who could did it would never work. Imagine every retail worker in the west end going to work by car.


Imagine paying every retail worker in the the West end enough that they could afford to buy a car (I know that's different to your point, which is totally valid)


----------



## Roadkill (May 15, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> My summary of article is that the government expect Councils to deal with homelessness and the Tories aren't going to put any money into this.
> 
> One of the things about the pandemic is that its local Councils along with volunteers who have stepped in to deal with the social consequences of the pandemic/ lockdown. With little support from Boris.
> 
> ...



As far as I can see, they're going to use the crisis to tip local authorities into even more financial trouble, and force an even greater retrenchment of services than ten years of unnecessary austerity have already caused.  

'Never let a good crisis go to waste.'  Tory scum.


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

One option, in a scenario where public transport becomes unsafe, would be to requisition all private cars and redistribute their use to those who need to travel most. Key workers need to get to work safely, and you can't afford to keep the buses running at a high enough capacity? Then they get your audi until this is all over, and sorry but this means you can't use it to drive 50 miles to a national trust car park. Any cars not needed for essential stuff are dumped somewhere out of the way, and the space freed up is used to create wide walkng/running/cycle lanes on every street.


----------



## Roadkill (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> One option, in a scenario where public transport becomes unsafe, would be to requisition all private cars and redistribute their use to those who need to travel most. Key workers need to get to work safely, and you can't afford to keep the buses running at a high enough capacity? Then they get your audi until this is all over, and sorry but this means you can't use it to drive 50 miles to a national trust car park. Any cars not needed for essential stuff are dumped somewhere out of the way, and the space freed up is used to create wide walkng/running/cycle lanes on every street.



This isn't really the thread for this, is it...


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> This isn't really the thread for this, is it...


Why not?


----------



## Roadkill (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Why not?



Your own words here.


----------



## kabbes (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> One option, in a scenario where public transport becomes unsafe, would be to requisition all private cars and redistribute their use to those who need to travel most. Key workers need to get to work safely, and you can't afford to keep the buses running at a high enough capacity? Then they get your audi until this is all over, and sorry but this means you can't use it to drive 50 miles to a national trust car park. Any cars not needed for essential stuff are dumped somewhere out of the way, and the space freed up is used to create wide walkng/running/cycle lanes on every street.


Why not?  My Skoda has been sat idle for 7 weeks now.  It no longer starts as its battery is completely flat.  I wouldn’t be averse to it being used by somebody who has a real need for it.

I need the Panda every two weeks to get to the nearest town that has a proper shop, though.  I wish I didn’t, but that’s how life is set up.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's a crap plan in London. Even if everyone who could did it would never work. Imagine every retail worker in the west end going to work by car.



I agree not great for workers in central London, but it's not all about London, there is a whole country beyond London.


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Your own words here.


I've changed my mind. Transport issues are completely on topic for a discussion of covid impacts.


----------



## Cid (May 15, 2020)

I think a voluntary app where you can list your car, and with some small stipend/free clean/service would work.


----------



## Cid (May 15, 2020)

But what might work better is to put some of the onus on businesses and government to work out phased working hours, maximise work from home etc.


----------



## Gramsci (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've not had time to read this yet, but London Reconnections pieces are usually very well informed and well written.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This morning thought another issue that this article raises is tha TFL is a public authority in its own right. As such it plays an important role in the economy of London and beyond. Its infrastructure projects are among the biggest in Europe. So its supply chain helps keep manufacturing going. Unlike most of London economy which is based on Financial sector and services allied to it TFL is part of the "real" economy.

If this is the way Boris sees of kickstarting the economy it doesnt bode well. The "bailout" was given in grudging fashion. Instead of one oppurtunity to see public sector infrastructure projects for public transport as way forward post lockdown. Re orient the economy away from Finance.


----------



## Roadkill (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've changed my mind. Transport issues are completely on topic for a discussion of covid impacts.



Absolutely they are, but fantasising about hypothetical measures which will never happen seems rather less so.   Anyway, I've no wish for an argument over this and too much work on to indulge in one if I had - it just struck me as an idea better aired on the thread you pointed to.

On a different subject, a paper here by Lawrence Freedman giving an early assessment of the UK government's response to the virus. I've only read the first few pages so far, but it looks rather good.


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> This morning thought another issue that this article raises is tha TFL is a public authority in its own right. As such it plays an important role in the economy of London and beyond. Its infrastructure projects are among the biggest in Europe. So its supply chain helps keep manufacturing going. Unlike most of London economy which is based on Financial sector and services allied to it TFL is part of the "real" economy.
> 
> If this is the way Boris sees of kickstarting the economy it doesnt bode well. The "bailout" was given in grudging fashion.


Yes, and as you say the supply chain extends outside of London. 
Interesting article about Wrightbus, from a year or so ago, also from LR









						The Rise and Fall of a Vision: Wrightbus Enters Administration - London Reconnections
					

Northern Irish bus manufacturer Wrightbus, most commonly identified in London with the manufacture of the New Bus for London (NBfL), has entered Administration. Questions first began to surface about the firm’s long-term viability in July, when the firm acknowledged it had begun working with...



					www.londonreconnections.com


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Absolutely they are, but fantasising about hypothetical measures which will never happen seems rather less so.



Better cancel 90% of urban75 discussions then


----------



## A380 (May 15, 2020)

little_legs said:


>


----------



## bimble (May 15, 2020)

I don’t know what to make of this. Can it possibly be true that London now has the lowest infection rate in the country?
Very strange.









						Coronavirus could be 'wiped out in London in weeks' - but what's the picture in the rest of England?
					

The R value in England is 0.75, firmly under 1.0 - which the prime minister named as a requirement for the easing of lockdown.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Gramsci (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> One option, in a scenario where public transport becomes unsafe, would be to requisition all private cars and redistribute their use to those who need to travel most. Key workers need to get to work safely, and you can't afford to keep the buses running at a high enough capacity? Then they get your audi until this is all over, and sorry but this means you can't use it to drive 50 miles to a national trust car park. Any cars not needed for essential stuff are dumped somewhere out of the way, and the space freed up is used to create wide walkng/running/cycle lanes on every street.



Cycling through central London see a lot of Lamborghini loving the empty roads. All for them being requistioned.

In London buses are basically free to use now. Less traffic means they go from A to B quicker.

Central London is heaviy built up area where reduction in private car use is possible. This woud not apply to rural areas.

I agree that the lockdown has delivered an experiment in a car free urban area. And Im llking it.

In Lambeth pavements are starting to be temporarily widened to help social distancing. Social distancing - ie pedestrians- are now seen as a priority above car users. Measures that would have taken months of acrimonious debate and opposition from the car lobby are being undertaken with little opposition.

Its one of the better unintended consequences of the pandemic.

So yes transport is a relevant issue. The pandemic isnt going away soon.


----------



## Cerv (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Which, I guess, proves that we are going to be in the shit for a bloody long time.


so is that how long the government think it's going to replenish the emergency stock piles. great


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Gramsci said:


> Measures that would have taken months of acrimonious debate and opposition from the car lobby are being undertaken with little opposition.



Yes - it's really taken me by surprise and it's very welcome.

Trying to remain optimistic that it won't all get reversed if/when things get back to 'normal'.


----------



## teqniq (May 15, 2020)

NHS Labs Were Frozen Out Of Coronavirus Testing Programme, Says Top Scientist


----------



## 2hats (May 15, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Do you mean 99.63%?


I did indeed (as the CI would infer). Typo corrected.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 15, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Compared to westminster


Today's The Arselick* is highly critical of Scotland's handling of the crisis. 

* The National


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Pleased to see this positive response to the situation from the London mayor's office





__





						Car-free zones in London as Congestion Charge and ULEZ reinstated
					

One of the world’s largest car-free zones will be created in central London as Congestion Charge and ULEZ reinstated




					www.london.gov.uk
				




The bit I have highlighted is particularly interesting.



> *‘Monumental’ effort required from all Londoners to enable social distancing on public transport as lockdown is eased *
> *Car-free streets set to enable millions of journeys to be safely made on foot or by bike*
> *Londoners asked to walk or cycle for journeys from mainline rail stations rather than use the Tube   *
> *The Congestion Charge, Ultra Low Emission Zone and Low Emission Zone will be reinstated on Monday (18 May) to prevent London’s roads from becoming unusably blocked*
> ...


----------



## killer b (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> The Arselick*
> 
> * The National


How do you get from _National _to _Arselick_? As pun names for things go its... a stretch.


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

And statement on the funding deal:





__





						Statement from the Mayor of London regarding Transport for London
					

Statement from the Mayor of London regarding Transport for London




					www.london.gov.uk
				






> Sadiq Khan said:
> “We have just reached agreement with the Government on a funding package to allow TfL to run public transport safely in London for the next four and a half months. This was necessary because Covid-19 has had a catastrophic impact on TfL’s finances – as it has on every transport provider in the UK.
> “I want to be completely honest and upfront with Londoners – this is not the deal I wanted. But it was the only deal the Government put on the table and I had no choice but to accept it to keep the Tubes and buses running.
> “In the last few years, London has been the only major city in western Europe that hasn’t received direct Government funding to run day to day transport services since it was cut by the last Government. This means we rely very heavily on passenger fares to pay for the services we run. Fares income has fallen by 90 per cent in the last two months because Londoners have done the right thing and stayed at home – so there simply isn’t enough money coming in to pay for our services.
> ...


----------



## teqniq (May 15, 2020)

The Fail, going after the unions in an effort to get the proles back to work, also indulges in a little Photoshopping:


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2020)

teqniq said:


> The Fail, going after the unions in an effort to get the proles back to work, also indulges in a little Photoshopping:




It's a shit rag, but that isn't Photoshopping, the image is just cropped to fit with the text on the page.


----------



## teqniq (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's a shit rag, but that isn't Photoshopping, the image is just cropped to fit with the text on the page.


Yes, it is. Look at the image under the text.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Yes, it is. Look at the image under the text.



Having clicked on the twitter link & seen the full width of the photo, I see what you are getting at, but the image is just faded/cropped to allow the text to stand out, from a design point of view, it would be very messy otherwise.


----------



## elbows (May 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> I don’t know what to make of this. Can it possibly be true that London now has the lowest infection rate in the country?
> Very strange.
> 
> 
> ...



Ah yes, the press have noticed the model that I posted about on Monday.

           #11,711        

I dont know if some report came out that makes use of it, or if someone drew attention to it, or whether they just found the original study details.

Given the way the epidemic exploded in London and the way the graphs of hospital admissions, intensive care and deaths went up and down rather steeply for London compared to elsewhere, I think we would expect them to be at a more advanced stage of things now, which at this stage means less cases. But whether its anything like the numbers mentioned by that model is very much open to question, it was hard to resist mocking the number when I saw it on Monday, dont know what to think really.

This sort of thing is one of the reasons I am still taking things one week at a time.

Also in the press today is a study which suggested 19 million had already been infected. eg:









						19 million people in UK ‘likely to have been infected with coronavirus already’, study finds
					

University of Manchester study claims 29 per cent of British population may already have had the disease – but sceptics urge caution over findings




					www.independent.co.uk
				




This is massively at odds with the sorts of initial studies using actual antibody testing we hear a bit more about these days. So it generates some headlines and some head scratching. It is possible to reduce the gap if we claim that lots of people who got infected didnt end up with antibodies, but this is not an assumption I am prepared to make, its just another thing to consider. Its probably more likely that the methodology of the study, which seems to have been based off of the ratio of severely ill cases compared total cases, does a poor job of reflecting reality. I havent read the study itself yet, I will comment again if there is useful detail in it.

So yeah, much is still unknown and I am relying on various real data over time to either support or destroy the conclusions of various studies. More reasons for me to take it one week at a time, and to continue to resist most asumptions about what the rest of the year will look like. I still hope for some 'surprises' of a positive kind, none of these studies get me there, some of them point in interesting directions but assumptions based off of them are far from safe.

If I had hospital admission data on an English regional basis then it would help, but I dont. I might even have to start looking at regional confirmed cases stuff at this rate, which I had previously avoided due to our crappy testing regime. But when a model spits out exceedingly low new case figures for London like that, I'll have to use whatever data I can get to test their results. I think I am expecting them to fail that test in quite a notable way, but this is my assumptions showing.


----------



## teqniq (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Having clicked on the twitter link & seen the full width of the photo, I see what you are getting at, but the image is just faded/cropped to allow the text to stand out, from a design point of view, it would be very messy otherwise.


Dissagree. But we still agree thst it's a shit rag, though I would put it less politely. So that's something.


----------



## Petcha (May 15, 2020)

Jesus christ. I actually find myself in agreement with the fucking Mail. This seems bonkers on the part of the Mayor. Advising people to avoid public transport and simultaneously pledging to reduce car use by 25% by massively jacking up the congestion charge. Can't quite see the logic. I hate cars but unfortunately with the state of the public transport system currently they're surely a necessary evil.









						Commuters slam Sadiq Khan's Tube service for 'putting lives at risk'
					

Mr Khan had said Transport for London was hours from going bust and blamed Boris Johnson for no social distancing on trains by easing the lockdown this week.




					www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Having clicked on the twitter link & seen the full width of the photo, I see what you are getting at, but the image is just faded/cropped to allow the text to stand out, from a design point of view, it would be very messy otherwise.


It's not just faded/cropped - they've erased the black girl standing on the left while leaving the door frame that should have been obscured by her body.


----------



## editor (May 15, 2020)

So that's two car wash firms that have reopened in my area. Not a lot of social distancing going on in the one opposite me, with no masks and workers jumping into cars to clean the insides. Not good.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 15, 2020)

editor said:


> So that's two car wash firms that have reopened in my area. Not a lot of social distancing going on in the one opposite me, with no masks and workers jumping into cars to clean the insides. Not good.


I go past one every day that has never shut down


----------



## belboid (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Having clicked on the twitter link & seen the full width of the photo, I see what you are getting at, but the image is just faded/cropped to allow the text to stand out, from a design point of view, it would be very messy otherwise.


no, it isnt 'photoshopped', merely cropped - but they have cleaaly chosen a pic to be as nice and middle class looking as possible, which mans no black people. However you look at it, its wanky, to say the least.


----------



## pesh (May 15, 2020)

belboid said:


> no, it isnt 'photoshopped', merely cropped - but they have cleaaly chosen a pic to be as nice and middle class looking as possible, which mans no black people. However you look at it, its wanky, to say the least.


you haven't clicked on the link have you


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Having clicked on the twitter link & seen the full width of the photo, I see what you are getting at, but the image is just faded/cropped to allow the text to stand out, from a design point of view, it would be very messy otherwise.



Aye, it’s unfortunate but it’s a better image with the teacher as the focal point as there so much negative space either side of her.

Side of kids head should have been edited out though.

This is the mail so I’m sure they went for the  whitest most generic teacher image possible but technically cutting it down to focus on one subject makes sense.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> How do you get from _National _to _Arselick_? As pun names for things go its... a stretch.



It's the house journal of the SNP. The editor's tongue is so far up Sturgeons arse he is  unlikely to get it back.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> It's not just faded/cropped - they've erased the black girl standing on the left while leaving the door frame that should have been obscured by her body.



The door & frame wasn't obscured by her body.



If they had faded out everything to the left, rather than crop it, it would have interfered with the smaller text, above the main headline, and been a total failure from a design point of view.

There's plenty of reasons for attacking the Mail, but this is just silly.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Jesus christ. I actually find myself in agreement with the fucking Mail. This seems bonkers on the part of the Mayor. Advising people to avoid public transport and simultaneously pledging to reduce car use by 25% by massively jacking up the congestion charge. Can't quite see the logic. I hate cars but unfortunately with the state of the public transport system currently they're surely a necessary evil.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'd love to see what the polling figures for Khan are now.


----------



## killer b (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> It's the house journal of the SNP. The editor's tongue is so far up Sturgeons arse he is  unlikely to get it back.


I'm sure, but normally when you give something a pun name, the word you use in your hilarious joke has at least some relation - rhyme, some shared features of some sort - rather than just replacing a word with another word that's so different you actually have to explain it.


----------



## planetgeli (May 15, 2020)

Mation said:


> So does that mean that there is currently a stock of PPE sitting in that warehouse that remains undistributed? It's not clear (to me) from the article.



Here's more information on your question from back in April Mation 









						Drivers tell of chaos at UK's privately run PPE stockpile
					

Allegations raise questions over Movianto’s management of government stocks during coronavirus outbreak




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The private firm contracted to run the government’s stockpile of personal protective equipment (PPE) was beset by “chaos” at its warehouse that may have resulted in delays in deploying vital supplies to healthcare workers, according to sources who have spoken to the Guardian and ITV News.
> 
> The allegations from delivery drivers and other well–placed sources raise questions about whether Movianto, the subsidiary of a US healthcare giant, was able to adequately manage and distribute the nation’s emergency stockpile of PPE for use in a pandemic.
> 
> ...


----------



## kabbes (May 15, 2020)

Cupid, you have to question always beyond the immediate.  There are so many more design decisions here than where a pre-defined cropping frame should be placed on this specific picture.  Why choose this picture at all?  Why this woman with this kid, given all the other photos that exist?  Having chosen it, does the tone and context shift after it is cropped?  If so, why does the mail want that tone and context and not the original one?  They made a deliberate design choice at every step, including the ones that changed the narrative of the story told by this picture.  They aren’t just passive recipients of predefined pictures chosen by others.


----------



## belboid (May 15, 2020)

pesh said:


> you haven't clicked on the link have you


Yes, and there’s no way they’d have any image behind the headline, you just don’t do that.  I hadn’t noticed how badly they’d extended the back of the book, but the rest is just a plain background for tonal match.  

it’s bloody stupid choice, because just choose one where you aren’t cropping out black people ffs, but it is compositionally justified to cut anyone further away out.  Of course it is astounding just how often the mail finds such an excuse, and the number of times they do so illustrates their racism.  But it like with crazy weather and climate change, you can’t say any one incident is caused by it, but the sheer number of incidents definitely is.


----------



## teqniq (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The door & frame wasn't obscured by her body.
> 
> View attachment 212667
> 
> ...


No, it's not. If you actually look at the pic in the front page the left part of the book is in the image overlaid with the headline. The image takes up the entirety of the page with the overlaid text with the kids on the left completely removed and a vague impression of a background substituted.


----------



## Sue (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> I'd love to see what the polling figures for Khan are now.


Why? I can't imagine they've changed a great deal -- why do you (presumably?) think they have? And upwards or downwards?


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 15, 2020)

Sue said:


> Why? I can't imagine they've changed a great deal -- why do you (presumably?) think they have? And upwards or downwards?



Increasing the congestion charge at a time when poorly paid essential workers are relying on their cars to get to work?

This is a despicable move by Khan.

I would expect the figures to go down. If he hadn't been trying to buy his re-election by freezing fares TfL wouldn't be in such dire financial straits.


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Jesus christ. I actually find myself in agreement with the fucking Mail. This seems bonkers on the part of the Mayor. Advising people to avoid public transport and simultaneously pledging to reduce car use by 25% by massively jacking up the congestion charge. Can't quite see the logic. I hate cars but unfortunately with the state of the public transport system currently they're surely a necessary evil.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not being able to see the logic seems to go along with choosing the Mail as your news source.

Seriously, you "can't see the logic?"

Have you read the statements from the Mayors' office about what they are doing and why?


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Not being able to see the logic seems to go along with choosing the Mail as your news source.
> 
> Seriously, you "can't see the logic?"
> 
> Have you read the statements from the Mayors' office about what they are doing and why?



Where can one read it?


----------



## Orang Utan (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Where can one read it?


Use your initiative


----------



## Sue (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Increasing the congestion charge at a time when poorly paid essential workers are relying on their cars to get to work?
> 
> This is a despicable move by Khan.
> 
> I would expect the figures to go down. If he hadn't been trying to buy his re-election by freezing fares TfL wouldn't be in such dire financial straits.


How many poorly paid essential workers in London do you think have cars and would be driving through the congestion charging zone..?


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Increasing the congestion charge at a time when poorly paid essential workers are relying on their cars to get to work?
> 
> This is a despicable move by Khan.


I doubt many poorly paid essential workers are relying on their cars to get to work. They are relying on the public transport system.

But in any case, there will be an exemption from the congestion charge for NHS workers etc.

They are doing exactly the right thing in the circumstances. Giving the go-ahead for a free-for-all for drivers would be a disaster.


----------



## nagapie (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Increasing the congestion charge at a time when poorly paid essential workers are relying on their cars to get to work?
> 
> This is a despicable move by Khan.
> 
> I would expect the figures to go down. If he hadn't been trying to buy his re-election by freezing fares TfL wouldn't be in such dire financial straits.



Er no, it's a despicable move from the Tory government. An attack on the Londoners who didn't vote for them. Do you think his Tory counterpart will now be polling higher  😂


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Where can one read it?


If you're unfamiliar with google - right where I posted it on this thread earlier this morning, no more than a page back.


----------



## Sue (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I doubt many poorly paid essential workers are relying on their cars to get to work. They are relying on the public transport system.
> 
> But in any case, there will be an exemption from the congestion charge for NHS workers etc.
> 
> They are doing exactly the right thing in the circumstances. Giving the go-ahead for a free-for-all for drivers would be a disaster.



And poorly paid workers in general are more likely to get the bus than the tube so if there're more cars, their journeys will be worse.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 15, 2020)

Funny how all these old white men who don’t live in London have a negative opinion on a brown-skinned mayor trying to something to discourage car use in the city to protect its citizens


----------



## Cerv (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Increasing the congestion charge at a time when poorly paid essential workers are relying on their cars to get to work?
> 
> This is a despicable move by Khan.
> 
> I would expect the figures to go down. If he hadn't been trying to buy his re-election by freezing fares TfL wouldn't be in such dire financial straits.


but prior to this the congestion charge has been frozen for longer than the TfL fares have been (since 2014 vs 2016).
and the fare freeze is ending too as part of the same funding deal.


----------



## chilango (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The door & frame wasn't obscured by her body.
> 
> View attachment 212667
> 
> ...



Heh  This is literally my specialism...

Technically it's true that they didn't "Photoshop the black kids out" but there's enough signifiers in the image they've chosen to make that edit superfluous anyway...


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

With the "Teacher Heroes" thing and now the TfL rubbish, I think today is the day that I actually am going to take a machine gun down to the shops and remove their papers from the stands.


----------



## pesh (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The door & frame wasn't obscured by her body.
> 
> View attachment 212667
> 
> ...


genuinely don't understand how anyone can say they cropped the image, the left had side of the book is still in the shot, the girl standing behind it isnt.


----------



## teqniq (May 15, 2020)

Re TFL.  According to this tweet:


----------



## belboid (May 15, 2020)

pesh said:


> genuinely don't understand how anyone can say they cropped the image, the left had side of the book is still in the shot, the girl standing behind it isnt.


That’s not the back of the book on the front page. It’s cropped before then, you can just see the spine is different (the colour should go into it, for one thing)


----------



## belboid (May 15, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Re TFL.  According to this tweet:
> 
> View attachment 212675


It’s almost like the government want to fuck the tube, take it over and introduce driverless trains.


----------



## pesh (May 15, 2020)

belboid said:


> That’s not the back of the book on the front page. It’s cropped before then, you can just see the spine is different (the colour should go into it, for one thing)


i think my eyes must be broken


----------



## little_legs (May 15, 2020)

kabbes said:


> That’s a great illustration of the danger of a “heroes” popular discourse.  You don’t need to feel guilty about putting a hero in harm’s way because that’s what a hero does.  So actually you can feel good and righteous for helping the hero actualise themself.  Turn a class of people into heroes and you don’t need to pay them, protect them, worry about their emotional needs or do any of the other pesky things that get in the way of their destiny of sacrifice.
> 
> It’s utter bullshit.  We’ve seen it play out with soldiers, with medical staff, with care staff and now it’s the teachers’ turn.  If you don’t like it, you need to resist the rhetoric at _every_ stage.  Don’t fall into any of the traps, including the Poppy Day idealisation of the soldier identity, the clapping for the NHS, the use of words like “angels” and “heroes” etc etc.  Use the opportunity instead to express anger that the very reason these things are seen as necessary is because we haven’t fulfilled our social duty of care to those we are creating heroes of.



kabbes is 




			
				Umberto Eco said:
			
		

> 11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Falangists was Viva la Muerte (in English it should be translated as "Long Live Death!"). In non-fascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> With the "Teacher Heroes" thing and now the TfL rubbish, I think today is the day that I actually am going to take a machine gun down to the shops and remove their papers from the stands.


Nice to see you exhibiting the traditional left wing tolerance.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Nice to see you exhibiting the traditional left wing tolerance.



I think they’d be able to carry more without the machine gun tbh


----------



## gosub (May 15, 2020)

andysays said:


> Imagine paying every retail worker in the the West end enough that they could afford to buy a car (I know that's different to your point, which is totally valid)



Imagine paying a retail worker more than the cost of parking a car in London


----------



## redsquirrel (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Nice to see you exhibiting the traditional left wing tolerance.


teuchter left wing. You really don't get anything right do you.


----------



## Gramsci (May 15, 2020)

To help matters Blunkett has waded in with attack on Teachers Unions. 








						Blunkett 'critical' of opposition to school return plan
					

David Blunkett, former education secretary, says he is 'surprised' at the attitude of teaching unions and accuses them of 'working against the interests of children'




					www.tes.com
				







> Former education secretary says he is 'surprised' at the attitude of teaching unions and accuses them of 'working against the interests of children'



Agree with comment by person at end of article:



> It is amazing the way right-wingers, and remember, Blunkett is a Blairite of the most establishment sell-out order, talk about the protection of the less well-off.
> This is the man who pioneered academies, was extremely oppositional to unions and described civil liberties as 'airy-fairy



Its good reminder how awful New Labour were. This is pure New Labour speak.

So in general its back to politics as normal now lockdown is going to be raised. It the war on the motorist and Unions that are the real problems.


----------



## andysays (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Nice to see you exhibiting the traditional left wing tolerance.


Not "nice" to see you exhibiting the traditional right wing tendency to be deceived by ruling class ideology, but not surprising either


----------



## teqniq (May 15, 2020)

Is this a Dan hodges from a parallel universe?


----------



## Roadkill (May 15, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> On a different subject, a paper here by Lawrence Freedman giving an early assessment of the UK government's response to the virus. I've only read the first few pages so far, but it looks rather good.



Now finished this.  A useful narrative of events to date, but far, far too reticent about criticising the government.


----------



## Teaboy (May 15, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Increasing the congestion charge at a time when poorly paid essential workers are relying on their cars to get to work?
> 
> This is a despicable move by Khan.
> 
> I would expect the figures to go down. If he hadn't been trying to buy his re-election by freezing fares TfL wouldn't be in such dire financial straits.



I have the misfortune to have to drive within the congestion charge zone from time to time for work.  Its hideous, no one in their right mind would do it if they had a choice. In a whole day of driving around I'll be able to count on one hand the number of other private cars.  No one does it, that's why Johnson's comment regarding driving to work was just laughed at down here.  Besides the cc zone is actually very small.

I comfortably predict that the vast majority of Londoners just won't care because it doesn't apply to them.  Pretty shitty for minicabs and uber etc but then again everything is shit for them at the moment.

As for Khan's popularity (and I'm no fan at all) he is virtually at the stage where he wouldn't need to bother campaigning because there is no opposition.

ETA: I've just read up page it was the government's idea anyway.  Anyway, apologies for the unnecessary derail.


----------



## Petcha (May 15, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Funny how all these old white men who don’t live in London have a negative opinion on a brown-skinned mayor trying to something to discourage car use in the city to protect its citizens



Time and a place springs to mind. Ordinarily I’d be all in favour of jacking up the CC but not at the moment. It’s bonkers. And yes ‘low paid’ workers drive. I live with two of them who would normally only use their cars for weeked jaunts but given the buses and tubes are fucked are forced to drive to work. I’m going out on a limb here but there’s a slight chance the Mayor has a driver.


----------



## teqniq (May 15, 2020)

Something that should come as no surprise to anyone, 'defense' contractors as classified as key workers:



The above tweet was a response to this one in which the narrative to the vid states that 'Some arms factory staff qualify as UK "key workers" during Covid-19':


----------



## Orang Utan (May 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Time and a place springs to mind. Ordinarily I’d be all in favour of jacking up the CC but not at the moment. It’s bonkers. And yes ‘low paid’ workers drive. I live with two of them who would normally only use their cars for weeked jaunts but given the buses and tubes are fucked are forced to drive to work. I’m going out on a limb here but there’s a slight chance the Mayor has a driver.


Low paid workers who can spare £2K a year or more to run a car, ok


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Time and a place springs to mind.


The time is now, and the place is central london.


----------



## Teaboy (May 15, 2020)

Has anyone pointed out the Irony of a Johnson government enforcing these cc changes when one of his first actions as Mayor was to reduce the size and effectiveness of the zone?  

Arrggh, sorry continued derail.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I doubt many poorly paid essential workers are relying on their cars to get to work. They are relying on the public transport system.
> 
> But in any case, there will be an exemption from the congestion charge for NHS workers etc.
> 
> They are doing exactly the right thing in the circumstances. Giving the go-ahead for a free-for-all for drivers would be a disaster.



Yes, heard the NHS announcement on the news.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 15, 2020)

Welsh Government has just released its (very cautious) full update concerning how it sees gradual exit from lock-down happening in Wales.

Its a twenty page PDF! with plenty of detail, but no actual dates forseen.
Still following its traffic light system announced last month.

Shorter summary from wales.gov

BBC report on this

(I may get back to this later -- not much time atm .... )


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

This is how it should work for London for now, i think.

Live within walking/cycling distance of work: you can possibly go back to a non-essential job relatively safely. As much cycling/walking capacity as possible created.
Dont live within walking/cycling distance of work: stay at home if you have a non-essential job. If you're an essential worker - public transport kept at as empty as possible, so you can still use it relatively safely. And, congestion charge ramped up to keep the streets as free as possible for those drivers who get exemptions due to the nature of their work.

Everything the mayor's office has done is consistent with this.

Central government less so.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Low paid workers who can spare £2K a year or more to run a car, ok



I know low paid workers, who are on tax credits as a result, that run cars.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I know low paid workers, who are on tax credits as a result, that run cars.


How can they afford it? Cut other things out? I’m not on great pay and I’ll never be able to afford a car


----------



## Cerv (May 15, 2020)

the congestion charge is one tax that Amazon can't dodge. so can be glad that their delivery vans are being charged that again at least. even with disagree about charging other drivers.

I'm a bit surprised that the NHS exemption's only been extended to care home staff. if schools are forced to go back as soon as 01/06 why not teachers too? I wonder if the funding agreement signed with the treasury allows much wiggle room to extend that.


----------



## Doodler (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> With the "Teacher Heroes" thing and now the TfL rubbish, I think today is the day that I actually am going to take a machine gun down to the shops and remove their papers from the stands.



Some TV advert refers to 'stay at home heroes' which is stretching the definition of heroism a bit far.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 15, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Some TV advert refers to 'stay at home heroes' which is stretching the definition of heroism a bit far.


Armchair heroes will become a term of approbation rather than abuse


----------



## AmateurAgitator (May 15, 2020)

Whistleblower call out - Anarchist Communist Group
					

The ACG wants to hold employers to account during this crisis.If your employer is putting your life at risk, by breaking social distancing guidance and fail on PPE, then please get in touch and let us know.We are also looking for people who are willing to write anonymous articles about their...




					www.anarchistcommunism.org


----------



## Petcha (May 15, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Low paid workers who can spare £2K a year or more to run a car, ok



They're baristas. Not exactly investment bankers. They have kids. What's your beef?


----------



## Orang Utan (May 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> They're baristas. Not exactly investment bankers. They have kids. What's your beef?


I don’t have a beef, but it costs a lot of money to run a car.


----------



## Petcha (May 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Has anyone pointed out the Irony of a Johnson government enforcing these cc changes when one of his first actions as Mayor was to reduce the size and effectiveness of the zone?
> 
> Arrggh, sorry continued derail.



It's not a derail at all! 

I apologise for quoting the Mail, which I despise, but maybe I'm misinformed and tbh didn't read much about this. How is Boris enforcing the rise in congestion charges in London when it looks to me like Sadique Khan has done it while also encouraging people to avoid public transport - which is a bit bonkers to me?

Just hold your (nose) literally and suck it up (literally) for the meantime and accept that we need cars at the mo while public transport is understaffed and dangerous. I'm not sure how else someone else is supposed to get to work from Tulse Hill to Notting Hill and remain safe. It's a fairly epic cycle. And as I said before, does anyone know how our Mayor is getting around the city right now?


----------



## Orang Utan (May 15, 2020)

Piece of piss!


----------



## Petcha (May 15, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I don’t have a beef, but it costs a lot of money to run a car.



Fair dos. I dont have one, never have, never will, hate them, but I'm trying to be pragmatic here. I've no idea how much it costs to run a car and really dont care. They live fairly frugally I guess.


----------



## smokedout (May 15, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Er no, it's a despicable move from the Tory government. An attack on the Londoners who didn't vote for them. Do you think his Tory counterpart will now be polling higher  😂



It is a despicable move, but also an act of utter cowardice from Khan who could have quite easily said fine, I'll shut the transport system down if you aren't prepared to pay for it.  Bye Grant, call me when you change your mind.


----------



## 20Bees (May 15, 2020)

I have a car because here, in a village a few miles from Cambridge, there is only one bus a day to and from the city and it ties in with school times. Useless for most workers and indeed, most shoppers. I could cycle the 7 miles to my evening supermarket job but I’m nervous cycling home late at night down fast unlit country lanes. Glad not to have to get in or out of London more than a few times a decade! There will be a congestion charge in Cambridge eventually, no doubt, but I work this side of the centre so should hopefully avoid it.


----------



## editor (May 15, 2020)

Liverpool does what's right: 



> Liverpool's schools will not reopen to most children on June 1, parents have been warned today.
> 
> In a letter to parents today, the council's director for children and young people's services Steve Reddy said only the children of key workers were likely to be back at school on Monday, June 1, the target date the government set for some schools to reopen.
> 
> ...











						Liverpool schools will not reopen on June 1
					

The council's children's services chief issued a warning to parents today




					www.liverpoolecho.co.uk


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I'm not sure how else someone else is supposed to get to work from Tulse Hill to Notting Hill and remain safe. It's a fairly epic cycle.



Options:

perfectly possible to cycle that distance if they are moderately fit and healthy. Should take less than an hour. Keeping cars off the road makes this easier and faster.
if they are baristas, it's not essential work and I'd rather see them furloughed but that's an argument to have with central government.
if they can't cycle, and they are forced to return to work, and decide to drive, they don't even have to go through the congestion charging zone.


----------



## Sasaferrato (May 15, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Some TV advert refers to 'stay at home heroes' which is stretching the definition of heroism a bit far.


We are not 'stay at home heroes' we are bored people observing the rules in order to avoid this bloody plague.


----------



## Sprocket. (May 15, 2020)

I have just received this from a former workmate who until recently worked at this place. He wasn’t there long and left under a cloud after falling out with a manager. To me this emphasises the foolhardiness in rushing back to work in some of these workplaces.


Coronavirus: Three Wombwell food factory workers die Three food factory workers died with coronavirus


----------



## Cerv (May 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It's not a derail at all!
> 
> I apologise for quoting the Mail, which I despise, but maybe I'm misinformed and tbh didn't read much about this. How is Boris enforcing the rise in congestion charges in London when it looks to me like Sadique Khan has done it while also encouraging people to avoid public transport - which is a bit bonkers to me?
> 
> Just hold your (nose) literally and suck it up (literally) for the meantime and accept that we need cars at the mo while public transport is understaffed and dangerous. I'm not sure how else someone else is supposed to get to work from Tulse Hill to Notting Hill and remain safe. It's a fairly epic cycle. And as I said before, does anyone know how our Mayor is getting around the city right now?


to answer your first question
the congestion charge increase and all the rest are part of the conditions imposed by the government in return for the money. they could've just written a cheque and left London to sort it out, but chose this instead to show that London was paying back their largesse.

on the second, just drive round instead of through the congestion charge zone. still a pretty direct route.




smokedout said:


> It is a despicable move, but also an act of utter cowardice from Khan who could have quite easily said fine, I'll shut the transport system down if you aren't prepared to pay for it.  Bye Grant, call me when you change your mind.


easy really? sounds like a total disaster to me. that sort of brinkmanship is going to harm a lot of people. leave it to the Trumps of this world.


----------



## elbows (May 15, 2020)

I havent been able to read this piece yet, but it sounds like it draws attention to an area I have been going on about for far too long:


----------



## ska invita (May 15, 2020)

This thread moves too fast....impossible to keep up. I do wish different subjects within it got broken down a bit more.


----------



## elbows (May 15, 2020)

Daily all cause deaths for England and Wales were included in some ONS data that came out today. Its provisional data that will change a bit by the time it comes out again in a month, due to death registration delays.

Table 4 of: Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

As expected, April 8th was the peak.

I have daily death data going back to January 1st 1970. The figure for April 8th 2020, of 3122 deaths, is higher than every other day in the historical data except for one. 3255 deaths were recorded on Jan 2nd 1970, when the UK was at the height of the H3N2 influenza pandemic.

I dont have daily data for all deaths in January and Febriary, so one of these graphs will look a little odd but I am going to include a few anyway to provide some context.

The H3N2 pandemic visible at the start of the 1970 data:


An influenza epidemic in 1976:


An influenza epidemic in 1989:

The end of an influenza epidemic in 1998/99 and another one in 1999/2000:

An example of a year from the 2010's without a bad influenza epidemic:

March and April 2020 provisional figures:

Grim 

(historical daily data going back to 1970 is from Daily death occurrences, England, regions of England and Wales: 1970 to 2014 - Office for National Statistics )


----------



## Petcha (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Options:
> 
> perfectly possible to cycle that distance if they are moderately fit and healthy. Should take less than an hour. Keeping cars off the road makes this easier and faster.
> if they are baristas, it's not essential work and I'd rather see them furloughed but that's an argument to have with central government.
> if they can't cycle, and they are forced to return to work, and decide to drive, they don't even have to go through the congestion charging zone.



What line of work are you in out of interest? And what's your commute like?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (May 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I'm not sure how else someone else is supposed to get to work from Tulse Hill to Notting Hill and remain safe. It's a fairly epic cycle.


Epic? According to a quick cycling route calculator it's 8 miles, and flat (less than 200ft of climbing on the return leg). Would take less than an hour. Easy!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Daily all cause deaths for England and Wales were included in some ONS data that came out today. Its provisional data that will change a bit by the time it comes out again in a month, due to death registration delays.
> 
> Table 4 of: Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics
> 
> ...


I could not have named one of those really bad flu years. I only know about the recent 2014-15 one now cos of covid19. Amazing how they all passed by with barely a comment at the time.


----------



## Epona (May 15, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I could not have named one of those really bad flu years. I only know about the recent 2014-15 one now cos of covid19. Amazing how they all passed by with barely a comment at the time.



They didn't really pass without comment - my OH was in St Thomas's in December 2014 in an emergency overflow unit because they were packed full and struggling with the influx of seriously ill people.  It wasn't in the news every day, but it was mentioned often enough that winter, and some like us were personally affected by it.  Maybe because it affected us, I paid more attention to media mentions of it?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 15, 2020)

Epona said:


> They didn't really pass without comment - my OH was in St Thomas's in December 2014 in an emergency overflow unit because they were packed full and struggling with the influx of seriously ill people.  It wasn't in the news every day, but it was mentioned often enough that winter, and some like us were personally affected by it.  Maybe because it affected us, I paid more attention to media mentions of it?


Ok, but if you weren't affected directly it could easily pass you by.


----------



## Epona (May 15, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ok, but if you weren't affected directly it could easily pass you by.



Can't that be said of many things though?


----------



## Shechemite (May 15, 2020)

Life in an ‘assessment and treatment unit’


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 15, 2020)

Epona said:


> Can't that be said of many things though?


Fair enough, you  don't think it remarkable. 

There's lots I didn't know about flu before this year, like just how much it varies each year. Speaking to other people, I'm not the only one. Bit like road deaths, imo - a big killer that is just there.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 15, 2020)

Saw a queue at a bus stop this afternoon for the first time in a long while - not rush hour either, mid afternoon. Also every building site around here has been open all week. I have a bad feeling about all this.


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> What line of work are you in out of interest? And what's your commute like?


I've got a non-essential job that allows me to mostly work from home. I expect that's the answer you wanted, so you can say something about how it's all very well for me to tell other people how they should travel when I don't have to - is that right?


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Daily all cause deaths for England and Wales were included in some ONS data that came out today. Its provisional data that will change a bit by the time it comes out again in a month, due to death registration delays.
> 
> Table 4 of: Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics
> 
> ...


Obviously we don't yet know what happens for the next few months... but my reaction to looking at those graphs, is that in terms of number of excess deaths it's similar to a flu epidemic - a bad flu epidemic, and quite a bit worse than most of those, but not loads and loads worse.


----------



## frogwoman (May 15, 2020)

It's estimated that only a tiny proportion of people have actually had the virus tho.


----------



## Looby (May 15, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How can they afford it? Cut other things out? I’m not on great pay and I’ll never be able to afford a car


Some have to. Home care staff are terribly paid and most have to run a car although their mileage is usually covered. 
All my recent jobs and uni placements required me to run a car. 
I’m not really low paid now but it’s still a huge expense. Currently paying a massive amount for a car I’m using once a week to go to Sainsburys.


----------



## Epona (May 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It's estimated that only a tiny proportion of people have actually had the virus tho.



Indeed, and there is a vaccination protocol for most strains of flu that are doing the rounds meaning that in most years many of the most vulnerable are protected.


----------



## frogwoman (May 15, 2020)

Epona said:


> Indeed, and there is a vaccination protocol for most strains of flu that are doing the rounds meaning that in most years many of the most vulnerable are protected.



I don't quite get this 'oh its no worse than the flu' shit from right wingers either. I have the flu shot every year after a really bad bout of it where I was in bed off work for two weeks. The flu is a killer and it's fucking shit. Even colds have given me really bad side effects in the past like coughing up blood and nosebleeds from constant coughing and blowing my nose.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I don't quite get this 'oh its no worse than the flu' shit from right wingers either. I have the flu shot every year after a really bad bout of it where I was in bed off work for two weeks. The flu is a killer and it's fucking shit. Even colds have given me really bad side effects in the past like coughing up blood and nosebleeds from constant coughing and blowing my nose.



It's also how they draw comparisons like "The flu kills 1000's every year." Yes, and we know to expect that. This is more deaths on top of those that we already experience which has a significant impact upon families, communities and the economy. 

The flu would kill even more without the vaccines.


----------



## Epona (May 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I don't quite get this 'oh its no worse than the flu' shit from right wingers either. I have the flu shot every year after a really bad bout of it where I was in bed off work for two weeks. The flu is a killer and it's fucking shit. Even colds have given me really bad side effects in the past like coughing up blood and nosebleeds from constant coughing and blowing my nose.



Exactly - tbh I think a lot of people think they get flu every year until they actually do get a type A flu, then they realise "fuck me that's some nasty shit right there".  I had the H3Nsomethingorother swine flu that was doing the rounds a few winters back, was hallucinating and struggling to breathe for a good couple of weeks and coughing up blood at one point (probably should have gone to hospital tbh), took me about 3 months to fully recover.


----------



## frogwoman (May 15, 2020)

A few years ago I had a cold which was aggravated by damp and mould in the room i was living in, and sorry for the disgusting image but i coughed up a similar amount and consistency of blood to what i generally find on a trip the bathroom during my periods, i was absolutely terrified tbh and this was a fairly mild infection, was struggling to breathe at one point and I was in my 20s with no health conditions. 

People need to take this shit seriously


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I don't quite get this 'oh its no worse than the flu' shit from right wingers either. I have the flu shot every year after a really bad bout of it where I was in bed off work for two weeks. The flu is a killer and it's fucking shit. Even colds have given me really bad side effects in the past like coughing up blood and nosebleeds from constant coughing and blowing my nose.


Even apart from the differences - and a proper dose of flu can really kick your arse and for some people kill them - what it really highlights is that society doesn't take the flu seriously (or infectious diseases generally). The endless raising of flu comparisons is an attempt to put COVID-19 in the same category, "things that are a bit of a pain but not as important as showing up at the office on time".


----------



## Maltin (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Obviously we don't yet know what happens for the next few months... but my reaction to looking at those graphs, is that in terms of number of excess deaths it's similar to a flu epidemic - a bad flu epidemic, and quite a bit worse than most of those, but not loads and loads worse.


Except in those other scenarios they didn’t have to shut most things down for 2 months to stop the spread of the virus. If they hadn’t, I’m sure the graph would be loads and loads worse.


----------



## frogwoman (May 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Even apart from the differences - and a proper dose of flu can really kick your arse and for some people kill them - what it really highlights is that society doesn't take the flu seriously (or infectious diseases generally). The endless raising of flu comparisons is an attempt to put COVID-19 in the same category, "things that are a bit of a pain but not as important as showing up at the office on time".



Yeah read an article about a month ago by a young healthy guy who ended up on a ventilator from flu in 2015 and wrote about what it had been like


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 15, 2020)

I mean what kind of society are we live in where it just gets said "oh well, flu season, several thousand people will die and the hospitals which we don't fund properly anyway will be under massive strain, what can you do eh, now get to work or you get evicted"?


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2020)

Maltin said:


> Except in those other scenarios they didn’t have to shut most things down for 2 months to stop the spread of the virus. If they hadn’t, I’m sure the graph would be loads and loads worse.


Yes for sure, I'm not trying to argue against the lockdown or anything like that.


----------



## frogwoman (May 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Even apart from the differences - and a proper dose of flu can really kick your arse and for some people kill them - what it really highlights is that society doesn't take the flu seriously (or infectious diseases generally). The endless raising of flu comparisons is an attempt to put COVID-19 in the same category, "things that are a bit of a pain but not as important as showing up at the office on time".



Even if you have a slight cold going to work and out and about can lead to picking up a secondary infection.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah read an article about a month ago by a young healthy guy who ended up on a ventilator from flu in 2015 and wrote about what it had been like


I had a proper dose a couple of years ago and it fucked me for two weeks - hallucinating, couldn't eat properly, couldn't do anything at all. Worse than a friend of mine who got the rona recently come to think of it. Luckily my lungs seem ok and things don't "go to my chest" much but you can't rely on that, and I've had more minor cases that have left me unable to climb stairs since.

Lost two stone mind.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2020)

Epona said:


> Exactly - tbh I think a lot of people think they get flu every year until they actually do get a type A flu, then they realise "fuck me that's some nasty shit right there".  I had the H3Nsomethingorother swine flu that was doing the rounds a few winters back, was hallucinating and struggling to breathe for a good couple of weeks and coughing up blood at one point (probably should have gone to hospital tbh), took me about 3 months to fully recover.



I had swine flu, when it peaked in the summer 2009, which was unusual for flu, then there was a lower peak in the autumn, it knocked me out for at least 3 weeks, it was a right pig.

[sorry for the pun]


----------



## zahir (May 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Saw a queue at a bus stop this afternoon for the first time in a long while - not rush hour either, mid afternoon. Also every building site around here has been open all week. I have a bad feeling about all this.


.
This is already happening...


> The so-called "R-number" is now between 0.7 and 1.0 - it needs to be kept below one in order to stay in control. The rise in the figures is thought to be driven by the virus spreading in care homes and hospitals. The effect of the changes to lockdown announced by the prime minister on Sunday is still unknown.





> The latest analysis takes account of the spread of coronavirus in care homes, hospitals and more widely in society. As the figures are based on patients ending up in hospital, they actually give a sense of the R-number from around three weeks ago.
> 
> That predates Boris Johnson's shift in England from "stay at home" to "stay alert", alongside encouraging some people back to work and allowing people to meet one person from outside their household outdoors. The increase in the infection rate is said to be "consistent with" a significant fall in cases in the community and the epidemic and in turn the R-number being driven by care homes.











						Coronavirus infection 'R' rate in UK creeps up
					

The figure is now much closer to one - the point at which the virus starts spreading rapidly.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Supine (May 15, 2020)

Anyone (elbows lol) seen a scientific paper on these new r estimates?


----------



## 2hats (May 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> Anyone (elbows lol) seen a scientific paper on these new r estimates?


No attribution or details of methodology (yet) - the government has just published a national estimate of 0.7-1.0.

Note that this is an estimate influenced by data that is in effect 2-3 weeks out of date so it doesn't really reflect any limp and vague relaxation of the soft lockdown.


----------



## elbows (May 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Obviously we don't yet know what happens for the next few months... but my reaction to looking at those graphs, is that in terms of number of excess deaths it's similar to a flu epidemic - a bad flu epidemic, and quite a bit worse than most of those, but not loads and loads worse.





frogwoman said:


> It's estimated that only a tiny proportion of people have actually had the virus tho.



Exactly frogwoman. The impact on mortality so far resembles a bad influenza epidemic or pandemic, but the crucial point is that thats what it looks like so far with a lockdown. A lockdown that was late and soft in various ways, but still major mitigation. The data doesnt tell us what it would have looked like without a lockdown, and I am glad we didnt get to find out.

So the claim that should be made when comparing it to the last 50 years of influenza and other deaths, is that 'even with the uk lockdown it resembles the bad influenza pandemic that we had at the end of 1969/start of 1970'. Or 'even with the uk lockdown it had a peak death rate higher than any influenza epidemic of the last 50 years'. Its hard to imagine how I would be able to make those claims if the lockdown (and the steps before it that caused people to start to change behaviour lots a week before) had been done earlier.

It is of course necessary to see what happens next, I barely have enough data to really place this year in context yet. But since some people were interested in the pattern of previous years, here is a full representation of the daily death data from 1970-2018 (I dont have any for 2019 yet). The scales are too small to read but they are the same as they were on the individual year graphs I posted earlier. With this one each row shows a decade, so the first row is the 1970s and the last the 2010's. And I have placed the provisional figures so far for March and April 2020 at the start and end of every row so that it is a bit easier to start to compare this pandemic spike of death so far to all of those decades.


I'm not actually obsessed with peak death rate, its just a convenient way to make historical comparisons. And I'm certainly going to take note when in April we had days with more death on those days than there has been on any other day in my lifetime (born 1975). Still its the total deaths that really matter, but the spikes are strong indicators, and they are what people tend to notice with graphs like these. Due to a lack of May data of this type, the shape of the 2020 pandemic spike as presented above may be misleading, the downward curve is not really accurately shown yet. And that obviously makes quite a difference to total deaths.

When I get round to studying the historical excess mortality data of Germany compared to this country, I expect I will have lots more to say about deaths at times other than this pandemic, how I wish we could do better as a country all the time, especially every winter. How nothing will make up for the lives lost in this pandemic, but that we could at least try to permanently change our priorities so that large orders of magnitude of deaths could be prevented in future.


----------



## ska invita (May 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Saw a queue at a bus stop this afternoon for the first time in a long while - not rush hour either, mid afternoon. Also every building site around here has been open all week. I have a bad feeling about all this.


on bike ride today saw full on traffic and loads of groups in the park, 6-8 people - busiest day ive seen since lockdown and i go out every day on that ride


----------



## ska invita (May 15, 2020)

anyone got any thoughts on the only 24 new infections a day in London data? Seems very unlikely to me, but... its modelling rather than fact right?








						London has just 24 new coronavirus cases a day - and could be free of it by June
					

Experts from the University of Cambridge believe the capital's 'R' rate has plummeted to 0.4 - but there are fears of a spike in new infections as Londoners return to work




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## quimcunx (May 15, 2020)

And then I had swine flu and while it was by no means fun it was a week where i didnt feel too bad as long as i took my painkillers and didnt do anything more strenuous than wander from the sofa to the bed etc. 

I am confident i would not fair so well with covid now. E2a argh drafts. 



ska invita said:


> anyone got any thoughts on the only 24 new infections a day in London data? Seems very unlikely to me, but... its modelling rather than fact right?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The bottom of this article suggests something different. Who knows. 









						Coronavirus: Germany not alarmed by infection rate rise
					

The virus reproduction rate is above 1.0 in Germany - but experts believe it can be controlled.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Shechemite (May 15, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> Life in an ‘assessment and treatment unit’




The interview itself is here


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 15, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I don’t have a beef, but it costs a lot of money to run a car.



It does but the economy is built on a lot of people forever being in debt.


----------



## Saul Goodman (May 15, 2020)

How can this cunt spout such bullshit and keep a straight face.


----------



## Epona (May 15, 2020)

Saul Goodman said:


> How can this cunt spout such bullshit and keep a straight face.




Showing emotion would be a more advanced form of AI programming that is still in development.


----------



## elbows (May 15, 2020)

2hats said:


> No attribution or details of methodology (yet) - the government has just published a national estimate of 0.7-1.0.
> 
> Note that this is an estimate influenced by data that is in effect 2-3 weeks out of date so it doesn't really reflect any limp and vague relaxation of the soft lockdown.



Since they go on about multiple different modelling groups on that page, I think we will just have to find some of the individual model results ourselves. Which leads me to...



ska invita said:


> anyone got any thoughts on the only 24 new infections a day in London data? Seems very unlikely to me, but... its modelling rather than fact right?



I linked to a version of the study that came up with that number earlier this week, and yes its modelling stuff. And it relates to these official estimates of R.

I certainly wouldnt take their number of new infections at face value, it probably shows limitations with the model and/or the data they fed into it. If they base stuff on narrow data such as only confirmed deaths and confirmed cases, I'm not surprised if some of the numbers that come out are unrealistically small. Other numbers/trends might still have something of the truth to them though, I wont really know until there is conflicting eidence.

Helpfully this BBC article points out a problem with the 24 new infections a day in London thing:









						Coronavirus infection 'R' rate in UK creeps up
					

The figure is now much closer to one - the point at which the virus starts spreading rapidly.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> However, claims there are now just 24 cases a day in the capital and that it could soon be free of the virus have been criticised.
> 
> There were in fact 49 people admitted to London hospitals with Covid-19 yesterday and probably hundreds of cases that did not need hospital treatment.
> 
> ...



That BBC article links to several of the studies:

The one I mentioned earlier this week that came out with the 24 thing (actually 23.99): https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/

One I hadnt seen before that likely also contributed to the current government R estimate: https://epiforecasts.io/covid/posts/national/united-kingdom/


----------



## elbows (May 15, 2020)

U-turn on France being exempt from the forthcoming border self-quarantine stuff. I see they also clarified at some stage that I missed, that its not just air travellers either.









						Government now says no French quarantine exemption
					

Under the plans announced last weekend, people arriving from abroad must isolate themselves for two weeks.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> U-turn on France being exempt from the forthcoming border self-quarantine stuff. I see they also clarified at some stage that I missed, that its not just air travellers either.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It was in the initial announcements about Eurostar and other entries, just the papers went with airports in the headlines.


----------



## Gramsci (May 15, 2020)

Cycled up to Regents park and back through West End today.

The weather was warmer and so more people in Hyde Park. But not that many.

Soho , Regents street, Oxford st - the West End - was deserted.

Buses didnt look like many more people on them.

There was a bit more traffic going through south north route over Vauxhall bridge. But this is route through London.

My partner been told that school is possibly opening up in June. Means she will have to use underground. Not happy with that.

Schools opening will see big increase in people using public transport- teachers, cleaning staff , etc etc are needed to keep a school going.

That is if it happens. She is understandably concerned how its going to work.

I dont use my local parks so dont know how it is in Brixton.

Driving to work in London is not an option. In London only way to get people back to work is using public transport or cycling. My bike shop has has loads of work during pandemic fixing up peoples old bikes.

I volunteer at a Emergency Food Hub funded by Council and run by local group. Sending out hundreds of food boxes a day in Brixton/ Lambeth. A lot of people are struggling. In another Food Hub I went to guy came looking for food for his family. We manged to get him on the list.

My local Council in Lambeth has been doing a lot- to my surprise along with volunteers.

The Lambeth Emergency Food Hubs were set up specifically to give help during lockdown. And I can say its very busy. 

I see the personal consquences of the lockdown. For a significant number of people / families this lockdown and the economic consquences are starting to hit hard. For them its a daily struggle. Particularly in area like mine ( Brixton / Loughborough Junction) which is area of high deprivation.

As parts of country gradually move towards easing of lockdown Im concerned what is going to happen to a lot of people.

The future is very uncertain. The first moves of the government- use it to have a go at Mayor of London Khan and in Manchester tell local authority th homeless now housed in hotels are local authorities problem leave me concerned. To say the least.


----------



## ska invita (May 15, 2020)

belboid said:


> It’s almost like the government want to fuck the tube, take it over and introduce driverless trains.


RMT today




__





						RMT warns of strike action over transport austerity
					





					www.rmt.org.uk
				




RMT Press Office:

RMT warns of strike action if necessary to fight London Transport Austerity imposed by government.

Responding to the government announcement today that it is imposing austerity cuts and direct control over transport in London as part of its conditions for funding as a result of the Covid-19 crisis RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said,

“London Transport workers have been vital to fighting Covid-19 and any attacks on their pay, jobs and conditions arising from this imposed settlement will be a complete betrayal.

“We will be seeking an urgent meeting with both the Mayor and Secretary of State for Transport to make clear London Transport workers will not pay the cost of the crisis.

“It looks like Boris Johnson is back in charge of transport in London. We will not accept one penny of austerity cuts imposed by Whitehall or passed on by City Hall as part of this funding package and our resistance will include strike action if necessary.

“We are also deeply concerned that this is a sign of wider austerity conditions to be imposed on the transport industry across the UK”


----------



## zahir (May 15, 2020)

Regional differences in R estimates









						Regional differences in Covid-19 transmission rate emerge in England
					

London has seen steeper decline in R rate but north has slower fall in infections, and estimates vary




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Mation (May 16, 2020)

teuchter said:


> This is how it should work for London for now, i think.
> 
> Live within walking/cycling distance of work: you can possibly go back to a non-essential job relatively safely. As much cycling/walking capacity as possible created.
> Dont live within walking/cycling distance of work: stay at home if you have a non-essential job. If you're an essential worker - public transport kept at as empty as possible, so you can still use it relatively safely. And, congestion charge ramped up to keep the streets as free as possible for those drivers who get exemptions due to the nature of their work.
> ...


Plus fewer cars = making it safer to cycle.


----------



## Dogsauce (May 16, 2020)

Outside of the nicely managed transport system of London, are the privatised looters that run the rest of the country’s buses not on their arses because of this? Surely a nice opportunity for local authorities to ‘Take Back Control’ of assets once they’ve been allowed to go bust?


----------



## DexterTCN (May 16, 2020)




----------



## Sasaferrato (May 16, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I don’t have a beef, but it costs a lot of money to run a car.


For my ten year old i30, about £14.00 a week before fuel.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (May 16, 2020)

Epona said:


> Exactly - tbh I think a lot of people think they get flu every year until they actually do get a type A flu, then they realise "fuck me that's some nasty shit right there".  I had the H3Nsomethingorother swine flu that was doing the rounds a few winters back, was hallucinating and struggling to breathe for a good couple of weeks and coughing up blood at one point (probably should have gone to hospital tbh), took me about 3 months to fully recover.


This. I've only had the flu once in my life, tried to go into town to get  a printer to carry on my SVQ maybe 2 weeks later, nearly fainted in the shopping centre.


----------



## frogwoman (May 16, 2020)

With any illness I end up not being able to concentrate properly and walking around in a daze too but waking up in the middle of the night coughing or with a blocked nose


----------



## two sheds (May 16, 2020)

Not sure what I had a couple of years ago but I went to give the dog a walk, got outside the gate and it was like I'd been hit across the chest, could hardly breathe. The dog even looked at me and walked back through the gate which was the first and last time she's done that


----------



## editor (May 16, 2020)

Tennis courts back open in Lambeth's parks 








						Tennis courts reopened in Lambeth parks as coronavirus restrictions eased
					

As part of a national easing on COVID-19 restrictions, all tennis courts in Lambeth’s parks have now been reopened. All courts will be bookable, with bookings only available online.



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## editor (May 16, 2020)

And continuing with the fuzzy message:









						People playing football and sunbathing in groups can still be fined despite lockdown relaxation, police say
					

Public urged to stay away from beaches and beauty spots amid fears 'sudden influx' of visitors will increase transmission




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## gosub (May 16, 2020)

editor said:


> And continuing with the fuzzy message:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That their own fault for being into niche activities like 'football', if they spent their time more constructively doing things like deer stalking they'd be OK


----------



## editor (May 16, 2020)

Please sign 









						Sign the Petition
					

Justice for Belly Mujinga.




					www.change.org


----------



## teqniq (May 16, 2020)

FFS.









						Union warns care workers not to use UK government Covid-19 app
					

GMB union tells members Care Workforce app gives bosses access to private messages




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## teqniq (May 16, 2020)

Apparently the journalist responsible for this story has attracted the ire of the government. All I can say is good on her.









						Exclusive: Government quietly scraps scheme to put homeless people in hotels
					

EXCLUSIVE: The ‘Everyone In’ policy, launched by the government in March, has been wound up




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## treelover (May 16, 2020)

Thats Jennifer Williams, proper journo, and future high flyer


----------



## phillm (May 16, 2020)

Corbyn's nutjob brother has been collared. Seems to be more plod and reporters than protestors.


----------



## Grace Johnson (May 16, 2020)

phillm said:


> Corbyn's nutjob brother has been collared. Seems to be more plod and reporters than protestors.




Struth what a barmpot. Meant to be protests here as well. Suspect a bloke I know might be getting involved because he keeps sending me wierd stuff on Facebook about all the people in hospital being there because they are having panic attacks.


----------



## elbows (May 16, 2020)

> The government needs to make sure its coronavirus testing strategy is fit for purpose instead of focusing on hitting targets, says the Royal College of GPs.
> 
> In a letter to Health Secretary Matt Hancock, chairman Prof Martin Marshall said long wait times were "undermining confidence" in the results.
> 
> Health professionals were also concerned about the accuracy of some test results, he said.











						Long coronavirus test results waits concern GPs
					

The Royal College of GPs says the government should focus on its testing strategy rather than targets.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Sprocket. (May 16, 2020)

Well they are easy enough to recognise, if they get Covid-19 leave them to their freedom.


----------



## scifisam (May 16, 2020)

little_legs said:


> I don't know for sure, but it strikes me that a tonne of over 60's in London have no choice but to work to support themselves and their families, so they are probably using their Freedom Passes to get to work, not for some leisurely activities, and many of them are not even earning that much. So cruel.



Yeah, I used to use mine to get to work until I became unable to work, and my daughter uses hers to get to college. Neither of us can switch to cycling, and her college is much too far to walk. My ex has to take her daughter into central London for nursery, and tube stations don't have child tickets at machines, so you have to be at a manned station to queue up and buy the ticket - during the peak. 

What some people outside London might not realise is that peak hours here are six hours per day - 6:30-9:30am, and 16:30-19:30, including the time you start travelling. There aren't many jobs where you won't hit at least one of those peak times. 



Orang Utan said:


> How can they afford it? Cut other things out? I’m not on great pay and I’ll never be able to afford a car



I think it's mostly people who learned to drive a while ago, and have enough driving experience to get relatively low insurance. The car itself doesn't necessarily cost very much. The only people I know who actually use their cars to drive through the congestion zone for work are NHS or healthcare workers though, and they can get their money back. It'd be nice if that continued beyond the lockdown.

Plus of course some low-paid workers work as self-employed builders, gardeners, etc, and use their cars for work. TBF I think they mostly avoid the congestion charging zone anyway, though the extended hours and including weekends will make a big difference to that. 

I'm not sure I disagree with this particular change, just saying how and why some low-paid people do have cars.


----------



## souljacker (May 16, 2020)

This research seems quite positive that there is a sufficient immune response for people who have had Covid-19:





__





						Detailed analysis of immune response to SARS-CoV-2 bodes well for COVID-19 vaccine
					

A new study documents a robust antiviral immune response to SARS-CoV-2 in a group of 20 adults who had recovered from COVID-19. The findings show that the body's immune system is able to recognize SARS-CoV-2 in many ways, dispelling fears that the virus may elude ongoing efforts to create an...



					www.sciencedaily.com


----------



## teqniq (May 17, 2020)




----------



## Supine (May 17, 2020)

Scathing summary of the UK response from BMJ. Very well written. 









						The UK’s public health response to covid-19
					

Too little, too late, too flawed  The UK government and its advisers were confident that they were “well prepared” when covid-19 swept East Asia. The four-pronged plan of 3 March to contain, delay, research, and mitigate was supported by all UK countries and backed, they claimed, by science.1...




					www.bmj.com


----------



## teuchter (May 17, 2020)

teqniq said:


> View attachment 213066


Kind of stupid to put cancel HS2 in there.


----------



## two sheds (May 17, 2020)

Ooooh I don't know









						HS2 ‘badly off course’ as damning report accuses government of hiding soaring costs
					

Senior official may have breached civil service rules by failing to inform Commons spending watchdog of troubled project’s woes




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## phillm (May 17, 2020)




----------



## blameless77 (May 17, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Epic? According to a quick cycling route calculator it's 8 miles, and flat (less than 200ft of climbing on the return leg). Would take less than an hour. Easy!




Used to cycle that exact route every day when I was eight months pregnant!


----------



## phillm (May 17, 2020)

phillm said:


> View attachment 213124


The one on the right has got COVID casualty written all over him.


----------



## teqniq (May 17, 2020)

A thread on why sending kids back to school in June is a really bad idea:









						Thread by @JuneSim63: Thread This is my 5 yrs old great niece. She was fit & healthy until a mild bout of Covid19 5wks ago from which she appeared to recover.…
					

Thread by @JuneSim63: Thread This is my 5 yrs old great niece. She was fit & healthy until a mild bout of Covid19 5wks ago from which shed to recover. She is now in ICU with a Kawasaki inflammatory response. She is off the ventilator but has develope…




					threadreaderapp.com


----------



## Doodler (May 17, 2020)

Assuming an Infection Fatality Rate of 1% and 5% of the UK population having caught Covid-19 to date predicts around 33,000 deaths. This is not far off the official death toll.

Which of the above assumptions is likely to be the most inaccurate?


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2020)

I use the ONS (& equivalents for Scotland and Northern Ireland) data for official death toll. Leaving aside all the deaths not recorded as Covid19 on death certificate, for which we would look at overall mortality figures, the figure for COVID19 deaths was 38,420 deaths that happened up to and including 1st May. 

The estimate for population infected so far is likely to be the most inaccurate. But it varies in different regions of the UK, and how many of those infections were in groups especially vulnerable to this disease would also make a difference.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2020)

> In a national briefing last month on infection control and Covid-19, NHS England told the medical directors and chief nurses of all acute hospitals in England that it had found that 10%-20% of people in hospital with the disease had got it while they were inpatients.











						Up to 20% of hospital patients with Covid-19 caught it at hospital
					

NHS England figures reveal some infections were passed on by hospital staff unaware they had virus




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Raheem (May 17, 2020)

The whole thing about hating teachers is a bit sudden and it's difficult to see why it has happened. Maybe if I keep my eyes peeled I will eventually happen upon a clue.


----------



## Doodler (May 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> I use the ONS (& equivalents for Scotland and Northern Ireland) data for official death toll. Leaving aside all the deaths not recorded as Covid19 on death certificate, for which we would look at overall mortality figures, the figure for COVID19 deaths was 38,420 deaths that happened up to and including 1st May.
> 
> The estimate for population infected so far is likely to be the most inaccurate. But it varies in different regions of the UK, and how many of those infections were in groups especially vulnerable to this disease would also make a difference.



Thank you. There have been such widely varying estimates of the proportion of the population likely to have been infected so far, it's hard to know what to expect.


----------



## bimble (May 17, 2020)

I've not been keeping up but just read of todays briefing "He said people should wear face coverings in shops and on public transport".
Is that new or have we already been told to wear 'face coverings" when shopping?


----------



## frogwoman (May 17, 2020)

I thought the ONS data indicated 42k where covid was on the death certificate? 


elbows said:


> I use the ONS (& equivalents for Scotland and Northern Ireland) data for official death toll. Leaving aside all the deaths not recorded as Covid19 on death certificate, for which we would look at overall mortality figures, the figure for COVID19 deaths was 38,420 deaths that happened up to and including 1st May.
> 
> The estimate for population infected so far is likely to be the most inaccurate. But it varies in different regions of the UK, and how many of those infections were in groups especially vulnerable to this disease would also make a difference.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 17, 2020)

bimble said:


> I've not been keeping up but just read of todays briefing "He said people should wear face coverings in shops and on public transport".
> Is that new or have we already been told to wear 'face coverings" when shopping?


It's just none of them knowing what they are talking about again.


----------



## David Clapson (May 17, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Assuming an Infection Fatality Rate of 1% and 5% of the UK population having caught Covid-19 to date predicts around 33,000 deaths. This is not far off the official death toll.
> 
> Which of the above assumptions is likely to be the most inaccurate?


I'm always doing this sum, for various countries. I get the excess death numbers from the Economist, The UK number is 51,000.  Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries 

The Spanish are confident about their national testing: 70,000 people and an infection rate of 5%.  Antibody study shows just 5% of Spaniards have contracted the coronavirus If their unexplained deaths are counted as Covid they have an IFR of 1.3%.  A sobering thought....13 times higher than seasonal flu. If everyone were to be infected before they are vaccinated we'd have 883,000 deaths in the UK and 101m worldwide.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Thank you. There have been such widely varying estimates of the proportion of the population likely to have been infected so far, it's hard to know what to expect.



The only ones I can take seriously so far are all within the same kind of pretty low range. I expect estimates to vary a bit, and those do, but not by baffling amounts.

Those low ones are the only ones I can take seriously because thats the sort of levels that various serology(antibody) studies have shown from various places. There have not been enough large, sustained studies yet for me to feel like I have all the definitive answers, far from its, its still early days, but there isnt much that contradicts initial findings from these.

And thats the reason I cannot currently take seriously any studies that have modelled or supposed a much higher proportion of populations infected so far. I'll still look at them in case they are onto something compelling, so far they have not been. I like to think I can still review them fairly despite whatever odious slugs are trying to use their findings to make some hideous anti-lockdown point, but its possible that this still influences my opinion of them. All the same, I usually end up being unimpressed by their methodologies, theories and models. I will change my angle if some new facts are established that are actually compatible with what ehy've come up with, but unless I've missed something that hasnt happened yet, so I do not allow their higher estimates to cloud my tentative impression of the reality.


----------



## frogwoman (May 17, 2020)

Even a fatality rate of 0.3% would be catastrophic and mean 203k people could potentially die if everyone is infected.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought the ONS data indicated 42k where covid was on the death certificate?



Give me a press article or the ONS themselves giving that number and I will be able to explain why mine is different.

I tried searching and I found news relating to someone in early May using ONS data on all deaths in order to estimate that there had been about 42,000 excess deaths at that point. Well I go on about excess mortality figures all the time but thats not what we were talking about so thats why I used the number I did. Maybe there is some other occasion where 42,000 from the ONS has come up, but if so I need help from someone to point me in the right direction.

ONS data I use comes out on Tuesdays. Scotlands equivalent comes out on Wednesdays, and Northern Irelands on Fridays. I prefer to use daily deaths by actual date of death (not date of registration), and the latest date for which I currently have that data in May 1st. I had 35,044 for England & Wales via the ONS, plus 2860 from National Records of Scotland plus 516 from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Even a fatality rate of 0.3% would be catastrophic and mean 203k people could potentially die if everyone is infected.



Regarding 'if everyone infected', thats yet another number we dont know. It seems to be quite normal to have population attack rate estimates (without lockdown or other mitigation) of 60 to 80% chucked around, but as best I can tell this was just a crude assumption that they had to use because they didnt have anything better, and you cant do much planning unless you pick some number for that.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2020)

bimble said:


> I've not been keeping up but just read of todays briefing "He said people should wear face coverings in shops and on public transport".
> Is that new or have we already been told to wear 'face coverings" when shopping?



It is not new, it was part of the detail that came out in the days following Johnsons botched Sunday speech to the nation. Johnson made reference to it in the speech too if I remember correctly, although it goes without saying that he was low on detail.


----------



## bimble (May 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> It is not new, it was part of the detail that came out in the days following Johnsons botched Sunday speech to the nation.


I see. Have not noticed any increase in face coverings this week.
Did they explain why this is now the advice when it was not for the past 2 months?


----------



## frogwoman (May 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> The only ones I can take seriously so far are all within the same kind of pretty low range. I expect estimates to vary a bit, and those do, but not by baffling amounts.
> 
> Those low ones are the only ones I can take seriously because thats the sort of levels that various serology(antibody) studies have shown from various places. There have not been enough large, sustained studies yet for me to feel like I have all the definitive answers, far from its, its still early days, but there isnt much that contradicts initial findings from these.
> 
> And thats the reason I cannot currently take seriously any studies that have modelled or supposed a much higher proportion of populations infected so far. I'll still look at them in case they are onto something compelling, so far they have not been. I like to think I can still review them fairly despite whatever odious slugs are trying to use their findings to make some hideous anti-lockdown point, but its possible that this still influences my opinion of them. All the same, I usually end up being unimpressed by their methodologies, theories and models. I will change my angle if some new facts are established that are actually compatible with what ehy've come up with, but unless I've missed something that hasnt happened yet, so I do not allow their higher estimates to cloud my tentative impression of the reality.



The number is going to be higher if loads of people aren't being tested (even when dead) ? Although I guess if there are random antibodies tests throughout the country, not just in hard hit areas or in people who think they had it, it should give an idea of prevalence


----------



## Supine (May 17, 2020)

I noticed a load more facemasks being used on the tube this weekend. I even put mine on and I was only sharing the platform with a rat at one point.


----------



## frogwoman (May 17, 2020)

Almost none round here


----------



## frogwoman (May 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Regarding 'if everyone infected', thats yet another number we dont know. It seems to be quite normal to have population attack rate estimates (without lockdown or other mitigation) of 60 to 80% chucked around, but as best I can tell this was just a crude assumption that they had to use because they didnt have anything better, and you cant do much planning unless you pick some number for that.



How many people do more established viruses like the ones that cause colds infect every year? Is it 60%? Not every cold is caused by the same virus. Has anyone ever measured that?


----------



## David Clapson (May 17, 2020)

Does anyone find it surprising that infection rates are not higher? 5% seems typical for countries which were slow with the mitigation, e.g. UK, Italy, Spain. We keep being told that 5% is 'disappointing'. Maybe the disappointment is really just a political factor, cooked up by people who want to use herd immunnity to reopen for economic reasons? But is 5% a surprise? Given that it's highly infectious, and you pass it on for 4 days before you realise you've got it...you would think it might have spread more.


----------



## Supine (May 17, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Does anyone find it surprising that infection rates are not higher? 5% seems typical for countries which were slow with the mitigation, e.g. UK, Italy, Spain. We keep being told that 5% is 'disappointing'. Maybe the disappointment is really just a political factor, cooked up by people who want to use herd immunnity to reopen for economic reasons? But is 5% a surprise? Given that it's highly infectious, and you pass it on for 4 days before you realise you've got it...you would think it might have spread more.



Let's hope it has spread more but there is no way of knowing until testing of random 'well' people is completed in big numbers. 

Anecdotally 5% seems about right to me based on the number of my FB friends who mention having had it. Obviously that isn't a great data gathering technique. 

Now I've just typed that I'm wondering if FB are actually analysing how many people have had it. Probably.


----------



## weltweit (May 17, 2020)

I've been hearing the number of UK tests reportedly carried out each day, might be a bit misleading.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 17, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I've been hearing the number of UK tests reportedly carried out each day, might be a bit misleading.



You have only just caught up on this story?  

It was wildly reported at the time, that to show they had hit 100k tests a day target by the end of April, they changed how they reported the figures, from tests actually carried out, to include tests posted out and/or in transit to testing stations, etc.


----------



## gosub (May 17, 2020)




----------



## emanymton (May 18, 2020)

gosub said:


>



What happened to 27?


----------



## ska invita (May 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I don’t have a beef, but it costs a lot of money to run a car.


It costs me £10 a day to get to work   really resent it


----------



## Doodler (May 18, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Does anyone find it surprising that infection rates are not higher? 5% seems typical for countries which were slow with the mitigation, e.g. UK, Italy, Spain. We keep being told that 5% is 'disappointing'. Maybe the disappointment is really just a political factor, cooked up by people who want to use herd immunnity to reopen for economic reasons? But is 5% a surprise? Given that it's highly infectious, and you pass it on for 4 days before you realise you've got it...you would think it might have spread more.



Yes 5% seemed low somehow. I thought it might have spread quicker in the West Midlands, London and the commuter belt of south-east England. Vague notions which likely stem from the overwhelming importance given to the pandemic in the media. You read and hear about it everywhere which gives the impression it must be very widespread.


----------



## frogwoman (May 18, 2020)

Coronavirus: UK synagogues not to reopen before July
					

Contrary to what happens in many Jewish communities around the world, the BOD manages to have a fairly accurate idea of how many Jews have died because of the virus.




					m.jpost.com
				





David Clapson said:


> Does anyone find it surprising that infection rates are not higher? 5% seems typical for countries which were slow with the mitigation, e.g. UK, Italy, Spain. We keep being told that 5% is 'disappointing'. Maybe the disappointment is really just a political factor, cooked up by people who want to use herd immunnity to reopen for economic reasons? But is 5% a surprise? Given that it's highly infectious, and you pass it on for 4 days before you realise you've got it...you would think it might have spread more.


I think it's disappointing because it means the case fatality rate is much higher if you do get it.


----------



## TopCat (May 18, 2020)

Some great accounts of shopkeepers going many extra miles. 'They were fighting for a pack of chicken breasts'


----------



## Chilli.s (May 18, 2020)

I wish people would stop going on about herd immunity. It's an easy/lazy phrase to trot out but in the situation we have at the moment there's a good chance that it doesn't even exist.


----------



## Teaboy (May 18, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> I wish people would stop going on about herd immunity. It's an easy/lazy phrase to trot out but in the situation we have at the moment there's a good chance that it doesn't even exist.



Yes but its a little hard to avoid as it would appear to be actual government policy.  Also London appears to be one giant ongoing experiment into it's efficacy.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2020)

I can see that there are more face masks now than last week (just got through the thrill of my weekly tesco outing). 
For the first time I feel like it would be at the leat a politeness to stick one on from now on. Will be looking up those youtube videos of making one out of a stray sock. Feel a bit bloody stupid for having in effect waited until the gov told me to do it.


----------



## BigTom (May 18, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Does anyone find it surprising that infection rates are not higher? 5% seems typical for countries which were slow with the mitigation, e.g. UK, Italy, Spain. We keep being told that 5% is 'disappointing'. Maybe the disappointment is really just a political factor, cooked up by people who want to use herd immunnity to reopen for economic reasons? But is 5% a surprise? Given that it's highly infectious, and you pass it on for 4 days before you realise you've got it...you would think it might have spread more.



I think that when the govt has been going on about achieving herd immunity you would expect us to have got a decent part of the way there before lockdown. To only have 5% of people having been infected tells you how stupid an idea it was that we might get up to the 80-90% we'd need for herd immunity (assuming of course that infection gives immunity for a decent period of time).


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

I still don't think even 90% would make it safe for vulnerable people to go out. If restrictions were lifted then 30 people on a bus with one of them having it and two of them vulnerable doesn't sound too safe to me.


----------



## teuchter (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I still don't think even 90% would make it safe for vulnerable people to go out. If restrictions were lifted then 30 people on a bus with one of them having it and two of them vulnerable doesn't sound too safe to me.


If herd immunity is being discussed, then 90% tells you how many people on the bus are likely immune but it doesn't tell you how many are likely infected - over time it would approach zero.

I think we rely on about 95% for measles and it varies per disease, with a lower percentage having been suggested for covid 19.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2020)

bloody hell. latest from national trust here:

"As you will have seen over the weekend, the general public are just not accepting that our car parks are closed and are visiting in their droves.
In the interests of road safety and preventing further damage to the verges and tree roots, we are going to open the drive from today. 
We will not be providing any other visitor facilities at this stage and will not be promoting [here]as a place to visit.  This is an ever-changing picture and we may need to revise our plans again. ."

What did they expect though after last Sundays proclamation that everyone can drive to enjoy the outdoors much as they like.
Selfishly pissed off though tbh.


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

teuchter said:


> If herd immunity is being discussed, then 90% tells you how many people on the bus are likely immune but it doesn't tell you how many are likely infected - over time it would approach zero.
> 
> I think we rely on about 95% for measles and it varies per disease, with a lower percentage having been suggested for covid 19.



Yes the 90% by definition says 9 out of 10 are immune, but if you're vulnerable you have to assume that 1 out of 10 are infected. Indeed over time it would approach zero as people with it either become immune (or die from it  ). 

Always assuming people become and stay immune once they've had it.


----------



## Raheem (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes the 90% by definition says 9 out of 10 are immune, but if you're vulnerable you have to assume that 1 out of 10 are infected. Indeed over time it would approach zero as people with it either become immune (or die from it  ).


Herd immunity means the virus is virtually non-existent in the population, because there are not enough people without immunity for it to spread. The people without immunity are not just waiting around to join the club, they are almost totally safe from infection.


----------



## miss direct (May 18, 2020)

People really don't wear masks in the UK? I'm so used to it now that I think I will be quite nervous being out and about back in the UK. Plenty of sale here, will bring a box of disposable ones and a few cloth ones too.


----------



## gentlegreen (May 18, 2020)

My high street in east Bristol is starting to look far too normal - especially given the age and obesity profiles of the maskless people riding the buses. I reckon people are relying on the low numbers in the area ...


----------



## gentlegreen (May 18, 2020)

miss direct said:


> People really don't wear masks in the UK? I'm so used to it now that I think I will be quite nervous being out and about back in the UK. Plenty of sale here, will bring a box of disposable ones and a few cloth ones too.


Very few in my area - the convenience stores never even put up screens - the Polish (?) guy up the road has stopped wearing a mask 
It's far too early ... I wear mine mostly as a gesture to shopkeepers not to contaminate them or their stock.


----------



## zahir (May 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> bloody hell. latest from national trust here:
> 
> "As you will have seen over the weekend, the general public are just not accepting that our car parks are closed and are visiting in their droves.
> In the interests of road safety and preventing further damage to the verges and tree roots, we are going to open the drive from today.
> ...


Does that mean they’ve opened the car park? Ours is still officially closed with no indication of reopening. The numbers actually using it anyway are creeping up though.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2020)

zahir said:


> Does that mean they’ve opened the car park? Ours is still officially closed with no indication of reopening. The numbers actually using it anyway are creeping up though.


Yes. Gate to main parking area that they had planned to leave until 1st June earliest.


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2020)

We have another way to measure the UK establishment lag:









						Coronavirus symptoms: UK adds loss of smell and taste to list
					

Loss of smell and taste join a new cough and fever as signs that self-isolation may be necessary, experts say.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I havent checked when people, including on this forum, started going on about these symptoms and it became obvious they should be part of the symptoms guide to COVID-19, but if someone could check when that was then we can measure how long it takes for the establishment to react.


----------



## belboid (May 18, 2020)

Some of the car parks and car parking areas were full when we went out for a walk on sunday.  Just outside of Sheffield for the first time in two months.  No doubt TV crews would have said it was shocking and disgraceful. But it's the bloody Peak District, and having a few dozen cars parked up didn't affect the fact that we only saw another ten people when we were out and easily able to maintain distancing. People dont all arrive or leave at the same time just cos they park in the same place.

I'm sure some spots did get overcrowded, but a full car park is no indicator of such.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2020)

belboid said:


> Some of the car parks and car parking areas were full when we went out for a walk on sunday.  Just outside of Sheffield for the first time in two months.  No doubt TV crews would have said it was shocking and disgraceful. But it's the bloody Peak District, and having a few dozen cars parked up didn't affect the fact that we only saw another ten people when we were out and easily able to maintain distancing. People dont all arrive or leave at the same time just cos they park in the same place.
> 
> I'm sure some spots did get overcrowded, but a full car park is no indicator of such.


The only issue here (apart from crowded car parks themselves) will be the very narrow paths through the woods where if you want 2m distance one of you has to go off the track whist you pass each other. My very scientific research recently has led me to believe that men are about 7 times less likely to make way than women are.


----------



## quimcunx (May 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> We have another way to measure the UK establishment lag:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



this was posted here on 1 april. 



			https://www.urban75.net/forums/attachments/screenshot_2020-04-01-06-18-21-jpg.204296/


----------



## Raheem (May 18, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> this was posted here on 1 april.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.urban75.net/forums/attachments/screenshot_2020-04-01-06-18-21-jpg.204296/


Before midday, though.


----------



## Callie (May 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> We have another way to measure the UK establishment lag:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I lost mine 24/3/20 and mentioned it here - there was already a facebook support group  I think it was added to the list of symptoms on the imperial covid app a little while after.

CDC added it to their symptom list a couple of weeks back  - 24/4/20 according to a quick google? random article has this also:


> *Symptom Tracking: Predicting COVID-19 Infection*
> In order to compile more data on COVID-19 symptoms, British researchers at King’s College London developed a symptom tracker app to follow and monitor potential COVID-19 patients as symptoms may appear. Data from the project has so far shown that approximately 60 percent of people who eventually tested positive for COVID-19 experienced loss of smell and taste, compared to 18 percent who tested negative. According to the report, the results were “much stronger in predicting a positive COVID-19 diagnosis than self-reported fever.”
> 
> Using the collected data, the research team developed a mathematical model to identify which combination of symptoms, such as loss of smell and taste, fever, persistent cough, fatigue, diarrhea, abdominal pain and loss of appetite, could most accurately predict COVID-19 infection.
> ...











						Loss of Smell and Taste Added to the CDC’s List of COVID-19 Symptoms
					

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have now added the new onset of loss of smell and taste to its growing list of symptoms for COVID-19. In light of growing anecdotal evidence fro…




					xtalks.com
				




Presumably we have more data to support that now?


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Herd immunity means the virus is virtually non-existent in the population, because there are not enough people without immunity for it to spread. The people without immunity are not just waiting around to join the club, they are almost totally safe from infection.



Hmmm, perhaps. Herd immunity certainly means that the virus won't spread within the community much any more because R is well below 1. I'm talking about how safe it is for someone who's vulnerable to use (for example) public transport, though. I still think it's not all that safe if, every journey, you're vulnerable and likely to come in contact with the infection.

Do we definitely know that people who have had the virus and are themselves immune aren't still shedding the virus? Or that they won't be carrying the virus on their hands if they've been in contact with someone who's infected although they themselves are immune? 

Last I heard the false positives that had been picked up from people who had recovered were down to faulty tests, but is that conclusive? And as I say there are suggestions that immunity is not necessarily permanent, which might make the whole idea of herd immunity illusory without people being regularly immunized.


----------



## editor (May 18, 2020)

Doofus parade















						Anger As Hundreds Of 'Disgusting' Bikers Break Lockdown Rules
					

Residents hot out at the day trippers for crowding together




					www.ladbible.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Hmmm, perhaps. Herd immunity certainly means that the virus won't spread within the community much any more because R is well below 1. I'm talking about how safe it is for someone who's vulnerable to use (for example) public transport, though. I still think it's not all that safe if, every journey, you're vulnerable and likely to come in contact with the infection.
> 
> Do we definitely know that people who have had the virus and are themselves immune aren't still shedding the virus? Or that they won't be carrying the virus on their hands if they've been in contact with someone who's infected although they themselves are immune?
> 
> Last I heard the false positives that had been picked up from people who had recovered were down to faulty tests, but is that conclusive? And as I say there are suggestions that immunity is not necessarily permanent, which might make the whole idea of herd immunity illusory without people being regularly immunized.


You make good points about whether immunity is conferred and for how long, and we're almost certainly nowhere near herd immunity level yet anyway, so this is a hypothetical conversation atm.

But if we do hit those levels, and assuming antibodies give effective ongoing immunity, your first point isn't really so valid. By that stage, if combined with low overall ongoing infection rates, you won't be likely at all to come in contact with the infection. That's the whole point of herd immunity.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (May 18, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Very few in my area - the convenience stores never even put up screens - the Polish (?) guy up the road has stopped wearing a mask
> It's far too early ... I wear mine mostly as a gesture to shopkeepers not to contaminate them or their stock.



So some (few) people who were wearing masks are now beginning to stop wearing them.
Other people - following belated government advice, are just beginning to find it socially acceptable to wear one.

(tbf some of this is folks like my in-laws who see themselves as soon emerging from their '12 week isolation' & plan to don masks in shops & crowded places - I've just made & posted some to them).


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You make good points about whether immunity is conferred and for how long, and we're almost certainly nowhere near herd immunity level yet anyway, so this is a hypothetical conversation atm.
> 
> But if we do hit those levels, and assuming antibodies give effective ongoing immunity, your first point isn't really so valid. By that stage, if combined with low overall ongoing infection rates, you won't be likely at all to come in contact with the infection. That's the whole point of herd immunity.



Yes true - I was thinking about a comparison with measles virus which apparently lasts 2 hours as droplets in the air to a few hours on surfaces. If coronavirus lasts for several days that would suggest you need a higher percentage for herd immunity than for measles (although I read that transmission rate is around 90% of non-immunized people who come in contact for measles, and R0 at 12-18  )

Eta. Apparently you can still get clusters of measles infections in the UK if someone from abroad comes in who has it. That'll be an issue with cv into the future too, you'd think.


----------



## weepiper (May 18, 2020)

Mask use definitely on the increase here in Edinburgh.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes true - I was thinking about a comparison with measles virus which apparently lasts 2 hours as droplets in the air to a few hours on surfaces. If coronavirus lasts for several days that would suggest you need a higher percentage for herd immunity than for measles (although I read that transmission rate is around 90% of non-immunized people who come in contact for measles, and R0 at 12-18  )
> 
> Eta. Apparently you can still get clusters of measles infections in the UK if someone from abroad comes in who has it. That'll be an issue with cv into the future too, you'd think.


In the end, you can't get zero chance of catching it until there are zero viruses left in the world. But you can get very close to zero, as we are with measles now. Once we're down to the chance of being run over by a bus being greater than the chance of catching C-19 on one, we'll be doing ok.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2020)

The uk is no longer free of measles, because of the anti vaccine people.
What if it takes years to find an effective vaccine and distribute it to everyone (who will accept it), I'm feeling very unsure about the long term risk profile costs and benefits at the moment tbh. Not to me I'm fine hunkering down but know some people for whom the isolation is starting to make a longer life seem a mixed blessing already. My Dad's saying stuff about what if he doesn't get to see us agin etc.


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

I've just had the very reassuring thought that the only bus past my place also goes past the main hospital in Cornwall


----------



## Supine (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I've just had the very reassuring thought that the only bus past my place also goes past the main hospital in Cornwall



Could be handy


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

Very true. But at any other time any other fucker within a 30 mile radius who is coming down with it and decides to go by bus will be on that bus. Great First Western might suddenly decide to come over all community minded and deep clean the buses every day but somehow I doubt it.


----------



## smokedout (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes true - I was thinking about a comparison with measles virus which apparently lasts 2 hours as droplets in the air to a few hours on surfaces. If coronavirus lasts for several days that would suggest you need a higher percentage for herd immunity than for measles (although I read that transmission rate is around 90% of non-immunized people who come in contact for measles, and R0 at 12-18  )



The research on how long coronavirus lasts in the air was based on perfect laboratory conditions.  It can remain suspended in the air for a couple of hours, and transmission probably has occurred this way, but it doesn't seem very common and is only thought to be a risk in medical settings or in enclosed spaces with little ventilation from what I've read.


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

smokedout said:


> The research on how long coronavirus lasts in the air was based on perfect laboratory conditions.  It can remain suspended in the air for a couple of hours, and transmission probably has occurred this way, but it doesn't seem very common and is only thought to be a risk in medical settings or in enclosed spaces with little ventilation from what I've read.



An enclosed space with perfect laboratory conditions and very little ventilation .... like a bus?


----------



## Sue (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I've just had the very reassuring thought that the only bus past my place also goes past the main hospital in Cornwall



I also live on the bus route for the local hospital. Throughout lockdown, that bus has always seemed much busier than other local buses (though not as busy as usual) presumably because people are going to the hospital to work or as a patient or whatever. Not sure why you're surprised or worried about this -- presumably that bus route had always gone to the hospital?


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

Sue said:


> I also live on the bus route for the local hospital. Throughout lockdown, that bus has always seemed much busier than other local buses (though not as busy as usual) presumably because people are going to the hospital to work or as a patient or whatever. Not sure why you're surprised or worried about this -- presumably that bus route had always gone to the hospital?



Yes, although I've been inoculated against things like measles and cv wasn't in cornwall (although just on the cusp) last time I travelled on it. 

I wonder how many people would catch the bus if they were showing symptoms - I certainly wouldn't, nor a taxi nor a lft with a friend (I presume it'd have to be an ambulance?)  but as you say nurses and also patients would use it and with ppe being as it is in the UK I'd be somewhat concerned at leakage.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes, although I've been inoculated against things like measles and cv wasn't in cornwall (although just on the cusp) last time I travelled on it.
> 
> I wonder how many people would catch the bus if they were showing symptoms - I certainly wouldn't, nor a taxi nor a lft with a friend (I presume it'd have to be an ambulance?)  but as you say nurses and also patients would use it and with ppe being as it is in the UK I'd be somewhat concerned at leakage.


You shouldn't be going out at all if you're showing symptoms should you? 

I've resigned myself to wearing a mask on the bus now. I've got a handful from work and a box on order. Figure it's best now there are more people getting on.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes, although I've been inoculated against things like measles and cv wasn't in cornwall (although just on the cusp) last time I travelled on it.
> 
> I wonder how many people would catch the bus if they were showing symptoms - I certainly wouldn't, nor a taxi nor a lft with a friend (I presume it'd have to be an ambulance?)  but as you say nurses and also patients would use it and with ppe being as it is in the UK I'd be somewhat concerned at leakage.


Wear a mask, sit as far from everyone as possible, and if you can, sit next to and open a window. (For you, that is. I agree with you about people showing symptoms. No way I would ever get on public transport if I suspected I might have it.)

There is an interview on one of the threads here with one of the South Korean doctors in charge of SK's c19 response, so not a bad person to ask, and he describes how you can catch it from aerosol rather than droplets only in certain conditions. Referring specifically to the church gathering in SK that caused a mass infection, he described how singing releases a lot more of the virus as aerosol than just talking, but also how it builds up over time in an enclosed, or partly enclosed, environment. (Singing, lots of people close together? Sounds like football matches might be spectator-free for a while. ) You need a certain level in the air to become infected - something like a few hundred thousand viral particles needed to infect you. My suspicion is that this is exactly what happened in crowded London buses pre-lockdown, building up over time with lots of infected passengers and the drivers catching it from breathing that infected air over a long period. We need loads more information, basically, cos in a bus with, say, 10 people and its windows open, the chance of aerosol infection may be effectively zero. Lots about that we need to know.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 18, 2020)

Who had Neil Gaiman getting a caution in the 2020 predictions?



> Police Scotland officers have spoken to the writer Neil Gaiman who admitted to travelling more than 11,000 miles from New Zealand to his house in Skye in breach of Scotland’s lockdown rules, PA Media reports. The American Gods and Good Omens author said he travelled to Scotland so he could “isolate easily” after he and his wife Amanda agreed they “needed to give each other some space”. Writing on his blog, he described how he flew “masked and gloved” from Auckland Airport to Los Angeles (LAX) and then on to London before borrowing a friend’s car and driving north to Skye. But only essential journeys are permitted under lockdown rules in Scotland.
> 
> 
> A statement from the Scottish police force confirmed the 59-year-old had been given “suitable advice”. Inspector Linda Allan said:
> ...


----------



## weepiper (May 18, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Who had Neil Gaiman getting a caution in the 2020 predictions?


I'd be happier if the locals had panned his windows in and frogmarched him to the bridge tbh.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Wear a mask, sit as far from everyone as possible, and if you can, sit next to and open a window.
> 
> There is an interview on one of the threads here with one of the South Korean doctors in charge of SK's c19 response, so not a bad person to ask, and he describes how you can catch it from aerosol rather than droplets only in certain conditions. Referring specifically to the church gathering in SK that caused a mass infection, he described how singing releases a lot more of the virus as aerosol than just talking, but also how it builds up over time in an enclosed, or partly enclosed, environment. (Singing, lots of people close together? Sounds like football matches might be spectator-free for a while. ) You need a certain level in the air to become infected - something like a few hundred thousand viral particles needed to infect you. My suspicion is that this is exactly what happened in crowded London buses pre-lockdown, building up over time with lots of infected passengers and the drivers catching it from breathing that infected air over a long period. We need loads more information, basically, cos in a bus with, say, 10 people and its windows open, the chance of aerosol infection may be effectively zero. Lots about that we need to know.


you wouldn't want to sit at the back of the bus where everyone else's exhalations would be driven by the air from the open windows.


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (May 18, 2020)

So, vulnerable people are being ordered back to work, and I have just heard that a load of the Academy groups are telling parents who wish to keep kids off for rest of term due to having vulnerable people in the households, that they won’t get any work sent or support from teachers if they do that.  This country is a shithole.









						Disabled people in UK threatened with sack unless they go back to work
					

Some employers using government’s coronavirus vulnerable list as condition for paid leave




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 18, 2020)

weepiper said:


> I'd be happier if the locals had panned his windows in and frogmarched him to the bridge tbh.



Gets worse when you consider that a large number of migrant workers in NZ (and elsewhere) are absolutely fucked and can't just hop on a flight.



> Most of the 150 affected staff - based at 14 venues in Auckland and Queenstown - are migrant workers, and are now unable to get new jobs because their visas are invalid. They do not qualify for welfare.
> 
> "Although people are saying 'go home' we don't have that option. If I want to get to Argentina right now I'll have to build a boat and sail there," said Camila Rouco Oliva, 28, who was a waitress at White & Wong's in Queenstown.
> 
> "And anyway, I've been here two years, this is my home now. Other people have been here five years, they were applying for residency and now that's totally stopped."


----------



## CNT36 (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Very true. But at any other time any other fucker within a 30 mile radius who is coming down with it and decides to go by bus will be on that bus. Great First Western might suddenly decide to come over all community minded and deep clean the buses every day but somehow I doubt it.


I've just been out delivering for the Pharmacy. Roads seem to be pretty much normal levels, people everywhere and it appears like very little social distancing going on.


----------



## miss direct (May 18, 2020)

FFS, still no clear information about "quarantine".


----------



## Sue (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes, although I've been inoculated against things like measles and cv wasn't in cornwall (although just on the cusp) last time I travelled on it.
> 
> I wonder how many people would catch the bus if they were showing symptoms - I certainly wouldn't, nor a taxi nor a lft with a friend (I presume it'd have to be an ambulance?)  but as you say nurses and also patients would use it and with ppe being as it is in the UK I'd be somewhat concerned at leakage.


People could be going as patients for stuff that's absolutely nothing to do with Covid 19 though. And there are bloody loads of non-clinical staff that work in any hospital.


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> You shouldn't be going out at all if you're showing symptoms should you?
> 
> I've resigned myself to wearing a mask on the bus now. I've got a handful from work and a box on order. Figure it's best now there are more people getting on.



No you're right, and I don't apart from the dog walk into the valley at the back of the house with extra anti-social distancing if anyone comes past.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> you wouldn't want to sit at the back of the bus where everyone else's exhalations would be driven by the air from the open windows.


Not sure it would work like that. Point about build-up in enclosed spaces is that the build-up happens everywhere in that space and it takes time to happen, so the more new air circulating the better, wherever you're sat.


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

Sue said:


> People could be going as patients for stuff that's absolutely nothing to do with Covid 19 though. And there are bloody loads of non-clinical staff that work in any hospital.



Yes true but on the other hand people are infectious before they start getting symptoms, and I read that 20% of people in hospital for something else caught coronavirus there. I'm classed as vulnerable and I doubt if I'll survive if I get anything more than a mild dose, so it does have more than passing interest to me. 

I don't have a car so I'm working out the odds of being able to travel in the future before there's a good vaccine. I like to plan things so that I know what I'm going to do and so don't have to worry about it at the time.


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not sure it would work like that. Point about build-up in enclosed spaces is that the build-up happens everywhere in that space and it takes time to happen, so the more new air circulating the better, wherever you're sat.



Some First Great Western buses don't actually have windows that open as I recall


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2020)

miss direct said:


> FFS, still no clear information about "quarantine".


it is amazing isn't it. All I can see is that the plans will be "unveiled" this week. Jokers.
But on the other hand according to this it is an entirely pointless measure at this point, as we have so much worse numbers than most of the nationalities we'd be banning. 








						Covid-19 quarantine at UK borders may exclude countries with low rates
					

‘Air bridges’ should be considered after initial blanket policy, says Grant Shapps




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> it is amazing isn't it. All I can see is that the plans will be "unveiled" this week. Jokers.
> But on the other hand according to this it is an entirely pointless measure at this point, as we have so much worse numbers than most of the nationalities we'd be banning.
> 
> 
> ...



What about buses then? Should apply to people getting off buses


----------



## Pickman's model (May 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not sure it would work like that. Point about build-up in enclosed spaces is that the build-up happens everywhere in that space and it takes time to happen, so the more new air circulating the better, wherever you're sat.


yes it would happen everywhere in that space but as anyone who has ever sat on the top of a bus can aver, if you're sat at the front there is little air circulation whereas as you go toward the rear, if windows are open, there is greater air circulation.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> What about buses then? Should apply to people getting off buses


and bicycles.


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> yes it would happen everywhere in that space but as anyone who has ever sat on the top of a bus can aver, if you're sat at the front there is little air circulation whereas as you go toward the rear, if windows are open, there is greater air circulation.



Yes but all the nice clean people tend to go up front. It's the manky ones (and me) that sit up the back.


----------



## andysays (May 18, 2020)

All over-fives in UK now eligible for virus test

Everyone over age of five in the UK with symptoms can now be tested for coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes but all the nice clean people tend to go up front. It's the manky ones (and me) that sit up the back.


which is why i said you wouldn't want to sit at the back where a greater portion of the exhalations would end up than at the front


----------



## Pickman's model (May 18, 2020)

andysays said:


> All over-fives in UK now eligible for virus test
> 
> Everyone over age of five in the UK with symptoms can now be tested for coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced.


i like the way he's trying to track down the asymptomatick carriers.


----------



## two sheds (May 18, 2020)

Good point well made


----------



## kalidarkone (May 18, 2020)

smokedout said:


> The research on how long coronavirus lasts in the air was based on perfect laboratory conditions.  It can remain suspended in the air for a couple of hours, and transmission probably has occurred this way, but it doesn't seem very common and is only thought to be a risk in medical settings or in enclosed spaces with little ventilation from what I've read.


The risk is also the virus contaminating surfaces...hence advice to wash hands frequently and when you get home as well as showering and washing clothes. That's what think I have to do in order to lower the risk for myself.


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2020)

Some days ago I posted a load of tripe from the BBC & Nick Triggle in regards the timing of government care home advice/lockdown. This subject came up then because of a disagreement between Starmer and Johnson over the advice and subsequent claims. 

Anyway the BBC have now done a better job of looking at the timeline of this aspect:









						Covid: What happened to care homes early in the pandemic?
					

Dominic Cummings' testimony raised questions about what happened in care homes during the first wave of Covid-19.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## editor (May 18, 2020)

Great Brits:


----------



## David Clapson (May 18, 2020)

Check out this new analysis of the UK's excess mortality: Excess mortality: England is the European outlier in the Covid-19 pandemic | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal It's by boffins from Oxford Univ. What does it say? My brain can't handle it just now.


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2020)

It says quite a lot, not sure I can do a summary that does it justice and I would hope some people here will want to talk about various themes it touched on.

A vague attempt at a summary in the meantime:

They want the European system for publishing standardised mortality data to show p-scores as well as z-scores, with plenty of technical explanation as to what these scores are and thir limitations. Mostly it reminds me why I have mostly favoured raw, unadjusted data so far in this pandemic.
Points out how bad England was relative to others, and how this extended into the 15-64 age group, and how some other UK nations and regions fared less badly.
Criticises various aspects of UK response & timing.
Points out that in Germany their pandemic didnt really show up dramatically in z-scores, and suggests some reasons why they might have had less death there.
Points out that even if the pandemic bump in mortality eventually results in a period with lower than normal numbers of deaths, the fair measure would be total length of life lost.

I liked it, thanks for pointing it out. Hopefully lots of people will read it, or at least skim it - if the z-score and p-score bits are not of interest there are still other worthy nuggets.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 18, 2020)




----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> It says quite a lot, not sure I can do a summary that does it justice and I would hope some people here will want to talk about various themes it touched on.
> 
> A vague attempt at a summary in the meantime:
> 
> ...


The England figures for under-65s are such an anomaly that I'd want to check the figures tbh. I know they're looking at excess mortality rather than covid-19 deaths only, but it's hard to square those figures with others showing that over 90 per cent of all England covid deaths have been over 60s. 



From here. 

They use slightly different age brackets and only cover covid-19 deaths, but it's hard to square it with the startling outlier of the total deaths figures.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2020)

Seems something fishy here tbh. Here's Scotland's figures broken down by age, from Scot gov website. Shows about the same age distribution pattern as England, allowing that they split it at 65 rather than 60.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 18, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Check out this new analysis of the UK's excess mortality: Excess mortality: England is the European outlier in the Covid-19 pandemic | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal It's by boffins from Oxford Univ. What does it say? My brain can't handle it just now.



Larry Elliott refers to/discusses that paper in his Guardian column today




			
				Guardian said:
			
		

> * How England found itself at the wrong end of the Covid-19 league table*
> Excess deaths, the stats that really count, show that England is paying the price for poor government


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The England figures for under-65s are such an anomaly that I'd want to check the figures tbh. I know they're looking at excess mortality rather than covid-19 deaths only, but it's hard to square those figures with others showing that over 90 per cent of all England covid deaths have been over 60s.



Well I dont work with z-scores and I havent looked at other countries excess mortality by age yet.

I do look at the ONS figures every week though. And I believe I can make some graphs that might help your understanding of the data. There is a new ONS release tomorrow but I will get the graphs setup now so I might have something to post later this evening, not sure.


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2020)

OK just a single screenshot of a lot of small graphs for now, so I've placed it in a spoiler tag as it may be a little large on some screens.

Note the very different scales, higher for each age group, with more deaths as we get older in normal times as well as this pandemic. But in age groups well below 'the elderly' the tell tale pattern of pandemic deaths is clearly visible.

This data is weekly all cause deaths for England and Wales from the ONS. I left out some of the lowest age groups because the pandemic doesnt show up in them and the 15-19, 20-24 etc age ranges should demonstrate this without me having to include even younger ages.



Spoiler


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 18, 2020)

Looks from those graphs like they should have been telling the over 45s to stay away from everyone else, not just the over 70s.


----------



## frogwoman (May 18, 2020)

It's a bit baffling why 'excess' deaths, ie not necessarily covid related, in England are so high compared to spain and italy which had far stricter lockdowns than we did (and possibly therefore youd think there may be more deaths directly caused by the lockdown, mental health issues, DV and so on)? And at one point hospitals were overwhelmed in Italy so people often couldn't attend for other things?

Is it simply the case that more people got infected here and didn't attend hospital to a greater extent, but then deaths are also hugely high compared with scotland and Wales too? And some of those people weren't tested / had inaccurate tests so didn't show up as covid deaths?

elbows


----------



## zahir (May 18, 2020)

Agency staff were spreading Covid-19 between care homes, PHE found in April
					

Exclusive: results of unpublished study were only shared with care home providers last week




					www.theguardian.com
				





> Temporary care workers transmitted Covid-19 between care homes as cases surged, according to an unpublished government study, which used genome tracking to investigate outbreaks.
> 
> In evidence that raises further questions about ministers’ claims to have “thrown a protective ring around care homes”, it emerged that agency workers – often employed on zero-hours contracts – unwittingly spread the infection as the pandemic grew, according to the study by Public Health England (PHE).
> 
> The genome-tracking research into the behaviour of the virus in six care homes in London found that, in some cases, workers who transmitted coronavirus had been drafted in to cover for care home staff who were self-isolating expressly to prevent the vulnerable people they look after from becoming infected.


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It's a bit baffling why 'excess' deaths, ie not necessarily covid related, in England are so high compared to spain and italy which had far stricter lockdowns than we did (and possibly therefore youd think there may be more deaths directly caused by the lockdown, mental health issues, DV and so on)? And at one point hospitals were overwhelmed in Italy so people often couldn't attend for other things?
> 
> Is it simply the case that more people got infected here and didn't attend hospital to a greater extent, but then deaths are also hugely high compared with scotland and Wales too? And some of those people weren't tested / had inaccurate tests so didn't show up as covid deaths?
> 
> elbows



It has to be a quite large and notable sustained public health event of a certain sort to really show up in overall excess mortality data.I have tended to assume that deaths caused by lockdown itself are not statistically significant enough to have clearly shown up in overall excess mortality data so far. By zooming in on certain age ranges at certain periods of time, and by looking for much more gradual trends over time it might be ppssible to spot something, but generally for that sort of study I would not want to use all cause deaths, I would start to look at data for deaths recorded as having some specific causes. When looking at total mortality rates, we also have to consider other sorts of deaths that may have been less likely to happen under lockdown conditions than they would in normal times, which can skew the numbers in the other direction.

I cannot really comment properly on how our overall deaths in the below 65 age group compare to these other countries, because I havent seen their data by age group. But I suppose a mixture of explanations for any differences would be expected. For example, we have heard much about increased risk for BAME groups, and that, combined with what sort of occupations and underlying health conditions people from these groups are likely to have, and in what sort of numbers, is one of the first areas I'd look into in regards the UK and England. Certainly other things too, such as not monitoring the health of 'mild' patients, encouraging people to stay at home with the illness and not giving clear guidance about when they should seek help again, not admitting enough people to hospital, having a late and weak lockdown, having poor infection control, general population health, pollution, inequalities of all forms, etc.

The biggest thing that still strikes me when comparing non-age-specific mortality data from various countries is the story on the regional level. In the USA, Italy, Spain and France to give the most obvious and dramatic examples, a few regions tended to totally dominate in terms of the size of epidemics, number of hospitalisations and deaths. Really pronounced stuff where the worst effected regions/cities lead to total excess deaths on the peak weeks in those places that in some cases reached 3-7 times the normal number of deaths for a week at that time of year. London does stick out in the UK but not quite to those extents. Anyway I will do some graphs about that sometime in the coming weeks so will save further thoughts on that till then.


----------



## Epona (May 18, 2020)

zahir said:


> Agency staff were spreading Covid-19 between care homes, PHE found in April
> 
> 
> Exclusive: results of unpublished study were only shared with care home providers last week
> ...



That isn't massively surprising - although a few years ago now, my OH used to work (registered nurse) on a 0-hours contract for an agency in care homes and many places aren't fully staffed with permanent employees at all, a large percentage of carers are casual/agency labour who do not have a permanent job and move from place to place on a daily or shift by shift basis depending upon where they are booked via the agencies.

Just want to make it clear that I don't in the slightest consider those workers at fault in any way - when the gig economy is rife in health and social care, this is what happens.


----------



## frogwoman (May 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> It has to be a quite large and notable sustained public health event of a certain sort to really show up in overall excess mortality data.I have tended to assume that deaths caused by lockdown itself are not statistically significant enough to have clearly shown up in overall excess mortality data so far. By zooming in on certain age ranges at certain periods of time, and by looking for much more gradual trends over time it might be ppssible to spot something, but generally for that sort of study I would not want to use all cause deaths, I would start to look at data for deaths recorded as having some specific causes. When looking at total mortality rates, we also have to consider other sorts of deaths that may have been less likely to happen under lockdown conditions than they would in normal times, which can skew the numbers in the other direction.
> 
> I cannot really comment properly on how our overall deaths in the below 65 age group compare to these other countries, because I havent seen their data by age group. But I suppose a mixture of explanations for any differences would be expected. For example, we have heard much about increased risk for BAME groups, and that, combined with what sort of occupations and underlying health conditions people from these groups are likely to have, and in what sort of numbers, is one of the first areas I'd look into in regards the UK and England. Certainly other things too, such as not monitoring the health of 'mild' patients, encouraging people to stay at home with the illness and not giving clear guidance about when they should seek help again, not admitting enough people to hospital, having a late and weak lockdown, having poor infection control, general population health, pollution, inequalities of all forms, etc.
> 
> The biggest thing that still strikes me when comparing non-age-specific mortality data from various countries is the story on the regional level. In the USA, Italy, Spain and France to give the most obvious and dramatic examples, a few regions tended to totally dominate in terms of the size of epidemics, number of hospitalisations and deaths. Really pronounced stuff where the worst effected regions/cities lead to total excess deaths on the peak weeks in those places that in some cases reached 3-7 times the normal number of deaths for a week at that time of year. London does stick out in the UK but not quite to those extents. Anyway I will do some graphs about that sometime in the coming weeks so will save further thoughts on that till then.



That is my gut feeling too, that some lockdown related deaths will have happened but as the same kind of pattern of huge levels of deaths which take a long time to go down, hasn't been seen in Italy and Spain which had far stricter lockdowns, there will only be a small number of those deaths compared to COVID-19 itself. I guess when more detailed data comes out we'll be able to say more on that.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 18, 2020)

]




zahir said:


> Agency staff were spreading Covid-19 between care homes, PHE found in April
> 
> 
> Exclusive: results of unpublished study were only shared with care home providers last week
> ...



Supported someone to while they reported to CQC about being sent to different care homes when they weren't even needed because the company didn't want to lose money or furlough them. CQC were not interested at all. FFS.


----------



## Fez909 (May 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> It has to be a quite large and notable sustained public health event of a certain sort to really show up in overall excess mortality data.I have tended to assume that deaths caused by lockdown itself are not statistically significant enough to have clearly shown up in overall excess mortality data so far. By zooming in on certain age ranges at certain periods of time, and by looking for much more gradual trends over time it might be ppssible to spot something, but generally for that sort of study I would not want to use all cause deaths, I would start to look at data for deaths recorded as having some specific causes. When looking at total mortality rates, we also have to consider other sorts of deaths that may have been less likely to happen under lockdown conditions than they would in normal times, which can skew the numbers in the other direction.
> 
> I cannot really comment properly on how our overall deaths in the below 65 age group compare to these other countries, because I havent seen their data by age group. But I suppose a mixture of explanations for any differences would be expected. For example, we have heard much about increased risk for BAME groups, and that, combined with what sort of occupations and underlying health conditions people from these groups are likely to have, and in what sort of numbers, is one of the first areas I'd look into in regards the UK and England. Certainly other things too, such as not monitoring the health of 'mild' patients, encouraging people to stay at home with the illness and not giving clear guidance about when they should seek help again, not admitting enough people to hospital, having a late and weak lockdown, having poor infection control, general population health, pollution, inequalities of all forms, etc.
> 
> The biggest thing that still strikes me when comparing non-age-specific mortality data from various countries is the story on the regional level. In the USA, Italy, Spain and France to give the most obvious and dramatic examples, a few regions tended to totally dominate in terms of the size of epidemics, number of hospitalisations and deaths. Really pronounced stuff where the worst effected regions/cities lead to total excess deaths on the peak weeks in those places that in some cases reached 3-7 times the normal number of deaths for a week at that time of year. London does stick out in the UK but not quite to those extents. Anyway I will do some graphs about that sometime in the coming weeks so will save further thoughts on that till then.


Also discharging known Covid positive patients to care homes will have increased the deaths a lot here, too. That's the biggest scandal so far for me.


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> Also discharging known Covid positive patients to care homes will have increased the deaths a lot here, too. That's the biggest scandal so far for me.



Its a big one for sure. And some of their historical pandemic plans warned about it, whilst others (like the NHS England 'reverse triage') basically encouraged it.


----------



## zahir (May 19, 2020)

The Sage advice must be published now to find where Britain got coronavirus wrong | Anthony Costello
					

The public deserves to know what happened in the secretive scientific debates that have informed government policy, says Anthony Costello, the former WHO director




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## The39thStep (May 19, 2020)

who the fuck is this guy?


----------



## two sheds (May 19, 2020)

"Herd immunity is just a ..... a ... a thing"  

It reminds me of sayings of Zaphod Beeblebrox but I can't quite place it.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> We have another way to measure the UK establishment lag:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Callie made this post on April 3



Callie said:


> Lost my log in info for the app post update a few days back so unable to tell them I'm mostly back to normal bar the loss of smell/taste.
> 
> I have had anosmia previously with a cold/flu like illness so I still have some caution over the possibility of it not being COVID causing it. Hoping I'll be able to be antibody tested at work (we've got some kits to try out). Perhaps the app users could have some priority for testing when capacity allows because the app data would then be so much more valuable.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 19, 2020)

And this was March 24th




Callie said:


> I've gone all snotty. My temp is down today. I've lost my sense of taste n smell though. Various hits on the net for anosmia being a COVID-19 symptom but not sure how reliable that might be as I have had this before with a cold.






ETA Sorry Callie, I see that you’ve already made this point...


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Hmmm, perhaps. Herd immunity certainly means that the virus won't spread within the community much any more because R is well below 1. I'm talking about how safe it is for someone who's vulnerable to use (for example) public transport, though. I still think it's not all that safe if, every journey, you're vulnerable and likely to come in contact with the infection.
> 
> Do we definitely know that people who have had the virus and are themselves immune aren't still shedding the virus? Or that they won't be carrying the virus on their hands if they've been in contact with someone who's infected although they themselves are immune?
> 
> Last I heard the false positives that had been picked up from people who had recovered were down to faulty tests, but is that conclusive? And as I say there are suggestions that immunity is not necessarily permanent, which might make the whole idea of herd immunity illusory without people being regularly immunized.



extra dry posted a video somewhere that said that out of 12 autopsies, all of them died of lung complications, all of them had viral RNA in the lungs, but only 9 had any found in the throat. Viral RNA was also found in the kidneys and heart of some but not all. So it seems to be quite possible that a test could come back negative even if someone has cto cud replicating in the lungs.


Found the video.


----------



## little_legs (May 19, 2020)

Not this autopsy again. C’mon now.


----------



## little_legs (May 19, 2020)

Also, here are some words from Satan reincarnate:


----------



## Raheem (May 19, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Also, here are some words from Satan reincarnate:



He's starting to look a little like Bez.


----------



## David Clapson (May 19, 2020)

Covid will cost some years of life lost due to delayed detection of cancer. New patients are more hesitant than usual to get suspicious lumps checked etc. The excess deaths can't be counted yet because they will occur gradually over a number of years. Oncologists are all too aware of this and will try to measure it, but it will be difficult, because there are so many factors which affect the longevity of cancer patients.  It wouldn't hurt to have a public information campaign to persuade patients to come forward.


----------



## Epona (May 19, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Covid will cost some years of life lost due to delayed detection of cancer. New patients are more hesitant than usual to get suspicious lumps checked etc. The excess deaths can't be counted yet because they will occur gradually over a number of years. Oncologists are all too aware of this and will try to measure it, but it will be difficult, because there are so many factors which affect the longevity of cancer patients.  It wouldn't hurt to have a public information campaign to persuade patients to come forward.



It is going to take a long time before the knock on effects are fully known.  I heard an estimate that there could be an additional 60k+ cancer deaths as a result of a mix of stopping treatment, delaying treatment and a gap in the usual cancer screening/wellness checks


----------



## David Clapson (May 19, 2020)

60k! Christ almighty. Can you remember the source?


----------



## Epona (May 19, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> 60k! Christ almighty. Can you remember the source?



I thought I saw it quoted on one the daily coronavirus news programmes on TV back in March, a quick google provided this ITV article, which quotes some oncologist









						'60,000 cancer patients may die': Oncologist on the coronavirus dilemma | ITV News
					

Usually in April, wards see 30,000 people diagnosed with cancer. Prof Sikora "would be surprised if that number reaches 5,000" this month.




					www.itv.com
				




Reading back over that - it is clear that I did hear that figure on the news, but the article is not particularly scholarly and involves a lot of conjecture.

EDIT: This article is not where I got the figure.  It looks as though they are doing a report based upon the same TV interview that I saw and went "fuck me" about back in March and have added a load of fluff and filler.


----------



## rekil (May 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> who the fuck is this guy?



Dr John Edmunds OBE. 



Spoiler


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> "Herd immunity is just a ..... a ... a thing"
> 
> It reminds me of sayings of Zaphod Beeblebrox but I can't quite place it.



"Zaphod is just this guy y'know?"


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (May 19, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Also, here are some words from Satan reincarnate:



was there not some evidence based war he was involved in as well?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2020)

It was reported a few days ago that we had sent 50,000 tests to US labs, now the news that 100,000 have been sent to German labs, and that they deliver results quicker than UK labs.   









						Fresh Questions Over Testing Capacity As UK Sends At Least 100,000 Swabs To Germany
					

Exclusive: Figure leads to accusations ministers are dodging transparency as EU labs process home testing kits.




					www.huffingtonpost.co.uk


----------



## quimcunx (May 19, 2020)

Well that can be right. Hancock said we were global champions.


----------



## teuchter (May 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> who the fuck is this guy?



Looks like it's been edited to make him look bad. It's not the whole interview.


----------



## Supine (May 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It was reported a few days ago that we had sent 50,000 tests to US labs, now the news that 100,000 have been sent to German labs, and that they deliver results quicker than UK labs.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's lucky we still have mutual recognition with German labs until the end of this year then.


----------



## two sheds (May 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> "Zaphod is just this guy y'know?"



THAT's the one


----------



## Doodler (May 19, 2020)

Have been reading the pandemic-related  article comments on the Daily Mail website for a few weeks now and can see a contrarian position held by a minority of commenters gaining ground. Some common themes:

- The numbers are being fiddled to make things look worse than they really are.

- Lockdown is a disaster that should never have happened. Look at Sweden - it's not so bad there and they havent wrecked their economy.

- It's all about scaremongering to control people and take away our freedoms.

- You don't need to wear a facemask ever. They're ugly and uncomfortable and why should I?

- Old  and vulnerable people are the ones who need to keep indoors, not everyone else.

All other things being equal it might have gone worse in England under a Labour government with a stronger tribalistic political rejection of social distancing etc.


----------



## zahir (May 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> who the fuck is this guy?



He was showing more confidence back in March.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2020)

Doodler said:


> - Lockdown is a disaster that should never have happened. Look at Sweden - it's not so bad there and they havent wrecked their economy.



This comparison with Sweden bugs me, it's like comparing chalk and cheese. 

I just happened to have been reading this, and it sums it up so well.



> Sweden stands out in many ways. It has one of the lowest population densities in the world, a low level of multigenerational mixing, it borders only other countries with low population densities and it includes no international hub such as coronavirus hotspots Brussels, New York and London. It follows that when comparing absolute numbers Sweden can only be meaningfully compared to its Nordic neighbours.
> 
> The outcome is then bleak. With now 3698 dead, the death toll is well over 3 times higher than the combined death toll of Denmark (548), Norway (233) and Finland (300). When comparing deaths per million, Sweden last week surpassed even Europe’s most densely populated country, the Netherlands.



Daily Telegraph


----------



## 2hats (May 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> who the fuck is this guy?



More informative if that 28 April interview is seen in its entirety, rather than selectively cut and out of context...


"All epidemics of this nature will eventually come to an end when you reach a certain level of immunity in the population and there's two ways that can happen. One is by natural infection, and that's by far the worst way of doing it, and one is by vaccination, and that's by far the better way of doing it."


----------



## andysays (May 19, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Have been reading the pandemic-related  article comments on the Daily Mail website for a few weeks now and can see a contrarian position held by a minority of commenters gaining ground. Some common themes:
> 
> - The numbers are being fiddled to make things look worse than they really are.
> 
> ...


WTF is a tribalistic political rejection of social distancing and why should a Labour government be prone to it?


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 19, 2020)

andysays said:


> WTF is a tribalistic political rejection of social distancing and why should a Labour government be prone to it?



"I'm not doing what Mr Corbyn says, he doesn't wear a tie, I didn't vote for him"


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2020)

ONS figures out now, for registered deaths up to 8th May, however the 8th was a Bank Holiday, so there's only 4 days of registration that week, i.e. the total figures will be out by about 20%.

Excess deaths that week are around 3,000 more than average, although without the Bank Holiday, the figure would probably be around 3,750.

But, at least the graphs show positive news -











						UK Covid-19 death toll over 44,000 - nearly 10,000 more than previously thought
					

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that the number of care home deaths in the UK had passed 10,000 by May 8, with the overall death toll passing 44,000




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> "I'm not doing what Mr Corbyn says, he doesn't wear a tie, I didn't vote for him"


"....aaaand now I'm dead."


----------



## Doodler (May 19, 2020)

andysays said:


> WTF is a tribalistic political rejection of social distancing and why should a Labour government be prone to it?



I'm not very good at drawing so I can't simplify it further.


----------



## maomao (May 19, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Have been reading the pandemic-related  article comments on the Daily Mail website for a few weeks now and can see a contrarian position held by a minority of commenters gaining ground. Some common themes:
> 
> - The numbers are being fiddled to make things look worse than they really are.
> 
> ...


An unmasked lady outside Asda last week was telling anyone who'd listen that she knew two people who had died of a heart attack and a stroke and the doctors had been made to put Covid 19 on the death certificate even though they'd tested negative. 

And I think large sections of the media would have been openly hostile to a Corbyn ordered lockdown especially if it had happened earlier.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 19, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Not this autopsy again. C’mon now.




I quoted it so I posted it. 

Not everyone is reading every page and checking every link.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 19, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> "....aaaand now I'm dead."



I'm trying not to be to glib about these people bringing it on themselves when they get Covid because I remembered that when they do fuck around with flouting quarantine and EXPOSING THE GOVERNMENTS LIES! they become a vector that could potentially infect people I actually care about. 

Twats.


----------



## Doodler (May 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> An unmasked lady outside Asda last week was telling anyone who'd listen that she knew two people who had died of a heart attack and a stroke and the doctors had been made to put Covid 19 on the death certificate even though they'd tested negative.
> 
> And I think large sections of the media would have been openly hostile to a Corbyn ordered lockdown especially if it had happened earlier.



Some of those sections might have tried to make lockdown and even social distancing unworkable. Same telephoto lens tactics to make places look more packed with daytrippers, but with headlines like 'The People's Verdict on Corbyn' etc. Not necessarily from the outset, because of the initial shock factor of the pandemic.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> An unmasked lady outside Asda last week was telling anyone who'd listen that she knew two people who had died of a heart attack and a stroke and the doctors had been made to put Covid 19 on the death certificate even though they'd tested negative.




I’m seeing this story in various forms increasing.


ETA

And here’s an article that responds to this story.









						As an NHS doctor, I can tell you there's no cynical plot to distort coronavirus death certificates
					

These keyboard warriors love to tell the world that doctors sometimes write Covid-19 on certificates when there had not been a positive test – as if this is a revelation




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> An unmasked lady outside Asda last week was telling anyone who'd listen that she knew two people who had died of a heart attack and a stroke and the doctors had been made to put Covid 19 on the death certificate even though they'd tested negative.



I would guess that she was talking bollocks, my funeral director mate tells a very different story, they have dealt with loads of clients that have said the deceased was showing symptoms, but doctors were refusing to note it on the death certificate without a test confirming it.

The ONS data, at the peak week, showed around 12,000 excess deaths, but only around 8,000 with C-19 on the death certificate, which indicates a large under reporting of C-19 deaths.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 19, 2020)

This stuff about lying about cause of death should probably go into Conspiracy Corner, since it’s a growing conspiracy. 

Another piece that responds to it:








						Manufacturing Consensus: The Registering of COVID-19 Deaths in the UK
					

‘If the truth is numerical, dry, factual, something that requires effort and study, then it is not truth for them, not something that can bewitch them.’ — Bertolt Brecht ‘Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting of their own free will.’ — Joseph Goe




					architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk


----------



## LDC (May 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I would guess that she was talking bollocks, my funeral director mate tells a very different story, they have dealt with loads of clients that have said the deceased was showing symptoms, but doctors were refusing to note it on the death certificate without a test confirming it.



A GP friend of mine has whistleblown that some doctors were not putting CV on the death certificate as it was more complicated administratively, the piece was on Channel 4 news a couple of weeks back.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> A GP friend of mine has whistleblown that some doctors were not putting CV on the death certificate as it was more complicated administratively, the piece was on Channel 4 news a couple of weeks back.



From the New Scientist:


How big is the disparity with official counts?

It varies. One study estimates that the coronavirus had caused the deaths of 52,000 people in Italy by 18 April (medRxiv, doi.org/ds6s) – more than double the reported figure. Similarly, a Financial Times analysis suggests the virus had led to 45,000 deaths in the UK by 21 April, more than twice the official figure then of 17,000.



Read more: How many people have really died from covid-19 so far?


----------



## Cid (May 19, 2020)

I suppose the only real way to look at true figures would be to actually have access to specific cause of death. Or to try and estimate by looking at excess deaths around the peak, and using some kind of statistical trickery.


----------



## LDC (May 19, 2020)

Anyone that thinks the number of deaths is being overplayed is a fucking imbecile and should be regarded in the same camp as those anti-lockdown demo weirdos.


----------



## killer b (May 19, 2020)

Some weird what-if-ing on this thread - A Corbyn government didn't happen precisely because of the levels of distrust in him, so it's pointless speculating what issues that government might have had re: lockdown compliance etc. For a Corbyn government to have happened, there would have needed to be different levels of trust in him in the country. It's nonsense to speculate how it could have been, because... it couldn't be.


----------



## two sheds (May 19, 2020)

Met a bloke in the valley who said he was head of his own engineering firm where nearly all of the employees had been furloughed. He was saying everyone has to die sometime and he thinks the virus is being overstated and he knew lots of people who'd had it and recovered, including the occupants of one care home who'd all had it and all had been ok. This is in Cornwall where we've had relatively few cases. 

I struggled to be polite to him.


----------



## editor (May 19, 2020)

This is quite magnificent












Is this the most amazing NHS tribute in London? Behold the Herne Hill 360 degree diorama!


----------



## zahir (May 19, 2020)

John Ashton again


----------



## editor (May 19, 2020)

zahir said:


> John Ashton again


Interesting that he points out how reliable the FT figures are and that the Guardian has provided the best coverage - and how bad the tabloids are.


----------



## CNT36 (May 19, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> extra dry posted a video somewhere that said that out of 12 autopsies, all of them died of lung complications, all of them had viral RNA in the lungs, but only 9 had any found in the throat. Viral RNA was also found in the kidneys and heart of some but not all. So it seems to be quite possible that a test could come back negative even if someone has cto cud replicating in the lungs.
> 
> 
> Found the video.



RT-PCR gives false negatives anyway but this would add to it.


----------



## zahir (May 19, 2020)

Interview with Devi Sridhar 









						Devi Sridhar: Wealth is the best shielding strategy for this virus -  and from severe symptoms
					

'What struck me is that it’s unclear what the UK Government’s goal is. What is the strategy?'




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (May 19, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> RT-PCR gives false negatives anyway but this would add to it.


And unless the virus shifts from the lungs to the throat in time, a second test wouldn't necessarily give the greater confidence levels a second negative would suggest.


----------



## zora (May 19, 2020)

I must say, I am utterly confused by what's going on atm with regards to a strategy, and also how to evaluate the situation for myself. Until quite recently, I had some ideas about the handling by the goverment (incompetence, evil, poor resourcing of the health service and other public services making a better response impossible, we were in deep shit and I better made sure that I stayed the fuck at home etc etc.) Today it's being reported that the Science and Technology committee levels at the government that "capacity drove strategy, rather than strategy driving capacity", and that rings very true for me from what I have seen.
But still, now I am even more "just what the hell are they playing at for this next phase?" Does the government just want to pretend it's gone away, with the allowance of a few more tests and occasional bits of PPE and social distancing amongst primary age children whatever that might look like, or do they actively want more infections to continue throughout the summer so that those people who have already had it won't get it in the autumn so that the shit won't hit the fan even more then than it will do anyway because they know they will still be woefully unprepared, or are they just as clueless as before..? I am completely at a loss now what to make of it all, and also feel I have no basis for any informed risk assessment for myself any more.

Eta: Just seen the Devi Sridhar article someone linked to, so I am glad I am not alone in my confusion!


----------



## Cid (May 19, 2020)

zahir said:


> Interview with Devi Sridhar
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Still can’t get over how odd it is seeing stuff like this in the telegraph... I mean ‘I think here it just came to, probably, British arrogance - that we knew better than WHO’.

And again, the total reliance of this government on one of the most heavily centralised responses in the world.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 19, 2020)

It is startling how much we've managed to go from "we've had enough of experts" to "we're following the best (most amazing, absolutely best, so much scientific) advice"


----------



## gentlegreen (May 19, 2020)

Arse ...

My neighbour opposite asked me to help him with his bike and I found I couldn't refuse going inside his house 

But they seem healthy enough ...

So I can't claim to be disease-free ...


----------



## Ms Ordinary (May 19, 2020)

Just heard a Mental Health Awareness type on the radio, quoting research that shows UK has the greatest FOGO (fear of going out / fear of returning to the outside world) of the countries studied.

No shit, maybe it's because most of us have zero confidence that people's lives* matter more than the economy/ wealth generation to the people telling us to get back out there 

("Peoples lives" meaning our own, but also & mainly people vulnerable due to age, underlying conditions,  poverty,  overcrowding... )


----------



## xenon (May 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Who had Neil Gaiman getting a caution in the 2020 predictions?



That must have been quite a row he had with the misses. Why the fuck else would you move from New Zealand, a country who seem quite on top of dealing with this, through the US and to the UK.


----------



## The39thStep (May 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> It is startling how much we've managed to go from "we've had enough of experts" to "we're following the best (most amazing, absolutely best, so much scientific) advice"


Not so fast hombre









						Coronavirus: Minister says 'wrong' advice at start of COVID-19 outbreak could have led to mistakes
					

Therese Coffey says "you can only make judgements and decisions based on the information and advice that you have at the time".




					news.sky.com


----------



## xenon (May 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> you wouldn't want to sit at the back of the bus where everyone else's exhalations would be driven by the air from the open windows.



Allbeit cases here are relatively low, I'm avoiding the bus for this reason. Well, I don't have much call to get on one anyway TBF. This is also a big concern regarding when I can next visit my dad, being as it normally involves trains and the tube.


----------



## xenon (May 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> It is startling how much we've managed to go from "we've had enough of experts" to "we're following the best (most amazing, absolutely best, so much scientific) advice"



Well they've realised they need to start shifting the blame. See the questions about early response to what unfolded in care homes. As zora mentions, it also now s being openly talked about that the scientific advice was tailored to the political situation. The political situation that has meant fuck all was done in preparing for this in January, the ignoring warnings from Operation Signus and so on. Which if true speaks of a wreking contaminated mess within SAGE.


----------



## frogwoman (May 19, 2020)

__





						UK death toll is now over 44,000 according to ONS figures
					

The UK has far surpassed coronavirus-struck Italy and Spain to have the highest death toll in Europe, and the world’s second highest after the United States, whose population is nearly five times bigger.



					www.metro.co.uk


----------



## andysays (May 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> "I'm not doing what Mr Corbyn says, he doesn't wear a tie, I didn't vote for him"


Ah, OK, I initially thought it meant that the hypothetical Labour govt would reject social distancing, not that the public would reject it if the advice came from a Labour govt...


----------



## Teaboy (May 19, 2020)

Just seen on the news is passing that Jeremy Hunt is doing a bit of a mea culpa in regard to pandemic planning.  Basically confirming what several people have been saying here which is that all the planning was for a flu epidemic and they'd not really prepared for a sars virus. 

Hardly surprising news but at least its a tiny bit of acknowledgement.


----------



## Humberto (May 19, 2020)

The uncertainty and consternation caused by Covid-19 has pretty much left us defenseless and shown the ruling class as inadequate bagmen. It has revealed, to an extent, that we ARE all in it together. That ought to change the political landscape and the valuation put on teaching, nursing, refuse collection and so on. Inequality just looks more of a bad joke than ever to more people than for a long time.


----------



## Cid (May 19, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Just seen on the news is passing that Jeremy Hunt is doing a bit of a mea culpa in regard to pandemic planning.  Basically confirming what several people have been saying here which is that all the planning was for a flu epidemic and they'd not really prepared for a sars virus.
> 
> Hardly surprising news but at least its a tiny bit of acknowledgement.



Yeah but hunt is positioning himself for a potential backlash against the current leadership.


----------



## Teaboy (May 19, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah but hunt is positioning himself for a potential backlash against the current leadership.



Yes, its self-serving but the mistakes in planning happened on his watch.


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Just seen on the news is passing that Jeremy Hunt is doing a bit of a mea culpa in regard to pandemic planning.  Basically confirming what several people have been saying here which is that all the planning was for a flu epidemic and they'd not really prepared for a sars virus.
> 
> Hardly surprising news but at least its a tiny bit of acknowledgement.



I've said before that I consider it to be a partial red herring though, because I think that their influenza planning would also have been a poor fit for a really bad influenza pandemic, and dont get me started on funding priorities over many years.


----------



## Lord Camomile (May 19, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah but hunt is positioning himself for a potential backlash against the current leadership.


Even now, they're all still playing it as a game to be won.


----------



## Chilli.s (May 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> influenza planning would also have been a poor fit for a really bad influenza pandemic


Surly PPE would have to be at a similarly higher level for any kind of emergency flu or whatever. So, yes red herring.


----------



## rekil (May 19, 2020)

xenon said:


> That must have been quite a row he had with the misses. Why the fuck else would you move from New Zealand, a country who seem quite on top of dealing with this, through the US and to the UK.


Some sort of non-resident tax dodge ruse was the first thing that came to mind.


----------



## David Clapson (May 19, 2020)

ONS has announced an excess deaths figure of 55,000.  Almost 55,000 excess UK deaths during Covid-19 outbreak, says ONS 

If we assume they're all Covid and the national infection rate is 5% we get a Covid mortality rate of 1.6%. Just my silly back of the envelope number, best ignored.


----------



## ska invita (May 19, 2020)

zora said:


> Does the government just want to pretend it's gone away, with the allowance of a few more tests and occasional bits of PPE and social distancing amongst primary age children whatever that might look like, or do they actively want more infections to continue throughout the summer so that those people who have already had it won't get it in the autumn so that the shit won't hit the fan even more then than it will do anyway because they know they will still be woefully unprepared,


My impression for what it's worth is they are pursuing both of those points above. A bit more protection and a bit more cases so the winter spike isn't quite as high


----------



## kabbes (May 19, 2020)

If you assume that two-thirds of them are the result of COVID actually killing the person and that the infection rate is 8%, you get a death rate of 0.67%.

that’s the problem with back of the envelope calcs. They give you a wide range of possible answers.


----------



## David Clapson (May 19, 2020)

The excess deaths figure includes the 44,000 official Covid deaths. So your two thirds assumption is only applied to the other 11,000.


----------



## kabbes (May 19, 2020)

In that case, two-thirds feels a bit fruity.  Make it half.  So 50,000 deaths.  Could be that 10% of the population has been infected, mind — who’s to say what the true figure is?  That would make it 0.74%.

Anything in the region of 0.6%-1.2% continues to feel entirely appropriate.  And it could comfortably be either side to that too.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 20, 2020)

It feels as if the govt , realising how badly they’ve fucked this up, and with nowhere else to go, are now relying on the public to demonstrate good old fashioned apathy and resignation, a smattering of Blitz spirit, a fall back position of chippyness, and boisterous rebelliousness in order to get people back to “normal”, with the virus sort of hanging around in the background.


----------



## two sheds (May 20, 2020)

My word I'm reassured by this, signing up for a couple of doses in the morning  









						UK bulk buys hydroxychloroquine as potential Covid-19 treatment
					

Drug taken by Trump being acquired in case it proves effective against coronavirus




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Ministers are seeking 16m tablets in packets of up to 100 as part of a £35m contract put out to tender on Friday.
> 
> The drug is being tested by government scientists, health officials said. They are securing additional supplies so it can be distributed among the population if required.



We'll have to wait a while to confirm but this will likely be added to the list of faulty ppe equipment, non-working tests, ... 

Buying 16 million tablets before they've been tested


----------



## Epona (May 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> My word I'm reassured by this, signing up for a couple of doses in the morning
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I actually thought that results where it had been used in severe cases looked like it wasn't a goer as a potential treatment


----------



## two sheds (May 20, 2020)

Epona said:


> I actually thought that results where it had been used in severe cases looked like it wasn't a goer as a potential treatment



Yes me too. Look at Trump for a start


----------



## little_legs (May 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> My word I'm reassured by this, signing up for a couple of doses in the morning
> 
> 
> 
> ...


LOL, this country is getting chuddier by the day


----------



## Supine (May 20, 2020)

Epona said:


> I actually thought that results where it had been used in severe cases looked like it wasn't a goer as a potential treatment



It's being clinically trialled the UK at the moment. No results yet.


----------



## David Clapson (May 20, 2020)

It's used to treat other illnesses. Pretty soon there'll be a shortage of it because Trump's promotion of it will lead to increased demand.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 20, 2020)

Oops.  This is a promising start...









						Coronavirus: Serco apologises for sharing contact tracers' email addresses
					

Outsourcing giant Serco has apologised for the data breach, which affects almost 300 people.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Red Cat (May 20, 2020)

zahir said:


> Interview with Devi Sridhar
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's a very helpful interview for clarity about strategy, or rather lack of it, and the political choices the governement have made.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I've said before that I consider it to be a partial red herring though, because I think that their influenza planning would also have been a poor fit for a really bad influenza pandemic, and dont get me started on funding priorities over many years.



Yes their own planning found that we were woefully unprepared for a flu outbreak and had they addressed that we would have had more ventitlators, more PPE, more contact tracing protocols ready to go.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 20, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Oops.  This is a promising start...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



These companies always fail at everything and always get more work because they cut the most corners and put in the lowest bids. Fucking sorry state of affairs, and entirely predictable of course.


----------



## zahir (May 20, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> These companies always fail at everything and always get more work because they cut the most corners and put in the lowest bids. Fucking sorry state of affairs, and entirely predictable of course.



.








						'No one had any idea': Contact tracers lack knowledge about Covid-19 job
					

Employees told to consult YouTube for advice on how to deal with a bereaved person




					www.theguardian.com
				





> People hired to contact those exposed to someone with Covid-19 and advise them to self-isolate have reported spending days just trying to log into the online system, and virtual training sessions that left participants unclear about their roles.
> 
> New contact tracers have been told to rely on a two-page script and a list of frequently asked questions, both seen by the Guardian. When one taking part in a training session, run by contact centre company Sitel, asked for guidance on how to speak with somebody whose loved one had died of coronavirus, they were reportedly told to look at YouTube videos on the topic.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 20, 2020)

Our local rag, quoting ONS data, reports that up to 8th May, there was 59 Covid-19 registered deaths in Worthing - 32 in care homes, 24 in hospital, and 3 in hospices, other community establishments or elsewhere.  

So over 50% in care homes.


----------



## editor (May 20, 2020)

Rightly getting shitloads of flack 



> A multi-academy trust has come under fire for sending an email about reopening schools that focuses on its risk of legal action rather than safety.
> 
> In the message, the Midsomer Norton Schools Partnership chief executive tells his heads about two pieces of news that "should give us all comfort".
> 
> ...











						Anger at 'arrogant' academy email on coronavirus risks
					

Heads should be comforted because 'it would be hard to prove that you had picked the virus up on a school site!!', says MAT CEO




					www.tes.com


----------



## two sheds (May 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Rightly getting shitloads of flack
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Midsomer Murders


----------



## editor (May 20, 2020)

If it's good enough for Trump...









						UK bulk buys hydroxychloroquine as potential Covid-19 treatment
					

Drug taken by Trump being acquired in case it proves effective against coronavirus




					www.theguardian.com
				






> A source with knowledge of the contract said the drug was being bought in bulk so that if it proves to be effective as a treatment there is a ready supply. “All of the drugs being purchased can be used to treat other conditions too so they don’t really go to waste if they aren’t proved effective for Covid,” the source said.
> 
> Other drugs being bought as part of the £35m contract include 1.4m tablets of lopinavir-ritonavir, which is used to treat people who are HIV positive; dexamethasone as an oral solution; and 20m azithromycin capsules in packs of up to six.
> 
> A Whitehall source said the purchase of hydroxychloroquine was related to current clinical trials to evaluate it as a treatment for people with Covid-19, adding that it should only be taken on prescription or as part of a controlled clinical trial.





> *Conclusions* Hydroxychloroquine has received worldwide attention as a potential treatment for covid-19 because of positive results from small studies. However, the results of this study do not support its use in patients admitted to hospital with covid-19 who require oxygen.











						Clinical efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in patients with covid-19 pneumonia who require oxygen: observational comparative study using routine care data
					

Objective To assess the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in patients admitted to hospital with coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pneumonia who require oxygen.  Design Comparative observational study using data collected from routine care.  Setting Four French tertiary care centres providing...




					www.bmj.com


----------



## Raheem (May 20, 2020)

Cue Trump citing this as yet more evidence he's a genius.


----------



## kabbes (May 20, 2020)

Assuming it really is true that they won’t go to waste once they are inevitably found to be useless against COVID-19, it actually makes good sense to bulk buy them before they run out.  It’s sensible preparation.  If they have a use-by date that is likely to be too short to allow them to be useful, however, it’s less obviously a good move.


----------



## two sheds (May 20, 2020)

We're certainly protected if there's an outbreak of malaria in Croydon. Also I hope we're not buying up so much that countries needing it to actually treat malaria can't get it.


----------



## kabbes (May 20, 2020)

It’s not just used for malaria.  The kabbess was prescribed a course last year for a different condition.


----------



## two sheds (May 20, 2020)

Fair comment, and not for all forms of malaria apparently.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (May 20, 2020)

Epona said:


> I actually thought that results where it had been used in severe cases looked like it wasn't a goer as a potential treatment


the "leader of the free world" is using it, surely that tells you something...


----------



## MickiQ (May 20, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> the "leader of the free world" is using it, surely that tells you something...


It does indeed but not that it is effective against coronavirus


----------



## kabbes (May 20, 2020)

She couldn’t finish the course, incidentally, because of the danger generated by the side effects.  This is not a trivial drug.


----------



## Teaboy (May 20, 2020)

kabbes said:


> She couldn’t finish the course, incidentally, because of the danger generated by the side effects.  This is not a trivial drug.



Aye, and its not even especially effective against Malaria.  I've been prescribed it twice and also gave up taking it both times.  Horrible drug and Malaria seemed like a better option quite frankly.



two sheds said:


> We're certainly protected if there's an outbreak of malaria in Croydon. Also I hope we're not buying up so much that countries needing it to actually treat malaria can't get it.



I don't know whether its a treatment for Malaria.  I believe its used more as an anti-malarial or at least that was how it was when I was prescribed it.  You take it for a couple of weeks before going to a Malaria zone and then all the time you are there and for a couple of weeks afterwards.*  Certainly its not practical for anyone living in a Malarial zone, then again it might be part of treatment for those who contract it.

* Which is in keeping with how Trump is apparently using it.


----------



## frogwoman (May 20, 2020)

Commons return will ‘euthanise’ MPs, Jacob Rees-Mogg is warned
					

Senior Tory backbencher attacks proposal to return to physical parliament in June




					www.theguardian.com
				




Possible Tory rebellion


----------



## Teaboy (May 20, 2020)

Just having a look at the latest Private Eye and there is some grim reading regarding the knock on effect of Healthcare being so focused on one thing.  We're building up a potential catastrophe here both now and later down the line.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 20, 2020)

Colonel Tom Moore getting a knighthood. Good for him, but what a national fucking embarrassment that a 100 year old man has to kick-start charitable donations for a national health system


----------



## bimble (May 20, 2020)

Very strange days. I looked at the mail to see what’s going on in there and they have published this today.
Readership don’t like it at all but there it is. Am a bit stumped tbh.


----------



## Teaboy (May 20, 2020)

I see Superdrug has started flogging antibody tests.  Seems a tad opportunistic.


----------



## Combustible (May 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Colonel Tom Moore getting a knighthood. Good for him, but what a national fucking embarrassment that a 100 year old man has to kick-start charitable donations for a national health system



Where do they go next when they need a distraction? He'll be a Field Marshal by the end of this.


----------



## Ax^ (May 20, 2020)

its just to cover the fact they quietly changed the dumb as fuck stay alert message


----------



## DexterTCN (May 20, 2020)

I would have thought tracking people like this would be helpful.


----------



## prunus (May 20, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I see Superdrug has started flogging antibody tests.  Seems a tad opportunistic.



They’re claiming 100% specificity - I didn’t think any tests had that (though some have 100% sensitivity)

“The results of our antibody test kit are 97.5% sensitive. This means that for nearly everyone who takes the test, the results will be correct. It is possible for you to have a coronavirus infection and recover without your body making antibodies, or by making a type of antibody not included in this test.

The test will never give a ‘false positive’ result – there’s no way it will say that you have COVID-19 antibodies if you do not have them”


----------



## editor (May 20, 2020)

I went around four parks today and they were all rammed, with loads of people gathering in big groups. One bloke even thought to start up a big, extra-smokey barbecue in Ruskin Park!

Elsewhere, a Brixton fast food vendor was absolutely jammed full of people inside, with no one making the slightest effort at social distancing. The risk to staff and other customers must have been unacceptably high.  It's clearly not good to see this going on, but I'm curious what you lot would do. Would you report it?

(*also posted in the Brixton forum)


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 20, 2020)

So erm - 



> *Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, said that 177,216 coronavirus tests were carried out in the 24 hours to 9am this morning.* That is the biggest daily headline tally so far, and was announced after Boris Johnson at PMQs restated his ambition to get the daily total up to 200,000 by the end of this month. But these figures have often been criticised as misleading. As the detailed statistics on the Department of Health and Social Care’s website show, although there were 177,216 tests, only 60,744 individuals actually got tested during this 24-hour period. The figures now also include tests carried out for survey purposes, including antibody tests (which show if you have had the virus, not if you have it now). These survey tests account for 23,601 of the daily total.



Also includes 80,000 Pillar 2 tests _sent out_.
And 60,744 individuals tested is about the _lowest_ I've seen for a bit now, too.


----------



## Looby (May 20, 2020)

Apparently the beaches here are really really busy and will only get worse. Friends in Devon are saying the same with lots of people travelling down. Loads of second homers I expect too. I’m fucked off. I’ve been pretty much stuck in this house since mid March, trying to be safe. I’m expected to return to work in some capacity but I’m scared because it feels like everyone around me is just doing whatever they fucking want. 
I know it isn’t everyone but I’m starting to feel like the paranoid minority now.


----------



## editor (May 20, 2020)

This is the shop in Brixton. There's at least nine customers inside! One cough and that's the whole place infected!


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (May 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Would you report it?


Yes, quite happily.


----------



## Yossarian (May 20, 2020)

I wouldn't - the police are probably a bigger danger to the health of young black men than the coronavirus.


----------



## Callie (May 20, 2020)

My workplace will be running antibody tests on an as yet not fully approved assay. 
The kits haven't been released by the company yet. 
We havent had enough information to set up the IT yet.
We only received info from PHE on what information they wanted on their mandatory reporting platform today.
We haven't had a chance to fully workout how it will work interns of workflow (technically a microbiology test but run by blood sciences on a biochemistry analyser)
And they (various trust bigwigs, the gov, NHS England) want us up and running and processing samples across a large portion of London.
Everyone seems to want an antibody test.
The gov said it will happen June 1st (?without consulting those who will be doing the work) and now that's what's going to happen.
Hurrah!
I think people have also been told things like the test only takes 40 minutes so no doubt all our users will be constantly calling asking for results when that's just the time once the sample is on the analyser, assuming no technical hiccups without anything else taken into consideration.


----------



## LDC (May 20, 2020)

prunus said:


> They’re claiming 100% specificity - I didn’t think any tests had that (though some have 100% sensitivity)
> 
> “The results of our antibody test kit are 97.5% sensitive. This means that for nearly everyone who takes the test, the results will be correct. It is possible for you to have a coronavirus infection and recover without your body making antibodies, or by making a type of antibody not included in this test.
> 
> The test will never give a ‘false positive’ result – there’s no way it will say that you have COVID-19 antibodies if you do not have them”



I think it's one of the 2 anti-body IgG tests that have been approved by PHE.


----------



## tommers (May 20, 2020)

London records no new coronavirus cases for full 24 hour period
					

London has recorded no new cases of coronavirus for a full 24 hour period, the latest official data shows.




					www.standard.co.uk
				







> Officials put the steep decline down to a technical hitch in the patient notification system over the weekend, with NHS England confirming it "did not operate for a period of time" on Saturday.



FFS.


----------



## Callie (May 20, 2020)

I wonder if the companies like superdrug have a stated turnaround time for getting results and i wonder who is running the tests for them?


----------



## Callie (May 20, 2020)

tommers said:


> London records no new coronavirus cases for full 24 hour period
> 
> 
> London has recorded no new cases of coronavirus for a full 24 hour period, the latest official data shows.
> ...


Well that isn't going to last!


----------



## two sheds (May 20, 2020)

Most creative way yet to reach R = 0


----------



## editor (May 20, 2020)

It's a holiday!











						England beaches gridlock caused by cars 'from all over country'
					

A Devon car park is described as "like August", while a Merseyside council asks people to stay away.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 2hats (May 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think it's one of the 2 anti-body IgG tests that have been approved by PHE.


It's the Abbott one.


----------



## LDC (May 20, 2020)

Parks around me have pretty much gone back to normal too. Ice cream and coffee kiosks opened and not much, if any, social distancing going on.


----------



## editor (May 20, 2020)

OMG Big Mac! Let's fire up the motor!


----------



## LDC (May 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> It's the Abbott one.



That's the one I've got (but haven't used yet).


----------



## weltweit (May 20, 2020)

Looks like rather than relaxing the lockdown the recent statements from Johnson have effectively ended it.


----------



## marshall (May 20, 2020)

Looby said:


> Apparently the beaches here are really really busy and will only get worse. Friends in Devon are saying the same with lots of people travelling down. Loads of second homers I expect too. I’m fucked off. I’ve been pretty much stuck in this house since mid March, trying to be safe. I’m expected to return to work in some capacity but I’m scared because it feels like everyone around me is just doing whatever they fucking want.
> I know it isn’t everyone but I’m starting to feel like the paranoid minority now.



Same in Norfolk, visitors from Midlands/London descending on tiny seaside spots like Waxham, Wells, Overstrand. Ignoring car park closed signs, parking on double yellows. It's weird, it's like it's over for many. Maybe it is  No idea what to think anymore.


----------



## two sheds (May 20, 2020)

Weekend you could imagine people thinking 'well I have to go out to work so why not'. Different during the week though.


----------



## ash (May 20, 2020)

editor said:


> This is the shop in Brixton. There's at least nine customers inside! One cough and that's the whole place infected!
> 
> View attachment 213724





Yossarian said:


> I wouldn't - the police are probably a bigger danger to the health of young black men than the coronavirus.



surely it’s the shop that would be reported for not ensuring social distancing - although I can’t see how they would be able to enforce. I feel sorry for the staff.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 20, 2020)

editor said:


> I went around four parks today and they were all rammed, with loads of people gathering in big groups. One bloke even thought to start up a big, extra-smokey barbecue in Ruskin Park!
> 
> Elsewhere, a Brixton fast food vendor was absolutely jammed full of people inside, with no one making the slightest effort at social distancing. The risk to staff and other customers must have been unacceptably high.  It's clearly not good to see this going on, but I'm curious what you lot would do. Would you report it?
> 
> (*also posted in the Brixton forum)



FFS, I can see another peak coming soon in London, because of the behaviour of these sort of idiots.

And, if it does, I think everything & everyone within the M25 should be lockdown, to stop the spread to the more civilised parts of the country.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 20, 2020)

ash said:


> surely it’s the shop that would be reported for not ensuring social distancing - although I can’t see how they would be able to enforce. I feel sorry for the staff.



It works fine around here, strict limits on numbers inside the takeaway, everyone else in a queue outside.

My local chip shop takes orders outside from people in the queue & only allows someone in when their order is ready.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 20, 2020)

editor said:


> I went around four parks today ...


----------



## weltweit (May 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> FFS, I can see another peak coming soon in London, because of the behaviour of these sort of idiots.
> 
> And, if it does, I think everything & everyone within the M25 should be lockdown, to stop the spread to the more civilised parts of the country.


I agree, no sense in shutting down other parts of the country that are in a different phase of the outbreak. 

I actually thought they should have had regional lockdowns in the beginning.


----------



## weltweit (May 20, 2020)

editor said:


> This is the shop in Brixton. There's at least nine customers inside! One cough and that's the whole place infected!
> 
> View attachment 213724


They all look in their twenties, probably think covid19 doesn't apply to them.


----------



## ash (May 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It works fine around here, strict limits on numbers inside the takeaway, everyone else in a queue outside.
> 
> My local chip shop takes orders outside from people in the queue & only allows someone in when their order is ready.



 Happens in some places round here too but not all unfortunately


----------



## nagapie (May 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> FFS, I can see another peak coming soon in London, because of the behaviour of these sort of idiots.
> 
> And, if it does, I think everything & everyone within the M25 should be lockdown, to stop the spread to the more civilised parts of the country.


We prefer to think our non Tory voting part of the country relatively civilised.


----------



## MickiQ (May 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Commons return will ‘euthanise’ MPs, Jacob Rees-Mogg is warned
> 
> 
> Senior Tory backbencher attacks proposal to return to physical parliament in June
> ...


I am OK with this, if its safe for others it must be safe for them eh?


----------



## William of Walworth (May 20, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> I am OK with this, if its safe for others it must be safe for them eh?



The article did mention Parliamentary support staff as well though -- it's not just MPs who risk increased danger.


----------



## quimcunx (May 20, 2020)

On the one hand I think there are a lot of 20 somethings in london who are furloughed or working from home and perhaps taking annual leave who are not going to see their parents or grandparents any time soon  so good luck to them. Mingle with your other 20 something mates. Go for it. But on the other hand remember not everyone is a healthy 20 something or is already at quite enough contact risk through their work and respect that please. Keep up your social distancing from everyone else.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 20, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> On the one hand I think there are a lot of 20 somethings in london who are furloughed or working from home and perhaps taking annual leave who are not going to see their parents or grandparents any time soon  so good luck to them. Mingle with your other 20 something mates. Go for it. But on the other hand remember not everyone is a healthy 20 something or is already at quite enough contact risk through their work and respect that please. Keep up your social distancing from everyone else.



Hang on a minute.

A group of 20 year-olds mingle, one has C-19, passes it to a number of others, and you don't think any of those would go onto a crowded bus or tube, spreading it further. and potentially killing people?


----------



## treelover (May 20, 2020)

just showed brighton beach today on Sky News, second wave coming

just spoke to a radiographer, they are preparing for one.


----------



## quimcunx (May 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Hang on a minute.
> 
> A group of 20 year-olds mingle, one has C-19, passes it to a number of others, and you don't think any of those would go onto a crowded bus or tube, spreading it further. and potentially killing people?



No. I quite specifically didnt say that.


----------



## chilango (May 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Looks like rather than relaxing the lockdown the recent statements from Johnson have effectively ended it.



Yep.

As intended.


----------



## editor (May 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> They all look in their twenties, probably think covid19 doesn't apply to them.


It's almost as busy now, FFS.


----------



## ignatious (May 20, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yep.
> 
> As intended.


I’m struggling to see why it would be in the interests of the govt to bring about a second wave at this point.


----------



## HAL9000 (May 20, 2020)

> Britain sold a government bond with a negative yield for the first time on Wednesday, meaning the government is effectively being rewarded for borrowing after investors agreed to be repaid slightly less than they lent.





> While investors will receive annual interest of 0.75%, they paid above face value for the bond so the cash return will be less than they have lent if they hold the debt to maturity.





> The negative yield does not mean all buyers will lose money, as some may be hoping the bond’s price will rise further and they can sell it on, said Marc Ostwald, strategist at ADM Investor Services.











						Britain borrows at negative interest rate for first time
					

Britain sold a government bond with a negative yield for the first time on Wednesday, meaning the government is effectively being rewarded for borrowing after investors agreed to be repaid slightly less than they lent.




					uk.reuters.com


----------



## chilango (May 20, 2020)

ignatious said:


> I’m struggling to see why it would be in the interests of the govt to bring about a second wave at this point.



Get people back to work.

See what impact lifting the lockdown has on the r-value during the relatively benign Summer months.

But done with the ability to shift blame onto the public if it goes tits up.


----------



## Looby (May 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> FFS, I can see another peak coming soon in London, because of the behaviour of these sort of idiots.
> 
> And, if it does, I think everything & everyone within the M25 should be lockdown, to stop the spread to the more civilised parts of the country.


You act as if this stuff is just happening in London when it very clearly isn’t. 

Beaches and other popular destinations are seeing a huge increase in visitors. 

I know that lots of people around here are having parties, going to each other’s houses etc 

I’m sure there are shops that aren’t managing safe distancing but I’m not really going out so won’t see it.


----------



## LDC (May 20, 2020)

A friend of mine got a call from their dad earlier today (who's a doctor, and over 70) suggesting a family get together next this weekend. FFS. They told him what a idiotic idea that was and why.


----------



## PD58 (May 20, 2020)

A reflective piece that may be of interest...

Following the science | Royal Society


----------



## ignatious (May 20, 2020)

chilango said:


> Get people back to work.
> 
> See what impact lifting the lockdown has on the r-value during the relatively benign Summer months.
> 
> But done with the ability to shift blame onto the public if it goes tits up.


I’d call that relaxing the lockdown rather than ending it, but I see what you mean.


----------



## Looby (May 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> A friend of mine got a call from their dad earlier today (who's a doctor, and over 70) suggesting a family get together next this weekend. FFS. They told him what a idiotic idea that was and why.


Jesus. My friend’s partner works in a care home and he’s going round to people’s houses regularly apparently.


----------



## little_legs (May 21, 2020)




----------



## Wilf (May 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yep.
> 
> As intended.


Indeed and they know you can't say 'get back to work... we want the schools back... you can meet one other person outside your house... have as much exercise as you want' + assorted other 'nudges' without cracks breaking out allover. There_ could be_ a strategy of 'we need you to go work, we need as much of the economy to restart and we need schools back in some shape or form... however, we've got to remain rock solid on social distancing, conduct in shops, not going to beaches etc'.  I don't think that would work, but they are not even _trying _to shore up the social distancing. In 6 weeks we'll be back to something like normal life, minus gigs, mass sporting events etc. There'll still be a strategy of protecting NHS capacity, but ultimately it's back too herd immunity ('protecting the NHS' is of course consistent with herd immunity). A few peaks and troughs, lots of local trends, but ultimately a case of living with who knows, a couple of hundred publicly acknowledged deaths a week for the next year.


----------



## weltweit (May 21, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Indeed and they know you can't say 'get back to work... we want the schools back... you can meet one other person outside your house... have as much exercise as you want' + assorted other 'nudges' without cracks breaking out allover. There_ could be_ a strategy of 'we need you to go work, we need as much of the economy to restart and we need schools back in some shape or form... however, we've got to remain rock solid on social distancing, conduct in shops, not going to beaches etc'.  I don't think that would work, but they are not even _trying _to shore up the social distancing. In 6 weeks we'll be back to something like normal life, minus gigs, mass sporting events etc. There'll still be a strategy of protecting NHS capacity, but ultimately it's back too herd immunity ('protecting the NHS' is of course consistent with herd immunity). A few peaks and troughs, lots of local trends, but ultimately a case of living with who knows, a couple of hundred publicly acknowledged deaths a week for the next year.


couple of hundred a day more likely


----------



## Bond (May 21, 2020)

With Brighton beach I can't say I was shocked...London (or at least around Brixton) wasn't much better with people being mindful about it either. Cycling around yesterday it felt like some Saturday summer evening too. Slade Gardens was packed around 6pm. I just reminded myself that so long as I vigilantly continue to keep a few metres apart and keep my hands washed as much as possible I'm looking after myself. If many other individuals want to ruin their own health and those around them we're completely powerless to do anything and have simply come to accept it. Seems humanity never truly learns from history which is ever-continuing pattern.


----------



## kabbes (May 21, 2020)

My village was once again properly rammed with day trippers this weekend past.  Car parks all full, people milling about outside the shop, wandering four-abreast on paths and not moving aside, the works.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> No. I quite specifically didnt say that.



I know you didn't say that, I was asking a question.

If you think it's OK for groups of people in their 20's to mingle, don't you think at least some of those would later get onto crowded buses & tubes?

Because, I am bloody sure they would, and there rests the problem.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 21, 2020)

Looby said:


> You act as if this stuff is just happening in London when it very clearly isn’t.
> 
> Beaches and other popular destinations are seeing a huge increase in visitors.
> 
> ...



I was referring to London, because I was replying to a post about London. It's also a particular problem because of the shear number of people, the population density, and the massive use of over crowded public transport, hence why it became the main epicenter at the start, and also why we should have gone into lockdown earlier. And, of course, once it starts spreading in London, it spreads out to the commuter belt & beyond.

I am sure there're other places where this is happening, luckily not around here, which is ironic considering it's such a low risk area compared to London, personally I would be a hell of a lot more worried about this if I lived London. 

And, yes beaches are getting busier, ours certainly is, but still nothing like usual, as people are being discouraged by the car-parks & public loos still being closed. This, of course, is all down to the floppy hair twat relaxing restrictions at least a couple of weeks too early, preventing the police from turning back out of area visitors, which had been working well.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> couple of hundred a day more likely




And for far longer than a year. This could become the new normal.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 21, 2020)

Bond said:


> With Brighton beach I can't say I was shocked...London (or at least around Brixton) wasn't much better with people being mindful about it either. Cycling around yesterday it felt like some Saturday summer evening too. Slade Gardens was packed around 6pm. I just reminded myself that so long as I vigilantly continue to keep a few metres apart and keep my hands washed as much as possible I'm looking after myself. If many other individuals want to ruin their own health and those around them we're completely powerless to do anything and have simply come to accept it. Seems humanity never truly learns from history which is ever-continuing pattern.




 I think we’re all going to have to become far more proactive about taking care of our own health. not just washing our hands and being careful in public, but also in terms of our diet and nutrition, exercise, weight, and all the other things that so many of us tend to be complacent about.


----------



## Bond (May 21, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I think we’re all going to have to become far more proactive about taking care of our own health. not just washing our hands and being careful in public, but also in terms of our diet and nutrition, exercise, weight, and all the other things that so many of us tend to be complacent about.



Agreed. Because I was unable to go to the gym I sorted out more equipment and since being furloughed from work have kept fit from home and by going for runs or cycling. Diet-wise I tend to quite healthily anyway with lots of fibre and fruit. I used to get really concerned about others I care about not doing the same for themselves, but as you said we can only be proactive for own protection and well-being.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 21, 2020)




----------



## Chilli.s (May 21, 2020)

One of my things is a distrust of authority. And when it became apparent in Jan/Feb that this was gonna be a big thing then yeah I stocked up with bog roll, food and medicines hoping that staying at home for 3 months would do it. Now it seems to be set in for a long one and distrust of gov. is now for me at an all time high. My priorities are to me and mine of course, so having enough fuel in the banger to get to my poor old parents or to rescue the kid if i need to is, along with still being stuck at home, what my world is. Im lucky to be able to do this and not be forced to go to work, but it will gobble up my savings and retirement fund. Still better to be alive and poor than dead and gone. Hope I'm wrong and it'll all be over by xmas... I'd love to go to the beach, but that can wait.


----------



## Shirl (May 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> My village was once again properly rammed with day trippers this weekend past.  Car parks all full, people milling about outside the shop, wandering four-abreast on paths and not moving aside, the works.


I think that lots of villages in the Dales and the Lakes are keeping public toilets and tourist carparks closed. They are trying to keep them unattractive to visitors. Hopefully it's working.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 21, 2020)

'We feel insulted': migrant health workers on PM's refusal to scrap NHS surcharge 

I bet they do.

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, but I'm in a bit of a rush to get out the door.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## Louis MacNeice (May 21, 2020)

'We feel insulted': migrant health workers on PM's refusal to scrap NHS surcharge 

I bet they do.

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere, but I'm in a bit of a rush to get out the door.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## William of Walworth (May 21, 2020)

Wilf said:
			
		

> ultimately a case of living with *who knows*, a couple of hundred publicly acknowledged deaths a week for the next year.






			
				weltweit said:
			
		

> couple of hundred a day *more likely*





SheilaNaGig said:


> And for far longer than a year. This *could* become the new normal.



But apart from all that, everything's going to be great!  

Pisstaking aside, I do get the serious points here.
But I've added a bolded underline to SheilaNaGig 's 'could', and emphasised a couple of other bits above as well.

Not through complacency, nor because I'm challenging the *possibilities*, but because I think that psychologically at least, there are almost as many dangers of over-pessimisticly assuming the worst as in over-complacently assuming things will be OK soon.

I agree that signals at the moment are very far from positive, but some talk on here sometimes comes dangerously close to (seeming to) assume that 'all this' will be permanent, never-ending even!


----------



## tommers (May 21, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


>



What did they get tickets for?


----------



## kabbes (May 21, 2020)

Shirl said:


> I think that lots of villages in the Dales and the Lakes are keeping public toilets and tourist carparks closed. They are trying to keep them unattractive to visitors. Hopefully it's working.


They tried keeping car parks closed but people just parked all along the side verges instead, which is even worse.  The opening of the car parks is an admission of defeat, basically.


----------



## teuchter (May 21, 2020)

tommers said:


> What did they get tickets for?


Indeed; they don't seem to be contravening the stupid relaxation on car travel that gives you unlimited range in distance.


----------



## Chilli.s (May 21, 2020)

tommers said:


> What did they get tickets for?


Illegal parking, that road is double yellers all the way, as the carpark was closed people just parked.


----------



## co-op (May 21, 2020)

Bond said:


> With Brighton beach I can't say I was shocked...London (or at least around Brixton) wasn't much better with people being mindful about it either. Cycling around yesterday it felt like some Saturday summer evening too. Slade Gardens was packed around 6pm. I just reminded myself that so long as I vigilantly continue to keep a few metres apart and keep my hands washed as much as possible I'm looking after myself. If many other individuals want to ruin their own health and those around them we're completely powerless to do anything and have simply come to accept it. Seems humanity never truly learns from history which is ever-continuing pattern.



If you're keeping social distances and generally being sensible, what's wrong with sitting in a park? What evidence there is seems to show that there's very low risk of getting infected outdoors in general, it's proximity, duration and enclosed airspace that seems key (eg The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them) - and, given the age profile of those who are dying (overwhelmingly elderly and/or already ill), this applies even more so to young and healthy people.


----------



## clicker (May 21, 2020)

tommers said:


> What did they get tickets for?


50% off at Babbacombe Model village?


----------



## The39thStep (May 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> They tried keeping car parks closed but people just parked all along the side verges instead, which is even worse.  The opening of the car parks is an admission of defeat, basically.


Best case Ive seen for Cockneyrebels Workers Defence Squads for some time. The Communist Party in Alentejo has issued a statement to people from Lisbon and Porto to stay away from the area.


----------



## killer b (May 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> They tried keeping car parks closed but people just parked all along the side verges instead, which is even worse.  The opening of the car parks is an admission of defeat, basically.


the admission of defeat was the guidance changing to allow people to drive any distance to sunbathe/exercise. You can't really blame people for acting within current guidelines. You can blame them for parking illegally or unsafely though I guess.


----------



## TopCat (May 21, 2020)

co-op said:


> If you're keeping social distances and generally being sensible, what's wrong with sitting in a park? What evidence there is seems to show that there's very low risk of getting infected outdoors in general, it's proximity, duration and enclosed airspace that seems key (eg The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them) - and, given the age profile of those who are dying (overwhelmingly elderly and/or already ill), this applies even more so to young and healthy people.


By daughter and sister and nephew live in Brighton. It's packed and the streets being narrow mean they get forced into the road by crowds of drunks on the pavements.


----------



## TopCat (May 21, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


>



ticket for what? my arse etc...


----------



## co-op (May 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> By daughter and sister and nephew live in Brighton. It's packed and the streets being narrow mean they get forced into the road by crowds of drunks on the pavements.



Unless they get directly sneezed on or coughed on, the outdoor risks are still very low (as far as the evidence I've read suggests). Where track and trace has been done, almost all infections* have come about where people have spent prolonged time in confined spaces with infected people - public transport, restaurants etc. Meat packers in the US have very high rates partly for the confined spaces/long periods thing but exacerbated by refrigerated temperatures and the loudness of the working environment meaning that workers have to lean into to each other to communicate and when they do, they shout which increases the breath droplet/aerosol transmitted.


*ETA - just for accuracy, should add that the largest source of infection is from a family member who brings an infection into a household - what I'm talking about above is where those people get the infection


----------



## teuchter (May 21, 2020)

co-op said:


> If you're keeping social distances and generally being sensible, what's wrong with sitting in a park? What evidence there is seems to show that there's very low risk of getting infected outdoors in general, it's proximity, duration and enclosed airspace that seems key (eg The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them) - and, given the age profile of those who are dying (overwhelmingly elderly and/or already ill), this applies even more so to young and healthy people.


Yes, my local park (Ruskin Park, S London) has been pretty busy but generally people are sitting apart from each other. On the other hand, trains remain pretty much empty, people are queuing for the supermarkets, and buses have more passengers on them than a couple of weeks ago but mostly they don't seem to be rammed. I don't think behaviour in London is quite as bad as some people are making out.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> ticket for what? my arse etc...



Parking offences, the twats thought it would be OK to park on double yellow lines.


----------



## Teaboy (May 21, 2020)

Whilst these scenes of overcrowding at the beaches are really not great on the plus side there does seem to be a very low risk of transmission when outside.

On a slightly different note can anyone help me out with regard to what is going on in London?  Front page of the Telegraph today reporting the virus is beginning to "fade in London".  Major hospitals have not reported one covid death in the last 48 hours, very small numbers of new positive tests and an 'R' rate notably lower than the rest of the country.

I know London had a dramatic peak and a sharp fall and I know we went into lockdown before other areas had peaked but I don't understand the situation now given the whole country has been in lockdown for a while now.  Its not like London has been extra special good at lockdown, the opposite if anything.  London parks have been busy every sunny day, the supermarkets are still very busy.  There is a large young population many of whom have largely played lip service to lockdown.  I just don't understand why the situation looks as optimistic as it does compared to the rest of the country?  Have I misread this horribly?  As I say, can anyone help me out here?

Perhaps its time for The Met to start patrolling the M25 and turning away non Londoners because they are likely virused-up?


----------



## TopCat (May 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Parking offences, the twats thought it would be OK to park on double yellow lines.


 but the post refers to the queue of cars trying to drive to Woolocombe?


----------



## David Clapson (May 21, 2020)

A plane has just gone over. Such a rare event that I had to check it at flightradar. It's the A34916 from Larnaca to Heathrow. Wouldn't it be great if planes carried on being unusual?


----------



## David Clapson (May 21, 2020)

Bugger, here comes another.


----------



## teuchter (May 21, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> A plane has just gone over. Such a rare event that I had to check it at flightradar. It's the A34916 from Larnaca to Heathrow. Wouldn't it be great if planes carried on being unusual?


Last couple of days have been the first time I've seen a significant number of contrails in a while.
Yes, it would be good if planes carried on being unusual.
Assuming you are in the Brixton area, the recent absence has ben partly Covid related, but also because of a sustained period of easterly winds meaning planes approach heathrow from the west. That's now changed.


----------



## Teaboy (May 21, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> A plane has just gone over. Such a rare event that I had to check it at flightradar. It's the A34916 from Larnaca to Heathrow. Wouldn't it be great if planes carried on being unusual?



Which airport do you live near to?  I live close to Heathrow and planes have gone from every 45 seconds or so to about every 5 - 10 minutes.  Still quite busy but I suspect the majority are freight flights in either freight planes or re-purposed passenger planes.


----------



## Teaboy (May 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> but the post refers to the queue of cars trying to drive to Woolocombe?



I think the person that tweeted that photo has conflated stories.  There were incidences of cars being parked on double yellows and getting tickets but that photo is just a traffic jam and the Police can't ticket people for that anymore.


----------



## teuchter (May 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Whilst these scenes of overcrowding at the beaches are really not great on the plus side there does seem to be a very low risk of transmission when outside.
> 
> On a slightly different note can anyone help me out with regard to what is going on in London?  Front page of the Telegraph today reporting the virus is beginning to "fade in London".  Major hospitals have not reported one covid death in the last 48 hours, very small numbers of new positive tests and an 'R' rate notably lower than the rest of the country.
> 
> ...


Here are some london stats:









						Coronavirus (COVID-19) numbers in London
					

We're publishing information on the numbers involved in the coronavirus outbreak.




					www.london.gov.uk
				




The deaths in hospitals graph looks pretty encouraging.



For comparison, here is the UK as a whole


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> but the post refers to the queue of cars trying to drive to Woolocombe?



The tweet was badly worded, there was gridlocked roads AND parking chaos,



> Devon County Council confirmed that around 70 Penalty Charge Notices have been issued for illegally parked motorists on Challacombe Hill.
> 
> A spokesman added: “A huge number of people have decided to park illegally on Challacombe Hill in Woolacombe today, leaving their cars on a clearway where parking is prohibited at all times.
> 
> ...


----------



## David Clapson (May 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Which airport do you live near to?  I live close to Heathrow and planes have gone from every 45 seconds or so to about every 5 - 10 minutes.  Still quite busy but I suspect the majority are freight flights in either freight planes or re-purposed passenger planes.


I'm in Brixton. Heathrow and City planes going over, mostly.


----------



## Teaboy (May 21, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I'm in Brixton. Heathrow and City planes going over, mostly.



I thought they had closed City.  Is it back open?  Not many freight flights going in there I imagine.


----------



## David Clapson (May 21, 2020)

It's officially closed but flightradar lists a handful of flights in the next 7 days


----------



## CNT36 (May 21, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I think we’re all going to have to become far more proactive about taking care of our own health. not just washing our hands and being careful in public, but also in terms of our diet and nutrition, exercise, weight, and all the other things that so many of us tend to be complacent about.


Fair play. I have improved nutrition and slept more since lockdown. No takeaways since mid-March down from several a week. Cooked more. Probably less and less varied exercise due to gym being closed. Still around an hour 6 days a week indoors plus for the last couple of weeks walking most days. I'm lucky in that I already had a rowing machine and a basic (quite light) set of weights. A lot of it I would like to keep up. However, not everyone is in a position to simply take care of themselves better. Not all the other problems in society have gone away. There are still many reasons people can not take care of themselves as well as they'd like. It can be an expensive business to eat well and exercise. People still have other conditions limiting their choices. For many the virus and battling it has likely exacerbated these problems, reduced state support and reduced familial and community support. A lot of people are still working/returning to work in more stressful situations than before.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Last couple of days have been the first time I've seen a significant number of *contrails* in a while.


<dons tin foil hat>
London’s in a need of a Corona respray, obviously. Wake up sheeple


----------



## The39thStep (May 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> By daughter and sister and nephew live in Brighton. It's packed and the streets being narrow mean they get forced into the road by crowds of drunks on the pavements.


Normally in Manchester its the drunks that are on the road


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 21, 2020)

One of my concerens is about what appears to be the inherently intermittent properties of this virus. 

I have a nasty suspicion that it will come and go, rise and fall, regardless of human behaviour, or anyway in a fashion that takes advantage of human behaviour. 

Several coronaviruses seems to have evolved the nifty trick of apparently going away, so the host feels better and goes back to the community, and then the virus virus picks up and starts replicating and then spreading again. The intermittent nature of this in the onset phase makes me worry that this one also has this capacity.

Just as an individual will come down with something, feel rotten, stay home, feel a bit better, go back to work and then be felled again, I have a horrible sense that we’ll see the same patetrn on the larger scale with the pandemic. A second wave is pretty certain for us and other countries that have handled it badly, but if I’m right, even to small degree, we could see second waves even in places that have handled it well. New cass in China, S.Korea etc seem to support this idea.

I’m also really concerned that because it seems willing and able to use any/all organs & tissue as a site for replication, we could see it recurring in those who’ve had it and recovered when circumstances allow (run download, stressed, sub optimal nutrition, other illness etc).


----------



## David Clapson (May 21, 2020)

Karol Sikora says "we are seeing  a dramatic collapse in new infections...really good news"


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 21, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> Fair play. I have improved nutrition and slept more since lockdown. No takeaways since mid-March down from several a week. Cooked more. Probably less and less varied exercise due to gym being closed. Still around an hour 6 days a week indoors plus for the last couple of weeks walking most days. I'm lucky in that I already had a rowing machine and a basic (quite light) set of weights. A lot of it I would like to keep up. However, not everyone is in a position to simply take care of themselves better. Not all the other problems in society have gone away. There are still many reasons people can not take care of themselves as well as they'd like. It can be an expensive business to eat well and exercise. People still have other conditions limiting their choices. For many the virus and battling it has likely exacerbated these problems, reduced state support and reduced familial and community support. A lot of people are still working/returning to work in more stressful situations than before.




Yes. Should have added all that. I’ve written about this quite extensively elsewhere (not on here) and so it felt like I was referring back to something I’d already said at length. 

A lot of people are eating better, sleeping enough, catching up on family realtionships, and that’s all good. But a huge number of people are  shut out of these benefits and advantages because of their circumstances, whether that be social isolation, low income, environmental issues like poor housing, shitty work, underlying poor health, living with disabilities, being in a minority population, struggling with depression, etc and so on.


ETA
It almost goes without saying that those of us who have been living at the shitty end of things will be far worse off than those who are living towards the better fatter end of the stick.


----------



## editor (May 21, 2020)

Barry Island in Wales yesterday. It's insane that England is going it alone.


----------



## Teaboy (May 21, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Yes. Should have added all that. I’ve written about this quite extensively elsewhere (not on here) and so it felt like I was referring back to something I’d already said at length.
> 
> A lot of people are eating better, sleeping enough, catching up on family realtionships, and that’s all good. But a huge number of people are  shut out of these benefits and advantages because of their circumstances, whether that be social isolation, low income, environmental issues like poor housing, shitty work, underlying poor health, living with disabilities, being in a minority population, struggling with depression, etc and so on.
> 
> ...



Yes, the wealth and health divide of the nation has been laid bare in the covid death rates.  It couldn't be more starker.  Added to your comments above about the potential longevity of the virus and the exceedingly bleak financial outlook the medium to long term looks about as grim as it has in my lifetime. That's some cheery shit right there.


----------



## NoXion (May 21, 2020)

That is encouraging news about the lack of new infections. But due to our fucking stupid idiot PPE scumcunt government and their absolutely brain-dead decision to weaken/end the lockdown early, I fear that it may be short-lived.


----------



## Teaboy (May 21, 2020)

editor said:


> Barry Island in Wales yesterday. It's insane that England is going it alone.
> 
> View attachment 213814



I suspect a lot of policy is being driven by the situation in London.  Its bad in London so stick the whole country into lockdown.  Its looking much better in London so time to take the whole country out of lockdown.  And to think it wasn't that long ago that Johnson had his little blue rosette on and was going around pretending he gave a shit about the rest of the country.

I do still wonder why the numbers have remained stubbornly high in some areas outside of London despite weeks of lockdown.  I dunno.


----------



## Wilf (May 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> couple of hundred a day more likely


Sorry, that's what i meant.


----------



## teuchter (May 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I do still wonder why the numbers have remained stubbornly high in some areas outside of London despite weeks of lockdown.  I dunno.



The picture as far as density of population is a bit complicated. While it seems likely that Londoners' use of crowded public transport is one thing that would have speeded spread, in lockdown London and other high density areas, people are likely to walk a short distance to do shopping, go to the park etc. In lower density areas, people are likely to drive to big supermarkets, further away. So you have big supermarkets with a large number of people from a wide area, compared to the london situation of smaller shops where the people in them mostly live very locally. You can see how the lower-density situation (once people have stopped using crowded public transport) might be more favourable to the spread of the virus, perhaps contrary to intuition.


----------



## maomao (May 21, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Karol Sikora says "we are seeing  a dramatic collapse in new infections...really good news"




Meanwhile the Guardian leads with the ONS saying the number of infections is stable. Sikora has been going around doing interviews saying the virus will die out naturally. He's also appeared in US Republican party ads slagging off the NHS and was once hired by the Libyan government to say that bomber fella would die within three months. I'd like to hear someone else say the same thing.









						Number of people with coronavirus in England remains stable, says ONS
					

Snapshot finds 137,000 had virus between 4-17 May, slightly down from previous fortnight




					www.theguardian.com
				





Various epidemiologists have been saying from early on that the virus could have a seasonal element. Either way I really fear we're going to get battered in the autumn.


----------



## Teaboy (May 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> Various epidemiologists have been saying from early on that the virus could have a seasonal element. Either way I really fear we're going to get battered in the autumn.



We'll find out pretty soon I suspect.  Whilst NZ have done a good job and I reckon (guess) OZ got quite lucky.  It wouldn't surprise me to see a flare up there if the virus is very seasonal.


----------



## editor (May 21, 2020)

Yes, yes, YES! Great to see Scotland following Wales' lead









						Scotland bans Covid-19 support to firms based in tax havens
					

MSPs vote to prevent such businesses and individuals from using relief funds




					www.theguardian.com
				












						Wales’ Economic Resilience Fund will not support tax avoiders
					

Businesses whose headquarters are based in a recognised ‘tax haven’ will not be eligible for Covid-19 financial support from the Welsh Government, Ministers have announced today.




					media.service.gov.wales


----------



## little_legs (May 21, 2020)

LOL


----------



## little_legs (May 21, 2020)

editor said:


> Yes, yes, YES! Great to see Scotland following Wales' lead
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## frogwoman (May 21, 2020)

Wow do you have a link for that . I don't really know anything about him. I follow him on twitter and he said some interesting things but not sure about other stuff. Seems a bit unlikely it would just go away naturally ? Has that ever happened before with a disease?


maomao said:


> Meanwhile the Guardian leads with the ONS saying the number of infections is stable. Sikora has been going around doing interviews saying the virus will die out naturally. He's also appeared in US Republican party ads slagging off the NHS and was once hired by the Libyan government to say that bomber fella would die within three months. I'd like to hear someone else say the same thing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 21, 2020)

little_legs said:


> LOL




"Work shy MP's tried to work remotely"

Say that again Henry and really think about it.


----------



## little_legs (May 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> Meanwhile the Guardian leads with the ONS saying the number of infections is stable. Sikora has been going around doing interviews saying the virus will die out naturally. He's also appeared in US Republican party ads slagging off the NHS and was once hired by the Libyan government to say that bomber fella would die within three months. I'd like to hear someone else say the same thing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


he is an idiot

eta Sikora that is


----------



## maomao (May 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Wow do you have a link for that . I don't really know anything about him. I follow him on twitter and he said some interesting things but not sure about other stuff. Seems a bit unlikely it would just go away naturally ? Has that ever happened before with a disease?


US Republican anti healthcare ads:









						US healthcare lobby's adverts attack NHS as part of campaign against Barack Obama's proposed reforms
					

American TV adverts attack NHS as part of campaign against Barack Obama's plans for US health service




					www.theguardian.com
				




This article has more about the Lockerbie stuff but behind Telegraph paywall.





__





						Lockerbie: medical experts were urged to predict bomber's early death
					






					www.telegraph.co.uk
				




And just google him in news for the disease just dying out stuff. He's an oncologist and obviously has strong feelings about the effect Covid19 is having on cancer treatment but I don't really see what that has to do with the anti lockdown angle. It's the virus not the lockdown that's impacting on other parts of the NHS and it would be having an even bigger effect (though possibly briefer) if we weren't locked down.


----------



## Raheem (May 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The picture as far as density of population is a bit complicated. While it seems likely that Londoners' use of crowded public transport is one thing that would have speeded spread, in lockdown London and other high density areas, people are likely to walk a short distance to do shopping, go to the park etc. In lower density areas, people are likely to drive to big supermarkets, further away. So you have big supermarkets with a large number of people from a wide area, compared to the london situation of smaller shops where the people in them mostly live very locally. You can see how the lower-density situation (once people have stopped using crowded public transport) might be more favourable to the spread of the virus, perhaps contrary to intuition.


Also, tall buildings shield you from 5G.


----------



## elbows (May 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Whilst these scenes of overcrowding at the beaches are really not great on the plus side there does seem to be a very low risk of transmission when outside.
> 
> On a slightly different note can anyone help me out with regard to what is going on in London?  Front page of the Telegraph today reporting the virus is beginning to "fade in London".  Major hospitals have not reported one covid death in the last 48 hours, very small numbers of new positive tests and an 'R' rate notably lower than the rest of the country.
> 
> ...



I dont have the answers you woudl like. I could cobble together some aspects but my current understanding is too lacking to do a proper job of it. I will keep my eyes open for any articles that may help.

One thing I will say is dont pay attention to very recent deaths reported numbers. There is lag, London will not have suddenly reached 0 new deaths per day, they are heading in that direction but the 48 hour period you say was mentioned will not remain at 0 deaths for London. For slightly older dates which have better data, London was down to the 20's or teens in terms of number of deaths in hospital per day. It could be around or below 10 now or very soon, but I have to wait to find out. Certainly its now reaching low levels where the might soon be the occasional day with no hospital deaths in London, but using the very latest daily figures for this is unsafe and misleading.

I dont have daily hospital admission data by region, but there was a story last week which said it was still 40-something per day in London.

This sort of stuff is on my long list of reasons to take things one week at a time and to make no presumptions at all about the future of this virus.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 21, 2020)

Looby said:


> Apparently the beaches here are really really busy and will only get worse. Friends in Devon are saying the same with lots of people travelling down. Loads of second homers I expect too. I’m fucked off. I’ve been pretty much stuck in this house since mid March, trying to be safe. I’m expected to return to work in some capacity but I’m scared because it feels like everyone around me is just doing whatever they fucking want.
> I know it isn’t everyone but I’m starting to feel like the paranoid minority now.


I feel like this too. Even at work in a fucking hospital I feel that people think I'm being paranoid because I complain about lack of clarity regarding infection control practices.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 21, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> I wouldn't - the police are probably a bigger danger to the health of young black men than the coronavirus.


Possibly not with black men being reported as being 4 times more likely to contract coronavirus and have serious problems.


----------



## treelover (May 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> Meanwhile the Guardian leads with the ONS saying the number of infections is stable. Sikora has been going around doing interviews saying the virus will die out naturally. He's also appeared in US Republican party ads slagging off the NHS and was once hired by the Libyan government to say that bomber fella would die within three months. I'd like to hear someone else say the same thing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sikora is very right wing, especially on privatisation, NHS, etc.


----------



## elbows (May 21, 2020)

It would help if I had these sorts of graphs for English regions.

I dont, this one is for Scotland.


Its from https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-trends-in-daily-data/ but at the time of me typing this that site appears to be having a wobble.


----------



## Bond (May 21, 2020)

co-op said:


> If you're keeping social distances and generally being sensible, what's wrong with sitting in a park? What evidence there is seems to show that there's very low risk of getting infected outdoors in general, it's proximity, duration and enclosed airspace that seems key (eg The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them) - and, given the age profile of those who are dying (overwhelmingly elderly and/or already ill), this applies even more so to young and healthy people.



I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with sitting in the park. What surprised me was there so social distancing whatsover at all. Regardless of many various age groups from elderly to kids Slade Gardens was packed to the brim like it was a normal Saturday summer evening pre-COVID-19. Not all young people are going to be exempt from catching it either. Being of south Asian origin and having mild asthma I'd rather be practicing social distancing which a lot of people are not doing. I help take care of two women in their late 60s and early 70s and two of the only times in the past several weeks they went to Ruskin park no one - be it runner - or groups of people were doing anything to respect that distance. I'm not saying _all_ people do this (I certainly do all I can to avoid people with as much distance as possible), but just like Brighton beach Slade gardens itself just looked like a party event. If anything it made me sad because I miss that community spirit being a proud local, but also having to put into perspective that we still have to be cautious in case of a second wave.


----------



## co-op (May 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> We'll find out pretty soon I suspect.  Whilst NZ have done a good job and I reckon (guess) OZ got quite lucky.  It wouldn't surprise me to see a flare up there if the virus is very seasonal.



One idea I've seen floated is that lifting (or semi-lifting) lockdown now is to do with getting through some infections during the summer when you'd expect them to naturally tail off, meaning that come next winter there'll be a larger number of people who (we assume) will have immunity and that will help flatten the inevitable winter upsurge.


----------



## editor (May 21, 2020)

Bond said:


> I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with sitting in the park. What surprised me was there so social distancing whatsover at all. Regardless of many various age groups from elderly to kids Slade Gardens was packed to the brim like it was a normal Saturday summer evening pre-COVID-19. Not all young people are going to be exempt from catching it either. Being of south Asian origin and having mild asthma I'd rather be practicing social distancing which a lot of people are not doing. I help take care of two women in their late 60s and early 70s and two of the only times in the past several weeks they went to Ruskin park no one - be it runner - or groups of people were doing anything to respect that distance. I'm not saying _all_ people do this (I certainly do all I can to avoid people with as much distance as possible), but just like Brighton beach Slade gardens itself just looked like a party event. If anything it made me sad because I miss that community spirit being a proud local, but also having to put into perspective that we still have to be cautious in case of a second wave.


Brockwell Park was rammed and more than a few were in a tight old school party group or playing football together, and there was plenty of people all closely hanging out together in the street and shops near me.  It's like people think it's suddenly all over.


----------



## Bond (May 21, 2020)

editor said:


> Brockwell Park was rammed and more than a few were in a tight old school party group or playing football together, and there was plenty of people all closely hanging out together in the street and shops near me.  It's like people think it's suddenly all over.



I was looking at your photos opposite your place. Part of the reason I enjoy my early morning runs is the parks being emptier. I was at Brockwell running yesterday morning with my friend keeping our social distance but we noticed how a lot people were in huddled up groups and I pointed out to him that with the weather it's going to get busier later on. What's sad with a lot of the people going to either public spaces such as the park or those chicken shops is they unfortunately don't have gardens, much money or the space in general. I honestly dread to think how in my youth I could have endured this myself, but it's a real struggle for everyone. Brockwell was a bit quieter today, but I usually try and get home by midday. Have started getting into doing some additional riding on Santander bikes during the evening, so I kinda have myself to blame for going past Slade Gardens


----------



## kalidarkone (May 21, 2020)

Bond said:


> I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with sitting in the park. What surprised me was there so social distancing whatsover at all. Regardless of many various age groups from elderly to kids Slade Gardens was packed to the brim like it was a normal Saturday summer evening pre-COVID-19. Not all young people are going to be exempt from catching it either. Being of south Asian origin and having mild asthma I'd rather be practicing social distancing which a lot of people are not doing. I help take care of two women in their late 60s and early 70s and two of the only times in the past several weeks they went to Ruskin park no one - be it runner - or groups of people were doing anything to respect that distance. I'm not saying _all_ people do this (I certainly do all I can to avoid people with as much distance as possible), but just like Brighton beach Slade gardens itself just looked like a party event. If anything it made me sad because I miss that community spirit being a proud local, but also having to put into perspective that we still have to be cautious in case of a second wave.


Walking home last night I did not see one single person social distancing. Everyone sitting on Purdown (a big green) were sitting together closely.

Actually that's not true.....just remembered there was a socially distanced queue outside the fried chicken shop. Thats something.
nice to see you Bond


----------



## Bond (May 21, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Walking home last night I did not see one single person social distancing. Everyone sitting on Purdown (a big green) were sitting together closely.
> 
> Actually that's not true.....just remembered there was a socially distanced queue outside the fried chicken shop. Thats something.
> nice to see you Bond



At least in that fried chicken shop they were respecting that! Been a bit different in some around Brixton sadly. Fortunately the one that Shippy and I go to occasionally nearby people are respectful about maintaining that distance.

Nice to see you too, kalidarkone ! You were always such great fun vivacious company. I will be coming back to Bristol eventually when it's safer to do so for a few days. It would be lovely to see you


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 21, 2020)

Shirl said:


> I think that lots of villages in the Dales and the Lakes are keeping public toilets and tourist carparks closed. They are trying to keep them unattractive to visitors. Hopefully it's working.



Here in Cornwall all the public car parks are currently free, I do think if people keep coming to the beaches in droves they'll have to consider closing them. If experiences in Devon are anything to go by though, this will just lead to hundreds of arseholes parking in the road, blocking access for emergency vehicles, buses etc. North Devon plod are reporting they've run out of parking tickets.

My poor old mum, who lives in a seaside town in Devon, will become a prisoner in her own home at this rate


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 21, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


>




I grew up in Woolacombe. The roads there are absolute murder on a busy weekend. You just have to accept that there are times when you're going to be stuck there by the endless queues of fuckwit tourists.


----------



## Wilf (May 21, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I feel like this too. Even at work in a fucking hospital I feel that people think I'm being paranoid because I complain about lack of clarity regarding infection control practices.


2 days ago I was sat on a concrete slab in a park at  the side of a path in Rochdale, making a difficult phone call. The path itself was perhaps 5 feet wide but there was 20 yards of dry grass on the other side so it was easy to get safely round me.  A family came past, first with a 5 year old running about 18 inches behind me, then the Mum walked straight towards me along the edge of the path. By the time she got 3 feet away I blurted out '6 feet' and she made a tiny detour, giving me a 'keep yer hair on'. Last week I was on a narrow pavement up against a main road and had 2 cyclists heading towards me at speed. I gave an arms spread wide gesture which lead to one of them leaning over, finger in face bellowing something I didn't catch. It did though end with '... you fucking baldy cunt'. Wonder if there's a theme here?


----------



## William of Walworth (May 21, 2020)

I genuinely sympathise with anyone having to endure any of the behaviour outlines in the recent posts -- lack of distancing and all the rest 

But my personal experience here in Swansea is radically different, and nowhere near as bad, and deb feels the same.

Most people (I don't claim all!) remain pretty good at distancing, both on the pavements and in supermarkets.
Of course _some_ people are slack and careless, and we've seen some of this now and again, but much outnumbered by people who do their best to do the right thing.

Most of the time as well, there isn't too much traffic about, or too many people.
The city centre (to which tbf we live close) remains dead.
The beach in Swansea has to an extent been an exception, but it's an absolutely huge beach .......


----------



## Orang Utan (May 21, 2020)

only one smiley 😲😲😲😲😲😲😲


----------



## Callie (May 21, 2020)

[


David Clapson said:


> Karol Sikora says "we are seeing  a dramatic collapse in new infections...really good news"



This man is a prick. I don't like him.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> only one smiley 😲😲😲😲😲😲😲



Two likes so far for this post, none for mine immediately above it.
It's a plot! 

ETA : Two late equalisers!!


----------



## William of Walworth (May 21, 2020)

Callie said:


> This man is a prick. I don't like him.



I had to have it explained to me (as in some responses on previous page to David Clapson's earlier post)  why Prof (?) Sikora was a dodgy character.


----------



## frogwoman (May 21, 2020)

Are there any links about this?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I genuinely sympathise with anyone having to endure any of the above-type behaviour, lack of distancing and all the rest
> 
> But my personal experience here in Swansea is radically different, and nowhere near as bad, and deb feels the same.
> 
> ...



Much the same here, just about everyone is social distancing, traffic levels remain low, town centre remains dead, although the sea-front is getting busier, but nowhere near normal levels, and people are maintaining social distancing at present, not sure if that will work come the weekend & more visitors arriving.

Bit surprised how short the queue was at the big Tesco's around 11.30 am this morning, only took 5 minutes to get in, it was half an hour the last time I went.

I did break the rules for the first time today, by popping around to see my brother & SiS on the way home from shopping, proper rebel! 

But they had left the garden gate unbolted for me, and we maintained distancing. It was nice to sit in the garden & have a couple of cold beers - weak ones, as I was driving. I didn't go in the house at all, I had a pee around the back of the shed instead.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 21, 2020)

Re. Professor Sikora :



frogwoman said:


> Are there any links about this?



I had to recheck the posts earlier up,  because I thought a link HAD been posted, but it turns out I was just remembering this post from maomao :




			
				maomao said:
			
		

> Sikora has been going around doing interviews saying the virus will die out naturally. He's also appeared in US Republican party ads slagging off the NHS and was once hired by the Libyan government to say that bomber fella would die within three months. I'd like to hear someone else say the same thing.



No link though ... maybe someone else has time to check  .. I haven't, right now


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Re. Professor Sikora :
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Couldn't find the US one .
Coronavirus may ‘burn out naturally before any vaccine is developed’
This one from a couple of years ago re: NHS


----------



## frogwoman (May 21, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> Couldn't find the US one .
> Coronavirus may ‘burn out naturally before any vaccine is developed’
> This one from a couple of years ago re: NHS



I cant see the BBC video.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 21, 2020)

Calamity1971 : Thanks for that. It looks *so*  iffy though, and I'd be very surprised if any (or many) scientists are claiming this!




			
				Independent said:
			
		

> Coronavirus could “burn out naturally before any vaccine is developed”, according to a former World Health Organisation chief.
> “We are seeing a roughly similar pattern everywhere – I suspect we have more immunity than estimated,” Professor Karol Sikora, who previously directed the WHO’s cancer programme, said on Saturday.
> “We need to keep slowing the virus, but it could be petering out by itself. It is my opinion that this is a feasible scenario.”



ETA : I can't see the BBC video either .....


----------



## maomao (May 21, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> Couldn't find the US one


I linked to it above:









						Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
					

Barry Island in Wales yesterday. It's insane that England is going it alone.




					www.urban75.net


----------



## frogwoman (May 21, 2020)

'It is my opinion' lol, seems legit.


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I cant see the BBC video.


 tried always to copy. It inserts then goes awry.
Google sikora, The NHS is the last bastion of communism.


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 'It is my opinion' lol, seems legit.


Must be true then.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> I linked to it above:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Missed that particular post for some reason -- apologies.


----------



## maomao (May 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 'It is my opinion' lol, seems legit.


He could be right. But noone has the data to make that judgement at the moment. It would seem to be pretty stupid to base policy on it probably just disappearing though. 

And given his history as a dodgy doc for hire I'd think there's a fair chance that he's consciously helping add to the possible reasons to end lockdown.


----------



## Callie (May 21, 2020)

frogwoman sorry no link as such I've seen him on BBC news a few times being interviewed usually saying inflammatory or totally unhelpful shite. 

I do not get the impression he has a clue. He just gets interviews because he's a prof.


----------



## frogwoman (May 21, 2020)

Has that ever happened though that a disease just burns itself out? Seems a bit unlikely


----------



## Callie (May 21, 2020)

Callie said:


> Prof Karol Sikora on BBC news this morning saying the hold up with antibody testing is not enough sera to validated with? We've had >50k pos cases in UK alone and most labs will have saved serum from before Nov 2019 to use as neg controls. The tests are shit mate. They only cost a fiver, they only take 20 mins BUT THE TESTS DON'T WORK. who the fuck is this prick. Don't give him airspace he's dangerous. "Everyone can go to the park when we've determined that they're immune with the antibody test" FUCK OFF


----------



## editor (May 21, 2020)

FFS. 


> As well as assaults on emergency and essential workers, there had been 142 offences of criminal damage, 99 public order offences, 62 common assaults on shop workers and 44 cases of shoplifting. The Crown Prosecution Service is prioritising cases related to the pandemic.
> 
> Many of the assaults involved emergency workers being coughed at or spat on by people who claimed to have the virus.











						Hundreds prosecuted for coronavirus-related attacks on emergency workers
					

DPP says charges covered a total of 660 offences in England and Wales in April




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## William of Walworth (May 21, 2020)

Re the BBC video :


Calamity1971 said:


> tried always to copy. It inserts then goes awry.
> Google sikora, The NHS is the last bastion of communism.



Just did this, and I couldn't copy the actual video either.
But here's a link to the BBC page where you'll find Sikora's 'NHS = last bastion of communism' lunacy-video (2017)

He's in favour of full-on privatisation 
The other consultant's video on that page (by Dr. Henry Marsh) is *vastly* saner ..... both vids about two minutes long.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 21, 2020)

editor said:


> FFS.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've highlighted this bit 'assaults involved emergency workers being coughed at or spat on by people who claimed to have the virus' before, we've had at least four cases in Sussex.

One got a suspended sentence, one jailed for 3 months, another for 6 months - all involved spitting/coughing at a single copper.

The fourth, who attacked 2 coppers & a nurse in the same way, is on reprimand as the Magistrates Court has referred the case to Crown Court for sentencing, because they believe it deserves a longer sentence than the 12 months they can hand out.


----------



## Wilf (May 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Whilst these scenes of overcrowding at the beaches are really not great on the plus side there does seem to be a very low risk of transmission when outside.


You're right of course, and we need the parks open (the idiot mayor of Middlesbrough, which has the 7th worst rate of infections in the country, has kept the parks shut. Yeah, what's best exercising and meeting in the terraced streets in the centre with no front gardens, or one of them big things, parks?).  Trouble is, the genie doesn't go back in the bottle and the government seemingly have no way to persuade us that specific 'loosening' is part of a 'loosening while protecting' strategy. The outcome of that is uncertainty, drift >>>>> no lockdown, though with the worst of all worlds, lots of vulnerable people locked behind their own doors.  Fuck, I hate this (and all) governments.


----------



## elbows (May 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Has that ever happened though that a disease just burns itself out? Seems a bit unlikely



Epidemics in general could be said to burn themselves out, but mostly the fire never really stops, it just falls to levels which are low enough that people judge things quite differently compared to when the disease was raging.

There can be outbreaks in specific places and moments in time that humans take action on and manage to squash. And there are probably various outbreaks that end up being self-limiting in some way, eg diseases which cross from animals to humans but are only just viable in humans, and dont manage to spread well enough in human populations to be sustained for long. And there are also diseases which end up getting displaced by other versions of themselves, eg various influenza pandemics have often but not always lead to the end of previously dominant influenza strains.


----------



## The39thStep (May 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I've highlighted this bit 'assaults involved emergency workers being coughed at or spat on by people who claimed to have the virus' before, we've had at least four cases in Sussex.
> 
> One got a suspended sentence, one jailed for 3 months, another for 6 months - all involved spitting/coughing at a single copper.
> 
> The fourth, who attacked 2 coppers & a nurse in the same way, is on reprimand as the Magistrates Court has referred the case to Crown Court for sentencing, because they believe it deserves a longer sentence than the 12 months they can hand out.


I read the CPS report and the figures are only for the first month of lockdown. I really struggle to think of what could possibly be a suitable punishment apart from custody tbh.


----------



## two sheds (May 21, 2020)

Wilf said:


> You're right of course, and we need the parks open (the idiot mayor of Middlesbrough, which has the 7th worst rate of infections in the country, has kept the parks shut. Yeah, what's best exercising and meeting in the terraced streets in the centre with no front gardens, or one of them big things, parks?).  Trouble is, the genie doesn't go back in the bottle and the government seemingly have no way to persuade us that specific 'loosening' is part of a 'loosening while protecting' strategy. The outcome of that is uncertainty, drift >>>>> no lockdown, though with the worst of all worlds, lots of vulnerable people locked behind their own doors.  Fuck, I hate this (and all) governments.



Yes one comment in Private Eye this issue was "Stay apart" would have been a lot better than the bloody useless "Stay aware".


----------



## Teaboy (May 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes one comment in Private Eye this issue was "Stay apart" would have been a lot better than the bloody useless "Stay aware".



Surely you mean "stay alert"?  I for one am shocked that you forgot such a high quality and simple bit of messaging.


----------



## little_legs (May 21, 2020)




----------



## two sheds (May 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Surely you mean "stay alert"?  I for one am shocked that you forgot such a high quality and simple bit of messaging.






worse than that I started off with 'keep aware' and then had to google several variants to get it that wrong


----------



## LDC (May 21, 2020)

editor said:


> FFS.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The behaviour of some people during this lock-down really has made me despair sometimes. Went for a run this morning and the bins in the park which had been taped off by the council had huge piles of rubbish almost covering them that the masked and gloved council workers were having to pick up to bag and take away. FFS, people really can be inconsiderate cunts.


----------



## The39thStep (May 21, 2020)

little_legs said:


>



Beaches open on June 6 here in Portugal. Theres going to be an app which if its downloaded enough  will say whether the beach has reached its estimated capacity limit and they hope to use it to examine social distancing compliance. The Maritime Police and Councils will enforce and if there are too many on the beaches over a period of days  then then they will close it.


----------



## Wilf (May 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes one comment in Private Eye this issue was "Stay apart" would have been a lot better than the bloody useless "Stay aware".


The government's PR and communications have been so disastrous, they could really have thought 'stay alert' actually meant something. I'm now edging very slightly towards it being a deliberate and probably key step in their 'let's bin the lockdown and blame the people in the parks for the deaths' strategy.


----------



## little_legs (May 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Beaches open on June 6 here in Portugal. Theres going to be an app which if its downloaded enough  will say whether the beach has reached its estimated capacity limit and they hope to use it to examine social distancing compliance. The Maritime Police and Councils will enforce and if there are too many on the beaches over a period of days  then then they will close it.


This is way too controlling sensible for the freedom loving country like the UK.


----------



## frogwoman (May 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Epidemics in general could be said to burn themselves out, but mostly the fire never really stops, it just falls to levels which are low enough that people judge things quite differently compared to when the disease was raging.
> 
> There can be outbreaks in specific places and moments in time that humans take action on and manage to squash. And there are probably various outbreaks that end up being self-limiting in some way, eg diseases which cross from animals to humans but are only just viable in humans, and dont manage to spread well enough in human populations to be sustained for long. And there are also diseases which end up getting displaced by other versions of themselves, eg various influenza pandemics have often but not always lead to the end of previously dominant influenza strains.



But stuff like smallpox carried on causing misery for years. 

I did read an interesting theory that the Russian flu of 1889 which went on to kill about a million people was actually caused by a coronavirus which now only causes colds?


----------



## elbows (May 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Major hospitals have not reported one covid death in the last 48 hours



I ended up resorting to an article in the fucking Sun to see what the Telegraph claim was:



> Homerton, University College London, Hillington, North Middlesex, Whittington Health and Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals have recorded no coronavirus deaths in the past 48 hours, an analysis by the University of Oxford for The Daily Telegraph has found.
> 
> During the peak of the coronavirus outbreak, the hospitals were recording up to 16 deaths a day and have totalled more than 1,000 since the start the crisis.



For context, one set of official figures shows there were 236 hospital deaths listed for London on the worst day (April 8th) so the hospitals they focussed on hardly tell most of the story.

Anyway it is fair enough for articles to refer to various recent trends in London, I just like to be clear about the detail. They are just looking for other ways to tell the same story I suppose, and being able to say no deaths is more interesting and convenient for them than saying less than 20 or less than 10 deaths.

Since we are well into a period of various numbers dwindling, I will try to take a look at deaths on a per-hospital basis sometime next week to see if there is anything else that becomes apparent from such data. I will start looking today but I dont think I'm in good shape to communicate anything I might spot.


----------



## Mation (May 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The picture as far as density of population is a bit complicated. While it seems likely that Londoners' use of crowded public transport is one thing that would have speeded spread, in lockdown London and other high density areas, people are likely to walk a short distance to do shopping, go to the park etc. In lower density areas, people are likely to drive to big supermarkets, further away. So you have big supermarkets with a large number of people from a wide area, compared to the london situation of smaller shops where the people in them mostly live very locally. You can see how the lower-density situation (once people have stopped using crowded public transport) might be more favourable to the spread of the virus, perhaps contrary to intuition.


This. An example (that's not data, obvs): Since 1 April I've only been a maximum of 0.7 miles in any direction (from fairly central south London); no public transport (because I'm lucky enough to be working from home); only on foot or by cycle.

There have been a couple of really long queues, especially at first, for the supermarket, but once inside, most shops are still very empty. Most streets are quiet. My local park is much much busier this week than last and than the week before, but I can still wander round it at several metres distance from anyone else, as long as I'm prepared to do the weaving around.

Everyone I know who can work from home has been the same.

But... I'm seeing some people I know (housemates) now being prepared to take public transport, masked-up and aiming to do social distancing, but still travelling further afield to see friends. Big groups sitting close together in the park. Construction work on small sites, e.g. several scaffolders setting up in close proximity to each other (as they have to, but unmasked), a few doors down. A pub renovation (!!)

Hello second wave


----------



## Sunray (May 21, 2020)

I was looking for verification of those claims too.

Best I could find was



			https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/coronavirus--covid-19--deaths
		


which IMO doesn't prove or disprove anything but does show London becoming as coronavirus free as a city with millions of people in can be.  Plot out that graph and in two weeks the numbers become zero.

People are still dying, but not too many and given how good modern medicine is, many of the people that sadly die today, fairly safe to say they got very sick a week or two ago.

What would be interesting, I think, is the daily number of people going to the hospital and testing positive for c-19.


----------



## frogwoman (May 21, 2020)

Is the daily rate of positive tests not about 2000 or so?


----------



## Mation (May 21, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Possibly not with black men being reported as being 4 times more likely to contract coronavirus and have serious problems.


What a choice


----------



## frogwoman (May 21, 2020)

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
		


elbows what do you think of this?


----------



## Epona (May 21, 2020)

editor said:


> I went around four parks today and they were all rammed, with loads of people gathering in big groups. One bloke even thought to start up a big, extra-smokey barbecue in Ruskin Park!
> 
> Elsewhere, a Brixton fast food vendor was absolutely jammed full of people inside, with no one making the slightest effort at social distancing. The risk to staff and other customers must have been unacceptably high.  It's clearly not good to see this going on, but I'm curious what you lot would do. Would you report it?
> 
> (*also posted in the Brixton forum)



No need to call the police - it is a fast food place so as with retail, you can give Trading Standards a ring - they'll pop round and have stern words with the owner.  (I don't think they necessarily have any enforcement powers, but they are responsible for covid measures compliance in some instances)


----------



## Sue (May 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The behaviour of some people during this lock-down really has made me despair sometimes. Went for a run this morning and the bins in the park which had been taped off by the council had huge piles of rubbish almost covering them that the masked and gloved council workers were having to pick up to bag and take away. FFS, people really can be inconsiderate cunts.


Same, though was also loads of rubbish strewn all over the grass.


----------



## elbows (May 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Bloomberg - Are you a robot?
> 
> 
> 
> elbows what do you think of this?



I've spoken about that stuff before. eg            #6,383        

I'm always interested in the topic. Even if we disregard anything to do specifically with other coronaviruses and anything to do with the 1889 pandemic, the idea that a new novel virus that causes a hideous pandemic will eventually sink into the background and not be regarded in the same way, even if the fundamentals of the virus havent changed, is quite common. But this topic quickly ends up overlapping with  both herd immunity stuff, and also with certain aspects of attitudes towards 'mild' illness. If the disease is mild in most cases but still kills a few people here and there, do people notice or care much?

Apparently that was my last free Bloomberg article but if this is the quality of their fact checking then I'm glad:



> But after the SARS epidemic in 1995 — caused by a coronavirus named SARS-CoV — biologists used modern gene-sequencing methods to begin comparing viruses infecting humans and other animals.



The SARS epidemic was 2002-3. It was identified in 2003.


----------



## Sunray (May 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is the daily rate of positive tests not about 2000 or so?



In London? Where did you get that number?


----------



## Raheem (May 21, 2020)

Wilf said:


> The government's PR and communications have been so disastrous, they could really have thought 'stay alert' actually meant something. I'm now edging very slightly towards it being a deliberate and probably key step in their 'let's bin the lockdown and blame the people in the parks for the deaths' strategy.


I expect anyone in Downing Street who considers their profession to be PR or comms will have been close to tears, tbf.


----------



## elbows (May 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> Meanwhile the Guardian leads with the ONS saying the number of infections is stable.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I wasnt overly impressed by the ONS pilot survey. I want to see it be quite a bit larger, the small numbers involved dont help my confidence and I want it to be big enough to do regional analysis. The self-swabbing is an obvious limitation. And still no data based on blood tests, its so long ago now that they raised my hopes on that front but have been coy with any results ever since.






						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional results from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey for England. This survey is being delivered in partnership with the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester, Public Health England and Wellcome Trust.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




The main points it makes are one thing, the long list of caveats quite another. Its better than nothing I suppose. Blood is at least mentioned, but it always seems to be just around the corner.



> Adults from around 2,000 households will also provide a blood sample taken by a trained nurse, phlebotomist or healthcare assistant. These tests, the results of which are not yet available, will help determine what proportion of the population has developed antibodies to COVID-19.





> As the study progresses, we will be able to provide greater detail into the extent of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, for example, by providing regional breakdowns.
> 
> Blood samples collected to date are still being analysed by the laboratories, but we hope to start receiving this data soon. Once the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has received sufficient data to calculate good quality estimates of antibodies in the population we will include results in a future publication.
> 
> The information on spread of infection will form an important component for estimating the rate of transmission, often referred to as “R”, which is central to planning for easing of lockdown conditions. There are different approaches for estimating R, and the agreement of the most appropriate estimate for any period is the responsibility of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). They will use information from our study in their deliberations.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (May 21, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> It didn't happen in Scotland.


Aye it did 

And besides it wouldn't necessarily make the news if it did.


----------



## little_legs (May 21, 2020)

Wilf said:


> The government's PR and communications have been so disastrous, they could really have thought 'stay alert' actually meant something. I'm now edging very slightly towards it being a deliberate and probably key step in their 'let's bin the lockdown and blame the people in the parks for the deaths' strategy.


----------



## frogwoman (May 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> In London? Where did you get that number?



In the uk as a whole


----------



## David Clapson (May 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Re the BBC video :
> 
> 
> Just did this, and I couldn't copy the actual video either.
> ...


You can't fault his clinical knowledge. If he says there's a collapse in new cases, there's a collapse in new cases. His analysis and predictions of Covid so far have been very accurate.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 21, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> You can't fault his clinical knowledge. If he says there's a collapse in new cases, there's a collapse in new cases. His analysis and predictions of Covid so far have been very accurate.



I think someone else earlier upthread asked for Sikora's current thoughts on this to be backed up by others now as well, though?

No other scientist that I've seen quoted/that I'm aware of at all,  has suggested the same things as Sikora is now suggesting (see further back in the thread for details/links  ).


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 21, 2020)

They still lying about number of tests per day?


----------



## David Clapson (May 21, 2020)

The FT are saying we've exceeded 63,000 deaths, Their estimate of unexplained-but-actually-Covid deaths has always been higher than the ONS numbers.


----------



## BCBlues (May 21, 2020)

Revealed: how many Covid and untested hospital patients sent to city care homes Revealed: how many Covid and untested hospital patients sent to city care homes

Some interesting and infuriating stats here from a local rag that normally doesnt know how to get involved but seems annoyed with Bojo and his crew. Thought you might like a look elbows


----------



## xenon (May 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> In the uk as a whole



just under 10,000 according to the press conference tonight.
Actually no, forget that, I think that was referring to something else.


----------



## zora (May 21, 2020)

Terrifyingly, the person from the Telegraph and the Tory MP on Question Time just both unchallengedly referred to where we are now as "the end of the pandemic", when actually they were referring to the ending of this first period of lockdown/ coming down from first peak.
Any credible person I have listened to elsewhere so far has been at pains to point out that we are by no means at the end but at the start of the pandemic.
One could argue that it's clear from the context (for example, there is also talk about theatre not coming back fully in its previous form for a long time etc etc) but it's still incredibly sloppy language. :/


----------



## David Clapson (May 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I think someone else earlier upthread asked for Sikora's current thoughts on this to be backed up by others now as well, though?
> 
> No other scientist that I've seen quoted/that I'm aware of at all,  has suggested the same things as Sikora is now suggesting (see further back in the thread for details/links  ).


I've met Sikora a couple of times, to interview him. In 2007 I wrote a gloomy piece about the future cost of cancer treatment and recommended an increase in the average tax burden per household from £20,000 to £23,600. He's motivated by patient outcomes. He has personally seen huge numbers of cancer patients dying unnecessarily...people who would live if they were in many other Euroepean countries. He's frustrated and upset by it and he speaks out and gets a lot of shit for it. I object very strongly to his solution but I think he helps people to comprehend the worth of the NHS by saying very starkly that rich people should have the freedom to pay for a longer life. Sometimes I wonder whether he's saying such horrible things to push society the other way. At any rate it's a discussion we all need to have. Comparing his video with Henry Marsh's one is something everyone needs to do, especially the people thinking of voting Tory.


----------



## zora (May 21, 2020)

Also, Tory man just casually threw in on the topic of the future of theatre, that who knows, now that we have got antibody tests, maybe people who have had it, will be able to go to the theatre come winter...
As if that didn't exactly open the massive can of worms we have already touched on in discussion here (basically a two-tier society and the danger of people wanting to get infected).


----------



## William of Walworth (May 21, 2020)

David Clapson : I'm about to go to bed, so not too much time here just now .......
But just for the record, I did watch both Prof. Sikora's video and Dr. Henry Marsh's video (both 2017, both about two minutes -- my much earlier post linked to the relevant page for both).
I thought Marsh's piece made a vast amount more sense, but in any case, whatever anyone thinks about Sikora's favouring of NHS privatisation, what he's saying about coronavirus *now* seems hugely out of line with what any other scientists are currently saying about the pandemic.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 22, 2020)

Sorry zora -- I missed your posts  while posting my reply to David Clapson above (foot of previous page).


----------



## zora (May 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Sorry zora -- I missed your posts  while posting my reply to David Clapson above.


No probs


----------



## zahir (May 22, 2020)

Gtr Mcr STILL doesn't know how many people are testing positive for COVID-19
					

'There are an enormous number of people that are being tested but we don’t know who they are, where they work, we don’t know what their results are'




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
				





> Public health officials and local leaders still have no idea how many people are testing positive for Covid-19 in Greater Manchester, due to continued chaos within the national system.
> 
> Health boss Sir Richard Leese said there were an ‘enormous number of people’ being tested at locations such as Manchester Airport and the Etihad about whom the region has no information whatsoever.
> 
> ...


----------



## little_legs (May 22, 2020)




----------



## little_legs (May 22, 2020)

Friends, do you remember govt's commitment to carry out 100K tests/day? Well, not so fast. 

Tens of thousands of coronavirus tests have been double-counted, officials admit


----------



## maomao (May 22, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




I wanted to see the photo that went with that because it wouldn't show so I went to Twitter and it's this:



Wtf is up with the person on the left's face? Is this some sort of protective head covering we're meant to start wearing or did someone decide there was something unnacceptable about the face in the original picture, cross it out and then forget to fix it?


----------



## little_legs (May 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> I wanted to see the photo that went with that because it wouldn't show so I went to Twitter and it's this:
> 
> View attachment 213958
> 
> Wtf is up with the person on the left's face? Is this some sort of protective head covering we're meant to start wearing or did someone decide there was something unnacceptable about the face in the original picture, cross it out and then forget to fix it?


Good God. LOL.


----------



## elbows (May 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> I wanted to see the photo that went with that because it wouldn't show so I went to Twitter and it's this:
> 
> Wtf is up with the person on the left's face? Is this some sort of protective head covering we're meant to start wearing or did someone decide there was something unnacceptable about the face in the original picture, cross it out and then forget to fix it?



Its hair, they have their backs to us.


----------



## maomao (May 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its hair, they have their backs to us.


I could do better hair than that. But I think you're right.


----------



## little_legs (May 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> I could do better hair than that. But I think you're right.


Ah, the lack of hairdressers has taken its toll on all of us. I see.


----------



## bimble (May 22, 2020)

This article just compounds my sense that this is all going to go on for years and years, even if we sort of pretend that it's not. This way of looking at things, with no end (no clear end) in sight - not next year and very possibly not ever -  is not good for your optimism levels but might it help if more people did start thinking this way, of this as the new normal, instead of imagining that in a few moths somehow it will be all over? I don't know. 








						Why we might not get a coronavirus vaccine
					

Politicians have become more cautious about immunisation prospects. They are right to be




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Shechemite (May 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> This article just compounds my sense that this is all going to go on for years and years, even if we sort of pretend that it's not. This way of looking at things, with no end (no clear end) in sight - not next year and very possibly not ever -  is not good for your optimism levels but might it help if more people did start thinking this way, of this as the new normal, instead of imagining that in a few moths somehow it will be all over? I don't know.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



all the scum will benefit out of the misery.


----------



## elbows (May 22, 2020)

Looking on the bright side, I dont actually want politicians and the establishment medical and scientific figures to be too complacent about a vaccine. Because that sort of thinking which involved over reliance on vaccines is part of what gave us crap pandemic plans in the first place. Its the sort of thing that can cause a government to avoid a proper virus suppression, test, track, trace, etc system, and just play for time till the magical solution arrives.

We've been told for a long time that we wont go back to an old normal any time soon, and that this is likely to be a long process. Hell its already been 4 months since we started talking about this virus on the forum. My own assumption is still to prepare for years of disruption, but not always the same level of disruption. In many ways on many fronts, I still prefer to take things one week at a time, and I still expect some twists in the tale, so I dont have a rigid sense of the future.


----------



## Epona (May 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> This article just compounds my sense that this is all going to go on for years and years, even if we sort of pretend that it's not. This way of looking at things, with no end (no clear end) in sight - not next year and very possibly not ever -  is not good for your optimism levels but might it help if more people did start thinking this way, of this as the new normal, instead of imagining that in a few moths somehow it will be all over? I don't know.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Tbf, I don't know why people think even if we do get a vaccine that this might not be going on for years and years - even viruses where vaccines are developed aren't wiped out overnight - polio still exists in a couple of countries and smallpox was a worldwide scourge causing millions of deaths and is unique in that it has actually been eradicated worldwide.  Pandemics aren't a new thing, pandemics of incurable viruses without vaccines are not a new thing.  The new normal is probably what most of human existence has looked like until the 20th century tbh.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (May 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> I wanted to see the photo that went with that because it wouldn't show so I went to Twitter and it's this:
> 
> View attachment 213958
> 
> Wtf is up with the person on the left's face? Is this some sort of protective head covering we're meant to start wearing or did someone decide there was something unnacceptable about the face in the original picture, cross it out and then forget to fix it?



Keep at least one bed away from the PM, got it


----------



## two sheds (May 22, 2020)

The idea of carrying round three fridges with you is just impractical imo


----------



## bimble (May 22, 2020)

Epona said:


> Tbf, I don't know why people think even if we do get a vaccine that this might not be going on for years and years - even viruses where vaccines are developed aren't wiped out overnight - polio still exists in a couple of countries and smallpox was a worldwide scourge causing millions of deaths and is unique in that it has actually been eradicated worldwide.  Pandemics aren't a new thing, pandemics of incurable viruses without vaccines are not a new thing.  The new normal is probably what most of human existence has looked like until the 20th century tbh.


Well exactly, all of that. But if that’s how it is, that we will be living with this virus for the foreseeable, that maybe life expectancy will go down again, isn’t it basically just going to be personal judgement sooner or later on when to go and hug your old parents and stuff like that?


----------



## belboid (May 22, 2020)

This is apparently real


----------



## teuchter (May 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> I wanted to see the photo that went with that because it wouldn't show so I went to Twitter and it's this:
> 
> View attachment 213958
> 
> Wtf is up with the person on the left's face? Is this some sort of protective head covering we're meant to start wearing or did someone decide there was something unnacceptable about the face in the original picture, cross it out and then forget to fix it?


Is this actually a real graphic? I'm not bothered about the face, it's obviously the back of their head. But how is 3 fridges a useful measurement to anyone? And benches? What size of bench? An unusually short one metre long bench like the kind of length of bench that you would pretty much never see? What are they on?


----------



## Epona (May 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Well exactly, all of that. But if that’s how it is, that we will be living with this virus for the foreseeable, that maybe life expectancy will go down again, isn’t it basically just going to be personal judgement sooner or later on when to go and hug your old parents and stuff like that?



Not really, no - if we have a chance to keep it at a level where billions aren't dying giving a chance to develop better treatments and potentially vaccines then we have to do that.  The reason why I said "before the 20th Century" in my previous post is because that is when we started to develop modern medicine, the notion that everyone should have access to healthcare, better hygiene, and a now deep ingrained expectation that we ought to strive towards and fight for these things.  To not do so would be to take a step back from some of the best values we have.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> This is apparently real
> 
> View attachment 213975


Pick in the back of the neck


----------



## killer b (May 22, 2020)

Did they mean to make it so instantly parodyable?


----------



## bimble (May 22, 2020)

Epona said:


> Not really, no - if we have a chance to keep it at a level where billions aren't dying giving a chance to develop better treatments and potentially vaccines then we have to do that.  The reason why I said "before the 20th Century" in my previous post is because that is when we started to develop modern medicine, the notion that everyone should have access to healthcare, better hygiene, and a now deep ingrained expectation that we ought to strive towards and fight for these things.  To not do so would be to take a step back from some of the best values we have.


Not asking you or anyone to answer this personally obvs but I’m preoccupied with the parental hug question, because they keep asking me (theyre both mid seventies & not in UK). If staying away from them for the greater good / increased chance of a vaccine being developed means staying away for five years that’s too much, imo. Two years is long. Etc. It’s not without massive costs is all I mean, as we all know.


----------



## Sue (May 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> This is apparently real
> 
> View attachment 213975


Pick getting paid terrible money for days of backbreaking work.

Pick living in terrible accommodation and paying through the nose for it. 

Pick getting treated like shit.

(Not personal experience but what I've heard from friends who've done this kind of work.)


----------



## belboid (May 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> Did they mean to make it so instantly parodyable?


As it is effectively a parody already, they didn’t really have any choice.  It is hard to believe more than two minutes thought went into creating it tho.


----------



## belboid (May 22, 2020)

Have we had this yet? Another i can’t believe it’s not on the joke thread. 


Wetherspoons are actually bringing in beer goggles. 

Goggles for their staff to wear.  Who says Fuckwit Martin doesn’t understand immunology?










						JD Wetherspoon pubs to reopen with staff in goggles post-lockdown
					

Blueprint includes daily health checks for staff and protective screens between tables




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The idea of carrying round three fridges with you is just impractical imo


Especially as Johnson's hiding in one of them


----------



## andysays (May 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> As it is effectively a parody already, they didn’t really have any choice.  It is hard to believe more than two minutes thought went into creating it tho.


I immediately thought of this


----------



## belboid (May 22, 2020)

andysays said:


> I immediately thought of this
> 
> View attachment 213991


That is surely what it’s based on. It couldn’t be an accident, could it?


----------



## BCBlues (May 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Especially as Johnson's hiding in one of them



It's like that game where you shuffle them around and guess which one Johnson is hiding in


----------



## ddraig (May 22, 2020)

andysays said:


> I immediately thought of this
> 
> View attachment 213991


really? you're sharp eh!


----------



## Mation (May 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> View attachment 213958


kittyP 
One rolling
One bowling


----------



## Mation (May 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The idea of carrying round three fridges with you is just impractical imo


Just lay them in a row across the bed and strap them down with bungee cords. Wheels (or skis) under the legs. Fasten yourself into a harness, and you're off!


----------



## two sheds (May 22, 2020)

Mation said:


> Just lay them in a row across the bed and strap them down with bungee cords. Wheels (or skis) under the legs. Fasten yourself into a harness, and you're off!



And the 2 benches and 4 chairs? You're just not thinking this through


----------



## Nine Bob Note (May 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> This is apparently real
> 
> View attachment 213975



Pick that for a game of soldiers.


----------



## teuchter (May 22, 2020)

TfL re-instating bus fares in London from tomorrow apparently.


----------



## little_legs (May 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> As it is effectively a parody already, they didn’t really have any choice.  It is hard to believe more than two minutes thought went into creating it tho.


And the original author isn't happy about it


----------



## agricola (May 22, 2020)

Sue said:


> Pick getting paid terrible money for days of backbreaking work.
> 
> Pick living in terrible accommodation and paying through the nose for it.
> 
> ...



Of the many things that do my head in with how the government have handled this crisis, this is probably the one that infuriates me the most.   Daily / hourly references to Churchill, a PM that actually physically apes Winston, wartime rhetoric all over the messaging and yet two actual examples of how to solve exactly this problem are completely ignored.


----------



## Petcha (May 22, 2020)

Jesus christ Priti Patel is so fucking useless. She's completely and utterly clueless. This press conference is painful. She's a fucking idiot. Nothing short of a fucking idiot.

That's all i got.


----------



## Sue (May 22, 2020)

agricola said:


> Of the many things that do my head in with how the government have handled this crisis, this is probably the one that infuriates me the most.   Daily / hourly references to Churchill, a PM that actually physically apes Winston, wartime rhetoric all over the messaging and yet two actual examples of how to solve exactly this problem are completely ignored.



And fucking Prince fucking Charles going on about people needing to step up for 'hard graft' . FFS.









						Coronavirus latest: a senior royal wants us to *checks notes* work harder | Joel Golby
					

With Prince Charles urging the public to pick fruit for Blighty, the problem isn’t so much the message as the messenger, says author Joel Golby




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Petcha (May 22, 2020)

She's actually getting worse. She's not answered any question competently and not allowing any follow-ups as the other stooges they put up do. Why are the journos not calling her on it??


----------



## little_legs (May 22, 2020)

Sue said:


> Pick getting paid terrible money for days of backbreaking work.
> 
> Pick living in terrible accommodation and paying through the nose for it.
> 
> ...



It's fascist propaganda, suffering for the state is just another way to make ordinary people feel like heroes.

Why hasn't the government turned landlords into heroes is beyond me. I mean, heck, I would even clap for them on a weekly basis.


----------



## weltweit (May 22, 2020)

Petcha said:


> She's actually getting worse. She's not answered any question competently


TBF none of them answer the questions.


----------



## Petcha (May 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> TBF none of them answer the questions.



She's certainly the worst of them all. The press office must cringe when they're forced to wheel her out. How did she get to such a high position? The science guy was basically forced to provide any form of sense there.


----------



## weltweit (May 22, 2020)

Petcha said:


> She's certainly the worst of them all. The press office must cringe when they're forced to wheel her out. How did she get to such a high position?


The only thing I can think of is that she was loyal to Johnson going way back to the Brexit campaign and this position is her payback. Not saying it is right or even wise but Johnson seems to surround himself with the loyal rather than the talented. 



Petcha said:


> The science guy was basically forced to provide any form of sense there.


Yes, you are right she did pass much off on Vallance.


----------



## philosophical (May 22, 2020)

So the C4 person asked if quarantine for 14 days on arrival saves lives why not start now.
No answer, no follow up invited.
Incidentally Patel said 'obviously' twelve times in the Q&A session.
If it's all so obvious why have the briefings at all?


----------



## weltweit (May 22, 2020)

from 21/05/2020 English death rate now at normal winter levels as coronavirus deaths fall


> Speaking at the government’s daily press conference, Prof Chris Whitty said: “All-cause mortality has come down at the same time as the Covid deaths have come down and it is now at roughly the rate it is at in an average winter. So we are essentially having a winter … in terms of mortality, but in late spring and early summer.”


----------



## BigTom (May 22, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Is this actually a real graphic? I'm not bothered about the face, it's obviously the back of their head. But how is 3 fridges a useful measurement to anyone? And benches? What size of bench? An unusually short one metre long bench like the kind of length of bench that you would pretty much never see? What are they on?



In the tory's mind all benches should be 3ft long to stop homeless people from sleeping on them.


----------



## andysays (May 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> That is surely what it’s based on. It couldn’t be an accident, could it?


It seems a bizarre choice if so, but equally it's hard to believe it's accidental.



ddraig said:


> really? you're sharp eh!


Sorry, I've let myself down, I've let the thread down, but most of all I've let Urban down.

I'll hang my head in shame for ever mentioning it...


----------



## two sheds (May 22, 2020)

BigTom said:


> In the tory's mind all benches should be 3ft long to stop homeless people from sleeping on them.



There are exceptions mind with comfy benches:


----------



## The39thStep (May 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> Have we had this yet? Another i can’t believe it’s not on the joke thread.
> 
> 
> Wetherspoons are actually bringing in beer goggles.
> ...


Does he mean visor type protection ? That’s worn here by staff in supermarkets and some bars.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 22, 2020)

They stick a swab in your nose and one in your throat.

That's counted as two tests.


----------



## Sunray (May 22, 2020)

Sue said:


> Pick getting paid terrible money for days of backbreaking work.
> 
> Pick living in terrible accommodation and paying through the nose for it.
> 
> ...



I was listening to a very interesting discussion on why people didn't take up the work.  There are loads.

It was this LBC discussion,

LBC discussion on fruit picking

 interesting from about 13 min in.

Some things I didn't realise.  The work is piece work, not minimum wage, so if you're good at it its possible you can make 500-600 a week.  Berries are often on tables so bending down is less of a thing.

The reasons were varied, off the top of my head.... 

Its generally live on, because it's geared around migrant workers.  The accommodation isn't free, but if you're already living somewhere, you don't want to pay twice.  Its somewhere to sleep, but not great shared static caravans or alternatively camping.   I don't do tent camping anymore, its not great when its for leisure. When your working and all you have to go back to after a hard day is a cold tent.  No no no.
There isn't transport apart from driving, the farms are really in the middle of nowhere, no car, no work picking.  Your colleagues live on so not getting a lift. 
Clearly your not going to be doing anything like 500 a week at the start. So your transport is eating into your pay.  Plus the time,  crack of dawn in the summer is like 5am so you'd need to be up at 4am.
If you've got any responsibilities, it doesn't really fit around them very well.
Seasonal work is all well and good but it has a hard end. 
If you are furloughed then who knows when you might be able to go back to your job?
Some farms aren't taking UK workers, not enough space for live-in due to distancing.


----------



## UnderAnOpenSky (May 22, 2020)

It's bloody hard work and does take a while to get up to speed. I did it in Australia when I was much younger and it was hard then. Fuck that it the UK. Although you probably wouldn't be working with people who shot up crystal meth every weekend.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Not asking you or anyone to answer this personally obvs but I’m preoccupied with the parental hug question, because they keep asking me (theyre both mid seventies & not in UK). If staying away from them for the greater good / increased chance of a vaccine being developed means staying away for five years that’s too much, imo. Two years is long. Etc. It’s not without massive costs is all I mean, as we all know.


There are ways to manage it. For example if you were planning on seeing them, then you could both isolate beforehand to make sure.


----------



## bimble (May 22, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> There are ways to manage it. For example if you were planning on seeing them, then you could both isolate beforehand to make sure.


Yep. For me I’d have to fly to see them (or drive for days which would be safer but still not safe) so for now anyway it feels impossible. What I’d like to figure out is some marker (for myself) that would mean that the risk I’d pose them by going to see them is worth it, iykwim.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yep. For me I’d have to fly to see them (or drive for days which would be safer but still not safe) so for now anyway it feels impossible. What I’d like to figure out is some marker (for myself) that would mean that the risk I’d pose them by going to see them is worth it, iykwim.


I guess you would have to quarantine when you got to wherever they are. As long as you quarantine first and as long as you dont have symptoms-I think that's all you can do.

So a work friend of mine (a nurse) has just gone back to Spain. Her parents have both driven their cars to Gibraltar so that she and her bf can take one car and they can go back to Cadiz in separate cars. Then they are going to quarantine in her bf parents summer house before them both going separately to their parents.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 22, 2020)

Pressure on Dominic Cummings to quit over lockdown breach
					

Exclusive: PM’s adviser was with parents away from London home when he had coronavirus symptoms




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## bimble (May 22, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I guess you would have to quarantine when you got to wherever they are. As long as you quarantine first and as long as you dont have symptoms-I think that's all you can do.
> 
> So a work friend of mine (a nurse) has just gone back to Spain. Her parents have both driven their cars to Gibraltar so that she and her bf can take one car and they can go back to Cadiz in separate cars. Then they are going to quarantine in her bf parents summer house before them both going separately to their parents.


This kind of thing, it’s how it’ll have to be done. Good to hear about an example like that. No summer house option but there’ll be a solution, does mean a quick visit will take a looong time.


----------



## two sheds (May 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Pressure on Dominic Cummings to quit over lockdown breach
> 
> 
> Exclusive: PM’s adviser was with parents away from London home when he had coronavirus symptoms
> ...





> A member of the public is understood to have seen him and made a complaint to the police.



Nice to see public spirited members of the public still around  



> Breaking lockdown rules has been a resigning issue for senior officials.
> 
> Prof Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist whose modelling prompted the lockdown, quit as a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) for flouting physical distancing rules when he was visited by his girlfriend.
> 
> ...


----------



## killer b (May 22, 2020)

Cummings isn't going to resign or get booted y'know. They don't give a shit when it's them.


----------



## two sheds (May 22, 2020)

Say it's not true


----------



## little_legs (May 22, 2020)

It's a good job that Laura the boot licker is here to help all of us see the light.


----------



## teuchter (May 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Not asking you or anyone to answer this personally obvs but I’m preoccupied with the parental hug question, because they keep asking me (theyre both mid seventies & not in UK). If staying away from them for the greater good / increased chance of a vaccine being developed means staying away for five years that’s too much, imo. Two years is long.


Two or five years is certainly too much when your parents are of the age that there's no guarantee they'll still be around in that time, regardless of Covid. I think people will just start doing the pre-quarantining thing, with varying degrees of rigour. Maybe it'll be a way of getting people to spend a bit longer doing visits, travelling a bit slower, instead of rushed fly-bys though.


----------



## The39thStep (May 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> This is apparently real
> 
> View attachment 213975


I read recently that thousands of German POWs were put in the fields for fruit and crop picking after the Second World War .


----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 22, 2020)

Today’s briefing, Patel brings in the UK fuckin Border Force, to bang on about drugs, contraband & illegal immigrants. Fuck all to do with a current pandemic. I could have put my boot through the fuckin tele!

When can we throw rocks at this gov?


----------



## Epona (May 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yep. For me I’d have to fly to see them (or drive for days which would be safer but still not safe) so for now anyway it feels impossible. What I’d like to figure out is some marker (for myself) that would mean that the risk I’d pose them by going to see them is worth it, iykwim.



Honestly please don't let my pessimistic/nihilistic mood today about everything get you down - even if we have to live with this thing for decades we will not be without family contact forever - we'll develop protocols for minimising risk, whether that involves more accurate spot testing (which I suspect may be a more realistic short term hope than a vaccine) repeated over a few days or isolation measures or hygiene protocols for conducting visits, along with contact tracing and knowing more about the virus (seasonality etc).   That is (short of letting the thing run rampant and killing millions, which I don't think most of us want) kind of the worst case scenario - it won't be never seeing family and friends again, it will be taking precautions to reduce risk of spread.


----------



## GarveyLives (May 22, 2020)

GarveyLives said:


> Very sad:
> 
> Station ticket office worker dies with Covid-19 after being spat at
> 
> ...




Disturbing:

Taxi driver died after fare-dodger spat at him and said he had coronavirus






(Source: As stated in image)

The Late _Trevor Belle_, who had taken fares up until the day of the attack on 22 March 2020 and was widely acknowledged for having one of the cleanest cabs on the rank, had taken every health precaution while working before the incident on West Ham Lane in Stratford.

He reported the incident to a nearby police van, and _he was told the case was not pursuing over a £9 fare_.

He did not work after the attack, and four days later started to suffer coronavirus symptoms. Over the course of a few days, 
his condition worsened and he struggled to breathe. He was later taken away by paramedics, which was the last time his family saw him alive.​


----------



## tommers (May 22, 2020)




----------



## Sprocket. (May 22, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> When can we throw rocks at this gov?



As soon as you like, but be certain to wash your hands!


----------



## teuchter (May 23, 2020)

tommers said:


>



Sounds a bit like confirming the obvious to me. Do we learn anything useful from this?


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 23, 2020)

tommers said:


>






teuchter said:


> Sounds a bit like confirming the obvious to me. Do we learn anything useful from this?





Papers and media are killing people


----------



## killer b (May 23, 2020)

It suggests that the curtain twitchers are actually making it worse too, I suppose. That's funny.


----------



## tommers (May 23, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Sounds a bit like confirming the obvious to me. Do we learn anything useful from this?



Well now we're all highly qualified epidemiologists maybe not.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 23, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Papers and media are killing people




Yup. Classic availability cascade. Easy to get pictures of two dozen people on a beach, impossible to find pictures of thousands of people staying at home.


----------



## PD58 (May 23, 2020)

So what the govt are saying is it is 'essential' to travel in a car with someone who has Coronavirus plus a child for 260 miles, therefore putting yourself and child at risk, to be near one's extended family so they can bring you food...REALLY!!!  If he needed childcare one assumes the child was placed with the extended family having spent probably 4 hours breathing the virus with the risk this entails and this is acceptable????  FFS. It will be interesting to see who is put out to front his tonight...they really are a bunch of self serving bastards.


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2020)

2hats said:


> It's the Abbott one.



I'm starting to see adverts like this one on Facebook:


----------



## zora (May 23, 2020)

The Cummings thing is an absolutely disgusting shitshow. And how the hell is this even framed as a breach (a potential one as that) of travelling in lockdown rules. He's travelled the breadth of the country _with the fucking virus_, knowingly!  Or is this yet another one of the brilliant reverse psychology stints, because people were too afraid to come out of lockdown, so that we now all say "to hell with the consequences"? It makes me so angry.

On another note, just had a little look how things are going in Germany, and posting this here because I guess experiences are pertinent to UK emerging from lockdown. Quick google and two headlines of the day: 7 infected after restaurant visit in the north of Germany, now 50 contact persons in quarantine and rising as more potential contacts are attempted to be notifed and isolated. 40 people infected after a religious service in Frankfurt. Both the restaurant and the church claim that distancing and hygiene rules were followed, which I guess, they would say and it might not be true. But it might be true, and it might just go to show how massive a role aerosol transmission does play, and that just distancing to minimise droplet infection and hand-hygiene to minimise contact transmission (which in my understanding is a fairly low risk anyway) does precious little in enclosed spaces.


----------



## Mation (May 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm starting to see adverts like this one on Facebook:
> 
> View attachment 214162


My questions (not targeted at you, elbows - thanks for sharing the info  ):

How come this is available privately, before via the NHS? (What's the process that means this is possible.)

Why is it available now? (I'm assuming for cash, but if there are any 'good' reasons for this being available via this route, it would be good to hear.)

Is it worth it?


----------



## kabbes (May 23, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Papers and media are killing people



This is old news, from a behavioural psychology perspective.  It’s what the whole nudge unit was founded on.  Their first success was in writing to people to tell them the high rate at which other people were paying their taxes, because it was found to encourage recipients of such a letter to pay their own taxes.


----------



## two sheds (May 23, 2020)

zora said:


> The Cummings thing is an absolutely disgusting shitshow. And how the hell is this even framed as a breach (a potential one as that) of travelling in lockdown rules. He's travelled the breadth of the country _with the fucking virus_, knowingly!  Or is this yet another one of the brilliant reverse psychology stints, because people were too afraid to come out of lockdown, so that we now all say "to hell with the consequences"? It makes me so angry.
> 
> On another note, just had a little look how things are going in Germany, and posting this here because I guess experiences are pertinent to UK emerging from lockdown. Quick google and two headlines of the day: 7 infected after restaurant visit in the north of Germany, now 50 contact persons in quarantine and rising as more potential contacts are attempted to be notifed and isolated. 40 people infected after a religious service in Frankfurt. Both the restaurant and the church claim that distancing and hygiene rules were followed, which I guess, they would say and it might not be true. But it might be true, and it might just go to show how massive a role aerosol transmission does play, and that just distancing to minimise droplet infection and hand-hygiene to minimise contact transmission (which in my understanding is a fairly low risk anyway) does precious little in enclosed spaces.



Plus risk of a crash calling out essential services, plus risk of breakdown calling out AA for example. As we've been repeatedly told for people who _didn't _have the virus.


----------



## Mation (May 23, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Sounds a bit like confirming the obvious to me. Do we learn anything useful from this?


Evidence is useful, even if it's for what we all already know is the case. Plus, we humans often get a cause or mechanism badly wrong when we rely on intuition and introspection (which can then lead us down all sorts of useless or dangerous paths). It's worth checking things.


----------



## LDC (May 23, 2020)

Mation said:


> My questions (not targeted at you, elbows - thanks for sharing the info  ):
> 
> How come this is available privately, before via the NHS? (What's the process that means this is possible.)
> 
> ...



It's much harder for it to get official PHE/NHS approval for them to use than to be sold privately after being approved for that. You can get them via the NHS, but antibody testing of the general public has limited value at the moment given what we know about immunity. It is being done for population sampling though I think.

It's available now as it's been developed and there's a market for it. Not sure what you mean more than that?

Within the realms of its claimed accuracy, it depends. It can tell you whether you have had the virus, that's all. Anything about immunity is currently not known for sure.

Full disclosure: I bought one recently from a private provider than sells them to NHS staff as less than cost. My reasoning was nearly 100% curiosity, I was working in a hospital (before infection control and social distancing got strict) with plenty of CV+ patients and for a couple of weeks I had 7-10 days of a cough and feeling very mildly unwell. Either way the result won't change what I do social distancing wise.


----------



## frogwoman (May 23, 2020)

Does the Abbott test data from private tests get recorded on a central database anywhere? So would it be included in '5% of people had it' type headlines?


----------



## LDC (May 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Does the Abbott test data from private tests get recorded on a central database anywhere? So would it be included in '5% of people had it' type headlines?



No idea tbh. Suspect not, it's a small lab in London doing the test I got. Be all sorts of data protection stuff involved, and I didn't see any of those kind of disclaimers or 'tick this box for your...' bits in the paperwork!


----------



## LDC (May 23, 2020)

Daily briefing ffs. Shapps just talking as much as possible about trains and bikes, hoping the time will run out so none is left for questions I suspect! Felt more like a clear Conservative party political broadcast more than anything CV related tbh.


----------



## ginger_syn (May 23, 2020)

Getting a bit snippy now


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 23, 2020)

Jesus - they're explicitly _changing the guidance_, in order to protect Cummings.


----------



## PD58 (May 23, 2020)

He isn't even briefed fully - another shit show...


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 23, 2020)

For ONE man, one arrogant, entitled cunt. For him, fuck everyone else. I know single parents, stuck in flats with no outdoor space, with more than one young child - who've observed this to the fucking letter.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 23, 2020)

People who've lost loved ones, without being able to say goodbye - this is beyond embarrassing. I know I shouldn't be surprised but this is fucking despicable.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 23, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Jesus - they're explicitly _changing the guidance_, in order to protect Cummings.


Yep


----------



## PD58 (May 23, 2020)

I hope the right wing press rip him to pieces tomorrow...


----------



## Callie (May 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Does the Abbott test data from private tests get recorded on a central database anywhere? So would it be included in '5% of people had it' type headlines?



TDL are processing the superdrug tests so pretty sure their test data will be sent to PHE and therefore included in any stats.

Not sure that all private labs would have to submit that data. Any lab with any scruples should want to!

In terms of COVID being notifiable that generally doesn't cover positive IgG antibodies for the notifiable infectious microorganism however given the novel nature of COVID that might be different!


----------



## LDC (May 23, 2020)

Johnson must have known. It's inconceivable that he wouldn't know his advisor had driven to Durham to stay there for 14 days.


----------



## Supine (May 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Johnson must have known. It's inconceivable that he wouldn't know his advisor had driven to Durham to stay there for 14 days.



Unless he was fighting for his life - I'm not sure anyone has worked out the timings on that yet. 

I bet he's fucking fuming at Dom now though


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 23, 2020)

I mean, even in the poisonous band of brothers that makes up the gov, it's jaw dropping that there is so much effort put into protecting him, over the continuing care of the country as a whole, with so much loss suffered already.
It's like the flip of a coin, in how we manage it, when the cause is now wholly driven by the protection of one, scummy individual.


----------



## chilango (May 23, 2020)

The cynic in me speculates that the government won't be _too_ unhappy at the Cummings shitshow.


It distracts
Individualises
...and if it helps nudge people into collapsing the lockdown, well, ££££, without the government having to explicitly be responsible for lifting it.
The less cynical side of me thinks they just fucked up cos arrogance.


----------



## Supine (May 23, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I mean, even in the poisonous band of brothers that makes up the gov, it's jaw dropping that there is so much effort put into protecting him, over the continuing care of the country as a whole, with so much loss suffered already.
> It's like the flip of a coin, in how we manage it, when the cause is now wholly driven by the protection of one, scummy individual.



The reason he's being protected is that he's our defacto prime minister. Boris is just the chimp who does the podium bits.


----------



## belboid (May 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> Boris is just the chimp who very occasionally does the podium bits.


ftfy


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2020)

> Ministers are rallying around Dominic Cummings and it's clear the PM does not want to lose a trusted adviser with whom he first worked closely on the Vote Leave campaign.
> 
> The hope is that this will be seen as a "Westminster bubble" story and that the bubble will soon burst. Also, after a U-turn on the NHS surcharge for migrants this week, No 10 will not want to look as though it is on the run.
> 
> But this is an issue that has resonance way beyond Westminster.





> Other parents will have been sick during the pandemic and stuck to what they thought were the guidelines to self isolate for up to 14 days.
> 
> So, the danger for the government isn’t just the prospect of political attacks from opponents.
> 
> ...



From the BBC live updates page, which also recently shows some of the sacrifices people have made.

Oh and the SNP's Westminster leader:



> Dominic Cummings should be sacked by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson for travelling almost 260 miles to be near family members during lockdown, says the Scottish National Party's Westminster leader Ian Blackford.
> 
> "It is quite shocking. We've had no acceptance that what he did was wrong," Blackford told the BBC News Channel.
> 
> ...





			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52781481


----------



## philosophical (May 23, 2020)

One of them said early on in one of the briefings that lockdown was an 'instruction' from the government. Not law or advice, but _instruction_ (might even have been Rabb when he was being rolled out)


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 23, 2020)

philosophical said:


> One of them said early on in one of the briefings that lockdown was an 'instruction' from the government. Not law or advice, but _instruction_ (might even have been Rabb when he was being rolled out)



ETA - Hancock on 3rd April.


----------



## killer b (May 23, 2020)

it was Hancock


----------



## frogwoman (May 23, 2020)

Grant Shapps
					

Grant Shapps resigned as a minister in 2015 following revelations of his involvement with a bullying scandal that had led to a young Conservative Party activist taking their own life. Few would have imagined he could ever be reappointed to cabinet, still less to a more senior role. But in July...



					cabinetofhorrors.org


----------



## smokedout (May 23, 2020)

zora said:


> On another note, just had a little look how things are going in Germany, and posting this here because I guess experiences are pertinent to UK emerging from lockdown. Quick google and two headlines of the day: 7 infected after restaurant visit in the north of Germany, now 50 contact persons in quarantine and rising as more potential contacts are attempted to be notifed and isolated. 40 people infected after a religious service in Frankfurt. Both the restaurant and the church claim that distancing and hygiene rules were followed, which I guess, they would say and it might not be true. But it might be true, and it might just go to show how massive a role aerosol transmission does play, and that just distancing to minimise droplet infection and hand-hygiene to minimise contact transmission (which in my understanding is a fairly low risk anyway) does precious little in enclosed spaces.



My brother-in-law's son works on the phones for one of the big banks, not sure which one.  He's been classed as an essential worker and been working throughout in socially distanced offices with protocols in place for hand washing and all that stuff.  He's just had to get tested after someone in his office got it, he's negative but it turned out 6 people had it.  On a related note I got a note through the door this morning from the bus garage at the end of the road warning of disruption this week due to a procession for two bus driver's who've died.

I suspect that whilst we've all been crossing the street to avoid each other and washing our groceries the main, if not more or less the only route of transmission between households has been the workplace, including care homes and hospitals.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 23, 2020)

smokedout said:


> I suspect that whilst we've all been crossing the street to avoid each other and washing our groceries the main, if not more or less the only route of transmission between households has been the workplace, including care homes and hospitals.


Oh absolutely. We know it spreads much more easily from lengthy close proximity in areas with restricted airflow. Where are the most common instances of that? Commuting, workplaces, schools, just like any other similar virus. Once those were closed down or at least restricted, oh look we get a hugely reduced incidence rate, but apparently that was just because of proper self-discipline or something and it's now vanished so we can all get on the tube again and it's fine and the R rate will definitely not go up again no sir.

ETA: it was always a basically unhealthy setup that regularly spread viruses from one corner of London to another in a day - my kid got it from someone at school, I got it from my kid, I travelled in to work, you got it from me, you gave it to your kid, your kid gave it to other kids at their school - but it was just treated as "one of those things". Not such a joke now.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 23, 2020)

> The new testimony suggests Cummings left the home where he was staying in Durham to visit a town 30 miles away. He was allegedly spotted back in Durham on 19 April, days after he was photographed in London having recovered from the virus.


----------



## editor (May 23, 2020)

I hope there's some lawyers with clients convicted of breaking the lockdown ready to go back to the courts for an appeal now.


----------



## frogwoman (May 23, 2020)

22 days of dither and delay on coronavirus that cost thousands of British lives can anyone see the whole of this article? I cant


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 22 days of dither and delay on coronavirus that cost thousands of British lives can anyone see the whole of this article? I cant



No but it drags me back to that period in March that I'm always going on about.

I have seen the bit of it thats on their newspapers front page tomorrow.


----------



## zahir (May 24, 2020)

New funding for local authorities to support test and trace.









						£300 million additional funding for local authorities to support new test and trace service
					

Local authorities will be central to supporting the new test and trace service in England, with the government providing a new funding package of £300 million.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Lurdan (May 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 22 days of dither and delay on coronavirus that cost thousands of British lives can anyone see the whole of this article? I cant



Archived version here


----------



## two sheds (May 24, 2020)

This is heartwarming: sponsored article in the Independent with four personal stories of how the government has helped them.









						How the Government is helping UK businesses in the Covid-19 crisis
					

<p>From the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan scheme to VAT deferrals, the support available is comprehensive</p>




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Cid (May 24, 2020)

zahir said:


> New funding for local authorities to support test and trace.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Hmm... total of 343 in England (there’s additional allocation to devolved regions). So average £875,000ish. I mean clearly I have no idea how it will be allocated, what role LA’s will play etc. But that’s a grand total of 6 failed garden bridges.


----------



## Shechemite (May 24, 2020)

CQC continuing their fine tradition of being fucking useless CQC under fire from care home body for failing to report true death toll to ministers


----------



## zora (May 24, 2020)

This is just grimmer than grim (the Cummings debacle). I can't even watch the actual press conference (to protect the old blood pressure), just been reading updates on the other thread. Apart from the general cuntishness, and apart from what this might mean for people's feelings about lockdown rules more widely, it seems to trash any hope of successful contact tracing and isolating. I read an article the other day about some retired doctors who attempted this and who reported how difficult it was to get people to quarantine. How are you going to explain this now, especially to the many people who had contact with a person with the virus who would have to go into preemptive quarantine for 14 days without being symptomatic themselves.


----------



## cyril_smear (May 24, 2020)

what was the gist of the update today(not the cummings stuff)? Will the restrictions be eased and if so how?

Apologies but I've said it before and will say it again, I've a terrible attention span.


----------



## two sheds (May 24, 2020)

zora said:


> This is just grimmer than grim (the Cummings debacle). I can't even watch the actual press conference (to protect the old blood pressure), just been reading updates on the other thread. Apart from the general cuntishness, and apart from what this might mean for people's feelings about lockdown rules more widely, it seems to trash any hope of successful contact tracing and isolating. I read an article the other day about some retired doctors who attempted this and who reported how difficult it was to get people to quarantine. How are you going to explain this now, especially to the many people who had contact with a person with the virus who would have to go into preemptive quarantine for 14 days without being symptomatic themselves.



I know, I'm FUMING. Nobody says whether they're talking about the reporter or Johnson's reply on that thread. I have no idea who said what. Very poor


----------



## elbows (May 24, 2020)

Small and mostly unimportant stats nerd update, just a little something I only just noticed.

For a very long time the data for hospital deaths in England around the end of March was obviously wrong. The drop on the 31st never showed up in ONS etc figures and its pretty obvious that its incorrect. And what I noticed is that they finally fixed this issue on May 21st.

May 20th:



May 21st:



From NHS England daily deaths data at Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths


----------



## BristolEcho (May 24, 2020)

MadeInBedlam said:


> CQC continuing their fine tradition of being fucking useless CQC under fire from care home body for failing to report true death toll to ministers



Wrote about it elsewhere, but I know somebody who was complaining to CQC about being sent to workplaces they didn't even need to be at purely so they weren't furloughed. They said there was no issue. Days later report comes out showing how much this has added to care home death tolls. They really are shit.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

After all these months where hospital infection control was an obvious topic but there was no particular incident for the press etc to shine a light on such matters, finally we have one, and quite a dramatic one. Only a very slight reading between the lines is required, since the official statements are still tiptoeing round the obvious:









						Coronavirus outbreak sees Weston hospital close to new patients
					

Weston General Hospital is closed to new patients due to an outbreak of Covid-19. The hospital, in Grange Road, has stopped accepting...




					www.thewestonmercury.co.uk
				






> Dr William Oldfield, medical director at UHBW, said: “As with any hospital, the number of patients with Covid-19 will frequently change as people are admitted and discharged.
> 
> “We currently have a high number of patients with Covid-19 in Weston General Hospital.
> 
> “*Whilst the vast majority will have come into the hospital with Covid-19*, as an extra precaution we have taken the proactive step to temporarily stop accepting new patients to maintain patient and staff safety.





> “This is a clinically-led decision and we are being supported by our system partners to ensure that new patients receive the care and treatment they need in the appropriate setting, and we are continuing to provide high quality care to existing patients who are being treated in the hospital.
> 
> “We have a robust coronavirus testing programme in place for patients and staff to identify cases quickly, with appropriate measures taken by clinical teams as required.


----------



## Supine (May 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> After all these months where hospital infection control was an obvious topic but there was no particular incident for the press etc to shine a light on such matters, finally we have one, and quite a dramatic one. Only a very slight reading between the lines is required



Not sure what you are insinuating. It makes sense that a hospital would react to the circumstance as it has done.


----------



## IC3D (May 25, 2020)

Hospitals have been closed ships for weeks. Staff all got emails about not talking to the press and have been far to busy to stop and reflect. I'm aware of outbreaks among staff going back to February including deaths, and patients developing covid 19 on the wards as infection control guidelines got ramped up slowly. I think some of this was unavoidable and some not. I think it happened in hospitals country world wide.


----------



## Looby (May 25, 2020)

The closure of that hospital is also a reminder of how quickly small hospitals can get overwhelmed.
I’m sorry to those who want to go surfing or swimming or meet family members or whatever but please don’t come to the South West tourist spots.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

Supine said:


> Not sure what you are insinuating. It makes sense that a hospital would react to the circumstance as it has done.



I'm simply criticising the language of official statements about the outbreak - lets not mention its an outbreak, lets go on about our testing regime, etc etc. The pathetic corporate management speak stuff.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Hospitals have been closed ships for weeks. Staff all got emails about not talking to the press and have been far to busy to stop and reflect. I'm aware of outbreaks among staff going back to February including deaths, and patients developing covid 19 on the wards as infection control guidelines got ramped up slowly. I think some of this was unavoidable and some not. I think it happened in hospitals country world wide.



Yes it was known since before the pandemic really got going worldwide that this stuff would be a massive issue. One of the reasons South Korea got a grip on theirs is that they had a very early outbreak in a hospital psychiatric ward, and they responded appropriately ever since. 

Its only recently that we've actually had UK stories to provide specifics here though. eg the following stuff only came out recently, even though it was expected:









						Fifth of patients with Covid-19 may have caught it in hospital, study finds
					

PHE research chimes with concerns that asymptomatic healthcare workers may have played role in spread




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## IC3D (May 25, 2020)

Discharging Covid + patients to self isolate in care homes has been the biggest fuck up by far and that was a national directive coming from a culture of winter bed crisis's most likely.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Discharging Covid + patients to self isolate in care homes has been the biggest fuck up by far and that was a national directive coming from a culture of winter bed crisis's most likely.



The notorious NHS 'reverse triage' plan that was mentioned in a report about the Cygnus exercise from 2016.



> “Local responders also raised concerns about the expectation that the social care system would be able to provide the level of support needed if the NHS implemented its proposed reverse triage plans, which would entail the movement of patients from hospitals into social care facilities,” the report said.











						What was Exercise Cygnus and what did it find?
					

The 2016 simulation of a pandemic found holes in the UK’s readiness for such a crisis




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## 20Bees (May 25, 2020)

Dominic Cummings making a statement and taking questions at this afternoon’s briefing (just reported on BBC Radio 2 news).


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

20Bees said:


> Dominic Cummings making a statement and taking questions at this afternoon’s briefing (just reported on BBC Radio 2 news).


----------



## editor (May 25, 2020)

Brockwell Park yesterday. Full football game taking place with ref and subs. No masks needed!


----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 25, 2020)

Somerset hospital closed to new patients to halt spread of coronavirus
					

Weston general hospital also shuts A&E department after ‘spike’ in infections




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## mauvais (May 25, 2020)

Lockdown is fucked here. Probably to be expected from a BH Monday at this point but it's really busy and noone seems arsed about distancing any more.


----------



## circleline (May 25, 2020)

Had a row in small Tesco.  Bloke pushed right past me insisting he'd 'been queuing here for ages'.  I said - no need to push past me, ya fucking idiot.  He replied 'I don't know the crack here..'  A distant voice from the tills:  'Now, now, please people..'

Wasn't me in the wrong.  Just saying..


----------



## editor (May 25, 2020)

FFS. Criminal charges should be brought 



> Liverpool's controversial match with Atletico Madrid has been linked to 41 extra deaths in local hospitals.
> 
> The Reds hosted the Spanish side in the Champions League at Anfield on March 9, with 3,000 Madrid fans travelling to the city for the game.
> 
> ...











						Atletico Madrid match linked to 41 deaths in Merseyside hospitals
					

New health data analysis predicts impact controversial fixture may have had




					www.liverpoolecho.co.uk


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 25, 2020)

One other comment on twitter from a lawyer about the cummings statement is that 'it's been lawyered' which sounds right.

Why are some journos calling it Castle Barnard?


----------



## frogwoman (May 25, 2020)

Ugh


----------



## PD58 (May 25, 2020)

So that is the smartest brain in Tory politics......


----------



## PursuedByBears (May 25, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Why are some journos calling it Castle Barnard?


Because they're southerners?


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 25, 2020)

PursuedByBears said:


> Because they're southerners?


Yup - ignorant twat journos.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 25, 2020)

People already commenting that driving to Barnard Castle was potentially an offence under the Road Traffic Act.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 25, 2020)

PursuedByBears said:


> Because they're southerners?



That can't be right, I've got Arundel Castle up the road from me, no one calls it Castle Arundel.   

Mind you, thinking about it, Castle Goring is even nearer, and no one calls that Goring Castle.


----------



## Lord Camomile (May 25, 2020)

Nation breathes a huge sigh of relief as car showrooms are given the green light to reopen.


----------



## Lord Camomile (May 25, 2020)

As predicted elsewhere, announcing opening of lots of sections of society, in the hope of dragging the story away from Cummings.

Have they ever announced the lifting of restrictions three weeks in advance before now?


----------



## quimcunx (May 25, 2020)

I wonder if that was a planted question. 

I would have asked what extra capacity the govt has brought in to police workplaces for compliance to guidelines.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> As predicted elsewhere, announcing opening of lots of sections of society, in the hope of dragging the story away from Cummings.
> 
> Have they ever announced the lifting of restrictions three weeks in advance before now?



They have a lot of form for announcing certain things well in advance in this pandemic. I'll have to check whether any of them were 3 weeks. When things were ramping up people like Whitty often mentioned things 1-2 weeks in advance of bringing them in. The schools thing was announced a couple of weeks ago and there is still a week to go, so thats one I probably dont need to further check the timing of.

I was someone who predicted Johnson would try to do something to grab the headlines earlier, but I dont think what they could actually come up with is quite up to that challenge. It can grab headlines in newspapers that already decided to be sympathetic towards the tories at this stage of whole Cummings shitstorm, but nothing I've heard in this Johnson press conference so far is terribly exciting.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

'I can't remember'


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

Sounds like Peston has invented the P rate, the ratio of protesters outside Cummings house during a lockdown compared to at other times.


----------



## Lord Camomile (May 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> They have a lot of form for announcing certain things well in advance in this pandemic. I'll have to check whether any of them were 3 weeks. When things were ramping up people like Whitty often mentioned things 1-2 weeks in advance of bringing them in. The schools thing was announced a couple of weeks ago and there is still a week to go, so thats one I probably dont need to further check the timing of.
> 
> I was someone who predicted Johnson would try to do something to grab the headlines earlier, but I dont think what they could actually come up with is quite up to that challenge. It can grab headlines in newspapers that already decided to be sympathetic towards the tories at this stage of whole Cummings shitstorm, but nothing I've heard in this Johnson press conference so far is terribly exciting.



Aye, fair point on the schools.

I think the potential reopening of most commercial shops has the potential to be pretty big news?


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 25, 2020)

Another shitshow


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

'Don't ask me, I'm just the Prime Minister'.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 25, 2020)

Johnson not being pressed to answer the questions Peston asked or why he didn't answer the questions yesterday about if he knew what Cummings had done


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I think the potential reopening of most commercial shops has the potential to be pretty big news?



Sometimes I fail to get excited because some sense of these details and timing have already been hinted at or leaked to the press before. So I wouldnt use my levels of excitement as a reliable barometer as to what headlines such things can create now.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

Omfg - JUST WASH YOUR HANDS.


----------



## LDC (May 25, 2020)

Fucking hell, Johnson is flailing wildly.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

MY eyes are bad, too, as it goes!


----------



## Lord Camomile (May 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sometimes I fail to get excited because some sense of these details and timing have already been hinted at or leaked to the press before. So I wouldnt use my levels of excitement as a reliable barometer as to what headlines such things can create now.


Aye, fair enough; this is the first one I've watched for a while, so seemed new news to me.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

It's _hard for us_.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Aye, fair enough; this is the first one I've watched for a while, so seemed new news to me.



It is the main news of todays press conference, yes. Its new enough that I would expect people to be talking about it.

Its not totally new in the sense that it could sort of be seen coming from back when Johnson gave a rough outline of the series of steps of the next phase, and their timing.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

_blather_


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

The end!


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

'Fuck this, I cba.'


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

Sometime this week Shapps will probably announce loads of money for more research into driverless cars to help very important people with conveniently timed eyesight sagas to move across this great nation without question.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

(where's my Dom?  )


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 25, 2020)

Fucking hell, he's shut down the press briefing in record time, whilst looking seriously pissed-off.

Comedy Gold part 2.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 25, 2020)

Johnson just refusing to answer questions, but tbh the questions were not great and journos not allowed comebacks


----------



## PD58 (May 25, 2020)

A clear pop at the Guardian; suggestions that the Mail will continue to hound Cummings - this is not going to go away soon...given Johnson's performance over the last two days, who can they find to be coherent...it's just embarrassing.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 25, 2020)

Yeah, Johnson saying he regrets how people might feel about Cummings and about any confusion

They can't do it, can they?


----------



## maomao (May 25, 2020)

It all really rests on how pissed off The Mail is. If the others apart from Guardian and Mirror drop it it will fizzle out (having done considerable damage).


----------



## wtfftw (May 25, 2020)

It's going well then?

(I used up all my TV on earlier)


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

'Confusion'. 
BBC focusing on shopping now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 25, 2020)

maomao said:


> It all really rests on how pissed off The Mail is. If the others apart from Guardian and Mirror drop it it will fizzle out (having done considerable damage).



Agreed.

But, it'll be hard for the Mail to drop it, having spent 10 pages attacking them today.


----------



## treelover (May 25, 2020)

I would like to know when cafes can open again, for many people these are the only social acitivity they have and of course there is a huge range of types of cafe.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

PD58 said:


> A clear pop at the Guardian; suggestions that the Mail will continue to hound Cummings - this is not going to go away soon...given Johnson's performance over the last two days, who can they find to be coherent...it's just embarrassing.



At this rate the virus will be the only one left with any credibility, and there will be a hunt more urgent than the one for a vaccine, the hunt to provide a translation and communication service so that the virus itself can give the daily briefing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> I would like to know when cafes can open again, for many people these are the only social acitivity they have and of course there is a huge range of types of cafe.



Around the same time as pubs, and both will need to enforce social distancing initially.


----------



## killer b (May 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> I would like to know when cafes can open again, for many people these are the only social acitivity they have and of course there is a huge range of types of cafe.


They're talking about outdoor restaurants & beer gardens from mid july atm, so no sooner than then.


----------



## Teaboy (May 25, 2020)

Most of the cafes are already open round my way but just for take-away obvs.  Can't see them doing eat in for a few months yet.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That can't be right, I've got Arundel Castle up the road from me, no one calls it Castle Arundel.
> 
> Mind you, thinking about it, Castle Goring is even nearer, and no one calls that Goring Castle.


That's 'cos you all talk weird down south.   

But the PM press conference - for fucks sake, the evasive cunt.


----------



## brogdale (May 25, 2020)

Did Johnson do the press briefing on his own this afternoon? (didn't see it)


----------



## Supine (May 25, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Nation breathes a huge sigh of relief as car showrooms are given the green light to reopen.



although the first hour it’ll open be open to people with covid who aren’t sure if they’re blind or not.


----------



## frogwoman (May 25, 2020)

Whitty and Vallance need to resign if they're to walk away with any integrity intact.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 25, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Whitty and Vallance need to resign if they're to walk away with any integrity intact.



Sky reported seeing them both turn-up at number 10, as the Cummings clown show was coming to an end, but they didn't take part in the press briefing.


----------



## frogwoman (May 25, 2020)

Handing in their resignations hopefully.


----------



## little_legs (May 25, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I wonder if that was a planted question.
> 
> I would have asked what extra capacity the govt has brought in to police workplaces for compliance to guidelines.



Going to _borrow_ this to ask my employer when work resumes tomorrow. Thank you.


----------



## Supine (May 25, 2020)

little_legs said:


> Going to _borrow_ this to ask my employer when work resumes tomorrow. Thank you.



it’ll be the same as current eh&s guidelines I’d imagine. It’s the responsibility of the employer and the employees to follow guidelines.


----------



## little_legs (May 25, 2020)

This is one of the govt's advisors yesterday


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 25, 2020)

Plenty of gatherings going on round here - sound very much like parties.  Inevitable really. Lots more traffic noise too.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

little_legs said:


> This is one of the govt's advisors yesterday




I think he's one of the members of the (behavioural science) sub-committees (remember elbows correcting me on this a while ago), not on SAGE as such?

They seem to be absolutely the most outspoken on it.


----------



## little_legs (May 25, 2020)

I got you, sheothebudworths , you are probably spot on, doubt he'd be not muzzled to talk freely.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

little_legs said:


> I got you, sheothebudworths , you are probably spot on, doubt he'd be not muzzled to talk freely.



I wonder if there's just a difference between the sciences/scientists, too, tbh.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 25, 2020)

Johnson had an Irish woman with him at his presser


----------



## PD58 (May 25, 2020)

Given the pictures from around the UK this weekend and the various reports on here and in the media it will be very interesting to see the figures in 7- 10 days time; if there is not an upturn in cases then I suspect that the easing of lockdown will happen more quickly. If there is an upturn and R is heading to 1+ we are in serious trouble as i am not sure a further lockdown will be successful.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 25, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Given the pictures from around the UK this weekend and the various reports on here and in the media it will be very interesting to see the figures in 7- 10 days time; if there is not an upturn in cases then I suspect that the easing of lockdown will happen more quickly. If there is an upturn and R is heading to 1+ we are in serious trouble as i am not sure a further lockdown will be successful.


On a technical point, R would need to go above 1 for any upturn. I'm cautiously optimistic that this won't make much difference. It's all outdoors activity and hopefully those with symptoms are staying in.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2020)

This sounded fun, if you had a penchant for a bit of Bank Holiday corona'n'scraps















						Bank Holiday sunshine attracts crowds to Thanet beaches – complaints of beach fight and ‘faecal matter’ in public follow
					

The hot Bank Holiday weather has attracted crowds to Thanet with Margate Main Sands packed and police being called to parking mayhem in Broadstairs. Residents in Percy Avenue say they had to patrol…




					theisleofthanetnews.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 25, 2020)

My optimism comes from seeing social distancing collapse rather in London in the last couple of weeks while new cases here have continued to fall.


----------



## gosub (May 25, 2020)




----------



## editor (May 25, 2020)

And:


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> My optimism comes from seeing social distancing collapse rather in London in the last couple of weeks while new cases here have continued to fall.



This reminds me of something I've been meaning to say that isnt aimed at you in particular, but rather to the phase we seem to have been in recently.

There are various reasons why it is perfectly understandable why people would describe various behaviours they have seen recently as the lockdown or social distancing collapsing.

However I would appeal most strongly (and probably will repeatedly in the days or weeks ahead) for people to keep in mind that its a partial collapse. Think about all the opportunities the virus had to spread before people made serious changes to their behaviour and lives. Think about what percentage of those opportunities have now returned due to the partial collapse. Most of the opportunities have still not returned. If you see that a notable chunk have then its worth commenting on, but dont forget all the opportunities that are still being denied to this virus.

Its very understandable why some people are concerned about whats been happening for the last 2-4 weeks or however long this period, which does feel different to the initial period, has been. But we have to try to keep the rest of the picture in mind, and deny opportunities to both the virus and various feelings of defeatism which, although understandable, are not as appropriate as they may first seem.


----------



## editor (May 25, 2020)

Bots in action.


----------



## quimcunx (May 25, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I think he's one of the members of the (behavioural science) sub-committees (remember elbows correcting me on this a while ago), not on SAGE as such?
> 
> They seem to be absolutely the most outspoken on it.



Maybe because they know how misused behavioural science was at the start of this shitshow.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 25, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Maybe because they know how misused behavioural science was at the start of this shitshow.



It's defo the one that's most easily manipulated, if the point in engaging with science wasn't actually to get us through this. Oh, _people_ ...pft

ETA - I don't think any of that singles behavioural scientists out for greater recognition of what's gone wrong, or louder voices to object, though.


----------



## Dogsauce (May 25, 2020)

Leeds, right now. It’s falling apart isn’t it?


----------



## Epona (May 25, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Leeds, right now. It’s falling apart isn’t it?
> 
> View attachment 214748



I wish the last line of that "Because their allegiances to each other matter more to them than the social bonds that keep us all safe" didn't sound so poetically much like the tagline to some sort of really awesome romance movie...


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Johnson had an Irish woman with him at his presser


FFS 26 days, Pfeffel, 26 fucking days  

(((Carrie)))


----------



## two sheds (May 26, 2020)

So when's the next happy photo opportunity event?


----------



## editor (May 26, 2020)

The Guinness Express!



> According to reports in Dublin, pubs in the Republic can now deliver drinks and sell takeaway alcohol at their premises.
> 
> The partial easing of the clampdown on Irish bars came about after the Garda Síochána took legal advice on what pubs can and cannot sell during the lockdown.
> 
> ...











						UK bank holiday travellers warned to avoid taking the train
					

Network Rail urges people against non-essential travel with line closures and disruption




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## kabbes (May 26, 2020)

little_legs said:


> This is one of the govt's advisors yesterday





sheothebudworths said:


> I think he's one of the members of the (behavioural science) sub-committees (remember elbows correcting me on this a while ago), not on SAGE as such?
> 
> They seem to be absolutely the most outspoken on it.





quimcunx said:


> Maybe because they know how misused behavioural science was at the start of this shitshow.


Stephen Reicher is a bit of a hero of mine in psychology.  To be clear: he’s a social psychologist specialising in the behaviour of groups and in the relationship between the individual and the social, not a behavioural psychologist (although clearly there is an overlap and his cross-disciplinary research is strong).  He’s spent a career overturning sacred cows in psychology research, so he’s hardly going to balk at pointing out now where the government is going wrong.

He’s performed research into crowd behaviour ( most famously the St Paul’s riot in Bristol), showing that the old ideas of deindividuation and irrationationality are wrong.  He reperformed the Stanford prison experiment under more rigorous conditions and showed that it’s not necessarily the case that tyranny develops just because individuals are placed in positions of authority, but that social identity is key, and its formation is more complicated than simple role allocation.  These ideas are all clear in that tweet and I’m not surprised that they wanted him advising SAGE.  He’s also not the kind of person who will just keep quiet if ignored, regardless of what committee he’s on.


----------



## kabbes (May 26, 2020)

Email this morning from the National Trust ranger to our village email list.  It speaks for itself, frankly.



> Dear Villagers
> 
> I doubt that it will have escaped your notice that there are at the moment an unprecedented number of visitors across the property. It has been a challenging weekend and owing to reduced staff we have been unable to provide as much of a presence as we’d have liked.
> 
> ...


----------



## Roadkill (May 26, 2020)

maomao said:


> It all really rests on how pissed off The Mail is. If the others apart from Guardian and Mirror drop it it will fizzle out (having done considerable damage).



Agreed, but they're not dropping it yet:






Today's _Metro_ front page is rather good too:


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 26, 2020)

Another member of the advisory group on behavioural science for Sage, Professor Robert West , is not happy with the government's handling of things, in particular the Cummings pantomime. 



> “I know [concern] is widespread among the group but not everybody feels comfortable speaking out and I completely understand that. But there has been considerable and growing unease,” West said. “The worry is that the government has said from the beginning it is following the science, and that was never true.”
> 
> The group did not expect to be calling the shots, he said, “but when the government forms policy or does something that goes against the advice, they need to explain why”.
> 
> He said the Cabinet Office asked the committee to provide guidance and write papers to answer questions posed by the government, sometimes at two hours’ notice. The members were working extremely hard, he said. “Then it seems to go into a black hole and we see communications that are at variance [with the advice].”











						Cummings' actions show government cannot be trusted, says adviser
					

Sage scientist condemns ‘vacuum in the heart of government’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 26, 2020)

How many sub-editors are sitting on a "CUMMINGS GOING" headline right now?


----------



## Mation (May 26, 2020)

little_legs said:


> This is one of the govt's advisors yesterday



Is that actual SAGE, not provisional?!


----------



## butchersapron (May 26, 2020)

He's on one of the SAGE sub-groups, specifically the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours which seems to be a real nest of _renegades_.  Gangs all there  Stott, Drury, Reicher. Plus 4 who cannot be named.


----------



## PD58 (May 26, 2020)

More Cummings and goings...let's see where this goes


----------



## Mrs Miggins (May 26, 2020)

I wonder if his name is going to become a term of abuse? As in "oh you absolute CUMMINGS!"
It's got a good ring to it as an insult.


----------



## Lord Camomile (May 26, 2020)

editor said:


> Bots in action.
> 
> View attachment 214739


Think it's also been shown that that photo comes from an election night some time previous, and not from the recent crisis.


----------



## treelover (May 26, 2020)

> Care workers should be better paid and valued after Covid-19 – poll
> 
> 
> Fawcett Society survey shows support for income-tax increase to fund pay rise
> ...





> There has been a dramatic shift in the public’s perception of care workers as a result of the coronavirus crisis, with most people believing they should be better paid and better valued, according to a survey.
> The poll, which was published on Tuesday by the gender equality campaigning charity the Fawcett Society, found 65% of respondents supported an increase in income tax to fund a pay rise for care workers, a figure that rose to 68% among Conservative voters polled.




Good news, slightly higher with Tory voters than others, our CLP is discussing it in June, should be better than the lacklustre discussion when I raised it last time


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

butchersapron said:


> He's on one of the SAGE sub-groups, specifically the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours which seems to be a real nest of _renegades_.  Gangs all there  Stott, Drury, Reicher. Plus 4 who cannot be named.



Some cherry picked quotes from their past papers that have been published before now:



> Where public disorder occurs, it is usually triggered by perceptions about the Government’s response, rather than the nature of the epidemic per se. For example, a perception that the Government response strategies are not effective in looking after the public may lead to an increase in tensions.





> Promote a sense of collectivism: All messaging should reinforce a sense of community, that “we are all in this together.” This will avoid increasing tensions between different groups (including between responding agencies and the public); promote social norms around behaviours; and lead to self-policing within communities around important behaviours.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...8-spi-b-return-on-risk-of-public-disorder.pdf of late February.



> While there may be concerns about the sustainability of adherence for difficult behaviours such as entering isolation for weeks or months, it is not clear that these concerns apply to the specific context of making day-to-day adjustments to reduce social contact. We are concerned that our comments about the difficulty of maintaining behaviours should not be used as a reason for not communicating with the public about the efficacy of the behaviours.





> SPI-B has pointed out repeatedly that trust will be lost in sections of the public if measures witnessed in other countries are not adopted in the UK and that not pursuing such routes needs to be well explained. Communications is not within SPI-B’s remit, but this point bears repeating again.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g.../13-spi-b-insights-on-public-gatherings-1.pdf around March 12th.



> There was agreement that whoever is responsible for giving public messages on behavioural interventions has the relevant expertise to ensure public confidence in the legitimacy of the message, e.g. a healthcare professional rather than a politician.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...behavioural-social-interventions-03032020.pdf March 3rd.

And of course at least one person within SPI-B was responsible for the herd immunity justification that blew up in the governments face:



> SPI-B have divergent opinions on the impact of not applying widescale social isolation at the same time as recommending isolation to at-risk groups. One view is that explaining that members of the community are building some immunity will make this acceptable. Another view is that recommending isolation to only one section of society risks causing discontent.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...ined-behavioural-and-social-interventions.pdf March 4th.

All are from Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE): Coronavirus (COVID-19) response


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 26, 2020)

Had a few deliveries lately - last couple of days it's been noticeable drivers are no longer retreating to the end of the garden every time. Geezer stood other side of the door just now. I stepped back and he then retreated.
A neighbour who has about twenty laminated NHS pictures her kids have done outside her house has just posted FB pics of her on a walk in a pretty crowded local woods. Other families walking next to her etc.
I cannot see how we're not getting a second spike


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (May 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Had a few deliveries lately - last couple of days it's been noticeable drivers are no longer retreating to the end of the garden every time. Geezer stood other side of the door just now. I stepped back and he then retreated.
> A neighbour who has about twenty laminated NHS pictures her kids have done outside her house has just posted FB pics of her on a walk in a pretty crowded local woods. Other families walking next to her etc.
> I cannot see how we're not getting a second spike


Will depend on how much community transmission has been driven down. We can only hope community transmission hugely reduced. Main risks will still be resumption of more widespread indoor activity (I.e. schools, shops, workplaces) especially with seeming UK aversion to masks compared to other countries. But London figures give some hope. Caveat there is level of short term immunity amongst those regularly using tube/buses up to now which is likely higher in London than elsewhere?


----------



## treelover (May 26, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Agreed, but they're not dropping it yet:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Won't be long before  'stay elite' posters and stickers appear everywhere.


----------



## Roadkill (May 26, 2020)

treelover said:


> Won't be long before  'stay elite' posters and stickers appear everywhere.



Hope so - and 'sack Cummings, save lives' graffiti!


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

I'm still thinking of ways to represent different data for regions over time to give some further indication of the state of things in the past and now.

I dont have time to do this with ONS data at the moment (plus a lot of their data is for weeks that is harder to turn into exact months).

So by way of a very initial start on this here is a simple table of regions in England, based only on NHS England hospital deaths data, but I decided to break the numbers down by month instead of the way this data is generally shown.


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

And this is what happens if I take the NHS England deaths per day per hospital trust figures, throw away everything before May, and then sort by total for May.

I'm only showing the top 50 but its still a little long so I'm putting it behind a spoiler tag. Also as ever with this particular set of data, larger trusts with more hospitals/larger size of population served will tend to have higher numbers. So there is a limited value to this particular exercise, but anyway....



Spoiler



 



edit - I decided to include Aprils top 50 as well for some contrast, and so that there are at least some clues about which hospitals feature largely because of their size.


----------



## maomao (May 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Had a few deliveries lately - last couple of days it's been noticeable drivers are no longer retreating to the end of the garden every time. Geezer stood other side of the door just now. I stepped back and he then retreated.
> A neighbour who has about twenty laminated NHS pictures her kids have done outside her house has just posted FB pics of her on a walk in a pretty crowded local woods. Other families walking next to her etc.
> I cannot see how we're not getting a second spike


Transmission outside is far less likely than indoors. Talking to people outdoors is probably not going to increase transmission enough (even if it does make a few people ill) to change the overall downward trend. An actual increase in infections and deaths at this early point would just take us straight back into lockdown anyway. 

I'm far more scared about September and October than I am about people having barbecues now. Fresh air and human contact are enormously important for human health too.


----------



## ska invita (May 26, 2020)

gosub said:


> View attachment 214734







unless I keep missing it that graph is missing Spain, which when i did the numbers in my head a few weeks ago seemed to have the highest per capita?
Curious omission if so

Is this up to scratch? Signs of a second peak?


----------



## quimcunx (May 26, 2020)

Were some hospital patients brought back to life in week 19? 

e2a oh, ok excess deaths,  fewer deaths than average still seems unlikely.


----------



## ska invita (May 26, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Were some hospital patients brought back to life in week 19?
> 
> e2a oh, ok excess deaths,  fewer deaths than average still seems unlikely.


fewer deaths in hospital...because people are avoiding hospitals i guess...overall the deaths are higher than average - over 3000 in that week if im reading it right


----------



## killer b (May 26, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Were some hospital patients brought back to life in week 19?
> 
> e2a oh, ok excess deaths,  fewer deaths than average still seems unlikely.


Theres briefly less people dying in hospital than usual 'cause of non covid deaths that would have happened in hospital under normal circumstances happening at home/in care homes I'd imagine...


----------



## teuchter (May 26, 2020)

ska invita said:


> unless I keep missing it that graph is missing Spain, which when i did the numbers in my head a few weeks ago seemed to have the highest per capita?
> Curious omission if so


UK  compared to Spain:


----------



## 2hats (May 26, 2020)

ska invita said:


> unless I keep missing it that graph is missing Spain, which when i did the numbers in my head a few weeks ago seemed to have the highest per capita?
> Curious omission if so


That's daily. Not totals.


----------



## vanya (May 26, 2020)

Lord Sumption, former Supreme Court judge, on how the response to coronavirus is a huge overreaction.


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Is this up to scratch? Signs of a second peak?




Its because thats deaths by date registered, and there was a bank holiday on one of the registration days in the previous weeks number. So its a case of the previous weeks number being artificially low, and the following weeks numbers containing some deaths that would normally have been registered in the previous week.

ONS deaths data is not a good place to look for timely signs of any spikes and 2nd waves, its more accurate than most other sources but is also subject to considerably worse delay, and is affected more by bank holidays (if looking at deaths by date of registration instead of date of actual death). Its better for looking at all sorts of things eventually, especially totals and excess deaths, but other sources are better for more recent trends.

I dont think there are any dramatic stories of spikes or second waves in any data yet. And initial indicators would be more subtle anyway, eg the rate at which new hospital admissions are falling would slow and that number would then start to increase again. But there are other reasons why the rate of decline of such numbers can end up slowing or becoming stagnant, So I have to be careful not to jump the gun with the subtler indictors. Especially as I dont have regional hospital admissions data and figures for the whole of England can mask significant regional differences. We do have total numbers in hospital data per region though.

There are a few things I'm now starting to do to keep an eye on things as best I can, but its tricky. For example I've started to graph the NHS England reported hospital deaths for certain individual hospital trusts, to get a sense of the story at individual hospital trusts so far, and whether there is much difference between rates of decline, timing of peaks, stagnation of the picture. But things can still get murky when zooming in so close, because the daily numbers are quite low for some trust and so small fluctuations have a big impact on the picture. Plus even when some graphs clearly seem to be telling some kind of story, its hard to know what it is. eg a trust that is still having quite large numbers of deaths at stages of May might not be a story of ongoing community spread in the area at relatively high levels, it could be a story of an outbreak at one particular hospital. I'll probably post some in the coming days anyway, but with plenty of caveats, and I dont have any stories about 2nd waves or spikes to tell from them.


----------



## IC3D (May 26, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Had a few deliveries lately - last couple of days it's been noticeable drivers are no longer retreating to the end of the garden every time. Geezer stood other side of the door just now. I stepped back and he then retreated.
> A neighbour who has about twenty laminated NHS pictures her kids have done outside her house has just posted FB pics of her on a walk in a pretty crowded local woods. Other families walking next to her etc.
> I cannot see how we're not getting a second spike


In London there are many pretty sizable groups of deliveroo riders hanging out. Easily 30 odd last I saw. Made me, okaaay riiight, outloud. 
They've thrived and multiplied.


----------



## Teaboy (May 26, 2020)

IC3D said:


> In London there are many pretty sizable groups of deliveroo riders hanging out. Easily 30 odd last I saw. Made me, okaaay riiight, outloud.
> They've thrived and multiplied.



Its not surprising really given how tough it is in the gig economy at the moment and how other avenues of income have been shut down.  You are right though, they don't seem to care much for social distancing.


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

Just a little bit of new Weston info. The last BBC article I saw about it prior to this one added nothing beyond the bland statement that was originally issued.









						Coronavirus: Weston hospital staff 'worried and confused'
					

Weston General Hospital is not accepting new patients due to a high number of coronavirus cases.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Unison representative Liz French said: "They're confused, they're worried but I have to say they are pulling together to do their best for their patients and all their colleagues."
> 
> The hospital said the reopening date remained "under review".
> 
> ...





> She said staff felt there was a lack of communication from bosses.
> 
> "Although the senior management team were meeting every couple of days to discuss the way forward but that wasn't getting down to the staff.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

Today Hancock said there would be local lockdowns to respond to local flareups in future.


----------



## Teaboy (May 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Today Hancock said there would be local lockdowns to respond to local flareups in future.



Bloody difficult to enforce I would imagine.


----------



## spitfire (May 26, 2020)

IC3D said:


> In London there are many pretty sizable groups of deliveroo riders hanging out. Easily 30 odd last I saw. Made me, okaaay riiight, outloud.
> They've thrived and multiplied.





Teaboy said:


> Its not surprising really given how tough it is in the gig economy at the moment and how other avenues of income have been shut down.  You are right though, they don't seem to care much for social distancing.



I work in a kitchen that is also home to several dark kitchens. The Deliveroo/Uber couriers are complete (deliberate) strangers to the concept. We've tried reminding them about it in the shared corridor but have been met with hostility and/or laughter. Fucking pisses me off.


----------



## prunus (May 26, 2020)

Information source request please, my research skills have let me down: I know the ONS is publishing weekly excess and c-19 deaths by age decile across the UK, but I can’t for the life of me find the aggregated totals to date (by the same deciles) - it must be out there! Can someone with better skills than me point me in the right direction please? Thank you.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 26, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> Will depend on how much community transmission has been driven down. We can only hope community transmission hugely reduced. Main risks will still be resumption of more widespread indoor activity (I.e. schools, shops, workplaces) especially with seeming UK aversion to masks compared to other countries. But London figures give some hope. Caveat there is level of short term immunity amongst those regularly using tube/buses up to now which is likely higher in London than elsewhere?





I’ve  said this here and elsewhere at some length so forgiven me for repeating myself but,

This virus, like several other coronaviruses, behaves in an inherently intermittent way. I think (I worry) that this drop off is at least in part due to its fluctuating character. We mustn’t congratulate ourselves on the drop off. I think it would happen to some extent anyway, the lockdown has enhanced that effect. If we were smart, we’d stomp on it hard during the dip (other countries are doing this right now). 

It’s definitely coming back. And it will recur really hard in places that are complacent when the the numbers go down, like here.


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

prunus said:


> Information source request please, my research skills have let me down: I know the ONS is publishing weekly excess and c-19 deaths by age decile across the UK, but I can’t for the life of me find the aggregated totals to date (by the same deciles) - it must be out there! Can someone with better skills than me point me in the right direction please? Thank you.



If you only needed the most basic look at the ONS's COVID-19 deaths by some rather broad age groups, its in their summary article about this weeks data release.

Figure 4 from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics







If you also want all deaths, rather than only ones with COVID-19 on death certificate, or you want these and COVID-19 deaths broken down into much smaller age groups, you need the full data release for weekly deaths:






						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional       - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, by age, sex and region, in the latest weeks for which data are available. Includes the most up-to-date figures available for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19).



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




Tabs of particular relevance in that spreadsheet are 'Weekly figures 2020", "Covid-19 Weekly registrations", "Covid-19 Weekly Occurrences" and perhaps "UK - Covid-19 - Weekly reg". Some of them will give you the totals, for others you will have to add a column to add them up yourself. 

The bit I cannot point you in the right direction of would be the normal number of deaths per week for each of the age groups. So tend to end up counting all deaths, not excess deaths, when looking at these numbers. I mean it is possible to look at the deaths for each age group in the weeks of this year before the pandemic really got going, to see what sort of range those deaths were in before. But this is imprecise and I think for some weeks earlier this year the deaths were actually a bit below the normal rate (probably in part as the flu season was early and affected 2019 more than 2020). We are given overall figures for normal number of deaths per week (5 year average), but these arent by age in the data I tend to find, so for actual excess estimations I just use overall numbers rather than by age.


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I’ve  said this here and elsewhere at some length so forgiven me for repeating myself but,
> 
> This virus, like several other coronaviruses, behaves in an inherently intermittent way. I think (I worry) that this drop off is at least in part due to its fluctuating character. We mustn’t congratulate ourselves on the drop off. I think it would happen to some extent anyway, the lockdown has enhanced that effect. If we were smart, we’d stomp on it hard during the dip (other countries are doing this right now).
> 
> It’s definitely coming back. And it will recur really hard in places that are complacent when the the numbers go down, like here.



Misleading rubbish.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Misleading rubbish.




I really hope so.


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

I am lacking time but will try very quickly to explain my poor reaction.

I dislike anything that makes it sound like the ebbs and flows of epidemic waves of viruses are an entirely mysterious thing that is largely beyond our control. Its true that its not a perfectly neat and tidy picture, and science etc often have trouble separating the effects of different factors, and there is some apparent randomness in nature. But we have some good ideas about what a lot of those factors are, and many of them are down to human behaviour.

Population susceptibility to a particular virus and the opportunities the virus has to spread via various human behaviours, states of health and environments we mix in go a long way to explaining a great big chunk of epidemic waves etc, seasonality and cycles of diseases etc. Seasonal factors are probably a mix of several different things, but human behaviour (more time indoors with people) is certainly thought to be a factor in that too.

It is true that by actually responding to this pandemic with massive behavioural changes (lockdown etc) we are robbed of the opportunity to see what the 'natural' curve of the first epidemic wave would have looked like.  So it is left up to our own minds the extent to which the lockdown, social distancing and other measures made a difference. But I for one consider it stupid to downplay the role that the massive changes in our behaviour, massive changes to number of interactions with other humans, have in the spread of disease.

I think people that have become gloomy as the lockdown etc measures have eroded are playing into the hands of those who will be peddling anti-lockdown and defeatist messages in future. If people want to believe that all this has been for nothing or has only had a marginal effect, then I dont know what to say really.

Nothing I am saying is supposed to mean I am diminishing the risk of things getting bad again in future, I am not complacent at all. But. thats precisely why I am not so happy with some of the attitudes that seem to be tempting people to adopt them at this stage. I've been using the word defeatist as shorthand for this recently but I dont know as I have really found the best word yet. But something is wrong if we cannot maintain perspective on what has happened and what will be required of us in future. Maybe its a variation of fatigue, I dont know. People should try to talk themselves through and beyond such feelings though, because if I go looking for reasons to feel gloomy about the future, its that some of those very feelings may end up contributing to future woe and the wrong behaviours at the wrong time.


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

I mean, just imagine you are playing the role of the virus in a computer game of this pandemic. How many opportunities have you got to spread now compared to when people were behaving somewhat normally around say, late February or early March? And even if thousands of people go to the beach or otherwise do things that make perople gloomy about the future, how many opportunities have I got to spread compared to the good old days? A small fraction. A big difference. The virus, relatively speaking compared to the scene it was first presented with, is locked down. Its style has been massively cramped.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (May 26, 2020)

spitfire said:


> I work in a kitchen that is also home to several dark kitchens. The Deliveroo/Uber couriers are complete (deliberate) strangers to the concept. We've tried reminding them about it in the shared corridor but have been met with hostility and/or laughter. Fucking pisses me off.


They are also probably mostly young and thinking they are unlikkely to get ill.


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2020)

I also get pissed off because we are close to the 60,000 excess deaths mark now, not including estimates of those since 15th May. And I would very much be willing to bet my life that I would be talking about a very much lower number if we had locked down 1 or 2 weeks earlier than we did. Thoughts on this front are inevitably with me whenever I hear anything that suggests lockdown didnt do much.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 27, 2020)

I think perhaps you may have misunderstood me elbows


I think the lockdown was absolutely necessary, should have happened sooner, and has had a large effect. It should have happened sooner, a fact that is now openly acknowledged.









						Social distancing a week earlier could have saved 36,000 US lives, study finds
					

Columbia researchers say early intervention ‘incredibly critical in reducing number of deaths’ and imply US was too slow to react




					www.theguardian.com
				




I think the government have been inept to the point of dereliction of duty. I also think the public have been amazing. With some notable exceptions, I think on the whole we’ve all taken really good care of each other. 

I also think that this virus has intermittent properties. It seems to come and go in the early stage (I feel rotten... oh I feel better... uh-oh, I’m actually ill... oh that was over quickly... oh god I feel awful...), and then the symptoms (e.g. fever, appetite, thirst and any number of other odd things reported by individuals) also seem to fluctuate. This isn’t controversial, several coronavirus seem to have this presentation.

I worry that just as the virus seems to fluctuate on the small scale, it may have this tendency on the larger scale too. This is not to dismiss or minimise the effects of lockdown at all. There’s no doubt that as bad as the numbers are here, it would have been worse had we not locked down.

I’m concerned that in the same way that someone might feel better and go back to work in the early stage of being infected, now that deaths are diminishing we might be lulled into thinking the worst is over and everything can go back to normal. I have a horrible feeling that we could all be fooled by the apparently fluctuating nature of this virus, and that it will resurge exponentially.

I’m not being defeatist. I think we humans are totally able to behave in ways that will increase our safety. I think we’re all learning , fast, how to be safe in a post pandemic world. I think we’re capable of capitalising on the opportunities it presents.


I really hope I’m wrong about this fluctuating nature being dangerous for us. But I fear it is a sneaky trick that could trip us up badly.


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 27, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> How many sub-editors are sitting on a "CUMMINGS GOING" headline right now?


----------



## editor (May 27, 2020)

Party time!



> here were balloons and banners outside the house of Rob Roberts, MP for Delyn in North Wales, marking a 40th birthday on Monday after he commented on the Dominic Cummings' row











						Police break up illegal lockdown birthday party at Tory MP's house
					

EXCLUSIVE: There were balloons and banners outside the house of Rob Roberts, MP for Delyn in North Wales, marking a 40th birthday on Monday after he commented on the Dominic Cummings' row




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I really hope I’m wrong about this fluctuating nature being dangerous for us. But I fear it is a sneaky trick that could trip us up badly.



You'd have to provide some proposed method for how or why the 'larger scale fluctuations' happen in order for me to take it seriously.

Not that it necessarily matters, since there are already other reasons why we might expect overall epidemic waves to come and go over time, and for the risk to vary over time. Especially one thats been moderated by  human behavioural changes, and where human behavioural patterns will continue to vary over time.

Thinking about this stuff does not make me especially more or less concerned for the future because the way I see the next phases was actually underlined by that shit Hancock today when he went on about future lockdowns at very local levels.

The lockdown and social distancing measures we just experienced were like pulling on the largest handbrake ever in rather sudden fashion, because we were late and had failed to give ourselves other viable options. Even this shambles of a government ought to avoid getting close to that stage again in future, and now they've seen how much it costs in all sorts of ways it is unlikely their priorities will go so far astray next time, even if large sections of the public have lost interest at the time at the broad national level.

As the total number of cases shrinks, the story of this pandemic, and of preventing further hefty waves, maybe even of suppressing the bloody thing to a great extent, is local. There have actually been relatively few stories and data so far during this pandemic so far that could provide a somewhat comprehensive picture of the epidemic in particular locations. There are exceptions such as the stories of individual and family deaths, but this is just a small sampling of all the thousands of stories behind the first wave. If you work in an institutional setting that had an outbreak, or heard about such a thing happening, then thats an example of the sort of stories that, when gathered all together would tell much of the story of this virus coming and going, and where the current risk is to be found. The same front lines that there have been all along, but now the overall community cases have been dropping in many locations for a good while, the opportunities to see the outbreaks that remain more clearly, and tackle them more effectively will keep increasing.

Good disease surveillance at the local level, and an at east partially fit for purpose contact tracing system are essential in order to not squander those opportunities. In the community, and in institutions like hospitals. I will hardly be surrpised if it turns out that the UK, or England at least, fumbles all sorts of things with the surveillance, test, track & trace side of things to start with, but gradually it should get a bit better and will provide us with all sorts of options, and hopefully much better timing of response, next time the virus starts to take off. Or it never even gets the opportunity to begin to take off again because actually we manage to just keep squeezing down on the thing to the extent that even if its not close to being eradicated, it remains sporadic, with the most dramatic stories being of particular individual outbreaks.

Already it seems that the proportion of cases in hospital that caught it in hospital is increasing, even as the overall number is falling, because such infections are not falling as quickly as ones that are happening in the wider community. Indeed some hospital infection situations are the sorts of incidents that can, if not dealt with effectively at that particular location at some point, keep on burning even once community spread has fallen to notably low levels. This is clearly a front that is getting more attention now as circumstances increasingly allow, and, much like effective shielding for care homes, make a real difference to the situation we find outselves in further down the road.

And we dont even have to buy into the idea that we will completely get the virus cornered one day, in order to recognise that we can still get great results by tackling chains of transmission at the local level using a whole array of relatively unsophisticated but practical means. As long as things dont go rocketing up again imminently then there is time for even this crappy government and other levels of establishment and authority to get some of this stuff up and running. And when that stuff is running, how then will the virus trick us into letting our guards down against an unexpected reemergence? With surveillance we will see it coming, or at least be aware that it has arrived, and where. There will likely be times when the response to a particular outbreak is lacking, but there are still many further forms of mass, sustained transmission required between a failure at the local level and the thing running wild across the country again.

Some of the sudden change of priorities the government have been forced into due to this pandemic (and their initial lacklustre response) may be temporary and they will seek to roll back on them ASAP. But various infection control measures are not on that list, even if the public and the nationwide rules get rather loose, other guards will remain. Because all the basic surveillance etc measures the government and local authorities can do in future are so, so much cheaper and attractive to them than the economy-freezing lockdown. It will be many years before establishments around the world are tempted to push pandemics and respiratory diseases and indeed public health in general as far down the agenda as they did in the doomed decades run up to this pandemic.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 27, 2020)

I’m not asking you to take it seriously though. I’m not pushing this idea as a fact.

I’m speculating, I’m thinking out loud, just sharing my thoughts. That’s okay, isn’t it?


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> I mean, just imagine you are playing the role of the virus in a computer game of this pandemic. How many opportunities have you got to spread now compared to when people were behaving somewhat normally around say, late February or early March? And even if thousands of people go to the beach or otherwise do things that make perople gloomy about the future, how many opportunities have I got to spread compared to the good old days? A small fraction. A big difference. The virus, relatively speaking compared to the scene it was first presented with, is locked down. Its style has been massively cramped.



An important thing to remember is that unlike the computer game version a real virus only mutates or changes its behaviour in one place at a time, so even if one local strain becomes less virulent that's not going to have much of an effect, especially when transmission rates are (hopefully) low. New style Covid-19 might take a month to infect 10 people, in which time original recipe Covid-19 has maybe infected another 100,000 worldwide.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 27, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I’m speculating, I’m thinking out loud, just sharing my thoughts. That’s okay, isn’t it?



Yes if it presents an opportunity to challenge misconceptions. I have no problem with speculation as long as it's not presented as anything other than speculation.


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## phillm (May 27, 2020)

Some rumours of dentists back in the middle of June here's how they may look like.


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## teuchter (May 27, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I’m not asking you to take it seriously though. I’m not pushing this idea as a fact.
> 
> I’m speculating, I’m thinking out loud, just sharing my thoughts. That’s okay, isn’t it?


The way you write doesn't come across as thinking aloud, whether that's intentional or not.


----------



## blameless77 (May 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Misleading rubbish.



Thanks - I had that feeling too.


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## prunus (May 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> If you only needed the most basic look at the ONS's COVID-19 deaths by some rather broad age groups, its in their summary article about this weeks data release.
> 
> Figure 4 from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
> 
> ...



Perfect, thank you, just what I needed. You are, as you have consistently demonstrated on these threads, a star.


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## frogwoman (May 27, 2020)

Wrong thread sorry


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## elbows (May 27, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I’m not asking you to take it seriously though. I’m not pushing this idea as a fact.
> 
> I’m speculating, I’m thinking out loud, just sharing my thoughts. That’s okay, isn’t it?



My responses probably say more about my own ability to cope with this phase than anything else. I'm having trouble adjusting to the amount of negativity and gloom that seems to be doing the rounds. I'm going to pick at the details of that from time to time, and there were things in your post which got me going on that angle.

I wont do this every single time someone says something I disagree with. But even when I resist nine out of ten opportunities to use someone elses thoughts in order to state my own, some will slip through. Hopefully not often enough that people are put off from sharing their genuine concerns for the future, but of course I cannot be sure of that, continual criticism can have a chilling effect on broader participation, I'm concious of that but not always able to stop myself contributing to the phenomenon.


----------



## Shechemite (May 27, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Wrong thread? Sorry it you feel that way.



Get you a job in government!


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## Sunray (May 27, 2020)

Slightly worrying but expected really after the lockdown eased.  No tracing yet either.  If they don't start soon then it might be too many again.

Nearly got to zero deaths in London then back up we go.  Five days to get sick and a five to get really sick and die.  We are um 16 days from slight easing of the lockdown I think.

If this isn't a blip do your best to welcome Mr Lockdown in your home again.  I think positive tests would give a better idea of the state of play, people can be on ventilators for weeks.


*Rest of England
               (positive test)**Rest of England
               (no positive test)**London
               (positive test)**London
               (no positive test)**20 May*16824198*21 May*10512167*22 May*13829191*23 May*1421651*24 May*55341*25 May*10610106*26 May*16822152


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## Teaboy (May 27, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Slightly worrying but expected really after the lockdown eased.  No tracing yet either.  If they don't start soon then it might be too many again.
> 
> Nearly got to zero deaths in London then back up we go.  Five days to get sick and a five to get really sick and die.  We are um 16 days from slight easing of the lockdown I think.
> 
> ...



I'm sorry but this looks like a graph that tells us nothing.  Tests for everyone above 5 were introduced on the 18th and then its remained largely stable except on weekends.  I don't want to be rude but this seems to be another example of exactly what elbows is talking about upthread.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 27, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Slightly worrying but expected really after the lockdown eased.  No tracing yet either.  If they don't start soon then it might be too many again.
> 
> Nearly got to zero deaths in London then back up we go.  Five days to get sick and a five to get really sick and die.  We are um 16 days from slight easing of the lockdown I think.
> 
> ...


Weekend/bank holiday reporting delays, that's all. A rolling seven-day average is better for that reason. On the face of it, the overall trend there is still down.


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## elbows (May 27, 2020)

We did not nearly get to 0 London deaths and then it went back up again. Its just normal weekend reporting fluctuations and other reporting delays, and the overall trend is still downwards. Even when it really hits days with 0 deaths, I would still expect to see some small fluctuations, ie some subsequent days where there are a few deaths again.

edit - ahh I see I was a little late.


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## elbows (May 27, 2020)

Plus if we only look at deaths with no detail about those deaths, we wont be able to tell the difference between community cases going up again, and outbreaks leading to death that are actually outbreaks and ongoing transmission within particular hospitals etc, rather than broader community spread.


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## elbows (May 27, 2020)

Although if people have lots of spare time to keep an eye on that stuff then I might recommend doing things like starting to graph daily NHS England deaths from particular hospital trusts. Because it isnt like the story and trends are the same for every hospital trust.

Here is a sampling of a bunch of hospital trusts in the midlands. But beware, the numbers dont tell the real story, eg are some of these ongoing issues down to issues of spread in the community, or within some of the hospitals themselves?

When its a really large trust that had an early outbreak, the picture is a good match for what we've learnt from overall stats, eg:

But things are not quite so straightforward elsewhere:





All data is from yesterdays version of NHS England data, from the deaths by trust tab.





__





						Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths
					

Health and high quality care for all,  <br />now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk
				




One obvious thing I could say from this is that there is always some noise in the picture, and when the numbers of deaths involved are very low, the noise is a much bigger influence on the overall picture, the dribble will not be entirely consistent and small fluctuations are not necessarily a sign of anything important. But there are likely other stories in some of the above graphs, but we dont usually have the detail of such stories.


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## elbows (May 27, 2020)

I would be quite happy if some other people picked various hospital trusts to graph. For example, it has been said that things have not been going well in Barrow in Furness. I havent even got as far as figuring out which hospital trust(s) serve that area, but if someone did then I would like to see if anything shows up in those hospital stats.


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## planetgeli (May 27, 2020)

Text message tells vulnerable people in UK they are dropped from shielding list
					

Outcry after some in England told they would lose government support without doctors being able to talk to them first




					www.theguardian.com
				




Anyone had one of these texts yet? Cancer, asthma and transplant patients removed by text from vulnerable list. No more access to food parcels for them either.


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## SheilaNaGig (May 27, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The way you write doesn't come across as thinking aloud, whether that's intentional or not.




I said “I think (I worry) that...”

I can’t see that anything I said outside that was controversial. The virus does have an intermittent fluctuating character.  Other coronaviruses also have this property. Everything else I said is speculative arising from that. Nothing I said suggestd we shouldn’t continue being careful. Several sensible people have liked that post, so it’s not as if it’s wildly out from what other side think.

This place is so weird sometimes.


elbows said:


> My responses probably say more about my own ability to cope with this phase than anything else. I'm having trouble adjusting to the amount of negativity and gloom that seems to be doing the rounds. I'm going to pick at the details of that from time to time, and there were things in your post which got me going on that angle.
> 
> I wont do this every single time someone says something I disagree with. But even when I resist nine out of ten opportunities to use someone elses thoughts in order to state my own, some will slip through. Hopefully not often enough that people are put off from sharing their genuine concerns for the future, but of course I cannot be sure of that, continual criticism can have a chilling effect on broader participation, I'm concious of that but not always able to stop myself contributing to the phenomenon.




Well your response and what some others said to support you successfully made me retreat sharpish. It is a genuine concern, and several other posters seem to agree with me. But since it was a speculative opinion rather than an argument based in fact (I'm not sure why teuchter seems to think I presented it as fact rather than opinion), I've got nowhere else to go. I'm not going to try to defend opinion, am I.. So I'm backing out.


----------



## teuchter (May 27, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> I said “I think (I worry) that...”
> 
> I can’t see that anything I said outside that was controversial. The virus does have an intermittent fluctuating character.  Other coronaviruses also have this property. Everything else I said is speculative arising from that. Nothing I said suggestd we shouldn’t continue being careful. Several sensible people have liked that post, so it’s not as if it’s wildly out from what other side think.
> 
> ...


Fair enough - there is just something about talking about its "inherently fluctuating character" (by which I think you mean symptoms at an individual level) and then saying that it therefore will follow similarly unpredictable behaviour at an epidemic level that implies some sort of authority on the matter (because there doesn't seem an obvious link) and when I read it, my pseudoscience bells rang.


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## Sunray (May 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Plus if we only look at deaths with no detail about those deaths, we wont be able to tell the difference between community cases going up again, and outbreaks leading to death that are actually outbreaks and ongoing transmission within particular hospitals etc, rather than broader community spread.



This is what I was saying,  deaths don't really tell us much about the COVID infection trend as there is a delay between getting sick and losing the battle and dying.  Sometimes measured in weeks. All those graphs are encouraging.   How many people are presenting to hospitals and tested positive?  Many people recover but those people were potentially infecting others before they ended up in the hospital and those numbers will tell us it's relatively safe or not.  

Proper track and trace with infections numbers at manageable levels means we can be as safe as possible without other forms of treatments.  

If they get that running properly rather than bungle it, how hard can that be I wonder.....


----------



## killer b (May 27, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Text message tells vulnerable people in UK they are dropped from shielding list
> 
> 
> Outcry after some in England told they would lose government support without doctors being able to talk to them first
> ...


I think the wording of this article is a little misleading - it gives the impression that all cancer, asthma and transplant patients have been delisted, when it's just some patients, as decided by their consultants.


----------



## killer b (May 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> I would be quite happy if some other people picked various hospital trusts to graph. For example, it has been said that things have not been going well in Barrow in Furness. I havent even got as far as figuring out which hospital trust(s) serve that area, but if someone did then I would like to see if anything shows up in those hospital stats.


It's University Hospitals of Morcambe Bay trust.


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## planetgeli (May 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think the wording of this article is a little misleading - it gives the impression that all cancer, asthma and transplant patients have been delisted, when it's just some patients, as decided by their consultants.



Yeah, I wouldn't argue with that.


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## weltweit (May 27, 2020)

According to Hancock when introducing his track and trace shortly to be with us, if we are contacted by track and tracers to tell us that we need to isolate for 14 days it is our civic duty to isolate ourselves and seek a test. 

If we are still well, surely a test would be wasted? what would be the point of the test? and if we are or become seriously ill, I doubt getting a test is going to motivate us to get out of our sick beds, assuming we could get one posted to us as I doubt we will be permitted to go to a drive through. 

Oh, and if civic duty isn't enough to motivate compliance, measures will be taken. 

Cummings are you reading this, is it perfectly clear?


----------



## SheilaNaGig (May 27, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Fair enough - there is just something about talking about its "inherently fluctuating character" (by which I think you mean symptoms at an individual level) and then saying that it therefore will follow similarly unpredictable behaviour at an epidemic level that implies some sort of authority on the matter (because there doesn't seem an obvious link) and when I read it, my pseudoscience bells rang.




I can’t find it now because of the enormous deluge of information about this current coronavirus.  I wish I’d bookmarked it but I found it so easily that I didn’t think it would be hard to find again.

You’ll just have to take my word for it, based on my posting history, that I have seen and read a paper that talks about some coronaviruses having a fluctuating character.

Although it’s only anecdotal, plenty of people, on here and elsewhere, know that thing of feeling better, then going back to work, and then coming down with a “second cold”. Given this fluctuating nature (which could be a smart way to outwit the immune system doing everything it can to seperate the host out from the herd, thus limiting transmission) it’s not crazy to suggest that it’s not to a second cold, it’s the same cold (of course it could be a second cold taking advantage of the lowered immune system.... except that the immune system is fired up from fighting the first...or mybe it could be because the person is tired and run down.... or any number of other things but it could be the same cold recurring, that’s not bonkers).

I’ve seen people on here and elsewhere talk about their own Covid experience fluctuating. Plenty of viral infections present with intermittent fever. It’s not a bizarre outlandish concept. I’m following through from this understanding, and saying “what if....”.  That’s how scientific endeavour works: starting from a known point and working outwards. (Of course I’m not saying this is a science idea. Disclaimer forever  etc.)

I brought it up on here becasue while I really hope I’m wrong. I wanted to flag this up as a possible thing to be thinking about as we head into what may be a second wave, and come out of that in time for the cold and flu season.

I’ll keep trying to find that paper about how some coronaviruses have a fluctuating character.


ETA

This is not me trying to defend or argue my opinion, just trying to clarify it. So mostly just repeating it with more words.


----------



## Looby (May 27, 2020)

weltweit said:


> According to Hancock when introducing his track and trace shortly to be with us, if we are contacted by track and tracers to tell us that we need to isolate for 14 days it is our civic duty to isolate ourselves and seek a test.
> 
> If we are still well, surely a test would be wasted? what would be the point of the test? and if we are or become seriously ill, I doubt getting a test is going to motivate us to get out of our sick beds, assuming we could get one posted to us as I doubt we will be permitted to go to a drive through.
> 
> ...


You can have it and be symptom free, that has been very clearly established.
We’re not going to be able to get back to any sense of normality until this stuff is followed and works. 
I would have got a test if that was possible when I had symptoms. Surely people will want to know if they have it.


----------



## treelover (May 27, 2020)

What this has all exposed, people presenting with Corona type viruses, etc, when they are usually have other types of bugs, heavy colds, etc, is the huge and exponential rise in the latter: bugs , viruses, colds, etc,most that won't have come to the attention of medics, researchers, stats, etc. My GP has finally admitted it, of course he can't deny it, his surgery has been deluged by calls about such for months now.


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## weltweit (May 27, 2020)

Looby said:


> You can have it and be symptom free, that has been very clearly established.


That is indeed true, but you can also have been in contact with someone with it and not yet have enough viral load to be picked up by a throat swab. 



Looby said:


> We’re not going to be able to get back to any sense of normality until this stuff is followed and works.
> I would have got a test if that was possible when I had symptoms. Surely people will want to know if they have it.


I think if I was ill, I would mainly want to get better. Not saying a test might not be interesting.


----------



## DexterTCN (May 27, 2020)




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## Looby (May 27, 2020)

weltweit said:


> That is indeed true, but you can also have been in contact with someone with it and not yet have enough viral load to be picked up by a throat swab.
> 
> 
> I think if I was ill, I would mainly want to get better. Not saying a test might not be interesting.


Obviously you could have been in contact but not catch it but if you get tested and it’s negative you don’t need to self isolate. I didn’t see the whole briefing so I didn’t hear if there’s advice on how long to wait for a test after exposure.

I don’t think anyone is pretending this is a perfect system but it’s what we have and it could be a way to ease things more.


----------



## weltweit (May 27, 2020)

Looby said:


> Obviously you could have been in contact but not catch it but if you get tested and it’s negative you don’t need to self isolate. I didn’t see the whole briefing so I didn’t hear if there’s advice on how long to wait for a test after exposure.


It wasn't specified. Hopefully the trackers & tracers will have more time to explain the details. 



Looby said:


> I don’t think anyone is pretending this is a perfect system but it’s what we have and it could be a way to ease things more.


----------



## Teaboy (May 27, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I think if I was ill, I would mainly want to get better. Not saying a test might not be interesting.



Having the test or not is not going to influence that though.  You can have the test and still concentrate on getting better.  Early diagnosis would be useful though if you start to deteriorate.  Beyond some sort of fear of the test I really don't see what the issue is here.


----------



## phillm (May 27, 2020)




----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 27, 2020)

Sunray said:


> This is what I was saying,  deaths don't really tell us much about the COVID infection trend as there is a delay between getting sick and losing the battle and dying.  Sometimes measured in weeks. All those graphs are encouraging.   How many people are presenting to hospitals and tested positive?  Many people recover but those people were potentially infecting others before they ended up in the hospital and those numbers will tell us it's relatively safe or not.
> 
> Proper track and trace with infections numbers at manageable levels means we can be as safe as possible without other forms of treatments.
> 
> If they get that running properly rather than bungle it, how hard can that be I wonder.....


All info has a time lag associated with it. Latest idea is that measuring viral rates in sewage is the best lead indicator. Serious suggestion - should we be monitoring the sewage across the country and coordinating lockdown easing measures with that? It might be what everywhere should be doing.

You're right about track and trace of course. That's been obvious for months tbf. But by the indicators that we do have, including (in reverse order of time lag, but probably in the right order for reliability) deaths, hospitalisation rates, and new cases, despite everything, things are improving in most of the country, with worrying exceptions such as Wales. Not as much as we might have hoped when comparing the UK with other countries, but in parts of the country, such as London, they've improved dramatically in the last few weeks. 

tbh I take the opposite position to you wrt worries about lockdown easing. I see it all going rather well. The indicators across Europe where this is in progress are basically all good. In some places like Switzerland they're better than good. And the early indicators in London are pretty damn good, I would say, given that outdoor social distancing has rather collapsed here in the last couple of weeks. 

This particular wave may be just about washed over us now in Europe at least. What happens come the next one, later this year or next year, is the real test for me. Russian flu of 1880-84, which may well have been a coronavirus, washed over the UK in three separate waves. The second was the worst. However, they didn't even know it was a virus then - they didn't know viruses existed - and there was dispute over whether germ theory was right or it was caused by bad 'miasma'. We do know all these things, so we should at least be able to stamp on the next wave right at the start, if there is one. Even without effective treatment or vaccine, to allow this kind of level of infection again would be incompetence too far even for Boris the Clown.


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## sheothebudworths (May 27, 2020)

butchersapron said:


> He's on one of the SAGE sub-groups, specifically the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours which seems to be a real nest of _renegades_.  Gangs all there  Stott, Drury, Reicher. Plus 4 who cannot be named.



Michie? She was a friend/comrade of my mum and I've seen her raising her head and objecting to the differences between the SAGE advice and what was actually followed from really early on.


----------



## butchersapron (May 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Michie? She was a friend/comrade of my mum and I've seen her raising her head and objecting to the differences between the SAGE advice and what was actually followed from really early on.


I was on about Clifford Stott. I did wonder if there was some relation between the two though. The three I mentioned form a tight little group that has not gone without notice or comment amongst their erstwhile lefty associates, for other possibly less useful work primarily...


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## sheothebudworths (May 27, 2020)

I'm sure this is going to be boring and repetitive (the thread is so long tha I can't follow it anymore) but there's been this message given for a few days now - 

*Due to technical difficulties with pillar 2 data collection, we cannot provide people tested figures today. *

Is there any other way of knowing what the actual number of people tested is and how the consistent failure to provide those is supposed to work alongside the new track and trace system?


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## sheothebudworths (May 27, 2020)

ETA butchersapron - Ah take nothing from my knowledge then.


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## agricola (May 27, 2020)

some track and trace news (sorry if the tweets seem like spam but they arent all in a thread as far as I can see):






he (at the moment) has a total of seven sources, which perhaps indicates how little they have to do


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## littlebabyjesus (May 27, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I'm sure this is going to be boring and repetitive (the thread is so long tha I can't follow it anymore) but there's been this message given for a few days now -
> 
> *Due to technical difficulties with pillar 2 data collection, we cannot provide people tested figures today. *
> 
> Is there any other way of knowing what the actual number of people tested is and how the consistent failure to provide those is supposed to work alongside the new track and trace system?


I've been wondering that. The Pillar 1 stuff seems worthwhile to follow, and has the advantage that it can be compared to earlier figures cos until recently there basically was only a Pillar 1. I've been kind of ignoring Pillar 2. I'm not sure how valuable or reliable it is.

Pillar 2 is private contractors. They only really seem able to control or make sense out of the data for tests the NHS is doing itself. (Although the number of people tested managed to outdo the number of tests done today on Pillar 1, which is quite a feat.) 

Fuck knows what kind of mess they've made in privatising the Pillar 2 stuff. As for Pillar 4, there appears to be nothing of any value at all. And about Pillar 3, the less said the better... _You mustn't talk about Pillar 3. Shhhh._


----------



## Nine Bob Note (May 27, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Got a letter from the NHS/Ipsos Mori today asking me if I wanted to take part in a random swab test via home delivery kit. I hate to be that guy who barges into threads without reading the previous twenty pages, but is this a thing now? I'm in favour if so, I realise they need to know what percentage of the population have been infected/are asymptomatic etc, but I was surprised to see the letter as I haven't been near a doctor/dentist/hospital in fifteen years



Did the test last night (yuck) and it was collected this morning by a pissed off looking yodel driver who held out a sealable plastic bag into which I dropped the sealed vial inside a sealed bag inside a sealed box. Of course this happened in full view of the neighbours and our postman, all of whom no doubt now presume I have the plague  Already warned work I'll be having my two weeks off on full pay if it comes back positive


----------



## David Clapson (May 27, 2020)

I hate to say it, but today's top story is only in the Spectator. Norway is saying the lockdown wasn't necessary.  The rest of the media seems to be pretending they don't know. Too busy with Cummings, or maybe studying this big Norwegian document https://www.fhi.no/contentassets/c9...bd0/notat-om-risiko-og-respons-2020-05-05.pdf which the story below was based on Norway health chief: lockdown was not needed to tame Covid | The Spectator



> Norway is assembling a picture of what happened before lockdown and its latest discovery is pretty significant. It is using observed data – hospital figures, infection numbers and so on – to construct a picture of what was happening in March. At the time, no one really knew. It was feared that virus was rampant with each person infecting two or three others – and only lockdown could get this exponential growth rate (the so-called R number) down to a safe level of 1. This was the hypothesis advanced in various graphs by Imperial College London for Britain, Norway and several European countries.
> 
> But the Norwegian public health authority has published a report with a striking conclusion: the virus was never spreading as fast as had been feared and was already on the way out when lockdown was ordered. ‘It looks as if the effective reproduction rate had already dropped to around 1.1 when the most comprehensive measures were implemented on 12 March, and that there would not be much to push it down below 1… We have seen in retrospect that the infection was on its way down.’ Here’s the graph, with the R-number on the right-hand scale:
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2020)

I will not be reading the Spectator article. I have translated the Norwegian report. It says things like:



> This wave of the covid-19 epidemic in Norway is over the top and returning [elbows note - presumed dodgy translation and that actually means past the peak and declining]. That's because of one combination of measures, cf. Chapter 7, and it is not possible to point out which measures have been the most important and which would have been sufficient to get the epidemic under control. It looks as if the effective reproduction rate had already dropped to around 1.1 by then the most comprehensive measures were implemented on March 12, and that didn't take much to push it down below 1.0.
> From this it follows that we also do not know what measures must be maintained to comply the epidemic at a level where the capacity of the health service is not exceeded and where the negative ones the ringing effects do not get too great. When some measures are completed, it can be difficult to determine whether a possible spread of infection is due to this alone or whether it may be due that people and businesses end their self-imposed restrictions or comply with hygiene-the advice worse.





> The coming years are still at risk of being exposed to new waves of a virus with a reproduction figures of around 3.0. We now know that such waves can be knocked down, and it is important that new ones
> waves are not allowed to become so high that the capacity of the health service is overloaded.





> Overall, the measures have had a very good effect on the epidemic, but so far it has not been it is possible to estimate the effect of the individual measures separately.





> In a population almost without immunity, R will be around 3 and quickly produce a dramatic epidemic if no action is taken and no one changes behavior. It has never been a topical one scenario. As it may take several years before vaccination becomes possible or very effective drug becomes available, we must try to keep the epidemic under control without action great burden of action. At present, we are receiving little relief from immunity in the population. Since the effect of the individual measure is unknown and the effect is delayed, it becomes difficult to find the level of measures that keep the burden of disease low enough for health care and At the same time, the burden of action is low enough for society, businesses and individuals.





> Hopefully we can do without the extensive contact reducing measures (measures 5). Then hygiene measures (measure 1), testing and isolation of infected (measure 2) must be followed by infection detection and the quarantine of their close contacts (measure 3) are well implemented. This are the measures recommended since phases 1 and 2 of the epidemic. Mild contact reducing measures, such as keeping distance and increased use of physical dividers (glass walls, etc.) may also work.
> We do not know if this will succeed. This uncertainty means that hospitals must be prepared for a large load in case the spread should be greater than desired. The careful monitoring of the situation is required so that an unfortunate development can be detected early.



There is much else in there but I deliberately only chose stuff on that particular topic.

Some of the 'lockdown was unnecessary' talk misses the point as far as I can tell. I dont think it is any surprise that if you do a lot of other things right, at the right time, then there are a whole raft of less extreme measures that should be enough to keep the virus under control. Countries that through much effort, luck and circumstance avoided seeding very large numbers of infections within their communities should be able to avoid having to slam the handbrake on really hard (full lockdown). Lots of these other measures are discussed in the document. If the UK had done more of them more effectively, with better timing, then milder forms of social distancing might have been enough. If we get various things right in the months ahead then we should be able to avoid doing so in future, perhaps with sporadic local exceptions. Our timing needs to improve a lot though, because if things are left too late then there arent many options than slamming brakes on as hard as possible for fear you still wont slow down in time. And under those circumstances I cannot really complain if they overcompensate beyond what was actually needed to stop just in time. If someone tells me that we are 4 weeks away from crashing to our doom but I think we are only 2 weeks away, I'm going to start eyeing the brake pedal myself, and thats what happened in the UK the first time around.

The Norwegian document is not shy of the fact that much is still not known, and countries all over the place will have trouble being able to work out how much each measure contributed to the reduction of R.

Its similar to expecting the models to be perfect, they are only guides and they are based on assumptions. We still arent able to replace all our assumptions with solid facts yet, and there will be much learning to be done in the months ahead.


----------



## David Clapson (May 28, 2020)

There are plenty of anti-lockdown loonies and psychopaths at the Spectator - that's the whole point of it these days. I wonder how many Tories will use Norway to gamble on the lockdown-does-more-harm-than-good ticket? They might see it as a way to save Cummings and get a cabinet job. Strange times.


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## elbows (May 28, 2020)

I dont think retroactively deciding lockdown was a bad idea really does anything to save Cummings.

Beyond the obvious anti-lockdown nutter stances I'm sure there are also a range of other anti-lockdown stances that would benefit from more detailed descriptions of their actual position. It might be people disagreeing about exactly which measures to relax and when. Or which measures to reach for first in future. A lot of it wont actually be served that well by the term lockdown, given the number of different measures that have actually been employed so far and could be again in future, and the fact we didnt exactly have a completely full lockdown in the first place.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


>




He certainly has form for smirking at such themes. This one was from early April:



			http://pixelromp.com/HancockPolice.mp4


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 28, 2020)

It's a shitshow down this end. The local Trusts were (internally) warning about the implications of weakened lockdown combined with attrition/fatigue and the temptation of a very warm Bank Holiday weekend.

From Friday:



> ...Weston General Hospital is currently taking care of a high number of COVID-19 patients. There was speculation that there may be a link between this high number and the crowds beginning to gather on the local beach. It serves as a reminder of how quickly the disease can spread and underlines the importance of our preparations for a potential 'second wave'.



Then on Tuesday:



> Due to the situation at Weston General Hospital, where the hospital has closed to admissions due to a high number of COVID-19 cases, staff are reminded that they should not be working across teams, wherever possible in North Somerset. If you work in the North Somerset locality you should not work in any other locality within the Trust. If you have used any of the hot-desking facilities at XXXXX since 5th May you should get yourself tested. Please continue to follow Infection Prevention Control (IPC) guidelines at all times, including social distancing, cleaning desks after use and washing hands. We are arranging for our office spaces where staff have been tested to be deep cleaned as a precaution.



Note that this is from a different Trust to the one running WGH, yet it is having to quarantine its own staff in that county from those in other areas due to a third party breakdown in the curtailment measures.









						Coronavirus: Nearly half of staff treating COVID-19 patients at Weston General Hospital test positive
					

All staff at the hospital are being tested after a large percentage of workers became infected.




					news.sky.com
				












						Asymptomatic staff test Covid-19 positive at Somerset hospital
					

Unions call for answers after admissions stopped at Weston general hospital to halt the spread of the virus




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Mation (May 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The way you write doesn't come across as thinking aloud, whether that's intentional or not.


I disagree, and want to hear what SheilaNaGig  thinks on this, whenever they feel like saying


----------



## zahir (May 28, 2020)

Warning to expect a second wave from David Hunter,  a professor of epidemiology at Oxford.









						The coronavirus infection rate is still too high. There will probably be a second wave | David Hunter
					

Test and tracing is launching today but it will need to be massively stepped up to have an impact, says David Hunter, professor of epidemiology at the University of Oxford




					www.theguardian.com
				





> Stabilising the epidemic only buys time to find an effective treatment or vaccine. Perhaps the warmer temperatures will help, if we responsibly socially distance outdoors while the epidemic rumbles on. But when the colder weather pushes us indoors, without a vaccine, and unless contact tracing is stepped up, there will be a second wave: the epidemic will resurge. Not because it had to, but because we did not push the virus closer to extinction, we did not plan properly for the rebound, and thus gave the virus a second lease of life. And all of this will guarantee more Covid-19 deaths in the UK.


----------



## Teaboy (May 28, 2020)

If I had a pound for every time someone on this thread said something like 'second wave is coming' or similar.  Its like we're seeking out every slight twitch in a graph or photo of a crowded park / beach as proof.

I'm not saying it won't come but its almost getting to the point where we seem to be willing it, some sort of justification why eternal lockdown is the only solution.  I get people are anxious but we cannot live in some sort of lockdown limbo forever, the virus isn't going anywhere and will be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future. Globally things are moving, and whether we like it or not this is happening.

Gah, sorry. I've not had my coffee yet.


----------



## LDC (May 28, 2020)

New published FT data, highest excess death rate in the world.









						Thread by @ChrisGiles_ on Thread Reader App
					

Thread by @ChrisGiles_: Sufficient data worldwide now exists to conclude that, to date, the UK has the highest rate of excess deaths in the Coronavirus pandemic in the world Free to read article with @jburnmurdoch ...…




					threadreaderapp.com


----------



## Lurdan (May 28, 2020)

Just about to post the same link  :

UK suffers highest death rate from coronavirus | Free to read | Financial Times









> The UK has suffered the highest rate of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic among countries that produce comparable data, according to excess mortality figures.





> The UK has registered 59,537 more deaths than usual since the week ending March 20, indicating that the virus has directly or indirectly killed 891 people per million.





> At this stage of the pandemic, that is a higher rate of death than in any country for which high-quality data exist. The absolute number of excess deaths in the UK is also the highest in Europe, and second only to the US in global terms, according to data collected by the Financial Times.





> The country fares no better on another measure: the percentage increase in deaths compared with normal levels, where the UK once again is the worst hit in Europe and behind only Peru internationally.





> (...) A UK government spokesperson said it was “wrong and premature to be drawing conclusions at this stage” and that excess deaths should be adjusted for age.





> (...) The FT analysis shows that the UK's excess deaths figure remains the highest whether younger people are excluded or the analysis is limited to pensioners.





> (...) Excess deaths is internationally recognised as the best way to compare countries’ performance in handling infectious diseases. Chris Whitty, the UK’s chief medical officer, called excess deaths “the key metric”.





> (...) Excess mortality is calculated by counting everyone who has died in a country and subtracting the average number of people who passed away over the same period in the past five years.





> It therefore tallies the number of people who died either directly from Covid-19 or indirectly, for example if they were unable or unwilling to seek treatment in hospital, and does not reflect different testing regimes for the virus in different countries.


----------



## LDC (May 28, 2020)

Many of them due to late lockdown. An unknown number probably would have been avoidable with other better measures (PPE etc.) and if it hadn't happened on top of a healthcare system fucked by capitalism.

And it's far from over.

Blood on their fucking hands.


----------



## Spandex (May 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> If I had a pound for every time someone on this thread said something like 'second wave is coming' or similar.  Its like we're seeking out every slight twitch in a graph or photo of a crowded park / beach as proof.
> 
> I'm not saying it won't come but its almost getting to the point where we seem to be willing it, some sort of justification why eternal lockdown is the only solution.  I get people are anxious but we cannot live in some sort of lockdown limbo forever, the virus isn't going anywhere and will be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future. Globally things are moving, and whether we like it or not this is happening.
> 
> Gah, sorry. I've not had my coffee yet.


I don't think anyone really wants eternal lockdown or a second wave to sweep the country. I suspect the attitude you see is an understandable expectation that our clown car to hell government will fuck up lifting the lockdown, perhaps mixed with some secret dark hope that the government does fuck it up so that they loose all credibility once and for all.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 28, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> It's a shitshow down this end. The local Trusts were (internally) warning about the implications of weakened lockdown combined with attrition/fatigue and the temptation of a very warm Bank Holiday weekend.
> 
> From Friday:
> 
> ...


I posted some of the above in the south west forum.
Shit show is right. Check the live interview with the boss Oldfield-he is a mess and sound like the most basic of precautions were not carried out.

I'm hoping all NHS staff are tested now given so many were asymptomatic.


----------



## LDC (May 28, 2020)

I deleted this from my last post until I was sure of the maths.

It's 1 in every 1,000 people dead in the UK isn't it?


----------



## quimcunx (May 28, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> Just about to post the same link  :
> 
> UK suffers highest death rate from coronavirus | Free to read | Financial Times



On the assumption that the FT was previously a cheerleader for the tories and austerity and critical of labour lavish spending etc maybe now would be a good time for them to apologise for the blood on their own hands.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's 1 in every 1,000 people dead in the UK isn't it?


Roughly, yes. UK population estimate is 68 million.


----------



## treelover (May 28, 2020)

butchersapron said:


> I was on about Clifford Stott. I did wonder if there was some relation between the two though. The three I mentioned form a tight little group that has not gone without notice or comment amongst their erstwhile lefty associates, for other possibly less useful work primarily...



Reicher was excellent last night, I think on Newsnight.


----------



## kabbes (May 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> If I had a pound for every time someone on this thread said something like 'second wave is coming' or similar.  Its like we're seeking out every slight twitch in a graph or photo of a crowded park / beach as proof.
> 
> I'm not saying it won't come but its almost getting to the point where we seem to be willing it, some sort of justification why eternal lockdown is the only solution.  I get people are anxious but we cannot live in some sort of lockdown limbo forever, the virus isn't going anywhere and will be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future. Globally things are moving, and whether we like it or not this is happening.
> 
> Gah, sorry. I've not had my coffee yet.


I saw some survey that showed UK citizens have the highest rating of all countries for “Fear of Going Out”.  I suspect it is because our government has proved itself utterly unreliable, untrustworthy and clueless.  So we can’t trust in the state to sort it out and are left to protect ourselves at an individual level


----------



## killer b (May 28, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I saw some survey that showed UK citizens have the highest rating of all countries for “Fear of Going Out”.  I suspect it is because our government has proved itself utterly unreliable, untrustworthy and clueless.  So we can’t trust in the state to sort it out and are left to protect ourselves at an individual level


I think it's partly down to the popularity of posting photographs of some people on a beach / in a park with 'second wave coming, yo' or similar on facebook tbh


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## Sue (May 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I'm not saying it won't come but its almost getting to the point where we seem to be willing it, some sort of justification why eternal lockdown is the only solution.  I get people are anxious but we cannot live in some sort of lockdown limbo forever, the virus isn't going anywhere and will be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future. Globally things are moving, and whether we like it or not this is happening.



I don't think anyone wants to 'live in some sort of lockdown limbo forever' but given how badly the Government's dealt with this so far, it's not surprising that people are fearful. And for those at increased risk, that fear is obviously even greater.


----------



## frogwoman (May 28, 2020)

I've seen memes like that from overseas friends in Spain, Sweden etc too tbh. Don't think you can blame memes for all of it although it does have an effect.


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## Steel Icarus (May 28, 2020)

I do not want to remain in lockdown forever - even this not-actually-ever-a-lockdown state - and neither do I want a second wave.

I'm just very reluctant to leave the house until as late a time as possible. I don't know how many people have reverted to the same behaviour as before or have stopped caring about C19 as a threat but afaic I'm going nowhere until my job makes me, and Mrs SI is going shopping three times a week and that's all. She says adherence to social distancing is now about 50/50


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## Sue (May 28, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I do not want to remain in lockdown forever - even this not-actually-ever-a-lockdown state - and neither do I want a second wave.
> 
> *I'm just very reluctant to leave the house until as late a time as possible. *I don't know how many people have reverted to the same behaviour as before or have stopped caring about C19 as a threat *but afaic I'm going nowhere until my job makes me,* and Mrs SI is going shopping three times a week and that's all. She says adherence to social distancing is now about 50/50


This. And I think that's a reasonable position to take. Some people at my work have gone back into the office today -- we've all been working from home since the week before lockdown and to me this seems like a very bad idea -- and while it's voluntary at the moment, I wonder how long that'll be the case.


----------



## LDC (May 28, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I do not want to remain in lockdown forever - even this not-actually-ever-a-lockdown state - and neither do I want a second wave.
> 
> I'm just very reluctant to leave the house until as late a time as possible. I don't know how many people have reverted to the same behaviour as before or have stopped caring about C19 as a threat but afaic I'm going nowhere until my job makes me, and Mrs SI is going shopping three times a week and that's all. She says adherence to social distancing is now about 50/50



Yeah, I've not changed anything much since things officially eased slightly (and unofficially loads). I'm a bit the same, I can't see me changing much for a while yet. I've been working through it (NHS clinical) although only part time. The only thing I'll do different is probably drive somewhere 30 minutes or so for a walk or swim in the country.


----------



## two sheds (May 28, 2020)

I think 'fear' of leaving the house is the wrong word, for me at least. I don't go out but I'm hardly afraid - I don't break out into a cold sweat or anything. Yes I look round for people coming but it's in the same way I normally look round to keep the dog out of harm's way.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 28, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I think 'fear' of leaving the house is the wrong word, for me at least. I don't go out but I'm hardly afraid - I don't break out into a cold sweat or anything. Yes I look round for people coming but it's in the same way I normally look round to keep the dog out of harm's way.


Yes, when I take the dogs out at 8-ish anyone doing similar has crossed well in advance, or I have. But a couple of days ago three kids on bikes came flying out of a drive and one went to stroke one of my dogs and I was like "Whoah, stay over there mate". 

Kids are playing out together again out front, it's nice for them, but honestly. This ain't over.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2020)

Anyone know where I can read the full letter from the travel industry?









						MPs call for urgent action to save aviation jobs
					

A cross-party group adds its voice to concerns about the government's plan to quarantine all arrivals.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I dont think them criticising the governments past failings in strong terms is going to make me forgive the stance the industry is now taking:



> Quite simply it is time to switch the emphasis from protection to economic recovery before it is too late.


----------



## LDC (May 28, 2020)

Here you go elbows 

"Dear Priti,

You know it and I know it, at the end of the day we both actually care about money more than people.

So scrap the quarantine or we'll be fucked, and then we'll stop voting for you, so then you'll be fucked.

Yours, for capital over lives foreva,

The travel industry X."


----------



## Teaboy (May 28, 2020)

Sue said:


> I don't think anyone wants to 'live in some sort of lockdown limbo forever' but given how badly the Government's dealt with this so far, it's not surprising that people are fearful. And for those at increased risk, that fear is obviously even greater.





S☼I said:


> I do not want to remain in lockdown forever - even this not-actually-ever-a-lockdown state - and neither do I want a second wave.
> 
> I'm just very reluctant to leave the house until as late a time as possible. I don't know how many people have reverted to the same behaviour as before or have stopped caring about C19 as a threat but afaic I'm going nowhere until my job makes me, and Mrs SI is going shopping three times a week and that's all. She says adherence to social distancing is now about 50/50



Yeah, I do understand this and I did say I understand why people are anxious.  I'm just coming from the angle that there is a lot of posts on this thread basically saying the same thing which is 'second wave and more mass death coming' when actually the data at the moment doesn't support it.  We are seeking out things that make us frightened and in doing so making each other more frightened.

The graphs are going to go up and down, the virus is with us to stay* just as car accidents are and cancer is.  Its scary and horrible but that is how I'm increasingly seeing it.




* Not withstanding a vaccine / treatment but we can't rely on that.


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## kalidarkone (May 28, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I saw some survey that showed UK citizens have the highest rating of all countries for “Fear of Going Out”.  I suspect it is because our government has proved itself utterly unreliable, untrustworthy and clueless.  So we can’t trust in the state to sort it out and are left to protect ourselves at an individual level


Nail on head.


----------



## quimcunx (May 28, 2020)

It just seems to me that protecting people would have been/is the best way to protect the economy too. They are not opposing goals but that is how they have been/are being treated, here at least. A sick or isolating workforce isn't good for the economy. Sick or dead  customers isn't either.  Having a longer lockdown because it wasnt done quick enough isn't good for the economy.   Lifting it too soon without enough policing of workplaces increases chances of a spike or 2nd wave and lockdown not good for the economy.  Having to borrow more money to get up to speed rather than have things in place already isn't good for the economy.

E2a I just hope the current R0 situation is as promising as the models suggest and stays so and that the govt has a better handle than they appear or that enough of us are/are able to keep up sensible distancing etc.


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## elbows (May 28, 2020)

I am still trying to forumulate useful thoughts in regards peoples fears about future waves, neverending lockdowns etc.

The risk of subsequent waves is quite real. I think some people are expecting another wave much sooner than one is actually likely, but I cannot have a high degree of confidence when predicting timing of subsequent waves, so I shouldnt push that point too far at the moment.

What I do think people should do is start to forget about lockdown as a monolith that last for many months. When actually what we called lockdown was a whole range of different measures. Modelling predictions and the reality elsewhere (eg Italy, Spain) left most authorities with no choice but to combine all the measures into one very strong response that went on for quite a while. It doesnt have to be that way next time. Especially if we do much better with our timing. I would expect the future of lockdown, eg later this year once the seasons turn, to be more local and much more nuanced. The last resort full on prolonged lockdown that is so fresh in peoples minds still needs to be there as an emergency last resort, but again if our timing is better I would expect that a much shorter and more targeted version will be possible if the going gets tough later in the year.

The new normal is not the old normal, but neither is it supposed to be this lockdown normal that we have lived with in recent months. And I do think its really important for people to try to recharge their psychological batteries during this summer phase of things, rather than just looking for the next doom wave with a sense of imminency in mind. Plus a whole bunch of countries will experience their winters long before us, and that will yield more information about what we might expect from this virus when our autumn and winter comes.


----------



## teuchter (May 28, 2020)

When I read people saying that they are basically going to continue barely leaving the house ... this is quite out of whack with how I am now behaving - I feel that walking or cycling around outside, including relatively busy parks (where it's still feasible to stay 1 or 2m from everyone) is pretty negligible risk. I don't feel entirely comfortable in supermarkets, I wouldn't sit in a pub and for now am still not using trains or buses at all. But leaving the house doesn't in itself feel like a big deal.

I see a lot of people out and about who would appear to be taking a similar approach. Of course, that's a self selecting sample, so I don't really have an idea how many people are really still shutting themselves indoors for everything but essential business. I'm curious though, whether there is an unseen proportion of the population who are pretty fearful about leaving their homes - and how large that proportion is.

I wonder if it differs according to whether you live somewhere urban or suburban/rural. If you look out of the window and see a fair few people out and about, then it doesn't feel weird to be out and about yourself. But maybe if you are in a quiet area, where even in normal times you don't see people walking around, and you are sitting inside watching news reports, does that create an entirely different perception of risk/acceptability?


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2020)

Plus I do have to say that my thoughts struggle to turn seriously to subsequent waves when the first wave isnt over yet. Waves dont end when they peak, I am still looking to see what sort of levels thigs fall to as this first wave continues its downwards path.

For example, despite comments I made the other day about the extent to which the virus has been locked down, its only been days since the number og COVID-19 cases in UK hospitals fell below 10,000. There are still somewhere around 500 people per day being admitted to hospital in England with Covid-19, and Scotlands COVID-19 'ambulance to hospital' numbers have been fluctuating around 200 in recent times.


----------



## kalidarkone (May 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I've not changed anything much since things officially eased slightly (and unofficially loads). I'm a bit the same, I can't see me changing much for a while yet. I've been working through it (NHS clinical) although only part time. The only thing I'll do different is probably drive somewhere 30 minutes or so for a walk or swim in the country.


Same here.

I was absolutely mortified the other day when my I found that my son had gone to see a friend of ours and actually gone into her house . I'm really angry with her because she is a mental health nurse working in a clinical setting (so at higher risk imo) and has several chronic health conditions and lives with 3 other people including a child. , so putting them at risk by having my son in her house. My son is putting himself and housemates at risk....although by all accounts his housemates have been bringing back people to hook up with . His arguement is 'We are all gonna get it' and understandably he wants to live his life.....however I was just incredulous at his management. Its summer, it's hot, you could of met in the park and socially distanced, you could have had a socially distanced chat on the doorstep. Like him and me do.

It made me cry because I so badly want to hug him. So fucked off with my friend.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I see a lot of people out and about who would appear to be taking a similar approach. Of course, that's a self selecting sample, so I don't really have an idea how many people are really still shutting themselves indoors for everything but essential business. I'm curious though, whether there is an unseen proportion of the population who are pretty fearful about leaving their homes - and how large that proportion is.



For me I didnt go out all that much before this pandemic, which in its own funny way has given me the luxury of being in no rush to frequenty venture outside again now. I've been taking things one week at a time, and every week I assume there is a bit less risk. However what would be a real difference maker for me would be if we had high quality, timely local data that actually gave me a decent sense of what ongoing community transmission there is round here. I'm not entirely convinced that I will be treated to such a system.


----------



## editor (May 28, 2020)

The most PUNCHABLE cunt


----------



## teuchter (May 28, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> although by all accounts his housemates have been bringing back people to hook up with .


My neighbour (in his 20s) has rather blatantly been doing this. 3 people back at his the other night, having a bit of a party until at 3am I cracked and went and told them to pack it in.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2020)

I know that all the way along some people have expressed concern that the government were setting the scene to blame the public for epidemic waves. I had previously given the reasons why I think they couldnt do that for the first wave, and for the future it was not something I was exceptionally concerned about, it was something to keep an eye on and keep in mind rather than something I thought would happen for sure.

Well, with the whole Cummings thing I now think its even less likely, since people would just turn round and blame the actions of Cummings and the failure to remove him as reasons why public adherence to measures had fallen short.


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## Buddy Bradley (May 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I feel that walking or cycling around outside, including relatively busy parks (where it's still feasible to stay 1 or 2m from everyone) is pretty negligible risk. I don't feel entirely comfortable in supermarkets, I wouldn't sit in a pub and for now am still not using trains or buses at all. But leaving the house doesn't in itself feel like a big deal.


Part of the problem with that attitude (not having a go at you, just an observation in general) is that if everyone does it, then some proportion of those people will have some unanticipated event happen to them - bike/car accident, health emergency, whatever - which, regardless of their original intentions, brings them into much closer contact with far more people than they would ever have planned.


----------



## editor (May 28, 2020)




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## redsquirrel (May 28, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> On the assumption that the FT was previously a cheerleader for the tories and austerity and critical of labour lavish spending etc maybe now would be a good time for them to apologise for the blood on their own hands.


Endorsed Tories in 2010, coalition in 2015, Tories in 2017 and no party (but free-market liberals) in 2019. 
Like you say, blood on their own hands. However, badly the present government has handled things much of the damage was done under the previous coalition/Tory (and Labour) governments.


----------



## 8115 (May 28, 2020)

Deleted because it sounded a bit heartless.


----------



## teuchter (May 28, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Part of the problem with that attitude (not having a go at you, just an observation in general) is that if everyone does it, then some proportion of those people will have some unanticipated event happen to them - bike/car accident, health emergency, whatever - which, regardless of their original intentions, brings them into much closer contact with far more people than they would ever have planned.


Yes, so you have to take a view on what the risks of the unanticipated events happening are - and balance them against the risks of things happening if everyone stays couped up at home, whether that means mental health, the consequences of not getting proper exercise, DIY accidents, and so on. But that's kind of a separate calculation from the one about the risk of spreading infection assuming nothing unanticipated happens.


----------



## Geri (May 28, 2020)

Feeling a bit fed up today and missing family and friends. A friend posted a picture of another friend in her garden and I was slightly pissed off about it, as I haven't seen anyone (other than butchers). I know I could meet one other person and sit in a park with them but the only people I would want to do that with are either quarantined completely or too far away. 

I also feel bad for feeling like this because I know I am lucky to be working, safe in my house, and not having to worry about money and nobody I know has had the virus, which is the most important thing.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2020)

I've had a couple of half-arsed stabs at looking at things more locally from now on, as the situation evolves to the point that the individual epidemics and outbreaks stand out more, and as things hopefully get tackled on that level.

Well here is the BBCs equivalent, mostly at the regional levels but there are some interesting graphs and nods to the local future. There is plenty more to the story beyond the headline they went with.









						Coronavirus: R number 'very similar' across UK
					

Scientists say there are no significant regional differences in coronavirus rates across the UK.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## kalidarkone (May 28, 2020)

Coronavirus: Weston hospital 'to be shut for at least a week'
					

Weston General Hospital stopped taking new patients because of a high number of coronavirus cases.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Coronavirus: Weston hospital 'to be shut for at least a week'
> 
> 
> Weston General Hospital stopped taking new patients because of a high number of coronavirus cases.
> ...



At least voices are growing for the situation to be described clearly rather than the crumbs and evasive management shit people have been given so far.


----------



## Lurdan (May 28, 2020)

Today saw the launch of the Government's Track and Trace programme.







So how did that go ?






One or two teething troubles then. Yesterday Baroness Harding seemed quite bullish about the system's readiness.






Today however :






When the programme was announced at the start of the month it was reported that


> The contact tracing system crucial to hopes of easing lockdown will be outsourced to private call centre operators including Serco (...) The bulk of contact tracing work will be contracted out to at least two companies who are being asked to provide about 15,000 call centre staff. They will be given about a day of training in the principles of and a script to handle conversations with people who have been at close quarters with confirmed cases.


Coronavirus: Private call centres will run new contact tracing system - The Times May 4th (paywalled so archived)

In it's last two issues Private Eye expressed some scepticism about the plans


Spoiler: Text of articles



*CONTRACT TRACING* - Private Eye 1521 (8-21 May)

Health secretary Matt Hancock's pledge on 23 April that he would be “really kickstarting contact tracing” by “hiring an initial 18,000 people” and “training up the mass ranks of our contact tracers” sounded like the UK was about to follow the successful test-and-trace route against Covid-19 followed elsewhere. But again the UK seems to be going its own way.

Contact tracing is labour-intensive as it involves interviewing infected people to find their recent contacts, who are then traced and tested for infection and quarantined if necessary. It has helped containment in Germany and some south-east Asian nations. Having abandoned it in favour of its misguided herd immunity plan in mid-March, the government now seems to be trying to play catch-up. But in a letter to the 13 regional directors of public health, Public Health England said only 3,000 of Hancock's 18,000 contact tracers would be “qualified public health and clinical professionals”. The rest will be “call handlers” from “an external logistics partner”.

The NHS will not directly hire those 15,000 people, instead handing out call centre contracts to companies like Serco. Agencies advertising for contact tracer posts are offering minimum wage (£8.72 an hour) and asking for staff with experience of “telephone or face to face customer services” who are “passionate” about “delivering an outstanding customer experience”.

This low-wage “customer services” approach is in contrast to best practice elsewhere, which relies on local government staff. The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the US’s public health association, recommends training “librarians, teachers and school personnel, and other professionals that have experience working in communi ties”. Ireland, meanwhile, brought in repurposed librarians, civil servants and army cadets to supplement its contact-tracing teams.

Public Health England had only 300 contact tracers at the time the approach was abandoned in mid-March, and it didn’t mobilise the 5,000 or so local authority environmental health experts who already have contact-tracing experience. Hancock’s antipathy to local government and enthusiasm for contracting out, as well as for unproven tech solutions - his scheme relies on untested mobile phone apps to trace contacts digitally - means the UK is again out on a limb.

SUNK WITHOUT TRACERS - Private Eye 1522 (22 May - 4th June)

How will the government’s 15,000 unqualified Covid contact tracers (last Eye) be medically supervised? The answer seems to be: via a script.

The 15,000 unqualified staff, supplied by call centres, will join 3,000 medically qualified contact tracers who work for Public Health England. When the Eye asked if the two groups would communicate, the Department of Health (DoH) responded that unqualified staff would receive “context-specific training developed by Public Health England” - but not, apparently, delivered by the NHS or its professionals.

Instead they will rely on a script, with both qualified and unqualified staff working on a common IT system where the DoH said they would “interface and work together in an integrated way where appropriate”. Job ads, however, show that separate, medically unqualified “customer service” supervisors are being recruited for the call centre staff.

Health secretary Matt Hancock’s plan to use unqualified contact tracers unsupervised by medical staff is far from standard practice. Public Health England’s own contact tracing was suspended on 12 March, but its guidance says “a clinician” will speak to infected people to “gather details of places they visited and the people they’ve been in contact with”. In Iceland, health students and police officers supplemented contact tracing teams. Hancock’s plan rests heavily on the idea that its new NHSX app will do the bulk of the tracing work. Let’s hope he’s right.



Among the contact tracers who spoke to Sky News yesterday





The scripts they have been given do indeed cover how to "handle conversations"






When the programme was announced it was also stated


> The system will be underpinned by an NHS app that alerts people if they have been near someone known to have coronavirus, which begins trials in the Isle of Wight this week. Yesterday the government said that more than half the country would need to download a tracking app for it to stay on top of outbreaks. (Times May 4th)




However yesterday Baroness Harding was unable to confirm a date when the app might be ready


> Baroness Dido Harding, the new boss of the NHS's Test and Trace programme, would not confirm if the app was still on track to be launched in June. When asked whether she could say when the app would be available, the former TalkTalk boss who is now leading the UK's tracing effort, said: "No, sorry. One of the things I am trying to do with this programme is move away from individual dates."



NHS test and trace system to launch without app - Telegraph (paywalled so archived)

One way of looking at all this would be to focus on the fact that an outsourced system, which already had visible holes in it, is being launched when it isn't ready, and when it isn't known whether the voluntary app that is supposed to underpin it will work.

But let's not be 'gloomsters' and 'naysayers'. After all if it turns out that it was correct that


> tracking all known contacts of each case and checking them for the virus is crucial to allowing lockdown to be eased without risking a second wave of the epidemic. (Times)


and the system doesn't actually work what is the worst that can happen ?

As people have said there can be no CERTAINTY of a 'second wave'.


----------



## quimcunx (May 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> When I read people saying that they are basically going to continue barely leaving the house ... this is quite out of whack with how I am now behaving - I feel that walking or cycling around outside, including relatively busy parks (where it's still feasible to stay 1 or 2m from everyone) is pretty negligible risk. I don't feel entirely comfortable in supermarkets, I wouldn't sit in a pub and for now am still not using trains or buses at all. But leaving the house doesn't in itself feel like a big deal.
> 
> I see a lot of people out and about who would appear to be taking a similar approach. Of course, that's a self selecting sample, so I don't really have an idea how many people are really still shutting themselves indoors for everything but essential business. I'm curious though, whether there is an unseen proportion of the population who are pretty fearful about leaving their homes - and how large that proportion is.
> 
> I wonder if it differs according to whether you live somewhere urban or suburban/rural. If you look out of the window and see a fair few people out and about, then it doesn't feel weird to be out and about yourself. But maybe if you are in a quiet area, where even in normal times you don't see people walking around, and you are sitting inside watching news reports, does that create an entirely different perception of risk/acceptability?



Yes and no. I'm not scared to go out and I do go out and am relatively happy distancing wise and risk wise. However I'm wfh full time and cant be bothered going out in the evening even if i hoped to earlier in the day. Sometimes this all seems quite tiring. If i was commuting being outside would be a part of my day but once home I'd be equally unlikely to bother going out again for a walk or cycle or drink. . Even though I'm happy going out it does feel like more of an expedition/palaver.  Going into little shops is mostly ok but even sainsbury local can feel stressy.   Also now some people seem a lot more cavalier I feel the need to counteract that a little.

There are lots of people about but if I think about how many people there must be living in the flats around me and how many people must be furloughed  I think most people are mostly staying home.


----------



## little_legs (May 28, 2020)

editor said:


> The most PUNCHABLE cunt



that feeling when your already inbred brain is being eaten by roni.


----------



## Sue (May 28, 2020)

editor said:


> The most PUNCHABLE cunt



Tbf, there's some stiff competition...


----------



## Looby (May 28, 2020)

I’ve been feeling little bit better about going out and the past few weeks I’ve been doing the supermarket shop and weirdly look forward to it even though it’s quite stressful. 
I then read in our local paper that a Bournemouth footballer has tested positive though and swears that the only place he’s been is to the supermarket and must have caught it there. He could have been lying of course but that freaked me out a bit.
I’m preferring tiny (and fucking expensive) shops. There are a couple of independent bakeries that only let one person in at a time so I’ve been going there once or twice a week for fancy bread and a coffee that I put in a mug when I get home. That small sense of normality has been lovely.


----------



## little_legs (May 28, 2020)

We were in an online work meeting this morning, our workmate's brother is working on the end of life ward, he said on Tuesday they've had to call police to that ward twice because grieving relatives turned up to pay their respects despite being told this wasn’t allowed under the lockdown rules. First time they’ve had to do this to get people to leave.


----------



## dessiato (May 28, 2020)

I was in town yesterday and noticed that people were keeping their distance at all times, even when talking with friends. If people came within arms reach there was a distinct look and move away. Prior to this, it being Spain, people were physically close all the time. I wonder if this is going to be a cultural change.


----------



## editor (May 28, 2020)

They already are where I live and just about everywhere else....



> Groups of up to six people will be able to meet outside in England from Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.
> 
> People can meet in gardens and private outdoor spaces, provided they keep two metres apart, Mr Johnson added.
> 
> "These changes mean friends and family will start to meet loved ones," in what would be a "long awaited and joyful moment", he said.











						Coronavirus: Lockdown easing to allow groups of six to meet
					

The PM says groups of up to six people will be able to meet outside in England from Monday.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (May 28, 2020)

dessiato said:


> I was in town yesterday and noticed that people were keeping their distance at all times, even when talking with friends. If people came within arms reach there was a distinct look and move away. Prior to this, it being Spain, people were physically close all the time. I wonder if this is going to be a cultural change.



Hopefully.  It looks like our best weapon when keeping virus free as we come out of lockdown.


----------



## Sunray (May 28, 2020)

dessiato said:


> I was in town yesterday and noticed that people were keeping their distance at all times, even when talking with friends. If people came within arms reach there was a distinct look and move away. Prior to this, it being Spain, people were physically close all the time. I wonder if this is going to be a cultural change.



Very possibly the reason the Spanish government lost their mind when they realised how infectious it was and told everyone to go inside and not come out at all.
Also why it's not so much of a problem for the British, your all fucking weirdos, not getting close to you lot.  The old normal.


----------



## Teaboy (May 28, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Very possible the reason the Spanish government lost their mind when they realised how infectious it was and told everyone to go inside and not come out at all.
> Also why it's not so much of a problem for the British, your all fucking weirdos, not getting close to you lot.



I dunno.  I grew up in Oxford.  Its taken me 40 years to train myself out of being a stand-offish weirdo and now this happens.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2020)

editor said:


> They already are where I live and just about everywhere else....
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Some already were but its all about what proportion are doing such things. So its still noteworthy when these relaxations happen formally, because gradually I'd expect far, far more people to start behaving that way compared to the numbers you've already seen/heard/heard about doing this.


----------



## agricola (May 28, 2020)

been watching old episodes of DS9, so haven't seen the conference today - is this accurate?


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 28, 2020)

Kids from four different families playing out in front of my house. At least three of those families will be out clapping at 8. Makes me cross


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 28, 2020)

agricola said:


> been watching old episodes of DS9, so haven't seen the conference today - is this accurate?




Yes.


----------



## MrSki (May 28, 2020)




----------



## two sheds (May 28, 2020)

Not just about politics though is it? It's a question of whether what someone did broke the rules or endangered other people, and whether other people are allowed to do the same.


----------



## treelover (May 28, 2020)

Anyone who is currently dealing with transfer from DLA to PIP, claimants are recieving text saying all transfers are suspended for the rest of this year & DWP will contact when they are able to start again.  I just lost hundreds, a month with my transfer, damn!


so not so hostile at moment, though worth getting more sources for above.


----------



## Brainaddict (May 28, 2020)

I think the focus on numbers meeting in parks is a bit of a red herring. Workplaces and public transport seem the real dangers to me, as they are indoors in confined spaces where you often can't socially distance. I think the reason we see the numbers not really dropping now is they never really stopped workplaces and a few weeks ago they actively encouraged them. It's not about whether or not you have a few extra people at your picnic.


----------



## LDC (May 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I think the focus on numbers meeting in parks is a bit of a red herring. Workplaces and public transport seem the real dangers to me, as they are indoors in confined spaces where you often can't socially distance. I think the reason we see the numbers not really dropping now is they never really stopped workplaces and a few weeks ago they actively encouraged them. It's not about whether or not you have a few extra people at your picnic.



I kind of agree, although I'd be interested to see the behavioural stuff that models how slackening social stuff that has a low risk increases the likelihood of attitudes slipping in areas where infection risk is higher.


----------



## smokedout (May 28, 2020)

I went on a long walk round central London today and it really did bring home that despite all the worries about a second wave and increased social interaction it really is astonishing to see the  totality of the lockdown in the city centre.  Outside of construction there didn't seem to be anyone working, almost everywhere except food shops was closed with the exception of the odd Starbucks and independent cafs, but even most of them were shut.  It looked like a few had attempted to re-open, with signs on the windows and markings outside but it probably wasn't worth it and they closed.  There were a few people bimbling about, but I suspect most were local residents, and barely anyone who looked like they might be a tourist/visitor.  I've walked round London on Christmas Day and it was much busier, sitting in Leicester Square felt like sitting in the square of some sleepy provincial town.  It was a huge contrast to round here, where it feels pretty much back to normal on the streets except the charity shops and pubs are shut and the food places are only doing take outs. 

I also got the tube back, which I know makes me a bad person, but it was only a ten minute trip and it looked really quiet.  And it was, 3 or 4 people per carriages, stations empty and this was at just gone 6pm.  I've been the first to moan about people having to go to work and non essential production remaining open, but the lockdown must have made a huge impact on infection rates, and I presume the situation is the same in other large cities.

It felt strange walking round Piccadilly Circus and places like that, like a snapshot in time before everything changes.  It's hard to believe that most of the businesses, even the bigger ones, will survive the collapse of tourism which even in the best possible case scenario is uinlikely to be back to what it was for a couple of years, if ever.  It was strange to see all the new developments with glossy signs promising new retail experiences coming soon that will now never come.  I suspect even the big theatres and cinemas could be in trouble, as well as Oxford Street and other big retail spaces.  Can Covent Garden or Camden Market survive without tourists for a couple of years?  I guess some of the biggest chain stores might have the resources to sit it out, but will they even want to risk it when High Streets were dying everywhere even before the pandemic? Lots and lots of people are going to lose their jobs if they haven't done already.

On the other hand, seeing the rampant gentrification and tourist focussed Disneyfication of places like Soho and Camden about to just crumble away clearly means space is going to open up like never before for radical changes in large cities whose economies depended on outside visitors and tourists.  It's hard to even imagine what that will look like, and it feels foolish to make predictions.  But (and sorry to go on, and I know its a bit off topic) I think it's easy to think about the new normal and think it will be a bit like it was before except with more hand washing, working from home and general paranoia.  But seeing the city centre today made me think the economic and by extention the political consequences of this are going to be unprecedented.  The future is really not going to be anything like we thought it was.  And I don't know whether that fills me with hope or terror.


----------



## quimcunx (May 28, 2020)

I think most of the essential work that cant be done from home happens outside zone 1.


----------



## editor (May 28, 2020)

On a related note: Streatham MP Bell-Ribeiro-Addy gives her supports to striking medical couriers in TDL dispute


----------



## bimble (May 28, 2020)

smokedout why do you think tourism won’t resume in the next year or so, is it that you think people will just choose not to come here or is it something else more structural ?


----------



## weltweit (May 28, 2020)

The new NHS track and trace teams will have plenty to start off with as there are about 2,000 new confirmed cases a day at the moment.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 28, 2020)

smokedout said:


> I went on a long walk round central London today and it really did bring home that despite all the worries about a second wave and increased social interaction it really is astonishing to see the  totality of the lockdown in the city centre.  Outside of construction there didn't seem to be anyone working, almost everywhere except food shops was closed with the exception of the odd Starbucks and independent cafs, but even most of them were shut.  It looked like a few had attempted to re-open, with signs on the windows and markings outside but it probably wasn't worth it and they closed.  There were a few people bimbling about, but I suspect most were local residents, and barely anyone who looked like they might be a tourist/visitor.  I've walked round London on Christmas Day and it was much busier, sitting in Leicester Square felt like sitting in the square of some sleepy provincial town.  It was a huge contrast to round here, where it feels pretty much back to normal on the streets except the charity shops and pubs are shut and the food places are only doing take outs.
> 
> I also got the tube back, which I know makes me a bad person, but it was only a ten minute trip and it looked really quiet.  And it was, 3 or 4 people per carriages, stations empty and this was at just gone 6pm.  I've been the first to moan about people having to go to work and non essential production remaining open, but the lockdown must have made a huge impact on infection rates, and I presume the situation is the same in other large cities.
> 
> ...


I saw a piece in the ft a while back about five big city law firms moving offices atm. One obvious result of the virus is many people who previously worked in the City won't any more and the price of office space there and elsewhere in London if not further afield is likely to decline. While this might lead to an amazing growth of radical enterprises and a squatting movement in empty offices, it might equally lead to a wave of gentrification the likes of which we've never seen before. Time will tell.


----------



## bimble (May 28, 2020)

Whilst people were clapping just now this was happening, doctors kneeling to silently protest the numbers of medical staff who have died.


More pictures here


----------



## Epona (May 28, 2020)

Just had this brought to my attention:


----------



## Epona (May 28, 2020)

ITV News reveals plans to discharge Covid-19 patients into care homes | ITV News
					

Data shows NHS and councils block booked beds in care homes to ensure they were ready to deal with a surge in patients coming from hospital.




					www.itv.com


----------



## bimble (May 28, 2020)

Why would they do this ? Is it that they thought deaths in care homes would be less visible ?


----------



## MickiQ (May 28, 2020)

if contract tracing has been subcontracted to private companies , it's only a matter of time before one of them decides to save costs by offshoring it to India.


----------



## two sheds (May 28, 2020)

Will add a few miles to access drive-in testing centres.


----------



## quimcunx (May 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why would they do this ? Is it that they thought deaths in care homes would be less visible ?



I'm going with yes. Italy hospital footage didnt make for good optics.


----------



## smokedout (May 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> smokedout why do you think tourism won’t resume in the next year or so, is it that you think people will just choose not to come here or is it something else more structural ?



A bit of both I think, and it's not just tourism really but the numbers of people travelling to capital and other large cities for all kinds of reasons.  Even in the absolutely most positive scenarios - no second wave and the virus fades away or we get a vaccine before the end of the year- I think it's fair to say this year will be a write off tourist wise, with perhaps the exception of some internal tourism but London's economy needs a lot more than that.  I doubt there are many tourist based businesses that will be able to hold on for a year of near or perhaps total collapse in tourism.

It also looks like international students, who are big spenders, may not be coming in September, and neither might many UK based students which will impact I guess at least for the next academic year.  I think business travel will remain low, with companies seeing the cost benefits of online conferences and meetings, and there is likely to be some shift to more people working  from home reducing the number of commuters.  It's also unlikely the virus will disappear or be brought under control at the same time everywhere so some quarantine restrictions may have to stay in force from some regions.  And even if coronavirus does  goes away I expect there will be a general level of anxiety about it, with scare stories and localised flare ups, so I think it will take a while for confidence to come back in international travel, which won't be helped if the UK ends up with one of the highest rates of death.  I think this will also impact on things like theatres, night clubs and other amenities which draw people to London.

But on top of all that is the spectre of a global recession/depression that would be pretty devasting to tourism and international travel even without the lingering threat of the virus.


----------



## LDC (May 28, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I'm going with yes. Italy hospital footage didnt make for good optics.



I'll come back to the care homes thing tomorrow if I have time, although have said it before on another thread. It's a really complicated subject and there were no easy answers unfortunately.


----------



## MickiQ (May 28, 2020)

It's been an hour since the Thursday night clap has ended and there are still about a dozen people stood in the middle of the road chatting away (including my wife and youngest daughter). They're all socially distant with more than 2 metres between them but its a sign that the lockdown is dying naturally, government advice or otherwise
The couple from next door but one have even brought glasses of wine with them.
The Thursday night clap is now a key part of the social fabric of this close. It will most likely evolve into something else but I can't see it ending.
The one NHS worker in the street (Son's girlfriend) does however point out she would rather have a payrise than a regular round of applause.


----------



## little_legs (May 28, 2020)

smokedout said:


> I went on a long walk round central London today and it really did bring home that despite all the worries about a second wave and increased social interaction it really is astonishing to see the  totality of the lockdown in the city centre.  Outside of construction there didn't seem to be anyone working, almost everywhere except food shops was closed with the exception of the odd Starbucks and independent cafs, but even most of them were shut.  It looked like a few had attempted to re-open, with signs on the windows and markings outside but it probably wasn't worth it and they closed.  There were a few people bimbling about, but I suspect most were local residents, and barely anyone who looked like they might be a tourist/visitor.  I've walked round London on Christmas Day and it was much busier, sitting in Leicester Square felt like sitting in the square of some sleepy provincial town.  It was a huge contrast to round here, where it feels pretty much back to normal on the streets except the charity shops and pubs are shut and the food places are only doing take outs.
> 
> I also got the tube back, which I know makes me a bad person, but it was only a ten minute trip and it looked really quiet.  And it was, 3 or 4 people per carriages, stations empty and this was at just gone 6pm.  I've been the first to moan about people having to go to work and non essential production remaining open, but the lockdown must have made a huge impact on infection rates, and I presume the situation is the same in other large cities.
> 
> ...


If people other than jet-setters and hedge fund manages could actually afford living in Central London, it would not be deserted and quiet.


----------



## quimcunx (May 28, 2020)

little_legs said:


> We were in an online work meeting this morning, our workmate's brother is working on the end of life ward, he said on Tuesday they've had to call police to that ward twice because grieving relatives turned up to pay their respects despite being told this wasn’t allowed under the lockdown rules. First time they’ve had to do this to get people to leave.



I wonder how much would be lost by allowing limited visits to those dying at this point.  And I wonder if it could have been possible all along if proper PPE had been available for all that needed it.


----------



## ska invita (May 28, 2020)

UK has second highest deathrate, after Spain 








						UK suffers second-highest death rate from coronavirus | Free to read
					

FT analysis of data from 19 countries finds Britain suffering heavy toll from pandemic




					www.ft.com
				




 The UK has registered 59,537 more deaths than usual since the week ending March 20, indicating that the virus has directly or indirectly killed 891 people per million. Until Thursday, the UK had a higher rate of death than in any country for which high-quality data exist. However, Spain made a revision to its mortality estimates, adding 12,000 to its toll of excess deaths from coronavirus in a one-off adjustment to 43,000. This increased its death rate to 921 per million. The absolute number of excess deaths in the UK is the highest in Europe, and second only to the US in global terms, according to data collected by the Financial Times.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 28, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> The one NHS worker in the street (Son's girlfriend) does however point out she would rather have a payrise than a regular round of applause.



Wife says the same


----------



## William of Walworth (May 28, 2020)

Have I missed something about today being (supposedly?) the *LAST* weekly Thursday night 'applause for carers'?? 

I'm convinced I recently saw some reference to that, but ..... am I wrong?


----------



## belboid (May 28, 2020)

You are not


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why would they do this ? Is it that they thought deaths in care homes would be less visible ?



If the press had written more by now about the NHS England plan for a 'reverse triage' into care homes, which was mentioned in the report into operation Cygnus from some years ago which the Guardian got hold of, then there would probably be less mystery about this stuff by now.

There were other signs a while ago too, although I did not pick up on this angle at the time I do remember the story. Which was that some of the first billions in new funding announced by this government were to deal with 'bed blocking'. Only have to read between the lines slightly to imagine that it was also part of these 'reverse triage' plans, plans which did the very opposite of shielding our care homes.

An example of a story about the bed blocking billions in funding, from March 19th:









						£2.9bn provided to free up hospital beds for coronavirus patients
					

Local authorities and NHS will share fund to get recovering elderly and vulnerable patients into social care




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## The39thStep (May 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> I've had a couple of half-arsed stabs at looking at things more locally from now on, as the situation evolves to the point that the individual epidemics and outbreaks stand out more, and as things hopefully get tackled on that level.
> 
> Well here is the BBCs equivalent, mostly at the regional levels but there are some interesting graphs and nods to the local future. There is plenty more to the story beyond the headline they went with.
> 
> ...


Andy Burnham posted this data up 30 mins ago. Data published by CMMID


----------



## little_legs (May 29, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Have I missed something about today being (supposedly?) the *LAST* weekly Thursday night 'applause for carers'??
> 
> I'm convinced I recently saw some reference to that, but ..... am I wrong?


Clap is over. Virus defeated. Meet you at the Spoons tomorrow?


----------



## Epona (May 29, 2020)

This whole thing has made me realise that I kind of live in a socialist/anarchist bubble where we discuss data that is dredged up for us all to argue about here for the most part or with similarly minded IRL friends/comrades and that if the govt say "it's ok to go back to work now" or "it's ok to meet up with 6 other people" it isn't actually everyone who is thinking "not fucking likely mate" like I do.


----------



## little_legs (May 29, 2020)

I reckon those sleeves will last 2 weeks


----------



## two sheds (May 29, 2020)

Epona said:


> This whole thing has made me realise that I kind of live in a socialist/anarchist bubble where we discuss data that is dredged up for us all to argue about here for the most part or with similarly minded IRL friends/comrades and that if the govt say "it's ok to go back to work now" or "it's ok to meet up with 6 other people" it isn't actually everyone who is thinking "not fucking likely mate" like I do.



Yeh and then you see stuff in the US about southern republicans coughing in the face of people wearing masks to ridicule them.


----------



## David Clapson (May 29, 2020)

I've done another IFR/mortality sum, for England this time: it's 1.3%. Infection rate in England is estimated at about 7%, according to new numbers from the ONS About 7% have had coronavirus, says ONS survey. The full ONS report is here  Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot - Office for National Statistics According to the FT the excess deaths number for England is 52,400. Scroll down here: UK suffers second-highest death rate from coronavirus | Free to read The population of England is 56m, so IFR/mortality is 1.3%. Various caveats about the data if you look at how the 7% number was arrived at.  But 1.3% is pretty bad. Maybe the most cheery way to look at it, from the point of view of the living, is that the virus has already been allowed to rip through care homes, killing its easiest targets. So from here on the IFR should get much, much better.  I'd better stop now, cos this is starting to look like an argument to end mitigation.


----------



## muscovyduck (May 29, 2020)

little_legs said:


> I reckon those sleeves will last 2 weeks



Surely making everyone who uses the train over the course of the day sit in the same few seats when there are plenty of sterile seats available is unwise?


----------



## Pickman's model (May 29, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I'm going with yes. Italy hospital footage didnt make for good optics.


Optics are for spirits


----------



## two sheds (May 29, 2020)

Have you ever tried drinking spirits out of footage?


----------



## Numbers (May 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Have you ever tried drinking spirits out of footage?


Not the type of footage I imagine you mean but yes I have, i.e. we have a glass slipper (originally came filled with liquor) in our Rum cupboard which we once or twice a year use for Rum drinking.


----------



## brogdale (May 29, 2020)

Interesting that there's different "science" in all 4 components of the UK leading to differing 'lockdown' relaxation.


----------



## Mation (May 29, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Maybe the most cheery way to look at it, from the point of view of the living, is that the virus has already been allowed to rip through care homes, killing its easiest targets.


Whoop whoop.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 29, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Not the type of footage I imagine you mean but yes I have, i.e. we have a glass slipper (originally came filled with liquor) in our Rum cupboard which we once or twice a year use for Rum drinking.


Do you have brandy, whisky, tequila and vodka cupboards?


----------



## Pickman's model (May 29, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Interesting that there's different "science" in all 4 components of the UK leading to differing 'lockdown' relaxation.


Johnson has a sweepstake with the heads of the devolved assemblies on who will kill fewest proportionally


----------



## Lorca (May 29, 2020)

My partner, a Nurse has just finished her night shift and was telling me that because the perception seems to be that the lockdown has lifted, many people are visiting their elderly relatives for the first time in a couple of months and are finding that in many cases they have been quite ill, but have kept it to themselves and tried to manage as best as they can in order to not be a burden as it were. Consequently there has been a large spike in elderly patient hospital admissions in the last day as family members call ambulances for things like uti's, chest infections, sepsis, falls, broken bones etc. Some have likely got Covid, some have dementia and many are falls risks, which is labour intensive. This is placing a lot of extra pressure and stress on already understaffed and stressed out services and she thinks (and she knows what she's talking about) there will be a spike in elderly death rates over the next few weeks. She also said that senior managers have been forcing primary care wards to accept very mentally ill patients, even though staff lack the training and the resources to provide proper care.

She also reckons there has been a recent uptick, locally at least in NHS staff contracting Covid, which she attributes to poor quality PPE - they haven't got the correct equipment - no proper face shields and they are often wearing masks donated by local schoolkids, which makes for a good photo-op in the local paper but isn't good enough for medical use. Also! maybe an obvious point but she reckons there is a hidden crisis of alcoholism (heavy drinkers drinking at home) and mental health issues which will at some point inevitably put even more pressure on creaking Health and Social Care services. Psychologically, it seems many people are already thinking this crisis is over but sadly I suspect it really isn't.


----------



## brogdale (May 29, 2020)

Lorca said:


> My partner, a Nurse has just finished her night shift and was telling me that because the perception seems to be that the lockdown has lifted, many people are visiting their elderly relatives for the first time in a couple of months and are finding that in many cases they have been quite ill, but have kept it to themselves and tried to manage as best as they can in order to not be a burden as it were. Consequently there has been a large spike in elderly patient hospital admissions in the last day as family members call ambulances for things like uti's, chest infections, sepsis, falls, broken bones etc. Some have likely got Covid, some have dementia and many are falls risks, which is labour intensive. This is placing a lot of extra pressure and stress on already understaffed and stressed out services and she thinks (and she knows what she's talking about) there will be a spike in elderly death rates over the next few weeks. She also said that senior managers have been forcing primary care wards to accept very mentally ill patients, even though staff lack the training and the resources to provide proper care.
> 
> She also reckons there has been a recent uptick, locally at least in NHS staff contracting Covid, which she attributes to poor quality PPE - they haven't got the correct equipment - no proper face shields and they are often wearing masks donated by local schoolkids, which makes for a good photo-op in the local paper but isn't good enough for medical use. Also! maybe an obvious point but she reckons there is a hidden crisis of alcoholism (heavy drinkers drinking at home) and mental health issues which will at some point inevitably put even more pressure on creaking Health and Social Care services. Psychologically, it seems many people are already thinking this crisis is over but sadly I suspect it really isn't.


Really good post; thanks for the info.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 29, 2020)

Lorca said:


> My partner, a Nurse has just finished her night shift and was telling me that because the perception seems to be that the lockdown has lifted, many people are visiting their elderly relatives for the first time in a couple of months and are finding that in many cases they have been quite ill, but have kept it to themselves and tried to manage as best as they can in order to not be a burden as it were. Consequently there has been a large spike in elderly patient hospital admissions in the last day as family members call ambulances for things like uti's, chest infections, sepsis, falls, broken bones etc. Some have likely got Covid, some have dementia and many are falls risks, which is labour intensive. This is placing a lot of extra pressure and stress on already understaffed and stressed out services and she thinks (and she knows what she's talking about) there will be a spike in elderly death rates over the next few weeks. She also said that senior managers have been forcing primary care wards to accept very mentally ill patients, even though staff lack the training and the resources to provide proper care.
> 
> She also reckons there has been a recent uptick, locally at least in NHS staff contracting Covid, which she attributes to poor quality PPE - they haven't got the correct equipment - no proper face shields and they are often wearing masks donated by local schoolkids, which makes for a good photo-op in the local paper but isn't good enough for medical use. Also! maybe an obvious point but she reckons there is a hidden crisis of alcoholism (heavy drinkers drinking at home) and mental health issues which will at some point inevitably put even more pressure on creaking Health and Social Care services. Psychologically, it seems many people are already thinking this crisis is over but sadly I suspect it really isn't.



Depressing but lines up with a lot of predictions from the start 

We're going to see the legacy of this for quite a while to come.


----------



## brogdale (May 29, 2020)

Some tentative evidence of this in the latest PHE data for London region:


----------



## quimcunx (May 29, 2020)

Still no proper PPE.


----------



## Teaboy (May 29, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Some tentative evidence of this in the latest PHE data for London region:
> 
> View attachment 215200



Well, yes.  If you've been suppressing a virus that hasn't gone away the numbers are going to rise when you start lifting that suppression.  I guess the important thing is what sort of level is tolerable?

Anyone know what's happened to the 'R' value by the way?  For all of March and most of April none of the press conferences mentioned it.  It then suddenly became the single most important number.  And now?  Not being talked about again?


----------



## brogdale (May 29, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Well, yes.  If you've been suppressing a virus that hasn't gone away the numbers are going to rise when you start lifting that suppression.  I guess the important thing is what sort of level is tolerable?
> 
> Anyone know what's happened to the 'R' value by the way?  For all of March and most of April none of the press conferences mentioned it.  It then suddenly became the single most important number.  And now?  Not being talked about again?


What's worrying about that uptick (if subsequently verified) is that it will represent the hospitalisation of those infected before any formal lifting of the lockdown. With a typical 2 to 3 week lag between infection & hospitalisation, many of the folk shown in that mini-spike were likely infected about 3/4 weeks ago...VEday75, maybe?


----------



## 20Bees (May 29, 2020)

Local ‘cottage’ initiatives sewing scrubs are winding down, after a massive drive supplying several hospitals. 

My son has been teaching in China for several years and some of his youngeat students have drawn posters portraying the fight against the virus, intending to send posters and donate a few thousand disposable masks here and hoping for emails back with photos and a thank you to the children. I contacted some local settings and there was no interest at all.


----------



## teuchter (May 29, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I've done another IFR/mortality sum, for England this time: it's 1.3%. Infection rate in England is estimated at about 7%, according to new numbers from the ONS About 7% have had coronavirus, says ONS survey.


If those are from tests around the end of April... and there is a 2-3 week lag in antibodies becoming apparent, does that actually mean the number of people who had already been infected around the beginning of April?


----------



## xes (May 29, 2020)

Did any else get a strange text to their land line this morning telling them to run their taps for 10 minutes?


----------



## elbows (May 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The questio
> 
> If those are from tests around the end of April... and there is a 2-3 week lag in antibodies becoming apparent, does that actually mean the number of people who had already been infected around the beginning of April?



Its an ongoing pilot survey. April 26th is the date that bit of the survey began but it is ongoing stuff, some (or most, dunno yet) of the blood tests will have been a lot more recent than that, and these figures will continue to evolve.



> This is based on blood test results from 885 individuals since the start of the study on 26 April 2020.







__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot - Office for National Statistics
					

This release contains initial data on the percentage of the population in England testing positive for COVID-19 taken from the pilot phase of the COVID-19 Incidence Survey.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 29, 2020)

Lockdown absent
Non-resident visiting next door, ice cream van attracting a queue, group of six non-distancing youth on the corner...Mrs SI reports Jack's had nobody on the door counting shoppers in so it was packed, very difficult for her to maintain safe distancing


----------



## elbows (May 29, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Some tentative evidence of this in the latest PHE data for London region:



Need to keep an eye on that for sure. Its a shame I cannot have as much confidence in the very latest weeks data as I can earlier data. They have a disclaimer about that under those graphs but I havent completely got my head around it yet.



> * For the most recent week, more samples are expected therefore the increase seen in the above graphs should be interpreted with caution.




I thought the antibody results in the document were quite interesting.



These weekly reports are available from:





__





						National COVID-19 surveillance reports
					

National COVID-19 surveillance reports, including weekly summary of findings monitored through various COVID-19 surveillance systems.




					www.gov.uk
				




Edited to add that I suppose I should quote a few things from that section too:



> After making adjustments based on the latest information on the accuracy of the assay*, the overall ad- justed prevalence in London increased from 1.3% in week 13 to 10.6% in weeks 15-16 and 14.8% in week 18. It is important to note that the adjusted figures presented this week have changed slightly from those reported last week based on updated evidence about assay sensitivity, which appears to be better after more convalescent samples from confirmed cases have been tested.





> The estimates among adults show a continued increase in prevalence within London, however the in- crease seen between weeks 16 and 18 is relatively smaller than the increase observed between weeks 13 and 16. Given that the antibody response takes at least two weeks to become detectable, those displaying a positive result in week 18 are likely to have become infected before mid-April. As the incidence in this period may only have just begun to slow following the impact of lockdown measures, this may explain the slight increase over that period.





> The lower prevalence in the samples from other regions including the Midlands, North East, South East and South West regions is consistent with data from other surveillance systems. The adjusted prevalence in the Midlands in week 14 was similar to that in London in weeks 13-14 but lower in week 17 compared with later sampling in London. The adjusted prevalence in North East and North West regions in weeks 16 is well above baseline (3.5% and 5.3% respectively), higher than in London and the Midlands in week 14, but not as high as seen in London in week 16, which is consistent with the surveillance trends reported for England.





> The highest adjusted prevalence in all regions is typically found among adolescents and young adults in the 17-29 year old age group (from week 16 onwards, varying from 4.4% in the South East [week 18] to 16.9% in the North West regions [weeks 16-17]). However, in the most recent data from London, the in- crease is more marked in older age groups suggesting that this population have been affected later. These patterns may reflect differences in behaviour and mixing patterns in the different age groups.


----------



## weltweit (May 29, 2020)

I see Siemens today announcing a new antibody test that is supposed to be accurate.


----------



## teuchter (May 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Need to keep an eye on that for sure. Its a shame I cannot have as much confidence in the very latest weeks data as I can earlier data. They have a disclaimer about that under those graphs but I havent completely got my head around it yet.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm quite surprised that the 'south east' numbers are so low because I'd have thought there would be a significant portion of that population commuting into london on crowded trains, working in office buildings etc. But maybe that is actually a small portion of the overall population.


----------



## two sheds (May 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I'm quite surprised that the 'south east' numbers are so low because I'd have thought there would be a significant portion of that population commuting into london on crowded trains, working in office buildings etc. But maybe that is actually a small portion of the overall population.



And some of it is rich area of the country, commuter belt has a lot of houses with big gardens.


----------



## teuchter (May 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> And some of it is rich area of the country, commuter belt has a lot of houses with big gardens.


The big garden is nice for lockdown but doesn't help you in the infection period if you are spending 2+ hours per day on crowded trains and tubes, and working in a building with hundreds of others pressing lift buttons and so on. (And have been jetting around skiing and going to meetings)


----------



## two sheds (May 29, 2020)

true enough. I'd imagine a lot can work from home though. And not crowded together in high-rise flats (some are of course).


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 29, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Interesting that there's different "science" in all 4 components of the UK leading to differing 'lockdown' relaxation.



Without in any way defending government bullshit, the UK constituent nations do have different demographics, population densities, healthcare capacities and distribution of covid cases. Allowing different regional responses makes a lot of sense; provided you've got the public on board via consistent, open communication and competent, effective and humane actions to contain the virus.


----------



## brogdale (May 29, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Without in any way defending government bullshit, the UK constituent nations do have different demographics, population densities, healthcare capacities and distribution of covid cases. Allowing different regional responses makes a lot of sense; provided you've got the public on board via consistent, open communication and competent, effective and humane actions to contain the virus.


True enough, but AFAIK the 4 governments are informed by separate groups of scientists? So it may just be down to differing perspectives on a similar problem?


----------



## David Clapson (May 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I'm quite surprised that the 'south east' numbers are so low because I'd have thought there would be a significant portion of that population commuting into london on crowded trains, working in office buildings etc. But maybe that is actually a small portion of the overall population.


At the time they were tested I doubt many of them were commuting to London or sitting in offices...home working was the thing, especially with the more highly paid jobs which are done by those who take long train journeys every day. The lower paid people live closer to work.


----------



## weltweit (May 29, 2020)

I expect as part of the testing program they are gathering geographic information, it would be interesting to see where in the UK the new cases are occurring.


----------



## BlanketAddict (May 29, 2020)

xes said:


> Did any else get a strange text to their land line this morning telling them to run their taps for 10 minutes?



Sounds like an episode of Twin Peaks


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 29, 2020)

xes said:


> Did any else get a strange text to their land line this morning telling them to run their taps for 10 minutes?



Presumably a variation on the old is your fridge running? Yes? Then you'd better go and catch it then!


----------



## danny la rouge (May 29, 2020)

It was absolutely fantastic to be able to see my elder daughter in the shared garden at the back of my flat this morning.  We sat on rugs and chatted for a couple of hours.  My mood has been lifted immeasurably. 

Sadly it'll be longer before I get to see the younger one in the flesh - she lives in Leith.


----------



## David Clapson (May 29, 2020)

Let's have a look at the case for ending social distancing for the non-vulnerable. The infection rate is only 7% in England.  There's other data to suggest the virus is getting less infectious. We've already killed off many of our over 70s by not protecting care homes. If we can provide enough PPE for hospital staff and carers, and protect people in care homes and vulnerable people in their own homes, ending social distancing outside those places would lead to a certain number of deaths. But pubs, coffee shops, restaurants and tourist venues could reopen. Lots of other businesses too. If  not there will be masses more unemployment, partly because the furlough money is running out. (I think it's projected to cost £90bn within the next few months.) More mental health problems, suicides, less money for social services, education, benefits and the |NHS, more and more poverty, huuuge numbers of early deaths because of delays to cancer detection and treatment. My gut feel is that the years of life lost by ending social distancing will be a much smaller number than years lost by a longer recession. We need a sensible courageous government to look at this choice. I think Johnson is weak and drifting and may collapse physically. Then I think the 1922 committee would just appoint Gove as PM.


----------



## Lurdan (May 29, 2020)

Interesting article in Inside Housing exploring the links between Coronavirus deaths and poor housing

Insight - The housing pandemic: four graphs showing the link between COVID-19 deaths and the housing crisis - Inside Housing (paywalled so archived).

Here is one of the graphs in it :









> Graph one shows the age-related COVID-19 mortality rates in each council area across England and Wales plotted against levels of housing overcrowding. Mortality rates (deaths involving coronavirus per 100,000 people) are taken from the ONS’ data and capture the period between 1 March and 17 April. Overcrowding data is based on 2014 analysis by the ONS on data gathered through the 2011 census. (...) An overcrowded home is defined as one with one or more fewer bedrooms than required by the household according to the government’s bedroom standard. Here, levels of overcrowded homes are presented as a percentage of all homes in the area.





> As graph one (above) shows, the correlation is stark. It strongly indicates that areas with more overcrowded housing have been worst hit by coronavirus.





> Out in the top right corner – with the highest COVID-19 death rate (144.3 deaths per 100,00) and the biggest housing overcrowding problem (25.2% of homes are overcrowded) – is Newham in east London. (...) There is a distinct London focus to the overcrowding problem. Of the 30 areas with the highest percentages of households living in overcrowded conditions, 26 are in London. Part of that can likely be explained by the acute affordable housing shortages in the city.




The article also looks at death rates in relation to the proportion of Houses in Multiple Occupation, the level of social housing shortage and the proportion of homeless households in temporary accommodation. The latter is also interesting








> The chart above shows the same COVID-19 mortality rates data used in the two previous graphs, broken down by proportions of homeless households in temporary accommodation across England as of 31 December 2019, according to MHCLG figures.





> For instance, among local authorities where less than one household per 100,000 is in temporary accommodation, the average coronavirus death rate per 100,000 people is 27.4. But for areas where more than 15 households per 100,000 are in temporary accommodation, the average death rate is 102.9. Again, Newham has the highest temporary accommodation rate in the country, at 46 households per 100,000.





> The graph indicates a clear link between areas where the council is struggling most to source adequate permanent housing for everyone that needs it and those where most people are dying from coronavirus.



Obviously this is only part of the explanation for the differences in the rates of Coronavirus deaths between different areas but nonetheless it is quite striking.

(The author also created a short twitter thread with links to some of the sources used. Archived here).


----------



## teuchter (May 29, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> It was absolutely fantastic to be able to see my elder daughter in the shared garden at the back of my flat this morning.  We sat on rugs and chatted for a couple of hours.  My mood has been lifted immeasurably.
> 
> Sadly it'll be longer before I get to see the younger one in the flesh - she lives in Leith.


Personally I feel it is unreasonable and unacceptable that you appear to prioritise your close family over urban75, where your recent absence has been noted.


----------



## danny la rouge (May 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Personally I feel it is unreasonable and unacceptable that you appear to prioritise your close family over urban75, where your recent absence has been noted.


What can I say? The virus has addled my brain. I may drive to an historic building to test my clarity of thinking.


----------



## Sue (May 29, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> What can I say? The virus has addled my brain. I may drive to an historic building to* test my clarity of thinking*.



To test your eyes, surely..?


----------



## Humberto (May 29, 2020)

If they say furlough contributions are gradually being reduced across the board, then surely they have to let the affected businesses re-open, otherwise jobs and businesses will be lost? So if pubs, bars and restaurants can't trade what then? Sunak says eight months is 'generous', but this seems like simplistic politics rather than government.


----------



## David Clapson (May 29, 2020)

Quite. It's short-term headline chasing, when what we need is a long term plan.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 29, 2020)

Can't be confident about what thread, or forum, in which to put this excellent Barry Glendinning article (Saturday Guardian)

But IMO it's a *ridiculously brilliant* condemnation of 'decisions' to allow the Cheltenham 'Festival'  and Liverpool v Atletico at Anfield to go ahead in mid-March 
Worry not, sport-averse Urbans -- it's only _technically_ a sport article -- much more political!! 



			
				Barry Glendinning said:
			
		

> .... the Tory MP for Tewkesbury, Laurence Robertson, was also extremely vocal in his support for the lucrative racing festival that takes place annually in his constituency.
> “The disruption to people’s lives, and the risk to their livelihoods, caused by cancelling events and activities would be too great to justify [cancelling] at the moment,” Robertson said in the buildup. “This assessment would include the potential costs to local businesses in Gloucestershire, which would run into tens of millions, if the Festival were to be cancelled. This morning the chief medical officer endorsed this approach"
> A noted racing enthusiast who subsequently came under fire for failing to declare in time all of the £4,000 worth of hospitality he received over the four days of Festival, Robertson put his tardiness down to an oversight.


----------



## David Clapson (May 29, 2020)

Sir David King, former chief scientific advisor to No.10, pulling no punches on C4 news a minute ago - says we've had 40k unnecessary deaths and there's no reason why we couldn't have been where Greece is now - they are reopening fully end of June. They started full lockdown before their first death.


----------



## ska invita (May 29, 2020)

Just heard the case made that we are at Stage 4 and the government said they'd ease lock down only when we got to Stage 3. SAGE say we are still at 4, Government reducing lockdown anyway. Supposedly asked about this at the briefing today, and it was skillfully ignored.
So much for "led by the science". Pure politics going on here.

Apologes if point has been made already - I checked the last two pages


----------



## The39thStep (May 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Just heard the case made that we are at Stage 4 and the government said they'd ease lock down only when we got to Stage 3. SAGE say we are still at 4, Government reducing lockdown anyway. Supposedly asked about this at the briefing today, and it was skillfully ignored.
> So much for "led by the science". Pure politics going on here.


Depends which science ?


----------



## ska invita (May 29, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Depends which science ?


I presumed led by SAGE science, not "how many can we cull" Tory science


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 29, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Depends which science ?


A carefully-selected team of phrenologists, alchemists, astrologers and eugenicists brought a broad range of skills and experience to the table in order to come to this methodically-reasoned position


----------



## elbows (May 29, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Let's have a look at the case for ending social distancing for the non-vulnerable. The infection rate is only 7% in England.  There's other data to suggest the virus is getting less infectious. We've already killed off many of our over 70s by not protecting care homes. If we can provide enough PPE for hospital staff and carers, and protect people in care homes and vulnerable people in their own homes, ending social distancing outside those places would lead to a certain number of deaths. But pubs, coffee shops, restaurants and tourist venues could reopen. Lots of other businesses too. If  not there will be masses more unemployment, partly because the furlough money is running out. (I think it's projected to cost £90bn within the next few months.) More mental health problems, suicides, less money for social services, education, benefits and the |NHS, more and more poverty, huuuge numbers of early deaths because of delays to cancer detection and treatment. My gut feel is that the years of life lost by ending social distancing will be a much smaller number than years lost by a longer recession. We need a sensible courageous government to look at this choice. I think Johnson is weak and drifting and may collapse physically. Then I think the 1922 committee would just appoint Gove as PM.



I feel that at some stage soon I need a nice long break from talking about the pandemic on this forum. Its going to be a challenge, because so far I've felt like I have developed some sort of obligation to respond to a range of viewpoints and very much to respond to this sort of one. And normally I respond with a draining mix of things I would consider facts, some concepts and info about the story so far, and a rather angry bunch of emtional responses when I think the position being presented is foolish and deadly.

I cannot sustain that. I wasnt the sort of person that could argue endlessly about brexit for a number of years. It will be the same with a bunch of core issues with this pandemic and the human response to it. So let this be my notice that during June I wont be doing this, all manner of positions that I consider wrong, impossible or otherwise doomed could be mentioned in these threads and I will not be there to respond in the way people are used to.

As for this final occasion, I will skip much of what I would normally say, people should be able to guess a bunch of it anyway. Let me just say this - if people want to argue about lockdown and the most extreme of measures that is one thing, about whether that stuff will be necessary in future. But dont waste your time talking shit about a world you might think we can return to where there is no social distancing at all. Because I dont se that from even the successful countries, none of them involve normal life as it used to be with no social distancing. And actually reopening things is only one part of the story, the detail of how humans can behave and distance within those spaces is where much of the action is. Likewise there is no point imagining an economic picture of the future that is too simple, because the economics will be far more complicated than open or closed. For example, if public confidence in how safe all sorts of things are is eroded because people perceive that the government has acted too soon or too recklessly, then it doesnt matter if businesses have reopened. In fact, they might even be in a worse financial situation than if they had remained closed and on government financial life-support. Because its not just social distancing measures that can reduce a businesses ability to get in enough customers to turn a profit, its also about those customers feeling safe enough to want to use that business in the first place.

Anyway I hear that a whole load of SAGE documents and minutes have come out so now I'm likely to put much of my remaining energy into sifting through those in the coming days, then maybe I will take my long break.

So far all I have read is the following BBC story about it. A story that also reminded me that I wasnt entirely happy with all of my posts here in recent days. Posts where I was complaining about peoples gloomy attitudes. Where I was trying to encourage a particular sense of proportion about things in terms of how much peoples actions have helped. And how various lockdown relaxations, and lapsed behavioural restraint from some, doesnt mean we are certainly doomed to more heavy pandemic waves and associated lockdowns etc. Probably the reason I'm not completely happy with what I said is that the obvious flaw is in the logic of where we are right now - my attempts to have a period of mental recharging before fixating on future woes is rather spoilt by the idea that there probably isnt very much wiggle room in the first place. ie the wiggle room in regards R, the current levels of ongoing infection in the community, etc. It been many weeks now since I said it would be important to try to give people some kind of relaxed something for morale etc purposes, but I cannot honestly say that all the benchmarks for the size of our epidemic are where I would want them to be at this stage. And it sounds like there is a bunch of stuff in some of the SAGE documents that rather underscore the delicate nature of the current situation in the UK with the virus.









						Coronavirus: Relaxing lockdown 'risky' and a 'political decision'
					

Warning from top scientist advising government says cases are still at very high levels.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## The39thStep (May 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I presumed led by SAGE science, not "how many can we cull" Tory science


True. The whole thing reminds me of local authorities when they went through a period of ‘evidence led’ approaches which was of course entirely subjective and a veritable moving feast of ‘evidence ‘ .


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## ska invita (May 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I cannot sustain that. I wasnt the sort of person that could argue endlessly about brexit for a number of years. It will be the same with a bunch of core issues with this pandemic and the human response to it. So let this be my notice that during June I wont be doing this, all manner of positions that I consider wrong, impossible or otherwise doomed could be mentioned in these threads and I will not be there to respond in the way people are used to.



Good to get your strength up to talk endlessly about the no deal brexit coming our way from July! 
Thanks for all your efforts elbows - Im sure everyone on the boards agrees. Information from you and others here led to our workplace closing two weeks before lockdown!


----------



## Smangus (May 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I feel that at some stage soon I need a nice long break from talking about the pandemic on this forum. Its going to be a challenge, because so far I've felt like I have developed some sort of obligation to respond to a range of viewpoints and very much to respond to this sort of one. And normally I respond with a draining mix of things I would consider facts, some concepts and info about the story so far, and a rather angry bunch of emtional responses when I think the position being presented is foolish and deadly.
> 
> I cannot sustain that. I wasnt the sort of person that could argue endlessly about brexit for a number of years. It will be the same with a bunch of core issues with this pandemic and the human response to it. So let this be my notice that during June I wont be doing this, all manner of positions that I consider wrong, impossible or otherwise doomed could be mentioned in these threads and I will not be there to respond in the way people are used to.
> 
> ...




Well thanks very much for your contributions so far which I have found informative and illuminating, I know others have too. Enjoy your break!


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## elbows (May 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Just heard the case made that we are at Stage 4 and the government said they'd ease lock down only when we got to Stage 3. SAGE say we are still at 4, Government reducing lockdown anyway. Supposedly asked about this at the briefing today, and it was skillfully ignored.



I generally recommend ignoring the simplified stages system anyway, and concentrate more on the various indicators and models and things particular people say.

Todays news along these lines can be generated by a mix of the sage minutes that have been released, various documents that have been released, but also what various scientists, including people who might happen to be in SAGE, have been saying to the media. I am only at the start of looking at documents, havent looked at any minutes yet, and havent had time for much in the way of reading media articles apart from the BBC one I linked to in my last post.

I believe this is probably a key document, but do keep in mind its from early May rather than more recently. They havent released any really recent minutes etc so the more recent SAGE picture is still not available to us.

SPI-M-O: Consensus view on the potential relaxing of social distancing measures (4 May 2020)

Its not very long and much as it is tempting for me to post things like the grfaphs from it, I would have to go on about too many caveats and its better for people to understand the context of those model and the scenarios they are trying to model themselves.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/888759/S0313_SAGE33_Consensus_for_SPI-M_on_transition_strategies.pdf
		


I will quote this one point though because its long been on my mind:



> High levels of health care acquired infections and cases in care homes makes it very difficult to accurately estimate the current value of R due to community transmission, and therefore the impact of future policy changes on the trajectory of the epidemic.



Since that was written we have the pilot ONS/Oxford surveys and some other progress might have been made in trying to separate the community epidemic picture from healthcare and care home pictures. And its mostly only in the period after that paper was written that we've been getting official R estimates published.

Anyway, the document, when combined with our knowledge about what measures Johnson has already announced is really quite interesting, and should give people more clues about what sort of national picture was being modelled under various scenarios, what timescales and phases to expect that our contact tracing etc actually needs to be really good to stand a chance of keeping infection levels down, and also some clues about what else the government planned and when it might be. But again keep in mind that this stuff is already well out of date, and the models themselves may well need to have been corrected further since then to keep in tune with what actually happened to the death rate etc in subsequent weeks.

Thanks for the nice words about my break etc. I've not gone yet and will likely not be 100% gone even in June, just trying to take a back seat in certain areas that are exhausting and repetitive.


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## BCBlues (May 29, 2020)

elbows enjoy a well earned break.


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## Mation (May 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Just heard the case made that we are at Stage 4 and the government said they'd ease lock down only when we got to Stage 3. SAGE say we are still at 4, Government reducing lockdown anyway. Supposedly asked about this at the briefing today, and it was skillfully ignored.
> So much for "led by the science". Pure politics going on here.
> 
> Apologes if point has been made already - I checked the last two pages


What's going on at Levels 4 and 5 in the Action column re "current ... measures" and "today's level"?

If there's going to be a system of alert levels, does it not need to be at least a little bit fucking constant?


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## ska invita (May 29, 2020)

Mation said:


> What's going on at Levels 4 and 5 in the Action column re "current ... measures" and "today's level"?
> 
> If there's going to be a system of alert levels, does it not need to be at least a little bit fucking constant?


i think they have a more detailed one of these out there? this was clearly knocked up one afternoon to give the impression they were doing something and in some kind of orderly fashion


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## 20Bees (May 29, 2020)

*elbows* I am new to U75, from following a link to the now invisible ‘NHS...How’s it going...’ thread that was posted on... it might have been on one of mumsnet’s more intelligent threads.
I don’t know your age, gender, whether your interest in analysis of statistics is professional or purely personal, nor have I ever looked at your posting history, but I warmly appreciate the time you have devoted to these analyses, and to posting articulate, engaging and very readable comments, and, often, graphs and links, so generously.  
Thank you, and do be kind to yourself.


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## Mation (May 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> i think they have a more detailed one of these out there? this was clearly knocked up one afternoon to give the impression they were doing something and in some kind of orderly fashion


I'm not going to put any money on there being a more detailed version 

I'm reminded of the bar chart that used to be on the back of a box of Kellogg's cornflakes. It had several bars at different heights and in various bright colours. And no title, or labels on the axes at all. Wasn't referred to in the blurb. It just looked vaguely sciency, whilst being entirely meaningless.


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## ska invita (May 29, 2020)

20Bees said:


> *elbows* I am new to U75, from following a link to the now invisible ‘NHS...How’s it going...’ thread that was posted on... it might have been on one of mumsnet’s more intelligent threads.
> I don’t know your age, gender, whether your interest in analysis of statistics is professional or purely personal, nor have I ever looked at your posting history, but I warmly appreciate the time you have devoted to these analyses, and to posting articulate, engaging and very readable comments, and, often, graphs and links, so generously.
> Thank you, and do be kind to yourself.


if you get your post count up to 50 posts you'll be able to see that thread and the "hidden" forum its in 20Bees 
you can always post any old nonsense on this thread to get your count up:


			https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/drop-one-keep-one.283730/page-1109#post-16571737


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## DexterTCN (May 29, 2020)

Not sure where to put this...it seems Irish radio has been blocked in the UK.


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## Mation (May 29, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Not sure where to put this...it seems Irish radio has been blocked in the UK.


How do you mean?


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## DexterTCN (May 29, 2020)

Mation said:


> How do you mean?


Ask your alexa or google...it's not available in the UK now.


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## Mation (May 29, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Ask your alexa or google...it's not available in the UK now.


Well. Seems like neither of us can be arsed to look any further.


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## Supine (May 29, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Not sure where to put this...it seems Irish radio has been blocked in the UK.



Covid is doing all sorts of damage


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## Raheem (May 29, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Not sure where to put this...it seems Irish radio has been blocked in the UK.


I'm getting RTE on my phone without any problems.


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## 20Bees (May 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> if you get your post count up to 50 posts you'll be able to see that thread and the "hidden" forum its in 20Bees
> you can always post any old nonsense on this thread to get your count up:
> 
> 
> https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/drop-one-keep-one.283730/page-1109#post-16571737


Thank you, I didn’t know that - I imagined it had been made private, which was fair enough.


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## ska invita (May 29, 2020)

20Bees said:


> Thank you, I didn’t know that - I imagined it had been made private, which was fair enough.


its so only "members of the community" can see it, not just random people who come across it. I forget now, but i think there are at least two forums that become available when you hit 50 posts. welcome by the way!


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## Orang Utan (May 29, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Ask your alexa or google...it's not available in the UK now.


If you take your tinfoil hat off the signal will get through


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## ska invita (May 29, 2020)

The BBC has this summary of extracts from the SAGE minutes
The documents also showed:


On March 13, just before the government changed strategy, "Sage was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid-19 will cause a second peak"
The advice said neighbourhood or local lockdowns could undermine national measures or lead to a significant issue of disorder.
Even if every adult with a smartphone had the contact tracing app, it would not identify more than 50% of contacts
In mid-Feb, Sage said a "lack of data from China continues to hamper understanding"
The PM's top adviser Dominic Cummings attended six out of the 34 meetings
Hairdressers and other "personal care services" should not reopen soon as they "typically rely on highly-connected workers who may accelerate transmission"
The risk from attending large events is no higher than small ones because "close contact" is the biggest risk
Family gatherings are "particularly high risk" and religious services with high levels of physical contact are "higher risk"
Since April 23, Sage has called for routine testing of all healthcare staff and on 7 May said this should take place even when there are no symptoms
Modellers disagree on the impact of moving into "phase 2" including some children going to school, with some worried it will bring the R number above 1
The one thing that really stands out to me there is:

The advice said neighbourhood or local lockdowns could undermine national measures or lead to a significant issue of disorder.
The current government "policy" if you can call it that, is ease off lockdown (too early) but when there's a new outbreak a lockdown will kick in on a localised level. Directly contradicting SAGE advice. Again.


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## two sheds (May 29, 2020)

"The risk from attending large events is no higher than small ones because "close contact" is the biggest risk"

... seems very strange because with say 30,000 people surely you'll effectively for example have 6,000 groups of 5 in close contact. You're going to have a lot more spread than with 20 people.


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## ska invita (May 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> "The risk from attending large events is no higher than small ones because "close contact" is the biggest risk"
> 
> ... seems very strange because with say 30,000 people surely you'll effectively for example have 6,000 groups of 5 in close contact. You're going to have a lot more spread than with 20 people.


a summary may have missed the point...perhaps as an individual you'll come into close contact with a simliar number of people, so your personal risk is the same, though the overall effect is much bigger for the spread? Im speculating here. Maybe the point they were making is shut down small events too, not just big ones?


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## The39thStep (May 30, 2020)

ska invita said:


> The BBC has this summary of extracts from the SAGE minutes
> The documents also showed:
> 
> 
> ...


Not entirely sure what evidence Sage would have for a prediction of significant disorder for local  lockdowns  tbh, Yes it would have to be risked assessed but surely that would involve a threat assessment by the local councils and Police? Other countries have had and do have  regional specific responses. Lisbon as we speak will not be subject to the lifting of restrictions that the rest of Portugal will enjoy next month. I think I remember early on in the crisis pre lockdown a similar view from Sage that a national lockdown would run the risk of disorder which  when the lockdown was imposed wasn't realised?


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## David Clapson (May 30, 2020)

The bookies have Johnson at  3 to 1 to quit this year, 7 to 1 to quit next year. Good odds? I think he'll get some sort of CFS/ME and have to give up. Actually a lot of people with ME are hoping that Covid sufferers get it, cos then they'll have recognition of their illness and a proper research effort. I have ME but I don't think it's going to help if lots more people have it. But I'm a mild case. If people who've been bedridden for years want the Covid crowd to join them...I can understand that.


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## elbows (May 30, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Not entirely sure what evidence Sage would have for a prediction of significant disorder for local  lockdowns  tbh, Yes it would have to be risked assessed but surely that would involve a threat assessment by the local councils and Police? Other countries have had and do have  regional specific responses. Lisbon as we speak will not be subject to the lifting of restrictions that the rest of Portugal will enjoy next month. I think I remember early on in the crisis pre lockdown a similar view from Sage that a national lockdown would run the risk of disorder which  when the lockdown was imposed wasn't realised?



Its often better to read the source material for ourselves than rely only on such summaries. And so far I've found that much of the 'value' from studying SAGE documents and other similar stuff is to keep all the dates in mind and see how their stance shifts at various key moments.

In this case most of the documents I've seen on the subject of disorder were either very early, or were from a particular period just after mid-April. I've only read the first one of these so far so I cant get into discussing the subject properly right now. I havent checked the minutes for mentions of this subject around those dates yet either. 

Neighbourhood-level release and COVID-19

Policing the coronavirus outbreak: processes and prospects for collective disorder (19 April 2020)

How an exit strategy might affect crime and policing - working paper (21 April 2020)


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## elbows (May 30, 2020)

It was pretty inevitable that the first period I would look at in the SAGE minutes was all around the crucial weeks in March. I wont attempt to discuss everything properly in one go, I will just start by zooming in on my favourite subject of the botched timing, the orthodox approach, and the '4 weeks behind Italy' crap.

Well from what I've read so far, a lot of the stuff that came out of Vallances mouth, especially in and around the March 9th and March 12th press conferences was a reasonable representation of quite large chunks of the SAFE stuff that ended up recorded in the minutes. Unfortunately for all concerned, this involved some of the most obviously wrong stuff that contributed to the failures in the response of this country to the pandemic.

For example the '4 weeks behind Italy' stuff Vallance drove me crazy by going on about, was actually even worse:

March 10th: https://assets.publishing.service.g..._meeting_on_Wuhan_Coronavirus__Covid-19__.pdf



> The UK is considered to be 4-5 weeks behind Italy but on a similar curve (6-8 weeks behind if interventions are applied).



There are plenty of other signs of atrocious timing and being too late with things, but I'm not trying to do a thorough job on this right now. So I'll just give one example that may relate to some of the reasons why they botched the 'how far behind Italy' estimate by a baffling degree.



> It was agreed that PHE and SPI-M should discuss how to make surveillance data more useful for modelling purposes (e.g. providing case location data).



And this table provides some indications about the limitations of their ambitions and the sense of timing they were still going with on March 10th, before the u-turn.



Anyway we already know this position didnt last much longer. Lets have a quick look at how their sense of timing was doing just 3 days later at their next meeting. S0383_Fifteenth_SAGE_meeting_on_Wuhan_Coronavirus__Covid-19__.pdf



> There are probably more cases in the UK than SAGE previously expected at this point, and we may be further ahead on the epidemic curve, but the UK remains on broadly the same epidemic trajectory. The change in numbers is due to the 5-7 day lag phase in data availability for modelling.



These particular minutes also cover another topic that I know is generating interest:



> SAGE was unanimous that measures seeking to completely suppress spread of Covid- 19 will cause a second peak. SAGE advises that it is a near certainty that countries such as China, where heavy suppression is underway, will experience a second peak once measures are relaxed.



I tend to fit this into my old theory about the orthodox approach dying during that week, and some lag in the realisation that actually various previously unthinkable things now looked like the only option and experts invovled needed to shake up some of their ideas.

Even by March 16th when everything is actually in u-turn, there are still some areas where they are plodding along and getting it wrong. eg the doubling rate:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/888784/S0384_Sixteenth_SAGE_meeting_on_Wuhan_Coronavirus__Covid-19__.pdf
		




> London has the greatest proportion of the UK outbreak. It is possible that London has both community and nosocomial transmission (i.e. in hospitals).
> It is possible that there are 5,000-10,000 new cases per day in the UK (great uncertainty around this estimate).
> UK cases may be doubling in number every 5-6 days.



Elsewhere in that document there are some clues that suggest that just like it looked to the public on this week, the government were still pissing around wondering if they could delay school closures or tie them in to easter holidays in some way. SAGE had been pretty full on anti-school closures up to this stage but were now being asked to explore various things on that front.

In other regards the obvious u-turn and realisation that the original plans timing was also totally unsuitable were on full display:



> On the basis of accumulating data, including on NHS critical care capacity, the advice from SAGE has changed regarding the speed of implementation of additional interventions.
> SAGE advises that there is clear evidence to support additional social distancing measures be introduced as soon as possible.
> These additional measures will need to be accompanied by a significant increase in testing and the availability of near real-time data flows to understand their impacts.
> SAGE will further review at its next meeting whether, in the light of new data, school closures may also be required to prevent NHS capacity being exceeded.



On March 18th comes a modification to the 'how many weeks behind Italy' stuff, and their old stance on schools is also history:

Seventeenth SAGE meeting on COVID-19 - 18 March 2020



> Based on limited available evidence, SAGE considers that the UK is 2 to 4 weeks behind Italy in terms of the epidemic curve. The consensus is that growth of the UK epidemic is tracking at the same rate as in other countries.
> SAGE advises that available evidence now supports implementing school closures on a national level as soon as practicable to prevent NHS intensive care capacity being exceeded.





> There are 1,950 cases in the UK (17/03 at 14:00), with 87 intensive care cases, of which 62 are in London. Testing capacity has reached 6,084 daily, with a goal to reach 25,000 tests as soon as possible.
> The UK is following broadly the same exponential growth rate of cases as Italy, and there is consistency with patterns in other countries.
> There is uncertainty on our exact position, but the consensus view is that we are 2-4 weeks behind the epidemic curve in Italy.
> Assuming a doubling time of around 5-7 days continues to be reasonable, but this is before any of the measures brought in have had an effect; these measures are likely to slow the doubling time even if there is still an exponential curve.
> Modelling suggests that, without mitigation, London could reach Covid-19-related intensive care capacity by early April.



By March 23rd more corrections to their earlier estimates can be seen:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/888787/S0386_Eighteenth_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19_.pdf
		




> 8. The accumulation of cases over the previous two weeks suggests the reproduction number is slightly higher than previously reported. The science suggests this is now around 2.6-2.8. The doubling time for ICU patients is estimated to be 3-4 days.



By March 26th they said this about the doubling time: SAGE 19 minutes: Coronavirus (COVID-19) response, 26 March 2020



> 12. The data suggest a 3.3 day doubling time in hospitals.



And there were finally signs by then that they were actually getting a clue about the timing of some things to expect in future:



> 32. Assuming good compliance, the epidemic peak in the UK can be expected in April - around 2 weeks after all interventions came into effect.


----------



## Humberto (May 30, 2020)

You aren't readable. it's just walls of text and links and quotes.


----------



## Humberto (May 30, 2020)

A paragraph or two of your own and a link or two.


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## elbows (May 30, 2020)

I do my best, it takes hours. I know it doesnt always work out. I cannot retain the level of detail necessary to make my point the way I want to make it if I cut back too much. I'm glad I wont be spending the hours trying in future.


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## Humberto (May 30, 2020)

Why not?


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## BristolEcho (May 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> I do my best, it takes hours. I know it doesnt always work out. I cannot retain the level of detail necessary to make my point the way I want to make it if I cut back too much. I'm glad I wont be spending the hours trying in future.



We really appreciate it.


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## Numbers (May 30, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> We really appreciate it.


This elbows


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## Artaxerxes (May 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> I do my best, it takes hours. I know it doesnt always work out. I cannot retain the level of detail necessary to make my point the way I want to make it if I cut back too much. I'm glad I wont be spending the hours trying in future.



It's perfectly readable for those with an iota of patience and a willingness to learn.

This is complicated stuff.


----------



## LDC (May 30, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Actually a lot of people with ME are hoping that Covid sufferers get it, cos then they'll have recognition of their illness and a proper research effort. .... If people who've been bedridden for years want the Covid crowd to join them...I can understand that.



Well, they sound like cunts. CF/ME is recognised as an illness, just not as the illness that some people want it to be.


----------



## Jay Park (May 30, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Can't be confident about what thread, or forum, in which to put this excellent Barry Glendinning article (Saturday Guardian)
> 
> But IMO it's a *ridiculously brilliant* condemnation of 'decisions' to allow the Cheltenham 'Festival'  and Liverpool v Atletico at Anfield to go ahead in mid-March
> Worry not, sport-averse Urbans -- it's only _technically_ a sport article -- much more political!!



I skipped past that quietly wondering how this is still news


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## two sheds (May 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> It's perfectly readable for those with an iota of patience and a willingness to learn.
> 
> This is complicated stuff.



^^^ Exactly that. It's appreciated elbows


----------



## Looby (May 30, 2020)

Humberto said:


> You aren't readable. it's just walls of text and links and quotes.


Then skip his posts.


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## two sheds (May 30, 2020)

Humberto said:


> A paragraph or two of your own and a link or two.



The man has spent hundreds of hours studying and summarizing the most serious new development for years to affect all our lives. The internet is full of disinformation and misinformation, and elbows has cut through all that to give incredibly valuable insights making him I'd say the most valuable poster on urban this year. You can't summarize such highly technical information with a paragraph or two and a link or two.

He's already said how wearing he's found it and that he's having to take a break soon for his sanity. Comments like that really aren't going to help. I'm hoping you'll realize this morning how out of place it was.


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## SpookyFrank (May 30, 2020)

Humberto said:


> You aren't readable.



This is pretty rich from you of all people tbh.


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## Numbers (May 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The man has spent hundreds of hours studying and summarizing the most serious new development for years to affect all our lives. The internet is full of disinformation and misinformation, and elbows has cut through all that to give incredibly valuable insights making him I'd say the most valuable poster on urban this year. You can't summarize such highly technical information with a paragraph or two and a link or two.
> 
> He's already said how wearing he's found it and that he's having to take a break soon for his sanity. Comments like that really aren't going to help. I'm hoping you'll realize this morning how out of place it was.


Bang on the money


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## The39thStep (May 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its often better to read the source material for ourselves than rely only on such summaries. And so far I've found that much of the 'value' from studying SAGE documents and other similar stuff is to keep all the dates in mind and see how their stance shifts at various key moments.
> 
> In this case most of the documents I've seen on the subject of disorder were either very early, or were from a particular period just after mid-April. I've only read the first one of these so far so I cant get into discussing the subject properly right now. I havent checked the minutes for mentions of this subject around those dates yet either.
> 
> ...


Thanks for digging this out Elbows , you've been a star in this with research.

Most of these are desktop analysis /summaries based on behavioural theory  by academics .I have some time for Clifford Stott who is one of the authors who has produced some useful work on Polcing . behaviour and football. They aren't a threat assessment. though ,  the papers ,except from referencing one alleged incident of rioting in the UK ( theft of alcohol at a supermarket)  a brief reference to France ( police violence on citizens breaking the lockdown} and reports from Souh Korea about riots in China , are data/intelligence light but provide a succinct summary of theories on disorder and some insight again based on behaviour as how to reduce the threat.
Theres a  good reference to legitimacy and lockdowns and the key issue of 'we are all in it together' ( somewhat dated know post Cummings) Some stuff on 'mutual aid' v enforcement style in Policing which in reality is very difficult to deliver with Police cuts and the near end of neighbourhood Policing  and actually undermined by stunts like Police drones in the Lake District type stuff. Some brief issues about potential impact of cultural groups adherence to lockdown  and makes the point several times that the impact of corona virus both health and economic wise is greater on on poorer areas. This is where the thrust of the headlines of regional local lockdowns comes from tbh . Some speculation about attacks on tourists in rural areas and vigilantism in enforcing social distancing .  Finally there is an interesting but completely unsubstantiated claim, almost throw away to be honest,  about potential disorder and extremist groups and how such disorder might be used by foreign powers.
As I have said a speedy desktop summary of behavioural theory with suggested/for example  impacts ( not surprising as it reports to the Behavioural group within Sage) in some cases possible, likely and unlikely  which no doubt would be but one contribution of many to risk assessments across Police and Resilience forums across the UK. File under potentially useful.


----------



## Humberto (May 30, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> This is pretty rich from you of all people tbh.



Yeah no one likes my posts obv. Look I really respect Elbows but the guy is over working himself.


----------



## quimcunx (May 30, 2020)

What it will be vaguely interesting to see is when the govt say no need to keep working at home. Unless a big enough number of employers say they are losing out by their staff wfh instead of offices I cant see a political reason why they would say get back to your offices so it might actually be led by science. And actually bearing in mind that lockdown is being lifted sooner than science says it's safe maybe wfh will stay in place longer to compensate. 

I'm also interested to know what other countries have done about lifting wfh and with what precautions in place.


----------



## wtfftw (May 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Well, they sound like cunts. CF/ME is recognised as an illness, just not as the illness that some people want it to be.


CF is not CFS.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Need to keep an eye on that for sure. Its a shame I cannot have as much confidence in the very latest weeks data as I can earlier data. They have a disclaimer about that under those graphs but I havent completely got my head around it yet.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Following up on an earlier point about asymptomatic cases and anitbodies, I found this study done in China a month ago. (Preprint, so not yet peer-reviewed.)

Early viral clearance and antibody kinetics of COVID-19 among asymptomatic carriers

Key points appear to be:

The prevalence of asymptomatic cases in children.

The viral load of asymptomatic cases similar to that for symptomatic cases, but it clears up more quickly and the period in which the person may be infectious is about a third shorter.

Antibodies: Much lower levels of IgM generated, but only slightly lower levels of IgG.

So, from this admittedly small sample (23 asymptomatic cases) the evidence is that subsequent testing for IgG antibodies should identify them.


----------



## teuchter (May 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> It's perfectly readable for those with an iota of patience and a willingness to learn.
> 
> This is complicated stuff.


Yes.


----------



## MrSki (May 30, 2020)

Looks like a lot of people have decided lockdown is over already.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 30, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Looks like a lot of people have decided lockdown is over already.




There's been a couple of accidents this afternoon on the M3, with lane closures, which probably explains the stationary traffic.


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's been a couple of accidents this afternoon on the M3, with lane closures, which probably explains the stationary traffic.


Clearly an outbreak of Acute Cummings Vision to blame


----------



## DaveCinzano (May 30, 2020)

The queue to get into Morrison's this morning was huge, I'd estimate it was up to around a 30 minute wait to get in, and it looked packed inside as well. Yet I went round the back and got my Click & Collect order within about 5 minutes of confirming I was there. No one else was waiting or arrived for C&C whilst I (very briefly) waited. Bonkers.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 30, 2020)

People are allowed to drive aren't they. Is 'look at these bastards driving when they're allowed to drive' the new 'look at these bastards going to the park when they're allowed to go to the park'?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 30, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> People are allowed to drive aren't they. Is 'look at these bastards driving when they're allowed to drive' the new 'look at these bastards going to the park when they're allowed to go to the park'?


With a pic taken from a car/by a person in the park...


----------



## weltweit (May 30, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Looks like a lot of people have decided lockdown is over already.



TBF it is quite hard to get to Durham from the M3 ..


----------



## Looby (May 30, 2020)

They’re probably all on their way to fucking Dorset making it impossible to safely visit my local beach.
Won’t risk it anyway, I might end up bumping into Harry Redknapp failing to social distance.


----------



## treelover (May 30, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> The bookies have Johnson at  3 to 1 to quit this year, 7 to 1 to quit next year. Good odds? I think he'll get some sort of CFS/ME and have to give up. Actually a lot of people with ME are hoping that Covid sufferers get it, cos then they'll have recognition of their illness and a proper research effort. I have ME but I don't think it's going to help if lots more people have it. But I'm a mild case. If people who've been bedridden for years want the Covid crowd to join them...I can understand that.



in the near future people with M.E will have a lot to offer those who are Post Covid and showing M.E type symptoms, 

waits for the deniers/gaslighters, to pile in.


----------



## treelover (May 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Well, they sound like cunts. CF/ME is recognised as an illness, just not as the illness that some people want it to be.



Mmm...


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 30, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Looks like a lot of people have decided lockdown is over already.




It's busier than I've ever seen it around here, lots of people walking in family groups, garage sales in driveways, socially distant queues at butchers and bakers (noone ever normally visits the crap bakers) and Epping forest itself is chockablock.


----------



## Humberto (May 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> I do my best, it takes hours. I know it doesnt always work out. I cannot retain the level of detail necessary to make my point the way I want to make it if I cut back too much. I'm glad I wont be spending the hours trying in future.



In all honesty that was a bit of an arsehole/dismissive thing to say. You've really done this place proud.


----------



## andysays (May 30, 2020)

20Bees said:


> *elbows* I am new to U75, from following a link to the now invisible ‘NHS...How’s it going...’ thread that was posted on... it might have been on one of mumsnet’s more intelligent threads.
> I don’t know your age, gender, whether your interest in analysis of statistics is professional or purely personal, nor have I ever looked at your posting history, but I warmly appreciate the time you have devoted to these analyses, and to posting articulate, engaging and very readable comments, and, often, graphs and links, so generously.
> Thank you, and do be kind to yourself.


Welcome to U75


----------



## andysays (May 30, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> If you take your tinfoil hat off the signal will get through


I suspect Dexter has had the tin foil hat permanently welded to his head and there's now no way to remove it, even if he wanted to


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 30, 2020)

So, testing has been averaging around 120,000 a day this week.

Does that mean we should expect another sudden massive jump tomorrow, so that they can claim they have hit Johnson's target of 200,000 a day, by the end of May?


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 30, 2020)

Naturally - they'll massage the figures to meet their stupid target.  

I don't know why I watch these fucking charades, but here I am again watching it.


----------



## 2hats (May 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, testing has been averaging around 120,000 a day this week.


"People tested Unavailable"


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 30, 2020)

2hats said:


> "People tested Unavailable"


"the dog ate the results"


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 30, 2020)

2hats said:


> "People tested Unavailable"




That's because to meet the end of April deadline of 100,000 tests a day, they changed the method of counting, to include 'tests posted out', rather than tests actually carried out, and I suspect they don't want to expose the numbers that have 'gone missing in post'.

, , say no more.


----------



## 2hats (May 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's because to meet the end of April deadline of 100,000 tests a day, they changed the method of counting, to include 'tests posted out', rather than tests actually carried out, and I suspect they don't want to expose the numbers that have 'gone missing in post'.
> 
> , , say no more.


Indeed, I'm well aware. The tests per day also include multiple tests on individuals.


----------



## MrSki (May 30, 2020)

I have read unconfirmed reports that they have not met the target of 100,000 people being tested a day, which was supposed to be in force at the beginning of May, once.


----------



## kropotkin (May 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Well, they sound like cunts. CF/ME is recognised as an illness, just not as the illness that some people want it to be.


I thought exactly the same.


----------



## treelover (May 30, 2020)

So, what did you think?

M/H?


----------



## Boudicca (May 30, 2020)

Did you see this Looby?  Durdle Door.  It's just a picture published by the Purbeck Police and I don't know what is going on but the white suits are worrying.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 30, 2020)

Apologies for reacting to an old post -- only just catching up here



			
				William of Walworth said:
			
		

> Can't be confident about what thread, or forum, in which to put this excellent Barry Glendinning article (Saturday Guardian)
> But IMO it's a *ridiculously brilliant* condemnation of 'decisions' to allow the Cheltenham 'Festival'  and Liverpool v Atletico at Anfield to go ahead in mid-March
> Worry not, sport-averse Urbans -- it's only _technically_ a sport article -- much more political!!





Jay Park said:


> I skipped past that quietly wondering how this is still news



The _news itself_ isn't new, but the Barry Glendinning article was new -- Wednesday 27th May.
He's a pretty good sport editor at The Guardian, and I personally thought his summary of all that was brilliant,
You neither have to agree, nor just dismiss it.


----------



## two sheds (May 30, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> Did you see this Looby?  Durdle Door.  It's just a picture published by the Purbeck Police and I don't know what is going on but the white suits are worrying.  View attachment 215425



Why are they all huddled together like that? (rhetorical question)


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Why are they all huddled together like that? (rhetorical question)



I assume to make space for the two helicopters, one either side of the main crowd, there's another crowd in the distance, beyond the second chopper.


----------



## editor (May 30, 2020)

Brockwell Park (near Brixton) was the busiest I've seen it outside of a festival, and Ruskin Park was the most packed I've ever known it. In Brockwell, youths were doing nitrous balloons together, there were big groups of drinkers all sitting alarmingly close to each other but at least there wasn't a full football game going on.

Given the useless 'leadership' of this government, I don't blame people for going out, but that Covid  curve has got to be going back up again if this carries on


----------



## two sheds (May 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I assume to make space for the two helicopters, one either side of the crowd.



 ta, didn't see the one in the distance.


----------



## ash (May 30, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> Did you see this Looby?  Durdle Door.  It's just a picture published by the Purbeck Police and I don't know what is going on but the white suits are worrying.  View attachment 215425


 My Mums down there apparently 2 people jumped off Durdle door ( or maybe the cliff) sounds mental either way !!!


----------



## ash (May 30, 2020)

ash said:


> My Mums down there apparently 2 people jumped off Durdle door ( or maybe the cliff) sounds mental either way !!!


 By down there I don’t mean on the beach 😂😂


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 30, 2020)

Fucking hell.   









						Durdle Door: Three seriously hurt 'jumping off cliff into sea'
					

Police were called to Durdle Door over concerns for people seen jumping from the cliff into the sea.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 30, 2020)

More here -



> THOUSANDS of visitors were ordered off a packed beach after four people were injured jumping off the top of Durdle Door. Two rescue helicopters landed on the beach this afternoon.
> 
> Three of the casualties have sustained serious injuries and are being treated by the ambulance service.
> 
> ...



Fucking idiots.


----------



## Looby (May 30, 2020)

Someone has just shared a video of the people jumping and the crowded beach cheering them.
This is everyone leaving as they closed the beach.
That path is narrow and very steep. I saw a photo this week of people queuing on that to get down to the beach. It’s insane.


----------



## Looby (May 30, 2020)

There should have been a limit on how far you can travel for leisure and exercise. We don’t have the fucking resources to deal with idiots from other counties as well as our own at the moment.


----------



## Sue (May 30, 2020)

editor said:


> Brockwell Park (near Brixton) was the busiest I've seen it outside of a festival, and Ruskin Park was the most packed I've ever known it. In Brockwell, youths were doing nitrous balloons together, there were big groups of drinkers all sitting alarmingly close to each other but *at least there wasn't a full football game going on.*
> 
> Given the useless 'leadership' of this government, I don't blame people for going out, but that Covid  curve has got to be going back up again if this carries on



There was a full contact, five-a-side match going on first thing this morning in my local park in Hackney -- the players were mid to late teens. And a kid's football training session. Going by the litter strewn everywhere, there were obviously a loads of people in there last night too.


----------



## marshall (May 30, 2020)

Looby said:


> There should have been a limit on how far you can travel for leisure and exercise. We don’t have the fucking resources to deal with idiots from other counties as well as our own at the moment.



Same in North Norfolk, lifeguards called out a few times this week to rescue people cut off by the tide. Out of towners, city folk...don't understand the ways of the country


----------



## David Clapson (May 30, 2020)

Cummings eviscerated in the FT today. I pasted it in the Cummings thread. The Dominic Cummings file


----------



## Sprocket. (May 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> More here -
> 
> 
> 
> Fucking idiots.


I couldn’t agree more.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 30, 2020)

Looby said:


> There should have been a limit on how far you can travel for leisure and exercise. We don’t have the fucking resources to deal with idiots from other counties as well as our own at the moment.





marshall said:


> Same in North Norfolk, lifeguards called out a few times this week to rescue people cut off by the tide. Out of towners, city folk...don't understand the ways of the country



Same on the Sussex coast, it's gone nuts, Worthing beach was busier than normal on a sunny Saturday.


----------



## editor (May 30, 2020)

Sue said:


> There was a full contact, five-a-side match going on first thing this morning in my local park in Hackney -- the players were mid to late teens. And a kid's football training session. Going by the litter strewn everywhere, there were obviously a loads of people in there last night too.


Right now, there's a street party going on opposite me - everyone close together drinking - and a busy house party below, and I can hear another party close by. It's madness.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 30, 2020)

With all this beach chat, all I can say (from earlier on today) is that it's *very* good job that Swansea beach is so enormous ......


----------



## editor (May 30, 2020)

There's a full on house party going on below me. RAMMED full of people, most of whom are busy arguing and shouting in each other's faces.


----------



## Sprocket. (May 30, 2020)

I fear the death toll is going to escalate very quickly. Loss of common sense seems to be virulent.


----------



## weltweit (May 30, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> I fear the death toll is going to escalate very quickly. Loss of common sense seems to be virulent.



Won't know initially for a couple of weeks though. First people get inflected, then they experience symptoms, then their illness gets serious, then they get hospitalised, then they go to ICU, then they die.


----------



## weltweit (May 30, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Won't know initially for a couple of weeks though. First people get inflected, then they experience symptoms, then their illness gets serious, then they get hospitalised, then they go to ICU, then they die.


It isn't a chain of events I want to experience, so no house parties or less than 2m closeness for me anytime soon!


----------



## William of Walworth (May 30, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Won't know initially for a couple of weeks though. First people get inflected, *then they experience symptoms, then their illness gets serious, then they get hospitalised, then they go to ICU, then they die*.



Not everyone and not inevitably, thankfully!! 

It's worth remembering also, that not everywhere throughout the UK is experiencing equally high levels of irresponsible behaviour.

Here in our part of Wales, behaviour remains far from bad from what we've seen, mostly.


----------



## weepiper (May 30, 2020)

Covid-19: England alone 'has the world's highest mortality rate'
					

WITHOUT the devolved nations considered, England has the worst coronavirus mortality rate in the world according to a Financial Times data…




					www.thenational.scot
				




Grim reading


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (May 30, 2020)

editor said:


> There's a full on house party going on below me. RAMMED full of people, most of whom are busy arguing and shouting in each other's faces.


ah well, you live in a choice spot, I fondly remember the sound system starting on a late friday afternoon and not stopping till sunday early evening in that block, pre covid/1990's obviously.
Lots of groups of teens at the other end of moorlands esaste when I just walked the dog. Police van was was hovering in attendance to monitor the situation...


----------



## DexterTCN (May 30, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Not everyone and not inevitably, thankfully!!
> 
> It's worth remembering also, that not everywhere throughout the UK is experiencing equally high levels of irresponsible behaviour.
> 
> Here in our part of Wales, behaviour remains far from bad from what we've seen, mostly.


Well we're mainly seeing it only from England.


----------



## campanula (May 31, 2020)

Mmm, it all looks very lockdown compliant where I am...but since I am  not really going anywhere, I probably wouldm't know how much the lockdown is crumbling. I ventured a dogwalk by the river around a month ago...at one pinch point over a railway crossing, I completely lost my shit at some lycra clad imbecile hurtling up the steps towards me. '2metres, Dude', I bellowed at him...and tbf, he scarpered back down the stairs quicksmart. Even so, several families with bikes were also lurking at the bottom of the stairs where I practically had to squeeze by. So much for the relaxing walk - I was virtually homicidal - certainly tense as fuck. We walked back along the (empty) road. I have  avoided any open spaces apart from the local graveyard for (solitary) dogwalks...and have not been anywhere  other than my totally empty Tesco Express and a tiny Waitrose for partner's beer  ( which is also more or less empty ). Apart from that,  I haven't been within 2 metres of anyone except my partner and grand-daughter for months. There is no sunny weather whatsoever which would induce me to go to a beach. I can get along on Universal Credit for years if I have to. And if I ever have to venture anywhere near other people, I will take a sodding great length of bamboo. I do live in the centre of town  (in England) and  it is still pretty much deserted - and the local roads are pretty empty too.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (May 31, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> Well we're mainly seeing it only from England.





> it's a LANDAN ting!


----------



## Dogsauce (May 31, 2020)

Park near me has had large groups of young people (probably students) sat on the grass together most nights for about a couple of weeks now. Mountain bikers also out in groups in the woods. A lot of people do seem to have given up.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fucking hell.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Absolute numpties, I  spent my holidays around Durdle Door and Dorset growing up and thats not a good place to jump into the unknown at the bottom of those cliffs.

Never mind the 200ft argument with physics.


----------



## editor (May 31, 2020)

Just look at the amount of people on the beach


----------



## BristolEcho (May 31, 2020)

Is it like that often during the summer?


----------



## David Clapson (May 31, 2020)

Must be terrifying right now for someone who works with the public and lives with a parent. Which is more of a BAME arrangement...lots of white people have barely any contact with their parents.


----------



## little_legs (May 31, 2020)




----------



## David Clapson (May 31, 2020)




----------



## Raheem (May 31, 2020)

Elbows makes really good posts, but their user name makes me think of a gang member with an unusual fighting style.

Eta: Hadn't realised how many posts had been made since Elbows was under discussion.


----------



## Looby (May 31, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Is it like that often during the summer?


It gets busy, Lulworth is always busy really. I avoid places like that in peak tourist time. 
Beaches like Bournemouth and Sandbanks are often heaving in really good weather. Last summer we were getting to the car park before 8.30 to get a parking space. 
But that’s in ‘normal’ times with hotels, holiday parks and campsites open so people are here on holiday.


----------



## Boudicca (May 31, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Is it like that often during the summer?


It's a steep climb down so only for the fairly fit and healthy.  You can see in the photos that most of the people are young.  Given that 98% of transmission is indoors, that young people generally don't get corona too badly and everywhere they normally go is closed, I think it's very understandable that they are on the beach.  If I was 25 years old, I probably would be too.  That does not excuse the idiots who injured themselves and forced everyone to squash up on the beach and perhaps join the 2% who catch it outdoors.

They've closed the road now.


----------



## Looby (May 31, 2020)

marshall said:


> Same in North Norfolk, lifeguards called out a few times this week to rescue people cut off by the tide. Out of towners, city folk...don't understand the ways of the country


We don’t have lifeguards on our beaches yet. Members of the public had to pull two swimmers out of the sea yesterday when they got caught in a riptide.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 31, 2020)

Looby said:


> It gets busy, Lulworth is always busy really. I avoid places like that in peak tourist time.
> Beaches like Bournemouth and Sandbanks are often heaving in really good weather. Last summer we were getting to the car park before 8.30 to get a parking space.
> But that’s in ‘normal’ times with hotels, holiday parks and campsites open so people are here on holiday.



Yep it is beautiful! I don't think I could cope with the q and crowds though.


----------



## marshall (May 31, 2020)

Looby said:


> We don’t have lifeguards on our beaches yet. Members of the public had to pull two swimmers out of the sea yesterday when they got caught in a riptide.



Sorry, I should have been clearer, these city bumpkins actually needed a life_boat._


----------



## Looby (May 31, 2020)

marshall said:


> Sorry, I should have been clearer, these city bumpkins actually needed a life_boat._


Yeah we’ve had a few of those as well, round the purbecks.


----------



## zora (May 31, 2020)

I agree with Boudicca regarding the infection risk outside, so what looks to us now, after a couple of months more or less confined to our homes, like staggeringly packed beaches and parks is actually probably okay. 
And then there's also the point Looby makes about lifeguards not being there yet, as well as lack of toilets and other infrastructure. It's a bit like the Snowdon scenes just before lockdown. It'd be great if the government could just stop for one second to think what the consequences of these announcements are, when the whole country that would otherwise be at work/playing or watching sports/in the pub/shopping/socialising at home etc etc suddenly flocks to the great outdoors on the same day...

Few more bits gleaned from Germany again, one tieing in with the indoor transmission risk. In a choir in Berlin a whopping 60 of 80 singers got infected, in one rehearsal I believe. (This was already in March, prior to contact restrictions, and despite a lot of places having reopened, choirs aren't back just yet in Germany, but still interesting in terms of a "superspreader" event under pre-lockdown circs). 
A new outbreak in a small city in the North of Germany after a couple of private parties last weekend. Contact tracing in full effect, an estimated 300 people needing to be contacted and isolated as a result. 

I fear the contact tracing teams here will also have their work cut out by the end of next week following this party time weekend.


----------



## crossthebreeze (May 31, 2020)

Government announced overnight that extremely vulnerable people who have been shielding can now exercise outside, and if they live alone can meet one person from another household outdoors, from Monday.
Lockdown easing for Covid-19 ‘shielders’ from Monday announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson


----------



## phillm (May 31, 2020)

Coronavirus: Hundreds flout lockdown rules to attend illegal party in east London
					

Social media videos show crowds gathered on a residential road and nearby Hackney Marshes.




					news.sky.com


----------



## editor (May 31, 2020)

Here's how it's looking in the park near me. Last night there was a busy street party outside my block with a full on, jam-packed house party below.









						Football, volleyball and huge crowds in Brockwell Park as the lockdown weakens
					

Yesterday, Brockwell Park was the busiest we’ve ever seen it outside of a festival, with huge crowds soaking up the hot weather and enjoying a booze-up underneath a spotless sky.



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 31, 2020)

It's ok though, cos they're young and healthy and the government made them do it


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 31, 2020)

editor said:


> Here's how it's looking in the park near me. Last night there was a busy street party outside my block with a full on, jam-packed house party below.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Parks I was in last weekend were like that too. Lockdown has been more or less broken wrt outside gatherings in London for a few weeks now. But new infections continue to fall.


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Following up on an earlier point about asymptomatic cases and anitbodies, I found this study done in China a month ago. (Preprint, so not yet peer-reviewed.)
> 
> Early viral clearance and antibody kinetics of COVID-19 among asymptomatic carriers
> 
> ...



And here is a BBC story about those pesky asymptomatic cases. It does drag on a bit but finally gets to the detail:









						The mystery of 'silent spreaders'
					

Scientists have discovered more evidence about a strange and worrying feature of the coronavirus.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Different studies suggest a huge range of possibilities for how many cases are asymptomatic stretching from 5% to 80% of cases. That was the conclusion of an analysis by Prof Carl Heneghan of the University of Oxford and colleagues who looked at 21 research projects.
> 
> The upshot, they said, was that "there is not a single reliable study to determine the number of asymptomatics". And they said that if the screening for Covid-19 is only carried out on people with symptoms - which has been the main focus of UK testing policy - then cases will be missed, "perhaps a lot of cases".



They correctly point out the need to understand this better, and some of the complications this poses for tacking the disease. hat I never have any stomach for is the way this stuff is talked about as if its a huge surprise. Asymptomatic cases of respiratory disease should not be a surprise, but it seems they do, perhaps because of the longstanding impressions about disease people have come to accept as the whole story, perhaps because of bias against anything that is too inconvenient for our oversimplified way of dealing with things.


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

And with that said, as far as the UK goes I expect the authorities to notice this stuff more when they do wide staff testing in particular hospitals (as with Weston recently).


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Elbows makes really good posts, but their user name makes me think of a gang member with an unusual fighting style.
> 
> Eta: Hadn't realised how many posts had been made since Elbows was under discussion.



If the unusual fighting style involves accidentally making a hole in a new bath by slipping over and coming down on my elbow right next to where the crap and flimsy bath met a support, and then panicking as water emptied into the kitchen below, then it would be in tune with the origins of this nickname.

I am still on track to have a nice break in June, but I will keep plodding away, somethat intermittently, at the SAGE minutes and papers anyway. I see something on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph about how officials could 'only cope with 5 COVID-19 cases a week' which appears to relate to how much contract tracing the awful system could actually ahndle during the original 'contain' phase. I havent found the relevant SAGE stuff on this yet, but its not surprising, this sort of thing is why I have always said the contain phase was not a genuine attempt at containment, at best it was only a delay and learn phase.


----------



## campanula (May 31, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> overnment announced overnight that extremely vulnerable people who have been shielding can now exercise outside, and if they live alone can meet one person from another household outdoors, from Monday.
> Lockdown easing for Covid-19 ‘shielders’ from Monday announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson


What is the fucking matter with these morons?  MY D-i-L, one of the extremely vulnerable groups has been going for a sioitary walk with her partner throughout the entire crisis. After a very short foray along the road, they nip through a hedge into fields where they have 'befriended' a family of water voles. Does this govt seriously think anyone not bedridden has been literally under lock and key? I get that people live in different circumstances - D-i L lives  in a busy uni town...but with enough wildness on the edges to swish through nettles and be entirely alone. And outside, safe. With her mental health intact.
But no, they make these ludicrous announcements which manage to be both eerily specific (such as precise number???) while still being vague and ambiguous.
I would surely expect that, like us, the majority of the UK take zero notice of crappy blitherings made by govt. stooges...and operate from a point of intelligent awareness, having been utterly unable to rely on a single govt initiative whatsoever. . There are only 2 things to bear in mind, surely - to protect yourself and everyone else by remaining separate...whether indoors, outdoors, in private spaces or public land. Everything else is...just a bit pointless. Especially since they need to eat and as a youngish and healthy looking couple, there are no eager mutual aid groups and because R has a partner, she has conscientiously refused to accept food parcels because people who live alone are a priority...so the weekly supermarket visit has been far more of a worry than staying indoors.


----------



## treelover (May 31, 2020)

editor said:


> Just look at the amount of people on the beach





no toilets either, mmm..


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

campanula said:


> Does this govt seriously think anyone not bedridden has been literally under lock and key?



Lots of people took the shielding stuff very seriously and havent left the house since that stuff came into effect. And lots of people who were shielding in that way were complaining this week of having been forgotten and left behind, which I'm sure went on to influence the timing of that announcement.


----------



## Boudicca (May 31, 2020)

campanula said:


> What is the fucking matter with these morons?  MY D-i-L, one of the extremely vulnerable groups has been going for a sioitary walk with her partner throughout the entire crisis. After a very short foray along the raod, they nip through a hedge into fields where they have 'befriended' a family of water voles. Does this govt seriously think anyone not bedridden has been literally under lock and key? I get that people live in different circumstances - D-i L lives  in a busy uni town...but with enough wildness on the edges to swish through nettles and be entirely alone. And outside, safe. With her mental health intact.
> But no, they make these ludicrous announcements which manage to be both eerily specific (such as precise number???, while still being vague and ambiguous.
> I would surely expect that, like us, the majority of the UK take zero notice of crappy blitherings made by govt. stooges...and operate from a point of intelligent awareness. There are only 2 things to bear in mind, surely - to protect yourself and everyone else by remaining separate...whether indoors, outdoors, in private spaces or public land. Everything else is...just a bit pointless.


Actually I have a couple of friends who have been surprisingly compliant, with consequent effects to their mental health.  One of them is counting her 12 weeks, as though it will magically be safe when they are over.


----------



## campanula (May 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Lots of people took the shielding stuff very seriously and havent left the house since that stuff came into effect. And lots of people who were shielding in that way were complaining this week of having been forgotten and left behind, which I'm sure went on to influence the timing of that announcement.


Yep, I get that...but not about a strict indoor/outdoor thing... the general lack of any clear policy regarding money it has been far more worrying, to Rachel, who normally works as a nursery teacher, Obviously, she is going nowhere on June 1st,,, whether nurseries open or not...and her long-term existence has been of much more import than whether she is inside/outside and how many people she can wave at. Is she ever going to return to work...and how will they pay rent, bills and eat? These are much more anxiety inducing than remaining in the house.


----------



## campanula (May 31, 2020)

These stupid announcements couldn'r be a distraction to avoid discussing the bigger issues such as being able to keep a roof over people's heads and actually live...could they (cynical smirk)?  Surely not (disbelieving shrug). Or just some irrelevant fluff to get us looking away from the egregious fails of the govt. machine.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (May 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> If the unusual fighting style involves accidentally making a hole in a new bath by slipping over and coming down on my elbow right next to where the crap and flimsy bath met a support, and then panicking as water emptied into the kitchen below, then it would be in tune with the origins of this nickname.


I did that as a teenager - slipped in the shower and landed on my knee, punching a hole in the bath.  My parents weren't amused, not least as they'd only recently retiled the bathroom.  Then there was a time when I tripped running down the stairs and put my hand through the front door - I was a liability as a kid.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 31, 2020)

campanula said:


> What is the fucking matter with these morons?  MY D-i-L, one of the extremely vulnerable groups has been going for a sioitary walk with her partner throughout the entire crisis. After a very short foray along the road, they nip through a hedge into fields where they have 'befriended' a family of water voles. Does this govt seriously think anyone not bedridden has been literally under lock and key? I get that people live in different circumstances - D-i L lives  in a busy uni town...but with enough wildness on the edges to swish through nettles and be entirely alone. And outside, safe. With her mental health intact.
> But no, they make these ludicrous announcements which manage to be both eerily specific (such as precise number???) while still being vague and ambiguous.
> I would surely expect that, like us, the majority of the UK take zero notice of crappy blitherings made by govt. stooges...and operate from a point of intelligent awareness, having been utterly unable to rely on a single govt initiative whatsoever. . There are only 2 things to bear in mind, surely - to protect yourself and everyone else by remaining separate...whether indoors, outdoors, in private spaces or public land. Everything else is...just a bit pointless. Especially since they need to eat and as a youngish and healthy looking couple, there are no eager mutual aid groups and because R has a partner, she has conscientiously refused to accept food parcels because people who live alone are a priority...so the weekly supermarket visit has been far more of a worry than staying indoors.



I've been regularly going outside, just haven't risked the shops and studiously crossing the road or dodging into paths when seeing other people going past. Which is why I get so irate at joggers/others not making space.

The advice to hide away from others in your house was fucking mental, like, I can't physically do this in a flat this size.


----------



## teqniq (May 31, 2020)

Vacuous drivel from the cheif gimp:



in other news Hancock has received large donations from... guess who?


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 31, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Vacuous drive from the cheif gimp:
> 
> View attachment 215496
> 
> in other news Hancock has received lage donationd from... guess who?





Two major sporting events that took place not long before lockdown on 23 March may have "caused increased suffering and death", according to a leading scientist.Professor Tim Spector told the BBC's Tuesday night show, Game Changer: How the UK played on during coronavirus, that rates of local cases rocketed in coronavirus "hotspots" following the Cheltenham Festival and the Champions League fixture between Liverpool and Atletico Madrid.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

campanula said:


> What is the fucking matter with these morons?  MY D-i-L, one of the extremely vulnerable groups has been going for a sioitary walk with her partner throughout the entire crisis. After a very short foray along the road, they nip through a hedge into fields where they have 'befriended' a family of water voles. Does this govt seriously think anyone not bedridden has been literally under lock and key? I get that people live in different circumstances - D-i L lives  in a busy uni town...but with enough wildness on the edges to swish through nettles and be entirely alone. And outside, safe. With her mental health intact.
> But no, they make these ludicrous announcements which manage to be both eerily specific (such as precise number???) while still being vague and ambiguous.
> I would surely expect that, like us, the majority of the UK take zero notice of crappy blitherings made by govt. stooges...and operate from a point of intelligent awareness, having been utterly unable to rely on a single govt initiative whatsoever. . There are only 2 things to bear in mind, surely - to protect yourself and everyone else by remaining separate...whether indoors, outdoors, in private spaces or public land. Everything else is...just a bit pointless. Especially since they need to eat and as a youngish and healthy looking couple, there are no eager mutual aid groups and because R has a partner, she has conscientiously refused to accept food parcels because people who live alone are a priority...so the weekly supermarket visit has been far more of a worry than staying indoors.


Loads of people have been shut in for weeks. I talk to self-isolated people every day for my job and many are terrified of leaving the house. Many can’t go outside as they have no garden


----------



## campanula (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Loads of people have been shut in for weeks. I talk to self-isolated people every day for my job and many are terrified of leaving the house. Many can’t go outside as they have no garden



Yeah, I know.  Just doesn't make any sort of sense that suddenly, they can now step outside and be visited by someone from another household. I am not questioning people's choices and actions here...just the shallow 'advice' when, afaics, nothing much has changed...because we are still effectively blind. A month ago, we were told there would be anitbody tests available to every household...amongst other such promises...when there still isn't even enough PPE. The things we need in place...such as regional (accurate) testing, are still nowhere easily available ..so I dunno. I am having a hard time in understanding why people would literally put their lives in the hands of venal liars and corrupt flunkeys. If I was too scared to step outside before...why would it suddenly feel 'safe' right now. Crappy bit of rubbish advice is no substitute for effective controls.

We are still guessing who has already had the virus...with all sorts of assumptions of immunity. We just don't know anything which would encourage me at least, to materially alter my current precautions and behaviour. I know data and statistics are available to make policies on macro levels...but on an individual, everyday level, I am still flailing about in the dark.


----------



## zahir (May 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> I see something on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph about how officials could 'only cope with 5 COVID-19 cases a week' which appears to relate to how much contract tracing the awful system could actually ahndle during the original 'contain' phase. I havent found the relevant SAGE stuff on this yet, but its not surprising, this sort of thing is why I have always said the contain phase was not a genuine attempt at containment, at best it was only a delay and learn phase.



The EUReferendum blog has some comments on the Telegraph article:




__





						EU Referendum
					






					www.eureferendum.com


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

zahir said:


> The EUReferendum blog has some comments on the Telegraph article:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Although I obviously agree with that article that large sections of the media dont really understand what they are reporting about that stuff, this article still makes the classic mistake of thinking that the shitty pandemic plans were only foiund wanting because this was a SARS virus rather than flu. But I've said before that I consider that our plan and resources would have been found to be just as inappropriate if we had a really bad influenza pandemic, especially if there was quite a long gap between epidemic outbreaks and vaccine availability.

Anyway I should quote a bit to backup my general position on this.



> This is a chicken and egg situation. PHE didn't have the capacity to carry out extensive contact tracing and testing (for control purposes), *because there was no intention to control the pandemic, when the infection arrived in the UK*. Thus, testing and contact tracing wasn't stopped because of lack of capacity. There was a lack of capacity because it was always expected that testing and contact tracing would be stopped.



As for the following bit, there are soon signs of this in the SAGE minutes, soon after the major u-turn they start going on and on about testing capacity, and in some quotes which I shall dig up shortly it is almost possible to detect the exasperation.



> It is true though that, had the scientists and assembled "experts" at Sage realised the game was up, there was nothing immediately that could have been done, because of capacity issues. But, at least, they could have sounded the alarm, and got an expansion programme underway.


----------



## editor (May 31, 2020)

Something similar was happening in my block last night 









						Hundreds attend east London party breaching lockdown rules
					

A DJ booth was set up at the unlicensed event in east London on Saturday night.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

March 16th: SAGE 16 minutes: Coronavirus (COVID-19) response, 16 March 2020



> SAGE advises that there is clear evidence to support additional social distancing measures be introduced as soon as possible.
> These additional measures will need to be accompanied by a significant increase in testing and the availability of near real-time data flows to understand their impacts.





> UK testing
> 
> SAGE highlighted the critical importance of scaling up antibody serology and diagnostic testing to managing the epidemic. A solution is urgently required, with a plan for implementation.
> Antibody testing is particularly vital to address the central unknown question of the ratio of asymptomatic to symptomatic cases.
> ...





> Close to real-time, high-quality data are important to the strategy the UK is pursuing. All options to get this data flow need to be considered. NHS and PHE are arranging a workshop ASAP to discuss and make this happen. Duplication of effort on this needs to be avoided.



March 18th: SAGE 17 minutes: Coronavirus (COVID-19) response, 18 March 2020



> SAGE discussed the importance of good quality and timely data. CHESS data has improved but has not stabilised, so trend analysis is more challenging. The overall quality of data is improving, with short time lags to ensure data quality and consistency.





> 17. NHS updated on a joint NHS-PHE plan for testing, including 25,000 PCR tests a day, an increase in viral antigen detection tests and increased serosurveillance, including a more widely available serological test.
> SAGE discussed how to ensure that key workers, particularly NHS staff, get full access to comprehensive testing and agreed the importance of ramping up testing as soon as possible.



March 23rd: SAGE 18 minutes: Coronavirus (COVID-19) response, 23 March 2020



> 9. Increased community testing and surveillance will be invaluable to measure the effects of the interventions taken





> 30. NHS testing capacity in the UK is currently at around 5000 a day, to be increased to 15,000 a day by mid-April. A platform in partnership with the private sector has been established to aim to increase capacity to 110,000 a day by mid-April.
> 31. It is essential to have a clear rationale for prioritising testing for patients and health workers, and to coordinate testin supplies across the UK to ensure the most urgent needs are being met.
> 32. Healthcare workers must be screened repeatedly and should take priority.



Frustration visible via reemphasis on March 26th: SAGE 19 minutes: Coronavirus (COVID-19) response, 26 March 2020



> 36. PHE described efforts to increase clinical testing, key worker testing and antibody testing. SAGE re-emphasised the importance of urgently ramping up testing with appropriate quality.





> CMO to communicate that prioritisation of testing - i.e. who gets tested first - sits with him.



By the 2nd of April they are still largely going round in circles in regards various testing issues. Throughout March the subject of serology testing and spread in hospitals comes up nearly as often as I was bringing such things up in the early months. By the end of March they could tell nosocomial spread was an issue, and their comments on the subject become more desperate. Care homes didnt get much of a look in or prioritisation at the time.

By April 16th the limits of what PHE was going to deliver was on full display: SAGE 26 minutes: Coronavirus (COVID-19) response, 16 April 2020



> 9. PHE confirmed ot was unable to deliver a community testing programme. SAGE agreed that if PHE is unable to undertake the programme then this should be undertaken within a repeated ONS-led household survey programme.


----------



## gentlegreen (May 31, 2020)

Formby beach Liverpool apparently ...
My local park is also attracting people who can't even be bothered to dump their crap within 2 metres of a bin when they have to walk past one to exit ...











						Beaches covered in glass, laughing gas canisters and litter
					

People were asked to be respectful as they flocked towards the coast this weekend - those pleas were ignored




					www.liverpoolecho.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

On the subject of testing I see that with a straight face they are claiming to have beaten the 200,000 tests by the end of May target.


----------



## andysays (May 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> On the subject of testing I see that with a straight face they are claiming to have beaten the 200,000 tests by the end of May target.


As if by magic...

Coronavirus: UK exceeds 200,000 testing capacity target




> Some 205,634 tests were available on Saturday, the government confirmed.


----------



## teqniq (May 31, 2020)

More dodgyness:









						People want to know why a disgraced TalkTalk CEO is leading the government's testing programme
					

People really want to know why the government has appointed "naive" ex-TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding to lead its coronavirus testing programme.




					www.indy100.com


----------



## two sheds (May 31, 2020)

andysays said:


> As if by magic...
> 
> Coronavirus: UK exceeds 200,000 testing capacity target



"were available" ...  in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”


----------



## andysays (May 31, 2020)

two sheds said:


> "were available" ... in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”


"we made them available, it's not our fault if the stupid public were too busy having barbeques and visiting the beach to actually take the tests..."


----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 31, 2020)

“...& a week later still no results....blame the labs Boris!”


----------



## vanya (May 31, 2020)

The Sick Man of Europe
					

It's hard to recall now, but there was a time the UK looked on top of Coronavirus. In the very early days as the outbreak was raging in Wu...




					averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com
				






> It's hard to recall now, but there was a time the UK looked on top of Coronavirus. In the very early days as the outbreak was raging in Wuhan, Iran, and northern Italy, we were treated to a reassuring show of covid-19 victims getting tracked down and carted off to hospital. The people they had been in contact with were traced, tested, and told to stay put. For once, the Tories were on the edge of ... doing the right thing. As the rest of Italy succumbed and Spain fell under its pall, there was a smidgen of possibility the UK might weather the storm with fewer infections and fewer deaths than the countries across the Channel. Two months is a long time in epidemiology these days, and here we are at the end of May leading Europe with the highest incidence of disease and the greatest number of dead. And we take this grisly trophy for one reason. Despite their best efforts at trying to blame the public for not obeying lockdown rules, the Tories' tardiness at implementing the measures necessary to save tens of thousands of lives is responsible. This disaster is on them. There is no one else to carry the can.
> 
> Yet, as with all political things, fortune contrived to smile kindly on the Tories. With the initial shock of people being forced to stay home, combined with record job losses, significant cuts to the income of millions of others, _and_ the fear covid-19 has struck into our collective hearts, this sheer incompetence wasn't much noticed. Labour's new leadership also fought shy of trying to highlight it fearful of Keir Starmer being seen playing politics with a life-or-death crisis. Therefore, many were prepared to forgive the government their innumerable sins because we needed them to get it right and, well, no one had been in this situation before. See, the Tories are lucky. The wrong choices could be put down to exceptionalism.
> 
> ...


----------



## andysays (May 31, 2020)

Pope cautions against rush to ease lockdowns



> Pope Francis said on Sunday that healing people was "more important" than the economy, as countries around the world continue to ease lockdown restrictions. The Pope made his first address from his window overlooking St Peter's Square in three months. Many thronged to the Vatican City square, which was reopened to the public last Monday, to listen to him.





> "Healing people, not saving [money] to help the economy [is important] - healing people, who are more important than the economy," he said. Pope Francis said on Sunday that healing people was "more important" than the economy, as countries around the world continue to ease lockdown restrictions.





> The Pope made his first address from his window overlooking St Peter's Square in three months. Many thronged to the Vatican City square, which was reopened to the public last Monday, to listen to him. "Healing people, not saving [money] to help the economy [is important] - healing people, who are more important than the economy," he said. "We people are temples of the Holy Spirit, the economy is not."


----------



## platinumsage (May 31, 2020)

The coronavirus legislation for England has been amended removing all restrictions on leaving your home. There is now instead a restriction on staying away from your home overnight, effective tomorrow.



			http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/558/pdfs/uksi_20200558_en.pdf


----------



## crossthebreeze (May 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> The coronavirus legislation for England has been amended removing all restrictions on leaving your home. There is now instead a restriction on staying away from your home overnight, effective tomorrow.
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/558/pdfs/uksi_20200558_en.pdf


Can you find a link for this please?


----------



## platinumsage (May 31, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Can you find a link for this please?



I just did, you appear to have quoted it just as i edited the post to add it.


----------



## bimble (May 31, 2020)

It’s weird walking through the INSANELY busy park here full of people having a lovely time 3 ice cream vans etc and just feeling impending doom looking at it all. 
I’ve lived in this park for a year and never before seen people double parked all along the way. And it’s not even “happy Monday” yet.
 Feels like (regardless of government uselessness) everyone just basically got bored of the whole virus thing, like you can’t maintain a state of acute fear long term and without that it just falls apart.


----------



## bimble (May 31, 2020)

campanula said:


> Yeah, I know.  Just doesn't make any sort of sense that suddenly, they can now step outside and be visited by someone from another household. I am not questioning people's choices and actions here...just the shallow 'advice' when, afaics, nothing much has changed...because we are still effectively blind. A month ago, we were told there would be anitbody tests available to every household...amongst other such promises...when there still isn't even enough PPE. The things we need in place...such as regional (accurate) testing, are still nowhere easily available ..so I dunno. I am having a hard time in understanding why people would literally put their lives in the hands of venal liars and corrupt flunkeys. If I was too scared to step outside before...why would it suddenly feel 'safe' right now. Crappy bit of rubbish advice is no substitute for effective controls.
> 
> We are still guessing who has already had the virus...with all sorts of assumptions of immunity. We just don't know anything which would encourage me at least, to materially alter my current precautions and behaviour. I know data and statistics are available to make policies on macro levels...but on an individual, everyday level, I am still flailing about in the dark.


It makes no sense. 
Their chart thing said ‘vulnerable people can go out’ was for when the virus has gone away, threat level one in their little chart that was introduced with much seriousness by the pm. They’ve just basically said sod it and I can’t at all see why.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

It’s prettying obvious why they’re doing it


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 31, 2020)

A sheltered housing block opposite me has had people coming round to see one old guy who lives there for a good week or more. Sometimes ten cars turn up, multiple families, all generations, big party with a barbecue. I'm on the fourth floor and he's on the ground floor so I can see it all.

I guess he has a large family that sticks together and I'm actually a bit jealous about that but clearly none of them give a fuck about distancing or the regulations or any of that.

Nobody social distances on the high street here either, or anywhere else but the high street is busiest. It's like nothing ever happened.

I mean I'm no grass anyway and practically I think this has very little impact vs commuting and, omfg, schools re-opening which is going to be terrible. But I'm still cross. This is _real,_ people, Christ.


----------



## LDC (May 31, 2020)

My take on it is that they think the NHS can cope with whatever increase in cases that we might see, that we will put up with a steady trickle of deaths that doesn't seem _too _high, and (most significantly) that the only alternative is a longer lockdown that will be too economically damaging and they've been under pressure from a wing of the party and business to get things back to normal as fast as possible.

Anecdataly I think lots of people have had enough of the lockdown as well. It was crumbling around here before all the Cummings stuff anyway, and that was the final excuse some people needed.

It's all a fine balancing act and a massive gamble though, if it tips over into something else we'll be back to an exponential growth in cases again, but without the public backing and belief that it's serious.


----------



## bimble (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s prettying obvious why they’re doing it


Why? I mean yes the economy but why tell the most vulnerable to go out when they so recently said that was for the final stage?
Has the science changed so that human interaction and not being stuck indoors is now a factor in their thinking when it wasn’t before?


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why? I mean yes the economy but why tell the most vulnerable to go out when they so recently said that was for the final stage?
> Has the science changed so that human interaction and not being stuck indoors is now a factor in their thinking when it wasn’t before?


they don't give a fuck, they're just making a political choice for economic reasons


----------



## LDC (May 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why? I mean yes the economy but why tell the most vulnerable to go out when they so recently said that was for the final stage?
> Has the science changed so that human interaction and not being stuck indoors is now a factor in their thinking when it wasn’t before?



It was covered a bit in today's briefing. Much less prevalence of the virus, less chance of meeting someone with it, better awareness of what symptoms are so people less likely to be out now, social distancing still very necessary, it limited contact, and it advisory. 

I know a couple of people shielding, think they'll welcome this tbh. Maybe it's also balanced with the realism that they aren't actually going to stay inside until there's a vaccine?


----------



## bimble (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> they don't give a fuck, they're just making a political choice for economic reasons


Yeah in general of course just that one bit I don’t get, why tell the vulnerable to go out at the same time as all the rest of it.

Eta answered (mostly makes sense) by Lynn


----------



## LDC (May 31, 2020)

They're not 'telling the vulnerable to go out' really. They're giving some limited options for them to not just stay in a room for the forseeable future.

Is it a bit like teenagers drinking alcohol? Better to let them do it under some guidance and rules, rather than ban it outright and have them do it in secret?

Sorry, shit analogy, but you hopefully get what I mean?!


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why? I mean yes the economy but why tell the most vulnerable to go out when they so recently said that was for the final stage?
> Has the science changed so that human interaction and not being stuck indoors is now a factor in their thinking when it wasn’t before?



The changes are VERY limited, go out with other members of the household, and/or meet one other person from another household, whilst maintaining social distancing. 

I can't see a problem with that, TBH.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> they don't give a fuck, they're just making a political choice for economic reasons



Noting to do with economic reasons.


----------



## bimble (May 31, 2020)

Yep. So basically their chart plan thing was wrong. Unrealistic and not properly thought through offered hastily to show that they had a plan .


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yep. So basically their chart plan thing was wrong. Unrealistic and not properly thought through offered hastily to show that they had a plan .



And, this surprises you?


----------



## campanula (May 31, 2020)

Or are they seeking to nobble a few more 'unproductive units of labour'? So help me, I have never felt this cynical and hateful but am now completely prepared to believe that some consciously malign intent lies behind the Govt diktats.

I honestly cannot formulate a sensible way of looking at anything emanating from Westminster. I have already mentioned my vulnerable D-i-L who has been going out...and don't, in itself, see it as being a particularly controversial response but I really despair of the clarity, the rationale, even any sort of explanation behind these govt decisions.  I actually want to see 'the workings out' because I know what my priorities are -  starving the host to prevent the virus and maintaining clear boundaries to avoid transmission. but completely unsure of the govt's (although its fairly clear it isn't about ptotecting people)..  So many, many possible solutions and nearly all of them are just trashed by incompetents and opportunists.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Noting to do with economic reasons.


wot?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 31, 2020)

Let's not forget that they are stupid. They really are. They have "pro business" reflexes but they don't have the sense to even realise that an effective lockdown means a shorter lockdown and thus less negative effect on "the economy".

They see things in mayfly timelines and assume that they can just fudge something at the last minute if they need to and nobody will notice. They can copy someone's homework or do the essay in an all-nighter and anyway they're not going to really suffer whatever happens.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> wot?



It's nothing to do with economic reasons, not sure how much clearer that can be, and I have no idea why you would think it does.


----------



## LDC (May 31, 2020)

I also think what's clearer is that they're going to go with local lockdowns to manage outbreaks as they'll be easier to manage and police.

And they'll have less of an impact on the economy obviously....


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I also think what's clearer is that they're going to go with local lockdowns to manage outbreaks as they'll be easier to manage and police.
> 
> And they'll have less of an impact on the economy obviously....



I think there is actually some anticipation that local lockdowns may be much harder to manage and police.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's nothing to do with economic reasons, not sure how much clearer that can be, and I have no idea why you would think it does.


Don’t be ridiculous. It’s always a factor


----------



## Raheem (May 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I also think what's clearer is that they're going to go with local lockdowns to manage outbreaks as they'll be easier to manage and police.
> 
> And they'll have less of an impact on the economy obviously....


Provided you implement them sparingly and tokenistically.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 31, 2020)

Recent take from neuroscientist Karl Friston, advisor to Alternative Sage, on his form of modelling. His model got a few predictions about the UK pandemic right, which lends his approach some credibility.

Covid-19 expert Karl Friston: 'Germany may have more immunological “dark matter”'

He suggests that the first wave here is all but over.



> The models support the idea that what happens in the next few weeks is not going to have a great impact in terms of triggering a rebound – because the population is protected to some extent by immunity acquired during the first wave. The real worry is that a second wave could erupt some months down the line when that immunity wears off.



Certainly that fits the pattern of previous pandemics such as Russian flu, which hit the UK in three separate waves. 

He thinks there might be something about Germans that made them less susceptible. 



> The answers are sometimes counterintuitive. For example, it looks as if the low German fatality rate is not due to their superior testing capacity, but rather to the fact that the average German is less likely to get infected and die than the average Brit. Why? There are various possible explanations, but one that looks increasingly likely is that Germany has more immunological “dark matter” – people who are impervious to infection, perhaps because they are geographically isolated or have some kind of natural resistance. This is like dark matter in the universe: we can’t see it, but we know it must be there to account for what we can see. Knowing it exists is useful for our preparations for any second wave, because it suggests that targeted testing of those at high risk of exposure to Covid-19 might be a better approach than non-selective testing of the whole population.



Not so sure about that. There are other explanations, the most simple one being that fewer vulnerable Germans were exposed because they locked down earlier in their curve and did a better job of protecting people, which easily explains differences in mortality in discovered cases, given the enormous differences in mortality between age groups and those with and without underlying conditions.

But the idea of finding ways to target testing for a second wave is an interesting one, and he addresses the point about who, and how many, might be resistant to catching it in the first place if exposed, which is something I would like to know a lot more about.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Don’t be ridiculous. It’s always a factor



How does letting the most vulnerable out for a walk benefit the economy in anyway?


----------



## LDC (May 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> I think there is some anticipation that local lockdowns may be much harder to manage and police.



Yeah, I'm not sure and am just speculating, I can imagine they cause a different type of tension, but maybe that is mitigated by having resources like policing able to be concentrated in one area rather than spread out? I wonder if the tension might also be counter acted with a feeling of people protecting their area a bit as well? Guess lots depends on the size of the area locked down. I also think maybe a tighter lockdown would be easier to manage in some ways. Like if you're only allowed out of your house for essentials then there's none of this crowds about and trying to work out who's doing what.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> How does letting the most vulnerable out for a walk benefit the economy in anyway?


It means that government can stop sending food parcels to them and that local government can scale back the assistance they are giving to self-isolated vulnerable people


----------



## Supine (May 31, 2020)

The lakes had been full of tourists this weekend. Where have they been going to the toilet? Dirty bastards!


----------



## LDC (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It means that government can stop sending food parcels to them and that local government can scale back the assistance they are giving to self-isolated vulnerable people



TBH given the billions being spent I think the minimal amounts going towards that aren't going to be a factor in the decision.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 31, 2020)

The vulnerable people thing is about sticking to the original timetable as much as anything else, isn't it? It was 12 weeks from the start, and now those 12 weeks are up so some change in advice is needed, otherwise they got that 12 weeks wrong at the start, but they couldn't have got that 12 weeks wrong at the start cos they know what they're doing, they've always known what they're doing, and everything is going to plan.


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

vanya said:


> The Sick Man of Europe
> 
> 
> It's hard to recall now, but there was a time the UK looked on top of Coronavirus. In the very early days as the outbreak was raging in Wu...
> ...



Their central theme about the authoritarian government stuff is key, I've gone on about this int he form of repeated complaints about the establishment, the orthodox approach, and all the absurd top-down shit and local dovolution of powers than in most cases just pay lip service to actual local autonomy.

I disagree when they say that there was a time when it looked like this country was well positioned to deal with the pandemic. Its true that there was a period where it was much easier for lots of people to hold onto that belief, but those who were following along in detail from the start, listened to independent experts via twitter etc, or were familiar with our standard approach to pandemics, had little cause for optimism in February or early March. They are still right in somse sense though because this wouldnt have been enugh to show up in early opinion polling.

They are incorrect about the role of SAGE in this though. SAGE are not just there to be paraded for show, although that is one of the roles they've ended up with. They also represent establishment, orthodox thinking and response to the pandemic, they are very much part of the doomed top-down instincts of this nations establishment. The failings of this country in this pandemic are a joint effort between all the centralised aspects of government. Some are specific to Johnson & Co, other failings are very much down to SAGE and the government acting on SAGE advice. In other areas, what SAGE would like to happen has been thwarted by ongoing capacity and resource issues. In this next phase we have ended up in, there are already signs that we are likely to get a sense of growing divergence between SAGE and what the government is doing, in terms of timing if not in substance. But these are still squabbles between establishment top-down players, with few opportunities for bottom up stuff to get involved and inject urgency, practicality and the right priorities into the response.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It means that government can stop sending food parcels to them and that local government can scale back the assistance they are giving to self-isolated vulnerable people





> Support for shielders, such as food and medicine deliveries, will continue.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You should try following what's actually going on, rather than making things up.

This is for the benefit of their mental health, not to cut back on services, and should be applauded.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> You should try following what's actually going on, rather than making things up.
> 
> This is for the benefit of their mental health, not to cut back on services, and should be applauded.


it should not applauded at all - it's a dangerous thing to do


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it should not applauded at all - it's a dangerous thing to do


It might be. It might not. There is also danger in not making changes.

My main criticism of the current approach is that it lacks localism in its advice. It's very clear that different parts of the country are now at different stages, but everything is still being directed effectively by a Westminster central diktat. It's been a massive weakness in the UK's approach from the start.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it should not applauded at all - it's a dangerous thing to do



No it isn't.

You want to lock these people up for over a bloody year, until a vaccine becomes available, if one is actually ever produced?

You're both insane, and inhuman.


----------



## LDC (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it should not applauded at all - it's a dangerous thing to do



Unlike telling people to stay in one room for the forseeable? I dunno, I can see why this decision has been taken. It also covers a load of different conditions with different risks and they're hoping to tailor the advice more very soon.


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I'm not sure and am just speculating, I can imagine they cause a different type of tension, but maybe that is mitigated by having resources like policing able to be concentrated in one area rather than spread out? I wonder if the tension might also be counter acted with a feeling of people protecting their area a bit as well? Guess lots depends on the size of the area locked down. I also think maybe a tighter lockdown would be easier to manage in some ways. Like if you're only allowed out of your house for essentials then there's none of this crowds about and trying to work out who's doing what.



A bunch of this was covered by some SAGE papers I linked to, I think it was yesterday, in response to someone.

The detail of the area matters. If its an area where there is a tension between residents and police at the best of times, then they worry about how easily things could descend into riot etc under a situation of local lockdown. They are considering the detail of riots of the past when thinking about this stuff.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it should not applauded at all - it's a dangerous thing to do


At some point, you have to make the judgement that the risks in going out a bit more (and that's all this is - a bit more) have reduced to such a point that they are now lower than the risks (and damage) of continuing to be shut away. And it's not like anyone is being forced to go out if support is being continued.


----------



## ricbake (May 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why? I mean yes the economy but why tell the most vulnerable to go out when they so recently said that was for the final stage?
> Has the science changed so that human interaction and not being stuck indoors is now a factor in their thinking when it wasn’t before?





campanula said:


> Or are they seeking to nobble a few more 'unproductive units of labour'? So help me, I have never felt this cynical and hateful but am now completely prepared to believe that some consciously malign intent lies behind the Govt diktats.
> 
> I honestly cannot formulate a sensible way of looking at anything emanating from Westminster. I have already mentioned my vulnerable D-i-L who has been going out...and don't, in itself, see it as being a particularly controversial response but I really despair of the clarity, the rationale, even any sort of explanation behind these govt decisions.  I actually want to see 'the workings out' because I know what my priorities are -  starving the host to prevent the virus and maintaining clear boundaries to avoid transmission. but completely unsure of the govt's (although its fairly clear it isn't about ptotecting people)..  So many, many possible solutions and nearly all of them are just trashed by incompetents and opportunists.





Orang Utan said:


> It means that government can stop sending food parcels to them and that local government can scale back the assistance they are giving to self-isolated vulnerable people


Does any body else suspect that among some anti welfare Tory and right wing elements both here and in the US, they are working to a hidden agenda. COVID19 is a useful form of euthanasia. The old, obese, infirm, those with expensive medical conditions, BAME communities are all appear to have a higher rate of mortality and do not resuscitate is a method of tidying up that doesn't necessarily need to be spoken of out loud


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 31, 2020)

ricbake said:


> Does any body else suspect that among some anti welfare Tory and right wing elements both here and in the US, they are working to a hidden agenda. COVID19 is a useful form of euthanasia. The old, obese, infirm, those with expensive medical conditions, BAME communities are all appear to have a higher rate of mortality and do not resuscitate is a method of tidying up that doesn't necessarily need to be spoken of out loud


No.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

Experts decry easing of coronavirus lockdown for England's shielders
					

Relaxing restrictions for most vulnerable has no scientific rationale, says top virologist




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## MrSki (May 31, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The vulnerable people thing is about sticking to the original timetable as much as anything else, isn't it? It was 12 weeks from the start, and now those 12 weeks are up so some change in advice is needed, otherwise they got that 12 weeks wrong at the start, but they couldn't have got that 12 weeks wrong at the start cos they know what they're doing, they've always known what they're doing, and everything is going to plan.


Yeah apart from it has only been ten weeks.


----------



## ricbake (May 31, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The vulnerable people thing is about sticking to the original timetable as much as anything else, isn't it? It was 12 weeks from the start, and now those 12 weeks are up so some change in advice is needed, otherwise they got that 12 weeks wrong at the start, but they couldn't have got that 12 weeks wrong at the start cos they know what they're doing, they've always known what they're doing, and everything is going to plan.


Of course everything is going to plan


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 31, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Yeah apart from it has only been ten weeks.


Ah ok. Things are going better than planned then! Great stuff.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> No it isn't.
> 
> You want to lock these people up for over a bloody year, until a vaccine becomes available, if one is actually ever produced?
> 
> *You're both insane, and inhuman.*


this is well out of order


----------



## ricbake (May 31, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ah ok. Things are going better than planned then! Great stuff.


But it is 12 weeks from the date if they had introduce lockdown they could have avoided perhaps 30,000 deaths - but maybe they do have a plan...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 31, 2020)

I'm guardedly ok with relaxing lockdown on the super lockdown cases, which I always thought were a bit indiscriminate anyway.

I'm more concerned about trying to open schools tomorrow which is fucking insane. Literally the last thing you do when you are sure the situation is manageable. It's worse than the encouragement to go back to work, but it fits right in to the neoliberal thicko gameplan.


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## MrSki (May 31, 2020)

I am a bit worried that after doing for the people in the care homes that they have now moved on to other costly members of society. Call me a cynic but I think herd immunity & wiping out the most costly members of society is still their masterplan.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 31, 2020)

More conspiracy theorist than cynic imo. They're not evil geniuses they're a bunch of useless twats. This stuff is more about image IMO - the countries whose governments' have a handle on this are relaxing restrictions, they want to be seen as doing well, therefore they're doing the same and crossing their fingers it works out OK.


----------



## killer b (May 31, 2020)

the idea that the tories would conspire to kill off the demographic that most strongly supports them is just ridiculous. Pull yourself together.


----------



## Sunray (May 31, 2020)

Everyone is pointing out beaches and parks and stuff.   Clearly, if people were catching it and dying in hours.  Everywhere would be deserted.

Humans are sociable, pandemics hit at the tenents of being human.  Solitary confinement is a prison punishment for a reason.  The country has been under lockdown for 10 weeks now.  There is a point where people can't keep that up, people are going stir crazy and we are seeing those cracks appear.  At the start of the lockdown, I would have been angry,  but now you really can't blame anyone.  I'm feeling it as much as they are.

The government are at fault for this too, bungled from start to finish. If they had got on top of it at the start we'd not been under lockdown for 10 weeks and counting.

I'm really hopeful that the camping is going to happen in July.


----------



## bimble (May 31, 2020)

This (thread) is a pretty helpful rundown of the new rules that we are living in from tomorrow. Includes the legal definition of a gathering and if you have an aquarium keep it shut.


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> He thinks there might be something about Germans that made them less susceptible.
> 
> Not so sure about that. There are other explanations, the most simple one being that fewer vulnerable Germans were exposed because they locked down earlier in their curve and did a better job of protecting people, which easily explains differences in mortality in discovered cases, given the enormous differences in mortality between age groups and those with and without underlying conditions.
> 
> But the idea of finding ways to target testing for a second wave is an interesting one, and he addresses the point about who, and how many, might be resistant to catching it in the first place if exposed, which is something I would like to know a lot more about.



I'm guessing there will turn out to be multiple reasons for the better situation in Germany. I expect you will recall from our previous conversations on related matters that I generally assume that timing of their measures relative to the size & stage of their epidemic was a big key. And that I am also extremely interested in population susceptibility levels and other factors that seem to make some people immune from either catching the disease or having symptoms if they do catch it. And why Germany has less winter excess mortality in general (if that is even true, I still havent studied it).

Before I take my summer break from the subject, I do intend to have another stab at finding prior research into the stuff he is calling immunological dark matter. Last time I looked was years ago and I think I probably just got disgusted with how little interest in the subject there had been over many decades. It reminded me of some of the establishment expert reaction to issues with this coronavirus and asymptomatic cases, there was an instinct to downplay such aspects even though, or perhaps because, there were large implications from the asymptomatic cases being infectious. There has been a real lack of curiosity about this and other subjects and a disservice has been done to humanity as a result. Perhaps that will be corrected as a result of this pandemic.

As for whether the first wave is over no matter what, this is another subject I need to brush up on before I have a rest. Such things have influenced my attitude in recent weeks for sure, it was one of the big reasons I havent thought it appropriate to fret and shout about a second wave at the moment. But then this isnt enough on its own to counterbalance some of the inept and risky stuff the government has been indulging in of late, and some of what we are seeing sections of the public doing these days.

Part of the reason I'm in the dark on that crucial matter is that I'm used to seeing epidemic curves that were not altered by forms of heavy mitigation, social distancing and lockdown. So I'm seeing more along the lines of 'natural' epidemic waves, and things like seasonality. I think I need to look at the 2009 swine flu curves again because there was a school summer holiday in between two of those that could be said to have been equivalent to deliberate mitigation.

My current understanding is just not good enough because at his exact moment I would not be surprised by either outcome - it would not surprise me at all if no fresh wave emerged in June, but neither would it surprise me if things did start going in the wrong direction by some stage in June. Thats not much use. Not that I'm convinced further research on my part will make this stuff any clearer.


----------



## Looby (May 31, 2020)

I don’t blame people for wanting to get out and about, I don’t blame them for going to beaches and parks.
I am furious that people have been allowed to travel as far as they want for leisure. There should be strict limits imo and certainly not out of their own county.
Dorset was rammed today, worse than August bank holiday time.

Cars were double parked, on grass verges, on double yellows and bus stops.
I struggled to get my car through at times so emergency services certainly would have.
Huge groups of people meeting up. I saw a fucking minibus full of people.
There’ll be litter everywhere for council staff to clean up tomorrow and people (who haven’t parked like cunts) will be crammed onto the buses which are still on a reduced service.
We’re not set up for this, staff are still reduced, sick, shielding and they won’t have recruited the summer temp staff yet. Locals were out helping rangers at Lulworth yesterday managing the crowds and car parks. And again today there were fucking idiots climbing Durdle Door.
There were almost certainly a huge amount of visitors from out of Dorset today, the queues on the A31 confirm it and it shouldn’t be happening.

This is a central reservation on the beach road. Just cars dumped anywhere. I’ve never ever seen that before.


----------



## MrSki (May 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> the idea that the tories would conspire to kill off the demographic that most strongly supports them is just ridiculous. Pull yourself together.


Fair point. The hundred thousand + they killed with austerity were not their voters but I doubt that many of the shielded are either. Apart from distracting from the Cummings saga why did they announce late last night the lifting of shielding? Why not at the press briefing?


----------



## bimble (May 31, 2020)

(They’re cardboard cutouts, very nice)


----------



## Raheem (May 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> the idea that the tories would conspire to kill off the demographic that most strongly supports them is just ridiculous. Pull yourself together.


Well, might depend how the question is phrased. It might, for instance, start "Do we want to fall in line with a load of crypto-Marxist globalist hysteria and wander into a nightmare of radical interventionism or..."


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I am a bit worried that after doing for the people in the care homes that they have now moved on to other costly members of society. Call me a cynic but I think herd immunity & wiping out the most costly members of society is still their masterplan.



I'd take at least one step back from that idea before thinking I might be onto something.

Its not so much about actively wanting to get rid of such members of society, but there are certainly judgements involved that are directly related to how much care and priority political parties, governments, economic systems and society as a whole point in that direction during normal times. There are loads of issues with care homes, and people with long-term disabilities and health issues and how that stuff is handled. Some of it is a long-standing national embarrassment. One where frank discussion and evaluation of 'our values' tends to be incomplete, where awkward truths are often left unsaid and low prioritisation of the elderly etc remains unscathed.

In terms of how much societies are prepared to spend in these areas, I actually think this pandemic might be used as a catalyst for care system change that was probably coming down the road anyway, even if we hadnt had this pandemic. Even though when I look at UK population pyramids these days I see that the low birth years of the mid-1970s have been rather compensated for via immigration, and the large baby boom bulges in the pyramid have been slightly reduced by deaths. But we are still only just getting to the stage where the eldest baby boomers are going to start becoming clients of the care system in ever increasing numbers, and that has all manner of implications. Costs in this area were bound to rise, and although a portion of that was going to be funded by wealth currently held by those same boomers, in some ways there was still going to need to be a recalibration of quite what priority and resource allocation society would need to settle on for the care sector soon enough.

As for herd immunity, rather embarrassingly when I go back and check forum posts for a crucial period in March, it seems I was going on about that subject and explaining the rationale for several days prior to the most famous examples of Vallance & co doing the same. I wonder what I was reading or listening to at the time, I doubt I plucked the idea out of thin air so I expect they had already been planting such seeds in press briefings prior to the doomed explicit description of building population immunity as a goal.

In any case, the use of herd immunity to try to justify their original shitty approach to the pandemic was a disgrace, as are some of the ideological positions that tried to make use of the concept to justify all sorts of shit. All the same, it remains of no surprise to me that there are also aspects of the concept which must be considered even when taking an approach that is far removed from the do little horror show shit. And there are all sorts of other variants, such as whether the NHS will feel like its in a very different situation if large chunks of its workforce have already been infected in a prior wave. The way most serology (antibody) results have been met with much disappointment also relates to this subject. Some of my future posts will hopefully go further in explaining what I'm on about with that.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH given the billions being spent I think the minimal amounts going towards that aren't going to be a factor in the decision.


Loads of people in the shielded cohort got texts last week saying they wouldn’t be getting the government food boxes any more. And I know for a fact that my own council is starting to means test people asking for help now. Times are gonna get harder soon for a lot of people


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

btw this is a great account from the ground from a volunteer who helps get food to those in need:
https://alanlaneblog.wordpress.com/...mises/amp/#click=[URL]https://t.co/wQ9PzhzPOJ[/URL]


----------



## Sunray (May 31, 2020)

Looby said:


> I don’t blame people for wanting to get out and about, I don’t blame them for going to beaches and parks.
> I am furious that people have been allowed to travel as far as they want for leisure. There should be strict limits imo and certainly not out of their own county.
> Dorset was rammed today, worse than August bank holiday time.
> 
> ...



who’s fault is this?

Boris Johnson.

Once announced, some planning should have been done, most beaches can easily be closed.
Plus how sure are you it’s not just locals. People aren’t doing anything so even just a bunch of people from the local area can easily fill a beach.

plus there’s nowhere to stay. there are limits to people’s day trip travel time.


----------



## MrSki (May 31, 2020)

for fucks sake!


----------



## Shechemite (May 31, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I am a bit worried that after doing for the people in the care homes that they have now moved on to other costly members of society. Call me a cynic but I think herd immunity & wiping out the most costly members of society is still their masterplan.



The masterplan of continuing to not give a shit about people? Evil geniuses the lot of them


----------



## editor (May 31, 2020)

There's another full party going on outside my block with street food catering and booze and zero social distancing.  WTF is wrong with people?


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

This subject may cover aspects of herd immunity, antibody prevalence, and issues concerning whether this first wave is done, when we might see a second one. Its also an example of what I highly recommend doing in this phase - zoom in!

In this case, I suggest zooming in on aspects of the picture that give clues about who was driving the first epidemic wave, and people can then consider what implications this has for the future. I already mentioned immunity levels in healthcare workers after the first wave, this time I am looking elsewhere. It is often considered that the younger members of society are major drivers of respiratory diseases, even when the greatest burden of ill-health does not fall on that group. Its one of the reasons why, contrary to UK government bullshit, closing schools can be a real difference maker to epidemics.

This is from the last weekly Covid-19 national surveillance report ( National COVID-19 surveillance reports )

The sections based on the main testing regime and hospitalisations and deaths shows the usual pattern where it is figures in the older population that stand out. But when we reach the section on sero-prevalence (antibody testing), something quite different emerges:



> *The highest adjusted prevalence in all regions is typically found among adolescents and young adults in the 17-29 year old age group* (from week 16 onwards, varying from 4.4% in the South East [week 18] to 16.9% in the North West regions [weeks 16-17]). However, in the most recent data from London, the increase is more marked in older age groups suggesting that this population have been affected later. These patterns may reflect differences in behaviour and mixing patterns in the different age groups.



This has implications for who was driving the disease in the last wave, who now has immunity, what impact that may have on the timing and nature of subsequent waves or upticks of other sorts. And there are aspects wee would miss out on entirely if we only looked at levels of antibodies as general numbers for the whole population or by region and not by age.

Other examples of zooming in would be looking at such rates in hospitals, but also doing a lot of work on understanding and beringing under control the transmission of the disease with healthcare settings. What has happened at Weston hospital recently is an example that to me looks like the sort of story that probably played out numerous times during the first peak, but where our testing regime and the severity of the situation at the time obscured our ability to spot and deal with such situations. Now that the overall levels of infection within the wider community are not skyrocketing upwards, there are more opportunities to for these hospital outbreaks to stick out and be dealt with.


----------



## Ranbay (May 31, 2020)




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## William of Walworth (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> btw this is a great account from the ground from a volunteer who helps get food to those in need:
> https://alanlaneblog.wordpress.com/...mises/amp/#click=[URL]https://t.co/wQ9PzhzPOJ



That was *really* worth a read and I'd recommend everyone does read it -- huge respect for anyone volunteering and working so hard like that.
I doubt I'd be able to deal with the minority of hostile people as well as Alan Lane seems to, tbh 
But I bet he and his team get lots of appreciation too -- I feel like reading some other parts of his blog ASAP ....


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2020)

Another example of zooming in comes from the same document that I linked to in my previous post, where they are looking at outbreaks in institutions that even the current system managed to identify. 

I note that schools still manage to feature despite the relative lack of pupils.


----------



## Sunray (May 31, 2020)

The Zoe application which I've got installed has showed a 17% reduction in new cases in the last week.









						ZOE Health Study
					

Fight major diseases like COVID & cancer logging your health daily with millions of community scientists supporting global health research.




					covid.joinzoe.com
				




It's looking like being outdoors isn't a huge risk or we'd be seeing a spike by now.


----------



## Looby (May 31, 2020)

Sunray said:


> who’s fault is this?
> 
> Boris Johnson.
> 
> ...


The poor planning and shit restrictions are the government’s fault. Parking like cunts, starting fires, behaving like twats- that’s the choice of the people visiting those places.
I’m fairly sure it’s not just locals because Bournemouth today was August bank holiday level of busy and more. This isn’t just normal busy, it’s insane. That’s not just locals. Most people I know aren’t going near the beaches because they can’t face it.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 31, 2020)

I guess the government has abandoned this now then? we seem to have jumped from 4 to 1


----------



## ash (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I guess the government has abandoned this now then? we seem to have jumped from 4 to 1
> View attachment 215612


Cunts


----------



## Wilf (May 31, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I'm guardedly ok with relaxing lockdown on the super lockdown cases, which I always thought were a bit indiscriminate anyway.
> 
> I'm more concerned about trying to open schools tomorrow which is fucking insane. Literally the last thing you do when you are sure the situation is manageable. It's worse than the encouragement to go back to work, but it fits right in to the neoliberal thicko gameplan.


In terms of the relaxing bit, I agree in a general sense. Trouble is, the government have no roots in the community and have been unable to get a clear message out at an operable level in real places. That get's even more so when the message is 'stay alert.. you can go to that shop... you can meet those people but not that many people... '. It's not a viable relaxing, it's a chaotic _loosening_. and then as you say, there's the school thing which in itself is more serious - but putting the schools into the mix also adds to the chaotic nature of what people think they are expected to do, obligated to do, what might be sensible for themselves, what might be sensible for the 'herd'. The whole lockdown started with a high level of self interest, merging into community preservation. By their idiocy, the government have reduced it to 'sort it yourself, let your anxieties take you where they will, let your self interest take you where it will'. We've all got our own new normal type thing.


----------



## little_legs (May 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> they don't give a fuck, they're just making a political choice for economic reasons


For the government the safety of the people is like Nando's spice chart. How spiced up do you want your death to be today?


----------



## eatmorecheese (May 31, 2020)

I haven't read the last hundred pages of this thread but, being a bit pissed right now, I just thought I'd record my current thoughts.

The government have lost all moral authority. People will not observe social distancing enough in the general population to prevent a second peak. This appears inevitable. Regardless of the consequences, the government will not reinstate lockdown in any meaningful way and cannot realistically enforce it, given their own lack of resources and hypocrisy. I hope I'm wrong about this. They have the Nightingale hospitals ready and the ventilators, this is a price they feel is worth paying. Another 30k dead? Any advance on this?

These cunts want to 'style it out'. They are within an ace of achieving their intellectually bankrupt deregulated economy, with juvenile fantasies of 'independent' trade deals and their own interests' snouts in the trough and they can't believe that fate has presented these fortuitous circumstances. Crisis/opportunity. However, the turkey that ended up being PM may not be able to last the course, being naturally lazy on the detail and only having the Hugh Grant ruffled hair dissembling classics quotations to fall back on. A mirage. There's nothing of substance there. There never was.

I'm getting the sense that the subsequent inquiries will carry on for the rest of my natural life. There will be memorials, public martyrdom and the deification of 'front-line workers' who never had a fucking choice. They will try to re-plaster the impression of the wall of society level, to make out we were 'all in this together'. We never fucking were.

The challenges our children's generations have to face are so much more stark than ours. They need a social foundation, a floor of community and economic support that Westminster, in it's current configuration, just cannot provide.  In my work, from now on, I'll try to communicate this to the young people I work with. We only have each other.

Yeah. I had tequila tonight, first time in years.


----------



## Wilf (Jun 1, 2020)

eatmorecheese said:


> I haven't read the last hundred pages of this thread but, being a bit pissed right now, I just thought I'd record my current thoughts.
> 
> The government have lost all moral authority. People will not observe social distancing enough in the general population to prevent a second peak. This appears inevitable. Regardless of the consequences, the government will not reinstate lockdown in any meaningful way and cannot realistically enforce it, given their own lack of resources and hypocrisy. I hope I'm wrong about this. They have the Nightingale hospitals ready and the ventilators, this is a price they feel is worth paying. Another 30k dead? Any advance on this?
> 
> ...


Yep, it's likely to be that bad in terms of the virus unless they (and we) get very lucky. And it's going to be every bit as bad as you say politically. Disaster capitalism, but run by even more stupid people. I've never ever felt so bad about what's coming down the line.


----------



## Celyn (Jun 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Pope cautions against rush to ease lockdowns


Couldn't the Pope simply have a word with his omnipotent friend ask for it all to be sorted out?


----------



## Celyn (Jun 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yep. So basically their chart plan thing was wrong. Unrealistic and not properly thought through offered hastily to show that they had a plan .


Oh be fair. The chart had several different colours, which makes it very trustworthy.


----------



## Calamity1971 (Jun 1, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Couldn't the Pope simply have a word with his omnipotent friend ask for it all to be sorted out?


No one's seen him in ages. Self isolating and not picking up.


----------



## Celyn (Jun 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Loads of people in the shielded cohort got texts last week saying they wouldn’t be getting the government food boxes any more. And I know for a fact that my own council is starting to means test people asking for help now. Times are gonna get harder soon for a lot of people


What is also sad about that is that it indicates a whole lot of people with no one else to help them. I mean, my Dad can't go out, but a brother and I have been arranging supplies for him, although I really must get him to agree to online banking, with me having access (not that he can cope with the internet these days), but how very sad.


----------



## Celyn (Jun 1, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Everyone is pointing out beaches and parks and stuff.   Clearly, if people were catching it and dying in hours.  Everywhere would be deserted.



But people don't catch it and fall down dead within hours, do they? They traipse back home, perhaps even stopping somewhere else on the way, and take the same virus back to infect shop workers _etc_.


> I'm really hopeful that the camping is going to happen in July.


Fingers crossed for you.

I have only just now noticed the very obvious fact that the actual etymology of "camping" is hanging about in a field, living there temporarily.   .


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2020)

eatmorecheese said:


> I'm getting the sense that the subsequent inquiries will carry on for the rest of my natural life. There will be memorials, public martyrdom and the deification of 'front-line workers' who never had a fucking choice. They will try to re-plaster the impression of the wall of society level, to make out we were 'all in this together'. We never fucking were.
> 
> The challenges our children's generations have to face are so much more stark than ours. They need a social foundation, a floor of community and economic support that Westminster, in it's current configuration, just cannot provide.  In my work, from now on, I'll try to communicate this to the young people I work with. We only have each other.
> 
> Yeah. I had tequila tonight, first time in years.



I really liked your post, three cheers for tequila!

I dont know what sort of age you are so I dont know which generation your childrens generation is, or how long you expect the rest of your natural life to be. I am not asking for the answers to these questions, just indicating that aspects of my response are somewhat broad and vague as a result.

Theres been a continual reframing and capturing of events via propaganda all the way along.  But there are still some promising nuggets that can be plucked out of the ugly realities of the response to the first pandemic wave. For example in regards to the whole 'were all in this together' and how we never were. Yes on the one hand various things were engineered and manipulated on this level. And yet all the genuine decent stuff that became visible from people at criticial moments in this pandemic, although often squandered, still made its presence felt. It more than hinted at what people had the capabilities to achieve via various forms of solidarity and practical action, if we were operating in a system that properly valued people taking matters into their own hands at all levels.

Westminster was never going to deliver on that, the only suitable configuration it could offer would be one where it got out of the way in so many areas. The opportunity from this pandemic was never going to be that Westminster would somehow come good and deliver that, but rather that it would be exposed, and that people who were paying attention would notice enough of these things and act on them to bring about the change we need in future.

The stuff about how stark the challenges of a generation are going to be is interesting. I think many of the challenges and realities have been around for a very long time, with new flavours of stark horror on offer in all of the decades of the 20th century and 21st century so far. The atomic age cast a long shadow. Environmental and energy concerns showing up in popular culture and politics is older than me. Numerous generations and communities have been severely damaged in this country and elsewhere by decades of managed decline. What may have been changing more obviously this century is that the amount of time that countries, economic and political forces could play for time and postpone the inevitable may be running short. The veneer has worn very thin, and the cladding which they reach for to hide the ugly view has been shown to be dangerously combustible.

There were moments in this pandemic where the sudden end of normality had an effect on certain powerful illusions, assumptions and perceptions about what is actually possible. As time has gone on some aspects of this have faded as the shock wore off, and the story in the months ahead will often seem to signal a return to normal form. But it may still turn out to have been the end of an era, and right now even if all manner of things go wrong and look bleak, it will be some time before the sense of hope that came to mind is really extinguished again. Its more likely than not that the trajectory of many things has been altered by this pandemic. The big challenges were already lying in wait in the future anyway, on top of the existing normal day to day misery that austerity and what went before it brought. Perhaps the failures of this pandemic will help people to position themselves better for some of these challenges. Perhaps people have had enough of this level of failure and absurdity, not to mention inequality.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Jun 1, 2020)




----------



## bimble (Jun 1, 2020)

What’s the problem ruffneck23 they’ve already explained, you have 2 nostrils so that’s 2 tests. Worldbeating.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Jun 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> What’s the problem ruffneck23 they’ve already explained, you have 2 nostrils so that’s 2 tests. Worldbeating.


dunno must be a bit dim , oh wise one


----------



## teuchter (Jun 1, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Couldn't the Pope simply have a word with his omnipotent friend ask for it all to be sorted out?


His friend is having too much of a laugh just now, setting us up with the sunniest spring since records began, and so on.


----------



## Celyn (Jun 1, 2020)

Ah. Well we know how to sort that one out. Simply a matter of appointing a Minister for Drought and that will bring a LOT of rain.   
(Showing my age somewhat)


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jun 1, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Couldn't the Pope simply have a word with his omnipotent friend ask for it all to be sorted out?


Matthew 19:14
COVID-19 said, “_Let the little children come to me_, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”


----------



## teuchter (Jun 1, 2020)

Anyway, the BBC brings us some morale boosting news, which is that the Queen has been sitting on a horse. It's brightened my morning immensely; this is the sort of thing the nation needs right now.









						Coronavirus: Queen pictured outside for first time since lockdown
					

The monarch is pictured riding outside Windsor Castle, where she is isolating with Prince Philip.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Jun 1, 2020)

eatmorecheese said:


> *I'm getting the sense that the subsequent inquiries will carry on for the rest of my natural life. There will be memorials, public martyrdom and the deification of 'front-line workers' who never had a fucking choice. They will try to re-plaster the impression of the wall of society level, to make out we were 'all in this together'. We never fucking were.*



Well fucking said.


----------



## editor (Jun 1, 2020)

That one idiot jumping off the cliff is very very lucky to be alive 



> "He hit the water so hard he didn't even come up to the surface, he went straight down," Mr Wiley said.
> 
> "I could see a white body on the seafloor, but it was so deep none of us could get to him. Everyone was in a state of panic."
> 
> ...












						Durdle Door: Tombstone rescuer 'feared he would drown'
					

Paddleboarder Mike Wiley hauled the man to the surface after finding him unconscious on the seabed.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 1, 2020)

editor said:


> That one idiot jumping off the cliff is very very lucky to be alive
> 
> 
> 
> ...


your link mentions three idiots


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 1, 2020)

editor said:


> That one idiot jumping off the cliff is very very lucky to be alive



The guy that rescued him has just been interviewed on BBC South Today.



Pickman's model said:


> your link mentions three idiots



And yet, according to the local TV news, people were still attempting to jump off the arch yesterday.


----------



## dessiato (Jun 1, 2020)

I saw this and wondered what the fuck the government is thinking when it suggests easing lockdown.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 1, 2020)

dessiato said:


> I saw this and wondered what the fuck the government is thinking when it suggests easing lockdown.


But but but ... you can't compare countries against each other. The government says so.


----------



## Sprocket. (Jun 1, 2020)

On Ilkley Moor bah't common sense or common decency.









						Litter and toilet roll left at Yorkshire beauty spots
					

Parts of Yorkshire have been left an "eyesore" by an influx of visitors



					www.bbc.com
				




Take your rubbish home you morons.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 1, 2020)

dessiato said:


> I saw this and wondered what the fuck the government is thinking when it suggests easing lockdown.
> 
> View attachment 215674



Surely it should be comparing deaths at the dates of same stage of lockdown easing.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 1, 2020)

dessiato said:


> I saw this and wondered what the fuck the government is thinking when it suggests easing lockdown.
> 
> View attachment 215674


What useful information do you believe this graph gives you?


----------



## teuchter (Jun 1, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Surely it should be comparing deaths at the dates of same stage of lockdown easing.


And corrected for population size. Sweden did not have loads fewer deaths than us on the 29th; it had loads more.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 1, 2020)

dessiato said:


> I saw this and wondered what the fuck the government is thinking when it suggests easing lockdown.
> 
> View attachment 215674


esp when the uk's total is only one more than germany, turkey, holland, france, germany, belgium, sweden and italy's combined death toll


----------



## Lurdan (Jun 1, 2020)

Today :







This person wasn't very impressed with the 'training' :

*Why I quit working on Boris Johnson's ‘world-beating' test-and-tracing system* - The Guardian (Saturday)



> The training was very basic. We saw some slides about our role – the public health website we will use, and a script for what we had to say to people. We were told: do not go off-script, and if there was anything we could not answer, we should ask our supervisor. (...)





> The trainer told us there was a further seven and a half hours of self-led training that we had to complete before “going live”. This seemed a little unfair, if not impossible to achieve by the next morning. We were reassured that we could probably get through the training in two to three hours – but we would be paid for all seven and a half. (...)





> The self-led courses were very basic – with some generic dos and don’ts about customer data, security and so on. I completed it all in less than one and a half hours, with a score of 95%+.
> 
> The next morning I was worried, and feeling very unprepared.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 1, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> On Ilkley Moor bah't common sense or common decency.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



We've had the same problem on Worthing's seafront this weekend, right bloody mess.

If the bins are full, take your bloody rubbish home, don't leave it by the bins for fucking seagulls to spread around.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> We've had the same problem on Worthing's seafront this weekend, right bloody mess.
> 
> If the bins are full, take your bloody rubbish home, don't leave it by the bins for fucking seagulls to spread around.


It's the same everywhere, because people are disgusting, selfish, cunts.


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 1, 2020)

A little bit of good news from round 'ere, which hopefully is the case elsewhere as well: independent food retailers 'thriving.' I use a couple of the shops covered in that article and they're excellent, so I'm pleased to hear they've seen some benefit.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> A little bit of good news from round 'ere, which hopefully is the case elsewhere as well: independent food retailers 'thriving.' I use a couple of the shops covered in that article and they're excellent, so I'm pleased to hear they've seen some benefit.


I think this effect is relatively widespread. Might nick the link for my anti car thread, because one thing this has revealed is that people could do a lot more shopping locally than they do.


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## killer b (Jun 1, 2020)

I played a game of tennis at the weekend with a mate of mine who runs a pub - he's been delivering pizzas (they have a pizza oven in the pub) and beer for the duration of the lockdown and it's keeping 5 of them in full time work. He's not particularly keen on reopening the pub as it's way more hours and hassle...


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## treelover (Jun 1, 2020)

many disabled and sick people are asking what next?


The news that the Govt has said that those in the vulnerable and shielding group  'can now go outside' is alarming and bewildering for many disabled and sick people. Has their condition gone away, their immune system suddenly repaired?  They are asking, are the Gov't parcels going to end, or age uK food help, etc? What about the huge range of volunteers who have basically filled in what the State failed to do, many will be going back to work now. Lots of DASP are also still struggling financially, most got no increases in benefits, etc, and the threat of eviction now looms for some. Some are more frightened and concerned than at the start of the crisis, observing the huge crowds in parks, etc, on TV.
That is all without the coming financial crisis, DASP lost over 20 billion in benefits and services, post 2008.


----------



## Supine (Jun 1, 2020)

Timeline of government failure









						A timeline of failure.
					

Through arrogance and incompetence, thousands have needlessly died.



					appeasement.org


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2020)

I only watched a bit of the press conference today. Hancock was asked some tricky questions about the detail of local lockdowns, what form they could take. He didnt really want to answer the question, but one example he was prepared to give was that a hospital might close its A&E department.

That sort of thing was very high on my list of things we might expect to hear a lot more of in this phase, in contrast to the previous phase that included the main first wave. Indeed we probably already have one example, Weston hospital, although I wasnt impressed with the way certain authorities avoided being very explicit about what was going on there.

Institutional outbreaks are a big part of the story, as expected with this pandemic, but this side of the picture has been very patchy in terms of the public having a full sense of what is going on. Inevitably these things will become more visible in this phase, there is less 'fog of war' as numbers have declined, but it still bothers me to think of all the obfuscating language from officialdom that will probably accompany many local outbreaks.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 1, 2020)

So they announce in today's figures an increase of 111 new deaths but the total figure is up by 556.



> *Latest figures*
> The number of people in the UK who have died after testing positive for Covid-19 is 556 higher than the equivalent total announced yesterday, although the Government is reporting the day-on-day change as 111.
> 
> The reason for the difference in these two figures is to do with how deaths are being incorporated into historic data retrospectively.
> ...



from here


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2020)

Supine said:


> Timeline of government failure
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Good stuff. Inevitably incomplete but we've seen what happens when, for example, I try to do a little timeline of quotes on specific subjects from SAGE minutes, it becomes too much rather quickly and thats only one narrow angle.

I should say that there are a few aspects of the timeline approach which can encourage the wrong perceptions about when the critical UK mistakes were made, and when it is then feasible to start fixing some of the prior errors.

In this case what stood out as an obvious example is where they keep going on about the UKs lack of contact tracing. Well the most costly mistakes with this were early on, and any country that had an epidemic beyond a certain size would have to temporarily stop contact tracing. Our big issue was that we never did this stuff wholeheartedly in the first place, back when our outbreak was a suitable size. At various later points on the timeline presented in that article, our epidemic was much too large to do contact tracing on at that stage. 

Indeed when I started thinking about this, I was reminded of something by their repeated references to contact tracing in Germany. I remembered that some time ago I found an article that said Germany also abandoned contact tracing for quite a period, presumably when their epidemic reached a certain size.            #6,198          

Anyway now that we are back to a situation where number of new infections is at least somewhat closer to being practical to contact trace, we obviously have a whole new chapter in the story of UK contact tracing, one that is likely to involve issues that show up in future timelines of failure, but that I could still hope might become somewhat fit for purpose at some stage.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 1, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So they announce in today's figures an increase of 111 new deaths but the total figure is up by 556.
> 
> 
> 
> from here



Is it only deaths today that are being reported  . Huh?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is it only deaths today that are being reported  . Huh?


Sounds like it's probably deaths from a while ago in care homes.



> These additional deaths are linked to cases that have been identified through testing that has been carried out by commercial partners, rather than testing that has been done in NHS and Public Health England laboratories.



Doesn't make much sense not adding them to the 111, cos most of the 111 aren't from yesterday and some will be from a while ago. But hey ho - someone somwhere didn't want the headline. Onwards we stumble toward 40k. 

tbh today's 111 figure is a weekend figure anyway. Seven-day rolling average is more meaningful. Tomorrow's catch-up on the weekend total will be over 200.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is it only deaths today that are being reported  . Huh?


Well as far as I know the daily death rate relates to deaths reported on the previous day whether they happened weeks before but this seems unexplained & probably does not look good with the easing of the lockdown.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 1, 2020)

And yes, there are 'commercial partners' in UK Covid-19 Land. No doubt doing commercially very nicely thankyouverymuch.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So they announce in today's figures an increase of 111 new deaths but the total figure is up by 556.
> from here



Thanks for the info about that.

I dont think I would have noticed, because I tend to only use those particular numbers to see the trends, rather than for accurate totals at any moment in time.

For more accurate numbers, I use the weekly ONS stuff. However what normally happens when these come out each Tuesday is that the largest number, which is total excess deaths for the relevant period this year, gets most of the attention. And that is a really important number to consider. But the ONS data also includes totals for England & Wales for cases where Covid-19 is actually mentioned on the death certificate. And I can get the same sorts of numbers for Scotland and Northern Ireland elsewhere. And when I look at those numbers, it makes it impossible to use the daily government numbers for anything more than spotting trends and having at least something from the most recent week or two.

Here is an example of why:

For the 15th of May (latest date I've got till tomorrows ONS release), the UK figure that was announced daily was in the 34,000-35,000 range. But the ONS+NRS+NISRA total by 15th May was 46,432. (and the excess deaths was just under 60,000). So I cant really take seriously daily figures that are still below 40,000 now, when I have figures far above 40,000 that dont even include the last 2 weeks yet.


----------



## David Clapson (Jun 1, 2020)

Anyone hear David King on R4 earlier?  This takes the fucking biscuit. At 47:30 PM - 01/06/2020 - BBC Sounds



> Ewan Davies: do you think Britain has in a way been cursed by having such good scientists, that we've overthought a lot of this, it's taken us too long to reach decisions, particularly in that crucial phase in March when we were ditherinmg over the lockdown...meanwhile other countries just got on with it because they didn't have all the people to think about it in the same way that we have?
> 
> King: what you've just said, I'm going to now say in public for the first time, I agree with. There's a sense of hubris, we feel we know exactly what we're doing, we're going to do our own computational work, our own calculations...I really do think you've put your finger on it.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2020)

Good, I rest my case. Ha, if only, once I've had a nice long rest (from tomorrow onwards throughout June) I'm sure I will feel the need to go on and on about my case again. But you know all the themes by now. My neverending rants about the orthodox approach, dont leave it to a particular set of experts, the absurdities of this country etc. I'm glad we didnt have to wait years to hear from more sources and directions what has long been pretty obvious.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 1, 2020)




----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 1, 2020)

Wow. It's Rapey Andrew-level of delusion. 

Too honourable not to be friends with the rapist. 
Too clever to possibly get the reaction right and save lives.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2020)

Tidying up a small detail about the first detected deaths in this country before I have my rest.

At some stage I mentioned here that a death that was earlier than any the first announced ones, had been added to the stats. We heard about the first death on March 5th. The death that was later added to the NHS England stats was on February 28th, which was the same time when they decided to actually test pneumonia patients in hospital regardless of travel history (although I think it took some time for this system to properly cover all applicable patients).

Anyway around April 22nd that February 28th death was removed from the NHS England numbers. I didnt know why at the time, but it turns out it was a data error:



> Earlier this month, NHS England said its revised records showed the first death occurred on 28 February, but it has now clarified that this was a data entry error. A spokeswoman said: “The actual date of that death was 28 March, and the 28 February had been put in by mistake. The records have been updated.”



Several other deaths in the first days of March eventually showed up. These are mentioned in the same article that I got the above quote from, an article from the end of April:









						Five already dead by time UK reported first coronavirus death
					

Official data shows first fatality took place in a care home three days before government announcement




					www.theguardian.com
				




Since then I have noticed one other thing in terms of the first recorded death. The ONS data, which is considered far more complete than the other UK official sources, has one spreadsheet tab that records COVID-19 deaths by the week that the death occurred, rather than the week it was registered. And there is a death listed for the week ending 14th February 2020. According to that data it was someone male aged 75-79 and it was in the West Midlands.






						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional       - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, by age, sex and region, in the latest weeks for which data are available. Includes the most up-to-date figures available for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19).



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




Of course this still isnt likely to have been the very first death, I couldnt say how many cases we might have missed in the early weeks due to the nature of the testing regime and the travel-related bit of the criteria for suspecting cases.


----------



## killer b (Jun 1, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Too clever to possibly get the reaction right and save lives.


that's the gist of Davis' crawly question, but the response was that it was hubris. Seems reasonable to me.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2020)

MrSki said:


>




Just to be clear that despite whatever they were doing with the numbers today, deaths that occurred some time ago are still part of the number they did announce.

I only have the numbers for England hospital deaths in front of me right now, but from those I can say that todays number included:

One additional death added to each of the following days:
19th, 23rd, 28th and 30th March. 1st, 8th, 9th, 13th, 18th, 19th, 21st, 22nd, 24th, 26th, 29th April. 3rd, 8th, 9th, 11th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 21st, 25th, 26th May.

4 additional deaths on May 4th. 2 on May 7th, 2 on May 27th, 6 on May 28th, 16 on May 29th, 40 on May 30th and 13 on May 31st.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> Just to be clear that despite whatever they were doing with the numbers today, deaths that occurred some time ago are still part of the number they did announce.
> 
> I only have the numbers for England hospital deaths in front of me right now, but from those I can say that todays number included:
> 
> ...


But weren't these deaths included in the daily figures before? Is it going to be like the No. of people tested data that has disappeared for the last ten days?


----------



## killer b (Jun 1, 2020)

That MI6 Rogue account is such an obvious walt. Everything it reports should be treated with suspicion unless there's multiple other sources (he retweets a lot of news stories too)


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2020)

MrSki said:


> But weren't these deaths included in the daily figures before? Is it going to be like the No. of people tested data that has disappeared for the last ten days?



What do you mean, I can read your question in more than one way.

Those particular deaths I listed were not recorded before, they are the new deaths that make up the sort of increase we hear about every day. But reporting on those sort of deaths, with that amount of delay, in this format, is totally normal.

I'm just pointing out that the shit they did to fiddle around with a total number is its own thing, it doesnt mean that the nature of the numbers we are getting every day has changed. ie the numbers we get every day have not suddenly switched to a format where they only represent deaths that happend in the last 24 or 48 hours.

Thats all I was pointing out due to some of the wording used in that tweet. It doesnt explain or excuse what they did with these other numbers that have come in from 'commercial testing partners'. In fact if I were to explore the broader issue with data from these commercial partners, its clear there has been a disaster on this front that has been ongoing for some time. We have most often heard about it in the form of local entities complaining that they cant get any localised test results from this pillar of the testing system, leaving them with an incomplete picture of the current local situation. It doesnt surprise me that its been happening with the broader death data too, and that when finally presented with a large clump of data from that, they didnt want it to lead to a spike in particular announced numbers on a single day.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> That MI6 Rogue account is such an obvious walt. Everything it reports should be treated with suspicion unless there's multiple other sources (he retweets a lot of news stories too)


Well you can do the maths yourself. The total number of deaths announced at Sunday's PC was 38489 .
Today it was 39045. That is not an increase of 111 is it? More like 556.

These are figures from the daily PC yet they try to claim it is 111. Cunts.


----------



## killer b (Jun 1, 2020)

sure, but you can get that from the tweet he's quoting the info from - in fact, you could have just posted that - without megaphoning the pretend rogue spy.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2020)

By the way since the grim subject of death stats is part of the current conversation, other stuff from ONS is available on a more infrequent basis.

For example once a month there is a provisional monthly figures report which shows total deaths (not COVID-19 specific) by county and by town/city/area. It doesnt contain everything required to come up with total excess deaths per location, but even just comparing the figures for April which are now available to the ones next to them which are for March, can give some sense of the pandemics toll in different locations in April. For those that would rather do a more thorough job, previous years per month per location figures are available from the same webpage.





__





						Deaths registered monthly in England and Wales        - Office for National Statistics
					

Number of deaths registered each month by area of usual residence for England and Wales, by region, county, local and unitary authority, and London borough. These are monthly provisional data covering the month before release and do not include the most up-to-date figures on deaths registered...



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## MrSki (Jun 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> sure, but you can get that from the tweet he's quoting the info from - in fact, you could have just posted that - without megaphoning the pretend rogue spy.


Sorry do I have to ask you if it is okay to post quotes from particular twitter accounts? Could you list the ones that are unacceptable? As far as I know what he posted is true. What is wrong with that?


----------



## killer b (Jun 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> By the way since the grim subject of death stats is part of the current conversation, other stuff from ONS is available on a more infrequent basis.
> 
> For example once a month there is a provisional monthly figures report which shows total deaths (not COVID-19 specific) by county and by town/city/area. It doesnt contain everything required to come up with total excess deaths per location, but even just comparing the figures for April which are now available to the ones next to them which are for March, can give some sense of the pandemics toll in different locations in April. For those that would rather do a more thorough job, previous years per month per location figures are available from the same webpage.
> 
> ...


So subtracting the total figures from last april from the total figures from this april should give you the excess deaths for that month, is that right? If so, there's almost exactly twice as many deaths this april than last (in england and wales) - 44 thousand last year, 88 thousand this year. 

variations as you'd expect - low density areas are mostly less hit, high density areas hit harder.


----------



## killer b (Jun 1, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Sorry do I have to ask you if it is okay to post quotes from particular twitter accounts? Could you list the ones that are unacceptable? As far as I know what he posted is true. What is wrong with that?


Why would you have to ask? I was just flagging up that your source is a bit sus. I'd make a list for you, but there's only 24 hours in a day atm.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 1, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> So subtracting the total figures from last april from the total figures from this april should give you the excess deaths for that month, is that right? If so, there's almost exactly twice as many deaths this april than last (in england and wales) - 44 thousand last year, 88 thousand this year.
> 
> variations as you'd expect - low density areas are mostly less hit, high density areas hit harder.



Nearly. They use an average of the previous years numbers, over for example the previous 5 years. But its a pain in the arse to do this with data that covers this level of geographical detail, by the time I get back to 2017 some of the list of locations has changed in a few places, so I havent bothered yet. You can still get a pretty good idea by just taking one previous years numbers instead of the average over a longer period, although I wouldnt make a habit of quoting any of the resulting numbers as gospel.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> Nearly. They use an average of the previous years numbers, over for example the previous 5 years. But its a pain in the arse to do this with data that covers this level of geographical detail, by the time I get back to 2017 some of the list of locations has changed in a few places, so I havent bothered yet. You can still get a pretty good idea by just taking one previous years numbers instead of the average over a longer period, although I wouldnt make a habit of quoting any of the resulting numbers as gospel.


I have heard experts on the radio saying that the average deaths should have been lower this year cos it was such a mild winter. What is you opinion?


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## elbows (Jun 2, 2020)

At the end of that statistical note from the daily number 10 briefing which you just posted an image of, they say that PHE have revised their daily series to show when these deaths were reported. I havent really seen evidence of that in the data yet, so I went looking for more detail. I found some in this document, including some graphs:





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk


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## elbows (Jun 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I have heard experts on the radio saying that the average deaths should have been lower this year cos it was such a mild winter. What is you opinion?



Excess winter mortality can be influenced by weather conditions for sure. The cold no doubt influences deaths at that time of year, and really extreme periods of cold in the winter can show up more dramatically in excess death stats. I think when I was looking at the historical data it was possible to see the heat wave of 1976 in that summers data too.

But its often influenza epidemics that really drive the yearly cycles of death in a more obvious manner. On this occasion our flu season was really early this last winter, it shows up in the numbers for the last months of 2019 more than the first months of 2020, although it is no doubt still some part of the picture in the numbers for January and February. And this last winter was already described quite widely at the time as the most challenging the NHS has faced, although all the details of why didnt really get a satisfactory airing at the time if I remember.

Its difficult for me to say exactly what level of deaths I would have expected in various months of this year so far if it was not for this pandemic. I think its quite reasonable to think that the numbers would have been on the lower end of things for the reasons already mentioned. I also seem to recall that when I was looking at the raw numbers the economist have been collecting in regards excess deaths all around the world in this pandemic, they showed a similar thing in plenty of other countries in the weeks after their flu seasons were past the worst and before the pandemic really took its toll. Their deaths were running below the average until Covid-19. I need to check that again though.


----------



## Raheem (Jun 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I have heard experts on the radio saying that the average deaths should have been lower this year cos it was such a mild winter. What is you opinion?


I've also heard experts on the radio (one, at least) give the opposite argument: that the mild winter should lead to slightly higher excess mortality, because it will have allowed more people close to death to survive into the spring.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2020)

Raheem said:


> I've also heard experts on the radio (one, at least) give the opposite argument: that the mild winter should lead to slightly higher excess mortality, because it will have allowed more people close to death to survive into the spring.



I'm sure all sorts of things like that are possible, but there is also the question of just how large a difference these things actually make. Perhaps a graph of some recent years will help. This one is from the weekly surveillance report. Maybe it illustrates that certain things arent worth spending too much time taking into consideration given the scale of this pandemic, maybe not, people can judge for themselves. Helpfully it does feature several previous winters that didnt have large spikes in excess mortality, so you can see what effect that had on subsequent periods after those winters ended. And note that I'll still stick to my point that I would generally expect the nature of influenza outbreaks to be the main difference between a lot of these years. But its also true that I dont have time to actually go and find examples of which years may illustrate winters where the weather had an obvious influence too.



From National COVID-19 surveillance reports

I'd certainly suggest that at least in those years, the idea that if deaths dont happen over winter then most of them will still happen within months, doesnt really show up to a large degree in this data. Its a more minor phenomenon than may be imagined. Which fits really with influenza deaths - although such things do kill people who were near the end anyway, a lot of the people that die from them during a bad flu epidemic could have carried on for quite a long time otherwise, perhaps for years until another bad flu season got them. Although note that when I say a more minor phenomenon, I only mean it isnt large enough to stand out in overall numbers above or below the normal. Given how many thousands of deaths we always have every week all throughout the year, a lot of the sorts of deaths we can imagine are, from a stats and graphs point of view, absorbed into this normal base of deaths that we arent even thinking that much about when looking at graphs like that.


----------



## little_legs (Jun 2, 2020)




----------



## MrSki (Jun 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Excess winter mortality can be influenced by weather conditions for sure. The cold no doubt influences deaths at that time of year, and really extreme periods of cold in the winter can show up more dramatically in excess death stats. I think when I was looking at the historical data it was possible to see the heat wave of 1976 in that summers data too.
> 
> But its often influenza epidemics that really drive the yearly cycles of death in a more obvious manner. On this occasion our flu season was really early this last winter, it shows up in the numbers for the last months of 2019 more than the first months of 2020, although it is no doubt still some part of the picture in the numbers for January and February. And this last winter was already described quite widely at the time as the most challenging the NHS has faced, although all the details of why didnt really get a satisfactory airing at the time if I remember.
> 
> Its difficult for me to say exactly what level of deaths I would have expected in various months of this year so far if it was not for this pandemic. I think its quite reasonable to think that the numbers would have been on the lower end of things for the reasons already mentioned. I also seem to recall that when I was looking at the raw numbers the economist have been collecting in regards excess deaths all around the world in this pandemic, they showed a similar thing in plenty of other countries in the weeks after their flu seasons were past the worst and before the pandemic really took its toll. Their deaths were running below the average until Covid-19. I need to check that again though.


Thank you.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 2, 2020)

Note on excess death data the FT, Economist and New York Timeshave published the data sets they are using on githubs if it is any interest to people.
Financial-Times/coronavirus-excess-mortality-data
nytimes/covid-19-data
TheEconomist/covid-19-excess-deaths-tracker


----------



## teqniq (Jun 2, 2020)




----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Jun 2, 2020)

Apparently, in the UK, we can end a pandemic just by _believing_ it is over and the government _declaring_ a wind down of restrictions because people are _bored_ of it now. Who knew? Silly rest of the world thinking it took a huge effort to control and eradicate infection. 🤬


----------



## andysays (Jun 2, 2020)

teqniq said:


> View attachment 215789


#BlackLivesDon'tMatterUK...


----------



## MrSki (Jun 2, 2020)

So not only were yesterday's figures misleading there were also more deaths in hospital than the total number.


----------



## maomao (Jun 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So not only were yesterday's figures misleading there were also more deaths in hospital than the total number.


6 people came back to life in care homes?


----------



## gentlegreen (Jun 2, 2020)

There's a woman near me with COPD - probably 70-ish - has carers visit several times a day, regular oxygen deliveries.
those people put on masks.
The poor woman never steps outside her door and I wonder if that was ever the intention.
She could at least have been sitting out in the afternoon sunshine - she'd be 3 metres from light foot traffic...

Neighbours helping her with shopping stay outside, but today I watched a delivery guy go inside and stay there for a while.

I confess that as a fit and healthy 60 year old I was perhaps more cautious at first than I strictly needed to be and I'm now making a point of walking through the park every day and am starting to cycle a bit.

What I want to know is who the new cases are and how they contracted the disease.


----------



## Sue (Jun 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> She could at least have been sitting out in the afternoon sunshine - she'd be 3 metres from light foot traffic...



Maybe she doesn't like sitting in the sun -- I certainly don't!


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2020)

Stay Absurd. Stay Reckless. Stay out on a limb.









						Chief medical officers against lowering Covid alert
					

The government has relaxed the lockdown, despite advisers warning against reducing the Covid-19 alert level.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> On Wednesday last week, the prime minister told parliament's Liaison Committee that "we're coming down the Covid alert system from level 4 to Level 3 tomorrow, we hope, we're going to be taking a decision tomorrow".
> 
> That was in reply to a question from the Northern Ireland Select Committee chair Simon Hoare about the PM's adviser Dominic Cummings.
> 
> But the next day, the government decided instead not to lower the alert level.





> "It was clear that government wanted to change it and scientists and the chief medical officer didn't," said one political source involved. This account was later confirmed to me by a scientist involved in pandemic planning.
> 
> The government itself has not confirmed or denied this account, only suggested that it was "always clear" that the alert level was not the primary reason for easing lockdown.





> Over the weekend, a series of senior members of the Sage advisory committee announced that the easing of lockdown was premature.





> Then there is a more significant question about who actually decides the alert level. The prime minister had said last month that it should be the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC).
> 
> When I asked at Friday's government briefing what the centre had said, NHS Medical Director Professor Stephen Powis replied that the JBC was "currently under development setting itself up" and "feeding information into the four chief medical officers who have to think about alert levels".
> 
> ...


----------



## LDC (Jun 2, 2020)

Everyone ready for a second spike in September then?


----------



## David Clapson (Jun 2, 2020)

I subscribe to the daily Spectator email newsletter. (Know your enemy.) Just got some very bleak Covid news:  



> We have taken a financial hit but nothing as bad as I feared. We remain a profitable and growing company, now with strengthening cash flow.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jun 2, 2020)

Sue said:


> Maybe she doesn't like sitting in the sun -- I certainly don't!


OK she could sit out there in the morning - it faces West ...


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## Sue (Jun 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> OK she could sit out there in the morning - it faces West ...


Or maybe she's okay as she is.


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## maomao (Jun 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Everyone ready for a second spike in September then?


I reckon October/November. A few weeks after we start filling those enclosed spaces on tubes and buses and in offices and classrooms again.


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## gentlegreen (Jun 2, 2020)

Sue said:


> Or maybe she's okay as she is.


Fair enough.
Her life before this happened involved going out in her car several times a day.
At least recently she has her front door ajar so she can feel more in contact with people.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 2, 2020)

> What I want to know is who the new cases are and how they contracted the disease.



I do too, this question is at the heart of the pandemic response.  

Even if the people recruited to do track and trace aren't ready, they could at least try to get some idea where people are getting the infections now.  If we know the answer to the above question, we can go all out tackling it rather than a UK wide approach where everyone is locked into their homes for 11 weeks.


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## Artaxerxes (Jun 2, 2020)

Government has released its BAME report.

First the good news.



> Some evidence also suggests the risk of death from COVID-19 is higher among people of BAME groups (15) and an ONS analysis showed that, when taking age into account, Black males were 4.2 times more likely to die from a COVID-19-related death than White males (16). The risk was also increased for people of Bangladeshi and Pakistani, Indian and Mixed ethnic groups. However, an analysis of over 10,000 patients with COVID-19 admitted to intensive care in UK hospitals suggests that, once age, sex, obesity and comorbidities are taken into account, there is no difference in the likelihood of being admitted to intensive care or of dying between ethnic groups (17)



Now the bad news.



> The relationship between ethnicity and health is complex and likely to be the result of a combination of factors. Firstly, people of BAME communities are likely to be at increased risk of acquiring the infection. This is because BAME people are more likely to live in urban areas (18), in overcrowded households (19), in deprived areas (20), and have jobs that expose them to higher risk (21). People of BAME groups are also more likely than people of White British ethnicity   to be born abroad (22), which means they may face additional barriers in accessing services that are created by, for example, cultural and language differences.
> 
> Secondly, people of BAME communities are also likely to be at increased risk of poorer outcomes once they acquire the infection. For example, some co-morbidities which increase the risk of poorer outcomes from COVID-19 are more common among certain ethnic groups. People of Bangladeshi and Pakistani background have higher rates of cardiovascular disease than people from White British ethnicity (23), and people of Black Caribbean and Black African ethnicity have higher rates of hypertension compared with other ethnic groups (24). Data from the National Diabetes Audit suggests that type II diabetes prevalence is higher in people from BAME communities(25)



The worse news is that Liz Truss is apparently going to lead a further inquiry. The subtle racism news is how that report uses language to obscure the issue, which is poverty and income and yes class.



> People of BAME groups are also more likely than people of White British ethnicity   to be born abroad (22), which means they may face additional barriers in accessing services that are created by,* for example, cultural and language differences. *



See that, thats putting the blame on the victims. Never mind the different living and working patterns along with systemic poverty, no lets blame cultural differences.


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## DotCommunist (Jun 2, 2020)

.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 2, 2020)

Not going well for the muppets.


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## wayward bob (Jun 2, 2020)

have the advisers ditched the briefings now?


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## cupid_stunt (Jun 2, 2020)

wayward bob said:


> have the advisers ditched the briefings now?



I don't think they can be trusted to lie & back-up the government.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jun 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not going well for the muppets.


with a reprieve for the end of lockdown ...


----------



## Raheem (Jun 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not going well for the muppets.



All things considered, I'd be over the moon at that graph.


----------



## little_legs (Jun 2, 2020)




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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> View attachment 215856
> 
> Not going well for the muppets.


Those polls will never cease to amaze me. How the suffering fuck can 37% of the population approve? I know there's the furlough handout. But beyond that, um...


----------



## little_legs (Jun 2, 2020)

It’s Brexit, it has messed people’s brains up.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Those polls will never cease to amaze me. How the suffering fuck can 37% of the population approve? I know there's the furlough handout. But beyond that, um...



None of us have been through anything like this is our lives.  What does a government performing well look like?  What does doing a bad job look like?  I doubt there are all that many people who are scouring over the numbers and graphs for this country and elsewhere in the world.


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## William of Walworth (Jun 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> None of us have been through anything like this is our lives.  What does a government performing well look like?  What does doing a bad job look like?  I doubt there are all that many people who are scouring over the numbers and graphs for this country and elsewhere in the world.



No doubt, but how the hell the approval rating can go *UP* by 7% (30% to 37%), and the disapproval rating stay the same (43%) is surely a puzzle right now ....


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> None of us have been through anything like this is our lives.  What does a government performing well look like?  What does doing a bad job look like?  I doubt there are all that many people who are scouring over the numbers and graphs for this country and elsewhere in the world.


I doubt there are many people who don't know that the death toll in the UK is one of the highest in the world.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> No doubt, but how the hell the approval rating can go *UP* by 7% (30% to 37%), and the disapproval rating stay the same (43%) is surely a puzzle right now ....


A depressing answer to that would be that the Cummings affair is already starting to fade from people's minds.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I doubt there are many people who don't know that the death toll in the UK is one of the highest in the world.



Sure, but linking that to decisions made by government is an extra step.  Also a lot of people voted for this government very recently there will always be a natural inclination to defend choices we have made even if we know deep down they might have been a mistake.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 2, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> A depressing answer to that would be that the Cummings affair is already starting to fade from people's minds.



If the government can pull off lifting lockdown whilst keeping the virus in some sort of check the approval rate will soar again.  The thing is our death rate is still high and not really following the trajectory of Italy and Spain.  Will they be able to pull it off or will they just pretend they have?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Sure, but linking that to decisions made by government is an extra step.  Also a lot of people voted for this government very recently there will always be a natural inclination to defend choices we have made even if we know deep down they might have been a mistake.


It is an extra step, but not a hard one to take. I agree with your second bit. Probably the main reason.


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## weltweit (Jun 2, 2020)

It is probably due to the softening of the lockdown.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> If the government can pull off lifting lockdown whilst keeping the virus in some sort of check the approval rate will soar again.  The thing is our death rate is still high and not really following the trajectory of Italy and Spain.  Will they be able to pull it off or will they just pretend they have?


They might pull it off by not having to pull it off, cos this first wave will have burned itself out more or less whatever the govt does (if a wave can burn? a wave of burning stuff). tbh I think that's the most likely outcome at the moment - covid is dying off right across Europe right now. That might be about it until the next wave later this or next year. That might hide the fact that they have no idea what they're doing, but only from the seriously unattentive.

It actually is kind of following Spain still, just a little behind. Spain's also been in a right mess and has only just got its new cases down under 1,000 a day. (And Spain recently revised its death number upwards - UK's not the only one with reporting issues.) We're as bad as Spain, essentially. That's not a good thing. 

Perhaps a period of sober reflection might help people to absorb just how fucking badly the UK government handled every single aspect of all of this, with the possible exception of furlough.


----------



## Smangus (Jun 2, 2020)

Don't fret , the recession will do it.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 2, 2020)

It's an embarrassing disaster.  You'd think they would try to do better surely?  It's mind-boggling watching the government pull out broken wooden spoons when everyone was expecting a cute rabbit.

This comes to mind

Someone create an ad where the tory party are throwing people under that Brexit bus.


----------



## editor (Jun 3, 2020)

Apparently this was Harlesden tonight


----------



## editor (Jun 3, 2020)




----------



## Numbers (Jun 3, 2020)

editor said:


> Apparently this was Harlesden tonight



So nuts, so sad.


----------



## BristolEcho (Jun 3, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




They can fuck off. They are ignoring contact from concerned workers about uncessary allocations to residential services which is directly spreading the virus.


----------



## Lurdan (Jun 3, 2020)

Some of the internet radio stations which I have on in the background, that don't carry a lot of advertising, have been playing Government corona advice messages. There's a page of various official and commercial radio spots here but it doesn't include this one which I first noticed in the last few days



			https://files.catbox.moe/cq90qq.mp3
		


Slightly clearer expression of the current 'line' than others I've heard.

A little curious about the nuts and bolts of the Governments current public health messaging of this kind. Anyone have any useful links ?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 3, 2020)




----------



## Lurdan (Jun 3, 2020)

Thread by Ed Conway of Sky News about the 'statistics' being given for testing
Archived here


> This is a mess. A real mess. For all sorts of obvious reasons, testing is incredibly important when it comes to saving lives, understanding the spread of the disease, stopping a second wave, track & trace etc. Yet our data on this is not just poor: it's actively misleading.




The FT have their latest update tracking the pandemic internationally (free to read ) and their John Burn-Murdoch draws out the UK implications in a thread archived here



> UK had 62,000 more deaths than usual through to May 22, the highest rate of excess deaths in the world (...) UK has suffered one of the worst outbreaks anywhere





> Deaths have been:
> • 64% higher than usual in England
> • +53% in Scotland
> • +42% in Northern Ireland
> ...



Comparing this with Spain, France and Italy :


> the data suggest(s) the worst of Spain’s outbreak was contained in fewer regions than the UK’s was. (...) [In France] Paris suffered badly, and the Grand Est region also faced a big outbreak, but although most other areas were affected none saw all-cause deaths increase by 50% or more. (...) And [in Italy] Lombardy was hit very hard, and two other northern regions saw excess deaths of 50%+, but in most of the country numbers were relatively muted.





> For whatever reason, UK’s outbreak spread further than those of its peer countries.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jun 3, 2020)

BBC claims test and trace system open to large scale fraud. If it's true this could become a serious problem in terms of public confidence and compliance.

Heer's a link to Radio 4's You and Yours programme (something I never thought I'd be posting on these boards);  The government's system for test and trace leaves the door wide open to scammers, according to fraud experts.  It is the first segment of the show.

It is the sort of thing that will scare the living daylights out of people like my mum who will want to do the right thing but will be terrified she's about to be ripped off. I'm pissed of with bothe the fraudsters and the government.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## Lurdan (Jun 3, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> BBC claims test and trace system open to large scale fraud. If it's true this could become a serious problem in terms of public confidence and compliance.
> 
> Heer's a link to Radio 4's You and Yours programme (something I never thought I'd be posting on these boards);  The government's system for test and trace leaves the door wide open to scammers, according to fraud experts.  It is the first segment of the show.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the link. There's a detailed article about the issue at Wired.

How to avoid scammers posing as NHS contact tracers | WIRED UK

although despite the title it doesn't actually say anything useful about how to avoid them.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 3, 2020)

So yesterday's death rate at 359 id more than the combined EU27 but Johnson is very proud of the Government's response.


----------



## weltweit (Jun 3, 2020)

I can remember back at the start, I first posted here about the Wuhan coronavirus on 20 January, that it seemed somehow UK was avoiding the worst of it through no particular actions of our own, I can remember being worried about incoming flights from infected areas, nothing was done, in fact pretty much nothing was done at all until our rather late lockdown. 

We did too little too late and that is reflected in our death rates to this day.


----------



## Dogsauce (Jun 3, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So yesterday's death rate at 359 id more than the combined EU27 but Johnson is very proud of the Government's response.



Proof that the EUSSR was holding us back from realising our full potential


----------



## MrSki (Jun 3, 2020)

Dispatches on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight might be worth a watch. 

"Britain's Coronavirus catastrophe"


----------



## little_legs (Jun 3, 2020)




----------



## Wilf (Jun 3, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So yesterday's death rate at 359 id more than the combined EU27 but Johnson is very proud of the Government's response.


Yep, very impressive, especially as we are a fucking island as well.


----------



## Supine (Jun 3, 2020)

So Alok Sharma became ill in the commons today. He is now self isolated, has been Corona tested and the commons is on hold while the area he was in gets deep cleaned. This includes the dispatch box.


----------



## Supine (Jun 3, 2020)




----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 3, 2020)

Supine said:


> So Alok Sharma became ill in the commons today. He is now self isolated, has been Corona tested and the commons is on hold while the area he was in gets deep cleaned. This includes the dispatch box.


there are not enough facepalms in the world for this


----------



## weltweit (Jun 3, 2020)

Is it just the tories that are getting it or are there any labour members also infected?


----------



## killer b (Jun 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Is it just the tories that are getting it or are there any labour members also infected?


Tony Lloyd almost died.


----------



## Cid (Jun 3, 2020)

Supine said:


>




Reminds me of something...


----------



## weltweit (Jun 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> Tony Lloyd almost died.


I didn't know 








						'I feel a tremendous sense of humility': MP Tony Lloyd on how NHS saved his life
					

Labour MP Tony Lloyd talks to Helen Pidd about his 25 days in hospital being treated for coronavirus




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Lurdan (Jun 3, 2020)

There are a couple of articles in the new Private Eye about our 'World Beating' Test and Trace regime. Rather confirm the impression that this shower of shit couldn't beat themselves off let alone the rest of the world.



Spoiler: Articles


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Is it just the tories that are getting it or are there any labour members also infected?


what a question!


----------



## Supine (Jun 3, 2020)

Something tells me our leadership class won't take this properly seriously until one of them dies.


----------



## weltweit (Jun 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> what a question!


Perhaps, sorry if it sounds stupid. I haven't been reading any newspapers recently and online have only heard of Johnson, Hancock, Whitty, Cummings etc ..


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Perhaps, sorry if it sounds stupid. I haven't been reading any newspapers recently and online have only heard of Johnson, Hancock, Whitty, Cummings etc ..


it's just that if they're all there, they will all be as likely to be affected by it


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 3, 2020)

Supine said:


> Something tells me our leadership class won't take this properly seriously until one of them dies.


None of them will take it seriously unless they themselves die of it


----------



## Cid (Jun 3, 2020)

S☼I said:


> None of them will take it seriously unless they themselves die of it



Ha, that will just be an opportunity for eulogies...


----------



## MrSki (Jun 3, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Dispatches on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight might be worth a watch.
> 
> "Britain's Coronavirus catastrophe"


Well worth the watch on catch-up but the best line from one scientist was.


----------



## souljacker (Jun 3, 2020)

Sharma has come back to Reading to isolate. We don't want him here. Can't he stay in London?


----------



## Smangus (Jun 4, 2020)

S☼I said:


> None of them will take it seriously unless they themselves die of it



Please don't get my hopes up .


----------



## Wilf (Jun 4, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Sharma has come back to Reading to isolate. We don't want him here. Can't he stay in London?


I think you are allowed to travel up to 270 miles (or just 50 for a rough and ready eye test).


----------



## Supine (Jun 4, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Sharma has come back to Reading to isolate. We don't want him here. Can't he stay in London?



I didn't know you had a castle


----------



## tim (Jun 4, 2020)

Supine said:


> I didn't know you had a castle



They don't yet, but it is perfect sick room project for Sharma. Rees-Mogg will send Nanny round to do the scissory bits.


----------



## teqniq (Jun 4, 2020)

Exclusive: Tens of thousands of Covid-19 tests voided after decision to send swabs to US backfires


----------



## Sue (Jun 4, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Sharma has come back to Reading to isolate. We don't want him here. Can't he stay in London?


We've got enough of the fuckers already.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 4, 2020)

So it looks like today is the day the official count will hit 40,000, while we all know it is higher than that in reality.

What's been happening in Wales? It's now doing noticeably worse than anywhere else.


----------



## planetgeli (Jun 4, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> What's been happening in Wales? It's now doing noticeably worse than anywhere else.



What are you basing this on? Aneurin Bevan have largely got a hold on their deaths and now the worst areas are Rhondda Cynon Taff and Merthyr (both covering impoverished areas surprise, surprise). But they still are only 35th and 40th respectively out of 339 councils in England and Wales for worst death rates. Most of the rest of Wales is doing considerably better than anywhere in England, and always has been.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 4, 2020)

Was just looking at this: Coronavirus UK map: the latest deaths and confirmed cases near you


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 4, 2020)

Using estimates for 2020 (to which I've linked), there's a two million-or-so difference in population between Scotland (5,254,800) and Wales (3,230,490)

Whereas the difference in death toll is only 1,201 

There are inevitably going to be some discrepancies/inconsistencies in the stats-gathering methodologies between the two countries, but those figure are *not* good for Wales .....

(Just posting this for context -- I can't for the life of me offer any reasons!  )


----------



## prunus (Jun 4, 2020)

Does anyone know if, and if so where, the underlying data for the sero-prevalence survey (as summarised here amongst other places Sero-surveillance of COVID-19 ) is available?

They highlight a few tantalising age- and location-related variations in the summary, but it's frustrating not to be able to see the whole dataset...


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 4, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> What are you basing this on? Aneurin Bevan have largely got a hold on their deaths and now the worst areas are Rhondda Cynon Taff and Merthyr (both covering impoverished areas surprise, surprise). But they still are only 35th and 40th respectively out of 339 councils in England and Wales for worst death rates. Most of the rest of Wales is doing considerably better than anywhere in England, and always has been.



Is there a link for the different council areas??
My comment (post 13,557 above) that the figures aren't good for Wales was more based on an overall comparison with Scotland, in the context of their respective populations, but I do take your point as well.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 4, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Was just looking at this: Coronavirus UK map: the latest deaths and confirmed cases near you


That shows what's happened from the start, though, not how places are doing now.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 4, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Is there a link for the different council areas??
> My comment (post 13,557 above) that the figures aren't good for Wales was more based on an overall comparison with Scotland, in the context of their respective populations, but I do take your point as well.


What do you want to know, though? How Wales has done since March or how it is doing now?

tbh you need to go pretty local really to get a proper sense of what's going on. Various areas have been hit badly at different times. Eg in Wales, Gwent or whatever it's called now, I still call it Gwent, was hit hard and early, but is now doing much better.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 4, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> What do you want to know, though? *How Wales has done since March or how it is doing now?*


Both, probably.
I've not been good at sourcing details for these things though -- I've tended on rely on others throughout this thread 



> tbh you need to go pretty local really to get a proper sense of what's going on. Various areas have been hit badly at different times.


I did ask for a local areas link from planetgeli when he cited Rhondda Cynon Taff and Merthyr as the worst-hit Welsh areas. Not because I doubted him, I just wanted to see .....


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 4, 2020)

My earlier post (#13,557, previous page) was about the respective figures between Wales and Scotland, given their respective populations, but chances are I've been going all wrong with that too


----------



## little_legs (Jun 4, 2020)




----------



## planetgeli (Jun 4, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Both, probably.
> I've not been good at sourcing details for these things though -- I've tended on rely on others throughout this thread
> 
> 
> I did ask for a local areas link from planetgeli when he cited Rhondda Cynon Taff and Merthyr as the worst-hit Welsh areas. Not because I doubted him, I just wanted to see .....



Sorry, went shopping William of Walworth









						Figuring out the stats on coronavirus in Wales
					

Where are the hot spots in Wales and what is happening in care homes?




					www.bbc.co.uk
				




*Coronavirus deaths in Wales*
Numbers up to 22 May by local area

AreaNumber of deathsDeaths per 100,000Increased number on last weekCardiff34193.6212Rhondda Cynon Taff251104.514Swansea19077.099Newport15299.153Caerphilly12569.052Flintshire10265.5511Neath Port Talbot9264.382Bridgend8659.365Powys8564.181Vale of Glamorgan8362.82Carmarthenshire7338.928Denbighshire6871.3310Monmouthshire6366.925Torfaen6367.71Merthyr Tydfil61101.362Blaenau Gwent6086.070Conwy5849.499Gwynedd5342.686Wrexham5036.734Pembrokeshire3830.381Anglesey2130.015Ceredigion79.61

Source: ONS, 2 June 2020
Cardiff has the largest number of deaths in Wales so far - 341, followed by Rhondda Cynon Taff with 251 up to 22 May.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 4, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That shows what's happened from the start, though, not how places are doing now.


Ah, you're right, it was surrounded by data about new cases so I misread it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 4, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Sorry, went shopping William of Walworth
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So very badly hit, but also now doing much better. The former county of Gwent - Newport, Blaenau, Monmouthshire - was hit early and now coming out early as well, bit like is happening in London. 

That's why I think it's important to know what you're asking exactly in these things - figures for the overall scale of the catastrophe aren't a good guide to how things are now.


----------



## Supine (Jun 4, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Cardiff has the largest number of deaths in Wales so far - 341, followed by Rhondda Cynon Taff with 251 up to 22 May.



A lot of people from South Wales end up at hospital in Cardiff


----------



## treelover (Jun 4, 2020)

> Families reveal 'real struggle' to afford food during lockdown #HelptheHungry
> 
> 
> Help the Hungry: Parents face terrible choice between putting food on the table and paying bills, as campaign gets emergency supplies out to people in dire financial need
> ...



While lots of help from mutual aid groups, etc, doesn't seem to be many wider challenges to the poverty issues during c19.

one of the issues i have noticed is the lack of cheaper own brand products in s/markets, esp tesco, not sure that should be.


----------



## little_legs (Jun 4, 2020)




----------



## weltweit (Jun 4, 2020)

I have 1 surgical mask which I have only worn for 1/2 an hour, but it won't last forever and isn't cleanable. I would prefer a couple of cloth masks which I could wash. 

Anyone know where to get them?


----------



## planetgeli (Jun 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Anyone know where to get them?



I need to know too. Just looked up some online and they were crap.

I have to come to London in 2 weeks for an MRI at UCHL. I'm coming on the train then bus from Paddington to Euston Rd so I'm going to need one/some. This will be the first time I've been more than 8 miles from my house since mid-March. And even that has only been 3 or 4 shopping trips to Tesco.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 4, 2020)

there's loads to choose from on Amazon


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I have 1 surgical mask which I have only worn for 1/2 an hour, but it won't last forever and isn't cleanable. I would prefer a couple of cloth masks which I could wash.
> 
> Anyone know where to get them?


Just letting it dry out is supposed to be what you can do. Don't wash it apparently. But get some more. (I put in an order on Amazon for a pack of 50 just now.)


----------



## Pingety Pong (Jun 4, 2020)

I bought a few washable ones from Etsy the other day for a fiver. They also have one some with little windows for your mouth  








						ANTI-FOG Adults/Kids Clear Mask Our Mask Will Not Fog Up | Etsy
					

• ****** OUR ANTI-FOG CLEAR MASK WILL NOT FOG UP WHEN YOU SPEAK****** • 100% Multi Layered Cotton Frame • Great for Reading Lips and Expressions • Comfortable Adjustable Straps to fit any face • Hand Washable • Made in the USA  ***** The mask with Anti-Fog will not fog up, the mask with NO ANTI-FOG




					www.etsy.com


----------



## nagapie (Jun 4, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> there's loads to choose from on Amazon



That's the problem, too much choice. I need to get the bus, on the 15th.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 4, 2020)

nagapie said:


> That's the problem, too much choice. I need to get the bus, on the 15th.







__





						TYTN Microfibre Neck & Head Scarf Bandana (Red): Amazon.co.uk: Sports & Outdoors
					

Shop TYTN Microfibre Neck & Head Scarf Bandana (Red). Free delivery and returns on all eligible orders.



					www.amazon.co.uk


----------



## Callie (Jun 4, 2020)

Pingety Pong said:


> I bought a few washable ones from Etsy the other day for a fiver. They also have one some with little windows for your mouth
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Erm... Oh I see a window not a hole  to assist with lip reading?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 4, 2020)

nagapie said:


> That's the problem, too much choice. I need to get the bus, on the 15th.


It doesn't actually matter what you get in terms of the bylaws as long as it covers your face.


----------



## tonysingh (Jun 4, 2020)

little_legs said:


>




I'm dreading Monday. 

This thing with the buses makes me anxious. I'm disabled but it ain't visible. I rely on public transport but wearing a mask is a huge ordeal, it freaks me out. So I'm gonna have to explain to bus drivers the nature of my disabilities, even though I have a bus pass. Then there'll be the self appointed busybodies on the bus demanding to know why I ain't wearing one..... Looks like I'm gonna have to stay indoors now.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 4, 2020)

tonysingh said:


> I'm dreading Monday.
> 
> This thing with the buses makes me anxious. I'm disabled but it ain't visible. I rely on public transport but wearing a mask is a huge ordeal, it freaks me out. So I'm gonna have to explain to bus drivers the nature of my disabilities, even though I have a bus pass. Then there'll be the self appointed busybodies on the bus demanding to know why I ain't wearing one..... Looks like I'm gonna have to stay indoors now.


It’s not next Monday, but the one after that. So get out and about while you can


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 4, 2020)

Would you be able to wear one of those clear visors?


----------



## Supine (Jun 4, 2020)

I can thoroughly recommends this week's Dispatches. The look on Valence and Whitteys faces when they announce they are abandoning the contain faze. They looked very very uncomfortable. Eye opening interviews with members of SAGE too.


----------



## tommers (Jun 4, 2020)

I am very much up for what people will be defining as a face covering in a couple of week's time.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 4, 2020)

tommers said:


> I am very much up for what people will be defining as a face covering in a couple of week's time.



Aye this is going to be interesting.


----------



## Dogsauce (Jun 4, 2020)

How the fuck do you get small kids to wear them? Both mine (2 & 4) would likely go mental if you put a mask over their mouths.


----------



## magneze (Jun 4, 2020)

If the masks gave them superpowers? 😉


----------



## 8115 (Jun 4, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> How the fuck do you get small kids to wear them? Both mine (2 & 4) would likely go mental if you put a mask over their mouths.


Young children don't have to wear them.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 4, 2020)

8115 said:


> Young children don't have to wear them.


Yeah they do. Under 2s are exempt as well as unsupervised primary school children


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 4, 2020)

I've (belatedly) just checked the  BBC story about the compulsory masks on public transport thing ..... (from Monday June 15th).

... looks for now that this will be just England? 
Nothing mentioned for (e.g.) Wales yet, as far as I can see ....


----------



## BristolEcho (Jun 4, 2020)

I'm really still not sure how enforceable it is to be honest.


----------



## tommers (Jun 4, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Yeah they do. Under 2s are exempt as well as unsupervised primary school children



What are unsupervised primary school children doing on public transport?


----------



## The39thStep (Jun 4, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I need to know too. Just looked up some online and they were crap.
> 
> I have to come to London in 2 weeks for an MRI at UCHL. I'm coming on the train then bus from Paddington to Euston Rd so I'm going to need one/some. This will be the first time I've been more than 8 miles from my house since mid-March. And even that has only been 3 or 4 shopping trips to Tesco.


They sell the the disposable masks here at chemist supermarkets for about around 80 cents to 1 euro here, one bar I was in gave me five for free  but theres also  a small home industry of washable masks normally 5/6 euros locally. I bought two off the attractive Brazilian/Portuguese woman Janin and two others off neighbours.


----------



## BristolEcho (Jun 4, 2020)

tommers said:


> What are unsupervised primary school children doing on public transport?



Misbehaving probably.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 4, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I've (belatedly) just checked the  BBC story about the compulsory masks on public transport thing ..... (from Monday June 15th).
> 
> ... looks for now that this will be just England?
> Nothing mentioned for (e.g.) Wales yet, as far as I can see ....


Shapps said that he imagined the devolved powers would follow suit


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 4, 2020)

tommers said:


> What are unsupervised primary school children doing on public transport?


Going to school


----------



## Thora (Jun 4, 2020)

tommers said:


> What are unsupervised primary school children doing on public transport?


Probably going to school?


----------



## teqniq (Jun 4, 2020)

FFS:
from the article:



			
				cunt said:
			
		

> ...It comes as a leaked email from the chief executive of Serco – one of the main companies contracted to deliver the service – revealed how he doubted the scheme would evolve smoothly but said he wanted it to “cement the position of the private sector” in the NHS supply chain....











						NHS test-and-trace system 'not fully operational until September'
					

Exclusive: chief operating officer told staff programme would be imperfect at launch




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 4, 2020)

tommers said:


> What are unsupervised primary school children doing on public transport?



What are the dealers flogging?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 4, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> What are the dealers flogging?


wtf


----------



## little_legs (Jun 4, 2020)

tonysingh said:


> I'm dreading Monday.
> 
> This thing with the buses makes me anxious. I'm disabled but it ain't visible. I rely on public transport but wearing a mask is a huge ordeal, it freaks me out. So I'm gonna have to explain to bus drivers the nature of my disabilities, even though I have a bus pass. Then there'll be the self appointed busybodies on the bus demanding to know why I ain't wearing one..... Looks like I'm gonna have to stay indoors now.


I am really sorry you are feeling anxious. Stay at home.

I imagine there is going to be lots of people in this position, worried and scared, but having no other alternative.

Looking at a bigger picture, I'd say this is a welcome development, but it should have been implemented weeks ago. Even now nothing stops the government to issue every household with a washable mask for both adults and children, and mandate wearing masks indoors.

The worst bit is that the government is so cruel that it's also going to leave the enforcement of mask wearing to bus drivers and train conductors, exposing them to being yelled at in the best of times or spat at in worse case scenarios by _libertarian_ people who don't want to wear masks.


----------



## Celyn (Jun 4, 2020)

tommers said:


> What are unsupervised primary school children doing on public transport?


Don't you think kids of ten or so are able to go on public transport alone?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 4, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> wtf



If your not prepared for a silly answer don't ask silly questions


----------



## little_legs (Jun 4, 2020)

Just gonna shamelessly quote myself here from the World covid thread. Nothing, other than their covid eaten brains, prevents the government to copy Hong Kong.


little_legs said:


> All Hong Kong residents can get a reusable mask courtesy HK government.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 5, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> If your not prepared for a silly answer don't ask silly questions


why were you talking about dealers? what's that got do with anything?


----------



## tommers (Jun 5, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Don't you think kids of ten or so are able to go on public transport alone?



I guess I'm used to schools round here which have a catchment area of 800m or something. And i also had primary school in my head as 5 yr olds rather than junior school aged kids.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 5, 2020)

tommers said:


> I guess I'm used to schools round here which have a catchment area of 800m or something. And i also had primary school in my head as 5 yr olds rather than junior school aged kids.


Lots of kids are taken to school in special school buses too - I think they still count as public transport cos they're put on by the bus company rather than chartered.


----------



## kabbes (Jun 5, 2020)

Now everyone will know who are the unsupervised children because they will be the ones not wearing masks.


----------



## miss direct (Jun 5, 2020)

I arrived back in the UK on Wednesday. Couldn't believe that the only staff at Gatwick wearing masks were the cleaners. Masks are mandatory in Turkey in crowded public places, on transport, in shops, etc etc, so that's what I'm used to. I travelled with multiple masks and also wore a plastic visor (much easier to breathe). People were literally staring and sniggering at me in the airport. The immigration officer was sarcastic and told me to "remove that paraphernalia". Yeah lady, my paraphernalia is helping to keep you and everyone else safe, considering I've travelled from Turkey to Belarus and then on to London. 

It's an absolute pathetic shame that they were debating masks for months and are only doing something about it now. No, nobody likes wearing them. I never thought people would wear them in Turkey - it's not a place people like to follow the rules. Back in February I remember one man on the metro with a mask and people avoiding him and staring at him. Now everyone wears them and it's just normal. People adapt quickly. Stop bloody whinging and discussing it and cover your mouth and nose. It's not difficult. It should also apply to supermarkets.


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 5, 2020)

Our public health officials know that they're the best in the world, so aren't going to be swayed by what other countries do - they must be seen to come to their own decisions by weighing up the evidence properly.


----------



## TopCat (Jun 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Lots of kids are taken to school in special school buses too - I think they still count as public transport cos they're put on by the bus company rather than chartered.


Public transport is defined by the public having access to it. SEN transport they dont?


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 5, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Our public health officials know that they're the best in the world, so aren't going to be swayed by what other countries do - they must be seen to come to their own decisions by weighing up the evidence properly.



Even if that is true, a lot of the decisions are being made by politicians, not public health officials.  It would take a special kind of idiot to claim that British politicians are the best in the world...


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 5, 2020)

Plenty of surgical masks on ebay at £4.99-£5.99 for packs of 10, search for "3-ply mask".


----------



## Numbers (Jun 5, 2020)

The Back to Work pack on UKMeds looks interesting.





__





						Masks for Sale - (FFP2 and FFP3) - Buy Face Masks UK - UK Meds
					

Face masks and other PPE protection for the Coronavirus. Buy FFP2/N95 and FFP3/N99 face masks from UK Meds, recommended by the WHO during outbreaks of infections such as the Coronavirus.




					www.ukmeds.co.uk


----------



## miss direct (Jun 5, 2020)

Prices are ridiculous here too. Wish I'd brought a few more boxes of masks. A single use mask is 1tl (12p) in Turkey and my visor was £2.30. Government capped the price.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 5, 2020)

Yeah I don't leave the house without wearing a mask and I've had a few weird comments and looks which is a bit off putting since I'm pretty much the only person who wears it


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 5, 2020)

Does anyone know on what date johnson first said work from home if you can?


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Does anyone know on what date johnson first said work from home if you can?



Pretty sure it was the broadcast lock-down announcement on 23 March


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 5, 2020)

How do you download the app anyway?


----------



## Spandex (Jun 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> How do you download the app anyway?


Not released yet.

The chief operating officer of the test and trace scheme said the scheme should be fully working by September or October.

Doofus minister Nadhim Zahawi said "I'd like to think we'd be able to manage by this month, yes."

Take your pick who you believe.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jun 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Does anyone know on what date johnson first said work from home if you can?


16th March I think
edit, yes it was PM tells Britons to avoid non-essential travel and contact: 





> “Now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel. We need people to start working from home where they possibly can. And you should avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues,”


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 5, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> 16th March I think
> edit, yes it was PM tells Britons to avoid non-essential travel and contact:



Thank you.


----------



## Mattym (Jun 5, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Now everyone will know who are the unsupervised children because they will be the ones not wearing masks.



The lack of adults/older children in their vicinity may also be a bit of a giveaway.


----------



## MickiQ (Jun 5, 2020)

tommers said:


> What are unsupervised primary school children doing on public transport?


Do they not have school buses around where you live?


----------



## MickiQ (Jun 5, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Public transport is defined by the public having access to it. SEN transport they dont?


There's not just SEN transport, my kids (apart from the youngest) went to primary school on a bus (double decker if I remember correctly) containing only primary school children and was not available to adults other than teachers and TA's. Mrs Q  took them to the bus stop until they got hold enough to be embarassed by their friends seeing them with their Mum.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 5, 2020)

What is the current state of evidence as far as the effectiveness of face masks is concerned?


----------



## Lurdan (Jun 5, 2020)

Thread by Nick Stripe of the ONS looking at the level of excess deaths above the five year average and the possible reasons for them. Archived here. The majority were in care homes.



> Our analysis shows:
> 
> 
> Many deaths where COVID was not mentioned were displaced from hospitals to care homes and private homes
> ...





> Men accounted for more at first but from mid-April this switched to women
> Analysis by leading underlying causes of death shows all leading causes above or at their 5-yr averages
> Most notably, they show v significant increases in deaths due to Dementia & Alzheimer Disease and for deaths due to old age & frailty (“signs, symptoms and ill-defined conditions”)
> Deaths with these causes account for two thirds of all “non-COVID” excess deaths





> Dementia increases are so sharp it’s implausible that they are unrelated to COVID
> They generally affect the very old, they would tend to impact women to a greater extent than men simply due to pop structure. Especially once care home epidemics took hold with ltd testing
> 
> People with dementia are more likely to have communication problems describing symptoms (...)





> No reason to believe that COVID-19 has been knowingly omitted from death certs. Symptoms may not be apparent
> 
> But we cannot discount the impact of changes to normal routines for vulnerable care home residents following lockdown. These could have had adverse consequences too





> The balance of evidence so far points to undiagnosed COVID in the elderly being the most likely explanation for a majority of excess deaths that did not mention CV on certs
> 
> This fits: demography, locations, esp where testing was sparse, causes of death & timings of peaks (...)


----------



## Lurdan (Jun 5, 2020)

Thread by Lewis Goodall of Newsnight about Covid and Dementia in care homes. Archived here. It's in advance of a report on the programme tonight.



> (...) the primary virus containment method in care homes is confinement of residents to their rooms. This is basically impossible for dementia patients. I was in St Cecilia's, a specialist dementia home in Scarborough today. Staff there told me they have to keep repeating to their residents why they have to stay in their rooms. Some can understand for a while. But some can't understand at all - and they go wandering.





> There are things they can do - including reverse isolating, isolating residents who can understand as opposed to those who can't. As a last resort they can try and put PPE on residents but this isn't easy either. Imagine trying to put a mask on someone who doesn't understand why. Dementia homes are having to recognise they have to let deeply affected patients wander the corridors. But the infection risk here is very obvious. Residents often try and hug others, if they're infected or not. As a manager told me "it only takes a second" (...)





> But people with dementia have been affected in other ways. Dementia and depression are often connected and many dementia residents are falling into a deep sadness. They can't see their families, they don't understand (or can't retain) why not and it's profoundly affecting them. When depression comes and lack of stimulation and routine sets in, I've been told that the speed of cognitive and physical decline can be remarkable. Residents are stopping eating, drinking and losing the ability to speak.





> I spoke to Trevor, whose wife Yvonne developed Alzheimer's at 53. He worries she's forgotten his face, having not been able visit her in 2.5 months: "The sparkle went from her eyes. She's in a lost world. Carers wearing masks made it hard - scary. She doesn't recognise them." As Kate Lea of @alzheimerssoc told me: “social isolation has a huge and disproportionate impact on people with dementia" - this is why so many of our non-covid excess deaths seem to be coming from our dementia sufferers: “if this was our children we’d be screaming from the rooftops”


----------



## Lurdan (Jun 5, 2020)

Well this is all a bit depressing. Perhaps we should give ourselves a morale boost.

By thinking about what we'd like to do to Digby fucking Jones.

Britain needs new Royal Yacht Britannia to provide 'morale boost', says former trade minister - Telegraph (archived version)



> He said: "Why now? [It would be] one of the biggest morale boosts you can have. You'd have it doing tours of Britain, and open days you'd be amazed how many people will come to that.
> "And why now? Because the nation is going to come through this in better shape. If we actually believe in ourselves. That's what we need to believe in ourselves ...
> "We have a damn good chance in this country and a royal yacht at this moment would just be one of those good quality delivery messages."


----------



## Spandex (Jun 5, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> what we'd like to do to Digby fucking Jones.


Maybe we could cut costs by making Digby Jones the New Royal Yacht Britannia. Smash a bottle of champagne over his head and slide him into the sea.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 5, 2020)

Let's hope they've got this right, if so, it's bloody good news.



> The number of people with coronavirus has more than halved in the last week, according to the latest official figures.
> 
> Data released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed 53,000 people in England had the virus at any one time during the last two weeks of May. That's down from 133,000 in the last round of figures.
> 
> The ONS says there is now a consistent downward trend - from more than 0.4% of the population being infected at the end of April down to 0.1% at the end of May. The data also shows an estimated 39,000 people a week are currently catching COVID-19, down from 54,000 last week.











						Coronavirus cases in UK have more than halved in last week - ONS figures
					

The Office for National Statistics says there is now a consistent downward trend in coronavirus cases.




					news.sky.com


----------



## MrSki (Jun 5, 2020)

Not looking so good in the South West though. Latest R figures.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 5, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Not looking so good in the South West though. Latest R figures.


SW has been far less badly hit, though, and the pattern does appear to be that the harder you're hit, the faster you come down. 

This site (my computer says it isn't a secure site, btw, in case you click it) shows useful info of various kinds. The hospitalisation figures show that those in hospital in the SW with covid-19 fell from 323 on 24 May, the date of that estimate, to 234 on 3 June. The number has levelled out over the last week, suggesting that the R number on 24 June was probably very close to 1, but certainly nowhere near 1.3. Not great news though also not terrible, but the SW is still doing better than anywhere else, and its hospitalisation rate is now at around a quarter of its peak.


----------



## The39thStep (Jun 5, 2020)

teuchter said:


> What is the current state of evidence as far as the effectiveness of face masks is concerned?


Must be some as here in Portugal the Council here has just given out five free ones with their local magazine .
Compulsory in shops , ordering at the bar and on public transport .


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> How do you download the app anyway?


What app?


----------



## editor (Jun 5, 2020)

Coivid raves!


----------



## editor (Jun 5, 2020)

Justice for Belly Mujinga









						Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy leads Parliamentary call for investigation into death of Belly Mujinga
					

Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy has called for an investigation into the death of Belly Mujinga, putting an Early Day Motion down in Parliament.



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 5, 2020)

I'm seeing increasing claims from right-wing nuts on social media that there's some sort of conspiracy to _overstate _CV-19 deaths. Partly it seems to be a way of defending the UK's terrible record with the virus, but whatever the reason it seems to fall along the culture war lines that the Tory party have successfully helped open up.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 5, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I'm seeing increasing claims from right-wing nuts on social media that there's some sort of conspiracy to _overstate _CV-19 deaths. Partly it seems to be a way of defending the UK's terrible record with the virus, but whatever the reason it seems to fall along the culture war lines that the Tory party have successfully helped open up.


I've been in a meeting today with a colleague who holds very much the same view. And rants about the disloyalty of the Welsh First Secretary for not following Westminster. There's also some kind of conspiracy theory about how Dr Neil Ferguson has some kind of financial interest in upping the ante.


----------



## editor (Jun 5, 2020)

Well, this is nice



> The Tory MP spearheading efforts to promote the Covid-19 contact-tracing app trial on the Isle of Wight appears to have broken lockdown rules at a barbecue also attended by the chairman of the Brexit party and political journalists, the Guardian has learned.
> 
> Bob Seely went to the evening gathering hosted by the Spectator magazine’s deputy editor, Freddy Gray, in the village of Seaview on the island last month. Richard Tice, the Brexit party chairman, and his partner, the political journalist Isabel Oakeshott, were also there.











						Tory MP attended lockdown barbecue with journalists
					

Bob Seely was at gathering when guidance said you could only meet one other person




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## editor (Jun 5, 2020)

Wales says _Dim Diolch _to English tourists....



> Police turned away more than 1,000 cars from one beauty spot in just two days for breaching lockdown rules.
> 
> Dyfed-Powys Police said many people officers spoke to in the Brecon Beacons were from England who said they did not know about Wales' different rules.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: Police turn away 1,000 cars in two days
					

Police say many people officers spoke to were from England and thought lockdown rules were the same.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## editor (Jun 5, 2020)

The United (guffaw) Kingdom:


----------



## Supine (Jun 5, 2020)




----------



## phillm (Jun 5, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I've been in a meeting today with a colleague who holds very much the same view. And rants about the disloyalty of the Welsh First Secretary for not following Westminster. There's also some kind of conspiracy theory about how Dr Neil Ferguson has some kind of financial interest in upping the ante.


All Gates leads to Bill Roads.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jun 5, 2020)

DigbyShittingJones said:
			
		

> He said: "Why now? [It would be] one of the biggest morale boosts you can have. You'd have it doing tours of Britain, and open days you'd be amazed how many people will come to that.
> "And why now? Because the nation is going to come through this in better shape. If we actually believe in ourselves. That's what we need to believe in ourselves ...
> "We have a damn good chance in this country and a royal yacht at this moment would just be one of those good quality delivery messages."



Wtf is it with our culture that produces utter fuckwits like this who constantly shit on about 'oh if only we believe in ourselves more' yeah just fucking believe and good stuff happens.

Believe that Brexit will be a marvelous boon for economic growth because we're English, believe that a highly infectious virus won't infect us and even if it does we'll just brush it off because we're English, believe that we can strike our own path in dealing with a fucking global pandemic and not have tens of thousands of people die because we're English.  Believe in our world-beating tack and trace wankapp because we're English. Believe that there won't be a second wave and people will follow our half baked rules because of British (English) common sense. Believe that we'll be back to normal and everything will be as it was before because we're English. 

The sooner this asinine bollocks is wiped from our culture the better off we'll all be. Fat chance of that happening any time soon though.


----------



## little_legs (Jun 5, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Even if that is true, a lot of the *decisions are being made by politicians*, not public health officials.  It would take a special kind of idiot to claim that British politicians are the best in the world...


Who are driven in ministerial cars. So who cares how them plebs get to work.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jun 5, 2020)

Supine said:


> View attachment 216305



What's this? Without context it's just lines. Is it deaths? Cases? Hospital admissions? Deaths in care homes? R rate?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 5, 2020)

Spotted a story about school closing due to Corona today so thought I'd see what I could find over the last week with a search.

Turns out schools don't actually appear to be as minor a vector as we've been told. 

Northampton primary closes after Covid-19 outbreak

Two children test positive for coronavirus as West Yorkshire school prepares to reopen

School closes after seven staff get coronavirus









						Lincoln school shuts after member of staff tests positive for Covid-19
					

It will be closed for a while




					www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk
				












						Essex primary school shuts immediately after coronavirus fears
					

The school won't reopen until next week




					www.essexlive.news
				












						School 'bubble' closes as member of staff displays Covid-19 symptoms
					

A PRIMARY school in Amesbury has closed one of its bubbles today, after a member of staff started displaying symptoms of Covid-19.




					www.salisburyjournal.co.uk
				












						School confirms coronavirus case as pupils to return across country
					

Woolaston Primary School in Lydney sent out a letter explaining that an individual had tested positive for the virus




					www.plymouthherald.co.uk


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jun 5, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Spotted a story about school closing due to Corona today so thought I'd see what I could find over the last week with a search.
> 
> Turns out schools don't actually appear to be as minor a vector as we've been told.
> 
> ...



Two south west stories there. The situation with the R rate here is cause for concern.


----------



## Supine (Jun 5, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> What's this? Without context it's just lines. Is it deaths? Cases? Hospital admissions? Deaths in care homes? R rate?



Ahh, good point I forgot to add the link.

It's the Cambridge modelling showing r rate but the site has lots of other tabs to check. They currently predict death rate to stop decreasing by mid June 






						Nowcasting and Forecasting - MRC Biostatistics Unit
					

The recently published reports on our Nowcasting of Forecasting of COVID-19 are available to view. The four most recent are below and every report published so far can be clicked on in the left tool bar. Report on Nowcasting and Forecasting – 6th August 2020 Report on Nowcasting and Forecasting...




					www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk


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## Artaxerxes (Jun 5, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Two south west stories there. The situation with the R rate here is cause for concern.



Couple of northern ones as well


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## Doctor Carrot (Jun 5, 2020)

Supine said:


> Ahh, good point I forgot to add the link.
> 
> It's the Cambridge modelling showing r rate but the site has lots of other tabs to check. They currently predict death rate to stop decreasing by mid June
> 
> ...



Thanks for this. What does Crl mean? I'm pretty rubbish at statistics despite having a social science degree!


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## Doctor Carrot (Jun 5, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Couple of northern ones as well



Yeah, it's looking like regional lockdowns are going to be something to look forward to.  As an outbreak falls in one area it rises in another.


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## Supine (Jun 5, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Thanks for this. What does Crl mean? I'm pretty rubbish at statistics despite having a social science degree!



Its the upper and lower confidence levels for the data. The black line is the estimate and the limits are +/- upper and lower limits the data supports.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jun 5, 2020)

Supine said:


> Its the upper and lower confidence levels for the data. The black line is the estimate and the limits are +/- upper and lower limits the data supports.



I should've just googled what lower confidence level means in statistics. I thought it was something specific to their modeling and not something used in statistics in general. I can't even remember what I got for statistics at university but it must've scraped me through at least!


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## prunus (Jun 5, 2020)

Supine said:


> Its the upper and lower confidence levels for the data. The black line is the estimate and the limits are +/- upper and lower limits the data supports.



To be precise they are not limits exactly, they are the bounds of the region that the data suggest the real value is (in this case) 95% likely to be within.  The actual number could be higher than the upper number, or lower than the lower number, but the chance of either of those being the case is only 1 in 20.

Edit to add: I say ‘only’ 1 in 20; it’s worth bearing in mind that 1 in 20 probability events do happen quite a lot - about 1 time in 20 in fact.


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## teuchter (Jun 6, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Spotted a story about school closing due to Corona today so thought I'd see what I could find over the last week with a search.
> 
> Turns out schools don't actually appear to be as minor a vector as we've been told.
> 
> ...


A scattering of stories tells us nothing. How many schools are there in the UK?


----------



## TopCat (Jun 6, 2020)

Musicians Union call for two metre rule to be dropped...








						Two-metre rule 'must be relaxed for musicians'
					

The government says it's open to "innovative" ideas, after a union urges it to ease social distancing.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				



Fuck this selfish shit.


----------



## phillm (Jun 6, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> What's this? Without context it's just lines. Is it deaths? Cases? Hospital admissions? Deaths in care homes? R rate?


My maths teacher at school would do his butt at graphs without scales. "Are they rabbits, elephants, whales boy, what are they?". And as you trembled before him he would exclaim "Nonsense" that's what they are...


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## Brainaddict (Jun 6, 2020)

I've been a bit wary of Byline Times in case it turned out to be another Canary, but it seems to have higher standards than that so far, and I enjoyed this on the British ruling class and Coronavirus: Beyond Exceptional: The Etonian English Imperialism at the Heart of a Deadly COVID-19 Crisis – Byline Times


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2020)

teuchter said:


> A scattering of stories tells us nothing. How many schools are there in the UK?



There were more reported institutional outbreaks in schools than in hospitals in the latest report.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				






> 151 new acute respiratory outbreaks have been reported in week 22 (Figure 11):
> 
> 111 outbreaks were from care homes where 62 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2
> 8 outbreaks were from hospitals where 6 tested positive for SARS-CoV-2
> ...




My break is going well, although I have discovered that if I just pop in briefly and make the occasional post like this one, it still feels like a break compared to what I was doing before.


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## teuchter (Jun 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> There were more reported institutional outbreaks in schools than in hospitals in the latest report.


 Some quick googling suggests there area about 1,200 hospitals, and 141,000 hospital beds in the UK.
And there are about 17,000 primary schools, and 4,700,000 primary school children.

So, more outbreaks occuring in primary schools than hospitals doesn't seem immediately concerning to me.

It means that something like 1 in 150 hospitals has seen an outbreak, and 1 in 1100 primary schools has seen an outbreak.


----------



## Fruitloop (Jun 6, 2020)

Stared at that for a while and can't work out why it matters


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2020)

I'm not commenting on how much it matters, I just put it there to provide some context for a subject that had already come up. Probably I would make some further points if I was not on a break from my normal stuff with this, but since I am on a break I will mostly resist. I will just say that it is completely understandable why some are interested in such details given the partial restart of schools, and the propensity of some others to downplay school stuff entirely.

While I am here, may as well mention that the daily press briefing stats recently switched back to showing actual number of ventilator beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, rather than the percentage of capacity used stats that they switched to for ages. I havent analysed the data yet to see if it shows anything that was previously obscured by us being given percentages rather than actual numbers.


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2020)

I was really surprised just how empty central London still is 












						Deserted London: the empty streets of Soho, Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, Chinatown and Trafalgar Square, June 2020 - urban75: art, photos, walks
					

The ongoing coronavirus lockdown has reduced the once bustling centre of London into a ghost town, with almost all its shops, businesses, cafes and bars remaining closed for over two months. I walked up from Brixton and took a stroll around town, and was genuinely shocked by the silence around...




					www.urban75.org


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2020)

Well, I’ve been wondering how many London was getting, can’t see a date on this, on mobile. 









						London coronavirus rate now lowest in UK and disease could be wiped out there in weeks
					

The capital records less than 24 new infections everyday




					www.independent.co.uk
				




Two weeks and it’s all but gone in this very big city.

Shall we build a wall?


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2020)

That article is from 3 weeks ago.


----------



## treelover (Jun 6, 2020)

editor said:


> I was really surprised just how empty central London still is
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not at Parliament Square it isn't, many thousands there, that will be tourists staying away


----------



## editor (Jun 6, 2020)

treelover said:


> Not at Parliament Square it isn't, many thousands there, that will be tourists staying away


That's just for today for a few hours. It was empty on Thursday.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> That article is from 3 weeks ago.


So London is CURED!


----------



## maomao (Jun 6, 2020)

Don't know when central London will be busy again. That will need tourists, shoppers, diners, workers. If we just let this thing rumble along with an R just under 1 we're going to get our arses kicked quickly when the weather gets cold.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 6, 2020)

Supine said:


> Ahh, good point I forgot to add the link.
> 
> It's the Cambridge modelling showing r rate but the site has lots of other tabs to check. They currently predict death rate to stop decreasing by mid June
> 
> ...



By my reckoning the death rate has already stopped declining. In the last week the 7-day rolling average of reported deaths has only fallen by 3%, which given the reporting lag could well mean that the actual death rate has increased.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 6, 2020)

I know yesterday there were no 'experts' at the briefing but have they scrapped it completely? Couldn't see it in the schedules.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 6, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I know yesterday there were no 'experts' at the briefing but have they scrapped it completely? Couldn't see it in the schedules.



It's Mon-Fri only now.


----------



## philosophical (Jun 6, 2020)

They can't handle even the pretty poor scrutiny by the media at the daily briefings.
This is the government we are obliged to endure and suffer under.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jun 6, 2020)

Sunray said:


> So London is CURED!


it's a london ting


----------



## DaveCinzano (Jun 6, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I know yesterday there were no 'experts' at the briefing but have they scrapped it completely? Couldn't see it in the schedules.





cupid_stunt said:


> It's Mon-Fri only now.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 6, 2020)

I was just in a place where nobody was practicing social distancing at all, mostly people below forty. I suspect most of them think 'I'm young-ish, I don't live with the vulnerable people, it doesn't matter too much if I get it'. And I realise that I somewhat had that kind of attitude before I (probably) got it. And I blame the press for that, and fucking Johnson obviously. I and the other people in my house who had it would give this advice: no matter how healthy you think you are, try very hard to avoid it, because when you have it you'll wish you hadn't. This is the advice the government should have given a lot more strongly: it will quite possibly matter if you get it, whatever age you are. Try really hard not to get it.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 7, 2020)

Why the fuck were you there then?


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jun 7, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I was just in a place where nobody was practicing social distancing at all, mostly people below forty. I suspect most of them think 'I'm young-ish, I don't live with the vulnerable people, it doesn't matter too much if I get it'. And I realise that I somewhat had that kind of attitude before I (probably) got it. And I blame the press for that, and fucking Johnson obviously. I and the other people in my house who had it would give this advice: no matter how healthy you think you are, try very hard to avoid it, because when you have it you'll wish you hadn't. This is the advice the government should have given a lot more strongly: it will quite possibly matter if you get it, whatever age you are. Try really hard not to get it.


I was trying reasonably hard not to catch it but I have probably had it anyway.   And before I had it, I was pretty resigned to getting it at some point because living in London will offer many opportunities to get it.  I thought it wouldn't be that hard to have it. I  I was wrong.   It's been debilitating  and long lasting.   My advice is also _try not to get it_.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 7, 2020)

This is so juvenile. But... well.. just look at it


----------



## phillm (Jun 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is so juvenile. But... well.. just look at it



Looks like the juvenilia didn't last the night. Probably for the best then.


----------



## PD58 (Jun 7, 2020)

A good summary to date of what has happened or not....
The British people are being played for fools


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 7, 2020)

Priti Patel could face axe as Home Secretary for not supporting Dominic Cummings
					

EXCLUSIVE: No10 ordered ministers to tweet backing for Dominic Cummings as the public exploded with outrage over his flouting of lockdown - but the Home Secretary ignored the command




					www.mirror.co.uk
				




Is this true


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 7, 2020)

The protests are incredible and for what it's worth I'm totally supportive, but I'm terribly afraid in the UK as well as the US and elsewhere they've been a brilliant and unexpected opportunity for the virus to have another crack.

Anthony Joshua on Friday, on his way to speak at a protest:


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jun 7, 2020)

Protests have been outdoors and the  greatest transmission risk is indoors in places without ventilation.    

Much more risk in indoor places like care homes(which are still seeing spread in )  and public transport


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 7, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> Protests have been outdoors and the  greatest transmission risk is indoors in places without ventilation.
> 
> Much more risk in indoor places like care homes(which are still seeing spread in )  and public transport


Sure, but Cheltenham was a flashpoint for lots of new infections and there are so many protestors without face coverings. And they all had to get there somehow.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 7, 2020)

I would try not to worry too much.  Its outdoors and the protests start with distancing and masks. Infection rate in london for instance is thought to be 0.5%. The numbers involved in the less distanced bits  of the protest will be smaller. Hopefully anyone who feels ill will stay home....  so if you have 1000 protester there would be a maximum of 5 people but probably fewer. Then they are hopefully mostly wearing mouth covers most of the time.

Of course the police dont socially distance from themselves or protesters and they kettle protesters and they are allegedly essential workers so been at higher risk throughout lockdown and may feel pressure to work even if they dont feel 100%. So that could increase risk.

Even then there are probably far fewer protesters than people who have returned to work in enclosed spaces travelling there in enclosed spaces the last couple of weeks.

I mean none if it is great but if we actually had a way to track transmission I'm not convinced the protesters would be a significant contributor 

Just my opinion obviously.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 7, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Sure, but Cheltenham was a flashpoint for lots of new infections and there are so many protestors without face coverings. And they all had to get there somehow.



At Cheltenham there was  no social distancing. No masks. A far bigger crowd travelling on far busier PT. Probably loads of hand shaking,  hugging and cheek kissing.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 7, 2020)

phillm said:


> Looks like the juvenilia didn't last the night. Probably for the best then.



It mysteriously returned and it really is quite uncanny


----------



## killer b (Jun 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> At Cheltenham there was  no social distancing. No masks. A far bigger crowd travelling on far busier PT. Probably loads of hand shaking,  hugging and cheek kissing.


plus car sharing to get there, the pub/restaurants after, fully booked hotels, etc etc


----------



## miss direct (Jun 7, 2020)

Why don't the police wear masks? I am still shocked by what I'm seeing in the UK. 

I'm staying in a place where several bus routes go past. Buses are almost empty but it's really noticable that of the few passengers, almost all are black or asian. Some already wearing masks.


----------



## phillm (Jun 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It mysteriously returned and it really is quite uncanny


It has and it does! Maybe it was a silent protest by the 'scientists' .


----------



## ska invita (Jun 7, 2020)

Petcha said:


> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZ0LeUrX0AA1dHO?format=jpg&name=large


What a front page
Good to see theres nothing happening in the world






The paper of record lol


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 7, 2020)

phillm said:


> If true then can we have local socially disycned one-day festivals in our parks.



Trying not to worry too much about something as important as protest that is happening regardless isn't quite the same as saying yay let's have loads of festivals! It's totally fine!


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 7, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Why don't the police wear masks? I am still shocked by what I'm seeing in the UK.
> 
> I'm staying in a place where several bus routes go past. Buses are almost empty but it's really noticable that of the few passengers, almost all are black or asian. Some already wearing masks.


I prefer my cops to be easily identifiable


----------



## phillm (Jun 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> At Cheltenham there was  no social distancing. No masks. A far bigger crowd travelling on far busier PT. Probably loads of hand shaking,  hugging and cheek kissing.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 7, 2020)

I read an article by a racing journo who covered Cheltenham a while back. The atmosphere sounded completely mad.


----------



## ska invita (Jun 7, 2020)

phillm said:


> View attachment 216513


ah yes, but that photo was taken with a wide le....arghh...urghhh


----------



## Tankus (Jun 7, 2020)

A photo  showing  the diversity  of the  uk people  ...errrr  ....or maybe  not


----------



## treelover (Jun 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Trying not to worry too much about something as important as protest that is happening regardless isn't quite the same as saying yay let's have loads of festivals! It's totally fine!




weren't lots of people including many on the liberal types on the demos comdemning the 5g protests(which were of course rubbish) for not S/D.


----------



## NoXion (Jun 7, 2020)

treelover said:


> weren't lots of people including many on the liberal types on the demos comdemning the 5g protests(which were of course rubbish) for not S/D.



These BLM protests at least acknowledge the problem. The anti-5G dickheads like to pretend that the virus is a hoax.


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## frogwoman (Jun 7, 2020)

There's also no mass group hugs etc as there were in the 5g protests as far as I can tell. There's definitely a risk but there are some mitigating factors about the BLM protests imo, also the BLM protests aren't targeting essential communications infrastructure that could literally kill ppl if damaged


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## William of Walworth (Jun 7, 2020)

treelover said:


> weren't lots of people including many on the liberal types on the demos comdemning the 5g protests(which were of course rubbish) for not S/D.



Word for word, that objection expressed like that could be lifted and used by somone much more right wing than you.

Hypocrisy-hunting at its worst IMO


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## PD58 (Jun 7, 2020)

Let's not forget these recent 'beach protests', which I do not recall Matt Hancock et al condemning in the same way...


----------



## editor (Jun 7, 2020)

Some good news 



> No new coronavirus deaths have been reported in Scotland for the first time since lockdown began, new figures released on Sunday show.
> 
> A total of 2,415 patients have died in Scotland after testing positive for coronavirus, no change on Saturday’s figure – the first time the death total has remained the same since 20 March. No new deaths with coronavirus were reported in Northern Ireland either, leaving the total recorded by the Department of Health – a tally primarily including hospital deaths – at 537.
> 
> ...











						No new deaths in Scotland or Northern Ireland as Hancock clashes with scientist over late lockdown – follow live
					

Follow latest updates




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2020)

Interview with Sunetra Gupta, the author of the dissenting Oxford paper that gave a different model from that of Imperial at the start of lockdown predicting that the virus had already spread far and wide.



She makes many points. Her main one is that she still thinks that the data support her original model despite the low antibody levels found in testing. Alternative explanations for how people fought it off are a little bit hand-wavey as she doesn't give precise mechanisms, but essentially they involve people either fighting it off with antibodies to other coronaviruses or being resistant to infection due to some genetic or other factor. Something that does seem to fit, though, is the similarity of the patterns of pandemics across countries and regions. London, for example, is plummetting through the charts in the UK atm having had the biggest outbreak, and just lockdown alone doesn't fully explain that. Some significant build up of population resistance does.

She questions the obsession with Rnumber, thinking it's essentially unknowable, and advocates purely looking at deaths to see how things are going. Gupta stresses the harm of lockdown, in particular to the poor. I do think this is something that's been rather neglected, and I agree with her that the middle classes have largely been able to coast the lockdown out in a way that others can't.

She doesn't name The Spectator, but I'm sure they are high on the list when she says that she is annoyed by the way libertarian anti-lockdown types have latched onto her ideas, and seeks to distance herself from them. The interviewer rather feeds her this point, but she does say that lockdown itself may have cost the lives of people in care homes as the hospitals were emptied to make way for the expected surge. However, she also makes the point that 40 years of underfunding the health service were a major factor in causing that. Gupta is coming from a pretty good place politically.

As to how things might play out from now. Gupta advocates lifting lockdown quickly to mitigate the ongoing harm it is causing. Best-case scenario, she's right and the first wave is over, and it may not return for one, two, or even 30 years. She says that lockdown policy has been made on the premise that the worst-case scenario, as outlined by Ferguson, was right. It's clear that she still thinks this is wrong to some degree, probably a very high degree.


----------



## freakydave (Jun 7, 2020)

I just find the protests really worrying. I'm sympathetic to the cause, but it's just a stupid idea to be in big groups. Social distancing and masks are useful for normal life, but in big crowds it's just not going to work.
The whole thing about this virus is that it is slow acting and even if you have it you won't know for a while and you can go around giving it to other people. I've been reading about it on here, and it seems like an unpopular opinion, but I think that it's stupid and selfish to go out to something like this because it's not about catching the virus so much as spreading it.
All of my friends on my facebook and insta are posting in support and I just can't get behind it when this virus is still such a problem.


----------



## Humberto (Jun 7, 2020)

It's driven of desperation though. When you see people who have lived here since they were small children who by rights should call this country their home; only to be abused by pen pushers because there is no consequence, it's really serious. It's far from ideal timing, but I support the BLM protesters.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jun 7, 2020)

freakydave said:


> I just find the protests really worrying. I'm sympathetic to the cause, but it's just a stupid idea to be in big groups. Social distancing and masks are useful for normal life, but in big crowds it's just not going to work.
> The whole thing about this virus is that it is slow acting and even if you have it you won't know for a while and you can go around giving it to other people. I've been reading about it on here, and it seems like an unpopular opinion, but I think that it's stupid and selfish to go out to something like this because it's not about catching the virus so much as spreading it.
> All of my friends on my facebook and insta are posting in support and I just can't get behind it when this virus is still such a problem.



Fuck off Dave.


----------



## freakydave (Jun 7, 2020)

Humberto said:


> It's driven of desperation though. When you see people who have lived here since they were small children who by rights should call this country their home; only to be abused by pen pushers because there is no consequence, it's really serious. It's far from ideal timing, but I support the BLM protesters.



I don't want to get into that because I am very sympathetic to the message, I just think that the virus is still too dangerous for any kind of gatherings.

I recognise that it's a pointless thing for me to say as well because being against something like this happening is a bit like being against the virus happening,  I'm just venting it on here because I feel a bit alienated from my facebook. I don't want an argument, I just despair to be honest. If/when there is a really dangerous pandemic, we are screwed.


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## Orang Utan (Jun 7, 2020)

if you don't want to get into it, don't spout shit


----------



## gosub (Jun 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I would try not to worry too much.  Its outdoors and the protests start with distancing and masks. Infection rate in london for instance is thought to be 0.5%. The numbers involved in the less distanced bits  of the protest will be smaller. Hopefully anyone who feels ill will stay home....  so if you have 1000 protester there would be a maximum of 5 people but probably fewer. Then they are hopefully mostly wearing mouth covers most of the time.
> 
> Of course the police dont socially distance from themselves or protesters and they kettle protesters and they are allegedly essential workers so been at higher risk throughout lockdown and may feel pressure to work even if they dont feel 100%. So that could increase risk.
> 
> ...


You are out of date with your r rate.  https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/  ,


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2020)

gosub said:


> You are out of date with your r rate.  https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/  ,


Maybe. Or maybe the Zoe Covid study is right. It estimates 6,336-8,426 new cases daily in England, fewer than half the number the Cambridge lot estimate (although its estimate is just of symptomatic cases, which may explain the difference).  That's the problem with the models and estimates - few of them agree with one another; some disagree very widely as to both the size and direction of the epidemic right now, as here.

COVID Symptom Study

I don't know tbh which one to believe. The Zoe study does at least have the advantage of the 3.8 million data points of its ongoing survey. Number of people in hospital continues to fall in most places, which is a decent crude indicator.


----------



## gosub (Jun 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Maybe. Or maybe the Zoe Covid study is right. It estimates 6,336-8,426 new cases daily in England, fewer than half the number the Cambridge lot estimate.  That's the problem with the models and estimates - few of them agree with one another; some disagree very widely as to both the size and direction of the epidemic right now, as here.
> 
> COVID Symptom Study
> 
> I don't know tbh which one to believe. The Zoe study does at least have the advantage of the 3.8 million data points of its ongoing survey.


well London R around 0.5 he cites I remember  from the same  Cambridge data a month ago.  It's been rising everywhere, or rathar its now declining at a far slower rate than it was


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2020)

gosub said:


> well London R around 0.5 he cites I remember  from the same  Cambridge data a month ago.  It's been rising everywhere, or rathar its now declining at a far slower rate than it was


Yes, there was talk of the virus being gone in London by the end of May, which clearly hasn't happened. It's pretty close, though - new cases measured in tens now rather than hundreds - and that does appear to be the pattern everywhere across Europe, that the thing calms right down but does not disappear entirely.


----------



## freakydave (Jun 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> if you don't want to get into it, don't spout shit



I wasn't spouting shit


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Maybe. Or maybe the Zoe Covid study is right. It estimates 6,336-8,426 new cases daily in England, fewer than half the number the Cambridge lot estimate (although its estimate is just of symptomatic cases, which may explain the difference).  That's the problem with the models and estimates - few of them agree with one another; some disagree very widely as to both the size and direction of the epidemic right now, as here.
> 
> COVID Symptom Study
> 
> I don't know tbh which one to believe. The Zoe study does at least have the advantage of the 3.8 million data points of its ongoing survey. Number of people in hospital continues to fall in most places, which is a decent crude indicator.






gosub said:


> You are out of date with your r rate.  https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/  ,



The 0.5% I was referring to was the covid app's estimate of how many people are currently infected.


----------



## treelover (Jun 8, 2020)

UK coronavirus victims have lain undetected at home for two weeks
					

Doctors say there have been dozens of cases and warn of ‘epidemic of loneliness’




					www.theguardian.com
				




Knew this was going to be the case, very very sad.


----------



## Mation (Jun 8, 2020)

This bullshit from the BBC:



> Posted at 17:45
> *Hancock: Differences in death rates will be investigated*
> Matt Hancock is asked why people from ethnic minorities are "disproportionately" dying from Covid-19 and are more likely to be punished for breaking lockdown rules.
> 
> He responds that all factors, including comorbidity, housing and occupation, must be looked into. When conclusions are reached, the government will "absolutely" put measures in place, Hancock says.



Hancock only answered the first question (in the vague, non-answer way shown above), but didn't address the second question at all, as implied in the BBC post; he moved on the the next person.

The second question was specifically: "Why are black people disproportionately being fined under lockdown?"

And the first question was about BME people being disproportionately affected within the context of structural racism in the UK. I can see why Hancock would want to avoid that (although, obviously he shouldn't) , but the BBC could at least report the question.


----------



## maomao (Jun 8, 2020)

freakydave said:


> I just find the protests really worrying. I'm sympathetic to the cause, but it's just a stupid idea to be in big groups. Social distancing and masks are useful for normal life, but in big crowds it's just not going to work.
> The whole thing about this virus is that it is slow acting and even if you have it you won't know for a while and you can go around giving it to other people. I've been reading about it on here, and it seems like an unpopular opinion, but I think that it's stupid and selfish to go out to something like this because it's not about catching the virus so much as spreading it.
> All of my friends on my facebook and insta are posting in support and I just can't get behind it when this virus is still such a problem.


Protesters are doing essential work. More than fucking coppers are anyway. And the filth don't even wear masks.


----------



## andysays (Jun 8, 2020)

maomao said:


> Protesters are doing essential work. More than fucking coppers are anyway. *And the filth don't even wear masks*.


*And* they're still going round in mini buses etc with no social distancing. 

I'm amazed they haven't all gone down with the virus.


----------



## maomao (Jun 8, 2020)

andysays said:


> *And* they're still going round in mini buses etc with no social distancing.
> 
> I'm amazed they haven't all gone down with the virus.


Even viruses have standards.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 8, 2020)

I saw that the White Cube galleries are re-opening from the 16th, though with booking required (you used to be able to just wander in). Of course going there requires you to be able to get to Bermondsey or Mason's Yard which kind of rules me out.





__





						White Cube - COVID-19 FAQs
					

Please note the below changes across White Cube’s premises in accordance with the latest international COVID-19 guidelines. White Cube’s London galleries at Bermondsey and Mason’s Yard are closed to the public until further notice, in accordance with guidance from the UK government.




					whitecube.com


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jun 8, 2020)

New Scientist article about the utter shambles of the UK testing statistics.
Two weeks without totals for tests outside of care homes
UK Statistics Authority say data far from complete and comprehensible and well short of expectations.
Hospital and care-home data - no differentiation between staff and patients (so can't see if PPE has effect, for example).
Double counting and unprocessed postal tests included in data.
Statistics not sufficient to work out Infection fatality Rate.
Statistics not sufficient to map positive cases.
Evidence that tests are giving a proportion of false negatives.


----------



## NoXion (Jun 8, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> New Scientist article about the utter shambles of the UK testing statistics.
> Two weeks without totals for tests outside of care homes
> UK Statistics Authority say data far from complete and comprehensible and well short of expectations.
> Hospital and care-home data - no differentiation between staff and patients (so can't see if PPE has effect, for example).
> ...



I think the link is broken. It's not working for me.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Interview with Sunetra Gupta, the author of the dissenting Oxford paper that gave a different model from that of Imperial at the start of lockdown predicting that the virus had already spread far and wide.




I mentioned this view the other day, it was at the end of a Guardian article. Given the loosening and the gatherings happening in London, this position is starting to be backed up by basic observation.  I read something about researchers testing people for immune responses to coronavirus fragments, I think it was as part of vaccine research and people who couldn't have been exposed to C-19 are showing antibodies. I'll see if I can dig that out.   Researchers in Germany are suggesting there is a 'dark matter' out there with regard to this virus, can see its effect, don't know what it is. 

The City has millions of people, not all being models of society re: social distancing.  Parks have been as packed as ever. We should all be in full lock down again.  But we're not. 

Nobody died of C-19 in London yesterday.









						Coronavirus (COVID-19) numbers in London
					

We're publishing information on the numbers involved in the coronavirus outbreak.




					www.london.gov.uk


----------



## maomao (Jun 8, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I saw that the White Cube galleries are re-opening from the 16th, though with booking required (you used to be able to just wander in). Of course going there requires you to be able to get to Bermondsey or Mason's Yard which kind of rules me out.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The people who run those galleries are the biggest coke heads I've ever worked for.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jun 8, 2020)

NoXion said:


> I think the link is broken. It's not working for me.


I've fixed it.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 8, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Nobody died of C-19 in London yesterday.


As ever, the usual warning about weekend reporting applies. Most of the deaths occurring on any given day are not reported the day after, and this goes doubly for the weekend. 

The German 'dark matter' comment in fact came from a British scientist - another dissenting modeller - Karl Friston.


----------



## 8115 (Jun 8, 2020)

Sunray said:


> I mentioned this view the other day, it was at the end of a Guardian article. Given the loosening and the gatherings happening in London, this position is starting to be backed up by basic observation.  I read something about researchers testing people for immune responses to coronavirus fragments, I think it was as part of vaccine research and people who couldn't have been exposed to C-19 are showing antibodies. I'll see if I can dig that out.   Researchers in Germany are suggesting there is a 'dark matter' out there with regard to this virus, can see its effect, don't know what it is.
> 
> The City has millions of people, not all being models of society re: social distancing.  Parks have been as packed as ever. We should all be in full lock down again.  But we're not.
> 
> ...


It's been a week since lockdown was officially loosened, a week and a half since Boris Johnson announced the loosening which seemed to immediately mean people were out and about a lot more. I think there could be a longer lag than this for the virus to start spreading more rapidly again, it seems very likely to me.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 8, 2020)

How do people feel about the pubs reopening on the 22nd? I doubt I'll be rushing back


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## frogwoman (Jun 8, 2020)

Unfortunately Iran and parts of the US are experiencing a second spike, I'd be cautious tbh


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2020)

8115 said:


> It's been a week since lockdown was officially loosened, a week and a half since Boris Johnson announced the loosening which seemed to immediately mean people were out and about a lot more. I think there could be a longer lag than this for the virus to start spreading more rapidly again, it seems very likely to me.



This isn't borne out by reality.  Consider the start, London went from nothing to crazy in 3 weeks, seriously challenging the NHS ability to respond.

They loosened it some weeks ago and the parks have been packed, block parties and illegal raves etc.  Its 5 days incubation on average, it's up to a couple of weeks but they are outliers, as we're talking the general case 14 days is plenty to start seeing something happen.  

Whats happened is nothing. Which is quite weird and there is some effort going on to understand why.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How do people feel about the pubs reopening on the 22nd? I doubt I'll be rushing back



Looking forward to a pint with friends.


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## IC3D (Jun 8, 2020)

Possibly those that are at risk are still largely isolating and people gathering are young and not currently mixing with older people on public transport work etc.


----------



## Raheem (Jun 8, 2020)

Think it's a mistake to think a lag can be predicted just based on what the incubation period might be. It will also take time for the infection rate to build.


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## Doodler (Jun 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How do people feel about the pubs reopening on the 22nd? I doubt I'll be rushing back



Will avoid, people will be disinhibited with a few drinks in them and I don't want to get infected if I can help it. Also, near skint.


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## Orang Utan (Jun 8, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Will avoid, people will be disinhibited with a few drinks in them and I don't want to get infected if I can help it.


aye, that's how i feel. even if the pub had a massive garden, I don't think I could trust others (even myself) after a few


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## SpookyFrank (Jun 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How do people feel about the pubs reopening on the 22nd? I doubt I'll be rushing back



Too many tourists round here, it's not even remotely worth it.

R rate is still high here as well.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 8, 2020)

Sunray said:


> This isn't borne out by reality.  Consider the start, London went from nothing to crazy in 3 weeks, seriously challenging the NHS ability to respond.
> 
> They loosened it some weeks ago and the parks have been packed, block parties and illegal raves etc.  Its 5 days incubation on average, it's up to a couple of weeks but they are outliers, as we're talking the general case 14 days is plenty to start seeing something happen.
> 
> Whats happened is nothing. Which is quite weird and there is some effort going on to understand why.



Maybe there's an initial dampening effect from many of the people who encountered the virus early on being the same people who'll meet it again as R begins to increase. They will do so because of enduring traits and circumstances: extraversion, sociability, public-facing jobs, a reliance on public transport etc - in turn meaning they will be more likely than average to have acquired immunity already. (Obviously they can't be the only ones coming into contact with the virus, otherwise R would be dropping to zero.)


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Maybe there's an initial dampening effect from many of the people who encountered the virus early on being the same people who'll meet it again as R begins to increase. They will do so because of enduring traits and circumstances: extraversion, sociability, public-facing jobs, a reliance on public transport etc - in turn meaning they will be more likely than average to have acquired immunity already. (Obviously they can't be the only ones coming into contact with the virus, otherwise R would be dropping to zero.)



Yes, although the attention-grabbing stuff about herd immunity that caused such a stink months ago was all about what high level of population immunity is required to thwart epidemics, people still need to consider the effects it has on the picture when immunity exists to some extent compared to no extent at the start. Lesser impact, but some impact all the same. There could be other immunity or attack rate related phenomenon that are not currently understood which would further add to this effect, but unless we pin any of those down its not really possible to take them into account properly beyond mentioning the possibility.

Throw in other important factors such as how many people actually have the virus right now, and quite what level of R people might be imagining when they worry that its gone back above 1, and there is plenty to consider before imagining the sort of explosive growth with the same timescale we saw at the start of the first wave. Especially if the hospital and care home infection control picture is rather different now compared to the especially ill-prepared first months.

I havent done the maths but if R has gone a bit above 1 but nowhere near 2 or 3, its going to take some time for numbers to increase in dramatic ways. The first signs of an R above 1 in various hard data that we get to see ought to be more subtle and slower to develop. And then it would need to keep worsening and going unchecked for a while before we reached another explosive period.

I couldnt have had a partial break from all this in June if it were not for these things. I am also following my own advice to zoom in, and am now graphing all individual hospital trust deaths data for England. The picture is very mixed and some of the graphs hint at specific stories of that area or its hospitals, without actually revealing their stories in a useful way. Some of the graphs give me cause to think I should pay attention to them in particular in the coming weeks, but none show anything that fills me with such particular alarm that I feel the need to bring it to the attention of this forum at this time.


----------



## xenon (Jun 8, 2020)

I watched that interview LBJ posted and. I'm trying to picture why if Prof Gupter's summation is correct. i.e. a level of imunity exists in the population; sars-cov-2 has been here longer than first estimated; it could be on it's way out as far as future exponential growth phases.

How come it seemingly spiked, killing so many vunrible people in a apparent short time. If as she seems to believe, it's been around for a few months longer, why were we not seeing a longer, shallower curve in hospitalisation rates and deaths.

Yes I get that the virus has to start from a low base and the exponential growth phase accounts for steep upwards trends. But why all the deaths. Why would the most vunrible seemingly have succumb over a short time period. Why would these most severe cases  not be clumpy in terms of statistics.

NB: I can't see the graphs but just thinking allowed.


----------



## freakydave (Jun 8, 2020)

That got into my head just being told to fuck off for posting an opinion


maomao said:


> Protesters are doing essential work. More than fucking coppers are anyway. And the filth don't even wear masks.



Maybe I should have clarified that better in my post yesterday since I was told to F off twice!

I just find it very worrying because of how the virus works and how this country is just handling it so badly. I agree with the cause and I agree with this kind of action. I just can't get past the fact that these are big crowds of people getting excited and crushed together and so on. I think that opening up the pubs in June is a stupid idea, let alone big public gatherings.


----------



## freakydave (Jun 8, 2020)

xenon said:


> I watched that interview LBJ posted and. I'm trying to picture why if Prof Gupter's summation is correct. i.e. a level of imunity exists in the population; sars-cov-2 has been here longer than first estimated; it could be on it's way out as far as future exponential growth phases.
> 
> How come it seemingly spiked, killing so many vunrible people in a apparent short time. If as she seems to believe, it's been around for a few months longer, why were we not seeing a longer, shallower curve in hospitalisation rates and deaths.
> 
> ...



It's how they count it. The majority of people who die from it are vulnerable anyway and before March they wouldn't have been classed as CoVid deaths. Thousands of elderly and infirm people die every winter, this is especially bad but it's not a new thing. There was a new kind of influenza in 2017 that spiked the deaths


----------



## xenon (Jun 8, 2020)

freakydave said:


> It's how they count it. The majority of people who die from it are vulnerable anyway and before March they wouldn't have been classed as CoVid deaths. Thousands of elderly and infirm people die every winter, this is especially bad but it's not a new thing. There was a new kind of influenza in 2017 that spiked the deaths



Flu happens every year or so. Granted more severe in some years than others. But this year, the hospitals coming close to being overwhelmed, in Spain, Italy, New York. If the nature of the virus is as Prof Gupter suggests, how come all these vunrible people got ill with it in a relatively short time frame.


----------



## freakydave (Jun 8, 2020)

xenon said:


> Flu happens every year or so. Granted more severe in some years than others. But this year, the hospitals coming close to being overwhelmed, in Spain, Italy, New York. If the nature of the virus is as Prof Gupter suggests, how come all these vunrible people got ill with it in a relatively short time frame.



I haven't watched that yet but from having completed Pandemic on every mode including Vampire Mode I think that this virus is so dangerous because it is infectious before it is detected by the host. It does seem like a severe flu for most people, but the reason that this one is such a big deal as well as being powerful enough to hurt healthy people, it can also live in healthy people for more than a week  before they even know, so they are going around breathing on everyone thinking that they are healthy


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 8, 2020)

xenon said:


> Flu happens every year or so. Granted more severe in some years than others. But this year, the hospitals coming close to being overwhelmed, in Spain, Italy, New York. If the nature of the virus is as Prof Gupter suggests, how come all these vunrible people got ill with it in a relatively short time frame.


It does seem possible though that some deaths could have happened and been missed - put down to something else and not tested. There wouldn't have been many in any case, if any, especially as the initial spreaders will have been people coming from abroad so by definition really not the extremely vulnerable. And if the deaths happened in a care home, I would think that pre-March, it's very likely they would not have been detected.

Elbows has made the point that a bad flu year (20,000 deaths plus here sometimes as in 2014-15) is actually a really bad thing that doesn't get the attention it deserves, especially as a good flu year is <10% that figure. And bad flu years do put hospitals under a lot of pressure, with elective operations cancelled etc. The NHS creaks.

Gupta's strongest point perhaps is nothing to do with her main contention. It's that tens of thousands more have died due to the decades of neglect of the NHS that led to the catastrophic decision to clear hospitals out and discharge untested patients into previously covid-19-free care homes. Every time I write that, I find it hard to believe it was done, but done it was, right up to mid-April iirc. That is a lesson that must be learned.

In the interview, the one question that did seem to fluster Gupta somewhat was the severity of the outbreak in NYC. I didn't think she had much of an answer to that - the idea that people are somehow especially vulnerable there doesn't seem that likely. That said, I don't know what the infection levels among the old were in NYC. That's also totally key to any mortality rate - the ages of those infected.

But this is a new virus. I guess that's the point, and even a bad flu is actually something that many people may come into contact with and not get ill. Gupta's contention is that this is similar - many of us have been exposed to the virus without getting ill and without developing antibodies for whatever reason. The seeming regularity of infection rates and curves does seem to support that.

I'm not sure where I'm at with this. I think the pattern we see with those places really badly hit  recovering more sharply than those not so badly hit, with the same lockdown conditions in both, is evidence that there is something in what Gupta says, that population-level resistance is a factor in play. The question then is how significant a factor? She is, after all, presenting a sliding scale from Ferguson's numbers at one end to hers at the other, and to be fair to it, the initial Oxford report was rather misrepresented in a lot of the media - it did what Gupta says and no more, presenting a scenario that also fits the data rather than saying that its scenario was right.

As ever, more research needed...


----------



## DaveCinzano (Jun 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How do people feel about the pubs reopening on the 22nd? I doubt I'll be rushing back





frogwoman said:


> Unfortunately Iran and parts of the US are experiencing a second spike, I'd be cautious tbh


I'm pretty sure the Tehran 'Spoons will be shuttered a little while longer


----------



## teuchter (Jun 9, 2020)

Here's an interview with the "dark matter" chap.



If I understood correctly what he was saying, he's suggesting that, say in London, about 20-25% of the population was susceptible, and the virus pretty much went right through that population (and at about the rate that the Imperial models predicted). In other words all the 'combustible material' as he puts it is pretty much used up.

The implication of that, I think, is that lockdown (except for the especially vulnerable) wouldn't really have made much difference. That is, the 'peak' was the natural peak and would have turned around at around that point even if there had been no lockdown. And that it happened about 3 weeks after lockdown is basically just coincidence.

That's if the basic premise of only 20-25% being susceptible is correct, which it might not be, of course.

The other message from his modelling is about the relative importance of govt action. He's not saying it's unimportant, but that there might be other factors that have a much more significant impact. This idea will be strongly resisted by those keen to use the UK's pretty bad outcome as evidence that this particular government is exceptionally incompetent.


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## muscovyduck (Jun 9, 2020)

All well and good for us to decide if we want to go for a pint in the pub or not but seems a bit unfair on bar staff who won't have a choice about whether to go in


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The other message from his modelling is about the relative importance of govt action. He's not saying it's unimportant, but that there might be other factors that have a much more significant impact. This idea will be strongly resisted by those keen to use the UK's pretty bad outcome as evidence that this particular government is exceptionally incompetent.


He got his little dig in, mind, in his extremely polite and mild manner. Government doing what it thinks people think it should be doing. That's the UK government in a nutshell.


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2020)

Well one of the big limitations of their original Oxford paper is that they didnt want to use death data from after lockdown measures (or more like pre-lockdown measures a week earlier in the UKs case) were introduced, so they chopped things off at that point. Which was quite early on in terms of the death statistics really. And it was an early paper so at that moment they didnt have too much data after that time even if they had wanted to include it. Anyway they also chopped off the results of their model for subsequent dates too, so I cannot now look back and compare their model to the later reality.

As for the question as to timing and how it could make any sense, the original paper had a number of scenarios but the amounts of time relative to first detected case and first detected death were not improbably large as best I can tell. I didnt find it a terribly well presented paper at times, its confusing in certain areas.

(original paper 2020.03.24.20042291v1.full.pdf )

When it first came out I tried to be fair to it, including by pointing out that several of its main points were not the ones the media and anti-lockdown people were seizing on. Having now seen that Gupta interview, I am inclined to believe that it was actually being used by at least one of the authors to push and peddle the very point of view that the media seized on after all.

I'm not very impressed with it or some of her beliefs, but all the same I also consider it to be unwise for me to simply reject every aspect and possibility of it. The timing of lockdown pretty much everywhere did make it very hard to determine all sorts of truths on these matters, and mostly it looks like discovering the truth is only going to happen over time, as we see what impact relaxing lockdowns has in different places over a whole bunch of months. A lot of this stuff is the main reason that I am firmly in a 'hedging my bets' mode these days, why my expectations for the future are relatively blank and I continue to take things one week at a time.

I have to ask though, what the fuck was she on about in regards her thoughts about 100 years ago? Was she really trying to imply that flu wasnt a seasonal thing in those days, and that people were so socially isolated and international travel so limited that that the flu had one big wave every 30 years and then left people alone, with no new opportunities to gain fresh immunity via infection, in the intervening years? Where is the recognition that pandemic influenza happens when a novel strain gets going in humans and large swathes of the population are susceptible to the new strain regardless of how much they have or havent been busy socialising their way towards multiple seasonal infections with other influenza types in the meantime?

It is possible to extract something I can agree with or at least consider sensible to keep in mind and not utterly reject from most of her major points. Even that thing about flu and 100 years ago that makes parts of my brain melt does contain a few points that I can see the sense of, although not when used in quite that manner.

I have to be extra careful with this stuff because what I know about these subjects will mostly be based on stuff I have read, and that stuff will represent certain schools of thought in a number of fields. Its not likely I will happen to pick the correct blend of ideas, or be aware of the details and history of certain positions.

We might need to explore better the reasons why frequent glimpses of concern and fear seem to exist in sections of the epidemiological and public health community when it comes to the idea of properly stopping the public from getting a particular common disease, and of population immunity levels remaining low as a result. Its because that sort of situation is not just something that becomes a hot potato in so many ways in a bad pandemic. It also has a prominent role as a chief villain in the everyday lives of those fighting and monitoring diseases all year, every year. The risk of epidemics and how that risk can be managed will be such a major part of the schools of thought of such experts. Levels of immunity against a particular disease dropping in one or more sections of a population at some moment in time is a classic situation of impending danger, such things will always loom large on the radar because those are the sorts of situations that create the conditions that cause epidemics of non-novel diseases. I'm pretty sure thats also the sort of stuff she was trying to get at with the 100 years ago thing. So it isnt really so weird or a sign of some totally twisted priorities and morality that there are various sorts of specialists out there that regard certain things as desirable or inevitable that sound horrific to us. Its probably just their instincts and training repeatedly leaning them towards a picture where the threat of an epidemic wave of a disease due to dangerous levels of population susceptibility is something to get away from. In normal times I get it, they would favour a picture of relative stability of infection rate rather than cycles of dramatic boom and bust for viruses.  I think some of the limitations to this sort of thinking are much more obvious in a pandemic when we are dealing with a novel virus though, at least when the hospitalisation and mortality rate is above a certain level.

Anyway bottom line for me is that the 'first wave combined with various lockdowns etc' really doesnt lead to definitive answers for all these questions to anything like the extent that would settle the arguments. So the waiting game continues.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2020)

Yeah I agree about the historical stuff. Wasn't a very convincing story, that. As to the original Oxford model, I tried to follow its reasoning, and it appeared not to allow for the thing that Friston above makes a big deal about, which is the possibility/probability that the susceptible population may not be the whole population. Unless I'm misunderstanding, that's a big difference between the Oxford model and Friston's model - I think Gupta is post-fact inserting that into her modelling as it wasn't there at the start.

That said, Friston is also post-fact inserting, but that's what his modelling is designed to do - Bayesian, so constantly updating itself as new data comes to light. I know more about maths than I do virology, and Friston's approach strikes me as the only valid one tbh where you have such incomplete information. You have to be constantly reassessing your assumptions as new information comes in, otherwise your modelling is never going to improve. I'm trying not to be too swayed by Friston as he is an impressive performer, but he is also, by his own admission, only really a maths person in this context, but this idea that most of us are resistant to ever becoming infected isn't going away, and for Friston with his Bayesian approach, it is merely becoming more likely rather than less as more information comes in. 

Having said all that, I would actually have liked the interviewer of Friston to have asked him about something other than Germany. Norway, say. It is clear at least that a lockdown hard and early will result in fewer deaths (and less population resistance) in the short term. New Zealand of course is the extreme example of that. I would have liked to have heard his thoughts on the possible futures of various countries now.


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2020)

I havent done Friston yet. Will skim a paper or two of his and watch the interview now, before I return to my break from all this. Wasnt the IHME model we loved to mock built on similar bayesian stuff?

Regarding an earlier point you made about the horror of the care homes policy, Hancock is still coming out with this sort of shit. Personally there is no way I would have the nerve, not just to say such things about timing and testing but also to brag about the stronger links with the NHS 



> The over-80s are 70 times more likely to die from coronavirus than the under-40s, Hancock said.
> 
> “I know personally what an anxious time it is, and it has been, for anyone with a loved one in social care,” he said.
> 
> He said “right from the start” the government provided for care homes with financial support, testing and stronger links with the NHS.



 8h ago 17:15 

Even mentioning the financial support is to point towards the scene of the crime, since some of the first billions in funding announced to deal with this pandemic were for the NHS to deal with issues of 'bed blocking' and we all know what that turned out to mean in practice in this pandemic.


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## Combustible (Jun 9, 2020)

teuchter said:


> That's if the basic premise of only 20-25% being susceptible is correct, which it might not be, of course.



57% of those tested in the Italian province of Bergamo were positive for antibodies, so I don't see any particular reason to believe only 25% are susceptible.


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2020)

I've now watched the Friston interview and read a couple of the papers. I'm going to have to spend more time with some of it before properly answering all of teuchters points.

For now I will just point out the reason why they came up with the 'dark matter' stuff in the first place, and just how broad and vague a concept they have deliberately made it. I think this came through in the interview too, in many of the answers but not many of the questions.



> This may be especially relevant when considering the constitution of resistant individuals in the population: this cohort was introduced to explain data from the United States (Friston et al., 2020b). In other words, a proportion of resistant individuals was necessary to explain early mortality rates (and new cases), given the known population size and inferred characteristics of viral transmission. Intuitively, one could regard this resistant proportion as ‘dark matter’ in the universe that cannot be seen but is necessary to explain astronomical data.



Much of my remaining work in this area will involve going back to that 2nd paper about the USA and trying to get a better handle on the detail of these origins.



> So, what is the composition of this ‘dark matter’? One could think of resistant individuals in terms of host specific factors: namely, a reduced propensity to contract the virus and participate in its transmission. This would be like assuming a certain proportion of people—e.g., in a household or care home—cannot play host to the virus, even when exposed.



For sure thats a fascinating subject which is probably the one that draws peoples attention most, certainly interests me in a number of ways, and is clearly also of interest to people who are interested in a different version of reality than the one I've favoured so far.

Well it would be one thing if thats all this 'dark matter' could consist of. But, as in the interview, it then becomes apparent that a whole host of other things to do with susceptibility are actually included:



> Alternatively, resistance could be geographical in nature; in the sense that some people are geographically insulated from exposure. Crucially, this constituent of resistance will be time-dependent if the virus is spreading towards a community that has yet to be exposed. So, what are the implications for such communities? On the current analysis, it suggests that if FTTI was rolled out across the four Nations, it could defer the first wave—in a previously unaffected region—indefinitely. For example, while London was deferring its second wave, Aberystwyth could defer its first.



Well so much for those trying to make some particular case about what their model and explanations show, the implications for lockdown, social distancing mandated by government, etc. It sure sounds like the possibility that the people who have 'not been in the game with this pandemic' includes not just those with some immune system/physiology related forms of resistance/non-susceptibility, but also those that have so far been isolated from the virus for reasons including the geography of where they live and work compared to where the virus has been in meaningful quantities so far. So good luck entirely removing lockdown, shielding and various other forms of human response from that angle! I do expect we will learn more about the 'genuinely resistant no matter how humans are behaving' side of things at some point, but this model and the associated papers dont actually offer much at all about that yet.

The main thing these papers have confirmed to me so far is something I already knew, things are complicated with a lot of factors and nobody has a way to really unpick the impact of different measures. There are, at best, some hints, and we need 2nd wave or lack of 2nd wave stuff to provide more clues. And its not a great idea to rely on certain kinds of models as if they have settled on something in particular when in fact these sorts of models have slipperiness built in - a form of model that will continually adapt to the data and have to come up with their own explanations to account for what the data shows at different moments in time. In this case the 'dark matter' that was originally envisaged to offer an explanation for early US data, is now also being asked to cover for any of the serological survey results that might appear to be at odds with some of their main conclusions. It will allow some of their ideas to still be taken seriously long after the point where we might have expected to find evidence to confirm or deny their most noteworthy premises. I dont mind that though, they do touch on certain themes that it would be unwise to completely disregard at this stage. And they do choose their words more carefully than some of those who want to use their work for particular purposes. They know the limitations of being a maths model nerd about this stuff, with a focus on improving models and trying to demonstrate various utilities of their model or successor works. Better data being fed into the models would sure help too, models are not a substitute for more accurate measurements of reality.

Quotes are from https://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.07994.pdf


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## teuchter (Jun 9, 2020)

Combustible said:


> 57% of those tested in the Italian province of Bergamo were positive for antibodies, so I don't see any particular reason to believe only 25% are susceptible.


I think the idea is that the % varies from place to place, for whatever reason.


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## teuchter (Jun 9, 2020)

There's not been much talk about Sweden recently. It's done better than the UK, although worse than most of the rest of Europe. It appears to be on a broadly downward trend now.


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## Roadkill (Jun 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How do people feel about the pubs reopening on the 22nd? I doubt I'll be rushing back



R number is still pretty high here, in a city where the outbreak was slow to take hold and is therefore a week or two behind the curve, so I'll be pretty cautious about going back.  As I said on t'other thread, I think reopening of pubs and similar should be a decision made at local authority level rather than by central government.


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## existentialist (Jun 9, 2020)

freakydave said:


> I don't want to get into that because I am very sympathetic to the message, I just think that the virus is still too dangerous for any kind of gatherings.
> 
> I recognise that it's a pointless thing for me to say as well because being against something like this happening is a bit like being against the virus happening,  I'm just venting it on here because I feel a bit alienated from my facebook. I don't want an argument, I just despair to be honest. If/when there is a really dangerous pandemic, we are screwed.


If you're white (and I suspect you probably are), then this virus might well be one of the biggest existential threats you will have had to face in your lifetime.

If you're black (and I'm not, so this is more about trying to build my awareness than experience), and particularly in America, you face a statistically far greater threat than Covid-19 every time you step outside your front door - and sometimes you won't even have to do that. Black people are far more likely to be killed, injured, put in fear of death or injury, etc., than white people - in the US, here, and all over the place. You will be less likely to find work to feed yourself and your family than your white counterparts, educational opportunities will be more limited, and you'll be generally treated with more suspicion than if you were white. That's what structural racism does.

So maybe protesting all those deaths and discrimination might not seen like a priority to you, because you're not at nearly the same risk as a black person. But it's very likely that, for a lot of black people, that shit is a FAR bigger, endemic, and clear and present threat to their well-being than a virus. Maybe they're wrong, but it isn't hard to see why they might think it is.


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## Petcha (Jun 9, 2020)

Oh dear. That poor Care Minister who twice got absolutely annihilated by piers morgan for not knowing basic facts has now turned up on Sky News. How did she get her job?


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## Roadkill (Jun 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Oh dear. That poor Care Minister who twice got absolutely annihilated by piers morgan for not knowing basic facts has now turned up on Sky News. How did she get her job?




By being a BJ loyalist, which matters far more than competence, honesty or any other quality you might hope (usually in vain, admittedly) to see in a politician.


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## killer b (Jun 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> How did she get her job?


Rich parents, Private boarding school, Oxford, PWC, Mckinsey.


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## Petcha (Jun 9, 2020)

It's pretty fucking ridiculous that the Government press office has banned any ministers from going on GMB or Channel 4 news. Particularly at this time. Surely communication is vital and those are two pretty influential outlets. Cancelling the weekend press conferences too... why?


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## killer b (Jun 9, 2020)

because the damage to their reputation of their ministers being dragged over the coals day after day has been judged as worse than the damage caused by their refusal to appear.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2020)

Combustible said:


> 57% of those tested in the Italian province of Bergamo were positive for antibodies, so I don't see any particular reason to believe only 25% are susceptible.


And then there was the US prison where 80% tested positive (2000/2500 prisoners and staff, on here somewhere). There is the possibility that there is now more than one strain, with a more infectious strain affecting the eastern states of the US, specifically - a study from California raised this a while ago (also on a thread here).

These are weaknesses in the argument, though. You produce a nice-looking model that comes up with some good predictions, then the danger is that you tweak the theory repeatedly to fit the model and the tail ends up wagging the dog, as in Ptolemy's Earth-centred universe with its orbits-within-orbits-within-orbits. 

On balance, I think elbows is right that these are all possibilities to bear in mind, but that more evidence is needed. Big danger in thinking the likes of Friston must be right cos a) they talk a pretty good game, and b) you want them to be right. 

In terms of policy-making, what difference do the ideas of the likes of Gupta and Friston make? I would suggest at the very least that the onus now should be switching towards lifting lockdown sooner rather than later, because of the ongoing damage of lockdown itself. I do suspect that more countries will end up bringing their lockdown timetables forwards than pushing them backwards as the downward trends in infection continue. If only we had a half-competent government, we could already be some way through a planned timetable for lockdown lifting here, but this government seems to operate more on hope, aspiration, and people doing stuff for themselves, than actual plans.


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## IC3D (Jun 9, 2020)

Care minister taking a dump during that interview how apt.


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## Doodler (Jun 9, 2020)

It's always possible that when some noted professor says something surprising it's because they're bonkers, like Peter Duesberg sticking to the view that AIDS was caused by poppers and other recreational drugs.


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## Supine (Jun 9, 2020)

existentialist said:


> If you're black (and I'm not, so this is more about trying to build my awareness than experience), and particularly in America, you face a statistically far greater threat than Covid-19 every time you step outside your front door - and sometimes you won't even have to do that.



I'm sorry but where the hell do you get those statistics? Covid has been killing far more people than racists for the last few months.


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## existentialist (Jun 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> I'm sorry but where the hell do you get those statistics? Covid has been killing far more people than racists for the last few months.


I'm talking about people of colour, not racists. And, unless I've got my history very badly wrong, we've been killing and disadvantaging black people for a very long time before Covid-19 came along.

Although, perhaps I could have put a "perceived" in there. I imagine that, if you're a black person who grew up in the US, your perception of the risk of being mistreated by society, including the police, is of it being a LOT higher than the risk of catching Covid-19.


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> In terms of policy-making, what difference do the ideas of the likes of Gupta and Friston make? I would suggest at the very least that the onus now should be switching towards lifting lockdown sooner rather than later, because of the ongoing damage of lockdown itself. I do suspect that more countries will end up bringing their lockdown timetables forwards than pushing them backwards as the downward trends in infection continue. If only we had a half-competent government, we could already be some way through a planned timetable for lockdown lifting here, but this government seems to operate more on hope, aspiration, and people doing stuff for themselves, than actual plans.



Surely we are part of the way through a planned timetable for lockdown lifting here? Its not being done by a competent government or with the detail and timing that many of us would have liked to have seen, but it is being done. And its surely being done about as fast as anyone might reasonably dare?


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## freakydave (Jun 9, 2020)

existentialist said:


> If you're white (and I suspect you probably are), then this virus might well be one of the biggest existential threats you will have had to face in your lifetime.
> 
> If you're black (and I'm not, so this is more about trying to build my awareness than experience), and particularly in America, you face a statistically far greater threat than Covid-19 every time you step outside your front door - and sometimes you won't even have to do that. Black people are far more likely to be killed, injured, put in fear of death or injury, etc., than white people - in the US, here, and all over the place. You will be less likely to find work to feed yourself and your family than your white counterparts, educational opportunities will be more limited, and you'll be generally treated with more suspicion than if you were white. That's what structural racism does.
> 
> So maybe protesting all those deaths and discrimination might not seen like a priority to you, because you're not at nearly the same risk as a black person. But it's very likely that, for a lot of black people, that shit is a FAR bigger, endemic, and clear and present threat to their well-being than a virus. Maybe they're wrong, but it isn't hard to see why they might think it is.



Because of the demographics this virus is more dangerous for black people than white people. 
I'm a middle class middle aged white guy with no pre existing conditions who (kind of) looks after himself, to be honest I have never been worried about dying from the virus myself, what is scary about it for me personally is the chaos that it has caused


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Surely we are part of the way through a planned timetable for lockdown lifting here? Its not being done by a competent government or with the detail and timing that many of us would have liked to have seen, but it is being done. And its surely being done about as fast as anyone might reasonably dare?


We're in a muddle. Schools are open, except where they're not. People are back at work except where they're not. Shops are tentatively preparing to reopen, or not. More seriously, social services of various kinds are still at an absolute standstill in many places and with no date as to when they will restart.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2020)

freakydave said:


> Because of the demographics this virus is more dangerous for black people than white people.


Need to be careful about how you think of that. _Being black_ may very well not be a risk factor. Probably isn't. Occupying particular places within society, doing particular jobs, living in particular conditions, may mean being part of a demographic that is a risk factor that includes a disproportionate number of black people in it, but that's not quite the same thing. You're not safer cos you're white exactly. You're safer, if you are, cos of your circumstances.


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## Supine (Jun 9, 2020)

It could also be physiological so better hope you have decent Vit D levels and no unknown contributing factors. Being a bloke has already put you at a disadvantage.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2020)

Vit D is linked to the immune system, and deficiency in it is something people with dark skin need to be conscious of in cold climates, but many people of whatever skin colour are low in Vit D in the British winter/early spring, because even when it's out the sun isn't strong enough to cause anybody's skin to produce it. And there's really no evidence that this is a reason why BAME people have been more badly affected. It's a hypothesis only. So yeah, get your Vit D, and that applies to everyone, but we shouldn't assume it is a massive causal factor in wider patterns. Given that we can't produce it from the sun here in the UK between the months of October and March, I don't see it as a likely explanation of excess BAME deaths. Various kinds of structural racism are more likely candidates.


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## freakydave (Jun 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Need to be careful about how you think of that. _Being black_ may very well not be a risk factor. Probably isn't. Occupying particular places within society, doing particular jobs, living in particular conditions, may mean being part of a demographic that is a risk factor that includes a disproportionate number of black people in it, but that's not quite the same thing. You're not safer cos you're white exactly. You're safer, if you are, cos of your circumstances.



I know. Again that was me not expressing myself properly. I was just saying that this virus doesn't freak me out because I might catch it and die, it freaks me out because the majority of people are not as lucky as me to have a situation where being out of work and the possibility of a serious illness is not an existential threat.

The chaos freaks me out on a selfish level because I'm white and middle class, but not white and middle class enough to have a nice place to go and hide if everything does fall down, but I don't think that it will come to that


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## Supine (Jun 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Vit D is linked to the immune system, and deficiency in it is something people with dark skin need to be conscious of in cold climates, but many people of whatever skin colour are low in Vit D in the British winter/early spring, because even when it's out the sun isn't strong enough to cause anybody's skin to produce it. And there's really no evidence that this is a reason why BAME people have been more badly affected. It's a hypothesis only. So yeah, get your Vit D, and that applies to everyone, but we shouldn't assume it is a massive causal factor in wider patterns. Given that we can't produce it from the sun here in the UK between the months of October and March, I don't see it as a likely explanation of excess BAME deaths. Various kinds of structural racism are more likely candidates.



I'm not saying it is a definite cause but it is one of the factors being studied. We obviously need to be careful not to take our own bias into any explanations...


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## freakydave (Jun 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Vit D is linked to the immune system, and deficiency in it is something people with dark skin need to be conscious of in cold climates, but many people of whatever skin colour are low in Vit D in the British winter/early spring, because even when it's out the sun isn't strong enough to cause anybody's skin to produce it. And there's really no evidence that this is a reason why BAME people have been more badly affected. It's a hypothesis only. So yeah, get your Vit D, and that applies to everyone, but we shouldn't assume it is a massive causal factor in wider patterns. Given that we can't produce it from the sun here in the UK between the months of October and March, I don't see it as a likely explanation of excess BAME deaths. Various kinds of structural racism are more likely candidates.



I imagine that it's because black people are overrepresented in caring jobs and tend to live in big cities. I'm sure that middle class black people with degrees and middling jobs are not any more at risk than white people


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 9, 2020)

freakydave said:


> I know. Again that was me not expressing myself properly. I was just saying that this virus doesn't freak me out because I might catch it and die, it freaks me out because the majority of people are not as lucky as me to have a situation where being out of work and the possibility of a serious illness is not an existential threat.


Fair dos.


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Since then I have noticed one other thing in terms of the first recorded death. The ONS data, which is considered far more complete than the other UK official sources, has one spreadsheet tab that records COVID-19 deaths by the week that the death occurred, rather than the week it was registered. And there is a death listed for the week ending 14th February 2020. According to that data it was someone male aged 75-79 and it was in the West Midlands.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I only wrote the above on June 1st but I note that in todays ONS data, that death that showed as happened on the week ending February 14th has been removed from their data.


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## Callie (Jun 9, 2020)

Combustible said:


> 57% of those tested in the Italian province of Bergamo were positive for antibodies, so I don't see any particular reason to believe only 25% are susceptible.


I can't see this addressed it I am skin reading. 

57% of those tested. Of those tested is how many? What is the population of Bergamo?

You're looking at apples and pairs there 

You could only compare 57% of those tested to the suggested 25% (of the entire population) being susceptible if you know what that 57% represents in terms of % of the population tested. Maybe they only tested 10% of the Bergamo population.

Not sure if that makes any sense


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## Callie (Jun 9, 2020)

Eta about 20,000 tested for antibodies in that study. Just over 50% of those were healthcare workers so possibly more likely to have been exposed (?). 

Does not really describe who the non healthcare workers were - those admitted to hospital? Random selection of the population? Representative selection of the population eytc

Population of Bergamo was 122243 in 2019 so 16% tested?


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## editor (Jun 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> How do people feel about the pubs reopening on the 22nd? I doubt I'll be rushing back


There's one or two I'd feel comfortable visiting - like the Railway in Tulse Hill which has a huge garden - but I won't be wedging into the Albert any time soon.


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## Petcha (Jun 9, 2020)

Does anyone know if this Govt u-turn on reopening schools affects nurseries? I can't seem to find any info on that.


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## cupid_stunt (Jun 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know if this Govt u-turn on reopening schools affects nurseries? I can't seem to find any info on that.



Funny enough, I've just got off the phone with someone I know that runs a nursery, they are already back to normal.


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## Orang Utan (Jun 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know if this Govt u-turn on reopening schools affects nurseries? I can't seem to find any info on that.


What u-turn?


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## elbows (Jun 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> What u-turn?



The one that is currently the headline in many places.

Plan dropped for all primary pupils back in school


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## Petcha (Jun 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> What u-turn?



The one that has been all over the news all day and just officially announced in the commons


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## Petcha (Jun 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> What u-turn?



This is a really useful site btw





__





						Google
					





					www.google.com


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## Orang Utan (Jun 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is a really useful site btw
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I get my news here though


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## Combustible (Jun 9, 2020)

Callie said:


> You could only compare 57% of those tested to the suggested 25% (of the entire population) being susceptible if you know what that 57% represents in terms of % of the population tested. Maybe they only tested 10% of the Bergamo population.



Looking at it again, the 57% of citizens who tested positive were from people who had reported symptoms of some type or been quarantined, so not really a representative sample. But 30% of healthcare workers who were tested were also positive. So unless there were some reason why healthcare workers are less likely to be susceptible, that suggests that at least 30% of the population are susceptible, and realistically it would be higher unless every healthcare worker had been infected.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 9, 2020)

Coronavirus: Asymptomatic transmission still an 'open question'
					

The WHO's head of emerging diseases said evidence from 'two or three' studies suggested people with symptoms should be the main focus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Asymptomatic carriers very unlikely to transmit the virus apparently. I'd think very good news if that is accurate.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 9, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Coronavirus: Asymptomatic transmission still an 'open question'
> 
> 
> The WHO's head of emerging diseases said evidence from 'two or three' studies suggested people with symptoms should be the main focus.
> ...



Potentially.  Its all so confusing.

If this turns out to be accurate it would perhaps be good for schools.  I've read a fair bit of discussion on how likely kids are to transmit the virus and its all bit vague.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 9, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Potentially.  Its all so confusing.
> 
> If this turns out to be accurate it would perhaps be good for schools.  I've read a fair bit of discussion on how likely kids are to transmit the virus and its all bit vague.



And it's been retracted already (currently top story here: Coronavirus live news: claim that asymptomatic transmission 'very rare' was 'misleading', says WHO official)

I think not so much because it's wrong as such, more she's sounded a bit more certain than she should have. Potentially good news somewhere down the line maybe but not much more at the moment.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2020)

The WHO seem to have had some inclination to downplay either the number of asymptomatic cases or their role in spreading the virus all along really. Maybe they are right, but its often driven me a bit crazy. Usually when probing the detail it turns out that they concede that the early studies dont give us the full picture, and this latest one doesnt seem to be any exception to that.

Even when there are studies there is often some confusion about how many of the asymptomatic cases actually remained asymptomatic all the way along, as opposed to being pre-symptomatic. Issues with pre-symptomatic spread of the virus are similar in many ways anyway, in terms of what the implications are for test & trace (current wisdom is still mostly that you have to catch some proportion of cases that are asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic in order to properly deal with the spreading of the virus).

The way I usually try to get more sense out of the WHOs attitude towards subjects like this is that I start to imagine that they've heard a lot of defeatism and excuses by certain countries as to why tackling the virus more proactively is a lost cause for them, and perhaps this unwillingness on the part of the WHO to build up the role of asymptomatic cases is in part a response to that.

They could also be correct from the strict scientific standpoint, it is after all much too early in our understanding of the transmission of this pandemic to be making really strong claims that asymptomatic cases have had a large role in pandemic spread. I suppose I dont like their stance that much because I could also say the same about the opposite claim.

edit - ah I just saw the post about the correction. I'm pleased, they stretched their point too far.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I get my news here though


Me too. In the beginning I looked at the headlines from the right wing media just to see what they were frothing about but that got old quickly.


----------



## Cid (Jun 9, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> And it's been retracted already (currently top story here: Coronavirus live news: claim that asymptomatic transmission 'very rare' was 'misleading', says WHO official)
> 
> I think not so much because it's wrong as such, more she's sounded a bit more certain than she should have. Potentially good news somewhere down the line maybe but not much more at the moment.



Yeah... that seems er... Well people in top positions in the WHO should probably think through what they're saying.

I think one thing that might instinctively occur to the armchair epidemiologist is that asymptomatic cases are going to range vastly in contact. I mean an asymptomatic coworker in an office that has some social distancing in place might be fine. But compare that with the interaction of a parent and their 7 year asymptomatic kid.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 9, 2020)

A couple of good sites for graphs & data fans - with stuff broken down on a sub-uk level.









						Scotland Coronavirus Tracker
					

Current and historical data of the Coronavirus outbreak in Scotland. Includes breakdowns by region, maps, charts, and more!




					www.travellingtabby.com
				








__





						CoronaInfo
					

Up-to-date coronavirus information for England



					coronainfo.uk


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> At the time I fixated on Vallance saying the UK was 4 weeks behind Italy (when it was really 2). But he said something else at the same time, that may seem even more bizarre given the actual timing we are hoping our peak has now



Huffington Post have now picked this up:

"The miscalculation leading to the four-week claim can be laid squarely at the door of the mathematical modelling sub-group of Sage. So why weren’t SPI-M’s world-leading modellers better able to calibrate their models to the early UK data. It turns out that some of groups who contribute to SPI-M did calculate significantly shorter and more realistic doubling times at an earlier stage in the UK’s epidemic, but that their estimates never found consensus within the group. Members of SPI-M have communicated their concerns to me, that some modelling groups had more influence over the consensus than others. 

On March 16, Neil Fergusson’s Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team published their infamous report, which used effective estimates of the doubling time of over five days – way, way too slow. This figure seems to have dominated proceedings in SPI-M. It was a long time before more accurate doubling time figures eventually made their way up through SAGE and on to policy-makers."

The UK Was Never Four Weeks Behind Italy. How Did 'Following The Science’ Go So Wrong?


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Support bubbles. Sure they'll be welcome, but urgh.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

Boris clearly has no fucking idea what a support bubble means. It sounds like he's learning about it during the press conference.


----------



## ska invita (Jun 10, 2020)

Having a bubble


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

He almost seems to pride himself on being 'bad on details'. Just what we need right now. A PM who doesn't like detail.


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Boris clearly has no fucking idea what a support bubble means. It sounds like he's learning about it during the press conference.



He just totally fucked answering that second question from the public up. Totally confused the whole issue. And missed the chance to call meeting up with a partner a sex bubble. 🤮


----------



## weltweit (Jun 10, 2020)

WTF is this bubbling business? 

Does it finally mean I can drive to see my son, and stay the night?


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He just totally fucked answering that second question from the public up. Totally confused the whole issue. And missed the chance to call it a sex bubble. 🤮



Lol. Yes, my flatmate just called it a sex bubble. Not quite sure how this is going to work for those of us in flatshares. If the household can only choose one other household.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

weltweit said:


> WTF is this bubbling business?
> 
> Does it finally mean I can drive to see my son, and stay the night?



Yep


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yep



Depends. Only for single adult households, not for either of you unless you both live alone.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

You can nominate one other household to visit and stay overnight at without observing social distancing. But you can't interchange the household.


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Lol. Yes, my flatmate just called it a sex bubble. Not quite sure how this is going to work for those of us in flatshares. If the household can only choose one other household.



Not at all if you're in flatshares.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not at all if you're in flatshares.



Fuck that


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

I think...

One adult living alone can go into another adult's house who also lives alone. (Also allowed if you have kids in the households).

Must be exclusive, you can only both do that together, not with any other houses.


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Fuck that



It's partly for that reason, how can you do it in a controlled way in mixed households? It then massively increased risk of infection spread.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

Sorry to repost this, but... I can't unsee it.


----------



## weltweit (Jun 10, 2020)

My son lives with his mother and stepfather. So I guess that is a no. Grr


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

weltweit said:


> My son lives with his mother and stepfather. So I guess that is a no. Grr



Rightly it's a no currently though. Infection rates are still really high. As Whitty has just said, we're not near the end, we're in the middle of it. Still plenty of room for another, maybe even bigger, disaster.


----------



## maomao (Jun 10, 2020)

So basically people are allowed to get laid but they're not allowed to put it about. Us married people aren't allowed extra marital affairs yet.


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> So basically people are allowed to get laid but they're not allowed to put it about. Us married people aren't allowed extra marital affairs yet.



I have wondered how people having affairs have managed with lockdown. As in loads must have stopped? Or people suddenly left partners maybe?


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

Lol. He's a fucking idiot. He's a liability. Listen to this bullshit...


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I have wondered how people having affairs have managed with lockdown. As in loads must have stopped? Or people suddenly left partners maybe?



I know of a couple of fairly promising relationships that have failed during this period.  Both scenarios was because at least one party had housemates who were not keen on them meeting partner during the really lockdown phase.


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

He just always sounds like the person that had some important and detailed preparation to do for a meeting/briefing, but actually couldn't be arsed, then had a quick flick through the paper before and thought 'fuck it, I can wing this' and then very quickly gets caught out so waffles to try and hide it.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He just always sounds like the person that had some important and detailed preparation to do for a meeting/briefing, but actually couldn't be arsed, then had a quick flick through the paper before and thought 'fuck it, I can wing this' and then very quickly gets caught out so waffles to try and hide it.



Yes, I agree. In that respect, we're kindred souls. I'm guilty of that all the time - I often just wing it during a meeting and obfuscate because I hate my job and have no interest in reading up, I usually get away with it too. 

But I'm not dealing with tens of thousands of lives.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 10, 2020)

He sounds as he is.  You want a man to go out a make a rousing speech, high on enthusiasm and short on detail than he's good at that.  You want him to make a speech that's accurate on the detail than he's hopelessly out of his depth.  In this situation he's trying to be be accurate in his message and you can see him floundering for every word.


----------



## Chilli.s (Jun 10, 2020)

Of course, as a responsible parent, I'll apply the Cummings method of interpritation to this.


----------



## Numbers (Jun 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> So basically people are allowed to get laid but they're not allowed to put it about. Us married people aren't allowed extra marital affairs yet.


Grow a beard.  My wife has been having an affair with a very noble bearded gentleman the past cpl of months.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

Well. Zoos will reopen. That's the main takeaway from that. Phew.


----------



## Numbers (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Rightly it's a no currently though. Infection rates are still really high. As Whitty has just said, we're not near the end, we're in the middle of it. Still plenty of room for another, maybe even bigger, disaster.


He’s the only one I have any form of trust with.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

Numbers said:


> He’s the only one I have any form of trust with.



Why? He's one of the architects of this shambles. He said 20,000 deaths would be a 'good result'

We're at 40k, and in reality more like 70k.


----------



## Numbers (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Why? He's one of the architects of this shambles. He said 20,000 deaths would be a 'good result'
> 
> We're at 40k, and in reality more like 70k.


That was Vallance.  Whitty just seems to be the only one who repeats caution.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

Numbers said:


> That was Vallance.  Whitty just seems to be the only one who repeats caution.



Fair enough.  But still.  If he has any integrity as a professional why doesn't he just call Boris out publicly. As an intelligent man it must be gruelling having to stand next to that buffoon.


----------



## maomao (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Well. Zoos will reopen. That's the main takeaway from that. Phew.



They're doing takeaways? Cause I'd kill for some pangolin.


----------



## Numbers (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Fair enough.  But still.  If he has any integrity as a professional why doesn't he just call Boris out publicly. As an intelligent man it must be gruelling having to stand next to that buffoon.


He looks uncomfortable being next to the Cunt.


----------



## Supine (Jun 10, 2020)

Furious about that botched announcement on bubbles. Just had to a family visit to my mum because the rule wasn't clear and it was taken as open doors for any family holidays desired


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 10, 2020)




----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Supine said:


> Furious about that botched announcement on bubbles. Just had to a family visit to my mum because the rule wasn't clear and it was taken as open doors for any family holidays desired



He botched some answers, but it is clear what you can and can't do re: the bubbles. How is a family visit now relevant?


----------



## Supine (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He botched some answers, but it is clear what you can and can't do re: the bubbles. How is a family visit now relevant?



Don't ask me. Ask my niece who lives with an at risk key worker why she thinks she's ok to holiday at the house of a 78 year old.

And it's not clear. Whittey directly corrected Boris's answer to the first question. Boris doesn't even understand the new rule.


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Huffington Post have now picked this up:
> 
> "The miscalculation leading to the four-week claim can be laid squarely at the door of the mathematical modelling sub-group of Sage. So why weren’t SPI-M’s world-leading modellers better able to calibrate their models to the early UK data. It turns out that some of groups who contribute to SPI-M did calculate significantly shorter and more realistic doubling times at an earlier stage in the UK’s epidemic, but that their estimates never found consensus within the group. Members of SPI-M have communicated their concerns to me, that some modelling groups had more influence over the consensus than others.
> 
> ...



Good. I'm sure thats not the last we have heard of this.

Ferguson has also been saying things:









						Coronavirus: 'Earlier lockdown would have halved death toll'
					

Former government adviser Prof Neil Ferguson was giving evidence to a committee of MPs.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> "Had we introduced lockdown measures a week earlier, we would have reduced the final death toll by at least a half," Prof Ferguson told a committee of MPs.
> 
> "So whilst I think the measures, given what we knew about this virus then, in terms of its transmission were warranted... certainly had we introduced them earlier, we would have seen many fewer deaths."


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

It's clear if you don't listen to Johnson and just read the rule though.


----------



## prunus (Jun 10, 2020)

weltweit said:


> WTF is this bubbling business?
> 
> Does it finally mean I can drive to see my son, and stay the night?



If you are a single person household, and your son‘s household doesn’t elect to ‘bubble’ with a different single person, then yes I believe so.

Basically single people can merge into one other household (of any size), but no household (of any size) can merge with more than one other household.

Edit to add: under 18s don’t count in household size, and can come along with the single adult in the merge.


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Yeah, basically single person households can join another household of any size and effectively act as one household (which includes all isolating if anyone gets symptoms too). Must be exclusive though.


----------



## Cerv (Jun 10, 2020)

single people living alone can have sex again, but only if you first solve a crystal maze logic puzzle to find an eligible partner


----------



## Supine (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's clear if you don't listen to Johnson and just read the rule though.



Do you have a link? I can't see it on the gov website.


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Cerv said:


> single people living alone can have sex again, but only if you first solve a crystal maze logic puzzle to find an eligible partner



Government organized lottery?


----------



## prunus (Jun 10, 2020)

Well that didn’t take long to cause fights!  My brother is separated and lives alone, with custody of his daughter. Both sets of grandparents have already been on the phone to him asking to merge households so they can see their granddaughter (and him presumably).  He doesn’t know how to choose without causing offence...

And - and I shouldn’t laugh, but unintended consequences - his daughter (14) has just pointed out that if instead they merged with her best friend’s household she could go for sleepovers!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, basically single person households can join another household of any size and effectively act as one household (which includes all isolating if anyone gets symptoms too). Must be exclusive though.



Yep, it seemed clear to me, not sure why people are struggling with it.


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, it seemed clear to me, not sure why people are struggling with it.



I do think there's some 'confusion' among some people in order to justify doing what they want to do.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I do think there's some 'confusion' among some people in order to justify doing what they want to do.



Everyone wants a trip to Barnard Castle.

Specsavers are gutted.


----------



## souljacker (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I do think there's some 'confusion' among some people in order to justify doing what they want to do.



Definitely, and that's where most of this confusion comes from. Peoples desire to do what they want.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

So they just said on the news that all this bubble thing is based on the New Zealand system. Which they introduced weeks if not months ago. How the fuck do they have better scientists than us?


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So they just said on the news that all this bubble thing is based on the New Zealand system. Which they introduced weeks if not months ago. How the fuck do they have better scientists than us?



No useful comparison can be made regards the timescale of introductions for the bubble thing re: UK and NZ, they're in a very different position to us.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No useful comparison can be made regards the timescale of introductions for the bubble thing re: UK and NZ, they're in a very different position to us.



Well, no, I think comparisons can be made. NZ acted hard and fast. We're in a very different position to them because either the scientists here or the politicians here, or probably both, are incompetent fucks.

Why the hell are there 100 people on SAGE? How are you going to get a coherent decision out of 100 probably quite egotistical people like that?


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

Can you imagine the Zoom call - I struggle with more than 4 friends.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 10, 2020)

weltweit said:


> My son lives with his mother and stepfather. So I guess that is a no. Grr



I thought that was a yes. What a delightful bubble - you, your ex and her current partner. You can see your son though, he can come to you.

This is all so romantic, suddenly the world is full of opportunity for singletons like me  😂


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Well, no, I think comparisons can be made.



Do shut up, you uneducated potato.


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Well, no, I think comparisons can be made. NZ acted hard and fast. We're in a very different position to them because either the scientists here or the politicians here, or probably both, are incompetent fucks.
> 
> Why the hell are there 100 people on SAGE? How are you going to get a coherent decision out of 100 probably quite egotistical people like that?



We were in also a very different position very quickly due to our geography and travel hub status though (among other reasons), but generally I was just meaning in reaction to your post re: the bubbles and the timing of their introduction, of course some comparisons can be made in other areas. Maybe I misunderstood your post.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Do shut up, you uneducated potato.



Wyh?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 10, 2020)

I’m confused as I filter my news by coming on here! Can I hug anyone yet?


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> We were in also a very different position very quickly due to our geography and travel hub status though, but generally I was just meaning in reaction to your post re: the bubbles and the timing of their introduction, of course some comparisons can be made in other areas. Maybe I misunderstood your post.



No, I think you understood. Obviously every country seems to have taken different approaches but if the likes of Vietnam and NZ figured out the bubble and threat level system so early after observing what was taking place in China, Italy and Spain then something has very clearly gone very very wrong here. 

As to geography. Not sure what you mean there? We're an island country. So is New Zealand. Even Australia handled this better. I understand your point on the travel hub thing but arguably that should have also been shut down much earlier. Boris' response today along the lines of 'we know more now than we did in March'. Well, no shit. Of course we fucking do. The warnings were there since January.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Do shut up, you uneducated potato.


That’s a bit unnecessary. You were a cunt to me the other day too and didn’t apologise.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m confused as I filter my news by coming on here! Can I hug anyone yet?



Basically we can't go out on the pull just yet. But you can go look at meerkats in the zoo.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m confused as I filter my news by coming on here! Can I hug anyone yet?


If you live alone, you can have physical contact with one other person or household, as long as they don't have physical contact with anyone other than you. Or if you live as part of a household, one other person can have physical contact with people in your household, as long as they aren't having any physical contact with anyone else.

None of this applies to people who are shielding.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> If you live alone, you can have physical contact with one other person or household, as long as they don't have physical contact with anyone other than you. Or if you live as part of a household, one other person can have physical contact with people in your household, as long as they aren't having any physical contact with anyone else.
> 
> None of this applies to people who are shielding.


So no Tinder yet?


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Jun 10, 2020)

So my son, who works in a hospital as a waste porter and lives alone, is he allowed by the new rules to come and stay? Because if he is, the new rules mean that social distancing becomes almost meaningless imho


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> So no Tinder yet?


it's not totally impossible, but requires a level of commitment unlikely from a new acquaintance on a hook-up app.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> So my son, who works in a hospital as a waste porter and lives alone, is he allowed by the new rules to come and stay? Because if he is, the new rules mean that social distancing becomes almost meaningless imho


yes he is. you might assess the risks differently though.


----------



## phillm (Jun 10, 2020)

Numbers said:


> That was Vallance.  Whitty just seems to be the only one who repeats caution.


Back in the day, Whitty would have been the first one to leave the pub after nursing a half of shandy for an hour. Nervously looking at his watch and saying I have to get back - things to do. Meanwhile, 2 hours later Johnson and chums would be destroying the place whilst bemoaning him for being a boring cunt. .


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

So how many people can I have sex with? Everyone in an enthusiastically consenting household?

(I live in a houseshare  )


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 10, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> So my son, who works in a hospital as a waste porter and lives alone, is he allowed by the new rules to come and stay? Because if he is, the new rules mean that social distancing becomes almost meaningless imho


I don't think it makes them meaningless. This rule actually makes sense for once. You basically nominate a household to which you now belong, and act from now on as one household (so all isolating if one is ill etc)


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> So how many people can I have sex with? Everyone in an enthusiastically consenting household?
> 
> (I live in a houseshare  )


6 at a time but only if they’re family


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> So how many people can I have sex with? Everyone in an enthusiastically consenting household?
> 
> (I live in a houseshare  )


you can have sex with everyone in your household, and one other person - but the one other person is the only person outside of your household that anyone from inside it can have sex with, and they also aren't allowed to have sex with any other households.


----------



## phillm (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> So how many people can I have sex with? Everyone in an enthusiastically consenting household?
> 
> (I live in a houseshare  )


Wanking is the gold standard of self-isolation. No doubt swingers forums are having heated mass debates as to how the hobby can be revived safely.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 10, 2020)

We’re gonna have to start reproducing like fish


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> you can have sex with everyone in your household, and one other person - but the one other person is the only person outside of your household that anyone from inside it can have sex with, and they also aren't allowed to have sex with any other households.


I'd better call a house meeting.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> I'd better call a house meeting.


take plenty of lube and condoms


----------



## MickiQ (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So they just said on the news that all this bubble thing is based on the New Zealand system. Which they introduced weeks if not months ago. How the fuck do they have better scientists than us?


They don't but they don't have Johnson either


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't think it makes them meaningless. This rule actually makes sense for once. *You basically nominate a household to which you now belong, and act from now on as one household (so all isolating if one is ill etc)*



Utterly impossible to police, surely.

A lot of people will decide which 'other household' it's going to be depending on what they want to do and where they want to go on that day.

Then go somewhere else to see someone else, or invite somone else from somewhere else, the day or week after that.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

It is impossible to police, but so really has been any of the other restrictions of lockdown - it relies on people acting within the guidelines out of choice.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Utterly impossible to police, surely.
> 
> A lot of people will decide which 'other household' it's going to be depending on what they want to do and where they want to go on that day.
> 
> Then go somewhere else to see someone else, or invite somone else from somewhere else, the day or week after that.


Of course it's impossible to police. Most aspects of physical distancing have been impossible to police.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Of course it's impossible to police. Most aspects of physical distancing have been impossible to police.



Yes, I do see what you mean.
But today's new thing about bubbles struck me as particularly open to being stretched to meaninglessness.


----------



## souljacker (Jun 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Yes, I do see what you mean.
> But today's new thing about bubbles struck me as particularly open to being stretched to meaninglessness.



Only if you want to fuck shit up for yourself. If you follow the rules you'll probably be fine. If you stretch them, then you and others may actually die.


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

Sex aside, this is a nonsense.

Should I treat my housemates as a technical household or a health household? What if my housemates don't agree?

Technically (as in, we wouldn't count as one for the purpose of claiming benefits) we are not a household. We shop and cook for ourselves; have locks on the doors of our rooms; and pay our bills separately, via the landlord. Should we each choose a household to 'bubble' with? One with similar arrangements? Cos that would get out of hand pretty quickly.

Practically, we share utensils and kitchen stuff (although cleaning before and after); we keep our distance from each other except when we don't, because we have all been home for lockdown and haven't had anyone else over; we all quarantined when one had symptoms; we spend time together and sometimes make food to share. Should we pick one household between us all? (Impossible! We know different people.)

Regardless of what we decide amongst ourselves to do, what are we supposed to be doing??


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> Sex aside, this is a nonsense.
> 
> Should I treat my housemates as a technical household or a health household? What if my housemates don't agree?
> 
> ...


You are a household, and can only have one other person into your bubble under the new lockdown restrictions, not one other household.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

It is impractical. Apparently they wanted to relax it to allow any two households to form a bubble, but modelling suggested that would push the infection rate up too much.


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> You are a household, and can only have one other person into your bubble under the new lockdown restrictions, not one other household.


Yup. That's how I read it. Which is, as you say in your post below, impractical. To the point of being totally unworkable.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> But today's new thing about bubbles struck me as particularly open to being stretched to meaninglessness.





souljacker said:


> *Only if you want to fuck shit up for yourself*. If you follow the rules you'll probably be fine. If you stretch them, then you and others may actually die.



It's not myself, or festivaldeb, to whom you'd need to make that point 

I was talking more generally about elements among the broader population.

Also, if people on here, most of us usually fairly clued up about stuff,  were questioning exactly what was meant under the new edict, then there's bound to be a fair few others round and about who'll have even more trouble grasping the details.

As well as people who'll just not bother with today's bubble limitations, and wilfully won't bother


----------



## Raheem (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Basically we can't go out on the pull just yet. But you can go look at meerkats in the zoo.


But don't touch.


----------



## souljacker (Jun 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> It's not myself to whom you need to make that point
> 
> I was talking more generally about elements among the broader population.
> 
> ...



Should have said oneself. Wasn't having a dig at you mate.

I do think it's quite clear though. Essentially, one household can let another household join them as if they were both in the same household. The 'extra' household can only be a single adult but can include any number of under 18s.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> Yup. That's how I read it. Which is, as you say in your post below, impractical. To the point of being totally unworkable.


you can always just carry on as before if it's too difficult to decide who gets to visit I guess.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 10, 2020)

Petcha said:
			
		

> Basically we can't go out on the pull just yet. But you can go look at meerkats in the zoo.





Raheem said:


> But don't touch.



Even before they reopen, Chester Zoo (for example) have been doing lots of great-looking video-streams of various animals ...


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> Yup. That's how I read it. Which is, as you say in your post below, impractical. To the point of being totally unworkable.



No, it's really not. It's not aimed at your household or ones like yours. It's aimed at people living alone and it allows them to go into another house and stay the night to help with social isolation. If you live in a shared house it's not aimed at helping you as you've already got people around you.


----------



## Cerv (Jun 10, 2020)

you and your flatmates are a household. so can only form a bubble with one other person from outside.
seems like one of the mind games C4 would make up for Big Brother to try and cause drama in the house.
you could perhaps draw lots for who gets to pick a friend.


e: yeah, the bubble's for the benefit of the singleton, not the people in the flat share. but when 2 of you have a single friend in need of support it's going to be awkward to decide who get's told no.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No it's really not. It's not aimed at your household or ones like yours. It's aimed at people living alone and it allows them to go into another house and stay the night to help with social isolation. If you live in a shared house it's not aimed at helping you.


yeah, this really Mation - you should maybe have a chat with your housemates and see if there's someone in your various groups of friends who's really struggling and could do with being able to come over for a brew / watch telly / hang out. Otherwise, just crack on as you have been.


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> you can always just carry on as before if it's too difficult to decide who gets to visit I guess.


That's my conclusion. My household isn't in a position to change anything yet, despite updated advice.

But my housemates, or anyone's, may interpret this vague advice differently.

Yay.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> Sex aside, this is a nonsense.
> 
> Should I treat my housemates as a technical household or a health household? What if my housemates don't agree?
> 
> ...




Hold a raffle?


----------



## LDC (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> That's my conclusion. My household isn't in a position to change anything yet, despite updated advice.
> 
> But my housemates, or anyone's, may interpret this vague advice differently.
> 
> Yay.



No, it's not vague fucking advice. One person can join your household. They can ignore social distancing with everyone in your house, and even stay the night. Your house might not be able to decide on who it is, but really your household should be thinking about who it would help the most, not what you individually want.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 10, 2020)

Looks like Stewart was more informed than the scientist. So was this a rogue scientist? Was she in the government's pocket even then?



Should have listened to Rory Stewart. would have saved 25000+ lives.  

Was Dr Harries the one who said the the WHO test test test was for less developed countries? She should have difficulty sleeping at night.


----------



## Boudicca (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> That's my conclusion. My household isn't in a position to change anything yet, despite updated advice.
> 
> But my housemates, or anyone's, may interpret this vague advice differently.
> 
> Yay.


Each put your chosen persons names in to a hat and then pick one.  At least one person gets laid.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> That's my conclusion. My household isn't in a position to change anything yet, despite updated advice.
> 
> But my housemates, or anyone's, may interpret this vague advice differently.
> 
> Yay.


It's fairly straightforward tbf. I think you just need to make clear in the discussions that it's not really a change to help your household, but to help isolated people living alone.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Is she in the government's pocket even then?


she's the deputy chief medical officer, she's part of the government.


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> yeah, this really Mation - you should maybe have a chat with your housemates and see if there's someone in your various groups of friends who's really struggling and could do with being able to come over for a brew / watch telly / hang out. Otherwise, just crack on as you have been.


Nice advice  - thank you 

However, I wasn't really asking specifically about my circumstances; just using them to illustrate the fucking stupidity of such vague rules for anyone in the same or similar position. (I did sound like I was asking for advice, reading back though. Apologies.)

We'll come to some arrangement - probably not changing anything. But then again, it might be a major problem. (That can wait the fuck until tomorrow  )


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Hold a raffle?


A meat raffle. 

Yeah.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> she's the deputy chief medical officer, she's part of the government.


I have slightly edited my post but she was the one giving the science that the Government followed. No wonder we are fucked. I am surprised she is still in post.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> Nice advice  - thank you
> 
> However, I wasn't really asking specifically about my circumstances; just using them to illustrate the fucking stupidity of such vague rules for anyone in the same or similar position. (I did sound like I was asking for advice, reading back though. Apologies.)
> 
> We'll come to some arrangement - probably not changing anything. But then again, it might be a major problem. (That can wait the fuck until tomorrow :{ )


people's lives are always more complex than government advice can possibly allow for - it doesn't make the advice stupid. As I said, they wanted to relax it to allow whole households to form bubbles but decided it was too risky. My own household is already very complicatedly arranged, so I won't be changing anything - although if I squinted hard at the rules I could probably have my mate round for a brew...


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's fairly straightforward tbf. I think you just need to make clear in the discussions that it's not really a change to help your household, but to help isolated people living alone.


Pesky people tend to have their own ideas despite what I make clear, sadly.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 10, 2020)

Where will we get these bubbles from?


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> people's lives are always more complex than government advice can possibly allow for - it doesn't make the advice stupid.


House/flat-sharing isn't some obscure or niche situation, though, is it. 

It should be addressed.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> House/flat-sharing isn't some obscure or niche situation, though, is it.
> 
> It should be addressed.


How has it not been addressed? There's some fairly straightforward rules which you as a household should follow. It may involve some negotiation to decide how best to follow them, and some members of your household may 'misunderstand' the rules because they don't like them I suppose - but that would be true whatever the rules were, unless they were to be relaxed to the point of there being no rules at all. What would you like them to change to make it easier for shared occupancy households?


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> What would you like them to change to make it easier for shared occupancy households?


If you live in a shared occupancy household:

you can: <:whatever is sensible at this stage>
you cannot: <whatever isn't sensible at this stage>


----------



## Raheem (Jun 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> They're doing takeaways? Cause I'd kill for some pangolin.


They go right through me. Pangolin, pangolout.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

But a household is a household whether it's shared occupancy or not, and the guidelines about what each household can and can't do under the new guidelines are unambiguous, unless you're going out of your way to misunderstand it.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> But a household is a household whether it's shared occupancy or not, and the guidelines about what each household can and can't do under the new guidelines are unambiguous, unless you're going out of your way to misunderstand it.


If it is shared occupancy but you have individual tenancy agreements then it can be treated a separate households. So you can fuck off round someone else's house if you want but if you have been in contact with others in your house then I would not recommend doing so.


----------



## killer b (Jun 10, 2020)

MrSki said:


> If it is shared occupancy but you have individual tenancy agreements then it can be treated a separate households.


Where did you read this?


----------



## Looby (Jun 10, 2020)

MrSki said:


> If it is shared occupancy but you have individual tenancy agreements then it can be treated a separate households. So you can fuck off round someone else's house if you want but if you have been in contact with others in your house then I would not recommend doing so.


I really don’t think this is true. This isn’t about tenancy agreements and legality it’s about who you are having contact with. So if housemates are sharing kitchen, bathroom and other communal areas then they’re a household surely. That’s very different to a self contained flat or studio in a block.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> Where did you read this?


I didn't but I used to live in a shared house in Tottenham & the only shared space was the hallway. It is only advice & if you are isolated then for your mental health bubble up. Fuck it if SPADS who make the rules can bend them then why not?


----------



## MrSki (Jun 10, 2020)

Looby said:


> I really don’t think this is true. This isn’t about tenancy agreements and legality it’s about who you are having contact with. So if housemates are sharing kitchen, bathroom and other communal areas then they’re a household surely. That’s very different to a self contained flat or studio in a block.


A lot of people who live in the same house don't share any space apart from access. It is up to the individual to make the choice. don't be going nuts at home if the only people you have contact with drive you crazy.


----------



## Mation (Jun 10, 2020)

Looby said:


> I really don’t think this is true. This isn’t about tenancy agreements and legality it’s about who you are having contact with. So if housemates are sharing kitchen, bathroom and other communal areas then they’re a household surely. That’s very different to a self contained flat or studio in a block.


Case in point.

My tenancy agreement has me as a separate household to my housemates, whose tenancy agreements state the same. Legally/technically, we are separate.

Morally/healthwise/sensibly, we are a household, despite our separate agreements. I think so, anyway. But what if they don't, given that legally they would be correct about household status?

(I'm not after advice re me; this is just an illustration of the problems with the gov guidance.)


----------



## Raheem (Jun 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> Case in point.
> 
> My tenancy agreement has me as a separate household to my housemates, whose tenancy agreements state the same. Legally/technically, we are separate.
> 
> ...


Sounds like you're just renting a room in a shared household, as opposed to living in a shared household and dividing the rent. Either way it's a shared household, if you share facilities.

Useful test: do you get separate council tax bills?


----------



## Sue (Jun 11, 2020)

I live on my own. This isn't going to change anything for me.


----------



## belboid (Jun 11, 2020)

I would just like to use this space to claim the word 'sociabubble'


----------



## Smangus (Jun 11, 2020)

I'm off to buy me a Zorb thingy so I can roll on down to me parents. Fuck knows how I'll fit through their front door thingy though.


----------



## Mation (Jun 11, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Sounds like you're just renting a room in a shared household, as opposed to living in a shared household and dividing the rent. Either way it's a shared household, if you share facilities.
> 
> Useful test: do you get separate council tax bills?


We don't get any separate bills. We each pay a sum to the landlord every month that includes rent and all bills. We have communal space as well, but can lock our rooms with a key.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 11, 2020)

If you have communal space, especially if it includes a kitchen and a bathroom, then it's pretty obvious and unambiguous that it's a household for the purposes of transmission risk. Tenancy agreements and how the bills are paid are completely irrelevant. As are locks on doors.


----------



## Raheem (Jun 11, 2020)

belboid said:


> I would just like to use this space to claim the word 'sociabubble'


You can have that. I'm taking 'unworkabubble'.


----------



## Mation (Jun 11, 2020)

teuchter said:


> If you have communal space, especially if it includes a kitchen and a bathroom, then it's pretty obvious and unambiguous that it's a household for the purposes of transmission risk. Tenancy agreements and how the bills are paid are completely irrelevant. As are locks on doors.


Yes. I agree.

There will be people who don't, and by not mentioning the situation, it'll be more likely to get out of hand.


----------



## LDC (Jun 11, 2020)

Sue said:


> I live on my own. This isn't going to change anything for me.



It could do though if you wanted it to, it's aimed at people like you to lessen isolation if you feel the need to do that.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Jun 11, 2020)

This is great news for me as I live alone and have been following the rules, not meeting up with the man I met online literally as all this started. We can now form a bubble. So selfishly: ace!


----------



## BigTom (Jun 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> So no Tinder yet?



"single person household seeks single (or multiperson!) household for bubbling purposes"

_bubbling _becomes the new _netflix and chill _phrase. I'll probably find out that "bubbling" is already some depraved sex act tbh and not suitable for appropriation for this phrase. There must be some good pun along the lines of those posted up thread specifically related to sex / friends with benefits type situation.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 11, 2020)

Neither my mum or my sister live on their own but my mum has decided this means she can go stay with her in Bristol in a few weeks. 

It probably will be allowed by then but...


----------



## Sue (Jun 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It could do though if you wanted it to, it's aimed at people like you to lessen isolation if you feel the need to do that.


There's no-one local this would work with and I don't want to take public transport to get to anyone it would work with so 🤷‍♀️.


----------



## prunus (Jun 11, 2020)

Sue said:


> There's no-one local this would work with and I don't want to take public transport to get to anyone it would work with so 🤷‍♀️.



It’s two-way so the non-local person/people could come to you, if you (and they) like.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 11, 2020)

When government ministers start talking like this:



			
				Simon Clarke said:
			
		

> “We have made decisions in good faith based on available evidence.”


you know that they know they've fucked it. This is the thin end of the defence liewedge: "we did the best we could with what we knew".

No, you fucking didn't. Your government sneered at, pooh-poohed, and downright ignored any voice that dissented from your business-friendly, hand-the-contracts-to-your-mates plans.

Was PPE procurement done "in good faith"? Well, if by "good faith" you mean "fucking naive", perhaps. Was the timing of lockdown, long after the scientific voices were urging it, done as "best they [could] with what they knew"? The fuck it was, it was delayed and hung out while the likes of Tim Fucking Wetherspoon raced around threatening people.

Given how shit it's all been, it would be incredibly refreshing to see government ministers line up and give an unqualified apology for the poor decisions they've made, and some kind of commitment to how they were going to improve future decision-making. Because at the moment it's a litany of "look how brilliantly we've done!" as the corpses pile up and we build nicely towards the second wave...

But it'll be a cold day in hell before that kind of apology ever comes.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 11, 2020)

And, from the Guardian's live feed this morning...

Nice bit of shade-throwing there - anyone objecting to the Government's reckless plan to get back to business as usual ASAP is, presumably, being "pessimistic". Or at least not very "can-do".

Fuck them all. With a fucking pineapple.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 11, 2020)

They can’t admit to making mistakes as that could make them liable to lawsuits and even criminal prosecution, to think wishfully


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jun 11, 2020)

prunus said:


> It’s two-way so the non-local person/people could come to you, if you (and they) like.



And if the non-local person also isn't reliant on public transport...

(That doesn't stop the 'bubble' thing from being good, for those that need it & that it works for)


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> They can’t admit to making mistakes as that could make them liable to lawsuits and even criminal prosecution, to think wishfully



They won't admit to making mistakes because they're politicians. It's an unusual situation but that doesn't mean the normal rules of their game don't apply.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 11, 2020)

existentialist said:


> When government ministers start talking like this:
> 
> you know that they know they've fucked it. This is the thin end of the defence liewedge: "we did the best we could with what we knew".
> 
> ...



And with no apology there'll be no change in direction because that would tacitly admit they were wrong to begin with.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 11, 2020)

two sheds said:


> And with no apology there'll be no change in direction because that would tacitly admit they were wrong to begin with.


Yeah, they're condemned to continue with the fuckups, even if they don't want to. One might almost feel sorry for...nah. Fuck 'em.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Jun 11, 2020)

two sheds said:


> And with no apology there'll be no change in direction because that would tacitly admit they were wrong to begin with.


Don’t forget though that politicians can easily change direction when it suits them, just so long as they maintain either that the material facts have changed completely or that they haven’t changed direction after all.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> They can’t admit to making mistakes as that could make them liable to lawsuits and even criminal prosecution, to think wishfully


No it wouldn't. They could easily say that they did what they thought best but got some decisions wrong.


----------



## miss direct (Jun 11, 2020)

I have a question. If you go to visit a friend/relative who lives a long way away (which I _think_ is allowed), and plan to meet in a park, but it's pissing it down, can anyone suggest a safe alternative? Also still worried about using toilets/lack of public ones.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I have a question. If you go to visit a friend/relative who lives a long way away (which I _think_ is allowed), and plan to meet in a park, but it's pissing it down, can anyone suggest a safe alternative? Also still worried about using toilets/lack of public ones.


I had this the other day. Choose a park with big trees with thick leaf coverage to shelter under, which is what we did. Lack of loos is more tricky. No real alternative to finding a bush or something to go behind.


----------



## LDC (Jun 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I have a question. If you go to visit a friend/relative who lives a long way away (which I _think_ is allowed), and plan to meet in a park, but it's pissing it down, can anyone suggest a safe alternative? Also still worried about using toilets/lack of public ones.



I don't get what you're asking. Where to go to the toilet, or where to hang out outside if the weather is shit?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 11, 2020)

If you meet in the park only drink one bottle of wine


----------



## miss direct (Jun 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I don't get what you're asking. Where to go to the toilet, or where to hang out outside if the weather is shit?


Both, really. 
It's a two hour drive, so I'll definitely be needing the loo at some point during the day. Will come prepared!

The UK needs more "outside but covered" places like bandstands.


----------



## Raheem (Jun 11, 2020)

existentialist said:


> And, from the Guardian's live feed this morning...
> View attachment 217087
> Nice bit of shade-throwing there - anyone objecting to the Government's reckless plan to get back to business as usual ASAP is, presumably, being "pessimistic". Or at least not very "can-do".
> 
> Fuck them all. With a fucking pineapple.


Think Amamna Spielman is probably looking forward to the New Year's honours.


----------



## Thora (Jun 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Both, really.
> It's a two hour drive, so I'll definitely be needing the loo at some point during the day. Will come prepared!
> 
> The UK needs more "outside but covered" places like bandstands.


I wouldn't - you'll get wet/cold and have to piss behind a bush.


----------



## maomao (Jun 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I have a question. If you go to visit a friend/relative who lives a long way away (which I _think_ is allowed), and plan to meet in a park, but it's pissing it down, can anyone suggest a safe alternative? Also still worried about using toilets/lack of public ones.


Take an umbrella and a she wee.


----------



## miss direct (Jun 11, 2020)

Thora said:


> I wouldn't - you'll get wet/cold and have to piss behind a bush.


I've got wet weather gear. I just really want to see my Dad, who's in his 70s and shouldn't be getting cold and wet. It's been a very long time.


----------



## LDC (Jun 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Both, really.
> It's a two hour drive, so I'll definitely be needing the loo at some point during the day. Will come prepared!
> 
> The UK needs more "outside but covered" places like bandstands.



Outside markets are open? Pissing in public must get a free pass currently as well? Or use one of those funny poncho things old people used to use for changing on the beach? A nappy?


----------



## andysays (Jun 11, 2020)

teuchter said:


> ...are completely irrelevant. As are locks on doors.


Even bathroom doors?

You're the last person I expected to post this


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> If you meet in the park only drink one bottle of wine



And do drink wine rather than beer, 'cos that makes you need to piss more!


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Both, really.
> It's a two hour drive, so I'll definitely be needing the loo at some point during the day. Will come prepared!



I believe (though I've not been myself) that toilets are open in motorway service stations.  I presume they will have a fairly strict cleaning protocol but whether you think they're safe enough will be a personal decision.  I'd happily use them but then again being a bloke its a bit easier going for a piss without touching anything.


----------



## marty21 (Jun 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Outside markets are open? Pissing in public must get a free pass currently as well? Or use one of those funny poncho things old people used to sue for changing on the beach? A nappy?


Sign in my local park , basically telling people to piss & shit at home, green spaces in Hackney had a bit of a battering following the relaxation of lockdown. I'd prefer it if people did go home to poo tbf


----------



## Celyn (Jun 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I have a question. If you go to visit a friend/relative who lives a long way away (which I _think_ is allowed), and plan to meet in a park, but it's pissing it down, can anyone suggest a safe alternative? Also still worried about using toilets/lack of public ones.


Does the place have a large train station or bus station?  Not wonderful places but they have waterproof roofs, and possibly takeaway coffee.


----------



## LDC (Jun 11, 2020)

marty21 said:


> View attachment 217131Sign in my local park , basically telling people to piss & shit at home, green spaces in Hackney had a bit of a battering following the relaxation of lockdown. I'd prefer it if people did go home to poo tbf



Was thinking the gutter rather than the park. But yeah, fair enough.


----------



## Anju (Jun 11, 2020)

Was it made clear whether we're using metaphorical or real bubbles? Also, will it lead to a new porn category and related sub categories.


----------



## andysays (Jun 11, 2020)

marty21 said:


> View attachment 217131Sign in my local park , basically telling people to piss & shit at home, green spaces in Hackney had a bit of a battering following the relaxation of lockdown. I'd prefer it if people did go home to poo tbf


Yeah, my colleagues in Parks have had people (mostly middle class they tell me) demanding to know why the toilets aren't still available for their use almost since the lockdown (general and public toilets) was announced.

Genuinely doesn't seem to occur to many of them that someone has to clean them and that's even more of a health hazard ATM than normally.

ETA what park is that, if you don't mind me asking?


----------



## Supine (Jun 11, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Does the place have a large train station or bus station?  Not wonderful places but they have waterproof roofs, and possibly takeaway coffee.



No takeaway coffee but often open toilets


----------



## souljacker (Jun 11, 2020)

My local parks toilet is still working but that's a self cleaner so might be why. Costs 30p though! I just pee in a bush.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 11, 2020)

The thing with non-availability of toilets is that it affects different people disproportionately, making a couple of hours sitting in the park, 20 mins away from home, trivial for some people and nearly impossible for others.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 11, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The thing with non-availability of toilets is that it affects different people disproportionately, making a couple of hours sitting in the park, 20 mins away from home, trivial for some people and nearly impossible for others.



Public toilet availability in the UK is pretty dire at the best of times anyway, to a point that amounts to direct discrimination against those less able to make do without them.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Public toilet availability in the UK is pretty dire at the best of times anyway, to a point that amounts to direct discrimination against those less able to make do without them.



Yeah, this has highlighted just how much we rely on pubs and superstores etc for access to public toilets.  

I do find the lack of basic forward planning people are doing a bit baffling.  Both me and my g/f are fortunate to have decent working bladders but time and again when friends are trying to meet up for drinks in a park somewhere we are the only ones to point out the lack of loo situation.  It doesn't occur to people and often they don't seem to care.

_Oh well if there are no loos it means I can piss and shit where I like...    _No, it doesn't it just means you're going to have to limit your time spent away from home.  I do get for some people have conditions etc but I'm not talking about them.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 11, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah, this has highlighted just how much we rely on pubs and superstores etc for access to public toilets.
> 
> I do find the lack of basic forward planning people are doing a bit baffling.  Both me and my g/f are fortunate to have decent working bladders but time and again when friends are trying to meet up for drinks in a park somewhere we are the only ones to point out the lack of loo situation.  It doesn't occur to people and often they don't seem to care.
> 
> _Oh well if there are no loos it means I can piss and shit where I like...    _No, it doesn't it just means you're going to have to limit your time spent away from home.  I do get for some people have conditions etc but I'm not talking about them.


I think he was talking about people who cannot use your general public toilet as they are inaccessible for many with disabilities, including the disabled loos, meaning those with disabilities are forced to stay away.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 11, 2020)

Noone appears to bother with masks in the tiny Tesco express which made me feel very self conscious in mine. The pharmacy in the other hand is fully kitted.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 11, 2020)

I feel more smug than self-conscious wearing mine


----------



## maomao (Jun 11, 2020)

marty21 said:


> View attachment 217131Sign in my local park , basically telling people to piss & shit at home, green spaces in Hackney had a bit of a battering following the relaxation of lockdown. I'd prefer it if people did go home to poo tbf


I must have peed in just about every park in Hackney when I lived there. Have yet to poo in a park though. 

Pee is good for the ground anyway, excellent fertiliser.


----------



## marty21 (Jun 11, 2020)

andysays said:


> Yeah, my colleagues in Parks have had people (mostly middle class they tell me) demanding to know why the toilets aren't still available for their use almost since the lockdown (general and public toilets) was announced.
> 
> Genuinely doesn't seem to occur to many of them that someone has to clean them and that's even more of a health hazard ATM than normally.
> 
> ETA what park is that, if you don't mind me asking?


Millfields


----------



## Mation (Jun 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I have a question. If you go to visit a friend/relative who lives a long way away (which I _think_ is allowed), and plan to meet in a park, but it's pissing it down, can anyone suggest a safe alternative? Also still worried about using toilets/lack of public ones.


----------



## Mation (Jun 11, 2020)

souljacker said:


> My local parks toilet is still working but that's a self cleaner so might be why. Costs 30p though! I just pee in a bush.


Some of them are free. The one in Camberwell (London) is.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 11, 2020)

Matt Handcocks just said he's proud to be a member of the most diverse Cabinet in British history.

Almost all privately educated and/or Oxbridge

Thank god for diversity


----------



## Numbers (Jun 11, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Matt Handcocks just said he's proud to be a member of the most diverse Cabinet in British history.
> 
> Almost all privately educated and/or Oxbridge
> 
> Thank god for diversity


He did have a handy list of diverse names he read out.


----------



## Raheem (Jun 11, 2020)

TBF, I can't think of another time the country was run by 11 cunts, 7 wankers, 3 walking shitmountains and a Weeble.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 11, 2020)

Numbers said:


> He did have a handy list of diverse names he read out.


I missed that, I was hurling myself off a bridge into a moat of sharks and spikes


----------



## PD58 (Jun 11, 2020)

Just to bring back a lack of levity, I do not think this has been posted and it is such a humane and real read of life at the front line.

The peak


----------



## kabbes (Jun 11, 2020)

This bubble thing — I reckon we’ve probably been a bit slow off the mark and all the good singletons will be gone now.


----------



## prunus (Jun 11, 2020)

kabbes said:


> This bubble thing — I reckon we’ve probably been a bit slow off the mark and all the good singletons will be gone now.



Absolutely not, the best singletons are only just opening the second round of bidding.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Jun 11, 2020)

Raheem said:


> TBF, I can't think of another time the country was run by 11 cunts, 7 wankers, 3 walking shitmountains and a Weeble.


Less of the weeble, please


----------



## Raheem (Jun 11, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Less of the weeble, please


We'd all like to see that, but I don't think you can catch it twice.


----------



## Dogsauce (Jun 11, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I have slightly edited my post but she was the one giving the science that the Government followed. No wonder we are fucked. I am surprised she is still in post.



surprised? It’s not as if this government sets a high bar for the competency of their appointments, nobody gets sacked.


----------



## Mation (Jun 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> My tenancy agreement has me as a separate household to my housemates, whose tenancy agreements state the same. Legally/technically, we are separate.
> 
> Morally/healthwise/sensibly, we are a household, despite our separate agreements. I think so, anyway. But what if they don't, given that legally they would be correct about household status?
> 
> (I'm not after advice re me; this is just an illustration of the problems with the gov guidance.)


So, it's turned out to be about a 50/50 split in terms of interpretation. Some of us (me included) think this is about what makes sense, healthwise.

The others say they get that, but have still decided to interpret it as 'I am my own household'. This while we had the conversation, several of us, sitting round the table in the shared kitchen.

Me: "We don't live alone."
Others: "Legally, I do."


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jun 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> So, it's turned out to be about a 50/50 split in terms of interpretation. Some of us (me included) think this is about what makes sense, healthwise.
> 
> The others say they get that, but have still decided to interpret it as 'I am my own household'. This while we had the conversation, several of us, sitting round the table in the shared kitchen.
> 
> ...


tell them it's only legal if their guests come in via rope ladder out of their bedroom windows and don't use any of the shared rooms.
e2a: and that they then cannot use the shared rooms either: use the rop ladders too for themselves.


----------



## Mation (Jun 12, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> tell them it's only legal if their guests come in via rope ladder out of their bedroom windows and don't use any of the shared rooms.
> e2a: and that they then cannot use the shared rooms either: use the rop ladders too for themselves.


Thank you. Panic buying some Milk Tray as we speak


----------



## LDC (Jun 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> Thank you. Panic buying some Milk Tray as we speak



Decorate the communal areas with pictures of people on ventilators.


----------



## elbows (Jun 12, 2020)

Protect the NHS, die at home.









						Coronavirus: 'Start public inquiry now to prevent more deaths'
					

An immediate public inquiry could help save lives, say relatives of 450 virus victims.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Jamie said government advice to "stay at home" meant his 65-year-old father did not seek medical help early enough.
> 
> "He was trying to wait it out and if you wait too long it turns out it kills you really quickly," he said.
> 
> ...


----------



## LDC (Jun 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Protect the NHS, die at home.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I worked in a hospital through this and up until the end of April, and I keep meaning to write something about the feelings and general state of where I was working to give this some context and feel for the over-riding state of panic and stress that played a part of this thing.


----------



## Cid (Jun 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> So, it's turned out to be about a 50/50 split in terms of interpretation. Some of us (me included) think this is about what makes sense, healthwise.
> 
> The others say they get that, but have still decided to interpret it as 'I am my own household'. This while we had the conversation, several of us, sitting round the table in the shared kitchen.
> 
> ...



It sounds a bit dodgy in legal interpretation anyway... I mean do you all pay council tax separately? And there’d be a bunch of stuff like if you share bills, share the same address etc. Not that I know about housing law, just sounds dubious.

Though obviously multiple occupancy is increasingly common... but yeah, it would probably take an actual court case to decide it.


----------



## maomao (Jun 12, 2020)

I think Mation 's flatmates are right (legally at least). This is from a landlord's guide to HMOs.



> For the purposes of HMOs, a household is considered to be a single person, or members of the same family living in the same property. So, for example, three unrelated people in three rooms would make up three households, while a property with two couples would make up two households.











						HMOs or House in Multiple Occupation: a landlord's guide
					

If you manage houses in multiple occupation (HMO) or are going to, this guide will help you understand landlords' responsibilities, regulations and licences.




					www.simplybusiness.co.uk


----------



## Sue (Jun 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> I think Mation 's flatmates are right (legally at least). This is from a landlord's guide to HMOs.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, though of course 'legally' isn't really the point...


----------



## killer b (Jun 12, 2020)

I've been looking quite hard for some kind of guidance on what defines a household in relation to HMOs for the purpose of covid restrictions, and as far as I can tell it doesn't really exist - all the guidance about HMOs is for landlords with some very vague stuff for tenants. Which I guess means Mation 's flatmates are free to interpret the rules as they please, in the absence of something definitive. I can only assume this is missing because the government don't really care about the safety of people living in HMOs...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> Which I guess means Mation 's flatmates are free to interpret the rules as they please...



Commonly known as 'doing a cummings'.


----------



## Supine (Jun 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Commonly known as 'doing a cummings'.



Or classic dom


----------



## elbows (Jun 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I worked in a hospital through this and up until the end of April, and I keep meaning to write something about the feelings and general state of where I was working to give this some context and feel for the over-riding state of panic and stress that played a part of this thing.



Well I understand in the sense that there was every reason to expect the health services to be overwhelmed in at least a few regions of the country. I remember hearing of the strange feelings people working in hospitals etc experienced once it became clear the surge that had already happened was it, that the tsunami people had gotten 'hyped up' to deal with was not coming beyond what they were already dealing with.

I dont have the evidence to claim that at least some of Londons hospitals would have been overwhelmed if it were not for the several ways that demand was artificially reduced, but I believe it remains a plausible possibility. After all, we know that in addition to the public health messages that encouraged too many people to stay at home and not seek help at the right moment, there was a period in the crucial weeks when the threshold for actually admitting patients who sought help was raised way above the norm, in London at least (we dont know if the same happened elsewhere).

The problem I have with this is that some of the entire point of protecting the NHS in the first place is lost if the protection is done by dissuading people who could have been saved from getting the right treatment at the right time. I know its more complicated than that, and they had to plan for reasonable worst-case scenarios, but the right balance was not struck. There would have been ways to do a bit of both, we could have had much clearer messaging about when people needed to seek medical help (ie the sort of care and awareness of the dangerous point of illness that the likes of Johnson ultimately benefited from) and if they had been a bit earlier with Nightingale they would have had slightly more wiggle room with the admissions policy.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jun 12, 2020)

Cerv said:


> you and your flatmates are a household. so can only form a bubble with one other person from outside.
> seems like one of the mind games C4 would make up for Big Brother to try and cause drama in the house.
> you could perhaps draw lots for who gets to pick a friend.
> 
> ...


You meet the other one down the zoo, surely?


----------



## LDC (Jun 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well I understand in the sense that there was every reason to expect the health services to be overwhelmed in at least a few regions of the country. I remember hearing of the strange feelings people working in hospitals etc experienced once it became clear the surge that had already happened was it, that the tsunami people had gotten 'hyped up' to deal with was not coming beyond what they were already dealing with.
> 
> I dont have the evidence to claim that at least some of Londons hospitals would have been overwhelmed if it were not for the several ways that demand was artificially reduced, but I believe it remains a plausible possibility. After all, we know that in addition to the public health messages that encouraged too many people to stay at home and not seek help at the right moment, there was a period in the crucial weeks when the threshold for actually admitting patients who sought help was raised way above the norm, in London at least (we dont know if the same happened elsewhere).
> 
> The problem I have with this is that some of the entire point of protecting the NHS in the first place is lost if the protection is done by dissuading people who could have been saved from getting the right treatment at the right time. I know its more complicated than that, and they had to plan for reasonable worst-case scenarios, but the right balance was not struck. There would have been ways to do a bit of both, we could have had much clearer messaging about when people needed to seek medical help (ie the sort of care and awareness of the dangerous point of illness that the likes of Johnson ultimately benefited from) and if they had been a bit earlier with Nightingale they would have had slightly more wiggle room with the admissions policy.



Yeah, totally. My idea of writing it was less to give a justifiable explanation for it, more to give a bit of a personal perspective on the chaos and fear that was rife in the NHS as this was coming down the road.


----------



## elbows (Jun 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, totally. My idea of writing it was less to give a justifiable explanation for it, more to give a bit of a personal perspective on the chaos and fear that was rife in the NHS as this was coming down the road.



I want to hear about it but do it when you are ready, hold onto the memories of what that period felt like and convey that stuff whenever it feels like the right time for you.


----------



## Mation (Jun 12, 2020)

Sue said:


> Yeah, though of course 'legally' isn't really the point...


Exactly.


killer b said:


> I've been looking quite hard for some kind of guidance on what defines a household in relation to HMOs for the purpose of covid restrictions, and as far as I can tell it doesn't really exist - all the guidance about HMOs is for landlords with some very vague stuff for tenants. Which I guess means Mation 's flatmates are free to interpret the rules as they please, in the absence of something definitive. I can only assume this is missing because the government don't really care about the safety of people living in HMOs...


Yup!

So if this is playing out around the country in houseshares and flatshares, the bubbles are fucked.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 12, 2020)

Are you allowed to have sex in a zoo?


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jun 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Are you allowed to have sex in a zoo?


Shippou-Sensei has that manga...


----------



## andysays (Jun 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Are you allowed to have sex in a zoo?


Asking for a friend?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Asking for a friend?


For me. I’m prepared to have sex anywhere and with anything right now


----------



## andysays (Jun 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> For me. I’m prepared to have sex anywhere and with anything right now


Is there a zoo in Leeds, or would you need to travel further?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Is there a zoo in Leeds, or would you need to travel further?


Unfortunately not - there’s a bird garden nearby that does have some primates though


----------



## LDC (Jun 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Unfortunately not - there’s a bird garden nearby that does have some primates though



Tropical World?


----------



## andysays (Jun 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Unfortunately not - there’s a bird garden nearby that does have some primates though


What time does it open on Monday?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Tropical World?


Those koi carp have nice looking mouths - do they have teeth?


----------



## Wilf (Jun 12, 2020)

In a time of crisis, all threads ultimately find their way to bestiality. Godwin's Law of the Pandemic.


----------



## andysays (Jun 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Those koi carp have nice looking mouths - do they have teeth?


I do hope you're going to start a thread recounting your experiences at Leeds Tropical World...


----------



## PD58 (Jun 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I worked in a hospital through this and up until the end of April, and I keep meaning to write something about the feelings and general state of where I was working to give this some context and feel for the over-riding state of panic and stress that played a part of this thing.



Does your experience reflect the NS article I posted above?


----------



## Mation (Jun 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Unfortunately not - there’s a bird garden nearby that does have some primates though


"some primates" 

Species <check>
Username <check>


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> "some primates"
> 
> Species <check>
> Username <check>


That's how I might get away with it!


----------



## Supine (Jun 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Are you allowed to have sex in a zoo?



Outdoors. Things like insect houses are still closed to the public.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 12, 2020)

Supine said:


> Outdoors. Things like insect houses are still closed to the public.


 Bit too vanilla for that


----------



## ddraig (Jun 12, 2020)

more on fuckbubbles








						Coronavirus bubbles: The great housemate sex dilemma
					

How will housemates choose who gets to have sex under the new rules?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Mation (Jun 12, 2020)

What the fuck is this, now?

'Gentle approach' to face covering rules


> 17:11
> *'Gentle approach' to face covering rules*
> Grant Shapps says transport use presents a challenge when it comes to keeping infections down, and says people should be "vigilant".
> He says people should continue to work from home where possible, and employers should do "everything in your power" to stop people going into work.
> He also says a "gentle approach" will initially be taken to enforcing new rules which make the wearing of face coverings compulsory on public transport in England from Monday.



I deferred going in to work until next week, to do something I need to be on site for, specifically because face coverings on public transport were supposed to be compulsory from Monday. 

But now it's not really very compulsory? Until when?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> What the fuck is this, now?
> 
> 'Gentle approach' to face covering rules
> 
> ...



These fucking clowns


----------



## 2hats (Jun 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> But now it's not really very compulsory? Until when?


Face _masks_ or face _coverings_?


----------



## Mation (Jun 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> Face _masks_ or face _coverings_?


Their wording is "coverings".


----------



## LDC (Jun 12, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Does your experience reflect the NS article I posted above?



It's not the same at all, but partly as I'm not a doctor, nor do I work in ICU. I was more thinking about the build-up to the actual peak and the general level of chaos, poor communication, and fear among the staff and in the hospital, and how that probably contributed to some poor decisions, which is probably even easier to see retrospectively.


----------



## LDC (Jun 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> What the fuck is this, now?
> 
> 'Gentle approach' to face covering rules
> 
> ...



That article does say it's compulsory, but the message is about it being about wearing it out of respect for others and giving advice as preferable to enforcement, but they'll enforce it if needed.

That's sensible, some people will have missed the media and not know, some people will need reminding, some people will forget to take it sometimes. This is a much more sensible position to start with.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That article does say it's compulsory, but the message is about it being about wearing it out of respect for others and giving advice as preferable to enforcement, but they'll enforce it if needed.


doesn't matter how gentle the staff are, i imagine there'll be some cutting remarks from other passengers.


----------



## LDC (Jun 12, 2020)

I guess people will be reminded with posters etc. and having some period of people getting used to it and not just being hit with a fine straight away is likely to actually end up with better compliance in the long term.


----------



## teqniq (Jun 12, 2020)

Why am I not surprised?









						Chief nurse was dropped from coronavirus briefings ‘after refusing to back Dominic Cummings’
					

Exclusive: Ruth May stopped from appearing shortly before press conference was due to take place




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## MrSki (Jun 13, 2020)

Lets not forget this justification for Cheltenham.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jun 13, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's not the same at all, but partly as I'm not a doctor, nor do I work in ICU. I was more thinking about the build-up to the actual peak and the general level of chaos, poor communication, and fear among the staff and in the hospital, and how that probably contributed to some poor decisions, which is probably even easier to see retrospectively.



Your postings have been really valuable, I was going to say please do write while it's still fresh, but I think Elbows is right - post when you are ready - that's more important.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 13, 2020)

What's the point of any of it, my park is jam packed with huge groups of people and little to no social distancing.


----------



## PursuedByBears (Jun 13, 2020)

nagapie said:


> What's the point of any of it, my park is jam packed with huge groups of people and little to no social distancing.


I think the whole social distancing thing is dying a death tbh, I'll be surprised if it's still a thing in a month's time. People are bored of it now and the consequences don't seem real anymore, goldfish memories.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jun 13, 2020)

nagapie said:


> What's the point of any of it, my park is jam packed with huge groups of people and little to no social distancing.


You can still take precautions and try to protect yourself and others.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 13, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> You can still take precautions and try to protect yourself and others.


Well that's kind of my point, everyone is doing what feels right to them. For me personally I have been in a number of 'bubbles' already for various reasons, all rule sanctioned ones, so not really representative of the majority so really observing rather than judging.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 14, 2020)

nagapie said:


> What's the point of any of it, my park is jam packed with huge groups of people and little to no social distancing.



I think a lot of peoplehave decided, probably correctly IMO, that what they do in the park isn't really the point. That doesn't mean they've given up or that they aren't living massively different lives.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 14, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I think a lot of peoplehave decided, probably correctly IMO, that what they do in the park isn't really the point. That doesn't mean they've given up or that they aren't living massively different lives.


Of course. Who couldn't be living a massively different life.
What I meant, albeit using lazy shorthand, is that lockdown on some levels is over and all this fuss over bubbling is pointless. People are deciding for themselves who they want to see and how. I find it hard to judge people meeting in the park, especially as I have had work and school through most of it.


----------



## BCBlues (Jun 14, 2020)

Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) Tweeted: Yesterday, across the UK, only 36 deaths were recorded with coronavirus - the lowest since 21 March. We are winning the battle against this horrible disease 

What a heartless dishonest prick, only ffs, these people have families left behind devastated. 
Trying to make it look good based on incomplete weekend figures too and boasting when at least 40,000 have died.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 14, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) Tweeted: Yesterday, across the UK, only 36 deaths were recorded with coronavirus - the lowest since 21 March. We are winning the battle against this horrible disease
> 
> What a heartless dishonest prick, only ffs, these people have families left behind devastated.
> Trying to make it look good based on incomplete weekend figures too and boasting when at least 40,000 have died.



The man's a half-witted cunt.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 14, 2020)

'only'


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 14, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) Tweeted: Yesterday, across the UK, only 36 deaths were recorded with coronavirus - the lowest since 21 March. We are winning the battle against this horrible disease
> 
> What a heartless dishonest prick, only ffs, these people have families left behind devastated.
> Trying to make it look good based on incomplete weekend figures too and boasting when at least 40,000 have died.



Double dishonesty cos this is a weekend figure, as he will know. Tomorrow will also be low, followed by a sharp rise on Tuesday, as every week.

Eta sorry you said that already. Missed the bottom bit


----------



## BCBlues (Jun 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Double dishonesty cos this is a weekend figure, as he will know. Tomorrow will also be low, followed by a sharp rise on Tuesday, as every week.
> 
> Eta sorry you said that already. Missed the bottom bit



No problem. It needs reiterating.  
He's so smug he probably thinks we dont realise these sort of things.


----------



## teqniq (Jun 15, 2020)

Disgusting.









						Migrant healthcare staff still paying NHS fee despite Johnson U-turn
					

Many NHS workers charged £400 to use health service after PM said he would axe surcharge




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 15, 2020)

Absolute bloody chaos in Oxford Street, massive queues with no regard for social distancing, and people pushing & fighting to get into Nike Town.  



> Shoppers pushed and shoved each other out of the way to be the first in the store at Nike Town in Oxford Circus as it reopened on Monday for the first time since lockdown began.
> 
> About 400 people queued up outside the shop in Oxford Street, ready to get their hands on sports gear when doors opened at 10am. Security had to step in and limit groups to about 10 entering at one time after people started pushing at the front of the queue.
> 
> An eyewitness said: “It was mainly ‘lads’ pushing at the front. Shoving each other. "There were some fists. There was maybe 400 people here in line before 10am.”











						Shops reopen doors amid pushing and shoving to get into NikeTown
					

Around 100 people can be in the store at any one time, staff said




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## teuchter (Jun 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Absolute bloody chaos in Oxford Street, massive queues with no regard for social distancing,


Looks like one moderate queue for one shop in an otherwise pretty empty street to me.

Absolute chaos at Primark though. Complete mayhem. Look at the size of the crowd. OMG etc


----------



## MickiQ (Jun 15, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Looks like one moderate queue for one shop in an otherwise pretty empty street to me.
> 
> Absolute chaos at Primark though. Complete mayhem. Look at the size of the crowd. OMG etc
> 
> View attachment 217761


Presumably the young lady in the middle with her friends is desperate for a new pair of jeans


----------



## killer b (Jun 15, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Presumably the young lady in the middle with her friends is desperate for a new pair of jeans


hi dad, when did you start posting on urban??


----------



## MickiQ (Jun 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> hi dad, when did you start posting on urban??


It's not them of course but with masks on I could easily imagine this being my youngest with a couple of her mates, She informs me that there are people sleeping in doorways who have  a greater sense of fashion than I do.


----------



## Ranbay (Jun 15, 2020)

What lockdown? 

been to work today, people are stating to come back to my offices....
been shops and got a burger king, got my tyre changed at Kwickfit and now im home and watering the garden.

most pople seem to not give a fuck near me now


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## muscovyduck (Jun 15, 2020)

The thing is, if all your clothes were from Primark (because that's all you can afford) then a lot of them won't have lasted through lockdown. That's how fast fashion works.


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## MickiQ (Jun 15, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> The thing is, if all your clothes were from Primark (because that's all you can afford) then a lot of them won't have lasted through lockdown. That's how fast fashion works.


Youngest has more than one pair of fashionably ripped jeans, somewhat illogically they were more expensive and came from more upmarket shops than her unripped pairs.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 15, 2020)

Ranbay said:


> What lockdown?
> 
> been to work today, people are stating to come back to my offices....
> been shops and got a burger king, got my tyre changed at Kwickfit and now im home and watering the garden.
> ...


I don't understand. You've been out and about doing stuff and you were annoyed to see other people out and about doing stuff?

Or have I misunderstood?


----------



## editor (Jun 15, 2020)

One corononavirus hotspot coming right up. They even got a sign made for the 'quarantine rave'


----------



## editor (Jun 15, 2020)

There was a huge queue outside Sports-fucking-Direct in Brixton today 















						In photos: massive queue in Brixton as lockdown eases and shops reopen, Mon 15th June 2020
					

This was the huge queue seen outside Sports Direct in Pope’s Road, Brixton today, with the line of people stretching all the way into Atlantic Road.



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## clicker (Jun 15, 2020)

editor said:


> There was a huge queue outside Sports-fucking-Direct in Brixton today
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They were advertising 50% off for all NHS staff today.


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## Artaxerxes (Jun 15, 2020)

My how we've all missed rampant consumerism.


----------



## editor (Jun 15, 2020)

clicker said:


> They were advertising 50% off for all NHS staff today.


Even if they were giving away stuff they'd still be a shitty company 









						Sports Direct workers say they're being forced to work despite being on furlough
					

Staff have reportedly been asked to volunteer to go into stores one day a week to help clear through stock, despite the entire team being placed on furlough last month




					www.mirror.co.uk
				











						The 7 most shocking testimonies from workers at Sports Direct
					

<p>The Committee heard a series of accounts of worker mistreatment, including staff being penalised for a short break to drink water and for taking time off work when ill</p>




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Jun 15, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> My how we've all missed rampant consumerism.


It's still been there, just via Amazon


----------



## clicker (Jun 16, 2020)

editor said:


> Even if they were giving away stuff they'd still be a shitty company
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes, but it might explain some of the queue.


----------



## zora (Jun 16, 2020)

Back at work for the second day (retail) and already so exasperated that there is no requirement for customers to wear face coverings. Yesterday someone promptly sneezed next to me without covering their sneeze in tissue or elbow, and someone just lengthily went about a complicated order for over 15 mins while coughing well covidy coughs and going "Haha, don't worry, just a tickly throat". FUCK OFF!!! It's at best massively insensitive and at worst a massive health hazard. He was talking to one of our managers who is the type to never stand up to a customer. I beat a hasty retreat to my lunch break, hoping the shop will air out over the next hour...
It's just not cool at all.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 16, 2020)

zora are people allowed to browse? Or is it just click and collect?


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## zora (Jun 16, 2020)

They are allowed to browse, much to my dismay. Having said that, the vast majority of people are behaving totally fine, and it is, as ever, just a couple of arseholes ruining it all...


----------



## sojourner (Jun 16, 2020)

zora said:


> Back at work for the second day (retail) and already so exasperated that there is no requirement for customers to wear face coverings. Yesterday someone promptly sneezed next to me without covering their sneeze in tissue or elbow, and someone just lengthily went about a complicated order for over 15 mins while coughing well covidy coughs and going "Haha, don't worry, just a tickly throat". FUCK OFF!!! It's at best massively insensitive and at worst a massive health hazard. He was talking to one of our managers who is the type to never stand up to a customer. I beat a hasty retreat to my lunch break, hoping the shop will air out over the next hour...
> It's just not cool at all.



I don't understand why masks aren't required in shops either. They should be, given that no fucker is actually distancing any more, not round our way anyway.

That's fucking shit behaviour zora , sorry you have to put up with that


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## Orang Utan (Jun 16, 2020)

Are you quarantining books that have been rummaged through? Though that sounds unmanageable. We’re only doing click n collect in my library but that will exclude a lot of customers


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## Ranbay (Jun 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't understand. You've been out and about doing stuff and you were annoyed to see other people out and about doing stuff?
> 
> Or have I misunderstood?



Nope not annoyed at all, just pointing out people don't seem to care much anymore near me.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 16, 2020)

Ranbay said:


> Nope not annoyed at all, just pointing out people don't seem to care much anymore near me.


Your doppelganger across town is probably saying the same thing about you.

I kind of file that alongside 'people complaining about how many people there were in the park when they went to the park'. As with the park people, I suspect the now-out-and-about-doing-stuff people won't have much of an effect on the decline in infection rates either.


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## Roadkill (Jun 17, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> My how we've all missed rampant consumerism.



Aye, and although you'd get the impression from the media that it's just working-class folk queuing to get into Primark, 'luxury' shopping centres have been bursting at the seams as well.


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## maomao (Jun 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Aye, and although you'd get the impression from the media that it's just working-class folk queuing to get into Primark, 'luxury' shopping centres have been bursting at the seams as well.


Plenty of working class people (those with cars anyway) go to Bicester. It's outlet innit.


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## Roadkill (Jun 17, 2020)

maomao said:


> Plenty of working class people (those with cars anyway) go to Bicester. It's outlet innit.



I know, but it's still a counterpoint to the implied sneering in the press at poor people queuing up for cheap jeans.


----------



## LDC (Jun 17, 2020)

Feels creepingly close to slipping into describing people's class by the brand of the jeans they wear here....


----------



## andysays (Jun 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Feels creepingly close to slipping into describing people's class by the brand of the jeans they wear here....


Anyone who wears jeans is irredeemably lower class, surely...


----------



## teuchter (Jun 17, 2020)

When you look at the deaths per head of population numbers, the UK is broadly similar to Spain and Italy. But these graphs show the Z-number which as I understand it is a way of measuring excess deaths. So why is Italy's peak less than half of the one for Spain or for England?




from here Graphs and maps from EUROMOMO


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> When you look at the deaths per head of population numbers, the UK is broadly similar to Spain and Italy. But these graphs show the Z-number which as I understand it is a way of measuring excess deaths. So why is Italy's peak less than half of the one for Spain or for England?
> 
> View attachment 218025
> 
> ...


I've been suspicious of some of that data for a while. There is a totally unexplained anomaly in England as well, not mirrored at all in Wales or Scotland, which makes me suspect some problems with these things - probably not comparing like with like. It's not a great time for reliable statistics anywhere, tbh.


----------



## kabbes (Jun 17, 2020)

I worry that opening up general retail is a lot riskier than food retail and outdoor activities.  We know the virus is mostly spread by touch.  People shopping for non essentials do a lot of picking things up for a look and then putting them back again.  In an enclosed space.  This can’t be good.


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## Teaboy (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> When you look at the deaths per head of population numbers, the UK is broadly similar to Spain and Italy. But these graphs show the Z-number which as I understand it is a way of measuring excess deaths. So why is Italy's peak less than half of the one for Spain or for England?
> 
> View attachment 218025
> 
> ...



Go on, I'll have a guess.  Though, lets face it, its almost certainly to do with the way the data is collected and presented.

Anyway, I remember something being said when Italy was first being hit hard that they had the 3rd oldest population in the world.  Could this be a factor in that more of those who were dying in Italy may have reasonably been expected to die this year anyway?


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## kabbes (Jun 17, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Anyway, I remember something being said when Italy was first being hit hard that they had the 3rd oldest population in the world.  Could this be a factor in that more of those who were dying in Italy may have reasonably been expected to die this year anyway?


That would barely make a dent.  Even an 80 year old in moderately poor health only has a fairly small chance of death within one year.


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## Teaboy (Jun 17, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I worry that opening up general retail is a lot riskier than food retail and outdoor activities.  We know the virus is mostly spread by touch.  People shopping for non essentials do a lot of picking things up for a look and then putting them back again.  In an enclosed space.  This can’t be good.



Clearly its primarily being driven by economic necessity.  Just as the next phase of re-openings will be.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I worry that opening up general retail is a lot riskier than food retail and outdoor activities.  We know the virus is mostly spread by touch.  People shopping for non essentials do a lot of picking things up for a look and then putting them back again.  In an enclosed space.  This can’t be good.


Tbh I suspect that having a hand cleaning station at the entrance to every shop and insisting that everyone use it is probably the best thing shops can do. More so than insisting on masks, which most won't do anyway for fear of losing customers. And there is solid evidence after all that hand washing is the single most effective preventative measure.

Also how you provide the facility matters. In Aldi near me they have a prominent, well equipped cleaning station that is pretty well used, more used than the more discreet facilities I've seen elsewhere e.g. in Waitrose. That lesson should have been learned by now tbh - bit like the fag butt trays on bins: make things easy for people and they will change their behaviour.


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## teuchter (Jun 17, 2020)

kabbes said:


> We know the virus is mostly spread by touch.


Do we know this?


----------



## maomao (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> When you look at the deaths per head of population numbers, the UK is broadly similar to Spain and Italy. But these graphs show the Z-number which as I understand it is a way of measuring excess deaths. So why is Italy's peak less than half of the one for Spain or for England?
> 
> View attachment 218025
> 
> ...


Less care homes due to extended family households so less hidden deaths that weren't in the first lot of figures? Or a slower or less reliable statistic agency so not all deaths for that period added yet? Just guesses.


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## teuchter (Jun 17, 2020)

maomao said:


> Less care homes due to extended family households so less hidden deaths that weren't in the first lot of figures? Or a slower or less reliable statistic agency so not all deaths for that period added yet? Just guesses.


That would explain the "deaths from covid19" being under-reported but they seem to match the UK's. That's why it's strange that these "excess" deaths seem to be fewer.


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## elbows (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> When you look at the deaths per head of population numbers, the UK is broadly similar to Spain and Italy. But these graphs show the Z-number which as I understand it is a way of measuring excess deaths. So why is Italy's peak less than half of the one for Spain or for England?
> 
> from here Graphs and maps from EUROMOMO



Z-scores have their limits and their uses. I mostly prefer the raw data. I am not at all capable of properly explaining z-scores and their limitations, but here is an informative paper which is helpfully written in the context of this pandemic and discusses other options such as p-scores.









						No. 2020-11 - Measuring excess mortality: the case of England during…
					

Excess mortality data avoid miscounting deaths from under-reporting of Covid-19-related deaths and other health conditions left untreated. According to EuroMOMO, which tracks excess mortality for 24 European states, England had the highest peak weekly excess mortality in total, for the over-65s,…




					www.inet.ox.ac.uk
				




Unfortunately when it comes to the raw numbers, public data from Italy lags behind, so there are some limits to what I can say. However they were around 40,000 excess deaths in Italy shown in the available data, compared to getting on for 60,000 for the UK, so I would not say that Italy is all that similar to the UK really. Timing of their peak and expected deaths in normal times for those weeks would also be expected to make a difference to z-scores, plus at no stage did Italy record over twice as many deaths in a week as normal, but the UK did. eg at the peak week Italy had 9441 excess deaths beyond the 11515 expected, compared to 11761 excess deaths on top of the 10589 expected for the UK. Thats just one week so I'm not trying to tell the whole story, but its an example of the sort of thing that would make a difference to z-scores.



littlebabyjesus said:


> I've been suspicious of some of that data for a while. There is a totally unexplained anomaly in England as well, not mirrored at all in Wales or Scotland, which makes me suspect some problems with these things - probably not comparing like with like. It's not a great time for reliable statistics anywhere, tbh.



What unexplained anomoly? The z-score in England for under 65s? I doubt that is a data error at all, it probably indicates a real phenomenon here. Probably a mix of reasons for it. And will show up more dramatically in z-scores because differences from the norm will show up a lot in such scores, perhaps resulting in more dramatic scores for that age range than you'd expect. I seem to recall producing a whole bunch of graphs some time ago that showed all deaths per week in a wide range of age groups (not lumping everyone from 15-64 together) from ONS England & Wales data and the pattern of pandemic death was on display quite obviously in these graphs as soon as we got to ages of 35+. Ah yes I've just found my old graphs of this, here are a couple of examples. I would find it much stranger if this data had not shown up in our z-scores!



Comparisons between UK and Italy were very useful for estimating the timing of our epidemic, but I wouldnt want to stretch the comaprisons so far. For example the story in Italy was very much one of regional outbreak, Lombardy dominates their stats in a way that no single region of the UK does.


----------



## andysays (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Do we know this?


I was wondering this.

We know it can be spread by touch, as well as by air bourne particles from sneezes etc, but is there any data to suggest which of the two methods is more likely, in theory or in practice?.

Doesn't necessarily make a difference to the general point that opening shops without enough precautions may lead to a rise in transmissions.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

andysays said:


> I was wondering this.
> 
> We know it can be spread by touch, as well as by air bourne particles from sneezes etc, but is there any data to suggest which of the two methods is more likely, in theory or in practice?.
> 
> Doesn't necessarily make a difference to the general point that opening shops without enough precautions may lead to a rise in transmissions.


There are three methods. Touch, direct airborne transmission from sneezes etc, and build-up over time of aerosols in the air in enclosed spaces. Shops should be ok with the last two tbh as long as they don't get very overcrowded. Supermarkets have been ok in that regard, after all. Was a big problem pre-lockdown cos of ignorance - I suspect aerosol transmission as the prime suspect for the deaths of bus drivers who contracted c19 pre-lockdown, for instance.

Regarding evidence, I don't know of too much, but one very solid piece of evidence for the power of aerosol transmission in crowded enclosed spaces was the mass infection caused by the Christian gathering in South Korea.


----------



## andysays (Jun 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There are three methods. Touch, direct airborne transmission from sneezes etc, and build-up over time of aerosols in the air in enclosed spaces. Shops should be ok with the last two tbh as long as they don't get very overcrowded. Supermarkets have been ok in that regard, after all. Was a big problem pre-lockdown cos of ignorance - I suspect aerosol transmission as the prime suspect for the deaths of bus drivers who contracted c19 pre-lockdown, for instance.


That all sounds reasonable, but my question was more is there actually any statistical evidence to back it up?


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## zora (Jun 17, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I worry that opening up general retail is a lot riskier than food retail and outdoor activities.  We know the virus is mostly spread by touch.  People shopping for non essentials do a lot of picking things up for a look and then putting them back again.  In an enclosed space.  This can’t be good.



My understanding is the complete opposite, and in fact, the emphasis on hand-sanitizing and hand-washing above face masks and looking at ventilation has been my pet gripe for a while now.
As I have said on several different threads already, the German virologist who has been doing the majority of the science education on this matter in Germany warned as early as March that he feared that too much attention was being given to wiping down keyboards and lift buttons at the expense of distance (this was pre-lockdown).

I am happy to stand corrected but in my understanding there are no proven cases of transmission via touching objects, at least in every day life/in the community (though of course absence of proof does not prove that it is impossible). High risk environments like hospitals might be a different matter. 
The experiments that have shown the virus to survive for x hours on y surface were done under lab conditions and with huge amounts of virus, not replicating every day situations.

What was underestimated initially, was the aerosol transmission. Iirc initially it was assumed that you'd have to catch a larger droplet from an infected person (when speaking or sneezing), but since then, the aerosol transmission via build up over a prolonged period has become more of a focus. Which I believe is now also thought to be behind some of the "super-spreader" events like the choir rehearsal in Berlin in March when 60 out 80 people are thought to have become infected at one rehearsal. Hugging and chatting there may of course also have been factors, as well as the aerosol build up.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

andysays said:


> That all sounds reasonable, but my question was more is there actually any statistical evidence to back it up?


Sure. I was clarifying the question rather than providing an answer.  

I agree that we need much more evidence on this. Direct transmission via droplets - the thing we're all most paranoid about with our social distancing etc - is the only one of the three that requires direct proximity to the carrier in time and place, but I suspect it's probably the least important of the three in terms of ongoing risks.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

zora said:


> What was underestimated initially, was the aerosol transmission. Iirc initially it was assumed that you'd have to catch a larger droplet from an infected person (when speaking or sneezing), but since then, the aerosol transmission via build up over a prolonged period has become more of a focus. Which I believe is now also thought to be behind some of the "super-spreader" events like the choir rehearsal in Berlin in March when 60 out 80 people are thought to have become infected at one rehearsal. Hugging and chatting there may of course also have been factors, as well as the aerosol build up.


Singing was strongly implicated at the South Korea Christian thing as well. We should probably all be muttering to each other quietly atm.

And the week before lockdown, how many people caught it via aerosol on rush hour tube trains? I hate to think.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 17, 2020)

Won't someone think of the wealthy, so cruelly ignored during these difficult times?




__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


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## Doodler (Jun 17, 2020)

From quite early on the official sceptical line about masks seemed suspect. When Xi Jinping wore a mask during a visit to Wuhan that appeared as a pretty good recommendation. General widespread use of masks throughout east Asia was worth taking note of - why not learn from those who are more experienced than you? But some Westerners thought they knew better.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

Doodler said:


> From quite early on the official sceptical line about masks seemed suspect. When Xi Jinping wore a mask during a visit to Wuhan that appeared as a pretty good recommendation. General widespread use of masks throughout east Asia was worth taking note of - why not learn from those who are more experienced than you? But some Westerners thought they knew better.


Hmmm. People in East Asia have worn masks _when ill_ for years. But in a normal year, you still see a rather large number of people around the place in masks. It clearly doesn't work that well.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 17, 2020)

Understanding of the relative transmission risks is something that I might have expected we'd have quite a lot more of than we apparently do - now nearly six months into this thing from the first cases in China. But it still seems very vague and uncertain.

I don't know if that's because the information is there but isn't being communicated - or because research is focused on medicines and vaccines instead - or because it's something that's very hard to identify and which lab type tests don't really help with.


----------



## andysays (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Understanding of the relative transmission risks is something that I might have expected we'd have quite a lot more of than we apparently do - now nearly six months into this thing from the first cases in China. But it still seems very vague and uncertain.
> 
> I don't know if that's because the information is there but isn't being communicated - or because research is focused on medicines and vaccines instead - or because it's something that's very hard to identify and which lab type tests don't really help with.


I suspect that there is a significant element of the third of those, ie the difficulty of actually measuring in any realistic way by what means it's most frequently spread.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 17, 2020)

Indeed - in an enclosed environment with people who are infected you're liable to breathe stuff in directly or indirectly that's hung about in the air, or touch stuff that they've touched and then stick your finger up your nose.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 17, 2020)

Doodler said:


> From quite early on the official sceptical line about masks seemed suspect. When Xi Jinping wore a mask during a visit to Wuhan that appeared as a pretty good recommendation. General widespread use of masks throughout east Asia was worth taking note of - why not learn from those who are more experienced than you? But some Westerners thought they knew better.



Its not really about _some_ _Westerners knowing better_ though is it?  In the UK the Government and Government scientific advise is still very luke warm on masks and gloves, to say the least.  You can't really blame people for not wearing face coverings when the people at the top (including the really qualified ones) are far more concerned with social distancing and regular hand washing and are still really loathed to come out in support of face coverings except in specific situations.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Hmmm. People in East Asia have worn masks _when ill_ for years. But in a normal year, you still see a rather large number of people around the place in masks. It clearly doesn't work that well.



The WHO and in the United States the CDC both reversed their initial opposition to public use of masks. They must have had good reason. CNBC reports how some people took on board the anti-mask message and disregarded the subsequent reversal:

Why scientists change their minds

No problem finding online references to studies supporting mask use. The South China Morning Post has some informative pieces, one headed with an illustration of a dim-looking European at odds with a Chinese woman.

WHO makes U-turn


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

Doodler said:


> The WHO and in the United States the CDC both reversed their initial opposition to public use of masks. They must have had good reason. CNBC reports how some people took on board the anti-mask message and disregarded the subsequent reversal:
> 
> Why scientists change their minds
> 
> ...


Yeah we did all this pre-lockdown tbh. Studies showing that wearing a mask makes no difference except when combined with regular hand washing and when masks are worn correctly. Wearing a mask incorrectly and fiddling with the damn thing all the time could easily be counterproductive. 

And on the broader point, there has been a massive long-term real-life 'study' going on in Japan and elsewhere whereby people with colds wear masks in public. That study's results don't point to such a practice being all that effective in preventing the spread of colds.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 17, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its not really about _some_ _Westerners knowing better_ though is it?



Yes it was. There were influential people who began by stating that masks were pointless then mounting evidence compelled them to reverse that view. Exception: there may have been a Machiavellian motive (which would at least show signs of intelligence) in dissuading public use so hospitals could still obtain stock.


----------



## Raheem (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Understanding of the relative transmission risks is something that I might have expected we'd have quite a lot more of than we apparently do - now nearly six months into this thing from the first cases in China. But it still seems very vague and uncertain.
> 
> I don't know if that's because the information is there but isn't being communicated - or because research is focused on medicines and vaccines instead - or because it's something that's very hard to identify and which lab type tests don't really help with.


Think it's just something that it is practically very difficult. You can't observe how the transmissions are happening. You can surmise things by looking at the circumstances where transmission is happening, but probably only with limited confidence.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah we did all this pre-lockdown tbh. Studies showing that wearing a mask makes no difference except when combined with regular hand washing and when masks are worn correctly. Wearing a mask incorrectly and fiddling with the damn thing all the time could easily be counterproductive.
> 
> And on the broader point, there has been a massive long-term real-life 'study' going on in Japan and elsewhere whereby people with colds wear masks in public. That study's results don't point to such a practice being all that effective in preventing the spread of colds.



Colds make people sneeze, Covid-19 does not (yet).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Exception: there may have been a Machiavellian motive (which would at least show signs of intelligence) in dissuading public use so hospitals could still obtain stock.


Quite plausible, I'd have thought. There could also be a similar motive in play now to encourage people back to work by reversing the decision and forcing mask-wearing, of course.


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## Teaboy (Jun 17, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Yes it was. There were influential people who began by stating that masks were pointless then mounting evidence compelled them to reverse that view. Exception: there may have been a Machiavellian motive (which would at least show signs of intelligence) in dissuading public use so hospitals could still obtain stock.



Well, fwiw I come down on the side that they must do something useful.  I also think their effectiveness can be way overstated.  I would suggest the success (so far) in countries where mask wearing is commonplace is far more to do with their governments response having had their fingers severely burnt in the past.

I think they are a nice and polite thing and they probably help a bit.  A functional and even half sensible government is whats really required.  We can point to a lot of Europe wear no one was wearing face coverings and its still very patchy and the virus has not really had a massive impact.


----------



## kabbes (Jun 17, 2020)

zora said:


> My understanding is the complete opposite, and in fact, the emphasis on hand-sanitizing and hand-washing above face masks and looking at ventilation has been my pet gripe for a while now.
> As I have said on several different threads already, the German virologist who has been doing the majority of the science education on this matter in Germany warned as early as March that he feared that too much attention was being given to wiping down keyboards and lift buttons at the expense of distance (this was pre-lockdown).
> 
> I am happy to stand corrected but in my understanding there are no proven cases of transmission via touching objects, at least in every day life/in the community (though of course absence of proof does not prove that it is impossible). High risk environments like hospitals might be a different matter.
> ...


Fair enough


----------



## elbows (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Understanding of the relative transmission risks is something that I might have expected we'd have quite a lot more of than we apparently do - now nearly six months into this thing from the first cases in China. But it still seems very vague and uncertain.



Its on my quite long list of things I would have hoped humanity would have a good handle on long before this pandemic started, but we just dont. For a whole multitude of reasons it seems, including the difficulty in really discovering the answers to everyones satisfaction, but probably also a variety of avoidable crapness including crap priorities and a preference for lazily relying on existing dogma rather than inquisitiveness at all times on all matters.

Here is another recent example. I expected some greater attention to this aspect due to some of the tentative lessons from a few specific SARS outbreaks and the mode of transmission, but even when I was disturbing people by mentioning anal swabs I expected to see a sort of half-baked answer revealing itself in really frustrating slow motion. Constipation of the knowledge accrual bowels perhaps.









						Flushing 'can propel viral infection 3ft into air'
					

Flushing the toilet with the lid up creates a cloud of spray that may spread infection, study finds.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Flushing the toilet with the lid up creates a cloud of spray that can be breathed in and may spread infection, such as coronavirus, say researchers.
> 
> Chinese scientists calculate that flushing can propel a plume of spray up and out of the toilet bowl, reaching head height and beyond.
> 
> ...


----------



## freakydave (Jun 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Hmmm. People in East Asia have worn masks _when ill_ for years. But in a normal year, you still see a rather large number of people around the place in masks. It clearly doesn't work that well.



It's more common to wear masks in East Asia because of pollution than illness


----------



## teuchter (Jun 17, 2020)

freakydave said:


> It's more common to wear masks in East Asia because of pollution than illness


This is not true in Japan, at least.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> This is not true in Japan, at least.


Not true at all in Japan. People wear masks out of politeness when they have a cold in Japan.


----------



## elbows (Jun 17, 2020)

Regarding masks, sometimes I like to find past moments in time in this thread where a subject came up and got a bit of a conversation going.

Theres a page and a half of conversation about masks that took place around April 7th and looking back at it now I find it a somewhat informative snapshot of feelings at the time. If it looks like I got any predictions about this right during that bit of conversation, its only because this was absolutely one of the easiest things to predict in this pandemic, along with WHO not recommending border closures in the early days and not declaring it a pandemic at the first timely opportunity.

           #6,710


----------



## elbows (Jun 17, 2020)

Oh dear I just remembered Hancocks 'a front door is better than any mask', which I think was just days after that bit of conversation.


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 17, 2020)

zora said:


> My understanding is the complete opposite, and in fact, the emphasis on hand-sanitizing and hand-washing above face masks and looking at ventilation has been my pet gripe for a while now.
> As I have said on several different threads already, the German virologist who has been doing the majority of the science education on this matter in Germany warned as early as March that he feared that too much attention was being given to wiping down keyboards and lift buttons at the expense of distance (this was pre-lockdown).
> 
> I am happy to stand corrected but in my understanding there are no proven cases of transmission via touching objects, at least in every day life/in the community (though of course absence of proof does not prove that it is impossible). High risk environments like hospitals might be a different matter.
> ...



AFAIK fomite transmission happens with other coronaviruses, so it's highly likely it will with covid-19.  I'd agree that there's probably been too much emphasis on it as opposed to aerosol transmission, which is the main route, but it probably is a risk nevertheless.


----------



## Mation (Jun 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its on my quite long list of things I would have hoped humanity would have a good handle on long before this pandemic started, but we just dont. For a whole multitude of reasons it seems, including the difficulty in really discovering the answers to everyones satisfaction, but probably also a variety of avoidable crapness including crap priorities and a preference for lazily relying on existing dogma rather than inquisitiveness at all times on all matters.
> 
> Here is another recent example. I expected some greater attention to this aspect due to some of the tentative lessons from a few specific SARS outbreaks and the mode of transmission, but even when I was disturbing people by mentioning anal swabs I expected to see a sort of half-baked answer revealing itself in really frustrating slow motion. Constipation of the knowledge accrual bowels perhaps.
> 
> ...


Isn't that the whole - or at least main - purpose of having a lid on toilets?

If ever you see me running out of the loo in a pub or restaurant, it'll be because it doesn't have a lid. Granted it'll be my own 'toning mist', but I still don't want to be covered in it, and nor do I want to leave my produce unflushed  😬


----------



## Supine (Jun 17, 2020)

Some interesting research into the significance of masks in stopping transmission.









						Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19
					

We have elucidated the transmission pathways of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by analyzing the trend and mitigation measures in the three epicenters. Our results show that the airborne transmission route is highly virulent and dominant for the spread of COVID-19. The mitigation measures...




					www.pnas.org
				




edited to add - nice article from a Nobel laureates research team but it is getting a lot of criticism. That’s fast moving science for you.


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Here is another recent example. I expected some greater attention to this aspect due to some of the tentative lessons from a few specific SARS outbreaks and the mode of transmission, but even when I was disturbing people by mentioning anal swabs I expected to see a sort of half-baked answer revealing itself in really frustrating slow motion. Constipation of the knowledge accrual bowels perhaps.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I really wish I hadn't read this post just after a trip to the toilet.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 17, 2020)

Mation said:


> Isn't that the whole - or at least main - purpose of having a lid on toilets?
> 
> If ever you see me running out of the loo in a pub or restaurant, it'll be because it doesn't have a lid. Granted it'll be my own 'toning mist', but I still don't want to be covered in it, and nor do I want to leave my produce unflushed  😬



Work is annoying because none of the toilets have lids and the urinals been broken for months


----------



## teuchter (Jun 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I really wish I hadn't read this post just after a trip to the toilet.


I believe this subject was covered on this excellent thread.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I believe this subject was covered on this excellent thread.


Wasn’t excellent though, apart from the proposal in the OP. Some disgraceful childish behaviour from people who really ought to know better


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I believe this subject was covered on this excellent thread.



Thanks, but I'm about to cook dinner.  🤢


----------



## teuchter (Jun 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Thanks, but I'm about to cook dinner.  🤢


It's perfect after-dinner relaxation reading.


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It's perfect after-dinner relaxation reading.



I'll take your word for that!


----------



## Yossarian (Jun 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Hmmm. People in East Asia have worn masks _when ill_ for years. But in a normal year, you still see a rather large number of people around the place in masks. It clearly doesn't work that well.



In Hong Kong, it wasn't all that routine for people with colds etc. to wear masks - some did, some didn't. What seems to have spared the place a widespread coronavirus outbreak was the adoption of near-universal mask-wearing early on, which apparently stopped a lot of asymptomatic people infecting others.


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 17, 2020)

Changing the subject...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> In Hong Kong, it wasn't all that routine for people with colds etc. to wear masks - some did, some didn't. What seems to have spared the place a widespread coronavirus outbreak was the adoption of near-universal mask-wearing early on, which apparently stopped a lot of asymptomatic people infecting others.


Yeah, similar change of behaviour in Japan. In these covid times, they have taken to wearing masks much more quickly and readily than Europeans on public transport, etc. But there is a misconception that in non-covid times loads of people wear masks to protect against infection/pollution. Invariably it's the other way round - done to protect others from their cold. But the prevalence of colds still  in normal times certainly shows that it isn't all that effective.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 17, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> In Hong Kong, it wasn't all that routine for people with colds etc. to wear masks - some did, some didn't. *What seems to have spared the place a widespread coronavirus outbreak *was the adoption of near-universal mask-wearing early on, which apparently stopped a lot of asymptomatic people infecting others.



What's the evidence of the masks' significance in this?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Changing the subject...




That'll be the next u-turn.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> What's the evidence of the masks' significance in this?


It's all a bit stable door/bolted horse here in any case.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 17, 2020)

Get Rashford on it.


----------



## Yossarian (Jun 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> What's the evidence of the masks' significance in this?



I don't know if any study has comprehensively proven that mask-wearing limited the outbreak, but a grand total of 4 coronavirus deaths and around 1,100 infections in an extremely crowded city of more than 7 million people that had several flights arriving from Wuhan daily definitely suggests they did the right thing.

At the time, I thought people were being kind of foolish - I saw pictures of crowds of hundreds of people waiting in lines to get facemasks and thought "they're all going to get infected waiting for masks that aren't going to protect them" - I now realise I was completely wrong.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 17, 2020)

The WHO advice that halving the 2-metre rule will double the risk looks highly dubious to me. The virus count picked up within the cone of transmission - sort of thing - is hardly just going to double, surely it's going to be eight times (area is proportional to radius squared, volume proportional to radius cubed) as high.

Or not?


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That'll be the next u-turn.



Let's hope so.  Needs to get a bit more traction first though.  The Graun is reporting it but I don't think anyone else is.  Yet.


----------



## elbows (Jun 17, 2020)

Covid secure, Hancock style 



edit - oops I should have checked the Hancock thread.


----------



## elbows (Jun 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> A case has been detected in the intensive care unit at my local hospital (a hospital which often features high on the list of hospitals with serious issues):
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I posted that on March 9th, and then again about that hospital when that case died. Since then deaths at this hospital did have an obvious peak in April, but they have not fallen away to none or hardly any since then, the deaths persist.

Now its in the news because they are seeing plenty of new cases coming in. Apparently it was on the local BBC Midlands today news this evening but I wont have a chance to watch that for some time. And I know I am likely to get wound up by the poor sharing of info between various 'authorities' and management types and the public they are supposed to serve.









						Hospital's concern at 'significant' number of Covid-19 patients
					

Investigations are taking place with Public Health England and NHS England




					www.coventrytelegraph.net
				






> CoventryLive and our sister title the Nuneaton News were contacted by separate sources claiming there had been as many as 40 new Covid-19 admissions on Tuesday (June 16) alone. And while the hospital were unable to confirm numbers, Ms Athwal said there were concerns about consistent and significant numbers of patients presenting with Covid-19.



Zoom in during this phase I said, and sadly I cannot say I am shocked that my town and that hospital is one of those proving worthy of zooming in on 

Also note that I wouldnt rush to call this a second wave, its more likely the case that the first wave never ended here, but since I dont get local hospital admission data because of the way things are done in this country, I do not feel like I have enough of the picture with which to reach a proper judgement.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid secure, Hancock style
> 
> 
> 
> edit - oops I should have checked the Hancock thread.



Well worth repeating.


----------



## elbows (Jun 17, 2020)

Here is my latest attempt to chart the deaths in that hospital. You can probably see why I really need other local data on top of this to get a good idea of the picture, especially when zooming into a location of this size where the number of deaths per day is never that huge, and low numbers make it a bit harder to see trends with much detail. The line on this graph is a 7 day moving average. The admissions graph for this hospital would be of particular interest, but instead I just get clues via frustrated leakers.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 17, 2020)

Someone needs to look into the multi-million pound contracts that been awarded. It seems to be like the ferry one to a company with no ferries all over again.

It does have a stench of corruption but time will tell & hopefully their still a few proper journalists.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yeah, similar change of behaviour in Japan. In these covid times, they have taken to wearing masks much more quickly and readily than Europeans on public transport, etc. But there is a misconception that in non-covid times loads of people wear masks to protect against infection/pollution. Invariably it's the other way round - done to protect others from their cold. But the prevalence of colds still  in normal times certainly shows that it isn't all that effective.



I think the main factor in its ineffectiveness is critical mass. Only a fraction wore them and came into a lot of different contacts sigh different people.

I also get the impression they aren’t something worn at home or around family.


----------



## elbows (Jun 17, 2020)

By the way my focus on Nuneaton is largely due to it being the place I am most likely to see local news about. When I look at all the other hospital death graphs I would expect to see these sorts of stories in a whole bunch of other places across a number of regions. But as I keep saying, my info is limited when it comes to local stuff.


----------



## Mation (Jun 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid secure, Hancock style
> 
> 
> 
> edit - oops I should have checked the Hancock thread.



And even then they get it wrong. They're supposed to go through the middle, avoiding the taped-off areas close to the seats.


----------



## teqniq (Jun 18, 2020)

You really could not make this shit up:


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 18, 2020)

This has been known for a few weeks now.  When they said "we're following the science" they were in the strictest sense telling the truth.  The full truth is though that the scientists had told them the country has no capacity to achieve an effective track and trace system and there is a very limited ability to test so what testing can be done should be reserved for front line NHS workers.

So while the government was sorta telling the truth a more complete statement should have been 'We're hiding behind the scientists'.


----------



## teqniq (Jun 18, 2020)

It was the notes being mistakenly forwarded to the NYT I was referring to, and threats to local leaders. Incompetence upon incompetence with a garnish of nastiness.


----------



## Cerv (Jun 18, 2020)

England’s ‘World Beating’ System to Track the Virus Is Anything But (Published 2020)
					

Like a lot of the country’s pandemic response, contact tracing has been hampered by inconsistency, with much promised but little delivered.




					www.nytimes.com
				




always interesting to read foreign press about your own country. little things stand out like noticing they state as fact Cummings broke the lockdown restrictions, where the UK press apart from Private Eye are largely sticking to "accused of".


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 18, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> So while the government was sorta telling the truth a more complete statement should have been 'We're hiding behind the scientists'.


The "scientists" bit has always been a red herring. The public hear "we're following the advice from scientists" and imagine that means exclusively infectious disease and epidemic experts, when in fact it means behavioural and economic scientists as well.


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Incompetence upon incompetence with a garnish of nastiness.



With a large side order of dishonesty.  That's the Johnson government all over.


----------



## Supine (Jun 18, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> The "scientists" bit has always been a red herring. The public hear "we're following the advice from scientists" and imagine that means exclusively infectious disease and epidemic experts, when in fact it means behavioural and economic scientists as well.



plus it’s not ‘the science’ when scientists tell them they don’t have the resources due to years of austerity.


----------



## Mation (Jun 18, 2020)

teqniq said:


> You really could not make this shit up:
> 
> View attachment 218179


I think there's a post somewhere on this thread linking to someone working in an NHS lab who says that there was loads of unused testing capacity in the NHS, but that they weren't approached; the government favouring private labs instead. (I've searched, but can't find it.)

If I'm not misremembering, and if they're saying they didn't have the test capacity, would that be including NHS labs or did they just not even attempt to consider that?

Lots of ifs - sorry. (I also can't see the NYT article behind the paywall.)


----------



## Lurdan (Jun 18, 2020)

Once upon a time there was a Magic App which was to play a crucial role undepinnining the 'Test and Trace' system. First it was going to be ready in April. Then in May. And then it was going to be ready at the end of June.

Yesterday Lord Bethell told the Science and Technology Committee :


> "We're seeking to get something going for the winter, but it isn't the priority for us."





> When committee member Graham Stringer, MP for Blackley and Broughton, suggested the response sounded like an argument not to introduce the app at all, Lord Bethell said: "It was an expectations-management answer."



Winter is coming, and with it the UK's COVID-19 contact-tracing app – though health minister says it's not a priority - The Register


To confirm just how far away the not-so-magic app is from delivery, today the BBC are reporting 


> In a major U-turn, the UK is ditching the way its current coronavirus-tracing app works and shifting to a model based on technology provided by Apple and Google. The move comes the day after the BBC revealed that a former Apple executive, Simon Thompson, was taking charge of the late-running project.





> The Apple-Google design has been promoted as being more privacy-focused. However, it means epidemiologists will have access to less data. And questions remain about whether any smartphone-based system reliant on Bluetooth signals will be accurate enough to be useful.



UK virus-tracing app switches to Google-Apple model - BBC News


Lord Bethell had


> added that call centre-based contract tracing, where medical experts quiz those testing positive for COVID-19 about their recent contacts, was the focus of the department's efforts.



So how's that going ? Here's this week's Private Eye columns about it.


Spoiler: Private Eye












(And here's a link to an archived version of that NYT story :
England’s ‘World Beating’ System to Track Coronavirus Is Anything But - The New York Times)


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 18, 2020)

Despite living in Wales, I have no idea whether the contact processing process here (or in Scotland) is going any better than the shambles in England.




			
				New York Times said:
			
		

> Other nations within the United Kingdom, including Wales and Scotland, which are in charge of their own contact tracing, appointed public health officials to run their programs.



(I do know that some people within Swansea Council have been seconded to contact-tracing phone work, but all I know, anecdotally, is that they got off to a slow start a couple of weeks or so ago).


----------



## Numbers (Jun 18, 2020)

Just been reading this on the BBC.









						Coronavirus: Almost 100 staff at food factories test positive
					

The staff work at two different companies which supply food to hospitals, shops and restaurants.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## planetgeli (Jun 18, 2020)

All non-essential retail businesses to open in Wales from Monday.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 18, 2020)

So the app doesnt work on Apple devices. Brilliant foresight guys   

Honestly. I don't know how the cretins could fuck this whole shitstorm up any more.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 18, 2020)

Can someone summarise the current situation in England please. We seem to be moving towards normalcy while there are new outbreaks popping up in various places. Forgive me if I've got that wrong, I get my news from skim reading this thread.


----------



## Petcha (Jun 18, 2020)

Basically nobody in government, be they politicians or 'scientists' know what the fuck they're doing. Hope that helps


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 18, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Just been reading this on the BBC.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Obviously that's not a good thing, in a way though that's the sort of thing we should be seeing isn't it - it's an identified outbreak and they're following up on contacts etc. I mean they might well be fucking it up totally but in itself that's not the worst thing to read. It's better than 'x people were admitted to hospital of which y later died' with no more info.


----------



## philosophical (Jun 18, 2020)

I watched the briefing today, and it is generally accepted that Matthew Handcock is a world beating cunt of the first order, but he stands alongside the Dido person who appears to be an even bigger cunt.
How do they have the brass neck to stand there and spout this chite?
One of which was Handcock saying that as he was from Newmarket so he was wise enough to back both horses.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 18, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Basically nobody in government, be they politicians or 'scientists' know what the fuck they're doing. Hope that helps


That's not what I asked. I already know that  I'm asking if we have high numbers again.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 18, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Can someone summarise the current situation in England please. We seem to be moving towards normalcy while there are new outbreaks popping up in various places. Forgive me if I've got that wrong, I get my news from skim reading this thread.



The general trend in all key indicators is down, so in the right direction.  The trend line is certainly not as steep as it was but you would expect that after a significant peak and fall off.  To me (and it is just my take) the trend lines seem to be flattening out to a background level which was kind of expected and I guess, aimed for.  What it might mean is that (and increasingly we're all having to come to terms with this) we're reaching a level where the virus will be in the background for the foreseeable.  The phase when people talk about learning to live along side it.  Its worth remembering that one the key government 'tests' is not to avoid another peak but to avoid another peak that overwhelms the NHS.  Of course ideally they'd be no second peak etc but it's an important distinction and we have to be realistic with the outlook.

This being said Hancock was very upbeat today about vaccines and they are already manufacturing 'The Oxford Vaccine' on the basis that IF it does prove to work they will be in a strong position for immediate roll out.  This is clearly good planning but there's a bloody big 'IF' in that.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 18, 2020)

philosophical said:


> I watched the briefing today, and it is generally accepted that Matthew Handcock is a world beating cunt of the first order, but he stands alongside the Dido person who appears to be an even bigger cunt.
> How do they have the brass neck to stand there and spout this chite?
> One of which was Handcock saying that as he was from Newmarket so he was wise enough to back both horses.


Hancock, not Handcock


----------



## philosophical (Jun 18, 2020)

Bastard predictive texts huh.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Hancock, not Handcock



Dickhead not Hancock.


----------



## elbows (Jun 18, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> The general trend in all key indicators is down, so in the right direction.  The trend line is certainly not as steep as it was but you would expect that after a significant peak and fall off.  To me (and it is just my take) the trend lines seem to be flattening out to a background level which was kind of expected and I guess, aimed for.  What it might mean is that (and increasingly we're all having to come to terms with this) we're reaching a level where the virus will be in the background for the foreseeable.  The phase when people talk about learning to live along side it.  Its worth remembering that one the key government 'tests' is not to avoid another peak but to avoid another peak that overwhelms the NHS.  Of course ideally they'd be no second peak etc but it's an important distinction and we have to be realistic with the outlook.



As deaths dwindle to these levels, its an opportunity for not just nerds like me to zoom in, but also for various health authorities to do the same. Because some areas in particular will stick out in the ongoing death stats.

I would expect them to focus increasingly on hospitals like my local one where the deaths persist, and find out whether it is community transmission driving those ongoing cases, or whether people are catching it within the hospital itself. Usually whilst being rather mealy mouthed about it, and not giving us enough data to fully judge for ourselves. Weston hospital was probably the most obvious example so far because they went so far as to close their A&E for quite some time in order to deal with matters but I expect there are other stories all over the place and its rather variable as to whether we get to hear much about them.

The painfully slow revelations about the actual situation here with the George Eliot hospital has now reached the stage where they will at least mention that hospital acquired cases are one of the things they are looking at. But I am also reminded of the sometimes sloppy nature of journalism because in this latest article they use the word rise, which was not used in the previous article where the quote was actually given as 'The safety of our patients and staff is our priority so that’s why we are concerned to see a consistent, significant number of patients with Covid-19 in our hospital. In partnership with colleagues in Public Health England and NHS England/Improvement we are investigating the factors that could be behind this.'. There is a big difference between a consistent number of patients and a consistent rise, so which is it? 









						Details of investigation into hospital's 'significant' number of Covid-19 cases
					

Bosses at the George Eliot Hospital have revealed details of the ongoing investigation launched into the 'significant' number of patients with coronavirus there.




					www.coventrytelegraph.net
				






> A spokesman for the Eliot said they are trying to get to the root cause of the "significant and consistent" rise, which DaljitAthewal, director of nursing, said was a concern.
> 
> It is looking into whether people had come into the hospital with the virus or whether they caught it while being treated at the hospital.
> 
> ...



The chicken factory outbreak mentioned earlier today in this thread is a good example of a non-hospital version of what I'm going on about. Frankly I expected to hear much more about more specific outbreak locations by now, many local stories have not been told properly or at all so far I suspect, and there is more chance some of them will be told in this phase where such outbreaks should stick out a lot more and there are hopefully some resources to tackle them directly.


----------



## maomao (Jun 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Hancock, not Handcock


Or just 'cock' for short.


----------



## elbows (Jun 18, 2020)

And more news that fits with the previously mentioned 'zoom in' theme of mine. Perhaps I should start watching the press conferences again but I just cant face it, especially as I would rather have solid local data about these outbreaks rather than them just casually making reference to them.









						Leicester and Cleckheaton see coronavirus 'outbreak'
					

Leicester sees hundreds of confirmed cases in two weeks, while an outbreak in Yorkshire is reported.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> At the Downing Street briefing, Mr Hancock said there was an "outbreak right now in parts of Leicester" and that officials were working hard to track those affected.
> 
> He also mentioned a further clutch of cases in Kirklees, West Yorkshire.
> 
> Huddersfield Labour MP Barry Sheerman said the cases were apparently associated with a meat processing plant in Cleckheaton.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 18, 2020)

Abbatoirs and food handling places do seem particularly vulnerable. A few cases in Germany recently. But I agree with the point that hearing of this kind of outbreak is a sign of progress really. We've moved beyond the 'It's fucking everywhere' stage but we should still expect more small eruptions.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 18, 2020)

Worth thinking about why these places are so vulnerable as well. Not the nicest of places to work or the best paid or cared for workers. More stuff that needs to change for essential workers.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 18, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> *Worth thinking about why these places are so vulnerable as well.* Not the nicest of places to work or the best paid or cared for workers. More stuff that needs to change for essential workers.



So many stories of this kind are coming out during this pandemic -- and definitely not just in the UK.

But lets remember the broader picture too 

These places are 'vulnerable' to shit conditions, shit wages, questionable hygeine (sometimes, at least), and very much *not* least, industrial-scale slaughter of animals  


(I won't go further -- there's other threads for it -- sorry)


----------



## 20Bees (Jun 19, 2020)

The squalid and overcrowded accommodation used by the largely immigrant workforce in plants such as these, and in many agriculture based businesses, is as relevant as any hygiene or distancing protocols within the workplace.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 19, 2020)

20Bees said:


> The squalid and overcrowded accommodation used by the largely immigrant workforce in plants such as these, and in many agriculture based businesses, is as relevant as any hygiene or distancing protocols within the workplace.



Good point.  We've seen in Singapore that their outbreaks have been pretty much exclusively centered on the immigrant labourers who (as you say) live in squalid and overcrowded accommodation.


----------



## editor (Jun 19, 2020)

Down a level to 3















						Coronavirus: UK's Covid-19 alert level reduced from four to three
					

The virus is now "in general circulation" with a "gradual relaxation of restrictions" possible.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Jun 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Down a level to 3
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's all bullshit, wishful thinking, and (if we're lucky) hoping against hope, though, isn't it?

And "enhanced tracing" only kicks in when we reach level 2?


----------



## Chilli.s (Jun 19, 2020)

Level 3... a loada guff that means nothing.


----------



## killer b (Jun 19, 2020)

It doesn't mean nothing, it means this: 

_The third step in government's published plan, which it said was to take place "no earlier than 4 July", includes opening further non-essential services like hairdressers and beauty salons, restaurants, pubs and leisure facilities. _


----------



## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

Good to see the random mentioning of specific local outbreaks being criticised - we need proper, timely data and an end of the pandering to the instincts of authorities to keep things quiet.









						Coronavirus: 'Secrecy' claims over Cleckheaton outbreak
					

Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed on Thursday there had been a localised outbreak in Kirklees.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 19, 2020)

We made up a number, and we're reducing it. Trebles all round!


----------



## Petcha (Jun 19, 2020)

Did someone say hairdressers? I'm like a wooly fucking mammoth. This is good news!


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 19, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> We made up a number, and we're reducing it. Trebles all round!



I loved it when they invented a five point scale then told us we were at 3.5 on it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> It's all bullshit, wishful thinking, and (if we're lucky) hoping against hope, though, isn't it?
> 
> And "enhanced tracing" only kicks in when we reach level 2?


The idea that the govt is in control of this is bullshit and wishful thinking, but the idea that infection levels are way down now from peak - certainly below 10 % and probably below 5 % - isn't. It's indicated by all the data.


----------



## killer b (Jun 19, 2020)

It does seem to me that these announcements come quick on the heels of some significant PR disaster (this time the track & trace app clusterfuck). But then, there also seems to be a daily PR disaster, so it might just me my mind making up patterns out of absolute chaos.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 19, 2020)

The problem is the vagueness of the terms. What does 'low' mean for level 2, for instance. We're down from perhaps 2 to 4 million infected to perhaps 100 to 300 thousand. So what will low be? 50k? 2k? 36?


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## Spandex (Jun 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Down a level to 3


Should they still be using that chart? If we moved from Level 4 to Level 3 today, why has the measures for Level 3 (gradual relaxation of restrictions) been happening for over a month?


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## ska invita (Jun 19, 2020)

My prediction: imminently the Tories will announce a reduction in the 2 metre distancing - to 3 feet! A chance to loosen the rules AND get Imperial with the measurements.


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## xenon (Jun 19, 2020)

ska invita said:


> My prediction: imminently the Tories will announce a reduction in the 2 metre distancing - to 3 feet! A chance to loosen the rules AND get Imperial with the measurements.


Reducing it to 1m in Northern Ireland I heard on news earlier.


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## LDC (Jun 19, 2020)

Yup, totally going to go to 1m in England very soon. Driven by needs of business primarily.


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## Ms Ordinary (Jun 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Down a level to 3
> 
> 
> 
> ...



FWIW  I hadn't paid attention to the official alert level lately, so if you'd showed me that graphic and asked me where we were, based on minimal listening to radio reports about shops & zoos opening & how I see people behaving around me, I'd have guessed we were settled well into Level 2.

I am kind of shocked to see we are only 'just' leaving Level 4.


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## existentialist (Jun 19, 2020)

I work for an organisation whose CEO (a Brexit Party supporter ) has long gone on about how Dark Forces have been playing up the Covid-19 situation for their own Evil Ends, and is very critical of the Welsh Government for not following Westminster's line on lockdown.

I've just had a concerned email - I'm "caretaker" CEO while she's supposed to be recovering from a 3 week stay in intensive care - from one of the office team, to whom she has just sent an email saying, essentially, "any time you want to return to working in the office, I'd like that".  The problem seems to be that there's a disconnection in some minds from the reality of the situation and what Government announcements say - some people seem to believe that if "Boris" has said it's OK, then they're safe. The clear implication being that people (people, incidentally, like me) who are inclined to take a more cautious approach are discounted as being somehow timid or weak.

Because I am neither timid, nor weak, and because one of the office staff leaked the email to me - and saying that she has no intention of returning yet - I have responded to it by emailing the office staff to point out that a) Welsh Government guidelines would not permit them to work without proper social distancing - not achievable in that office - and to point out that if they feel (like I do) that the government guidelines aren't strong enough, the Society is certainly not going to look unfavourably on that decision. I have had a flurry of relieved responses from people who were clearly upset by the suggestion they should be returning to work.

It seems to me to be the height of irresponsibility that the UK government seems so willing to blur their fantasy of a return to normal with the reality - that we still don't have a decent test and trace system in place, the guidelines don't reflect the real risk (social distancing outside is a whole different ballgame from sitting in the same office as someone for several hours, even if you were 2m apart), and a series of decisions which have been shown with hindsight to have been predictably and fatally flawed.

Some people are not going to be able to stand up to managers who say "Right, that's it. 'Boris' says it's safe now, so get back into the office". It's abusive. It's reckless. And this tone is consistently being set by the Government, and it punishes the powerless, the voiceless, and those who perhaps don't have the insight (or elbows' posts) to help them make informed decisions.

It stinks. I'd like to think Johnston's chickens will come home to roost on this, but I'm not sure he'd notice or care if that happened.


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## Teaboy (Jun 19, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I work for an organisation whose CEO (a Brexit Party supporter ) has long gone on about how Dark Forces have been playing up the Covid-19 situation for their own Evil Ends, and is very critical of the Welsh Government for not following Westminster's line on lockdown.
> 
> I've just had a concerned email - I'm "caretaker" CEO while she's supposed to be recovering from a 3 week stay in intensive care - from one of the office team, to whom she has just sent an email saying, essentially, "any time you want to return to working in the office, I'd like that".  The problem seems to be that there's a disconnection in some minds from the reality of the situation and what Government announcements say - some people seem to believe that if "Boris" has said it's OK, then they're safe. The clear implication being that people (people, incidentally, like me) who are inclined to take a more cautious approach are discounted as being somehow timid or weak.
> 
> ...



Its worth pointing out that one thing the UK government has been absolutely clear on from the start (and still are) is that you should work from home if you can.  The conversation should pretty much end there.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 19, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its worth pointing out that one thing the UK government has been absolutely clear on from the start (and still are) is that you should work from home if you can.  The conversation should pretty much end there.


I'm going to be speaking to the CEO in about 10 minutes. Having forwarded a copy of my response to the office staff, I imagine that we are going to have a quite...interesting conversation. I spent 10 minutes last time to her expounding something close to conspiracy theories about the whole business.

I can't stop her emailing staff, but I have made it very, very clear to the staff that if they have any concerns about anything she tells them, that they can - should - check it out with me. That system appears to be working


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## Teaboy (Jun 19, 2020)

How curious that on the day the government reduce the virus alert level down to 3 there is a minister flying solo at the daily briefing.  No scientists, no experts.  Make of that what you will...


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## MrSki (Jun 19, 2020)

We are still weeks behind. The number of hospital cases went up yesterday to 490 from 458 a week earlier but they did not do the comparison for this figure unlike all the others. 173 deaths yesterday where the EU27 had 53 combined. Still a shitshow.   There won't be a second wave unless the first one finishes.


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## Wilf (Jun 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yup, totally going to go to 1m in England very soon. Driven by needs of business primarily.


Seems to me that 1m still has some meaning in institutions, shops, trains, universities and the rest i.e. it's something that has to be planned for and may change working arrangements. However a 1m rule in itself and at an interpersonal level is a case of not having a rule. I was out walking with my partner the other day and realised we were naturally walking about 1m apart and that it's barely more than an arms length. So having a '1m rule' in practice is just a case of saying 'no touching', something that you wouldn't do anyway in a shop, supermarket etc.  In fact when we go to 1m, I'd be surprised if small shops who put yellow tape at 6ft apart even bother to replace them with 3ft markers.


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## teuchter (Jun 19, 2020)

This week I've had two work-based situations arise where, in normal circumstances, I'd go to see people in person - at their homes - and I've said something like, well, obviously that's not really possible right now, so we can perhaps work round it with video calls etc instead for now, and review things in a couple of weeks.

I've been sightly surprised that in both cases the response has been along the lines of, oh no that's fine, we've no problem with you coming here, we can just keep a 2m distance. One actually enquiring about what would be holding me back. In that instance, I'd need to do an hour or so train journey to get there. Maybe they assumed I would drive or something. But it's made me wonder if I am out of step in my current level of caution.


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## MrSki (Jun 19, 2020)

I am only going to the supermarket or chemist & wearing a mask. I do go down the park with a couple of Weston's Vintage and a book but stay well away from others. I am not changing this until the daily death rate is in single figures.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 19, 2020)

teuchter said:


> But it's made me wonder if I am out of step in my current level of caution.



I think with something like this, people are going to form their attitudes and approaches around what other people do. But at the same time most of us are having contact with a much more limited number of people and are staying much more local, so there are going to be a lot of different views and approaches.

For me it surprises me a little to see people talking about the 2m rule outdoors as if that's really an important thing. It's never really been practical here and more or less everyone seems to have settled on a 'polite distance' approach. I don't really see people worrying about others coming within 2m any more. But on the other hand I don't see the 'totally giving up' that people complain about. Maybe that is happening elsewhere though.


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## prunus (Jun 19, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its worth pointing out that one thing the UK government has been absolutely clear on from the start (and still are) is that you should work from home if you can.  The conversation should pretty much end there.



Actually it’s worded slightly stronger than that: you should work from home unless you cannot. And businesses should provide whatever support is possible required to make sure you can.


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## existentialist (Jun 19, 2020)

teuchter said:


> This week I've had two work-based situations arise where, in normal circumstances, I'd go to see people in person - at their homes - and I've said something like, well, obviously that's not really possible right now, so we can perhaps work round it with video calls etc instead for now, and review things in a couple of weeks.
> 
> I've been sightly surprised that in both cases the response has been along the lines of, oh no that's fine, we've no problem with you coming here, we can just keep a 2m distance. One actually enquiring about what would be holding me back. In that instance, I'd need to do an hour or so train journey to get there. Maybe they assumed I would drive or something. But it's made me wonder if I am out of step in my current level of caution.


I am DEFINITELY out of step with my level of caution.

But I take no great satisfaction in saying that I think there is a good probability that if I keep marching to the beat of my drum, quite a lot of people are going to be coming back in step. I am, I must admit, quite surprised that we haven't seen the lower slopes of an exponential increase.


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## two sheds (Jun 19, 2020)

I had a thought today, that it is nearly time for the chimney sweep's yearly visit. Needed for the insurance and for (possibly) not burning the house down . He'll be in and out of peoples' houses, too.

Perhaps time to buy an electric slow cooker.


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## existentialist (Jun 19, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its worth pointing out that one thing the UK government has been absolutely clear on from the start (and still are) is that you should work from home if you can.  The conversation should pretty much end there.


The conversation DID very much end there 

And she provided me with the perfect opportunity to say to the office team "I'm in charge here - talk to me if you need to sort anything out"

In a funny kind of way, it's a win. But I posted the story on here because of how I think it reflects this strange _argumentum ab auctoritate _mentality that seems to infest far too many minds. Particularly when the _auctoritate_ in question is an overfed haystack with the cognitive capabilities of a burned-out trouserpress.


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## Looby (Jun 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I had a thought today, that it is nearly time for the chimney sweep's yearly visit. Needed for the insurance and for (possibly) not burning the house down . He'll be in and out of peoples' houses, too.
> 
> Perhaps time to buy an electric slow cooker.


We’ve had two tradespeople in, one an oven repair and one fitting an outside tap. Both were pretty good, kept their distance, cleaned everything they touched etc.


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## two sheds (Jun 19, 2020)

Looby said:


> We’ve had two tradespeople in, one an oven repair and one fitting an outside tap. Both were pretty good, kept their distance, cleaned everything they touched etc.



Ah interesting, thanks. I'm sure he would be if/when he does come.


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## flypanam (Jun 19, 2020)

Somehow this isn’t a surprise








						Nearly 1,500 deaths in one day: UK ministers accused of downplaying Covid-19 peak
					

Official toll passed a thousand on 22 consecutive days – far more than daily briefings said




					www.theguardian.com


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 19, 2020)

flypanam said:


> Some how this isn’t a surprise
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That bit at the end about r hovering around 1 for longer than it needed to due to leakage and people gradually starting to break Lock down rules may be part of the story,  but it misses out a lot: the rates of in-hospital transmission, inadequate ppe,  failed cross-infection protocols,  the spread to care homes due to untested discharges from hospitals, the general lack of testing. 

Tbh not mentioning any of those things, which we know were massive (nobody was visiting care homes, for instance so the shocking, delayed explosion of deaths there aren't due to this kind of 'leakage') sounds rather Johnson-esque - it's our fault cos we didn't do lockdown well enough. I don't buy that at all.


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

The continuing saga of disgraceful levels of information supplied to the public regarding local outbreaks including hospital spread....

Nuneaton, the George Eliot hospital as per my previous posts on this in recent days. There has now been something on the BBC local news today about how they have closed a ward at that hospital. What a surprise, not. Official messages continue to be mealy-mouthed and padded with meaningless shit. I havent seen much in print yet, and the loss of a lot of local journalism in recent decades adds further hurt.



Regarding this extreme reticence when it comes to frankly iscussing hospital outbreaks, we also saw this repeatedly at that national level earlier in the pandemic. They wouldnt deny the possibility of spread within hospitals, and it would be acknowledged on rare occasion, but it was kept away from the general narrative. Even when big topics like the number of people that stayed away from hospitals were discussed, they were so much more comfortable talking about that as if it was a phenomenon only driven by peoples desire to save the NHS, as opposed to also being a sure sign of peoples well-founded fears of becoming infected in hospital.

We really need a revolution in attitudes towards information sharing and honest public discourse, especially at the local level, as a result of this pandemic. Demand the data we need to make sensible and responsible choices about our lives in the places we live and work.


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That bit at the end about r hovering around 1 for longer than it needed to due to leakage and people gradually starting to break Lock down rules may be part of the story,  but it misses out a lot: the rates of in-hospital transmission, inadequate ppe,  failed cross-infection protocols,  the spread to care homes due to untested discharges from hospitals, the general lack of testing.
> 
> Tbh not mentioning any of those things, which we know were massive (nobody was visiting care homes, for instance so the shocking, delayed explosion of deaths there aren't due to this kind of 'leakage') sounds rather Johnson-esque - it's our fault cos we didn't do lockdown well enough. I don't buy that at all.



It also misses out the regional variations that made a difference to the slope of the downward curve. The following graph only shows NHS England deaths because those are the ones I have to hand that are at a regional level that is also showing daily figures (ONS by region etc tend to be weekly figures) but it should be good enough to show what I'm on about. Note the steeper initial downwards trajectory of the 7 day moving average line for London (until ~ end April).



It also drove me mad that more journalists didnt look at ONS data more carefully and make more stories out of it all the way along. The headline angle in that article is a good example - the data for the rate of daily deaths at the peak in April was available after a few weeks ONS/death registration lag, so they could have told that part of the story before the end of April.


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

Which reminds me that another rant I need to have about information sharing in this pandemic involves London. 

Since I am still on something of a holiday from the detail of this pandemic, now is not the time for me to be checking and quoting Sage minutes. But I'm pretty sure it is mentioned in some minutes or papers that that adherence to social distancing and lockdown was better in London than elsewhere, at least initially. This is not terribly surprising given that they made a point in those early days of telling everyone that London was weeks ahead of the rest of the country with its epidemic. And the information bit I need to rant about more when I can be bothered to fish out the exact detail, is that actually several other places were mentioned in early Sage minutes as having outbreaks. But they didnt bloody tell us and the people who live in those places at the time! I dont want to mention which places without checking my facts so sorry for being vague right now.


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## teuchter (Jun 19, 2020)

I am interested in the idea that densely populated places like London might be more prone to a rapid outbreak but also more able to contain it because once lockdown starts, it's quite easy for people to stay ultra local in terms of shopping etc (they walk to the corner shop a few hundred metres away where most of the other customers are also very local, rather than driving 10 miles to a big supermarket with loads of people from a wide area). The graph might support that but I don't know if anything else does, or if anyone has looked at this idea seriously, or if this is just speculation.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> The continuing saga of disgraceful levels of information supplied to the public regarding local outbreaks including hospital spread....
> 
> Nuneaton, the George Eliot hospital as per my previous posts on this in recent days. There has now been something on the BBC local news today about how they have closed a ward at that hospital. What a surprise, not. Official messages continue to be mealy-mouthed and padded with meaningless shit. I havent seen much in print yet, and the loss of a lot of local journalism in recent decades adds further hurt.
> 
> ...



There also needs to be a frank discussion about the failures of the NHS, not something anyone wanted to talk about as the workers on the ground were being turned into heroes. Clearly the necessary precondition for those failures was the chronic underfunding over decades, but it is also necessary to dig down into the detail to work out how and why bad decisions were taken or inadequate procedures were followed.

I think there is a duty to do that honestly and openly, both to stop it happening again and out of respect for the people who were killed by those failures.


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

By the way if I were telling the story covered by that Guardian article, I might be tempted to point out that the nature of the daily UK numbers they read out daily compared to the ONS (+ NRS for Scotland + NISRA for Northern Ireland), we are actually at the point where on some days the daily UK figure actually makes things look worse than the ONS data that will come out a few weeks later for the same period. Because the daily figure is still filling in deaths it missed in the past, and also has to spike upwards to make up for the artificial lows of the weekend figures. But do note that the most recent ONS data shown here by the green line is subject to further revision as more recent deaths for that period are registered and the data collated. Shouldnt make much difference though but I have to point it out anyway. Also note that these particular ONS/NRS/NISRA figures are deaths by actual date of death, not date of registration. Also note that the 'official daily UK figures as announced every day' figures I used have probably been  revised once or twice by the government and the parameters of what deaths they cover changed, so they wont necessarily match exactly what was announced on a particular day, especially earlier on.


Also the Guardian article goes on about the peak all-cause daily death figure for England & Wales being the highest since records began in 2000, but as established here and elsewhere some time ago now, its actually possible to get daily death figures back to the start of 1970. And the peak daily death rate in this pandemic exceeded all but one of those days, Jan 2nd 1970 when the country was dealing with the H3N2 flu pandemic.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 19, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I am interested in the idea that densely populated places like London might be more prone to a rapid outbreak but also more able to contain it because once lockdown starts, it's quite easy for people to stay ultra local in terms of shopping etc (they walk to the corner shop a few hundred metres away where most of the other customers are also very local, rather than driving 10 miles to a big supermarket with loads of people from a wide area). The graph might support that but I don't know if anything else does, or if anyone has looked at this idea seriously, or if this is just speculation.


Maybe but your premise may not be quite right. There will be more people living in those few hundred metres than over much longer distances in a rural area. You'd need to look at the average households served per shop.

Another possible factor is that the outbreak in London was so severe that a level of community resistance came into play in slowing the spread.


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There also needs to be a frank discussion about the failures of the NHS, not something anyone wanted to talk about as the workers on the ground were being turned into heroes. Clearly the necessary precondition for those failures was the chronic underfunding over decades, but it is also necessary to dig down into the detail to work out how and why bad decisions were taken or inadequate procedures were followed.
> 
> I think there is a duty to do that honestly and openly, both to stop it happening again and out of respect for the people who were killed by those failures.



It will happen but it will be massively politicised and there will be great concern about its finding being used to serve whatever agenda the government of that moment are seeking.

What is already clear is that Public Health England is going to take at least its fair share of the heat, and this may be the first battleground for the stuff I just mentioned, especially given that some Tories and their agendas are salivating over the prospect of dismantling PHE.

Personally although some lessons will require further exploration I think a lot of the failings are already somewhat obvious. I'd get rid of Public Health England too. Its what to replace it with that matters, and frankly I would not stop at an investigation into the health services, the absurdities and governance disgraces in this country go so much deeper than even the crap management culture, political agendas of the moment, etc. Our ability to carry out sincere reform with the right priorities is also rather questionable based on past performance, so I'm not particularly looking forward to the way this stuff will be tackled. Hopefully there will be a lot of pressure applied to the right places and we will get something other than the usual 'lessons learnt and lines drawn' crap.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 19, 2020)

It's an odd spectacle currently. Every time I see Hancock, I think ok maybe he's reached breaking point today, maybe he's about to break out into honesty cos he can't live with himself any more. Of course it's not going to happen, I know. He's still dishonestly hailing a weekend death figure as a triumph, ffs. Makes it hard to imagine how a real reckoning can happen.


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## two sheds (Jun 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There also needs to be a frank discussion about the failures of the NHS, not something anyone wanted to talk about as the workers on the ground were being turned into heroes.



Presumably NHS _management,_ which I think needs to be stressed.


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## teuchter (Jun 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Maybe but your premise may not be quite right. There will be more people living in those few hundred metres than over much longer distances in a rural area. You'd need to look at the average households served per shop.


That is right but I think there might be more households per shop. In a rural area, once you're driving to the shop then you're likely to go 10 miles to a big one with more choice instead of 8 miles to a smaller one. 

Whereas if you live somewhere built around walking and public transport the decision process will be different.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Presumably NHS _management,_ which I think needs to be stressed.


Yes, although really what I'm talking about is an institutional failure. That will no doubt mean pointing fingers at management and organisational shortcomings, in ways elbows has suggested, but the end result was that the our system didn't do very well. That is pretty clear.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> It does seem to me that these announcements come quick on the heels of some significant PR disaster (this time the track & trace app clusterfuck). But then, there also seems to be a daily PR disaster, so it might just me my mind making up patterns out of absolute chaos.





elbows said:


> By the way if I were telling the story covered by that Guardian article, I might be tempted to point out that the nature of the daily UK numbers they read out daily compared to the ONS (+ NRS for Scotland + NISRA for Northern Ireland), we are actually at the point where on some days the daily UK figure actually makes things look worse than the ONS data that will come out a few weeks later for the same period. Because the daily figure is still filling in deaths it missed in the past, and also has to spike upwards to make up for the artificial lows of the weekend figures. But do note that the most recent ONS data shown here by the green line is subject to further revision as more recent deaths for that period are registered and the data collated. Shouldnt make much difference though but I have to point it out anyway. Also note that these particular ONS/NRS/NISRA figures are deaths by actual date of death, not date of registration. Also note that the 'official daily UK figures as announced every day' figures I used have probably been  revised once or twice by the government and the parameters of what deaths they cover changed, so they wont necessarily match exactly what was announced on a particular day, especially earlier on.
> 
> View attachment 218446
> Also the Guardian article goes on about the peak all-cause daily death figure for England & Wales being the highest since records began in 2000, but as established here and elsewhere some time ago now, its actually possible to get daily death figures back to the start of 1970. And the peak daily death rate in this pandemic exceeded all but one of those days, Jan 2nd 1970 when the country was dealing with the H3N2 flu pandemic.


.
Where did you find these figures? (from 1970)?


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## LDC (Jun 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes, although really what I'm talking about is an institutional failure. That will no doubt mean pointing fingers at management and organisational shortcomings, in ways elbows has suggested, but the end result was that the our system didn't do very well. That is pretty clear.



Elaborate on this please. Maybe it needs a separate thread if there's lots to say.


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## Supine (Jun 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes, although really what I'm talking about is an institutional failure. That will no doubt mean pointing fingers at management and organisational shortcomings, in ways elbows has suggested, but the end result was that the our system didn't do very well. That is pretty clear.



How do you judge it didn’t do well?

Are you saying they failed on capacity, treatment regimes, infection prevention? Which of these things were in the control of the nhs and which were things that they relied on others to provide like ppe.

A pandemic of a totally new disease would be a massive stretch on any healthcare system so be clear when you put the boot in.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 19, 2020)

Supine said:


> How do you judge it didn’t do well?


The care home debacle for one. It's clear that came post-lockdown as a result of cross-infection from hospitals, and there was a policy for some weeks of moving people from hospitals into care homes untested. John Ashton has been pointing out the idiocy and irresponsibility of that action for months now. 

But I'm going to leave this for now. I don't know what other failures there were. How would I? But various international comparisons show that the UK's health system did not do well. We don't do anybody any favours by pretending otherwise.


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

The bare minimum I would expect to find would be that yes the NHS were failed by various 'partners' and the long-standing nature of how everything was setup and what pandemic planning decisions were made in the past. The NHS England reverse triage policy is unforgivable unless the care part of the system and the testing part of the system is actually fit for such things. In terms of failures within the NHS, based on anecdotal reports from some people who work in hospitals, I dont think it will be hard to find several layers of management who were only useful when their own inability to grasp the situation caused them to get out of the way and leave the important decisions to people on the ground who had a clue and the right priorities. And another associated failure, the internal NHS version of what I've been complaining about in regards data and secrecy and mealy-mouthed shit.


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## two sheds (Jun 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont think it will be hard to find several layers of management who were only useful when their own inability to grasp the situation caused them to get out of the way and leave the important decisions to people on the ground who had a clue and the right priorities.



I'm not sure I've ever heard of management doing that before  

this might set a precedent


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## Orang Utan (Jun 19, 2020)

I seem to have acquired a feature called COVID-19 Exposure Logging on the privacy settings on my phone. Is this just to prepare the phone for downloading the tracking app or is something dodgy going on?


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> .
> Where did you find these figures? (from 1970)?



A very large spreadsheet available here: 





__





						Daily death occurrences, England, regions of England and Wales: 1970 to 2014 - Office for National Statistics
					





					www.ons.gov.uk
				




Does not include Scotland or Northern Ireland.


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I seem to have acquired a feature called COVID-19 Exposure Logging on the privacy settings on my phone. Is this just to prepare the phone for downloading the tracking the app or is something dodgy going on?



Both Apple and Google added stuff at the operating system level for this pandemic so its probably that, although I havent checked my facts.


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I'm not sure I've ever heard of management doing that before
> 
> this might set a precedent



I'm sure they didnt do it enough in this pandemic either, but I think when it came to specific managers at specific moments, the extra distance that teleconferencing provided gave further opportunities to leave the inept on the margins, spouting their ineffective shit while workers nodded, ignored it and got on with the job.


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## two sheds (Jun 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm sure they didnt do it enough in this pandemic either, but I think when it came to specific managers at specific moments, the extra distance that teleconferencing provided gave further opportunities to leave the inept on the margins, spouting their ineffective shit while workers nodded, ignored it and got on with the job.



I'm sure they spent all their time with the essential tasks of target setting, analyzing timesheets, developing motivational posters and the like.


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## Supine (Jun 19, 2020)

So this is about imagined inadequacies in management rather than actual facts...


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## two sheds (Jun 19, 2020)

well one aspect of the whole shitshow, you'd imagine


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## William of Walworth (Jun 19, 2020)

Supine said:


> So this is about imagined inadequacies in management rather than actual facts...



Inadequacies in management are rarely (if ever!) 'imagined'  ....


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## Supine (Jun 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> well one aspect of the whole shitshow, you'd imagine



Fair play to littlebabyjesus because the care home infections from the nhs seems to be factual and avoidable. I’ve seen a lot of anti nhs stuff recently, not just on u75, that is based on nothing but preconceptions. It’s been pissing me off tbh.

Deaths would have been lower if lockdown had been sooner but that’s down to the gov and not the nhs.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 19, 2020)

Supine said:


> Fair play to littlebabyjesus because the care home infections from the nhs seems to be factual and avoidable. I’ve seen a lot of anti nhs stuff recently, not just on u75, that is based on nothing but preconceptions. It’s been pissing me off tbh.
> 
> Deaths would have been lower if lockdown had been sooner but that’s down to the gov and not the nhs.



Yes, needs to be focused on management failings I think. 

I thought transferring patients from hospitals to care homes was government directed, too.


----------



## elbows (Jun 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes, needs to be focused on management failings I think.
> 
> I thought transferring patients from hospitals to care homes was government directed, too.



In many areas I am sure it is not easy to draw a distinct line between the NHS and the government department. The NHS and those that work in it are subject to the whims of government like so many others are. A theme I grew up listening to since my parents were teachers and the same sort of thing applied to education too, diktats from on high that hadnt been properly consulted on with people who understood the job and the ramifications of specific changes.

This is also part o the reason why things get messy when it comes to 'criticisms of the NHS'. 'The NHS' is many different things, from an ideal to the people that work in it to the layers of ineffective crap, and so many services that people need and rely on. Its completely understandable that people get defensive about some of this stuff because an attack on one aspect could be seen as an attack on other, more dearly held aspects, or as part of an agenda to shit on the ideal of a public health service that is free at the point of use.


----------



## elbows (Jun 20, 2020)

I should also say that even some of the individuals operational failings within the NHS during the pandemic were caused by the poor sense of the timing of the pandemic, and that wasnt their fault, that was the fault of government and the governments scientific & medical advisors, and some of the modelling work and data used. The failure to grasp quickly enough the stage of epidemic already reached fed into other failures of individuals to really get ahead of the epidemic curve with their response and where their heads were at. So there were stories of individual departments within hospitals that were working in earnest to plan and get ready, but were not quite in sync with the fact the disease was already with them. Small 'on the front lines' management teams working for days to plan, only to have members of that very team quickly struck down with presumed COVID-19 infections, before they expected it. In most cases this was not their fault, they did not have the luxury of sitting around on their arses for endless hours every day absorbing many details of the unfolding pandemic in February like I did. They were reliant on others to give them a sense of what stage of things, what stage of risk we were at, and they were let down in this regard for some crucial weeks.


----------



## Tankus (Jun 20, 2020)

I'm feeling more uneasy now than what I was in March /may


----------



## Sue (Jun 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> I’ve seen a lot of anti nhs stuff recently, not just on u75, that is based on nothing but preconceptions. It’s been pissing me off tbh.
> 
> Deaths would have been lower if lockdown had been sooner but that’s down to the gov and not the nhs.


What anti NHS stuff on here?


----------



## elbows (Jun 20, 2020)

Tankus said:


> I'm feeling more uneasy now than what I was in March /may



So far I have gotten away with my decision to have a holiday from my unease in June and to advise others to attempt to do the same whenever the opportunity arises in this pandemic. With the idea partly being about the possibility of things getting worse again later in the year, and trying to take the opportunities to recharge the mental batteries in the meantime. It might have been easier for me because my 'instincts' were pointing in two competing directions about the possibility and imminency of any fresh woe, so I decided to let the data guide me as to which expectation of the future to settle on in my mind. So far the data continues to show that I can carry on in this undecided recharging mode, for how long that will remain the case is the big question.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 20, 2020)

Supine said:
			
		

> *I’ve seen a lot of anti nhs stuff recently*, not just on u75, that is based on nothing but preconceptions. It’s been pissing me off tbh.
> 
> Deaths would have been lower if lockdown had been sooner but that’s down to the gov and not the nhs.





Sue said:


> What, anti-NHS stuff on here?



I've only just noticed the bolded bit in Supine 's earlier post, but I'd also question that there's been "anti-NHS" stuff being posted on Urban/on this thread 

Stuff critical of the Government/Tories though? Plenty of that, and quite correctly..


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 20, 2020)

I'll try to keep this brief cos I don't want (won't be having) an argument over this. 

I am not in any sense anti-NHS. I firmly believe in a system of comprehensive health care free for all at the point of delivery, paid for by a general, progressive taxation system. It's precisely because that is something I firmly believe in that the state of some of the NHS is so fucking painful to see.

So there has been massive underinvestment (cuts, really) for the last decade in particular, but also dating back further than that. And various doctrines from private enterprise have been brought in. For instance, the idea that an empty bed is a wasted resource or the introduction of 'just in time' ordering for essential equipment such as ppe rather than stockpiling. Two ideas that had disastrous effects this year, contributing to the spread of the virus in the panicked 'clearing out' phase of the pandemic in the early weeks. That cost lives. We shouldn't skirt around that. It's not like this is the first NHS-related hospital infection spread scare. What lessons were learned from MRSA, and what lessons not learned? 

On a wider note, there are bits of the NHS that have been failing for years. Eg mental health services, and various services for the elderly and the chronically ill. Far too many people fall through the cracks, with different departments failing to coordinate to provide care - don't be a mentally ill old person, for instance, you'll be at the back of a very slow-moving queue, covid times or not. We deserve better.

This isn't about finding people to blame so much as simply finding out what went wrong and how to stop it from happening again. We owe that to the relatives of the dead.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'll try to keep this brief cos I don't want (won't be having) an argument over this.
> *
> I am not in any sense anti-NHS. I firmly believe in a system of comprehensive health care free for all at the point of delivery, paid for by a general, progressive taxation system. It's precisely because that is something I firmly believe in that the state of some of the NHS is so fucking painful to see.*
> 
> ...



Great post.
Bolded bit especially  : I expect that here on Urban, the above is the big majority's take on the NHS, too


----------



## blameless77 (Jun 20, 2020)

20Bees said:


> The squalid and overcrowded accommodation used by the largely immigrant workforce in plants such as these, and in many agriculture based businesses, is as relevant as any hygiene or distancing protocols within the workplace.




Except the workforce of the one on Anglesey is very much not ‘immigrants’ - seems rather an assumption to make with no data?


----------



## elbows (Jun 20, 2020)

Nobody should expect me to soften my criticism of the NHS hospital trust layers that issue statements to the public that are as opaque as the following. Yes, its the continuation of 'what is going on with the George Eliot hospital in Nuneaton'....









						Boss insists hospital remains open despite Covid-19 rise
					

An investigation has been launched into 'significant and consistent' numbers of coronavirus cases




					www.coventrytelegraph.net
				






> The managing director of the trust said: "The Trust, with the support of local and regional NHS partners, Warwickshire County Council and Public Health England (PHE) is managing an increased number of COVID-19 cases in the hospital, and although understandably some people have been concerned about attending hospital during the pandemic, our staff have worked hard to minimise the spread of infection within the hospital.





> "Our message is that our services remain open and operational, so patients should continue to attend their appointments unless specifically advised by the Trust not to. We are in contact with all individuals and their families who have tested positive for COVID-19, and we continue to take strict action to help prevent further spread of infection within the hospital.”



Riddle me this, riddle me that, how about putting some energy into admitting and describing the actual picture instead of forcing me to read between the lines of all this defensive shite!


----------



## elbows (Jun 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I seem to have acquired a feature called COVID-19 Exposure Logging on the privacy settings on my phone. Is this just to prepare the phone for downloading the tracking app or is something dodgy going on?











						Coronavirus: New Covid-19 tracing tool appears on smartphones
					

The new "exposure notification" tool is part of an update to iPhone and Android operating systems.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Its also being discussed on the thread about tracking apps.


----------



## planetgeli (Jun 20, 2020)

*This is the most disastrous handling of any serious challenge to a government for 100 years. *

-  Sir David King, the former government chief scientific adviser and chairman of the independent Sage group



> the gap between the Downing Street figures and the true toll was “an attempt to play down the adversity that the country was faced with”.
> 
> “They didn’t say we have to add on all these other numbers which would have been a more honest thing to say,” said King, who advised Tony Blair’s government on the foot and mouth disease epidemic.
> 
> “They were saying things were more rosy than they actually were. The most important thing when you are running any crisis of this kind is truth and honesty. The only way to maintain the moral authority of the government.











						Nearly 1,500 deaths in one day: UK ministers accused of downplaying Covid-19 peak
					

Official toll passed a thousand on 22 consecutive days – far more than daily briefings said




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## MrSki (Jun 20, 2020)

Yeah another 128 deaths today.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 20, 2020)

MrSki said:


> We are still weeks behind. The number of hospital cases went up yesterday to 490 from 458 a week earlier but they did not do the comparison for this figure unlike all the others. 173 deaths yesterday where the *EU27 had 53 combined*. Still a shitshow.  There won't be a second wave unless the first one finishes.



Not sure where you are getting this combined EU27 figure from, reported yesterday for the day before, i.e. the day you are posting about, Italy reported 47 & Belgium 12 deaths, so just those two countries at 59 exceeds the 53 you mentioned, without checking on the other 25 countries, I suspect the source is unreliable.

Is it this Jon Jones twitter account, quoted in your post just above?

Because he's claiming a combined EU27 figure of 82 reported today, and many EU countries haven't yet been updated on worldometers, but just adding up 4 that have, their total of 84 exceeds his claimed figure.

(Italy 49, Spain 7, Poland 12 & Romanian 16)



MrSki said:


> Yeah another 128 deaths today.



Whilst the UK numbers are still fairly high, 173 reported yesterday is down from 202 the previous Friday, and the 128 reported today is down from 181 last Saturday, which is positive.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Because he's claiming a combined EU27 figure of 82 reported today, and many EU countries haven't yet been updated on worldometers, but just adding up 4 that have, their total of 84 exceeds his claimed figure.


No he is quoting the combined nations of the flags shown. He does not mention the EU27 in the post.


----------



## treelover (Jun 20, 2020)

I am on the Post Covid FB, they are presenting with some horrendous symptoms(similar to M.E symptoms) and in huge numbers they are being gaslighted by medics the way people with M.E have for thirty years, and they are getting very very angry and will respond in a much more robust way than PWME could ever do at onset.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 20, 2020)

MrSki said:


> No he is quoting the combined nations of the flags shown. He does not mention the EU27 in the post.



Fair enough, so what was the source for the '*EU27 had 53 combined' *you quoted yesterday?


----------



## MrSki (Jun 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fair enough, so what was the source for the '*EU27 had 53 combined' *you quoted yesterday?


Sorry I can't remember. I will check with worldometer in future.


----------



## LDC (Jun 20, 2020)

treelover said:


> I am on the Post Covid FB, they are presenting with some horrendous symptoms(similar to M.E symptoms) and in huge numbers they are being gaslighted by medics the way people with M.E have for thirty years, and they are getting very very angry and will respond in a much more robust way than PWME could ever do at onset.



Not sure why you're in a Post Covid FB group if you haven't had it? Dragging people who are in a vulnerable place while recovering from CV into the messy world of ME cause denial will not help them at all. And yes, I know plenty of people with (or who have had) ME (a few close friends who lost years to it, sometimes bed-bound) and all those that have recovered have done so through psychological therapy and the exercise regime prescribed by the NHS, and now say they were wrong and the medics were right. Maybe take this to a specific ME thread if you keep wanting to bring ME up in relation to CV.


----------



## treelover (Jun 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> *This is the most disastrous handling of any serious challenge to a government for 100 years. *
> 
> -  Sir David King, the former government chief scientific adviser and chairman of the independent Sage group
> 
> ...



It's so depressing, and nothing will happen to this Govt, they will say King is partisan, etc

Just been Peak District, Hathersage was packed more than ever i have seen it, middle classs/students, mainly, all in cars, buses were empty, pubs open with loads outside, very little S/D crowds on pavements, toilets open but already filthy, worrying.


----------



## treelover (Jun 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not sure why you're in a Post Covid FB group if you haven't had it? Dragging people who are in a vulnerable place while recovering from CV into the messy world of ME cause denial will not help them at all. And yes, I know plenty of people with (or who have had) ME (a few close friends who lost years to it, sometimes bed-bound) and all those that have recovered have done so through psychological therapy and the exercise regime prescribed by the NHS, and now say they were wrong and the medics were right. Maybe take this to a specific ME thread if you keep wanting to bring ME up in relation to CV.




I was waiting for your gaslighting, they didn't have M.E if it was psychological treatment that helped, (maybe it would help for for cancer then in that case), and certainly not graded exercise.

GP thinks I have had it after video call.


----------



## LDC (Jun 20, 2020)

treelover said:


> I was waiting for your gaslighting, they didn't have M.E if it was psychoogical treatment that helped, maybe it would help for for cancer then in that case, and certainly not graded exercise.
> 
> GP thinks I have had it after video call.



Diagnosed with ME/CFS, had the recommended treatment, got better. You then say they didn't have ME/CFS?! Didn't know you were the gate keeper of remote ME diagnosis for people you've never met. But maybe that allows you to discount theories you don't like about some of the causes of it.

I think we have to agree to disgree and move on, but I think you continually bringing ME into discussions about CV is irresponsible.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 20, 2020)

MrSki said:


> No he is quoting the combined nations of the flags shown. He does not mention the EU27 in the post.


Problem of cherry-picking - not hugely valuable, especially as many smaller countries don't announce deaths daily. 

UK is on its way down still, slowly but steadily. One of the things that characterise the UK's experience is that every region has been badly affected (South West less so, but not exactly scot-free). That's different from other big European countries - in Italy, for instance, the vast majority of deaths were in the north; the south was far less affected. By contrast, the first big outbreak here was in London, but Wales has been badly affected, so has the North East, so has Scotland, so has the North West, so has the Midlands. It's been all over, but with local peaks at slightly different times. 

It is better to think about it as a series of discrete events. This point was made by alternative sage modeller Karl Friston. The more of these discrete events you lump together under one measuring unit, the more spread-out your resultant epidemic curve will be. Also, sharper up, sharper down is the pattern. If you isolate London as a measuring unit, it has been very sharply up and down - 200 deaths in hospital per day at peak, around 5 a day for the last week or so. 

Drilling down deeper reveals smaller contributory units that are more or less independent of one another. But it also reveals a probable explanation for the UK's seemingly slow recovery - the failure to save even one of its regions from a bad outbreak. 

The London graph looks like this (just hospital, by date of occurrence not announcement). Compared to a unit of similar size - Belgium (date of announcement here, but with 7-day average on it - plus this is all places of death: add about a third to the London figures to get an equivalent as 74% of London deaths have been hospital thus far) - it looks really very similar in both size and shape.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 20, 2020)

I saw some drinkers in a local pub garden this afternoon - didn't know this was allowed yet? The pub's doors were closed, and the 'garden' is just some tables on some flagstones that go right onto the street, so I guess they could have just brought their own drinks. Plastic pint glasses though.


----------



## treelover (Jun 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I saw some drinkers in a local pub garden this afternoon - didn't know this was allowed yet? The pub's doors were closed, and the 'garden' is just some tables on some flagstones that go right onto the street, so I guess they could have just brought their own drinks. Plastic pint glasses though.



see my post above, travelling around plenty of pubs, semi open, people drinking outside.


----------



## Sue (Jun 20, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I saw some drinkers in a local pub garden this afternoon - didn't know this was allowed yet? The pub's doors were closed, and the 'garden' is just some tables on some flagstones that go right onto the street, so I guess they could have just brought their own drinks. Plastic pint glasses though.


Loads of pubs here are doing takeaway pints. Are they doing that and using the pub's tables too?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 20, 2020)

Sue said:


> Loads of pubs here are doing takeaway pints. Are they doing that and using the pub's tables too?


ay could be - I saw a pub yesterday that was doing that but you had to order online first and then buzz their hatch door


----------



## treelover (Jun 20, 2020)

they are meant to be takeaways, but most people are sitting on walls, pavements, like mini festivals, tbh.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 20, 2020)

treelover said:


> they are meant to be takeaways, but most people are sitting on walls, pavements, like mini festivals, tbh.


People have been doing that in London for weeks now. On hot days, it gets pretty busy. This is a bit like the panic about parks imo - people standing/sitting near (but not on top of) one another _outside_ is making little or no difference in the grand scheme of things.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Jun 20, 2020)

A couple of pubs in Maidenhead are doing takeaway booze. One is right on a busy road and there isn't anywhere to sit outside, or at least that bit isn't open yet, the other is at the top of the High Street and normally has tables outside but they have stern notices in the window saying you can't drink within sight of the premises.


----------



## Looby (Jun 20, 2020)

I drove past a park near me last week and it was full of people drinking with friends and there were 3 bars around it doing takeaways. 
Went down tonight with my bezzer and we were having a lovely evening, went to order more drinks and a takeaway pizza and they’d been told by police to stop serving drinks. Someone had complained about people pissing everywhere because they haven’t opened the toilets. 
Honestly if the park toilets had been open, I don’t think there’d have been an issue.

We came back here to drink in the garden but it’s not the same. That tiny bit of normality was so nice. 😞


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 20, 2020)

Where to have a piss has been one of lockdown's major practical conundrums!


----------



## teqniq (Jun 20, 2020)




----------



## eatmorecheese (Jun 20, 2020)

EXCLUSIVE: UK health ministry has no records on Turkish PPE fiasco and won't say if files destroyed 

Well, this article suggests that the scum are trying to hide their tracks ahead of the inevitable enquiry. Not even shocked if true.


----------



## CNT36 (Jun 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Where to have a piss has been one of lockdown's major practical conundrums!


Down here the people voted with their genitals and now the bogs are open.


----------



## 20Bees (Jun 21, 2020)

Wrong thread, sorry


----------



## 20Bees (Jun 21, 2020)

I believe the Anglesey plant has - or at least, it has had - a significant number of Eastern European workers, but perhaps you have more recent local knowledge.  I stand corrected.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 22, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Just been reading this on the BBC.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What is it about meat processing plants and Covid-19?


----------



## Sue (Jun 22, 2020)

20Bees said:


> I believe the Anglesey plant has - or at least, it has had - a significant number of Eastern European workers, but perhaps you have more recent local knowledge.  I stand corrected.


And? What has that got to do with the price of cheese?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 22, 2020)

Doodler said:


> What is it about meat processing plants and Covid-19?


Whatever it is, hopefully places are instituting regular testing regimes for staff. A covid bonus for everyone in a high risk environment would be nice. More chance of the pigs getting up and flying. 

The smart way of responding now is to focus resources sharply in on this kind of emergent ongoing risk area.


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 22, 2020)

Doodler said:


> What is it about meat processing plants and Covid-19?



Cold and moist.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 22, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Cold and moist.



<Donald Pleasence voice>.


----------



## Bwark (Jun 22, 2020)

Plus people being made to stand almost elbow to elbow in the plants whilst working


----------



## LDC (Jun 22, 2020)

Sue said:


> And? What has that got to do with the price of cheese?



Plenty of possibilities; more vulnerable to exploitation and poorer conditions at work, less likely to be union members and able to organise, less financially comfortable, accommodation more likely to be shared houses, etc.


----------



## editor (Jun 22, 2020)

Now this I didn't know 















						Coronavirus: PM to announce on Tuesday if pubs can reopen
					

Boris Johnson is also expected to announce a relaxation of the 2m distancing rule in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 22, 2020)

BBC reporting continues to be absolutely dismal.

on the updates, 



> The number of daily coronavirus deaths in the UK has dropped to its lowest level since mid-March, according to the latest government figures.



No, it hasn't. 

three months and more in and they still haven't worked out the weekend reporting pattern yet?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 22, 2020)

editor said:


> Now this I didn't know
> 
> 
> 
> ...


SK's the odd one there. US is six feet, but SK's 1.4 seems very specific and isn't a foot thing. Do they have their own local units? 

It's not 4 chi, which is 1.33 m.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 22, 2020)

square root of 2 (ish)


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> square root of 2 (ish)


I'd fucking love it if that were the real answer.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 22, 2020)

although as I say the surface of a cone (which is what you'd think would be important for sneezing and the like) is proportional to the cube of the radius.

eta: as lbj remarks no it isn't - it's the square


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> although as I say the surface of a cone (which is what you'd think would be important for sneezing and the like) is proportional to the cube of the radius.



I'm expecting your next post to be in English  

</maths failure   >


----------



## two sheds (Jun 22, 2020)

the droplets from a sneeze will be spread out the further you are from the sneezer. If say you get 4 million droplets hit your nose and mouth 1 metre away then you'd only get 1 million droplets if you were 2 metres away .

eta edited because of my own maths failure


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> although as I say the surface of a cone (which is what you'd think would be important for sneezing and the like) is proportional to the cube of the radius.


The area of the circle at the end of the cone increases proportional to the square of the height (distance between sneezer and sneezee). Think that's probably the relevant bit.  So the amount of droplets in any given area at the end of the cone will decrease at a square of the distance? At 2 metres away, you'll get a quarter of the droplets you'd get at 1 metre away.

That's why rooms with high ceilings need proportionately bigger windows. 

Still doesn't quite explain root 2 social distancing, sadly.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The area of the circle at the end of the cone increases proportional to the square of the height (distance between sneezer and sneezee). Think that's probably the relevant bit.  So the amount of droplets in any given area at the end of the cone will decrease at a square of the distance? At 2 metres away, you'll get a quarter of the droplets you'd get at 1 metre away.
> 
> That's why rooms with high ceilings need proportionately bigger windows.
> 
> Still doesn't quite explain root 2 social distancing, sadly.



oops yes it's the area of the base so indeed squared  I was thinking as as I was writing it that I was perhaps being over confident.

would make sense if they started off at 2m to take it down to 1.4m though.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 22, 2020)

,


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> oops yes it's the area of the base so indeed squared  I was thinking as as I was writing it that I was perhaps being over confident.
> 
> would make sense if they started off at 2m to take it down to 1.4m though.


Yes, it would. We're going to double the amount of droplets you might get.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The WHO advice that halving the 2-metre rule will double the risk looks highly dubious to me. The virus count picked up within the cone of transmission - sort of thing - is hardly just going to double, surely it's going to be eight times (area is proportional to radius squared, volume proportional to radius cubed) as high.
> 
> Or not?



just to point out this earlier post was bollocks too - should have been squared rather than cubed.


----------



## maomao (Jun 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The area of the circle at the end of the cone increases proportional to the square of the height (distance between sneezer and sneezee). Think that's probably the relevant bit.  So the amount of droplets in any given area at the end of the cone will decrease at a square of the distance? At 2 metres away, you'll get a quarter of the droplets you'd get at 1 metre away.
> 
> That's why rooms with high ceilings need proportionately bigger windows.
> 
> Still doesn't quite explain root 2 social distancing, sadly.


Japanese and Chinese love number based mnemonics and double meanings so maybe something similar? Or the width of a standard Korean double bed or some other universally familiar object?


----------



## Wilf (Jun 22, 2020)

Snot maths.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> Japanese and Chinese love number based mnemonics and double meanings so maybe something similar? Or the width of a standard Korean double bed or some other universally familiar object?


I assume the standard Korean fridge is 466.667mm wide.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jun 22, 2020)

So shielding is relaxed from 6th July and will end on 1st August, when government food boxes will also stop - and so will SSP/ESA for shielders who have a job but can't work from home (at least as long as their workplace is "covid secure").


----------



## wtfftw (Jun 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Where to have a piss has been one of lockdown's major practical conundrums!











						Lockdown Loo
					

Find toilets which are open. Share ones that you know.




					www.lockdownloo.com
				



Crowdsourced toilet map.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 22, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> Lockdown Loo
> 
> 
> Find toilets which are open. Share ones that you know.
> ...


That is very cool. Thankyou.


----------



## BCBlues (Jun 22, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I assume the standard Korean fridge is 466.667mm wide.



Boris would still squeeze in


----------



## Lucy Fur (Jun 22, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> Boris would still squeeze in


the lack of any discernable backbone would help


----------



## BCBlues (Jun 22, 2020)

Lucy Fur said:


> the lack of any discernable backbone would help



Definitely,  you could squeeze him in the salad tray at the bottom


----------



## elbows (Jun 22, 2020)

Various authorities are often not too keen to go on a lot about the percentage of false negatives, although it obviously isnt a secret either. But when it comes to a hospital discharging patients with the disease into a care home despite how they are supposed to be tested, then it gets a mention. By the way Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of those where the deaths have persisted, in their case at levels not to dissimilar from those at the height of the wave. I dont have that graph to hand right now but probably sometime this week I will revisit this subject again, but I want to get well past the weekends lack of data first.









						Coronavirus: 36 test positive at Desborough care home
					

It comes after the care home admitted hospital patients who later turned out to have Covid-19



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Kettering General Hospital's medical director Andrew Chilton said the hospital worked to guidelines approved by the county's health and social care system and adhered to national guidelines.
> 
> The hospital said it "used the best tests possible" but only 75% of tests carried out were accurate.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jun 23, 2020)

Massive changes from 4th July being announced now


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Jun 23, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Massive changes from 4th July being announced now


Just listening to this. It feels slightly overwhelming in many ways.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jun 23, 2020)

UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson ditches 2-metre rule for '1-metre-plus' in England
Guardian seem to be doing the best job of updating their news feed on this


----------



## xenon (Jun 23, 2020)

Basically everything can open after 4th of July, with special measures. In door pubs, restaurants all table service, leave details for contact tracing. Places that can't open then, night clubs, in door gyms, theatres, play areas...


----------



## xenon (Jun 23, 2020)

Bit surprised cinemas can open if theatres not. That's how I heard it anyway.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jun 23, 2020)

Combined with the announcement on shielding yesterday too, its so much at once


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jun 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> Bit surprised cinemas can open if theatres not. That's how I heard it anyway.


I guess th3 difference is performers and technical staff etc


----------



## xenon (Jun 23, 2020)

The rules about visiting other households is personly good for me. I have to admit, I was planning to visit family in a couple of weeks anyway. Which as of now would be breaking the rules but by then, will be allowed. Of course I'll be taking procautions. I'm a bit OCD about washing hands anyway and will be wearing a mask on transport.


----------



## magneze (Jun 23, 2020)

Any bets on time until return to lockdown? August?


----------



## xenon (Jun 23, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> I guess th3 difference is performers and technical staff etc



Ah yeah, good point. Of course. Probably not much chance to social distance putting up scenery, behind the scenes stuff and of course, actors being face on to the audience. Face on seating in hospitality establishments is to be avoided where possible.


----------



## LDC (Jun 23, 2020)

magneze said:


> Any bets on time until return to lockdown? August?



Depends on where you live. Unless it gets _really_ bad they'll do anything they can to avoid a national lockdown again. A few schools near me closed already due to cases.


----------



## maomao (Jun 23, 2020)

magneze said:


> Any bets on time until return to lockdown? August?



October/November or maybe even later for a second wave. Respiratory viruses have strong seasonal patterns that aren't fully understood. Combined with some level of social distancing/hygeine/masks today's changes are unlikely to create a big spike any time soon. Before Christmas when shops are a bit more packed and maybe the pubs are open, people start shutting the windows on the buses etc. may be when some local outbreaks manage to roll nup into something bigger.

A friend of my wife who has a boy and girl very similar ages to ours wants to meet in the park and I'm all for it. My wife is refusing on the basis that the girl has been going to school. My kids haven't seen other children in person for over three months now


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 23, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Just listening to this. It feels slightly overwhelming in many ways.


Yes it does.  

My job is to go out and meet strangers, lots of face to face meetings.  Its something I've done all my professional life its something that comes naturally.  In the last week I've attended my first two meetings since end of February.  Both times I've had this weird anxiety on my way to the meeting.  Its a feeling I've never had before like a background dread.  

All this happening at once is going to take some time to get my head around.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 23, 2020)

Not read anything about museums yet despite the big headline in the guardian saying they can open.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 23, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Not read anything about museums yet despite the big headline in the guardian saying they can open.



Hmmm.  Smaller museums are quite often staffed by elderly volunteers.  I'm not sure I'd want my gran or grampy doing that, were they still to be alive.


----------



## andysays (Jun 23, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Not read anything about museums yet despite the big headline in the guardian saying they can open.


Museums are also mentioned on the BBC website report of this story, along with various others


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 23, 2020)

andysays said:


> Museums are also mentioned on the BBC website report of this story, along with various others



Yeah I see it now in the full statement, just nothing on the guardian feed.

Well we shall see what work says then but I was expecting to go back end of July and I don't think they've yet figured out how to open safely so we'll see.


----------



## zora (Jun 23, 2020)

This is all doing my nut in. Posted lengthily the other day how in my understanding the risk from not only droplet but also aerosol transmission is infinitely higher than from objects. Feel like I am living in some sort of parallel universe where it's supposedly okay to spray and bray all day over people in pubs and shops without face masks, or indeed any freaking thought to ventilation of indoor environments, but a cricket ball is a major transmission vector...? That just does not tally with my understanding at all. What the hell are they basing this on, or I am misunderstanding the whole thing really badly?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 23, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> UK coronavirus live: Boris Johnson ditches 2-metre rule for '1-metre-plus' in England
> Guardian seem to be doing the best job of updating their news feed on this


My employers have just spent loads of fucking money on floor stickers and signs asking customers to keep 2 metres distance, so Johnson can fuck right off with that


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 23, 2020)

Why can hairdressers reopen but tattooists can't? It's literally the same thing - I would have even thought hairdressing was higher risk, as they're always working around the head/face, and have a much faster turnaround so will be seeing a lot more people in the average day.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> My employers have just spent loads of fucking money on floor stickers and signs asking customers to keep 2 metres distance, so Johnson can fuck right off with that


It's been a great year to be a sign designer/manufacturer.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 23, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Why can hairdressers reopen but tattooists can't? It's literally the same thing - I would have even thought hairdressing was higher risk, as they're always working around the head/face, and have a much faster turnaround so will be seeing a lot more people in the average day.



Don't tattooists where the plastic gloves as well?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 23, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> It's been a great year to be a sign designer/manufacturer.


So much so that there is now a worldwide acrylic shortage as manufacturing can’t keep up with demand


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jun 23, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Don't tattooists where the plastic gloves as well?


yes, and mostly have much higher standards of hygeine out of necessity.


zora said:


> This is all doing my nut in. Posted lengthily the other day how in my understanding the risk from not only droplet but also aerosol transmission is infinitely higher than from objects. Feel like I am living in some sort of parallel universe where it's supposedly okay to spray and bray all day over people in pubs and shops without face masks, or indeed any freaking thought to ventilation of indoor environments, but a cricket ball is a major transmission vector...? That just does not tally with my understanding at all. What the hell are they basing this on, or I am misunderstanding the whole thing really badly?


exactly - you wash/sanitise your hands and avoid touching your face - you can't frequently wash your nose and throat or avoid breathing.
but also a cricket is banned but tennis and football isn't???? Makes no sense


----------



## xenon (Jun 23, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Why can hairdressers reopen but tattooists can't? It's literally the same thing - I would have even thought hairdressing was higher risk, as they're always working around the head/face, and have a much faster turnaround so will be seeing a lot more people in the average day.



They usually stand behind you though don't they, hair dressers. For most of it. Don't know about tattoos, never had one.

I got clippers now so no need for the barber...


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> They usually stand behind you though don't they, hair dressers. For most of it. Don't know about tattoos, never had one.


Mostly, although also at the sides as well. But they also have a waiting area full of people and constantly chat to you, whereas a tattooist generally has only 1 person in their shop at a time, and is almost always working well away from your face.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 23, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> yes, and mostly have much higher standards of hygeine out of necessity.
> 
> exactly - you wash/sanitise your hands and avoid touching your face - you can't frequently wash your nose and throat or avoid breathing.
> but also a cricket is banned but tennis and football isn't???? Makes no sense


Cricketers are well known for licking their balls to make them go faster


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 23, 2020)

Is it still WFH if you can?  #vestedinterest


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cricketers are well known for licking their balls to make them go faster



I tried that, put my back out.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 23, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Is it still WFH if you can?  #vestedinterest



The vast vast majority of people wfh will still be wfh for the forseeable future.

As in months and probably into a good chunk of next year.


----------



## maomao (Jun 23, 2020)

Wfh has always been wfh if your boss will let you.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 23, 2020)

Yes.  That wasn't my question, though.  I want to know if the govt has changed its advice because my boss is an idiot covid/WFH wise.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 23, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Yes.  That wasn't my question, though.  I want to know if the govt has changed its advice because my boss is an idiot covid/WFH wise.



Good luck getting a straight answer from the government in this crisis.

Your boss is probably going to make you work from the office.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 23, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Yes.  That wasn't my question, though.  I want to know if the govt has changed its advice because my boss is an idiot covid/WFH wise.



Not that I can see.  Unless there is specific guidance then we must assume its still work from home if you can and your boss is obliged to facilitate this.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 23, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Yes.  That wasn't my question, though.  I want to know if the govt has changed its advice because my boss is an idiot covid/WFH wise.


Haven't heard anything along those lines, no. I'm an office worker, and planning to continue WFH until ordered back.


----------



## DexterTCN (Jun 23, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Yes.  That wasn't my question, though.  I want to know if the govt has changed its advice because my boss is an idiot covid/WFH wise.


I thought you lived in Scotland?


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 23, 2020)

I appreciate it was always going to be trickier to come out of Lockdown than to go into it.  There will always be oddities and contradictions but today's announcement just looks full of oddness.

Haircuts?  - Yup
Nails done? - Nope


----------



## maomao (Jun 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I appreciate it was always going to be trickier to come out of Lockdown than to go into it.  There will always be oddities and contradictions but today's announcement just looks full of oddness.
> 
> Haircuts?  - Yup
> Nails done? - Nope


I was thinking og was because a manicure had to be face to face but then they'd have to ban fringes.


----------



## editor (Jun 24, 2020)




----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> yes, and mostly have much higher standards of hygeine out of necessity.
> 
> exactly - you wash/sanitise your hands and avoid touching your face - you can't frequently wash your nose and throat or avoid breathing.
> but also a cricket is banned but tennis and football isn't???? Makes no sense



The reasons I've heard which do make sense to me tbh, is that cricket is still banned as it uses the same ball touched by numerous people. Whereas people have been playing tennis and using balls that the other player doesn't touch. They're also much further away from each other.

Tattoos generally take longer than a haircut, the amount of people doing and getting them is small, and they can wait, it's hardly a necessity is it?


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I appreciate it was always going to be trickier to come out of Lockdown than to go into it.  There will always be oddities and contradictions but today's announcement just looks full of oddness.
> 
> Haircuts?  - Yup
> Nails done? - Nope



Nails is basically touching someone else's hands for ages. It's also really not that important, whereas loads of people really want haircuts. FFS the line has to go somewhere, if they let nails open then some moaners would be why nails and not massages or something.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Jun 24, 2020)

There are* 200* cases in one chicken factory here on Anglesey now!

Thank god we're opening up for tourism in less than 2 weeks!


----------



## mwgdrwg (Jun 24, 2020)

I take it this isn't being reported much in England, and also why it's in the Welsh Politics section of the BBC site.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

It seems like a no brainer to me that everyone working in meat processing of any kind should be given regular tests. Also another case where ssp is woefully inadequate. Needs to be 2 weeks full pay, no ifs or buts, and big fines for any company allowing anyone back to work earlier than 2 weeks. 

With the much vaunted testing capacity surely this is the easy stuff to get right.


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

News seems to be a constant stream of people moaning about not being able to do their personal pet thing.

FFS, 60,000+ dead, fuck off with your moaning about being unable to go to a swimming pool/gym/nail bar attendance for a bit longer...


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> *News seems to be a constant stream of people moaning about not being able to do their personal pet thing.*
> 
> FFS, 60,000+ dead, fuck off with your moaning about being unable to go to a swimming pool/gym/nail bar attendance for a bit longer...



I know that's really fucking annoying, but I'm going to _try_ my best to avoid/ignore reported news of that particular moaning type, and try and remember but such idiots may not be all that representative ....

"Sensible majority", anyone??


----------



## kabbes (Jun 24, 2020)

It was some basketball association this morning livid because they’re not allowed to cluster a dozen people in a small area panting heavily on each other for an hour, whilst repeatedly passing each other the same ball hand to hand.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Nails is basically touching someone else's hands for ages. It's also really not that important, whereas loads of people really want haircuts. FFS the line has to go somewhere, if they let nails open then some moaners would be why nails and not massages or something.



They wear gloves.  No one needs to go to the pub.  The people's livelihood argument is the same.


----------



## kabbes (Jun 24, 2020)

And I absolutely think indoor pubs should not be opening


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> They wear gloves.  No one needs to go to the pub.  The people's livelihood argument is the same.



No, it's really not. How much is the nail polishing sector worth compared to the pub/bar sector? All sorts of mental health and social aspects to the later too. 

_'Won't someone think of the little fish nibbling dead skin off your feet industry?' _


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, it's really not. How much is the nail polishing sector worth compared to the pub/bar sector? All sorts of mental health and social aspects to the later too.
> 
> _'Won't someone think of the little fish nibbling dead skin off your feet industry?' _



Yes, it's economics that have driven the latest round.  Glad we can agree on that.

As for the other stuff, well. You might want to have a look at that again in the cold light of day because its paints you in a bad picture. 

My friend's wife came to UK as a refugee aged 18.  No education and couldn't speak any English and needless to say no money at all.  Unsurprisingly there are not many job opportunities available for someone like that.  From that she has managed to build up a successful business.  A business that supports her family and members of the wider community not to mention distant family members in far flung lands.

What they do is nails and wider beauty treatment.  But actually what you do in business is often irrelevant as its a means to an end.  The business is staring down the barrel at the moment and so is everyone it supports  This is just one business, one story.  So, yeah its an economic argument and yesterday's announcement was clearly based more on who shouts loudest then what is necessary or practically safe.   I'm comfortable asking the question of why hair but not nails because this stuff has serious ramifications.  I don't think its unreasonable for people to ask why not my business?

A bit more that fish nibbling dead skin, don't you think?


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 24, 2020)

I think its important to make the point that people moaning their pet thing are mostly the people who run the businesses.  Now, there will often be very good reasons why that business can't open yet but its not unreasonable to ask particularly as the same thing is coming out time and again.  They are getting no information or feedback from the government.


----------



## B.I.G (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, it's really not. How much is the nail polishing sector worth compared to the pub/bar sector? All sorts of mental health and social aspects to the later too.
> 
> _'Won't someone think of the little fish nibbling dead skin off your feet industry?' _



Recently described as a “thoughtful” person 😂

Alcohol has a negative effect on mental health.

Clearly the important thing to you is how much the sector is worth when making decisions. 

Their decision is based on racism and tory donors.


----------



## maomao (Jun 24, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Alcohol has a negative effect on mental health


And drinking at home/alone more so. Alcohol has not been banned at any point.


----------



## B.I.G (Jun 24, 2020)

maomao said:


> And drinking at home/alone more so. Alcohol has not been banned at any point.



The issue is the transmission of a virus.

Is your point that alcohol should be banned or did you just feel the need to state a couple of irrelevant facts?


----------



## maomao (Jun 24, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> The issue is the transmission of a virus.
> 
> Is your point that alcohol should be banned or did you just feel the need to state a couple of irrelevant facts?


I was drawing attention to the irrelevance of your facts. Opening pubs has fuck all to do with access to alcohol.


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

I think when it comes to people's own business interest they can develop a blind spot about their places having a higher level of infection risk than others.


----------



## B.I.G (Jun 24, 2020)

maomao said:


> I was drawing attention to the irrelevance of your facts. Opening pubs has fuck all to do with access to alcohol.



Access no. Volume yes. More alcohol will be consumed when the pubs are open. More transmission of the virus will occur.

The supposed mental health benefits of pubs and bars shouldn’t be used as a reason to open them up over nail bars.

The consumption of alcohol has a negative mental health effect.


----------



## B.I.G (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think when it comes to people's own business interest they can develop a blind spot about their places having a higher level of infection risk than others.



And pubs will have a higher rate of infection to the population.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 24, 2020)

Not really UK news but relevant with tennis not being banned.









						Novak Djokovic tests positive for Covid-19 amid Adria Tour fiasco
					

Novak Djokovic released a statement stating he is the fourth player from the Adria Tour event to test positive for Covid-19




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The Serb stands widely accused of complacency for organising an unofficial charity event – in Belgrade, Zadar and Montenegro (subsequently cancelled) – without safety protocols applicable in most other countries and which have prevented resumption of the main Tour until August.


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Recently described as a “thoughtful” person 😂
> 
> Alcohol has a negative effect on mental health.
> 
> ...



You think the decision to open bars and pubs and hairdressers but not nail salons is partly based in racism?


----------



## pesh (Jun 24, 2020)

B.I.G said:


> Access no. Volume yes. More alcohol will be consumed when the pubs are open.


yeah, i've really been holding back till i can pay 5 times as much for a pint.


----------



## B.I.G (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> You think the decision to open bars and pubs and hairdressers but not nail salons is partly based in racism?



Yes.


----------



## B.I.G (Jun 24, 2020)

pesh said:


> yeah, i've really been holding back till i could pay 5 times as much for a pint.



Because the pubs aren’t full of people doing that all the time under normal circumstances?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, it's really not. How much is the nail polishing sector worth compared to the pub/bar sector? All sorts of mental health and social aspects to the later too.
> 
> _'Won't someone think of the little fish nibbling dead skin off your feet industry?' _


Agree with teaboy on this. I think your reasoning is faulty. Just cos a sector is bigger doesn't mean it should be given preferential treatment just due to its size. And if it is being given preferential treatment, that's surely because of the lobbying power of the rich owners of chains compared to predominantly small non-chain businesses such as nail bars.

ETA: Just to add to that, I think you're also wrong to dismiss the idea that businesses in some of these smaller sectors might be of equal importance to their users wrt their mental health, etc, as larger sectors are to theirs.


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Agree with teaboy on this. I think your reasoning is faulty. Just cos a sector is bigger doesn't mean it should be given preferential treatment just due to its size. And if it is being given preferential treatment, that's surely because of the lobbying power of the rich owners of chains compared to predominantly small non-chain businesses such as nail bars.



I don't agree with that being fair, I know that some sectors have more access to power etc, but that's not what all the people I've heard representing those businesses in the media are arguing. The reasons for some things not opening while others are is a mix of reasons, some economic importance, some social demand, some infection risk, whereas what I've heard people arguing for generally when it comes to their business mostly seems to be along the lines of "It's just not fair I can't do X." Maybe we're on slightly crossed wires?


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 24, 2020)

There's arguably mental health implications to not being able to access beauty treatments too. At least for some people. I'm ok with my legs looking skanky but I'd feel a bit self conscious if I was walking around in shorts and t shirts outside every day. 

And haven't massage places been open for a while? My mum has been going for a massage weekly for a few weeks!


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> There's arguably mental health implications to not being able to access beauty treatments too. At least for some people. I'm ok with my legs looking skanky but I'd feel a bit self conscious if I was walking around in shorts and t shirts outside every day.
> 
> And haven't massage places been open for a while? My mum has been going for a massage weekly for a few weeks!



Fair enough with the beauty/mental health relationship, totally out of my realm of comprehension though so happy to be reminded.

I thought massage places would totally not have been allowed the last months?! Actually a quick look says they aren't allowed nor are they opening, same as nail salons and tattoo places.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

How do you measure social demand, though? For some people, getting their nails done or whatever will be a treat that makes them feel good (and they might never set foot in pubs at the best of times). And the number of businesses around to cater for those people will be proportionate to the number of people. Once you are moving from services considered essential to services considered non-essential, the only consideration should be a measure of the infection risk involved and the possibility of mitigating that risk. On that scale, I would probably put pubs below nail bars, if anything, as a nail bar is a very controllable environment in ways that a pub never can be.


----------



## wtfftw (Jun 24, 2020)

It's just based on shouting isn't it? Lobbying and what'll placate the masses.


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

Maybe I need to look into this nail bar thing, they just seem weird to me, so I'm speaking from a place of slight bafflement and ignorance about them tbh.


----------



## frogwoman (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fair enough with the beauty/mental health relationship, totally out of my realm of comprehension though so happy to be reminded.
> 
> I thought massage places would totally not have been allowed the last months?! Actually a quick look says they aren't allowed nor are they opening, same as nail salons and tattoo places.



I think it's because she's got back issues tbh. And from what she said they are the only two people in the building.


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> It's just based on shouting isn't it? Lobbying and what'll placate the masses.



No, partly shouting, partly economics, partly infection risk, partly what people want. Not sure I like the 'placate the masses' tone though.


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think it's because she's got back issues tbh.



Yeah, I was thinking maybe it depended on what type of massage. Sports/physio maybe OK, oily with a happy ending maybe not so much.


----------



## xenon (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> How do you measure social demand, though? For some people, getting their nails done or whatever will be a treat that makes them feel good (and they might never set foot in pubs at the best of times). And the number of businesses around to cater for those people will be proportionate to the number of people. Once you are moving from services considered essential to services considered non-essential, the only consideration should be a measure of the infection risk involved and the possibility of mitigating that risk. On that scale, I would probably put pubs below nail bars, if anything, as a nail bar is a very controllable environment in ways that a pub never can be.



This is daft. Clearly nail bar operatives have to get that much closer, within 1m of clients. Pubs, many of them can have people separated.

The line was always going to be drawn somewhere. Gyms are probably more important to many people's physical and mental health than nail bars. We've all got personal preferences and like or not the hospitality industry is a far bigger employer than beauty industry. The balance of risks verses economic necessity have lead to this. We were never gonna get UBI under this government. Of course industries that can't open at this time should continue to be supported.

Obviously a lot of commentary is some people worried about their future livelyhoods. a   lot else though is just superficial whining. And FWIW I do think it's a bit too early for indoor pubs to be opening.


----------



## xenon (Jun 24, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> It's just based on shouting isn't it? Lobbying and what'll placate the masses.



Not really. Economic based decision with consideration of the risks. We might think the balance is wrong or why is economics being put before lives. A dead economy kills too though and given who's in charge, fantasies about redressing any of this from above are pointless.


----------



## MrSki (Jun 24, 2020)

A protective ring around care homes my arse. Fucking shocking. 13.6 % of care home population has died.


----------



## wtfftw (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, partly shouting, partly economics, partly infection risk, partly what people want. Not sure I like the 'placate the masses' tone though.


You don't think pub priority is partly the government wanting to be popular?


xenon said:


> Not really. Economic based decision with consideration of the risks. We might think the balance is wrong or why is economics being put before lives. A dead economy kills too though and given who's in charge, fantasies about redressing any of this from above are pointless.


I think you have more faith in them considering the risks than me. Drunk people in confined spaces just doesn't sound sensible.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> This is daft. Clearly nail bar operatives have to get that much closer, within 1m of clients. Pubs, many of them can have people separated.


I don't think it's daft. Operatives and clients can both wear masks, meaning that the distance between them isn't a relevant factor. And pushing against the limits of my ignorance of nail bars, perhaps a screen might be possible. People are in one-on-one encounters rather than constantly encountering different people, which is a much more controllable situation. And of course alcohol isn't involved except as a cleaning agent.

Of all the non-essential businesses I want to see back, pubs are top of the list, but I can't see how pubs are anywhere near the top of the list wrt infection risk, and other people of course will have different lists.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 24, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> I think you have more faith in them considering the risks than me. Drunk people in confined spaces just doesn't sound sensible.



Iuuuurve you ((((hugs)))) ❤ hic

yep see what you mean


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> You don't think pub priority is partly the government wanting to be popular?
> 
> I think you have more faith in them considering the risks than me. Drunk people in confined spaces just doesn't sound sensible.



Yes, popular as it's what most people want, hence the social pressure on them to open which is one of the reasons I gave as a factor. Plus economic etc. It was the 'placate the masses' phrase I objected too, bit close to 'sheeple' for my liking, but maybe that wasn't how you meant it?


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## xenon (Jun 24, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> You don't think pub priority is partly the government wanting to be popular?
> 
> I think you have more faith in them considering the risks than me. Drunk people in confined spaces just doesn't sound sensible.



Well the whole thing, lock down, post lock down, all relies quite heavily on how people behave. This virus will still be around next summer, we can't keep things closed until then obviously, so a risk is going to be taken somewhere along the line.


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## treelover (Jun 24, 2020)

I nam more nervous now about the second wave, than ever was about now, October may be the cruelest month.


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## xenon (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't think it's daft. Operatives and clients can both wear masks, meaning that the distance between them isn't a relevant factor. And pushing against the limits of my ignorance of nail bars, perhaps a screen might be possible. People are in one-on-one encounters rather than constantly encountering different people, which is a much more controllable situation. And of course alcohol isn't involved except as a cleaning agent.
> 
> Of all the non-essential businesses I want to see back, pubs are top of the list, but I can't see how pubs are anywhere near the top of the list wrt infection risk, and other people of course will have different lists.



But it's the infection risk + mitigating economic damage. If everyone wore masks all the time, perhaps every business could open. That's not going to happen. In the mean time, what's the calculation.

Heard earlier the govt are saying gyms, beauty salons and the like may be able to open in late July anyway.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

treelover said:


> I nam more nervous now about the second wave, than ever was about now, October may be the cruelest month.


Why? Infection levels are plummetting across Europe even as they relax lockdown. Iran has experienced a second wave, but lots of other countries are now down to very low levels, and all the signs are that the UK is heading towards that destination as well. 

And if there is a second surge in the autumn, we're massively better equipped now to bash it down South Korea-style. In fact, there's really no excuse not to be able to do that.


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## killer b (Jun 24, 2020)

treelover said:


> I nam more nervous now about the second wave, than ever was about now, October may be the cruelest month.


You've been going 'oh noe! second wave here we come!' every time you've left the house for two months. You've been wrong every other time, so try and take some comfort from that and assume you'll be wrong this time as well.


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## wtfftw (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes, popular as it's what most people want, hence the social pressure on them to open which is one of the reasons I gave as a factor. Plus economic etc. It was the 'placate the masses' phrase I objected too, bit close to 'sheeple' for my liking, but maybe that wasn't how you meant it?


From government/policy POV. I am part of the masses to be placated.


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## xenon (Jun 24, 2020)

I don't blame people with underlying health conditions feeling nervous of course not. But there is a general unease amongst people who've not been out, about socialising again. I had it myself, until I met friends in the park a few weeks ago. Last week, I met another friend in a garden, he'd not seen anyone since march IRL. He said he'd been feeling quite jittery and apprehensive. For most people this unease I think will disapate. It should for others once infection rates go right down. Which is not a given but I've found the gloomy predictions and worst case scenario imaginings quite detrimental. 

None of which let's the government off the appalling and synicle way they've handled much of this though.

Anyway getting on a train in a couple of weeks is going to be my next. hmm moment.


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## killer b (Jun 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> But there is a general unease amongst people who've not been out, about socialising again.


totally, we're all completely institutionalised. I think that - and a knee jerk anti-government sentiment (both of which are totally understandable tbf) is perhaps making people more cautious than they necessarily need to be. Or not, who the fuck knows.


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## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> I don't blame people with underlying health conditions feeling nervous of course not. But there is a general unease amongst people who've not been out, about socialising again. I had it myself, until I met friends in the park a few weeks ago. Last week, I met another friend in a garden, he'd not seen anyone since march IRL. He said he'd been feeling quite jittery and apprehensive.
> 
> Getting on a train in a couple of weeks is going to be my next. hmm moment.



I've got a train twice now (once last week, once week before), and getting another later today, all times non-peak journeys. It's been OK tbh, first journey was about 15 minutes each way and I think there and back I was pretty much the only person on the train. Last week was about an hour journey and the train was busier but nearly everyone had a mask on, most seats are not being used.

I get the worry about doing things like that, but the risk is very, very low (and getting lower as time passes) and that does have to be balanced with getting out and doing stuff again. It's like all these things with risk and danger, take small steps, push it a bit, see how it goes, step back if it feels too much, don't give yourself a hard time, repeat...


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> totally, we're all completely institutionalised. I think that - and a knee jerk anti-government sentiment (both of which are totally understandable tbf) is perhaps making people more cautious than they necessarily need to be. Or not, who the fuck knows.



Yeah I think so. I'm seeing quite a lot, within my particular social media bubble, of 'well here we go then, second wave guaranteed now,' rooted in a vaguely left anti-government view. I understand where that comes from but it's not really underpinned by any sort of argument or reasoning beyond that, the vast majority of the time.


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## Oula (Jun 24, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Why can hairdressers reopen but tattooists can't? It's literally the same thing - I would have even thought hairdressing was higher risk, as they're always working around the head/face, and have a much faster turnaround so will be seeing a lot more people in the average day.





Artaxerxes said:


> Don't tattooists where the plastic gloves as well?


The places I've had tattoos done have been the cleanest places with the best infection control I've seen. Everything covered in cling film that is changed after every client. Gloves. All they need to do is add masks and they're sorted. It's be happier they're than in lots of other places.


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## cupid_stunt (Jun 24, 2020)

Just looking at the dates when Italy & Spain re-opened bars & restaurants, cross referenced to the '7-day average daily deaths' on the dates concerned.

Italy re-opened 18th May - average daily death rate - 181
Spain re-opened 25th May - average daily death rate - 61

Our '7-day average daily deaths' is currently 137, hopefully even lower by 4th July, so we sit between those two examples, and in both those cases, the death rate has continued to drop.

So, maybe it's not too early to start re-opening, unless we end-up being very unlucky.


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## quimcunx (Jun 24, 2020)

I expect some industries having chains and big earners at the top will have had at least some influence.  Nail bars are less likely to be chains. More likely to be operated by POC. More common in more diverse areas.  I guess overall more people across the country want a haircut more than they want manicures or pedicures. I'd much rather the latter personally  but I'm not interested in doing anything beyond the necessary indoors right now.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Of all the non-essential businesses I want to see back, pubs are top of the list, but I can't see how pubs are anywhere near the top of the list wrt infection risk, and other people of course will have different lists.



Well let me put it this way, I would expect pubs to be one of the first things to close again if the situation worsens (or the same locally). And they dont strike me as a totally different order of magnitude of risk compared to some of the things that remain shut such as nightclubs and bowling alleys.

But it depends what 'covid secure' means in practice, how people end up behaving, and crucially in what numbers.

We know from yesterdays press conference that three things which worry Whitty are winter, people not engaging with the test & trace system, and throngs of people behaving in the traditional manner in pubs. I cant say I disagree with him on this. But this moment is one where I would be relaxing various things too, given that we arent really going for a 'try to completely eradicate the virus' approach, and that lockdown fatigue is a real thing, and that if we wait too long to relax stuff we'll end up running into a period of likely increased risk as we move into autumn-winter. I'd rather our entire approach had been different, but since it wasnt, I would probably play a similar hand with the cards as dealt. But then if I were actually in a decision-making position I would have a better idea about how good some of the data is. For example if the sewage-based infection estimates worked really well on a failry local level, that would give me increased confidence to relax certain things, with the idea that we would be able to spot any resulting issues quite quickly.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just looking at the dates when Italy & Spain re-opened bars & restaurants, cross referenced to the '7-day average daily deaths' on the dates concerned.
> 
> Italy re-opened 18th May - average daily death rate - 181
> Spain re-opened 25th May - average daily death rate - 61
> ...


And if we are unlucky, they shut again. I do think it is time to take calculated risks here. It's also way past time to become far more localised in the response. The UK is held back to an extent by the insistence that all these decisions need to come from the centre.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2020)

Another thing to consider is that it isnt just about the pure risk of infection in a particular scenario, its also about practical considerations if there does turn out to be a significant spreading event in one of these situations.

For example the test & trace system is supposed to carry a lot of the weight of this period. If people approach pubs in a modified way, and the logging of customer info is reasonably well done and people dont supply false details all the time, then that is one thing, we might imagine the tracing system coping. If we imagine instead the typical weekend scene in a town centre with high volumes of people thronging closely together and moving around multiple establishments over the evening, well that starts to resemble more of a nightmare for test & trace. Seems reasonable to expect the reality to be somewhere in between these two extremes, and somewhat difficult for me to predict. I am not naive enough to expect only the new form of sensible behaviour to happen, so my hopes also have to rest on the idea that the chances of coming into contact with an infected person right now are much lower at the moment.


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## killer b (Jun 24, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Yeah I think so. I'm seeing quite a lot, within my particular social media bubble, of 'well here we go then, second wave guaranteed now,' rooted in a vaguely left anti-government view. I understand where that comes from but it's not really underpinned by any sort of argument or reasoning beyond that, the vast majority of the time.


the thing is, the same people have been saying 'well here we go then, second wave guaranteed now' at least once a week for months - so it's hard not to discount their concerns as scaremongering. TBH I'm not sure they should be opening indoor spaces yet, but that's not really based on anything solid. I doubt I'll be doing much inside any pubs for a few weeks either way.


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## ska invita (Jun 24, 2020)

there will likely be a second wave in autumn/winter as thats a time of increase in viruses and illness in general
doesnt _necessarily_ have much to do with whats happening now


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## Spandex (Jun 24, 2020)

It's hard to get a grip on what the risks are now that the country is opening up again. If you look across the Channel Europe seems to be opening up without a major second spike in infections, even if there's local flare ups here and there. But look in the other direction across the Atlantic and things don't look to be going so well.

The issue is rapidly becoming politicised with Johnson seeking to paint a sunny picture of a fantastic test and trace system, dwindling infections and Britain open for business again, while Starmer is painting a darker picture, talking about a second wave and a faltering test and trace system. As those political positions harden it's going to be hard to get a sense of what is actually going on amongst all the noise.

It does feel about the right time to be opening more stuff, but whether it's the right stuff at the right time only the future will tell. Add into that the possibility that what we're seeing is just a seasonal variation in the spread of the virus and I'll be cautiously taking advantage of having more to do, but keeping an eye on the figures - especially as we get into autumn.


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## kabbes (Jun 24, 2020)

I really wonder how much winter/summer is the decisive factor on whether deaths are waxing or waning here.  And if so, why?  Vitamin D?


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## cupid_stunt (Jun 24, 2020)

Spandex said:


> It's hard to get a grip on what the risks are now that the country is opening up again. If you look across the Channel Europe seems to be opening up without a major second spike in infections, even if there's local flare ups here and there. But look in the other direction across the Atlantic and things don't look to be going so well.



I think comparisons to Europe is better as we all peaked within a few weeks of each other, across the pond it was states largely in the north & east that peaked first, whereas the increased cases now appear largely in the southern & western states.


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## maomao (Jun 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> it's hard not to discount their concerns as scaremongering.


I think a lot of people are actually scared rather than scare_mongering_.


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## Spandex (Jun 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I really wonder how much winter/summer is the decisive factor on whether deaths are waxing or waning here.  And if so, why?  Vitamin D?


More time spent together indoors with the windows shut in that fug of other people's breath?


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## kabbes (Jun 24, 2020)

Mongering scareds is pretty lucrative right now, mind you


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## kabbes (Jun 24, 2020)

Spandex said:


> More time spent together indoors with the windows shut in that fug of other people's breath?


Well yes, if you’re going to get sensible about it


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## killer b (Jun 24, 2020)

maomao said:


> I think a lot of people are actually scared rather than scare_mongering_.


Well, yes. As I said, it's understandable. But people are scared of all sorts of stuff they possibly shouldn't be scared of, sometimes for bad reasons. If someone has spent the last few months sharing photos of people on the beach, at the park, at VE day street parties, news stories of illicit raves, etc etc etc with the same refrain 'second wave incoming!' - and then a second wave not coming in - how seriously should I be expected to take their fears now? They've been objectively wrong week in week out, and don't seem to have noticed. Maybe they'll be right this time, but if they are it won't be because they have any great insight into the risks at play here.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And if there is a second surge in the autumn, we're massively better equipped now to bash it down South Korea-style. In fact, there's really no excuse not to be able to do that.



We are massively better equipped now because that sort of statement is relative to how terribly poorly we were equipped before. So there has been a big improvement, but that doesnt mean our capabilities are now equivalent to those of highly touted countries like South Korea, or Germany.

Reasons it could still all go wrong later:

If we dont continue to build on the work done so far so that we eventually end up with a decent system.
If too many people fail to engage with the system, if compliance is poor.
If the numbers grow too large for such systems to handle.

The last point has applied to even the successful countries, their excellent test & trace systems still have limits, and it is possible to find articles online that say Germany had to suspend its system for a while during their first wave. And in South Korea, we know that system cannot carry all of the weight on its own, they have still had to impose additional restrictions on people to cope with certain periods.

Concerns about winter as expressed by many including Whitty are based on large amounts of conventional wisdom. Its not impossible to consider that things might not pan out as expected during that season, but it would be unwise to bet against what we think we know about respiratory viruses and winter. With this conventional wisdom tends to come assumptions that the number of cases will become very large over that period, too large for a manual test & trace system to cope with. So the app becomes far more important, and even then there are likely to assumptions that further mitigation measures will be required again, at least for the very peak period.

If I study that conventional wisdom, one of its most obvious blind spots is that its based on our experiences over many years that involve seasonal diseases that we consider inevitable, that we mostly try to deal with via vaccination campaigns and public health messages. Upticks are noted and the system braces for a wave, but there arent usually any non-vaccine attempts to suppress the wave with those other diseases. It will be interesting to see what happens this time, because the way we approach any initial uptick might be quite different to the convention, and so the results might be quite different too. I dont know quite how much we will get to see of this though because I dont know how much our stance will still end up similar to last time. Will we try to press down hard, early, nip it in the bud, or will we revert to stuff that is based on the idea that the winter wave is inevitable, blunting ambitions to do anything other than belatedly trying to blunt the very peak? I think it would be unwise for me to try to judge that this early, it depends what the mood is when we reach that point. It would, for example, be easy to make negative assumptions about peoples levels of compliance with future lockdowns etc, but my thoughts on that would be too heavily influenced by the mood right now, and the mood could be very diferent again by then. Same goes for guessing how far the government would be willing to go, judging how we think they might act in winter when they are currently in cheerleading 'open stuff and remove the temporary safety nets' mode seems ripe for error.


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## andysays (Jun 24, 2020)

Even if we are in a better position than we were a few months ago (which we all know isn't saying much), health leaders are still expressing concerns that we may not be properly prepared for the real risk of a second wave, according main story on the BBC website.


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## maomao (Jun 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Mongering scareds is pretty lucrative right now, mind you


Only if you have a decent amount of scareds and their attention in the first place. I'm not sure posting 'second wave coming!' on here is much of an earner.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

Spandex said:


> It's hard to get a grip on what the risks are now that the country is opening up again. If you look across the Channel Europe seems to be opening up without a major second spike in infections, even if there's local flare ups here and there. But look in the other direction across the Atlantic and things don't look to be going so well.


With the proviso that this is in no way proven, the patterns of infection worldwide, including what is happening in the Americas now, are still consistent with the development of some form of population-level resistance being a factor in play during recovery from a severe outbreak. There is one possible candidate contributory reason for this - the presence of certain T cells that recognise covid proteins in perhaps half the population, discovered in a study looking at vaccines last month.

Not knowing if or how much this is a factor means you can't just thrown doors open again, but I would suggest that it is at least something that should be considered when working out what to try reopening. Much of the UK is in the 'coming out of a severe outbreak' category. A bit more honesty wouldn't go amiss - ie we don't know what the risks are exactly (or even approximately, really), so we're going to try this and monitor the effects and then reverse the decision swiftly if it doesn't work.


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## Raheem (Jun 24, 2020)

Worried more about the tone rather than the re-opening per se. Other European countries have done similar to what we are doing with infections at a comparable level. But our government doesn't seem to be sounding the same level of caution, or at least not in the same way. i.e. they don't seem to be preparing for the possibility of a second lockdown. I wonder if we're going to get a repeat of resisting it and resisting it and then doing it a bit too late.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Worried more about the tone rather than the re-opening per se. Other European countries have done similar to what we are doing with infections at a comparable level. But our government doesn't seem to be sounding the same level of caution, or at least not in the same way. i.e. they don't seem to be preparing for the possibility of a second lockdown. I wonder if we're going to get a repeat of resisting it and resisting it and then doing it a bit too late.


We have a government that never admits mistakes and never apologises.


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## Raheem (Jun 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Mongering scareds is pretty lucrative right now, mind you


Or merchanting doom, if you have a bit of capital behind you.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2020)

andysays said:


> Even if we are in a better position than we were a few months ago (which we all know isn't saying much), health leaders are still expressing concerns that we may not be properly prepared for the real risk of a second wave, according main story on the BBC website.



There are a bunch of areas where I have no particular reason to believe we are much better off than before.

The best improvement is if we are actually sincere about tackling infection in all manner of ways that we simply werent the first time around due to the crap orthodox approach that dominated until mid-March.

Fundamental healthcare system capacity hasnt really changed, although the reconfigurations done and the experience gained should help.

Unclear whether PPE situation will be worse, better or similar. Likewise various drug & consumable supply issues, could be worse than last time.

Testing situation is improved and that should make a difference to hospitals, although things can still be messed up on this front if not careful.

Healthcare staffing situation might be considered to be a bit different, given the antibody testing they are doing on NHS workers and what they could in theory choose to use the results of this for in practical staffing terms during any subsequent wave.

Unclear how much hospital infection control has improved and whether all of the lessons from this are sustainable. I will hopefully get a better sense of this in the next few months as the local hospital infections that are still ongoing, as in my local hospital, stick out more in the death stats and will presumably get tackled more as a result.

Treatments - they were keen to hype this stuff up a bit recently and I wouldnt go so far myself, but there is still a bit of time left for some progress on this front before the seasons of concern arrive.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Worried more about the tone rather than the re-opening per se. Other European countries have done similar to what we are doing with infections at a comparable level. But our government doesn't seem to be sounding the same level of caution, or at least not in the same way. i.e. they don't seem to be preparing for the possibility of a second lockdown. I wonder if we're going to get a repeat of resisting it and resisting it and then doing it a bit too late.



Its a mixed bag.

They actually do acknowledge the possibility of futre reimposition of restrictions, and stuff like local lockdowns. Even Johnson was not allergic to acknowledging such things in yesterdays press conference.

However such details do not influence the mood music they are trying to play at the moment, which is very much like you say. And certainly when it comes to future instincts and timing of this government, I would be stupid to place too much faith in them, given their past mistakes. I can hope that those past mistakes make it much less likely they will repeat them, but I wouldnt bet on it.

The only area in which I can forgive their current mood music is that they probably have various data, polls etc that tell them that no matter how positive their mood music, actually getting people to go back to 'normal' in terms of economic activity is a big challenge. They are probably trying to compensate for that.

It reminds me in that respect of when they first announced their school reopening plans. On paper I did not like the plans, I thought they went too far. But I decided not to freak out about it because I considered that the government probably knew that nowhere near as many kids as were theoretically eligible to return would actually do so. And that local decisions would be made about particular schools. And how many people you have gathered inside is quite a big element of the risk picture, so this stuff makes a difference to how comfortable I am with certain reopenings. If I think the government are trying to compensate for how many people still have their feet firmly planted on the brake pedal, then I can moderate my concerns on this stuff a bit, their stance makes more sense.

Dropping the daily press briefings seems likely to be a part of this too, as was the desire to get some televised sports going again. Attempts to redefine the new normal again, and influence where peoples heads are at. If they go too far then it may be appropriate to suggest they are lulling people into a false sense of security, but I wont quite make that claim just now, and I will probably only be able to do so in future with the benefit of hindsight.


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## 2hats (Jun 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I really wonder how much winter/summer is the decisive factor on whether deaths are waxing or waning here.  And if so, why?  Vitamin D?


Likely increased outdoor activity, increased natural airflow/air exchanges (open windows) and significantly higher levels of UV all contribute to varying degrees.


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## andysays (Jun 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> Likely increased outdoor activity, increased natural airflow/air exchanges (open windows) and significantly higher levels of UV all contribute to varying degrees.


You would also need to factor in that for many people, likely predominantly those most at risk, the past three or four months have actually seen decreased outdoor activity, and this at a time when the weather has been unusually good in terms of hours of sunshine etc.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

tbh I keep hearing about vit D as a major player, but I've never seen any solid evidence for it.

There has been a study finding no measurable benefits, though, and casting some doubts on the significance of past findings of correlations.

High doses of vitamin D supplementation has no current benefit in preventing or treating Covid-19

Then there is a lot of this kind of stuff.

Vitamin D affects Covid-19 mortality Pharmaceutical Technology

The article is titled 'Vitamin D affects Covid mortality', but the study does not demonstrate a causal effect, merely a correlation, as likely to be due mostly or entirely to other causal factors - the old and ill are low in Vit D as well as all the other things that leave them vulnerable. This kind of article really annoys me - a science writer should know the basic 'correlation does not necessarily mean causation' rule.

ETA: I'm also a bit suspicious of some of the attention VitD has been getting in some sections of the press, given the paucity of real evidence. It provides a _convenient_ non-social explanation for the BAME death rates here, for instance, one that means you don't have to look so hard at the structural inequalities that are the most likely cause.


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## Sue (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We have a government that never admits mistakes and never apologises.


That's because they're always right.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> Likely increased outdoor activity, increased natural airflow/air exchanges (open windows) and significantly higher levels of UV all contribute to varying degrees.



Yes. Some of the seasonal differences are down to seasonal behavioural differences, and assuming our behaviour remains quite a bit different to normal this winter, it will be very interesting to see what happens.

I think I've done a good job so far of not becoming the boy who cried 2nd wave. It wasnt too hard so far, although it can get more complicated at times when I bump heads with people who would rather believe lockdown was unnecessary or pointless in the first place.

Given the conventional wisdom about respiratory viruses and winter, it is difficult for me not to develop a sense of the future which involves such things, but there are very definite limitations to this stuff, the concept should not be taken too far. We should not for example assume that it is the current season which has allowed our numbers to dwindle. It may well have helped, but we are now starting to see plenty of examples elsewhere that do not simply follow these crude calendar assumptions. California, Texas, Arizona, Florida, these states are all providing fresh reasons for people to dwell more on the idea that its our behaviours that make the single biggest difference. And thats not unique to this virus, the swine flu pandemic first wave in the UK was in summer.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2020)

Oh and on that last note, I shouldnt leave out South Korea:



> “We originally predicted that the second wave would emerge in fall or winter,” Jeong said. “Our forecast turned out to be wrong. As long as people have close contact with others, we believe that infections will continue.”











						Global report: South Korea has Covid-19 second wave as Israel ponders new lockdown
					

New infections in and around Seoul; Spain reports 36 new outbreaks; New Zealand strengthens borders




					www.theguardian.com
				




Not that the level of infection required in South Korea for them to call it a second wave resembles the level that I would consider to be a proper use of the term 2nd wave in the UK, but thats because I consider it to be something of a relative thing. Our first wave was so much larger than South Koreas, what they call waves would barely be a blip by our shitty standards.


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## Teaboy (Jun 24, 2020)

I've just been out for a lunchtime stroll and I saw a couple a couple of arguments between strangers and there was a fair bit of tension in the air generally.  I think the fear and frustration of the last few months is coming to a head.  This is combined with everyone operating to different rules means we're in a very different place to where we were a few weeks ago.  

There is a lot of people out and about as well.  Really noticed for the first real time how busy it is if few kids are at school and lots of people are working from home or on furlough.  We've also seen a lot of anger out of the streets in the form of protests as well.

Its fully convinced me that I won't be going to the pubs for a while and if I was running one I'd give it a couple of weeks.  There is trouble brewing I reckon.  I'm also very sceptical about the idea that locaslised lockdowns can be enforced without serious heavy handed policing.


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## LDC (Jun 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I'm also very sceptical about the idea that locaslised lockdowns can be enforced without serious heavy handed policing.



Yeah, I'm wary that given these localized lock downs will need to happen quickly and they'll be limited national coverage of the details I can't see how they'll be communicated and be enforced very well at all. With the national one it was obvious it was coming in some way, and then was everywhere in the media, and it still took a while to sink in around me (inner city, high non-English speaking population, poverty, bad web access, etc.), so what with that and the council being shit here it could be imposed with loads of people not aware.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its fully convinced me that I won't be going to the pubs for a while and if I was running one I'd give it a couple of weeks.  There is trouble brewing I reckon.  I'm also very sceptical about the idea that locaslised lockdowns can be enforced without serious heavy handed policing.



I know what you mean. It is tempting to suggest that all those negative, gloomy predictions about how crappy people would behave in lockdown, that turned out to be rather far wide of the mark in the first few months, might have more truth to them later on. I'm not sure though, its certainly something to keep an eye on. Something changed in terms of overall mood in May, and it might take some time to play out.

The thing about local lockdowns is that lockdown has become such an all-encompassing term. Its really not clear how much actual lockdown it might involve. So far it seems that the response to localised outbreaks is to close specific things in that area - for example close and clean a hospital department, close and mass-test staff at a large local employer (eg meat processing), keep schools closed in an area of higher infection. There is limited evidence for how a full on draconian lockdown would look at any level in the UK, let alone the local level, and its not clear whether we will end up in a situation where one is attempted in that way either. If things get really bad again at some point, it could quickly escalate beyond clearly identifiable local outbreaks anyway, and then we'll be back to national considerations again before the idea of a draconian local lockdown had a chance to be acted upon.


----------



## Supine (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh I keep hearing about vit D as a major player, but I've never seen any solid evidence for it.
> 
> There has been a study finding no measurable benefits, though, and casting some doubts on the significance of past findings of correlations.
> 
> ...



There is a large and growing number of studies into vitamin d & covid throughout the world. It’s benefit is based on clinical knowledge of the role vitamin d plays with the immune response and not just a random correlation. 

I’m taking a d supplement and I’d recommend anyone who is worried about covid should talk to their doctor about taking it.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I was thinking maybe it depended on what type of massage. Sports/physio maybe OK, oily with a happy ending maybe not so much.


I'm.pretty sure the oily with a happy ending type have continued all through lock down.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

Supine said:


> There is a large and growing number of studies into vitamin d & covid throughout the world. It’s benefit is based on clinical knowledge of the role vitamin d plays with the immune response and not just a random correlation.
> 
> I’m taking a d supplement and I’d recommend anyone who is worried about covid should talk to their doctor about taking it.


We should all make sure we get the right amount of Vitamin D, and the best way to get it is via the sun cos then you can't overdose. But its link to Covid-19 prevention/recovery is not as secure as you make out in your opening statement here.


----------



## Supine (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> But its link to Covid-19 prevention/recovery is not as secure as you make out in your opening statement here.



I could respond with a page of peer reviewed studies but I’m at work. Believe what you want.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We should all make sure we get the right amount of Vitamin D, and the best way to get it is via the sun cos then you can't overdose. But its link to Covid-19 prevention/recovery is not as secure as you make out in your opening statement here.


Were not able to get enough vit D is this hemisphere from the sun alone as well as a vit d rich diet.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 24, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Were not able to get enough vit D is this hemisphere from the sun alone as well as a vit d rich diet.


I'm not understating the importance - and potential difficulty - of getting enough vitamin D. Something like a third of Britons are deficient in it. I am questioning the centrality of VitD to patterns found in the covid pandemic, though. Its use in high doses has proven ineffective (and risks causing damage), while evidence for a causal link between low levels of VitD and illness/death rates is flimsy at best.


----------



## sojourner (Jun 24, 2020)

maomao said:


> I think a lot of people are actually scared rather than scare_mongering_.


I'm really scared that I'll get it if I get forced back into work. Two of my mates, same age as me, had it and they've been left with some horrible lingering symptoms, like arrhythmia, visual problems, breathing problems, intense pains in weird places. I've already got a bit of a dicky ticker, nowt diagnosed but I have arrhythmia a fair bit, and absolutely do not want to get fucking ill


----------



## maomao (Jun 24, 2020)

You can get enough Vit D here for 3 or 4 months of the year and if you're lucky you can build up a store for another three or four but should definitely take a supplement for the dark half of the year and if you're not getting enough sun for other reasons the rest of the year (I ended up with a deficiency after a year of night shifts).

I reckon in a few years there'll be a skin cancer spike because there's a lot of furloughed workers sitting in their gardens right now.


----------



## Wilf (Jun 24, 2020)

I'd have to say I was surprised how much the govt spent on the first wave (whilst of course they fucked up just about every aspect of testing, ppe and the timing of the lockdown itself > resulting in 20,000 extra deaths). If there's a second wave I don't see them spending the same amount again or locking down everything that has opened up. Maybe the odd local lockdown, perhaps a return to 2m, certainly back to focusing the nhs on the virus, but nothing like the shutdown of March.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'm not understating the importance - and potential difficulty - of getting enough vitamin D. Something like a third of Britons are deficient in it. I am questioning the centrality of VitD to patterns found in the covid pandemic, though. Its use in high doses has proven ineffective (and risks causing damage), while evidence for a causal link between low levels of VitD and illness/death rates is flimsy at best.


Know one knows yet. However there are plenty of other good reasons to take a vit d supplement and if turns out to be a factor in preventing infection from covid then great!  Many people have inadequate Vit D levels  many people could benefit from supplements and you have to take an awful lot to overdose ie 60000 and above IU daily.  My levels are normal but that is because I take 2500 iu daily and then raise it to 5000 in September and then 10000 when the clocks go back for 6 months. I do this because I'm dark, work 12 hours shifts and nights, can be reclusive and im in menopause so I need it along with the vit k and magnesium for my bone density and mood.


----------



## Roadkill (Jun 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And if we are unlucky, they shut again. I do think it is time to take calculated risks here. It's also way past time to become far more localised in the response. The UK is held back to an extent by the insistence that all these decisions need to come from the centre.



I couldn't agree more, but of course there's no sign of that happening, aside from a bit of lip service being paid to it.  Only this morning the Graun was reporting - not for the first time - that councils aren't being given access to the data on which Whitehall decisions are (ostensibly) based.  Nor do they have the power needed to enforce localised lockdowns of the kind that have just happened in parts of North Rhine-Westphalia in response to an outbreak there.  Much of this is a result of Britain's long-term overcentralisation and cannot be reversed quickly - local government has effectively been gutted since the 70s, at least in terms of capacity for independent action - but when the government's strategy for the coming months seems to include localised lockdowns the fact that councils don't have either the information or legal powers they are likely to need shouldn't give us any confidence...

On the broader point at hand, I've come to think I've been one of the overly cautious 'second wave incoming' types.  The fact is that lockdown has been slowly breaking down for a few weeks, and yet infections have kept on dropping overall.  As you say, it's time to start taking a few more risks.  That said, I have no confidence that if we do see renewed outbreaks either locally or more widely the response will be any more effective than first time around.


----------



## Wilf (Jun 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Worried more about the tone rather than the re-opening per se. Other European countries have done similar to what we are doing with infections at a comparable level. But our government doesn't seem to be sounding the same level of caution, or at least not in the same way. i.e. they don't seem to be preparing for the possibility of a second lockdown. I wonder if we're going to get a repeat of resisting it and resisting it and then doing it a bit too late.


I go back to the clip of johnson being all bullish and brexity, posted by brogdale  below. They went from that straight ideological bluster to shitting themselves over the UCL (?) report pretty sharpish and imposed the lockdown. Way too late, to the cost of 20,000 extra deaths, but that's where they ended up. At least in public they'll never go back to the bullish 'fuck the virus, just wash your hands' position, but it's a reminder of where their instincts sit.  



brogdale said:


> Apols if posted elsewhere...but this clip of Johnson speaking just 73 days ago is quite instructive when attempting to understand the early, recent history of the government's response to Covid-19:


----------



## elbows (Jun 24, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I'd have to say I was surprised how much the govt spent on the first wave (whilst of course they fucked up just about every aspect of testing, ppe and the timing of the lockdown itself > resulting in 20,000 extra deaths). If there's a second wave I don't see them spending the same amount again or locking down everything that has opened up. Maybe the odd local lockdown, perhaps a return to 2m, certainly back to focusing the nhs on the virus, but nothing like the shutdown of March.



That will be a question of numbers. If things reach the scale where the healthservice threatens to be overwhelmed again, then I doubt they have much choice but to act in big ways again. But I'm not making predictions about that because I'd rather wait and see what actually happens, I suppose I'm just saying that I dont rule these things out again although they will of course avoid such measures if they possibly can.

See thats the other thing to keep in mind regarding winter concerns - its not even just concerns about this virus, its concerned about that picture being mixed in with all the other seasonal illness and NHS pressures. Battling a large covid wave at the same time as a flu epidemic would not be good. And at that time of year they wont be able to rely on the 'if they have these symptoms, assume its covid they've got' like they could from March onwards, because at some stage there will be flu and other things around in significant numbers. (unless our ongoing behavioural changes are strong enough to thwart these viruses too. Which is possible, if we end up going into winter with extreme caution).



Wilf said:


> I go back to the clip of johnson being all bullish and brexity, posted by brogdale  below. They went from that straight ideological bluster to shitting themselves over the UCL (?) report pretty sharpish and imposed the lockdown. Way too late, to the cost of 20,000 extra deaths, but that's where they ended up. At least in public they'll never go back to the bullish 'fuck the virus, just wash your hands' position, but it's a reminder of where their instincts sit.



Imperial College rather than UCL. As for 20,000, I dont want to moan at you for repeatedly using that number because its obviously a reasonable choice. But I'd rather that number not stick, and that we be vaguer and say tends of thousands of deaths instead, because it is hard to say exactly how many deaths were preventable except that its bound to have been a fair proportion of those we ended up having. And since the excess deaths is now around 65,000 (and ONS etc COVID-19 deaths mentioned on death certificate seems likely to reach around 55,000), 20,000 sounds too low to me, I would probably treat 30,000 as a minimum, and would tend to use a much larger number still personally.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jun 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Tattoos generally take longer than a haircut, the amount of people doing and getting them is small, and they can wait, it's hardly a necessity is it?


Neither is a haircut.


----------



## elbows (Jun 25, 2020)

Daily NHS England deaths with positive test data from recent days makes the problem at my local hospital more apparent


----------



## elbows (Jun 25, 2020)

Theres nothing quite like withholding information in order to reassure people 



> Dr Agboola also confirmed to Warwickshire County Council's adult social care and health overview and scrutiny committee members that the cases were on four wards but she did not reveal which ones.
> 
> This was partly due to confidentiality but also down to the fact that they do not want to spread fear among people who need to go to hospital for other treatment or appointments.



In other aspects, more detail is finally emerging:



> But she said that early results from the investigation into the recent high number show that 35 per cent of the cases came from the community, 16 per cent definitely came from the hospital itself and that 25 per cent were likely to have come from the hospital, with more work being undertaken on the remaining 24 per cent.











						What caused 'significant' spike in coronavirus cases at hospital
					

Health bosses have stressed the situation is improving




					www.coventrytelegraph.net
				




It would be a bit over the top for me to say that was an imaginitive way not to have the headline 'almost two thirds of cases came from hospital transmission' but that would be stretching the point too far, although I expect people will understand where I am coming from with this remark anyway. The local paper never bothers to mention the recent deaths data in these stories either.


----------



## treelover (Jun 25, 2020)

'Major incident' declared at UK beach as heatwave crowds branded 'appalling'
					

Bournemouth Council Leader Vikki Slade said she is 'absolutely appalled at the scenes on the beaches' as thousands pack the seafront during the heatwave, with reports of fights and anti-social behaviour in the area




					www.mirror.co.uk
				




Vicki Slade has been doing a sterling job highlighting what is happenening there

having said that, it would be wonderful to see seaside resorts doing so well if it wasn't Covid time, but they wouldn't be

and where are the toilets?!


----------



## treelover (Jun 25, 2020)

My local park is like that, but mostly teenagers/students


----------



## treelover (Jun 25, 2020)

NIce...

Take your fucking rubbish with you!


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> View attachment 219369
> 
> 
> My local park is like that, but mostly teenagers/students


bloody awful park keeping if true

what have they done with the grass and trees?


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> 'Major incident' declared at UK beach as heatwave crowds branded 'appalling'
> 
> 
> Bournemouth Council Leader Vikki Slade said she is 'absolutely appalled at the scenes on the beaches' as thousands pack the seafront during the heatwave, with reports of fights and anti-social behaviour in the area
> ...


where they've always been 

open between 1030 & 1700


----------



## elbows (Jun 25, 2020)

Whitty not a fan of the beech scenes by the sounds of it. I dont blame him. There are limits somewhere to my somewhat relaxed June stance, I'd rather we not find out where they are!

If things do take a turn for the worse at some point then we will have a similar problem to before in that so much was changed at the same time that it will be tricky to unpick the contribution of individual relaxations/behavioural changes. Mind you, if we discover stuff in the form of specific outbreaks at particular places and times then there may be clues as to underlying causes.

I think we are beyond the time when I could reassure people that there was no way the government will be able to blame the behaviour of the public. In my book things will likely be a mixed bag of blame, the government will always deserve some of it for enabling this scale of outbreak in the first place and for the various signals they have sent about how relaxed people should be. But it we run out of wiggle room at some stage the behaviour of people in general, the decisions some people are making these days, will be part of it.









						Whitty warns public over gatherings in hot weather
					

The UK's chief medical adviser says coronavirus cases will rise if people ignore social distancing.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> Whitty not a fan of the beech scenes by the sounds of it. I dont blame him. There are limits somewhere to my somewhat relaxed June stance, I'd rather we not find out where they are!
> 
> If things do take a turn for the worse at some point then we will have a similar problem to before in that so much was changed at the same time that it will be tricky to unpick the contribution of individual relaxations/behavioural changes. Mind you, if we discover stuff in the form of specific outbreaks at particular places and times then there may be clues as to underlying causes.
> 
> ...


I'm still pretty relaxed about the beach scares. The beach/park/demo scares have all come to nothing so far. Outside isn't an easy place to catch it.

tbh I'm more disgusted by the litter. Leave no trace ffs. It ain't hard.


----------



## Looby (Jun 25, 2020)

treelover said:


> 'Major incident' declared at UK beach as heatwave crowds branded 'appalling'
> 
> 
> Bournemouth Council Leader Vikki Slade said she is 'absolutely appalled at the scenes on the beaches' as thousands pack the seafront during the heatwave, with reports of fights and anti-social behaviour in the area
> ...


Bournemouth always does well in summer, it’s always busy but this is insane and I’m fucking angry about it. Not really because of covid because they’re outside and the risks are reduced. I’m pissed off about the litter, the shitty behaviour, the dangerous parking and the feeling that I can’t go to my local beach. 
Everyone can fuck off now, they’re not welcome if they can’t respect our coastline.


----------



## elbows (Jun 25, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'm still pretty relaxed about the beach scares. The beach/park/demo scares have all come to nothing so far. Outside isn't an easy place to catch it.
> 
> tbh I'm more disgusted by the litter. Leave no trace ffs. It ain't hard.



Yes, I havent engaged with those scares before and have taken a neutral stance in terms of future expectations.

Where I find it a bit much is when scenes demonstrate a lax attitude towards social distancing in general. If the beach itself doesnt worry me much, the sense of things 'going back to normal' is more concerning to me in terms of the new normal ending up resembling the old normal too much to keep this virus restrained.

But no, I havent suddenly changed my stance into one where I would talk about upticks, spikes and huge second waves as being completely inevitable, or try to make it sound like this could start happening any day now. But I can certainly see why Whitty feels the need to say what he is saying at the moment. He would be failing in his duty if he didnt, and I would not feel comfortable myself if I didnt reiterate the same angle myself from time to time. There is a balance to be struck, we dont know exactly where the limits are, and to even begin to get the economy going again those limits are bound to be tested.  If behaviour goes too far on a large scale over prolonged periods of time then it will be down to the quality of our infection surveillance and the readiness to act upon its signals in a bold and timely manner as to whether we can retain the current advantage (in terms of numbers of infections right now) or whether things spiral.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 25, 2020)

The Met help promote the music scene:









						Enhanced policing presence across London to tackle unlicensed music events
					

Following events in Overton Road, SW9 last night, there is an enhanced policing operation across London this evening, Thursday 25 June.




					news.met.police.uk
				




From that it sounds like this weekend will be pretty banging, ideally if you're immune to covid which you aren't and won't give it to anyone else which you will. I have to say that it's more likely that this is the usual bollocks though.


----------



## killer b (Jun 25, 2020)

I went to the beach today, it was lush. no crowds in the north though!


----------



## Weller (Jun 25, 2020)

So just catching up on all this pub reopening stuff and our Green King local asking for personal details and using an app to book a table for a maximum 2 hours before even attending next week does anyone know if this means taht if anyone shows up on track and trace as having covid19 and using that pub then everyone there at that time would then get contacted and asked to self isolate , seems too much hassle at the moment
Not overly fussed to wait a while now especially as they also said we would not be allowed to leave our seats whilst there for anything other than using the loo one at a time when we would be chaperoned by a trained "covid host" who would also deliver all drinks that must be ordered by one phone using their app  
Rare we even used to get our food for an hour and half before


----------



## Wilf (Jun 25, 2020)

Weller said:


> So just catching up on all this pub reopening stuff and our Green King local asking for personal details and using an app to book a table for a maximum 2 hours before even attending next week does anyone know if this means taht if anyone shows up on track and trace as having covid19 and using that pub then everyone there at that time would then get contacted and asked to self isolate , seems too much hassle at the moment
> Not overly fussed to wait a while now especially as they also said we would not be allowed to leave our seats whilst there for anything other than using the loo one at a time when we would be chaperoned by a trained "covid host" who would also deliver all drinks that must be ordered by one phone using their app
> Rare we even used to get our food for an hour and half before


Fucking hell, I'm 59, with a dodgy prostate... I'm going to keep the Toilet Chaperone busy!


----------



## killer b (Jun 25, 2020)

Weller said:


> So just catching up on all this pub reopening stuff and our Green King local asking for personal details and using an app to book a table for a maximum 2 hours before even attending next week does anyone know if this means taht if anyone shows up on track and trace as having covid19 and using that pub then everyone there at that time would then get contacted and asked to self isolate , seems too much hassle at the moment


Probably depends on how close you were sitting to the infected person whether they contact you. But, yeah. That's the whole point of them taking your details, so any infections can be (in theory) nipped in the bud.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 25, 2020)

Weller said:


> So just catching up on all this pub reopening stuff and our Green King local asking for personal details and using an app to book a table for a maximum 2 hours before even attending next week does anyone know if this means taht if anyone shows up on track and trace as having covid19 and using that pub then everyone there at that time would then get contacted and asked to self isolate , seems too much hassle at the moment
> Not overly fussed to wait a while now especially as they also said we would not be allowed to leave our seats whilst there for anything other than using the loo one at a time when we would be chaperoned by a trained "covid host" who would also deliver all drinks that must be ordered by one phone using their app
> Rare we even used to get our food for an hour and half before


Christ that sounds awful. And you have to drink Greene King beer.


----------



## Sue (Jun 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Christ that sounds awful. And you have to drink Greene King beer.


Yeah, going to the pub is meant to be fun. None of that sounds fun so, nah, not at the moment.


----------



## Weller (Jun 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Christ that sounds awful. And you have to drink Greene King beer.


Yes but any alcohol will do after seeing Gavin Williamson turning up like Alan Partridge to  at our charity lockdown event today  if hes there at the reopening it also happens to be his local apparently so could be even worse  
a missed opportunity not bringing Cameron to see peppa pig though


----------



## Cerv (Jun 26, 2020)

What’s the correct etiquette - do you offer to share your coke with the toilet chaperone?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 26, 2020)

Sue said:


> Yeah, going to the pub is meant to be fun. None of that sounds fun so, nah, not at the moment.


Atm I would far rather share a bottle of wine in the park.  Loos have reopened now too.


----------



## pinkychukkles (Jun 26, 2020)

> Major incident declared as people flock to England's south coast
> 
> 
> Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council says services are ‘completely overstretched’ as visitors defy advice to stay away
> ...



Why would you intimidate people who are removing rubbish from your immediate vicinity?  I just don't get it.


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 26, 2020)

treelover said:


> View attachment 219369
> 
> 
> My local park is like that, but mostly teenagers/students



It's those camera lenses again:


----------



## maomao (Jun 26, 2020)

pinkychukkles said:


> Why would you intimidate people who are removing rubbish from your immediate vicinity?  I just don't get it.


Probably objecting to coming within two metres or just drunk and nervous about being in a relatively crowded situation for the first time in months. I'm surprised it hasn't been kicking off more tbh.

With lockdown easing but few attractive options in terms of places to go and a large part of the population being skint I think there will be a lot of low level public disorder over the next couple of months.


----------



## andysays (Jun 26, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It's those camera lenses again:



Maybe treelover can post an aerial photo of his local park for comparison


----------



## Maltin (Jun 26, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It's those camera lenses again:



If you look at his twitter and the video that the overhead photos come from, I don’t think they are comparable shots. As others in response to his tweet suggest, I think they are at a different time of day and some suggest even a different section of the beach. I don’t know the area well enough to comment on the latter but I think it is reasonable to assume that they are not the same images from different angles.


----------



## Wilf (Jun 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> Maybe treelover can post an aerial photo of his local park for comparison


Well react to it if he does, but there's no need for that kind of goading.


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 26, 2020)

Here's the Telegraph highlighting how shit the government are being over test & trace:


----------



## existentialist (Jun 26, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Here's the Telegraph highlighting how shit the government are being over test & trace:



I wonder if I might be being unduly cynical for thinking that the government mindset is along the lines of "shut up and get on with it, because we don't actually give a shit what happens to you, so long as our backers and supporters get what they want, whatever the price"?


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 26, 2020)

Maltin said:


> If you look at his twitter and the video that the overhead photos come from, I don’t think they are comparable shots. As others in response to his tweet suggest, I think they are at a different time of day and some suggest even a different section of the beach. I don’t know the area well enough to comment on the latter but I think it is reasonable to assume that they are not the same images from different angles.



Yes that seems the case. But you can also tell from most of those pictures they were taken with a zoom lens.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 26, 2020)

pinkychukkles said:


> Why would you intimidate people who are removing rubbish from your immediate vicinity?  I just don't get it.



The council workers probably asked some self-entitled manchild/diva to put their rubbish in the bin "seeing as you're standing right next to it".


----------



## xenon (Jun 26, 2020)

The people leaving their shit in bags on the beach. Into the sea with these scum. The people not bagging up first, smashed kneecaps, then into the sea.


----------



## sovereignb (Jun 26, 2020)

xenon said:


> The people leaving their shit in bags on the beach. Into the sea with these scum. The people not bagging up first, smashed kneecaps, then into the sea.



People have been shitting in the sand?????


----------



## Combustible (Jun 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'm still pretty relaxed about the beach scares. The beach/park/demo scares have all come to nothing so far. Outside isn't an easy place to catch it.



Some people seem to be giving it their best shot though


----------



## xenon (Jun 26, 2020)

sovereignb said:


> People have been shitting in the sand?????



There have been reports of that, yeah. e.g.








						People pooing on beaches as public toilets remain shut
					

Dogs are said to have been rolling in human faeces and even eating it




					www.somersetlive.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2020)

I suppose my position is similar to Fergusons in many respects. Although I dont really rule out national lockdowns if things were first allowed to spiral out of control again, I assume Ferguson says otherwise because he doesnt expect the situation to be allowed to get that bad again across the whole nation.









						Coronavirus: Second national lockdown not needed - Neil Ferguson
					

Prof Neil Ferguson tells the BBC he expects to see a targeted approach to tackling local outbreaks.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 26, 2020)

So-called Pillar 3 testing involves antibody tests, and the govt website states that nearly a million of these have been carried out now. But I can't find any information about the results. Has anyone seen anything on this?


----------



## two sheds (Jun 26, 2020)

Sensible

*



			Health experts considering new testing option in US
		
Click to expand...

*


> The White House Coronavirus Task Force was now "seriously considering" pool testing for Covid-19 as a way to better improve the US' testing capabilities as coronavirus cases rise.
> 
> "Something's not working," Dr Anthony Fauci told _The Washington Pos_t. "I mean, you can do all the diagramming you want, but something is not working."
> 
> ...











						Follow the latest Trump and US coronavirus news - live
					

Follow latest updates on Trump administration and US politics




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## andysays (Jun 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> So-called Pillar 3 testing involves antibody tests, and the govt website states that nearly a million of these have been carried out now. But I can't find any information about the results. Has anyone seen anything on this?


There's some (not much, TBH) info here, from yesterday

Coronavirus: Antibody test lacks 'proper assessment'


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> There's some (not much, TBH) info here, from yesterday
> 
> Coronavirus: Antibody test lacks 'proper assessment'


Thanks. So not being used for large-scale studies as I'd hoped.


----------



## andysays (Jun 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Thanks. So not being used for large-scale studies as I'd hoped.


I think it is being used for some studies, eg the one on 10,000 healthcare workers mentioned in the article, though depends what you mean by large scale.

Originally the antibody test was touted/seen by some as a way of telling who had immunity and therefore something of a silver bullet towards some individuals being able to avoid lockdown restrictions. Once doubts emerged about that, it seems not to have got the attention it had, at least in the mainstream media, don't know about the medical world.


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2020)

There are multiple studies. Some of them have not scaled up in the ways first imagined though, and much of the government emphasis seems to have shifted to the NHS staff and care worker antibody tests. I suspect they have some operational plans for autumn-winter that require such data.

As for other antibody studies, here are two other examples:

First the disappointing one. Antibody testing is supposed to be part of the ONS pilot survey into household infections. But I think the blood test component of this has stalled, that side of the data can go a long time without an update, they barely mention it in their weekly narrative these days, and the numbers involved have been pathetic so far. For exampe this is from a spreadhseet of the data from their latest report.


(Weekly report is at Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot - Office for National Statistics )

By far the most promising UK antibody stuff, in terms of the data actually being published for the public on a regular basis, is the Public Health England one that makes use of people who are donating blood for the usual non-pandemic reasons.









						Sero-surveillance of COVID-19
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## iona (Jun 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Antibody testing is supposed to be part of the ONS pilot survey into household infections. But I think the blood test component of this has stalled,


I'm taking part in this (the main study, not the pilot, afaik) and the person who came to do my tests the other day said they'd tell my GP if the swab was positive, but they weren't giving antibody results out as the test for that is still being validated. Not sure if/how that applies to published study data rather than individual results.


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2020)

iona said:


> I'm taking part in this (the main study, not the pilot, afaik) and the person who came to do my tests the other day said they'd tell my GP if the swab was positive, but they weren't giving antibody results out as the test for that is still being validated. Not sure if/how that applies to published study data rather than individual results.



Applies to individual results going back to the person, they will still use that data for research.

I'm assuming there were several reasons why the antibody side of things in the ONS survey you are part of has not scaled up well yet. They might have struggled to get enough capacity regarding nurses coming to homes to take the blood samples. There could be issues with the Oxford Uni side of things where the samples are being analysed. I'll keep an eye on it to see if this improves in the published data at some point.

Similar story with a research study I've just been asked to participate in. Its the one where they are evaluating a simple saliva-based test for determining who is currently infected (not antibodies). If I take part then I will have the traditional swab test and the new saliva test. They will share the swab test results with me but not the saliva ones, because the saliva one isnt approved yet. It will be the results of this study that contribute to the decision of whether to approve it for use in a way that meant in future the results would then be 'official' and deemed fit to share with the people being tested.


----------



## sovereignb (Jun 26, 2020)

xenon said:


> There have been reports of that, yeah. e.g.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



FFS. Ive been known to shit in a bag out of desperation, but id never think not to bin it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> There are multiple studies. Some of them have not scaled up in the ways first imagined though, and much of the government emphasis seems to have shifted to the NHS staff and care worker antibody tests. I suspect they have some operational plans for autumn-winter that require such data.
> 
> As for other antibody studies, here are two other examples:
> 
> ...


Many thanks. I hope they keep updating that. I'll be interested to see to what extent they converge on similar figures. I would guess the London figure hasn't gone up much since week 18, but that others will have.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jun 27, 2020)

Combustible said:


> Some people seem to be giving it their best shot though




Mods n rockers bank holiday tradition?


----------



## ruffneck23 (Jun 27, 2020)

I went to visit a friend in Liverpool last night  , he lives in Cheapside bang in the middle of the city centre , we went to go and get a takeaway, and the city was packed , down by pier head there were thousands of people ,no social distancing , fireworks. , I didn’t see any trouble but wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, it was surreal..
I think I will have to self isolate now , and hope there isn’t massive rise in cases in the city


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## two sheds (Jun 27, 2020)

That was 30-years unusual though because of the league win. Agreed, hope there's no rise in cases.


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## flypanam (Jun 27, 2020)

Increase in school cases as reported here








						Suspected covid-19 outbreaks in schools almost doubles
					

The number of suspected coronavirus outbreaks in schools almost doubled last week, new Public Health England figures show. PHE's weekly COVID-19 surveillance report, published today, shows the nu




					schoolsweek.co.uk


----------



## treelover (Jun 27, 2020)

@twosheds

Why won't there be?, they were all ages, the lock down is over, I suspect the Govt are happy now with emergent herd immunity.


----------



## maomao (Jun 27, 2020)

flypanam said:


> Increase in school cases as reported here
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There's 32,000 schools in the country so that's about 0.14% of schools. Though that's with social distancing, bubbles of 10-12 kids, not all year groups back and low participation in the year groups that are back.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 27, 2020)

treelover said:


> @twosheds
> 
> Why won't there be?, they were all ages, the lock down is over, I suspect the Govt are happy now with emergent herd immunity.



Yes most likely will. I was just saying why they were out there which was missing from the post, and agreed with ruffneck's sentiment because I didn't want to imply criticism of what they'd said. And I like scousers.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 27, 2020)

sovereignb said:


> People have been shitting in the sand?????



That's what people take windbreakers along for, to afford privacy while their pants are down. It's certainly not to block the cooling breeze on a hot day.


----------



## andysays (Jun 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Applies to individual results going back to the person, they will still use that data for research.
> 
> I'm assuming there were several reasons why the antibody side of things in the ONS survey you are part of has not scaled up well yet. They might have struggled to get enough capacity regarding nurses coming to homes to take the blood samples. There could be issues with the Oxford Uni side of things where the samples are being analysed. I'll keep an eye on it to see if this improves in the published data at some point.
> 
> Similar story with a research study I've just been asked to participate in. Its the one where they are evaluating a simple saliva-based test for determining who is currently infected (not antibodies). If I take part then I will have the traditional swab test and the new saliva test. They will share the swab test results with me but not the saliva ones, because the saliva one isnt approved yet. It will be the results of this study that contribute to the decision of whether to approve it for use in a way that meant in future the results would then be 'official' and deemed fit to share with the people being tested.


I've also been asked to take part in a survey, run by UCL.

There's info about it here, but it looks like they've selected addresses to invite. Involves the whole household, so my wife and I need to decide together if we want to take part


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## Mr.Bishie (Jun 28, 2020)

Sunday June 28 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times:

The government is preparing to impose the first local lockdown within days following a surge in coronavirus cases in Leicester, according to senior government sources.

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has been examining the legislation required for the shutdown after it was revealed there have been 658 coronavirus cases in the Leicester area in the fortnight to June 16.

A source close to Hancock said he is “quite worried” and is considering “all options” for how to respond to the spike in cases, including imposing a localised lockdown.

Hancock has been receiving daily reports from Leicester after he sent in a mobile testing unit to help manage the outbreak last week.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 28, 2020)

Picked up by the Metro too.



> A surge in coronavirus cases in Leicester could see the first local lockdown enforced within days.
> 
> Dozens of patients have been admitted to hospital, sparking emergency crisis plans for the area.
> 
> There were reportedly new infections at a Sainsbury’s and a sandwich factory, and five schools have now been shut.











						Leicester set to become UK’s first local lockdown after surge in cases
					

Dozens of patients have been admitted to hospital, sparking emergency crisis plans for the area.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jun 28, 2020)

I suspect Leicester won’t be the only place in the UK facing a ‘local lockdown’ - will be interesting to see how it’s handled/policed etc


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

It gets a bit of a mention in a story about not going back to austerity.



> Meanwhile, Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe is calling for a local lockdown amid concerns of a spike in cases locally. She describes a "perfect storm" of high poverty, higher numbers of positive tests and higher ethnic diversity in the area.
> 
> Leicester's mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said the city has been given latest government data which should show which areas - if any - are being "adversely affected" by the virus. Lockdown measures might then have to be introduced, he added.
> 
> The Department of Health said it was supporting the local council and four mobile testing sites have been set up there.











						Coronavirus: PM 'will not return to austerity of 10 years ago'
					

Boris Johnson is to set out his plans for a post-lockdown economic recovery in a speech next week.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I suppose I should point out that Nuneaton is not all that far away from Leicester and I've been talking about the hospital outbreak here for a while. And although the situation with Nuneaton has been largely driven by the hospital outbreak, 35% of cases were said to be from the community. There was also a suggestion that a bunch of the cases at the hospital were not from Nuneaton itself, eg from Hinckley which is Nuneatons neighbour across the county border in Leicestershire. But I dont have data to support or refute that bit.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

And another BBC story has appeared:









						Coronavirus: Leicester 'could be locked down' says home secretary
					

Priti Patel says it is "correct" the government is considering the move after a rise in cases.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> About 25% of Leicester's 2,494 confirmed Covid-19 cases were reported in the two weeks before 16 June.
> 
> Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said there was "no immediate prospect" of a lockdown.



Plays into the shameful local data and information situation which I've been moaning about for weeks.



> "After many weeks of asking, we now have that data and we are analysing it over this weekend, and hopefully early next week we will know whether we have a problem and if we have, where it is."





> It says it didn't get the data from the first fortnight of June until Thursday, so only this weekend has it been able to plot where the Covid-19 cases are.
> 
> The data also doesn't give an ethnicity breakdown which the city mayor, Sir Peter Soulsby, says would be vital in helping understand which parts of the community are being affected by the virus. He's asked the Health Secretary to give them that data.
> 
> It will know soon if it needs a localised lockdown to isolate the virus. It's all about the data... who has the coronavirus and who has been at risk of catching it.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 28, 2020)

Meanwhile:









						Coronavirus: Expert says Scotland 'could be Covid-free by end of summer'
					

Prof Devi Sridhar says the country could eliminate the coronavirus if the decline in new cases continues.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Jun 28, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> I suspect Leicester won’t be the only place in the UK facing a ‘local lockdown’ - will be interesting to see how it’s handled/policed etc


Have to admit I'm not at all down with the science on pretty much any aspect of covid. However, in terms of local lockdowns, if it needs doing I'd have thought it needs doing now. Pretty much like the national one, even a week's delay will cost lives. And in the case of a local area, transmission beyond that area.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

I know the term lockdown has been stretched to include many lesser things from the start, but in the case of 'local lockdown' the term may be even further away from what they actually have planned. eg latest updated version of the BBC story says:



> This morning, the Home Secretary Priti Patel said that with "local flare ups its right to have a localised solution".
> 
> However, it is not sure exactly what that would look like.
> 
> ...


----------



## muscovyduck (Jun 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> It gets a bit of a mention in a story about not going back to austerity.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hinckley is (IME) very much a commuter town, with a lot of people living there but working in Leicester/Cov/Nuneaton etc or Birmingham via the train. Not only does this potentially mean transmissions from further afield due to work, but also there are probably cultural implications from so many people being so used to driving everywhere all the time and it would be interesting to see how that transferred into lockdown.


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## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> Hinckley is (IME) very much a commuter town, with a lot of people living there but working in Leicester/Cov/Nuneaton etc or Birmingham via the train. Not only does this potentially mean transmissions from further afield due to work, but also there are probably cultural implications from so many people being so used to driving everywhere all the time and it would be interesting to see how that transferred into lockdown.



Yeah, quite a lot of possibilities and as usual it will be hard to rule particular ones in and out.

To give another example, midlands hospital data that sticks out for having persistent cases is somewhat consistent with the eastern side of the 'golden triangle' of logistics/distribution.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jun 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah, quite a lot of possibilities and as usual it will be hard to rule particular ones in and out.
> 
> To give another example, midlands hospital data that sticks out for having persistent cases is somewhat consistent with the eastern side of the 'golden triangle' of logistics/distribution.


Funny I was just literally thinking about the distribution industry in that triangle area shown in the diagram but was unsure if it actually was more present in that area or whether I had some weird bias that led me to believe it was


----------



## lazythursday (Jun 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> It gets a bit of a mention in a story about not going back to austerity.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm originally from Nuneaton. A couple of my dad's old friends died of Covid a few weeks ago. My elderly mum is still there, refusing to wear a mask of course, convinced by her neighbours that the latest hospital cases are due to BLM protests. I've not seen all your posts re the Elliott but over the last few years I've done a lot of hospital visiting and have always found that hospital more chaotic and dirty than others.


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## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

To quote from the site I pinched that map from:









						The Golden Triangle of Logistics · RCS Logistics
					

The midlands begins to look more and more like the natural home for nation's supply chain... Read here and see how we have managed to secure one of the golden locations for Logistics. What is so Golden about the Golden traingle of Logistics.



					www.rcslogistics.co.uk
				






> It’s no surprise therefore, that the Midlands has close to 150 million square feet of warehouse space: more than twice the combined warehousing activity of London, Scotland and Wales.
> 
> There is no official precise measurement of exactly what constitutes the Golden Triagle, but it pretty much covers Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, plus parts of Staffordshore and Derbyshire. Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal (DIRFT) contains 1 million square feet of Tesco warehousing space, and rivals Asda have several units less than 20 miles away in Magna Park.
> 
> When you throw in Birmingham International Airport and East Midlands Airport (which itself contains a freight hub) plus the various rail links to the UK’s ports, the midlands begins to look more and more like the natural home for nation’s supply chain.



I'll follow up with some hospital data shortly, although increasingly I'm likely to need to start looking at number of cases tested positive, which is data I've mostly ignored till now but since hospital deaths data doesnt always tell the whole story I'll have to start paying attention to it. eg one of Leicesters hospital trusts deaths data actually looked worse a month or so ago than it has recently.


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## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I'm originally from Nuneaton. A couple of my dad's old friends died of Covid a few weeks ago. My elderly mum is still there, refusing to wear a mask of course, convinced by her neighbours that the latest hospital cases are due to BLM protests. I've not seen all your posts re the Elliott but over the last few years I've done a lot of hospital visiting and have always found that hospital more chaotic and dirty than others.



Sorry to hear about the deaths.  My Mum is here with me in Nuneaton and my Dad is in Hinckley, and both have been very sensible in the pandemic so far (well I have to presume my Dad is, havent been tracking his every movement). I dont know anybody affected myself, well there is one person I know who had it but they are young and bounced back quickly, and they live & work in Leicestershire. They work in a care home so it wasnt shocking that they caught it during the first wave. Actually I do know of someone who passed away of a heart attack in his mid thirties a few weeks ago, but I dont know if that was Covid related.

As for the Eliot, its tricky for them. Lots of funding issues over the years but also lots of infection issues and topping all the wrong leaderboards. Some of its down to the health of the population they serve, but they are probably also an awkward size for funding, management and attracting the right staff. Most of my complaints in recent weeks have been about management weasel words and lack of info, but I could probably say the same about most hospitals where they have been mealy-mouthed about hospital outbreaks, I tend to think of it as a broader management culture phenomenon that is not George Eliot specific, but I'm sure they have some failings of their own too.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 28, 2020)

Farrar (Wellcome Trust, sits on SAGE) concerned about spikes ("rebounds") in coming weeks, second wave in Oct/Nov (will we, by then, have the means to be able to quickly distinguish SARS-CoV-2 infections from seasonal colds/flu/respiratory diseases and thus swiftly act appropriately?).


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

2hats said:


> Farrar (Wellcome Trust, sits on SAGE) concerned about spikes ("rebounds") in coming weeks, second wave in Oct/Nov (will we, by then, have the means to be able to quickly distinguish SARS-CoV-2 infections from seasonal colds/flu/respiratory diseases and thus swiftly act appropriately?).



Better hope the quick saliva test turns out to be accurate enough! Which reminds me to get round to confirming that I will gladly take part in that study.


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## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

I'm always a bit wary of posting these hospital trust 'daily deaths by day of death, only for people with a positive test result' graphs without also posting loads more to indicate what the picture is like at all the hospitals that arent currently so worthy of attenion. But there are just too many, even if I restrict myself to the midlands, so I'll just have to cherry pick based on previous golden triangle discussion.

First off it is increasingly obvious why the recent Nuneaton George Eliot hospital situation was newsworthy here.


Kettering and Northampton are examples to me of a certain degree of persistence in hospital deaths, that may be improving to varying degrees of late, or may just look better as a result of data lag (the Goerge Eliot doesnt have too much reporting lag at the moment, perhaps because PHE are all over the situation there).




Leicester is an example that I would have flagged weeks ago as only seeing its decline happen much more gradually than most places, but in the more recent data there is not much hint of the current situation which has lead to these headlines about local lockdowns.


There are some other examples in the north midlands that I would also have posted if it were not for my sense that I've posted too many already.

edit - Oh I suppose I will include Coventry as well for contrast.


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## cupid_stunt (Jun 28, 2020)

elbows, sorry to be a pain, have you a link to where you get those graphs from?


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## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

I have to make them myself using the NHS England spreadsheets for deaths - there is a whole tab listing deaths by trust.

Maybe someone else on the net is publishing the same data in graph form but I havent had time to look so I just carry on with my own versions using the data from the 'total announced deaths' spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> I have to make them myself using the NHS England spreadsheets for deaths - there is a whole tab listing deaths by trust.
> 
> Maybe someone else on the net is publishing the same data in graph form but I havent had time to look so I just carry on with my own versions using the data from the 'total announced deaths' spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths



Cheers. 

Western Sussex Trust (Worthing, Chichester & Shoreham) has just completed 3 weeks with no deaths.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Cheers.
> 
> Western Sussex Trust (Worthing, Chichester & Shoreham) has just completed 3 weeks with no deaths.



Cool. If you want to keep an eye on it in future then the daily version of the spreadsheet, that only lists the new deaths that have been reported since the day before, helpfully only lists the hospitals that are actually reporting a death on that occasion. For for example there are only 12 hospitals in England that are reporting new death data today. And the deaths in question happened on various dates in June. These daily spreadsheets are available from the same site & page as the one covering totals so far. I suppose its a good time to post an example because being a Sunday there is likely less data than normal so this table isnt too large.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

On a related note, I think the media have been quite poor at providing any local data plotted over time, so much of the focus has been totals rather than the rhythm and specific locations of events. I suppose its inevitable that this will start to change a little now that the stories of outbreaks become local, but things are really still quite poor on this front. Soon I will be forced to start wading through a very large spreadsheet about positive cases in order to plot these over time for locations too. I've no idea if they will reveal anything of use, but now I at least know to start with some of these midlands locations that have shown up in the news and/or the hospital data I already looked at.

Regarding hospital data, carrying on from where I left off, another obvious thing I can do is throw away all the data from before a certain point, and see which hospitals have reported any deaths since the arbitrary cut-off date I choose. For example I just took a look at all the hospital trusts in England that have reported the death of at least one person with a positive test as having happened from June 14th onwards. There are 107 of them, so too long to list here. 68 of them only reported 1 or 2 deaths as having happened in that period. Here is a list of those that reported 10 or more. Since this data often lags, these numbers could yet change a fair bit. I wont get the time to look at most of these hospital trusts, if anyone does have the time to investigate any of these then I'd be glad to hear more about any of them.


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## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

Regarding what I was saying earlier about lockdown not actually meaning lockdown.









						Priti Patel might have 'got in a muddle' over Leicester lockdown
					

The Shadow Health Secretary is playing down the prospect of a return to tighter restrictions - but says some shops might need to shut




					www.leicestermercury.co.uk
				






> Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth has played down the prospects of there being a Leicester localised lockdown to combat a spike of coronavirus cases in the city.
> 
> The Labour Leicester South MP said he was briefed by Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Saturday after there had been reports the city might be the first in the UK to have a localised lockdown imposed within days.
> 
> Home secretary Priti Patel appeared to confirm such a move was a possibility when she was asked this morning, on the Andrew Marr Show, about suggestions of a localised lockdown, saying “That is correct", before then outlining measures that did not amount to a lockdown.





> Mr Ashworth subsequently said, in a Radio 4 interview: “I listened carefully to the Home Secretary on Marr and I wonder if she got slightly in a muddle or inadvertently misled viewers, because I was very pleased to receive a briefing yesterday from the Health Secretary as a local member of parliament.
> 
> “Yes we have a spike in infections here in Leicester, yes we have to respond to that with extra testing capacity and extra support for the local authority, but nobody is proposing a local lockdown in the way that appears to have been presented in the media.
> 
> “Matt Hancock and I were at one with that."





> “If necessary we will need to perhaps close some shops and so on but it’s not entirely clear what powers local government has or whether that is something that national Government would have to do," he said.
> 
> He said urgent clarity was needed from the Government.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

I think I will have to give up looking at local positive tests data. Beause the data available via the dashboard seems to only be one pillar, and its not possible to spot the Leicester outbreak in this version of the data at all. So people are entirely reliant on local authorities managing to get the full data off the government and then sharing that with the public.

For example I could not make the following claim at all based off of dashboard data, the numbers I can see are not remarkable for June. But the Leicester mayor can because they've now got data for the pillar thats still otherwise invisible to the public.









						Local lockdown is speculation says Leicester’s City Mayor
					






					news.leicester.gov.uk
				






> The city council was provided with detailed testing information for the first time on Thursday (25 June), one week after the Secretary of State Matt Hancock announced that there was a local outbreak in Leicester.
> 
> The latest figures (23 June 2020) from Public Health England show that 2,987 Covid-19 cases have been confirmed in Leicester since the start of the epidemic. Of these, 866 cases were reported in the last two weeks.
> 
> The council asked the Government for more detailed information after its own public health team noticed a surge in the number of people testing positive in the city. Detailed data such as ethnicity and the postcodes of those being tested had not previously been provided.



It is a scandal that this data isnt available for everyone on an ongoing basis. I'm not talking about the postcode and ethnicity details, we dont even have the basic data from this pillar by town, city, county etc! So we cannot spot local outbreaks for ourselves until they turn into deaths. In some ways I bet the authorities like it that way, but not the local authorities who also struggle to get the data they need.

To give an indication of how much data is missing from our view, they give a total of 2987 Leicester cases, the pillar I can see has only reached 1052. If I added the whole of Leicestershires numbers I would still be 4 or 5 hundred short.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Regarding what I was saying earlier about lockdown not actually meaning lockdown.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I must say, thought it hardly needs saying, that Priti "vacant" Patel does rather seem to have a bit of a track record of getting into muddles... 

Is it possible that she really *is* as thick as a stevedore's sandwich?


----------



## 2hats (Jun 28, 2020)

Ireland to maintain 14‑day quarantine on British travellers while Covid cases stay high
					

Ireland is expected to maintain a 14-day quarantine for travellers from the British mainland next month, despite its plans to form air bridges with other European countries, including Spain and Greece




					www.thetimes.co.uk
				





Spoiler: Full article.



Ireland to maintain 14‑day quarantine on British travellers while Covid cases stay high

Scots threaten to impose same restriction on English visitors if coronavirus infections rise again south of the border

Julieanne Corr and John Boothman
Sunday June 28 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

*Ireland is expected to maintain a 14-day quarantine for travellers from the British mainland next month, despite its plans to form air bridges with other European countries, including Spain and Greece.

And English holidaymakers crossing the border into Scotland could be told to go into quarantine for two weeks if cases of coronavirus rise again.*

A memo given to an Irish cabinet committee on Covid-19 last week noted it was “highly unlikely” that Britain would be included in Ireland’s safe travel list.

Travellers from Northern Ireland would not have to quarantine. The final “green list” of countries will not be published until July 9.

The memo said that “mandatory restricted movement” would be placed on countries such as Britain, where new cases remained high. It said that this was because Britain’s handling of Covid-19 was “significantly poorer” than Ireland’s.

Yesterday, Tony Holohan, Ireland’s chief medical officer, expressed concern that a resumption of overseas travel would raise Ireland’s low levels of Covid-19. He tweeted: “We move to phase three [of reopening] on Monday, June 29.

“Very low levels of #COVID19. What worries me most now is travel from overseas and I fear many planning foreign trips. 2020 is a year for a staycation. Stay in Ireland, spend locally and follow public health advice.”

The Irish Travel Agents Association (ITAA) agreed that excluding Britain from Ireland’s safe travel list was the right thing to do, given that its daily new coronavirus cases were still “at four figures”. Pat Dawson, chief executive at ITAA, said: “There has to be a bar of what level countries are at [in tackling the virus], and it looks like the UK certainly are not at that level yet.

“You only have to look at the last week, where hundreds of thousands of [British] people were crowded on beaches. We cannot have air bridges or corridors with countries where the medics are saying it’s not under control.”

In Scotland, the first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said the country was edging towards “total elimination” of Covid-19 after no new deaths were recorded on a weekday for the first time since March.

But Scottish government sources say progress being made in suppressing the virus could be undone when the tourism season begins next month, with an expected influx of visitors from England.

At present, anyone coming from overseas must enter quarantine for two weeks or face a £480 fine, similar to measures in England.

A Scottish government source said ministers were considering the option of applying the same rules to visitors from England if Covid-19 cases rise.

The Conservatives in Scotland have criticised the SNP for acting more slowly than England in reopening the tourism industry, claiming it will cost £11m.

The first minister intends to restart tourism on July 15.

Kingston Mills, professor of experimental immunology at Trinity College Dublin, said that restricting travellers from the British mainland was right. “Britain is not one of the countries that has done well in controlling the infection so I don’t see it as being a green country,” he said.

“There are several other countries that are way ahead of the UK so I don’t see the problem with some of those.”

Mills added that the alternative was to introduce mandatory testing for incoming travellers at airports, which is being done in countries such as Austria. “This would require the individual to stay overnight in a hotel on arrival and if they tested negative the next day they would be free to go.

“If they tested positive then they would have to stay there for 14 days or so. It would be tricky to implement and would mean that our testing turnaround would have to be a lot quicker.”


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I must say, thought it hardly needs saying, that Priti "vacant" Patel does rather seem to have a bit of a track record of getting into muddles...
> 
> Is it possible that she really *is* as thick as a stevedore's sandwich?



On this occasion I actually know where she is coming from, because lockdown has been used as shorthand for so many things all the way along. Others in government including Hancock have been prepared to use the language of local lockdown when they are actually referring to a bunch of other stuff. So its entirely unsurprising to me that she used the term but then went on to describe various things that arent actually a lcokdown, without even realising that there is supposed to be a difference. Some of them are restrictions or closures though, and none of this does anything to help the people who live in these places who want some clarity or certainty.

When I think back to earlier press conferences, I dont think the government were ever going to use the term lockdown officially. But the press kept using it in their presence and after their u-turn it ended up suiting them to answer to that term, so they could look like they were actually being tough and doing shit in contast to their earlier miscalculations. I think Hancock has some kind of power fetish relating to namedropping places that are experiencing local outbreaks, like he did with Leicester earlier this month. It just makes the shitty data situation even more infuriating, casually dropping that shit into the public conversation with no detail to give the people you've just alarmed the hell out of. What a shithead. Lets have a system where we can all see this stuff happening instead of having to rely on a minister talking in vague terms to some corner of the press.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

I will follow up on my data rant. It turns out that some of the data in the weekly surveillance report does allow me a slightly more useful glimpse at testing results that include pillar 2. Still not as good as having all the numbers over time, but I can at least see a snapshot of one weeks data in colour-coded map form. Some places I have made reference to do show up in this form of data, but its not local enough unless your area is an upper-tier local authority of its very own. There is another map which shows the cumulative rates so far, but this is not so useful for me spotting new or ongoing outbreaks in particular places.


Another set of graphs in this report demonstrate very well why I could not see this picture by looking at the local data on tests from the official dashboard. I'm pretty sure the dashboard is missing pillar 2 cases, and this graph illustrates very well why that pillars data matters now in order to judge the ongoing state of infection in places these days, and why pillar 1 is fairly useless for me to study.



From National COVID-19 surveillance reports


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2020)

Also littlebabyjesus that antibody stuff I showed you the other day was out of date. That report I just linked to has a newer version, where some more recent results have been revised downwards a little, and there is a chart including age information.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 28, 2020)

Currently no hospitalised cases of covid in Tayside. The first Scottish case was in Ninewells Dundee on 29 february.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 29, 2020)

So, The Times is reporting current lockdown restrictions are set to stay in place in Leicester for two more weeks after 4th July.



> Lockdown restrictions are set to stay in place in Leicester for two weeks longer than the rest of England owing to a spike in new cases, according to the city’s mayor.
> 
> In the first test of the government’s strategy to impose restrictions locally where cases of coronavirus flare up again, Sir Peter Soulsby, the Labour mayor, said that central government planned to keep the city’s restaurants, pubs, cinemas and hotels closed for at least another fortnight.
> 
> ...



If that is the case, I guess that would be easy enough to enforce, but would it be enough?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Also littlebabyjesus that antibody stuff I showed you the other day was out of date. That report I just linked to has a newer version, where some more recent results have been revised downwards a little, and there is a chart including age information.
> 
> View attachment 219952
> View attachment 219954


Ta. So heading downwards ! I guess we need to be careful about the various biases of this group. But still, not the result I wanted to see. The age breakdown repeats patterns seen elsewhere, in that plenty of young people have been catching it, but this is the age group where asymptomatic cases are most likely.


----------



## LDC (Jun 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, The Times is reporting current lockdown restrictions are set to stay in place in Leicester for two more weeks after 4th July.
> 
> 
> 
> If that is the case, I guess that would be easy enough to enforce, but would it be enough?



Going to be a nightmare to enforce. What will be boundaries be? People will travel to pubs out of the area I think, spreading it more. Wasn't this a problem when they did area specific lockdowns in Italy early on? People left to other areas spreading the virus even further.

There's a big problem with timing with lockdowns here I think. The general speculation and talking about it in the media and getting everyone's vague feelings and ideas to try and fill a newstory slot just feels like a massive delay. If it's needed just do it now ffs.


----------



## kabbes (Jun 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ta. So heading downwards ! I guess we need to be careful about the various biases of this group. But still, not the result I wanted to see. The age breakdown repeats patterns seen elsewhere, in that plenty of young people have been catching it, but this is the age group where asymptomatic cases are most likely.


It’s not heading downwards outside of the confidence interval.  Statistically, the last number of weeks have all just been level.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

They had a paragraph describing it near the start of that report ( https://assets.publishing.service.g...56/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_w26.pdf )



> Data based on samples from blood donors suggests that seroprevalence is plateauing. Seroprevalence remains highest in London, with an adjusted prevalence of around 15% based on samples from week 21). New data from samples collected in the Midlands and North East in week 24 are included in this week’s report, with seroprevalence plateauing at around 6-7% in these regions. Seroprevalence remains highest in younger adults, though there have been relatively greater increases in prevalence in older adults over time, suggesting these age groups being affected later. These patterns may reflect differences in behaviour and mixing pat-terns in the different age groups.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jun 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It’s not heading downwards outside of the confidence interval.  Statistically, the last number of weeks have all just been level.



So I suppose a (slightly over-) cautious interpretation would be "probably not currently rising" ?

Which is still good!

I (personally) would feel safer if the media interpretation of the figures in general, was erring on the realistic-to-cautious side... though I know that's not the same for everyone & people need a bit of hope to keep them going.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

BBC picked up on the pillar 2 testing data not available to us angle in regards Leicester.









						Leicester lockdown: Coronavirus restrictions could be extended
					

Leicester's mayor says current coronavirus restrictions may remain in place for an extra fortnight.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The figure for confirmed cases in Leicester is more than double that published by the government.
> 
> This is because the government's published data for local cases only cover tests carried out in hospitals and for health workers - known as Pillar 1.
> 
> ...



And Johnson has been on about whack-a-mole again:



> Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "We are concerned about Leicester, we are concerned about any local outbreak. I want to stress to people that we are not out of the woods yet."
> 
> He said a local "whack-a-mole" strategy used to deal with outbreaks in Weston-super-Mare and around GP surgeries in London would be "brought to bear in Leicester as well".



I'm familiar with a few aspects of the Weston situation but I dont think I followed the detail of the whack-a-mole approach as it pertained to London GP surgeries. Was there much info about the situation and the detail of how they dealt with it?

The mayor of Leicester is not filling me with confidence when he comes out with this:



> "I think it's very unclear as to what difference it would make if they continue the regulations in Leicester and why you would do it. How can it possibly make any difference?" he added.
> 
> "Frankly, if the virus is out of control and spreading in Leicester with the restrictions, I can't understand how extending them for a further two weeks would make any difference to that."



Well Sir Peter, I believe the idea is that other responses are ramped up to try to crush the outbreak, but the idea is that you dont pour petrol on the flames at the same time by opening things in the middle of this response that are currently shut.

I can certainly sympathise if he is just getting vague shit from this government though, which given their form seems likely.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 29, 2020)

I thought 'whack-a-mole' tactics just meant the mole goes underground again and comes up somewhere else, like stamping on an air bubble in a lino floor? Not quite what is needed.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 29, 2020)

Why have they connected the dots with lines in the top graph but not the bottom one? I am unhappy about this.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

Even Nick Triggle manages some analysis these days that doesnt wind me up badly. From that same article about Leicester that I already linked to just now:



> The fact a local outbreak has been identified in one part of Leicester suggests the system is working to some extent - although it's fair to ask whether it could have been spotted more quickly given cases have been growing for a number of weeks.



An alternative phrase to a number of weeks that could probably be fairly used in this context would be 'since the start of June'. Although I think there have been issues all the way through the pandemic so far. I will be looking at how many weeks useful data I can get out of those maps I was on about last night and will report back.



> With extra testing facilities parachuted in officials will be desperately trying to get a clear idea of just how far it has spread so delaying the further easing of restrictions is the logical step.
> 
> If more cases keep emerging a local lockdown will be on the cards.
> 
> ...



I expect we will hear more about elimination versus partial suppression in the months ahead, especially if countries like Scotland come up with ways to try to keep it out once this round of it is effectively 'gone' there. I'll just be happy if we have a situation where numbers remain low enough that this kind of option remains plausible to discuss.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Why have they connected the dots with lines in the top graph but not the bottom one? I am unhappy about this.



PHE are exploring whether they are better equipped to publish the Big Pandemic Colouring Book than they were at ramping up testing.


----------



## hash tag (Jun 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> elbows, sorry to be a pain, have you a link to where you get those graphs from?


Sorry for jumping in elbows I seem to recall mentioning the reporting app a long time ago and reckon it's worth mentioning again....free  for everyone to download And use, a few seconds a day is all it takes and lots of data and research behind it. Well worth the effort Help slow the spread of #COVID19 and identify at risk cases sooner by self-reporting your symptoms daily, even if you feel well 🙏. Download the app COVID Symptom Study - Help slow the spread of COVID-19


----------



## teuchter (Jun 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> especially if countries like Scotland come up with ways to try to keep it out once this round of it is effectively 'gone' there.



I don't really understand how Scotland can be talking about elimination, and opening up to tourists next month, simultaneously.


----------



## Dark Knight (Jun 29, 2020)

"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. "

- Franklin D. Roosevelt, from his first presidential inaugural address, 1933


----------



## two sheds (Jun 29, 2020)

"Yes, we need to advance into the middle of Coronavirus "

- Two sheds, from his final address to the people, 2020


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I don't really understand how Scotland can be talking about elimination, and opening up to tourists next month, simultaneously.



I expect no end of contradictions and incompatible aims await us in the months ahead. Maybe some entity will actually manage to pull something off that impresses me.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes, we need to advance into the middle of Coronavirus
> 
> - Two sheds, from his final address to the people, 2020



If the tories used that Roosevelt quote right now it would probably be to try to justify the return of fines for parents whose children fail to attend school:









						Penalty fines for missing school next term
					

Parents could be fined if children miss school in the autumn - but heads reject this approach.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Jun 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I expect no end of contradictions and incompatible aims await us in the months ahead. Maybe some entity will actually manage to pull something off that impresses me.


I think we can all be fairly safe in betting it won't be uk.gov


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Jun 29, 2020)

I live in a small town (Lutterworth, pop. 9.3k) barely 10 miles from Leicester (pop. 330k).   If our pubs open next Saturday while theirs stay shut, guess what happens in this town and every other for miles around.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> "Yes, we need to advance into the middle of Coronavirus "
> 
> - Two sheds, from his final address to the people, 2020



I think we should hide behind a big rock and ambush them while the rear guard captures any that try to escape with lassos.


----------



## xenon (Jun 29, 2020)

OH god. what's this shit.


----------



## xenon (Jun 29, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I think we should hide behind a big rock and ambush them while the rear guard captures any that try to escape with lassos.



And then head them off at the pass. You always have to do that bit.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jun 29, 2020)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> I live in a small town (Lutterworth, pop. 9.3k) barely 10 miles from Leicester (pop. 330k).   If our pubs open next Saturday while theirs stay shut, guess what happens in this town and every other for miles around.


I heard anecdotally this is what happened on St Patricks day in Ireland/Northern Ireland - anyone else heard similar or got any data on it that proves one way or the other?


----------



## flypanam (Jun 29, 2020)

This is worrying a nursery saying open despite a load of cases 









						Coronavirus: Milton Keynes Acorn Nursery stays open as 23 test positive
					

Children, parents and staff test positive but Public Health England says the nursery is safe.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## flypanam (Jun 29, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> I heard anecdotally this is what happened on St Patricks day in Ireland/Northern Ireland - anyone else heard similar or got any data on it that proves one way or the other?


The Irish state closed all pubs and clubs at midnight on Monday 16th, the day before Paddy’s Day. Whether you Could get a pint in a rural pub I’m not sure but anyone I spoke to at home wasn’t risking heading out. I don’t think many would have travelled north either.


----------



## maomao (Jun 29, 2020)

flypanam said:


> This is worrying a nursery saying open despite a load of cases
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well they say they've isolated the bubbles with cases which means it is part closed. That's the whole point of bubbles isn't it?


----------



## flypanam (Jun 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well they say they've isolated the bubbles with cases which means it is part closed. That's the whole point of bubbles isn't it?


But there would have been a fair chance no one would have got if, there wasn’t a rush to reopen but I get your point.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

Stay absurd has come to my town! Get those facepalms ready, our world class system is on display....









						Residents asked to lie to bypass 'ridiculous' Covid test rules
					

A mobile testing unit has been set up in Nuneaton following a rise in cases




					www.coventrytelegraph.net
				






> Residents were asked to lie about having coronavirus symptoms so they could get tested at a mobile unit set-up in Nuneaton.
> 
> It has been admitted by Sade Agboola, director of public health for Warwickshire, that they had to 'bypass' some of the requirements to get people tested.
> 
> This is understood to include some of those who were at risk of picking up the virus following the small outbreak at the Cannons School in Bedworth.





> During a Warwickshire County Council's adult social care and health overview and scrutiny committee meeting, outlining local 'Test and Trace' system efforts, Dr Agboola said staff had to work around 'ridiculous' requirements on testing.
> 
> "In order to access a test, the rules require you have to be symptomatic - we have had to bypass this very ridiculous requirement - to ask people to say they are systematic," she said.
> 
> "We are working with PHE (Public Health England) to see how that can be side-stepped as it could be a deterrent for people having tests."



Need more absurdity, is there any icing for this cake?



> As we reported in our newsletter, Warwickshire County Council alongside Coventry City Council, Solihull MBC and the West Midlands Combined Authority was selected to take part in the early roll out of the government's £300 million test and trace work.
> 
> It is one of 11 'beacons' in the country.



Chinny reckon, Chinny beacon!


----------



## andysays (Jun 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Stay absurd has come to my town! Get those facepalms ready, our world class system is on display....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I thought the requirement for people to be symptomatic when being tested, far from being 'ridiculous', was because if you're not yet symptomatic the test doesn't work, or at least doesn't work so well.


----------



## editor (Jun 29, 2020)

This is how poorly England has handled this crisis compared to the other home nations and how fucking shit the UK has done, thanks to this halfwit government.




















						Coronavirus: UK hardest hit by virus among leading G7 nations
					

Analysis by the BBC shows Covid-19 deaths and excess deaths have been proportionately worse in the UK.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Fez909 (Jun 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Stay absurd has come to my town! Get those facepalms ready, our world class system is on display....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's not _quite_ the same, but similar:

I received an email recently from the Covid Symptom Tracker app study asking me to get a test. I was told they had agreed with the govt that people who have opted into the study can get tests even though they might not be symptomatic etc.

In the email, it said to say that I am entitled to a test, and not to listen to the advice on the site. 

The only options available to me were to say I was employed in one of various keyworker roles or to say I was directed here by the official app (which is only available on the IOW - perhaps withdrawn now, actually?)

I ticked app-directed, and got my test that way.   (negative, btw).


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

andysays said:


> I thought the requirement for people to be symptomatic when being tested, far from being 'ridiculous', was because if you're not yet symptomatic the test doesn't work, or at least doesn't work so well.



There was a logic to that, especially during periods where testing capacity was very limited and had to be rationed.

But as time has gone by and they have had more opportunities to blanket test people who had been potentially exposed in a particular setting, I think the relevance and number of asymptomatic cases, that can still generate a positive test, has become apparent. And this can be especially relevant when trying to zoom in and stamp down on a specific outbreak.

So its no surprise to me that when local officials are dealing with a particular situation, there are people they will want to get tested who arent showing symptoms at that time. I'm also not surprised that there are various situations where the authorities still want to discourage anyone who doesnt have symptoms, because no matter the claims, our testing system still has very clear limits to capacity.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

Another sign that the current testing system is still not up to scratch so they have to find other ways to make it more effective where its needed:









						Coronavirus: Number of mobile testing units to more than double
					

A further 1,763 armed forces personnel will help with testing at the 140 new pop-up facilities.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said 1,763 personnel will support the 236 units. There were 96 units in April.
> 
> "Testing is at the heart of the strategy for beating coronavirus", said Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.
> 
> ...



They sent one of the existing pop-up MOD testing facilities to Nuneaton several times in April and May. It was often to be found in a multi-storey carpark then. The one they have brought here to deal with the more recent outbreak is at 'an undisclosed location' according to the local press.


----------



## andysays (Jun 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> There was a logic to that, especially during periods where testing capacity was very limited and had to be rationed.
> 
> But as time has gone by and they have had more opportunities to blanket test people who had been potentially exposed in a particular setting, I think the relevance and number of asymptomatic cases, that can still generate a positive test, has become apparent. And this can be especially relevant when trying to zoom in and stamp down on a specific outbreak.
> 
> So its no surprise to me that when local officials are dealing with a particular situation, there are people they will want to get tested who arent showing symptoms at that time. I'm also not surprised that there are various situations where the authorities still want to discourage anyone who doesnt have symptoms, because no matter the claims, our testing system still has very clear limits to capacity.


That all makes sense, but I thought it wasn't simply a capacity issue, but an issue of accuracy.

If someone who is infected but hasn't yet developed enough of whatever is being tested for tests negative when they're actually positive, because they were, in effect, tested too early, then surely this will give a false sense of security.

The general rule surely has to be to behave as if you may yourself be infectious, and that those around you may also be infectious, and possible false negatives will work against that.


----------



## xenon (Jun 29, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> It's not _quite_ the same, but similar:
> 
> I received an email recently from the Covid Symptom Tracker app study asking me to get a test. I was told they had agreed with the govt that people who have opted into the study can get tests even though they might not be symptomatic etc.
> 
> ...



I don't understand. The app said you could ask for a test. You went on to the website and ticked directed from the app and got a test. So it worked?

What's IOW?

--

I also don't quite get what you're meant to do if you become ill suspecting Covid19. Self isolate for 14 dyas, of course but. Assuming you're:
A. Not a key worker.
B. Can't drive to a test centre.
C. Live alone.

Do you bother trying to get a test or just ride it out and call 111 if you get really ill?


----------



## xenon (Jun 29, 2020)

Well 999 if you get really, really ill.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 29, 2020)

xenon said:


> What's IOW?



Isle of Wight, where the  official app was tested, and failed.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

andysays said:


> That all makes sense, but I thought it wasn't simply a capacity issue, but an issue of accuracy.
> 
> If someone who is infected but hasn't yet developed enough of whatever is being tested for tests negative when they're actually positive, because they were, in effect, tested too early, then surely this will give a false sense of security.
> 
> The general rule surely has to be to behave as if you may yourself be infectious, and that those around you may also be infectious, and possible false negatives will work against that.



There are large amounts of false negatives with the testing anyway, they have to plough on regardless.

If I was involved with trying to manage a local outbreak I am not going to ignore people who may stay asymptomatic.

You arent wrong exactly, and numerous articles and people have made the same point you are making. But its not the whole story and if there are worries about the timing of testing of particular people you really want to test because of their presence at a particular place or their contacts, the best approach would be to test them multiple times over a period of time.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

In other words, 'whack-a-mole' involes a lot more testing than most of the testing scenarios and procedures we heard about earlier on. When they want to get a grip on an outbreak at a hospital they will test staff & patients regardless of symptoms, we've already heard about that. I dont think its any different with fighting local outbreaks in the community. The risk of complacency through false negatives is deemed to be the lesser of two evils compared to not bothering to test some of the people identified as being at risk of infection via a specific outbreak. This is a step beyond what has been described as being at the heart of the 'test and trace' policy, but its exactly the sort of lengths I think the authorities need to reach for when they are trying to actively suppress a particular outbreak on the ground in a particular place. That the current rules dont accomodate this properly yet is absurd, although it is not surprising that this sort of thing is unresolved at this stage. Hopefully its one of the lessons that will be quickly learned as a result of these local authorities trialling this sort of response.


----------



## LDC (Jun 29, 2020)

xenon said:


> I don't understand. The app said you could ask for a test. You went on to the website and ticked directed from the app and got a test. So it worked?
> 
> What's IOW?
> 
> ...



The test centre near me is walk in, plenty of non-key workers were there being tested as well.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

Also in regards to what I've just been saying, in the USA their current pattern of infection and their testing capacity means they are taking that aspect even further:



> During Friday's briefing, the White House task force also urged millennials to get tested, even if they are asymptomatic.



From US has 'serious problem' with virus, says Fauci

Some weeks back when someone from the WHO 'misspoke' and massively downplayed the role of asymptomatic cases, the timing of the error was especially stupid. Because ignoring this aspect likely means leaving some fires to burn and we are now at a stage where various countries might want to start dealing with that previous blindspot, and when available as an approach it should be encouraged.


----------



## pinkychukkles (Jun 29, 2020)

xenon said:


> What's IOW?


Isle of Wight


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

The Leicester thing is a good example of why its a disgrace they ended the press conferences. Who knows how long the people who live there will be left hanging with all this uncertainty without even getting to see a minister getting grilled about some of the details.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2020)

My workplace is reopening next Monday and I'm a bit terrified tbh. I work in a public library which is also a community hub offering other local council services. It is in a very deprived area that has been hit badly by Covid - healthwise and financewise. It is very busy in normal times so we expect to be inundated when we reopen. Lots of measures have been taken to ensure staff's safery - PPE, floor markings, spit shields, controlled entry, appointments only, reduced and prebooked PC availibility, no browsing and no use of toilets. They aim to have fewer than ten customers in the building at the same time. The queue outside is to be managed by just two security staff, and I'm worried we'll get overwhelmed and people will just bum rush security and waltz in expecting to do their usual stuff - people often spend all day in the library and socialise off and online. You can implement all the safety measures being deemed necessary but what you can't account for is customers' behaving and complying with the rules and this is what scares the shit out of me. 
Am also concerned about the 'staff bubbles' they are talking about - one week some work from home, the next week they come to work, except some staff (like me) are expected to work both weeks so are in both 'bubbles' - plus the security staff who also do shifts at the fucking hospital. So they're not bubbles at all, are they?


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Am also concerned about the 'staff bubbles' they are talking about - one week some work from home, the next week they come to work, except some staff (like me) are expected to work both weeks so are in both 'bubbles' - plus the security staff who also do shifts at the fucking hospital. So they're not bubbles at all, are they?



Yeah that sounds like it has an obvious flaw, double bubble muddle trouble.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 29, 2020)

Hearing the required social distance given in meters only is like being in a counterfactual history where Napoleon had managed to conquer Britain.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Hearing the required social distance given in meters only is like being in a counterfactual history where Napoleon had managed to conquer Britain.


what? we went metric ages ago


----------



## Doodler (Jun 29, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> what? we went metric ages ago



I'm still with Imperial units for rough and ready estimates - he"s six foot tall, she must weigh twelve stone etc. Lots of people are.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 29, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Hearing the required social distance given in meters only is like being in a counterfactual history where Napoleon had managed to conquer Britain.


Hearing you moaning about 'meters' is like being in a counterfactual history where the UK became the 51st state.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2020)

Doodler said:


> I'm still with Imperial units for rough and ready estimates - he"s six foot tall, she must weigh twelve stone etc. Lots of people are.


most of us can work with both


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 29, 2020)

Doodler said:


> I'm still with Imperial units for rough and ready estimates - he"s six foot tall, she must weigh twelve stone etc. Lots of people are.


Imperial's stoopid, particularly stones. 14 pounds? 14? What use is 14? 

I think in kilos for weight nowadays.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 29, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> most of us can work with both



Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think in kilos for weight nowadays.



That's . . . wrong!


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back.


you need to catch up with the rest of us. we know what a metre looks like, plus some places even have handy floor stickers to indicate two metre's distance. (we also have a sign at work which says 6 feet instead of two metres for the ancient and the ignorant. Trouble is, it's about 7 feet tall.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 29, 2020)

I'm working on heights in centimetres. Getting there.  Distances/speeds in km I'm about there. 

I do know what you mean, though. It's about having a feel for things. But I reckon most people have a decent feel for 2 metres.


----------



## Doodler (Jun 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'm working on heights in centimetres. Getting there.  Distances/speeds in km I'm about there



You will never go down the pub for a swift litre.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'm working on heights in centimetres. Getting there.  Distances/speeds in km I'm about there.
> 
> I do know what you mean, though. It's about having a feel for things. But I reckon most people have a decent feel for 2 metres.


"Tallest person you've ever seen, but laid down"


----------



## Doodler (Jun 29, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> you need to catch up with the rest of us. we know what a metre looks like, plus some places even have handy floor stickers to indicate two metre's distance. (we also have a sign at work which says 6 feet instead of two metres for the ancient and the ignorant. Trouble is, it's about 7 feet tall.



See? The old measures persist in the subconscious.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

Well Hancock made a statement to parliament about Leicester. 

Non-essential businesses to close, upcoming easing wont be happening in Leicester, those who are shielding will need to continue to do so. And those that had a rather relaxed attitude towards schools should note that he mentioned children playing a particular role in this outbreak and that as a result the schools there will be closing again.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 29, 2020)

Doodler said:


> You will never go down the pub for a swift litre.


It's a swift half, surely. Half-litre. 

I'm ok with the half-litre tbh, cos it's just a pint with a big head on it. Litres, meanwhile, Germany-style, are hard to dislike.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 29, 2020)

I'm partly** with Doodler on this, mainly because of my age and habits ..... I _can _think in metres, and obviously I've had to a lot more , since 'all this'
But feet are still so much easier for me!!
And stones are so much easier for me than kilos!!

**Only 'partly' though ,, because the majority of the sort of people who moan about metric, tend (IME) to have the sort of Maily-Telegraph type politics that I, erm, dislike


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 29, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's a swift half, surely. Half-litre.
> 
> I'm ok with the half-litre tbh, cos it's just a pint with a big head on it. Litres, meanwhile, Germany-style, are hard to dislike.




Fair points, or pints  -- litres have been a *lot* easier to adjust to in my time


----------



## Doodler (Jun 29, 2020)

Sturgeon 'won't rule out quarantining visitors from England'. This kind of ambiguity may be meant to be understood in different ways by different people.









						Sturgeon refuses to rule out Scotland screening visitors from England
					

First minister’s comments come after public health expert said people arriving from England could also be asked to self-isolate




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## flypanam (Jun 29, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> My workplace is reopening next Monday and I'm a bit terrified tbh. I work in a public library which is also a community hub offering other local council services. It is in a very deprived area that has been hit badly by Covid - healthwise and financewise. It is very busy in normal times so we expect to be inundated when we reopen. Lots of measures have been taken to ensure staff's safery - PPE, floor markings, spit shields, controlled entry, appointments only, reduced and prebooked PC availibility, no browsing and no use of toilets. They aim to have fewer than ten customers in the building at the same time. The queue outside is to be managed by just two security staff, and I'm worried we'll get overwhelmed and people will just bum rush security and waltz in expecting to do their usual stuff - people often spend all day in the library and socialise off and online. You can implement all the safety measures being deemed necessary but what you can't account for is customers' behaving and complying with the rules and this is what scares the shit out of me.
> Am also concerned about the 'staff bubbles' they are talking about - one week some work from home, the next week they come to work, except some staff (like me) are expected to work both weeks so are in both 'bubbles' - plus the security staff who also do shifts at the fucking hospital. So they're not bubbles at all, are they?


No time limit on pc use or time in library? No requirement to wipe down surfaces before and after use? Self service only?

I’ve been furloughed and am not sure when I’m returning to work or even if I there is a job to go back to, but we will be doing click and collect with zero browsing and no seating until our students get used to doing things in a way that is safe. We’ll only seating much later in the year.

You can walk out if you feel in danger Health and safety In work section 44 I think.


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Jun 29, 2020)

Can anyone help out, work out what "Leicester" means in this context.  It's not the city council area because that excludes the surrounding districts like Oadby and Blaby, which are definitely part of the urban conurbation.

If the cunts are giving "Leicester" a different set of rules to work with, perhaps it might be useful to tell people who and where it applies?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 29, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Sturgeon 'won't rule out quarantining visitors from England'. This kind of ambiguity may be meant to be understood in different ways by different people.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


tbh some of what is coming out of Scotland atm smacks of nationalist hubris. Measures are being taken in Leicester. What exactly does Sturgeon want? And she and others are jumping on good recent numbers rather quickly. Also, there are Scotland-sized chunks of England that are doing just as well as Scotland atm. Anywhere is still prone to a big infection incident, including Scotland.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2020)

flypanam said:


> No time limit on pc use or time in library? No requirement to wipe down surfaces before and after use? Self service only?
> 
> I’ve been furloughed and am not sure when I’m returning to work or even if I there is a job to go back to, but we will be doing click and collect with zero browsing and no seating until our students get used to doing things in a way that is safe. We’ll only seating much later in the year.
> 
> You can walk out if you feel in danger Health and safety In work section 44 I think.


45 minute time limit for computers. No hanging about. Other customers can only come in if they have or want to make an appointment. Customers encouraged to wipe down PC equipment before and after use, but there’s 15 minutes until the next booking and cleaners on the premises all day to do it too. Self-serve only. So good luck to those computer illiterate job seekers who will have 45 minutes to apply for jobs and update their UC account


----------



## xenon (Jun 29, 2020)

Doodler said:


> I'm still with Imperial units for rough and ready estimates - he"s six foot tall, she must weigh twelve stone etc. Lots of people are.



TBH I'm not sure oof ahnd how tall I am in metric for example. But just ask your nearest internet connected device for conversions...

178cm apparently


----------



## xenon (Jun 29, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> My workplace is reopening next Monday and I'm a bit terrified tbh. I work in a public library which is also a community hub offering other local council services. It is in a very deprived area that has been hit badly by Covid - healthwise and financewise. It is very busy in normal times so we expect to be inundated when we reopen. Lots of measures have been taken to ensure staff's safery - PPE, floor markings, spit shields, controlled entry, appointments only, reduced and prebooked PC availibility, no browsing and no use of toilets. They aim to have fewer than ten customers in the building at the same time. The queue outside is to be managed by just two security staff, and I'm worried we'll get overwhelmed and people will just bum rush security and waltz in expecting to do their usual stuff - people often spend all day in the library and socialise off and online. You can implement all the safety measures being deemed necessary but what you can't account for is customers' behaving and complying with the rules and this is what scares the shit out of me.
> Am also concerned about the 'staff bubbles' they are talking about - one week some work from home, the next week they come to work, except some staff (like me) are expected to work both weeks so are in both 'bubbles' - plus the security staff who also do shifts at the fucking hospital. So they're not bubbles at all, are they?



yeah. That sounds like a lot of variables. I'm sure you'll be fine but understand the worry, given the circs.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 29, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> The queue outside is to be managed by just two security staff, and I'm worried we'll get overwhelmed and people will just bum rush security and waltz in expecting to do their usual stuff



Why do you think that will happen at a public library, when it hasn't generally happened at supermarkets?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why do you think that will happen at a public library, when it hasn't generally happened at supermarkets?


Different situation


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well Hancock made a statement to parliament about Leicester.
> 
> Non-essential businesses to close, upcoming easing wont be happening in Leicester, those who are shielding will need to continue to do so. And those that had a rather relaxed attitude towards schools should note that he mentioned children playing a particular role in this outbreak and that as a result the schools there will be closing again.


That'll be me.  Although tbf part of my stance was that I said that all teachers should be tested before going back and then tested regularly after that (we have the capacity, allegedly).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 29, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Different situation



You think people are going to over power security to get in a library?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> You think people are going to over power security to get in a library?


Yes, it’s not just a library. People come to report repairs, rearrange council tax payments, rent arrears, register births and deaths, look for work, apply for housing benefit and council tax support and collect food bank vouchers and food parcels. Even in normal times, they’re often at quite a low point when they come in and are not always on their best behaviour. People are going to be even more desperate than they usually are and when they see the library open again, they’ll besiege the place. I’m sure it will calm down eventually but I’m not looking forward to the first week.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 29, 2020)

And sometimes you just need to avoid the overdue book fines


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> And sometimes you just need to avoid the overdue book fines


We don’t do fines any more and our system has autorenewed all overdues anyway


----------



## two sheds (Jun 29, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> We don’t do fines any more and our system has autorenewed all overdues anyway


ooo I'll be in


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2020)

This thread was posted by a US librarian who rues the day their library reopened prematurely:


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2020)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> Can anyone help out, work out what "Leicester" means in this context.  It's not the city council area because that excludes the surrounding districts like Oadby and Blaby, which are definitely part of the urban conurbation.
> 
> If the cunts are giving "Leicester" a different set of rules to work with, perhaps it might be useful to tell people who and where it applies?



This is all I've seen so far so I guess it depends how imminently imminently is as to when the detail emerges:



> Mr Hancock said details of the wards in Leicestershire affected by the new lockdown measures would be published "imminently".
> 
> Suburbs of Leicester, such as Oadby, Birstall and Glenfield, will be among those affected.











						Leicester lockdown tightened as coronavirus cases rise
					

The local lockdown means non-essential shops are shut and schools will close for most pupils in the city.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Jun 30, 2020)

Had a very brief chat to a friend this morning about this Leicester 'lockdown' and he was of the opinion it;s not really neded as the area within Leicester where the outbreak is is very small, and this is an attempt to fuck the economy of the city by the Tories as it's a Labour council.

He's a dead clever, normally very sensible friend, but even so my initial reaction was 'what complete conspiratorial bollocks' but I'd be interested to know if anyone else heard this idea knocking about, or think there's any credibility to it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 30, 2020)

Latest ONS data for England & Wales, up to Fri. 19th June, has been released.

This is positive...



> According to the ONS, the death rate in England and Wales fell to below average in mid June.
> 
> This was the first week when this happened since early March. The total number of deaths in week 25 was 0.7% below the five-year average for that week (65 deaths fewer).
> 
> ...


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Had a very brief chat to a friend this morning about this Leicester 'lockdown' and he was of the opinion it;s not really neded as the area within Leicester where the outbreak is is very small, and this is an attempt to fuck the economy of the city by the Tories as it's a Labour council.
> 
> He's a dead clever, normally very sensible friend, but even so my initial reaction was 'what complete conspiratorial bollocks' but I'd be interested to know if anyone else heard this idea knocking about, or think there's any credibility to it.



There was an article on the BBC website yesterday and it had several vox pop one line interviews.  I know you can't read much into these but I did find the attitude a little surprising because they were all basically saying 'it's not really fair on Leicester, we're no different to anyone else'.  At a guess I'd say its about how the government have behaved and how they have communicated their message.  Lockdown is a punishment and no one trusts the government's numbers and reasoning.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 30, 2020)

The idea that it's lower than usual is slightly odd isn't it. Is that just a normal statistical variation in the underlying rate or is there an element of something about the situation reducing it - a reverse of the 'excess deaths' idea? Maybe large numbers of vulnerable people isolating has caused some reduction in the death rate in that group compared to what would have occurred otherwise?


----------



## maomao (Jun 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Latest ONS data for England & Wales, up to Fri. 19th June, has been released.
> 
> This is positive...


0.7% below average is surely well within the normal range of average. Bit misleading.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 30, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> The idea that it's lower than usual is slightly odd isn't it. Is that just a normal statistical variation in the underlying rate or is there an element of something about the situation reducing it - a reverse of the 'excess deaths' idea? Maybe large numbers of vulnerable people isolating has caused some reduction in the death rate in that group compared to what would have occurred otherwise?



The Mirror link above was limited with information, although saying it will be updated, at time of posting, bit more detail here...



> In the week ending June 19 both hospitals and care homes the number of deaths fell below the average, with 782 and 49 fewer deaths respectively.
> 
> However, there were 827 excess deaths in people’s private homes.
> 
> ...



So, still 783 Covid-19 deaths, also worth remembering the death rate this year was already tracking below the 5-year average before C-19 rared its ugly head.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 30, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> The idea that it's lower than usual is slightly odd isn't it. Is that just a normal statistical variation in the underlying rate or is there an element of something about the situation reducing it - a reverse of the 'excess deaths' idea? Maybe large numbers of vulnerable people isolating has caused some reduction in the death rate in that group compared to what would have occurred otherwise?


Well 65 deaths could easily be down to provisional data or simple statistical variation.

However, there reputable statisticians like David Speigelhalter have pointed out that you could end up with lower than usual excess mortality over the next months 1, 2


> To end on a cautionary note, excess mortality should also be examined in a longer-term perspective. Spiegelhalter (2020) argues the main impact of Covid-19 may be to shift forward the date of death by a few months for those close to death because of underlying poor health. Then, a peak in weekly deaths should be followed by a trough, see Table 2 for hints that this may be occurring in some countries. However, total years of life lost is a better measure of the pandemic’s social toll. Even in the extreme case envisaged by Spiegelhalter, if the 12-month moving average of excess mortality showed no deviation outside the -2, +2 normal range, total years of life lost could still show an upturn.


And if you look at the excess death data from the FT and NYT you might be seeing such appear in some countries (Spain for example).

That said I don't think anyone would say the data above confirms the hypothesis at the moment, just that it is something to bear in mind when looking at the excess death data.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 30, 2020)

I think the one thing you can take from it is that for the time being is that excess deaths are not way over and above what would be expected.  Its a positive (albeit perhaps a temporary one) in a sea of bad news.


----------



## baldrick (Jun 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Had a very brief chat to a friend this morning about this Leicester 'lockdown' and he was of the opinion it;s not really neded as the area within Leicester where the outbreak is is very small, and this is an attempt to fuck the economy of the city by the Tories as it's a Labour council.
> 
> He's a dead clever, normally very sensible friend, but even so my initial reaction was 'what complete conspiratorial bollocks' but I'd be interested to know if anyone else heard this idea knocking about, or think there's any credibility to it.




Well the area of the lockdown seems quite large (the red line). I think the grey areas were what was under consideration for inclusion. The area which has been in the news is Evington which is right at the eastern edge of the lockdown area.


----------



## xenon (Jun 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Had a very brief chat to a friend this morning about this Leicester 'lockdown' and he was of the opinion it;s not really neded as the area within Leicester where the outbreak is is very small, and this is an attempt to fuck the economy of the city by the Tories as it's a Labour council.
> 
> He's a dead clever, normally very sensible friend, but even so my initial reaction was 'what complete conspiratorial bollocks' but I'd be interested to know if anyone else heard this idea knocking about, or think there's any credibility to it.



FWIW the Labour MP for Lecester East was calling for a local lock down yesterday on the radio. I'd be surprised if this theory has milage in light of that.


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 30, 2020)

xenon said:


> FWIW the Labour MP for Lecester East was calling for a local lock down yesterday on the radio. I'd be surprised if this theory has milage in light of that.



Yes, and they already tried a more localised lockdown:

Hancock said: "We really do have a Leicester specific outbreak in Leicester. I first mentioned the worries 11 days ago, since then we've been monitoring incredibly closely, we've put in extra testing, some schools were closed already, we also went into factories and workplaces where there were outbreaks, these measures have worked elsewhere. Targeted action wasn't working and that's why much broader action has been taken."


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, still 783 Covid-19 deaths, also worth remembering the death rate this year was already tracking below the 5-year average before C-19 rared its ugly head.



Exactly, and this was seen in figures from various other european countries too. The likes of the BBC mention mild weather in March, but I think a large part of it was that the seasonal flu wave was very early last winter, so by Feb & March there were likely less deaths than normal from flu.

Small fluctuations either side of the 5 year average are not really newsworthy. Some people, especially those interested in downplaying the toll of the pandemic because their attitude includes 'most of those people were going to die anyway', are interested in seeing whether there are bigger and more notable drops in the excess deaths below average in the months ahead, so they can make some points that will probably piss me off. The numbers that came out today are not within a range that really lets them set off down this path yet.


----------



## xenon (Jun 30, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Yes, and they already tried a more localised lockdown:
> 
> Hancock said: "We really do have a Leicester specific outbreak in Leicester. I first mentioned the worries 11 days ago, since then we've been monitoring incredibly closely, we've put in extra testing, some schools were closed already, we also went into factories and workplaces where there were outbreaks, these measures have worked elsewhere. Targeted action wasn't working and that's why much broader action has been taken."



Not sure he's a reliable source. Having just said Keighley had a local outbreak. Bradford council tweet:
"Just to calm everyone down a bit… There's no new COVID-19 spike in Keighley. @MattHancock confused Keighley with a different area on TV and radio this morning."


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Had a very brief chat to a friend this morning about this Leicester 'lockdown' and he was of the opinion it;s not really neded as the area within Leicester where the outbreak is is very small, and this is an attempt to fuck the economy of the city by the Tories as it's a Labour council.
> 
> He's a dead clever, normally very sensible friend, but even so my initial reaction was 'what complete conspiratorial bollocks' but I'd be interested to know if anyone else heard this idea knocking about, or think there's any credibility to it.



The mayor of Leicester has made me groan on several occasions already because he has come out with a mix of statements that include theories about why they are unfairly targeting Leicester. It came off like being in denial to me, but then again I dont have all the data presented to me in a form where I can actually judge for myself.

I'll try to fish out some quotes in a bit. Its a mixed bag, sometimes the mayor says sensible things, sometimes he displays little understanding of outbreak control and why Leicester has a problem.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The Mirror link above was limited with information, although saying it will be updated, at time of posting, bit more detail here...
> 
> 
> 
> So, still 783 Covid-19 deaths, also worth remembering the death rate this year was already tracking below the 5-year average before C-19 rared its ugly head.


Also, it's just one week. You have to allow for natural variation here. With slightly above-average deaths overall, you'd still expect the odd week to dip below the average just by natural variation.

Another explanation that may account for slightly low figures in the coming months is that a fair chunk of the very old and very ill have been killed off.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

xenon said:


> Not sure he's a reliable source. Having just said Keighley had a local outbreak. Bradford council tweet:
> "Just to calm everyone down a bit… There's no new COVID-19 spike in Keighley. @MattHancock confused Keighley with a different area on TV and radio this morning."



Apart from random Hancock comments in public, the lack of pillar 2 data means we have just really one source of info with which to judge this stuff for ourselves. Its the map from the weekly surveillance report. It is plausible that other areas in darker red on this map may receive special attention in future.


From National COVID-19 surveillance report: 25 June 2020 (week 26)


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> The mayor of Leicester has made me groan on several occasions already because he has come out with a mix of statements that include theories about why they are unfairly targeting Leicester. It came off like being in denial to me, but then again I dont have all the data presented to me in a form where I can actually judge for myself.
> 
> I'll try to fish out some quotes in a bit. Its a mixed bag, sometimes the mayor says sensible things, sometimes he displays little understanding of outbreak control and why Leicester has a problem.



Yes, I thought that as well.  He'd make a point something along the lines of 'the current rules are not working here because we are having a flair up so what is the worth in just doing the same for another 2 weeks'.  Which in itself is a reasonable statement but he seemed to be using it as justification as to why they should be allowed to further open up in-line with the rest of the country.  Which is odd.


----------



## Plumdaff (Jun 30, 2020)

xenon said:


> FWIW the Labour MP for Lecester East was calling for a local lock down yesterday on the radio. I'd be surprised if this theory has milage in light of that.


And the lockdown area includes places like Wigston and Oadby in a solid Tory constituency so I don't think this is party political.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

His comments in recent days have ranged from the conciliatory and reasonable like this:

stricter-anticipated-leicester-council-reacts-4276473



> Sir Peter said: “These measures are stricter than we anticipated but we understand the need for firm action. I am determined that we will make this work and to minimise the time these additional measures need to be in place in the city.
> 
> “We will of course continue to play our part in keeping people in the city safe and healthy.”



To something in-between, where there is a mix of acceptance with lingering hints of denial and the idea that Leicester is being used as an experiment:

 14h ago 22:20 



> They’ve gone further than we anticipated they might.
> 
> They are clearly determined to start with the maximum, as it were, to see how it works and then perhaps to use the learning from this in other areas I have no doubt will follow.
> 
> ...



To the earlier stuff you mentioned:

 21h ago 15:31 



> What I don’t understand is what a continuation of the restrictions would add. I just can’t see how that could possibly lead to helping our joint effort to contain the virus ...
> 
> I would say that if a further relaxation of the restrictions is good enough for the rest of England, there is nothing here that suggests it’s not good enough for Leicester.



There was at least one more quote that deserve to be in this file but I just cant find it right now. 

It seems Sir Peter also has a record of not adhering to lockdown himself:









						Leicester Mayor speaks out over lockdown visits to partner
					

There have been calls for him to resign and for the police to investigate his visits




					www.leicestermercury.co.uk
				






> Sir Peter Soulsby has said he is ‘genuinely sorry’ for visiting his partner’s home numerous times during lockdown.
> 
> The Labour mayor of Leicester lives in Evington in city but was visiting his partner’s home in Groby some five miles away while strict restrictions were in place to try to stop the spread of Covid-19.
> 
> He was pictured by Lesley Summerland’s neighbours at her home doing odd jobs and has been staying overnight at her house despite the rules saying that was not allowed.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

And this historical photo of Soulsby is causing me to develop a theory that he is Thom Yorkes dad.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

The BBC have created their own version of that map I keep referencing.










						Leicester lockdown: Police given 'minimal guidance' on new restrictions
					

Leicester's police and crime commissioner complains that agencies have been "drip-fed" information.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Also from that article, I'm not the only one complaining about lack of press conferences.



> Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the government had left people in the city "anxious and confused".
> 
> The Leicester South MP said the guidance on essential travel was unclear and there had been "no clarity" on whether businesses in the city would receive financial help.
> 
> He urged the government to hold a press conference later to provide more detail.





> Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer echoed calls for a media briefing, saying the people of Leicester were "crying out for answers to perfectly legitimate questions".
> 
> Downing Street said legislation already existed to allow the government to enforce the local lockdown but it needed to be signed off by the health secretary.
> 
> A spokesman said there were no plans for a press conference, while Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would "stay in close contact" with Leicester's mayor "as we monitor the situation".


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 30, 2020)

Not to excuse Hancock screwing up with his Keighley reference earlier 

But that map above reminds me that Keighley is technically 'in' Bradford, local government boundaries-wise at least.

Most likely no connection, but ......


----------



## 2hats (Jun 30, 2020)

FT highlighting the lack of readily accessible pillar 2 data...


From the FT mentioned in the twitter thread:


Spoiler: FT article.



Leicester lockdown exposes lack of local Covid testing data

Health secretary vows to publish more information but UK’s nations and regions fear they are not seeing the full picture

John Burn-Murdoch, Sarah Neville and Laura Hughes in London and Andy Bounds in Manchester 3 HOURS AGO

Daily coronavirus case numbers for the UK’s cities and regions contain only a fraction of the real total in those areas, according to data analysis by the Financial Times, hampering local authorities’ ability to control localised outbreaks of the virus.

Although the government publishes the total UK-wide figure for Covid-19 cases every day — including positive tests collected in hospitals and those processed at home and in commercial laboratories — at a subnational level the total of new daily cases contains only the number of positive tests recorded in hospitals.

Public Health England does publish a weekly breakdown of the two categories of tests results while the Welsh government publishes both pillar 1 (hospitals) and pillar 2 (commercial labs and home tests) data on a daily basis.

But, while PHE releases full data for nine of England’s main regions such as Yorkshire & the Humber with a two-week delay, hundreds of local authorities in the rest of the country are unable to see a timely picture of what is happening in their communities or compare that with other cities and regions of the UK.






Chart showing that Pillar 2 tests account for an ever-growing share of new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in England

This gap in the subnational and regional data has been cited by local political leaders and health officials in Leicester as one of the reasons for the delay in locking down the east Midlands city.

“For weeks we have been trying to get information about the level of testing in the city and the results of that testing in the city,” Peter Soulsby, mayor of Leicester, told the BBC on Tuesday.

According to published data for Leicester, the city recorded just 80 new positive tests between June 13-26. But, in announcing the decision to tighten the lockdown in Leicester, closing non-essential shops and ordering schools to shut to all non-key worker pupils by Thursday, health secretary Matt Hancock revealed that there were in fact 944.

Leicester city council’s public health department only received those figures last Thursday. They could not compare with places elsewhere because those pillar 2 figures are only made available to local officials in their own local authority area provided they have signed the Data Protection Act.

“I would wish that they had shared that [data] with us right from the start,” said Sir Peter. “And I wish they had taken a more speedy decision rather than leaving it 11 days. That's a long gap and a long time for the virus to spread.”





Chart showing that Leicester’s new outbreak is visible only in Pillar 2 data, which the government does not make public

A Public Health England official, who declined to be named, said non-publication was a ministerial decision. “The Department for Health and Social Care need to make the decision to publish — and they should — but we can’t push them because we are their arms-length body.”

The issues go beyond availability of the data: its quality and the speed with which it is disseminated, too, leave much to be desired, say public health leaders.

Kate Ardern, who leads health protection and emergency planning for Greater Manchester, said the information being sent to local authorities from tests conducted under pillar two lacked the granularity or timeliness needed to pre-empt an outbreak.

For the past two months she and colleagues had been making their concerns known to officials and ministers, she said.

“If I don't know who is being tested, and getting positive tests, in the community because one of the major elements of the testing system isn't currently sending me complete and reliable intelligence . . . it actually hampers our ability to get ahead of the curve on outbreak management,” said Ms Ardern.





Chart showing that the issue is especially acute in Yorkshire & the Humber and the East Midlands, where new upticks are only visible in pillar 2 data

The government stresses that more information has been given to local public health officials this month.

Since June 11, NHS Digital had made available an operational data dashboard with counts of total tests, total positives and total voids per local authority to Directors of Public Health.

The DHSC said: “We have been working closely with our local partners, providing them with the resources and tools so that they can take swift action to deal with any new local spikes in infections.”


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

2hats said:


> FT highlighting the lack of readily accessible pillar 2 data...



You heard it here first!

Speaking of data, Johnson promised to keep the daily press conference data going but it looks like after doing that last week, they are now expecting another version of the shitty dashboard to carry the load. Except this dashboard wont even have regional breakdowns for another week, and some of the hospital data its supposed to show is well out of date.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

This is the dashboard I was just talking about:









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

Daily summary | Coronavirus in the UK




					coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk
				




Look at the state of the healthcare section. No figure for patients admitted daily since 16th June. 4 days lag with the ventilator figures. No regional breakdown for numbers currently in hospital.

If they stick the right data into it in future then I may yet come to praise the dashboard compared to what came before. On the site that used to show all the daily press briefing slides and now directs people to that dashboard, it says 'Lower geographical breakdowns will be available on 6 July.' so I could even hope that this dashboard might eventually give me access to local test data that includes pillar 2. I'd be a fool to bank on that though, lets see what happens on the 6th.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 30, 2020)

One could be forgiven for thinking they have moved to a more concerted phase of hiding the bodies.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> One could be forgiven for thinking they have moved to a more concerted phase of hiding the bodies.


sadly the ministers are trotted out depressingly frequently and none of _them_ seem to have died.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> One could be forgiven for thinking they have moved to a more concerted phase of hiding the bodies.



Well not bodies, just a range of data that should be subject to much less lag than the deaths. The sort of data we'd need to draw our own conclusions and make informed decisions.

Since the Leicester thing became big news they chucked a couple of these hidden numbers to the public as one-offs. Here in Nuneaton our outbreak was considered newsworthy and I can see how many died in hospital so far from it, but they didnt feel like telling us how many were admitted to hospital, currently in hospital and ICU, or how many people in the area tested positive.


----------



## Supine (Jun 30, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

At least the belated sharing of such a graph, albeit in one off form and only for Leicester, indicates that the crappy data situation for pillar 2 does not still extend to all levels of that system and the government itself. At least they have been able to cobble together the data internally, even if they arent routinely sharing it with us. 

Of course there is also the danger that if they start publishing all this data it might take me a while to notice and track it down, so I could still be spouting on about this after the data situation has moved on.

Meanwhile I was looking at live updates from a local Leicester paper and there was one more mayor Soulsby quote I couldnt resist 



> Asked about his visits to his lady friend and what he would say to people who thought it wasn’t necessary to follow the rules he said: “It’s not worth the risk to go and help someone in distress.
> 
> It’s clearly, under the terms of the legislation, seen as a reasonable course, but it’s not seen as a good example.
> 
> “And I’ve taken on board the lessons from being spotted. We’ve now moved in together.”











						Live: Leicester lockdown to feature in Downing St briefing
					

Reaction as the Government asks the city to stick to new restrictions for two weeks




					www.leicestermercury.co.uk


----------



## maomao (Jun 30, 2020)

wtf is pillar one and pillar two data anyway? Is there any reasonable justification for not releasing the data?


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> wtf is pillar one and pillar two data anyway? Is there any reasonable justification for not releasing the data?



Pillar one is the original NHS/PHE testing. They could never ramp this up all that much, so after some additional weeks of failure to meet the challenge they effectively admitted defeat and added commercial partners to do the broader testing, and since tended to reserve pillar 1 for hospitals/health workers.

The initial ramp up of pillar 2 was a rushed effort in order to meet a now infamous target. Since then its kept expanding, well sort of, but there have been numerous issues with the quality of the data, how quickly it is available, how widely it is shared, not just with the public but with local authorities. I believe Panorama went into a lot of the issues the other day.

Its one of the main things the official UK Statistics Authority has been having a go at the government about in recent weeks. I believe this will force the government into sharing more of the data, and I expect the dashboard I was on about earlier may be the eventual destination for this data and forms the basis of what the government will offer in order to be abe to say they have dealt with the stats authorities complaint.

One of the few bits of useful data on the beta dashboard is which pillars make up the daily test numbers, as this was another aspect of the stats authorities complaint. So on this one, dark blue is pillar 1 and light blue is pillar 2.


From Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK

There are probably still some flaws in terms of data from pillar 2. Such flaws have tended to involve issues with length of time to obtain results, missing important bits of personal data to go with each result, problems with systems to collate and share the data at all levels. When we hear quotes from the authorities in Leicester talking about how they only got things like postcode data last Thursday, thats an example of longstanding pillar 2 data issues coming to a head.

I'll return to this subject if there are no signs of them fixing the public data sharing side of this by July 6th.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

Having to resort to quoting a tory when seeking Leicester possible explanations.



> Mr Bridgen added: "What we have seen in Leicester is a perfect storm really, you have got a city which has generally got younger people living in it. We know younger people have been less likely to comply with lockdown rules.
> 
> "We have got the biggest ethnic minority population of any city, so you have multi-generational households where the young people have probably been out socialising in breach of the lockdown.
> 
> ...



Ah yes the garment industry, I dont think sweatshops have received much attention in the pandemic yet.

Quotes are from the same local live updates page as I linked to earlier Live: Leicester goes back into lockdown as non-essential shops close

From the same page, Leicestershire police have been using a novel ecstacy-based approach it seems.



> "Our approach has always been clear that we will use the four Es – Engage, Explain, Encourage and Enforce where necessary."


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> From the same page, Leicestershire police have been using a novel ecstacy-based approach it seems.
> 
> 
> 
> > "Our approach has always been clear that we will use the four Es – Engage, Explain, Encourage and Enforce where necessary."



The Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner came out with those four Es the other day, so probably a national policy.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

The 5 E's. They left off E fell down the stairs.


----------



## maomao (Jun 30, 2020)

When I see coppers I just think of E for brick.


----------



## phillm (Jun 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> One could be forgiven for thinking they have moved to a more concerted phase of hiding the bodies.


----------



## BassJunkie (Jun 30, 2020)

I live in Leicester City, I'd just like to extend my thanks to those who have been pointing out the difference between Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 results. For some reason, I'm now taking more interest in the data .


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 30, 2020)

BassJunkie said:


> I live in Leicester City, I'd just like to extend my thanks to those who have been pointing out the difference between Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 results. For some reason, I'm now taking more interest in the data .



Here's hoping you are not in lockdown for too long, and things get under control ASAP.


----------



## Duncan2 (Jun 30, 2020)

Asked to explain how the local lockdown for areas of Leicester could possibly be enforced the Police and Crime Commissioner laughed before saying he had himself been unable to find this out.This was William Bach a notable local lawyer (albeit one specialising in Crime)


----------



## BassJunkie (Jun 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Here's hoping you are not in lockdown for too long, and things get under control ASAP.


Thank you that's appreciated. It's not so bad, I get to work from home (still), although it means I'll also be home schooling and looking after my 8 year old alone from Thursday (as Mrs Bassjunkie is a teacher who works in a different county). I'm looking at that as quality time.

It does make me more reluctant though to visit my weed dealer. It's funny perhaps that it's taken a global deadly pandemic to do that. And is the epitome of a first world problem.

I've no doubt that the world beating track and trace testing will arrive any minute now to save us


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Having to resort to quoting a tory when seeking Leicester possible explanations.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


He can fuck the fuck off with most of that. Without knowing the source of this outbreak, it could be anything, and I'd bet it will be either a hospital-related thing or a shit employer somewhere like it seems to be with most of the fresh outbreaks across Europe atm. I guess we're going to see a lot of this stuff now. _It's your fault for not behaving. I have no stats to back that up, but it's my firm prejudice and I'm sticking to it. _


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 30, 2020)

Duncan2 said:


> Asked to explain how the local lockdown for areas of Leicester could possibly be enforced the Police and Crime Commissioner laughed before saying he had himself been unable to find this out.This was William Bach a notable local lawyer (albeit one specialising in Crime)



TBF the lockdown has largely been successful due to people doing the right thing, and not because of enforcement.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> He can fuck the fuck off with most of that. Without knowing the source of this outbreak, it could be anything, and I'd bet it will be either a hospital-related thing or a shit employer somewhere like it seems to be with most of the fresh outbreaks across Europe atm. I guess we're going to see a lot of this stuff now. _It's your fault for not behaving. I have no stats to back that up, but it's my firm prejudice and I'm sticking to it. _



When an outbreak reaches this size its not just about a 'source', its about the ongoing spread.

A lot of what he described is perfectly in keeping with conventional wisdom when it comes to epidemic modelling and factors such as multi-generational households.

A different sort of younger people, those at school, have already been identified in this Leicester outbreak and thats one of the stated reasons for schools closing again. And when it comes down to how much people adhered to lockdown, the government chose only to share very limited, positive looking data with us about that (eg those transport geraphs that were a regular feature of the daily briefings). So I dont think we've had a proper sense of how well the lockdown was adhered to during the peak, let alone later, and so havent had too many sensible conversations about that sort of stuff.

Anyway I dont think you've understood the current Leicester situation. What you are describing are the sorts of clusters of cases that are identified in relation to particular locations of employment etc. If there are just one or two of these in an area then there is one kind of response, the individual establishments in question are closed and/or subject o a lot of heavily directed testing. What has happened in Leicester is at least one level beyond that, its not an outbreak that they think they can manage by identifying and managing a single premises or workforce. Its broader and so they take the response up a gear or two, which in this case means Leicester as a whole has ended up with its own lockdown restrictions.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

I may as well quote Hancock from his Leicester statement yesterday in order to explain further what I was just on about with different levels of outbreak.



> Analysis is based on 3 levels of spread.
> 
> Individual cases are identified and managed by NHS Test and Trace.
> 
> ...



This is not a perfect fit for what I just said in previous post, and I'm not used to using their terminology in the way they are using it yet, but hopefully the overall idea of this system makes some sense. I have left out the subsequent part where he goes on about local action committee bronze, silver and gold command structures but its available in full at Health Secretary's statement on Leicester lockdown in full


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

I'm not sure when I will get a chance to read all the SAGE papers and minutes that have been released since I last dedicated time to that task. But in the meantime, here are just a few random snippets of information dating from the minutes of their June 11th meeting, because I did find time to skim through that single one this evening.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/895884/S0538_Forty-first_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19.pdf
		




> CO-CIN data indicates that the North West of England continues to have higher proportion of hospital acquired infections than other regions. Individual settings and outbreaks can have a significant impact on regional figures.





> NHS serology data indicate 16% seroprevalence in healthcare workers and 20% in hospital patients but these data should be seen as provisional.


 (that serology one is antibody stuff)



> ONS intends to publish regional incidence and prevalence figures weekly from the beginning of July. THis observed data will be more robust than modelled estimates.





> Public toilets are a potential vector for transmission because of the stacked risk of aerosol presence, faecal matter, frequently touched surfaces, confined space and public queuing.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 30, 2020)

I think its fair not to accept 'young people not adhering to lockdown' as a reason. That happens everywhere.  It might be a number of shitty employers/types of employment which can be concentrated in areas or young people having to work or attend school while parents work. Combined with more multi generational housing/lack of appropriate housing stock.


----------



## maomao (Jun 30, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I think its fair not to accept 'young people not adhering to lockdown' as a reason. That happens everywhere.  It might be a number of shitty employers/types of employment which can be concentrated in areas or young people having to work or attend school while parents work. Combined with more multi generational housing/lack of appropriate housing stock.


It would be nice to see some evidence at least. We know the food processing and garment factories have been open. I haven't seen any evidence that the people of Leicester have been more or less lax than the people of anywhere else in their private lives.


----------



## Supine (Jun 30, 2020)

I’m seriously worried that we don’t understand the real situation if Pilar 2 testing isn’t being reported and it’s as significant as that ft chart shows.

Journalists / Labour really need to hold the gov to account on this. Totally unacceptable.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

I wasnt totally agreeing with everything he said but since I was going to quote some of the things he mentioned I thought I should include all of them.

I would expect that its often a combination of factors which will cause these notably large problems.

So then some of these same things become not a dodgy question of whether people 'behaved worse', but whether such factors that have happened everywhere then combine with specific local factors. Because none of these different groups and risks of infection exist in isolation. Younger peoples behaviour could act as one vector that spreads it amongs their own cohort and gets it into specific households, and of course all manner of other directions of viral travel between different groups and settings.

This stuff is also why people who looked at the health risks to kids from this virus and decided that schools were not a big deal and should get back to it, have missed the point. Its about their role in transmission between households and to the vulnerable indirectly.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

Supine said:


> I’m seriously worried that we don’t understand the real situation if Pilar 2 testing isn’t being reported and it’s as significant as that ft chart shows.
> 
> Journalists / Labour really need to hold the gov to account on this. Totally unacceptable.



Its an issue thats been waiting to explode, it just needed the right context. Whether it will actually explode now as a media and political issue I would not like to guess. It bloody well should, but then I would say that about all the other times the government has been screwy with public data and normally I dont see many people ranting about it other than me.

So just to be clear, we have still been getting this pillars overall numbers included in headline daily cases positive figures. Its all the regional detail we are missing, which obviously matters so much in this phase.

Apart from that, when it comes to pillar 1 & 2 combined data, there is just the colour-coded weekly map, and the stuff for Leicester that the media seem to have managed to drag out of PHE in the last 24 hours.

I believe there are about 4 previous weeks worth of that colour-coded map to give us some basic sense of how the situation has evolved over time. I may attempt to post them as a series shortly, not the quality of data I want to be dealing with but I'll have to make do with what we can get right now.

If the UK turns out to be similar to the USA and some of the comments I've heard coming out of Leicester recently, another of the issues with testing data during this phase is that some people will claim that 'place x is only showing more positives because more testing is being done recently'. The authorities in the USA who are actually trying to counter that sort of sentiment have therefore resorted to making a lot of noise about the percentage of tests that come back positive. They've been pointing out in public briefings that such numbers enable comparisons with the past to be made without the distortion caused by varying quantity of tests taken over time.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

OK here is an attempt to show all the maps available over time so far. It might end up a bit large so I'm putting it behind spoiler tags.



Spoiler







As I've said before beware, the large areas of many authorities (eg county level authorities) dilutes the data when its only given to us in this form. For example perhaps the whole of Warwickshire turned orange for week 24 because of the effect of the Nuneaton cluster. Perhaps if the data was on the level where Nuneaton & Bedworth had its own figures, it would have gone red and the rest of Warwickshire would have stayed yellow. So even as a snapshot this stuff is still just not good enough to properly judge, its a start with some strong clues.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2020)

The reporter on the BBC Midlands Today (west midlands edition) sounds rather tired of trying to get decent info out of the authorities in regards the George Eliot hospital outbreak. I cannot quote him accurately but tonight he seemed to have reached the inevitable conclusion that it was largely a story of a hospital outbreak, and he detailed the account of relatives of a patient who went in for a leg infection, tested negative at that time, got moved to several other wards and at some later stage tested positive, declined in health and passed away. He also did the same thing I did some days ago and decoded the few slippery stats we were given in a statement and said that 65% of the identified cases in this outbreak likely being hospital acquired. He did give some good news about the number of positive patients who are in the George Eliot hospital now having fallen, but I forget what the number was, it might have been 8. Unfortunately one of the reasons this number is now low is that a lot of the people affected died.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 30, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh some of what is coming out of Scotland atm smacks of nationalist hubris. Measures are being taken in Leicester. What exactly does Sturgeon want? And she and others are jumping on good recent numbers rather quickly. Also, there are Scotland-sized chunks of England that are doing just as well as Scotland atm. Anywhere is still prone to a big infection incident, including Scotland.



I don't think you're very well informed here.









						Scotland could eliminate the coronavirus – if it weren't for England
					

Scotland may be only weeks away from no new daily cases of coronavirus. As the nation gets close, cases from over the border will become a big problem




					www.newscientist.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 1, 2020)

weepiper said:


> I don't think you're very well informed here.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


People were saying very similar things about London in mid-May, that it was weeks away from eliminating the virus. This hasn't happened anywhere in Europe. It is rather odd to think it might happen in Scotland before countries that have handled things far better.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

Matt Hancock strikes again...


----------



## Spandex (Jul 1, 2020)

With the Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner popping up in the news the last few days to complain that he doesn't have a clue what's going on I realised that I'd completely forgotten about the existence of Police and Crime Commissioners. It seems that in an unprecedented blow to democracy the PCC elections in May were cancelled until May 2021. How will British democracy survive this?


----------



## teuchter (Jul 1, 2020)

weepiper said:


> I don't think you're very well informed here.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That article basically says it's unlikely scotland will be able to achieve elimination.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Matt Hancock strikes again...




Think he's deleted it, always screenshot embarrassing tweets.



Spandex said:


> With the Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner popping up in the news the last few days to complain that he doesn't have a clue what's going on I realised that I'd completely forgotten about the existence of Police and Crime Commissioners. It seems that in an unprecedented blow to democracy the PCC elections in May were cancelled until May 2021. How will British democracy survive this?



God I hate the absolute farce that are PCCs and how they got implemented. Has any PCC ever done anything useful in post?


----------



## LDC (Jul 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Matt Hancock strikes again...




What area did he mean? Bradford is supposed to be one of those areas in line for a local lockdown as well (although Keighley is out of Bradford a fair bit).


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What area did he mean? Bradford is supposed to be one of those areas in line for a local lockdown as well (although Keighley is out of Bradford a fair bit).



Kirklees, I believe.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What area did he mean? Bradford is supposed to be one of those areas in line for a local lockdown as well (although Keighley is out of Bradford a fair bit).



I posted yesterday (further up), that Keighley is within the Bradford local government area, as you know I think. 
But yes, they're really not that near each other!

And if Hancock was mixing Keighley up with Kirklees (main town : Huddersfield) then he's a lot more rubbish at geography than most people!


----------



## zahir (Jul 1, 2020)

Some background to the Leicester lockdown.









						Some Leicester factories stayed open and forced staff to come in, report warns
					

Allegations come as city begins second lockdown after infection rates increase




					www.theguardian.com
				





> One unnamed worker quoted in the report said he had told his employer he was unwell but was told to come in to work anyway – even after testing positive. He was told not to tell any other workers about the result, the report said. In one factory with 80 staff, around 15 had Covid-19 at the same time, another worker told the authors.


----------



## scifisam (Jul 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Nails is basically touching someone else's hands for ages. It's also really not that important, whereas loads of people really want haircuts. FFS the line has to go somewhere, if they let nails open then some moaners would be why nails and not massages or something.



I haven't had many manicures in my life, probably about 8 overall, but the last one I had - at a Vietnamese-run nail bar at Stratford Westfield - the nail technicians all wore masks and disposable gloves, and that was long before covid. Masks and gloves make the chances of transmission really pretty low. 

I don't get them often enough to have a vested interested, but there isn't a very good public health argument against reopening nail parlours when hairdressers are open. A lot of nail technicians work in hairdressers so it wouldn't even mean opening up an extra building and trying to keep that clean too.



frogwoman said:


> I think it's because she's got back issues tbh. And from what she said they are the only two people in the building.



I'm pretty sure that was illegal, unless it was at a hospital and was actually physio (though physio sessions were cancelled for most people too). See here:

In *England*, the government has published Close contact services: Guidance for keeping workers and clients safe in close contact services (23 June), in which it states that while hairdressers and barbershops can re-open on 4 July, other businesses offering close contact services such as beauty, sports and massage therapy, and wellbeing and holistic services, are to remain closed “until further notice”: 

I get occasional massages for health reasons too - despite the joke about happy endings I think most of the massage business in the UK is legitimately for massages, occasionally for health reasons and sometimes just because it's really nice and good for your overall health. 

But you really can't do a massage with gloves on, and masks would be difficult for both the masseur and the customer to wear.

So although I really, really need a massage because my shoulders are getting worse and worse, I can understand them not reopening. And I think your Mum's masseur was breaking the law - probably why there was nobody else in the building.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I posted yesterday (further up), that Keighley is within the Bradford local government area, as you know I think.
> But yes, they're really not that near each other!
> 
> And if Hancock was mixing Keighley up with Kirklees (main town : Huddersfield) then he's a lot more rubbish at geography than most people!



Shades of Dominic Raab not understanding Dover and the cross-channel ferries!

Where do they dredge these morons up from?!


----------



## flypanam (Jul 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Shades of Dominic Raab not understanding Dover and the cross-channel ferries!
> 
> Where do they dredge these morons up from?!


Elite private schools and oxbridge?


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

flypanam said:


> Elite private schools and oxbridge?



Well yes, but they do also turn out people who can actually tie their own shoelaces, so there's got to be another explanation!


----------



## two sheds (Jul 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Well yes, but they do also turn out people who can actually tie their own shoelaces, so there's got to be another explanation!


Most of them have people to tie their shoelaces for them.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Most of them have people to tie their shoelaces for them.



Can we not descend into stereotypes?  There's a genuine question here about the poor quality of the current Tory front bench.  Public-school arrogance is doubtless part of it, but in all seriousness there are other reasons why such complete muppets have ended up running the show...


----------



## maomao (Jul 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Well yes, but they do also turn out people who can actually tie their own shoelaces, so there's got to be another explanation!


Well they're a self selecting group which is part of the problem as they tend to reinforce each other's ignorance. There's a lot to be said for government by lottery.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2020)

The BBC has an artile about the dreadful data situation and its impact on ability to manage outbreaks locally:









						Coronavirus: Local testing data to be shared with councils
					

Leicester's mayor said officials had been trying to get hold of local data "for weeks".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Includes this detail:



> Prof Azeem Majeed, from Imperial College London, said the country had been slow in areas of its response to Covid-19, pointing to officials in Leicester and PHE only signing a data sharing agreement on Wednesday.



Does not include anything about the public being given the same sort of information in a detailed and timely manner. Again I'm not calling for them to give us the postcode etc personal info about cases, but we at least deserve regularly updated pillar 2 test data of the more general but still localised variety.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Public-school arrogance is doubtless part of it, but in all seriousness there are other reasons why such complete muppets have ended up running the show...



Can we not descend into stereotypes?


----------



## MickiQ (Jul 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well they're a self selecting group which is part of the problem as they tend to reinforce each other's ignorance. There's a lot to be said for government by lottery.


It's not so much as  self-selecting group as a tiny clique (probably just BoZo and Blind Dominic) that selects only MP's whose particular views agree with theirs or are sufficiently self-serving to put their own views aside for a sniff of power. There are 365 Tory MP's but I suspect that Blind Dominic's influence is sufficient to filter out those who aren't on board with the 'project' as it were, so the actual pool is very small. I think that when BoZo goes (I'm not sure he will last until 2024), Cummings will heaved out the door and there will be a significant clear out of the Cabinet.


----------



## maomao (Jul 1, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> It's not so much as  self-selecting group as a tiny clique (probably just BoZo and Blind Dominic) that selects only MP's whose particular views agree with theirs or are sufficiently self-serving to put their own views aside for a sniff of power. There are 365 Tory MP's but I suspect that Blind Dominic's influence is sufficient to filter out those who aren't on board with the 'project' as it were, so the actual pool is very small. I think that when BoZo goes (I'm not sure he will last until 2024), Cummings will heaved out the door and there will be a significant clear out of the Cabinet.


I seriously doubt the presence of any significant talent in the PCP outside the Johnson clique. I've met my Tory MP. He's a dribbling idiot. Most of them are.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2020)

The latest insulting attempt to obfuscate in Nuneaton:



> "It is important to note that these are complex issues and there are many different sets of data to analyse and compare, with the picture changing by the hour, so we don’t underestimate how difficult these issues are to manage," the statement explained.
> 
> "*It’s critical that we don’t trivialise this information* as its not helpful to local residents or those who are working so on the wards.



Oh fuck off with the trivialise comment, pathetic.



> "Whilst the analysis of data continues, we do know that several weeks ago that there were a higher level of new Covid cases in the Nuneaton and Bedworth community. There is further investigation underway to work out exactly where these new cases emanated from."
> 
> "We are pleased that changes to process and procedure are now being made at the Eliot, which seem to have made a very positive effect on reducing new cases," the statement adds.



All the other waffle and yet that last sentence seems to manage to point in the actual direction of truth.









						MPs warning after large scale gatherings break social distancing rules
					

Stark warming comes after a local rise in cases




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## flypanam (Jul 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Can we not descend into stereotypes?  There's a genuine question here about the poor quality of the current Tory front bench.  Public-school arrogance is doubtless part of it, but in all seriousness there are other reasons why such complete muppets have ended up running the show...



I agree. Corey Robin wrote a book called The reactionary mind, the basic premise is that the right wing is not so taken with the status quo that what animated them is fear that they can lose something dear to them, whatever it is. They are really fearful of the liberation of the masses as they think our liberation would make the world dull. He argues that it is times of a strong left that the right is most intellectually stimulated, a claim that I think shadows an argument by Perry Anderson in an essay in the LRB about 4 leading conservative thinkers. Robin says that given that the right has won nearly every arguement and that they have moulded the world in their image that we are seeing the elevation of people to positions of influence that no longer have any intellectual rigour because all they have had to do is go to the right schools, network and repeat their ideology constantly and they get rewarded.









						Perry Anderson · The Intransigent Right at the End of the Century · LRB 24 September 1992
					






					www.lrb.co.uk
				












						The conservative movement was destined to produce Trump
					

Corey Robin on Trump’s place in the conservative tradition.




					www.google.com


----------



## blameless77 (Jul 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> When an outbreak reaches this size its not just about a 'source', its about the ongoing spread.
> 
> A lot of what he described is perfectly in keeping with conventional wisdom when it comes to epidemic modelling and factors such as multi-generational households.
> 
> ...




This article in the Guardian suggests that there are issues with the garment industry:

Some Leicester factories stayed open and forced staff to come ...www.theguardian.com › uk-news › jun › some-leicester...


----------



## xenon (Jul 1, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I posted yesterday (further up), that Keighley is within the Bradford local government area, as you know I think.
> But yes, they're really not that near each other!
> 
> And if Hancock was mixing Keighley up with Kirklees (main town : Huddersfield) then he's a lot more rubbish at geography than most people!



yep, I posted that yesterday. He had got the wrong town completely.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> This article in the Guardian suggests that there are issues with the garment industry:
> 
> Some Leicester factories stayed open and forced staff to come ...www.theguardian.com › uk-news › jun › some-leicester...



Thanks for that. Too many quoteworthy bits so I cant include them all but here are a couple:



> The report came as it emerged that Public Health England had found evidence that young men between 20 and 40 who work in the city’s garment factories and food processing plants were major vectors of transmission.
> 
> It is understood that the body became so concerned about the surge in cases in Leicester that they sent a team of officials to the city at the weekend to investigate. Analysis of data collected by local health bodies shows that many of those infected recently have been young men aged 20 to 40, often from an Asian background, many of them working in textiles and food.





> “Allegations of abuse at many Leicester companies have been reported for years now,” Muller said. “So far, the local and central government have failed to take any meaningful action. Instead they have seemed to focus on immigration raids, which have made vulnerable workers more fearful of speaking out.”





> A number of factories in the St Saviours Road area, where much of Leicester’s manufacturing output is based and which is among the worst affected areas of the city, were open on Tuesday. Proprietors and managers complained that they had not been given clear guidance on how they should operate by the council.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2020)

flypanam said:


> I agree. Corey Robin wrote a book called The reactionary mind, the basic premise is that the right wing is not so taken with the status quo that what animated them is fear that they can lose something dear to them, whatever it is. They are really fearful of the liberation of the masses as they think our liberation would make the world dull. He argues that it is times of a strong left that the right is most intellectually stimulated, a claim that I think shadows an argument by Perry Anderson in an essay in the LRB about 4 leading conservative thinkers. Robin says that given that the right has won nearly every arguement and that they have moulded the world in their image that we are seeing the elevation of people to positions of influence that no longer have any intellectual rigour because all they have had to do is go to the right schools, network and repeat their ideology constantly and they get rewarded.



I am tempted to chuck in a H G Wells quote too.



> Benito Mussolini, with a surfeit of bad history decaying in his imagination, could not see the plain realities before him. Like most of his generation he dramatised human affairs in incurably geographical patches, and *like most of the masterful men of his time his belief in his power to mould the life about him carried him beyond sanity*. From the beginning his was an ill-balanced temperament; he would be blatant at one moment, and weeping at another. *He beat at the knees of Mother Reality like an unteachable child*. He wanted war and conquest, triumph over definable enemies, fierce alliances, and unforgettable antagonisms. He wanted glory. He died, as his last words testify, completely unaware of the fact that the rational treatment of human affairs does not admit of that bilaterality which the traditions of warfare require. "Do we win?" he said. He persuaded himself and he persuaded great multitudes of people that two great systems of ideas faced each other in the world, "Leftism" and "Rightism", and that he and his associated Dictators embodied the latter. He did contrive finally to impose the illusion of a definitive World War upon great masses of people.



From the 'In popular culture' section of Mussolinis wikipedia page, quoting from the 1938 novel The Holy Terror.









						Benito Mussolini - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




A lot of the despicable billionaires who have covered themselves in shit in this pandemic have demonstrated that the phenomenon I put in bold above are still on vivid display in this world.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 1, 2020)

Its time like this I realise just how naive I am about what goes on in my own country.  I just kinda assumed that clothing and garments were all made in Asia, be it South or South East.  If something said 'Made in England' on it I'd assume higher standards of quality and employment conditions.  Assumptions, huh?


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its time like this I realise just how naive I am about what goes on in my own country.  I just kinda assumed that clothing and garments were all made in Asia, be it South or South East.  If something said 'Made in England' on it I'd assume higher standards of quality and employment conditions.  Assumptions, huh?



The very real and dramatic industrial decline in this country over a number of infamous decades last century created something of a false popular impression that these industries were dead here or no longer contributed a significant number of jobs. This false impression can be found in discussions about various industries, I remember it came up in relation to car manufacturing on this forum some years back, still a significant employer but many will miss that fact if the remaining industries are not located near to them.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2020)

Havent had time to track down the data yet but just saw this on the BBC live updates page:



> Public Health England has now published for the first time the full figures of positive cases in each local authority in England in the week to 21 June.





			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-53243441


----------



## maomao (Jul 1, 2020)

Leicester clothing sweatshops have been reported on widely for some time. Bangladesh isn't close enough to the UK to respond to internet fast fashion sites. Plus they don't have to pay shipping from Asia so they can afford to pay the workers up to three or four pounds an hour.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

flypanam said:


> I agree. Corey Robin wrote a book called The reactionary mind, the basic premise is that the right wing is not so taken with the status quo that what animated them is fear that they can lose something dear to them, whatever it is. They are really fearful of the liberation of the masses as they think our liberation would make the world dull. He argues that it is times of a strong left that the right is most intellectually stimulated, a claim that I think shadows an argument by Perry Anderson in an essay in the LRB about 4 leading conservative thinkers. Robin says that given that the right has won nearly every arguement and that they have moulded the world in their image that we are seeing the elevation of people to positions of influence that no longer have any intellectual rigour because all they have had to do is go to the right schools, network and repeat their ideology constantly and they get rewarded.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That looks interesting - thanks!

Tbh my own view on why the current Tory front bench is so egregiously incompetent is that, to a greater extent than under any previous administration in living memory, loyalty is the acid test for a Cabinet place.  Besides, anyone even half-way capable of mastering their brief would just show Johnson up.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> Havent had time to track down the data yet but just saw this on the BBC live updates page:
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-53243441



I havent found it yet. But there is this:


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 1, 2020)

flypanam said:


> I agree. Corey Robin wrote a book called The reactionary mind, the basic premise is that the right wing is not so taken with the status quo that what animated them is fear that they can lose something dear to them, whatever it is. They are really fearful of the liberation of the masses as they think our liberation would make the world dull. *He argues that it is times of a strong left that the right is most intellectually stimulated, a claim that I think shadows an argument by Perry Anderson in an essay in the LRB about 4 leading conservative thinkers. *Robin says that given that the right has won nearly every arguement and that they have moulded the world in their image that we are seeing the elevation of people to positions of influence that no longer have any intellectual rigour because all they have had to do is go to the right schools, network and repeat their ideology constantly and they get rewarded.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



If only they could be a bit more like the left and argue to the death over idealogical nuance.


----------



## flypanam (Jul 1, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> If only they could be a bit more like the left and argue to the death over idealogical nuance.


Probably deserves a thread of it own as this isn’t the place but the right are broadly in agreement about what they want.


----------



## MrSki (Jul 1, 2020)

Anyone else think it is still to early to ease the lockdown?


----------



## IC3D (Jul 1, 2020)

Do you think we'll be allowed to choose pubs to lockdown in this time round? Coronavirus: The Lock in.


----------



## LDC (Jul 1, 2020)

Anyone else getting annoyed at the idiotic news items about the Leicester lockdown?

The BBC have given time to cover someone who lives on a street that's split by the lockdown boundary, who says they could cross the road and go to a pub that's open just outside the limit of the lockdown area. And that this just proves the whole lockdown thing is stupid. FFS, the boundary obviously is going to go somewhere and will split things up in a seemingly slightly strange way, just because it happens to be your street doesn't mean you should get 5 minutes on the news to express your ill-thought through opinions. Just shut the fuck up and obey the lockdown.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2020)

Thats what the journalists are after so thats what they get. I prefer proper investigative journalism myself.

Meanwhile on the pillar 2 data front. It turns out that what has been released today is the weekly numbers behind those maps from the weekly surveillance report that I've been focussing on since Sunday. So its still only broken down to that level of local authority, and the data from towns that might have issues can suffer from dilution with the wider county numbers.

Anyway its a start. The data is in the tab called 'Figure 9. Weekly rates UTLA', in the xls version of the report. A tab that did not exist in this document when I looked on Sunday.





__





						National COVID-19 surveillance reports
					

National COVID-19 surveillance reports, including weekly summary of findings monitored through various COVID-19 surveillance systems.




					www.gov.uk
				




Here is the 'top 50' for those who are interested but not enough to muck around with spreadsheets themselves.


----------



## MrSki (Jul 1, 2020)

Here is a link to Sky News that says other areas are only days off a local shutdown & a useful searchable table.

Coronavirus: Areas with highest number of weekly COVID-19 cases revealed


----------



## zahir (Jul 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thats what the journalists are after so thats what they get. I prefer proper investigative journalism myself.
> 
> Meanwhile on the pillar 2 data front. It turns out that what has been released today is the weekly numbers behind those maps from the weekly surveillance report that I've been focussing on since Sunday. So its still only broken down to that level of local authority, and the data from towns that might have issues can suffer from dilution with the wider county numbers.
> 
> ...



That table looks consistent with the (entirely unconfirmed) suggestion I heard today that Bradford, Rochdale and Oldham are also being considered for lockdown.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thats what the journalists are after so thats what they get. I prefer proper investigative journalism myself.
> 
> Meanwhile on the pillar 2 data front. It turns out that what has been released today is the weekly numbers behind those maps from the weekly surveillance report that I've been focussing on since Sunday. So its still only broken down to that level of local authority, and the data from towns that might have issues can suffer from dilution with the wider county numbers.
> 
> ...



Thanks.

I have invited a couple of friends over for a socially distanced beer in the garden this weekend.  Not sure I fancy that now...


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anyone else getting annoyed at the idiotic news items about the Leicester lockdown?
> 
> The BBC have given time to cover someone who lives on a street that's split by the lockdown boundary, who says they could cross the road and go to a pub that's open just outside the limit of the lockdown area. And that this just proves the whole lockdown thing is stupid. FFS, the boundary obviously is going to go somewhere and will split things up in a seemingly slightly strange way, just because it happens to be your street doesn't mean you should get 5 minutes on the news to express your ill-thought through opinions. Just shut the fuck up and obey the lockdown.



I think the best solution here is to cancel the TV licence, and get news from elsewhere.  BBC News these days oscillates between being bluetooth speakers for 10 Downing Street and just complete shite.


----------



## LDC (Jul 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Thanks.
> 
> I have invited a couple of friends over for a socially distanced beer in the garden this weekend.  Not sure I fancy that now...



Where do you live? That's not a list that you want your town/area to appear in the top ten of is it!?


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Where do you live? That's not a list that you want your town/area to appear in the top ten of is it!?



Hull - not in the top 10, but not too far outside it!


----------



## LDC (Jul 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Hull - not in the top 10, but not too far outside it!



I'm not too far behind you! Hull though, is there anywhere you'd even want to go out to anyway?


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not too far behind you! Hull though, is there anywhere you'd even want to go out to anyway?



Yes.  Lots.  And I tend to react pretty badly to that kind of comment, since it usually comes from people who don't know the city and are recycling silly stereotypes that weren't true even thirty years ago.


----------



## LDC (Jul 1, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Yes.  Lots.  And I tend to react pretty badly to that kind of comment, since it usually comes from people who've never been here.



Yes, I have. Alright, was only meant in I'm near to you Yorkshire jest.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes, I have. Alright, was only meant in I'm near to you Yorkshire jest.



Okay, but it's a joke that wore very thin two decades ago...


----------



## MrSki (Jul 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> That table looks consistent with the (entirely unconfirmed) suggestion I heard today that Bradford, Rochdale and Oldham are also being considered for lockdown.


Bradford, Barnsley & Rochdale follow Leicester in the Skynews table.


----------



## David Clapson (Jul 1, 2020)

The Daily Mail has a thing which tells you how many new cases there've been in your area. For Lambeth it says 3 new cases for 13-19 June and no new cases for 20-26 June. I've been trying to find out where the numbers are from. No luck. Revealed: The 36 areas of England where Covid-19 cases are RISING


----------



## MrSki (Jul 1, 2020)

According to this tweet Germany triggers a lockdown with 50+ new cases in 100000 in a week.


----------



## maomao (Jul 1, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> The Daily Mail has a thing which tells you how many new cases there've been in your area. For Lambeth it says 3 new cases for 13-19 June and no new cases for 20-26 June. I've been trying to find out where the numbers are from. No luck. Revealed: The 36 areas of England where Covid-19 cases are RISING



We don't normally direct link to the Mail round these parts. 

According to one of their typically misleading scaremongering subheadlines, we (Havering) have the biggest weekly increase in Covid 19 cases in the country (as a percentage, 300%). Local Facebook was in meltdown about it but that's an increase from 2 to 8. Admittedly 3 or 4 more weeks of 300% rises and we'd be fucked but I think the numbers are a bit small to see it like that.


----------



## LDC (Jul 1, 2020)

I do find these statistics really concerning though given that this weekend is basically the end of lockdown pretty much everywhere. Surely it looks inevitable we're going to get rises all over the place in the coming weeks.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I do find these statistics really concerning though given that this weekend is basically the end of lockdown pretty much everywhere. Surely it looks inevitable we're going to get rises all over the place in the coming weeks.



Yes, but that was kind of the plan (or at least accepted) all along wasn't it?  The Government wants to avoid a second peak which overwhelm the NHS, they are accepting that numbers are going to go up to an extent but also... the economy.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> That table looks consistent with the (entirely unconfirmed) suggestion I heard today that Bradford, Rochdale and Oldham are also being considered for lockdown.


All over the press


MrSki said:


> According to this tweet Germany triggers a lockdown with 50+ new cases in 100000 in a week.



The amount of former industrial areas on there is frightening


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 1, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> All over the press
> 
> The amount of former industrial areas on there is frightening



Yes, and how few are in the South East.


----------



## David Clapson (Jul 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> We don't normally direct link to the Mail round these parts.


No shit, Sherlock. But the question about their data needs to be asked.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2020)

When the situation reaches that of Leicester, it can be tricky to ascertain which are the likely sites of transmission, and which are just spill-over signs of broader community infection.

So here we have the story about people testing positive who work at the Walkers crisps factory, but the company can claim stuff that I cannot prove or disprove with the level of info I have.









						Walkers confirms 28 Covid-19 cases at site
					

The crisp giant says its products are unaffected, and it believes infections occurred off-site.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Walkers said its own track and trace procedure indicated transmission of the virus was "not in our factory".
> 
> "We have seen an increase in the number of confirmed cases, reflecting the situation in the local community and coinciding with the roll-out and uptake of testing," a spokeswoman said.





> The company said health authorities supported their view the cases reflect transmission in the community and therefore there was "not a transmission issue on site".


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 1, 2020)

Selling off healthcare data in the middle of a pandemic.

Surprised I am not.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I do find these statistics really concerning though given that this weekend is basically the end of lockdown pretty much everywhere. Surely it looks inevitable we're going to get rises all over the place in the coming weeks.



Only about three hours ago I was more optimistic than that, but much less so now the pillar 2 data has leaked out. This doesn't look good...


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2020)

Public Health England havent found much in the way of explanations for the Leicester situation, and its not exactly going to inspire confidence that the right places and approach have been identified when they start going on about, well, I'll quote it:



> Public Health England (PHE) found "no explanatory outbreaks in care homes, hospital settings, or industrial processes".
> 
> Its analysis of cases showed more "young and middle-aged people" in the city had tested positive for Covid-19 than in other parts of the Midlands.
> 
> ...











						'No obvious source' of Leicester outbreak
					

The report said the increase in reported cases could be down to "growth in availability of testing".




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 2, 2020)

Are they serious?!
Surge in Leicester cases due to a massive uptake of people there enthusiastically gagging over home tests?
Ah well, never mind then.


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Are they serious?!
> Surge in Leicester cases due to a massive uptake of people there enthusiastically gagging over home tests?
> Ah well, never mind then.



Well, I dont think I can judge. It depends on how 'partly' they think it may be a factor.

And I am still missing important bits of info that would help me judge. Such as the number of tests in each of these locations, not just the number of positives. Because looking at the percentage positive can help compensate for changes over time that are caused by changes to the testing regime rather than the viral reality.

And ideally both us and the authorities should always be combining positive test data with other data such as a variety of indicators from hospitals, so that number of positive tests alone is not the only indicator that can trigger draconian measures. Hancock has mentioned a couple of hospital-related numbers in relation to Leicester so that is one sign of this happening, but I dont know how sophisticated their analysis has been. And I've gone on in the past about local sewage analysis being another very useful sounding indicator, because that avoids the lag that comes with hospital data and wont be skewed by variations in who is getting tested and in what numbers. But I cannot claim to know whether such sewage analysis systems are actually up and running in this country, how local the data is, how timely it is and who is looking at it.

Other questions raised by these uncertainties over the reality in Leicester vs elsewhere are to do with the perils of attempting a bunch of different kinds of contact and local outbreak contact tracing and epidemiological investigations at 'the wrong time/stage of the pandemic' or with too much uncertainty about how to interpret the results. I think I might need to explain this point better anotehr time, but it includes the possibility that so far the authorities have still been mostly used to only spotting the tip of the iceberg, and wont be sure how strongly to react when something approaching the full iceberg starts being spotted from time to time in places where they actually end up looking.

As well as learning how many tests have actually been carried out within the recent time period in all the locations around the country, it would also be helpful to understand what different factors have driven the levels of testing in different places, how much variation in attention different locations have received by the authorities etc. Because its not hard to imagine a scenario where a particular local incident at a specific location receives the attention of the authorities, and in the course of this work they end up spotting a whole level of transmission that is actually going on in plenty of other places too, but hasnt received the attention or been formally measured.

My own observations using data have been limited mostly to hospital & death data until just the last few days, and from that angle Leicester actually stuck out more for a prolonged period earlier on in this pandemic, eg when it came to deaths in hospital and the way the numbers were declining slowly in Leicester, May was more notable than June. I wonder if thats what drew attention and then test capacity/accessible popup test sites to Leicester in the first place, and then because they were actually looking they found plenty of milder cases in this younger cohort that keeps getting mentioned in connection with Leicester. I know I went on about 'seek and you shall find' at the earlier phase of the pandemic where we 'didnt have any deaths because we werent looking for any, and then we looked and soon found some', but I suspect there are other versions of 'seek and you shall find' too. Ones that can happen in these later phases and offer a repeat performance of demonstrating things to the authorities that they should already have known. And in many cases probably did already know/assume/suspect to be the case, but then managed to overlook these assumptions when it came to other aspects of their response/surveillance/triggers.

Anyway I cannot make a solid claim either way, I cannot say that Leceister does not deserve the attention and measures that have been directed at it. Maybe it does and maybe it doesnt. I can say that I feel the picture is too patchy for me to be confident either way.

I suppose there is another simple thing we could do to put the positive tests per 100,000 figure theyve got for Leicester into context. I'm too tired to go looking right now, but I believe there are at least one or two weekly or semi-regular uk numbers published where they estimate/model how many cases they think there were in the uk per week. That number would be expected to be higher than the typical figures they have directly obtained from testing, because its always acknowledged that testing does not come anywhere close to detecting every case, not even vaguely close. So maybe we should compare those modelled numbers to the Leicester number. Then ask ourselves whether authorities should react the way they have with Leicester if the Leicester number is higher than testing has shown elsewhere, but not alarmingly higher than the estimated/modelled sense of where the country is at with its levels of infection right now. Depending on what that number is this paragraph may be making a useless point though, I dont have the number in mind right this second, maybe I will go and look now.

The bit about PHE not having tracked things down to a single massively contributing outbreak setting is not really surprising, this was expected. Because if they were confident that what had been found was loads of cases mostly clustered around a single setting with just a bit of broader leakage, they would have used the very narrow whack-a-mole technique they've used elsewhere before now, rather than feeling the need to take the response to this much broader level. But again whether this has actually been a sensible approach depends really on whether Leiester is the exception or just the first place they've actually looked hard enough to get a truer sense of the picture. And questions on this front can interact with questions about whether we've moved to the right phase of unlocking for the phase of infection levels we actually have in this country right now.


----------



## editor (Jul 2, 2020)

Wales is - far more sensibly -  only letting pub gardens reopen from Mon 13th July. And that kind of approach is why they've got a transmission rate far lower than England's.  Opening on a Saturday night is sheer fucking stupidity.









						Coronavirus in Wales: Pubs and restaurants can open outdoors from 13 July
					

Self-contained accommodation will also be able to take bookings two days earlier than planned.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 2, 2020)

editor said:


> Wales is - far more sensibly -  only letting pub gardens reopen from Mon 13th July. And that kind of approach is why they've got a transmission rate far lower than England's.  Opening on a Saturday night is sheer fucking stupidity.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Interesting, I'll continue the conversation over on the pub thread.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 2, 2020)

I am a paramedic working for NHS test and trace but I've yet to make a single call
					

I am being paid to sit and refresh my computer screen every 15 minutes. The ‘world-beating’ system is a shambles




					www.theguardian.com
				






> NHS test and trace was meant to be world-beating, but in my experience it’s been a shambles. I am a paramedic who has been working for the service since it launched, but I have yet to make a single call.
> 
> Last week I got an email from NHS Professionals, the largest NHS staff bank in the UK. It said it had almost been a month since the service went live, and thanked me for my “hard work and commitment to date”.
> 
> ...





> It is a scandal that this system has been described as a success, and an embarrassment that an influenza pandemic has been on top of the national risk register in terms of impact and likelihood for more than a decade, yet no real provision was put in place.
> 
> NHS test and trace is too little, too late. It seems ridiculous that I, a trained healthcare professional, am being paid to do a job that anyone can do. I don’t understand why it is felt healthcare professionals are needed to read a script over the phone. It’s a waste of money.NHS test and trace has been sold as a “world-beating system”, but everything that could go wrong has. I hope that when this is all over, there will be a massive public and independent inquiry to find out how the UK got it so wrong.


----------



## zahir (Jul 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> And ideally both us and the authorities should always be combining positive test data with other data such as a variety of indicators from hospitals, so that number of positive tests alone is not the only indicator that can trigger draconian measures.


Another useful set of data would be the numbers phoning 111 with symptoms. The testing at home and in test centres is only intended to be done within the first five days of symptoms starting. Many people will be reporting symptoms much later than this.

In my case I got very mild symptoms two and a half weeks ago. I thought it was unlikely to be coronavirus but self isolated for seven days to be on the safe side, by which time all symptoms seemed to have gone. It then came back at the end of last week and I had three nights with increasing difficulties breathing before it eased off. I’ve since spoken to a 111 doctor and a local GP. I gathered from both that there seems to a pattern of people taking a turn for the worse at around day 10 of symptoms. I asked the GP about testing and she said that at this stage it was likely to come back negative but suggested trying to book a test anyway as a positive result would be helpful from their point of view. It sounds like they’re facing an increasing problem with people who think they’ve had the virus and are still having difficulties months later, and without a positive test result the doctors are left with an obvious uncertainty about diagnosis. 

I’ve now had the test and as expected it’s come back negative. I’m fairly sure that I’ve got the virus though. The site for booking the test is clear about it needing to be done within the first five days but does in fact allow you to go ahead and book a test anyway. I think that at this stage a positive result would have been meaningful but the negative result doesn’t really say anything at all.

My guess would be that a lot of people, like me, won’t be calling 111 until they start to feel seriously ill, by which time the five day window for home and test centre testing will have closed. If they end up being brought in for observation or being hospitalised then presumably there will be further testing. Otherwise they won’t get tested or their tests are likely to come back negative. Anyway it would be interesting to see some figures for the number of people in this position.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 2, 2020)

zahir said:


> Another useful set of data would be the numbers phoning 111 with symptoms. The testing at home and in test centres is only intended to be done within the first five days of symptoms starting. Many people will be reporting symptoms much later than this.
> 
> In my case I got very mild symptoms two and a half weeks ago. I thought it was unlikely to be coronavirus but self isolated for seven days to be on the safe side, by which time all symptoms seemed to have gone. It then came back at the end of last week and I had three nights with increasing difficulties breathing before it eased off. I’ve since spoken to a 111 doctor and a local GP. I gathered from both that there seems to a pattern of people taking a turn for the worse at around day 10 of symptoms. I asked the GP about testing and she said that at this stage it was likely to come back negative but suggested trying to book a test anyway as a positive result would be helpful from their point of view. It sounds like they’re facing an increasing problem with people who think they’ve had the virus and are still having difficulties months later, and without a positive test result the doctors are left with an obvious uncertainty about diagnosis.
> 
> ...


And, of course, the narrative around testing will be leading a lot of people to feel they don't want to burden an apparently already overburdened system with "what's probably just a bit of a bug", so lots of people won't get tested for that reason.

Which tends to serve the Government's "Pandemic? What pandemic?" line rather well...


----------



## zahir (Jul 2, 2020)

Yes, I was telling myself it was probably just a bit of a cold.


----------



## prunus (Jul 2, 2020)

The current instructions are quite clear to be fair to them “If you have any of the main symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19), you must stay at home (self-isolate) and get a test.”

Nothing about not burdening the system or trying to decide by yourself if it’s just a bit of a cold or not.

The definition of main symptoms is quite restricted though - high fever, new “continuous” cough and/or changes to taste and/or smell, and therein lies the potential for problems - it’s based on the idea that 90%+ of cases will have at least one of those symptoms, which is starting to look suspect, certainly in terms of asymptomatic and very mild cases.

Out of interest Zahir did you have any of those 3 symptoms?


----------



## zahir (Jul 2, 2020)

No.

I did have a bit of shortness of breath at night for a few days, but not that different to what I’ve had before with a streaming cold coming on. In hindsight the suspicious bit was then not getting a runny nose at all.


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2020)

This weeks version of the surveillance report is out. Which means we get the latest version of the map and data from pillar 2. Dont ask me why there is no number for a few areas.





__





						National COVID-19 surveillance reports
					

National COVID-19 surveillance reports, including weekly summary of findings monitored through various COVID-19 surveillance systems.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2020)

Ah, the same report includes a new graph for the 10 worst areas over time.


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2020)

And the latest serology stuff (antibosy stuff) from the same report.


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2020)

OK one last chart that may be of interest, now I'm hoping to take a long weekend off from this stuff.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 2, 2020)

That really puts into stark contrast the situation in Leicester.


----------



## zahir (Jul 2, 2020)

prunus said:


> The current instructions are quite clear to be fair to them “If you have any of the main symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19), you must stay at home (self-isolate) and get a test.”
> 
> Nothing about not burdening the system or trying to decide by yourself if it’s just a bit of a cold or not.
> 
> The definition of main symptoms is quite restricted though - high fever, new “continuous” cough and/or changes to taste and/or smell, and therein lies the potential for problems - it’s based on the idea that 90%+ of cases will have at least one of those symptoms, which is starting to look suspect, certainly in terms of asymptomatic and very mild cases.



One question I’d ask about the list of symptoms is at what stage people in fact get them. I certainly had a fever at the weekend and maybe there was some slight change to smell. This was nearly two weeks after the first symptoms though, long after the five day window for the test.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 2, 2020)

What the hell is going on in those hotspots ?


----------



## clicker (Jul 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> OK one last chart that may be of interest, now I'm hoping to take a long weekend off from this stuff.
> 
> View attachment 220578


Does this mean ppe is working now in hospital and care homes to limit transmission, but the workplace and to a lesser extent prisons, aren't seeing numbers falling at the same rate?


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> What the hell is going on in those hotspots ?



Its a very good question and one they need to find the answer to very quickly.  I mean, we can speculate here with a likely degree of accuracy but really definitive answers are needed.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its a very good question and one they need to find the answer to very quickly.  I mean, we can speculate here with a likely degree of accuracy but really definitive answers are needed.



Aye, and especially since comparing the week 26 and week 27 data on positive tests per 100k actually paints quite an encouraging picture for much of England.  Selfishly, I looked first at KuH, where it has fallen from 22.6 to 3.8.  I didn't spot (though wasn't looking closely so may have missed) any other equally big drops, but a lot of places look to be down, and the map (the Figure 9 elbows has screenshotted above) for week 27 shows a lot less orange and red and correspondingly more blue than for week 26.  All of which serves to throw the hotspots into even more worrying relief...


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2020)

I'll reiterate the angle that came up last night though - these figures are potentially misleading when they dont take into account the variation in the number of tests actually carried out in these different regions. And since the government still cannot give us figures for 'pillar 2 number of people tested' in total, let alone by area, we lack this context.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 2, 2020)

Private Eye this issue came with: 

Good(ish) news
SURPRISINGLY, the mass UK gatherings outside - from VE Day onwards - have yet to be followed by significant spikes in hsospital admissions and deaths from Covid-19. They could yet happen, but so far, so lucky.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Private Eye this issue came with:
> 
> Good(ish) news
> SURPRISINGLY, the mass UK gatherings outside - from VE Day onwards - have yet to be followed by significant spikes in hsospital admissions and deaths from Covid-19. They could yet happen, but so far, so lucky.



Yes and this goes along with what I've been reading that the risk of transmission when outside is significantly reduced.  Which gives us a clue to this..


gentlegreen said:


> What the hell is going on in those hotspots ?



The virus is spreading in households and places of work.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'll reiterate the angle that came up last night though - these figures are potentially misleading when they dont take into account the variation in the number of tests actually carried out in these different regions. And since the government still cannot give us figures for 'pillar 2 number of people tested' in total, let alone by area, we lack this context.



Thank you.  You obviously know a great deal about these stats, so it's really useful to have your input like that.  




Teaboy said:


> The virus is spreading in households and places of work.



Yes, and that is partly what makes some of the stories coming out about workplaces in Leicester so alarming.  I saw a link on Twitter to this post in a community Facebook group for a Leicester suburb. Has a certain ring of truth about it...


----------



## zahir (Jul 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> The virus is spreading in households and places of work.


You could add shops to the mix. I’m fairly sure I caught it on a trip to the supermarket.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 2, 2020)

zahir said:


> You could add shops to the mix. I’m fairly sure I caught it on a trip to the supermarket.



Yeah.  Those crazy first few weeks of lockdown when we all had to traipse around several shops just to scrape enough food for a few days.   Looking back on it, it took bloody ages for the supermarkets to get any sort of distancing policies in place and even now its patchy.


----------



## zahir (Jul 2, 2020)

The one I go to is fairly small and not that busy. It’s got a lot busier than it was though since the relaxing of lockdown. I’d say staff on the checkout aren’t distanced enough from customers. And a lot of customers now seem to have forgotten about keeping two metres apart. In any case it’s the one place I’ve been with lots of people in an enclosed space.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 2, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Thank you.  You obviously know a great deal about these stats, so it's really useful to have your input like that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And this kind of blatant, flagrant breach of employee rights is the core on which Tory employment/economic policy is built. They know this shit goes on, but they very carefully remove the teeth of legislation, and defund the services that would pursue it, so that such rights as people might still have are unenforceable. #notenoughlampposts


----------



## weltweit (Jul 2, 2020)

They are talking about tracking covid-19 through monitoring the amount of virus in sewage. 

Apparently a simple early warning system which does not require mass testing.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 2, 2020)

weltweit said:


> They are talking about tracking covid-19 through monitoring the amount of virus in sewage.
> 
> Apparently a simple early warning system which does not require mass testing.


It's not going to be exactly fine-grained, though, is it?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 2, 2020)

They're welcome to my septic tank, that's fairly fine grained.

Did read about them thinking of testing lots of people at once though and only testing individually if there's a positive.

Eta: I suppose they can test street by street though which might be handy.


----------



## Supine (Jul 2, 2020)

existentialist said:


> It's not going to be exactly fine-grained, though, is it?



More slimey i'd imagine


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2020)

Its likely to be per water treatment plant unless they have a specific reason and capability to zoon in further. I'd be more comforatble about the current phase if the sewage surveillance system was already up and running everywhere. It would help with situations like Leicester too, where they dont seem to be sure how much the high numbers in Leicester are down to the amount of testing there.


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 2, 2020)

clicker said:


> Does this mean ppe is working now in hospital and care homes to limit transmission, but the workplace and to a lesser extent prisons, aren't seeing numbers falling at the same rate?



There are a lot fewer hospitalised covid  patients to catch it from?  More workplaces have opened up increasing transmission opportunities.


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Private Eye this issue came with:
> 
> Good(ish) news
> SURPRISINGLY, the mass UK gatherings outside - from VE Day onwards - have yet to be followed by significant spikes in hsospital admissions and deaths from Covid-19. They could yet happen, but so far, so lucky.



Not that SURPRISING. Open air. Protesters were distancing, mask wearing and hand sanitizing probably much more than the  pursed lipped headlines suggested.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 2, 2020)

zahir said:


> You could add shops to the mix. I’m fairly sure I caught it on a trip to the supermarket.



I'm sure that's the case, but I suspect there's a lot more research to be done on this because the risk is going to be very different across different sorts of shops.  I don't fancy a trip to a big, badly ventilated supermarket with large numbers of people coming to it from miles around, whereas I don't worry about going to my local greengrocer, which is open-fronted and only letting in two at a time.  I imagine that shops could be a good vector for fomite transmission as well, and we certainly don't know enough about that yet.


----------



## zahir (Jul 2, 2020)

Yes, I’ve been in a few other shops and they’ve felt pretty safe. I could possibly have caught it in one of them but it’s unlikely.


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## maomao (Jul 2, 2020)

I still wear an N95 and disposable gloves in supermarkets. And I go early when the old people do (though not at the special hours when they had them) because a lot of them wear masks. Shopping centre is busying up though.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 2, 2020)

existentialist said:


> It's not going to be exactly fine-grained, though, is it?



Its no good at determining precise locations or precise numbers of people infected, but it is good at monitoring relative changes in the population, starting at rather low levels.

This is from a study on polio:

To assess the sensitivity of poliovirus monitoring, one study (Ranta et al., 2001) flushed a one-time bolus of 11 containing 2×10^10 infective poliovirus type 1 vaccine strain down a toilet 20 km (12 miles) from the sewage plant (Table 9.11 ). Samples were automatically collected and assayed for the next 4 days. Infectious poliovirus was still detected after 800 million liters had passed through the system. The authors concluded that their monitoring system could detect one infected person in 10,000 residents of the community, assuming that 108 infective viruses are excreted by a child over a 4-day period of time. The study showed that pathogens appear to be greatly retarded in sewage systems, where a onetime event resulted in a detection period over 4 days. The pathogen was also easily detected in 200-ml samples for every 5×10^6L of sewage flow.


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Private Eye this issue came with:
> 
> Good(ish) news
> SURPRISINGLY, the mass UK gatherings outside - from VE Day onwards - have yet to be followed by significant spikes in hsospital admissions and deaths from Covid-19. They could yet happen, but so far, so lucky.



Yep, they've had similar experiences in the US - researchers say they haven't found much of a link between  COVID infections and the George Floyd protests - they reckon the recent surges in cases have been due to indoor gatherings, especially in bars and at house parties.


----------



## killer b (Jul 2, 2020)

Re: mask wearing, it seems to vary a lot depending on location. Roughly, I've seem them most widely worn on public transport, then the supermarket. I had a wander round town last week for the first time since lockdown, and there was a big drop off, very few people masked up at all. Then I went to a shop in an out-of-town retail park a few days later and there was about three of us. 

I'm not sure what the reason for this variation is...


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 2, 2020)

No figures for the uk today on worldometer?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 2, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> No figures for the uk today on worldometer?



They were released late, and initially show something of a discrepancy in today’s vs yesterday’s figures (30000 less confirmed deaths iirc)

So yeah, hold on for now.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 2, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> No figures for the uk today on worldometer?


Out now.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK

Looking at the total cases for English regions, they've totally changed since a couple of days ago. Some up, others down. Not sure what's going on there. Their explanation at the top doesn't tally.

Edit: Sorry, I misread. So they've revised the number down due to duplicates but the numbers for regions etc now include pillar 2. Hence going up. It appears that recent daily new cases totals have been too high, due to double-counting in pillar 2, the bit they sold off to their mates. I guess worldometers is working out how best to show the correction. 

I've noticed a few countries rather drastically rearranging their figures recently. Sweden did it a little while ago as well.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

Interesting YouGov poll for Sky News shows massive support (83%) for another lockdown if needed, and a similiar percentage of people would self isolate if requested to do so.



> Britons would strongly back a second lockdown if coronavirus cases spike, according to a new poll for Sky News which reveals the country's ongoing caution over the pandemic.
> 
> As most of the nation prepares to lift the lockdown in the coming weeks, starting with England on Saturday, more than eight in 10 people (83%) said they would back another shutdown if there is a second spike.
> 
> Almost eight in 10 (78%) said they would self-isolate for 14 days if asked by an NHS test and trace official, while 69% said they would even follow an instruction to self-isolate from a smartphone app.











						Coronavirus: Britons would strongly back second lockdown if COVID-19 cases spike, poll reveals
					

As lockdown restrictions ease, more than eight in 10 people said they would back another shutdown if there is a second spike.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 3, 2020)

zahir said:


> The one I go to is fairly small and not that busy. It’s got a lot busier than it was though since the relaxing of lockdown. I’d say staff on the checkout aren’t distanced enough from customers. And a lot of customers now seem to have forgotten about keeping two metres apart. In any case it’s the one place I’ve been with lots of people in an enclosed space.



I've been using a similar place; a Sainsbury's convenience store just down the street.  It's small and therefore pretty much impossible to distance staff from customers, but they are being pretty good about only letting a few people in at a time.  I tend to be pretty careful in there - mask, hand sanitiser on the way in and out, quick disinfect of tins, bottles and so on when I get them home - but I think I'm probably being overly cautious.  If it was a significant transmission hub you'd expect that to affect the staff, but none of the regulars seem to have gone off sick, and although they're taking precautions they don't seem as concerned about the situation as you'd expect if the virus was circulating among them.

In general, though, I don't think British supermarkets have been as assiduous about their precautions as in some other countries.  My sister tells me that where she is in Germany you have to use a trolley rather than a basket, and it's taken away and disinfected after every use.  The shops I use aren't doing anything like that.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 3, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I've been using a similar place; a Sainsbury's convenience store just down the street.  It's small and therefore pretty much impossible to distance staff from customers, but they are being pretty good about only letting a few people in at a time.  I tend to be pretty careful in there - mask, hand sanitiser on the way in and out, quick disinfect of tins, bottles and so on when I get them home - but I think I'm probably being overly cautious.  If it was a significant transmission hub you'd expect that to affect the staff, but none of the regulars seem to have gone off sick, and although they're taking precautions they don't seem as concerned about the situation as you'd expect if the virus was circulating among them.
> 
> In general, though, I don't think British supermarkets have been as assiduous about their precautions as in some other countries.  My sister tells me that where she is in Germany you have to use a trolley rather than a basket, and it's taken away and disinfected after every use.  The shops I use aren't doing anything like that.


The Tesco I use (Carmarthen) does at least make an effort at cleaning each trolley, although it tends more to be a spray-in-the-general-direction-of from 3 metres away...


----------



## Doodler (Jul 3, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I think I'm probably being overly cautious.



If the precautions you're taking occupy only a little of your time, maybe you're not overdoing it. I took on some supermarket work recently and jacked it in after a few weeks, because behind the scenes there was no hygiene discipline or concern over social distancing. Guess it depends on your age and health too.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 3, 2020)

Doodler said:


> If the precautions you're taking occupy only a little of your time, maybe you're not overdoing it. I took on some supermarket work recently and jacked it in after a few weeks, because behind the scenes there was no hygiene discipline or concern over social distancing. Guess it depends on your age and health too.



Yes, that's pretty much my attitude: it only takes a couple of minutes to wipe packets down with an antiseptic wipe or spray a bit of disinfectant on them, so I might as well. Food packaging and similar isn't thought to be a major transmission vector but we don't really know, so it seems sensible to take precautions.  I'm still just about young and in good health, but even so the virus can be very nasty indeed and I'm keen to do everything I can to avoid it!


----------



## Looby (Jul 3, 2020)

We’ve stopped wiping and washing all the shopping in the past few weeks but we are taking everything we can out of the packaging. Fruit and veg go in net bags, crisps and other multipack stuff gets tipped out into a bag for life. 
I don’t wear a mask in the supermarket because it made me more anxious. I have noticed that I’m still really anxious doing a big shop. I’ve found that I’ve had enough at a certain point in the store and keep forgetting cleaning stuff and toiletries because that’s nearly at the end and my head is about to explode.
It’s stressful and I had a bit of a funny turn a couple of weeks ago and thought I was having a heart attack. People can be quite rude and inconsiderate and lots don’t really distance at all now.
I did a Tesco click and collect last week but lots of the veg was very close in date, my peppers were mushy and one of the packets of chicken was open so I still had to go in the bloody shop to return that. 
We’re trying a Sainsburys delivery this week but haven’t ordered any fruit or veg. Mr Looby is happy to go to Waitrose every 2-3 days to get that. It’s up the road, distancing is managed well. 
I guess it’s about figuring out what works for you. This week I’ll sit in the car with a coffee while he does his mum’s shopping.
I’ve got a booze injury too, from a security tag on a bottle of rum in Tesco.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 3, 2020)

I'm really glad my allotments there for fruit and veg, our closest shop is a Tesco express so the choices there are fucking awful and limited. There's a butchers doing well and supplying fruit and veg since this started so we go there in an absolute emergency.


Otherwise it's a Sainsbury's every couple of weeks for frozen things and a trip to the Tesco for the odd jug of milk and pack of biscuits


----------



## teuchter (Jul 3, 2020)

I get the feeling that different people are operating in totally different parallel bubbles with regard to perception of risk and so on.

On here, a lot of people are worrying about being asked to go back to work, discussing wiping down shopping, wearing gloves to the supermarket etc.

On another forum that I sometimes look at, there's a thread with an OP basically saying can't we just abandon social distancing already and get back to normal and stop pandering to the paranoid and overly cautious. And most of the replies agree with them, to a greater or lesser extent. They are describing people they see in the supermarket wearing masks and gloves, trying to stay 2m away from everyone, as if they are nutters.


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 3, 2020)

Is it a younger demographic? 

Thing is there are  risks and there are stakes.   I know that if I go to a bigger shop or sit outside my local cafe with the lots of people who were sat outside yesterday the risk of me catching covid is pretty low but for me in my opinion the stakes are high.  And the risks of me not having a mild case are higher than for some others if I was unlucky enough to get it.  

Obviously there will be people who have a similar profile as me who are more cavalier than me.  People have different levels of comfort with risk or prefer not to think about it. Also there will be some others with the same profile who are being more cautious than me.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 3, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I get the feeling that different people are operating in totally different parallel bubbles with regard to perception of risk and so on.
> 
> On here, a lot of people are worrying about being asked to go back to work, discussing wiping down shopping, wearing gloves to the supermarket etc.
> 
> On another forum that I sometimes look at, there's a thread with an OP basically saying can't we just abandon social distancing already and get back to normal and stop pandering to the paranoid and overly cautious. And most of the replies agree with them, to a greater or lesser extent. They are describing people they see in the supermarket wearing masks and gloves, trying to stay 2m away from everyone, as if they are nutters.



Oh definitely, and you can see that in real life too, where there's a visible minority who just don't do social distancing, won't wear a mask, and the rest of it.  A couple of months back there was a particularly aggressive bloke in a shop I sometimes used who - the woman behind the checkout told me - was on the verge of being banned for refusing to obey any of the instructions on social distancing and so on.  There's always been a minority who are convinced it's 'just a little flu' and won't be told otherwise, and there's not much any of us can do about that except try to protect ourselves!


----------



## Looby (Jul 3, 2020)

Having differing views and assessment of risk is ok and expected but respect that other people are more worried. It doesn’t kill you to keep to two metres, not reach across people in shops etc but it could make a medically vulnerable or anxious person feel better about going about their day.
My friend has gone from being completely panicky and paranoid to deciding she’s done with it all. A garden gathering soon turned into pressure to go inside the house for a zoom party. She was offended that a friend brought her own food and didn’t eat anything she’d made (this friend has a young baby who was very early and a shielding parent). She’s now organising a pub garden meet when most of us said we wouldn’t be going in pubs for a while so now I feel huge pressure to do something I’m not comfortable with. 
I want to see her and spend time with her but she makes every one else feel bad because we’re not at the same stage as her. Apart from anything, the rest of us all work in care and with vulnerable people so we’re being careful for them too.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 3, 2020)

Looby said:


> Having differing views and assessment of risk is ok and expected but respect that other people are more worried. It doesn’t kill you to keep to two metres, not reach across people in shops etc but it could make a medically vulnerable or anxious person feel better about going about their day.
> My friend has gone from being completely panicky and paranoid to deciding she’s done with it all. A garden gathering soon turned into pressure to go inside the house for a zoom party. She was offended that a friend brought her own food and didn’t eat anything she’d made (this friend has a young baby who was very early and a shielding parent). She’s now organising a pub garden meet when most of us said we wouldn’t be going in pubs for a while so now I feel huge pressure to do something I’m not comfortable with.
> I want to see her and spend time with her but she makes every one else feel bad because we’re not at the same stage as her. Apart from anything, the rest of us all work in care and with vulnerable people so we’re being careful for them too.



That's really unreasonable of her.  As you say, others have differing assessments of the risk both in general and to themselves specifically, and that's fine, but there's no way people should be pressured into taking risks with which they are not comfortable.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 3, 2020)

Yes, fair enough putting yourself at risk (although it likely means someone will have to look after them), putting others at risk is just selfish.


----------



## Looby (Jul 3, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> That's really unreasonable of her.  As you say, others have differing assessments of the risk both in general and to themselves specifically, and that's fine, but there's no way people should be pressured into taking risks with which they are not comfortable.


It can be awkward. 
She has her reasons, single parent and WFH so she’s desperate for adult company and some fun. She’s lovely but she’s not great and seeing other people’s points of view!


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

I’ve had more colleagues join me at work this week and have observed that social distancing is almost impossible all the time, even if you have the room to work 2 metres apart. There’s so many things we do that are second nature as we’ve done them so many times - leaning over someone to look at their screen, using door handles, touching things others have touched, just talking to someone, especially if there’s a few of you. Even remembering to wash your hands after handling things is a challenge. Even the most fastidious worker we have is making rounds of tea, which surely is a bad ideas. We can do what we can, but old habits die hard. <strokes chin> oops, sorry <bites nails>


----------



## sojourner (Jul 3, 2020)

teuchter said:


> They are describing people they see in the supermarket wearing masks and gloves, trying to stay 2m away from everyone, as if they are nutters.


When I go into my local Co op, where the weak attempt at distancing lasted about 10 mins, no one on the door, no enforcement etc, the staff have visibly recoiled when they see me. My mask is quite dark, and has skulls on it, but it's like they genuinely think I'm about to rob them at gunpoint. No fucker else masks up in there. Only middle-aged people mask up in the Tesco.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 3, 2020)

sojourner said:


> When I go into my local Co op, where the weak attempt at distancing lasted about 10 mins, no one on the door, no enforcement etc, the staff have visibly recoiled when they see me. My mask is quite dark, and has skulls on it, but it's like they genuinely think I'm about to rob them at gunpoint. No fucker else masks up in there. Only middle-aged people mask up in the Tesco.



I have to say, round my way I think the situation with masks is getting better.  A couple of weeks ago I felt a bit of an outlier wearing a mask, whereas now a lot more people seem to be doing so when shopping - mainly older folk, but not all by any means - and whereas a couple of weeks ago a majority on buses weren't wearing them, now most do seem to be.


----------



## Doodler (Jul 3, 2020)

.


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 3, 2020)

I only go in small versions of the supermarkets. In theory the customers distance but you cant distance from the staff because they are working and you have to pass them. None of them wear masks usually any longer. They are the ones in there for hours so more risk than customers. But I havent been aware of any outbreaks in the shops by me or reported by any supermarket staff I know.  After 3 months of working indoors with many customers coming in for 3 months and no one seeming to catch it they are bound to be more cavalier and employers dont seem to be enforcing mask wearing by staff.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

*HEADS UP* -  Today’s coronavirus briefing is expected to begin at *4.30pm *on BBC One, BBC News & Sky News. 

Not officially confirmed, but the floppy hair twat is expected to host it.


----------



## xenon (Jul 3, 2020)

I'm not wearing a mask in the street or when going into the small shops that I use. Will of course on public transport. The difference, one's mandatory and is a longer spell of time.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> *HEADS UP* -  Today’s coronavirus briefing is expected to begin at *4.30pm *on BBC One, BBC News & Sky News.
> 
> Not officially confirmed, but the floppy hair twat is expected to host it.



Oh, FFS, the BBC said 4.30pm, Sky is saying 5.00pm.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

I thought they’d stopped them?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I thought they’d stopped them?



They don't do them every day, they had one yesterday that I missed, and today's is probably going to be telling people to behave at the pub.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They don't do them every day, they had one yesterday that I missed, and today's is probably going to be telling people to behave at the pub.


Like those good old Bullingdon boys


----------



## maomao (Jul 3, 2020)

I gave up on those briefings early on. Just rage inducing.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

maomao said:


> I gave up on those briefings early on. Just rage inducing.


I never saw one. Just read the summary afterwards


----------



## MrSki (Jul 3, 2020)

Yes it's at 5pm. Today's death toll is 137 but still the pubs are opening tomorrow.
I won't be going. 
I wear a mask but hardly anyone else seems to anymore. Compulsory in all shops in Scotland from next Friday.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Yes it's at 5pm. Today's death toll is 137 but still the pubs are opening tomorrow.



Down from 184 last Friday, that brings this week's 7 day rolling average down to 113 per day, whereas last Friday it was 136, so still heading in the right direction. 

Italy was on an average daily death rate of 181, when they re-opened bars & restaurants, and continued to drop, down to 'just' 20 now.


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

I don't wear a mask, i don't really see the point. If I had a cough I wouldn't be going to the shops anyway. 
I met my neighbour the other day in the street and she was wearing a mask. I couldn't understand a word she was saying, it was all muffled. Imagine two folk in masks trying to have a conversation 😁


----------



## LDC (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't wear a mask, i don't really see the point. If I had a cough I wouldn't be going to the shops anyway.
> I met my neighbour the other day in the street and she was wearing a mask. I couldn't understand a word she was saying, it was all muffled. Imagine two folk in masks trying to have a conversation 😁



Appropriate name you have then.


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

Pipe down lynn


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 3, 2020)

Cracking way to seamlessly integrate into a brand new unfamiliar forum.


----------



## andysays (Jul 3, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Cracking way to seamlessly integrate into a brand new unfamiliar forum.


What's the odds it turns out to be neither new nor unfamiliar?


----------



## weltweit (Jul 3, 2020)

People are starting to relax their guard, perhaps it is inevitable given the number of weeks we have had measures, still I notice little things.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 3, 2020)

andysays said:


> What's the odds it turns out to be neither new nor unfamiliar?


: Rainier Wolfcastle emoji:


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

andysays said:


> What's the odds it turns out to be neither new nor unfamiliar?



Geez you seem paranoid.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> Geez you seem paranoid.



That's just what a returner _would_ say


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> That's just what a returner _would_ say


🤣🤣🤣 God,  friendly bunch of folk you's are, nice to meet yous too. Are you this welcoming to everyone?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't wear a mask, i don't really see the point. If I had a cough I wouldn't be going to the shops anyway.
> I met my neighbour the other day in the street and she was wearing a mask. I couldn't understand a word she was saying, it was all muffled. Imagine two folk in masks trying to have a conversation 😁


Fucking idiot


----------



## Supine (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't wear a mask, i don't really see the point. If I had a cough I wouldn't be going to the shops anyway.
> I met my neighbour the other day in the street and she was wearing a mask. I couldn't understand a word she was saying, it was all muffled. Imagine two folk in masks trying to have a conversation 😁



Some of us have been going to work and communicating while wearing masks all the time. Grow up and maybe speak up if you're not understood.


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

Supine said:


> Some of us have been going to work and communicating while wearing masks all the time. Grow up and maybe speak up if you're not understood.



I don't wear a mask, as stated


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't wear a mask, as stated



You've been here 5 minutes and we already know you're a cunt.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't wear a mask, as stated


Stay the fuck indoors then please


----------



## xenon (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't wear a mask, as stated



What about on public transport?


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

I thankfully don't ever use public transport


----------



## xenon (Jul 3, 2020)

Well lardy da for you then.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

WTF, there's no requirement to wear a mask, except on public transport, so why are people jumping on this newbie?

Hardly anyone wears masks here, maybe around 10% in the big Tesco's, not seem anyone on the streets wearing them.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

They’re all cunts too


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> They’re all cunts too



Oh, fuck off, you paranoid fruitcake.  

If the staff aren't wearing masks, why should the customers?


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

lots are arseholes here but its entertaining


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

It’s just common sense ffs. Sturgeon has the right idea


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Jul 3, 2020)

Not wearing a mask is one thing, it makes you a Big Daftie.  Not wearing a mask _as a badge of honour_, proudly proclaiming it and making it a point-scoring "own the libs" issue - that's another entirely, makes you a Massive Cunt.


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> Not wearing a mask is one thing, it makes you a Big Daftie.  Not wearing a mask _as a badge of honour_, proudly proclaiming it and making it a point-scoring "own the libs" issue - that's another entirely, makes you a Massive Cunt.



I'm flattered by the attention. But really, you need to Get a life. I don't wear a mask, who gives a fuck 😂😂😂


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh, fuck off, you paranoid fruitcake.
> 
> If the staff aren't wearing masks, why should the customers?


Everyone in a public place should be


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I'm flattered by the attention. But really, you need to Get a life. I don't wear a mask, who gives a fuck 😂😂😂


Would you wear one on public transport should you have to use it?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I'm flattered by the attention. But really, you need to Get a life. I don't wear a mask, who gives a fuck 😂😂😂


All those at risk of contracting a deadly disease or losing a loved one to it


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Everyone in a public place should be



That's not the requirement, nor even the advice.


----------



## philosophical (Jul 3, 2020)

Who needs to have a conversation when like me you can communicate through the medium of dance?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's not the requirement, nor even the advice.


yes, cos the government advice is shit.


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

I wouldn't be out though if I had a cough. And the droplets still get through the masks in any case. I think it's a bit superficial ie it's not really protecting you. I know it does a bit! I'm not denying that. 

One thing I think it would do is stop me touching my face ie giving myself it if I touch the virus with my hands. 

I work from home, don't use public transport, my exercise is running alone. I do go to the supermarket obviously, i was there at 4pm today. At a guess maybe 15% of customers wearing masks. None of the staff that I seen.

But did someone says its going to be compulsory in shops soon? I wonder if it will be compulsory in the pubs too! 

I've stuck too all the lock down rules pretty rigidly. So if that becomes a rule then so be it.


----------



## xenon (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> WTF, there's no requirement to wear a mask, except on public transport, so why are people jumping on this newbie?
> 
> Hardly anyone wears masks here, maybe around 10% in the big Tesco's, not seem anyone on the streets wearing them.



Tend to agree. Although they do wreke of returner.


----------



## xenon (Jul 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> They’re all cunts too



Oh fuck off.


Orang Utan said:


> Everyone in a public place should be



Fuck that.

I'm not wearing a mask in the street until it's mandatory. Masks are still only to protect others if you have the virus. The risks of catching it outside, or whilst passing someone are extremely low. I don't bother in small shops either because I'm not in their long, I stand back as far as possible and as far as I know, not many other people are wearing them anyway. (I can hear if the owner has one on, he doesn't in one place. Another one he did.),  I'm doing other sensible things, washing hands a lot, staying away from crowds. This whole I'm more taking it seriously than you thing is a bit tiresome.

I do get why people living with those who are shielding or have underlying health issues themselves are feeling on edge, being extra cautious. But demanding or castigating peple who aren't doing things which the science doesn't support anyway, is wank.


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

Im no returner. But im intrigued as to who you think I am, they better of had great banter 😂😂 

I'm an ex websluths gal. I had a fight with a mod and I got banned. But I just like following cases, trials, news and some banter inbetween. 

I liked the look of this board as it's uk and looks lively. I'll be sticking around. I don't mind the hostility, it's weird but quite funny.


----------



## LDC (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> Im no returner. But im intrigued as to who you think I am, they better of had great banter 😂😂
> 
> I'm an ex websluths gal. I had a fight with a mod and I got banned. But I just like following cases, trials, news and some banter inbetween.
> 
> I liked the look of this board as it's uk and looks lively. I'll be sticking around. I don't mind the hostility, it's weird but quite funny.



Believe it or not the standard of knowledge and discussion is very high here generally, especially in the politics forums. So if you gob off with dickhead semi-coherent thoughts or stray from the anarcho-communist/Labour Party/etc. line then expect to get a pasting.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't mind the hostility, it's weird but quite funny.




Oh, it's weird alright.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> *HEADS UP* -  Today’s coronavirus briefing is expected to begin at *4.30pm *on BBC One, BBC News & Sky News.
> 
> Not officially confirmed, but the floppy hair twat is expected to host it.



I thought they'd stopped these?


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 3, 2020)

philosophical said:


> Who needs to have a conversation when like me you can communicate through the medium of dance?



I think we should all learn semaphore.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I thought they'd stopped these?





cupid_stunt said:


> They don't do them every day, they had one yesterday that I missed, and today's is probably going to be telling people to behave at the pub.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> Im no returner. But im intrigued as to who you think I am, they better of had great banter 😂😂
> 
> I'm an ex websluths gal. I had a fight with a mod and I got banned. But I just like following cases, trials, news and some banter inbetween.
> 
> I liked the look of this board as it's uk and looks lively. I'll be sticking around. I don't mind the hostility, it's weird but quite funny.



As soon as anyone new shows up they are assumed to be a returner because why would anyone new volunteer to come here?


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 3, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I think we should all learn semaphore.


Anything to stop the mime artists inheriting the earth.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 3, 2020)

xenon said:


> I'm not wearing a mask in the street until it's mandatory. Masks are still only to protect others if you have the virus. The risks of catching it outside, or whilst passing someone are extremely low. I don't bother in small shops either because I'm not in their long, I stand back as far as possible and as far as I know, not many other people are wearing them anyway. (I can hear if the owner has one on, he doesn't in one place. Another one he did.),  I'm doing other sensible things, washing hands a lot, staying away from crowds. This whole I'm more taking it seriously than you thing is a bit tiresome.



I don't wear mine in the street either; just put it on before I go into shops and take it off again to walk home - using hand sanitiser before touching it of course.  As you say, the risk of contracting or passing on the virus from a passing encounter outside is miniscule, and they're not very nice to wear.  I do agree with them being mandatory on public transport, though, and I could see a case for expanding that to some shops; not whilst infections are dropping as they seem to be now, but perhaps if they begin to rise again.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 3, 2020)

I don't blame anyone not wearing a mask because there's been no real moves to push them as a serious part of the solution here. I think that's a mistake though. All that crap about freedom - I'm not one of those who thinks we should all be locked down for months and I want to be able to get out and do stuff. Masks would be a tool to enable that if they were more commonly used, not a hindrance.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 3, 2020)

It would actually be amazing if it was compulsory for everyone to wear a mask in shops. That way those of us who have to work in shops and have done throughout the entirety of lockdown would feel a lot safer and more comfortable in our working environment because we wouldn't have to wear one ourselves. Masks are more for protecting other people rather than protecting yourself. Mind you this is Britain at the start of the 5th decade of neo liberalism so who gives a fuck about other people eh?


----------



## weltweit (Jul 3, 2020)

Last weekend I saw some rather natty cloth masks, apparently bought online.

I don't use public transport, do shop at a supermarket - perhaps 2% wear masks.

If it becomes the rule to wear one in shops & supermarkets I will need some, if that happens they will probably sell out.

eta: just bought some washable fabric masks from Etsy, one less thing to worry about.


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

I think they're saying from 9th July they will be mandatory in shops in Scotland.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 3, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I don't wear mine in the street either; just put it on before I go into shops and take it off again to walk home - using hand sanitiser before touching it of course.  As you say, the risk of contracting or passing on the virus from a passing encounter outside is miniscule, and they're not very nice to wear.  I do agree with them being mandatory on public transport, though, and I could see a case for expanding that to some shops; not whilst infections are dropping as they seem to be now, but perhaps if they begin to rise again.


Yeah, street is fine, though I still wear one anyway, but anywhere public indoors, get that mask on unless you’re medically exempt


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Last weekend I saw some rather natty cloth masks, apparently bought online.



As natty as mine?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As natty as mine?
> 
> View attachment 220715


You made that out of one of your posing pouches, didn't you.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2020)

S☼I said:


> You made that out of one of your posing pouches, didn't you.



Nope. 





__





						Assorted Animal Print Reusable and Washable UK Made Face Masks - Pack of 4 : Amazon.co.uk: Business, Industry & Science
					

Assorted Animal Print Reusable and Washable UK Made Face Masks - Pack of 4 : Amazon.co.uk: Business, Industry & Science



					www.amazon.co.uk


----------



## weltweit (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As natty as mine?
> 
> View attachment 220715


The leopard print ones had sold out just now !!


----------



## teuchter (Jul 3, 2020)

I've not used a mask yet - am I a bad person? I will on public transport once I start using it again, probably next week.
I've considered whether I should have one for the supermarket but as hardly anyone else seems to be bothering, including most of the staff, and there's no clear information about whether they actually do any good, I've not done so.


----------



## xenon (Jul 3, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I don't wear mine in the street either; just put it on before I go into shops and take it off again to walk home - using hand sanitiser before touching it of course.  As you say, the risk of contracting or passing on the virus from a passing encounter outside is miniscule, and they're not very nice to wear.  I do agree with them being mandatory on public transport, though, and I could see a case for expanding that to some shops; not whilst infections are dropping as they seem to be now, but perhaps if they begin to rise again.



That's fair. Fortunately I don't have to go into supermarkets, which obviously means being inside with a larger range of random people.



Doctor Carrot said:


> It would actually be amazing if it was compulsory for everyone to wear a mask in shops. That way those of us who have to work in shops and have done throughout the entirety of lockdown would feel a lot safer and more comfortable in our working environment because we wouldn't have to wear one ourselves. Masks are more for protecting other people rather than protecting yourself. Mind you this is Britain at the start of the 5th decade of neo liberalism so who gives a fuck about other people eh?



Even if the public all war mmasks, shop staff would have to as well. Given that the mask protects others, not yourself. A shopworker is in doors dealing with a much greater range of foreign objects, random peple, fomites than one customer. But I don't expect shopworkers to wear a mask when I go in.


----------



## xenon (Jul 3, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> It would actually be amazing if it was compulsory for everyone to wear a mask in shops. That way those of us who have to work in shops and have done throughout the entirety of lockdown would feel a lot safer and more comfortable in our working environment because we wouldn't have to wear one ourselves. Masks are more for protecting other people rather than protecting yourself. Mind you this is Britain at the start of the 5th decade of neo liberalism so who gives a fuck about other people eh?



That said, I am with you on some posts you've made before. Re people coughing, not covering their mouths. Leaning across people and all that. I know I might sound like an inconsiderate arsehole to you but am totally against all of that behaviour.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 3, 2020)

Doctor Carrot said:


> It would actually be amazing if it was compulsory for everyone to wear a mask in shops. That way those of us who have to work in shops and have done throughout the entirety of lockdown would feel a lot safer and more comfortable in our working environment because we wouldn't have to wear one ourselves. Masks are more for protecting other people rather than protecting yourself. Mind you this is Britain at the start of the 5th decade of neo liberalism so who gives a fuck about other people eh?


Unfortunately I can't see it being made compulsory until the second wave happens, and until it's compulsory few enough people will do it that the ones who do won't matter. (I do, by the way, but not in the expectation that it will make a physical difference, just to normalise it and make others feel more comfortable in wearing masks.) No chain is going to be the first one to start.


----------



## ash (Jul 3, 2020)

16 year old went out earlier and was in a dilemma - to wear the mask that matches her top or the one that matches her headscarf.  Oh the frivolities of yoof 😂🤣


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 3, 2020)

ash said:


> 16 year old went out earlier and was in a dilemma - to wear the mask that matches her top or the one that matches her headscarf.  Oh the frivolities of yoof 😂🤣


Clearly you want the headscarf and top matching and the mask a complementary colour or matching an accessory or highlight  kids


----------



## existentialist (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't wear a mask, i don't really see the point. If I had a cough I wouldn't be going to the shops anyway.
> I met my neighbour the other day in the street and she was wearing a mask. I couldn't understand a word she was saying, it was all muffled. Imagine two folk in masks trying to have a conversation 😁


I've managed it perfectly comfortably before.

And I think you're missing the point by a country ("o" optional ) mile - it's not just about protecting YOU, it's about interfering with the virus' ability to transmit between people, generally. There is a tendency towards a rather self-centred view in many people, rather than seeing taking these precautions as a contribution to the public good. You sound as if you're in the former camp.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> Geez you seem paranoid.


Geez (sic) you seem like a cunt. 

Funny the way these things pan out, isn't it?


----------



## existentialist (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> WTF, there's no requirement to wear a mask, except on public transport, so why are people jumping on this newbie?


If it walks like a cunt, and it quacks like a cunt...


----------



## existentialist (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As natty as mine?
> 
> View attachment 220715


Is that a repurposed posing pouch? 

ETA: fuck, beaten to it by catsbum


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 3, 2020)

existentialist said:


> If it walks like a cunt, and it quacks like a cunt...
> Nice to meet you too. You're late to the party, i thought the frivolities were over and we were back OT.


----------



## weepiper (Jul 3, 2020)

Been wearing a mask all day at work (bike shop) for weeks. Also every time I go into any other shop, for weeks. It's fine. You get used to it. Even the 16 year old Saturday boy refusenik said to me today that he now feels a bit weird _not _wearing one. We haven't let a customer inside the shop since the start of lockdown and we've no intention of changing that at the moment, but what the Scottish Government has done with this announcement is empower shop workers to tell customers they can't come in without a face covering, and to empower them to insist on their colleagues wearing them. Everyone I know who works in a shop is delighted.


----------



## PursuedByBears (Jul 3, 2020)

Been wearing this inside shops but not when walking or cycling through town.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As natty as mine?
> 
> View attachment 220715




Put your wife's knickers back in the drawer


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 3, 2020)

xenon said:
			
		

> I'm not wearing a mask in the street until it's mandatory. Masks are still only to protect others if you have the virus. The risks of catching it outside, or whilst passing someone are extremely low. I don't bother in small shops either because I'm not in their long, I stand back as far as possible and as far as I know, not many other people are wearing them anyway. (I can hear if the owner has one on, he doesn't in one place. Another one he did.),  *I'm doing other sensible things, washing hands a lot, staying away from crowds*. This whole I'm more taking it seriously than you thing is a bit tiresome.



Not joined in with the masks discussion at all up until now, not on any thread 

But I do confess that I agree with most of the above.

Wales seems to be the least likely of any of the nations to compel or even recommend masks, not even on public transport

We've been on buses on two occasions only since March anyway.

They were almost empty both times,  and with lots of seats blocked from use in any case, with prominent signs outside warning that a maximum of ten people (per single-decker) are allowed, here in Swansea.

I would guess that I've seen a maximum (?) of between 5% and 10% (_absolute_ maximum 15%) of people wearing masks here -- supermarkets included.

I've bolded the things in xenon 's post above that I'm also very conscientious with at all times.

And I think people who proclaim their avoidance of masks for 'libertarian' (aka twattish) reasons, particularly in the US, are utter arseholes.

I certainly wouldn't ever rule out getting and using masks myself, and I'd look for sorted ones (such as any with cat or elephant designs  ?? ).

But I've liked recent posts on both sides of the mask-argument in the recent discussion on this thread, because I'm genuinely torn about it


----------



## MrSki (Jul 3, 2020)

I don't wear a mask outside but I put it on going into any shop. It is not hard to do. 
Scotland seems to have the right idea on controlling the situation. 
If you don't like a mask how much do you think you would enjoy a ventilator?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 3, 2020)

Anyway. So, I dunno if anyone else saw it, but Johnson couldn't even keep up with his own desperate power phrases today. I found it simultaneously hilarious and massively fucking scary.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 3, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Anyway. So, I dunno if anyone else saw it, but Johnson couldn't even keep up with his own desperate power phrases today. I found it simultaneously hilarious and massively fucking scary.



I can't bring myself to watch any clips of it, but the press conference does seem from this that it was all about pub changes -- is that correct?


----------



## Calamity1971 (Jul 3, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Anyway. So, I dunno if anyone else saw it, but Johnson couldn't even keep up with his own desperate power phrases today. I found it simultaneously hilarious and massively fucking scary.


I paused an rewound it for double hilarity.
Someone posted it later on in the Boris thread.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 3, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> I paused an rewound it for double hilarity.
> Someone posted it later on in the Boris thread.




No, still not tempted to watch!


----------



## two sheds (Jul 3, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> I paused an rewound it for double hilarity.
> Someone posted it later on in the Boris thread.




Ta - I watched it again too. Even better second time round. 

How long before starmer at PMQ asks, forensically, "how much cocaine have you been taking?"


----------



## zahir (Jul 3, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> I paused an rewound it for double hilarity.
> Someone posted it later on in the Boris thread.




Cognitive issues with coronavirus? I think I may be having some effects and I wouldn’t be surprised if Boris is.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 3, 2020)

zahir said:


> Cognitive issues with coronavirus? I think I may be having some effects and I wouldn’t be surprised if Boris is.


yes I did wonder after I'd posted that. 

I still prefer my answer though.


----------



## Celyn (Jul 3, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't wear a mask, i don't really see the point. If I had a cough I wouldn't be going to the shops anyway.
> I met my neighbour the other day in the street and she was wearing a mask. I couldn't understand a word she was saying, it was all muffled. Imagine two folk in masks trying to have a conversation 😁


It would be even more difficult for the two people to chat if they were both dead.


----------



## zahir (Jul 3, 2020)

More on cognitive effects.









						How Covid-19 can damage the brain
					

Some scientists suspect that Covid-19 causes respiratory failure and death not through damage to the lungs, but the brain – and other symptoms include headaches, strokes and seizures.




					www.bbc.com
				





> Estimates of exact prevalence vary, but it seems that roughly 50% of patients diagnosed with Sars-CoV-2 – the virus responsible for causing the illness Covid-19 – have experienced neurological problems.


----------



## Sunray (Jul 4, 2020)

zahir said:


> More on cognitive effects.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I listened to an ENT consultant on the Guardian talk about how the loss of smell was the virus invading the brain.So its not a surprise it could cause neurological issues.

I can confirm the loss of smell is broken with c-19. I've lost it due to a cold in the past but this time it wasn't total in that you couldn't taste things, I could deal with no taste,  it was worse, it was broken.  Everything tasted hideous. 









						Covid-19: why are some people losing their taste and smell? – podcast
					

Ian Sample talks to Carl Philpott about Covid-19 causing a loss of taste and smell




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Dogsauce (Jul 4, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> I paused an rewound it for double hilarity.
> Someone posted it later on in the Boris thread.




This is like when Trump mangles his words, so everyone ignores the content, goes on about his diction not his dickishness.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 4, 2020)

Cold War Steve's take on our _Descent into Wetherspoons...

_

Well, for one, I'm going nowhere near the pubs for a good while yet.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jul 4, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't wear a mask, i don't really see the point. If I had a cough I wouldn't be going to the shops anyway.
> I met my neighbour the other day in the street and she was wearing a mask. I couldn't understand a word she was saying, it was all muffled. Imagine two folk in masks trying to have a conversation 😁



You do know that you don't have to cough to spread the virus? Given that why wouldn't you do it? Speaking up with a mask on might keep someone else from being ventilated or worse; why wouldn't you do it?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## zahir (Jul 4, 2020)

Sunray said:


> I can confirm the loss of smell is broken with c-19. I've lost it due to a cold in the past but this time it wasn't total in that you couldn't taste things, I could deal with no taste,  it was worse, it was broken.  Everything tasted hideous.


If you don’t mind me asking, how long did it take for you to get the sense of smell and taste back?


----------



## Sunray (Jul 4, 2020)

Recovery was very swift. Had been sick for 7 days, it was a Friday and I felt worse was started to worry. Saturday I felt way better, Sunday I was fine. Lungs were a bit damaged, but felt ok.  Smell got back to relatives normal on Monday. very glad, never forget that taste. Eurgh.  
Lost my sense of taste after a common cold once and that took 6 months to come back. Was resigned to losing it for good.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 4, 2020)

xenon said:


> Even if the public all war mmasks, shop staff would have to as well. Given that the mask protects others, not yourself. A shopworker is in doors dealing with a much greater range of foreign objects, random peple, fomites than one customer. But I don't expect shopworkers to wear a mask when I go in.



Yes I expect you're right about shop workers having to wear one too. I wouldn't actually mind that either because it would then make my boss take the whole thing a bit more seriously. Not that he's bad or anything just that old school blokey 'is what it is' type bollocks that seems to have infested society more prolifically than Covid-19 has.



xenon said:


> That said, I am with you on some posts you've made before. Re people coughing, not covering their mouths. Leaning across people and all that. I know I might sound like an inconsiderate arsehole to you but am totally against all of that behaviour.



You don't and I've since relaxed my view on these sorts of things. Those previous posts were made largely out of fear. Working amongst it and how busy it was genuinely terrified me.  I'm a lot better these days to the extent I myself have become complacent. I used to wear a face shield but I don't anymore but I keep a close eye on infection rates and R rates in my area and that has been low all throughout, it continues to be so. As soon as that increases that shield is going back on, probably accompanied by a mask too.



FridgeMagnet said:


> Unfortunately I can't see it being made compulsory until the second wave happens, and until it's compulsory few enough people will do it that the ones who do won't matter. (I do, by the way, but not in the expectation that it will make a physical difference, just to normalise it and make others feel more comfortable in wearing masks.) No chain is going to be the first one to start.



I wear my mask in supermarkets sometimes and for the reasons you mention. If it can't be mandated I want it at least to be normalised but I agree, when the second wave comes I think it will be mandated.

On a separate note I now know why second waves are deadlier. This is just my speculation of course but I think it's because people become complacent. Everything's alright now we're over the worst, fears relax, masks slip and then bam! Second wave, catches people on the hop, more people get infected and more deaths as a result.


----------



## teqniq (Jul 4, 2020)

Sad fucks:


----------



## hash tag (Jul 4, 2020)

Even sadder and all alone


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 4, 2020)

two sheds said:


> How long before starmer at PMQ asks, forensically, "how much cocaine have you been taking?"



He won't. Tories being coke-addled psychopaths is entirely well and good according to the likes of him. His only problem with the tories is the finer points of exactly how they execute their camapaign of coke-addled psychopathy.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 4, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I don't wear a mask, as stated



Any particular reason why?


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 4, 2020)

krtek a houby said:


> Any particular reason why?



Because it's not mandatory


----------



## existentialist (Jul 4, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> Because it's not mandatory


To be fair, that's not the whole truth. I think you're discounting the twat factor, too...


----------



## teqniq (Jul 4, 2020)

Blatant cronyism (thread):


----------



## newbie (Jul 4, 2020)

I feel a lot more comfortable in shops with other people wearing masks because I'm reassured they're taking it as seriously as I am.  Those without seem to be saying _I don't give a damn_.


----------



## maomao (Jul 4, 2020)

I went in Iceland without a mask today cause I was only going to the bank machine and then realised I was out of butter. Only person in the whole shop wearing a mask was the woman on the door who was spraying everyone's hands.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 4, 2020)

maomao said:


> I went in Iceland without a mask today cause I was only going to the bank machine and then realised I was out of butter. Only person in the whole shop wearing a mask was the woman on the door who was spraying everyone's hands.


In the co-op this afternoon there were three or four people wearing masks, which is quite high, but probably just co-incidence, and still maybe 20% of the people there tops.

That hasn't changed, but what was unusual was that while I was waiting at the door for someone to come out - they do a one-in-one-out - two people just barged in in front of me. The woman behind me (also in a mask) said "do they not have anyone on guard?" "No," I said, "but normally people are good about it." I've not seen that before at all, except for some chancing Deliveroo drivers who at least come up with some lie about how they're picking up medicine for a sick baby, then wander out with a bottle of gin and twenty bensons.


----------



## Cerv (Jul 4, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> Because it's not mandatory


that's at best half an answer.
I expect you do chose to do a lot of things which aren't mandatory every day.


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 4, 2020)

Cerv said:


> that's at best half an answer.
> I expect you do chose to do a lot of things which aren't mandatory every day.



I've stuck to all the other rules. Ive not seen my gran for over 3 months. Most people i know ive not seen in person for months. Ive not been in another house or had anybody in my house. I wash my hands frequently. I keep my distance from people on the odd occasion I am out. I got furloughed but got another job and I work from home. I run on the road to avoid people. Ive not driven out of Glasgow. I don't wear a mask because I've not been told to.


----------



## weepiper (Jul 4, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I've stuck to all the other rules. Ive not seen my gran for over 3 months. Most people i know ive not seen in person for months. Ive not been in another house or had anybody in my house. I wash my hands frequently. I keep my distance from people on the odd occasion I am out. I got furloughed but got another job and I work from home. I run on the road to avoid people. Ive not driven out of Glasgow. I don't wear a mask because I've not been told to.


You have been told to. Scottish Government advice has been to wear a face covering in shops for weeks and weeks. They just haven't made it mandatory until now.


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 4, 2020)

Advice, come on...the government advises us to eat five fecking bits of fruit and veg a day, do we all do that, no! Me personally, i need clear cut instructions. But that is happening soon, it's becoming mandatory. 

Im a bit confused today though looking at all the people in the pubs....don't think I seen any masks. That doesn't make sense to me. If it's (going to be) mandatory here to wear masks in shops for presumably good reason, why are they not mandatory in pubs.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 4, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> Advice, come on...the government advises us to eat five fecking bits of fruit and veg a day, do we all do that, no! *Me personally, i need clear cut instructions.* But that is happening soon, it's becoming mandatory.


Okay. Fuck off.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 4, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> Im a bit confused today though looking at all the people in the pubs....don't think I seen any masks. That doesn't make sense to me. If it's (going to be) mandatory here to wear masks in shops for presumably good reason, why are they not mandatory in pubs.


Unfortunately there isn't a good answer to that apart from "the regulations are confused and messed up". We know from the science that masks seem to help reduce transmission when people are in close quarters for a while - they don't completely stop it but they are better than nothing if you can't help being in that situation, as long as everyone or at least most people are wearing them. So yeah they should be worn in pubs if they're worn in shops, and they should be worn in shops. It makes it hard to drink but you can always pull your mask down ffs. (Restaurants, bit more difficult.)


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 4, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Cold War Steve's take on our _Descent into Wetherspoons...
> 
> View attachment 220769_
> 
> Well, for one, I'm going nowhere near the pubs for a good while yet.



I somehow suspect that most pubs won't look _exactly_ like in there  

Here, we're both going to be pretty cautious after Monday 13th (Wales' prospective re-opening date, for the outsides of some pubs) and we'll be very careful which ones whose gardens we go to.

I can also foresee delays, and carefully checking how it's going, before we decide to give it a go.

But we'll be back (albeit cautiously!) when we know more about which ones seem quietest/safest and at what times


----------



## Celyn (Jul 4, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> Advice, come on...the government advises us to eat five fecking bits of fruit and veg a day, do we all do that, no! Me personally, i need clear cut instructions. But that is happening soon, it's becoming mandatory.
> 
> Im a bit confused today though looking at all the people in the pubs....don't think I seen any masks. That doesn't make sense to me. If it's (going to be) mandatory here to wear masks in shops for presumably good reason, why are they not mandatory in pubs.


Pubs in Scotland are still closed, aren't they? So you are not seeing people in pubs local to you in Glasgow with or without masks. They will open on Monday, but only for beer garden/pavement café places.


> *When can pubs and restaurants reopen?*
> Outdoor hospitality, such as pavement cafes and beer gardens, will re-open from Monday 6 July where 2 metre distancing will remain in place for now.


Coronavirus (COVID-19): Scotland's route map - what you can and cannot do - gov.scot


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 4, 2020)

Yes they are still closed here. I seen pictures online, shock horror


----------



## Celyn (Jul 4, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> I've stuck to all the other rules. Ive not seen my gran for over 3 months. Most people i know ive not seen in person for months.* Ive not been in another house *or had anybody in my house. I wash my hands frequently. I keep my distance from people on the odd occasion I am out. I got furloughed but got another job and I work from home. I run on the road to avoid people. Ive not driven out of Glasgow. I don't wear a mask because I've not been told to.



(bolding mine)  In the interests of fairness, you're a tiny bit more compliant than I am, then.    I have been spending time at my Dad's house throughout lockdown but I tell myself that was OK under the "provide care or help to vulnerable person" exemption, then whenever I have had to go outdoors and engage with doctor, taxi driver, whatever, I go to my own flat and stay there without seeing anyone for at least 7 days. It's all legit now, though, 'cos we can be a bubble.  

I think everyone agrees that masks are a bit of a pain, particularly if you wear glasses, but this damn virus is a more urgent threat than not eating enough vegetables.


----------



## Celyn (Jul 4, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Unfortunately there isn't a good answer to that apart from "the regulations are confused and messed up". We know from the science that masks seem to help reduce transmission when people are in close quarters for a while - they don't completely stop it but they are better than nothing if you can't help being in that situation, as long as everyone or at least most people are wearing them. So yeah they should be worn in pubs if they're worn in shops, and they should be worn in shops. It makes it hard to drink but you can always pull your mask down ffs. (Restaurants, bit more difficult.)


I think BigDaftie might be slightly confused here. Pics and videos of pubs that opened today in England in which people are not wearing masks have really no connection with the fact that it will soon be compulsory to wear face covering in shops in Scotland.


----------



## Celyn (Jul 4, 2020)

Sunray said:


> I listened to an ENT consultant on the Guardian talk about how the loss of smell was the virus invading the brain.So its not a surprise it could cause neurological issues.
> 
> I can confirm the loss of smell is broken with c-19. I've lost it due to a cold in the past but this time it wasn't total in that you couldn't taste things, I could deal with no taste,  it was worse, it was broken.  Everything tasted hideous.
> 
> ...


d-19dd

Oh, not good.       I wonder whether this might mean that there could be people who did have this virus and survived, but with neurological abnormalities that remain for years. We often hear about our elderly people with dementia time bomb, but what if younger people, say under 40, are infected by this Covid-19, recover well, but there is neurological damage that might remain?


----------



## zahir (Jul 4, 2020)

Independent SAGE briefing


----------



## zahir (Jul 4, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Oh, not good.       I wonder whether this might mean that there could be people who did have this virus and survived, but with neurological abnormalities that remain for years. We often hear about our elderly people with dementia time bomb, but what if younger people, say under 40, are infected by this Covid-19, recover well, but there is neurological damage that might remain?



There’s lots of talk of people experiencing ‘brain fog’, loss of concentration or personality change. This isn’t just about people who have been hospitalised. It‘s also affecting people in the middle ground between very mild symptoms and hospitalisation. It isn’t clear how long the effects will last or whether some will be permanent.


----------



## elbows (Jul 4, 2020)

weltweit said:


> They are talking about tracking covid-19 through monitoring the amount of virus in sewage.
> 
> Apparently a simple early warning system which does not require mass testing.



Regarding the sewage surveillance which you mentioned and I'm often to be found going on about, here is the BBC story from a few days ago. As I keep saying, I'd be much happier about this phase if this system was already up and running, since I do not think the authorities currently have the best view of the situation at the level of detail/locality that is required, and they could end up missing or misleading themselves using people testing positive numbers alone. At the moment they can somewhat compensate for that using hospital data, but that does have lag.









						Coronavirus: Testing sewage an 'easy win'
					

Wastewater analysis could provide localised Covid-19 test results much earlier than at present.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Celyn (Jul 4, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> This is like when Trump mangles his words, so everyone ignores the content, goes on about his diction not his dickishness.


Indeed it is. Do you think Boris Johnson is now using that ploy deliberately, given that it works for Trump? Johnson has always played the jolly buffoon, so not too much of a surprise if he is copying Trump in this.


----------



## krtek a houby (Jul 5, 2020)

BigDaftie said:


> Because it's not mandatory



It's not mandatory where I'm at, either. It is sensible and polite to others, though.

Personally, I despise the damn things. They make my beard itch and in the heat, they're uncomfortable.

But if it helps lessen the transmission, will stick with it.


----------



## zahir (Jul 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Regarding the sewage surveillance which you mentioned and I'm often to be found going on about, here is the BBC story from a few days ago. As I keep saying, I'd be much happier about this phase if this system was already up and running, since I do not think the authorities currently have the best view of the situation at the level of detail/locality that is required, and they could end up missing or misleading themselves using people testing positive numbers alone.



elbows - this maybe of interest, someone on twitter using 111 call data as an indicator. If you look back at his feed you can see where he’s getting it from.


----------



## zahir (Jul 5, 2020)

Interview with Anthony Costello.









						Former WHO director Anthony Costello: 'Opening pubs before schools says something about our priorities'
					

The paediatrician and member of Independent Sage on Matt Hancock, the likelihood of a vaccine and why 50,000 deaths were preventable




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## newbie (Jul 5, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Blatant cronyism (thread):



I've spent a few minutes poking around Aventis Solutions Ltd, the small private employment agency based in Manchester/Wilmslow in Cheshire  which on 12 May this year was awarded an £18.4million contract to supply emergency PPE.   They appear to have nothing to do with Aventis Pharma Ltd which is an established supplier to HMG.

They started in 2011 when three directors were appointed, all recruitment consultants.  One resigned in 2015 leaving two, the major shareholder being James Michael FARRELL who was also a director of a hairdressers until he resigned last week, but has no other businesses listed.  The other, Andrew SPENCE-EVANS also has no other businesses listed.  On 10th June this year 4 new directors were appointed.  Two are named SPENCE-EVANS, one shares an address with Andy.  One of the others, Robbie PETERS, shares an address with the hairdresser.  All of the 4 describe their occupation as 'Company Director' but none of them lists any other previous or current directorships, although strangely the secretary/director of the hairdressers is someone called Robbie Lee PETERS.  Looking a bit further, the hairdressers seems ordinary enough, although co-incidentally it moved its registered address last week as well, from Piccadilly House Wax for Men Manchester to Wilmslow.  Before that it was at Fake It Bishops Corner 321 Stretford Road Manchester but that's apparently just a beauty salon.  

All unremarkable except that a service company with net assets of £300 this time last year was given a contract for 18 million quids worth of stuff without anyone else tendering, and suddenly seems to have sprung into a new life.

Funny old world.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2020)

zahir said:


> elbows - this maybe of interest, someone on twitter using 111 call data as an indicator. If you look back at his feed you can see where he’s getting it from.




Thanks. Ahh Nuneaton, my town, again. The local council also announced that they could tell us which area here was the worst affected, having received such data themselves, and it turns out that its my ward that has the most cases. Which makes me glad I've only set foot outside my door about twice during the entire lockdown/post-lockdown period.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2020)

In recent days the pillar 2 test numbers down to the local area have finally been included in the data we can see on the official dashboards. I will start to look at this more thoroughly over the next week.

Also I forget whether we've had this before (I know we had a FT version of the same), but this chart from a PHE report into the Leicester situation is a great example of why the lack of pillar 2 data previously made the trends seen utterly misleading.



From COVID-19: exceedances in Leicester


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 5, 2020)

The UK's 7-day rolling average of daily deaths has finally dropped below 100, standing at 97 as of yesterday, the lowest since March 25th.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The UK's 7-day rolling average of daily deaths has finally dropped below 100, standing at 97 as of yesterday, the lowest since March 25th.



ONS, NRA & NISRA numbers suggest the UK number probably fell below 100 in the latter part of June, but due to lag I want at least one more weeks ONS data before I confirm this.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2020)

A little more on the Leicester clothing factories aspect:









						Hancock 'worried' over Leicester clothing factory practices
					

Health Secretary Matt Hancock says he is "very worried about employment practices in some factories".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jul 5, 2020)

The fuckin cunts were never worried about the exploitative shite before this pandemic. Even Ashworth, as it’s his constituency!


----------



## maomao (Jul 5, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> The fuckin cunts were never worried about the exploitative shite before this pandemic. Even Ashworth, as it’s his constituency!


Sweatshops are basically the Tory dream. He's pretending to be 'worried' when in fact it's been open knowledge that factories in Leicester have been paying under minimum wage and breaking employment laws left, right and centre for years. The only thing he's worried about is Boohoo's share price (down 3% after a 'good' lockdown).


----------



## existentialist (Jul 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> Sweatshops are basically the Tory dream. He's pretending to be 'worried' when in fact it's been open knowledge that factories in Leicester have been paying under minimum wage and breaking employment laws left, right and centre for years. The only thing he's worried about is Boohoo's share price (down 3% after a 'good' lockdown).


Free market, innit? You don't want to go interfering with a nice, free, self-regulating (so long as the mechanism of regulation is solely measured in currency terms) employment market by doing something silly like regulating it externally. Or enforcing regulations that you can't get rid of, but which get in the way of rich people becoming richer. That'd never do.


----------



## maomao (Jul 5, 2020)

Did anyone's streets burst into applause at 5pm then? Cause back in April we had screaming children banging pots and pans, fireworks, the lot. Plenty of NHS workers in my street too. Not a peep today. I've been sat in the front room all afternoon and didn't hear a thing. BBC are reporting it as having happened everywhere though.


----------



## Numbers (Jul 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> Did anyone's streets burst into applause at 5pm then? Cause back in April we had screaming children banging pots and pans, fireworks, the lot. Plenty of NHS workers in my street too. Not a peep today. I've been sat in the front room all afternoon and didn't hear a thing. BBC are reporting it as having happened everywhere though.


Forgot about this.  Not heard a peep, altho’ out the back we’ve heard the pots banging from here previously, nothing tho’.


----------



## Looby (Jul 5, 2020)

Didn’t know about it until someone commented on Facebook after. I didn’t hear anyone here but I’m sure they were out there. 
It makes me sick that my safe Tory majority town were out clapping every week when they’ve been electing fucking Robert Syms for years.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> Did anyone's streets burst into applause at 5pm then? Cause back in April we had screaming children banging pots and pans, fireworks, the lot. Plenty of NHS workers in my street too. Not a peep today. I've been sat in the front room all afternoon and didn't hear a thing. BBC are reporting it as having happened everywhere though.



I went out to see what was happening, but clearly the idea hadn't been noticed around here, as no one was out, before at least 80% of the neighbours came out.


----------



## scifisam (Jul 5, 2020)

I went out today for the fourth time in the past few months (Bethnal Green), and tried wearing a proper mask for the first time - wore a bandana the other times. It was surprisingly difficult, to the extent that I don't think I could do it again. It's an N95 mask and was comfortable enough, but it made my breathing significantly more difficult. OK so I do have breathing problems, and cough pretty much all the time when I walk around, which is one of the reasons to wear a mask because it increases the chances of me passing on covid even when I'm asymptomatic, but it was such a marked difference in breathing that I think anyone would have found it hard. And it steamed my glasses up enough that my vision was badly obscured - had to pull it down in the supermarket in order to see what I was buying.

It's probably just a shit mask, although it was certainly sold as a proper one (wasn't me that bought it), but it made me understand people's dislike of masks a lot more. Surgeons wear masks for hours in warm environments but their disposable masks are way thinner than this one is. If other people got ones like mine then they will definitely be put off wearing them.

If I have to take public transport I'll go back to the bandana I was wearing before, or maybe get some disposable masks if I end up travelling more often than I usually do. Having any sort of barrier does still provide some protection to those around me without meaning I can't breathe well enough to walk around. 

The only four people I saw wearing masks - I was out for a couple of hours and it was really busy - were two east Asian students wearing them on the street, which happens round here sometimes anyway, and two supermarket workers. Nobody in the park was wearing them, but I don't think that matters. Nobody else in the supermarket was wearing a mask, customers or staff, even those working on the shop floor - I felt like a weirdo. One of the supermarket workers without a mask on actually pushed past my friend to get by, even though he could just have asked him to move out of the way (he had no idea he was in the way). Unexpected rudeness and definitely breaching social distancing - maybe they'd had some arsey customers in earlier or something. None of the customers made any effort at social distancing and there was no one-way system or any attempt at limiting customers.

Not what I was expecting, TBH.



Celyn said:


> (bolding mine)  In the interests of fairness, you're a tiny bit more compliant than I am, then.   I have been spending time at my Dad's house throughout lockdown but I tell myself that was OK under the "provide care or help to vulnerable person" exemption, then whenever I have had to go outdoors and engage with doctor, taxi driver, whatever, I go to my own flat and stay there without seeing anyone for at least 7 days. It's all legit now, though, 'cos we can be a bubble.
> 
> I think everyone agrees that masks are a bit of a pain, particularly if you wear glasses, but this damn virus is a more urgent threat than not eating enough vegetables.



That is complying, though, because you were supplying help to a vulnerable person. And if it's just one person then you're not really spreading much around anyway.



maomao said:


> Did anyone's streets burst into applause at 5pm then? Cause back in April we had screaming children banging pots and pans, fireworks, the lot. Plenty of NHS workers in my street too. Not a peep today. I've been sat in the front room all afternoon and didn't hear a thing. BBC are reporting it as having happened everywhere though.



Some on our street came out - I leaned out of my window and clapped - but not as many as the Thursday claps, which was practically every house on the street. But then it wasn't well publicised and I suspect that at 5pm on a sunny Saturday a lot of people weren't at home. And NHS workers only really care about the clap when it's something that comes up in a STD clinic.


----------



## alsoknownas (Jul 5, 2020)

Having seen that Merseyside police reckon that the local drug dealers have been going around disguised as key workers during the lockdown, it must be a bit galling for locals the realisation that they have been vigorously applauding the local drug gangs every Thursday.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2020)

The official UK dashboard which I normally mention when I am about to rant about it, is in danger of becoming useful.

The hospital data is now available by region as well as nation, and the combined pillar 1 & 2 positive test numbers are available down to the lower tier level, with graphs. So if I want to see a quick graph of cases in Leicester, or Nuneaton & Bedworth, or wherever, now I can.

I dont know how well the links straight to a particular location & dataset work so I will try this now, this link should be healthcare data including admissions and people in mechanical ventilator beds in London.






						Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk
				




edit - yes I think it works. The magic happens in the 'change location' button at the top right. Different sorts of locations are listed depending on what data page you are on, eg locations under the cases section are quite different in granularity compared to those under hospital data which are NHS region based.


----------



## zahir (Jul 5, 2020)

It looks like cases in my local authority have been slowly increasing since the beginning of June.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2020)

zahir said:


> It looks like cases in my local authority have been slowly increasing since the beginning of June.



The testing regime (eg track & trace) has changed and 'from June onwards' is therefore the sort of trend I would treat with caution. It depends, often times there are stories behind this data that we could do with learning about before we think we can see whats happening. Unless its something very clear and dramatic, I want to augment it with other data such as from hospitals and that 111 stuff to see if it helps tell the story accurately.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 5, 2020)

maomao said:


> Sweatshops are basically the Tory dream. He's pretending to be 'worried' when in fact it's been open knowledge that factories in Leicester have been paying under minimum wage and breaking employment laws left, right and centre for years. The only thing he's worried about is Boohoo's share price (down 3% after a 'good' lockdown).


Which party has the Council in Leicester?


----------



## maomao (Jul 6, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I went out today for the fourth time in the past few months (Bethnal Green), and tried wearing a proper mask for the first time - wore a bandana the other times. It was surprisingly difficult, to the extent that I don't think I could do it again. It's an N95 mask and was comfortable enough, but it made my breathing significantly more difficult. OK so I do have breathing problems, and cough pretty much all the time when I walk around, which is one of the reasons to wear a mask because it increases the chances of me passing on covid even when I'm asymptomatic, but it was such a marked difference in breathing that I think anyone would have found it hard. And it steamed my glasses up enough that my vision was badly obscured - had to pull it down in the supermarket in order to see what I was buying.
> 
> It's probably just a shit mask, although it was certainly sold as a proper one (wasn't me that bought it), but it made me understand people's dislike of masks a lot more. Surgeons wear masks for hours in warm environments but their disposable masks are way thinner than this one is. If other people got ones like mine then they will definitely be put off wearing them.
> 
> ...


N95s are quite tough going. I like them because they even block the smell of people smoking in the street (psycho ex-smoker) but they're definitely not for anyone with breathing difficulties. I can get to Asda and back in one but I couldn't run or ride a bike.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 6, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I went out today ...
> 
> The only four people I saw wearing masks - I was out for a couple of hours and it was really busy - were two east Asian students wearing them on the street, which happens round here sometimes anyway, and two supermarket workers. Nobody in the park was wearing them, but I don't think that matters. Nobody else in the supermarket was wearing a mask, customers or staff, even those working on the shop floor - I felt like a weirdo. One of the supermarket workers without a mask on actually pushed past my friend to get by, even though he could just have asked him to move out of the way (he had no idea he was in the way). Unexpected rudeness and definitely breaching social distancing - maybe they'd had some arsey customers in earlier or something. None of the customers made any effort at social distancing and there was no one-way system or any attempt at limiting customers.
> 
> Not what I was expecting, TBH.


This has been my experience in supermarket throughout. People nicely queueing outside then no or hardly any attempt at social distancing once inside.


----------



## prunus (Jul 6, 2020)

UK calls halt to data on number of people tested for Covid-19

Their justification (that it only includes people being tested for the first time) is a proper brow-scruncher;  yes that’s odd, and not that useful a metric - so why is that what you’ve been publishing? And why not just publish the actual useful number - the number of distinct people tested each day - rather than just giving up altogether? Surely you have this data?  And trends in the percent positive rate are one of the important metrics in determining local outbreaks are they not?  If the number of tests includes an unknown number of people tested more than once it could be skewing in either direction depending on whether those people had a higher or lower incidence that the overall testing population (and assuming that their test results are self-consistent).  This just seems to be adding noise to the signal. Can anyone explain?


----------



## editor (Jul 6, 2020)

OF COURSE it's THEIR fault!









						Boris Johnson blames care home owners for deaths from coronavirus
					

‘We discovered too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have,’ prime minister claims




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## teqniq (Jul 6, 2020)

A long read, but some pretty damning stuff in there, some of it obvious, some not so much (apologies if already posted):









						Into the fog: How Britain lost track of the coronavirus
					

To tackle the coronavirus in Britain, doctors and health specialists needed to find it. But with few tests, little contact tracing and a government culture of secrecy, they lost sight of the enemy.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 6, 2020)

prunus said:


> UK calls halt to data on number of people tested for Covid-19
> 
> Their justification (that it only includes people being tested for the first time) is a proper brow-scruncher;  yes that’s odd, and not that useful a metric - so why is that what you’ve been publishing? And why not just publish the actual useful number - the number of distinct people tested each day - rather than just giving up altogether? Surely you have this data?  And trends in the percent positive rate are one of the important metrics in determining local outbreaks are they not?  If the number of tests includes an unknown number of people tested more than once it could be skewing in either direction depending on whether those people had a higher or lower incidence that the overall testing population (and assuming that their test results are self-consistent).  This just seems to be adding noise to the signal. Can anyone explain?


I think the article explains it. The full data shows that the govt has never met its own target, that's all. It's all very silly as testing has been ramped up significantly. If they hadn't made such massive promises, they could just publish it all without embarrassment - UK testing rates aren't bad now, compared internationally. Not the only country not using its full capacity either. Germany also isn't. As infection rates fall, it's not such a bad thing - the capacity is there in case of a future emergency. Seems an alien concept to this lot - having stuff ready in case of something bad in the future.

Totally agree with you, though. A simple X tests of Y people isn't skewing the data. So what if some of the people have been tested before. 

They also seem keen to join together Pillars 1 and 2. I've been mostly paying attention to Pillar 1 cos it seems more organised, and provides more of a comparison with older data from when there was only one pillar. 

It seems to me that they really have made a big effort to ramp things up, but they've still managed to make a hash of it. Mostly due to their own ridiculous, panicked overpromising. This government fucks things up even when it tries to do the right thing. It can't help it.


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## elbows (Jul 6, 2020)

Pillar one on its own was useless for spotting new outbreaks, couldnt see the Leicester thing coming via those numbers.

I think there were a number of issues with actually working out how many people were tested under pillar 2, and their failure to solve these issues is also part of the story as well as their dishonesty relating to pretending they hit certain targets.


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## elbows (Jul 6, 2020)

I see they are being shits about care home blame as well.









						Coronavirus: Boris Johnson criticised over 'cowardly' care home comments
					

The PM said "too many care homes didn't really follow the procedures" on combating coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Boris Johnson has been criticised for saying "too many care homes didn't really follow the procedures" during the coronavirus outbreak.
> 
> The PM was responding to the head of NHS England's call for reform in social care within a year.
> 
> ...



And they are trying to pretend that the role of asymptomatic transmission was not considered at the time:



> Responding to the criticism, a No 10 spokesman said care homes had "done a brilliant job under very difficult circumstances".
> 
> He added: "The PM was pointing out that nobody knew what the correct procedures were because the extent of asymptomatic transmission was not known at the time."



I had a look at some past posts and found plenty of talk about asymptomatic transmission possibilities in the early days, for example this on Feb 20th:

           #1,525         

Its true that nobody knew exactly how much of a role it had but there were suspicions from quite early on that it could be significant. The theme had come up numerous times before that last post I linked to.


----------



## zahir (Jul 6, 2020)

This article talks about the early debate over asymptomatic transmission.

How the World Missed Covid-19’s Silent Spread

It refers to this letter published on 30 January.



			https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001468


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2020)

Good. The article doesnt cover every aspect, such as the misleading findings of the WHO China team (headed by the now invisible Bruce Aylward) where the claim was made that there were hardly any asymptomatic cases in Chinas outbreak. But it has a good stab at some of the most infuriating aspects of medical dogma and the biases of the orthodoxy against emerging evidence that challenges their assumptions and planning.



> Dr. Rothe, though, was shaken. She could not understand why much of the scientific establishment seemed eager to play down the risk.
> 
> “All you need is a pair of eyes,” she said. “You don’t need rocket-science virology.”



Oh how I know that feeling from the first months of watching this pandemic unfold. I didnt get it all right, far from it, but some of the important themes were obvious from quite early on and the unreasonable resistance to them was also a bit too obvious.

To see the following in an article is something of a relief because I have touted theories about the resistance to these ideas that are along similar lines, that there is a bias against inconvenient facts that leave humans with less power to manage their fate. But this bias actually compounds such issues and we surrender the advantage of timely adaptability when we stick out heads in the sand.



> “It’s not like we had some easy alternative,” said Dr. Libman, the Canadian doctor. “The message was basically: ‘If this is true, we’re in trouble.’”



and



> Looking back, health officials should have said that, yes, symptomless spreading was happening and they did not understand how prevalent it was, said Dr. Agoritsa Baka, a senior European Union doctor.
> 
> But doing that, she said, would have amounted to an implicit warning to countries: What you’re doing might not be enough.



Oh heaven forbid we deliver such implicit warnings with sufficient time to act on them.


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## elbows (Jul 7, 2020)

I also find that whole thing especially annoying because papers from other respiratory diseases from years ago demonstrate quite well that there is much disagreement and uncertainty about this topic, but also that the implications of notable asymptomatic transmission have been on pandemic planners minds for a long time.

Just one example, from 2009 and dealing with a review of influenza-related evidence on this theme. This particular one comes down on the side of thinking asymptomatic spread of influenza may have been overestimated, but in making this point they reveal that the issue has clearly been considered in a pandemic planning context before.









						Does Influenza Transmission Occur from Asymptomatic Infection or Prior to Symptom Onset?
					

A better understanding of transmission dynamics is essential in influenza pandemic planning. If a substantial proportion of transmissions were to occur during the presymptomatic phase or from asymptomatic individuals, then infection control measures such ...




					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
				






> A better understanding of transmission dynamics is essential in influenza pandemic planning. If a substantial proportion of transmission were to occur during the presymptomatic phase or from asymptomatic individuals, then infection control measures such as contact tracing and quarantine of exposures will be of limited value, in addition to constraints based on the short serial interval for influenza transmission. However, we have found limited evidence to suggest the importance of such transmission. The role of asymptomatic or presymptomatic influenza-infected individuals in disease transmission may have been overestimated in recent articles dealing with pandemic planning. More definitive influenza transmission studies are needed.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2020)

Mind you various authorities try to set some very shitty standards when it comes to what they think they should have been expected to consider long before an actual pandemic happened. I've forgotten what dick came out with the idea that it was a revelation to them that there were bank/agency staff in care homes that would work in more than one home during the pandemic and thus be a potential vector of transmission of the virus between homes, but someone did recently. When we are dealing with this level of negligence and ineptitude, I suppose it should be no surprise that details pertaining to how the virus actually spreads are easily ignored.


----------



## editor (Jul 7, 2020)

This was strangely satisfying, albeit pointless 









						Take our survey to tell us what you think about the Government's coronavirus response
					

How do you think the Government has handled the coronavirus pandemic and what do you think about Boris Johnson's premiership so far?




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## maomao (Jul 7, 2020)

editor said:


> This was strangely satisfying, albeit pointless
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I just did that in conservative voting retired sergeant major mode. Don't think they care what lefties think.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2020)

Another one for the asymptomatic pile:



> Only 22% of people testing positive for coronavirus reported having symptoms on the day of their test, according to the Office for National Statistics.
> 
> This hammers home the importance of "asymptomatic transmission" - spread of the virus by people who aren't aware they're carrying it.











						Coronavirus: Majority testing positive have no symptoms
					

A survey by the Office for National Statistics looked at who had been infected in the community in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## zora (Jul 7, 2020)

Bleugh, I am feeling somewhat despondent again today. I am not at all happy with the level (or lack) of distancing I am seeing all around me now. 
Back at work in retail in Central London for the past three weeks. Public transport still pleasingly empty (I can thankfully walk, but I always have a good look what the buses look like). Also lots of people having lunch and picnics together with more distance than they otherwise would have had.
BUT distancing in my workplace is really poor, both among staff and with customers. I am actually really upset (and in the process of drafting a long email outlining my concerns). There are just countless interactions between people at less than two metres, less than one metre even without any masks or anything. Outside other workplaces, lots of groups hugging hello and goodbye, and filing six deep into a pub where I am sure their distancing won't suddenly magically improve. Staff in other workplaces, cafes etc, also not distancing, constantly reaching over one another. I don't even blame anyone personally, for example in my workplace, apart from one Trumpian arsehole, all my colleagues are kind, considerate, reasonable people, and it seems to be just the human nature and workflow thing - but why oh why can't this cunt government make masks mandatory.  😭 

Just a minute ago, the latest Guardian update had something on "Boris Johnson explains that if masks are worn they should cover the nose as well as the mouth" and something vague about a public information campaign. So maybe this is just one of their soft (and late) launches of a new initiative, and maybe they will still make masks compulsory, but it's a desperately small straw for me to clutch at!


----------



## LDC (Jul 7, 2020)

teqniq said:


> A long read, but some pretty damning stuff in there, some of it obvious, some not so much (apologies if already posted):
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That is really very good (bad). Thanks.


----------



## LDC (Jul 7, 2020)

zora said:


> Bleugh, I am feeling somewhat despondent again today. I am not at all happy with the level (or lack) of distancing I am seeing all around me now.
> Back at work in retail in Central London for the past three weeks. Public transport still pleasingly empty (I can thankfully walk, but I always have a good look what the buses look like). Also lots of people having lunch and picnics together with more distance than they otherwise would have had.
> BUT distancing in my workplace is really poor, both among staff and with customers. I am actually really upset (and in the process of drafting a long email outlining my concerns). There are just countless interactions between people at less than two metres, less than one metre even without any masks or anything. Outside other workplaces, lots of groups hugging hello and goodbye, and filing six deep into a pub where I am sure their distancing won't suddenly magically improve. Staff in other workplaces, cafes etc, also not distancing, constantly reaching over one another. I don't even blame anyone personally, for example in my workplace, apart from one Trumpian arsehole, all my colleagues are kind, considerate, reasonable people, and it seems to be just the human nature and workflow thing - but why oh why can't this cunt government make masks mandatory.  😭
> 
> Just a minute ago, the latest Guardian update had something on *"Boris Johnson explains that if masks are worn they should cover the nose as well as the mouth"* and something vague about a public information campaign. So maybe this is just one of their soft (and late) launches of a new initiative, and maybe they will still make masks compulsory, but it's a desperately small straw for me to clutch at!



That sounds hard, yeah really needs some decent public info asap, and make masks compulsory in all indoor setting outside your own home.

Re: my bolded bit, sometimes it's really hard not to think that people are fucking idiots.


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## tim (Jul 7, 2020)

The weekly death rate is slightly below average for the second week running, which is better than being double the average which is what it was at the peak

Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics


----------



## Numbers (Jul 7, 2020)

teqniq said:


> A long read, but some pretty damning stuff in there, some of it obvious, some not so much (apologies if already posted):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Cheers for posting that.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 7, 2020)

teqniq said:


> A long read, but some pretty damning stuff in there, some of it obvious, some not so much (apologies if already posted):
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's a really good article, but I can't help feeling it falls a bit short of what it could have been.  For instance, it mentions the no-bid contract for the contact-tracing app, but doesn't mention that it went to one of Cummings' dodgy mates, and it doesn't mention all the dodgy PPE contracts either. It paints a good picture of incompetence and obfuscation, but seems to shy away from talking about what looks to be neither more nor less than corruption.


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## teqniq (Jul 7, 2020)

Yeah I thought it pulled it's punches on that front as well. The whole secrecy thing however is somewhat of an eye-opener.


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## scifisam (Jul 7, 2020)

When workers are tested for covid, it's going to be counted as a taxable benefit.









						Coronavirus: Workers will not pay tax on tests by their employer
					

The Treasury grants tax exemption for the tests following criticism from MPs.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I don't know how much tax difference that will make to most workers, but it shouldn't even be 50p. 

The employers shouldn't have to pay for it either. 

And I can't think of a better way to discourage workers and employers from testing.


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2020)

scifisam said:


> When workers are tested for covid, it's going to be counted as a taxable benefit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That'll get sorted very quickly.



> Mr Sunak said: "I'm delighted with him for raising this with me and of course we will look into it very quickly."


----------



## teqniq (Jul 7, 2020)

A tale of indifference and pass the buck. The evils of outsourcing:









						Death at the ministry - Tortoise
					

For Emanuel Gomes, the most striking thing about the coronavirus lockdown was that it never existed. “From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction: you must stay at home,” Boris Johnson told the nation on the evening of 23 March, as he declared a national emergency...



					members.tortoisemedia.com


----------



## two sheds (Jul 8, 2020)

Government to scrap free parking for NHS staff
					

‘Free parking for staff has only been made possible by support from local authorities and independent providers and this support cannot continue indefinitely’




					www.independent.co.uk
				




Utter, utter cunts


----------



## phillm (Jul 8, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Government to scrap free parking for NHS staff
> 
> 
> ‘Free parking for staff has only been made possible by support from local authorities and independent providers and this support cannot continue indefinitely’
> ...


They couldn't even wait to year-end could they? His nursing 'saviours' should speak out and call out his utter cuntery. Seeing him in full bluster and deflection mode in PMQs turned me into as boiling bilious rage.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 8, 2020)

phillm said:


> They couldn't even wait to year-end could they? His nursing 'saviours' should speak out and call out his utter cuntery. Seeing him in full bluster and deflection mode in PMQs turned me into as boiling bilious rage.



The bit that particularly got me was "Free parking for staff has only been made possible by ..." 

Lying pieces of shit. It could be made possible in thousands of ways but they won't do any of them


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## IC3D (Jul 8, 2020)

NCP ditched the free parking weeks ago.


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## William of Walworth (Jul 8, 2020)

phillm said:


> They couldn't even wait to year-end could they? His nursing 'saviours' should speak out and call out his utter cuntery. *Seeing him in full bluster and deflection mode in PMQs turned me into as boiling bilious rage*.



Was Johnson being questioned on the nurses' parking thing specifically?


----------



## Calamity1971 (Jul 8, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Was Johnson being questioned on the nurses' parking thing specifically?


Yeh, his reply was , well labour charged as well.


----------



## spitfire (Jul 8, 2020)

maomao said:


> I just did that in conservative voting retired sergeant major mode. Don't think they care what lefties think.



Good idea. I just did the same.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 8, 2020)

Calamity1971 said:


> Yeh, his reply was , *well labour charged as well*.



I just about remember that years back, and thinking it was crap at the time. 
Nurse friends of ours were correctly pissed off.

But withdrawing charges and then re-imposing them, is on that bit higher a Tory level of shiteness .....


----------



## phillm (Jul 8, 2020)

With Johnson expect the worse and then go lower. He is an actual piece of filth.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 8, 2020)

phillm said:


> They couldn't even wait to year-end could they? His nursing 'saviours' should speak out and call out his utter cuntery. Seeing him in full bluster and deflection mode in PMQs turned me into as boiling bilious rage.


Think they have actually calculated we will be so excited by the half price pizza hut announcement that we won't notice this detail.


----------



## phillm (Jul 8, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Think they have actually calculated we will be so excited by the half price pizza hut announcement that we won't notice this detail.


Coronas not included in the deal (food and soft drinks only) or maybe they are ? Rishi Sunak is a shoo-in for a real-life Super-Marination.

At the Nuermberg Trial Johnson gets the noose and Sunak gets a 10 year Albert Speer.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 8, 2020)

Blaming staff for cv outbreaks is catching on  









						Hillingdon hospital boss blames staff for A&E closure after Covid-19 outbreak
					

Main hospital serving Boris Johnson’s constituency in west London says 70 staff are isolating




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The chief executive of the hospital that serves Boris Johnson’s constituency, which has shut its A&E unit after an outbreak of coronavirus, has blamed staff for flouting the rules by not wearing masks at work. ...
> 
> However, the Guardian can reveal that the hospital’s chief executive, Sarah Tedford, has blamed the outbreak on “irresponsible” staff flouting infection control rules by not wearing a mask while at work, as all NHS staff in England now have to do, and standing or sitting too close to each other.
> 
> ...



followed by some condescending crap about how important this all is, with (my bold) showing she didn't actually see them. And we learn a little further down. 



> In April the trust was criticised by a healthcare assistant who quit when managers at the hospital refused her permission to wear a surgical mask to protect herself and her patients.
> 
> Tracy Brennan had self-isolated for 14 days after her daughter had shown symptoms. When she returned to work, she wore a surgical mask she had bought herself, to reduce the risk of her contracting or passing on the infection. But when her bosses told her that the next day she could not do so, she removed it. However, she explained in her resignation letter that managers again told her later that day that she could not wear the mask even though a patient had accidentally coughed into her unprotected face when she was taking blood.
> 
> In her letter she said: “With a heavy heart and sadness I feel I have no alternative but to hand this letter in as my formal resignation and will be unable to work my notice due to not being allowed to wear sufficient PPE [personal protective equipment] for the duties I perform.”



and 



> At the time, the trust said it took the safety of all its staff extremely seriously and followed national guidelines.



so that's all right then, nothing to do with them.


----------



## Sprocket. (Jul 9, 2020)

I expect no less of them, steal other people’s thunder for successes, blame others, usually innocents, for their failures. A normal practise for British management.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 9, 2020)

This £1000 per employee kept post furlough thing is spectacularly pointless, isn’t it?  No firm is going to keep a single employee just because they get £1000 for it.  So it’s just money paid to private businesses for no reason,


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 9, 2020)

kabbes said:


> This £1000 per employee kept post furlough thing is spectacularly pointless, isn’t it?  No firm is going to keep a single employee just because they get £1000 for it.  So it’s just money paid to private businesses for no reason,



Agreed.  It makes no sense at all.  The promise of £1k later down the line if you keep someone on for an extra few months is worthless.  Just a bung.


----------



## maomao (Jul 9, 2020)

kabbes said:


> This £1000 per employee kept post furlough thing is spectacularly pointless, isn’t it?  No firm is going to keep a single employee just because they get £1000 for it.  So it’s just money paid to private businesses for no reason,


Bung to business cause businesses are fucked but the populace won't swallow that, especially after the Nandos vouchers, so dress it up as a job retention scheme while doing nothing for job retention.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 9, 2020)

kabbes said:


> This £1000 per employee kept post furlough thing is spectacularly pointless, isn’t it?  No firm is going to keep a single employee just because they get £1000 for it.  So it’s just money paid to private businesses for no reason,


Maybe it's slightly useful for tiny businesses that don't pay all that much? Like if you're a hairdresser and employ a couple of weekend trainees that you were going to have to let go, maybe you can keep them on for a few more months. But for any decent size employer it is pointless, definitely.


----------



## Smangus (Jul 9, 2020)

kabbes said:


> This £1000 per employee kept post furlough thing is spectacularly pointless, isn’t it?  No firm is going to keep a single employee just because they get £1000 for it.  So it’s just money paid to private businesses for no reason,



It certainly hasn't influenced John Lewis or Boots with their decisions today.


----------



## MrSki (Jul 9, 2020)

kabbes said:


> This £1000 per employee kept post furlough thing is spectacularly pointless, isn’t it?  No firm is going to keep a single employee just because they get £1000 for it.  So it’s just money paid to private businesses for no reason,


Just think of the companies who furloughed 80% of staff & need to make redundancies. It will now be the 20% who worked through it who will be dumped on the scrap heap cos the company will get a bag of sand for each employee who was furloughed.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2020)

Smangus said:


> It certainly hasn't influenced John Lewis or Boots with their decisions today.



They were both looking to close stores before Covid, it's just speeded up the inevitable.


----------



## maomao (Jul 9, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Maybe it's slightly useful for tiny businesses that don't pay all that much? Like if you're a hairdresser and employ a couple of weekend trainees that you were going to have to let go, maybe you can keep them on for a few more months. But for any decent size employer it is pointless, definitely.


There's a minimum wage to qualify (£520 p.m.) so probably wouldn't cover a weekend trainee.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 9, 2020)

If you think of how many town centre regeneration schemes were built  upon getting  big name chains and stores  in you can see the effect of these closures is going to have on local economies and workers.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 9, 2020)

Smangus said:


> It certainly hasn't influenced John Lewis or Boots with their decisions today.


Or possibly it has, just not in a positive direction.


----------



## Cerv (Jul 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> There's a minimum wage to qualify (£520 p.m.) so probably wouldn't cover a weekend trainee.


so despite Sunak's rhetoric this is not designed as a jobs retention scheme or part there of. it is in no way intended to prevent or discourage layoffs that would otherwise happen.
it's just a slightly roundabout way to get some money into businesses who're suffering reduced cashflow. to help on back rent, reopening costs, etc. without paying anything to businesses that are just going to shut down anyway.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 9, 2020)

Oh look, Nadine Dorries is being disingenuous again:


----------



## Wilf (Jul 9, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Think they have actually calculated we will be so excited by the half price pizza hut announcement that we won't notice this detail.


If it was Pizza Express, it might be a scheme to tempt prince andrew out of hiding.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 9, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Oh look, Nadine Dorries is being disingenuous again:



I expect she's being the mouthpiece for someone else's disingenuousness - I struggle to credit her with the smarts to do it by herself.


----------



## Petcha (Jul 9, 2020)

So, the group most affected by the virus. The elderly. Many of whom are still self isolating and probably spending their days watching the box. What does the BBC do? Oh, fleece em for 160 quid.









						BBC in row with No 10 over decision to restrict free TV licences
					

Licence fee for over-75s will only be waived for people on pension credit from next month




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Raheem (Jul 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So, the group most affected by the virus. The elderly. Many of whom are still self isolating and probably spending their days watching the box. What does the BBC do? Oh, fleece em for 160 quid.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The alternative would be to spend a fifth of it's budget each year on free licences. Right or wrong, it was never realistically going to happen.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 9, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I expect she's being the mouthpiece for someone else's disingenuousness - I struggle to credit her with the smarts to do it by herself.



Oh I don't know.  She's stupid enough to think people won't notice the date on the report she cites!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Oh I don't know.  She's stupid enough to think people won't notice the date on the report she cites!



TBF she's stupid enough not to have spotted the date on the report herself.


----------



## editor (Jul 9, 2020)

Watching this now...



References: Cochrane Review on Signs and Symptoms: https://www.cochrane.org/news/feature... BBC, “How Covid-19 can damage the Brain": https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20... Science, “Blood vessel attack could trigger CV second wave" https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/... The Lancet, "CV affects Endothelial Cells" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/la... Hypothalamus as hub for SARS2 infection, Nampoothiri et al https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.11... Hypothalamus function, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotha... New York Times, Daily Podcast, “Four New Insights About the Coronavirus”: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/po...


----------



## Petcha (Jul 9, 2020)

Wilf said:


> If it was Pizza Express, it might be a scheme to tempt prince andrew out of hiding.



He was already tempted..









						Prince Andrew to officiate at grand reopening of Woking Pizza Express
					

THE Duke of York will officially reopen the Woking branch of Pizza Express when it begins serving again on July 4th.




					www.thedailymash.co.uk


----------



## maomao (Jul 9, 2020)

Swimming pools to reopen later this months but sd measures will include 'no overtaking'. Fuck that. Lane hogs are bad enough already at my local pool.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 9, 2020)

just push them under and go over the top, safest option so they don't breathe on you


----------



## IC3D (Jul 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> Swimming pools to reopen later this months but sd measures will include 'no overtaking'. Fuck that. Lane hogs are bad enough already at my local pool.


Nope. 
How much extra chlorine do you think they'll put in it!


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> Swimming pools to reopen later this months but sd measures will include 'no overtaking'. Fuck that. Lane hogs are bad enough already at my local pool.



Tell slow people they need to Get Out to Help Out.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 9, 2020)

as they say glug glug gurgle gurgle


----------



## teqniq (Jul 9, 2020)

In light of Tim Martin's appaling behaviour regarding his employees and the Covid pandemic, I thought this could do with a little publicity:

Cross posted with a very old Wetherspoons thread in General









						‘Neverspoons’ app points out independent pubs near Wetherspoons
					

The London Economic - The app shows green pins to denote recommended boozers, whereas red pins highlight Wetherspoons branches - News




					www.thelondoneconomic.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2020)

So, the move back to normal continues...



> Pools, gyms and sports facilities will be able to reopen and team sports and outdoor gigs resume in England, the government has announced.
> 
> Outdoor pools and performances can resume from Saturday with social distancing in place, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said.
> 
> ...


----------



## klang (Jul 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> Swimming pools to reopen later this months but sd measures will include 'no overtaking'. Fuck that. Lane hogs are bad enough already at my local pool.


make sure you get in the pool first.


----------



## Petcha (Jul 9, 2020)

teqniq said:


> In light of Tim Martin's appaling behaviour regarding his employees and the Covid pandemic, I thought this could do with a little publicity:
> 
> Cross posted with a very old Wetherspoons thread in General
> 
> ...



I went into my local Spoons for the first time today. They had a very much optional little form you could fill in at the front and put into a box. Which nobody was. Otherwise completely normal.


----------



## Supine (Jul 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I went into my local Spoons for the first time today. They had a very much optional little form you could fill in at the front and put into a box. Which nobody was. Otherwise completely normal.



who’d have thought tim wankerface would do a half arsed job on that


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 9, 2020)

teqniq said:


> In light of Tim Martin's appaling behaviour regarding his employees and the Covid pandemic, I thought this could do with a little publicity:
> Cross posted with a very old Wetherspoons thread in General
> 
> 
> ...



Another excellent site for that purpose is easy to use in terms of finding the nearest good pub to a poorer one. 
We've used What Pub? for general pub-finding purposes for ages -- I thoroughly recommend  it.

Well I would, because it's a CAMRA site , but for both location and beer information, and for an impression of what a new pub's atmosphere will be like, it's a great site IMO


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 9, 2020)

We'll be boycotting Wetherspoons anyway, but in Wales, none of them will be opening next Monday (13th) -- the opening day for outsides (only) of _some_ pubs here 

ETA : Apologies, my posts should reallly be for the pub thread, but above posts ae transgressing too .....


----------



## Ax^ (Jul 9, 2020)

wtf is these reports of track and trace costing 10 billion?


if so why is Hancock's head not on a pike


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 9, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> Can someone explain how the failed trace and track system caused 10 billion
> 
> or was most of that just paying Tory cronies?


The trace and track system hasn't failed yet its still going and will be there for a while to say the least.  Its questionable how successful it has been so far and how successful it will be in the future but its yet to totally fail.  There is a lot of people involved in t&t so that 10 billion (I'm quoting your figure) is probably the long term cost of it.  Of course it'll also be a massive bung for their mates.

I suspect you are thinking of the app which was just one element of t&t.


----------



## Ax^ (Jul 9, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> The trace and track system hasn't failed yet its still going and will be there for a while to say the least.  Its questionable how successful it has been so far and how successful it will be in the future but its yet to totally fail.  There is a lot of people involved in t&t so that 10 billion (I'm quoting your figure) is probably the long term cost of it.  Of course it'll also be a massive bung for their mates.
> 
> I suspect you are thinking of the app which was just one element of t&t.



aye i suspected that did sound a bit like pre spin based on the amount of time the whole system has been running

still madness

and can we still have Hancock head on a pike


----------



## phillm (Jul 9, 2020)

Wilf said:


> If it was Pizza Express, it might be a scheme to tempt prince andrew out of hiding.


I'll never forget the day I read your post in 2040 something....under a blood red sky


----------



## Mation (Jul 9, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Nope.
> How much extra chlorine do you think they'll put in it!


Don't think there'll be any need for that kind of thing.

We'll be protected because butterfly stroke has been banned. 



> 17:26
> *Dowden: I feel let down by BBC*
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## scifisam (Jul 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> Don't think there'll be any need for that kind of thing.
> 
> We'll be protected because butterfly stroke has been banned.



Isn't that the ginger bloke from Game On??


----------



## DaveCinzano (Jul 10, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Isn't that the ginger bloke from Game On??


They'll be getting Colin from _The Brittas Empire_ on as the acting CMO next


----------



## David Clapson (Jul 10, 2020)

Apparently there are already 250,000 people with 'longcovid' in the UK.   Which is about the same number of people diagnosed with ME/CFS.  I reckon this is the biggest reason why the under-70s need to avoid catching COVID. It may wreck a lot of lives, with comparatively young people being permanently off work. We just don't know.


----------



## Mation (Jul 10, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Isn't that the ginger bloke from Game On??


Havent seen it, so looked it up. 

Yes. Yes, apparently it is!


----------



## editor (Jul 10, 2020)

Us plucky, go-it-alone Brits don't need no foreign vaccine. Just look at the world beating success of our contact tracing app!









						UK has opted out of EU coronavirus vaccine programme, sources say
					

EU to invest €2bn on vaccines now being tested but UK officials say scheme benefits are ‘limited’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## editor (Jul 10, 2020)

This utterly pointless slab of empty gesture politics has now been cancelled. 








						Coronavirus: Quarantine rules end for dozens of destinations
					

Travellers to the UK from more than 70 places no longer have to self-isolate from Friday.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 10, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Apparently there are already 250,000 people with 'longcovid' in the UK.   Which is about the same number of people diagnosed with ME/CFS.  I reckon this is the biggest reason why the under-70s need to avoid catching COVID. It may wreck a lot of lives, with comparatively young people being permanently off work. We just don't know.



Yep, can't see that tweet for some reason, but as I've said on here before, it's frustrating the public messaging hasn't changed on this yet. Just because you're young and fit and 'recover', doesn't mean you're going to get your full health back in the short or even medium term. It's a lottery, and not a very nice one.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 10, 2020)

Oh look, more corruption - another Gove/Cummings-linked firm given a fat contract with no open tendering process.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 10, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Oh look, more corruption - another Gove/Cummings-linked firm given a fat contract with no open tendering process.



We'll fucking tell them for free : mad:


----------



## Chilli.s (Jul 10, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Oh look, more corruption - another Gove/Cummings-linked firm given a fat contract with no open tendering process.


Blatant corruption. No tender process? wtaf? bordering on criminally irresponsible.


----------



## Supine (Jul 10, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> bordering on criminally irresponsible.



We'll find out. The good law project are taking them to court


----------



## phillm (Jul 10, 2020)

two sheds said:


> We'll fucking tell them for free : mad:


A really diverse bunch of cunts as well.





__





						Our People - Public First
					

-




					www.publicfirst.co.uk


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 10, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Blatant corruption. No tender process? wtaf? bordering on criminally irresponsible.



Tbf the British state's often sidestepped its normal processes in an emergency and that's okay when there's a genuine need to obtain something in a hurry, but 'focus group research' hardly sounds like something that's so desperately needed that it can't go through competitive tender. 

I'd have said the current lot in government stepped over the line into criminal irresponsibility several years ago tbh.


----------



## BigDaftie (Jul 10, 2020)

Are any mid to high value tender processes not corrupt, news to me.


----------



## LDC (Jul 10, 2020)

Looks like we're being readied for compulsory masks in shops soon.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Looks like we're being readied for compulsory masks in shops soon.


Because it's all going so well.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Looks like we're being readied for compulsory masks in shops soon.


That would spoil the "Back To Normal Britain" narrative. I don't think we'll see that in England until a second wave hits, and probably after a delay too, with the usual "who could have predicted" stuff.


----------



## LDC (Jul 10, 2020)

I dunno, there's been a few reports about how many lives they would save, and it's not inconsiderable. Also Johnson pictured wearing one today in a shop and reported in The Guardian it's being considered









						Face masks could be mandatory in shops, signals Boris Johnson
					

Scientists urge ministers to set good example by publicly wearing face coverings




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## zahir (Jul 10, 2020)

Independent SAGE


----------



## MrSki (Jul 10, 2020)

Here is why 'No. of people tested' was scrapped when they realised their figures were somewhat misleading.


----------



## Ax^ (Jul 10, 2020)

Well it refreshing to see sky news point out that the government is lying to us


let wait till December the 31st in the midst of a second wave


----------



## phillm (Jul 11, 2020)

Our wold beating ignore and let die strategy is working out well and well in to phase 2 now which is blame verybody but HMG.


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 11, 2020)

How are we doing so much worse than the US?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 11, 2020)

What's the "official" number of C19 deaths at now?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 11, 2020)

The government is now planning a war on obesity to help cut down Corona fatalities.


Contrasts nicely with telling us all to order pizzas Mon to Fri


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 11, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> How are we doing so much worse than the US?



At this point in time, it's more a question of WHY WERE we doing so much worse than the US? 

Looking at the 7-day rolling average of daily deaths, we continue to go down (Fri. 3/6 - 103 down to 74 yesterday), the US is going up again (Fri 3/6 - 555 up to 657 yesterday), IF those paths continues, there will be a point at which they overtake us.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> At this point in time, it's more a question of WHY WERE we doing so much worse than the US?
> 
> Looking at the 7-day rolling average of daily deaths, we continue to go down (Fri. 3/6 - 103 down to 74 yesterday), the US is going up again (Fri 3/6 - 555 up to 657 yesterday), IF those paths continues, there will be a point at which they overtake us.


Yep. And current infection/hospitalisation rates mean we can be confident the death rate here will continue to fall quite steeply over the next couple of weeks.

UK isn't doing badly now. Scotland and the whole of southern England are doing really rather well, and have been for a while. 

I see no reason why the UK shouldn't be at the levels of Italy and Belgium in a couple of weeks. Also countries with much higher deaths than the US atm but that have calmed right down. We should take the good news where we can get it imo.


----------



## killer b (Jul 11, 2020)

I've not seen this mentioned anywhere, but I'm reading this short book about the psychology of the pandemic - really interesting stuff. I know a lot of people here are into Stephen Reicher, who is involved. It's free to download too. 









						Addressing the Psychology of 'Together Apart': Free Book Download - Social Science Space
					

Given the import of its subject matter, SAGE Publishing (the parent of Social Science Space) had agreed to make an e-book o the psychology of COVID-19 freely available.




					www.socialsciencespace.com


----------



## LDC (Jul 11, 2020)

killer b said:


> I've not seen this mentioned anywhere, but I'm reading this short book about the psychology of the pandemic - really interesting stuff. I know a lot of people here are into Stephen Reicher, who is involved. It's free to download too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



John Drury and Clifford Stott that have been mentioned here over the years for a variety of reasons are contributors too.


----------



## killer b (Jul 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> John Drury and Clifford Stott that have been mentioned here over the years for a variety of reasons are contributors too.


it's good stuff - some pretty insightful writing about the psychology of groups which should probably have some application  away from just pandemic stuff too.


----------



## David Clapson (Jul 11, 2020)

Forgive me if this has been mentioned, but there's a theory about T cells which is getting some traction. If it's true it would mean that antibody tests are not to be relied on, and more of us have had the virus than we realise. It's much too technical for me, but Reuters has had a go at summarising it: Scientists focus on how immune system T cells fight coronavirus in absence of antibodies

More here: T-cell immunity and the truth about Covid-19 in Sweden - The Post

And here: Robust T cell immunity in convalescent individuals with asymptomatic or mild COVID-19


----------



## Cerv (Jul 11, 2020)

Mation said:


> We'll be protected because butterfly stroke has been banned.


every cloud a silver lining


----------



## 2hats (Jul 11, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Forgive me if this has been mentioned


Congratulations, though to be fair it was almost a fortnight ago.


----------



## David Clapson (Jul 11, 2020)

2hats said:


> Congratulations, though to be fair it was almost a fortnight ago.


It's going mainstream now.


How long before we get a test which tells us  whether we're immune? Or is that not how it works?


----------



## zahir (Jul 12, 2020)

Revealed: 20 areas of England at most risk of coronavirus resurgence
					

Bradford, Sheffield and Kirklees are among areas of concern as army is deployed for hotspot mobile tests




					www.theguardian.com
				





> The top 10 ranking is likely to be based on a document circulated to local health chiefs on Thursday, headed “official sensitive”. The chart, compiled by PHE and reproduced here, ranks the 20 councils with the highest proportion of positive cases. Leicester remains at its head, with 5.7% of individuals who underwent a test found to have the virus. Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, was not far behind, with a 5% rate. Bradford, and Blackburn with Darwen in Lancashire, were the next highest.



Keighley looks like it has a problem:


> The council has today deployed testing units, staffed by the armed forces, to its Bowling and Keighley districts. Residents will be able to be tested without an appointment. Similar units will be deployed in Blackburn and Sheffield.





			https://www.bradford.gov.uk/browse-all-news/press-releases/mobile-testing-units-in-keighley-and-bowling-bradford/


----------



## Numbers (Jul 12, 2020)

I’m very surprised London isn’t on any concerned list - where I live social distancing doesn’t nor never really did exist, and with the tubes etc. I’m surprised, grateful for sure but surprised.


----------



## rubbershoes (Jul 12, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I’m very surprised London isn’t on any concerned list - where I live social distancing doesn’t nor never really did exist, and with the tubes etc. I’m surprised, grateful for sure but surprised.



Is it because a significant number of people in London have either had it or are believed to be immune? There's a smaller percentage of people who non masked and infectious people could pass it to.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 12, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I’m very surprised London isn’t on any concerned list - where I live social distancing doesn’t nor never really did exist, and with the tubes etc. I’m surprised, grateful for sure but surprised.



I think it's surprising London isn't showing up more because if you look at the factors attributed to those areas that do have a high rate - overcrowding, people having no choice but to go to work in shit conditions - they certainly do exist in parts of London. 

Maybe the size of the place is enough to mask it? Although it is done by borough and any given London borough isn't massively bigger than somewhere like Leicester.


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2020)

The figures they use for this are per 100,000 population, percentage of tests that were positive, number of detected outbreaks at specific institutions, places of work etc. So the size of the place is already factored in, although the number of tests carried out in some places compared to others can still distort some of these numbers.


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2020)

That cunt Gove talking shit about masks, make him work in a small shop for a week and I reckon he'd change his tune after 5 minutes.


----------



## Numbers (Jul 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> The figures they use for this are per 100,000 population, percentage of tests that were positive, number of detected outbreaks at specific institutions, places of work etc. So the size of the place is already factored in, although the number of tests carried out in some places compared to others can still distort some of these numbers.


If there was a comma after the penultimate word there elbows I’d have felt personally addressed and honoured - you’ve been such a source of information in this pandemic, thanks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 12, 2020)

I see new daily cases being reported this weekend are up a massive 30% on last weekend (reported on Sat & Sun combined last w/e 1140 up to 1470 this w/e).

Now, the big question is if this is because of the increase in testing in the 20 council areas of particular concern, or if it's spread nationwide & connected to pubs etc. being re-opened.


----------



## zahir (Jul 12, 2020)

Here’s one outbreak that will account for part of the increase:








						Coronavirus: 200 farm workers quarantined in Herefordshire outbreak
					

At least 73 employees at AS Green & Co near Malvern have tested positive for Covid-19




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> That cunt Gove talking shit about masks, make him work in a small shop for a week and I reckon he'd change his tune after 5 minutes.


He probably wouldn't - he's a fanatic. His record in other areas indicates that and he supported MPs coming back to parliament even though that was clearly endangering them all, even him. His faction either think that the work ethic is worth more than life, or are too stupid to know the effects of what they're proposing, or some combination.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 12, 2020)

Article referred to on urban somewhere reckoned it's deliberate to reduce the number of MPs who can vote - along the way to turning parliamentary to presidential type government.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 12, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Article referred to on urban somewhere reckoned it's deliberate to reduce the number of MPs who can vote - along the way to turning parliamentary to presidential type government.


Bringing MPs back definitely was - but it also endangers the lot of them, which means they are either too thick to realise that and/or simply don't care and think their political goals are more important than the risk to their own lives.

Of course there will be an element of denialism, "it's not that bad / it doesn't spread as easily as people say", but that comes in to back up an existing motivation rather than being a motive in itself.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 12, 2020)

any bar charts of relative ages/weights/etc of the different parties and resultant scores so far?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 12, 2020)

This is Gove who wanted to send out inscripted bibles to every school btw. In the past he's been held back somewhat because he's a bit of a div and had competition, but in the modern Tory cabinet he's a major strategic genius.

ETA: inscripted? Inscribed you doofus.


----------



## Cloo (Jul 12, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> How are we doing so much worse than the US?


US is much bigger and probably has a lot of places of low population density and low use of public transport?


----------



## andysays (Jul 13, 2020)

zahir said:


> Here’s one outbreak that will account for part of the increase:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"the opportunity to work in a safe, healthy environment", according to the farm owner when trying to attract workers in April. 

The reality, unsurprisingly, turned out to be rather different. 

Be interesting to see if any of the affected workers are interviewed about the conditions after this is over


----------



## andysays (Jul 13, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> This is Gove who wanted to send out inscripted bibles to every school btw. In the past he's been held back somewhat because he's a bit of a div and had competition, but in the modern Tory cabinet he's a major strategic genius.
> 
> ETA: inscripted? Inscribed you doofus.


Or even encrypted...


----------



## zahir (Jul 13, 2020)

School staff have tested positive for coronavirus - but it's staying open
					

School bosses say they are following Public Health England guidance




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
				





> Harrop Fold School in Salford has undergone a thorough clean after two members of staff tested positive for Covid 19.
> 
> The staff concerned, as well as colleagues and children who may have been in contact with them, have been told to self-isolate.
> 
> But health and education bosses have decided the school is safe enough to open as usual on Monday to the children of key workers.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 13, 2020)

This thread will get quite boring if every micro outbreak is listed from now on.


----------



## pesh (Jul 13, 2020)

if you get too bored you can always go back to the model railway thread


----------



## Mation (Jul 13, 2020)

Looking for some voluntary work? How about donating your considerable expertise to our cash-strapped Government?

*



			VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

Senior Policy Advisors (Test & Trace programme)
		
Click to expand...

*


> Department of Health and Social Care
> Time required:_ 3-6 months_
> These roles include developing testing policy according to the latest scientific advice, helping ensure the programme is targeting tests in ways which make the most difference, helping to design a longer-term delivery model for testing, and providing advice on all testing related policy. Desired skills and responsibilities:
> 
> ...







E2a: edited out the email address as this probably isn't the fault of whoever has to receive the applications.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 13, 2020)

That's definitely a Civil Service level of skills  being required --- so why the fuck are people being asked to volunteer, and presumably unpaid?


----------



## Cid (Jul 13, 2020)

I love the amount of information tied up in the undercurrents of this one: 'Ability to effectively communicate with senior people in a clear, concise and action-focused way'


----------



## two sheds (Jul 13, 2020)

Cid said:


> I love the amount of information tied up in the undercurrents of this one: 'Ability to effectively communicate with senior people in a clear, concise and action-focused way'



"Just fuck off granny will you?"


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 13, 2020)

Mation said:


> Looking for some voluntary work? How about donating your considerable expertise to our cash-strapped Government?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Whats the website for this as I'd like to send it about?


----------



## Mation (Jul 14, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Whats the website for this as I'd like to send it about?


It was in an email from the Association for Medical Research Charities (AMRC). Can't find it on their site, though. You might have to sign up to their newsletter.


----------



## tim (Jul 14, 2020)

Capability to show creativity and research skills in developing policy at a fast-pace, working across teams to ensure alignment with *steers*

*steer noun [C] (COW)*
a young male of the cattle family that has had its sex organs removed, usually kept for meat

Thesaurus: synonyms and related words


----------



## Dogsauce (Jul 14, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> That's definitely a Civil Service level of skills  being required --- so why the fuck are people being asked to volunteer, and presumably unpaid?



They can’t afford to pay anyone because Cummings’ mates have trousered all the government’s cash already?


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 14, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> They can’t afford to pay anyone because Cummings’ mates have trousered all the government’s cash already?



Some of it.  The rest's being blown on massive lorry parks and hundreds of extra customs form-fillers.


----------



## phillm (Jul 14, 2020)

A good summary form Indy Sage Chair Sir David King of where we are and how we got here and what Indy Sage hopes to achieve.









						Thread by @RadTransparent: Last week @RobinToal met @IndependentSAGE Chair and Founder, @Sir_David_King King to discuss the UK government response coronavirus pandemic…
					

Thread by @RadTransparent: Last week @RobinToal met @IndependentSAGE Chair and Founder, @Sir_David_King King to discuss the UK government resvirus pandemic and trust in science. With #PubsReopening in England, furthering the possibility of a #secondwave,…




					threadreaderapp.com


----------



## teuchter (Jul 14, 2020)

It seems that we are now seeing fewer deaths overall than we normally would at this time of year.




One thing about this that is surprising to me is that it appears to apply to the younger age groups as well as the older ones.


----------



## maomao (Jul 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It seems that we are now seeing fewer deaths overall than we normally would at this time of year.
> 
> View attachment 222205
> 
> ...


Presumably at least in part because of less economic activity. Harder to die when you're sitting in your house (I know lockdown is over, but the furloughed and redundant are less likely to leave their houses than they were before). I wonder if road casualties have noticeably dropped.

Also the sharp downwards line on the last two weeks will be at least partly because of the same delays in reporting deaths that have affected COVID death rates.

I know a lot of people desperately want this to be the people who were going to die anyway being already dead but that effect is going to be tiny and stretched over years not weeks.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 14, 2020)

I think the yellow band means they have tried to correct for the delayed reporting effect.


----------



## strung out (Jul 14, 2020)

Presumably terminally ill people from all age groups who were tipped over the edge are now being corrected for in the excess deaths.


----------



## maomao (Jul 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I think the yellow band means they have tried to correct for the delayed reporting effect.


Well we'll see won't we.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 14, 2020)

This hasn't been peer-reviewed yet, but would seem a fairly simple bit of research, so it wouldn't surprise me if it's confirmed, and is somewhat worrying, suggesting any immunity in recovered patients may only last a few months.



> According to the research, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, immunity antibodies decrease significantly in the three months following infection, leaving patients susceptible to reinfection year after year – similar to the common cold. In what is believed to be the first longitudinal study of its kind, researchers looked into the immune response of 90 patients and healthcare workers at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust.
> 
> While the analysis revealed a “potent” level of antibodies could be found in 60 per cent of participants while at the peak of their battle with coronavirus, sequential blood tests showed only 17 per cent sustained that same level of potency three months later. Antibodies decreased 23-fold in some cases, and were depleted entirely in others.







__





						Coronavirus: antibody immunity could last 'just months' | BBC Science Focus Magazine
					

Study by King’s College London finds a significant drop in antibody potency after three months.



					www.sciencefocus.com


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I see new daily cases being reported this weekend are up a massive 30% on last weekend (reported on Sat & Sun combined last w/e 1140 up to 1470 this w/e).
> 
> Now, the big question is if this is because of the increase in testing in the 20 council areas of particular concern, or if it's spread nationwide & connected to pubs etc. being re-opened.



111/999 data would suggest there isn't a surge in cases:


----------



## Doodler (Jul 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It seems that we are now seeing fewer deaths overall than we normally would at this time of year.
> 
> One thing about this that is surprising to me is that it appears to apply to the younger age groups as well as the older ones.



Your graph image showed a substantial drop in deaths among 0-14 year olds, which is mysterious given the most common causes of childhood death:



'Childhood' is defined here by the ONS as 1-15 years of age. You might expect that only the external causes could diminish during the pandemic, e.g. traffic accidents, and that would not be enough to account for the overall drop in mortality. Maybe there have been delays in reporting or tabulating deaths.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This hasn't been peer-reviewed yet,  ...


I guess everyone has their own favourite COVID thread and doesn't bother reading the others.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 14, 2020)

2hats said:


> I guess everyone has their own favourite COVID thread and doesn't bother reading the others.



There's no way I could read them all.


----------



## Roadkill (Jul 14, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> 111/999 data would suggest there isn't a surge in cases:




There's also something odd with the data for the end of June/start of July.  Screenshots from the JHU Covid stats:

 And zooming in...

I assume that apparent pause in cases is some kind of gap in the statistics, which makes the end-of-June drop and then subsequent rise look sharper than they actually were.  Doubtless someone who understands the data better than I do will be able to explain.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It seems that we are now seeing fewer deaths overall than we normally would at this time of year.
> 
> One thing about this that is surprising to me is that it appears to apply to the younger age groups as well as the older ones.


Not really. Spiegelhalter pointed out this mortality displacement weeks ago. Deaths of elderly/vulnerable brought forward, earlier in time, the deaths of younger cohorts moved back in time, to later dates, due to inactivity leading to risk reduction.


Doodler said:


> Your graph image showed a substantial drop in deaths among 0-14 year olds, which is mysterious given the most common causes of childhood death:
> 
> View attachment 222219
> 
> 'Childhood' is defined here by the ONS as 1-15 years of age. You might expect that only the external causes could diminish during the pandemic, e.g. traffic accidents, and that would not be enough to account for the overall drop in mortality. Maybe there have been delays in reporting or tabulating deaths.


That's pretty much what it does do if you read the data you are presenting and do the maths. (280-(280*0.164)=234)


----------



## teuchter (Jul 14, 2020)

2hats said:


> Not really. Spiegelhalter pointed out this mortality displacement weeks ago. Deaths of elderly/vulnerable brought forward, earlier in time, the deaths of younger cohorts moved back in time, to later dates, due to inactivity leading to risk reduction.



That's what I mean though, it's not entirely a surprise to see deaths amongst the elderly drop to levels below normal, but doesn't what you say imply that we should now be seeing an increase, relative to normal, in younger cohorts, if anything?
(link doesn't work by the way)


----------



## two sheds (Jul 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This hasn't been peer-reviewed yet, but would seem a fairly simple bit of research, so it wouldn't surprise me if it's confirmed, and is somewhat worrying, suggesting any immunity in recovered patients may only last a few months.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> leaving patients susceptible to reinfection year after year – similar to the common cold



I thought cold reinfections were because there are so many variants of them that you get a different one each time.


----------



## Doodler (Jul 14, 2020)

2hats said:


> That's pretty much what it does do if you read the data you are presenting and do the maths. (280-(280*0.164)=234)



It looks like a bigger drop than that on the 0-14 years graph teuchter posted, more like from around 360-370 down to 280, say 23%.



Also, it seems impossible for external causes to be completely eliminated. Some deaths happen within the home.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> That's what I mean though, it's not entirely a surprise to see deaths amongst the elderly drop to levels below normal, but doesn't what you say imply that we should now be seeing an increase, relative to normal, in younger cohorts, if anything?
> (link doesn't work by the way)


No. People (semi-)routinely engaging in risky activities aren't suddenly going to make up for it (even assuming they return to normal behaviours, which would appear to largely not be the case right now, let alone 2+ weeks ago when the data were collected).

The link works fine (is free FT content but requires registration); was only to point out he discussed mortality displacement many weeks ago.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 14, 2020)

Doodler said:


> It looks like a bigger drop than that on the 0-14 years graph teuchter posted, more like from around 360-370 down to 280, say 23%.


I trust you don't interpret data visualisations and statistical data for a living.


> Also, it seems impossible for external causes to be completely eliminated. Some deaths happen within the home.


External in this context means outside the corporeal body, not outside the home.


----------



## Doodler (Jul 14, 2020)

2hats said:


> I trust you don't interpret data visualisations and statistical data for a living.



You'll just have to resign yourself to rubbing shoulders with the hoi polloi on a public forum like this.



2hats said:


> External in this context means outside the corporeal body, not outside the home.



Yes, and external causes therefore include ones which are unlikely to be reduced by lockdown restrictions on spending time outdoors. Some classes of injury will occur indoors, including assaults. The latter might even increase during lockdown - domestic violence has. Also, poisoning is a significant external cause among young children, and I would guess this often occurs within the home.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 14, 2020)

2hats said:


> No. People (semi-)routinely engaging in risky activities aren't suddenly going to make up for it (even assuming they return to normal behaviours, which would appear to largely not be the case right now, let alone 2+ weeks ago when the data were collected).
> 
> The link works fine (is free FT content but requires registration); was only to point out he discussed mortality displacement many weeks ago.


I think I'm not understanding something... what is the explanation for the drop in deaths for the 0-14 age group in the last 2-3 weeks? Or is it just an anomaly that will be insignificant in the longer term?


----------



## maomao (Jul 14, 2020)

I suppose if it was just down to less risky behaviour we would have expected less deaths in the 0-14 age group throughout lockdown.


----------



## frogwoman (Jul 14, 2020)

Have our numbers been reported yet today?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 14, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Have our numbers been reported yet today?



Yep, 398 new cases & 138 deaths.   





__





						UK Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## weepiper (Jul 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, 398 new cases & 138 deaths.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


3 new cases and 0 deaths for the sixth day running in Scotland and similarly negligible in Wales and NI. Reporting this as 'UK' is really disingenuous (of the government, not having a go at you).


----------



## frogwoman (Jul 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, 398 new cases & 138 deaths.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



 398 cases isn't too bad tbh.


----------



## Numbers (Jul 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, 398 new cases & 138 deaths.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And we’re almost completely out of lockdown, jeez.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 14, 2020)

weepiper said:


> 3 new cases and 0 deaths for the sixth day running in Scotland and similarly negligible in Wales and NI. Reporting this as 'UK' is really disingenuous (of the government, not having a go at you).


I'm not sure it's disingenuous really - it's pretty negligible in London now too. Should they report it as "provincial England" rather than UK?


----------



## editor (Jul 14, 2020)

Go (ex) Tories go!









						Tories cut up membership cards in protest over new face mask rules
					

The London Economic - Several members of the party are angry at new measures imposing the use of face coverings in shops - Politics




					www.thelondoneconomic.com


----------



## editor (Jul 14, 2020)

😂 



#fuckthetories and #fucktheextoriestoo


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 14, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 398 cases isn't too bad tbh.


And 139 deaths needs to be read in context. It's the traditional Tuesday catch-up figure. The actual current daily rate will be less than half that. Still far too many people dying still, but new cases have been well under 1000 a day for a while now. New deaths will fall eventually too.


----------



## DexterTCN (Jul 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I'm not sure it's disingenuous really - it's pretty negligible in London now too. Should they report it as "provincial England" rather than UK?


Scotland and England have different health services and policies.  The public approach is generally different as well, so no, it isn't disingenuous. To most people outside England it looks like they're actively (sic) trying to kill as many as they can.  

Anyway...masks in shops...in 10 days.  Because what's the hurry, eh?


----------



## weepiper (Jul 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I'm not sure it's disingenuous really - it's pretty negligible in London now too. Should they report it as "provincial England" rather than UK?


London's not a country.


----------



## DexterTCN (Jul 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And 139 deaths needs to be read in context. It's the traditional Tuesday catch-up figure. The actual current daily rate will be less than half that. ...


What have the deaths been for the last 20 days then?  For context.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 15, 2020)

weepiper said:


> London's not a country.


London is arguably more distinct from the UK in general, than Scotland is, in certain ways. And it also has devolved government to some extent.

But anyway I don't really see what the problem is with reporting the UK figures as the UK figures - that's what they are. They include areas which have had quite different rates of infection. Scotland is one of the parts of the UK which you can draw a line around and say it has done better than the average, but it's not unique in that.

That Scotland & England are different countries does not really explain the disparity. For example, the south west region of England has seen almost exactly the same rate of deaths per head of population as Scotland has.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 15, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> What have the deaths been for the last 20 days then?  For context.



The average daily deaths has been falling slowly from around 100 to 80-something at present.

So still one Grenfell tower fire per day. Another month and, best case scenario, we'll be at one 7/7 bombing per day. Johnson and his pals should be heads on spikes by now.


----------



## treelover (Jul 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 398 cases isn't too bad tbh.



Except for the 398.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Jul 15, 2020)

.wrong thread


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2020)

Regarding the number of deaths currently, I prefer to use ONS & NRS & NISRA numbers, even though they have more lag and the most recent numbers are subject to further modest increases the next week. Been around 100 or well below 100 for a month now.


----------



## Doodler (Jul 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> That cunt Gove talking shit about masks, make him work in a small shop for a week and I reckon he'd change his tune after 5 minutes.



Many years ago Gove wrote an article about Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life'. He claimed he hated the friendly small-town Bedford Falls but loved the cruel, corrupt alternative world of Pottersville because the latter had potential for change and growth.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 15, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Many years ago Gove wrote an article about Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life'. He claimed he hated the friendly small-town Bedford Falls but loved the cruel, corrupt alternative world of Pottersville because the latter had potential for change and growth.


 That man clearly has some unresolved issues...


----------



## Doodler (Jul 15, 2020)

existentialist said:


> That man clearly has some unresolved issues...



I bet Gove has practised this speech in front of the bathroom mirror.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 15, 2020)

Doodler said:


> I bet Gove has practised this speech in front of the bathroom mirror.



Yup. I imagine he ended up with the face he's got as a result of spending hours getting "Cuckoo" just so.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 16, 2020)

Still early days, so no guarantees that the trials will give us the results we are all hoping for, but this seems some positive news on the Oxford vaccine. If it is proven to work, there could be 30 million doses available in the UK by September.



> Oxford scientists believe they have made a breakthrough in their quest for a Covid-19 vaccine after discovering that the jab triggers a response that may offer a "double defence" against the virus.
> 
> Phase I human trials of the world-leading Oxford vaccine have shown that it generates an immune response against the disease. Blood samples taken from a group of UK volunteers given a dose of the vaccine showed that it stimulated the body to produce both antibodies and ‘killer T-cells’, a senior source said.
> 
> The discovery is promising because separate studies have suggested that antibodies may fade away within months while T-cells can stay in circulation for years.











						How far away is a coronavirus vaccine? Latest news on UK and US trials
					

Latest news on the search for a vaccine against the new coronavirus




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 16, 2020)

existentialist said:


> That man clearly has some unresolved issues...


He fancied himself as a daring iconoclast and "wit" in his youth. It's all pretty painful to watch.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2020)

Finally:



> The government is to publish postcode-level data of how many people have tested positive for coronavirus.
> 
> The public will be able to use the data and an interactive map to look at figures for their area, although homes of individuals with Covid-19 will not be identifiable from the data.
> 
> ...



from 14:51 of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-53426297


----------



## Smangus (Jul 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Finally:
> 
> 
> 
> from 14:51 of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-53426297



Lets see how this affects house prices


----------



## weltweit (Jul 16, 2020)

My camera club are talking about face to face meets in September. If things haven't significantly improved from now there is no way I will be attending. The virus is still out there and I don't want to infect others or be infected.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 16, 2020)

Apologies for (possibly?) being a bit late to this story, but I've just been made aware of how difficult it is to access Covid testing. My eldest's partner, (vulnerable person) attempted to get a Covid test today after running a temperature. My boy followed the advice and went online but their request was rejected. He then rang the helpline and was informed that TransUnion could not verify that they existed (they have no credit or credit card) and therefore can't be given a test. For those not willing or able to present a credit history, the option of a drive through test is suggested. Like a lot of people without a credit history, I'm sure, they have no car.

I know I shouldn't't be surprised, but really? No credit history, no testing. What could go wrong?





__





						Government Silent On Involving Credit Firm in COVID-19 Testing – Byline Times
					

Stephen Delahunty reports on concerns about credit agencies being used by health bodies when processing patient data.




					bylinetimes.com


----------



## Cloo (Jul 16, 2020)

I always feel regarding vaccines that we know nothing without context - I mean, if Vaccine 53 is looking really positive at stage D, that's great if 95% of vaccines that work at Stage D turn out to be effective, but not so good if 95% of vaccines fail at Stage E and seeing as I have no idea about that I can't really tell what any of it means.


----------



## zahir (Jul 16, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Apologies for (possibly?) being a bit late to this story, but I've just been made aware of how difficult it is to access Covid testing. My eldest's partner, (vulnerable person) attempted to get a Covid test today after running a temperature. My boy followed the advice and went online but their request was rejected. He then rang the helpline and was informed that TransUnion could not verify that they existed (they have no credit or credit card) and therefore can't be given a test. For those not willing or able to present a credit history, the option of a drive through test is suggested. Like a lot of people without a credit history, I'm sure, they have no car.
> 
> I know I shouldn't't be surprised, but really? No credit history, no testing. What could go wrong?
> 
> ...



There are some walk-in testing centres  but I’m not sure how widespread they are. I went to one and I can confirm there was no mention of credit checking.

I’ve seen the issue mentioned before on twitter, by a Brazilian in London (I think) who was struggling to arrange a test for an increasingly ill friend, the kind of demographic that you might expect not to have a credit history and not to have a car.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Finally:
> 
> 
> 
> from 14:51 of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-53426297



I wonder if its this one because its apparently not showing cases with 1-2 people affected which must surely mean its not showing a fair bit? 





__





						ArcGIS Web Application
					






					phe.maps.arcgis.com


----------



## brogdale (Jul 16, 2020)

zahir said:


> There are some walk-in testing centres  but I’m not sure how widespread they are. I went to one and I can confirm there was no mention of credit checking.
> 
> I’ve seen the issue mentioned before on twitter, by a Brazilian in London (I think) who was struggling to arrange a test for an increasingly ill friend, the kind of demographic that you might expect not to have a credit history and not to have a car.


Yeah, AFAIK, no walk-in option was offered.
It sounds like a system that was simultaneously designed to exclude marginalised demographics whilst data harvesting from the rest.


----------



## zahir (Jul 16, 2020)

It also sounds like it would exclude anyone visiting the country and getting symptoms from being tested. Unless they were willing to hire a car.


----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I always feel regarding vaccines that we know nothing without context - I mean, if Vaccine 53 is looking really positive at stage D, that's great if 95% of vaccines that work at Stage D turn out to be effective, but not so good if 95% of vaccines fail at Stage E and seeing as I have no idea about that I can't really tell what any of it means.



There is no easy answer to that. The old adage I remember is that 1 in 10,000 active ingredients discovered make it to commercial product. There is some data around historical results but I’m not sure about for vaccines in particular.

Here is a chart by disease grouping but vaccines are a different kettle of fish.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 16, 2020)

None of this makes any public health sense; it only stacks up if you start to think like a neoliberal, consolidator state and see every crisis as an opportunity to outsource and monetise.


----------



## zahir (Jul 16, 2020)

I wonder if a last resort for getting a home test would be to order it in someone else’s name.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 16, 2020)

zahir said:


> I wonder if a last resort for getting a home test would be to order it in someone else’s name.


There is that; in Tory Covid Britain to get a test you have to persuade someone else with a credit history to give over their data to a US corp.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 16, 2020)

Anyways...as of...she's not got a test &, being overly honest, the boy has told his employers so he's now off losing pay.

Feels like I'm going to have to step in to help and I really resent having to do that with grown adults.


----------



## zahir (Jul 16, 2020)

Their main concern is probably to ensure they get a confirmed identity for contact tracing. I had to show ID at the walk-in centre but obviously that can’t happen with a home test. Hence the credit checking nonsense.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 16, 2020)

zahir said:


> Their main concern is probably to ensure they get a confirmed identity for contact tracing. I had to show ID at the walk-in centre but obviously that can’t happen with a home test. Hence the credit checking nonsense.


Incidentally, what ID do they accept at the drive through...assuming I can get them to one?


----------



## brogdale (Jul 16, 2020)

Yeah, credit checking fucking nonsense; FFS the state know who she is; they send her her PIP & ESA every month....arghhh.


----------



## zahir (Jul 16, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Incidentally, what ID do they accept at the drive through...assuming I can get them to one?



I showed a passport. No doubt a driving license would do, but presumably that doesn’t help. If she doesn’t have a passport you might need to phone them to check what ID is needed. Of course while you’re all trying to sort this out the timing of the test remains critical. It’s supposed to be done within the first five days of symptoms. If it’s done later a negative result can’t be relied on.

i don’t know what the rules are on driving someone else to a drive through centre. You might need to check on this as well.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 16, 2020)

zahir said:


> I showed a passport. No doubt a driving license would do, but presumably that doesn’t help. If she doesn’t have a passport you might need to phone them to check what ID is needed. Of course while you’re all trying to sort this out the timing of the test remains critical. It’s supposed to be done within the first five days of symptoms. If it’s done later a negative result can’t be relied on.
> 
> i don’t know what the rules are on driving someone else to a drive through centre. You might need to check on this as well.


Thanks; clusterfuck, innit?


----------



## LDC (Jul 17, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Thanks; clusterfuck, innit?



I know loads of people that have had tests brogdale (both drive through and walk-in) and none have had that problem or mentioned anything approaching it. Seems quite odd, I'll ask about and see what's going on.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I know loads of people that have had tests brogdale (both drive through and walk-in) and none have had that problem or mentioned anything approaching it. Seems quite odd, I'll ask about and see what's going on.


What seems, perhaps naively, odd to me is that faced with the need to scale up mass testing for its citizens, the tories decide to outsource the ‘gatekeeping’ to a Goldman owned, US credit rating agency.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 17, 2020)

zahir said:


> I showed a passport. No doubt a driving license would do, but presumably that doesn’t help.



I got ID'ed at the supermarket the other day (I am 34) and the driving licence I showed could have been anyone's because I was wearing a mask


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 17, 2020)

If only the bloody government had listened.  



> The UK's chief scientific adviser has said the government was urged to impose full lockdown measures around a week earlier than they were introduced, as he admitted the country's coronavirus outcome has "not been good".
> 
> Sir Patrick insisted the experts realised "we were further ahead in the epidemic than had been thought" in mid-March as soon as the data was available. He said SAGE's modelling sub-group saw at that point that the number of days over which COVID-19 cases were doubling had gone down to three.
> 
> "That's when the advice that SAGE issued was the remainder of the [lockdown] measures should be introduced as soon as possible," he said. "That advice, I think, was given on the 18th of March or the 16th of March." Full lockdown measures were not imposed in the UK until 23 March.



Worth reading the full report, including his thoughts on possible future waves.









						Coronavirus: SAGE urged government to lockdown a week earlier, UK's chief scientific adviser says
					

"There will be decisions made that will turn out not to be the right decision at the time," Sir Patrick Vallance says.




					news.sky.com


----------



## brogdale (Jul 17, 2020)

Maybe the people getting tests sent to them have basically all ‘passed’ the credit check run by TransUnion and, in the process become the crop of the data harvesting?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 17, 2020)

brogdale said:


> What seems, perhaps naively, odd to me is that faced with the need to scale up mass testing for its citizens, the tories decide to outsource the ‘gatekeeping’ to a Goldman owned, US credit rating agency.



There's a similar system for applying for UC online only they give you a range of possible ID check providers. Well, they let me choose from two; of which neither thought I existed but which now probably have enough data about me to spoof my identity


----------



## brogdale (Jul 17, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> There's a similar system for applying for UC online only they give you a range of possible ID check providers. Well, they let me choose from two; of which neither thought I existed but which now probably have enough data about me to spoof my identity


Kleptocracy as scamocracy.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> If only the bloody government had listened.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I look forward to seeing how the official inquiry manages to whitewash this.

Also worth remembering that 'full lockdown' was _announced_ on the 23th, late in the evening, but enforcement such as it was didn't start until (I think) the 26th.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 17, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I got ID'ed at the supermarket the other day (I am 34) and the driving licence I showed could have been anyone's because I was wearing a mask


Oh don't get me started on the photo ID thing; the number of scenes that have arisen when I've been asked to show my driving licence and when presented they claim that my (pre-photo) folded, paper licence is "not" a driving licence.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 17, 2020)

The _Byline _piece suggests that the justification offered for the engagement of the Goldman owned Credit Rating agency was to "..minimise the risk of fraud."


----------



## zahir (Jul 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I know loads of people that have had tests brogdale (both drive through and walk-in) and none have had that problem or mentioned anything approaching it. Seems quite odd, I'll ask about and see what's going on.



It isn’t a new issue. I’m sure some people will be getting round it by getting a home test in someone else’s name. This report is from early June:


Although the applying for a home testing kit does not require a credit check, the process uses the credit check company TransUnion to verify applicants’ identity. As the tests use data from the electoral roll, this could cause difficulties for people without stable addresses such as asylum seekers, refugees and travellers.

Those who do not complete or pass the TransUnion checks are instead required to go to a drive-through testing centre, which may not be possible for people without access to a vehicle.

The Department of Health and Social Care has denied the system is discriminatory and said an equalities impact assessment has been carried out.

A rapid needs assessment carried out by Doctors of the World (DOW), found that digital exclusion, fear of being reported to the Home Office and language barriers were preventing excluded patients from ordering the test.

Anna Miller, UK policy and advocacy manager for DOW, said: “The COVID-19 testing system has been set up with very little consideration of how migrant and other excluded communities, particularly those who have had their healthcare entitlements removed, access NHS services and take part in public health protection measures.”

Disadvantaged groups may not be able to access COVID-19 antigen tests online


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> If only the bloody government had listened.



I've got a slightly different take on what this does to the blame compared to how the Sky article phrases it.

Its a blame split. The last delay he describes, down to government, is only part of the fatal delay. The experts and the data they used are responsible for earlier delay, eg it wasnt the government that declared we were 4 weeks behind Italy when we were 2 weeks behind Italy, it was Vallance. But certainly once they had finally twigged what stage of epidemic we had reached, additional government delay was a disgrace too. Some lives were still saved due to actions of individuals during that final week of delay, because many people had twigged how serious and imminent it was by then and started to heavily modify their behaviour from that week of March 16th rather than waiting for useless Johnson to announce lockdown on the 23rd.

Looking at the realistic best-case, apart from various specific things we should have done for a lot longer to get prepared and have the right data, when it comes to lockdown timing the earliest we could have hoped for was the week of March 9th. Lockdown was still a mostly unthinkable thing for governments in Europe until that week, because by then Italy was forced to act in a draconian manner. If our experts had read the situation properly then the week of the 9th should have been the week to make those tough decisions and communicate them to the public by the end of that week at the latest. Which turns out to have been the very time both government and experts like Vallance were having a final go at promoting the original plan and desperately trying (and failing) to use herd immunity as a justification for their inaction. Friday 13th


----------



## brogdale (Jul 17, 2020)

zahir said:


> _It isn’t a new issue. This is from a report in early June:_
> 
> Although the applying for a home testing kit does not require a credit check, the process uses the credit check company TransUnion to verify applicants’ identity. As the tests use data from the electoral roll, this could cause difficulties for people without stable addresses such as asylum seekers, refugees and travellers.
> 
> ...


This, exactly.

It's pretty obvious that many of the 'Top 20' local authorities 'at risk' of local lockdown are in all probability merely districts with higher numbers of people that will fail to "pass" the credit rating gate-keepers. Hence, in certain parts of Leicester, the state has been to compelled to step in and compensate for market failure by providing targeted door-to-door testing delivery as shown on last night's C4 News.

Come the fabled enquiry, it will be interesting to see if any mention is made of this potential contributory factor to the local lockdown outbreaks or will they just go for the more convenient dog-whistle stuff about "multi-generational households" that have the temerity to live in small, terraced housing?


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2020)

brogdale said:


> This, exactly.
> 
> It's pretty obvious that many of the 'Top 20' local authorities 'at risk' of local lockdown are in all probability merely districts with higher numbers of people that will fail to "pass" the credit rating gate-keepers. Hence, in certain parts of Leicester, the state has been to compelled to step in and compensate for market failure by providing targeted door-to-door testing delivery as shown on last night's C4 News.
> 
> Come the fabled enquiry, it will be interesting to see if any mention is made of this potential contributory factor to the local lockdown outbreaks or will they just go for the more convenient dog-whistle stuff about "multi-generational households" that have the temerity to live in small, terraced housing?



A midreading of the situation if you ask me. The multi-generational household stuff is likely a real driving factor at the moment, there is no point hiding away from this just because it could also be used as a dog whistle. And given that plenty of people have to be tested in those areas in order for those areas to show up as hotspots in the first place, I dont completely understand your point about that either.

There are many issues of inustice, poverty, living and working conditions which have left some far more exposed to this virus than others. Plenty will deserve huge criticism for that, and for decades of fostering these conditions. But it makes less sense to me if we zoom in too narrowly on one particular failed aspect of the testing system as actually being responsible for the situations in those places after the first peak was behind them. Other failures deserve plenty of blame, such as not sharing the postcode-level data with the local authorities in a comprehensive and timely manner. And not allowing local authorities to communicate with their households about all aspects of the pandemic, not paying attention to minority language communication material, etc.


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## zahir (Jul 17, 2020)

This is the Doctors of the World assessment referred to in that report:



			https://www.doctorsoftheworld.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/covid-full-rna-report.pdf?download=1


----------



## brogdale (Jul 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> A midreading of the situation if you ask me. The multi-generational household stuff is likely a real driving factor at the moment, there is no point hiding away from this just because it could also be used as a dog whistle. And given that plenty of people have to be tested in those areas in order for those areas to show up as hotspots in the first place, I dont completely understand your point about that either.
> 
> There are many issues of inustice, poverty, living and working conditions which have left some far more exposed to this virus than others. Plenty will deserve huge criticism for that, and for decades of fostering these conditions. But it makes less sense to me if we zoom in too narrowly on one particular failed aspect of the testing system as actually being responsible for the situations in those places after the first peak was behind them. Other failures deserve plenty of blame, such as not sharing the postcode-level data with the local authorities in a comprehensive and timely manner. And not allowing local authorities to communicate with their households about all aspects of the pandemic, not paying attention to minority language communication material, etc.


Bow to your greater knowledge here.
That said, I'd imagine that the initial discovery of the 'hotspot(s)' could conceivably have been made as a result of hospital admissions, rather than effective testing. Undeniably the testing has subsequently/belatedly ? occurred as a result of the door-to-door testing teams deployed by the state. To me that looks like covering for the market failure of the discriminatory digital exclusion that contributed to the undiagnosed transmissions in the first place.


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## zahir (Jul 17, 2020)

Mobile testing in Blackburn as well:

Introducing new local measures to control virus spread | The Shuttle: Blackburn with Darwen Council News


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## zahir (Jul 17, 2020)

Another report:






						OK, THIS is why we need working Digital Identity in the UK... | THINK Digital Partners : THINK Digital Partners
					

'HSJ' reveals that you'll have to be on a credit reference file to prove your ID and get an online COVID-19 check. So that's totally fair and unproblematic, right?




					www.thinkdigitalpartners.com
				




HSJ’ news site yesterday revealed yet another reason why we need to find some sort of workable Digital ID for the vast majority of our fellow citizens; thin-file applicants who want to avoid getting COVID-19 can’t get an online Government check for the virus if they’re not solvent enough to be on a credit reference database.

Or as the campaigning healthcare site – which has made all of its excellent coronavirus crisis coverage free to air – puts it, “Disadvantaged groups may be excluded from the government’s online coronavirus test and trace system because it requires a credit reference database check to decide whether to deliver a home test.”

If you’re not on such a file, don’t worry; it ‘only’ means you’ll have to get in your car and go to one of the drive-in ones.

Which won’t be a problem at all for the poor or non-mobile, will it?

The story, in any case, as unearthed by the publication is that the online application process for a postal test overseen as part of the service uses a credit check company – TransUnion – to verify applicants’ Identity.

“However, people who do not pass the checks carried out by the firm – or don’t want them to be carried out – are being told they need to apply instead for a drive-through test, which for many will make it difficult or impossible,” it adds.

The online application site asks for basic details such as name, mobile number, email address and address but, then requests permission to access the TransUnion database, the publication has discovered.

Anyone who refuses is told they have to start again and choose the drive-through option, but if they accept and their Identity can’t be verified against the TransUnion database, they are again told they need to go to a drive-through testing centre.

The Department of Health and Social Care denied the system was discriminatory and said an equalities impact assessment has been carried out – although it did not share this with _HSJ_ when asked.

It said the vast majority of users were able to pass the identify verification process and successfully order a kit, but would not give a percentage, when asked. Where individuals could not prove their identity, there were “a range of in-person services” available, a spokeswoman said.

It argued that without this form of identity verification, other countries had experienced widespread fraudulent orders for testing kits.

A spokeswoman added: “No credit check is required. Our identity verification process has been an effective means of stopping fraudulent orders and is based on international evidence.

“Our testing call centre is available to support anyone who has trouble with the identity verification process, and there are a range of other in-person testing mechanisms that do not require Identity verification.”

A TransUnion spokeswoman is then quoted as saying it’s conducting “stringent Identity checks on behalf of the NHS to help ensure testing kits are sent to the correct recipients and to minimise the risk of fraud” – and that verification does indeed use information from an individual’s credit report.


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## elbows (Jul 17, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Bow to your greater knowledge here.
> That said, I'd imagine that the initial discovery of the 'hotspot(s)' could conceivably have been made as a result of hospital admissions, rather than effective testing. Undeniably the testing has subsequently/belatedly ? occurred as a result of the door-to-door testing teams deployed by the state. To me that looks like covering for the market failure of the discriminatory digital exclusion that contributed to the undiagnosed transmissions in the first place.



Well I dont want anything I say to be an excuse for the testing regime, because it has been riddled with so many issues.

In regards hospital data, for a long time I had no useful localised test data (because pillar 2 data wasnt shown), so deaths per hospital trust was one of the only things I could look at instead. Certainly during May there were a bunch of places where the deaths had fallen well below their peak, but were still somewhat persistent, not dwindling to the same extent as seen elsewhere. Leicester was one of those for a time, but their hospital data looked quite a lot better before the time Leicester was highlighted for being a hotspot based on test results. And when the authorities see a hospital with worrying data, they have to do a proper investigation because sometimes what this data is showing is transmission within the hospital itself, as opposed to a community outbreak. But yes, it is plausible that at times it will be hospital indicators which cause authorities to offer more accessible testing in a particular location. It happened in my town, Nuneaton, which turned out to mostly be a case of hospital infections, with some community transmission too but nothing that would really stand out as a hotspot. The hospital outbreak showed up clearly in the hospital data in a way that I havent seen im most other hospitals data. I am watching closely to see if the steady trickle of deaths we continued to have here after the first peak remains much diminished after they got a handle on this recent hospital outbreak, and if it does then that may imply the issue here was mostly hospital-related all the way along. I should also say that the 'pop-up, military-operated test facilities' were sent to Nuneaton on several occasions, and when they noticed the hospital outbreak this was done again, on a slightly more sustained basis. But this did not lead to a large and sustained rise in detected cases here, so we werent sent down the same path as Leicester.

Its really difficult to build a full picture of the history of hotspots like Leicester because the testing regime has changed on several occasions, and there were lengthy periods where I dont think any authorities had a proper system for spotting this stuff. They've only started to zoom in properly since the first peak was well behind us, and it is certainly true that the both the amount of testing offered, and various barriers to testing, can contribute to a distorted picture of which places are bad, and how bad compared to everywhere else. Age/severe disease demographics of who is testing positive make a difference too, and can mean that all sources of data dont always seem to match up in a neat way. For example when the mayor of Leicester was being somewhat resistant to local lockdown, one of the reasons was that their hospital data didnt look too bad at the time, and would have been unlikely to raise a red flag in June. So he wasnt sure if the large number of positives in Lecicester was more a result of additional testing than anything else. I would guesstimate that parts of Leicester did have a real problem that needed tackling, but the picture that we and the authorities have may still have been a bit distorted, and the Leicester lockdown was treated as a bit of an experiment. All the same, the numbers were high enough that doing nothing wasnt an option.


----------



## zahir (Jul 17, 2020)

There will also be a lot of probable coronavirus cases dealt with by GPs where there hasn’t been testing and there’s no hospitalisation. It would be interesting to know how the number of these cases compares with the numbers actually getting a positive test result.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 17, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Oh don't get me started on the photo ID thing; the number of scenes that have arisen when I've been asked to show my driving licence and when presented they claim that my (pre-photo) folded, paper licence is "not" a driving licence.


It is still a valid driving licence but, of course, it’s not a valid photo ID.  So if they’re asking for it as shorthand for “photo ID” then it’s not good to them


----------



## two sheds (Jul 17, 2020)

Wouldn't it have been better to use the information on the Census register to check against applications? I thought that was supposed to give the definitive list of everyone in the UK.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2020)

The money being pissed away on testing should be building up NHS labs and creating jobs. It's fucking scandalous.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2020)

Another reason it is better to look at ONS death data than the daily PHE stuff:









						Hancock calls for urgent review into coronavirus death data in England
					

Deaths recorded in England may have included people who tested positive months before they died.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




The government have an obvious interest in playing up any erroneous overcounting in order to attempt to cast doubt on the level of death caused by government failings, but since the ONS numbers are so much higher than the PHE ones anyway, I feel like taking a shit on their spin.


----------



## zahir (Jul 17, 2020)

There must also be plenty of deaths where there was never a positive test result.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2020)

zahir said:


> There must also be plenty of deaths where there was never a positive test result.



The ONS stuff picks up a load of those because if its mentioned on a death certificate but there was no test, it gets counted. And then the remaining missed ones explain a chunk of the difference between COVID-19 related deaths and the total excess death figures.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2020)

So that cunt Johnson wants people to go back to the office, probably because of all the businesses that rely on office workers passing by. Explains why Vallance was making public comments about no need to change the work advice, there is clearly a difference between what the experts are saying and what the government is doing. Similar to what happened with Whitty not exactly showing positivity towards pubs reopening some weeks ago.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 17, 2020)

Does this mean that people who refuse to go back because their work environment isn't safe can start to be sacked?


----------



## LDC (Jul 17, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Oh don't get me started on the photo ID thing; the number of scenes that have arisen when I've been asked to show my driving licence and when presented they claim that my (pre-photo) folded, paper licence is "not" a driving licence.



Paper driving licenses haven't been accepted as ID for years, aren't they all withdrawn? I'd be pissed off if my bank let someone use that to prove they were me to access my account or something, they don't prove anything. It's like claiming a bill is valid as ID.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jul 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Does this mean that people who refuse to go back because their work environment isn't safe can start to be sacked?


Presumably, yeah


----------



## belboid (Jul 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Does this mean that people who refuse to go back because their work environment isn't safe can start to be sacked?


It would be dodgy, as it is still legally okay to refuse work you reasonably believe to be unsafe.  You won’t be paid, of course, and it would be very wide mate to be a member of a union to be on the safe side.


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## brogdale (Jul 17, 2020)

zahir said:


> There will also be a lot of probable coronavirus cases dealt with by GPs where there hasn’t been testing and there’s no hospitalisation. It would be interesting to know how the number of these cases compares with the numbers actually getting a positive test result.


The reporting of the Leicester lockdown a couple of weeks back certainly pointed to stubbornly higher hospital admissions and high Pillar 2 positive tests of younger (more IT savy?) folk:



source


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## brogdale (Jul 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Wouldn't it have been better to use the information on the Census register to check against applications? I thought that was supposed to give the definitive list of everyone in the UK.


No way I'd get a test then; I refused to engage with Lockheed for the last census.


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## brogdale (Jul 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Paper driving licenses haven't been accepted as ID for years, aren't they all withdrawn? I'd be pissed off if my bank let someone use that to prove they were me to access my account or something, they don't prove anything. It's like claiming a bill is valid as ID.


They're only 'withdrawn' if you alert the DVLA to a change of address/details. If you've not moved since their introduction they will issue a new photo card replacement, but at a cost to the holder. So...fuck that for a game of soldiers.


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## zahir (Jul 17, 2020)

Current NHS guidance:


> Elective Admissions (including day surgery): patients should isolate for 14 days prior to admission along with members of their household. As and when feasible, this should be supplemented with a pre-admission test* (conducted a maximum of 72 hours in advance), allowing patients who test negative to be admitted with IPC and PPE requirements that are appropriate for someone who’s confirmed COVID status is negative.





			https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/05/Operating-framework-for-urgent-and-planned-services-within-hospitals.pdf
		


So if you’re due for an operation you now need to isolate for 14 days beforehand, along with the rest of your household. Two weeks off work for everyone, with no sick pay.


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## William of Walworth (Jul 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:
			
		

> Paper driving licenses haven't been accepted as ID for years, aren't they all withdrawn? I'd be pissed off if my bank let someone use that to prove they were me to access my account or something, they don't prove anything. It's like claiming a bill is valid as ID.





brogdale said:


> They're only 'withdrawn' if you alert the DVLA to a change of address/details. If you've not moved since their introduction they will issue a new photo card replacement, but at a cost to the holder. So...fuck that for a game of soldiers.



100% correct.

If you haven't moved house since 1998, your old paper licence is still fully valid (for driving) so long as it's legible/not destroyed.

And people could be better off using (current) UK passports** for photo ID, given that the passport number is accessible for some purposes/on some databases as well as in physical format.

**Non-UK ones -- more complicated, and especially so to explain!


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## Boudicca (Jul 17, 2020)

zahir said:


> Current NHS guidance:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Didn't happen in my case. They did give a test for the virus but I was in theatre before the results came through.


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## elbows (Jul 17, 2020)

Leicester lockdown easing being done in a way that generates fresh complaints. Since the mayor is still not happy with the whole lockdown business, they decided to stick the data they've received into their own document, which makes for an interesting mix of data I havent seen before and complaints.

The document: measuring-covid-19-in-leicester-15-july-2020.pdf

A news story about the easing and the ongoing issues. Government 'playing games' with Leicester lockdown


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## BassJunkie (Jul 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Leicester lockdown easing being done in a way that generates fresh complaints. Since the mayor is still not happy with the whole lockdown business, they decided to stick the data they've received into their own document, which makes for an interesting mix of data I havent seen before and complaints.
> 
> The document: measuring-covid-19-in-leicester-15-july-2020.pdf
> 
> A news story about the easing and the ongoing issues. Government 'playing games' with Leicester lockdown



Thanks, I'm in Leicester so this is particularly interesting to me and until now I hadn't seen that document.


----------



## zahir (Jul 17, 2020)

Today’s Independent SAGE


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2020)

Just in case anyone has the belief that I am keeping an eye on everything pandemic related, maybe I should take this opportunity to say that I dont think I've watched a single Independent SAGE video at any stage. I am a better fit for long documents than long videos. Not that I've read any of their documents either, if they've published any.

I havent had much time for scientists or experts on twitter since February-March either. So be warned, there are some really large holes in my picture of things after the initial stages.


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## Ax^ (Jul 17, 2020)

so rarely go shopping in supermarkets as i hate it


but went to the Local Tesco and they have removed all the social distancing measure and arrows around the building
and even opened up all the self services tills


is this not a bit premature before face masks are compulsory in shops..

it was like before lock down aside from around 40% of people wearing masks


hmm dodgy government advice can and will put people in danger


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## Doodler (Jul 17, 2020)

.


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## William of Walworth (Jul 17, 2020)

Where are you, Ax^ ??
If it's OK for you to say .... no worries if not


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## Ax^ (Jul 17, 2020)

close enough to the airport


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## thismoment (Jul 17, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> so rarely go shopping in supermarkets as i hate it
> 
> 
> but went to the Local Tesco and they have removed all the social distancing measure and arrows around the building
> ...



I thought that we were going to have to wear masks in shops AND maintain social distancing. Am I wrong? Is it just masks from 24th?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 17, 2020)

thismoment said:


> I thought that we were going to have to wear masks in shops AND maintain social distancing. Am I wrong? Is it just masks from 24th?


group hugs with masks from the 24th is the new normal


----------



## Doodler (Jul 18, 2020)

Masks on trains: not much sign of enforcement yesterday travelling around East Anglia. On the 7am to Norwich passengers were spacing themselves out among the seats but around half I saw pulled their masks down once the journey had begun, so they could chat and eat.

Some of the smaller stations east of Ely arent staffed or don't have ticket barriers and here a lot of younger people were getting straight on the train without a mask to begin with. It was a matter of individual preference. But at the terminus there was no attempt by staff to stop or even remonstrate with unmasked passengers going through the ticket barriers. Two stocky security guards stood by passively.

I spoke with a train guard coming off his shift. He sounded frustrated as he said the staff had been given no authority to do anything. All he had been asked to do was use the train's CCTV to count the number of non-wearers and forward this information to a manager.

I wasn't at all civic-minded in my teens so I can't feel animosity towards the young people breezing onto the train maskless and probably bunking the fare too. If my behaviour improved it was from being pulled up. Less generous towards older people who don't give a shit.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 18, 2020)

Caution means mass return to work unlikely, say firms
					

Employers say they still need “crystal-clear official guidance” on safety.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




We’re at the point where businesses are actually _less_ inclined than the government to sacrifice their employees’ health.


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## Artaxerxes (Jul 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Caution means mass return to work unlikely, say firms
> 
> 
> Employers say they still need “crystal-clear official guidance” on safety.
> ...



We were at that point in March, almost everyone had started locking down a week or even two before Boris officially said lockdown was a thing.


----------



## andysays (Jul 18, 2020)

thismoment said:


> I thought that we were going to have to wear masks in shops AND maintain social distancing. Am I wrong? Is it just masks from 24th?


The purpose of encouraging everyone to wear masks is so that social distancing can be eased and/or abandoned, and that more "normal" economic activity like work and shopping can be resumed.

Not sure if this has been made explicit by the government, but that is clearly the reason for it


----------



## brogdale (Jul 18, 2020)

andysays said:


> Not sure if this has been made explicit by the government


----------



## clicker (Jul 18, 2020)

A friend was referred for an mri scan on her knee, but was told yesterday over a phone consultation that clinics aren't opening up yet as the hospital anticipates a second wave. It is a London hospital and current figures are low. 

The stories coming out now re the missed smear tests, delayed chemo and diagnostic surgery need to be front page. 

This shite show of a year is far from over, despite the govt hell bent on putting bums on seats, whether that be in school, the office or the tube. Because they think we equate that with normality. 

Things aren't going to be back to 'normal' until every missed appointment has been seen and every possible care has been afforded.

I think September will be a crunch point. Employers are going to be saying to parents how can you send your kids into a building with hundreds of kids and adults, yet you don't want to sit in an office with 50 people who understand social distancing?

Central London is definitely still kind of ghost towny.  If only a third of workers are going into London daily, businesses that rely on them are going to fold...cafes/pubs/etc....and it's noticeable that mass tourism has taken a nosedive.

So Boris tells us to put on a mask and we're safe to go. It's reassuring that lots of people have zero faith in the govt keeping anyone safe. But when furlough ends it'll be messy. Hopefully non union bods will sign up pronto.


----------



## prunus (Jul 18, 2020)

clicker said:


> Employers are going to be saying to parents how can you send your kids into a building with hundreds of kids and adults, yet you don't want to sit in an office with 50 people who understand social distancing?



The type of misunderstanding that this is an exemplar of is depressingly common “if thing A is being allowed then surely thing B [which is similar risk] should be allowed” (often sadly followed by so I’m going to do it anyway).

This entirely misses the point that the risks (at an epidemiological level particularly, though individually as well) are cumulative (more than additive over time in fact due to the nature of exponential growth). We can safely allow thing A OR thing B, but not both. We then have to make a choice as to which to do, based on the benefits that will result.

In the putative scenario above it could well be that the benefits to the children of being schooled properly are greater than the overall benefits to society of forcing everyone back into their cubicles, especially where work can be done effectively from home.

Even if not, it’s not difficult to see that in this case thing B (everyone back to work) isn’t really possible without thing A (kids back in school) - if we can’t do both for risk mitigation reasons, then we can only do thing A.


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## Sue (Jul 18, 2020)

I got a hospital appointment letter yesterday for November which states it will be a phone call only. So they're obviously not envisaging anything changing anytime soon. (My May one was also a phone call.)


----------



## LDC (Jul 18, 2020)

Sue said:


> I got a hospital appointment letter yesterday for November which states it will be a phone call only. So they're obviously not envisaging anything changing anytime soon. (My May one was also a phone call.)



I work in healthcare and next June (2021) is being kicked about by management as when some/most (?) things might be going back to face-to-face rather than remote working.


----------



## Sue (Jul 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I work in healthcare and next June (2021) is being kicked about by management as when some/most (?) things might be going back to face-to-face rather than remote working.


It's difficult. Of course I understand why they're having to do this but not actually seeing someone (and them seeing me) for 18 months or more doesn't seem great.

And I've an ongoing thing which is generally reasonably stable. I'm not sure how they can manage conditions that aren't properly.


----------



## Ax^ (Jul 18, 2020)

thismoment said:


> I thought that we were going to have to wear masks in shops AND maintain social distancing. Am I wrong? Is it just masks from 24th?



cannot say about every supermarket in the area but the close one to my job in west london had removed all the social distancing marks around the store
was weird in a kinda of way.. just got out of there as quickly as possible its in the borough of hounslow which they were saying had a higher R number that most area
of london not 2 weeks ago


----------



## clicker (Jul 18, 2020)

Sue said:


> It's difficult. Of course I understand why they're having to do this but not actually seeing someone (and them seeing me) for 18 months or more doesn't seem great.
> 
> And I've an ongoing thing which is generally reasonably stable. I'm not sure how they can manage conditions that aren't properly.


As cynical as it sounds, I don't think the govt care who dies so long as covid isn't on the death cert.


----------



## LDC (Jul 18, 2020)

Sue said:


> It's difficult. Of course I understand why they're having to do this but not actually seeing someone (and them seeing me) for 18 months or more doesn't seem great.
> 
> And I've an ongoing thing which is generally reasonably stable. I'm not sure how they can manage conditions that aren't properly.



So face-to-face appointments haven't gone completely at all. As a (very) rough guide the area I work in now (primary care that's mostly out of hours and in hours clinic work) has gone from maybe 90% face-to-face, 5% phone consultation, 5% re-direct to A&E to 90% phone consultation, 5% face-to-face, 5% re-direct to A&E. People that really need to be seen still get seen.

TBH quite a lot of people like it, both patients and HCPs. Be interesting to see research into outcomes longer term. If I was a betting person I'd put money on them not being significantly different either way. And I think lots of remote working is here to stay as well.

Other areas of the NHS are almost certainly different. I have no idea how chronic stuff is being managed for example, guess it varies on who's dealing with it and where, and like you say how stable and how much someone actually needs to be seen rather than just wants to be/is used to being.


----------



## LDC (Jul 18, 2020)

clicker said:


> As cynical as it sounds, I don't think the govt care who dies so long as covid isn't on the death cert.



I think that's bollocks tbh.


----------



## xenon (Jul 18, 2020)

.


----------



## felixthecat (Jul 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> So face-to-face appointments haven't gone completely at all. As a (very) rough guide the area I work in now (primary care that's mostly out of hours and in hours clinic work) has gone from maybe 90% face-to-face, 5% phone consultation, 5% re-direct to A&E to 90% phone consultation, 5% face-to-face, 5% re-direct to A&E. People that really need to be seen still get seen. TBH quite a lot of people like it, both patients and HCPs. Be interesting to see research into outcomes longer term. If I was a betting person I'd put money on them not being significantly different either way. And I think lots of remote working is here to stay as well.


This exactly echos my workplace (military&families primary care medical facility)
It shows how inefficient the all f2f system was - often a poor use of patient and clinician time.
I'm enjoying the new system


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2020)

felixthecat said:


> This exactly echos my workplace (military&families primary care medical facility)
> It shows how inefficient the all f2f system was - often a poor use of patient and clinician time.
> I'm enjoying the new system



I loved it when I did it - before the practice started doing it as standard, I just didn't want to break my shielding. I sent a letter with everything I wanted to cover (and there was a fair amount), my doctor phoned me and answered it all, whole conversation took ten minutes and I came out knowing that I'd not forgotten to ask anything.


----------



## baldrick (Jul 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Wouldn't it have been better to use the information on the Census register to check against applications? I thought that was supposed to give the definitive list of everyone in the UK.


From ten years ago? They're recruiting now for 2021 Census posts. 

Surely the DWP have a database with everyone on it? Or HMRC? It seems a really odd choice to me to pick a credit reference agency to do ID checking and outsource something which would be done better in the public sector but that's this government all over isn't it. Never pass up an opportunity to give public money to a private company.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 18, 2020)

NI number?


----------



## teuchter (Jul 18, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Masks on trains: not much sign of enforcement yesterday travelling around East Anglia. On the 7am to Norwich passengers were spacing themselves out among the seats but around half I saw pulled their masks down once the journey had begun, so they could chat and eat.
> 
> Some of the smaller stations east of Ely arent staffed or don't have ticket barriers and here a lot of younger people were getting straight on the train without a mask to begin with. It was a matter of individual preference. But at the terminus there was no attempt by staff to stop or even remonstrate with unmasked passengers going through the ticket barriers. Two stocky security guards stood by passively.
> 
> ...


This is much how it is on trains in and around london.
They seem very keen on enforcing one way systems at larger stations but I've not seen any staff doing anything about masks. Not even mentioned on the on-train announcements.
It's not just young folk who are deciding to ignore it.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 18, 2020)

baldrick said:


> From ten years ago? They're recruiting now for 2021 Census posts.
> 
> Surely the DWP have a database with everyone on it? Or HMRC? It seems a really odd choice to me to pick a credit reference agency to do ID checking and outsource something which would be done better in the public sector but that's this government all over isn't it. Never pass up an opportunity to give public money to a private company.



It may be a surprise to some people, but the government doesn’t have a centralised record of everyone. HMRC knows who pays tax, but they only know them via their NI Number. They might have a correspondence address, but with most PAYE employees this is unlikely to be accurate. They don’t make a habit of cross referencing. Mostly because people would get upset if they gave their address to their GP and promptly received a tax bill. Or applied for a driving licence and got fined for not completing the census.

However the credit reference companies have databases geared towards verifying people’s identity for things they want to be verified for, e.g. applying for a bank account or phone contract. People freely give them this information for exactly that purpose, so they are better able to verify people’s identity than the government is.


----------



## Doodler (Jul 18, 2020)

teuchter said:


> This is much how it is on trains in and around london.
> They seem very keen on enforcing one way systems at larger stations but I've not seen any staff doing anything about masks. Not even mentioned on the on-train announcements.
> It's not just young folk who are deciding to ignore it.



You would think more effort could be made. The supermarket example of trying to have one-way aisles is not encouraging but announcements or reminders on the backs of seats etc might still help. Staff or BTP with enough authority to watch ticket barriers and prowl some of the trains.


----------



## xenon (Jul 18, 2020)

teuchter said:


> This is much how it is on trains in and around london.
> They seem very keen on enforcing one way systems at larger stations but I've not seen any staff doing anything about masks. Not even mentioned on the on-train announcements.
> It's not just young folk who are deciding to ignore it.




Anicdata. Travelling to and through London last week. There were announcements requesting passengers wear masks, or to be more accurate, face coverings. This was on First Great Western and Southeastern. This was a live announcement, not a recorded one. Don't recall if there were recorded announcements on the tube or Southern.


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## Artaxerxes (Jul 18, 2020)

teuchter said:


> This is much how it is on trains in and around london.
> They seem very keen on enforcing one way systems at larger stations but I've not seen any staff doing anything about masks. Not even mentioned on the on-train announcements.
> It's not just young folk who are deciding to ignore it.



It's just not worth the hassle for staff to challenge people, we've a culture of shitting on workers and odds are good anyone being told to put a mask in will eventually result in someone getting punched.

Fuck we've already had an old fart in Canada go loco and shoot up a store for telling him to mask, and a bus driver in France getting lynched for telling the wrong people to mask up.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2020)

baldrick said:


> From ten years ago? They're recruiting now for 2021 Census posts.
> 
> Surely the DWP have a database with everyone on it? Or HMRC? It seems a really odd choice to me to pick a credit reference agency to do ID checking and outsource something which would be done better in the public sector but that's this government all over isn't it. Never pass up an opportunity to give public money to a private company.


Would be missing off kids. Perhaps NHS lists? But exactly - it's an ideal opportunity to update existing lists rather than piss loads of money up the wall while making more peoples' data unsafe.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 18, 2020)

I certainly wouldn't be telling people to mask up, remembering Belly Mujinga who was spat at then died.


----------



## baldrick (Jul 18, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It may be a surprise to some people, but the government doesn’t have a centralised record of everyone. HMRC knows who pays tax, but they only know them via their NI Number. They might have a correspondence address, but with most PAYE employees this is unlikely to be accurate. They don’t make a habit of cross referencing. Mostly because people would get upset if they gave their address to their GP and promptly received a tax bill. Or applied for a driving licence and got fined for not completing the census.
> 
> However the credit reference companies have databases geared towards verifying people’s identity for things they want to be verified for, e.g. applying for a bank account or phone contract. People freely give them this information for exactly that purpose, so they are better able to verify people’s identity than the government is.


It does come as a surprise to me BUT then I remember the big anti-ID card campaign some years ago and the argument with respect to that was in fact the creation of a comprehensive database with everyone on it, not just the physical ID card and the laws around making it mandatory. So you're right. But also these days when people die they have the 'tell us once' scheme don't they where all sorts of govt functions are linked up. So although there isn't a single database it feels like a missed opportunity in some ways not to use publicly held data we already have - because credit ref agencies have electoral roll data and probably other stuff too. It's not all their own data from credit companies, they are using public data in some way already. So why can't we do that?


----------



## ash (Jul 18, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> We were at that point in March, almost everyone had started locking down a week or even two before Boris officially said lockdown was a thing.


 I know from a friend who works for one of the big city companies that they started suggesting people wfh towards end of Feb and enforced it on 6th March.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It may be a surprise to some people, but the government doesn’t have a centralised record of everyone.



It would I imagine come as a surprise to the census people.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 18, 2020)

baldrick said:


> It does come as a surprise to me BUT then I remember the big anti-ID card campaign some years ago and the argument with respect to that was in fact the creation of a comprehensive database with everyone on it, not just the physical ID card and the laws around making it mandatory. So you're right. But also these days when people die they have the 'tell us once' scheme don't they where all sorts of govt functions are linked up. So although there isn't a single database it feels like a missed opportunity in some ways not to use publicly held data we already have - because credit ref agencies have electoral roll data and probably other stuff too. It's not all their own data from credit companies, they are using public data in some way already. So why can't we do that?



We could, in theory, but it would be a massive IT project involving the integration of existing data from various sources, and the government’s record on that sort of thing going back decades is just appalling. Plus it would lack all the financial data, as I’m not sure many people would opt in to having all their loans, savings and phone payment data handed over to the government. So the end result wouldn’t be as good as the info the credit reference agencies already have with permission to use.

The tell us once thing isn’t really comparable as it basically just involves a form which is copied and sent to several places.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> It would I imagine come as a surprise to the census people.



In order to encourage people to complete the census it’s enshrined in law that the data can only be used for census purposes for a hundred years. No chance any of it could be used for ID checks or medical testing.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2020)

ok, and as pointed out it it's nearly 10 years out of date, it still exists as a centralized record of everyone though.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2020)

Why not NHS lists for the bulk of it though? Whether someone's had a test should go on the NHS records anyway, with the result.

Eta: Bit of a strange argument anyway since they were sending out twice as many testing kits as they needed to when they announced them. Mind you that _was_ fraudulent, so they could bump up the figures. Like they've been recording double the number of PPE gloves they've been sending out by counting a pair as two items 

Eta eta: But that would of course have meant giving money to the NHS to do the recording rather than their private sector mates, god I'm silly at times


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Why not NHS lists for the bulk of it though? Whether someone's had a test should go on the NHS records anyway, with the result.
> 
> Eta: Bit of a strange argument anyway since they were sending out twice as many testing kits as they needed to when they announced them. Mind you that _was_ fraudulent, so they could bump up the figures. Like they've been recording double the number of PPE gloves they've been sending out by counting a pair as two items
> 
> Eta eta: But that would of course have meant giving money to the NHS to do the recording rather than their private sector mates, god I'm silly at times



Tests are connected to your NHS number and results are sent to your GP to go on your medical records.

The ID check we've been talking about is for tests sent out in the post. Obviously they need to verify identity for these. They could have asked people to input their NHS number or try and cross-check their current address with whatever address records they could grab from GPs or hospitals, but the number of rejects would have been far higher. The ID check method they chose is already in use by HMRC, the Passport Office etc so is already proven to actually work online and be more effective than any other method. Obviously not perfect but nothing is.


----------



## belboid (Jul 18, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> They might have a correspondence address, but with most PAYE employees this is unlikely to be accurate.


?? It's highly likely to be accurate.  That's why P45's and P60's are taken as proof of address.  Though it does miss quite a lot of people out.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 18, 2020)

belboid said:


> ?? It's highly likely to be accurate.  That's why P45's and P60's are taken as proof of address.  Though it does miss quite a lot of people out.



In most cases those aren't accepted as proof of address but only of NI number as they use address data from the employer. Only if HMRC has reason to write to you directly will they have your address.

The electoral roll is about 85% complete. A data matching exercise found this could be increased by only a few percent when using additional data from other organisations such as the DWP/HMRC, DoE, Royal Mail and Student Loans. (this was before individual voter registration, I don't know if its better or worse now).


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Tests are connected to your NHS number and results are sent to your GP to go on your medical records.



So they have to match it to the medical records anyway. Seems an unnecessary extra step to use the private company



> The ID check we've been talking about is for tests sent out in the post. Obviously they need to verify identity for these. They could have asked people to input their NHS number or try and cross-check their current address with whatever address records they could grab from GPs or hospitals, but the number of rejects would have been far higher.



Why far higher? If they did it through the GPs, giving them the extra funding for people there to do the checking, surely you've caught the great majority of people who will be asking for tests.




> The ID check method they chose is already in use by HMRC, the Passport Office etc so is already proven to actually work online and be more effective than any other method. Obviously not perfect but nothing is.



But HMRC are only going to have tax payers, Passport Office only people with passports. NHS lists should have all of them plus children who'd also be missed off HMRC. 

Credit checks won't be getting kids either if they need a test, plus we've seen even on urban there are people who've had problems with this system.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> So they have to match it to the medical records anyway. Seems an unnecessary extra step to use the private company
> 
> Why far higher? If they did it through the GPs, giving them the extra funding for people there to do the checking, surely you've caught the great majority of people who will be asking for tests.



There wasn't the time to set up a system in which GPs check the identity online of hundreds of thousands of people a day, and no way on earth they would have wanted or been able to do that during a pandemic situation. Using the best-available existing online ID check method makes a lot more sense.



> But HMRC are only going to have tax payers, Passport Office only people with passports. NHS lists should have all of them plus children who'd also be missed off HMRC.



I said HMRC and the Passport Office use the method for checking IDs, not that the ID system uses their data (although it does along with lots of other data). As I said ID checking using NHS data was not feasible because the address data is not remotely accurate, especially for people who haven't been to hospital recently.



> Credit checks won't be getting kids either if they need a test, plus we've seen even on urban there are people who've had problems with this system.



It's not a credit check but uses credit and other data. Sure people will have problems with whatever method is used, but I've not seen anyone come up with a better idea given the timescale and challenges involved.


----------



## Doodler (Jul 18, 2020)

Seems likely that a firm such as Experian would become involved and the government would probably like that to happen. They're already offer security background checks which provide information additional to that given in a Standard DBS certificate at least. If they know where you live they can probably make some guesses about you based on your Experian Mosaic neighbourhood profile too. The Civil Service don't have their own off-the-shelf products for such purposes, or at least didn't a few years ago.


----------



## Cloo (Jul 18, 2020)

I had wondered whether anyone was looking into the possibility of control via some kind of simple regular testing (seeing as even at peak, it's still only a minority that will actually be ill/infectious),  although this sounds logistically unlikely to work out: Fergus Walsh: Could spit tests help end the pandemic?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 18, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It's not a credit check but uses credit and other data. Sure people will have problems with whatever method is used, but I've not seen anyone come up with a better idea given the timescale and challenges involved.


Offer the tests on people's word and take whatever hit there is wrt fraud as a consequence? Is widespread fraud even likely?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2020)

Yep, as I say they were happy to send out more tests than needed when it counted to their statistics they were trying to inflate.

And what are they doing with the millions of kids, who don't have a credit rating?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 18, 2020)

Maybe this would lead to gangsters moving in and hoovering up millions of tests for some reason that I have missed. What fraud would there be? If there is a little bit, who cares?


----------



## zahir (Jul 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yep, as I say they were happy to send out more tests than needed when it counted to their statistics they were trying to inflate.
> 
> And what are they doing with the millions of kids, who don't have a credit rating?



Without going on the site to check I think the idea is that a parent applies on behalf of the child and it‘s the parent’s identity that is checked. In that situation the chances are you’d be ordering tests for the whole family.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2020)

zahir said:


> Without going on the site to check I think the idea is that a parent applies on behalf of the child and it‘s the parent’s identity that is checked.



Ha! Potential for fraud there, people claiming for dozens of children.


----------



## ash (Jul 18, 2020)

zahir said:


> Without going on the site to check I think the idea is that a parent applies on behalf of the child and it‘s the parent’s identity that is checked.


 Yes that’s what we did - child has the symptoms so we all had to be tested. Couldn’t log in as her so the adult logged in and then can add up to 4 others


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 18, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I had wondered whether anyone was looking into the possibility of control via some kind of simple regular testing (seeing as even at peak, it's still only a minority that will actually be ill/infectious),  although this sounds logistically unlikely to work out: Fergus Walsh: Could spit tests help end the pandemic?



You can do pool testing. Mix say 6 peoples samples and test that. If its positive you test that group individually.


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 18, 2020)

I think I might have been asked for my NHS number but I dont remember being asked anything else.


----------



## ash (Jul 18, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I think I might have been asked for my NHS number but I dont remember being asked anything else.


We were asked but they said it wasn’t essential


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2020)

Isn't that strange, too? Surely they need to enter fact of the test and the result on your NHS file.


----------



## nagapie (Jul 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I work in healthcare and next June (2021) is being kicked about by management as when some/most (?) things might be going back to face-to-face rather than remote working.


Why? I am getting pretty pissed off that with hardly any covid about, my son is still not getting the services he needs and which cannot be delivered remotely. Especially as a teacher, I have been teaching face to face.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 18, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Why? I am getting pretty pissed off that with hardly any covid about, my son is still not getting the services he needs and which cannot be delivered remotely. Especially as a teacher, I have been teaching face to face.



There's loads of covid around.  England still has one of the highest death rates in Europe.  This, of course, does not take away anything from your perfectly legitimate questioning of why your son isn't getting the treatment he needs.


----------



## nagapie (Jul 18, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> There's loads of covid around.  England still has one of the highest death rates in Europe.  This, of course, does not take away anything from your perfectly legitimate questioning of why your son isn't getting the treatment he needs.


Yes, it's not gone. But is there enough to justify why these essential services have not resumed? Most of his people are not redeployed, they're working in online waiting for the go ahead to resume working face to face.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 18, 2020)

Yeah it's pretty shit that we can get a haircut, an eye test and a massage but we can't see anyone face to face at the NHS for a consultation. I have had a consultation indefinitely postponed and find this confusing and frustrating.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Jul 18, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> so rarely go shopping in supermarkets as i hate it
> 
> 
> but went to the Local Tesco and they have removed all the social distancing measure and arrows around the building
> ...



No more queuing in our Tesco either. 
All the one-way stuff has disappeared too.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Yeah it's pretty shit that we can get a haircut, an eye test and a massage but we can't see anyone face to face at the NHS for a consultation. I have had a consultation indefinitely postponed and find this confusing and frustrating.



You can't write it in and have a phone consultation? (Not asking for details)


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> You can't write it in and have a phone consultation? (Not asking for details)


Nope


----------



## LDC (Jul 19, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Yeah it's pretty shit that we can get a haircut, an eye test and a massage but we can't see anyone face to face at the NHS for a consultation. I have had a consultation indefinitely postponed and find this confusing and frustrating.



I work in primary care as we do see people face-to-face, but much lower numbers than before and we deal with stuff over the phone when at all possible, have no idea how it's working with secondary care or other areas.

And people are being seen face-to-face, as they have been all the way through, but what have been deemed non-essential appointments have been cut back. Also they'll be a massive backlog now which will take time to clear.


----------



## gosub (Jul 19, 2020)

BlanketAddict said:


> No more queuing in our Tesco either.
> All the one-way stuff has disappeared too.



Similar here.  And was out and about yesterday, granted it was a hot day but majority seemed to be waiting for it to be mandated before wearing face covering whilst shopping


----------



## mr steev (Jul 19, 2020)

gosub said:


> Similar here.  And was out and about yesterday, granted it was a hot day but majority seemed to be waiting for it to be mandated before wearing face covering whilst shopping



I've been visiting big supermarkets all through lockdown through work. In asda the security have been letting me in through the exit to save me going all round the store through their one way system. I went yesterday and the one way system and queuing had gone. In previous weeks I'd say about a quarter of people would be masked, yesterday it seemed more like a twentieth.


----------



## clicker (Jul 19, 2020)

Do individual shops have a right to refuse permission to individuals? Regardless of govt mandates and the public's preference? Could Tesco put up a nice corporate coloured poster on the door now saying...no mask no entry?
If they can why are they not? Is it just simply they care more about how much goes through the till, than the person sat on the till or the person pushing the trolley?
Or are all these shops currently unable to refuse entry on their own grounds?


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 19, 2020)

Maybe they dont want their staff to be spat at during a pandemic. 

Its private property and they can theoretically refuse entry to anyone they want.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 19, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Its private property and they can theoretically refuse entry to anyone they want.



Not on the basis of a protected characteristic. If you can't wear a mask because of a disability or religious belief etc, then they can't refuse entry for that.


----------



## LDC (Jul 19, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Not on the basis of a protected characteristic. If you can't wear a mask because of a disability or religious belief etc, then they can't refuse entry for that.



Very few disabilities mean you can't wear a mask though. And what religious beliefs mean you can't?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 19, 2020)

Asthma, COPD, general breathing complaints to start.


----------



## Reno (Jul 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And what religious beliefs mean you can't?


How do you put a mask on the flying spaghetti monster ?


----------



## Thora (Jul 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Asthma, COPD, general breathing complaints to start.


You'd have to have very severe/uncontrolled asthma to not be able to wear a mask.  I would have thought people who are so at risk that they wouldn't be able to wear a mask wouldn't be taking a trip to the supermarket anyway?


----------



## weepiper (Jul 19, 2020)

My ambulance driver cousin and my covid ward nurse friend are both asthmatic and they have to wear full on N95 masks all shift. I don't buy that someone with asthma can't wear a cloth or paper mask for a twenty minute walk round a supermarket.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Very few disabilities mean you can't wear a mask though. And what religious beliefs mean you can't?



I don't, I'm just saying supermarket staff might not have such an easy time trying to deny people entry.


----------



## LDC (Jul 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Asthma, COPD, general breathing complaints to start.



They're illnesses or conditions not disabilities.


----------



## LDC (Jul 19, 2020)

weepiper said:


> My ambulance driver cousin and my covid ward nurse friend are both asthmatic and they have to wear full on N95 masks all shift. I don't buy that someone with asthma can't wear a cloth or paper mask for a twenty minute walk round a supermarket.



Exactly. It's total bollocks people with asthma can't wear a fabric face covering. People with severe COPD that require continuous oxygen fair enough, but generally COPD and asthma, no way.


----------



## LDC (Jul 19, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I don't, I'm just saying supermarket staff might not have such an easy time trying to deny people entry.



It's managed when shops and bars insist on people wearing tops in the summer. Same as that, just have a notice on the entrance. Will only take a few weeks for the dickheads that refuse to wear a mask to have been denied entry a few times to give up and start wearing one.


----------



## clicker (Jul 19, 2020)

And maybe employ temporary security staff knowing part of their role is controlling entry to the store. There must be a lot of out of work trained door staff at the moment. I know it'd be an expense to the store, but it may encourage more people in who currently avoid it.


----------



## LDC (Jul 19, 2020)

weepiper said:


> My ambulance driver cousin and my covid ward nurse friend are both asthmatic and they have to wear full on N95 masks all shift. I don't buy that someone with asthma can't wear a cloth or paper mask for a twenty minute walk round a supermarket.



Cue lots of dickheads using "I've got asthma, don't have to, ha." as an excuse not to wear a mask.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Exactly. It's total bollocks people with asthma can't wear a fabric face covering. People with severe COPD that require continuous oxygen fair enough, but generally COPD and asthma, no way.



Take it up with asthma.uk 



Yes fair enough people with severe asthma aren't likely to be going to supermarkets, but some will need to use public transport.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They're illnesses or conditions not disabilities.


Illnesses and conditions can be disabilities.


----------



## LDC (Jul 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Take it up with asthma.uk
> 
> View attachment 222835
> 
> Yes fair enough people with severe asthma aren't likely to be going to supermarkets, but some will need to use public transport.



Yeah, have seen that. Think it's bollocks, especially considering if you had asthma you'd want to be even more careful about getting infected. Most medical organisations say it won't be a problem for nearly everyone that has asthma or COPD, but there might be  a very few exceptions.


----------



## nagapie (Jul 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I work in primary care as we do see people face-to-face, but much lower numbers than before and we deal with stuff over the phone when at all possible, have no idea how it's working with secondary care or other areas.
> 
> And people are being seen face-to-face, as they have been all the way through, but what have been deemed non-essential appointments have been cut back. Also they'll be a massive backlog now which will take time to clear.


I don't know how you clear a backlog when you haven't resumed the service. Seems to me like this is the window to resume contact but before that happens, we'll probably be in a 2nd wave.


----------



## bimble (Jul 19, 2020)

Is there a point in going to get tested (just the do you have it now test) if I feel fine? I have one of those invitations, is it a sort of duty to go ? I am not an essential worker .


----------



## Numbers (Jul 19, 2020)

What about anxiety or psychological reasons for not wanting to wear a mask?


----------



## Callie (Jul 19, 2020)

bimble  Well I guess it might provide useful data if there are asymptomatic infections rumbling around. Is this the swab test? Is it a one off or a periodical screening thing (once a week/month?)


----------



## bimble (Jul 19, 2020)

Callie said:


> bimble  Well I guess it might provide useful data if there are asymptomatic infections rumbling around. Is this the swab test? Is it a one off or a periodical screening thing (once a week/month?)


One off swab test I think. The invitation came in an email from that Covid reporting ap that I have been periodically using to say that I feel fine, but the other day I ticked I feel crap because just a bad headache.
I think I’ll do it, mainly out of curiosity to see how it all works. I’ll get to be a statistic.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 19, 2020)

Numbers said:


> What about anxiety or psychological reasons for not wanting to wear a mask?


Are you talking clinically signed-off or just somebody claiming this as an excuse?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 19, 2020)

Just someone claiming it as an excuse, obvs


----------



## Numbers (Jul 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Are you talking clinically signed-off or just somebody claiming this as an excuse?


Do you need to be clinically signed off to suffer from either anxiety or any psychological condition which makes mask wearing a very difficult thing?


----------



## Numbers (Jul 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Just someone claiming it as an excuse, obvs


I have terrible breathing problems, I can’t breathe through my nose and any covering of my mouth _really _bothers and panics me.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 19, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I have terrible breathing problems, I can’t breathe through my nose and any covering of my mouth _really _bothers and panics me.



Yep I've been getting exercise induced asthma which is a real fucker too, any time I try to do something I get breathing problems. I'm hoping it's temporary and hay fever related. 

(sorry my comment wasn't aimed at you  )


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 19, 2020)

If we weren't governed by idiots and psychopaths, masks would have been compulsory from the start, and then there would presumably have been a legal basis to be deemed vulnerable for psychological reasons and be assisted to get supplies delivered...


----------



## prunus (Jul 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is there a point in going to get tested (just the do you have it now test) if I feel fine? I have one of those invitations, is it a sort of duty to go ? I am not an essential worker .



If you’ve been invited I’d say absolutely yes; you’ll be part of a random sample survey to check the prevalance of infection without the self-sampling bias of only testing symptomatic people.

Edit: ah, I see it’s through an app - I’m guessing the Zoe app?  In that case it’s slightly different, but still valuable data (they’re mapping symptom sets against actual infections to get a better picture of what Covid ‘looks’ like (and how variable it is, and frequency of different symptom sets), and geographical distributions of same). But still yes do it if you can


----------



## kabbes (Jul 19, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Do you need to be clinically signed off to suffer from either anxiety or any psychological condition which makes mask wearing a very difficult thing?


I believe you have to be clinically signed off to claim a disability as a protected condition, which is what we were talking about.  I could be wrong on that one though.


----------



## Supine (Jul 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is there a point in going to get tested (just the do you have it now test) if I feel fine? I have one of those invitations, is it a sort of duty to go ? I am not an essential worker .



if asked then yes. They are trying to work out how many people are asymptomatic.


----------



## bimble (Jul 19, 2020)

booked self in at the drive through for tomorrow. Mildly curious how it all works.


----------



## clicker (Jul 19, 2020)

O


Numbers said:


> Do you need to be clinically signed off to suffer from either anxiety or any psychological condition which makes mask wearing a very difficult thing?


On the TFL site you can just download an exemption form to carry with you. It covers lots of reasons, I can't see where you'd need to be medically signed off to download it. Maybe it's done on trust. Other transport networks are doing similar and TFL at least have said they'll honour an exemption form from other networks.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 19, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I have terrible breathing problems, I can’t breathe through my nose and any covering of my mouth _really _bothers and panics me.



Would be ok I'd have thought if you've been diagnosed with asthma. As LynnDoyleCooper said, though, we're not going to want to get cv so will need to do something. I've got a few n95 masks which I still have to try but if not I'm going to check for a cloth mask to see whether that works for me. Would cloth mask be easier if it didn't obstruct air flow? 

I presume the face shields don't reduce chance of catching/transmitting much unless someone's actually coughing in your face


----------



## Numbers (Jul 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I believe you have to be clinically signed off to claim a disability as a protected condition, which is what we were talking about.  I could be wrong on that one though.


Prob’ more a general question cos I know there’ll be plenty of folk in that category.


----------



## Numbers (Jul 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Would be ok I'd have thought if you've been diagnosed with asthma. As LynnDoyleCooper said, though, we're not going to want to get cv so will need to do something. I've got a few n95 masks which I still have to try but if not I'm going to check for a cloth mask to see whether that works for me. Would cloth mask be easier if it didn't obstruct air flow?
> 
> I presume the face shields don't reduce chance of catching/transmitting much unless someone's actually coughing in your face


We have a load of different types of masks here cos I had to try and find one that I’m OK with.  The few times I’ve had to get the tube I wear a mask on and off for about an hour or so leading up to it so as I’m used to it.  I actually sometimes just wear one at home when doing nothing also.  

How our comrades on the frontline etc. deal with them for so long is beyond me.


----------



## Callie (Jul 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> booked self in at the drive through for tomorrow. Mildly curious how it all works.


The microbiology consultant at my work said the process should make you gag and cry. I didn't find that but it's not pleasant. Take tissues so you can blow your nose after!


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 19, 2020)

Word on disability. It's a substantial and long term effect on functioning. Explanatory source What counts as disability


----------



## bimble (Jul 19, 2020)

Callie said:


> The microbiology consultant at my work said the process should make you gag and cry. I didn't find that but it's not pleasant. Take tissues so you can blow your nose after!


Yep I’ve heard the same.
The email says I may or may not have to test my own self (will find out when I get there). It does make me wonder, with all the home test kits, how many people actually do it properly if doing it properly is painful or at least very unpleasant? I’m rubbish at stuff like that, even removing splinters etc.


----------



## belboid (Jul 19, 2020)

Callie said:


> The microbiology consultant at my work said the process should make you gag and cry. I didn't find that but it's not pleasant. Take tissues so you can blow your nose after!


I'm taking one weekly, and you are recommended to blow your nose beforehand, not after.  It does make you want to sneeze, but is alright.  The throat one will be more difficult for someone else to do for you, as I can cope with the gag reflex cos I know exactly when it is coming and stopping, so can keep my mouth nice and wide, it'd be trickier if someone else was doing it to me, I think


----------



## kabbes (Jul 19, 2020)

Timely — I just read this in an Independent news article:



> There are exemptions in the policy, but admittedly they're a bit vague.  You needn't wear a mask if you "cannot put on, wear, or remove a face covering without severe distress", or "because of a physical or mental illness".


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2020)

Oops:



> A potential cluster of Covid-19 cases is being investigated in North Lanarkshire, health officials have confirmed.
> 
> BBC Scotland understands the outbreak involves a call centre which carries out coronavirus contact tracing for Public Health England.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: Outbreak investigated at Motherwell contact tracing centre
					

An investigation is under way after six people test positive at the NHS call centre in Motherwell.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## baldrick (Jul 19, 2020)

Callie said:


> The microbiology consultant at my work said the process should make you gag and cry. I didn't find that but it's not pleasant. Take tissues so you can blow your nose after!


Yes that was what it was like for me. I tried to follow the instructions as closely as I could. To get the requisite 15 seconds (I think) of swabbing I gagged several times and had tears pouring down my face   The nose bit wasn't as bad.


----------



## Numbers (Jul 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Timely — I just read this in an Independent news article:


I wear a mask but it completely discomforts me.


----------



## moonsi til (Jul 19, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Yeah it's pretty shit that we can get a haircut, an eye test and a massage but we can't see anyone face to face at the NHS for a consultation. I have had a consultation indefinitely postponed and find this confusing and frustrating.



I work in the NHS & my 24/7 team like many have not stopped face-face appointments, there are of course services who have or who have had to prioritise who has face-face contacts.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 19, 2020)

moonsi til said:


> I work in the NHS & my 24/7 team like many have not stopped face-face appointments, there are of course services who have or who have had to prioritise who has face-face contacts.



I'm guessing the main difficulty in consultation is managing the queues, my regular outpatients appointments have about 20 odd people up turning up for appointments between 9am and 10am and that fills up much of the waiting room.  Thats just for one small clinic in one part of the hospital which is shared with several other clinics.

Reducing those numbers to enable distancing and taking account of emergencies so doctors still available means theres going to be less appointments per day.


----------



## iona (Jul 20, 2020)

baldrick said:


> Yes that was what it was like for me. I tried to follow the instructions as closely as I could. To get the requisite 15 seconds (I think) of swabbing I gagged several times and had tears pouring down my face   The nose bit wasn't as bad.


I've been doing weekly* tests for the ONS covid infection survey and no one's said anything about 15 seconds; the most instruction I got was to pass the swab across the back of my throat & roof of my mouth "about x to y times" (don't remember what x or y were but it didn't take 15 seconds!). Didn't even do the nose bit the first time - they only said to swab my throat so I assumed there'd be a second swab after for my nose but then there wasn't. So that bodes well for the quality of the survey data 

*They seem to be short of people to deliver the tests and they only book appointments by phoning on the day to see if you're free, so I've only actually been tested two weeks out of the last four.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2020)

The written instructions I have for the swab test (I'm doing it as part of a saliva test evaluation) say "Holding the swab in your hand, open your mouth and gently rub the swab over both tonsils and the back of the throat five times, for about 10 seconds (using a mirror may help you do this)."

I havent done it yet, not looking forward to it.

edit - oh there was a video too....


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> He probably wouldn't - he's a fanatic. His record in other areas indicates that and he supported MPs coming back to parliament even though that was clearly endangering them all, even him. His faction either think that the work ethic is worth more than life, or are too stupid to know the effects of what they're proposing, or some combination.


----------



## hash tag (Jul 20, 2020)

I am surprised no one has mentioned the Sunflower Scheme here. I have heard that if for whatever reason you are unable to wear a face mask a Sunflower Lanyard
will highlight the fact that you have a "hidden disability". Anyone can get one though!


----------



## maomao (Jul 20, 2020)

All staff except the manager wearing masks in Lidl this morning but still less than half the shoppers. Quite a few elderly not wearing them which is odd as we have a pretty old population (for London) and older people have been wearing them a lot more than everyone else. Most of Romford seemed to have them on but most people at that time are on their way to get a train or a bus.


----------



## clicker (Jul 20, 2020)

I've avoided big supermarkets since lockdown. Went into local co op yesterday. The 2 staff on the till were both behind screens and neither wore a mask...I think that's ok. The 8 customers all had a mask on. That's ok.  The 2 staff on the shop floor were the only people on the shop floor unmasked. Not ok. 

The aisles are so narrow and the one aisle where you have to queue up in is the pet food aisle. Yesterday that involved 8 masked up customers standing socially distanced from each other, while 2 unmasked staff weaved in amongst us, huffing and puffing refilling shelves with bags of cat litter and maxi boxes of Whiskas. It's possible those 2 staff can't wear a mask... then put them somewhere away from their customers who have complied.


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yep I’ve heard the same.
> The email says I may or may not have to test my own self (will find out when I get there). It does make me wonder, with all the home test kits, how many people actually do it properly if doing it properly is painful or at least very unpleasant? I’m rubbish at stuff like that, even removing splinters etc.



I'm assuming that when they say stick it up your nose til you get resistance then twirl it round they say to do it for 20 seconds* to get you to do it for as long as possible, but not actually needing 20 seconds.  20 seconds is a looooong time to spend doing something so unpleasant to yourself. 

*might have been 15 seconds.


----------



## Cerv (Jul 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> The written instructions I have for the swab test (I'm doing it as part of a saliva test evaluation) say "Holding the swab in your hand, open your mouth and gently rub the swab over both tonsils and the back of the throat five times, for about 10 seconds (using a mirror may help you do this)."
> 
> I havent done it yet, not looking forward to it.
> 
> edit - oh there was a video too....




I had one of those. it's nice that they put the hot doctor in casual clothes in his kitchen instead of scary lab and white coat. 

for me the nose was definitely worse than throat. cos if you feel yourself gagging can just lift off the swab for a second while keeping it in your mouth until that passes then go again. but you ain't pulling it out your nose at all till the whole 20 secs twirling is done.

good luck!


----------



## bimble (Jul 20, 2020)

Well I totally messed that up. Was supposed to be here yesterday   .


----------



## belboid (Jul 20, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I'm assuming that when they say stick it up your nose til you get resistance then twirl it round they say to do it for 20 seconds* to get you to do it for as long as possible, but not actually needing 20 seconds.  20 seconds is a looooong time to spend doing something so unpleasant to yourself.
> 
> *might have been 15 seconds.


about four turns of the swab, thats all it needs. couple of seconds


----------



## BCBlues (Jul 20, 2020)

The argument that " other asthmatics cope" when wearing masks is ridiculous and stinks of DWP thinking when refusing claims for PIP etc, and is probably one reason why they lose so many appeals.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 20, 2020)

Not sure why anyone's commenting on facemask use when it's not enforced until July 24th (ludicrous as that is). I'm guessing a lot of people are going to be like an old colleague of mine who when talking about wearing a bike helmet said he'd wear one if they were compulsory despite accepting wearing one when it was a choice would be likely to be a sensible thing to do.


----------



## clicker (Jul 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Not sure why anyone's commenting on facemask use when it's not enforced until July 24th (ludicrous as that is). I'm guessing a lot of people are going to be like an old colleague of mine who when talking about wearing a bike helmet said he'd wear one if they were compulsory despite accepting wearing one when it was a choice would be likely to be a sensible thing to do.


Because like you said about bike helmets, the sensible thing is to do it now. Shops choosing not to recognise that are not showing any loyalty to customers or staff. They need to be doing everything now they can to inspire confidence. Or they'll just be another boarded up shop on the ever diminishing high street.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 20, 2020)

[





BCBlues said:


> The argument that " other asthmatics cope" when wearing masks is ridiculous and stinks of DWP thinking when refusing claims for PIP etc, and is probably one reason why they lose so many appeals.



I actually tried one of mine (although only for a minute) and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't too uncomfortable. I've ordered a couple of cloth ones though which I'm hoping will be even easier.

Not sure whether the point was made above but people with asthma re more likely to cough, too, so masks doubly important.

I hope LynnDoyleCooper uses more moderate language when he's talking to asthmatics away from urban ("total bollocks") but raised a good point about asthmatics not wanting to catch it that I'm tempted to share with asthma.uk . I'm not sure which are the many medical organizations are he mentions that say the vast majority of asthma & copd sufferers have no problem with masks, I've not seen that on the asthma.uk or lung foundation sites, though, who you'd expect would know.

If people do refuse to wear a mask by pretending they've got asthma they can always be asked to show their inhaler - they'd have to carry one if their asthma was that bad.


----------



## BCBlues (Jul 20, 2020)

I've been wearing one too two sheds , the cloth ones seem to be ok but I still cant wait to get outside the shop and take it off. 
I just hope people who cannot manage at all wearing one will not be treated like lepers.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 20, 2020)

I was in the supermarket this morning.  One staff member with a visor, none others with masks.  I was one of about 5% of shoppers with a mask.  Things are going to have to shift a long way by the 24th


----------



## editor (Jul 20, 2020)

So there is some hope



> The coronavirus vaccine candidate being developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University induces a strong immune response and appears to be safe, according to preliminary trial results.
> 
> The early stage trial, which involved 1,077 people, has found that the vaccine trains the immune system to produce antibodies and white blood cells capable of fighting the virus. It also causes few side effects.
> 
> ...











						Oxford coronavirus vaccine is 'safe' and produces immune reaction, first study results show
					

Vaccine candidate causes few side effects and trains immune system to produce antibodies and white blood cells capable of fighting virus




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 20, 2020)

editor said:


> So there is some hope



More hope here - Possible treatment(s) for Coronavirus.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 20, 2020)

On the rise in cases:


----------



## zahir (Jul 20, 2020)

Mainly about the UK response despite the headline.








						Europe Said It Was Pandemic-Ready. Pride Was Its Downfall.
					

The coronavirus exposed European countries’ misplaced confidence in faulty models, bureaucratic busywork and their own wealth.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## zahir (Jul 20, 2020)

Panorama on the UK response








						BBC One - Panorama, Britain’s Coronavirus Gamble
					

Panorama looks at how the government handled the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				





> Politicians from the prime minister down have assured us their response to the coronavirus pandemic has been 'guided by the science’. But the science has been hotly contested. The World Health Organisation urged countries to stamp out infections as soon as they developed, but the UK government's initial scientific advice said the route out of the crisis was for most of us to catch the virus so we could develop herd immunity.
> Panorama reporter Dr Faye Kirkland asks whether this was a dangerous gamble with people’s lives or a sound scientific approach. Faced with a growing backlash and warnings that the NHS was close to being overwhelmed, politicians denied that herd immunity was the policy, and within a few days Britain pivoted to a new strategy – lockdown. Now, as we try to emerge from that lockdown, Panorama investigates what those early decisions could mean for our future.


----------



## zahir (Jul 20, 2020)

Looking for someone to blame








						Inside Westminster’s coronavirus blame game
					

What went wrong with the UK government’s pandemic response and why? As an inquiry looms, the search for a scapegoat is on




					www.ft.com


----------



## weltweit (Jul 21, 2020)

I was in Morrisons last night, I and one other punter were wearing masks, plus one member of staff. Probably 20-30 other shoppers and staff not wearing them.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 21, 2020)

zahir said:


> Looking for someone to blame
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"Search for a scapegoat"???? 

What's wrong with the chuntering, bloated, haystack-haired elephant in the room, then?


----------



## Numbers (Jul 21, 2020)

Had a similar experience weltweit 
Walked up my High St, it was incredibly busy and hardly anyone wearing a mask in all the smaller shops, the delivery guys all hanging out together, there were at least 12 of them and in CoOp there’s no longer a guard on the door and only 1 other person was wearing a mask and none of the store staff.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 21, 2020)

I reckon the nation is going to just ignore the masks in shops thing and they'll quietly withdraw it.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I reckon the nation is going to just ignore the masks in shops thing and they'll quietly withdraw it.



I think you're probably right.  To my mind it doesn't help that one of the loudest advocates for it were the shop workers unions yet shop workers seem the least likely of anyone to wear them.  Wevs.


----------



## Celyn (Jul 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I reckon the nation is going to just ignore the masks in shops thing and they'll quietly withdraw it.


I hope you're just overly pessimistic: people could be playing at being stubborn _until_ it is compulsory, then take to wearing masks or scarves of various and wonderful designs.


----------



## Supine (Jul 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I reckon the nation is going to just ignore the masks in shops thing and they'll quietly withdraw it.



I think the % who do it will go up massively on Friday. The majority of the country follow rules as seen with mask user on trains and buses generally.


----------



## clicker (Jul 21, 2020)

Retailers could be using their prime time TV ad space to get the mask wearing message across now. They really don't seem to care enough. It's odd.


----------



## maomao (Jul 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think you're probably right.  To my mind it doesn't help that one of the loudest advocates for it were the shop workers unions yet shop workers seem the least likely of anyone to wear them.  Wevs.


Every worker except the manager was wearing one in Lidl yesterday. Apart from one member of staff who has worn one throughout (and has an obvious comorbidity) it was the first time I'd seen any of them in masks. Given that they were all wearing the same kind perhaps Lidl have pulled their finger out and started providing them for staff.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 21, 2020)

zahir said:


> Looking for someone to blame
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This FT article just has to be read in full, I'd say 

If anyone wants some reminder (with a few _new_ facts), about how utterly incompetent the Government has been right from the start of 'all this', there's a huge amount there ....... 

Incriminating stuff .......


----------



## teuchter (Jul 21, 2020)

Supine said:


> I think the % who do it will go up massively on Friday. The majority of the country follow rules as seen with mask user on trains and buses generally.


Not entirely my observation on trains and buses.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 21, 2020)

It's also a bit different on public transport because people are used to the idea that there are 'rules' - you have to have a ticket, etc. It's always been the case that you can be stopped getting on a train, or turfed off. How will people respond to a security guard telling them they can't go into tesco? Especially with the incredibly weak and vague government messaging, and the general perception that we are coming out of restrictions rather than going into new ones.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

Celyn said:


> I hope you're just overly pessimistic: people could be playing at being stubborn _until_ it is compulsory, then take to wearing masks or scarves of various and wonderful designs.



I think that's possible.  The public are broadly speaking content to be led by the nose on most things.  A few people will whine, but just a few.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

zahir said:


> Panorama on the UK response
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks for the link, I wont have time to watch this for a few days probably, but I will get round to it in the end.

There is also this BBC piece which I assume comes from the same Panorama research and dwells on the whole herd immunity thing and the crucial first weeks of March. Of course they dont mention the BBCs own role in trying to justify the approach at the time (eg Nick Triggles infamous article that I have gone on about before). There is also mention again about how various bits of thinking were flawed because they came from the flu playbook, without looking into the idea that these same things would also have been flawed and doomed in a bad influenza pandemic. All the same it does manage to expose the flaws in the orthodox thinking of the time, and when it comes to the following quote, its not very different to what I said in my first couple of posts about the virus, because I was affected by orthodox thinking at the time too. But I was talking about global spread and that was my thinking in January, not March!



> "This was very much the view that you could not control or contain this outbreak," she says. "[The virus is] going to run through, it's inevitable, it's unstoppable."











						Coronavirus: Did 'herd immunity' change the course of the outbreak?
					

What drove the government's thinking in the crucial stages of the coronavirus outbreak?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




There are a few new bits of info in there, such as when the government were given the large death estimates, when some scientific advisors managed to come up with a better estimate of doubling time, and the following regarding how far Vallances herd immunity comments and justifications spread:



> But despite repeated government denials, the BBC has learned that on 13 March, when Sir Patrick Vallance was outlining the government's approach to tackling the virus, herd immunity was being discussed at the heart of the health service.
> 
> From the start of the outbreak, Simon Enright, director for communications for NHS England and NHS Improvement, would offer weekly briefings to media teams in other health organisations and medical royal colleges. He and his team would share some of the latest information on strategy and thinking.
> 
> The BBC has seen contemporaneous notes from the meetings and spoken to people on the calls.





> At the meeting on 13 March, Mr Enright is said to have relayed information from the government's top scientific and medical advisers.
> 
> The notes say the communications chief shared NHS England's own advice on holding internal work events, but say "we are not telling you what to do".
> 
> ...



Yeah, the Nick Triggle March 13th article would be another example of that message being disseminated, fits right in.



> The worst health crisis in a generation. Lives will be lost. All this is true. But what got missed in the government's coronavirus message - understandably, given the scale of the challenge - is that we should also get on with our lives.
> 
> We should keep calm and carry on (while following the advice, of course). At the moment, there are two basic things to do - wash our hands regularly and isolate if we develop symptoms.
> 
> We should still go out, play sport, attend events and keep children in school. Why? Short of never leaving your home and the rest of the household following suit, it's impossible to eliminate the risk of getting the virus. It's circulating.





> Even if you skip your trip to a concert or the theatre, you may well catch it on your way to work or when you do the weekly shop.
> 
> This virus is with us now. And it will be for the foreseeable future. Only when we have a vaccine or if herd immunity develops - if enough of the population is exposed to it - will we have protection.
> 
> There will no doubt be a time when drastic measures are needed - to flatten the peak, protect the most vulnerable at the time of highest risk and stop the NHS getting overwhelmed - but it's not now. That's the clear message.



Someone at the BBC knew they were on thin ice with that at the time, as the Triggle analysis only survived for 3 or 4 hours in a Friday 13th March article before being replaced by someone elses analysis. Although that could have been because the governments approach and comms strategy changed during that period, as the backlash begun. Anyway I am repeating myself with this subject, but it pains (but does not surprise) me to see the BBC covering that period of history without taking a look at its own role at the time.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I reckon the nation is going to just ignore the masks in shops thing and they'll quietly withdraw it.


And then conveniently blame the non-mask-wearing populace for the failure of their own attempts to manage the spread of the infection.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I reckon the nation is going to just ignore the masks in shops thing and they'll quietly withdraw it.



Its not impossible but I dont consider it the most likely scenario at all. It took a lot to get the stupid establishment resistance to masks to shift, but shift it did, and that policy is now being asked to carry a lot of the weight and compensate for a lot of the relaxed stuff. And without it the government are vulnerable to an even heavier range of accusations if things go wrong in future.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> It took a lot to get the stupid establishment resistance to masks to shift, but shift it did...



Hang on, who was it getting the stupid establishment to shift?


----------



## killer b (Jul 21, 2020)

Of course people will comply with the masks in shops thing. Like they've complied, more or less, with every other restriction they've been given over the last few months - what would be different this time?


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Of course people will comply with the masks in shops thing. Like they've complied, more or less, with every other restriction they've been given over the last few months - what would be different this time?



The only thing I can think of is the association between face coverings and "things that foreigners do".


----------



## killer b (Jul 21, 2020)

Don't be a dick.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> Hang on, who was it getting the stupid establishment to shift?



Well establishment thinking is not a complete monolith, some of the shift came from their own internal pressures, some from other supranational bodies, some pressure from other nations (eg Scotland), the passage of time letting the penny drop, pressure from business to relax the 2M rule, and probably plenty else that I missed. 

Another way I could put it is that the resistance to masks was entirely predictable, as was the eventual shift. I probably said as much in the past, when the whole masks debate was first beginning in the UK, but I dont have the time or desire to check right now.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Don't be a dick.



You're a bit dim, aren't you?


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> The only thing I can think of is the association between face coverings and "things that foreigners do".



14th March:



> But in many European countries and the United States, face masks can be used to racialise and stigmatise those of East Asian descent, including when a Chinese student from Britain’s University of Sheffield was verbally and physically harassed in January for wearing a mask, and a Chinese woman was assaulted and called “diseased” in New York in February for doing the same.











						Face mask culture during the coronavirus: East vs West
					

Face masks are selling out in stores worldwide, but whether people wear them when they go outside often depends on where they are from.




					www.scmp.com


----------



## LDC (Jul 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Of course people will comply with the masks in shops thing. Like they've complied, more or less, with every other restriction they've been given over the last few months - what would be different this time?



I'm not so sure about that. Most (all?) of the other restrictions were brought in during the worst weeks of the pandemic, this one is coming in as most people seem to think it's over or something. I hope they do as you say, but it feels like it'll be a massive change/jump if they do given how few people seem to wear them now.


----------



## killer b (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> You're a bit dim, aren't you?


it was an ambitious request, you're quite right.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well establishment thinking is not a complete monolith, some of the shift came from their own internal pressures, some from other supranational bodies, some pressure from other nations (eg Scotland), the passage of time letting the penny drop, *pressure from business to relax the 2M rule*, and probably plenty else that I missed.
> 
> Another way I could put it is that the resistance to masks was entirely predictable, as was the eventual shift. I probably said as much in the past, when the whole masks debate was first beginning in the UK, but I dont have the time or desire to check right now.



I think I may have spotted the clincher.
On the change in stance, there doesn't seem to be new actual evidence that I've seen, looks more like they have re-appraised it.


----------



## killer b (Jul 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not so sure about that. Most (all?) of the other restrictions were brought in during the worst weeks of the pandemic, this one is coming in as most people seem to think it's over or something. I hope they do as you say, but it feels like it'll be a massive change/jump if they do given how few people seem to wear them now.


More recently I'm thinking of the recent changes to pub openings, and how there was a common expectation of wild drunkenness and widespread rule breaking and... it just didn't happen.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> More recently I'm thinking...


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> I think I may have spotted the clincher.
> On the change in stance, there doesn't seem to be new actual evidence that I've seen, looks more like they have re-appraised it.



Yeah the reappraisal was inevitable but this process did start before the 2 metre rule stuff. That was a driving factor but it wasnt the only one. ANd it was just part of this whole 'the new normal', reopening phase stuff that plenty of other countries have had to grapple with in the last couple of months too. eg France just changed their rules about where masks are compulsory. 

Also remember that the WHO had a crappy attitude towards masks for the public for ages too, and they shifted within the same sort of period.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah the reappraisal was inevitable but this process did start before the 2 metre rule stuff. That was a driving factor but it wasnt the only one. ANd it was just part of this whole 'the new normal', reopening phase stuff that plenty of other countries have had to grapple with in the last couple of months too. eg France just changed their rules about where masks are compulsory.



I wasn't too sure why the WHO's initial line on masks was what it was, but guessed it might be down to the potential harms of masks used badly/wrongly and enhancing spread.  Evidence seemed sketchy both ways tbf.  For those feeling a bit "gunshy" about coming out of their homes, I think the Government intended the masks business to give a feeling of safety, but I'm not sure whether "you can relax the social distancing but now have to wear a mask" would reassure me that much.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> I wasn't too sure why the WHO's initial line on masks was what it was, but guessed it might be down to the potential harms of masks used badly/wrongly and enhancing spread.



I would add in concerns over the global shortage of masks, when they were needed by medical staff.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I would add in concerns over the global shortage of masks, when they were needed by medical staff.



Oh, yeah - good point - I remember it being said but don't recall the WHO weighing in on that.
Seems like this shit has been going on forever.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> More recently I'm thinking of the recent changes to pub openings, and how there was a common expectation of wild drunkenness and widespread rule breaking and... it just didn't happen.



Common expectation? Not exactly but I know what you mean. There were nerves about the policy and I still would not have done that bit when they did it, but not because I expected millions of people to abandon social distancing entirely. My concern was for specific chains of transmission, individual spread, local clusters etc. Some people take these ideas to their extreme and expect mass non-compliance and spikes within weeks. The reality is almost always far more mixed than that, and we have mostly only had anecdotal evidence about behaviours over these months. Also we havent really been given much data about compliance in general, press conferences tended to focus on transport figures where it was easy to show a massive and sustained change to behaviours. In fact it is likely that there has been plenty of non-compliance with all manner of rules all the way along. Some of it through no fault of peoples own instincts, but rather the situations they were placed in with their financial situation, jobs, accommodation etc. But in other areas there have been some people 'cheating' all the way through, and compliance has varied by region, age, etc.

I dont know exactly how much of a problem the minority who react very badly to mask stuff will cause. I suppose I expect there will be specific incidents that get highlighted in the news, and some of these will be quite ugly. But no matter how bad such incidents are for the people (eg shop workers) involved, there is a difference between a bunch of incidents and non-compliance on a scale that will force a rethink about how compliance is enforced. When it came to other issues of policing the pandemic in past months, the likes of Hancock would fall back on the rhetoric about 'public consent based policing', which often involved a somewhat hands-off approach. The masks stuff could test that somewhat illusory stance, or it could be dealt with via the usual absurdities and turning a blind eye.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> I think the Government intended the masks business to give a feeling of safety, but I'm not sure whether "you can relax the social distancing but now have to wear a mask" would reassure me that much.



This is part of the ongoing incompatibility between restoring the economy and crushing the transmission of the virus. They understandably want to have their cake and eat it, but it cant be done, so we have these awkward balancing acts.

Part of their resistance to masks would have been that it makes everything obviously abnormal and unsettling, but at the same time they didnt want people to behave normally. But eonomically there came a time when they did want people to start behaving more normally, and had to find a way to compensate for the impact of that on transmission. And so we've had these months of very mixed messages from the government, which the Gogglebox participants had no trouble spotting and mocking at the time.

Personally I would feel much better about going to a store if I was confident that almost everyone would be wearing a mask. But thats me, a person who is not going to drift into a sense of normality just because some months went by since the peak, someone who doesnt need to see people wearing masks to remind me that the virus is still out there and that these are not normal times.

Some scientific advisors are aware of the importance of sending messages to each other socially via our behaviour. For example the issue of shaking hands - this was discouraged for two reasons, the actual transmission via handshakes, but also because not shaking someones hand is a reminder to those present that these are not normal times, and that other behaviours should also be modified. I think even Johnson described that bit at some point, in one of the press conferences in the early days, although he didnt sound entirely convinced.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Personally I would feel much better about going to a store if I was confident that almost everyone would be wearing a mask. But thats me.



In most places I have barely seen any masks til the last couple of days, but with the masks it also feels like the social distancing has gone to shit, including when density has been low enough that people could distance easily enough if they wanted to.

Whenever I have the mask on, it always just feels like a ritual to make some people feel better.  Would be nice if people carried on with doing the other stuff.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> In most places I have barely seen any masks til the last couple of days, but with the masks it also feels like the social distancing has gone to shit, including when density has been low enough that people could distance easily enough if they wanted to.
> 
> Whenever I have the mask on, it always just feels like a ritual to make some people feel better.  Would be nice if people carried on with doing the other stuff.



'mask wearing will encourage people to be more lax in other areas' was one of the original concerns that fed into the establishment resistance to mask wearing in the first place. But at some stage these concerns were outweighed by the obvious benefits.

It is bad that various businesses have used the mask rules to tear up their previous distancing measures, I'm not happy about that. But masks arent just for show, they should have a real effect on transmission too, so my stance is not quite the same as yours but I certainly sympathise with various points you are making. Also sorry for adding to my last post after you had already quoted from it.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> 'mask wearing will encourage people to be more lax in other areas' was one of the original concerns that fed into the establishment resistance to mask wearing in the first place. But at some stage these concerns were outweighed by the obvious benefits.
> 
> It is bad that various businesses have used the mask rules to tear up their previous distancing measures, I'm not happy about that. But masks arent just for show, they should have a real effect on transmission too, so my stance is not quite the same as yours but I certainly sympathise with various points you are making. Also sorry for adding to my last post after you had already quoted from it.



From looking at the literature, I'm not sure the benefits of masks were necessarily "obvious" early on.  Even now there seem to be plenty of dissenters from the science world, and the most vocal advocates seem to have strong links to bodies with the existing messaging.  Usually we'd get picky about that sort of thing.  

But then I don't regard the mask as such a terrible imposition, and if there's a small chance of reducing transmission to vulnerable groups that seems fair enough.  If the Government had retained more credibility in its handling of all this I might have been less pernickety over it, I guess.

No probs about the edit - am always doing it myself.  I personally think a "no post is final until it has been up for 3 days" rule is reasonable.


----------



## weltweit (Jul 21, 2020)

I think come Friday people will be wearing them in shops and it will be the minority that are not wearing them that will stand out. 

Whether it will be a task for security on the doors not only to restrict access but also to stop people entering without a mask I don't know, but for the larger stores it might come to that.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 21, 2020)

Just been in the big Tesco in Rochdale, which is under some kind of sub-Leicester semi lockdown (the town, not tesco ). I had a mask on as did 2 other people, maybe 10% of the people I saw. The store had also abandoned the queue at the door, though I heard staff saying they are still doing it in Middleton (even bigger Tesco 4 miles away).

Even the '1 meter+' thing, along with other official advice is barely happening. To me it's lots of things: the 'message' itself is a mess. I've personally no idea of how many people can we can meet/in what circumstances, what the bubble stuff amounts to. It's a mishmash of shite that has just about disappeared from people's real thinking about their day to day lives. And it's also the 'messaging'. Vague waffle from central government that is anyway undermined by its push to get the economy going and get people in work/on public transport. But it's more than that, there's no way these messages become embedded in real life. real communities. There's no way government can now turn the tap on and off to deal with local outbreaks.the  Of course we'll see how that works if there's a second wave along with the winter flu.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I think come Friday people will be wearing them in shops and it will be the minority that are not wearing them that will stand out.
> 
> Whether it will be a task for security on the doors not only to restrict access but also to stop people entering without a mask I don't know, but for the larger stores it might come to that.



Imagine security getting into a fight with non-mask wearers as masked line up to enter the shop.
That would be the most 'pandemic disaster movie' thing that has happened since the bog roll bizarreness.  

Crazy with us being this far into it.


----------



## editor (Jul 21, 2020)

I'm at Paddington now. It's very very quiet and it ll feels a bit melancholy. Loads of the usual shops are closed. The railway companies must be losing an absolute fortune.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

editor said:


> I'm at Paddington now. It's very very quiet and it ll feels a bit melancholy. Loads of the usual shops are closed. The railway companies must be losing an absolute fortune.



Are you meant to be masked on the platforms etc.?  At my local station there are signs telling travellers to muzzle up, but on the outside of the ticket barriers there seem to be few people wearing them.


----------



## killer b (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Common expectation? Not exactly but I know what you mean. There were nerves about the policy and I still would not have done that bit when they did it, but not because I expected millions of people to abandon social distancing entirely. My concern was for specific chains of transmission, individual spread, local clusters etc. Some people take these ideas to their extreme and expect mass non-compliance and spikes within weeks. The reality is almost always far more mixed than that, and we have mostly only had anecdotal evidence about behaviours over these months. Also we havent really been given much data about compliance in general, press conferences tended to focus on transport figures where it was easy to show a massive and sustained change to behaviours. In fact it is likely that there has been plenty of non-compliance with all manner of rules all the way along. Some of it through no fault of peoples own instincts, but rather the situations they were placed in with their financial situation, jobs, accommodation etc. But in other areas there have been some people 'cheating' all the way through, and compliance has varied by region, age, etc.
> 
> I dont know exactly how much of a problem the minority who react very badly to mask stuff will cause. I suppose I expect there will be specific incidents that get highlighted in the news, and some of these will be quite ugly. But no matter how bad such incidents are for the people (eg shop workers) involved, there is a difference between a bunch of incidents and non-compliance on a scale that will force a rethink about how compliance is enforced. When it came to other issues of policing the pandemic in past months, the likes of Hancock would fall back on the rhetoric about 'public consent based policing', which often involved a somewhat hands-off approach. The masks stuff could test that somewhat illusory stance, or it could be dealt with via the usual absurdities and turning a blind eye.


My objection was to the kind of attitude that we've seen throughout this - from government, from SAGE advisors, from people on social media and posters here, that the british people just won't comply with whatever measures are being proposed: because we're thick and racist, because of some 'british exceptionalism', because of our bloody-minded independent spirit - it's an attitude that's at least partly responsible for the delay to lockdown, and likely responsible for the delay to these new mask rules. And so far it's an attitude that by and large has been proved wrong. I'm confident it'll be proved wrong again this time too.


----------



## editor (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> Are you meant to be masked on the platforms etc.?  At my local station there are signs telling travellers to muzzle up, but on the outside of the ticket barriers there seem to be few people wearing them.


Just about everyone I can see is masked up. Same on the train but the masks go down when the food comes out! 
The service I'm on is usually rammed - but it must be running at something like 15% from my guesstimate. By sheer coincidence a friend has just sat almost next to me!


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

editor said:


> Just about everyone I can see is masked up. Same on the train but the masks go down when the food comes out!



The advice is to not touch the outside of the mask for the periods you are wearing it.  I'm guessing this is almost entirely unfollowed.
I know it's not a popular opinion, but this (and the lack of very clear emphasis) is one of the things that makes me think the chief purpose of the masks business is to fit more people into shops and other businesses.

(with apols to BristolEcho for the late edit, since this post may now be less 'like'able  )


----------



## Wilf (Jul 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I think come Friday people will be wearing them in shops and it will be the minority that are not wearing them that will stand out.
> 
> Whether it will be a task for security on the doors not only to restrict access but also to stop people entering without a mask I don't know, but for the larger stores it might come to that.


Part of the problem is the lack of continuity about these things. The Tesco I mentioned is a good point of comparison as I only come down to Rochdale every couple of weeks. When I visited the store a month ago they had the full rigmarole in place - queue, staff on the door, one way system, spaced out queue for the tills. As of today, that's all gone - a shift in what staff do in the store, but also a big shift in what shoppers think about how shopping 'happens'. If we go back to security on the door for masks, something like proper queue discipline, something gets lost every time.  I don't mean people have stopped thinking about covid and don't think the majority are behaving badly. It's just that government are shit at managing our behaviour, even with the relative goodwill that a crisis generates.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> The advice is to not touch the outside of the mask for the periods you are wearing it.  I'm guessing this is almost entirely unfollowed.


Blimey, I touch mine all the time as it needs constant adjustment. does touching it make it not work? Don’t see how


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Blimey, I touch mine all the time as it needs constant adjustment. does touching it make it not work? Don’t see how



If you have the virus, you will get it on your hands; the mask gets moist making it an ideal transmission medium.
If sanitising really regularly I guess that might reduce risks.


----------



## LDC (Jul 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Blimey, I touch mine all the time as it needs constant adjustment. does touching it make it not work? Don’t see how



When you're taught to use them in a medical environment once it goes on you don't touch it until you take it off, then you carefully use the straps to do so without touching the actual mask, and then drop it straight in a waste bin. For the reasons above, not that it makes the mask not work, but you transfer the virus from the outside of the mask on to your hands potentially.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> My objection was to the kind of attitude that we've seen throughout this - from government, from SAGE advisors, from people on social media and posters here, that the british people just won't comply with whatever measures are being proposed: because we're thick and racist, because of some 'british exceptionalism', because of our bloody-minded independent spirit - it's an attitude that's at least partly responsible for the delay to lockdown, and likely responsible for the delay to these new mask rules. And so far it's an attitude that by and large has been proved wrong. I'm confident it'll be proved wrong again this time too.



A fair chunk of it was bollocks that they clung to because it was actually the establishment that was struggling to think the unthinkable during the first weeks of the really crucial period.

The closest they came to being right about anything on that front was the concept of lockdown fatigue. Again they used that shit to justify doing far too little, so I wont defend their stance on it. But it had some grains of truth to it, in that we eventually saw all sorts of signs of lockdown fatigue, including on this forum, by a period in May. This did not lead to widespread utter collapse of lockdown and social distancing, it caused a change of mood and the balance of pressures a bit, and some people did start to loosen their behaviours too much but they were a minority. And now it blends in with this general sense that too many people think its all over and want to go back to actual normality, but again I am with you in getting annoyed when this is overstated and feeds into a false sense of how 'everyone' is behaving right now. And no matter if this phenomenon grows, the government are increasingly aware that they have big big problems due to the opposite phenomenon, all the people who have no intention of going back to normal economic activities in a hurry, and will thwart the governments most reckless economic ambitions as a result.

In my mind the lessons learned about lockdown fatigue actually provide more reasons why they should have acted sooner and more strongly in the first place. We've seen that people were quite prepared to turn their lives upside down during the worst period of outbreak. So push down fast and hard in transmission at that stage, and you can go further, faster towards the suppression goals. Leaving us in a better position to cope with the relaxation phase because the levels of infection will have been pushed lower at that point, creating a bit more wiggle room with how people behave from that point onwards.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 21, 2020)

editor said:


> I'm at Paddington now. It's very very quiet and it ll feels a bit melancholy. Loads of the usual shops are closed. The railway companies must be losing an absolute fortune.



Would have been an ideal time to nationalize lots of companies in trouble. If only there had been a way we could have got a government that would consider it.


----------



## editor (Jul 21, 2020)

For the record: the only reason I'm travelling on a train - the first time I've left London since March - is to see my sister in law who is critically ill.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> From looking at the literature, I'm not sure the benefits of masks were necessarily "obvious" early on.  Even now there seem to be plenty of dissenters from the science world, and the most vocal advocates seem to have strong links to bodies with the existing messaging.  Usually we'd get picky about that sort of thing.



It wasnt obvious if you bought into years and years of misleading conventional wisdom in the west. Not that such conventional wisdom actually extended to our healthcare, where the importance of masks has long been understood.

I'm not in agreement with you at all about this and will be taking a break shortly before I get worked up. Because yes the UK acted on masks because they wanted to compensate for relaxing other stuff, but this balancing act only works if the masks do actually do something to reduce transmission. And I think they do, and I have always thought they do, and citizens in some countries far from europe have known this for a very long time indeed.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> It wasnt obvious if you bought into years and years of misleading conventional wisdom in the west. Not that such conventional wisdom actually extended to our healthcare, where the importance of masks has long been understood.
> 
> I'm not in agreement with you at all about this and will be taking a break shortly before I get worked up. Because yes the UK acted on masks because they wanted to compensate for relaxing other stuff, but this balancing act only works if the masks do actually do something to reduce transmission. And I think they do, and I have always thought they do, and citizens in some countries far from europe have known this for a very long time indeed.



Really no need to get yourself worked up.  The idea that even discussing whatever new rule comes along is actively harmful is having a generally infantilising effect, as can be seen by anyone's Facebook feed.

The reason health workers wear masks has always been solidly based on bacterial transmission (why do you think anti-bacterial masks have been around for ages but not anti-viral ones?). Also, when health workers use them, they use them far more rigorously than the general public. The masks seem to go straight under the chin and a lot of the time they are under the nose when in active use. I doubt these movements occur by telekinesis.

I hope they help, and also hope they don't lead to major lapses in other measures we have been taking.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 21, 2020)

editor said:


> I'm at Paddington now. It's very very quiet and it ll feels a bit melancholy. Loads of the usual shops are closed. The railway companies must be losing an absolute fortune.



I've just assumed that the government is paying for it all.  

I live next to a line where several services meet and terminate at Waterloo.  At the start of June it was notable that a lot more services were operating than during lockdown.  They are all still pretty empty.  Forlornly passing by as commuters have no intention of going back to the office.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> The reason health workers wear masks has always been solidly based on bacterial transmission (why do you think anti-bacterial masks have been around for ages but not anti-viral ones?).



Garbage! We had a pandemic stash of masks for healthcare workers (that was not large enough) that was all based on influenza virus transmission.

I'm done. I talked about mask attitudes here a lot on April, which is when the UK governments shit mask stance first came under pressure (leading to Hancocks 'a front door is better than any mask') and then I reviewed that stuff again a month ago. I'm just repeating recent history and I've done it too much, the end.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 21, 2020)

editor said:


> For the record: the only reason I'm travelling on a train - the first time I've left London since March - is to see my sister in law who is critically ill.


Sorry to hear that Ed, hope she pulls through.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Garbage! We had a pandemic stash of masks for healthcare workers (that was not large enough) that was all based on influenza virus transmission.
> 
> I'm done. I talked about mask attitudes here a lot on April, which is when the UK governments shit mask stance first came under pressure (leading to Hancocks 'a front door is better than any mask') and then I reviewed that stuff again a month ago. I'm just repeating recent history and I've done it too much, the end.



Wevs.  Enjoy your self-righteousnes.

If you come back and happen to have any decent literature reviews on the subject I'm happy to update my opinions.


----------



## Smangus (Jul 21, 2020)

editor said:


> For the record: the only reason I'm travelling on a train - the first time I've left London since March - is to see my sister in law who is critically ill.



Sorry to hear that, best wishes etc.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> Wevs.  Enjoy your self-righteousnes.
> 
> If you come back and happen to have any decent literature reviews on the subject I'm happy to update my opinions.



Theres a bunch of links to various studies, and a US perspective on the changing story to maks and reasons for resistance, in the following article if you want to have a look. I havent looked for further studies because it just seems obvious to me that masks are better than no masks, in terms of reducing amount of infectious droplets. They certainly arent perfect, far far from it, but they are especially important now that there is less denial about the likely role of asymptomatic cases in spreading the virus. And thats another area where you will still find conflicting scientific opinion. Because such varied opinions always exist, but I am mostly interested in where the mainstream opinion has shifted to on particular subjects, not whether there is still some doubt (there is nearly always doubt!) or questions over just how effective a particular measure is. There are a lot of questions in this pandemic and I fear we wont actually get solid answers for many of them. eg we may never be able to identify the precise effects of one thing in isolation, and are mostly dealing with complex combinations of things that can only truly be separated in artificial situations that may come with their own flaws in methodology that distort the results.









						Still Confused About Masks? Here’s the Science Behind How Face Masks Prevent Coronavirus
					

We talked to UCSF epidemiologist George Rutherford, MD, and infectious disease specialist Peter Chin-Hong, MD, about the CDC’s reversal on mask-wearing, the current science on how masks work, and what to consider when choosing a mask.




					www.ucsf.edu
				




I like science but I dont need to rely on it too mch on this one. Because I use an ecig and I see how far that stuff goes when it leaves my mouth. And there have been moments in my life where I have seen with horror how some small amount of liquid has left my mouth and landed on the person I am talking with. And I have no trouble believing that the same virus that causes severe illness or death in one person can cause no symptoms at all in another, whether that virus is SARS-CoV-2 or influenza etc. So with several routes of transmission and the possibility of being infected and infectious without knowing it due to lack of symptoms appearing obvious and true to me, the whole wear a mask thing becomes a no-brainer to me as a result. Sorry that I got too overheated about this.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

Cheers - I'm basically a little wary of measures that seem "intuitively obvious" where data is lacking, but I get what you mean - it's not like we ever needed a blinded randomised study on whether parachutes have an effect on death by blunt trauma after falling out of a plane. 

I've looked at a few reviews so far and to my mind the actual evidence is about as good as that for recommending the fluoridation of drinking water (as in it is limited and gives a "probably, sort of, maybe" result), but with the virus perking up again I'd agree on trying everything plausible that doesn't negate anything we have been doing so far (which I have a bit of a concern about).

I'll certainly take a look at your link. However it pans out, we should get some useful data for next time.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> ...  but with the virus perking up again...



It is?


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It is?



Maybe 'perking up' was overstating a little - you decide.

(for the less patient, there has been a small increase, but it is within confidence intervals)


----------



## xenon (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> The advice is to not touch the outside of the mask for the periods you are wearing it.  I'm guessing this is almost entirely unfollowed.
> I know it's not a popular opinion, but this (and the lack of very clear emphasis) is one of the things that makes me think the chief purpose of the masks business is to fit more people into shops and other businesses.
> 
> (with apols to BristolEcho for the late edit, since this post may now be less 'like'able  )


Have to touch mask to remove it. SO better just to say, don't touch it unless you've washed your hands. 

Which I wouldn't have thought needed to be stated explicitly being as it's kinda obvious and of a piece with early advice about not touching your face.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> Have to touch mask to remove it. SO better just to say, don't touch it unless you've washed your hands.
> 
> Which I wouldn't have thought needed to be stated explicitly being as it's kinda obvious and of a piece with early advice about not touching your face.



I'd hope "for the periods you are wearing it! would have covered that.


----------



## xenon (Jul 21, 2020)

editor said:


> For the record: the only reason I'm travelling on a train - the first time I've left London since March - is to see my sister in law who is critically ill.



Sorry to hear this Ed. 

I did go and visit family last week, since travel restriction advice has been lifted a bit. Never seen Victoria station so quiet.


----------



## Supine (Jul 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It is?



Little bit. Not much / TBD


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 21, 2020)

Supine said:


> Little bit. Not much / TBD
> 
> View attachment 223108



Yes, but there's been an increase in testing, particularly focused on areas of concern, so that's bound to show a increase, I am a bit surprised it's not showing a bigger increase TBH.

On the 1st July 7-day average was 857 new daily cases, whereas yesterday it was down to 621, there was a bit of a dip in-between, but generally speaking it's been floating around the 600 mark over the last 2 weeks, despite the increased targeted testing.  









						United Kingdom COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer
					

United Kingdom Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes, but there's been an increase in testing, particularly focused on areas of concern, so that's bound to show a increase, I am a bit surprised it's not showing a bigger increase TBH.
> 
> On the 1st July 7-day average was 857 new daily cases, whereas yesterday it was down to 621, there was a bit of a dip in-between, but generally speaking it's been floating around the 600 mark over the last 2 weeks, despite the increased targeted testing.
> 
> ...



Fair point, happy to retract 'perking up'.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes, but there's been an increase in testing, particularly focused on areas of concern, so that's bound to show a increase, I am a bit surprised it's not showing a bigger increase TBH.
> 
> On the 1st July 7-day average was 857 new daily cases, whereas yesterday it was down to 621, there was a bit of a dip in-between, but generally speaking it's been floating around the 600 mark over the last 2 weeks, despite the increased targeted testing.
> 
> ...


Yep, and encouragingly, a large majority of positives are coming from Pillar 2 now, with only around 100-odd Pillar 1. That means most positives are coming from people who are not seriously ill, or even ill at all. 

I had a look at Spain's numbers this morning, and it's a similar story with the recent Catalunya/Aragon outbreak: thousands of positives in Catalunya the last week, but only 18 new hospital admissions in that time and no deaths. 

This is all very different from back in March or April, when only those who were really ill were getting tested. Catalunya's recent spike would not have been detected back then, and neither would Leicester's. Hopefully showing the ability to catch things before they cause damage.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

I need a broader range of data over a longer period before I can judge, but yeah, I wouldnt say there is much in the current numbers that would make me conclude that we actually have a real increase of note. This is one of the reasons I want sewage monitoring though, changes to the testing system over time means I need other data too, to rule out testing system changes as being responsible. But hospital data lags behind the infection picture by some weeks, and can miss increased spread amongst groups that arent so vulnerable to the worst health effects, so we need something else like sewage data for a more timely and complete indication.

Those case numbers for me should be interpreted in the same way we interpret news about outbreaks being detected in specific locations. The question of whether these are happening now with a changed frequency or magnitude, or whether we are just getting better at detecting them now that we are zooming in, sharing more data, in a position to actually try to deal with outbreaks at this level etc.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 21, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep, and encouragingly, a large majority of positives are coming from Pillar 2 now, with only around 100-odd Pillar 1. That means most positives are coming from people who are not seriously ill, or even ill at all.



Which is great news, and fits in with extra testing in areas of concern, which has even included knocking on doors & carrying out on the spot tests.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

I didnt really want to start thinking about the challenges of winter yet. But since the recommendations in the 'Preparing for the challenges of winter 2020/21' which the Academy of Medical Sciences wrote on request from Vallance/SAGE involve lots of stuff that has to be put in place or otherwise prepared for in July and August, I thought I better link to it now. Because it is a bit depressing to read, but its also depressing to save my rants until a time when its too late to act. So for now a compromise, I am linking to it now but I'm not going to start quoting from it or commenting on its contents at the moment.



			https://acmedsci.ac.uk/file-download/51353957


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

You could put your rants in the spoiler code.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> You could put your rants in the spoiler code.



That might be an idea but even if I go down that route I will try to aim for the 2nd half of August rather than this stage in July 

Meanwhile 



> Hospital nurses were told their "lives would be made hell" if they complained over conditions on a coronavirus ward, a union has claimed.
> 
> Unison has raised a group grievance for 36 employees, most of them nurses, at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: NHS nurses told 'lives would be made hell'
					

Staff dealing with dying patients faced "horrendous" bullying for raising concerns, it is claimed.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

That's certainly rantable.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

Sounds like Whitty defended parts of that last week of pre-lockdown government failure.









						Coronavirus: 'Infection here for many years to come'
					

Even progress in developing a vaccine is unlikely to mean the virus will be eliminated, MPs hear.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Crucial evidence about the scale of the outbreak and modelling about how quickly it could spread was presented to ministers on 16 March.
> 
> But it was a full week later that a total lockdown was announced.
> 
> ...



Closing schools, which they had spent a fair proportion of the previous weeks press conferences (on March 9th and 12th if I remember correctly) trying to justify not doing.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

Wasn't the direction of travel pretty obvious before the end of Feb?


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> Wasn't the direction of travel pretty obvious before the end of Feb?



Yes. And then there was a period where establishments in europe started to realise they would have to think the unthinkable. Johnson finally bothered to attend a COBRA meeting about the virus in early March, but it wasnt till Italy locked down that the penny really dropped across europe, but was met with a finally flurry of resistance from Johnson & Co. It was the week of March 9th that was orthodoxy and dogma busting for many european countries. But that was also the week the UK moved to the next phase and the public and journalists discovered how crap and out of step with other countries in the region this next phase was going to be. So that plan died by weekend (the 'herd immunity' justification was plan A's last stand and it backfired instantly). Then followed a week of cobbling together and starting to act on and communicate plan B instead, whilst trying to pretend there had been no overarching u-turn.

Thats one side of the picture anyway. But there was also some bad testing, data and modelling problems that caused them to fail to appreciate what stage of the pandemic wave we were actually at, hence a load of bollocks about how we were '4 weeks behind Italy' when we were actually 2 weeks behind Italy. And these mistakes only dawned on them at just about the same time the shit was hitting the fan on the front I described in the previous paragraph.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

I remember at the time it seemed to be that they had pissed away 4, possibly 5 weeks at least, though the details have grown hazy.
If the virus had been as bad as initially feared we would be right up shit creek.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> I remember at the time it seemed to be that they had pissed away 4, possibly 5 weeks at least, though the details have grown hazy.
> If the virus had been as bad as initially feared we would be right up shit creek.



Different amounts of time squandered on different fronts. Some of the failings go back many years and would have made it hard to make the best use of the latter part of January, and February. A rational and unconstricted analysis of the situation in Wuhan when they had to lockdown in January would have resulted in much stronger measures sooner, at the supranational as well as national level (eg in the crappy world we actually have, WHO was more interested in the first month supporting the world tourism board than recommending any border closures which were a no-no because they are a no-no for neoliberalism).

Given the world as it was actually ordered at the time, I have tended to say in the past that even if I had been in charge, it would have been hard to implement a proper lockdown much earlier than 2 weeks before we actually did, too many things in the way. But one or two weeks would have made a huge difference. Timing wasnt the the only big difference maker though, even if we had been as late as we were, the death picture could still have been very different if our testing regime, hospital infection, care home shielding and PPE situations were very different to the ones we actually saddled ourselves with. Or the other long terms stuff such as poverty, living conditions, working conditions, etc.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

I was involved in organising a film festival around that time.  I said a bit less than a month before lockdown that we would be locked down by at least a week by the festival date.  In the event the lockdown came right on the date of it.  The paralysis seemed staggering.  They were actually talking about locking down openly for something like 10 days and just... not.


----------



## frogwoman (Jul 21, 2020)

I think we pretty much are up shit creek tho tbh.

How bad is as bad as feared though, as depending where you are in the world and your general state of health etc, it can be 'better' than you thought or worse? I've got a Brazilian mate who says that more than 20 people she knows personally have died.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

Also given that most of the things the pandemic has shone a light on so far are things that were always somewhat visible, but were ignored, dont be surprised if a large number of flu deaths we have in the UK in winter are driven by similar failings all the bloody time. The deadly hospital<->care home spread of infectious respiratory diseases is unlikely to be a phenomenon reserved only for this pandemic, its probably been significant in many flu seasons. I doubt its a coincidence that Germany did relatively well in this pandemic and seems to have a lower excess winter mortality than us in normal times too.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think we pretty much are up shit creek tbh.
> 
> How bad is as bad as feared though, as depending where you are in the world and your general state of health etc, it can be 'better' than you thought or worse? I've got a Brazilian mate who says that more than 20 people she knows personally have died.



Not to minimise anything, but the talk was of _everyone_ knowing people who have died (remember Boris's speech?). This was plausible from some of the estimations at the time. Given the state of the bloody Government, we could have lost millions of people if the virus had been that virulent (they were talking about half a million even while in the throes of delusions of competence).


----------



## frogwoman (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> Not to minimise anything, but the talk was of _everyone_ knowing people who have died (remember Boris's speech?). This was plausible from some of the estimations at the time. Given the state of the bloody Government, we could have lost millions of people if the virus had been that virulent (they were talking about half a million even while in the throes of delusions of competence).



Yeah but its still only a relatively small number of people who have actually had it here tho, even in badly hit areas because of lockdown and social distancing,  hygiene etc. I don't know if anyone actually thought millions of people would die in the uk.

The imperial college model said 66 thousand deaths with a lockdown by august and that's pretty much what we've had when you look at ONS figures etc.

Boris's speech was saying that everyone would know people who have died, but this was when they were still going on about herd immunity as a credible option (I remember that speech because it was the night I saw a mate for the last time before lockdown). If they had continued in that manner he would be right. 

In places like  Bergamo and parts of spain everyone does know someone who died.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> I was involved in organising a film festival around that time.  I said a bit less than a month before lockdown that we would be locked down by at least a week by the festival date.  In the event the lockdown came right on the date of it.  The paralysis seemed staggering.  They were actually talking about locking down openly for something like 10 days and just... not.



If you are ever bored, try watching the 9th and 12th March press conferences They were painful at the time, and have certainly not aged well!

Im afraid the March 9th one has awfully echoey audio and doesnt even start until 11 and a half minutes into this video. So if you only watch one, make it the March 12th one, although the March 9th one does provide some context for the heat they were feeling before the March 12th one in regards their shitty plans.

9th:



12th:


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

I'm not sure that will be good for my blood pressure.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> I'm not sure that will be good for my blood pressure.



You are missing March 9th classics such as (and I am paraphrasing slightly in places)...

Johnson:

"dont do things with no sound medical reason, or counterproductive things"
"other countries have different epidemiology"
(in regards to other countries measures) "be in no doubt we are considering all of them in due time, they may become necessary, but timing is crucial"

Vallance:

"have to do things in combination at the right time"
"push the peak into the summer"
"mass gatherings dont make much difference"
"do stuff based on where we are with the epidemic, not reaction mode"
"cannot suppress it completely, shouldnt do this or it will pop up again later in the year when the NHS is vulnerable in winter"

Whitty:

"not just what you do but when you do it"
"fatigue risk if we go too early"
"it increases slowly but then really quite fast, have to catch it before the upswing begins"


----------



## two sheds (Jul 21, 2020)

my first proper facepalm ^^


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

"dont do things with no sound medical reason, or counterproductive things"   - this actually made me laugh out loud at the time

"fatigue risk if we go too early"  - but oddly not if you do it too late and need to be fucking locked down for ages...


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> my first proper facepalm ^^



There was _so much_ facepalm during those days.


----------



## frogwoman (Jul 21, 2020)

Remember this shite? Lots of bootlickers were sharing it around March.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Remember this shite? Lots of bootlickers were sharing it around March.




It's very reminiscent of some muzzle propaganda I saw.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> There was _so much_ facepalm during those days.



The R rate for facepalms in this pandemic broke all known records. By Friday 13th March they were doubling every 3 seconds.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> The R rate for facepalms in this pandemic broke all known records. By Friday 13th March they were doubling every 3 seconds.



I think it peaked somewhere around Barnard Castle.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> "dont do things with no sound medical reason, or counterproductive things"   - this actually made me laugh out loud at the time



I spent some time trying to capture a sample of one moment where it sounded a bit like Johnson accidentally said "our timing is criminal" but upon repeat listening he hadnt actually flubbed his line quite as clearly as that, so I had to let that one go. It might still have been a freudian slip that didnt quite come to full fruition, and Vallance starts to react slightly to the gaffe, but it was a bit of a stretch so I gave up on that footage.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> I think it peaked somewhere around Barnard Castle.



Ahh the second wave of facepalms. Although there is still some disagreement about whether that really counts as a second wave, or just a resumption of the first.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

The Lancet: Most comprehensive study to date provides evidence on optimal physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent spread of COVID-19
					

Keeping at least one metre from other people as well as wearing face coverings and eye protection, in and outside of health-care settings, could be the best way to reduce the chance of viral infection or transmission of COVID-19, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis synthesising...



					www.eurekalert.org
				




So, the next step on the way to our Mad Max dystopia...


----------



## two sheds (Jul 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Remember this shite? Lots of bootlickers were sharing it around March.




I questioned that at the time <polishes lapel modestly> along with the propaganda-style graphs showing hospital bed capacity at around a third of peak requirement.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Remember this shite? Lots of bootlickers were sharing it around March.



I dont think I saw that one at the time, I was too busy ranting on here and doing the splits by explaining the rationale behind various actions or inactions in a way that, to my shame, wasnt always a million miles away from the 'expert rhetoric' of the time, whilst also dealing with the people here who placed more trust in the government than was wise.

Just look at this BBC classic from, oh no surprise, March 13th, that week and that day again, the last stand of plan A and the role of the state broadcaster in that.

Its even got a graph which, if considered in a certain way makes it obvious why some people thought we were 2 weeks behind Italy, not 4, but of course the focus of the article is very much not about looking in that direction:









						Coronavirus: Three reasons why the UK might not look like Italy
					

Boris Johnson's chief scientific adviser says the UK is four weeks behind Italy, What does that mean?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Much of Italy is currently in lockdown as the country's tally of coronavirus deaths has topped 1,000.
> 
> The outbreak is putting the Italian healthcare service under immense strain. But will the UK follow this path?





> On Thursday, Boris Johnson's chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said the UK was four weeks behind Italy "in terms of the scale of the outbreak" if not "in terms of the response".
> 
> Does that mean we're four weeks away from a similar fate?
> 
> Not necessarily. Here are three reasons why experts believe the UK's epidemic could be different from Italy's, and why the number of cases here means something different.





> The epidemics in both countries may be growing at a similar rate now, but early on the UK had more diagnosed cases than Italy. Italian numbers shot up on 23 February, leading scientists to think there was a period when the virus was spreading without being detected.
> 
> That gave less room for measures like tracing contacts of those who had fallen ill and isolating cases to slow the spread.
> 
> Professor of international public health Jimmy Whitworth says that put the health system "behind the curve" in controlling the epidemic.



Well its a good thing we werent sleepwalking into the very same mistake at the time that was written. Oh, wait! Bwaaaaarrrrrppppppp no facepalm is big enough to do justice to reading this now. Hindsight barely required, it was shit at the time too. We didnt even start testing very sick people in hospital till late February if they didnt have the right travel history.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> The R rate for facepalms in this pandemic broke all known records. By Friday 13th March they were doubling every 3 seconds.



Uh oh, I've reached the point where I feel the need to complain about my own post because R is not a rate. Probably a sign that its time for another little summer holiday for my mind from this pandemic, lol.


----------



## clicker (Jul 21, 2020)

8ball said:


> The Lancet: Most comprehensive study to date provides evidence on optimal physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent spread of COVID-19
> 
> 
> Keeping at least one metre from other people as well as wearing face coverings and eye protection, in and outside of health-care settings, could be the best way to reduce the chance of viral infection or transmission of COVID-19, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis synthesising...
> ...


Ffs we're all going to look like Crazy Frog by Christmas.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Uh oh, I've reached the point where I feel the need to complain about my own post because R is not a rate.



<strokes place where old lockdown beard was>

Not a rate in terms of time, I guess.  Haven't really thought about how far the term extends...


----------



## gosub (Jul 22, 2020)

Re : Nowcasting and Forecasting of COVID-19 - MRC Biostatistics Unit

Anyone know when the Report for the 20th July 2020 is published (or is that a question for PMQ's)?


----------



## teuchter (Jul 22, 2020)

clicker said:


> Ffs we're all going to look like Crazy Frog by Christmas.


It doesn't really seem to say much new. More like just confirming the current state of evidence (generally poor)



> However, none of these interventions, even when properly used and combined, give complete protection from infection, and the authors note that some of the findings, particularly around face masks and eye protection, are supported by low-certainty evidence [1], with no completed randomised trials addressing COVID-19 for these interventions (table 2).


----------



## kabbes (Jul 22, 2020)

It’s really hard to do a RCT for face covering.  So you need to take alternative approaches for the study method, which might not meet the gold standard of an RCT but nevertheless still have statistical merit, plus the advantage of actually being achievable.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 22, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It’s really hard to do a RCT for face covering.  So you need to take alternative approaches for the study method, which might not meet the gold standard of an RCT but nevertheless still have statistical merit, plus the advantage of actually being achievable.


Yes, but unfortunately they grade the quality of the evidence so far as:



> low certainty (our confidence in the effect estimate is limited; the true effect could be substantially different from the estimate of the effect)


----------



## editor (Jul 22, 2020)

The differences between Wales and England on public transport are huge.

 In Wales, most of the seats on trains are covered over with signs telling people they need to maintain social distancing and long benches have signs ensuring people stay 2m apart. 

Everything around town seems eminently more sensible and with their pubs not reopening until a week Monday, the question I keep getting asked is, "why the hell did English pubs reopen on a Saturday?"


----------



## Supine (Jul 22, 2020)

editor said:


> The differences between Wales and England on public transport are huge.
> 
> In Wales, most of the seats on trains are covered over with signs telling people they need to maintain social distancing and long benches have signs ensuring people stay 2m apart.
> 
> Everything around town seems eminently more sensible and with their pubs not reopening until a week Monday, the question I keep getting asked is, "why the hell did English pubs reopen on a Saturday?"



It's not an England Vs Wales thing with the train seats. Different train companies handled it differently.

Northern rail had lots of seat covers but they seem to have been removed recently.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jul 22, 2020)

editor said:


> The differences between Wales and England on public transport are huge.
> 
> In Wales, most of the seats on trains are covered over with signs telling people they need to maintain social distancing and long benches have signs ensuring people stay 2m apart.
> 
> Everything around town seems eminently more sensible and with their pubs not reopening until a week Monday, the question I keep getting asked is, "why the hell did English pubs reopen on a Saturday?"


Went alright, though, didn't it? What magic thing happens a week Monday to make pubs safe again?


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Went alright, though, didn't it? What magic thing happens a week Monday to make pubs safe again?



Yeah and a lot of pubs didn't open anyway.  In fact several round my way still aren't as they are run by breweries who are doing a staged reintroduction across their estate.  Still, opening on a Saturday was potentially a pretty daft thing to do.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 22, 2020)

Pub up the road has closed, I'd imagine quite a few will


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jul 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> What magic thing happens a week Monday to make pubs safe again?



What?


----------



## editor (Jul 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Went alright, though, didn't it? What magic thing happens a week Monday to make pubs safe again?


You don't think it was safer to reopen pubs later rather than earlier, and choosing a traditionally quiet Monday rather then a 'Super Saturday' where people usually go out and get smashed out of their brains?


----------



## Nanker Phelge (Jul 22, 2020)

editor said:


> You don't think it was safer to reopen pubs later rather than earlier, and choosing a traditionally quiet Monday rather then a 'Super Saturday' where people usually go out and get smashed out of their brains?




No, it's much easier to pick holes in one bit of your post instead of taking it as a whole and saving the typewriter the agony of a petty alphabet.


----------



## hash tag (Jul 22, 2020)

I don't know why I was shielding Now. With hair gently caressing my nipples I could have a good few years yet








						Bald men could be at higher risk of ‘severe’ coronavirus symptoms
					

Others caution ‘much more evidence’ needed to support claims




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 22, 2020)

editor said:


> The differences between Wales and England on public transport are huge.
> 
> In Wales, most of the seats on trains are covered over with signs telling people they need to maintain social distancing and long benches have signs ensuring people stay 2m apart.
> 
> Everything around town seems eminently more sensible and *with their pubs not reopening until a week Monday*, the question I keep getting asked is, "why the hell did English pubs reopen on a Saturday?"



I agree with almost all of this , including about transport.

But (bolded bit) a _minority_ of pubs in Wales have been opening their gardens/yards/exteriors since Monday 3rd July (they had the sense not to open them on a bloody Saturday anyway, so no argument there).

My confidence about this is about us cycling up to a country pub outside Swansea with quality ale in it   .

A bit busy though it was, there was no bother there


----------



## frogwoman (Jul 22, 2020)

I went to a pub on Sunday tbh. Sat outside and it seemed pretty safe tbh, the tables were really well spaced from each other and they had a queuing system in place, table service etc.


----------



## frogwoman (Jul 22, 2020)

However I've walked past pubs which looked to be exactly as it was before the lockdown...


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I went to a pub on Sunday tbh. Sat outside and it seemed pretty safe tbh, the tables were really well spaced from each other and they had a queuing system in place, table service etc.



The (exterior) table-spacing was also pretty good where we were today


----------



## frogwoman (Jul 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> The (exterior) table-spacing was also pretty good where we were today



It was a really nice day out tbh, I've been pretty pessimistic but makes me feel better about the reopening of pubs, that particular pub anyway


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 23, 2020)

I was surprised when I returned to work 4 weeks ago to find hardly anyone wearing masks, but initially it was just us handful of IT staff working individually or in very small groups setting up  offices for social distancing.

As more and more staff return to work, things are changing and I for one, will be wearing a mask when in other areas of the site and especially in shared facilities (I have never shopped unmasked).
Encountering two masked clients (scientists) enabled me to broach the subject ...

One colleague has decided he's somewhat at risk as numbers of people pick up and is resisting being at work much.....only 50, massively strong - black belt in Aikido, but heavy and type 2 diabetic...


----------



## Cloo (Jul 23, 2020)

We went to our local (which we avoided for years as it seemed  pretty rough but actually it's quite nice when it's quiet) for a quick lunch half pint yesterday - took about 10 mins to set up the app for ordering and tracing, but then it worked pretty well. We'll probably go for lunch next week when both kids will be out of the house during the day at summer camps * faints * - it's got quite a nice garden and it is is well spaced out, and they've got a military grade cleaning regime going on. Local pubs all seem very quiet. We had lunch outdoors at a country pub on Sunday and that was pretty quiet but I think only because the morning had been on the rainy side and it had only just stopped (was good news for us as it didn't take bookings and we were counting on having lunch there midway through a walk).

I find it odd people talking about 'if there is a second wave' because, to my mind, of course there will be a second wave, it's basically unavoidable unless we stay on total lockdown until immunity/vaccine, but then I also think it is the right thing to do to partially open up in summer when it's easier to do things outdoors, open shop/restaurant frontages etc, as it might give businesses a fighting chance of survival. For all the hurrumphing about 'Oh, they just want people to die so that we can line the pockets of Big Business', the vast majority of businesses are small and need a chance to make a living. I don't think we'll get a true second wave this summer, though there will be spikes in areas - my understanding is the government is expecting it around October, though I'd have thought later in winter might be more likely.


----------



## LDC (Jul 23, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I don't know why I was shielding Now. With hair gently caressing my nipples I could have a good few years yet
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fucking hell that newspaper is such a pile of shit.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fucking hell that newspaper is such a pile of shit.



Not even a newspaper any more.


----------



## Boudicca (Jul 23, 2020)

Cloo said:


> We went to our local (which we avoided for years as it seemed  pretty rough but actually it's quite nice when it's quiet) for a quick lunch half pint yesterday - took about 10 mins to set up the app for ordering and tracing, but then it worked pretty well. We'll probably go for lunch next week when both kids will be out of the house during the day at summer camps * faints * - it's got quite a nice garden and it is is well spaced out, and they've got a military grade cleaning regime going on. Local pubs all seem very quiet. We had lunch outdoors at a country pub on Sunday and that was pretty quiet but I think only because the morning had been on the rainy side and it had only just stopped (was good news for us as it didn't take bookings and we were counting on having lunch there midway through a walk).
> 
> I find it odd people talking about 'if there is a second wave' because, to my mind, of course there will be a second wave, it's basically unavoidable unless we stay on total lockdown until immunity/vaccine, but then I also think it is the right thing to do to partially open up in summer when it's easier to do things outdoors, open shop/restaurant frontages etc, as it might give businesses a fighting chance of survival. For all the hurrumphing about 'Oh, they just want people to die so that we can line the pockets of Big Business', the vast majority of businesses are small and need a chance to make a living. I don't think we'll get a true second wave this summer, though there will be spikes in areas - my understanding is the government is expecting it around October, though I'd have thought later in winter might be more likely.


I think there is a bit of herd immunity potential in this too as the young and healthy get a chance to mingle, catch it and recover whilst the older and more vulnerable are mostly still staying at home.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2020)

Plans for several hundred walk-in test centres and 500,000 per day test capacity by the end of October:









						Virus test walk-in centres 'to help with winter'
					

Officials are worried people are still not coming forward for testing when they are infected.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				




The thing about winter preparations in regards testing is that at some point in the autumn/early winter we lose the ability to assume a huge chunk of those experiencing symptoms have SARS-CoV-2 as opposed to other seasonal respiratory infections. So you need much more capacity, and they will also need to think about whether they are going to do lots of testing for the other viruses too.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> I think there is a bit of herd immunity potential in this too as the young and healthy get a chance to mingle, catch it and recover whilst the older and more vulnerable are mostly still staying at home.



Which is bad news for multi-generational households.


----------



## zahir (Jul 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Plans for several hundred walk-in test centres and 500,000 per day test capacity by the end of October:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Testing is still being rationed by the limited number of symptoms listed. The NHS site says you can get tested ”if you have coronavirus symptoms now (a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, or a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste)”. This rules out those - the majority - who don’t have these symptoms or don’t have any symptoms at all but feel they may have a reason to get tested. In reality you can go ahead and book a test anyway but the site discourages you from doing this. My local walk-in centre remains very quiet, probably partly for this reason. If they want more people to get tested the messaging will have to change. It would make sense to me to say that if you feel like you’ve got a cold coming on then get tested.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Plans for several hundred walk-in test centres and 500,000 per day test capacity by the end of October:



I hope there are some plans for a better test as well.  The current one seems unreliable to say the least.


----------



## scifisam (Jul 23, 2020)

Thora said:


> You'd have to have very severe/uncontrolled asthma to not be able to wear a mask.  I would have thought people who are so at risk that they wouldn't be able to wear a mask wouldn't be taking a trip to the supermarket anyway?



I'm embarrassed by how difficult I'm still finding it to wear even a bandana. It's really surprised me. My asthma isn't poorly controlled at the moment - it's bad but I'm not on prednisilone or anything - and covering my face still makes a real difference. Mentally I don't mind it at all (don't have to wear lipstick, don't have resting bitch face , and it can be taken off easily if need be), so it's not panic. Wearing glasses does make a big difference too though, - they steamed up. I still wore the bandana to be a good person and protect myself too, but it was hard going.

I just haven't been out enough that I thought to order in better masks, and planned to just buy some paper ones next time I went out. Yesterday when I went to the supermarket I thought they'd have paper/disposable ones for sale, but they didn't. But because I'm actually doing unusually well physically in most respects - I feel better than I have in ages - I really want, and need, to go out. I'm not talking grocery shopping, because I can get that delivered, but everything else. There's no way I'm not going out when I'm able to. I want a life so I'm going to go out and wheeze through my bandana, but it makes me a little more sympathetic to other people who find it difficult. 

The Leyland down the road sells disposable face masks - I'll try to get some of those tomorrow, next time we're planning on going out. They won't look cool but hopefully they won't feel hot 

I'd say about 10% of other people in the supermarket were wearing masks, FWIW. And no, I don't think 90% of people have health reasons for it. 



kabbes said:


> I believe you have to be clinically signed off to claim a disability as a protected condition, which is what we were talking about.  I could be wrong on that one though.



That wouldn't apply to anyone under 18 or over 60, assuming you mean signed off from work or told that they don't have to seek work (not sure what other meaning there could be). It also wouldn't apply to a lot of disabled people who can still work. Plenty of people with paraplegia still go out to work, for example, but they are still protected if they're discriminated against for their disability. 

FWIW, paraplegia can affect one side of the body, too - one of my brothers has been paraplegic down his left side since he was 11 and his right side is somewhat affected, so he wouldn't be able to put on a face mask, but he can still go shopping and is relatively safe to do so. Strokes can have a similar effect. At least usually they are visible disabilities.

Diabetes can mean that you should have reasonable adjustments too, even though you're young and otherwise healthy and completely capable of working. Pub workers, for example, should be allowed to have access to a soft drink behind the bar even if drinking behind the bar is usually disallowed.

FWIW I'd say the number of people in the general populace who can't wear a mask for reasons of breathing difficulties, mobility problems with putting the mask on, or major anxiety issues, is significantly higher than people who work in healthcare or other trades where they wear masks regularly. It's really not a very helpful comparison, TBH.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I hope there are some plans for a better test as well.  The current one seems unreliable to say the least.



I took part in the saliva test trial recently, which if successful will have some advantages in terms of ease of use etc. I think they also hope it will pick up infections at a stage its easy for the swab test not to pick up on as well, but time will have to tell on this one.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2020)

Coronavirus: Blackburn and Luton 'areas of intervention'
					

A spike in coronavirus cases leads officials to postpone the reopening of leisure facilities.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Residents in Luton and Blackburn have been told lockdown measures set to be eased this weekend will not be lifted in the towns.
> 
> Public Health England (PHE) data released on Thursday showed both had been marked as "areas for intervention" due to a spike in cases.
> 
> Leaders of both town councils said they would postpone the planned lifting of certain restrictions.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/903450/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_30_FINAL_UPDATED.pdf


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 24, 2020)

As expected, due to covid, there's an extension of the flu vaccine programme for this coming winter, so everyone over 50 will be offered it. 



> *How bad will flu and coronavirus be?*
> Flu, which can be deadly or need hospital treatment, poses additional threats during the pandemic:
> 
> There is some evidence a double infection with coronavirus and flu is more deadly than either alone
> ...





> *Who will be offered the flu vaccine?*
> 
> people who were required to shield from coronavirus and anyone they live with
> people with some medical conditions including diabetes, heart failure and asthma
> ...











						Most people in England to be offered flu vaccine
					

About 30 million people - including everyone over 50 - will be able to have a free flu vaccine.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> Which is bad news for multi-generational households.



Of which there will be more now as people lose jobs and homes and end up living with aging parents.


----------



## eoin_k (Jul 24, 2020)

Where are people tracking the situation here  now that the government have stopped reporting daily figures? I know their data was flawed but it felt like tracking it's rise and fall gave some sense of how things were going. Plus I was really looking forward to UK moving up into third place in terms of per capita death toll. In a morbid way I've found it reassuring to have my own pessimism confirmed about how badly the situation has been handled.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 24, 2020)

eoin_k said:


> Where are people tracking the situation here  now that the government have stopped reporting daily figures?



They are still publishing them here:




__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




And, therefore appear here too:








						United Kingdom COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer
					

United Kingdom Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## eoin_k (Jul 24, 2020)

My mistake


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 24, 2020)

Effectively 2nd behind Belgium, if you ignore the tiny city-states.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 24, 2020)

Per capita has its limitations as much as the pure numbers.  If you have a large rural, isolated population then your per capita mortality will end up very low, but that doesn’t mean you’ve handled it well if tens of thousands die in your cities.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 24, 2020)

And, you know, when you say "per capita," there's many per capitas.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As expected, due to covid, there's an extension of the flu vaccine programme for this coming winter, so everyone over 50 will be offered it.



Since the Government were so keen on "herd immunity", you'd think they would be offering it to everyone.


----------



## phillm (Jul 24, 2020)

Indy Sage now live...





			https://twitter.com/independentsage?lang=en


----------



## phillm (Jul 24, 2020)

Ronnie Scott's is re-opening on the 1st August.





__





						COVID Protocols In The Club - Ronnie Scott's
					






					www.ronniescotts.co.uk


----------



## Nanker Phelge (Jul 24, 2020)

Anyone got a local perspective on the Northampton situation. I got some vulnerable folk working in the office and they are freaking about the idea of local lockdown.


----------



## yield (Jul 24, 2020)

Nanker Phelge said:


> Anyone got a local perspective on the Northampton situation. I got some vulnerable folk working in the office and they are freaking about the idea of local lockdown.


DotCommunist  lives in Kettering or Northampton I think?


----------



## LDC (Jul 24, 2020)

Nanker Phelge said:


> Anyone got a local perspective on the Northampton situation. I got some vulnerable folk working in the office and they are freaking about the idea of local lockdown.



Freaking out due to the possible local lockdown or the increasing infection rate?


----------



## Nanker Phelge (Jul 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Freaking out due to the possible local lockdown or the increasing infection rate?



They don't wanna be stuck at home again....


----------



## elbows (Jul 25, 2020)

Nanker Phelge said:


> Anyone got a local perspective on the Northampton situation. I got some vulnerable folk working in the office and they are freaking about the idea of local lockdown.



Unless a place shows Leicester-like levels of infection, the plan these days is to try to tackle the issue in other ways first, with local lockdown a last resort. This means things like setting up more testing sites in the area, zooming in on particular areas of transmission in the area, and sometimes not pressing ahead with the latest round of relaxations. So there is a long road between that stuff and actually telling everyone in the area to stay at home. For example Blackburn with Darwen and Luton are a step of severity above Northampton, have now been placed in the same broad category as Leicester, but as a result their gyms etc arent reopening now, rather than other very heavy stuff being imposed at this stage.

Leicester was also the first, and at a time when neither data nor enforcement powers had been given to local authorities, and the measures there were imposed from above. So Leicester does not reflect the current template for what is done elsewhere, where there is room for more local actions decided upon locally, and the other stuff is just held as a last resort if the situation doesnt improve.

Conclusion: Keep an eye on it but there is no way that a proper local lockdown in places such as Northampton should be seen as inevitable at all, and other intermediate steps should come first. I cannot give a 100% guarantee about that because there is always the chance they will find really high levels of infection when they increase the testing capacity, but even then I would expect some nuance in the response.

I dont think the Northampton situation is necessarily actually new either, their hospital deaths data sucked in terms of how much it was ongoing well past the peak compared to many places.


----------



## elbows (Jul 25, 2020)

I probably should also have said that the authorities are keen to evoke the idea that there could be a local lockdown there because they hope such threats encourage people to take the other advice seriously. There are signs of that in this sort of article:









						Northampton's health chiefs warn 'we must take action now or risk potential local lockdown measures'
					

Advice is to work from home, stay off the bus and avoid meeting friends from outside your household in indoor spaces




					www.northamptonchron.co.uk
				




And its not am empty threat, but its not inevitable at all.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 25, 2020)

What's the situation with people coming from abroad now? I thought they had to self isolate. A neighbour's sister has come from Melbourne, where they were having a resurgence. She said she's from a suburb where there are very few cases but she's come across by plane so I do wonder. 

She's staying with her brother who's a delivery driver and so is all over the south west up to Hampshire sometimes. She's said she's not been required to self isolate, and is off on the bus into town on Monday.

I just spoke to her and she said she's fairly young and in good health and felt the response to cv has been "overblown" I said more forcefully than I normally would "I don't. I get bad asthma so I'm not going to survive if I get it". She didn't seem too convinced or bothered by that so I said that you can be asymptomatic so you just don't know whether you've got it, and a church service in South Korea had spread hundreds of cases. She didn't say anything else but from her expression she clearly thought I was exaggerating.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> What's the situation with people coming from abroad now? *I thought they had to self isolate.* A neighbour's sister has come from Melbourne...



Nope we have 'air corridors', and Australia is included as one.



> Apart from the latest five countries added to the list, arrivals are exempt from quarantine if they arrive in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from:
> 
> _Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, *Australia*, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, Croatia, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominica, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, France, French Polynesia, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Mauritius, Monaco, Netherlands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Réunion, San Marino, Seychelles, South Korea, Spain, St Barthélemy, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Pierre and Miquelon, Switzerland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Vatican City, Vietnam._











						Covid: Which countries can you now travel to from the UK?
					

Countries around the world have reopened borders to travellers from the UK. But requirements remain in place.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## gosub (Jul 25, 2020)

Out and about in local shopping centre this afternoon, mask wear was up to levels where social conformity should kick in


----------



## maomao (Jul 25, 2020)

Almost everyone had one one in Lidl (the only person who wasn't wearing one at all was wearing mirror shades and over ear headphones so not exactly approachable if I had felt like having a go). The woman in front of me at the till was wearing it as a chin strap but I used my fight tokens to complain about her not bothering to put the next customer divider on the belt for me. 

Got my first bus though. One guy didn't seem to have one at all though when he got up to get off it was clearly in his hand. At least four people just wearing them round their chins and one lady wearing a scarf who made as if she was going to cover her face as she got on then dropped it the second she was past the driver. The only bad thing about wearing them that I've personally found is that mouthing 'cunt' at non wearers doesn't work.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Nope we have 'air corridors', and Australia is included as one.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ta for clarifying that - good to know.


----------



## tim (Jul 25, 2020)

A fortnight's quarantine for anyone flying in from Spain after midnight tonight.Home - BBC News


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 25, 2020)

If it wasn't the case that the poorer southern European states didn't rely on tourism they'd be insisting that Brits quarantined for 14 days landing there tbh.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 25, 2020)

So, it seems Johnson has released something from his air-corridor.


----------



## tim (Jul 25, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> If it wasn't the case that the poorer southern European states didn't rely on tourism they'd be insisting that Brits quarantined for 14 days landing there tbh.



Plenty of people in the UK including myself are dependent upon South Europeans amongst others coming here to spend their money. This vision of there being vast swathes of poverty in southern Europe is really a cliché from the 1950's. Income from tourism and international education are a central component of the British economy.


----------



## Cloo (Jul 25, 2020)

More telling people online today not to use Nazi analogies about wearing of face coverings.


----------



## weltweit (Jul 25, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Bald men could be at higher risk of ‘severe’ coronavirus symptoms
> 
> 
> Others caution ‘much more evidence’ needed to support claims
> ...


Kin-ell, another issue from being a baldie!
At least the article seems inconclusive thus far.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jul 25, 2020)

tim said:


> A fortnight's quarantine for anyone flying in from Spain after midnight tonight.Home - BBC News




Plenty of people caught out and surprised. I really dunno why I knew, but have been advising punters for at least a week that this is on the cards.

But, as with the previous quarantine in the UK, there's no one that will actually enforce it, so it will just be ignored. 

We are in Germany now, supposed to fill out a form 48 hours before returning to the UK, all reports state that the form is not looked at. Upon arriving in Germany we had to fill out a form on the plane, the immigration pig told us to bin it. It's a common problem, the government comes up with rules/ideas, but has no way to actually implement them.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jul 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> What's the situation with people coming from abroad now? I thought they had to self isolate. A neighbour's sister has come from Melbourne, where they were having a resurgence. She said she's from a suburb where there are very few cases but she's come across by plane so I do wonder.
> 
> She's staying with her brother who's a delivery driver and so is all over the south west up to Hampshire sometimes. She's said she's not been required to self isolate, and is off on the bus into town on Monday.
> 
> I just spoke to her and she said she's fairly young and in good health and felt the response to cv has been "overblown" I said more forcefully than I normally would "I don't. I get bad asthma so I'm not going to survive if I get it". She didn't seem too convinced or bothered by that so I said that you can be asymptomatic so you just don't know whether you've got it, and a church service in South Korea had spread hundreds of cases. She didn't say anything else but from her expression she clearly thought I was exaggerating.



 I can't believe the uk let her in at all, let alone without quarantine. 

Victoria is in stage 3 lock down and with slight variations in rules regarding quarantine, many state boarders are closed to anyone from Victoria. People from Victoria are not allowed into Qld at all.

Here's a list of Victoria hot spots









						COVID-19 hotspots
					

Areas in Australia that the Queensland Chief Health Officer has declared COVID-19 hotspots for the purpose of current Public Health Directions posted in the Queensland Health website.




					www.qld.gov.au
				




Be safe two sheds


----------



## Supine (Jul 25, 2020)

Apparently Grant Shapps is on holiday in Spain


----------



## two sheds (Jul 25, 2020)

ice-is-forming said:


> I can't believe the uk let her in at all, let alone without quarantine.
> 
> Victoria is in stage 3 lock down and with slight variations in rules regarding quarantine, many state boarders are closed to anyone from Victoria. People from Victoria are not allowed into Qld at all.
> 
> ...


Ta icy, yes I thought it was a bit iffy. I'm going to keep a distance from them both - trouble is that like yesterday, I came out of the garden with Cosmo the dog makes a line straight for their kitchen because she's always had treats there. She's either going deaf or she's saying Yeh yeh to herself as I'm calling her back. I'm going to have to put her on the lead right away. 

I was somewhat concerned about the blase attitude though - "I'm quite young and healthy" so it's all overblown.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jul 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Ta icy, yes I thought it was a bit iffy. I'm going to keep a distance from them both - trouble is that like yesterday, I came out of the garden with Cosmo the dog makes a line straight for their kitchen because she's always had treats there. She's either going deaf or she's saying Yeh yeh to herself as I'm calling her back. I'm going to have to put her on the lead right away.
> 
> I was somewhat concerned about the blase attitude though - "I'm quite young and healthy" so it's all overblown.



Tbf there's only been 145 deaths nationwide, and I'm gonna assume she's not been paying attention to anything outside of Aus, because who would risk flying to the uk atm..

I've got a dog like that too, his ears stop working when he's on a mission.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 25, 2020)

ice-is-forming said:


> I've got a dog like that too, his ears stop working when he's on a mission.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 25, 2020)

Supine said:


> Apparently Grant Shapps is on holiday in Spain


Crikey! How will whatever he does get done for a fortnight?


----------



## Supine (Jul 25, 2020)

I would have delayed opening gyms and stuff today, the numbers are starting to move in the wrong direction. 

No panic yet but we need to see where the new level will settle for a while imo.


----------



## tim (Jul 25, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Crikey! How will whatever he does get done for a fortnight?



Michael Green or Corrine Stockheath of Surrey will do it for him.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 26, 2020)

Supine said:


> Apparently Grant Shapps is on holiday in Spain



8 days after saying holidays were fine


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 26, 2020)

Supine said:


> I would have delayed opening gyms and stuff today, the numbers are starting to move in the wrong direction.
> 
> No panic yet but we need to see where the new level will settle for a while imo.
> 
> View attachment 223687



As you say, no panic yet, this could just be down to more testing, esp, in areas of most concern, with more pop-up mobile and walk-in testing centres, and even some door-to-door testing going on.

The 7-day average on the 1st July was 857, whereas yesterday it was 660, there was a dip in-between dropping to just 545 on 8th July, but I am trying to keep positive, although seeing cases increasing in both Spain & France isn't helping.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 26, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Crikey! How will whatever he does get done for a fortnight?



He's got this mate called Michael Green who can step in at short notice.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 26, 2020)

tim said:


> Plenty of people in the UK including myself are dependent upon South Europeans amongst others coming here to spend their money. This vision of there being vast swathes of poverty in southern Europe is really a cliché from the 1950's. Income from tourism and international education are a central component of the British economy.



Quite a lot to unpack there Tim under the guise of ' South Europeans amongst others coming here to spend their money'. I agree with you about the financial impact  of  tourism and foreign students to the UK  but the former big contributors  aren't southern European but north European and American and the latter big contributors are from China and South East Asia.Even then the UKs 10% of GDP on tourism is put into context by the proportion of GDP from tourism by the southern European states   Greece 20%, Portugal 19%, Spain 14.6%, Italy 13%.

 . What ever gains were made, albeit from a very low base,  from cheaper flights, package holidays , revolutions ,social change and the increased availability of good made by cheap labour overseas as companies sought to boost profit in Southern Europe from the 60s onwards these countries growth has nearly always been painful, more erratic and prone to recession than the Northern European states. The EU's sanctions on the Southern European states in the 2000s saw  labour rights dismantled, nationalised industries sold off ( very often to investors in the Northern European and later the Chinese) and wholescale privatisation. Unemployment rates amongst young people in the southern European states are stll very very high, wage levels for older manual and all casual workers are extremely low very often without contracts cash in hand, without holiday pay, maternity leave and no social security or pension contributions. Emigration of low skilled labour from these states is also high Add in the southern former east block states to this and you have within the EU a two tier system of poor versus rich which was played out in the recent negotiations  over economic covid aid precisely on the lines of the poorer souther EU states and the richer northern frugal states with France and Germany very busy in being pragmatic in order to try and keep dissent from the southern states to a manageable level. 

So I  am not sure where you get the idea that vast swathes of poverty in Southern Europe are a cliche from the 1950s. We can argue that poverty is relative, compared to previous decades but there is no denying that the southern European states are poorer, that being poor is more widespread and that these countries are hit far harder by the impact of covid 19 precisely because of the impact on tourism being a large proportion of GDP.
.


----------



## Chilli.s (Jul 26, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> He's got this mate called Michael Green who can step in at short notice.


I wonder what the work from home expenses are like when you work on holiday, can Michael Green also run them up too.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As you say, no panic yet, this could just be down to more testing, esp, in areas of most concern, with more pop-up mobile and walk-in testing centres, and even some door-to-door testing going on.
> 
> The 7-day average on the 1st July was 857, whereas yesterday it was 660, there was a dip in-between dropping to just 545 on 8th July, but I am trying to keep positive, although seeing cases increasing in both Spain & France isn't helping.


I read a report in one of thePortugal papers that a big factor in the rise of cases in Catalonia is a triage of young people/parties/nightclubs .


----------



## Supine (Jul 26, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I read a report in one of thePortugal papers that a big factor in the rise of cases in Catalonia is a triage of young people/parties/nightclubs .



This heat map from Florida shows the impact of young people really clearly. Not sure what caused it though.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 26, 2020)

Liked for the graphic


----------



## tim (Jul 26, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Quite a lot to unpack there Tim under the guise of ' South Europeans amongst others coming here to spend their money'. I agree with you about the financial impact  of  tourism and foreign students to the UK  but the former big contributors  aren't southern European but north European and American and the latter big contributors are from China and South East Asia.Even then the UKs 10% of GDP on tourism is put into context by the proportion of GDP from tourism by the southern European states   Greece 20%, Portugal 19%, Spain 14.6%, Italy 13%.



Well, Italians and Spaniards have made a substantial contribution to my income as a teacher over the years and on any trip on a bus or the tube during a normal Summer there are plenty more taking in the sights. As to the statistics 10% is still substantial and if you factor in those travelling for educational rather than tourism, I would imagine that the figures  for the UK would be close, if not higher than those of the Mediteranean basin, whose institutions attract far fewer foreign students. Of course, the fact that EU students, at least in England,now have to pay full international fees will have an affect on that.










The39thStep said:


> I  am not sure where you get the idea that vast swathes of poverty in Southern Europe are a cliche from the 1950s. We can argue that poverty is relative, compared to previous decades but there is no denying that the southern European states are poorer, that being poor is more widespread and that these countries are hit far harder by the impact of covid 19 precisely because of the impact on tourism being a large proportion of GDP.



I'll equivocate by saying that I know Italy best, although the Spanish trajectory seems to be very similar; and also that I wasn't refering to the Southern states of the Eastern Europe. 
Italian society and the Italian economy saw almost unimaginable change in the second half of the twentieth century, the so-called economic miracle; and whatever the current hardships they can't be compared to the impoverished misery that the majority lived in seventy years ago. Paul Gisborg's book "A History of Contemporary Italy" gives an insight  and overview of those changes and how far ranging those changes were. I also know from  experience of having lived and worked in Southern Italy; and also in the North-west England and, albeit briefly, the North-East Midlands of England, that the quality of life for ordinary people is not noticeably lower in the former than in the latter, if anything I would say the opposite, perhaps because of the more cohesive, and at times oppressive familial support networks in the former. Looking  at  statistics for per capita GDP, the figure for the UK is slightly higher than that for Spain and Italy and substantially so than for that of Portugal.



Germany5381553660Dec/19USDSweden5320553146Dec/19USDBelgium5170851246Dec/19USDFinland4862148191Dec/19USDEuro Area4703746540Dec/19USDUnited Kingdom4669946310Dec/19USDFrance4618445561Dec/19USDMalta4334043064Dec/19USDItaly4241342198Dec/19USDSpain4088340329Dec/19USDCzech Republic4031439453Dec/19USDCyprus3954538822Dec/19USDSlovenia3868938022Dec/19USDEuropean Union3807637352Dec/18USDLithuania3697535390Dec/19USDEstonia3671035308Dec/19USDPortugal3479834013Dec/19USD

As to inequality being more widespread in Southern Europe than in the UK,  the Gini coefficient statistics suggests that relative levels of inequality are fairly similar in the UK and Spain, Italy and Greece, which tallies with my own experience.


----------



## zahir (Jul 26, 2020)

Independent Sage Report 7

Zero COVID-UK: Why is England not pursuing an elimination strategy?



			https://www.independentsage.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/A-Better-Way-To-Go-FINAL-proof-copy-1.pdf


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 27, 2020)

tim

Tim, I'm hopefully not going to take up too much space , especially not in graphs,  in replying as this isn't the right thread.

Firstly can I say when I made my post it was clearly in connection with the holiday quarantine imposed by the UK  and  the reliance by the poorer southern EU states on tourism . I wasn't aware that you were a language teacher I wrongly assumed from your initial reply that you worked in the hospitality business .

My substantive point that the Southern European states rely to a far greater extent than the UK does on tourism and are therefore hit harder economically  still stands. The effect of a two week quarantine in the UK will hit tourism  in those states far harder than the UK. I am not sure how a two week quarantine will hit the income derived from students tbh and dent the proportion of GDP that the UK derives from a veritable small army of overseas students at its universities..Presumably unless they are on a crash course their length of study will be far longer than a fortnight and it would be possible to do language courses by zoom for the period of quarantine. The loss of tourism in the southern EU states far outweighs any potential loss of the cost of short  language course in the UK .

The difference of opinion we have is about the poorer Southern Europeans states ( funnily enough they are often called PIGS , Portugal, Italy , Greece and Spain)  and your view that swathes of poverty are a myth from the 1950s. I think we can rule out a debate on relative poverty ie if you've got a refrigerator or a mobile you are not poor as we didn't have  them in the 1950s sort of stuff and focus on whether their economies are poor , poorer than the northern European states.

Despite short term booms/miracles all those four southern European states economies have been characterised by waves of  recessions and more recently ) aside from very short periods) by governments responding to crisis and the EU by neo liberal  policies . These policies always have the hall marks of 'modernising ' the economy through reducing labour rights, privatisation, cutting the welfare state in return for loans from the EU , loans that normally benefit the northern European countries. The only uncertainty for the northern European countries is the credit rating of the southern states and their ability to stick with the script.

I liked your point about the role of families and extended families although its a subjective suggestion  that they contribute to quality of life especially as very often quality of life is also equated with wealth and poverty and is  measured ,as the Italian miracle was,  on the number of cars, refrigerators material goods  that are sold or purchased. What ever minor boom or miracles that were reported in those southern states they were fragile, temporary and without substantiality, the recessions of the 2000s hit them the hardest   Between 2007 and 2013, unemployment rates in Greece and Spain tripled to 28% and 26% in Italy and Portugal ,unemployment rates almost doubled in both countries. What is clear is that the huge increases in unemployment  attacked the heart of the family and extended family tradition in those countries. That tradition was very much built around the economically  active members , normally the head of the household, being economically active and supporting the rest of the family.  Once that went the head of the household became subsumed into mainly a non economically active household. At least the sons and daughters could find work and assist the family but alas no , so many emigrated either permanently or temporarily . nearly a quarter of a million left Greece over a 5 year period, 150k in Italy in 2018 alone , you'll find the Portuguese all over Europe, Spain very similar. Its had not just a impact on family income but its also provided a brain drain of those that were educated ( all four countries are still in the bottom half of the EU tables for education)  and left all of those countries with an imbalance of older people who are mainly economically inactive.

Those young people that stayed don't do too well in a highly competitive  labour market where despite efforts by some  governments  the numbers on contracts are still below the northern EU states and are increasingly in precarious jobs. Four of the top six highest youth unemployment rates in the EU are filled by those from the PIGS.  The collapse of the tourist industry in those countries due to covid 19 have removed whole swathes of women and young people from employment and put them on social security very often the minimum  after years of no contributions through  being paid paid cash in hand or due to 8 and 9 month contracts.

Eurostat estimated that in the PIGS  the at-risk-of-poverty rate was 23 to 35 percent of the total population of each of the PIGS  in 2017.  The number of children aged 17 and under living in jobless households almost doubled across the PIGS between 2010 and 2015, while involuntary part-time employment (those who want to find full-time work but are unable to) increased substantially in the same period.

So  the traditional family welfare model has been shattered, the response, at either a national or EU  level has mainly been ineffective. These countries or large areas of these countries have seen  ' rigid ' labour markets more 'flexible' in the hope that unemployed citizens would be incentivised to take low-paid jobs and increase the employment rate the theory was  that this would have an expansionary effect on economic growth and employment as production costs fell. Overall however the 'reform' of the labour market has had only a small impact  on  unemployment and  the decline/stagnation  in wages ( there has been some small growth in Portugal in the last two years) initially led to an aggregate drop in demand , some partial recovery. Covid 19 has now had the final say.

I could go on but I did say that I wanted not to. So my point is that the southern states are poor , that there are swathes of poverty which cant be measured by cars or refrigerators or by comparing living standard to the 1950s but by active economic data and that the impact of covid 19 on tourism hits those states disproportionately to the northern states and the UK.


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2020)

Not too bad an article, includes some interesting aspects such as the possibility that getting infected with some viruses temporarily protects you against others.









						Coronavirus: How bad will winter really be?
					

Could we be heading for a double whammy of flu and coronavirus?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Studies have shown one viral infection can, in essence, elbow another one out of the way. For example, a large rhinovirus outbreak may have delayed the 2009 swine flu pandemic in some European countries.
> 
> One explanation is the general immune response to one infection prevents the next one from getting in.
> 
> Dr Pablo Murcia, from the centre for virus research at the University of Glasgow, told the BBC: "One virus infects, triggers an innate immune response and inflammation and this initial response will protect against certain viruses, for a variable period of time."


----------



## tim (Jul 27, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> tim
> 
> My substantive point that the Southern European states rely to a far greater extent than the UK does on tourism and are therefore hit harder economically  still stands. The effect of a two week quarantine in the UK will hit tourism  in those states far harder than the UK. *I am not sure how a two week quarantine will hit the income derived from students tbh and dent the proportion of GDP that the UK derives from a veritable small army of overseas students* at its universities..Presumably unless they are on a crash course their length of study will be far longer than a fortnight and it would be possible to do language courses by zoom for the period of quarantine. The loss of tourism in the southern EU states far outweighs any potential loss of the cost of short  language course in the UK .



Of course it's not this specific two week quarantine but the crisis in general that is the problem. If it really was a "veritable small army of students" it wouldn't be an issue but currently around 20% of people studying in British higher education institutions are fee-paying foreign and our higher education sector is huge (well, 2.7% of the economy) .   I was at university in the 80's when the higher education sector was much smaller and there were relatively few foreign students and an era in which your comments would have seemed  reasonable: things have changed, as can be seen below

In 2017–18, there were 458,490 international *students* studying *at UK* higher education institutions, accounting for 19.6% of the total *student* population in the UK. 14% of all undergraduates and 35.8% of all postgraduates were international.

The same source indicates that the largest European cohort of students came from Italy:

Figure 44: Top five European student domiciles in the UK, 2017–18: Italy 13,985 3.9% France 13,660 0.7% Germany 13,545 3.9% Greece 10,135 0.9% Spain 9,630 9.2% 157,935 2.7% since 2016–17 38



The39thStep said:


> tim
> 
> The loss of tourism in the southern EU states far outweighs any potential loss of the cost of short  language course in the UK .



This is the specific sector I work/worked in and it is separate though linked to the higher education sector and it is substantial. Over half a million students a year staying on average just under four weeks (the average short course is longer than the average holiday and the sector depends on successive waves of short courses, in the same way that hotels depend on successive waves of room occupants) and contributing £1.4 billion to the economy. Italy is the country from which most students come from, followed by China, Saudi Arabia and Spain.  More information here.




The39thStep said:


> tim
> 
> Despite short term booms/miracles all those four southern European states economies have been characterised by waves of  recessions and more recently ) aside from very short periods) by governments responding to crisis and the EU by neo liberal  policies . These policies always have the hall marks of 'modernising ' the economy through reducing labour rights, privatisation, cutting the welfare state in return for loans from the EU , loans that normally benefit the northern European countries. The only uncertainty for the northern European countries is the credit rating of the southern states and their ability to stick with the script.
> 
> These countries or large areas of these countries have seen ' rigid ' labour markets more 'flexible' in the hope that unemployed citizens would be incentivised to take low-paid jobs and increase the employment rate the theory was that this would have an expansionary effect on economic growth and employment as production costs fell. Overall however the 'reform' of the labour market has had only a small impact on unemployment and the decline/stagnation in wages ( there has been some small growth in Portugal in the last two years) initially led to an aggregate drop in demand , some partial recovery. Covid 19 has now had the final say.



As to much of  the above, how is the above different from the experience in Britain since at least the advent of Thatcher? Britain is the model from which such neo-liberal programmes are copied. I'm facing potential redundancy and so am well aware of how few labour rights I have, and if I do lose my job the challenges I'll face claiming benefits. With regard to the softening of rigid labour markets, this is the same as the experience in the traditional manufacturing and mining sectorsin Britain in the 80' and 90's. Incidentally, for all its problems Italy, to a much greater extent than the UK or France still maintains a substantial manufacturing sector which employs skilled ad well trained workforce. As a European manufacturing exporter it is second only to Germany. The creation of this sector was central to the "Economic Miracle" that you seem keen to poh-pooh, which was not just a series of consumer booms but a major industrial transformation. It also heightened the disparity between North and South and led to huge levels of internal migration which was even more significant and as traumatic than the migration from Italy to Northern European states in the same period.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Jul 27, 2020)

Watch out Puddy_Tat 









						Owners warned not to kiss pets after first cat infected with coronavirus in UK
					

Siamese cat is thought to have caught virus from its owners




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Raheem (Jul 27, 2020)

I have an exclusive! Oldham in lockdown from tomorrow.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> I have an exclusive! Oldham in lockdown from tomorrow.



That would be odd, Oldham only came off the watch-list of concern on Friday.    



> Rochdale has again appeared on the government’s watchlist of places it is closely monitoring due to Covid infection rates.
> 
> The weekly list of ten areas, issued by Public Health England, marks the borough as an ‘area of concern’, the least severe of three categories it is using to highlight places deemed to have a potential problem. *Oldham, which had been in that bracket previously, is no longer included after a significant fall in infection rates.*
> 
> Also marked as being of ‘concern’, like Rochdale, are Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Wakefield, Rotherham, Peterborough and Northampton.











						Latest Covid watchlist still includes Rochdale - but no longer Oldham
					

Public Health England’s latest surveillance report shows Rochdale has the third highest infection rate in the country, although it is not in the category of greatest concern




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## tim (Jul 27, 2020)

Raheem said:


> I have an exclusive! Oldham in lockdown from tomorrow.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 27, 2020)

It's not often I know things, so it had better turn out to be right. The actual thing I know is that there is a meeting currently at the council to agree a proposal. But I'm also told it's a foregone conclusion.


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## 8ball (Jul 27, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Watch out Puddy_Tat
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Do we have to be scared of cats yet?


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## farmerbarleymow (Jul 27, 2020)

8ball said:


> Do we have to be scared of cats yet?


Always be scared of cats - they're superspreaders.   

We need to quarantine Puddy_Tat on Rockall just to be on the safe side...


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jul 27, 2020)




----------



## zahir (Jul 27, 2020)

Richard Horton on why the UK response has struggled.


----------



## Numbers (Jul 28, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> View attachment 223975


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 28, 2020)

zahir said:


> Richard Horton on why the UK response has struggled.




We elected a serial liar and entitled man child as PM?


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## elbows (Jul 28, 2020)

Raheem said:


> It's not often I know things, so it had better turn out to be right. The actual thing I know is that there is a meeting currently at the council to agree a proposal. But I'm also told it's a foregone conclusion.



I wonder how far they will go, since the term lockdown is used very broadly these days. But they already had a local action plan at the start of July and if that wasnt enough, they will obviously have to go further.

As for your info proving to be correct, this appeared in the news today:



> GOVERNMENT data has put Oldham third worst for its Covid-19 infection rate.
> 
> Coronavirus cases in the town have jumped from 11 per 100,000 people to 48.4, with 114 new cases recorded.
> 
> The town is behind Blackburn and Darwen, where the rate has fallen from 83.9 in the seven days from July 17 to 75 in the seven days to July 24, with 112 new cases.











						Oldham residents urged to stick to tough restrictions to avoid local coronavirus lockdown as infection rate soars
					

TOWN hall and health bosses are appealing to Oldham residents to stick to tough restrictions after government figures




					www.theoldhamtimes.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 28, 2020)

Raheem said:


> I have an exclusive! Oldham in lockdown from tomorrow.



Some measures being brought in, to avoid a lockdown,



> Vulnerable and elderly people who have been shielding are now being asked to continue to do so for another two weeks - from Friday (July 31).
> 
> Starting today, residents are being told they cannot have 'social visitors' to their home and must keep two metres apart from friends and family when seeing them outside.
> The town hall says a 'significant proportion' of recent cases involve multiple people testing positive in a single household. Bosses say that shows household spread is a 'real issue' - especially in cases in which large families live together in one home.
> ...



And, this shows just how quick things can change...



> It means Oldham now has a rate of infection of 50.2 positive tests per 100,000 people, compared to just 10.2 the week before.
> 
> Just four days ago, the government had dropped the borough from its watch list of areas of concern due to a fall in the infection rate.











						Tougher coronavirus restrictions introduced in Oldham after spike
					

'We know people across desperately want to see their friends and family and get back to normal, but these restrictions are essential if we are to stop the spread'




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Jul 28, 2020)

Sensible government advice - don't snog your cats.









						Owners warned not to kiss pets after first cat infected with coronavirus in UK
					

Siamese cat is thought to have caught virus from its owners




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Numbers (Jul 28, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Sensible government advice - don't snog your cats.


Doesn't help when you wake up to them smelling your mouth or licking you.


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## Raheem (Jul 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Some measures being brought in, to avoid a lockdown,



That's pretty much what I was told, except there was also going to be a ban on public gatherings, which they must have decided against. And they've decided to brand it "measures to avoid a lockdown", looks like.


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## Artaxerxes (Jul 29, 2020)

Stolen from FB., redundancy payments are covered under the governments Covid relief grant scheme.






Spoiler


----------



## editor (Jul 30, 2020)

Shameful





> The UK as a whole came second only to England, with the rcASMRs up by 6.94% on the average. To put that in context, the next highest nation was Spain, which had a rcASMRs increase of 6%.
> 
> The data makes clear that it is England that pulled the UK’s total excess mortality rate up so high – though the three other nations did also measure increases. Scotland was up by 5.09%, Wales 2.81% and Northern Ireland 1.91%.








						HuffPost is now a part of Verizon Media
					






					www.huffingtonpost.co.uk


----------



## editor (Jul 30, 2020)

And on the BBC














						Coronavirus: England highest level of excess deaths
					

Office for National Statistics analysis shows how countries compared in the first six months of the year



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 30, 2020)

Horrible. And the media just towed the government line most of the time, or literally said stuff like 'they're doing the best they can in difficult circumstances'.

And always worth remembering with these figures that they don't mention people with long term health problems from the virus. The more it was allowed to run rampant, the more people with long term health problems. We don't have figures on it all yet but UK is going to look shit on that too.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 30, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> And always worth remembering with these figures that they don't mention people with long term health problems from the virus. The more it was allowed to run rampant, the more people with long term health problems. We don't have figures on it all yet but UK is going to look shit on that too.


I thought that's basically what these figures show - Covid deaths plus deaths resulting from other health problems? 
Of course there is suffering that doesn't lead to death and that isn't quantified.


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2020)

ska invita said:


> I thought that's basically what these figures show - Covid deaths plus deaths resulting from other health problems?
> Of course there is suffering that doesn't lead to death and that isn't quantified.



These figures are deaths from any cause compared to how many deaths from any cause there had been at the same point in the calendar in other years, yes.

Some of the other stuff they mention is what we already knew, that in some countries the high levels of death were concentrated in a few particular cities or regions, whereas ours was spread out all over the place.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Some of the other stuff they mention is what we already knew, that in some countries the high levels of death were concentrated in a few particular cities or regions, whereas ours was spread out all over the place.



Though we seem to have got quite patchy of late.


----------



## editor (Jul 30, 2020)

My sister in law died today after a long and formidable battle against cancer. Because of this cunting fucking virus I was only able to get to see her in Wales last week, but at least I made it in time for one last chat. 
Cancer sucks. This virus sucks. 2020 sucks. 

Anyway, I've been trying to get clarity on the attendance rules in Wales for funerals but as far as I can see it's now up to the individual funeral directors/church or whatever. is that right?


----------



## 8ball (Jul 30, 2020)

editor said:


> My sister in law died today after a long and formidable battle against cancer. Because of this cunting fucking virus I was only able to get to see her in Wales last week, but at least I made it in time for one last chat.
> Cancer sucks. This virus sucks. 2020 sucks.
> 
> Anyway, I've been trying to get clarity on the attendance rules in Wales for funerals but as far as I can see it's now up to the individual funeral directors/church or whatever. is that right?



Really sorry to hear this.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 30, 2020)

Sorry to hear this editor - small crumb of comfort you saw her a last time, but what a sad thing to see someone for the last time. My sympathies.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 30, 2020)

editor said:


> My sister in law died today after a long and formidable battle against cancer. Because of this cunting fucking virus I was only able to get to see her in Wales last week, but at least I made it in time for one last chat.
> Cancer sucks. This virus sucks. 2020 sucks.
> 
> Anyway, I've been trying to get clarity on the attendance rules in Wales for funerals but as far as I can see it's now up to the individual funeral directors/church or whatever. is that right?



Sorry to hear that.

I have a mate that's a funeral director, they don't have a say as such, although he does for funerals at their own chapel, it's down to the rules of the venue, which has to comply with social distancing, and varies depending on the size of the church, crematorium chapel, or whatever other venue. It varies a lot, for example, between different crematoriums in neighbouring council areas, which is very frustrating for them, but they guide the families as best as possible.  IIRC there's still a limit of 30 for gathering after the actual funeral.

Not sure how it works in Wales, but the funeral directors should be able to advise & help.


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## SpookyFrank (Jul 30, 2020)

Condolences to you and yours editor.


----------



## magneze (Jul 30, 2020)

Condolences editor


----------



## zahir (Jul 30, 2020)

Lockdown tightened in parts of northern England with ban on indoor meetings
					

Bar on households meeting inside in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and East Lancashire




					www.theguardian.com
				





> from midnight “people from different households will not be allowed to meet each other indoors” in Greater Manchester, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Rossendale, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and the city of Leicester.


----------



## PursuedByBears (Jul 30, 2020)

.


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## Supine (Jul 30, 2020)

I didn't know people could meet indoors tbh. I'm not planning on doing that for a while.


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## Plumdaff (Jul 30, 2020)

editor my understanding of the Welsh guidance is that attending a funeral is considered a reasonable reason to meet other people indoors. Commiserations.


----------



## Dogsauce (Jul 31, 2020)

Don’t worry lads, as part of the UK’s ’global effort’ fighting Coronavirus they’ve just unveiled the new secret weapon, complete with a Facebook publicity budget:




Yes, it’s a picture of the queen. That should see off the virus pronto.


----------



## 20Bees (Jul 31, 2020)

editor said:


> My sister in law died today after a long and formidable battle against cancer. Because of this cunting fucking virus I was only able to get to see her in Wales last week, but at least I made it in time for one last chat.
> Cancer sucks. This virus sucks. 2020 sucks.
> 
> Anyway, I've been trying to get clarity on the attendance rules in Wales for funerals but as far as I can see it's now up to the individual funeral directors/church or whatever. is that right?



I'm so sorry to read this, condolences to you and your family.


----------



## zahir (Jul 31, 2020)

New rules on gatherings in some parts of Northern England
					

Government announces changes to rules on gatherings in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and East Lancashire after increase in COVID-19 cases




					www.gov.uk
				





> It means people in these areas will not be permitted to mix with other households (apart from those in their support bubbles) in private homes or gardens.
> 
> Some exemptions will be put in place, including for the vulnerable.





> The government will sign new regulations to make these changes legally enforceable.
> 
> The regulations will give local authorities and police forces the powers to enforce these restrictions and more details on these will be set out when the regulations are published.
> 
> Households may go to hospitality, for instance bars and pubs, but new guidance will make clear that two households should not go to hospitality together.





> For those preparing to celebrate Eid Al Adha this weekend with friends and family these restrictions will come as a blow but everyone is being urged to follow the new rules and to protect the ones they love from catching coronavirus.



Which explains the timing.


----------



## ash (Jul 31, 2020)

During lockdown I loved my corner shop - only 2 people allowed in.  Now with the mask thing the Sainsbury local is far preferable- went in today and everyone was wearing masks. Corner shop tiny and 9 people in there - no masks but me 😡


----------



## Chairman Meow (Jul 31, 2020)

I'm sorry for your loss ed.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 31, 2020)

editor said:


> My sister in law died today after a long and formidable battle against cancer. Because of this cunting fucking virus I was only able to get to see her in Wales last week, but at least I made it in time for one last chat.
> Cancer sucks. This virus sucks. 2020 sucks.
> 
> Anyway, I've been trying to get clarity on the attendance rules in Wales for funerals but as far as I can see it's now up to the individual funeral directors/church or whatever. is that right?


So sorry to hear about your sister in law. Something that's truly awful is made even worse by the virus. Hope you and your family get through to a point where you can mourn her properly.

Haven't got anything concrete to add on funeral numbers. Except that is, at the time of my Mum's funeral it was 10 mourners. However neither the funeral directors nor the crematoria did any policing or even spoke to me about numbers.  This was England and was 2 months ago, but I'd _guess _nobody is going to intervene if the odd extra turns up.


----------



## andysays (Jul 31, 2020)

Condolences and best wishes from me too editor


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 31, 2020)

Considering in Worthing we are down to an inflection rate of 2.7 out of 100,000, some of these numbers are scary.

List of the Top 15 worst affected areas, these are the rolling seven-day covid-19 data, from between 19th July and 26th July, shows the number of new cases per 100,000 people, and include tests both carried out by the NHS & in the community.   

Blackburn with Darwen - 87.3 (up from 81.2)
Oldham - 56.4 (up from 18.7)
Leicester - 56.3 (down from 73.2)
Bradford - 47.3 (up from 42.6)
Trafford - 38.1 (up from 11.0)
Rochdale - 35.0 (down from 47.7)
Sandwell - 32.4 (up from 23.2)
Hyndburn - 32.2 (down from 39.6)
Pendle - 31.7 (up from 30.6)
Eden - 30.3 (down from 32.1)
Calderdale - 29.0 (up from 23.3)
Melton - 27.4 (up from 7.8)
Manchester - 23.2 (up from 14.2)
Northampton - 21.3 (down from 28.0)
Swindon - 21.2 (up from 8.1)



Spoiler: The full long list...



Below is the list of every local authority in the country, in full, showing the rate of new cases in the seven days to July 26, followed by the equivalent figure for the previous seven days to July 19.

Oldham 56.4 18.7

Leicester 56.3 73.2

Bradford 47.3 42.6

Trafford 38.1 11.0

Rochdale 35.0 47.7

Sandwell 32.4 23.2

Hyndburn 32.2 39.6

Pendle 31.7 30.6

Eden 30.3 32.1

Calderdale 29.0 23.3

Melton 27.4 7.8

Manchester 23.2 14.2

Northampton 21.3 28.0

Swindon 21.2 8.1

Preston 21.2 9.9

Kirklees 20.3 28.0

Oxford 20.1 7.1

Salford 20.0 11.0

Peterborough 19.4 19.9

Oadby and Wigston 19.3 75.4

Luton 19.1 28.5

Burnley 18.1 15.8

Gravesham 17.9 17.9

Stockport 16.8 7.9

Tameside 16.0 5.8

Sheffield 16.0 14.1

West Lancashire 15.8 4.4

Bedford 15.7 15.7

Hackney and City of London 15.6 17.7

Wolverhampton 15.3 5.0

Dartford 14.6 12.8

Bassetlaw 14.5 4.3

Bolton 14.4 15.8

High Peak 14.1 5.4

Birmingham 13.1 12.6

Wakefield 13.0 18.0

Carlisle 12.9 24.9

Bury 12.6 11.0

Ashford 12.4 22.4

Kettering 11.8 16.8

Hartlepool 11.8 6.4

Crawley 11.6 8.0

Rotherham 11.3 24.2

Corby 11.3 18.4

Watford 10.3 10.3

Tendring 10.3 7.5

Thanet 9.9 14.1

Coventry 9.5 6.8

Tunbridge Wells 9.3 4.2

Nuneaton and Bedworth 9.3 8.5

Braintree 9.2 17.2

Tonbridge and Malling 9.2 0.8

Tandridge 9.1 1.1

Folkestone and Hythe 8.9 6.2

Cambridge 8.7 2.4

Wychavon 8.6 1.6

Dover 8.5 7.7

Brent 8.5 2.7

Dacorum 8.4 3.2

Hammersmith and Fulham 8.1 2.2

Fenland 7.9 6.9

Kensington and Chelsea 7.7 3.8

Maidstone 7.6 7.6

Rutland 7.6 10.1

Barking and Dagenham 7.5 4.7

Bolsover 7.5 1.3

Reading 7.4 6.7

Copeland 7.3 2.9

West Oxfordshire 7.3 4.6

Liverpool 7.3 3.2

Tower Hamlets 7.2 5.0

South Bucks 7.1 2.9

Charnwood 7.1 6.6

Wigan 7.1 4.0

Cannock Chase 7.0 4.0

Greenwich 7.0 2.1

Havering 7.0 6.6

Blaby 7.0 13.9

Bexley 6.9 5.7

Worcester 6.9 2.9

Harrogate 6.9 3.1

Eastbourne 6.8 21.3

Chelmsford 6.8 2.8

East Staffordshire 6.7 16.9

Lichfield 6.7 4.8

Walsall 6.7 11.3

Castle Point 6.7 4.4

Ribble Valley 6.7 1.7

Brighton and Hove 6.5 3.8

Harborough 6.5 6.5

Blackpool 6.5 2.9

Ealing 6.4 3.8

Sutton 6.4 2.9

Hounslow 6.3 4.8

Huntingdonshire 6.2 5.6

Newcastle-under-Lyme 6.2 3.1

Sefton 6.2 8.0

North Warwickshire 6.2 10.8

Bromsgrove 6.1 3.0

Canterbury 6.1 10.3

Swale 6.1 4.0

Vale of White Horse 6.0 4.5

Southampton 5.9 2.4

Shropshire 5.9 0.6

Stroud 5.9 0.8

Cheshire West and Chester 5.9 6.8

Newark and Sherwood 5.8 6.6

South Lakeland 5.7 2.9

Herefordshire 5.7 23.9

Barnsley 5.7 14.3

West Berkshire 5.7 4.4

Rossendale 5.6 8.5

Amber Valley 5.5 3.2

Lambeth 5.5 3.7

Islington 5.4 3.8

St Albans 5.4 6.8

Three Rivers 5.4 1.1

Southwark 5.4 4.4

South Staffordshire 5.4 2.7

East Northamptonshire 5.3 8.5

Craven 5.3 5.3

Lewisham 5.3 5.6

Harrow 5.2 2.4

Colchester 5.2 3.1

Barnet 5.1 7.1

Ipswich 5.1 0.7

Leeds 5.1 6.8

Wellingborough 5.0 5.0

Fylde 5.0 10.0

Dudley 5.0 1.2

East Hampshire 5.0 2.5

Norwich 5.0 2.1

North East Derbyshire 4.9 3.0

North West Leicestershire 4.9 5.9

Basildon 4.8 5.9

Haringey 4.8 5.5

Adur 4.7 0.0

Solihull 4.7 8.8

Windsor and Maidenhead 4.6 4.0

Wandsworth 4.6 6.1

Hillingdon 4.6 4.9

Central Bedfordshire 4.6 6.7

Runnymede 4.5 1.1

Cotswold 4.5 2.2

Hinckley and Bosworth 4.4 6.2

Elmbridge 4.4 2.2

Babergh 4.4 2.2

Bristol 4.3 2.4

Westminster 4.3 3.5

York 4.3 1.9

Chorley 4.3 1.7

Cheltenham 4.3 3.4

Middlesbrough 4.3 5.7

East Lindsey 4.3 2.1

South Kesteven 4.2 2.8

Allerdale 4.1 7.2

Thurrock 4.1 4.1

East Suffolk 4.0 1.6

Slough 4.0 4.7

Cherwell 4.0 5.4

Wirral 4.0 2.5

Test Valley 4.0 0.0

Medway 4.0 4.3

Redbridge 3.9 6.9

West Suffolk 3.9 3.4

Lewes 3.9 4.9

Merton 3.9 3.9

Malvern Hills 3.8 0.0

Hertsmere 3.8 1.9

Hull 3.8 6.1

Exeter 3.8 2.3

Warrington 3.8 4.8

Eastleigh 3.8 4.6

Wealden 3.7 5.6

Torbay 3.7 1.5

Richmond upon Thames 3.6 2.0

Stockton 3.5 1.5

Warwick 3.5 2.8

Derby 3.5 5.8

Erewash 3.5 1.7

Kingston upon Thames 3.4 2.8

Wiltshire 3.4 2.6

Newham 3.4 6.8

Gedling 3.4 1.7

Surrey Heath 3.4 3.4

Uttlesford 3.4 7.8

Cornwall and Isles of Scilly 3.3 0.9

Knowsley 3.3 3.3

Mid Sussex 3.3 4.7

Chichester 3.3 6.6

South Northamptonshire 3.2 2.2

Hastings 3.2 3.2

Doncaster 3.2 5.2

Waverley 3.2 2.4

Havant 3.2 0.8

South Cambridgeshire 3.2 7.6

Stratford-on-Avon 3.1 0.8

Chiltern 3.1 3.1

Stoke-on-Trent 3.1 4.3

Bath and North East Somerset 3.1 2.1

Maldon 3.1 6.2

Broxbourne 3.1 3.1

Staffordshire Moorlands 3.0 0.0

Woking 3.0 4.9

Stafford 2.9 3.7

Mid Suffolk 2.9 0.0

Waltham Forest 2.9 6.1

Boston 2.9 5.8

South Derbyshire 2.9 2.9

Breckland 2.9 1.4

Croydon 2.9 1.8

South Oxfordshire 2.8 1.4

Telford and Wrekin 2.8 8.4

Rugby 2.8 3.7

St. Helens 2.8 1.7

Mansfield 2.8 6.4

Southend-on-Sea 2.7 8.8

Worthing 2.7 5.5

Nottingham 2.7 4.8

South Ribble 2.7 2.7

Wyre 2.7 5.4

South Tyneside 2.7 0.7

Broxtowe 2.6 2.6

Brentwood 2.6 5.2

Milton Keynes 2.6 0.7

Rushcliffe 2.5 1.7

Arun 2.5 2.5

Epsom and Ewell 2.5 1.3

County Durham 2.5 2.3
Bracknell Forest 2.5 2.5

Mid Devon 2.4 1.2

North Tyneside 2.4 1.9

Daventry 2.4 7.1

Gosport 2.3 2.3

North Lincolnshire 2.3 3.5

Mole Valley 2.3 0.0

Wycombe 2.3 2.3

Camden 2.3 2.7

Epping Forest 2.3 3.1

Stevenage 2.3 1.1

Selby 2.2 2.2

New Forest 2.2 2.8

Northumberland 2.2 1.6

South Norfolk 2.2 1.4

Tewkesbury 2.2 1.1

South Holland 2.1 3.2

South Gloucestershire 2.1 2.1

North Devon 2.1 0.0

Lancaster 2.1 1.4

East Devon 2.1 4.2

Reigate and Banstead 2.0 1.4

Guildford 2.0 3.4

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 2.0 2.3

North Norfolk 1.9 1.0

Chesterfield 1.9 2.9

Plymouth 1.9 1.5

North East Lincolnshire 1.9 3.1

Darlington 1.9 3.8
North Somerset 1.9 1.9

Portsmouth 1.9 1.9

South Somerset 1.8 1.2

Wokingham 1.8 1.2

Mendip 1.7 1.7

North Kesteven 1.7 1.7

Fareham 1.7 2.6

Basingstoke and Deane 1.7 1.1

Sevenoaks 1.7 4.2

Cheshire East 1.6 5.3

Ashfield 1.6 2.4

Halton 1.6 3.1

Bromley 1.5 1.8

North Hertfordshire 1.5 3.8

Barrow-in-Furness 1.5 0.0

Gateshead 1.5 2.5

Horsham 1.4 2.1

Derbyshire Dales 1.4 4.2

Tamworth 1.3 2.6

East Riding of Yorkshire 1.2 0.9

Forest of Dean 1.2 2.3

Harlow 1.2 2.3

Sunderland 1.1 2.9

Rushmoor 1.1 2.1


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## gosub (Jul 31, 2020)

Ended up in a certain Seaside town yesterday (for various reasons). Heaving and very few masks, so ended up sat in mates backgarden.  She reckoned a lot were from out of town.  Which fits with travel agent I had been talking to earlier in the day (Spainish thing effected demand.) Travel agents ABTA thing helping them as well.)  If there is slack in the digital thermom thingys for doorman and the like. I'd suggest prioritising the Seaside resorts, on top of everything else there are clearly people who just want a break from having to deal with things....Which is how spikes happen ...subtly gear up checking methods  to stay ahead without being too antagonistic

Was a pity, a mate had been down on a weekday a few weeks back and it was no where near as crowed as media had said the weekend before.  A nice day, and I'd love a swim.  Reckon I've worked out how to have one next week


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## Chilli.s (Jul 31, 2020)

Sorry to read that Editor, condolences to you and yours.


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## ice-is-forming (Jul 31, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Horrible. And the media just towed the government line most of the time, or literally said stuff like 'they're doing the best they can in difficult circumstances'.
> 
> And always worth remembering with these figures that they don't mention people with long term health problems from the virus. The more it was allowed to run rampant, the more people with long term health problems. We don't have figures on it all yet but UK is going to look shit on that too.



Yes, there's a lot of people going to be left with a chronic medical condition and/or disability after surviving covid.


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## frogwoman (Jul 31, 2020)

I guess long term disability is harder to measure or attribute definitely to covid than deaths tho (which are already undercounted)


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## zahir (Jul 31, 2020)

In a few years time, when the deaths and economic disruption are in the past, the long term health effects may start to look like the main issue with the virus.


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## mr steev (Jul 31, 2020)

ice-is-forming said:


> Yes, there's a lot of people going to be left with a chronic medical condition and/or disability after surviving covid.



A mate of mine has been really knocked about with it (14 weeks off work). A colleague of his told me yesterday that he wasn't the same after that time. In himself but also things like his taste messed up (he's gone from a big coffee drinker to hating it). We're not sure if it is related yet or not, but he had a stroke 2 days ago ☹️


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## existentialist (Jul 31, 2020)

mr steev said:


> A mate of mine has been really knocked about with it (14 weeks off work). A colleague of his told me yesterday that he wasn't the same after that time. In himself but also things like his taste messed up (he's gone from a big coffee drinker to hating it). We're not sure if it is related yet or not, but he had a stroke 2 days ago ☹


There have been reports of increased incidence of stroke in Covid-19 survivors, so it could be related.


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## andysays (Jul 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Considering in Worthing we are down to an inflection rate of 2.7 out of 100,000, some of these numbers are scary.
> 
> List of the Top 15 worst affected areas, these are the rolling seven-day covid-19 data, from between 19th July and 26th July, shows the number of new cases per 100,000 people, and include tests both carried out by the NHS & in the community.
> 
> ...


You are hereby appointed to do the Official Urban75 Weekly Chart Rundown,  I'm sure you know the sort of thing:

"A non mover at number three, a new entry at number two, but still at number one for a covidtastic third week..."


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## zahir (Jul 31, 2020)

Local restriction tiers: what you need to know
					

Sets out the local restriction tier system that will be in place from Wednesday 2 December, including what you can and cannot do in each tier.




					www.gov.uk


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## mr steev (Jul 31, 2020)

existentialist said:


> There have been reports of increased incidence of stroke in Covid-19 survivors, so it could be related.



☹️
It's fucking shit. He's a sound bloke. 

Another of my sisters friends ended up touch and go in intensive care. He's been told to expect it to take at least 6 months to get back to normal, with a chance he never will.
His mate died. All of them in their early 50s


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## existentialist (Jul 31, 2020)

mr steev said:


> ☹
> It's fucking shit. He's a sound bloke.
> 
> Another of my sisters friends ended up touch and go in intensive care. He's been told to expect it to take at least 6 months to get back to normal, with a chance he never will.
> His mate died. All of them in their early 50s


"But it's only a kind of 'flu"


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## baldrick (Jul 31, 2020)

I'm sorry to hear about your sister in law editor - I hope the funeral goes well. Best wishes to your family.

The more I hear about how even 'mild' cases of covid have knocked people for six, the more keen I am to avoid it tbh! I know in theory you can go and do things with other people now, even indoors, but I am really not keen. Even more so as I'm back working ft in school from September and we all know kids are little germ factories


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## William of Walworth (Jul 31, 2020)

Just read this 




			
				editor said:
			
		

> My sister in law died today after a long and formidable battle against cancer. Because of this cunting fucking virus I was only able to get to see her in Wales last week, but at least I made it in time for one last chat.
> Cancer sucks. This virus sucks. 2020 sucks.



I just wanted to say biggest condolences, editor .......


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## Steel Icarus (Jul 31, 2020)

baldrick said:


> I'm sorry to hear about your sister in law editor - I hope the funeral goes well. Best wishes to your family.
> 
> The more I hear about how even 'mild' cases of covid have knocked people for six, the more keen I am to avoid it tbh! I know in theory you can go and do things with other people now, even indoors, but I am really not keen. Even more so as I'm back working ft in school from September and we all know kids are little germ factories


This is my worry. I'm dreading returning to college.


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## frogwoman (Jul 31, 2020)

Very sorry to hear this editor


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## baldrick (Jul 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> This is my worry. I'm dreading returning to college.


I am trying not to think about it. I'm one of the lucky ones though, I'm not a teacher and I'm in a bubble with six others in an office. However my husband is starting a pgce in September 🤣


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## William of Walworth (Jul 31, 2020)

From reading this forum and more generally elsewhere on line and IRL, so many people have had friends and family members badly affected -- serious covid illness, or even death 
Condolences to anyone who's lost anyone.

By contrast, we're lucky, most of our lot are fine.
One or two (only) that we know have been mildly affected and recovered OK, although an elderly acquaintance of festivaldeb (not a close friend) did die of it in May -- he was just over 80 though 

It's a bit morbid to speculate whether our case is really exceptional, but when you hear sad stories sometimes, you can't help but wonder a bit


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## existentialist (Jul 31, 2020)

We've taken the decision that the course we're starting in September will be online. That's partly realism: as a diabetic, the College won't allow me onto the premises at the moment, and my co-tutor is having chemotherapy, so would also be regarded as high risk (higher risk than me, probably), so there wasn't really an option. But even if there were an option, I'd be seriously unhappy about shoving 12 people into a classroom for 7 hours.


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## CNT36 (Jul 31, 2020)

existentialist said:


> There have been reports of increased incidence of stroke in Covid-19 survivors, so it could be related.


Not just survivors either. It can be part of the main part of the illness and is still not properly understood.


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## Teaboy (Jul 31, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> From reading this forum and more generally elsewhere on line and IRL, so many people have had friends and family members badly affected -- serious covid illness, or even death
> Condolences to anyone who's lost anyone.
> 
> By contrast, we're lucky, most of our lot are fine.
> ...



I'm in the same lucky boat.  I'm pretty sure me and my g/f had a glancing blow from it and my b-i-l had it bad enough to spend a night in hospital but touch wood nothing more than that.  

I do think though that as we get out and about and speak to more people we're going to find out about 'people we know' who were not as fortunate.  For example I was passing a pub yesterday and got chatting to a barman I know he proudly told me he was the new manager.  Turns out the old manager became very ill and only just escaped with his life and has retired because of it.  I suspect I'm going to hear a lot of these sorts of stories over the next few weeks and months.


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## Numbers (Jul 31, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> From reading this forum and more generally elsewhere on line and IRL, so many people have had friends and family members badly affected -- serious covid illness, or even death
> Condolences to anyone who's lost anyone.
> 
> By contrast, we're lucky, most of our lot are fine.
> ...


Same here William, my brother-in-law and my best mate had mild versions early doors but so far we've (friends/family) been very lucky.


----------



## prunus (Jul 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Considering in Worthing we are down to an inflection rate of 2.7 out of 100,000, some of these numbers are scary.
> 
> List of the Top 15 worst affected areas, these are the rolling seven-day covid-19 data, from between 19th July and 26th July, shows the number of new cases per 100,000 people, and include tests both carried out by the NHS & in the community.
> 
> ...



Checking - these are rolling 7 day totals, not rolling 7 day daily averages?  I’m pretty sure that’s right, cross checking against other sources of data; ie the daily average rate over the past 7 days for Blackburn-with-Darwen was about 14.5?

I’m just trying to put these numbers into context with the debacle over the Atlantic, where I think the daily average cases per 100,000 for the whole of the US is around 19, and some places are up at around 50 per day per 100,000.

Not that we couldn’t be heading that way unless we get a grip, but it’s not as bad as there yet.


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## hash tag (Jul 31, 2020)

Sorry to hear your news editor.


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## hash tag (Jul 31, 2020)

Anyone see Panorama last night on care homes. Seeing care home managers trying to get infected patients foisted upon them, being unable to get medical help, arguing over whats best for a patient, unable to get people tested. A truly shocking shambles.
Panorama, The Forgotten Frontline: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000lbq0 via @bbciplayer


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## mr steev (Jul 31, 2020)

prunus said:


> Checking - these are rolling 7 day totals, not rolling 7 day daily averages?  I’m pretty sure that’s right, cross checking against other sources of data; ie the daily average rate over the past 7 days for Blackburn-with-Darwen was about 14.5?
> 
> I’m just trying to put these numbers into context with the debacle over the Atlantic, where I think the daily average cases per 100,000 for the whole of the US is around 19, and some places are up at around 50 per day per 100,000.
> 
> Not that we couldn’t be heading that way unless we get a grip, but it’s not as bad as there yet.



There are fears that the figures in some areas are actually much higher. That the governments track & trace is designed for affluent, English speaking areas and is failing in areas with high populations of non-English speaking communities. 









						'We are going to take matters into our own hands': Sandwell implements own test and trace system as national scheme 'failing'
					

Sandwell has started their own test and trace system following a surge in coronavirus cases – as their health boss deemed the Government system as 'failing'.




					www.expressandstar.com


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## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

mr steev said:


> There are fears that the figures in some areas are actually much higher. That the governments track & trace is designed for affluent, English speaking areas and is failing in areas with high populations of non-English speaking communities.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'm just glad local authorities have the data they need to begin to do that stuff themselves now. A lot of the disgraceful failings and absurdities in this country stem from narrow mindsets that end up with the power to do a lot of damage because of the degree of centralisation in this country. Those centralising instincts have not gone away, but the pandemic is forcing them to slowly concede some stuff to the local authorities over time. If we are ever to end up with a test & trace system that is as good as Johnson likes to claim, successful implementation at the local level will be a big reason why.

The mood music sure has changed in recent weeks, in a way that is a bit better for my mental health because its less out of step with what I think the reality of the pandemic is at this stage.

I dont think the numbers we are seeing now bode very well for the prospect of schools returning as planned. Even summer wiggle room appears to have been rather modest, and I suspect there will be further reality checks to come. I'm certainly glad I picked June & July to take something of a break from my focus on the pandemic, because its not hard for me to imagine getting sucked into spending a lot more time on it again in the coming weeks and months.

Sorry for the recent personal some have experienced and described here. I'm bloody awful at responding to such tragedies in text on the internet so I usually say nothing but my thoughts are with everyone who has lost someone or know someone whose health has been wrecked by this.


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## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

I see Johnson announced in todays press conference that the planned August 1st relaxations that would have allowed casinos, bowling alleys, skating rinks and the remaining close-contact services to reopen have been postponed for at least 2 weeks. 'Squeezing the brake pedal' was the Johnson rhetoric chosen. Also no sports spectator trials or wedding receptions.


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## Numbers (Jul 31, 2020)

Johnson has a new phrase now too. 

"Hands, face, space, get a test,"


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

Oh and they are extending the mask rules to include museums, galleries, cinemas, places of worship, recommended now and enforceable from August 8th.


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## baldrick (Jul 31, 2020)

mr steev said:


> There are fears that the figures in some areas are actually much higher. That the governments track & trace is designed for affluent, English speaking areas and is failing in areas with high populations of non-English speaking communities.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Lisa McNally's name is familiar to me for some reason, I think I have come across her before for some covid-related reason. Either way, it sounds like Sandwell have someone really capable of turning it around in place, which is great. It's thoroughly shameful though that there isn't the community language capability in the track and trace programme. Especially as BAME people are considered higher risk from covid for all sorts of reasons - this has been confirmed for a while now, so it seems illogical not to do all you can in that respect. And I agree that the local response to covid is going to become increasingly important as time goes on. I am wondering what the picture is in Birmingham though as Sandwell is essentially part of the same conurbation. I live a ten minute walk away from the boundary.


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Johnson has a new phrase now too.
> 
> "Hands, face, space, get a test,"



Ah yes, I only just got to that bit as I didnt watch it live. 

I see Whitty responded to a question by saying we are at the outer edge of the limits of how much we can relax measures, so difficult tradeoffs will be required if we want to go further with certain things in future. May have to pull back a bit, and then we should be able to hold the line.


----------



## hash tag (Jul 31, 2020)

I suspect the rise in infections is in proportion to the rise in testing. Deaths are not rising.
As far as this govt. Is concerned, track and trace is useless and i wouldnt bet on local authorities being able to handle it. They have already had their resources chopped right back. I know pubs, resturants Etc. Have track n trace in place, some of which is very haphazard.


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I suspect the rise in infections is in proportion to the rise in testing. Deaths are not rising.



Its true that other measurements are required to avoid making a basic mistake when analysing the situation while the testing regime is changing at the same time. They have a few ways to check at the moment, such as comparing numbers of people testing positive in particular locations of concern to brodaer measures such as ONS estimates for rates of infection based on sampling the public more generally. Personally I will still be found going on about the need to add a decent sewage testing system to this.

The current rate of death is inevitably a major factor in how people in general think about the pandemic at a particular point in time. But those making decisions absolutely cannot afford to wait until a spiralling situation shows up in the rate of hospital admissions and deaths because that introduces the same sort of delays that were so devastating to our initial response. The big 'uh oh' moments in terms of seeing that the the virus was indeed becoming a nasty pandemic in February were deaths suddenly being noticed in Iran and Italy when they had previously not been spotting cases. Its the warning beacon of last resort that is hard to deny even when a country has been in denial about infections up to that point, but by then its too late to avoid the horror. No government that now takes this virus seriously will wait for such death indicators before taking action again.


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## Artaxerxes (Jul 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh and they are extending the mask rules to include museums, galleries, cinemas, places of worship, recommended now and enforceable from August 8th.



Nothing like closing the stable door after the horse has exploded.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 31, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I suspect the rise in infections is in proportion to the rise in testing. Deaths are not rising.



Certainly increased testing, and targeted in areas of concern, will result in increased numbers of new cases.

But, it's far too early to think about deaths from these increased cases, as they tend to show up 4+ weeks after any increase in new cases.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 31, 2020)

But The Deaths also doesn't take into account the health damage that covid does to a chunk of its victims or the taking up of beds and incubators while they are recovering.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Nothing like closing the stable door after the horse has exploded.



Yeah, I guess though it was always going to be like this.  Push a bit to see how far you can go and then pull the reigns back in once you reach that limit.  I do think we came out too early and too fast but I also think what we're seeing now was largely inevitable and is similar to what is happening elsewhere is Europe but the numbers are worse here hence a slower return would have been better.

I guess this is what 'learning to live alongside the virus' looks like.  We probably need to get used to this.  We were never going to eradicate the thing I don't think. That is Scotland's ambition but they are experiencing outbreaks as well albeit on a much smaller scale.


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## Cerv (Jul 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh and they are extending the mask rules to include museums, galleries, cinemas, places of worship, recommended now and enforceable from August 8th.


I genuinely thought that was already the rule. an indoor space is an indoor space after all.
certainly every museum / gallery I've visited recently or booked to visit has been strict on a no mask no entry message.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 31, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Johnson has a new phrase now too.
> 
> "Hands, face, space, get a test,"



This is a man with a degree in literature from Oxford remember.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Ah yes, I only just got to that bit as I didnt watch it live.
> 
> I see Whitty responded to a question by saying we are at the outer edge of the limits of how much we can relax measures, so difficult tradeoffs will be required if we want to go further with certain things in future. May have to pull back a bit, and then we should be able to hold the line.



Bearing in mind this is a time when all the schools are closed. If the strategy is equilibirum rather than eradication then something else, most likely a lot of somethings else, is going to have to be controlled more strictly in order to allow for schools reopening.


----------



## LDC (Jul 31, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Bearing in mind this is a time when all the schools are closed. If the strategy is equilibirum rather than eradication then something else, most likely a lot of somethings else, is going to have to be controlled more strictly in order to allow for schools reopening.



That was pretty much been acknowledged by Whitty today. If we want more in some areas then we'll have to have less  in other ways.


----------



## editor (Jul 31, 2020)

Bournemouth is looking busy again today


----------



## zahir (Jul 31, 2020)




----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 31, 2020)

Maybe there'll be another massive spike like the last time some people went to the beach.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That was pretty much been acknowledged by Whitty today. If we want more in some areas then we'll have to have less  in other ways.



And yet every fucker is still on holiday. Madness.


----------



## BCBlues (Jul 31, 2020)

baldrick said:


> Lisa McNally's name is familiar to me for some reason, I think I have come across her before for some covid-related reason. Either way, it sounds like Sandwell have someone really capable of turning it around in place, which is great. It's thoroughly shameful though that there isn't the community language capability in the track and trace programme. Especially as BAME people are considered higher risk from covid for all sorts of reasons - this has been confirmed for a while now, so it seems illogical not to do all you can in that respect. And I agree that the local response to covid is going to become increasingly important as time goes on. I am wondering what the picture is in Birmingham though as Sandwell is essentially part of the same conurbation. I live a ten minute walk away from the boundary.



I'm right on the border (by the Albion ground). I read somewhere that local lockdown could cross boundaries and I'm pretty sure that if West Brom and Smethwick get lockdown then some parts of Brum could be included such as Handsworth.

Dr Lisa McNally comes across as much more involved and alert than any of that shower in government. I have family and friends in Sandwell so I'm glad someone with her commitment is taking care of matters given the recent increase in cases there.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 31, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> And yet every fucker is still on holiday. Madness.



I just cannot fucking understand the thought process behind willingly stepping on a plane at this point, regardless of the health concerns, just from a financial stress point of view why would you risk it? Add to that most of the things you do on holiday are. going. to. be. shut.


----------



## phillm (Jul 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> I see Johnson announced in todays press conference that the planned August 1st relaxations that would have allowed casinos, bowling alleys, skating rinks and the remaining close-contact services to reopen have been postponed for at least 2 weeks. 'Squeezing the brake pedal' was the Johnson rhetoric chosen. Also no sports spectator trials or wedding receptions.



A 50% capacity seared Tonnoe DScott's was due to p[en


SpookyFrank said:


> This is a man with a degree in literature from Oxford remember.



Fixed for you.

_Manus, faciem spatium, ut temptare _


----------



## Raheem (Jul 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I just cannot fucking understand the thought process behind willingly stepping on a plane at this point, regardless of the health concerns, just from a financial stress point of view why would you risk it? Add to that most of the things you do on holiday are. going. to. be. shut.


Some people will have booked before all this, or deferred from earlier in the year, and can't now get a refund.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I just cannot fucking understand the thought process behind willingly stepping on a plane at this point, regardless of the health concerns, just from a financial stress point of view why would you risk it? Add to that most of the things you do on holiday are. going. to. be. shut.



Depends which country you're off to.  There are loads and loads of places which are pretty much fully open.  I'm with you though regarding flying.


----------



## CNT36 (Jul 31, 2020)

I still think a quick, cheap, antigen test using spit needs to be pursued. Medcram and Time have done summaries based on Michael Mina's work. The sensitivity is only around 50% however this is not a random 50%. The majority of the false negatives are when the viral load is low so either before or after the subject is infectious. The ideal is them being produced for a few quid as a daily test that people can use at home. If it is positive they stay home as they could be infectious. If not they goto work as they probably are not and if they are the test will most likely pick it up the next day limiting the number they infect. It would be very useful for opening up and reduce the reliance on contract tracing as anyone you infect should be using the daily test as well. A test would likely cost a few quid and give a result in about ten minutes. It is obviously less sensitive than PCR but this would be more than made up for by its widespread use and speed. The vast majority of people using these tests would not have a PCR test anyway. In clinical, research and other situations obviously the more sensitive and specific tests are going to be essential and provide different useful information. As a should I get out of bed and go to School, work or the pub test they seem a very effective option. This does not mean distancing, masks and other measures should be abandoned.


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> I still think a quick, cheap, antigen test using spit needs to be pursued. Medcram and Time have done a summaries based on Michael Mina's work. The sensitivity is only around 50% however this is not a random 50%. The majority of the false negatives are when the viral load is low so either before or after the subject is infectious. The ideal is them being produced for a few quid as a daily test that people can use at home. If it is positive they stay home as they could be infectious. If not they goto work as they probably are not and if they are the test will most likely pick it up the next day limiting the number they infect. It would be very useful for opening up and reduce the reliance on contract tracing as anyone you infect should be using the daily test as well. A test would likely cost a few quid and give a result in about ten minutes. It is obviously less sensitive than PCR but this would be more than made up for by its widespread use and speed. The vast majority of people using these tests would not have a PCR test anyway. In clinical, research and other situations obviously the more sensitive and specific tests are going to be essential and provide different useful information. As a should I get out of bed and go to School, work or the pub test they seem a very effective option. This does mean distancing, masks and other measures should be abandoned.



Did the word 'not' accidentally go missing from your last sentence?

They are looking into the saliva test. I took part in a home trial of it just under 2 weeks ago. I think it was being done by Imperial College London & Ipsos MORI with NHS & DHSC involvement.


----------



## CNT36 (Jul 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Did the word 'not' accidentally go missing from your last sentence?
> 
> They are looking into the saliva test. I took part in a home trial of it just under 2 weeks ago. I think it was being done by Imperial College London & Ipsos MORI with NHS & DHSC involvement.


Yes. It has now magically reappeared.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh and they are extending the mask rules to include museums, galleries, cinemas, places of worship, recommended now and enforceable from August 8th.


Conspiraloons will go mad over that, August 8 is one of those dates they're obsessed with, something to do with Manson or Hitler or something


----------



## CNT36 (Jul 31, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Conspiraloons will go mad over that, August 8 is one of those dates they're obsessed with, something to do with Manson or Hitler or something


8 day of the 8th month. 88 = HH = Heil Hitler.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 31, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> 8 day of the 8th month. 88 = HH = Heil Hitler.


Was the day the Beijing Olympics started, too - 8/8/08


----------



## CNT36 (Jul 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Was the day the Beijing Olympics started, too - 8/8/08


Mind blown.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jul 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh and they are extending the mask rules to include museums, galleries, cinemas, places of worship, recommended now and enforceable from August 8th.



I really hope this is leading up to advising masks to be worn in indoor office spaces by autumn / flu season.

I've been back into work for a few weeks now (anyone not vulnerable or reliant on public transport was expected in & we do actually need a core of office-based staff) & with the best will in the world, inevitably people are not really distancing.

It feels ok at the moment - it's a small office with big windows & easy access to outside space & (partly due to there being large no of office-based smokers) & half the usual number of people - but I am _not_ looking forward to winter when the windows shut & the crappy heating/"AC" comes on.

Frustratingly, the guys at work are actually *really *compliant with the mandatory stuff - wear their masks like lambs on the train & in shops - but seem to have such solid faith that BoJo is a good sort doing his best (!) that they won't do anything before it's officially required


----------



## Supine (Jul 31, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> 8 day of the 8th month. 88 = HH = Heil Hitler.



8 / 08

The 808 drum machine is used at quaranteen raves to give the kids a kick.

Plus 303 + 808 + 909 = 2020. It all becomes clear now.


----------



## mr steev (Jul 31, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> I'm right on the border (by the Albion ground). I read somewhere that local lockdown could cross boundaries and I'm pretty sure that if West Brom and Smethwick get lockdown then some parts of Brum could be included such as Handsworth.



Yeah, I read that somewhere too. That a regional lockdown isn't necessarily going to go on council boarders or whatever, and a Sandwell one could quite possibly include parts of Brum and Walsall


----------



## BCBlues (Jul 31, 2020)

mr steev said:


> Yeah, I read that somewhere too. That a regional lockdown isn't necessarily going to go on council boarders or whatever, and a Sandwell one could quite possibly include parts of Brum and Walsall



Dudley and Wolvo too.


----------



## mr steev (Jul 31, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> Dudley and Wolvo too.



Quite likely


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 31, 2020)




----------



## Teaboy (Jul 31, 2020)

Fucking hell.  Stick that under a spoiler or something.


----------



## souljacker (Jul 31, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> I really hope this is leading up to advising masks to be worn in indoor office spaces by autumn / flu season.
> 
> I've been back into work for a few weeks now (anyone not vulnerable or reliant on public transport was expected in & we do actually need a core of office-based staff) & with the best will in the world, inevitably people are not really distancing.
> 
> ...



I was at an office last week which had a good policy. Basically, if you're at your desk, you can have your mask off but as soon as you get up to make a coffee or go and chat to someone else, you had to put it on. It worked really well and seemed sensible but was helped by there being so few people in that your desk was miles away from anyone.

Regarding people waiting for BoJo to tell them what to do, as far as I'm aware he has. He's told offices to be Covid secure but hasn't really defined what that means. So any decent company should be putting in various measures and getting people to comply.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Fucking hell.  Stick that under a spoiler or something.



I suffer, you all suffer.


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Regarding people waiting for BoJo to tell them what to do, as far as I'm aware he has. He's told offices to be Covid secure but hasn't really defined what that means. So any decent company should be putting in various measures and getting people to comply.



There is some documentation regarding covid secure guidance, but I have a vague memory of reading loads of it and not coming away with anything worth mentioning here. It didnt leave much of an impression so I will resort to guessing that it was full of empty platitudes, as this seems like a safe bet.


----------



## souljacker (Jul 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> There is some documentation regarding covid secure guidance, but I have a vague memory of reading loads of it and not coming away with anything worth mentioning here. It didnt leave much of an impression so I will resort to guessing that it was full of empty platitudes, as this seems like a safe bet.



Exactly. It's up to the offices and, IMO, the unions and the workforce to make sure things are safe.


----------



## hash tag (Jul 31, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> This is a man with a degree in literature from Oxford remember.



He is also a man of the people, inhe.


----------



## hash tag (Jul 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I just cannot fucking understand the thought process behind willingly stepping on a plane at this point, regardless of the health concerns, just from a financial stress point of view why would you risk it? Add to that most of the things you do on holiday are. going. to. be. shut.


Travel insurance is invalid. The stresses of trying to get home as people in Spain are finding out. With cancelled flights, it could cost some a small fortune to be forced into extending their stay and a small fortune trying to buy a flight home.
Many of those there just want a relaxing holiday on the beach. Not.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 31, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Travel insurance is invalid. The stresses of trying to get home as people in Spain are finding out. With cancelled flights, it could cost some a small fortune to be forced into extending their stay and a small fortune trying to buy a flight home.
> Many of those there just want a relaxing holiday on the beach. Not.



I have to admit my sympathy for these people is limited. Holidaymakers anyway. I know people who were stranded in Spain for months of total lockdown after going home to visit family etc, but that was first time round where it wasn't forseeable.


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

I dont blame people for wanting a holiday, and they were encouraged to believe it was not a completely unrealistic proposition. My sympathy diminishes a bit when the individuals take what has happened personally, or are totally caught off guard by what has happened, but again they have been fed mixed messages for some time and some people dont need much encouragement to turn their hopes into beliefs and justifications.

I'm still glad I encouraged people to try to take a mental break from the pandemic as much as possible in the summer, (without forgetting the new behaviours that are required) but thats in great part because I expect we'll need recharged mental energy (and vitamin D I guess, not a subject I know much about yet)  to get through the winter. And even if winter doesnt live up to worst case fears, people will till be nervous that it might, and thats an inevitable drain in itself.


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

Do those that follow independent sage know whether they mention sewage-based surveillance much? As I mentioned recently I have not followed the output of that group at all yet, and I do plan to start at some point before autumn but I'm not quite ready yet. I guess it bothers me that I dont routinely see any obvious pressure for the government to get such a sewage system in place ASAP, and I end up thinking this all the time now that we are in a stage where local and regional measures are being taken in response to the other test-based data we do have.


----------



## hash tag (Jul 31, 2020)

We all could do with and want a holiday but taking one is not necessarily responsible. And if you do take a holiday, knowing the risks, dont whinge about it when something goes wrong, like getting stranded or having to isolate when you get home.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Do those that follow independent sage know whether they mention sewage-based surveillance much? As I mentioned recently I have not followed the output of that group at all yet, and I do plan to start at some point before autumn but I'm not quite ready yet. I guess it bothers me that I dont routinely see any obvious pressure for the government to get such a sewage system in place ASAP, and I end up thinking this all the time now that we are in a stage where local and regional measures are being taken in response to the other test-based data we do have.



Sewage testing has been happening since March, and is being expanded.









						Sewage monitoring is the UK’s next defence against covid-19
					

Researchers have pioneered wastewater analysis and are now contributing to a nationwide programme, reports Chris Baraniuk   For the past few months, scientists in the UK have been quietly poring over samples of British faeces. Researchers at a handful of universities around the country have been...




					www.bmj.com


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Sewage testing has been happening since March, and is being expanded.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Excellent, thanks, a fair bit firmer than the last time I heard about it, which was scientists promoting the technique and talking about the need to turn it into a proper system nationwide.

If anyone hears more about the programme in this country in the UK at any stage please do mention it here. Because as per that article you linked to, the authorities are still being rather coy about much of the detail:



> However, although DEFRA has committed to the wider nationwide sewage surveillance scheme, there are few public details about it, notes Singer. The BMJ asked DEFRA if it could clarify the scope of the programme: a spokesperson declined to comment but said more information would follow “in the coming weeks.”



A few weeks have now passed since then but for all I know something more may have been said publicly that I simply havent noticed yet.


----------



## Sue (Jul 31, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Travel insurance is invalid. The stresses of trying to get home as people in Spain are finding out. With cancelled flights, it could cost some a small fortune to be forced into extending their stay and a small fortune trying to buy a flight home.
> Many of those there just want a relaxing holiday on the beach. Not.


I got stuck with the ash cloud in 2010. Luckily was somewhere cheap as it wasn't covered by travel insurance.


----------



## Supine (Jul 31, 2020)

In Cardiff today. It was weird in Tesco just now, I was virtually the own person masked up. 

It's only taken a week of wearing one in England and it now feels totally normal for me. It can't be long before Wales starts insisting on it.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 31, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Johnson has a new phrase now too.
> 
> "Hands, face, space, get a test,"



"Hands, knees and bumps a daisy".


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 31, 2020)

two sheds said:


> "Hands, knees and bumps a daisy".




"We didn't stop the virus, it's always been burning since the world's been turning"


----------



## brogdale (Jul 31, 2020)

No, here it is...



Wash, cover, make, hands, face, space.
 Got it?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 31, 2020)

wash cover make - doesn't make sense 

hands face space - true enough if you hold them up.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 31, 2020)




----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> In Cardiff today. It was weird in Tesco just now, I was virtually the own person masked up.
> 
> It's only taken a week of wearing one in England and it now feels totally normal for me. *It can't be long before Wales starts insisting on it*.



In Swansea here, and I was out and about today.

In shops, there remains a pretty low level of mask wearing generally (10% to 15% or so?  )
People are pretty good at distancing, including queueing where necessary.
And they have been all along here, but masks aren't much of a thing at all yet, from what I've seen-- the rules in Wales about masks aren't in place, mostly.

But I've been thinking for a while that mandatory masks in shops (as well as on buses**) can only be a matter of time.
**Mandatory in Welsh buses since last Monday -- 27th July

Workplaces? We'll have to wait and see what Drakeford next announces


----------



## scifisam (Jul 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> No, here it is...
> 
> View attachment 224541
> 
> ...



Presumably designed by this guy:


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> No, here it is...
> 
> Wash, cover, make, hands, face, space.
> Got it?



We need facepalms from outer space to save the human race,
About face for the disgrace, win the race in last place,
World beating fleeting credibility, testing patience on a scale not since since 1983.


----------



## scifisam (Jul 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> No, here it is...
> 
> View attachment 224541
> 
> ...



Also, Vanilla Ice is facing off against himself there.

All right stop incubate and listen
Corona's back with a brand new infection
The virus grabs a hold of me tightly
Temperature peaking daily and nightly
Will it ever stop yo I don't know
It's got Johnson and Bolsanaro
...
Check out the spin while Cummings revolves it
Mask mask baby (Corona)
Mask mask baby (Corona)
Mask mask baby (Corona)
Mask mask baby (Corona)


----------



## Supine (Aug 1, 2020)

A week or two after the big gathering of football fans in Liverpool. It now has the highest rate of increase in cases. Still small numbers though...


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 1, 2020)

So people from the North West can't go down the road to see their families but they can still drive across the country for their holidays?


----------



## zahir (Aug 1, 2020)

Some background on the decision making.








						Two U-turns and a lot of chaos: it's been a painful week for Boris Johnson
					

One thing is clear, the government is very worried about a resurgence of coronavirus in the UK




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Chilli.s (Aug 1, 2020)

Swindon not in NE afaik.


----------



## CNT36 (Aug 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> So people from the North West can't go down the road to see their families but they can still drive across the country for their holidays?


Bloke at work complaining about just that last week. Next week he's off on his holidays and has found a great deal on a travel lodge just outside Leicester.


----------



## maomao (Aug 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> So people from the North West can't go down the road to see their families but they can still drive across the country for their holidays?


They can go to the pub for a drink but can't celebrate Eid with family. That's gone down well.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> Some background on the decision making.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Painful week my arse. Been a painful week for the people who are continuing to suffer and die as a result of Johnson's abject failure. Been a painful week for those who have found out they're back in lockdown, and an even more ill-conceived version of it than last time. Been a painful week for all of us who have seen our hopes for some kind of normality take another swift and merciless knee to the crotch. Johnson wants to know pain, I'll fucking show him pain


----------



## zahir (Aug 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> They can go to the pub for a drink but can't celebrate Eid with family. That's gone down well.


----------



## blameless77 (Aug 1, 2020)

zahir said:


>




but pubs know who’s there, do contact tracing, and have people there ensuring space, etc. Not quite the same as a marquee full of people feasting?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 1, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> but pubs know who’s there, do contact tracing, and have people there ensuring space, etc. Not quite the same as a marquee full of people feasting?



You could argue this the other way, and say that a marquee full of friends, family and community members observing a religious festival is more likely to give a shit about the welfare of those around them than a bunch of unicellular lager louts in a wetherspoons. 

That's assuming anyone was planning any marquees. Seems more like people just wanted to visit their mums.


----------



## LDC (Aug 1, 2020)

The government can't legislate for every possible thing people might do, so some people will always find loopholes and inconsistencies with these rules, and if they're selfish cunts they can exploit them.

But that's missing the point. Fucking around with this stuff can result in people dying, so stop feeling like a smug prick gaming what's going on.

I don't get why people are struggling with this, households mixing is a higher risk than things like pubs and restaurants. Anyway at this rate we're going to get a much wider and stricter lockdown across the whole country.


----------



## zahir (Aug 1, 2020)

This was necessary - better to shut it down on the night before than not at all - but it was clumsily handled. After all who could possibly have predicted that Eid was about to happen?



> “We have been singled out, otherwise why would you announce a lockdown the night before Eid? It’s sending out a certain kind of message,” he said. “I’m just grateful that my mother lives with us, but there will be so many others we will not get to see. They could have given us some notice, even just a few days, but to do it the night before when all the meals were prepared and we had made plans is just not right.”


'Singled out': Oldham's Muslim community on lockdown controls


----------



## LDC (Aug 1, 2020)

zahir said:


> This was necessary - better to shut down Eid on the night before than not at all - but it was clumsily handled. After all who could possibly have predicted that Eid was about to happen?



Guess it depends on when the stats came out showing a lockdown was necessary. If it was couple of weeks ago and they'd sat on it then yeah, but my understanding was that it only became clear the day or two before. Also worked with half a dozen Muslims last night and every single one was supportive of the announcement and lockdown, they don't want any more spread in their families and wider groups that there needs to be.

If they'd delayed the announcement they'd have been rightly condemned for the delay and risking lives.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 1, 2020)

I let rip at three maskless people in Aldi today - selfish bastards .. it made me wear my mask all up the street,
I had to go in the dodgy booze and vape shop that doubles as a post-office for my Amazon parcel and I have a nasty feeling I want to sent the item back ... I felt my health at risk in there.
No masks in the Polish shop as per usual ...


----------



## Thora (Aug 1, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> but pubs know who’s there, do contact tracing, and have people there ensuring space, etc. Not quite the same as a marquee full of people feasting?


That might be how it's supposed to work, but is that actually happening in most pubs?

I've been to two pubs so far - one was taking no details at all, one had a piece of paper on a table that people could choose to write their number on if they wanted to.


----------



## zahir (Aug 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Guess it depends on when the stats came out showing a lockdown was necessary. If it was couple of weeks ago and they'd sat on it then yeah, but my understanding was that it only became clear the day or two before. Also worked with half a dozen Muslims last night and every single one was supportive of the announcement and lockdown, they don't want any more spread in their families and wider groups that there needs to be.
> 
> If they'd delayed the announcement they'd have been rightly condemned for the delay and risking lives.



It’s probably down to Oldham showing a rise in weekly cases from 44 to 135. The wider issue in the area has been clear for a couple of weeks though.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 1, 2020)

I've hopefully found a better option for my Amazon deliveries - a different convenience store - near the park, so I can combine collections with a nice walk - and I'm returning the item via the Hermes counter at the COOP where I also buy my soup ....


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Aug 1, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I've hopefully found a better option for my Amazon deliveries - a different convenience store - near the park, so I can combine collections with a nice walk - and I'm returning the item via the Hermes counter at the COOP where I also buy my soup ....


Can’t you just get them delivered to your home, save the hassle?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You could argue this the other way, and say that a marquee full of friends, family and community members observing a religious festival is more likely to give a shit about the welfare of those around them than a bunch of unicellular lager louts in a wetherspoons.
> 
> That's assuming anyone was planning any marquees. Seems more like people just wanted to visit their mums.



FWIW I really miss my ma.

She’s fine but fucked if I know when I’ll get to visit her again.


----------



## prunus (Aug 1, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> but pubs know who’s there, do contact tracing, and have people there ensuring space, etc. Not quite the same as a marquee full of people feasting?



As far as I’m aware this (the embedded tweet in the original quoted message above) is wrong anyway - there isn’t anywhere where you’re not allowed to have a friend over to visit where you are allowed to meet them in a pub - all the NW areas where the visiting rules have been changed also have the rule that you don’t interact with other households in pubs, restaurants as well.
Be nice if the government could actually tell people, rather than them getting their information filtered through several layers of media (social and other) obfuscation from an original tweet by Matt Hancock that got it wrong in the first place.

Shambles upon shambles.


----------



## Raheem (Aug 1, 2020)

prunus said:


> As far as I’m aware this (the embedded tweet in the original quoted message above) is wrong anyway - there isn’t anywhere where you’re not allowed to have a friend over to visit where you are allowed to meet them in a pub - all the NW areas where the visiting rules have been changed also have the rule that you don’t interact with other households in pubs, restaurants as well.
> Be nice if the government could actually tell people, rather than them getting their information filtered through several layers of media (social and other) obfuscation from an original tweet by Matt Hancock that got it wrong in the first place.
> 
> Shambles upon shambles.


The guidance issued when pubs reopened was a maximum of six people drinking together, from a maximum of two households. But it was just guidance anyway.


----------



## Raheem (Aug 1, 2020)

You can probably put together about a dozen versions of what the guidance is by now, though.


----------



## Chilli.s (Aug 1, 2020)

My poor old parents have not got any clue as to what is going on now, which seems the same as Hancock and Raab judging by the last day or so. Fucking shambles.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 1, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Can’t you just get them delivered to your home, save the hassle?


I'm back at work for the next month or more.
I used to have stuff delivered there, but things aren't back to normal yet.


----------



## editor (Aug 1, 2020)

Nooooooooo









						Coronavirus: Pubs 'may need to shut' to allow schools to reopen
					

A "trade-off" may be needed in England amid a rise in cases, a scientist advising the government says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## kenny g (Aug 1, 2020)

I know plenty of Muslims who drink in pubs and quite a few non Muslims who meet up with friends and family at home. Can remember seeing someone in a local off licence picking up two four packs at the end of Ramadan with an Eid Mubarak greeting. It pisses me off when it is assumed that being Muslim and getting pissed are exclusive.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Aug 1, 2020)

editor said:


> Nooooooooo
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Every parent everywhere disagrees with you


----------



## editor (Aug 1, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Every parent everywhere disagrees with you


I'm a parent and I'm not disagreeing with myself, thankyouverymuch!


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 1, 2020)

editor said:


> Nooooooooo
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You think pubs are more important than schools?


----------



## Raheem (Aug 1, 2020)

Why do pubs and schools need to be in separate venues in the first place?


----------



## Ground Elder (Aug 1, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Why do pubs and schools need to be in separate venues in the first place?


Sit them outside with a bag of crisps, a bottle of coke and a textbook. Job done.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Aug 1, 2020)

Ground Elder said:


> Sit them outside with a bag of crisps, a bottle of coke and a textbook. Job done.


But what about the schools?


----------



## Chilli.s (Aug 1, 2020)

If I had school age children, I would not send them to school until it was safe enough to open pubs.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2020)

I think the point is that risk tolerance allows either one or the other to be open but not both.


----------



## zahir (Aug 1, 2020)

__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot - Office for National Statistics
					

Initial data from the COVID-19 Infection Survey. This survey is being delivered in partnership with IQVIA, Oxford University and UK Biocentre.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




In this bulletin, we refer to the number of current coronavirus (COVID-19) infections within the community population; community in this instance refers to private residential households, and it excludes those in hospitals, care homes or other institutional settings.
In this bulletin, we use current COVID-19 infections to mean testing positive for SARS-CoV-2, with or without having symptoms, on a swab taken from the nose and throat.
An estimated 35,700 people (95% credible interval: 23,700 to 53,200) within the community population in England had COVID-19 during the most recent week, from 20 to 26 July 2020, equating to around 1 in 1,500 individuals.
There is now evidence to suggest a slight increase in the number of people in England testing positive on a nose and throat swab in recent weeks.
There is not enough evidence to say with confidence whether COVID-19 infection rates differ by region in England, nor whether infection rates have increased in different regions over the past six weeks.
During the most recent week (20 to 26 July 2020), we estimate there were around 0.78 new COVID-19 infections for every 10,000 people in the community population in England, equating to around 4,200 new cases per day (95% credible interval: 2,200 to 8,100).
Modelling of the rate of new infections over time suggests that there is now some evidence that the incidence of new infections has increased in recent weeks.
Between 26 April and 26 July, 6.2% of people tested positive for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 on a blood test, suggesting they had the infection in the past.


----------



## zahir (Aug 1, 2020)

_Also from that survey..._

Based on exploratory modelling, we estimate that there were 0.78 new infections per 10,000 people followed for one day […] during the most recent week of the study (20 July to 26 July). This equates to 4,200 new infections per day (95% credible interval: 2,200 to 8,100).

Our findings suggest that there is now some evidence to suggest that the incidence of new cases has increased in recent weeks, following a low point of 0.34 new infections per 10,000 people followed for one day (95% credible interval: 0.25 to 0.46) during the week from 15 to 21 June. This follows an initial decrease in the incidence rate between May 2020, when the study began, and June 2020.


----------



## nagapie (Aug 1, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> If I had school age children, I would not send them to school until it was safe enough to open pubs.


The virus doesn't like children. The under 11s remain almost unaffected.


----------



## Thora (Aug 1, 2020)

nagapie said:


> The virus doesn't like children. The under 11s remain almost unaffected.


Isn't it more that healthy young children are unlikely to become very ill, but they still become infected?


----------



## two sheds (Aug 1, 2020)

And hopefully don't have later problems.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 1, 2020)

R is going up in Cornwall unsurprisingly (we've been really lucky so far). Friend talking to a shop assistant in Cornwall yesterday who asked a tourist to wear a mask before coming in the shop: "we've come down here to get away from all of that"


----------



## nagapie (Aug 1, 2020)

Thora said:


> Isn't it more that healthy young children are unlikely to become very ill, but they still become infected?


I said unaffected in that they might be infected but are asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms. Even children with complex health needs are not really being severely affected.


----------



## Supine (Aug 1, 2020)

That was July


----------



## weepiper (Aug 1, 2020)

Visited a skate shop on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh today that we have bought things from in the past. He has gone for protecting himself and his staff in a big way - he's installed a buzzer entry lock on the door, got a two people at a time sign up which he enforces by means of the door lock, and an automatic hand sanitiser dispenser inside which you are directed to use, masks mandatory obviously, and a big bench keeping customers well back from the till. You can tell he expects this to be the situation for a long time and he has invested accordingly. It doesn't seem to be putting anyone off - we had to wait to get in because there were two people in front of us, and someone else turned up while we were there and weren't put off by having to wait, either.


----------



## CNT36 (Aug 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> R is going up in Cornwall unsurprisingly (we've been really lucky so far). Friend talking to a shop assistant in Cornwall yesterday who asked a tourist to wear a mask before coming in the shop: "we've come down here to get away from all of that"


The mate I mentioned a while ago had the exact same words on the Scillonian.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 1, 2020)

I mean you understand it to an extent if they've come from hot-spot type areas. As I say we've been really lucky here so far but as the shop assistant said to mate: "yes, but we have to live down here".


----------



## Maltin (Aug 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I mean you understand it to an extent if they've come from hot-spot type areas. As I say we've been really lucky here so far but as the shop assistant said to mate: "yes, but we have to live down here".


Surely the response is “yes, but you’ve possibly brought it down here, so best to be careful”


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2020)

Yes totally 

Better than my first reaction which was "well fuck off home then"


----------



## 20Bees (Aug 2, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Was the day the Beijing Olympics started, too - 8/8/08


My 2nd child’s due date! Didn’t happen until days later. Princess Beatrice was born that day though.


----------



## MrSki (Aug 2, 2020)

20Bees said:


> My 2nd child’s due date! Didn’t happen until days later. Princess Beatrice was born that day though.


I had a cyst behind my ear that finally popped on th 8/8/88


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2020)

hitlerian cyst  lucky for the world that we're rid of that


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 2, 2020)

Useful but worrying Twitter thread:


----------



## LDC (Aug 2, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Useful but worrying Twitter thread:




From that thread this is a useful link





__





						Dynamic Causal Modelling of COVID-19 (UK)
					





					www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 2, 2020)

20Bees said:


> My 2nd child’s due date! Didn’t happen until days later. Princess Beatrice was born that day though.


My stepdad died that day, too


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 2, 2020)

nagapie said:


> The virus doesn't like children. The under 11s remain almost unaffected.


Not unaffected but more likely to be asymptomatic. So potentially spreaders.


----------



## platinumsage (Aug 2, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Not unaffected but more likely to be asymptomatic. So potentially spreaders.



“There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers.

Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told _The Times_ that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.”









						No known case of teacher catching coronavirus from pupils, says scientist
					

There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers.Mark Woolhouse, a leading




					www.thetimes.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> R is going up in Cornwall unsurprisingly (we've been really lucky so far). Friend talking to a shop assistant in Cornwall yesterday who asked a tourist to wear a mask before coming in the shop: "we've come down here to get away from all of that"



Yeah there are some prize nobheads about down here. The other day it was a woman who was told she couldn't get on an overcrowded bus due to covid restrictions ranting at the driver, 'I thought you wanted people to come here and visit' (cue grim laughter from the other bus passengers) and then, 'you should have a double decker on this route' to more laughter and shouts of 'welcome to the countryside!'. There is no way in hell a double decker bus would get down half the roads on that route, and in any case the bus driver probably isn't the one making these decisions. The buses here are heavily subsidised by ratepayers and have been near empty for months as the guidelines were 'only use public transport to get to work' and there aren't enough buses for anyone to reliably get to work and back.


----------



## maomao (Aug 2, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> “There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers.
> 
> Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told _The Times_ that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.”
> 
> ...


Meanwhile:









						The Coronavirus Infected Hundreds at a Georgia Summer Camp
					

The camp took precautions but did not require campers to wear masks, the C.D.C. reported. Singing and cheering may have helped spread the virus.




					www.nytimes.com
				




Children certainly haven't been ruled out as spreaders. And as for the first sentence I'd imagine a very tiny percentage of cases have a confirmed vector anyway.


----------



## andysays (Aug 2, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> “There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers.
> 
> Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told _The Times_ that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.”
> 
> ...


that's a bit chicken and egg though, isn't it? if most schools are closed as a precaution, there will be very few cases of pupil to teacher transmission.

and it's not just pupil to teacher which is significant, of course, it's also pupil to pupil and then in to other, more vulnerable, family members etc


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 2, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> “There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers.
> 
> Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told _The Times_ that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.”
> 
> ...


I don't doubt that.  I was merely correcting nagapies assertion that children are unaffected as it is not true.


----------



## LDC (Aug 2, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> “There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers.
> 
> Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told _The Times_ that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.”
> 
> ...



That first statement is not true, and the rest of the article is just speculative and quite possibly bollocks.


----------



## wtfftw (Aug 2, 2020)

Last time schools were properly open was there even testing outside of hospitals?


----------



## nagapie (Aug 2, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Not unaffected but more likely to be asymptomatic. So potentially spreaders.


That's what I meant, unaffected as in asymptomatic as opposed to uninfected. I spoke to an epidemiologist friend this week and she said the current evidence shows that children under 11 are not super spreaders, either to each other or adults. Most infection of the young adult to child, but with the children still not suffering severely.


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> Meanwhile:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


nagapie


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 2, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> Last time schools were properly open was there even testing outside of hospitals?



No, community testing was abandoned long before schools closed.


----------



## wtfftw (Aug 2, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> No, community testing was abandoned long before schools closed.


That's what I thought.


----------



## Cid (Aug 2, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> nagapie



Yep. Does anyone have a source on that that gives symptoms by age range? Either way, given the very small number of older counsellors and the high levels of infection it is not a good picture. That article also links to a study on an outbreak in an Israeli school:





__





						Eurosurveillance | A large COVID-19 outbreak in a high school 10 days after schools’ reopening, Israel, May 2020
					

On 13 March 2020, Israel’s government declared closure of all schools. Schools fully reopened on 17 May 2020. Ten days later, a major outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) occurred in a high school. The first case was registered on 26 May, the second on 27 May. They were not...




					www.eurosurveillance.org
				




In that the youngest grade (age 12-13) had infection rates at 20% with more than 40% symptomatic. So yeah. School opening something to be very cautious about. Particularly given the time of year.


----------



## clicker (Aug 2, 2020)

I'm not feeling confident about September, with regard to secondary schools fully opening. If that is the plan.
They are harder to contain at that age. Most probably use public transport and it's cheek to jowl. Schools are far bigger and pupils move around to attend classes.
Combine that with autumn/winter, closed doors etc.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 2, 2020)

If you have the HIV virus but have not developed AIDS (and are thus asymptomatic) we would not say you are immune from spreading HIV just because you don’t have AIDS.  Similarly, a child may have the coronavirus but not COVID, which means they are still in danger of transmitting the coronavirus to others.


----------



## Cid (Aug 2, 2020)

The cdc report doesn’t seem to have any more info...









						SARS-CoV-2 Transmission and Infection Among Attendees of an...
					

Limited data are available about transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), among youths. During June 17–20, an overnight camp in Georgia (camp A)...




					www.cdc.gov
				



But we do know that 50% (overall) of 6-10 year olds tested positive. And we know that 76% (of those tested) were symptomatic... which I suspect indicates some level of symptomatic cases in the youngest group. Someone else might be able to unpick the data a bit. Or I’ll have a go later.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 2, 2020)

clicker said:


> I'm not feeling confident about September, with regard to secondary schools fully opening. If that is the plan.
> They are harder to contain at that age. Most probably use public transport and it's cheek to jowl. Schools are far bigger and pupils move around to attend classes.
> Combine that with autumn/winter, closed doors etc.



-Why don't we get to go back to school mum?
-Well Bobby, people wanted haircuts.
-But such catastrophic disruption to the structure of my life and the near-total loss of social contact with my peers at such a crucial stage of my development as an individual is going to have profound and unknowable consequences for me and my entire generation.
-I don't think you understand how bad the split ends had got Bobby.
-Couldn't we just have closed the schools a week earlier?
-Oh no Bobby, nothing is more important than your education.


----------



## Cid (Aug 2, 2020)

Ah probably not, symptom data only available for 136, and doesn’t state age.


----------



## nagapie (Aug 2, 2020)

I think the data is still mixed on how spready young kids are, secondary is another matter.
The UK fucked up so now we've got our lot. I would hate to see the mass closing of schools again and hope it would be a last resort; there are so many problems that come with having children mostly isolated at home.


----------



## Thora (Aug 2, 2020)

I feel that primary schools can be reopened in a fairly low risk way - children in small groups etc - but secondary schools are a completely different ball game.  "Bubbles" of 200-300 children with many mixing beyond that on public transport is just ridiculous, you might as well give up any pretence of there being any risk-reduction going on.

I know it will cause all sorts of issues for working parents, but part time school so groups are smaller seems like the best way to go to me.  And the government need to give schools money for extra cleaning, dividers, screens, testing etc.


----------



## elbows (Aug 2, 2020)

There is a natural bias from authorities and some experts in this pandemic away from things that are hugely inconvenient with massive implications. We saw this clearly with attitudes and denials in regards asymptomatic cases & transmission, but that stuff was unsustainable and they had to accept the likely reality in the end. I have no reason to think its different with schools and the role children in spreading the virus. I could be wrong, but I'd need very good and strong evidence to convince me, and anyway as I've said before I think that disruption to adult routines is one of the reasons school closures are effective in pandemics in the first place.


----------



## Chilli.s (Aug 2, 2020)

Don't other countries have far better online education, where population lives further from each other? Someone said that to me but I don't know any facts. Seems like a good idea. Some kids have thrived working from home, less distraction and lessons in self managing time.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 2, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Don't other countries have far better online education, where population lives further from each other? Someone said that to me but I don't know any facts. Seems like a good idea. Some kids have thrived working from home, less distraction and lessons in self managing time.



There are inherent limitations to what you can do remotely. Responding to the needs of indivudual kids in real time, something that has been comprehensively identified as being vital to effective pedagogy, could become almost impossible. And frankly at this point I think education itself is secondary to the need for social contact and some kind of reliable, ongoing sctructure for kids to feel they have a place in.


----------



## maomao (Aug 2, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Some kids have thrived working from home, less distraction and lessons in self managing time.



I'm sure _some_ have. Doubt it's very many though. And it assumes access to study space and PC. It also assumes a single negative-positive scale whereas the effects are pretty wide ranging. My kids (1 reception, 1 under school age) have loved lock down and have each thrived in some ways and withered in others. I'd rather they had the chance to go to school and if it does come down to trade-offs then yes, I think that's more important than a lot of other things.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I let rip at three maskless people in Aldi today - selfish bastards


You don't know why they weren't wearing mask, so you could have let rip at someone who is exempt on medical grounds








						Mask rage: ‘One man told me I shouldn't be allowed out if I can't wear one’
					

With face coverings compulsory in many settings, people unable to comply for health reasons are being challenged and abused




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## spirals (Aug 2, 2020)

“There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers. "

That is bullshit! Mr S caught it from from one of his pupils and was very very ill with it as was I!


----------



## nagapie (Aug 2, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Don't other countries have far better online education, where population lives further from each other? Someone said that to me but I don't know any facts. Seems like a good idea. Some kids have thrived working from home, less distraction and lessons in self managing time.


These children are the minority and mostly academically able and middle class, with access to all the equipment they need.


----------



## andysays (Aug 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> You don't know why they weren't wearing mask, so you could have let rip at someone who is exempt on medical grounds
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There are lots of places where you *can* go out without a mask, and whilst I don't condone people being attacked or abused (whether they have a medical condition or not) I think it's understandable that some people may be both annoyed and concerned if they see someone not wearing a mask in a setting where it's now mandatory.

And I can also see an argument for saying that if people genuinely can't wear a mask for whatever reason, they might have to be temporarily excluded from eg supermarkets in certain circumstances.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> There is a natural bias from authorities and some experts in this pandemic away from things that are hugely inconvenient with massive implications. We saw this clearly with attitudes and denials in regards asymptomatic cases & transmission, but that stuff was unsustainable and they had to accept the likely reality in the end. I have no reason to think its different with schools and the role children in spreading the virus. I could be wrong, but I'd need very good and strong evidence to convince me, and anyway as I've said before I think that disruption to adult routines is one of the reasons school closures are effective in pandemics in the first place.


And the problem is that if you refuse to countenance an unpalatable idea, you don’t plan for it.  Then when the situation is forced upon you, you have no option but whatever hurried reaction you can scrape together in a rush.

Universities decided months ago that they would be doing online lectures next year and so they have been able to spend the summer creating those materials.  Schools, by predetermining there was no way they would be doing anything but returning in September, now find themselves screwed if this isn’t possible.


----------



## maomao (Aug 2, 2020)

spirals said:


> “There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers. "
> 
> That is bullshit! Mr S caught it from from one of his pupils and was very very ill with it as was I!


But it wasn't recorded was it. I doubt there's many recorded cases of teachers having definitely caught the flu or a cold from a pupil either. It's not the kind of thing that gets recorded and it would be hard to prove anyway. By the time a virus has hit schools then the scientists have already lost track of chains of infection.


----------



## Thora (Aug 2, 2020)

spirals said:


> “There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers. "
> 
> That is bullshit! Mr S caught it from from one of his pupils and was very very ill with it as was I!


I imagine if no one is tracking/recording where teachers are getting it from, they are confident to say they have no recorded cases    Trump was right - too much testing just makes the stats look bad


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 2, 2020)

kabbes said:


> And the problem is that if you refuse to countenance an unpalatable idea, you don’t plan for it.  Then when the situation is forced upon you, you have no option but whatever hurried reaction you can scrape together in a rush.



It seems pretty clear that the unpalatability of lockdown to Johnson and many others in power resulted in a delayed, ill-conceived lockdown and probably a doubling or tripling of the death toll.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> You don't know why they weren't wearing mask, so you could have let rip at someone who is exempt on medical grounds
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah right.
One obviously healthy young chap of around 20 years old, one couple around 40 ...


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Yeah right.
> One obviously healthy young chap of around 20 years old, one couple around 40 ...


you don't know that at all - people have hidden disabilities - did you read the article? Keep your thoughts to yourself next time


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> you don't know that at all - people have hidden disabilities - did you read the article? Keep your thoughts to yourself next time


Are you serious ?
I hope you, like me, have been wearing a mask in shops since the beginning ...


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Are you serious ?
> I hope you, like me, have been wearing a mask in shops since the beginning ...


yes, i have. read that article.
that young man could have had asthma or have autism. The couple could have had COPD or PTSD. you just don't know.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Yeah right.
> One obviously healthy young chap of around 20 years old, one couple around 40 ...


You can't judge. So don't.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 2, 2020)

Well we can judge those people who just don't wear a mask cos it's mildly inconvenient but you just can't tell that from looking at someone, unless they tell you (which has happened to me a couple of times)


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> yes, i have. read that article.
> that young man could have had asthma or have autism. The couple could have had COPD or PTSD. you just don't know.


He was clearly on the spectrum .
If people are suffering PTSD, perhaps they should shop when it was quieter.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> *He was clearly on the spectrum .*
> If people are suffering PTSD, perhaps they should shop when it was quieter.


ffs. you don't know that either. but having assumed this to be the case, you still 'let rip' at him? 😩


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> ffs. you don't know that either. but having assumed this to be the case, you still 'let rip' at him? 😩


I was being sarcastic - he was male and 20 and arrogant.
As I said, perhaps people with genuine issues should do their shopping when it's quiet.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I was being sarcastic - he was male and 20 and arrogant.
> As I said, perhaps people with genuine issues should do their shopping when it's quiet.


they might not have the opportunity to shop whenever you want them to


----------



## existentialist (Aug 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> He was clearly on the spectrum .
> If people are suffering PTSD, perhaps they should shop when it was quieter.


I think people should mind their own business more. 

Nothing, but nothing is gained from judging - let alone having a go at - people not wearing masks, and I suspect that a lot of the people who do it aren't really interested in the safety angle, so much as feeling righteous and superior.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2020)

Agreed, but people who can't wear masks should really be getting home deliveries or someone to do their shopping for them. If they can that is.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Agreed, but people who can't wear masks should really be getting home deliveries or someone to do their shopping for them. If they can that is.


what about public places that aren't shops? Should they stay away from those too?


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2020)

well outside isn't so much of a problem, but gg was talking about in a shop wasn't he?

As has been pointed out asthma sufferers (like me) really don't want to be getting cv so they should wear one if at all possible. 

I did say 'if they can that is', and you can't really get home deliveries from museums.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2020)

Having said that 

Better to check whether someone can wear a mask and if they say they're doing it on principle _then _perfectly justified in having a go cos they're wankers.


----------



## muscovyduck (Aug 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Having said that
> 
> Better to check whether someone can wear a mask and if they say they're doing it on principle _then _perfectly justified in having a go cos they're wankers.


Not sure it's fair to make people declare their health problems to random strangers tbh


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2020)

Hmmm, fair point. 

Something like "sorry about this, I'm not asking for details but can you not wear a mask?"


----------



## redsquirrel (Aug 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> As I said, perhaps people with genuine issues should do their shopping when it's quiet.


Seriously, FFS.


----------



## zahir (Aug 2, 2020)

nagapie said:


> That's what I meant, unaffected as in asymptomatic as opposed to uninfected. I spoke to an epidemiologist friend this week and she said the current evidence shows that children under 11 are not super spreaders, either to each other or adults. Most infection of the young adult to child, but with the children still not suffering severely.




Study suggesting that infected children are more likely to pass it on than adults:


----------



## existentialist (Aug 2, 2020)

So, here's the thing. Overall infection levels are (obviously) going to be influenced by mask-wearing and the various other measures being taken. But this is not one of those situations where, if one person doesn't wear a mask, the whole thing becomes pointless.

The problem we have with masks, I suspect, is that a lot of people are not wearing them because they don't want to stand out by being one of only a few people wearing masks - I'm somewhat conscious of this as I put mine on to go into Tesco, where the rate of mask wearing is around 5%.

So, if people really want to improve the infection rates, the best thing any of us can do is not to preach, cajole, or worse - it's to just wear a mask. When enough people are doing that, that "not wanting to stick out" vibe is going to suddenly be working the other way, and more people will be keen not to stand out by not wearing a mask when the majority are.

And, what's more, whatever their reasons for not wearing a mask, I can absolutely promise that having someone have a go at them will be very unlikely indeed to make them change their behaviour. Which means that the only reasons for doing it are to feel a sense of superiority, or just vent some anger. Both of which are, arguably, rather more antisocial than not wearing a mask. Not to mention that having a ranty row with someone not wearing a mask is more likely to increase one's own risk of infection.


----------



## muscovyduck (Aug 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Hmmm, fair point.
> 
> Something like "sorry about this, I'm not asking for details but can you not wear a mask?"


You probably have close family and friends who aren't wearing masks. Why aren't you using this energy to speak with them? Why are you so keen to instead target people you don't know, who might be disabled (especially when the disability is likely to be PTSD), or who might have ASD? Not having a go btw but I really think it's something you need to think about before you start taking action. You feeling like you need to use the approach you suggest seems like a natural consequence of social media and internet culture (which treats any evidence of any individual existing as a spectacle everyone else is entitled to critque, consume and reply to) as well as a consequence of general erosure of physical communities (which leads to us having a lot less contextual knowledge about the people around us in the shops). If we want to get people wearing masks or do anything else to protect themselves and everyone else, we need to strengthen our communities (eg by reaching out to people we actually know and asking them if they are wearing their mask) and not alienate people (who are already defensive and/or vulnerable).


----------



## existentialist (Aug 2, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> You probably have close family and friends who aren't wearing masks. Why aren't you using this energy to speak with them? Why are you so keen to instead target people you don't know, who might be disabled (especially when the disability is likely to be PTSD), or who might have ASD? Not having a go btw but I really think it's something you need to think about before you start taking action. You feeling like you need to use the approach you suggest seems like a natural consequence of social media and internet culture (which treats any evidence of any individual existing as a spectacle everyone else is entitled to critque, consume and reply to) as well as a consequence of general erosure of physical communities (which leads to us having a lot less contextual knowledge about the people around us in the shops). If we want to get people wearing masks or do anything else to protect themselves and everyone else, we need to strengthen our communities (eg by reaching out to people we actually know and asking them if they are wearing their mask) and not alienate people (who are already defensive and/or vulnerable).


TBF, the poster claiming to have "ripped into" non-mask-wearing individuals wasn't two sheds...

But yeah, we shouldn't be challenging people. If anyone should be, it's officialdom, not randoms.


----------



## muscovyduck (Aug 2, 2020)

existentialist said:


> TBF, the poster claiming to have "ripped into" non-mask-wearing individuals wasn't two sheds...
> 
> But yeah, we shouldn't be challenging people. If anyone should be, it's officialdom, not randoms.


Sorry two sheds !! Lost track of the conversation


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> You probably have close family and friends who aren't wearing masks. Why aren't you using this energy to speak with them? Why are you so keen to instead target people you don't know, who might be disabled (especially when the disability is likely to be PTSD), or who might have ASD? Not having a go btw but I really think it's something you need to think about before you start taking action. You feeling like you need to use the approach you suggest seems like a natural consequence of social media and internet culture (which treats any evidence of any individual existing as a spectacle everyone else is entitled to critque, consume and reply to) as well as a consequence of general erosure of physical communities (which leads to us having a lot less contextual knowledge about the people around us in the shops). If we want to get people wearing masks or do anything else to protect themselves and everyone else, we need to strengthen our communities (eg by reaching out to people we actually know and asking them if they are wearing their mask) and not alienate people (who are already defensive and/or vulnerable).



Another fair point, although it doesn't really apply to me because I have all my shopping delivered and am not going out to crowded places because I'm vulnerable. I was just suggesting an alternative to having a go at people not wearing masks.

Edit: ignore this


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 2, 2020)

I've only been to the supermarket once and outside a petrol station since masks came in, and worn a mask once, but I've now seen three people make a huge display of removing their mask outside the door like they've been held underwater for two minutes. It's not so bad as that


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## maomao (Aug 2, 2020)

I've been in four supermarkets since the 24th. Three quarters - ish of staff are wearing masks and I have seen ONE customer who wasn't. And he was a grumpy looking teenager with what looked like his mum who _was_ wearing one. If she can't make him I'm not going to start.

Halfords on the other hand was full of people without masks. I think they think it only counts in supermarkets.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> I think they think it only counts in supermarkets.


This is my experience.  Full compliance in the supermarket but I’m pretty much the only one wearing a mask everywhere else.  Bizarre.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 2, 2020)

it seems to vary region to region, as up here in Leeds, the vast majority of people are compliant


----------



## Cid (Aug 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it seems to vary region to region, as up here in Leeds, the vast majority of people are compliant



Yeah Sheffield seems to have pretty broad adherence too. Not that I've been in that many non-supermarket shops.


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## weepiper (Aug 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it seems to vary region to region, as up here in Leeds, the vast majority of people are compliant


Yep, everyone is wearing a mask in any shop, on buses etc here in Edinburgh. We like a rule here though (see queuing for buses)


----------



## existentialist (Aug 2, 2020)

For clarity, I should point out that my experiences have taken place in Wales, where there is no mandatory mask-wearing requirement for shops.

I suppose, in a way, one of the unintended consequences of mandatory mask-wearing is that it does give the kind of person who likes to get on their high horse an excuse to go around having a go. I still think it should be mandatory here in Wales, too, though.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2020)

tbf if they're on their high horse they'll be 2 m away from anyone else


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## editor (Aug 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> You think pubs are more important than schools?


Why, that's exactly what I said!


----------



## Looby (Aug 2, 2020)

Most people are wearing masks here. It wasn’t pleasant on Friday when it was really hot but I’m just getting on with it. It is making me avoid doing a big supermarket shop though. It feels like it’s too long but I was already struggling with that and forgetting stuff in household and fruit and veg as I’d reached my limit and needed to get out of the shop. I didn’t realise I was anxious but Mr Looby has noticed. I’m fine with quick shops. 

I stopped for petrol yesterday and a bloke came in to get a coffee, no mask and coughed for ages all over the coffee machine with no attempt to cover his mouth.
He also parked his shit BMW in the middle of the forecourt and left his engine running so clearly a twat anyway. I did think he might be about to rob the place but just selfish I think.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 2, 2020)

I can't see what's wrong with a token gesture.
I was wearing a doubled-up cycling thing until recently.
the mask I bought in the local pound shop is so porous it might have been voile.
I'm using a reasonably serious one now.





muscovyduck said:


> You probably have close family and friends who aren't wearing masks. Why aren't you using this energy to speak with them? Why are you so keen to instead target people you don't know, who might be disabled (especially when the disability is likely to be PTSD), or who might have ASD? Not having a go btw but I really think it's something you need to think about before you start taking action. You feeling like you need to use the approach you suggest seems like a natural consequence of social media and internet culture (which treats any evidence of any individual existing as a spectacle everyone else is entitled to critque, consume and reply to) as well as a consequence of general erosure of physical communities (which leads to us having a lot less contextual knowledge about the people around us in the shops). If we want to get people wearing masks or do anything else to protect themselves and everyone else, we need to strengthen our communities (eg by reaching out to people we actually know and asking them if they are wearing their mask) and not alienate people (who are already defensive and/or vulnerable).


I have nothing to do with my family.
The generation above me are mostly racist Tory cunts.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I can't see what's wrong with a token gesture.


Just because you can't see what's wrong, doesn't make it OK for you to then impose your views on someone else, whose history, pathology, etc., you have no clue about.

TBH, I think "mask-shaming" someone in the way you described is arguably worse than just quietly not wearing a mask.


----------



## Wilf (Aug 2, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> You probably have close family and friends who aren't wearing masks. Why aren't you using this energy to speak with them? Why are you so keen to instead target people you don't know, who might be disabled (especially when the disability is likely to be PTSD), or who might have ASD? Not having a go btw but I really think it's something you need to think about before you start taking action. You feeling like you need to use the approach you suggest seems like a natural consequence of social media and internet culture (which treats any evidence of any individual existing as a spectacle everyone else is entitled to critque, consume and reply to) as well as a consequence of general erosure of physical communities (which leads to us having a lot less contextual knowledge about the people around us in the shops). If we want to get people wearing masks or do anything else to protect themselves and everyone else, we need to strengthen our communities (eg by reaching out to people we actually know and asking them if they are wearing their mask) and not alienate people (who are already defensive and/or vulnerable).


Well said.


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## Orang Utan (Aug 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I can't see what's wrong with a token gesture.
> I was wearing a doubled-up cycling thing until recently.
> the mask I bought in the local pound shop is so porous it might have been voile.
> I'm using a reasonably serious one now.
> ...


You seem to have inherited their intolerance and narrow mindedness


----------



## Dogsauce (Aug 2, 2020)

clicker said:


> I'm not feeling confident about September, with regard to secondary schools fully opening. If that is the plan.
> They are harder to contain at that age. Most probably use public transport and it's cheek to jowl. Schools are far bigger and pupils move around to attend classes.
> Combine that with autumn/winter, closed doors etc.



The one thing I am confident is that whatever they do decide with schools, they’ll announce it (possibly via Twitter) just a few hours before whatever measures have to be put in place, and not provide enough detail as to what the fuck staff need to do. They have form for this.


----------



## Hyperdark (Aug 3, 2020)

The Government has a current tactic of absolving itself from responsibility by way of confusing and conflicting messages carefully designed so as whatever the outcome they can turn around and point to one of their many differing directives and say its the peoples fault for not following it.
Fair enough, Ignore the goverment and think for yourself.

We've reached the point of 'as good as it gets' in the UK and this winter in Europe will see far higher death rates than we have seen so far.

Personaly I am going into prepper mode as I expect that by mid september I will not want to be going to shops unless I really have to
Its your responsibility to be ready for what lies ahead, I advise you start preparing now as later we will see Panic.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 3, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> The Government has a current tactic of absolving itself from responsibility by way of confusing and conflicting messages carefully designed so as whatever the outcome they can turn around and point to one of their many differing directives and say its the peoples fault for not following it.
> Fair enough, Ignore the goverment and think for yourself.
> 
> We've reached the point of 'as good as it gets' in the UK and this winter in Europe will see far higher death rates than we have seen so far.
> ...



If there's a risk of panic then probably the thing to do is to start talking up the risk of panic now and beat the rush.


----------



## maomao (Aug 3, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> this winter in Europe will see far higher death rates than we have seen so far.


I doubt that. There was very little done except hand washing in March. There's a few more tools to fight it now and doctors will have had nearly a year's experience treating it. And the pubs and trains won't be so busy if only because half the country's skint. There could well be a second wave, but I can't see the UK death figure hitting four figures a day again without something going very wrong.


----------



## andysays (Aug 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> If there's a risk of panic then probably the thing to do is to start talking up the risk of panic now and beat the rush.


Fucking hipsters:

"I was panicking before it was cool"


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

Well, at least I'll know to make sure that my panic-bought bogrolls are reasonably decent ones, this time...


----------



## CNT36 (Aug 3, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yep. Does anyone have a source on that that gives symptoms by age range? Either way, given the very small number of older counsellors and the high levels of infection it is not a good picture. That article also links to a study on an outbreak in an Israeli school:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It is worth mentioning that even  asymptomatic kids are getting (hopefully temporary) lung damage. This needs to be thought about as well as how infectious they can be.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> If there's a risk of panic then probably the thing to do is to start talking up the risk of panic now and beat the rush.



Better start tooling up now to get ahead of the outbreak of mass boat-happiness.


----------



## Hyperdark (Aug 3, 2020)

Yes, defending yourself is fundamental MGO but we best not talk about the practicalities of that.
maomao, I would love to believe you are correct but disagree strongly.

SpookeyFrank I can't believe that discussing the possibility of panic here could have any effect on panic actually happening, how many people read this board? and even those that do are unlikely to have their views influenced by anything I say, I just got here.
Some are comfortable winging it, I prefer at least trying to be ahead of the curve and any extra invested is not ever a loss, I will eventually eat all those beans either way


----------



## two sheds (Aug 3, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> SpookeyFrank I can't believe that discussing the possibility of panic here could have any effect on panic actually happening, how many people read this board?



When you've been here longer you'll come to realize this place sets trends. A bit of unease here today spreads out like ripples of dismay in a panic pond


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## Looby (Aug 3, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Well, at least I'll know to make sure that my panic-bought bogrolls are reasonably decent ones, this time...


We’re still getting through the massive pack I bought in March because that was all that was in the shop. I’ve just bought a new 9 pack. 👍


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> You seem to have inherited their intolerance and narrow mindedness


So the "mask-shy" are now a minority group who need understanding ?


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

Looby said:


> We’re still getting through the massive pack I bought in March because that was all that was in the shop. I’ve just bought a new 9 pack. 👍


Same here - grabbed a pack from Home Bargains (which turned out to be rather rubbish), which I only opened about a month ago. I have calculated that one bog roll usually lasts me about 8 days.

But I think I want to pre-empt any second-spike panic buying, so quietly buying up a few more, plus dried pulses and tinned goods, seems like a fairly smart move: my stash of tinned tomatoes is nearly depleted, although I still have about half of my red lentil and kidney bean stockpile intact


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 3, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I have calculated that one bog roll usually lasts me about 8 days.


Kinell. In our house of four we can do a roll in 8 _hours_


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## SpookyFrank (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> So the "mask-shy" are now a minority group who need understanding ?



Let's assume everyone not wearing a mask is just an antisocial arsehole with no valid excuse. You're not going to affect their behaviour by appealing to their sense of public duty, or trying to invoke their sense of shame, because they're antisocial arseholes. 

If there are people with valid reasons, for example ASD, then all you're likely to do by barracking them in the street is cause them distress.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 3, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Kinell. In our house of four we can do a roll in 8 _hours_



And, if shitting was an Olympics sport, you would be gold medal winners.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Kinell. In our house of four we can do a roll in 8 _hours_


I must admit, when I did the sums, I had to go back and recheck, because it seemed quite remarkable, but it was correct.

But yes - I've seen how fast, eg., a teenager can muller a bog roll, and it's quite remarkable. Winding the stuff around their hand, 20 sheets for a quick nose-blow... 

It must be one of those rites of passage, like having kids - the day you start to realise that such indulgence costs Actual £££


----------



## killer b (Aug 3, 2020)

my local supermarket has had to stick up signs about 'hidden disabilities' because of bellends like GG


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## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> So the "mask-shy" are now a minority group who need understanding ?


That's one way of looking at it. Whatever enables you to square your head with the fact that ripping into them is offensive, and pointless.

Perhaps it might also help to heed the words of dozens of Urbanites who have pointed out that "the mask-shy" isn't a homogeneous group, and you JUST CAN'T KNOW what each person's narrative is.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> my local supermarket has had to stick up signs about 'hidden disabilities' because of bellends like GG


License for arseholery - though maybe it's reverse psychology because going maskless is then not "making a statement" or "winding up the libs" ...


----------



## maomao (Aug 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, if shitting was an Olympics sport, you would be gold medal winners.


If they were any good at it they'd probably use less bog roll.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> License for arseholery - though maybe it's reverse psychology because going maskless is then not "making a statement" or "winding up the libs" ...


What the actual fuck ARE you on about? Are you seriously trying to imply that anyone not wearing a mask IS making a statement, etc?

It's almost like you haven't read a single word from posters pointing out that, for some people, wearing a mask is significantly problematic. Which you presumably consider entitles you to go around "making statements" by ripping into people who don't have one.

That makes you a pretty damn nasty example of humanity, frankly...


----------



## killer b (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> License for arseholery - though maybe it's reverse psychology because going maskless is then not "making a statement" or "winding up the libs" ...


what are you talking about.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 3, 2020)

you're putting yourselves firmly in the Widdecombe camp


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> License for arseholery - though maybe it's reverse psychology because going maskless is then not "making a statement" or "winding up the libs" ...


Why do you care? It's a small minority that aren't wearing one. Whatever difference masks in shops are making to ongoing infection rates (it'll only be a small difference at best, in any case), the difference made by the odd person not wearing one without a valid excuse will be vanishingly small. It's really not worth getting upset about it.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Why do you care? It's a small minority that aren't wearing one. Whatever difference masks in shops are making to ongoing infection rates (it'll only be a small difference at best, in any case), the difference made by the odd person not wearing one without a valid excuse will be vanishingly small. It's really not worth getting upset about it.



GG is always up for a reason to decide the whole of the rest of humanity are cunts tbf.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> you're putting yourselves firmly in the Widdecombe camp


Who is? The rest of Urban who don't agree with you?


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> GG is always up for a reason to decide the whole of the rest of humanity are cunts tbf.


I usually leave him be - I find the victim posturing rather annoying - but in this case, he's so far out of order it's impossible to ignore.


----------



## killer b (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> you're putting yourselves firmly in the Widdecombe camp


by saying 'you shouldn't abuse random strangers in the supermarket'?


----------



## xenon (Aug 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> what are you talking about.



Those who call masks muzzels, talk about plandemic, call everyone else sheep, may be not so enamoured to think there non mask wearing may be a sign of them have a disability. Rather than the bold, individualist freedom lovers they see themselves as.

Anyway having a pop at strangers for not wearing a mask will probably only do one of.
1. Upset someone with a genuine reason for not wearing one.
2. Give one of these plandemic wankers the attention they crave and have a bit of a row.
3. Vent some frustration but make yourself look a bit of an arsehole, cos 1.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 3, 2020)

so in what way are people not cunts when they're happy to put the health of others at risk ?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Aug 3, 2020)

My daughter's school and the school I work in are right next to each other, so there are 3000 kids, daily, all trying to get to the same place.
There are also no schools here which are very central so it's more normal that the kids will be using public transport to get there, than not (and that frequently means two buses each way - generally, into town and then back out again).

The buses are rammed to the point that you have often have to wait while several drive straight past before you have a hope of getting on one, which also impacts on how easily you're able to realistically judge what time you will actually arrive.

Apparently the schools/la have been organising with the bus company around this - to have more buses added to the routes - and the schools are also doing staggered arrival times but those are only 10-15 minute arrival/departure slots.

Breaks will also be staggered and masks to be worn in corridors.

The year group 'bubble' stuff is insane though - and that teachers will be moving between those bubbles anyway.
My daughter is in Year 10 and has already seen that there's a large number of kids in her year who are going to parties etc 
I can't see any way that this is going to go well but we're still hurtling towards it with no plan in place, outside what the schools have been left desperately scrabbling around to try and put in place themselves.


----------



## xenon (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> so in what way are people not cunts when they're happy to put the health of others at risk ?


Well the ones that are doing that, sure. But the point is, you've no way of knowing for certain.

Although TBH I don't really care for all this handringing.  I'm hungover and can't really get to bothered that you've been a bit mean to someone in Tescos...

Meh.


----------



## killer b (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> so in what way are people not cunts when they're happy to put the health of others at risk ?


fwiw I'm sure the people you shouted at in the supermarket are bellends rather than genuinely unable to wear masks, but why take the risk?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> so in what way are people not cunts when they're happy to put the health of others at risk ?


You don't know the reason they're not wearing a mask. If anything you are being selfish yourself when having a go at non-mask-wearers because you're putting the chance that you may be 'shaming' a non-valid non-wearer as more important than the risk you're going to be adding to the misery of someone with a valid reason.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 3, 2020)

xenon said:


> Well the ones that are doing that, sure. But the point is, you've no way of knowing for certain.
> 
> Although TBH I don't really care for all this handringing.  I'm hungover and can't really get to bothered that you've been a bit mean to someone in Tescos...
> 
> Meh.


Aldi - a local store I feel a fair bit of loyalty to.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> Aldi - a local store I feel a fair bit of loyalty to.


Hmm. You'd think that if you were in a local store you feel a fair bit of loyalty to that you wouldn't be going around abusing their other customers. Meh _shrug_


----------



## sheothebudworths (Aug 3, 2020)

Oh, there is THIS from today, though. Yep, a whole new lots of swab tests bought up, with no data provided, for use in the NHS and care homes and possibly schools. Reading more about the companies themselves - predictably batshit - I assume more mates of Cummings, rather than anything that'll actually _work_.
Still, it _sounds_ like a plan and that's what matters, eh! 

(Main article should be clickable within the body of the update)


*Minister suggests 90-minute tests could be used in schools*

More on the new 90-minute test, which the Guardian reported here.
Business and industry minister *Nadhim Zahawi* has said the tests may be used in schools.
Asked if the tests could be part of the plan to get children back to school, he told* BBC Radio 4’s Today programme*:


> Yes, they can be rolled out to other settings, including schools, as I said, because one of the great innovation (sic) from these two brilliant gentlemen (Professor Chris Toumazou, founder of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London, and Gordon Sanghera, CEO of Oxford Nanopore) is that this can be administered without someone having technical abilities or technical know-how.”


Pressed on whether it is part of the plan for schools, he said:


> There is a plan already for schools, and we’re going to have children back at school, 1 September. This is a further enhancement of our capabilities, and as we roll this out we will obviously be looking at other settings, including schools, to roll it out into.”


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 3, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> So the "mask-shy" are now a minority group who need understanding ?


Yes, if they have a good reason for it


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Oh, there is THIS from today, though. Yep, a whole new lots of swab tests bought up, with no data provided, for use in the NHS and care homes and possibly schools. Reading more about the companies themselves - predictably batshit - I assume more mates of Cummings, rather than anything that'll actually _work_.
> Still, it _sounds_ like a plan and that's what matters, eh!



The lack of data is a concern. The detection of influenza bit is really useful and important for winter though, but thats assuming its all reliable.

The BBC version of the story pointed out that there has been a failure to meet a very important goal:









						Coronavirus: New 90-minute tests for Covid-19 and flu 'hugely beneficial'
					

The rapid tests for hospitals and care homes will distinguish between Covid-19 and seasonal illness.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The announcement comes as the government pushed back a July target to regularly test care home staff and residents, saying the number of testing kits had become more limited.





> Regular testing of care home residents and staff was meant to have started on 6 July but officials said this might not be in place until the end of the first week of September.
> 
> A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: "A combination of factors have meant that a more limited number of testing kits, predominantly used in care homes, are currently available for asymptomatic re-testing and we are working round the clock with providers to restore capacity."
> 
> Last month, the government withdrew one brand of home-testing kits used in care homes over safety concerns.


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Whatever difference masks in shops are making to ongoing infection rates (it'll only be a small difference at best, in any case), the difference made by the odd person not wearing one without a valid excuse will be vanishingly small.



Thats your opinion. I dont consider this to be a proven fact.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> My daughter's school and the school I work in are right next to each other, so there are 3000 kids, daily, all trying to get to the same place.
> There are also no schools here which are very central so it's more normal that the kids will be using public transport to get there, than not (and that frequently means two buses each way - generally, into town and then back out again).
> 
> The buses are rammed to the point that you have often have to wait while several drive straight past before you have a hope of getting on one, which also impacts on how easily you're able to realistically judge what time you will actually arrive.
> ...


I think it's been a case of "We ARE going to open the schools in September...so now let's see what we can do to make it at least look as if we're trying to manage infection". And, I fear, a nice line of ready excuses for if (or when) infection rates spike as a result...

I keep thinking I am being too cynical, then stuff happens to suggest that fact is worse than the most cynical stuff I can come up with...


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 3, 2020)

existentialist said:


> But I think I want to pre-empt any second-spike panic buying, so quietly buying up a few more, plus dried pulses and tinned goods, seems like a fairly smart move: my stash of tinned tomatoes is nearly depleted, although I still have about half of my red lentil and kidney bean stockpile intact



I've just been out for a bit of exercise and to get a few bits of shopping, and found myself doing just that.  Nothing major, but an extra bag of rice, a few additional tins, another four-pack of bog roll, and so on, just to top the cupboards up a little...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thats your opinion. I dont consider this to be a proven fact.


If 95% of people are wearing them, 5% not, then even with the most optimistic measure of masks-in-shops effectiveness (and significant effectiveness is very far from a proven fact), that 5% non-compliance is causing only a very, very small difference.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I've just been out for a bit of exercise and to get a few bits of shopping, and found myself doing just that.  Nothing major, but an extra bag of rice, a few additional tins, another four-pack of bog roll, and so on, just to top the cupboards up a little...


Low-key panic buying?


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2020)

maomao said:


> I doubt that. There was very little done except hand washing in March. There's a few more tools to fight it now and doctors will have had nearly a year's experience treating it. And the pubs and trains won't be so busy if only because half the country's skint. There could well be a second wave, but I can't see the UK death figure hitting four figures a day again without something going very wrong.



Thats only true for the first half of March.

I dont have predictions about winter death rate, but there are very few winter scenarios that I can currently consider to be very unlikely. If they turn out to have a pretty good grip on hospital infections and care home staff and residents are properly protected then it should indeed be difficult to hit the levels of death we saw at the peak of the first wave. But it is hard to judge whether they will be able to maintain a grip on those things during the peak of winter illness season. I dont think there is any way to know without understanding the scale of the challenge, and I dont think we will truly understand the potential winter scale until we are well into that period.

I dont think there is a reason to conclude at this stage that we are most certainly doomed this winter, but nor are there reasons to assume we will manage to dodge the worst of it.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If 95% of people are wearing them, 5% not, then even with the most optimistic measure of masks-in-shops effectiveness (and significant effectiveness is very far from a proven fact), that 5% non-compliance is causing only a very, very small difference.


I think that the other side of the argument is equally important - ripping into someone not wearing a mask is not likely to make them any more likely to do so. And also, apart from the point that you (and I) made about "shaming" non-mask wearers, there is the fact that it's probably likely to be exactly what people making a point of not wearing one would like: a proper barney about it.

Either way, the only thing it can possibly achieve is to make the mask shamer feel better about themselves. There are already too many stories floating around in the press about people who have been very rudely and distressingly challenged by members of the public: it's a nasty aspect of human nature that there is a certain sort of person who just can't resist the opportunity to busybody around in someone else's life, and if ANYTHING needs stamping out, it's that.


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 3, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Low-key panic buying?



Not panic at all, really.  I'm one of those people who hates running out of things and usually has a small stockpile of non-perishable goods in, so it's just a matter of topping that up a bit.


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If 95% of people are wearing them, 5% not, then even with the most optimistic measure of masks-in-shops effectiveness (and significant effectiveness is very far from a proven fact), that 5% non-compliance is causing only a very, very small difference.



95% compliance would indeed be a great result. I expect the percentages they hope for in order to ensure effectiveness of measures is not a million miles away for what they aim for with vaccination campaigns, where it is true that a the aim is for a large majority, and a certain percentage of non-compliance doesnt spoil the overall effect.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 3, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I think that the other side of the argument is equally important - ripping into someone not wearing a mask is not likely to make them any more likely to do so. And also, apart from the point that you (and I) made about "shaming" non-mask wearers, there is the fact that it's probably likely to be exactly what people making a point of not wearing one would like: a proper barney about it.
> 
> Either way, the only thing it can possibly achieve is to make the mask shamer feel better about themselves. There are already too many stories floating around in the press about people who have been very rudely and distressingly challenged by members of the public: it's a nasty aspect of human nature that there is a certain sort of person who just can't resist the opportunity to busybody around in someone else's life, and if ANYTHING needs stamping out, it's that.


There is a danger here of fixating on issues that are at best marginal. Latest evidence is pointing to a small number of people being 'superspreaders', with a majority of those infected, possibly a very large majority, not infecting anyone. This is the kind of thing that needs addressing, not the odd non-mask-wearer in shops. 

eg here

Estimating the overdispersion in... | Wellcome Open Research



> Our finding of a highly-overdispersed offspring distribution highlights a potential benefit to focusing intervention efforts on superspreading. As most infected individuals do not contribute to the expansion of an epidemic, the effective reproduction number could be drastically reduced by preventing relatively rare superspreading events.


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## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Not panic at all, really.  I'm one of those people who hates running out of things and usually has a small stockpile of non-perishable goods in, so it's just a matter of topping that up a bit.


No, I was teasing - the thing is with the kind of "panic buying" you're doing is that it doesn't create the empty shelves and contagious panic buying that is what causes the problems.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> 95% compliance would indeed be a great result. I expect the percentages they hope for in order to ensure effectiveness of measures is not a million miles away for what they aim for with vaccination campaigns, where it is true that a the aim is for a large majority, and a certain percentage of non-compliance doesnt spoil the overall effect.


I know different areas are reacting differently, but around me, I'd put it as at least 95% compliance in shops/the tube. The non-wearers certainly stick out.


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There is a danger here of fixating on issues that are at best marginal. Latest evidence is pointing to a small number of people being 'superspreaders', with a majority of those infected, possibly a very large majority, not infecting anyone. This is the kind of thing that needs addressing, not the odd non-mask-wearer in shops.



And if one of the superspreaders is one of the people not wearing a mask?

Unless you can somehow identify superspreaders specifically in advance, everything attached to that phenomenon and trying to prevent it surely becomes a story of having to take tough actions to reduce spread potential between all people? A story I'm sure you are keen to resist as I expect the current nerves about renewed spread are not to your liking.


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## elbows (Aug 3, 2020)

Not trying to have a go at you specifically with that final remark by the way. Its just you are one of the few people here with a particular 'dont overreact' stance on the pandemic who is prepared to actually convey the stance you have on this stuff, and I am really quite interested in what you think about the changing mood in recent weeks.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> And if one of the superspreaders is one of the people not wearing a mask?
> 
> Unless you can somehow identify superspreaders specifically, everything attached to that phenomenon and trying to prevent it surely becomes a story of having to take tough actions to reduce spread potential between all people? A story I'm sure you are keen to resist as I expect the current nerves about renewed spread are not to your liking.


But where should that tough action come from? I got drawn into this discussion because I find this notion that people can feel entitled to often quite aggressively police the behaviour of others quite repulsive - it takes us down some very dark roads indeed. If mask wearing is - as would seem to be the case - a significant part of an infection control strategy, to the point that wearing a mask is being legislated for, then the idea that enforcement is then left to those who like to indulge in a nice bit of busybodying is not a good move - it's almost a worst of both worlds situation.

There were two stories in the press in the last week - one about a young woman who'd been harangued on a train for not wearing a mask (or her companion - she was deaf, and needed to lipread), and another more general story about people with anxiety disorders who'd been had a go at. That sort of shit has GOT to stop...and I found it rather awful that a poster here was prepared to boast about having done exactly that. Whoever's job it is to do the enforcement bit, it's not ours, no matter how strongly we may feel about it.


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## elbows (Aug 3, 2020)

Yes, thats why I havent joined in with that side of things, but nor did I join in with the condemnation of gentlegreen because frankly I cant be arsed with them. The phenomenon has come up before as well, before the mask phase, when people were looking out of their windows or walking down the street and reaching snap judgements on the behaviours of others.

A degree of societal self-policing and peer value pressures were actually relied upon and desired by the authorities in order to increase compliance with a range of measures, but there is certainly a limit to where that stuff is productive and where it goes off into very dangerous territory. Its not a phenomenon we are likely to live without though, its normal stuff at the best of times, but we should be alert to it and ready to try to stop it going too far.

edit - sorry I did my usual trick of adding a bit to this post after I had posted it, and then feeling bad that the original version had already been liked while I was making my changes.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> And if one of the superspreaders is one of the people not wearing a mask?
> 
> Unless you can somehow identify superspreaders specifically in advance, everything attached to that phenomenon and trying to prevent it surely becomes a story of having to take tough actions to reduce spread potential between all people? A story I'm sure you are keen to resist as I expect the current nerves about renewed spread are not to your liking.


There is a lot of uncertaintly about how this operates, but from what I've been reading, people with particularly high viral loads may become superspreaders, and it's also very situation-dependent. So as I'm sure you know, choir practices have been implicated. One case had one person infect 60 others at one choir practice. Sure we need to know more, of course, but tbh if wearing masks in shops is making a material difference but things like singing or shouting make things not just a little bit worse but way way worse, which the evidence does point to, then really the last thing anyone should be doing is confronting non-mask-wearers. The way to cause least damage is to leave them be. And it's a non-problem as far as I can see as the numbers involved are so small.


----------



## LDC (Aug 3, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Not panic at all, really.  I'm one of those people who hates running out of things and usually has a small stockpile of non-perishable goods in, so it's just a matter of topping that up a bit.



I donated the extra supplies we bought (few boxes of mostly tinned and dried goods with some toiletries) to a local food bank after it became clear shops w ere going to be OK stock wise.

I have concerns about this winter and I do plan to get a few boxes in again in a month of 2 in preparation for the winter though. As well as a tonne of firewood and a few other bits and pieces.


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2020)

Excellent, DEFRA are finally ready to make a noise about the new sewage testing regime:









						Coronavirus: Sewage testing for Covid-19 begins in England
					

Samples will be checked for signs of the virus, to get early warnings of spikes in infection levels.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs says this has begun at 44 wastewater treatment sites.
> 
> A Defra spokesperson said the government was working with scientists, water companies and the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.





> Environment Secretary George Eustice said: "The aim of this new research is to give us a head start on where new outbreaks are likely to occur.
> 
> "Sampling is being carried out to further test the effectiveness of this new science. Research remains at an early stage and we are still refining our methods."



I'd obviously rather they had already finished refining their methods but this is progress anyway. And some of the downplaying of how ready this is is probably because they dont intend to share the data with the public for a while yet. They will probably privately compare what it shows to what the standard testing is showing in terms of infection trends in particular areas, and then at some point will share that and hopefully if its good enough it will eventually become part of the regular stats we do get to see.


----------



## Hyperdark (Aug 3, 2020)

In all fairness to GG, there are a lot of them about
But as mentioned, you can't appeal to the good nature of someone who hasn't got any and you risk annoying someone genuine  probably best to just keep an eye on them and avoid


----------



## existentialist (Aug 3, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> In all fairness to GG, there are a lot of them about
> But as mentioned, you can't appeal to the good nature of someone who hasn't got any and you risk annoying someone genuine  probably best to just keep an eye on them and avoid


Like I said before, I think that the best way that we are going to get the largest number of people wearing masks will be to wear masks ourselves.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 3, 2020)

Seeing as there seems to be some evidence that things like singing and talking increase the risk of spread, maybe it would make more sense to ask people not to talk or shout unnecessarily in places like supermarkets or trains.

My observations on trains so far is that a large number of people are not bothering with a mask, or are wearing one on their chin. And quite a lot of them seem to be the same people sitting in groups having shouty conversations. Telling everyone to shut up would have multiple benefits - remove the incentive to take masks off, and remove the extra risk generated by talking. Also, it would make them shut up and everyone could have a bit of peace and quiet.


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## Indeliblelink (Aug 3, 2020)

M25 could be used to seal off London if Covid-19 surges
					

THE M25 could be used to seal off the capital if there is a spike in Covid-19 infections.




					www.theargus.co.uk


----------



## teuchter (Aug 3, 2020)

I think the M25 could work quite well as a line of defence against people from places like Brighton and other disease-ridden bits of the south coast where everyone is giving each other Covid by crowding onto beaches constantly, as I have seen about in the papers.


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 3, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I think the M25 could work quite well as a line of defence against people from places like Brighton and other disease-ridden bits of the south coast where everyone is giving each other Covid by crowding onto beaches constantly, as I have seen about in the papers.



The only Sussex beach that has had problems with over-crowding is Brighton, and that's because of outsiders, many from London, pouring into the city and spreading their plague around. The inflection rate for Brighton has almost doubled in a week, and is now at 6.5 per 100,000, still lower than the average across London, and well below the likes of  Hackney and City of London on 15.6.

As Worthing is on 2.7, I would be happy to see the M25 used as the border if London needs locking down, even happier if another border was introduced across the South Downs, preventing people from Kent & north Sussex coming here, where the likes of Ashford is on 12.4 and Crawley is on 11.6.

The problem is the north, not the south.


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## elbows (Aug 3, 2020)

I'd be complaining if there were no signs that the governments planning involved stronger travel restrictions than we saw last time. I've got no sense of what is actually likely to happen this time though because I dont know what the scale and spread of the virus will be like. I could probably argue that they escaped serious criticism on this front last time only because their claims that London was weeks ahead of everywhere else turned out to be a poor fit with reality. If the much greater virus surveillance this time reveals particular areas of concern at a time when levels of infection are high, then I would expect they will be under pressure to act on this front this time. There are lots of ifs and buts in this, so its easier for the press to make it a dramatic London lockdown story and get back to that narrative, which they were fond of last time around too despite the government not actually doing anything in that way at that time.


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## Orang Utan (Aug 3, 2020)

A travelling fair has just pitched up on the wasteland next to my work. Very surprised the council has allowed this.


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> A travelling fair has just pitched up on the wasteland next to my work. Very surprised the council has allowed this.



I had to pop over to Shoreham on Saturday, there's a travelling fair set-up in Lancing, and a circus in Shoreham.


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## Orang Utan (Aug 3, 2020)

I wouldn’t want to go to a fair where there’s a bunch of people screaming


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## SpookyFrank (Aug 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I wouldn’t want to go to a fair where there’s a bunch of people screaming



Presumably attendance is optional.

Still, add travelling funfairs to the list of things likely to be utterly ruined that I hadn't even thought about. I doubt the trade is set up in a way that gives workers access to furlough pay etc


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## sheothebudworths (Aug 3, 2020)

More news on the 90 minute tests -









						Coronavirus: UK virologists criticise handling of Covid testing contracts
					

Exclusive: experts say decisions apparently being made on ideological grounds




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## sheothebudworths (Aug 3, 2020)

I should probably have included the full link to the original article in my earlier post, too (instead of the clickable one in the update around schools), which included this -



> One of the new tests is made by DnaNudge, a company that analyses people’s DNA from saliva in order to sell them a wristband and smartphone app that will “nudge” them towards healthy food choices. “We’re all different because our genetic make-up is different, in fact your DNA is unique to you. This genetic code also determines which foods are good or bad for us,” says its website.












						Coronavirus '90-minute tests to be provided in care homes and hospitals'
					

Experts however have doubts about unproven swab tests for the diagnosis of flu and Covid-19




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Mation (Aug 4, 2020)

While I wouldn't say anything to someone with no mask visible, I have asked people with a mask round their chin to put it on properly (whilst in an enclosed train carriage). I was polite (for 2020 covid standards), and it worked then and there, bar one person. 



cupid_stunt said:


> The only Sussex beach that has had problems with over-crowding is Brighton, and that's because of outsiders, many from London, pouring into the city and spreading their plague around. The inflection rate for Brighton has almost doubled in a week, and is now at 6.5 per 100,000, still lower than the average across London, and well below the likes of  Hackney and City of London on 15.6.


I was in Brighton this weekend and the beach wasn't crowded, despite the hot weather.


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 4, 2020)

Mation said:


> I was in Brighton this weekend and the beach wasn't crowded, despite the hot weather.



It has calmed down after a few peak days, last week there was an appeal from the council on the regional TV & radio news not to go there.


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## Mation (Aug 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It has calmed down after a few peak days, last week there was an appeal from the council on the regional TV & radio news not to go there.


Chances of anyone from London having seen that are approximately zero!


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## Mation (Aug 4, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I should probably have included the full link to the original article in my earlier post, too (instead of the clickable one in the update around schools), which included this -
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wonder whose mate/family-member owns those.


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 4, 2020)

Mation said:


> Chances of anyone from London having seen that are approximately zero!



Indeed, but would reduce visitors from nearer, it's not just Londoners that flock to Brighton, which is why in my original post I said 'many from London', as in not all, not even a majority.


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## existentialist (Aug 4, 2020)

Mation said:


> Wonder whose mate/family-member owns those.


The link will be so blatant that it won't be long before we all know...


----------



## elbows (Aug 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> There is a natural bias from authorities and some experts in this pandemic away from things that are hugely inconvenient with massive implications. We saw this clearly with attitudes and denials in regards asymptomatic cases & transmission, but that stuff was unsustainable and they had to accept the likely reality in the end. I have no reason to think its different with schools and the role children in spreading the virus. I could be wrong, but I'd need very good and strong evidence to convince me, and anyway *as I've said before I think that disruption to adult routines is one of the reasons school closures are effective in pandemics in the first place.*



My mental health improves when the points I think are vital get properly covered in the media etc. I was all ready for a frustrating time over the next month not seeing the point I put in bold above covered properly during the debate about schools, but no, here it is already, relief for me!



> Current testing and contact tracing is inadequate to prevent a second wave of coronavirus after schools in the UK reopen, scientists have warned.
> 
> *Increased transmission would also result from parents not having to stay at home with their children, they say.*
> 
> Researchers said getting pupils back to school was important - but more work was needed to keep the virus in check.











						Testing and tracing 'key to schools returning', scientists say
					

The UK's test and trace schemes are not yet good enough to stop a virus resurgence, scientists say.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## zahir (Aug 4, 2020)

Blackburn sets up its own local contact tracing.









						Local authority sets up test-and-trace system to plug gaps in English scheme
					

Teams of Covid hunters in Blackburn with Darwen aim to offset national failings




					www.theguardian.com
				





> In Blackburn with Darwen, where the infection rate is more than 10 times England’s average, dozens of staff have been seconded from other departments to contact residents who could not be reached by the national system.
> 
> The council said under its new model, which was supported by Public Health England, local teams would track down people who could not be reached by the national system after 48 hours. If local officials still did not make contact after two days, council workers would visit their address to pass on advice and offer support.


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## elbows (Aug 4, 2020)

There are tentative signs that even the government are aware of the gaps in the system and that boots on the ground are needed. And I would expect that to be handled by local teams.



> A little bit more detail from Simon Clarke, the UK's minister for regional growth and local government, who has been responding to warnings by scientists of a second wave of coronavirus if the current test and trace system isn't improved.
> 
> He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that, according to current data, the test and trace system is reaching 81% of positive cases and 75% of their closest contacts; but that No 10 "fully accept...that we need to keep driving those numbers up" and* it was looking at "whether there should be some physical follow-up"* if people can't be traced by phone.



From 9:21 of the BBC live updates page today https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-53591031


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## elbows (Aug 4, 2020)

I note that in the current phase, it is common to read things like this:



> But if it’s mainly the young who are being infected at the moment, that death rate would be even lower which means we wouldn’t see an increase for quite some time.



From a BBC live updates entry at 13:00 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-53591031

The reason I bring this up is because I'm not entirely sure where the perception that its mainly the young being infected at the moment comes from. I end up wondering whether there is some misreporting or confusion involved, because when I look at certain charts in the weekly surveillance report, I see things like this, where the oldest age group still has the highest proportion of positive tests:




And in their summary near the start of the document, it says "Case detections were highest in adults aged 85 and over."


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...ID19_Surveillance_Report_week_31_FINAL_V2.pdf

Without looking for other data or explanations, I am tempted to think that its either down to some people confusing biggest rises with highest totals. But then the 85+ group seems to show the biggest recent rise too, in terms of test percentage positivity. I suppose it could also be that the raw numbers for the younger age groups are actually higher, and the 85+ groups only come out top in those charts because they arent showing raw numbers but rather numbers adjusted to be per 100,000 or as a percentage of tests carried out. Either way, I think its useful for people to see the detail on this one.


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## teuchter (Aug 4, 2020)

Is it not the case that older people who are infected are much more likely to be tested, because they are much more likely to be symptomatic?


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## frogwoman (Aug 4, 2020)

Young people are going to spread it to older people tho.


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## andysays (Aug 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Is it not the case that older people who are infected are much more likely to be tested, because they are much more likely to be symptomatic?


Not sure about "much more", but I'd imagine that's a factor to some extent.


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## teuchter (Aug 4, 2020)

andysays said:


> Not sure about "much more", but I'd imagine that's a factor to some extent.


According to this




__





						Table 1 Policy summary
					






					www.nature.com
				




3 times more likely for an infected 70+yo to be symptomatic than an infected <20yo


----------



## Cloo (Aug 4, 2020)

Found this article quite interesting, tallies with what I've been thinking, given I haven't washed any shopping/packages coming into the home, nor have most people during lockdown, and you'd expect more cases during the lockdown period if it were easily transmitted by touch.









						Hygiene Theater Is a Huge Waste of Time
					

People are power scrubbing their way to a false sense of security.




					www.theatlantic.com
				




If this is the case then perhaps, for example, children's outdoor play areas needn't be shut down, which could be a godsend to parents of small kids, even over winter, as it would give them _something_ to do locally outside the house as long as it's not tipping down. But I expect that governments will err on the side of caution and shut them down again when infections rise again.


----------



## Fruitloop (Aug 4, 2020)

Has this been posted already? Looks like pretty scary rates of cardiovascular involvement in randomly selected people recovered from Covid-19: 









						Outcomes of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Patients Recently Recovered From COVID-19
					

This cohort study evaluates the presence of myocardial injury in unselected patients recently recovered from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).




					jamanetwork.com


----------



## gosub (Aug 4, 2020)

'Gipsy Lives Matter': Traveller's call for action after 'hostility' over Shropshire coronavirus outbreak
					

A Shropshire traveller has insisted "gipsy lives matter" after alleged hostility towards the community amid a coronavirus outbreak and government calls to give police more powers.




					www.shropshirestar.com


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 4, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Found this article quite interesting, tallies with what I've been thinking, given I haven't washed any shopping/packages coming into the home, nor have most people during lockdown, and you'd expect more cases during the lockdown period if it were easily transmitted by touch.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I remember that being talked about some time ago, that transmission from surfaces really wasn't a big deal if a deal at all. It started off as one of the assumptions that was taken from flu very early on, but if other distancing measures are ongoing it seems it basically doesn't make a significant difference.

I did wash down shopping for a while until I was persuaded not to by a pretty paranoid friend of mine saying even she didn't bother. I don't do it now - I wash my hands when coming in from outside but that's pretty simple hygiene anyway. The fact that supermarkets don't disinfect baskets any more doesn't worry me.


----------



## zahir (Aug 4, 2020)

Calderdale to set up its own contact tracing.









						English councils with highest Covid rates launch own test-and-trace systems
					

Local authorities plug holes in government’s system, with some reaching 98-100% of people




					www.theguardian.com
				





> Calderdale council in West Yorkshire, which has the sixth highest infection rate in England, told the Guardian it was hoping to launch its own team next week, while neighbouring Kirklees council said it was considering doing the same.
> 
> In total, local authorities in eight of the 10 worst-hit areas in England have launched or are planning to launch supplementary versions of the government’s flagship test-and-trace system amid concerns that it is failing to reach the most vulnerable residents.





> Tim Swift, leader of Calderdale council, said there was “two or three gaps” in the national system that it would plug with its own model, which it hopes to begin next Wednesday.
> 
> He said the national call centre-based approach was fine for some areas, but was failing to understand “something as basic as getting names right” in communities where full names do not always “fit neatly into a first-name-surname function”.





> “We understand that and find it easier to handle,” he said. “You don’t want to just know someone is a private hire driver, but also where they work. And also you want to be able to follow up when people do not give full information and sometimes the only way to do that is to knock on a door.”
> 
> Ben Leaman, consultant in public health at Calderdale, said the council would use native speakers of Urdu, Czech and Slovak to knock on the doors of people the national system had been unable to reach. All positive cases would get a text message from the council with a local number to call – a recognition of the fact many people were unwilling to call an 0300 number, often believing it to be a hoax. If they don’t reply within 24 hours they get a knock on the door.


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## Cloo (Aug 4, 2020)

All in all it seems to be so much about enclosed spaces and length of time in close proximity to the same people than touching or brief encounters with others that it surely makes more sense to be wearing masks in schools and when visiting friends/family in their homes than in shops. I mean, the guys in our local cornershop must come into contact with 100s of people a week, but neither of them has appears to have been off sick during this whole thing, and supermarkets don't seem to have been the epicentre of any outbreaks, nor to have experienced mass staff absences, despite umasked people walking around them for months during this.


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## zahir (Aug 4, 2020)

I think I got it from a trip to the supermarket. It’s the only enclosed space with other people about that I visited, apart from a couple of smalll shops that allowed one customer at a time. My guess is that supermarkets will account for a fair proportion of otherwise unexplained cases.


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 4, 2020)

Tbf none of the maybe 3  people I know who work in supermarkets seem to have caught it or mentioned anyone else they work with catching it


----------



## Cloo (Aug 4, 2020)

zahir said:


> I think I got it from a trip to the supermarket. It’s the only enclosed space with other people about that I visited, apart from a couple of smalll shops that allowed one customer at a time. My guess is that supermarkets will account for a fair proportion of otherwise unexplained cases.


Sounds like it - but you'd kind of expect there to be more cases from them given it was the only place people were going.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 4, 2020)

Cloo said:


> All in all it seems to be so much about enclosed spaces and length of time in close proximity to the same people than touching or brief encounters with others that it surely makes more sense to be wearing masks in schools and when visiting friends/family in their homes than in shops. I mean, the guys in our local cornershop must come into contact with 100s of people a week, but neither of them has appears to have been off sick during this whole thing, and supermarkets don't seem to have been the epicentre of any outbreaks, nor to have experienced mass staff absences, despite umasked people walking around them for months during this.


IIRC shop workers definitely have a higher rate of covid infection than average. Shops are intrinsically close environments and have a lot of different people coming in. As a visitor to a shop you are probably not at a huge risk as long as you don't spend much time there and it's adequately ventilated, but you may be a risk to people working there. I started wearing a mask in shops before it was "mandatory" (ahem) because I thought it was a sensible thing to do.

Schools are certainly a big risk and the bullshit that the government is coming up with to say that they aren't is just absurd. Re-opening schools has turned out to be a terrible idea in several countries already.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 4, 2020)

Yeah quite a few shop workers and bus drivers etc have died.


----------



## zahir (Aug 4, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Sounds like it - but you'd kind of expect there to be more cases from them given it was the only place people were going.



That’s a fair point but it does raise the question of how you’d know if there was an outbreak in your local supermarket. Here’s a report from Sheffield in June where Asda declined to confirm or deny that they had an outbreak.








						Asda responds to claims of a coronavirus outbreak at a Yorkshire store
					

The supermarket chain has released a statement




					www.examinerlive.co.uk
				





> A supermarket chain has responded to claims that there has been a coronavirus outbreak at a store in South Yorkshire.
> 
> Fears have seemingly been raised on social media of an outbreak of COVID-19 at the Asda store in Chapeltown, Sheffield.
> 
> One person tweeted the grocery giant after hearing the speculation and Asda has now responded by insisting that "robust control measures" are in place should an outbreak occur.





> A spokesman for Asda said: "We would never comment on individual colleague’s circumstances, however we are staying close to, and following, the government advice and guidance and should one of our colleagues feel any symptoms of coronavirus, we are asking them to self-isolate and are supporting them in doing so by providing full pay.
> 
> "Our customers can rest assured that we have robust control measures and monitoring in to protect our colleagues and customers and keep them safe at our Chapeltown store.”


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 4, 2020)

We had to ask a sweaty cougher to leave my work today ffs.


----------



## Doodler (Aug 5, 2020)

.


----------



## Cribynkle (Aug 5, 2020)

Fruitloop said:


> Has this been posted already? Looks like pretty scary rates of cardiovascular involvement in randomly selected people recovered from Covid-19:
> 
> 
> 
> ...











						Is coronavirus a disease of the blood vessels?
					

Phoebe Kitscha explores some of the biology behind the effects of Covid-19 on the circulatory system, and the research into ways to prevent and treat these effects.




					www.bhf.org.uk
				




This from the BHF gives quite a clear explanation on the research that's going on into the vascular impact of covid


----------



## existentialist (Aug 5, 2020)

Cribynkle said:


> Is coronavirus a disease of the blood vessels?
> 
> 
> Phoebe Kitscha explores some of the biology behind the effects of Covid-19 on the circulatory system, and the research into ways to prevent and treat these effects.
> ...


Covid-19 does seem to be a particularly effective "culling" disease. Sure, most serious infections will tend to hit the unfit and the unwell harder than the average population, but this one almost seems tailor-made not just to attack the respiratory system, as 'flu does, but to do permanent damage to the lungs, heart, and even brain, even in people who don't have the typical chronic issues - obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc...


----------



## LDC (Aug 5, 2020)

zahir said:


> I think I got it from a trip to the supermarket. It’s the only enclosed space with other people about that I visited, apart from a couple of smalll shops that allowed one customer at a time. My guess is that supermarkets will account for a fair proportion of otherwise unexplained cases.



Lots of speculation there, especially given you had a negative test iirc. If you were at all careful in the supermarket I suspect that wasn't where you caught it to continue with the speculation.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Aug 5, 2020)

Thankfully the new lockdown round here has put a stop to the parties that sprung up following the lifting of the initial one.  A bit of peace and quiet at night now thankfully.  Makes sense that it's the young 'uns driving infection rates.


----------



## zahir (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Lots of speculation there, especially given you had a negative test iirc. If you were at all careful in the supermarket I suspect that wasn't where you caught it to continue with the speculation.



If I don’t have Covid what else would you suggest that I might have? It’s a genuine question as I’m not ruling out that it could be something else.

Where would you suggest I‘m likely to have caught it other than the supermarket, given that the only alternatives for that week or two would be either one of a couple of small shops or somewhere outdoors?


----------



## teuchter (Aug 5, 2020)

I was just looking at the Transport for Wales website which seems still to be telling people that they should use public transport for essential journeys only. So if you are in Wales you're only allowed a day out if you own a car. Why's Wales out of whack with the rest of the UK on this?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 5, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I was just looking at the Transport for Wales website which seems still to be telling people that they should use public transport for essential journeys only. So if you are in Wales you're only allowed a day out if you own a car. Why's Wales out of whack with the rest of the UK on this?


Government presumably not stuffed with venal psychos


----------



## LDC (Aug 5, 2020)

zahir said:


> If I don’t have Covid what else would you suggest that I might have? It’s a genuine question as I’m not ruling out that it could be something else.
> 
> Where would you suggest I‘m likely to have caught it other than the supermarket, given that the only alternatives for that week or two would be either one of a couple of small shops or somewhere outdoors?



When you described it earlier it sounded like it could have been any number of viral things tbh, or even something else like a gastro bug iirc. I have no idea where you caught whatever it was you had though, depends on so many variables, like was it early on, or during lockdown etc.

It is hard to catch though if you were WFH, were being careful outside the house, and obeyed lockdown rules more generally though. Everyone I know that has had it (confirmed by test or having very clear symptoms and route of infection) were HCPs or caught it early before lockdown, or from a workplace with other confirmed cases.

I'm just skeptical as so many people I know have insisted they had it, even with no or negative tests, and even though they were being really careful and had no known contact with anyone, and sometimes with symptoms that don't sound like covid at all. And funnily enough nobody this year got ill with anything other than mild/moderate covid, no normal bugs at all! I guess there's a load of complicated things going on with wishful thinking, lack of medical understanding, fear, media influence, etc.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm just skeptical as so many people I know have insisted they had it, even with no or negative tests, and even though they were being really careful and had no known contact with anyone, and sometimes symptoms that don't sound like covid at all. And funnily enough nobody this year got ill with anything other than mild/moderate covid, no normal bugs at all! I guess there's a load of complicated things going on with wishful thinking, lack of medical understanding, fear, media influence, etc.



I've had cough for last couple of weeks at least - no other cv symptoms so I'm pretty sure it's another virus/bacterial infection. I've no idea where I caught that though since I've been self isolating, none of my neighbours seems to have/have had it. Only thing apart from spontaneous infection (shouldn't rule miasma out, they had a lot of things right in the Middle Ages) I can think of would be if it's an infection I had at the beginning of the year that I never actually got rid of.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 5, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Schools are certainly a big risk and the bullshit that the government is coming up with to say that they aren't is just absurd. Re-opening schools has turned out to be a terrible idea in several countries already.



Funny you should mention this as today we have this report: Schools 'should be first to open, last to close'

Its hard to argue with a lot of what she is saying and of course you would expect a children's commissioner to say such things.  Clearly a child's education and well being is more important than a night down the pub.

The only issues I have is her downplaying of the role children may play in spreading the virus.  Unless she has access to studies I've not seen that seems like a definite statement which there is not enough decent evidence to back up.  With the limitations of testing available very low risk groups such as children are not being tested though of the few bits I've seen it looks like infection is widespread amongst children in school and its hard to believe that transmission isn't commonplace.  There is of course the role that keeping children at home plays in keeping adults at home as well.

They obviously need to find a way to get children back to school ASAP but not at the expense of widespread transmission, this to me is more important that comparisons between pubs and schools.  Not that I'd give a shit if they did close the pubs for a couple of months at the start of term.


----------



## zahir (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> When you described it earlier it sounded like it could have been any number of viral things tbh, or even something else like a gastro bug iirc. I have no idea where you caught whatever it was you had though, depends on so many variables, like was it early on, or during lockdown etc.
> 
> It is hard to catch though if you were WFH, were being careful outside the house, and obeyed lockdown rules more generally though. Everyone I know that has had it (confirmed by test or having very clear symptoms and route of infection) were HCPs or caught it early before lockdown, or from a workplace with other confirmed cases.
> 
> I'm just skeptical as so many people I know have insisted they had it, even with no or negative tests, and even though they were being really careful and had no known contact with anyone, and sometimes symptoms that don't sound like covid at all. And funnily enough nobody this year got ill with anything other than mild/moderate covid, no normal bugs at all! I guess there's a load of complicated things going on with wishful thinking, lack of medical understanding, fear, media influence, etc.



Are you seeing anything else going around at the moment that would cause the breathing difficulties and would still be lingering on seven weeks later?


----------



## two sheds (Aug 5, 2020)

zahir said:


> Are you seeing anything else going around at the moment that would cause the breathing difficulties and would still be lingering on seven weeks later?



There's what I've got  . A few of us caught something well before Christmas and apparently one doctor called it the "hundred day cough" because it kept recurring.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 5, 2020)

There are some places that do antibodies tests, my mum ordered the Abbott one which is supposed to be reliable and it said she'd had it. Supposedly the antibodies decline after a few months though.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 5, 2020)

I had a cough for the first few weeks of lockdown, in fact I was off ill when the college closed a few days before the official close of everything. I've had the odd sore throat and sniffle during isolating but probably hayfever.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> There's what I've got  . A few of us caught something well before Christmas and apparently one doctor called it the "hundred day cough" because it kept recurring.



I caught something really nasty around Christmas and was sick for about a month. I wonder about that tbh especially since I had what I'm assuming was almost certainly covid in march (my mum had been in contact with someone who had a positive test although we might not have caught it from her, and there's the antibodies result) but compared to what other people have described it was nasty but mild.


----------



## zahir (Aug 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> There's what I've got  . A few of us caught something well before Christmas and apparently one doctor called it the "hundred day cough" because it kept recurring.



Thanks, that’s interesting. Do you think this is a virus with symptoms that could be confused with Covid?


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> There are some places that do antibodies tests, my mum ordered the Abbott one which is supposed to be reliable and it said she'd had it. Supposedly the antibodies decline after a few months though.



Superdrug withdrew that one over doubts over its reliability, though I think it was more around false negatives rather than false positives.  Given that at the height of the spread of the thing very few people could get access to a test it wouldn't be surprising if a lot of people have had it.

Me & my g/f both had all the symptoms but not enough to be hospitalised so didn't get a test.  My brother-in-law did get hospitalised yet returned two negative tests and he was an otherwise very healthy person so recovered reasonably well but it still feeling it now 6 weeks later.  If all these aren't covid its been a bumper year for good old fashioned pneumonia.


----------



## LDC (Aug 5, 2020)

I'm very rarely ill, but had a dry cough and a week or so of feeling slightly shitty in late February/early March, and on one level I know it was just some bug, but I also had a lingering hope it _was _covid, enough to go and get an antibody test when they came out.

It's weird isn't it, like we all want to have had it and been OK. Someone's going to do some really interesting research into the psychology of all this one day.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 5, 2020)

I've heard on the TWIV podcast and a few other places that the PCR tests sometimes give false negative results by the time severe symptoms start but when you take samples from the lungs it is there.


----------



## nagapie (Aug 5, 2020)

Is there usually much flu around in March and April?


----------



## wtfftw (Aug 5, 2020)

I had a plague fueled winter. It was a succession of colds from October until March. I blame having a child at nursery. In December we (the adults) did have a few feverish days and odd dizzy and nausea spells which became a cough that only cleared up in February. I don't think we had covid tho. But it was a shitty winter for shitty viruses.


ETA. I lose the chronology but somewhere in all that we had the shits as well.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 5, 2020)

I was ill throwing up last week, almost certainly not covid or even virus related though as I've had the throwing up thing on and off for years.


----------



## LDC (Aug 5, 2020)

It a bit reminds me of going to very drunk men who insist one of their 14 pints of strong lager must have been spiked with something when they throw up and wobble about a bit.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm very rarely ill, but had a dry cough and a week or so of feeling slightly shitty in late February/early March, and on one level I know it was just some bug, but I also had a lingering hope it _was _covid, enough to go and get an antibody test when they came out.
> 
> It's weird isn't it, like we all want to have had it and been OK. Someone's going to do some really interesting research into the psychology of all this one day.



In my mum's case it was so she could start seeing all her mates again


----------



## teuchter (Aug 5, 2020)

Close relatives of mine (who are both doctors, working in hospital and GP practice with lots of public contact) had a long standing nasty cough/cold like thing for weeks in March-April ... they got tested recently and the result was that they showed no signs of having had Covid.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 5, 2020)

On the other hand at my sisters workplace's head office they did antibodies tests for everyone and a couple of people showed antibodies with no signs of even having been ill while the majority of people didn't have any.


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 5, 2020)

There was a thread in mumsnet a few weeks ago saying that the first covid cases in europe were earlier than first thought. Cue loads of people, presumably from different parts of the country,  saying they had something in January december November that they now wonder if it was covid.  If that number of people just from one corner of the internet had it it would have been pretty apparent/exponential after xmas hols I would think. 

There are so many variants of viruses and reactions to them and often certain symptoms seem predominant different years. I remember one year there were lots of neck lumps. I had one.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 5, 2020)

zahir said:


> Thanks, that’s interesting. Do you think this is a virus with symptoms that could be confused with Covid?


No fever, no loss of taste, no other covid symptoms just the cough and out of breath more easily - sort of exercise-induced asthma. Slight colour to when I cough up (putting it as delicately as I can). 

When I spoke to the doctor after my infection at end of last year I said I wasn't sure whether I should have taken antibiotics but it had seemed to clear on its own. She said I was clearly right not to have taken antibiotics in that case. Only now I'm not so sure. I'm tempted to contact her again but I'd imagine she's pretty bloody busy.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 5, 2020)

We had the loss of taste thing tbh.


----------



## CNT36 (Aug 5, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> IIRC shop workers definitely have a higher rate of covid infection than average. Shops are intrinsically close environments and have a lot of different people coming in. As a visitor to a shop you are probably not at a huge risk as long as you don't spend much time there and it's adequately ventilated, but you may be a risk to people working there. I started wearing a mask in shops before it was "mandatory" (ahem) because I thought it was a sensible thing to do.
> 
> Schools are certainly a big risk and the bullshit that the government is coming up with to say that they aren't is just absurd. Re-opening schools has turned out to be a terrible idea in several countries already.


Worryingly yet understandably a lot of shop workers around here seem to have lost the fear.  Probably a combination of familiarity and mask based invincibility.


----------



## CNT36 (Aug 5, 2020)

Cribynkle said:


> Is coronavirus a disease of the blood vessels?
> 
> 
> Phoebe Kitscha explores some of the biology behind the effects of Covid-19 on the circulatory system, and the research into ways to prevent and treat these effects.
> ...


However as far as I know there is still no definitive proof the endothelium is being infected directly. I did attempt a post about this a while ago. 



CNT36 said:


> In his latest updates he has been talking a lot about Ace inhibitors, ARBs, oxidative stress and the role of Endothelial cells. I've done a little reading about it and still getting my head around the mechanism involved but  it appears that although ACE inhibitors increase the amount of ACE 2 available it does not seem to be increasing the chance of developing Covid-19. Sars-cov 2 does bind to ACE 2 but there are other factors in play. A lot of deaths are due to cardiovascular rather than respiratory issues and it is through their role in this cardiovascular mechanism that ACE inhibitors are making a difference.  The virus binds to ACE 2 reducing the amount available to bond to angiotensin 2 receptors. Angiotensin 2 is a vasoconstrictor and if it is able to bond to its receptor can increase blood pressure. This along with damage to the endothelium can increase the likelihood of thrombosis. Angiotensin 2 also increases oxidative stress through its interaction with enzymes that play a role in producing reactive oxygen species that damage the endothelium and release coagulation factors. This is all affected by preexisting conditions.  Ace inhibitors help to prevent this. By reducing the amount of ACE available to convert the less potent vasoconstrictor angiotensin 1 into the more potent angiotensin 2 it keeps blood pressure lower and stops the reactive oxygen species from damaging the endothelium. ARBs block angiotensin 2 receptors and ACE2 is able to convert more angiotensin 2 into Angiotensin 1 7 helping to lower blood pressure. This mechanism of the virus and its associated risk factors appears to be quite important in hospital admissions and there is some evidence that cardiovascular conditions such as hypertension are playing more of a role in admissions than respiratory conditions such as asthma.


----------



## Numbers (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It a bit reminds me of going to very drunk men who insist one of their 14 pints of strong lager must have been spiked with something when they throw up and wobble about a bit.


The classic bad pint (usually the last one).


----------



## elbows (Aug 5, 2020)

zahir said:


> Thanks, that’s interesting. Do you think this is a virus with symptoms that could be confused with Covid?



Theres a huge symptoms overlap between a wide range of respiratory viruses in humans. This is one of the reasons why a lot of them get lumped together as 'influenza-like illnesses' in surveillance reports, and why proper diagnostic testing is required in order to determine which virus was actually responsible for an illness in any given human. 

The UK governments 'if you have a fever and a new, continuous cough' way to guesstimate whether someone had covid-19 is not a reliable guide, they were only able to get any value out of this at all because at that time of year and with a pandemic wave raging, it was easier to assume this was a sign of Covid-19. As soon as you get to a period of the year where other respiratory viruses are especially active in humans, it wont be much use. If they had upgraded the advice sooner to include the 'loss of taste and smell' earlier on then it would have helped more people to make better guesses, but would still not have been reliable or highly appropriate for winter months.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 5, 2020)

CNT36 said:


> Worryingly yet understandably a lot of shop workers around here seem to have lost the fear.  Probably a combination of familiarity and mask based invincibility.



I wonder whether loss of fear, like loss of taste, is a symptom to look out for


----------



## Cloo (Aug 5, 2020)

I had a very odd bug right at the start of all this - really intense fatigue on and off for over a fortnight, sore throat. No cough, temp a bit higher than usual, but never more than 37.8 and then only that once. If it had just been a blocked nose and sneezing I'd have thought nothing of it, but this was really weird and I have read some accounts of people who definitely did have COVID and it started with those symptoms, and then developed the coughing/chest pain  - and that COVID can distinctly come and go over the course of a few weeks. Also, my sister in law had similar symptoms to me and my brother (her husband) and his oldest daughter definitely had COVID right at the start of lockdown, which suggests that what SIL had was it.

My son had three evenings after that when he coughed a little bit for an hour 3 evenings in a row, husband felt a bit run down as well around that time, so I do wonder if we had it?


----------



## zahir (Aug 5, 2020)

Another symptom here:








						Is Pink Eye a Symptom of COVID-19?
					

Some people with COVID-19 develop pink eye, but it’s not as common as other symptoms like fever, dry cough, and fatigue.




					www.healthline.com
				




I just looked this up because I’ve had something like this come on over the last couple of days, first in one eye, which has now more or less cleared up, and now in the other. So I guess it could be part of whatever else I’ve got or I’ve just picked up conjunctivitis for some other reason.


----------



## elbows (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's weird isn't it, like we all want to have had it and been OK. Someone's going to do some really interesting research into the psychology of all this one day.



Can augment such pictures with a look back at how humans tend to talk about this stuff at any time, with normal seasonal illnesses etc. If I had the time then I would be checking various 'thers something nasty doing the rounds' threads of the past. But without even checking I would expect that phenomenon include the desire to attribute everyones illness within a period of time as all being down to the same virus thats going around. A simple picture that will only be a good fit for reality on fairly rare occasions, such as when there is a really obvious epidemic of influenza going around, and even then some people are likely to happen to catch something else in the same period. But we are mostly only ever encouraged to think about these things in very simplistic terms, with basic options such as 'its a cold' or 'its the flu' used to simplify a picture that actually involves potentially dozens of viruses. After all 'the common cold' covers numerous viruses including a number of other coronaviruses. And peoples perceptions of which virus is responsible are often based on severity of symptoms, which we know is an unreliable guide, but one which is perfectly understandable people cling to because we base a lot of our assumptions on our experiences, and its symptoms that we experience and use to compare notes with others. But this is a poor fit for the viral reality and I was glad that at least the wide range of symptom severity in Covid-19 sufferes was an opportunity to put some myths about whether something counted as 'proper flu' if you werent totally bedridden to, err, bed.


----------



## Doodler (Aug 5, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> IIRC shop workers definitely have a higher rate of covid infection than average.



Hancock was reported last month as saying:

"The death rate of sales and retail assistants is 75 per cent higher amongst men and 60 per cent higher amongst women than in the general population."

From the Independent and elsewhere.


----------



## elbows (Aug 5, 2020)

zahir said:


> Another symptom here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The difficulties of the guessing game are another indication of why the UK authorities, NHS etc should, as a result of lessons learnt from this pandemic, move to a culture where extremely widespread, routine diagnostics testing for all manner of infections becomes the absolute norm. Because its likely that all the terrible pandemic response failings and deaths we saw as a result of the first pandemic wave and our really shitty testing regime & capacity were, like almost everything else exposed in this pandemic, a sign of the routine failings we suffer from all the bloody time, every winter, etc. 

Because in most cases it is not possible to guess with confidence, we need proper testing because laypeople and medical people alike cannot work miracles with guesswork, but thats exactly what is encouraged in certain parts of the traditional system of healthcare here.


----------



## Doodler (Aug 5, 2020)

With regards to customers not wearing masks in shops - this is certainly a source of some anxiety among my older workmates who spend their time on the shopfloor.

The main offenders in my store by a large margin are men aged under 30 in the building trade, and it seems reasonable to suppose they'll have a lower-than-average perception of risk in general, making them better-than-average spreaders.


----------



## planetgeli (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's weird isn't it, like we all want to have had it and been OK. Someone's going to do some really interesting research into the psychology of all this one day.



It's understandable in some sense, annoying in others. I think it helps distract from gaining a true picture of the pandemic and smacks a little of 'the pandemic revolves around me'.


----------



## LDC (Aug 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> It's understandable in some sense, annoying in others. I think it helps distract from gaining a true picture of the pandemic and smacks a little of 'the pandemic revolves around me'.



I also have a concern it encourages people to be a bit less careful with the social distancing etc measures if they've convinced themselves they've had it.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I wonder whether loss of fear, like loss of taste, is a symptom to look out for


Those probably aren't good diagnostic criteria for any specific virus 

I think I burbled on about this elsewhere, but the essential problem here is one of belief. Even if someone catches Covid-19 - even if they end up being treated for it - they are, at the psychological level, still dealing with something they can't see, touch, smell, or sense in any way: so it's all about whether we *believe* it represents a risk. And the problem with belief is that it's very flexible - there's no "risk-o-meter" sitting along the bottom of our eyeline to tell us how much risk we're at.

So, on that basis, someone is able to believe in the risk enough to put on a facemask, go into work, do their job taking all necessary precautions, etc. But, through every moment that they're doing that, the belief that they are at risk becomes more and more difficult to sustain - "I've been working in my job for 3 weeks, and haven't caught it, so it is less of a threat". Rinse and repeat. Slowly, without that belief being topped up with facts - facts that, likewise, we are able to *believe* - it becomes weaker, and the steps we take to protect ourselves become less important. Or, as LynnDoyleCooper just pointed out, we add a belief - "I've already had it, so I'm safe"

To some extent, we'll all be doing this - to reference Kahnemann again, it's all about System 1 thinking ("fast" thinking). The counter to it is to invoke our System 2 thinking - and a lot of the discussions in a forum like this, where people like elbows are producing facts, stats, figures, people like LynnDoyleCooper are providing a combination of front-line reports and medical knowledge, are essentially doing the System 2 thing. But there's a couple of problems with that: first of all, lots of people don't really _do _System 2 thinking: it's often the kind of thing that emerges from even quite a basic scientific training, where, along with finding out what happens when you do some basic chemical experiment, you're also learning that "what I intuit" doesn't necessarily follow in objective reality. So people without that training will find it harder to make judgements based on facts they can't actually see for themseves. And the other thing is that System 2 thinking is hard work - walking into a Tesco where hardly anyone is wearing a mask, the old System 1 kicks in and says "look, it can't be risky, because those people don't think it is, also I don't want to stand out or look stupid", and it can take a conscious effort to go into System 2 and say "butbutbut, the numbers say that people ARE getting infected, people ARE dying" at a time when it feels less immediate or relevant than putting ourselves to the inconvenience of masking up.

I'm not even pontificating here - what I described in the passage above was _exactly_ the thought process I noticed myself going through as I walked towards my local Tesco. OK, I did mask up (I went to another personal System 1 belief of "fuck you, I know better than you, and I'm doing the Right Thing, dammit" ).

As with any kind of large-scale threat, the human factor - what we believe, and what we do with those beliefs - is a massively significant factor, and one that I think is often discounted or ignored.


----------



## elbows (Aug 5, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> It's understandable in some sense, annoying in others. I think it helps distract from gaining a true picture of the pandemic and smacks a little of 'the pandemic revolves around me'.



Its inevitable, since we perceive the world through our own personal experiences. Another reason why we need layers of science and proper testing to sift our false perceptions from our reality picture.

The same thing happens with the weather and weather forecasts. If you forecast a severe thunderstorm then people will moan about the prediction if they dont witness the storm out of their window, even if the town next door was hit with hailstones the size of golfballs.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 5, 2020)

Doodler said:


> With regards to customers not wearing masks in shops - this is certainly a source of some anxiety among my older workmates who spend their time on the shopfloor.
> 
> The main offenders in my store by a large margin are men aged under 30 in the building trade, and it seems reasonable to suppose they'll have a lower-than-average perception of risk in general, making them better-than-average spreaders.



Having been on a few building site recently I know that there is little to no attempt at any sort of measures.  Its not surprising to here they are then carrying as normal when they are off site.  Most construction workers (bigger sites anyway) will be fully branded with their company details, I'd report them to their company and have done in the past for different things (wolf whistling etc).  There is no need to name names so so individual gets kicked off site its just that it tends to work as head office don't like their name being dragged through the mud.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its inevitable, since we perceive the world through our own personal experiences. Another reason why we need layers of science and proper testing to sift our false perceptions from our reality picture.
> 
> The same thing happens with the weather and weather forecasts. If you forecast a severe thunderstorm then people will moan about the prediction if they dont witness the storm out of their window, even if the town next door was hit with hailstones the size of golfballs.


Oh look, elbows just took two paragraphs to say what it took me 4 quite big ones to say


----------



## maomao (Aug 5, 2020)

On the other hand, when we spent a week with a fever, sore throat and a cough in Feb/March, at the time we thought there was no chance it was Covid because we were told there were only 23 cases in the whole country (Feb 29th figure). However now we know that that was complete bollocks, and taking into account we'd taken our toddler to a central London museum with lots of grubby kids' play areas the week before it's fair enough for us to speculate that we might well have had it. Insisting that I'd definitely had it would be equally wrong.


----------



## elbows (Aug 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> There was a thread in mumsnet a few weeks ago saying that the first covid cases in europe were earlier than first thought. Cue loads of people, presumably from different parts of the country,  saying they had something in January december November that they now wonder if it was covid.  If that number of people just from one corner of the internet had it it would have been pretty apparent/exponential after xmas hols I would think.
> 
> There are so many variants of viruses and reactions to them and often certain symptoms seem predominant different years. I remember one year there were lots of neck lumps. I had one.



We had a similar thing on this forum if I recall, albeit at a different time. Sometimes the underlying science in the story about the virus being earlier is faulty, eg the mumsnet stuff could have been in response to a Spanish sewage system sample taken last year, that seemed to show much earlier virus presence but that was later discredited as having been caused by sample contamination.

There are some signs that there were sporadic amounts of infection in the UK from some point in December onwards, due to people travelling from Wuhan to the UK during the period where their outbreak had started but not been properly identified and dealt with. Leading eventually to stories such as the following ones from the BBC. But the important thing to consider is the numbers involved - we will never know the real numbers but we can guesstimate a bit given how long it took for us to have a serious pandemic wave. The chances that any illness anyone here experienced in December was Covid-19 was very small but not 0, and this would have risen as time went on. I dont think it rose to a level where Covid guesses were far more likely to be correct until after the half-term holiday viral seeding events.









						Coronavirus doctor's diary: The strange case of the choir that coughed in January
					

Dr John Wright is intrigued by some singers who became ill long before the UK's first known Covid-19 case.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Among the first singers to get ill was the partner of a man who returned from a business trip to Wuhan on 17 or 18 December and developed a hacking cough.



Also Fergus Walsh had a positive antibody test which lead to an article where he talked about having Pneumonia in January but discounted that possibility, which prompoted a lot of reader responses which lead to a follow-up article.









						Fergus Walsh: 'I was gobsmacked to test positive for coronavirus antibodies'
					

The BBC's medical correspondent tested positive for Covid-19 antibodies but was unaware he'd had it.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				












						Fergus Walsh: Was coronavirus here earlier than we thought?
					

Could Covid-19 have been here earlier than we thought? The BBC’s medical correspondent investigates.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 5, 2020)

Isn't there evidence that there are more asymptomatic flu infections than previously thought? I had thought that 'flu' was a much worse illness than a cold but it seems that some people only get light sniffles with it if they have symptoms at all.


----------



## elbows (Aug 5, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Isn't there evidence that there are more asymptomatic flu infections than previously thought? I had thought that 'flu' was a much worse illness than a cold but it seems that some people only get light sniffles with it if they have symptoms at all.



It depends whose 'previous thoughts' you judge it by.

There has long been resistance from some quarters in regards accepting the large role of asymptomatic cases in a number of illnesses. But I expect if I search for research papers, I will find some that are far from new and go on about asymptomatic influenza spread.

A 2014 example as a starter: Three-quarters of people with flu have no symptoms


----------



## CNT36 (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm very rarely ill, but had a dry cough and a week or so of feeling slightly shitty in late February/early March, and on one level I know it was just some bug, but I also had a lingering hope it _was _covid, enough to go and get an antibody test when they came out.
> 
> It's weird isn't it, like we all want to have had it and been OK. Someone's going to do some really interesting research into the psychology of all this one day.


Sadly this is dangerous thinking. There's some largely anecdotal evidence that people have recovered from relatively minor cases of Covid-19 and only to become reinfected and have a more severe or even fatal case. Hopefully this is rare and that the drop off if antibodies being reported doesn't mean there is no protection.


----------



## Doodler (Aug 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Having been on a few building site recently I know that there is little to no attempt at any sort of measures.  Its not surprising to here they are then carrying as normal when they are off site.  Most construction workers (bigger sites anyway) will be fully branded with their company details, I'd report them to their company and have done in the past for different things (wolf whistling etc).  There is no need to name names so so individual gets kicked off site its just that it tends to work as head office don't like their name being dragged through the mud.



Thanks. These characters tend more from the small domestic bodge job end of the scale.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 5, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Those probably aren't good diagnostic criteria for any specific virus
> 
> I think I burbled on about this elsewhere, but the essential problem here is one of belief. Even if someone catches Covid-19 - even if they end up being treated for it - they are, at the psychological level, still dealing with something they can't see, touch, smell, or sense in any way: so it's all about whether we *believe* it represents a risk. And the problem with belief is that it's very flexible - there's no "risk-o-meter" sitting along the bottom of our eyeline to tell us how much risk we're at.
> 
> ...



Great post, thanks


----------



## planetgeli (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I also have a concern it encourages people to be a bit less careful with the social distancing etc measures if they've convinced themselves they've had it.



Yes. This is a natural progression of the the thinking that sees it as something revolving around the self. As I said, it's understandable, because it brings thoughts of our own mortality, that we should be concerned about ourselves. But the clue is in the *pan*demic bit. Pan meaning 'all'. Maybe it's a paradox some can't get away from. But at a time of a threat to one, it seems wrong if we lose sight of the threat to all.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 5, 2020)

New restrictions in Aberdeen after that break out seemingly centred on pubs.  Given there appears to have been 40 odd infections traced from one pub one wonders what was going on there?  Not much distancing I guess.


----------



## LDC (Aug 5, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Those probably aren't good diagnostic criteria for any specific virus
> 
> I think I burbled on about this elsewhere, but the essential problem here is one of belief. Even if someone catches Covid-19 - even if they end up being treated for it - they are, at the psychological level, still dealing with something they can't see, touch, smell, or sense in any way: so it's all about whether we *believe* it represents a risk. And the problem with belief is that it's very flexible - there's no "risk-o-meter" sitting along the bottom of our eyeline to tell us how much risk we're at.
> 
> ...



Cheers for taking the time to write that, really excellent and interesting. I need to do some reading around that, I think I have a heavy bias towards the 'system 2' approach/way of thinking to the point that some of the 'system 1' stuff expressed by people can be infuriating!


----------



## existentialist (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Cheers for taking the time to write that, really excellent and interesting. I need to do some reading around that, I think I have a heavy bias towards the 'system 2' approach/way of thinking to the point that some of the 'system 1' stuff expressed by people can be infuriating!


Thinking, Fast and Slow - Wikipedia


----------



## teuchter (Aug 5, 2020)

Scotland's first local lockdown









						Coronavirus: Aberdeen goes into lockdown as Covid cluster grows
					

Travel restrictions are in force, households cannot meet inside and bars and restaurants have been ordered to close.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Aug 5, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Thinking, Fast and Slow - Wikipedia



Thanks, have just ordered the book too for holiday reading.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Thanks, have just ordered the book too for holiday reading.


I read that a while ago and it was the last section - "two selves" that I found most interesting... and useful.


----------



## souljacker (Aug 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> New restrictions in Aberdeen after that break out seemingly centred on pubs.  Given there appears to have been 40 odd infections traced from one pub one wonders what was going on there?  Not much distancing I guess.



It would be interesting to see the CCTV from the pub and find out from the landlord what measures he had been taking for safety. That would tell us a lot about why things go wrong.


----------



## mauvais (Aug 5, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Thinking, Fast and Slow - Wikipedia


I've read most of that, it's a decent book but starts repeating itself half way through. Be aware however some of it is at least questionable - various snippets it references within have either been discredited or questioned, like the idea (Bargh) that priming people with words about the elderly made them walk slower.


----------



## LDC (Aug 5, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I've read most of that, it's a decent book but starts repeating itself half way through. Be aware however some of it is at least questionable - various snippets it references within have either been discredited or questioned, like the idea (Bargh) that priming people with words about the elderly made them walk slower.



Most books would have been much better as pamphlets if you ask me! 

Thanks for the warning, and yeah, the Wiki makes some of sound a bit NLP-ish which I have come across from some training/coaching stuff in the past, and while some of it made sense and was useful, some of it was definitely bollocks.


----------



## mauvais (Aug 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Most books would have been much better as pamphlets if you ask me!
> 
> Thanks for the warning, and yeah, the Wiki makes some of sound a bit NLP-ish which I have come across from some training/coaching stuff in the past, and while some of it made sense and was useful, some of it was definitely bollocks.


I know what you mean about NLP which is often framed in a very manipulative way - 'here's how to influence people, and you should use this'. This book tackles the subject more as interesting phenomena, 'this is how your brain works' sort of thing. The caution is more about how it's pop science described in a lightweight kind of way, which is a good thing in that makes it accessible, but the psychological reality is often more complex, so don't take it as absolute fact.


----------



## elbows (Aug 5, 2020)

souljacker said:


> It would be interesting to see the CCTV from the pub and find out from the landlord what measures he had been taking for safety. That would tell us a lot about why things go wrong.



Personally I stick with my impression that the main way to avoid infections in a fairly small space with a lack of ventilation and people not wearing masks is for nobody with the virus to happen to be in there. As soon as that isnt true, you are asking for a cluster of infections.

We dont seem to be taking ventilation seriously in the summer, which does not bode well for the winter when there are pressures to shut that bloody door, theres a freezing cold draft.

So yeah, broadly I think that the only reason we have gotten away with a limited number of pub-related clusters so far is that pubs were reopened at a time when the chances of any one punter or member of staff having the virus is quite low compared to during the initial wave. This compensates for the fact that a lot of 'covid secure' locations are likely anything but. And when the number of cases of infection rises, keeping the pubs open automatically becomes more risky again.


----------



## zahir (Aug 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Theres a huge symptoms overlap between a wide range of respiratory viruses in humans. This is one of the reasons why a lot of them get lumped together as 'influenza-like illnesses' in surveillance reports, and why proper diagnostic testing is required in order to determine which virus was actually responsible for an illness in any given human.
> 
> The UK governments 'if you have a fever and a new, continuous cough' way to guesstimate whether someone had covid-19 is not a reliable guide, they were only able to get any value out of this at all because at that time of year and with a pandemic wave raging, it was easier to assume this was a sign of Covid-19. As soon as you get to a period of the year where other respiratory viruses are especially active in humans, it wont be much use. If they had upgraded the advice sooner to include the 'loss of taste and smell' earlier on then it would have helped more people to make better guesses, but would still not have been reliable or highly appropriate for winter months.



I gathered from the doctor I saw at the respiratory clinic that they are seeing a lot of people who don’t have a positive test and having real problems judging whether they are likely to have Covid or not. She said they were being careful not to ascribe everything to Covid, but also pointed out that lockdown will have reduced the transmission of every other respiratory virus.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 5, 2020)

souljacker said:


> It would be interesting to see the CCTV from the pub and find out from the landlord what measures he had been taking for safety. That would tell us a lot about why things go wrong.


Poor ventilation would be my guess, rather than it being a particular hotspot for sprayers or anti-handwashers.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 5, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I know what you mean about NLP which is often framed in a very manipulative way - 'here's how to influence people, and you should use this'. This book tackles the subject more as interesting phenomena, 'this is how your brain works' sort of thing. The caution is more about how it's pop science described in a lightweight kind of way, which is a good thing in that makes it accessible, but the psychological reality is often more complex, so don't take it as absolute fact.


Yeah, I must admit that pretty much all I've taken from the book is the notion of System 1/2 and the core ideas around that. Which, as it happens, align quite nicely with the Freudian conscious/unconscious division, or Adler's "private logic", so one could argue that, at least that far, it's been substantiated . I just reckoned I'd get more traction here with Kahnemann than if I started banging on about id, ego and superego


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 5, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Poor ventilation would be my guess, rather than it being a particular hotspot for sprayers or anti-handwashers.



Yes, poor ventilation and a lack of distancing because pissed up people.  It doesn't bode well for pubs going into Autumn and Winter.


----------



## pogofish (Aug 5, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Scotland's first local lockdown
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes - centred on the Hawthorn Bar - Which has a history of being where the Orangemen/fash types drink - the local BNP branch used to have their meetings there, although it has had a recent make-over, so they may have been ousted?

And oodles of spod-points if anyone can name the band who that gent in the BBC pic used to play-in.


----------



## editor (Aug 6, 2020)

The vapid one speaks


----------



## andysays (Aug 6, 2020)

editor said:


> The vapid one speaks


Just to let you know, for some reason I'm getting the following message from *McAfee* about that link

*We tested this page and blocked content that comes from potentially dangerous or suspicious sites. Allow this content only if you're sure it comes from safe sites.*

Maybe I've inadvertently switched my security settings to ultra-high


----------



## maomao (Aug 6, 2020)

andysays said:


> Just to let you know, for some reason I'm getting the following message from *McAfee* about that link
> 
> *We tested this page and blocked content that comes from potentially dangerous or suspicious sites. Allow this content only if you're sure it comes from safe sites.*
> 
> Maybe I've inadvertently switched my security settings to ultra-high


It's Twitter. It'll do your fucking head in but it shouldn't damage your computer.


----------



## andysays (Aug 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's Twitter. It'll do your fucking head in but it shouldn't damage your computer.


I'll leave my settings as they are then


----------



## Bollox (Aug 6, 2020)

POLITICO:*IN FOR THE LONG HAUL*
*THE FORGOTTEN VICTIMS:* Some much-needed front page attention today from the Daily Telegraph for the forgotten victims of COVID’s first wave. Political Correspondent Amy Jones reports on yesterday’s testimony to a cross-party group of MPs from so-called long-haul COVID patients, who remain seriously ill and unable to work many months after contracting the virus. “Up to half a million Britons are suffering the effects of ‘long COVID,'” Jones reports, “with some doctors dismissing many of the long-term symptoms suffered in the wake of coronavirus as ME. Psychosis, fatigue, loss of eyesight and mobility issues are among the wide-ranging conditions that have been identified.”

*Same story in China:* The Times reports on a new study in Wuhan which finds “the vast majority” of COVID-19 patients treated in intensive care “are still experiencing debilitating lung damage, three months after their discharge.” The study found patients “lacked energy and found it difficult to walk long distances,” and that “nearly half had developed symptoms of depression.”

*And it’s not just those in hospital:* Your Playbook author has a good mate — late 30s, slim, no diabetes or other previous health problems — who came down badly with COVID during the first wave in March. Nearly five months later, she remains completely debilitated. During the peak of her illness she was bed-ridden for weeks, but advised not to come into overcrowded hospitals as she was not “blue-lipped.” Because she was never hospitalized, she is still classed as a “mild” case and has found it almost impossible to access specialist treatment via the NHS.

*‘I just want to get better’:* “You’re given the all-clear bloods-wise, but are then just left to ride out the lasting symptoms, which when they peak are just as painful and devastating as it was the first time round,” she texts to say. “Shortness of breath, tinnitus, severe cognitive dysfunction, hours spent pushing your lungs up and down. I am bed-bound most of the time. I just want to get better.” Needless to say, this is pretty heartbreaking stuff to hear.

*Thousands more:* She’s self-employed, and on the few occasions she’s managed to do some work from home she says it has set her recovery back. She’s found some solace in Facebook support groups, containing hundreds — perhaps thousands — of people in the same situation. “I’ve had so many messages,” she says. “People whose lungs feel like glass, like they can’t breathe still, a closed throat, a constant dry cough. It’s making it very hard for people to see any light at the end of the tunnel. I have [my partner] for support but my body can be in absolute agony at times, and cognitively it’s very challenging. And if I was living on the breadline I would be screwed.”

*Mild symptoms:* She has made repeated trips to see her GP and says the doctor has been left “almost crying with frustration” as she has had no guidance herself on how to help COVID long-haul patients. “The ‘long COVID’ are the forgotten group,” my mate says. “It’s bullsh*t that the symptoms for many should be classed as ‘mild.'”

*No support:* After finally getting to see a specialist this week — nearly five months after the illness came on — she’s been diagnosed with scarring of the lungs and PTSD. The mental anguish is intense. “This chronic shortness of breath just makes you relive your peak, when you really were not knowing if you were going to die,” she explains. She now fears she may have chronic fatigue, in part caused by poor advice on how to cope with symptoms at the time. “People leaving hospital quite rightly get continual monitoring, to ensure they don’t end up like this,” she says. “People in my position need proper advice and support too — there are so many of us, you only have to look online.”


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 6, 2020)

andysays said:


> Just to let you know, for some reason I'm getting the following message from *McAfee* about that link
> 
> *We tested this page and blocked content that comes from potentially dangerous or suspicious sites. Allow this content only if you're sure it comes from safe sites.*
> 
> Maybe I've inadvertently switched my security settings to ultra-high



Worse, its Kirsty Allsopp on Twitter.


----------



## andysays (Aug 6, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Worse, its Kirsty Allsopp on Twitter.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Aug 6, 2020)

Who the fuck is kirsty allsopp?


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 6, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Who the fuck is kirsty allsopp?



She does those house buying programs on TV where a young couple (he's a freelance dog walking consultant and she paints flowers on tiles) have a budget of £850,000 for their starter home in Battersea.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 6, 2020)

ahh so she's worried that they'll be able to do her job from abroad at a huge discount


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 6, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> She does those house buying programs on TV where a young couple (he's a freelance dog walking consultant and she paints flowers on tiles) have a budget of £850,000 for their starter home in Battersea.



Her own property company folded IIRC. So obviously a great source of advice on the subject. What sort of fuckwit you'd have to be to lose money in the housing market in this day and age I've no idea.

E2a: that was the other one, Phil. She's still a twat though.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 6, 2020)

yes particularly just doing places up for profit


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 6, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> She does those house buying programs on TV where a young couple (he's a freelance dog walking consultant and she paints flowers on tiles) have a budget of £850,000 for their starter home in Battersea.



She also has those "craft" programs on at Christmas and flogs the "craft" kits.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 6, 2020)

Daughter who lost her dad to coronavirus reveals horrific online abuse
					

One troll told her she should be 'hanged' for 'questioning our Government'




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
				




Absolute bootlicking scum


----------



## existentialist (Aug 6, 2020)

Isn't she the one who smashed up her kids' iPads?

ETA: Yes, existentialist, she is. Well remembered, you clever chap. Kirstie Allsopp leaves Twitter over iPad row


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 6, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Isn't she the one who smashed up her kids' iPads?
> 
> ETA: Yes, existentialist, she is. Well remembered, you clever chap. Kirstie Allsopp leaves Twitter over iPad row



And the one who flies business but sends her kids to the back in cattle.

I fear though, we are moving away from the crux of the thread.


----------



## elbows (Aug 6, 2020)

Revealing stat:



> Local health protection teams continue to be more successful than call centre workers at reaching close contacts of people who have tested positive for Covid-19, according to the latest data.
> 
> For cases handled by local teams, 98.0% of close contacts of people who tested positive have been reached and asked to self-isolate, according to figures from the Department of Health and Social Care.
> 
> But for those cases handled either online or by call centres, 56.1% of close contacts have been reached and asked to self-isolate.



From BBC live updates page at 15:22 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-53675591


----------



## elbows (Aug 6, 2020)

Revealing language:



> The PM also said there were "real signs of strength in the UK economy", adding: "Unquestionably it will require people to have the confidence to go back to work in a Covid-secure way."
> 
> Getting all pupils back in school by 1 September will be also “very, very important for getting our economy overall moving again”, he said.



From BBC live updates page 15:46 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-53675591

More revealing language:









						Bank of England boss Bailey backs end of furlough scheme
					

UK economy is still set for worst performance in 100 years according to the UK's central bank.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Andrew Bailey told the BBC it was important that policymakers helped workers "move forward" and not keep them in unproductive jobs.
> 
> He said coronavirus would inevitably mean that some jobs became redundant.





> "It's been a very successful scheme, but he's right to say we have to look forward now," he said. "I don't think we should be locking the economy down in a state that it pre-existed in."


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> Revealing stat:
> 
> 
> 
> From BBC live updates page at 15:22 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-53675591



56.1%? That's very precise.


----------



## maomao (Aug 6, 2020)

> The PM also said there were "real signs of strength in the UK economy", adding: "Unquestionably it will require people to have the confidence to go back to work in a Covid-secure way."
> 
> Getting all pupils back in school by 1 September will be also “very, very important for getting our economy overall moving again”, he said.



He'll struggle with that. Most schools don't go back to the 7th afaik.


----------



## clicker (Aug 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> He'll struggle with that. Most schools don't go back to the 7th afaik.


I read the 1st somewhere else too and thought it odd.
It feels to me as though currently we're like lab rats. We're being told to behave in x way and the results are being monitored. 
But come the 1st of Sept (?) thousands of new rats are going to be released into our maze and the results will be monitored.
I can understand why it's experimental, but can only hope any necessary actions are taken sooner rather than later if the results indicate they're needed.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 6, 2020)

40 new cases this week in the area I work. Shit.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 6, 2020)

Leeds Council announces these 'key actions' in Leeds 'coronavirus cluster' areas
					

Leeds Council has announced a series of 'key actions' to take place in communities which have a 'cluster' of coronavirus cases.




					www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk


----------



## BCBlues (Aug 6, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Leeds Council announces these 'key actions' in Leeds 'coronavirus cluster' areas
> 
> 
> Leeds Council has announced a series of 'key actions' to take place in communities which have a 'cluster' of coronavirus cases.
> ...



Very similar actions being taken in Sandwell where local track and trace teams are performing so much better than Hancox half hour brigade.

Why Sandwell has a 'mini lockdown' and when it will end Why Sandwell has a 'mini lockdown' and when it will end


----------



## Cloo (Aug 6, 2020)

Quite interesting and encouraging discussion here: 

Drs saying the hospital admissions and serious cases still actually very low, so maybe some hope that better identification (and maybe implication virus is losing strength) might indicate we are on a path to just be able to live with it sooner rather than later. Though obviously, still far fewer people going into work, kids not at school etc, and I don't know if it could just all be a bit less severe in warmer weather?

But they make the important point that the data needs to be looked at in context - not just rising infection, but hospital admissions and deaths.


----------



## elbows (Aug 6, 2020)

The virus losing strength is a complex subject, especially since many of the things that might look like the virus losing strength are about our perceptions rather than the strength of the virus. Now is the wrong moment for me to try to find signs of this that could be separated from all the other stuff that affects perceptions and current levels of hospital admissions, intensive care cases and deaths.

The current number of cases is nothing like the number of cases we had during the terrible part of the first wave. We dont have good real numbers from that initial period because the testing regime was so crap, but for a while it was possible for authorities to overlook and underestimate the number of cases, which was very large, without having their incorrect views very quickly corrected by hospital data. By the time that changed and even they couldnt miss the horror, it was rather late and infections had spiralled to scary high levels. The surveillance situation is quite different now, and we can pick things up at much lower levels, long before I would expect them to show up in terrible ways in hospital data. And when I say long before Im not just talking about the one to several weeks lag between infections and hospital admissions/deaths, I also mean at levels that may never lead to anything that shows up in hospital data later, especially if we act appropriately when infection increases are detected in a particular place.

I dont have a good number for how many of the deaths would be missing from the picture if we have a great handle on hospital and care home infections during any major wave or general resurgence of the virus, but it was a fairly large proportion of cases in the first wave so I'd expect that to make a difference next time if we can hold onto those infection control gains.

The possibility that more people are better able to fight off infection in the summer for a number of possible reasons cannot be excluded either.

There is plenty to be happy about with the current hospital data. It shouldnt be used as a reason to be more relaxed about what measures we take from now on though. We should keep an eye on it but premature conclusions on this front could be a disaster, so some of the nerves will have to remain until we see what a winter is like. And I would still use hospital data if I wanted to try to convince someone with too much of a 'its all over' attitude that the daily realities of the virus are not insignificant. For example hospital admission numbers are very low compared to the first peak, but we are still talking about 142 patients admitted in the UK in a day, and that number is limited by the fact the numbers for all UK nations except Wales that are being stuck on the uk dashboard are only confirmed cases. And I can look at the numbers for Wales and speculate in my mind about what Englands number would be like if it included suspected cases.





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




As for Scotland, I can add something to the picture by looking at their data for the number of suspected COVID-19 ambulance attendances and number of suspected COVID-19 patients taken to hospital using table 3 of the first spreadsheet on the following site.  Or at least I used to be able to, now that I look again they stopped providing this data after the 20th July entry so I'm now in the dark on that and this does not impress me. Coronavirus (COVID-19): trends in daily data - gov.scot

But yeah, nothing I am trying to say here is designed to paint a grim picture of the current hospital situation. It does not surprise me given the current number of infections we have. Lockdown and various other measures were far too late last time so we shouldnt be judging the need to act and keep the virus transmission levels down by the standards that were used the first time around. But that also means that when we hear about spikes that have alarmed the authorities enough that they impose measures on a particular location, we should not automatically expect to see a few weeks later a notable rise in very ill people and deaths.

There are other possibilities too but its way too early for me to think I could pick them out from the stuff I already described.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 6, 2020)

I guess if people have access to early treatment testing positive isn't necessarily going to result in disaster or a bad illness even if they have something else making them susceptible. Additionally at the height of the pandemic it was (and still is in eg parts of the USA) hard to get a test so the sickest patients ended up being tested I guess


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I guess if people have access to early treatment testing positive isn't necessarily going to result in disaster or a bad illness



Is anyone who doesnt develop a bad illness from it actually getting any treatment? I am out of date, and so in my mind I still think of the situation where people arent encouraged to seek treatment unless their condition deteriorates, but that might not be how things are done anymore, I dont know.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 7, 2020)

There isn't really any treatment to give, is there?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 7, 2020)

Vast majority of cases (over 80 percent) now found by pillar 2 so not people seeking hospital treatment. Hospitalised cases now at about 1000 and falling everywhere from 20000 peak. Average deaths in hospital now under 10 a day. 

I'm a little puzzled by the 50 or so deaths per day still outside hospital. This is out of line with the rest of Europe. I don't know if that's a reporting issue or a real difference. 

It has to be encouraging that the various spikes and local hotspots both here and elsewhere in Europe are not translating into hospitalisations and increased deaths. Whatever the explanation, it is encouraging. Measuring by serious cases there is no second spike anywhere in Europe atm. 

Fwiw Zoe Covid did its weekly update today and estimates daily new symptomatic cases to be falling again after a small increase. Down to 1500 from 2000.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 7, 2020)

I wonder how much vitamin D is playing a role in keeping things safe at the moment, seem to recall there was a lot of talk adequate levels of that seemed to help deal with it back in the start of this.


----------



## LDC (Aug 7, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Quite interesting and encouraging discussion here:
> 
> Drs saying the hospital admissions and serious cases still actually very low, so maybe some hope that better identification (and maybe implication virus is losing strength) might indicate we are on a path to just be able to live with it sooner rather than later. Though obviously, still far fewer people going into work, kids not at school etc, and I don't know if it could just all be a bit less severe in warmer weather?
> 
> But they make the important point that the data needs to be looked at in context - not just rising infection, but hospital admissions and deaths.




Haven't watched the video but this came up in an interview I listened to last night. The interviewer said something like, "well infections are going up but hospitalisations and death are still low." The answer was yes, but the people getting infected now will be in hospital and die in 1-2 months so there's a time lag we need not to be complacent about.

Also percentage of positive tests going up, so amount of positive tests not down to just more testing.

And no, afaik no treatment for non-hospital non-critical cases. Nothing beyond self care anyway.


----------



## LDC (Aug 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> 40 new cases this week in the area I work. Shit.



Yeah, same, massive increase in cases in exactly my postcode. FFS.


----------



## zahir (Aug 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> Is anyone who doesnt develop a bad illness from it actually getting any treatment? I am out of date, and so in my mind I still think of the situation where people arent encouraged to seek treatment unless their condition deteriorates, but that might not be how things are done anymore, I dont know.



The outcome of a 111 call for me was a prescription for an inhaler and some antibiotics.


----------



## platinumsage (Aug 7, 2020)

Interesting analysis of test & trace here, it's a paywall but I think you should get two free articles a month without registering:









						Is our test-and-trace system ready to stop a second spike? | The Spectator
					

According to my analysis, it’s still a long way from what we need




					www.spectator.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The answer was yes, but the people getting infected now will be in hospital and die in 1-2 months so there's a time lag we need not to be complacent about.



1-2 months? Thats not the amount of lag we've been encouraged to think about in this regard before. More like a few weeks. If I include the extreme end of estimates for an incubation period, I suppose I could start to get closer to a month, but not 2 months. If I was only talking about the people who spend ages in intensive care before passing away then I could obviously stretch that a bit further, but it would show up in the intensive care figures earlier than that.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, same, massive increase in cases in exactly my postcode. FFS.



Where are you folks getting this data btw? I'd like to know what's going on round here.


----------



## zahir (Aug 7, 2020)

This gives weekly cases by local authority, not by postcode though. Cornwall is still very low.









						Coronavirus near me: are UK Covid cases rising in your local area?
					

Latest updates: how has Covid-19 progressed where you live?




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Interesting analysis of test & trace here, it's a paywall but I think you should get two free articles a month without registering:



I see the app is back in the news again:









						Coronavirus: England's contact-tracing app readies for launch
					

The app will use QR barcode scans as well as Bluetooth handshakes to determine if users are at risk.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




On the point mentioned in this quote, I do wonder if, as well as the obvious limitations to bluetooth as a guide, they are concerned about the implications of such a scale of virtual contact tracing. Do they fear that it will potentially wipe out large numbers of, for example, medical staff, from the workforce in certain situations which, if they were handing manually rather than via app automation, they would have been able to fudge?



> But it appears that Baroness Harding and others in charge of the NHS Test and Trace team still do not believe enough progress has been made to rely on Bluetooth signals to direct users to self-isolate for a fortnight.


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

zahir said:


> This gives weekly cases by local authority, not by postcode though. Cornwall is still very low.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Can also see cases per local authority on a daily basis using the dashboard, in the cases section, and then by clicking the dropdown near top of page to change location. Here is an example for Leicester.





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




As for data by postcode, I'm not sure. I've seen some data per ward before but I've forgotten where it was and it didnt seem to be updated very often. I think there was a version for deaths but also one for cases. edit - oh weekly cases in this format are on the map that is linked to from the lower right section of the cases part of the dashboard I just mentioned. But since its only weekly its a bit behind at the moment, curently showing week of 27th July-2nd August. View map


----------



## Fruitloop (Aug 7, 2020)

The language schools are open again in Cambridge, looked like hundreds of youth from mostly Spain standing very close to each other outside one that I walked past last night. I'm struggling to imagine how this isn't a really bad idea.


----------



## Dogsauce (Aug 7, 2020)

Fruitloop said:


> The language schools are open again in Cambridge, looked like hundreds of youth from mostly Spain standing very close to each other outside one that I walked past last night. I'm struggling to imagine how this isn't a really bad idea.



presume they’ve all quarantined for 14 days?


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## Dogsauce (Aug 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> As for data by postcode, I'm not sure. I've seen some data per ward before but I've forgotten where it was and it didnt seem to be updated very often. I think there was a version for deaths but also one for cases. edit - oh weekly cases in this format are on the map that is linked to from the lower right section of the cases part of the dashboard I just mentioned. But since its only weekly its a bit behind at the moment, curently showing week of 27th July-2nd August. View map



 Nothing west of Weston-Super-Mare on that map. No wonder locals of Devon and Cornwall want to keep people out. Surprising how clear some areas are.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Haven't watched the video but this came up in an interview I listened to last night. The interviewer said something like, "well infections are going up but hospitalisations and death are still low." The answer was yes, but the people getting infected now will be in hospital and die in 1-2 months so there's a time lag we need not to be complacent about.
> 
> Also percentage of positive tests going up, so amount of positive tests not down to just more testing.
> 
> And no, afaik no treatment for non-hospital non-critical cases. Nothing beyond self care anyway.


It's not just a case of hospitalisations and deaths remaining low. They're continuing to fall. And this isn't just the pattern here in the UK. Lots of countries across Europe have seen new cases creeping up for a few weeks now without that showing up in deaths. 

I wouldn't jump to conclusions as to why that is, but it doesn't fit well with previous patterns from time of diagnosis to time of hospitalisation. Taking Spain as the example, the worst-affected areas in the recent spike such as Catalunya and Aragon have been higher for around three weeks now. That isn't showing up with a surge in hospitalisation and death. There's been barely a blip.


----------



## zahir (Aug 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's not just a case of hospitalisations and deaths remaining low. They're continuing to fall. And this isn't just the pattern here in the UK. Lots of countries across Europe have seen new cases creeping up for a few weeks now without that showing up in deaths.
> 
> I wouldn't jump to conclusions as to why that is, but it doesn't fit well with previous patterns from time of diagnosis to time of hospitalisation.



Shielding the elderly and vulnerable may be working quite well by now. I seem to remember there was speculation early on about viral load being a factor in how seriously people are affected, so I wonder if infection controls, masks and general caution might be having an effect on this.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 7, 2020)

zahir said:


> The outcome of a 111 call for me was a prescription for an inhaler and some antibiotics.



Blue (salamol) inhaler or steroid? And that and antibiotics for symptoms of cv?


----------



## LDC (Aug 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> 1-2 months? Thats not the amount of lag we've been encouraged to think about in this regard before. More like a few weeks. If I include the extreme end of estimates for an incubation period, I suppose I could start to get closer to a month, but not 2 months. If I was only talking about the people who spend ages in intensive care before passing away then I could obviously stretch that a bit further, but it would show up in the intensive care figures earlier than that.



I guess they were giving the outside longest time. <Anecdote warning> The person that I know that died was unwell for 2 months (home>hospital>ventilator>ECMO>dead), but guess there's a large variable depending on treatment.


----------



## LDC (Aug 7, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Blue (salamol) inhaler or steroid? And that and antibiotics for symptoms of cv?



Cover the possibility that it might be asthma, COPD, or a bacterial infection that's causing the shortness of breath/whatever. Pretty standard.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Cover the possibility that it might be asthma, COPD, or a bacterial infection that's causing the shortness of breath/whatever. Pretty standard.


blue then for short term


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## zahir (Aug 7, 2020)

Blue - the same as for asthma. At that point I’d been having breathing difficulties so I think the logic was that the inhaler might be some help. I’m not sure about the reason for the antibiotics as they’re not going to affect a virus. Maybe there’s a concern about secondary infections, or they’re trying to cover the possibility of the symptoms being due to something else entirely.


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## two sheds (Aug 7, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Nothing west of Weston-Super-Mare on that map. No wonder locals of Devon and Cornwall want to keep people out. Surprising how clear some areas are.



That's hopeful, I'd heard cases are on the rise because of tourists/second home owners coming down here.


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## Orang Utan (Aug 7, 2020)

Is there a possibility that this pandemic might become an endemic, and we’ll just have to learn to live with it?


----------



## LDC (Aug 7, 2020)

zahir said:


> Blue - the same as for asthma. At that point I’d been having breathing difficulties so I think the logic was that the inhaler might be some help. I’m not sure about the reason for the antibiotics as they’re not going to affect a virus. Maybe there’s a concern about secondary infections, or they’re trying to cover the possibility of the symptoms being due to something else entirely.



General medicine, something going on? Throw a load of things at it and one of them might help, or they'll just get better anyway. If nothing does help then investigate further...

(Apologies to GPs!)


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## LDC (Aug 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Is there a possibility that this pandemic might become an endemic, and we’ll just have to learn to live with it?



Uneducated guess is that is highly likely.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> General medicine, something going on? Throw a load of things at it and one of them might help, or they'll just get better anyway. If nothing does help then investigate further...
> 
> (Apologies to GPs!)



I've got (I presume) a bacterial infection which I've been resisting treating with antibiotics for a couple of weeks now, I may succumb and open the packet.


----------



## LDC (Aug 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Where are you folks getting this data btw? I'd like to know what's going on round here.



There's stuff on the phe.maps.arcgis.com website by postcode but you have to register as well. Think might be not public access though.


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## Dogsauce (Aug 7, 2020)

two sheds said:


> That's hopeful, I'd heard cases are on the rise because of tourists/second home owners coming down here.



Not sure how complete the data is - for example Bristol only shows about ten cases across a few districts, but last week there was a ‘cluster’ at a concrete batching plant in Avonmouth, off the top of my head it was something like 32 people testing positive. Possible the confirmed results haven’t made it to that week’s data set yet. Also possible they might be registered by home address, and a lot of people working around that way come over the bridge from Wales (which isn‘t part of the map/data coverage).


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## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Is there a possibility that this pandemic might become an endemic, and we’ll just have to learn to live with it?



Thats what normally happens to pandemic viruses, although learning to live with it after its been around for years is usually a very different proposition to dealing with the initial pandemic. But thats usually because the immunity picture has massively changed by then, and its unclear quite what that will look like with this coronavirus due to immunity perhaps not lasting long. Even so we would expect the burden to be different because of treatments, vaccines, and a big chunk of the most vulnerable already having been killed by it. Plus even if immunity wanes, it still ends up being a different picture to one where the entire population has never experienced the virus before.


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Not sure how complete the data is - for example Bristol only shows about ten cases across a few districts, but last week there was a ‘cluster’ at a concrete batching plant in Avonmouth, off the top of my head it was something like 32 people testing positive. Possible the confirmed results haven’t made it to that week’s data set yet. Also possible they might be registered by home address, and a lot of people working around that way come over the bridge from Wales (which isn‘t part of the map/data coverage).



I expect it is indeed by home address, and Im pretty sure it isnt by infection cluster location. But these are mostly assumptions on my part.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thats what normally happens to pandemic viruses, although learning to live with it after its been around for years is usually a very different proposition to dealing with the initial pandemic. But thats usually because the immunity picture has massively changed by then, and its unclear quite what that will look like with this coronavirus due to immunity perhaps not lasting long. Even so we would expect the burden to be different because of treatments, vaccines, and a big chunk of the most vulnerable already having been killed by it. Plus even if immunity wanes, it still ends up being a different picture to one where the entire population has never experienced the virus before.



Most people still haven't had it yet have they?


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## Artaxerxes (Aug 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Most people still haven't had it yet have they?



The US is working on hard on making sure everyone gets it.


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## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Most people still haven't had it yet have they?



Indeed not, so what I'm describing there is not the current situation, its just what tends to eventually happen with pandemic viruses, eventually they arent novel for humanity anymore and so the implications of them are different. Which doesnt mean nobody suffers and dies, just that the numbers game is different and this makes a big difference to perceptions of the virus.


----------



## xenon (Aug 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Where are you folks getting this data btw? I'd like to know what's going on round here.



I've been using this on the BBC site as it is a simple text layout. Might lack detail for some.








						Covid-19 in the UK
					

Explore the data on coronavirus in the UK.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> Indeed not, so what I'm describing there is not the current situation, its just what tends to eventually happen with pandemic viruses, eventually they arent novel for humanity anymore and so the implications of them are different. Which doesnt mean nobody suffers and dies, just that the numbers game is different and this makes a big difference to perceptions of the virus.



And even if there is no lasting immunity doctors would be a lot more familiar with the virus and how to treat patients and so on i guess .

It's hard to say how far away from that scenario we are though.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Where are you folks getting this data btw? I'd like to know what's going on round here.







__





						ArcGIS Web Application
					






					phe.maps.arcgis.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 7, 2020)

xenon said:


> I've been using this on the BBC site as it is a simple text layout. Might lack detail for some.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That only offers data for top tier local authority, for me - West Sussex County Council, the link elbows provided takes it down to lower tier local authority.

This link is for the Worthing Borough Council area, anyone can select their local area by using the arrow down link, next to Worthing at the top of the page.





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Is there a possibility that this pandemic might become an endemic, and we’ll just have to learn to live with it?


That was floating around as an opinion from the very earliest days - that Covid-19 will become just another flu, that we all have to try to avoid, get vaccinated against, but inevitably flares up every year.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 7, 2020)

tbh while it's useful to zoom right in and see clusters, once you've zoomed in so far that you're catching clusters of 20-30 that signify doubling or tripling of cases, you may often be finding a single 'superspreader' event. Watching for a bit longer, you can then see that come down again. I've been following London for a while and since overall levels have been low around the start of June, this kind of randomly distributed up-down movement at the level of individual borough has happened several times.


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I'm a little puzzled by the 50 or so deaths per day still outside hospital. This is out of line with the rest of Europe. I don't know if that's a reporting issue or a real difference.



I'm still mostly using ONS+NRS+NISRA numbers for deaths. There hasnt been a daily number, by date of actual death, thats been over 50 since the 9th July. It was more like 25-30 by the 2nd half of July.

I would guess the numbers you've been looking at are hampered by extreme lag, and many of the deaths they are reporting happened ages ago. I have to wait longer to see ONS data, but at least it correctly attributes deaths to the right date.


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## frogwoman (Aug 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm still mostly using ONS+NRS+NISRA numbers for deaths. There hasnt been a daily number, by date of actual death, thats been over 50 since the 9th July. It was more like 25-30 by the 2nd half of July.
> 
> I would guess the numbers you've been looking at are hampered by extreme lag, and many of the deaths they are reporting happened ages ago. I have to wait longer to see ONS data, but at least it correctly attributes deaths to the right date.View attachment 225394



Gotta say I'm a bit perturbed by this controversy about the death numbers that the government has mentioned, saying they are over reported or something? It seems extremely unlikely especially since it was so hard to get tests at the height of the pandemic. What do you think about that?


----------



## maomao (Aug 7, 2020)

zahir said:


> Blue - the same as for asthma. At that point I’d been having breathing difficulties so I think the logic was that the inhaler might be some help. I’m not sure about the reason for the antibiotics as they’re not going to affect a virus. Maybe there’s a concern about secondary infections, or they’re trying to cover the possibility of the symptoms being due to something else entirely.


Some doctors are still terrible for doling out the antibiotics for no reason. I took my son to hospital with croup last year and the doctor spent five minutes explaining it was a viral infection and then started writing a prescription for antibiotics. I told her 'what you just said means he doesn't need that' but I still sort of felt guilty for refusing medicine for a one year old (he got better very quickly without them though).


----------



## zahir (Aug 7, 2020)

The guidelines are here. I did look at them at the time and I think (I’m not absolutely sure) that they’ve been changed to be more cautious about prescribing antibiotics.






						COVID-19 rapid guideline: managing suspected or confirmed pneumonia in adults in the community  | Guidance | NICE
					






					www.nice.org.uk
				




ETA: I presume my antibiotic prescription would come under this:


> 4.7 Offer an oral antibiotic for treatment of pneumonia in people who can or wish to be treated in the community if:
> 
> it is unclear whether the cause is bacterial or viral and symptoms are more concerning



It does say:


> 4.6 Do not offer an antibiotic for treatment or prevention of pneumonia if:
> 
> COVID‑19 is likely to be the cause and
> symptoms are mild.
> ...


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Gotta say I'm a bit perturbed by this controversy about the death numbers that the government has mentioned, saying they are over reported or something? It seems extremely unlikely especially since it was so hard to get tests at the height of the pandemic. What do you think about that?



I know the question was for elbows but as far as I can see it was just Hancock clutching at straws.  I think it was the PHE numbers that were initially counting covid deaths as anyone who had died after testing positive.  The problem being is that they may have died weeks or months later of something unrelated.

Obviously accurate data is important but the way he ordered an urgent enquiry just smacks of desperation.  There is other data available than PHE, ONS being the obvious one but those numbers don't appear to paint a better picture.  Hancock is out of his depth and desperate.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 7, 2020)

If he wasn't a horrible Tory cunt I'd feel sorry for Hancock tbh. As well as being totally out of his depth he must know his even more useless boss will have him marked down for a high profile sacking the moment he needs a convenient victim to offer up. If I was him I'd tell Johnson to stick it and quit tbh.


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Gotta say I'm a bit perturbed by this controversy about the death numbers that the government has mentioned, saying they are over reported or something? It seems extremely unlikely especially since it was so hard to get tests at the height of the pandemic. What do you think about that?



I didnt care to think about it that much because I wasnt relying on those particular numbers anyway. And they were always likely to get pissed off with those numbers at some point because of the amount of lag in them, they are still catching up with some of the cases that actually died ages ago, making their current reported numbers for recent days look worse. ONS doesnt suffer from that issue, and also still has an overall total that is much higher than the UK daily reported one, which is the main reason I stopped paying attention to the daily reported one.

Those issues aside, they moaned because they were envious of how the likes of Scotland have been able to report numerous days with no deaths. And so the fact we were reporting deaths including deaths where the positive test came a long time before the death was seized on as the main reason and they wanted to find a way to remove that issue. They said they were goin to stop publishing the numbers whilst they fixed this issue, but I'm not sure they ever did stop reporting in the end.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I know the question was for elbows but as far as I can see it was just Hancock clutching at straws.  I think it was the PHE numbers that were initially counting covid deaths as anyone who had died after testing positive.  The problem being is that they may have died weeks or months later of something unrelated.
> 
> Obviously accurate data is important but the way he ordered an urgent enquiry just smacks of desperation.  There is other data available than PHE, ONS being the obvious one but those numbers don't appear to paint a better picture.  Hancock is out of his depth and desperate.



Thats what I thought, my impression was that he wanted to find a way to change the number to make himself look better but I thought it might just be me being a conspiracy theorist lol.


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Thats what I thought, my impression was that he wanted to find a way to change the number to make himself look better but I thought it might just be me being a conspiracy theorist lol.



Its not entirely unreasonable that when comparing different nations the numbers for each nation should be formulated using the same methodology. So if the other UK nations werent counting deaths that would have been counted in England, its a fair point. But they made too much of it and there are other lag issues too that make the daily number look worse than the current situation actually is.

I prefer the ONS etc methodology anyway, of counting deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. When that is applied to the likes of Scotland via their NRS numbers, there have been an additional trickle of deaths there that have not been reported in the daily Scottish briefings. But still some days in the last month with 0 deaths in Scotland.


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2020)

A quick chart regarding that last point, Scottish deaths per day from the start of July onwards, daily government figure vs NRS deaths by date of death figure. NRS data only covers period up to 26th July.


----------



## zahir (Aug 7, 2020)

Today’s Independent Sage briefing. Andy Burnham was taking part and is worth listening to.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 7, 2020)

Preston is going into lock-down now.



> Preston has been added to north of England local lockdown list after a surge in coronavirus cases. The seven-day rate of new cases in the Lancashire city has risen from 20.3 per 100,000 people to 32.8.
> 
> Data released by Public Health England shows a surge in cases in Manchester, Oldham, Swindon and Calderdale.
> 
> The rate is expressed as the number of new cases per 100,000 in an area - recorded in the week leading up to August 3. In Manchester, the rate shot-up from 28 to 33.1 and Oldham saw an increase of 55.7 to 67.9.











						Preston added to north of England local lockdown list after surge in cases
					

The seven-day rate of new cases in the Lancashire city has risen from 20.3 per 100,000 people to 32.8 - with Public Health England data showing a surge in other northern areas such as shows as Manchester and Oldham




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Aug 7, 2020)

Going well.


----------



## not a trot (Aug 7, 2020)

Just been having a chat with the neighbours over the fence. Their son, in his 20s, works in a body repair workshop. He was saying that since they returned to work, the guys have noticed the cleaning of the office, toilets and tearoom has been cut from 5 nights a week  to just 2 nights. One of the guys complained about the smell in the tearoom coming from the bin where waste food etc is disposed of. Guy was given a large black sack and told to empty the bin on a daily basis when the cleaner hasn't been in.  Turns out the company has a new director who bought into the company last year and is using covid as an excuse to make cutbacks. I asked about a Union rep, Paul, neighbours son just shrugged and said not allowed. Cuntish behaviour, cutting back on cleaning whilst this shitty virus is doing the rounds.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I know the question was for elbows but as far as I can see it was just Hancock clutching at straws.  I think it was the PHE numbers that were initially counting covid deaths as anyone who had died after testing positive.  The problem being is that they may have died weeks or months later of something unrelated.
> 
> Obviously accurate data is important but the way he ordered an urgent enquiry just smacks of desperation.  There is other data available than PHE, ONS being the obvious one but those numbers don't appear to paint a better picture.  Hancock is out of his depth and desperate.


I don’t think it’s fair to blame just Hancock. I think there are many people who are keen to play down the situation and to claim that the official figures are over reported by just 1 person based on their reporting methods helps them in their view that it’s all an over reaction even if the official figures are probably understated by 10,000


----------



## Fruitloop (Aug 8, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> presume they’ve all quarantined for 14 days?


I can't imagine how that's possible. I wonder where they're all staying actually, I think the language schools usually rely a lot on people hosting them in their homes, but that doesn't seem like it would be particularly popular at the moment.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 8, 2020)

Here's some research into the risks involved in train travel.


----------



## maomao (Aug 8, 2020)

Fruitloop said:


> I can't imagine how that's possible. I wonder where they're all staying actually, I think the language schools usually rely a lot on people hosting them in their homes, but that doesn't seem like it would be particularly popular at the moment.


Home stays are rare and cost more. They mostly go in uni halls off season.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Is there a possibility that this pandemic might become an endemic, and we’ll just have to learn to live with it?


I'm assuming that's the most likely outcome tbh.


----------



## Spandex (Aug 8, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Here's some research into the risks involved in train travel.



I'm not sure that research is as reassuring as they think it is. According to the Office of Rail and Road there were an average of 4,329,670 UK rail journeys per day in the quarter to the end of March (which includes the run up to and beginning of lockdown). If there is a 1-in-11,000 chance of catching C-19 on the train, that would mean 393 people catching Covid on the train every day


----------



## Bollox (Aug 8, 2020)

Noticing the resurgence of family grocery shopping, fucking Cretins


----------



## scifisam (Aug 8, 2020)

Liverpool St Station has decided to restrict access to its lift due to covid. They really haven't thought this through...


----------



## magneze (Aug 8, 2020)

Why? What am I missing?


----------



## maomao (Aug 8, 2020)

magneze said:


> Why? What am I missing?


I'll just send my two year old up in his buggy first then shall I?


----------



## magneze (Aug 8, 2020)

Good point


----------



## maomao (Aug 8, 2020)

The lift at Liverpool Street is particularly tiny though.

Fwiw I was at Stratford today and though there'd be no point spolitting our party of four, lift sharing with other families was definitely awkward.


----------



## scifisam (Aug 8, 2020)

It's smallish, but easily fits a parent and child in a buggy, or a person in a wheelchair and someone pushing them.


----------



## ash (Aug 8, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'll just send my two year old up in his buggy first then shall I?


 Oh and how about some blind people or wheelchair users, people with learning disabilities etc who need to be accompanied.


----------



## maomao (Aug 8, 2020)

scifisam said:


> It's smallish, but easily fits a parent and child in a buggy, or a person in a wheelchair and someone pushing them.


It fits a family of four with luggage when it has to. I just meant that maybe that was why they'd had some pressure to provide guidance.


----------



## LDC (Aug 8, 2020)

I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill with that lift notice. Sure people as have be mentioned (children with an adult, people with a carer, etc.) will be fine. It's just a hastily stuck up notice.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 8, 2020)

I guess they don't want loads of people in the lift at the same time. Presumably it's ok if they're in the same household?


----------



## Bollox (Aug 8, 2020)

The application of common sense might cover it.......oh wait


----------



## scifisam (Aug 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill with that lift notice. Sure people as have be mentioned (children with an adult, people with a carer, etc.) will be fine. It's just a hastily stuck up notice.



I mentioned it briefly   

I can't see TFL arresting someone for pushing a wheelchair or buggy, either. Bu it's professionally designed and printed, not just someone scrawling a handwritten notice.

I just thought it was mildly amusing that on a sign for a lift they'd completely forgotten about some of the people who most need to use lifts. Like putting out bike stands with a notice saying "do not chain bikes here."


----------



## teuchter (Aug 8, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I'm not sure that research is as reassuring as they think it is. According to the Office of Rail and Road there were an average of 4,329,670 UK rail journeys per day in the quarter to the end of March (which includes the run up to and beginning of lockdown). If there is a 1-in-11,000 chance of catching C-19 on the train, that would mean 393 people catching Covid on the train every day


And 4,329,277 people every day not catching covid on the train. 
Meanwhile about 400 people are injured in road traffic accidents every day, covid or not. 70 of them seriously and 5 of them killed. 
And every day 460 people die of heart disease.
Numbers, eh.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 8, 2020)

teuchter said:


> And 4,329,277 people every day not catching covid on the train.
> Meanwhile about 400 people are injured in road traffic accidents every day, covid or not. 70 of them seriously and 5 of them killed.
> And every day 460 people die of heart disease.
> Numbers, eh.


The numbers that you quote don’t grow exponentially, whereas the numbers for a virus that spreads do, so it’s not really appropriate to compare a relatively static 400 to a number that will likely grow exponentially.


----------



## Raheem (Aug 8, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Here's some research into the risks involved in train travel.



This is blatantly industry propaganda bollocks as opposed to anything to do with science. It's not going to be possible to meaningfully model how Covid 19 will spread on a train because we don't have an accurate picture of how it spreads in any environment. It will, of course, be possible to run something you call modelling and get any result you like depending on the assumptions you input.


----------



## ska invita (Aug 9, 2020)

Raheem said:


> This is blatantly industry propaganda bollocks as opposed to anything to do with science. It's not going to be possible to meaningfully model how Covid 19 will spread on a train because we don't have an accurate picture of how it spreads in any environment. It will, of course, be possible to run something you call modelling and get any result you like depending on the assumptions you input.


Yeah a massive difference between trains now (sunny outside, windows open, with lots of space, never have to sit next to anyone) compared to winter, windows closed, train rammed, condensation on the windows etc...


----------



## teuchter (Aug 9, 2020)

Maltin said:


> The numbers that you quote don’t grow exponentially, whereas the numbers for a virus that spreads do, so it’s not really appropriate to compare a relatively static 400 to a number that will likely grow exponentially.


At the moment it's not growing exponentially. Do these numbers (if they are correct) suggest that if more people started travelling by train, we would be pushed back into exponential growth?
The point is relative risk isn't it? Unless no-one does anything at all, there are going to be re-infections. How does travelling on a train compare to going to the shop or a restaurant or a cinema? If it's low risk compared to these other things then it doesn't make sense to encourage people to eat out, whilst also restricting the mobility of a section of the population by giving them the impression that travelling by public transport is unsafe. 
And keeping people off public transport has costs in terms of public health too.
Yeah it's just modelling and might be wrong. But so might assumptions about a bunch of other activities. 
What's more interesting than the modelling to me is that contact tracing hasn't led back to public transport being a spreading event like other things have. 
There have also been studies in Paris and New York that fail to show any correlation between use of the metro, and reinfection rates, I believe.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 9, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Yeah a massive difference between trains now (sunny outside, windows open, with lots of space, never have to sit next to anyone) compared to winter, windows closed, train rammed, condensation on the windows etc...


I believe they are attempting to do a bunch of different simulations with different types of train, occupancy levels and so on. 
The one quoted assumed a fully A/C train - no openable windows at all, so I don't think the season would actually make much difference. I think they were also assuming a train that's busier than many are at the moment.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 9, 2020)

In March pre-lockdown, the numbers exploded exponentially in London.  After lockdown, it stopped in its tracks.  Something has to account for that — it can’t be that all behaviours were equally harmless.  It’s notable to me that whilst bars, shops and restaurants are open and people are spending time together, one thing that hasn’t yet returned to normal is people commuting into the capital... and that infection rates also aren’t growing again.

When I was commuting, trains were properly PACKED packed.  Not just standing room only but everybody pushed against each other.  There is no AC on any SW train I would take and the windows are tiny and only open a crack.  And I’d be on that train for an hour.  It doesn’t take much imagination to think that such an environment might just possibly have been a driver of the infection rate.

So yes, if trains are empty at the moment, I can believe they would be relatively safe.  But you can’t just say “everybody back on the train now” and expect it to remain that way.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 9, 2020)

teuchter said:


> At the moment it's not growing exponentially.


I don’t think this is necessarily true. Yes, the overall numbers are low and it is currently safe to do many things, including traveling on a train now and again, and people are being more cautious than before and any growth may be minimal at present and difficult to see in the numbers for the country as a whole, but the growth that is happening around the country is still likely to be exponential.


----------



## LDC (Aug 9, 2020)

This is supposed to be the 'easy time' as it were; before the winter hits and people are inside more, before coughs and colds are more common, before schools go back, etc. and yet we're still seeing a growth in cases, and local lockdowns with what looks like more of them on the way. I think fatigue with obeying social distancing measures is well set in too, and it's going to be a struggle to reverse that. I just can't see this winter being anything except another (and longer) disaster like March, April, and May were this year.

I did my second pub visit last night. Initially booked an outside table for a meal, and then happened to go past the pub on the way out of town for a swim and walk and the garden was packed full of people. Cancelled that booking and went to another quieter pub. Sat outside at a table, and the set up was mostly pretty good. No sign of contact details being taken or asked for though. Maybe the fact they had our name and phone from the booking was enough...?

My bet is pubs will be shut again before schools go back. And how the fuck are schools going to open in any way that isn't regularly disruptive for them? All it'll need is one positive test in a class/year group and then they'll be a load of kids and households self isolating, and/or one person with a cough or temp and then a load of people self isolating and getting tested. Repeatedly. That only need to happen a few times within one school each term and it'll all be a confused and chaotic mess.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This is supposed to be the 'easy time' as it were; before the winter hits, before schools go back, etc. and yet we're still seeing a growth in cases, and local lockdowns with what looks like more of them on the way. I think fatigue with obeying social distancing measures is well set in too, and it's going to be a struggle to reverse that. I just can't see this winter being anything except another (and longer) disaster than March, April, and May were this year.
> 
> I did my second pub visit last night. Initially booked an outside table for a meal, and then happened to go past the pub on the way out of town for a swim and walk and the garden was packed full of people. Cancelled that booking and went to another quieter pub. Sat outside at a table, and the set up was mostly pretty good. No sign of contact details being taken or asked for though. Maybe the fact they had out name and phone from the booking was enough...?
> 
> My bet is pubs will be shut again before schools go back. And how the fuck are schools going to open in any way that isn't hugely disruptive? All it'll need is one positive test and then they'll be a load of kids and households self isolating, and one person with a cough or temp and then a load of people self isolating and getting tested. That only need to happen a few times within one school each term and it'll all be a confused and chaotic mess.


Still, at least no kid will be creative or evil enough to fake Covid-19 symptoms to get out of English, or just for larfs...


----------



## LDC (Aug 9, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Still, at least no kid will be creative or evil enough to fake Covid-19 symptoms to get out of English, or just for larfs...



Yeah, that crossed my mind too. It's a license to skive!


----------



## zora (Aug 9, 2020)

I am cautiously optimistic that things won't get quite as disastrous as they were in March/April in that I hope that measures (closures, wfh etc) to reduce spread would be taken sooner, and that people's minds might get refocussed a bit.
I do worry that it might be a pretty long, dark, boring and lonely winter though. 
And am also utterly baffled how this schools thing is supposed to work. In the words of my fave virologist, and I quote loosely "School is basically one big ongoing mass-gathering" 
Wrt to schools I also wonder if the fact that so many children have siblings in other year groups doesn't make mockery of the idea of closed-ish bubbles, and of course teachers moving between them? Will be interesting to see what happens in Germany over the next couple of weeks. School reopened last week in one of the states, come Friday two schools had to close again for the next couple of weeks due to one identified case each. Schools in four more states are set to open this week (summer hols are always slightly staggered across the different states in Germany).


----------



## clicker (Aug 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, that crossed my mind too. It's a license to skive!


Maybe the once, until they realise they're being sent home to isolate as opposed to a sneaky Greggs and a wander around Primark. The phone call to the parents will no doubt make that clear . 
I wonder if schools will all do temperature checks before the kids enter the buildings? It'd be something at least to protect staff and students.
It's all gone quiet on the how do we open schools safely front.
The workers using public transport at the moment must be dreading September.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 9, 2020)

yep buses heave with the little fuckers round here


----------



## teuchter (Aug 9, 2020)

kabbes said:


> In March pre-lockdown, the numbers exploded exponentially in London.  After lockdown, it stopped in its tracks.  Something has to account for that — it can’t be that all behaviours were equally harmless.  It’s notable to me that whilst bars, shops and restaurants are open and people are spending time together, one thing that hasn’t yet returned to normal is people commuting into the capital... and that infection rates also aren’t growing again.
> 
> When I was commuting, trains were properly PACKED packed.  Not just standing room only but everybody pushed against each other.  There is no AC on any SW train I would take and the windows are tiny and only open a crack.  And I’d be on that train for an hour.  It doesn’t take much imagination to think that such an environment might just possibly have been a driver of the infection rate.
> 
> So yes, if trains are empty at the moment, I can believe they would be relatively safe.  But you can’t just say “everybody back on the train now” and expect it to remain that way.


I wouldn't say "everybody back on the train" and it might be that certain types of overcrowded commuter trains do pose a risk. 
We basically don't know though, do we? 
London hasn't gone back to normal yet. Pubs and restaurants may be open to some extent but a large number of people (me included) are only really wanting to visit them when there's outside seating. No nightclubs open. Lots of people still avoiding crowded indoor environments and minimising time spent in shops. Many people who were previously working in offices still not doing so. 
Meanwhile, people have started using buses and trains again, but they aren't as busy as before. 
So across the board there is only a partial return to normality. I don't think there's anything that lets us say much about transport risk relative to other things. 
By the way when I was looking at numbers around the London peak, I think I noticed that the london commuter belt didn't seem to be following the same pattern, which you might expect it to do if commuter travel was a major driver of infection. Of course it's only a portion of the population in those places which commutes though.


----------



## LDC (Aug 9, 2020)

Got my first trip to London since the start of the year next weekend. Be interesting to see how it is. Train down, but not thought too much about public transport while there tbh.

Anyway, wish me luck, I may be gone some time...


----------



## clicker (Aug 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Got my first trip to London since the start of the year next weekend. Be interesting to see how it is. Train down, but not thought too much about public transport while there tbh.
> 
> Anyway, wish me luck, I may be gone some time...


Trains are fine, buses getting busy and I've avoided the tube. Central London still ghost towny, evenings especially. It's a pleasure to walk around though.
Eta when I say buses getting busy, they're nothing like normal times, but you'll be nearer people than on a train. Most people wearing a mask.


----------



## elbows (Aug 9, 2020)

teuchter said:


> So across the board there is only a partial return to normality. I don't think there's anything that lets us say much about transport risk relative to other things.



We arent going to get an exact picture of risk from particular scenarios compared to others.

We do get a glimpse of such things when it comes to bus driver death risk, although again there are other contributing factors, but there are good reasons why they are described as being on the front lines.









						Daughter urges inquiry into Covid-19 deaths of bus drivers in England
					

Call comes after report says earlier lockdown could have saved lives in London




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## LDC (Aug 9, 2020)

clicker said:


> Trains are fine, buses getting busy and I've avoided the tube. Central London still ghost towny, evenings especially. It's a pleasure to walk around though.
> Eta when I say buses getting busy, they're nothing like normal times, but you'll be nearer people than on a train. Most people wearing a mask.



Thanks. Yeah I no intention of getting the tube, probably get a couple of buses and walk the rest of the time. I'll be Hackney/Dalston way with a venture to Stoke Newington, easy enough distance wise to walk about.


----------



## nagapie (Aug 9, 2020)

clicker said:


> Trains are fine, buses getting busy and I've avoided the tube. Central London still ghost towny, evenings especially. It's a pleasure to walk around though.
> Eta when I say buses getting busy, they're nothing like normal times, but you'll be nearer people than on a train. Most people wearing a mask.


I am finding that most people in buses are not wearing masks. I'd say half are and half of those have their noses sticking out or are wearing them round their chins.


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## teuchter (Aug 9, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I am finding that most people in buses are not wearing masks. I'd say half are and half of those have their noses sticking out or are wearing them round their chins.


Yup.


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 9, 2020)

I was on the tube between 5 and 6pm once last week and there was a passenger in every other seat and most people wearing masks and  correctly. Northern and Victoria lines.  Busier than I'd prefer  tbh.


----------



## maomao (Aug 9, 2020)

I was on London Overground yesterday and almost everyone was wearing a mask (I saw one guy without on the platform at Stratford but he could have put it on when he got on the train). 

There were a few noses poking over here and there but not loads and I do feel a bit sorry for people with big noses. It does make them a lot harder to wear. Maybe that's why they were only worn widely in Japan and China before.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> I was on London Overground yesterday and almost everyone was wearing a mask (I saw one guy without on the platform at Stratford but he could have put it on when he got on the train).
> 
> There were a few noses poking over here and there but not loads and I do feel a bit sorry for people with big noses. It does make them a lot harder to wear. Maybe that's why they were only worn widely in Japan and China before.


I've got a big schnozz and I don't have any problems


----------



## maomao (Aug 9, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I've got a big schnozz and I don't have any problems


I've got the biggest nose in the house and I can't do ones without wire. Needs shaping at the top. My mum who has an even bigger hooter has had problems as well.


----------



## clicker (Aug 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> I was on London Overground yesterday and almost everyone was wearing a mask (I saw one guy without on the platform at Stratford but he could have put it on when he got on the train).
> 
> There were a few noses poking over here and there but not loads and I do feel a bit sorry for people with big noses. It does make them a lot harder to wear. Maybe that's why they were only worn widely in Japan and China before.


I like the Overground,  it usually feels airy. Was it busy or comfortable?


----------



## editor (Aug 9, 2020)

Meanwhile in Brixton: jam-packed, all night party without a mask in sight.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 9, 2020)

Interesting figures for Barnet - there has been quite a lot of stuff saying that cases were rising fast and watch out - I've been following them intermittently on BBC site and it was at 24 reported in one week about a fortnight ago, but this 8, down two from the week before that. Makes me wonder if that apparent 'spike' might have been, say, a single family gathering where a batch of people were traced and tested and found positive, rather than indicative of a wider upwards trend. Although one would expect with a group of that size for it to have spread wider unless they were only seeing one another.


----------



## maomao (Aug 9, 2020)

clicker said:


> I like the Overground,  it usually feels airy. Was it busy or comfortable?


It was fine. Busy time on a Saturday so would normally be packed from Romford > Stratford with little hope of getting a seat on the way back. Didn't have to sit too near to anyone in either direction and certainly not next to anyone. Plenty of people about but like an off peak weekday not like 6pm on a Saturday. Only saw the new crossrail style trains which are very open inside too.

Westfields was surprisingly busy. I only popped in for a wee though, I can't take more than a few minutes of that place anyway.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 10, 2020)

There seems to be another push happening from the usual suspects to get everyone back to work because we can now treat the virus fine, its no longer a big issue, herd immunity is just around the corner etc etc.

With this is mind I find it interesting what is happening with my partner's current employer.  They have a Central London office and back at the start of June they decided to reopen it but only at 20% of its usual capacity and only for those who wanted to use the office.  Everyone could continue to work from home if they wised.  The 20% was quickly filled up and they've been running like that for a couple of months.  

In the last couple of weeks they have tried to increase this to 40% capacity with very few takers.  It seems that only around 20% of their workforce have any desire to return to the office.  Obviously different industries and different companies will have their own staff demographics but if the numbers are similar with other places there is a battle brewing.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Interesting figures for Barnet - there has been quite a lot of stuff saying that cases were rising fast and watch out - I've been following them intermittently on BBC site and it was at 24 reported in one week about a fortnight ago, but this 8, down two from the week before that. Makes me wonder if that apparent 'spike' might have been, say, a single family gathering where a batch of people were traced and tested and found positive, rather than indicative of a wider upwards trend. Although one would expect with a group of that size for it to have spread wider unless they were only seeing one another.


I think this is what we're seeing, yes. Overall levels are down now such that single superspreader events can stand out. Been following at the local level in London and this random up-down has happened more than once. The worst-affected borough changes pretty much weekly. 

tbh the media are not helping with this at all. I've seen various headlines about 'surges' that are nothing of the kind.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh the media are not helping with this at all. I've seen various headlines about 'surges' that are nothing of the kind.



Even more than usual this pandemic has exposed how poor the medias reporting is, very little information, a heavy focus on Sensation and Fear Mongering and attempts to grab headlines at the cost of in depth reporting.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 10, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Even more than usual this pandemic has exposed how poor the medias reporting is, very little information, a heavy focus on Sensation and Fear Mongering and attempts to grab headlines at the cost of in depth reporting.


Yep. And across the board. The BBC has been one of the worst offenders.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 10, 2020)




----------



## gosub (Aug 10, 2020)

M62 lorry fire closes motorway both ways over 'explosion' fears - 4 hour traffic jams.

North of England: local restrictions... local lockdowns clearly very different to what we went through earlier in the year.  I live about a mile from a motorway but you can still hear the traffic noise on a quiet day, and we had a few of those


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 10, 2020)

editor said:


> Meanwhile in Brixton: jam-packed, all night party without a mask in sight.
> 
> View attachment 225745


Haven't we been here before with these moral panics about outdoor gatherings?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 10, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Even more than usual this pandemic has exposed how poor the medias reporting is, very little information, a heavy focus on Sensation and Fear Mongering and attempts to grab headlines at the cost of in depth reporting.



I dunno, there was a genuine 'holding the government to account' phase. IIRC it lasted from a Tuesday evening all the way to Wednesday lunch.


----------



## editor (Aug 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Haven't we been here before with these moral panics about outdoor gatherings?


It's not a 'moral panic' but a local observation. These parties have been going on for months and months, and given the fact that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are "disproportionately" dying with coronavirus, I think it's OK to voice a concern or two. I certainly don't want to find myself in the epicentre of a new outbreak


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 10, 2020)

editor said:


> It's not a 'moral panic' but a local observation. These parties have been going on for months and months, and given the fact that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are "disproportionately" dying with coronavirus, I think it's OK to voice a concern or two. I don't want to find myself in the epicentre of a new outbreak


You think people from certain ethnic minority backgrounds have been disproportionately dying with coronavirus cos block parties? Any evidence of that at all?


----------



## editor (Aug 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You think people from certain ethnic minority backgrounds have been disproportionately dying with coronavirus cos block parties? Any evidence of that at all?


I was rather hoping that you'd grown out of such wilful and childish misrepresentation. I clearly made no such claim. And at least half of the party takes place_ indoors_, inside the underground car park -  and it went on for about 12 hours. I'd say that's a bit of a risk, especially when it's taking place several times a week. What do you think?









						Why are more people from BAME backgrounds dying from coronavirus?
					

People from ethnic minorities have been impacted more by coronavirus, but why?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## kabbes (Aug 10, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> There seems to be another push happening from the usual suspects to get everyone back to work because we can now treat the virus fine, its no longer a big issue, herd immunity is just around the corner etc etc.
> 
> With this is mind I find it interesting what is happening with my partner's current employer.  They have a Central London office and back at the start of June they decided to reopen it but only at 20% of its usual capacity and only for those who wanted to use the office.  Everyone could continue to work from home if they wised.  The 20% was quickly filled up and they've been running like that for a couple of months.
> 
> In the last couple of weeks they have tried to increase this to 40% capacity with very few takers.  It seems that only around 20% of their workforce have any desire to return to the office.  Obviously different industries and different companies will have their own staff demographics but if the numbers are similar with other places there is a battle brewing.


Yes, I think this is right.  Our office has opened on a voluntary basis at 50% capacity from today but zero of my team members have taken up the option.  It really seems to be younger people in flat shares or living at home who primarily want to go into the office.

I saw a news item on Bloomberg a few days ago that baked this up with some statistics too, which I forget now.  But I do remember the proportion returning to the office in London is less than half that of other major European cities such as Paris.  Lots of reasons for that, but it’s worrying the London local authorities.


----------



## editor (Aug 10, 2020)

Some encouraging signs in Wales



> *No deaths and 12 new cases in Wales*
> No new coronavirus deaths have been reported in Wales, meaning the total number of people who have died with the virus there remains at 1,579.
> A further 12 cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in the most recent 24-hour period by Public Health Wales.
> UK-wide figures will be published later today.





> There were no new deaths reported by Public Health Wales on 13 occasions in July (July 6, 10, 12, 13, 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27 and 28) and twice previously this month on August 3 and 9.











						Wales records no new coronavirus deaths for second day in a row
					

There have been 12 new cases reported




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## Sue (Aug 10, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Yes, I think this is right.  Our office has opened on a voluntary basis at 50% capacity from today but zero of my team members have taken up the option.  It really seems to be younger people in flat shares or living at home who primarily want to go into the office.
> 
> I saw a news item on Bloomberg a few days ago that baked this up with some statistics too, which I forget now.  But I do remember the proportion returning to the office in London is less than half that of other major European cities such as Paris.  Lots of reasons for that, but it’s worrying the London local authorities.


Yes, all this. My company has quite a lot of youngsters who live in flat shares etc but even then, not that many have taken it up. I think something like 90/350 are back but the vast majority of those are only doing a couple of days a week in the office.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 10, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Yes, I think this is right.  Our office has opened on a voluntary basis at 50% capacity from today but zero of my team members have taken up the option.  It really seems to be younger people in flat shares or living at home who primarily want to go into the office.
> 
> I saw a news item on Bloomberg a few days ago that baked this up with some statistics too, which I forget now.  But I do remember the proportion returning to the office in London is less than half that of other major European cities such as Paris.  Lots of reasons for that, but it’s worrying the London local authorities.


I'm looking forward to office rental prices plummeting in the city so that I can rent myself a floor of a skyscraper for £200/month.


----------



## elbows (Aug 10, 2020)

I note that the seroprevalence surveillance (antibody stuff) section from the weekly surveillance report includes this:



> For the second week running, we have observed a small rise in the number of samples in the equivocal range, which suggests waning immunity may be a contributing factor to the lower prevalence. Overall the proportion of samples in the equivocal range (assay results 0.8 to 1.1) increased from 0.6% during June to 1.1% during July.



From the August 7th report available at National COVID-19 surveillance reports

This report also reminds me that we have not managed to prevent all care home outbreaks.



As far as the watch-list for regions with increasing cases detected go, Swindon is the one thats shown to have the worst trajectory by this measure. But the data used is already some days out of date, and the most recent picture there is slightly more mixed on the government dashboard.


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 10, 2020)

More renting  people at my work are interested in moving further out for more room or going home to family abroad and working from there than returning to the office.  Unfortunately they've been unable to make plans for the former because management have been tardy in planning for longer term wfh. And they have claimed were not insured for people working from home abroad during covid. They have agreed to look at that again after mass  grumbling.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> More renting  people at my work are interested in moving further out for more room or going home to family abroad and working from there than returning to the office.  Unfortunately they've been unable to make plans for the former because management have been tardy in planning for longer term wfh. And they have claimed were not insured for people working from home abroad during covid. They have agreed to look at that again after mass  grumbling.


I imagine that there might be tax implications for that too.


----------



## pesh (Aug 10, 2020)

My wife's workplace is the same, it's been partially open for a couple of months due to there being aspects of their business that can't be done at home but the offices themselves have been shut since lockdown. 
a couple of younger people in flatshares and living at home with their parents have asked about going back into the office but everyone else from management down has been against it. They're saying they'll look at the situation again in October, but yeah, it really looks like WFH will remain an option for them, and a very popular one.


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 10, 2020)

Maltin said:


> I imagine that there might be tax implications for that too.



No one looking to move abroad permanently just visit family for a month or two instead of not visiting family or making 2 trips.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> No one looking to move abroad permanently just visit family for a month or two instead of not visiting family or making 2 trips.


I don’t think it matters whether it is permanent or not, just possible tax risks about employees working from a different country. I’m not aware of what exactly the tax risks are but our company has to be careful of who is working from where.


----------



## andysays (Aug 10, 2020)

On the subject of changes to working patterns etc, here's an interesting article speculating about where we might be in a few years

This is what coronavirus will do to our offices and homes


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 10, 2020)

andysays said:


> On the subject of changes to working patterns etc, here's an interesting article speculating about where we might be in a few years
> 
> This is what coronavirus will do to our offices and homes





Well in favour of One Carriage per Passenger in the world of the future.


----------



## redsquirrel (Aug 10, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Yes, I think this is right.  Our office has opened on a voluntary basis at 50% capacity from today but zero of my team members have taken up the option.  It really seems to be younger people in flat shares or living at home who primarily want to go into the office.
> 
> I saw a news item on Bloomberg a few days ago that baked this up with some statistics too, which I forget now.  But I do remember the proportion returning to the office in London is less than half that of other major European cities such as Paris.  Lots of reasons for that, but it’s worrying the London local authorities.


FT collected some data on 'economic recovery' (obvious usual caveats apply) but general trend backs up this picture.


----------



## elbows (Aug 10, 2020)

Goodbye to the shitty celtralised top-down contact tracing approach!









						Contact tracers in England cut by 6,000
					

The rest will focus on reaching positive cases and their contacts in local areas, alongside local teams.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> But critics will see it as the latest example of the government departing from its centralised approach to tackling the outbreak. In June the government had to abandon its idea of using a national app to identify potentially infected people - because it didn't work.
> 
> Now, the top-down, high-tech strategy for contact tracing is making way for what seasoned local public health officials describe as old-fashioned "shoe leather epidemiology".
> 
> This relies on people with local knowledge collecting information by going door-to-door on foot.


----------



## andysays (Aug 10, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> View attachment 225987
> 
> Well in favour of One Carriage per Passenger in the world of the future.


One of the changes they suggest is that work times will be staggered to avoid *everyone* travelling on the train at the same time, but each passenger having their own carriage seems a little optimistic


----------



## kabbes (Aug 10, 2020)

People have talked for years about staggering work times.  It works really well for everybody _else_ as long as _I_ can have the 9-5 that works with my kids school/my partner’s hours/my hobbies/everything else


----------



## Smangus (Aug 10, 2020)

I used to have staggering work times, normally on a Friday afternoon after an epic pub lunch. All seems a thing of the past now though.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 10, 2020)

they sound like they were staggering


----------



## William of Walworth (Aug 11, 2020)

Call me set in my ways, but in me-me-me-office-world , I *much* prefer starting no later than 8 am and finishing (in these non-flexi times!  ) before 4:30 pm.

Or up to 6 pm when we're eventually allowed to make time again, all for the (normal-times quite frequent) Mondays off!


----------



## andysays (Aug 11, 2020)

kabbes said:


> People have talked for years about staggering work times.  It works really well for everybody _else_ as long as _I_ can have the 9-5 that works with my kids school/my partner’s hours/my hobbies/everything else


This is certainly a valid point. 

The article also suggests working from home 4 days out of five and only going to the office one day a week, to do things that actually need face to face contact with colleagues, which might reduce the problem from what it would be if you had to do it five days a week.

I thought it was an interesting speculative article, though I wouldn't be surprised to find in five years that not much it suggests has actually come to pass for most people.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 11, 2020)

kabbes said:


> People have talked for years about staggering work times.  It works really well for everybody _else_ as long as _I_ can have the 9-5 that works with my kids school/my partner’s hours/my hobbies/everything else



Could have some people starting at 10, others finishing at 4. The notion that eight hours' work is conducive to productivity bears zero scrutiny.


----------



## Numbers (Aug 11, 2020)

I prefer to start early and finish early, 6am to 2pm to 7am to 3pm have always been my preference.


----------



## Supine (Aug 11, 2020)

I'll do the 10am till 2pm shift


----------



## kabbes (Aug 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Could have some people starting at 10, others finishing at 4. The notion that eight hours' work is conducive to productivity bears zero scrutiny.


It hasn’t happened though, despite years of talking about it (hell, I remember such speculative articles when I was a teenager!), which is telling.  I’ve worked in places with such “flexi-working” since 2010 but people still do 9-5 as their core.  If anything, work hours have got longer, with many more just seeing 8-6 as standard.

I think it’s way more likely that we’ll skip any “staggered work” phase and go straight to large scale WFH. There’s a real attitude shift from the last few months that has followed similar ones from the Olympics in 2012 and a general culture drift during 2016-2020 (all in my experience, anyway). I can see a change so that WFH becomes the “normal day” with team days arranged in the office to catch up on shared projects.

On the other hand, if this all ended tomorrow, I think things would rapidly revert to their pre-March norms.  How the next six months play out will be crucial for whether lasting change catches on or not.


----------



## muscovyduck (Aug 11, 2020)

Both working from home and working in the office is great as long as it's a choice. Main issue with me is that I've come under pressure from my colleagues to go back in (no one who needs me and no one I actually report to) and that as someone whose moved a lot over the years and has another move imminent it's difficult to commit time and money to making a nice workspace for myself


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 11, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> Both working from home and working in the office is great as long as it's a choice. Main issue with me is that I've come under pressure from my colleagues to go back in (no one who needs me and no one I actually report to) and that as someone whose moved a lot over the years and has another move imminent it's difficult to commit time and money to making a nice workspace for myself



My big concern about WFH as standard is that it offloads the cost of providing workspace and infrastructure onto workers, with no corresponding bump in salary or expenses.


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> My big concern about WFH as standard is that it offloads the cost of providing workspace and infrastructure onto workers, with no corresponding bump in salary or expenses.



Agreed, and also less H&S oversight of working spaces.  My office chair at home is virtually identical to one that a colleague of mine used to have in his office, which the occupational health team took one look at and replaced there and then as a health hazard...

I suppose one might point out that WFH saves people the time and cost of commuting, but those of us who walk or cycle to work won't see any benefit from that.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 11, 2020)

There's a WFH thread here









						Working from home Y/N
					

Been working from home for 3 months now due to Covid, I worked from home 2 days a week before then. Just found out that when our building lease expires in 2 years we will be working from home on a permanent basis. Meanwhile even when Covid is over we will only be going into the office in...




					www.urban75.net


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 11, 2020)

That can happen anyway. When our office was south of the river I biked or bussed. When it moved north of the river I started using the tube again but colleagues east or north would walk cycle or bus. 

We can start as early as 8 or as late as 10. 2 people regularly start at 8. Most arrive between 9.40 and 10.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 11, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> My big concern about WFH as standard is that it offloads the cost of providing workspace and infrastructure onto workers, with no corresponding bump in salary or expenses.


That is true, although it’s not like I was getting a special bursary to cover the £400 a month I was spending in train fares.


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## teuchter (Aug 11, 2020)

Thing is that there are people who might be saving x hundred pounds a month on travel, but that doesn't buy them a house or flat with adequate work space.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Aug 11, 2020)

Supine said:


> I'll do the 10am till 2pm shift



Take a couple of hours for lunch in there, wouldn’t do to get indigestion from scoffing your grub too quickly.


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 11, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Thing is that there are people who might be saving x hundred pounds a month on travel, but that doesn't buy them a house or flat with adequate work space.



It could allow for a move further out with a bit more space.  Maybe.


----------



## Supine (Aug 11, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Take a couple of hours for lunch in there, wouldn’t do to get indigestion from scoffing your grub too quickly.



Standard


----------



## zahir (Aug 11, 2020)

Another supermarket outbreak - Tesco in Swindon.









						Staff members at Tesco supermarket in Swindon test positive for coronavirus | ITV News
					

Staff members at Tesco supermarket in Swindon test positive for coronavirus; ITV News West Country




					www.itv.com
				











						Confirmed: 'Small number' of workers at Tesco Ocotal Way test positive for coronavirus
					

A small number of staff at the Ocotal Way Tesco supermarket have tested positive for coronavirus, the chain said.




					www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk


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## Thora (Aug 11, 2020)

There was an outbreak in a factory where I live and it was workers that had been bussed in from Swindon.  Seems there are a few issues there.


----------



## LDC (Aug 11, 2020)

Testing at our local mosque now. Weeks (months?) late, but better now than never I guess.


----------



## Orang Utan (Aug 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Testing at our local mosque now. Weeks (months?) late, but better now than never I guess.


Bilal?


----------



## LDC (Aug 11, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Bilal?



Yeah.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Aug 11, 2020)

.


SpookyFrank said:


> My big concern about WFH as standard is that it offloads the cost of providing workspace and infrastructure onto workers, with no corresponding bump in salary or expenses.



Unsurprisingly, someone at my work has already floated the idea that eventually, people who WFH could be paid less, as they no longer have to shell out for travel costs / higher cost of accommodation near work.

The response to my reply of "you fucking what now?!?!" was, "bottom line though, it'll be worth it to someone"


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 11, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> .
> 
> 
> Unsurprisingly, someone at my work has already floated the idea that eventually, people who WFH could be paid less, as they no longer have to shell out for travel costs / higher cost of accommodation near work.
> ...


It was talked about on You & Yours on R4 today. Everyone where I work has had a lockdown pay cut incidentally, which is theoretically going away, but, you know. (To be fair, not based on the idea of working from home, more that the company was under more financial pressure, but it's been mentioned that it's not so bad because everyone's saving money not commuting.)


----------



## two sheds (Aug 11, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> .
> 
> 
> Unsurprisingly, someone at my work has already floated the idea that eventually, people who WFH could be paid less, as they no longer have to shell out for travel costs / higher cost of accommodation near work.
> ...



kudos for your reply  

Could you press for a 15% increase in pay to cover increased house heating, water, etc costs - to be paid from the savings they make in office costs.

What sort of mind thinks of these things?


----------



## Supine (Aug 11, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> .
> 
> 
> Unsurprisingly, someone at my work has already floated the idea that eventually, people who WFH could be paid less, as they no longer have to shell out for travel costs / higher cost of accommodation near work.
> ...



That really is taking the piss. Suggest a pay increase for use of own water and electricity.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 11, 2020)

Presumably they pay people who live far away more than those who live close. Ah wait, no I bet they don't.


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## FridgeMagnet (Aug 11, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Presumably they pay people who live far away more than those who live close. Ah wait, no I bet they don't.


This is the thing. I've never heard of a company who pays people commuting extras (except if they're management, but that's a different matter).

In fact if companies don't have to pay rent for offices that means they make more and they should share the profits more and increase salaries right? right?


----------



## Supine (Aug 11, 2020)

I get paid extra to commute. I'm not management but I have a specialisation. If they want to utilize it they stump up money for my travel and hotel. It works for both parties. 

WFH is a bit different though. In pharma it's looking like WFH will be around for the foreseeable future - where it can be done. I'm managing 2 days at home and 3 in the office which seems like a good balance.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Aug 11, 2020)

Supine said:


> That really is taking the piss. Suggest a pay increase for use of own water and electricity.



I did...


----------



## scifisam (Aug 11, 2020)

Supine said:


> I get paid extra to commute. I'm not management but I have a specialisation. If they want to utilize it they stump up money for my travel and hotel. It works for both parties.
> 
> WFH is a bit different though. In pharma it's looking like WFH will be around for the foreseeable future - where it can be done. I'm managing 2 days at home and 3 in the office which seems like a good balance.



That's not commuting. Commuting is going from your home to your regular office. What you're talking about is going from your home to a different place of work, and it's fairly common to be paid extra for that. Self-employed workers can also claim travel costs for that sort of journey, but not for their regular commute if they have an office outside of their home. 

Self-employed workers can also claim costs for having an office at home because if you're doing it long-term it does have costs in terms of extra space, insurance and equipment.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 11, 2020)

scifisam said:


> That's not commuting. Commuting is going from your home to your regular office. What you're talking about is going from your home to a different place of work, and it's fairly common to be paid extra for that.


But we may be moving towards a situation where there's not such a clear distinction. At least for office type jobs.


----------



## scifisam (Aug 11, 2020)

teuchter said:


> But we may be moving towards a situation where there's not such a clear distinction. At least for office type jobs.



Yes, but currently we're not. 

There will need to be some restructuring but paying people less for working at home is not the way to go.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 11, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Yes, but currently we're not.
> 
> There will need to be some restructuring but paying people less for working at home is not the way to go.


It's inevitable that wages will be affected in some way, in the longer term. If you're a company based in the south of england that realises most of your employees don't need to physically be there, then why pay extra for people who live nearby in places with high housing costs when you can employ people in other parts of the UK who'll work for less?


----------



## scifisam (Aug 11, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It's inevitable that wages will be affected in some way, in the longer term. If you're a company based in the south of england that realises most of your employees don't need to physically be there, then why pay extra for people who live nearby in places with high housing costs when you can employ people in other parts of the UK who'll work for less?



Isn't that pretty much the opposite of paying people less for working from home?


----------



## xenon (Aug 11, 2020)

charge the company for leasing your Wi-Fi, office equipment, water, electricity.





Ms Ordinary said:


> .
> 
> 
> Unsurprisingly, someone at my work has already floated the idea that eventually, people who WFH could be paid less, as they no longer have to shell out for travel costs / higher cost of accommodation near work.
> ...


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Aug 11, 2020)

I am actually back in the office  
Hence catching up with the gossip...


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 11, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> I am actually back in the office
> Hence catching up with the gossip...


using the office wifi for personal use?
it WILL be deducted from your wages!


----------



## teuchter (Aug 11, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Isn't that pretty much the opposite of paying people less for working from home?


I don't think so no. I can see that it might increase some people's earning potential, if they live in parts of the UK with low living costs and few local jobs, but then it will decrease other people's earning potential, if they live in the more expensive parts of the country, because they will be competing with people from all over.


----------



## William of Walworth (Aug 12, 2020)

One decent perk where I am is subsidised work buses 
(A huge proportion of us, unlike me, live out of town).

These buses cost £2= a week -- you have to book space on them in these corona-times, but I'm currently saving on my normal £4:70 a day  day ticket on the town buses.

(Work buses set off far too early in the monring though   )


----------



## maomao (Aug 12, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I don't think so no. I can see that it might increase some people's earning potential, if they live in parts of the UK with low living costs and few local jobs, but then it will decrease other people's earning potential, if they live in the more expensive parts of the country, because they will be competing with people from all over.


That's not earning potential though. That's income left after living costs which is different. People who live in bedsits don't have more earning potential than people with massive mortgages.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 12, 2020)

Recession time!

Bet it's all Labours fault, always is according to those competent boys in blue who do such a good job with our economy.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

Are we now only reporting deaths figures once a week?


----------



## BlanketAddict (Aug 12, 2020)

My work asked today who was 'willing' to have a flu jab. 
What with voluntary redundancies already in action and involunteries hinted at, the question felt loaded, like a refusal would have your card marked.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 12, 2020)

BlanketAddict said:


> My work asked today who was 'willing' to have a flu jab.
> What with voluntary redundancies already in action and involunteries hinted at, the question felt loaded, like a refusal would have your card marked.



What's wrong with having a flu jab?


----------



## BlanketAddict (Aug 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> What's wrong with having a flu jab?



Nothing, as far as I know.


----------



## PD58 (Aug 12, 2020)

So 5000 did not die of Covid...

Covid death recount reduces UK deaths by 5,000


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 12, 2020)

PD58 said:


> So 5000 did not die of Covid...
> 
> Covid death recount reduces UK deaths by 5,000



Well, this brings England inline with the other 3 nations of the UK, which is sort of OK.

But, let's not forgot that these figures only count deaths of people that were actually tested & shown as positive, the far higher figure from the ONS includes all deaths where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate.


----------



## zahir (Aug 12, 2020)

PD58 said:


> So 5000 did not die of Covid...
> 
> Covid death recount reduces UK deaths by 5,000



As if you stop having Covid after 28 days. There’s an idea floating round in the background that it’s a bit like having a cold and maybe lasts for a couple of weeks, but where does this idea come from?


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

I would hope it was 'stopped automatically being classed as covid after 28 days' rather than 'definitely wasn't covid after that time' ! Surely it would be on a case by case basis? That's ridiculous otherwise.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

> Someone who stays in intensive care with Covid-19 for five weeks and dies would not be counted as a coronavirus death, for example.



Wtf? This can't be right.


----------



## Sue (Aug 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Wtf? This can't be right.


The numbers were counted differently in Scotland/Wales so if you had a positive test then died 29 days later, it wouldn't be classed as a Covid death. They were discussing this -- and lots of other interesting stuff -- on More of Less on Radio 4 this morning. (Repeated at 9 tonight or available on BBC Radio 4 - More or Less, Hawaiian Pizza, Obesity and a Second Wave?).


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

Surely it should be that it is not automatically counted, not that it is never counted


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

Spain did a similar recount iirc.


----------



## Sue (Aug 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Surely it should be that it is not automatically counted, not that it is never counted


They do have other stats (there's a lag) which provide more accurate numbers. (Also discussed in that programme.)


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

Sue said:


> They do have other stats (there's a lag) which provide more accurate numbers. (Also discussed in that programme.)



Are these the ONS stats or something else?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 12, 2020)

zahir said:


> As if you stop having Covid after 28 days. There’s an idea floating round in the background that it’s a bit like having a cold and maybe lasts for a couple of weeks, but where does this idea come from?


It's not that, though. Tbh this clears up something that's been bothering me for a while - the way UK deaths, and specifically England's, have not been falling as quickly as those of other places, and the way the vast majority of daily covid deaths are now outside hospital, when it used to be the other way around. tbf the BBC article explains this pretty well (for once) - the provisional headline figure will use this 28-day heuristic, but covid deaths after that time will be added later.


----------



## Sue (Aug 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Are these the ONS stats or something else?


Can't remember. But instead of 0 deaths in Scotland in the last five weeks, for example, these figures showed 34 in the four weeks they had numbers for.


----------



## belboid (Aug 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> What's wrong with having a flu jab?


caused a mass outbreak of laryngitis in Sunnydale twenty odd years ago.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 12, 2020)

belboid said:


> caused a mass outbreak of laryngitis in Sunnydale twenty odd years ago.



Not the same vaccine.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 12, 2020)

Sue said:


> Can't remember. But instead of 0 deaths in Scotland in the last five weeks, for example, these figures showed 34 in the four weeks they had numbers for.


 Will give that a listen, ta. 

It's a bit of a mess, stat-wise, cos the ONS stats seem only to cover England and Wales, not Scotland or NI. So there are a few different methodologies mixed up together.

It's hard to say this, cos it's Hancock and the Cunts, but this is actually a sensible thing to change.


----------



## Spandex (Aug 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's hard to say this, cos it's Hancock and the Cunts, but this is actually a sensible thing to change.


It's okay. You don't have to give credit to Hancock for this. This statistical anomaly was highlighted by Professor Yoon K Loke, of the University of East Anglia, and Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care back in the middle of July. It was all over the newspapers on 17th July, some shouting loudly about overcounting deaths. On the day of the publicity Hancock announced an urgent review and this change to the stats is the outcome of that.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Hancock and the Cunts.


Best band name ever!


----------



## belboid (Aug 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not the same vaccine.


Yeah, I’m pretty sure that that supplier got shut down.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 12, 2020)

belboid said:


> Yeah, I’m pretty sure that that supplier got shut down.


But it all got hushed up


----------



## elbows (Aug 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Will give that a listen, ta.
> 
> It's a bit of a mess, stat-wise, cos the ONS stats seem only to cover England and Wales, not Scotland or NI. So there are a few different methodologies mixed up together.
> 
> It's hard to say this, cos it's Hancock and the Cunts, but this is actually a sensible thing to change.



The NRS is Scotlands ONS equivalent. Their weekly updates come out on a Wednesday.






						Deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland | National Records of Scotland
					

National Records of Scotland




					www.nrscotland.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Aug 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's not that, though. Tbh this clears up something that's been bothering me for a while - the way UK deaths, and specifically England's, have not been falling as quickly as those of other places, and the way the vast majority of daily covid deaths are now outside hospital, when it used to be the other way around. tbf the BBC article explains this pretty well (for once) - the provisional headline figure will use this 28-day heuristic, but covid deaths after that time will be added later.



I wouldnt attribute that difference between Englands deaths and elsewhere to just the one reason.

I would, for example, be very tempted to include the fact our severe outbreaks and deaths were spread around large parts of the country in the explanation. Because some of the countries you could compare to England probably had outbreaks mostly centred on particular regions and a few cities etc in particular, so I'm not surprised their decline in deaths looked different to Englands.


----------



## MrSki (Aug 12, 2020)

So if someone is on a ventilator in IC for five weeks and dies they are not a covid stat? Fuckiing bollocks


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## xenon (Aug 12, 2020)

There's a thing on social media that a lot of people died of something else but since they were suspected of having Covid19 or actualy tested post mortom and found positive, it's that goes on the death cert. This sounds like obvious bollocks but an extreme example I heard, a guy die in a motorcycle accident. Suspected of having Covid19, no symptoms, just assumed and that went on the death cert. Fucking up an insurance claims for his relatives in the process.

This is obviously so wack but how are Covid19 deaths recorded. What counts as dieing of Covid19?


----------



## MrSki (Aug 12, 2020)

Well if you have been on a ventilator for five weeks & die then this will no longer be counted as a covid death which seems out to lunch.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

Unless they are going to add those deaths back into the figures, which wouldn't surprise me, but then why just announce that 5000 were being taken off before they have finalised everything.


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## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

I think there was a debunking on twitter of the motorcycle accident thing (except it was America this allegedly happened not here), I've logged off it for a couple of days and don't know if I wanna go digging for it now.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 12, 2020)

xenon said:


> There's a thing on social media that a lot of people died of something else but since they were suspected of having Covid19 or actualy tested post mortom and found positive, it's that goes on the death cert. This sounds like obvious bollocks but an extreme example I heard, a guy die in a motorcycle accident. Suspected of having Covid19, no symptoms, just assumed and that went on the death cert. Fucking up an insurance claims for his relatives in the process.
> 
> This is obviously so wack but how are Covid19 deaths recorded. *What counts as dieing of Covid19?*


That's basically not 100% clear. And it can't be really - comorbidities and that - hence the phrase 'dying with Covid-19'. 

But this isn't quite what some people are making it out to be. Up to now, anyone who has ever tested positive for C19 who subsequently dies has been counted on the England stats, and that does explain why those stats have been staying a bit high in the last few weeks. And people who die of covid after more than 4 weeks will still be counted, but only after having been individually evaluated as dying from c-19, rather than in the proverbial car crash. Up to now, it appears to have been a semi-automated process in which c-19 positive test at any time plus death equals a c-19 death, which is anomalous now that we're many months into the pandemic. 

(It's not really crashes, though, really, in most cases. In most cases it is people who were taken ill some months ago with c-19, many of them very old or already very ill, who then die of something else.)


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## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> The NRS is Scotlands ONS equivalent. Their weekly updates come out on a Wednesday.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



As far as I know neither of the stats counters (worldometers and jhu) are using the ONS figures in their calculations but I could be wrong on that.

I am sure there are various arguments for the change and I'm sure some have been incorrectly recorded as covid when it is not, but I find it really hard to believe it's as much as 5000 and we all know this lot will try and fiddle the figures for just about anything to make themselves look better.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> As far as I know neither of the stats counters (worldometers and jhu) are using the ONS figures in their calculations but I could be wrong on that.


Worldometers uses the daily releases, so not ONS. I think JHU is the same, but can't swear by it.

But they do adjust periodically when better data comes out. Sweden's death distribution got rearranged significantly (same number, but very different dates) on Worldometers when the Swedish authorities released new figures a few weeks ago.


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## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Worldometers uses the daily releases, so not ONS. I think JHU is the same, but can't swear by it.
> 
> But they do adjust periodically when better data comes out. Sweden's death distribution got rearranged significantly (same number, but very different dates) on Worldometers when the Swedish authorities released new figures a few weeks ago.



Yeah i read Sweden's numbers are often back dated from a while ago I think (I think some other countries do it the same way).


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah i read Sweden's numbers are often back dated from a while ago I think (I think some other countries do it the same way).


tbf I know it sounds like I might be making excuses for the authorities, but I don't think most countries, even England, are trying to fiddle the figures. It's just not that easy to keep track of it all. Worldometers and others also try to keep things as consistent as they can, but with methodologies varying across countries and time, it's not easy. 

And 41,000 is still fuckloads. Plus you can't hide from the most basic figure, which is the excess deaths figure. That's the best one really, as it also catches the collateral damage of those killed by the response to covid rather than covid itself. It won't be changed by this adjustment. It's still horrible reading.


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## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

It's ridiculous to argue that someone didnt die of covid if they died in hospital and died after 5 weeks instead of 4 though. I really hope that the BBC has misreported that part.

And yeah 41000 is still loads, I wasnt arguing otherwise. Just that it seems dodgy to me especially since we know from death certificate numbers marked with covid that way more than that have died.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It's ridiculous to argue that someone didnt die of covid if they died in hospital and died after 5 weeks instead of 4 though. I really hope that the BBC has misreported that part.


No, that's not what will happen. They won't be included in the rather mechanical part of the process that gives the daily figure, but their death will be added later.


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## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

I really hope you are right because there are more than enough problems with their pandemic response as it is.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I really hope you are right because there are more than enough problems with their pandemic response as it is.


It's still a bit mechanical. A 28 day figure daily, plus a 60 day figure weekly, but no time limit if c-19 is mentioned on the death certificate. 



> Now the UK's four chief medical officers have decided to use a single, consistent measure and publish the number of deaths that occurred within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test confirmed in a lab, every day.
> 
> Every week for England, a new set of figures will be published showing the number of deaths that occur within 60 days of a positive test.
> 
> Deaths that occur after 60 days - such as those who have been in intensive care for many months - will also be added in if Covid-19 appears on the death certificate.



It's fair enough if that's what everyone else is doing, tbh. Cos we're all going on Worldometers or JHU and comparing countries.


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## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's still a bit mechanical. A 28 day figure daily, plus a 60 day figure weekly, but no time limit if c-19 is mentioned on the death certificate.
> 
> 
> 
> It's fair enough if that's what everyone else is doing, tbh. Cos we're all going on Worldometers or JHU and comparing countries.



That makes a bit more sense, the way the bbc reported it sounded like more attempts at covering shit up (I know other countries do it too , it doesn't necessarily make it better). I really hope it is true.

Thing is covid causes long term issues and increases the risks of blood clots and strokes, I've heard of people ending up in hospital from those sort of complications a month or few weeks later, and there is that illness a small  number of children get weeks later.

I guess if they aren't 100% what caused it the covid illness could be mentioned as a possible contributing factor.


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## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's fair enough if that's what everyone else is doing, tbh. Cos we're all going on Worldometers or JHU and comparing countries.



Worldometers and JHU only go by what countries report obviously. We probably won't know the real numbers for years but they give you kind of an idea.


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## Maltin (Aug 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> No, that's not what will happen. They won't be included in the rather mechanical part of the process that gives the daily figure, but their death will be added later.


How? Where will it be added? I’m sure the ONS data will pick it up but not the figures that most media report on regularly. It just seems an attempt to slightly reduce the regularly reported data to make things look better and remove an inconsistency and some errors but introduce others that won’t be reported or focused on widely when those errors are corrected by others. Maybe this is why there is talk of removing these daily figures to avoid future underreporting of deaths under the new methodology.


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## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

It will throw doubt on the future corrections of those errors too.


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## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

Maltin said:


> How? Where will it be added? I’m sure the ONS data will pick it up but not the figures that most media report on regularly. It just seems an attempt to slightly reduce the regularly reported data to make things look better and remove an inconsistency and some errors but introduce others that won’t be reported or focused on widely when those errors are corrected by others. Maybe this is why there is talk of removing these daily figures to avoid future underreporting of deaths under the new methodology.



Yep.


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## frogwoman (Aug 12, 2020)

If they are gonna end up adding some of them back then why not do that first and calculate as accurate a figure as they can, rather than releasing a potentially incomplete figure as though it's definitive?


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## DexterTCN (Aug 12, 2020)

The important thing is that no-one is defending this pathetic tory attempt at manipulating death statistics to their benefit.

(I haven't read the whole thread)


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 12, 2020)

DexterTCN said:


> The important thing is that no-one is defending this pathetic tory attempt at manipulating death statistics to their benefit.
> 
> (I haven't read the whole thread)
> 
> View attachment 226315


The important thing is to understand how the stats come about, all of them, especially if you want to compare them - what the strengths and shortcomings of various counting methods are and how they should be handled.

I know you have a particular interest in Scotland. All England is doing is adjusting its stats to match those of Scotland. So there are really only two possibilities here. First: a shortcoming in current English counting methodology has been identified and adjusted. Second, the Tories are attempting to manipulate death statistics to their benefit in a way that the Scottish authorities - and, by your reasoning, the Scottish government - have been doing, presumably pathetically, all along.

They had to make this change, or a change like it, at some point. You understand that, yes? You understand the change they made and why they made it?


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## Maltin (Aug 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The important thing is to understand how the stats come about, all of them, especially if you want to compare them - what the strengths and shortcomings of various counting methods are and how they should be handled.
> 
> I know you have a particular interest in Scotland. All England is doing is adjusting its stats to match those of Scotland. So there are really only two possibilities here. First: a shortcoming in current English counting methodology has been identified and adjusted. Second, the Tories are attempting to manipulate death statistics to their benefit in a way that the Scottish authorities - and, by your reasoning, the Scottish government - have been doing, presumably pathetically, all along.
> 
> They had to make this change, or a change like it, at some point. You understand that, yes? You understand the change they made and why they made it?


This seems a bit of a disingenuous post. Surely you know that what the government has done is not just “adjusted its stats to match Scotland”. You suggest that there are only two possibilities which to me sounds as if you’re suggesting they are binary, where I would say what they’ve done is a mixture of the two and more geared toward the latter. You say they had to make this change but why? I agree that their methodology was flawed and could be improved but to make a change like this when the earlier figures are likely understated in the first place so the regularly reported figures will now be even more widely inaccurate of the situation as a whole, seems a bit bizarre.  Maybe I would be more accepting if they didn’t just write off 5,000 deaths that have happened presumably mostly due to COVID19, and just announced new deaths under their new methodology.


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## DexterTCN (Aug 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The important thing is to understand how the stats come about, all of them, especially if you want to compare them - what the strengths and shortcomings of various counting methods are and how they should be handled.
> 
> I know you have a particular interest in Scotland. All England is doing is adjusting its stats to match those of Scotland. So there are really only two possibilities here. First: a shortcoming in current English counting methodology has been identified and adjusted. Second, the Tories are attempting to manipulate death statistics to their benefit in a way that the Scottish authorities - and, by your reasoning, the Scottish government - have been doing, presumably pathetically, all along.
> 
> They had to make this change, or a change like it, at some point. You understand that, yes? You understand the change they made and why they made it?


I'm reasonably sure that you can't expand the terms of your definition and at the same time reduce yout total.

IIRC this isn't the first time the tories have changed the way they count deaths...or don't count them.  Like a lot of people I view any change such as this with an extremely cynical eye.  I understand that not everyone does.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2020)

Maltin said:


> This seems a bit of a disingenuous post. Surely you know that what the government has done is not just “adjusted its stats to match Scotland”. You suggest that there are only two possibilities which to me sounds as if you’re suggesting they are binary, where I would say what they’ve done is a mixture of the two and more geared toward the latter. You say they had to make this change but why? I agree that their methodology was flawed and could be improved but to make a change like this when the earlier figures are likely understated in the first place so the regularly reported figures will now be even more widely inaccurate of the situation as a whole, seems a bit bizarre.  Maybe I would be more accepting if they didn’t just write off 5,000 deaths that have happened presumably mostly due to COVID19, and just announced new deaths under their new methodology.


That's where the 'excess deaths' figure comes in. I'm not saying we should passively accept all reasoning from the authorities. Far from it. We need to interrogate the figures thoroughly. Understanding this kind of change is part of that interrogation.

I apologise for the Scotland thing. That was tailored specifically for Dexter, whose opposition to the Tories has a specifically nationalist flavour to it.


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 13, 2020)

The daily reported deaths, i.e. cases that had tested positive, used to always be lower than those reported by the ONS, i.e. cases when Covid is mentioned on the death certificate, yet that hadn't been the case in more recent weeks, so there was clearly something wrong with the daily figures.

The ONS data involves a lag, their latest figures are from week ending 31 July 2020 (Week 31), and report 193 Covid deaths, an average 27.5 per day, whereas the average of the daily figures for that week was around 55, basically double the ONS figure. Although the ONS' own data only covers England & Wales, they add in the figures released by Scotland & NI, see bolded bit below. 

I'll just re-cap those as figures for the week - ONS (England & Wales) 193 + 7 for Scotland + 1 for NI = 201. The daily reported figures for the week had been around 385, which would appear well out.

The adjusted daily average for that week is now 15, 12.5 lower than the ONS figure, but likely to be adjusted upwards once checks are done on those dying up to 60 days after a positive test, which are no longer automatically included, but where the cause is indeed Covid, bringing it even more inline with the ONS data.

The daily figures have always been a rough & ready guide, I personally believe the ONS data is the important one.



> The number of deaths registered in England and Wales in the week ending 31 July 2020 (Week 31) was 8,946; this was 55 more deaths than in Week 30.
> In Week 31, the number of deaths registered was 1.0% below the five-year average (90 deaths fewer); this is the seventh consecutive week that deaths have been below the five-year average.
> Of the deaths registered in Week 31, 193 mentioned "novel coronavirus (COVID-19)", the lowest number of deaths involving COVID-19 in the last 19 weeks and a 11.1% decrease compared with Week 30 (217 deaths), accounting for 2.2% of all deaths in England and Wales.
> *The number of deaths registered in the UK in the week ending 31 July 2020 (Week 31) was 10,242, which was 42 deaths fewer than the five-year average; of the deaths registered in the UK in Week 31, 201 deaths involved COVID-19.*







__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus pandemic, by age, sex and region.



					www.ons.gov.uk


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That's where the 'excess deaths' figure comes in.



TBH, that doesn't help much, as deaths this year were tracking below the 5-year average before Covid hit, and has been again for the last 7 weeks too, despite there being Covid deaths.


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## frogwoman (Aug 13, 2020)

Thanks for the explanation. I really hope you're right, but I'm not confident that some sort of attempt at making the number look better doesn't come into it especially because the later upwards corrections probably wont be reported as widely as this has. And we all know about the Tories propensity to massage the unemployment and 'economically inactive' figures tbh so it's not a surprise people are suspicious. I realise 'it's the sort of thing they do' isnt a great argument though. 

I know this makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist and your explanation makes a lot of sense, I'm still not sure about it though particularly since corrections probably won't be as reported or publicised widely.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBH, that doesn't help much, as deaths this year were tracking below the 5-year average before Covid hit, and has been again for the last 7 weeks too, despite there being Covid deaths.


That shows a couple of things. 

First that covid deaths have been very low in the last 7 weeks. More people are dying of flu now than covid. So covid has dropped right down the pecking order for the moment. 

Second, tracking low for a while after the horrendous numbers of April/May is a reflection of the fact that covid took out the old and the sick. It's to be expected given the demographic of covid victims - median age around 81. 

As ever all these numbers need to be understood in context, with their advantages and limits taken into account. You're dead right though that the daily covid death figure was always a very crude measure that needed to be treated with caution.


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 13, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Thanks for the explanation. I really hope you're right, but I'm not confident that some sort of attempt at making the number look better doesn't come into it especially because the later upwards corrections probably wont be reported as widely as this has. And we all know about the Tories propensity to massage the unemployment and 'economically inactive' figures tbh so it's not a surprise people are suspicious. I realise 'it's the sort of thing they do' isnt a great argument though.
> 
> I know this makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist and your explanation makes a lot of sense, I'm still not sure about it though particularly since corrections probably won't be as reported or publicised widely.



Just trust the ONS data, as that is based on registered deaths, it's normally reported, but as it's only released weekly people tend to forget it, and focus on the daily figures, which were handy for spotting trends during the peak, but clearly not so good when the numbers are so low.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2020)

One final point about excess deaths. They're tracking low now in part cos they were tracking so high before, but taken in bigger chunks, such as the first six months of this year or this whole year to date, they're awful reading for the UK in general and England in particular. So I will excuse the govt for changing this particular headline figure cos the reasoning behind the change is sound, but in no way am I making excuses for overall performance during this Covid year, which is what really matters, after all.


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## frogwoman (Aug 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That shows a couple of things.
> 
> First that covid deaths have been very low in the last 7 weeks. More people are dying of flu now than covid.



I agree that covid deaths are currently low, but more people dying of flu, a highly seasonal infection with at least a 6 times lower death rate, in the middle of August?


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I agree that covid deaths are currently low, but more people dying of flu, a highly seasonal infection with at least a 6 times lower death rate, in the middle of August?


Yep.

UK Covid Tracker

Track down to the bottom of this page. It gives the ONS figures for flu/covid.

It interests me because the measures we're taking to avoid catching covid will also be reducing flu, but not as much, evidently.


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## maomao (Aug 13, 2020)

I'm all for statistical accuracy but there'll be a bunch of people today saying 'see, I told you they'd over reported, I bet it comes down more'.

I'd rather people were very very careful going into September rather than feeling vindicated in their conspiralunacy. 





littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep.
> 
> UK Covid Tracker
> 
> ...


It gives 'flu like deaths' which is not the same thing as flu. Could be anything from Covid without a positive test to certain kinds of poisoning.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'd rather people were very very careful going into September rather than feeling vindicated in their conspiralunacy.
> It gives 'flu like deaths' which is not the same thing as flu. Could be anything from Covid without a positive test to certain kinds of poisoning.


Yes and no. It says that because of reporting and testing issues - ie people suspected of dying of covid are given a covid test, while people suspected of dying of flu aren't so much. Any stats showing annual flu deaths will be quoting a 'flu like deaths' figure at you.


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## maomao (Aug 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes and no. It says that because of reporting and testing issues - ie people suspected of dying of covid are given a covid test, while people suspected of dying of flu aren't so much. Any stats showing annual flu deaths will be quoting a 'flu like deaths' figure at you.


I'm aware of this, flu testing is very rare. However diseases that resemble flu are very common and there's no current flu epidemic. Non seasonal flu  deaths are not necessarily connected to influenza viruses:









						Protocol to investigate non-seasonal influenza and other emerging acute respiratory diseases
					

Protocol to investigate non-seasonal influenza and other emerging acute respiratory diseases




					www.who.int


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## frogwoman (Aug 13, 2020)

Can even be bacterial infections (and if your lungs are fucked up by a previous bout of the rona, or a bad flu for that matter then this could make you more susceptible to it) and humidity is bad for that kind of thing.


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'm aware of this, flu testing is very rare. However diseases that resemble flu are very common and there's no current flu epidemic. Non seasonal flu  deaths are not necessarily connected to influenza viruses:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ok, I'll clarify it happily  - covid deaths are currently running much lower than flu-like deaths, and have been for a little while. 

But I'll hold you to the same standards if you ever talk about flu deaths in the future.


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## maomao (Aug 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> But I'll hold you to the same standards if you ever talk about flu deaths in the future.


Fill your boots. I just think your original post is misleading because it suggests there is a virus killing more people than the coronavirus which is certainly not a known fact.

In flu season the proportion of flu like deaths that are actual flu is considerably higher.


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## elbows (Aug 13, 2020)

The comparison category the ONS have highlighted is actually called 'Influenza and Pneumonia'.





__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus pandemic, by age, sex and region.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				






> The International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Edition (ICD-10) definitions are as follows: coronavirus (COVID-19) (U07.1 and U07.2) and Influenza and Pneumonia (J09-J18).





> A death can be registered with both COVID-19 and Influenza and Pneumonia mentioned on the death certificate. Because pneumonia may be a consequence of COVID-19, deaths where both were mentioned have been counted only in the COVID-19 category.





> In Week 31, 12.5% of all deaths mentioned "Influenza and Pneumonia", COVID-19 or both, compared with 13.2% in Week 30. "Influenza and Pneumonia" has been included for comparison, as a well-understood cause of death involving respiratory infection that is likely to have somewhat similar risk factors to COVID-19.


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## maomao (Aug 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> The comparison category the ONS have highlighted is actually called 'Influenza and Pneumonia'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The full list of things covered by J09-J18 is:



J09Influenza due to certain identified influenza virusesJ10Influenza due to other identified influenza virusJ11Influenza due to unidentified influenza virusJ12Viral pneumonia, not elsewhere classifiedJ13Pneumonia due to Streptococcus pneumoniaeJ14Pneumonia due to Hemophilus influenzaeJ15Bacterial pneumonia, not elsewhere classifiedJ16Pneumonia due to other infectious organisms, not elsewhere classifiedJ17Pneumonia in diseases classified elsewhereJ18Pneumonia, unspecified organism

So would include a multitide of ailments that aren't 'flu'. A childhood death from croup for example.


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## 8ball (Aug 13, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Can even be bacterial infections (and if your lungs are fucked up by a previous bout of the rona, or a bad flu for that matter then this could make you more susceptible to it) and humidity is bad for that kind of thing.



"The rona" - I thought that was a Scottish expression..  

</derail>


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## souljacker (Aug 13, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'm all for statistical accuracy but there'll be a bunch of people today saying 'see, I told you they'd over reported, I bet it comes down more'.


My conspiraloon mate said exactly this last night.


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## elbows (Aug 13, 2020)

Nanker Phelge said:


> Anyone got a local perspective on the Northampton situation. I got some vulnerable folk working in the office and they are freaking about the idea of local lockdown.



I remembered your post from a while back. Northampton has been in the news today:



> A sandwich-making company in the UK says “a number” of its workers have tested positive for coronavirus at its factory in Northampton, in the East Midlands.
> 
> Greencore said in a statement that it had decided to "start proactively testing" all of its workers at its Northampton site after a rise of Covid-19 cases in the area.
> 
> "We can confirm that a number of colleagues have tested positive for the virus and are now self-isolating," it said.





> The director of public health at Northamptonshire County Council, Lucy Wightman, said the borough had been experiencing a "high number of cases over the last four weeks" and employers had been asked to "act now" to avoid a local lockdown.



From 12:46 of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-53730372

edit - ah it has its own story now:









						Coronavirus: Greencore staff self-isolate after outbreak
					

Health officials are working with the sandwich makers in Northampton, where 299 tested positive.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 13, 2020)

souljacker said:


> My conspiraloon mate said exactly this last night.


My "I'm only asking questions" acquaintances were all over it repeatedly yesterday :/


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## elbows (Aug 13, 2020)

A not too subtle degree of bias from Northamptonshires director of public health in the quotes from that article methinks:



> Mrs Wightman said Greencore had "highly effective measures in place and they continue to work extremely hard to exceed the requirements needed to be Covid-19 secure within the workplace".
> 
> She said the outbreak was "about how people behave outside of Greencore, not at work," adding if people failed to follow the rules "a possible local lockdown will follow".


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## elbows (Aug 13, 2020)

Personally I'd tend to believe that if a single employer can detect 299 cases and they arent thought to involve infection at that workplace, surely thats a sign of very high levels of community spread and they should arguably already be in some sort of lockdown.

But I'm not convinced that is the actual picture, and 'continue to work extremely hard to exceed the requirements' is such a weasel statement. I could fall exceedingly far short of 'covid secure' but could still be said to be working hard to exceed the standards.


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## zora (Aug 13, 2020)

I literally just read that myself and was thinking the same thing. If NHS testing returns 70-odd cases and employer testing nearly 300 - either cases in the community generally must be magnitudes higher, or the workplace situation isn't all that.
Like with all health and safety measures, I think anyone who has ever worked for any company, will know that the written proposals/requirements and the reality of the everyday work situation are not always the same. 

My company is saying all the right things as well, and it all looks great on paper, but in reality we are all run so ragged (while x-number of staff are still on furlough to save the company money...), that it is impossible in every single situation to keep a cool head and manage social distancing to perfection (let alone the different buy-in to the rules among staff and customers, and the whole human nature thing of operating at the distances that come naturally to us, or wanting to make ourselves understood- hence people removing masks when speaking to others etc). 

I very strongly have the feeling that my workplace is covid-secure while noone with actual covid is in it...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Personally I'd tend to believe that if a single employer can detect 299 cases and they arent thought to involve infection at that workplace, surely thats a sign of very high levels of community spread and they should arguably already be in some sort of lockdown.
> 
> But I'm not convinced that is the actual picture, and 'continue to work extremely hard to exceed the requirements' is such a weasel statement. I could fall exceedingly far short of 'covid secure' but could still be said to be working hard to exceed the standards.


This sort of shit really fucks me off, tbh. And this is where employers are taking their lead from the government - a clear workplace outbreak, with what looks like a massive superspreader event, and yet of course they are doing everything right. 

_Yet another_ food processing factory.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> A not too subtle degree of bias from Northamptonshires director of public health in the quotes from that article methinks:


I just reread that. It is actually quite shocking for her to say that with a straight face. Blame the workers!!!


----------



## Supine (Aug 13, 2020)

That company has fucked up somehow someway. Can't believe they are allowed to keep running with so many cases.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2020)

Supine said:


> That company has fucked up somehow someway. Can't believe they are allowed to keep running with so many cases.


The answer may be a bit worse than that. The answer could be that they more or less followed the regulations, but that the regulations, in certain settings, for reasons perhaps not yet well understood, are inadequate. There has to be a reason why these workplaces are continually being implicated - it won't just be because food processing companies are uniquely shit employers.

That's why that director of public health's response is both out of order and woefully inadequate. It is the exact opposite of what it should have been - this is clearly a workplace outbreak, we need to understand why it happened. That doesn't necessarily need to involve throwing out blame, and it may  be counterproductive to do so. But it needs to be acknowledged otherwise it will just happen again. How often, if at all, are the workers there tested, for instance? Is it every week? If not, why not, given that we know how quickly a superspreader event can escalate in the right setting, and we know that food processing factories can be the right setting, even if we may not know exactly why that is the case?

One possible strategy in this kind of thing could be to test a set proportion of the workforce every day, then to test everyone if any of those tests comes back positive. Or there could be batch testing to save on costs, again with everyone tested if it comes back positive. Cos even weekly testing, if it's everyone at the same time, may not catch a big spread in time. It could be that testing like this to catch infection before it gets the chance to spread is the single most important measure you can take. Such approaches have worked thus far in the various sporting events taking place around Europe.


----------



## elbows (Aug 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I just reread that. It is actually quite shocking for her to say that with a straight face. Blame the workers!!!



Its a very slightly more mixed message if I read two local press articles that include comments from her, but still plenty to get angry about. In part I think because this story came out in two different goes today, with the first one lacking any info about how many cases there actually were.









						Outbreak of Covid-19 at Northampton food factory confirmed by health authority
					

The factory makes food such as pre-packed sandwiches and employees hundreds of people




					www.northamptonchron.co.uk
				












						Number of Coronavirus cases in outbreak at Northampton factory confirmed by health officials
					

Around a tenth of the overall workforce has tested positive for the virus




					www.northamptonchron.co.uk
				




I saw similar messages here in Nuneaton when they decided to be mealy-mouthed about what was clearly mostly a story of an outbreak due to hospital infections. There were plenty of appeals to the public then too, even though most of what mattered was dealt with by actually sorting out the hospitals infection control and temporarily closing some wards. Its pretty understandable that public health officials are going to focus their public messages on appeals to the public to behave in certain ways. But this turns into some very ugly messaging when it is combined with their instincts to protect individual institutions, establishments and businesses from criticism and blame. Which is part of the general culture of keeping a lid on things in public that are awkward and embarrassing for institutions etc. They can justify it to themselves because the measures they take to get a grip on infections in those places can be handled privately, without the pesky public attention. Behind closed doors they can employ a degree of frankness that has sadly evaporated when it comes to public discourse because they've been educated that the professional and responsible approach involves empty platitudes and templated weasel words. But it undermines public confidence because we should still have a right to understand failings that happen in these settings, and unvarnished bluntness really does matter if you want people to have any sense of things being handled openly and fairly.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a very slightly more mixed message if I read two local press articles that include comments from her, but still plenty to get angry about. In part I think because this story came out in two different goes today, with the first one lacking any info about how many cases there actually were.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well yes, I would hope that she would be saying something a bit different in private, but as you say, this kind of gaslighting, which is what it is really, does nobody any good, and frankly it makes the officials spouting the bullshit look ridiculous. Why should anyone listen to someone saying such obvious bollocks?


----------



## elbows (Aug 13, 2020)

The only reason I'm not going further with ranting right now is because I'm trying to take a rant break this week and the picture in Northampton seems to have been bad for a long time, and absent from the news today was much indication of what time period all the testing at that workplace has covered. So I dont want to zoom in too much at the expense of the broader infection picture there. Doesnt make her comments any better though. 

I'll be digging other graphs of Northampton data out at this rate, but not right now.


----------



## elbows (Aug 13, 2020)

The latest entrants on the UK quarantine list:









						Coronavirus: France to be added to UK quarantine countries
					

Many of the 160,000 Britons in France face a scramble to return before 04:00 BST on Saturday.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> People coming to the UK from France and the Netherlands will be forced to quarantine for 14 days from Saturday.
> 
> Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the measure - which also applies to people travelling from Monaco, Malta, Turks and Caicos, and Aruba, would kick in from 04:00 BST.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 13, 2020)

Dont need any foreigners coming over with the virus, plenty of good old fashioned British virus to go around.


----------



## ChrisD (Aug 13, 2020)

France travel advice
					

Latest FCDO travel advice for France including on entry requirements, safety and security and local laws and customs.




					www.gov.uk
				




I presume there will be some jostling for places on UK bound ferries tomorrow....


----------



## elbows (Aug 13, 2020)

Some of the oven-ready easing that they backed out of recently is now set to go ahead:









						Coronavirus: Lockdown to ease further in England from Saturday
					

More beauty treatments, small wedding receptions and live indoor shows can resume this weekend.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Aug 13, 2020)

I note that they are continuing to attempt to offset the image of relaxations with some tough talk on compliance, fines increasing etc.



> Home Secretary Priti Patel said she would not allow progress against the virus to be undermined by "a small minority of senseless individuals".



I agree, so why havent the government resigned, since that is clearly where many of the senseless individuals in question have been found via our cack and disgrace system?


----------



## agricola (Aug 13, 2020)

Half a million people are on holiday just in France, apparently.

One imagines a competent government would have spoken to Eurostar / Eurotunnel / the ferry companies / BA and the airlines etc and asked them to put on extra services tomorrow.  I wonder if our government has done that?


----------



## PursuedByBears (Aug 13, 2020)

agricola said:


> Half a million people are on holiday just in France, apparently.
> 
> One imagines a competent government would have spoken to Eurostar / Eurotunnel / the ferry companies / BA and the airlines etc and asked them to put on extra services tomorrow.  I wonder if our government has done that?


{Hollow laughter}


----------



## 8115 (Aug 13, 2020)

.


----------



## xenon (Aug 13, 2020)

Well if you’ve gone to France or anywhere in Europe in the last two weeks and not been somewhat prepared for this as a potentiality. You’re a bit of an idiot. unless you booked this months ago in which case you’re unlikely to get home a day earlier if you’ve already booked your return. I do have sympathy for those people.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 13, 2020)

agricola said:


> One imagines a competent government would have spoken to Eurostar / Eurotunnel / the ferry companies / BA and the airlines etc and asked them to put on extra services tomorrow.  I wonder if our government has done that?


Wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose of the quarantine?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 14, 2020)

PursuedByBears said:


> {Hollow laughter}


{echoes...}


----------



## andysays (Aug 14, 2020)

agricola said:


> Half a million people are on holiday just in France, apparently.
> 
> One imagines a competent government would have spoken to Eurostar / Eurotunnel / the ferry companies / BA and the airlines etc and asked them to put on extra services tomorrow.  I wonder if our government has done that?


I'm really not sure that Eurostar / Eurotunnel / the ferry companies / BA and the airlines etc are able to significantly increase their services like that with only a day's notice.

But any lingering doubts that we actually have a competent government should have been dispelled by now, surely.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 14, 2020)

agricola said:


> Half a million people are on holiday just in France, apparently.
> 
> One imagines a competent government would have spoken to Eurostar / Eurotunnel / the ferry companies / BA and the airlines etc and asked them to put on extra services tomorrow.  I wonder if our government has done that?



Any competent government would have told people to avoid travelling abroad as much as possible during a fucking pandemic.


----------



## wiskey (Aug 14, 2020)

It's not just France though is it, it's anybody who drives through France to get to a port. So my friends in Italy, who chose to drive not fly, also have to quarantine.


----------



## LDC (Aug 14, 2020)

wiskey said:


> It's not just France though is it, it's anybody who drives through France to get to a port. So my friends in Italy, who chose to drive not fly, also have to quarantine.



That's still France, they're not being quarantined for having been in Italy, but for having been in France, even if it is briefly. It's logical, and it'd be ridiculous and open to abuse to try and make it more complex.

I'm just surprised people are going abroad currently tbh, and if you do you can't really complain when things like this happen.


----------



## magneze (Aug 14, 2020)

I would like to thumbs up that more. Is a holiday that important?


----------



## agricola (Aug 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Wouldn't that kind of defeat the purpose of the quarantine?



Announcing it now but delaying it until 4AM on Saturday has a much greater effect there - all this is going to do is firstly make travelling back today seem like a priority for tens / hundreds of thousands of people, and secondly make everyone (who is in a position to do it) in France that can't get back but who wants to avoid quarantine go to Germany, Italy or especially the Channel Islands and get back from there.


----------



## LDC (Aug 14, 2020)

agricola said:


> Announcing it now but delaying it until 4AM on Saturday has a much greater effect there - all this is going to do is firstly make travelling back today seem like a priority for tens / hundreds of thousands of people, and secondly make everyone (who is in a position to do it) in France that can't get back but who wants to avoid quarantine go to Germany, Italy or especially the Channel Islands and get back from there.



I can see it both ways, some people will need some time to make arrangements to be able to quarantine and a warning is better for them maybe? I very much doubt any significant numbers of people will change travel plans to try and dodge the quarantine by leaving now and coming back via another country, that'd be quite a logistical and organisational feat to be able to do that at such short notice for most people.

I also suspect an announcement on the hour/day it comes into force would result in much outpouring of annoyance by people saying there should have been some warning of it. The reckoning would be this way is the most likely to cause the least disruption and best compliance I'd think.


----------



## Smangus (Aug 14, 2020)

The Spanish last minute quarantine fiasco should have been enough warning to people about how this could go. 500,000 peeps caught out , nightmare for them .


----------



## LDC (Aug 14, 2020)

Traveling abroad for a holiday during an pandemic? Be prepared for it to be slightly complicated and potentially a right pain in the arse. What a surprise.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 14, 2020)

People were pretty much encouraged during late June and early July to book holidays abroad.  Having done so, they weren’t then going to not go.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 14, 2020)

kabbes said:


> People were pretty much encouraged during late June and early July to book holidays abroad.  Having done so, they weren’t then going to not go.



I wonder how Grant Schapps is enjoying quarantine.


----------



## Spandex (Aug 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Some of the oven-ready easing that they backed out of recently is now set to go ahead:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So two weeks ago we were at "the outer edge of what we can do and therefore choices are going to be made" according to Whitty. There was talk of closing pubs so that schools can reopen. From tomorrow casinos, soft play and indoor theatre, live music and performance venues can reopen.

Has the situation changed significantly in the last fortnight or is it just that choices have been made?


----------



## LDC (Aug 14, 2020)

kabbes said:


> People were pretty much encouraged during late June and early July to book holidays abroad.  Having done so, they weren’t then going to not go.



Were they? I never felt encouraged to book a holiday abroad.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 14, 2020)

My mum is planning a trip to italy with her friend in September.  I told her I wasn't going travel or stay overnight anywhere even in the uk for the foreseeable future, I think she thinks she will get around it and she told me she would probably ignore the quarantine on return if there is one. Why would you go? There is covid testing at the airport and on arrival and if even one person on the plane has a positive test your holiday is over.

I love travelling and being on holiday and I've got friends in loads of different countries, I was planning to try and get to sweden next year to visit mates (assuming herd immunity has been achieved there and it's all good  ) However being on holiday isn't the most important thing in my life at the moment.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 14, 2020)

magneze said:


> I would like to thumbs up that more. Is a holiday that important?


I think holidays are very important to take a break from work, relax and do something different. I don’t think holidays overseas are sensible right now but I do understand why some have gone and assume that they know the risks.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 14, 2020)

Maltin said:


> I think holidays are very important to take a break from work, relax and do something different. I don’t think holidays overseas are sensible right now but I do understand why some have gone and assume that they know the risks.



I agree.


----------



## Supine (Aug 14, 2020)

Just been into an emergency work meeting.

Company are concerned about lockdown easing and people’s complacency in the uk. For the future we are doubling down on covid restrictions, working from home where possible for the foreseeable and being asked to challenge any unsafe behaviours on site, even if it’s from the management team.

That’s how it should be done


----------



## andysays (Aug 14, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Were they? I never felt encouraged to book a holiday abroad.
> 
> View attachment 226504


There have been, to say the least, mixed messages around this, as around most other stuff.

And the overall priority of the government appears to have been to encourage people to start spending money to get the economy going again, including taking foreign holidays.


----------



## Chilli.s (Aug 14, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I wonder how Grant Schapps is enjoying quarantine.


Pretty sure it doesn't apply to him.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 14, 2020)

Maltin said:


> I think holidays are very important to take a break from work, relax and do something different. I don’t think holidays overseas are sensible right now but I do understand why some have gone and assume that they know the risks.


I agree, but I'm not so sure about "they know the risks" - if you listen to most people making a (non-professional) assessment of risk, a lot of it boils down to a fairly binary "Argh, no" vs "Feh, it'll be FINE". My guess is that for a lot of people making (or assessing) holiday plans, the presumption will be in favour of continuing with the original plan, ie. going. 

Of course, if the government wanted to back up its "let's get back to normal" message with, you know, actual action, they'd have done more to indemnify people against the financial implications of having to quarantine beyond suggesting that they take annual leave or rely on the iniquitous UC system. 

FWIW, I wouldn't even be making plans to go abroad on holiday right now, and I do find it remarkable (if not surprising) that people are.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 14, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Pretty sure it doesn't apply to him.


Pretty sure HE won't be spending a couple of hours on the UC hotline even if he did quarantine...


----------



## wtfftw (Aug 14, 2020)

wiskey said:


> It's not just France though is it, it's anybody who drives through France to get to a port. So my friends in Italy, who chose to drive not fly, also have to quarantine.


Surely they could just drive right through without stopping, ok maybe for petrol and not talk to anyone, or something? You know, like how Cummings crossed the country with a symptomatic person in the car.


----------



## LDC (Aug 14, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> Surely they could just drive right through without stopping, ok maybe for petrol and not talk to anyone, or something? You know, like how Cummings crossed the country with a symptomatic person in the car.



They almost certainly _could_ do that, it'd be a bit shit though and not (AFAIK) following the rules. I really don't like this let's find loopholes and contradictions we can exploit attitude among some people. I understand the reasons why it's there, but I do think it's a bit selfish and quite entitled.

For some kind of anarchist I'm a terrible stickler for the rules.


----------



## wtfftw (Aug 14, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They almost certainly _could_ do that, it'd be a bit shit though and not (AFAIK) following the rules. I really don't like this let's find loopholes and contradictions we can exploit attitude among some people. I understand the reasons why it's there, but I do think it's a bit selfish and quite entitled.


Yes. I was definitely suggesting that as an actual course of action.


----------



## LDC (Aug 14, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> Yes. I was definitely suggesting that as an actual course of action.



Sorry, wasn't meaning you, just that tendency I've seen. Some of my friends have been the worst tbh.


----------



## magneze (Aug 14, 2020)

Maltin said:


> I think holidays are very important to take a break from work, relax and do something different. I don’t think holidays overseas are sensible right now but I do understand why some have gone and assume that they know the risks.


Yeah, I meant overseas. Holidays are important. I'm having one very soon but not leaving the country.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 14, 2020)

Holidays are important but they're not life and death.  Its OK to go the odd year without having a holiday especially in the midst of a global pandemic.


----------



## elbows (Aug 14, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I wonder how Grant Schapps is enjoying quarantine.



I havent checked the dates thoroughly but that was weeks ago so his quarantine period probably ended already. He was certainly at the scene of the train crash recently.









						Grant Shapps: Too soon to say if cutbacks led to fatal rail crash
					

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes previously warned austerity on the infrastructure operator will ‘endanger passengers’ lives’.




					www.shropshirestar.com


----------



## LDC (Aug 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> I havent checked the dates thoroughly but that was weeks ago so his quarantine period probably ended already. He was certainly at the scene of the train crash recently.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



He was on Radio 4 this morning saying he quarentined and it ended then he went straight to Scotland.


----------



## elbows (Aug 14, 2020)

Spandex said:


> So two weeks ago we were at "the outer edge of what we can do and therefore choices are going to be made" according to Whitty. There was talk of closing pubs so that schools can reopen. From tomorrow casinos, soft play and indoor theatre, live music and performance venues can reopen.
> 
> Has the situation changed significantly in the last fortnight or is it just that choices have been made?



It remains an awkward stage of the pandemic where I dont think they've quite figured out whether the pictures shown by various different parts of the surveillance system are spot on, and how far they can actually go with various things. Its also possible that they thought doing some of the relaxing at the same time they were imposing restrictions on a big chunk of the north west wasnt the best idea, although that didnt stop them reopening shops around the same time Leicester had its 'local lockdown' imposed.

And the tone from the likes of Whitty has always been different to Johnson, eg I think Whitty made it fairly obvious that reopening the pubs made him nervous. And even someone like Johnson who wants to press on is very occasionally going to take the opportunity to look like he is taking things seriously and not being reckless.

As for what could actually have changed in recent weeks, I have to scrape around to find things. Its possible they were waiting to see if the increased cases detected turned into anything that would show up in hospital and death data. And one part of our surveillance system, the general home population sampling where they test a bunch of people every week, most recently leads to language in ONS reports about it such as:



> There is evidence that the incidence rate for England has increased in the most recent weeks following a low point in June and appears to have now levelled off.



Levelled off being the key phrase there.

From Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot - Office for National Statistics

Since its a balancing act I suppose its also possible that any data they have that leads to more confidence in the track & trace system, or things like greater compliance with mask-wearing, would also affect how they see the balance and what they think they can get away with.

As for schools and what they do to the balancing act, I doubt we have heard the last of that.


----------



## Sue (Aug 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> I havent checked the dates thoroughly but that was weeks ago so his quarantine period probably ended already. He was certainly at the scene of the train crash recently.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Which is interesting, given transport is, I believe, a devolved issue.


----------



## elbows (Aug 14, 2020)

The media should not have stopped going on about care homes. I mentioned this in regards last weeks surveillance reports but this weeks report is more explicit about the care home stuff.



> The majority of COVID-19 surveillance indicators suggest that COVID-19 activity remained stable at a national level during week 32. Case detections in England increased slightly from 5,019 in week 31 to 5,401 in week 32. Increases in activity were noted in the North West, Yorkshire and Humber and the East Midlands. At a local authority level, incidence was highest in Oldham, followed by Blackburn with Darwen which continues to decrease. Case detections remain highest in adults aged 85 and over and cases in this age group have increased in recent weeks, which may be related to ongoing care homes incidents.







			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/909424/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_33_FINAL.pdf


----------



## elbows (Aug 14, 2020)

That report also has a handy graph in relation to the changing measurement of deaths, relating to number of days since the person who died tested positive.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> The media should not have stopped going on about care homes.


Some of that is presumably just correlation, though, no? Older people are affected more than younger; older people are more likely to live in care homes; ergo instances of Covid in care homes are disproportionately high compared to other housing/businesses.


----------



## elbows (Aug 14, 2020)

But when the media stop talking about them it creates the impression that outbreaks involving care homes have ceased. Likewise in the last month or so there are plenty of media reports that make it sound like the people currently testing positive are mostly young, and thats not right either. Whats actually more likely to have been seen is bigger rises in younger people, but the 85+ category still seem to have the most confirmed cases whenever I've looked at the weekly ONS report, and some rises in the older group also recently.

I mention these things mostly to try to keep the full picture and detail in view, not to make any dramatic claims. Because the current rate of death does not resemble the terrible levels seen earlier in the year and the numbers of people testing positive are also not comparable to that earlier dreadful phase, so I dont think there is a dramatic story to tell. The media are fickle though, we saw them get bored with lockdown and ready to move on to the next set of pandemic stories well before the masses reached the same stage of fatigue. Same with PPE.


----------



## Dogsauce (Aug 14, 2020)

Sue said:


> Which is interesting, given transport is, I believe, a devolved issue.



RAIB (Rail accident investigation board) isn’t. Tbh it’d be an unnecessary duplication if it was, given how few incidents there are these days.


----------



## Dogsauce (Aug 14, 2020)

ChrisD said:


> France travel advice
> 
> 
> Latest FCDO travel advice for France including on entry requirements, safety and security and local laws and customs.
> ...



Ferries, planes and trains stuffed as full as they can be with people coming back from a place with increasing levels of infection. Can’t possibly see any downside to this...


----------



## Supine (Aug 14, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Aug 14, 2020)

For comparison, the survey test based stuff that I linked to earlier that was the source of the 'levelling off' comment I quoted, has this as their estimate of number of cases, but note this only includes the 'community population' (private homes etc):



> During the most recent week (3 to 9 August 2020), we estimate there were around 0.69 (95% credible interval: 0.42 to 1.08) new COVID-19 infections for every 10,000 people in the community population in England, equating to around 3,800 new cases per day (95% credible interval: 2,300 to 5,900).



They've started covering Wales too:



> We have extended the survey to Wales; during the most recent week (3 to 9 August 2020), we estimate that 1,500 people in Wales had COVID-19 (95% credible interval: 400 to 3,500), which is around 1 in 2,100 people.


----------



## scifisam (Aug 14, 2020)

The people that I know who are holidaying abroad and will have to quarantine aren't complaining about it. Obvs they're not overjoyed about it, but they knew it was a possibility when they left, and only went if they could manage potential quarantine afterwards.


----------



## Supine (Aug 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> For comparison, the survey test based stuff that I linked to earlier that was the source of the 'levelling off' comment I quoted, has this as their estimate of number of cases, but note this only includes the 'community population' (private homes etc):
> 
> 
> 
> They've started covering Wales too:



do you have rate of change over time for those? I’d be interested to see them. Pretty sure I remember less than 1 in 2100 being infected in the UK. If that’s what it is in Wales at the moment the numbers are definitely worse than a month or so ago.


----------



## LDC (Aug 14, 2020)

scifisam said:


> The people that I know who are holidaying abroad and will have to quarantine aren't complaining about it. Obvs they're not overjoyed about it, but they knew it was a possibility when they left, and only went if they could manage potential quarantine afterwards.



Tempted to pretend to work I've been to France so I can have 2 weeks at home with the cat and reading tbh.


----------



## Chilli.s (Aug 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Tempted to pretend to work I've been to France so I can have 2 weeks at home with the cat and reading tbh.


Eggzakery, possibly the easiest way to get 2 weeks of work that's ever come along. "No I don't have proof, sorry a family friend paid the tickets, kept no receipts due to contaminants, it's the responsible thing to do ... bla bla bla".


----------



## andysays (Aug 15, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Eggzakery, possibly the easiest way to get 2 weeks of work that's ever come along. "No I don't have proof, sorry a family friend paid the tickets, kept no receipts due to contaminants, it's the responsible thing to do ... bla bla bla".


Good luck getting paid in that situation...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 15, 2020)

I'd be wfh home anyway, just wfh on quarantine and going quietly mad.

Like.... Erm, now.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 15, 2020)

I've been WFH since 2018. Have been driven a bit mad by it and it's slightly comforting knowing other people do too.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I've been WFH since 2018. Have been driven a bit mad by it and it's slightly comforting knowing other people do too.



It’d be a lot easier if I felt more able to travel about in the evenings and in a larger house and wasn’t essentially in the same room for upwards of 20 hours a day...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> do you have rate of change over time for those? I’d be interested to see them. Pretty sure I remember less than 1 in 2100 being infected in the UK. If that’s what it is in Wales at the moment the numbers are definitely worse than a month or so ago.


There are a few groups out there doing measuring, but not always measuring the same thing. E.g. Zoe covid measures symptomatic covid cases only and its estimates have been consistently lower than some other measures as a result. The trends up and down of the different measures have been fairly consistent though.

So as an e.g., Zoe covid currently estimates around 22,000 current symptomatic cases, a number that is now falling again after a slight rise, with around 1500 new cases a day. That equates to about 1 in 3000 infected and symptomatic. It's back down to around its lowest figure again after drifting up.


----------



## teqniq (Aug 15, 2020)

Cover-up fears as reviews of Covid-19 deaths among NHS staff to be kept secret


----------



## Cloo (Aug 15, 2020)

We've just had 5 days in the Isle of Wight. We were indoors at restaurants a few times (but each time they either had all doors/windows open, were mostly open fronted and one had screens between tables) but mananaged to do the vast majority of our activities outdoors, and travel was all in the car and on the ferry, where we sat outdoors. Must say, it feels as though we would be remarkably unlucky to have caught COVID from any of it.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

Cloo said:


> it feels as though we would be remarkably unlucky to have caught COVID from any of it.


Not as unlucky as anyone that you pass it on to.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Not as unlucky as anyone that you pass it on to.



Come on, what's the point of this?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Come on, what's the point of this?


There's a pandemic on, hadn't you heard?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> There's a pandemic on, hadn't you heard?



And?


----------



## Maltin (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> There's a pandemic on, hadn't you heard?


Although I am not too happy with the way that the government/media want us to return to normality as quickly as possible, we can’t all just stay at home for 2 to 5 years or forever, so seems a bit harsh for you to be snide to Cloo for going on holiday in the UK.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

Maltin said:


> Although I am not too happy with the way that the government/media want us to return to normality as quickly as possible, we can’t all just stay at home for 2 to 5 years or forever, so seems a bit harsh for you to be snide to Cloo for going on holiday in the UK.


Was I wrong, though? Plenty of posts on here being snide about 'Karens' or whoever not wearing masks properly or holidaymakers in France having to quarantine or not based on some arbitrary deadline, but anyone we like gets a free pass?


----------



## Supine (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Was I wrong, though?



Wrong to post it yes


----------



## Maltin (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Was I wrong, though?


Yes


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> There's a pandemic on, hadn't you heard?



And the situation now is that we're no longer in full lockdown and people are feeling their way as to what they can and can't do. There's no indication Cloo is doing anything irresponsible or different from most other people so there's no excuse for being a prick there.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Was I wrong, though?


If you want to stay locked away for the rest of your life, feel free, but don’t judge others for taking small risks.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

Maltin said:


> don’t judge others for taking small risks.


Why not, isn't that what commentary on the internet around Covid has basically become? It all comes down to your definition of 'small'.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Why not, isn't that what commentary on the internet around Covid has basically become? It all comes down to your definition of 'small'.


Feel free to judge then but others may judge you as a cunt.


----------



## Thora (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Was I wrong, though? Plenty of posts on here being snide about 'Karens' or whoever not wearing masks properly or holidaymakers in France having to quarantine or not based on some arbitrary deadline, but anyone we like gets a free pass?


Have you not left your house yet then?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

Maltin said:


> Feel free to judge then but others may judge you as a cunt.


I'm not judging her - my brother was in the Isle of Wight too last week with his family. I just made a statement that happens to be true - the fact that we find it so hard to acknowledge the truth of it is at the root of why pandemics are so scary.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

Thora said:


> Have you not left your house yet then?


Not much. Went to the doctors to pick up medicine a couple of times (very distanced), and to the tip to get rid of all the Amazon cardboard that was piling up. Walked the dog; went for solo runs. That's about it.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 15, 2020)

About the same as me but I'm shielding. I wouldn't expect other people to have become monks.


----------



## scifisam (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Not much. Went to the doctors to pick up medicine a couple of times (very distanced), and to the tip to get rid of all the Amazon cardboard that was piling up. Walked the dog; went for solo runs. That's about it.



Well, that's your choice. But what Cloo was describing was well in line with taking sensible precautions while not completely giving up on life. Do you really think anyone not living like they're shielding is putting everyone at terrible risk?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

scifisam said:


> But what Cloo was describing was well in line with taking sensible precautions while not completely giving up on life.


A holiday involving going to multiple new places and interacting with untold numbers of people you wouldn't normally come into contact with is sensible? Even if you're taking every precaution possible, you can't know whether everyone around you is "doing the right thing", including the people preparing your food, or cleaning the places you visit/stay in. You weigh up the risks versus the benefits (as you perceive them) and make a decision.



> Do you really think anyone not living like they're shielding is putting everyone at terrible risk?


Everyone? No. The overall risk is extremely low. But I personally don't want to be one of the 0.1% or whatever that gets infected and has a non-mild case. Because it sounds horrible and could kill me.


----------



## Nanker Phelge (Aug 15, 2020)

If the isle of wight didn't want people they wouldn't let em in....


----------



## scifisam (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> A holiday involving going to multiple new places and interacting with untold numbers of people you wouldn't normally come into contact with is sensible? Even if you're taking every precaution possible, you can't know whether everyone around you is "doing the right thing", including the people preparing your food, or cleaning the places you visit/stay in. You weigh up the risks versus the benefits (as you perceive them) and make a decision.
> 
> 
> Everyone? No. The overall risk is extremely low. But I personally don't want to be one of the 0.1% or whatever that gets infected and has a non-mild case. Because it sounds horrible and could kill me.



If you wear a mask when you're near people indoors, and sit at tables not very close to people, with masked staff (which is what pretty much all restaurants are doing and they can be fined or shut down if they're not), then you're an extremely low risk for transmission. The people preparing your food and cleaning your room while you're not there are irrelevant unless you still think that surface transmission is highly likely.

And yes it sounds horrible and could kill me too. But that doesn't mean the whole world should stop rather than carry on with restrictions and precautions.


----------



## Mation (Aug 15, 2020)

scifisam said:


> carry on with restrictions and precautions.


I agree, though it's not one of Pinewood's best.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

Sorry Cloo, btw - I didn't mean to pick on you. Just a bit drunk and depressed by literally everything going to shit.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 15, 2020)

Don't worry about it!


----------



## scifisam (Aug 15, 2020)

Mation said:


> I agree, though it's not one of Pinewood's best.



I'm picturing Babs Windsor using a bra as a mask...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Sorry Cloo, btw - I didn't mean to pick on you. Just a bit drunk and depressed by literally everything going to shit.



Fair play, hope things improve for you soon.


----------



## blameless77 (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Not much. Went to the doctors to pick up medicine a couple of times (very distanced), and to the tip to get rid of all the Amazon cardboard that was piling up. Walked the dog; went for solo runs. That's about it.



grrr for the ‘Amazon cardboard piling up’ - there are other sources you know!  #shoplocal


----------



## Maltin (Aug 15, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> grrr for the ‘Amazon cardboard piling up’ - there are other sources you know!  #shoplocal


I don't mean to moan and maybe this is a joke, but I felt it was unfair that Buddy Bradley picked on Cloo and in turn think it's a bit mean-spirited for you to pick on BB in this manner as well. If they are staying largely at home, Amazon is an extremely helpful resource and much more likely to have the things they want and be delivered than relying on local shops.

I'm not normally this po faced


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 15, 2020)

Half my flat is now fucking Amazon boxes. I hate Amazon and yet I need stuff and they can send it to me and I can barely cook fucking rice or put my laundry away so I'm not going to feel guilty about taking the easiest route to buy a wok. That doesn't mean I don't still hate them.


----------



## blameless77 (Aug 15, 2020)

Maltin said:


> I don't mean to moan and maybe this is a joke, but I felt it was unfair that Buddy Bradley picked on Cloo and in turn think it's a bit mean-spirited for you to pick on BB in this manner as well. If they are staying largely at home, Amazon is an extremely helpful resource and much more likely to have the things they want and be delivered than relying on local shops.
> 
> I'm not normally this po faced




Surprisingly, there’s all kinds of places to buy things online that aren’t Amazon. We can let the pandemic destroy and divert from protecting our environment (single use masks already littering the countryside) - or we can continue to try and mitigate impact. Name one thing you can only get from a multinational, tax-dodging conglomerate?


----------



## blameless77 (Aug 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Half my flat is now fucking Amazon boxes. I hate Amazon and yet I need stuff and they can send it to me and I can barely cook fucking rice or put my laundry away so I'm not going to feel guilty about taking the easiest route to buy a wok. That doesn't mean I don't still hate them.



This is exactly what I’m talking about. Shame on you! Sheer laziness.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> grrr for the ‘Amazon cardboard piling up’ - there are other sources you know!  #shoplocal


I do order from alternative sources when possible, including the local book shop or actual specialists. The cardboard wasn't all actually from Amazon.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 15, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> This is exactly what I’m talking about. Shame on you! Sheer laziness.


you should probably also know that I am too tired to be able to distinguish between sarcasm and honestly expressed opinion


----------



## Maltin (Aug 15, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> Surprisingly, there’s all kinds of places to buy things online that aren’t Amazon. We can let the pandemic destroy and divert from protecting our environment (single use masks already littering the countryside) - or we can continue to try and mitigate impact. Name one thing you can only get from a multinational, tax-dodging conglomerate?


Not everyone has the money to spend on delivery charges from local suppliers and can afford the higher prices they charge. Yes, I am sure you can get things from a more expensive source other than Amazon but it isn't fair to judge those who are staying at home during a pandemic and expect them to pay higher prices just because you don't like Amazon.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 15, 2020)

Why are people having a problem with cardboard? 

It's collected here for recycling, I thought that was standard across the country.


----------



## MickiQ (Aug 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why are people having a problem with cardboard?
> 
> It's collected here for recycling, I thought that was standard across the country.


Ditto here, in fact according to t'council website if you can't fit a box in your wheelie you can just leave it next to it and they will take it anyway though I have noticed that is a bit hit and miss, it depends on the bin crew. Some will, some won't.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why are people having a problem with cardboard?
> 
> It's collected here for recycling, I thought that was standard across the country.


I think it was more about Amazon being tax-dodging cunts than cardboard per se.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 15, 2020)

It's also not like somehow the Amazon fairy comes and slices up all the million bloody boxes and puts them in bags is it.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 15, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> Name one thing you can only get from a multinational, tax-dodging conglomerate?


On this point, there is a book I want to buy currently. I went to bookshops such as Waterstones and WH Smith to see if I could see the book there, more to see if I want to buy it or not, but they don't stock it. I imagine that if they don't stock it, the one local, smaller, bookshop near here (in a different town to the one I went to) probably don't have it in stock either. I could get them to order it, but doubt they do delivery to home. I could order from Waterstones or WH Smiths, but can't see that they are much different from Amazon. I am sure they have their own tax dodges and would likely be more expensive.


----------



## LDC (Aug 15, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> Surprisingly, there’s all kinds of places to buy things online that aren’t Amazon. We can let the pandemic destroy and divert from protecting our environment (single use masks already littering the countryside) - or we can continue to try and mitigate impact. Name one thing you can only get from a multinational, tax-dodging conglomerate?



Fantastic name you've given yourself blameless77 although next year maybe change it to smugcunt77 as an upgrade?


----------



## LDC (Aug 15, 2020)

Always good in grim times like a pandemic with tens of thousands of people dead, and others really struggling with mental and physical health, financial insecurity, and problems with work, etc. to start having a go at someone about using too many cardboard boxes.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 15, 2020)

literally have cardboard from weeks ago sitting around in my flat, _not in a recycling bag_

I mean it's either kill myself or that and kill all the rest of you first isn't it

sorry peeps, you're all going to have to die, you've seen the _shame_


----------



## existentialist (Aug 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> literally have cardboard from weeks ago sitting around in my flat, _not in a recycling bag_
> 
> I mean it's either kill myself or that and kill all the rest of you first isn't it
> 
> sorry peeps, you're all going to have to die, you've seen the _shame_


I have quite a cardboard collection, none of it Amazon...*and I feel no shame*. Screw the haters.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

Maltin said:


> I could order from Waterstones or WH Smiths, but can't see that they are much different from Amazon. I am sure they have their own tax dodges and would likely be more expensive.


They aren't anywhere near the scale of Amazon in terms of the way they treat their workers or global tax avoidance, or you would have heard about it. Have you tried Book Depository: Free delivery worldwide on over 20 million books or eBay?

Also, if everyone else is more expensive than Amazon, it doesn't necessarily mean they are overcharging. Amazon is artificially low, and that money is coming from somewhere.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> literally have cardboard from weeks ago sitting around in my flat, _not in a recycling bag_


You have to bag your cardboard?


----------



## Maltin (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> They aren't anywhere near the scale of Amazon in terms of the way they treat their workers or global tax avoidance, or you would have heard about it. Have you tried Book Depository: Free delivery worldwide on over 20 million books or eBay?
> 
> Also, if everyone else is more expensive than Amazon, it doesn't necessarily mean they are overcharging. Amazon is artificially low, and that money is coming from somewhere.


Quote from their website:
Book Depository was acquired by Amazon in 2011, and since then we have worked together to ensure the best possible experience for all our customers worldwide. By working with Amazon, we have improved our customer service and delivery, and increased our selection of books to more than 20 million, so not only will you find a great read, but we hope you'll find your experience with us is even better.

We still have a dedicated team at Book Depository working to maintain the personal experience that we know our customers love. All of us, from Customer Service right through to Marketing and Finance are very passionate about books. We love making recommendations for titles and sharing the books we've loved with you, and we don't plan on changing that anytime soon.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Also, if everyone else is more expensive than Amazon, it doesn't necessarily mean they are overcharging. Amazon is artificially low, and that money is coming from somewhere.


I didn't say the others are overcharging. If I buy the book through Waterstones, it costs 25 pounds. If I buy it through WH Smiths, it costs 20 plus 5 pounds delivery. If I buy it through Amazon, it costs 18, a saving of 7 (or 39% more expensive elsewhere). I can afford the extra 7 to buy through Waterstones or WH Smiths if I wanted to but to judge others for saving 7 pounds on an 18 pound purchase seems wrong.  Anyway, derail over.


----------



## Celyn (Aug 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why are people having a problem with cardboard?
> 
> It's collected here for recycling, I thought that was standard across the country.


Could possibly be that if you have a whole load of cardboard, it takes a bit of having enough energy/hitting the right mood to squash/cut it all up, then to take it to bin (which might be a painful walk if you live in a block of flats with communal bins)


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> You have to bag your cardboard?


Well it has to get into the recycling somehow. I could maybe take it down and try to sneak it into the bins.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Aug 15, 2020)

I grab a banana box or two at the supermarket to put my shopping in, saves on the old plastic bag malarkey. 
I then chuck all the recycling in them ready for the bin men. 
Win/Win and, to quote Phil Daniels, it gives me an enormous sense of wellbeing. 🙂🙂

And the seagulls make easy work of most of my food waste. I'm a fan of seagulls.


----------



## wtfftw (Aug 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> literally have cardboard from weeks ago sitting around in my flat, _not in a recycling bag_
> 
> I mean it's either kill myself or that and kill all the rest of you first isn't it
> 
> sorry peeps, you're all going to have to die, you've seen the _shame_


Fort time.


----------



## scifisam (Aug 15, 2020)

BlanketAddict said:


> I grab a banana box or two at the supermarket to put my shopping in, saves on the old plastic bag malarkey.
> I then chuck all the recycling in them ready for the bin men.
> Win/Win and, to quote Phil Daniels, it gives me an enormous sense of wellbeing. 🙂🙂
> 
> And the seagulls make easy work of most of my food waste. I'm a fan of seagulls.



My binmen wouldn't take a crate full like that. They will take large boxes that don't fit the fairly small recycling bags, but otherwise everything needs to be in bags (either council branded or completely clear). And to put cardboard out without a bag it has to be done on the day or it gets soaked. If you tried to put out a banana box full of stuff even the night before it'd quickly end up spread across the street due to foxes and drunk people.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Aug 15, 2020)

scifisam said:


> My binmen wouldn't take a crate full like that. They will take large boxes that don't fit the fairly small recycling bags, but otherwise everything needs to be in bags (either council branded or completely clear). And to put cardboard out without a bag it has to be done on the day or it gets soaked. If you tried to put out a banana box full of stuff even the night before it'd quickly end up spread across the street due to foxes and drunk people.



By the sounds of it my area has good bin men / council policies. 
No issues with mixed recycling in the banana box, soaking wet or dry (we do get issued with big plastic tubs but they get nicked if left unattended!) and thankfully no drunken shenanigans. Not to say there aren't plenty of drunks...


----------



## Supine (Aug 15, 2020)

From Covid to Amazon to Bin men. Classic urban


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

Maltin said:


> Quote from their website:
> Book Depository was acquired by Amazon in 2011


Ah, sorry - must have got it confused with one of the others. Try ABE Books or BookOutlet.com.


----------



## scifisam (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Ah, sorry - must have got it confused with one of the others. Try ABE Books or BookOutlet.com.



Abe books is also owned by Amazon, unfortunately.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Well it has to get into the recycling somehow. I could maybe take it down and try to sneak it into the bins.


Ours just goes straight into the wheelie bin.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 15, 2020)

Not entirely sure what happened to the cardboard shortage tbh. I assume recycling collections kicked off again.









						Coronavirus: UK faces cardboard shortage due to crisis
					

Recycling Association warns of serious impact on supplies of food and medicine packaging




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Ah, sorry - must have got it confused with one of the others. Try ABE Books or BookOutlet.com.



World Of Books is where I usually go, they sell via Amazon but I find it can be a quid cheaper on the actual website. Discovered an oriental supermarket that was the same that way as well.


----------



## scifisam (Aug 15, 2020)

In the flats two doors down someone's set up a massive marquee covering almost all of the very large communal garden and there were at least 50 people, going on their shouting, and very loud music on a sound system from 3pm until just now. It's not a spontaneous party of a few friends that got a bit out of hand - it's a massive do that is essentially indoors. The odds of them wearing masks or socially distancing are zero.

How desperate for a party can you be to be that inconsiderate? And whichever tenant arranged it will probably have breached their tenancy, too because I'm fairly sure you're not allowed to have that kind of party in a communal garden even in non-corona times. 

I'm not exactly hardline about masks or social gatherings but this is taking the fucking piss.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Aug 16, 2020)

Australias financial year goes from June 30th to July 1st. This year the Australian tax office ( ATO) made it easy to claim for working from home, and included a claim item that included utilities etc and you just multiplied by the number of hours whf. Obviously if you want to claim over and above that you can do that too.


----------



## xenon (Aug 16, 2020)

I have quite a few cardboard boxes as well. The recycling only take them if it is in the bag The council issued. These bags have all gone missing. You can’t get a replacement because of COVID-19. Yes that is basicly what the website says. last time I left loads of cardboard out in a black bin liner, they didn’t take it  And it got soaked. So fuck it, I’ve just put it in the regular rubbish now.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 16, 2020)

xenon said:


> I have quite a few cardboard boxes as well. The recycling only take them if it is in the bag The council issued. These bags have all gone missing. You can’t get a replacement because of COVID-19. Yes that is basicly what the website says. last time I left loads of cardboard out in a black bin liner, they didn’t take it  And it got soaked. So fuck it, I’ve just put it in the regular rubbish now.


call the gangstas


----------



## blameless77 (Aug 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fantastic name you've given yourself blameless77 although maybe next year maybe change it to smugcunt77 as an upgrade?



Sad to see urban turning into a Tory stronghold. You’ll be flaming me for attacking capitalism next...


----------



## andysays (Aug 16, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> Sad to see urban turning into a Tory stronghold. You’ll be flaming me for attacking capitalism next...


You're not attacking capitalism though, are you?

You're attacking individual people who have to live within the capitalist system as it currently exists for the (admittedly imperfect) decisions and compromises we all have to make to get by within that system.

Unless you are completely separate from that system yourself, and have all your material and other needs met by a commune of magic rainbow unicorns, that makes you look like a bit of a dick.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 16, 2020)

scifisam said:


> In the flats two doors down someone's set up a massive marquee covering almost all of the very large communal garden and there were at least 50 people, going on their shouting, and very loud music on a sound system from 3pm until just now. It's not a spontaneous party of a few friends that got a bit out of hand - it's a massive do that is essentially indoors. The odds of them wearing masks or socially distancing are zero.
> 
> How desperate for a party can you be to be that inconsiderate? And whichever tenant arranged it will probably have breached their tenancy, too because I'm fairly sure you're not allowed to have that kind of party in a communal garden even in non-corona times.
> 
> I'm not exactly hardline about masks or social gatherings but this is taking the fucking piss.


More than 30 people in a gathering is currently illegal except under specific circumstances, which it sounds like this doesn’t meet.  You’d be perfectly entitled to shop ‘em.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 16, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> Sad to see urban turning into a Tory stronghold. You’ll be flaming me for attacking capitalism next...


Oh, give over, you whining twat...


----------



## emanymton (Aug 16, 2020)

ice-is-forming said:


> Australias financial year goes from June 30th to July 1st. This year the Australian tax office ( ATO) made it easy to claim for working from home, and included a claim item that included utilities etc and you just multiplied by the number of hours whf. Obviously if you want to claim over and above that you can do that too.


The idea that it's the people working from home who need the extra support is one of my bugbears in all this. Transport into work is going to cost more than a bit of electricity for most people and they are the ones at greater risk.


----------



## purenarcotic (Aug 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why are people having a problem with cardboard?
> 
> It's collected here for recycling, I thought that was standard across the country.



My recycling wasn’t taken once and a note was left to say I had left it ‘incorrectly’. How someone can leave cardboard in a bin incorrectly I do not know but there we are.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 16, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> My recycling wasn’t taken once and a note was left to say I had left it ‘incorrectly’. How someone can leave cardboard in a bin incorrectly I do not know but there we are.


Where I used to live, they had a similar system - a black tag would be put around the neck of the offending bag, but rarely gave any kind of indication as to what was wrong.

It's even worse, now - they have a massively complex system with about 5 categories of waste, and any "foreign" item in any of the categories results in the whole lot being rejected.

I suspect it's counterproductive: what I used to do with the black-tagged bags was, if I couldn't see what was wrong, simply to dump the whole thing into a black bin liner and put it out with the general refuse, and I suspect a lot of people probably don't even bother giving the recycling thing a go in the first place - just bung it all into black bags and screw the recycling.

Which they've attempted to address by rationing the number of black (now grey) bags you're allowed to put out.


----------



## platinumsage (Aug 16, 2020)

There's a corona recycling thread:









						COVID-19: Recycling and related subjects
					

Refuse of unopened food being a particular issue though - not just the overall amount.  Yeah that is just wrong. Should at least split it down to recycle compost and packaging, the lazy cunts.




					www.urban75.net


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 16, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Half my flat is now fucking Amazon boxes. I hate Amazon and yet I need stuff and they can send it to me and I can barely cook fucking rice or put my laundry away so I'm not going to feel guilty about taking the easiest route to buy a wok. That doesn't mean I don't still hate them.


Also we have amazon lockers at work! So convenient


----------



## elbows (Aug 16, 2020)

I see the Telegraph have been reporting that they are going to kill Public Health England by merging it and Test & Trace together into a new entity, allegedly modelled after the Robert Koch Institute in Germany.

I dont actually have access to the Telegraph article but I've read about it elsewhere and here is the link anyway Hancock axes ‘failing’ Public Health England

It was clear even from SAGE minutes that PHE was quickly established as not being up to the task of responding effectively to this pandemic, so it facing the chop is not surprising. The timing of how they do it and the detail of what they create instead are likely to be cause for concern under this government though. For a start Dido Harding is tipped for the leadership job in the new entity.

Here is a followup Guardian article where people are complaining that PHE is a scapegoat for government failings. My opinion is that yes they will use it as a scapegoat, but PHE's failings were real too so its not all unfair criticism. The buck still stops with the government in any case though, and its not PHEs own fault that their budget and resources werent up to the task.









						Ministers criticised over plan to scrap Public Health England
					

Critics say PHE is being scapegoated for government’s failings during pandemic




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Lurdan (Aug 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont actually have access to the Telegraph article but I've read about it elsewhere and here is the link anyway Hancock axes ‘failing’ Public Health England



Text (but not graphics) archived here fwiw.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> It was clear even from SAGE minutes that PHE was quickly established as not being up to the task of responding effectively to this pandemic, so it facing the chop is not surprising. The timing of how they do it and the detail of what they create instead are likely to be cause for concern under this government though. For a start Dido Harding is tipped for the leadership job in the new entity.


What really irritates me about this idea that, when something has failed, the best thing to do is to scrap it and start again is that it throws the baby out with the bathwater, only to replace it with something that hasn't really been built on the lessons learned from the failure, but is all about some Government Minister or something needing to be seen to Do Something (Anything), rather than take a measured view and see whether what they already have can be fixed.

Except, as you allude, this isn't really about anything other than creating a little fiefdom to be left in the "care" of one of their cronies.


----------



## platinumsage (Aug 16, 2020)

existentialist said:


> What really irritates me about this idea that, when something has failed, the best thing to do is to scrap it and start again is that it throws the baby out with the bathwater, only to replace it with something that hasn't really been built on the lessons learned from the failure, but is all about some Government Minister or something needing to be seen to Do Something (Anything), rather than take a measured view and see whether what they already have can be fixed.



The baby was kept last time though, in 2013 when the former and successful Health Protection Agency was folded into Public Health England along with a load of other stuff. That's when the problems started IMO, as it allowed senior management to lose focus and get distracted by anti-obesity campaigning etc, allowing disease outbreaks to be relegated to the background. It definitely needs a gouging out rather than a bit of fixing - hopefully the announced merger will just be a stop-gap until the current pandemic is behind us.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 16, 2020)

The logical result of the 2012? reorganization so the Health Minister is no longer responsible for the NHS. Nothing to do with us guv.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Aug 16, 2020)

Maltin said:


> On this point, there is a book I want to buy currently. I went to bookshops such as Waterstones and WH Smith to see if I could see the book there, more to see if I want to buy it or not, but they don't stock it. I imagine that if they don't stock it, the one local, smaller, bookshop near here (in a different town to the one I went to) probably don't have it in stock either. I could get them to order it, but doubt they do delivery to home. I could order from Waterstones or WH Smiths, but can't see that they are much different from Amazon. I am sure they have their own tax dodges and would likely be more expensive.



Hive.co.uk - Books, eBooks, DVDs, Blu-ray, Stationery, Music CDs is worth a look, home delivery, no delivery charge & they will donate a percentage to your favourite local participating bookshop. 

(I'll often buy on Ebay if its significantly cheaper including postage, but I use hive if I can. Also during the early days of lockdown they had a policy of one book per order to make it safer for their warehouse staff -  from me)


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 16, 2020)

New UK-wide methodology agreed to record COVID-19 deaths
					

The publication of daily data on coronavirus deaths will resume from today, following a review by Public Health England (PHE) of the methodology used to calculate the figures.




					www.gov.uk
				




This is a bit of a relief in terms of them not being successful in covering things up, figures will be published each week with deaths within 60 days of a positive test or with covid on the death certificate (with daily figures with 28 days since a positive test) . Although why they couldnt have just said they were gonna do this before given the boost its given to plandemic types...


----------



## klang (Aug 16, 2020)

emanymton said:


> The idea that it's the people working from home who need the extra support is one of my bugbears in all this. Transport into work is going to cost more than a bit of electricity for most people and they are the ones at greater risk.


In Germany you can claim tax back against a spare room in your dwelling used as an office for wfh. Not if you don't have a spare room and have to work in your kitchen.
No tax relief either if you have to travel to work.


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 17, 2020)

A deeply abstruse question about Covid stats, which I suspect only elbows will have a hope of answering.  If there is an outbreak on a ship in UK waters, to which - if any - local authority will they attribute the figures?

Asking 'cos I've been looking at the recent local infection stats by MSOA, and they appear to sum to fewer than the overall infection figure for the city (Hull) as a whole.  I'm wondering whether the outbreak among crew of one of the ferries might account for it.


----------



## elbows (Aug 17, 2020)

I dont know, but I suppose my presumption would be that they arent counted in that level of stats.

This is because I assume they are using home address for that data. And I have some vague memory that even at a higher level some deaths would be missing. By this I mean I've got the feeling that when looking at things like ONS stats, the individual death counts for England and Wales only included residents of those countries, but the combined England & Wales number also included non-residents. 

Anyway I could be wrong but I think its generally to be expected that some cases and deaths dont end up in the highly localised stats.


----------



## LDC (Aug 18, 2020)

Probably needs a new thread really. PHE gone to be replaced by a body overseen by Dido Harding, a Tory peer and who has a husband on a think thank that called for the NHS to be scrapped. FFS.


----------



## editor (Aug 18, 2020)

So I've just sent off my free DIY NHS testing kit which just tests to see if you have it or not. Putting the swab around my tonsils was a gag-tastic experience and it wasn't pleasant putting the swab up my hooter either but the package was impressively put together. I had it because there was a spare kit available but I really want to do the antibodies test if I can.


----------



## mx wcfc (Aug 18, 2020)

editor said:


> So I've just sent off my free DIY NHS testing kit which just tests to see if you have it or not. Putting the swab around my tonsils was a gag-tastic experience and it wasn't pleasant putting the swab up my hooter either but the package was impressively put together. I had it because there was a spare kit available but I really want to do the antibodies test if I can.


I had the antibodies test a couple of weeks ago.  I had a routine blood test, and they offered the antibodies test as well, so I said yes.  It came back negative, which I knew.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Probably needs a new thread really. PHE gone to be replaced by a body overseen by Dido Harding, a Tory peer and who has a husband on a think thank that called for the NHS to be scrapped. FFS.


The new chair of the National Institute for Health Protection, which will be charged with preventing future outbreaks of infectious diseases, Diana, the Baroness Harding of Winscombe, in a previous role as the CEO of 'TalkTalk' voted shoddiest customer service in 2011:


----------



## Cloo (Aug 18, 2020)

Interesting thing about local stats is that now, unlike in March, you see them rising, then falling back again now - so a rise to 24 new cases one week doesn't become 48 the next week, it might drop back to 8


----------



## Hyperdark (Aug 18, 2020)

There has been no significant change in the testing methodology over the past few weeks, yet the number of cases per day continues to rise slowly. We are now seeing roughly 1,050 new cases per day, and at the start of August, when the same testing methodology was in place, and the same number of tests per day were being conducted, we were seeing roughly 750 new cases per day. That's an increase of about 40% in new case numbers over a period of about 3 weeks.

...and its still summer, I'm very worried at what I see in my town centre, the majority are behaving as if nothing has happened.
I live in a small/medium sized town and don't personaly know anyone who has died, this gives a warm fuzzy feeling untill I looked at the figures and found out that up until the end of june 22 people living less than a mile from me have died from Covid19 (its semi rural not a very crowded place)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 18, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> There has been no significant change in the testing methodology over the past few weeks...



I disagree, there's been a big increase in targeted testing in areas of major concern, which could explain the increase in new cases across the UK, it's too early for doom & gloom, we need a few more weeks, before the picture becomes clearer.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 18, 2020)

I think people largely have stopped caring. They mainly wear masks where they mainly should but social distancing is piss poor. My college is on top of it - had my COVID back to work induction today and it was comprehensive - but I'm not looking forward to the students coming back really.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 18, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I think people largely have stopped caring. They mainly wear masks where they mainly should but social distancing is piss poor.



Not around here, I mentioned the other day that I was impressed that people even waiting to cross a level crossing, were all maintaining social distancing.


----------



## Hyperdark (Aug 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I disagree, there's been a big increase in targeted testing in areas of major concern, which could explain the increase in new cases across the UK, it's too early for doom & gloom, we need a few more weeks, before the picture becomes clearer.



I have heard that also, but can find no evidence it is true.

I have just watched Mr Hancock on BBC Breakfast, the man simply denies any facts that don't fit the message with phrases like "I don' t recognise those figures".
The man is a pathological liar


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not around here, I mentioned the other day that I was impressed that people even waiting to cross a level crossing, were all maintaining social distancing.


Tell you what, there is no way when students come back to college that I'm going maskless outside of my office. Whatever good it does or doesn't do. I feel like I need to do something. I'm a bit surprised it isn't college policy - the H&S offucer who did my COVID induction yesterday hinted strongly she would like to see it but "it's not the law". Students will be encouraged to wear a mask but should not be challenged if they don't.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 19, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> I have heard that also, but can find no evidence it is true.



The areas that have seen local lockdowns have also had extra drive-in and walk-in test centres set-up, and they are even carrying our door-to-door testing in specific areas.

Here's just couple of examples...



> Door-to-door coronavirus testing is being carried out in Leicester - the first such move in the UK.
> 
> NHS teams and volunteers are in affected areas of the city dropping off test kits for people even if they do not have symptoms.
> 
> ...





> One of the new measures being brought in to help stem the tide of infections is door-to-door testing in certain areas that have already seen an uplift in cases.
> 
> However for all residents of the borough there is already a full testing centre in Oldham town centre at the Southgate Street car park, behind Oldham Library. Bosses say there is ‘good availability’ at this site, and home testing kits are also available for residents.
> 
> ...


----------



## hash tag (Aug 19, 2020)

First I saw reports of people making bookings and not showing now I see several reports like this. Arent some people just shitty.








						Eat out scheme causing 'hostility towards staff'
					

Some restaurants and pubs are opting out of the scheme because of the stress being put on staff.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I disagree, there's been a big increase in targeted testing in areas of major concern, which could explain the increase in new cases across the UK, it's too early for doom & gloom, we need a few more weeks, before the picture becomes clearer.



Often these days when I find myself saying we need a few more weeks, the picture isnt much clearer once those weeks have passed.

My usual stock answers in this area are that this is why I wish I had access to sewage-based data. And that I wish the random population survey sampling (that the ONS reports on once a week) was being done at greater scale. We heard more about the sewage stuff recently, although I still have no sense of when data from it will be shared publicly. And now I see they have a proper aim to increase the number of people who are tested for the random population survey each week:









						Coronavirus: UK to ramp up coronavirus monitoring programme
					

More swabbing will reveal how many people in the general population are infected at any given time.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




(The population survey is also the source of comments the other week about how case numbers seemed to be 'levelling off' after a rise.)


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2020)

For some strange reason I am not reassured.



> As someone who had spent the majority of her business career in the retail industry, starting out at Kingfisher and Thomas Cook before moving to Sainsbury's and Tesco, she was seen as being well placed to help drive long-term transformation and integration while maintaining patient service and safety levels.





> Baroness Harding's grandfather, Field Marshal John Harding, commanded the famous Army division the Desert Rats during World War Two. Her father was also an Army officer, as well as a hereditary peer.











						Dido Harding's meteoric rise from telecoms to test and trace, and beyond
					

Who is the former businesswoman and jockey chosen to head the UK's new public health agency?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Drifting off-topic, hmm John Harding...



> Harding took strict measures to improve the security situation in Cyprus, EOKA having declared an armed struggle against the British on 1 April 1955. To this end, Harding instituted a number of unprecedented measures including curfews, closures of schools, the opening of concentration camps, the indefinite detention of suspects without trial and the imposition of the death penalty for offences such as carrying weapons, incendiary devices or any material that could be used in a bomb. A number of such executions took place often in controversial circumstances (e.g. Michalis Karaolis) leading to resentment, in Cyprus, the United Kingdom and in other countries





> Facing growing criticism in the United Kingdom about the methods he used and their lack of effectiveness, Sir John Harding resigned as Governor of Cyprus on 22 October 1957 and was replaced by Sir Hugh Foot.[48]











						John Harding, 1st Baron Harding of Petherton - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The areas that have seen local lockdowns have also had extra drive-in and walk-in test centres set-up, and they are even carrying our door-to-door testing in specific areas.
> 
> Here's just couple of examples...


The wider stats back up this idea. Three points in particular. 

The Zoe Covid study has found infection levels to be falling again in the last couple of weeks, back down to the early-July low after a slight increase. 

Numbers in hospital with C19 continue to fall. 

And all the increase in the daily new cases figure is due to increases in Pillar 2, with Pillar 1 staying low. This article is a couple of weeks old, but explains what this means regarding the rises in the headline figure. 

COVID cases in England aren’t rising: here’s why - CEBM


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> For some strange reason I am not reassured.



Thomas Cook = bust.  Kingfisher have had years of financial problems and may not be far behind.  Tesco had a massive accounting scandal when they had been found out to be cooking the books for a number of years, what did she know?

Working fro companies that actually turn a profit is so last decade.


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> And all the increase in the daily new cases figure is due to increases in Pillar 2, with Pillar 1 staying low. This article is a couple of weeks old, but explains what this means regarding the rises in the headline figure.
> 
> COVID cases in England aren’t rising: here’s why - CEBM



For me Pillar 1 data also shows what I would expect to see if we have developed far more of a grip on hospital transmission of the virus now.

Even though my 'holiday' from posting about the pandemic still involved making some posts, it now seems clear that I've been able to extend this well beyond June, there isnt much in the UK data for July or August so far that would require me to make endless gloomy posts. Most of the gloom has come from the picture in various other countries, and its still relatively early days in plenty of those places too.

I will be very pleased indeed if it turns out that I am able to say the same for September-November. It seems reasonable to anticipate that by some stage in October I will be describing a quite different picture to the one seen in June-August, one where I can fully revert to my default woe mode. But other possibilities exist too and I dont intend to jump the gun.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> I wish I had access to sewage-based data



There's a statement you don't often see. You could try the exam grades as a starter though


----------



## Cloo (Aug 19, 2020)

I think I feel like you elbows - the data at the moment is encouraging, but that may well be due to seasonal mitigation factors rather than treatment or general tailing off of the virus.

All the same, I do begin to wonder whether we're not going to see another national school shutdown and if it might move to local area/school level closures over autumn and winter. I also start to think that saying people mustn't go into other households at all when things are bad seems over the top, given even at peak the vast majority of people won't have it (and many of those who do will be symptomatic). It seems sensible enough to me to say as official guidance 'You can see one other household indoors every fortnight', which would give you time to see if you or the other household develop anything before you go to see anyone else at close quarters. It would give guidance to the unsure who want to be sensible... and frankly there's a consitutency of people who will ignore any advice regardless of what you say. Christmas is going to be a real test of all this, of course.


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2020)

Scotland provides early clues as to what may lie ahead regarding schools:









						Coronavirus in Scottish schools: the primary and secondary schools in Scotland where there are confirmed cases of Covid-19
					

Schools in Aberdeenshire, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Perth and Kinross, Inverness and Renfrewshire have all confirmed coronavirus cases




					www.scotsman.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Probably needs a new thread really. PHE gone to be replaced by a body overseen by Dido Harding, a Tory peer and who has a husband on a think thank that called for the NHS to be scrapped. FFS.



This is classic 'shock doctrine' stuff. The choice of a tory blueblood with no relevant experience and direct links to anti-NHS interests is all part of the plan. The focus will be on that and not on the decision to scrap a public health organisation in the middle of the biggest public health crisis in a century. And all while everyone's heads are still spinning from the exam results clusterfuck. Instead of waiting for events to bury bad news for them, they're now just creating a bad news landslide on purpose.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 19, 2020)

It's deliberate culture war / 'trigger the lefties' nonsense


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 19, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It's deliberate culture war / 'trigger the lefties' nonsense



The Dido Harding thing, absolutely. Chief executives don't actually do anything, which is why they can skip merrily from travel agencies to supermarkets to quangos without so much as a job interview and why their careers aren't noticably affected by success or failure.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 19, 2020)

Has this been posted yet? Corbyn saying that officials tried to push the idea of herd immunity on him: WATCH: Jeremy Corbyn briefed on herd immunity by government during early days of coronavirus outbreak


----------



## editor (Aug 19, 2020)

Oh well. 









						'My world came crashing down': how 2020 took me from a six-figure salary to universal credit
					

When I was made redundant, I thought I would easily get another great job. Then the pandemic hit …




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Oh well.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


tbh i lost a lot of sympathy after i saw a) she worked in hr, and b) she was reconsidering how she'd treated people she'd dealt with while working in hr, which suggested she hadn't been wholly nice to them.


----------



## nagapie (Aug 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> Scotland provides early clues as to what may lie ahead regarding schools:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sounds like an absolute headfuck


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> Scotland provides early clues as to what may lie ahead regarding schools:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


we're supposed to be heading back into work again in about a month's time. which seemed remarkably optimistic anyway but seems ludicrously rose-tinted now. and that's before we let any of your actual students into the library, which i doubt will happen before next year.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Oh well.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That actually reads like a made-up story or at least journalistic licence has been employed.  There are inconsistencies and oddness.


----------



## maomao (Aug 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> tbh i lost a lot of sympathy after i saw a) she worked in hr, and b) she was reconsidering how she'd treated people she'd dealt with while working in hr, which suggested she hadn't been wholly nice to them.


I lost all mine about halfway through the headline.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2020)

[


nagapie said:


> Sounds like an absolute headfuck


Is it though? Eighteen cases in a week, eight of those in one school, two others teachers who tested positive before the schools returned, and no suggestion of in-school transmission. Tbh I wouldn't even count the two teachers as they were tested before the school had even reopened. That's merely an example of a system in place working.

At the very least I'd want to wait a week or two before making any big judgements on that - it may well be that these are cases being found because a whole new set of people is now being tested that wasn't being tested before. Is 16 in the first week a bad number?


----------



## nagapie (Aug 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Is it though? Eighteen cases in a week, eight of those in one school, two others teachers who tested positive before the schools returned, and no suggestion of in-school transmission. Tbh I wouldn't even count the two teachers as they were tested before the school had even reopened. That's merely an example of a system in place working.
> 
> At the very least I'd want to wait a week or two before making any big judgements on that - it may well be that these are cases being found because a whole new set of people is now being tested that wasn't being tested before. Is 16 in the first week a bad number?



The headline put dread in me. I didn't really pull it apart and I really hope you are right.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> [
> 
> Is it though? Eighteen cases in a week, eight of those in one school, two others teachers who tested positive before the schools returned, and no suggestion of in-school transmission. Tbh I wouldn't even count the two teachers as they were tested before the school had even reopened. That's merely an example of a system in place working.
> 
> At the very least I'd want to wait a week or two before making any big judgements on that - it may well be that these are cases being found because a whole new set of people is now being tested that wasn't being tested before. Is 16 in the first week a bad number?


this sounds like the sort of thing i'd expect from matt hancock of westminster.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2020)

nagapie said:


> The headline put dread in me. I didn't really pull it apart and I really hope you are right.


i'm not sure lbj's 'nothing to see here' really works when you're talking about a virus which where it doesn't kill can damage lungs and other organs with what long-term effects we do not know. with two large-scale movements of people into confined spaces - schoolchildren and students - in the next six weeks i'd say caution was the better part of valour.


----------



## Wilf (Aug 19, 2020)

Corbyn says government lectured him on 'herd immunity' in Spring:








						Jeremy Corbyn: government lectured me about herd immunity
					

Former Labour leader describes idea of letting Covid spread across population as ‘eugenic’




					www.theguardian.com
				




I'm sure they did exactly that, but what strikes me is that Corbyn is an utter wanker not saying anything publicly at the time (unless he did and I missed it of course). Presumably he thought the talks were confidential, but hiding behind that bullshit meant he missed a chance to call them out as abject liars over the herd immunity thing back in March or so.


----------



## andysays (Aug 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> [
> 
> Is it though? Eighteen cases in a week, eight of those in one school, two others teachers who tested positive before the schools returned, and no suggestion of in-school transmission. Tbh I wouldn't even count the two teachers as they were tested before the school had even reopened. That's merely an example of a system in place working.
> 
> At the very least I'd want to wait a week or two before making any big judgements on that - it may well be that these are cases being found because a whole new set of people is now being tested that wasn't being tested before. Is 16 in the first week a bad number?


I think eight pupils from one school being forced to self isolate the day after they returned to school is concerning.



> On 12 August, eight pupils at Bannerman High School in Baillieston, Glasgow were forced to self-isolate after they tested positive for the respiratory disease.



I don't whether all pupils are being tested on or before their return, although I think that might be a good idea, as much to reassure people as anything.

But if there are significant levels of Covid19 in the pupil population which are apparently not picked up until they've returned to school and potentially infected some of their class/school mates it's difficult to argue that's *not* a cause for concern, even if it doesn't reflect anything beyond that one school.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 19, 2020)

andysays said:


> I think eight pupils from one school being forced to self isolate the day after they returned to school is concerning.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What are 'significant levels'? We know it's still around so what would be the expected level given the current estimates of population wide infection? Is 16 above, below, or about at that level? How many tests were carried out last week? Without that context, a small cluster in one school plus a handful of isolated cases doesn't mean much. It may be indicative of a system working well more than anything.


----------



## andysays (Aug 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> What are 'significant levels'? We know it's still around so what would be the expected level given the current estimates of population wide infection? Is 16 above, below, or about at that level? How many tests were carried out last week? Without that context, a small cluster in one school plus a handful of isolated cases doesn't mean much. It may be indicative of a system working well more than anything.


As I've said, I think eight pupils from one school being forced to self isolate the day after they returned to school is concerning, and far more concerning than eight pupils from one school being forced to self isolate because they tested positive before they returned to school.

The latter would be an indication of a system working reasonably well, at least as regards not spreading it through the return to school, though it would still leave questions about why that number of pupils in that area have tested positive.

But having to send pupils home after they've already had the chance to infect their school mates doesn't strike me as a system working well, unless you're a government minister or an apologist for one


----------



## Santino (Aug 19, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Corbyn says government lectured him on 'herd immunity' in Spring:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And the British press would have reported this accurately and in good faith, and would not have branded him a traitor for revealing the information and talking Britain down.


----------



## Wilf (Aug 19, 2020)

Santino said:


> And the British press would have reported this accurately and in good faith, and would not have branded him a traitor for revealing the information and talking Britain down.


Undoubtedly some would have, but iirc the government was getting plenty of bad press as they went from herd immunity to a panicked lockdown in a matter of days. So if you want to look at it in those terms, it was just the right moment to break free of Chatham House Rules or whatever game they were all playing at the time. But most of all, if he now says the government admitted they were doing herd immunity and he recognised the dangers of that, he had a duty to pipe up - regardless of anticipated press reactions. Might not have made much difference in practice, but he had a duty to be on the right side of something that killed thousands needlessly.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2020)

Santino said:


> And the British press would have reported this accurately and in good faith, and would not have branded him a traitor for revealing the information and talking Britain down.


No one talks Britain down like Boris Johnson


----------



## Cloo (Aug 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> [
> 
> Is it though? Eighteen cases in a week, eight of those in one school, two others teachers who tested positive before the schools returned, and no suggestion of in-school transmission. Tbh I wouldn't even count the two teachers as they were tested before the school had even reopened. That's merely an example of a system in place working.
> 
> At the very least I'd want to wait a week or two before making any big judgements on that - it may well be that these are cases being found because a whole new set of people is now being tested that wasn't being tested before. Is 16 in the first week a bad number?


Is anyone expecting there _not _to be cases in schools?


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 19, 2020)

I'd say 8 cases in one school is quite bad tbh.


----------



## Thora (Aug 19, 2020)

Secondary school age children are infected/transmit it at the same rates as adults don't they?  If we're getting outbreaks in factories and pubs then there will definitely be outbreaks in schools.


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well yes, I would hope that she would be saying something a bit different in private, but as you say, this kind of gaslighting, which is what it is really, does nobody any good, and frankly it makes the officials spouting the bullshit look ridiculous. Why should anyone listen to someone saying such obvious bollocks?



I'm pleased to say that at least she got some subsequent stick over the comments:









						Coronavirus: Repeat tests for Covid-negative Greencore workers
					

A second set of tests will see if Covid-negative workers are incubating the virus, officials say.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Mrs Wightman said Public Health Northamptonshire had considered closing the Greencore factory, but after consulting the Food Standards Agency and virologists had decided the risk to the general public was "extraordinarily low".
> 
> She said Greencore "prides itself" on how it deals with infections.





> Mrs Wightman has been criticised for previously saying the outbreak was "about how people behave outside of Greencore, not at work".
> 
> She had mentioned car sharing and the number of Greencore employees who lived in single properties as reasons for the outbreak.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2020)

Whatever we think of the Sottish school cases so far, the balancing act isnt going to be much fun.









						Entire class of Glasgow schoolchildren to self-isolate after positive Covid-19 test
					

Pupils and teacher at St Albert's Primary, Pollokshields, sent home following positive coronavirus case.




					www.scotsman.com


----------



## Cloo (Aug 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> Whatever we think of the Sottish school cases so far, the balancing act isnt going to be much fun.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh yeah, it's gonna suck. Like I said, I think we might see more local/school level shutdowns than a national one - I think the gov is going to drive hard not to shut down schools. The most nuclear option they might be prepared to go for is, as they have suggested, to shut pubs to make it easier for schools to stay open, though i don't necessarily see it'll help that much.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 19, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> That actually reads like a made-up story or at least journalistic licence has been employed.  There are inconsistencies and oddness.



Init. Is she out of work, or self employed?


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 19, 2020)

Just seen a weird post on fb by someone who claims she knows someone who died of cancer but whose family have been 'fighting for months to have Covid-19 taken off the death certificate'. This sounds like absolute bollocks to me but how do you reply to those sort of arguments? LynnDoyleCooper elbows


----------



## weepiper (Aug 19, 2020)

Tbh if they tested positive the day after schools went back then they didn't catch it at school, did they? I think it's impossible we won't have cases in schools, but I don't think schools are less important to keep open than pubs, for example. If we can keep community transmission right down children and staff will be safer.


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## William of Walworth (Aug 20, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I think the gov is going to drive hard not to shut down schools. The most nuclear option they might be prepared to go for is, as they have suggested, to shut pubs to make it easier for schools to stay open, *though i don't necessarily see it'll help that much.*



I'd like to throw out the question here -- _would _shutting the pubs (in particular!) help the situation with schools? 

I'd genuinely like to see the logic of this thinking (it's been suggested a few times), and I'm honestly attempting to understand what direct connection there might be?

I'm honestly trying *not* to wear my 'sometimes goes to one or two pubs' hat here, but I'm failing to see the _logic_ of specifically shutting pubs in the hope that this would protect schools.

I'm probably missing something big though? -- I'm not a parent after all


----------



## iona (Aug 20, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'd like to throw out the question here -- _would _shutting the pubs (in particular!) help the situation with schools?
> 
> I'd genuinely like to see the logic of this thinking (it's been suggested a few times), and I'm honestly attempting to understand what direct connection there might be?
> 
> ...


(Aiui) It's not that they're directly connected, but both provide more opportunity for infection to spread than if they were closed. It might be that having both schools and pubs open leads to enough new cases for things to start really going to shit but having one or the other open is just about manageable, in which case you could close the pubs in order to keep schools open (or vice versa, depending on your priorities!)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 20, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'd like to throw out the question here -- _would _shutting the pubs (in particular!) help the situation with schools?
> 
> I'd genuinely like to see the logic of this thinking (it's been suggested a few times), and I'm honestly attempting to understand what direct connection there might be?



It's more an indirect connection, if it starts spreading in both pubs & schools it's likely to take the infection rate, the 'R' number, above 1, i.e. each person infects more than 1 other person, and then the number of cases increases exponentially, so it snowballs again. Therefore it could be a choice of keeping only one or other open, in order to keep the 'R' number down.

The current 'R' number across the UK is estimated at between 0.8 - 1, so not much wiggle room.

ETA - beaten to it by iona


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 20, 2020)

William of Walworth, there's a big debate going on about Oldham, and if it should be put into a proper lockdown again, closing non-essential shops, businesses and pubs,  but according to several reports I've read, the main spread is in the community, between different households, and not many, if any, new cases are actually being traced back to the likes of pubs.



> The closure of bars, restaurants and shops would make no “measurable difference” to the transmission of the virus in Oldham, Fielding [leader of Olham council] said, because the vast majority of new cases were spreading between households. “I don’t think it would be based on science or based on evidence if we were to be pushed into a local lockdown.”
> 
> LINK



There're fears that if they go into lockdown it will fuel racism, as already the blame game is happening between different communities. 



> Council leader Sean Fielding said that a major concern about lockdown measures being brought in was around its impact on ‘social cohesion’.
> 
> “There are examples of people in communities who are pointing the finger of blame at other communities, using that to justify their own non-compliance with the restrictions,” he added.
> 
> ...





> “However also in those communities you have high levels of poverty, high levels of cramped and overcrowded housing, high levels of people that work in public facing occupations that never shut down because they were essential workers. “To label it as an ethnicity issue is quite crude and not accurate, there are many more underlying factors.”
> 
> He said that he had received a ‘postbag’ of letters about a possible lockdown containing ‘really unpleasant language’. “Often in that correspondence I receive, people are using words that I thought had gone out of fashion in the 70s to describe people of other ethnic backgrounds,” he said.
> 
> “I do have concerns that if we were to have a local lockdown it would fuel even greater tensions in the town.











						Council leader warns Oldham lockdown would 'inflame community tensions'
					

It is understood a decision will be made by Thursday on whether stricter measures are required to tackle the infection rate




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


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## William of Walworth (Aug 20, 2020)

I understand both your logics, iona and cupid_stunt -- thanks.

Will get back to this subject -- but dare I (provocatively?) question whether shops and parents' workplaces, etc., etc., might also play a role here?

Honestly not on a  windup -- but I was genuinely questioning why pubs had been _singled out_ ...

More when not heading to work!


----------



## William of Walworth (Aug 20, 2020)

No time to get stuck into this now. Big questions/discussions involved.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 20, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I understand both your logics, iona and cupid_stunt -- thanks.
> 
> Will get back to this subject -- but dare I (provocatively?) question whether shops and parents' workplaces, etc., etc., might also play a role here?
> 
> ...



It's not really our logic, it came from Chris Whitty, when explaining the limits of opening up, although I don't think he actually mentioned pubs, certainly not in the actual briefing I watched.



> England's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, warned the UK may have hit its limits on easing restrictions.
> 
> Appearing alongside the prime minister at a special Downing Street briefing, Prof Whitty said the "idea that we can open up everything and keep the virus under control" is wrong.
> 
> ...



IIRC the pubs came up in a question, which could have been to Whitty or a Minster, who was asked if it could be a question of closing pubs in order to keep schools open, and the reply was 'possibly'.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 20, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'd like to throw out the question here -- _would _shutting the pubs (in particular!) help the situation with schools?
> 
> I'd genuinely like to see the logic of this thinking (it's been suggested a few times), and I'm honestly attempting to understand what direct connection there might be?
> 
> ...


I don't see the logic of it either - I think it's mostly the government trying to think of something it can be seen to be doing to 'help schools stay open',  given the flack they got for opening them before schools (though tbf,  by the time they opened them there was only 3 weeks of term left in England so I actually don't think it was some ideological message that pubs were more important than education)


----------



## LDC (Aug 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Just seen a weird post on fb by someone who claims she knows someone who died of cancer but whose family have been 'fighting for months to have Covid-19 taken off the death certificate'. This sounds like absolute bollocks to me but how do you reply to those sort of arguments? LynnDoyleCooper elbows



Conspiracy nonsense. And like all of that pretty impossible to directly argue against and win people over on. It's so often not them, but someone they know. Does it come with a history of other conspiracy stuff around Covid 19 frogwoman ?


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 20, 2020)

I don't know her but it seems so. Apparently the real death count shows covid deaths have been exaggerated by 82%? And that since March 'nobody is allowed to die of cancer or a heart attack'  

My mum's friend's relatives in South Africa have also been 'fighting to get Covid-19 taken off the death certificate' to the point of abusing doctors because they are religious fundamentalists and were just carrying on as normal, refusing to believe they had it despite a family member dying  


LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Conspiracy nonsense. And like all of that pretty impossible to directly argue against and win people over on. It's so often not them, but someone they know. Does it come with a history of other conspiracy stuff around Covid 19 frogwoman ?


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Conspiracy nonsense. And like all of that pretty impossible to directly argue against and win people over on. It's so often not them, but someone they know. Does it come with a history of other conspiracy stuff around Covid 19 frogwoman ?



Yeah and the problem is if you argue that it couldn't have happened you seem like a bit of a cunt.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I don't know her but it seems so. Apparently the real death count shows covid deaths have been exaggerated by 82%? And that since March 'nobody is allowed to die of cancer or a heart attack'



As far as the UK is concerned, this is absolute bollocks, just look at the ONS data for registered deaths, and the number of excess deaths this year. 

If these approx. 50,000 extra deaths, compared to the 5-year average, are not down to Covid, WTF has been killing all these people?


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As far as the UK is concerned, this is absolute bollocks, just look at the ONS data for registered deaths, and the number of excess deaths this year.
> 
> If these approx. 50,000 extra deaths, compared to the 5-year average, are not down to Covid, WTF has been killing all these people?


Totally agree, but her argument (and I've seen this elsewhere tbh) is that the lockdown itself has been killing people, leading to more suicides etc and these deaths are being ascribed to covid, or people are 'dying of the underlying conditions' and covid is being blamed


----------



## Roadkill (Aug 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Totally agree, but her argument (and I've seen this elsewhere tbh) is that the lockdown itself has been killing people, leading to more suicides etc and these deaths are being ascribed to covid, or people are 'dying of the underlying conditions' and covid is being blamed



Tbf lockdown hasn't been cost-free in terms of health, especially in terms of people not being able to or not wanting to access healthcare for sometimes serious conditions, and in terms of its impact on mental health, people's lifestyles, and so on.  But the idea it could account for something like 65,000 excess deaths is just plain ludicrous.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 20, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Tbf lockdown hasn't been cost-free in terms of health, especially in terms of people not being able to or not wanting to access healthcare for sometimes serious conditions, and in terms of its impact on mental health, people's lifestyles, and so on.  But the idea it could account for something like 65,000 excess deaths is just plain ludicrous.


Yeah I know, although countries without a full lockdown like Sweden have also seen the same issues with cancelled medical treatments and people being too scared to turn up to hospital. (They've also seen large numbers of excess deaths).

I don't know how you respond to stuff like that tbh. Just re read the original post and it's even worse than I thought, apparently doctors and medical professionals around the world are being paid to falsify death certificates


----------



## LDC (Aug 20, 2020)

I'd just de-friend them tbh, and possibly send a message telling them why.


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## frogwoman (Aug 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'd just de-friend them tbh, and possibly send a message telling them why.



I'm not friends with them, this is a comment on a fb friends status. I have a few acquaintances who have come out with similar shit tho.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 20, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Tbf lockdown hasn't been cost-free in terms of health, especially in terms of people not being able to or not wanting to access healthcare for sometimes serious conditions, and in terms of its impact on mental health, people's lifestyles, and so on.  But the idea it could account for something like 65,000 excess deaths is just plain ludicrous.



The excess deaths is still some way ahead of the official covid death toll IIRC. That discrepancy is where you'd find the non-covid but still pandemic-related deaths.

My early prediction that lockdown would kill more than covid is now looking a bit silly, but at that point I was still covid expecting deaths to peak within a fortnight of lockdown taking effect. I was also expecting a stricter lockdown with some token gestures towards enforcement.

e2a: As of a couple of weeks ago, the gap between excess deaths and covid deaths was about 12,000.


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Totally agree, but her argument (and I've seen this elsewhere tbh) is that the lockdown itself has been killing people, leading to more suicides etc and these deaths are being ascribed to covid, or people are 'dying of the underlying conditions' and covid is being blamed



There's almost 300,000 doctors in the UK, it would be one hell of a conspiracy, getting tens of thousands of them, across the four nations, to fiddle death certificates, these people are just bonkers.

England & Wales only -


> Between Weeks 1 and 12, 138,916 deaths were registered in England and Wales , which was 4,822 fewer than the five-year average for these weeks. However, between Weeks 13 and 32, 250,125 deaths were registered, which was 57,592 more than the five-year average. Week 32 showed a continuation of the decreasing trend in excess deaths with 157 fewer deaths than the five-year average (Figure 2). Detailed analysis on non-COVID-19-related deaths is available in Analysis of death registrations not involving coronavirus (COVID-19).
> 
> Looking at the year-to-date (using the most up-to-date data we have available), the number of deaths up to 7 August was 389,008, which is 52,737 more than the five-year average. Of the deaths registered by 7 August, 51,879 mentioned COVID-19 on the death certificate, 13.3% of all deaths in England and Wales.







__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus pandemic, by age, sex and region.



					www.ons.gov.uk


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## frogwoman (Aug 20, 2020)

It's not just the uk, it's 'doctors around the world'


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It's not just the uk, it's 'doctors around the world'



So, millions of doctors are in on this great conspiracy?


----------



## MickiQ (Aug 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As far as the UK is concerned, this is absolute bollocks, just look at the ONS data for registered deaths, and the number of excess deaths this year.
> 
> If these approx. 50,000 extra deaths, compared to the 5-year average, are not down to Covid, WTF has been killing all these people?


The lizard people have been conducting experiments on us and look how many people are involved in concealing the Earth is flat, Is it really so hard to imagine that the doctors are lying about the lurgy?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 20, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> The lizard people have been conducting experiments on us



Oh yeah, how could I forget about the lizard people.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, millions of doctors are in on this great conspiracy?



Who told you there are millions of doctors? I've only met about twenty.


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## Supine (Aug 20, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Who told you there are millions of doctors? I've only met about twenty.



And they were deep state actors


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## Pickman's model (Aug 20, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Tbf lockdown hasn't been cost-free in terms of health, especially in terms of people not being able to or not wanting to access healthcare for sometimes serious conditions, and in terms of its impact on mental health, people's lifestyles, and so on.  But the idea it could account for something like 65,000 excess deaths is just plain ludicrous.


All I wanted it to do was account for 650 excess deaths. Yet of all professions parliamentarians seem to have emerged with a peculiarly, markworthy low level of deaths.


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## SpookyFrank (Aug 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, millions of doctors are in on this great conspiracy?



All we know for sure is that it's more than one doctor in more than one country.


----------



## zora (Aug 20, 2020)

Btw, are people still only supposed to get a test and, for that matter, self-isolate if they have got one of the official three symptoms (cough, fever, loss of sense of smell?), no other cold symptoms?

One of my colleagues sounded super-nasally coldly yesterday and I heard him cough (once!) and clear his throat a bit in that coldy way.
Already I am freaked out and second-guessing myself if I should see my boyfriend this weekend or not. 

Although this is not about pointing a finger at this particular colleague who certainly didn't seem to be doing anything reckless by current regulations. It made me think more generally about the massive culture of presenteeism, and how come autumn and winter people might self-diagnose themselves with all manner of things as "surely not covid" and splutter moderately all over the place, esp in the jobs with no wfh option, and it's just going to be really uncomfortable...


----------



## Doodler (Aug 20, 2020)

ITV News gets to the heart of the coronavirus pandemic and reports on the trauma facing those who don't look their best during Zoom video meetings:

Video calls in lockdown causing body image concerns



> As a personal trainer, Mike Williams from Bishops Stortford believes it's important to look good, and feel good.



But Mike's worried about his receding hairline being visible.


----------



## LDC (Aug 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I'm not friends with them, this is a comment on a fb friends status. I have a few acquaintances who have come out with similar shit tho.



I'd totally ignore it then, maybe a PM to your friend asking who the crackpot is or something? (Sorry, edited frogwoman - know you know what to do, I'm more thinking aloud. It's depressing how much this stuff has taken hold with people.)

There's not many lessons I've learnt in life but the futility of arguing with people like that is one - even more so on social media, U75 excluded obviously!


----------



## zahir (Aug 20, 2020)

zora said:


> Btw, are people still only supposed to get a test and, for that matter, self-isolate if they have got one of the official three symptoms (cough, fever, loss of sense of smell?), no other cold symptoms?



Depends where you are. Different rules for places like Oldham and Blackburn.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'd totally ignore it then, maybe a PM to your friend asking who the crackpot is or something?
> 
> There's not many lessons I've learnt in life but the futility of arguing with people like that is one - even more so on social media, U75 excluded obviously!



I know, the thing is I am seeing that sort of thing a bit more frequently.


----------



## Spandex (Aug 20, 2020)

zora said:


> Btw, are people still only supposed to get a test and, for that matter, self-isolate if they have got one of the official three symptoms (cough, fever, loss of sense of smell?), no other cold symptoms?


Officially, yes.

I had this problem a couple of weeks ago. I had a slight cough and felt a bit shit. I didn't have a temperature or loss of smell, but in my head struggled with the question 'what is a continuous cough?'. I was only coughing occasionally - it wasn't non-stop at any point - but it did last for days. The official definition of symptoms are quite vague when you're faced with them, especially as symptoms of C-19 can range from nothing to death. Luckily, my partner is working from home and I'm on leave to look after the kids, so it wasn't too hard to stay home for a week - the kids just had too much screen time while I slumped there for a few days. I did go for a test, which came back negative, but to get it I had to confirm that yes, I did have a continuous cough even though I wasn't sure I actually did. Even when you get the result, apparently there's around a 24% chance for a false negative so we sat out the week at home and we're all fine.

If I had a job that insisted I come in or face consequences, I may well have convinced myself that there was no way it could be Covid. The thing that freaked me out was that despite being careful when out - I had taken the kids out loads - I'd still managed to catch something. Even though it probably wasn't C-19, it just as easily could've been.


----------



## LDC (Aug 20, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Tbf lockdown hasn't been cost-free in terms of health, especially in terms of people not being able to or not wanting to access healthcare for sometimes serious conditions, and in terms of its impact on mental health, people's lifestyles, and so on.  But the idea it could account for something like 65,000 excess deaths is just plain ludicrous.



Yeah, like lots of this stuff there's often a fragment of truth somewhere in there. Although often buried quite deeply under a massive pile of shit.


----------



## zora (Aug 20, 2020)

Yes, it is tricky. Though it does sound to me that what you had certainly qualified and you did the right thing. 
The NHS website defines a new continous cough as 
"*a new, continuous cough* – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)".

But yeah, I do worry that people with similar or slightly lesser symptoms will just be going into work again. In my job, it's not even like we wouldn't get paid, but already that pervasive pressure of not wanting to let our short-staffed side down (short-staffed and overworked because loads of people are still on furlough  ) or not wanting to make a fuss over nothing is rearing its head again.


----------



## Spandex (Aug 20, 2020)

zora said:


> The NHS website defines a new continous cough as
> "*a new, continuous cough* – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)".


Yeah, I stared at that bit for ages. What is 'a lot'? What counts as 'an episode'? It leaves plenty of room for people to pick their own definition.


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## Roadkill (Aug 20, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> e2a: As of a couple of weeks ago, the gap between excess deaths and covid deaths was about 12,000.



I thought it was a bit higher than that, tbh.  Either way, I'd imagine a very high proportion of them are Covid deaths that weren't recorded as such in the early days, when testing was less common than now, and the bulk of the remainder people with other serious conditions who've either not been able to or not _felt_ able to access care. I'd be very surprised if more than a tiny fraction could be directly attributed to lockdown.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 20, 2020)

zora said:


> Yes, it is tricky. Though it does sound to me that what you had certainly qualified and you did the right thing.
> The NHS website defines a new continous cough as
> "*a new, continuous cough* – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)".
> 
> But yeah, I do worry that people with similar or slightly lesser symptoms will just be going into work again. In my job, it's not even like we wouldn't get paid, but already that pervasive pressure of not wanting to let our short-staffed side down (short-staffed and overworked because loads of people are still on furlough  ) or not wanting to make a fuss over nothing is rearing its head again.


This annoys me a bit - I thought the idea of putting people on furlough was so that they could get paid, even while there was no work for them to do. What you're describing is a work situation where it sounds as if there *is* work for them to do, but they're furloughed, and your employers are expecting the rest of the team to effectively cover for them.

Unless I've got the wrong end of the stick...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 20, 2020)

existentialist said:


> This annoys me a bit - I thought the idea of putting people on furlough was so that they could get paid, even while there was no work for them to do. What you're describing is a work situation where it sounds as if there *is* work for them to do, but they're furloughed, and your employers are expecting the rest of the team to effectively cover for them.
> 
> Unless I've got the wrong end of the stick...


I suspect that's been happening loads. It is effectively what happened at my work - couple of people furloughed, rest of us snowed under.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I suspect that's been happening loads. It is effectively what happened at my work - couple of people furloughed, rest of us snowed under.


If we had a government and state machinery that was competent, a lot of this would be flagged up and dealt with. Apart from being an abuse of the non-furloughed employees, it's also an abuse of the furlough system. Well, who can blame them - look at the example our Glorious Leaders are setting them!


----------



## elbows (Aug 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Just seen a weird post on fb by someone who claims she knows someone who died of cancer but whose family have been 'fighting for months to have Covid-19 taken off the death certificate'. This sounds like absolute bollocks to me but how do you reply to those sort of arguments? LynnDoyleCooper elbows



My modus operandi is already clear. I bore them to death with data and explanations, and their demise is then counted as a Covid-19 death. Or I ignore them completely because I dont expect them to see the light.


----------



## zora (Aug 20, 2020)

existentialist said:


> This annoys me a bit - I thought the idea of putting people on furlough was so that they could get paid, even while there was no work for them to do. What you're describing is a work situation where it sounds as if there *is* work for them to do, but they're furloughed, and your employers are expecting the rest of the team to effectively cover for them.
> 
> Unless I've got the wrong end of the stick...



No, you got it in one. But of course, employers and employees ideas of what constitutes over- or understaffed often diverge wildly. Basically, there is a formula of x amount of turnover per employee, and that same formula is being used now. So now, because sales are so low, we have got a lot fewer people than before. More fool me for briefly thinking that we might not operate on quite such a shoestring of staff as pre-pandemic, so that people could go about their work in a more measured and covid-secure way and not have to dash about the place like the proverbial blue-arsed fly, or taking into account that the whole situation is taking a bit of a toll on people's stress levels. But hey, the company has partnered with a new mental health organisation; there is a poster for it in the staff room. 😒

But, as LBJ said, this seems to be sadly all too common, and if anything is nothing compared to the massive pisstakes that were recently reported with vast amounts of furloughed people continuing to work for their companies.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I don't know her but it seems so. Apparently the real death count shows covid deaths have been exaggerated by 82%? And that since March 'nobody is allowed to die of cancer or a heart attack'


82%?
PAH
My acquaintance with a _secret_ NHS link claims COVID death have been inflated _*a hundredfold*_ and he has this directly from the dean of St Thomas...
I despair but like to keep an eye on it.


----------



## Anju (Aug 20, 2020)

27% increase in cases over a week, with testing down 2%.

Also this

"In an indication that the NHS may be again facing an increased demand from people with Covid-19, it was the first time there had been a notable increase (+34%) in positive tests in hospitals or at the sites of outbreaks, known as “pillar one”, since the NHS test and trace launched on 28 May."









						Lockdown fears for Birmingham amid sharp rise in UK coronavirus cases
					

City sees ‘extremely concerning’ rise to 30 cases per 100,000 as positive tests in Britain hit highest level since mid-June




					www.theguardian.com
				




Going on observed behaviour in my area I'm pretty pessimistic about the coming winter months. Pubs, bars, restaurants are all really busy with no social distancing. Mask wearing seems to be declining steadily. Virtually none in small shops and even our local big Tesco had people in every aisle not wearing any face covering when I went on Monday.


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## elbows (Aug 20, 2020)

Here are the weekly reports that story is based on, and the most recent reports data that includes the pillar 1 stuff they mention.









						Weekly statistics for NHS Test and Trace (England)
					

Experimental statistics from the NHS Test and Trace service and related documents.




					www.gov.uk
				






> In pillar 1, there was an increase of 34% in positive cases compared to the previous week. This is the first week there has been a notable increase in positive cases in pillar 1 since Test and Trace launched.





I see they cant even get their reports right, putting percentage in brackets for those column headings and then not including any percentages in brackets.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 21, 2020)

Busy day of enrolment yesterday. And terrifyingly blasé. Social distancing lines all marked for the students queuing outside the hall and those inside, and any number of staff clustered together chatting. 

One lady directing students to stay on the social distancing lines, when they reached her she stood looking over their shoulder to ask who they were etc.

I was also handed a radio which me and another staff member were expected to share.

I mean this is before thousands of students descend on the place...


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## thismoment (Aug 21, 2020)

At the school near me, I saw staff directing students to the specific entrance that they should use when they collect their results and it looks like they have markings inside but then again the students were all hugging and kissing outside when they met each other


----------



## elbows (Aug 21, 2020)

I'm just starting to read this weeks surveillance report. Only got as far as the summary but there are several things of note:

Firstly they offer an explanation for the rise in pillar 1 positive tests:



> Pillar 1 positivity increased in the East Midlands, which is likely to be linked to testing in a factory outbreak.



I guess if thats the story we will have to abandon our presumptions about which sorts of teting are part of which pillar? Since factory outbreaks are not what we've come to think of as something that will be tested under pillar 1.

The other thing I have spotted so far is that in previous weeks I have pointed out that despite all the talk of younger people being behind the rise in detected cases, this weekly reports were still saying that it was the 80+ age group with the highest positivity rate. Well, that has now changed in this weeks report:



> Case rates were highest in the 15-44 year age group.



There is also some excess mortality showing up in an age group!



> Excess mortality was observed in the 25 to 44 years age group in week 32



I dont have an explanation for that at this stage, I will look into it when I can.


----------



## Thora (Aug 21, 2020)

On the test & trace system - the landlord of a local pub was apparently called by t&t today and informed that a customer who was there on Saturday tested positive. They said the customer was only there for 30 minutes but wouldn’t tell the landlord a name or what time   It was apparently just a call “for information“ and the pub didn’t need to do anything, get tests, give names. Is this really how it is supposed to work?


----------



## existentialist (Aug 21, 2020)

Thora said:


> On the test & trace system - the landlord of a local pub was apparently called by t&t today and informed that a customer who was there on Saturday tested positive. They said the customer was only there for 30 minutes but wouldn’t tell the landlord a name or what time   It was apparently just a call “for information“ and the pub didn’t need to do anything, get tests, give names. Is this really how it is supposed to work?


If it is how it's supposed to work, it shouldn't be. That just makes a mockery of the whole thing. Not that it wasn't already making a mockery of itself...


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 21, 2020)

Thora said:


> On the test & trace system - the landlord of a local pub was apparently called by t&t today and informed that a customer who was there on Saturday tested positive. They said the customer was only there for 30 minutes but wouldn’t tell the landlord a name or what time   It was apparently just a call “for information“ and the pub didn’t need to do anything, get tests, give names. Is this really how it is supposed to work?


Wow. An australian friend was telling me their contact tracing program tries to find out which lifts people stood in and who shared them. Obviously its compulsory for bars to register who is there. And if you're meant to be quarantining the military are quite likely to come to your house to check that you're in. The UK's half-arsed nonsense may be worse than useless - giving people some false sense of security that the government is doing contact tracing when all they're doing is lining their friends' pockets.


----------



## elbows (Aug 21, 2020)

Here are the graphs relating to the excess mortality stuff, taken from the report I already linked to in previous post.

The similar colours used for several entries on these graphs make them a bit of a nightmare. I'm thinking the spike in the regional one is for the South West and the North West. But the age group one is doing my head in a bit because if it were not for the narrative about 25-45 year group, I would think it was the 80+ green one that was on the rise, not the 25-44 one. I'm going to have to search for underlying data because Im still not convinced that it is the 25-45 green rather than the 80+ green rising on this graph.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 21, 2020)

I really think contact tracing and testing/quarantining of all contacts should be an absolute priority right now as the only way to avoid carnage in winter. They need to train and pay thousands of people to do it properly, visit people's houses, make it compulsory for all buildings apart from shops to register who is in them. Their current approach is going to kill shitloads of people come winter, as though they haven't already killed enough.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Here are the graphs relating to the excess mortality stuff, taken from the report I already linked to in previous post.
> 
> The similar colours used for several entries on these graphs make them a bit of a nightmare. I'm thinking the spike in the regional one is for the South West and the North West. But the age group one is doing my head in a bit because if it were not for the narrative about 25-45 year group, I would think it was the 80+ green one that was on the rise, not the 25-44 one. I'm going to have to search for underlying data because Im still not convinced that it is the 25-45 green rather than the 80+ green rising on this graph.
> 
> ...



Spike in the south west? That still looks quite low. We've had visitors coming in but I haven't heard of that many cases yet.

Eta ignore me - spike on the right hand side of the graph 

Eta eta - eek


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## Thora (Aug 21, 2020)

existentialist said:


> If it is how it's supposed to work, it shouldn't be. That just makes a mockery of the whole thing. Not that it wasn't already making a mockery of itself...


Bizarre isn’t it  The landlord has informed people and closed the pub to get staff all tested anyway, but didn’t have to.


----------



## andysays (Aug 21, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> ... The UK's half-arsed nonsense may be worse than useless - giving people some false sense of security that the government is doing something when all they're doing is lining their friends' pockets.


Tbh, you could post that final sentence on most of the UK based threads and no one would disagree.


----------



## elbows (Aug 21, 2020)

OK I used ONS data to check the death figures by age range. I can confirm that it was that younger age group that showed excess deaths. Well I dont actually have figures for expected deaths per week per age group, so I'm just using total deaths instead as this still shows the pattern.

To be more specific, its people in the 25-29 and 30-34 age groups that show the rise clearly in the data.

ONS data from: Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional        - Office for National Statistics


Also note that this is all deaths from all causes, so I would hesitate before attaching a particular story to this, and probably wont attempt to do so unless this pattern continues over time.


----------



## MrSki (Aug 21, 2020)

Not sure where these figures are from but if correct it does make the 28 day counting seem a bit flawed.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 21, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Not sure where these figures are from but if correct it does make the 28 day counting seem a bit flawed.




The daily figures have always been rough & ready, despite the lag, the ONS figures are better.



> Of the deaths registered in Week 32 [w/e 7/8/20], 152 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, the lowest number of deaths involving COVID-19 in the last 20 weeks and a 21.2% decrease compared with Week 31 (193 deaths), accounting for 1.7% of all deaths in England and Wales.
> 
> The number of deaths registered in the UK in the week ending 7 August 2020 (Week 32) was 10,210, which was 142 deaths fewer than the five-year average; of the deaths registered in the UK in Week 32, 162 deaths involved COVID-19.



So, the UK covid figure was 162, about 23 a day - the adjusted daily figure average for that w/e date was 11, up to yesterday it was 8, when the ONS data is published for this week I suspect it'll be around 20 a day.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Aug 21, 2020)




----------



## two sheds (Aug 21, 2020)

I presume that's the average, which would mean it's a lot higher than that in some parts of the country? :


----------



## elbows (Aug 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The daily figures have always been rough & ready, despite the lag, the ONS figures are better.
> 
> 
> 
> So, the UK covid figure was 162, about 23 a day - the adjusted daily figure average for that w/e date was 11, up to yesterday it was 8, when the ONS data is published for this week I suspect it'll be around 20 a day.



Exactly, and these are reasons why I havent bothered moaning too much about the governments change to 28 days.

There are a number of different ONS figures and the two I place most weight in are excess deaths, and the version of their weekly data where they show Covid-19 deaths (positive test or mentioned on death certificate) by actual date of death. That last one I mentioned is what should be used instead of the crap daily figure the government provide.

And there are a bunch of reasons why its been a long time since I paid attention to the daily announced UK figure. A lot of its problems, and the reason why the government felt the need to change the methodology to get the numbers down, is that the lag in its numbers is much worse than the ONS lag. I say it is much worse because by contrast with the deaths by date of death ONS figures, the ONS lag is clear and obvious and accounted for properly in the figures. So the lag there means we have to wait longer to see the data at all, but the lag does not distort the data itself. When I look at the ONS data that came out from Tuesday, I know it only includes deaths that were registered up till August 15th, and where the death occurred on any day up till August 7th. And I know that if deaths after this period come into their system later, they will be added to the appropriate days column of data, not just stuck into the very latest figure. The daily announced figure from the government is not like that at all, it tells me nothing about the actual date of death. And given how much lower their totals always were, its clear that that system had been hugely backlogged for a very long time, leading to figures announced on a particular day that have very little relationship with how many people per day were actually dying at that moment in time.

So even before the change to 28 days cutoff, the UK daily announced figure was no bloody use to me. The total it showed was useless given that the ONS total was so much higher. And it cant give me a good sense of the current rate of death per day. So what bloody good is it?

So anyway since the ONS stuff takes care of totals and offers a decent look at at deaths per day with a few weeks lag, and since the daily government figure is deeply flawed, this leaves the obvious question of how we are supposed to keep an eye on the current daily death rate so that we can judge what is happening with the pandemic here. I will write a followup post about this shortly.

On a dissapointing note, normally when I talk about ONS deaths by date of actual death, I take care to say that when producing this number for the whole of the UK, ONS only covers England & Wales and I have to add in data from NISRA and NRS to cover Northern Ireland and Scotland. Well, it seems Scotlands deaths from Covid-19 reached such a low level that they decided to stop publishing their weekly data report, although they will consider reinstating it if the situation changes. There is some crappy dashboard where I think I can see a weekly figure rather than a daily one but I havent finished checking that out.


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## elbows (Aug 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I presume that's the average, which would mean it's a lot higher than that in some parts of the country? :



Reasons we have been seeing much less emphasis on R in more recent months from the government and journalists include:

They dont have a way to measure R directly, they have to deduce it using available data and various models and estimates. Various different groups give their estimates to SAGE and SAGE has to come up with a figure that finds some consensus within the group and is made public.

Their confidence in the quality of their estimates decreases further when they attempt to zoom in and do regional estimates. Often because its being based on too small an amount of data.

Specific outbreaks cause big spikes in the numbers of detected cases which influences these R estimates and causes them to have to insert further caveats.

R can vary wildly per setting. So for example during the era of the daily press conferences, on occasions where R estimates were mentioned, they made sure to included specific detail about how the estimate of R did not include care homes and hospitals. And they were extremely resistant to sharing any estimates of what R was in hospitals, probably because there was lots of suspected hospital transmission and crude calculations of R in that setting using the data they had would probably have generated a headline-worthy number if ever there was one.

So yeah in this phase of local measures, lockdowns etc, they've mostly had to focus on actual case rates and some other metrics rather than R. But when it comes to the overall trends, we will still sometimes hear something about R as is the case today. Thats not to say there are no regional estimates, I will dig for the latest of those a bit later on this afternoon.

I believe I found a weekly report for Scotland that I didnt know about before that includes plenty of stuff about their own R estimate that will probably shed some light on the underlying estimates and associated murk. I'll go and look for it now and will report back.


----------



## elbows (Aug 21, 2020)

These are the Scotttish reports I mentioned. As well as the R stuff I shall highlight, its probably also of interest to people interested in the ongoing modelling. Because unlike the UK government, this set of Scottish reports seems quite keen to talk about ongoing efforts to model their epidemic. Of course they dont actually show us their models output stretching far into the future, and most of the detail reveals the high degree of uncertainty or limitations to the modelling. For example it sounds like they've been running the Imperial College model using their own data, but that model dates number of deaths as a main input, and the number of deaths in Scotland is currently too low to for the model to actually output anything useful at the moment! 





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic - gov.scot
					

Collection of reports including findings on modelling the COVID-19 epidemic in Scotland including the spread of the disease through the population (epidemiological modelling) and the demands it will place on the system.




					www.gov.scot
				




Anyway, on with some R related snippets from the latest of those reports. Also note their eye-watering estimates for how high R was before intervention.



> The reproduction rate R is becoming less certain, with the current range between 0.6 and 1.3 for Scotland.





> The Rt value estimated by the Scottish Government falls within the range of values estimated by other modelling groups and considered by SPI-M and SAGE (Figure 2). SAGE’s consensus view, as of 13 August, was that the value of Rt in Scotland was between 0.6 and 1.3. This rise is primarily due to the outbreak in Aberdeen. The various groups which report to SPI-M use different sources of data in their models (ie. deaths, hospital admissions, cases) so their success at capturing this outbreak varies from group to group, leading to an increase in uncertainty this week.


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## Steel Icarus (Aug 21, 2020)

Latest dispatch from the World of Loons I keep finding myself in: was instructed by a staff member that anyone approaching the building enrolment was happening in wearing a mask must be told that they don't have to because "it's annoying people".


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## elbows (Aug 21, 2020)

I said too much already today so I think I'll delay my 'which death stats can we use to keep a timely eye on things' post till some time over the weekend instead.

I will still dig up some UK/England R stuff though to finish off my thoughts on that subject given its appearance in the news.


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## baldrick (Aug 21, 2020)

Spandex said:


> The official definition of symptoms are quite vague when you're faced with them, especially as symptoms of C-19 can range from nothing to death.


 I'm sorry you were ill but this did make me laugh


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## elbows (Aug 21, 2020)

baldrick said:


> I'm sorry you were ill but this did make me laugh



Its just the same with other things including influenza, which is why I hope our attitude towards proper diagnostic testing is permanently changed in this country as a result of the pandemic.

Anyway regarding the R, I eventually found the dull site where updated estimates live these days, and it does include regional estimates but note the low confidence in some of the numbers they came up with. I should have found it much sooner but Im not used to news articles actually bothering to link to this kind of source, but sky did when I actually bothered to look properly.









						The R value and growth rate
					

The latest reproduction number (R) and growth rate of coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk
				





This unclear picture is the same as what I see in the reports based off of the test-based random population survey stuff. The problem is basically that they sample so many tens of thousands of people every week, and end up with relatively few positives as a result. And the more they zoom in, to regions and ideally even more locally, the less actual data they have and the lower their confidence becomes. I'm sure this is why a big fanfare was made of the news some days ago that they were looking to increase the numbers involved in this test survey system (by perhaps 5-fold, I forget exactly).

Here are some example reports from this system, that should indicate quickly to any reader how many of the questions they'd like to answer they cannot properly do so with the current data. Lots of 'no evidence to suggest' and 'it is not possible to say' I'm afraid.






						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

Percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) in private residential households in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, including regional and age breakdowns.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				








__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey - Office for National Statistics
					

Data about the characteristics of people testing positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19) from the COVID-19 Infection Survey. This survey is being delivered in partnership with the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester, Public Health England and Wellcome Trust.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




One of the few things that does stand out clearly enough in the limited data that they can actually say something useful about it, relates to risk of certain ethnic minorities getting infected at the moment. But even in this area the unknowns soon creep in.



> Individuals identifying as Asian or Asian British were 4.8 times (95% confidence interval: 2.1 to 10.9) more likely to test positive for COVID-19 on a swab test than people of White ethnicity. This is based on nose and throat swabs taken during the most recent eight-week period of the study (8 June to 2 August 2020). While the 95% confidence intervals surrounding this estimate are large, the lower interval still indicates a higher chance of infection for those of the Asian or Asian British ethnic group.
> 
> For the remaining ethnic groups, the limited number of positive cases reported in our study over the latest eight-week period means that it is difficult to make conclusions about differences between ethnic groups.


----------



## clicker (Aug 21, 2020)

elbows what was the  r rate at the highest peak so far?


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## elbows (Aug 21, 2020)

clicker said:


> elbows what was the  r rate at the highest peak so far?



It depends who you ask. Its always an estimate and is usually described as a range within confidence levels.

One of my posts above shows what they thought it was at the peak (which would have been pre-lockdown). I dont have time to look for the UK figure of the time but the Scottish graph seemed to use the famous Imperial College model which is the same one that got the most prominence in terms of the UK response, U-turn etc.

Via other sources we have been consuming R estimates more generally for the disease since this virus was first announced. Again I forget and dont have time to check now, but I think we were used to seeing early estimates that ranged from 2-3. And this number should of course plummet once behaviours change, whether on an individual level or via strong government interventions.

I would plot the changing UK regional estimates onto a graph showing the changes over time, except the relatively low reliability of the R estimates means I havent thought it worth the effort so far.


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## elbows (Aug 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> A not too subtle degree of bias from Northamptonshires director of public health in the quotes from that article methinks:
> 
> Mrs Wightman said Greencore had "highly effective measures in place and they continue to work extremely hard to exceed the requirements needed to be Covid-19 secure within the workplace".
> 
> She said the outbreak was "about how people behave outside of Greencore, not at work," adding if people failed to follow the rules "a possible local lockdown will follow".



What officials need to realise in regards their weasel words during a pandemic, is that they may have a very short shelf life. So what they have been taught to think works and is appropriate, because it pushes things into the long grass or redirects blame, is in danger of evolving in a different manner during a bad pandemic and quickly blowing up in their face.

And so, in light of the Northampton area ending up on the watch list, we have quickly ended up with this quote from the very same person. Spot the difference.



> Lucy Wightman said: "Local testing data shows this spike is significantly influenced by a workplace outbreak at the Greencore Factory. As a result the factory will close voluntarily from today, and most employees and their direct households will be required to isolate at home for two weeks. The government is also introducing regulations to ensure this isolation period is enforceable and anyone leaving isolation without a reasonable excuse prior to the required period ending will be subject to fines.











						Government escalates Northampton onto 'Area of Intervention' list over Covid-19 infection rates
					

The town has been added to the Government's watchlist after the borough's infection rate has risen for the fourth week in a row




					www.northamptonchron.co.uk


----------



## zora (Aug 21, 2020)

Thora said:


> On the test & trace system - the landlord of a local pub was apparently called by t&t today and informed that a customer who was there on Saturday tested positive. They said the customer was only there for 30 minutes but wouldn’t tell the landlord a name or what time   It was apparently just a call “for information“ and the pub didn’t need to do anything, get tests, give names. Is this really how it is supposed to work?



This does sound bizarre, and it would certainly be good to have more transparency and wider understanding how this is supposed to work, because if we are all tapping in the dark about this, then it can't have been communicated very well. 

I do wonder if it's something to do with that mythical "closer contact than two metres for more than 15 minutes" benchmark that would trigger any more contact tracing. So, say, this man spoke to someone from test and trace, and told them he bought a pint at the bar and the bar staff were behind a perspex screen and he went and had his drink on his own/with his household in the garden/in a far corner of the pub and left after 30 mins, this would not be deemed an infection risk to others. [This is obviously pure conjecture on my part, just trying to think of a possible scenario]. 

But to call the pub and leave them scratching their heads and taking proactive measures off their own back seems shoddy at the very least. I'd also hope that "we" would err on thr side of caution a bit more, and certainly if I had been another customer at the time, I would like to know about it so that I could consider postponing the proverbial visit to grandma for another week or so...


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## littlebabyjesus (Aug 21, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Not sure where these figures are from but if correct it does make the 28 day counting seem a bit flawed.



Currently, around 250,000 people have tested positive for C-19 more than a month ago and not died. That isn't a representative cross-section of the population - it is a skewed demographic, given the average age of those testing positive in the early months was over 60, and those testing positive were more likely to have underlying conditions than average (a product of the testing regime rather than a reflection of who caught it). Taking that 90-odd and remembering that it's a non-weekend figure, it represents a level about the same as was being reported before the change - around 50 a day average. Before you can make sense of that figure, you have to calculate how many of those 250,000 you would expect to be dying daily without any covid-19, taking account of the demographic of that group.

That first daily figure is only a first approximation, remember. Deaths of people testing positive more than 28 days ago but who have c-19 mentioned on the death certificate will be added later. That the figure would be about the same as it was before if they hadn't made that change isn't really surprising. It would be more surprising if it had changed radically.


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 22, 2020)

Must be a bit of a relief for people that Oldham avoided a lockdown, and is just subject to a slight tightening of current restrictions regarding mixing with other households, as the vast majority of new cases has been spreading between households, backed-up with extra engagement in the communities of the worst hit areas, fingers crossed this works out.



> Oldham and parts of Blackburn and Pendle are facing extra restrictions to stem the spread of Covid-19.
> 
> Residents in those areas are not allowed to socialise with anyone from outside their household, as of midnight on Saturday.
> 
> ...



Up to date map of areas of concern - 











						Coronavirus: Tighter rules for Oldham, Pendle and Blackburn
					

Residents of Oldham and parts of Pendle and Blackburn face stricter Covid-19 restrictions.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Aug 25, 2020)

Hospital acquired infections has long been one of my themes.

Well apparently we are supposed to be impressed by these numbers:









						Coronavirus: One in eight hospital cases were 'caught on-site'
					

Researchers looked at more than 1,500 coronavirus cases in hospitals at the peak of its spread.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The King's College London study of 10 UK hospital sites plus one in Italy found at least one in eight patients who had received hospital treatment for coronavirus had caught it on-site.
> 
> Researchers said that was a relatively low rate and showed there was effective infection control in place.



And even if the methodology is reconsidered, leading to a much higher number, we are still invited to think that its fine.



> Only those who tested positive 15 days or more after admission were counted as hospital-acquired infections, however.
> 
> And if patients who tested positive after five to 14 days are included, the proportion increases to 23%.
> 
> ...



I'm still not a fan of the BBCs Nick Triggle:



> Those caveats do suggest the the risk of catching the virus in hospital remains still small.



Fucking brilliant eh. At a time when a huge amount of routine stuff was cancelled and lots of people avoided hospital completely, we still got the above sort of figures, and are supposed to judge it as some sort of success. Presumably even if we also consider the impact of discharging people into care homes we are still supposed to view the impact of all this stuff as being OK. No wonder we have been thoroughly exposed by this pandemic, and no wonder I will keep on speculating about how many of our normal seasonal flu deaths are due to hospital infection.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 25, 2020)

Whilst I get and accept that rates of mortality, (particularly geriatric), tend to rise in heatwaves, I can't help being reminded of a previous Tory attempt to disguise the cause of death rate when the Third Churchill administration ascribed the approx 9k - 12k spike in deaths from the Dec 1952 Great Smog to an invented 'influenza epidemic'. Things don't change, way back then they were still desperate not to let matters of public health interfere with the 'smooth functioning' of their economy.


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> Hospital acquired infections has long been one of my themes.
> 
> Well apparently we are supposed to be impressed by these numbers:
> 
> ...


I still don't get why NHS  staff are not being routinely tested every 14 days given the working environment and the likelihood of being asymptomatic?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 25, 2020)

Latest from ONS on covid deaths.



> Week ending 14 August (Week 33)
> 
> Of the deaths registered in Week 33, 139 mentioned “novel coronavirus (COVID-19)”, the lowest number of deaths involving COVID-19 in the last 21 weeks and an 8.6% decrease compared with Week 32 (152 deaths), accounting for 1.5% of all deaths in England and Wales.
> The number of deaths involving COVID-19 decreased or remained the same across the majority of the English regions; there were 10 more deaths involving COVID-19 in London compared with Week 32.
> ...








						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional       - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, by age, sex and region, in the latest weeks for which data are available. Includes the most up-to-date figures available for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19).



					www.ons.gov.uk


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## elbows (Aug 25, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I still don't get why NHS  staff are not being routinely tested every 14 days given the working environment and the likelihood of being asymptomatic?



Tragically I think there are still big issues with test capacity, even though the press dont go on about it so much anymore.

The signs of this are still there, eg there was supposed to be a system for care homes to get tests routinely but this already got delayed till September and may be delayed again, and in the meantime there are huge holes in the current system and they have to jump through hoops, only get tests for symptomatic cases etc.

I may as well stick in a couple of figures from antibody testing while we are on this subject.









						REACT-2: real-time assessment of community transmission – prevalence of coronavirus (COVID-19) antibodies in June 2020
					






					www.gov.uk
				






> People who work in care homes with client-facing roles had an adjusted prevalence of 16.5% compared with 11.7% for healthcare workers with direct patient contact and 5.3% for workers who were not key workers.
> 
> Those who had had contact with a confirmed case had an adjusted prevalence of 21.0% compared with 3.5% for people who had had no contact with a suspected or confirmed case.


----------



## elbows (Aug 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Whilst I get and accept that rates of mortality, (particularly geriatric), tend to rise in heatwaves, I can't help being reminded of a previous Tory attempt to disguise the cause of death rate when the Third Churchill administration ascribed the approx 9k - 12k spike in deaths from the Dec 1952 Great Smog to an invented 'influenza epidemic'. Things don't change, way back then they were still desperate not to let matters of public health interfere with the 'smooth functioning' of their economy.



I'll have a look at this weeks data in a bit.

To be fair when I was looking at deaths per day since 1970, I think the effects of the summer of 1976 did show up quite clearly. But there may well be more than one factor contributing to any blip this year.


----------



## GarveyLives (Aug 25, 2020)

GarveyLives said:


> More here:
> 
> Cops weren’t told about coronavirus spit attack on station worker _for 7 weeks _despite her ‘urging bosses to call police’
> 
> ...






in the midst of Covid-19-related protests about being unable to go to pubs or sunbathe, or having to wear face coverings, a very sad story:



> _"A devoted mother and transport worker, *(Belly) Mujinga* was confronted by an angry passenger as Covid-19 swept the UK in March. Her death made headlines and raised pressing questions about race, abuse and workers’ rights ..."_



‘I feel she was abandoned’: The life and terrible death of Belly Mujinga


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## miss direct (Aug 25, 2020)

Will teachers and other school staff be able to wear masks if they want to? I'm looking at a job but if I'm not allowed to wear a mask, I won't do it.


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## kalidarkone (Aug 25, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Will teachers and other school staff be able to wear masks if they want to? I'm looking at a job but if I'm not allowed to wear a mask, I won't do it.


This was raised on 5 live yesterday and an education minister ,(forget who) did say that individual staff were permitted to wear masks because the important thing was that staff and pupils felt safe and confident.


----------



## miss direct (Aug 25, 2020)

Oh good.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 25, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> the important thing was that staff and pupils felt safe and confident.


Yeah, right.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 25, 2020)

I'd feel a lot happier if everyone in my college had to wear masks everywhere outside classrooms.
Communal areas will not be open and lunches consumed in departments, but the corridors can get very crowded.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 25, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> This was raised on 5 live yesterday and an education minister ,(forget who) did say that individual staff were permitted to wear masks because the important thing was that staff and pupils felt safe and confident.



My sister is a primary school teacher.  Being accidentally spat at by children is a daily occurrence.  Visor time I reckon.


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## Chilli.s (Aug 25, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I still don't get why NHS staff are not being routinely tested every 14 days given the working environment and the likelihood of being asymptomatic?


Agree. This seems so obvious as a safety precaution if nothing else.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 25, 2020)

U turn on masks in secondaries









						Exclusive: England set to U-turn on masks in schools
					

Tes understands that the government is set to announce that wearing face masks will be near-mandatory in communal areas of secondary schools in England




					www.tes.com


----------



## elbows (Aug 25, 2020)

On several occasions in the past I have posted about the earliest UK deaths, but those posts have tended not to stand the test of time because the data was usually corrected later to remove these couple of cases.

Usually I combine the subject with a rant about the fact we werent testing people unless the had a particular travel history. And my 'seek and you shall find' comments in regards the fact they didnt seem to even start testing seriously ill people until around February 28th, and once they did, they soon found cases and then a bit later deaths.

Anyway both of these subjects get a look in again today thanks to the following:









						Coronavirus: Nottinghamshire woman, 75, 'first positive test within UK'
					

The woman is also believed by scientists to be the first in the UK to die after contracting Covid-19.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Analysis of samples by the University of Nottingham showed a 75-year-old woman, from Nottinghamshire, tested positive on 21 February.





> The woman is also understood to be first in the UK to die after contracting Covid-19.





> Nearly 2,000 routine respiratory samples taken from patients at a Nottingham teaching hospital between January and March were tested.
> 
> The report states: "Patient 1 in this study is, to the best of our knowledge, the earliest described community-acquired case of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK, admitted to hospital care on the 21st of February 2020, and was also the first UK COVID-19 death, preceding the earliest known death by 2 days."





> The work also revealed that early coronavirus cases in the UK would have been identified if testing criteria had at the time been less strict, say the scientists.
> 
> Professor Jonathan Ball, one of authors of the study, said there was "widespread community transmission of coronavirus" in Nottingham in early February.
> 
> However, the research said the cases went undetected because testing for coronavirus required a strict criteria to be met like a recent travel history.





> Prof Ball said: "Had the diagnostic criteria for COVID-19 been widened earlier to include patients with compatible symptoms but no travel history, it is likely that earlier imported infections would have been detected, which could have led to an earlier lockdown and lower deaths.
> 
> "However, the capacity for testing available nationally was not sufficient at the time to process the volume of testing required.
> 
> "In order to prepare for any future pandemic such as this, the UK urgently needs to invest in and expand diagnostic capacity within NHS and PHE diagnostic laboratory services."



Some of the language used in the article is still stupid because they should always be saying 'first known' instead of implying we have really found the very first case and death. Sometimes the article does fine on this front, but in other places the language is sloppy.

Its good to see those points being made by Professor Ball.


----------



## elbows (Aug 25, 2020)

Since that death was in Nottingham I suppose this is an opportunity for me to mention that I remain pissed off that too much of the emphasis in early public communications was about London being ahead of the rest of the UK. It pisses me off because there was some early data that suggested public adherence to measures was higher in London, at least at the beginning. Some of that might be due to some things in London being especially easy to measure, eg the extensive public transport system and the high number of passengers normally using it. But it could also have been because Londoners were encouraged to think they were at more risk than everyone else. Dont get me wrong, I'm glad things were said that caused more Londoners to take things seriously, but Im not happy that opportunities were not taken to give people in other parts of the country a better idea about the timing & risks they faced.

Because at some stage in the first half of March they had data suggesting hotspots elsewhere. This quote is from SAGE minutes of March 18th:



> SAGE noted that there may be other hotspots where spread is more advanced, such as the Derby/Nottingham/Leicester area. It is possible that some of this is due to nosocomial transmission, but this is not yet known.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/888785/S0385_Seventeenth_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19_.pdf
		


I suppose this also ties into the other story I mentioned today, because nosocomial spread means spread within hospitals and other healthcare settings.


----------



## elbows (Aug 25, 2020)

Oh and if I'm remembering properly, at some stage either a politician like Hancock or perhaps someone like Vallance did namedrop one of those other places into a press conference rather casually, but as you can tell I've forgotten all the detail. Hancock certainly developed form for randomly mentioning places later on, when the idea of local measures was just appearing on the horizon, and this has somewhat clouded my memory about the earlier instance I'm trying to recall. In any case mentioning one of those places (with fuck all detail to give proper context) instead of all 3 fits in with my previous gripe.


----------



## muscovyduck (Aug 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh and if I'm remembering properly, at some stage either a politician like Hancock or perhaps someone like Vallance did namedrop one of those other places into a press conference rather casually, but as you can tell I've forgotten all the detail. Hancock certainly developed form for randomly mentioning places later on, when the idea of local measures was just appearing on the horizon, and this has somewhat clouded my memory about the earlier instance I'm trying to recall. In any case mentioning one of those places (with fuck all detail to give proper context) instead of all 3 fits in with my previous gripe.


Was it Gwent? Seem to remember they had problems quite early on


----------



## teqniq (Aug 26, 2020)

FFS   









						Bereaved families of frontline workers will be stripped of their benefits if they take compensation payment
					

"Matt Hancock made much of awarding £60k compensation - it turns out low income families awarded the lump sum will therefore be stripped of their benefits". - News




					www.thelondoneconomic.com


----------



## sheothebudworths (Aug 26, 2020)

There's this, too -


The prime minister, *Boris Johnson,* has pledged to meet with families who have lost loved ones during the coronavirus pandemic following a series of calls from a bereavement campaign group.

The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group said they had asked for meetings with Boris Johnson on a number of occasions.

Speaking to Sky News, Johnson said that he was not aware of any letters from the group, but said he would respond. He added that he would “of course” meet with the bereaved.


Earlier this month, the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on coronavirus heard from bereaved families who said they felt they were being “swept under the carpet” by the government.

Grieving family members said they had written to the prime minister asking to meet and share their experiences but were told that officials were unable to meet “due to the current pandemic”.

Last week, the APPG chairwoman, Liberal Democrat Layla Moran, wrote to Johnson and said she was “shocked” to learn that he had “refused” to meet the group – which represents 1,600 families.

The prime minister told Sky News: “I am not aware of those letters but I will of course write back to every letter we get.

“Of course I will meet the bereaved.”


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 26, 2020)

Have the bereaved not suffered enough?


----------



## Poot (Aug 26, 2020)

Teens test positive for Covid after Greece holiday

Young people enjoying themselves too much, Goddammit. A party in Zante and then a party in Plymouth. Makes a change from the sort of things that used to be passed on during such fun. Although they've probably caught those, too, no doubt. 

* old woman shakes fist at sky *


----------



## sheothebudworths (Aug 26, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Have the bereaved not suffered enough?



Apparently not. They have repeatedly asked to be heard and been refused. Hilarious, you fucking dickheads.


----------



## Badgers (Aug 27, 2020)

Well that is a weight off #worldbeating 









						UK will pay low-income residents to self-isolate because of COVID-19
					

Britain will pay low-income residents to self-isolate if they have confirmed or suspected coronavirus as the government steps up measures to keep the virus under control.




					uk.mobile.reuters.com
				






> The government said individuals who test positive for the virus will receive 130 pounds for their 10-day period of self-isolation. Other members of their household, who have to self-isolate for 14 days, will be entitled to 182 pounds.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 27, 2020)

What's that, about £2 per hour for the average work hours you'll be missing? So generous.


----------



## maomao (Aug 27, 2020)

It's less than ssp which is 95 a week but they're giving ten day and fortnight amounts to try and make it sound more.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Since that death was in Nottingham I suppose this is an opportunity for me to mention that I remain pissed off that too much of the emphasis in early public communications was about London being ahead of the rest of the UK. It pisses me off because there was some early data that suggested public adherence to measures was higher in London, at least at the beginning. Some of that might be due to some things in London being especially easy to measure, eg the extensive public transport system and the high number of passengers normally using it. But it could also have been because Londoners were encouraged to think they were at more risk than everyone else. Dont get me wrong, I'm glad things were said that caused more Londoners to take things seriously, but Im not happy that opportunities were not taken to give people in other parts of the country a better idea about the timing & risks they faced.
> 
> Because at some stage in the first half of March they had data suggesting hotspots elsewhere. This quote is from SAGE minutes of March 18th:
> 
> ...



I spent the first months of lockdown in Nottingham and adherence to distancing rules was patchy, especially after the first couple of weeks. But at the time the narrative was that London was most affected, and all official sources stated that the risk in Nottingham was relatively low. I was working in schools in Nottingham right up to the middle of March.


----------



## elbows (Aug 27, 2020)

I see very few indications that we are better prepared to cope with what is to come.









						Covid: hundreds self-isolate after Norfolk poultry plant outbreak
					

At least 350 staff and households affected despite PM vowing to address food factory issues




					www.theguardian.com
				






> At least 350 people and their households will have to self-isolate after 75 staff tested positive for coronavirus at a poultry plant in Norfolk, as Boris Johnson was urged to do more to get a grip on factory outbreaks.
> 
> The Banham Poultry site, about 15 miles south-west of Norwich, had been partially closed and all staff who worked on its cutting floor had been sent home, local health officials said.





> The prime minister assured MPs in June that the prevalence of outbreaks in meat processing plants was being taken seriously by the government. However, when asked last week, Whitehall officials were not able to produce any data that even measured the scale of the problem.











						NHS test and trace hit by delays and Covid home test failures
					

System still short of 80% target on contacts, and one in seven home tests fail to produce result




					www.theguardian.com
				






> England’s test-and-trace system has been hit with fresh problems as there were delays in contacting nearly 2,000 people infected with coronavirus, and one in seven home tests failed to produce a result.
> 
> An unexplained “temporary infrastructure issue” meant nearly 3,000 more people than usual were transferred to the contact-tracing system after testing positive for Covid-19 in the week ending 19 August.
> 
> Two-thirds of these people had been tested days or weeks earlier, meaning there was a delay in reaching them and their close contacts when they should have been self-isolating.





> The proportion of home tests kits failing to produce a result that week rose sharply, from 4% to 15% of the total, equating to more than 18,000 tests.
> 
> The Department of Health and Social Care figures also show that test and trace failed for a ninth week running to reach its target of contacting 80% of close contacts of people who test positive for Covid-19.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 27, 2020)

Er...not good, not good at all.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 27, 2020)

Switzerland requires quarantine, but Cuba doesn't; gotta be some sort of message there...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Er...not good, not good at all.
> 
> View attachment 228092


With the caveat that it's unwise to read too much into one day's numbers. This jump from yesterday could be due to a variety of things. There was a single day figure almost this high on 14 August, for instance.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> With the caveat that it's unwise to read too much into one day's numbers. This jump from yesterday could be due to a variety of things. There was a single day figure almost this high on 14 August, for instance.


yeah, but hovering around 1k/day for ages, then...not good.


----------



## Supine (Aug 27, 2020)

Agreed you shouldn't read too much into single numbers. The 7 day rolling average is more relevant - and also not great news.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> yeah, but hovering around 1k/day for ages, then...not good.


Deaths still down. Hospitalisations continuing to fall. Pillar 1 tests not rising significantly, the increasing numbers coming from an increasingly focused Pillar 2 system. It might not quite be the bad news you think it is.

This could change, of course. We could start to see hospitalisations and deaths creep back up again. But it hasn't happened yet.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Deaths still down. Hospitalisations continuing to fall. Pillar 1 tests not rising significantly, the increasing numbers coming from an increasingly focused Pillar 2 system. It might not quite be the bad news you think it is.
> 
> This could change, of course. We could start to see hospitalisations and deaths creep back up again. But it hasn't happened yet.


I'm pretty certain that we're going to follow our European neighbours on an upward trajectory.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I'm pretty certain that we're going to follow our European neighbours on an upward trajectory.


Well, to temper that, the ZoeCovid study has been estimating a falling number of symptomatic covid-19 cases in the UK for the last couple of weeks as positive tests have crept up (from around 30,000 to 18,000 - setting that in context, they estimate a peak level of 2 million back at the start of April), with new cases steady at about the same level as they were at their lowest a few weeks ago. 

COVID Symptom Study


----------



## bimble (Aug 27, 2020)

Looks like a pretty serious escalation of the punishments for holding - or even attending (?) gatherings is coming in now.
£10,000 fine if more than 30 people not from same household are together in a non commercial event, is what it looks like.
 This stuff should be much clearer and needs to be actually communicated to people properly.
That’s a huge fine. Probably would encompass demonstrations as well as the ‘raves’ it’s supposed to be about targeting.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 27, 2020)

What makes a commercial event any better covid wise, especially as they are likely to be indoors.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 27, 2020)

bimble said:


> This stuff should be much clearer and needs to be actually communicated to people properly.


It's been all over the news for days, what else can they do?


----------



## bimble (Aug 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's been all over the news for days, what else can they do?


Has it? Totally missed it. And still can’t find any headlines on the new rule. 
Will it apply to demonstrations and kids birthday parties ?


----------



## bimble (Aug 27, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What makes a commercial event any better covid wise, especially as they are likely to be indoors.


No idea but if it’s organised by a business it’s exempt, far as I can understand.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 27, 2020)

bimble said:


> Has it? Totally missed it. And still can’t find any headlines on the new rule.
> Will it apply to demonstrations and kids birthday parties ?







__





						£10,000 fines for holding raves - Google Search
					





					www.google.com


----------



## bimble (Aug 27, 2020)

Yes I see. But this covers so much wider than raves.
Here’s the legislation, raves is one part of it but the second half looks incredibly broad & a flat £10,000 fine.




__





						The Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions on Holding of Gatherings and Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020
					

These Regulations amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 2020/684) (“the Principal Regulations”) to impose restrictions on the holding of gatherings, both inside and outside, of more than 30 people (new regulations 5A and 5B of the...




					www.legislation.gov.uk


----------



## two sheds (Aug 27, 2020)

MPs need to look out in Parliament


----------



## existentialist (Aug 27, 2020)

two sheds said:


> MPs need to look out in Parliament


They seem to prove remarkably incapable at offering themselves up to the majesty of the law. One might almost think they considered themselves above it


----------



## Cloo (Aug 27, 2020)

Went to dental hygienist today - the first place I've been in that is _really_ taking this shit seriously (understandably). The dentist receptionist opens the door for you, puts your coat and bag into a box, and takes it out for you at the end. Waiting room just two chairs well over 6ft apart!


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## Artaxerxes (Aug 28, 2020)

Covid summed up.




More numbers here.









						Daily Question  | 27/08/2020  |  YouGov
					

Do you think businesses where staff have been working from home during the coronavirus pandemic should or should not be encouraging staff to return to the office?




					yougov.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (Aug 28, 2020)

Of course  like now that I'm too old for National Service I think it's just what young people need nowadays.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 28, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Of course  like now that I'm too old for National Service I think it's just what young people need nowadays.


And "I benefitted from a free education but young people should pay for theirs, the tight fuckers"


----------



## wtfftw (Aug 28, 2020)

It's the new Brexit.


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## Artaxerxes (Aug 28, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> It's the new Brexit.



Its the same Brexit...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 28, 2020)

Free market offers the customers choice and a say in what they can do... unless it means companies go bust and profits go down the toilet. Other than that the market is of course entirely free and fair. 

*Data on Covid care home deaths kept secret 'to protect commercial interests*


----------



## teuchter (Aug 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well, to temper that, the ZoeCovid study has been estimating a falling number of symptomatic covid-19 cases in the UK for the last couple of weeks as positive tests have crept up (from around 30,000 to 18,000 - setting that in context, they estimate a peak level of 2 million back at the start of April), with new cases steady at about the same level as they were at their lowest a few weeks ago.
> 
> COVID Symptom Study


If that is vaguely accurate... Scotland no longer looking so good, in relative terms.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> If that is vaguely accurate... Scotland no longer looking so good, in relative terms.


It never did.  according to the Zoe study, Scotland's better position relative to England was never really true. Various Scotland-sized bits of England - London, se,  sw - have been doing as well if not better from May onwards.

Caveat to that is that the study is now supported by swab tests in England only, so Scotland figures have a much larger margin of error.

One oddity of current figures is that a third of hospitalised cases in the UK are now in Scotland. Feels like a measuring difference of some kind more than anything, but Scotland's numbers haven't fallen in the same way as everywhere else.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It never did.  according to the Zoe study, Scotland's better position relative to England was never really true.


Actually yes... in fact I think I've argued that on this thread before.
What caught my eye was the relatively high numbers for the north of Scotland. I'm currently in semi-quarantine in an attempt to reduce the risk of me taking the plague from London to the Highlands next week. But according to that site, the number per head of active cases in the Highlands is greater than in Lambeth.


----------



## elbows (Aug 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> One oddity of current figures is that a third of hospitalised cases in the UK are now in Scotland. Feels like a measuring difference of some kind more than anything, but Scotland's numbers haven't fallen in the same way as everywhere else.



I used to look at the figures for Scotland more directly, since they had daily figures for suspected as well as confirmed cases in hospital and ICU, and number of COVID-19 suspected ambulance attendances and admissions. But in the last 2 months they have stopped publishing quite a lot of that interesting additional data. Here is a link to the source of data anyway Coronavirus (COVID-19): trends in daily data - gov.scot

Differences in reporting of these things between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are something I wish the press had explored and got answers to over time, but most hospital data is treated by the press like it does not exist in the first place.

With no knowledge about why the numbers are different, I cannot really say how much is down to reporting methodology or whether differences in treatment for individual patients are also a factor. I'd certainly like to know if there are any obvious areas where England may be undercounting. And its entirely possible that the differences relate to how patients are eventually not classified as being Covid-19 patients any longer.

As we are in a phase where hospital data is of particular interest, eg looking for any upticks, I am wary of what happened in the past. On several occasions when things like ICU and admissions data became of special interest and was about to tell its own important story, they stopped publishing the data. But that was pre-dashboard days, where that data only came via daily number 10 briefing slides. So hopefully I will never have to make noises along these lines in future, but I have my doubts.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Actually yes... in fact I think I've argued that on this thread before.
> What caught my eye was the relatively high numbers for the north of Scotland. I'm currently in semi-quarantine in an attempt to reduce the risk of me taking the plague from London to the Highlands next week. But according to that site, the number per head of active cases in the Highlands is greater than in Lambeth.


Thing I'd say about that is that, now that the numbers are down so low, a fair bit of volatility is showing up at a local level on the Zoe App. London boroughs can be up one week then down the next, for instance. All it takes is a single 'superspreader' event to bump a region up for a week or two. Plus the margin of error at that level is big cos the absolute numbers of people in the study reporting sickness are low. 

But I'm doing similar for a trip to Wales next week (first time out of London since February!). It's still a sensible thing to do if you're travelling from one bit of the country to another, regardless of the reported infection levels. It's people moving about that are spreading the virus.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 28, 2020)

I guess fewer people are using the app than in March.


----------



## Cid (Aug 28, 2020)

So... we’re going to have ‘back to the office’ encouragement (which clearly also means public transport), schools back... and impending cold and flu season. I may be wide of the mark now, as presumably the science has moved on while I was looking the other way, and haven’t paid much attention to schools measures, but doesn’t exactly seem like a great combination.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I guess fewer people are using the app than in March.


More than ever. 4 million now. But once infection levels are low, numbers can bounce up and down more in percentage terms through natural variation.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 28, 2020)

Cid said:


> So... we’re going to have ‘back to the office’ encouragement (which clearly also means public transport), schools back... and impending cold and flu season. I may be wide of the mark now, as presumably the science has moved on while I was looking the other way, and haven’t paid much attention to schools measures, but doesn’t exactly seem like a great combination.



The jungle drums are beating for sure.  I suspect they'll let the school situation settle in for a few weeks before the big stick comes out.


----------



## MickiQ (Aug 28, 2020)

Going Back To The Office seems to be driven by the fear that lots of secondary businesses that rely on office workers for customers are going down the drain. I doubt the Govt will get very far with this to be honest, No company will want a Covid outbreak in their offices both through a) fear of being found wanting on the H&S front and being held liable and b) the impact that the entire staff vanishing off for 14 days quarantine is likely to have on the bottom line.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 28, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Going Back To The Office seems to be driven by the fear that lots of secondary businesses that rely on office workers for customers are going down the drain. I doubt the Govt will get very far with this to be honest, No company will want a Covid outbreak in their offices both through a) fear of being found wanting on the H&S front and being held liable and b) the impact that the entire staff vanishing off for 14 days quarantine is likely to have on the bottom line.



I suppose most people who have to quarantine will still be able to work from home anyway.  Well those who have been working from home previously.  

The raise an interesting question regarding the H&S liability of companies.  Whilst its virtually impossible to say for definite where someone contracts covid there have been quite a few work based outbreaks already.  Has anything happened in regard to those companies?  I've not seen anything.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I suppose most people who have to quarantine will still be able to work from home anyway.  Well those who have been working from home previously.
> 
> The raise an interesting question regarding the H&S liability of companies.  Whilst its virtually impossible to say for definite where someone contracts covid there have been quite a few work based outbreaks already.  Has anything happened in regard to those companies?  I've not seen anything.


You'd have to prove they were negligent in applying the govt guidelines, no? Probably pretty hard to do. Hard truth is surely that in certain environments (ie big meat processing factories), following the govt guidelines doesn't necessarily prevent infection events.


----------



## IC3D (Aug 28, 2020)

I haven't grasped as a healthcare worker what happens if any staff get get it now. I'm sure it's in my email somewhere, but I doubt we'll all be told to self isolate.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> the ZoeCovid study has been estimating a falling number of symptomatic covid-19 cases in the UK for the last couple of weeks





frogwoman said:


> I guess fewer people are using the app than in March.


One wonders about the on-going degree of uptake and engagement with the public... (and thus the degree to which this might colour any conclusions, skew the utility of the data). Indeed the churn of long time users, versus new users, versus returning (intermittent) users.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Aug 28, 2020)

2hats said:


> One wonders about the on-going degree of uptake and engagement with the public... (and thus the degree to which this might colour any conclusions, skew the utility of the data). Indeed the churn of long time users, versus new users, versus returning (intermittent) users.


Yes, sure. I'm still doing it every day, but I'm sure people have dropped off, and also that some joined only when they got ill. I don't know how they account for that beyond what they say in the weekly report they put out, which states that only those who have reported within the last seven days are included in the analysis. There is the odd gap on the map where they say there are insufficient contributors.


----------



## elbows (Aug 28, 2020)

IC3D said:


> I haven't grasped as a healthcare worker what happens if any staff get get it now. I'm sure it's in my email somewhere, but I doubt we'll all be told to self isolate.



I still wonder if the desire to have manual management control over institutional outbreaks, eg fudge things massively to stop self-isolation rules from wiping out most of your healthcare staff, is one of the reasons they've backed away from a couple of aspects of the track & trace app.


----------



## Wilf (Aug 28, 2020)

I get the impression my employer,, a university, is taking it's cue from the government at a very reactive level. We've currently got (yet to be finalised) plans to allow some teaching on campus, along with some sort of case by case exemption for staff with specific conditions. The 'back to the office' message will nudge things further towards on campus teaching. But then the government and, presumably, my and other universities know that students returning to campus is a potential problem. Probably through groups of students socialising as much as catching covid in the classroom. Embodies the central contradiction in the government's approach, they want a return to economic normality but know that will lead to multiple spikes and ultimately a second wave.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 28, 2020)

I can't see how bubbles are supposed to work. Traveling to college daily, me, Mrs SI and our lad are then going to go off to three bubbles.


----------



## maomao (Aug 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I get the impression my employer,, a university, is taking it's cue from the government at a very reactive level. We've currently got (yet to be finalised) plans to allow some teaching on campus, along with some sort of case by case exemption for staff with specific conditions. The 'back to the office' message will nudge things further towards on campus teaching. But then the government and, presumably, my and other universities know that students returning to campus is a potential problem. Probably through groups of students socialising as much as catching covid in the classroom. Embodies the central contradiction in the government's approach, they want a return to economic normality but know that will lead to multiple spikes and ultimately a second wave.


I'm studying this year and I have a very shiny booklet on 'dual delivery' education (or a link to a very shiny PDF anyway) and no news yet when my first class or lecture actually _is_.


----------



## killer b (Aug 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'm studying this year and I have a very shiny booklet on 'dual delivery' education (or a link to a very shiny PDF anyway) and no news yet when my first class or lecture actually _is_.


Mrs B is a lecturer for a university up here, and if things are anything like how they are for her they are still working out how the fuck they are going to do it.


----------



## thismoment (Aug 28, 2020)

I don’t understand why the government is going for the big push for people to return to work at the same time as children are returning to school. I would have thought that a phased return would’ve been better? In the same way that different business (pubs/leisure centres/beauty salons etc were open at different times, we didn’t have them all open that same weekend did we?) If children’s education is so important shouldn’t people who can and want to work from home continue to do so?


----------



## elbows (Aug 28, 2020)

thismoment said:


> I don’t understand why the government is going for the big push for people to return to work at the same time as children are returning to school. I would have thought that a phased return would’ve been better? In the same way that different business (pubs/leisure centres/beauty salons etc were open at different times, we didn’t have them all open that same weekend did we?) If children’s education is so important shouldn’t people who can and want to work from home continue to do so?



Because they are dicks. And also one of the reasons they want schools back isnt the education aspect, its about childcare/getting people back to work.

It sounds like there will also be an advertising campaign for us to take the piss out of, which will also demonstrate where the governments priorities are.

Scotland is taking a different approach that is less overtly repugnant and misguided. Following quote is from BBC live updates page that I cant link to properly on this forum at the moment due to it thinking the link is media.



> Nicola Sturgeon has said she will not "countenance" people being intimidated into going back to work in offices.
> 
> Scotland's First Minister said reopening offices too soon would risk the virus spreading and compromise the ability to keep schools open.
> 
> ...


----------



## maomao (Aug 28, 2020)

The problem is that central London (and other city and town centres) are still pretty dead. It's one thing poshos who work in glass towers not going back because they can still steal everybody's money from home but what about all the people who work selling them rubbish food and coffee flavoured milkshakes, driving them about and delivering their parcels etc. Those people can't work from home.


----------



## thismoment (Aug 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Because they are dicks. And also one of the reasons they want schools back isnt the education aspect, its about childcare/getting people back to work.



Ah!  Goodness!


----------



## thismoment (Aug 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> The problem is that central London (and other city and town centres) are still pretty dead. It's one thing poshos who work in glass towers not going back because they can still steal everybody's money from home but what about all the people who work selling them rubbish food and coffee flavoured milkshakes, driving them about and delivering their parcels etc. Those people can't work from home.



I just thought that the big push for adverts and everything else to encourage people to go back to the office could have started after the schools opened. That we wait to see what happens when all the years groups go back to school then encourage people to return to offices.To do it at the same time seems like a lot. But I guess that would be partly reliant on the furlough scheme continuing as it started not the reducing rate... I don’t know


----------



## elbows (Aug 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> The problem is that central London (and other city and town centres) are still pretty dead. It's one thing poshos who work in glass towers not going back because they can still steal everybody's money from home but what about all the people who work selling them rubbish food and coffee flavoured milkshakes, driving them about and delivering their parcels etc. Those people can't work from home.



Well of course thats an issue with the same sort of aspects as the rest of the impossible balancing act. For example, they wont be able to make a living if there is a large second wave either.

I call the government dicks not for trying to navigate this impossible balancing act, of course they had to try reopening various things. But they've done it badly and their failure to give people confidence about their safety is one of the reasons they will have to try to overcompensate with advertising campaigns and threats.

In my book its going to be some time yet before people who can actually do their jobs from home should really be encouraged to return to the standard working environment. And everyone who isnt in that category needs to continue to receive economic life support. Governments who go for potentially higher returns are also taking greater risks, and if it blows up in their face then nobody will end up better off than if the cautionary approach was stuck to in the first place.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> In my book



oooh when's it coming out?


----------



## existentialist (Aug 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Because they are dicks. And also one of the reasons they want schools back isnt the education aspect, its about childcare/getting people back to work.
> 
> It sounds like there will also be an advertising campaign for us to take the piss out of, which will also demonstrate where the governments priorities are.
> 
> Scotland is taking a different approach that is less overtly repugnant and misguided. Following quote is from BBC live updates page that I cant link to properly on this forum at the moment due to it thinking the link is media.


What I really can't credit is just how ludicrously inept all of their messaging has been so far. You're right - whatever message emerges, and it looks like the "let's all get back to work one", it will be delivered clumsily, will blatantly miss some critical detail and need hasty revision, and will be followed by numerous examples of senior Government ministers actually doing the very opposite of what they insist we should all be doing. It's going to be a Facepalm Festival.


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I suppose most people who have to quarantine will still be able to work from home anyway.  Well those who have been working from home previously.
> 
> The raise an interesting question regarding the H&S liability of companies.  Whilst its virtually impossible to say for definite where someone contracts covid there have been quite a few work based outbreaks already.  Has anything happened in regard to those companies?  I've not seen anything.



While quarantine, unlike getting ill, still allows people to wfh it would still be disruptive. Work equipment that was couriered to your home then couriered back to the office (if that happened) has to be sent back to your home for instance. Then 2 weeks later back to the office.

Also if a staff member's child has to quarantine....


----------



## spitfire (Aug 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Because they are dicks. And also one of the reasons they want schools back isnt the education aspect, its about childcare/getting people back to work.
> 
> It sounds like there will also be an advertising campaign for us to take the piss out of, which will also demonstrate where the governments priorities are.
> 
> Scotland is taking a different approach that is less overtly repugnant and misguided. Following quote is from BBC live updates page that I cant link to properly on this forum at the moment due to it thinking the link is media.



As ever the reality on the ground to what they think will happen is slightly different.

We used to do Breakfast Club and After school till 5.45 so that we could both work full time.

Our school is not taking kids before 09.30 and all out at 3.30. So there goes affordable child care. Mlle. Fire won't be able to go back to FT work. I won't go into details but I have to keep working FT for the foreseeable as if I don't my company will go under.

I wonder how many other parents will be in a similar situation?


----------



## Cid (Aug 28, 2020)

two sheds said:


> oooh when's it coming out?



Soon as someone gets round to compiling all his posts on here...


----------



## elbows (Aug 28, 2020)

I'll only write a book if I can do it in the format of Colemanballs, if thats not too dated and obscure a reference by now. There are probably enough Coronaballs by now to provide sufficient material, thats for sure.

This weeks surveillance report continues to show a largely unremarkable picture. Although I have been practicing how to interpret viral resurgence and hospital etc data by looking at certain countries in Europe in the last week or two, for now I am going to avoid the potential mistakes that could be made in equating the outbreak situation here with whats been seen there of late. eg until we see a more notable uptick and variation in the sorts of and quantity of clusters and less obviously connected cases being detected, I hesitate to view the current situation as simply being a case of our fate being the same as but x weeks behind Spain, France etc. But thats partly because there are big unknowns in my mind about the role that seeding from holiday-related infections will have on the disease in this country this time around. It appeared to have a notable effect back with that half-term holiday at the worst moment, but behaviours and measures were different back then.

I mean having said that there is usually something very specific I can highlight in this weekly report, for example see below for this weeks example, an obvious rise at the end of the graph showing ICU Covid-19 admissions for the 65-74 age group. But these sorts of things need to carry on and show an obvious trend for weeks before I can attempt to make an important story out of them.


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_35_FINAL.PDF

Which in turn is from National COVID-19 surveillance reports

By the way note that those are weekly rates. I've started generating such rates myself out of various daily data, because they allow trends to be spotted and amplified in a particular way, and because I saw them being used usefully in some of the European data I've been learning how to zoom in on properly.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 28, 2020)

Boris' rhetoric on returning to work is especially gross, manipulative and autocratic. 'Ohhhh, if you're enjoying your lovely, wovely working from home, just remember your boss is more likely to drop you if you don't show up in the office because of course no one can really believe you're working'. I do hope lots of employers make public statements that they are not going to favour people who come in over those who don't.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 28, 2020)

Eh? I have been exclusively working from home since 2018 and this is probably the hardest I have ever worked in any job in my entire life.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 28, 2020)

What does that slug know about work anyway? Probably quite a lot about pretending to be working tbf.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Eh? I have been exclusively working from home since 2018 and this is probably the hardest I have ever worked in any job in my entire life.


I have said words to that effect on Twitter and got 85 likes so far - it is literally the hardest I have ever worked in my 20 years of working! I will confess, historically, if I didn't have a lot on, I didn't do an awful lot at home (but really, was I doing much more if I didn't have much more on _at _work?!) Mail/Express are basically deliberately conflating 'going back into the office' with 'going back to work' so red-faced retirees can be up in arms about all these lazy young people not wanting to work.


----------



## Mation (Aug 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Coronaballs


Thread!


Cloo said:


> I have said words to that effect on Twitter and got 85 likes so far - it is literally the hardest I have ever worked in my 20 years of working! I will confess, historically, if I didn't have a lot on, I didn't do an awful lot at home (but really, was I doing much more if I didn't have much more on _at _work?!)


You know I'm very fond of you, Cloo, but on this my violin is fairly tiny


----------



## scifisam (Aug 28, 2020)

Mation said:


> Thread!
> You know I'm very fond of you, Cloo, but on this my violin is fairly tiny



I dunno, I have quite a lot of sympathy for anyone who's had to work from home full time _and_ homeschool their kids.


----------



## MrSki (Aug 28, 2020)

Not sure if this has been posted before but fucking hell!


----------



## Mation (Aug 28, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I dunno, I have quite a lot of sympathy for anyone who's had to work from home full time _and_ homeschool their kids.


Yep, me too. Not what the post was about, though. Or at least, not what it conveyed.


----------



## Supine (Aug 28, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Not sure if this has been posted before but fucking hell!




I pressed confirm and then got sent the kit. Not sure what the big deal is tbh.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Aug 28, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I can't see how bubbles are supposed to work. Traveling to college daily, me, Mrs SI and our lad are then going to go off to three bubbles.



The problem with bubbles is they have a tendency to burst!


----------



## kabbes (Aug 29, 2020)

The government (he says in a shock to nobody) is just incredibly reactive to events all the time.  There’s no planning or strategy or attempt to look at the experience of other countries.  There’s also no ability to turn problems into opportunities.  So we have a situation in which sandwich chains are struggling and the government reacts by telling us all to go back to the office.  

This really could be the catalyst for a much happier, healthier and greener way of living.  Who thinks it’s a good thing to have all that plastic waste from sandwiches and all those emissions from commuting and so much time spent travelling?Who thinks it’s good to have a hollowing out of local towns because they’re nothing more than sleeper dorms for the central city? In the long run, we’d be so much better off with a working world in which home working rather than office working is the default, and offices are used as necessary as collaboration spaces, not computer farms. But the government doesn’t care about any of that, they just don’t like Pret A Manger losing jobs.


----------



## Badgers (Aug 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The government (he says in a shock to nobody) is just incredibly reactive to events all the time.  There’s no planning or strategy or attempt to look at the experience of other countries.  There’s also no ability to turn problems into opportunities.  So we have a situation in which sandwich chains are struggling and the government reacts by telling us all to go back to the office.
> 
> This really could be the catalyst for a much happier, healthier and greener way of living.  Who thinks it’s a good thing to have all that plastic waste from sandwiches and all those emissions from commuting and so much time spent travelling?Who thinks it’s good to have a hollowing out of local towns because they’re nothing more than sleeper dorms for the central city? In the long run, we’d be so much better off with a working world in which home working rather than office working is the default, and offices are used as necessary as collaboration spaces, not computer farms. But the government doesn’t care about any of that, they just don’t like Pret A Manger losing jobs.


I suspect Pret is far lower down their priority list than the commercial landlords (party donors) and their own property portfolio's.


----------



## sparkybird (Aug 29, 2020)

And public transport.....


----------



## maomao (Aug 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The government (he says in a shock to nobody) is just incredibly reactive to events all the time.  There’s no planning or strategy or attempt to look at the experience of other countries.  There’s also no ability to turn problems into opportunities.  So we have a situation in which sandwich chains are struggling and the government reacts by telling us all to go back to the office.
> 
> This really could be the catalyst for a much happier, healthier and greener way of living.  Who thinks it’s a good thing to have all that plastic waste from sandwiches and all those emissions from commuting and so much time spent travelling?Who thinks it’s good to have a hollowing out of local towns because they’re nothing more than sleeper dorms for the central city? In the long run, we’d be so much better off with a working world in which home working rather than office working is the default, and offices are used as necessary as collaboration spaces, not computer farms. But the government doesn’t care about any of that, they just don’t like Pret A Manger losing jobs.



It's not just pret a manger though is it. It's all people who work in service industries that exist to cater for the clerical workers of the city. Everyone in catering and retail. And if no-one's coming to work then the post rooms are looking a little overstaffed and why do we need all those security guards when there's no computers to nick anymore. While this government is so far unique in the level of entitled incompetence it has achieved I think it's probably beyond the abilities of any capitalist society to plan those people out of city centre jobs.


----------



## Badgers (Aug 29, 2020)

sparkybird said:


> And public transport.....


Those shareholders need more bailouts


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's not just pret a manger though is it. It's all people who work in service industries that exist to cater for the clerical workers of the city. Everyone in catering and retail. And if no-one's coming to work then the post rooms are looking a little overstaffed and why do we need all those security guards when there's no computers to nick anymore. While this government is so far unique in the level of entitled incompetence it has achieved I think it's probably beyond the abilities of any capitalist society to plan those people out of city centre jobs.



Homeworking is also often a bit shit for various reasons.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 29, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Not sure if this has been posted before but fucking hell!




Those things always tell me I don't exist. If you have a PAYG phone, no credit cards and your bills are in someone else's name you may not exist either. I suppose it's too much to ask for the UK government to check on things like the electoral role, driving licences, HMRC etc instead. Or better still, just not bother at all on the assumption that nobody is going to bother fradulently acquiring covid tests and that making access to testing as simple as possible must be the priority.


----------



## Badgers (Aug 29, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Homeworking is also often a bit shit for various reasons.


Can be. I looked at the cost of a space in shared office if needed and that is cheaper/quicker than the commute so 'at home' is not the only option.


----------



## Supine (Aug 29, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Or better still, just not bother at all on the assumption that nobody is going to bother fradulently acquiring covid tests



I'd say that was an incredibly stupid assumption. Some dick would order loads and try to resell them.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 29, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> the electoral role


What is your function in our democracy?


----------



## maomao (Aug 29, 2020)

Supine said:


> I'd say that was an incredibly stupid assumption. Some dick would order loads and try to resell them.


Would be a bit pointless if they were freely available.


----------



## Cerv (Aug 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> Would be a bit pointless if they were freely available.


do you trust the government not to run out? they're clearly worried about that themselves


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 29, 2020)

Supine said:


> I'd say that was an incredibly stupid assumption. Some dick would order loads and try to resell them.



Yeah some dickhead somewhere is gonna try and turn a profit on it, will likely fail miserably, and their efforts will be insignificant in terms of the total number of tests being done.

Compare that to the guaranteed pissing away of money on external identity checking services which, as universal credit claimiants have known for years, are not fit for purpose.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 29, 2020)

and the result will have to be entered on your NHS file anyway so why not check against that first of all? They could have increased the NHS funding for that and all sorts of things that they're instead pissing money up the wall for their inept private sector mates.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's not just pret a manger though is it. It's all people who work in service industries that exist to cater for the clerical workers of the city. Everyone in catering and retail. And if no-one's coming to work then the post rooms are looking a little overstaffed and why do we need all those security guards when there's no computers to nick anymore. While this government is so far unique in the level of entitled incompetence it has achieved I think it's probably beyond the abilities of any capitalist society to plan those people out of city centre jobs.


Yes, any big structural change is going to be costly for those who are negatively affected by it.  Which is why it’s much better to recognise reality and try to plan for the change rather than closing your eyes to it and pretending you can bully millions of people into doing something they don’t want to do and now realise they don’t have to do.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 29, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Homeworking is also often a bit shit for various reasons.


So is office working.  

There seems to be about 20%ish that prefer the office.  That’s fine, you don’t have to eliminate offices.  But planning around the idea that everybody doing permanent office working is not going to be the norm in the future is better than _paying_ for fucking _adverts_ to try to bully us to do something that isn’t even a net positive.


----------



## emanymton (Aug 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> So is office working.
> 
> There seems to be about 20%ish that prefer the office.  That’s fine, you don’t have to eliminate offices.  But planning around the idea that everybody doing permanent office working is not going to be the norm in the future is better than _paying_ for fucking _adverts_ to try to bully us to do something that isn’t even a net positive.


I am doing a rota of 2 weeks working from home then 2 weeks in the office and I find that by the end of my two weeks I am looking forward to the switch.


----------



## xenon (Aug 29, 2020)

I haven't even got an office any more... I know he's a wanker but I'm now boicoting Nick Ferrari on LBC cos I got sick of hearing him talking about home workers skiving, get back to work, when I was logging on to my work PC of a morning. He's gutted no doubt...

And the people saying. Well if you can work from home, what's to stop companies just employing cheaper labour overseas... Have they been asleep for the last 20 years. Of course outsourcing a callcentre, where you can manage, train and provision staff in a centralised manner is a bit different to having to rely on people having facilities, enough knowledge and support to do the job from their home. And a lot of those easier to outsource jobs will likely be automated out of existence soon.

Our city centres need to have places people can actually afford to live in, local shops and ameaneties to serve then. Not just expensive student accommodation and office blocks.


----------



## andysays (Aug 29, 2020)

Coronavirus: Winter plans revealed in leaked Sage report

A leaked government report suggests a "reasonable worst case scenario" of 85,000 deaths across the UK this winter due to Covid-19.


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 29, 2020)

IC3D said:


> I haven't grasped as a healthcare worker what happens if any staff get get it now. I'm sure it's in my email somewhere, but I doubt we'll all be told to self isolate.


Its this :
If have symptoms and/or a temperature then stay at home , do a test let your employer know the result. Quarentine for 14 days? If positive. If negative then go back to work when you are fit yo work.

You should 100% be self isolating if you have symptoms and are positive. If your employer has an issue with this then id be contacting my union and possibly local mp and public health.


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 29, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yeah some dickhead somewhere is gonna try and turn a profit on it, will likely fail miserably, and their efforts will be insignificant in terms of the total number of tests being done.
> 
> Compare that to the guaranteed pissing away of money on external identity checking services which, as universal credit claimiants have known for years, are not fit for purpose.


Right now id buy one on the black market cus I sure as shit can't get a home test atm as the govt website is telling me there are none available! I need to do a test because I feel ill and I'm back to work Weds night so it would be good to know.

It shouldn't be this fucking hard


----------



## souljacker (Aug 29, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Right now id buy one on the black market cus I sure as shit can't get a home test atm as the govt website is telling me there are none available! I need to do a test because I feel ill and I'm back to work Weds night so it would be good to know.
> 
> It shouldn't be this fucking hard



Do you do the Zoe app? When I reported symptoms the other day they offered me one. It might take you to the same site you've already tried though. I didn't click it as I already had a drive through booked.


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 29, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Do you do the Zoe app? When I reported symptoms the other day they offered me one. It might take you to the same site you've already tried though. I didn't click it as I already had a drive through booked.


Oh yes I do!! Good thinking! x
Worse case scenario I could go to a drive through but I'm feeling rubbish.


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 29, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Oh yes I do!! Good thinking! x
> Worse case scenario I could go to a drive through but I'm feeling rubbish.


Just did my daily zoe report and did not get offered a test. 
Must find my thermometer.....


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 29, 2020)

Tried again and this time my order for a home test was successful!


----------



## elbows (Aug 29, 2020)

I have to say I am now a little bit bothered by the apparent increase on this forum of people having respiratory virus symptoms in the last week or two.

Mostly because even if none of these are cases of Covid-19, it still implies transmission of something, something is able to do the rounds, and if another virus can manage this feat under the current conditions then I would assume Covid-19 can too.

Exceptions to this idea would be if the symptoms arent actually being caused by a virus of any kind at all.


----------



## Thora (Aug 29, 2020)

After months of not even a cold I have had 3 (of 6) families at my childminding setting get ill in the last 2 weeks! Two tested and were negative.


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 29, 2020)

My symptoms are not respiratory but I've ordered the test based on the fact I feel unwell and have been more exposed lately (outside of work) and that if people can display no symptoms and be positive...then im gonna err on the side of caution till I know differently so I'm not putting anyone else at risk. 

Ime when the seasons begin to change is when im more likely to feel rundown and this has been demonstrated by the amount of sniffly people at work around Sep-Nov. I'm expecting this to increase with the reopening of schools.


----------



## Thora (Aug 29, 2020)

Not really a surprise that more people are getting viruses though, is it? Pubs are open, restaurants are busy especially Monday-Wednesday, people are going on holiday, to the gym/salon, taking their kids to soft play places. Everyone is supposed to be getting the bus into work...


----------



## wtfftw (Aug 29, 2020)

My child brought a cold home from nursery.


----------



## souljacker (Aug 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I have to say I am now a little bit bothered by the apparent increase on this forum of people having respiratory virus symptoms in the last week or two.
> 
> Mostly because even if none of these are cases of Covid-19, it still implies transmission of something, something is able to do the rounds, and if another virus can manage this feat under the current conditions then I would assume Covid-19 can too.
> 
> Exceptions to this idea would be if the symptoms arent actually being caused by a virus of any kind at all.



I could have caught whatever I've had from all manner of places, even being careful. My job requires me to travel which inevitably means funding a pub to eat in which is probably where I've picked it up. Although after this little scare, I may confine myself entirely to the hotel room and deliveroo all my meals. Might need to buy myself some paper plates though.

Considering I wasn't actually that ill, the reality is I panicked.


----------



## kalidarkone (Aug 29, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I could have caught whatever I've had from all manner of places, even being careful. My job requires me to travel which inevitably means funding a pub to eat in which is probably where I've picked it up. Although after this little scare, I may confine myself entirely to the hotel room and deliveroo all my meals. Might need to buy myself some paper plates though.
> 
> Considering I wasn't actually that ill, the reality is I panicked.


Its easy to do! Atm I keep swinging between feeling rubbish, feeling fine worrying about calling work, worrying about feeling like a fraud, worrying I may have infected 5 people if I'm positive. And annoyed that by trying to do the right thing till I know for sure I must stay in.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Aug 29, 2020)

Vermin rally in Trafalgar Square today. David 'Lizards' Icke spoke as well as other assorted arseholes


----------



## two sheds (Aug 29, 2020)

breathing all over each other - no doubt will present themselves to hospital in demanding mode when they catch it.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 29, 2020)

yep lots of link to the putin tv stream cropped up on my farcebook feed, not sure if all of them were doing it for comedyreasons.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 29, 2020)

Jeff Robinson said:


> View attachment 228301
> 
> Vermin rally in Trafalgar Square today. David 'Lizards' Icke spoke as well as other assorted arseholes


FB must have been a bit quieter for an hour or two.


----------



## Lurdan (Aug 29, 2020)




----------



## Cerv (Aug 29, 2020)

very confused by "against tranny" until it finally clicked that should be tyranny


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 29, 2020)

Cerv said:


> very confused by "against tranny" until it finally clicked that should be tyranny



Odds are fairly good they are transphobic as well tbh.


----------



## editor (Aug 29, 2020)

Jeff Robinson said:


> View attachment 228301
> 
> Vermin rally in Trafalgar Square today. David 'Lizards' Icke spoke as well as other assorted arseholes


Had some twat on FB celebrating them as "freethinking Londoners," FFS.


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I have to say I am now a little bit bothered by the apparent increase on this forum of people having respiratory virus symptoms in the last week or two.
> 
> Mostly because even if none of these are cases of Covid-19, it still implies transmission of something, something is able to do the rounds, and if another virus can manage this feat under the current conditions then I would assume Covid-19 can too.
> 
> Exceptions to this idea would be if the symptoms arent actually being caused by a virus of any kind at all.



I was up in Scotland last week when the kids went back. On the evening I was coming back here it transpired that 4 of the 5 kids and one adult all at different schools had complained of a 24hr sore throat that day or the day before. At one of the kids schools one pupil only tested positive the following day.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 29, 2020)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 29, 2020)

I can't believe the number of loons that turned out for this demo, and what loons they are...



> One protestor unfurled a flag showing the symbol of the British Union of Fascists while another woman was seen promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory that believes a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats, Hollywood celebrities and billionaires run the world while engaging in paedophilia.











						10,000 anti-lockdown protesters gather in London to claim coronavirus is 'hoax'
					

A sizeable crowd occupied Trafalgar Square, holding signs warning coronavirus is a 'scam' and 'fake science.'




					metro.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 29, 2020)

It would be a terrible shame if Icke caught it. I'd feel sorry for the virus.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I can't believe the number of loons that turned out for this demo, and what loons they are...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yep.



That's actual fascists protesting against the state telling people to do stuff.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 29, 2020)

Thora said:


> Not really a surprise that more people are getting viruses though, is it? Pubs are open, restaurants are busy especially Monday-Wednesday, people are going on holiday, to the gym/salon, taking their kids to soft play places. Everyone is supposed to be getting the bus into work...



Start of the school year, or a week or two after anyway, often coincides with an increase in coughs and sniffles as germs from all over the place are suddenly recombined in a big snotty petri dish. See also 'freshers flu' at universities.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 29, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It would be a terrible shame if Icke caught it. I'd feel sorry for the virus.



His acolytes would just get even worse if he died of covid. It'd just be more petrol on the flames of stupid.


----------



## frogwoman (Aug 29, 2020)

Yeah they'd just say we poisoned him for telling the truth about covid or something.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 29, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Start of the school year, or a week or two after anyway, often coincides with an increase in coughs and sniffles as germs from all over the place are suddenly recombined in a big snotty petri dish. See also 'freshers flu' at universities.


My daughter had a snotty cold for a few days last week, but that was it.


----------



## weepiper (Aug 29, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I was up in Scotland last week when the kids went back. On the evening I was coming back here it transpired that 4 of the 5 kids and one adult all at different schools had complained of a 24hr sore throat that day or the day before. At one of the kids schools one pupil only tested positive the following day.


There's been a sore throat thing going around here in Edinburgh too. One of my nephews and my boss's wife both had it and both tested negative for Covid.


----------



## weepiper (Aug 29, 2020)

We were in Perthshire today cycling and stopped for lunch at a cafe in Aberfeldy. A little rural market town. They were completely on it with the Covid prevention measures - we all had a temperature taken before they would seat us, all the tables outside were spaced for social distancing and they wouldn't let anyone move chairs to make a bigger group table, all the staff were masked, they had big plastic screens between the inside tables and the first thing the waitress did was take a name and phone number for the NHS contact tracing people. One of our party was visiting from London and said he's seen nothing like it there. Was quite impressed and pleased myself.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Aug 29, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Wow. An australian friend was telling me their contact tracing program tries to find out which lifts people stood in and who shared them. Obviously its compulsory for bars to register who is there. And if you're meant to be quarantining the military are quite likely to come to your house to check that you're in. The UK's half-arsed nonsense may be worse than useless - giving people some false sense of security that the government is doing contact tracing when all they're doing is lining their friends' pockets.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 30, 2020)

Attacks on East Asian people on the increase. Why is it in times of crisis that some fuckers just want to fuck things up rather than show solidarity or reassurance?
Far right using coronavirus as excuse to attack Asians, say police


----------



## Badgers (Aug 30, 2020)




----------



## Badgers (Aug 30, 2020)

> From this Friday, organisers of illegal raves, unlicensed music events, or any other unlawful gathering of 30 people or more face fines of up to £10,000.


Suppose this shit at Trafalgar Square was all legal?


----------



## editor (Aug 30, 2020)

Rich twats trashing other rich twat's homes. 









						Councils face battle to clamp down on illegal parties at Airbnbs
					

A three-bedroom flat at a £3.5 million townhouse in London's trendy Soho was used for four events within the space of the month. More than 100 youngsters at one of those events packed in.




					www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## 20Bees (Aug 30, 2020)

Forest rave broken up as new rules come into force - BBC News
					

As new powers against illegal gatherings begin, equipment worth thousands of pounds is seized.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 20Bees (Aug 30, 2020)

Bank Holiday weekend in Norfolk...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 30, 2020)

20Bees said:


> Forest rave broken up as new rules come into force - BBC News
> 
> 
> As new powers against illegal gatherings begin, equipment worth thousands of pounds is seized.
> ...



Also from that link -



> West Yorkshire Police said eight people were fined £10,000 for holding parties in the Headingley and Burley areas of Leeds, including two DJs at a party. Equipment was also seized.





> Meanwhile, police in Harlow in Essex seized thousands of pounds worth of equipment ahead of an unlicensed music event on Saturday afternoon.
> 
> Ch Insp Lewis Basford said the force would be "looking to identify the organiser and take them to court".
> 
> He added: "My final message is to the organisers: we will seize the equipment - I don't care if you've hired it from someone or if it's yours, we will break up your event, and we can now fine you up to £10,000."





> But Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Ken Marsh said the legislation will mean "absolutely nothing" in terms of enforcement in London.
> 
> "People just set up a music box in the middle of the street and say 'it's not mine' - it's utter nonsense," he said.


----------



## Supine (Aug 30, 2020)

Pretty big rave in the Wales









						South Wales Police: Banwen rave organisers fined £10,000
					

People from around the UK have descended on a Welsh village for the illegal rave.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Aug 30, 2020)

Uh oh...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 30, 2020)

Greece is currently exempt from the FCO advice against all but essential international travel & self isolating on return, but that could change soon.



> A plane-load of passengers have been told they will all have to self-isolate after seven people on the flight tested positive for coronavirus.
> 
> Public Health Wales say anyone who was on TUI flight 6215 from Zante to Cardiff on August 25 must go into quarantine.
> 
> Those who travelled shouldn’t leave the house unless it is emergency. They should also get tested, if they develop symptoms. There have been at least seven confirmed cases of Covid-19 from three different parties who were on the plane.











						All passengers on TUI flight from Greece forced to quarantine after outbreak
					

Anyone who was on the flight into Cardiff is being told to self-isolate after seven confirmed cases.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Hyperdark (Aug 31, 2020)

August 27: The number of daily UK cases of coronavirus has risen to 1,522 in 24 hours - up from 1,048 on Wednesday - the highest tally since mid-June.
and rising.

In my town the behaviour in general indicates most people either dont care because they aren't in the high risk group or actually think its all over,  speaking to a neighbour yesterday who stated "if I was going to get it I would have had it by now".
I'm in a small to medium sized semi-rural Town, I have heard that people are a bit more aware in the larger cities and taking things more seriously, Is this so?

This winter is going to be a test for us all


----------



## Hyperdark (Aug 31, 2020)

Cupid, this was of course inevitable and what to me is especially telling is that nobody has yet even mentioned stopping flight.
As ever we will be reactive and not proactive
We didnt get to be have the worst death rate in Europe and most of the world for nothing, we did everything right to earn that accolade.

  Hurray for us


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 31, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> August 27: The number of daily UK cases of coronavirus has risen to 1,522 in 24 hours - up from 1,048 on Wednesday - the highest tally since mid-June.
> and rising.
> 
> In my town the behaviour in general indicates most people either dont care because they aren't in the high risk group or actually think its all over,  speaking to a neighbour yesterday who stated "if I was going to get it I would have had it by now".
> ...



BIB - I think the picture is very variable, judging by various posts on here.

I am in Worthing, an urban borough of 110,000, people are still taking it very seriously, and we have a low inflection rate, I posted this at the weekend on the facemasks thread -



cupid_stunt said:


> Whenever I see posts like this, I am shocked, it's as if I am living in a totally different world, it's just about 100% around here since it became mandatory - that includes supermarkets, local shops, a few other shops I've been in, and the bank. Also the same on the buses. People are largely still socially distancing too, even at level crossings, people queue around 2m apart.
> 
> Maybe this is helping to keep our inflection rate low, 0.3 cases per 100,000 in the last week, compared to the national average of almost 12, and north of 50 in areas where there's some sort of local lockdown.
> 
> ...


----------



## ice-is-forming (Aug 31, 2020)

I've read a lot of information about covid not being so contagious in humid weather, because the droplets get heavier and don't travel so far. In qld we're just coming out of winter into what looks to be an extremely humid La Nina summer. So fingers crossed etc.   
On top of that we also seem to have a pretty decent track and trace system  Queensland Covid-19 hotspots: list of Brisbane and south-east Qld outbreak locations | Queensland | The Guardian

I'm concerned about my uk family, my dads 93 and facetimes me every day and he seems to be getting more and more confident. Like... If I haven't had it by now I'll be right etc... Not that he's doing anything more than riding out from London to the country side with a mask on. But I worry about him becoming complacent.


----------



## Badgers (Aug 31, 2020)

Telegraph getting a bit miffed 









						Revealed: How, on every measure, Britain's response to the Covid pandemic has been woeful
					

You can cut the data in different ways but the UK sits at or close to the top of the league tables for death whichever way you slice it




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Aug 31, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> August 27: The number of daily UK cases of coronavirus has risen to 1,522 in 24 hours - up from 1,048 on Wednesday - the highest tally since mid-June.
> and rising.
> 
> In my town the behaviour in general indicates most people either dont care because they aren't in the high risk group or actually think its all over,  speaking to a neighbour yesterday who stated "if I was going to get it I would have had it by now".
> ...



Where I am - inner London, but working with people coming in from Kent, Essex, outer London, mostly younger - I'd the general feeling is a mixture between complacency & feeling like, yes winter will be pretty shit (covid & economically) but this summer has felt like a lull so make the best of it  before it gets worse...

Outwardly, it may look like complacency but there's more to it than that.  Most have nursery/ primary school aged children so we are all waiting for the sniffle season to begin.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 31, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Telegraph getting a bit miffed
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They're quite good when they're not talking about politics


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Sep 1, 2020)

This sounds dodgy - Hancock taking tory areas out of lockdown to appease tory MPs who have predictably been whinging about it.









						Hancock accused of favouring Tory areas with Covid lockdown changes in England
					

Labour MPs and councillors say health secretary overruled local leaders to appease Tory areas




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 1, 2020)

I know this sounds a bit _fat bloke down the pub told me_ but someone whose word I trust and would know these things says the major pub chains have been quietly told by the gov to prepare for closure


----------



## kabbes (Sep 2, 2020)

How does being told things quietly by the government work?


----------



## Spandex (Sep 2, 2020)

kabbes said:


> How does being told things quietly by the government work?


Phone call/chat between the minister and the chief exec of the British Beer and Pub Association. "Terribly sorry... way it has to be... giving you some notice... make sure your members are taken care of... hopefully won't come to this... etc".


----------



## Supine (Sep 2, 2020)

kabbes said:


> How does being told things quietly by the government work?



Ask journalists at the Telegraph


----------



## LDC (Sep 2, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I know this sounds a bit _fat bloke down the pub told me_ but someone whose word I trust and would know these things says the major pub chains have been quietly told by the gov to prepare for closure



We've all been told to prepare for further closures and lockdowns.


----------



## Supine (Sep 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> We've all been told to prepare for further closures and lockdowns.



It would be crazy for a business not to do this tbh


----------



## Badgers (Sep 2, 2020)




----------



## kabbes (Sep 2, 2020)

The kabbess went in for an eye appointment at Moorfields yesterday.  She went at rush hour (caught the 7:15 train).  She said by the time it got to Waterloo, there were still only six people on her carriage.  Normally, it would be nose-to-armpit by that point.  And when you bear in mind that they’ve reduced the Waterloo service to one train an hour and eliminated the London Bridge services entirely, that only multiplies how much people are staying away.

One of my team members went in last week to the office (which is optional).  He said there were six people on our floor, which normally has several hundred people.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 2, 2020)

It's interesting to consider why there is such low willingness to return to offices in UK compared to other places - and not it's not 'laziness', because people are working already.

I think main reasons are:

In London, the commute - getting into work involves extended, close contact with dozens of people each way, very few Londoners live within walking/cycling distance of Zone 1. Many other cities in Europe are more compact.
This government has fucked things up spectacularly and even if we did have a proper track and trace system (which we don't), no one's going to trust it for a minute


----------



## Badgers (Sep 2, 2020)

> Boris Johnson has claimed that "huge numbers" of people are returning to the office amid a government drive to stop people from working from home, despite a lack of evidence.
> 
> Pressed on the prime minister's claim on Tuesday afternoon *Downing Street said the PM's comments were not based on any hard figures, and that he was in fact expressing more of a wish*.











						No evidence for Boris Johnson claim that 'huge numbers' returning to office, No.10 admits
					

Government urging people to stop working from home




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 2, 2020)

Lol if Boris said that the sun sets in the evening and rises in the morning you ought to check that statement.


----------



## ash (Sep 2, 2020)

Cloo said:


> It's interesting to consider why there is such low willingness to return to offices in UK compared to other places - and not it's not 'laziness', because people are working already.
> 
> I think main reasons are:
> 
> ...


Also the number of high rise buildings and the use of lifts/ logistics of getting to the top compared to other European cities.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 2, 2020)

Cloo said:


> It's interesting to consider why there is such low willingness to return to offices in UK compared to other places - and not it's not 'laziness', because people are working already.
> 
> I think main reasons are:
> 
> ...



Both true.  I wonder how bigger role the type of work we do in the UK (and specifically in London) is playing?  So much of London work is people sat behind screens, moving numbers on spreadsheets or creating advertising and marketing campaigns.  All this stuff can and is being done from home.


----------



## Smangus (Sep 2, 2020)

I'm looking forwards to some commercial landlords going bust in the future when companies realise they don't need so much office space.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 2, 2020)

I'd be concerned to go into offices unless I knew the ventilation system didn't recirculate air


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 2, 2020)

Blood test at the gp this morning, you think at this point they’d have started to try and send results out by post or email but got told to come and collect from them as always.

Sigh.


----------



## Plumdaff (Sep 2, 2020)

At least some of the empty commercial office space will become the slums of the future following change of use to (not actually suitable) residential. The government will say it is doing something about the housing crisis by shunting people into tiny spaces not designed to be used to live in and helping their mates out. We could think about how we want our city centres to change and function in an era of mass wfh and how to transition people at risk of unemployment into different modes of work but it'll just be mass redundancies, boarded up offices and/or awful housing to enrich the spivs.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 2, 2020)

Good replies to this shit


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 2, 2020)

Oh dear.  My g/f has just got an email putting the hard sell on getting everyone back to the central London office.  This will go well.

Fortunately they've caveated it with ways to keep yourself safe with such gems as avoid travelling at rush hour / peak time.  Given tfl tell us that peak times are between 06:30 to 09:30 and 16:00 and 19:00 it does somewhat make you wonder what they expect of people.  I'm sure they'll be fine with everyone doing a 10:30 to 15:30 working day.  
Callous divs.


----------



## LDC (Sep 2, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Blood test at the gp this morning, you think at this point they’d have started to try and send results out by post or email but got told to come and collect from them as always.
> 
> Sigh.



Your GP must be from the 19th C then, nearly everything is (or can) be done remotely now.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Oh dear.  My g/f has just got an email putting the hard sell on getting everyone back to the central London office.  This will go well.
> 
> Fortunately they've caveated it with ways to keep yourself safe with such gems as avoid travelling at rush hour / peak time.  Given tfl tell us that peak times are between 06:30 to 09:30 and 16:00 and 19:00 it does somewhat make you wonder what they expect of people.  I'm sure they'll be fine with everyone doing a 10:30 to 15:30 working day.
> Callous divs.


Absolute madness. 
"avoiding peak time travel" my arse 
It's impossible unless they move to some sort of shift pattern or as you say, everyone doing a drastically reduced working day.

What reasons are they giving for wanting everyone back in?


----------



## LDC (Sep 2, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Good replies to this shit




Oh my fucking days, does he live in the same country as the rest of us?!


----------



## killer b (Sep 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I'm sure they'll be fine with everyone doing a 10:30 to 15:30 working day.


they're imagining an 11am - 8pm working day...


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 2, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Absolute madness.
> "avoiding peak time travel" my arse
> It's impossible unless they move to some sort of shift pattern or as you say, everyone doing a drastically reduced working day.
> 
> What reasons are they giving for wanting everyone back in?



How much better everyone works in the office and the quality of their output blardy blah.



killer b said:


> they're imagining an 11am - 8pm working day...



I don't think they've put that much thought into it.  It's a just a meaningless throw away statement to make it look like they care.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Oh my fucking days, does he live in the same country as the rest of us?!


Only until he can take his money abroad


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Sep 2, 2020)

Lockdown reimposed in Bolton and Trafford 12 hours after they were lifted.  What a load of fucking incompetent twats.









						Lockdown reimposed in Greater Manchester areas in latest U-turn
					

Restrictions return in Bolton and Trafford just 12 hours after they were lifted




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Badgers (Sep 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I don't think they've put that much thought into it.  It's a just a meaningless throw away statement to make it look like they care.


Are her colleagues a good bunch? Any option to present a united front? Perhaps via HR?


----------



## Cloo (Sep 2, 2020)

Trouble is, this government doesn't want to change a thing. I'm normally loath to point to the 'They and all their mates want to protect their investments' thing (as sometimes that's just simplistic, though I think correlates pretty directly in this case), and I recognise many 'ordinary' people's pensions etc are reliant on commercial property of various kinds, but regardless of this, the current model is unsustainable.

The smart move is to think how _can _we repopulate our city centres in a way people can afford, that will reduce need for commuting, provide customers for business and stop the bleeding out of anyone under 40 who is not in education because they can't fucking afford to live in London anymore?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 2, 2020)

Mental triple / quadruple post.  Weird.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 2, 2020)

dp


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Your GP must be from the 19th C then, nearly everything is (or can) be done remotely now.



Prescriptions and arranging appointments can be, fuck knows why I can’t get sent results. It’s been my experience most GPs are fucking useless bureaucratic nightmares stuck in the past. Made worse by how unhelpful the receptionists usually are.





Cloo said:


> Trouble is, this government doesn't want to change a thing. I'm normally loath to point to the 'They and all their mates want to protect their investments' thing (as sometimes that's just simplistic, though I think correlates pretty directly in this case), and I recognise many 'ordinary' people's pensions etc are reliant on commercial property of various kinds, but regardless of this, the current model is unsustainable.
> 
> The smart move is to think how _can _we repopulate our city centres in a way people can afford, that will reduce need for commuting, provide customers for business and stop the bleeding out of anyone under 40 who is not in education because they can't fucking afford to live in London anymore?



Aye, if Dominic and Boris were serious about dealing with inbuilt London prejudice and inertia this is an absolutely golden opportunity to put down markers for the future on doing this. Instead we get back to work as soon as possible thrown at us.


----------



## Sue (Sep 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> they're imagining an 11am - 8pm working day...


I worked briefly for a woman who was a workaholic. Started in the summer when it was really hot. She was about eight months pregnant at that point and said she'd be changing her working hours a bit so she could avoid rush hour/boiling hot, crowded tubes. I assumed that meant she'd be coming in later and leaving earlier but no, she started coming in even earlier (like 7am) and leaving after the evening rush hour...


----------



## Cloo (Sep 2, 2020)

The Mail/Express are thoroughly appealing to the prejudices/ignorance of their retired readers about the modern workplace – talking to those whose experience of office work was most of the time hard copies of stuff having to appear on a manager’s desk. People who have no concept of collaboration tools like Slack or Teams, whose thinking is that surely no work can be done without someone physically watching over your shoulder and with no concept of how many teams now are in constant ‘discussion’ via various means and people would generally notice is someone wasn’t contributing a damn thing.

The other thing the whole 'Go back to the office now/Hey, just travel outside normal hours' is - uh, childcare? Hello? A lot of that still not fully open and/or likely to shut at a moments' notice, but as there are no women consulted in anything ever, or just Tory women who either don't have kids and/or assume everyone's husband's city job can pay for a full-time fucking nanny.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 2, 2020)

Worthless scumbag can't open his mouth without lying. Boris Johnson reiterates refusal to meet Covid bereaved


----------



## brogdale (Sep 2, 2020)

Not under control at all:


----------



## zahir (Sep 2, 2020)

Race to track 200 people on flight after officials fail to tell airline of Covid cases
					

Exclusive: Wizz Air left in dark after eight teenagers travelling from Crete to London Luton test positive




					www.theguardian.com
				





> Health officials are scrambling to contact more than 200 British holidaymakers on a flight from Crete last week after authorities failed to alert the airline that eight passengers had tested positive for coronavirus.
> 
> The teenagers, from Hampshire, were diagnosed after returning to the UK on a Wizz Air flight to London Luton airport on 25 August. The positive tests should have triggered an urgent response to track down the other 204 passengers on board, but Wizz Air said it had not been made aware of the cases until contacted by the Guardian.





> Ben Pearce, 18, said he was one of 15 friends who tested positive for coronavirus after returning to the UK from Crete last week. At least eight of the group were on the same Wizz Air flight 8168 from Heraklion, which landed at London-Luton on 4.35pm on 25 August.
> 
> Pearce said NHS test and trace call handlers had contacted him multiple times since Friday but none had asked for his flight details. “Even though I’ve filled out my details on three separate phone calls, they always seem to say I’ve got nothing on my file,” he said. “The phone calls never seem to serve any purpose other than they [the call handler] have been told they need to call you.”


----------



## emanymton (Sep 2, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The kabbess went in for an eye appointment at Moorfields yesterday.  She went at rush hour (caught the 7:15 train).  She said by the time it got to Waterloo, there were still only six people on her carriage.  Normally, it would be nose-to-armpit by that point.  And when you bear in mind that they’ve reduced the Waterloo service to one train an hour and eliminated the London Bridge services entirely, that only multiplies how much people are staying away.
> 
> One of my team members went in last week to the office (which is optional).  He said there were six people on our floor, which normally has several hundred people.


Not reflective of my experience on the North. Trains are gradually creeping back up and buses are commonly as full as they can be with the new distancing rules including people having to stand. 

I wonder if this is part of way cases are going up more outside London? Less working from home? Mind you the busiest train I have been in was about 11am on a saturday, not only was it full, but kids where running up and down the isles and most people didn't have masks on. And as for buses I imagine the job profiles of people who get buses vs those who get trains means more people who travel by train can work from home.


----------



## andysays (Sep 3, 2020)

Coronavirus testing rationed amid outbreaks


> The coronavirus testing system is struggling to keep up with demand as a growing number of people apply for swabs. People with symptoms applying for drive-through tests have been directed more than 100 miles (161km) away.





> The government says areas with fewer coronavirus cases have had their testing capacity reduced, in order to cope with outbreaks. But public health experts warn this could miss the start of new spikes.



If it's like this now when case numbers are relatively low, what will it be like when cases start going up?


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 3, 2020)

So tracing is completely flawed in one of the most common routes of infection outbreaks (air travel). And testing is actually unavailable to those who think they need it. World leaders in the race to the bottom.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 3, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I wonder if this is part of way cases are going up more outside London? Less working from home? Mind you the busiest train I have been in was about 11am on a saturday, not only was it full, but kids where running up and down the isles and most people didn't have masks on. And as for buses I imagine the job profiles of people who get buses vs those who get trains means more people who travel by train can work from home.



Presumably not-London has a higher proportion of people working real, ie non-office jobs than London.


----------



## Looby (Sep 3, 2020)

andysays said:


> Coronavirus testing rationed amid outbreaks
> 
> 
> 
> If it's like this now when case numbers are relatively low, what will it be like when cases start going up?


Our local paper reported that the testing site is fucked and people should just turn up at our local testing site. People in Dorset were being offered tests in Manchester when it was clear by driving past that it was dead and there was shitloads of capacity.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 3, 2020)

Looby said:


> Our local paper reported that the testing site is fucked and people should just turn up at our local testing site. People in Dorset were being offered tests in Manchester when it was clear by driving past that it was dead and there was shitloads of capacity.



There's a drive in test centre a few minutes from my home in SW London.  From the looks of it it could probably do around 4 or 5 tests at a time with a queuing system which could manage another 40 odd cars.  I'm yet to see more than 5 cars there at any time but mostly its completely empty.  Yet here we are with people from London seemingly being sent to Cardiff and other miles away places.  It just makes no sense at all.


----------



## Thora (Sep 3, 2020)

How’s the testing system going to cope next week when 10,000 kids have been sent home from school with coughs & temperatures


----------



## Badgers (Sep 3, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> So tracing is completely flawed in one of the most common routes of infection outbreaks (air travel). And testing is actually unavailable to those who think they need it. World leaders in the race to the bottom.


Wonder how much the 'Get Tested' advertising campaign cost? Maybe they need to pay more Love Island 'influencers' to post on Instagram or some other shit. The grubby cunts


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Wonder how much the 'Get Tested' advertising campaign cost? Maybe they need to pay more Love Island 'influencers' to post on Instagram or some other shit. The grubby cunts


They divided boris johnson's children into five teams to brainstorm this. The children came up with several ideas for the campaign and the one Dominic Cummings liked best went to a graphic designer. Each child received a quarter of aniseed balls


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 3, 2020)

That 'Let's get tested' campaign is so cringe


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That 'Let's get tested' campaign is so cringe


You should have seen the ones that got away


----------



## BCBlues (Sep 3, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> They divided boris johnson's children into five teams to brainstorm this. The children came up with several ideas for the campaign and the one Dominic Cummings liked best went to a graphic designer. Each child received a quarter of aniseed balls



Only a mutant algorithm could dish out 5 quarters


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 3, 2020)

This has made me feel quite stabby:

whoever wrote that has clearly never had a real job


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 3, 2020)

A friend of mine and her partner have been self-isolating since March because he has an auto-immune disease. My view, even as someone who takes the virus pretty seriously because I have long-term fatigue from it, is that the risk from meeting people outdoors and maintaining distance is so low that even vulnerable people could reasonably feel safe doing it now. We know more about how people get the virus now and I'm not sure this long-term full self-isolation (presumably until a vaccine is found?) is the right thing to be doing, particularly when you balance against the mental health risk. What do people think?


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Sep 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> This has made me feel quite stabby:
> View attachment 228939
> whoever wrote that has clearly never had a real job


Yeah, I snorted coffee out my nose at the "second family" bit.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 3, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> A friend of mine and her partner have been self-isolating since March because he has an auto-immune disease. My view, even as someone who takes the virus pretty seriously because I have long-term fatigue from it, is that the risk from meeting people outdoors and maintaining distance is so low that even vulnerable people could reasonably feel safe doing it now. We know more about how people get the virus now and I'm not sure this long-term full self-isolation (presumably until a vaccine is found?) is the right thing to be doing, particularly when you balance against the mental health risk. What do people think?


I think folk in that position should very much be allowed to make their own decisions regarding the various risks and receive support for whatever route they choose.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 3, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I think folk in that position should very much be allowed to make their own decisions regarding the various risks and receive support for whatever route they choose.


Well, they're adults. Nobody is going to stop them making their own decisions. I'm a friend, not a boss. I don't think it's good for them though, and I don't think at this point it's really supported by the evidence.


----------



## killer b (Sep 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> This has made me feel quite stabby:
> View attachment 228939
> whoever wrote that has clearly never had a real job


Who's advert is this? Is it some hideous government back to work thing, or some misguided advert for something else (disinfectant?)


----------



## andysays (Sep 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Presumably not-London has a higher proportion of people working real, ie non-office jobs than London.


fuck off Frank


----------



## LDC (Sep 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> This has made me feel quite stabby:
> View attachment 228939
> whoever wrote that has clearly never had a real job



That's quite fantastic, it's David Brent come to life. Proper bants is a capital offence alone.


----------



## andysays (Sep 3, 2020)

Looby said:


> Our local paper reported that the testing site is fucked and people should just turn up at our local testing site. People in Dorset were being offered tests in Manchester when it was clear by driving past that it was dead and there was shitloads of capacity.


My Dad lives in Gloucestershire and is due to have a minor OP tomorrow, so had to go to the hospital yesterday for a test beforehand. 

Didn't actually ask him about how busy the test dept was, was more curious about what it was like to have something stuck up his nose.


----------



## LDC (Sep 3, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> A friend of mine and her partner have been self-isolating since March because he has an auto-immune disease. My view, even as someone who takes the virus pretty seriously because I have long-term fatigue from it, is that the risk from meeting people outdoors and maintaining distance is so low that even vulnerable people could reasonably feel safe doing it now. We know more about how people get the virus now and I'm not sure this long-term full self-isolation (presumably until a vaccine is found?) is the right thing to be doing, particularly when you balance against the mental health risk. What do people think?



I'd follow the official advice. Depends on what their condition is, and how 'at risk' they actually are, and only their doctor or specialist will know that. But yes, given this is for the forseeable balancing risk with quality of life is important I think.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'd follow the official advice. Depends on what their condition is, and how 'at risk' they actually are, and only their doctor or specialist will know that. But yes, given this is for the forseeable balancing risk with quality of life is important I think.


I don't set a lot of stock in govt advice, but fwiw I thought they had advised everyone to stop shielding Advice for people at high risk from coronavirus (clinically extremely vulnerable)


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 3, 2020)

I thought outdoors was relatively low risk especially if people wore a mask.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 3, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I don't set a lot of stock in govt advice, but fwiw I thought they had advised everyone to stop shielding Advice for people at high risk from coronavirus (clinically extremely vulnerable)



This government has repeatedly shown it doesn't know its arse from its elbow.

As someone with an immune condition I am well aware of how fucking damaging this situation has been to my already tenuous mental health, my life has crashed almost to a halt even though I'm making trips to the supermarket and into town once a week. Fuck knows when I'll see any of my family again at this point.

Your friends can do as much or as little as they feel comfortable with. I'm finding even going on the tube stressful, the end results of Covid seem to stretch from "a bit of flu" to "dying" to "lung issues for the forseeable future if not your entire life" which means that ultimately its up to the people involved how much they want to risk catching it. People at heightened risk are more than able to just Nope the fuck out and try and stay as isolated as possible, the hard part for them is balancing that out to a level that does the least harm to them psychologically.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 3, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought outdoors was relatively low risk especially if people wore a mask.


Pretty damn low. I think you'd struggle to find any cases of people who had got it outdoors, keeping 1-2m distance and wearing a mask. I guess I worry about my friends getting into an unhealthy place with it. They're both quite depressive as it is.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> This government has repeatedly shown it doesn't know its arse from its elbow.
> 
> As someone with an immune condition I am well aware of how fucking damaging this situation has been to my already tenuous mental health, my life has crashed almost to a halt even though I'm making trips to the supermarket and into town once a week. Fuck knows when I'll see any of my family again at this point.
> 
> Your friends can do as much or as little as they feel comfortable with. I'm finding even going on the tube stressful, the end results of Covid seem to stretch from "a bit of flu" to "dying" to "lung issues for the forseeable future if not your entire life" which means that ultimately its up to the people involved how much they want to risk catching it. People at heightened risk are more than able to just Nope the fuck out and try and stay as isolated as possible, the hard part for them is balancing that out to a level that does the least harm to them psychologically.


I'm not suggesting they follow government advice, just saying what it is because someone mentioned it. I think they should be more cautious than the government advice. But you're talking about being worried on the tube, but they wouldn't dream of that - they have literally not met another human being since March, or done anything out of the house except walk alone near their home.


----------



## teqniq (Sep 3, 2020)

Scum:









						Millionaire Boris Johnson backer criticises politicians for ‘unwillingness’ to allow a recession
					

Millionaire hedge fund manager Crispin Odey has criticised politicians for an 'unwillingness' to allow a recession, claiming the...




					www.theneweuropean.co.uk


----------



## MickiQ (Sep 3, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Absolute madness.
> "avoiding peak time travel" my arse
> It's impossible unless they move to some sort of shift pattern or as you say, everyone doing a drastically reduced working day.
> 
> What reasons are they giving for wanting everyone back in?


Shares in Pret a Manger maybe
Genuinely surprised that actual employers are buying into the Govt's shit. Companies care about 2 things first and most importantly the bottom line and then they care about their employees welfare because it affects the bottom line. The fact that the coffee bar across the road is struggling doesn't tend to enter into any calculations.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 3, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Shares in Pret a Manger maybe
> Genuinely surprised that actual employers are buying into the Govt's shit. Companies care about 2 things first and most importantly the bottom line and *then they care about their employees welfare* because it affects the bottom line. The fact that the coffee bar across the road is struggling doesn't tend to enter into any calculations.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 3, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I'm not suggesting they follow government advice, just saying what it is because someone mentioned it. I think they should be more cautious than the government advice. But you're talking about being worried on the tube, but they wouldn't dream of that - they have literally not met another human being since March, or done anything out of the house except walk alone near their home.



As I say its up to them, if they don't think its worth the risk they can stay at home and I won't judge them for it. I hope they are at least taking time to get on the phone or video calls as much as possible though.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 3, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Genuinely surprised that actual employers are buying into the Govt's shit.


I don't believe many are. They will have their own agenda wanting employees to work from home or return to work. Some might be concerned over welfare but more I think will be looking at the benefits/savings of not running an office. 

Thinking back to my past employers some were cunts that trusted none of their staff. Others would have much preferred staff to work from home.


----------



## MickiQ (Sep 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


>


It's a bit like the Three Laws of Robotics.
1) Companies shall protect their profitability
2) Companies shall look after their staff except where such actions conflicts with the 1st Law
3) Companies shall care about society generally except where such actions conflict with the 1st Law but not really that arsed about the 2nd Law


----------



## LDC (Sep 3, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> I don't set a lot of stock in govt advice, but fwiw I thought they had advised everyone to stop shielding Advice for people at high risk from coronavirus (clinically extremely vulnerable)



I was thinking more their doctor or specialist, gov advice will be more general by it's nature. Just as an aside I have found there's a load of people quite confused about the difference between shielding, being 'clinically extremely vulnerable', self-isolating, etc.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> As I say its up to them, if they don't think its worth the risk they can stay at home and I won't judge them for it. I hope they are at least taking time to get on the phone or video calls as much as possible though.


No, they aren't. They are both almost certainly extremely depressed.


----------



## LDC (Sep 3, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Pretty damn low. I think you'd struggle to find any cases of people who had got it outdoors, keeping 1-2m distance and wearing a mask. I guess I worry about my friends getting into an unhealthy place with it. They're both quite depressive as it is.



And that is a risk, hence why there is some balance to be struck even for people who are 'clinically extremely vulnerable'. I mean at the worst you could sit in a room for a year to avoid catching it, and then go out once for a medical appointment, catch it and die having had a right shit last year of life.

I know someone who's got a terminal cancer diagnosis with a not very long prognosis and is extremely clinically vulnerable, and they've ignored all official advice after a chat with their oncologist and doctor and have gone about having loads of fun and seeing people etc. and tbh why the fuck not in their position.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> Who's advert is this? Is it some hideous government back to work thing, or some misguided advert for something else (disinfectant?)


Looks like an ad for a disinfectant


----------



## Badgers (Sep 3, 2020)

MPs voted to give themselves another 11 weeks out of the office - working virtually until November 13th  

Leading by example


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> Who's advert is this? Is it some hideous government back to work thing, or some misguided advert for something else (disinfectant?)



Dettol




Badgers said:


> MPs voted to give themselves another 11 weeks out of the office - working virtually until November 13th
> 
> Leading by example



Link?


----------



## thismoment (Sep 3, 2020)

Badgers said:


> MPs voted to give themselves another 11 weeks out of the office - working virtually until November 13th
> 
> Leading by example



No ways! Surely they couldn’t have while telling everyone else to get back to the office


----------



## Badgers (Sep 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Link?


Will this pic suffice?


----------



## LDC (Sep 3, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Pretty damn low. I think you'd struggle to find any cases of people who had got it outdoors, keeping 1-2m distance and wearing a mask. I guess I worry about my friends getting into an unhealthy place with it. They're both quite depressive as it is.



I'm also wary of people only doing what they're 'comfortable with' or avoiding things that they find stressful. Down that road leads avoiding anything difficult and seems to exacerbate anxiety and depression for many rather than get rid of it.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 3, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Will this pic suffice?



I'm afraid I need full citations and documentation


----------



## 8ball (Sep 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I know someone who's got a terminal cancer diagnosis with a not very long prognosis and is extremely clinically vulnerable, and they've ignored all official advice after a chat with their oncologist and doctor and have gone about having loads of fun and seeing people etc. and tbh why the fuck not in their position.



The standard argument for why not is that they might spread it to others.


----------



## LDC (Sep 3, 2020)

8ball said:


> The standard argument for why not is that they might spread it to others.



Yeah, I do get that. But they're not ignoring social distancing and mask wearing etc. day to day. It's more in interactions with their friends and family who I guess have made an informed decision too.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> This has made me feel quite stabby:
> View attachment 228939
> whoever wrote that has clearly never had a real job


That is quite something.
And as you say, clearly written by someone who has never actually had a job before.
I mean it's all pretty offensive but "Leaving early for a cheeky afternoon in the sun" ?? Who the fuck can do that??


----------



## Badgers (Sep 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I'm afraid I need full citations and documentation


I am waiting for Disgraced Prime Minister Johnson to provide the data behind this statement of *fact*. 

It was proposed by the cunt Mogg but not really opposed by any parties #shocker


----------



## 8ball (Sep 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I do get that. But they're not ignoring social distancing and mask wearing etc. day to day. It's more in interactions with their friends and family who I guess have made an informed decision too.



Fair enough,  I find the argument about risking spreading it to others a little tricky anyway (accepting certain risks generated by others would seem a precondition of any society, and the limits on this are undiscussed).


----------



## 8ball (Sep 3, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> And as you say, clearly written by someone who has never actually had a job before.



Well, someone who has only ever worked in branding and advertising companies.


----------



## Sue (Sep 3, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Yeah, I snorted coffee out my nose at the "second family" bit.


Proper bants.   

Also the stuff about 'ccing' and 'bccing' because obviously those of us who've been working from home have been completely incapable of emailing and can only do so from the office. Idiots.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 3, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I mean it's all pretty offensive but "Leaving early for a cheeky afternoon in the sun" ?? Who the fuck can do that??



I remember doing that once, with a colleague, next morning the boss asked where we had been. I said, 'on the beach', which was true, but he just laughed, and Amanda piped-up, 'our last appointment over-run, we couldn't get back to the office before closing', he accepted that.   



8ball said:


> Well, someone who has only ever worked in branding and advertising companies.



Or, for a local newspaper's advertising department.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm also wary of people only doing what they're 'comfortable with' or avoiding things that they find stressful. Down that road leads avoiding anything difficult and seems to exacerbate anxiety and depression for many rather than get rid of it.



While many activites can help to alleviate depression and anxiety, they will only do so where people are able to choose to engage in them, rather than being compelled by economic or social pressures. 

What would really help is some trustworthy, unbiased guidance on which activities are relatively safe. When you've got MP's filming 'go back to work' videos in their living rooms then people are likely to come to the conclusion that they're being bullshat and fall back on their own, possibly anxiety-inflected judgements about what they're able to do.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 3, 2020)




----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 3, 2020)

Another one!


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 3, 2020)

"The Tube, its great in the morning isn't it?" said noone ever.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> This has made me feel quite stabby:
> View attachment 228939
> whoever wrote that has clearly never had a real job


brought this to mind


----------



## LDC (Sep 3, 2020)

TBH at least it's an advert, albeit a cringworthy one, it could have been some government 'get back to work for the bants it's ace' thing which would have been much worse.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Another one!
> View attachment 228948


is 'tapping out' slang for suicide?


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH at least it's an advert, albeit a cringworthy one, it could have been some government 'get back to work for the bants it's ace' thing which would have been much worse.


----------



## souljacker (Sep 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> "The Tube, its great in the morning isn't it?" said noone ever.



'Getting a seat'. LOL!


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2020)




----------



## frogwoman (Sep 3, 2020)

'Half reading a newspaper'


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2020)

boris johnson was going to be a guest on the bbc's 'would i lie to you'. until producers realised that it'd be no fun watching as all his statements would be lies.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 'Half reading a newspaper'


don't laugh. it's a serious problem in the johnson family as boris' brother jo can only read consonants while the other brother, leo, can only read vowels.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Another one!
> View attachment 228948


Fucking hell 
Yeah tube travel. Absolutely amazing. Such a romantic experience day in day out twice a day during rush hour crammed in with 6 million other people.
I love it. We all love it. I miss it soooo much.
It's just like that. Just how they describe it.


----------



## LDC (Sep 3, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> View attachment 228950


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2020)




----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 3, 2020)




----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 3, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Fucking hell
> Yeah tube travel. Absolutely amazing. Such a romantic experience day in day out twice a day during rush hour crammed in with 6 million other people.
> I love it. We all love it. I miss it soooo much.
> It's just like that. Just how they describe it.


put a cooked kipper in each pocket before boarding the train and even on the most crowded morning service people will give you room to breathe


----------



## souljacker (Sep 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> View attachment 228953



That's from the M40 isn't it?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Another one!
> View attachment 228948



Saying sorry? On the tube? The one in _London? _


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Saying sorry? On the tube? The one in _London? _


Yes, sometimes people say sorry


----------



## Badgers (Sep 3, 2020)

Just out for a stroll and the train station car park is about 25% full. 

Lots of pics on Twotter of deserted London. Be in interesting to see the data that Disgraced Prime Minister Johnson used earlier in the week.


----------



## editor (Sep 3, 2020)

Virus? What virus?


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 3, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Saying sorry? On the tube? The one in _London? _


You don't live in London do you?


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 3, 2020)




----------



## Ground Elder (Sep 3, 2020)

see also


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 3, 2020)

What happened to all the ventilators that were hurriedly made or at least hurriedly ordered? Did they get made?


----------



## Badgers (Sep 3, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What happened to all the ventilators that were hurriedly made or at least hurriedly ordered? Did they get made?


They are buried under a pile of sub-standard PPE in a warehouse in the Cayman Islands


----------



## LDC (Sep 3, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What happened to all the ventilators that were hurriedly made or at least hurriedly ordered? Did they get made?



Re-purposed to be the new model Dyson vacuum cleaners and sold off cheap in the Xmas sales. They'll come with suck and a blow setting though just in case we need to buy them back to be ventilators again in 2021.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Re-purposed to be the new model Dyson vacuum cleaners and sold off cheap in the Xmas sales. They'll come with suck and a blow setting though just in case we need to buy them back to be ventilators again in 2021.



Useful if you have a fatal dust allergy too I guess


----------



## Badgers (Sep 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Re-purposed to be the new model Dyson vacuum cleaners and sold off cheap in the Xmas sales. They'll come with suck and a blow setting though just in case we need ti buy them back to be ventilators again in 2021.


Didn't the cunt Dyson get a substantial compensation payment when the contract (he could not fulfil) was taken away? 

Hopefully it will cover his next donation to the party.


----------



## LDC (Sep 3, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Didn't the cunt Dyson get a substantial compensation payment when the contract (he could not fulfil) was taken away?
> 
> Hopefully it will cover his next donation to the party.



Yeah think so, hence the quip.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Re-purposed to be the new model Dyson vacuum cleaners and sold off cheap in the Xmas sales. They'll come with suck and a blow setting though just in case we need to buy them back to be ventilators again in 2021.



I can see the advertising slogans now.  'Ventilators with new Dyson Whirlpool technology: powerful enough to explode your granny!'


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 3, 2020)

'Recently contracted COVID-19? Or do you go into anaphylactic shock when you inhale dust particles? Shortness of breath at the thought of cleaning your house for the in-laws? The new Dyson Whirlpool comes with a Ventilator Mode so you never have to worry about life-threatening diseases  while you switch on your vacuum cleaner!'


----------



## elbows (Sep 3, 2020)

A local example that demonstrates the limitations to the testing system currently in place:









						Coronavirus testing unit in Nuneaton has moved - and when it will be back
					

There had been concerns raised on social media that the Army-run site at the Harefield Road car park had closed




					www.coventrytelegraph.net
				






> "The Nuneaton testing unit is not closed, but it is a mobile testing unit which rotates around different sites in the county," the Shire Hall spokesperson said.
> 
> "We understand it should be back in Nuneaton for 4th to 8th September 2020 at its previous location. It is currently in Warwick.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 3, 2020)

repurposed chip van?


----------



## krink (Sep 3, 2020)

Is Manchester in lockdown? I'm really worried as my mam is 85 and some random  cousin + family have just rocked up from Manchester for a visit! My mam lives in Sunderland and is in a bubble with me and my kids. If anyone knows about the situation in Manchester I'd appreciate some knowledge. Thanks.


----------



## killer b (Sep 3, 2020)

krink said:


> Is Manchester in lockdown? I'm really worried as my mam is 85 and some random  cousin + family have just rocked up from Manchester for a visit! My mam lives in Sunderland and is in a bubble with me and my kids. If anyone knows about the situation in Manchester I'd appreciate some knowledge. Thanks.


Yeah - details of affected areas here, along with what they can and can't do (if they're from an affected part of greater manchester, then visiting your mam is one of the banned activities): North of England: local restrictions


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 3, 2020)

krink said:


> Is Manchester in lockdown? I'm really worried as my mam is 85 and some random  cousin + family have just rocked up from Manchester for a visit!


wow, unannounced?


----------



## krink (Sep 3, 2020)

Thanks mate, she's in very early stages of dementia so she forgets the rules and everything. My sister found out by accident. We're really unhappy about it as you can imagine. We're trying to find out the name of the area but it's within walking distance of the city centre.


----------



## krink (Sep 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> wow, unannounced?


Yeah and she lives alone so she just let them in as she's not 100% mentally fit anymore


----------



## killer b (Sep 3, 2020)

krink said:


> Thanks mate, she's in very early stages of dementia so she forgets the rules and everything. My sister found out by accident. We're really unhappy about it as you can imagine. We're trying to find out the name of the area but it's within walking distance of the city centre.


They're almost certainly within the City of Manchester in that case, and should definitely not be visiting


----------



## killer b (Sep 3, 2020)

(in fact, they shouldn't be visiting her anyway, regardless of where they live - the guidelines are still for support bubbles / 2 fixed households only to meet indoors Meeting people from outside your household)


----------



## krink (Sep 3, 2020)

Thanks killer b 
We are absolutely gobsmacked. If I wasn't at work and didn't live so far away myself I'd be round there and throw the idiots out myself. My sister in law is hopefully going round but even she doesn't go in her house.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> View attachment 228972


There seems to be a few of them


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 3, 2020)




----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> (in fact, they shouldn't be visiting her anyway, regardless of where they live - the guidelines are still for support bubbles / 2 fixed households only to meet indoors Meeting people from outside your household)



It's any 2 households/bubbles, no? Not that you can only have one other you can meet. Although you are still meant to socially distance inside.


----------



## killer b (Sep 3, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> It's any 2 households/bubbles, no? Not that you can only have one other you can meet. Although you are still meant to socially distance inside.


oh yes - I misread the clause.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 3, 2020)




----------



## thismoment (Sep 3, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> It's any 2 households/bubbles, no? Not that you can only have one other you can meet. Although you are still meant to socially distance inside.



So, you can meet 2 households indoors but it doesn’t have to be the same 2 households each time...is that correct?

I’ve been having 2 different relatives visit indoors one at a time but am now wondering if I could have met with other relatives indoors.


----------



## elbows (Sep 3, 2020)

An article about whats been going wrong with the testing system lately, some crap apologies, and then at the end some stuff about the other forms of testing that are being trialled. 









						Coronavirus: Testing boss 'very sorry' for shortages
					

Some people are being asked to travel hundreds of miles for tests as labs struggle to keep up.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 3, 2020)

thismoment said:


> So, you can meet 2 households indoors but it doesn’t have to be the same 2 households each time...is that correct?
> 
> I’ve been having 2 different relatives visit indoors one at a time but am now wondering if I could have met with other relatives indoors.



2 households can meet at a time - you and one other. It doesn't have to be the same 2 each time though. So you've been doing it right as far as I understand it.


----------



## Celyn (Sep 3, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I suppose most people who have to quarantine will still be able to work from home anyway.  Well those who have been working from home previously.
> 
> The raise an interesting question regarding the H&S liability of companies.  Whilst its virtually impossible to say for definite where someone contracts covid there have been quite a few work based outbreaks already.  Has anything happened in regard to those companies?  I've not seen anything.


I am not sure that "most people who have to quarantine will still be able to work from home anyway".  I do see that you have in mind office workers rather than nurses, shop staff, vets, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. But how about the office cleaners, the electricians, the computer maintenance, the filing assistants, the people who make the food for the in-house lunches, or the people who come along and fill up all the coffee machines? Receptionists, doormen, the people who come along and see to the damn flowers in the foyer? All of that. They cannot work from home. And some of my random examples are of very badly paid people - will companies treat them nicely?


----------



## CH1 (Sep 3, 2020)

*At least Grant Shapps doesn't have to worry about catching Coronavirus when flying to/from Spain in his private jet








						UK transport secretary registers own plane under ‘light-touch’ US rules
					

US-registered planes have faced greater scrutiny in Britain since the crash that killed footballer Emiliano Sala in 2019.




					www.politico.eu
				



*


----------



## weepiper (Sep 3, 2020)




----------



## Wilf (Sep 3, 2020)

weepiper said:


>



_Dante's Inferno: the David Brent years._


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 4, 2020)

weepiper said:


>



Every time I read that I am newly incensed by something in it.
Hearing buzzwords.
Hearing fucking buzzwords


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 4, 2020)

They really do feel like they've been written by someone around 25 years old who is in their first big proper job in a fancy London office and thinks work and travelling to and from work is all just a super whizzy jolly time.

I hope they get the opportunity to reassess their work in 25 years time. I wonder how they will feel then about plastic plants and proper bants.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 4, 2020)

CH1 said:


> At least Grant Shapps doesn't have to worry about catching Coronavirus when flying to/from Spain in his private jet


It makes me laugh how there is often indignation about how much MPs are paid, when it's clear to anyone paying attention that many of them really don't need the paltry 70k or whatever it is a year - they're ridiculously independently wealthy already.


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 4, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> They really do feel like they've been written by someone around 25 years old who is in their first big proper job in a fancy London office and thinks work and travelling to and from work is all just a super whizzy jolly time.
> 
> I hope they get the opportunity to reassess their work in 25 years time. I wonder how they will feel then *about plastic plants* and proper bants.



'Fake Chinese rubber plants', even .......


----------



## brogdale (Sep 4, 2020)

Just for info; if it feels like the number of cases is rising...there's a reason for that:


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 4, 2020)

Aaaaaaaand schools are going back.


----------



## Supine (Sep 4, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Aaaaaaaand schools are going back.



Aaaaaaaand workers are going back.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 4, 2020)

Aaaaaaannnnnnnddddd Dido Harding is in charge of the failing _"_Track & Trace" debacle...


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 4, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Every time I read that I am newly incensed by something in it.



Same here, although at least now I've re-read it I do now see it says 'plastic plants' not 'plastic pants.'


----------



## CH1 (Sep 4, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Just for info; if it feels like the number of cases is rising...there's a reason for that:
> 
> View attachment 229056


Have you got the series for Covid deaths? I suspect they are much much less.

Then there is the issue of testing - our local test centre in Somerleyton Road SW9 seems part-time and barely used.
Scotland and possibly Wales seem to do more testing.

If they said Brixton was now under lock-down because of the numer of cases it wouldn't surprise me because of the brazen maskless shopping going on, not to mention (some) busy local hostelries.

But I would query what percentage of the population round here has been tested. 1%? 2%?
It doesn't help that GPs are on lock-down themselves refusing to see patients. What are they getting paid for?


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 4, 2020)

GPs are still seeing people


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 4, 2020)

CH1 said:


> Have you got the series for Covid deaths? I suspect they are much much less.
> 
> Then there is the issue of testing - our local test centre in Somerleyton Road SW9 seems part-time and barely used.
> Scotland and possibly Wales seem to do more testing.
> ...



Because I reported my 99% definitely just a cold* symptoms to the tracker app they asked if I wanted a test.  I'm sure it said it couldn't offer me a test locally (no car) so I'm having to do it by post which is annoying for boring logistical reasons that wouldn't be the case a couple of days ago.   There was something on the news last night about londoners being offered testing centres over 100 miles away but I've never heard anything about london centres being busy or attended by anyone.

the two GP surgeries I know of are having phone appointments and some appointments in person. I've had both. I'm pretty sure yours is the same and that is what they are paid for.

* the most likely source of my cold I think would be one of the buses I boldly got bank holiday monday.  this concerns me because if I can pick up the cold I can pick up covid.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Sep 4, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's quite fantastic, it's David Brent come to life. Proper bants is a capital offence alone.


I was about to post this almost word for word until I saw this post. Anyone who uses the term "bants" should be killed slowly with a cheese grater


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

CH1 said:


> Have you got the series for Covid deaths? I suspect they are much much less.



Nobody is suggesting that deaths are anywhere near the level they were at during the first peak. Thats not the point of noting a rise in detected cases.

The foundation of surveillance and stopping such a huge wave of horror from getting going is to pay attention to number of cases.

Deaths are a laggy indicator. I'd look to hospital data before looking to those. Its an awkward time to analyse such hospital data too, since there are various signs that numbers in some places have bottomed out and care then has to be taken not to confuse small bumps along the bottom with a sustained rise. All the same, there are tentative signs that the situation is starting to change, but the numbers are too small for me to try to make a big deal out of. In Northern Ireland and Scotland I can point to an obvious increase in hospitalisations in recent weeks, but still talking about low numbers overall. Elsewhere there are sometimes small bumps which have real stories behind them, but again arent large and sustained enough for me to make a big deal of at this stage. I will be happy if I can still only report the same picture as this in a months time.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 4, 2020)

CH1 said:


> Have you got the series for Covid deaths? I suspect they are much much less.
> 
> Then there is the issue of testing - our local test centre in Somerleyton Road SW9 seems part-time and barely used.
> Scotland and possibly Wales seem to do more testing.
> ...


The number of deaths is widely reported and you're free to post it up if you want to. I happened to be posting about the number of cases.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 4, 2020)

Grant Shapps saying Scotland 'jumped the gun' by introducing quarantine requirements for travellers returning from Greece  fucking prick.


----------



## LDC (Sep 4, 2020)

CH1 said:


> It doesn't help that GPs are on lock-down themselves refusing to see patients. What are they getting paid for?



What GPs are on lockdown? And what do you mean by that, individual GPs or GP surgeries? Refusing to see patients? Have you got an example of this happening?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 4, 2020)

My doctor's doing phone appointments. I've even got a phone appointment with the specialist to follow up my meeting late last year. 

I think they're fucking wonderful how they're dealing with it. My local practice, certainly.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 4, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What GPs are on lockdown? And what do you mean by that, individual GPs or GP surgeries? Refusing to see patients? Have you got an example of this happening?


I think it's something he just pulled out of his arse. Or someone else's.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 4, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Grant Shapps saying Scotland 'jumped the gun' by introducing quarantine requirements for travellers returning from Greece  fucking prick.


Let's face it, that twat has "fucking prick" written through him like a stick of rock. He's the exemplification of fucking prickdom. Which would also be a good name for the Cummings.


----------



## CH1 (Sep 4, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> the two GP surgeries I know of are having phone appointments and some appointments in person. I've had both. I'm pretty sure yours is the same and that is what they are paid for.


Mine had a PPG meeting on Wednesday (by Zoom). I attended that - though no medic did, only a senior receptionist.

But if for example you need a blood test form - routine, kidney, liver, thyroid, medication level etc it seems special arrangements need to be made (although they are not clear what).

I have for some years got the drift that the NHS is the modern equivalent of the mediaeval church.
They alone have the means of salvation - or damnation.

If we are going to have to practice NHS procedures contactless as it were, maybe the powers that be - Simon Stevens, Matt Hancock etc should consider a mediaeval innovation that at least allowed infected lepers etc to maintain contact with the sacrament:

A *hagioscope* (from Gr. _άγιος_, holy, and _σκοπεῖν_, to see) or *squint* is an architectural term denoting a small splayed opening or tunnel at seated eye-level, through an internal masonry dividing wall of a church in an oblique direction (south-east or north-east), giving worshippers a view of the altar and therefore of the elevation of the host.[1]  Where a squint was made in an external wall so that lepers and other non-desirables could see the service without coming into contact with the rest of the populace, they are termed *leper windows* or *lychnoscopes*.

Then they can sit in their sugeries and pass out prescriptions and blood test forms without fear of catching our diseases.

Clearly this indicates the high regard we hold workers in Tescos, Lidl and Morrisons by the way. They still have to mix with the hoi polloi.


----------



## Supine (Sep 4, 2020)

CH1 said:


> Mine had a PPG meeting on Wednesday (by Zoom). I attended that - though no medic did, only a senior receptionist.
> 
> But if for example you need a blood test form - routine, kidney, liver, thyroid, medication level etc it seems special arrangements need to be made (although they are not clear what).
> 
> ...



You're a bit of an idiot aren't you. Is that tin foil hat making your head warm?


----------



## CH1 (Sep 4, 2020)

Supine said:


> You're a bit of an idiot aren't you. Is that tin foil hat making your heard warm?


I dunno - are you an accountant?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 4, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> They really do feel like they've been written by someone around 25 years old who is in their first big proper job in a fancy London office and thinks work and travelling to and from work is all just a super whizzy jolly time.
> 
> I hope they get the opportunity to reassess their work in 25 years time. I wonder how they will feel then about plastic plants and proper bants.



I disagree.   I'm pretty certain that was written by a male senior manager, likely very senior.  Young people in advertising and marketing are generally more savvy and nearly always more in touch with the times.  This has the hallmarks of a male senior manager who hasn't noticed they're past it and just regurgitating nonsense that they would have got away with 20 years ago.  These guys actually like going to work and see every workplace through the eyes that created their own workplace and think its the best place ever.

He wrote all that because he couldn't write what he really wanted to:

Getting paid shit loads of money to do fuck all.  Being out of the house and away from the wife and kids. Going out drinking at lunchtime with the lads in the office because you're still one of the lads despite being over 50.  Promoting the lads and paying them more than women because you're all mates and do coke together.  Being out of the house and away from the wife and kids. Mistaking obligation to respect seniority for actual respect and admiration. Sexually harassing the new young female recruits until they either give in or leave.  Knowing HR has your back. Being out of the house and away from the wife and kids.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 4, 2020)

Here is what the next few months is going to look like: 

I went to meet a couple of people in the open air on BHM.  Having broken my public transport avoidance a fortnight earlier I bravely got a bus there and back.  I also went in a couple of shops in the past week as per usual.  I now have a mild cold.  I put my symptoms in the tracker and they suggested I get a test even though the only symptom I have for covid is a slightly elevated temperature.  So now my plans for next week are cancelled or postponed.  And one of the friends I met is having to make other arrangements regarding helping a sick relative.  And it is 99.99% just a cold. 

Multiply that by 65m people carrying out normal activities every day at varying degrees of risk/contact.


----------



## LDC (Sep 4, 2020)

CH1 said:


> Mine had a PPG meeting on Wednesday (by Zoom). I attended that - though no medic did, only a senior receptionist.
> 
> But if for example you need a blood test form - routine, kidney, liver, thyroid, medication level etc it seems special arrangements need to be made (although they are not clear what).
> 
> ...



WTF are you on about, that's all incoherent bollocks bordering on conspiracy thinking.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 4, 2020)

BJ leading by example, as always.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 4, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> BJ leading by example, as always.



Superspreader event


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

Maybe they could punish those tories with the same fate as was temporarily offered to those who failed to wear a mask in Indonesia. This punishment option only lasted a few days I think so this article is already out of date.









						Caught without a mask
					

A man, caught not wearing a face mask in public amid the COVID-19 pandemic, lies in a mock coffin while members of the public and the media take pictures as part of punishment by local authorities and enforced by local police in Jakarta, Indonesia.




					news.abs-cbn.com


----------



## Spandex (Sep 4, 2020)

Today's new cases:






I've got familiar with that graph as I've followed it and watched it grow, but I wonder how long until it's retired and replaced with a different one. It's always reflected the testing system as much as how many people actually have the virus - see where what should be a giant spike at the peak has been snapped off like a broken stalagmite by the government's decision to stop testing outside hospitals in March. What that does, however, is set an unrealistically low peak figure for the first wave of just over 5000 cases per day. There must've been many tens of thousands catching the virus every day in March. With the figure approaching 2000 today and a better testing system than in the spring, it can't be long before the official statistics show new cases outstripping the previous official peak.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 4, 2020)

I think the UK should be the UK on the 2 week quarantine list.


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think the UK should be the UK on the 2 week quarantine list.



I've been meaning to put UK and England figures in the same context and format as how they judge other countries. Someone may beat me to it, which I would welcome.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 4, 2020)

According to the ONS (BBC link) "despite outbreaks in some local areas, overall case numbers remain stable" at "around 2,000 new cases of coronavirus per day".

How do they square that with 1940 new positive tests today? (I know ONS is England and Wales only, but Scotland only reported 158 cases today). Do they really believe that nearly all the Covid cases in the country are being picked up by a test? It would be great if that was true, but I suspect their swab test figures are coming out optimistically low.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 4, 2020)

Coronavirus tests run out in north-east England as cases surge
					

Officials criticise ‘diabolical’ system as scientists warn against government rationing




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Government officials said it was necessary to ration tests to divert capacity towards infection hotspots



'Capacity', lol.


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

Spandex said:


> There must've been many tens of thousands catching the virus every day in March. With the figure approaching 2000 today and a better testing system than in the spring, it can't be long before the official statistics show new cases outstripping the previous official peak.



The system is already creaking at these levels though, despite the increased capacity over time its not been enough for them to actually implement previous promises to care homes, and we've seen stories this week about how far some people have been asked to travel due to test rationing & reallocation of resources to areas that have known outbreaks.

With that in mind, I'm not convinced the current system could even get back to the number of positives they were managing to detect at the peak, unless there is also a notable increase in the percentage of tests that come back positive.


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

And make no mistake, having to ration tests in this way at this stage in early September is one of the most worrying signs I've seen for months.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> And make no mistake, having to ration tests in this way at this stage in early September is one of the most worrying signs I've seen for months.



Indeed.  I'm also quite surprised.  I know the circus is in charge but I thought they might have got a semblance of a system in place by now.  Its like going back 4 or 5 months.


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 4, 2020)

Not just badly organised, actually run out of tests. What a shitshow.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 4, 2020)

Spandex said:


> According to the ONS (BBC link) "despite outbreaks in some local areas, overall case numbers remain stable" at "around 2,000 new cases of coronavirus per day".
> 
> How do they square that with 1940 new positive tests today? (I know ONS is England and Wales only, but Scotland only reported 158 cases today). Do they really believe that nearly all the Covid cases in the country are being picked up by a test? It would be great if that was true, but I suspect their swab test figures are coming out optimistically low.



The ONS figure is for up to 25/8/20, so are lagging 10 days behind, there's been around a 40%+ increase in rolling average of daily new tested cases since then.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 4, 2020)

The running out  of tests thing is similar to what's happening in parts of the US.


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Indeed.  I'm also quite surprised.  I know the circus is in charge but I thought they might have got a semblance of a system in place by now.  Its like going back 4 or 5 months.



Well I expected that we would need other forms of testing adding to the mix in order to cope with winter demand, eg saliva ones with quick turnaround times. And indeed thats what they start going on about when trying to say something positive in the face of a week like this, because they probably dont have much else to cling to. The problem is I dont know when trials of these tests will be complete or how much capacity they will manage with those either. And I absolutely did not expect the system to be coping so badly already, at this early stage of September. I thought we were still at the stage where it would be possible to look like we were on top of some things at least. After all, the actual rise in number of infections is not yet thought to resemble the sort of resurgence seen in some parts of europe of late.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 4, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> The running out  of tests thing is similar to what's happening in parts of the US.



If there is a global shortage problem with this then why not communicate it? Why pretend everything is fine and all normal?  If it's not the government's fault why not shout it loud?

Am I getting a bit tin foil hat here or is there some sort of geopolitical thing going on?  I'm guessing these testing kits mostly come from China and well relations have soured recently.  Plus I see Hong Kong is trying to test their entire population for reasons...

Someone please tell me if I'm disappearing down a rabbit hole here?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 4, 2020)

I thought that we made our own? I have heard some stuff about this but don't know enough about it though.


----------



## nagapie (Sep 4, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Superspreader event


If only.


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 4, 2020)

This is what will happen:

However, scientists said diverting tests away from “low-risk” areas meant any new outbreak would go undetected. 

Guardian quote.


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The ONS figure is for up to 25/8/20, so are lagging 10 days behind, there's been around a 40%+ increase in rolling average of daily new tested cases since then.



And they know the ONS study might not cover everything in as much detail and with as much certainty as they would like, which is why there were stories some weeks ago about how they were going to increase the number of people taking part in this household-survey based form of testing.

The numbers they produce are not useless but I wouldnt take them as fact on their own, since their figures are based on a very low number of people in their survey actually testing positive. I havent read this weeks report yet but perhaps I will have further tedious detail to talk about later.

As for the daily testing numbers, I'm trying to go more by the specimin date than date of reporting, but this adds further lag to the picture. All the same I shall probably wheel some graphs out of this stuff at some stage in the next week or two.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The ONS figure is for up to 25/8/20, so are lagging 10 days behind, there's been around a 40%+ increase in rolling average of daily new tested cases since then.


40% increase in tests in the last 10 days?

Doesn't look like it from the graph on the government's UK Covid dashboard: Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK

It hasn't got exact figures, but it can't be more than about a 15% increase in tests carried out in that period...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 4, 2020)

Spandex said:


> 40% increase in tests in the last 10 days?



Not a 40% increase in tests, a 40% increase in new tested cases.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not a 40% increase in tests, a 40% increase in new tested cases.


  Duh at self


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

When talking about 'running out' of tests and also the number of tests in recent times, there are multiple factors at work. Sometimes one ingredient runs out at one place and causes a delay, sometimes the capacity limits are elsewhere in the system. Sometimes the disaster is not just with access to testing, but how long it takes to get the results back.

And I'm pretty sure there was talk of a backlog in recent weeks, which potentially will have affected the numbers in certain ways. This is one of the reasons I am recently looking at positive test numbers by date of specimen rather than date of reporting.

But sticking to number of tests, not number of positives, the data on the dashboard for that tends to be by date of reporting, not specimen date. And if I make my own graphs of this data, it looks very much like something happened in August which prevented the slow rise in Pillar 1 PHE testing capacity from continuing. Or if the capacity was still growing, something limited the ability to use or report the results of these tests in a timely manner.


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well I expected that we would need other forms of testing adding to the mix in order to cope with winter demand, eg saliva ones with quick turnaround times. And indeed thats what they start going on about when trying to say something positive in the face of a week like this, because they probably dont have much else to cling to.



Oh I forgot that they also go on about some new lab that is due to open, which I havent looked into at all yet.


----------



## ska invita (Sep 4, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> It makes me laugh how there is often indignation about how much MPs are paid, when it's clear to anyone paying attention that many of them really don't need the paltry 70k or whatever it is a year - they're ridiculously independently wealthy already.



How about making MP pay means tested


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 4, 2020)

ska invita said:


> How about making MP pay means tested


How about tying MPs' pay to uc and not paying any of them a penny if they've more than six grand savings


----------



## andysays (Sep 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> How about tying MPs' pay to uc and not paying any of them a penny if they've more than six grand savings


How about tieing MPs themselves to a convenient lamppost and leaving them there to starve?


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 4, 2020)

andysays said:


> How about tieing MPs themselves to a convenient lamppost and leaving them there to starve?


There are no lampposts, convenient or otherwise, where they're going

But there are plenty of hungry penguins


----------



## andysays (Sep 4, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> There are no lampposts, convenient or otherwise, where they're going
> 
> But there are plenty of hungry penguins


That's more like it.

Let's have no more of these namby pamby proposals about MPs' pay from you in future, stick to the South Atlantic development scheme...


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I've got familiar with that graph as I've followed it and watched it grow, but I wonder how long until it's retired and replaced with a different one. It's always reflected the testing system as much as how many people actually have the virus - see where what should be a giant spike at the peak has been snapped off like a broken stalagmite by the government's decision to stop testing outside hospitals in March. What that does, however, is set an unrealistically low peak figure for the first wave of just over 5000 cases per day. There must've been many tens of thousands catching the virus every day in March. With the figure approaching 2000 today and a better testing system than in the spring, it can't be long before the official statistics show new cases outstripping the previous official peak.



By the way, France and Spain pretty much already managed to hit similar sorts of numbers for confirmed cases recently as they managed at the first peak. But I doubt anyone confuses this with them having the same number of actual cases as were really present at the first peak.

Since this is a UK thread I will put the graphs for those countries that I have pinched off worldometer inside spoiler tags.



Spoiler


----------



## Looby (Sep 4, 2020)

I was asked to get a test on the Zoe app. I suspect because I reported a sore throat along with the tight chest I’ve had for months. Still not able to book tests at my local site and they tried to send me 45 mins drive away. 
I went to my local site anyway as I knew they’d had problems and there must have been upwards of 20 staff stood waiting for people because no-one can book and they haven’t advertised that you can just turn up. 
I have a poorly colleague at home waiting for results of a postal test because she didn’t know. Fucking shambles!


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 4, 2020)

what's the Zoe app? I've seen it mentioned on here quite a bit


----------



## Looby (Sep 4, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> what's the Zoe app? I've seen it mentioned on here quite a bit


It’s a daily symptom reporting app feeding into research by doctors and scientists at Kings I think.
I’ve been using it since March when I was ill although I haven’t reported daily recently. They are selecting people for tests either randomly or because they have particular symptoms.
They want people to report even if they’re feeling well. They also collect data about health and lifestyle and underlying conditions.


----------



## prunus (Sep 4, 2020)

Looby said:


> It’s a daily symptom reporting app feeding into research by doctors and scientists at Kings I think.
> I’ve been using it since March when I was ill although I haven’t reported daily recently. They are selecting people for tests either randomly or because they have particular symptoms.




Help slow the spread of #COVID19 and identify at risk cases sooner by self-reporting your symptoms daily, even if you feel well 🙏. Download the app
COVID Symptom Study - Help slow the spread of COVID-19


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 4, 2020)

Looby said:


> I was asked to get a test on the Zoe app. I suspect because I reported a sore throat along with the tight chest I’ve had for months. Still not able to book tests at my local site and they tried to send me 45 mins drive away.
> I went to my local site anyway as I knew they’d had problems and there must have been upwards of 20 staff stood waiting for people because no-one can book and they haven’t advertised that you can just turn up.
> I have a poorly colleague at home waiting for results of a postal test because she didn’t know. Fucking shambles!



I ordered a postal one this morning. They said no walk/drive in centres were available. Then found out there is a local one to me that seems little used. All I have is a little cold. I could have walked there easy enough.

World beating.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 4, 2020)

This is it - 'capacity' is meaningless while this continues to be run centrally. 
Blocking access to testing, while local test centres are left empty of _people_ to test, has fuck all to do with diverting tests/testing to areas in obvious need, while _they_ run out - it's just more slack inefficiency, isn't it?


----------



## elbows (Sep 4, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> This is it - 'capacity' is meaningless while this continues to be run centrally.
> Blocking access to testing, while local test centres are left empty of _people_ to test, has fuck all to do with diverting tests/testing to areas in obvious need, while _they_ run out - it's just more slack inefficiency, isn't it?



Its the new form of hyper-efficiency. Having decided that PHE is inadequate and should be replaced, they've decided to leap ahead of the curve by ensuring that the replacement entity is sufficiently discredited long before it even comes into formal existence. This is how we level up in 2020.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 4, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> If there is a global shortage problem with this then why not communicate it? Why pretend everything is fine and all normal?  If it's not the government's fault why not shout it loud?


Not geopolitical - more human nature. There is a perfectly reasonable logic that says "the fewer tests we do, the fewer positive cases we will show". It's not much use, in practice, in terms of managing infection, but it makes perfect sense if your main priority is looking like you're doing something to a particularly credulous support base, rather than actually achieving anything against a virus which, so far as we know, does not read newspapers.


----------



## elbows (Sep 5, 2020)

Look at this shit on the front page of the Times. It reminds me of certain attitudes that were doing the rounds in February and March but were heard much less of once a vast amount of death piled up. And it does have aspects which make me wonder what has actually been learnt since at all, how easily people can revert to this sort of attitude.



I mean I'm calling it shit, but there are aspects in there that need not be this shit if it were all framed differently.  Nobody actually knows exactly how things will unfold in the months head. But you cannot make policy and do planning based on nothing more than the hope that the shielding will be so much more effective this time around. And there is a difference between the sorts of voluntary social distancing that some older people may be managing right now, and shielding people from infection in care homes and hospitals over winter.

Its also the case that the governments original plan a that they had to abandon involved some shielding for older groups and the rest of society carrying on. There will always be pressure to adopt that sort of strategy if it can possibly be gotten away with, but in March it became clear that it would fall way too far short. If they could possibly get away with that approach this time around then they will, and its really not that hard to cover both eventualities. You just plan for winter as if the angle that article went for is just ludicrous wishful thinking that reflects a temporary change in the demographics due to parties, holidays, going out, going back to work etc, and where notable levels of infection will eventually make their way back to larger numbers in the at risk category. But then, if the hospital data never goes back up to levels that sound the alarm, you just never end up slamming on the emergency brake options of lockdown etc, and you eventually tentatively try going easier on some of the softer, localised forms of brake squeezing.

So happily I do not think someone has to make a straightforward decision about whether to embrace such a possible reality as the one imagined in that article. Otherwise I would be going nuts about dangerous idiots ruining everything. Instead what we have is a situation where policy can adapt somewhat to whatever reality unfolds in the months ahead. Which doesnt mean I think we are well prepared or will actually cope well with all possible scenarios, just that the reality should unfold before our eyes in a way which doesnt leave too much room for doubt about whether we are over or under-reacting.

If I were asked to cover this angle in an article, my main point would be that the most draconian responses should be in response to hospital data, and that yes, if people are only judging the pandemic by daily case numbers they may get the wrong idea about where we are at any particular moment in time. And that in practical terms, the amount of stuff we have reopened and the number of calls to return to the workplace means everything is already in place for the theories in the article to be tested by reality. If they tried to use these concepts to push further, for example by scaling back test & trace regimes and not paying much attention to local outbreaks when they are picked up well before any hospital data there shows disturbing signs, then I would try to resist this as strongly as possible, and at the very least until we had actually experienced some portion of winter. Exceptions to that would probably only sneak into my mind if something unexpected that changed our knowledge and expectations of this virus happened before we even got to winter.


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## elbows (Sep 5, 2020)

Also Woolhouse is the cunt from this story in April:









						Edinburgh coronavirus advisor ignores advice and self-isolates in holiday home
					

The Scottish Government coronavirus advisor ignored Nicola Sturgeon's advice to ease pressure on remote islands




					www.edinburghlive.co.uk


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## elbows (Sep 5, 2020)

I suppose that sort of article also pisses me off and gets me going because I take it to mean they are currently quite satisfied with the current level of hospital admissions etc. Well I'm not. For the last 7 days for which I have data, 392 hospital admissions showed up for England. Thats a far cry from the peak 7 day total that was higher than 19000 on a couple of occasions in early April, but I suppose my 'problem' is that I dont really have a lower limit where I end up thinking 'well thats ok then'. But at the same time, I realise that the balance of harm would not be correct if, for example, we were proposing to have a full on national lockdown in order to keep 400 people a week out of hospital. And I also doubt that it would be possible to have a sensible and appropriate discussion where we could figure out where that threshold should be set. But it clearly needs to be much lower than where it ended up in reality last time after a policy of under reaction was followed for too long, accompanied by the usual goofs telling us to relax and finding various ways to downplay the situation until that approach blew up.


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## MrSki (Sep 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its the new form of hyper-efficiency. Having decided that PHE is inadequate and should be replaced, they've decided to leap ahead of the curve by ensuring that the replacement entity is sufficiently discredited long before it even comes into formal existence. This is how we level up in 2020.


And put the person who fucked up the track and trace in charge just for the irony. If you sent this script to a publisher they would tell you where to go. I can't believe how this shit is not being reported. Matt Hancock saying to Kay Burley that we need experts in certain roles as a justification for Tony Abbott but no one seems to give a shit the Dido has no expertise & certainly not in anything to do with heath. 
She has a track record of fucking up but bung her a load of cash anyhow. The UK media is fucked. This should be questioned everywhere. 
What experience or qualifications does Dido Harding have for any health post apart from being married to someone who wants to scrap the NHS.
I cannot believe this is actually happening & those who could question it don;t. Sorry but I am loosing the plot over this shit.


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## CH1 (Sep 5, 2020)

I can't see why you are so angry. It seems logical that many people are infected with Coronavirus - and many do not get sick. At least so far. Wasn't this the argument months ago about Sweden and how much lockdown is required? The so-called herd immunity which hasn't been heard of now for months.

Currently Sweden has 5835 deaths on a poplation of 10 million.  0.058%
We have 41537 (adjusted down recently) in a population of 66  million. 0.063%

The British press and TV had been baying for the Swedish government scientific adviser to be sacked a while back.
God knows why - when we are doing slightly worse than Sweden on current death figures.

The whole covid thing is very paranoia inducing. I don't agree with P Corbyn that it doesn't exist, but I am not pleased to have my medical services withdrawn. My issues are at least not fatal. If I had cancer I would be devastated.


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## elbows (Sep 5, 2020)

CH1 said:


> but I am not pleased to have my medical services withdrawn. My issues are at least not fatal. If I had cancer I would be devastated.



Its a complex subject because there were well over 60,000 UK excess deaths and some of them were down to lack of treatment for other conditions.

But the amount of covid deaths that were caused by infections picked up in hospitals was also rather high. And some of the people most in need of treatment were also vulnerable to Covid-19s worst effects.



> “We know that patients with cancer have higher mortality rates from COVID-19 compared with the general population, with the most recent studies indicating a mortality rate of 13% in the cancer population,” Arielle Elkrief, MD, oncology fellow at McGill University Health Centre, said during the presentation. “This is important because patients with cancer have high contact with the health care system due to frequent treatments, surveillance visits and hospitalizations for cancer-related complications.”











						Hospital-acquired COVID-19 linked to increased mortality among patients with cancer
					

Nosocomial transmission of COVID-19 occurred at high rates among patients with cancer and appeared associated with increased mortality in this population, according to study results presented at AACR Virtual Meeting: COVID-19 and Cancer.The results reinforced the importance of treating patients...




					www.healio.com
				




What would be required to save the most people from all categories on this front would be to have a health service that was able to effectively segregate covid and non-covid patients and treatment locations. They could not manage that the first time round, nor could they manage to stop hospital infections from spreading to care homes and killing large numbers.

And these are also some of the scenarios that make a mockery of attempts to turn stories about the younger, working population being the ones testing positive these days into a positive story and a reason not to worry. Because there is no magic separation between these younger people and the rest of society, whether that be older people, people in care homes, NHS patients or whoever.


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## MrSki (Sep 5, 2020)

Do fuck off you twat. at CH1  My brother died of cancer in late April. Even under the lockdown his treatment was pretty good. Go and volunteer in a covid ward & not bother with PPE and see how you get on.

Are you in anyway qualified to judge what is the best stance for the NHS to take?

I hope for your sake that none of your loved ones die but you do come across as a bit of a covid denier.

If you need the medical services they still exist. Sweden is a bit different from the UK in population density & general standard of living. I have not heard it reported of any Swedes dying of starvation recently. Have you?


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## MrSki (Sep 5, 2020)

I apologise to CH1 I am a bit pissed & maybe took your post the wrong way. It is possible that you are not a compete cunt.


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## elbows (Sep 5, 2020)

As for paranoia, nah, speak for yourself.

I was paranoid about pandemics in 2005, so I decided to learn about them at that time. And then fear gave way to knowledge. And then I got to test the knowledge in the 2009 swine flu pandemic, which was a very mild pandemic by many measures, and so was met by a very different response on every level by people and authorities. And then I got to see the situation unfolding in 2020, and all this prior knowledge came in handy in various ways.

And then I augmented my sense of how bad this pandemic was by looking at the number of deaths from all causes per day for every day since 1st January 1970. And I saw that during the first peak of this pandemic, the number of deaths every day reached the sort of levels where there were twice as many deaths per day as normal, levels that only the worst influenza epidemics and pandemics of the last 50 years could rival a few times. And that was with the lockdown etc, I have no way to actually know what the numbers would have reached if we had carried on with the original plan instead of having a type of lockdown. There are some questions. Sweden tends to create as many questions as it answers. What happens over winter or with any subsequent waves or lack of waves will give some clues as to the full potential of the virus. All the same, if its like every other bit of medical science, virus research area I've ever read about, we will still be left with plenty of big unknowns about some aspects no matter what happens. Full human understanding of viruses and associated diseases, epidemics etc is elusive, our knowledge is still rather basic in many ways and its a struggle to really get a deep grip on some of the big questions, even in a pandemic where there is more pressure than ever to solve various long-term virus riddles. 

What we have already seen in terms of numbers of hospitalisations and deaths, here and around the world, really should be enough for people to understand that a real response was required. And it isnt actually possible to have the perfect response that has no unwanted side-effects. In the fullness of time we should get a more nuanced picture of what measures would have been sufficient, but we already know that trivial measures would not have been enough. But doing nothing or very little and trying to keep stuff going as normal wasnt really an option, even if we had tried for longer to follow that approach, the rate of hospitalisations would soon have reached levels that forced strong action, we'd just have been even later with lockdown than we were. 

If you want a healthcare system that still keeps delivering services to most patients through all stages of a bad pandemic, then as a starting point what you need is a healthcare system with masses of spare capacity during normal times, plenty of slack that is then available when you need to do all sorts of things differently for a while during bad phases of a pandemic. And things still wouldnt be quite normal even with all that lovely capacity, but they could have served people, including the people who work for the NHS, much better if our NHS was in that state in the first place.


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## Spandex (Sep 5, 2020)

CH1 said:


> I can't see why you are so angry. It seems logical that many people are infected with Coronavirus - and many do not get sick. At least so far. Wasn't this the argument months ago about Sweden and how much lockdown is required? The so-called herd immunity which hasn't been heard of now for months.
> 
> Currently Sweden has 5835 deaths on a poplation of 10 million.  0.058%
> We have 41537 (adjusted down recently) in a population of 66  million. 0.063%
> ...


Picking the UK - still the sixth worst affected country in the world in terms of deaths/million - as a comparator will make most countries responses look good. Sweden, however, is up there on the league table of death, in 11th place - just behind the US. In fact Sweden's 577 deaths per million is quite close to the US's 580 deaths per million. Do you think Trump's strategy is one worth looking at too? A fair comparison is with its neighbouring Norway - 84th worst affected country with 49 deaths per million. That doesn't make the Swedish approach look so clever.

As for medical services being withdrawn: I don't know what you're talking about. My partner's dad's cancer treatment is continuing sucessfully with just a slight delay in March/April. When I had an ear infection during lockdown I filled out an online form, the doctor called me within an hour and then asked me to come straight up to the surgery so they could look in my ear. It was quicker than normal. I'm sure there's some disaster stories if you look for them, but in general medical care is carrying on, just in a slightly different way.


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## Orang Utan (Sep 5, 2020)

Not much going on in mental health services, mind


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## farmerbarleymow (Sep 5, 2020)

Spandex said:


> As for medical services being withdrawn: I don't know what you're talking about. My partner's dad's cancer treatment is continuing sucessfully with just a slight delay in March/April. When I had an ear infection during lockdown I filled out an online form, the doctor called me within an hour and then asked me to come straight up to the surgery so they could look in my ear. It was quicker than normal. I'm sure there's some disaster stories if you look for them, but in general medical care is carrying on, just in a slightly different way.


Not for elective surgery though - a large number of people waiting for that couldn't have it done.


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## Cloo (Sep 5, 2020)

I'm expecting big breakouts in _charedi _orthodox Jewish communities in the next month as there is not a chance they won't gather for New Year and Yom Kippur. Apparently things are already really fucked in Israel, which was doing quite well but now has the largest new infections per million in the world, apparently, in part because the ultra orthodox insist on gettting together in vast numbers for things like their head rabbi's grandson's wedding.


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## elbows (Sep 5, 2020)

Articles like this one are a bit annoying to me because if you are going to go on about false positives, you should really go on about false negatives too.









						Coronavirus: Tests 'could be picking up dead virus'
					

Scientists say a positive coronavirus result does not guarantee that someone is infectious.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Also contains this bit of analysis from Nick Triggle:



> There is a growing sense within the public health community that the UK is in a strong position - and certainly a return to the high levels of infection seen in the spring should be avoided.
> 
> But there is also extreme caution and an understandable desire for complacency not to creep in.



I actually do not mind such a growing sense as that, just so long as the bit about extreme caution and complacency creep is heeded properly at all times.

I would like to better understand where this 'growing sense' comes from. Is it just down to timing, that they were expecting case numbers to creep upwards or even explode in a manner that doesnt seem to have happened so far? If so then thats an understandable feeling but I would be waiting another month or two at least before indulging in it myself. Especially since there seems to be a natural inclination to tend towards such a sense of optimism unless those thoughts are stopped in their tracks by an insurmountable wall of horror. And this was always likely to be a period where optimism could flourish, to some extent at least. Because people seem to be highly tuned to our current picture at any moment in time, eg attitudes of some healthcare professions starts to shift once they've not seen high level of admissions for a while. Such phenomenon do bother me a bit because I saw signs that such thinking was involved in our failure to be ready to thwart the first wave, and I am not convinced that all the right lessons have actually been learnt from that yet. But I dont want to make the opposite mistake either, and so I am ready to change my tune if data over the next 4-6 weeks continues to point at a less nerve-wracking picture.


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## nagapie (Sep 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I ordered a postal one this morning. They said no walk/drive in centres were available. Then found out there is a local one to me that seems little used. All I have is a little cold. I could have walked there easy enough.
> 
> World beating.


Please pm me the details of this one. I tried to book a drive through and couldn't.


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## nagapie (Sep 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Not much going on in mental health services, mind


Or much for my little one. What has really bothered me is how the NHS has been so slow to resume services in this quieter time of Covid. Everyone else is at work, many NHS teams are still saying they can't do in person appointments. It's pretty rubbish.


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## Cloo (Sep 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> I would like to better understand where this 'growing sense' comes from. Is it just down to timing, that they were expecting case numbers to creep upwards or even explode in a manner that doesnt seem to have happened so far? If so then thats an understandable feeling but I would be waiting another month or two at least before indulging in it myself. Especially since there seems to be a natural inclination to tend towards such a sense of optimism unless those thoughts are stopped in their tracks by an insurmountable wall of horror. And this was always likely to be a period where optimism could flourish, to some extent at least. Because people seem to be highly tuned to our current picture at any moment in time, eg attitudes of some healthcare professions starts to shift once they've not seen high level of admissions for a while. Such phenomenon do bother me a bit because I saw signs that such thinking was involved in our failure to be ready to thwart the first wave, and I am not convinced that all the right lessons have actually been learnt from that yet. But I dont want to make the opposite mistake either, and so I am ready to change my tune if data over the next 4-6 weeks continues to point at a less nerve-wracking picture.


 I'd love for things to be OK but I think an exceptionally warm spring and summer and commensurate ability to be outdoors has mitigated an awful lot. None of this means we'll all be able to be in and out of each other's houses and in cinemas, theatres and gigs this winter as far as I can tell.

Re: NHS services, I have _finally _booked an appointment to get my contraceptive implant replaced two months overdue (although allegedly it should work OK for another year, the every three years thing is just to be sure). Having to schlep into central London as the only two (also inconvenient) places I can get it done in North London since my local health trust put all its sexual health under a service for the entirety of NW London are booked up the moment they have slots because of the backlog.


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## Spandex (Sep 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Articles like this one are a bit annoying to me because if you are going to go on about false positives, you should really go on about false negatives too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Prof Carl Heneghan again. This time highlighting the possibility there may be false positives in Covid tests, when it's know that around 24% of tests give false negatives. Previously he was one of the academics who highlighted that the official death figures included people who died at any time after a positive test, prompting the change to 28 day limit and knocking 5000 off the official death toll, when it's known that the official figure is a huge underestimate. He's also criticised the figures used to impose local lockdowns.

Am I detecting a theme to his work? Is there a reason his work is so well publicised?


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## DaveCinzano (Sep 5, 2020)

I work in the NHS (mental health). We have been working continuously throughout, bar a couple of weeks when the clinical staff were stood down whilst decisions were made on how to carry on with assessments and treatment. Currently we are working full throttle. If anything we are providing more appointments for more people than pre-lockdown. Circumstances mean that our admin team is stretched more than it has ever been, and the _NHS heroes_ attitude has long since evaporated. We work full-time, mostly at the same physical location (on a site adjacent to a COVID assessment ward) as previously, but with greater workloads, with additional strains through having to accommodate staff members WFH on rotation, and with periods of short-staffing due to COVID-related sickness, testing, self-isolation and so on.

Meanwhile in my personal life I have been waiting for a follow-up to an urgent diagnostic physical health procedure which I originally had in December. The procedure was booked with one of the numerous private providers which has been given privileged access to NHS patients under creeping marketisation and for reasons of ‘choice’ (that is, I didn't get to _choose_ who provided me with the treatment; the government _chose_ to parcel up and hand out elective bits of the NHS cradle-to-birth system to profit-making companies). My initial follow-up was cancelled with days' notice as the company was closing its doors to all patients. I was told they would _be in touch_ to let me know when they could reschedule me. I heard nothing for 4? 5? months, then got a call from someone in the company's call centre _checking in_ with me - have your symptoms resolved themselves, are they about the same, have they got worse, that sort of thing. Except in the course of the conversation it emerged that his notes told him I had an entirely different procedure to the one I had actually had. I asked him to get back to me when he had located the correct patient notes. He never did.

Then a week ago I had another person from the company call me to say that they were opening up again and offered me a narrow range of appointment slots at quite short notice. Having booked one (during work hours, obviously), I was then told that I would have to self-isolate for several days before the procedure.

Because of the stresses on the team noted above (the appointment would have been at a time when we were already scheduled to be short-staffed), I felt I had to decline the appointment. The irony of an NHS worker who had worked through all of lockdown not getting healthcare from a mandated private provider which was shuttered for the whole of lockdown was not lost on me.


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## andysays (Sep 5, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I'm expecting big breakouts in _charedi _orthodox Jewish communities in the next month as there is not a chance they won't gather for New Year and Yom Kippur. Apparently things are already really fucked in Israel, which was doing quite well but now has the largest new infections per million in the world, apparently, in part because the ultra orthodox insist on gettting together in vast numbers for things like their head rabbi's grandson's wedding.


Infection rate in Stamford Hill is already up to 79 per 100,000, and the council are warning that local lockdown may be necessary (see also Hackney chit chat thread).


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## elbows (Sep 5, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Prof Carl Heneghan again. This time highlighting the possibility there may be false positives in Covid tests, when it's know that around 24% of tests give false negatives. Previously he was one of the academics who highlighted that the official death figures included people who died at any time after a positive test, prompting the change to 28 day limit and knocking 5000 off the official death toll, when it's known that the official figure is a huge underestimate. He's also criticised the figures used to impose local lockdowns.
> 
> Am I detecting a theme to his work? Is there a reason his work is so well publicised?



I've not kept up with which individuals were responsible for various stances early on, but its good to know this stuff. I wish I was surprised by the shamelessness of those whose views were potentially bad for the death rate the first time around and may have learnt absolutely nothing from what unfolded. Its annoying that they are still able to have their words carry such weight now after their initial performance.

Its certainly not surprising to see this stuff pop up now, with the agenda of schools reopening and trying to get more people back to offices etc. They obviously sense a window of opportunity to push a particular line, and there is always a chance they will be more right this time than they were last time. I will attempt to maintain a high level of skepticism without completely disregarding every concept and angle they bring up.


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## CH1 (Sep 5, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> I work in the NHS (mental health). We have been working continuously throughout, bar a couple of weeks when the clinical staff were stood down whilst decisions were made on how to carry on with assessments and treatment. Currently we are working full throttle. If anything we are providing more appointments for more people than pre-lockdown. Circumstances mean that our admin team is stretched more than it has ever been, and the _NHS heroes_ attitude has long since evaporated. We work full-time, mostly at the same physical location (on a site adjacent to a COVID assessment ward) as previously, but with greater workloads, with additional strains through having to accommodate staff members WFH on rotation, and with periods of short-staffing due to COVID-related sickness, testing, self-isolation and so on.
> 
> Meanwhile in my personal life I have been waiting for a follow-up to an urgent diagnostic physical health procedure which I originally had in December. The procedure was booked with one of the numerous private providers which has been given privileged access to NHS patients under creeping marketisation and for reasons of ‘choice’ (that is, I didn't get to _choose_ who provided me with the treatment; the government _chose_ to parcel up and hand out elective bits of the NHS cradle-to-birth system to profit-making companies). My initial follow-up was cancelled with days' notice as the company was closing its doors to all patients. I was told they would _be in touch_ to let me know when they could reschedule me. I heard nothing for 4? 5? months, then got a call from someone in the company's call centre _checking in_ with me - have your symptoms resolved themselves, are they about the same, have they got worse, that sort of thing. Except in the course of the conversation it emerged that his notes told him I had an entirely different procedure to the one I had actually had. I asked him to get back to me when he had located the correct patient notes. He never did.
> 
> ...


Your story about outsourced treatment is not so different from mine- which is wholly NHS.
I'd been waiting since last August for investigation of left ear bone/nerve disfunction at UCH. I was 65 - now 66 by the way.
I got an audiology appointment in January - followed by a CT scan in February.
Was contacted by phone to arrange a telephone consultation - for early July. This was followed by an MRI scan in early August.
To be honest I don't even know if they are operating more slowly than normal.
But nothing can happen now until I have further Audiology and a face to face consultation.
Given than my first appointment letter said that the normal waiting time - pre coronavirus was 138 says I can't complain can I?

I was also due to have a regular outpatient appointment at Lambeth Hospital on 7th April - and wondering what would happen because of lock-down I emailed the consultant in charge, who replied that
a- they were out of the country and unable to return to UK at present due to flight cancelled until further notice.
b-SLAM were only allowing telephone or Skype consultations, but this was not practical from where they were.

I would have been due another appointment in early July and early September.
I've heard noting from SLAM, or the consultant.

My GP joked at me a couple of years ago that if I'd been seeing a particular retired SLAM psychiatrist I must have Borderline Personality Disorder. Did I feel abandoned? Ha Ha Ha.  Whether I have Borderline Personality Disorder or not I certainly do feel abandoned by the NHS. I could go on for pages about it - starting with soon after I moved to Brixton in 1978.

Your loyalty to your department is commendable. I hope you get your treatment sorted out.
I wait to see if I'm required to self-isolate before seeing the ENT consultant at UCH in person.
As for SLAM I've rather given up. They have their hands full I know, and I am not a mad axe man.
But why are they closing the Lambeth Hopsital and selling the site for development?
And why is there no current financial report on their website?

What they do have in their old accounts is assets held for sale.- so watch out.
No doubt Lambeth Hospital was made into an asset held for sale very recently.


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## LDC (Sep 5, 2020)

Another one for my ignore list, good going CH1


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## scifisam (Sep 5, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Picking the UK - still the sixth worst affected country in the world in terms of deaths/million - as a comparator will make most countries responses look good. Sweden, however, is up there on the league table of death, in 11th place - just behind the US. In fact Sweden's 577 deaths per million is quite close to the US's 580 deaths per million. Do you think Trump's strategy is one worth looking at too? A fair comparison is with its neighbouring Norway - 84th worst affected country with 49 deaths per million. That doesn't make the Swedish approach look so clever.
> 
> As for medical services being withdrawn: I don't know what you're talking about. My partner's dad's cancer treatment is continuing sucessfully with just a slight delay in March/April. When I had an ear infection during lockdown I filled out an online form, the doctor called me within an hour and then asked me to come straight up to the surgery so they could look in my ear. It was quicker than normal. I'm sure there's some disaster stories if you look for them, but in general medical care is carrying on, just in a slightly different way.



Although it's true that cancer treatment and some other emergency treatment has continued, a lot has been cancelled. I've had six appointments in different fields cancelled this year, as a patient. I was supposed to be starting biologicals for rheumatoid arthritis, was supposed to have a steroid injection followed by surgery on my shoulder, light therapy on my skin, surgery on my salivary glands, and a few other things. It's all been put off practically indefinitely, meaning that I've got about an extra year of pain and illness, and extra damage to my joints, that could have been mitigated.

You don't really have to _look for_ disaster stories.


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## Spandex (Sep 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Although it's true that cancer treatment and some other emergency treatment has continued, a lot has been cancelled. I've had six appointments in different fields cancelled this year, as a patient. I was supposed to be starting biologicals for rheumatoid arthritis, was supposed to have a steroid injection followed by surgery on my shoulder, light therapy on my skin, surgery on my salivary glands, and a few other things. It's all been put off practically indefinitely, meaning that I've got about an extra year of pain and illness, and extra damage to my joints, that could have been mitigated.
> 
> You don't really have to _look for_ disaster stories.


I don't mean to downplay or deny the very real problems people like you are experiencing. I'm sure there's loads of people in your situation as hospitals try to clear the backlog that built up over lockdown, while the staff try to figure out Covid-safe ways of working. I just wanted to put a counterpoint to the idea that health services have all but shut down in this country. 

I suspect many of the problems in the health service at the moment are existing problems that have been exacerbated by the pandemic rather than caused by it. When have Mental Health services ever not been in crisis? When has there not been delays in booking treatment? What's new about the fractured semi-privatised structure of the NHS making things harder?

I really hope that you and everyone else on this thread who're having trouble get it sorted out. Good luck


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## kalidarkone (Sep 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> what's the Zoe app? I've seen it mentioned on here quite a bit


Help slow the spread of #COVID19 and identify at risk cases sooner by self-reporting your symptoms daily, even if you feel well 🙏. Download the app COVID Symptom Study - Help slow the spread of COVID-19


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## LDC (Sep 6, 2020)

I came home through the city centre of Leeds last night. Given that it's been all over the national news about the high infection rates here and the possibility of a second 'lockdown' you'd never have guessed. Bars and places all packed out, no social distancing that I could see, no signs of T&T posters, etc. You'd have been hard pressed to notice any difference to a pre-pandemic night out tbh.

It's quite hard not be angry/depressed about humanity sometimes tbh.


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## Badgers (Sep 6, 2020)

__





						More than 1,000 UK doctors want to quit NHS over handling of pandemic | NHS | The Guardian
					

New survey finds two-thirds of respondents plan to leave within three years, citing Covid-19 burnout and frustrations over pay




					amp.theguardian.com


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## brogdale (Sep 6, 2020)

Looks like 'the authorities' are bereft of ideas of how to tackle Covid in areas of endemic poverty:


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## cupid_stunt (Sep 6, 2020)

Link to the full article.



> Produced in the last few weeks and containing data up to August, it states: “The overall analysis suggests Bolton, Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale never really left the epidemic phase – and that nine of the 10 boroughs [of Greater Manchester] are currently experiencing an epidemic phase.”
> 
> The five worst-hit areas are all currently in the north-west. Bolton had 98.1 cases per 100,000 people last week, with 63.2 in Bradford, 56.8 in Blackburn and Darwen, 53.6 in Oldham and 46.7 in Salford. Milton Keynes, by comparison, had 5.9 per 100,000, and it was 5.2 in Kent and 3.2 in Southampton.











						Covid-19 ‘could be endemic in deprived parts of England’
					

A leaked government document suggests the national lockdown did little to cut infection in parts of the north




					www.theguardian.com


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## LDC (Sep 6, 2020)

And yet again I think the city council here are being totally negligent. No door-to-door visits, no city wide warnings through advertising, no leaflets in multiple languages through the letterbox, no vans with loudspeakers going round areas. Absolutely fuck all.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Looks like 'the authorities' are bereft of ideas of how to tackle Covid in areas of endemic poverty:
> 
> View attachment 229339



I'm sure having testing facilities you can only use if you have a car will solve the problem.


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## brogdale (Sep 6, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I'm sure having testing facilities you can only use if you have a car will solve the problem.


On top of that...a  US fincap, credit-rating corporation that's been awarded the outsourced 'triage'/'fraud-busting' role determining who can receive a home test...what could go wrong?


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## brogdale (Sep 6, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And yet again I think the city council here are being totally negligent. No door-to-door visits, no city wide warnings through advertising, no leaflets in multiple languages through the letterbox, no vans with loudspeakers going round areas. Absolutely fuck all.


Where's 'here' Lynn?


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## LDC (Sep 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Where's 'here' Lynn?



Mentioned a few posts above, Leeds.


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## cupid_stunt (Sep 6, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I'm sure having testing facilities you can only use if you have a car will solve the problem.



They have set-up walk-in testing centres in those areas, and there's even been some door-to-door testing too.


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## brogdale (Sep 6, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Mentioned a few posts above, Leeds.


My bad...not enough coffee, yet!


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## brogdale (Sep 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Link to the full article.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The crux of the matter; the virus can't be defeated/suppressed effectively in a society founded on such inequality and systemic deprivation:


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## redsquirrel (Sep 6, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I came home through the city centre of Leeds last night. Given that it's been all over the national news about the high infection rates here and the possibility of a second 'lockdown' you'd never have guessed. Bars and places all packed out, no social distancing that I could see, no signs of T&T posters, etc. You'd have been hard pressed to notice any difference to a pre-pandemic night out tbh.
> 
> It's quite hard not be angry/depressed about humanity sometimes tbh.


Eh, I agree with you that it is alarming how busy Leeds seems to be but I do think there are a lot of people still being careful. Briggate is busy but I would not say it is anything like as busy as prior to Covid-19. The contrast between now and during lockdown can make it seem as things have got back to normal but Saturday afternoon in Leeds Briggate used to be absolutely rammed. I think there's more people being careful than it can often appear, as the people being less careful are what we notice. 

Totally agree with you on the council though. Useless.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Sep 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The crux of the matter; the virus can't be defeated/suppressed effectively in a society founded on such inequality and systemic deprivation:
> 
> View attachment 229347


but, they're gonna get £13 per day...


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## Miss-Shelf (Sep 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'm studying this year and I have a very shiny booklet on 'dual delivery' education (or a link to a very shiny PDF anyway) and no news yet when my first class or lecture actually _is_.


I work in a university and I don't know either


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## redsquirrel (Sep 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'm studying this year and I have a very shiny booklet on 'dual delivery' education (or a link to a very shiny PDF anyway) and no news yet when my first class or lecture actually _is_.





Miss-Shelf said:


> I work in a university and I don't know either


What MS said. 
At my work we were supposed to have our timetables released last week and they were just nonsense. Going to be an absolute fucking disaster, anyone who was not brain dead could see that timetabling and preparation for teaching was going to be mental this year and universities needed to start employing extra people to help out back in May but arsehole senior managers more worried about bottom line and their mega-salaries than staff and students.


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## killer b (Sep 6, 2020)

Mrs B was told what modules she's teaching (none of which she's taught before) 2 weeks ago.  😬 

On the plus side, admissions are up in her uni (a northern ex-poly) so at least she isn't worrying about impending redundancy. Numbers being up is a little unexpected, I'll be very interested to see what the picture is across the country - anyone know who the winners and losers are yet?


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'm studying this year and I have a very shiny booklet on 'dual delivery' education (or a link to a very shiny PDF anyway) and no news yet when my first class or lecture actually _is_.



Same here. Teaching in some form starts on the 28th but whether it'll be online or real life remains a mystery. Would be useful to know as I also have to move house that day and will likely have no internet access at the new place for some time.


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## killer b (Sep 6, 2020)

I _think_ numbers being up at Mrs B's ex-poly (which mostly serves a local population) suggests students deciding to stay at home to go to uni rather than moving to a new city where they don't know anyone and all the nighclubs are shut to spend every day in one room doing online lectures.


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## maomao (Sep 6, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Same here. Teaching in some form starts on the 28th but whether it'll be online or real life remains a mystery. Would be useful to know as I also have to move house that day and will likely have no internet access at the new place for some time.


I'm starting tomorrow (eek!) and while it's been a bit last minute they seem to know what they're doing. We're on Microsoft teams for online classes Mondays and Wednesdays and we have actual classes in a classroom every Tuesday (though these will apparently be accessible online too for people who are quarantining). Apart from that, work placements have been put back three weeks and there'll be no observations (apart from mentors) till next year. Lecture groups have been cut in size and core lectures will be recorded but tutorials will be online and extended. I'm reasonably happy with it as it stands (though I don't like MS teams much).


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## Miss-Shelf (Sep 6, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Same here. Teaching in some form starts on the 28th but whether it'll be online or real life remains a mystery. Would be useful to know as I also have to move house that day and will likely have no internet access at the new place for some time.


Start emailing the course leader directly  (if you haven't already )  so they are aware of this situation


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> Mrs B was told what modules she's teaching (none of which she's taught before) 2 weeks ago.  😬
> 
> On the plus side, admissions are up in her uni (a northern ex-poly) so at least she isn't worrying about impending redundancy. Numbers being up is a little unexpected, I'll be very interested to see what the picture is across the country - anyone know who the winners and losers are yet?



I think student numbers are fine most places as far as UK based undergrads go. Because for all that it's not a great situation to be starting uni in, what else is someone in that position going to do? Getting a job for a year while things improve isn't really an option and neither is a travelling gap year, for those who can afford it. Might as well just sign up and get started, it's a three year course anyway and things will hopefully improve within that time.

The places with high numbers of overseas postgraduate are more exposed.


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## killer b (Sep 6, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> The places with high numbers of overseas postgraduate are more exposed.


I knew about this, but as they're (mostly) more prestigious unis I expected them to be able to fill up on UK students and pass this problem on to the institutions further down the league tables...


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## Cloo (Sep 6, 2020)

Son had to have a COVID test on Friday evening, as he had a fever in the morning and was feeling pretty miserable. Nearest test available on other side of North London. Other half schlepped him over there and pratically had to pin him down to get a swab which was a miserable experience for them both  OTOH, got it back within 24 hours and he's negative - he's absolutely fine since yesterday, but I suspect there have been a glut of testing requests because of kids going back to school and having colds with fevers.

We have a fairground in the park round the corner. Locals on nextdoor are up in arms about it ('How could they give permission for this to go ahead?!'), rather uncessarily I'd say - it's outdoors, people are hardly shoulder-to-shoulder ('It's packed!') or in close contact for long periods and I think even if they're cleanliness isn't up to much, there's not much evidence touch is a big transmitter. Nonetheless, when my kids inevitably go, I will encourage them to sanitise before and after rides. But don't really get the hysteria from some people about it happening.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> I knew about this, but as they're (mostly) more prestigious unis I expected them to be able to fill up on UK students and pass this problem on to the institutions further down the league tables...



Maybe to a point I think. At undergrad level it's probably quite easy to fill up any shortfall in overseas students with additional home students. It's not so easy to fill up postgraduate places though - you can't just take on additional undergrads as things aren't set up to take on vast cohorts of undergrads. And the postgraduate level is where most overseas students come in. Where I work would be considered a more prestigious uni I guess and that's definitely the pattern in every department I've worked in - BA/BSc courses are mostly UK students.

Also demand varies a lot across courses. We have departments who are massively oversubscribed so can just go a bit further down the list but it's not the majority by any means.


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## Wilf (Sep 6, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> What MS said.
> At my work we were supposed to have our timetables released last week and they were just nonsense. Going to be an absolute fucking disaster, anyone who was not brain dead could see that timetabling and preparation for teaching was going to be mental this year and universities needed to start employing extra people to help out back in May but arsehole senior managers more worried about bottom line and their mega-salaries than staff and students.


My place is exactly the same, made a promise that all students will have at least 4 hours on campus teaching - largely I imagine because they were worried about students going up the road and/or claims for fees rebates. Because of social distancing this means seminars will be 1/3 of their normal size. Management's first attempt to solve this was to say staff would simply teach 3 small seminars in 3 different rooms at the same time.   When it was explained to them that even Schrodinger's Cat couldn't manage that, they realised - last week- that we would need loads more part time staff.

All of this has been done by ignoring the teaching and learning strategy for the 2 modules I'll be teaching on campus this semester. In one of them I'll end up doing several hours more classroon teaching than would have been the case normally.  Words fail me.


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## BlanketAddict (Sep 6, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I'm expecting big breakouts in _charedi _orthodox Jewish communities in the next month as there is not a chance they won't gather for New Year and Yom Kippur. Apparently things are already really fucked in Israel, which was doing quite well but now has the largest new infections per million in the world, apparently, in part because the ultra orthodox insist on gettting together in vast numbers for things like their head rabbi's grandson's wedding.



God will protect them 👍


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## frogwoman (Sep 6, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I'm expecting big breakouts in _charedi _orthodox Jewish communities in the next month as there is not a chance they won't gather for New Year and Yom Kippur. Apparently things are already really fucked in Israel, which was doing quite well but now has the largest new infections per million in the world, apparently, in part because the ultra orthodox insist on gettting together in vast numbers for things like their head rabbi's grandson's wedding.



I'm hoping to get to in person services on yom kippur (my shul has an application system so I may not get a place) but worried I may be being irresponsible.


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## Spandex (Sep 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Looks like 'the authorities' are bereft of ideas of how to tackle Covid in areas of endemic poverty:
> 
> View attachment 229339


That article touches on so many things that've been discussed here over the last few months, or years, all coming together to create this situation: unaffordable and overcrowded housing; lack of employment rights; the 'full' lockdown that wasn't very full; the centralised profit-making track and trace system that struggles to track or trace; the lack of financial support for people who are expected to self-isolate for two weeks; pubs reopening leading to people socialising in way perhaps they shouldn't...

It's every bad decision the government has made during the pandemic added to the disregard governments have show to working class communities for years creating a mess that leaves everyone scratching their heads over how to get out of it. I don't expect to see any far sighted vision or dramatic action from the parade of cunts who are running the disaster, so where will a way out of this come from?


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## Cloo (Sep 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I'm hoping to get to in person services on yom kippur (my shul has an application system so I may not get a place) but worried I may be being irresponsible.


 We're going to stick to Zoom I think. We might try attending an in-person service next Shabbat though - they are doing small, socially distanced services, with no loud singing from congregation. Imagine it might feel a little sad. Quite enjoying our Zoom services - funny moment yesterday when one couple were presenting a section, but only one came on screen, explaining her wife had just had to go and sort out a 'spider emergency' seeing as the kids were yelling about spiders


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## Cloo (Sep 6, 2020)

* Everything dping today *


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## zahir (Sep 6, 2020)

Issues with NHS sick leave.


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## redsquirrel (Sep 6, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Management's first attempt to solve this was to say staff would simply teach 3 small seminars in 3 different rooms at the same time.   When it was explained to them that even Schrodinger's Cat couldn't manage that, they realised - last week- that we would need loads more part time staff.


And these are the great leader that have been getting payrises while most staff have taken a 20% pay cut (and will see another one this year)


Wilf said:


> All of this has been done by ignoring the teaching and learning strategy for the 2 modules I'll be teaching on campus this semester. In one of them I'll end up doing several hours more classroon teaching than would have been the case normally.


Well look on bright side once there's a load of outbreaks on campus because of the stupid amounts of F2F teaching we'll be able to quickly switch back all our teaching and learning actives online. After all, as a senior manager told me - it's just the same preparing for an online lecture as for a F2F lecture.


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## ddraig (Sep 6, 2020)

Cases going up in Wales


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## Orang Utan (Sep 6, 2020)

Think Leeds may be next to be locked down again. Lots of house parties going on, and, unsurprisingly the infection rate has shot up in 18-24 age bracket


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## gentlegreen (Sep 6, 2020)

zahir said:


> Issues with NHS sick leave.


That's awful.
I was off for weeks and weeks last year on full pay with post-viral fatigue ...


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## cupid_stunt (Sep 6, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Think Leeds may be next to be locked down again. Lots of house parties going on, and, unsurprisingly the infection rate has shot up in 18-24 age bracket



Leeds has been in the news for the last 3 or 4 days, and still the idiots party.


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## Orang Utan (Sep 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Leeds has been in the news for the last 3 or 4 days, and still the idiots party.


I've encountered a few antimask plandemic project fear twats at work recently - they are growing in number or getting bolder. It's hard to remain professional with them. Think there's also a lot of complacency too - have also had people say 'i don't know anyone who's had it'


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## Wilf (Sep 6, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> And these are the great leader that have been getting payrises while most staff have taken a 20% pay cut (and will see another one this year)
> Well look on bright side once there's a load of outbreaks on campus because of the stupid amounts of F2F teaching we'll be able to quickly switch back all our teaching and learning actives online. After all, as a senior manager told me - it's just the same preparing for an online lecture as for a F2F lecture.


In a rational world, the fact that Middlesbrough is now on the watchlist should mean the university would be close to reverting back to 100% online - certainly before teaching starts. However my pure guess is the government and university has too much invested in getting students back on campus. So, they'll hang on and only bow to the inevitable about 3 weeks into the term, or whenever things escalate. Just about the worst point in terms of disruption, particularly for year 1 students who will only just be getting to know their way round (physically and virtually).  However we get to that point it's going to be like dominoes going down, perhaps when they get student cases in about 4 institutions. or significant outbreaks in university towns. Manchester, Bolton, Leeds and Middlesbrough are predictable locations at the moment, but some freshers pub crawl could kicks things off anywhere.


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## Orang Utan (Sep 6, 2020)

92 new cases in Leeds today and just down the road from me there's an anti-mask gathering


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## Wilf (Sep 6, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> 92 new cases in Leeds today and just down the road from me there's an anti-mask gathering


It really does feel like living through an episode of Brass Eye - the one they refused to screen because it was too fanciful.


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## frogwoman (Sep 6, 2020)

United Kingdom COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer
					

United Kingdom Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.




					www.worldometers.info
				



 2988 new cases


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## cupid_stunt (Sep 6, 2020)

New UK cases reported to today - 2,988, that's basically over 1,000 more than reported on each of the last 7 days.

Shit.


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## frogwoman (Sep 6, 2020)

Dp


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## frogwoman (Sep 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> New UK cases reported to today - 2,988, that's basically over 1,000 more than reported on each of the last 7 days.
> 
> Shit.


Is it because there's a backlog of unreported cases? Or are they generally all being diagnosed in the last day or two?


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## killer b (Sep 6, 2020)

Wilf said:


> In a rational world, the fact that Middlesbrough is now on the watchlist should mean the university would be close to reverting back to 100% online - certainly before teaching starts. However my pure guess is the government and university has too much invested in getting students back on campus.


Students are invested in this too tbf. One of the things that swung it for one university over another is that the one she went for was offering 'blended' teaching rather than 100% online. Of course once she's there it will most likely end up being 100%... so will everywhere. But right now it's a selling point.


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## The39thStep (Sep 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is it because there's a backlog of unreported cases? Or are they generally all being diagnosed in the last day or two?


There was an article somewhere that claimed that ‘dead’ anti bodies from previous covid infections would show a positive test even though there was no current infection . Dunno the science behind it though


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## elbows (Sep 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is it because there's a backlog of unreported cases? Or are they generally all being diagnosed in the last day or two?



There have been a few backlog stories in recent weeks. I'll dive into the UK numbers shortly since they also list them by specimen date which helps figure this stuff out.


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## Supine (Sep 6, 2020)

For most of July I would have described the growth rate as slow and linear. For the last few days I've been thinking it's getting more exponential and today's result confirms it imho.


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## elbows (Sep 6, 2020)

OK I had a dive into things by specimen date. If there is a backlog at the moment, its probably in the demand for tests/people waiting to get tests stage, not that they have a lot of backlogged results with much older specimen dates that they are only just reporting in the daily number.

Below are two graphs that show number of positive tests for England by specimen date. The first graph is from the previous time I looked at the data, and I dont know exactly when this was but likely either September 1st or September 2nd, maybe the 3rd at a stretch, The second graph is of the data as it stands today. There is always a few days lag where the most recent positive tests announced are mostly for specimens from a few days prior, and that hasnt changed. What I think these graphs demonstrate is that the recent increases to the daily reported number are indeed for specimens taken quite recently.

I havent repeated the exercise for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland yet but I expect to see a similar picture. I will look at the testing picture from a regional perspective later and will include those other nations when I do.


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## Wilf (Sep 6, 2020)

killer b said:


> Students are invested in this too tbf. One of the things that swung it for one university over another is that the one she went for was offering 'blended' teaching rather than 100% online. Of course once she's there it will most likely end up being 100%... so will everywhere. But right now it's a selling point.


Yeah, the whole thing's a mess. When we do, almost inevitably, revert back to online only, there will be a lot of students who have moved into university and private accommodation wondering whether they ever needed to have moved from their bedroom back home. Along with all the others who were stung for accommodation they couldn't use last term.


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## andysays (Sep 6, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> ...Think there's also a lot of complacency too - have also had people say 'i don't know anyone who's had it'


At least some of them may not be able to say that for much longer


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## Cloo (Sep 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is it because there's a backlog of unreported cases? Or are they generally all being diagnosed in the last day or two?


I think it's partly backlog- saw an interesting tweet about how, though obviously it's not good,  we can't compare to similar numbers at the start of the year because whatever was reported officially then was probably around x10 less than the actual number of cases, whereas now they reckon testing is more like x2-4 behind the actual cases.


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## brogdale (Sep 6, 2020)

That 'serious' _look out for Granny_ _now wave2 approaches _look.


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## elbows (Sep 6, 2020)

Here is my attempt to visualise the nations and regions data for number of positive cases.

So these are by specimen date as per my earlier post. But in order to amplify the signals and smooth out the bumps, the numbers plotted on these graphs are all totals for the 7 days up to and including that date. Also note that the same scale is not used for every region, most dramatically the scale for the England graph is 10 times the scale of the Scotland and Wales graphs. Data for specimens for the most recent days is also deliberately missing since this is always artificially low due to lag.

I suppose it would be fair to say that most regions and nations are contributing to the rise, but some more dramatically than others.


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## LDC (Sep 6, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> 92 new cases in Leeds today and just down the road from me there's an anti-mask gathering



Where's that Orang Utan - I'm in Leeds too. As mentioned I was a bit shocked/angry/depressed when I saw the city centre yesterday given it's been in the news how high infections are here.


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## Orang Utan (Sep 6, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Where's that Orang Utan - I'm in Leeds too. As mentioned I was a bit shocked/angry/depressed when I saw the city centre yesterday given it's been in the news how high infections are here.


There was a protest on Woodhouse Moor - only a couple of weeks after a rave was held there!


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## brogdale (Sep 6, 2020)

School cluster in Hancock's own constituency. Those poor teachers.


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## ash (Sep 6, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I've encountered a few antimask plandemic project fear twats at work recently - they are growing in number or getting bolder. It's hard to remain professional with them. Think there's also a lot of complacency too - have also had people say 'i don't know anyone who's had it'


I had that response (I’ve never met anyone who had it ) in taxis in Bournemouth- I  told them I was from London and lots of people I know have  died (actually only 2).  Masks were soon put on !! 🤣


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## bimble (Sep 6, 2020)

This is kind of interesting, sorry if it’s already been posted. No clear or single answer to how come deaths remain so low recently whilst infection rates climb but sets out a few possible contributing factors.
Why is it that while Covid-19 cases are rising, deaths continue to fall?


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## brogdale (Sep 6, 2020)

Like they'd ever had it.


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## elbows (Sep 6, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is kind of interesting, sorry if it’s already been posted. No clear or single answer to how come deaths remain so low recently whilst infection rates climb but sets out a few possible contributing factors.
> Why is it that while Covid-19 cases are rising, deaths continue to fall?



When those sort of articles say things like 'no one is sure why', I feel like putting it another way....

Should anybody be surprised that the death rate hasnt gone back up yet? I believe the answer to that is no, because many of the possible reasons why that are covered by that article are probably true, we just dont know to what extent each one plays a part.

I also tend to moan at such articles for not paying more attention to hospital data other than deaths, and for not trying to compare and contrast the phenomenon seen in the UK so far with what has been happening in Spain recently.

Anyway its probably obvious that I am not surprised by whats been seen in either deaths or hospital data so far. I've said before that I think September will be something of a guide, or should at least contain clues. If we get through September without any significant signals in the daily hospital data, then I might start to express some surprise. This surprise will probably quickly turn into some tentative conclusions about our testing regime in September compared to much earlier in the pandemic, some tentative conclusions about the nature of the epidemic, some questions about why things here have evolved differently to whats been seen in Spain etc. Under certain circumstances it could raise questions about the quality of the hospital data. And whatever happens, it might still not offer me many clues about whether vulnerable people will be kept away from the virus more effectively than the first time around. And I'll almost inevitable end up studying the daily data in October as closely as I am looking at the data for September, the waiting game will continue. But I am getting ahead of myself, and in truth am expecting to see some signals in the hospital data in the coming weeks. They might not be terribly strong ones though, since so far even in places like Northern Ireland which showed a very strong rising signal in its number of positive cases, a rise in hospital admissions was seen but the numbers involved were not large so far.

I also need to pay more attention to percentage of tests that are testing positive. I havent attempted much on that front at all yet, but I think it may have been mentioned in this weeks surveillance report so I will go digging for that in a bit.


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## miss direct (Sep 6, 2020)

I have been living on a university campus all summer - just moved off, and am glad to be away from there before all the hordes of new students arrive. Chatted to taxi driver today who was asking me about freshers week as it's usually a very busy week for him and his colleagues. Surely bars won't be allowed to open or do freshers events? That would be madness...


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## Steel Icarus (Sep 6, 2020)

I'm not looking forward to a full college tomorrow. It's going to be carnage. It very much feels like I'm about to walk across a minefield four days a week from here on in.


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## elbows (Sep 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Like they'd ever had it.











						Coronavirus: fears UK government has lost control as Covid cases soar
					

Labour calls on Matt Hancock to explain reasons behind increase and testing centre problems




					www.theguardian.com
				




That article you mention also contains this, from the people that brought us the faulty prediction that we were '4 weeks behind Italy' that I never stopped going on and on about....



> A government source said there was significant concern that the UK was “six weeks behind France”, where the trajectory showed more young people being infected, leading to increased hospitalisations of vulnerable groups.


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## frogwoman (Sep 6, 2020)

Carol Munt: Stop the harsh blanket ban on visitors in hospitals and care homes - The BMJ
					

“If the Bristol Nightingale could have an area to enable visits to Covid patients at the end of life I’m damn sure care homes could arrange something for their guests. [...]More...




					blogs.bmj.com
				



The title  is a bit misleading (because she goes onto talk about homes where visits aren't banned) but from what I can tell this is a very balanced piece, talks about what was done to enable hospital visits at the Bristol nightingale hospital to happen safely during the peak of the crisis.


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## Wilf (Sep 6, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I'm not looking forward to a full college tomorrow. It's going to be carnage. It very much feels like I'm about to walk across a minefield four days a week from here on in.


Yeah, I say this with all humility towards supermarket workers, carers and others who've been doing it for months, but me too. Whether it's 2nd waves, spikes or hotspots that never cooled down, we look to be well on the way there now. Yeah, the perfect point to bring large numbers of young people into the same premises. Fuck.


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## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

This sort of language probably gives me an excuse to have a moan too:



> Medical leaders and ministers can only hope that the spread of the virus amongst younger people does not get passed on to the elderly and those with underlying health problems.



(from UK coronavirus cases rise sharply by 2,988 )

Can only hope? For fucks sake, squandering the time we had to prepare the first time around, in February and early March, was not something to repeat again later, and that featured plenty of 'go through the motions and hope' rather than 'actually do the right things at the right time'.

Can only hope, can only half-arse it more like.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 7, 2020)

Quotes from a thread on mumsnet. 

"Tried to book him a test and again, all local centres don’t have any appointments for 6 days and the next nearest available appointment is at a centre 150 miles away - and I haven’t even checked if that place has appointments available!!

I tried to order a home testing kit but was told there was none available?"


"My local test centre is showing no appointments for 5 days, however, I know someone who works there & he said to just turn up as they are very quite & will not turn you away.
It’s seems the testing is available but it’s the booking system that is at fault."

" if you can get to the jubilee square testing station in Leicester city centre I'd just go and try your luck. I was at the blood donation centre round the corner yesterday and the CV testing station was dead, staff were all standing about chatting."

First poster followed up with

"We got to the testing centre at 4.30 last night and it was dead!

There were 10 testing areas and we were the only ones there!!"


World beating.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 7, 2020)

Pandemicready.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 7, 2020)

Any views on this graphic elbows ?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 7, 2020)

Where's that from? I thought they were going to be releasing other figures once a week?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 7, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Any views on this graphic elbows ?
> 
> View attachment 229476



The ONS data remains the best as far as I am concerned, and the most recent (w/c 28/8) shows around 21 deaths per day.



> The number of deaths registered in the UK in the week ending 21 August 2020 (Week 34) was 10,967, which was 572 deaths higher than the five-year average and 390 deaths higher than Week 33; of the deaths registered in the UK in Week 34, 149 deaths involved COVID-19, 3 deaths higher than Week 33.







__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, by age, sex and region.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## brogdale (Sep 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Where's that from? I thought they were going to be releasing other figures once a week?


Literally saw it on my twitter feed and thought that elbows might have a view on the credibility of the data?

That said, it is something that I've thought about since they changed the criteria; we hear about poor folk being in ICU for more than 28 days after testing positive, so I'm not sure why such deaths needed excluding?


----------



## LDC (Sep 7, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Literally saw it on my twitter feed and thought that elbows might have a view on the credibility of the data?
> 
> That said, it is something that I've thought about since they changed the criteria; we hear about poor folk being in ICU for more than 28 days after testing positive, so I'm not sure why such deaths needed excluding?



Any source for the raw data from that?

There does need to be some cut-off point for deaths after a positive test, I think the 28 days brings us into line with some other countries, but think elbows covered this before. Also people won't just be tested once when admitted to hospital with the virus, so it should be after their last test rather than first.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 7, 2020)

brogdale said:


> That said, it is something that I've thought about since they changed the criteria; we hear about poor folk being in ICU for more than 28 days after testing positive, so I'm not sure why such deaths needed excluding?


My partner's grandma was 101 when Covid got into her care home at the end of May. The 4 of them that caught it all had really mild cases and were fine a week later. Peggy died peacefully in her sleep two weeks ago. As far as anyone knows it was totally unrelated to the Covid; it was just that her time had come.

As time goes on, and considering the number of people in care homes who've had it, there did need to be some cut off when it wasn't automatically considered that Covid was the cause of death. The daily death figures have always been a rough guide and the ONS figures that come out later, relying on Covid beinging mentioned as a cause of death on the Death Certificate, are a better number to look at.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 7, 2020)

So that school pupils studying for A Levels, BTECs etc, those in FE and going to University/College...


----------



## clicker (Sep 7, 2020)

brogdale said:


> View attachment 229491
> 
> So that school pupils studying for A Levels, BTECs etc, those in FE and going to University/College...


And if like mine they'll have also been working weekends since 16 in retail or hospitality.  Unfortunately it's an age group that involves a lot of contact with lots of different groups of people.


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

clicker said:


> And if like mine they'll have also been working weekends since 16 in retail or hospitality.  Unfortunately it's an age group that involves a lot of contact with lots of different groups of people.



And there is some data being used by some models to take this into account for pandemic planning purposes.

The one I know about are the POLYMOD dataset and a set of data that was created for the BBC Pandemic project some years ago.



			https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.16.20023754v2.full.pdf


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Any views on this graphic elbows ?



Its pretty much like other people have said - the daily numbers were way too low even before the change to 28 days, so I always preferred to use the numbers from the ONS anyway. It was impossible to take the daily number seriously because it was missing many thousands of deaths since the early days, never mind more recently.

I dont really believe the 28 day cutoff is fair or appropriate, but at this particular stage of the pandemic in the UK the difference it makes is relatively small.


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

And this is my own attempt to graph 3 different sorts of figures for deaths per day.

The big gap between the ONS and others at the peak is the reason I couldnt take the others seriously.

Then later on, for a long time I assumed that the daily government figures (without 28 day limit) were running higher than the ONS ones because they were still catching up with some of the deaths they missed earlier, but I dont know if thats the actual and only reason why those number ended up higher than ONS ones after a certain point. The 28-day limit number has gotten the daily figure closer to the ONS figure, but for the wrong reasons.

Theres probably also differences between which nations are included in the figures, but I can overlook that at this stage o the pandemic since the number of daily deaths from Scotland etc is so low at the moment.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> And this is my own attempt to graph 3 different sorts of figures for deaths per day.
> 
> The big gap between the ONS and others at the peak is the reason I couldnt take the others seriously.
> 
> ...


Probably being a bit slow here...but I can't really see why the ONS data would go from significantly >than (no limit) Govt data to significantly  < (no limit) Govt. data, unless they too have altered their methodology mid data set?


----------



## Spandex (Sep 7, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Probably being a bit slow here...but I can't really see why the ONS data would go from significantly >than (no limit) Govt data to significantly  < (no limit) Govt. data, unless they too have altered their methodology mid data set?


The 'no limit' count includes anyone who has ever tested positive for C-19 who later dies. At first almost everyone who tested +ve and then died was probably a Covid death. As time passed and people recovered then just because they'd previously had Covid didn't mean that was the reason they died. Old people are still dying of old age. People continue to die for all the same reasons they died before Covid. That means a growing number of people on that measure were counted as a Covid death when they weren't. The ONS figure has continued to only include people with Covid on their death Certificate.


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Probably being a bit slow here...but I can't really see why the ONS data would go from significantly >than (no limit) Govt data to significantly  < (no limit) Govt. data, unless they too have altered their methodology mid data set?



The ONS has not altered its methodology, but the nature of their methodology means that changes elsewhere can affect their numbers.

By this I mean that ONS figures are based on Covid-19 being mentioned on the death certificate, and what ends up on the death certificate is influenced by the feelings of those responsible for filling in such paperwork at the time. I would expect this to vary somewhat over time as the impression of current pandemic phase changes over time and this is bound to influence opinion on whether a particular death was down to Covid-19.

In every epidemic and pandemic we know that there is almost never anything close to a perfect measure of deaths, they are almost always undercounted by some margin. This is why even the authorities themselves also pay attention to excess death statistics, where we can judge the total number of deaths at any time against the number who died on the same date in other years.

And so in this pandemic like any other, the rule of thumb is that the actual number of Covid-19 deaths is somewhere in between the number shown on death certificates, and the total excess deaths from all causes. And the number of excess deaths has been well over 60,000. I had it at more like 65,000 for the UK but some people will have a different number because they take away amounts for weeks where the total deaths was below the 5 year average.

It might also be worth pointing out that when number of deaths per day by any measure falls to quite low levels, all the flaws and noise in the methodology and data are going to have a more obvious influence. Excess deaths also become a harder measure to make use of during these periods. Because there is always some fluctuation in number of excess deaths compared to other years anyway (eg we had less deaths than average in the period before the pandemic got going, possibly due to last winters flu season being earlier than usual). And indeed after the massive amount of Covid-19 death dwindled, total deaths had a number of weeks where they fell back below the average. Some people, who had an interest in diminishing the deaths in this pandemic, eg by suggesting most of the deaths were just people dying a few months earlier than they otherwise would, were I think expecting to see a prolonged period in summer where the number of deaths in total was well below average, and they would use that to make their point. But it hasnt panned out like that so far, the fall below the average was too modest and in more recent weeks the ONS figures returned to being slightly above the norm, not below.


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## brogdale (Sep 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> The ONS has not altered its methodology, but the nature of their methodology means that changes elsewhere can affect their numbers.
> 
> By this I mean that ONS figures are based on Covid-19 being mentioned on the death certificate, and what ends up on the death certificate is influenced by the feelings of those responsible for filling in such paperwork at the time. I would expect this to vary somewhat over time as the impression of current pandemic phase changes over time and this is bound to influence opinion on whether a particular death was down to Covid-19.
> 
> ...


Appreciate the time and effort required for such cogent responses; thanks.

I just feel that I want to be abreast of the various data sources/methods before we start to see the Autumn/Winter numbers rise.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 7, 2020)

Spandex said:


> The 'no limit' count includes anyone who has ever tested positive for C-19 who later dies. At first almost everyone who tested +ve and then died was probably a Covid death. As time passed and people recovered then just because they'd previously had Covid didn't mean that was the reason they died. Old people are still dying of old age. People continue to die for all the same reasons they died before Covid. That means a growing number of people on that measure were counted as a Covid death when they weren't. The ONS figure has continued to only include people with Covid on their death Certificate.


Clear; thanks.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 7, 2020)

Another 3k new cases day:


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## sheothebudworths (Sep 7, 2020)

That was up for literally a few minutes on the gov dashboard - and now it's conveniently completely borked again. 


ETA - really doesn't bode well for figures from tomorrow though, eh (and with all of this happening while so many people are currently completely unable to _access_ tests, too).


----------



## LDC (Sep 7, 2020)

Up to just under 3,000 cases a day and the weather's getting worse, kids back to school, universities starting, and many more people back to work.
Any bets how this is going to go...?


----------



## Cloo (Sep 7, 2020)

So my office is reopening start of next month (just in time for next wave!) experimentally for a few people in senior management and they're trying to get a booking app running. The Management have said there will be no expectation on people to return - the fact is they can get so few people in that it's hardly worth them insisting. Kitchens and cafe will be shut, and presumably meeting rooms too, so not massively sure what the point is in coming in if you can't collaborate with people physically anyway.


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Appreciate the time and effort required for such cogent responses; thanks.
> 
> I just feel that I want to be abreast of the various data sources/methods before we start to see the Autumn/Winter numbers rise.



No problem. Well one problem is that no matter how much I waffle on, I always feel like I've left some other aspects out.

In this case, there are often variations in methodology between the different UK nations, but beyond some basic differences I would probably need to be a fly on thousands of walls in order to grasp all the detail and reasons for variations and inaccuracies.

And I didnt talk much about the various different strengths and uses for the various different measures of deaths. Well it is already obvious which ones I find best to use for proper judgements about total deaths in the fulness of time. But ONS figures are especially laggy, so some of the daily figures, whilst only providing an incomplete picture, may be more useful in terms of providing more timely indicators that the situation has gotten worse. Its even possible that the 28-day limit will help any new uptick in deaths to stand out in a more obvious way, with less ambiguities about what could actually be behind the rise.

As ever when I start talking about death stats being laggy, thats partly down to how long it takes people to get sick and die from Covid-19, and so I end up advising everyone that we should be filling in the gaps between number of positive tests and number of deaths with all sorts of hospital numbers. But again these numbers and the underlying methodologies vary between nations, and unlike deaths there is far less info available about the generation of these statistics that we could use to inform ourselves of the differences and limitations. Plus, unfortunately, there were times during the first pandemic wave where we didnt have much hospital data, or the government stopped publishing certain numbers for long periods of time, driving me cray especially sine the press raraly noticed and complained. I dont know if that will ever happen again but I cannot rule it out, and I also cannot judge how well any of these indicators will show us the next emerging picture in a timely and accurate way.

One thing for sure is that I wont stop going on about all these different sorts of numbers, so however things evolve in the coming months I am likely to be posting an excessive quantity of graphs etc, with an emphasis on trying to zoom into emerging phenomenon as soon as they clearly show up in particular numbers.


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## Chilli.s (Sep 7, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> That was up for literally a few minutes on the gov dashboard - and now it's conveniently completely borked again.


World beating system.


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## two sheds (Sep 7, 2020)

failureready


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## brogdale (Sep 7, 2020)

two sheds said:


> failureready


#omniclusterfuckastropheshambles


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## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Up to just under 3,000 cases a day and the weather's getting worse, kids back to school, universities starting, and many more people back to work.
> Any bets how this is going to go...?



A subtle blend of stay absurd, a front door is better than any Hancock, the UK is thought to be 4 weeks behind reality, lets campaign for airport tests even though the rest of the testing system is already creaking under demand, lets do the same with parliament by calling for MPs to get tested every day so they can huddle around and give Johnson the crowd noise he requires to power his bluster, lets report on looming quarantines as though racing home before the deadline at great personal expense is a matter of life and death, pay attention to the private parties not the pubs, lets find some 'experts' who were wrong before to have another go at selling us their disgraceful agenda, its only a matter of time till PPE is back in the news, will the spectre of the daily pandemic press briefings return, and at what stage of a second wave will this happen and will last orders at the bar be called? And maybe some special guest appearances and a few surprises. Rumours on this front include a pandemic edition of the masked singer, featuring Baroness Didos dud dodo routine.


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## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

Maybe I'm just bitter that Jonathan Van-Tam wasnt given his own spin-off show after the main series ended.

It was May 30th that he warned 'don't tear the pants out of it', so by some measures we have done well to go about 100 days since then before reaching this moment of concern. Then again, that advice was considered obsolete in some tory circles because the emperors new pants were tear-proof by virtue of their illusory nature.


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## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

If there is ever a series 2 then I'd probably give Van-Tam star billing. Preferably he podium would also be seated atop a cage containing Cummings. And I wouldnt ask members of the cast who joined part way through series 1, like John Newton or Dido Harding, to return for series 2.


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## frogwoman (Sep 7, 2020)

I thought that we could create a Gladiators/Battle Royale game show where Matt Hancock had to rescue a Johnson trapped in a cage from being given an  electric shock whenever he banged his fists on the table or made one of his terrible metaphors. If either said the words 'world beating' they would be placed in a vat of slime like what you used to get in kids game shows, only they wouldn't be allowed to leave afterwards.


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought that we could create a Gladiators/Battle Royale game show where Matt Hancock had to rescue a Johnson trapped in a cage from being given an  electric shock whenever he banged his fists on the table or made one of his terrible metaphors.



Could mix it up a bit. Each week a randomly selected key-worker who put their life on the line in the pandemic gets to spin, spin, spin the wheel of justice. Possible fates for Johnson could include a bungee freezer jump where the weight of the freezer and length of the cord is calculated using an unsophisticated model from mediocre experts with the wrong data fed into it. Or a continuation of Johnsons inadvertently helpful public health demonstrations. First time round he showed us how easy it was to catch it at work by being reckless and behind the curve, and then helped everyone to learn that 7+ days of symptoms is the danger period where hospitalisation may be required. Next time he might fancy demonstrating the ability of the same person to be infected more than once, and whether the subsequent illness is milder or deadlier than the first.


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## frogwoman (Sep 7, 2020)

Don't worry, the ground is two weeks behind the parachute.


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## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

At least he would go out with the comforting thought that the bag they put the remains in is covid-secure.


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## Badgers (Sep 7, 2020)

Local lockdown imposed in Caerphilly following spike in coronavirus cases https://t.co/Oawh5zxvBU https://t.co/renyv2uHcr


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## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

Ah yes the BBC has something on that now:



> The county borough of Caerphilly is to be placed under a local lockdown from 18:00 BST on Tuesday after a "rapid" rise in coronavirus cases.
> 
> People will not be able to leave or enter the borough without good reason, the Welsh Government said.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus in Wales: Caerphilly county to go under local lockdown
					

People will not be able to leave or enter without good reason from 18:00 BST on Tuesday.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Sep 7, 2020)

Not looking good across Wales. Partly, because our numbers have been so low that even a comparatively small spike looks huge. But the schools reopening seems to have really kicked things into a higher gear - I wouldn't be surprised if the Caerphilly outbreak is school-related.









						Live coronavirus updates as Caerphilly county to go into local lockdown
					

The Welsh Government has announced new restrictions after an increase in coronavirus cases in the area




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Sep 7, 2020)

And we have a primary school teacher testing positive in Carmarthen - I think I need to remind myself that my expectations have been calibrated, for a large part of lockdown, by the fact that I live in a fairly remote corner of Wales...I may need to dial the complacency back a few notches now, I think.


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

existentialist said:


> But the schools reopening seems to have really kicked things into a higher gear - I wouldn't be surprised if the Caerphilly outbreak is school-related.



Sounds like they are finding cases with a variety of settings, which is partly what will fuel their concerns about general community transmission. Schools and nurseries already part of the mix there for sure:









						Two Tesco workers test positive for coronavirus in Caerphilly
					

It could be the first area in Wales put into a local lockdown




					www.walesonline.co.uk
				






> Two Tesco workers have tested positive for coronavirus in Caerphilly.
> 
> More coronavirus cases have also been confirmed at a school, nursery and a pub in the area.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 7, 2020)

I know the government wants to avoid a new national lockdown, but with all the local lockdowns being introduced will there come a point where it's quicker just to list where isn't locked down?


----------



## editor (Sep 7, 2020)

Caerphilly goes under lockdown



> The county borough of Caerphilly is to be placed under a local lockdown from 18:00 BST on Tuesday after a "rapid" rise in coronavirus cases.
> 
> People will not be able to leave or enter the borough without good reason, the Welsh Government said.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus in Wales: Caerphilly county to go under local lockdown
					

People will not be able to leave or enter without good reason from 18:00 BST on Tuesday.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

existentialist said:


> But the schools reopening seems to have really kicked things into a higher gear - I wouldn't be surprised if the Caerphilly outbreak is school-related.



I should also have said that its still a relatively early stage where there hasnt even been that much time for a lot of spread within educational settings to happen and be discovered yet. We are seeing cases with links to education, but in a lot of those the infections have happened elsewhere and the schools etc are mostly connected to the cases by virtue of who has to self-isolate as a result.

This isnt supposed to be a reassuring load of bullshit like the government etc have tried to make out in regard schools, its just a point about timing really, and all the other settings where the virus has had greater opportunities to spread in recent times than it had months back.

In other words, a lot of the alarming signals we have seen of late still represent the pre-schools-reopening phase, and other drivers of infection, so we might expect that we arent even seeing much of the impact from schools reopening yet, implying a much worse trajectory yet awaits. But schools etc are already starting to be responsible for an increase in self-isolation and demand for tests, and it wont be long before clusters of infection directly linked to schools and nurseries will have had enough time to occur more and be identified.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 7, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Local lockdown imposed in Caerphilly following spike in coronavirus cases https://t.co/Oawh5zxvBU https://t.co/renyv2uHcr


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I know the government wants to avoid a new national lockdown, but with all the local lockdowns being introduced will there come a point where it's quicker just to list where isn't locked down?



Partly depends on whether they move the bar for what counts as a local lockdown trigger.

The whole thing is a bit of a silly mess but it was always going to be a strange period. Some of it is still down to the testing regime and its absurdities and capacity limitations. Some of it is down to what measures they are and are not prepared to take in the local lockdowns, ie they still try to prioritise businesses staying open etc. Some of it is down to not always being sure what the data they are looking at means, and whether rises elsewhere are being missed when testing capacity is diverted to known hotspots. Some of this stuff makes me cry out once more for sewage-based data that might give a better indication of real levels of infection everywhere and not missing rises in areas that have not been under the microscope in recent months. It would also be easier to see if their actions are appropriate if we were at a stage where the varying situation in different places showed up clearly in the hospital data we get to see. Although I of course do not wish for a period where more people are becoming more seriously ill, such signs do help reconnect more people with reality and risk.

Some of it is probably because some of the preferred strategies might have been a better fit for a reality where we managed to get levels of community infection down to lower levels than were actually achieved before national restrictions were eased.

In a way its similar to what I go on about with contact tracing - yes it is perfectly possible for countries to find themselves in a situation where they can keep a lid on a pandemic by doing a hell of a lot of good quality test & trace stuff. But that doesnt mean that a country exists that could always rely on such things in every circumstance. Things can still get out of control and require more draconian measures quite quickly, even in places like Australia that seemed to have a grip. And sometimes you just have to listen to what the tracing stuff tells you and be prepared to act more broadly. For example sometimes even a world class contact tracing system doesnt let you keep the bars open, indeed it might end up being the very source of the information that tells you that actually you need to close the bars because there is too much transmission via that setting for your more nuanced measures to cope with.


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

Interesting, although I cannot see all such data myself and part of this story is probably Hancock desperately searching for something to say that might cause more people to listen and change behaviour....



> While local lockdowns have been mainly concentrated in poorer areas, Hancock said this had now changed. “The recent increase we have seen in the last few days is more broadly spread,” he said. “It’s actually among more affluent younger people where we have seen the rise.”





> “The rise in the number of cases we’ve seen over the last few days is largely among younger people – under-25s, especially between 17 and 21. The message to all your younger listeners is that even though you’re at lower risk of dying from Covid if you’re under 25, you can still have really serious symptoms and consequences.”





> While the mortality rate among young people was lower, Hancock said, they could still be susceptible to debilitating long-term symptoms.











						Coronavirus: rise in UK cases because people have 'relaxed too much'
					

England’s deputy chief medical officer says almost 3,000 cases for second consecutive day is cause for great concern




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> Maybe I'm just bitter that Jonathan Van-Tam wasnt given his own spin-off show after the main series ended.
> 
> It was May 30th that he warned 'don't tear the pants out of it', so by some measures we have done well to go about 100 days since then before reaching this moment of concern. Then again, that advice was considered obsolete in some tory circles because the emperors new pants were tear-proof by virtue of their illusory nature.



Ah here we go!









						Coronavirus: Rise in UK cases a great concern, Van Tam says
					

England's deputy chief medical officer says the UK must start taking Covid-19 "seriously again".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The latest "big change" in coronavirus infections across the UK is of "great concern", England's deputy chief medical officer has warned.
> 
> Prof Jonathan Van Tam said people have "relaxed too much" over the summer and "we have got to start taking this very seriously again".
> 
> ...





> "People have relaxed too much, now is the time for us to re-engage, and to realise that this a continuing threat to us," Prof Van Tam said.





> Prof Van Tam added that the trend had moved away from "specific hotspots", such as the one that occurred in Leicester last month.
> 
> Instead, "there is a more general and creeping geographic trend across the UK that disease levels are now beginning to turn up".
> 
> He urged public health officials and politicians to think about how the virus is managed not in the short term, but over the next six months and "until the spring".



In what context was he speaking? The BBC dont seem to say, and I didnt know anything about this earlier when I mentioned him. His final remark makes me especially interested in the context.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 7, 2020)

Every improvement is down to how wonderful the policy is. Every setback is down to people just not following it properly.


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Every improvement is down to how wonderful the policy is. Every setback is down to people just not following it properly.



Its not very convincing though. So some of the people who are more on the medical and science side of government rather than the pure politicians will occasionally be found making remarks that lean rather more towards 'we'll have to change the policy and close some stuff'. They will not be afforded as many opportunities to do so as I would like, and they will vary in how far they are prepared to go with their words in public, but even months ago the likes of Whitty were indulging in a not terribly subtle display of their concerns about the pubs reopening policy. Which is not to say that I am a complete fan of any of those people, sometimes they will say stuff that I wildly disagree with. But they are more likely to talk pandemic sense than Johnson and the cabinet, which admittedly is not a hard feat to pull off.


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

After those 'concerns we were 6 weeks behind France' comments that made me groan and suffer deja vu last night, I think the channel 4 news health and social care editor mentioned that we've got 'maybe a 2 week time lag behind these countries' (Spain and France).


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2020)

Maybe I should say that when it comes down to these various comments about being 2 weeks or whatever behind particular countries in europe, I dont think we can take it quite as literally as the '2 weeks behind Italy' that really did involved the number trends for UK & Italy tracking pretty well with 2 weeks lag for a key period of the pandemic.

For example its already been more than two weeks since the hospital data of countries like Spain, France and Italy gave fresh signals by starting to rise. eg I think a little over 2 weeks has already passed since there was more than enough prior weeks of data from Spain for me to start mentioning the emerging hospital picture there and its implications. So I'm not looking to try to match up our numbers in a precise way and come up with an accurate estimate of how much we lag behind the resurgence seen in those countries. Plus there could easily be more variation in the speed and geographic spread of resurgence between these different countries this time.


----------



## AverageJoe (Sep 7, 2020)

I'm a pretty fastidious person when it comes to lockdown rules, because I think it Just. Needs. To. Be. Done. to get rid of it.

But seven months later even I, whilst tollowing all the rules, am feeling a little Covid weary. So it doesn't surprise me that others got bored of it all months earlier.


----------



## mx wcfc (Sep 7, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> I'm a pretty fastidious person when it comes to lockdown rules, because I think it Just. Needs. To. Be. Done. to get rid of it.
> 
> But seven months later even I, whilst tollowing all the rules, am feeling a little Covid weary. So it doesn't surprise me that others got bored of it all months earlier.


Likewise, we've been really careful, chez mx and  I agree,  I go to pubs now, locally, albeit ones where I'm confident that they are obeying the rules. 

Being "covid weary", Bank holiday weekend, I went on a camping trip to a pub with camping and  "festival friends" where "festival friend bands" were playing.  We were maybe 25 people. On Saturday "our bands" played , along with a commercial "covers band" that none of us watched.  The pub (outside, and in "semi outside" tents) had 300 to 400 people I reckon on Saturday night.  Social distancing collapsed.  

I left on  Sunday morning, even though there were more of our bands playing on Sunday.  I just wasn't happy with the situation.   

I have one of those "conditions" that means if I get covid,  I will get it bad, so I'm very cautious.

There is an indoor "socially distanced" punk gig in Guildford next month with my favourite band in the whole world ever headlining.  I rarely miss Eastfield gigs when they play down south, but I'm not going.  It kills me to say that though.


----------



## elbows (Sep 8, 2020)

Normally I would wait for more data to accumulate before posting a graph at such an early stage of changing trajectory, but since the mood music in the news already turned I suppose there is less point waiting.

Only shows data from July onwards so that the recent changes are not swamped by the scale of the graph needing to cover huge numbers earlier in the pandemic.


----------



## andysays (Sep 8, 2020)

Things not looking good this morning

Coronavirus: Warnings from scientists as UK cases continue to rise


> Two members of the UK government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have given stark warnings over the increase in coronavirus cases across the country.





> Prof John Edmunds said cases were now "increasing exponentially", while England's deputy chief medical officer, Prof Jonathan Van Tam, said people had "relaxed too much" and must start taking the virus seriously again.


----------



## LDC (Sep 8, 2020)

The Government just needs to grasp the nettle and impose another strict national lockdown to facilitate keeping schools open. And secondary schools need to be stricter imposing social distancing, from what I've heard they're not trying in any meaningful way.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The Government just needs to grasp the nettle and impose another strict national lockdown to facilitate keeping schools open. And secondary schools need to be stricter imposing social distancing, from what I've heard they're not trying in any meaningful way.


My college for all the staff's combined thousands of years experience with young people appears to believe they will adhere perfectly to distancing stickers on the floor and lines of tape in the corridors.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The Government just needs to grasp the nettle and impose another strict national lockdown to facilitate keeping schools open. And secondary schools need to be stricter imposing social distancing, from what I've heard they're not trying in any meaningful way.



If I remember secondary school correctly you might as well ask secondary schools to piss in the wind rather than try and control the pupils


----------



## Supine (Sep 8, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> If I remember secondary school correctly you might as well ask secondary schools to piss in the wind rather than try and control the pupils



But if you only managed 50% compliance you might reduce outbreaks by 30-40% or something. Every little helps.


----------



## LDC (Sep 8, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> If I remember secondary school correctly you might as well ask secondary schools to piss in the wind rather than try and control the pupils



They police things like smoking and fighting, just police this the same. Few difficult weeks then it'll settle down. Also some of it is a issue around timetabling and use of spaces as well. Large spaces like sports halls and concert venes need to be used like they have in some other countries.


----------



## LDC (Sep 8, 2020)

Also IME almost every bar, restaurant, etc. are basically not doing T&T in any meaningful way and that's not policed either.


----------



## Plumdaff (Sep 8, 2020)

Some bars in Cardiff have been served health and safety covid improvement orders. 48 hours or they'll be closed. Overdue and necessary given the lockdown in Caerphilly next door, other nearby spikes and the reality of how many people from those areas work and weekend socialise here. Still, doing this to only five seems like an arbitrary drop in the ocean, although maybe a high profile crackdown on a few will 'encourage' the others.


----------



## chilango (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The Government just needs to grasp the nettle and impose another strict national lockdown to facilitate keeping schools open. And secondary schools need to be stricter imposing social distancing, from what I've heard they're not trying in any meaningful way.



Any so-called bubble pops the moment the kids are outside the school gates IME. I walk the dog  during the morning and afternoon school run. There's no social distancing going on at these times/points.


----------



## Supine (Sep 8, 2020)

Those bars being threatened are all frequented by the beer boys from the valleys including caerphilly. I'd be avoiding if I lived in Cardiff (already did, not a covid thing)


----------



## chilango (Sep 8, 2020)

There are compelling arguments for the re-opening of schools on the grounds of child wellbeing.

...but we can reasonably predict that this will lead to a rise in transmission of Covid. So we really should be seeing a tightening up of other possible transmission opportunities. Right?

Wrong.

Get back to work and get the cheques off those students innit?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 8, 2020)

chilango said:


> Get back to work and get the cheques off those students innit?


Get back to work so you might have enough money to pay the rent to your Tory landlord.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Also IME almost every bar, restaurant, etc. are basically not doing T&T in any meaningful way and that's not policed either.



Its a lot better round my way.  There are a few which are a bit haphazard but the vast majority are strictly by the book, then again they are big London pubcos.  You're met at the door to be seated, details taken either there and then or you scan a QR code or log into their wifi.  Table service and one way systems.  Most of them won't even pass you the drink off the tray its being served on you have to collect it yourself.


----------



## Plumdaff (Sep 8, 2020)

Supine said:


> Those bars being threatened are all frequented by the beer boys from the valleys including caerphilly. I'd be avoiding if I lived in Cardiff (already did, not a covid thing)



Gin and Juice could be described as many things, but not that!


----------



## Cloo (Sep 8, 2020)

Has any new way of dealing with COVID in care homes been implemented or even suggested since spring, by the way? Given such a huge number of deaths were in care homes I'd like to think there was some new and coordinated plan to manage it better, but from the way things are in this country, I'm guessing not.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 8, 2020)

Coronavirus: New figures show UK faces 'impossible balancing act'
					

Infection levels are four times higher than two months ago. But what will happen to deaths?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Oh well then, that's that.  Best of luck everyone.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 8, 2020)

Testing system is well fucked.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 8, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Has any new way of dealing with COVID in care homes been implemented or even suggested since spring, by the way? Given such a huge number of deaths were in care homes I'd like to think there was some new and coordinated plan to manage it better, but from the way things are in this country, I'm guessing not.


None or very restricted visiting I've been told from freinds working in them and at hospitals (London) no visiting still. 
I hope staff are not moving between locations too much now. 
Despite the focus on human stupidity these times have brought I think the majority are protecting their elderly and folk with Comorbities.
Unis going back is a scam when it could be done online from mum and dad's however kids need to go back to school really.
I think it's really going to hit poorer parts of society and the fucks given are sliding away. Eta and this includes carers and their families and many NHS workers


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 8, 2020)

I think you meant to say 'world beating'.


----------



## maomao (Sep 8, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Testing system is well fucked.


That can't be real. St Andrews is nearly 500 miles from East Dulwich.


----------



## LDC (Sep 8, 2020)

WTF are the excuses/reasons for this mess with the testing system? After a shit start it was good not so long, plenty of capacity, quick test slot, and quick results. Now it seems to have fallen apart.


----------



## LDC (Sep 8, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Testing system is well fucked.



When was that from? This was a problem that was supposed to be getting fixed in the last few days by a putting a limit on how far people were expected to travel for a test.


----------



## elbows (Sep 8, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Has any new way of dealing with COVID in care homes been implemented or even suggested since spring, by the way? Given such a huge number of deaths were in care homes I'd like to think there was some new and coordinated plan to manage it better, but from the way things are in this country, I'm guessing not.



Routine, widespread testing including staff testing is one piece of that 'puzzle', along with lessons relating to bank-staff working multiple homes and falling through the staff testing regime cracks, and of course there was the NHS reverse-triage policy which spread so much infection from hospitals to care homes the first time around. We hear very little about the latter, and on those other fronts the signs are not at all promising. 

For example this from yesterday:









						Government apologises for Covid testing delays at UK care homes
					

Nursing home operator says results can take seven days instead of promised 72 hours




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) admitted to breaking its promise to provide test outcomes within 72 hours, as one nursing home operator in Cheshire told the Guardian that results have taken seven days and the delay may have caused infected staff to pass the virus to a resident.
> 
> Care managers on Monday described the government’s centralised testing system as “chaotic” and “not coping” amid reports of whole batches of tests coming back not only late, but also void. One operator in Kent said they were unable to get any tests for more than three weeks and said she felt “frustration and disgust at this outrageous treatment”. Snags with the online ordering system are also common, operators said.





> “It’s awful. It’s like Russian roulette every week,” the manager said, describing the system as chaotic. “People can’t believe it’s so slow. The general public think the testing system works fine but people can be positive and working for a week and no one knows. It’s not working at all for us.”





> The government had promised regular testing for care homes by the end of July, but moved the target for weekly staff tests to 7 September citing “unexpected delays”.





> The care manager in Cheshire said that because temporary agency staff who are used to fill in for isolating staff are not routinely tested, the risk remains unchecked.





> Dr Claire Barker, the GP with responsibility for the residents, said: “Most staff work all over a care home and not knowing what is happening with infection is unacceptable. It inhibits the home’s ability to control the outbreak. We can’t control outbreaks if this testing regime stays in place.”


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 8, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Testing system is well fucked.


If you wait until Thursday there's one in Burgess Park. Was there yesterday but that's no use by now.


----------



## elbows (Sep 8, 2020)

A rare example of a deadly hospital outbreak actually getting proper news coverage:









						Craigavon: Fourth Covid-19 hospital death
					

Health Minister launches immediate high level investigation following the death.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> A fourth haematology patient at Craigavon Area Hospital has died after testing positive for coronavirus, the Southern Health Trust has confirmed.
> 
> Fourteen patients on the ward were confirmed to have the virus in a cluster identified last week.
> 
> ...



Includes this analysis:



> Over the past six months, there have been many patients who contracted Covid-19 while in hospital and who have died.
> 
> Those individual stories did not make the news - so why is what's happening at Craigavon Area Hospital's haematology ward be any different?
> 
> ...



Actually there were other examples that the news could of picked up on at the time. I went on about the outbreak at my local hospital, which certainly involved clusters and plenty of death, and I recently stumbled upon more data about that which I may post more about later.


----------



## maomao (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> When was that from? This was a problem that was supposed to be getting fixed in the last few days by a putting a limit on how far people were expected to travel for a test.


It can't be real because the mileage is 150 miles out. They'll get their mileages from Google Maps or similar like everyone else.


----------



## elbows (Sep 8, 2020)

> *Hancock* told MPs that it would take a couple of weeks for the government to resolve the laboratory processing problems that have led to people being unable to get a coronavirus test. Asked about the apology this morning from *Sarah-Jane Marsh*, director of testing at NHS test and trace, to people who have been waiting (see 11am), Hancock paid tribute to the work she was doing. But he said it would take a fortnight to get these problems sorted.
> 
> He also said that he was ensuring that people would not be asked to go more than 75 miles for test, although he acknowledged that that was not ideal.
> 
> And he said he was rolling out testing for asymptomatic people in care homes.



From Guardian live news page  23m ago 11:47


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 8, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> If you wait until Thursday there's one in Burgess Park. Was there yesterday but that's no use by now.



So are there roving test centres flitting around london like butterflies collecting delicious saliva nectar?


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 8, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> So are there roving test centres flitting around london like butterflies collecting delicious saliva nectar?


Yes.


----------



## scifisam (Sep 8, 2020)

maomao said:


> It can't be real because the mileage is 150 miles out. They'll get their mileages from Google Maps or similar like everyone else.



Google maps says it's 431 miles. It would be a really weird way to fake something, though; I wouldn't put it past the test and trace thing to manage to even get distances wrong. Probably using a system designed by one of Cummings' mates (for eye test purposes of course).


----------



## MrSki (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> When was that from? This was a problem that was supposed to be getting fixed in the last few days by a putting a limit on how far people were expected to travel for a test.


It was tweeted today by the local MP


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 8, 2020)

That distance is correct if you're hitching a ride on the back of a flying crow.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> When was that from? This was a problem that was supposed to be getting fixed in the last few days by a putting a limit on how far people were expected to travel for a test.


Which of course wouldn't be a "fix" so much as an attempt to make a clearly faulty system look a bit less faulty - as ever, this Government is focusing on the aspects of the news that make them look shit, rather than going back to root causes and figuring out how on earth handing out lucrative contracts for unproven systems to your best mates with no experience in the area, and/or a reputation for royally cocking things up in the past, could possibly go wrong...


----------



## andysays (Sep 8, 2020)

MrSki said:


> It was tweeted today by the local MP



You don't have to walk the whole way, at least you're allowed to cycle.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 8, 2020)

andysays said:


> You don't have to walk the whole way, at least you're allowed to cycle.


And I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more just to get a COVID test...


----------



## maomao (Sep 8, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> That distance is correct if you're hitching a ride on the back of a flying crow.


You're right though it's from the centre of London. I was thinking 'who the fuck uses air lines for mileage?' the obvious answer being people who want to make things seem nearer.


----------



## nagapie (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The Government just needs to grasp the nettle and impose another strict national lockdown to facilitate keeping schools open. And secondary schools need to be stricter imposing social distancing, from what I've heard they're not trying in any meaningful way.


This is simply not true. We are carrying out so many time and energy consuming strategies to maintain social distancing. And yet we all know there are too many holes in how bubbles work to make these be meaningful.


----------



## fishfinger (Sep 8, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> That distance is correct if you're hitching a ride on the back of a flying crow.


Corvid to covid.


----------



## Thora (Sep 8, 2020)

To actually do social distancing in schools you’d need double the space or half the people. It isn’t possible to have 30+ people in a room or to feed 1000 kids in two hours while also keeping everyone 1 or 2m apart.


----------



## Thora (Sep 8, 2020)

My school had a preference/plan that included a 50% attendance rota with online learning, strict distancing etc but that is completely banned by the government so it’s all in full time.


----------



## LDC (Sep 8, 2020)

Thora said:


> To actually do social distancing in schools you’d need double the space or half the people. It isn’t possible to have 30+ people in a room or to feed 1000 kids in two hours while also keeping everyone 1 or 2m apart.



Or move to a bigger area like a sports hall. And the timetables seem to be a mess, in and out for various classes. Why not have people in for a full day rather than what I've seen which is a class here, few hours off, another class. This is sixth form. They clearly then just go and hang out in a nearby cafe.


----------



## LDC (Sep 8, 2020)

Thora said:


> My school had a preference/plan that included a 50% attendance rota with online learning, strict distancing etc but that is completely banned by the government so it’s all in full time.



That's what I'd do, and as has been noted to have schools open something else has to go, and I think that clearly needs to be pubs etc. around me. Not a sign of social distancing or T&T being taken seriously.


----------



## killer b (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Or move to a bigger area like a sports hall.


how many sports halls do you think each school has?


----------



## LDC (Sep 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> how many sports halls do you think each school has?



I wasn't thinking school ones, I'm not unaware of how fucked lots of schools are for finances and buildings. But surely there are some in most towns and cities that could be used together with large music venues, cinemas, etc. It would only be a part of a solution for sure. Personally I'd make nearly all university teaching online and free up their facilities for schools to use as well.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 8, 2020)

BREAKING NEWS, statement from some cock in the commons -

Bolton is going into a 'major' lockdown, all hospitality outlets to be restricted to take-away only, and must close by 10 pm, because certain pubs have not been sticking to the rules, and new cases have been tracked back to them. The advice that households shouldn't mix is to become law.

ETA - Oh, a link already - Bolton pubs and restaurants ordered to shut with 10pm coronavirus curfew


----------



## Wilf (Sep 8, 2020)

TBF, I'd give the government 10/10 in the horse bolted/stable door stakes. 

We're pretty much at 'get to work... economy... return to normal .. get the students in... OH SHIT, YOU LOT, BEHAVE A BIT BETTER... AND _YOU LOT_ WILL HAVE A MINI LOCKDOWN!... get to work... use the tube... over by christmas... OH, SHIT...'


----------



## The39thStep (Sep 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> BREAKING NEWS, statement from some cock in the commons -
> 
> Bolton is going into a 'major' lockdown, all hospitality outlets to be restricted to take-away only, and must close by 10 pm, because certain pubs have not been sticking to the rules, and new cases have been tracked back to them. The advice that households shouldn't mix is to become law.
> 
> ETA - Oh, a link already - Bolton pubs and restaurants ordered to shut with 10pm coronavirus curfew


The Director of Public Health acknowledges the pub thing but says that in itself douesnt explain the rise. Bolton Uinversity opens this week next week. 7000 students.  20 min train ride to the centre of Manchester.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 8, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> The Director of Public Health acknowledges the pub thing but says that in itself douesnt explain the rise. Bolton Uinversity opens this week next week. 7000 students.  20 min train ride to the centre of Manchester.



From what was said on Sky, the biggest driver of infections has been households mixing/house parties, followed by certain pubs that have shown to be hotspots, in both cases it's mainly down to young people not giving a toss for their families & the wider community.



> Leader of Bolton Council Cllr David Greenhalgh has slammed the 'irresponsible actions' of a few for the new measures. The move comes as the local infection rate reached 120 cases per 100,000, meaning Bolton has a higher rate than anywhere in the country.
> 
> Leader of Bolton Council, Cllr David Greenhalgh, said: “This is not something we want to do, but it is clear the virus is currently moving round the borough uncontrolled and so we need to halt the transmission rate.
> 
> “The rate has gone from 15 cases per 100,000 to over 120 in the space of 2 weeks, and if we do not get control of the virus now, we will continue to put our most vulnerable residents at risk and delay any return to normality.











						'Irresponsible actions of few' blamed for tougher restrictions in Bolton
					

PUBS and restaurants are being restricted to take-away only as part of new stricter measures to curb the spread of coronavirus in the town.




					www.theboltonnews.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Sep 8, 2020)

Let's not muck about - the reason this is going this way is because of the Government's total and unmitigated fuckups in every decision they've made about Covid-19.

Inevitably, they will blame people's behaviour, but that, too, is probably largely the result of a government that has continually sent mixed and confusing messages throughout this pandemic.


----------



## Bingo (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> WTF are the excuses/reasons for this mess with the testing system? After a shit start it was good not so long, plenty of capacity, quick test slot, and quick results. Now it seems to have fallen apart.



Could it be intentional? Can they really fuck up every single thing they try this badly?

I'm in Yorkshire, nearest test site is in Bristol.

People aren't going to self isolate at all are they 😟


----------



## muscovyduck (Sep 8, 2020)

Yep I just tested the suggestion I got earlier - 42 miles between me and the testing site turned into 50 miles on Google Maps


----------



## LDC (Sep 8, 2020)

Bingo said:


> Could it be intentional? Can they really fuck up every single thing they try this badly?
> 
> I'm in Yorkshire, nearest test site is in Bristol.
> 
> People aren't going to self isolate at all are they 😟



No, I don't think it's intentional at all.

I'm in Yorkshire too, and a few weeks ago it seemed to be fine, people I know were getting test slots at local testing sites and then the results very quickly. WTF changed?


----------



## LDC (Sep 8, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Let's not muck about - the reason this is going this way is because of the Government's total and unmitigated fuckups in every decision they've made about Covid-19.
> 
> Inevitably, they will blame people's behaviour, but that, too, is probably largely the result of a government that has continually sent mixed and confusing messages throughout this pandemic.



I do have large amounts of sympathy for that position, but people have agency and choice too, and do bear some responsibility for their own behaviour.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 8, 2020)

Bingo said:


> Could it be intentional? Can they really fuck up every single thing they try this badly?
> 
> I'm in Yorkshire, nearest test site is in Bristol.
> 
> People aren't going to self isolate at all are they 😟


There are at least three test sites in Leeds


----------



## elbows (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, I don't think it's intentional at all.
> 
> I'm in Yorkshire too, and a few weeks ago it seemed to be fine, people I know were getting test slots at local testing sites and then the results very quickly. WTF changed?



Well...



> In a tweet, Sarah-Jane Marsh explained it was the laboratories, not the testing sites themselves, that were the "critical pinch-point".





> Health Secretary Matt Hancock said there had been a "a problem with a couple of contracts" which would take a matter of weeks to be "sorted in the short term".











						Coronavirus: Government apologises over tests shortage
					

A director of the government's test and trace scheme in England says lab capacity is the issue.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 8, 2020)

Oh yaaaa, we have _that_ capacity, just not _this_ capacity! Soz for your misunderstanding, lol! Leave it with me, guys - it'll only take a few weeks. 
Cunts.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 8, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Let's not muck about - the reason this is going this way is because of the Government's total and unmitigated fuckups in every decision they've made about Covid-19.
> 
> Inevitably, they will blame people's behaviour, but that, too, is probably largely the result of a government that has continually sent mixed and confusing messages throughout this pandemic.



Whilst there's plenty of reasons why the UK/English government can be attacked, the current rules are fairly clear if you bother to follow the news, otherwise they are just a quick google search away.

What we have is a minority of people, mainly under 30, that couldn't give a flying fuck about their families & wider community, are happy to party in houses & pubs whilst ignoring social distancing, and that's not just a problem in England, it's much the same across Europe. 

Scotland has been held up as doing better than the UK/English government, they re-opened schools weeks ago, and are now introducing local lockdowns, blaming young people & pubs for ignoring the rules.

Wales is doing exactly the same, and for the same reasons.

Spain, France, and several other European countries that are seeing a growth in new cases, again mainly young people, and again blaming young people & pubs/clubs.

But, considering so many young people are clearly fucking idiots, there's not much hope. 




cupid_stunt said:


> I've just watched 'Viral: The 5G Conspiracy Theory' on the iplayer - Viral: The 5G Conspiracy Theory. I would seriously recommend watching this, it's fucking nuts.
> 
> *Apparently 22% of 16 to 24-year-olds think 5G is linked to Covid-19.    How the hell have we ended-up with so many uneducated potatoes?  *
> 
> Nearly 100 masts have been set on fire in the UK, since March, one person that got caught has been sent down for 3 years, for arson, the fucking twat.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 8, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Oh yaaaa, we have _that_ capacity, just not _this_ capacity!
> Cunts.



Yeah it was noticeable very early on, once they were forced to admit that maybe some testing was a good idea, that they were going for a headline figure of 'testing capacity' above any actual coherent targeted strategy. It fits with the outsourcing doesn't it - the likes of Serco are very good at delivering a headline figure of x units of whatever the y of the moment might be, even if underneath the stats whatever is actually happening is a complete mess. I expect the 'testing capacity' figure is still looking rosy.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 8, 2020)

2,420 today (minus N.I.'s numbers).
No data on test numbers since 2nd Sep (ETA for England or Wales).
Deaths today (within 28 days blah blah) - 30 (highest for over a month).


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 8, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I expect the 'testing capacity' figure is still looking rosy.



Erm...









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Sep 8, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Testing system is well fucked.


There is one in sommerlayton road brixton usually on Tuesdays which tends to be pretty quiet every time I go past, a friend just walked in and got tested last week.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 8, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Erm...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



According to that testing capacity is a whisker under 370k - that's not a bad figure is it? Especially compared to the 175,687 tests, or 47% of capacity, they actually managed to carry out.


----------



## Plumdaff (Sep 8, 2020)

Wales are testing about 6,800 a day at the moment, with local ramping up in Caerphilly and Rhondda Cynon Taf where there are lockdowns/concerning spikes. Don't know the English figures.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 8, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> 2,420 today (*minus N.I.'s numbers*)


I noticed that. There's this message on the UK Covid Dashboard:

_We have not received the latest data for the number of cases and deaths for Northern Ireland. This means that UK figures for new cases and deaths only represent Great Britain. We will update the website as soon as we receive the data for Northern Ireland._

What happened there then? The dog ate it? I left my bag at home? I forgot?

Aaah, it's only a bit of public health data. Who's paying any attention to that at the moment?

World class.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 8, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I noticed that. There's this message on the UK Covid Dashboard:
> 
> _We have not received the latest data for the number of cases and deaths for Northern Ireland. This means that UK figures for new cases and deaths only represent Great Britain. We will update the website as soon as we receive the data for Northern Ireland._
> 
> ...



Clearly that's a problem for the NI government.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 8, 2020)

nagapie said:


> This is simply not true. We are carrying out so many time and energy consuming strategies to maintain social distancing. And yet we all know there are too many holes in how bubbles work to make these be meaningful.



We had our first school case on Friday here (in a different school). A TA who was wearing a mask and a visor but passed some papers around the class without realising that without that PPE (which they were wearing voluntarily) being medical grade and fitted properly there's no mitigation in the 2M to 1M distancing rule (as far as PHE are concerned), so two classes were immediately taken out to self isolate. The TA has apparently been rounded on on SM/local press (?).

I work in the kitchen and canteen in another school, where we have year groups of between 320-360 kids.
We used to do break from 10.50-11.10 and a staggered lunch from 12.10-1.30. 
We now have break starting at 9.50 and running until 11.10 (although it was 11.25 today) and then lunch from 11.50, with the last lot coming through at 2.10.
We have reduced the menu but still have to provide the same amounts, with an hour less to prepare (and it was already very tight/fractious  prior to this) even for first break.
There is limited ventilation, although the kitchen space has been opened out into the canteen.
We also have teaching staff, admin and TA's who come in to work on tills and do the queues etc, so opening up the exposure even more widely.

There was a convo yesterday about whether any of us could be furloughed (on a shift?), once the realisation set in that even if we can stay a meter away from each other, back to back etc, it could see the whole kitchen out (which is also the only 'income' for the school) but that can't happen when we have even less time to prepare. Noone is even pretending we can do two metres.
The breaks themselves were pretty quiet and steady but then all of the other things that would usually happen then are not being done, so I'm not sure how that could be addressed.

Add into that that for eg, I was on washing up - next to a window which opens up, at the bottom, by four inches and we can't have fans on - so NOT wearing any 'PPE' - I was running back and forth trying to assist with the prep but having to remove washing up gloves, wash hands, go to my locker to fetch my visor...do some bagging up (because everything has to be individually bagged and handed over now), then run back to my locker to put my visor back to carry on with more washing up etc - it's just _insane_. And I promise I speak as someone as who has been overworked for many years already there - it's not that I'm not accustomed to running about or to adjusting to things going wrong and adapting very quickly.

In my daughter's school (five minutes away and where they had at least adopted masks in all common areas, outside of their classrooms) she says there's no SD and the outside areas assigned to different year groups are completely ignored. They've also been in classrooms without open windows and with some staff moving around the classrooms. Ftr, I imagine this is as much to do with making kids feel comfortable about being back in as it as about any lapse of adhering to really complicated, vague rules.

Last thing I wanted to say was around the stuff about the more recently observed symptoms that kids will be_ more likely_ to have, in comparison to the four that are still set in place - gastro, headaches, fatigue, sore throats (which makes me slightly more sure that at least both myself and my daughter had mild versions at the end of March).
I know the research is ever changing - and that we could have schools in constant cycles of self-isolating some classes/year groups etc with changing lists of symptoms to look out for as a priority - but it doesn't make me feel any more reassured, right now, that we are doing so many different things, with rising cases and with no attention paid to those either, when the original symptoms are still what people are looking out for.

But y'know, schools have been _completely_ left to it over the last few months. Yet another outrage.


Anyway. I dunno. Having been _very_ diligent over the last few months, I can feel the fucking fatalism kicking in already.


----------



## The39thStep (Sep 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> From what was said on Sky, the biggest driver of infections has been households mixing/house parties, followed by certain pubs that have shown to be hotspots, in both cases it's mainly down to young people not giving a toss for their families & the wider community.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Funnily enough I was talking to a mate of mines parents who over. They’re from Bolton and bought me an excellent pork pie over from Bury market. The mum might have had a glass of wine or two and told me that it was the ‘pakis’ fault as their families were too large for the houses. I tried not to give anything away by my looks as I wanted to pry a bit deeper into this but she then asked if it was alright to use the term ‘paki’ in Portugal . I said I wasn’t bothered by terms but wanted to know a little bit more why it was the ‘pakis’ fault and not pubs, raves or workplaces or the type of low paid public facing sort of work some people did and said it wasn’t long ago that the Irish and English were living in overcrowded accommodation and similar conditions . At the sound of the word Irish her husband piped up and gave her a good explanation of anti Irish prejudice and similarities with anti Muslim prejudice and it turns out his family were from Dublin and are socialist republicans . She obviously doesn’t listen to a word he says 😂


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 8, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> According to that testing capacity is a whisker under 370k - that's not a bad figure is it? Especially compared to the 175,687 tests, or 47% of capacity, they actually managed to carry out.




Sorry, I'm not sure I was clear - that data is from the _2nd_ of September. Means you can't judge the recent rise in cases against tests, or a _failure_ in testing, either.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 8, 2020)

Bingo said:


> Could it be intentional? Can they really fuck up every single thing they try this badly?
> 
> I'm in Yorkshire, nearest test site is in Bristol.
> 
> People aren't going to self isolate at all are they 😟


I don't think it's intentional...because they'd have fucked that up, too, and published their strategy or something.

People aren't going to self-isolate all the time that there's confusion about the necessity, and all the time that they are having to make hard choices between paying the rent and self-isolating. This is - I'll get bored of saying this - entirely at this door of the shitshower SOMEONE  elected as a government.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 8, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> Yep I just tested the suggestion I got earlier - 42 miles between me and the testing site turned into 50 miles on Google Maps


Dollars to donuts their mapping system is using crow-flies distances, because they're too cheap to licence something meaningful.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I do have large amounts of sympathy for that position, but people have agency and choice too, and do bear some responsibility for their own behaviour.


Yes, they do, but - and maybe I'm being a bit of a bleeding heart liberal here - that is much more likely to happen if they feel like they're part of something that is working towards a goal. With this bunch of cunts in charge, the message coming loud and clear is "Do what thou wilt", and a lot of people going to just follow that.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Whilst there's plenty of reasons why the UK/English government can be attacked, the current rules are fairly clear if you bother to follow the news, otherwise they are just a quick google search away.
> 
> What we have is a minority of people, mainly under 30, that couldn't give a flying fuck about their families & wider community, are happy to party in houses & pubs whilst ignoring social distancing, and that's not just a problem in England, it's much the same across Europe.
> 
> ...



I really object to this narrative - while pubs have been opened, Eat out to Help out, the total fucking shenanigans over holidays 'YEAAAHHHH! GO ON HOLIDAY!!!' and the sudden quarantines (with no decent follow up plan for that in place), the lack of any REAL financial help for that other than SSP, encouraging everyone back to work - ALL of that will be more likely to affect younger people - and you don't have to be mute to the news to have absorbed that any of that was not ok, eh? 
This is nothing but a continuing lack of guidance, or care, or provision for building decent, local systems to deal with it all. This is just a continuation of pouring money into sleazy, shit operations, passing through without any consultation - and I'm really surprised that anyone would think otherwise (here).
It's _young_ people - fuck off.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Whilst there's plenty of reasons why the UK/English government can be attacked, the current rules are fairly clear if you bother to follow the news, otherwise they are just a quick google search away.
> 
> What we have is a minority of people, mainly under 30, that couldn't give a flying fuck about their families & wider community, are happy to party in houses & pubs whilst ignoring social distancing, and that's not just a problem in England, it's much the same across Europe.
> 
> ...


I've always been astonished you made it past the age of 30


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 8, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I really object to this narrative - while pubs have been opened, Eat out to Help out, the total fucking shenanigans over holidays 'YEAAAHHHH! GO ON HOLIDAY!!!' and the sudden quarantines (with no decent follow up plan for that in place), the lack of any REAL financial help for that other than SSP, encouraging everyone back to work - ALL of that will be more likely to affect younger people - and you don't have to be mute to the news to have absorbed that any of that was not ok, eh?
> This is nothing but a continuing lack of guidance, or care, or provision for building decent, local systems to deal with it all. This is just a continuation of pouring money into sleazy, shit operations, passing through without any consultation - and I'm really surprised that anyone would think otherwise (here).
> It's _young_ people - fuck off.



Object as much as you like, but that doesn't alter the fact that young people [with some help from pubs] are causing these spikes, across all FOUR nations of the UK, and much of Europe too.

What pisses me off more, is that councils in these 'areas of concern' have largely avoided taking enforcement actions against pubs, there's been a few cases, bur hardly any, local councils have the power to close pubs that are not following the rules, but appear not to care. 

The leader of Bolton council was interviewed on Sky earlier, saying a minority of 'known' pubs have helped caused this local lockdown, resulting all pubs & restaurants being closed, but nothing from this pathetic man about what action they had taken against these pubs, because they had basically done fuck all. 

Mind you, it's good to see a number of £10k fixed penalty fines issued over the weekend, to fuckwits organising illegal parties.


----------



## elbows (Sep 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Object as much as you like, but that doesn't alter the fact that young people [with some help from pubs] are causing these spikes, across all FOUR nations of the UK, and much of Europe too.



If all the 'naughty' behaviours from people in younger age groups was removed from the picture then we might still expect there to be all manner of reasons why younger members of society would be quite heavily involved in transmission at the moment. The jobs they do, their financial and housing situations, the contact social mixing patterns that younger age groups will follow when they are told to return to life.

Authorities know about all those factors (and contact patterns data by age is used by some of the modelling)  and one of the authorities responsibilities when managing a pandemic is to plan and implement policies accordingly. They probably got slightly better adherence to the rules during the initial phase of lockdown than they might have been expecting from this age group, but then made their own calculations about what to do when this started to erode. It wouldnt be surprising if they combined such thoughts with the economic reopening agenda and figures out how to 'make the best of it' from that one particular angle, even if the consequences in terms of virus resurgence were not good. And those potential consequences certainly werent poorly understood or unexpected, they were almost inevitable, with the main questions only being about timing and rate of infection increase.

I am not against looking at bad behaviour but only when the rest of the picture is included and blame is distributed far more broadly.

Its also often not clear exactly what age ranges people are talking about when they say young people. Sometimes when the government are going on about this its actually quite a broad category that incorporates a large chunk of working age people, depends what stat in particular they are on about to make their point.

If I make a plan and I know that a chunk of people will behave in a certain way as a result, especially if my plan involves encouraging various relaxations and some forms of near normality, then who is actually the bigger idiot? If it is widely acknowledged that this phase of the pandemic involves impossible balancing acts between incompatible aims, then that is the real heart of the problem and what stems from it are merely manifestations of the underlying contradiction.

That doesnt mean that individual and group failings do not annoy me, but it seems that compared to some they only occupy a relatively modest slot in my perspective.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 8, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I really object to this narrative - while pubs have been opened, Eat out to Help out, the total fucking shenanigans over holidays 'YEAAAHHHH! GO ON HOLIDAY!!!' and the sudden quarantines (with no decent follow up plan for that in place), the lack of any REAL financial help for that other than SSP, encouraging everyone back to work - ALL of that will be more likely to affect younger people - and you don't have to be mute to the news to have absorbed that any of that was not ok, eh?
> This is nothing but a continuing lack of guidance, or care, or provision for building decent, local systems to deal with it all. This is just a continuation of pouring money into sleazy, shit operations, passing through without any consultation - and I'm really surprised that anyone would think otherwise (here).
> It's _young_ people - fuck off.


I completely agree with sheothebudworths' post - and I think we really need to be careful not to do the Government's dirty work for it by getting into fingerpointing. There's an oversimplification about human thinking that often happens, particularly in regard to group behaviour, and especially in regard to identifiable groups (teenagers, Muslims, women, etc.). The reality is that the thinking stuff going on is far more nuanced and complex that the oversimplifications might suggest. Our perception of risk is not at all good - we simply lack the brain machinery to deal with probability in the abstract; our ability to perceive risk from invisible threats is, likewise, very faulty - our psychological evolution enabled us to survive in the face of threats we could see, or at least conceive of ("the enemy tribe is over the hill" takes less cognitive acrobatics than "an invisible thing is among you and may kill you, or may not"). And so on...

As adults, we (hopefully) learn that there are things we can't see that we must take action in response to - the Inland Revenue, catching diseases, and so on, and at least adopt behaviours accordingly. Young people both haven't yet finished doing the brain development, nor have they learned - often the hard way - that they're not invincible, and there are threats their unformed minds are not yet equipped to handle.

I've noticed a hunger for social connection during lockdown that has strongly influenced my behaviour - I wasn't 100% comfortable with the degree of social distancing at the pub outside the flat, but it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I was "driven" there by simply the possibility of human contact. Teenagers and young adults will have that in spades - it will be an irresistible urge...and, having spoken to a few lately, the inability to meet that urge is producing some quite profound mental health issues, mostly anxiety.

Added to which, we were all children once, and we didn't unlearn that stuff, even if we learned over it. So it is quite likely that we, as I did, will be influenced by those embedded feelings.

TLDR: you cannot expect people to do the "sensible" thing all the time. You have to plan accordingly.

It's why the way they've reopened schools seems so mad - do they *really* think that kids are going to follow those rules precisely, 100% of the time? For an uncertain duration? I don't. If it lasts a week, I'd be impressed. And, let's face it, if their parents, with all their life experience and adult learning, can't go down to the pub and obey best practice (assuming the pub's even bothered), do we really expect them (the kids) to do any better?


----------



## emanymton (Sep 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Object as much as you like, but that doesn't alter the fact that young people [with some help from pubs] are causing these spikes, across all FOUR nations of the UK, and much of Europe too.
> 
> What pisses me off more, is that councils in these 'areas of concern' have largely avoided taking enforcement actions against pubs, there's been a few cases, bur hardly any, local councils have the power to close pubs that are not following the rules, but appear not to care.
> 
> ...


I'm not convinced by the 'it's all the fault of young' people narrative.

The conservative leader or Bolton council blames it on young people, while one of the places closed is that well know institution of youth culture, The Conservative Club.









						The Bolton bars and venues which had to close due to positive virus tests
					

SEVERAL bars and venues across Bolton have had to shut in recent days due to positive coronavirus tests.




					www.theboltonnews.co.uk
				




Hard to tell but the other places don't exactly look young person orientated.

When I am out and about i see more old people ignoring social distancing than young ones. Admittedly I'm not going out at 11pm on Friday and Saturday nights.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 8, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I'm not convinced by the 'it's all the fault of young' people narrative.
> 
> The conservative leader or Bolton council blames it on young people, while one of the places closed is that well know institution of youth culture, The Conservative Club.
> 
> ...


It's all the fault of the government


----------



## ska invita (Sep 8, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Testing system is well fucked.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


my mate in crystal palace needs coughing kid tested

got this

luckily his wife is a front line nurse and is sorting out a home test


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Sep 8, 2020)




----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2020)

Does that include outdoors too?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Sep 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Does that include outdoors too?



Sky Update:New ban on gatherings of more than six people in England from Monday to apply to gatherings indoors and outdoors including homes, outdoor spaces, pubs and restaurants


----------



## brogdale (Sep 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Does that include outdoors too?


Yes, indoors & outdoors....excluding schools & work, obviously 🙄


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Sep 8, 2020)

Just when you thought this cluster fuck couldn’t get any worse.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 8, 2020)

How extremely fucked are we?


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 8, 2020)

So only 5 customers in a pub at a time?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 8, 2020)

But 30 kids in class still ok?


----------



## Plumdaff (Sep 8, 2020)

Why do they always do this late night announcements for things that aren't happening for days. It's so unnecessarily odd.


----------



## Sue (Sep 8, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Sky Update:New ban on gatherings of more than six people in England from Monday to apply to gatherings indoors and outdoors including homes, outdoor spaces, pubs and restaurants


I was going to try the gym to see how it felt before they start charging me properly but presumably they'll be closing again.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 8, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> Why do they always do this late night announcements for things that aren't happening for days. It's so unnecessarily odd.


They don’t know which way is up, let alone what time of the day it is.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2020)

That makes no sense. Why would it be illegal to have an outdoor picnic with 7 people but it's perfectly good to go to the office with 30


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 8, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> Why do they always do this late night announcements for things that aren't happening for days. It's so unnecessarily odd.



At least this is several days away, usually it's night before.

Serious suggestion though, it takes the sting out of the morning papers by giving 24 hours for the story to bed in and spread before it hits the front pages.

It'll be dreamt up by the nudge unit and other psy-ops depts. Sorry... "Media strategy groups".


----------



## Cloo (Sep 8, 2020)

The young 'uns I guess are an easy target a) because they always are and b) because they're less likely to die, so less sympathy.

My choir just had their first rehearsal tonight for months (socially distanced) so I guess this announcement means it'll be the only one we get. Ho hum.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That sounds as if they've bollocksed up procurement yet again.  I wonder when and how those contracts were awarded, not to mention to whom and on the strength of what track record.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That makes no sense. Why would it be illegal to have an outdoor picnic with 7 people but it's perfectly good to go to the office with 30


You’re just not thinking like a capitalist


----------



## emanymton (Sep 8, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> So only 5 customers in a pub at a time?


It must mean no single group of more than 6.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2020)

Like SARS-COV-2 is gonna go to the office with 30 people and just think 'stonks line gotta go up, guess I'll wait until they go off for their cheeky afternoon in the sun'


----------



## ska invita (Sep 8, 2020)

ska invita said:


> my mate in crystal palace needs coughing kid tested
> 
> got this
> 
> ...


re my mate being told to drive to telford or inverness (above)



oh


----------



## baldrick (Sep 8, 2020)

nagapie said:


> This is simply not true. We are carrying out so many time and energy consuming strategies to maintain social distancing. And yet we all know there are too many holes in how bubbles work to make these be meaningful.


Agree. We moved our whole sixth form provision to a different building over summer, built classrooms, toilets, labs, the whole shebang to give more space in the main building. We have staggered break and lunches so from 10:30-2 we have different groups of kids out of lessons continuously, who all need staff on duty. We have a cleaner specifically employed to clean the toilets after every break (we now have six breaks a day). Teachers are moving round the school instead of kids, clattering trolleys of books up and down stairs because they can't use the lift. We have redesigned our behaviour policy because we can't do after school or break detention now the school is deep cleaned every night, and we have changed the timetable. Staff briefing is now done on Teams and we can't use the shared kitchen any more. And somehow this is still not enough for some people!


----------



## existentialist (Sep 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That makes no sense. Why would it be illegal to have an outdoor picnic with 7 people but it's perfectly good to go to the office with 30


Because people having an outdoor picnic don't "contribute to the economy" the way 30 people in an office do...and that's the primary consideration here.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Sep 8, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


>



Effective from Monday, so get your parties in this weekend everyone...


----------



## clicker (Sep 8, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> But 30 kids in class still ok?


And 60 of them on a bus to and from school.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Effective from Monday, so get your parties in this weekend everyone...


What about pubs?


----------



## MrSki (Sep 8, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


>



Why wait till Monday? Should be from tomorrow.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Sep 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What about pubs?


Yeah, get to them too. You're safe from the virus until Monday.


----------



## editor (Sep 8, 2020)

Can anyone work out if this means pubs can stay open or not? It seems to suggest that they can stay open but only if you stick to 6 people or your 'bubble.'



> Several exemptions apply to the new rules - which come into force on 14 September - with households and support bubbles bigger than six people are unaffected.





> Social gatherings of more than six people will be illegal in England from Monday - with some exemptions - amid a steep rise in coronavirus cases.
> 
> A new legal limit will ban larger groups meeting anywhere socially indoors or outdoors, No 10 said.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: Social gatherings above six banned in England from 14 September
					

A new legal limit will be enforced through a £100 fine but will not apply to schools or workplaces.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 8, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Why wait till Monday? Should be from tomorrow.


To be fair, if it was from tomorrow people would be complaining about not being given enough notice.

Frustratingly, had just dumped £23 on a ticket to see Tenet at IMAX. That'll teach me...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 8, 2020)

editor said:


> Can anyone work out if this means pubs can stay open or not?



If it's a big Spoons then sure.


----------



## Looby (Sep 8, 2020)

I have a wedding reception and a group camping weekend coming up at the end of September which I assume won’t be happening now. Might book a very last minute holiday cottage if we’re not in complete lockdown by then. I was so looking forward to a few nights in a tent with friends.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 8, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Why wait till Monday? Should be from tomorrow.



Tomorrow would be to soon but it should be Saturday at the latest but lol no got to keep the weekend.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2020)

Guess I'm having Yom Kippur online then.


----------



## fishfinger (Sep 8, 2020)

editor said:


> Can anyone work out if this means pubs can stay open or not?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 8, 2020)

Outside included just to have a pop at extinction rebellion?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 8, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Tomorrow would be to soon but it should be Saturday at the latest but lol no got to keep the weekend.


Weekend is gonna be a bombsite.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2020)

Lol like weddings are gonna be 'covid secure' the lack of social distancing is the whole point


----------



## editor (Sep 8, 2020)

I read that but it's not making any sense to me. Can people go to a pub if they stick to their own 'bubble'?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 8, 2020)

editor said:


> I read that but it's not making any sense to me. Can people go to a pub if they stick to their own 'bubble'?


But you're surely not in a bubble with all the other people in the pub?


----------



## Looby (Sep 8, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Outside included just to have a pop at extinction rebellion?


The outside thing is a joke. At least let people socialise outside whilst they still can before the weather goes to shit.


----------



## agricola (Sep 8, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> But you're surely not in a bubble with all the other people in the pub?



think of it as an Aero


----------



## editor (Sep 8, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> But you're surely not in a bubble with all the other people in the pub?


I've no idea but if it's OK to sit in an office....


----------



## Sue (Sep 8, 2020)

And what about all the people who've recently been unfurloughed? Now that employers are going to have to chip in, guess loads of people are going to lose their jobs.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 8, 2020)

How many bubbles allowed in one pub? 


#Worldbeating.


----------



## Sue (Sep 8, 2020)

editor said:


> I read that but it's not making any sense to me. Can people go to a pub if they stick to their own 'bubble'?


Fuck knows.


----------



## Looby (Sep 8, 2020)

editor said:


> I've no idea but if it's OK to sit in an office....


Exactly. I’m far safer sitting with 15 friends in a park than I am in an office with 12 colleagues who are all visiting multiple families.


----------



## fishfinger (Sep 8, 2020)

editor said:


> I read that but it's not making any sense to me. Can people go to a pub if they stick to their own 'bubble'?


Well. I hope that they are going to let more than 6 people in the pub.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 8, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Tomorrow would be to soon but it should be Saturday at the latest but lol no got to keep the weekend.


There will be a lot of house parties this weekend.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 8, 2020)

editor said:


> I've no idea but if it's OK to sit in an office....


Ah, but _the economy_ (and yes, I know pubs contribute to the economy too  ).

Kinda curious how this will affect us (uni library). Literally the second day of letting (very few) students back into the libraries today; wondering if we might be covered by "schools".


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 8, 2020)

MrSki said:


> There will be a lot of house parties this weekend.



Tbf they've never stopped around here.


----------



## zora (Sep 8, 2020)

Might be just me, but I would love to see some more concrete information about how transmission actually happens. It all seems so terribly coy and coded: "oh indoor family gatherings, oh that charity football match, oh returning from holidays, oh people went into town after being in Greece" - I kind of want to know how does transmission actually happen? Spitting into each other's pints? Having a big singalong arm in arm in an indoor venue? Having a party of 20+ people with zero regard to distancing and ventilation? Or something much more subtle? Surely there must be many people now who have got a fairly good idea who they contracted it from and what kind of contact they were in. Or work transmission - you hear "two people at x supermarket tested positive". Can someone just say what exactly their set-up was on breaks/during work so that we can try and not do the same?


----------



## xenon (Sep 8, 2020)

editor said:


> I read that but it's not making any sense to me. Can people go to a pub if they stick to their own 'bubble'?


Yeah. Pubs aren’t closing. You can’t go and meet up with the group if there is more than six of you in said group. At least that is how I am interpreting it.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 8, 2020)

zora said:


> Might be just me, but I would love to see some more concrete information about how transmission actually happens. It all seems so terribly coy and coded: "oh indoor family gatherings, oh that charity football match, oh returning from holidays, oh people went into town after being in Greece" - I kind of want to know how does transmission actually happen? Spitting into each other's pints? Having a big singalong arm in arm in an indoor venue? Having a party of 20+ people with zero regard to distancing and ventilation? Or something much more subtle? Surely there must be many people now who have got a fairly good idea who they contracted it from and what kind of contact they were in. Or work transmission - you hear "two people at x supermarket tested positive". Can someone just say what exactly their set-up was on breaks/during work so that we can try and not do the same?



It's primarily aerosol with a limited amount of contact transmission, contact was thought to be much higher originally hence the anti-bac. It's going be hard to pin down the exact moment for everyone but if your in the same room, in close proximity, your likely to get it, especially if your both maskless but most people don't wear the mask correctly.

Masks are also for protecting others more than yourself so it's no wonder so many "socialism is the real evil" types are so against them.


----------



## Weller (Sep 8, 2020)

I too am confused about the pubs and bubbles etc but perhaps its still just 6 to a group on a table max
I have been keeping myself to myself in our local and leaving if I cannot get a table to keep my distance
Not visiting much lately as its steadily been getting way out of order with angry staff and customers due to the majority totally ignoring the rules , most seem unable to even keep their distance or wash hands in the loos never mind washing hands etc elsewhere and there are plenty of hand wash dispensers

I know its a hard job for the employees but I think it would not be a bad idea now if there were at least some action against the pubs that are letting customers ignore the rules or give the staff and managers more power else I can see them shutting again before xmas  anyway at times its utterly impossible to keep 1 meter away due to the number being way way over even what each  rooms maximum amount says on the wall


----------



## agricola (Sep 8, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> Why do they always do this late night announcements for things that aren't happening for days. It's so unnecessarily odd.



They probably think this is the best time to put announcements out, as its early enough for the papers and wider media to report on it but too late for anyone to include in that reporting any kind of analysis as to what is going on.  As an example of this, take a look at the Guardian report which appears to be mostly based on government sources (even though they've usually misled during this pandemic and there are at least two things in there that appear very questionable).

It also tends to lead to the annoucement and its idiocy being discussed for part of the following day, rather than associated and more serious (to them) issues such as the blatant failure of their track and trace regime, or the likelyhood that cops are going to be able to enforce this six-person rule any more than they did the actual lockdown.


----------



## zora (Sep 8, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> It's primarily aerosol with a limited amount of contact transmission, contact was thought to be much higher originally hence the anti-bac. It's going be hard to pin down the exact moment for everyone but if your in the same room, in close proximity, your likely to get it, especially if your both maskless but most people don't wear the mask correctly.
> 
> Masks are also for protecting others more than yourself so it's no wonder so many "socialism is the real evil" types are so against them.



Yes, I know all the principles. And I know it's tricky to pin point the exact moment. 
There was a news snippet this morning from Australia saying that there might have actually been more fomite/contact transmission in hotel quarantine than previously thought after all - and I was wondering then, how can they know? How can you be sure that transmission was via, say, bathroom tap rather than the air in the bathroom? 

But I mean more of a specific situation, like someone saying, okay yes, me and my colleague were chatting by the kettle for 5 mins without distancing or masks - or the opposite, we were behaving like xy and z exactly and still passed it on. Or in the case of this mysterious Durham charity football match "covid-safety measures were not strict enough" - what exactly was the situation? Just to flesh it out and illustrate the specifics a bit if that makes sense?


----------



## magneze (Sep 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That makes no sense. Why would it be illegal to have an outdoor picnic with 7 people but it's perfectly good to go to the office with 30


The second one isn't OK either, but THE ECONOMY. 😕


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2020)

They're going to find enforcing this much more difficult than it was the first time.


----------



## The39thStep (Sep 8, 2020)

Barmy


----------



## Maltin (Sep 8, 2020)

Am I being cynical in thinking that they announced it tonight to give other stories about Brexit less prominence?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 8, 2020)

.


----------



## xenon (Sep 9, 2020)

It does make some sort of sense though. Trying to allow the economy to function as far as possible, schools, et cetera. Whilst  limiting risks. what’s the alternative? And no I’m not excusing the fuck ups with the testing or any of that. But I mean even with  A notional best government possible. What could they do? Shut everything and put everyone on furlough again? even if that were economically, idea logically, acceptable. You would still have all the problems of mental health morale et cetera.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Idk. If infections are doubling daily that's serious.



Who said infections are doubling daily?

I'm rusty on what the doubling times were estimated to be at the worst points of the pandemic so far but I dont think a daily doubling has been much of a feature of anything in this pandemic so far. Well I suppose it would be possible for crappy stats or testing regimes that were all over the place to have some figures that doubled from one day to the next. But that doesnt reflect reality and even with those sorts of limited figures, if I remember properly doubling times at the worst moments of the pandemic in various places around the world were still no less than several days, not a single day.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 9, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> To be fair, if it was from tomorrow people would be complaining about not being given enough notice.
> 
> Frustratingly, had just dumped £23 on a ticket to see Tenet at IMAX. That'll teach me...


you can still go


----------



## Wilf (Sep 9, 2020)

editor said:


> I read that but it's not making any sense to me. Can people go to a pub if they stick to their own 'bubble'?


Yes, but only if you take your Nan.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Who said infections are doubling daily?
> 
> I'm rusty on what the doubling times were estimated to be at the worst points of the pandemic so far but I dont think a daily doubling has been much of a feature of anything in this pandemic so far. Well I suppose it would be possible for crappy stats or testing regimes that were all over the place to have some figures that doubled from one day to the next. But that doesnt reflect reality and even with those sorts of limited figures, if I remember properly doubling times at the worst moments of the pandemic in various places around the world were still no less than several days, not a single day.


I know they aren't, the government's reported figures show a massive jump over the weekend though from 1000 to nearly 3000 per day. And I guess that's pushed them into panic mode even though a lot are probably previously unreported cases. I've edited my post anyway


----------



## Wilf (Sep 9, 2020)

xenon said:


> It does make some sort of sense though. Trying to allow the economy to function as far as possible, schools, et cetera. Whilst  limiting risks. what’s the alternative? And no I’m not excusing the fuck ups with the testing or any of that. But I mean even with  A notional best government possible. What could they do? Shut everything and put everyone on furlough again? even if that were economically, idea logically, acceptable. You would still have all the problems of mental health morale et cetera.


In terms of the cost, it's almost at the point where they should be abandoning conventional economics and coming up with some way of resetting the economy post covid, wiping out the deficit or somesuch, though nothing like that will happen. So, yes, within the logic of their system, it is a balancing act. But all that aside, just to focus on one aspect, how did we get from not being able to see your loved ones in their final days, at the start of this, through to mass houseparties and the abandonment of social distancing today? Cummings and similar apparently thought they could turn the tap on and off as the pressure on the NHS waxed and waned. Well, what a load of bollocks that was, we've seen a complete failure of the government's 'behavioural strategy', their 'nudges'. Never mind anything complex, they can't even manage to finger wag in a competent way (and of course Cummings own behaviour is part of the story).  I'm as happy as the next person/poster to moan about 'selfish twats', but the real issue is a government that has taken from a nation of, by and large, socially aware adherents to one of fatalists and fatalist-hedonists.  It hasn't even been a managed retreat.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

Great post.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Sep 9, 2020)

Outside of my house (excluding in the street, and tbf, often in the street) I wear a mask all the time, because it's so clearly all over for so many people. Did the weekly shop on Monday, and grabbed a couple extra bags of pasta, noodles etc. I'm off for the next two days and I'm gonna inventory my kitchen cupboards and decide what to stock up on, as I no longer think that is unreasonable. No one cares, stridding about the place with no purpose, bumping into folk because they are too busy reading their phones.

If the hospitals fill up again, and we end up with only the essentiaI shops and schools left open, I can see the army being brought into police it this time. I think I said that back in April and it didn't happen, but since then the police have lost any credibility of being able to enforce a lockdown that they had, and I can only imagine the tory faithful with love the sight of tanks on the streets.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I know they aren't, the government's reported figures show a massive jump over the weekend though from 1000 to nearly 3000 per day. And I guess that's pushed them into panic mode even though a lot are probably previously unreported cases. I've edited my post anyway



The numbers I've looked at suggest it was more like a leap from a bit under 2000 to a little under 3000 if I go by reporting date, and a variation on this theme over a slightly different period if I go by specimen date instead. They will be looking at 7 day averages and some other aspects of the testing/case figures, including percentage positive and changing demographics of those testing positive, as well as a bunch of other data. Also the specifics of outbreaks including the most common transmission settings detected by tracing/health protection teams, the situation in various countries in Europe etc. And probably some data that isnt shared publicly yet, such as whatever they are getting out of the sewage surveillance pilots.

Things have been building to this moment for weeks already, various causes for alarm have likely been popping up on the establishment radar for a while. The recent numbers were probably somewhat expected, to an extent at least, as the entire period of 'preparing to open schools imminently' has had an extra whiff of absurdity about it because everyones been able to see the numbers rising for a while. Signs they were rattled were there last week I think, and they are following in the footsteps of various european leaders who have felt the need to come out with stark new warnings in recent weeks, in the wake of very real indicators in their countries that the situation was growing worse.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 9, 2020)

for months,  the facebook covid support group I'm part of has only been populated by people who were getting over symptoms from catching it in March, April [or earlier]  In the last week or so there's been a noticeable flurry of newly diagnosed people


----------



## Epona (Sep 9, 2020)

They need to put people in the hospitality sector back on full furlough - OH has been back at work in one part time bar job for a few weeks now and has just been taken off furlough for his hospitality agency work, it was clear to me that it was all too soon, and furlough needs to be extended for the hospitality sector, along with some retraining/incentives for employment in other sectors (we would both be happy for work but there are thousands of better candidates for each job that is functioning right now).


----------



## brogdale (Sep 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> The numbers I've looked at suggest it was more like a leap from a bit under 2000 to a little under 3000 if I go by reporting date, and a variation on this theme over a slightly different period if I go by specimen date instead. They will be looking at 7 day averages and some other aspects of the testing/case figures, including percentage positive and changing demographics of those testing positive, as well as a bunch of other data. Also the specifics of outbreaks including the most common transmission settings detected by tracing/health protection teams, the situation in various countries in Europe etc. And probably some data that isnt shared publicly yet, such as whatever they are getting out of the sewage surveillance pilots.
> 
> Things have been building to this moment for weeks already, various causes for alarm have likely been popping up on the establishment radar for a while. The recent numbers were probably somewhat expected, to an extent at least, as the entire period of 'preparing to open schools imminently' has had an extra whiff of absurdity about it because everyones been able to see the numbers rising for a while. Signs they were rattled were there last week I think, and they are following in the footsteps of various european leaders who have felt the need to come out with stark new warnings in recent weeks, in the wake of very real indicators in their countries that the situation was growing worse.


Yes, according to this FT graphic of confirmed positive cases per 100 tests the inflection point appears to be mid July:


----------



## chilango (Sep 9, 2020)

The generation of profit limits transmission of the virus, right?


----------



## brogdale (Sep 9, 2020)

chilango said:


> The generation of profit limits transmission of the virus, right?


The Corbynite virus (for the many, not the few) can’t thrive in the spirit of free enterprise, specifically the smell of unearned income actually breaks down the lipid membrane of the virus.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 9, 2020)

The Invisible Hand shields all the Acolytes of Mammon


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 9, 2020)

Still haven't seen it said explicitly, but general feeling does seem to be it won't actually affect businesses where people gather (pubs, cinemas, etc) as long each individual group is 6 or fewer. Which seems... odd.

I guess it'll still add to reducing transmissions overall, and 'allowing' a certain amount of risk for things we are still 'allowed' to do, which are as ever geared towards "keeping the economy going".


----------



## Cloo (Sep 9, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Guess I'm having Yom Kippur online then.


I'm hoping our shul can still do the service to stream now, I don't know if this means they can't

I do agree with xenon - it is about risk mitigation to allow some more essential stuff to happen while less essential stuff doesn't have to. Still don't see why many people need to return to offices though, and I don't think many people will or employers insist

ETA,  way it's done still totally incompetently.

Also agree with Wilf that the best thing would be to rethink the economy, but I can't think of any government less likely to do that.  Maybe Trump's,  but same unlikelihood really.  I'd like to move all the people on council waiting lists into sustainable homes in city centres.  They can go buy your fucking sandwiches.


----------



## Bingo (Sep 9, 2020)

It's not going to reduce the R number below 1 though is it, let's be honest!


----------



## chilango (Sep 9, 2020)

A pertinent comment I saw on Twitter from Bolton this morning read "We've not taken this seriously because we've been given permission to blame others".


----------



## teqniq (Sep 9, 2020)

i call bullshit.









						Matt Hancock blames British public for getting too many coronavirus tests
					

The Health Secretary shifted the blame for problems with the Covid-19 testing service - he pinpointed a rise in people without symptoms wrongly seeking a Covid-19 test, including if they're going on holiday



					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 9, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I'm not convinced by the 'it's all the fault of young' people narrative.
> 
> The conservative leader or Bolton council blames it on young people, while one of the places closed is that well know institution of youth culture, The Conservative Club.
> 
> ...



I don't think anyone has suggested 'it's *all* the fault of young people', certainly not me, there'll always be several different things going on. What we do know is that cases have been tracked back to various settings, and the biggest single problem has been households mixing and house parties*, and we also know there's a specific issue in these settings with younger people, as reflected in test results. There's been loads of cases traced back to fairly large house parties, attended by mainly young people, and not just in the four nations of the UK.

This has been the case for weeks and plenty of local council leaders and local public health officers have been highlighting this problem, if it was just the government I would be sceptical.

Pubs haven't been as much of a problem so far, although I suspect that could change with the weather, hence why  personally I would like to see more inspections & forced closures of those caught breaking the rules.

In the article you have linked to, a number of pubs & the Conservative Club are listed as having closed for a deep clean following, in most cases, a single customer or member of staff that has tested positive, there's nothing in that that suggests any of them had been breaking the rules. Pubs closing in such circumstances should not be confused with pubs being closed due to breaking covid rules over social distancing, etc., where there will be a far higher chance of covid spreading.

* In fact as I was typing this,there was a virologist on BBC News pointing out the vast majority of current transmission is within households, around the 80-90% mark, although that clearly includes all household infections, not limited to just households mixing and house parties, although they remain a major factor in the figures.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 9, 2020)

teqniq said:


> i call bullshit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This government trying to blame everyone else for its incompetence?  Surely not!


----------



## prunus (Sep 9, 2020)

teqniq said:


> i call bullshit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well if this is true (and obviously the default assumption is that it’s a lie, coming as it does from a bunch of liars), it makes the recent increases in positivity rates from testing even more concerning than it would be otherwise.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 9, 2020)

32 deaths as well yesterday which is a jump from what it's been recently.


----------



## souljacker (Sep 9, 2020)

teqniq said:


> i call bullshit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What a stupid cunt Hancock is. Of all the things we should be chucking money at, it's testing. Anyone who has a slight fear of covid should be able to get tested and anyone who is about to do something risky (be it go on Holiday or going to a family party with some vulnerable people) should be able to get a test. There should be test centres in every town and city in the UK (even before the nonsense with Londoners getting sent to Aberdeen came about, I still had to go from Reading, one of the largest towns in the South East to Swindon to get my test) and your results should be back in 24 hours.

It's a fucking shambles and Hancock can fuck off. 

And still Boris doesn't make an appearance. Where the fuck is he?


----------



## Badgers (Sep 9, 2020)

souljacker said:


> And still Boris doesn't make an appearance. Where the fuck is he?


Cheating on his relationship again?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 9, 2020)

souljacker said:


> And still Boris doesn't make an appearance. Where the fuck is he?



He's doing the Downing Street press conference this afternoon at 4 pm.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 9, 2020)

And PMQs at 12pm.


----------



## Supine (Sep 9, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> And PMQs at 12pm.



Not known as a great place to get answers from him


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 9, 2020)

No, but we get our sport where we can.


----------



## andysays (Sep 9, 2020)

teqniq said:


> i call bullshit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, I heard someone (might have been Hancock but not sure) making that ridiculous excuse on the radio this morning.


----------



## souljacker (Sep 9, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> And PMQs at 12pm.



PMQ's is showbiz. Not politics.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 9, 2020)

Wrong thread.


----------



## souljacker (Sep 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> He's doing the Downing Street press conference this afternoon at 4 pm.



He should be addressing the nation regularly. How have we got to a position where it's left to Hancock to be the official spokesman in a time of national crisis?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> Not known as a great place to get answers from him



It's not called Prime Minister's Answers for good reason..


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 9, 2020)

souljacker said:


> He should be addressing the nation regularly. How have we got to a position where it's left to Hancock to be the official spokesman in a time of national crisis?


Boris Johnson has taken up residence under the cabinet room table where Dominic Cummings hands him bottles of cheap cider


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 9, 2020)

So basically these new rules are just about stopping house parties aren't they?  Doubt anyone will give a shit seen as people who are having parties didn't give a shit about the various rules around it in the first place.

I know the police have get very little sympathy round these parts but fuck trying to police this bollocks.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 9, 2020)

Its outside too. Convenient for anyone annoyed about extinction rebellion gatherings. 

Also 7 people meeting in parks for free bad. People in groups of 6 sharing space indoors with other groups of 6 in pubs good.


----------



## LDC (Sep 9, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Its outside too. Convenient for anyone annoyed about extinction rebellion gatherings.
> 
> Also 7 people meeting in parks for free bad. People in groups of 6 sharing space indoors with other groups of 6 in pubs good.



If you really think these restrictions are anything to do with Extinction Rebellion you're into conspiracy theory territory.

Six is a reasonable figure, more than one average household but small enough to police compared to the 30, and there will also be some level of infection likelihood and social research behind that number. And the number set as a limit will seem arbitrary to some people whatever it is set at.

The pubs thing is difficult, even ignoring the economic reasons. If you make that too restrictive some people will just go to other people's houses which is worse.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 9, 2020)

I've been to a (reasonably small) house party. I knew everyone there and I know that most of them are on top of the contact so much that if there had even been a removed covid case they could tell everyone (this is just before kids back at school and the bubble being incomprehensible). I feel more confident in that than the govs track and trace.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If you really think these restrictions are anything to do with Extinction Rebellion you're into conpsiracy theory territory.



I dont think they are because of that but I'm sure there was smirking  involved.


----------



## maomao (Sep 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If you really think these restrictions are anything to do with Extinction Rebellion you're into conpsiracy theory territory.


I wouldn't put it past the current government to have raised it in a 'two birds one stone' kind of way.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 9, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Its outside too. Convenient for anyone annoyed about extinction rebellion gatherings.
> 
> Also 7 people meeting in parks for free bad. People in groups of 6 sharing space indoors with other groups of 6 in pubs good.



Yes, I think that's to stop people just having big parties in the garden or street or whatever.  They just don't want people having parties anywhere.


----------



## LDC (Sep 9, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I know the police have get very little sympathy round these parts but fuck trying to police this bollocks.



The police were instrumental in deciding on these new rules as the previous ones _were _unenforceable.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The police were instrumental in deciding on these new rules as the previous ones _were _unenforceable.



Sure.  But fuck being the actual police who have to deal with this.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If you really think these restrictions are anything to do with Extinction Rebellion you're into conspiracy theory territory.
> 
> Six is a reasonable figure, more than one average household but small enough to police compared to the 30, and there will also be some level of infection likelihood and social research behind that number. And the number set as a limit will seem arbitrary to some people whatever it is set at.
> 
> The pubs thing is difficult, even ignoring the economic reasons. If you make that too restrictive some people will just go to other people's houses which is worse.


That last bit of course is also an argument against making outside rules the same as inside rules. May be easier to police with the same figure for both, but it's much easier to keep a larger gathering secret at someone's house than it is in a park. 

It would be nice if they ended their rotten culture of secrecy and published SAGE stuff in full, rather than selectively leaking the bits they want people to know, such as the worst-case scenario that justifies actions such as these. This isn't a question of national security but one of national health - other countries publish full minutes of their SAGE-equivalent meetings as a matter of course.


----------



## emanymton (Sep 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I don't think anyone has suggested 'it's *all* the fault of young people', certainly not me, there'll always be several different things going on. What we do know is that cases have been tracked back to various settings, and the biggest single problem has been households mixing and house parties*, and we also know there's a specific issue in these settings with younger people, as reflected in test results. There's been loads of cases traced back to fairly large house parties, attended by mainly young people, and not just in the four nations of the UK.
> 
> This has been the case for weeks and plenty of local council leaders and local public health officers have been highlighting this problem, if it was just the government I would be sceptical.
> 
> ...


I don't really disagree.  I just don't see young people behaving more irresponsibly than older people and blaming it all on young people has a whiff of scapegoating about it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 9, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I don't really disagree.  I just don't see young people behaving more irresponsibly than older people and blaming it all on young people has a whiff of scapegoating about it.


Also, what was hidden first time around is now visible this time. There is a similar pattern across Europe of rising infection levels starting off with younger people (by which I mean really anybody under 60) and not showing up in hospital numbers for quite a while as it slowly then makes its way to older people. I don't see any reason to think it wasn't the same pattern in the first wave, probably throughout February. We just didn't know because of the lack of testing. 

It's not so surprising, is it? The most vulnerable group by far wrt hospitalisation and deaths is retired people who don't go to work, don't commute, don't travel around loads generally. They're the most vulnerable, but they're not the main vectors of spread. Weren't last time and aren't this time either.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 9, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I don't really disagree.  I just don't see young people behaving more irresponsibly than older people and blaming it all on young people has a whiff of scapegoating about it.



I do, all over the place.  I'm not going to hang them out for it though I'd no doubt be doing the same if I was younger.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 9, 2020)

That bullshit about people wanting tests before going on holiday being to blame for test shortages is annoying me.  For one I'll bet the return to school (possibly after a holiday which was allowed dont forget) has been a bigger driver in increased demand. But especially as a lot of trips will have been younger people finally visiting older relatives so looking to be tested first seems like people trying to be responsible and protect older people.

Again the govt (contractors) should have  been prepared for this increased demand.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 9, 2020)

TBF young people are probably more likely to go to parties than older people, so the proportion of them that don't care about the rules will be more likely to act on that by going to parties. It doesn't really require younger people as a group to have a different attitude to the rules overall for that to be the case. If the problem is parties it's entirely possible to emphasise that without getting all Daily Mail and tutting at the young folk with their terrible attitudes.

To be honest I think back to when I was younger - and spending my weekends at illegal parties in broken into warehouses taking drugs - and I'm really not sure how younger me would have acted in the current situation. I'd like to think I'd have been responsible but I couldn't say so with any confidence.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 9, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> That bullshit about people wanting tests before going on holiday being to blame for test shortages is annoying me.  For one I'll bet the return to school (possibly after a holidays which were allowed dont forget) has been a bigger driver in increased demand. But especially as a lot of trips will have been younger people finally visiting older relatives so looking to be tested first seems like people trying to be responsible and protect older people.


It is never, ever, ever _their fault_. With the benefit of hindsight, surely we should all have been told to forget about foreign holidays this year. They could just admit that, admit that they underestimated the spreading effect people moving around would have. But no, that would mean the clowns admitting that they are not perfect.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It is never, ever, ever _their fault_. With the benefit of hindsight, surely we should all have been told to forget about foreign holidays this year. They could just admit that, admit that they underestimated the spreading effect people moving around would have. But no, that would mean the clowns admitting that they are not perfect.



No hindsight needed, I've been saying since the start that only the most crucial of travel should be happening and any ideas of going on holiday abroad need to be cancelled at least until a vaccine is on trials or the disease is under control.


----------



## andysays (Sep 9, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> No hindsight needed, I've been saying since the start that only the most crucial of travel should be happening and any ideas of going on holiday abroad need to be cancelled at least until a vaccine is on trials or the disease is under control.


Yeah, there's absolutely no hindsight needed for this or any of the other myriad fuck ups the government has made, most if not all of which have been the result of putting short term profit before people's health and general wellbeing.


----------



## Hyperdark (Sep 9, 2020)

Talking of Vaccines.

AstraZeneca suspends leading COVID-19 vaccine trials after a participant's illness


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 9, 2020)

Encouraging limiting travel to those visiting family and encouraging tests beforehand would have been a more responsible and compassionate approach to my mind.


----------



## xenon (Sep 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It is never, ever, ever _their fault_. With the benefit of hindsight, surely we should all have been told to forget about foreign holidays this year. They could just admit that, admit that they underestimated the spreading effect people moving around would have. But no, that would mean the clowns admitting that they are not perfect.



and losing the travel industry. Which lets not forget are actually asking for tests to be made available at airports.


----------



## souljacker (Sep 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It is never, ever, ever _their fault_. With the benefit of hindsight, surely we should all have been told to forget about foreign holidays this year. They could just admit that, admit that they underestimated the spreading effect people moving around would have. But no, that would mean the clowns admitting that they are not perfect.



I'd have been happy if we had closed our borders to be honest. Don't go on holiday, don't allow execs to fly to important meetings anywhere and if you absolutely HAVE to travel, you're doing two weeks in a heathrow hotel (that you aren't allowed to leave) on your return. Then track and trace with mass quick testing on everyone until we get it under control.


----------



## xenon (Sep 9, 2020)

They’ve been actually encouraging people to go on holiday. And of course. If someone can test them self for that bit of reassurance, why wouldn’t they. They told us we had plenty of tests. Not that I would be going on holiday myself, was due to go to Germany next month but it doesn’t seem sensible. Even so I understand some people have made plans long in advance or have family they need to visit abroad.


----------



## xenon (Sep 9, 2020)

Not that holidays are especially the problem. Other than the general mass gathering, not being able to avoid social distancing thing.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 9, 2020)

xenon said:


> and losing the travel industry. Which lets not forget are actually asking for tests to be made available at airports.


Or saving it. If travel is still fucked next summer, allowing limited travel this summer won't look too clever.

Can't say for sure cos SAGE is secret, but the actions re summer holidays fit with a belief* that Covid-19 would show marked seasonal variability in its transmission. I read warnings right at the start that it might not, because MERS doesn't and it could be like MERS.

*or should that be 'hope'?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Also, what was hidden first time around is now visible this time. There is a similar pattern across Europe of rising infection levels starting off with younger people (by which I mean really anybody under 60) and not showing up in hospital numbers for quite a while as it slowly then makes its way to older people. I don't see any reason to think it wasn't the same pattern in the first wave, probably throughout February. We just didn't know because of the lack of testing.



Forget the early days, just look at how the infection rates have shot up amongst younger people since the start of July, when we had already hit around 140k tests a day.



And, as pointed out this isn't just showing up in the UK, even Germany, which from the start were testing way more than any other European country, has highlighted this growing problem in recent weeks.



> There is particular concern in Berlin, where the incidence of the virus among 20- to 24-year-olds is as high as 43 in every 100,000 (the Berlin average is 13.7). The popular district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg is under particular focus.
> 
> “It’s parties which are to blame for this,” Berlin’s health minister, Dilek Kalayci, said on Monday, warning that if the figures did not drop, authorities would be forced to introduce tougher measures. Police have already been habitually breaking up large gatherings in parks and riversides across the city or raiding illegal parties.



And, Italy, Ireland, France & Spain are all quoted as highlighting the problem in this article.









						'Not a game': Europe pleads with young people to halt Covid-19 spread
					

Health authorities across continent try to reach under 30s as cases among younger people rise




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Or saving it. If travel is still fucked next summer, allowing limited travel this summer won't look too clever.
> 
> Can't say for sure cos SAGE is secret, but the actions re summer holidays fit with a belief* that Covid-19 would show marked seasonal variability in its transmission. I read warnings right at the start that it might not, because MERS doesn't and it could be like MERS.
> 
> *or should that be 'hope'?



I dont know what the excuse would be for them not understanding this properly either.

After all, how many times have I dug out the graph of 2009 swine flu waves, showing the first big wave in July 2009? And that was influenza, a virus and respiratory disease that they allegedly know lots about, and where the seasonal factors have been demonstrated over a long period.

The seasons influence human behaviour and some other factors which are probably involved in ease of spread and severity of illness. When a disease is not new to a human population, these seasonal variations are enough to tip the balance between diminished cases and a large rise in cases (with epidemics some years, depending on how population immunity has waned or increased in the prior period). But when a disease is new to the population and there is a lack of protective degree of prior immunity in the community, the seasonal variations may not be anywhere enough to tip the balance towards dwindling numbers in summer. 

This also means that although the wiggle room provided by summer was not enough to keep infection numbers down to background levels this summer, the virus may not need to change at all in order for the story to be different in future years, once the immunity picture is different.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont know what the excuse would be for them not understanding this properly either.
> 
> After all, how many times have I dug out the graph of 2009 swine flu waves, showing the first big wave in July 2009? And that was influenza, a virus and respiratory disease that they allegedly know lots about, and where the seasonal factors have been demonstrated over a long period.
> 
> ...


Yep, you have indeed been talking about this for months, so you have to assume that someone in SAGE has been as well. The choice was made to ignore such warnings. A plain illustration of the ongoing scandal that is the lack of full transparency of SAGE.

Not just Britain of course. Spain clearly tried to salvage its tourist season by ignoring such concerns and crossing fingers.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yep, you have indeed been talking about this for months, so you have to assume that someone in SAGE has been as well. The choice was made to ignore such warnings. A plain illustration of the ongoing scandal that is the lack of full transparency of SAGE.



Its also not just a question of how transparent they are, but also the timing, how quickly we get to see what they were saying.

I believe in radical forms of openness in discussions and decision making. But I dont think that is terribly compatible with the way things are actually ordered more broadly under the current setup, with the press we have, with the form of economy and 'democracy' we have, etc. And so when I consider my beliefs, I end up with all these other aspects needing to be arranged very differently in order for the whole thing to actually work properly. Because under the current system, the people involved will end up with the same old 'in order to deliver frank and unvarnished facts and opinions to the government, we must do so in a candid way, and thats something we have been taught not to do in the full glare of the public eye.' Because honesty changes the equation and leads to awkward political moments, robbing the establishment of some of the tricks of poor governance that they rely on.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

Also, despite the current SAGE transparency being in no way up to scratch, its still being done in to an extent that I expect makes the establishment nervous.

By this I mean that even with their several months lag between documents being produced for SAGE meeting use and them being made available to the public, and despite the bland, depersonalised nature of the SAGE minutes (they are far less than full minute), there is still loads of stuff going into the public domain that is fairly frank and does not resemble the sort of language we normally get from template establishment documents designed for public consumption.

It is certainly tempting to start an entire thread for SAGE, NERVTAG etc quotes to live in, because I normally dont have to try hard before I find a very quotable document that swamps me in potential quotes and I have to restrain myself.

For example here is one of the more recently released documents, from SPI-B (behavioural science) on 22nd July. Public heath messaging for communities from different cultural backgrounds, and just a few example quotes.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/914924/s0649-public-health-messaging-bame-communities.pdf
		




> BAME communities may be less willing to trust government communications on pandemic measures due to historical issues and contemporary perceptions of institutional racism. Health messages are more likely to be received by someone known and trusted within BAME communities. These include faith groups, community leaders and lay health educators such as shop workers and taxi drivers.
> 
> Multiple credible sources should be utilised as not all members of BAME communities are responsive to faith leaders.
> Understand and define differences within and between minority groups. Identify credible sources and ensure health messages reflect salient aspects of ethnic identity and experiences.
> ...





> Inclusion of social identities relevant to the target community will minimise the perception of health promotion behaviour as a White, middle class characteristic and minimise fatalistic attitudes that question the relevance and efficacy of health promotion behaviours.
> Link health messages with social identities other than White and middle class to increase impact on BAME groups.
> Include evidence which highlights risks to specific groups. This will create the perception that the health problem can affect individuals in this group and may increase willingness to take action.
> Include stories from within the local community which provide real-world examples of the consequences of following and not following health guidelines.





> If a health message induces fear, it may result in denial or avoidance as a coping mechanism due to low control over external factors, such as working in frontline roles, which could result in developing fatalistic attitudes.
> • Fear inducing messages should be avoided as, even when health messages are adhered to, stressors remain in the physical environment that are not within the control of individuals from BAME communities.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 9, 2020)

Assume that Doncaster Races will be cancelled?


----------



## Dogsauce (Sep 9, 2020)

Johnson’s reply to be challenged about the failings in test and tracking regime at PMQ was basically “why do you hate the NHS Mr Starmer?” and that Labour’s criticism was undermining public trust in the system.  Disingenuous cunt.


----------



## editor (Sep 9, 2020)

Innit?


----------



## MrSki (Sep 9, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Johnson’s reply to be challenged about the failings in test and tracking regime at PMQ was basically “why do you hate the NHS Mr Starmer?” and that Labour’s criticism was undermining public trust in the system.  Disingenuous cunt.


Always calling it the NHS track & trace when a large part of the set up (failing part) is run by Serco & other government favoured companies.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 9, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Always calling it the NHS track & trace when a large part of the set up (failing part) is run by Serco & other government favoured companies.



Information that starmer could and should have had and responded with.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 9, 2020)

Wow, they're just going straight in on teens and 20-somethings.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 9, 2020)

"Now you only need to remember the simple rule of 6.

There will be some exceptions."

Johnson's sentences don't know what each other are doing.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 9, 2020)

All at the 'briefing' look like they have a good tan  

#worldbeating


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 9, 2020)

Badgers said:


> All at the 'briefing' look like they have a good tan
> 
> #worldbeating


Well, they do keep saying it's safer outside.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Sep 9, 2020)

If no more than six from different households can meet that’s Johnson fucked if he wants to meet up with his kids.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 9, 2020)

Some tough decisions to be made.



"You're fine to exist in your household"; let's not be hasty, Johnson hasn't finished yet.


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 9, 2020)

hmm so school & unis are completely safe

but opening them up have lead to the evil kids spreading the virus?


did he forget a lot of parents drop the kids to school and congregate outside them


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 9, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> If no more than six from different households can meet that’s Johnson fucked if he wants to meet up with his kids.


All evidence to date suggests the odds are against this particular hazard becoming an issue.

Sadly that ship sailed long ago on the hazard of Johnson himself.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 9, 2020)

Hands Face Space.


> HANDS: Wash your hands of anything that goes wrong.
> 
> FACE: Save face at all costs.
> 
> SPACE: Put space between you and any unpopular decision.



Nicked from here.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 9, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> did he forget a lot of parents drop the kids to school and congregate outside them


Walking to the train station yesterday morning*, saw 10s of kids and parents walking to school and maybe 1%, if that, had masks on.

Not sure I blame the parents, tbh; if they're going to be living with kids who are spending all day in classes of 30+, what the fuck are they supposed to do?



*ironically to go work at a uni


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 9, 2020)

Hand Face space


so facepalm and run away


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 9, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Walking to the train station yesterday morning*, saw 10s of kids and parents walking to school and maybe 1%, if that, had masks on.
> 
> Not sure I blame the parents, tbh; if they're going to be living with kids who are spending all day in classes of 30+, what the fuck are they supposed to do?
> 
> ...


Well exactly. I dropped ftw off at nursery this morning and wore a mask today. So I couldn't kiss my child goodbye but everyone at drop off is cross contaminated anyway as they mingle once inside (within bubbles but drop off is timed with the bubble). It just seems stupid.


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 9, 2020)

Pretty normal for Boris is not spending christmas with his kids


----------



## brogdale (Sep 9, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Some tough decisions to be made.
> 
> View attachment 229750
> 
> "You're fine to exist in your household"; let's not be hasty, Johnson hasn't finished yet.


_The Joy of Six_


----------



## LDC (Sep 9, 2020)

brogdale said:


> _The Joy of Six_



I know, what with that and him going on about the 'moon (money) shot' and likening the quick tests to pregnancy ones, it's all a bit Carry on Pandemic.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 9, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> If no more than six from different households can meet that’s Johnson fucked if he wants to meet up with his kids.


Is he even seeing the current wife kid?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 9, 2020)

"We remain extremely ambitious" - first genuine thing he's said.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I know, what with that and him going on about the 'moon (money) shot' and likening the quick tests to pregnancy ones, it's all a bit Carry on Pandemic.


Trouble is...as we approach Wave II...this one is called _Carry on dying  _


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 9, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Wow, they're just going straight in on teens and 20-somethings.d



That would be because all the data & evidence points to a particular problem amongst those age groups, local council leaders & local public health chiefs have been banging on about this for weeks, and finally the government has taken notice, because they have been spooked by the recent spike in new cases.

It's not a case of blaming everyone in those age groups, but pointing out the problem, in order to educate & give a wake-up call to those that have decided the rules don't apply to them, and get them to amend their behaviour for the greater good of society.

Are people seriously suggesting the data & evidence should be ignored, that they should just pretend there's no problem, and let the virus spread even more rapidly?


----------



## brogdale (Sep 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That would be because all the data & evidence points to a particular problem amongst those age groups, local council leaders & local public health chiefs have been banging on about this for weeks, and finally the government has taken notice, because they have been spooked by the recent spike in new cases.
> 
> It's not a case of blaming everyone in those age groups, but pointing out the problem, in order to educate & give a wake-up call to those that have decided the rules don't apply to them, and get them to amend their behaviour for the greater good of society.
> 
> Are people seriously suggesting the data & evidence should be ignored, that they should just pretend there's no problem, and let the virus spread even more rapidly?


That wake up call being to compel teens to travel to and attend school/college and the twenty somethings to go to work, college or university.


----------



## Raheem (Sep 9, 2020)

Those bloody young people. They were told very clearly not to socialise under any circumstances unless it was for a half-price McDonalds, to go back to the office or to enjoy a staycation.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 9, 2020)

I blame the parents.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

I used to blame the parents but now that I'm over 60 I blame the grandparents.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 9, 2020)

It's clearly an expert and clinical review of the available evidence that has seen the government come up with the phrase 'don't kill grandma.'


----------



## brogdale (Sep 9, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I used to blame the parents but now that I'm over 60 I blame the grandparents.


Remember when it was the old fuckers gathering in those carehomes that were to blame?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

Yep, government soon sorted them twats out


----------



## clicker (Sep 9, 2020)

What are the age group, of most of the staff, serving pints and pasta to the mon-weds bods? I'd hazard a guess they're within the age group currently being blamed. They've been told to go back to work and education and to use public transport. How dare they get ill.


----------



## Raheem (Sep 9, 2020)

How long before they change it to "Don't kill Grandma, within reason"?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

or "Don't kill Grandma, if there's _anybody _watching"


----------



## agricola (Sep 9, 2020)

COVID-free passports is perhaps the stupidest thing I've heard this year.


----------



## pesh (Sep 9, 2020)

agricola said:


> COVID-free passports is perhaps the stupidest thing I've heard this year.


Any word on what colour they would be?


----------



## prunus (Sep 9, 2020)

pesh said:


> Any word on what colour they would be?



The colour of failure.


----------



## pesh (Sep 9, 2020)

Very very very dark blue?


----------



## maomao (Sep 9, 2020)

two sheds said:


> or "Don't kill Grandma, if there's _anybody _watching"



Don't kill grandma unless you can't do your job from home.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 9, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> Well exactly. I dropped ftw off at nursery this morning and wore a mask today. So I couldn't kiss my child goodbye but everyone at drop off is cross contaminated anyway as they mingle once inside (within bubbles but drop off is timed with the bubble). It just seems stupid.


I heard one of them on the radio a couple of weeks ago warning parents not to hang around at the school gates socialising. It felt like they were literally lining that up as an excuse to be used if infection rates went up around the kids going back to school.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

I'm a fan of using mass testing to unlock new options, but there is something a bit silly about dressing it up as Operation Moonshot when the trial/timing hopes Johnson raised were actually more like Operation Save Panto Season.


----------



## Petcha (Sep 9, 2020)

Why are religious meetings exempt from this? 

And I know it's un PC but allegedly a lot of this new outbreak is amongst the Muslim population up north. Should Friday prayers go ahead?

I'm not, anti-Islamic. I'm an Atheist yes. But why the fuck should hundreds of people be allowed to gather for hours to pray (indoors) to some non-existent being? Why is that allowed but not outdoor raves?


----------



## clicker (Sep 9, 2020)

agricola said:


> COVID-free passports is perhaps the stupidest thing I've heard this year.


Bet they top it before the year ends.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Sep 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Why are religious meetings exempt from this?
> 
> And I know it's un PC but allegedly a lot of this new outbreak is amongst the Muslim population up north. Should Friday prayers go ahead?
> 
> I'm not, anti-Islamic. I'm an Atheist yes. But why the fuck should hundreds of people be allowed to gather for hours to pray (indoors) to some non-existent being? Why is that allowed but not outdoor raves?



You've gotta hedge your bets when it comes to god 🙂


----------



## Raheem (Sep 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> Don't kill grandma unless you can't do your job from home.


"Grandma doesn't want to be a burden and the new James Bond is supposed to be really good."


----------



## andysays (Sep 9, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Why are religious meetings exempt from this?
> 
> And I know it's un PC but *allegedly a lot of this new outbreak is amongst the Muslim population up north*. Should Friday prayers go ahead?
> 
> I'm not, anti-Islamic. I'm an Atheist yes. But why the fuck should hundreds of people be allowed to gather for hours to pray (indoors) to some non-existent being? Why is that allowed but not outdoor raves?


I think we'd need a little bit more than that


----------



## brogdale (Sep 9, 2020)

agricola said:


> COVID-free passports is perhaps the stupidest thing I've heard this year.


Maybe you've already forgotten Hancock's _protective ring around our care homes ?_


----------



## agricola (Sep 9, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Maybe you've already forgotten Hancock's _protective ring around our care homes ?_



I included that, and the bleach / UV light double-header.


----------



## zahir (Sep 9, 2020)

Dominic Harrison, Blackburn’s director of public health, on the problems with test and trace.


> National testing capacity is not keeping pace with the need for testing. In Blackburn with Darwen, even at the height of local intervention measures in late August 2020, on-line testing booking was periodically taken off line to ‘throttle demand’ at times where the labs processing capacity was overwhelmed. This makes locally sustaining adequate population testing levels very difficult.











						We must rapidly improve Test and Trace
					

The Municipal Journal (the MJ) is the online management journal for local authority business




					www.themj.co.uk
				





			Dominic Harrison (@BWDDPH) on Twitter


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 9, 2020)

No individual needed to book a holiday in a other country 
I'll admit the messaging has been shocking but people have enough information about why not


----------



## zahir (Sep 9, 2020)

Endemic Covid - read the thread.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 9, 2020)

agricola said:


> I included that, and the bleach / UV light double-header.


Good that we can   ...but the news is unremittingly grim atm, innit.

Omniclusterfuckastropheshambles


----------



## Espresso (Sep 9, 2020)

clicker said:


> Bet they top it before the year ends.



I'd be highly surprised if they didn't top it before this week ends.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 9, 2020)

agricola said:


> COVID-free passports is perhaps the stupidest thing I've heard this year.



Another opportunity for Boris to _speak French_, though (the same phrase, repeatedly).


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

By the way the posts I make which involve lots of quotes and graphs are a bit out of place when these main threads are busy with discussion. So I created a nerdy thread for the more in-depth stuff that features too many quotes or graphs to be reasonable to put here. Sometimes this might be older material, sometimes it might be more relevant to the emerging current situation, eg my second post in the thread deals with the slides from todays press conference. Which is the only reason I'm briefly advertising the thread here, since some of what I've said in that post I would previously of been going on about here instead. The nerdy amounts of pandemic detail thread

Others are of course welcome to contribute.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 9, 2020)

Anyway. Cases rising in young people, _who have not been widely tested before_.
Higher figures for the naughty 17-21's, who've been visiting pubs and eating out and working, as they were told to do, but no probs whatsoever (well ok, maybe a bit) with ages below that, who've just returned to school.
Shall we see what happens next (assuming there's enough tests)?
Maybe it'd be helpful to have more age related stats for _testing_ figures, covering a wider period (or any at all, for England, atm).


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Maybe it'd be helpful to have more age related stats for _testing_ figures, covering a wider period (or any at all, for England, atm).



I think they exist in some form, I will see what I can dig up but it might take some days.

As for the lack of recent info about number of tests on the official dashboard recently, I checked the notes and for England & Wales it says 'Data are updated weekly on a Thursday.'

There was certainly some age-related stuff in the slides that were used today and that I went into a bit on the nerdy thread, but they stop at the same early September moment that the number of people tested currently does.

The weekly surveillance report and associated data is another source for age-related stuff and I will dig into the next one of those when it comes out on Friday. Often the graphs in the report are too small to see the detail of this phase properly, bit I think the raw weekly numbers are in a separate data download. National COVID-19 surveillance reports


----------



## ViolentPanda (Sep 9, 2020)

Sue said:


> And what about all the people who've recently been unfurloughed? Now that employers are going to have to chip in, guess loads of people are going to lose their jobs.



...and loads of people are being inveighed into shit, poorly-paid "gig economy" jobs to make ends meet. I have a couple of dozen homes in my community that have lost all non-benefit income.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> I think they exist in some form, I will see what I can dig up but it might take some days.
> 
> As for the lack of recent info about number of tests on the official dashboard recently, I checked the notes and for England & Wales it says 'Data are updated weekly on a Thursday.'
> 
> ...



The testing figures, on the gov dashboard, have only fairly recently stopped being updated daily (last 2-4 weeks, maybe? I'm guessing - time has been a bit blurred!)

Something else I've noticed (this week) is that while/when there have been blips, in getting it to load _any_ results, there are two age related bits (in 'cases', I imagine - I can't remember  ) that appear while it's attempting to load, then disappear once it has. 
That makes me sound massively paranoid, I'm sure  but it's true!


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

Well I wasnt happy when lots of Scottish data became weekly only or no longer reported at all.

And governments generally do tend to have a habit of no longer providing the right data in such a timely manner if something happens that tells the public something that the authorities arent ready to acknowledge and discuss yet. Not always, but there are still times in the modern era and this pandemic where data goes missing for a while at key moments. Happened a few times with particular forms of hospital data in this pandemic. And there will always be excuses available, some of which are genuine. Less likely to happen with headline numbers that media report daily as a matter of routine.

I cant help with when any changes to number of tests data happened as I only started paying attention to that data very recently, having ingored most data relating to tests earlier in the pandemic since it was such an incomplete picture then. Well I know that the 'About' section for that data on the dashboard was last changed on Thursday 3rd September but I dont know what wording they actually changed then, it could have been the weekly thing but it could have been something else.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 9, 2020)

Scotland's contact tracing app is live.





__





						Test & Protect | Protect Scotland
					

Help Scotland stay safe when we meet up, socialise, work or travel.




					protect.scot


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 9, 2020)

agricola said:


> COVID-free passports is perhaps the stupidest thing I've heard this year.


To be fair, you'd not heard this yet at that point.









						Boris Johnson pinning hopes on £100bn 'moonshot' to avoid second lockdown
					

PM believes huge rapid testing programme is ‘only hope’ before a vaccine, leaked document says




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

Almost as much as goes to the NHS in a year,  doubtless to Cummings' and Gove's private sector mates.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 9, 2020)

I have to say I have never been clear on the six-person thing? I mean I'm not a stupid person and I've read a lot about coronavirus, but I have never seen anything being explicit if this means 'Your household plus 6 people' or 'No more than 6 people to gather'. I assume it is the former - so 6 single people from different households can meet up, but not grandparents, their kid, their kid's partner and 3 grandkids -  because things are sufficiently stupid.

I also continue to assert that it needs to be spelt out what is meant by a 'household' as I wouldn't be surprised if a fair amount of people genuinely think it means 'close family', ie, them and their kids and their grandparents and their siblings and their siblings' kids, for example.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 9, 2020)

One hundred _billion_?


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 9, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> To be fair, you'd not heard this yet at that point.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




To confirm the FridgeMagnet's point, in the Government document quoted within that article, you find this :




			
				Guardian said:
			
		

> *“The prime minister has tasked the secretary of state for health and social care with delivering a Mass Population Testing Programme, currently called Operation Moonshot, before the end of the year*.
> 
> “This is described by the prime minister as our only hope for avoiding a second national lockdown before a vaccine, something the country cannot afford. He would also like this to support the opening up of the economy and allow the population to return to something closer to normality.”



For *Reasons to be Fearful, Parts 1, 2 and 3*  check the Matt Hancock is a twat thread and multiple other sources


----------



## agricola (Sep 9, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Almost as much as goes to the NHS in a year,  doubtless to Cummings' and Gove's private sector mates.



... and when far less money would do a far better job, and probably employ far more people.


----------



## agricola (Sep 9, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> To be fair, you'd not heard this yet at that point.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## MrSki (Sep 9, 2020)

They are just fleecing as much cash & stashing offshore before they get busted. I hope the whole lot of them get banged up. They are all in it together, (Cabinet responsibility) and should all do a long spell in side. It is so fucking crooked & they are taking the piss & rubbing our noses in it. Never been a fan of capital punishment but if you could put the death toll at over a thousand then I would be happy for the fucking lot of them to have large rockets shoved up their arses & put on bonfires on November 5th. I may be a bit pissed but I am also fucking angry.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

Starmer would give them a mass pardon if he ever got in


----------



## agricola (Sep 9, 2020)

MrSki said:


> They are just fleecing as much cash & stashing offshore before they get busted. I hope the whole lot of them get banged up. They are all in it together, (Cabinet responsibility) and should all do a long spell in side. It is so fucking crooked & they are taking the piss & rubbing our noses in it. Never been a fan of capital punishment but if you could put the death toll at over a thousand then *I would be happy for the fucking lot of them to have large rockets shoved up their arses & put on bonfires on November 5th*. I may be a bit pissed but I am also fucking angry.



I think that is covered by the "Citizen journey design and delivery" section


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 9, 2020)

What's this moon shot gimmick?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 9, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> What's this moon shot gimmick?


Testing for all, any time, anyone, whenever, using yet to be invented technology and levels of competence hitherto not yet seen even in Boris' latest sprog


----------



## 8115 (Sep 9, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Testing for all, any time, anyone, whenever, using yet to be invented technology and levels of competence hitherto not yet seen even in Boris' latest sprog


Testing every morning.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Testing for all, any time, anyone, whenever, using yet to be invented technology and levels of competence hitherto not yet seen even in Boris' latest sprog



apart from people without symptoms who are just wasting tests the twats


----------



## prunus (Sep 9, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> What's this moon shot gimmick?



In technical medical terms it’s bollocks.


----------



## Yossarian (Sep 9, 2020)

Bit fucking stupid for these clowns to call it a "moonshot" - instead of implying a massive, ambitious project like the Apollo missions, it just conjures up images of the fiery disaster that would occur if they attempted to organise a space mission.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 9, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> Bit fucking stupid for these clowns to call it a "moonshot" - instead of implying a massive, ambitious project like the Apollo missions, it just conjures up images of the fiery disaster that would occur if they attempted to organise a space mission.


Who will get the contracts for Moonshot? Will it be anyone with any medical experience? Or a pest control company?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

We don't know yet because it'll go out to competitive .....

... ah as you were, a mate of Gove and Cummings.


----------



## 8115 (Sep 9, 2020)

two sheds said:


> We don't know yet because it'll go out to competitive .....
> 
> ... ah as you were, a mate of Gove and Cummings.


A lot of stuff didn't even go out to tender during the height of Coronavirus. I don't know if this has stopped now.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

Not according to the Good Law Project.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 9, 2020)

Anything rather than sacrifice consumerist capitalism.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 9, 2020)

Again I'll mention batch testing. 









						COVID-19 Pool Testing: Is It Time to Jump In? | ASM.org
					

Pool testing has a long history in surveillance and screening strategies dating to the 1940s. With SARS-CoV-2 testing capacity reaching its limits, pool testing may offer an option to save human and product resources.




					asm.org
				




They did it in wuhan. Seems a better and cheaper bet than non existent tech.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Again I'll mention batch testing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Be sensible, that's not going to funnel nearly enough money into privatized pockets now is it?


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> What's this moon shot gimmick?



Its a mutant propaganda version of some stuff that would actually be a great if it was available at the right time on the right scale with the right degree of accuracy, used in the appropriate ways and not stretched into areas it cannot really safely cover.

If we had a test that was accurate with a quick turnaround time and available on a massive scale then they could do things like give care staff, residents and visitors the amount of routine, regular testing that would be quite a large piece of the infection control puzzle. And the same with hospital staff and patients. And other priority settings. And then if that was all running well with spare capacity you could use it to unlock some options in other realms.

But these potentially desirable options have been clear since near the start. Once the penny dropped with them that all the limitations of our small scale testing based surveillance/survey approach to disease detection and epidemic tracking were going to be very obvious in this pandemic, they were going to end up talking up the alternatives, rather loudly to 'compensate' for the lack of ability to actually deliver these new ways.

Unfortunately since that penny dropped there was always going to be a long period of time featuring unpleasant pandemic events where we could not just magically offer up a system on this scale, or anything close. And they decided to fill much of that time by talking up some of these things, partly to look like they had a plan and partly to offer some false-timescale hope for people to cling to during the vaccine-less void stage of hopelessness in this pandemic.

In the past they spent a nasty part of the first wave talking up the possibilities that mass antibody testing might offer, and then went cold on that idea and stopped going on about it at all. This included stuff like immunity passports that they were happy to let the press go on about despite the obvious flaws with that plan. Sometimes they went so far as to make it sound like anyone would seen be getting a test routinely from various retailers, and yet the hyped up ambitious version of that soon vanished from the picture they were painting in press conferences etc.

I want other forms of quick, reliable testing to be rollled out. It was one of the things I was hoping would be more ready, at least for the hospital, carehome etc scenarios, before the dangerous autumn/winter period got going. And there have been various trials of saliva-based tests, including one I got to participate in that doesnt even seem to get mentioned on the news when they are writing stories about some of the other saliva trials. So I have a big interest in some aspects of what has been incorporated into this Moonshot thing. But now I'll continually have to do work to extract the reasonable, necessary and possible stuff on this front from the version of it the Tories are cooking up.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 9, 2020)

And of course this which quimcunx just posted, test streets/households to reduce the number of tests you need.



quimcunx said:


> Again I'll mention batch testing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2020)

If we end up with national curfews in the next phase, as I just mentioned in the London unlockening thread, will they just add to the hands, face, space message so that it becomes hands, face, time and space?

edit, for the benefit of those who dont want to scrabble around looking for what Im going on about:



> But other measures are waiting in the wings too.
> 
> At the bottom of the government's guidance issued today, there is a rather bland, technical sounding paragraph:
> 
> ...











						Ministers change heart over Covid restrictions
					

After weeks trying to roll back measures, the 'rule of six' marks quite the change in tone.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 10, 2020)

I lack time just now, but after skimming that BBC article I still really fail to understand this 'rule of six' business???


----------



## maomao (Sep 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I lack time just now, but after skimming that BBC article I still really fail to understand this 'rule of six' business???


You live in Wales so don't have to worry.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 10, 2020)

How does one become a Covid Marshal, and do I get a horse?


----------



## Spandex (Sep 10, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> What's this moon shot gimmick?


It's a 'Boris Island' solution: a staggeringly expensive, jaw droppingly ambitious project that's probably never going to happen that Johnson can talk about enthusiastically so that he can avoid addressing the real issues.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Sep 10, 2020)

Badgers said:


> How does one become a Covid Marshal



But young Badgers, you’re not a twat with an SIA licence! Covid Marshals, what could possibly go wrong?!


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> You live in Wales so don't have to worry.



I'm still interested though, given that I'm likely to be in England gain for a visit, before long


----------



## andysays (Sep 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm still interested though, given that I'm likely to be in England gain for a visit, before long


it's simple. 

no more than 6 people are allowed to be together in a group, except in all the exempt cases when they are


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 10, 2020)

Cheers. It was mostly the use of the actual phrase 'rule of six' that bamboozled me initially


----------



## MrSki (Sep 10, 2020)

Spandex said:


> It's a 'Boris Island' solution: a staggeringly expensive, jaw droppingly ambitious project that's probably never going to happen that Johnson can talk about enthusiastically so that he can avoid addressing the real issues.


Talking of a 100 billion on the radio.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 10, 2020)

andysays said:


> it's simple.
> 
> no more than 6 people are allowed to be together in a group, except in all the exempt cases when they are


I find this infuriating. Why can't they just say no more than 6 people to gather at any one time and make it a simple clear mesage?


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 10, 2020)

have you ever seen a Tory give a simple clear answer, got to give themselve some wiggle room to deflect the blame..

it you plebs fault for not following our advice


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 10, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> have you ever seen a Tory give a simple clear answer, got to give themselve some wiggle room to deflect the blame..
> 
> it you plebs fault for not following our advice


Quite.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I find this infuriating. Why can't they just say no more than 6 people to gather at any one time and make it a simple clear mesage?



That's the message I've seen? Genuinely confused as to why you're finding the messaging confusing?


----------



## MrSki (Sep 10, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I find this infuriating. Why can't they just say no more than 6 people to gather at any one time and make it a simple clear mesage?


Well previously it was no more than 30 but the 1922 committee had 50+ in a room that stated no more than 29 outside. So if you want to flout the rules then just join the tories.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

Operation Moonshot...?! I thought the 'moonshot' thing was a throwaway quip at first, but no. Who the fuck came up with that as a good name? Is it to match Operation Warp Speed in the US? And £100bn, where the fuck is that coming from, not to mention that's it's all based on tech that isn't proven and widely available.

I think there's actually a high level of panic about this among those in power, primarily about the economy, but not solely.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

Badgers said:


> How does one become a Covid Marshal, and do I get a horse?



A horse, six shooter, large shiny badge, and the ability to make dramatic entrances into bars. Where do we all join?


----------



## Plumdaff (Sep 10, 2020)

100 fucking billion. You could, of course, spend a fraction of that on a decent, lengthy, furlough for anyone who needs it, generous support for anyone who needs to isolate, ramped up lab capacity and masses of test and tracers even going door to door in areas that need it. 

But no we need some egotistical Beano project because it's fucking Boris. What a tragic farce.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 10, 2020)

Shoot for the moon lads  









						Covid-19: Government plans to spend £100bn on expanding testing to 10 million a day
					

The UK government has drawn up plans to carry out up to 10 million covid-19 tests a day by early next year as part of a huge £100bn (€110bn; $130bn) expansion of its national testing programme, documents seen by The BMJ show.  The internal correspondence reveals that the government is prepared...




					www.bmj.com


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Shoot for the moon lads
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Punches not being pulled in that article..



> Commenting on the leaked plans, Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said they bore the hallmark of a government “whose ambition far exceeds its ability to deliver.”
> 
> He said, “This plan transmits unbounded optimism, disregarding the enormous problems with the existing testing and tracing programmes. Worse, it envisages a major role for Deloitte, a company that has presided over many of these problems.


----------



## Sue (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's the message I've seen? Genuinely confused as to why you're finding the messaging confusing?


I'm confused whether pubs/restaurants/cinemas/gyms etc are going to be open. My initial assumption was that this meant they wouldn't be but seems they will be.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> I'm confused whether pubs/restaurants/cinemas/gyms etc are going to be open. My initial assumption was that this meant they wouldn't be but seems they will be.



My understanding is they will, but you can't meet in groups of more than six.  Because, of course, there's no way for the virus to move from group to group...


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> I'm confused whether pubs/restaurants/cinemas/gyms etc are going to be open. My initial assumption was that this meant they wouldn't be but seems they will be.



Yeah, they're all still open unless subject to local restrictions. Can still do things like go out (for the moment...) just not in groups of more than 6. So you can have multiple groups in 6 in venues, but the thing that's supposed to make the safer is social distancing (and other mitigation measures) between them, and now the T&T contact details actually being taken, which in my experience hasn't really been happening in most places.

6 people as it's a family of 4 plus grandparents, or a small group of friends, or a parent and 2 kids meeting up with the same, etc. so a reasonable number, and one that's easier to police and do social distancing within the group.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

Make the most of it for the next few weeks, I'll bet that it won't last long before we get stricter measures.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Operation Moonshot...?! I thought the 'moonshot' thing was a throwaway quip at first, but no. Who the fuck cam up with that as a good name?



Someone that has been drinking too much moonshine.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Someone that has been drinking too much moonshine.



I think one of those slightly deranged late night meetings where you lose perspective must have come up with it. Bet they thought it sounded ambitious and inspiring, whereas it sounds desperate and doomed to failure to me.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

It's going to be a long and hard winter....


----------



## brogdale (Sep 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> I'm confused whether pubs/restaurants/cinemas/gyms etc are going to be open. My initial assumption was that this meant they wouldn't be but seems they will be.


The simple rule is to ask yourself if the activity/premises involved = means of production capable of wealth accumulation; if yes, then yes, more than 6 is fine. If no, then no; Marshalls to clear the area.


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 10, 2020)

agricola said:


>


This is one of the funniest things i've seen all morning.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 10, 2020)

Isn't most infrastructure supposed to be enabling


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 10, 2020)

I would not trust whoever came up with all of that twaddle to make me a cheese sandwich


----------



## Supine (Sep 10, 2020)

Didn't it take NASA eleven attempts to get to the moon?


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 10, 2020)

Supine said:


> Didn't it take NASA eleven attempts to get to the moon?


And about 10 years


----------



## two sheds (Sep 10, 2020)

With the first ten leaving wreckage all over the place?


----------



## retribution (Sep 10, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> This is one of the funniest things i've seen all morning.




It sets us all up for an excellent mockumentary, in which a group of civil service misfits battle their management consultant colleagues. A design team stuck forever in the divergent thinking of "discovery" comes up with increasingly zany ideas of how to deliver millions of tests a day. Meanwhile, frequent visits from The Boss - Alan Partridge meets Paddington Bear meets Work Experience Kid - are met with false reports of progress.
The Boss keenly takes up Yoga "so he can be more agile", and adopts the phrase "validated learning and blueprinting" when speaking to journalists. Always together. Not because he knows what it means, but because it sounds fancy, and because the public love education.


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 10, 2020)

two sheds said:


> With the first ten leaving wreckage all over the place?



even Boris cannot have that many more kids surely


----------



## Cloo (Sep 10, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I find this infuriating. Why can't they just say no more than 6 people to gather at any one time and make it a simple clear mesage?


Or even better, make it 8 seeing as families and households, which often consist of 4 will all break this rule anyway so they can meet up with one another.     And our neighbours with 4 kids will have to break if they want to see anyone as a whole group.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 10, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> This is one of the funniest things i've seen all morning.



We probably paid some consultant five million quid for that venn diagram though.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 10, 2020)

I completely understand the "rule of 6", which means every time I socialise with 5 friends, one of them has to be Kevin Bacon.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Or even better, make it 8 seeing as families and households, which often consist of 4 will all break this rule anyway so they can meet up with one another.     And our neighbours with 4 kids will have to break if they want to see anyone as a whole group.


Yes why not 8? I just wish they would make these statements without a load of exceptions attached because that's what makes it confusing.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 10, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Shoot for the moon lads


Operation Moneyshot - Johnson spaffing up a wall yet again.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Or even better, make it 8 seeing as families and households, which often consist of 4 will all break this rule anyway so they can meet up with one another.     And our neighbours with 4 kids will have to break if they want to see anyone as a whole group.


Or maybe just make it 10 or 200, so that even larger groups can meet without breaking the rules. It's almost as if it's designed to stop loads of people from different households meeting up. Ridiculous.


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> We probably paid some consultant five million quid for that venn diagram though.


That's it really, all those silly labels are offices full of old etonians getting big salaries for something that part time minimum wage employers are going to have to do (test and trace, lab work and telecoms). Giving a contract out for something that hasn't been invented yet just means that there will be no refunds. 

I wonder how the tendering process is going to work.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 10, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Or maybe just make it 10 or 200, so that even larger groups can meet without breaking the rules. It's almost as if it's designed to stop loads of people from different households meeting up. Ridiculous.


I get that, but if it would make more sense to make it a less 'awkward' number then people would stick to it more and be less likely to go 'Oh fuck it, we're breaking it anyway, lets; have 16 people over'


----------



## Looby (Sep 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I get that, but if it would make more sense to make it a less 'awkward' number then people would stick to it more and be less likely to go 'Oh fuck it, we're breaking it anyway, lets; have 16 people over'


But whatever number they chose, there will be people that doesn’t work for and I guess the smaller the number the better. Not defending the shit show btw but I can see why 6.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 10, 2020)

It's also a number people should already be familiar with. It's 6 people to a restaurant table isn't it? and there was a 6 people meeting up outside restriction at some point iirc.


----------



## andysays (Sep 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I get that, but if it would make more sense to make it a less 'awkward' number then people would stick to it more and be less likely to go 'Oh fuck it, we're breaking it anyway, lets; have 16 people over'


If there was any clearly stated reason why 6 was medically more justified than 8, for example, then I'd argue that it was important to follow the rules to the letter, and ignore what might be 'convenient' - we should all be prepared to experience a certain amount of individual inconvenience to get us through this together.

But given that the figure of 6 appears to have been plucked from the ether, and that there are so many anomalies and (economic driven) exceptions anyway, many people will probably conclude it doesn't matter than much.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 10, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> That's it really, all those silly labels are offices full of old etonians getting big salaries for something that part time minimum wage employers are going to have to do (test and trace, lab work and telecoms). Giving a contract out for something that hasn't been invented yet just means that there will be no refunds.
> 
> I wonder how the tendering process is going to work.


What tendering process?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 10, 2020)

andysays said:


> If there was any clearly stated reason why 6 was medically more justified than 8, for example, then I'd argue that it was important to follow the rules to the letter, and ignore what might be 'convenient' - we should all be prepared to experience a certain amount of individual inconvenience to get us through this together.
> 
> But given that the figure of 6 appears to have been plucked from the ether, and that there are so many anomalies and (economic driven) exceptions anyway, many people will probably conclude it doesn't matter than much.


Well of course it would be nice if they were to show us their workings, but picking a particular number might not be quite so arbitrary. I can see a way of working it out in light of the evidence of 'superspreader events' - ie you estimate the frequency of these and the numbers of people that are being infected at them, and if you can limit most of them to, say, four or five infections rather than nine or ten, then you might be able to put a massive dent in the overall 'R number'. That there are anomalies and economically driven exceptions doesn't necessarily matter in this regard - it doesn't have to be 100% in eliminating the bigger events in order to be effective. 

I don't know if they have done those kinds of numbers, but they might have done. Good example of how the lack of transparency, and the general holding of people in contempt, is damaging.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

andysays said:


> If there was any clearly stated reason why 6 was medically more justified than 8, for example, then I'd argue that it was important to follow the rules to the letter, and ignore what might be 'convenient' - we should all be prepared to experience a certain amount of individual inconvenience to get us through this together.
> 
> But given that the figure of 6 appears to have been plucked from the ether, and that there are so many anomalies and (economic driven) exceptions anyway, many people will probably conclude it doesn't matter than much.



Six is an infectious risk and social psychology (or whatever the term would) justifiable number from what I have heard. I agree they should publish the justification, but it is important to follow these rules, even if you personally don't understand them.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

And people really need to stop doing this looking for anomalies and 'what ifs'. Whatever the rules are for 60 million people socialising there's going to be some area of confusion and difficulties, and just looking for them increases the problems with confusion and then people bending the rules. The media are terrible for this, looking for some 'human angle' where someone can moan about not meeting up with granny with their six children or something ffs.


----------



## maomao (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And people really need to stop doing this looking for anomalies and 'what ifs'. Whatever the rules are for 60 million people socialising there's going to be some area of confusion and difficulties, and just looking for them increases the problems with confusion and then people bending the rules. The media are terrible for this, looking for some 'human angle' where someone can moan about not meeting up with granny with their six children or something ffs.


Rules aren't neutral and they're not just following science. They've prioritised business over family and people are entitled to have an opinion that.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 10, 2020)

From a behavioural pov people are more likely to do something if they understand the reasons for doing it.  Or alternatively less likely to do something if they dont understand why they need to.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And people really need to stop doing this looking for anomalies and 'what ifs'. Whatever the rules are for 60 million people socialising there's going to be some area of confusion and difficulties, and just looking for them increases the problems with confusion and then people bending the rules. The media are terrible for this, looking for some 'human angle' where someone can moan about not meeting up with granny with their six children or something ffs.


It's been like this from the start. Whatever rules are announced, there's always people going "but what about my special set of circumstances?". Which is why I think a much clearer e.g. "only 6 people at any one time" without any exceptions would make it easier for everyone. 6 people. No more. No messing about.


----------



## maomao (Sep 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> From a behavioural pov people are more likely to do something if they understand the reasons for doing it.  Or alternatively less likely to do something if they dont understand why they need to.


And even less if they're told things without explanation by proven liars and incompetents.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> Rules aren't neutral and they're not just following science. They've prioritised business over family and people are entitled to have an opinion that.



I agree they're prioritizing the economy, but people saying 6 is an 'awkward number' and why couldn't it be 8 or 16 is ridiculous. If it was 8 or 16 it feels like they'd be moaning it wasn't 10 or 18.

Given how the next six or so months are looking like going the least of our worries is this number 6 tbh.


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 10, 2020)

People are unable or reluctant or just beligerant about following rules on a floating scale from compliant to not. London in the blitz required wardens to ensure the simple task of covering lights was held. Ultimately we are all going to position ourselves somewhere on that scale according to how we feel at the time.

Heavy handed policing of this should have been carried out at the first opportunity to reinforce how important it was/is. D cummings trip to the castle should of been the event to do this, insted it was the "suit yourself" moment when it was shown it's every person for themselves.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 10, 2020)

I've just been in the north of Scotland for a week or so. It's very noticeable how differently people are behaving in certain contexts, compared to London or at least the part where I live. Up there absolutely everyone in the supermarket was wearing a mask, largely following the one way system and edging around each other slightly nervously in the aisles. In south london you are lucky if half the people have a mask on and there's pretty minimal performance of distancing. There are lots of potential reasons for this difference but it was pretty stark to see it. 

Track and trace taking of details seemed to be being taken rather more seriously too.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 10, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Track and trace taking of details seemed to be being taken rather more seriously too.



That's because it was mandatory in Scotland, but for some reason not in England.   

Although that is changing from next Friday, 18th. 









						Venues required by law to record contact details
					

Premises and venues across England must have a system in place to record contact details of their customers, visitors and staff in the latest move to break the chains of transmission of coronavirus.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Raheem (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I agree they're prioritizing the economy, but people saying 6 is an 'awkward number' and why couldn't it be 8 or 16 is ridiculous. If it was 8 or 16 it feels like they'd be moaning it wasn't 10 or 18.
> 
> Given how the next six or so months are looking like going the least of our worries is this number 6 tbh.


Maybe the rule should be "not too many".


----------



## PursuedByBears (Sep 10, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've just been in the north of Scotland for a week or so. It's very noticeable how differently people are behaving in certain contexts, compared to London or at least the part where I live. Up there absolutely everyone in the supermarket was wearing a mask, largely following the one way system and edging around each other slightly nervously in the aisles. In south london you are lucky if half the people have a mask on and there's pretty minimal performance of distancing. There are lots of potential reasons for this difference but it was pretty stark to see it.
> 
> Track and trace taking of details seemed to be being taken rather more seriously too.


Here in Morecambe Bay area everyone is wearing a mask in supermarkets too.  What are the potential reasons for Londoners not doing so?


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's because it was mandatory in Scotland, but for some reason not in England.
> 
> Although that is changing from next Friday, 18th.
> 
> ...


At last. It was madness to make it voluntary. Either you want to track every person in contact with a carrier or you don't. If you don't then you are likely to get uncontrolled community transmission.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Maybe the rule should be "not too many".



_"Not one more than you'd like."_


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I agree they're prioritizing the economy, but people saying 6 is an 'awkward number' and why couldn't it be 8 or 16 is ridiculous. If it was 8 or 16 it feels like they'd be moaning it wasn't 10 or 18.
> 
> Given how the next six or so months are looking like going the least of our worries is this number 6 tbh.



This is true.  Perhaps the other thing some people are missing is that they're not expecting 100% compliance with this, as with other Covid measures.  It's like the rules on face masks.  In an ideal world everyone would have to wear a medical-grade mask in any public space, but that's just not going to happen and trying to make it so would probably be counterproductive, and since any face covering is a lot better than none the rules are framed so as to allow people to cover up with pretty much what they like.*   Similarly, they're well aware that groups of more than six are going to continue meeting, but probably a lot less and not so much in public places, which will help to drive down transmission.  There's a sensible degree of flexibility built into quite a few of the restrictions IMO.

*That's not to say the rules on masks are being enforced adequately: they just aren't.  Shops and public transport providers, especially, should be much more aggressive about refusing service to people who won't mask up.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> This is true.  Perhaps the other thing some people are missing is that they're not expecting 100% compliance with this, as with other Covid measures.  It's like the rules on face masks.  In an ideal world everyone would have to wear a medical-grade mask in any public space, but that's just not going to happen and trying to make it so would probably be counterproductive, and since any face covering is a lot better than none the rules are framed so as to allow people to cover up with pretty much what they like.*   Similarly, they're well aware that groups of more than six are going to continue meeting, but probably a lot less and not so much in public places, which will help to drive down transmission.  There's a sensible degree of flexibility built into quite a few of the restrictions IMO.
> 
> *That's not to say the rules on masks are being enforced adequately: they just aren't.  Shops and public transport providers, especially, should be much more aggressive about refusing service to people who won't mask up.



Yeah, iirc the original modelling used calculations that had a 60% compliance for it to work.


----------



## klang (Sep 10, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> It's also a number people should already be familiar with. It's 6 people to a restaurant table isn't it? and there was a 6 people meeting up outside restriction at some point iirc.


with the new 6 added I make it 666


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

"Operation Moonshot." I am actually asleep? Is this some fevered nightmare?


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

Covid marshals is going to send the conspiracy theorists into some kind of bonkers tailspin isn't it? How long before someone calls them the Gestapo?


----------



## zora (Sep 10, 2020)

Absolutely: At bloody last. I really don't get why facemasks in shops and contact details in pubs/restaurants weren't mandatory off the bat.
Shops reopen, but with mandatory masks. 
Pubs reopen, everyone must give contact details.
Would have seemed so much easier and clearer and I think people would have been very accepting of it. Rather than this half-arsed "it's just a recommendation, oh no, now it's maybe a legal requirement after all from in two weeks' time, but actually noone really knows..."


----------



## Cloo (Sep 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> Rules aren't neutral and they're not just following science. They've prioritised business over family and people are entitled to have an opinion that.


It would help even for them to be just the teensiest bit transparent and say 'We are trying to cut down on non-essential contact so that essential things like education and at least some economic activity can continue', because that does actually make some sense, like it or not. I know people are all 'Yeah, so we can only meet up where we spend money', but that's not a totally mercenary thing for the government to allow. Just the way it goes about everything is so sweatily dishonest and incompetent.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Covid marshals is going to send the conspiracy theorists into some kind of bonkers tailspin isn't it? How long before someone calls them the Gestapo?


* prepares for another round of having to explain to people on social media whiy Nazi comparisons are really distasteful and unpleasant *


----------



## Yossarian (Sep 10, 2020)

2hats said:


> Operation Moneyshot - Johnson spaffing up a wall yet again.



Operation Mugshot - Johnson and senior members of his administration arrested for criminal mishandling of the pandemic.

Operation Neckshot - the sentences are carried out.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 10, 2020)

The communication on this has been catastrophic. As it has through much of the pandemic


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> * prepares for another round of having to explain to people on social media whiy Nazi comparisons are really distasteful and unpleasant *



Shit, sorry you end up doing that.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> The communication on this has been catastrophic. As it has through much of the pandemic



I just ended up cringing watching the briefing yesterday when Johnson talked. Blustering confidence, quips in French, and overlong rambling answers only take you so far.


----------



## emanymton (Sep 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> Rules aren't neutral and they're not just following science. They've prioritised business over family and people are entitled to have an opinion that.


I agree, but for every rule change there is a chorus saying it doesn't make sense or is too confusing.  When often the basic rule and message is pretty clear. Don't meet in groups of more than 6 is pretty clear. Of course there has to be exceptions real life doesn't work that neatly and of course the dividing line can seem arbitrary, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. And usually they is a pretty logical  reason behind most of the rules if you give it some thought.

I may disagree with what exceptions are given and where lines are drawn but the rules normally are fairly clear and do make sense from a certain perspective, even if you or I might disagree with the reasoning and conclusion behind it.

And surely in this case if we wanted to protect people more than the economy the number should be lower but everyone is moaning it is too low.

And how about instead of people looking to push the boundaries and find exceptions they instead apply the rule of thumb that if in doubt best assume the rule applies rather than it does not.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 10, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> I wonder how the tendering process is going to work.



Tendering process, good one.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I just ended up cringing watching the briefing yesterday when Johnson talked. Blustering confidence, quips in French, and overlong rambling answers only take you so far.



In his case bluster and bullshit have taken him all the way to No.10.


----------



## emanymton (Sep 10, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> This is true.  Perhaps the other thing some people are missing is that they're not expecting 100% compliance with this, as with other Covid measures.  It's like the rules on face masks.  In an ideal world everyone would have to wear a medical-grade mask in any public space, but that's just not going to happen and trying to make it so would probably be counterproductive, and since any face covering is a lot better than none the rules are framed so as to allow people to cover up with pretty much what they like.*   Similarly, they're well aware that groups of more than six are going to continue meeting, but probably a lot less and not so much in public places, which will help to drive down transmission.  There's a sensible degree of flexibility built into quite a few of the restrictions IMO.
> 
> *That's not to say the rules on masks are being enforced adequately: they just aren't.  Shops and public transport providers, especially, should be much more aggressive about refusing service to people who won't mask up.


And absolutely this no one can expect 100 compliance just that most people will follow the rules most of the time and that the rules changes will influence peoples own risk assessments.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 10, 2020)

PursuedByBears said:


> Here in Morecambe Bay area everyone is wearing a mask in supermarkets too.  What are the potential reasons for Londoners not doing so?


It must vary area by area in London. Everyone around me is wearing masks in shops and on public transport. The one or two who aren't are vastly outnumbered by those who are.


----------



## klang (Sep 10, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> It must vary area by area in London. Everyone around me is wearing masks in shops and on public transport. The one or two who aren't are vastly outnumbered by those who are.


round here a few people in Sainsbury's and Tescos wear masks. Nobody bothers in any of the other shops.


----------



## elbows (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I just ended up cringing watching the briefing yesterday when Johnson talked. Blustering confidence, quips in French, and overlong rambling answers only take you so far.



Did you see the bit at the very end in response to the last question, where Whitty ended up slightly pissing on Johnsons chips and Johnsons said 'thanks very much for that important dose of realism and common sense, but we remain extremely ambitious....'


----------



## Raheem (Sep 10, 2020)

littleseb said:


> round here a few people in Sainsbury's and Tescos wear masks. Nobody bothers in any of the other shops.


In the old days, it used to be that people would be more mindful of their behaviour in church.


----------



## Sue (Sep 10, 2020)

littleseb said:


> round here a few people in Sainsbury's and Tescos wear masks. Nobody bothers in any of the other shops.


This. I was going to pop into my local shop yesterday but looked in and nobody was wearing a mask. Decided to try another shop instead and it was exactly the same. 🤷‍♀️


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

littleseb said:


> round here a few people in Sainsbury's and Tescos wear masks. Nobody bothers in any of the other shops.



It's pretty good round here, at least in the places I frequent.  Most people seem to be masking up, which makes the few who don't more conspicuous.  

I actually used a bus yesterday, for the first time since March.  I was the only passenger - at least on the lower deck - for most of the way, and then some stupid woman got on with a mask round her chin and sat right behind me.  I did consider turning round and telling her to put her mask on and move to the other side of the bus, but I wasn't in the mood for a confrontation and it was nearly my stop anyway, so I contented myself with just getting off and giving her a dirty look.  IMV the bus driver should have told her to put her mask on or she'd have to walk.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> Did you see the bit at the very end in response to the last question, where Whitty ended up slightly pissing on Johnsons chips and Johnsons said 'thanks very much for that important dose of realism and common sense, but we remain extremely ambitious....'



Yeah. I can just imagine in meetings he's constantly coming up with stuff they just have to knock back with facts. He's a bit mutating into Trump before our eyes I think. He's one of those people that under pressure just keeps talking and coming up with ever more bonkers ideas rather than shutting up and listening and thinking. And who can blame him, look where it's got him so far...


----------



## 2hats (Sep 10, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've just been in the north of Scotland for a week or so. It's very noticeable how differently people are behaving in certain contexts, compared to London or at least the part where I live. Up there absolutely everyone in the supermarket was wearing a mask, largely following the one way system and edging around each other slightly nervously in the aisles.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Track and trace taking of details seemed to be being taken rather more seriously too.


Similarly in Italy. Facemasks mandatory not just indoors but outdoors in many places. Details recorded at restaurants, etc for tracing purposes. Foreheads frequently being scanned with IR thermometer guns. Quite a contrast with the charade in the UK where I find that a large local supermarket appears to have given up with any notion of social distancing.


----------



## clicker (Sep 10, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> It must vary area by area in London. Everyone around me is wearing masks in shops and on public transport. The one or two who aren't are vastly outnumbered by those who are.


Yes and imo it's those one or two who then spend the entire journey telling Alan to get dog food from aldi, at the top of their voice. I'm at the judgey stage.   .


----------



## emanymton (Sep 10, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> It's pretty good round here, at least in the places I frequent.  Most people seem to be masking up, which makes the few who don't more conspicuous.
> 
> I actually used a bus yesterday, for the first time since March.  I was the only passenger - at least on the lower deck - for most of the way, and then some stupid woman got on with a mask round her chin and sat right behind me.  I did consider turning round and telling her to put her mask on and move to the other side of the bus, but I wasn't in the mood for a confrontation and it was nearly my stop anyway, so I contented myself with just getting off and giving her a dirty look.  IMV the bus driver should have told her to put her mask on or she'd have to walk.


On some of the buses I use i have counted up to half the people with a mask covering their mouth but not their nose. For some reason that annoys me more than the people not wearing one at all.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 10, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> This is true.  Perhaps the other thing some people are missing is that they're not expecting 100% compliance with this, as with other Covid measures.  It's like the rules on face masks.  In an ideal world everyone would have to wear a medical-grade mask in any public space, but that's just not going to happen and trying to make it so would probably be counterproductive, and since any face covering is a lot better than none the rules are framed so as to allow people to cover up with pretty much what they like.*   Similarly, they're well aware that groups of more than six are going to continue meeting, but probably a lot less and not so much in public places, which will help to drive down transmission.  There's a sensible degree of flexibility built into quite a few of the restrictions IMO.
> 
> **That's not to say the rules on masks are being enforced adequately: they just aren't.  Shops and public transport providers, especially, should be much more aggressive about refusing service to people who won't mask up.*


And they should have adequate backup from "the authorities" to ensure that they are able to enforce. I can well understand the dilemma of some shop assistant faced with a refusenik non-mask-wearer - do they risk a violent confrontation, or just serve the twat and get them out of the shop?

Of course - as was the case with drink-driving - the smart move would have been to be constantly bolstering the public view that masks were an essential part of limiting infection, and support for the measures, so that social pressure became an important part of compliance. The utterly incoherent approach the government has used has pretty much ensured the opposite.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 10, 2020)

clicker said:


> Yes and imo it's those one or two who then spend the entire journey telling Alan to get dog food from aldi, at the top of their voice. I'm at the judgey stage.   .


I, too, have noticed this phenomenon.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 10, 2020)

One thing I have noticed on buses is an announcement that goes along the lines of "wearing masks on public transport is mandatory and there are police and transport officers patrolling the network to enforce this". Can't say I've seen any.


----------



## elbows (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah. I can just imagine in meetings he's constantly coming up with stuff they just have to knock back with facts. He's a bit mutating into Trump before our eyes I think. He's one of those people that under pressure just keeps talking and coming up with ever more bonkers ideas rather than shutting up and listening and thinking. And who can blame him, look where it's got him so far...



I dont think this is much of a change, he was just the same with Brexit and I assume he has form for that sort of thing during his days as mayor. Now those water cannons will never be used to water garden bridge.

He is said to be fascinated by Trump though, which probably just means being fascinated by Trumps ability to push things even further, dazzled by Trumps 'successes' in running roughshod over conventions and norms, and keen to take their own propaganda in a similar direction, albeit with dog-whistled tuned to a certain narrow UK audience.

Meanwhile:



> Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg is self-isolating while a family member awaits a coronavirus test result.
> 
> Deputy Chief Whip Stuart Andrew told the Commons: "A member of the leader of the House's household is awaiting a Covid test result after having been symptomatic. The leader is therefore self-isolating along with his family."



from 11:22 of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54098675


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 10, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> At last. It was madness to make it voluntary. Either you want to track every person in contact with a carrier or you don't. If you don't then you are likely to get uncontrolled community transmission.



I was listening to something last night that played a clip of Hancock replying to a labour back bencher that tracing targets are met 'tracing 84.3% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate where contact details were provided'  The true figure is 69% according to the bod on the podcast and actually they only manage to contact 80% of the positive cases so they're reaching 70% of 80% of the people they need to be able to contact. And then they all need to actually self-isolate.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

existentialist said:


> And they should have adequate backup from "the authorities" to ensure that they are able to enforce. I can well understand the dilemma of some shop assistant faced with a refusenik non-mask-wearer - do they risk a violent confrontation, or just serve the twat and get them out of the shop?



Yes, it's not a position to put small shops in.  The larger ones with security staff should be setting an example.  So far as I can see it'd give the security guard at my local Sainsbury's something to do.


----------



## Looby (Sep 10, 2020)

I got on a bus a couple of weeks ago and completely forgot to put my mask on. I was flustered as I had my puppy with me but had my mask in my pocket ready. I wouldn’t have minded a gentle reminder at all and there were no signs on the bus at all. Probably one on the door that I didn’t notice as I was sorting him out and paying.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

Meanwhile, the Daily Star has done a politics again:


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont think this is much of a change, he was just the same with Brexit and I assume he has form for that sort of thing during his days as mayor. Now those water cannons will never be used to water garden bridge.
> 
> He is said to be fascinated by Trump though, which probably just means being fascinated by Trumps ability to push things even further, dazzled by Trumps 'successes' in running roughshod over conventions and norms, and keen to take their own propaganda in a similar direction, albeit with dog-whistled tuned to a certain narrow UK audience.
> 
> ...



Months ago when Johnson was ill with the virus I was one of the bleeding heart softies not overjoyed about it, thinking about the possible impact on the country if he died and how he might have infected other people, etc. Now I just want them all to get it, be intubated by a half blind and drunk anaesthetist, and then slowly fade away.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Sep 10, 2020)

Stickers on the back of bus seats just now:


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Months ago when Johnson was ill with the virus I was one of the bleeding heart softies not overjoyed about it, thinking about the possible impact on the country if he died and how he might have infected other people, etc. Now I just want them all to get it, be intubated by a half blind and drunk anaesthetist, and then slowly fade away.



Personally I hope there was an asymptomatic case with a very high viral load at that 1922 Committee meeting last week.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 10, 2020)

> We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.



Dead Kennedys


----------



## elbows (Sep 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I was listening to something last night that played a clip of Hancock replying to a labour back bencher that tracing targets are met 'tracing 84.3% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate where contact details were provided'  The true figure is 69% according to the bod on the podcast and actually they only manage to contact 80% of the positive cases so they're reaching 70% of 80% of the people they need to be able to contact. And then they all need to actually self-isolate.



I like the comparison between contacts reached via the centralised system and those reached locally, this quote from the BBC live updates page:





__





						Loading…
					





					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> For cases handled by local health protection teams, 96.6% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate in the week to 2 September. For cases handled online or in call centres, the figure was 61.3%.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> I like the comparison between contacts reached via the centralised system and those reached locally, this quote from the BBC live updates page:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


When the government outsourced test and trace to a bunch of numpty friends of theirs whose only interest is free money from the government, it was another sign that they literally do not care whether you live or die or get health problems that compromise your quality of life for years. I wonder when people will get the message.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 10, 2020)

Sturgeon has just announced new rules in Scotland, a maximum of 6 can meet from 2 households only, children under 12 don't count towards that number.

Rules to apply to inside & outside settings.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 10, 2020)

PursuedByBears said:


> Here in Morecambe Bay area everyone is wearing a mask in supermarkets too.  What are the potential reasons for Londoners not doing so?


Looking at it the other way round - why did people in rural scotland seem to be behaving differently in the supermarket (it wasn't just mask wearing - there seemed to be a visible nervousness about coming anywhere near others, with quite a few people)?

In London we had a large number of cases (and deaths) early on. I think there's been a bit of a perception that it's "already happened". Also, for a lot of people they will have seen reports of a serious outbreak in London yet not seen anyone close to them affected. The population of London is relatively young. And, in a densely populated area, as soon as you step out your front door, there are other people around. Being around strangers is normal, and being around strangers who might for all you know be infected, becomes normalised.

In contrast in a rural area, lots of people will live in relatively isolated houses with gardens. Easy to do stuff and go outside without having to come anywhere near anyone else. They'll drive to the supermarket in their own car. The population is older. It might be that the supermarket is one of the few places it's necessary to come close to anyone you don't know. Being around unknown humans in a pandemic situation doesn't have the same opportunity to feel "normal".

Finally, in some parts of the UK (including the north of scotland) there just hasn't really been an outbreak of any significance (save for a few care homes). I think if you live in one of those places, it's easy for it to become something a bit frightening that's happening in other places. That's not that it's not frightening somewhere like London - it's more that you know it's going on but you also see that various aspects of life just carry on as normal(ish). And in addition, in places that haven't had an outbreak but in the past few weeks have suddenly started seeing tourists appearing again - which definitely makes people anxious.

Those are my explanations for why people may seem more nervous in some places. As for why a significant number of people in London decide not to bother with masks at all... I guess there are a whole load of things contributing to that, some of which are a bit uncomfortable to discuss.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Shit, sorry you end up doing that.


See I don't think people doing that are antisemities or anything, and it kind of bothers me when people barrel in with that argument - it's almost always sheer thoughtlessness about the fact that these comments will be seen by people from families affected by actual, real Nazis


----------



## Cloo (Sep 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sturgeon has just announced new rules in Scotland, a maximum of 6 can meet from 2 households only, children under 12 don't count towards that number.
> 
> Rules to apply to inside & outside settings.


Now that makes some more actual sense and is pretty clear.


----------



## maomao (Sep 10, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Looking at it the other way round - why did people in rural scotland seem to be behaving differently in the supermarket (it wasn't just mask wearing - there seemed to be a visible nervousness about coming anywhere near others, with quite a few people)?
> 
> In London we had a large number of cases (and deaths) early on. I think there's been a bit of a perception that it's "already happened". Also, for a lot of people they will have seen reports of a serious outbreak in London yet not seen anyone close to them affected. The population of London is relatively young. And, in a densely populated area, as soon as you step out your front door, there are other people around. Being around strangers is normal, and being around strangers who might for all you know be infected, becomes normalised.
> 
> ...


Hmmm. I live in a part of London where mask wearing and following the rules has been pretty good (though we have an older than average population too) and relatives in Edinburgh report high levels of observance so it's not just rural Scotland.

My mother fell over in the street (in Edinburgh, and she's fine) the other day and shouted at a young woman who tried to help her to stay away which struck me as a bit over the top when she told me.


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Now that makes some more actual sense and is pretty clear.



Yeah, the under 12s not counting is a good approach.


----------



## magneze (Sep 10, 2020)

PursuedByBears said:


> Here in Morecambe Bay area everyone is wearing a mask in supermarkets too.  What are the potential reasons for Londoners not doing so?


Most people are around here but there always seems to be one without every time I go to the shop.


----------



## magneze (Sep 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sturgeon has just announced new rules in Scotland, a maximum of 6 can meet from 2 households only, children under 12 don't count towards that number.
> 
> Rules to apply to inside & outside settings.


What about workplaces?


----------



## LDC (Sep 10, 2020)

magneze said:


> What about workplaces?



Imagine same as England, those rules don't apply in workplaces, just the 'Covid safe' guidelines.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 10, 2020)

fwiw, the mask refuseniks I've encountered have all been over 50s


----------



## weepiper (Sep 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Imagine same as England, those rules don't apply in workplaces, just the 'Covid safe' guidelines.


Except that we've also now made masks mandatory for hospitality staff and also for customers unless they're eating or drinking.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 10, 2020)

magneze said:


> Most people are around here but there always seems to be one without every time I go to the shop.


They're pretty good round here in N London but still too many people not covering their sodding noses!!! 

In terms of keeping social distance,  not great,  but honestly not many people are going to be able to manage that in an enclosed space.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 10, 2020)

Surely this can't be right. Does Serco figures include all testing?


----------



## Numbers (Sep 10, 2020)

It’s appalling where I am in East London.  Was in Morrison’s the other day and at least 50% of people weren’t wearing a mask and some of those who were weren’t doing so correctly, and as for the local shops, maybe 1 or 2 in 10 people wear one and hardly any of the workers.


----------



## prunus (Sep 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> It would help even for them to be just the teensiest bit transparent and say 'We are trying to cut down on non-essential contact so that essential things like education and at least some economic activity can continue', because that does actually make some sense, like it or not. I know people are all 'Yeah, so we can only meet up where we spend money', but that's not a totally mercenary thing for the government to allow. Just the way it goes about everything is so sweatily dishonest and incompetent.



Exactly this. It absolutely infuriates me that although what they’re doing does in fact make sense they manage through utter utter incompetence to present it in a way that makes it seem like it doesn’t in fact make any sense!  It’s fucking ridiculous.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 10, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Surely this can't be right. Does Serco figures include all testing?



I doubt it, IIRC NHS, PHE (and similiar in the other 3 nations) & the army are all carrying out tests, and I think other private operators could also be involved.


----------



## magneze (Sep 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> They're pretty good round here in N London but still too many people not covering their sodding noses!!!
> 
> In terms of keeping social distance,  not great,  but honestly not many people are going to be able to manage that in an enclosed space.


Yeah, shops are too small in general to make that possible IMHO.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 10, 2020)

London has a lot of young people away from home and only mixing with their own age. If you go around the estates the same age group are wearing masks presumably as grandad is just round the corner.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> It would help even for them to be just the teensiest bit transparent and say 'We are trying to cut down on non-essential contact so that essential things like education and at least some economic activity can continue', because that does actually make some sense, like it or not. I know people are all 'Yeah, so we can only meet up where we spend money', but that's not a totally mercenary thing for the government to allow. Just the way it goes about everything is so sweatily dishonest and incompetent.





prunus said:


> Exactly this. It absolutely infuriates me that although what they’re doing does in fact make sense they manage through utter utter incompetence to present it in a way that makes it seem like it doesn’t in fact make any sense!  It’s fucking ridiculous.


Yes, yes, yes. Whether I agree or disagree with the finer points/priorities, what's just as infuriating is their complete inability to articulate things and just communicate their ideas to the general population.

Have been thinking about it in relation to management at work too, but the art of clear communication should be far higher up the managerial skillset than it currently is.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 10, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've just been in the north of Scotland for a week or so. It's very noticeable how differently people are behaving in certain contexts, compared to London or at least the part where I live. Up there absolutely everyone in the supermarket was wearing a mask, largely following the one way system and edging around each other slightly nervously in the aisles. In south london you are lucky if half the people have a mask on and there's pretty minimal performance of distancing. There are lots of potential reasons for this difference but it was pretty stark to see it.
> 
> Track and trace taking of details seemed to be being taken rather more seriously too.


England is being governed by a regime determinedly engendering a blame culture which undermines notions of self-responsibility; maybe Scotland not so much?


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 10, 2020)

Serco are far from renowned for their honesty.


----------



## xenon (Sep 10, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I find this infuriating. Why can't they just say no more than 6 people to gather at any one time and make it a simple clear mesage?



Because you'd have to close the whole economy down. Pubs, cafes, sports clubs, work places, transport.

(just catching up with thread.)


----------



## xenon (Sep 10, 2020)

What's this Covid Marshall thing? 

<googles>


----------



## existentialist (Sep 10, 2020)

xenon said:


> What's this Covid Marshall thing?
> 
> <googles>


It's like Typhoid Mary, only with a Special Hat.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 10, 2020)

IC3D said:


> London has a lot of young people away from home and only mixing with their own age. If you go around the estates the same age group are wearing masks presumably as grandad is just round the corner.


Can't say that matches my observations.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 10, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Surely this can't be right. Does Serco figures include all testing?




No it doesn't - there's the various pillars aren't there of which this is just one component. It might well still be shit, I don't know, but the tweet there doesn't really tell you anything - it's certainly not the killer point the tweeter seems to think.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 10, 2020)

Presumably there'll be a rigorous ("world beating"?) vetting process for aspirant Covid Marshalls, otherwise how will they ensure that the 'service' is institutionally racist from the get go?


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 10, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Presumably there'll be a rigorous ("world beating"?) vetting process for aspirant Covid Marshalls, otherwise how will they ensure that the 'service' is institutionally racist from the get go?


That does sound like something Serco could easily manage.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 10, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> That does sound like something Serco could easily manage.


tbh it's going to be quite a self-selecting cohort of types eager to wear a uniform and command their fellow citizens; cunt magnet if ever there were one.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 10, 2020)

Raheem said:


> In the old days, it used to be that people would be more mindful of their behaviour in church.


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 10, 2020)

brogdale said:


> tbh it's going to be quite a self-selecting cohort of types eager to wear a uniform and command their fellow citizens; cunt magnet if ever there were one.


You could be right, it may depend in the uniform, perhaps something Boss c1939?


----------



## miss direct (Sep 10, 2020)

I've seen a few people today wearing the sunflower lanyards (which means they're exempt from wearing a mask) - seems like a good idea. 

Still have no idea why shop staff don't have to wear masks -guy on the door at Wilkos constantly shouting across the shop.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 10, 2020)

Neighbour has just got a British Lung Foundation exemption badge (she only sent off for it yesterday). It has her name and why she's exempt, she filled the details in on line. Also a good idea.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 10, 2020)

And then there's the special badge for the majority of those not bothering with a face covering...


----------



## Cloo (Sep 10, 2020)

So we had our first choir rehearsal in a while on Tuesday, with social distancing,  and I figured this rule change is an end to that,  but chairperson has just emailed to say that organised events with rules may be exempt,  which would actually make some sense.  While there's no way to enforce social distancing in homes,  within certain contexts it's easier to meet in a controlled way - in our case, windows & doors open, chairs 2m apart, face masks when we weren't singing.  And people stuck to it, as some members are vulnerable. Similar I imagine for places of worship. 

I am expecting we won't see a return to a nationwide 'no house visitors at all' again, although probably on a short-term local level if transmission very high.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 10, 2020)

2,919 new cases.

The testing figures for England (and Wales), due today, still haven't been updated


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

brogdale said:


> tbh it's going to be quite a self-selecting cohort of types eager to wear a uniform and command their fellow citizens; cunt magnet if ever there were one.


----------



## Raheem (Sep 10, 2020)

Roadkill said:


>


The W's not for "warden".


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

Raheem said:


> The W's not for "warden".


----------



## BlanketAddict (Sep 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


>




HAHAHAHHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! 

'Worship is the work of God'!


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 10, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> One thing I have noticed on buses is an announcement that goes along the lines of "wearing masks on public transport is mandatory and there are police and transport officers patrolling the network to enforce this". Can't say I've seen any.


I've seen them at East Croydon on the trams.   Ofc some travellers just wait,  pull up their mask when inspectors get in and take it off later when inspectors leave


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 10, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I've seen them at East Croydon on the trams.   Ofc some travellers just wait,  pull up their mask when inspectors get in and take it off later when inspectors leave



I assume that's why so many people have chin masks on.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


>




Tbf the average C of E church is so draughty the congregation might as well be standing outside.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 10, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Tbf the average C of E church is so draughty the congregation might as well be standing outside.


Never mind God's work, I imagine places of worship are settings where they are pretty good at sticking to distancing as you can have set place where people can sit and stay there. Plus I guess your average C of E church has a congregation of about 12, so distancing can't be that hard.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Never mind God's work, I imagine places of worship are settings where they are pretty good at sticking to distancing as you can have set place where people can sit and stay there. Plus I guess your average C of E church has a congregation of about 12, so distancing can't be that hard.


Hmmm. Last bit, sure thing. But they're coming together to have social contact _and to sing together_, in an enclosed space, and to give themselves up to a higher feeling of some kind. There are plenty of examples of outbreaks traced to churches in the US, which admittedly are generally pretty full. Also the average demographic, however sparse it may be, is prime covid-reaper age. 

That archbishop twat comes pretty close to the idea that somehow god will protect people in churches. Not so different from the evangelical idiots in the US. Whatever a church congregation is, it is very certainly a social gathering, one of a highly intimate kind. Hence the word 'communion'. It's mad of him to suggest otherwise.


----------



## Cid (Sep 10, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Hmmm. Last bit, sure thing. But they're coming together to have social contact _and to sing together_, in an enclosed space, and to give themselves up to a higher feeling of some kind. There are plenty of examples of outbreaks traced to churches in the US, which admittedly are generally pretty full. Also the average demographic, however sparse it may be, is prime covid-reaper age.
> 
> That archbishop twat comes pretty close to the idea that somehow god will protect people in churches. Not so different from the evangelical idiots in the US. Whatever a church congregation is, it is very certainly a social gathering, one of a highly intimate kind. Hence the word 'communion'. It's mad of him to suggest otherwise.



I dunno, I think a few warbled hymns are probably far lower risk than the impassioned singing of Shincheonji or those US mega-churches.

e2a: as roadkill pointed out slightly differently.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 10, 2020)

Quaker meetings should be fine then


----------



## clicker (Sep 10, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


>



Ffs can't they work for him from home and do everyone a good turn?
What part of  'this is an air borne respiratory virus, that just loves indoor spaces,' is he not getting?


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Sep 11, 2020)

.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 11, 2020)

Not good. All credit to  her daily briefings.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 11, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Not good. All credit to  her daily briefings.


It's fucking scandalous. It wasn't just the Tories, apparently Jackie Baillie who is a Labour MSP also made representations to the BBC about it. The opposition hate it that Nicola Sturgeon in their eyes 'gets a free platform'. But this is a fucking pandemic, the numbers are going up again, and how do the elderly, who are most at risk from the virus, get their up to date information now?  or the deaf? (the daily briefings have a live sign interpreter). The BBC, refusing to show critical public health information.


----------



## LDC (Sep 11, 2020)

Tory MP on Radio 4 this morning complaining about the new restrictions and saying we need to live like 'free people' and that there's growing anger on the back benches about the rules. He seemed to be ignoring the facts of the pandemic, but that didn't stop him having a good chunk of time mouthing off about things.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 11, 2020)

If you not familiar with _Goveller's travels _by Govern Ready Michael, today might be a good day to take up the story...our 'hero' makes it onto the good ship RMS Brexcusitania, that was returning from a team-building expedition in Belarus....


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 11, 2020)

clicker said:


> Ffs can't they work for him from home and do everyone a good turn?
> What part of  'this is an air borne respiratory virus, that just loves indoor spaces,' is he not getting?


What I find most objectionable about it is the sense of superiority. I'm sure many religious people get massive support from their church as a social network that is important to their wellbeing. I know they do. But that doesn't mean their social networks are more important than those of non-religious people. 

Ultimately he's playing a power card here.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 11, 2020)

weepiper said:


> It's fucking scandalous. It wasn't just the Tories, apparently Jackie Baillie who is a Labour MSP also made representations to the BBC about it. The opposition hate it that Nicola Sturgeon in their eyes 'gets a free platform'. But this is a fucking pandemic, the numbers are going up again, and how do the elderly, who are most at risk from the virus, get their up to date information now?  or the deaf? (the daily briefings have a live sign interpreter). The BBC, refusing to show critical public health information.











						54,400 people signed and won this petition
					

Reverse the BBC's decision to stop broadcasting the Scottish Government's daily briefing




					www.change.org


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 11, 2020)

I don't think singing is allowed yet in churches.  Or at least it wasn't at the funeral I was at yesterday and I have to say the absence of hymn singing made for a better experience all round.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 11, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> But young Badgers, you’re not a twat with an SIA licence! Covid Marshals, what could possibly go wrong?!


They will model on the enforcement officers employed by Kingdom Security.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 11, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I don't think singing is allowed yet in churches.  Or at least it wasn't at the funeral I was at yesterday and I have to say the absence of hymn singing made for a better experience all round.


At my Mum's funerall - early June - it was allowed - though without hymn books/sheets. Admittedly that was in the crematorium chapel, but the virus was just as likely to circulate via singing.  ((((consistency)))


----------



## MickiQ (Sep 11, 2020)

weepiper said:


> It's fucking scandalous. It wasn't just the Tories, apparently Jackie Baillie who is a Labour MSP also made representations to the BBC about it. The opposition hate it that Nicola Sturgeon in their eyes 'gets a free platform'. But this is a fucking pandemic, the numbers are going up again, and how do the elderly, who are most at risk from the virus, get their up to date information now?  or the deaf? (the daily briefings have a live sign interpreter). The BBC, refusing to show critical public health information.


Doesn't help that Sturgeon consistently comes across as the most competent of the lot. Mrs Q is a big fan of Sturgeon and reckons she should be PM instead of BoZo. She was greatly disappointed that the SNP did not run a candidate  in our constituency last Dec. (We live in the East Midlands)


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 11, 2020)

TopCat said:


> They will model on the enforcement officers employed by Kingdom Security.



Are those ones _especially_ notorious then?


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 11, 2020)

I'm not a Nicola Sturgeon fan particularly, mostly because (not her fault) IMO it's *far* from healthy for a leader/ruling party to have such a weak and useless opposition in Scotland (both Tories and Labour)

But even this non-fan of hers honestly thinks she's doing pretty well in Scotland. 
It'll always help I suppose, that she'll get compared with Johnson all the time -- quite rightly, and much to her credit.

Drakeford here in Wales is (IMO) just doing boringly OK_-ish_, and _fairly_ competently on _some_ things** ... faint praise seems appropriate damnation here! 
But Johnson's utter shite-ness is helping him too, at least for comparison purposes.

**Not schools, I've heard!


----------



## TopCat (Sep 11, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Are those ones _especially_ notorious then?


Yeah. Utter cunts. Wannabe screws.


----------



## editor (Sep 11, 2020)

Wales updates its rules



> People in Wales must wear face masks in shops and other indoor public spaces from Monday, the first minister has announced.
> 
> Mark Drakeford said the change came as 20 people in every 100,000 in Wales now had coronavirus.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: Face masks in shops to be mandatory in Wales
					

People are warned they face "more draconian measures" if they do not follow the new rules.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Seems they've handled it better than England so far (faint praise, I know)









						Covid-19 in the UK
					

Explore the data on coronavirus in the UK.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 11, 2020)

This will come as no surprise to anyone.  



> The critical coronavirus R number is now above one in every UK nation, according to a new study which suggests the virus is out of control across the country.
> 
> The reproduction number is 1.3 in England, 1.2 in Scotland and Wales, and 1.1 in Northern Ireland based on data from a government-funded app in which users self-report Covid-19 symptoms.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus R rate 'above 1 in all of UK' as infections 'jump by 10,000 in week'
					

The Covid-19 reproduction number, or R number, is 1.3 in England, 1.2 in Scotland and Wales, and 1.1 in Northern Ireland - with Belfast topping a watchlist - based on data from the government-funded Covid Symptom Study app




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Sep 11, 2020)

Even the ONS survey, which is limited by the sample size, has managed to detect the rise.









						Coronavirus: UK epidemic growing as R number goes above 1
					

There are now worrying signs of infections in older as well as younger people, officials say.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




As has the Zoe COVID thing:



> We are now seeing a significant increase in cases in the UK with over 3,000 daily new symptomatic cases, and an estimated R value of 1.2. We are now confident that this rise is statistically significant and that we are definitely experiencing a rise in COVID cases in the UK right now.












						COVID on the rise in the UK
					

In the last few days we have seen a worrying trend with the number of COVID cases across the UK starting to rise, and we wanted to share this data with you at the same time that we share it with the government




					covid.joinzoe.com
				




edit - oops I was a little slow there and some of this overlaps with what cupid stunt just posted.

Also note that although I am using the nerdy thread for graphs and stuff, thats when I have excessive amounts of info to post, I will still stick graphs like the above one in this main thread if thats ok.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 11, 2020)

Looking at the dates on the ZOE app, it's when/after Scotland's schools opened but before England's.  Don't know when they open in Wales or NI.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 11, 2020)

That Zoe thing now reckons there are more than twice as many active cases (per head) in the Highlands than in Lambeth.

London and the south of England seem to be doing best now.


----------



## 20Bees (Sep 11, 2020)

Rule of six doesn’t apply to children under 12 in Scotland, but under 11 in Wales, and applies to children of any age in England. Could they not even manage some consistency? My 3 year old grandson is back at nursery as his mama’s office reopens this month, I look after him at my home one day a week. He mixes all day with children of commuters. I work on a supermarket checkout. Hard to guess which of us is the bigger risk to the other.


----------



## sojourner (Sep 11, 2020)

I wondered why I wasn't seeing Nicola Sturgeon's briefings! Fucking hell. Have signed that petition.



brogdale said:


> tbh it's going to be quite a self-selecting cohort of types eager to wear a uniform and command their fellow citizens; cunt magnet if ever there were one.



Yup. Failed traffic wardens and those cunty CPSO types.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 11, 2020)

The most recent round of the Imperial REACT 1 programme (currently the largest home study - just under 153k participants) suggests 130 per 100,000 infected across England around the start of this month with an R estimated to be ~1.7 (a corresponding doubling time of ~1 week). Over 70% of the subjects were asymptomatic at the time of testing (positive) and viral loads were higher than on previous rounds (cycle thresholds lower). Highest prevalence was seen in 18-24 year olds.








						Largest COVID-19 testing study shows cases are rising across England | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

Latest findings from the biggest programme of home coronavirus testing in England have revealed that cases are growing in the community.




					www.imperial.ac.uk
				




Preprint here.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 11, 2020)

sojourner said:


> I wondered why I wasn't seeing Nicola Sturgeon's briefings! Fucking hell. Have signed that petition.



It was on both BBC News & Sky News today, at around noon.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 11, 2020)

Estimates of the reproduction number of COVID-19 and projections of cases by Local Authority in Great Britain based on testing data and mortality data. Note that lockdown measures are coasted by the model (ie static going forward) and it can be skewed by testing as it does not yet account for increases in case numbers due to increase in testing in a given area.









						COVID-19 UK
					






					imperialcollegelondon.github.io


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 11, 2020)

2hats said:


> Estimates of the reproduction number of COVID-19 and projections of cases by Local Authority in Great Britain based on testing data and mortality data. Note that lockdown measures are coasted by the model (ie static going forward) and it can be skewed by testing as it does not yet account for increases in case numbers due to increase in testing in a given area.
> View attachment 229937
> 
> 
> ...



Was about to say that's bull as has Angus as 0% chance of being a hotspot, but then I remembered the superspreader event in Coupar Angus is confusingly in neighbouring Perth and Kinross.


----------



## LDC (Sep 11, 2020)

Fuck's sake. And now we have schools, universities, and more people going back to work to add to this....


----------



## BCBlues (Sep 11, 2020)

Live updates - Birmingham, Solihull and Sandwell in lockdown- with ban on home visitors Live updates - Birmingham goes into lockdown- with ban on home visitors

As I see it, I cannot go to see my relatives at their home but I can meet them in a pub 
I'll probably do neither for a while there are too many at risk people in our family myself included, but the mixed messaging just goes on and on.


----------



## Supine (Sep 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fuck's sake. And now we have schools, universities, and more people going back to work to add to this....



Don't forget the lack of tests to hide the true numbers. World class...


----------



## LDC (Sep 11, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> As I see it, I cannot go to see my relatives at their home but I can meet them in a pub



Yes, that's right. I know people really struggle to understand why this is the case as it doesn't seem to make 'common sense', but people should have got their heads round the reasons why there are rules like this by now.

There's a difference between 'mixed messaging' and it being something you don't understand.


----------



## BCBlues (Sep 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes, that's right. I know people really struggle to understand why this is the case as it doesn't seem to make 'common sense', but people should have got their heads round the reasons why there are rules like this by now.
> 
> There's a difference between 'mixed messaging' and it being something you don't understand.



In an ideal world maybe but a lot of people are still getting genuinely confused and angry at the contradictions which will lead to all sorts of breaches and defiance.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> As I see it, I cannot go to see my relatives at their home but I can meet them in a pub





LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes, that's right. I know people really struggle to understand why this is the case as it doesn't seem to make 'common sense', but people should have got their heads round the reasons why there are rules like this by now.




Meet granny in the pub, to mingle with all the other groups of 6, cos £££, basically.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 11, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> Live updates - Birmingham, Solihull and Sandwell in lockdown- with ban on home visitors Live updates - Birmingham goes into lockdown- with ban on home visitors
> 
> As I see it, I cannot go to see my relatives at their home but I can meet them in a pub



Not sure that's right, it says "the lockdown measures will mean households in Sandwell, Birmingham and Solihull will not be able to mix from September 15", which to me implies no mixing anywhere.


----------



## xenon (Sep 11, 2020)

It does make sense though. They're trying to allow as much of the economy to function whilst placing restrictions on the areas the data indicates most cases are occurring. i.e in the household. Hopefully the restrictions on no household visits, should only be in place for a few weeks.


On the general restrictions of 6, was listening to the radio earlier. Getting a bit fed up with the whiners on there, saying why can't all 8 of us meet up, blah blah, my children, grand kids etc. FUcksake, just meet in shifts. Thought the older generations were supposed to be the stiff upper lip lot. And other idiots just trying to think of loop holes to get round this.


----------



## xenon (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Meet granny in the pub, to mingle with all the other groups of 6, cos £££, basically.



What's the alternative though? Close all the pubs, let people meet in groups of how ever many they want to in doors? The virus still spreads and all those businesses just scraping buy get to go bust.

Yes, you could say, more furlough etc but that's not gonna happen, at least not ATM.

Again, I'm not defending this government but let's not pretend there are easy answers to a lot of this. Track and trace all, that absolutely needs to be funded, run military style no argument. What happened to seweage tests as well.


----------



## ash (Sep 11, 2020)

xenon said:


> It does make sense though. They're trying to allow as much of the economy to function whilst placing restrictions on the areas the data indicates most cases are occurring. i.e in the household. Hopefully the restrictions on no household visits, should hopefully only be in place for a few weeks.
> 
> 
> On the general restrictions of 6, was listening to the radio earlier. Getting a bit fed up with the whiners on there, saying why can't all 8 of us meet up, blah blah, my children, grand kids etc. FUcksake, just meet in shifts. Thought the older generations were supposed to be the stiff upper lip lot. And other idiots just trying to think of loop holes to get round this.


 LBC ??


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 11, 2020)

I've just had an invitation to participate in a Covid infection survey, either weekly tests for a month or monthly tests for a year.  Given that I'm going back to the office full-time from next week, and in an environment where outbreaks are pretty likely, I'm minded to sign up.  Besides, at a general level surveillance testing like this has to be part of the solution to containing the virus.

My only slight reservation is that IQVIA are running the tests on the ground, and I know little about them beyond what a brief Google has thrown up.   If they're some fly-by-night firm that's been handed a fat contract under the 'emergency' regulations then I'm not interested.  Anyone know anything about them?

They're even offering payment to take part in this, although in the form of 'vouchers.'  I'd like to know a bit more about what these can be used for, since if they're tied to shitty firms like Amazon then they're no use to me.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not sure that's right, it says "the lockdown measures will mean households in Sandwell, Birmingham and Solihull will not be able to mix from September 15", which to me implies no mixing anywhere.



The headline is... 
*Birmingham, Solihull and Sandwell in lockdown with ban on home visitors*


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 11, 2020)

xenon said:


> What's the alternative though? CLose all the pubs, let people meet in groups of how ever many they want to in doors? The virus still spreads and all those businesses just scraping buy get to go bust.
> 
> Yes, you could say, more furlow etc but that's not gonna happen, at least not ATM.
> 
> Again, I'm not defending this government but let's not pretend there ar easy answers to a lot of this. Track and trace all, that absolutely needs to be funded, run military style no argument. What happened to seweage tests as well.


The Welsh solution? Indoors, it's six. Outdoors it's more because outdoors is safer. Surely half of the point of this kind of thing is to encourage safer options.


----------



## xenon (Sep 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The Welsh solution? Indoors, it's six. Outdoors it's more because outdoors is safer. Surely half of the point of this kind of thing is to encourage safer options.




The differences between the nations is ridiculous. Wales only just making mask wearing on public transport mandatory. The under 12s not counting. What does an outdoor meeting of 30 even mean. Who's that benefit. Groups of thirty who decide to meat down the park? How often is that a thing. 
In the garden all coming in to use the loo? 


Looks a bit petty political point scoring. Our rules are less strict than yours.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 11, 2020)

xenon said:


> The differences between the nations is ridiculous. Wales only just making mask wearing on public transport mandatory. The under 12s not counting. What does an outdoor meeting of 30 even mean. Who's that benefit. Groups of thirty who decide to meat down the park? How often is that a thing.
> In the garden all coming in to use the loo?
> 
> 
> Looks a bit petty political point scoring. Our rules are less strict than yours.


I've seen a few groups of perhaps 15 - 20 people sat around in large circles in the parks. They're obviously trying to be reasonable and responsible, holding birthday parties and the like, improvised wedding receptions or similar even by the looks of a couple of them.


----------



## LDC (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Meet granny in the pub, to mingle with all the other groups of 6, cos £££, basically.



No, it's not the only reason at all.

Among other reasons social distancing is very hard to do in private residences, cleaning of surfaces is done less, ventilation is often worse, etc., and many studies show that in some areas is that households are the main factor in infection rate going up. Hence households being first to be restricted. Pubs etc. might well come soon as well.


----------



## LDC (Sep 11, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> In an ideal world maybe but a lot of people are still getting genuinely confused and angry at the contradictions which will lead to all sorts of breaches and defiance.



So the simplest message is stay at home, don't meet anyone outside your house anywhere. But that's not realistic is it?

So anything else is going to be a balance of various factors, and yes, possibly 'confusing and contradictory' if you look for that.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

xenon said:


> Again, I'm not defending this government but let's not pretend there are easy answers to a lot of this. Track and trace all, that absolutely needs to be funded, run military style no argument. What happened to seweage tests as well.



There aren't easy answers - I was just expanding on one obvious 'reason' though - and how/why that could put some people at _further_ risk.
But yes, testing - fucking testing - it's been months now. There is absolutely _no excuse_ for what's happening there - it should have been the single most important thing to focus on and funnily enough it's not been because.... they've been too busy hurling ££££'s into shit contracts for their fucking inept mates, instead of where it needed to go.


----------



## LDC (Sep 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The Welsh solution? Indoors, it's six. Outdoors it's more because outdoors is safer. Surely half of the point of this kind of thing is to encourage safer options.



One of the big criticisms people have made (very regularly on here as well) was that rules were confusing, that's a big reason why they've kept it as 6 across the board in England.


----------



## BCBlues (Sep 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not sure that's right, it says "the lockdown measures will mean households in Sandwell, Birmingham and Solihull will not be able to mix from September 15", which to me implies no mixing anywhere.



From BrumLive;

....there are a host of questions and talking points but the key one is this - households in Birmingham, Solihull and Sandwell cannot meet with any other household in a home or garden - regardless of location.

The restriction will come into force on Tuesday, September 15 and is over and above national rules limiting meet-ups to six people.

Residents were urged to “act responsibly” this weekend ahead of the restriction coming in and it will be reviewed every Friday.

Groups of six WILL still be able to meet in pubs and restaurants because analysis suggests the spike in Midland cases is being driven by gatherings in homes, Birmingham City Council leader Coun Ian Ward told reporters....

It states that the new restrictions are over and above the 6 people rule, but, six people can still meet in a pub or restaurant but cannot be from other family households. So you can meet 5 randoms who you know nothing about but not family members who you know are observing all precautions.  

How on earth does that make sense, how is it to be policed ?Wheres the proof that its households mingling that are causing the problems when most spikes I am aware of are around here are in workplaces, schools and the hostel in Edgbaston where Serco failed to control a spread which led to over 60 positive cases.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> One of the big criticisms people have made (very regularly on here as well) was that rules were confusing, that's a big reason why they've kept it as 6 across the board in England.


What's confusing about the Welsh rule? Setting aside whether you think it's right, it's up to 30 in an open outdoors space like a park, six in an indoors space like a house. I don't see anything confusing about that, and it's justifiable from what we know about transmission. Six anywhere, no excuses and fucking wardens policing us in the outdoors spaces where we're actually way safer makes no sense whatever.

Plus, as I've said before, if you're planning a bigger group than six, it's far easier to hide it in a house than in a park. So you're in danger of encouraging a thing you want to avoid by banning a less bad thing. Not only does it make little sense, it risks backfiring as a tactic.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> The headline is...
> *Birmingham, Solihull and Sandwell in lockdown with ban on home visitors*



But, that's a local rag, and I think the headline is misleading.



> The West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, announced the *restrictions on household mixing* in Birmingham and neighbouring Solihull and Sandwell boroughs.
> 
> Mr Street said he had been permitted to read out a statement headed "Ban on household mixing in Birmingham, Sandwell and Solihull", with the agreement of Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who had been due to make the announcement.
> 
> The Health Secretary has said guidance that r*esidents cannot socialise outside of their households* in the city will become law.











						Birmingham put in local lockdown after coronavirus infections spike
					

Tough new Covid-19 restrictions in Birmingham and neighbouring Sandwell and Solihull will come into effect next week, and they come as new figures show the city has England's third highest rate of infection behind Bolton and Sunderland




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## BCBlues (Sep 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> So the simplest message is stay at home, don't meet anyone outside your house anywhere. But that's not realistic is it?
> 
> So anything else is going to be a balance of various factors, and yes, possibly 'confusing and contradictory' if you look for that.




I'm trying to put it nice here but there is a vast number of people who will struggle with basic instructions at the best of times for lots of reasons. Having contradictory instructions is the last thing they need. They're a separate issue to the ones who will disregard any contradictory guidance for their own selfish wants and use the vagueness as an excuse.


----------



## mx wcfc (Sep 11, 2020)

How is track and trace going to work when this is the approach adopted by big business?

(note managers self isolated, but told staff they were on holiday)  









						Kempshott Sainsbury's staff told to "keep quiet" over Covid case and threatened with "disciplinaries"
					

Sainsbury’s staff were told to keep quiet and threatened with disciplinaries if they discussed a coronavirus case, it has been claimed.




					www.basingstokegazette.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 11, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> Groups of six WILL still be able to meet in pubs and restaurants because analysis suggests the spike in Midland cases is being driven by gatherings in homes, Birmingham City Council leader Coun Ian Ward told reporters....



Great, different media is reporting slightly different versions.   

I guess we'll have wait until the full details are posted on this page:









						National lockdown: Stay at Home
					

Coronavirus cases are rising rapidly across the country. Find out what you can and cannot do.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, that's a local rag, and I think the headline is misleading.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That article mentions spreads within homes, in pubs , bars and restaurants and in workplaces - and I'm going to say that the messaging there IS confusing (I mean this is beyond the six person rule - and I DON'T get it)!
Interesting, too, that it comes from a statement, with permission from Hancock, who WAS going to make it himself - but isn't now? Why? To let other people own the fuck ups?


----------



## elbows (Sep 11, 2020)

Stuff that has been noted by people on this forum in regards hospital data of late is starting to get the occasional mention in the media.

eg:



> There are already some signs that the number of people being admitted to hospital is starting to rise.



From some BBC ananlysis on their live updates page that will probably end up in some other article I havent stumbed upon yet ( 15:04 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54114292 )


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 11, 2020)

The majority sometimes the vast majority of transmission happens in the home and always has done with this virus.  The 6 person rule seems totally designed to stop house parties and other big gatherings.  They are hoping to as much as is possible to contain the rise in cases without shutting down areas of the economy again.  This seems pretty straight forward to me.  Whether its the right approach or not time will tell.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The Health Secretary has said guidance that *residents cannot socialise outside of their households* in the city will become law.



It's that. 
What DOES that mean? 
There are genuinely lots of ways to interpret it/lots of ways people could misunderstand it - and I don't mean - when you're looking for loopholes - just that it's not _remotely_ clear.

It could be as easily read as -

Go the pub with people from your house (which I suspect is the right answer - but it's fair enough to mention that that doesn't make sense, while they do highlight the issues of spread in various other settings, too - and with this potentially being targetted towards younger people anyway - so, houseshares but varied workplaces and all grouping together in pubs etc).

You can only socialise INDOORS.

ALL STAY AT HOME.


Clarity please, Hancock, you silly cunt.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 11, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Looking at the dates on the ZOE app, it's when/after Scotland's schools opened but before England's.  Don't know when they open in Wales or NI.


Welsh schools operate broadly on the same schedule as English ones - Scotland's have historically been different.


----------



## sojourner (Sep 11, 2020)

Merseyside now an 'area of concern' - hopefully I'll get to see my daughter again before another bloody local lockdown.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 11, 2020)

sojourner said:


> I wondered why I wasn't seeing Nicola Sturgeon's briefings! Fucking hell. Have signed that petition.
> 
> 
> 
> Yup. Failed traffic wardens and those cunty CPSO types.


An essential criterion for that job should be an unwillingness to do it.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 11, 2020)

xenon said:


> The differences between the nations is ridiculous. Wales only just making mask wearing on public transport mandatory. The under 12s not counting. What does an outdoor meeting of 30 even mean. Who's that benefit. Groups of thirty who decide to meat down the park? How often is that a thing.
> In the garden all coming in to use the loo?
> 
> 
> Looks a bit petty political point scoring. Our rules are less strict than yours.


TBH, if there is any petty point scoring going on between nations, Wales' regulations were, for a good long while, a LOT stricter than England's. With the result that the local police were spending a great deal of their time during lockdown turning cars around that had driven to West Wales from England - totally within England's rules, but way outside Wales' no-further-than-5-miles-from home ones.

The masks thing has, I admit, been odd - I couldn't understand why WG didn't mandate them. 

But any game-playing around rules seems to have been being played more by Westminster than Cardiff. And that's been borne out in the numbers - Wales, even allowing for its smaller population, has managed to keep infection rates below those in England throughout the situation.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> The majority sometimes the vast majority of transmission happens in the home and always has done with this virus.  The 6 person rule seems totally designed to stop house parties and other big gatherings.  They are hoping to as much as is possible to contain the rise in cases without shutting down areas of the economy again.  This seems pretty straight forward to me.  Whether its the right approach or not time will tell.



I don't think we've had loads of experience of how it transmits in other settings yet, eh - outside of those who were working throughout lockdown - y'know, the health care workers, the bus drivers, supermarket workers?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I don't think we've had loads of experience of how it transmits in other settings yet, eh - outside of those who were working throughout lockdown - y'know, the health care workers, the bus drivers, supermarket workers?



As far as I can see it's pretty undisputed.

We had the pre-lockdown situation and there is experience from other countries.  I've seen estimates of between 60% - 70% of all transmissions take place in the home.  It just follows to reason because no one will have any real spread prevention measures in the home because its verging on impossible.    This is not to say that other places are safe just that all these house parties and get together are perfect for the virus.

ETA: Another factor in all this is the odd but understandable belief that it's strangers that have and spread the virus not friends and families.  I've see variations of this thinking a lot.  You'll likely give a stranger in a pub or shop a wide berth but not your sister or mate etc.


----------



## LDC (Sep 11, 2020)

Highest daily case number since May sometime today, 3,539.


----------



## elbows (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> The testing figures for England (and Wales), due today, still haven't been updated



They have been updated today on the dashboard.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 11, 2020)

3539 new cases


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Sep 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 3539 new cases



And that’s discounting many more folk who aren’t going to travel over 100 miles for a test.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 11, 2020)

xenon said:


> What's the alternative though? Close all the pubs, let people meet in groups of how ever many they want to in doors? The virus still spreads and all those businesses just scraping buy get to go bust.
> 
> Yes, you could say, more furlough etc but that's not gonna happen, at least not ATM.
> 
> Again, I'm not defending this government but let's not pretend there are easy answers to a lot of this. Track and trace all, that absolutely needs to be funded, run military style no argument. What happened to seweage tests as well.


I think human behaviour and choices are messy, are influenced at the level of community, online and at the national level. Those behaviours are also affected by our experiences in terms of class, ethnicity and plenty of other things. As obvious as that is, I don't think our government have a clue how to affect behaviour beyond national hectoring, some tame expert advice and an economic imperative.  Or even more so, they can't imagine a way of governing that would inset itself into people's real lives and expectations.  It's always going to be half arsed because they are not equipped to deal with rounded human beings.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 11, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I think human behaviour and choices are messy, are influenced at the level of community, online and at the national level. Those behaviours are also affected by our experiences in terms of class, ethnicity and plenty of other things. As obvious as that is, I don't think our government have a clue how to affect behaviour beyond national hectoring, some tame expert advice and an economic imperative.  Or even more so, they can't imagine a way of governing that would inset itself into people's real lives and expectations.  It's always going to be half arsed because they are not equipped to deal with rounded human beings.


Yes - hurrah for our public school system's moulding of our 'leaders'


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> As far as I can see it's pretty undisputed.
> 
> We had the pre-lockdown situation and there is experience from other countries.  I've seen estimates of between 60% - 70% of all transmissions take place in the home.  It just follows to reason because no one will have any real spread prevention measures in the home because its verging on impossible.    This is not to say that other places are safe just that all these house parties and get together are perfect for the virus.
> 
> ETA: Another factor in all this is the odd but understandable belief that it's strangers that have and spread the virus not friends and families.  I've see variations of this thinking a lot.  You'll likely give a stranger in a pub or shop a wide berth but not your sister or mate etc.



I get that (the last bit) but, re the first bit, I don't feel we have much comparable info in terms of where _our_ figures were when lockdown was eased against, for eg, schools reopening and people being 'encouraged' back to work - and the impact on public transport etc - it's all yet to be seen there. Equally, I dont take loads of comfort from 30 - 40% of transmission taking place elsewhere, either (and again, while lots of that will have been directly impacted by lockdowns, here _and_ elsewhere).
Saying that, I can grasp that where there IS difficulty in the knowledge, a balance has to be struck and gently and cautiously and carefully and cosiderately tested. For me, that is about the risk to people's health - physical and mental - above the rest.
And of course there's a lot that has been spoken about in terms of economic 'revival' too - that it doesn't make _economic_ sense to place _health_ lower down, as the priority, even if you give more of a fuck about _the economy_ (which I don't, tbf).

With some actual _governance_ - with money sent in the right directions - to the NHS, to local authorities, to schools, to properly funding payments to people who must self-isolate, who may just not be able to afford it otherwise (I mean - seriously!) etc etc - I think we _could_ get the balance right - but instead they're pissing about, chortling away, with the Brexit shit and funding their thick mates to do jobs they're completely incapable of, like the bunch of smarmy, entitled children they are.

Chucking_ £100 billion pounds_ at some outlandish, egotistical vanity project (even Whitty and Vallance seemed to be making as loud a noise as they ever make over that during the last briefing - around a technology that doesn't _exist_), over ensuring the safety of the people - that they won't be made homeless, that they won't starve, that they won't _die -_ does not give me any fucking hope that any new rules are based on much more than some wank-fantasy Boris had while he was on his millionth holiday, pretending to camp. It's ridiculous - it's obviously ridiculous! 
People are not able to be tested! _Right now!_ WTF?

But yeah - it's all the fault of young people having house parties now.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> And that’s discounting many more folk who aren’t going to travel over 100 miles for a test.



Aren't, or _can't_ (don't drive).
Apparently we're being directed to get a ferry to the Isle of Wight here!
No home tests, no walk ins, Amex closed for drive in in August.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 11, 2020)

Love you sheothebudworths xx


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I get that (the last bit) but, re the first bit, I don't feel we have much comparable info in terms of where _our_ figures were when lockdown was eased against, for eg, schools reopening and people being 'encouraged' back to work - and the impact on public transport etc - it's all yet to be seen there. Equally, I dont take loads of comfort from 30 - 40% of transmission taking place elsewhere, either (and again, while lots of that will have been directly impacted by lockdowns, here _and_ elsewhere).
> Saying that, I can grasp that where there IS difficulty in the knowledge, a balance has to be struck and gently and cautiously and carefully and cosiderately tested. For me, that is about the risk to people's health - physical and mental - above the rest.
> And of course there's a lot that has been spoken about in terms of economic 'revival' too - that it doesn't make _economic_ sense to place _health_ lower down, as the priority, even if you give more of a fuck about _the economy_ (which I don't, tbf).
> 
> ...



Everything you say is true and the government's total unwillingness to own any of the blame even when their handling of the pandemic has been catastrophic on many levels is insulting to us all.

But... that doesn't mean to say that young people are not a significant factor in the rapidly growing transmission rate.  This is not just a England thing its been noted across Europe.  I was a funeral on Thursday and was chatting to a couple of my g/f's cousins both from the same home.  One is 20 and at uni so has been at home for months now.  The other is 18 and in the army and was sent home when it all kicked off.  They were basically telling me how their house had been party central for 5 months. I don't blame them I'd be doing the same.  

There is a difference between blame and recognising a situation cannot continue.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I get that (the last bit) but, re the first bit, I don't feel we have much comparable info in terms of where _our_ figures were when lockdown was eased against, for eg, schools reopening and people being 'encouraged' back to work - and the impact on public transport etc - it's all yet to be seen there. Equally, I dont take loads of comfort from 30 - 40% of transmission taking place elsewhere, either (and again, while lots of that will have been directly impacted by lockdowns, here _and_ elsewhere).
> Saying that, I can grasp that where there IS difficulty in the knowledge, a balance has to be struck and gently and cautiously and carefully and cosiderately tested. For me, that is about the risk to people's health - physical and mental - above the rest.
> And of course there's a lot that has been spoken about in terms of economic 'revival' too - that it doesn't make _economic_ sense to place _health_ lower down, as the priority, even if you give more of a fuck about _the economy_ (which I don't, tbf).
> 
> ...


This. Very much this.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Aren't, or _can't_ (don't drive).
> Apparently we're being directed to get a ferry to the Isle of Wight here!
> No home tests, no walk ins, Amex closed for drive in in August.



The Amex site was closed, to allow football to start again, with no replacement organised.  

There's due to be a new one opening near Chichester, but that's a trek from Brighton, there's one in Haywards Heath & another at Gatwick, but they both show no appointments available.

So, fuck all for West Sussex, as well as Brighton & Hove. *ETA - And, on checking, East Sussex too. 



> A West Sussex County Council report has outlined how as the South East region has the lowest incidence of the virus it is a ‘low priority for pillar 2 testing’.
> 
> Council officers have warned that without testing of pillar 2 at full capacity they are unable to build up an accurate picture of the number of cases and may not be able to detect any concerning increase in cases at locality level.
> 
> *They have raised the issue with government but have been told this will possibly take some time to resolve (four to six weeks).*











						‘Covid testing crisis’ in West Sussex
					

A West Sussex mum-of-three has spoken about her frustration at not being able to book a Covid test for her nine-year-old son.




					www.worthingherald.co.uk


----------



## chilango (Sep 11, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> And that’s discounting many more folk who aren’t going to travel over 100 miles for a test.



How much of an impact will this be having on the figures? Anyone know?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> They have been updated today on the dashboard.



Yes, I saw - thank you for remembering! 
Looks like the 7 day average for all pillars has risen by about 15,000 over the last week (189k to 204k) but that was with a significant rise yesterday (18k).
Same goes for Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 testing - a rise yesterday - but nothing that looks like enough of an expansion of testing over the last week, given the increasing numbers (or which would explain them).

A definite rise in patients admitted to hospital (9th is the most recent date there)



DateEngland dailyNorthern Ireland dailyScotland dailyWales dailyEngland totalNorthern Ireland totalScotland totalWales total09-09-20201360N/AData not currently available for this metric.56114,5231,600N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,53208-09-2020994N/AData not currently available for this metric.65114,3871,600N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,47607-09-2020840N/AData not currently available for this metric.46114,2881,596N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,41106-09-2020853N/AData not currently available for this metric.42114,2041,596N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,36505-09-2020941N/AData not currently available for this metric.27114,1191,593N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,32304-09-2020671N/AData not currently available for this metric.69114,0251,592N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,29603-09-2020691N/AData not currently available for this metric.70113,9581,591N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,227

and current confirmed covid cases in hospital -




11-09-2020600N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.10-09-2020553N/AData not currently available for this metric.2664809-09-2020539132743708-09-2020519162673507-09-2020537152563806-09-2020464172453605-09-20204521525139







__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Aren't, or _can't_ (don't drive).
> Apparently we're being directed to get a ferry to the Isle of Wight here!
> No home tests, no walk ins, Amex closed for drive in in August.



Withdean atm - but that shuts end of Sept. After that Crawley afaik - who knows.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 11, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Withdean atm - but that shuts end of Sept. After that Crawley afaik - who knows.



Well spotted, that seems to have been announced yesterday. 



> The Amex site was always expected to shut when the football season began. The first match at the stadium was arranged before the start of the season, earlier than originally expected.
> 
> 
> Our first action was to arrange for a temporary mobile testing unit, based at Brighton Racecourse, to stay in place while we found other sites for testing facilities in the city.
> A suitable site at Withdean Sports Complex was quickly found. The council has successfully arranged for a mobile testing unit to be based at Withdean until the end of September.











						Update: Covid-19 testing in the region
					

There are national pressures impacting on the availability of Covid-19 tests around the country. This is the latest Information about how to to book a test or order a home test online.




					new.brighton-hove.gov.uk


----------



## TopCat (Sep 11, 2020)

The daily numbers are grating on my scabbed up anxieties.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 11, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> As far as I can see it's pretty undisputed.
> 
> We had the pre-lockdown situation and there is experience from other countries.  I've seen estimates of between 60% - 70% of all transmissions take place in the home.  It just follows to reason because no one will have any real spread prevention measures in the home because its verging on impossible.    This is not to say that other places are safe just that all these house parties and get together are perfect for the virus.
> 
> ETA: Another factor in all this is the odd but understandable belief that it's strangers that have and spread the virus not friends and families.  I've see variations of this thinking a lot.  You'll likely give a stranger in a pub or shop a wide berth but not your sister or mate etc.


tbh even with the limited knowledge that is being gained, I think there's also a bit of an illusion (should that be a _delusion_) of control here. Following the first wave, 'we' didn't have it under control, and it's not particularly 'us' that are losing control now. Never been in control. The things we can control, like masks or big gatherings or one-way systems in shops, we do them because it gives us the sense that we're doing something about it all. But are we making more than a marginal difference with any of it?


----------



## Supine (Sep 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh even with the limited knowledge that is being gained, I think there's also a bit of an illusion (should that be a _delusion_) of control here. Following the first wave, 'we' didn't have it under control, and it's not particularly 'us' that are losing control now. Never been in control. The things we can control, like masks or big gatherings or one-way systems in shops, we do them because it gives us the sense that we're doing something about it all. But are we making more than a marginal difference with any of it?



The turning of the first wave shows we very much can control it with compliance to mitigating measures. One of the great descriptions from Van Tam:

'It is like having a spring in a box and you have got the lid on. Now you can take the lid off a little but you haven't disconnected the spring or broken the spring in any way.

'If you take the lid right off the spring is still under tension and off it will go again.'


----------



## iona (Sep 11, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I've just had an invitation to participate in a Covid infection survey, either weekly tests for a month or monthly tests for a year.  Given that I'm going back to the office full-time from next week, and in an environment where outbreaks are pretty likely, I'm minded to sign up.  Besides, at a general level surveillance testing like this has to be part of the solution to containing the virus.
> 
> My only slight reservation is that IQVIA are running the tests on the ground, and I know little about them beyond what a brief Google has thrown up.   If they're some fly-by-night firm that's been handed a fat contract under the 'emergency' regulations then I'm not interested.  Anyone know anything about them?
> 
> They're even offering payment to take part in this, although in the form of 'vouchers.'  I'd like to know a bit more about what these can be used for, since if they're tied to shitty firms like Amazon then they're no use to me.



I'm doing that study. These are the voucher options you get (spoilered coz loads of screenshots). Don't know anything about IQVIA.


Spoiler: Vouchers




































They have at least started contacting you to book appointments in advance now. At first (ime at least) they were just phoning weekdays late morning - midday and asking if they could come round some time that afternoon which made it pretty difficult for people who were actually going outside for work etc to ever get tested


----------



## elbows (Sep 11, 2020)

Supine said:


> The turning of the first wave shows we very much can control it with compliance to mitigating measures. One of the great descriptions from Van Tam:
> 
> 'It is like having a spring in a box and you have got the lid on. Now you can take the lid off a little but you haven't disconnected the spring or broken the spring in any way.
> 
> 'If you take the lid right off the spring is still under tension and off it will go again.'



This is more a response to littlebabyjesus but as I want to carry on the flow of that conversation I'm quoting you.

How much control a person has depends on their personal circumstances, and which factors are beyond their control.

Even those that doubt how much difference masks make still have control options in the form of some of the other choices they make, for scenarios where they actually have a real choice. They might have little or no control over being forced back to work or issues with children and education, but they may still have control over who they choose to meet socially and some of the indoor locations they choose to frequent.

I hope its not unfair to say that littlebabyjesus was hoping and anticipating that, to carry on the Van Tam analogy, the parameters of the spring had changed in some way unrelated to human control measures. And that the game had therefore changed to an extent that would allow a bit more normality, and less of various measures that littlebabyjesus doesnt believe do very much. And indeed that via things like 'immunological dark matter' the change in spring parameters happened long ago and even that they could have been partly responsible for the end of the first wave (diminishing the role of lockdown in a manner I consider ill-advised).

Aside from acknowledging the things we cant be certain of, such as the exact effects of each lockdown measure and all the unknowns in the immunological picture, and freely acknowledging that I have been hedging my bets to some limited extent this summer, I have tended to be at odds with littlebabyjesus over many details on these fronts during the pandemic so far. I dont want to go over all these areas in detail again now, but maybe it would be useful to somewhat review our feelings and beliefs now that we are entering another phase again. If I try to do this in one post it will be a horrible wall of paragraphs, much worse than this one is already turning out to be, so I'll try to skip some areas for now.

For now I'd say that its combinations of things that change the picture. There are times where the control we have in our own hands is almost enough. There are times when it certainly isnt. There are times where an effective test & trace system can allow a region or nation to avoid having to impose more draconian measures, but there are circumstances where the emergency handbrake is still required, where the more nuanced stuff is never going to be enough. If you could do moonshot-type mass testing as a matter of daily routine then it would change the game but even then the draconian measures would still exist, they would just be of a very different sort, involving adherence to the mass routine testing and all that went with it including a whole bunch of rules. And you still have to be prepared to break out new measures if the data that comes from the mass testing system tells you thats whats required.

I appeal to people not to lose interest in the little things, they can still add up even at times where some parts of the picture look hopeless. Because away from the huge overall numbers we are still talking about a story of individuals being infected, and any time someone does something to break the chain of transmission that is something with consequences for others that has been avoided. So even if something is considered of marginal importance by someone I will be inclined to say so what?, we need to fight this thing on the margins as much as we fight it everywhere else.

Its the same with seasonal issues too by the way. When I go on about how summer didnt give us as much wiggle room as hoped (with Spain and parts of the USA as the most obvious examples), and how the first wave of swine flu was in summer 2009, that doesnt mean that I think the seasonal aspect did nothing at all. After all, I still expect it to get worse in autumn/winter and thats not just because the original lockdown measures are so far behind us (although thats a big chunk of the timing picture for sure). So I still think summer offered some advantages that winter wont, its just the summer advantages werent enough to counter the effects of reopening so much etc. Doesnt mean I'll think of summer as a pointless and marginal factor, so I wont do the same with masks either!


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Everything you say is true and the government's total unwillingness to own any of the blame even when their handling of the pandemic has been catastrophic on many levels is insulting to us all.
> 
> But... that doesn't mean to say that young people are not a significant factor in the rapidly growing transmission rate.  This is not just a England thing its been noted across Europe.  I was a funeral on Thursday and was chatting to a couple of my g/f's cousins both from the same home.  One is 20 and at uni so has been at home for months now.  The other is 18 and in the army and was sent home when it all kicked off.  They were basically telling me how their house had been party central for 5 months. I don't blame them I'd be doing the same.
> 
> There is a difference between blame and recognising a situation cannot continue.



Those young people living in house shares - because they have no other option other than staying at home with parents, if their parents can even afford to have them there - can't be left to hold the blame and to endure more and more limits on their behaviour, at the same time that they are being directed to go to work and to socialise and to spend their money.

There is so much that came _before_ this - zero hour contracts, the reduction in social housing provision - and the subsequent rise of buy to let LL's and massively inflated rents - benefits sanctions, benefits never being set at a rate that allows anyone to live safely, let alone comfortably, student loans, under-funding (debts due!) of the NHS, schools, social services, local authorities having budgets stripped etc etc

How about dealing with what was the_ existing_ 'situation that cannot continue', in order to address the current one?
Priortise _that_ over spunking £100 billion up the wall?

It was really interesting what was seen to first, prior to lockdown, even by this shitshow - the basis on which they quickly built the structure to _keep people in_.

Housing was found _almost immediately_ for registered homeless, evictions paused, an increase in benefits of £20 a week (did we not need that before?), the furlough scheme (not to be extended, in case it makes us _lazy_, lol).

Ftr, I know shitloads - so many - young people who've been very dilligent and very careful. 

I think you have to be really mindful of who is more likely to have been exposed, encouraged out, when we _can't_ have much data around the relaxing of the rules in very recent weeks - and be careful where you find 'significant factors' within that - that's stood from the start.


----------



## elbows (Sep 11, 2020)

I mean small things that end up with very large implications is a feature of this pandemic. In just the same way that people got a pandemic lesson in exponential growth and how small numbers can become very large numbers. Apply these lessons learnt wherever you can, and less pandemic mistakes will be made.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 11, 2020)

Gotta say I am pretty supportive of minimising the spread of the virus by staying at home but I am really starting to struggle especially with the Jewish holidays coming up and not really being able to take part in person  

I don't think all the mitigation measures were pointless, I think that the lockdowns were a bit of a blunt instrument and especially in places like India caused a lot of possibly unnecessary suffering and hardship tho. However I think if everyone had carried on 'as normal' we would be looking at millions dead by now and people would have stayed at home with most or all of the attendant economic and social chaos .


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## frogwoman (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Those young people living in house shares - because they have no other option other than staying at home with parents, if their parents can even afford to have them there - can't be left to hold the blame and to endure more and more limits on their behaviour, at the same time that they are being directed to go to work and to socialise and to spend their money.
> 
> There is so much that came _before_ this - zero hour contracts, the reduction in social housing provision - and the subsequent rise of buy to let LL's and massively inflated rents - benefits sanctions, benefits never being set at a rate that allows anyone to live safely, let alone comfortably, student loans, under-funding (debts due!) of the NHS, schools, social services, local authorities having budgets stripped etc etc
> 
> ...


100% .


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## sheothebudworths (Sep 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Gotta say I am pretty supportive of minimising the spread of the virus by staying at home but I am really starting to struggle especially with the Jewish holidays coming up and not really being able to take part in person
> 
> I don't think all the mitigation measures were pointless, I think that the lockdowns were a bit of a blunt instrument and especially in places like India caused a lot of possibly unnecessary suffering and hardship tho. However I think if everyone had carried on 'as normal' we would be looking at millions dead by now and people would have stayed at home with most or all of the attendant economic and social chaos .



I am, too, froggy - and I don't think ANY measures in dealing with it are pointless either.
From my own pov it's just 'what comes next' that is always important, that set against what went before, learning from it all and then dealing with it.
I'm frustrated that the last bit doesn't seem to be happening effectively, largely because I have no/continually diminishing confidence or trust in a gov I never trusted anyway blah blah blah.

Will there be another way you can be a part of the holiday celebrations? 
I think it's important that you get to do some positive stuff for yourself and you CAN get out and do the groups of six, without feeling fraught. X


----------



## zahir (Sep 11, 2020)

Why Greater Manchester could now be the canary down the Covid mine
					

As infection rates rocket further and the testing system melts down, ‘powerless’ local leaders worry Whitehall isn’t listening




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
				





> If the week began with concern within the Greater Manchester system about Covid rates here, that concern is turning into genuine alarm in many quarters, now expressed in expletives.
> 
> Cases have continued to rocket since Monday. Bolton’s infection rate is now six times the national average, at 179 cases per 100,000 people. The borough has a positivity rate of around 10pc, according to today’s latest statistics, three times the level ministers generally feel comfortable with.
> 
> Tameside’s numbers have doubled in seven days, now also creeping towards a rate of 100, as have those in Bury and Stockport; the same seven boroughs are all still in the red and the other three appear to be on their way.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 11, 2020)

Supine said:


> *The turning of the first wave shows we very much can control it with compliance to mitigating measures.* One of the great descriptions from Van Tam:
> 
> 'It is like having a spring in a box and you have got the lid on. Now you can take the lid off a little but you haven't disconnected the spring or broken the spring in any way.
> 
> 'If you take the lid right off the spring is still under tension and off it will go again.'


Did it? Sweden had fewer deaths in its first wave and now has lower rates than the UK with nothing like the measures we had. Not that they didn't have measures. They did. But many aspects of the first lockdown will have been essentially irrelevant. Not meeting in parks, for instance. And a fair bit of what is being done now is going to be pretty irrelevant too.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Those young people living in house shares - because they have no other option other than staying at home with parents, if their parents can even afford to have them there - can't be left to hold the blame and to endure more and more limits on their behaviour, at the same time that they are being directed to go to work and to socialise and to spend their money.
> 
> There is so much that came _before_ this - zero hour contracts, the reduction in social housing provision - and the subsequent rise of buy to let LL's and massively inflated rents - benefits sanctions, benefits never being set at a rate that allows anyone to live safely, let alone comfortably, student loans, under-funding (debts due!) of the NHS, schools, social services, local authorities having budgets stripped etc etc
> 
> ...



What's getting me through the days right now is the thought that this current pandemic is somehow the beginning of the end for the neoliberal economy. And while it's obvious any such upheaval will come at a grisly price it seems to me that the only alternative is to pay an even higher price a few years down the line when we get to the next crisis, when there'll be even less social fabric left that the demagogues and carpetbaggers haven't stripped away.


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## Supine (Sep 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Did it? Sweden had fewer deaths in its first wave and now has lower rates than the UK with nothing like the measures we had. Not that they didn't have measures. They did. But many aspects of the first lockdown will have been essentially irrelevant. Not meeting in parks, for instance. And a fair bit of what is being done now is going to be pretty irrelevant too.



I didn't say all the measures were perfect and I agree the outdoor stuff seems to be less risky. It'll take time to work out exactly what works well and what isn't necessary. 

It didn't help that the press were going out of their way to take photos to make outdoor scenes seem busier than they were using camera angles. I don't think any of those senarios resulted in big spread events which is good. 

I'm entering winter with a bit of trepidation as we don't know how spread will pan out with the population indoors and also suffering from corona fatigue.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 11, 2020)

Supine said:


> I didn't say all the measures were perfect and I agree the outdoor stuff seems to be less risky. It'll take time to work out exactly what works well and what isn't necessary.
> 
> It didn't help that the press were going out of their way to take photos to make outdoor scenes seem busier than they were using camera angles. I don't think any of those senarios resulted in big spread events which is good.
> 
> I'm entering winter with a bit of trepidation as we don't know how spread will pan out with the population indoors and also suffering from corona fatigue.


As I think i've mentioned, I don't think we'll see a national total ban on meeting other people again though it is happening and will happen locally, but for shorter periods. The one thing this government did right, more because it didn't have the resources to police it than anything else I expect, is not having a total 'stay indoors' lockdown like Italy, because as far as I've heard there's no evidence this did anything to significantly stop the spread, nor has it prevented resurgence.

I am worried about winter , it's so hard to tell what it'll be like. As I've said on another thread, my siblings and I are encouraging our parents to stay in their place in Slovakia where they are now over winter - it's much safer there and they'd get better and more prompt medical attention if they needed it. It means not seeing them, but I would be cautious of it over winter anyway, so it's kind of better for it simply not to be a possibility.

I'm thankful that summer proved OK - I mean, it could have turned out that they whole thing just popped right up the moment you loosened lockdown and we'd have been shut in all summer as well, waiting for an even worse winter. So we've had our respite, but now it's the long, dark teatime of the soul. Just how long and how dark remains to be seen.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I am, too, froggy - and I don't think ANY measures in dealing with it are pointless either.
> From my own pov it's just 'what comes next' that is always important, that set against what went before, learning from it all and then dealing with it.
> I'm frustrated that the last bit doesn't seem to be happening effectively, largely because I have no/continually diminishing confidence or trust in a gov I never trusted anyway blah blah blah.
> 
> ...



I'm thinking of spending a few nights in a b and b near the synagogue in a few weeks(once I get confirmation that I can go).

 I actually didn't mind the lockdown in a weird way but I'm finding this part really stressful because it seems like it's never going to end, I don't know what is safe to do or too excessively cautious or reckless. So much stuff that during the first lockdown I was doing by zoom is no longer going on or is going on much less and I'm still spending huge amounts of time online and reading stuff that makes me really angry at covid truthers, Boris, the government, etc. I saw a mate last weekend and have seen I few friends this summer but I've been quite anxious about socialising, not just because of covid but also because I haven't done much of it in so long and I'm quite socially awkward anyway.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 11, 2020)

.


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## elbows (Sep 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Did it? Sweden had fewer deaths in its first wave and now has lower rates than the UK with nothing like the measures we had. Not that they didn't have measures. They did. But many aspects of the first lockdown will have been essentially irrelevant. Not meeting in parks, for instance. And a fair bit of what is being done now is going to be pretty irrelevant too.



When considering what epidemic outcomes I would expect in different countries, my opinion would be based on factors such as:

What changes to behaviour and human mixing patterns happened and when. With the when being relative not to a calendar, but to the phase of epidemic reached at the time that behavioural changes began in earnest.

What all the underlying risk factors were like in that country in the first place.

And we still dont have good answers to all of that. It might be possible to figure out how good the timing of their measures was compared to ours, I'm not sure, I will try this exercise at some point. So I do not think Sweden offers proof that our lockdown was excessive or didnt make enough difference. It might just be another indicator of how far measures have to go if the risks in your country for many bad outcomes from this virus are high to start with (eg pollution, poverty, multi-generational households, mixing patterns, obesity, or whatever the risks may actually turn out to be) and if your initial response and timing are especially poor.

Perhaps if I knew exactly which measures you did think were necessary, rather than mostly hearing about all the ones you didnt see the point of, it will turn out that my position is not quite as far removed from yours as would usually seem to be the case. I suppose its not that hard to figure out broadly what youd like to believe would have been enough to deal with this pandemic, but sometimes I feel like you maybe want to have your cake and eat it. But I know you do pay attention to what is actually happening even if it includes data you were hoping never to see again, eg I noted some time ago that you had noticed what was happening in the Madrid region. And I presumed you knew what this might imply in terms of investing hope and expectations in 'no second wave for immunological or other not well understood reasons' theories. Silly me for thinking this might lead to a greater acceptance of measures that do actually do something but are simply not to your taste.

Having said that, its true there are probably a few things I suppose I consider not to have been strictly necessary during the first lockdown. I dont know as they were very avoidable though, as they were mostly there because when you have to slam the brakes on so hard and fast as this country did due to it being so far behind the curve of judging and responding to the first wave, there isnt much room for nuance. In some areas you actually need to overcompensate for failure to control rates earlier, in other areas it might simply be down to the practicalities of policing, public health messages etc. We've seen how much of a mess they got in after the most draconian phase, all the complex rules and mixed messages during the relaxing phase. I dont think I would have liked to see them mucking around with those nuances and muddling the message back when we were heading for doom on all the charts. Stay home was simple, and even at its simplest the reality wasnt that simple for everyone.


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## Plumdaff (Sep 11, 2020)

I think Sweden shouldn't be compared to us for all sorts of reasons, not least, as a good Finnish friend told me recently, you don't really have to tell Scandis to socially distance.  And Sweden has done quite badly compared to its neighbours that are a much better comparative fit.


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## Roadkill (Sep 12, 2020)

iona said:


> I'm doing that study. These are the voucher options you get (spoilered coz loads of screenshots). Don't know anything about IQVIA.
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Vouchers
> ...



Thanks. How predictable that this is being used as a disguised subsidy to rubbish like Amazon.


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## cupid_stunt (Sep 12, 2020)

Plumdaff said:


> I think Sweden shouldn't be compared to us for all sorts of reasons, not least, as a good Finnish friend told me recently, you don't really have to tell Scandis to socially distance.  And Sweden has done quite badly compared to its neighbours that are a much better comparative fit.



International comparisons can be difficult, but I tend to agree that Sweden's success, or not, could be better judged by comparing them to their neighbours.

Deaths per million population - 

Sweden - 578
Denmark - 109
Finland - 61
Norway - 49


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## elbows (Sep 12, 2020)

Normally I might be tempted to pick at this document about SAGE views on mass testing in the nerdy thread, but since the Guardian already wrote a story about it I suppose I can just link to that and the SAGE paper here instead.









						Less than 20% of people in England self-isolate fully, Sage says
					

Scientists suggest ‘moonshot’ mass testing will be of little use unless isolation numbers rise




					www.theguardian.com
				






			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/914931/s0712-tfms-consensus-statement-sage.pdf


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## 2hats (Sep 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> International comparisons can be difficult, but I tend to agree that Sweden's success, or not, could be better judged by comparing them to their neighbours.
> 
> Deaths per million population -
> 
> ...


That comparison looks even less favourable for Sweden when one factors area/population density in. Only Denmark appears to struggle and that is a country around one tenth the size of its nearest Nordic neighbours with a much higher population density.


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## teuchter (Sep 12, 2020)

I spent some time with close family last week, for the first time since January. Started out being consciously careful about distancing, and so on. By the second day I realised I'd stopped thinking about Covid and was starting to act just as I would normally. This happens so easily when you're in familiar situations with familiar people. I can completely see how transmission in the home can easily be a big factor. And of course it's much more likely that possibly-infected and probably-vulnerable people will be mixing. It does seem to me that limiting private social gatherings is something that has to be done. Unfortunately.


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## Steel Icarus (Sep 12, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I spent some time with close family last week, for the first time since January. Started out being consciously careful about distancing, and so on. By the second day I realised I'd stopped thinking about Covid and was starting to act just as I would normally. This happens so easily when you're in familiar situations with familiar people. I can completely see how transmission in the home can easily be a big factor. And of course it's much more likely that possibly-infected and probably-vulnerable people will be mixing. It does seem to me that limiting private social gatherings is something that has to be done. Unfortunately.


It is easy, I agree. I'm being very careful around those don't know but caused a colleague to back up the other day as we were deep in conversation and I just forgot.


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## elbows (Sep 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> That comparison looks even less favourable for Sweden when one factors area/population density in. Only Denmark appears to struggle and that is a country around one tenth the size of its nearest Nordic neighbours with a much higher population density.



Studies so far also indicate that Sweden failed to get anywhere close to its herd immunity goals. Part of the reason I went on about looking at measures & timing together, rather than just weaker vs stronger measures, is that the study also suggested that Stockholm ended up with similar antibody seroprevalence levels to London ( SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals ). Both nations are an example of pandemic failure and you'd have to be desperate to try to make a case by holding one of them up as a success or as proof that either slow or weak responses were appropriate in this pandemic. Once the appropriate amount of time has passed for us to really judge all the details of various specific measures and behavioural changes, ie pick the small nuggets of things these countries did right out of the huge steaming pile of shit failure, maybe I can tell a slightly different story. I cant do that now, I need at least one winter.


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## elbows (Sep 12, 2020)

Also it would not be sufficient just to convince me that Swedish '_folkvett' _could generate an appropriate pandemic response on its own, I would also need to be convinced that '_folkvett' _was possible to muster and sustain in the UK at short notice and with the poisonous press that we have.

Anyway as stronger measures come to be reimposed in the UK in the months ahead, I expect the draconian elements to remain but in different form. Probably in forms that make the draconian aspect even more overtly obvious and objectionable to some. I doubt all the nuances we will get this time round will be the sort of gentle, liberal stuff that is to some peoples taste. They've had more time to plan policing specifics for a start. And they probably expect less voluntary compliance in various areas as I expect they will have judged that there is much lockdown fatigue and breakdown of sense of 'we are all in this together' that they were somewhat relying on and trying to foster for the first lockdown. That and the removal of certain 'carrots' is likely to see them reaching for the stick more instead.


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## MrSki (Sep 12, 2020)

The testing system seems to be wobbling to say the least.


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## frogwoman (Sep 12, 2020)

MrSki said:


> The testing system seems to be wobbling to say the least.



Why are they limiting tests when it has capacity for 500? Is there a shortage of tests or something? If so they need to be honest about it.


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## MrSki (Sep 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Why are they limiting tests when it has capacity for 500? Is there a shortage of tests or something? If so they need to be honest about it.


There is a backlog in lab processing.


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## elbows (Sep 12, 2020)

And I think I quoted Hancock recently saying there was 'a problem with a couple of contracts'.


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## Plumdaff (Sep 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Why are they limiting tests when it has capacity for 500? Is there a shortage of tests or something? If so they need to be honest about it.


Apparently it's lab capacity. So in the Rhondda ambulance staff are doing tests and the local health board labs are processing because Deloitte packed up after 60 tests. Won't work on Monday when the ambulance and lab staff have other things to do.


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## existentialist (Sep 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> And I think I quoted Hancock recently saying there was 'a problem with a couple of contracts'.


Who knew?


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## andysays (Sep 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> And I think I quoted Hancock recently saying there was 'a problem with a couple of contracts'.


Someone should take a 'contract' out on Hancock


----------



## zahir (Sep 12, 2020)

Who could possibly have predicted this?



> According to some scientists, staffing shortages are now a problem at the Lighthouse Labs, which they say have relied on PhD and post-doctorate students to help process samples. With universities reopening this month, students are leaving the labs to complete their studies, just when demand for tests intensifies.
> 
> Allan Wilson, president of the Institute of Biomedical Science, which represents NHS lab workers, said the Lighthouse model was “never really a permanent solution” and many students who staffed the centers were “not surprisingly returning to their normal life.”











						Johnson Pledges Millions of Covid Tests But U.K. Labs Can’t Cope
					

Britain’s battle with coronavirus is at a critical moment, with virus testing in trouble again as winter looms.




					www.bloomberg.com


----------



## chilango (Sep 12, 2020)

zahir said:


> Who could possibly have predicted this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's alright. Give it a couple of weeks and all those postgrads will be available again....


----------



## two sheds (Sep 12, 2020)

Don't need postgrads  not like it's complicated - just need an expansion of the old YTS scheme


----------



## Mation (Sep 12, 2020)

Rushanara Ali following up on Bojo The Clown's invitation at PMQs to write to him with her questions on exactly how and why the Government has been hurling vast sums of public money down a greedy and incompetent drain.


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## miss direct (Sep 12, 2020)

Sheffield, where I am, is now on "the watchlist". What usually happens when somewhere is on a watchlist? I just want to be aware and prepared. I'm new here and have only been back in the UK for a few months so have been trying to set myself up and start a new life - applied for lots of jobs and trying to join events etc.


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## belboid (Sep 12, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Sheffield, where I am, is now on "the watchlist". What usually happens when somewhere is on a watchlist? I just want to be aware and prepared. I'm new here and have only been back in the UK for a few months so have been trying to set myself up and start a new life - applied for lots of jobs and trying to join events etc.


If it goes 'on the list' it will probably be on a ward/post code basis, rather than the entire city. Worst hit at the moment are Sharrow, Highfields & Lowfields, Park Hill & Wybourn and Fir Vale.  Then it will be no household mixing at all, only your support bubble can be in contact.


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## LDC (Sep 12, 2020)

belboid said:


> If it goes 'on the list' it will probably be on a ward/post code basis, rather than the entire city. Worst hit at the moment are Sharrow, Highfields & Lowfields, Park Hill & Wybourn and Fir Vale.  Then it will be no household mixing at all, only your support bubble can be in contact.



Really? I though restrictions have generally been city wide plus, rather than ward or postcode based? In Birmingham it's the whole city plus some areas.

I'm in Leeds, I'm 100% sure we'll have stricter rules and restrictions soon as well.


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## MrSki (Sep 12, 2020)

Deleted alarmist information on the advice of prunus


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## miss direct (Sep 12, 2020)

belboid said:


> If it goes 'on the list' it will probably be on a ward/post code basis, rather than the entire city. Worst hit at the moment are Sharrow, Highfields & Lowfields, Park Hill & Wybourn and Fir Vale.  Then it will be no household mixing at all, only your support bubble can be in contact.


Oh dear. I live with a landlady but she'll be going to university soon and I'll be on my own.


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## chilango (Sep 12, 2020)

Educational Settings from 12/8/20 - 31/10/20 - Parents United
					

Educational Settings with reported COVID-19 Cases from 12/8/20 – 31/10/20 (total reports ) To find...




					www.boycottunsafeschools.co.uk
				




400odd cases in schools already?


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## FridgeMagnet (Sep 12, 2020)

Has the change in the law which is supposed to back up the changed guidelines actually been published yet?

(waits until 23:59 on Sunday)


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## MrSki (Sep 12, 2020)

Deleted misinformation.


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## MrSki (Sep 12, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Has the change in the law which is supposed to back up the changed guidelines actually been published yet?
> 
> (waits until 23:59 on Sunday)


Probably somewhere in here but I am not spending my Saturday night trawling through it. (200!)





__





						Changes To Legislation
					






					www.legislation.gov.uk


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## littlebabyjesus (Sep 12, 2020)

chilango said:


> Educational Settings from 12/8/20 - 31/10/20 - Parents United
> 
> 
> Educational Settings with reported COVID-19 Cases from 12/8/20 – 31/10/20 (total reports ) To find...
> ...


Is that a bad number? What would have been a good number? Also how many of those were acquired in school? I know the first bunch found in Scotland were not acquired in school. Same in England/Wales?


----------



## editor (Sep 12, 2020)

I know nothing about this person but I've had a few people send it to me so could someone give me a bit of a heads up how accurate/credible this is?


----------



## Wilf (Sep 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Is that a bad number? What would have been a good number? Also how many of those were acquired in school? I know the first bunch found in Scotland were not acquired in school. Same in England/Wales?


I don't know whether that's a good or bad figure, but even if those cases were infections predominantly away from the school, the fact the schools are back provides an extra means for the virus to shift from one community setting to another. As do colleges and universities, the latter with the extra dimension of travel throughout the country.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 12, 2020)

editor said:


> I know nothing about this person but I've had a few people send it to me so could someone give me a bit of a heads up how accurate/credible this is?



I'm not going to watch that, I have pressing washing up issues, but I do wonder if the analysis would be different if it ran on up to 12th September?


----------



## Supine (Sep 12, 2020)

editor said:


> I know nothing about this person but I've had a few people send it to me so could someone give me a bit of a heads up how accurate/credible this is?




I watched one of his previous videos but didn't like it. He was cherry picking and misanalysing data. 

Apologies but I can't remember what exactly the problem was and I can't face watching another one!


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Is that a bad number? What would have been a good number? Also how many of those were acquired in school? I know the first bunch found in Scotland were not acquired in school. Same in England/Wales?



This is irritating me - it's not a _philosphical_ question.
Do _you_ think it's a bad number? Or a good one?
It's a number of cases, found in newly opened settings, as cases are rising and testing has gone to pot.
I think it's relevant to highlight those numbers, at the very least, without turning over the purpose of doing so.
I'm pretty uncomfortable around my return to work and my daughter's return to school and _numbers_ is all we have, without digging over what it's realistic (?) to expect now, as opposed to the next few weeks.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 12, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> This is irritating me - it's not a _philosphical_ question.
> Do _you_ think it's a bad number? Or a good one?
> It's a number of cases, found in newly opened settings, as cases are rising and testing has gone to pot.
> I think it's relevant to highlight those numbers, at the very least, without turning over the purpose of doing so.
> I'm pretty uncomfortable around my return to work and my daughter's return to school and _numbers_ is all we have, without digging over what it's realistic (?) to expect now, as opposed to the next few weeks.


I think it's fearmongering to go 'xx cases, schools are unsafe' as if there had ever been the chance that there wouldn't be cases found in schools when they reopened. Especially when that comes from a link explicitly calling the return to school unsafe and using this number with no context as some kind of proof of that. It's meaningless to put up a number like that up without context or analysis and use it to support a particular position, such as 'schools are unsafe'. And that irritates me. So there we go. We're both irritated.

But I can give you some more context. 18 cases found in Scottish schools in their first week back, none transmitted at school. Multiply that by about 11 for the rest of the country going back and the equivalent figure for England/Wales last week would be 200. Add in those cases found in schools in Scotland since its first week, and it would appear that England/Wales have not been so different from Scotland so far.


----------



## scifisam (Sep 12, 2020)

Wales allowing larger _outdoor_ gatherings does make a lot more sense. The transmission rates outdoors seem to be very low.



2hats said:


> That comparison looks even less favourable for Sweden when one factors area/population density in. Only Denmark appears to struggle and that is a country around one tenth the size of its nearest Nordic neighbours with a much higher population density.



The population density thing is a bit of a red herring in Sweden. Very large parts of it is mountainous, with hardly any residents; most people live in cities. Denmark is tiny by comparison. The population density of Copenhagen and Stockholm is almost identical -   11,926 vs 11,802.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 12, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Very large parts of it is mountainous, with hardly any residents; most people live in cities.


How would you describe Norway and Finland (swap mountains for lakes and forests)?


----------



## scifisam (Sep 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> How would you describe Norway and Finland (swap mountains for lakes and forests)?



Pretty much the same as Sweden, which makes Sweden look even worse, but a specific comparison was being made between Denmark and Sweden. Also it was a more general point about _national_ population density not necessarily being a valuable metric.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think it's fearmongering to go 'xx cases, schools are unsafe' as if there had ever been the chance that there wouldn't be cases found in schools when they reopened. Especially when that comes from a link explicitly calling the return to school unsafe and using this number with no context as some kind of proof of that. It's meaningless to put up a number like that up without context or analysis and use it to support a particular position, such as 'schools are unsafe'. And that irritates me. So there we go. We're both irritated.
> 
> But I can give you some more context. 18 cases found in Scottish schools in their first week back, none transmitted at school. Multiply that by about 11 for the rest of the country going back and the equivalent figure for England/Wales last week would be 200. Add in those cases found in schools in Scotland since its first week, and it would appear that England/Wales have not been so different from Scotland so far.



The post didn't contain anything other than the number? And a link to a site that shows where the current cases are (I get - which _happen to be_ in schools - that it's not illustrative of spread _within_ schools).
But y'know what - my bezzer has worked throughout in a primary school which has been very stressful but has now significantly changed again (she's a SEN TA and has spent her entire first week back taking kids to the toilet and cleaning, missing breaks etc). And I work in a large secondary kitchen/canteen and am also finding it pretty fucking stressful - and I have to tell you that the mood _within_ schools is that it WILL change and that what we do this week will not be the same as next etc - but obvs we're still _doing_ it.
From my pov, it's not _scaremongering_ to continue to be watching numbers, it's common sense. 
I have a child back at school, too, who is feeling exactly the same - it's good to be back, when being at home is the only other option, but it's not working like it's supposed to, because there's not the space or the time or the money to make it work as it should - so maybe you should hear all of that, to start with? I don't know why you think there's any position being pushed - just the current experience of staff and kids and parents back in educational settings.

It's way more patronising to have someone dictating how any recent data should be read (or not) than to just acknowledge it, in it's bare bones, as we're all having to do atm. 
There's no surprises yet but it doesn't mean it's wrong to anticipate later rises and also, to feel a little fearful about that, when you're literally mixing with hundreds of people for the first time in months (and honestly, I don't feel like this at work - it's just lovely to see them all back - but you have no idea how different it is and also how easy it is to reflect back on so MUCH mixing/the lack of SD, after the day is done).


----------



## Sue (Sep 12, 2020)

My friend's dad lives in Copenhagen, her brother in Stockholm. Apparently when Covid started, they brought in restrictions on travel between Sweden and the other Nordic countries because of how Sweden was dealing with things. An unusual thing because these countries are allegedly generally as one on things. (Her dad's quite frail and while she desperately wants to go and visit, she thinks that would be a v bad idea right now.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 12, 2020)

scifisam said:


> a specific comparison was being made between Denmark and Sweden.


A comparison was being made across several Nordics.


> Also it was a more general point about _national_ population density not necessarily being a valuable metric.


It isn't particularly.


----------



## scifisam (Sep 12, 2020)

2hats said:


> A comparison was being made across several Nordics.
> 
> It isn't particularly.



Yes, and you were comparing Sweden and Denmark specifically. 

Sorry, can't tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me on the second point.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 13, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Why is MSM not all over this? How to put people off being tested.



I'm no lawyer, but I don't think that bit of legislation does what you, or that twitter person, thinks it does.

I don't think it's got anything to do at all with "harvesting data" as part of covid testing. I don't think it's got anything to do with testing at all. It's do do with an extension of the time that DNA and fingerprint evidence (from other already existing sources) is allowed to be retained.





__





						The Coronavirus (Retention of Fingerprints and DNA Profiles in the Interests of National Security) (No. 2) Regulations 2020
					






					www.legislation.gov.uk
				




Have you actually read it, or just taken the word of some nutter off twitter?


----------



## 2hats (Sep 13, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Yes, and you were comparing Sweden and Denmark specifically.


I wasn't comparing the two.


> Sorry, can't tell if you're agreeing or disagreeing with me on the second point.


Agreeing to a large degree.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 13, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I'm no lawyer, but I don't think that bit of legislation does what you, or that twitter person, thinks it does.
> 
> I don't think it's got anything to do at all with "harvesting data" as part of covid testing. I don't think it's got anything to do with testing at all. It's do do with an extension of the time that DNA and fingerprint evidence (from other already existing sources) is allowed to be retained.
> 
> ...


No I have not read it in full but also am not a lawyer & not familiar with the act(s) it refers to but



> These Regulations apply only to fingerprints or DNA profiles that would (ignoring the effect of these Regulations) fall to be destroyed in the period that starts with 1st October 2020 and ends with 24th March 2021. The period ends with 24th March 2021 in order to satisfy the condition found in section 24(5) of the Coronavirus Act 2020.



It seems to say to me that the data is being held for 6 months longer than would normally be the case. As for harvesting the data I will come back to you on the deal Twat Hancock has signed.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 13, 2020)

editor said:


> I know nothing about this person but I've had a few people send it to me so could someone give me a bit of a heads up how accurate/credible this is?



Stinks of bullshit to me - he's a chemical engineer with Firm Views on diabetes and obesity, who's expanded his remit to Covid. At best, he's a dilettante.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 13, 2020)

This is worrying, infections in care homes are raising, although mainly amongst staff ATM, but as is inedible some more recent cases show residents also becoming infected.  



> Coronavirus cases in UK care homes have quadrupled in a month, a leaked government document shows.
> 
> A Department of Health report said that the rate of coronavirus recorded through satellite tests - which are mainly used in care homes - had quadrupled since the start of the month.
> 
> According to The Sunday Times, Health Secretary Matt Hancock took an emergency update on Wednesday saying that outbreaks had been detected in 43 care homes.











						Fears as coronavirus cases in care homes 'quadruple in a month'
					

The Government urged care bosses to 'take the necessary action to prevent and limit outbreaks', pointing out that in the last three days there had been an increase in coronavirus cases in care homes




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Sep 13, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Stinks of bullshit to me - he's a chemical engineer with Firm Views on diabetes and obesity, who's expanded his remit to Covid. At best, he's a dilettante.


I don't have the stomach to watch any of his videos, but he seems to be some sort of paleo nut.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 13, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So is it just the DNA they are putting on a database or fingerprints too?
> 
> SI passed yesterday.
> 
> ...


All that does is extend the retention of _any_ fingerprints and DNA due to expire for six months, because the virus has meant they can't be analysed properly.

ETA: I see this has already been pointed out.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 13, 2020)

Interesting article about how it's unfolding in Spain.



> But second time around, says López Codina, things are panning out quite differently. In March and April, about 50% of diagnosed cases ended up in hospital.
> 
> “Now, because we’re diagnosing a lot of mild or asymptomatic cases, it’s about 5%,” he says, adding that admissions to hospital and deaths are “more objective tools” – especially given the massive increase in testing since the previous peak.
> 
> ...





> At the moment, says García, things are stable at the hospital, with Covid admissions mirroring daily discharges. “That’s actually pretty good in a pandemic situation, because it means we’re not overwhelmed,” he says. But medical staff are still tired from their efforts in the spring and dread the prospect of another onslaught.












						‘We’ve learned how we need to act’: Spain braces for second wave of Covid
					

An increase in infections, particularly among younger age groups, is causing a spike centred on the area around Madrid




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## prunus (Sep 13, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Why is MSM not all over this? How to put people off being tested.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The only people putting people off being tested with this are Tess Summers and anyone who promulgates this particular conspiracy theory - this statutory instrument is nothing to do with coronavirus testing, it is a 6 month extension (the second one in fact) to the statutory time limit some DNA samples and fingerprints can held before they have to be destroyed. 

It applies only to a certain subset of DNA and fingerprints - those collected and held under a few certain largely anti-terrorism acts (not, to be clear, collected via coronavirus testing). Samples of this type whose time limits would be expiring in the next 6 months have been given a 6 month extension.  This is explained as being because the disruption caused by the crisis is potentially damaging the security services ability to properly assess the importance of the samples, and they don’t want to destroy any they haven’t assessed as non-relevant yet.

E2A: I see I’m late to this particular debunking.[/QUOTE]


----------



## miss direct (Sep 13, 2020)

Things on my mind (among many others):

Will city centre bars close during Freshers Week? (When is that? Students are arriving already as they have staggered move in dates.)

Will there be socially distanced bonfire night events, or will they all be banned?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 13, 2020)

Times journo on twitter says that thousands of swabs are getting thrown away due to errors in transportation and testing?


----------



## chilango (Sep 13, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Is that a bad number? What would have been a good number? Also how many of those were acquired in school? I know the first bunch found in Scotland were not acquired in school. Same in England/Wales?



Any number above zero is "bad". 

... appreciate your concern on the source, but I've yet to see any more "official" source tallying this aspect.

Schools, and soon Universities, are going to be a significant site for the increase in transmission we are seeing over the coming weeks. I think it's useful to be aware of how this unfolds.


----------



## elbows (Sep 13, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Times journo on twitter says that thousands of swabs are getting thrown away due to errors in transportation and testing?



See this post on another thread:            #23


----------



## BlanketAddict (Sep 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> And I think I quoted Hancock recently saying there was 'a problem with a couple of contracts'.



Might be one of those lab companies that also offer ferry services?!


----------



## elbows (Sep 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is worrying, infections in care homes are raising, although mainly amongst staff ATM, but as is inedible some more recent cases show residents also becoming infected.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes unfortunately the percentage of positive tests has risen notably in the 85+ age group too.

This is from the weekly surveillance report:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/916993/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_37_FINAL.pdf
		




> Positivity rates have increased in all age groups and regions with a particularly steep increase in positivity seen in 85+ year olds tested through Pillar 2.


----------



## elbows (Sep 13, 2020)

On that note I've gone on numerous times about how a large chunk of the pandemic deaths could be avoided with adequate hospital and care home infection control. 

But I'm not convinced that I made a big enough deal about one aspect of that. People might be thinking that when we talk about this stuff there are a set of measures that can be taken which will fix the situation. Unfortunately thats only part of it, and even if we had done really well on that front by some point, it is really difficult to maintain those gains over time. Yes its another point which is really just stating the obvious, in this case that it becomes much harder to control infections in these settings when the level of infection rises notably in the general population.

I've not got a clear sense of how much things were actually improved with sustainable procedures etc, as opposed to being down to the options that opened up once the volume of cases fell below a certain level. So I dont know if we will do any better than we did in the first wave. If the scale of things reaches or exceeds previous level, I suppose I would expect us to do just as badly or worse.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Sep 13, 2020)

BlanketAddict said:


> Might be one of those lab companies that also offer ferry services?!


Eventually they will come together in a consortium with Pontin's and the people who do those shitty Winter Wonderlands, win all the biggest government contracts and we will all blow our minds


----------



## existentialist (Sep 13, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Eventually they will come together in a consortium with Pontin's and the people who do those shitty Winter Wonderlands, win all the biggest government contracts and we will all blow our minds


Or our brains out.


----------



## Celyn (Sep 13, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Eventually they will come together in a consortium with Pontin's and the people who do those shitty Winter Wonderlands, win all the biggest government contracts and we will all blow our minds


"Now it's all designed to blow our minds
But our minds won't really be blown
Like the blow that'll gitcha when you get your picture
On the cover of the Rollin' Stone".


----------



## Celyn (Sep 13, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Or our brains out.


Small problem here. I don't know what guns cost and unless they are sold very cheaply in LIDL or Tesco I probably cannot afford one or know how to find one.  I wonder whether we could all sort of crowdfund a communal Urban75 gun, brains for the blowing out of. We could take turns in using it. Draw straws to determine in which order people can have it, sort of thing. Oops, tricky to blow brains out THEN post to next user. Hmm.     

Ah, easily sorted, arrange proper packaging and postage stamps and stuff, and leave a note telling next of kin to be sure to post gun on to next person in the queue. "Please feed the cat, cancel the Council Tax direct debit, but post this first".


----------



## existentialist (Sep 13, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Small problem here. I don't know what guns cost and unless they are sold very cheaply in LIDL or Tesco I probably cannot afford one or know how to find one.  I wonder whether we could all sort of crowdfund a communal Urban75 gun, brains for the blowing out of. We could take turns in using it. Draw straws to determine in which order people can have it, sort of thing. Oops, tricky to blow brains out THEN post to next user. Hmm.
> 
> Ah, easily sorted, arrange proper packaging and postage stamps and stuff, and leave a note telling next of kin to be sure to post gun on to next person in the queue. "Please feed the cat, cancel the Council Tax direct debit, but post this first".


That was dark!


----------



## Celyn (Sep 13, 2020)

I'm sorry. I know this is a serious thread. But _stet _anyway.


----------



## Celyn (Sep 13, 2020)

existentialist said:


> That was dark!


Oh no, was not! Not very dark. Just practical planning.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 13, 2020)

Was not expecting to see a (kids) fun fair this year so that was a surprise encounter on my walk this afternoon.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 13, 2020)

My current, baseless prediction for UK. There will be something of a peak in October, shortly after widespread if not necessarily national lockdowns. Things will be getting back under control by December and The Sun etc will start lots of sickly sentimental campaigns about 'Please Boris, give us back our Christmas' so they will open lots of stuff up and ease restrictions then to 'raise morale'. Another peak then follows in early Feb after everyone goes and sees each other over Christmas.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 13, 2020)

Cloo said:


> My current, baseless prediction for UK. There will be something of a peak in October, shortly after widespread if not necessarily national lockdowns. Things will be getting back under control by December and The Sun etc will start lots of sickly sentimental campaigns about 'Please Boris, give us back our Christmas' so they will open lots of stuff up and ease restrictions then to 'raise moral'. Another peak then follows in early Feb after everyone goes and sees each other over Christmas.



I'm not risking my cash on that lot.

Oh god the Christmas adverts are going to be so fucking dire.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Sep 14, 2020)

Celyn said:


> Small problem here. I don't know what guns cost and unless they are sold very cheaply in LIDL or Tesco I probably cannot afford one or know how to find one.  I wonder whether we could all sort of crowdfund a communal Urban75 gun, brains for the blowing out of. We could take turns in using it. Draw straws to determine in which order people can have it, sort of thing. Oops, tricky to blow brains out THEN post to next user. Hmm.
> 
> Ah, easily sorted, arrange proper packaging and postage stamps and stuff, and leave a note telling next of kin to be sure to post gun on to next person in the queue. "Please feed the cat, cancel the Council Tax direct debit, but post this first".


Also: ICE BULLETS


----------



## teuchter (Sep 14, 2020)

I'm quite hopeful that Christmas will simply be cancelled this year, and then there will finally be an upside to this pandemic.


----------



## bimble (Sep 14, 2020)

Went to see my parents, thinking that now was the time if I wanted to be sure to get to do it this year. The short BA flight back last night was full of brits who felt they were too special to put their ducking masks over their noses. Most of them, maybe 70%, sat there noses hanging out. Then they bundled together at passport control as if you’ll get out quicker if you queue with no space between you. Absolutely nothing upon entering the country (Heathrow) just the electronic passport gates. Completely depressing the state of it.


----------



## maomao (Sep 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I'm quite hopeful that Christmas will simply be cancelled this year, and then there will finally be an upside to this pandemic.


I'm actually looking forward to a relative free Christmas. No grandparents in the spare room; no schlepping across London to trade lego sets with their cousins. Could be the best Christmas in ages.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 14, 2020)

Since it looks as if the ex-formerly-known-as-Mrs-E is not now going to have got herself ensconced in France by Christmas, I'm rather banking on an oven-baked excuse not to participate in the traditional Grand Family Christmas this year. I mean, I plan not to do it anyway, but it's going to be a lot easier all round if it's not actually permissible...


----------



## two sheds (Sep 14, 2020)

existentialist said:


> oven-baked excuse


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Sep 14, 2020)

existentialist said:


> ...oven-baked excuse ...


Does it go in the microwave at gas mark IV?


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 14, 2020)

Covid restrictions at work are impossible to follow by the letter, I know, but am getting fed up with people consistently invading my personal space. People are very cavalier about sharing cutlery and crockery, and are still in the habit of making each other cups of tea and sharing biscuits and stuff like that.
But what can’t be avoided is touching equipment that others may have touched, unless you wash your hands each time you do, which is nigh impossible to keep up with.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 14, 2020)




----------



## sojourner (Sep 14, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Covid restrictions at work are impossible to follow by the letter, I know, but *am getting fed up with people consistently invading my personal space.* People are very cavalier about sharing cutlery and crockery, and are still in the habit of making each other cups of tea and sharing biscuits and stuff like that.
> But what can’t be avoided is touching equipment that others may have touched, unless you wash your hands each time you do, which is nigh impossible to keep up with.


Same here.  People keep walking into the tiny kitchen when I'm in there, and not even thinking twice about it.

I had to shout at a courier storming towards me on Friday. Told him to back off, that SD was still in fashion, the dick.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2020)

I'm not that surprised to see that email from Vallance, defensive manoeuvres by people at this level of officialdom have been on occasional display for months now. The collective failure is clear, individual failure regarding lockdown is still a very limited picture.

SAGE minutes arent anything like full minute so its impossible to work out individual stances from any of that. And I've never been a Vallance fan and find it hard to take his herd immunity explanation in that email at face value given that there is enough stuff in SAGE minutes and papers to demonstrate that some SAGE members favoured giving herd immunity explanations as a justification for their original 'dont do very much' plan.

I suppose the main thing I've learnt so far is that a number of these officials are more than prepared to throw colleagues under the bus when defending themselves from accusations of pandemic failure. Only time will tell which people in particular were on the wrong side of the argument, and none of those who might have been on the right side of the argument spoke out publicly or diverged from the script when it mattered most. And beyond the individual failings, the orthodox approach failed in general.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2020)

I'm going to have to watch todays Scottish press conference because I need to try to understand the point below that I put in bold, as reported by the Guardian (                            1h ago    12:43                   )



> “We now have very serious concerns that the backlog with test results affecting the UK lab network is starting to impact on the timeous reporting of those results,” she said, during her regular coronavirus briefing.
> 
> She said Jeane Freeman, the Scottish health secretary, had *resisted requests from the UK government to cut back on its testing by the Lighthouse laboratory in Scotland*, and was seeking urgent talks today to press for quicker test results. Sturgeon went on:
> 
> ...


And the video that I will get round to watching:


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2020)

Well if those comments relate to the first few minutes of what was said, the bit I put in bold was misreporting by the Guardian.

What was actually said points to UK government trying to impose test rationing at a different point in the system, not the Lighthouse lab:

"Indeed over the weekend the health secretary managed to resist a move to limit access to testing slots, mobile testing units and regional testing centres".

Probably we could already guess this was on the cards given the news of recent days, but its very useful to have it confirmed.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2020)

Priorities clear.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 14, 2020)

where's that facepalm smiley?


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 14, 2020)

two sheds said:


> where's that facepalm smiley?


: facepalm :

but take the spaces out


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Priorities clear.



i'm in. who else wants to go hunting mps?


----------



## Plumdaff (Sep 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well if those comments relate to the first few minutes of what was said, the bit I put in bold was misreporting by the Guardian.
> 
> What was actually said points to UK government trying to impose test rationing at a different point in the system, not the Lighthouse lab:
> 
> ...



It's definitely the case that the Uk government has been limiting slots. In the Rhondda at the weekend the local Health Board and ambulance staff took over a site which had been limited to 60 tests for the day. 'UK is limiting Rhondda coronavirus testing centre to just 60 tests'


----------



## two sheds (Sep 14, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> : facepalm :
> 
> but take the spaces out



Not the same as one in the Like bar though


----------



## platinumsage (Sep 14, 2020)

No tests of any sort in any of the hotspots:


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well if those comments relate to the first few minutes of what was said, the bit I put in bold was misreporting by the Guardian.
> 
> What was actually said points to UK government trying to impose test rationing at a different point in the system, not the Lighthouse lab:
> 
> ...



Sounds like they are trying to hide or obfuscate whatever the actual issue is or the full scale of the issues.  Surely the long distances werent deliberate in the hope people would just think ah well never mind and not take to the internet in their droves? Is it one big issue hiding behind fake  issues or loads of issues. 

It's hard to know how much is deliberate and how much is incompetence with this lot. 

Did someone say one problem was students staffing labs returning to uni?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 14, 2020)

Lol all that debate about which vaccines are the best, herd immunity and whether to lockdown or not, turns out all we needed to do is hand everyone a rifle and send them out into the moors


----------



## skyscraper101 (Sep 14, 2020)

I don't see anywhere that mentions not having repetitive beats and dancing at these "grouse hunts"


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 14, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> I don't see anywhere that mentions not having repetitive beats and dancing at these "grouse hunts"


indeed i understand they have 'beaters' as an integral part of the process


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm not that surprised to see that email from Vallance, defensive manoeuvres by people at this level of officialdom have been on occasional display for months now. The collective failure is clear, individual failure regarding lockdown is still a very limited picture.



I went back to check the timing of when I first saw that overt defensive posturing. It turns out that it was about a month before that Vallance email when I transcribed some stuff Whitty said to a committee in the latter part of April. (            #9,242          ).


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 14, 2020)

Today's dashboard message...

*Due to an ongoing issue with Microsoft Azure, we are currently unable to update the data. We are monitoring the situation closely and will update the website as soon as the services are restored. *

New cases/deaths published elsewhere (Sunday figures and with the ongoing test/processing problems) -



...but then we still have no update on healthcare, after the weekend.

Last data on patients admitted was on the 9th, and last data on the number of covid pos patients was on the 11th.

The data for the number of patients on mechanical ventilation (which was also last updated on the 11th, iirc) is missing altogether for now.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2020)

They didnt bother with redundancy in their dashboard system then, or actually taking steps to workaround the problem. (following quote is from the Azure status update about this issue).



> Customers using multiple Availability Zones, or Zone Redundant services should not experience impact related to this. Impacted customers are advised to activate their service continuity plans and/or migrate their services to other Availability Zones in the region.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2020)

And yes the ICU data goes up to the 11th, I have the data here in a spreadsheet that I keep updating every few days.

Weekend data quality is often poor even when it comes through, so I'm sort of used to waiting till Tuesday to get a better sense of recent hospital picture.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 14, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> No tests of any sort in any of the hotspots:



Moonshot, lol.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 14, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Today's dashboard message...
> 
> *Due to an ongoing issue with Microsoft Azure, we are currently unable to update the data. We are monitoring the situation closely and will update the website as soon as the services are restored. *
> 
> ...




Which dashboard is this?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 14, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Which dashboard is this?



The actual _gov_ one - the font of all knowledge/info etc, lol -





__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




ETA - ftr, cases and deaths _have_ been updated now. Healthcare has not (and testing had already changed from daily to weekly, the last period actually being 8 days) - and the Azure issue is still highlighted.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 14, 2020)

Those fucking muppets.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 14, 2020)

Peak Tory covid policy?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 14, 2020)

Healthcare updated - numbers, predictably, going up


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 14, 2020)

Covid patients admitted, daily (Wales includes suspected cases, too) -


DateEngland dailyNorthern Ireland dailyScotland dailyWales dailyEngland totalNorthern Ireland totalScotland totalWales total12-09-2020143N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.114,944N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.11-09-2020135N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.70114,801N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,65110-09-20201433N/AData not currently available for this metric.49114,6661,609N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,58109-09-20201360N/AData not currently available for this metric.56114,5231,606N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,53208-09-2020994N/AData not currently available for this metric.65114,3871,606N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,47607-09-2020840N/AData not currently available for this metric.46114,2881,602N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,411

Current confirmed total of covid patients in hospital -



DateEngland dailyNorthern Ireland dailyScotland dailyWales daily14-09-2020782N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.13-09-2020661N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.12-09-2020633N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.11-09-2020600N/AData not currently available for this metric.2694210-09-2020553172664809-09-2020539172743708-09-20205192026735

Confirmed covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds -



DateEngland dailyNorthern Ireland dailyScotland dailyWales daily14-09-202088N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.13-09-202074N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.12-09-202070N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.11-09-20206318710-09-20206227709-09-20206426808-09-202064169


----------



## Sasaferrato (Sep 14, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Lol all that debate about which vaccines are the best, herd immunity and whether to lockdown or not, turns out all we needed to do is hand everyone a rifle and send them out into the moors



I hate to be pedantic, but to hit a grouse with a rifle, you would need to be Annie Oakley.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 14, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> I hate to be pedantic, but to hit a grouse with a rifle, you would need to be Annie Oakley.



Yeh they cheat with a shotgun that sprays shot all over the fucking place. Sneaky fuckers


----------



## brogdale (Sep 14, 2020)

Don't go much on your bird....bray, bray, bray....


----------



## Sasaferrato (Sep 14, 2020)

Age it would seem does not prevent you from naivety.

When I started this thread on the 31st of January, I didn't think that we would be seeing a surge of cases now.


----------



## Sue (Sep 14, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Don't go much on your bird....bray, bray, bray....
> 
> View attachment 230393


That's very Rupert the Bear. With added dead stuff.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2020)

I was looking through my notes to see if anything interesting was happening on the date Vallance wrote that email that was in the news today. Looks like it was when the Cummings shit was hitting the fan, and around the same day that Whitty & Vallance were seen leaving Downing Street rather than do a press conference with Johnson. They did attend a subsequent press conference about 4 days later, which is probably the one that left me unimpressed at the way Whitty & Vallance claimed a desire to be kept out of politics as a reason not to comment on Cummings rule breaking.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 14, 2020)

God, that's even more embarrassing, huh - it was their time to speak, or not - not to send mortified, conflicted, hang-wringing emails about it.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> God, that's even more embarrassing, huh - it was their time to speak, or not - not to send mortified, conflicted, hang-wringing emails about it.



Well its much like the classic clip of Chomsky trying to explain to a wide-eyed Andrew Marr how the system filters people so that its those people like Marr with a certain worldview and degree of compliance that end up in the journalistic positions of great responsibility.

In the corridors of power resignations on principal are not completely unheard of, but they arent run of the mill either and even when there are examples they are usually about far more going on than just principal. If Whitty or Vallance or anybody in the various deputy roles were the sort of people who were at all likely to resign at the crucial moment in March when terrible delay etc was messing everything up, well, I dont think they'd have been as likely to end up in those jobs in the first place. For all sorts of reasons including the mindset of sticking to the mission as some kind of duty, even if various powerful forces prevent the job from being done to your ultimate satisfaction.

All of that shit is part of the reason I didnt spend late February and early March expressing my confidence that the establishment would handle the pandemic well, I dont expect to be impressed by officialdom and indeed I wasnt.

Anyway my picture of the exact opinions of various personnel is still very incomplete. There are far more important things for me to comment on than their later defensive moves, but I dont have much info about many of the other things so I end up dwelling on this stuff instead.

So just to add to what I was saying about Whitty defensiveness a whole month earlier than the Vallance email and the Cummings shitfest:

There was an earlier April 19th Sunday Times article which was also highly critical of the pandemic response.

On April 24th Whitty was defensive in a committee as I mentioned earlier (Hunt was probing him).

On April 27th Johnson returned to the press conference podium for the first time since his hospitalisation, and went on about this being the moment of maximum danger and invisible muggers.

Also at that press conference, in response to a question regarding 20,000 deaths being a good result, which was one of Vallances utterances in March, Whitty pointed out that he had never put that sort of number into the public domain. He also made sure to point out that scientists just advise ministers and its the ministers who actually make the decisions. Pointing this out very overtly was a fairly recent trend that I think I first noticed being said very clearly by Hancock in a previous press conference. It seems likely that these officials had asked the elected politicians to make this point clearly, and I think this may have been covered by a subsequent newspaper article but I'm not entirely sure. They probably demanded that because they were already in defensive, buck-passing mode due to negative press coverage, and they might also have had an idea about some government policies planned for the future (messaging and lockdown relaxation detail and timetable) that they werent completely in agreement with and wanted to put some distance between themselves and the elected part of government. But they are still part of the government, and aspects of their roles go beyond advisory.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2020)

There is also the interesting question, which I have not looked into yet, as to whether the BBC have obtained more emails of that sort, and whether they have a particular project that they are going to use them for.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2020)

Its hard for my mind not to get carried away with the possible ramifications for the government over the current testing failures, given that the news is only likely to get worse on that front and a whole new catalogue of blame awaits.









						Coronavirus: NHS staff off work due to testing shortages, say bosses
					

Hospital bosses warn that a lack of coronavirus tests for workers is putting services at risk.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> A lack of coronavirus tests for NHS staff is leading to staff absences and services being put at risk, hospital bosses have warned.
> 
> NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts in England, said staff are having to self-isolate rather than work because they cannot get tests for themselves or family members.





> Mr Hopson said trusts need to know more detail so they can plan accordingly, for example by creating their own testing facilities.
> 
> "Our recent survey showed how concerned trust leaders were about the impact of inadequate testing on their ability to restore services and it's disappointing that no detailed information on the current problems has been shared," he said.





> Meanwhile, the chairman of the British Medical Association has said the government should focus on the current testing system - rather than its "Operation Moonshot" plan which aims to see millions of tests processed every day by using a new type of test which is not yet rolled out.
> 
> "Down here on planet Earth, we need a fit for purpose test and trace system in the here and now with capacity, agility and accessibility that doesn't require 100-mile journeys that disadvantage some of the most vulnerable," the BMA's Dr Chaand Nagpaul is expected to say in a speech later on Tuesday.


----------



## tommers (Sep 15, 2020)

Illegal mingling.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 15, 2020)

Just looked at the Covid cases for the parts of Leeds where I work and live and they have tripled since the last time I checked, which was when we were warned that those cases were a spike and might result in another lockdown. But still we must go to work & school.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 15, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Just looked at the Covid cases for the parts of Leeds where I work and live and they have tripled since the last time I checked, which was when we were warned that those cases were a spike and might result in another lockdown. But still we must go to work & school.





It's really not looking good across much of the north.  I've just screenshotted this from the local area map the government data dashboard links to:


----------



## souljacker (Sep 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its hard for my mind not to get carried away with the possible ramifications for the government over the current testing failures, given that the news is only likely to get worse on that front and a whole new catalogue of blame awaits.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What a fucking disaster this testing is turning out to be. Patel on there essentially saying there are tests available whilst it's obvious there aren't. Also saying they are working with PHE which, not only is actual lies but also a bit cheeky considering her government have said they are going to abolish it! Just stop bullshitting, admit there is a problem and fucking fix it or we're heading for another lockdown. The incompetence is not funny, it's going to kill people.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 15, 2020)

souljacker said:


> What a fucking disaster this testing is turning out to be. Patel on there essentially saying there are tests available whilst it's obvious there aren't. Also saying they are working with PHE which, not only is actual lies but also a bit cheeky considering her government have said they are going to abolish it! Just stop bullshitting, admit there is a problem and fucking fix it or we're heading for another lockdown. The incompetence is not funny, it's going to kill people.



If this government stopped bullshitting it would collapse within minutes.  The whole edifice is built on lies.


----------



## sojourner (Sep 15, 2020)

Cheers Roadie - my home town St Helens is not looking good. Also, I found out that the small area where I live had the most deaths overall in the town


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 15, 2020)

souljacker said:


> What a fucking disaster this testing is turning out to be. Patel on there essentially saying there are tests available whilst it's obvious there aren't. Also saying they are working with PHE which, not only is actual lies but also a bit cheeky considering her government have said they are going to abolish it! Just stop bullshitting, admit there is a problem and fucking fix it or we're heading for another lockdown. The incompetence is not funny, it's going to kill people.


They appear to literally not care that they are killing people and will kill a lot more. And the press has already assured them that no matter how badly they fuck up, they will get the kind of free pass that no left wing government could ever dream of. And it seems Johnson can do anything he wants until Brexit is done, cos that's what he was elected to do. So there's no consequences to their actions, and if Johnson eventually does get removed when Brexit fucks up he'll probably be relieved anyway as he clearly doesn't like hard work. So the Tories will pin the blame on him for the multiple disasters and go on their merry way. I'm feeling pretty frustrated atm.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2020)

Clearly they already started rationing testing and now Hancock has admitted something on this front, with more shit to come by the sounds of it:



> We’ve seen a sharp rise in people coming forward for a test, including those who are not eligible.
> 
> And throughout this pandemic we have prioritised testing according to need. Over the summer, when demand was low, we were able to meet all requirements for testing, whether priorities or not.
> 
> But as demand has risen, so we are having to prioritise once again. And I do not shirk from decisions about prioritisation. They are not always comfortable, but they are important.





> The top priority is, and always has been, acute clinical care.
> 
> The next priority is social care, where we’re now sending over 100,000 tests a day because we’ve all seen the risks this virus poses in care homes.
> 
> We’ll set out in full an updated prioritisation and I do not rule out further steps to make sure tests are used according to those priorities. It is a choice that we must make.



 25m ago 12:58 

Never mind that most of their plans to cope and to keep things open that they dangled before us rely on a great test & trace system eh.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 15, 2020)

They say that some people - ie without symptoms - are not eligible. But if you think you've been in contact with someone and may be infectious even though asymptomatic then surely it's good to get a test particularly if you're in contact with someone who's vulnerable.

Eta: before commenting on this, please note that LynnDoyleCooper has demonstrated below that it is bollocks


----------



## sojourner (Sep 15, 2020)

two sheds said:


> They say that some people - ie without symptoms - are not eligible. But if you think you've been in contact with someone and may be infectious even though asymptomatic then surely it's good to get a test.


Is that not the whole fucking point of the track and trace system? Absolutely beggars belief.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 15, 2020)

Doesnt seem to be much joined up thinking. 

We want to open up so we have great test and trace. 

We dont have test capacity so only test if you fit the narrow criteria. 

If you have had contact quarantine so you dont go to work. 

You're an essential worker so you need to work. We need tests for key workers. 

To many people are getting tests so dont get tested. 

You dont know what you have so dont go to work. 

Get back to work.


----------



## LDC (Sep 15, 2020)

two sheds said:


> They say that some people - ie without symptoms - are not eligible. But if you think you've been in contact with someone and may be infectious even though asymptomatic then surely it's good to get a test particularly if you're in contact with someone who's vulnerable.



Tests are very unreliable if you have no symptoms, and what you've said is you 'think you've been in contact' but have no symptoms, which is currently not an indicator for getting a test.


----------



## LDC (Sep 15, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Is that not the whole fucking point of the track and trace system? Absolutely beggars belief.



No, it's not the whole point. Not everyone who's been in any contact with a positive case gets a test. And it's why people following the quarantine period is _very_ important.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Tests are very unreliable if you have no symptoms, and what you've said is you 'think you've been in contact' but have no symptoms, which is currently not an indicator for getting a test.



if you know you've been in contact?

Eta: when you apply for a test presumably they ask you whether you have symptoms and why you feel you need a test - wouldn't that be picked up there rather than people having unnecessary tests?


----------



## sojourner (Sep 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, it's not the whole point. Not everyone who's been in any contact with a positive case gets a test. And it's why people following the quarantine period is _very_ important.


I stand corrected then. And I thought I knew how it worked.


----------



## LDC (Sep 15, 2020)

two sheds said:


> if you know you've been in contact?



If you've been told to. There is a bit of truth to a part of the problem being a sudden huge increase in people deciding they want a test when it's not clinically indicated. Anecdotally I know a good load of people that have been doing that, which while understandable isn't ideal.

That's not the main reason but it's not helped. Main reason is the sudden upsurge in cases (and demand from schools going back, more people in work, etc.) when a huge percentage of the capacity (40-50%) is being used by care homes and hospitals, and there's also a shortage of people, reagent, and testing facilities, and then general fuck-ups (some predictable, some less so) on top of bad planning and command and control.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If you've been told to. There is a bit of truth to the problems being a sudden huge increase in people deciding they want a test when it's not clinically indicated. Anecdotally I know a good load of people that have been doing that, which while understandable isn't ideal.
> 
> That's not the main reason but it's not helped. Main reason is the sudden upsurge in cases when a huge percentage of the capacity (40-50%) is being used by care homes and hospitals, and there's also a shortage of people, reagent, and testing facilities, and then general fuck-ups (some predictable, some less so) on top of bad planning and command and control.



Ta - and the bit I added after?

when you apply for a test presumably they ask you whether you have symptoms and why you feel you need a test - wouldn't that be picked up there rather than people having unnecessary tests?


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Sep 15, 2020)

I made a whole thread for this discussion !











						Covid testing : where when how and what happens next.
					

Still waiting for my daughter’s test result, but whatever she has she has passed it on to me.  Clearly this means it can’t be Covid though, since children don’t infect adults :hmm:




					www.urban75.net


----------



## Spandex (Sep 15, 2020)

I don't know why but I just remembered the government's COVID Alert Levels traffic light chart that came out at the beginning of June. I thought I'd take a look to see what wisdom it might throw on the current situation:







I think it's fair to say that a COVID-19 epidemic is in general circulation, so I guess we're currently at Level 3. According to the great minds of state that means there should be a "gradual relaxing of restrictions and social distancing measures".

Hmm.

Did they really think at that time that it was only going to go in one direction? That it was going to fade away and that'd be an end of it? Did it not enter their brains that infection rates might go up again and a second spike was a possibility? Or was this chart just some random bumf they threw out to make it look like they had a plan? 

Spoiler: it is just some random bumf they threw out to make it look like they had a plan..


----------



## LDC (Sep 15, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Ta - and the bit I added after?
> 
> when you apply for a test presumably they ask you whether you have symptoms and why you feel you need a test - wouldn't that be picked up there rather than people having unnecessary tests?



Not sure, I haven't had a test. A good few people I know have lied about having symptoms on the form though.


----------



## xenon (Sep 15, 2020)

This is what you get with a government of inbred spivs and crony CapitlisM


LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Tests are very unreliable if you have no symptoms, and what you've said is you 'think you've been in contact' but have no symptoms, which is currently not an indicator for getting a test.



The problem is all the usual coughs and sniffles people get starting this time of year. If I had kids or new I'd been in contact albeit sparadically with someone who's got it and started getting a mild cough, I'd want the test. Even though it's still more probable to be a nothingy mild cold.

That X several hundred thousand.


----------



## platinumsage (Sep 15, 2020)

How to get a test:


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2020)

And from the BBC version of the story comes Hancock attributing levels of demand to the fact the testing is free.



> Labour's shadow health secretary Mr Ashworth said Mr Hancock was "losing control of this virus".
> 
> "When schools reopen and people return to workplaces and social distancing becomes harder, infections rise," he said.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: Testing problems to be solved in weeks, says Hancock
					

The health secretary says testing policy will be updated to prioritise the most urgent cases.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 15, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> How to get a test:




I go past that test centre regularly.  I've never seen more than one car there apart from when it first opened where there was a bit of a queue.  In fact they've recently shrunk it down to less testing lanes.  

What is happening with testing is utterly baffling and as per usual there is a total refusal by the government to explain anything.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 15, 2020)

"gaming the system"? wtf? getting a test near to you when the system doesn't work. Stupid twat.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 15, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> How to get a test:




It'd be better to quote the MP's own tweet than give any more exposure to that lying shit Harwood.


----------



## Supine (Sep 15, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I don't know why but I just remembered the government's COVID Alert Levels traffic light chart that came out at the beginning of June. I thought I'd take a look to see what wisdom it might throw on the current situation:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



level 4 at the moment. exponential rising.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Sep 15, 2020)

I don’t think Im the only person who would really really prefer it if the testing discussions could be easily found. As things change with the increasing possibility of a second wave etc, I think it’s also important that relevant and evolving information can be easily found on here without trawling through a portmanteau thread, or several threads.

I made this other thread over here for test chats, so I invite and encouraged this conversation to go over there.









						Covid testing : where when how and what happens next.
					

Still waiting for my daughter’s test result, but whatever she has she has passed it on to me.  Clearly this means it can’t be Covid though, since children don’t infect adults :hmm:




					www.urban75.net


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 15, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I don't know why but I just remembered the government's COVID Alert Levels traffic light chart that came out at the beginning of June. I thought I'd take a look to see what wisdom it might throw on the current situation:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I remember they somehow managed to go straight from 5 to 3 somehow after lockdown. 

Twats.


----------



## editor (Sep 15, 2020)

And up pops another 'it's a violation of my liberty' idiot 









						Noel Gallagher says he refuses to wear a 'pointless' mask despite UK laws
					

Singer-songwriter argues ‘if I get the virus it’s on me, it’s not on anyone else’, as Ian Brown calls for ‘no masks no vax’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## editor (Sep 15, 2020)

editor said:


> And up pops another 'it's a violation of my liberty' idiot
> 
> 
> 
> ...


His brother is not impressed


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 15, 2020)

editor said:


> And up pops another 'it's a violation of my liberty' idiot
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So, Morrissey is a raving racist and Noel Gallagher and Ian Brown are Covidiots.

'Manchester, so much to answer for.'


----------



## IC3D (Sep 15, 2020)

It's under his fucking nose


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Sep 15, 2020)

IC3D said:


> It's under his fucking nose


For a moment there I was worried that I might have to think Liam Gallagher was being sensible.


----------



## maomao (Sep 15, 2020)

Surely Noel Gallagher must realise wearing a mask in public reduces his chances of being punched in his smug cunt face considerably.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 15, 2020)

maomao said:


> Surely Noel Gallagher must realise wearing a mask in public reduces his chances of being punched in his smug cunt face considerably.


I witnessed him getting twatted in Camden in the 90s. Great night.


----------



## Supine (Sep 15, 2020)

worth a read but depressing. 









						Two weeks for ‘rule of six’ to stop Covid spread or tougher measures loom | ITV News
					

Social distancing measures could be reintroduced, Robert Peston has learned. | ITV National News




					www.itv.com


----------



## zahir (Sep 15, 2020)

Hospital outbreak in Tameside. 









						Tameside hospital fights fatal outbreak of hospital-acquired Covid
					

Exclusive: inquiry launched as several patients die of Covid-19 after becoming infected while being treated for other illnesses




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> worth a read but depressing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's depressing how fucking obvious it is that current measures will not be enough.


----------



## killer b (Sep 15, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> So, Morrissey is a raving racist and Noel Gallagher and Ian Brown are Covidiots.
> 
> 'Manchester, so much to answer for.'


Its probably for the best Ian Curtis signed out early. He was a tory then, you can only imagine where he'd be now...


----------



## clicker (Sep 15, 2020)

S☼I said:


> It's depressing how fucking obvious it is that current measures will not be enough.


Yes this. We know it'll change, but waiting for the inevitable is grim.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 15, 2020)

clicker said:


> Yes this. We know it'll change, but waiting for the inevitable is grim.


Still feels like I'm still hoping for someone close enough to me to get it without getting it myself. I don't mean that in a bad way, I hope nobody gets it, but yswim


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2020)

zahir said:


> Hospital outbreak in Tameside.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The headline has pissed me off too. First fatal outbreak of hospital-acquired Covid in England my fucking arse. Why the fuck are they framing it like that? I spoke a bunch in this thread about an outbreak in my local hospital that killed a bunch of people in June. And the article itself mentions that as many as a fifth of inpatients with Covid-19 caught it this way, and the article also makes reference to a tory MPs father who died of hospital-acquired Covid in May.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 15, 2020)

I'm resisting writing an account of staff illness in my trust and the horror as I realised we were following govt guidelines published too late and only wearing masks for patient contact for way too long. It was complete negligence from our managers and execs. First hospital outbreak was in February.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 15, 2020)

Wasting tests on patients that were pouring in all presenting with identical covid symptoms and not testing any staff or even raising an eyebrow that it was tearing through the front-line workers


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2020)

I havent had time to make a complete series of graphs relating to my local hospitals outbreak, and when I do I'm going to put it in the nerdy thread. But since the subject came up I just graphed the data showing bed occupancy at my local hospital. Look at how bad it got again by mid June as a result of the fatal outbreak here, and then just look what happened to it when they finally got a grip on infection control in the hospital, closed some wards etc. No local lockdown required to deal with this, and I think the data paints quite a vivid picture.


----------



## LDC (Sep 15, 2020)

IC3D said:


> I'm resisting writing an account of staff illness in my trust and the horror as I realised we were following govt guidelines published too late and only wearing masks for patient contact for way too long. It was complete negligence from our managers and execs. First hospital outbreak was in February.



Our hospital was way behind in reacting to what was going on at the start of the pandemic. Nothing happened for ages (and I was regularly asking/hassling for info) and then it was sudden panic.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Sep 15, 2020)

So if people are using fake postcodes at the other end of the country, to get tests at their nearest centre...  what postcodes are their results linked to? Do you still enter your real home address at some point?


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2020)

The Guardian have fixed their headline and intro for that hospital story by removing the idea that that it was the first fatal outbreak of that kind in England.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2020)

While we are on that subject, NERVTAG minutes for a June 10th meeting includes this:


From Box via Box

I know we are already not too short on explanations for why this country does so badly in this pandemic, but the one mentioned above is not focussed on nearly enough.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2020)

And yes, JVT is Jonathan Van Tam.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 16, 2020)

FFS


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 16, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> FFS




TBF, they did open a replacement in Rochester before that one closed.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBF, they did open a replacement in Rochester before that one closed.



They did, but we need all the testing capacity we can get atm.  Yet they're closing one for a lorry park that should never have been necessary.


----------



## bimble (Sep 16, 2020)

Supine said:


> worth a read but depressing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The bit where it quotes 'a senior member of the government' as saying “There is no possibility of us waiting for the death rate to rise before we act” - what is that supposed to mean, what are they waiting for then.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 16, 2020)

I think the confusion/dissatisfaction about the ridiculous aspects of the rules is deliberate tbh, I think they are banking on not as many people following them as last time, they're doing the bare minimum to _look_ like they're doing something. Remember all those headlines about how the UK was 'more compliant than expected' etc.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 16, 2020)

We had a hell of a spike in Worthing, after weeks of just 2 or 3 new cases a week, it shot up to 37 in the first 7 days of this month. The County Council said most the cases were linked, and they had been successful in contact tracing, the 7-day rolling average has started to drop again, and we are down to 2 cases a day, still 7 times more than in August.

I was in a zoom meeting earlier and found out what had happened, apparently three guys in their 20's returned from holiday and decided the self-isolation rule didn't apply to them, went and met some mates at a pub, which had to close for a deep clean, then went on to a house party, and general mixing in the community over several days, spreading it about. 

Fucking cunts.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Iwas in a zoom meeting earlier and found out what had happened, apparently three guys in their 20's returned from holiday and decided the self-isolation rule didn't apply to them, went and met some mates at a pub, which had to close for a deep clean, and then went on to a house party spreading it about


Assumed they will fined heavily at very least?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> We had a hell of a spike in Worthing, after weeks of just 2 or 3 new cases a week, it shot up to 37 in the first 7 days of this month. The County Council said most the cases were linked, and they had been successful in contact tracing, the 7-day rolling average has started to drop again, and we are down to 2 cases a day, still 7 times more than in August.
> 
> I was in a zoom meeting earlier and found out what had happened, apparently three guys in their 20's returned from holiday and decided the self-isolation rule didn't apply to them, went and met some mates at a pub, which had to close for a deep clean, and then went on to a house party spreading it about.
> 
> Fucking cunts.



I said on the holiday thread at the start of summer how I thought holidays were going to be bad news and it would be better if we missed a year.  The story you describe above has been repeated so many times over all around the country.


----------



## LDC (Sep 16, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think the confusion/dissatisfaction about the ridiculous aspects of the rules is deliberate tbh, I think they are banking on not as many people following them as last time, they're doing the bare minimum to _look_ like they're doing something. Remember all those headlines about how the UK was 'more compliant than expected' etc.



I'm not so sure. (Also any rules like this will have bits that seem to make no sense.) I think there's quite significant internal disagreements in the Tory party and the wider establishment about how to deal with the coming months and what we have now is a holding pattern until things change and then the balance of pressure will swing towards stricter measures,


----------



## mr steev (Sep 16, 2020)

The council are trying to encourage a voluntary lockdown here to try and avoid an (inevitable imo) official one









						Voluntary lockdown measures for Wolverhampton after Covid cases surge again
					

People in Wolverhampton have been asked to follow new voluntary lockdown restrictions after a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases.




					www.expressandstar.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 16, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Assumed they will fined heavily at very least?



I hope so.

They can thank their lucky stars that they don't live on the Isle of Man, if you don't self-isolate there, it's off to prison you go.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> We had a hell of a spike in Worthing, after weeks of just 2 or 3 new cases a week, it shot up to 37 in the first 7 days of this month. The County Council said most the cases were linked, and they had been successful in contact tracing, the 7-day rolling average has started to drop again, and we are down to 2 cases a day, still 7 times more than in August.
> 
> I was in a zoom meeting earlier and found out what had happened, apparently three guys in their 20's returned from holiday and decided the self-isolation rule didn't apply to them, went and met some mates at a pub, which had to close for a deep clean, then went on to a house party, and general mixing in the community over several days, spreading it about.
> 
> Fucking cunts.


Facepalm at the idiots of course, but I'm still encouraged by the response as you describe it. A system working in this instance, and at council level by the sounds of it, which is the level at which most of this kind of heavy lifting needs to be done. 

An example of the level at which the system can still work too I guess. Multiply the idiots by 10 or 20 and things get messy.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not so sure. (Also any rules like this will have bits that seem to make no sense.) I think there's quite significant internal disagreements in the Tory party and the wider establishment about how to deal with the coming months and what we have now is a holding pattern until things change and then the balance of pressure will swing towards stricter measures,



The grouse shooting and stuff though


----------



## brogdale (Sep 16, 2020)

Comes to something when the Daily Star goes with a 'politics' story on their front page*..



* usual shite greyed out


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 16, 2020)

Daily Star has been doing that for a while.  It's been a running theme.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 16, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Facepalm at the idiots of course, but I'm still encouraged by the response as you describe it. A system working in this instance, and at council level by the sounds of it, which is the level at which most of this kind of heavy lifting needs to be done.
> 
> An example of the level at which the system can still work too I guess. Multiply the idiots by 10 or 20 and things get messy.



Yeah, West Sussex County Council does seem to have done a good job, but as you knowledge, it's easy for them to focus on one outbreak in one borough, when cases across the county are very low.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Daily Star has been doing that for a while.  It's been a running theme.


Bow to your greater knowledge; haven't been in a newsagent since March.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 16, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Bow to your greater knowledge; haven't been in a newsagent since March.



I just read the round-up of the front pages each morning:









						Newspaper headlines: Coronavirus testing 'circus' as Hancock says it may last weeks
					

The government's testing system faces criticism on many of Wednesday's front pages.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Good to see The Times really focusing on the important stuff like poisoned Russian oligarchs and how much booze women should are shouldn't be allowed to drink.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I just read the round-up of the front pages each morning:


Have they stopped doing that on the BBC Breakfast news now? Used to see it every morning, but I don't remember them mentioning the print media at all for months.


----------



## editor (Sep 16, 2020)

Following Caerffili, Rhondda Cynon Taff is to go into lockdown:



> A second county in Wales will go into lockdown because of the rate of coronavirus cases.
> 
> The 240,000 people living in Rhondda Cynon Taff will have restrictions imposed on their daily lives.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: Rhondda Cynon Taf to go into lockdown
					

No-one can leave or enter Rhondda Cynon Taf without reasonable excuse from Thursday evening.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Sep 16, 2020)

Never mind invisible muggers, more like invisible marshals.



> The widespread introduction of Covid marshals to towns and cities in England is "unlikely" and "almost impossible", some local authorities have said.
> 
> Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested the marshals would enforce rules about social distancing, gathering in groups and wearing masks.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: Marshals 'unlikely' in England, councils say
					

Introducing Covid marshals across England is "unlikely" and "almost impossible", some authorities say.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 16, 2020)

‘No muzzles allowed’: Chichester shop owner explains why he put up signs banning face mask-wearing customers
					

A shop owner in Chichester has put up signs saying customers wearing face masks will be banned from entering.




					www.chichester.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (Sep 16, 2020)

Next week: 'Chichester shop owner gets coronavirus and demands to be treated by NHS'


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 16, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> ‘No muzzles allowed’: Chichester shop owner explains why he put up signs banning face mask-wearing customers
> 
> 
> A shop owner in Chichester has put up signs saying customers wearing face masks will be banned from entering.
> ...



He's the that should be muzzled, or maybe charged with reckless endangerment or similar.

Add him to list of companies / places to boycott !


----------



## Wilf (Sep 16, 2020)

I don't normally go with the 'thick/selfish twats' line when it comes to specific outbreaks, preferring to focus on the context created by our inept rulers. But in this case you do have to wonder, whilst still noting it was the government that allowed crowds into Doncaster Races:








						South Wales outbreak no longer blamed on 'Doncaster races trip'
					

Cases in Rhondda Cynon Taff linked to club outing that ‘stopped at a series of pubs’




					www.theguardian.com
				




Looks like the race meeting was forced to ban spectators after the first day:








						Doncaster told to go behind closed doors
					

Doncaster Racecourse is told by local health officials to stop spectators attending its St Leger meeting after Wednesday's opening day.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				




So, yeah, people make some bad decisions, leading to a spike in cases, but they do it in a shitty context create by Johnson et al.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 16, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> He's the that should be muzzled, or maybe charged with reckless endangerment or similar.
> 
> Add him to list of companies / places to boycott !


He's made himself very obvious. I expect a lot of people will be keeping an eye on mask wearing on his premises...


----------



## editor (Sep 16, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> ‘No muzzles allowed’: Chichester shop owner explains why he put up signs banning face mask-wearing customers
> 
> 
> A shop owner in Chichester has put up signs saying customers wearing face masks will be banned from entering.
> ...


Here's the twat and the staff he's reckelessly endangering


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 16, 2020)

1) and 4) are particularly fucking stupid


----------



## Looby (Sep 16, 2020)

I drove past a house that had some sort of rant in an upstairs window. I just caught ‘Bill Gates’ but was busy driving. I’m going to go back with Mr Looby to check out the full glory and try and suss if they need to be on a list.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 16, 2020)

People like the guy pictured do make it very difficult to not judge a book by its cover.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Sep 16, 2020)

Local restrictions set to come into force across North East

[edited to put in correct article - third times the charm]
Local paper is reporting that a regional lockdown will take place in the North East from Friday - possibly going as far as banning any socialising with people outside your household even outdoors (though falling short of shutting businesses or schools).


----------



## DaveCinzano (Sep 16, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Have they stopped doing that on the BBC Breakfast news now? Used to see it every morning, but I don't remember them mentioning the print media at all for months.


Himself formerly of this parish (the one who _went undercover in the ALF_ for a tabloid TV show in the 90s) does that for the Beeb


----------



## crossthebreeze (Sep 16, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Local restrictions set to come into force across North East
> 
> [edited to put in correct article - third times the charm]
> Local paper is reporting that a regional lockdown will take place in the North East from Friday - possibly going as far as banning any socialising with people outside your household even outdoors (though falling short of shutting businesses or schools).


Hancock announcement due 11am tomorrow - according to leader of Newcastle council


----------



## chilango (Sep 16, 2020)

de Pfeffel talking openly about the need to avoid a second nationwide lockdown suggests to me that it's pretty imminent.


----------



## elbows (Sep 16, 2020)

chilango said:


> de Pfeffel talking openly about the need to avoid a second nationwide lockdown suggests to me that it's pretty imminent.



Him talking about it is certainly a sign that its back on the agenda, a signal of its own.

I dont know where exactly they have set bar for reimposing stuff based on stats. I dont know if its number of cases, percentage positivity, hospital admission rates or ICU capacity triggers or a combination. So I dont know how close it is. And how quickly things spiral also determines whether they will get a chance to go through a series of intermediate steps or end up skipping ahead to the big ones.


----------



## chilango (Sep 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Him talking about it is certainly a sign that its back on the agenda, a signal of its own.
> 
> I dont know where exactly they have set bar for reimposing stuff based on stats. I dont know if its number of cases, percentage positivity, hospital admission rates or ICU capacity triggers or a combination. So I dont know how close it is. And how quickly things spiral also determines whether they will get a chance to go through a series of intermediate steps or end up skipping ahead to the big ones.



They'll wait long enough - if they can - to get the students into Uni and "partying" so they've got a scapegoat for the "gentler" measures failing (and later down the line, the economy tanking further).

Murdering public school bastards.


----------



## elbows (Sep 16, 2020)

Nick Triggle, the BBC health correspondent thinks a second national lockdown is extremely unlikely.

But he is the reporter whose 'analysis' on Friday 13th March included the idea that we should still be getting on with our lives, and that analysis was replaced with someone elses in the online article that same day. So at the very least I dont think I'll be placing much weight on his judgement and analysis, and it is also tempting to mock parts of this analysis. A better grip, officials are quite confident, oh but there will be loads of death. Fuck off.









						Coronavirus: Second national lockdown would be 'disastrous', PM says
					

Boris Johnson says the government is doing "everything in our power" to prevent another lockdown.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> A second national lockdown is extremely unlikely for two reasons.
> 
> Firstly, it is hugely damaging - to the economy, to education and to wider health for reasons other than Covid.
> 
> ...





> Current infection rates and hospitalisations remain much lower than they were in the spring and, despite the problems with testing, there is pretty rich data on exactly where the virus is and how quickly it is spreading.
> 
> Even if things get worse, officials are quite confident the NHS will cope.
> 
> But that does not mean there won't be further restrictions - or that it won't be a very difficult winter with a high number of deaths.


----------



## chilango (Sep 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Nick Triggle, the BBC health correspondent thinks a second national lockdown is extremely unlikely.
> 
> But he is the reporter whose 'analysis' on Friday 13th March included the idea that we should still be getting on with our lives, and that analysis was replaced with someone elses in the online article that same day. So at the very least I dont think I'll be placing much weight on his judgement and analysis, and it is also tempting to mock parts of this analysis. A better grip, officials are quite confident, oh but there will be loads of death. Fuck off.
> 
> ...



I read that. I hope he wasn't paid for it.


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 16, 2020)

Quick note on that Chichester arsehole -- we've had two recent visits to Glastonbury (town), including the weekend just gone (   )..

*But!*
Even with all the ultra-hippy shops that dominate the centre, and even with all the fruitloops and conspiacists that hang out in the town, there were no signs anything like the Chichester ones that we could see in any shop window .... 

There *are* a couple of shops (including the well known one at the bottom of the High Street owned by Free Rob Cannabis) that put a prominent sign up saying it's 'your choice' whether or not you wear a mask 

Vastly outnumbered though, by all the other shops that impose limits on numbers, and have big signs insisting on face-coverings/masks.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 16, 2020)

Interesting that cases in Barnet have fallen this week compared to last (86 cases this week according to BBC, 16 fewer than last week) - don't know if this is just lack of tests, or a sign that it's not on as steep a path upwards as March/April. Yet.


----------



## Sue (Sep 16, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Interesting that cases in Barnet have fallen this week compared to last (86 cases this week according to BBC, 16 fewer than last week) - don't know if this is just lack of tests, or a sign that it's not on as steep a path upwards as March/April. Yet.


Well in these parts, it looks likely the former.

'"In Stamford Hill, just 84 tests were available, at a centre that routinely saw several hundred people a day - even before schools reopened and people were encouraged to return to their offices'. 

Two weeks ago Hackney had the highest number of positive cases diagnosed in London, but this week the borough is way down the list at 17 out of 32 boroughs.'









						Coronavirus: Hackney’s top officials slam government’s ‘shambolic’ system as hundreds turned away from testing centres
					

Top officials in Hackney have slammed the government’s coronavirus testing system as a shambles, after hundreds of people who needed...




					www.hackneygazette.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 16, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Hancock announcement due 11am tomorrow - according to leader of Newcastle council



They (the councils) need something to enforce social distancing / curfews / mask wearing - because "when the drinks in the brains are out" although I think the proposals are still too weak, especially with this mantra about going back to work, pubs and schools (PM & Chancellor also need to extend a modified & more selective furlough scheme or find some other way to protect jobs in certain sectors).

I'm lucky enough to live in a low rate / rural area.
But at the weekend loads of non-local bodies (without masks) were milling around in the "town centre" all far too close to each other, especially in the market place and local park. As for the bus queues !


----------



## MrSki (Sep 17, 2020)

Well if this is true then it is worse than being reported.


----------



## Thora (Sep 17, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Well if this is true then it is worse than being reported.



Seems unlikely. Who is the bloke claiming this?


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

Just a former director of the WHO who has been commentating critically on the UK government handling of the pandemic since the early days, injecting reality into a distorted early picture on many occasions. I have not monitored his track record since though.


----------



## zahir (Sep 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Just a former director of the WHO who has been commentating critically on the UK government handling of the pandemic since the early days, injecting reality into a distorted early picture on many occasions. I have not monitored his track record since though.



He’s involved in Independent Sage and I’d take him to be one of the most reliable voices around, whether or not he’s right in this instance.


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

In order to judge the 38,000 infections per day claim, we'd need to know what proportion of cases they think the testing system was picking up on the last day in which the number actually rose (ie just before the issues with testing system supply and demand manifested to such an extent that no numbers 'by date of specimen' managed to exceed that total on any subsequent day yet, which currently looks to be around September 7th). And we'd need to know what they think the doubling time has been since then.

Since I dont know the answers to those, if I instead take the data up till around September 7th at face value, then its hard to get anywhere close to 38,000 by now without a very short doubling time indeed. What is much easier to achieve is if the 38,000 relates to cases in the last 7 days, not a single day. Given that from September 1st to 7th it went from a bit over 10,000 to a bit over 20,000, that seems plausible and a reasonable fit. However this might just be a coincidence and the 38,000 he got really is supposed to be a daily figure but one that was modelled in a fancier way rather than being a simple projection forwards of the actual number of cases detected.


----------



## zahir (Sep 17, 2020)

I was taking it as an estimate of the number of actual infections in the real world rather than the number that would be picked up by testing, if testing was working.


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

All the same, if I repeat a vaguely similar exercise in another way, by multiplying by 7 the current daily number on the Zoe Covid site at the time of me writing this, I get 37394.


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

Its a shame I dont know more about the estimates they've had internally leading up till this moment.

Well, I know about the ONS survey one, because it is published every week. But the most recent version currently available covers a time period that already feels like quite a long time ago in epidemic terms:





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot - Office for National Statistics
					

Results include estimates for England and initial results for Wales. This survey is carried out in partnership with IQVIA, Oxford University and UK Biocentre.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				






> During the most recent week (30 August to 5 September 2020), we estimate there were around 0.58 (95% credible interval: 0.38 to 0.84) new COVID-19 infections for every 10,000 people per day in the community population in England, equating to around 3,200 new cases per day (95% credible interval: 2,000 to 4,600).



However it is not as simple as comparing that to the actual number of positives that were detected through testing on days in that period, because when they say community population, their estimates only apply to private residential cases, not hospital cases or care homes or other institutional settings.

I dont even know if that 38,000 number is supposed to be for the whole UK or England or England and Wales.

But dont get me wrong, its not a completely insane and implausible number, I'm just probing it and what it could actually refer to because thats what I do. I'm always droning on about how easily small numbers can become big numbers, and the guesstimates about how many new cases there were every day at the peak of infection in the first wave were very much larger still. In some ways I'm more interested in what they think the current doubling time might be. And as I also always go on about, whether they have any useful data from sewage surveillance that is feeding into their current picture in a useful way.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 17, 2020)

Haha what the fuck.


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

I'll reserve my thoughts on that Cameron stuff for another day.

Regarding the whole number of infections and lockdown decisions thing, despite the various numbers stuff I was just waffling on about I am actually keener on thinking about it from a different angle:

Whatever the actual number of daily infections right now, the key thing is that it is clearly too many for the testing system to cope with.

And regardless of what Whitty advises Johnson and what Johnson agrees to do in regards lockdown, how exactly is the 'new normal' that has been phased in over months supposed to continue in that way when test rationing, largely restricting tests to priority groups seems to be on the cards?

They spent a long time earlier this year telling us that testing & contact tracing was key to being able to relax various restrictions. Even without a new formal lockdown, aspects of peoples lives will inevitably grind to a halt again when there is no timely testing system available. And resulting loss of confidence tends to spill over into other areas. 

This probably is the sort of moment where I would slam the brakes on for a bit. Its the only genuine way to reduce demand for testing, reduce the number of infections.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 17, 2020)

Thora said:


> Seems unlikely. Who is the bloke claiming this?


Just reported it on the 4am news on 5Live.


----------



## Mation (Sep 17, 2020)

editor said:


> Here's the twat and the staff he's reckelessly endangering
> 
> View attachment 230598
> 
> View attachment 230599


A lot of that bollocks seems to be down to a combination of understanding (sort of) that masks don't protect you, and a misunderstanding that wearing a mask is _supposed_ to protect you.

It seems to be really hard to grasp the difference between the PPE that we all know that frontline workers need in order to protect themselves with the idea that wearing masks and face coverings in a general setting is meant to protect other people, and that this is reciprocal.

My mask protects you. Your mask protects me. 

I'm not sure that message is getting out clearly enough.


----------



## zora (Sep 17, 2020)

Thank you, MrSki and elbows, I was just about to ask this very question (by how much of a factor we think - fear! - unreported cases have risen since test/trace/isolate has broken down), and your posts have answered it - in as much as possible.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 17, 2020)

Mation said:


> My mask protects you. Your mask protects me.
> 
> I'm not sure that message is getting out clearly enough.


 Absolutely. And the reason it isn't being shouted from the rooftops is because the last thing this bunch of utter cunts in charge want or accidentally consider is the concept of people looking after one another. They're all _The weak shall perish_ in their void hearts


----------



## bimble (Sep 17, 2020)

Is it just this country whose testing system has entirely broken does anyone know - are the testing systems in for instance France Germany etc still functioning?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I don't normally go with the 'thick/selfish twats' line when it comes to specific outbreaks, preferring to focus on the context created by our inept rulers. But in this case you do have to wonder, whilst still noting it was the government that allowed crowds into Doncaster Races:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Turns out they didn't actually go to the races.



> A statement on Wednesday evening from the Welsh Government clarified the party did not attend the races being held in the South Yorkshire town, as part of a pilot event for 2,500 people.
> 
> Doncaster Racecourse has confirmed it had no ticket bookings for any groups from south Wales for the event.
> 
> "Doncaster Racecourse has received no contact from any organisation, including the NHS or the Welsh Government, to verify the attendance of any individuals at last week's event for the purposes of track and trace," it said.











						Coronavirus: Rhondda Cynon Taf to go into lockdown
					

No-one can leave or enter Rhondda Cynon Taf without reasonable excuse from Thursday evening.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it just this country whose testing system has entirely broken does anyone know - are the testing systems in for instance France Germany etc still functioning?



According to this, which is only up to 10th Sept., the UK is ahead of France & Spain on testing, whereas they are both ahead of us on cases.











						France: Coronavirus Pandemic Country Profile
					

France: What has been the impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19)?




					ourworldindata.org


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 17, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Haha what the fuck.



_Thank you Mr. Cameron, I won a trophy in hopping after you sold my leg_

The pig-fucking shitcunt


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 17, 2020)

They were saying this morning that the curfew in the NE of England would mean pubs have to close at 11. Isn't that when they've always closed?


----------



## killer b (Sep 17, 2020)

not for at least 10-15 years?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2020)

I can see the curfew on pubs & restaurants going national very soon.



> But asked whether further measures such as a curfew could be put into place, the prime minister told _The Sun_ newspaper: “I don’t think we are yet in that position but look around the world at what other countries are doing. What I don’t want to be doing is locking down sections of the economy.
> 
> “I remember when the pubs used to close at 11 anyway in the old days. That sort of thing, we will be looking at it.”











						Boris Johnson says pubs curfew may be needed to stop coronavirus
					

New measures could be needed as ministers introduce rationing for failing  testing programme




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## miss direct (Sep 17, 2020)

What does "curfew" mean in the UK? We had curfews in Turkey in the Spring, and they meant people couldn't leave their homes (apart from the garden, and key worker type people with permission slips). Does it just mean pubs are closed here?


----------



## Spandex (Sep 17, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Haha what the fuck.



Hey Dave! Thanks for popping up with this self-justifying nonsense to remind us what a total shitbag you are. With the current clown car to hell laying waste to the country after May's made-of-fail administration it's starting to slip minds the levels of extreme cuntitude you aspired to with your smash-and-grab on the nation for your rich mates. 120,000 dead from austerity. Not even Johnson has killed that many people yet.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Well if this is true then it is worse than being reported.




He's corrected himself.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 17, 2020)

wtf difference is closing pubs earlier supposed to make? Apart from re-instating the 11:05 Fight Time when all the drunks got ejected simultaneously.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2020)

miss direct said:


> What does "curfew" mean in the UK? We had curfews in Turkey in the Spring, and they meant people couldn't leave their homes (apart from the garden, and key worker type people with permission slips). Does it just mean pubs are closed here?



In this context it just seems to be earlier closing for the likes of pubs & restaurants, which we are already seeing happen in certain areas.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 17, 2020)

Oh right. Big deal.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 17, 2020)

killer b said:


> not for at least 10-15 years?


Ah, ok - that's probably the last time I was actually regularly in a pub, tbf.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2020)

Looks like Scotland is considering the same. 



> Nicola Sturgeon  said she cannot rule out imposing a curfew for pubs and restaurants if the number of Scots testing positive for Covid continues to rise.
> 
> UK Government ministers are already considering introducing a 10pm or 11pm curfew on hospitality businesses if local measures are unable to bring the spread of the virus under control in England.
> 
> A new poll published yesterday also found a majority of Scots believe pubs should be forced to shut at 9pm in a bid to curb coronavirus case numbers.











						Nicola Sturgeon coronavirus update and hint at national lockdown restrictions
					

All the latest updates as the First Minister takes questions at the Scottish Parliament.




					www.dailyrecord.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Sep 17, 2020)

almost exactly 15 years in fact! Hours were liberalised by the licensing act 2003, which came into force in November 2005.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Sep 17, 2020)

Don't understand this closing pubs at 10 or 11pm, most do close around then anyway and of those which open later many aren't that busy so late, except town centre ones at weekends. My Spoons closes at midnight and during the week there's never more than 10 or so left.

But right now it looks like it would be best if they were just closed, full stop. I am somewhat doubtful of a full national lockdown, they want/need to keep schools open to keep workers working. But can easily see semi-lockdown coming in; no visiting others either in homes or outside, essential shopping only, no long journeys, fewer people allowed in shops, pubs/restaurants closed and so on.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 17, 2020)

Vast majority of pubs round my way still shut at 11pm anyway.  In fact several of them are shutting at 9pm anyway at the moment as they've taken the decision to do so during this time.

The more I read the more I suspect things are being taken less seriously elsewhere in the country then they are here.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 17, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Don't understand this closing pubs at 10 or 11pm, most do close around then anyway and of those which open later many aren't that busy so late, except town centre ones at weekends. My Spoons closes at midnight and during the week there's never more than 10 or so left.
> 
> But right now it looks like it would be best if they were just closed, full stop. I am somewhat doubtful of a full national lockdown, they want/need to keep schools open to keep workers working. But can easily see semi-lockdown coming in; no visiting others either in homes or outside, essential shopping only, no long journeys, fewer people allowed in shops, pubs/restaurants closed and so on.


Yeah more likely is a growing number of regional lockdowns that gradually become a national lockdown of areas where working class people live.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> He's corrected himself.



Yes about Chris Whitty but not about the 38000 cases.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 17, 2020)

If this "spike" in infections isn't cut short, then we might end up with very strict local lockdowns extended over wider areas.
I don't think the current "curfew" on pubs would be enough to control the problem without a lot of other measures as well.

I'm tending towards wanting at least another month of a strict lockdown (with a furlough scheme & additional help for hospitality /  entertainment / tourism businesses & individuals).

Being a cynic I'm wondering if the lack of such strict measures being imposed is intended to allow enough active infections in the general population so vaccine testing can happen ...


----------



## Badgers (Sep 17, 2020)

Big 'Rule of Six' news from Hertfordshire: 



> Dear litter picker,
> 
> We hope that you are still keen to take part in our Clean-up on Sunday 18th October. We are still awaiting final confirmation that North Hertfordshire District Council are happy with our arrangements. We hope it won't be long before we can go ahead with the registration process.
> 
> ...


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 17, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Being a cynic I'm wondering if the lack of such strict measures being imposed is intended to allow enough active infections in the general population so vaccine testing can happen ...



They don't really need to, there are enough countries out there where the virus is running rampant where they can conduct vaccine tests.  Brazil I think is the current favourite.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 17, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Don't understand this closing pubs at 10 or 11pm, most do close around then anyway and of those which open later many aren't that busy so late, except town centre ones at weekends. My Spoons closes at midnight and during the week there's never more than 10 or so left.
> 
> But right now it looks like it would be best if they were just closed, full stop. I am somewhat doubtful of a full national lockdown, they want/need to keep schools open to keep workers working. But can easily see semi-lockdown coming in; no visiting others either in homes or outside, essential shopping only, no long journeys, fewer people allowed in shops, pubs/restaurants closed and so on.



When does furlough end? I've not paid much attention to the ins and outs of it. Might want to avoid pressure to be more generous if closing pubs is instructed by the govt.

E2a if prolonged contact is a factor reducing opening hours might help. A bit. A little bit.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 17, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> When does furlough end? I've not paid much attention to the ins and outs of it. Might want to avoid pressure to be more generous if closing pubs is instructed by the govt.
> 
> E2a if prolonged contact is a factor reducing opening hours might help. A bit. A little bit.



October


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Sep 17, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> When does furlough end? I've not paid much attention to the ins and outs of it. Might want to avoid pressure to be more generous if closing pubs is instructed by the govt.
> 
> E2a if prolonged contact is a factor reducing opening hours might help. A bit. A little bit.




Furlough ends at the of October.

I feel the earlier closing is yet another dig at the yoof, seeing as they are the ones most likely to be out so late...


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 17, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> When does furlough end? I've not paid much attention to the ins and outs of it. Might want to avoid pressure to be more generous if closing pubs is instructed by the govt.
> 
> E2a if prolonged contact is a factor reducing opening hours might help. A bit. A little bit.



Furlough is due to end at the end of October.  If measures are going to be brought in again for pubs and all the way to shutting them again its going to be a very bad time to be a pub worker.


----------



## killer b (Sep 17, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> When does furlough end?


it's winding down this month and next - I think it's 70% this month, and 60% next, then ends at the end of October. There's bound to be some sort of extension though...


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 17, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> I feel the earlier closing is yet another dig at the yoof, seeing as they are the ones most likely to be out so late...



Is it not about trying to stop people getting drunk because all distancing and stuff goes straight out of the window? 

I suppose it could be both.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 17, 2020)

Looking at UK Covid Tracker, they've finally sorted the Scotland hospitalisation anomaly, it seems. Having been at 200-odd for weeks, it's been reduced to around 50. Something to bear in mind when looking at overall UK numbers. Overall, UK hospitalisation has crept up from just over 700 to 900. But taking account of the Scotland adjustment, the real rise is about double that. It is still only creeping up atm compared to, say, Spain or France, but it's creeping up a bit more quickly than the UK dashboard would have you believe.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 17, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Is it not about trying to stop people getting drunk because all distancing and stuff goes straight out of the window?



Tbh that would make sense.  I'm pretty uneasy about enclosed public spaces, but last night I went for a drink with a couple of friends.  The plan was to sit outside, but once we'd had a few pints and it started to get chilly we moved inside.  I'm not worried since infections are low here atm and the pub is a large, well ventilated space with tables well spread out from one another, but I wouldn't have done it had I not had drink.

I've been sounding a bit overly positive about mask-wearing etc round here, I think.  It is good where I am, but I've just had to nip into a large shopping centre in town for the first time in ages, and was startled by how few people are wearing masks.  I'd say it was two-thirds at best.  What's the point in mandating masks in shops if it's not going to be enforced?


----------



## killer b (Sep 17, 2020)

Who's going to enforce it? The shops are understandably reluctant for various reasons, and the pigs don't have the resources. I guess this is what the upcoming covid marshalls are going to be for.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2020)

killer b said:


> Who's going to enforce it? The shops are understandably reluctant for various reasons, and the pigs don't have the resources. I guess this is what the upcoming covid marshalls are going to be for.



If they ever appear.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 17, 2020)

killer b said:


> Who's going to enforce it? The shops are understandably reluctant for various reasons, and the pigs don't have the resources. I guess this is what the upcoming covid marshalls are going to be for.



It doesn't sound like a great job.  By this stage pretty much everyone who is not wearing a mask is making an active decision.  Its just going to be argument and threats all day long.  I know people need a job but I do feel sorry for them.  

Then again I say that but they might just turn out to be a load of roided-up unemployed nightclub bouncers who are frustrated that they've not chinned anyone in months.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2020)

Thinking about it, these 'covid marshals' will not even have enforcement powers, they'll only be able to offer advice.


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Looking at UK Covid Tracker, they've finally sorted the Scotland hospitalisation anomaly, it seems. Having been at 200-odd for weeks, it's been reduced to around 50. Something to bear in mind when looking at overall UK numbers. Overall, UK hospitalisation has crept up from just over 700 to 900. But taking account of the Scotland adjustment, the real rise is about double that. It is still only creeping up atm compared to, say, Spain or France, but it's creeping up a bit more quickly than the UK dashboard would have you believe.



The reason for the change in the Scottish figures is that they've aplied the 28 days thing to their hospital figures recently, and in Scottish documentation the figures now have titles like 'number of people in hospital with recently confirmed COVID-19'.

Here is a description that I got from the Scottish data spreadsheet Coronavirus (COVID-19): trends in daily data - gov.scot



> This new Table 2 has replaced the previous table on number of confirmed COVID-19 patients in hospital and ICU, which included people (in larger NHS Boards) who had previously tested positive for COVID-19 but are now in hospital for another reason, or had hospital onset COVID-19 and remain in hospital.  The Table 2 presented in previous versions of this daily data update is now provided in an archived worksheet in this excel file. Collection of the data under this definition was stopped after 15 September 2020.
> 
> 2. This new measure focuses on hospital in-patients with a more recent positive COVID-19 test. This is defined as patients who first tested positive in hospital or in the 14 days before admission. Patients are also no longer included after 28 days in hospital (or 28 days after first testing positive if this is after admission). Further background on this change is provided in this blog Counting people in hospital with COVID-19.


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Yes about Chris Whitty but not about the 38000 cases.



Oh I dont know, he deleted the entire tweet now.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Sep 17, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Big 'Rule of Six' news from Hertfordshire:


Hmmm, not the approach I've taken with stuff I organise at work...


----------



## crossthebreeze (Sep 17, 2020)

My head done in with having two major changes to what we can do in a week (as I live in Newcastle)


----------



## Doodler (Sep 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Thinking about it, these 'covid marshals' will not even have enforcement powers, they'll only be able to offer advice.



Meaning they'll find themselves being advised to piss off and worse. People will still apply for these dismal jobs if they ever materialise because needs must.


----------



## ska invita (Sep 17, 2020)

Good front page yesterday from a rag

.


----------



## prunus (Sep 17, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Good front page yesterday from a rag
> 
> .
> View attachment 230679



How heated do you think the debate over which vowel to substitute in was?


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Sep 17, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Is it not about trying to stop people getting drunk because all distancing and stuff goes straight out of the window?
> 
> I suppose it could be both.




Now I'm in my late 40's, if I hit the pub at 7 I'm usually well oiled by 10 and ready to do the off anyway. It's the young'uns who don't go out till later, probably to avoid us lot!


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Sep 17, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Meaning they'll find themselves being advised to piss off and worse. People will still apply for these dismal jobs if they ever materialise because needs must.




AFAIK the Covid marshals will be unpaid volunteers, in the spirit of Hodges from Dad's Army.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 17, 2020)

Unpaid busybodies must be lovely people


----------



## Doodler (Sep 17, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> AFAIK the Covid marshals will be unpaid volunteers, in the spirit of Hodges from Dad's Army.



It would be more entertaining if packs of vigilantes confronted non-mask wearers, demanding explanations for their behaviour and videoing the encounters at the same time. Surprised Channel 5 havent done something along those lines already.


----------



## bimble (Sep 17, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> It doesn't sound like a great job.  By this stage pretty much everyone who is not wearing a mask is making an active decision.  Its just going to be argument and threats all day long.  I know people need a job but I do feel sorry for them.


Absolutely this. That flight i was on on Sunday night which was full of people with their masks slung low under their chins like stupid little blue neckbeards, looking at the cabin crew's (properly masked) faces it was obvious they'd had enough of trying to enforce mask wearing only to be met with a load of utter shite about The Truth from people who've spent a lot of time on youtube. Or worse. In any case they'd given up, none of those passengers was just forgetting to mask up they're entirely convinced that they are right for whatever reason not to. Enforcement of anything at this point in the breakdown of trust is going to be a nightmare.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 17, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Now I'm in my late 40's, if I hit the pub at 7 I'm usually well oiled by 10 and ready to do the off anyway. It's the young'uns who don't go out till later, probably to avoid us lot!


Vote drink early vote drink often!


----------



## sojourner (Sep 17, 2020)

Liverpool on the verge of a lockdown.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 17, 2020)

killer b said:


> Who's going to enforce it? The shops are understandably reluctant for various reasons, and the pigs don't have the resources. I guess this is what the upcoming covid marshalls are going to be for.



In the case of this shopping centre (and others) and some larger shops there are security guards.  At the little Sainsbury's I use it'd give him something to do!   Tbh I think that shops also ought to give their staff more backing than they evidently do in refusing to serve people who won't mask up, although that's not realistic for small places.  Tbh it doesn't need to be rigidly enforced everywhere, but enforcing it more firmly in more places would help to get the message across.

Finally - although it's not enforcement per se - plenty of places have nice, polite signs requesting that people wear masks.  If these were more prominent and more firmly worded, as they are on some shops, that might make some difference.


----------



## killer b (Sep 17, 2020)

Sure, but the shops don't give a fuck about backing up their staff, they just want shoppers through the door. In the absence of enforcement being mandatory, they aren't going to enforce.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 17, 2020)

killer b said:


> Sure, but the shops don't give a fuck about backing up their staff, they just want shoppers through the door. In the absence of enforcement being mandatory, they aren't going to enforce.



That is true, which is why it ought to be mandatory for all shops above a certain size.  Clearly that would leave a problem with smaller shops, but it would be unfair to expect lone shopkeepers to try and deal with potentally aggressive covidiots.


----------



## NoXion (Sep 17, 2020)

I really think there is a problem with the mask refuseniks. I think we should make them dig graves for the folks who've died of Covid.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 17, 2020)

Most shop staff don't even wear masks themselves, which is ridiculous.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2020)

NoXion said:


> I really think there is a problem with the mask refuseniks. I think we should make them dig graves for the folks who've died of Covid.



Like Indonesia?



cupid_stunt said:


> Indonesia has come up with a unique punishment for people refusing to wear masks, make the buggers dig graves for covid victims.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## NoXion (Sep 17, 2020)

Indeed. I'm especially angered by the cunts who make a point of not wearing a mask in a way that's basically spoiling for a row. Anti-social cunts to their rotten cores.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> In the case of this shopping centre (and others) and some larger shops there are security guards.  At the little Sainsbury's I use it'd give him something to do!   Tbh I think that shops also ought to give their staff more backing than they evidently do in refusing to serve people who won't mask up, although that's not realistic for small places.  Tbh it doesn't need to be rigidly enforced everywhere, but enforcing it more firmly in more places would help to get the message across.
> 
> Finally - although it's not enforcement per se - plenty of places have nice, polite signs requesting that people wear masks.  If these were more prominent and more firmly worded, as they are on some shops, that might make some difference.



It's a bit difficult to enforce if, like in the shops near me, half the staff arent wearing them.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 17, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> It's a bit difficult to enforce if, like in the shops near me, half the staff arent wearing them.



That's fair enough, though, isn't it.  Masks are uncomfortable to wear for a full shift, can cause skin problems, and so on.  But that makes it more important for customers to wear masks to protect them.  

That said, quite a few of the staff in shops around here wear visors, which aren't as good but better than nothing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> It's a bit difficult to enforce if, like in the shops near me, half the staff arent wearing them.



For some reason, staff are not required to wear them, customers are.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 17, 2020)

I don't work in a shop, but I do work in a reasonably busy library and community hub and we have a no mask no entry policy (exemptions aside) which works reasonably well. We are also introducing mandatory track and trace so you can't access services unless you supply contact details first.


----------



## LDC (Sep 17, 2020)

I went past some crystal hippie shop in town today and a bit predictably it had one of the 'Free Britain' posters in the window going on about 'muzzles' etc. The hippie buy-in to this right wing stuff is really significant. And one bus had about 50% mask wearing in a near full bus. Other one was OK, a few young people not wearing them and a bloke in his 30s looking like he'd kick off given half an excuse.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I went past some crystal hippie shop in town today and a bit predictably it had one of the 'Free Britain' posters in the window going on about 'muzzles' etc. The hippie buy-in to this right wing stuff is really significant. And one bus had about 50% mask wearing in a near full bus. Other one was OK, a few young people not wearing them and a bloke in his 30s looking like he'd kick off given half an excuse.


is that the one opposite the corn exchange?


----------



## killer b (Sep 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The hippie buy-in to this right wing stuff is really significant.


Absolutely - my sample is small, but all the hippies I know who're vocally anti-mask / covid deniers regularly share material from far-right sources. They share material from other sources too, but there doesn't seem to be any quality control at all, or any recognition from them when it's raised that it's a problem.


----------



## Petcha (Sep 17, 2020)

Dido's up in the Committee at the mo.

I love this these squirmfests.


----------



## LDC (Sep 17, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> is that the one opposite the corn exchange?



The one in the alley opposite the City Varieties theatre place. There's a cafe above it.


----------



## Petcha (Sep 17, 2020)

She's putting up a much better fight than her buffoon of a boss did yesterday mind you. She actually has some facts to hand!


----------



## killer b (Sep 17, 2020)

Stop wasting your life. Go and watch Columbo instead.


----------



## Petcha (Sep 17, 2020)

I'm literally waiting for paint to dry on the window sill. It's either that or this.


----------



## prunus (Sep 17, 2020)

Harding saying number of people trying to get tests “three to four times” the number of tests they’re able to give.  Assuming we’re about about 3500 test-confirmed cases/day at the moment, and the people who get tests are a random sample of those trying to, that should mean we would get 10,500 to 14,000 test-confirmed cases/day if we could test everyone who wants a test.  Taking the midpoint and assuming 65% asymptomatic and non-standard symptomatic cases (ie not trying to get tested) gets us to 38,000 cases/day. 

(Yes I’m aware there are implicit assumptions in there, just a back of envelope calculation to see how plausible or otherwise a scenario one has to posit to get to the 38,000 figure from earlier today).


----------



## MickiQ (Sep 17, 2020)

bimble said:


> Absolutely this. That flight i was on on Sunday night which was full of people with their masks slung low under their chins like stupid little blue neckbeards, looking at the cabin crew's (properly masked) faces it was obvious they'd had enough of trying to enforce mask wearing only to be met with a load of utter shite about The Truth from people who've spent a lot of time on youtube. Or worse. In any case they'd given up, none of those passengers was just forgetting to mask up they're entirely convinced that they are right for whatever reason not to. Enforcement of anything at this point in the breakdown of trust is going to be a nightmare.


 I visited the Intu in Derby on Monday the shopping centre had big signs on the doors saying "You Must Wear a Mask" but there were a significant percentage not wearing (much worse than when I went to Meadowhall a couple of weeks ago) 
There were a few older folks not wearing them but the most common offenders were young (more males than females).  One entrance had a security guard chivvying folks entering the centre but the rest especially the one from the car park didn't


----------



## teqniq (Sep 17, 2020)

Worthless piece of shit alert:


----------



## sojourner (Sep 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Thinking about it, these 'covid marshals' will not even have enforcement powers, they'll only be able to offer advice.





Doodler said:


> Meaning they'll find themselves being advised to piss off and worse. People will still apply for these dismal jobs if they ever materialise because needs must.





Bahnhof Strasse said:


> AFAIK the Covid marshals will be unpaid volunteers, in the spirit of Hodges from Dad's Army.


We're hoping it's paid positions. The fella works in care and it's the most soul-destroying powerless shitty fucking sector to ever exist. So he's hoping that marshall jobs exist and are paid, cos he'll apply for it. If it's just advising folk whilst being calm, he's your man.



killer b said:


> Absolutely - my sample is small, but all the hippies I know who're vocally anti-mask / covid deniers regularly share material from far-right sources. They share material from other sources too, but there doesn't seem to be any quality control at all, or any recognition from them when it's raised that it's a problem.


Yup same here. Boils my piss that they're all hippy-dippy crystal fucking shit, and then sharing right wing bollocks. Point it out to them, and they flat out deny it.


----------



## Petcha (Sep 17, 2020)

She's just happily described herself as a 'layman' when it comes to this.

She's the Head of Track and Trace. Um..


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Sep 17, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Most shop staff don't even wear masks themselves, which is ridiculous.





quimcunx said:


> It's a bit difficult to enforce if, like in the shops near me, half the staff arent wearing them.





cupid_stunt said:


> For some reason, staff are not required to wear them, customers are.



Which is why shops can't/won't enforce it on customers. In most German states everyone in any enclosed public space must wear a mask, those states that don't mandate it, everyone does anyway and you will be yelled at by staff and public alike if you enter without one. Not fucking hard, is it.


----------



## BassJunkie (Sep 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> She's just happily described herself as a 'layman' when it comes to this.
> 
> She's the Head of Track and Trace. Um..



If only there were epidemiologists who knew about how viruses spread, or other experts were available to do that job rather than the wife of a Tory MP.

I swear this government is nothing but a bunch of fucking gangsters, leading to all our lives being fucked up. It makes me despair.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> If they ever appear.


What, another empty promise from the Johnsonians? Surely not


----------



## Supine (Sep 17, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Liverpool on the verge of a lockdown.



hasn't heard that. i'm in liverpool at the moment


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it just this country whose testing system has entirely broken does anyone know - are the testing systems in for instance France Germany etc still functioning?



 50m ago 16:11 



> Hundreds of workers at Covid-19 laboratories in *France* went on strike on Thursday, a trade union said, angry over poor working conditions as the coronavirus testing system buckles under huge demand.
> 
> Reuters reported that the CGT union said the strike was disrupting testing in some towns and could drag on if laboratory owners failed to deal with staff shortages and increase pay.





> France has ramped up testing five-fold since the peak of the first wave and now carries out more than 1m tests a week. But at some testing centres, people queue around the block and results can take days because of the bottleneck in laboratories.
> 
> Le Figaro reported that in a meeting with senior ministers last week, President Emmanuel Macron said: “One million tests is all well and good, but it’s pointless if the results arrive too late.”


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

The following is depressing news but at least they are openly saying it there, rather than various places in England where hospital figures blatantly started to rise with barely a comment so far.









						Coronavirus: Rhondda Cynon Taf and Caerphilly death spike warning
					

Public health official warns older people are being infected in Caerphilly and Rhondda Cynon Taf.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> "There is a high risk that with the level of cases in Caerphilly and RCT we will see increased hospital admissions," Dr Howe told BBC Radio Wales.
> 
> "And we are seeing older age groups now being infected and there is obviously a sad risk that we may be seeing deaths.
> 
> "We would expect that hospital admissions would be increasing around about now and we are perhaps starting to see that in Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board, and there may be deaths in the coming days."


----------



## Sue (Sep 17, 2020)

killer b said:


> Absolutely - my sample is small, but all the hippies I know who're vocally anti-mask / covid deniers regularly share material from far-right sources. They share material from other sources too, but there doesn't seem to be any quality control at all, or any recognition from them when it's raised that it's a problem.


Yep, someone is known is the same (green hippy turned Covid conspiraloon). 

Apparently what's going on was never about Covid but rather the oligarchs exerting control and the 'imminent biological & digital enslavement of the people.' I mean wtf?


----------



## Doodler (Sep 17, 2020)

sojourner said:


> We're hoping it's paid positions. The fella works in care and it's the most soul-destroying powerless shitty fucking sector to ever exist. So he's hoping that marshall jobs exist and are paid, cos he'll apply for it. If it's just advising folk whilst being calm, he's your man.



My local city council began recruiting Covid marshalls over two months ago. The job description suggested they'd have to patrol some of the main shopping streets in the centre. Tact and politeness were emphasised. Their job won't be too hard if they can put up with self-entitled tourists and broadsheet readers. At my work staff have been assaulted (not badly) for asking customers to wear masks so no one bothers now. But we're more on the periphery. So I guess it depends on where the marshalls have to work. I hope things go okay for the fella on the job front.


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

Although I do not have access to most of the modelling done by SAGE etc, especially not recent stuff, I think I have mentioned that some earlier modelling and assumptions might mean they were expecting this viral resurgence to happen at least a month later than has actually been the case. And for all I know their modelling may also have been very wrong about how quickly infections would double.

For now I am going to have to rely on vaguer indications that they have indeed been blindsided by the timing yet again, even though I dont really feel like I need to much evidence in order to go with this hypothesis, it should almost be the default assumption by now.

Anyway on that note, I saw this in a BBC article about Dido's committee meeting, and I think it fits my criteria:



> Lady Harding said they built the testing capacity for this autumn - which is now 242,817 a day - based on modelling from the Sage scientific advisory group.
> 
> "I don't think anybody was expecting to see the really sizable increase in demand that has happened over the last few weeks," she said.











						Coronavirus: Test demand 'significantly outstripping' capacity
					

The number of under-17s seeking Covid-19 tests has doubled, the head of NHS Test and Trace tells MPs.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




To dissect what she said there a little, I would say that earlier modelling and demand predictions being wrong and people not expecting to see this resurgence as a result is one thing. But at some point the penny would have dropped and they must have updated their expectations. After all, we are following certain countries in Europe on this and various indicators have been visible in countries like Spain and France for quite some time now. So how long have they suspected that actually this massive supply-demand imbalance was looming?


----------



## sojourner (Sep 17, 2020)

Supine said:


> hasn't heard that. i'm in liverpool at the moment


Check the Liverpool Echo


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

I would prefer not to quote Laura Kuenssberg in this pandemic but there are moments where I think I have to.









						Coronavirus: The tide was not turned - now what?
					

With coronavirus cases rising fast and local lockdowns building, the mood at Westminster is growing darker.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The tide was not turned. Life is not back to normal.
> 
> And even some Conservative MPs are asking, what on earth is going on?





> There is a burgeoning sense around Westminster, as the patchwork of local restrictions builds, that a nationwide tightening, even if temporary, may not be that far off, despite the prime minister's protestations that he will do everything to avoid it happening.
> 
> But whatever happens, Boris Johnson simply cannot be sure that the public, or indeed his own party, would be willing to acquiesce next time.



And.....



> Yet many Conservative MPs, advisers, and some ministers, are frustrated with what they see as aggression from a tiny group that makes the decisions in Number 10.
> 
> Ruthless and effective is one thing.
> 
> Brutal and incompetent quite another.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 17, 2020)

She hasn't blamed it all on Labour and Corbyn?


----------



## Mation (Sep 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Like Indonesia?


Christ. 2020 is fucking miserable all round


----------



## campanula (Sep 17, 2020)

I am kinda surprised that testing is (still) free and can't help feeling sceptical that there is  likely to be some 'fastracking' for a price...And an agenda to determine test allocation. The private healthcare priorities (and political ideology) has determined the  painfully brutal response to this pandemic   Predatory disaster capitalism - lacking morality, decency, justice or integrity naturally appeals to the heartless, selfish, arrogant or stupidly vacuous. - they are a despicable bunch of inadequates.


----------



## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

I wonder how much difference my successful attempt to fret less about the immediate pandemic future for a big chunk of the summer is actually going to make to my mental health going forwards. Its already approaching a month since I was last able to sincerely inject a sense of optimism into my short-term outlook, optimism that does not come naturally to me. There are times when I know I have to make use of optimism to compensate for an inappropriate sense of how imminent a threat is. It worked quite well in June and July but I think I was pushing my luck by still attempting it in mid August, and now it already seems like quite a long time ago.

The only optimism that really comes naturally to me is the sort that has lead me to remark on a few occasions that I was still sort of expecting a few twists to the tale of this pandemic. Partly because when I looked at how huge the pre-pandemic gaps were in our knowledge and capabilities, I thought there was more than enough room to discover some factor that would at least add an important dimension to our expectations. I suppose there is still time for something of that sort, but the pandemic is mostly sticking to the most predictable script and that very much includes this resurgence. This is no surprise and was always the safest bet, but it also means I am left going on about the same core themes as always, and I'm not sure how much purpose is left in repeating such things all the bloody time.

This forum worked quite well as a general respiratory illness uptick warning indicator by the way. It was possible to tell that something had changed in the second half of August. Like an informal mini version of zoe covid, without the ability to go as far as creating actual estimated numbers, but an indicator all the same, and very timely.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> I would prefer not to quote Laura Kuenssberg in this pandemic but there are moments where I think I have to.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Politically it's perhaps a little encouraging that Laura Keunssberg isn't just acting as Bluetooth speakers for No.10, as she usually does.  Not that that makes the immediate future any less bleak.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Politically it's perhaps a little encouraging that Laura Keunssberg isn't just acting as Bluetooth speakers for No.10, as she usually does.  Not that that makes the immediate future any less bleak.


I have had a very jaundiced view of LK for a long time, but listening to her on the Brexitcast/Electioncast podcast has gone a long way towards enabling me to accept that - for whatever reason - she's not nearly as partisan when she's not doing her set pieces to camera/microphone.


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## Doodler (Sep 17, 2020)

Perhaps there will be a growth in demands for a herd immunity approach to be revived. 'Lockdown hasn't worked' will be the slogan.


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## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

If I'm going to wank on about the pandemic sticking to the script then perhaps I should start to explore the biggest unknowns in the winter script.

Aside from the political unknowns, the mitigation measure unknowns, the public response unknowns, the weather unknowns, I think I should probably dig into all the unknowns relating to coinfection with the pandemic virus and a seasonal virus at the same time. I'm not quite ready to get into detail on that yet but if anybody else wants to get the ball rolling or indeed come up with some other unknowns to explore then I'll be happy.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 17, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I have had a very jaundiced view of LK for a long time, but listening to her on the Brexitcast/Electioncast podcast has gone a long way towards enabling me to accept that - for whatever reason - she's not nearly as partisan when she's not doing her set pieces to camera/microphone.



That is true, but it still leaves her being too partisan too much of the time.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 17, 2020)




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## BristolEcho (Sep 17, 2020)

killer b said:


> Absolutely - my sample is small, but all the hippies I know who're vocally anti-mask / covid deniers regularly share material from far-right sources. They share material from other sources too, but there doesn't seem to be any quality control at all, or any recognition from them when it's raised that it's a problem.



That stuffs been bubbling along for ages amongst hippie scene's and it's where I've come across most anti-vax stuff previous to this pandemic.


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## ska invita (Sep 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> If I'm going to wank on about the pandemic sticking to the script then perhaps I should start to explore the biggest unknowns in the winter script.
> 
> Aside from the political unknowns, the mitigation measure unknowns, the public response unknowns, the weather unknowns, I think I should probably dig into all the unknowns relating to coinfection with the pandemic virus and a seasonal virus at the same time. I'm not quite ready to get into detail on that yet but if anybody else wants to get the ball rolling or indeed come up with some other unknowns to explore then I'll be happy.


theres also the option to not do any of that and just sit back and look after yourself and those around you


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## frogwoman (Sep 17, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Perhaps there will be a growth in demands for a herd immunity approach to be revived. 'Lockdown hasn't worked' will be the slogan.


I don't think these demands ever went away tbh


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 17, 2020)

weepiper said:


> View attachment 230756



Test and trace could be outsourced to Amazon.  What the actual fuck?!

It's the Torygraph so quite possibly complete bollocks or some kind of dead cat, but startling even so.


----------



## Thora (Sep 17, 2020)

I posted this on the testing thread as well, but it seems from my recent experience that there is currently no system for schools to be informed when pupils test positive - they just rely on parents informing them of test results.  I was surprised that Test & Trace don't deal with that.


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## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

ska invita said:


> theres also the option to not do any of that and just sit back and look after yourself and those around you



Keeping my eye on the ball and indulging in detail and trying to get a few weeks ahead of the curve has mostly served my wellbeing and that of those around me quite well so far, especially as I picked the right months to spend less time on that stuff. So getting my teeth into detail is part of helping me cope with this next phase. Indeed these recent posts are probably largely about me repositioning myself so that I am not out of whack with this phase.

But yes, I do need to get the amount of time I spend on this stuff right. Too many hours the first time. Probably cant find enough stuff to talk about to quite repeat that mistake this time around though, but will keep an eye on it, cheers.


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## Supine (Sep 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Test and trace could be outsourced to Amazon.  What the actual fuck?!
> 
> It's the Torygraph so quite possibly complete bollocks or some kind of dead cat, but startling even so.



why not google? they already constantly  know where we all are!


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## existentialist (Sep 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Probably cant find enough stuff to talk about to quite repeat that mistake this time around though, but will keep an eye on it, cheers.


I bet you could, but I think you're wise to try not to...


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## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Test and trace could be outsourced to Amazon.  What the actual fuck?!
> 
> It's the Torygraph so quite possibly complete bollocks or some kind of dead cat, but startling even so.



If I look at this from just one narrow angle, a purely practical one, then I'd rather have a giant logistics & delivery company trying to make various bits of the system work than the 'professional service network' accountant consultancy wankers who have had a big slice of the current pie from what I can tell.

But obviously there are other implications.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 17, 2020)

Well it's not like they'd have the expense of paying proper taxes.


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## Roadkill (Sep 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> If I look at this from just one narrow angle, a purely practical one, then I'd rather have a giant logistics & delivery company trying to make various bits of the system work than the 'professional service network' accountant consultancy wankers who have had a big slice of the current pie from what I can tell.
> 
> But obviously there are other implications.



Or it could just be done by local authorities, who where they have had a go at it seem to have performed better than the usual outsourcing firms.

But Tory dogma and the chance to fatten up your mates' bank accounts, of course.


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## weepiper (Sep 17, 2020)

The Tories want to avoid national lockdown because they'll have to pay furlough, of course.


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## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Or it could just be done by local authorities, who where they have had a go at it seem to have performed better than the usual outsourcing firms.
> 
> But Tory dogma and the chance to fatten up your mates' bank accounts, of course.



Local authorities can do the contact tracing bit better than the centralised crap, at least up to a certain size of outbreak for sure. But the centralised & privatised approach to testing/labs means it is hard for me to judge how well they could have done with the testing part of the picture.

I dont want to rule out options because some of them are now too late to achieve in time, but that might be the case with the testing part of test & trace.

They may also be envisaging an amazon-type company being in charge of a system which is somewhat different in some regards to the test & trace ideas they have tried to promote over summer. They might be thinking of one that has to deal with far more tests with timely results, and far less tracing.


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## killer b (Sep 17, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> That stuffs been bubbling along for ages amongst hippie scene's and it's where I've come across most anti-vax stuff previous to this pandemic.


Oh sure, same here - but it's spread, and their sources have got more explicitly far right - previously they'd link to woo sights and general conspiracy ones which were sometimes dodge if you dug... now you're rarely a click away from holocaust denial and gay conversion therapies.


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## agricola (Sep 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Test and trace could be outsourced to Amazon.  What the actual fuck?!
> 
> It's the Torygraph so quite possibly complete bollocks or some kind of dead cat, but startling even so.



The worst thing about that article - and it is a disgrace - is that it pretends it wasn't already outsourced and was managed in-house.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> I suppose there is still time for something of that sort, but the pandemic is mostly sticking to the most predictable script and that very much includes this resurgence. This is no surprise and was always the safest bet, but it also means I am left going on about the same core themes as always, and I'm not sure how much purpose is left in repeating such things all the bloody time.


 I am surprised when some people talk as though a second wave (and maybe more) was anything but inevitable. Certainly this government not having got it's shit together was entirely predictable seeing as they gave no indication that they'd actually planned anything much over the summer other than vaguely intimating they had A Cunning Plan.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Local authorities can do the contact tracing bit better than the centralised crap, at least up to a certain size of outbreak for sure. But the centralised & privatised approach to testing/labs means it is hard for me to judge how well they could have done with the testing part of the picture.
> 
> I dont want to rule out options because some of them are now too late to achieve in time, but that might be the case with the testing part of test & trace.
> 
> They may also be envisaging an amazon-type company being in charge of a system which is somewhat different in some regards to the test & trace ideas they have tried to promote over summer. They might be thinking of one that has to deal with far more tests with timely results, and far less tracing.



Tbh it was contact tracing I was thinking of.  I don't know enough about testing to have an opinion, but it's the principle of turning something so important over to a shady outfit like Amazon that really rankles.



agricola said:


> The worst thing about that article - and it is a disgrace - is that it pretends it wasn't already outsourced and was managed in-house.



Yes, true, and I suppose you could ask what the difference is between a scheme run by Serco and a scheme run by Amazon.  But still ... fucking Amazon.


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I went past some crystal hippie shop in town today and a bit predictably it had one of the 'Free Britain' posters in the window going on about 'muzzles' etc. The hippie buy-in to this right wing stuff is really significant. And one bus had about 50% mask wearing in a near full bus. Other one was OK, a few young people not wearing them and a bloke in his 30s looking like he'd kick off given half an excuse.




Good attack on all that utter shite  

But that's *exactly* why I was astonished -- and disbelieving really -- about how there were no shops** that I saw in Glastonbury last weekend, which had anything other than of the 'Please wear masks'/'two or three only  allowed in this shop at any one time' variety.

**I suppose the 'wear or not -- your choice' signs in a couple of weed-paraphenalia places, was the furthest it went

And from what we saw, nearly everyone seemed to be complying with all the mask-encouragement notices pretty well 

I did post earlier upthread about this, it's a *real* discrepancy down there 

Glastonbury town is not at all short of loons/conspiracists/crystal-botherers , but I suspect a lot of those prefer to talk drivel with other cider-swiggers    in the pub


----------



## zahir (Sep 17, 2020)




----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 17, 2020)

I've been wondering for some time now, I suppose for a fortnight or so, whether there'll end up being another full (or near-full?) national lockdown?

I'd like to see that FT article in full -- their stuff has a pretty good record all year about 'all this' -- but it's been pretty clear for ages that the Govt has been completely losing it on testing


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 17, 2020)

For now, here's a pretty good attack on why and how the privatised Tory test 'systems' have fucked up big style (apologies if this article has been linked to elsewhere on Urban  ) :

England's test and trace is a fiasco because the public sector has been utterly sidelined




			
				Aditya Chakrabortty said:
			
		

> The UK ranks among the great hubs of scientific research. It has 44 virology labs across the NHS, and more throughout academia. It also boasts great public health expertise. Yet England’s testing regime is in meltdown. Why?
> 
> It is not through penny-pinching. Ten billion pounds of your money and mine has been poured into test and trace. Rather, it’s because the vast majority of that expertise has been utterly sidelined.





> The system that is labelled “NHS test and trace” has hardly anything to do with the NHS. Each fragment of this system is contracted out to big private companies that often turn to subcontractors. So Deloitte handles the huge Lighthouse Labs that can’t get through the tests, while Serco oversees the contact-tracing system that regularly misses government targets.
> Still, failure pays: Serco’s initial fee for running tracing was £108m. Then there are the consultants buzzing around this cash cow. Accenture pocketed more than £850,000 for 10 weeks’ work on the contact-tracing app – the one that still hasn’t been launched. McKinsey scooped £560,000 for six weeks’ work creating the “vision, purpose and narrative” of a new public health authority.


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## existentialist (Sep 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Local authorities can do the contact tracing bit better than the centralised crap, at least up to a certain size of outbreak for sure. But the centralised & privatised approach to testing/labs means it is hard for me to judge how well they could have done with the testing part of the picture.
> 
> I dont want to rule out options because some of them are now too late to achieve in time, but that might be the case with the testing part of test & trace.
> 
> They may also be envisaging an amazon-type company being in charge of a system which is somewhat different in some regards to the test & trace ideas they have tried to promote over summer. They might be thinking of one that has to deal with far more tests with timely results, and far less tracing.


Call me a hopelessly naive idealist, but I do wonder whether this might be the realm where open/crowdsourcing could have been a valuable approach to the challenge. Much, in a way as you have done with your assembly of sources into useful narratives.


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## elbows (Sep 17, 2020)

weepiper said:


> The Tories want to avoid national lockdown because they'll have to pay furlough, of course.




I have a hunch that the FT might have been a bit too vague about the context of the October lockdown suggestion.

I note that they do not provide any indication of when the suggestion was made.

And funnily enough I'm pretty sure I had already read about October 'elongated school holiday' lockdown plans. And if I read it in official documents, that probably means the suggestion is from quite a bit earlier this summer, and not in response to recent events with number of cases, demand for tests, increasing hospital admissions etc.

Let me go and check this hunch.


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## spitfire (Sep 17, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I've been wondering for some time now, I suppose for a fortnight or so, whether there'll end up being another full (or near-full?) national lockdown?
> 
> I'd like to see that FT article in full -- their stuff has a pretty good record all year about 'all this' -- but it's been pretty clear for ages that the Govt has been completely losing it on testing





Spoiler



Leading scientists advising the UK government have proposed a two-week national lockdown in October to try to tackle the rising number of coronavirus cases. 

The move highlights how Boris Johnson might come under increasing pressure to introduce a second national lockdown, even though he has said he is strongly against such a measure. 

Experts on the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-m) have suggested a national lockdown that could coincide with the October school half-term. 

The government is keen to avoid the reclosure of schools, having shut them during the national lockdown in March and only fully reopening them this autumn. 

That helps to explain why the government’s scientific advisers have looked at how a two-week national lockdown might coincide with the October half- term as part of efforts to bring Covid-19 under control. 

“As schools will be closed for one week at half-term, adding an extra week to that will have limited impact on education,” said one scientist who is a member of Sage, confirming the body had considered the case for a national lockdown in October. 

Another scientist who is a member of Spi-m said the body had also looked at a national lockdown that could take place next month. 

The number of positive Covid-19 cases is doubling every seven to eight days in England, according to statistical analysis released last Friday by Imperial College London and Ipsos Mori. 

The analysis estimated the reproduction rate of the virus, or the R, the average number of new cases generated by an infected person, stood at 1.7, meaning the disease is spreading exponentially. 

The scientist who sits on Sage said if the R number continued at the same level as currently, it would “break the NHS”, adding that the test-and-trace system was “creaking at the seams”. 

On Wednesday, the prime minister told MPs that a second national lockdown would be “disastrous” for the economy. “I don’t want a second national lockdown — I think it would be completely wrong for this country and we are going to do everything in our power to prevent it,” Mr Johnson said. 

But much is likely to hinge on whether the government’s new “rule of six” rule — restricting social gatherings to six people — serves to halt the rise in Covid-19 infections. “If it doesn’t work, a whole range of unpalatable options come into view,” said a government official. The official added that at the top of the government there was “a very strong reluctance to go anywhere near another national lockdown”, but said: “There’s a difference between not wanting to go back to another lockdown and having to go back.” 

A government spokesperson said: “The government is continuing to closely monitor infection levels and taking decisive action to protect people such as introducing local lockdowns and banning gatherings of groups larger than six. Recommended FT Magazine Will the UK’s love for the NHS survive the pandemic? “Scientific and medical professionals have provided advice throughout the pandemic.” On Thursday, the north-east of England became the latest area of the UK to have a local lockdown imposed on it because of rising Covid-19 infections. 

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, held talks last week with Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, and local council leaders to discuss contingency plans for new restrictions in the capital, but such an outcome is not seen as “inevitable”, according to government insiders. Meanwhile Dido Harding, who heads the government's test-and-trace programme in England, said she “strongly refuted” suggestions that the scheme was failing. 

Following widespread reports of people struggling to obtain tests, because of capacity limits at laboratories that process results, Baroness Harding defended herself against accusations that the government had failed to prepare for a predictable surge in demand when children returned to school. She said lab capacity had doubled between the end of May and September and emphasised that this had been done in accordance with information supplied by Sage. “We built our testing capacity plans based on Sage modelling,” said Baroness Harding. After Mr Hancock announced on Tuesday that for the time being certain groups would be prioritised for tests, Baroness Harding said hospital patients would have first call, followed by those in care homes, then NHS workers. [/


spoiler]


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## Doodler (Sep 17, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I don't think these demands ever went away tbh



You're right and they could grow in force. At the moment on Question Time two guests including epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta are arguing for herd immunity plus protection for the vulnerable. iirc Gupta's group at Oxford University claimed some months ago that a much larger proportion of the UK population had been infected than anyone else had estimated.


----------



## mx wcfc (Sep 17, 2020)

Have we had this story yet?  Nearly 2/3rds of people going back to work?  It sounds like bollocks to me - how did they come up with that figure?  It's less than 5% roughly at my employer.









						'Nearly two-thirds' of workers commuting again, says ONS
					

Some 62% reported commuting to work last week, according to the Office for National Statistics.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Are they counting people who go in once a week?  That would be a rubbish stat.  Is some daft calculation being spun?  I don't believe it.


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 18, 2020)

mx wcfc : Maybe approaching a third are back where I work (big employer!  ) -- definitely no more than that.

Fair few working from home as well, admittedly -- wish I could   (but also    and also  )


----------



## zahir (Sep 18, 2020)

Care homes again.









						Revealed: Local authority calls on care home providers to accept covid-positive hospital patients
					

Channel 4 News has seen a leaked document which calls on care home providers in England to accept patients who are COVID-positive from hospitals. [c4video id=321291] The contract, from Trafford Council in Greater Manchester, outlines how eligible care homes will receive COVID-positive patients...




					www.channel4.com


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

Well I cannot find the papers about October lockdown (extended school holidays) that I'm sure I saw well before that FT article. Anyway I still think its older advice not just because I remember reading it in the past, but also because I dont think that the data for September so far really offers much chance of the situation allowing them to wait till a week before the late October half-term holiday before doing something.

The latest BBC article that makes that Nick Triggle shit I posted the other day seem even more absurd and poorly timed.









						Covid-19: Tighter national rules considered for England by government
					

A few weeks of nationwide restrictions to slow a second coronavirus surge could be introduced.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Mation (Sep 18, 2020)

Half term is at the end of October. Over a month away. That's too late. Do we not need to lock the fuck down about nowish?


----------



## Spandex (Sep 18, 2020)

zahir said:


>



This reminds me of the plan in March, when they hoped they could hold off on a lockdown until Easter, close the schools a week either side and it'd all be fine. Of course the virus wasn't aware of their timetable, it all went to shit and most schoolkids didn't go back until September. 

Have they had a word with Covid-19 and agreed it'll wait a month before spiralling out of control this time?


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 18, 2020)

zahir said:


>




If this isn't referring to earlier thoughts as elbows suggests then this smacks of them making the same error as at the start. How about acting early instead of delaying to when its more convenient.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 18, 2020)

zahir said:


> Care homes again.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



If the slogan for next election isn’t “Boris killed your nan” someone missed a trick.


----------



## flypanam (Sep 18, 2020)

The Irish Times is reporting that due to increased testing the HSE has had to turn down the request from the NHS for tests to analysed in Irish labs. The other thing the article says is that the uk is shutting down ‘swabbing centres’ 








						HSE turns down request from Britain to process tests in Irish laboratories
					

HSE chief Paul Reid says UK’s testing and tracing system is ‘in almost collapse’




					www.irishtimes.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 18, 2020)

The sharp increase in hospital admissions in the last week is worrying and Dr Christina Pagel, a professor of clinical operational research at University College London, and part of the independent Sage group, makes a very good point about that.



> She said: “When I look at that, it makes me sad. On September 15, there were 194 admissions, with a seven-day rolling average of 154 per day. A week earlier, there were 84 admissions and a weekly average of 77. We’re on just over a week doubling time.
> 
> “At current rates of doubling we’re two weeks away from where we are on March 16, a week before lockdown, when we had just over 400 admissions a day. And there is no way that test and trace will be fixed by then.
> 
> “Just a week ago things were manageable but now they are already getting out of control. That’s why I’m worried.











						Experts explain what's going on with coronavirus and how worried UK should be
					

Prof Mike Tildesley, an expert in mathematical modelling of infectious disease, and Dr Christina Pagel, a professor of clinical operational research at University College London, predict what comes next with the epidemic




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 18, 2020)

Mation said:


> Half term is at the end of October. Over a month away. That's too late. Do we not need to lock the fuck down about nowish?



I'm in two minds about this.  On the one hand, although obviously there's a very serious rise in cases it's very uneven across the country.  One thing I've spent far too much time playing with since all this started is the Guardian's map of infections by local authority, from which two screenshots showing how different the situation - as of this morning - is in two northern cities of similar size:



A full-on lockdown would be overkill in Hull, whereas in Bolton it's vitally necessary, and on that basis local lockdowns seem to be a better solution.  _However_, the problem is going to be people travelling from one area to another and seeding new outbreaks in places where infections are currently very low. My big fear is that the start of the university term is going to do that. One county I keep a close eye on is Devon, because my mum lives in Exeter. ATM the city is pretty safe, but the university is massive and within a week or so students from all over are going to converge on it, and what happens then? That's why I can see the logic of a general lockdown now, to try and get the situation in the hotspots under control and buy time to get the T&T system working again* before people start spreading the virus from the hotspots to the (currently) safer areas of the country. So I agree with you: if it's going to happen it'd be best to do it now.

*Not that this shower of shit of a government are likely to do that no matter how much time they have.


e2a - I've just checked some figures and spotted one significant error in the above: Bolton is rather smaller than I thought it was, and a lot smaller than Hull!  I think the points made still stand, though.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 18, 2020)

What I don't get at the moment is what is driving these localised spikes. Are we just all agreeing that Geordies, Scousers and Brummies are worse at following the rules than everyone else in the UK? Seems unlikely that human behaviour will differ greatly between parts of the same country.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 18, 2020)

I suspect that around London and the south-east specifically, the extreme death count of the early pandemic has made people particularly cautious as a whole (even if many individuals are not).  Plus there are a lot of people who have been able to work from home, which has thinned out the density of people on public transport and shops and services etc within the city, making those who have to travel for work safer.  Then we have the oft-cited reasons around the nature of work in different places and the relative risks associated with different types of workplace


----------



## teuchter (Sep 18, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> What I don't get at the moment is what is driving these localised spikes. Are we just all agreeing that Geordies, Scousers and Brummies are worse at following the rules than everyone else in the UK? Seems unlikely that human behaviour will differ greatly between parts of the same country.


Probably just random effects play a bigger part than intuition might suggest.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 18, 2020)

Just been told we can’t wear masks at work anymore for reasons of access, so we have to wear visors instead. I don’t feel safe with just a visor. Are they allowed to do this?


----------



## Badgers (Sep 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Just been told we can’t wear masks at work anymore for reasons of access, so we have to wear visors instead. I don’t feel safe with just a visor. Are they allowed to do this?


What are 'reasons of access'?


----------



## TopCat (Sep 18, 2020)

It's scary.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> What are 'reasons of access'?


People who rely on seeing your lips move to understand what you are saying


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 18, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> What I don't get at the moment is what is driving these localised spikes. Are we just all agreeing that Geordies, Scousers and Brummies are worse at following the rules than everyone else in the UK? Seems unlikely that human behaviour will differ greatly between parts of the same country.



I think that probably is the case but throughout this blame has been a useless concept (its pretty useless most of the time anyway).  I think it's all about how we act as humans in groups and there is a critical mass to compliance.  I think that compliance with safety measures can easily drop off if enough people are seen to be not complying and it goes the same for complying.

I'll give you an example from where I live.  In my London borough compliance is really high and this has nothing to do with age, class, ethnic background or whatever.  There is a very big Tesco just down the road whose customers are from all backgrounds and all walks of life.  I would say mask compliance is around 98% including staff.  Yet I hear stories from elsewhere in London where they are barely scraping 50%.  Round here I see groups of people in the parks bigger than six but they are all sat apart like we were in April.

I think we're lucky round here that non-compliance stands out and so people kind of just fit in.  That could all change though and quickly if enough people stop bothering.

That's my theory anyway.

ETA: I should add I don't think this is the sole reason by any means but it plays a role.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I suspect that around London and the south-east specifically, the extreme death count of the early pandemic has made people particularly cautious as a whole (even if many individuals are not).  Plus there are a lot of people who have been able to work from home, which has thinned out the density of people on public transport and shops and services etc within the city, making those who have to travel for work safer.  Then we have the oft-cited reasons around the nature of work in different places and the relative risks associated with different types of workplace



A lot of it’s to do with money and access to wfh. The south east is fairly affluent, lots of outdoor spaces, lots of people able to work from home. It’s already gone through London so that’s less of a risk.

Now that people are “encouraged” to go back to work and restrictions lifted it’s hitting other urban areas and people who can’t just wfh.


----------



## Supine (Sep 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Just been told we can’t wear masks at work anymore for reasons of access, so we have to wear visors instead. I don’t feel safe with just a visor. Are they allowed to do this?



i would say no and quote H&S at them personally.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 18, 2020)

Supine said:


> i would say no and quote H&S at them personally.


Which bit of H&S covers this?


----------



## kabbes (Sep 18, 2020)

Supine said:


> i would say no and quote H&S at them personally.


I think then you’d probably have to provide evidence that the mask provides a personal safety aspect that the visor lacks.  Is that actually the case?


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 18, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> A lot of it’s to do with money and access to wfh. The south east is fairly affluent, lots of outdoor spaces, lots of people able to work from home. It’s already gone through London so that’s less of a risk.
> 
> Now that people are “encouraged” to go back to work and restrictions lifted it’s hitting other urban areas and people who can’t just wfh.



WFH definitely plays some part, in that a lot of service-sector jobs can be done from home whereas industrial ones usually can't.  As you say, that might be why much of the south-east has done okay.  However, using the two examples I stuck up above, both Bolton and Hull are pretty industrial and yet the situation in the two cities is very different.

I think another factor may well be connectivity.  Hull's geographical isolation has probably worked in its favour, whereas Bolton is part of a larger conurbation.  But again, that doesn't work in every case  because London is by far the best connected city in the country and yet it's doing alright atm.

Population density probably has some influence, just because more people in close proximity = easier transmission.  I'm sure, though, that if you dig around the figures you could find some dense cities (London springs to mind) doing fine and some pretty rural areas (Cumbria, perhaps) that aren't.

Poverty is another obvious influence, in that with that comes overcrowding, employers who don't give a shit, and so on.  That seems partly to have driven the Leicester spike a few weeks ago.  But again, Hull is the poorest large city in the UK, so not an explanation in itself.

In the end there's a big array of socioeconomic, geographical and other factors at play, and we're nowhere near understanding how they interact with one another.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 18, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> In my London borough compliance is really high and this has nothing to do with age, class, ethnic background or whatever.


How do you know it has nothing to do with any of those things?


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Which bit of H&S covers this?



Your own safety is your responsibility ...

Possible solution; Wear mask under visor, and offer to take mask off for short interactions on request by user needing to lip read.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 18, 2020)

teuchter said:


> How do you know it has nothing to do with any of those things?



Because like a lot of London there are all backgrounds here.  Its cheek by jowl living.  Also putting it down to just one borough is wrong because I see the same in the borough right next to us as well.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> People who rely on seeing your lips move to understand what you are saying


Surely there is a phone app (speech to text) that can show (as text) what you are saying? 

I saw an article a while back from an ambulance medic who was using this format to communicate with people who had hearing issues. He just held his phone up and asked them questions, was very good.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Just been told we can’t wear masks at work anymore for reasons of access, so we have to wear visors instead. I don’t feel safe with just a visor. Are they allowed to do this?


face masks with a clear panel?








						Masks with a clear panel for lipreading | Ideas For Ears
					

A handy list of the masks available to allow lipreading by having a clear panel so that people's mouths (or full face) can be seen.




					www.ideasforears.org.uk
				




mentioned by action for hearing loss as an option. Face coverings: how the regulations apply to you - Action on Hearing Loss


edit: also found instructions to make one (figure that's not for you Orang Utan but someone with appropriate skills might) How to Make An Accessible, Deaf-Friendly Face Mask | Hearing, Speech & Deaf Center


----------



## Badgers (Sep 18, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> face masks with a clear panel?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This also ^ 

Get your employer to buy these (and a phone 'speech to text' solution) because it will be cheaper and better than sick employees and infected clients.


----------



## killer b (Sep 18, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> A lot of it’s to do with money and access to wfh. The south east is fairly affluent, lots of outdoor spaces, lots of people able to work from home. It’s already gone through London so that’s less of a risk.
> 
> Now that people are “encouraged” to go back to work and restrictions lifted it’s hitting other urban areas and people who can’t just wfh.


I'm in Preston (Number 4 in the ranking whooo) and WFH isn't really a thing here anymore if the morning traffic is anything to go by. We're all back in the office at work (although not through necessity - everyone wanted to come back)

I was talking to my brother who lives in a London commuter town in the south east this morning and half the kids in his kid's class are still off, which suggests a much more cautious approach round there (and parents still at home...)


----------



## crossthebreeze (Sep 18, 2020)

Relevant guidelines


> Employers should support their workers in using face coverings safely if they choose to wear one. It is not mandatory for shop or supermarket, indoor shopping centres, banks, building societies, post office workers, premises providing professional, legal or financial services and auction houses to wear face coverings although the government recommends that businesses consider their use where appropriate and where other mitigations are not in place. Employers should continue to follow ‘COVID-19 secure’ guidelines to reduce the proximity and duration of contact between employees.
> 
> Businesses already have legal obligations to protect their staff under existing employment law. This means taking appropriate steps to provide a safe working environment, which may include face coverings where appropriate, alongside other mitigations such as screens and social distancing.


From Shops and branches - Working safely during coronavirus (COVID-19) - Guidance - GOV.UK

Obviously access is an issue, but surely the solution is either clear masks (provided by employer) or being willing to remove mask (and wear visor) when someone requests it for lipreading purposes, not risking employee and public health.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Surely there is a phone app (speech to text) that can show (as text) what you are saying?
> 
> I saw an article a while back from an ambulance medic who was using this format to communicate with people who had hearing issues. He just held his phone up and asked them questions, was very good.


 Not allowed mobiles at work (though everyone ignores this)


----------



## kabbes (Sep 18, 2020)

If you wore a mask in defiance of orders, what would be the consequences do you think?


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> If you wore a mask in defiance of orders, what would be the consequences do you think?


Watch this space!


----------



## Doodler (Sep 18, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> WFH definitely plays some part, in that a lot of service-sector jobs can be done from home whereas industrial ones usually can't.  As you say, that might be why much of the south-east has done okay.  However, using the two examples I stuck up above, both Bolton and Hull are pretty industrial and yet the situation in the two cities is very different.
> 
> I think another factor may well be connectivity.  Hull's geographical isolation has probably worked in its favour, whereas Bolton is part of a larger conurbation.  But again, that doesn't work in every case  because London is by far the best connected city in the country and yet it's doing alright atm.
> 
> ...



A study I read recently claimed that differences in age structure accounted for around 90% of the differences in infection fatality rate between European nations. There are certainly very significant age structure differences in London at the council ward level and probably at borough level too. Such contrasts must exist elsewhere in the UK.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 18, 2020)

Doodler said:


> A study I read recently claimed that differences in age structure accounted for around 90% of the differences in infection fatality rate between European nations. There are certainly very significant age structure differences in London at the council ward level and probably at borough level too. Such contrasts must exist elsewhere in the UK.


It’sa fair point but in this instance we’re talking about infection rates themselves rather than fatalities


----------



## xenon (Sep 18, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Your own safety is your responsibility ...
> 
> Possible solution; Wear mask under visor, and offer to take mask off for short interactions on request by user needing to lip read.



Non surgical masks are for the safety of others though.

I think you can get transparent ones that don't fog up to aid lip readers.

Maybe ask them to get some of those OU?


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 18, 2020)

Doodler said:


> A study I read recently claimed that differences in age structure accounted for around 90% of the differences in infection fatality rate between European nations. There are certainly very significant age structure differences in London at the council ward level and probably at borough level too. Such contrasts must exist elsewhere in the UK.



Oh yes, age structures will definitely come into it too, not just in terms of deaths but also infections.  To put it crudely, if there's a local outbreak driven by workplace transmissions that isn't going to hit the retired in the first instance, although that's not to say that they won't pick it up elsewhere further down the line.  Conversely, there has been a spike amongst younger people, who probably are more willing to take risks - not because they're stupid, irresponsible or whatever else the Daily Express like to call them, but because they're less at risk, relatively mobile, and because in some cases they've no alternative.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 18, 2020)

This doesn't make sense to me, and will probably drive elbows mad.



> Professor Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer and Sir Patrick Vallance, the government's chief scientific adviser, warned the prime minister at a meeting on on Wednesday evening that the disease was now doubling every seven to eight days.
> 
> It is understood they warned the *UK is now about six weeks behind France and Spain* and in danger of seeing a substantial increase in the number of cases by mid-October if the virus is left unchecked.



We already have twice the number of cases that France had 6 weeks ago, with similiar populations.   









						Coronavirus: Boris Johnson considering national restrictions on social lives to curb infections
					

Government figures stressed the plans being drawn up stopped short of a full national lockdown, as seen in the spring.




					news.sky.com


----------



## xenon (Sep 18, 2020)

Just checked Bristol's score. Relieved to see it's down to 11 / 100K. There are certainly peple going out from what I've seen. Though I've not been and would avoid any where busy in doors. It's a mixed city of course, not all middle class new media jobs done from home. Large call centres and stuff but not much factory / industrial work in the city itself. Students not back yet.


----------



## mr steev (Sep 18, 2020)

Our local rag is reporting that Wolverhampton will be going into lockdown next Tuesday - yet no confirmation from the council or government, no mention in the national press and as far as I can tell we are not even on the watchlist. I'm sure we are in for further restrictions, but this is just down right lying and scaremongering surely?









						Covid crisis: Wolverhampton local lockdown measures confirmed to start next week
					

Wolverhampton is set to be plunged into local lockdown next week – with even stricter measures on the horizon unless Covid cases start to fall.




					www.expressandstar.com
				




eta: just noticed the caveat of 'unless cases stop rising'... that wasn't on the article when I first read it this morning, nor is it on the article on their facebook page


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 18, 2020)

Dreading the students getting back into university towns.
I foresee that producing another spike in CV cases, before the current batch have died down.

People who are currently out and about, so therefore causing & taking risks, need to realise that the virus is still as infectious as before the March lockdown. They need to take all the proper precautions.
I quite like the "Hands, Face, Space" mantra - the radio ads are very much to that point. 

Personally, my thoughts are that we can have work, or schools, or pubs, but not all three at once, at least until the majority of vaccinations are done.

Currently, I'm in an area covered by the Tyne & Wear / Northumberland / Durham restrictions. 

The next two / three weeks will need careful behaviours ...


----------



## Supine (Sep 18, 2020)

have we had this clip on urban yet?


----------



## sojourner (Sep 18, 2020)

My home town was 111.6 out of 100,000, 2 days ago. Our small area alone has doubled cases in 5 days, and we also had the most deaths in the town. It is massively working class, and deprived, and you're lucky to see anyone wearing a mask. 

I passed a new sign pointing to a Covid test centre on my way into work, so rang the council to ask if it was walk-in or if you had to book. 40 minutes of being on hold later, I was told that they don't know, and that they didn't even know it was there  Wtf?!


----------



## TopCat (Sep 18, 2020)

What's the worst hotspot in the UK?


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 18, 2020)

There are sooo many things the govt could be doing to support all areas* of society in keeping covid in check but arent and would probably be cheaper than another full lockdown. 

*NHS local govt individuals airports businesses schools universities etc.

Have none of them ever heard that a stitch in time saves nine.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Just been told we can’t wear masks at work anymore for reasons of access, so we have to wear visors instead. I don’t feel safe with just a visor. Are they allowed to do this?


Yeah, we've been told we can wear a visor but not mask when teaching (University). However, whilst students have to wear masks in communal areas, they don't in class. Whilst this is a pile of shite, I do have to pull myself up and remember shopworkers and others have been facing this for months. But still, a pile of shite is indeed a layered structure of ordure.  My concern is for students with vulnerabilities or vulnerable relatives, sat in classrooms with others who refuse to wear masks or are even anti mask/vaccine conspiraloons.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 18, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yeah, we've been told we can wear a visor but not mask when teaching (University). However, whilst students have to wear masks in communal areas, they don't in class. Whilst this is a pile of shite, I do have to pull myself up and remember shopworkers and others have been facing this for months. But still, a pile of shite is indeed a layered structure of ordure.  My concern is for students with vulnerabilities or vulnerable relatives, sat in classrooms with others who refuse to wear masks or are even anti mask/vaccine conspiraloons.



It's also worth remembering that the fewer risks you and I take the lower the risk for shop workers.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm in Preston (Number 4 in the ranking whooo) and WFH isn't really a thing here anymore if the morning traffic is anything to go by. We're all back in the office at work (although not through necessity - everyone wanted to come back)
> 
> I was talking to my brother who lives in a London commuter town in the south east this morning and half the kids in his kid's class are still off, which suggests a much more cautious approach round there (and parents still at home...)



Are these jobs that can and indeed were being done from home?  It would be more than a bit annoying if transmissions have occurred in offices where people could have wfh.  I appreciate its not suitable for all jobs and all people.

I do think fear of the London public transport system is playing a big roll down here because by all accounts the offices are all still empty.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 18, 2020)

Apparently my home Borough Lewisham has very high death rates. 
G4S are running a testing centre set up in Catford. Catford is a big shouty angry car park again today. 
Here is the Newshopper take on it. 








						Hundreds turned away from Catford coronavirus test centre in QR code 'chaos'
					

More than 100 people who booked a coronavirus test in Catford faced long queues before being turned away as they were not sent a required QR code.




					www.newsshopper.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 18, 2020)

Supine said:


> have we had this clip on urban yet?




One for the covid literacy thread this one.  When we get round to starting it.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 18, 2020)

TopCat said:


> What's the worst hotspot in the UK?



In the last week, Bolton: 171 infections per 100,000 population.  That's why I picked it as an example above.  In the comparator I used, Hull, there were 5 infections per 100k.


----------



## prunus (Sep 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I think then you’d probably have to provide evidence that the mask provides a personal safety aspect that the visor lacks.  Is that actually the case?



Actually I think it’s up to them to provide the risk assessment they’ve made that visors provide an equivalent level of protection (which, if they have more than 5 staff, they should have consulted with the staff on).   This protection is not just does it protect the wearer, but is there an equivalent (sufficient) level of protection for each person from each other person, if all are wearing visors. 

As it happens there is a reasonable body of evidence being amassed that masks do in fact provide protection for the wearer, not just for the others around them, in terms of reducing initial viral load on an infectious encounter; this may be part of the reason for the apparent rise in less severe and asymptomatic cases. 

Disclaimer: I have to do these sodding risk assessments for my work, and given how fast the science is changing it’s an almost full-time job. Fwiw we’ve just mandated masks in the office at all times, on the back of the latest research (rather than just if you’re within 2m (but never less than 1m!) of someone else).


----------



## killer b (Sep 18, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Are these jobs that can and indeed were being done from home? It would be more than a bit annoying if transmissions have occurred in offices where people could have wfh. I appreciate its not suitable for all jobs and all people.


yeah, they were being done from home but it was awkward and dysfunctional, and everyone was going a bit mad. It's a huge, well ventilated office and there's only 4 of us spread out across it though, I reckon it's pretty low risk.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 18, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> It's also worth remembering that the fewer risks you and I take the lower the risk for shop workers.


Yeah, absolutely, every bit of bad practice everywhere in the country impacts elsewhere. To be fair my immediate manager has been quite good reducing my own classroom teaching due to health conditions. But it's at the level of institution, bringing students back on campus/to house parties/shagging/travelling back home that takes you into extreme folly. And beyond that, it's a HE sector playing chicken, knowing it will have to revert to online teaching, but not able to do that until others do to avoid fees claims.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 18, 2020)

Van Morrison has joined the anti mask cohort. Written songs about fascists and science crooks. 
Knobhead.


----------



## sojourner (Sep 18, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> In the last week, Bolton: 171 infections per 100,000 population.  That's why I picked it as an example above.  In the comparator I used, Hull, there were 5 infections per 100k.


We  currently have the  11th highest rate of cases in England


----------



## sojourner (Sep 18, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Van Morrison has joined the anti mask cohort. Written songs about fascists and science crooks.
> Knobhead.


Heard that on the radio this morning. The fucking idiot.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 18, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Heard that on the radio this morning. The fucking idiot.


Astral Freaks.


----------



## xenon (Sep 18, 2020)

e





killer b said:


> yeah, they were being done from home but it was awkward and dysfunctional, and everyone was going a bit mad. It's a huge, well ventilated office and there's only 4 of us spread out across it though, I reckon it's pretty low risk.


Living alone does have it's up and down sides, especially during all this. But WFH I'm glad I do TBH. Full time might do my head in though.


----------



## ddraig (Sep 18, 2020)

Supine said:


> have we had this clip on urban yet?



Absolute dickheads


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This doesn't make sense to me, and will probably drive elbows mad.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



There are limits as to how mad it can drive me because someone in the media was briefed about '6 weeks behind France' fears a while ago and I already took the piss out of that.

Not that I am totally done with the subject, I have a bit of data to mess with on this subject and will return to it once I've done that.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> There are limits as to how mad it can drive me because someone in the media was briefed about '6 weeks behind France' fears a while ago and I already took the piss out of that.
> 
> Not that I am totally done with the subject, I have a bit of data to mess with on this subject and will return to it once I've done that.


I read that Guardian article and was a bit stumped with the comparisons.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

Well before I even have time to look at that stuff again, the most obvious thing wrong with 6 weeks is that the governments own slides from the 9th September press conference, which Whitty presented, included a graph where they tried to align the UK trends with the likes of France. And they moved the data by 4 weeks to do that, not 6 weeks.

I already posted the chart in question before but here it is again.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/916445/2020-09-09_COVID-19_Press_Conference_Slides111__-__Read-Only.pdf


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

Regarding the visors question. No they are not supposed to be sufficient that they can be used without a mask, visors are mostly to reduce the chance of infection via the eyes.

I read a SAGE paper about this in the context of hairdressers not too long ago, but had very little chance of quickly finding which of the many documents this was in. Luckily there was press coverage to make this task trivial:









						Government experts warn hairdresser 'visors' aren't enough to stop coronavirus
					

WEARING a plastic "visor" is not enough to protect customers from coronavirus in a barber shop or a hairdressers', scientific advisors…




					www.theargus.co.uk
				






> In a meeting on July 22, the experts ruled visors alone "are unlikely to be an effective control for aerosol transmission".
> 
> The subgroup of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) added: "There is no evidence that face shields/visors are an effective source control for either larger droplets or small aerosols.





> "We recommend that guidance for UK hairdressers and barbers should be strengthened to include wearing of face coverings."


----------



## two sheds (Sep 18, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Just been told we can’t wear masks at work anymore for reasons of access, so we have to wear visors instead. I don’t feel safe with just a visor. Are they allowed to do this?



Somewhat different situation but ...

Deaf neighbour went for a scan the other week. Her husband asked in advance if he could go in and sign for her, but the CEO (private facility being used by a lot of NHS places locally) refused. Bloke scanning had mask and visor, she had mask but because she couldn't lip read him and didn't know what was going on (once she'd had the wrong operation done because they communicate with her properly). So she panicked and asked for her husband to come in to sign for her. The scanner to his credit went and got her husband who signed for her. 

When she lay down for the scan she had to take her hearing aid off and she normally attaches the mask to hearing aid so she asked whether she could take the mask off since she still had visor on, and finds it difficult to wear a mask for any length of time anyway. She didn't talk during the scan because her husband (with mask and visor) was signing for her. 

Her husband wrote an e-mail afterwards suggesting how the company could improve its access for deaf patients. He received a stinking reply that patronizingly told them that there was a real problem with coronavirus and so many people had died worldwide, and blamed them for what had happened, that they and the guy scanning her had put their whole facility at risk by the husband going in with her and her taking her mask off.  The CEO also said she'd held a disciplinary for the bloke doing the scanning and had effectively warned him as to future conduct.

They sent me a copy of her letter for my reaction and it made me so angry that I wasn't getting to sleep. I got up and started  a suggested reply which they've now added to and improved and sent a copy to people like the RNID who it looks like are going to take it further


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

TopCat said:


> What's the worst hotspot in the UK?



The situation is moving beyond the point where this question is broad enough to capture the moment.

Partly because while in the past there were concerns that detecing a local outbreak and focussing a lot of testing there could distort the picture at the expense of some other locations, such concerns are likely to be magnified now by the fact that demand for tests is far outstripping supply.

I am shifting from looking at specific locations to looking at the picture by broader region instead. Graphs later, probably after todays dashboard data is out, and after I have read the weekly PHE surveillance report.

The authorities are clearly thinking more like this too, which is why we are seeing larger areas having new measures imposed on them, and why the press is full of talk about the government doing stuff on the national level.


----------



## xenon (Sep 18, 2020)

Not like, I can't access the other smilies. Take that as good work two sheds but  at the company.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 18, 2020)

xenon said:


> Not like, I can't access the other smilies. Take that as good work two sheds but  at the company.



One of the things we pointed out was that she was blaming the three of them for a situation that came about because of their poor procedures (no mask that ties round the back, didn't provide interpreter for her), which is a failure of management. He's adding a couple that people have mentioned on this thread - speech to text and transparent masks so ta for them.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

I'd like to see some people perform their own exercises with case numbers data. Because we have seen a doubling time estimate of a week mentioned in the press. So its not hard to pick a number of current daily infections, for example from the weekly ONS survey or from Zoe covid, and then double that number for every week that we dont take action. See what sort of number you end up with after 4 or 6 weeks.

Of course it isnt quite that simple because of various new regional measures, and the doubling time could increase or decrease over time, and the current estimate for it might be wrong (they certainly got it wrong in early March) but it might still be able to give people some feel for the situation and a practical refresher on exponential growth.


----------



## sojourner (Sep 18, 2020)

Annnnd we're now an area of intervention with special measures. But not til Tuesday, so we're all absolutely fine for the weekend. Right-o.


----------



## xenon (Sep 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'd like to see some people perform their own exercises with case numbers data. Because we have seen a doubling time estimate of a week mentioned in the press. So its not hard to pick a number of current daily infections, for example from the weekly ONS survey or from Zoe covid, and then double that number for every week that we dont take action. See what sort of number you end up with after 4 or 6 weeks.
> 
> Of course it isnt quite that simple because of various new regional measures, and the doubling time could increase or decrease over time, and the current estimate for it might be wrong (they certainly got it wrong in early March) but it might still be able to give people some feel for the situation and a practical refresher on exponential growth.



Knowing a bit of binary maths helps with this. If cases of a theoretical disease something everyone was susceptible to, doubled every  N days, it will effect the entire population of Earth in 33 N days...


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## Sue (Sep 18, 2020)

How much credence are people giving the estimated numbers from the Zoe tracking thing? A friend (who's been doing it) says it's currently estimating 192/100k in my borough. Which sounds like a lot?


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 18, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Annnnd we're now an area of intervention with special measures. But not til Tuesday, so we're all absolutely fine for the weekend. Right-o.


I think that when these extra restrictions are announced, they should be implemented asap and within 24hrs at the most. Waiting until after a weekend is bloody ridiculous.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

I have seen signs in recent weeks that the opposite issue to what happened in March may be happening in peoples minds in regards London.

I complained that in March the government told Londoners that they were ahead of the rest of the country in the pandemic, and that they should pay special attention to the advice and measures.

This was fair enough in some ways, and London was a bit ahead, but the problem was that various other places were not really so far behind London, the risks to people in those other places was also high but the government messaging didnt reflect this enough.

Well now we might have the opposite issue. Months of focus on hotspots in the midlands and up north has led to me seeing the occasional comment on this forum that Londoners arent at especially high risk right now. I believe that stance is not appropriate, its weeks out of date.









						Coronavirus: 'Widespread virus growth across the country'
					

The R number has risen to between 1.1 and 1.4 as officials warn of "far worse things to come".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> New cases of coronavirus could be hitting 6,000 a day in England, with "clear evidence" of a rise in positive tests in the under-35s, according to the Office for National Statistics.
> 
> The ONS found infection rates were higher in the North West and London, based on random testing of thousands of people in households.


----------



## LDC (Sep 18, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I think these extra restrictions are announced, they should be implemented asap and within 24hrs at the most. Waiting until after a weekend is bloody ridiculous.



That's my gut feeling too, but I'm assuming that the reason why that doesn't happen is there's some modelling that shows a warning before implementation increases compliance in the longer term, which I can see being the case tbh. When some measures have been announced suddenly, people moan about that like fuck and say they wanted a warning.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 18, 2020)

Sue said:


> How much credence are people giving the estimated numbers from the Zoe tracking thing? A friend (who's been doing it) says it's currently estimating 192/100k in my borough. Which sounds like a lot?


It does sound like a lot.


----------



## Fez909 (Sep 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'd like to see some people perform their own exercises with case numbers data. Because we have seen a doubling time estimate of a week mentioned in the press. So its not hard to pick a number of current daily infections, for example from the weekly ONS survey or from Zoe covid, and then double that number for every week that we dont take action. See what sort of number you end up with after 4 or 6 weeks.
> 
> Of course it isnt quite that simple because of various new regional measures, and the doubling time could increase or decrease over time, and the current estimate for it might be wrong (they certainly got it wrong in early March) but it might still be able to give people some feel for the situation and a practical refresher on exponential growth.


By my calculations, over ONE BILLION brits will have coronavirus on Christmas day 



Spoiler





18/09/2020​69,687​25/09/2020​139,374​02/10/2020​278,748​09/10/2020​557,496​16/10/2020​1,114,992​23/10/2020​2,229,984​30/10/2020​4,459,968​06/11/2020​8,919,936​13/11/2020​17,839,872​20/11/2020​35,679,744​27/11/2020​71,359,488​04/12/2020​142,718,976​11/12/2020​285,437,952​18/12/2020​570,875,904​25/12/2020​1,141,751,808​


----------



## Sue (Sep 18, 2020)

TopCat said:


> It does sound like a lot.


They were talking about a local lockdown a couple of weeks ago and sending letters out to people in the areas affected but doesn't seem to have happened. And obviously the whole testing thing is a complete shambles so who knows what's going on.









						Coronavirus: Hackney’s top officials slam government’s ‘shambolic’ system as hundreds turned away from testing centres
					

Top officials in Hackney have slammed the government’s coronavirus testing system as a shambles, after hundreds of people who needed...




					www.hackneygazette.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> By my calculations, over ONE BILLION brits will have coronavirus on Christmas day



Ha 

To be honest I was thinking more of number of daily new infections, but I presume you used number of weekly infections or number of people currently thought to be ill with it instead?


----------



## Cloo (Sep 18, 2020)

So this week I think that I have heard of more people I know with symptoms (though not all with positive tests) than I did in any week in March/April. It could just be more awareness of symptoms, eg a number of them have got a weird taste in their mouth, and they may yet prove to be mild cases that others actually did have unknowingly earlier in the year. Or it could be that older, vulnerable people have got a much worse load coming…. Or again, that it is getting more infectious, but milder, as some scientists have posited. Thus far people seem to have had it for a few days without feeling especially atrocious, or they may not have got to the cough/chest pain bit yet.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 18, 2020)

September tho? With the change in weather there's a lot more respiratory stuff going around, not all of it covid related


----------



## crossthebreeze (Sep 18, 2020)

The big issue in the North east is that the regulations & guidelines for the local restrictions allow for various types of paid-for childcare - childminders, nannies, nurseries etc - but not informal childcare. Loads of people taken off furlough or told to stop working from home now have to choose between losing income/job or breaking the law.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> September tho? With the change in weather there's a lot more respiratory stuff going around, not all of it covid related



And then take that stuff and look at the implications of it. Eg the effects on all sorts of parts of society from the levels of staff absences we may see this winter, especially if there is no viable mass testing system to rule out Covid-19 in all essential workers and allow them to go back to work.


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## chilango (Sep 18, 2020)

Yesterday I was walking through the oak when saw a group of c.20 young people sat around in group on the grass, probably about 0.5 - 1m apart on average. No masks. Busy chatting etc.

For a moment I reflected upon the Government advice to call the cops in such circumstances, but then I remembered...


...I wasn't in the park I was on campus.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 18, 2020)

That reminds me I've been meaning to ask/confirm if the BLM protests that everyone supported but just NOT NOW were shown to have little or no effect?


----------



## Cloo (Sep 18, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> That reminds me I've been meaning to ask/confirm if the BLM protests that everyone supported but just NOT NOW were shown to have little or no effect?


I wondered about that. Haven't seen any reports of protests known to have led to widespread infections


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> That reminds me I've been meaning to ask/confirm if the BLM protests that everyone supported but just NOT NOW were shown to have little or no effect?



Although much was made of contact tracing, the scientific advisors never expected that the test & trace system and PHE outbreak investigation stuff would actually manage to identify every sort of outbreak scenario and factor properly. For example I'm sure I read papers where they did not think that system would yeild data useful enough to tell them about the role of supermarkets in the spread of the disease. And if they cant figure out supermarkets, I doubt they can figure out what role if any those protests had.

So I have to look at these things in theory rather than expecting to ever have the theory confirmed or rejected by hard evidence.

In theory even if there was a large increased risk of transmission as a result of behaviours linked to the protests, this would be a multiplier of what infection was already there. And since the highest profile of the protests coincided with a period where the rate of infection in the community was rather low, the expected impact would have been relatively low.

Length of time that the riskier behaviours happened for also a factor. Even the most foolish of the Johnson relaxation measures took time to contribute notably to the bigger increases in infection that we are now seeing, and those were measures that tend to affect behaviour all day every day by a rather large number of people.


----------



## xenon (Sep 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's my gut feeling too, but I'm assuming that the reason why that doesn't happen is there's some modelling that shows a warning before implmentation increases compliance in the longer term, which I can see being the case tbh. When some measures have been announced suddenly, people moan about that like fuck and say they wanted a warning.



And if they involve travel restrictions, you need to give people some time to change plans, e.g. to get home.


----------



## zahir (Sep 18, 2020)

Today’s Independent Sage briefing.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

> "We are facing the risk again of *expediential* growth in Covid."





Taken from an article that also suggests Sturgeon is more in tune with '4 weeks behind France' than the 6 weeks crap someone alerted me to earlier.









						Covid in Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon issues warning over tougher rules
					

The first minister says some "hard but necessary" decisions will need to be taken in the coming days.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The next few days will be "critical" in deciding what steps will be taken to stop the spread of Covid-19 in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon has said.
> 
> The first minister said the virus was on the rise and was now spreading "quite rapidly".
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

I'm always looking for signs that my sense of timing has not got much worse compared to March, since I dont want to mislead people. There is a sign in the Guardian that my thinking about the October half-term 'circuit breaker' being older advice, older timing rather than the latest state of thinking behind the scenes might be right.



> Some reports had suggested this “circuit-breaker” which would fall short of a full lockdown, could coincide with autumn half-term in late October, to minimise disruption, but government sources said if it did take place, it would be likely to happen sooner. An announcement could come as early as next week.











						PM considers imposing Covid 'circuit break' across England
					

Boris Johnson thinking about short-term restrictions that could include closing pubs




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Sep 18, 2020)

Anyone seen this YouTube on vitamin D? It sounds too good to be true. But is it?


----------



## chilango (Sep 18, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Anyone seen this YouTube on vitamin D? It sounds too good to be true. But is it?




We get Vitamin D from sunlight, right? So presumably sunny countries like Spain and Italy will have comparatively easier times of it during the Pandemic, right?


----------



## platinumsage (Sep 18, 2020)

chilango said:


> We get Vitamin D from sunlight, right? So presumably sunny countries like Spain and Italy will have comparatively easier times of it during the Pandemic, right?



No, not if people don't strip off and sunbathe. Older people in those two countries tend to avoid the sun, and there are actually high deficiency levels there.


----------



## chilango (Sep 18, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> No, not if people don't strip off and sunbathe. Older people in those two countries tend to avoid the sun, and there are actually high deficiency levels there.



Fair enough. Was being tongue in cheek anyway.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 18, 2020)

Not sure what the video shows but I've seen vitamin D recommended from good sources. I'm taking supplements into winter certainly.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 18, 2020)

I've managed a decent tan this year, and topped it up regularly.

I wonder how long such reserves last ? (anyone know off hand ?)


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Sep 18, 2020)

chilango said:


> We get Vitamin D from sunlight, right? So presumably sunny countries like Spain and Italy will have comparatively easier times of it during the Pandemic, right?


If you’ve got the time to watch the youtube you’ll see that the latest vitamin d trials are actually from Spain. There are problems with the size of the tests, but it seems to be very impressive.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 18, 2020)

4322 new cases today. Up 1100 on yesterday.


----------



## bimble (Sep 18, 2020)

i've been taking vitamin d pills since around march having read something that sounded convincing. No idea if thats why I'm not dead yet though.


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## maomao (Sep 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> i've been taking vitamin d pills since around march having read something that sounded convincing. No idea if thats why I'm not dead yet though.


I just sunbathed through furlough and I start vit D supplements every September anyway.


----------



## platinumsage (Sep 18, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I've managed a decent tan this year, and topped it up regularly.
> 
> I wonder how long such reserves last ? (anyone know off hand ?)



It'll be downhill from now until March. At what point it becomes suboptimal will vary with the individual.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's my gut feeling too, but I'm assuming that the reason why that doesn't happen is there's some modelling that shows a warning before implmentation increases compliance in the longer term, which I can see being the case tbh. When some measures have been announced suddenly, people moan about that like fuck and say they wanted a warning.



Yes, some warning is useful, I agree.
But not over a weekend - too much opportunity for the 20 - 35 year olds to go and get legless.
Alcohol reduces inhibitions so encourages what sober people would see as recklessness.  I predict that will show up as little or no social distancing / wearing masks.

The problem is that the relaxations from lockdown are also risking breakdown of the social distancing & mask wearing habits.
As I see it, we shouldn't have all three of 
a) people back in the office/workplace 
b) schools & universities back 
and c) pubs & hospitality. 
Perhaps two out of three might work, but I doubt it. 

I still think the relaxations came too fast and there were too many, before the affects of any one change could be seen.


----------



## platinumsage (Sep 18, 2020)

maomao said:


> I just sunbathed through furlough and I start vit D supplements every September anyway.



You might want to start later and finish later e.g. December to May. Your levels will be at their peak now but will take time to go up when the sun comes back.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 18, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It'll be downhill from now until March. At what point it becomes suboptimal will vary with the individual.



That seems to correspond with the tan fade rate ...

Well, I got a bit more tan today - I've even sunbathed on New Year's Day in Northumberland (I must be mad).

If all else fails, I've got a sunbed ...


----------



## bimble (Sep 18, 2020)

StoneRoad you have a sunbed in your home are you joking?


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## maomao (Sep 18, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> You might want to start later and finish later e.g. December to May. Your levels will be at their peak now but will take time to go up when the sun comes back.


Yeah but in March it was nice and I could spend three hours a day outside whereas I've spent most days since mid July studying in a NW facing room where I have to draw the curtains at 3pm. I don't usually stop till I've had a couple of good sessions in the sun too.


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## SlideshowBob (Sep 18, 2020)

MrSki said:


> 4322 new cases today. Up 1100 on yesterday.



Full second lockdown feeling more and more inevitable now. Local measures seem to help ever so slightly but dunno if they're doing enough to completely nullify the virus, which is what we realistically need.


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## MrSki (Sep 18, 2020)

Birmingham's Nightingale hospital put back on high alert.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 18, 2020)

Interesting tweet showing deaths at 28 day cut off, 60 day cut off & no cut off.


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## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> The problem is that the relaxations from lockdown are also risking breakdown of the social distancing & mask wearing habits.
> As I see it, we shouldn't have all three of
> a) people back in the office/workplace
> b) schools & universities back
> ...



There are various documents from government scientific advisors which made it quite clear months ago that they thought some things might need to be tightened before schools reopened, in order to actually create 'room' (in terms of number of infections) to allow the school reopening agenda to proceed in full.

As it turned out the government listened to that advice as little as possible, and it looks quite a lot like the other relaxations caused this swelling of cases before the impact of schools reopening even got a chance to contribute to the increase.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 18, 2020)

The current increases we've seen from schools reopening will likely only get worse as universities return. And no doubt government figures will start heaping blame onto the students. Very predictable.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Not sure what the video shows but I've seen vitamin D recommended from good sources. I'm taking supplements into winter certainly.



Yeah vitamin D had a good press at the start of lockdown and it’s why I think the disease hasn’t been to deadly last couple of months  even if still infectious.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 18, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Interesting tweet showing deaths at 28 day cut off, 60 day cut off & no cut off.




All of the 'summary' healthcare numbers are wrong, as _todays_ numbers - the numbers showing there are from whenver all four nations last reported (the 7th for 'patients admitted', the 16th for 'patients in hospital' and the 17th for 'patients on mechanical ventilation'). Figures for England have been updated for all three categories except 'patients admitted' (last updated on the 16th) and they are all rising.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 18, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Yeah vitamin D had a good press at the start of lockdown and it’s why I think the disease hasn’t been to deadly last couple of months  even if still infectious.


that would be very interesting if true


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> that would be very interesting if true



I don’t think it’s the sole reason but certainly think it’s a factor.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 18, 2020)

We've just missed out on further restrictions (Teesside), though they've got them further north, along with all the restrictions in Lancs, Greater Manchester and Yorkshire. Whether it's the rule of 6, can't go and meet people in Durham, right through to semi lockdowns in October, the detail has become irrelevant. The Government have lost control, particularly with test and trace and what will be will be. 

So much fucks me off about this, not least the thousands of people who johnson's ideological incompetence killed in May/June. But here we are now, still pretending that universities can teach on campus as new cases increase and the R number is above 1.  And similar things in other sectors.  \just a complete inability to pull out of things they know will speed up the increase and, ultimately, kill people.


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## sheothebudworths (Sep 18, 2020)

I've left in the last line of each (so the bottom line of each table = the totals published in *today's* healthcare summary). Basically if there's any N/A data, from any nation, the total for that day is not used - but the numbers are still rising, significantly.

*Patients admitted to hospital*
Daily and cumulative numbers of COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital. Data are not updated every day by all four nations and the figures are not comparable as Wales include suspected COVID-19 patients while the other nations include only confirmed cases.
Click to display contentDailyClick to display contentCumulativeClick to display contentDataClick to display contentAbout
*Data*
Showing a table of the data

DateEngland dailyNorthern Ireland dailyScotland dailyWales dailyEngland totalNorthern Ireland totalScotland totalWales total16-09-20201830N/AData not currently available for this metric.65115,6461,625N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,93815-09-20201942N/AData not currently available for this metric.53115,4631,625N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,87314-09-20201725N/AData not currently available for this metric.59115,2691,623N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,82013-09-20201531N/AData not currently available for this metric.55115,0971,618N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,76112-09-20201433N/AData not currently available for this metric.55114,9441,617N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,70611-09-20201352N/AData not currently available for this metric.70114,8011,614N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,65110-09-20201433N/AData not currently available for this metric.49114,6661,612N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,58109-09-20201360N/AData not currently available for this metric.56114,5231,609N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,53208-09-2020995N/AData not currently available for this metric.65114,3871,609N/AData not currently available for this metric.14,47607-09-2020841346114,2881,6046,02314,411


*Patients in hospital*
By nation
UK total
Daily count of confirmed COVID-19 patients in hospital at midnight the preceding night. Data from the four nations may not be directly comparable as data about COVID-19 patients in hospitals are collected differently. Data are not reported by each nation every day. The UK figure is the sum of the four nations' figures and can only be calculated when all nations' data are available.
Click to display contentDailyClick to display contentDataClick to display contentAbout
*Data*
Showing a table of the data

DateEngland dailyNorthern Ireland dailyScotland dailyWales daily18-09-2020988N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.17-09-2020953N/AData not currently available for this metric.525516-09-202089421515

*Patients in mechanical ventilation beds*
By nation
UK total
Confirmed COVID-19 patients in mechanical ventilation beds. Data from the four nations may not be directly comparable as data about COVID-19 patients in hospitals are collected differently. Data are not reported by each nation every day and England data are not available before 2 April. The UK figure is the sum of the four nations' figures and can only be calculated when all nations' data are available.
Click to display contentDailyClick to display contentDataClick to display contentAbout
*Data*
Showing a table of the data

DateEngland dailyNorthern Ireland dailyScotland dailyWales daily18-09-2020115N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.N/AData not currently available for this metric.17-09-20201083511


----------



## LDC (Sep 18, 2020)

zahir said:


> Today’s Independent Sage briefing.




Not always that keen on Independent SAGE, this one is worth a watch. Depressing and frustrating watching leaving me with the feeling we're a bit fucked.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I don’t think it’s the sole reason but certainly think it’s a factor.



We should look at these other possible factors like vitamin D.

But I do think they need to be placed in context in order to not receive unfairly prominent billing.

The largest and most obvious reason for the chance in deaths is the vast change in number of cases. For example the following estimates from zoe covid showing number of symptomatic cases at any one time.


and then compare that to the more recent period. The numbers were very different over the summer to what they were estimated to be during the first peak that caused most of the death so far, so much lower.



Then we need to consider the other consequences of that drop. Because its not just the obvious stuff such as the less people catching it the less death we would expect. Its also because lower number of cases changes the picture in all sorts of scenarios Including scenarios that we suspect are responsible for a significant proportion of the deaths - hospital infections and spread to care homes. When the number of infections drops then there is far more room, including literal room (less overcrowding) to deal with infection control in these settings.

For these and other reasons including quality and rationing of treatment, how overstretched staff are etc, deaths are amplified during the worst moments on the curve, and are diminished when we are at trough rather than peak points, beyond what the straightforward correlation between case numbers and deaths would explain.


----------



## LDC (Sep 18, 2020)

Yeah, Vit D _might_ be a factor, but _if_ it is it's a minuscule one compared to other variables.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, Vit D _might_ be a factor, but _if_ it is it's a minuscule one compared to other variables.



I mostly think it’s decent for improving your immune system and fighting it off.

It’s not going to prevent anything but it’ll give you a bit more chance against it.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 18, 2020)

I'd imagine the primary reason deaths are lower - above all else - is because more younger people are catching it now than at the start, when it was care homes that are being devastated.

We'll likely see the death figures creeping up in weeks to come anyway though, since the young who currently are infected will inevitably have been spreading it to older residents who are more vulnerable. Hopefully though, the death peaks won't be as bad as before if lessons are learned from the care homes debacle.

Although knowing the current government, they'll no doubt find a way to repeat the same mistakes they made there before too.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not always that keen on Independent SAGE, this one is worth a watch. Depressing and frustrating watching leaving me with the feeling we're a bit fucked.



Out of interest, why not?


----------



## Cloo (Sep 18, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> Although knowing the current government, they'll no doubt find a way to repeat the same mistakes they made there before too.


 I don't get the impression they've got any better a strategy for care homes than previously, ie no visitors. I don't know if they've done anything about the numbers of bank staff working at multiple location and the fact the zero hours staff won't get shit if they can't come into work etc.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> I'd imagine the primary reason deaths are lower - above all else - is because more younger people are catching it now than at the start, when it was care homes that are being devastated.
> 
> We'll likely see the death figures creeping up in weeks to come anyway though, since the young who currently are infected will inevitably have been spreading it to older residents who are more vulnerable. Hopefully though, the death peaks won't be as bad as before if lessons are learned from the care homes debacle.
> 
> Although knowing the current government, they'll no doubt find a way to repeat the same mistakes they made there before too.



One of the key problems is that even if they sorted out aspects of the care home situation, its the capacity and resources of the NHS that leads officialdom not to do one of the things that people like Jonathan Van Tam acknowledge countries that have done well in the pandemic have done.

Its only been days since I posted this extract from a June 10th NERVTAG document but as its the easiest way to make my point I hope nobody minds that I am repeating this already:


(from Box )

I dont know what decisions have been made in this regard since, but if they are planning to go through this winter without trying to make structural changes to the NHS, keeping Covid-19 hospital patients and staff away from other patients and staff, then it will be hard for this massively important side of the pandemic to be dealt with better this time around, and indeed winter pressures could easily make this side of things worse than what we saw in the first wave.

It wouldnt be easy at all for the NHS to manage that, so some of the contemporary failures of current governemtn to control this pandemic and reduce death are actually a story of political failure and crap funding priorities going back decades.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 18, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I don't get the impression they've got any better a strategy for care homes than previously, ie no visitors. I don't know if they've done anything about the numbers of bank staff working at multiple location and the fact the zero hours staff won't get shit if they can't come into work etc.



Think one of the main problems - certainly in Scotland anyway - was the large number of hospital patients being discharged into hospital without proper testing. You'd hope the government will be better-placed to cope with that now, but far from being guaranteed.


----------



## LDC (Sep 18, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Out of interest, why not?



I find the format a bit annoying and unprofessional, and the content sometimes a bit too ranty and piecemeal. And they still have some of that patronizing air to public questions.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

And its a key pandemic angle that has not been well addressed by press coverage so far. Instead we are reduced to simple tales of protecting our NHS, loving our NHS workers, etc, which is understandable and fair enough on some levels, but a total smokescreen on others.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 18, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> I'd imagine the primary reason deaths are lower - above all else - is because more younger people are catching it now than at the start, when it was care homes that are being devastated.
> 
> We'll likely see the death figures creeping up in weeks to come anyway though, since the young who currently are infected will inevitably have been spreading it to older residents who are more vulnerable. Hopefully though, the death peaks won't be as bad as before if lessons are learned from the care homes debacle.
> 
> Although knowing the current government, they'll no doubt find a way to repeat the same mistakes they made there before too.



It doesn't look like lessons _have_ been learnt there - there's been some very recent stuff in the news about the increase of testing, which was promised to care homes as a priority, still not coming through (iirc that was supposed to be sorted for July and then for, literally, _last week_?) and now, with the recent total fuck up in testing, care homes are not getting results back quickly (if they even get them) and as a result they are still working while they wait and cases are spreading in care homes again. They _need_ to have adequate supplies of tests - and fast results - it's an absolute disgrace that they are back to this point again.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 18, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It doesn't look like lessons _have_ been learnt there - there's been some very recent stuff in the news about the increase of testing, which was promised to care homes as a priority, still not coming through (iirc that was supposed to be sorted for July and then for, literally, _last week_?) and now, with the recent total fuck up in testing, care homes are not getting results back quickly (if they even get them) and as a result they are still working while they wait and cases are spreading in care homes again. They _need_ to have adequate supplies of tests - and fast results - it's an absolute disgrace that they are back to this point again.



Government strategy primarily seemed to hinge upon the idea that this would just go away, or if it didn't then it at least wouldn't be anywhere near as serious as the first time to warrant severe restrictions again. As you say it's disgraceful there were no contingency plans in place for a proper second wave which it looks like we've hit now.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It doesn't look like lessons _have_ been learnt there - there's been some very recent stuff in the news about the increase of testing, which was promised to care homes as a priority, still not coming through (iirc that was supposed to be sorted for July and then for, literally, _last week_?) and now, with the recent total fuck up in testing, care homes are not getting results back quickly (if they even get them) and as a result they are still working while they wait and cases are spreading in care homes again. They _need_ to have adequate supplies of tests - and fast results - it's an absolute disgrace that they are back to this point again.



They have learnt the lessons about bank staff having the potential to transmit infection between multiple care homes, and announced funding to address some of that this week. 

But this is one of those lessons it is hard to believe were not well known long before this pandemic actually happened. And there is obviously quite a difference between announcing stuff and chucking some money at a problem and actually getting the right results.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> StoneRoad you have a sunbed in your home are you joking?


excuse the partial derail ...
Nope, not joking -I've got one. It's a canopy rather than a double-side toaster, though.
(Only got it because a place that hired them went bust and a mate had one at home they wanted rid of, so I took it in. used it fairly frequently before a trip to the south of France to build up a base tan)

What I will probably do is rig it in the spare room, which may well turn back into a home gym for the winter.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> Government strategy primarily seemed to hinge upon the idea that this would just go away, or if it didn't then it at least wouldn't be anywhere near as serious as the first time to warrant severe restrictions again. As you say it's disgraceful there were no contingency plans in place for a proper second wave which it looks like we've hit now.



I think it hinged more on the idea that in the main key areas that would be expected to make a huge difference to amount of pandemic death, most of the issues were structural and they knew that they could not magically fix the threadbare systems and respond appropriately to this pandemic given the austerity years and the equally shit funding priorities for decades prior to the austerity years.

So there is a "cant do" mentality as seen in the stuff I posted earlier, in that case the NHS management not bothering with structural changes because they didnt think they could do it. PHE were just the same in regards testing capacity in the early months, much to the frustration of SAGE.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 18, 2020)

Still loads of people like my father-in-law proud that the UK are "testing more people than anyone else in Europe". 

That's like saying I can type 150 words a minute in my own language.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 18, 2020)

I've got to the bit where she talks about matching trajectories across countries and us being behind and she says the good news is we are behind and we do have time to step off this curve.   

So same as before and the question is have we learned?

For sure a 2 week lockdown a  month from now is going to be too late again.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I find the format a bit annoying and unprofessional, and the content sometimes a bit too ranty and piecemeal. And they still have some of that patronizing air to public questions.



That's interesting! I think - it's a _lot_ of expertise, which is not driven by their role/paycheck - and that it's difficult, but also more accessable, when it's done via shoddy Zoom meetings (  ).
I don't doubt that there's such a thing as zero _impartial_ advice but I'm very, very glad there's an opposite to what we have - and I think they've had some obvious positive impacts, while their gov employed counterparts* have clearly not found their voices sometimes (*even when I almost get why they want to stick with it, too, fwiw). 
The more voices the better, really - and I would prefer to have some who feel they can shout louder.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> They have learnt the lessons about bank staff having the potential to transmit infection between multiple care homes, and announced funding to address some of that this week.
> 
> But this is one of those lessons it is hard to believe were not well known long before this pandemic actually happened. And there is obviously quite a difference between announcing stuff and chucking some money at a problem and actually getting the right results.



Yes. And really too late in the midst of one, eh - isn't _this week_, a bit fucking late?!


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 18, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Still loads of people like my father-in-law proud that the UK are "testing more people than anyone else in Europe".
> 
> That's like saying I can type 150 words a minute in my own language.



The government seem to be promoting this idea that merely trying hard to rectify the current problems we're facing is worthy of commendation - even if they're don't do anything to actually tangibly fix the problem itself. So major cock-ups are instead framed as honest mistakes, even when those avoidable errors have really bad consequences.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 18, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It doesn't look like lessons _have_ been learnt there - there's been some very recent stuff in the news about the increase of testing, which was promised to care homes as a priority, still not coming through (iirc that was supposed to be sorted for July and then for, literally, _last week_?) and now, with the recent total fuck up in testing, care homes are not getting results back quickly (if they even get them) and as a result they are still working while they wait and cases are spreading in care homes again. They _need_ to have adequate supplies of tests - and fast results - it's an absolute disgrace that they are back to this point again.



I was in a Zoom meeting a couple of days ago, which included the owner of a local care home, who is also in a online group of around 300 care homes across the region, she reported they have all been getting tests delivered & collected for at least 2 months now. It's weekly tests for staff, four weekly for residents, the tests are collected twice a week from her home, and results back in 24-36 hours normally.

However, one lot collected last week took 5 days for the results to come back, and some others reported similiar delays for that week. Her guess is this batch was included in those sent to German or Italian labs for processing.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

If you want to know how well care homes will do in a second wave then as well as the testing issues that are fairly well focussed on, people need to ask whether the 'NHS reverse triage' pandemic policy is still in place in largely unchanged form. Because if it is, then even a really massive, routine, robust testing system for that sector might not be enough to prevent what happened last time from happening again. Let alone a sticking plaster of broken testing promises.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Yes. And really too late in the midst of one, eh - isn't _this week_, a bit fucking late?!



Although there is some stuff that should have come much earlier, some of the thing that will be required for the autumn-winter period are reasonable to announce and put in place now. But the timing of some stuff is probably out of whack with the epidemic curve timing we actually face, since its reasonable to think that various increases we've seen in September were things they had modelled to occur in October.

Its going to be the same foul mix as last time, where some failures are of timing, others of ambition, others of priority, others of the detail. The wrong things at the wrong time, inadequate things at nearly the right time, maybe even some of the easier things that they actually can pull out of a hat at short notice, such as furlough v2.0, at the right time.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was in a Zoom meeting a couple of days ago, which included the owner of a local care home, who is also in a online group of around 300 care homes across the region, she reported they have all been getting tests delivered & collected for at least 2 months now. It's weekly tests for staff, four weekly for residents, the tests are collected twice a week from her home, and results back in 24-36 hours normally.
> 
> However, one lot collected last week took 5 days for the results to come back, and some others reported similiar delays for that week. Her guess is this batch was included in those sent to German or Italian labs for processing.



Yes, I've read some fairly recent stuff about how it's starting to wrong again (just when they need it not to) - for sure some care homes who've recently had a spread which was (probably!) down to some very late positive test results of staff coming back (like, a week) in which time they continued working (as advised), with a follow on of a spread to residents.
It's great that it had been working but utterly shit that it's broken now, when they need it (and when reopening schools and encouraging people back to work should have factored into that, as a priority).


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2020)

A lot of the summer success was indeed a temporary illusion afforded to them by the vastly reduced number of cases, a reduction achieved by lockdown etc. If you dont pursue policies which keep the levels of infection down to that sort of level then the illusion inevitably ends at some point, and that point seems to have been reached on the earlier side of expectations. And there have been clues for months from countries like the USA, Spain, France etc that good times would end sooner rather than later.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 18, 2020)

wtf 









						Hospitals told not to test staff or patients for Covid-19
					

Exclusive: NHS told not to use labs unless testing tsar has approved funding despite widespread shortage




					www.independent.co.uk
				




worldbeating


----------



## Cloo (Sep 18, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> Government strategy primarily seemed to hinge upon the idea that this would just go away, or if it didn't then it at least wouldn't be anywhere near as serious as the first time to warrant severe restrictions again. As you say it's disgraceful there were no contingency plans in place for a proper second wave which it looks like we've hit now.


Sadly I think you're spot on - 'oh well,  the first bit will be the worst,  so we'll just manage after that'. Which is spectacularly reckless given that was spring and we've got a whole winter to get through when this novel virus has existed for barely a year


----------



## Sue (Sep 19, 2020)

There is no fuckup so fucked up that it cannot be made worse by the presence of a load of management consultants. FFS . (Apologies to BB.)









						Troubled test-and-trace system drafts in management consultants
					

Guardian learns ‘hundreds’ of consultancy staff ‘on standby’ for ‘back-office’ roles with other firms contacted for help




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## scifisam (Sep 19, 2020)

Fruitloop said:


> wtf difference is closing pubs earlier supposed to make? Apart from re-instating the 11:05 Fight Time when all the drunks got ejected simultaneously.



Yep. Pubs are already allowed to refuse service to people who seem too drunk to buy more. Although drink does lead to less social distancing, it's more at the "probably shouldn't be buying another drink" stage.

Like you say, there did used to be an 11pm fight time - wasn't it the police who were one of the main supporting voices (apart from pub owners) behind extending opening times? I'm fairly sure the ambulance service and so on were in favour too, because having people leave at different times made their services easier to cope with demand. Fighting isn't exactly covid-friendly but the other non-covid factors also still apply.

It was also 11pm crowded onto buses and the tube, 11pm waiting around for taxis, 11pm starting at 7pm rather than 8pm leading to more crowding onto buses at that time... 

Either shut them early (for the restaurant part, and because not as many people get trashed at 9pm on a weekday) or don't let them open at all - having them all shut at the same time late in the evening is daft. Let's allow people to get drunk and then make them all crowd together, great idea.


----------



## scifisam (Sep 19, 2020)

(Sorry for the post burst but thought it was better to split them up, VP style).



Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Which is why shops can't/won't enforce it on customers. In most German states everyone in any enclosed public space must wear a mask, those states that don't mandate it, everyone does anyway and you will be yelled at by staff and public alike if you enter without one. Not fucking hard, is it.



I think Germany has better provisions for workers in general, though. More breaks, and, at the moment, more support for workers who can't wear a mask (or at least not for their whole shift). Here, workers go in or get fired. 

It is also a cultural thing - Germans shout at you for not waiting for the crossing light to be in your favour even if the road is clear. 

And there have been anti-mask protests in Germany, too. Anecdotally from German speakers it's more former DDR citizens that are protesting. I'd assume that's due to less trust in the government rather than them just being badly-behaved Ossis.


----------



## scifisam (Sep 19, 2020)

campanula said:


> I am kinda surprised that testing is (still) free and can't help feeling sceptical that there is  likely to be some 'fastracking' for a price...And an agenda to determine test allocation. The private healthcare priorities (and political ideology) has determined the  painfully brutal response to this pandemic   Predatory disaster capitalism - lacking morality, decency, justice or integrity naturally appeals to the heartless, selfish, arrogant or stupidly vacuous. - they are a despicable bunch of inadequates.



You can pay for private tests - that's one of the reasons lots of actors have tested positive. Only one of the reasons - I think sometimes it was because one person on their set fell ill with covid and everyone else was required to be tested as a matter of course either by the country they were filming in or the insurance companies underwriting the production, who tend to be pretty risk-averse. 

TBF on the people accessing private tests, if they have access to a private testing facility and don't use it, it would be worse than not being tested.

I don't think there will be pressure to make general covid tests fee-based, even under this govt. Retailers wouldn't be able to cope and their owners are major donors to the Tory party. I think it was Hancock who said something about people getting more tests because they were free, but he's known to be in favour of a US-style system, and those people tend to think people only get healthcare because they feel like it, not because they have to.


----------



## scifisam (Sep 19, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> The big issue in the North east is that the regulations & guidelines for the local restrictions allow for various types of paid-for childcare - childminders, nannies, nurseries etc - but not informal childcare. Loads of people taken off furlough or told to stop working from home now have to choose between losing income/job or breaking the law.



Especially people with more than two kids under 11 so they can't get tax credits for the third kid and paid childcare is even less of an option. Another way in which seemingly unrelated Tory changes have made the situation worse than it should have been.


----------



## Humberto (Sep 19, 2020)

10 years of Bullingdon Club


----------



## scifisam (Sep 19, 2020)

Something I saw on the news the other day when I accidentally watched it was interesting: the Co-Op group has reported extremely good quarterly profits. Part of it is due to many of their stores (including Nisa, which they own) being in suburbs and non-central areas, but some of it was also due to an increase in profits in their funeral department. 

The funeral profits only went up by 3.5%, but that was because of covid restrictions on attendance, hearses, etc. Without that, their funeral profits would have increased by 22%. I think that's a pretty good indication that death rates overall have increased, and it'd be a fucking huge coincidence if it weren't due to covid. I don't know what their increase in funeral profits was last year, but I bet it wasn't 22%.









						Co-op delivers for stakeholders during Covid-19 crisis
					

You may know Co-op from what we sell; food, insurance...funerals? But there's more to us than that.




					www.co-operative.coop


----------



## elbows (Sep 19, 2020)

I dont really understand the need to look for such clues about the amount of death though.

Total number of deaths every day from all causes are available. Here for example is a somewhat out of date graph showing total deaths per day for England & Wales. At the peak twice as many people as usual were dying every day. Source of the underlying data was a monthly ONS report that I havent looked at for quite some time. Next time I do I will post a link to the latest version.


----------



## scifisam (Sep 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont really understand the need to look for such clues about the amount of death though.



Because people are sceptical about some sources, including the govt. Some conspiraloons might also think the Co-Op is in on it - the same ones who think Tom Hanks smuggles toddlers in Wayfair cupboards - but there are lot of others who aren't as far gone as that. The Co-Op is an added source of an increase in deaths, and it's from a relatively trustworthy organisation. 

I'm sorry, but to me and probably most people who don't work in an area that requires graphs daily, that's the reality. The proliferation of graphs has lead to a kind of a version of semantic satiation where they just look like pictures, and even if you make you effort to look at them, it takes a lot longer to parse them than it does to understand, via words, "the co-op has buried way more people than usual."


----------



## Looby (Sep 19, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Something I saw on the news the other day when I accidentally watched it was interesting: the Co-Op group has reported extremely good quarterly profits. Part of it is due to many of their stores (including Nisa, which they own) being in suburbs and non-central areas, but some of it was also due to an increase in profits in their funeral department.
> 
> The funeral profits only went up by 3.5%, but that was because of covid restrictions on attendance, hearses, etc. Without that, their funeral profits would have increased by 22%. I think that's a pretty good indication that death rates overall have increased, and it'd be a fucking huge coincidence if it weren't due to covid. I don't know what their increase in funeral profits was last year, but I bet it wasn't 22%.
> 
> ...


They’re also increasing their presence in the funeral market, buying up independent firms all the time. I’m not convinced at all that their profit increase is related to excess deaths but I’d be interested to see what my funeral business friends think.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 19, 2020)

Sadiq Khan is 'extremely concerned by the latest evidence' on covid spreading in London, and it looks like London is heading towards a local 'lockdown'.



> It is "increasingly likely" that lockdown restrictions will soon be needed to slow the spread of coronavirus in London, the capital's mayor has warned.
> 
> Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said he was of the "firm view" that action should be taken before the virus spirals out of control.
> 
> ...











						UK cases hit four-month high for second day in a row
					

Follow the latest updates in Sunday's live blog.




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## TopCat (Sep 19, 2020)

100, 000 cases a day by November if this carries on like it is.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> 100, 000 cases a day by November if this carries on like it is.



Well, the ONS survey tends to estimate infection at twice those that test positive under pillars 1 & 2, i.e. the daily reported figures, so would be around 7,000 a day now.

If that continues to double every 7-8 days, we will be over 100k a day by mid-October.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, the ONS survey tends to estimate infection at twice those that test positive under pillars 1 & 2, i.e. the daily reported figures, so would be around 7,000 a day now.
> 
> If that continues to double every 7-8 days, we will be over 100k a day by mid-October.


Oh dear. By the time it gets really cold the numbers will be mind boggling.


----------



## LDC (Sep 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, the ONS survey tends to estimate infection at twice those that test positive under pillars 1 & 2, i.e. the daily reported figures, so would be around 7,000 a day now.
> 
> If that continues to double every 7-8 days, we will be over 100k a day by mid-October.



Hence it looks like we'll get more restrictions sooner rather than later. I hope.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sadiq Khan is 'extremely concerned by the latest evidence' on covid spreading in London, and it looks like London is heading towards a local 'lockdown'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'll guess I'll ask my brother about that,  seeing as he's head of the mayor's team on coronavirus response!


----------



## TopCat (Sep 19, 2020)

Bulk buy loo roll time?


----------



## Badgers (Sep 19, 2020)




----------



## TopCat (Sep 19, 2020)

Any urbanites had it yet?


----------



## Badgers (Sep 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Bulk buy loo roll time?


----------



## Cloo (Sep 19, 2020)

I really don't get panic buying this time round - first time there was a shade of 'but what if they have to shut down everything and we have to live off government deliveries of spam and condensed milk' but now we know that shops will stay open and that the only shortages were caused by people over buying shit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 19, 2020)

I would question if that's actually a recent photo, or one from back in March.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 19, 2020)

AND THERE WAS NEVER A SUGGESTION THAT WE'D RUN OUT OF LOO PAPER, THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN AT BREXIT!!!!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 19, 2020)

Cloo said:


> AND THERE WAS NEVER A SUGGESTION THAT WE'D RUN OUT OF LOO PAPER, THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN AT BREXIT!!!!



Not even then, well not in the UK, but could be a problem for Ireland.



> It noted that the UK was a net exporter of toilet paper. In 2019, the nation exported $129 million (£101m) of loo roll placing the UK as the 11th largest exporter of the product. For the UK, Ireland dominates exports of toilet paper accounting for 70 per cent of our exports.











						Coronavirus: Here's why supplies of toilet paper and hand sanitiser will not run dry
					

Supplies of toilet rolls and hand sanitisers are unlikely to run out in the UK despite recent panic buying, trade experts have assured.




					www.scotsman.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 19, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I really don't get panic buying this time round - first time there was a shade of 'but what if they have to shut down everything and we have to live off government deliveries of spam and condensed milk' but now we know that shops will stay open and that the only shortages were caused by people over buying shit.



Perhaps Homo Economicus is not a rational actor after all


----------



## Badgers (Sep 19, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I really don't get panic buying this time round


Brexit


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 19, 2020)

I suspect there will be a big announcement come Monday. 



> Professor Neil Ferguson said the country was facing a “perfect storm” following the easing of controls over the summer.
> 
> “Right now we are at about the levels of infection we were seeing in this country in late February,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
> 
> ...











						UK facing 'perfect storm' after Covid rules eased, top scientist says
					

The expert whose advice led to the Government ordering the lockdown in March has said new restrictions will be needed “sooner rather than later” if the UK is to prevent the disease surging again.




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## MrCurry (Sep 19, 2020)

They clearly will have to do something, and all the “Govt likely to have to do something“ stories in the press are clearly getting the public prepared so that it’s not a nasty surprise when announced.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 19, 2020)

My brother's heading the mayoral coronavirus response team, will have to ask him what they're planning... also what the limits are on the mayoral authority to shut things down, I don't know if they can do anything but advise ultimately.


----------



## LDC (Sep 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Any urbanites had it yet?



Not myself, but I know more people (friends and friends of friends) having symptoms and sometimes getting testing, and I'm seeing more people at work with symptoms (some with positive tests) than have for months. Does feel like we're on the brink of it all again. And I know there's loads of competing factors and pressures with bringing in restrictions and lockdown measures, but it's hard not to feel like screaming "FFS, lock it all down NOW!"


----------



## Thora (Sep 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Any urbanites had it yet?


My kids went back to school on the 2nd, 4th and 8th September and one was ill with it by the 10/11th!


----------



## Badgers (Sep 19, 2020)

I would not be advocating stockpiling. It has a knock on effect (as we saw before) but our Disgraced Government are doing exactly this pre-brexit which does send a pretty clear message. 

My planned stockpiling is just to have some basics in stock. My kitchen is tiny so my 'stockpile' is probably on par with a lot of other people's usual inventory anyway. 

During early lockdown I did a lot of shopping/baking for vulnerable/older neighbours. If we see a repeat of the last shit then it will be helpful to be able to share this with people locally.


----------



## Looby (Sep 19, 2020)

Definitely not stockpiling but I have bought some extra pasta and a couple of other bits. We were stuck this week as I got symptoms and struggled to get a test. Local friends were also isolating so we had to get Deliveroo for milk and bread (and chocolate biscuits).


----------



## TopCat (Sep 19, 2020)

As I was buying a load of weed and hash recently my dealer remarked business was double the previous week.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 19, 2020)

Looby said:


> Definitely not stockpiling but I have bought some extra pasta and a couple of other bits. We were stuck this week as I got symptoms and struggled to get a test. Local friends were also isolating so we had to get Deliveroo for milk and bread (and chocolate biscuits).


Are you ok?


----------



## Badgers (Sep 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> As I was buying a load of weed and hash recently my dealer remarked business was double the previous week.


Drugpiling


----------



## Numbers (Sep 19, 2020)

Have a cpl of Lancashire Black Bombs + some cloth bound cheddars arriving Monday.  Just need to get some more Rum and we’re set for lockdown v2.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 19, 2020)

I miss drugs.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 19, 2020)

Meanwhile am doing the monthly online shop and that will suffice for stockpiling. I do think it's not necessarily everyone going bonkers. Like if we have to isolate for a fortnight I previously would not have had enough loo roll in.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 19, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> I miss drugs.


Being sober can be fantastic.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 19, 2020)

I fear for my liver in another lockdown.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 19, 2020)

I wonder if Boris and co will just try to go for a Sweden approach now and go 'Welllll, it worked OKish there' (obviously jury is out on that)


----------



## LDC (Sep 19, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I wonder if Boris and co will just try to go for a Sweden approach now and go 'Welllll, it worked OKish there' (obviously jury is out on that)



No, they're already making noises about national restrictions. I think if we'd dealt with the first wave OK then it might be more of temptation, but not now. Although I think there are people (Tory MPs) that would like too I'm sure.


----------



## Numbers (Sep 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I fear for my liver in another lockdown.


We’re doing Stoptober, lockdown or not. Can’t bloody wait to be honest.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 19, 2020)

I don't think that the recent "Rule of Six"  and local / regional lockdowns are going to be sufficient to control the infection rates, if schools, workplaces and pubs are all still open as well.

Much as he might not want to (because of the hit to the economy tory donating business owners) BJ is going to be forced into something that looks very much like a repeat of Lockdown.

[posted too early]

That decision needs to be implemented very soon, otherwise we're going to see massive numbers of cases and lots more deaths.

My household is now going back into nearly as strict a lockdown as back in March. Only going out for shopping, or medical reasons ...


----------



## Looby (Sep 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Are you ok?


All good thanks, negative result this morning. 👍


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 19, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I wonder if Boris and co will just try to go for a Sweden approach now and go 'Welllll, it worked OKish there' (obviously jury is out on that)


Interestingly Sweden don't appear to have the same second-wave rise that a lot of western European countries are currently experiencing (although that could be because they're not testing particularly widely, I have no idea).


----------



## editor (Sep 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> i've been taking vitamin d pills since around march having read something that sounded convincing. No idea if thats why I'm not dead yet though.


Me too!


----------



## editor (Sep 19, 2020)

I can almost feel that 10pm pub closing time coming up next week.

But when people are still ramming on to tube, idiots aren't wearing masks on crowded buses, and people are compelled to travel to busy workplaces, I can't see the virus going anywhere soon.  

And then you have animals like this: NHS worker knocked out and stamped on after moving away from man without mask


----------



## Cloo (Sep 19, 2020)

So our synagogue ran an online Rosh Hashanah service (keeping it halachic by starting the equipment running yesterday evening so nothing had to be actually operated today) - I'll confess I cried when they got to the _Unetaneh Tokef _prayer and there's the bit about 'On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed – how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die after a long life and who before his time'


----------



## 20Bees (Sep 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Bulk buy loo roll time?


We had a customer yesterday buying 4x packs of 16 loo rolls. A lot of customers are buying one of each type of flour. I guess they still have pasta, rice and tinned soup from the March madness


----------



## Wilf (Sep 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Drugpiling


My partner is trying to sell the house and was keen that I put my weed out of the way when a buyer came round. I duly put it in the garage. 24 hours later it had gone: 'oh, that silver paper? I chucked it and the bins were collected this morning'.  

I'll be entering the second lockdown with no more than my prescription meds and a couple of lagers.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 19, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I don't think that the recent "Rule of Six"  and local / regional lockdowns are going to be sufficient to control the infection rates, if schools, workplaces and pubs are all still open as well.


I agree that it won't be enough, particularly because you can't put the genie back in the bottle in the sense that more and more people are breaching social distancing in more and more everyday ways. I suspect they will drift towards a position of 'keep work, schools and shops open, but close everything else'. But ultimately it won't work, you can't control a pandemic if the economy and education sector remain open.  One of the key contradictions will be that less than a fortnight ago the message was 'get the fuck into work', with whispered threats if you don't. Can the government pirouette and get the maximum number working from home again? Their actions are not just constrained by their ideology, they genuinely haven't got a plan.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 19, 2020)

Wilf said:


> My partner is trying to sell the house and was keen that I put my weed out of the way when a buyer came round. I duly put it in the garage. 24 hours later it had gone: 'oh, that silver paper? I chucked it and the bins were collected this morning'.
> 
> I'll be entering the second lockdown with no more than my prescription meds and a couple of lagers.


Divorce?


----------



## TopCat (Sep 19, 2020)

Cloo said:


> AND THERE WAS NEVER A SUGGESTION THAT WE'D RUN OUT OF LOO PAPER, THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN AT BREXIT!!!!


Ow!


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 19, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I really don't get panic buying this time round - first time there was a shade of 'but what if they have to shut down everything and we have to live off government deliveries of spam and condensed milk' but now we know that shops will stay open and that the only shortages were caused by people over buying shit.



Also would question that photo but other than that this time people are starting to 'panic buy'  earlier to avoid the rush and  it's going to be winter and brexit is coming... 

And the panic buying was a bit of a myth. People needed more toilet paper etc because they were going to be home all day making all their own meals etc. Most people were just wanting a bit extra. Multiply that by 65m people ut adds up. 



wtfftw said:


> Meanwhile am doing the monthly online shop and that will suffice for stockpiling. I do think it's not necessarily everyone going bonkers. Like if we have to isolate for a fortnight I previously would not have had enough loo roll in.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 19, 2020)

We'll have family and friends able to buy for us if we have to quarantine, but I think I've got a couple of giant pasta bags, some big bags of frozen veg/fruit, tinned toms, tuna, various sauces and grains which I'd now break into if we couldn't go out. We never bought extra loo roll at supermarket, but we've been buying it in big packs from Costco for the last year.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 19, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I'll guess I'll ask my brother about that,  seeing as he's head of the mayor's team on coronavirus response!


Word from him is that Khan wanted ideally to be able to start a wider shut down this weekend, but his powers are a bit limited and they  have reason to expect an escalation from central government next week.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 19, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Word from him is that Khan wanted ideally to be able to start a wider shut down this weekend, but his powers are a bit limited and they  have reason to expect an escalation from central government next week.


Yes, the 7+ day delay should be enough to ensure that Johnson's tories achieve another 60k dead peak.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 19, 2020)

This makes sense, what with the government wanting to press people back into schools and offices.









						Hands, face, space? Johnson's Covid message has got priorities wrong, scientists warn
					

‘Space’ is most important factor in containing spread of coronavirus and should be listed first, say experts




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The latest drive to help halt the spread of Covid-19 has been criticised by senior scientists for placing insufficient emphasis on the issues of ventilation and the need to stay apart from others.
> 
> They say the government’s “hands, face, space” campaign stresses handwashing and the wearing of masks as key factors in controlling coronavirus transmission, while the need to keep apart has been downplayed, despite it being the single critical factor involved in the spread of Covid-19.
> 
> ...


----------



## two sheds (Sep 19, 2020)

And is this true? I've only seen it on Squawkbox:









						Exclusive: 1,251 schools now hit – and many more prevented from reporting or acting on outbreaks
					

Withheld testing preventing confirmation of many outbreaks, yet numbers rocket anyway The number of schools known to have been hit by coronavirus outbreaks since they re-opened this month (in Engla…




					skwawkbox.org
				






> The number of schools known to have been hit by coronavirus outbreaks since they re-opened this month (in England and Wales) or 2-3 weeks earlier (in Scotland and Northern Ireland) continues to soar and has now reached *at least 1,251** – up from 1,118 just yesterday.
> 
> But the real figure is _far _higher, as more and more schools are being told to isolate individuals or small groups but otherwise to carry on as normal and not to declare an outbreak or isolate whole ‘bubbles’ or year groups. The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) estimates that four out of five schools have children isolating with suspected coronavirus – that’s *around 26,000 schools with confirmed or likely infections*.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 19, 2020)

two sheds said:


> And is this true? I've only seen it on Squawkbox:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's certainly true that _unconfirmed_ cases won't be publicised (even within the school community) and that'd make a little more sense if testing was working as efficiently as it needs to be but it's not so, yes, the numbers are going to be much higher and we can't, reasonably, even _guess_ at them in the meantime.

Then there's the other bit of news you posted from today - the _surprising_ news that, actually, SD is _extremely_ important - but it's all fine, cos schools are 'covid-secure'.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 19, 2020)

There's the other stuff in that skwawkbox article, too, alluding to the fact that tests are being deliberately withheld from children (with confirmation from 'insiders' - although I think that's too vague to be helpful).
I don't imagine for a minute that that's not happening (I mean I don't write off anything, atm) but you can imagine the explanations there, too - tests/labs being prioritised for areas with high outbreaks/people at higher risk blah blah blah.
None of this is resolved when the testing remains fucked - but they'll insist on sticking with schools staying open - it's just disasterous. Months they've had - _months_. Nothing learned.
It sounds like we may have more changes (next week?) but fuck knows what the impact of school reopenings has already been, let alone what'll happen next, while they just keep idly coasting through anf throwing more and more money into 'proving' that private companies are better equipped to deal with it all than actual expertise.


----------



## Supine (Sep 19, 2020)

It's astoundingly stupid that tests aren't prescribed via doctors to ensure those in real need get the test. The conservative belief that setting up private limited companies to do the government's grunt work uterly sucks.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 19, 2020)

So then.









						Hospitals in England may have to pay for their Covid-19 tests
					

Department of Health places ‘budget cap’ on money available for testing patients and staff




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Cloo (Sep 19, 2020)

I'm wondering about how there'll be lots of small changes that may remain permanent things after this - was just looking at a piece about people's cancelled weddings not being insured and wondering whether, during this they might start letting celebrants marry people anywhere so they can have home/outdoor ceremonies more easily (in fact I think this might already be a thing they've introduced, but can't find where I think I read it) - because there's going to be a huge backlog of people who couldn't get hitched, a lot of venues permanently shut and it would help a lot to allow people to get married. Then it would probably stay being a thing.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 19, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I'm wondering about how there'll be lots of small changes that may remain permanent things after this - was just looking at a piece about people's cancelled weddings not being insured and wondering whether, during this they might start letting celebrants marry people anywhere so they can have home/outdoor ceremonies more easily (in fact I think this might already be a thing they've introduced, but can't find where I think I read it) - because there's going to be a huge backlog of people who couldn't get hitched, a lot of venues permanently shut and it would help a lot to allow people to get married. Then it would probably stay being a thing.



I dunno about weddings, but I don't doubt all the _shit_ stuff will stay in place.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 19, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> So then.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Late capitalism grows later by the day.


----------



## HalloweenJack (Sep 19, 2020)

Looking at the attached graphs, I wonder what your thoughts are.
Where before the death rate curve reflected directly the infection rate in early spring, but that does not seem to be the case now,
Can someone elaborate to this layman why the parabola has become an elipse?
Is


----------



## weepiper (Sep 19, 2020)

HalloweenJack said:


> Looking at the attached graphs, I wonder what your thoughts are.
> Where before the death rate curve reflected directly the infection rate in early spring, but that does not seem to be the case now,
> Can someone elaborate to this layman why the parabola has become an elipse?
> Is View attachment 230986


Lots more people are being tested now than were in the spring so the spring numbers are a bigger underestimate of the reality. Also the death rate hasn't caught up with the infection rate yet.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 19, 2020)

Also the 28 day cut off from first test. If you are on a ventilator for 29 days it doesn't count in the figures. (I think)


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 20, 2020)

HalloweenJack said:


> Looking at the attached graphs, I wonder what your thoughts are.
> Where before the death rate curve reflected directly the infection rate in early spring, but that does not seem to be the case now,
> Can someone elaborate to this layman why the parabola has become an elipse?
> Is View attachment 230986



Could be several things. As weepiper says more tests and lag between infections and deaths. Could be young people accounting for more cases. Improved treatment. Summer weather leading to milder cases.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 20, 2020)

Also increased mask wearing is apparently leading to less serious cases because it reduces the viral load at exposure.


----------



## MrSpikey (Sep 20, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Bulk buy loo roll time?


When will people wake up and realise - THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO DO!


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Lots more people are being tested now than were in the spring so the spring numbers are a bigger underestimate of the reality. Also the death rate hasn't caught up with the infection rate yet.



Exactly. And its a big difference.

By March 16th, even this government had realised that they had messed up the timing and very bad stuff was very close, and that their plan A was only fit for the bin. By that date the UK had only managed to find just over 1500 cases in total, and had been detecting well under 100 cases per day until March 12th. This was a terribly inaccurate picture and in reality there were already a very large number of infections, and they knew it even though that data can never show it because the testing regime was feeble.

We are not thought to be back to that level of infection now, we are still some weeks away from that. For example Neil Ferguson has been saying that now we are probably 2-4 weeks away from being back up to the equivalent number of infections as we had in mid-March. If they wait till it gets back to that level again then they will have to resort to the sort of lockdown they dont want to have to do, so they have to do something sooner. Actions that hopefully mean we wont actually reach the equivalent to mid March point again. Or at least that if we do, things will be slowed down so that it takes longer than 2-4 weeks to get there. And then if it does get there the doubling time is made far longer than it was in the first wave, so things like hospital admissions dont increase at the same rate we saw that time. I am not complacent about whether they will actually do the right things at the right time to get that result, but even if they half arse it the timing should change further, so that 2-4 weeks away from mid March thing is not a fixed estimate.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 20, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Also increased mask wearing is apparently leading to less serious cases because it reduces the viral load at exposure.


Hadn't thought of/realised that. Yet another reason that anti-mask/vacc twats should be given (very) short shrift.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 20, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Hadn't thought of/realised that. Yet another reason that anti-mask/vacc twats should be given (very) short shrift.


Hypothesised. See post #7640 in the worldwide news thread.


----------



## scifisam (Sep 20, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I'm wondering about how there'll be lots of small changes that may remain permanent things after this - was just looking at a piece about people's cancelled weddings not being insured and wondering whether, during this they might start letting celebrants marry people anywhere so they can have home/outdoor ceremonies more easily (in fact I think this might already be a thing they've introduced, but can't find where I think I read it) - because there's going to be a huge backlog of people who couldn't get hitched, a lot of venues permanently shut and it would help a lot to allow people to get married. Then it would probably stay being a thing.



Weddings can already be conducted almost anywhere as long as there's a permanent structure - the whole ceremony can even be outdoors, it's just the signing of the register, the legal part, that has to be done indoors at a registered venue. I'm not sure why the register signing has to be indoors, but I guess it's for privacy reasons, same as you're not allowed to have your whole wedding party in there with you as you sign, just your witnesses.

TBH it's fair enough because arranging an entirely outdoors wedding doesn't work with our weather anyway!

Private homes are only authorised if one of the couple is seriously ill or housebound, but that would cover quarantine. Allowing more weddings at private homes probably isn't a good idea when you're trying to reduce virus transmission.


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2020)

I really should have said that that whole 2-4 weeks behind the mid-March infection level thing does require the rather generous assumption that their disease surveillance and various estimates are a better fit with reality than they were last time. And Ferguson has left quite a broad range in his estimate. And of course he isnt officially involved in the same way he used to be, as his lockdown rule breaking lead to his resignation.

I should also have linked to an article where the Ferguson comments were quoted.









						Covid: PM considering new restrictions amid second coronavirus wave
					

Options include a ban on households mixing in England, as a further 4,422 UK cases are confirmed.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Also contains the BBC version of the hospital admissions graph that they have started showing from time to time in recent days.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 20, 2020)

At last, at least those on low income will get a £500 payment if they have to self-isolate, too little, too late, but certainly an improvement.

Also the fines available for people returning from aboard are being extended to all people that are required to self-isolate, and about bloody time!



> People in England who are told to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace *face fines of £1,000 - up to £10,000 for the worst offenders *- if they fail to do so
> This *includes those who test positive* and *those identified as close contacts* of confirmed cases
> It *also includes employers* who force staff to ignore an order to self-isolate
> NHS Test and Trace will make *regular contact with those isolating* to check compliance
> ...



BBC LINK

Of course, there remains the problem of actually enforcing it, which has not been happening much with those returning from aboard, who think it's OK to go about their normal lives, spreading the virus around, as we've had in Worthing, and there's an even a worst case in Bolton -



> He said: "We had an extreme spike where we went from 12 cases per 100,000 and in less than three weeks we were up at 212 cases."
> 
> "We had somebody who did not adhere to quarantine, did not stay the 14 days, literally went on a pub crawl with a number of mates," Mr Greenhalgh said.
> 
> ...



BBC LINK


----------



## Cloo (Sep 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt - yes the £500 payment is one of the first sensible things they've fucking done. Don't know what hoops they'll make people jump through to get it, though,  considering they assume every poor person is a liar when it comes to benefits.  

So I'm guessing now we're gonna be locked down for both my husband's and my birthday now - his is mid October,  mine mid Nov. Was going to try to go to electronic music exhibition at Design museum for his bday, but will wait until at least end next week before booking now #firstworldproblem


----------



## zora (Sep 20, 2020)

Slightly disconcerting the amount of people coughing on the train this morning


----------



## andysays (Sep 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> At last, at least those on low income will get a £500 payment if they have to self-isolate, too little, too late, but certainly an improvement.
> 
> Also the fines available for people returning from aboard are being extended to all people that are required to self-isolate, and about bloody time!
> 
> ...


That guy in Bolton was just supporting the travel and hospitality industries like we've all been encouraged to do, wasn't he?


----------



## Numbers (Sep 20, 2020)

Cloo said:


> cupid_stunt - yes the £500 payment is one of the first sensible things they've fucking done. Don't know what hoops they'll make people jump through to get it, though,  considering they assume every poor person is a liar when it comes to benefits.
> 
> So I'm guessing now we're gonna be locked down for both my husband's and my birthday now - his is mid October,  mine mid Nov. Was going to try to go to electronic music exhibition at Design museum for his bday, but will wait until at least end next week before booking now #firstworldproblem


I had my 50th via Zoom back in March.  Was meant to have a big do back home with all the London Fam visiting my home town for the first time.  My wife’s 50th is in December (few days before Christmas) and we had a big trip to Costa Rica booked for that and Christmas.

We’d been planning/saving for both 50th’s for a cpl of years.  We’ve saved a shit load of money from cancelling both which is an upside but


----------



## agricola (Sep 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> At last, at least those on low income will get a £500 payment if they have to self-isolate, too little, too late, but certainly an improvement.
> 
> Also the fines available for people returning from aboard are being extended to all people that are required to self-isolate, and about bloody time!
> 
> ...



The payment is a good idea, but its something that there was zero excuse for not doing right at the start of this - the unstable position that many in the country were already in with regards to renting, gig work etc meant that they weren't going to be able to isolate for a couple of weeks without getting into real trouble.   I think there are better ways of doing it, mind - covering rent / mortgage costs for the duration of the quarantine (and for any lockdown) would remove a lot more pressure than a random £500 will, and it would probably be cheaper, less open to fraud than the furlough scheme was and would be targetted more on the people who actually need the help.  There is also (with mortgages at any rate) the option to get the money back down the line.

The enforcement thing is just Tory announcements masquerading as policy, though - there is no extra money for enforcement, no political support for what enforcement would mean and the system (probably) won't be able to cope with the appeals anyway.  The only way it would ever work is to have people checking quarantine - ie: turning up at your house with no notice at random times and checking who is present - and for that they'd need in the high tens of thousands of people who'd have to be trained and equipped to do that.  Those people would be far better employed (for everyone) if they were doing home testing visits instead, as part of track and trace.


----------



## zahir (Sep 20, 2020)

Test and trace.









						Revealed: Travel agent lands fresh Serco Test and Trace work – despite staff training concerns
					

Hays Travel has banned staff from speaking to the media about Serco’s heavily-criticised COVID-19 operations – but some have raised the alarm over lack of training and poor treatment




					www.opendemocracy.net


----------



## agricola (Sep 20, 2020)

zahir said:


> Test and trace.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



In principle there is nothing wrong with using customer service staff who'd otherwise be redundant to do this (and there wouldn't be if you got (for example) airline crew to do the home testing visits as well, providing they were trained and equipped properly), but it has to be part of a properly designed system and not the zoo of subcontractors outside public health authorities that we have now.


----------



## Looby (Sep 20, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I had my 50th via Zoom back in March.  Was meant to have a big do back home with all the London Fam visiting my home town for the first time.  My wife’s 50th is in December (few days before Christmas) and we had a big trip to Costa Rica booked for that and Christmas.
> 
> We’d been planning/saving for both 50th’s for a cpl of years.  We’ve saved a shit load of money from cancelling both which is an upside but


My friends got stuck in Costa Rica when all this kicked off. Took them about 10 days to get a flight home. 
Sorry your trips and celebrations have been fucked up. It’s made me so sad to see all the stuff in the calendar pass by.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 20, 2020)

Not heard anything about the Covid Alert system in ages...did we ever get down to Level 2? Are we at 3 or4 currently?


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 20, 2020)

Looking at how things are now developing around infection rates, "they've" already lost control, haven't they ?

The rule of six & local lockdowns, imho, are only going to slow the peak, and by then we'll almost be in the winter 'flu season. So, instead of five weeks growth & five months decay for the first wave, and woefully under measuring cases ...

Definitely a lot more worried than I was; luckily I'm getting my 'flu jab in a few days and I think I've a good reserve of VitD. Just need to build up my store of "staple" items.

Come on BJ, get that full lockdown (or close to it) organised and enforced asap.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Sep 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Not heard anything about the Covid Alert system in ages...did we ever get down to Level 2? Are we at 3 or4 currently?



4 - though Handcock didn’t really know on Marr this morning even with a fucking graphic showing it!


----------



## The39thStep (Sep 20, 2020)

Cloo said:


> cupid_stunt - yes the £500 payment is one of the first sensible things they've fucking done. Don't know what hoops they'll make people jump through to get it, though,  considering they assume every poor person is a liar when it comes to benefits.
> 
> So I'm guessing now we're gonna be locked down for both my husband's and my birthday now - his is mid October,  mine mid Nov. Was going to try to go to electronic music exhibition at Design museum for his bday, but will wait until at least end next week before booking now #firstworldproblem


Think it’s actually going be delivered through the local authorities


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 20, 2020)

Whilst this £500 payment sounds a very much overdue but welcome idea, I really doubt if it's going to be much help in the long run.


----------



## kalidarkone (Sep 20, 2020)

I think a second national hard lockdown for a couple of weeks now would be a good idea. However when and if that happens I think there will be less compliance compared to the first one and possibly protests and maybe more.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Not heard anything about the Covid Alert system in ages...did we ever get down to Level 2? Are we at 3 or4 currently?



It came up on the Andrew Marr Show, when Matt Hancock made a fool of himself by claiming we are still at level 3, which Marr pointed out that involved relaxing restrictions, when they are currently tightening them. 



Clearly we are at level 4 nationally, and 5 in some areas, and about to go to 5 on a national basis,


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Not heard anything about the Covid Alert system in ages...did we ever get down to Level 2? Are we at 3 or4 currently?



If only there was some sort of daily update on the current situation, perhaps with a Q & A session. They could broadcast it on the tv maybe just before the lunch time news.  Just a thought. 

Re serco  I was particularly annoyed the other day when it was put to johnson that the test centre situation was a fuck up of the highest order and he said the NHS were doing a great job.  I'm sure he knew that many people would know the great job part was a lie but was hoping they wouldnt notice  the NHS lie and think it's the NHS that's doing shit.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 20, 2020)

Yes people mustn't criticize it because then that's talking down the NHS


----------



## 2hats (Sep 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It came up on the Andrew Marr Show, when Matt Hancock made a fool of himself by claiming we are still at level 3, which Marr pointed out that involved relaxing restrictions, when they are currently tightening them.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 20, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I think a second national hard lockdown for a couple of weeks now would be a good idea. However when and if that happens I think there will be less compliance compared to the first one and possibly protests and maybe more.



If there was a lockdown like the beginning it would _maybe_ be easier to police than other more ambiguous measures as we know what the first should look like just glimpsing out the window. It's harder to know what other measures should look like.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes people mustn't criticize it because then that's talking down the NHS



More not wanting people to know its serco or whoever  not the NHS doing shit.


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2020)

The alert system chart was not very well done in the first place, and it was crafted with the situation of that particular moment in mind. A period that was all about the lack of plans for dealing with the relaxation of measures post first wave peak.

This problem is especially prominent in the action column for level 4. The wording 'Current social distancing measures and restrictions' is wording of its time, reflecting the measures that were in place when the chart was written, at a time when they were looking forward to us gradually moving down the levels, not going back in the other direction.

Otherwise, if the chart wording is taken literally, restrictions arent reintroduced until level 5, even if 'current' restrictions up till that moment were very weak. And one of the big lessons about a level 5 situation is that you have to act before you get to that situation, otherwise only the strongest full lockdown measures are left as a viable response.

Another issue is how to tell exactly when its appropriate to say we are at level 5 rather than level 4. Because the description of level 5 makes no mention of how large, imminent and unavoidable the 'risk of healthcare services being overwhelmed' needs to be. For example it is not necessary to wait till healthcare services are about to be overwhelmed before judging that this risk is very real. And that matters right about now since the likes of Whitty will already have been able to warn the government that the current estimate for R means the current trajectory will lead to the NHS being overwhelmed later this year.


----------



## kalidarkone (Sep 20, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> If there was a lockdown like the beginning it would _maybe_ be easier to police than other more ambiguous measures as we know what the first should look like just glimpsing out the window. It's harder to know what other measures should look like.


I agree, however I also know that won't stop Bristol folk from trying to party etc.


----------



## zahir (Sep 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Also the fines available for people returning from aboard are being extended to all people that are required to self-isolate, and about bloody time!




Is there a risk here of creating an incentive for people not to get tested, or refuse to give information for contact tracing?


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 20, 2020)

Com'on BJ, stop fannying about.

The country needs that national lockdown, now. And for three weeks minimum. Not announcing some weak variation next week and implemention after another "partying" weekend opportunity.
You'll have to extend the furlough scheme and anti-eviction provisions etc, But get on and do it !
People need proper incentives to comply as well as punishments for wilful breaches of isolation.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 20, 2020)

zahir said:


> Is there a risk here of creating an incentive for people not to get tested, or refuse to give information for contact tracing?


This. If you're the sort of person likely to go out when you're supposed to be in quarantine, you probably don't care very much about giving your real name and address every time you go to the pub either.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 20, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Com'on BJ, stop fannying about.
> 
> The country needs that national lockdown, now. And for three weeks minimum. Not announcing some weak variation next week and implemention after another "partying" weekend opportunity.
> You'll have to extend the furlough scheme and anti-eviction provisions etc, But get on and do it !
> People need proper incentives to comply as well as punishments for wilful breaches of isolation.


He will 'address the nation' without any stats, deadlines or substance next week. 

People will tut and shake their heads at his failings. Social media will be full of piss taking memes and fuck all will change.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 20, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Com'on BJ, stop fannying about.
> 
> The country needs that national lockdown, now. And for three weeks minimum. Not announcing some weak variation next week and implemention after another "partying" weekend opportunity.
> You'll have to extend the furlough scheme and anti-eviction provisions etc, But get on and do it !
> People need proper incentives to comply as well as punishments for wilful breaches of isolation.


I doubt he reads urban, to be honest.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 20, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I doubt he reads urban, to be honest.


He does not even read policy


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2020)

Badgers said:


> He will 'address the nation' without any stats, deadlines or substance next week.
> 
> People will tut and shake their heads at his failings. Social media will be full of piss taking memes and fuck all will change.



I suspect a few opportunities to mock the greatest shits establishment comedy have been missed in the past.

For example there was one in the final days of their original plan, when their sense of timing and weight of measures required was still at its most absurd. Of March 12th Whitty said in the press conference that the contain phase was over and the government is moving on to the delay phase. The delay phase being something that was in the generic template pandemic response plans, but in this case the delay turned out to be a grotesque delay in actually taking the right action or even in realising what stage of the epidemic we had reached.

And much more recently the rule of six. Who knew that there were actually multiple rules of 6, including that it often takes 6 days or more between the press first being given clues about the new measures and the measures actually coming into effect. And that it usually takes less than 6 days after the measures are introduced for them to realise that those measures werent enough. Lets see if they can hit the jackpot by ensuring that the current plan is superseded six times before they settle on something actually appropriate to the situation.

I do expect some policy of substance to fall out of Johnsons mouth this week. But I also expect it to be something of a weak fudge featuring some really crappy balancing between competing interests. Little faith in the flakey fakers circuit breaker. And its likely to make the 'go to work, we will curtail the rest of your lives including family life to compensate for the effect of workplaces on the virus' even more stark and obvious.

They might go a bit further than I fear they will, especially if the angle that if you go in harder you can keep it shorter gains ground in establishment circles.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 20, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I doubt he reads urban, to be honest.


No, I don't expect he does --- but one of DC's minion's might, as in keeping up with "social media" ...


----------



## two sheds (Sep 20, 2020)

You'd have thought the government would be studying how to support people working from home to do the actual work - not really sure what but things like coordinated on-line training for home working, grants for equipment, help with child minding and things.


----------



## Cid (Sep 20, 2020)

<has a rummage in the back of the thread> Ah...



kabbes said:


> And the problem is that if you refuse to countenance an unpalatable idea, you don’t plan for it.  Then when the situation is forced upon you, you have no option but whatever hurried reaction you can scrape together in a rush.
> 
> Universities decided months ago that they would be doing online lectures next year and so they have been able to spend the summer creating those materials.  Schools, by predetermining there was no way they would be doing anything but returning in September, now find themselves screwed if this isn’t possible.



I liked this post back in August, and I think it's of particular relevance again now, but with regard to how this government doesn't seem to have used any of the intervening time effectively. Get used to the idea rates are going down regardless, and that things will be back to normal, and you're stuck on that track. Be half-arsed with test and trace, don't develop strategies to make WFH more effective, support those for whom it's more difficult etc, because that would mean an admission that the strategy for getting the economy back on track may not work. It's just a bit baffling that the entire government appears to function like the mind of a mildly incompetent mid-level manager.


----------



## maomao (Sep 20, 2020)

Have the government even changed their position on wfh yet anyway? Two weeks ago we were all being told to stop being silly and go back to work.


----------



## Cid (Sep 20, 2020)

maomao said:


> Have the government even changed their position on wfh yet anyway? Two weeks ago we were all being told to stop being silly and go back to work.



Doesn't look like it...



> Most workplaces have re-opened. If your workplace is open, you can return to work but your employer must make arrangements for you to work safely.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 20, 2020)

Cid said:


> <has a rummage in the back of the thread> Ah...
> 
> 
> 
> I liked this post back in August, and I think it's of particular relevance again now, but with regard to how this government doesn't seem to have used any of the intervening time effectively. Get used to the idea rates are going down regardless, and that things will be back to normal, and you're stuck on that track. Be half-arsed with test and trace, don't develop strategies to make WFH more effective, support those for whom it's more difficult etc, because that would mean an admission that the strategy for getting the economy back on track may not work. It's just a bit baffling that the entire government appears to function like the mind of a mildly incompetent mid-level manager.


yep that was what I was trying to say but much less effectively.


----------



## Mation (Sep 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> The alert system chart was not very well done in the first place, and it was crafted with the situation of that particular moment in mind. A period that was all about the lack of plans for dealing with the relaxation of measures post first wave peak.
> 
> This problem is especially prominent in the action column for level 4. The wording 'Current social distancing measures and restrictions' is wording of its time, reflecting the measures that were in place when the chart was written, at a time when they were looking forward to us gradually moving down the levels, not going back in the other direction.
> 
> ...


I think the wording for level 4 was deliberate. It means they don't have to do anything specific or otherwise be shown to be ignoring their own system, because they haven't said what level 4 requires.


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2020)

Well its certainly true that the entire thing chart is incredibly vague. I would generally recommend that people ignore it completely and stick to more concrete stats etc. Its about as useful as the original template pandemic plan phases (contain, delay, mitigate).


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 20, 2020)

Can we get Boris to start wondering around hospital shaking hands again


----------



## two sheds (Sep 20, 2020)

if he comes down to Royal Cornwall I'll happily shake his throat


----------



## Mation (Sep 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well its certainly true that the entire thing chart is incredibly vague. I would generally recommend that people ignore it completely and stick to more concrete stats etc. Its about as useful as the original template pandemic plan phases (contain, delay, mitigate).


Oh, I don't think anyone here is taking it seriously. More wondering whether they even remembered they'd created an alert level thing. To which the answer is clearly no.


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2020)

Mation said:


> Oh, I don't think anyone here is taking it seriously. More wondering whether they even remembered they'd created an alert level thing. To which the answer is clearly no.



They are stuck at blurt level 5 on the absurdometer.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 20, 2020)

Mation said:


> Oh, I don't think anyone here is taking it seriously. More wondering whether they even remembered they'd created an alert level thing. To which the answer is clearly no.


Yeah, I'm paying it no mind but it was clearly another one of those temporary shiny things this gov loves to set and forget


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2020)

At least they are working to add a level 6 to the blurt scale. Via Operation Moonshout. Using the latest technology, page the orifice, cee-no-fax.


----------



## Maltin (Sep 20, 2020)

Cid said:


> <has a rummage in the back of the thread> Ah...
> 
> 
> 
> I liked this post back in August, and I think it's of particular relevance again now, but with regard to how this government doesn't seem to have used any of the intervening time effectively. Get used to the idea rates are going down regardless, and that things will be back to normal, and you're stuck on that track. Be half-arsed with test and trace, don't develop strategies to make WFH more effective, support those for whom it's more difficult etc, because that would mean an admission that the strategy for getting the economy back on track may not work. It's just a bit baffling that the entire government appears to function like the mind of a mildly incompetent mid-level manager.


This is one of the areas that I struggle with in the responses that some have to living with a pandemic. The fact that some areas/people blithely seem to think that things can carry on generally as normal. Such as the schools not taking advantage of the summer months and only opening recently at 100% capacity. Like the football leagues scheduling a full football season without any apparent thought to possible future delays. I don’t like the phrase “new normal” but to think that things can just carry on as before with what is likely to come in the future seems perverse to me.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> At least they are working to add a level 6 to the blurt scale. Via Operation Moonshout. Using the latest technology, page the orifice, cee-no-fax.



Moonshot is just on Johnson's wish list...

Dear Santa,

I want 10 million tests a day.
I want thousands of covid marshals.
I want the moon on a stick.
Etc. etc.

Sadly Santa will not be delivering, he'll be self isolating having failed to get a test.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 20, 2020)

My understanding is that unis have to open up campuses and give classes in person or lose funding.


----------



## killer b (Sep 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> And its likely to make the 'go to work, we will curtail the rest of your lives including family life to compensate for the effect of workplaces on the virus' even more stark and obvious.


Problem with this is that people won't accept it isn't it? They won't accept curtailing of family life if there isn't a similar curtailing of commerce and work etc. 

I think that's the big problem with closing down some parts of society in order to allow other parts to remain open: there's a fairness (perceived at least) to a blanket lockdown, and people are more likely to observe it. But it feels both unfair and ridiculous that you can't see your family when the pub round the corner is still open, and people are much, much more likely to just ignore it.


----------



## Raheem (Sep 20, 2020)

> My understanding is that unis have to open up campuses and give classes in person or lose funding.


Expect that will be modified in the near future to just "lose funding".


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2020)

Cid said:


> It's just a bit baffling that the entire government appears to function like the mind of a mildly incompetent mid-level manager.



I'm usually baffled as to why people are baffled by that to be honest.

Where are all the great examples from any period in either recent decades or stretching much further back than that, that would give us cause to think that establishment decisions would be better than the farcical mediocrity we have seen? Maybe some can be found, but surely they are the exception rather than the norm for this country?

Matters of life and death only amplify the absurdity rather than automatically causing the establishment to rise to the challenge. So sadly its not surprising that a pandemic response may resemble the response of generals in war in a way, half-arsing people to their deaths.


----------



## LDC (Sep 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> Problem with this is that people won't accept it isn't it? They won't accept curtailing of family life if there isn't a similar curtailing of commerce and work etc.
> 
> I think that's the big problem with closing down some parts of society in order to allow other parts to remain open: there's a fairness (perceived at least) to a blanket lockdown, and people are more likely to observe it. But it feels both unfair and ridiculous that you can't see your family when the pub round the corner is still open, and people are much, much more likely to just ignore it.



I think that is a very pertinent issue at the heart of the problem they face when 'balancing' restrictions. They might make sense infection wise, and maybe economically, but they don't in people's minds and that's key. (Obviously better communication could help...). Add in the conspiracy nonsense and general skepticism and mis-trust of the government/authority and there's a huge problem.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 20, 2020)

Oh, FFS.  



> Shoppers are "frustrated" as long queues return to supermarkets as fears of a second national lockdown mount.
> 
> Empty shelves and long queues can be seen at supermarkets in Yorkshire and other areas of the country as customers stock up on essentials such as toilet roll, medicine and cupboard fillers.
> 
> ...



The supermarkets aren't going to close, any shortages will be down to fucking idiots, being fucking idiots!


----------



## Cloo (Sep 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think that is a very pertinent issue at the heart of the problem they face when 'balancing' restrictions. They might make sense infection wise, and maybe economically, but they don't in people's minds and that's key. (Obviously better communication could help...). Add in the conspiracy nonsense and general skepticism and mis-trust of the government/authority and there's a huge problem.


Yes, as I've said, if they'd just been clear and said 'This policy is because we need to control non-essential and non-economic activities to support both infection control and the economy'...  but not saying this upfront and their evasiveness and incompetence in general means people, understandably, will just go around saying 'Huh, so you can only meet where there's a till '


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think that is a very pertinent issue at the heart of the problem they face when 'balancing' restrictions. They might make sense infection wise, and maybe economically, but they don't in people's minds and that's key. (Obviously better communication could help...). Add in the conspiracy nonsense and general skepticism and mis-trust of the government/authority and there's a huge problem.




I lol'd (in a despairing kind of way) at this Matt Hancock, could you honestly think of no one better to run test and trace? | Marina Hyde

Along with the stuff about Harding, and Johnson's apparent total bafflement on being questioned, later, about the figures _he gave_ for his BATSHIT Moonshot 'plan', there's this -



> Yet again, the overriding impression is of a government run by men for whom the domestic sphere is a mystery they have no wish to get to the bottom of. One of them driving hundreds of miles to Durham – just in case he got ill and still had to do his own childcare – sounds, to the other guys, like a totally reasonable thing to have done. Meanwhile the big boss fails to be meaningfully involved in the lives of between 17% and 29% of his children (awaiting full data). If you can be persuaded it’s normal to drive a 60-mile round trip with a child in the car to test your eyesight, then naturally you believe parents should think it fine to stick a five-year-old in their own vehicle and travel 400 miles to obtain what’s necessary to get the child back to school and them back to work.
> 
> Either way, of _course_ a government run by weirdo elitists didn’t reflexively foresee that September – back to school, back to offices – was going to mean a huge surge in testing demand. This is the trouble when “hardworking families” is merely a demographic you wish to appeal to, as opposed to who you are. Real-life “hardworking families” could have told you in a heartbeat that September was the main event.


----------



## killer b (Sep 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> (Obviously better communication could help...).


I'm not actually sure about that. Throughout this process - regardless of how well specific things have been communicated - it strikes me that there has been a very large number of people who work really hard not to understand the reasoning behind the various restrictions. They'd still be at it whatever.


----------



## Cid (Sep 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm usually baffled as to why people are baffled by that to be honest.
> 
> Where are all the great examples from any period in either recent decades or stretching much further back than that, that would give us cause to think that establishment decisions would be better than the farcical mediocrity we have seen? Maybe some can be found, but surely they are the exception rather than the norm for this country?
> 
> Matters of life and death only amplify the absurdity rather than automatically causing the establishment to rise to the challenge. So sadly its not surprising that a pandemic response may resemble the response of generals in war in a way, half-arsing people to their deaths.



The bafflement was more a rhetorical device. But it is striking just how bad this country had been in is response, even compared to places with similar economic and political ideologies.


----------



## LDC (Sep 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm not actually sure about that. Throughout this process - regardless of how well specific things have been communicated - it strikes me that there has been a very large number of people who work really hard not to understand the reasoning behind the various restrictions. They'd still be at it whatever.



Yeah, I kind of agree in part, and I think people have been looking to get confused sometimes to justify non-compliance or make a political point. Also it's exposed a shockingly low level of health literacy among (some of) the UK's population.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 20, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> My understanding is that unis have to open up campuses and give classes in person or lose funding.


shared I think by Chilango on the universities thread Universities are being forced to lie about being COVID safe


----------



## Cid (Sep 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm not actually sure about that. Throughout this process - regardless of how well specific things have been communicated - it strikes me that there has been a very large number of people who work really hard not to understand the reasoning behind the various restrictions. They'd still be at it whatever.



This is true... And you can see it in Germany which I believe has had better messaging (though thinking about it honestly not sure), but still had all those shitty conspiracy protests. But that those people exist regardless doesn't mean you can be lax on messaging to the broader population. One thing here is that, even in my friendship group, there isn't that much understanding or patience for restrictions. People late 20s-early 40s... Those of my friends who do have some grasp generally are either the more internet-focussed types, or people who work for the public sector. You need to be clear, and you need to present your messages on media other than those that you consume - i.e other than the big papers and the TV news. You need to do it with a degree of compassion and consistency. I don't think there is anything unique to the UK character that makes it less likely to be accepting of stringent measures, but people need to understand them, and they need to know that they aren't being singled out for arbitrary reasons.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I kind of agree in part, and *I think people have been looking to get confused sometimes to justify non-compliance or make a political point. *Also it's exposed a shockingly low level of health literacy among (some of) the UK's population.



Definitely been a common trend lately. People who were firmly behind the lockdown at the start when they thought it'd just be a couple of weeks suddenly saying the rules are "too confusing" because the novelty of following them has worn off, and because the new rules in place aren't to their liking.

Probably the case with a fair few people who were initially on furlough. If you had decent living space and were still getting paid then lockdown potentially wasn't too bad a deal for you, provided you had adequate support networks. But if you've not got to go to work again yet can't do all the usual things you'd do at a weekend, suddenly following those stringent rules doesn't quite hold the same appeal as it did before.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm not actually sure about that. Throughout this process - regardless of how well specific things have been communicated - it strikes me that there has been a very large number of people who work really hard not to understand the reasoning behind the various restrictions. They'd still be at it whatever.



I don't really understand this - I mean of course there people who are just not going to adhere to any measures and/or will take every opportunity to pick holes in them - but there are also a whole lot of _other_ people, who genuinely _don't get it_, because it _is_ confusing (and increasingly so) - not everyone reads urban etc - so I think it's right to focus on them.

I would say that even within the SLT at the school I work at. 
Throughout the summer they have been SO focused on and consumed with, putting in place the various measures requested - _knowing_ they will change, too, but having to do them anyway - that by the time we opened, there was still no clarity on, for eg, SD and the impact that may have with SI. Earlier on, they were working, blindly, on a much more sensible plan to have half the kids in, which would have meant they could also have staff working 14/21 day rotas on/off-site, to correspond with that, to manage any periods of self-isolation slightly better.
But then they had wide and total reopening dumped on them. 
We have only had one staff member go off, so far, in a large school - but I know there was a realisation on the second day that, for eg, the 1 meter rule we can meet in the kitchen (not to mention all the kids coming through the canteen, daily) would mean we would _all_ have to be off, if/when one person has symptoms (I mean, that's how it SHOULD be - but not how it will be, undoubtedly, cos they will just shift the rules to suit the situation, afaic now) - but hence more confusion there, even from my own pov (when I have been scouring all the info, from the start).
So, on the second day back, he asked my manager if there was anyone could be furloughed - but there's not - because now we have five breaks instead of two.

Not meaning to bang on about my own situation but it's dismissive to say that messaging hasn't been confused and there's nothing that could be fixed by better communication, because of what _I_ reckon is a comparatively small number of arseholes who won't do it, _whatever_ the reasoning/communication.


----------



## bimble (Sep 20, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> People who were firmly behind the lockdown at the start when they thought it'd just be a couple of weeks suddenly saying the rules are "too confusing" because the novelty of following them has worn off, and because the new rules in place aren't to their liking.


I think this self-interest based interpretation might be missing the most obvious factors in why compliance will be so much lower this time- one is total breakdown of trust (Barnard castle onwards) and another is just that fear real visceral fear is a very powerful motivating thing but can’t be sustained over a period of many months, people adapt factor in the new risk, accept it sort of on an emotional level. But also I’m scrabbling about trying to find reasons not to feel bouts of hate and fury towards the twats not wearing masks.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 20, 2020)

Random thought which I'm sure has been expressed elsewhere: it feels like one of the major failures of the government's communication is that people are trying to work out how to 'game' the rules, rather than understanding and appreciating the underlying biology behind them.

Spurred by a group of my mates considering 6-people bubble 'time shifts', so there's still no more than 6 around at the same time.

See also most sets of football playing mates who apparently consider themselves "organised sport".


----------



## Thora (Sep 20, 2020)

"The economy" is such an abstract concept that most people don't care about it, not in comparison to seeing their friends and family.  So on one level, yes - the rules make sense when you consider that the priority is the economy over family relationships when balancing infection risks.  But on a level that is much more real to most people of _course_ it's total bullshit that you can sit on a crowded bus to go and work in your no-social-distancing job while your kids are smushed up against 29 others kids at school, but you can't have a family BBQ at the weekend.


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2020)

Thora said:


> "The economy" is such an abstract concept that most people don't care about it, not in comparison to seeing their friends and family.  So on one level, yes - the rules make sense when you consider that the priority is the economy over family relationships when balancing infection risks.  But on a level that is much more real to most people of _course_ it's total bullshit that you can sit on a crowded bus to go and work in your no-social-distancing job while your kids are smushed up against 29 others kids at school, but you can't have a family BBQ at the weekend.



Yes and the likes of Hancock make this worse when they appeal to people to behave or face stronger measures. I'm sure the government do get some mileage out of the deliberate focus on behaviours they dont want us to do that spread the virus, as opposed to all the things they have been begging people to resume that also spread the virus, but its not like everyone is falling for that, most should see through it. And those that see through it will not react well to the deliberately narrow picture the tories etc have painted.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 20, 2020)

Agree sheothebudworths 



> Throughout the summer they have been SO focused on and consumed with, putting in place the various measures requested - _knowing_ they will change, too, but having to do them anyway - that by the time we opened, there was still no clarity




it's like this in my workplace [HE] 
constant plans that change weekly and are now changing daily
great missives from managers which are out of date by the next day 
not sure which staff are going to carry on wfh and which ones are on campus 
Not sure if we're really going to get going with on campus teaching 
not sure which students are going to be online,  which ones on campus 
money spent on tech that is not necessarily what is needed [esp if we move back online from home]


----------



## kenny g (Sep 20, 2020)

It is genuinely confusing now. The legislation is far from straightforward and the status of non-statutory guidance doesn't help.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 20, 2020)

Thing is — it goes without saying and must be obvious to fellow urbanites that I am the cleverest person I know, and by a fair old margin.  And yet, the rules are somewhat confusing _even to me_!!1! They change regularly and because my consumption of news has pretty much ended since I stopped commuting, I’m never really sure if something new is in place. And after I have caught up, I can’t really remember if the rule is now this thing or if that’s the rule from three weeks ago. There’s no apparent logic to any of it that would help me follow a general principle, so I’m left needing to memorise this week’s list of instructions.

Even now — I know it’s six people but is that now two households at most or as many households as you like?  Are you allowed overnight stays?  And the rules are getting tighter because it’s getting worse but they want me to stop working from home and start commuting, right?  You can see how confusion creeps in.

If there was an overarching principle, I could follow it.  But it seems to me that some dangerous things are being downright encouraged whilst other innocuous things are banned, so that’s no help.

So I’m left either choosing to totally isolate to ensure I’m following every possible requirement of both rule-following and risk mitigation. Or I just basically make it up as I go along and hope for the best.


----------



## Supine (Sep 20, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Thing is — it goes without saying and must be obvious to fellow urbanites that I am the cleverest person I know, and by a fair old margin.  And yet, the rules are somewhat confus...


----------



## AverageJoe (Sep 20, 2020)

Things that make you go hmm.

1. My mate has spent the last week delivering covid screens to London business offices.
2. We got an email from school asking us for feedback on how the lockdown "teaching from home went and how it could be improved".
3. The FA Full Time website for grass roots football had all next week's fixtures removed and then then pit back - someone jumping the gun? I only found out when the team were supposed to be playing contacted me to ask if we'd cancelled.
4. Friend who's high up in Morris ons said they are getting ready to restrict numbers in store again. 

Im guessing if anything is goi g to happen then heads of I dustry and departments would have been tipped off but embargoed.

My guess is everything closes apart from offices and schools and shops for at least two weeks. No grass roots sport, no pubs or restaurants, and no rule of six - no meeting in the park or home


----------



## eatmorecheese (Sep 20, 2020)

kabbes said:


> basically make it up as I go along and hope for the best.


...and this encapsulates government policy. Then they can disseminate and obfuscate blame. The inquiries will go for longer than our natural lives.


----------



## Raheem (Sep 20, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> 4. Friend who's high up in Morris ons said they are getting ready to restrict numbers in store again.



Went to Morrisons today, and they had reverted to how they were at the beginning of lockdown (queues and barriers at the entrance, single queue for the tills, right down to having no eggs on the shelves, so they've obviously thought about the details).


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 20, 2020)

kabbes said:


> So I’m left either choosing to totally isolate to ensure I’m following every possible requirement of both rule-following and risk mitigation.


I have basically chosen this option, except for the one day a week where work requires me to be on campus.

Adding to my earlier point, I get really frustrated with people talking about what we're "allowed" to do now rather than what is sensible or makes sense health-wise.

Obviously what's legal does affect what we can do, but since when did we start trusting this of all governments with our health? They wouldn't know how to protect us even if they bloody wanted to!


----------



## kabbes (Sep 20, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I have basically chosen this option, except for the one day a week where work requires me to be on campus.
> 
> Adding to my earlier point, I get really frustrated with people talking about what we're "allowed" to do now rather than what is sensible or makes sense health-wise.
> 
> Obviously what's legal does affect what we can do, but since when did we start trusting this of all governments with our health? They wouldn't know how to protect us even if they bloody wanted to!


But what is the appropriate risk assessment?   leaving that to individuals to work out is going to lead to chaos.  Surely the point should be for people who are properly informed to set the boundaries for everybody to follow.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 20, 2020)

kabbes said:


> But what is the appropriate risk assessment?   leaving that to individuals to work out is going to lead to chaos.  Surely the point should be for people who are properly informed to set the boundaries for everybody to follow.


Aye, fair point, and I didn't mean to lay most of the blame on the public.

As I say, I'm pretty much hermiting myself in my flat so I don't have to try and work it out myself.


----------



## maomao (Sep 20, 2020)

kabbes said:


> But what is the appropriate risk assessment?   leaving that to individuals to work out is going to lead to chaos.  Surely the point should be for people who are properly informed to set the boundaries for everybody to follow.


We don't have any of that though.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 20, 2020)

maomao said:


> We don't have any of that though.


Well quite.  What a fucked up situation.


----------



## eatmorecheese (Sep 20, 2020)

I've decided along with Mrs Cheese  that, as much as possible, we'll go into full lockdown again. I can work from home (luckily) and do a lot of virtual home visits, with socially-distanced visits as needed. I simply don't trust the guidelines and the shambolic hypocrisy demonstrated by Cummings and his blonde thatched gimp, plus Mancock, to approach this any other way.

ETA: This is basically a decision based on personal morality, with the wider social implication of avoiding harm to others as much as possible. I'm very disturbed by the rugged individualists on social media who feel wearing a mask is an infringement of their rights and want to scream at people about 'cowardice' or me being a 'dupe'. Fucking pricks.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 20, 2020)

Whitty and Valance to give a briefing tomorrow at 11. "We're fucked"


----------



## Raheem (Sep 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Whitty and Valance to give a briefing tomorrow at 11. "We're fucked"


They need three words to put across their lecterns, so think they will have to add "totally".


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 20, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Went to Morrisons today, and they had reverted to how they were at the beginning of lockdown (queues and barriers at the entrance, single queue for the tills, right down to having no eggs on the shelves, so they've obviously thought about the details).



Once the toilet roll is gone again we're truly fucked.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Whitty and Valance to give a briefing tomorrow at 11. "We're fucked"



Seriously?


----------



## Raheem (Sep 20, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> Once the toilet roll is gone again we're truly fucked.


Thanks for the reminder. Have put 300 rolls on my list.


----------



## prunus (Sep 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Seriously?



Well the bit in quotation marks is a paraphrase, but basically yes;

UK at 'critical point' over Covid-19, top scientists to tell public

Britain’s most senior government scientists will make a direct appeal to the public on Monday, warning that the coronavirus trend is “heading in the wrong direction” and “a critical point has been reached”.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 20, 2020)

So...what's the best time to go to the supermarket? I'm out of food and need to go so may as well fill the freezer. When I went last week, it was packed and few masks :/ Was it because I went in the morning?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 20, 2020)

prunus said:


> Well the bit in quotation marks is a paraphrase, but basically yes;
> 
> UK at 'critical point' over Covid-19, top scientists to tell public
> 
> Britain’s most senior government scientists will make a direct appeal to the public on Monday, warning that the coronavirus trend is “heading in the wrong direction” and “a critical point has been reached”.



Season 2 of the daily coronavirus briefing show doesn't look very promising tbh


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 20, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Thing is — it goes without saying and must be obvious to fellow urbanites that I am the cleverest person I know, and by a fair old margin.  And yet, the rules are somewhat confusing _even to me_!!1! They change regularly and because my consumption of news has pretty much ended since I stopped commuting, I’m never really sure if something new is in place. And after I have caught up, I can’t really remember if the rule is now this thing or if that’s the rule from three weeks ago. There’s no apparent logic to any of it that would help me follow a general principle, so I’m left needing to memorise this week’s list of instructions.
> 
> Even now — I know it’s six people but is that now two households at most or as many households as you like?  Are you allowed overnight stays?  And the rules are getting tighter because it’s getting worse but they want me to stop working from home and start commuting, right?  You can see how confusion creeps in.
> 
> ...



Or was that for Wales? Or maybe it was from that segment on scotland I heard half of.


----------



## Raheem (Sep 20, 2020)

prunus said:


> Well the bit in quotation marks is a paraphrase, but basically yes;
> 
> UK at 'critical point' over Covid-19, top scientists to tell public
> 
> Britain’s most senior government scientists will make a direct appeal to the public on Monday, warning that the coronavirus trend is “heading in the wrong direction” and “a critical point has been reached”.


Makes perfect sense to wait until you're past the critical point, then go back into lockdown, doesn't it?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Sep 21, 2020)

magneze said:


> Windows Vista lives long in the memory.


would you care to try millenium?


Cid said:


> <has a rummage in the back of the thread> Ah...
> 
> 
> 
> I liked this post back in August, and I think it's of particular relevance again now, but with regard to how this government doesn't seem to have used any of the intervening time effectively. Get used to the idea rates are going down regardless, and that things will be back to normal, and you're stuck on that track. Be half-arsed with test and trace, don't develop strategies to make WFH more effective, support those for whom it's more difficult etc, because that would mean an admission that the strategy for getting the economy back on track may not work. It's just a bit baffling that the entire government appears to function like the mind of a mildly incompetent mid-level manager.


peter has a principle


miss direct said:


> So...what's the best time to go to the supermarket? I'm out of food and need to go so may as well fill the freezer. When I went last week, it was packed and few masks :/ Was it because I went in the morning?


monday mornings used to be good, or post 8pm on friday and saturday outside of london (the shelves might look like panic buying has occurred though)


Raheem said:


> Makes perfect sense to wait until you're past the critical point, then go back into lockdown, doesn't it?


let's get brexit done!


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Nick Triggle alert. The BBC man who brought us 'we should carry on with our lives' on March 13th, amongst other classics.

This latest one is like the greatest Triggle & Co shits of this pandemic all rolled into one. Featuring many of the names of professionals we have become used to seeing express these sorts of views throught the pandemic so far.

And just like when he was parping out this stuff during the crucial part of March, it does reflect a certain attitude that normally carries the establishment through epidemics of death. Explore the themes. Pick this shit apart, please.









						Covid: Is it time we learned to live with the virus?
					

Infections are rising and new restrictions being introduced. But is that the right thing to do?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The nation has been brought to a standstill once at immense cost to the economy, education and health more generally. And now with cases rising there is the threat of new national restrictions, while large parts of the country have already found themselves back in partial lockdown. But are we fighting a losing battle? Do we instead need to learn to live with the virus?





> What is more, rising admissions for respiratory illness and, sadly, deaths are what you would expect to happen at this time of year as you head into autumn and winter when these viruses always spread more.





> In fact, Prof Robert Dingwall, a sociologist and an adviser to the government, believes the public may well be now at the stage where it is "comfortable" with the idea that thousands will die from Covid just as they are that they die of flu.
> 
> He believes it is only a particular element of the public health and scientific leadership who worry about driving down the infection level and is critical of politicians for not being "brave enough" to be honest with the public that the virus will be around "forever and a day" even with a vaccine.





> Prof Mark Woolhouse, an expert in infectious disease at Edinburgh University, agrees this is a risk. But he argues the government must carefully "balance the harms" of Covid with the consequences that come from trying to contain it. He says there is already growing evidence the "cure has been worse than the disease" because of the wider societal costs.





> The burden of those have fallen on the very old. The average age of death has been over 80.
> 
> And if you look at the age-adjusted mortality rates, which take into account the size and age of the population, you can see that while 2020 has undoubtedly been a bad year compared to recent years, what has been seen in terms of people dying is not completely out of sync with recent history. It is actually comparable with what happened in the 2000s.





> The other factor to consider is that doctors are in a much better position to treat severe illness. Two steroid treatments have been found to reduce the risk of death in the seriously ill, while much has been learned about how Covid behaves, which means hospitals will be better prepared for problems such as blood clots and kidney damage. It means many are confident the scale of deaths seen earlier will not be repeated



You can rest assured I will be studying the age-adjusted mortality rates to see just how hideous his 'comparable with the 2000s' shit is. I'm rather familiar with raw number of deaths data from 1970 onwards but not age-standardised stuff.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

OK here is the graph from that article:


I believe that graph was made using data from table 1 for England and table 2 for Wales of the following ONS document. Using the Persons, Rate per 100,000 population monthly figures. And they took an average of the figures for January-August, leaving out every years September-December data because there is no 2020 data for those months yet.





__





						Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional death registration data for England and Wales, broken down by sex, age and country. Includes deaths due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) and leading causes of death.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




I dont like the averaging out thats being done in that BBC graph. Graphing the monthly figures properly creates a messy graph but one with important features of detail that averaging would miss out on. Especially as we are talking about a pandemic year where the majority of the virus deaths happened in a short period. Which also happened to be a year where there were less deaths than typical earlier in the year for reasons such as the flu season was early for winter 19-20.

Plus the obvious thing missing from his analysis of that data - this is all the deaths we had with a lockdown that was late but did something, not with the virus left to flourish under their shitty do nothing approach. Its no surprise that the people promoting this Covid-19 death normalisation with these dodgy comparisons to other years in history are treating the number of deaths we've actually had as if they represent the full picture of how much death the pandemic virus can bring. Thankfully we dont have a graph showing how many deaths there would have been this year if this agenda had won the first time around, because so far these fuckers make a lot of noise and indulge in plenty of distortions but for some strange reason they havent gotten their way.

Here is my graph of the same data but without averaging out or the removal of any months. Apologies for the Wales data getting lost under the thick lines of England, I ran out of time to try to fix that. For some strange reason 2020 doesnt actually seem lend itself to his statement that "It is actually comparable with what happened in the 2000s".


The BBC have sometimes felt the need to edit Triggle articles after they were published so I'm not sure what shape the stuff I've been going on about will be in when people read it.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I'm wondering about how there'll be lots of small changes that may remain permanent things after this - was just looking at a piece about people's cancelled weddings not being insured and wondering whether, during this they might start letting celebrants marry people anywhere so they can have home/outdoor ceremonies more easily (in fact I think this might already be a thing they've introduced, but can't find where I think I read it) - because there's going to be a huge backlog of people who couldn't get hitched, a lot of venues permanently shut and it would help a lot to allow people to get married. Then it would probably stay being a thing.


It's a laugh and a half trying to plan a wedding or Partnership ceremony at the moment. 
The Ivy House in Peckham want way over a grand plus their food and drink and only six allowed.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 21, 2020)

Looking back it's interesting that Whitty said on March 14th the peak was 10-14 weeks away. Obviously since that we had lockdown so the peak was done before April. I wonder if there'll be anything comparable from his announcement today.


----------



## Doodler (Sep 21, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> What I don't get at the moment is what is driving these localised spikes. Are we just all agreeing that Geordies, Scousers and Brummies are worse at following the rules than everyone else in the UK? Seems unlikely that human behaviour will differ greatly between parts of the same country.



In normal times there are geographical differences in life expectancy which are down to all kinds of factors, some behavioural, others down to circumstance, and doubtless complicated mixtures of the two. Can't think why covid infection and mortality rates would be different.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Thing is — it goes without saying and must be obvious to fellow urbanites that I am the cleverest person I know, and by a fair old margin.  And yet, the rules are somewhat confusing _even to me_!!1! They change regularly and because my consumption of news has pretty much ended since I stopped commuting, I’m never really sure if something new is in place. And after I have caught up, I can’t really remember if the rule is now this thing or if that’s the rule from three weeks ago. There’s no apparent logic to any of it that would help me follow a general principle, so I’m left needing to memorise this week’s list of instructions.
> 
> Even now — I know it’s six people but is that now two households at most or as many households as you like?  Are you allowed overnight stays?  And the rules are getting tighter because it’s getting worse but they want me to stop working from home and start commuting, right?  You can see how confusion creeps in.
> 
> ...


This is kind of what I meant by people working hard not to understand the restrictions. Yes, they might be more complex than they were, and they also change regularly as the situation changes. But they really aren't that complex, and it would take less than 5 minutes for you to check what they currently are for your area. Instead you've chosen not to, and to make it up as you go along, and to spend those 5 minutes that you could have spent putting your mind at rest on what you are and are not able to do typing out a justification of why you aren't doing - why do you think that is? 

Partly I think it's because it just doesn't feel fair. There's plenty of reasonable arguments for keeping parts of society open and restricting movements in the home, but however eloquently those arguments are made they don't hold much water when you walk - alone - past a busy pub. 

Add this to a crisis of legitimacy post Barnard Castle - I think this has been particularly exacerbated more recently by the hunting thing - again there's plenty of reasonable arguments why grouse shooting is probably a 'safe' activity while 5-a side football isn't, but it really doesn't look good... It's difficult to see how complex partial restrictions can really work right now.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> This is kind of what I meant by people working hard not to understand the restrictions. Yes, they might be more complex than they were, and they also change regularly as the situation changes. But they really aren't that complex, and it would take less than 5 minutes for you to check what they currently are for your area. Instead you've chosen not to, and to make it up as you go along, and to spend those 5 minutes that you could have spent putting your mind at rest on what you are and are not able to do typing out a justification of why you aren't doing - why do you think that is?
> 
> Partly I think it's because it just doesn't feel fair. There's plenty of reasonable arguments for keeping parts of society open and restricting movements in the home, but however eloquently those arguments are made they don't hold much water when you walk - alone - past a busy pub.
> 
> Add this to a crisis of legitimacy post Barnard Castle - I think this has been particularly exacerbated more recently by the hunting thing - again there's plenty of reasonable arguments why grouse shooting is probably a 'safe' activity while 5-a side football isn't, but it really doesn't look good... It's difficult to see how complex partial restrictions can really work right now.


How often do you want me to review the rules in case they’ve changed and in case I’ve misremembered their current status?  Daily? You have to recognise that fatigue sets in regarding trying to stay up to date on this.


----------



## zahir (Sep 21, 2020)

A round up of where we are from Devi Sridhar.









						As more local lockdowns begin, the hard truth is there's no return to 'normal' | Devi Sridhar
					

The only certainty about the year ahead is the uncertainty. As a scientist, here’s my advice on how we can live alongside Covid, says public health expert Devi Sridhar




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## ska invita (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> It's a laugh and a half trying to plan a wedding or Partnership ceremony at the moment.
> The Ivy House in Peckham want way over a grand plus their food and drink and only six allowed.


Are you planning on getting partnershiped? Congratulations TC xx
BYO in the park?
Though I guess the rule is six in the park right now too


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Are you planning on getting partnershiped? Congratulations TC xx
> BYO in the park?
> Though I guess the rule is six in the park right now too


Yeah it is planned for next July. My love would like 100 of her best mates. 
6 would be fine for me.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

It seems very odd that Whitty and Vallance are going to address the nation first, then Johnson at some later point, and no questions will be taken.  

Some media outlets have been saying Johnson would be addressing the nation tomorrow, but Shapps implies it could actually be today. 



> Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, speaking this morning, said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out the next steps in tackling the pandemic after England’s chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser have held a press conference.
> 
> When asked why the Prime Minister was not going to be part of their public address, Mr Shapps added: “What he wants to do, quite rightly, is allow without politicians there, to allow scientists to set out the picture to the country.
> 
> *“He will come out very soon after that and speak to the country.”*











						Why Boris Johnson isn't addressing the nation today
					

The press briefing will not feature any cabinet minister




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Yeah it is planned for next July. My love would like 100 of her best mates.
> 6 would be fine for me.


My mindset is a bit dark at the moment. I can see covid wittling down the guest list by next Summer.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It seems very odd that Whitty and Vallance are going to address the nation first, then Johnson at some later point, and no questions will be taken.
> 
> Some media outlets have been saying Johnson would be addressing the nation tomorrow, but Shapps implies it could actually be today.
> 
> ...


11am isn't it? I think they are going to drop a bomb on us so to speak.


----------



## ska invita (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Yeah it is planned for next July. My love would like 100 of her best mates.
> 6 would be fine for me.


Current finger in the wind speculation is six more months of lockage.  Hopefully by July there'll be a lot more flexibility with people. A gamble to give deposits etc now though eh.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> How often do you want me to review the rules in case they’ve changed and in case I’ve misremembered their current status?  Daily? You have to recognise that fatigue sets in regarding trying to stay up to date on this.


I think you just need to check them each time you are thinking of doing something that you are not sure about. Which for most people is not daily. Possibly not even weekly.


----------



## Cid (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I think you just need to check them each time you are thinking of doing something that you are not sure about. Which for most people is not daily. Possibly not even weekly.



Unless the rules change of course.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> 11am isn't it? I think they are going to drop a bomb on us so to speak.



Yep 11 am for  Whitty and Vallance, nothing has been confirmed about Johnson yet.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> How often do you want me to review the rules in case they’ve changed and in case I’ve misremembered their current status?  Daily? You have to recognise that fatigue sets in regarding trying to stay up to date on this.


Sorry, I'm not actually asking you to do anything - I was just using your post as an example of an extremely widespread attitude, one which I think it probably currently shared by the majority of the country. But the idea that the restrictions are too complex for you to understand or remember is - I'm afraid - a bit silly. You've made a choice not to understand or remember.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

brain the size of a planet 









/runs and hides


----------



## andysays (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Yeah it is planned for next July. My love would like 100 of her best mates.
> 6 would be fine for me.


Congratulations to you and the missus


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Current finger in the wind speculation is six more months of lockage.  Hopefully by July there'll be a lot more flexibility with people. A gamble to give deposits etc now though eh.


I'm more focused on wanting everyone to be well. Elderly parents etc.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Sorry, I'm not actually asking you to do anything - I was just using your post as an example of an extremely widespread attitude, one which I think it probably currently shared by the majority of the country. But the idea that the restrictions are too complex for you to understand or remember is - I'm afraid - a bit silly. You've made a choice not to understand or remember.


fwiw I'm not sticking by the letter of my own local restrictions. But I know which ones I'm ignoring or stretching.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 21, 2020)

Is it physically impossible for me to prioritise knowing the latest version of the rules?  Of course not.  So to that degree, it’s a choice.  But it’s the classic neoliberal attitude to make it all about personal responsibility to keep up and personal failure if that responsibility isn’t met, rather than recognise the social context of the way the knowledge of what to do has been created, disseminated and maintained.  Who are the ones that make the rules and why are these not the ones also responsible for making them in a way that makes following those rules inevitable?  It’s a strange inverse of the power hierarchy to put the onus on the public rather than the government to keep up.


----------



## prunus (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Is it physically impossible for me to prioritise knowing the latest version of the rules?  Of course not.  So to that degree, it’s a choice.  But it’s the classic neoliberal attitude to make it all about personal responsibility to keep up and personal failure if that responsibility isn’t met, rather than recognise the social context of the way the knowledge of what to do has been created, disseminated and maintained.  Who are the ones that make the rules and why are these not the ones also responsible for making them in a way that makes following those rules inevitable?  It’s a strange inverse of the power hierarchy to put the onus on the public rather than the government to keep up.



It is, absolutely; unfortunately we have to deal with the reality we have, which is that this government is, to sum up in a single but apposite word, shit.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> This is kind of what I meant by people working hard not to understand the restrictions. Yes, they might be more complex than they were, and they also change regularly as the situation changes. But they really aren't that complex, and it would take less than 5 minutes for you to check what they currently are for your area. Instead you've chosen not to, and to make it up as you go along, and to spend those 5 minutes that you could have spent putting your mind at rest on what you are and are not able to do typing out a justification of why you aren't doing - why do you think that is?


They are complicated. There are at least four different sets of restrictions less than an hour's drive from where I live (Bolton/some-but-not-all-of-GM/Lancashire/national), and it requires understanding arbitrary administrative boundaries.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Is it physically impossible for me to prioritise knowing the latest version of the rules?  Of course not.  So to that degree, it’s a choice.  But it’s the classic neoliberal attitude to make it all about personal responsibility to keep up and personal failure if that responsibility isn’t met, rather than recognise the social context of the way the knowledge of what to do has been created, disseminated and maintained.  Who are the ones that make the rules and why are these not the ones also responsible for making them in a way that makes following those rules inevitable?  It’s a strange inverse of the power hierarchy to put the onus on the public rather than the government to keep up.


I'm not really trying to suggest it's a personal failure on your part tbh, I was just expanding on an earlier point about how I didn't think 'better communication' from the government would really make much of a difference, as the problems we're seeing with how well the restrictions are observed are not not really about how well they're communicated.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 21, 2020)

prunus said:


> It is, absolutely; unfortunately we have to deal with the reality we have, which is that this government is, to sum up in a single but apposite word, shit.


So people do their best in the circumstances they have been shoved into.  I’m therefore not going to make it _their_ failure when they inevitably get things wrong.

Creating a system that has the certainty of failure baked into it is on the creator of the system, not the points of failure.  I don’t blame the wood for splitting.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm not really trying to suggest it's a personal failure on your part tbh, I was just expanding on an earlier point about how I didn't think 'better communication' from the government would really make much of a difference, as the problems we're seeing with how well the restrictions are observed are not not really about how well they're communicated.


In what way is it not at least in part about how they are communicated?


----------



## ska invita (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I'm more focused on wanting everyone to be well. Elderly parents etc.


Excuse the derail, one last post, but mini party/dinner with a handful of closest but distanced, then much bigger knees up on separate day?


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> So people do their best in the circumstances they have been shoved into.  I’m therefore not going to make it _their_ failure when they inevitably get things wrong.
> 
> Creating a system that has the certainty of failure baked into it is on the creator of the system, not the points of failure.  I don’t blame the wood for splitting.


I don't really think that flagrant breaches of the "rules" - the kind of breaches which en masse have a significant effect on transmission rates - are a result of the rules being confusing. They are a result of people choosing not to follow them, or to take a small amount of time to check them.

That's not to say that making the rules less confusing wouldn't be helpful.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Is it physically impossible for me to prioritise knowing the latest version of the rules?  Of course not.  So to that degree, it’s a choice.  But it’s the classic neoliberal attitude to make it all about personal responsibility to keep up and personal failure if that responsibility isn’t met, rather than recognise the social context of the way the knowledge of what to do has been created, disseminated and maintained.  Who are the ones that make the rules and why are these not the ones also responsible for making them in a way that makes following those rules inevitable?  It’s a strange inverse of the power hierarchy to put the onus on the public rather than the government to keep up.



When you think about how much this government is 'following the science' and how this science was allegedly behavioural science you'd think this might be the one area they'd perhaps perform a little less badly.   Of course maybe  people are behaving exactly how they intended. 

Also I would say once you see the govt as untrustworthy and not worth listening to when they ignore the rules or urge people back to offices needlessly then why bother following them on any of the other guidance.


----------



## agricola (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I don't really think that flagrant breaches of the "rules" - the kind of breaches which en masse have a significant effect on transmission rates - are a result of the rules being confusing. They are a result of people choosing not to follow them, or to take a small amount of time to check them.
> 
> That's not to say that making the rules less confusing wouldn't be helpful.



TBF even to talk about people breaking these rules being responsible for transmission rates going up is to play the Government's game.  

Opportunities for infections were always going to go up as more of normality (holidays, work, socializing) came back, and we were always going to need an effective track and trace to identify people who might have this quickly enough before they infect too many people.  Accompanying that, we were always going to need ways to ensure that people who might be ill stayed in quarantine for the required period (which means support for them far more than enforcement, though enforcement would be needed) in order to keep those increases as low as possible.  

They've not done that, nor do they appear to want to do it even now, and so here we are again - except this time they are blaming us for it going up.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I don't really think that flagrant breaches of the "rules" - the kind of breaches which en masse have a significant effect on transmission rates - are a result of the rules being confusing. They are a result of people choosing not to follow them, or to take a small amount of time to check them.
> 
> That's not to say that making the rules less confusing wouldn't be helpful.


I think it's because the rules seem completely inconsistent and prioritise the economy over relationships.
And things like being able to meet in a pub or restaurant but not at home. I understand it but if I can't afford a pub or restaurant I'm not going to agree with it.
When my partner teaches in a school and my child is at school it feels pointless.
When I live in a houseshare and get public transport to work. 

I don't think partial measures work because it feels like nonsense.


----------



## Cid (Sep 21, 2020)

I can guarantee that if I ask any of the approximately 10 people within shouting range of me at the moment, not one of them will know of potential rule changes, or local rules (not that there are any for Sheffield as yet). This is because they are normal people who don't consume a lot of traditional news sources... Just expecting people to regularly check the guidance is, frankly, fucking ridiculous. It is not how people work. In fact conversely this government has spent the last few months reinforcing exactly the opposite idea; that we are on a gradual but inevitable path to returning to normal. And people will _always_ tend to selectively focus on things that are beneficial to their general situation over things that are likely to place restrictions on them. 

quimcunx also just mentioned another aspect; trust in this government is low. Engagement with its messaging is low. It is a situation where people are just going to default to 'sod it. I'm just going to crack on with life'.

The wider implication of that is that you're going to get a lot of people who might ordinarily follow new guidance being unaware of it, or unengaged with it. Those who do watch the news, or check stuff are going to feel at odds with those who don't. Are going to feel out of place in the behaviour of their social groups... and that too creates an enormous degree of pressure that works against compliance. We are social animals. We like to do what our friends are doing, and going against that is something that takes real effort and can have real effects on our relationships.

So, in that context, yes, communication is important. Absolutely there's going to be a small number of people who don't comply. But you want them to be the ones who feel insecure, or feel that they're running against what their wider social groups are doing. Currently it's kind of the opposite.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Excuse the derail, one last post, but mini party/dinner with a handful of closest but distanced, then much bigger knees up on separate day?


That could work.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 21, 2020)

Insignificant point, but I don't understand why they don't control their own slides, rather having to say "next slide, please" all the time.

Just give them a damned clicker!


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Insignificant point, but I don't understand why they don't control their own slides, rather having to say "next slide, please" all the time.
> 
> Just give them a damned clicker!


Scientists eh.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

The graph on the growth of daily cases was (as expected) alarming.


----------



## klang (Sep 21, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Insignificant point, but I don't understand why they don't control their own slides, rather having to say "next slide, please" all the time.
> 
> Just give them a damned clicker!


to show the world that they are not alone.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

Quite a clear briefing - albeit one that frames the discussion for the Government.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

Well that was quite something.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Sep 21, 2020)

Felt like they were laying the ground for what will be a bigger announcement soon.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> Felt like they were laying the ground for what will be a bigger announcement soon.


It did rather. They outlined the problems in a clinical manner. Gave lots of information to back it up. Then ended leaving us hanging. 

Speech from Boris later?


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 21, 2020)

Yup


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

The question is how fast, and how hard, lockdown 2 will be.

Short, sharp, shock or faff about with pubs and garden parties for another fortnight?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

skyscraper101 said:


> Felt like they were laying the ground for what will be a bigger announcement soon.



I agree. There's some suggestion that doing it this way was to scare the cabinet members & Tory back benchers that are against any further restrictions, and allow it to sink in before Johnson comes forward to announce further restrictions.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> The question is how fast, and how hard, lockdown 2 will be.
> 
> Short, sharp, shock or faff about with pubs and garden parties for another fortnight?



This. Just fucking do what needs doing.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 21, 2020)

Does the scruffy blonde disgraced fuckwit have an announcement scheduled?


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> The question is how fast, and how hard, lockdown 2 will be.
> 
> Short, sharp, shock or faff about with pubs and garden parties for another fortnight?


Given how incompetent this govt is I expect any plans will be late with gaping holes.


----------



## BCBlues (Sep 21, 2020)

Meantime Cummings will be telling Johnson "keep out the way this time" and Johnson will be telling Cummings " stay at fucking home this time"


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Does the scruffy blonde disgraced fuckwit have an announcement scheduled?



Not yet, we know it's coming, could be later today or tomorrow.

He's probably taking to the cabinet about how far he thinks he should go.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I agree. There's some suggestion that doing it this way was to scare the cabinet members & Tory back benchers that are against any further restrictions, and allow it to sink in before Johnson comes forward to announce further restrictions.


That makes sense.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Given how incompetent this govt is I expect any plans will be late with gaping holes.



Obviously.

It's about distinguishing malice from incompetence.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

BIB does suggest we could be hearing more later today...


> Pubs may be shut across England by the weekend, it is feared, after Health Secretary Matt Hancock refused rule out further lockdown restrictions.
> 
> Speaking on ITV's This Morning, the Health Secretary was asked whether landlords would be told to shut.
> 
> ...











						Pub curfew set to be announced as Covid threat level raised
					

Northern Ireland's leaders have urged the public not to be swayed by Sir Van Morrison's coronavirus protest songs and instead listen to scientific evidence.




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> Obviously.
> 
> It's about distinguishing malice from incompetence.


A week late giving time to short stocks?


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

...and given we've just had "science" on the national broadcaster saying if we don't do something now we're fucked, it seems a little odd that the PM is leaving us all hanging in the face of impending doom.


----------



## clicker (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> The question is how fast, and how hard, lockdown 2 will be.
> 
> Short, sharp, shock or faff about with pubs and garden parties for another fortnight?


Any faffing after that conference will be really insulting. They are going to faff  .


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

Save Christmas.  A new slogan the nation can get behind.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 21, 2020)

missed the main bit. Guy now saying hospital admissions are women 20-40 reflecting their jobs and roles in society.

also if spread is within households rather than between households (not sure which)  is the main issue then what?  Do they support households by providing hotel space for some household members?


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> ...and given we've just had "science" on the national broadcaster saying if we don't do something now we're fucked, it seems a little odd that the PM is leaving us all hanging in the face of impending doom.


I kept thinking he was on the verge of a smirk today when talking about comparative death rates.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Save Christmas.  A new slogan the nation can get behind.



Not for miserable bastards, like me.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> The question is how fast, and how hard, lockdown 2 will be.
> 
> Short, sharp, shock or faff about with pubs and garden parties for another fortnight?


I strongly suspect it will look like the Bolton restrictions, applied nationally. You might think of that as more like the latter of your two possibilities, I don't know.









						Bolton: local restrictions
					

Find out what you can and cannot do if you live, work or travel in Bolton.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

I was hoping that the numbers i had done in my head were wrong somehow. Numberline fail, bang on the head etc. 

However Vallance confirmed it. 200,000 new cases a day by Oct end. 

I am trying not to carry it further forward.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I agree. There's some suggestion that doing it this way was to scare the cabinet members & Tory back benchers that are against any further restrictions, and allow it to sink in before Johnson comes forward to announce further restrictions.


It looks very much like this to me.

The pair of them very publicly standing there and saying that without further restrictions hundreds of people will be dying every day in just over a month feels like it's aimed at bouncing the government into action rather than just informing people of where we are.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I strongly suspect it will look like the Bolton restrictions, applied nationally. You might think of that as more like the latter of your two possibilities, I don't know.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm expecting something along these lines. Announcement about furlough extension / replacement sometime this week too?


----------



## weepiper (Sep 21, 2020)

Nicola Sturgeon and Jason Leitch giving a briefing at 12.15, if you want to know what Boris is going to wait til tomorrow to announce.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I strongly suspect it will look like the Bolton restrictions, applied nationally. You might think of that as more like the latter of your two possibilities, I don't know.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The measures haven't worked in Bolton. They will have to be different to make a difference.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> The measures haven't worked in Bolton. They will have to be different to make a difference.


'Haven't worked' is complicated. The week-on-week trend is currently flat. But yeah, if you or I were in charge of this, we would probably agree that it's insufficient. This doesn't mean that new restrictions will be any tighter.

Current measures started on September 6th, I think.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

It's hard to get back from perceptions of incompetence.  The measures will need to be consistent and simple enough for people who dont pay much attention.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

I honestly think the single most important thing is probably furlough. If it's not extended or replaced everything else is pissing in the wind.


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> I honestly think the single most important thing is probably furlough. If it's not extended or replaced everything else is pissing in the wind.


Right now they are sitting in a room trying to work out the strictest regime they can that won't involve furlough.


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Nicola Sturgeon and Jason Leitch giving a briefing at 12.15, if you want to know what Boris is going to wait til tomorrow to announce.


Not sure we're allowed to watch that in England.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> Right now they are sitting in a room trying to work out the strictest regime they can that won't involve furlough.


Get Priti Patel to do the numbers.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> Right now they are sitting in a room trying to work out the strictest regime they can that won't involve furlough.


Fairly sure we're already at that point. If the Bolton model - or something a bit stricter - is to be rolled out more widely, it'll have to come with financial support for businesses which can't open.


----------



## weltweit (Sep 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> Not sure we're allowed to watch that in England.


BBC News has been carrying Scottish announcements.

In fact Nicola Sturgeon is speaking now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> Not sure we're allowed to watch that in England.





It's on the BBC News channel now.

It's normally on Sky too, but they are repeating the 11 am briefing. And, now on Sky too.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

You can just watch BBC Scotland anyway.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

I think he was joking guys


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

What is Nicola saying? The same message but in Scots?


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> What is Nicola saying? The same message but in Scots?


She was saying something about 'a package' (money) when I turned on but seemed a little short on details.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> What is Nicola saying? The same message but in Scots?


Scotland's doing alright but needs to take more measures to avoid a full lockdown. Do your bit for the collective good, WFH if you can can, download the app. Then the usual reiteration of current rules.

Goes without saying that it's much more coherent and personable than any of our English equivalents.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> What is Nicola saying? The same message but in Scots?



Mainly just waffle TBH, but did suggest she will be announcing new restrictions in the next 48 hours.


----------



## agricola (Sep 21, 2020)

Most of South Wales is going to have restrictions from 1800 tomorrow.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 21, 2020)

agricola said:


> Most of South Wales is going to have restrictions from 1800 tomorrow.


Where's that from? Just wondering how far west it extends...

ETA: the reason I'm asking is that the language used was "not ruling out a lockdown"









						Wales-wide coronavirus lockdown 'not ruled out' - Gething
					

Wales Health Minister Vaughan Gething said it was possible more local restrictions could be introduced this week




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## agricola (Sep 21, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Where's that from? Just wondering how far west it extends...



Vaughan Gething in a press conference going on now.  Its from Bridgend to the border with England, apparently.









						Welsh Government @WelshGovernment
					

Yn fyw nawr gyda'r Gweinidog Iechyd Vaughan Gething | Live now with Health Minister Vaughan Gething




					www.pscp.tv
				




full list here:


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Scotland's doing alright but needs to take more measures to avoid a full lockdown. Do your bit for the collective good, WFH if you can can, download the app. Then the usual reiteration of current rules.
> 
> Goes without saying that it's much more coherent and personable than any of our English equivalents.




It's not like Scotland are doing much better* really, but she's clear, consistent and doesn't have to lie all the time to cover corruption and actions that fall short of mediocre, let alone world beating promises. 

*maybe they are doing a bit better than a snapshot suggests, if you remember school went back earlier than in England.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> The question is how fast, and how hard, lockdown 2 will be.
> 
> Short, sharp, shock or faff about with pubs and garden parties for another fortnight?


The latter. With slogans and blame and half measures.


----------



## HalloweenJack (Sep 21, 2020)

This is like a bad cinema-endless previews and no main feature.
If you are going to announce, announce already.
Leadership 101.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 21, 2020)

There is some talk still of a 2 week circuit breaker lockdown.  I'm not convinced that would be much use, I can't see where its been successfully deployed elsewhere.  Any full lockdown would need to be a month at least I would have thought.


----------



## Mation (Sep 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I strongly suspect it will look like the Bolton restrictions, applied nationally. You might think of that as more like the latter of your two possibilities, I don't know.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


How is anyone supposed to follow that? It's fucking nonsense, practically and healthwise. No chance of being effective whatsoever.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> How is anyone supposed to follow that? It's fucking nonsense, practically and healthwise. No chance of being effective whatsoever.


Other than the pubs doing take-out only, the restrictions listed are more or less the same as these for pretty much the whole of the north-west. They aren't difficult to follow, you just don't visit people who aren't in your support bubble or go to parties for the most part.


----------



## Mation (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Other than the pubs doing take-out only, the restrictions listed are more or less the same as these for pretty much the whole of the north-west. They aren't difficult to follow, you just don't visit people who aren't in your support bubble or go to parties for the most part.


They may not be difficult for you to follow, but I can't follow them. (Not as in won't, or don't want to, but can't read any sense in them or see clearly what to do, or how the things that are permitted support stopping the spread.)


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> They may not be difficult for you to follow, but I can't follow them. (Not as in won't, or don't want to, but can't read any sense in them or see clearly what to do, or how the things that are permitted support stopping the spread.)


What are examples of scenarios where it's unclear to you what you are allowed to do?


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> They may not be difficult for you to follow, but I can't follow them. (Not as in won't, or don't want to, but can't read any sense in them or see clearly what to do, or how the things that are permitted support stopping the spread.)


What are you struggling to understand? The restrictions are aimed trying to prevent households mixing except in specific & very reduced circumstances. That's all. You might disagree with some of the exceptions, you might think it's not strict enough (or too strict) but I don't think there's anything there that's actually hard to understand is there?


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 21, 2020)

Seems pretty straightforward to me. Don’t go out, don’t visit anyone.


----------



## Mation (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> What are examples of scenarios where it's unclear to you what you are allowed to do?


I don't know, because I can't hold much of it in my head.

This is like the proverbial shopkeeper who, in response to a shopper asking for a particular product, says: "I keep telling people, there's no demand for it!"

If many people are repeatedly saying that the rules aren't clear, it doesn't matter how clear the writer thinks they are, and they won't be made any clearer by stating that they are in fact clear. By definition, clear instructions are ones that can be understood by most people.

We need a full lockdown, for health and compliance.


----------



## Mation (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> What are you struggling to understand? The restrictions are aimed trying to prevent households mixing except in specific & very reduced circumstances. That's all. You might disagree with some of the exceptions, you might think it's not strict enough (or too strict) but I don't think there's anything there that's actually hard to understand is there?


Yes. I find it hard to follow. Genuinely so. I keep saying that. Why can't you understand that it's hard for some people who aren't you to understand?!


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Seems pretty straightforward to me. Don’t go out, don’t visit anyone.


Not sure about the first bit. The rules sensibly restrict what can happen indoors but seem to leave space for outdoor activities, including meeting people in small groups.

My mental summary was: stick to your household, except for meeting in groups of 6 or less in parks.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 21, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Not sure about the first bit. The rules sensibly restrict what can happen indoors but seem to leave space for outdoor activities, including meeting people in small groups.


Aye, but better be safe than sorry


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Aye, but better be safe than sorry


That's you making up your own rules. I thought we were trying to summarise the government's rules for clarity.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Sep 21, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Things that make you go hmm.
> 
> 1. My mate has spent the last week delivering covid screens to London business offices.



I really do find this kind of "performance hygiene" particularly irritating, lately.

It feels like "Get back in to work! No, we don't have any plans to improve ventilation, reduce numbers in offices or encourage distancing - but don't worry, here's a crappy perspex screen & some posters about handwashing & some petty rules about touching stuff and - look! - sanitizer dispensers everywhere. Oh, yeah, and we've taken away the office microwave & kettle in case you touch them, but you can pop out to Pret instead..."

And obvs I don't want to stop anyone washing their hands or practicing basic hygiene, but i think we do now know that airborne transmission and badly ventilated, enclosed spaces are a bigger problem than surface transmission?, and a perspex sneeze-catcher isn't really going to help with that.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> I don't know, because I can't hold much of it in my head.
> 
> This is like the proverbial shopkeeper who, in response to a shopper asking for a particular product, says: "I keep telling people, there's no demand for it!"
> 
> ...


What's a "full lockdown"?


----------



## kabbes (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> What are examples of scenarios where it's unclear to you what you are allowed to do?


Unclear is not the same as difficult to remember or follow the implementation or otherwise be difficult.  For example, one bullet point from the section about places that can serve takeaway food but not other food is:


cafes including workplace canteens (not including cafes or canteens at hospitals, care homes, schools, prisons, establishments intended for the use of naval, military or air force purposes and for providing food or drink to the homeless)
Nice and easy then.


----------



## Thora (Sep 21, 2020)

Don't go to other people's houses/have people to yours _unless_ someone is being paid
Don't go to crowded, poorly ventilated indoor spaces _unless_ it's your workplace or school


----------



## Mation (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> What's a "full lockdown"?


What we had in March-May.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

There was a large list of exceptions and clauses in the March/May lockdown too tbf. Did you find those hard to follow?


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Unclear is not the same as difficult to remember ir follow the implementation or otherwise be difficult.  For example, one bullet point in places that can serve takeaway food but not other food is:
> 
> 
> cafes including workplace canteens (not including cafes or canteens at hospitals, care homes, schools, prisons, establishments intended for the use of naval, military or air force purposes and for providing food or drink to the homeless)
> Nice and easy then.


But these guidelines are for business owners and operators to interpret, not the general public. I think it's reasonable to expect someone running a business or organising events to be able to understand something like that.

For most people, the restrictions they need to know about are those relating to meeting people socially, and travel.


----------



## Cid (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> But these guidelines are for business owners and operators to interpret, not the general public. I think it's reasonable to expect someone running a business or organising events to be able to understand something like that.
> 
> For most people, the restrictions they need to know about are those relating to meeting people socially, and travel.



Which are buried in the same guidance.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

all the way down in section 2.

(it probably should be section 1, tbf)


----------



## weepiper (Sep 21, 2020)

My interpretation of what Nicola Sturgeon said is that she wants to roll back quite a lot of the things that we have opened up recently in order to keep community transmission low enough to keep schools open, thinks the UK government should be doing the same, and is waiting for the promised COBRA meeting to see if the furlough scheme will be extended before announcing that pubs, hospitality and non essential businesses will be closed again.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

Cid said:


> Which are buried in the same guidance.



Buried? 

Each section has a bold headline, making it easy to find the relevant information.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Triggle tweaked his stance in an article about the Whitty & Vallance talk today, but its still a load of shit. The timing of this well-worn Triggle pattern is very clear, its always at moment like this, and his side of the 'debate' always lose. Because they can chat whatever shit they like in order to diminish the number of deaths, but the number of deaths is hardly the prime consideration of the government in the first place. Rather, its all about NHS capacity, and thats what forces the governments hand despite the outcry from shitheads.









						Covid-19: UK could face 50,000 cases a day by October without action - Vallance
					

"Speed" and "action" are required to halt the rise in cases, the UK's chief scientific adviser warns.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Even among the government's own advisers there is disagreement over whether what we are seeing is the start of an exponential rise or just a gradual increase in cases, which is what you would expect at this time of year as respiratory viruses tend to circulate more with the reopening of society.



Bullshit. Its exponential growth and the main quibble would be what exactly the doubling time is.



> But the big unanswered question is what ministers will do next. There is talk of further restrictions being introduced, but that is far from certain.





> A couple of things are in our favour that were not in the spring. Better treatments for those who get very sick are now available, while the government is in a better position to protect the vulnerable groups.



They are not really in a better position to protect vulnerable groups if they let the number of cases rise by a very large amount.



> Should ministers wait and see what happens? Or should they crack down early, knowing that will have a negative impact in other ways?



Contrary to what he says, there is no lack of certainty that further restrictions will be introduced. Its only the detail and precise timing that has some uncertainty about it.

Thy are not going to 'wait and see what happens' because something at least of that lesson was learnt the hard way last time.

Contrast his absolute shit with what Kuenssberg said in the same article.



> It is not a question of "if".
> 
> Downing Street will have to introduce extra restrictions to try to slow down the dramatic resurgence of coronavirus.


----------



## Mation (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> There was a large list of exceptions and clauses in the March/May lockdown too tbf. Did you find those hard to follow?


No. So something about the messaging was probably different.

However. Give it up.

You don't find this hard to follow. Others do.

We probably both want effective measures to stop the spread.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

Cid said:


> Which are buried in the same guidance.


Sure. There should probably be a simplified version of the rules for those who find it difficult to read long passages of text, and for whom many of the rules are not relevant. Don't disagree there.

I do find it a bit strange for intelligent people on here with professional jobs and so on to be claiming it's all that difficult for them to find the relevant info.


----------



## Cid (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> all the way down in section 2.
> 
> (it probably should be section 1, tbf)



It should be in a clear, poster style format with helpful graphics that can be absorbed by the average punter in less than one minute. With a link at the bottom saying ‘if you own a business you are legally required to check this other bit’


----------



## Mation (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I do find it a bit strange for intelligent people on here with professional jobs and so on to be claiming it's all that difficult for them to find the relevant info.


But that's more about you than about them.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> But these guidelines are for business owners and operators to interpret, not the general public. I think it's reasonable to expect someone running a business or organising events to be able to understand something like that.
> 
> For most people, the restrictions they need to know about are those relating to meeting people socially, and travel.


I disagree.  The areas that confuse people are the ones related to the things they don’t do every day but engage in from time to time.  I can imagine somebody doing something (permissible) in a school or village hall that involves food and not bring sure what they’re allowed to actually do, for example.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 21, 2020)

Cid said:


> Which are buried in the same guidance.


Yes, this too!


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

Cid said:


> It should be in a clear, poster style format with helpful graphics that can be absorbed by the average punter in less than one minute. With a link at the bottom saying ‘if you own a business you are legally required to check this other bit’


There's a section on Bolton Council's website - prominently signposted when you visit it - that does exactly this.









						Local restrictions: what you can or cannot do – Bolton Council
					

Rise in coronavirus cases sees new measures introduced for Bolton




					www.bolton.gov.uk


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I disagree.  The areas that confuse people are the ones related to the things they don’t do every day but engage in from time to time.  I can imagine somebody doing something (permissible) in a school or village hall that involves food and not bring sure what they’re allowed to actually do, for example.


Yeah, they might need to look up the rules if they want to do something like that.

I dunno if I want to go to an event in a village hall, with multiple attendees and food, in the middle of a pandemic, that is being organised by someone that can't read and understand written instructions. It's not like they are written in obscure legal language. I agree with Cid that putting certain things in graphic format would be helpful but there's a certain level of detail that you can't convey that way.


----------



## Cid (Sep 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Buried?
> 
> Each section has a bold headline, making it easy to find the relevant information.



Look, for me - law degree first class with a cherry on top - it’s a fucking doddle. But it should not be designed for me.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I do find it a bit strange for intelligent people on here with professional jobs and so on to be claiming it's all that difficult for them to find the relevant info.


That’s a straw man.  Nobody is claiming it’s actually difficult to find information.  Just that it’s difficult to remember all the details, confusing because it keeps changing (the confusion is in remembering what rules apply here and now rather than last week), confusing because there are lots of subclauses (which makes it difficult to remember) and confusing because there is no strand of logic (which makes it difficult to hold in your head as a coherent pattern).

Another example is my question earlier about whether the six people are allowed to be from more than two households.  Checking the information, I see that this is not addressed, meaning that I have to rely on the default assumption that all six can come from different households.  But a few weeks ago, it was only two households.  In a few more weeks it might be back to two households again.  The system relies on my willingness to constantly check up on today’s rules.  That’s confusing.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Sikora, Heneghan etc are back in the news saying that the government's proposed covid restrictions are unjustified and that the risk from covid doesn't justify them.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

This Coronavirus outbreak FAQs: what you can and can't do is a huge amount of information. Much of it seems arbitrary and it is not at all clear to me exactly which things are exempt from for instance the rule of 6. I’ve spent some time reading that load of text and I think but am not entirely sure it says I can’t go to the yoga class i was planning to attend tomorrow because it’s not organised by a ‘club’. It doesn’t go into the legal definition of a club. It is by no means easy to understand these rules, imo.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> That’s a straw man.  Nobody is claiming it’s actually difficult to find information.


Yes they are.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> That’s a straw man.  Nobody is claiming it’s actually difficult to find information.  Just that it’s difficult to remember all the details, confusing because it keeps changing (the confusion is in remembering what rules apply here and now rather than last week), confusing because there are lots of subclauses (which makes it difficult to remember) and confusing because there is no strand of logic (which makes it difficult to hold in your head as a coherent pattern).
> 
> Another example is my question earlier about whether the six people are allowed to be from more than two households.  Checking the information, I see that this is not addressed, meaning that I have to rely on the default assumption that all six can come from different households.  But a few weeks ago, it was only two households.  In a few more weeks it might be back to two households again.  The system relies on my willingness to constantly check up on today’s rules.  That’s confusing.



...and confusing 'cos as you start reading (I just read the Bolton ones that killer b linked to above) you very quickly start thinking "that's bollocks" and the unfairness, arbitrariness and naked prioritization of money over lives quickly generates a red mist of rage that impairs your ability to continue to read with clarity.

...at least that's how it is for me!


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> you very quickly start thinking "that's bollocks" and the unfairness, arbitrariness and naked prioritization of money over lives quickly generates a red mist of rage that impairs your ability to continue to read with clarity.


I think this is what's happening, yeah.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> ...and confusing 'cos as you start reading (I just read the Bolton ones that killer b linked to above) you very quickly start thinking "that's bollocks" and the unfairness, arbitrariness and naked prioritization of money over lives quickly generates a red mist of rage that impairs your ability to continue to read with clarity.
> 
> ...at least that's how it is for me!


In other words, you don't like the rules because of your political views. Not because you're unable to follow or understand them.

Just like the conspiracy nutters in trafalgar square.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> In other words, you don't like the rules because of your political views. Not because you're unable to follow or understand them.
> 
> Just like the conspiracy nutters in trafalgar square.



yep. just like that. all politics is just the same.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 21, 2020)

there definitely is too much information to process, in the news and on here and other social media. Lots of graphs and long posts that I will never read cos it's pretty dull if you find it all a bit nerdy and detailed. can see why there might be confusion amongst some of us.


----------



## Mation (Sep 21, 2020)

Cid said:


> Look, for me - law degree first class with a cherry on top - it’s a fucking doddle. But it should not be designed for me.


But also for me - BSc (first class honours and highest marks in the uni in any discipline), MSc, PGCE, several awards for ooh aren't I fabness - it isn't clear or easy to follow. It should be designed for everyone. Not everyone is neurotypical, amongst the many reasons why clarity is essential.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

Clear as a bell


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> Clear as a bell
> View attachment 231210



Great. Parties it is then. I fucking hate mingling.


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> Clear as a bell
> View attachment 231210


Yep. Are you a single visitor to your yoga class or are you part of a yoga group? People can visit pubs individually and be more than six to a room, why not yoga classes?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> Clear as a bell
> View attachment 231210


I don't understand that.


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

Meanwhile my uni has yet to cancel the superspreader event I have to go to tomorrow. I'm going to wear an N95 mask throughout.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

Just seen a few things online with various yoga teachers debating how to interpret the rules. Some saying it’s more like church (allowed) than it is a social gathering (not) as long as nobody talks to each other. It’s not good.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

I had a quick look at how Triggles pandemic output went down on Twitter. 

I dont suppose anybody knows more about this, such as which MP?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> Clear as a bell
> View attachment 231210



What's unclear about that?

Seems simple enough, basically the same as it is in pubs & restaurants, maximum group size is 6, multiple groups of 6 are allowed, as long as each group is socially distanced from each other.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

No, the key is the term Mingle. Which I am looking for clarity on. Just like any normal busy person would do obvs.


----------



## prunus (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> Clear as a bell
> View attachment 231210


 
I think 3.16 is more relevant to yoga perhaps?  (excerpt):

Organised dance and exercise classes can take place in groups of more than six, where a risk assessment has been carried out, but you should limit your social interaction with other participants. The relevant indoor sport facilities guidance or outdoor guidancemust be followed for these activities. Organised Sport and Physical Activity events are allowed provided they follow guidance for the public on the phased return of outdoor sport and recreation in England.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> I had a quick look at how Triggles pandemic output went down on Twitter.
> 
> I dont suppose anybody knows more about this, such as which MP?



The tweeter is in Gloucestershire, which only has one female MP,  Siobhan Baillie


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> But also for me - BSc (first class honours and highest marks in the uni in any discipline), MSc, PGCE, several awards for ooh aren't I fabness - it isn't clear or easy to follow. It should be designed for everyone. Not everyone is neurotypical, amongst the many reasons why clarity is essential.


I'm not buying it, from someone who has posted abstracts of scientific academic papers on here, along with some interpretation and opinion on them, that you are "unable to follow" the Covid guidelines posted on the gov.uk website, as they apply to an individual, for day to day activities.

I'm not saying that things couldn't be clearer, or that they couldn't be presented better.

But there does seem to be a growing thing on here that we can't ever suggest that people have to take some kind of personal responsibility for, and put some effort into, understanding what the current rules are, and following them.

That because we've got an idiot prime minister and rubbish government, _everything_ is all their fault and individuals are virtually exempt from blame for anything.

Most of the things that I observe, where people are doing stuff that (a) isn't what current rules allow and (b) seem like they probably are likely to have a public health effect, en masse, they aren't things where there's some obscurity to the interpretation of the guidelines, or rely on a knowledge of guidelines that haven't been publicised and discussed widely in the media.


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> The tweeter is in Gloucestershire, which only has one female MP,  Siobhan Baillie


Who is also the only female Tory MP Triggle is following.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> No, the key is the term Mingle. Which I am looking for clarity on. Just like any normal busy person would do obvs.



The different groups must be socially distanced, therefore people from different groups shouldn't mingle, because that would break the socially distance rules.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

prunus said:


> I think 3.16 is more relevant to yoga perhaps?  (excerpt):
> 
> Organised dance and exercise classes can take place in groups of more than six, where a risk assessment has been carried out, but you should limit your social interaction with other participants. The relevant indoor sport facilities guidance or outdoor guidancemust be followed for these activities. Organised Sport and Physical Activity events are allowed provided they follow guidance for the public on the phased return of outdoor sport and recreation in England.


I think so too. The word Organised, in that extract, is an unexplained qualifier though.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The different groups must be socially distanced, therefore people from different groups shouldn't mingle, because that would break the socially distance rules.


You think the definition of mingle is to get within 2m of someone? 
church services are on, without attempts to seat people in groups of 6, but they’re not allowed any tea and biscuits or chatting after. So it’s not as simple as that.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> But there does seem to be a growing thing on here that we can't ever suggest that people have to take some kind of personal responsibility for, and put some effort into, understanding what the current rules are, and following them.
> 
> That because we've got an idiot prime minister and rubbish government, _everything_ is all their fault and individuals are virtually exempt from blame for anything.


The _refusal to understand_ exhibited here and elsewhere is a direct result of the collapse in trust in the government IMO - it_ is_ the government's fault.


----------



## Mation (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I'm not buying it, from someone who has posted abstracts of scientific academic papers on here, along with some interpretation and opinion on them, that you are "unable to follow" the Covid guidelines posted on the gov.uk website, as they apply to an individual, for day to day activities.
> 
> I'm not saying that things couldn't be clearer, or that they couldn't be presented better.
> 
> ...


You should do some CPD on specific learning difficulties.

I read a statement or instruction. I read something else that seems contradictory or at odds with the intention of the first thing. A cloud of uncertainty forms. I read the next thing. Cloud of uncertainty multiplies. And so on.

The result is that I don't know what the fuck has been said, or what I'm supposed to focus on, or have any ability to focus. Dopamine says no. And, extraordinarily frustratingly, being aware of the process/situation doesn't change it.

'Intelligence' and 'wilfulness' don't have anything to do with it. And this isn't about not being willing to take personal responsibility. There may well be some of that, in some cases, but I'd guess that if you dig a bit deeper, there's something else underlying it.

Also not saying this is the only thing going on, but it is one thing. There will be others.

I wasn't being facetious about the CPD.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> The _refusal to understand_ exhibited here and elsewhere is a direct result of the collapse in trust in the government IMO - it_ is_ the government's fault.


It's the government's fault if a loss of trust means people don't believe the rules make sense.

That's different from people claiming to not understand the rules.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

That passage bimble quoted makes literally 0 sense.


----------



## kalidarkone (Sep 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> missed the main bit. Guy now saying hospital admissions are women 20-40 reflecting their jobs and roles in society.
> 
> also if spread is within households rather than between households (not sure which)  is the main issue then what?  Do they support households by providing hotel space for some household members?


NHS does....well more specifically my trust does.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That passage bimble quoted makes literally 0 sense.


i think thats true, unless they provide good actionable definitions of 'gather' and 'mingle'. Neither of which have legal definitions. And anyway by that point everyone's attention is lost surely.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> You should do some CPD on specific learning difficulties.
> 
> I read a statement or instruction. I read something else that seems contradictory or at odds with the intention of the first thing. A cloud of uncertainty forms. I read the next thing. Cloud of uncertainty multiplies. And so on.
> 
> ...


Was the Bolton Council site easier to get to grips with, out of curiousity?


----------



## Mation (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Was the Bolton Council site easier to get to grips with, out of curiousity?


A bit, yes. Parceling the sections/situations off and having FAQ-type questions helps (me).


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

This morning I was hoping for a better, more targeted strategy based on what has been learned so far. Instead it was just an exercise in scaring us, paving the way for some blunt measures to be announced tomorrow.


----------



## Thora (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> i think thats true, unless they provide good actionable definitions of 'gather' and 'mingle'. Neither of which have legal definitions. And anyway by that point everyone's attention is lost surely.


I'm getting that I can go to a paid-for toddler music class with 10 adults and 15 children in a room, but I can't meet 3 friends and 5 children in the park for free.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 21, 2020)

Thora said:


> I'm getting that I can go to a paid-for toddler music class with 10 adults and 15 children in a room, but I can't meet 3 friends and 5 children in the park for free.



Visiting people in the park doesn’t get money moving.


----------



## pesh (Sep 21, 2020)

there could be a cafe or an ice-cream van or muggers.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Sep 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Visiting people in the park doesn’t get money moving.



Depends if it's at night...


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> There's a section on Bolton Council's website - prominently signposted when you visit it - that does exactly this.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


From here, in 'Bury', five miles from actual Bury, it's three miles to 'Bolton', two to Salford. The local park half a mile away is Manchester. That's four of these fucking things to read and they will be different _tomorrow_.

I mostly know the rules because I am a fucking Rona nerd. Most people around here aren't even sure they live in Greater Manchester, never mind which bit.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

Can I just say that I've got a crap 3rd class degree in electrical and electronic engineering and I've not got a clue what's going on either. 

That's more of a general statement though.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 21, 2020)

I can't be arsed looking at what new restrictions they've put in place or are about to. The thing is, having let people largely do what they want over the Summer, any new rules will probably have about 50% observance compared to observance rates in March/April. And with the return to work/school/university/public transport, the effect of any new measures will be merely to slow down the acceleration in cases. Fucked.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> From here, in 'Bury', five miles from actual Bury, it's three miles to 'Bolton', two to Salford. The local park half a mile away is Manchester. That's four of these fucking things to read and they will be different _tomorrow_.
> 
> I mostly know the rules because I am a fucking Rona nerd. Most people around here aren't even sure they live in Greater Manchester, never mind which bit.


are Bury, Salford and Manchester not under the same restrictions though?


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> are Bury, Salford and Manchester not under the same restrictions though?


Currently. But Stockport and Wigan aren't, which I only know by following this topic like a doomscrolling idiot, and FWIW Bury has the same case rate as Bolton did when went into fuller lockdown, so who knows what it'll be like by the end of the week.


----------



## andysays (Sep 21, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Seems pretty straightforward to me. Don’t go out, don’t visit anyone.


if those *were* the rules, they would indeed be easy to understand, if perhaps difficult to actually follow in practice, but they clearly aren't that at all.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Currently. But Stockport and Wigan aren't, which I only know by following this topic like a doomscrolling idiot, and FWIW Bury has the same case rate as Bolton did when went into fuller lockdown, so who knows what it'll be like by the end of the week.


What's the answer? Do you think a national lockdown with blanket rules is appropriate, when infection levels are much lower in some places?


----------



## Wilf (Sep 21, 2020)

andysays said:


> if those *were* the rules, they would indeed be easy to understand, if perhaps difficult to actually follow in practice, but they clearly aren't that at all.


The rules are like a battered to fuck Pinata, with random government ministers trying to stick a few toffees back up its arse.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

The press still mostly avoid touching the hospital infection control angles that I rant about with a bargepole.

However I can still appreciate news on this front even when it is framed very differently to how I would do it, and requires some reading between the lines.

The other day I was pointing out that NHS England managements can't do approach in terms of segregating covid and non-covid patients was a big problem in the first wave. And there were no signs of this changing, leading NERVTAG to ask them to reconsider. I dont know what happened next in that behind the scenes story, but now today there is this news:









						Some hospitals in England to be kept Covid-free in second wave
					

Exclusive: NHS England keen to ensure continuation of treatment of cancer and other condition




					www.theguardian.com
				




The story mostly goes for the elective surgery angle rather than getting into all the sensitive areas of this topic but never mind, it amounts to a very similar thing really.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> What's the answer? Do you think a national lockdown with blanket rules is appropriate, when infection levels are much lower in some places?


Probably yes. At the very least something a lot less fragmented (and arbitrarily so) than we have now, which is a predictable failure. And conditions that are simpler to define, simpler to detect the breach of. This is fucking nuts:


bimble said:


> Clear as a bell
> View attachment 231210


Does this even make any sense?

Form two groups, place them together. Break up the groups. Reassign people into _new groups _and put them back. Legal or not?


----------



## Wilf (Sep 21, 2020)

Wilf said:


> The rules are like a battered to fuck Pinata, with random government ministers trying to stick a few toffees back up its arse.


Actually, if I was to allow myself a bit of Frankie Boyle style body shaming, I'd go with 'battered to fuck Pinata' as a description of Johnson himself. But I won't.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

this is mad shit.









						Coronavirus: Grandparents exempt from local lockdown rules for childcare reasons
					

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announces a change to the rules for millions living under local measures in England.




					news.sky.com


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Probably yes. At the very least something a lot less fragmented (and arbitrarily so) than we have now, which is a predictable failure. And conditions that are simpler to define, simpler to detect the breach of.


I dunno why I'm arguing with you, I was saying earlier how I didn't think complex variable restrictions will really work anymore...


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> Clear as a bell
> View attachment 231210




"The rule above does not mean that there cannot be ..." . Now there's someone with a razor sharp mind.

Do they mean rule 3.18? or perhaps even rule 3.17? and say yay for the double negative


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> this is mad shit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Its a reflection of their priorities.

Hancock:



> For many, informal childcare arrangements are a lifeline without which they couldn't do their jobs.





> It does not allow for play dates or parties, but it does mean that a consistent childcare relationship that is vital for somebody to get to work is allowed



The flaws in this plan are obvious. But I suppose I will acknowledge that jobs includes healthcare jobs and they are probably shitting bricks about likely levels of NHS staff absences in various autumn/winter scenarios.


----------



## NoXion (Sep 21, 2020)

Fuck all this stupid loophole-hunting in the idiot government's restrictions. Just stay the fuck at home and keep away from as many people as possible. That's simple, easy to remember. Even easier to do.


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Fuck all this stupid loophole-hunting in the idiot government's restrictions. Just stay the fuck at home and keep away from as many people as possible. That's simple, easy to remember. Even easier to do.


What if you're a nurse with rent to pay and kids to feed and you rely on your parents for childcare to allow you to work?


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a reflection of their priorities.
> 
> Hancock:
> 
> ...


What was mad was private nurseries being kept open and grandparents banned from looking after kids.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 21, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Fuck all this stupid loophole-hunting in the idiot government's restrictions. Just stay the fuck at home and keep away from as many people as possible. That's simple, easy to remember. Even easier to do.


That’s the anti-loophole — doing something you’re _not_ being asked to do just because you aren’t being given clarity on the right thing to do.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> this is mad shit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



He's quite open:

"For many, informal childcare arrangements are a lifeline without which they couldn't do their jobs."


----------



## NoXion (Sep 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> What if you're a nurse with rent to pay and you rely on your parents for childcare to allow you to work?



Then you've got no choice about what you have to do and the loophole-hunting is a pointless exercise. I have to come into my work office on a part-time basis during the week. I would prefer to stay at home full-time but my bosses have not accommodated me in that. So I come in because I have no choice. What I DON'T do is hunt around for loophole bullshit like some kind of selfish idiot.

I'm fucking fed up with excuses.


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Then you've got no choice about what you have to do and the loophole-hunting is a pointless exercise.


So you're advocating breaking the lockdown rules if felt necessary?


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

General strike* now!

*obviously you wouldn't call it that these days. but the idea should stand.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

General Work To Rule?

That's obviously a GOOD THING*,

if anyone can work out what the rules are now 

I mean, if you can't socially distance on buses or trains with the full 2m then you clearly can't get on 


* © W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Fuck all this stupid loophole-hunting in the idiot government's restrictions. Just stay the fuck at home and keep away from as many people as possible. That's simple, easy to remember. Even easier to do.


That’s so easy to say. I’m an introvert with a garden so am fine with pretty much no social contact for another few months suits me well tbh but even in my little ‘support bubble’ two people are talking now about being genuinely scared about what it will mean for their mental health if we go back to the situation we had in spring whilst it’s dark by 4pm and they’re stuck alone in their flats all day. People need clarity not just to be told if it’s too complicated for you to understand all the rules then just stay at home apart from when you go to the supermarket.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 21, 2020)

We’re not talking about loopholes here.  We’re talking about there being so much confusion created from constantly shifting requirements that in the end people just kind of... stop.  Stop trying to keep up with it and end up picking their own rule.  _Exactly_ as you’ve done by saying “just stay at home and don’t go out at all except if you’ve been told to go to work”.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> What was mad was private nurseries being kept open and grandparents banned from looking after kids.



I’d rather my ma didn’t die looking after my sisters kids.


----------



## NoXion (Sep 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> So you're advocating breaking the lockdown rules if felt necessary?



I dunno, do the lockdown rules involve looking for excuses? Just stay the fuck from as many people as possible. If you need to go out and get supplies or go to work, then obviously you got no choice about that, regardless of the specific rules, written by our fuckingclown government, say.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> What was mad was private nurseries being kept open and grandparents banned from looking after kids.



During the war lockdown, nurseries only stayed open for keyworkers' kids, and furloughed vulnerable and/or elderly staff.


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I’d rather my ma didn’t die looking after my sisters kids.


I also hope she doesn't. But if you're not going to follow a policy of everyone staying home all the time then reasonable allowances have to be made for childcare or people will lose their jobs. There are many grandparents in their 40s. In many cases sending a small child to a private nursery may be a bigger transmission risk than a healthy grandparent looking after them. In other cases it may just not be possible.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

Cid said:


> Look, for me - law degree first class with a cherry on top - it’s a fucking doddle. But it should not be designed for me.


You got a first? Oh my.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> General strike* now!
> 
> *obviously you wouldn't call it that these days. but the idea should stand.




Some sort of mass refusal. No idea of the details but we really need to force their hand on this.


----------



## andysays (Sep 21, 2020)

NoXion said:


> Fuck all this stupid loophole-hunting in the idiot government's restrictions. Just stay the fuck at home and keep away from as many people as possible. That's simple, easy to remember. Even easier to do.


but that's absolutely not what the government want you to do. 

they explicitly want people to go back to their normal workplace and they also want them to get out and spend money.

and that attempt to square the circle of limiting transmission while simultaneously keeping economic activity as close to normal as possible is why the the rules are complex, contradictory and difficult to understand, and why infection and death rates are in the way up again.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> Just seen a few things online with various yoga teachers debating how to interpret the rules. Some saying it’s more like church (allowed) than it is a social gathering (not) as long as nobody talks to each other. It’s not good.


The yoga racket will always grind on.


----------



## NoXion (Sep 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> We’re not talking about loopholes here.  We’re talking about there being so much confusion created from constantly shifting requirements that in the end people just kind of... stop.  Stop trying to keep up with it and end up picking their own rule.  _Exactly_ as you’ve done by saying “just stay at home and don’t go out at all except if you’ve been told to go to work”.



Except the impression I get is that people aren't asking "How do I go about the necessary tasks of my life while minimising contact with others?", which wouldn't require poring over rules and restrictions, but would instead involve just applying common sense and staying at home unless circumstances force one to do otherwise.

It just seems like people are looking for ways to game the rules, rather than just looking at ways to minimise contact.



andysays said:


> but that's absolutely not what the government want you to do.
> 
> they explicitly want people to go back to their normal workplace and they also want them to get out and spend money.
> 
> and that attempt to square the circle of limiting transmission while simultaneously keeping economic activity as close to normal as possible is why the the rules are complex, contradictory and difficult to understand, and why infection and death rates are in the way up again.



If I were to give my honest appraisal of the government's performance in this whole shitshow, it would consist largely of expletives and angrish. Their desire to sacrifice human lives to the Blind Idiot God of the market makes them the worst kind of economic cultists, and people are fucking dying, and I am really dismayed that more of the public aren't baying for their blood over this whole affair!


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Ugh, RIP all the people who have died from this virus so far


----------



## oryx (Sep 21, 2020)

I can't believe some restrictions haven't been announced today, to take place from today, given that we all know the situation is escalating and has been for some time. Why the delay, even for 24 hours?

Although I can believe it, given this government's lamentable record.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

oryx said:


> I can't believe some restrictions haven't been announced today, to take place from today, given that we all know the situation is escalating and has been for some time. Why the delay, even for 24 hours?
> 
> Although I can believe it, given this government's lamentable record.


I think I see a pattern of them wanting to wait until focus groups show that the majority of the public is thinking come the fuck on and do it already.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> At least they are working to add a level 6 to the blurt scale. Via Operation Moonshout. Using the latest technology, page the orifice, cee-no-fax.


Originally op moonshot was described in downing st documents as op moneyshot


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 21, 2020)

oryx said:


> I can't believe some restrictions haven't been announced today, to take place from today, given that we all know the situation is escalating and has been for some time. Why the delay, even for 24 hours?
> 
> Although I can believe it, given this government's lamentable record.



Yeah its rotten.  They've done this a lot though.  Get the jungle drums beating before actually bringing in restrictions.


----------



## xenon (Sep 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> Some sort of mass refusal. No idea of the details but we really need to force their hand on this.



and demand what? because I think there will be disagreement.
Personally I’m going down the pub tonight, I’m not sitting in the hot flat while all this goes on knowing that they might all close again. The tables are spaced out there is room outside, infection rate he is relatively low, I’m not likely to see family now again for a few weeks .


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

I meant to post this somewhere, there are better threads but this will do:









						Thread by @jljcolorado on Thread Reader App
					

@jljcolorado: 1/ The Skagit Choir outbreak was dominated by aerosol transmission 52 out of 60 infected after 2.5 hr practice Our Skagit Choir Paper has been accepted after peer review, available at: 2/ Not isolated ...…




					threadreaderapp.com
				




Basically a relatively interesting peer reviewed study out studying infection cases in choirs. Suggests, unsurprisingly, that it’s largely about aerosols and not e.g. surfaces. This means following some maybe weirder rules like do more outside, have windows open, don’t go to places where people are shouting or whatever.


----------



## oryx (Sep 21, 2020)

4,368 daily cases today - surely we can avoid these sort of figures by locking down again now, rather than at half term or whenever the 'circuit breaker' is proposed?

Idiocy, even by this government's standards.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> I meant to post this somewhere, there are better threads but this will do:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah I notice Vallance actually mentioned ventilation at the appropriate point of todays presentation. An area that requires greater emphasis than we've seen in the past for sure.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 21, 2020)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

oryx said:


> I can't believe some restrictions haven't been announced today, to take place from today, given that we all know the situation is escalating and has been for some time. Why the delay, even for 24 hours?



The floppy haired one is busy talking to the leaders of the other 3 nations, in an attempt to try and agree a UK-wide approach, plus no doubt the cabinet and key backbenchers, in order to get them onboard.

And, it's clear that it would be best to let this morning's bad news sink in, to make it easier for people to accept whatever is coming next.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> The yoga racket will always grind on.



Ah no, that'll be raja yoga they're talking about


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

oryx said:


> 4,368 daily cases today - surely we can avoid these sort of figures by locking down again now, rather than at half term or whenever the 'circuit breaker' is proposed?
> 
> Idiocy, even by this government's standards.



The half term bit of the circuit breaker was actually an older plan and some corners of the press seized on it when the rumbling about new measures started. But even this government realise that the half term timing doesnt match the stage the virus resurgence already reached, so I really dont think that sort of timing is on the table now.

I mean they might still use half term to go further with measures for a bit, but that will be its own thing on top of whatever will be announced this week.


----------



## savoloysam (Sep 21, 2020)

By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.

If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?

We can't stay in lock down or lock down lite forever.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> The yoga racket will always grind on.


Without a doubt. Lazy fuckers like me just cheat on zoom classes, or don’t bother even pretending to show up, so I do miss it (only healthy thing I do).


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.
> 
> If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?
> 
> We can't stay in lock down or leave lock down lite forever.


You wouldn't say that if your lungs had been scarred to fuck by the virus.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

Gove is booked on the morning shows tomorrow. they are preparing us for new restrictions, if not a total lockdown


----------



## weepiper (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.
> 
> If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?
> 
> We can't stay in lock down or lock down lite forever.


No. HTH.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.
> 
> If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?
> 
> We can't stay in lock down or lock down lite forever.



You should get on the phone to NHS management and tell them not to worry, your calculations indicate that they wont be overwhelmed after all, pandemic over, sorted.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> The yoga racket will always grind on.


Loads of yoga online, my tendons much better from doing it. And free on yt


----------



## campanula (Sep 21, 2020)

It is a fucking mishmash of shit which I have zero intention of following. If I want to meet up with 8 members of my family  and friends outside, I bloody well will do. Or10. What I won't be doing (and haven't all year) is 'eating out to help out', going to pubs,  going on holiday,, using public transport, attending classes, meetings or using supermarkets. I trust my own interpretation of risk, both for myself and people I know. I won't be grassing people up either. Govt. priorities are not my priorities - I have no trust in anything put out by the Govt. or it's  utterly unfair and crapulous 'rules'. I have been sensible and careful throughout this pandemic but I cannot bring myself to blame those who have been more casual since it feels as though we are on our own, left to manage as best we can while the pandemic has been monetised by corrupt fuckers who have never had the slightest intentions of protecting the public. I am so angry, I actually feel like sticking my fingers up at any of these rules for protecting the economy... and have decided to follow my own agenda of keeping myself, and those around me, as safe as possible...which does not include keeping the fucking pub and restaurant trade going. As it happens, I have lived on UC for a long time - while it is not easy, I am alive and not consumed with acquisitive desires for ever more consumption (and inevitable global injustice). Nope, I see this pandemic as a chance for a whole resetting of power relations between labour and capital.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.
> 
> If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?
> 
> We can't stay in lock down or lock down lite forever.


There have been 30 deaths in London in the past 5 weeks. City of 8 million and there are people calling for a full lockdown again. Proper madness


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> There have been 30 deaths in London in the past 5 weeks. City of 8 million and there are people calling for a full lockdown again. Proper madness


Being as among 'the people' are mayors I suspect we'll see one


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> The half term bit of the circuit breaker was actually an older plan and some corners of the press seized on it when the rumbling about new measures started. But even this government realise that the half term timing doesnt match the stage the virus resurgence already reached, so I really dont think that sort of timing is on the table now.
> 
> I mean they might still use half term to go further with measures for a bit, but that will be its own thing on top of whatever will be announced this week.



just like in Spring when they desperately tried to get to the Easter holidays...and failed.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

On July 1st, the day the pubs reopened there were 90 deaths in England. Today there are 9 and people want to close them again. Science and reason has no place in this debate it seems.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> and demand what? because I think there will be disagreement.
> Personally I’m going down the pub tonight, I’m not sitting in the hot flat while all this goes on knowing that they might all close again. The tables are spaced out there is room outside, infection rate he is relatively low, I’m not likely to see family now again for a few weeks .



Fuck knows.

...but essentially put public health ahead of private profit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.
> 
> If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?
> 
> We can't stay in lock down or lock down lite forever.



Hospital admissions are doubling every week, we are just 2 weeks away from where we were before lockdown in March - SEE THIS POST.

Deaths are also doubling around every 7 days, average 21 a day ATM, if that doubling continues we are looking at 336 deaths a day in 4 weeks time, and 1344 deaths a day in 6 weeks time.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.
> 
> If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?
> 
> We can't stay in lock down or lock down lite forever.



Deaths usually take a while to kick in though after a wave has begun; I suspect that number will start to increase quite significantly in the weeks to come. And if you just allow the virus to keep spreading without preventative measures it'll just get worse and worse - inevitably you'll have hundreds, if not thousands, dying daily before long.

And bearing in mind those current numbers are with gathering restrictions in many places, no large events, and most people being somewhat conscious of health concerns by wearing masks etc.

Not to mention simply shielding old people is quite difficult. What about old people who stay with younger relatives? What about carers who need to work with older people? Do they have to self-isolate when they're off-duty, or can they still go to the pub etc? Probably too many variables for it to work.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> On July 1st, the day the pubs reopened there were 90 deaths in England. Today there are 9 and people want to close them again. Science and reason has no place in this debate it seems.



I dont think much of your ideas about science and reason.

Where were you when they fucked up last time by leaving the lockdown till much later than it should have been?

Are you aware that when they had to throw their original shit plan away around March 16th there had only been 81 deaths recorded for the UK in total? Because it wasnt about how many deaths there had been, it was about the trajectory and how many deaths were coming,

A week later when they finally announced a more comprehensive lockdown, the total was up to 508. A few weeks later, when daily deaths peaked, the total was 9608.

And these are only hospital death figures.

Lesson number 1, which most people grasped successfully, is that you cannot wait till the deaths reach a staggering level before acting.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> On July 1st, the day the pubs reopened there were 90 deaths in England. Today there are 9 and people want to close them again. Science and reason has no place in this debate it seems.



Deaths reported on Sundays & Mondays are always lower, then go up on Tuesday as the lag from the weekend catches up.

The rolling 7 day average is the one to watch, that's at 21, three times what it was on the 3rd Sept.!


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> On July 1st, the day the pubs reopened there were 90 deaths in England. Today there are 9 and people want to close them again. Science and reason has no place in this debate it seems.



In July when pubs reopened case numbers were gradually decreasing and we seemed to be on the right track. Now we're going the other way though and cases are exponentially increasing - it reasons that more deaths will in all likelihood follow. Whether we should be closing bars again is worth debating, but a straight-up deaths comparison needs context. If we're shutting pubs again it's not because there were nine deaths - it's because there'll be a lot more in weeks to come.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

I think loads of people not understanding what exponential means (me included) has not helped.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.



Society: _takes drastic action to avoid a catstrophe_
Idiots: 'but there never was any catastrophe so all that stuff we did was a waste of time'


----------



## Thora (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.
> 
> If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?
> 
> We can't stay in lock down or lock down lite forever.


I remember having these discussions a lot in late February/early March “only 10 people are dying a day, more die of flu”. Then by April there were 1000 deaths a day.

Just letting it run it’s course would surely only we work if we decide not to treat Covid cases - if you get a positive result you go home and either survive or not - else it’s too much for hospitals to cope with.  Even with an extra 200 people a day dying by November, the numbers would be hard for the NHS to manage along with flu deaths and running all the usual NHS services.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think loads of people not understanding what exponential means (me included) has not helped.



Yeah. Back when the likes of the BBC were busy trying to explain things like R, they did graphics like this:


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

I see letting it run its course is going great in the US, Brazil etc.

I am worried about what another lockdown will mean tho in terms of jobs etc, especially with this lot in charge.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think loads of people not understanding what exponential means (me included) has not helped.



Increases at a rate proportional to itself  

hth 

sorry


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

ThERE iS No pLAce FOr sCIenCE aNd REaSon In tHIs DEbaTE


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think loads of people not understanding what exponential means (me included) has not helped.



Yep, that's true, hence the briefing this morning, and this graph....



Trouble with that, they have taken the daily positive test numbers, rather than the more accurate ONS estimate of actual new infections per day, which is over 6,000, and would mean well over 100,000 a day by mid-Oct.

And, over 500,000 a day in early Nov., hence the need for more restrictions.


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 21, 2020)

So are we going for Herd immunity 2.0


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I see letting it run its course is going great in the US, Brazil etc.
> 
> I am worried about what another lockdown will mean tho in terms of jobs etc, especially with this lot in charge.



Furlough scheme will surely just need to be extended indefinitely. Difficult to see any other alternative if you're shutting down large parts of the economy, or encouraging people to avoid economic activity.

The government were determined to improve the economic numbers as soon as possible once things began to wear off initially, but it's pretty clear now that the economy bouncing back probably isn't compatible with curbing the spread of the virus, because our economic model depends fundamentally on people doing things which involve them mixing in social settings etc.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

I suspect tho that the government still wants to go for 'herd immunity' so they will end up imposing another lockdown when it's too late thereby creating both (another) healthcare and economy calamity


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think loads of people not understanding what exponential means (me included) has not helped.



As in elbows post if you've got 1 person infected then (say) they pass it on to one person and you get 1 new infection per day. If you've got 10 people infected you get 10 new infections per day. If you've got 1 million people infected you get 1 million new infections per day


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think loads of people not understanding what exponential means (me included) has not helped.


An exponent is the little number that is written to the right and slightly above a number to express 2 squared 2 cubed, 2 to the power of four etc. When something rises exponentially it means that it's the exponent increasing not the base number. So instead of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc. you get 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> Furlough scheme will surely just need to be extended indefinitely. Difficult to see any other alternative if you're shutting down large parts of the economy, or encouraging people to avoid economic activity.
> 
> The government were determined to improve the economic numbers as soon as possible once things began to wear off initially, but it's pretty clear now that the economy bouncing back probably isn't compatible with curbing the spread of the virus, because our economic model depends fundamentally on people doing things which involve them mixing in social settings etc.





SlideshowBob said:


> Furlough scheme will surely just need to be extended indefinitely. Difficult to see any other alternative if you're shutting down large parts of the economy, or encouraging people to avoid economic activity.
> 
> The government were determined to improve the economic numbers as soon as possible once things began to wear off initially, but it's pretty clear now that the economy bouncing back probably isn't compatible with curbing the spread of the virus, because our economic model depends fundamentally on people doing things which involve them mixing in social settings etc.



Unfortunately my job ultimately depends on people doing that


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> An exponent is the little number that is written to the right and slightly above a number to express 2 squared 2 cubed, 2 to the power of four etc. When something rises exponentially it means that it's the exponent increasing not the base number. So instead of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc. you get 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc.


 I do get it ! In the abstract totally understand.  But its hard to intuitively grasp what that looks like, how utterly different from incremental growth it is. 
just watched Whitty, didn’t realise he was trying to impress on people exactly this, that we’re in exponential growth again now even if the numbers look small today, and thats that’s what the problem is.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> I do get it ! In the abstract totally understand.  But its hard to intuitively grasp what that looks like, how utterly different from incremental growth it is.



Yes sorry I was thinking that you did understand when I did my piece too  worth saying in case it helps other people though (including me  )


----------



## Wilf (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> ThERE iS No pLAce FOr sCIenCE aNd REaSon In tHIs DEbaTE


Facts, the enemy of shouty caps reason!


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

If I had demanded on August 26th that those who spout utter nonsense go and tell their shit theories to everyone who had been admitted to hospital in the UK with Covid-19 in the last 7 days, this would have required them to talk offensive bollocks to 316 people.

If I made the same demand based on the number of UK Covid-19 hospitalisations in the 7 days to September 19th, they would have needed to speak to 1310 people.


----------



## andysays (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> On July 1st, the day the pubs reopened there were 90 deaths in England. Today there are 9 and people want to close them again. Science and reason has no place in this debate it seems.


so you'd like to wait a few weeks* until there are 90 deaths per day until anything changes?

*because if numbers continue to rise the way they're apparently doing atm, a few weeks is all it will take


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 21, 2020)

the R naught for Covid 19 can confuse many people

as its not even R 1 the median is  r 5.7

meaning 1 sick individual can possible infect 5.7 people


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont think much of your ideas about science and reason.
> 
> Where were you when they fucked up last time by leaving the lockdown till much later than it should have been?
> 
> ...


I don't believe that lockdown made much difference. The virus was there and in the population. Imperial College modelling for Sweden said with no lockdown they could have 100,000 deaths. With a very hard lockdown I think it was 25,000. What actually happened was no lockdown and there were 7,000 deaths. We are going through typical curve for a pandemic. What we are seeing now is a typical uptick as we come into winter months again. It is what happens with previous flu outbreaks like the hard one in year 2000 and it's what we are seeing now. 

If lockdowns were effective why didn't we see spikes after VE Day/when people flocked to beaches/anti-racist protests/when the pubs and restaurants re-opened?

The modeling has been completely wrong so far. And we can demonstrate it to be wrong by looking at Sweden. I don't believe it at all any more.

I was scared shitless at the start of this and I welcomed the lockdown. I followed/will follow new guidelines to the letter because I believe in society and I might be wrong. But if you look at reality and the actual data, it is my opinion there has been and is a massive overreaction to this virus.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> the R naught for Covid 19 can confuse many people
> 
> as its not even R 1 the median r 5.7


I'll admit, I'm confused.


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 21, 2020)

watch contagion

its explained quite well

or



> 0, pronounced “R naught,” is a mathematical term that indicates how contagious an infectious disease is. It’s also referred to as the reproduction number. As an infection is transmitted to new people, it reproduces itself.
> 
> R0 tells you the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person with that disease. It specifically applies to a population of people who were previously free of infection and haven’t been vaccinated.
> 
> For example, if a disease has an R0 of 18, a person who has the disease will transmit it to an average of 18 other people. That replication will continue if no one has been vaccinated against the disease or is already immune to it in their community.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

But Sweden - ah yes, the same Sweden where everyone has been told to work from home for the foreseeable future


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

It's confirmed there's an emergency COBRA meeting tomorrow, before new restrictions are announced.



> Boris Johnson will chair an emergency COBRA meeting on Tuesday ahead of a statement on the next steps in tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
> 
> It comes on a day when the prime minister will also chair cabinet - and it is expected he will announce new measures designed to curb the number of COVID-19 infections.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: PM to chair emergency COBRA meeting tomorrow ahead of statement on pandemic
					

Boris Johnson is expected to announce new measures designed to curb the number of COVID-19 infections.




					news.sky.com


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Sweden have got stricter restrictions than we had during the summer BTW. It's just that their restrictions have been designed to be maintained long term. High Schools and universities were online during the peak of the pandemic btw and many businesses close down over the summer anyway


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

The imperial college predicted 66,000 deaths by August btw and including excess deaths that's pretty much what we had.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I don't believe that lockdown made much difference. The virus was there and in the population. Imperial College modelling for Sweden said with no lockdown they could have 100,000 deaths. With a very hard lockdown I think it was 25,000. What actually happened was no lockdown and there were 7,000 deaths. We are going through typical curve for a pandemic. What we are seeing now is a typical uptick as we come into winter months again. It is what happens with previous flu outbreaks like the hard one in year 2000 and it's what we are seeing now.
> 
> If lockdowns were effective why didn't we see spikes after VE Day/when people flocked to beaches/anti-racist protests/when the pubs and restaurants re-opened?
> 
> ...



Sweden didn't do nothing, there were lots of measures in place.  There were a few small outbreaks after VE day but nothing much most likely because the celebrations (or whatever they were) took place mainly outside as did the protests.  Risk of transmission when outdoors is significantly lower.  The bars and restaurants were reopened with lots of measures in place.

Everyone is sick of the virus but just wanting it to go away isn't going to cut it.  I don't doubt your sincerity on the subject but I do doubt your knowledge.  As someone who got it wrong first time around I would advise you to do more reading on  it.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I don't believe that lockdown made much difference. The virus was there and in the population. Imperial College modelling for Sweden said with no lockdown they could have 100,000 deaths. With a very hard lockdown I think it was 25,000. What actually happened was no lockdown and there were 7,000 deaths. We are going through typical curve for a pandemic. What we are seeing now is a typical uptick as we come into winter months again. It is what happens with previous flu outbreaks like the hard one in year 2000 and it's what we are seeing now.
> 
> If lockdowns were effective why didn't we see spikes after VE Day/when people flocked to beaches/anti-racist protests/when the pubs and restaurants re-opened?
> 
> ...


I’m glad you posted this. Sometimes I feel this way too , that the world has overreacted, that the costs of lockdowns outweigh its benefits especially on a global scale.
But how can you think lockdowns don’t work , why did the graph go down again the way it did there’s no other explanation for that surely?


----------



## Supine (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I don't believe that lockdown made much difference. The virus was there and in the population. Imperial College modelling for Sweden said with no lockdown they could have 100,000 deaths. With a very hard lockdown I think it was 25,000. What actually happened was no lockdown and there were 7,000 deaths. We are going through typical curve for a pandemic. What we are seeing now is a typical uptick as we come into winter months again. It is what happens with previous flu outbreaks like the hard one in year 2000 and it's what we are seeing now.
> 
> If lockdowns were effective why didn't we see spikes after VE Day/when people flocked to beaches/anti-racist protests/when the pubs and restaurants re-opened?
> 
> ...



On the off chance that you are wrong (and you are very very wrong) it's probably a good idea that lockdowns happen when needed.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> ...Sweden...



You are seriously bringing-up Sweden?   



cupid_stunt said:


> International comparisons can be difficult, but I tend to agree that Sweden's success, or not, could be better judged by comparing them to their neighbours.
> 
> Deaths per million population -
> 
> ...


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

Supine said:


> On the off chance that you are wrong (and you are very very wrong) it's probably a good idea that lockdowns happen when needed.


Explain Sweden and the lack of spikes during the summer?

Happy to be wrong but I don’t understand why people cling to ideas that are not backed by fact


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> You are seriously bringing-up Sweden?


Why are you comparing them to their neighbours?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> as its not even R 1 the median is  r 5.7
> 
> meaning 1 sick individual can possible infect 5.7 people



The R0 I understood - it's this bit that confuses me


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Why are you comparing them to their neighbours?



I just...


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Similar population density etc.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

back up your ideas with facts. no, not_ those _facts.


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Explain Sweden and the lack of spikes during the summer?
> 
> Happy to be wrong but I don’t understand why people cling to ideas that are not backed by fact


So if you're saying it's seasonal why are you against a lockdown now? Surely now would be the best time. Or are you claiming that it will spread regardless of lockdown?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Why are you comparing them to their neighbours?



Because the comparison is more logical than comparing them with very different countries, such as the UK, France, Spain, etc.,, for loads of reasons, not least population density, levels of international & internal travel, etc., etc.


----------



## Supine (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Explain Sweden and the lack of spikes during the summer?
> 
> Happy to be wrong but I don’t understand why people cling to ideas that are not backed by fact



You are going against the general consensus here so it's on you to provide the facts to enlighten us.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

maomao said:


> So if you're saying it's seasonal why are you against a lockdown now? Surely now would be the best time. Or are you claiming that it will spread regardless of lockdown?


Because if you compare the graphs to other epidemics the uptick will be quite small and it would be an overreaction to lockdown again.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Because if you compare the graphs to other epidemics the uptick will be quite small and it would be an overreaction to lockdown again.


What is it we are disagreeing about do you think it’s not true that the numbers are doubling every week?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'll admit, I'm confused.



The median number of people infected per case is high because of the potential for one indidividual to infect hundreds or thousands. The mean (what gets called the r rate) is much lower because most infected people will pass the virus on to very few others, or to nobody.

With this kind of 'long tail' distribution the median by itself doesn't tell us much.


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Because if you compare the graphs to other epidemics the uptick will be quite small and it would be an overreaction to lockdown again.


Other epidemics like the 1918 one where the second wave resulted in the most deaths in an epidemic ever? Or some other ones you've picked cause they support your argument?


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The R0 I understood - it's this bit that confuses me



the R number being quoted is variable in how its being reported by country, region and city . 

but initial studies of the original outbreak in China have it showing as a median of R 5.7

High Contagiousness and Rapid Spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Because if you compare the graphs to other epidemics the uptick will be quite small and it would be an overreaction to lockdown again.



The Spanish Flu had some devastating subsequent waves


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Not sure I remember which flu was killing 6000 people per day worldwide in July.


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Similar population density etc.



does not really work Argentina has a lot of higher number of cases with less population density

think the death rate might be related to genetic make up of the population


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> If lockdowns were effective why didn't we see spikes after VE Day/when people flocked to beaches/anti-racist protests/when the pubs and restaurants re-opened?



Because the spike takes time, multiple generations of transmission are required to really ramp up the numbers before we end up at the catastrophic level of infection seen in the first wave. This is especially true when the lockdown measures up to that point reduced number of infections at any one moment to low levels. Meaning any resurgence that came from relaxations was starting from a fairly low base and would take considerably time to develop.

Just the same as how the virus got going in the first place really, it was starting from a low number and took weeks to develop. And after behaviours started to massively change and then a week later we locked down, we still had to deal with all the infection out there at that point and the fact transmission would not instantly vanish. But it took quite some time to reach that point, and so it will be true again this time, a repeat that should be at a different pace because R now shouldnt be as bad as R was before the first behavioural changes kicked in.

Sweden has many differences to the UK. Its a bit of a red herring, as the virus resurgence in the UK we are now experiencing demonstrates.

Sticking to what actually happened in the UK, the first wave curve is a reasonable fit for lockdown having a big impact. After all, the following is how I would describe events:

Cases were repeatedly introduced to the UK over a period of several months.
Community transmission got going and at some fairly late stage it became clear how rapidly the number of cases including serious cases were increasing.
Very little of the data shows the full picture, but its still consistent with the timetable of measures.
Behaviours started changing.
About a week later we had a more comprehensive lockdown.
Sure enough, number of deaths, hospitalisations etc peaked a few weeks later.
All measures for number of infections, serious cases and daily deaths then started to fall.
The rate of decrease slowed as various relaxations kicked in.
Levels trundled along the bottom for a bit, as fresh increases in a few areas were mostly offset by continuing decreases elsewhere.
The tipping point came and the numbers started to go back up again.

Its exactly the classic pattern we would expect from doing too little, then doing a lot, then gradually relaxing until we get past the tipping point, and then having to respond again in a timely manner to keep the numbers down.

People that have convinced themselves that lockdown has done nothing rarely present a hypothesis for why they think all the massive, life-altering change in behaviours did nothing. It is entirely insufficient to just cling to the idea that the virus would have peaked and then diminished at that time even without lockdown. Too bloody convenient. I have explored the theory and, like most theories, cannot discount it 100%, I cannot prove 100% that lockdown was responsible for everything, but lockdown being responsible is still by far the most likely possibility. And we've seen the pattern in so many countries, and even Sweden did things that changed behaviours and the viruses ability to spread.

Some people who bought into the 'it would have gone away then anyway' theory were sensible enough to change their tune once they saw the clear signs from Madrid, a region that was badly affected in the first wave, suffering from the virus once more, with notable leaps in hospital admissions. In summer, nowhere close to fitting the timing of the standard seasonal trends you refer to. And that reality snaps off some of the branches they were clinging to, the alternative explanations for why the virus diminished in numbers the first time.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Cases are now rising slightly in Sweden too.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> What is it we are disagreeing about do you think it’s not true that the numbers are doubling every week?


I’d like to see a breakdown of the cases bimble, especially how many of those are symptomatic, how many go on to be hospitalIsed, other health issues etc etc

I’m not really interested in being here. I’ve just given my opinion. I believe the lockdown will go on to kill far more people than coronavirus ever will


----------



## xenon (Sep 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> As in elbows post if you've got 1 person infected then (say) they pass it on to one person and you get 1 new infection per day. If you've got 10 people infected you get 10 new infections per day. If you've got 1 million people infected you get 1 million new infections per day


Chinese emporer, chess board, start with 1 grain of rice and double per square.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> how many go on to be hospitalIsed,


elbows gave you some hospitalisation figures - the numbers have doubled every 10 days over the last month. How many more times should we let them double?


----------



## xenon (Sep 21, 2020)

Where now is track and trace working at optimum, still SK? I know, it’s different. Any examples in Europe to follow?


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Not sure I remember which flu was killing 6000 people per day worldwide in July.



Even now about 4k people a day are still dying globally. And that's with restrictions already being enforced in plenty of countries.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.
> 
> If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?
> 
> We can't stay in lock down or lock down lite forever.



So the daily death rate is less than 6 months casualties worth of flu season?

Fucking get in there, let's all go for shisa and a rave.


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.
> 
> If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?
> 
> We can't stay in lock down or lock down lite forever.



were are you getting this idea?

Everyone alive has built up immunity to the flu by the benefit  of  being alive

no one has immunity to Covid-19 as its a new friggin virus


----------



## LDC (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I don't believe that lockdown made much difference. The virus was there and in the population. Imperial College modelling for Sweden said with no lockdown they could have 100,000 deaths. With a very hard lockdown I think it was 25,000. What actually happened was no lockdown and there were 7,000 deaths. We are going through typical curve for a pandemic. What we are seeing now is a typical uptick as we come into winter months again. It is what happens with previous flu outbreaks like the hard one in year 2000 and it's what we are seeing now.
> 
> If lockdowns were effective why didn't we see spikes after VE Day/when people flocked to beaches/anti-racist protests/when the pubs and restaurants re-opened?
> 
> ...



I could write a longer reply refuting what 'you believe' with facts, but I can't be arsed. Just fuck off with your made-up nonsense.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> .. I believe the lockdown will go on to kill far more people than coronavirus ever will


I think this is a valid if unpopular point. We will never know nobody will be able to add up deaths resulting from lockdowns worldwide. I have a friend works in emergency relief programs in India and it is going totally unreported, deaths from starvation amongst the families of people who lost their livelihoods overnight and had nothing no help no savings etc. That’s in the immediate term, the rolling effects of stopped production and exports in many places we won’t even see until late next year . Not really relevant to UK thread tho.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 21, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> So are we going for Herd immunity 2.0


There will be a smaller herd


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I could write a longer reply refuting what 'you believe' with facts, but I can't be arsed. Just fuck off with your made-up nonsense.


Why are you so angry? What did I make up?


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I’d like to see a breakdown of the cases bimble, especially how many of those are symptomatic, how many go on to be hospitalIsed, other health issues etc etc
> 
> I’m not really interested in being here. I’ve just given my opinion. I believe the lockdown will go on to kill far more people than coronavirus ever will



You do understand Covid has already killed a minimum of 41,000 people, and probably nearer 65,000, don't you?


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> By my calculations the current daily death rate is less than the average flu season rate averaged over a 12 month period. Also death rates per case seem lowering as well.
> 
> If a vaccination is not coming soon, and there are no guarantees of that, isn't it time we just got back to normal while shielding the most vulnerable?
> 
> We can't stay in lock down or lock down lite forever.





Mr Retro said:


> On July 1st, the day the pubs reopened there were 90 deaths in England. Today there are 9 and people want to close them again. Science and reason has no place in this debate it seems.


At a glance it is difficult to reconcile case numbers and deaths, but it's not exactly impossible. Without me trying to be too obnoxious about it, perhaps you could reflect on it a bit harder before being so self-assured about something that's killed, killing, and going to kill a load of people.

The key risk is exponential growth in cases which means going from, say, 1 in 500 people having it to 1 in very few. At this point it becomes exponentially more likely to reach, infect and kill the vulnerable. As well as this, we appear to have seen earlier in the year that continued exposure to Covid is much more likely to result in death, rather than a linear probability from infection onwards. So a critical mass of people in hospital is likely to kill proportionally many more people, including medical staff.

Additionally you will be aware that there are significant time lags between infection, symptoms and death.

This is why it's very important to take measures early whilst only manifesting as case numbers.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I don't believe that lockdown made much difference. The virus was there and in the population. Imperial College modelling for Sweden said with no lockdown they could have 100,000 deaths. With a very hard lockdown I think it was 25,000. What actually happened was no lockdown and there were 7,000 deaths. We are going through typical curve for a pandemic. What we are seeing now is a typical uptick as we come into winter months again. It is what happens with previous flu outbreaks like the hard one in year 2000 and it's what we are seeing now.
> 
> If lockdowns were effective why didn't we see spikes after VE Day/when people flocked to beaches/anti-racist protests/when the pubs and restaurants re-opened?
> 
> ...



Sweden has more single occupancy houses and less population. As a proportion of the population the death rate is only a fraction less than ours









						COVID-19 Data Explorer
					

Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems




					ourworldindata.org
				




Uk has 620 deaths per million. Sweden has 580


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> What we are seeing now is a typical uptick as we come into winter months again. It is what happens with previous flu outbreaks like the hard one in year 2000 and it's what we are seeing now.



Our seasonsal flu upticks dont normally feature 200 poeple a week admitted to hospital with it by mid September.

Some comparisons to the worst influenza epidemics of decades past can be made.

Looking at number of daily deaths from all causes per day for every day from 1970 onwards, there are a few occasions where nasty influenza epidemics create spikes that look a bit like this pademic spike, but not as tall. The one exception is at the very start of this dataset, since at the beggining of January 1970 we were dealing with a nasty wave of pandemic H3N2 influenza. I wish I had 1969 daily death data to complete the picture of that spike, but I dont.

So with a lockdown this virus still managed to look worse for death on some days than any other day in my life (I was born in 1975).

What we dont have for obvious reasons is a graph showing what the 2020 April death spike would have looked like without lockdown. I cant tell you when it would have peaked or at what level, and you dont know that either. So the presumption that lockdown didnt do much is hardly safe.

In this graph each decade from the 1970s onwards has its own row, and either side of that row I have placed the 2020 pandemic death graph so that it is slightly easier to compare the magnitude with all the moments throughout those decades.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

On Sweden - worth noting that it still had a lot more deaths than all of its Scandinavian neighbours, and it's per capita been one of the worst affected countries in the world despite being quite far from the initial epicentre in Europe and having plenty of time to react.

They basically relied on people voluntarily going into lockdown for the most part as the virus worsened and travel stopped to an extent, but then such actions damaged the economy pretty heavily anyway for the most part. It's not as if their lax approach is allowing them to function completely unharmed but with just a few more deaths.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

I totally agree bimble but I don't think India is a good example of why its best not to do very much. India has catastrophically mishandled the pandemic from start to finish imo, the lockdown was less about public health than a display of power (he had for some weeks been facing protests by political opponents before that) migrant workers were forced to walk home to their villages with a few hours notice. They've handled the reopening equally catastrophically imo, just acting like everything 8 fine and 'the recovery rate is the best in the world' and people who contracted covid have been stigmatised leading to people hiding their symptoms etc. There's also no help for people who have lost their jobs etc, people are literally starving . It's a fuck up all round


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 21, 2020)

This graph from the ft suggests that maybe the reason Sweden has less of a spike is or second wave is because it's already swept through a good chunk of the country.





__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com
				







And again there's the completely different land use patterns and population size. I can post those maps but see no point. 10 million Vs 70 million and the UK in much denser clusters.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> People that have convinced themselves that lockdown has done nothing rarely present a hypothesis for why they think all the massive, life-altering change in behaviours did nothing. It is entirely insufficient to just cling to the idea that the virus would have peaked and then diminished at that time even without lockdown. Too bloody convenient. I have explored the theory and, like most theories, cannot discount it 100%, I cannot prove 100% that lockdown was responsible for everything, but lockdown being responsible is still by far the most likely possibility. And we've seen the pattern in so many countries, and even Sweden did things that changed behaviours and the viruses ability to spread.
> 
> Some people who bought into the 'it would have gone away then anyway' theory were sensible enough to change their tune once they saw the clear signs from Madrid, a region that was badly affected in the first wave, suffering from the virus once more, with notable leaps in hospital admissions. In summer, nowhere close to fitting the timing of the standard seasonal trends you refer to. And that reality snaps off some of the branches they were clinging to, the alternative explanations for why the virus diminished in numbers the first time.



Similarly while it's not impossible that the virus has somehow become less deadly in the last six months, there seems to be little in the data that would suggest that it had, or that cannot be better explained by the same virus being distributed through the population in a different way. And while it's entirely possible for a different strain to arise via mutation, this wouldn't replace the original strain but rather spread alongside it from a single point of origin. So even if a less deadly version appeared in, say, June, original recipe covid would still have a massive head start and so would likely still represent the majority of cases worldwide. 

I don't think I've seen anything in the 'it could be less virulent now' school of thought that has anything more to it than wishful thinking. Yes it's technically possible, but in the absence of a lot of data supporting it we have to proceed on the assumption that we're dealing with the same strain as before and that the risks of allowing it to spread unchecked are the same.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 21, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> They basically relied on people voluntarily going into lockdown for the most part as the virus worsened and travel stopped to an extent, but then such actions damaged the economy pretty heavily anyway for the most part.



That's an important point.  We're often sold this idea of a trade-off between covid and 'the economy,' but it's nowhere near that straightforward.  The pubs, restaurants etc were always going to take a big hit, lockdown or no, simply because people wouldn't take the risk of going to them.  It probably does no more damage to lock down and support them through it than just to let the virus run its course.  Moreover, one lesson people have taken from the 1918 pandemic, and which in some places seems to have been borne out by experience of this one, is that the best way to minimise the damage is to lock down early and hard, because that way you can return to something like normal more quickly.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

In Sweden a lot of hospitality type places had to close anyway.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Similarly while it's not impossible that the virus has somehow become less deadly in the last six months, there seems to be little in the data that would suggest that it had, or that cannot be better explained by the same virus being distributed through the population in a different way. And while it's entirely possible for a different strain to arise via mutation, this wouldn't replace the original strain but rather spread alongside it from a single point of origin. So even if a less deadly version appeared in, say, June, original recipe covid would still have a massive head start and so would likely still represent the majority of cases worldwide.
> 
> I don't think I've seen anything in the 'it could be less virulent now' school of thought that has anything more to it than wishful thinking. Yes it's technically possible, but in the absence of a lot of data supporting it we have to proceed on the assumption that we're dealing with the same strain as before and that the risks of allowing it to spread unchecked are the same.



Yes I've discounted that stuff so far. Whenever people asked why deaths and hospitalisations had fallen, I said it could all be explained by the total number of cases at that point being low.

I didnt make notes of todays Vallance & Whitty presentation but I'm pretty sure they poured cold water on the 'virus is milder' stuff at one point.

We are now into the stage where if there were much truth to the milder hopes, this would be demonstrated via hospital data, if those numbers hadnt increased by now given the rise in detected infections we've seen for weeks. And those numbers did rise, so I have no cause to explore the milder theories at all at the moment. There may always come a time where data starts to point in that direction, and then I will change my tune, but I've not seen any signs of that yet.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> That's an important point.  We're often sold this idea of a trade-off between covid and 'the economy,' but it's nowhere near that straightforward.  The pubs, restaurants etc were always going to take a big hit, lockdown or no, simply because people wouldn't take the risk of going to them.  It probably does no more damage to lock down and support them through it than just to let the virus run its course.  Moreover, one lesson people have taken from the 1918 pandemic, and which in some places seems to have been borne out by experience of this one, is that the best way to minimise the damage is to lock down early and hard, because that way you can return to something like normal more quickly.



Indeed, once you've got any sort of situation that's going to significantly hit economic activity then a downturn is inevitable irrespective of whether you take deliberate actions which ensure it'll happen. Sweden may see their economy harmed slightly less than some of their nearby neighbours, but then real questions have to be asked whether it was worth their GDP falling by a little by less if they ended up with four times as many deaths as, say, Norway or Finland.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I totally agree bimble but I don't think India is a good example of why its best not to do very much. India has catastrophically mishandled the pandemic from start to finish imo, the lockdown was less about public health than a display of power (he had for some weeks been facing protests by political opponents before that) migrant workers were forced to walk home to their villages with a few hours notice. They've handled the reopening equally catastrophically imo, just acting like everything 8 fine and 'the recovery rate is the best in the world' and people who contracted covid have been stigmatised leading to people hiding their symptoms etc. There's also no help for people who have lost their jobs etc, people are literally starving . It's a fuck up all round


bimble


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> On July 1st, the day the pubs reopened there were 90 deaths in England. Today there are 9 and people want to close them again. Science and reason has no place in this debate it seems.



Hi. Pay me to like your posts. The first one I like you only have to pay 1 penny. And


Mr Retro said:


> I’d like to see a breakdown of the cases bimble, especially how many of those are symptomatic, how many go on to be hospitalIsed, other health issues etc etc
> 
> I’m not really interested in being here. I’ve just given my opinion. I believe the lockdown will go on to kill far more people than coronavirus ever will



What is it people will be dying of because of lockdown?


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Hi. Pay me to like your posts. The first one I like you only have to pay 1 penny. And
> 
> 
> What is it people will be dying of because of lockdown?


Apoplexy brought on by reading Mr retro's posts


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Regarding a slight variation of the 'lockdown didnt do much' attitude, there is the version where the lockdown failure was because of the dreadful timing, that it was so late that it didnt have time to do anything because it missed the period where it could really have suppressed the wave of death. 

Clearly the timing and form of lockdown done in the UK did not avoid tens of thousands of deaths, it was done late. Too late for those deaths, but was it really too late to make a difference to deaths at any subsequent point? Did it not save some people from that fate later on?

Plus if you believe that stuff then its hardly a reason not to bother next time. Its a reason to act sooner next time.


----------



## bimble (Sep 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> bimble


Yeah. I don’t think India is unique in its badness, it comes down to does the state who imposes lockdowns provide for people to survive them (short and longer term)  and in many cases i think that’s a no.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> This graph from the ft suggests that maybe the reason Sweden has less of a spike is or second wave is because it's already swept through a good chunk of the country.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The UK briefing today suggested I think 8% of the population carry antibodies, which I take to mean that herd immunity is bollocks, but also brings into question the idea that everyone has already had it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> I didnt make notes of todays Vallance & Whitty presentation but I'm pretty sure they poured cold water on the 'virus is milder' stuff at one point.



They did indeed.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Regarding a slight variation of the 'lockdown didnt do much' attitude, there is the version where the lockdown failure was because of the dreadful timing, that it was so late that it didnt have time to do anything because it missed the period where it could really have suppressed the wave of death.
> 
> Clearly the timing and form of lockdown done in the UK did not avoid tens of thousands of deaths, it was done late. Too late for those deaths, but was it really too late to make a difference to deaths at any subsequent point? Did it not save some people from that fate later on?
> 
> Plus if you believe that stuff then its hardly a reason not to bother next time. Its a reason to act sooner next time.



Especially going into winter rather than coming out of it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> Indeed, once you've got any sort of situation that's going to significantly hit economic activity then a downturn is inevitable irrespective of whether you take deliberate actions which ensure it'll happen. Sweden may see their economy harmed slightly less than some of their nearby neighbours, but then real questions have to be asked whether it was worth their GDP falling by a little by less* if they ended up with four times as many deaths as, say, Norway or Finland*.



Around ten times more deaths than Norway & Finland.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> The UK briefing today suggested I think 8% of the population carry antibodies, which I take to mean that herd immunity is bollocks, but also brings into question the idea that everyone has already had it.



Why do people keep saying that everyone has had it? Sunetra Gupta was saying that back in March lol.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Why do people keep saying that everyone has had it? Sunetra Gupta was saying that back in March lol.


It was the popular idea very early on wasn't it, that we would all get it, most of us wouldn't even notice and that would give us herd immunity.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> It was the popular idea very early on wasn't it, that we would all get it, most of us wouldn't even notice and that would give us herd immunity.


it's still a very popular idea tbf - I know a load of people who think it should have been left to let rip in march and we'd be fine by now.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> it's still a very popular idea tbf - I know a load of people who think it should have been left to let rip in march and we'd be fine by now.


Same.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What is it people will be dying of because of lockdown?


Really?

I haven’t followed the thread really but was surprised flicking through at the amount of support for the lockdowns and face masks etc. Thought Urban 75 would be much more questioning. It’s really just an echo chamber here isn’t it?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

I'm less than enthusiastic about the prospect of another lockdown tbh but what's the problem with face masks? Even Sweden is now recommending them in certain settings.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I haven’t followed the thread really but was surprised flicking through at the amount of support for the lockdowns and face masks etc. Thought Urban 75 would be much more questioning. It’s really just an echo chamber here isn’t it?



Why don't you stop playing the persecuted victim and start dealing with the points people have made?  Or can't you do that?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Really?
> 
> I haven’t followed the thread really but was surprised flicking through at the amount of support for the lockdowns and face masks etc. Thought Urban 75 would be much more questioning. It’s really just an echo chamber here isn’t it?


Oh here we fucking go.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Why don't you stop playing the persecuted victim and start dealing with the points people have made?  Or can't you do that?


I’m not playing a persecuted victim, don’t make things up. I’ve given my opinion and I hope it’s right.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> it's still a very popular idea tbf - I know a load of people who think it should have been left to let rip in march and we'd be fine by now.



That was never going to happen though, even if Johnson & Co had stuck to their shity plan A for even longer than they did.

Because all the way through in the various government expert documents, its clear that the point the likes of Whitty, Vallance and pretty much the entire government used to emphasise most early on was the utterly dominant number 1 angle behind the scenes too. It was all about NHS capacity and not having that and other vital bits of UK infrastructure etc buckle under the sheer size of the pandemic wave.

Their original plan was double-fucked because they also totally fucked up the timing as well as the measures, but even that original plan would have lumbered into heavy, draconian measures once the hospital data showed a certain stage had been reached. And that wouldnt have been long at all after what actually happened with scrapping plan A & its timing.

In this respect it doesnt even matter what the population thought of the idea of putting up with so many deaths, so a lot of these pandemic idiots with their dangerous ideas stood no chance of being listened to eventually, even if they had won the initial argument on the week of March 9th which they very much lost.

What sort of government is going to be able to sit there and watch Covid-19 hospital admissions rise from 603 in a day on 20th March to over 3000 a day on April 2nd without slamming on the brakes? Only one that governs a country that has invested a decent amount of its resources over all the recent decades into a wonderful hospital system which has loads and loads of spare capacity and wiggle room. And that certainly wouldnt include our country, no matter which government was in power when the pandemic hit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Really?
> 
> I haven’t followed the thread really but was surprised flicking through at the amount of support for the lockdowns and face masks etc. Thought Urban 75 would be much more questioning. It’s really just an echo chamber here isn’t it?



It's not an echo chamber, people are following the science & the facts.

You by your our admission haven't been following the thread, and decided to wander in, posting fact free nonsense, and largely ignoring the replies.

I am struggling to work out if you are trolling, or just thick as shit.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I’m not playing a persecuted victim, don’t make things up. I’ve given my opinion and I hope it’s right.



You are playing the victim when you start going on about echo chambers and the like.   As for your opinion, you're entitled to hold it and others are entitled to challenge it, and if you put it out there then that's what you must expect to happen.  That's not because this is an echo chamber or anything of the sort: it's because people think you're wrong.  They've given a series of reasons why they think you're wrong.  Now, can you answer them reasonably, or are you just going to carry on whining?


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 21, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Oh here we fucking go.





> Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage
> (Winston Churchill)


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

Let’s meet back here in a month or so and see where we are. If deaths are above what would normally by associated with the approaching winter season I’ll admit I was wrong. When I’m right I’ll still be nice to youse 👍

I hope with all my heart I’m right


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Really?
> 
> I haven’t followed the thread really but was surprised flicking through at the amount of support for the lockdowns and face masks etc. Thought Urban 75 would be much more questioning. It’s really just an echo chamber here isn’t it?



I know what I think. You seem to think that lockdown is more deadly than covid. I'm questioning you.  So explain your reasoning.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

There's also the example of the Czech Republic which didn't impose a full lockdown and shops remained open throughout (albeit with takeaways service only), groups of up to 10 people and social visits were allowed, they drove cases down to a low level and it is now spiking again


----------



## xenon (Sep 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> it's still a very popular idea tbf - I know a load of people who think it should have been left to let rip in march and we'd be fine by now.



Have they seen theUS? (Rhetorical.)


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Let’s meet back here in a month or so and see where we are. If deaths are above what would normally by associated with the approaching winter season I’ll admit I was wrong. When I’m right I’ll still be nice to youse 👍
> 
> I hope with all my heart I’m right



Your scenario and beliefs wont atually be tested though will they, because the government will impose new measures and so you will not get a look at the unmitigated pandemic 2nd wave death toll.


----------



## xenon (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Really?
> 
> I haven’t followed the thread really but was surprised flicking through at the amount of support for the lockdowns and face masks etc. Thought Urban 75 would be much more questioning. It’s really just an echo chamber here isn’t it?


Site something, not just reckons. Twitter don’t count.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Its the self-defeating prophecy shit loop all over again.

Eg as described by this article that I have posted before. 









						A strange paradox: the better we manage to contain the coronavirus pandemic, the less we will learn from it
					

The pitfalls of self-defeating prophecies.




					theconversation.com


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Let’s meet back here in a month or so and see where we are. If deaths are above what would normally by associated with the approaching winter season I’ll admit I was wrong. When I’m right I’ll still be nice to youse 👍
> 
> I hope with all my heart I’m right



You have come to some very solid conclusions and listed a load of reasons why.  It has been explained to you that most (if not all) of your evidence and reasoning is demonstrably false.  Its quite clear you have large gaps in your knowledge of what is going on.  When this has been explained to you you've flat out ignored it.  It would seem there is very little chance of you admitting you are / were wrong in the future.


----------



## LDC (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I’m not playing a persecuted victim, don’t make things up. I’ve given my opinion and I hope it’s right.



Well, funnily enough there's these things called facts. Plenty of them from reputable sources can be found on here and elsewhere. And they make what you keep saying look like the nonsense it is. And yes, I am angry at you and people like you spouting your ill informed bollocks and beliefs as if they somehow rival what's actually happening and can be proved, and also causing confusion, sowing doubt, and ultimately actually causing more people to die than might otherwise.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its the self-defeating prophecy shit loop all over again.
> 
> Eg as described by this article that I have posted before.
> 
> ...



Remember thinking this back at the start. If we'd gone into full lockdown early and managed it remarkably well then you'd likely have had lots of people saying we'd gone too far, and there'd have been no alternative evidence to prove how bad things could have gotten.


----------



## xenon (Sep 21, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> Remember thinking this back at the start. If we'd gone into full lockdown early and managed it remarkably well then you'd likely have had lots of people saying we'd gone too far, and there'd have been no alternative evidence to prove how bad things could have gotten.



Y2K.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I know what I think. You seem to think that lockdown is more deadly than covid. I'm questioning you.  So explain your reasoning.



There are expected to be a large number of indirect deaths in the pandemic, including a lot related to lockdown itself.

The problem with the logic of those who think thats a reason not to lockdown is that a large number of indirect deaths would also happen without a lockdown.

All the indirect deaths caused by an inability to access healthcare for other conditions are not avoided simply by avoiding lockdown. They will happen just the same when hospitals are overwhelmed by Covid, by staff absences, by people being too afraid to go to the medical settings where transmission risks are usually expected to be high during wave peaks.

Likewise long-term deaths due to economic problems. A lot of the economic devestation was going to happen in this pandemic with or without lockdown. For much the same reasons of customer fear, staffing issues, things grinding to a halt.

Even no lockdown at all still ends up with a kind of informal halting of normal human activities if the pandemic is bad enough. And this pandemic is bad enough, and there is no dodging it, no matter what tricks people try.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What is it people will be dying of because of lockdown?


By default, lockdown and its consequences probably will kill people, just as a decade of austerity has killed people. But it's mostly a free political choice as to how many.


----------



## LDC (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> There are expected to be a large number of indirect deaths in the pandemic, including a lot related to lockdown itself.
> 
> The problem with the logic of those who think thats a reason not to lockdown is that a large number of indirect deaths would also happen without a lockdown.
> 
> ...



Ace post, cheers. People totally forget that without a lockdown they'd be excess non-covid deaths as well. Quite possibly more.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Im running out of steam for today (good thing too) but I saw that people were interested in the indirect death numbers earlier.

There have been some estimates and I started my nerdy thread with a post about some estimates of those, though I have nothing global, its all focussed on this country:

           #1         

There is all sorts of interesting detail in there Including that under one of their estimated scenarios the initial and short-term impacts of lockdown are actually thought to lead to less non-covid deaths than normal. A picture which eventually goes in the other direction, but in the meantime is still worth thinking very carefully about.

For example, they talk about past evidence of how the short-term effects of recession is an initial decrease in the number of deaths. Its the long-term stuff where the deaths go up instead of down.

Also includes an estimate of nearly 3000 less people than normal dying from causes relating to air pollution during a 2 month lockdown! We really must take something from this picture when we get beyond this pandemic.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Cancelled operations, not being able to see a doctor/being scared to seek medical care because the hospitals are so full of covid etc


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Sweden has more single occupancy houses and less population. As a proportion of the population the death rate is only a fraction less than ours
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sweden was modelled taking its demographic into account. _Without_ lockdown and _with_ its demographic Sweden was predicted to have 100,000 deaths or even more. It had less than 7,000.

Comparing it to its neighbours Is irrelevant. The models were crazily wrong and by a massive factor.

My


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Sweden was modelled taking its demographic into account. _Without_ lockdown and _with_ its demographic Sweden was predicted to have 100,000 deaths or even more. It had less than 7,000.
> 
> Comparing it to its neighbours Is irrelevant. The models were crazily wrong and by a massive factor.
> 
> My


Was that model assuming the measures that Sweden did impose (which were rather closer to our "lockdown" than many people seem to think), or was it assuming no measures at all?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Thousands of (non-covid) appointments and operations in Sweden were cancelled. And the same issues with isolation and mental health issues among older and more vulnerable people also happened there


----------



## LDC (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Sweden was modelled taking its demographic into account. _Without_ lockdown and _with_ its demographic Sweden was predicted to have 100,000 deaths or even more. It had less than 7,000.
> 
> Comparing it to its neighbours Is irrelevant. The models were crazily wrong and by a massive factor.
> 
> My



So most figures have the UK at about 42,000 (ish) deaths of Covid so far. (Other data has us at quite a bit more btw).

1) What number of deaths do you think the UK would have had with no lockdown in the last months?
2) What do you think the number of deaths from covid might be if the UK does nothing for the next six months?

Genuinely interested to get straight answers and your fact based proof please.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Sweden was modelled taking its demographic into account. _Without_ lockdown and _with_ its demographic Sweden was predicted to have 100,000 deaths or even more. It had less than 7,000.
> 
> *Comparing it to its neighbours Is irrelevant.* The models were crazily wrong and by a massive factor.
> 
> My



It's clearly relevant to compare Sweden to its neighbours when it had a far higher number of deaths than them. That's an indication their policy didn't work from a health POV.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What is it people will be dying of because of lockdown?


If you don’t think the secondary effects of wrecking the economy won’t kill more people over the next several years than the virus will I can’t help you.

Apart from the cancer deaths because of all the people who missed scans, suicides die to loneliness, alcoholism. That doesn’t even take into account domestic violence, depression and other mental health issues.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> *If you don’t think the secondary effects of wrecking the economy won’t kill more people over the next several years than the virus will I can’t help you.*
> 
> Apart from the cancer deaths because of all the people who missed scans, suicides die to loneliness, alcoholism. That doesn’t even take into account domestic violence, depression and other mental health issues.



The government can choose to manage these things by pursuing economic models that can sustain themselves during a public health crisis, and by putting adequate mental health provisions in place to support people who are going to struggle. If they refuse to do that then it's their fault, not the fault of people arguing in favour of public safety.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Likewise long-term deaths due to economic problems. A lot of the economic devestation was going to happen in this pandemic with or without lockdown. For much the same reasons of customer fear, staffing issues, things grinding to a halt.



I may be misremembering this, but wasn't there an estimate bandied around early in the year that an uncontrolled pandemic could have put a fifth of the workforce off sick at any one time?  That'd have had some effect!


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

yeah, fuck the economy. it was already wrecked.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

The cancelled appointments are still going to be an issue with or without a lockdown tbh. In Israel (which has just gone back to lockdown) hospitals have been turning away patients because they are so full of covid


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Was that model assuming the measures that Sweden did impose (which were rather closer to our "lockdown" than many people seem to think), or was it assuming no measures at all?


I’ll find the link on my PC tomorrow and post it. I can’t remember the site I read it in right now. I need to look at my history.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I may be misremembering this, but wasn't there an estimate bandied around early in the year that an uncontrolled pandemic could have put a fifth of the workforce off sick at any one time?  That'd have had some effect!



Would seem about right - there's no evidence the virus stops spreading as it infects more people, the rates just keep on doubling unless you do something to address the issue for the most part. And it's not generally just a few days you're ill for, can floor people for a good while.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 21, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> It's clearly relevant to compare Sweden to its neighbours when it had a far higher number of deaths than them. That's an indication their policy didn't work from a health POV.


No it isn’t for the point I’m making. They were told if they didn’t lock down hard they would have 100,000+ deaths. They didn’t lockdown and they had about 7,000     What there neighbours did it totally irrelevant to that point.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Also if the death rate is 0.6 to 1%, then a medium sized business of 200 employees catching it with 1 or 2 people dying, 10 in hospital and another 30 or so laid up in bed for weeks on end, with maybe 15 or so ill for months, is not going to do wonders for productivity


----------



## Raheem (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> No it isn’t for the point I’m making. They were told if they didn’t lock down hard they would have 100,000+ deaths. They didn’t lockdown and they had about 7,000     What there neighbours did it totally irrelevant to that point.


Who were they told that by and why did they ignore it?


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> No it isn’t for the point I’m making. They were told if they didn’t lock down hard they would have 100,000+ deaths. They didn’t lockdown and they had about 7,000     What there neighbours did it totally irrelevant to that point.



Okay, but a lot of people still died. The fact there were overestimates is sort of besides the point.

And anyway, I'd imagine the overestimates would've been predicated on nothing shutting down at all in Sweden. But that wasn't what happened. Despite government policy plenty of people still went into voluntary lockdown, businesses were quieter than usual, and international travel etc all stopped. It's not as if Sweden escaped the affects of Covid by not fully locking down.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

It's not great when you've been ignoring my replies to your posts tbh. Like what's wrong with face masks?


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

yeah, we need to know what the issue is with facemasks Mr Retro


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

Face masks take away our freedom. Next the government will be saying that we can't drive drunk, or that we're not allowed to own pet leopards. Slippery slope.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

In Sweden they estimate only a maximum of 20 or 30 percent of people have had it.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Another demonstration regarding pressures that dont go away even if you dodge lockdown.

NHS England number of staff absent due to Covid-19, either because of illness or self-isolation.

Graphed using a very large set of data available at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

I dont know the exact details about the August dropoff, whether its a reporting methodology change or whether a load of hospitals arent included in the later data. Could be another variation of the 28 days change for all I know.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Sweden was modelled taking its demographic into account. _Without_ lockdown and _with_ its demographic Sweden was predicted to have 100,000 deaths or even more. It had less than 7,000.
> 
> Comparing it to its neighbours Is irrelevant. The models were crazily wrong and by a massive factor.
> 
> My



Death estimates were all over the place and still are.









						New US model predicts much higher Covid-19 death toll in UK. But British scientists are skeptical
					

British scientists have pushed back against an influential new coronavirus model that predicts the UK will be the worst-hit European country, with a death toll from Covid-19 possibly much higher than previously thought.




					edition.cnn.com
				




We were meant to have 30'000 deaths according to one model but missed the high estimate of 60'000 according to another.

With a new disease like this your always going to see bad figures for estimated deaths because there is no baseline.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> In Sweden they estimate only a maximum of 20 or 30 percent of people have had it.



Seems like government initially pursuing herd immunity underestimated how long it would take to spread among the general population.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 21, 2020)

Pandemic capitalism:


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Yeah Hancock recently blamed tests being free as one of the reasons for increased demand. Market forces, market farces.


----------



## xenon (Sep 21, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> The government can choose to manage these things by pursuing economic models that can sustain themselves during a public health crisis, and by putting adequate mental health provisions in place to support people who are going to struggle. If they refuse to do that then it's their fault, not the fault of people arguing in favour of public safety.



be fair there’s only so much that can be done to mitigate that. Just being shut up in doors, it’s going to lead a lot of mental strife. And you can’t mitigate against all of it.
Not that I am lining up with Mr retro and his Swedish facts. I mean this should be fairly easy to prove. Deaths per million, population density accounted for. But they still don’t seem to be that favourable


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Sweden was modelled taking its demographic into account. _Without_ lockdown and _with_ its demographic Sweden was predicted to have 100,000 deaths or even more. It had less than 7,000.
> 
> Comparing it to its neighbours Is irrelevant. The models were crazily wrong and by a massive factor.



In this case comparting Sweden to its neighbours is relevant, compared to the irrelevant of comparing outcome to modeling forecasts, due to the fact the former is based on facts & real numbers, whereas the latter was nothing more than a guesstimate, that ended-up being wrong.


----------



## xenon (Sep 21, 2020)

i’m saying this just once more. My posts aren’t always incoherent misquoted jumbles of nonsense because I have been to the pub, I am home now by the way. It’s because this web site is really fucking shit on the phone. Things don’t work like they used to.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

We've been in a mental health crisis for years. Lost several mates to suicide or drug overdoses the last few years  I kinda want people to remember this doesn't stop being an issue because we're 'back to normal'


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> be fair there’s only so much that can be done to mitigate that. Just being shut up in doors, it’s going to lead a lot of mental strife. And you can’t mitigate against all of it.
> Not that I am lining up with Mr retro and his Swedish facts. I mean this should be fairly easy to prove. Deaths per million, population density accounted for. But they still don’t seem to be that favourable



It would've helped if all of those services (along with drug and alcohol services, dv services and refuges and obvs the NHS itself) hadn't _already_ been driven into the floor, too.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Otherwise it's all a bit 'but what about all the mental health issues that I don't give a shit about either'


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

I'm still mucking around with all that NHS England data I linked to earlier.

For the period 19th March through to September 2nd, this particular data has 88,765 inpatients diagnosed with Covid-19. 62,705 of those were before May began.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm still mucking around with all that NHS England data I linked to earlier.
> 
> For the period 19th March through to September 2nd, this particular data has 88,765 inpatients diagnosed with Covid-19. 62,705 of those were before May began.



Presumably some of these have been discharged?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Pandemic capitalism:
> 
> View attachment 231265



So - they ARE going to spunk £100 billion up the wall (I hoped that was just some feverish, long-covid, Tory wet dream he was blurting out) - but it _won't_ be free and the idea is so that people can go to the theatre or to conferences? Published/pursued _today_, too?! Wtf?!  Erm, still a no thanks from me, then  - the greedy, entitled, deluded, evil cunts.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Presumably some of these have been discharged?



Yeah thats the number of people diagnosed each day over that entire period, added up by me. Lots of them died and lots of them recovered. I would use other data such as that on the official dashboard in order to see the latest picture, since this per hospital trust data I have been using is only released once a month.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> So - they ARE going to spunk £100 billion up the wall (I hoped that was just some feverish, long-covid, Tory wet dream he was blurting out) - but it _won't_ be free and the idea is so that people can go to the theatre or to conferences? Published/pursued _today_, too?! Wtf?!  Erm, still a no thanks from me, then  - the greedy, entitled, deluded, evil cunts.



Maybe they will combine it with the post-franchise rail company picture, catch a train and get a free test as part of your ticket price.


----------



## Supine (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Maybe they will combine it with the post-franchise rail company picture, catch a train and get a free test as part of your ticket price.



Nah, if you want to get a train you must pay ten quid for a test. It's your own fault if you don't have a limo.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It would've helped if all of those services (along with drug and alcohol services, dv services and refuges and obvs the NHS itself) hadn't _already_ been driven into the floor, too.


All already broken. Plus it was a mixed picture anyway - For plenty of people lockdown was a respite.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Once again, Nick Triggle alert, since his analysis lurks in this article:









						Covid: UK coronavirus alert level moving to 4
					

The move, ahead of a statement from the PM, reflects that transmission is "high or rising exponentially".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The move to level 4 should not come as a surprise given the warning from the UK's two most senior pandemic advisers this morning.
> 
> Infections are rising - although some experts question whether the situation is as dire as Prof Chris Witty and Sir Patrick Vallance set out when they raised the prospect of 50,000 cases a day by mid-October.
> 
> Cases were always expected to increase at this time of year when respiratory viruses tend to circulate more coupled with the continued re-opening of society.





> Certainly the trajectory of countries like France and Spain is not as sharp as the worst-case scenario put forward.
> 
> But it is clear the government wants to act early this time - one of the big criticisms is that they were slow to introduce lockdown in March, which resulted in more deaths.



He's got some nerve when he makes that first point and that last point given his preferred stance and analysis of recent days that downplayed the chances of strong new measures.

Some experts, yeah we know about those experts, you quote them often enough and indulge in their spin.


----------



## HalloweenJack (Sep 21, 2020)

London calling...
As part of my preparation for Lockdown 2, can anyone point me in the direction of admissions figure for London Hospitals in the last 2 quarters?

I have read of the exponentials, but cant locate the raw data.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 21, 2020)

Bekräftade fall av covid-19 i Sverige — Folkhälsomyndigheten
					

Senaste uppdateringarna om utbrottet av coronavirussjukdom (covid-19). Sidan uppdateras dagligen med antal fall kl. 14:00 eller när statistiken är sammanställd.




					www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se
				




Here is Swedens official covid stats for anyone interested. I haven't looked through it properly tho. But maybe someone cleverer than me could.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

HalloweenJack said:


> London calling...
> As part of my preparation for Lockdown 2, can anyone point me in the direction of admissions figure for London Hospitals in the last 2 quarters?
> 
> I have read of the exponentials, but cant locate the raw data.



Individual hospital trusts or London as a whole?

You can get London admissions from this page, just click on the Data tab to see numbers rather than the graph, and then use the download button top right of each data pane if you want the data as a file.





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




Per hospital trust data I dont have access to apart from the monthly report, which is missing most of September. I think people doing certain jobs can get access to per hospital/per trust data that is updated regularly but I dont have any access to such NHS etc internal data systems.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Sep 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Another demonstration regarding pressures that dont go away even if you dodge lockdown.
> 
> NHS England number of staff absent due to Covid-19, either because of illness or self-isolation.
> 
> ...


Presumably the August drop-off is because it included people who were shielding and unable to work from home, but risk assessed as being able to return to work once shielding was over? Shielding (and entitlement to SSP for shielding) ended on 1st August.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 21, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> So - they ARE going to spunk £100 billion up the wall (I hoped that was just some feverish, long-covid, Tory wet dream he was blurting out) - but it _won't_ be free and the idea is so that people can go to the theatre or to conferences? Published/pursued _today_, too?! Wtf?!  Erm, still a no thanks from me, then  - the greedy, entitled, deluded, evil cunts.


If they are going to spend that money, then spend it on weekly testing in schools so they can have the same protection and continuity as Eton students.

Oh hang on, they don't want anyone not paying to have the same as Eton students.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Pandemic capitalism:
> 
> View attachment 231265


Wait. What? Rewind a minute.

I thought the point of Project Unicorn was that 10 million tests would be available every day so that the whole country could be tested in a week, those who are positive isolated and the whole shitshow is over in weeks. If it's just so rich folk can go to business conferences and the theater why will they need 10 million tests per day? It turns the whole thing into the world's biggest business start up grant. Or more like the world's biggest embezzlement opportunity for friends and family of Tory MPs.

Has Baroness Harding been on the sherry?


----------



## MrSki (Sep 21, 2020)

All bars & pubs in England to shut at 10pm from Thursday.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 21, 2020)

So whose house are we going back to?


----------



## magneze (Sep 21, 2020)

Johnson to address the nation 8pm tomorrow. Get your violins out.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 21, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So whose house are we going back to?



I'm pretty munted on the pre-pub drinks so never left mine.


----------



## magneze (Sep 21, 2020)

Stop going back to the office and work from home again apparently. Why were people told to go to the office. Fucking twats.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2020)

> Michael Kill, chief executive of the Night-Time Industries Association, said the announcement was "yet another devastating blow" and warned it would result in a "surge of unregulated events and house parties".



Possibly an unfortunate name to have as chief exec of the NTIA at this moment in history.


----------



## ska invita (Sep 21, 2020)

MrSki said:


> All bars & pubs in England to shut at 10pm from Thursday.


oh shit, things must be getting really serious


----------



## ska invita (Sep 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Pandemic capitalism:
> 
> View attachment 231265


it was being slated as going to cost £100 Billion, so you can imagine why, however this is getting into Covid Passport Territory


----------



## magneze (Sep 21, 2020)

Is there data showing that the virus is a night owl?  🤨


----------



## existentialist (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> There have been 30 deaths in London in the past 5 weeks. City of 8 million and there are people calling for a full lockdown again. Proper madness


So what do we do? Wait until the deaths (the sequelae of up to several weeks of infection, hospitalisation, etc.) reach a point you consider appropriate, *then* address the infection problem? GTF.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

ska invita said:


> oh shit, things must be getting really serious



Worse in Cornwall, the chippies close at 8 o'clock. 

I mean

why would you close a chippy at 8 o'clock when throwing out times are 10 o'clock (and normally later) 

Eta: this is something Voley, Ground Elder and others could perhaps explain cos I'm fucked if I know


----------



## existentialist (Sep 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Society: _takes drastic action to avoid a catstrophe_
> Idiots: 'but there never was any catastrophe so all that stuff we did was a waste of time'


It's the "security problem". Security, done right means...nothing happens. And some pillock will inevitably come along and go "why are we paying all these people to do, effectively, nothing?". So they cut back, and then the shit hits the fan.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2020)

Triggles tune has evolved very slightly over recent days, so I shall record this day as the day of the Triggle wiggle, although its not much of a wiggle really, its the least he could do given his predictions from a day or two ago are already defunct.

Part of his latest positioning via the BBC story about 10pm closing time:









						Covid: Pubs and restaurants in England to have 10pm closing times
					

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove also says that "if people can work from home they should".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> It seems inevitable that the virus will continue to spread - that's what respiratory viruses do during winter, especially one for which there is limited immunity and no vaccine.
> 
> But how quickly and widely is something no one knows. The risk of trying to suppress the virus is the government will soon find itself having to make another decision about further steps.
> 
> ...



Thank fuck Triggle isnt in charge of this balancing act, since that would probably resemble walking a tightrope with shoelaces tied together.


----------



## ska invita (Sep 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Hospital admissions are doubling every week, we are just 2 weeks away from where we were before lockdown in March - SEE THIS POST.
> 
> Deaths are also doubling around every 7 days, average 21 a day ATM, if that doubling continues we are looking at 336 deaths a day in 4 weeks time, and 1344 deaths a day in 6 weeks time.



de ja vu


----------



## existentialist (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I’m not playing a persecuted victim, don’t make things up. I’ve given my opinion and I hope it’s right.


An opinion which, by your own admission, is unsubstantiated by facts. Strongly held views != factual proof. HTH.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> If you don’t think the secondary effects of wrecking the economy won’t kill more people over the next several years than the virus will I can’t help you.
> 
> Apart from the cancer deaths because of all the people who missed scans, suicides die to loneliness, alcoholism. That doesn’t even take into account domestic violence, depression and other mental health issues.



How do you think allowing covid free rein will help? An overwhelmed nhs with many staff off ill or dead or grieving or isolating cant treat cancer patients. Do you not think covid itself causes mental health problems? You dont think abusers will abuse partners they should be nursing?

Pretending covid isn't a problem any longer doesnt make it go away.

As for Sweden do you think everyone just ignored covid and behaved as normal?

And what others have already said about the economy. Going back to the unsustainable 'normality' shouldn't even be an option.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 21, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I’ll find the link on my PC tomorrow and post it. I can’t remember the site I read it in right now. I need to look at my history.


Yes. Really,  you do. Look at your history.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Sep 21, 2020)

At least now landlords have to give you six months' notice before evicting you. Only till March, mind, but still a relief.









						Government has changed the law so most renters have a 6 month notice period
					

Landlords must provide at least 6 months’ notice period prior to seeking possession through the courts in most cases.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## two sheds (Sep 21, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> At least now landlords have to give you six months' notice before evicting you. Only till March, mind, but still a relief.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



? I got this email from Shelter today

(sorry about the formatting I just c&p'd ) 
Arthur,

After being in place for six months, yesterday the government ended their temporary ban on evictions.

If you are – or you know anyone who is – worried about being evicted from their home,* we've updated our housing advice pages *with the latest advice and guidance.​
​
 Read our advice 

From today, courts are open and they are beginning to deal with evictions. *But* *this doesn’t mean renters can be evicted immediately.*

Landlords have to serve an eviction notice before they can apply to court, and for many renters that's months away.

If a landlord has already applied to court there's currently a backlog of cases. This means courts are having to *prioritise cases with very high rent arrears or antisocial behaviour*.​
​
 Share our advice 

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, housing campaigners from all over the country, including Shelter supporters like you, have been demanding greater protections for renters.

So far, *over 8,000 supporters have emailed Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick*, and 72,000 have called on the government to make sure everyone has a safe home during the crisis.

We've helped build up pressure, and together we've made sure renters are better protected.

Thanks for your support,

*James*
Campaigns team​


----------



## two sheds (Sep 22, 2020)

hold on a second,

the health secretary

didn't realize that cv could spread asymptomatically 




> Matt Hancock has said he had wished he had known the coronavirus could spread asymptomatically sooner - despite the government’s advisers saying symptom-free transmission could “not be ruled out” in a document drafted in February.
> The health secretary said not having a developed understanding of how the virus spread was his biggest regret in the aftermath of the UK outbreak, which has led to the deaths of 41,788 people and 136,330 hospitalisations.











						Matt Hancock ‘regrets’ not knowing asymptomatic people spread coronavirus despite Sage warning
					

Scientific advisers said symptomless spread ‘cannot be ruled out’




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Really?
> 
> I haven’t followed the thread really but was surprised flicking through at the amount of support for the lockdowns and face masks etc. Thought Urban 75 would be much more questioning. It’s really just an echo chamber here isn’t it?


That you Mr Corbyn (Piers)?


----------



## Raheem (Sep 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Worse in Cornwall, the chippies close at 8 o'clock.
> 
> I mean
> 
> ...


The nearest chippy to me, before it got new owners, used to close for lunch.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 22, 2020)

what does a chippy eat for lunch  ?


----------



## fishfinger (Sep 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> what does a chippy eat for lunch  ?


My local one buys takeaway sandwiches from the cafe.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 22, 2020)

coals ... newcastle


----------



## xenon (Sep 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> what does a chippy eat for lunch  ?



I bet there’s something about if there are only two chip shops in the town, go to the one where the other one goes, or something.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 22, 2020)

xenon said:


> I bet there’s something about if there are only two chip shops in the town, go to the one where the other one goes, or something.



then there's clearly nowhere else


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

I see that the Scottish half-term holidays in some places there are close enough that they are still considering that plan.









						Scottish ministers considering strict new Covid rules, leak reveals
					

Local lockdowns in school holidays, travel restrictions and shutting hairdressers among possible measures




					www.theguardian.com
				




Despite the holidays in England being a poorer timing fit with this viral resurgence, I have concluded that they may still keep this part of the plan anyway. Because we arent looking at 6 months of the same measures, they are clearly going to change different things at different times. So its not like they just need to get one date & set of measures spot on. There is a need to restrict some stuff now but they may figure that if they do a few of those things now, they might get away without doing some other stronger things till the October half-term period. I'm still not sure they will get away with that timing, but like I said, there are a lot of different things they can try in the meantime although having to wait a number of weeks to see how well they are working doesnt help either.


----------



## Raheem (Sep 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> what does a chippy eat for lunch  ?


The very question that caused Confucius to renounce his life's work.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 22, 2020)

Raheem said:


> The very question that caused Confucius to renounce his life's work.



and indeed how he got to work in the morning


----------



## Wilf (Sep 22, 2020)

xenon said:


> I bet there’s something about if there are only two chip shops in the town, go to the one where the other one goes, or something.


This sounds like a Last of the Summer Wine plot, circa 1974.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

I suppose I will be tracking news reports relating to the risks from coinfection with Covid-19 and flu at the same time.









						Flu and Covid-19 at same time significantly increases risk of death
					

UK scientists warn co-infection is ‘serious trouble’ and urge those at risk to get flu vaccine




					www.theguardian.com
				




Its not really surprising that the likes of Van Tam are mentioning this issue given that they are trying to encourage people to get the flu jab.

There are several unknowns relating to how big an issue this will be, but I am really not looking forward to finding out. I hope the opportunities to really find out remain somewhat limited, or it turns out not to be as big a deal as feared. But I dont place much weight on hope alone in this pandemic.


----------



## Mation (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Really?
> 
> I haven’t followed the thread really but was surprised flicking through at the amount of support for the lockdowns and face masks etc. Thought Urban 75 would be much more questioning. It’s really just an echo chamber here isn’t it?


Are you some sort of sleeper troll?


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

Mation said:


> Are you some sort of sleeper troll?



Its more likely an example of someone whose approach to coping with and interpreting the aftermath of the first pandemic wave resulted in what I would consider to be a dead end that is detached from reality.

If I came to such conclusions myself and then ventured onto this forum, perhaps I too would be tempted to wonder why the majority here were singing a very different tune and had interpreted the pandemic so far rather differently. Perhaps I would invent some uninspired explanations for why most people here had settled on the rather different and incompatible version of pandemic reality.

Some people were no-nothing pandemic fools since before the start and never improved, others had a clue to start with but something in what happened later caused them to take a wrong turn. I would like to better understand exactly what that was in all cases. What exactly would they have needed to see in the first wave in order to stick to the idea that its a bad pandemic that was mitigated late via lockdown, and that until we have other options available we will have to keep reaching for crude tools to stop that magnitude and worse of horror from emerging again after the requisite infection buildup time? Twice as many deaths as we had under a late lockdown? Three times as many? Hospitals actually reaching and going beyond capacity everywhere? Not enough oxygen and ventilator shortages for them the first time around? Too much spare PPE, not enough dead Prime Ministers? 65000 excess deaths not worth thinking about compared to the everyday hardships of having to walk uphill to school both ways? Alternatively if the answer is just Sweden Sweden blah blah then I probably dont want to know after all


----------



## Mation (Sep 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> View attachment 231060
> 
> Clearly we are at level 4 nationally, and 5 in some areas, and about to go to 5 on a national basis,



Apparently, for every doubling of the number of cases, we will move closer to lockdown by half the distance from where we are at the time, given that lockdown now only begins at level 5. Either that or we'll suddenly find there's a level 6, at which lockdown really, truly begins, honestly


----------



## andysays (Sep 22, 2020)

Mation said:


> View attachment 231282
> Apparently, for every doubling of the number of cases, we will move closer to lockdown by half the distance from where we are at the time, given that lockdown now only begins at level 5. Either that or well suddenly find there's a level 6, at which lockdown really, truly begins, honestly


_insert photo of Johnson or Hancock pointing to volume control on an amplifier_

"this one goes up to eleven"


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

That’s it ? 10pm last orders. What is the idea,  that this will stop people getting drunk and “mingling”?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> hold on a second,
> 
> the health secretary
> 
> ...


Even with a very low bar for competence that is jaw-droppingly shit


----------



## Yossarian (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> That’s it ? 10pm last orders. What is the idea,  that this will stop people getting drunk and “mingling”?



The virus is going to look pretty stupid when it turns up hoping to infect everybody at 11pm but the pub's already shut - checkmate, COVID-19.


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

My observation since quitting booze is that after 10pm is when everyone gets really drunk and start drooling on each other and being really tedious. I guess post-10pm drunk is more likely to ignore social distancing etc than before 10pm drunk.

I usually leave at around 10 if I'm on a night out with drinkers...


----------



## Badgers (Sep 22, 2020)

Quite amused by the idea of people watching Liverpool vs Arsenal in the pub next Monday evening (20:15 KO) and getting booted out in around the 86th minute.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> The virus is going to look pretty stupid when it turns up hoping to infect everybody at 11pm but the pub's already shut - checkmate, COVID-19.


More of this sort of thing please. Just laughed before having any coffee.


----------



## maomao (Sep 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> hold on a second,
> 
> the health secretary
> 
> ...


I clearly remember that when the press conferences started Hancock couldn't even pronounce the word asymptomatic. That's what happens when you put PPE graduates in charge of everything.

But the failure to recognise asymptomatic transmission was more the government scientists' failure than his. It was them who insisted that masks weren't necessary for this reason. You can't really expect government ministers (even those you'd dearly love to see hang) to do their own research and overrule the scientists who were in charge.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> My observation since quitting booze is that after 10pm is when everyone gets really drunk and start drooling on each other and being really tedious. I guess post-10pm drunk is more likely to ignore social distancing etc than before 10pm drunk.
> 
> I usually leave at around 10 if I'm on a night out with drinkers...



Yep.

Personally I've been banging on for a while about better enforcement of the rules for pubs, a few didn't take them seriously from the start, and there seemed evidence that more were becoming relaxed over them, resulting in more cases being traced back to pubs.

The combination of 10pm closing and table service only, will make it easier for enforcement action, now that local authorises and the police are being given the power to issue fines starting at £1000, and up to a maximum of £4000 for repeat offenders. 



> New regulations issued by the government say fines of £1,000 can be issued if tables are not 2 metres apart, or 1 metre if other measures such as protective screens are in place.
> 
> They also allow fines to be issued and enforcement action to be taken by police if necessary to limit groups in hospitality venues to six people, to stop different groups mingling and ensure the data of people enjoying an evening out is recorded.
> 
> It continues: “Fixed-penalty notices may be issued by the authorised officer, in the sum of £1,000 on the first occasion (a reduced penalty of £500 being due if paid within 14 days of the notice date), £2,000 on a second occasion, rising to £4,000 for a third and any subsequent occasion.











						Police in England to enforce Covid pub rules with fines and arrests
					

Forces given powers to punish bars and restaurants if tables too close or larger groups mingling




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> My observation since quitting booze is that after 10pm is when everyone gets really drunk and start drooling on each other and being really tedious. I guess post-10pm drunk is more likely to ignore social distancing etc than before 10pm drunk.
> 
> I usually leave at around 10 if I'm on a night out with drinkers...


That's true. After ten you probably get a measurable increase in airborne spittle from various causes.
Also who is supposed to be patrolling pubs with a watchful eye for illegal Mingling, the staff ? Impossible and dangerous.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> That's true. After ten you probably get a measurable increase in airborne spittle from various causes.
> Also who is supposed to be patrolling pubs with a watchful eye for illegal Mingling, the staff ? Impossible and dangerous.



I don't see it any more impossible or dangerous than other rules & laws pub staff have to 'enforce', it's the responsibly of the publicans to ensure their premises are safe, and now they risk fines for breaking covid rules if they don't.


----------



## Yossarian (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> My observation since quitting booze is that after 10pm is when everyone gets really drunk and start drooling on each other and being really tedious. I guess post-10pm drunk is more likely to ignore social distancing etc than before 10pm drunk.



The early closing might deter some customers from ignoring social distancing requirements - but I think if this restriction had been introduced when I was around 22, me and my associates would have massively over-compensated by going to the pub early, ordering more rounds than usual before closing time, then deciding that we should all go back to somebody's house for some cans, might be a better idea to either close the pubs or keep them open, not tinker with the opening hours.


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> That's true. After ten you probably get a measurable increase in airborne spittle from various causes.
> Also who is supposed to be patrolling pubs with a watchful eye for illegal Mingling, the staff ? Impossible and dangerous.


Isn't it table service only too? That's going to reduce capacity of most pubs significantly, and make 'mingling' less of an option.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 22, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> At least now landlords have to give you six months' notice before evicting you. Only till March, mind, but still a relief.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



From what someone said yesterday that only counts for people given notice after 31 August. Anyone given notice before then can now be evicted.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I don't see it any more impossible or dangerous than other rules & laws pub staff have to 'enforce', it's the responsibly of the publicans to ensure their premises are safe, and now they risk fines for breaking covid rules if they don't.


I don't know. Nobody is going to punch you for placing tables 2m apart but trying to stop people flirting with strangers is not part of the job of bar staff.


----------



## chilango (Sep 22, 2020)

Would it be overly cynical of me to speculate that the 10pm curfew is almost designed to drive newly arrived students into socialising illegally in their accomodation and thus be presented as responsible for the coming rise in Covid cases?


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> The early closing might deter some customers from ignoring social distancing requirements - but I think if this restriction had been introduced when I was around 22, me and my associates would have massively over-compensated by going to the pub early, ordering more rounds than usual before closing time, then deciding that we should all go back to somebody's house for some cans, might be a better idea to either close the pubs or keep them open, not tinker with the opening hours.


It won't be perfect and it probably won't be enough, but the measures will reduce contact overall, even if they encourage more risky behaviour in a minority.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> I don't know. Nobody is going to punch you for placing tables 2m apart but trying to stop people flirting with strangers is not part of the job of bar staff.



When I posted about dealing with 'other rules & laws', I didn't mean specific covid rules, pub staff have to deal with a whole range of problems - under age drinkers, drug dealing, smoking, anti-social behaviour, fights, etc., etc.

Being in charge of licenced premises brings all sorts of responsibilities, which if not enforced can result in losing the licence.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 22, 2020)

Has there ever been any attempt by the government/scientists to actually explain why just closing everything and living in a bunker for six months is not an option? Like with graphs and predictions about the health effects and life expectancy of widespread redundancies, homelessness, and poverty? 

It seems like they can estimate the number of short-term deaths from Covid, but that's never been measured against the potential loss of life in the long-term if the economy collapses - we just get a vague "we must protect the economy" message that doesn't really mean very much to your average citizen who's just worrying about granny getting sick over the winter.


----------



## maomao (Sep 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> Would it be overly cynical of me to speculate that the 10pm curfew is almost designed to drive newly arrived students into socialising illegally in their accomodation and thus be presented as responsible for the coming rise in Covid cases?


It's literally the most they could do without reinstating some form of furlough.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 22, 2020)

They had to do something with Fresher's Week on the horizon. Or is this week freshers week?


----------



## miss direct (Sep 22, 2020)

.


----------



## chilango (Sep 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> They had to do something with Fresher's Week on the horizon. Or is this week freshers week?



it's this week here. But varies a little by University I think.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> That’s it ? 10pm last orders. What is the idea,  that this will stop people getting drunk and “mingling”?


Exactly this. Nurses I know were recently thrown out of the Falcon in Clapham as had booked several tables of six and when pissed mingled between tables.


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's literally the most they could do without reinstating some form of furlough.


yeah, the next step is closing stuff, and closing stuff means furlough.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

I am not a big pub going person at all but really hope as many of them as possible survive this and don't all turn into flats at a faster rate than they were already.
I read somewhere that its estimated only about 5% of infections are suspected to be coming from pubs and restaurants together, so (if thats true) even if this does work the impact would surely be tiny, no chance of it significantly offsetting the return to school universities etc.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> How do you think allowing covid free rein will help? An overwhelmed nhs with many staff off ill or dead or grieving or isolating cant treat cancer patients. Do you not think covid itself causes mental health problems? You dont think abusers will abuse partners they should be nursing?


This is a really important point, there's plenty of people who are scared of becoming sick again to the point its giving them mental health problems or traumatised from being in the covid ward, plenty of long haul covid sufferers who feel anxious about their health and ashamed of not getting better etc. Not to mention the people who have lost friends  and family members due to the virus.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 22, 2020)

Just checked and apparently it's this week in Sheffield too. Renamed as "intro week".


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> I am not a big pub going person at all but really hope as many of them as possible survive this and don't all turn into flats at a faster rate than they were already.
> I read somewhere that its estimated only about 5% of infections are suspected to be coming from pubs and restaurants together, so (if thats true) even if this does work the impact would surely be tiny, no chance of it significantly offsetting the return to school universities etc.


Isn't there a suggestion that the Bolton outbreak comes from one pub crawl? You can see the sense in trying to avoid more of those.


----------



## chilango (Sep 22, 2020)

Don't get me wrong, any slight benefit gained from shutting pubs early is a gain that costs us little so IS worth doing (my local has been shutting earlier all along anyway, as have many IME).


----------



## TopCat (Sep 22, 2020)

The latest measures are not enough. They wont work.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> I don't know. Nobody is going to punch you for placing tables 2m apart but trying to stop people flirting with strangers is not part of the job of bar staff.


It would be quite possible to install perspex flirting booths so that it could take place with a physical barrier in between. If the flirting went well the participants would exchange contact details and continue digitally. Weddings are still legal so they could then get married and move in together, forming a single household and then everything would be above board.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

Yeah just hope that the pubs aren't totally screwed. I think they make an easy scapegoat for the government too.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 22, 2020)

It's good, I suppose, that many pubs now do decent meals, coffees etc, so don't necessarily only rely on evening drinkers.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 22, 2020)

The problems really come to a head when we run out of facilities to treat the sick.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2020)

TopCat said:


> The problems really come to a head when we run out of facilities to treat the sick.


Then we eject the Tories and make space


----------



## TopCat (Sep 22, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Then we eject the Tories and make space


That's too brutal even for me.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It would be quite possible to install perspex flirting booths so that it could take place with a physical barrier in between. If the flirting went well the participants would exchange contact details and continue digitally. Weddings are still legal so they could then get married and move in together, forming a single household and then everything would be above board.


Pub carparks might become dogging hotspots


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2020)

TopCat said:


> That's too brutal even for me.


That shows a good spirit


----------



## existentialist (Sep 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> We've been in a mental health crisis for years. Lost several mates to suicide or drug overdoses the last few years  I kinda want people to remember this doesn't stop being an issue because we're 'back to normal'


It actually gets worse. I am seeing clients off a waiting list which, at least at the start of lockdown, predated any Covid-related anxiety, but every single one of them has been significantly affected, in one way or another, by what is happening. Often, quite profoundly.

The ongoing mental health fallout from this is absolutely *massive*. A lot of people will recover spontaneously, but a lot are going to be dealing with what are, in effect, trauma symptoms. 

I shall make a prediction. The Government will make lots of sensitive and caring noises, as they relabel some miserable pot of funds they were already spending to make it look like they're pouring additional funding into MH - they won't be. Then we'll start hearing stories about how DWP are upping the pressure on people to "get a job", etc., and discounting any MH symptoms in their infamous fit-for-work tests.

Suicide rates in the UK are already upticking pretty sharply, and have been for a couple of years, almost certainly thanks to this government's austerity/bash-the-benefits-claimants agenda, so the good news for the Government will be that the ongoing increase - oh, there _will _be an ongoing increase - will be lost in the numbers, but the combination of post-traumatic consequences and the inevitable post-Covid economic collapse is going to be positively shepherding people in the direction of desperate and permanent solutions to temporary problems.

And, alongside that, you will see other increases in MH/trauma-related events - significantly higher levels of alcohol and other substance misuse, further increases in domestic violence (and violence in general). All of which will, of course, be fingerpointed back to individuals, not ever seen as the direct result of government policy, inaction, and incompetence.

It's going to be a fucking mess.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2020)

TopCat said:


> The problems really come to a head when we run out of facilities to treat the sick.


Tbh I don't think we'll run out of spaces in which to treat cv - the nightingale hospitals can be revived and were barely troubled during the first wave. It's more, and this may have been what you were driving at, people who either don't have CV but something else or who have CV and something else. That's a trickier issue


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

existentialist said:


> It actually gets worse. I am seeing clients off a waiting list which, at least at the start of lockdown, predated any Covid-related anxiety, but every single one of them has been significantly affected, in one way or another, by what is happening. Often, quite profoundly.
> 
> The ongoing mental health fallout from this is absolutely *massive*. A lot of people will recover spontaneously, but a lot are going to be dealing with what are, in effect, trauma symptoms.
> 
> ...


Yeah suicide already looks a 'logical' way out for many people I think


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

TopCat said:


> The latest measures are not enough. They wont work.



We haven't yet got full details on new measures yet, they are due to be agreed at the cabinet & COBRA meetings this morning, and presented by Johnson to parliament this afternoon, then addressing the nation at 8 pm.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 22, 2020)

Please dont make me shield again world.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2020)

existentialist said:


> It actually gets worse. I am seeing clients off a waiting list which, at least at the start of lockdown, predated any Covid-related anxiety, but every single one of them has been significantly affected, in one way or another, by what is happening. Often, quite profoundly.
> 
> The ongoing mental health fallout from this is absolutely *massive*. A lot of people will recover spontaneously, but a lot are going to be dealing with what are, in effect, trauma symptoms.
> 
> ...


If you want a proper mess put a Tory in charge


----------



## TopCat (Sep 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> We haven't yet got full details on new measures yet, they are due to be agreed at the cabinet & COBRA meetings this morning, and presented by Johnson to parliament this afternoon, then addressing the nation at 8 pm.


Probably water them down today then. Shut pubs at midnight.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> We haven't yet got full details on new measures yet, they are due to be agreed at the cabinet & COBRA meetings this morning, and presented by Johnson to parliament this afternoon, then addressing the nation at 8 pm.


What kind of measures tho?


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What kind of measures tho?


Special measures


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2020)

At least Johnson won't be drinking between 7.30 and 8.15. not much anyway


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What kind of measures tho?




Well, some in government do.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> View attachment 231300
> 
> Well, some in government do.


Repressive measures. Stupid measures.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It would be quite possible to install perspex flirting booths so that it could take place with a physical barrier in between. If the flirting went well the participants would exchange contact details and continue digitally. Weddings are still legal so they could then get married and move in together, forming a single household and then everything would be above board.


Yes. In rare cases, or if unsure, one might be able to apply to the relevant government department for a decision as to whether or not your relationship counts as 'established'.


----------



## maomao (Sep 22, 2020)

existentialist said:


> It actually gets worse. I am seeing clients off a waiting list which, at least at the start of lockdown, predated any Covid-related anxiety, but every single one of them has been significantly affected, in one way or another, by what is happening. Often, quite profoundly.
> 
> The ongoing mental health fallout from this is absolutely *massive*. A lot of people will recover spontaneously, but a lot are going to be dealing with what are, in effect, trauma symptoms.
> 
> ...


Suicide rates usually drop in times of national crisis; disasters, war etc. I wonder what suicide rates are like in countries with halfway sensible governments.


----------



## chilango (Sep 22, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> If you want a proper mess put a Tory in charge



Eton mess


----------



## existentialist (Sep 22, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> If you want a proper mess put a Tory in charge


TBF, mental healthcare has been being betrayed for as long as I've had any involvement, so since the early 90s at least. The story today is pretty much *exactly* the story 30 years ago - clinical decisions ostensibly made on a clinical basis, but actually made on a cost basis. They've been robbing Peter to pay Paul for all that time, with occasional high-profile bursts of activity/recognition, but the baseline, so far as I can tell, hasn't shifted one iota.

In 1990 I was a carer for my first wife, and saw from that side just how shit things were - sure, they'd promise you everything with careplans, interventions, support, diagnoses, etc. None of it was delivered on - she bumped along in between suicide attempts and acute admissions, with the MH services basically firefighting, and relying on me as a kind of unpaid bank psychiatric nurse. Now, I'm "in the business", and seeing it from a different perspective, and *exactly the same stuff is going on*. I bust a gut to get people who are clearly way too unwell for a quick burst of counselling to help to get referred into secondary MH care, and it's like pulling teeth - there's always a reason why the referral isn't "suitable". And when it is, you suddenly discover there's an 18 month list for PTSD care (for example).

It's desperate. And has been so for a very, very long time. My guess is that it will get a lot worse now.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 22, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It would be quite possible to install perspex flirting booths so that it could take place with a physical barrier in between. If the flirting went well the participants would exchange contact details and continue digitally. Weddings are still legal so they could then get married and move in together, forming a single household and then everything would be above board.



All without coming within two meters of each other


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 22, 2020)

“Care in the community”

Sure, right, sometimes people need actual help that they can’t get from people in the street.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

My sister is married to an nhs psychiatrist (one of those people who gets called to emergencies and has the authority to section you). It surprised me a lot when he said that during the tightest period of lockdown he was not very busy at all compared to normal times and as restrictions eased things went back to normal (totally dysfunctional overload) rates.


----------



## maomao (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> My sister is married to an nhs psychiatrist (one of those people who gets called to emergencies and has the authority to section you). It surprised me a lot when he said that during the tightest period of lockdown he was not very busy at all compared to normal times and as restrictions eased things went back to normal (totally dysfunctional overload) rates.


Mental health problems tend to reduce during big national crises and back in April it was all very simple stay home and save lives. It's the weird ever changing dystopia we've slipped into since that's doing people's heads in.


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

yeah, from a personal perspective during the full lockdown it was like being on a mild sedative 24 hours a day - once things started easing a bit my anxiety levels rocketed. This seemed a common experience among people I've spoken to.


----------



## maomao (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> from a personal perspective during the full lockdown it was like being on a mild sedative 24 hours a day


Same here but that could have been the half pound of weed I got through.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

I'me getting a bit pissed of with the various hospitality trade bodies and senior execs lining up to say how terrible closing at 10pm will be (they were supposed to be doing the table service thing anyway).  It seems to me that the industry has dodged a bit of a bullet here for the time being.  I had anticipated closures and take-away only.  

Do these people really think it would be better if we just carry on as we have been?  They must surely know the inevitable consequence of that?


----------



## pesh (Sep 22, 2020)

i'm going to be thinking of 10pm at the spittle hour for years to come now


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

I am wondering what other measures we're going to see beyond pubs and restaurants?  I think that at the moment you can still have small gatherings in your home of up to 6 people from different homes (exempting local measures where they apply). I can't see that continuing.  We'll see.


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I'me getting a bit pissed of with the various hospitality trade bodies and senior execs lining up to say how terrible closing at 10pm will be (they were supposed to be doing the table service thing anyway).  It seems to me that the industry has dodged a bit of a bullet here for the time being.  I had anticipated closures and take-away only.
> 
> Do these people really think it would be better if we just carry on as we have been?  They must surely know the inevitable consequence of that?


Many bars were already on the edge of profitability before lockdown - there's a reason there's been so many pub closures in recent years, it's because the industry is pretty fucked. So actually, yeah - 10pm closing and table service only will push a lot of places over the edge. Closure / Takeaway only would have to come with a financial support package (ie, furlough) so for many, many places would actually be preferable.


----------



## PursuedByBears (Sep 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Just checked and apparently it's this week in Sheffield too. Renamed as "intro week".


Ours is w/c 5th October.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> yeah, from a personal perspective during the full lockdown it was like being on a mild sedative 24 hours a day - once things started easing a bit my anxiety levels rocketed. This seemed a common experience among people I've spoken to.



Dripping down to a 3 day week did wonders for someone I knows mental health despite them having to schlep into town for work throughout.


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

I'd bring in....

No household mixing indoors at all.
Socially distanced outdoor mixing of groups of 6, children under 12 don't count.
Close all non-essential shopping, pubs, restaurants, etc.
All universities to go online until spring 2021.
Back to working from home for all that can.
Massive cash input into mental health and education for a 6 month crisis period.
Furlough back on until spring 2021.
Widespread program of free online training in a range of topics and skills for all people wanting to re-train this winter.

It's not even being politically radical, it's all entirely possible in the current circumstances.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

I think the way


LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'd bring in....
> 
> No household mixing indoors at all.
> Socially distanced outdoor mixing of groups of 6, children under 12 don't count.
> ...



What about stuff like online deliveries of clothes etc?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> Many bars were already on the edge of profitability before lockdown - there's a reason there's been so many pub closures in recent years, it's because the industry is pretty fucked. So actually, yeah - 10pm closing and table service only will push a lot of places over the edge. Closure / Takeaway only would have to come with a financial support package (ie, furlough) so for many, many places would actually be preferable.



Yes I can see how the impact will be very different region by region.  Around here they've all been doing table service anyway and its pretty sleepy so they normally shut at 11pm anyway.  I know a lot of the industry has been hanging on by fingernails but I don't think the table service thing should have that bigger impact, they were supposed to be doing it anyway that and having the tables properly distanced.  The 10pm closing particularly for town centre locations I can see having an impact.


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think the way
> 
> 
> What about stuff like online deliveries of clothes etc?



What do you mean?


----------



## andysays (Sep 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> We haven't yet got full details on new measures yet, they are due to be agreed at the cabinet & COBRA meetings this morning, and presented by Johnson to parliament this afternoon, then addressing the nation at 8 pm.


Even though we don't know the full measures yet, it doesn't require much thought to predict that whatever is announced won't be sufficient, and it will be delivered in such a bumbling, confused and confusing way that it won't be well understood or properly implemented. 

I predict that in just a few hours TopCat will be proved 100% correct.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'd bring in....
> 
> No household mixing indoors at all.
> Socially distanced outdoor mixing of groups of 6, children under 12 don't count.
> ...



So essentially where we were back in April?  Just with some more targeted investment. 

Personally I would hope that it doesn't have to go that far but fear you may be right.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 22, 2020)

I think we need to be back in April. And probably in and out of April until we actually have working testing and tracking.


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> So essentially where we were back in April?  Just with some more targeted investment.



Given we're going into what might be a grim winter of 6 months or so I think mostly we should be back then, but not exactly. Clearer rules for a start. Children not included in rules. More money for those impacted by lockdown mental health and poorer long term prospects. Schools open as well. And with a longer term outlook for furlough and employment (re-training for example).


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

andysays said:


> Even though we don't know the full measures yet, it doesn't require much thought to predict that whatever is announced won't be sufficient, and it will be delivered in such a bumbling, confused and confusing way that it won't be well understood or properly implemented.
> 
> I predict that in just a few hours TopCat will be proved 100% correct.



It's always just too late.  Its why the rules are constantly changing.  It was only a few days back that it was all about the rule of 6.  I imagine that come this evening that will be largely redundant.


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

Yeah fuck all the chopping and changing, it's a nightmare for everyone. Bring it in now, review end of each month in open public way, but make it simple and brace people it's highly likely to be in place until end of March 2021.

And fuck all this "Oh the economy" bollocks, especially from lefties. It kills people every day, it's not some benign system of chocolate coins and quaint little shops ffs. Fuck the economy, it was killing us all and the planet anyway. Let's look after people instead.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What do you mean?



Well that's a big part of my job and unfortunately it's been linked with outbreaks like the one in Leicester. If people order non essential items like clothes, makeup, toys etc. should they still be able to get it delivered?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 22, 2020)

The government should certainly be more active in ensuring safe working conditions (and nobody below minimum wage) for people - wasn't that the major problem in Leicester?


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Well that's a big part of my job and unfortunately it's been linked with outbreaks like the one in Leicester. If people order non essential items like clothes, makeup, toys etc. should they still be able to get it delivered?



Yeah totally. I just think shops shut, but online shopping go for it.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The government should certainly be more active in ensuring safe working conditions (and nobody below minimum wage) for people - wasn't that the major problem in Leicester?



It was one of the problems in Leicester but I never got a sense of whether it was the only big one there.

Sorting that stuff out properly is not something our political classes have in mind, especially not quickly.

But 'work from home if you can' seems to be firmly back on the agenda now.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 22, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> The virus is going to look pretty stupid when it turns up hoping to infect everybody at 11pm but the pub's already shut - checkmate, COVID-19.


'Last orders!'
- can I not qet a quick one?
'No, the virus will be here for 10'
- yikes, I'd better be away then!


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Please dont make me shield again world.



The reintroduction of shielding seems likely, soon if not today, but I had heard that they plan to be more nuanced with who is deemed to need to shield this time around. I dont have much confidence that they will do it properly but I would try to keep an open mind about the detail until it happens, dont assume you will be on the shielding list this time etc.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

SARS-CoV-2 being 5 minutes late 'Right I'm here now, took me ages to get out of that meeting' 'Sorry mate, pub's already shut' 'fair play, got an early start before all those grouse shoots with 31 people'


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

I think I'm going to have to retire my 'Triggle warning' section at this rate, since he it too prolofic with his shit this week and my mental reserves are low as a result.

On this occasion I think I have to quote the whole thing to really do the weasel justice.



> First it was the scientists, now it’s the turn of ministers.
> On Monday the government's two most senior coronavirus advisers - Prof Chris Witty and Sir Patrick Vallance - set out the scale of the problem. Today ministers are coming forward with the solution.
> The scientists' warning was dire – the UK could see 50,000 cases by mid October – up from under 4,000 a day on average currently.
> The government's response? So far what we’ve heard on government policy for England is that pubs will have to close early and that you should work from home if you can (although more restrictions may be announced later).
> There seems to be a disconnect between the two. Why?





> Some experts have described the 50,000 figures as implausible. France and Spain – who are a few weeks ahead of us – are nowhere near that trajectory. What is more, the "rule of six" brought in last week has not had a chance to have an impact.
> Many believe what we are seeing now is a natural drift upwards – society has reopened and it is the time of year when respiratory viruses circulate more.





> So why all the doom and gloom? There are three ways of looking at it. Firstly, that we are truly on the brink of an explosion in cases (they after all are the experts and have access to all the data).
> Secondly, that they are panicking and have turned to scaremongering to soften the public up for more restrictions. The other is that they are trying to influence behaviour so more Draconian restrictions are not needed.
> Just how far the prime minister goes this afternoon will be telling.



I'm not sure which article that analysis is destined for, I've just seen it on their live updates page, th 10:29 entry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54245931

I'm not even going to bother picking apart each bit of what he said, but I will look at the France and Spain comparisons and 50,000 plausibility a bit later.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 22, 2020)

Is our Disgraced Prime Minister speaking at 8pm?


----------



## Sue (Sep 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> But 'work from home if you can' seems to be firmly back on the agenda now.


My company was apparently about to announce mandatory working back in the office from the start of October. From what I've heard, that's been canned for the moment. Makes no sense either, it's a tech company FFS and we've have all been WFH since before lockdown due to a case of Covid in the office. They've tried this a couple of times already and it hasn't gone down very well. I don't understand why they keep trying to force the issue, makes no sense.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Is our Disgraced Prime Minister speaking at 8pm?



According to what I read yesterday todays agenda for Johnson involves COBRA, speaking in parliament, speaking to the nation on telly. I dont know the exact times, and there are still choices to be made about which orifice he is to speak from.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 22, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Is our Disgraced Prime Minister speaking at 8pm?


He has to put the kids to bed first.

Insert joke here:


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 22, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Is our Disgraced Prime Minister speaking at 8pm?



if they can drag him from his hiding place behind the sofa


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> According to what I read yesterday todays for Johnson involves COBRA, speaking in parliament, speaking to the nation on telly. I dont know the exact times, and there are still choices to be made about which orifice he is to speak from.



He's addressing parliament around 12.30 pm, and the nation at 8 pm.


----------



## clicker (Sep 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> He's addressing parliament around 12.30 pm, and the nation at 8 pm.


Time for him to get a quick pint in afterwards before the witching hour.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

clicker said:


> Time for him to get a quick pint in afterwards before the witching hour.



10pm curfew won't apply to their subsidized bars.  Rules are for little people who can't be trusted.

Anyway, we'll no doubt have the usual few days notice.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

My brief (well, relatively) analysis of the Triggle 50,000 France & Spain trajectory thing.

The main complications are:

What the doubling time actually is.
The fact that testing systems in all these countries are not going to pick up every case, especially not when that system comes under severe strain.

Away from the shit world of Triggle, I'm pretty sure Vallance deliberately said that their graph was not an exact prediction, it was there to illustrate the lessons about exponential growth for all those quacking fucks who have their special reasons to ignore such lessons.

As fo the trajectories of France and Spain, it doesnt look like a one week doubling time, maybe 2 weeks would be a closer approximation, and even that claim probably needs to be vaguer still to stay fair. But still the exponential signs are there so the rise has been quite bad enough to justify these sorts of fears. And the number of daily infections they are detecting is at a level where I would expect their testing system cannot meet demand, leaving me in the dark about the more recent picture there.

I mean, does anybody here think that the UK system can manage to detect tens of thousands of cases a day if that is the reality it faces at some point in the coming weeks?

So we will have to rely increasingly on estimates for how many infections there actually are per day. It might help if I knew what the estimates for that are in France and Spain, as opposed to only the hard data their testing systems can directly produce. But I dont know if they have such estimates.

Plus even if we have gotten the estimated doubling time wrong and its slower than they think, this only improves the timing picture a little, it doesnt change the fundamental picture or allow the likes of Triggle to talk reasonably about 'a natural drift upwards'. So yeah, I'm done with that cunt for now at least.


----------



## chilango (Sep 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'd bring in....
> 
> No household mixing indoors at all.
> Socially distanced outdoor mixing of groups of 6, children under 12 don't count.
> ...



I'd:

swap furlough for UBI, 

add scrapping GCSEs and A levels to be replaced by portfolio based assessment

debt repayment freeze  (reviewed in 12 months)

more radical, but still just about plausible.


----------



## flypanam (Sep 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> I'd:
> 
> swap furlough for UBI,
> 
> ...


Mandatory rent reduction to 40% of present rate. No future clawback.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

Eviction ban to be extended indefinitely too.


----------



## chilango (Sep 22, 2020)

flypanam said:


> Mandatory rent reduction to 40% of present rate. No future clawback.



just freeze repayment (mortgage repayments too before the BTLers cry)


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

Something needs to be urgently put in place to plan for/mitigate climate-change related disruption too.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 22, 2020)

If you wear a mask and practice hand hygiene I can't see why shopping is a risk bar the smallest viral load.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 22, 2020)

IC3D said:


> If you wear a mask and practice hand hygiene I can't see why shopping is a risk bar the smallest viral load.


I think that's one thing that has come out of our past experiences - there is little need to worry so much about transmission outdoors, or transmission via things like shopping. On the other hand, social distancing indoors, and stuff like mask wearing does appear to have been effective.

And, to some extent, this is always going to end up being about taking the steps that make the big difference, and not sweating the small stuff too badly. The trouble is that the government, all too often, wants to focus on gestures and things that look like they make a difference, rather than the more substantive - and sometimes harder-to-do - stuff that gets the real big wins.


----------



## Crispy (Sep 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Something needs to be urgently put in place to plan for/mitigate climate-change related disruption too.


They're having trouble being proactive about something with a lag time of weeks between control measures and their effects.
If we stopped burning fossil fuels entirely right now, it would be _decades_ before we saw a definitive sign of a change in climate.


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

Yeah agree with all the above comments/additions to suggestions. I was being _really_ cautious and purposefully steering away from anything too radical, just to show effective measures that could be realistically be taken now without it being a big political battle.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

Why is it that people with beliefs about the virus which they got off YouTube are so compelled to evangelically spread those ideas ? I keep hearing it, at supermarket checkouts etc, like they’re intent on ‘waking up’ as many random strangers as possible.


----------



## NoXion (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why is it that people with beliefs about the virus which they got off YouTube are so compelled to evangelically spread those ideas ? I keep hearing it, at supermarket checkouts etc, like they’re intent on ‘waking up’ as many random strangers as possible.



Haven't had anyone like that yet, but when I do I'm going to find it really hard not to have a go at them.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

IC3D said:


> If you wear a mask and practice hand hygiene I can't see why shopping is a risk bar the smallest viral load.



Depends what the ventilation is like in the shopping environment.

We better hear a lot more about ventilation in the public health messages in the coming months, or we are making an obvious mistake.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> just freeze repayment (mortgage repayments too before the BTLers cry)


Left brain: mandatory rent reduction!
Right brain: oh no my BTL income!
Your failing middle brain trying to come up with a hapless centrist compromise: errr freeze repayment for all I guess?
My galaxy brain: tenant co-ops pay BAE Systems to drone strike the landlords at no cost to the state


----------



## teuchter (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> I’ll find the link on my PC tomorrow and post it. I can’t remember the site I read it in right now. I need to look at my history.


Have you found the link yet Mr Retro ?


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Have you found the link yet Mr Retro ?


he's busy at the supermarket telling the checkout staff some shit he saw on youtube


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

Heads up - the floppy hair twat has left Downing Street to give his statement to the commons in a few minutes.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 22, 2020)

Starts off with "we have struck a balance between saving lives..." - might have phrased that better, eh?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 22, 2020)

"It's time to tighten up the rule of six, so now only 15 people can attend a wedding, but 30 can still attend a funeral"

STOP CALLING IT THE RULE OF SIX IF YOU THEN INTRODUCE OTHER NUMBERS!


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 22, 2020)

flypanam said:


> Mandatory rent reduction to 0% of present rate. No future clawback. Landlords all shot in the fucking face.



FFY


----------



## Wilf (Sep 22, 2020)

The fucking idiot is rejoicing that universities are staying open. FFS.


----------



## Cid (Sep 22, 2020)

A hundred times the amount of testing at the start eh?

What’s 100xfuck all again?


----------



## Poot (Sep 22, 2020)

Can someone tell me if he says something important (sorry, i crack myself up sometimes) no access to it. Ta.


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

These are the important points:

First, office workers are being asked to work from home. 

Second, *Johnson* says, from Thursday pubs and restaurants will have to offer table service, except for takeaways. And they will close from 10pm.

Third, staff in retail and indoor hospitality will have to wear masks. And they will be needed in taxis.

Fourth, Covid-secure workplace rules will become a legal obligation.

Fifth, the rule of six will be amended so that only 15 people can attend weddings from Monday.

And, sixth, from 1 October the plan to ease the rules for sports evens will be suspended.


----------



## Sue (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> These are the important points:
> 
> First, office workers are being asked to work from home.
> 
> ...


Am I alone in feeling completely underwhelmed? 🤷‍♀️


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

I had no idea people were up to now not wearing masks in taxis that seems mad.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Sep 22, 2020)

Sue said:


> Am I alone in feeling completely underwhelmed? 🤷‍♀️


Nope, I'm feeling pretty much the same.


----------



## ffsear (Sep 22, 2020)

Pubs and bars to close at 10pm.. This lasts till March 2021


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 22, 2020)

He just claimed transmission in schools is much lower than in the rest of the population. Wtf?


----------



## Cid (Sep 22, 2020)

Of those I think giving properly enforcing Covid measures at work is important... although, I mean it’s entirely contingent on exactly how effective that enforcement is.


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> These are the important points:
> 
> First, office workers are being asked to work from home.
> 
> ...



That's a half arsed list born of a compromise with elements of his party if ever I've seen one.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 22, 2020)

Cid said:


> A hundred times the amount of testing at the start eh?
> 
> What’s 100xfuck all again?



Nothing, unless you're an incompetent outsourcing company in which case it's several billion.


----------



## AverageJoe (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> These are the important points:
> 
> First, office workers are being asked to work from home.
> 
> ...



Seventh all indoor team sports involving more than six are not permitted. Again for six months


----------



## Cid (Sep 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> He just claimed transmission in schools is much lower than in the rest of the population. Wtf?



It is afaik... although that comes with a lot of caveats. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30249-2/fulltext


----------



## Poot (Sep 22, 2020)

Thank you. So much nicer to read it here.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Seventh all indoor team sports involving more than six are not permitted. Again for six months


If it’s not a team just 7 individuals doing exercise in a room it’s fine?


----------



## Sue (Sep 22, 2020)

Poot said:


> Thank you. So much nicer to read it here.


Yeah, don't have to listen to all the bullshit.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 22, 2020)

Wilf said:


> The fucking idiot is rejoicing that universities are staying open. FFS.



What reasoning can there be for having all but essential (eg lab) classes by zoom for at least the first term.  They just hate unis and those left wing lecturers?

Covid 'secure' workplaces should have been law and enforced from the start.  they still won't be policed, I'm sure.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 22, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What reasoning can there be for having all but essential (eg lab) classes by zoom for at least the first term.  They just hate unis and those left wing lecturers?


I think there is actually concern from lecturers about what Zoom lectures might lead to in the future, in terms of just providing recorded lectures to students and... other things I can't remember


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Sep 22, 2020)

Shit for supermarket and shop staff. Masks on all day.  Any actual evidence to back up making them do that? 

The infection levels will continue to rise as each new evidence-light measure comes in, just like they have in Spain and France. With an ongoing narrative that it's because people aren't sticking to the rules. Then he'll claim some kind of credit when they start to fall again.


----------



## AverageJoe (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> If it’s not a team just 7 individuals doing exercise in a room it’s fine?



Don't know. Probably not.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Shit for supermarket and shop staff. Masks on all day.  Any actual evidence to back up making them do that?
> 
> The infection levels will continue to rise as each new evidence-light measure comes in, just like they have in Spain and France. With an ongoing narrative that it's because people aren't sticking to the rules. Then he'll claim some kind of credit when they start to fall again.



Masks work, they really do.

Its not going to be pleasant for the workers but when has anyone cared about them when bringing out policy?


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Shit for supermarket and shop staff. Masks on all day.  Any actual evidence to back up making them do that?



None that is likely to get through to you because you have a shit attitude towards masks and many other things in this pandemic.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 22, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I think there is actually concern from lecturers about what Zoom lectures might lead to in the future, in terms of just providing recorded lectures to students and... other things I can't remember



I expect so, though I would also expect letting covid have free rein would lead to more zoom in the long or even mid term, rather than less.


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

Few more weeks and we'll get a bunch more tightenings. I predict that half arsed list won't make much difference. Masks in taxis, honestly, ffs.


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Shit for supermarket and shop staff. Masks on all day.  Any actual evidence to back up making them do that?



Thousands dead, it's hard times. I wore one for 12 hour shifts in the hospital, it's not that bad ffs.


----------



## chilango (Sep 22, 2020)

How long till Lockdown 2 now then? Two more weeks?


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

Given the long list of things littlebabyjesus doesnt think significantly contribute to viral transmission in this pandemic, I wonder how he thinks we ended up with the resurgence of the virus at all.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> How long till Lockdown 2 now then? Two more weeks?



When do the universities cash their tuition cheques?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> I wonder how he thinks we ended up with the resurgence of the virus at all.



By not sticking to the rules. Regardless of what the rules actually are.


----------



## A380 (Sep 22, 2020)

Everyone on here is missing the most important point, get a grip!

Somebody tell me if grouse shooting is still ok?


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> How long till Lockdown 2 now then? Two more weeks?



I wouldnt like to guess, especially as they may be keen to paint certain restrictions as an expansion of local restrictions into new areas rather than a 2nd national lockdown.

I dont even know what exactly we are counting as lockdown this time around, and it was a loose term the frist time that the government didnt want to use themselves.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

A380 said:


> Everyone on here is missing the most important point, get a grip!
> 
> Somebody tell me if grouse shooting is still ok?



As long as the grouse is masked, did not travel by taxi, worked from home where possible and is covid-secure.


----------



## xenon (Sep 22, 2020)

Table service in pubs, masks worn in taxis.

I thought these were already the rules. Certainly how it's worked where I've been. Though Though I have heard an anecdote about some people wearing masks waiting for a cab, then taking them off inside. Absolute wankers. At least this may give some notional force behind telling passengers to wear them. 

Gyms are still open then. (I should start going back. )


----------



## HalloweenJack (Sep 22, 2020)

Lockdown 2
Won't happen.
Unsustainable and unworkable politically, economically , socially-pick your adverb, but even with the mentioned threat of using the army..no


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 22, 2020)

Cid said:


> It is afaik... although that comes with a lot of caveats. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30249-2/fulltext



The main one being we cannot treat 'schools' as some homogeneous entity. That report makes very clear that any 'safe' measure of transmission applies, from very small studies, to children apparently under 10 years old. And states that,

*If young children are less infectious than adults, then there must be an age when they start to become as infectious as older individuals. The French and Korean studies suggest that this might occur during adolescence, which could have major implications when schools, colleges, and universities return fully, as they must do soon.*

Another side issue from that article is,

*It is likely that children from low-income backgrounds will probably be more adversely affected than children from high-income backgrounds.*

Well, yes. But maybe this is true for education in general where pupils from low income backgrounds are expelled at the drop of a hat compared to children from privileged socio-economic backgrounds. Maybe it's about time we addressed that if we are constantly going to use economically deprived pupils as an excuse for keeping schools open.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 22, 2020)

HalloweenJack said:


> Lockdown 2
> Won't happen.
> Unsustainable and unworkable politically, economically , socially-pick your adverb, but even with the mentioned threat of using the army..no


i admire your optimism


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

HalloweenJack said:


> Lockdown 2
> Won't happen.
> Unsustainable and unworkable politically, economically , socially-pick your adverb, but even with the mentioned threat of using the army..no



One of the lessons the first time around was that in the event of a bad pandemic, 'it cant happen here, this idea is unthinkable let alone workable' is unsafe territory that can be washed away in an instant.


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

A380 said:


> Everyone on here is missing the most important point, get a grip!
> 
> Somebody tell me if grouse shooting is still ok?



If you wear full tweeds and use a side-by-side then OK, if you dress modern and use an over-and-under it's rightly illegal.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 22, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Was that model assuming the measures that Sweden did impose (which were rather closer to our "lockdown" than many people seem to think), or was it assuming no measures at all?


This isn't the link I remember but the graph in it is the same one. Upsala University modelled various scenario based on the Imperial Model:








						Imperial College Model Applied to Sweden Yields Preposterous Results
					

What this finding tells us about the ICL projections for the United States and United Kingdom will require additional data and code transparency from Ferguson and the rest of the original model’s architects. But the Swedish adaptation paints an underwhelming picture of its predictive ability.




					www.aier.org


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Few more weeks and we'll get a bunch more tightenings. I predict that half arsed list won't make much difference. Masks in taxis, honestly, ffs.



I take your point but it will have a significant effect on my workplace. All our pupils arrive in taxis. Up to now I've seen one taxi driver wearing a mask. At least this will make them do so.

I also wear a mask all day at school. That's about 7 hours. It's not a hard thing to do once you get used to it. Certainly not hard enough to justify QAnon or LBJ getting pissed off with it destroying our freedoms.


----------



## xenon (Sep 22, 2020)

HalloweenJack said:


> Lockdown 2
> Won't happen.
> Unsustainable and unworkable politically, economically , socially-pick your adverb, but even with the mentioned threat of using the army..no



The prospect of a 6 month lock down, similar to or more severe than the earlier one doesn't bare thinking about TBH. And what happens at the end of it? Test and trace finally turned into something effective, a vaccine, the virus mutates into something no worse than a heavy cold. Other day dreams are available.


----------



## flypanam (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> This isn't the link I remember but the graph in it is the same one. Upsala University modelled various scenario based on the Imperial Model:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


American Institute for Economic Research is pretty conservative. Their president is of Austrian School of economics school of thought. I'd be wary of anything they published.

eta from wiki  The institute describes its mission as educating Americans on "the value of personal freedom, free enterprise, property rights, limited government and sound money."


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

You haven't answered my question about face masks Mr Retro . Taiwan never did a lockdown besides closing schools for a few weeks in January and made masks a part of its strategy from the beginning. So what is the actual problem with them, given they are something countries have used to avoid a lockdown.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 22, 2020)

I would have preferred a 2-4 week hard lockdown over 6 months of halfway measures that will barely touch the sides. 

From a selfish point the events industry will be ruined. Not to mention sports, theatre, cinema and a host of others if 6 months is the outcome.


----------



## Sue (Sep 22, 2020)

xenon said:


> The prospect of a 6 month lock down, similar to or more severe than the earlier one doesn't bare thinking about TBH. And what happens at the end of it? Test and trace finally turned into something effective, a vaccine, the virus mutates into something no worse than a heavy cold. Other day dreams are available.


TBH, much as I don't want to think about it either, think that's pretty much where we are (or will be soon).


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

xenon said:


> The prospect of a 6 month lock down, similar to or more severe than the earlier one doesn't bare thinking about TBH. And what happens at the end of it? Test and trace finally turned into something effective, a vaccine, the virus mutates into something no worse than a heavy cold. Other day dreams are available.



I dont think a continuous lockdown lasting that long is considered a viable option by governments anywhere.

So when we face a period where the pronounced risk period is expected to last around 6 months, I dont take that to mean a 6 month lockdown. Especially as we saw the first time how long it takes to significantly reduce transmission under a harder lockdown, the numbers should dwindle far quicker than that, even though they will bounce back after a period of easing.

So far more likely we will see measures ramped up and down over the period, with the most draconian lockdown bits done in shorter bursts.

Not that I have a really clear sense in my mind of how they will time that stuff, how bad it will actually be allowed to get at different stages, etc. I suppose I expect one of more intensely grim periods but I cannot say too much more about that until I see what happens next.

As for the end game, not convinced things will ever be quite the same again. Especially if some of the behaviours, lessons and economic implosions from this pandemic end up merging with stuff relating to other big issues of the century such as climate change and fossil fuel depletion.

No time to properly get into that last point now, but here are some clues via something from the last BP Statistical Review of World Energy, which puts the behavioural changes and disruption in this pandemic into that broader context:



> The disruption to our everyday lives caused by the lockdowns has provided a glimpse of a cleaner, lower carbon world: air quality in many of the world’s most polluted cities has improved; skies have become clearer. The IEA (International Energy Agency) estimate that global CO2 emissions may fall by as much as 2.6 gigatonnes this year. That has come at considerable cost and as economies restart and our lives return to normal there is a risk that these gains will be lost.
> 
> *But to get to net zero by 2050, the world requires similar-sized reductions in carbon emissions every other year for the next 25 years.* This can be achieved only by a radical shift in all our behaviours.





			https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2020-full-report.pdf


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

What happened to 'save are christmas' , maybe they are planning to get infection rates low enough by midwinter to delight the nation by announcing a loosening of whatver rules are in place by then just in time for the big shop.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

Santa thwarted by covid-secure chimneys, yer names not down, yer not coming in, not tonight, not not tonight.


----------



## xenon (Sep 22, 2020)

Yes, I think that might be a strategy, albeit disruptive. But there are no great options from here.

A staggered series of shorter lockdowns. The virus will still spread but the aim again would be to not overwhelm health services. At the end of 6 months You have 1 or some of the following as far as I can see.

1. enough immunity in the population to stifle mortality rates amongst the most vulnrible. Risks of longcovid long term symptoms. Caviets about long lasting immunity accepted.

2. A vaccine to achieve the same as above. It won't protect 100% of the population.

3. Improved drug treatments, mitigating against the most damaging effects of Covid19 for the majority of those unfortunate enough to be hospitilised  by it. (Better than now, current progresss accepted.)

4. An actual effective technical test, track and trace solution, properly implemented, staffed by decently paid, trained and motivated people and backed up with widespread public support.

5. Most of the vulnrible have already succumbed to the virus or are in effective indefinite isolation. The general risk remains much as now, with varying local levels of infection.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

But in seriousness regarding Christmas its a bit soon for me to make predictions. In theory it would be possible to act in a way and with the timing that 'room' is made in the infection picture for various bits of Christmas to be preserved. But they dont have total control of the timing, and their priorities will no doubt be on show. They could prioritise retail, or education, or family life, or bits of the economy.  And the experts told them months ago that the needed to make 'room' for the schools reopening by getting infection rates right down before the schools reopened, and the timing and policy didnt end up working like that at all.

Also in normal times Christmas->New Year is often the time of maximum death, its probably one of the reasons humans felt the need to cheer themselves up at that time of year via rituals in the first place. That might not be the picture at all this year because of the various mitigation measures which should work against other respiratory viruses as well as Covid.

We dont know what the weather will be like either, and so with all these things combined the normal seasonal NHS strain picture which would need to be merged with the pandemic picture is all rather murky to me, especially in terms of timing and sheer scale.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont think a continuous lockdown lasting that long is considered a viable option by governments anywhere.
> 
> So when we face a period where the pronounced risk period is expected to last around 6 months, I dont take that to mean a 6 month lockdown. Especially as we saw the first time how long it takes to significantly reduce transmission under a harder lockdown, the numbers should dwindle far quicker than that, even though they will bounce back after a period of easing.
> 
> ...


I think the lockdowns are nothing compared to what's coming and what's already happening in some parts of the world due to climate change. I don't think things are going to get back to 'normal' any time soon tbh.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

Oh, everything will be fine, we'll be saved by the new NHS Covid app, which is being launched on Thursday.   

Oh, hang on a minute, fuck all has been said about that today.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> He just claimed transmission in schools is much lower than in the rest of the population. Wtf?



Uh oh.  I would take that to mean the situation is much worse than they thought it would be.  If that man told me it was night time I'd be so sure it was day I wouldn't need to check.


littlebabyjesus said:


> Shit for supermarket and shop staff. Masks on all day.  Any actual evidence to back up making them do that?



The vast majority of supermarket workers in my area seem to manage it fine.  I'd say well over 95% of visible shop floor workers wear them and the other 5% can easily be explained as being those who are unable to wear one.  I don't see any reason why that can't be replicated across the country.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 22, 2020)

Universities have been trapped in the pretence that there will be safe campus teaching, trapped by central government and their own perception of what students want. All that has meant we still continue with the pretence, but fully expect it will fall apart when campus cases rise. With Johnson rejoicing today that universities will stay open, it means they will have to endure even more cases and put more people at risk than was the case before his statement. 

As I've said before University staff have relatively protected so far, certainly as opposed to front line workers. But even so, for most university courses they simply don't need to take place on campus. It's just about the easiest sector to reduce risk, but Johnson has fucked that.


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> This isn't the link I remember but the graph in it is the same one. Upsala University modelled various scenario based on the Imperial Model:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You fucking clown. so Imperial never modelled sweden, but some red-toothed neoliberal think tank pretended you could just feed some figures into what code they'd released and call it equivalent?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 22, 2020)

xenon said:


> The virus will still spread but the aim again would be to not overwhelm health services.


I'm ready to clap as much as is necessary to keep hospitals open.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

I may impose temporary restrictions on myself bothering to respond to clowns. But this rule of pricks will not last 6 months. Its not like I need to respond to them because they are heavily outnumbered by all the people who have a good understanding of the pandemic here on this forum. Wish me luck with adhering to these restrictions, and thanks again for making this place a place that is safe for sensible pandemic thoughts to prosper.


----------



## xenon (Sep 22, 2020)

RE thinking about this in relation to climate change.

As appalling as all this is, it has at least forced leaders to face up to international disasters. Forced them to make and justify their decisions in the open. At least in the West. Discussions, options that weren't being considered in the mainstream all that much. Furlough, big govt intervention. They can and will fuck things up but the ability to hide from the public gaze, handwave stuff away isn't really an serious option any more. Even many hardcore republicans can see what's happening. The billionares might fuck off to their secure bunkers but the millionares will be down here with the rest of us.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> What happened to 'save are christmas' , maybe they are planning to get infection rates low enough by midwinter to delight the nation by announcing a loosening of whatver rules are in place by then just in time for the big shop.



That needs to be parked big time.  The whole save our summer holidays got things well on the way to being fucked up and Christmas is always a time for spreading far more disease than joy.  It could be a disaster this year.


----------



## xenon (Sep 22, 2020)

Fuck Xmas anyway. About time it got turned down a bit.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

As well as the immense implications of climate change itself, climate change is also asked to act as a proxy for all the energy issues that our market-based system cant actually have a sensible conversation about and response to without melting.

The behavioural and structural changes required to deal with both those things are immense and involve the end of an entire way of 'normal modern life' that was only achievable by exploiting thousands of years of ex-life, crushed into handy fuels over a very long period of time.

In my book this was always going to be the story of the century, and things like pandemics can act as further catalysts for change, and at the very least they cause demand destruction that alters the energy demand picture for the next decade. Many things should never be allowed to return to pre-pandemic levels of activity, but I will save most of that discussion till the nasty pandemic waves are out of the way.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

I havent been keeping up with Scotlands public health messaging compared to Englands, but I see they are going to put more emphasis on their FACTS thing (which they presumably use instead of hands face space).



> Media and social media campaign will stress importance of FACTS.





> Here's a quick reminder of FACTS:
> 
> Face coverings in enclosed spaces
> Avoid crowded places
> ...



From the BBC Scotland live reporting page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-54234910


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> You fucking clown. so Imperial never modelled sweden, but some red-toothed neoliberal think tank pretended you could just feed some figures into what code they'd released and call it equivalent?


Is Upsala university a red-tooted neoliberal think tank?


----------



## weepiper (Sep 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> I havent been keeping up with Scotlands public health messaging compared to Englands, but I see they are going to put more emphasis on their FACTS thing (which they presumably use instead of hands face space).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


We've also now got no indoors household visiting across the country and discouraging car sharing, as well as pubs closing at 10. Everything else that Boris announced we were already doing here.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

I haven't seen it but he reportedly said this:

Dangerous idiocy. Basically says refusing to comply (like those weedy foreigners do) isn't selfishness its just being a freedom loving red-blooded britisher.
Its things like this that make me think his desire to be liked by everybody makes him, in effect, a very stupid man.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

weepiper said:


> We've also now got no indoors household visiting across the country and discouraging car sharing, as well as pubs closing at 10. Everything else that Boris announced we were already doing here.



I saw that.  I was a bit surprised that wasn't announced for England as well.  I'm guessing that it would have looked a bit silly so soon after he announced this rule of 6 stuff.  I anticipate this will happen in England as well within a few weeks as it seems like a sensible thing to do though it is difficult and isolating.


----------



## hegley (Sep 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I saw that.  I was a bit surprised that wasn't announced for England as well.  I'm guessing that it would have looked a bit silly so soon after he announced this rule of 6 stuff.  I anticipate this will happen in England as well within a few weeks as it seems like a sensible thing to do though it is difficult and isolating.


Have all the England restrictions been announced? Or is he saving details for his Eejit at Eight address?


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

weepiper said:


> We've also now got no indoors household visiting across the country and discouraging car sharing, as well as pubs closing at 10. Everything else that Boris announced we were already doing here.


Nobody can go inside any other household's house at all? 
eta i see, yes.


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Is Upsala university a red-tooted neoliberal think tank?


What's happened here is that some academics at Upsala University were trying to bounce their government into bringing in more stringent lockdown measures, and published a paper using modelling 'based on' the code Imperial released, which some mad neoliberal cultist vermin in the states have used to claim that all Imperial's modelling is suspect, who's schtick you've swallowed whole.

How about masks. What's the problem with masks?


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Nobody can go inside any other household's house at all?


we've not been able to do that for a month up here! (except for a variety of exceptions)


----------



## IC3D (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> I haven't seen it but he reportedly said this:
> View attachment 231351
> Dangerous idiocy. Basically says refusing to comply (like those weedy foreigners do) isn't selfishness its just being a freedom loving red-blooded britisher.
> Its things like this that make me think his desire to be liked by everybody makes him, in effect, a very stupid man.


It's a very British Trumpian response. Makes sense. He's cunts cunt.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 22, 2020)

It's a ridiculous statement - we're not 'too freedom loving to obey rules', we're not able to observe rules that are totally fucking unclear from an incompetent government.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

hegley said:


> Have all the England restrictions been announced? Or is he saving details for his Eejit at Eight address?



It seems likely they have all been announced as it was in Parliament.  I expect this evening will just be repeating what has been said along with the usual bullshit / bluster.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> How about masks. What's the problem with masks?


There is no measurable difference to the downward curve as masks were introduced in any country as far as I can see in the data. Since we started wearing them cases have gone up haven’t they?


----------



## MrSki (Sep 22, 2020)

Zara Sultana asks a great question but unsurprisingly doesn't get a straight answer.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 22, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Zara Sultana asks a great question but unsurprisingly doesn't get a straight answer.




Glad I wasnt the only one who noticed that. I was beginning to wonder.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> There is no measurable difference to the downward curve as masks were introduced in any country as far as I can see in the data. Since we started wearing them cases have gone up haven’t they?



I suspect this uneducated potato is about to out himself as a complete loon, of the Piers Corbyn variety.


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> There is no measurable difference to the downward curve as masks were introduced in any country as far as I can see in the data. Since we started wearing them cases have gone up haven’t they?


what are they for then, do you think?


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I suspect this uneducated potato is about to out himself as a complete loon, of the Piers Corbyn variety.


Are you saying there _is_ a positive difference since masks were introduced? Would like to see the data


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 22, 2020)

Interested to note all the insults and aggressive responses since I questioned the hive mind a mere 24 hours ago. Why is this? What are you all so scared of?


----------



## pesh (Sep 22, 2020)

jog on you cunt.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Are you saying there _is_ a positive difference since masks were introduced? Would like to see the data



Are you seriously suggesting masks don't reduce the risk of infection, or even make it worst?

Try HERE.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> I haven't seen it but he reportedly said this:
> View attachment 231351
> Dangerous idiocy. Basically says refusing to comply (like those weedy foreigners do) isn't selfishness its just being a freedom loving red-blooded britisher.
> Its things like this that make me think his desire to be liked by everybody makes him, in effect, a very stupid man.


Here is the clip for anyone who hasn't seen it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Interested to note all the insults and aggressive responses since I questioned the hive mind a mere 24 hours ago. Why is this? What are you all so scared of?



He's edging towards telling us he knows 'the truth', and we are sheeple.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Interested to note all the insults and aggressive responses since I questioned the hive mind a mere 24 hours ago. Why is this? What are you all so scared of?



Fears include ignorant clowns spreading their ignorance, leading to an increase in death.


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Interested to note all the insults and aggressive responses since I questioned the hive mind a mere 24 hours ago. Why is this? What are you all so scared of?


why do you think they've brought in mandatory mask wearing?


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> why do you think they've brought in mandatory mask wearing?



Must be a preemptive strike to ensure the conditions required to obscure the state of the nations teeth post-brexit are obtained ahead of schedule.


----------



## chilango (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> There is no measurable difference to the downward curve as masks were introduced in any country as far as I can see in the data. Since we started wearing them cases have gone up haven’t they?



You know that famously the murder rate rises when more ice cream is sold?


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

Or a means to foil the Chinese communist plot to gain control over us via facial recognition camera networks & databases.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

I think people are being overly harsh. If you meet or know someone irl with the same questions do you not try to find them the answers like here’s evidence mask wearing drops infection rates?


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Interested to note all the insults and aggressive responses since I questioned the hive mind a mere 24 hours ago. Why is this? What are you all so scared of?




I'm scared you'll answer my question asking how you think letting covid run free will help with the cancer and mental health issues you're concerned a lockdown will adversely affect.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think people are being overly harsh. If you meet or know someone irl with the same questions do you not try to find them the answers like here’s evidence mask wearing drops infection rates?



People get bored of that approach once they put the time into comprehensive, fact-based answers which are then ignored in favour of the same old drool.

I dont have much time for pandemic menaces, especially when they think a herd mentality explains our disdain for their ignorance.


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Sep 22, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Zara Sultana asks a great question but unsurprisingly doesn't get a straight answer.




Pardon my ignorance of parliamentary procedure, but is there ever a right of reply after such a (typical) non-response?

"I don't know what question the Right Honourable Arsehole thinks he's answered there, but it certainly wasn't the one which was asked.  Now, <repeat original question>"


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think people are being overly harsh. If you meet or know someone irl with the same questions do you not try to find them the answers like here’s evidence mask wearing drops infection rates?


Usually I say 'the website you're linking to is run by nazis, I'm not sure I'd take their information at face value' or 'here's some holocaust denial by the same guy you're quoting, are you sure he's a trustworthy source?'


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> I think people are being overly harsh. If you meet or know someone irl with the same questions do you not try to find them the answers like here’s evidence mask wearing drops infection rates?



He's been given links, he's ignored them, and continued to post nonsense, fuck him.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Interested to note all the insults and aggressive responses since I questioned the hive mind a mere 24 hours ago. Why is this? What are you all so scared of?



I was quite polite to you.  I did point out some of the more obviously untrue and demonstrably false things you said.  I also helpfully suggested that you need to get a bit more clued up on the subject.  Unfortunately you completely ignored it as you will this no doubt.  I think you've gone down the rabbit hole and will wait with bated breath for your great reveal.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Interested to note all the insults and aggressive responses since I questioned the hive mind a mere 24 hours ago. Why is this? What are you all so scared of?



I used facts and figures backed up by graphs and relevant articles and didn't use cursing or aggressive posting

I can if you like?


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> Interested to note all the insults and aggressive responses since I questioned the hive mind a mere 24 hours ago. Why is this? What are you all so scared of?



Most of the points made to you have been perfectly polite and reasonable, although I'll admit to having been a touch grumpy last night.

Let's go back to this assertion you were making about 'the economy,' though.  You seemed to be arguing that lockdown has done huge damage which could have been avoided simply by letting the virus run its course.  Is this actually what you believe?  If so, what makes you think massive damage would not have occurred with or without a lockdown?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 22, 2020)

weepiper said:


> We've also now got no indoors household visiting across the country and discouraging car sharing, as well as pubs closing at 10. Everything else that Boris announced we were already doing here.



Limiting household visiting is probably the single most effective way of restricting the virus we have as thats where most infections occur. 

Boris isn't going to go for it willingly because he wants to be loved to much and it'll piss people right off.


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Limiting household visiting is probably the single most effective way of restricting the virus we have as thats where most infections occur.
> 
> Boris isn't going to go for it willingly because he wants to be loved to much and it'll piss people right off.



I thought restrictions on household visits would be on the list tbh, ridiculous it isn't I think.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Limiting household visiting is probably the single most effective way of restricting the virus we have as thats where most infections occur.
> 
> Boris isn't going to go for it willingly because he wants to be loved to much and it'll piss people right off.


Agree that is the reason. The rest of it you can explain with their desire to keep money moving around but reluctance to ban people having a cup of tea in each others kitchens can only be because he knows that he'd be hated for it.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

As I continue my attempts, which have been a failure so far, to wind down my interaction with pandemic clowns, I feel the need to wonder why they find it so easy to ignore various lessons from the USA.

Florida is a good example that I dont have time to dig into properly, so these numbers which are from much earlier in September will have to do for now. Just say no to 'what about Sweden?' unless it is chaperoned by 'what about Florida?'.



> If you’re still not convinced that DeSantis has done a lousy job handling the COVID-19 crisis, then please consider this: As of Friday, there were 640,211 cases reported in Florida, 11,903 deaths and 39,667 people hospitalized. When the governor greenlighted the reopening of the state on June 3, there were 58,764 cases, 2,566 deaths and 10,525 people hospitalized.



From Gov. DeSantis has proven to be inept at handling COVID-19 crisis - Villages-News.com


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> He's been given links, he's ignored them, and continued to post nonsense, fuck him.


You are the most scared I think, why are you? You’re going to be fine


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> You are the most scared I think, why are you? You’re going to be fine



You really are proving yourself to be a right prick now. And a stupid one at that.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> There is no measurable difference to the downward curve as masks were introduced in any country as far as I can see in the data. Since we started wearing them cases have gone up haven’t they?



South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong etc.


----------



## Mr Retro (Sep 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> You really are proving yourself to be a right prick now. And a stupid one at that.


More insults.

I’ll see you all back here on the 13th of October and we’ll see if we are at 50,000 cases and on track for 200 deaths a day. 

When it we’re not perhaps people will be thanking the government for the measures that were put in place today.

God help us to find a vaccine soon


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> You are the most scared I think, why are you? You’re going to be fine



I am not scared, as I live in a low risk area, and I am sure I'll be fine.

But, I following the science and the rules in order to protect others, I believe in doing my best for society.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> More insults.
> 
> I’ll see you all back here on the 13th of October and we’ll see if we are at 50,000 cases and on track for 200 deaths a day.
> 
> ...



Do you really not understand why some people - me included - are getting rather irritated by your habit of ignoring points that are inconvenient for you?

It really doesn't give people any confidence that your argument is based on any more than cherrypicking a few titbits of information that appear to support your point of view, no matter how ill-sourced they might be.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> More insults.
> 
> I’ll see you all back here on the 13th of October and we’ll see if we are at 50,000 cases and on track for 200 deaths a day.
> 
> ...



Like I said yesterday, your opinion of what will happen cannot actually be tested because even this government are not stupid enough to do nothing. I see you are trying to weave that into you 'when I come back in a months time' stuff but all you've done is make the sentiment even more absurd. A rigged game that you think you cannot lose, dick.

50,000 is an illustration of how small numbers can become very large numbers when R is well above 1. A lesson this country learnt the hard way the first time around.

Your decision to turn to bollocks instead is a sign of misdirected fear if ever there was one. And yet you have the nerve to accuse others of acting with unreasonable fears on their mind.

On behalf of the 65,000 excess deaths we already had, fuck you.


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 22, 2020)

HalloweenJack said:


> Lockdown 2
> Won't happen.
> Unsustainable and unworkable politically, economically , socially-pick your adverb, but even with the mentioned threat of using the army..no



hey they are still going ahead with Brexit and most of those conditions apply to that cluster fuck


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 22, 2020)

FREEDOM!!!!!!!!


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> God help us to find a vaccine soon



And you'd believe them on a vaccine?  So much for your independent thinking sheeple.


----------



## andysays (Sep 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Limiting household visiting is probably the single most effective way of restricting the virus we have as thats where most infections occur...


Have there actually been studies which conclusively demonstrate this, or is it still at the level of supposition? (not suggesting it isn't correct, just wasn't aware it had been proven).

And household visiting cover a wide range of actual behaviours, from popping round for a brief, distanced chat over a cup of tea, to holding all-night mass house parties, with correspondingly different levels of risk.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

I wonder what trigger points they've set for a new version of shielding. They havent given much away so far, other than the fact they are clearly not going to do it at the very earliest opportunity.

I'm not happy about it, but I dont know enough about their future plans or picture of clinical risks to really get my teeth into the subject now.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

I think the no household visits stuff is gonna be really tough for lots of people though. 

Just read a status update from a mate whose mum spent the last few months of her life on her own even though the restrictions had been relaxed because she was too scared.  although you're probably going to get even more of that with covid having free rein.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Sep 22, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Zara Sultana asks a great question but unsurprisingly doesn't get a straight answer.



They should fit him with electrodes wired to the mains, and every time he fails to answer a question properly electrocute the fucker.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

andysays said:


> Have there actually been studies which conclusively demonstrate this, or is it still at the level of supposition? (not suggesting it isn't correct, just wasn't aware it had been proven).
> 
> And household visiting cover a wide range of actual behaviours, from popping round for a brief, distanced chat over a cup of tea, to holding all-night mass house parties, with correspondingly different levels of risk.



Its a sort of fudge based on two sorts of risks/mitigation principals:

Indoors increases transmission risk.

The foundation of epidemic wave control involves anything that breaks links between different households.


These things apply to most of the possible mitigation measures in this pandemic. The government have chosen their priorities and so focus only on some narrow range of scenarios and implications of this stuff, even though the same things apply to links between households via workplaces, schools, bars etc.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 22, 2020)

andysays said:


> Have there actually been studies which conclusively demonstrate this, or is it still at the level of supposition? (not suggesting it isn't correct, just wasn't aware it had been proven).
> 
> And household visiting cover a wide range of actual behaviours, from popping round for a brief, distanced chat over a cup of tea, to holding all-night mass house parties, with correspondingly different levels of risk.



It's hard to control for but there have been studies.









						Covid-19: breaking the chain of household transmission
					

We urgently need new measures to protect household contacts  The UK is one of the countries most severely affected by covid-19. Recent outbreaks in English towns such as Oldham, probably involving transmission within large multigenerational households, show the importance of getting the right...




					www.bmj.com


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

> The governor of the Bank of England has called for the government to "stop and rethink" the furlough scheme.
> 
> The Job Retention Scheme is due to finish at the end of next month.
> 
> But speaking on a webinar hosted by the British Chambers of Commerce, Andrew Bailey suggested some sectors may benefit from further targeted help.











						Bank of England calls for furlough 'rethink'
					

Governor Andrew Bailey suggests that some sectors may benefit from further targeted help.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## MrSki (Sep 22, 2020)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> Pardon my ignorance of parliamentary procedure, but is there ever a right of reply after such a (typical) non-response?
> 
> "I don't know what question the Right Honourable Arsehole thinks he's answered there, but it certainly wasn't the one which was asked.  Now, <repeat original question>"


Not by the MP who asked it. Sometimes another MP might ask a follow up but Johnson only actually answers questions from his own side. The rest is just waffle. The Speaker should be able to make him answer the fucking question.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

andysays said:


> Have there actually been studies which conclusively demonstrate this, or is it still at the level of supposition? (not suggesting it isn't correct, just wasn't aware it had been proven).
> 
> And household visiting cover a wide range of actual behaviours, from popping round for a brief, distanced chat over a cup of tea, to holding all-night mass house parties, with correspondingly different levels of risk.



I think saying that most transmissions happen in the home is fairly uncontroversial but as you say there probably needs to be more questions asked.  It seems fairly obvious to me that if one person gets it in your home it is likely that everyone living in the same house will become infected without some pretty extreme (and lucky) measures.  This of course is different to someone popping round for half an hour for a cup of tea and a chat which is different again to a dinner party which is different again to etc etc

So yes, most transmissions happen in the home but that's not to say that visiting someone else's home is more risky than say going to Tesco or B&Q.  By stopping households mixing you are making the rules very simplistic and reducing exposure with limited impact on the economy.  It will be hard on people though.


----------



## xenon (Sep 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I thought restrictions on household visits would be on the list tbh, ridiculous it isn't I think.



And actually the way Nicola Stirgin announced it was pretty good.

To paraphrase. We're doing this nationwide because we can see it's having a positive effect in the West of Scotland.

Therefore holding out the possibility that once the infection rate reduces again, these measures may be eased, giving people some hope.


----------



## xenon (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> You are the most scared I think, why are you? You’re going to be fine




Read and comment on the post above yours. You're not a brave truth seaking iconoclast you know. Just another one mugged off by YouTube lunes and mouth pieces for vested interests. Do you think the UK government wants to be doing any of this if there were a politically expedient and palatable way of just letting things run their course?

Still not answered why you think mask wearing in public in doors situations has been mandated. GO on, you can tell us.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 22, 2020)

What I don't understand with the brave free thinkers who know there is no need for any lockdown restrictions is why they think a Conservative government is implementing them.  The party of capital.  What possible benefit for the party and there funders is there to introducing restrictions on business?  Even the most superficial reading of Johnson and the government would tell you they are utterly desperate to get back to normal as quick as possible.

At least the plandemic loons have an answer for this even if it is wacko.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

xenon said:


> And actually the way Nicola Stirgin announced it was pretty good.
> 
> To paraphrase. We're doing this nationwide because we can see it's having a positive effect in the West of Scotland.
> 
> Therefore holding out the possibility that once the infection rate reduces again, these measures may be eased, giving people some hope.


She is really good at communicating difficult things directly to people, not condescending not blustering. I wish she was pm of the whole island.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 22, 2020)

Masks work, they really do.

Its not going to be pleasant for the workers but when has anyone cared about them when bringing out policy?
[/QUOTE]

Have they not enforced _customers_ having to wear them in at the same time, though? Those who can, obvs.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> She is really good at communicating difficult things directly to people, not condescending not blustering. I wish she was pm of the whole island.


We watched her statement to parliament live and I found the way she spoke directly to two specific groups of people (teenagers and those who were shielding, both of whom were in the room with me) quite touching.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I thought restrictions on household visits would be on the list tbh, ridiculous it isn't I think.


Just as an aside, it's a pity that we can't sort ourselves to put that in practice in the absence of johnson et all announcing it.  Of course its not easy to gather a consensus around a course of action like that and to put it into practice at the level of communities. But the fact that that we are not even discussing ways to organise ourselves with a view to minimising the virus and protecting the most vulnerable is quite depressing. Lots of people have done great stuff in the pandemic, all over the place, but its the absence of a social movement that's the problem.


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

I've said it before but as I have little problem repeating myself, Sturgeon was pretty good in the 2009 swine flu pandemic too (when she was health minister I think).


----------



## MrSki (Sep 22, 2020)

Another clip from twatchops today.


----------



## bimble (Sep 22, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Just as an aside, it's a pity that we can't sort ourselves to put that in practice in the absence of johnson et all announcing it.  Of course its not easy to gather a consensus around a course of action like that and to put it into practice at the level of communities. But the fact that that we are not even discussing ways to organise ourselves with a view to minimising the virus and protecting the most vulnerable is quite depressing. Lots of people have done great stuff in the pandemic, all over the place, but its the absence of a social movement that's the problem.


Even more of an aside but, one of the most depressing things i've seen recently was a pretty dramatic instance of exactly this - how people in general will not do the thing they presumably know is in their best interests collectively - unless or until authority demands it of them:
Week before last  i was in a massive full hotel, in a town in Czech republic, about 500 rooms with only two small lifts and a buffet breakfast thing.
On day one about 1% of guests were wearing masks, a tiny tiny number, even in the lifts (no social distancing).
That night the government there announced compulsory mask wearing to return the next day in all indoor spaces and the very next morning there they all were the twats every one of them with their masks on, which they'd obviously all had in their rooms the whole time just waiting to be 'forced' to wear them.  Made me mad and also really sad to see it so starkly. I was with my old parents and we wore masks in the lifts etc the whole time, even before the teacher told us to, and were berated by a youtube loon for it.


----------



## maomao (Sep 22, 2020)

37 new deaths today


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Even more of an aside but, one of the most depressing things i've seen recently was a pretty dramatic instance of exactly this - how people in general will not do the thing they presumably know is in their best interests collectively - unless or until authority demands it of them.



A lot of that is down to conditioning. When people grow up and live under a system where arbitrary authority displays its absurdities as a matter of routine and the rules of the game are so obviously out of whack with reality, people learn to play along with that system, sometimes undermining it, sometimes reinforcing it, often seeking the opportunity to gain from it.

My own attitudes towards the establishment and authorities seemed to help my pandemic predictions and commentary. And I'm pretty sure I developed those initially around the age of 8-12 by observing the absurdities of school authorities, the injustices of the playground, and the ways kids and teachers adapt to bizarre circumstances and uncomfortable situations. Probably enhanced in my case by the natural direction of my gaze, and the fact my parents were teachers (never at a school I went to thank fuck) and I likely absorbed a lot of their 'shop talk' although I dont consciously remember a word of it.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 22, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Masks work, they really do.
> 
> Its not going to be pleasant for the workers but when has anyone cared about them when bringing out policy?



Have they not enforced _customers_ having to wear them in at the same time, though? Those who can, obvs.
[/QUOTE]

This is the rub there is no enforcement.

Shop or workers aren't going to go out if their way to tell the maskless to mask up because odds are good at least one of them is going to throw a fruit while big business like the supermarkets aren't going to want the pr of turning customers away. Neither are going to put much effort in.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Sep 22, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Not by the MP who asked it. Sometimes another MP might ask a follow up but Johnson only actually answers questions from his own side. The rest is just waffle. The Speaker should be able to make him answer the fucking question.


Give the Speaker a taser to keep the lying bastard in line.


----------



## xenon (Sep 22, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Masks work, they really do.
> 
> Its not going to be pleasant for the workers but when has anyone cared about them when bringing out policy?



Have they not enforced _customers_ having to wear them in at the same time, though? Those who can, obvs.
[/QUOTE]

Yep. I think they've increased the fine for not wearing them too. Obviously not in restaurants and pubs. I do feel for the staff there particularly. Rushing about serving people whilst having to wear a mask, when the customers won't be.

has anyone actually beened fined though. 

And yeah, I know, lest I'm accused of poacher turning gamekeeper  I was somewhat sceptical about mask wearing before. I would still prefer not to. It's a bit uncomfortable especially wen wearing shades and travelling for a few hours but as it appears it does have some benefit, gotta be done.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Fears include ignorant clowns spreading their ignorance, leading to an increase in death.


Nailed it.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 22, 2020)

Mr Retro said:


> More insults.
> 
> I’ll see you all back here on the 13th of October and we’ll see if we are at 50,000 cases and on track for 200 deaths a day.
> 
> ...


God's got nothing to do with it. Maybe that's where you're going wrong.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Like I said yesterday, your opinion of what will happen cannot actually be tested because even this government are not stupid enough to do nothing. I see you are trying to weave that into you 'when I come back in a months time' stuff but all you've done is make the sentiment even more absurd. A rigged game that you think you cannot lose, dick.
> 
> 50,000 is an illustration of how small numbers can become very large numbers when R is well above 1. A lesson this country learnt the hard way the first time around.
> 
> ...


You just know he's going to go all...


over your closing "fuck you"


----------



## Cloo (Sep 22, 2020)

The only thing it seems they've done right is to say this stuff may need to carry on for six months - no 'Back to normal by Christmas' or 'We'll review it in 4 weeks'. We're going into autumn and winter, letting up on anything is not going to be an option for the next six months. More honestly, we're going to have to control a lot more stuff as well in all likelihood, but we can't expect that level of honesty from these killer klowns.


----------



## Thora (Sep 22, 2020)

Cloo said:


> The only thing it seems they've done right is to say this stuff may need to carry on for six months - no 'Back to normal by Christmas' or 'We'll review it in 4 weeks'. We're going into autumn and winter, letting up on anything is not going to be an option for the next six months. More honestly, we're going to have to control a lot more stuff as well in all likelihood, but we can't expect that level of honesty from these killer klowns.


Yes, I feel like this is going to be the background level of restrictions until Spring, but imagine there may be harder lockdowns to coincide with normal school closure times.


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> FREEDOM!!!!!!!!




you think the country was a republic or something


----------



## brogdale (Sep 22, 2020)

The MoD tweets to us...



...yet.


----------



## andysays (Sep 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> It's hard to control for but there have been studies.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


thanks for posting that. 

it appears to focus on transmission within a household, and point out that this is almost unavoidable, and particularly a problem with large intergenerational households, rather than transmission between households, either through visits to the home of others or contact in non-home settings, like workplaces or schools, for example. 

but I'm still struggling to see a genuine medical reason why my wife shouldn't be allowed to pop in and visit her mum for a cup of tea after dropping off some shopping, but pubs are still allowed to open, albeit closing at 10pm.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 22, 2020)

Two of the local pubs in my area have been shut down (at least, I think so - "issued with prohibition notices") due to lack of social distancing last weekend. 








						Council closes five businesses closed due to Covid-19 breaches
					






					sheffnews.com


----------



## belboid (Sep 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Two of the local pubs in my area have been shut down (at least, I think so - "issued with prohibition notices") due to lack of social distancing last weekend.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nope, they can stay open - as long as they claim they are making amends.  One of my locals got done for having people hiding in cupboards in April, but they stayed open (they may have shut for one or two days).


----------



## prunus (Sep 22, 2020)

andysays said:


> but I'm still struggling to see a genuine medical reason why my wife shouldn't be allowed to pop in and visit her mum for a cup of tea after dropping off some shopping, but pubs are still allowed to open, albeit closing at 10pm.



At the risk at becoming boring on this, the medical reason goes like this: either pubs can be open (until 10), or your wife can visit her mum (and by extension everyone is allowed to visit other people etc). The allowing of either category of activity will result in a number of infections which is acceptable (in terms of controlling exponential spread), but twice that number (ie if both activities are allowed) is too many.

The calculation is then which activity will be more beneficial to society overall - here there is a value judgement that pubs being open (combination of social interaction, good for mental health, and economic activity, good for livelihoods and still having a functioning pub sector to come back to when all this is over) is overall more beneficial than alllowing people to meet in their homes (social interaction only, primarily) (I am aware I am simplifying at almost every point here but the principle is I believe sound).

This calculation is done on a societial basis,so in the short term at least there will always be some people disbenefitted (those who don’t go to pubs for instance). However assuming the inputs and assumptions are correct, it should be the best overall result. One can always argue the inputs and assumptions of course and here it becomes politics. But there (or the first half of it anyway) is the medical reason.

Short version: Scientists say we can do X or Y (but not both), politicians decide which we get to do.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> Nope, they can stay open - as long as they claim they are making amends.  One of my locals got done for having people hiding in cupboards in April, but they stayed open (they may have shut for one or two days).


Ah ok. It was shared in a local FB group and said they had to close, but this makes more sense.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

prunus said:


> At the risk at becoming boring on this, the medical reason goes like this: either pubs can be open (until 10), or your wife can visit her mum (and by extension everyone is allowed to visit other people etc). The allowing of either category of activity will result in a number of infections which is acceptable (in terms of controlling exponential spread), but twice that number (ie if both activities are allowed) is too many.
> 
> The calculation is then which activity will be more beneficial to society overall - here there is a value judgement that pubs being open (combination of social interaction, good for mental health, and economic activity, good for livelihoods and still having a functioning pub sector to come back to when all this is over) is overall more beneficial than alllowing people to meet in their homes (social interaction only, primarily) (I am aware I am simplifying at almost every point here but the principle is I believe sound).
> 
> ...



Spot on.


----------



## Mation (Sep 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> Isn't it table service only too? That's going to reduce capacity of most pubs significantly, and make 'mingling' less of an option.


I'd thought it was table service only for pubs before today. Has been round my way.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 22, 2020)

xenon said:


> has anyone actually beened fined though.
> 
> And yeah, I know, lest I'm accused of poacher turning gamekeeper  I was somewhat sceptical about mask wearing before. I would still prefer not to. It's a bit uncomfortable especially wen wearing shades and travelling for a few hours but as it appears it does have some benefit, gotta be done.



There's no way to actually fine people because it states in the official rules you don't need to show any proof that you're exempt, or even give a reason.

Now me, I have anxiety about drowning in my own tissue fluid because someone didn't want to wear a mask but that's not the kind of anxiety anyone gives a shit about apparently.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

Mation said:


> I'd thought it was table service only for pubs before today. Has been round my way.



That was guidelines, now it's law, backed up with fines.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 22, 2020)

Are the laws for shop staff effective immediately? Still almost none of the shop workers round here wearing them.


----------



## Looby (Sep 22, 2020)

He’s managed to blame us in the first minute. Cunt.


----------



## Numbers (Sep 22, 2020)

His stomach was rumbling towards the end.


----------



## chilango (Sep 22, 2020)

You'd think he was declaring war not shutting the pubs an hour early for a bit.


----------



## hash tag (Sep 22, 2020)

We will not be getting the army on the streets, so there. Police dismiss idea of soldiers on UK streets to enforce Covid rules


----------



## hash tag (Sep 22, 2020)

arse


----------



## Supine (Sep 22, 2020)

Poor communication of the new rules. He hardly even bothered to mention what they were. Stupid fucker.


----------



## tommers (Sep 22, 2020)

I love freedom so much i went to the pub when they said I could.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

I wonder what certain posters have to say about the 880 new cases recorded in Sweden today.

Sorry you're right. Edited


----------



## killer b (Sep 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I wonder what Mr Retro has to say about the 880 new cases recorded in Sweden today.


I think I'd rather he didn't say anything tbh


----------



## LDC (Sep 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I wonder what Mr Retro has to say about the 880 new cases recorded in Sweden today.



_"Masks! It's the masks that caused them!"_


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I wonder what Mr Retro has to say about the 880 new cases recorded in Sweden today.



TBH, I wish people didn't tag him, drawing him back to the thread.

He said he would be back Mid-Oct., that's early enough, let's enjoy his break.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

It's a bit annoying when there's a whole thread of info on Sweden including the current restrictions and they carry on with the same talking points


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

You're right.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBH, I wish people didn't tag him, drawing him back to the thread.
> 
> He said he would be back Mid-Oct., that's earlier enough, let's enjoy his break.


Have edited sorry.


----------



## weltweit (Sep 22, 2020)

Watched Boris's speech, still not clear on the new rules. 

Still the rule of 6?
If you can WFH then do.
Pubs to shut at 10pm 
Still ok to go to other people's houses even if you are not in a bubble?

Doesn't seem like much of a tightening.


----------



## hash tag (Sep 22, 2020)

How much will wearing glasses reduce my risk I wonder Do glasses protect from coronavirus?


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 22, 2020)

Boris just isn't a very good speaker, and never has been. Speech was too short to care about it all that much but a lot of bizarre phrases etc that are hardly going to connect with people.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 22, 2020)




----------



## two sheds (Sep 22, 2020)

"Now I've got it. Good

Every tory MP has it. Even better"


----------



## zahir (Sep 23, 2020)

Leyton Orient test positive.









						Majority of Leyton Orient squad test positive for Covid-19 before Spurs tie
					

Leyton Orient’s squad has shown a high number of positive Covid-19 tests, which has led to the expectation that Tuesday’s Carabao Cup tie at home to Tottenham will be called off




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Raheem (Sep 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


>



Columnists never appreciate that we don't care about their families. I won't be happy until she's got it. Even then, she'd have to die. And I'd only have a momentary chuckle.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

I think I saw a Triggle article where he used a graph to suggest that if our trajectory was like France and Spains, we would be more likely to end up with 10,000 cases by the date in mid October that was used in the Whitty/Vallance slides the other day, rather than their 50,000 example.

But I am trying to wean myself off doing lengthy quotations and commentary on his analysis. I suppose I will still link to the article though, this time, maybe the last. Last throw of dice before the really tough call

I will say that its been weeks already since I questioned how well our testing system will actually be able to keep up with increase in cases, given its been creaking since some time in August, or maybe it was the start of September, I forget. I do expect to have to rely on various estimates more than actual test data again at some point, and to factor in heavily who is actually managing to get a test. eg under the very highest demand-supply test imbalances, it will end up being little more than an indicator of who is testing positive in hospitals etc again. But unless we reach that point, it will be hard to know what proportion of community cases it is still able to handle. So maybe I should just go straight to the regular estimates from now on instead, I'm not sure yet.

Anyway, the point I am leading to is that if I go and look at zoe covid estimates, their latest estimate was 12,698 new daily cases across the UK, and that estimate is getting a bit old now. So I dont think much of Triggles 10,000 by October 13th thing or whatever it was. But then if I were forced to stick to actual number of detected cases then all bets are off, I dont know how long it will take them to manage to detect 10,000 positives in a day, if they even can, regardless of actual levels of infection over that period.









						Latest Daily UK COVID-19 Data: Vaccines, Cases, Trends | ZOE
					

COVID infection & vaccination rates in the UK today, based on public data and reports from millions of users of the ZOE Health Study app




					covid.joinzoe.com


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 23, 2020)

Panic buying is back. Not on anything like the scale it was in the spring, but nevertheless, lots of pics on twitter last night of idiots with trolleys loaded with bog roll...


----------



## andysays (Sep 23, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Panic buying is back. Not on anything like the scale it was in the spring, but nevertheless, lots of pics on twitter last night of idiots with trolleys loaded with bog roll...


Tbh, nothing the government has done over the last six months will have given anyone any confidence that they know what they're doing 

Rushing to the supermarket and filling a trolley with whatever you could get your hands on seems a perfectly understandable response to Johnson's performance yesterday.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 23, 2020)

andysays said:


> Tbh, nothing the government has done over the last six months will have given anyone any confidence that they know what they're doing
> 
> Rushing to the supermarket and filling a trolley with whatever you could get your hands on seems a perfectly understandable response to Johnson's performance yesterday.



True up to a point, but buying hundreds of bog rolls isn't.  It's not as if diarrhoea is a typical covid symptom, is it!  That's people either being daft or spotting an opportunity to make a profit when the shelves get stripped bare.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 23, 2020)

Diarrhoea can be a symptom - not that I think that knowledge is behind bulk buying loo roll.




__





						Six distinct 'types' of COVID-19 identified
					





					www.kcl.ac.uk


----------



## TopCat (Sep 23, 2020)

Shame the weather has turned. Fucked for park and garden meet ups now.


----------



## maomao (Sep 23, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> True up to a point, but buying hundreds of bog rolls isn't.  It's not as if diarrhoea is a typical covid symptom, is it!  That's people either being daft or spotting an opportunity to make a profit when the shelves get stripped bare.


I think it's pretty isolated this time. There's pictures of a few silly people in the papers but I haven't heard widespread reports of shelves stripped bare. And given the standards of parts of the British press there's every chance some of the photos are six months old. The supermarkets where I live were stripped bare in March but are fine this week.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 23, 2020)

maomao said:


> I think it's pretty isolated this time. There's pictures of a few silly people in the papers but I haven't heard widespread reports of shelves stripped bare. And given the standards of parts of the British press there's every chance some of the photos are six months old. The supermarkets where I live were stripped bare in March but are fine this week.



Oh aye it's localised, but it is happening.  My local paper is reporting some supermarket shelves in the city have been stripped of - predictably - bog roll this morning.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 23, 2020)

That'll be written by disappointed local reporters who were hoping to panic buy bog roll.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 23, 2020)

We have ours delivered


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 23, 2020)

two sheds said:


> That'll be written by disappointed local reporters who were hoping to panic buy bog roll.



Well, the Hull Daily Mail is full of shit so that is a distinct possibility.


----------



## purenarcotic (Sep 23, 2020)

People panic when they hear others are doing it, if these are isolated incidents then they should be ignored and not given attention. Panic buying got worse the more the news covered it in March, at least it did here.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 23, 2020)

Toilet roll sales rise by more than a fifth amid new UK Covid-19 restrictions
					

Manufacturer insists supplies will not run out as long as customers don’t panic buy




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## TopCat (Sep 23, 2020)

I have plans to clean my arse with hankies and wash them.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 23, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I have plans to clean my arse with hankies and wash them.


Pics or it won't happen


----------



## prunus (Sep 23, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I have plans to clean my arse with hankies and wash them.



You’ve all been brainwashed by Big Bogroll - you don’t need to clean your arse at all - it strips the natural oils and tagnuts that are natures’s way of keeping it fresh - just stop cleaning it altogether and soon it’ll be cleaner than it can ever be with wiping.  It takes several weeks but it’s worth it!


----------



## andysays (Sep 23, 2020)

S☼I said:


> We have ours delivered


Yeah, I avoid the criticism and public disapproval by doing all my panic buying online these days.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 23, 2020)

prunus said:


> You’ve all been brainwashed by Big Bogroll - you don’t need to clean your arse at all - it strips the natural oils and tagnuts that are natures’s way of keeping it fresh - just stop cleaning it altogether and soon it’ll be cleaner than it can ever be with wiping.  It takes several weeks but it’s worth it!


I  can do without developing a De Sade style "pad".


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 23, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I have plans to clean my arse with hankies and wash them.







__





						Wipes for Bums & Hands & Faces
					

Natural reusable washable baby wipes, eco friendly & moneysaving! Simple alternatives to disposable products, reusable makeup removing pads, cloth sanitary pads & period pants.



					www.cheekywipes.com
				





prunus said:


> You’ve all been brainwashed by Big Bogroll - you don’t need to clean your arse at all - it strips the natural oils and tagnuts that are natures’s way of keeping it fresh - just stop cleaning it altogether and soon it’ll be cleaner than it can ever be with wiping.  It takes several weeks but it’s worth it!


Or just do an oil cleanse with coconut oil.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 23, 2020)

I barely know anything about Nicola Sturgeon's politics but she seems like she's got decency in spades.

“Let’s keep going, try to keep smiling, keep hoping and keep looking out for each other.”

What do we get? _It's your fault, everything is grim, we're sending the army in_


----------



## bimble (Sep 23, 2020)

Is there a place online where you can reliably go to see up to date infection rates in your local area (by county or nearest towns or whatever)?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 23, 2020)

andysays said:


> Yeah, I avoid the criticism and public disapproval by doing all my panic buying online these days.


Standing order with a bogroll company. Or maybe sitting down ordure, whole other thread


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 23, 2020)

I'll just pop down to the beach and grab three seashells.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 23, 2020)

andysays said:


> Yeah, I avoid the criticism and public disapproval by doing all my panic buying online these days.


The delivery Van's are busy





bimble said:


> Is there a place online where you can reliably go to see up to date infection rates in your local area (by county or nearest towns or whatever)?


Google covid near me.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is there a place online where you can reliably go to see up to date infection rates in your local area (by county or nearest towns or whatever)?



There's a link from here to a map showing cases by local area. It's done by 'Middle Super Output Areas,' which look to correspond roughly to council wards. It does lag by a few days, though.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 23, 2020)

Sorry for toilet  derail.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 23, 2020)

Coronavirus: Whitty and Vallance faced 'herd immunity' backlash, emails show
					

Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance were alarmed by questions over the controversial concept, emails show.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## prunus (Sep 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is there a place online where you can reliably go to see up to date infection rates in your local area (by county or nearest towns or whatever)?



I use this U.K. Covid-19 Dashboard which is a searchable scrape of the data from the dashboard.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 23, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> There's a link from here to a map showing cases by local area. It's done by 'Middle Super Output Areas,' which look to correspond roughly to council wards. It does lag by a few days, though.



Or in that link, at the top 'cases in the United Kingdom', click the little down arrow and select your local council area.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Or in that link, at the top 'cases in the United Kingdom', click the little down arrow and select your local council area.



Yes, that too, although I think that only goes down as far as Upper Tier Local Authority level.

From the map I mentioned above, the latest on the situation in the north:


----------



## NoXion (Sep 23, 2020)

I've got a delivery of groceries I ordered over a week ago which I'm receiving today. Hopefully that won't be affected by the local contingent of selfish, flighty morons.


----------



## bimble (Sep 23, 2020)

prunus said:


> I use this U.K. Covid-19 Dashboard which is a searchable scrape of the data from the dashboard.


this is good, easy to use. Growth rate shown in some places is huge, even with our current testing situation .


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 23, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Yes, that too, although I think that only goes down as far as Upper Tier Local Authority level.



Nope, Lower Tier, so for me Worthing rather than West Sussex.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Nope, Lower Tier, so for me Worthing rather than West Sussex.



Ah, I didn't know that. Very useful.


----------



## bimble (Sep 23, 2020)

Absolutely refuse to get into panic buying and hoarding until brexit. Plenty of squirrels here just need to learn how to skin and roast them.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> Absolutely refuse to get into panic buying and hoarding until brexit. Plenty of squirrels here just need to learn how to skin and roast them.



Something to eat _and_ something to wipe your arse.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 23, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Something to eat and something to wipe your arse.


Kill it first please.


----------



## chilango (Sep 23, 2020)

"Work from home if you can"

Genuine question. What sort of % of workers actually have the authority to make that decision for themselves?


----------



## Knotted (Sep 23, 2020)

I can and have been working from home but my boss has told me to go in because the CEO has yet to say anything. My union's website has not been updated since August...


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Sep 23, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I have plans to clean my arse with hankies and wash them.


Sorry. Due to covid restrictions I may not be able to come round to your place for quite some time.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 23, 2020)

chilango said:


> "Work from home if you can"
> 
> Genuine question. What sort of % of workers actually have the authority to make that decision for themselves?



Yes excellent point - effectively laying the blame on people again if they can't, rather than telling bosses to make it possible, along with things like sorting out their ventilation systems. And it's the sort of thing he should be helping businesses with - there should be some coordinated effort to contact estates and building managers to check on cv safety.


----------



## xenon (Sep 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is there a place online where you can reliably go to see up to date infection rates in your local area (by county or nearest towns or whatever)?



sorry not got link to hand but I have been using a BBC page. Nice and simple layout. They get their data from PHE I think.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 23, 2020)

Welcome to the future people:



			https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2020/09/23/bam-installs-covid-killing-spray-tunnel-on-site/
		


Full decontamination upon entering and leaving work.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

Just been told that my work (local council services/public libraries) is now requiring the public to download the NHS app and scan a QR code on entry to any of our buildings. Which is going to be quite a challenge. Well probably have to get people to download the app at the door, and they might not have enough data to do so and they might not even have a smartphone or know how to do such things. In that case, we take their details manually. And if anyone refuses, we still have to let them in.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Sep 23, 2020)

two sheds said:


> That'll be written by disappointed local reporters who were hoping to panic buy bog roll.


...Thereby creating shortages, and forcing people to improvise by bulk-buying physical newspapers?


----------



## chilango (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Just been told that my work (local council services/public libraries) is now requiring the public to download the NHS app and scan a QR code on entry to any of our buildings. Which is going to be quite a challenge. Well probably have to get people to download the app at the door, and they might not have enough data to do so and they might not even have a smartphone or know how to do such things. In that case, we take their details manually. And if anyone refuses, we still have to let them in.



yeah. I've seen the problems people have been having doing something similar at my local coffee shop.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 23, 2020)

chilango said:


> "Work from home if you can"
> 
> Genuine question. What sort of % of workers actually have the authority to make that decision for themselves?


Well, it has meant that whereas my work was previously saying “up to you, but we would rather that you come in” (potentially creating pressure depending on the attitude of individual managers), they sent out an email this morning saying “stay at home unless you find it impossible”.  So a shift in corporate attitude


----------



## Cid (Sep 23, 2020)

Well ahead of the curve on bog roll this time round...









						Bidet seats - instant Japanese style toilet
					

Yes indeed, not an avocado coloured appliance from the 80s, but a contraption to turn your throne into a fully functional arse-washing, drying and deodorising machine. I have recently blagged one free (they’re not cheap, but actually not terrible - this was about £380 iirc)... I must say I’m...




					www.urban75.net


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Watch this space!


I think they’ve walked this back or at least everyone seems to be ignoring the order


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 23, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Well, it has meant that whereas my work was previously saying “up to you, but we would rather that you come in” (potentially creating pressure depending on the attitude of individual managers), they sent out an email this morning saying “stay at home unless you find it impossible”.  So a shift in corporate attitude



The company my g/f is currently working for started putting pressure on everyone to get back into their Central London office about 3 weeks ago just as it became apparent a serious problem was on the horizon.  Set up teams who would do one week on, one week off etc.  Quite a bit of pushing and cajoling.

Come yesterday a rather flippant email was sent out along the lines of 'Just see today's announcement.  Office will remain open if you still want to come in!'.  Absolutely no encouragement for people to stay at home.

This is a large marketing and advertising company where work can easily be done at home for vast majority.  Still plenty of scummy attitudes out there.


----------



## chilango (Sep 23, 2020)




----------



## Novatt (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> And if anyone refuses, we still have to let them in.


Hm...
I have to(!) download an app, share my details, and only after that I can come in. But if I don't want to, I can still enter. Sounds very strange...


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

Novatt said:


> Hm...
> I have to(!) download an app, share my details, and only after that I can come in. But if I don't want to, I can still enter. Sounds very strange...


It’s just a shit show all round. Staff need to protected from abuse and people can’t be denied access to essential services.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 23, 2020)

Yep as it is workers can be left with managements personal attitude to covid and wfh. That could mean the companies who have said wfh til next summer, heres a monitor and chair but can just as easily be an anti mask covid denier or an  "if they're not in the office they'll spend all day sunbathing and wanking" arsehole.


----------



## Cid (Sep 23, 2020)

I had no idea the app was even ready for release. Again, communication.


----------



## prunus (Sep 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> I had no idea the app was even ready for release. Again, communication.



I don’t think it is. They’re going to release it anyway though.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> I had no idea the app was even ready for release. Again, communication.


I downloaded it yesterday and it’s not ready yet - only for NHS workers and Isle Of Wight residents. It’s ‘mandatory’ across the UK from tomorrow


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I downloaded it yesterday and it’s not ready yet - only for NHS workers and Isle Of Wight residents. It’s ‘mandatory’ across the UK from tomorrow



#worldbeating


----------



## xenon (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I downloaded it yesterday and it’s not ready yet - only for NHS workers and Isle Of Wight residents. It’s ‘mandatory’ across the UK from tomorrow



Point of order. It’s released tomorrow. But of course it isn’t mandatory. how could it be, not everyone has a smart phone anyway.


----------



## Cid (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I downloaded it yesterday and it’s not ready yet - only for NHS workers and Isle Of Wight residents. It’s ‘mandatory’ across the UK from tomorrow



Fuck me. Just drop this shit out of nowhere don’t they?

My guess is it’ll see low adoption rates even among those who can and would use it; lack of trust, lack of information.


----------



## LDC (Sep 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> Fuck me. Just drop this shit out of nowhere don’t they?
> 
> My guess is it’ll see low adoption rates even among those who can and would use it; lack of trust, lack of information.



Yeah, I work in healthcare and follow this shit quite closely, and I had no idea the app was out tomorrow!


----------



## two sheds (Sep 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> Fuck me. Just drop this shit out of nowhere don’t they?
> 
> My guess is it’ll see low adoption rates even among those who can and would use it; lack of trust, lack of information.


... lack of app.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I work in healthcare and follow this shit quite closely, and I had no idea the app was out tomorrow!



They clearly have a lot of confidence in it.  Seen as the entire track and trace system is largely borked the app does seem somewhat irrelevant at this stage.


----------



## Cid (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I work in healthcare and follow this shit quite closely, and I had no idea the app was out tomorrow!


 
I would echo your facepalm, but they seem hollow and insufficient these days


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> My guess is it’ll see low adoption rates even among those who can and would use it; lack of trust, lack of information.



I had no idea it was out tomorrow either.  Unless and until I'm confident the data is secure and isn't going to end up in the hands of Dominic Cummings' dodgy mates I won't be going anywhere near it.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I work in healthcare and follow this shit quite closely, and I had no idea the app was out tomorrow!


It’s out already as in you can download it


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 23, 2020)

chilango said:


> "Work from home if you can"
> 
> Genuine question. What sort of % of workers actually have the authority to make that decision for themselves?


Students would all have to be WFH before I could.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 23, 2020)

Oh. Just. Fuck. Off.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

Van Tam will be along to warn 'Dont tear the pathos out of it'.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I work in healthcare and follow this shit quite closely, and I had no idea the app was out tomorrow!


#worldbeating


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> Point of order. It’s released tomorrow. But of course it isn’t mandatory. how could it be, not everyone has a smart phone anyway.


They’re saying it is the law and therefore mandatory but then they’re also saying people can refuse to give their details, so how is it mandatory?


----------



## chilango (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> They’re saying it is the law and therefore mandatory but then they’re also saying people can refuse to give their details, so how is it mandatory?



because we love freedom so much.


----------



## xenon (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> They’re saying it is the law and therefore mandatory but then they’re also saying people can refuse to give their details, so how is it mandatory?



what, the app? to be honest I haven’t heard much about it. But it can’t be mandatory surely as in all those people who can’t use it. to be honest I only know it’s out tomorrow because I saw an email about it at work today. I knew it was due sometime but yeah.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> what, the app? to be honest I haven’t heard much about it. But it can’t be mandatory surely as in all those people who can’t use it. to be honest I only know it’s out tomorrow because I saw an email about it at work today. I knew it was due sometime but yeah.



No.  Not the app.  No app will be mandatory.


----------



## editor (Sep 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Oh. Just. Fuck. Off.



He's getting rightfully roasted on Twitter


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> what, the app? to be honest I haven’t heard much about it. But it can’t be mandatory surely as in all those people who can’t use it. to be honest I only know it’s out tomorrow because I saw an email about it at work today. I knew it was due sometime but yeah.


It’s ‘mandatory‘ to provide contact details, whether in person or via the app. But then it’s not mandatory as we  still have to let people in to access services. Straight forward really.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 23, 2020)

I posted about 2 weeks ago, with a link, that the app would be available from tomorrow, has everyone got me on ignore?


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I posted about 2 weeks ago, with a link, that the app would be available from tomorrow, has everyone got me on ignore?


It’s a 600 page thread that sometimes has 10 pages posted in an afternoon


----------



## Badgers (Sep 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I posted about 2 weeks ago, with a link, that the app would be available from tomorrow, has everyone got me on ignore?


Most people have


----------



## LDC (Sep 23, 2020)

Talking about the app now on Radio 4. Short version is it's a proximity warning really, you get a beep if you've been in contact for a certain length of time with a positive case. Then you get in touch with T&T.  Idea is it catches people before they get symptoms. Relies massively (entirely?) on the testing system being effective. Person on said without the testing system working the app is functionally useless.


----------



## xenon (Sep 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I posted about 2 weeks ago, with a link, that the app would be available from tomorrow, has everyone got me on ignore?



I knew it was on its way but you know a week is a long time in Corona land.


----------



## Lancman (Sep 23, 2020)

It’s as if we’re all playing some macabre game of musical chairs, the music has stopped and we’ve all sat down, if we can find a seat. And there we must stay until the music starts again. But the violinist has packed up his instrument and gone home, and he wont come back until he gets a sip of vaccine.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Talking about the app now on Radio 4. Short version is it's a proximity warning really, you get a beep if you've been in contact for a certain length of time with a positive case. Then you get in touch with T&T.  Idea is it catches people before they get symptoms. Relies massively (entirely?) on the testing system being effective. Person on said without the testing system working the app is functionally useless.


The testing system is functionally useless.
Track and trace is functionally useless. 
The Disgraced Prime Minister is functionally useless.
The advice and guidance is functionally useless.
The cabinet is functionally useless.
The government is functionally useless.


----------



## LDC (Sep 23, 2020)

Lancman said:


> It’s as if we’re all playing some macabre game of musical chairs, the music has stopped and we’ve all sat down, if we can find a seat. And there we must stay until the music starts again. But the violinist has packed up his instrument and gone home, and he wont come back until he gets a sip of vaccine.



...and someone's just told us the seats all have a 4ft metal spike spring loaded into the seat and any of them could go off at any time.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 23, 2020)

My entirely unscientific take is that this week's measures will have just about zero impact, particularly in the context of schools, colleges and unis going back.  It probably is about the government making it look like they are taking reasonable steps before 'our' failures to comply push them into a lockdown. Not a full lockdown as of the Spring, but a modified version of it.  Less ways to visit your nan, more ways to spend money.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> My entirely unscientific take is that this week's measures will have just about zero impact


That is a bit harsh. 

I am betting on 0-5%


----------



## Wilf (Sep 23, 2020)

Badgers said:


> That is a bit harsh.
> 
> I am betting on 0-5%


'Thank God they stopped me having that 8th pint, I can now go home safely to my family'.


----------



## LDC (Sep 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> My entirely unscientific take is that this week's measures will have just about zero impact, particularly in the context of schools, colleges and unis going back.  It probably is about the government making it look like they are taking reasonable steps before 'our' failures to comply push them into a lockdown. Not a full lockdown as of the Spring, but a modified version of it.  Less ways to visit your nan, more ways to spend money.



Professor John Edmunds been in the media a fair bit saying pretty much the same.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

I think they should have a fairly significant impact - just not enough to totally offset the schools & unis being open.


----------



## LDC (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think they should have a fairly significant impact - just not enough to totally offset the schools & unis being open.



Which ones do you think though?

One of them isn't even a restriction, it's just not opening sport in October. Then there's the making it legal to have workplaces Covid secure (personally was surprised that wasn't already the case), then masks in taxis, WFH, 10pm shutting, and something else (can't be arsed even looking tbh).


----------



## Wilf (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think they should have a fairly significant impact - just not enough to totally offset the schools & unis being open.


Depends which bits you mean. I was really talking about the latest bits announced. The rule of 6 does have the potential to slow down the spread (if policed/observed).


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Which ones do you think though?
> 
> One of them isn't even a restriction, it's just not opening sport in October. Then there's the making it legal to have workplaces Covid secure (personally was surprised that wasn't already the case), then masks in taxis, WFH, 10pm shutting, and something else (can't be arsed even looking tbh).


I think WFH and 10pm closing will have an impact. The others I don't really know. I thought people were already wearing masks in taxis...


----------



## Wilf (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think WFH and 10pm closing will have an impact. The others I don't really know. I thought people were already wearing masks in taxis...


Here's John Edmunds on both of those points, but basically saying too little too late (_again_):








						New lockdown is 'too little, too late' government's own science adviser says
					

Professor John Edmunds said we did not act quick enough back in March and the same ‘mistake’ is about to be repeated.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Sue (Sep 23, 2020)

chilango said:


> because we love freedom so much.


Not like those Germans and Italians obvs.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 23, 2020)

There's not enough of these -  



> What at first seems like an incredibly alarming statistic has been circulating on social media, promoted by a small and vocal group of journalists – at least 91% of coronavirus tests in the UK are “false positives”.
> 
> If true, the implications would be staggering – the actual scale of the pandemic in the UK is less than a tenth of what we thought and the government has just announced further lockdown restrictions based on faulty data.
> 
> This claim has been seized upon by, among others, radio show host Julia Hartley-Brewer...



No, 90% Of Coronavirus Tests Are Not 'False Positives' And This Is Why


----------



## Sue (Sep 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's not enough of these -
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This was discussed at length (and included the expert who explained the numbers to Hartley-Brewer that she then misunderstood/misrepresented) on More or Less this morning. 









						More or Less - Covid curve queried, false positives, and the Queen’s head - BBC Sounds
					

How fast are coronavirus cases doubling? Plus testing confusion and a royal face-off.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				




(I love More or Less. I realise that probably makes me a right saddo but hey...)


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

> "My staff are attempting to do the right thing and yet are putting themselves in danger as the police are failing to back them up," the bowling alley owner said.
> 
> "Our 22 year old female manager was dealing with four youths here with no backup. This is nothing short of a disgrace and typical of problems we keep having at this and other bowling centres.
> 
> "I have seen this time and time again. There is no consequence to the public from not wearing a mask. According to what I can see only 46 fines were issued across the whole of the UK in August.











						Police criticised over response to Bowling Alley yobs
					

There was an incident at the bowling alley in Nuneaton




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## strung out (Sep 23, 2020)

Lancman said:


> It’s as if we’re all playing some macabre game of musical chairs, the music has stopped and we’ve all sat down, if we can find a seat. And there we must stay until the music starts again. But the violinist has packed up his instrument and gone home, and he wont come back until he gets a sip of vaccine.


violinist, you say?


----------



## Lancman (Sep 23, 2020)

strung out said:


> violinist, you say?
> 
> View attachment 231482


Just a "Valse Macabre" allusion, nothing personal.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Here's John Edmunds on both of those points, but basically saying too little too late (_again_):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm sure it's true that it's too little, too late - but there's a difference between too little, too late and nothing at all. Small though these measures look, they are still significant, and will have an impact on how much contact people have with each other. Not enough to stop the virus, but enough to, say, stop the doubling time going down from 10 days to 8 days (nb, this is not a real figure, totally pulled out of my arse).


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

Why will the 10pm ‘curfew’ make people less likely to spread the virus? Surely the opposite would be the result?


----------



## Wilf (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm sure it's true that it's too little, too late - but there's a difference between too little, too late and nothing at all. Small though these measures look, they are still significant, and will have an impact on how much contact people have with each other. Not enough to stop the virus, but enough to, say, stop the doubling time going down from 10 days to 8 days (nb, this is not a real figure, totally pulled out of my arse).


Yes, certainly they will have some effect and I'd have thought the rule of 6 was the most effective. But some bits of the package, particularly the 10 pm last orders appear almost ideological, things you do when you are _not _willing to act i.e. unwilling to do the things that will really affect transmission.


----------



## emanymton (Sep 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I posted about 2 weeks ago, with a link, that the app would be available from tomorrow, has everyone got me on ignore?


I can just about remember 2 hours ago 2 weeks forget it.


----------



## bimble (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Why will the 10pm ‘curfew’ make people less likely to spread the virus? Surely the opposite would be the result?


Why would it be the opposite? It’s Mingling that is illegal, more danger of Mingling after ten i reckon, unless everyone just starts drinking an hour earlier of course.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Why will the 10pm ‘curfew’ make people less likely to spread the virus? Surely the opposite would be the result?



Why?


----------



## Cid (Sep 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why would it be the opposite? It’s Mingling that is illegal, more danger of Mingling after ten i reckon, unless everyone just starts drinking an hour earlier of course.


 
Well, this was appeared in one of my WhatsApp groups about 1 minute after announcement:


----------



## emanymton (Sep 23, 2020)

Just tried the app, it needs a code 'you should have received by letter or email'

Never mind then.


----------



## emanymton (Sep 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why?


I'm guessing because it will concentrate more people into a smaller time slot rather than having them spread out over a longer period.


----------



## Cid (Sep 23, 2020)

Depends on the management partly I suppose. Stick to the rules and the slots are restricted as they were before. But there’s going to be a fairly major motivation to sell as much booze as quickly as possible.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why would it be the opposite? It’s Mingling that is illegal, more danger of Mingling after ten i reckon, unless everyone just starts drinking an hour earlier of course.


Cos people will drink faster, get drunker, will all go home at the same time and then have house parties drinking in smaller spaces


----------



## Wilf (Sep 23, 2020)

By the by, two random interjections:

1. At work, a university, we've been told they won't be cleaning rooms inbetween sessions as they will be sprayed with a 'mist' that kills the virus for 4 weeks. It's as if Donald Trump became our VC...   

2. I had my own Occ Health this discussion about whether I was up to teaching face to face due to a couple of medical conditions. Fwiw, the OH guy is great and provides report that are helpful in union casework. Anyway, he mentioned the usual point that face masks only stop you transmitting to others. However there are medical grade masks that do provide protection to the wearer and recommended I wear one of those.  Rather begs the question why supermarket worksers and others haven't been wearing these for months...


----------



## Cid (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cos people will drink faster, get drunker, will all go home at the same time and then have house parties drinking in smaller spaces



Yeah, I guess the house party thing might be a serious issue.


----------



## Cid (Sep 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> By the by, two random interjections:
> 
> 1. At work, a university, we've been told they won't be cleaning rooms inbetween sessions as they will be sprayed with a 'mist' that kills the virus for 4 weeks. It's as if Donald Trump became our VC...
> 
> 2. I had my own Occ Health this discussion about whether I was up to teaching face to face due to a couple of medical conditions. Fwiw, the OH guy is great and provides report that are helpful in union casework. Anyway, he mentioned the usual point that face masks only stop you transmitting to others. However there are medical grade masks that do provide protection to the wearer and recommended I wear one of those.  Rather begs the question why supermarket worksers and others haven't been wearing these for months...



1) more expensive.
2) er...

to be fair many of the better ones have valves which are fine for protecting yourself, but potentially actively harmful for spread (they drip). They’re also less comfortable than cloth masks. Not tried surgical mask for comparison.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cos people will drink faster, get drunker, will all go home at the same time and then have house parties drinking in smaller spaces


'Would you chaps like to come back to my gazebo for a sherry?'


----------



## Cid (Sep 23, 2020)

So you want:







NOT:


----------



## Wilf (Sep 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> 1) more expensive.
> 2) er...
> 
> to be fair many of the better ones have valves which are fine for protecting yourself, but potentially actively harmful for spread (they drip). They’re also less comfortable than cloth masks. Not tried surgical mask for comparison.


Yeah, I think he was referring to a kind of weapons grade cloth version, rather than the respirator type.  My specs usually steam up when up when I use a mask so I'll look a right div.


----------



## bimble (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cos people will drink faster, get drunker, will all go home at the same time and then have house parties drinking in smaller spaces


Yeah I think that might be true for some people, maybe of younger people, or just people who go to pubs in order to you know Mingle not to have a pint of Guinness and a fish and chips then go home again, which were never the worry anyway.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> Well, this was appeared in one of my WhatsApp groups about 1 minute after announcement:
> 
> View attachment 231492


That's a joke though. Pissheads gonna pisshead whatever, but for most people that last hour is the one where you start forgetting what you're supposed to be doing and ordering tequila shots, rubbing against your work colleagues, etc. Add to that, most people can't really get out drinking much earlier, so it's an extra hour less time of an evening that they'll be in contact with people. From these things alone it'll have a dampening effect. 

It isn't enough, and for a small minority of people it might encourage more risky behaviour, but it's population level behaviour they're looking at here.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> 1. At work, a university, we've been told they won't be cleaning rooms inbetween sessions as they will be sprayed with a 'mist' that kills the virus for 4 weeks. It's as if Donald Trump became our VC...


Wait, what..?? Is that actually a thing? Why isn't it... everywhere?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Wait, what..?? Is that actually a thing? Why isn't it... everywhere?



Because its bollocks that's why.  Not the mist being effective, I don't know about that its the idea it lasts 4 weeks.  I imagine it does work in a Petri dish in a lab, no chance in a real world application.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 23, 2020)

Stop being a naysayer and give the people the magic mist they deserve!!


----------



## prunus (Sep 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Stop being a naysayer and give the people the magic mist they deserve!!



Does it tone...?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 23, 2020)

if you find the disinfectant doesn't work you can always inject it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 23, 2020)

Fucking hell, 6178 new cases today.   

And, and another 37 deaths, the same as yesterday.


----------



## bimble (Sep 23, 2020)




----------



## prunus (Sep 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> View attachment 231499



Is this one of those everyone thinks they’re a better driver than average or are people basically say “yeah, no, it’s my fault, my bad, sorry” do you think?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Stop being a naysayer and give the people the magic mist they deserve!!



I posted this earlier but they are already using it in my industry.  They've just done away with the stupid 4 week claim nonsense



			https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2020/09/23/bam-installs-covid-killing-spray-tunnel-on-site/
		

.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> View attachment 231499


what's the % change on this since last week?


----------



## weepiper (Sep 23, 2020)

Big numbers in Scotland today - university outbreaks are becoming a problem 









						Covid: Scotland records highest number of new virus cases
					

A further 486 test positive for coronavirus - the biggest single day's number since mass testing began.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Lord Camomile (Sep 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I posted this earlier but they are already using it in my industry.  They've just done away with the stupid 4 week claim nonsense
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Huh, would ya look at that!


----------



## bimble (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> what's the % change on this since last week?


Can’t see an earlier one of the same question.
Slightly encouraged to see that in another recent one they found that the percentage of people who think the government is handling track and trace ‘very well’ is 1%.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> View attachment 231499


here we are - blame the government up 1% since last week. so no change really. 









						Daily Question  | 16/09/2020  |  YouGov
					

If there was to be a second wave of coronavirus in the UK, who would you hold most responsible…?




					yougov.co.uk
				




Still, it's a mixed picture - the british are the least satisfied with how the government is handling the crisis of all the countries they're tracking:


----------



## brogdale (Sep 23, 2020)

'kinnel.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 23, 2020)

Maybe close the boozers at 9.45pm, instead...just to be sure.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fucking hell, 6178 new cases today.
> 
> And, and another 37 deaths, the same as yesterday.



The 7-day rolling average of daily deaths was 7 on the 3rd Sept., 3 weeks later and we are now on 25, the same as the Friday before lockdown.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

And as I said late last night the last ZOE covid estimate was 12,698 daily cases, and if I am reading their site properly that prediction is from September 16th based on data from 30th August to September 12th.

So I am rather keen to see their next estimate.









						Latest Daily UK COVID-19 Data: Vaccines, Cases, Trends | ZOE
					

COVID infection & vaccination rates in the UK today, based on public data and reports from millions of users of the ZOE Health Study app




					covid.joinzoe.com


----------



## Wilf (Sep 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Because its bollocks that's why.  Not the mist being effective, I don't know about that its the idea it lasts 4 weeks.  I imagine it does work in a Petri dish in a lab, no chance in a real world application.


Yes, I think its an ideological mist.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Sep 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yeah, I think he was referring to a kind of weapons grade cloth version, rather than the respirator type.  My specs usually steam up when up when I use a mask so I'll look a right div.



From what I recall from when NHS types were posting here back in April, any mask which is good enough to really protect you will fit your face so tightly that it's sweaty & uncomfortable. That's why they have 'fit tests' for them.

Other people in masks plus really good, functioning AC / ventilation is what you really need, I'd think - plus as well-fitting / non-woven / multilayered mask as you can bear to wear.


----------



## tommers (Sep 23, 2020)

Right at the start somebody posted a graph showing the 1918 epidemic and the second wave dwarfed the first one. Ive always assumed that is what will happen.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 23, 2020)

tommers said:


> Right at the start somebody posted a graph showing the 1918 epidemic and the second wave dwarfed the first one. Ive always assumed that is what will happen.



There is absolutely no reason to believe that will happen.   The situation was very different back then in so many ways.


----------



## LDC (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cos people will drink faster, get drunker, will all go home at the same time and then have house parties drinking in smaller spaces



Some will, but I imagine the modelling or thinking behind it is that it will also put some people off going out totally, and some people will just drink less and behave better. Most people who go out probably aren't the heavy drinking then back to someone's house kind of people I expect. It's a very mild measure but it will make some kind of impact.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 23, 2020)

tommers said:


> Right at the start somebody posted a graph showing the 1918 epidemic and the second wave dwarfed the first one. Ive always assumed that is what will happen.


Pubs open till 10.30pm under the 1914 Defence of the Realm act; bet they regretted that extra 30 mins.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 23, 2020)

Lancman said:


> It’s as if we’re all playing some macabre game of musical chairs, the music has stopped and we’ve all sat down, if we can find a seat. And there we must stay until the music starts again. But the violinist has packed up his instrument and gone home, and he wont come back until he gets a sip of vaccine.


"Fiddling while Rome burns"

I shall be pissed off when I get to the bottom of this thread and find that someone's made the same joke.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Sep 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I posted this earlier but they are already using it in my industry.  They've just done away with the stupid 4 week claim nonsense
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, I've seen this being tried out. Fine for what it is I guess, but won't do anything to stop people spreading the virus with their breath or lack of distancing. (It's impossible to distance on site all the time).
Just more 'performance hygiene' - and might do more harm than good if it encourages a false sense of security.
It shouldn't be 'ventilation' OR 'masks' OR 'distancing' as they aren't all equally effective.

Temperature checks on admittance to site is a good thing though.


----------



## andysays (Sep 23, 2020)

existentialist said:


> "Fiddling while Rome burns"
> 
> I shall be pissed off when I get to the bottom of this thread and find that someone's made the same joke.


Not this thread but


andysays said:


> Meanwhile he's fiddling while the whole world burns...


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 23, 2020)

Llanelli threatened with local lockdown.









						Wales' first town-only lockdown is being considered for Llanelli
					

Cases are up in Carmarthenshire, but Public Health Wales has said that certain parts - like Llanelli - could be placed in lockdown, rather than the whole county




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Sep 23, 2020)

Fuck that daily infection rate is very high. I have sense of doom about the next six months, more than the previous wave.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fuck that daily infection rate is very high. I have sense of doom about the next six months, more than the previous wave.



My doom expectations cover quite a wide range at the moment due to uncertainty about everything from the effects of coinfection to what measures will actually be imposed.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> View attachment 231499


Shit.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

I know I'm trying to stop driving myelf mad with things the BBC Nick Triggle says, but I suppose I will indulge in reporting on the latest Triggle wiggle in the face of todays numbers:



> We should be very careful about reading too much into a single day's rise - the jump of more than 1,000 is rapid and if repeated would mean daily case numbers doubling in less than a week. But figures can fluctuate from day to day.
> 
> Nonetheless, the UK has been warned it should be prepared for cases to continue growing. The figure for new cases is well below what was seen at the peak, which was estimated at 100,000 cases a day. We don't know for sure, since a lack of testing meant the system was only picking up the tip of the iceberg then.
> 
> ...











						Covid-19: Daily reported UK cases rise by a quarter
					

There have been 6,178 cases in the UK in the last 24 hours, up 1,252 cases since Tuesday.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Stupid git wouldnt have to wiggle so much if he didnt try to spin the anti-lockdown everything will be fine, put up with the death agenda.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

what measures did spain and france take to reverse their upward trends?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fuck that daily infection rate is very high. I have sense of doom about the next six months, more than the previous wave.


Me too, as it looks like I might not be able to hunker down, WFH and ride it out like the first time around


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 23, 2020)

100,000 cases a day?


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> what measures did spain and france take to reverse their upward trends?



I wouldnt make the claim that they managed to reverse their upward trend yet. Triggle was trying to spin their trajectory as only being compatible with 10,000 cases in the UK by mid October, not 50,000 just last night, and he has used several dodgy graphs in recent days. Im not sure I have the energy to keep presenting my different picture using similar data.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 100,000 cases a day?



Thats one of the more sensible things he said.

There really is no point comparing the number of cases our very limited testing system picked up in the firt wave, with what we are seeing picked up now, if it causes confusion about the actual number of cases at the peak the first time round.

I dont have an exact estimate for the peak number of daily infections the first time around but it was a very large number and so I would not automatically blink at 100,000, that sort of number seems reasonable but I would need to double check as I could be wrong on that.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

I was reading an estimate yesterday of 4 million people infected in the first wave, which needs numbers like 100,000 a day to get to.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 23, 2020)

What was the highest number of cases last time?


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> I was reading an estimate yesterday of 4 million people infected in the first wave, which needs numbers like 100,000 a day to get to.



Yes and another very small illustration that hopefully feeds into that point.

UK hospital admissions data was managing to pick up over 3000 cases a day at the peak, so I think it goes without saying that there were many tends of thousands of daily infections at that point, minimum.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What was the highest number of cases last time?



We were only testing very ill and very important people the first time so if you are looking at the number of cases actually detected through testing then you are making a very large mistake indeed.

The exception to this was people with a certain narrow travel history in the early days. But that sort of testing was abandoned by early March, and the testing efforts went mostly towards hospital patients etc.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What was the highest number of cases last time?


looks like they stopped counting at 5000 a day.


----------



## savoloysam (Sep 23, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> From what I recall from when NHS types were posting here back in April, any mask which is good enough to really protect you will fit your face so tightly that it's sweaty & uncomfortable. That's why they have 'fit tests' for them.
> 
> Other people in masks plus really good, functioning AC / ventilation is what you really need, I'd think - plus as well-fitting / non-woven / multilayered mask as you can bear to wear.



The virus is airborne or whatever the fuck you want to call it. You still breath air with or without a mask.


LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Some will, but I imagine the modelling or thinking behind it is that it will also put some people off going out totally, and some people will just drink less and behave better. Most people who go out probably aren't the heavy drinking then back to someone's house kind of people I expect. It's a very mild measure but it will make some kind of impact.



The thinking is we are going to close the pubs again. This is just the first step.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

Sunak is up tomorrow with some announcement about supporting the economy over winter btw. Will he be extending/replacing furlough tomorrow, or will he be doing it next week?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 23, 2020)

The estimate of over 100,000 cases a day figure, at the peak, has been widly reported over the months.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> looks like they stopped counting at 5000 a day.
> View attachment 231512



Combination of running out of testing capacity and more than one element of the epidemic wave actually genuinely peaking at that time, and hospital demand being somewhat suppressed, and lack of care home testing etc.

In the first couple of weeks of April the number of tests processed per day was in the 11,000-15,000 sort of range, so the fact they could even get to 5000 a day positives out of that demonstrates how high the percentage positivity was, in part as a result of how the testing was mostly targetted at people in hospital that were rather likely to be positive.

All of this factors into my thinking earlier this month when I said I wasnt sure if they would even be able to get back up to 5000 positive tests a day under the current system, given the much wider range of access to the tests there had been and how the system was creaking under the demand. But since then they have gone on about rationing the tests, with very similar priorities to last time, so the situation is probably going to return to a similar kind of testing regime as we had the first time, albeit with somewhat expanded capacity. So in the last 24 hours I moved on to start wondering if the current system would be abe to detect 10,000 cases a day. And I only picked 10,000 because Triggle was wanking on about how UK trajectory if it followed France & Spain made 10,000 a day more likely by mid October than 50,000, and he is usually well wrong.


----------



## ska invita (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> looks like they stopped counting at 5000 a day.


Second wave is going to be significantly bigger than the first then, if theres any meaningful information in the graphic


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

There isnt, not that sort anyway.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Second wave is going to be significantly bigger than the first then, if theres any meaningful information in the graphic


there isn't - testing capacity is way bigger now, so there's a lot more cases being found.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

A reminder of what the testing situation used to be like, just an example from one moment in time:

April 17th, a week or so after the very peak from a hospitals & death perspective was in the past, and a little bit after testing was expanded to cover NHS staff:









						Coronavirus testing to be rolled out to more public service staff
					

Capacity is rising "sharply" but fewer NHS staff than expected are coming forward, Matt Hancock says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Coronavirus testing will be rolled out to people working in public services such as police, fire and prison staff, Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said.
> 
> Capacity was rising "sharply" but not as many NHS staff had come forward for tests as had been expected, he said.





> Eligibility for testing will also be expanded to critical local authority workers, the judiciary and Department for Work and Pensions staff, he said.
> 
> "We're able to do that because of the scale-up of testing," he added.
> 
> ...



When he said get back to the position where they can test everyone with symptoms, they were never in that position in the first place. Because their original testing criteria well before the peak was never about symptoms alone, it also required the person being tested to have travelled to a couple of countries in particular that were deemed to be high risk.


----------



## scifisam (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s just a shit show all round. Staff need to protected from abuse and people can’t be denied access to essential services.



And realistically, in your work, there will be a lot of people without smartphones. I have one and it doesn't work with QR codes, probably because it's slightly damaged and the camera doesn't work properly, but there are better things for me to spend money on than a new smart phone just so I can print out an essential form at a library.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

Also Hancock was being misleading in April when he said it was down to increased capacity that they would soon be able to offer tests to the public.

It was actually because of a combination of supply and demand - capacity increased a bit but the system was only able to consider the general public using it once the actual number of community infections, and therefore demand for tests, fell well below the peak levels.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 23, 2020)

scifisam said:


> And realistically, in your work, there will be a lot of people without smartphones. I have one and it doesn't work with QR codes, probably because it's slightly damaged and the camera doesn't work properly, but there are better things for me to spend money on than a new smart phone just so I can print out an essential form at a library.


A staff member has an iPhone and couldn’t download the app
(Also, dunno about anywhere else but no printing is allowed in our libraries at the moment)


----------



## Raheem (Sep 23, 2020)

Exclusive inside info.

Next week, the government will announce a replacement for furlough, which will be based on the existing Kickstart scheme (where the government pays for minimum wage jobs for young people).

I don't know any more than that.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Exclusive inside info.
> 
> Next week, the government will announce a replacement for furlough, which will be based on the existing Kickstart scheme (where the government pays for minimum wage jobs for young people).
> 
> I don't know any more than that.


He's announcing something tomorrow, probably this. Who's your 'inside' source?


----------



## Raheem (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> He's announcing something tomorrow, probably this. Who's your 'inside' source?


A civil servant. They didn't actually say the announcement would be next week, but that certain things needed to be in place by the middle of next week. My lax reporting.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 23, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Llanelli threatened with local lockdown.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ouch, that's getting a bit close to home. Time to put the sea mines out in the estuaries, just in case


----------



## Cloo (Sep 23, 2020)

I'm noticing an increasing tendency, among my friends at least, to now be assuming things will not be back to normal by next summer. Like people are expecting they might travel, but that there could be issues and they'd better not be too ambitious. Sad to say, I think it's probably best to assume so.

Though for all the dreadful shitshowiness of things I do think the summer's shown it could have been worse - we might have had a cold, wet, shitty summer; we might have found the whole thing came bouncing back the minute you lowered restrictions, regardless of weather; but we do know even if things are no better, there will be more we can do when it gets warm enough to be outside. Albeit in 6 months' time. I was struck by this when we passed a 'Pick Your Own' place in Oxfordshire the other week and my daughter talked about wanting to do something like that next year and I was sort of reassured to think that at least we probably can say 'Yes, let's do that' and not 'Yes, but we might not be able to'


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 23, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Ouch, that's getting a bit close to home. Time to put the sea mines out in the estuaries, just in case



That sounds like a lot of trouble to go to.

Just one massive fuck off bomb in the centre of Llanelli. It could only improve it.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 23, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Why will the 10pm ‘curfew’ make people less likely to spread the virus? Surely the opposite would be the result?


The 10pm pub closing is a Tory version of something that worked with some success in Belgium. 

When C-19 cases started to rise in July a strict curfew was introduced on 28/7 across the whole Antwerp province, where the outbreak was centered. Everything had to shut at 11pm and everyone had to be home between 11.30pm and 5am. The number of new cases started to drop and in mid-August the curfew was moved back to 1.30 to 5am. Then numbers then started rising again and have shot up again recently. You can see it quite clearly on the daily new cases graph here.

There's been a lot of talk about this approach recently from more right wing keep-business-open types; a quick Google of "Belgium 10pm curfew" brings up loads of results. But the cabinet and backbench Tory MPs would never accept a full-on curfew in Britain and the right wing press would shit themselves if they tried. So we get a watered down version where pubs have to shut an hour or so early, but then people can carry on doing what they do as long as they rule-of-six.

So it might have some impact, but not as much as in Belgium. And that's without even thinking about any differences between the situation in Belgium and the UK.


----------



## Maltin (Sep 23, 2020)

I do wonder if rather than closing everything down at once, they might use curfews more to limit things gradually. It didn’t seem that the UK used these previously whereas places like Germany did. Maybe they are starting with a 10pm one to see how that goes and maybe later they will introduce one at 8pm then maybe one at 6pm if things get gradually worse.


----------



## prunus (Sep 23, 2020)

I’m assuming that as soon as they can the ‘rule of six’ will revert back to 2 households maximum (indoors at least). I think the only reason they didn’t bring that in with the rest of the changes is that they’d only just brought in the rule of six, and changing it so soon would make it look like they didn’t have a clue what they were doing (even more so than it looks that way anyway).

I think that in 2 or 3 (tops) weeks it will be ‘you haven’t been doing what we asked so we need to do this as well’.


----------



## LDC (Sep 23, 2020)

Yeah, I think 2-3 weeks maximum and we'll have more restrictions, although I think they'll try to push it to half term if at all possible.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Talking about the app now on Radio 4. Short version is it's a proximity warning really, you get a beep if you've been in contact for a certain length of time with a positive case. Then you get in touch with T&T.  Idea is it catches people before they get symptoms. Relies massively (entirely?) on the testing system being effective. Person on said without the testing system working the app is functionally useless.



We're not allowed to have our phones on us at work, which is where I come into contact with about 500x more people on a daily basis than I would otherwise. Not that it matters, since it won't work anyway.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I think 2-3 weeks maximum and we'll have more restrictions, although I think they'll try to push it to half term if at all possible.


I think they'll want to get universities delivering a version of on campus/online mix that's been promised


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> And as I said late last night the last ZOE covid estimate was 12,698 daily cases, and if I am reading their site properly that prediction is from September 16th based on data from 30th August to September 12th.
> 
> So I am rather keen to see their next estimate.
> 
> ...



Number has since changed to 14,433 cases per day, but the stuff about September 16th and 30th August to 12th September is still there, so ignore the prediction date stuff I said earlier.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> By the by, two random interjections:
> 
> 1. At work, a university, we've been told they won't be cleaning rooms inbetween sessions as they will be sprayed with a 'mist' that kills the virus for 4 weeks. It's as if Donald Trump became our VC...
> 
> 2. I had my own Occ Health this discussion about whether I was up to teaching face to face due to a couple of medical conditions. Fwiw, the OH guy is great and provides report that are helpful in union casework. Anyway, he mentioned the usual point that face masks only stop you transmitting to others. However there are medical grade masks that do provide protection to the wearer and recommended I wear one of those.  Rather begs the question why supermarket worksers and others haven't been wearing these for months...



It's not just about the grade, you have to be shown how to fit/wear them properly, I think?
And if you haven't, it's also (supposedly) no mitigation in terms of you being considered a close contact, later, too.

We _could_ be better protected but it would take more more money to ensure that was the case - providing/fitting medical grade masks to all workers who would reasonably need them possibly stripping the same from continuing NHS/care home reserves at the same time - it goes back to why not just test more?

So, I guess COST is the answer, as ever (I mean a pretence at the reason, really - funding the bodies who could ensure it happened, over shovelling millions over to companies who, demonstrably, cant just because they're Tory donors or whatever). 

I haven't looked but I'm also wondering whether the enforcement on mask wearing for some workers even comes with an obligation for employers to provide them, anyway, let alone them being medical grade and/or fitted (it may or may not do - as I say, I've not checked!)


----------



## zahir (Sep 23, 2020)

An article on the line being pushed by Sikora, Gupta and Heneghan. I’d be interested to know if people think the article is reliable as I’m not sure how much confidence I have in the writer or in Byline Times.









						Scamademics? Right-Wing Lobbying Groups Reviving ‘Herd Immunity’ in the UK – Byline Times
					

Nafeez Ahmed reveals how a high-profile letter to Boris Johnson was based on ‘fringe pseudoscience’ and co-drafted by a Government advisor who downplayed the COVID-19 death toll




					bylinetimes.com


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> That's a joke though. Pissheads gonna pisshead whatever, but for most people that last hour is the one where you start forgetting what you're supposed to be doing and ordering tequila shots, rubbing against your work colleagues, etc. Add to that, most people can't really get out drinking much earlier, so it's an extra hour less time of an evening that they'll be in contact with people. From these things alone it'll have a dampening effect.
> 
> It isn't enough, and for a small minority of people it might encourage more risky behaviour, but it's population level behaviour they're looking at here.


Who is that you think is looking at social behaviour


bimble said:


> View attachment 231499



It's working _for them_ then, eh, the cunts.


killer b said:


> looks like they stopped counting at 5000 a day.
> View attachment 231512



I've seen approximations of between 4 -10x the original case figures, fwiw (because there was no real testing then - not even insufficient, inadequate testing).
We can't really compare new case numbers to the previous ones (know you're not doing this killer b ) - as elbows says, lots, it's the healthcare figures to look to for similarities (and then deaths to follow  ).
All of those are consistently heading up now - back into June-July and moving up at a fast pace.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2020)

zahir said:


> An article on the line being pushed by Sikora, Gupta and Heneghan. I’d be interested to know if people think the article is reliable as I’m not sure how much confidence I have in the writer or in Byline Times.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I dont have time or energy to explore that side of things, in part because I spend so much time pissing on the practicalities of the prefered pandemic approach of the shitheads. I hope others do have time to look into it from the direction provided by articles like that.

There is no point in them quacking on about shielding the vulnerable and letting everyone else go back to normal when this would require a whole bunch of stuff to do with hospitals, care homes and multi-generational households that were not deemed to be options this country, eg NHS management deciding that these were not things the NHS could actually hope to achieve.

Any things of merit these shits actually manage to stumble upon would have required, as a basic starting point, a wonderfully funded and generously staffed NHS.

Johnson also managed to reveal the limits of shortsighted definitions of who is vulnerable in this pandemic by ending up hospitalised.

I could go on with lots of other aspects and details, but I wont, especially as some of this shit is currently being discussed in the thread about Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson, albeit from a slightly different angle again.

I do not disguise the contempt I have for these people in the pandemic. I do reserve the right to move with reality and change my tune if thats what the pandemic data had shown, but so far the data usually just shows how wrong these shits have been, and the cheek they have when continuing this stance. I'll ditch any dogma that reality may demand, they dont, they are rigid and deadly.


----------



## killer b (Sep 23, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Who is that you think is looking at social behaviour


the government


----------



## Cloo (Sep 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I think 2-3 weeks maximum and we'll have more restrictions, although I think they'll try to push it to half term if at all possible.


That's my guess too - they will try to keep the schools going until HT, maybe with a longer break and maybe shutting more stuff before schools return but I think they are going to try to avoid term-long closures again if at all possible.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> the government


 But they've repeatedly ignored the behavioural science. I find it harder to see any new rules being especially and/or honestly driven by any insight into social behaviour, at this stage, as a consequence - particularly in the context of those rules being obviously shite in the grand scheme of things.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 23, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> But they've repeatedly ignored the behavioural science. I find it harder to see any new rules being especially and/or honestly driven by any insight into social behaviour, at this stage, as a consequence - particularly in the context of those rules being obviously shite in the grand scheme of things.


We are truly paying the price now for the "every man for himself" cult that started in the 1980s...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 23, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> But they've repeatedly ignored the behavioural science. I find it harder to see any new rules being especially and/or honestly driven by any insight into social behaviour, at this stage, as a consequence - particularly in the context of those rules being obviously shite in the grand scheme of things.



I think there has been two campaigns for the behaviour boys here, the government managed to nudge people into locking down before the government felt forced to and did that well. 

They've then attempted to "nudge" people back into softly going to work while maintaining distance and other measures however they wildly underestimated the extent to which social distancing and other protective measures would collapse and how quickly it would collapse. 

We won't know for sure though until the inevitable 20 year inquiry nears an end and the biographies start coming out though.


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2020)

Pret A Manger founder reacts badly to the news that autumn & winter together last 6 months. And demands that the rules are reviewed each week, each hour. Personally I doubt hourly data will be available or make a difference, and I dread to think what will happen if someone tells him how many hours autumn & winter comprise of.









						Pret Founder Julian Metcalfe Blasts Boris Johnson's 'Churchillian Nonsense'
					

The businessman demanded that new lockdown rules are reviewed "each week, each hour".




					www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
				






> “The talk of six months is criminal,” he said. “We’re losing thousands upon thousands of jobs. How long can this continue.”



Also contains other criticisms of Johnson.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> Pret A Manger founder reacts badly to the news that autumn & winter together last 6 months. And demands that the rules are reviewed each week, each hour. Personally I doubt hourly data will be available or make a difference, and I dread to think what will happen if someone tells him how many hours autumn & winter comprise of.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Maybe if he whines enough, Johnson will fine workers who bring their own sarnies into work.


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 24, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Maybe if he whines enough, Johnson will fine workers *who bring their own sarnies into work.*



I know it's a pisstake , but .....

 if anything like that was ever suggested in reality! 

In my case, I'm more likely to bring salads (+ fruit), but I have no choice -- the usually excellent salad bar at work is indefinitely closed (helping yourself with shared spoons obviously isn't a great idea) .


----------



## killer b (Sep 24, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> But they've repeatedly ignored the behavioural science. I find it harder to see any new rules being especially and/or honestly driven by any insight into social behaviour, at this stage, as a consequence - particularly in the context of those rules being obviously shite in the grand scheme of things.


Dunno about that - much of the criticism I've read has suggested they were driven too much by the behavioural scientists and not enough by the science scientists.


----------



## mauvais (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Dunno about that - much of the criticism I've read has suggested they were driven too much by the behavioural scientists and not enough by the science scientists.











						A Member Of Sage Has Claimed The “Trivial” 10pm Curfew Will Have Little Impact On Slowing Coronavirus Infections
					

Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Sage advisory group, has said the impact on the 10pm curfew will be trivial as he warned current measures d...




					www.politicshome.com
				






> Meanwhile, The Times suggests that other scientific advisers have also warned that the 10pm curfew will have little effect.
> 
> The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) reportedly did not model the effect of a 10pm curfew, and the behavioural science sub-group was also not consulted on the change.
> 
> Key members of the committee are said to have told the government there is no evidence that the curfew would be effective.


----------



## Cid (Sep 24, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I think there has been two campaigns for the behaviour boys here, the government managed to nudge people into locking down before the government felt forced to and did that well.
> 
> They've then attempted to "nudge" people back into softly going to work while maintaining distance and other measures however they wildly underestimated the extent to which social distancing and other protective measures would collapse and how quickly it would collapse.
> 
> We won't know for sure though until the inevitable 20 year inquiry nears an end and the biographies start coming out though.



Problem is that they didn’t do it well. Maybe they think they did, which might explain a lot of the problems they’re having. But Italy passed 100 deaths in a day on the 8th of March. And Cheltenham festival started on the 10th. It was a mess... of course you can say that independent actions at that time were a result of nudging. But when your nudge looks pretty similar to what people might do anyway in the face of a potential catastrophe... well you’re basically post-rationalising. And clearly the effect of waiting until that point was an abject failure in terms of impact on the country.


----------



## killer b (Sep 24, 2020)

mauvais said:


> A Member Of Sage Has Claimed The “Trivial” 10pm Curfew Will Have Little Impact On Slowing Coronavirus Infections
> 
> 
> Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Sage advisory group, has said the impact on the 10pm curfew will be trivial as he warned current measures d...
> ...


Everyone loved John Edmunds now he's critical of the government... I remember the olden days when he was out on the media rounds in March, defending herd immunity as a policy.


----------



## killer b (Sep 24, 2020)

(fwiw I'm sure he's right that each measure by itself has a modest effect. but I just don't believe closing the pubs at 10 will do nothing)


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> (fwiw I'm sure he's right that each measure by itself has a modest effect. but I just don't believe closing the pubs at 10 will do nothing)


For modest read utterly ineffectual. The dam has over 6000 holes and a very limited supply of brave little Dutch boys.


----------



## Cid (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> (fwiw I'm sure he's right that each measure by itself has a modest effect. but I just don't believe closing the pubs at 10 will do nothing)



Sure, but it becomes - again - a question of implementation and actual effect. We don’t know exactly what the government were presented with, what filters it passed through, and what interpretation they took. And they in turn don’t know how that will play out stochastically. The basic science might say ‘this caused Y effect in Belgian, so we would expect a range between X and y here’, probably with a load of caveats attached. That predictive element only holds up if the implementation is done in a way that maximises the effect and combines it properly with other measures. If the initial advice has been affected by e.g political influence from the back benches, contradictory letters, business interests etc, then you may end up with a watered down version whose actual effects are far less than the advice suggested.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 24, 2020)

I’d be cautious about saying the government are following “behavioural science”. The area used by this government is one strand of social psychology that takes an uncritical stance on the nature of power structures and social context, restricting itself to a neoliberal application of group dynamics on a small scale.  It engenders plenty of criticism within the wider academic field.  That’s why you get the likes of Reicher trying to advise SAGE but saying he’s not being listened to — the government simply aren’t interested in what the wider field has to say about the more critical stances of social psychology.  They just want to boil it down to individuals-being-influenced, not the more complex web of humans-as-relationships .


----------



## chilango (Sep 24, 2020)

Libertarian Paternalism is what they like to call it.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I’d be cautious about saying the government are following “behavioural science”. The area used by this government is one strand of social psychology that takes an uncritical stance on the nature of power structures and social context, restricting itself to a neoliberal application of group dynamics on a small scale.  It engenders plenty of criticism within the wider academic field.  That’s why you get the likes of Reicher trying to advise SAGE but saying he’s not being listened to — the government simply aren’t interested in what the wider field has to say about the more critical stances of social psychology.  They just want to boil it down to individuals-being-influenced, not the more complex web of humans-as-relationships .



Another excellent post


----------



## pesh (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> (fwiw I'm sure he's right that each measure by itself has a modest effect. but I just don't believe closing the pubs at 10 will do nothing)


yeah, it might push up off-licence and cocaine sales a bit i suppose.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> Libertarian Paternalism is what they like to call it.


I think of the nudge unit as being weaponised social psychology.   The deliberate aim is to bolster and advance a neoliberal ideology, which is done by enacting processes that make people look inwards rather than outwards for both the causes and solutions to their problems.  This is internalised until any other approach becomes literally unthinkable.  They are the front line of an ideological war.  Which means that paying attention only to those guys during a crisis like this is like ignoring the scientists working in epidemiology or immunology or trying to develop microbiological controls and instead just talking to those who develop biological weapons for a living.  Sure, they’ll have some insight.  But you’re really missing the information that’s kind of the key to developing a solution.


----------



## killer b (Sep 24, 2020)

Just to be clear: I'm not saying the government are 'following behavioural science' only that's it's been criticised previously for doing this too much. And I'm not saying that closing the pubs early will solve the problem - just saying that the idea it'll do nothing - when it will clearly both reduce the opportunities for human contact and dampen demand for pubs in general - is nonsense. It won't be enough. But it won't be nothing. That's all.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> A staff member has an iPhone and couldn’t download the app
> (Also, dunno about anywhere else but no printing is allowed in our libraries at the moment)


Apparently if you have an iPhone the app will only work if you have IOS 13.5 or above, so if your phone is over 6 years old, it ain’t gonna work


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Apparently if you have an iPhone the app will only work if you have IOS 13.5 or above, so if your phone is over 6 years old, it ain’t gonna work



There's a new thread covering today's launch of the app here: NHS Covid 19 App


----------



## Cid (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Just to be clear: I'm not saying the government are 'following behavioural science' only that's it's been criticised previously for doing this too much.



Really? From what I recall a substantial amount of criticism has come from the broader social science community.



> And I'm not saying that closing the pubs early will solve the problem - just saying that the idea it'll do nothing - when it will clearly both reduce the opportunities for human contact and dampen demand for pubs in general - is nonsense. It won't be enough. But it won't be nothing. That's all.



But again we’re talking humans here. Are they going to go home and quietly tuck themselves into bed after closing time? This stuff is very hard to get a handle on at the best of times.


----------



## killer b (Sep 24, 2020)

Cid said:


> But again we’re talking humans here. Are they going to go home and quietly tuck themselves into bed after closing time? This stuff is very hard to get a handle on at the best of times.


Some of them won't, but many will.

There was a widespread expectation at the start of lockdown earlier in the year that the british people just wouldn't observe it. But - on the whole - they did. While there's been a distinct drop in trust in the government since then which could move the dial a little against observance, why would it be any different with this?


----------



## killer b (Sep 24, 2020)

It's just the flipside of Johnson's bollocks about the british people being too freedom loving to stand for harsher restrictions. It's nonsense.


----------



## strung out (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Some of them won't, but many will.
> 
> There was a widespread expectation at the start of lockdown earlier in the year that the british people just wouldn't observe it. But - on the whole - they did. While there's been a distinct drop in trust in the government since then which could move the dial a little against observance, why would it be any different with this?


See also face masks. There were people on here saying that the masks in shops rule/law would be widely ignored and quietly withdrawn, but there's been 90%+ compliance in every shop I've been in since the rule was introduced, as opposed to probably less than 10% compliance beforehand.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 24, 2020)

My fear is the main demographic who give the least fucks about following the rules or being careful are the ones who unlike March-August are now back in massive numbers to crowded environments, which apparently will be last to close.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> (fwiw I'm sure he's right that each measure by itself has a modest effect. but I just don't believe closing the pubs at 10 will do nothing)



It'll get the staff home and in their beds at a reasonable hour, which is not nothing.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 24, 2020)

S☼I said:


> My fear is the main demographic who give the least fucks about following the rules or being careful are the ones who unlike March-August are now back in massive numbers to crowded environments, which apparently will be last to close.



Assuming 'young people' is the group you're referring to as giving the least fucks, I'd have to see you working out on that point.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 24, 2020)

I think it’s a myth that the dontgiveafucks are limited to a specific age range.


----------



## Cid (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's just the flipside of Johnson's bollocks about the british people being too freedom loving to stand for harsher restrictions. It's nonsense.



It’s not that at all... We’re talking about possible over reliance on a specific and limited set of rules, applied in a very different situation from early lockdown. I’m not saying people won’t do it, I’m saying that relying entirely on them doing it to a sufficient standard is a huge risk... and also reliant on the assumptions made in setting out that rule being correct.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 24, 2020)

Maybe people should have to book, in advance, for pubs in the same way as they do for eateries ?
(*with confirmation sent by a text reply with an activation code).

Second maybe - perhaps because of the when "booze in brain out" syndrome that reduces inhibitions (ie breaks down social distancing) we should only serve alcohol to those eating meals.

I'm not going out for either food or booze over the winter period. Actually, make that until I have immunity via vaccination.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Just to be clear: I'm not saying the government are 'following behavioural science' only that's it's been criticised previously for doing this too much. And I'm not saying that closing the pubs early will solve the problem - just saying that the idea it'll do nothing - when it will clearly both reduce the opportunities for human contact and dampen demand for pubs in general - is nonsense. It won't be enough. But it won't be nothing. That's all.





Cid said:


> Really? From what I recall a substantial amount of criticism has come from the broader social science community.
> But again we’re talking humans here. Are they going to go home and quietly tuck themselves into bed after closing time? This stuff is very hard to get a handle on at the best of times.



To answer both of these these, it will have an effect because it will put some people off some visits to the pub. For instance, some people go to the pub to watch football matches, some of which now start at 8.15. If you are going to get kicked out with 15 mins of the big game to go, you may as well go to the offy and then stream it at home.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 24, 2020)

Harry Smiles said:


> To answer both of these these, it will have an effect because it will put some people off some visits to the pub. For instance, some people go to the pub to watch football matches, some of which now start at 8.15. If you are going to get kicked out with 15 mins of the big game to go, you may as well go to the offy and then stream it at home.


The footy times have been rearranged


----------



## strung out (Sep 24, 2020)

Badgers said:


> The footy times have been rearranged


They should close the pubs at 9.45 instead then.


----------



## Cid (Sep 24, 2020)

Badgers said:


> The footy times have been rearranged



So it seems. Genius.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 24, 2020)

Closing pubs at 22:00 will be like closing at 22:30 or 23:00 used to be. The problems will all just happen however much earlier.


----------



## Cid (Sep 24, 2020)

strung out said:


> They should close the pubs at 9.45 instead then.



I’m guessing that was never the point.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Sep 24, 2020)

Badgers said:


> The footy times have been rearranged



Didn't know that!


----------



## Johnny Doe (Sep 24, 2020)

Cid said:


> So it seems. Genius.



Though still, moving 8.15 games to 8pm, still means getting kicked out at 2 all on 90 mins with injury time to go?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 24, 2020)

only if you've got more than 15 minutes of injury time, and Nobby Stiles doesn't play any more.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Sep 24, 2020)

two sheds said:


> only if you've got more than 15 minutes of injury time, and Nobby Stiles doesn't play any more.



Yeah, my bad. 45 per half plus 15 mins half time equals 1 hour 45 mins not 2 hours, doh!


----------



## LDC (Sep 24, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Closing pubs at 22:00 will be like closing at 22:30 or 23:00 used to be. The problems will all just happen however much earlier.



No, it's not that simple. Some of that will happen, but it will also slightly alter how people go out as it's happening in the context of the pandemic. Some people won't bother to go out, some will go earlier, some will do the same and not get as drunk and so will behave better, etc. It's also going to happen along side all the other things like groups of 6, social distancing, masks, more table service, limited numbers, etc. I don't think it's enough, but I think it will make some difference.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Everyone loved John Edmunds now he's critical of the government... I remember the olden days when he was out on the media rounds in March, defending herd immunity as a policy.


You remember wrong (though it is understandable since it's often hard to see beyond the soundbites and screaming headlines, taken out of context whilst rarely listening to the whole discussion).


----------



## TopCat (Sep 24, 2020)

The whole eat out to help out seems insane now.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> The whole eat out to help out _the virus_ seems insane now.


FTFY


----------



## killer b (Sep 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> You remember wrong (though it is understandable since it's often hard to see beyond the soundbites and screaming headlines, taken out of context whilst rarely listening to the whole discussion).


fair enough!


----------



## killer b (Sep 24, 2020)

Cid said:


> It’s not that at all... We’re talking about possible over reliance on a specific and limited set of rules, applied in a very different situation from early lockdown. I’m not saying people won’t do it, I’m saying that relying entirely on them doing it to a sufficient standard is a huge risk... and also reliant on the assumptions made in setting out that rule being correct.


I doubt even the government think this is going to be enough tbh. Certainly no-one here is claiming it will  be.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 24, 2020)

Matt Wankcock may ban students from going home for Christmas.  








						Hancock refuses to rule out Christmas student lockdown
					

Matt Hancock refuses to rule out stopping students returning home, to limit spread of coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Sep 24, 2020)

Somebody who understands in far more detail than I, could someone tell me why this wouldn't work?

Extend each school half term by another week.  So roughly every 12 or 13 weeks or so, when schools would be shut and a large number of people would have been making childcare arrangements anyway; with plenty of advance preparation time, and at a known time to allow for scheduling purposes (for things like non-urgent medical procedures).  Shut down, hard.  Everyone bunker down for 2 weeks; minimal essential shopping trips only, 1 hour daily exercise again.  2 weeks at a time, months apart.

I've seen a lot of talk around politicians not wanting to use the word "lockdown" again, instead calling it a "circuit-breaker".  In that case, do something more than fucking pubs shutting an hour early that actually breaks the circuit - starve the virus of hosts, then the time in between "circuit-breakers" could be managed from a low starting point for transmission with basic restrictions only.


----------



## LDC (Sep 24, 2020)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> Somebody who understands in far more detail than I, could someone tell me why this wouldn't work?
> 
> Extend each school half term by another week.  So roughly every 12 or 13 weeks or so, when schools would be shut and a large number of people would have been making childcare arrangements anyway; with plenty of advance preparation time, and at a known time to allow for scheduling purposes (for things like non-urgent medical procedures).  Shut down, hard.  Everyone bunker down for 2 weeks; minimal essential shopping trips only, 1 hour daily exercise again.  2 weeks at a time, months apart.
> 
> I've seen a lot of talk around politicians not wanting to use the word "lockdown" again, instead calling it a "circuit-breaker".  In that case, do something more than fucking pubs shutting an hour early that actually breaks the circuit - starve the virus of hosts, then the time in between "circuit-breakers" could be managed from a low starting point for transmission with basic restrictions only.



Define work though. And whatever we do now as a short term set of measures also needs to work as part of an overall strategy, and there are a few options for that. And the government aren't agreed on which one to go with, there's elements of government (not to mention industry and business 'leaders') that would happily just go back to no lockdown and no (or very few) restrictions, and then let the virus work its way through the rest of the population. It's only a small minority up for that, but they have a loud voice. And what we have now is some half arsed compromise with them and fears about the economy balanced against what would save the most people dying from the virus.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Just to be clear: I'm not saying the government are 'following behavioural science' only that's it's been criticised previously for doing this too much. And I'm not saying that closing the pubs early will solve the problem - just saying that the idea it'll do nothing - when it will clearly both reduce the opportunities for human contact and dampen demand for pubs in general - is nonsense. It won't be enough. But it won't be nothing. That's all.


I agree entirely with your line about social psychology, neo-liberalism and their unwillingness to contemplate other more critical areas of the social sciences. But that in turn also has consequences when it comes to things like pub closures, where I'd go with negligible rather than no impact. They can change closing time, but their ability to affect behaviour in real places and communities is limited (and where transmission is linked to pubs it is almost certainly down to not following social distancing indoors, rather than opening times). The Tories don't have deep roots in communities (thank fuck) and we don't have the structures and social institutions any more that would have been able to influence behaviour at a local level. Should add hastily that's not some misty eyed nostalgia for a time when people respected the police and the vicar, but it is a consequence of the shift to consumerism and individualism.


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 24, 2020)

I've just registered for the ONS/University of Oxford covid survey.  Given that it's a free weekly test for a month and then monthly tests thereafter it feels like the sensible thing to do, although I do have some data privacy concerns about it and am not really looking forward to the swab - although I suppose it can't be worse than having one shoved up your penis, and I had that enough times in my younger and more promiscuous days.

However, when I phoned up I was put through to possibly the dopiest bloke I've ever spoken to.  It took him five attempts to get my address right.  Oh well, at least I am now registered and awaiting a call to arrange the first test.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 24, 2020)

Shorter version: I don't think there's no such thing as society and lots of people have demonstrated that with social solidarity throughout the pandemic. But we've got a government who don't think there's anything beyond consumers and institutions to be marketised and privatised. And that's not a great state of affairs when it comes to creating a _social _response to a virus.


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2020)

And the problem with measures that last 2 weeks is that doesnt really allow enough time to see how much of an effect they had.

The first tentative signs in the data could just start to be there after 2 weeks. But even in early April when the numbers were very large and the doubling time very short, the peak was probably only visible just about 2 weeks after 'lockdown' because actually the massive behavioural shift happened a week before lockdown, so it was really more like 3 weeks.


----------



## killer b (Sep 24, 2020)

Wilf said:


> where transmission is linked to pubs it is almost certainly down to not following social distancing indoors, rather than opening times


Absolutely, but closing early, for the most drunk couple of hours, reduces the opportunities to not follow social distancing significantly


----------



## Wilf (Sep 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Absolutely, but closing early, for the most drunk couple of hours, reduces the opportunities to not follow social distancing significantly






			https://media.overstockart.com/optimized/cache/data/product_images/EH2136-1000x1000.jpg


----------



## two sheds (Sep 24, 2020)

Wilf said:


> https://media.overstockart.com/optimized/cache/data/product_images/EH2136-1000x1000.jpg



should those two be sitting that close?


----------



## Badgers (Sep 24, 2020)

Just listening. 
Not much discussion of self employed people


----------



## Wilf (Sep 24, 2020)

two sheds said:


> should those two be sitting that close?


Bubble.


----------



## Thora (Sep 24, 2020)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> Somebody who understands in far more detail than I, could someone tell me why this wouldn't work?
> 
> Extend each school half term by another week.  So roughly every 12 or 13 weeks or so, when schools would be shut and a large number of people would have been making childcare arrangements anyway; with plenty of advance preparation time, and at a known time to allow for scheduling purposes (for things like non-urgent medical procedures).  Shut down, hard.  Everyone bunker down for 2 weeks; minimal essential shopping trips only, 1 hour daily exercise again.  2 weeks at a time, months apart.
> 
> I've seen a lot of talk around politicians not wanting to use the word "lockdown" again, instead calling it a "circuit-breaker".  In that case, do something more than fucking pubs shutting an hour early that actually breaks the circuit - starve the virus of hosts, then the time in between "circuit-breakers" could be managed from a low starting point for transmission with basic restrictions only.


Also - you say people will have made childcare arrangements, would the lockdown still allow for holiday clubs, sports camps and grandparent care to take place?


----------



## TopCat (Sep 24, 2020)

Lot to take in.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 24, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Just listening.
> Not much discussion of self employed people



Looks a bit shit TBH.


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2020)

Lots to pick apart here:









						10,000 more deaths than usual occurred in UK homes since June
					

Excess deaths in private homes prompts fears people are avoiding hospitals due to Covid




					www.theguardian.com
				




Beyond the main reasons they state, there is also this:



> Ceely also pointed to the possibility that deaths at home include some which occurred due to undiagnosed Covid-19 “or that the conditions people are dying of other than Covid-19 have potentially worsened due to the person previously having Covid-19”.
> 
> He added that there has been some evidence elsewhere that coronavirus can have longer-term effects on the cardiovascular system, with other countries observing an increase in non-Covid deaths from heart-related conditions in areas where C deaths from the virus have occurred.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 24, 2020)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> Somebody who understands in far more detail than I, could someone tell me why this wouldn't work?
> 
> Extend each school half term by another week.  So roughly every 12 or 13 weeks or so, when schools would be shut and a large number of people would have been making childcare arrangements anyway; with plenty of advance preparation time, and at a known time to allow for scheduling purposes (for things like non-urgent medical procedures).  Shut down, hard.  Everyone bunker down for 2 weeks; minimal essential shopping trips only, 1 hour daily exercise again.  2 weeks at a time, months apart.
> 
> I've seen a lot of talk around politicians not wanting to use the word "lockdown" again, instead calling it a "circuit-breaker".  In that case, do something more than fucking pubs shutting an hour early that actually breaks the circuit - starve the virus of hosts, then the time in between "circuit-breakers" could be managed from a low starting point for transmission with basic restrictions only.


I have been wondering about this, some people have suggested an extended half term is likely, but as elbows  says, it's hard to work anything from such a short change. Also, whether given the Spring Term (Jan-March) is going to be a bad time for infection whatever happens, whether they could/should plan for a shorter term - like 2-week half term, maybe extra week of holiday either end, and then be more likely to be able to open and stay open for summer term and move GCSE/A-level exams to June/July, rather than July/August to allow more time to make up for lost weeks. I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons why this wouldn't work logistically though. And I appreciate we're a household relatively well set up to cope with kids being off school but of course most people aren't as privileged as us and home or work set ups make any time off school a total nightmare.


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Sep 24, 2020)

Thora said:


> Also - you say people will have made childcare arrangements, would the lockdown still allow for holiday clubs, sports camps and grandparent care to take place?



Holiday clubs and sports camps, no way.

TBH I'm light on details, more positing the theory that a series of short, planned, severe restrictions every so often would be better than the current theory of half-arsed, ever-changing, borderline incomprehensible restrictions over the long term.  Suggesting half-term or similar was just a nod from me toward mitigating a tiny bit of the disruption inevitably caused by a full lock-down.  Sorry, circuit breaker.


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I have been wondering about this, some people have suggested an extended half term is likely, but as elbows  says, it's hard to work anything from such a short change.



I probably should have said that despite the data lag, they might still try stuff for short periods anyway.

I find it much harder to predict timing and measures this time around than it was in March, and right now I have very few confident predictions. I just know about some of the options they have looked at for months. Lockdowns during (potentially extended) school holidays is certainly an option.


----------



## Knotted (Sep 24, 2020)

Knotted said:


> I can and have been working from home but my boss has told me to go in because the CEO has yet to say anything. My union's website has not been updated since August...



OK the CEO got his act together and said we should work at home if we can and that's what I did today. Except my boss has been on the phone asking me to come in "a few mornings a week" basically so I can talk to people. I asked him when he needs me in and it's "no specific days" and "don't make my life difficult like you usually do." He wants me in so I can help out this key performance indicator box ticking exercise with the client every now and then, nothing actually to do with delivering the work. And it's something he's taken off me and given to somebody who doesn't know what the score is and they need me to explain it all to them. Completely a self inflicted injury. But it's the one thing he worries about because it's the one thing his boss is even aware of.

I can put my foot down and say I've got a phone and I've got Teams if they need to talk to me. Think I'll just take the path of least resistance and come in when he gives me a reason I need to be in.

Not that I'm worried for myself, but it's civic duty isn't it. Plus in going in I'm just encouraging unnecessary office based bull shittery.

Sorry for the rant.


----------



## editor (Sep 24, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Closing pubs at 22:00 will be like closing at 22:30 or 23:00 used to be. The problems will all just happen however much earlier.


It'll be worse. 10pm is so early people are just going to get tanked up earlier and then have gatherings/house parties.


----------



## xenon (Sep 24, 2020)

I reckon anyone intent on going to house parties will do so anyway. Not like they wouldn't at 11:30 or 12 cos, oh nos it's bed time. Most people having house parties aren't even in the pub for long if at all anyway.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> I reckon anyone intent on going to house parties will do so anyway. Not like they wouldn't at 11:30 or 12 cos, oh nos it's bed time. Most people having house parties aren't even in the pub for long if at all anyway.



I nearly gave that a 'like' but it would have suggested that I know what most people having house parties do nowadays.


----------



## rutabowa (Sep 24, 2020)

I went to a house party during the summer, the first one I have been to in years, and it started at 2pm and no pub was involved at all. Therefore I am assuming that is what all house parties do nowadays.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 24, 2020)

Is today's case data out yet?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 24, 2020)

rutabowa said:


> I went to a house party during the summer, the first one I have been to in years, and it started at 2pm and no pub was involved at all. Therefore I am assuming that is what all house parties do nowadays.



Sounds like the ones I went to in the 70s then  From this time on I am assuming that is what all house parties do nowadays too


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 24, 2020)

I checked at 17:11 TopCat  , and No, it isn't.

Which I find worrying.
(at the peak of cases period, back in April, the later the figures came out, the worse they seemed)


----------



## xenon (Sep 24, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I nearly gave that a 'like' but it would have suggested that I know what most people having house parties do nowadays.



Ha. Not that I've gone to a house party for yonks...


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Is today's case data out yet?



It's currently doing it's constant _it's loading_ thing, which it traditionally does when there are 'issues'.
Usually updated between 4-4.15pm.


----------



## zora (Sep 24, 2020)

They have tweeted: 6634.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 24, 2020)

6634 for Thurs?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 24, 2020)

And what was previous?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 24, 2020)

A bit more I think


----------



## 8ball (Sep 24, 2020)

editor said:


> It'll be worse. 10pm is so early people are just going to get tanked up earlier and then have gatherings/house parties.



Was speaking to mechanic today (whose daughter is a nurse on the local Covid ward).  He said the earlier closing has shown some good results in comparable countries.
Also mentioned that while the cases are really high, they only have one patient in intensive care right now (they have 8 nurses and have been preparing for a second wave for a couple of months).

Guess it's a case of wait and see...

In "less good" news, there seems to be a bit of a bash going on at the bar opposite my work...


----------



## Roadkill (Sep 24, 2020)

two sheds said:


> And what was previous?



You mean yesterday? It was 6178.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 24, 2020)

6178 yesterday, 4926 on Tue., so big increases. 









						United Kingdom COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer
					

United Kingdom Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## editor (Sep 24, 2020)

8ball said:


> Was speaking to mechanic today (whose daughter is a nurse on the local Covid ward).  He said the earlier closing has shown some good results in comparable countries.


Which 'comparable' countries were they? Britain has a fairly singular drinking culture.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 24, 2020)

zora said:


> They have tweeted: 6634.



I'd like to know the testing numbers and the healthcare figures, too (which have been moving back fairly swiftly now towards the numbers from June/July).


----------



## miss direct (Sep 24, 2020)

In Turkey, they have some funny rules too, like all music having to stop at midnight.


----------



## 8ball (Sep 24, 2020)

editor said:


> Which 'comparable' countries were they? Britain has a fairly singular drinking culture.



Either France and Spain or France and Italy, I think.  Might be wrong, but Western European countries where people like a drink.
Their drinking cultures will also be different to each other.

Like I said, we'll have to wait and see.  I wasn't really expecting it to make significant difference here, but that was just an "I reckon".


----------



## LDC (Sep 24, 2020)

Given that there's a lag (to put it politely...) with testing those figures are going to be very very low compared to the reality....


----------



## maomao (Sep 24, 2020)

40 dead today. Doubling rate somewhere between 1-2 weeks so week after next will be three figures on a daily basis.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 24, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I'd like to know the testing numbers and the healthcare figures, too (which have been moving back fairly swiftly now towards the numbers from June/July).



The daily figures get added to the dashboard here - Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK

It looks like they are currently up dating it, as it's not loading ATM.


----------



## 8ball (Sep 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The daily figures get added to the dashboard here - Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
> 
> It looks like they are currently up dating it, as it's not loading ATM.



Yeah, that bit wasn't loading for me either, though other bits were.


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Given that there's a lag (to put it politely...) with testing those figures are going to be very very low compared to the reality....



Zoe Covid estimate now 16,130 (was 14,433 yesterday and 12,698 before that).

New ONS survey home test based estimate, covering community cases only, should be out on Friday as always.

I dont take these estimates literally either, and the ONS one has a fair bit of lag (cannot comment on zoe timeliness as I dont know much about it). But they provide at least some guide as to how many cases the daily official number might be missing.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The daily figures get added to the dashboard here - Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
> 
> It looks like they are currently up dating it, as it's not loading ATM.



Erm - yeah, I know - that's what I was talking about


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 24, 2020)

I gave up on the .gov dashboard and looked at the worldometers spreadsheet.

Not good at all.

as noted above - 6634 cases, 40 deaths.

Much too slow, and too little/few. They've missed the boat, again, just like they did in March, in imposing restrictions.


----------



## Supine (Sep 24, 2020)

Masks at work everywhere from tomorrow apart from when sitting at your own desk. 

Not a big change for me as I normally wear a mask for 6-7hrs a day already. On the rare occasion I go back to my desk it'll be nice to take it off.


----------



## Ax^ (Sep 24, 2020)

Supine said:


> Masks at work everywhere from tomorrow apart from when sitting at your own desk.
> 
> Not a big change for me as I normally wear a mask for 6-7hrs a day already. On the rare occasion I go back to my desk it'll be nice to take it off.



you get used to it after a while


my companies been doing it for months now


Twat MD is now trying to get us to wipe the printer after each use which is more annoying

 i worked through out the full lockdown with my team and none of us got covid from the fucking photocopier


----------



## Numbers (Sep 24, 2020)

Don’t need to wear a mask at my desk either but do when moving around the building or talking with anyone etc.

All the banks of desks are in a W formation but where I’m sat there’s no-body that close.

Entire office block is fogged every weekend and every desk which has been used (you get your own KB/mouse which you put away) is thoroughly cleaned every night (you overturn a card), communal doors cleaned regularly.

Free masks too.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 24, 2020)

editor said:


> Which 'comparable' countries were they? Britain has a fairly singular drinking culture.


A lovely turn of phrase.


----------



## bimble (Sep 24, 2020)

I’ve just been on the daily mail website and the top most upvoted (agreed with) comments  there under today’s article on the infection figures are all saying Don’t believe the hype Get back to normal It’s just flu etc.
That is not at all how it was first time round.
If they’re not all trollbots that is concerning.


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> I’ve just been on the daily mail website



Have a wash.



> and the top most upvoted (agreed with) comments  there under today’s article on the infection figures are all saying Don’t believe the hype Get back to normal It’s just flu etc.
> That is not at all how it was first time round.



50,000 deaths wasn't enough for them.

I'm hearing more and more of the type of comment you are talking about. People are thick and have no stamina for long term news. It's depressing.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> I’ve just been on the daily mail website and the top most upvoted (agreed with) comments  there under today’s article on the infection figures are all saying Don’t believe the hype Get back to normal It’s just flu etc.
> That is not at all how it was first time round.
> If they’re not all trollbots that is concerning.



Think it's natural in many respects a lot of people are increasingly unhappy with restrictions. Was always going to be the case if the virus didn't go away.

During the first wave most people supported the measures. There were no anti-lockdown protests, and it didn't feel like a particularly partisan issue which was provoking great ideological divides.

Right now a lot of people do still support lockdown measures, according to polling - but there's obviously a much more sizeable portion of the country who are opposed to them and feel we need to get back to normal. That group will, in all likelihood, probably continue to rise if we successfully contain death numbers.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 24, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> 50,000 deaths wasn't enough for them.
> 
> I'm hearing more and more of the type of comment you are talking about. People are thick and have no stamina for long term news. It's depressing.



The most common argument against measures we hear now is that deaths numbers are low - but this, of course, ignores that death will rise as cases rise. Especially if the virus is allowed to spread unchecked.

But I do understand the frustrations of a lot of people. We're essentially being told to put our lives on hold for an indefinite period of time. That's a genuinely huge ask in many respects. And as we try to target restrictions, some of them are genuinely becoming confusing, especially when coupled with poor comms. Rising unemployment will only make anti-lockdown sentiment worse as well.

But ultimately, no matter how annoyed people get, I've yet to see any other solution which won't see cases and therefore deaths skyrocketing before long.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 24, 2020)

editor said:


> Which 'comparable' countries were they? Britain has a fairly singular drinking culture.


It was Belgium, with their European drinking culture. Oh, and a curfew that required everyone to be home between 11.30pm and 5am.

Article about it, and British interest in it, here: Bed by 11: how a strict curfew helped Belgium suppress a second coronavirus wave


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2020)

Spandex said:


> It was Belgium, with their European drinking culture. Oh, and a curfew that required everyone to be home between 11.30pm and 5am.
> 
> Article about it, and British interest in it, here: Bed by 11: how a strict curfew helped Belgium suppress a second coronavirus wave



And due to the fact they are keen to stop such measures at the earliest opportunity, I dont think they suppressed the second wave for very long. They damped down a particular hotspot and sent the overall numbers in a downwards direction for a period, but things have gone up a lot again recently and yet they still seem as interested in loosening measures as strengthening them.

I'll put their graphs in a spoiler tag since this isnt the best thread for them but they do fit into the conversation.



Spoiler





from Epistat – COVID-19 Belgian Dashboard


----------



## Cloo (Sep 24, 2020)

Got the app today - I was quite amused that in its privacy etc agreement they felt the need to explain that it's theoretically possible someone using the app will guess you are the infected person if you're the only person they've come into contact with.


----------



## killer b (Sep 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> I’ve just been on the daily mail website and the top most upvoted (agreed with) comments  there under today’s article on the infection figures are all saying Don’t believe the hype Get back to normal It’s just flu etc.
> That is not at all how it was first time round.
> If they’re not all trollbots that is concerning.


Yougov has support for the new measures at 78%, with almost half of those surveyed thinking they don't go far enough. Recommend you don't read too much into what goes on btl on the daily mail tbh.









						Most people support new lockdown rules | YouGov
					

A snap YouGov poll finds more than three quarters in favour of the new restrictions




					yougov.co.uk


----------



## belboid (Sep 25, 2020)

killer b said:


> Yougov has support for the new measures at 78%, with almost half of those surveyed thinking they don't go far enough. Recommend you don't read too much into what goes on btl on the daily mail tbh.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Was it them or someone else reporting yesterday that split opinion almost entirely in labour/Tory lines?


----------



## scifisam (Sep 25, 2020)

I went out tonight to a comedy event, all outdoors on plastic seats in pairs of two, with the drinks ordered either in advance or via a QR code on the back of the chair (we had them in advance). Masks weren't expected while sitting down - you were quite far apart from other people - but were expected when moving around the site; most people remembered. The arrival and leaving times were staggered, and impressively well organised. 

It felt very safe - a good compromise as a way to enable an event without actually killing people. Though they won't be able to do any more this year, really, it's simply too cold. 

Then when we left we - I think a thousand people, maybe? - were all leaving and getting public transport at the same time because, by 9:30, everything had shut or was preparing to shut - at least that means the establishments were all following the rules stringently. The DLR was by far the riskiest part of the trip. (I don't think many people attempt to drive to Greenwich).

Going there, we were able to choose our times, and arrived earlier than needed - the tube and DLR was way quieter on the way in, at 4:30, than on the way out.

I wish they'd allowed a coffee shop or two to stay open so that we could sit down, not drink alcohol (which does increase the risk of not obeying social distancing rules) and been able to wait before getting on the DLR. 

Staggered leaving times makes more sense to me than a simple curfew. Maybe pubs could be allowed to stay open till 11, but only selling soft drinks and hot drinks after 10pm, or even earlier. That would encourage some people to leave earlier, but some would stay, because it's about the socialising more than the booze, really, especially if you're not allowed to meet up at home.

You could have six people at home, but presumably that includes your household members. So for a family of four, that'd be two guests. To see three-five friends, you'd need to go out. And in some ways it probably would be safer, or at least more trackable. But it doesn't have to be boozy.


----------



## scifisam (Sep 25, 2020)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> Somebody who understands in far more detail than I, could someone tell me why this wouldn't work?
> 
> Extend each school half term by another week.  So roughly every 12 or 13 weeks or so, when schools would be shut and a large number of people would have been making childcare arrangements anyway; with plenty of advance preparation time, and at a known time to allow for scheduling purposes (for things like non-urgent medical procedures).  Shut down, hard.  Everyone bunker down for 2 weeks; minimal essential shopping trips only, 1 hour daily exercise again.  2 weeks at a time, months apart.
> 
> I've seen a lot of talk around politicians not wanting to use the word "lockdown" again, instead calling it a "circuit-breaker".  In that case, do something more than fucking pubs shutting an hour early that actually breaks the circuit - starve the virus of hosts, then the time in between "circuit-breakers" could be managed from a low starting point for transmission with basic restrictions only.



The major issue with that is that half terms are every six weeks or so, not every twelve weeks.

Two weeks out of eight with those strict requirements would be really hard to manage, financially and mentally. I don't know how companies would be able to keep people on with that amount of time without income, especially since some of them would probably have to plan for occasional closures if they have an outbreak even with those measures. And then people would have to recheck the rules all the time, kids would have even more time out of school, and rescheduling "non-urgent" medical procedures would be even harder - even non-urgent ones often require aftercare, and who'd be able to give it, if there's a lockdown?

One "circuit breaker" in October does seem like a good idea, but repeated ones every six weeks would be chaotic.

Even planning for strict two-week shutdowns every twelve weeks would make planning anything really hard. Every twelve weeks schools already shut for around two weeks (Christmas, Easter, then it's summer), so that wouldn't actually change anything.



rutabowa said:


> I went to a house party during the summer, the first one I have been to in years, and it started at 2pm and no pub was involved at all. Therefore I am assuming that is what all house parties do nowadays.



So did the one I went to in July. Though actually it was a party in a car park outside the flat. 

A lot of the "house parties" I've been to or hosted since I became a parent 22 years ago started at 2pm, but house party is a very generous term for most of them.  They might still have gone on till 3am but that was usually after the early crowd had left.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 25, 2020)

Got into in person synagogue services this weekend. I am slightly surprised that I got into all the services on Yom Kippur but there must have been very few people booking. I think many people who go usually are quite old tho


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Sep 25, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> During the first wave most people supported the measures. There were no anti-lockdown protests, and it didn't feel like a particularly partisan issue which was provoking great ideological divides.


it had started though 
usual suspects


----------



## kabbes (Sep 25, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Got the app today - I was quite amused that in its privacy etc agreement they felt the need to explain that it's theoretically possible someone using the app will guess you are the infected person if you're the only person they've come into contact with.


How’s the battery of your phone being affected by the app?


----------



## killer b (Sep 25, 2020)

belboid said:


> Was it them or someone else reporting yesterday that split opinion almost entirely in labour/Tory lines?


Not on this - they're both running at 80% support. Labour supporters are more likely to support stronger measures but there's still substantial support for them to go further from tories too.


----------



## LDC (Sep 25, 2020)

kabbes said:


> How’s the battery of your phone being affected by the app?



Whole thread on that. Mine not been affected at all. It says on the FAQ if your phone battery is hammered to report it as a bug.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 25, 2020)

kabbes said:


> How’s the battery of your phone being affected by the app?


No difference from usual yesterday I'd say


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 25, 2020)

213 new cases this week in Leeds’ student areas.


----------



## xenon (Sep 25, 2020)

kabbes said:


> How’s the battery of your phone being affected by the app?



It uses BLE, Bluetooth Low Energy. Bluetooth has moved on a bit.

Although I'm turning BT off when at home.


----------



## xenon (Sep 25, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> 213 new cases this week in Leeds’ student areas.



I know there's the other thread for universities. But this was always going to happen, given the infection rate wasn't reduced low enough during the summer.

The biggest dangers for so many young people contracting this in those circumstances are still that they might pass it on to more vunrible groups. That some of them may have underlying conditions, knowingly or otherwise. And the Longcovid thing that effects a minority.

Don't know why I wrote all that, bit Captain Obvious....


----------



## Dogsauce (Sep 25, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Just checked and apparently it's this week in Sheffield too. Renamed as "intro week".



re-renamed, it was always ‘intro week’ until the horrible Americanism of ‘freshers’ was adopted sometime around the late 90s.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 25, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> re-renamed, it was always ‘intro week’ until the horrible Americanism of ‘freshers’ was adopted sometime around the late 90s.


It's been Fresher's Week in Scotland for a lot longer than that. We called it that at least in the late 80s


----------



## two sheds (Sep 25, 2020)

In England in the 70s too as I recall (although my memory is hazy around that time).


----------



## elbows (Sep 25, 2020)

weepiper said:


> It's been Fresher's Week in Scotland for a lot longer than that. We called it that at least in the late 80s



Yeah it was freshers week in 1993 for me, and when I look it up it is a longstanding British informal term. Apparently goes back so far that its also used in India as a result of British colonialism.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 25, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> re-renamed, it was always ‘intro week’ until the horrible Americanism of ‘freshers’ was adopted sometime around the late 90s.


I never even connected fresher's with "freshmen" until now.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 25, 2020)

This university chaos seems almost designed to push the suicide rate up.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 25, 2020)

Being away from home for the first time is the absolute worst time for mental health issues.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 25, 2020)

And then there's the possibility of catching covid itself.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 25, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> This university chaos seems almost designed to push the suicide rate up.


I would hate to be a student then not allowed home for Christmas or with "try not to kill you gran" messaging.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 25, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> I would hate to be a student then not allowed home for Christmas or with "try not to kill you gran" messaging.



Oh G-d I hadn't even thought of that. And having to stay in your room or with people you hate.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 25, 2020)

Now that I think, it might instead have been called Induction Week. As I say hazy times, soon to get a lot hazier.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 25, 2020)

As some of you know, I stayed in student accommodation (as a teacher) all summer. I shared with five men, one of whom was a covid denier, and went out of his way to cough and splutter all over the kitchen, and even stuck a poster up about covid being fake. 

I have never used so much disinfectant spray in my life.

I have no doubt that some poor students will be stuck with people like that.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 25, 2020)

I hope you followed him round with the disinfectant spray, aiming at nose and mouth to cut down the risk at source.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 25, 2020)

He was in his 50s, twice my size, and frequently drunk, so I just stayed out of his way.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 25, 2020)

That's awful


----------



## elbows (Sep 25, 2020)

Latest ONS estimate (with the amount of lag in this study clearly visible):



> During the most recent week (13 to 19 September 2020), we estimate there were around 1.75 (95% credible interval: 1.31 to 2.30) new COVID-19 infections for every 10,000 people per day in the community population in England, equating to around 9,600 new cases per day (95% credible interval: 7,100 to 12,600).




Also:



> There is evidence of higher infection rates in the North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, London and North East; both West and East Midlands are recently showing a small increase.









						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey pilot - Office for National Statistics
					

Estimates for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. This survey is being delivered in partnership with University of Oxford, University of Manchester, Public Health England and Wellcome Trust.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## existentialist (Sep 25, 2020)

I'm a little disturbed to find that my little corner of remote rural heaven is a Medium Risk area


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 25, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I'm a little disturbed to find that my little corner of remote rural heaven is a Medium Risk area


Were the lowest in the UK for cases and we're medium, it's how much it's rising I believe


----------



## miss direct (Sep 25, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I'm a little disturbed to find that my little corner of remote rural heaven is a Medium Risk area


I'm medium too, which I found reassuring. 
I don't have credit on my phone and rarely have any data. Is there any point me having this app?


----------



## Raheem (Sep 25, 2020)

I wonder if low risk is something that doesn't really exist, like small fries.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Sep 25, 2020)

miss direct said:


> one of whom was a covid denier, and went out of his way to cough and splutter all over the kitchen, and even stuck a poster up about covid being fake.


What a twat.  Don't believe in reality if you want, but no need to behave like an dickhead about it.


----------



## LDC (Sep 25, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I'm medium too, which I found reassuring.
> I don't have credit on my phone and rarely have any data. Is there any point me having this app?



Surely you can run it on wifi, but don't you have a monthly data plan? It's possible to get £5 or £7.50pm ones that have plenty.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 25, 2020)

No, I don't have a plan. I'm on pay as you go. I spend so much time online working from home, applying for jobs etc, so when I go out for walks etc, I am happy to not be online. I mean it actually helps my mental health. Have no plans to change that. If I really need to connect, there's usually wifi somewhere.


----------



## Cid (Sep 25, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I'm medium too, which I found reassuring.
> I don't have credit on my phone and rarely have any data. Is there any point me having this app?



Yes, assuming your phone has Bluetooth... I think it’s probably better to think of it as ‘do I have a good reason not to have the app’.


----------



## Cid (Sep 25, 2020)

Incidentally noticed precisely zero change in traffic. Doesn’t seem to indicate any move back to WFH. Sheffield heavily public sector of course (universities, teaching hospitals, various government things).


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 25, 2020)

Just about to announce a ban on household mixing in Leeds. fuck. Was gonna have my sister and kids round for dinner on Sunday- haven’t seen them in ages


----------



## LDC (Sep 25, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Just about to announce a ban on household mixing in Leeds. fuck. Was gonna have my sister and kids round for dinner on Sunday- haven’t seen them in ages



Oh no, sorry to hear that. Yeah, last few days I've arranged a load of social things in the next 2 weeks as well.

(When I say a load, I mean meeting up with 1-3 people a couple of times, lest I be thought of as some wild social butterfly.)


----------



## existentialist (Sep 25, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Were the lowest in the UK for cases and we're medium, it's how much it's rising I believe


Ah, that's all right, then. I thought it was that there bloody Llanelli, lowering the tone of the neighbourhood


----------



## elbows (Sep 25, 2020)

London added to the watchlist:

 49m ago 12:30 

and

41m ago 12:38

Khan quote:



> London is at a very worrying tipping point right now. We’re seeing a sharp rise in 111 calls, hospital admissions and patients in ICU [intensive care units].
> 
> The near collapse of test and trace and the resurgence of the virus means new measures to slow its spread were absolutely necessary.
> 
> ...


----------



## Supine (Sep 25, 2020)

Cardiff and Swansea are joining lockdown clwb 









						Covid: Lockdowns for Cardiff, Swansea and Llanelli
					

Two of Wales' biggest cities are included, with 1.5 million people in total now affected.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Sep 25, 2020)

Soon they'll be so many local lockdowns it'll be like the old broom that's lasted 30 years joke and only had 4 handles and 6 heads in that time. No national lockdown, just everywhere in local ones...


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 25, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Being away from home for the first time is the absolute worst time for mental health issues.



Although to be fair the standard student experience of being encouraged to drink ungodly amounts of alcohol and spend your time in shit nightclubs with people you just met isn't great for this either.


----------



## Raheem (Sep 25, 2020)

There'll be people thinking it's OK for three people to visit a garden centre if one of them is a Catholic and not realising that only applies in Carlisle.


----------



## LDC (Sep 25, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Although to be fair the standard student experience of being encouraged to drink ungodly amounts of alcohol and spend your time in shit nightclubs with people you just met isn't great for this either.



Some people both enjoy being away from home for the first time, and the student life though, it's far from terrible for most people.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 25, 2020)

Raheem said:


> There'll be people thinking it's OK for three people to visit a garden centre if one of them is a Catholic and not realising that only applies in Carlisle.



Or just do anything you like with whoever, so long as you remember to slaughter at least one defenceless woodland creature while you're doing it.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> London added to the watchlist:
> 
> 49m ago 12:30
> 
> ...


Yeah. I'm in London and not been able to get a test. Chemistry had a positive result but hasn't been contacted by track & trace. It's a shambles.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 25, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Oh G-d I hadn't even thought of that. And having to stay in your room or with people you hate.


At my place (Uni) staff and students have to wear masks in public areas, but we can't ask students to wear them in class. I foresee heated arguments and walkouts as students who are themselves vulnerable or have vulnerable family come up against assorted deniers and the like (as well as the inevitable squeeze in corridors and doorways).


----------



## Cerv (Sep 25, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Were the lowest in the UK for cases and we're medium, it's how much it's rising I believe


it's a 3 point high/medium/low scale, and nowhere is currently rated as low.

What is my postcode district risk level? · COVID-19 app support for details


----------



## elbows (Sep 25, 2020)

I havent looked into this properly and it may be less dramatic thatn it sounds, eg it could be that Johnson was just seeking a way to demonstrate to the anti-lockdown pandemic shithead wing of his party that he was listening to international shitheads about alternatives.

But it would be amiss of me not to put it in the record here:









						Boris Johnson took advice from Sweden's no-lockdown scientist before rejecting tougher coronavirus restrictions
					

Anders Tegnell is the man behind Sweden's decision to not impose a full lockdown in response to the coronavirus outbreak earlier this year,




					www.businessinsider.com
				






> Prime Minister Boris Johnson was advised by Anders Tegnell, the man behind Sweden's decision not to impose a full coronavirus lockdown, before rejecting tougher new restrictions for the United Kingdom.
> 
> Downing Street on Thursday confirmed a Spectator magazine report that Johnson had been briefed by a series of international experts, outside his normal circle of advisers, before announcing the new measures.
> 
> ...



One of the reasons I'm not completely losing my shit over it is that there are some indications that Sweden is itself changing its tune on their future pandemic response, which will rob the shitheads of one of their shit foundations.

Another is that I had already come to terms with the fact the UK was always likely to be behind the curve in its response again, and just like last time I expect the stronger measures will come at some later stage of deteriorating conditions. Which doesnt make things any better, quite the opposite, but at least I am not numbed or confused by shock, since it doesnt shock me.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 25, 2020)

Supine said:


> Cardiff and Swansea are joining lockdown clwb
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"You cannot enter or leave lockdown areas..." except for those students from whom we haven't yet got your fees or accommodation cheques...


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 25, 2020)

I hope they listened to him given he's just advised that anyone who can should work from home till next spring.


----------



## editor (Sep 25, 2020)

'Stasi'    









						MP caught on tube without mask complains country is ‘like East Germany under the Stasi’
					

DUP politician Sammy Wilson pictured without mandatory face covering days after government increased fine to £200




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (Sep 25, 2020)

editor said:


> 'Stasi'
> 
> 
> 
> ...



"Whoever took the picture didn't approach me or say anything to me which I suppose would have been the proper way to behave."

No I don't suppose it would have been given how violent some anti-maskers have become.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 25, 2020)

Tesco has now joined Morrisons in limiting purchases of certain items due to signs of panic buying, by complete twats.


----------



## elbows (Sep 25, 2020)

Khan:



> Specifically, he said he demanded a ban on households mixing at home in London, as has already been imposed in Scotland, Wales and several regions in England. “One of the things that I said to the prime minister is: I think we should be following what’s happening around the country and stopping social mixing of households, and I say that with a heavy heart.”











						Sadiq Khan urges PM to ban household visits in London to tackle Covid
					

Exclusive: Mayor says he is angry that 43% fall in testing might mask capital’s problem




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> One of the reasons I'm not completely losing my shit over it is that there are some indications that Sweden is itself changing its tune on their future pandemic response, which will rob the shitheads of one of their shit foundations.



One of the things that all the _but look at Sweden types_ have in common is that none of them appear to have actually... you know... _looked at Sweden_.  They just set up a false dichotomy between full lock down in the UK (which didn't happen) and doing nothing in Sweden (which also didn't happen).


----------



## flypanam (Sep 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> "Whoever took the picture didn't approach me or say anything to me which I suppose would have been the proper way to behave."
> 
> No I don't suppose it would have been given how violent some anti-maskers have become.


least he had his clothes on this time Sammy Wilson naked photos: Do we need the naked truth about public figures?

My wife has just had the test, dunno when she'll get the results but 119 said their were no tests, but the school where she works managed to get one for her.


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 25, 2020)

Supine said:


> Cardiff and Swansea are joining lockdown clwb
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, not really a 'lockdown' when you aren't shutting the pubs. Llanelli lockdown is quite random, drawn across political ward boundaries. Means Pwll is on lockdown but Burry Port isn't. These places are adjoined, with an invisible ward boundary across the road being the only distinction.

Close the pubs.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 25, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Close the pubs.



It means nowt to me either way but I think the problem at the moment goes a lot deeper than pubs.


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 25, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> It means nowt to me either way but I think the problem at the moment goes a lot deeper than pubs.



People want consistency. Not stupid rules saying you can't meet in extended households down the pub but those would be extended households can go to the same pub.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 25, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> People want consistency. Not stupid rules saying you can't meet in extended households down the pub but those would be extended households can go to the same pub.



People want a lot of things and a lot of it is conflicting. That's why we have this dancing on a pin head situation at the moment.  All I'm saying is I think people's behavior in pubs is a symptomatic of a larger problem.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 25, 2020)

flypanam said:


> least he had his clothes on this time Sammy Wilson naked photos: Do we need the naked truth about public figures?



I'm not clicking on THAT


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 25, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> People want a lot of things and a lot of it is conflicting. That's why we have this dancing on a pin head situation at the moment.  All I'm saying is I think people's behavior in pubs is a symptomatic of a larger problem.



I work there and I'm just telling you what people are saying this afternoon. Other than that, I don't disagree with what you've said here.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Sep 25, 2020)

Wilf said:


> At my place (Uni) staff and students have to wear masks in public areas, but we can't ask students to wear them in class. I foresee heated arguments and walkouts as students who are themselves vulnerable or have vulnerable family come up against assorted deniers and the like (as well as the inevitable squeeze in corridors and doorways).


There could be a justification to suspend or expel the denier students on grounds of public health.  Basically, fuck them - they don't have the right to put others at risk in an institution where you have to be a member to access in that way.  I'd have no sympathy with them if universities did this.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Sep 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I'm not clicking on THAT


Fret not - I read it and there were no giblets on display.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 25, 2020)

I've done a risk analysis which tells me I'm still not clicking on THAT


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Sep 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I've done a risk analysis which tells me I'm still not clicking on THAT


Come on, don't be shy.



Spoiler: moist giblets


----------



## Cloo (Sep 25, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> One of the things that all the _but look at Sweden types_ have in common is that none of them appear to have actually... you know... _looked at Sweden_.  They just set up a false dichotomy between full lock down in the UK (which didn't happen) and doing nothing in Sweden (which also didn't happen).


Yes, I have said all along that what we have done is essentially not unlike Sweden, only less purposeful


----------



## elbows (Sep 25, 2020)

I havent read this weeks surveillance report properly yet and if there is anything substantial to pluck out of it then I might stick it on the nerdy thread.

But when giving it a first quick skim there was this bit near the start that didnt used to be mentioned, and I thought I should point out even though it should be no surprise to anyone following Septembers news regarding the testing system:



> Case detections are limited by testing capacity, therefore positivity rates provide a better indication of change in activity in some areas.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/921561/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_39_FINAL.pdf


----------



## elbows (Sep 25, 2020)

There was indeed some stuff to focus on from that report, so I added some stuff to the nerdy thread.            #23        

A quick preview (this is accompanied by a more detailed graph which I cover on the nerdy thread):



> Up to 04.30am on 24 September 2020, 45,087 people testing positive, who were referred to NHS Test and Trace, reported at least one event within the enhanced contact tracing time period. In total 87,128 events were reported. The most common event was eating out (12,734 events, 14.6% of all those reported), followed by shopping (11,654 events, 13.4%).


----------



## zahir (Sep 25, 2020)

Today's Independent Sage briefing. Students, long covid and sniffer dogs are among the topics raised.


----------



## Mation (Sep 25, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I went out tonight to a comedy event, all outdoors on plastic seats in pairs of two, with the drinks ordered either in advance or via a QR code on the back of the chair ...


What did people in the front row do? Or was it the back of your own chair, and was that not very awkward?

(Inconsequential detail enthusiast, c'est moi.)


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 25, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I'm a little disturbed to find that my little corner of remote rural heaven is a Medium Risk area





Cerv said:


> it's a 3 point high/medium/low scale, and nowhere is currently rated as low.
> 
> What is my postcode district risk level? · COVID-19 app support for details



This - if you follow it through, the app provides this info - there are NO low risk areas because cases are rising (across Engalnd at least - I know you're in Wales but assume the same goes).



farmerbarleymow said:


> There could be a justification to suspend or expel the denier students on grounds of public health.  Basically, fuck them - they don't have the right to put others at risk in an institution where you have to be a member to access in that way.  I'd have no sympathy with them if universities did this.



I don't get this - it's the universities setting the rules, not covid denier students?!


----------



## Cid (Sep 25, 2020)

Are Covid denier students much of a thing? I mean there are bound to be some, but compliance (at least in the sense of mask wearing) seems highest in student areas here.


----------



## muscovyduck (Sep 25, 2020)

Cid said:


> Are Covid denier students much of a thing? I mean there are bound to be some, but compliance (at least in the sense of mask wearing) seems highest in student areas here.


Yes, but idk what percentage of the student population. They seem to cluster - same way any other demographic does, same way covid deniers seem to in other areas of life too


----------



## scifisam (Sep 26, 2020)

Mation said:


> What did people in the front row do? Or was it the back of your own chair, and was that not very awkward?
> 
> (Inconsequential detail enthusiast, c'est moi.)



Yeah, they were on the backs of your own chairs. We didn't use them ourselves because we'd pre-ordered (and my phone's fucked), but they seemed to work for the people in front of us.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 26, 2020)

I don't think the 10pm closure of all pubs & restaurants was very well thought out with regards to the west end.


----------



## LDC (Sep 26, 2020)

That looks shocking, but I'm not sure it's as bad as it looks. If people are moving about, outside, and not in close contact for very long then the risk is minimal even in large groups, especially if lots are wearing masks.


----------



## pesh (Sep 26, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I don't think the 10pm closure of all pubs & restaurants was very well thought out with regards to the west end.



There's absolutely no way they could have predicted that closing all the pubs simultaneously would lead to groups of people misbehaving after last orders


----------



## killer b (Sep 26, 2020)

It looks like pretty tame 'misbehaviour'. Some half-hearted dancing, that's about it.


----------



## pesh (Sep 26, 2020)

That's true, they need a better rig


----------



## Numbers (Sep 26, 2020)

pesh said:


> That's true, they need a better rig


A nice Mini one


----------



## MrSki (Sep 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> It looks like pretty tame 'misbehaviour'. Some half-hearted dancing, that's about it.


I don't think it is the misbehaviour that needs to be the worry. Now that it has got chilly at night, it will be the packed tubes & buses that can't be good.


----------



## zahir (Sep 26, 2020)

A thread on lockdown in Leeds.


----------



## Lurdan (Sep 26, 2020)

zahir said:


> A thread on lockdown in Leeds.



Here's the complete thread someone's archived as an article.


----------



## killer b (Sep 26, 2020)

I'm not totally sure freshers week is that much of priority - Manchester and Newcastle have huge student populations but still got locked down. Same here too.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 26, 2020)

Avoiding crowds seems sensible.


----------



## Sprocket. (Sep 26, 2020)

My mate sent me this last night.
Barnsley town centre, 3pm on a Friday afternoon.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 26, 2020)

Spotted in Victoria station.

Seems like really bad taste right now.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 26, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Spotted in Victoria station.
> 
> Seems like really bad taste right now.
> 
> View attachment 231872


Oops. Though I do love it when schools trip themselves up with their Orwellian aspirational sloganeering


----------



## brogdale (Sep 26, 2020)

Have we had this yet?


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 26, 2020)

You can add NHS test results to it, but it's not straight forward - you have to go into the apps FAQs to find out how


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Sep 26, 2020)

#worldbeating

Sorry Badgers


----------



## brogdale (Sep 26, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> You can add NHS test results to it, but it's not straight forward - you have to go into the apps FAQs to find out how


Design spec obviously determined by idiotological psychopaths.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 26, 2020)

Guardian piece refers to this (apparently official) response from the "NHS" Covid app twitter account to a question about not being able to upload a test result...


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 26, 2020)

There is this though:


			How do I enter a positive test result in the app? 		 · COVID-19 app support


----------



## LDC (Sep 26, 2020)

A glitch that they're racing to correct apparently rather than a design feature.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> A glitch that they're racing to correct apparently rather than a design feature.


An "NHS" app that is unable to accept or process NHS test results looks more than a 'glitch' and speaks more of ideological blindness, than anything else.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> A glitch that they're racing to correct apparently rather than a design feature.


chinny reckon


----------



## magneze (Sep 26, 2020)

Tradeoffs in software aren't unheard of to meet a date. However, you do need someone to stand back and say "hang on, does that sound fucking stupid?" Clearly no-one in the government has been asking that question for quite a while. 🤔


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Sep 26, 2020)

magneze said:


> Tradeoffs in software aren't unheard of to meet a date. However, you do need someone to stand back and say "hang on, does that sound fucking stupid?" Clearly no-one in the government has been asking that question for quite a while. 🤔


I bet they have and the answer was "yes! Let's roll with it."


----------



## existentialist (Sep 26, 2020)

magneze said:


> Tradeoffs in software aren't unheard of to meet a date. However, you do need someone to stand back and say "hang on, does that sound fucking stupid?" Clearly no-one in the government has been asking that question for quite a while. 🤔


When I was doing the IT thing, it wasn't at all unusual, at the point of starting to sketch out the data structures, to spot some obvious oversight in the design stage. It also wasn't unusual, when going back to point this out, and suggest a change, to be told that we couldn't do it inside the deadline, so it would have to stay as it was. Which inevitably bit someone on the arse at beta testing, and required all kinds of nasty messing around inside the application - sometimes now containing live data - to retrofit what should have been there in the first place. As I got more savvy (and freelance), I'd put the fix in anyway, so at least the database structure was sane, and just (for example) set it up for multiple cardinality when the prevailing design just needed single. Then charge an appropriate and hefty number of hours to "make the change", which was usually just some UI tweaks.

So I can well believe a cockup like this has happened for the reason you suggest.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 26, 2020)

Just the 1/3 of all test results that can't be uploaded.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 26, 2020)

Really not good news from Scotland today 








						Jason Leitch: Pandemic is 'accelerating' in Scotland
					

The Scottish government confirms 714 more people have tested positive in the past 24 hours.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## MrSki (Sep 26, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Really not good news from Scotland today
> 
> 
> 
> ...


http://Nor from NI   Record high of 319

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-54309453[/URL]


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 26, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Really not good news from Scotland today
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Expect a good half of this will be the cases in universities continuing to spread rapidly. Although the danger is if people haven't self-isolated quickly enough then it's potentially already started to spread beyond students in some areas.


----------



## zora (Sep 27, 2020)

Guardian headline right now "'France's wave arriving faster than we thought' says top [French] doctor".
If anyone says "faster than we thought" or "unforeseen increase" one more time, I might just forget myself!


----------



## TopCat (Sep 27, 2020)

Students self isolating in tiny rooms with shared kitchens and bathrooms is not conducive to limiting covid spread.


----------



## redsquirrel (Sep 27, 2020)

zora said:


> Guardian headline right now "'France's wave arriving faster than we thought' says top [French] doctor".
> If anyone says "faster than we thought" or "unforeseen increase" one more time, I might just forget myself!


This line reminds me all those Labour MPs saying that no one could have predicated that Iraq's supply of WMD was non-existent. Predicted by no one apart from over 50% of the country you lying fucks, just like here.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 27, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Really not good news from Scotland today
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Somewhat misleading headline from The Herald, as it is only referring to one day's test results, which tend to go up & down all the time in local areas, the 7-day average tends to be the better guide, it's certainly not good, but not as bad as the headline suggests.









						Coronavirus: Glasgow has highest Covid cases in UK
					

GLASGOW has the highest incidence of Covid in the UK, in the latest daily figures on the pandemic.




					www.heraldscotland.com
				






> The daily figures - compiled by the Travelling Tabby tracker site - also puts Glasgow highest in the UK for prevalence, at 39.5 per 100,000 compared to 36.7 in Liverpool.  Edinburgh was ninth in the daily chart, with 80 new cases.
> 
> The seven-day average continues to put overall prevalence highest in Liverpool and Bolton with 261.2 and 250 cases per 100,000 respectively.
> 
> In comparison, Glasgow has a seven-day average of 165.2 cases per 100,000, with Edinburgh much lower on 60.6 cases per 100,000.


----------



## zora (Sep 27, 2020)

Crikey. Shop really busy today. Yesterday, too, according to my colleagues - and the figures bear it out. For the first time since reopening this central London shop was up to 3/4 its usual Saturday takings. 
What exactly about the current situation compared to previous weekends is making people think: "Wicked, let's go Saturday shopping in the West End" is beyond me..?🤷‍♀️


----------



## maomao (Sep 27, 2020)

zora said:


> What exactly about the current situation compared to previous weekends is making people think: "Wicked, let's go Saturday shopping in the West End" is beyond me..?🤷‍♀️


Last chance. Maybe last chance till next year.


----------



## Supine (Sep 27, 2020)

Nottingham was really busy yesterday. Lots of groups on pub crawls. It was like things used to be...


----------



## zora (Sep 27, 2020)

maomao said:


> Last chance. Maybe last chance till next year.



Yeah I would get that, and we had a couple of people mentioning this over the past week, but somehow that's not the vibe I am picking up today.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 27, 2020)

I have to confess I did a bit of shopping this weekend on the basis of just in case it's the last chance for a while (and the weather being less attractive for outdoors stuff than the last little while). It did seem quite busy everywhere.


----------



## editor (Sep 27, 2020)

This seems a good counter point to conspiracy nuts insisting that Sweden 'did nothing' and all was well



> You never hear the _Telegraph_ or the _Mail_ say that we need Swedish levels of sickness benefit to ensure that carriers stay at home and quarantine. Or Swedish levels of housing benefit to ensure that they aren’t evicted from those same homes. The knights of the suburbs do not insist that the hundreds of thousands who will be thrown on the dole in the coming months need Swedish levels of unemployment benefit and an interventionist Scandinavian state to retrain them.
> 
> Covid-19 is exposing the lack of social solidarity in Britain. For a moment when the virus hit we stood together. We locked down voluntarily and applauded the NHS. Millions of people, and not only Conservative voters, were prepared to overlook the dismal truth that we had a comedy prime minister who was tragically unequipped to lead a country in a crisis. The symbolic moment of disintegration historians will remember was Johnson’s refusal to sack Dominic Cummings when he broke the rules everyone else believed they had a patriotic duty to obey. But all around us there have been hundreds of thousands of quiet disintegrations as lives were lost and families were forced to beg at food banks. Soon, millions of lives will disintegrate as government support is slashed.












						Welcome to libertarian Covid fantasy land – that’s Sweden to you and me | Nick Cohen
					

The right fails to recognise that the Swedes’ real virtue in this pandemic is their social cohesion




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## ddraig (Sep 27, 2020)

Went for food and drink in Cardiff city centre before lockdown at 6pm tonight

Went to a pub and waited at door to be seated, we were at door that was "entrance only" asked to sit outside and were going through contact details with staff member, all of us wearing masks.
Someone appeared at the door from inside and squeezed past us!! I started to say wtf and protest and the person "booking us in" said oh they work here and were exempt! And they've just finished shift not hanging about.
The other door is about 8/10 ft away.
They may be exempt from procedure/direction in pub but not for on 2m rule!! Grrr


----------



## elbows (Sep 27, 2020)

> Food manufacturing – and meat processing plants in particular – have been at the heart of several major local outbreaks, with workers reporting cramped conditions and pressure not to take days off even when displaying symptoms.
> 
> But just 47 notifications of Covid-19 workplace infections – and no deaths – have been reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) by food manufacturing companies, who employ 430,000 people in the UK.





> An investigation by Pirc, which advises shareholders on ethical investment, found that there have been at least 1,461 infections and six deaths, with the true figures likely to be even higher.
> 
> Pirc said the discrepancy was partly due to a loophole that allows companies to determine whether employees were infected on the job, or elsewhere, when they submit reports via the HSE’s Riddor reporting system.





> One person interviewed for the report told of fake safety audits at a large plant in Lincolnshire, adding that staff had been told to wear cake boxes as makeshift masks.
> 
> “Audits are a sham,” said another interviewee. “Auditors sit in an office for an hour when they arrive to do paperwork and everyone cleans up the plant.”











						Covid cases at UK food factories could be over 30 times higher than reported
					

Investigation warns employers have too much influence over official data amid claims of fake safety audits




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Mation (Sep 27, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Went for food and drink in Cardiff city centre before lockdown at 6pm tonight
> 
> Went to a pub and waited at door to be seated, we were at door that was "entrance only" asked to sit outside and were going through contact details with staff member, all of us wearing masks.
> Someone appeared at the door from inside and squeezed past us!! I started to say wtf and protest and the person "booking us in" said oh they work here and were exempt! And they've just finished shift not hanging about.
> ...


At work there is a place where you can either go from A to B one way, in the open air, or take a shortcut, squeezing past other people, and save yourself about 2-3 seconds. People seem to think I'm being weird or rude when I ask them to wait or go round the other way, rather than squeeze past me. And this in a workplace where we know people who've died from this fucking thing. It's utterly bewildering


----------



## ddraig (Sep 27, 2020)

Mation said:


> At work there is a place where you can either go from A to B one way, in the open air, or take a shortcut, squeezing past other people, and save yourself about 2-3 seconds. People seem to think I'm being weird or rude when I ask them to wait or go round the other way, rather than squeeze past me. And this in a workplace where we know people who've died from this fucking thing. It's utterly bewildering



Yup, just not worth it and weird


----------



## scifisam (Sep 27, 2020)

Mation said:


> At work there is a place where you can either go from A to B one way, in the open air, or take a shortcut, squeezing past other people, and save yourself about 2-3 seconds. People seem to think I'm being weird or rude when I ask them to wait or go round the other way, rather than squeeze past me. And this in a workplace where we know people who've died from this fucking thing. It's utterly bewildering



It's a bit like the pedestrians who would rather walk into traffic than cross at the crossing right next to them. What a crap reason to die or be injured or cause someone else to feel guilty for harming you.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 27, 2020)

I've just seen a tweet from my local intensive care unit saying they've just released a Covid patient to a ward after a hundred and seventy two days. He must have been one of the first people in Scotland to get it.


----------



## Bwark (Sep 28, 2020)

It's more about younger people thinking they are invincible and may or may not be "going to get the virus"
 They are going to be the ones that makes this worse, or decide to be adults and follow the rules. They are the key to if this becomes worse or better. I am at risk and I've tried shields (thanks urban) and masks but even so I'm frightened to get the virus and wonder how long it will take to get back to real life


----------



## Bwark (Sep 28, 2020)

brogdale said:


> We had a lemonade delivery lorry when I were a lad in Kent. Mind you, it was North Kent if that helps.


We did too, I'm trying to remember the name of them


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 28, 2020)

Bwark said:


> It's more about younger people thinking they are invincible and may or may not be "going to get the virus"
> They are going to be the ones that makes this worse, or decide to be adults and follow the rules. They are the key to if this becomes worse or better. I am at risk and I've tried shields (thanks urban) and masks but even so I'm frightened to get the virus and wonder how long it will take to get back to real life


Again blaming young people. The selfishness is universal


----------



## Bwark (Sep 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Again blaming young people. The selfishness is universal


It's not about selfishness, it's far more about younger people not realising they might have the virus without knowing it and visiting at risk relatives or family and passing it on


----------



## Bwark (Sep 28, 2020)

All the news and information points toward lots of cases but no deaths. But those young people will visit vulnerable people and that will equal deaths eventually


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 28, 2020)

Bwark said:


> It's not about selfishness, it's far more about younger people not realising they might have the virus without knowing it and visiting at risk relatives or family and passing it on


it is selfish - but all ages are doing this


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 28, 2020)

Bwark said:


> All the news and information points toward lots of cases but no deaths. But those young people will visit vulnerable people and that will equal deaths eventually



I think most young people are acutely aware of the dangers the virus poses. Some will break the rules but I don't think they're necessarily worse for it than any other demographic. Plenty of the most fervent anti-lockdown types are a lot older.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

Bwark said:


> All the news and information points toward lots of cases but no deaths. But those young people will visit vulnerable people and that will equal deaths eventually



Rates are up in a broader range of age groups, especially people of working age.

Speaking of working, young people dont just come into contact with older people due to visiting family etc, and indeed the only young person I know who had Covid-19 in the first wave worked in a care home and probably caught it there.

Just because the 20-29 age group is top of the following chart, doesnt mean the other ages that are also showing increases are not a significant part of the picture.


(from https://assets.publishing.service.g...COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_39_FINAL.pdf )

As for deaths, its a little soon for me to go on about that much but the indicators are there, and the idea that the virus is mostly just passing between people who arent vulnerable at the moment is shown to be false. When the number of people in hospital hit a low it was the end of August/start of September, and the number in hospital got down to the 400's for England. As of official figures for 27th September it has gone back up to over 1700 in hospital with Covid-19 in England.


----------



## Aladdin (Sep 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it is selfish - but all ages are doing this



I'm afraid that Bwark does have a point.
The under 20s are going out and meeting up. I see little gangs of them every day...maybe 4 or 5 together. Just walking around doing what teenagers do. They're outside...they think they're ok. And the schools are back. 
The thing is that it is known now that there are plenty asymptomatic cases.
The kids go home and meet family. All you need is a family gathering and the virus takes off.

Over here Dublin is now on a level 3 stage. So is Donegal. And it's looking like it could move to level 4. The rest of the country is at level 2 but could move to level 3 soon.

In the case of Donegal the numbers shot up over a 2 week period. There have been deaths ... not many but still...and the deaths were people who were vulnerable or elderly. One GP in a small town saw a jump of 47 cases. He tracked them all and traced it back to a first holy communion that was held recently. The parents and kids were socially distanced at the servive but it was afterwards that people got together and visited family, friends and relatives. The Dublin archbishop Martin had already told parishes not to rush into these types of services and to leave them for another year. But families had clothes bought and 8 year olds grow fast etc etc...so they thought they'd go ahead and be ok. Unfortunately they created a situation where the virus passed rapidly among the community and eventually hit the vulnerable. 

I think anyone who has a serious vulnerability is pretty scared of this virus. I know I'm really scared of it because I know I'm one of the people it will take.
Bwark is right. Schools are to remain open here through all 5 stages. Young people will not intend to be spreaders but the virus wont discriminate.  All it needs is a host. It doesn't care what age. Younger people will get it and many will be asymptomatic. It will spread in the community because schools are in communities.
They keep saying it's spreading in the community. And nobody is stating the obvious...schools are places where young people are mixing. But nobody is going to shut schools down again.

They've told all third level colleges here to work online for the next three weeks. I can see that being extended.
But the under 18s in schools will be going to school mixing on school buses and in cramped classrooms. 
They're basically just a big petrie dish.


.


----------



## emanymton (Sep 28, 2020)

I was thinking about this while unable to sleep, so this is probably total bullshit like most insomnia induced thoughts I have.

But I am not sure that any new lockdown measures can do much to reduce infection rates. I think a lot of infections comes from households mixing either at peoples homes or in pubs and do on. And I think rules on household mixing are frankly just being ignored as people have got fed up no seeing friends and family. Not only are people ignoring it, but it us essentially impossible to police, unless people are having large and loud parties.

One of the effects of tougher lockdown measures is to increase peoples perception of the risk and make them less likely to engage in risky behaviour, but I am not convinced it will have much impact on household mixing.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 28, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I was thinking about this while unable to sleep, so this is probably total bullshit like most insomnia induced thoughts I have.
> 
> But I am not sure that any new lockdown measures can do much to reduce infection rates. I think a lot of infections comes from households mixing either at peoples homes or in pubs and do on. And I think rules on household mixing are frankly just being ignored as people have got fed up no seeing friends and family. Not only are people ignoring it, but it us essentially impossible to police, unless people are having large and loud parties.
> 
> One of the effects of tougher lockdown measures is to increase peoples perception of the risk and make them less likely to engage in risky behaviour, but I am not convinced it will have much impact on household mixing.


It worked before. What's changed?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 28, 2020)

S☼I said:


> It worked before. What's changed?



Inertia and people just aren't willing to cut themselves off for months at a time.

Fortunately that's never been a problem for me.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 28, 2020)

Now here is a  surprise.  Parliament's bars exempt from 10pm curfew.


ETA Outcry has worked & will now not serve after 10pm.


----------



## chilango (Sep 28, 2020)

why the fuck are there even bars in parliament? what other workplaces have bars?

if I was more petition minded Id start one calling for their permanent closure. if for no other reason than to piss the bastards off.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 28, 2020)

chilango said:


> why the fuck are there even bars in parliament? what other workplaces have bars?
> 
> if I was more petition minded Id start one calling for their permanent closure. if for no other reason than to piss the bastards off.


It wouldn't piss them off, because they know that there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it.


----------



## killer b (Sep 28, 2020)

chilango said:


> what other workplaces have bars?


Used to be loads - it's a throwback to times when workforces had more power in the workplace. I guess that's still true in the Houses of Parliament.


----------



## emanymton (Sep 28, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Inertia and people just aren't willing to cut themselves off for months at a time.
> 
> Fortunately that's never been a problem for me.


This, I think there is less willingness to follow this part of the rules now. Also I think the way people perceive risk is often as something external to ourselves and our friends and family.  People will feel more at risk on a bus with strangers who are wearing masks and social distanced than they they will having few friends and family round who are packed in a smaller space with no masks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 28, 2020)

This is worrying, Bolton went into 'lockdown' almost 3 weeks ago, with some of the strictest rules, including the closure of pubs & restaurants, yet cases have almost doubled in that time from around 120 to almost 240 new cases per 100,000, based on the 7-day rolling average.  

At the time Bolton had the highest infection rates, yet four other areas with less strict 'lockdowns' have now overtaken them.









						Bolton's 7-day rolling rate of new coronavirus cases rises but falls to 5th highest in country
					

BOLTON's seven-day rolling rate of new coronavirus cases has risen slightly but fallen one place from fourth to the fifth highest in the country,…




					www.theboltonnews.co.uk


----------



## emanymton (Sep 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is worrying, Bolton went into 'lockdown' almost 3 weeks ago, with some of the strictest rules, including the closure of pubs & restaurants, yet cases have almost doubled in that time from around 120 to almost 240 new cases per 100,000, based on the 7-day rolling average.
> 
> At the time Bolton had the highest infection rates, yet four other areas with less strict 'lockdowns' have now overtaken them.
> 
> ...


I think it might be a little early to judge the effect of the lockdown. But this is my worry. The rule on not mixing just gets ignored, but it is probably the most important part.

I guess Bolton will be a bit of an experiment on how effective certain measures are.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is worrying, Bolton went into 'lockdown' almost 3 weeks ago, with some of the strictest rules, including the closure of pubs & restaurants, yet cases have almost doubled in that time from around 120 to almost 240 new cases per 100,000, based on the 7-day rolling average.
> 
> At the time Bolton had the highest infection rates, yet four other areas with less strict 'lockdowns' have now overtaken them.
> 
> ...


If it was at 120 cases on 8th Sept when it went into lockdown, 196 on the 17th, and 238 on the 24th, then that's not really worrying; it actually means a slightly decreasing rate of increase, which is presumably what you'd want to see in the period immediately after measures come in. It would be unrealistic to expect it to stop dropping that quickly. 24th is only just over 2 weeks in.


----------



## retribution (Sep 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> If it was at 120 cases on 8th Sept when it went into lockdown, 196 on the 17th, and 238 on the 24th, then that's not really worrying; it actually means a slightly decreasing rate of increase, which is presumably what you'd want to see in the period immediately after measures come in. It would be unrealistic to expect it to stop dropping that quickly. 24th is only just over 2 weeks in.


I've family in Bolton and I think the rules there atm are something similar to what we went to here in Melbourne on 8 July. Melbourne carried on climbing for a good four weeks, then a much stricter lockdown was introduced on 2 August which has brought us right down (5 cases today!). Totally different population etc of course, but it perhaps gives you an idea of how effective a Bolton level of lockdown is (or isn't) when COVID gets to certain numbers.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is worrying, Bolton went into 'lockdown' almost 3 weeks ago, with some of the strictest rules, including the closure of pubs & restaurants, yet cases have almost doubled in that time from around 120 to almost 240 new cases per 100,000, based on the 7-day rolling average.
> 
> At the time Bolton had the highest infection rates, yet four other areas with less strict 'lockdowns' have now overtaken them.
> 
> ...


With cases doubling in the uk each week, Bolton has done well no?


----------



## Dogsauce (Sep 28, 2020)

According to my parents, my sister (Primary school teacher) is claiming there’s been an outbreak in the town she lives in and surrounding area, seventy positive cases, caused by someone having a test but still going out round the pubs before they got this result. However the results from today show an increase of only four cases reported in the whole of North Somerset.

Could this be a new flavour of fake news/rumour mongering going into circulation, possibly aiming to sow division, public blaming and finger pointing? Would be interesting to see where this kind of bullshit originates, I suspect it’s probably local Facebook groups.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> If it was at 120 cases on 8th Sept when it went into lockdown, 196 on the 17th, and 238 on the 24th, then that's not really worrying; it actually means a slightly decreasing rate of increase, which is presumably what you'd want to see in the period immediately after measures come in. It would be unrealistic to expect it to stop dropping that quickly. 24th is only just over 2 weeks in.





TopCat said:


> With cases doubling in the uk each week, Bolton has done well no?



Good points.


----------



## Dogsauce (Sep 28, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> According to my parents, my sister (Primary school teacher) is claiming there’s been an outbreak in the town she lives in and surrounding area, seventy positive cases, caused by someone having a test but still going out round the pubs before they got this result. However the results from today show an increase of only four cases reported in the whole of North Somerset.
> 
> Could this be a new flavour of fake news/rumour mongering going into circulation, possibly aiming to sow division, public blaming and finger pointing? Would be interesting to see where this kind of bullshit originates, I suspect it’s probably local Facebook groups.



I have since found an article (but only through some weird news SEO/aggregation site) that details one pub in town where staff all undertook testing after a customer had a positive test. The customer had been out on a ‘pub crawl‘ at the weekend but only tested positive midweek (so unlikely to have been waiting on a test result when out boozing, and may not even have had symptoms then). All staff results had come back negative bar one which hadn’t been received yet.  Sounds like Chinese whispers and shit stirring.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

> Under the new emergency plan, all pubs, restaurants and bars would be ordered to shut for two weeks initially. Households would also be banned indefinitely from meeting each other in any indoor location where they were not already under the order. Schools would stay open as well as shops, factories and offices at which staff could not work from home.
> 
> The social lockdown was among options presented to the cabinet’s Covid-19 strategy committee before last week’s new restrictions, which included a 10pm curfew on all hospitality venues. _The Times _has learnt that the group of six ministers, led by Boris Johnson, held them back, fearing a backlash from Tory MPs and sections of the public.



From the Times but I'm going for th Guardian quote of this as it isnt paywalled.                            1m ago    11:39                    

A bit of the TImes version taken from daily newspaper front page images:


----------



## MrSki (Sep 28, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Now here is a  surprise.  Parliament's bars exempt from 10pm curfew.
> 
> 
> ETA Outcry has worked & will now not serve after 10pm.



Just announced that they will not be serving after 10pm. Maybe Guy Fawkes trending on twitter made them have a re-think.


----------



## editor (Sep 28, 2020)

If the pubs have to close again for two weeks or longer, I fear that may be the end for some unless the government offers some meaningful support.


----------



## Lurdan (Sep 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> From the Times but I'm going for th Guardian quote of this as it isnt paywalled.                            1m ago    11:3


FWIW someone's archived the online Times version here.


----------



## Supine (Sep 28, 2020)

Lurdan said:


> FWIW someone's archived the online Times version here.



OMG I agree with Gove about something!

"Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has emerged as the leading voice in the cabinet for more restrictions, overtaking Matt Hancock, the health secretary. Another senior Tory source added: “Michael is the most hard now on all of this. He was pushing for all manner of restrictions last week.”


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Sep 28, 2020)

emanymton said:


> This, I think there is less willingness to follow this part of the rules now. Also I think the way people perceive risk is often as something external to ourselves and our friends and family.  People will feel more at risk on a bus with strangers who are wearing masks and social distanced than they they will having few friends and family round who are packed in a smaller space with no masks.



I do think it's really important that we try & understand the difference between our perception of risk, and our actual risk (to ourselves, & to others).

I keep having conversations at work of the type "I hear that infections are rising, but I just don't really feel any more at risk than a couple of weeks ago" and these are people that are mostly doing their best to understand it. 

And - exactly as you say - they might try & avoid risky behaviour to varying degrees, but they just don't feel at risk amongst family (or work colleagues) yet.  And if I'm honest, neither do I - at least I couldn't function if I felt perpetually fearful - but I try my best to understand that I am a risk, if that makes sense.

Somehow breaking the link between 'risk avoidance' and 'fearfulness' would help, I think. Or maybe that's just because I work with fairly macho types. (Male & female... )


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 28, 2020)

editor said:


> If the pubs have to close again for two weeks or longer, I fear that may be the end for some unless the government offers some meaningful support.


They’ve just done the equivalent of a so-what-shrug about it on Sky:


----------



## bimble (Sep 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> From the Times but I'm going for th Guardian quote of this as it isnt paywalled.                            1m ago    11:39
> 
> A bit of the TImes version taken from daily newspaper front page images:
> 
> View attachment 232130


That first paragraph is pretty unequivocal, doesn’t say ‘according to ...’ or ‘are cosidering’.
If you had a partner type person in London and would rather lock down for two weeks together than apart would you go get them today?


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> That first paragraph is pretty unequivocal, doesn’t say ‘according to ...’ or ‘are cosidering’.
> If you had a partner type person in London and would rather lock down for two weeks together than apart would you go get them today?



I find it harder to predict the timing of things this time around, because in some ways things are evolving in slow motion compared to March.

So I cant give concrete info, but I would estimate that there will be more clues when such a move is imminent, and if its like nearly every other thing they've done then there will be a gap between it being announced and it actually taking effect.

If I had to make that decision I probably would not act today, but I would figure out the personal plan and be ready to act at short notice. Alternatively, since a lot of what does peoples heads in is the uncertainty, some may prefer to act early in order to retain some sense of control and bypass some of the uncertainties.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 28, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Now here is a  surprise.  Parliament's bars exempt from 10pm curfew.
> 
> 
> ETA Outcry has worked & will now not serve after 10pm.



To be fair, I think they are entitled to a few drinks after a hard day on the grouse moor.


----------



## 8ball (Sep 28, 2020)

editor said:


> If the pubs have to close again for two weeks or longer, I fear that may be the end for some unless the government offers some meaningful support.



I fear you may be right there.  Also seems you had a point about our “singular drinking culture”, judging by some of the shenanigans going on.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 28, 2020)

Neighbours I go socially distanced dog walking with said yesterday they're shielding from their grandchildren again (Cornwall)  because of schools going back. Good decision, I was a bit concerned.


----------



## editor (Sep 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> They’ve just done the equivalent of a so-what-shrug about it on Sky:



All that fucking money slopping around. All those billionaires. All that fucking greed. And they're hanging pubs, clubs, bands, artists, musicians out to dry while they were happy to throw hundreds of millions to bail out the banks with all their monster earning bosses.  It's a fucking shitty world we live in alright.


----------



## editor (Sep 28, 2020)

8ball said:


> I fear you may be right there.  Also seems you had a point about our “singular drinking culture”, judging by some of the shenanigans going on.


Shutting pubs at 10pm is insane. People just start earlier, drink more, accelerating up to an alcoholic frenzy by the 10pm kick out, and then are pissed enough not to care/remember about the virus and head off to the nearest house party.,


----------



## killer b (Sep 28, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> They’ve just done the equivalent of a so-what-shrug about it on Sky:



It's interesting to see what she says - the reason for the fudge of pubs being open with reduced hours is the avoidance of paying any compensation to the industry IMO - if they did close them, it would be unavoidable there would have to be some additional support.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

editor said:


> Shutting pubs at 10pm is insane. People just start earlier, drink more, accelerating up to an alcoholic frenzy by the 10pm kick out, and then are pissed enough not to care/remember about the virus and head off to the nearest house party.,



Ties into the earlier stuff about Goves new pandemic stance, the following from a Mail on Sunday article but covered by the Guardian:  3h ago 09:34



> When the issue was put to the full cabinet on Tuesday, resistance flared again when business secretary Alok Sharma and environment secretary George Eustice suggested that it would be safer to taper the curfew with last orders at 10pm, rather than force everyone on to the streets at the same time.
> 
> But Mr Gove insisted that there should be a strict 10pm ‘guillotine’.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's interesting to see what she says - the reason for the fudge of pubs being open with reduced hours is the avoidance of paying any compensation to the industry IMO - if they did close them, it would be unavoidable there would have to be some additional support.


They will blame the hospitality industry for not implementing the rules. They will blame the public for not obeying the rules.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

And of course there have been stories like this one floating around for days:



> The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) reportedly did not model the effect of a 10pm curfew, and the behavioural science sub-group was also not consulted on the change.
> 
> Key members of the committee are said to have told the government there is no evidence that the curfew would be effective.











						A Member Of Sage Has Claimed The “Trivial” 10pm Curfew Will Have Little Impact On Slowing Coronavirus Infections
					

Professor John Edmunds, a member of the Sage advisory group, has said the impact on the 10pm curfew will be trivial as he warned current measures d...




					www.politicshome.com


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

editor said:


> All that fucking money slopping around. All those billionaires. All that fucking greed. And they're hanging pubs, clubs, bands, artists, musicians out to dry while they were happy to throw hundreds of millions to bail out the banks with all their monster earning bosses.  It's a fucking shitty world we live in alright.



Meanwhile in Wales:



> The Welsh government has announced an additional £140m of funding to help businesses deal with the economic challenges of Covid-19 and Brexit.
> 
> Of this, £20m will be ring-fenced to support tourism and hospitality businesses and £60m will be allocated for businesses impacted by local lockdown restrictions.
> 
> This is the third round of funding. The government says it has already given £300m to 13,000 companies in Wales, which has helped protect more than 100,000 jobs.





> The government has also announced that freelancers working in the cultural and creative sectors in Wales will be able to apply for their share of a £7m fund.
> 
> Individuals can apply for a £2,500 grant when the scheme opens next week.



                            5m ago    13:21


----------



## Badgers (Sep 28, 2020)

Another FuckUTurn? Or just fake news.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 28, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Another FuckUTurn? Or just fake news.



no one has ever heard of michell donelan before.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 28, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> no one has ever heard of michell donelan before.


Odd how quiet he has been isn't it?


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 28, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Odd how quiet he has been isn't it?


a woman with much to be modest about


----------



## Cerv (Sep 28, 2020)

a woman whose only job appears to now be produced as ablative armour for Gavin Williamson of all people


----------



## killer b (Sep 28, 2020)

It's Michelle not Michael (or Mitchell) - she's a woman.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 28, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Another FuckUTurn? Or just fake news.



Go back to your constituencies and prepare for infecting your nan.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's Michelle not Michael (or Mitchell) - she's a woman.



Oh no its another one of these freaks:









						Michelle Donelan - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				






> Donelan grew up in Whitley, Cheshire, and at the age of fifteen spoke at the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool in 1999,[2] having decided to be a politician at the age of six.



We probably need a new rule of six relating to people who wanted to be a politician from the age of six.


----------



## killer b (Sep 28, 2020)

is it a rule that incorporates lime pits?


----------



## Badgers (Sep 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's Michelle not Michael (or Mitchell) - she's a woman.


Ah  cheers


----------



## 8ball (Sep 28, 2020)

editor said:


> Shutting pubs at 10pm is insane. People just start earlier, drink more, accelerating up to an alcoholic frenzy by the 10pm kick out, and then are pissed enough not to care/remember about the virus and head off to the nearest house party.,



I could understand that under more normal conditions and was a bit sceptical myself initially, but after hearing about other countries having more success I'd hoped people would be a bit more responsible given the situation.  Among everyone I know, people have been behaving but on the whole they're a bit older.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 28, 2020)

8ball said:


> I could understand that under more normal conditions and was a bit sceptical myself initially, but after hearing about other countries having more success I'd hoped people would be a bit more responsible given the situation.  Among everyone I know, people have been behaving but on the whole they're a bit older.


we're all aulder than we used to be


----------



## killer b (Sep 28, 2020)

The pubs in Preston were totally dead at the weekend, there was no early drinkers, nothing. Just tumbleweeds. Early closing is 'working' here. I'm guessing it's 'working' most places, except for the licensees.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 28, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Another FuckUTurn? Or just fake news.



My guess it that will be all about the newspaper headline stuff: 'yes, you can go home at Xmas... nobody will be locked in halls, though we do expect you to observe...'.  Perhaps raising the issue of going back to all online, but leaving that up to the Universities, where local circumstances require it type stuff. Lack of leadership basically.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 28, 2020)

Not a great source but still a bit shit at best


----------



## Wilf (Sep 28, 2020)

I don't do social media so I might be missing it, but I'm surprised there isn't more public outrage going on amongst parents, particularly those who have just dropped their kids of at the campus for the first time.


----------



## 8ball (Sep 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I don't do social media so I might be missing it, but I'm surprised there isn't more public outrage going on amongst parents, particularly those who have just dropped their kids of at the campus for the first time.



Me too (also haven't seen anything).


----------



## Badgers (Sep 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I don't do social media so I might be missing it, but I'm surprised there isn't more public outrage going on amongst parents, particularly those who have just dropped their kids of at the campus for the first time.


I guess it depends what/who you follow?


----------



## killer b (Sep 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I don't do social media so I might be missing it, but I'm surprised there isn't more public outrage going on amongst parents, particularly those who have just dropped their kids of at the campus for the first time.


The number of students actually locked down is still relatively small, so there aren't enough parents directly affected for it to make much noise. The rest are probably imagining it won't happen to their kid.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

Timing clues:

 43m ago 14:06 



> *The spokesman refused to deny a report saying that a “a total social lockdown” may be imposed on much of northern England.* (See 11.39am.) Asked about the Times splash reporting this, the spokesman said the PM has been clear that further restrictions might prove necessary. But he said that it might take at least two weeks from their implementation to assess the impact of measures already announced. Reporters at the briefing were left with the impression that no new nationwide restrictions were being planned for this week.



Alarming data could yet change that timetable so take it with a pinch of salt.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I don't do social media so I might be missing it, but I'm surprised there isn't more public outrage going on amongst parents, particularly those who have just dropped their kids of at the campus for the first time.



Social media is reserved for journalists, Brexit obsessives, The Young Woke, and people obsessed with giving Trans women rights or removing them.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

Some of the most useful pandemic experts I found were via social media.


----------



## xenon (Sep 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's interesting to see what she says - the reason for the fudge of pubs being open with reduced hours is the avoidance of paying any compensation to the industry IMO - if they did close them, it would be unavoidable there would have to be some additional support.



Ah de ja vu again. Mid March when people were being told to avoid pubs and bars but there was no actual government support. Lots of conversation about business insurance likely not covering them.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> The number of students actually locked down is still relatively small, so there aren't enough parents directly affected for it to make much noise. The rest are probably imagining it won't happen to their kid.


Not sure about that. I'd have expected a lot of parents to be anxious about the shitshow generally and in particular about kids with physical or MH issues, as well as the issue of not coming home for Christmas. Also, the virus is widespread across swathes of the university sector, particularly Scotland but also some of the major cities.  I'd have expected that to start coalescing, at least on social media. Having said that, the fact that it apparently isn't doing suggests I'm wrong.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)




----------



## bimble (Sep 28, 2020)

That ^ is to be enacted immediately in the areas he’s talking about?

eta it does look like it.

That looks like if you were halfway through a cup of tea at your friends house you just became illegal . That I find very disconcerting.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> I still wonder if the desire to have manual management control over institutional outbreaks, eg fudge things massively to stop self-isolation rules from wiping out most of your healthcare staff, is one of the reasons they've backed away from a couple of aspects of the track & trace app.



A month after I said that, I just saw some evidence in relation to a different sort of public sector worker:









						Police told not to download NHS Covid-19 app
					

National Police Chiefs Council says officers should not install contact-tracing app on work phones.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Some officers have also been told they may not need to obey self-isolate alerts generated by the app when downloaded to their personal phones.
> Lancashire Constabulary has told staff to call the force's own Covid-19 helpline instead.



There is another 'security' dimension to that story so I'm just cherrypicking the bit that applies more directly to what I was on about.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> That ^ is to be enacted immediately in the areas he’s talking about?
> 
> eta it does look like it.
> View attachment 232169
> That looks like if you were halfway through a cup of tea at your friends house you just became illegal . That I find very disconcerting.



Meeting people inside private homes or in gardens was already banned in those areas.

I'll wait till I get a few more details sorted in my mind before commenting on other aspects you mention.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 28, 2020)

Panorama at 7.30pm on BBC1 is about test & trace with whistleblowers working for it. Might be worth a watch if you don't have high blood pressure.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Panorama at 7.30pm on BBC1 is about test & trace with whistleblowers working for it. Might be worth a watch if you don't have high blood pressure.



I'd watch it if I was confident that they have a much broader range of whistleblowers than the 'I was paid to contact trace by phone but mostly sat around on my arse with nothing to do' stuff which has already been pretty well covered. Hopefully they do.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

18:00 entry on BBC updates page says: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54315280



> But other rules have also come into law today which ban pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes from playing music which exceeds 85 decibels, although live performances are exempt.
> 
> The new laws also say that pub landlords or those who run other venues like hotel bars, restaurants and members clubs, must take "all reasonable measures" to stop singing on the premises by customers in groups of more than six, and dancing.
> 
> Wedding ceremonies and receptions are exempt from the rule.


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

bimble said:


> That ^ is to be enacted immediately in the areas he’s talking about?
> 
> eta it does look like it.
> 
> That looks like if you were halfway through a cup of tea at your friends house you just became illegal . That I find very disconcerting.



BBC live updates page has this as a 18:35 entry, sounds like it kicks in when Wednesday begins:



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54315280
		




> A law prohibiting households from mixing in any indoor setting is to be introduced in the most populous parts of north-east England from 00:01 BST on Wednesday.
> 
> The Department of Health said existing local lockdown measures for Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, Northumberland and Sunderland are being tightened at the request of the local councils in response to high and increasing infection rates.
> 
> Current guidance only advises residents not to mix with people outside their household or bubble in indoor settings, such as pubs and restaurants.





> The DoH says the guidance will now be enforceable and subject to fines, although the *law will not apply to Covid-secure schools and workplaces*.
> 
> A funding package is being agreed with councils to support the measures and the rising infection rate.



My bold. The whole Covid-secure concept is so bogus.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'd watch it if I was confident that they have a much broader range of whistleblowers than the 'I was paid to contact trace by phone but mostly sat around on my arse with nothing to do' stuff which has already been pretty well covered. Hopefully they do.


from the Freeview guide.


> *SUMMARY*
> Panorama hears from whistleblowers working inside the government’s new coronavirus tracking system. They are so concerned about NHS Test and Trace that they are speaking out to reveal chaos, technical problems, confusion, wasted resources and a system that does not appear to them to be working. The programme also hears from local public health teams who say they have largely been ignored by the government in favour of the private companies hired to run the new centralised tracking system. As Panorama investigates, it has left some local authorities questioning whether local lockdowns could have been handled better or avoided altogether.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Sep 28, 2020)

'Covid Secure' when it comes to the workplace is an exercise in ticking boxes in order to ensure staff attendance (even though it's illegal in
most social settings to gather in a similar fashion). Just my informed opinion from my recent work experience. 

Economic considerations outweigh health considerations, just as they did in March. Only difference this time is that the business, and scaling up, government, has learnt from previously, and has now got us by the balls!!!


----------



## two sheds (Sep 28, 2020)

MrSki said:


> from the Freeview guide.



Bit of scam calling it NHS Test and Trace isn't it? Like Johnson stressing NHS when talking about it a week or so ago.


----------



## xenon (Sep 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> 18:00 entry on BBC updates page says: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54315280



"
But other rules have also come into law today which ban pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes from playing music which exceeds 85 decibels, although live performances are exempt. 

The new laws also say that pub landlords or those who run other venues like hotel bars, restaurants and members clubs, must take "all reasonable measures" to stop singing on the premises by customers in groups of more than six, and dancing." 

Ah there is an upside then. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm gutted there are no gigs but loud shit music, it usually is shit, the trend for most bars / pubs to have hard flooring and gobby shouty patrons do agrovate. Karioki can obviously fuck right off as well.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 28, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Bit of scam calling it NHS Test and Trace isn't it? Like Johnson stressing NHS when talking about it a week or so ago.


Slow steady steps selling it off


----------



## brogdale (Sep 28, 2020)

Insight into the psychopathic mind-set:


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 28, 2020)

Supine said:


> OMG I agree with Gove about something!
> 
> "Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has emerged as the leading voice in the cabinet for more restrictions, overtaking Matt Hancock, the health secretary. Another senior Tory source added: “Michael is the most hard now on all of this. He was pushing for all manner of restrictions last week.”


I thought he was an anti mask / KBF type.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 28, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Insight into the psychopathic mind-set:
> 
> View attachment 232187


To be honest, £1000 is good value to get some people I know locked up for two weeks


----------



## agricola (Sep 28, 2020)

Supine said:


> OMG I agree with Gove about something!
> 
> "Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, has emerged as the leading voice in the cabinet for more restrictions, overtaking Matt Hancock, the health secretary. Another senior Tory source added: “Michael is the most hard now on all of this. He was pushing for all manner of restrictions last week.”



Pob is of course the one who is going to be put up as the lone voice of sanity in this shambles, especially by those papers - and of course these claims of brilliance will persist despite them often being in direct opposition to whatever common-sense / hard policy he was the champion of the week before.


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought he was an anti mask / KBF type.



"KBF" ??? 

(All I could think about, when I first saw that, was KLF   )


----------



## elbows (Sep 28, 2020)

Killer Bean Fart, I mean Keep Britain Farcical, I mean free.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Sep 28, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I was thinking about this while unable to sleep, so this is probably total bullshit like most insomnia induced thoughts I have.
> 
> But I am not sure that any new lockdown measures can do much to reduce infection rates. I think a lot of infections comes from households mixing either at peoples homes or in pubs and do on. And I think rules on household mixing are frankly just being ignored as people have got fed up no seeing friends and family. Not only are people ignoring it, but it us essentially impossible to police, unless people are having large and loud parties.
> 
> One of the effects of tougher lockdown measures is to increase peoples perception of the risk and make them less likely to engage in risky behaviour, but I am not convinced it will have much impact on household mixing.



no, the rules are unclear and change at will according to the culture war fancies within the tory party (and to a lesser extent) labour. why has the left gone so bonkers on this and asking the state to be more statist than thou? Antifascism not gonna do yer baked beans coated backsides any good when similar measures start being proposed by the state and capital for the climate catastrophe.


----------



## killer b (Sep 28, 2020)

dialectician said:


> why has the left gone so bonkers on this and asking the state to be more statist than thou?


This is the second time I've seen someone say this today- which left are you talking about here?


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Sep 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> This is the second time I've seen someone say this today- which left are you talking about here?



UK and US left. Thought that was pretty self-explanatory?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 28, 2020)

dialectician said:


> no, the rules are unclear and change at will according to the culture war fancies within the tory party (and to a lesser extent) labour. why has the left gone so bonkers on this and asking the state to be more statist than thou? Antifascism not gonna do yer baked beans coated backsides any good when similar measures start being proposed by the state and capital for the climate catastrophe.



what do you suggest for people who are vulnerable and shielding?


----------



## killer b (Sep 28, 2020)

dialectician said:


> UK and US left. Thought that was pretty self-explanatory?


Which ones? All of them?


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Sep 28, 2020)

two sheds said:


> what do you suggest for people who are vulnerable and shielding?



If they are financially and mentally able to then sure. But it's a bit rich blaming people for not isolating when we have the highest death rate in...


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Sep 28, 2020)

killer b said:


> Which ones? All of them?



The vast majority, yes. the anti state libertarian communists/anarchists are increasingly becoming a minority of a minority.


----------



## belboid (Sep 29, 2020)

dialectician said:


> The vast majority, yes. the anti state libertarian communists/anarchists are increasingly becoming a minority of a minority.


and what should such folk be doing at this time that the 'statists' aren't doing?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 29, 2020)

dialectician said:


> If they are financially and mentally able to then sure. But it's a bit rich blaming people for not isolating when we have the highest death rate in...



If you're talking about the tories then yes of course.

But you'd agree with the government there that you'd shield if you can.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Sep 29, 2020)

belboid said:


> and what should such folk be doing at this time that the 'statists' aren't doing?



Acknowledging defeat. which we are doing adequately. and before you get on that 'oh you just want to be moral train', sort out a legal defence network first.


----------



## ManchesterBeth (Sep 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> If you're talking about the tories then yes of course.
> 
> But you'd agree with the government there that you'd shield if you can.



My definitions of capability are not incumbent on the perpetual flatus a tergo of a bureaucrat who imagines they can dim the spitting fire.


----------



## belboid (Sep 29, 2020)

dialectician said:


> Acknowledging defeat. which we are doing adequately. and before you get on that 'oh you just want to be moral train', sort out a legal defence network first.


how is a legal defence network going to help us with coronavirus?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Sep 29, 2020)

dialectician said:


> My definitions of capability are not incumbent on the perpetual flatus a tergo of a bureaucrat who imagines they can dim the spitting fire.


That's what I was going to say.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 29, 2020)

I put this on the wankoff thread but it deserves wider circulation.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 29, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I put this on the wankoff thread but it deserves wider circulation.



That was actually a 2019 interview.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> That was actually a 2019 interview.



Proving nothing has changed.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Proving nothing has changed.


Indeed, but probably a UK coronavirus thread isn’t the best place for it!


----------



## two sheds (Sep 29, 2020)

dialectician said:


> My definitions of capability are not incumbent on the perpetual flatus a tergo of a bureaucrat who imagines they can dim the spitting fire.



There's a job for you in the government's communications unit


----------



## killer b (Sep 29, 2020)

hey MrSki - could you please stop posting every single clickbait post you read on twitter onto here without checking whether they're real/recent?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 29, 2020)

This is depressing:



> ...a survey of 2,000 people aged 16 to 25 across the UK showed 44% had lower aspirations for the future as a result of the pandemic ... 41% of young people believe their future goals now seem "impossible to achieve", with this rising to 50% of those surveyed from poorer backgrounds. More than a third of young people, 38%, feel they will "never succeed in life". This rises to 48% of those from poorer homes.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 29, 2020)

killer b said:


> hey MrSki - could you please stop posting every single clickbait post you read on twitter onto here without checking whether they're real/recent?


Sorry it is trending on twitter so I thought it was recent. Still worth posting to see the cunt squirm. 

How are the oxygen levels up there on your high horse?


----------



## killer b (Sep 29, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Sorry it is trending on twitter so I thought it was recent. Still worth posting to see the cunt squirm.
> 
> How are the oxygen levels up there on your high horse?


dude, you do this constantly. it's boring and annoying and it fills threads with pointless bollocks, and in most cases you literally only have to spend an extra 10 seconds or so checking whether something is real before posting it. It's not that hard. much easier than then being offended when someone pulls you up on it.


----------



## MrSki (Sep 29, 2020)

Ian Lavery posted this 10 minutes ago.




It is trending & all over twitter. I am not offended on being pulled up. I welcome your input & pulling me up on posts.   Surely you get a buzz by feeling superior? Am I not doing you a favour?


----------



## killer b (Sep 29, 2020)

I'd get more of a buzz from not seeing every bit of bollocks I saw trending on twitter breathlessly posted up here.


----------



## Numbers (Sep 29, 2020)

I’ve never seen it before and it’s lovely to see the cunt taken to task, I can spare 20 seconds of my life.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Sep 29, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> This is depressing:



They are right to feel like that - pandemic has shown an ugly mirror on society.  On how the most vulnerable and hardworking are least protected and most exploited.

I just hope they get angry enough to fight it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 29, 2020)

There's going to be another covid press briefing tomorrow with Johnson, Whitty & Vallance.



> The news conference will be focused on the latest numbers, rather than an announcement of new lockdown measures.
> 
> The PM's official spokesman said: "The purpose of that is to provide an update on the latest statistics.
> 
> "It is not because there is some specific set of new announcements to make."











						Boris Johnson to give coronavirus press conference tomorrow
					

The Prime Minister is expected to answer questions alongside the Government's top scientists amid confusion over new rules




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Sep 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's going to be another covid press briefing today with Johnson, Whitty & Vallance.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Tomorrow.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Tomorrow.



I know, but typed today.    Anyway, edited now, cheers for pointing that out.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's going to be another covid press briefing tomorrow with Johnson, Whitty & Vallance.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I imagine it's going to be update / stern warnings.  Makes sense I suppose.  It'd be no good Vallance and Whitty doing that _we're all doomed_ press conference a while back and then just disappearing.  It needs to be followed up on.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 29, 2020)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 29, 2020)

brogdale said:


> View attachment 232279



And, 71 deaths have also been recorded - the highest number since 1 July.


----------



## Numbers (Sep 29, 2020)

FFS


----------



## editor (Sep 29, 2020)

It's no time to be in the pub trade








						Coronavirus: Pub landlords to be fined £1,000 if anyone’s dancing or loud music is played
					

The government is doubling down on pub restrictions, with new laws quietly being slipped through that make landlords liable of fines up to £1,000 if they allow dancing on the premises or the sound …



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## editor (Sep 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, 71 deaths have also been recorded - the highest number since 1 July.


BBC adds: 



> The UK announces 7,143 new cases and 71 more Covid-related deaths
> The cases are a daily record since mass testing began - but experts believe the figure was much higher in the Spring
> The daily deaths announcement was the highest since 1 July, when 97 deaths were confirmed





			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54336494


----------



## brogdale (Sep 29, 2020)

editor said:


> It's no time to be in the pub trade
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Knees down Mother Brown.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 29, 2020)

editor said:


> BBC adds:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Useful explainer thread here:


----------



## eatmorecheese (Sep 29, 2020)

Flintshire, Denbighshire, Conwy and Wrexham re-enter lockdown on Thursday. Here we go again


----------



## brogdale (Sep 29, 2020)

eatmorecheese said:


> Flintshire, Denbighshire, Conwy and Wrexham re-enter lockdown on Thursday. Here we go again


Not much left now, is there?


----------



## eatmorecheese (Sep 29, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Not much left now, is there?


Nope. 

How am I going to get my 85 year old father in law back to Elephant & Castle? He wants to go home next Friday, no way is he getting a train now. Buttocks.


----------



## LDC (Sep 29, 2020)

eatmorecheese said:


> Nope.
> 
> How am I going to get my 85 year old father in law back to Elephant & Castle? He wants to go home next Friday, no way is he getting a train now. Buttocks.



You're allowed to do essential travel though surely? That's a caring responsibility. (Assuming you can drive?)


----------



## eatmorecheese (Sep 29, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> You're allowed to do essential travel though surely? That's a caring responsibility. (Assuming you can drive?)


 Yeah, absolutely. Just the return journey I'm dreading, in one hit


----------



## existentialist (Sep 29, 2020)

eatmorecheese said:


> Yeah, absolutely. Just the return journey I'm dreading, in one hit


Fuck, yeah. NW Wales to London is quite a trip. And the first quarter of it will probably take as long as the last three-quarters


----------



## eatmorecheese (Sep 29, 2020)

We border Wirral, where I work. I do socially-distanced home visits to see children and virtual visits (using Whatsapp etc) where risks to the child(ren) has been judged to be less critical.

Typical conversation:

Me: "I need to wear a mask and keep distance. Can the kids come outside or to the window?"

Parent: "Nah, don't worry, we're fine."

Me: "No, it's really important that..."

Parent: "We don't mind, honestly"

Me: "I don't want to risk me bringing anything in."

Parent: "(laughs) It's fine!"

I would judge that the initial fear has gone. A bit like that lone swimmer in Thailand in the 2004 tsunami standing stationary as the wave hits. I want to lecture, but probably counter-productive.

Isn't life extraordinary?


----------



## bimble (Sep 29, 2020)

exactly. Fear is a short emotion , can’t be sustained for months on end. Now we need to rely on something else (sense of interconnectedness , understanding maths , I don’t know) something anyway that’s not at all as readily motivating as actual fear.


----------



## LDC (Sep 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> exactly. Fear is a short emotion , can’t be sustained for months on end. Now we need to rely on something else (sense of interconnectedness , understanding maths , I don’t know) something anyway that’s not at all as readily motivating as actual fear.



That's a nice and important thought, thanks. Yeah, a sense of social responsibility and collective care etc. rather than solely fear. Unfortunately things that can be in short supply.


----------



## bimble (Sep 29, 2020)

i had a nice and important thought   .
But yeah, been clear for a while hasn't it that the initial 'oh fuck this is scary' was not going to see us through the marathon.


----------



## LDC (Sep 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> i had a nice and important thought   .
> But yeah, been clear for a while hasn't it that the initial 'oh fuck this is scary' was not going to see us through the marathon.



Yeah and my oft repeated mistake is assuming logic and/or collective responsibility will work for everyone and then getting annoyed when they don't.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 29, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah and my opt repeated mistake is assuming logic and/or collective responsibility will work for everyone and then getting annoyed when they don't.


Not to mention your f key


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> exactly. Fear is a short emotion , can’t be sustained for months on end. Now we need to rely on something else (sense of interconnectedness , understanding maths , I don’t know) something anyway that’s not at all as readily motivating as actual fear.


How lucky you are you haven't ever found out how long fear can last for


----------



## bimble (Sep 29, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> How lucky you are you haven't ever found out how long fear can last for


Its not for this thread but i think we have enough information to know that even in the most extreme circumstances, like inside the camps or in a war where you know that you might die any moment or tomorrow morning, people adjust and a certain kind of normal asserts itself, small things become important again, life continues etc.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> Its not for this thread but i think we have enough information to know that even in the most extreme circumstances, like inside the camps or in a war where you know that you might die any moment or tomorrow morning, people adjust and a certain kind of normal asserts itself, small things become important again, life continues etc.


you don't need to think of Kolyma or Belsen. 

I was thinking of more banal lives of fear which can be found behind many front doors


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 29, 2020)

There's plenty of fear lasting in my schoolkids who are scared of killing their grandmothers, who are sometimes their carers. 

The reason fear isn't lasting for some people is that, to them, nothing has happened. They don't know anyone who has had Covid because even though action was taken lamentably late it still did prevent a much worse scenario happening where even more than 50,000 died and the NHS collapsed. And of those 50,000 deaths how many times have you heard the justifiers of inaction saying "Yeah, but it's just in care homes".

Because, on the whole, compared to some countries and cultures, we don't GAF about old people in this country. It's why we have care homes in the first place. And if it's 'only happening to the aged', then where's the fear for the majority?

Fear lasts. You just need something tangible to be fearful of.


----------



## killer b (Sep 29, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah and my oft repeated mistake is assuming logic and/or collective responsibility will work for everyone and then getting annoyed when they don't.


Seymour addresses this in his latest mail-out - think he's about right tbh: there was collective responsibility, but it's been squandered by the government. Interesting points about the pivot to more punitive measures. 

_Consider the situation in the UK now. The British government is likely to be forced into a second lockdown. But why? Why is so much of the country already under lockdown? Why are students being locked down on campus? Because the government wasted the time it bought with the first lockdown, then ignored its own scientific advisors to practically abolish social distancing and aggressively reopen the most dangerous disease vectors well in advance of having developed a proper testing and tracing system. And now it's rolling out a series of punitive fines for people who don't adhere to social distancing, or self-isolate when they have symptoms of Covid-19. They claim that this is because of a small minority ruining it for the majority who adhere to the rules. It might have been true back in April that the majority adhered to the rules: but that's exactly why the government didn't need large fines. It's definitely not the case now. Why? One reason is that serial fuck-ups, the Cummings debacle, the contradictory messaging, and the official drive to force people back to work, have systematically lowered people's vigilance over the last few months. Another is that the withdrawal of economic support means there's little incentive for a precarious worker or a small business owner to self-isolate. Hence the resort to fines. _


----------



## SlideshowBob (Sep 29, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> There's plenty of fear lasting in my schoolkids who are scared of killing their grandmothers, who are sometimes their carers.
> 
> The reason fear isn't lasting for some people is that, to them, nothing has happened. They don't know anyone who has had Covid because even though action was taken lamentably late it still did prevent a much worse scenario happening where even more than 50,000 died and the NHS collapsed. And of those 50,000 deaths how many times have you heard the justifiers of inaction saying "Yeah, but it's just in care homes".
> 
> ...



What's even more grating about this is the people who don't care about lockdowns now are (crudely speaking) the exact political groupings who are usually outraged whenever anyone says anything mildly critical about old people in general.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Sep 29, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> How lucky you are you haven't ever found out how long fear can last for



Do you have to do this?


----------



## agricola (Sep 29, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> There's plenty of fear lasting in my schoolkids who are scared of killing their grandmothers, who are sometimes their carers.
> 
> The reason fear isn't lasting for some people is that, to them, nothing has happened. They don't know anyone who has had Covid because even though action was taken lamentably late it still did prevent a much worse scenario happening where even more than 50,000 died and the NHS collapsed. And of those 50,000 deaths how many times have you heard the justifiers of inaction saying "Yeah, but it's just in care homes".
> 
> ...



I agree with quite a lot of your post but not this bit.  Just because old people don't live in the same house as you doesn't mean you aren't bothered about them or that you aren't supporting them.


----------



## killer b (Sep 29, 2020)

I know I've said this before, but I think the level of support available from the government really is the key issue. If they put together an adequate support package for people and businesses, people would take it much more seriously. As it is, their response to the new wave is totally inadequate, so why would anyone take them seriously - how can anyone afford to take them seriously?


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> I agree with quite a lot of your post but not this bit.  Just because old people don't live in the same house as you doesn't mean you aren't bothered about them or that you aren't supporting them.



I'm not saying that everyone in a care home doesn't have someone who supports them (but perhaps can't support them adequately for good reason). Capitalism puts pressures on us all. But I do think care homes are a sign of the commodification of the elderly, a drive for profit in other people's misery. A gap in a market. And the market exists, at least in part, for a reason not unconnected to our view of old people.


----------



## Pickman's model (Sep 29, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Do you have to do this?


Do you have to do that, are you incapable of saying what you object to?

In retrospect I'd have phrased it perhaps differently but the central point stands, that fear isn't necessarily a transient emotion, it is something that can be felt for years, it is something that can be the core emotional experience of people's lives. We're all fortunate if we've never experienced fear of that quality or duration

"The auldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear"
--H.P. Lovecraft


----------



## bimble (Sep 29, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I'm not saying that everyone in a care home doesn't have someone who supports them (but perhaps can't support them adequately for good reason). Capitalism puts pressures on us all. But I do think care homes are a sign of the commodification of the elderly, a drive for profit in other people's misery. A gap in a market. And the market exists, at least in part, for a reason not unconnected to our view of old people.


I think thats all true, then there's the longer story of the rise of the nuclear family (instead of extended families living together) all contributing to the way that old people are increasingly out of sight and elsewhere.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 29, 2020)

killer b said:


> I know I've said this before, but I think the level of support available from the government really is the key issue. If they put together an adequate support package for people and businesses, people would take it much more seriously. As it is, their response to the new wave is totally inadequate, so why would anyone take them seriously - how can anyone afford to take them seriously?



It's absolutely grim in any business that relies on tourism, crowds, or events right now and I'm not sure the government quite grasps that not everyone in those industries is under 30 and living in London.



Don't think getting an A levels going to help a middle aged roadie.


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 29, 2020)

Miliband (Ed, not the other one!  ) is really good  
I've thought this for ages.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

Those numbers yesterday were grim as fuck.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 30, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Those numbers yesterday were grim as fuck.



TBF, Tuesday's figures often are, picking-up the lag from the weekend, having said that 71 deaths is almost twice that of Tue. 22nd, which was 37.

I prefer the 7-day rolling average figures, which are fairly grim too, Tue 15th - 11, Tue 29th - 35, more than tripling in 2 weeks.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBF, Tuesday's figures often are, picking-up the lag from the weekend, having said that 71 deaths is almost twice that of Tue. 22nd, which was 37.
> 
> I prefer the 7-day rolling average figures, which are fairly grim too, Tue 15th - 11, Tue 29th - 35, more than tripling in 2 weeks.


The positive test results are scaring me more than the deaths.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

I think unless the government stumps up the cash (and even then) we are unlikely to have people follow a second lockdown in the same way they did the first. There's a lot less fear and more scepticism about it this time around including from people I wouldn't have expected to agree with those sort of arguments.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think unless the government stumps up the cash (and even then) we are unlikely to have people follow a second lockdown in the same way they did the first. There's a lot less fear and more scepticism about it this time around including from people I wouldn't have expected to agree with those sort of arguments.



Yeah I agree, although I think financial stuff is only one reason why some people don't follow it. And it's the same for me, I know people that were very strict first time around that are much less so now. I guess if it gets really bad people will change quickly though...?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 30, 2020)

TopCat said:


> The positive test results are scaring me more than the deaths.



Yes as a guide to how things are going, again taking the average figure of 4189 on Tue 22nd, to 6086 yesterday, at least they are not doubling weekly, they are up by around 45%.

And, they can't be compared to March, because of the massive increase in testing, remember the estimate was over 100,000 cases a day back then, the ONS survey tends to suggest actual cases now are running at about twice those being picked by pillar 1 & 2 testing, so around 12,000 a day. A lot more younger people, and mild or asymptomatic cases, are being picked up by both pillar 1 & 2 testing, and the ONS surveillance testing (pillar 4) survey. 

It's bad, and heading in the wrong direction, but not as bad as some projections, or as bad as headline figures can suggest.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I think unless the government stumps up the cash (and even then) we are unlikely to have people follow a second lockdown in the same way they did the first. There's a lot less fear and more scepticism about it this time around including from people I wouldn't have expected to agree with those sort of arguments.


Yup  

I have no 'scepticism' about this but have relaxed a fair bit. Still wearing the mask, washing hands and sanitising after things but have found myself a little less vigilant (alert ) when out and about. Have only been in a few pubs since March, all of which were well distanced and organised.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

Yeah I mean I'm not one to talk tbh, been in a few pubs and a Chinese restaurant since they reopened, plus in person services at the synagogue this weekend, 2 metres apart with all the windows and doors open lol so it was freezing .

It's just stuff I'm hearing from people out and about how 'this is gonna kill more people than the virus', how social distancing makes it hard to hug people, socialise etc. And it does tbf, it's fucking shit. The whole thing is grim especially going into winter and autumn where outdoor socialising is hard.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah I mean I'm not one to talk tbh, been in a few pubs and a Chinese restaurant since they reopened, plus in person services at the synagogue this weekend, 2 metres apart with all the windows and doors open lol so it was freezing .


 

I was thinking about this yesterday. _Trying _to do a daily walk round a local nature reserve for body and mind. At the start of lockdown there was some litter  and was about to pick it up but stopped myself as had forgotten sanitiser. Last week the same thing happened but I just grabbed it and stuffed in my bag. Almost certainly not an issue but just shows how my head has changed.


----------



## andysays (Sep 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah I agree, although I think financial stuff is only one reason why some people don't follow it. And it's the same for me, I know people that were very strict first time around that are much less so now. I guess if it gets really bad people will change quickly though...?


I think the reasons are also social, ie connected to the kind of atomised lives centred around individual consumption that we all tend to live now.

"there is no society, there are only individuals and their families"


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

It was Yom Kippur so typically you fast and spend all day there (I managed to get a seat for all services, was really lucky). I had to go back to my room in the b and b to get a jumper and spent the entire time still freezing


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 30, 2020)

A few points from my zoom meeting this morning.

The care home owner mentioned the weekly staff test results, which were coming back in 24-48 hours, are now taking 3-4 days on average - and the extra wait is stressing them out, her small home has remained covid free so far.

She reported another local care home, which had been clear, had a member of staff that started to feel ill towards the end of her shift, she didn't go in the next day & took another test. The care home had to wait 3 days for the positive result before they could re-test all staff & residents, positive results came back on 2 more members of staff & 2 residents.  

* Care homes are issued with enough tests to test staff weekly and residents every four weeks. 

The funeral director mentioned they had a break in covid cases of about 8 weeks, but are currently dealing with two.

The electrician and locksmith both mentioned their private jobs have virtually disappeared in the last week, except for emergency call-outs, with jobs booked being put off, because people are getting nervous again about having strangers come into their homes. This is a repeat of what happened in the week before lockdown.

The SME advisor is currently flat out in helping small & medium sized businesses deal with redundancies, most of the owners are so upset about losing good staff, but have no choice in an attempt to keep their businesses afloat. One guy had to make a family member redundant.  

It's all a bit grim TBH.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 30, 2020)

Well Cornwall's got off incredibly lightly so far but ...









						More workers test positive at Cornish food factory
					

Staff members claim that 88 people tested positive on Saturday




					www.cornwalllive.com
				






> There have been further confirmed coronavirus cases at a food factory in Cornwall with staff members claiming that as many as 88 employees tested positive on Saturday alone.
> 
> Pilgrim's Pride, which bought bacon producer Tulip last year, has confirmed that more staff members at its site in Pool, between Redruth and Camborne, have tested positive for the virus following an outbreak last week.
> 
> ...



More employees saying similar. So, .... young people going out clubbing and partying at fault again 

You really would think they'd be sending government inspectors round these places. Ah no, with this lot I suppose you wouldn't.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Well Cornwall's got off incredibly lightly so far but ...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Think your link is wrong? 








						Cornwall's 150 new cases in 18 cluster areas
					

There are 66% of the cases are in the Camborne, Pool and Redruth area, where a breakout has been confirmed at the Pilgrim's Pride - formerly Tulip - factory




					www.cornwalllive.com
				




That is bad reading, especially when Cornwall as an old population and very few ventilators


----------



## two sheds (Sep 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Think your link is wrong?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes I'd changed it in between times 

And it's on the bus route that I'd normally use, and the bus route that carries kids coming out of Truro school packed together and (I'd imagine) with very few masks.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Well Cornwall's got off incredibly lightly so far but ...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



There are very few government inspectors and it takes a couple of years to train them.

Any of the things that have been setup to protect us like food inspectors, health and safety officers, fire wardens have been underfunded and understaffed for decades if they were ever fully functioning at all and this pandemic is really highlighting that, I just hope its highlighting it to enough people to make them think and stop and consider how we can change it.










						Covid cases at UK food factories could be over 30 times higher than reported
					

Investigation warns employers have too much influence over official data amid claims of fake safety audits




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## two sheds (Sep 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> There are very few government inspectors and it takes a couple of years to train them.
> 
> Any of the things that have been setup to protect us like food inspectors, health and safety officers, fire wardens have been underfunded and understaffed for decades if they were ever fully functioning at all and this pandemic is really highlighting that, I just hope its highlighting it to enough people to make them think and stop and consider how we can change it.



Yep, totally. But I've not seen a single government source/scientific advisor suggest it.

apart from you, obvs 

not that you're a government source ...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yep, totally. But I've not seen a single government source/scientific advisor suggest it.
> 
> apart from you, obvs
> 
> not that you're a government source ...



This government couldn't find its arse with both hands and a map and its still obsessed with Brexit and the Culture War over saving lives.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 30, 2020)

Best left to market forces, sir.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> There are very few government inspectors and it *takes a couple of years to train them*.


I would not have thought that was an issue for this government? Just outsource it to a coach or ferry company.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 30, 2020)

Don't give them ideas


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

Covid quarantine breakers: 'It was selfish but I don't regret it'
					

Polling by the BBC suggests a hardcore minority would break the rules - Alice was one of them.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> In July, Alice, a 20-something office worker from Surrey, was fed up with not having got away on holiday. For the good of her own mental wellbeing, she says, she broke the rules. Sitting in her garden, she confessed her crime to me.
> 
> She'd booked a trip to Majorca with a friend. Then, days before she had been due to fly out, the UK slapped quarantine rules on Spain.
> 
> "We were basically told by the holiday company that we wouldn't get our money back. I didn't want to lose another holiday and any money. So just decided to go anyway."





> When Alice got to Majorca, she decided the self-isolation she'd face on return to the UK would be a nonsense. The hotel was largely empty and reassuringly clean.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I would not have thought that was an issue for this government? Just outsource it to a coach or ferry company.



At this point I'm assuming they've run out of mates to outsource to.


----------



## belboid (Sep 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Covid quarantine breakers: 'It was selfish but I don't regret it'
> 
> 
> Polling by the BBC suggests a hardcore minority would break the rules - Alice was one of them.
> ...


I imagine she is very grateful there are lots of Alices in Surrey, because she sounds like a complete cunt.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

Covid student chaos: Paying £30k a year and begging security for food
					

One US student in self-isolation at an Edinburgh halls of residence says he is getting little help from the university.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> His accommodation at Pollock is catered by one cafeteria and he has no facilities to cook for himself. Because he is self-isolating in his room, he relies on the university to deliver food. But sometimes nothing arrives until after lunchtime and on Tuesday he still had had nothing by 16:00.
> 
> As an international student, Reese pays £21,000 in tuition fees and £9,000 for accommodation per year to attend the University of Edinburgh. He believes students from abroad are paying the most and getting the least help.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

belboid said:


> I imagine she is very grateful there are lots of Alices in Surrey, because she sounds like w complete cunt.


Hope she dies and/or kills some family members


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 30, 2020)

The government said international travel was fine.  It clearly wasn't a load of us said as much before the holiday season kicked off.  I think its a bit much to blame people when the rules suddenly changed in a great panic. 

I still think there was a possibility to manage the school and uni reopening without the massive upsurge we've seen but no, the government wanted to go on holiday.  To my mind allowing (almost encouraging) international travel was the single biggest mistake of the summer.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 30, 2020)

200 university students flout social distancing rules at massive party.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 30, 2020)

Major outbreak of hospital covid transmission at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.   









						Coronavirus: Royal Glamorgan Hospital reports eight deaths linked to major COVID-19 outbreak
					

It follows an outbreak of 82 coronavirus cases, which has caused the hospital to suspend most services.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Major outbreak of hospital covid transmission at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


FFS  there is going to be another 'hard' lockdown soon isn't there?


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> FFS  there is going to be another 'hard' lockdown soon isn't there?


Not until it's got completely out of hand.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 200 university students flout social distancing rules at massive party.




They probably think 'we've all got it anyway'. This stuff is going to happen unfortunately.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> They probably think 'we've all got it anyway'. This stuff is going to happen unfortunately.


Are they in a big bubble, self isolating?


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Not until it's got completely out of hand.





frogwoman said:


> They probably think 'we've all got it anyway'. This stuff is going to happen unfortunately.


This school/uni shit is the same as the first lockdown
The government knew this would happen and they let it happen

They will blame the students but what do they expect? Disgraced Prime Minister Cameron stuck his cock in a pigs head at Oxford University FFS


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

If their not allowed to leave halls there's little chance of it spreading outside. It's shit but I can't really blame them.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> If their not allowed to leave halls there's little chance of it spreading outside. It's shit but I can't really blame them.


Bad news for any who have health conditions beyond a hangover.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> They probably think 'we've all got it anyway'. This stuff is going to happen unfortunately.



Yeah, not going to help their case to be able to go home though!


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

Yeah it's absolutely shit, but a lot of  them probably think they have either got it or about to get it anyway 

It's shit if you're not the partying type too which I wasnt ( at least initially) at uni.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 30, 2020)

Might all be over by Christmas so they can go home then.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 30, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Are they in a big bubble, self isolating?



None of the reports suggest they are self isolating, and I found reports about covid cases at Coventry University, but not one of any lockdown on campus. 

Apparently security called the police to help break-up the party, and several students were issued with £200 fines.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

Thread worth reading:


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

Covid wardens can use reasonable force. Fucking hell


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 30, 2020)

Other than handing a few massive contracts to their offshore tax haven mates to fuck up they don't want to support or pay for anything.  However you decide to tackle the pandemic it needs proper financial support from government and they are not willing or able to support the services (like test and trace) to keep things going or support people to stop doing stuff either (like quarantine and lose income).  So we get this hodge podge of bullshit measures that are more about them dancing a line to avoid paying for anyone to reduce risk if they keep doing stuff or fork out for people to not do stuff.   Cunts.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 30, 2020)

That is another concern I have about the tracing app that it will be used to dish out fines.
Getting iffy now hiding draconian shit in their befuddled response


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 30, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Covid wardens can use reasonable force. Fucking hell



It sounds like people can just name you as someone they were near and you have to self isolate regardless of whether its true or not.  No questions asked.  Great!


----------



## killer b (Sep 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> It sounds like people can just name you as someone they were near and you have to self isolate regardless of whether its true or not.  No questions asked.  Great!


there are penalties for doing this maliciously too though.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 30, 2020)

by the wardens too, if you give them lip?


----------



## Cid (Sep 30, 2020)

IC3D said:


> That is another concern I have about the tracing app that it will be used to dish out fines.
> Getting iffy now hiding draconian shit in their befuddled response



It can't identify you. Even if you got an alert and decided not to self-isolate (which... don't) you could just delete the app. It will delete any data associated with it. And the alerts given by the app aren't legally enforceable.


----------



## andysays (Sep 30, 2020)

belboid said:


> I imagine she is very grateful there are lots of Alices in Surrey, because she sounds like w complete cunt.


I was going to post a link to that article myself.

She does sound like a bit of a cunt. 

"for the good of my own mental well being" is selfish bullshit, but without wanting to be too misty eyed and nostalgic, it's no coincidence that there now appear to be far more selfish cunts around prepared to prioritize their own immediate satisfaction over general social wellbeing than there once were, is it?


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

Cid said:


> It can't identify you. Even if you got an alert and decided not to self-isolate (which... don't) you could just delete the app. It will delete any data associated with it. And the alerts given by the app aren't legally enforceable.



How are the fines being enforced then?


----------



## Cid (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> How are the fines being enforced then?



The other contact tracing procedure.


----------



## killer b (Sep 30, 2020)

andysays said:


> without wanting to be too misty eyed and nostalgic, it's no coincidence that there now appear to be far more selfish cunts around prepared to prioritize their own immediate satisfaction over general social wellbeing than there once were, is it?


will need to see some data on this, or I'm afraid you're going in the misty eyed spirit of the blitz corner.


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Major outbreak of hospital covid transmission at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I was quite impressed that the authorities there didnt try to hide the nature of the situation behind weasel words, unlike some NHS England hospital outbreaks I could name.

Here is a Guardian version of the story: South Wales hospital cancels most operations after Covid outbreak


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Covid wardens can use reasonable force. Fucking hell


What about us 'self titled' Covid Wardens?


----------



## editor (Sep 30, 2020)

And the selfish twats are off again









						Toilet roll panic shopping returns to Brixton as supermarkets say, ‘please shop as normal’
					

We’ve had a few people contact us to say that they’ve noticed diminishing stocks of toilet roll in their local supermarkets as the threat of an increased lockdown looms – and a tr…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## Cid (Sep 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> What about us 'self titled' Covid Wardens?



Nah, you have to be designated by a local authority or the secretary of state (it doesn't say which secretary of state in that bit though).


----------



## two sheds (Sep 30, 2020)

I'm considered something of a local authority in my village  



at least I think that's what they said


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> It sounds like people can just name you as someone they were near and you have to self isolate regardless of whether its true or not.  No questions asked.  Great!



I was sat next to Boris Johnson in the pub last night and as it happens I'm feeling dead peaky today


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

Cid said:


> Nah, you have to be designated by a local authority or the secretary of state (it doesn't say which secretary of state in that bit though).


Cheers for that but am just going to to plough on and see what happens.


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

I sometimes go on about how hospital Covid-19 demand was suppressed at the peak in a way that probably caused plenty of people to die at home.

Its a subject that doesnt come up in the news much (apart from a few examples at the peak of the first wave) so when I find a little snippet of info I feel the need to highlight it.

Exhibit A. Michael Rosen.



> Rosen had been ill with flu-like symptoms in mid-March. He seemed to be getting better, but then he got “bed-breaking shakes” and extreme aches two weeks later. On 28 March, Williams, the mother of his two youngest children, called NHS 111 and was told to keep him away from hospital if possible. As the day progressed, she became terrified. She asked a doctor friend to take a look at him.





> “His oxygen level was at 58,” Williams says. “Nearly dead,” Rosen says. “Nearly dead,” Williams replies. “Not quite.” Rosen didn’t want to go to hospital. He had the shivers and was freezing. Williams and their 19-year-old daughter, Elsie, insisted. His respiratory system, liver and kidneys were failing.











						Michael Rosen on his Covid-19 coma: ‘It felt like a pre-death, a nothingness’
					

Earlier this year, the beloved children’s writer spent six weeks on a ventilator with coronavirus. He talks about the magic of the NHS, the mismanagement of the crisis and how his near-death experience has changed him




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 30, 2020)

IC3D said:


> That is another concern I have about the tracing app that it will be used to dish out fines.
> Getting iffy now hiding draconian shit in their befuddled response



Yeah the pole I'm not touching that app with has extended to thirty feet.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yeah the pole I'm not touching that app with has extended to thirty feet.



It might be a concern, but the app can't be used in that way. There's no personal info stored and as someone has said you could just delete it anyway. Fines would come from people being found out through the other parts of the T&T system.


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

In other parts of that Rosen article its not clear whether he has put two and two together in regards what was nearly his own fate, if the family hadnt had a doctor friend/ignored NHS 111 advice.



> He says it’s impossible to express just how happy he is to be alive and his gratitude to the NHS. “Suddenly, you realise there’s this great logistical thing that I floated up on to the top of. It buoyed me up and saved my life.” Again, he becomes emotional as he talks about how nurses sat by his bed every night, kept a diary, praised him for coughing up secretions, urged him back to life, showed him the same care and love his family would do.



He would not have floated to the top if the earlier part of the logistics chain had gotten its way.

But he is very aware of the issues when they apply to older people:



> He is furious at the way older people have been treated by the government. “They thought that by decanting the old people out of the wards and into the care homes they would relieve stress in the NHS. They had some policy that they’ve never fully declared. It’s eugenics, isn’t it? It’s the sense that some people are less entitled to live.”





> Rosen mentions the controversialist Toby Young, who suggested people in their late 70s weren’t worth the economic cost it would require to save them. Ironically, he says, just before he caught the virus, he was debating in the Today studio whether 70-year-olds had as much right to live as 20-year-olds. “I said: we can’t live in a society where we think old people are expendable, but it’s clear that thought was going around.”



And the abhorrent Tory agenda:



> Yet he despises the government’s hypocrisy – telling us to protect our health service while doing the opposite itself. “The NHS has been targeted in two ways: underfunded during austerity and this constant nibbling away. Privatising.” He considers the appointment of the Tory peer Dido Harding to be corrupt and questions her expertise to run test and trace. “The idea that you’d do it with a bunch of cowboys who’ve run a mobile phone company badly, you just think: ‘Jesus’.”





> He says it runs counter to everything the Conservatives preach about education and meritocracy. “The old theory was that you build up expertise by doing GCSEs, A-levels, degree, MSc, PhD and then you might rise to the top – and they might call on you to run an emergency like a pandemic – but no, because Dido will get in there instead.”


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 30, 2020)

killer b said:


> there are penalties for doing this maliciously too though.


I wish someone would maliciously report me. I could do with a fortnight off from work.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 30, 2020)

Any NHS people know what the PPE situation is now?  So back in march there was proper PPE. We didnt have that so they changed the definition of PPE to bin bags and ball gags or whatever.  Are staff getting appropriate PPE now and are there stocks to get through winter?


----------



## IC3D (Sep 30, 2020)

Green - surgical mask and gloves covid - 
Amber - the above and goggles/apron covid query (all admissions unless isolating) 
Red - n95 mask and gown covid +
quimcunx 
No idea about stocks. 
V few covid admissions atm.
Eta not much covid anxiety were too busy


----------



## bimble (Sep 30, 2020)

London lockdown looking increasingly imminent. I am so tired of the endless 'will urgenty consider' and don't understand why they cant just decide, make a clear announcement and give everyone a little bit of time to organise their lives.








						Urgent talks over London ban on mixing households next week
					

Even areas that have low levels of virus will be hit under new London curb




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## belboid (Sep 30, 2020)

Sainsbury’s boss Mike Coupe appointed as head of ‘NHS’ track n trace. 

If you’ve forgotten who he is...

Sainsbury's boss sorry for singing We're in the Money - BBC News


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

As far as I know he has been made testing director, not head of the whole thing.

So lots of talk about 20 minute tests and moonshot.

So long as I dont have to ever hear him singing "we're in the money shot" I may yet survive this pandemic.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 30, 2020)

bimble said:


> London lockdown looking increasingly imminent. I am so tired of the endless 'will urgenty consider' and don't understand why they cant just decide, make a clear announcement and give everyone a little bit of time to organise their lives.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


If they announce things in advance, then the complaint is that it encourages people to get in a load of extra risky behaviour before the lockdown happens.
If they announce at very short notice then the complaint is that no-one has any time to re-organise things.

Perhaps the period of "urgent consideration" is a way of steering between the two.


----------



## bimble (Sep 30, 2020)

I suppose so. It’s plain from that article that anybody in London who wants to have a drunken swingers party had better hurry up and do it this weekend, so there’s that.


----------



## zora (Sep 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> I sometimes go on about how hospital Covid-19 demand was suppressed at the peak in a way that probably caused plenty of people to die at home.
> 
> Its a subject that doesnt come up in the news much (apart from a few examples at the peak of the first wave) so when I find a little snippet of info I feel the need to highlight it.



Thank you for highlighting it. I agree that it has been underreported.

I remember a Question Time sometime in spring, when there was talk of the "we managed to protect the NHS, it didn't get overwhelmed, and we haven't seen the horrific scenes that we saw in Italy", and everyone on the panel nodded their agreement. It fell to a member of the zoom audience to disagree and say that whilst we hadn't seen the horrific scenes, it wasn't because they hadn't happened but because they hadn't been shown.

In all this time, the only two cases I can remember reading about were a man in Wales whose partner said he hadn't wanted to burden the NHS, and a woman in Peckham whose husband called the ambulance service and she wasn't taken in and died in the night. I am sure there must have been many more,  and I can't think of anything much more horrific. (Well I can but you get my drift).   

Eta: I also wonder sometimes about the stress and horror this must have caused the ambulance personnel


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Major outbreak of hospital covid transmission at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



8 deaths officially so far from that hospital outbreak:









						Covid: Eight die in Royal Glamorgan Hospital outbreak
					

Planned surgeries have been temporarily stopped at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




All hospital outbreaks deserve this amount of reporting at a minimum. It hasnt happened with some of the other deadly outbreaks, and I will go out of my way to cover those again soon.


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

Just one example for now, the most recent one I know of.

Tameside hospital outbreak got a few articles in their local press and a Guardian article or two. Where was the in depth digging, the follow-up articles or the rise of this story up the headlines?

Examples of articles at the time (a few weeks ago now):









						Tameside hospital fights fatal outbreak of hospital-acquired Covid
					

Exclusive: inquiry launched as several patients die of Covid-19 after becoming infected while being treated for other illnesses




					www.theguardian.com
				












						Tameside Hospital is battling a coronavirus outbreak - 18 people have died
					

The outbreak is mostly related to 'emergency admissions' say health chiefs




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
				




And where was the coverage of things said in SAGE or NERVTAG about NHS England policies regarding segregation of Covid and non-covid patients?

I think I have seen a pattern of several hospital-related aspects of this pandemic rarely being touched with a bargepole by our press. I suspect there are issues there which are considered sensitive, and this area of reporting is managed in some way. It might be as simple as health correspondents having lots of professional contacts who will emphasise the enormous potential damage that stems from people being too afraid to go to hospitals, and this causes them to hold back on certain sensitive angles. Maybe there is more to it, I dont know. I certainly seem to have a different attitude about what would actually constitute responsible reporting in this area than many of the 'pros' have exhibited in this pandemic so far.

NHS staff have largely been forgotten by the press in recent months too. Like various issues of shielding those thought to be at risk due to health conditions, this stuff has dropped off the radar in an alarming manner, and many stories are covered in isolation, driven by that days news agenda and the latest turn of events rather than the big picture.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

Is the Disgraced Prime Minister 'addressing' the nation with some new slogans and vague threats today?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Is the Disgraced Prime Minister 'addressing' the nation with some new slogans and vague threats today?



Sounds like it's going to be a _scale of the problem_ speech.  Might get a few slogans and hopefully yet another totally unrealistic short term and unachievable goal.  Probably something to do with Christmas.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

When is the briefing?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> When is the briefing?



5.00 pm


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Sounds like it's going to be a _scale of the problem_ speech.  Might get a few slogans and hopefully yet another totally unrealistic short term and unachievable goal.  Probably something to do with Christmas.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

Has the content been flagged?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 30, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Has the content been flagged?



Don't think so but Vallance & Whitty are there so it seems more of an update on how bad it is and might get rather than more restrictions.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

The nation holds its breath...


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Any NHS people know what the PPE situation is now?  So back in march there was proper PPE. We didnt have that so they changed the definition of PPE to bin bags and ball gags or whatever.  Are staff getting appropriate PPE now and are there stocks to get through winter?



Johnson must read U75, he just addressed PPE in the daily briefing. Billions of items (probably all left hand gloves...) and UK to manufacture a much higher percentage of PPE needed.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Don't think so but Vallance & Whitty are there so it seems more of an update on how bad it is and might get rather than more restrictions.



Yeah, the tone seems to be "We're ready, it's getting worse as we said, and behave or restrictions will get tougher."


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

Any update on support for businesses etc?


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Any update on support for businesses etc?


No. He said nothing new bar the daily cases data.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Any update on support for businesses etc?


Hahaha.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

No, doesn't look like it in this briefing. Whitty speaking now, then Vallance. No more new support is expected though afaik?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, the tone seems to be "We're ready, it's getting worse as we said, and behave or restrictions will get tougher."



Seems more like a return to the regular update press conferences we had before.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

Massive test positivity rate increase in the 17-21 year old age brackets, not much at all in younger kids.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 30, 2020)

Uh oh.


----------



## killer b (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Any update on support for businesses etc?


Johnson doesn't do those announcements, it's Sunak's job.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Uh oh.
> 
> View attachment 232420


Eek!


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

Yeah, the data does look grim as fuck. My prediction is we'll get more deaths this time.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

Actually good questions from Kuenssberg.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

Would be nice to know I'm not going to lose my job in the foreseeable future that's all.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Johnson must read U75, he just addressed PPE in the daily briefing. Billions of items (probably all left hand gloves...) and UK to manufacture a much higher percentage of PPE needed.



TBF, from what I am hearing from both a local care home owner, who's in contact with many others, and people I know working at the local hospital, both have plenty PPE.


----------



## clicker (Sep 30, 2020)

I wish he'd stop the facade that everything is rosy and the NHS is 'open for business'. It isn't.
Two friends, both who ordinarily have 3 monthly hospital check ups following a cancer diagnosis, have had their appointments changed to phone interviews since March (2 each).
A phone call instead of a physical examination. That isn't 'open for business'.


----------



## bimble (Sep 30, 2020)

This is really hard to hear.  'We will have enough PPE to last six months' is supposed to be the upbeat bit.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

clicker said:


> I wish he'd stop the facade that everything is rosy and the NHS is 'open for business'. It isn't.
> Two friends, both who ordinarily have 3 monthly hospital check ups following a cancer diagnosis, have had their appointments changed to phone interviews since March (2 each).
> A phone call instead of a physical examination. That isn't 'open for business'.



It is open, it's just adapted. A risk assessment would have been done and decided that a phone consultation is safer for them and the staff. They might not like it an be anxious and worried, but NHS staff will have a better idea of what's better to do than they do tbh.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 30, 2020)

clicker said:


> I wish he'd stop the facade that everything is rosy and the NHS is 'open for business'. It isn't.
> Two friends, both who ordinarily have 3 monthly hospital check ups following a cancer diagnosis, have had their appointments changed to phone interviews since March (2 each).
> A phone call instead of a physical examination. That isn't 'open for business'.



Agreed but that was as likely a message to the NHS as well.


----------



## clicker (Sep 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It is open, it's just adapted. A risk assessment would have been done and decided that a phone consultation is safer for them and the staff. They might not like it an be anxious and worried, but NHS staff will have a better idea of what's better to do than they do tbh.


Why make a point of singling out cancer as something they are 'open for', it is deliberately giving a false impression. But no suprise there. Physical examinations and scans are being cancelled and not rescheduled in some areas, would have been a truthful, but less palatable message.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It is open, it's just adapted. A risk assessment would have been done and decided that a phone consultation is safer for them and the staff. They might not like it an be anxious and worried, but NHS staff will have a better idea of what's better to do than they do tbh.


Hohoho. I get my first post treatment appts in 7 months tomorrow.  Getting a call asking if you have any lumps is no substitute for an examination.


----------



## killer b (Sep 30, 2020)

Mrs B recently had her first scan since the beginning of the year, but she had to persuade her oncologist it was necessary - he said he had to justify every scan as urgent. This was before this new rise started kicking in properly too (though it was obviously on the cards)


----------



## killer b (Sep 30, 2020)

(I'm not blaming the drs for that fwiw - an outbreak of covid at the Christie would be disastrous, so you understand why they're cautious. But the idea that the NHS is open to cancer patients in a meaningful sense is obvious rot.)


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

One of the main reasons they went on so strongly about the NHS being open is likely the same one I was on about earlier when I was moaning about the nature of reporting on hospital outbreaks in this pandemic. People avoiding hospital out of fear is always on their list of concerns, and something the likes of Whitty tried to address in the past too.

And yet the current situation means that they feel the need to show some hospital data in order to demonstrate to people that things are really getting worse again. This was very evident today where a lot of Whittys slides were similar to ones I might show on this subject. Having shown those, he then tried to compensate for one sort of fear those might generate, fear of going to hospital, while still retaining in peoples minds the other fear, the fear they want to exist in the hope it will modify peoples behaviours at this stage of the pandemic.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

killer b said:


> (I'm not blaming the drs for that fwiw - an outbreak of covid at the Christie would be disastrous, so you understand why they're cautious. But the idea that the NHS is open to cancer patients in a meaningful sense is obvious rot.)



The Trust I was working for in the first wave isolated all cancer treatment to one hospital that it kept covid free, so it was and still is open for cancer related healthcare, albeit in a slightly adapted way, so it's not as simple as you make out.

Anyway, off topic really.


----------



## killer b (Sep 30, 2020)

Yet somehow everyone on the thread who's been at the sharp end of cancer care recently reports a similar story - a story I'm very familiar with from elsewhere too. I'm sure your trust is doing a great job under difficult circumstances though.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

killer b said:


> Yet somehow everyone on the thread who's been at the sharp end of cancer care recently reports a similar story - a story I'm very familiar with from elsewhere too. I'm sure your trust is doing a great job under difficult circumstances though.



Yeah, sorry people you're close to are having a tough time of it.


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

I should also have said that its really awkward listening to them trying to deal with the hospital fears, because they dont actually want to describe the fear of hospital infection that people may have in great detail, presumably because they dont want to tip people off who havent had that fear to date that its a thing.

When the media are being equally cautious about this stuff they would sometimes choose to only mention that people were avoiding hospitals in order to reduce demand on the NHS. Sometimes they would acknowledge the fear of getting it in hospital but usually only very briefly, just a sentence with no expansion or discussion.

It is very difficult stuff, but it also means we havent had a proper look at various NHS decisions regarding patient segregation in the NHS, even when it comes out in SAGE or NERVTAG documents. And the results of fears on these fronts so far is probably also a mixed bag, probably some lives have been saved and some lost as a result.


----------



## Badgers (Sep 30, 2020)




----------



## killer b (Sep 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, sorry people you're close to are having a tough time of it.


We aren't particularly, but only because it was clear this time. I'd probably feel less easy about it all if there'd been bad news that would have been picked up earlier on the originally planned scan schedule.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Johnson must read U75, he just addressed PPE in the daily briefing. Billions of items (probably all left hand gloves...) and UK to manufacture a much higher percentage of PPE needed.



Did he mention when this would start? Sometime mid february or so?


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Did he mention when this would start? Sometime mid february or so?



Their arranged statements of reassurance about PPE were probably originally designed with a different second wave timing in mind. The assurances are along the lines of 4 months of stockpile 'for winter' and 70% of PPE produced nationally by December (though I dont know if Im remembering the 70% bit properly).


----------



## bimble (Sep 30, 2020)

My friend just got a text from his regular pharmacy which says 'be prepared for potential covid disruption: order your prescription as soon as possible'. Hopefully they are just trying to do the things they wish they'd done last time to avoid supply chain issues but that is an alarming message for someone who needs their medication to receive.


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

I wonder how many years this pandemic would need to go on for before Johnson smoothly remembered that the second question from the public is in the form of words that Johnson needs to read out.


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 30, 2020)

killer b said:


> Yet somehow everyone on the thread who's been at the sharp end of cancer care recently reports a similar story - a story I'm very familiar with from elsewhere too. I'm sure your trust is doing a great job under difficult circumstances though.



No, not everyone. 

While obviously sorry for your situation with your partner and many other people who are and have been suffering unnecessary delays and trauma, UCHL were brilliant with me last year in the middle of the pandemic. This included a rearranged cancer operation within 4 weeks of the original (rearranged because I needed it to be because I'd contracted ecoli) followed by an emergency MRI and admission when the rearranged op gave me ecoli for a second time in 2 months.

UCHL have been brilliant.


----------



## killer b (Sep 30, 2020)

sounds like you fulfilled the urgency criteria her oncologist was talking about tbf.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

I have a mate who works at UCLH and she's got nothing but good things to say about them. I think it's incredibly variable though. I've heard some shocking shit about other hospitals.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I have a mate who works at UCLH and she's got nothing but good things to say about them. I think it's incredibly variable though. I've heard some shocking shit about other hospitals.



Yeah and of course before the pandemic there were massive problems and inequalities in care in areas/between Trusts/etc. And like many things the pandemic has just made some of these already existing problems worse.


----------



## blameless77 (Sep 30, 2020)

zora said:


> Thank you for highlighting it. I agree that it has been underreported.
> 
> I remember a Question Time sometime in spring, when there was talk of the "we managed to protect the NHS, it didn't get overwhelmed, and we haven't seen the horrific scenes that we saw in Italy", and everyone on the panel nodded their agreement. It fell to a member of the zoom audience to disagree and say that whilst we hadn't seen the horrific scenes, it wasn't because they hadn't happened but because they hadn't been shown.
> 
> ...


Saw an article about this today.









						'I'm traumatised now': Covid bereaved call for inquiry into NHS 111
					

Hundreds of people believe the helpline failed their relatives. Now they are demanding their voices be heard




					www.theguardian.com
				




Having had to call 111 for an unrelated issue last week, the extended messages about NOT calling 111 if you think you have Covid were rather chilling.


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

Are they really doing that shit again? That's part of what led to us having so many covid deaths the first time.


----------



## Weller (Sep 30, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Did he mention when this would start? Sometime mid february or so?


Before Christmas , everything sorted before chritmas
Weve even had a tree up in our local pub for 2 weeks now and a menu booking forms the whole prepay package   
Its all on the table as you go in underneath the Track and Trace QR code , free masks and sanitizer


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> Saw an article about this today.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Why chilling? 111 will collapse if everyone who has covid or possible covid symptoms calls them.


----------



## planetgeli (Sep 30, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> No, not everyone.
> 
> While obviously sorry for your situation with your partner and many other people who are and have been suffering unnecessary delays and trauma, UCHL were brilliant with me last year in the middle of the pandemic. This included a rearranged cancer operation within 4 weeks of the original (rearranged because I needed it to be because I'd contracted ecoli) followed by an emergency MRI and admission when the rearranged op gave me ecoli for a second time in 2 months.
> 
> UCHL have been brilliant.



Jesus Christ I do apologise for this. I've just written bullshit. Please let me explain. I didn't mean to mislead.

This happened 2 years ago.

BUT.

What did happen in the middle of the pandemic was my one year follow up. This included an MRI and a follow up appointment. None of which got cancelled and could easily have been. And I certainly didn't qualify for urgency criteria on that. And I travel from Wales to London for it. They have no obligation to see me at all.

Really sorry for the original post. I've been teaching and counselling depressed kids all day and I've been awake from 4.10am (don't ask).

Takes nothing away from the brilliance of UCH who have saved my life twice in the last 6 years.

But sorry for the original post inaccuracies. I'm fucking tired. And have it all to do again tomorrow. In lockdowned Llanelli.


----------



## LDC (Sep 30, 2020)

What is abundantly clear is we need a complete rethink and re-structure of healthcare in this country post-Covid. And not a market led one, a patient and best and free care for all driven one.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 30, 2020)

That's exactly the sort of thing the tories aren't planning


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why chilling? 111 will collapse if everyone who has covid or possible covid symptoms calls them.



Well at a minimum what was required was some kind of follow-up system backed by strong public health messaging, so that people who were initially told to recover at home and not bother the health services, had some proper sense of when this advice was no longer appropriate and who/when to call for help.

Instead we had a situation which left me making jokes about how Johnson eventually did his bit for public health education by highlighting the risk of serious deterioration after more than 7 days of symptoms via his own plight.

There are probably a multitude of reasons why such a system did not exist, including the system that did exists very deliberate role in peak demand suppression. Sadly I will not be at all surprised if a similar thing happens again. There are probably a few less reasonable excuses for doing so this time, but if the overall numbers get bad enough (or staff shortages get bad enough) then I expect more demand suppression during future nasty peaks. But we wont necessarily see the same sort of peaks this time, or they will have a different nature to their timing, or the picture will vary more regionally and maybe capacity from elsewhere could be redirected, I cannot say with confidence. Could easily be worse for seasonal reasons including other viruses and other hospital demand, but the various mitigation measures complicate the picture of how infection rates are likely to evolve, its not as clearcut as last time (a good complication to have).


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

Weller said:


> Before Christmas , everything sorted before chritmas
> Weve even had a tree up in our local pub for 2 weeks now and a menu booking forms the whole prepay package
> Its all on the table as you go in underneath the Track and Trace QR code , free masks and sanitizer


Pull the tree down. It's not even October.


----------



## Weller (Sep 30, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Pull the tree down. It's not even October.


You cant get at it the Covid door Marshall scans you in gives you a throw away sanitized menu escorts you past the tree  in a mask until at the table and once there you cant get up without a mask up a monitored sanitize and an escort out briefly stopping 2 metres from  the tree  for a throw away xmas booking form and re scanning a QR  code  its pretty depressing so it makes the  tree and lights and Rudolphs head more annoying this year  

Most Greene King owned pubs and restaurants though have had trees up just before haloween for last few years but  even earlier this year  it annoys many even before  the pandemic it may be pulled down and filmed  like Saddams statue in a ritual come Fridays 9.15pm  last orders and  it is rather large


----------



## brogdale (Sep 30, 2020)

With a few obvious exceptions, the spatial pattern of this 'second wave' appears to be devastating the former coalfields; maybe should be known as the Thatcher wave?


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why chilling? 111 will collapse if everyone who has covid or possible covid symptoms calls them.


I phoned 999 because I thought I was having a heart attack [when I got covid] and living alone I didn't want to take a chance that it would prove correct but I'd not be able to phone [I was having scary heart symptoms,  felt faint and sick and was sweating] 

999 wouldn't touch me cos I said it was covid related.   I rang 111 three times because the first 2 times they just went through the script and I couldn't convince them how bad I felt 
3rd time they let me through to the clinician supervising and she sent the paramedics out and they took me to hospital


----------



## scifisam (Sep 30, 2020)

Fuck, that's awful Miss-Shelf


----------



## Supine (Sep 30, 2020)

brogdale said:


> With a few obvious exceptions, the spatial pattern of this 'second wave' appears to be devastating the former coalfields; maybe should be known as the Thatcher wave?
> 
> View attachment 232452



It's cold up north. When the south gets cold the results may well go up.


----------



## TopCat (Sep 30, 2020)

Supine said:


> It's cold up north. When the south gets cold the results may well go up.


May well go up?  Explode more likely.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 30, 2020)

brogdale said:


> With a few obvious exceptions, the spatial pattern of this 'second wave' appears to be devastating the former coalfields; maybe should be known as the Thatcher wave?
> 
> View attachment 232452


That is a tiny bit misleading - the case rates in urban / coalfield Northumberland are very much higher than they are in the rural areas. It is unfair to lump the areas together like that.
On Tyneside it seems to be the "student" areas that have the higher rates - Heaton, Jesmond/Sandyford and so on - a bit like Warwick, around the University.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 30, 2020)

Definite N/S divide in GL showing with the outer Southern boroughs showing significantly lower infection rates than the rest of the capital. Maybe the curse of the tube desert is yielding an unexpected benefit, for once?


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 30, 2020)

Miss-Shelf : Was that frightening experience recent? 

Whether recent or not, I _really _hope that you're feeliing *a lot* better now!


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 30, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Miss-Shelf : Was that frightening experience recent?
> 
> Whether recent or not, I _really _hope that you're feeliing *a lot* better now!


thank you,  I am.  and it was nearly 6 months ago.  

I just think loads of people did not get treatment when they needed it and it's really frightening,  and in some cases it's been fatal


----------



## William of Walworth (Sep 30, 2020)

I said  to the second sentence above ...

But my  to the first is more important -- glad you're a lot better!!


----------



## frogwoman (Sep 30, 2020)

On the other hand my mum and I had covid in March (confirmed with antibodies test) and I rang 999 with very scary heart symptoms, chills and shortness of breath, several people spoke to me over the course of the night and told me that based on what I'd said I didn't need to go hospital but to call if it gets worse. They were really reassuring and explained that it caused that symptom in a lot of people and were very understanding about how scary it was. I'm glad that I wasn't taken to hospital then tbh


----------



## scifisam (Oct 1, 2020)

When I had swineflu they decided not to admit me to hospital on the basis of it being more dangerous for me and others, but said they would have if I'd lived alone. Living alone does make a difference to how easily you can call for help if symptoms worsen and in my case staying at home was better because I still had to help look after my daughter even if it was just by writing things on a whiteboard to tell my ex where the school uniform was and how to use the washing machine. 

But if the symptoms were similar to a heart attack they should admit you anyway, or at the very fucking least assess you in an ambulance.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 1, 2020)

It scared the absolute shit out of me because I'd had chest pains going on for two days, shortness of breath when I stood up etc. I didn't really cough much though and I had a bit of a temperature which disappeared with lemsip. My sense of taste completely disappeared at one point and was very 'weird' on and off even after I'd recovered.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 1, 2020)

170 people test positive for coronavirus at meat plant in Cornwall
					

Most cases were asymptomatic, local public health team says




					www.independent.co.uk
				




And now



> More than 170 people at a meat processing plant in Cornwall have tested positive for Covid-19.
> Hundreds of staff were tested at the food factory in Pool, a village near Redruth.
> Most of the positive cases at the Pilgrim's Pride meat plant were asymptomatic, according to the local public health team.
> 
> The company says it has introduced additional measures and checks its compliance with Covid-19 controls on a daily basis.



Of course you do but it's a bit fucking late now isn't it?


----------



## Weller (Oct 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> 170 people test positive for coronavirus at meat plant in Cornwall
> 
> 
> Most cases were asymptomatic, local public health team says
> ...


Ive seen some of the shit they cover up in those sort of places working on installations in the past and the way they pay  people zero hours 12 hour shifts little and missed breaks most the staff on the production lines too scared to spend too much time  in the toilet for fear of not hitting targets arriving ill but covering it up else they get sent home ,  not being called back the next day etc never mind having a fortnight off to self isolate.

Very very little hygiene when there should be the most probably when  processing chilled wet meat not frozen in a cold environment and little chance of keeping 1 mtr away

Luckily I got away from installing stuff in food factories but it doesnt surprise me if there is a massive cover up
There has been a fair few factories now that process chilled meat for the big takeaway companies with many cases when eventually tested and I expect the fast food companies know what goes on  and thats why they shutdown very fast in March  
Its probably why many have the actual production floors underground far away from visiting CEOs and management etc as in the damp floor photo they've used  , always cold and wet but rarely that clean or quiet  

Pilgrim's Pride supplies big chicken fast food companies  big supermarket chains and processed chicken production is by far  the fastest work environment Ive ever seen too very little downtime is allowed for maintenance

Meat industry Covid cases at UK food factories could be over 30 times higher than reported Investigation warns employers have too much influence over official data amid claims of fake safety audits


----------



## Weller (Oct 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> 170 people test positive for coronavirus at meat plant in Cornwall
> 
> 
> Most cases were asymptomatic, local public health team says
> ...


Seems like  same company Pilgrim's Pride  have previous in US too  
I think by now all the US chicken  production companies are probably connected anyway and all operate the same



> *COVID-19 pandemic*
> Main article: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the meat industry in the United States
> 
> In late April, 2020, an outbreak of COVID-19 began at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Lufkin, Texas.[19] On May 8, a worker at the Lufkin plant was found dead in her home after being diagnosed with Covid-19.[20] After the West Virginia National Guard conducted coronavirus tests of 520 (out of 940) workers at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Moorefield, West Virginia, 18 workers tested positive.[21] By May 11, 194 Covid-19 cases had been diagnosed among workers at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Cold Spring, Minnesota, which employs about 1,100 workers. That same day, 75 to 85 cars filled with workers drove around the plant, honking horns and demanding over a loudspeaker that it be closed for two weeks. [22] At least one worker has tested positive at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and other workers have tested positive at the company's plant in Timberville, Virginia, where dozens of workers protested in early April, although the company has declined to release the number of cases there.[23]


----------



## Badgers (Oct 1, 2020)

Just to check something... 

Whitty apparently stated that 15% of tests were positive. So if 7000 tested positive I make that the total tests were around 46000. 

My understanding is we are testing 200-250k per day?


----------



## MrSki (Oct 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Just to check something...
> 
> Whitty apparently stated that 15% of tests were positive. So if 7000 tested positive I make that the total tests were around 46000.
> 
> My understanding is we are testing 200-250k per day?


I think the % testing +ve varies a lot in different areas & 15% was the highest.


----------



## LDC (Oct 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Just to check something...
> 
> Whitty apparently stated that 15% of tests were positive. So if 7000 tested positive I make that the total tests were around 46000.
> 
> My understanding is we are testing 200-250k per day?



That wasn't 15% across the board though was it, wasn't it only as high as 15% in some specific groups?


----------



## Badgers (Oct 1, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I think the % testing +ve varies a lot in different areas & 15% was the highest.





LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That wasn't 15% across the board though was it, wasn't it only as high as 15% in some specific groups?


Cheers  

Just 'being alert'


----------



## MrSki (Oct 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Cheers
> 
> Just 'being alert'


I doubt the 2-250K figure of people tested though.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 1, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I doubt the 2-250K figure of people tested though.


Of course they are lying but I guessed they were only fluffing the numbers 25-50%


----------



## two sheds (Oct 1, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I doubt the 2-250K figure of people tested though.



Are they people tested or tests carried out? They were initially at least counting each person tested as two tests carried out, like each pair of gloves was counted as 2 pieces of PPE.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Are they people tested or tests carried out? They were initially at least counting each person tested as two tests carried out, like each pair of gloves was counted as 2 pieces of PPE.


Surely they should just count the results sent out or released?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 1, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Surely they should just count the results sent out or released?



They did count the results sent out (again initially, I don't know about now) but that was wildly inaccurate too because they just sent out thousands of tests including doubled up ones which were never returned. Number of people successfully tested you'd think would be the figure they'd want to track.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> They did count the results sent out (again initially, I don't know about now) but that was wildly inaccurate too because they just sent out thousands of tests including doubled up ones which were never returned. Number of people successfully tested you'd think would be the figure they'd want to track.


I meant the results of processed tests. (or people successfully tested  )


----------



## MrSki (Oct 1, 2020)

We should be copying the Italians when it comes to testing. They seem to have their finger on the pulse.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 1, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I meant the results of processed tests. (or people successfully tested  )



ahhh sorry yes


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Are they people tested or tests carried out? They were initially at least counting each person tested as two tests carried out, like each pair of gloves was counted as 2 pieces of PPE.



Nose and throat swabs are now counted together as one sample, and on the dashboard they report tests processed by the labs.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 1, 2020)

Covid-19: Growth in cases may be slowing in England
					

But case numbers remain high and we are still at "a very critical period", a study suggests.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The latest analysis, of swab samples collected between 19 and 26 September, suggests the R number has fallen to about 1.1 - although the precise figure is uncertain.
> 
> The researchers said it was the first hint that measures such as the "rule of six", and heightened public concern about coronavirus, "may be having an impact on transmission".


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 1, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Covid-19: Growth in cases may be slowing in England
> 
> 
> But case numbers remain high and we are still at "a very critical period", a study suggests.
> ...



Yes, I saw that and at first thought it was some Nick Triggle weirdness but as its not it's potentially good news.  This being said given the amount of measures that are in place both nationally and locally you would hope it would be having a positive impact otherwise whats the point?


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 1, 2020)

This looks interesting,
"We sequenced 1500 people with Coronavirus in #Norfolk over the 1st wave & have a paper out today with lots of interesting findings: Large scale sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 genomes from one region allows detailed epidemiology and enables local outbreak management "

Twitter thread with text above by @andrewjpage,  summarises some of it, (I dont know how to link to Twitter here)


----------



## two sheds (Oct 1, 2020)

Have we had Neanderthal genes increase risk of serious Covid-19, study claims

yet?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 1, 2020)

This 3-minute report on covid sniffer dogs was on BBC News this morning.


----------



## killer b (Oct 1, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> This looks interesting,
> "We sequenced 1500 people with Coronavirus in #Norfolk over the 1st wave & have a paper out today with lots of interesting findings: Large scale sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 genomes from one region allows detailed epidemiology and enables local outbreak management "
> 
> Twitter thread with text above by @andrewjpage,  summarises some of it, (I dont know how to link to Twitter here)


you copy the URL of the tweet and post it as you would any other web page - the board software embeds it.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This 3-minute report on covid sniffer dogs was on BBC News this morning.




Fascinating, ta, really worth watching. As a note they're asking for samples of clothes from as many people as possible who have the virus. 

I was a bit concerned about my dog picking it up - very rare I understand, but that doesn't seem to be a problem with these dogs, presumably because they're smelling the body's reaction to the virus rather than the virus itself.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Fascinating, ta, really worth watching. As a note they're asking for samples of clothes from as many people as possible who have the virus.
> 
> I was a bit concerned about my dog picking it up - very rare I understand, but that doesn't seem to be a problem with these dogs, presumably because they're smelling the body's reaction to the virus rather than the virus itself.



I was pondering about how accurate they are likely to be, and a quick google search shows preliminary tests suggest nearly 100% accuracy.



> A dog is capable of detecting the presence of the coronavirus within 10 seconds and the entire process takes less than a minute to complete, according to Anna Hielm-Björkman of the University of Helsinki, who is overseeing the trial.
> 
> In the university’s preliminary tests, dogs – which have been successfully used to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes – were able to identify the virus with nearly 100% accuracy, even days before before a patient developed symptoms.



And, regarding concerns for the dogs...



> Although Covid-19 is known to infect mink and cats, dogs do not have the receptors necessary for the virus to readily gain a foothold and do not appear to be easily infected, according to Hielm-Björkman. There is no evidence that they can transmit the virus to people or other animals.











						'Close to 100% accuracy': Helsinki airport uses sniffer dogs to detect Covid
					

Researchers running Helsinki pilot scheme say dogs can identify virus in seconds




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## TopCat (Oct 1, 2020)

Rumours that the Govt are considering making people shield again.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was pondering about how accurate they are likely to be, and a quick google search shows preliminary tests suggest nearly 100% accuracy.



350 million smell receptors when we have 5 million I think they said in that video clip? 

I do like dogs



> And, regarding concerns for the dogs...



ta for that, too, very reassuring


----------



## killer b (Oct 1, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Rumours that the Govt are considering making people shield again.


This is already happening - a friend with MS got the call a couple of weeks ago. I think the plan is for it to be more targeted this time though.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 1, 2020)

No mixing of households (indoors anyway) in Liverpool, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough.









						Stricter Covid rules in Liverpool, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough
					

Stricter measures will be introduced in Liverpool, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Chris Whittey's maps yesterday really did paint a worrying picture in the North.  I think it was mentioned upthread but I can't help thinking weather plays a role.  Down here it's still warm enough for people to sit in pub gardens with a jumper on.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> No mixing of households (indoors anyway) in Liverpool, Warrington, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Weather could be playing a part, although it started taking off in the north weeks before the weather changed, and doesn't explain south Wales, where the weather is currently similar to, for example, the south-east. 



There's a clickable version of the map in the link below.









						Covid cases and deaths today: coronavirus UK map
					

Are UK coronavirus cases rising in your local area and nationally? Check week-on-week changes across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the latest figures from public health authorities




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## existentialist (Oct 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Weather could be playing a part, although it started taking off in the north weeks before the weather changed, and doesn't explain south Wales, where the weather is currently similar to, for example, the south-east.
> 
> View attachment 232492
> 
> ...


Given that the lockdowns in Caerffili and Llanelli appear to have resulted from single incidents, I do wonder how much of this is just random fluctuations, though. Obviously, more densely-populated areas will tend to amplify such events, but the incidence may not be part of a trend.

I also note that on your map, Carmarthenshire - that big blob just in from the Far West of Wales - looks like a plague pit, but in reality the vast bulk of cases are concentrated in Llanelli...although I hear rumours that Carmarthen is edging close to a local lockdown, too.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 1, 2020)

> Ministers admit current restrictions are confusing — and undermining public compliance.



About fucking time!



> The arrangement could see local areas in England classified from tier one, covering areas with the tightest restrictions like Bolton, to tier two for regions with less tough measures in place, down to level three, which would cover the rest of the country not under local lockdown.



And, that's what they should have done from the start, the muppets. 









						Plan to simplify Covid lockdown rules with three-tier system is being considered to help public
					

Ministers admit current restrictions are confusing — and undermining public compliance




					inews.co.uk


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> This is already happening - a friend with MS got the call a couple of weeks ago. I think the plan is for it to be more targeted this time though.


Yes, a couple of my students have siblings with underlying health issues who are receiving regular and detailed updates on local cases so they can shield.


----------



## killer b (Oct 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Down here it's still warm enough for people to sit in pub gardens with a jumper on.


It was warm enough here last week too tbf. The weather has taken a turn for the colder, but only over the last 7 days (and there's been plenty of sunshine)


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes, I saw that and at first thought it was some Nick Triggle weirdness but as its not it's potentially good news.  This being said given the amount of measures that are in place both nationally and locally you would hope it would be having a positive impact otherwise whats the point?



The pandemic clowns are annoying because they make it harder to talk about these details without them leaping around going 'stuck your domesday scenario up your arse'. Triggle still wont shut up about the 50,000 illustration given by Whitty & Vallance the other week, for example. 

Whitty touched on one of the underlying issues in the press conference yesterday. When it comes to exponential growth, a key factor is what the doubling rate is for that growth. And they estimated this wrongly during a key period in late February/early March, which strongly contributed to their inaccurate sense of what stage the epidemic had reached then, lockdown being so late, etc. They thought it was a week to double when it was actually taking half of that time (these are approximations from my memory).

This time around they will be very keen to avoid that mistake. But perhaps they will overcompensate, and when they mention a weeks doubling time the actual doubling time could be quite a bit longer.  And of course its also likely to vary by region, and should certainly vary when new measures are brought in, assuming peoples behaviours actually change under the new measures.

These and some other factors mean that its probably not as straightforward as simply giving a lesson about what exponential growth means this time. Because we know that when left to their own devices in a susceptible population, exponential growth in cases is the norm. But if various measures are changing the number of infections at any one time, and keep stretching out the doubling time to make it longer, its possible to end up with growth that looks far more like linear growth than exponential growth.

I will be trying to dig into this further tomorrow, once other studies data and estimates are available. 

In the meantime, the way I would think about our current situation and our measures of it, is that even if we assume the worst, the timing is not the same as last time. Things can still spiral out of control quite quickly, but not as quickly as last time, due to a combination of different doubling time and a much different level of disease surveillance. ie we can see stages of epidemic growth that were really barely visible at all in the data the first time around, and that gives more time to act.

This stuff is also the main reason I have not spent September screaming for the government to do a full lockdown ASAP. But neither is it cause to join the 'lets get on with our lives' idiots.

There is also more than one way to frame very similar things, eg I could have gone on about R instead of the doubling rate.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> It was warm enough here last week too tbf. The weather has taken a turn for the colder, but only over the last 7 days (and there's been plenty of sunshine)



Oh well, so much for my weather theory.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> The pandemic clowns are annoying because they make it harder to talk about these details without them leaping around going 'stuck your domesday scenario up your arse'. Triggle still wont shut up about the 50,000 illustration given by Whitty & Vallance the other week, for example.



Nick Triggle is an interesting character in a who exactly is he way. Its almost worth a thread on its own.  His wiki page is very sparse he doesn't really have much in the way of linked-in presence.  Usually the one thing every journo is good at is self-promotion yet I've found it really hard to find any background on him.  He seems to have appeared from nowhere in a plum job at the BBC and doesn't seem to have a basic understanding of science or health.

I'm almost getting a bit conspiracy about him.  I know relations between the government and BBC have been interesting of late.  Has he been put there for a reason?  One of Dom's mates implanted for reasons?


----------



## killer b (Oct 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Oh well, so much for my weather theory.


I went wild swimming two weeks ago!


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Nick Triggle is an interesting character in a who exactly is he way. Its almost worth a thread on its own.  His wiki page is very sparse he doesn't really have much in the way of linked-in presence.  Usually the one thing every journo is good at is self-promotion yet I've found it really hard to find any background on him.  He seems to have appeared from nowhere in a plum job at the BBC and doesn't seem to have a basic understanding of science or health.
> 
> I'm almost getting a bit conspiracy about him.  I know relations between the government and BBC have been interesting of late.  Has he been put there for a reason?  One of Dom's mates implanted for reasons?



He has been there for many years already, so certain possibilities can be excluded. Others cannot, but I have no special contacts in any of these worlds so I reached a dead end on that long ago. So I'll stick to picking apart what he says rather than the background. Although this week I have been practicing not bothering to cover his shit anymore.


----------



## strung out (Oct 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Nick Triggle is an interesting character in a who exactly is he way. Its almost worth a thread on its own.  His wiki page is very sparse he doesn't really have much in the way of linked-in presence.  Usually the one thing every journo is good at is self-promotion yet I've found it really hard to find any background on him.  He seems to have appeared from nowhere in a plum job at the BBC and doesn't seem to have a basic understanding of science or health.
> 
> I'm almost getting a bit conspiracy about him.  I know relations between the government and BBC have been interesting of late.  Has he been put there for a reason?  One of Dom's mates implanted for reasons?


Sister in law is a Tory MP


----------



## TopCat (Oct 1, 2020)

This report says that in the NW the positive cases are 1000 per 100,000. That's the highest ever no?








						Rise in Covid-19 cases in England may be slowing, study suggests
					

Estimated one in 200 people have Covid but new restrictions appear to be slowing its spread




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## killer b (Oct 1, 2020)

TopCat said:


> This report says that in the NW the positive cases are 1000 per 100,000. That's the highest ever no?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


they estimate there was a million new cases a week at the peak, so no.


----------



## killer b (Oct 1, 2020)

strung out said:


> Sister in law is a Tory MP


this is just business as usual rather than evidence of some recent conspiracy though


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> they estimate there was a million new cases a week at the peak, so no.



Yeah its not hard to generate 'highest ever' numbers at the moment because we are actually trying to measure those things now, which we were not the first time around.

For example the REACT-1 study upon which those stories are based did not start till May.

An example quote from the latest REACT-1 paper:



> However, since mid-August when we first detected a rise in prevalence, there has been a resurgence of the virus in the community, with rates higher now than at any time since we started measuring prevalence in May 2020.





			https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/institute-of-global-health-innovation/REACT1_12345_Interim-(1).pdf
		


via Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission findings


----------



## teuchter (Oct 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Weather could be playing a part, although it started taking off in the north weeks before the weather changed, and doesn't explain south Wales, where the weather is currently similar to, for example, the south-east.
> 
> View attachment 232492
> 
> ...


Not sure if you've ever noticed before, but there's a whole bit of UK that's actually north of "the north", and which is generally even colder and wetter.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Weather could be playing a part, although it started taking off in the north weeks before the weather changed, and doesn't explain south Wales, where the weather is currently similar to, for example, the south-east.
> 
> View attachment 232492
> 
> ...


I think if you overlaid life expectancy and population density data there would be more correlation than weather.


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

I canot use the current situation to study weather-etc impact on infection because of other factors that complicate the picture. For example the current situation in the North West is something of an inevitable product of things like the fact that they never got the number of infections in that region down to the same level as elsewhere in the first place, so the resurgence there was starting from a higher point, it had more cases of infection as a base to expand upon.


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

IC3D said:


> I think if you overlaid life expectancy and population density data there would be more correlation than weather.



If I use light pollution as a proxy for population density and compare to a cumulative covid-19 mortality rate map from last month, I get this, demonstrating the point.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 1, 2020)

IC3D said:


> I think if you overlaid life expectancy and population density data there would be more correlation than weather.



Density sure but why would life expectancy play a role in inflection?  Genuine question.  I can understand why it would play a role in deaths from covid but not why it would play a role in positive tests.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 1, 2020)

Life expectancy indicates comorbidity and a correlation between socio economic status


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

Studies attempting to look at any correlation between pollution and Covid-19 deaths suffers from the usual problem of not being able to separate other factors too. ie there is an existing correlation between pollution levels, population density, socio-economic status, etc.


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

More on the plans for simplifying the different levels of lockdown etc:



> The government is to push ahead with a new "three-tier" approach to coronavirus restrictions in local areas of England, the BBC understands.
> 
> The Department of Health confirmed last month the system was being considered - but it has now been signed off by government officials and politicians.
> 
> According to a memo seen by the BBC, public health officials will receive precise proposals later on Thursday. The Department of Health said there were "no imminent changes" expected.











						Coronavirus: Restrictions for England to be standardised into three tiers
					

The BBC understands a three-tier system will aim to replace the current patchwork of local lockdowns.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 1, 2020)

Ok, just catching up on at figures for Newcastle upon Tyne and they're scary.  Last 7 days (from report dated 30th September) - 752 confirmed cases (up from 487 the previous week).  Cumulative number of confirmed cases - (dated 24th September) - 3008 cases.  So that's something like 1/3 of the cumulative total over the last fortnight (if my maths is right???).  Plus I wonder about what the rate is of people not getting tested, for various reasons (economics, ability to access, test shortages).  Also looking at MSOA map, cases are very concentrated in certain areas around the city centre, including where I live.  One area has 108 cases - one of the largest figures on the whole map (each area roughly 5000-10000 population).

I think there may well be greater risk here now than in March, yet everyone's back at work, public transport, shops, bars, cafes all open though we not allowed to meet indoors (and they made such a balls up of the law that alot of people seems to be ignoring - or unaware of - the much stricter guidelines about not meeting outdoors).  Fuck.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 1, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Ok, just catching up on at figures for Newcastle upon Tyne and they're scary.  Last 7 days (from report dated 30th September) - 752 confirmed cases (up from 487 the previous week).  Cumulative number of confirmed cases - (dated 24th September) - 3008 cases.  So that's something like 1/3 of the cumulative total over the last fortnight (if my maths is right???).  Plus I wonder about what the rate is of people not getting tested, for various reasons (economics, ability to access, test shortages).  Also looking at MSOA map, cases are very concentrated in certain areas around the city centre, including where I live.  One area has 108 cases - one of the largest figures on the whole map (each area roughly 5000-10000 population).
> 
> I think there may well be greater risk here now than in March, yet everyone's back at work, public transport, shops, bars, cafes all open though we not allowed to meet indoors (and they made such a balls up of the law that alot of people seems to be ignoring - or unaware of - the much stricter guidelines about not meeting outdoors).  Fuck.


Though of course things weren't being measured/tested back in March.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 1, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Though of course things weren't being measured/tested back in March.


Yes, always useful to look at the % of tests positive rather than (or as well as) the number of positive tests, which is the graph most people seem to like to put up.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 1, 2020)

Interesting discussion with a neighbour who started off with "I'm not too convinced of the benefits of masks", which surprised me because she's an ex nurse and very together. I countered with my usual "I am", but she said that she'd of course go along with wearing them, but when they used to be in theatre it was fairly well recognized that after 15 minutes the mask becomes so moist that whatever is out there 'sticks' to them. I did say that the main thing is protecting other people so you're not expelling the virus the same distance and she didn't dispute that.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 1, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Ok, just catching up on at figures for Newcastle upon Tyne and they're scary.  Last 7 days (from report dated 30th September) - 752 confirmed cases (up from 487 the previous week).  Cumulative number of confirmed cases - (dated 24th September) - 3008 cases.  So that's something like 1/3 of the cumulative total over the last fortnight (if my maths is right???).  Plus I wonder about what the rate is of people not getting tested, for various reasons (economics, ability to access, test shortages).  Also looking at MSOA map, cases are very concentrated in certain areas around the city centre, including where I live.  One area has 108 cases - one of the largest figures on the whole map (each area roughly 5000-10000 population).
> 
> I think there may well be greater risk here now than in March, yet everyone's back at work, public transport, shops, bars, cafes all open though we not allowed to meet indoors (and they made such a balls up of the law that alot of people seems to be ignoring - or unaware of - the much stricter guidelines about not meeting outdoors).  Fuck.



Yep, I'm looking at that from about 40 miles further west !
Scary is right.

I would, however, add in another factor - from memory, much of those city-centre areas are what I would term "studentland" and certainly has very "dense" housing in many areas (Terraced and Tyneside flats) ...


----------



## bimble (Oct 1, 2020)

i think this has just been published, big randomised (?) study on transmission in england towards the end of last month.


			https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/institute-of-global-health-innovation/REACT1_12345_Interim-(1).pdf
		


The government's suggested takeaways from it here :








						Interim results from largest COVID-19 study published
					

Over 80,000 volunteers tested in England between 18 and 26 September as part of the country’s largest study into COVID-19.




					www.gov.uk
				



If people cleverer than me could explain what the important findings are that would be great.
I don't know what to make of the idea that 1 in 200 people in England have had the virus so far, that seems quite low?
eta oh, its 1 in 200 have it right now, they are saying.


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> i think this has just been published, big randomised (?) study on transmission in england towards the end of last month.
> 
> 
> https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/institute-of-global-health-innovation/REACT1_12345_Interim-(1).pdf
> ...



It was the basis of other stories in the press earlier today so it already got some mention here, eg            #19,587                     #19,613          

I dont have much to say about it really, because I consider it to be in line with reasonable expectations. The ONS report on a similar study each week, so I might compare and contrast when that comes out tomorrow. 

These studies are a useful part of the virus surveillance picture because they dont have some of the issues the main daily positive cases system suffers from, although there are still some limitations. There is still some degree of uncertainty about what they show, and there is always a desire to see what next weeks figures bring since in some ways the trajectory is the most important thing.


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

111 again:









						Nurses barred from NHS 111 Covid clinical division after 60% of calls unsafe
					

Concern grows over 111 guidance after audit of clinical calls handled by nurses, paramedics and physios




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The audit was triggered in July after many of the medical professionals recruited to work in the clinical division of the 111 service sounded the alarm, saying they did not feel “properly skilled and competent” to fulfil such a critical role.





> An investigation was launched into several individual cases after the initial review found that assurances could not be given “in regard to the safety of these calls”, according to an email, seen by the Guardian, from the clinical assurance director of the National Covid-19 Pandemic Response Service. In a further email on 14 August, she told staff that after listening to a “significant number” of calls “so far over 60% … have not passed the criteria demonstrating a safe call”.





> One AHP who signed up to the CCAS told the Guardian the clinical calls involved making critical decisions about whether a person was in a life-threatening condition and needed immediate emergency care. Their training and experience had never involved emergency care, they said, adding they did not feel qualified for the role and were “horrified” by the outcome of the call audit.



THe article covers other aspects of this too. Too many quotable paragraphs so here is just one more.



> NHS England and the SCAS both told the Guardian in statements that call handlers for the CRS were “carefully selected, screened and trained”.
> 
> However, the Guardian has interviewed three people who worked for 111 at different sites across England and say they were given the job after a relatively brief conversation with a recruitment agent and negligible training. Two worked for the French corporation Teleperformance at call centres in Gateshead and Ashby, and the other for the French-US call centre giant Sitelat a site in Newcastle.


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

Actually fuck it, I'm not going to be able to avoid several more quotes from it given what is said.



> The Teleperformance employee in Gateshead said that on the same floor that 111 calls were being handled the company was handling calls for the clothing company Asos. They said they were told to follow a flowchart in a Word document that explained how to handle 111 calls. It asked for people’s symptoms and led to an outcome, they said, adding it usually concluded that they should stay at home if they had symptoms unless they were acutely short of breath.





> “It is a joke to say we had a training programme,” the Teleperformance employee in Gateshead said. “I didn’t even have time to read the flowchart before I started taking calls. The first call I had, the person was in distress. The flowchart led to advice that he should stay at home and rest. It was horrendous; there were a lot of young people taken on, some weren’t taking it seriously. It breaks my heart to read about these families whose loved ones died after calling 111.”


----------



## andysays (Oct 1, 2020)

111 is a joke...


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

This is only breaking news on the BBC as I write this so I havent read a lot of detail:



> An SNP MP has apologised for travelling home from London after testing positive for Covid-19.
> 
> Margaret Ferrier, the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, said there was "no excuse for my actions".











						MP Margaret Ferrier's Covid Parliament trip 'indefensible'
					

SNP MP Margaret Ferrier is facing calls to resign after she was suspended by her party.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> 111 is a joke...



Yeah its the usual story of the pandemic amplifying all the shit that was already there. But the amplification was so dramatic in the case of 111 because of the decision to use that system as the main critical care pathway in that phase of the pandemic. People who were already well practiced in having to rapidly overcome absurd, life-damaging bureaucratic hurdles might have had the awareness and means to dodge this deadly horror but for others the outcome was often grim.


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

The detail certainly adds to the earlier story 



> She said she took a test on Saturday - but travelled to Westminster on Monday because she was feeling "much better".
> 
> Ms Ferrier received a positive test result that same day, then took a train back to Scotland on Tuesday.





> She spoke in the coronavirus debate in the House of Commons on Monday, and said she received her positive test result that evening.


----------



## agricola (Oct 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> This is only breaking news on the BBC as I write this so I havent read a lot of detail:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I don't want to pile into the "she has got to resign" brigade, especially as so many of them (edit:  the press / commentariat clowns) backed Cummings for doing almost exactly the same thing, but she really has got to resign.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 1, 2020)

It's very bad, like criminally bad. Dominic was stupid but her traipsing around to half a dozen meetings across the country is beyond negligent.


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2020)

On the positive side, err no pun intended there, in normal times peoples own risk assessments and behaviour are often strongly influenced by things like 'I felt better'. And that doesnt magically vanish in a pandemic, so making an example of her may offer the opportunity for some lessons and reminders on this front.


----------



## LDC (Oct 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> This is only breaking news on the BBC as I write this so I havent read a lot of detail:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



She needs sacking surely. And then prosecuting. FFS.


----------



## zora (Oct 1, 2020)

I like elbow's optimistic take of it being a possible learning opportunity, but yes, wtaf?
   

On a similar note of people's risk assessments: I constantly have the feeling at work when I shrink away from people or pull people up on their poor social distancing that they look at me like I am a complete idiot, as if to say "duh, can't you see that I haven't got covid?"


----------



## teuchter (Oct 1, 2020)

She might have had very mild symptoms, wondered if it was being overcautious to get a test, spent some time trying to decide whether or not to get one, then thought, well, better safe than sorry. 
Then the next day was feeling fine and thought, that was an overreaction to get a test, and that she'd been worrying about nothing. 
The thing is, if she'd decided not to get a test, the public health outcome would probably have been worse, because she'd then have continued to go about her business normally for the rest of the week. But for her personally it would have been better because she wouldn't have got into trouble.
If you're unsure whether you've got symtoms or not, then it's pretty hard to know what's the right thing to do.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> She needs sacking surely. And then prosecuting. FFS.


They can't sack her, they can only withdraw the whip, which they've done.



What the FUCK was she thinking though??


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> She needs sacking surely. And then prosecuting. FFS.



I wish she had made a visit to the Isle of Man, because she would have been rightly jailed there.


----------



## agricola (Oct 1, 2020)

teuchter said:


> She might have had very mild symptoms, wondered if it was being overcautious to get a test, spent some time trying to decide whether or not to get one, then thought, well, better safe than sorry.
> Then the next day was feeling fine and thought, that was an overreaction to get a test, and that she'd been worrying about nothing.
> The thing is, if she'd decided not to get a test, the public health outcome would probably have been worse, because she'd then have continued to go about her business normally for the rest of the week. But for her personally it would have been better because she wouldn't have got into trouble.
> If you're unsure whether you've got symtoms or not, then it's pretty hard to know what's the right thing to do.



It isn't - if you feel you have symptoms, take a test.  Wait for the test results to come back.  If you're positive, then quarantine.  

I appreciate there are people for whom there are financial / career / childcare problems as the result of this but they do not apply to her (as they didn't apply to Cummings) and so she should do the decent thing or we will have people feeling empowered to do what she did.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I wish she had made a visit to the Isle of Man, because she would have been rightly jailed there.


Yep, they've not been messing about over there ! Several cases have been reported of non-isolationists being dropped in the slammer.
They do have a couple of Covid cases atm (3 in September) - I'm assuming that's people who were off-island (or their contacts were) and tested +ve after returning.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 1, 2020)

Let's take a positive thing about her mistake:
she went to parliament with it.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 1, 2020)

It's not rocket science, dammit.
If you think you (might) have Covid, isolate, get tested / traced and stay isolated until you're cleared.

People in the public eye should be setting a good example ...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 1, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> People in the public eye should be setting a good example ...



Have they ever done so?


----------



## agricola (Oct 1, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Let's take a positive thing about her mistake:
> she went to parliament with it.



via Oxenholme the Lake District, Lancaster, Preston, Crewe and Milton Keynes


----------



## Cerv (Oct 1, 2020)

has there ever been a bye election conducted entirely by postal ballots before?


----------



## Supine (Oct 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> via Oxenholme the Lake District, Lancaster, Preston, Crewe and Milton Keynes



I use four of those stations twice a week!


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> via Oxenholme the Lake District, Lancaster, Preston, Crewe and Milton Keynes


I know, but there isn't much positive I find when I look at the news at the moment or even around me.


----------



## yield (Oct 1, 2020)

Millions at risk of being blocked from Covid tests





						Outline.com
					






					outline.com
				



FT. September 30, 2020 


> Millions of people face being barred from receiving Covid-19 tests in England because their identity cannot be verified by a credit-checking company contracted by the government to prevent the abuse of the public testing system.


How fucked is that? Class war


----------



## MrSki (Oct 2, 2020)

Serco will in future be a simile for shite.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 2, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> isolate, get tested / traced and stay isolated until you're cleared.


In her case, got positive result then took train back london to glasgow I think.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 2, 2020)

yield said:


> Millions at risk of being blocked from Covid tests
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The abuse of the public testing system? What are people becoming addicted to pushing things up their nose?


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 2, 2020)

Isn't it a private testing system that is open to the public?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 2, 2020)

yield said:


> Millions at risk of being blocked from Covid tests
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They could have seen this coming as the same system has been in place for online universal credit claims for years and the huge issues with it are well known. Clearly it's more important to keep paying for these contracts than to have a system that's fit for purpose.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 2, 2020)

As for preventing abuses, I seriously doubt rich people are having to do identity fraud to get better access to testing than the rest of us.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 2, 2020)

Abuses of testing is a red herring. The system needs a huge capacity to work in an effective way and should have enough slack built in to make that possible. Giving the contract to an organisation that is going to make itself a profit from the tests is what really will render this less effective than a real publick owned system.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 2, 2020)

The whole abusing the system bullshit is pure benefit fraud echoes. It's toss designed to pit us against each other and distracts from the same theme (if there's not enough to go round it's a top down fault).


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

if the NHS did the test & trace they tied the test to your NHS number how could there be fraud?


----------



## MrSki (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> if the NHS did the test & trace they tied the test to your NHS number how could there be fraud?


Or failing that just use your NI number.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> if the NHS did the test & trace they tied the test to your NHS number how could there be fraud?


And the amount of legitimate data gathered would be a useful research tool for the good of everyone.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 2, 2020)

agricola said:


> It isn't - if you feel you have symptoms, take a test.  Wait for the test results to come back.  If you're positive, then quarantine.
> 
> I appreciate there are people for whom there are financial / career / childcare problems as the result of this but they do not apply to her (as they didn't apply to Cummings) and so she should do the decent thing or we will have people feeling empowered to do what she did.


What is "you feel you have symptoms" though? 
Probably something like once every week or two, since this thing started, I've felt a bit off and thought "do I have symptoms". So far each time I've decided that no, I probably don't, but the threshold at which I'd go the other way is not very clear. Especially when you know that many people only experience mild symptoms.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> And the amount of legitimate data gathered would be a useful research tool for the good of everyone.


And do they think people are going to be selling their fraudulently obtained tests on the black market? Rather than people just getting one for free in their own name?

I don't know what fraudulent tests even mean


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> And do they think people are going to be selling their fraudulently obtained tests on the black market? Rather than people just getting one for free in their own name?
> 
> I don't know what fraudulent tests even mean


Exactly, an idea (fraudulent tests) came up at a blue sky thinking meeting about how to maximise profit.

World beating


----------



## brogdale (Oct 2, 2020)

yield said:


> Millions at risk of being blocked from Covid tests
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This happened to my DiL; rejected for having no verifiable credit history (she's a vulnerable person) and then helpfully told to book a drive thru...like she has a car or can drive.

Just collateral in the profit gouging.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

I would guess if you wanted to know if you had coronavirus but didn't want to be legally obliged to self isolate if tested positive, you might want to obtain a test in someone else's name.


----------



## maomao (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> I would guess if you wanted to know if you had coronavirus but didn't want to be legally obliged to self isolate if tested positive, you might want to obtain a test in someone else's name.


That's still possible though. And it would be possible (with NHS or NI numbers) to create the same obstacle to doing so as a credit check.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

You could do the same with the credit rating though, couldn't you?


----------



## brogdale (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> You could do the same with the credit rating though, couldn't you?


It's just hard to imagine quite how psychopathic you'd have to be to even entertain the idea that 'credit rating' represented an appropriate means of gatekeeping Covid testing. These fuckers are properly sick.


----------



## andysays (Oct 2, 2020)

teuchter said:


> What is "you feel you have symptoms" though?
> Probably something like once every week or two, since this thing started, I've felt a bit off and thought "do I have symptoms". So far each time I've decided that no, I probably don't, but the threshold at which I'd go the other way is not very clear. Especially when you know that many people only experience mild symptoms.


I'm not a doctor, but in the current situation I think it's relatively clear what the symptoms are and if you have them or not.

If I was genuinely unsure if eg my loss of taste or rise in temperature qualified, I'd try to get tested just to make sure, and in the meantime I'd isolate as best as I could, which doesn't include travelling from one end of the country to the other by train.

It's starting to look like you're trying to make excuses for this MP when even she has said that her actions were indefensible.

ETA Correction, it was actually Nicola Sturgeon who called her actions indefensible


----------



## souljacker (Oct 2, 2020)

So I've got a cold. It's not a nice one but it's definitely a cold. The wife has it too and eldest daughter had it last week but is fine now. I told the Zoe app about my symptoms (runny nose, headache, very slight cough) and they have emailed offering a test. I really can't see why I need one and considering it's hard to get one, I'll be wasting the opportunity for someone with proper symptoms. What does Urban think? Should I still get one just in case?

The other question is how, considering I'm washing my hands and wearing masks everywhere, have I managed to get a second cold in a month? I'm guessing my kid got it at school but it doesn't bode well for the covid spread if I can get a cold that easily.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

Just have one test between you? If they say you should have a test I'd get one though.


----------



## eoin_k (Oct 2, 2020)

souljacker said:


> So I've got a cold. It's not a nice one but it's definitely a cold. The wife has it too and eldest daughter had it last week but is fine now. I told the Zoe app about my symptoms (runny nose, headache, very slight cough) and they have emailed offering a test. I really can't see why I need one and considering it's hard to get one, I'll be wasting the opportunity for someone with proper symptoms. What does Urban think? Should I still get one just in case?
> 
> The other question is how, considering I'm washing my hands and wearing masks everywhere, have I managed to get a second cold in a month? I'm guessing my kid got it at school but it doesn't bode well for the covid spread if I can get a cold that easily.



The test won't be sourced in the same way as those used clinically. Establishing what correlation if any there is between your symptoms and Covid is the point. Accept their offer.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> That's still possible though. And it would be possible (with NHS or NI numbers) to create the same obstacle to doing so as a credit check.


Would it be possible/legal to share the NHS info/NI details with a private company though? If they were intent on farming this out - and I suppose there's probably plausible reasons to do this, to do with creating capacity as quickly as possible, as well as enriching their mates - then probably using credit checking is the most straightforward & easily accessed way of confirming identity for most people?


----------



## prunus (Oct 2, 2020)

souljacker said:


> So I've got a cold. It's not a nice one but it's definitely a cold. The wife has it too and eldest daughter had it last week but is fine now. I told the Zoe app about my symptoms (runny nose, headache, very slight cough) and they have emailed offering a test. I really can't see why I need one and considering it's hard to get one, I'll be wasting the opportunity for someone with proper symptoms. What does Urban think? Should I still get one just in case?
> 
> The other question is how, considering I'm washing my hands and wearing masks everywhere, have I managed to get a second cold in a month? I'm guessing my kid got it at school but it doesn't bode well for the covid spread if I can get a cold that easily.



Yes, the Zoe test is part of a research project so you’ll be contributing data to that (positive or negative result). You should do it.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 2, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> It's not rocket science, dammit.
> If you think you (might) have Covid, isolate, get tested / traced and stay isolated until you're cleared.
> 
> People in the public eye should be setting a good example ...





eoin_k said:


> The test won't be sourced in the same way as those used clinically. Establishing what correlation if any there is between your symptoms and Covid is the point. Accept their offer.



It is. At least it was for me. Twice.  In their instruction they say to click whatever on the gov site but that option never came up. Get the test. Zoe need negatives too for their study. 

And it really isn't that obvious when you should test. Not every positive has the 3 symptoms. Children are different agsin and if you were to start a thread on say mumsnet saying you or your child has cold symptoms youd get half saying no dont waste a test its a fucking cold and half saying get a test to be sure and isolate because some test positive with non official covid symptoms.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 2, 2020)

I'd hope they'd offered it because you have runny nose plus more usual symptoms. I definitely have covid and I've had a slight runny nose and sneezing for the first week or so.


----------



## maomao (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> Would it be possible/legal to share the NHS info/NI details with a private company though? If they were intent on farming this out - and I suppose there's probably plausible reasons to do this, to do with creating capacity as quickly as possible, as well as enriching their mates - then probably using credit checking is the most straightforward & easily accessed way of confirming identity for most people?


Except that it excludes people. So if you're intent on doing it privately you're already wrong.


----------



## andysays (Oct 2, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> It is. At least it was for me. Twice.  In their instruction they say to click whatever on the gov site but that option never came up. Get the test. Zoe need negatives too for their study.
> 
> And it really isn't that obvious when you should test. Not every positive has the 3 symptoms. Children are different agsin and if you were to start a thread on say mumsnet saying you or your child has cold symptoms youd get half saying no dont waste a test its a fucking cold and half saying get a test to be sure and isolate because some test positive with non official covid symptoms.


the official advice is to get tested if you have one of the three symptoms. 

as you suggest, there are also positive cases which don't show any of the three main symptoms, but if you have any of those three, there really shouldn't be any need to wonder, just get a test


----------



## LDC (Oct 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Or failing that just use your NI number.



Under 16s? Plenty of others don't have a NI number, and some have no NHS number.

There really isn't a central and comprehensive database for things like this.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Under 16s? Plenty of others don't have a NI number, and some have no NHS number.
> 
> There really isn't a central and comprehensive database for things like this.


So running a credit check on a kid is better?


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> Except that it excludes people. So if you're intent on doing it privately you're already wrong.


every way of confirming ID excludes some people.

Anyway, I don't particularly want to argue the government's case, but I think some level of discussion that goes beyond 'these people are malignant and incompetent' is probably a wise idea, or you end up missing stuff.


----------



## LDC (Oct 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So running a credit check on a kid is better?



No. Neither works. Testing should be open access, just confirm identity with a selection of official ID documents (passport, driving license, Home Office card, other country ID card, etc.) or option to tick no ID and explain why.


----------



## rutabowa (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> every way of confirming ID excludes some people.
> 
> Anyway, I don't particularly want to argue the government's case, but I think some level of discussion that goes beyond 'these people are malignant and incompetent' is probably a wise idea, or you end up missing stuff.


I feel the same about loud music restrictions in pubs. A lot of friends feel like it is the government introducing fascism by banning rock and roll whereas I think it is more just to stop people spitting in each others faces over the jukebox and so kind of makes sense... but I'm not going to say that to someone trying to keep a bar afloat right now, they got enough stress, but that is what I think.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. Neither works. Testing should be open access, just confirm identity with a selection of official ID documents (passport, driving license, Home Office card, other country ID card, etc.) or option to tick no ID and explain why.


I agree but I have no photo ID. My passport expired in 2006,don't drive and have nothing else to prove who I am.


----------



## Supine (Oct 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I agree but I have no photo ID. My passport expired in 2006,don't drive and have nothing else to prove who I am.



You'd think in this day and age an email address and mobile phone is all that's required.


----------



## LDC (Oct 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I agree but I have no photo ID. My passport expired in 2006,don't drive and have nothing else to prove who I am.



Expired passport could be accepted, and as I said, there should be a box to say no ID and explain why. Anyway, slight derail or belongs on the testing thread.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> Would it be possible/legal to share the NHS info/NI details with a private company though? If they were intent on farming this out - and I suppose there's probably plausible reasons to do this, to do with creating capacity as quickly as possible, as well as enriching their mates - then probably using credit checking is the most straightforward & easily accessed way of confirming identity for most people?



Only they've not created capacity as quickly as possible, it's been an almost total fuckup. They could have funded local authorities and/or NHS at a lower cost for much better results, while integrating the test/tracing into existing NHS information. Privatizing the NHS and enriching their mates are why they've done it, while incidentally fucking over poor people who don't have a credit history.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think some level of discussion that goes beyond 'these people are malignant and incompetent' is probably a wise idea, or you end up missing stuff.


That's a very fair point.
It does seem worthwhile considering how/why civil servants might have discussed the merits of ID verification prior to testing. What I'm more certain of is that the Johnson administration will have been most attracted to the out-sourcing option yielding the greatest potential for private sector enrichment.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Under 16s? Plenty of others don't have a NI number, and some have no NHS number.
> 
> There really isn't a central and comprehensive database for things like this.



Agree with NI number but hasn't nearly everyone got an NHS number? And if they haven't they should have if they're going to have tests put on their records. It was an opportunity to make existing systems more comprehensive. 

But as you say - bit of a derail.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> *Expired passport could be accepted*, and as I said, there should be a box to say no ID and explain why. Anyway, slight derail or belongs on the testing thread.



Is that just speculation? 

In many (all?) Civil Service depts, including my own non-health-related one, expired passports are a *big* no-no for ID stuff 

MrSki would definitely need to check on that, I'd say.

(ETA : Sorry for adding to derail  )


----------



## MrSki (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Only they've not created capacity as quickly as possible, it's been an almost total fuckup. They could have funded local authorities and/or NHS at a lower cost for much better results, while integrating the test/tracing into existing NHS information. Privatizing the NHS and enriching their mates are why they've done it, while incidentally fucking over poor people who don't have a credit history.


Agreed. Could have nationalised all Uni labs & staff. Would have led to a more local testing system along with NHS labs being able to do local tests. Serco et al are the big shit in all this.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Only they've not created capacity as quickly as possible, it's been an almost total fuckup. They could have funded local authorities and/or NHS at a lower cost for much better results, while integrating the test/tracing into existing NHS information. Privatizing the NHS and enriching their mates are why they've done it, while incidentally fucking over poor people who don't have a credit history.


I don't disagree with this, but these are market fundamentalists we're dealing with. In their world, outsourcing always provides more efficient and quicker service, and that's what will have been argued when they were deciding how to roll this out. Then when it became clear it wasn't going to be more efficient or quick, it was too late to change course...


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

Indeed, totally agree with you but the other discussion is about the best way to do it.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

what do you mean?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

best way to approach test & trace - using for example NHS number, funding local authorities/NHS etc.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

FWIW while I certainly don't think the government have gone about this the right way, as someone who's had a lot of dealings with local authorities over the years, the idea that this could be smoothly and efficiently handled by them instead is also a little far-fetched.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 2, 2020)

Surely they could get a handle on it better than a company that has had a number of fines for fucking it up?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

indeed - shame the effort hasn't been put into improving them over the years, although it's a fairly low bar with Serco and their mates. Fund the NHS to do it instead.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't disagree with this, but these are market fundamentalists we're dealing with. In their world, outsourcing always provides more efficient and quicker service, and that's what will have been argued when they were deciding how to roll this out. Then when it became clear it wasn't going to be more efficient or quick, it was too late to change course...


It didn't stop them when after the trials on the IOW that the initial APP was deemed totally crap & not fit for purpose. Dumped it & went for something else.


----------



## souljacker (Oct 2, 2020)

prunus said:


> Yes, the Zoe test is part of a research project so you’ll be contributing data to that (positive or negative result). You should do it.



OK, I've ordered a postal one.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> It didn't stop them when after the trials on the IOW that the initial APP was deemed totally crap & not fit for purpose. Dumped it & went for something else.


the level of physical infrastructure necessary for the test and trace programme makes it a little different from just dumping your programmers and signing up with google though.


----------



## LDC (Oct 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Is that just speculation?
> 
> In many (all?) Civil Service depts, including my own non-health-related one, expired passports are a *big* no-no for ID stuff
> 
> ...



Could/should/whatever. The fuss around the sanctity of passports is ridiculous anyway, it's hangover from some weird analog national fetish imo. An expired passport could easily be accepted as valid enough as of a form of ID for this.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> the level of physical infrastructure necessary for the test and trace programme makes it a little different from just dumping your programmers and signing up with google though.


Dump the shite contract with mates of mates & have a word with Germany who had it up & running and adopt their system. It is not rocket engineering. FFS just use something that is proven to work rather than trying to have your own 'world beating' APP.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 2, 2020)

Have we had this article yet?

Covid cases doubled under most local lockdowns in England

"_In 11 out of 16 English cities and towns where restrictions were imposed nine weeks ago, the infection rate has at least doubled, with cases in five areas of Greater Manchester rising faster than the England average in that time._"

Seems the local lockdowns aren't proving to be a great success. Of course, we don't know how bad things would be without the lockdowns, but if the current rules were effective you'd hope to be seeing case numbers dipping by now.

While there's lots of emphasis on what you can't do in the lockdown areas - mixing households, groups of more than six, etc - there does seem to be a lot you can still do - going to pubs, cafes, restaurants, exercise classes, organised sports, shops and definately keep working, plus travel between these. The only things that seem actually to have been forced shut are nightclubs and pubs/restaurants at 10pm.

It's like they hope the fabled Swedish approach will work on a local level, and the evidence so far suggests it's not.


----------



## LDC (Oct 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Dump the shite contract with mates of mates & have a word with Germany who had it up & running and adopt their system. It is not rocket engineering. FFS just use something that is proven to work rather than trying to have your own 'world beating' APP.



Germany is also having problems, and the UK is testing more afaik.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Dump the shite contract with mates of mates & have a word with Germany who had it up & running and adopt their system. It is not rocket engineering. FFS just use something that is proven to work rather than trying to have your own 'world beating' APP.


You can do that with an app, relatively pain free - the barriers to doing that with a physical testing programme with hundreds of sites all over the country which are - mostly - actually operating just fine, as the second wave starts to hit are a bit more substantial.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 2, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Have we had this article yet?
> 
> Covid cases doubled under most local lockdowns in England
> 
> ...



Doesn't sound good, but I wonder how much the increased testing focused on those areas has played into those numbers.


----------



## elbows (Oct 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Dump the shite contract with mates of mates & have a word with Germany who had it up & running and adopt their system. It is not rocket engineering. FFS just use something that is proven to work rather than trying to have your own 'world beating' APP.



Germany had a long term different attitude & infrastructure when it comes to mass diagnostics testing, giving them a very different foundation upon which to build a pandemic testing system.

The UK claims to have learnt from them by creating the National Institute of Health Protection, allegedly modelled after the Robert Koch Institute in Germany. Appointing Dido Harding to head it means it has not started with its credibility fully intact, and there are limits as to what it can achieve for this pandemic as opposed to the next one.


----------



## elbows (Oct 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Doesn't sound good, but I wonder how much the increased testing focused on those areas has played into those numbers.



Percentage of tests positive can help with that, although I only have overall regional numbers to hand rather than being able to zoom in further without much effort.

This from todays latest weekly PHE surveillance report:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/923668/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_40.pdf


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

Yeah, the story of _why can't we just do this instead? _is a much longer one than just the last 6 months - you need to look at the last 40 years instead.


----------



## elbows (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> Yeah, the story of _why can't we just do this instead? _is a much longer one than just the last 6 months - you need to look at the last 40 years instead.



And I still remember reading that during some period of the first wave, Germany didnt actually have the capacity to maintain their much praised contact tracing system either. However I have not been able to get full confirmation that this is what actually happened, but it sounds very plausible, since pretty much no country seems to have the capacity to do full contact tracing once the number of cases reaches a certain level.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 2, 2020)

brogdale said:


> It's just hard to imagine quite how psychopathic you'd have to be to even entertain the idea that 'credit rating' represented an appropriate means of gatekeeping Covid testing. These fuckers are properly sick.



Can you meaningfully be said to exist if you don't have multiple credit cards and a car loan?

They blame austerity on ordinary folk living beyond their means and then punish people who live within them. Arseholes.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> Would it be possible/legal to share the NHS info/NI details with a private company though?



They do that all the time already. 









						Patient data from GP surgeries sold to US companies
					

Dealings with international pharma raise new fears about American ambitions to access NHS




					www.theguardian.com
				






> ...then probably using credit checking is the most straightforward & easily accessed way of confirming identity for most people?



Except that this is what they're doing and it doesn't work.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> They do that all the time already.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


the data in this story has been anonymised, which would make it pretty useless as a way of checking someone's ID.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> the data in this story has been anonymised, which would make it pretty useless as a way of checking someone's ID.



They have a highly cunning way of getting around data protection stuff, namely by asking people if they want to a) share their personal data with whatever private company or b) not have access to this or that essential service. That apparently is a high enough standard of 'consent' to keep the lawyers happy.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

The test centres may work for people with cars but how about people who can't afford them or choose to do without them? If I need a test I'm not sure how I'd get to a local test centre (let alone Aberdeen  . If you potentially have it then bus and train should be out, can't see taxi drivers welcoming the fare or neighbours being put at risk. Test by post I suppose but why not broadly?

You'd think they'd have mobile test centres, even for testing more widely.


----------



## elbows (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The test centres may work for people with cars but how about people who can't afford them or choose to do without them? If I need a test I'm not sure how I'd get to a local test centre (let alone Aberdeen  . If you potentially have it then bus and train should be out, can't see taxi drivers welcoming the fare or neighbours being put at risk. Test by post I suppose but why not broadly?
> 
> You'd think they'd have mobile test centres, even for testing more widely.



There are mobile popup/walk-in test centres, some army run, including ones that rotate around a region, so they arent actually there every day. However I expect coverage on this side of things is patchy at best. There is one in a multi-storey carpark in my town, and they were often mentioned in press articles about highly localised outbreaks, eg setting some up in Leicester back when they were the first local lockdown area.


----------



## LDC (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The test centres may work for people with cars but how about people who can't afford them or choose to do without them? If I need a test I'm not sure how I'd get to a local test centre (let alone Aberdeen  . If you potentially have it then bus and train should be out, can't see taxi drivers welcoming the fare or neighbours being put at risk. Test by post I suppose but why not broadly?
> 
> You'd think they'd have mobile test centres, even for testing more widely.



They have had some mobile and 'pop-up' test centres, there's been a few near me. A few people I know have had home tests in the last week as well, all have arrived day after they've been requested, then they've had results in about 48 hours.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

Would seem sensible if they came to the house (whereever suitable), limit travel for people as much as possible who may have the virus.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

we have mobile walk in centres in Preston (we are top ten for infections too, which is why they're here I think)


----------



## LDC (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Would seem sensible if they came to the house (whereever suitable), limit travel for people as much as possible who may have the virus.



No, that would be just far, far too resource intensive. Imagine the wasted time with people not being in, or the risk to people going round.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 2, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Have we had this article yet?
> 
> Covid cases doubled under most local lockdowns in England
> 
> ...



If Llanelli is anything to go by, the local lockdowns are a joke. Nothing is being policed and everyone I speak to there says there has been little to none change in behaviour.

As an example, my schoolkids are (nearly) all from Llanelli. Today they are on a trip (trips happen every Friday, we are a PRU) to a place that isn't even in Carmarthenshire, let alone Llanelli. As this is designated as 'school' business, sorry education, this is totally permissible.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, that would be just far, far too resource intensive. Imagine the wasted time with people not being in, or the risk to people going round.



Would it? Works ok for delivery companies with timed deliveries confirmed in advance. Wouldn't have thought there'd be any more risk to the people going round - they stand at the door or gate or van door and do the swab, is that any different? 

You may be right, but on the other hand you've got people driving or being driven dozens of miles, perhaps having to fill up with petrol, with risk to those around them. 

Announce them with ice cream van chimes  cheer people up a bit.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, that would be just far, far too resource intensive. Imagine the wasted time with people not being in, or the risk to people going round.


In some local lockdown areas, certainly Leicester, that's exactly what has happened in some badly affected areas. When I saw the mobile, door-to-door testing teams going around with their trollies I thought that they were having to hit the areas in which they'd be a higher concentration of those unable/unwilling to apply online or who, like my DiL, would be rejected on the basis of their sparse credit history.


----------



## elbows (Oct 2, 2020)

Well there was a half-arsed plan to get district nurses to test people at home, it was mentioned in the press in February but I believe the idea was quickly abandoned.

eg Coronavirus: community nurses begin training to carry out home testing


----------



## LDC (Oct 2, 2020)

brogdale said:


> In some local lockdown areas, certainly Leicester, that's exactly what has happened in some badly affected areas. When I saw the mobile, door-to-door testing teams going around with their trollies I thought that they were having to hit the areas in which they'd be a higher concentration of those unable/unwilling to apply online or who, like my DiL, would be rejected on the basis of their sparse credit history.



Yeah, in a targeted way in specific areas I can see the value for sure, just not as general national strategy.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

I'll leave it there but just on people being out when the van arrived, I'm not sure someone should be going out too much if they thought they had the virus.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I'll leave it there but just on people being out when the van arrived, I'm not sure someone should be going out too much if they thought they had the virus.


_sorry I was out, i had to get the train to edinburgh_


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

or Durham


----------



## LDC (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I'll leave it there but just on people being out when the van arrived, I'm not sure someone should be going out too much if they thought they had the virus.



We'd all like to think that would be the case, but I've done some work on ambulances, and it was reasonably common to go to someone's house for them to have decided they weren't that ill after all and had gone shopping or something. (Add in all the complications of finding some addresses, errors in dispatch, parking time, people not hearing the door, getting grief, etc. and home visits become quite a lot more of a faff that you might think.)


----------



## brogdale (Oct 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, in a targeted way in specific areas I can see the value for sure, just not as general national strategy.


I dunno; they reckon they're spending £100bn on testing; that's nearly £1500 for every UK citizen. Surely they'd be able to do a door-to-door for that?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

indeed - anyone out twice just shoot them, concentrate peoples' minds


----------



## Sue (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The test centres may work for people with cars but how about people who can't afford them or choose to do without them? If I need a test I'm not sure how I'd get to a local test centre (let alone Aberdeen  . If you potentially have it then bus and train should be out, can't see taxi drivers welcoming the fare or neighbours being put at risk. Test by post I suppose but why not broadly?
> 
> You'd think they'd have mobile test centres, even for testing more widely.


There are some walk-in ones in my London borough (think I saw something about 70% of people not having a car). One's a 15 min walk from where I live which is fine but no idea how many there are and would imagine not everyone's lucky enough to have one so close. (And even a 15 minute walk is maybe not possible for some people. )


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 2, 2020)

And they are not in the same places every day.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> Anyway, I don't particularly want to argue the government's case.



I should stop doing it then, if I were you.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

Lol right. wanker.


----------



## LDC (Oct 2, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I dunno; they reckon they're spending £100bn on testing; that's nearly £1500 for every UK citizen. Surely they'd be able to do a door-to-door for that?



Once you've deducted the profit for the company doing it, it works out at 17.4 pence per person though....


----------



## brogdale (Oct 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Once you've deducted the profit for the company doing it, it works out at 17.4 pence per person though....


innit?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

brogdale said:


> It's just hard to imagine quite how psychopathic you'd have to be to even entertain the idea that 'credit rating' represented an appropriate means of gatekeeping Covid testing. These fuckers are properly sick.


Makes sense to prepare for the Moonshot though where we all have to pay through the (so to speak) nose.  Get that system up and running.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Makes sense to prepare for the Moonshot though where we all have to pay through the (so to speak) nose.  Get that system up and running.


What was that, £100tn or some unicorn number?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)

nearly budget for whole NHS for the year - really wtf? and we have to pay for it - again


----------



## brogdale (Oct 2, 2020)

two sheds said:


> nearly budget for whole NHS for the year - really wtf? and we have to pay for it - again


Some folks really are _having a good war_


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 2, 2020)

Is it me or has everything just stupid



> People in northern Lincolnshire must abide by the ‘rule of six’ when trick-or-treating – or they could face a £200 fine.
> 
> This means families should not go out in a group more than five, as just one person answering the door to the children will count as part of the group.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 2, 2020)

We have a street whatsapp group and people have been talking alternatives to trick or treat - both gsv and I think that's not necessary as it's not like touch is likely to be a big risk factor. But I do get other people may not be comfortable with it - we're talking about going all out for the decor, and maybe having a 'parade' so everyone can see kids' costumes.

Saying people have to stay in no more than 5 to trick or treat is just stupid - one person answering the door to 5, who are outside no less, and interacting with them for less than 30 seconds is not a gathering or any risk (also what if you have 5 people in a group and then a couple, or a few kids, answer the door together?   ). If that were the case then you could call any group of people less than 2m apart from one another in Tesco a 'a gathering'


----------



## magneze (Oct 2, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Is it me or has everything just stupid


By the same logic, no pub can have more than 5 to a table because the table server is the 6th. Following the science. Into oblivion.


----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

Sounds like it's the perfect reason just to tell our brats they can't go begging round the neighbourhood this year tbf.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Oct 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> 111 again:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


As the emergency ramped up in March I has a flurry of reference requests for students who got jobs in 111 call handling so I know some call handlers must have had scant training


----------



## scifisam (Oct 2, 2020)

My daughter has no credit history, and I'd be amazed if any of her friends do either. The vast majority of under-25s will never have applied for credit. Under-16s can be verified by their parents' history, but that leaves a huge number of people who won't qualify.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 2, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Is it me or has everything just stupid


(school) kiddies taking sweets from the hands of their elderly neighbours...what could possibly go wrong...


----------



## maomao (Oct 2, 2020)

We're very big on Halloween/Trick or Treat in our house and we've told our daughter it's cancelled already because we just assumed it would be a really fucking stupid idea.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Oct 2, 2020)

scifisam said:


> My daughter has no credit history, and I'd be amazed if any of her friends do either. The vast majority of under-25s will never have applied for credit. Under-16s can be verified by their parents' history, but that leaves a huge number of people who won't qualify.



Ooo I dunno about that. Doesn't a phone contract count as a credit application?


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 2, 2020)

Of all the things to worry about right now, Halloween is the least of them


----------



## scifisam (Oct 2, 2020)

BlanketAddict said:


> Ooo I dunno about that. Doesn't a phone contract count as a credit application?



I don't think most of her age group have ever had a phone contract. They just have PAYG. 

It's also sometimes difficult to get a phone contract without having a credit history.


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Of all the things to worry about right now, Halloween is the least of them



In the interests of trying to find a light in the darkness, covid is a good excuse to tell trick or treaters to bog off!

I've just had a call from the ONS surveillance testing programme.  They're bringing my first test kit round tomorrow.  I've been advised to watch a Department of Health video on how to do it.  Obviously I'll do this, but I did joke to the woman who rang me that if it features Matt Hancock I'll assume it's all wrong and go looking for another source of advice.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 2, 2020)

BlanketAddict said:


> Ooo I dunno about that. Doesn't a phone contract count as a credit application?


apparently not to TransUnion; the cunts.


----------



## elbows (Oct 2, 2020)

Covid-19: Boris Johnson says everybody got 'complacent' over virus
					

Boris Johnson says there was a "fraying of people's discipline and attention to" Covid rules over the summer.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> He said compliance with the virus restrictions had been "high at first" but then "everybody got a bit, kind of complacent and blasé".



Even if I place to one side the really obvious stuff such as all the reopenings he permitted, the Cummings shit etc, I am left with more:

On June 23rd he had a press conference where pubs reopening and other stuff was confirmed to be going ahead on July 4th. He also announced an end to the daily press conferences.

And then, during the Q&A section, he came out with "I want to see bustle and I want to see activity".

Also in the same press conference he went through the 5 tests they claimed to be using to judge that they could relax restrictions.

One of them was described by Johnson on that day as follows:



> Our fourth test is that we must be confident that the range of operational challenges, including on testing capacity and Personal Protective Equipment, are in hand, with supply able to meet future demand.



Testing capacity was found to be lacking by late August/early September, and then the press got bored of it and are much happier to report Johnsons latest blame-shifting propaganda instead.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Of all the things to worry about right now, Halloween is the least of them


It's quite high on the list for my kids.


----------



## Supine (Oct 2, 2020)

No fucking chance I'd open the door to a bunch of kids at the moment. 

Curtains shut, lights out all the way


----------



## two sheds (Oct 2, 2020)




----------



## killer b (Oct 2, 2020)

Supine said:


> No fucking chance I'd open the door to a bunch of kids at the moment.
> 
> Curtains shut, lights out all the way


same as every year tbf


----------



## agricola (Oct 2, 2020)

teuchter said:


> What is "you feel you have symptoms" though?
> Probably something like once every week or two, since this thing started, I've felt a bit off and thought "do I have symptoms". So far each time I've decided that no, I probably don't, but the threshold at which I'd go the other way is not very clear. Especially when you know that many people only experience mild symptoms.



The continuous cough, loss of taste/smell, fever thing or feeling rough.  Once you've asked for the test though you've really got to treat it as if you have it until confirmed otherwise.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Oct 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> The detail certainly adds to the earlier story



Apart from being bloody irresponsible, I don't understand how people with COVID symptoms can have the energy to do anything other than lying in bed with a book and drinking their body weight in hot tea! When I get even a cold, I feel shit and take that as a sign that I'm run down and need to recharge my batteries. The last thing I'd feel like doing in that situation would be travelling between London and Scotland by train, and that's just with a cold without a fever!


----------



## scifisam (Oct 2, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Apart from being bloody irresponsible, I don't understand how people with COVID symptoms can have the energy to do anything other than lying in bed with a book and drinking their body weight in hot tea! When I get even a cold, I feel shit and take that as a sign that I'm run down and need to recharge my batteries. The last thing I'd feel like doing in that situation would be travelling between London and Scotland by train, and that's just with a cold without a fever!



Because the symptoms can be mild, especially to being with.

That's not to excuse her actions; she could have found another way to get home, because she's not poor to start with and the govt would help, and shouldn't have travelled so much while knowing she was waiting for a test after symptoms. But plenty of people with confirmed covid don't even get that ill.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 2, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Because the symptoms can be mild, especially to being with.
> 
> That's not to excuse her actions; she could have found another way to get home, because she's not poor to start with and the govt would help, and shouldn't have travelled so much while knowing she was waiting for a test after symptoms. But plenty of people with confirmed covid don't even get that ill.


Being an MP she will have a London gaff.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Being an MP she will have a London gaff.



Probably, but if she really did want to just get home, she'd also have a driver. I wouldn't blame her for going home in one car with one person and isolating there. That's not what she did.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 2, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Probably, but if she really did want to just get home, she'd also have a driver. I wouldn't blame her for going home in one car with one person and isolating there. That's not what she did.


Her driver might mind.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 2, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Probably, but if she really did want to just get home, she'd also have a driver. I wouldn't blame her for going home in one car with one person and isolating there. That's not what she did.


Being a backbench SNP MP she would not have a driver. Cabinet ministers are the only ones to get a driver. She could have got a taxi but would probably get sued by the driver afters.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 2, 2020)

She is a selfish.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 2, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Being a backbench SNP MP she would not have a driver. Cabinet ministers are the only ones to get a driver. She could have got a taxi but would probably get sued by the driver afters.


I await her being defended by Suzanna Moore.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 2, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Her driver might mind.



Not if they'd already driven her somewhere in the last day or two and so had been exposed anyway (though if it was a black cab the driver probably would be somewhat protected anyway due to the screens). I wasn't really thinking about her having a named, personal driver - someone will have been driving her around within London.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 3, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Not if they'd already driven her somewhere in the last day or two and so had been exposed anyway (though if it was a black cab the driver probably would be somewhat protected anyway due to the screens). I wasn't really thinking about her having a named, personal driver - someone will have been driving her around within London.


Not sure why you think that. She’s an SNP MP, not a cabinet minister. Backbenchers have to get themselves around


----------



## Mation (Oct 3, 2020)

Supine said:


> You'd think in this day and age an email address and mobile phone is all that's required.


Yes. Contact details. Surely that's all that needed for purposes of public health covid testing.

Am I missing something about why it should matter whether someone is who they say they are? There may well be something really obvious, but I'm not seeing it.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Not sure why you think that. She’s an SNP MP, not a cabinet minister. Backbenchers have to get themselves around



Yes, and most of them do so by taxi. 

I'm not sure what's confusing about this.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 3, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Yes, and most of them do so by taxi.
> 
> I'm not sure what's confusing about this.


Just the idea that they have staff cars


----------



## maomao (Oct 3, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Yes, and most of them do so by taxi.
> 
> I'm not sure what's confusing about this.


Black cabs mostly (plenty on foot, bike and tube too though) unless they're being picked up by the BBC or something. Black cabs are claiming that they're very safe at the moment as driver is sealed off. I wouldn't want to go to Edinburgh in the back of one of those though.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 3, 2020)

Good to see the students back 'studying'


----------



## Supine (Oct 3, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Yes, and most of them do so by taxi.
> 
> I'm not sure what's confusing about this.



Taxi to Scotland? Even mp's use the train for that journey.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 3, 2020)

yes you'd hire a car assuming you drive, find a car hire place willing to hire you one, and are up to the journey.


----------



## maomao (Oct 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> yes you'd hire a car assuming you drive, find a car hire place willing to hire you one, and are up to the journey.


It would be fairly easy to find a black cab or minicab to do the job (though I don't fancy your chances jumping in a cab and saying 'Edinburgh please') but you're looking at 800-1200 quid. And the former wouldn't really be comfortable for 400 miles and the latter would be very unfair on the poor driver.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 3, 2020)

yes indeed - I meant hire a hire car and drive yourself though


----------



## maomao (Oct 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> yes indeed - I meant hire a hire car and drive yourself though


I should have quoted the post before yours tbh.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> yes indeed - I meant hire a hire car and drive yourself though


How do you get the car back to London?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 3, 2020)

abandon it  and disappear 

mind you Hertz and the big ones do pick up from where you left off don't they?


----------



## scifisam (Oct 3, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Just the idea that they have staff cars



But I didn't say that. 

A black cab to Scotland would be hugely expensive, but it would get her home without exposing her to other people. She's wealthy, and would be able to claim part of the cost back as expenses. Plus of course the train, presumably first class, isn't free either. MPs usually have assistants, too, who would already have been exposed to anything she was exposed to, so they could have driven her if she couldn't drive herself.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 3, 2020)

scifisam said:


> black cab to Scotland would be hugely expensive, but it would get her home without exposing her to other people




~ Where to, luv?
~ Glasgow. _coff
~ _hehe. Where you really goin'?
_~_ Glasgow. c_off coff_. It's urgent.
~ I should bleedin' coco. I ain't driving to Scotland. I can take you to Euston...


----------



## maomao (Oct 3, 2020)

Spandex said:


> ~ Where to, luv?
> ~ Glasgow. _coff
> ~ _hehe. Where you really goin'?
> _~_ Glasgow. c_off coff_. It's urgent.
> ~ I should bleedin' coco. I ain't driving to Scotland. I can take you to Euston...


That's on a rank. Phone Gett or Dial a cab and tell them you want a black cab to Scotland. It'll probably pull up before you've put the phone down. And if you want it on account you won't be able to use the rank anyway.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 3, 2020)

maomao said:


> That's on a rank. Phone Gett or Dial a cab and tell them you want a black cab to Scotland. It'll probably pull up before you've put the phone down. And if you want it on account you won't be able to use the rank anyway.



strange alert behaviour - I keep getting an alert that you quoted me in this post. A phantom alert


----------



## LDC (Oct 3, 2020)

Fuck knows if this is the right thread for this, but anyway...









						NHS Covid-19 testing contractor found to be in breach of health and safety regulations, following sacking of whistleblower
					

* The Health and Safety Executive said containers had not been sufficiently    washed and couriers were not informed on correct use of PPE.  * The IWGB has an ongoing case against TDL for trade union detriment and    victimisation of whistleblowers who raised the alarm over health and safety.  *...




					iwgb.org.uk


----------



## ash (Oct 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fuck knows if this is the right thread for this, but anyway...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 We had tests during the peak when all Amazon staff were masked and standing back from the door. I was shocked when the courier who picked up the test had no mask and stood there for me to hand him the samples.  I suppose (thinking now of the 15 min contact time) it probably wasn’t a risk but at the time we didn’t know that and were being told we could be infected by contact with parcels etc.


----------



## elbows (Oct 3, 2020)

The 15 minutes contact time is just an arbitrary rule they came up with when seeking to set a convenient cut-off time for what counts as a close contact. Its not a guide as to how the virus actually behaves, beyond the much vaguer underlying reality that the longer you spend in contact with someone the more opportunities there are for the virus to be transmitted.


----------



## ash (Oct 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> The 15 minutes contact time is just an arbitrary rule they came up with when seeking to set a convenient cut-off time for what counts as a close contact. Its not a guide as to how the virus actually behaves, beyond the much vaguer underlying reality that the longer you spend in contact with someone the more opportunities there are for the virus to be transmitted.


I understand that I was just making the point that everyone was being much more careful then.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 3, 2020)

maomao said:


> That's on a rank. Phone Gett or Dial a cab and tell them you want a black cab to Scotland. It'll probably pull up before you've put the phone down. And if you want it on account you won't be able to use the rank anyway.



Yep. And really long journeys do take place sometimes. A journalist I used to know got cabs everywhere on account, including one time from London to Bristol. That's not quite as far, but if a cabbie will do Bristol they'll also do Edinburgh. 

I was just pointing out that, knowing that she had symptoms, and this would be a one-off, not a regular expensive journey, she had options other than taking the train. Most people wouldn't, but she did.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 3, 2020)

Spandex said:


> ~ Where to, luv?
> ~ Glasgow. _coff
> ~ _hehe. Where you really goin'?
> _~_ Glasgow. c_off coff_. It's urgent.
> ~ I should bleedin' coco. I ain't driving to Scotland. I can take you to Euston...



You know cabs can be booked, right?


----------



## Spandex (Oct 3, 2020)

scifisam said:


> You know cabs can be booked, right?


I do now. 

I think I've only ever been in a black cab twice.


----------



## killer b (Oct 3, 2020)

I don't think spending a thousand pounds on a cab is really an option for an MP either tbf - how much do you think they get paid??


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 3, 2020)

I've done my first test on the surveillance testing programme.  It was bit of a rigmarole, in that the woman who brought round the kit and recorded the info is on her first day in the job and still learning the system, and struggled to enter all the info she needed on a little iPhone screen, but we got there in the end.  The kit doesn't include instructions either, so I had to do a quick google to refresh my memory before getting to work with the swab.  Hopefully I got samples from where I needed to.  I'm pleased to be on the programme, since there's a pretty fair chance I'll have a covid contact at work, if I haven't already, so have signed up for the full year's tests.


----------



## Boudicca (Oct 3, 2020)

This woman got on a train AFTER getting a positive corona test, which is unforgiveable.  If I was on that train I would sue her.  She should have stayed where she was and asked someone in higher authority what to do. They could then have organised safe transport to take her home.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think spending a thousand pounds on a cab is really an option for an MP either tbf - how much do you think they get paid??



£81,932. And at least some of it would have been covered by expenses.


----------



## killer b (Oct 3, 2020)

it would have been much easier to just say 'oh yeah, she doesn't have a driver, I got that wrong' tbh.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> it would have been much easier to just say 'oh yeah, she doesn't have a driver, I got that wrong' tbh.



You mean like clarifying "I wasn't really thinking about her having a named, personal driver - somebody will have been driving her around within London." Some MPs do use public transport within London but I doubt many of them are right now.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think spending a thousand pounds on a cab is really an option for an MP either tbf - how much do you think they get paid??



80k a year plus expenses


----------



## LDC (Oct 3, 2020)

The getting home thing is a bit of a red herring I think (although the train thing is totally unforgiveable). The big mistake was going to London right at the beginning. Obviously once she was there and then the test came back positive getting home would be some sort of compromise.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Oct 3, 2020)

Met my friend for coffee today, he told me he's having to sell his barbers' shop, where he also lived with his beloved cat. He's found himself a flat nearby, but the new landlord won't let him have pets so he's had to rehome the cat. So not only is he losing his business, but also his best friend.

When we'd parted ways, I was later walking from Notting Hill to Oxford Street and noticed there were even more homeless people than usual, which depressed me even more, and made me feel so guilty because I didn't even have enough on me to give 20p each.

What set me off was when I stopped in a pub for a cup of tea and had to go through all the leaving of details and confirming I only wanted a table for one. I realised many people make friends just by going to the pub and chatting to other punters but now they're not allowed to mingle, and for so many people this is one of their only sources of human interaction, and it's now been taken away. I consider myself one of the lucky ones, having friendly housemates who I get on well with, so I'm not without company, but I got really upset thinking about all the lonely people out there with no one to talk to. I fucking hate what this virus is doing to everyone!


----------



## two sheds (Oct 3, 2020)

UK Covid testing cutoff quietly extended to eight days after first signs
					

Exclusive: confusion as helpline staff say tests not accurate after more than five days




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The government has quietly changed its guidance on the number of days within which people with coronavirus symptoms should get tested, the Guardian has learned, raising fears that the disease could spread quicker.
> ...
> Various internal messages seen by the Guardian show coronavirus helpline team leaders suggesting the tests do not provide an accurate result more than five days after first having symptoms. “If over five days, the tests will not provide an accurate result,” one said.
> 
> ...


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 3, 2020)

> Due to a technical issue, which has now been resolved, there has been a delay in publishing a number of COVID-19 cases to the dashboard in England. This means the total reported over the coming days will include some additional cases from the period between 24 September and 1 October, increasing the number of cases reported.



12,872 reported today.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Oct 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The getting home thing is a bit of a red herring I think (although the train thing is totally unforgiveable). The big mistake was going to London right at the beginning. Obviously once she was there and then the test came back positive getting home would be some sort of compromise.



All compounded by the fact she lied/presented alternative facts about why she was going back home as well.


----------



## Supine (Oct 3, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> 12,872 reported today.



Blimey


----------



## brogdale (Oct 3, 2020)

'kinnel, wtf is going on here?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 3, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> 12,872 reported today.



Means the figures from the last week or so need another thousand a day or so.

Concerning they know there's more high figures to come.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Oct 3, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Met my friend for coffee today, he told me he's having to sell his barbers' shop, where he also lived with his beloved cat. He's found himself a flat nearby, but the new landlord won't let him have pets so he's had to rehome the cat. So not only is he losing his business, but also his best friend.
> 
> When we'd parted ways, I was later walking from Notting Hill to Oxford Street and noticed there were even more homeless people than usual, which depressed me even more, and made me feel so guilty because I didn't even have enough on me to give 20p each.
> 
> What set me off was when I stopped in a pub for a cup of tea and had to go through all the leaving of details and confirming I only wanted a table for one. I realised many people make friends just by going to the pub and chatting to other punters but now they're not allowed to mingle, and for so many people this is one of their only sources of human interaction, and it's now been taken away. I consider myself one of the lucky ones, having friendly housemates who I get on well with, so I'm not without company, but I got really upset thinking about all the lonely people out there with no one to talk to. I fucking hate what this virus is doing to everyone!



There are some small wins to be found... the flipside to your point is that it's enabled some of us to have a valid,bathed in legality reason for NOT having to be around certain people!!


----------



## tim (Oct 3, 2020)

Arise ye pensioners ...


----------



## brogdale (Oct 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Means the figures from the last week or so need another thousand a day or so.
> 
> Concerning they know there's more high figures to come.


and, by the looks of it, the figures for the last week or two have been borked as well.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Means the figures from the last week or so need another thousand a day or so.
> 
> Concerning they know there's more high figures to come.



Weirdly, that's actually more reassuring than my first thought, which was - 'oh shit, it took 2 weeks (?) to double from 3000-ish cases a day to 6000-ish, and now it's doubled to 12000-ish overnight...!!'

(I know the above isn't remotely accurate, but it's what's vaguely in my head from half paying attention to the news...)

Oh - it's not so bad*, just govt lying to us as usual?

*the escalation that is - the number of cases per day is obviously really bad.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 3, 2020)

OMFG...


----------



## two sheds (Oct 3, 2020)

they can't count that high


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> they can't count that high



Even taking off shoes the conservatives only have 7280 digits.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 3, 2020)

Will it be 'too much testing' now?


----------



## brogdale (Oct 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Even taking off shoes the conservatives only have 7280 digits.


Pretty sure that inbred, congenital quarter-wit Andrew Rosindell has at least 4 extra digits.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 3, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Pretty sure that inbred, congenital quarter-wit Andrew Rosindell has at least 4 extra digits.



Webbed feet only count as one.

Fuck knows what inbreeding defects half the party's got.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Webbed feet only count as one.
> 
> Fuck knows what inbreeding defects half the party's got.


Exactly; you're probably way out fella.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Webbed feet only count as one.
> 
> Fuck knows what inbreeding defects half the party's got.


Same defects as the other half.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 3, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Exactly; you're probably way out fella.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 3, 2020)

Apols that this screenshot is from the MoS, but my second WTAF of the night  

The fucking, shitting idiot:


----------



## TopCat (Oct 3, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> 12,872 reported today.


Eek


----------



## DaveCinzano (Oct 3, 2020)

two sheds said:


> yes you'd hire a car assuming you drive, find a car hire place willing to hire you one, and are up to the journey.


I'm pretty sure there's a mandatory eye test you have to pass first as well


----------



## editor (Oct 3, 2020)

scifisam said:


> £81,932. And at least some of it would have been covered by expenses.


There's plenty of affordable hotels in London to someone with her healthy income. And she'd probably get it back on expenses anyway.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 3, 2020)

editor said:


> There's plenty of affordable hotels in London to someone with her healthy income. And she'd probably get it back on expenses anyway.



True. I was just working through the ways she could have got home without taking the train.


----------



## elbows (Oct 4, 2020)

brogdale said:


> OMFG...
> 
> View attachment 232878



They may not have a breakdown of how many cases should have been reported on an earlier day, but we can still compare the positive cases by specimin date rather than reporting date. And since I have the dashboard data fro the previous day because I happened to grab it then, I can compare the two.

I cannot make the data match up perfectly, and there are always some delays between test specimen date and reporting date anyway, even without this latest technical problem. So a fair bit of what is shown in green is the normal lag thats seen all the time anyway.

For me there are questions that will only be answered in the coming days when we see what happens as more of this picture is filled in. Its all about trajectory for me, so I am looking to see whether the trajectory now shown for September 21st->24th carries on.

So the graph below shows the positive cases by specimen date that I got off the dashboard on Friday, and the green is the difference between the numbers reported on the dashboard then and the numbers as they stand after the Saturday update.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 4, 2020)

scifisam said:


> True. I was just working through the ways she could have got home without taking the train.



bicycle - much underrated form of transport


----------



## elbows (Oct 4, 2020)

I feel I should stick this here for future reference.



> Mr Johnson also stood by the Eat Out to Help Out restaurant discount introduced in August, which some critics have said added to the rise in coronavirus cases in September.
> 
> "In so far as that scheme may have helped to spread the virus then obviously we need to counteract that and we need to counteract that with the discipline and the measures that we're proposing," he said.











						Covid: Things 'bumpy to Christmas and beyond' - PM
					

Boris Johnson says there is "hope" in fighting the virus, but it could be "a very tough winter".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 4, 2020)

Eat Out to Help Spread About

who would have guessed


----------



## two sheds (Oct 4, 2020)

Get your Mates    -    Eat Out  -    Spread it About


----------



## maomao (Oct 4, 2020)

two sheds said:


> bicycle - much underrated form of transport


A septegenarian friend of my mother did London to Edinburgh a couple of years ago. Took him a week or two though. And he didn't have Covid.


----------



## elbows (Oct 4, 2020)

High positivity rate in Scotland.



> Scotland's deputy first minister has warned further restrictions may be introduced to combat the spread of coronavirus.
> 
> John Swinney said the "rising prevalence" of the virus in Scotland was a "cause for for concern".
> 
> ...











						Covid in Scotland: Number of virus cases rises by 758
					

The deputy first minister says further restrictions are possible as another 758 people test positive in Scotland.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## MrSki (Oct 4, 2020)

So today's figures are delayed again & according to Peston another 'stash' of positive results have been found dating back up to 24/9. Where have they been stashing them?


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 4, 2020)

Down the back of the sofa with a half empty packet of fags, some ancient 10ps, a dog biscuit etc


----------



## elbows (Oct 4, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So today's figures are delayed again & according to Peston another 'stash' of positive results have been found dating back up to 24/9. Where have they been stashing them?




I started the graph that I stuck in the thread last night partly because they said at the time that there were more backlogged results to come. I shall update it when the data is available.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 4, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So today's figures are delayed again & according to Peston another 'stash' of positive results have been found dating back up to 24/9. Where have they been stashing them?



This is more transparent than Trump's doctor.

Do they really think they have more to gain from delaying bad news than they have to lose from being caught lying again...oh, hang on.


----------



## killer b (Oct 4, 2020)

Did this article with the latest figures from the CSS / Zoe app get posted? They suggest the rate of infection slowing right down over the last week:









						COVID cases flattening according to COVID Symptom Study Infection Survey
					

According to the COVID Symptom Study (CSS) UK Infection Survey figures, there are currently, 19,777 daily new symptomatic cases of COVID in the UK on average over the two weeks up to 27 September suggesting that COVID-19 cases in the UK are flattening off.




					covid.joinzoe.com


----------



## zora (Oct 4, 2020)

Ugh, not feeling too good about the autumnal weather. This weekend seems like a real sign of things to come:
Went for my most "enclosed" pub visit so far (pub terrace covered in a sort of walled gazebo, but it was plenty cold when the heater wasn't on so seemed outdoorsy enough.)

Took a short cab journey (because next bus was 50 mins later, and it was raining soooo heavily that walking wasn't appealing.) Cab had a very sophisticated separation between driver and passenger, but windows were closed and it had all nicely steamed up...

Took the bus home from work tonight, again because of the rain, and it got atrociously busy. As far as I could see, every seat upstairs was taken, and I counted 20 people downstairs. I guess the driver wanted to be nice and not let people stand in the rain, but jeez. In three and a half months since going back to work, I have only taken the bus 4-5 times, always walked or cycled otherwise, but it could get pretty cold and wet if I want to carry that on - and i have clearly folded at the first hurdle.

But yeah, I am thinking, multiply my weather-driven behaviour change by the entire population (or at least very many people), and I can't see it going well, tbh.


----------



## editor (Oct 4, 2020)

Possible new measures 



> A new three-tier lockdown system is being planned for England, with leaked government documents paving the way for potential harsher restrictions including the closure of pubs and a ban on all social contact outside of household groups.
> 
> The draft traffic-light-style plan, seen by the Guardian, is designed to simplify the current patchwork of localised restrictions, which apply to about a quarter of the UK. It also reveals tougher measures that could be imposed by the government locally or nationally if Covid cases are not brought under control.
> 
> ...












						Leak reveals possible harsher three-tier England Covid plan
					

Exclusive: government documents suggest potential pub closures and stricter social contact rules




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 4, 2020)

The cock-up continues, resulting in 22,961 new cases being reported today.


----------



## Supine (Oct 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The cock-up continues, resulting in 22,961 new cases being reported today.



Probably took them a bit of time to re-scale the Y axis on their graph


----------



## TopCat (Oct 4, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The cock-up continues, resulting in 22,961 new cases being reported today.


Fucking hell.


----------



## tommers (Oct 4, 2020)

Fuck.


----------



## magneze (Oct 4, 2020)

Wtf


----------



## weepiper (Oct 4, 2020)

When a professor of global public health can't interpret the official numbers we're probably not in a good place.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 4, 2020)

Is that a backlogged number? Or a likely actual daily count?

ETA: Ah. I was in good company.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 4, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Is that a backlogged number? Or a likely actual daily count?
> 
> ETA: Ah. I was in good company.


about 8k 'new' today and a further 15k of 'lost results' from over the last week or so.

Fuck knows where that leaves us...these clowns are fucking useless.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 4, 2020)

Surely if they "found" the backlog they would know when the numbers corresponded to, rather than just spaffing them all over tomorrow's headlines


----------



## brogdale (Oct 4, 2020)

Whichever way you look at this, it ain't great.
Basically those trying to monitor this on the ground have obviously been given significant underestimates for the last week.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 4, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Surely if they "found" the backlog they would know when the numbers corresponded to, rather than just spaffing them all over tomorrow's headlines


You'd think


----------



## brogdale (Oct 4, 2020)

So all that shit from Gove amplified by the state broadcaster about things levelling out...turns out to be down to their privatised meltdown of cack.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 4, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Whichever way you look at this, it ain't great.
> Basically those trying to monitor this on the ground have obviously been given significant underestimates for the last week.
> 
> View attachment 232986


Is there any way that _isn't_ suss?


----------



## Sue (Oct 4, 2020)

Has anyone actually got any idea what the fuck is going on..?


----------



## PD58 (Oct 4, 2020)

Sue said:


> Has anyone actually got any idea what the fuck is going on..?



The virus is spreading faster than the government would like to admit, so data is being manipulated...


----------



## brogdale (Oct 4, 2020)

Worse still, although those testing +ive were told, there was no track & trace for the 20k ish 'lost' results:


----------



## brogdale (Oct 4, 2020)

World Beating


----------



## MrSki (Oct 4, 2020)

So I presume none of the 20K odd misplaced results that were announced over the last two days had had their contacts traced?


----------



## elbows (Oct 4, 2020)

weepiper said:


> When a professor of global public health can't interpret the official numbers we're probably not in a good place.




Main way to attempt sensible interpretation at this stage is to have to look at the data that gives positive test numbers by date of test specimen instead of reporting date.

Until this recent cockup I only went on about this sort of case data once or twice because there wasnt much added value in looking at that as opposed to daily reported cases. Since daily reported cases, although they've always included quite a lot of positive tests from earlier dates, did act as a reasonable proxy for levels of positives that day, with the advantage that they felt less laggy. I wish I could explain this better.

Anyway since this latest cockup has spoiled the shape of the data by reported date, the data by specimen data now serves an immediately useful purpose.

So yesterday I presented a chart where blue was all the positive cases by specimen date that had been reported on the dashboard up to and including Friday. Green showed the cases that were reported on Saturday, the first day of the cockup correction reporting of cases. Today I have added this evenings reported cases in orange, and also made the graph go back to early July to give some additional context.

The first conclusion I would reach is that even though yesterdays high number was described as being that high due to catching up with the backlog, data for positive tests by specimen date shows that by the end of September they have already picked up more than 10,000 cases a day by this other measure, and I dont know how much further those numbers for those dates will grow further in the coming days.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 4, 2020)

I'd at first thought that those past cases had just distorted the numbers, but I presume the numbers are correct and it's just the shape of the graph that is distorted - the slope should have been steeper over the last few days to reach the figure we have now?


----------



## Supine (Oct 4, 2020)

Still exponential. Shutting pubs at 10pm isn't enough if you want to keep education going.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 4, 2020)

let's recap: 
governement + Big IT Project = fail
is a given
yes?


----------



## elbows (Oct 4, 2020)

When Triggle was trying his best to spin against the Whitty/Vallance 50,000 exponential example chart, he attempted to show that if our cases grew at the same rate as France, we'd only be up to 10,000 cases per day by October 13th, not 50,000. Well by using the specimen date version of the data we can see that 10,000 was breached even before September ended.

Not that I have a number in mind for where we will be at by October 13th. Partly because as the test system presumably continues to groan under the strain, a continuing increase in the percentage of tests that come back positive will likely be required in order for the system to stand a chance of keeping up with ever larger number of positives.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 4, 2020)

Worldometers claims to have redistributed the new cases chronologically based on the information provided.


----------



## elbows (Oct 4, 2020)

By the way people dont need me to see graphs of cases by specimen date, its right there as always inside the cases section of the official dashboard.









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




The only thing my graphs are adding to the picture is a proper sense of how the number reported in recent crazy days relates to what date the test specimens were actually taken, via the colour coding that I did.

I will keep doing my graphs anyway until the daily data picture seems a bit more settled.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Oct 5, 2020)

.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 5, 2020)

PD58 said:


> The virus is spreading faster than the government would like to admit, so data is being manipulated...



I don't think so, it would have been better to have had the correct figures for last Wednesday's Downing Street press briefing, in order to drive home how bad the situation is, and would have fitted better with the example used the week before, about how things could go if cases doubled every week.

Also there's no logic in suppressing case numbers for a few days, and then making a mockery of themselves by having to play catch-up. 

I am filing this under cock-up rather than conspiracy.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am filing this under cock-up rather than conspiracy.


This. 
There's some right tin-foil hat stuff doing the rounds at the moment


----------



## Spandex (Oct 5, 2020)

Sue said:


> Has anyone actually got any idea what the fuck is going on..?


I'm sure everyone who's worked with data has had an _oh fuck_ moment when they realise that they haven't referenced a column on a spreadsheet or something and everything they've done since is rubbish. This is just a very public, very humiliating and (with the contact tracers not being notified) potentially deadly example.

I suspect someone at PHE near had a heart attack on Friday night when they noticed they'd bollocksed up the data and had been giving the wrong figure all week. That'd have been followed by anxious sweats as they started the emails flying saying 'there's been an error in the data'.

I don't see any conspiracy here, just a snafu data error messing up the most watched number in the country.


----------



## purenarcotic (Oct 5, 2020)

This makes the Government look even more incompetent than usual, so I can’t see how it advantages them to have deliberately engineered this in some capacity.

This really is gonna be such a shit winter.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 5, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I'm sure everyone who's worked with data has had an _oh fuck_ moment when they realise that they haven't referenced a column on a spreadsheet or something and everything they've done since is rubbish. This is just a very public, very humiliating and (with the contact tracers not being notified) potentially deadly example.
> 
> I suspect someone at PHE near had a heart attack on Friday night when they noticed they'd bollocksed up the data and had been giving the wrong figure all week. That'd have been followed by anxious sweats as they started the emails flying saying 'there's been an error in the data'.
> 
> I don't see any conspiracy here, just a snafu data error messing up the most watched number in the country.


Must have felt very familiar for TalkTalk’s Dildo Hardon


----------



## LDC (Oct 5, 2020)

PD58 said:


> The virus is spreading faster than the government would like to admit, so data is being manipulated...



No, that's tinfoil hat bollocks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 5, 2020)

> The closure of pubs and a ban on social contact outside household groups could be implemented locally or nationally to deal *with soaring infections, now at a level higher than the first wave peak.*



This sort of slack, inaccurate & scaremongering reporting pisses me off.   

FFS, it was estimated there was over 100k infections a day at the peak of the first wave, we are nowhere near that. 









						Coronavirus - all you need to know as North could face lockdown
					

Boris Johnson is said to be looking at further restrictions in parts of the country after criticism that local lockdowns are failing to curb record numbers of daily infections




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Oct 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, that's tinfoil hat bollocks.


Though it is fair to say that Government figures, Gove included, wasted no time in going to the press with the line that the erroneously reduced daily figures over the last week demonstrated that their policies were "working".

Nothing TFH to point out that they used the, then unknown (?), error to their political advantage.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 5, 2020)

Can someone recap for me. What results have been miscounted? Can't see anything in the news.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 5, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Can someone recap for me. What results have been miscounted? Can't see anything in the news.











						Covid: 16,000 coronavirus cases missed in daily figures after IT error
					

Those who tested positive were told and their contacts are being traced, the prime minister says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 5, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Can someone recap for me. What results have been miscounted? Can't see anything in the news.



What? It's all over the news, and in the link I've posted just above.


----------



## killer b (Oct 5, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Though it is fair to say that Government figures, Gove included, wasted no time in going to the press with the line that the erroneously reduced daily figures over the last week demonstrated that their policies were "working".


If Friday's data from the CSS is right - and there's no reason to think it isn't - they might well be tbf.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> If Friday's data from the CSS is right - and there's no reason to think it isn't - they might well be tbf.


That data says that the increase in cases had flattened in the 4 days leading up to 27 September. 

Looking at the Worldometers new UK cases chart, which has attempted to sort out the weekend's data fuck up, you can see new cases flatten on those 4 days, before leaping massively since.

As always, I guess we have to wait, watch and see what's going on...


----------



## brogdale (Oct 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> If Friday's data from the CSS is right - and there's no reason to think it isn't - they might well be tbf.


Maybe, but the Mail's Gove piece went out in Saturday's edition, so written on Friday (?) when they'd been looking at the erroneously reduced data for a whole week.


----------



## killer b (Oct 5, 2020)

Spandex said:


> That data says that the increase in cases had flattened in the 4 days leading up to 27 September.
> 
> Looking at the Worldometers new UK cases chart, which has attempted to sort out the weekend's data fuck up, you can see new cases flatten on those 4 days, before leaping massively since.
> 
> As always, I guess we have to wait, watch and see what's going on...


Sure, but the CSS is an independent survey rather than being based on government test data, so it's numbers aren't affected by the data fuck up.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> Sure, but the CSS is an independent survey rather than being based on government test data, so it's numbers aren't affected by the data fuck up.


I know they're different data sets. Both show a flattening of the increase of new cases in the four days up to 27/10. But the government test data (might) show a big increase since, while the CSS data stops there. We'll need to wait for new CSS data to see if they find the flattening continue or if they see a big increase too.

In other words, there's mixed data at the moment and we'll have to wait to see what's happening over the next week. I don't feel very optimistic, but would be delighted if the testing data is just a blip caused by the data fuck up.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 5, 2020)

There's also the increased testing window (from 5 to 8 days) which has come in at the same time. Might not make much difference tho.


----------



## killer b (Oct 5, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I know they're different data sets. Both show a flattening of the increase of new cases in the four days up to 27/10. But the government test data (might) show a big increase since, while the CSS data stops there. We'll need to wait for new CSS data to see if they find the flattening continue or if they see a big increase too.
> 
> In other words, there's mixed data at the moment and we'll have to wait to see what's happening over the next week. I don't feel very optimistic, but would be delighted if the testing data is just a blip caused by the data fuck up.


I think there's a lot going on with the daily testing data - not just this latest clusterfuck, but issues discussed passim - that make it a really unreliable measure this close in of what's going on, so I don't really pay much attention to it. I find the prominence given to the daily testing numbers here when all these issues are already known about - to the exclusion of more useful and robust data from elsewhere - a bit odd tbh.

The CSS has a huge number of participants, and them recording a flattening now - about when you'd expect any effect of recent lockdown changes to kick in, if they're to do anything - is significant IMO.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> I find the prominence given to the daily testing numbers here when all these issues are already known about - to the exclusion of more useful and robust data from elsewhere - a bit odd tbh.


Also no one seems to be taking into account the fact that the number of tests being done is gradually going up - it's the proportion of them that are positive that is important, rather than the bare numbers of positive results.


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Also no one seems to be taking into account the fact that the number of tests being done is gradually going up - it's the proportion of them that are positive that is important, rather than the bare numbers of positive results.



Its important to check percentage positive in order to eliminate the arguments of those who would claim that more positive results is just because of more testing.

So far I'd say that all around the world when the numbers go in a direction that cause this sort of attention, the percentage positives at those times in those places confirm that its not just a result of more testing, and that a real notable rise in infections is behind it. 

Therefore I see nothing wrong with the focus on number of positive tests as a slightly simplistic but very useful guide. Just so long as some people keep an eye on percentage positives and tell everyone if something important shows up in that side of the data.


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

And for sure I pay attention to those percentage positive numbers, even though I only get a chance to really look properly once a week via the weekly PHE surveillance report, and there is lag.

The picture seems clear enough to me, percentage positives rose notably and so we can be pretty confident that increased testing has not created the rising cases picture on its own.


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...eekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_40.pdf


----------



## teuchter (Oct 5, 2020)

If we're looking for evidence of more subtle things like a flattening of the curve though, then changes in the number of tests being carried out could quite easily disguise this, or make it look like it was happening when it wasn't actually.


----------



## purenarcotic (Oct 5, 2020)

I just read an article in the local newspaper saying that less than half the population would get vaccinated when / if we get one. I appreciate in the beginning we want to prioritise certain groups, but why would you then not do everyone else after? I thought you needed something like 80% of the population vaccinated for there to be herd immunity. Would it be to do with global availability?

This is the article (it’s not the best paper so could be bollocks):










						Covid vaccine could go to only half of UK - with 10 groups given priority
					

The head of the UK coronavirus vaccine taskforce Kate Bingham told the Financial Times that less than half of the UK population could be vaccinated against Covid-19




					www.birminghammail.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

teuchter said:


> If we're looking for evidence of more subtle things like a flattening of the curve though, then changes in the number of tests being carried out could quite easily disguise this, or make it look like it was happening when it wasn't actually.



Sure in theory, which is why its good to check that data from time to time. But I dont think we have test number fluctuations to the extent that it would significantly alter the picture on its own, not at this stage anyway. 

If really significant rationing of tests kicked in, eg by changing the criteria for who can have a test, then we could quickly end up in another situation where it isnt really appropriate to directly compare the number of positive tests before and after the change, just like we cannot fairly compare the number of positives in the first months with the later numbers that came once testing was opened up for the general public.

My own approach to monitoring for signs of curve flattening is to err on the side of waiting for more complete data, introducing a weeks lag to my impression of the situation, rather than relying on daily numbers.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 5, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> I just read an article in the local newspaper saying that less than half the population would get vaccinated when / if we get one. I appreciate in the beginning we want to prioritise certain groups, but why would you then not do everyone else after? I thought you needed something like 80% of the population vaccinated for there to be herd immunity. Would it be to do with global availability?
> 
> This is the article (it’s not the best paper so could be bollocks):
> 
> ...




It was in the FT.  It's one thing to prioritise who gets it first but that's not what they're saying. Don't want to spend more money on poor people.  Keep the older voters alive, do the minimum to protect others at higher risk, rich people will pay to get it, and fuck the rest of you.  Maybe once those that can pay privately do so it will reach 80%?   Or they're hoping for herd immunity again but considering quarantine, self-isolation, time off work, people continuing to WFH to avoid it, and how many people get long covid it will be another of their ruthlessly incompetent false economies.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its important to check percentage positive in order to eliminate the arguments of those who would claim that more positive results is just because of more testing.
> 
> So far I'd say that all around the world when the numbers go in a direction that cause this sort of attention, the percentage positives at those times in those places confirm that its not just a result of more testing, and that a real notable rise in infections is behind it.
> 
> Therefore I see nothing wrong with the focus on number of positive tests as a slightly simplistic but very useful guide. Just so long as some people keep an eye on percentage positives and tell everyone if something important shows up in that side of the data.



Somewhat peripheral but have you seen this Atlantic article, elbows? 









						Coronavirus - worldwide breaking news, discussion, stats, updates and more
					

Yeah, although good news is HIV is killing far fewer people than it used to. However, the pandemic has interrupted provision of aids drugs and treatments for other diseases :(  Laura Spinney's book on Spanish flu talks about how the flu had a knock on effect on worsening the effects of other...




					www.urban75.net


----------



## prunus (Oct 5, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> I just read an article in the local newspaper saying that less than half the population would get vaccinated when / if we get one. I appreciate in the beginning we want to prioritise certain groups, but why would you then not do everyone else after? I thought you needed something like 80% of the population vaccinated for there to be herd immunity. Would it be to do with global availability?
> 
> This is the article (it’s not the best paper so could be bollocks):
> 
> ...



It’s not bollocks, it’s reporting an interview published in the FT today.

It’s a genius idea - save money by allowing all the fit healthy people under 50 get mild illness, leading to potentially life-long heart and other problems, which will definitely be cheaper to deal with than vaccinating them. Plus this way we can keep a reservoir of the virus going forever, so it can carry on happening. Plus probably making us an international pariah, which will stop all those disease-free foreigners coming here with their ‘immune responses’ and ‘thought-through healthcare programs.’


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

Its inevitable that vaccination programmes will prioritise certain groups to start with.

Whether it is reasonable to maintain that stance forever will in large part come down to how long the vaccine confers immunity. If it turns out to be something that needs to be given quite often then it may be hard to ever overcome the logistical challenges of a whole-population vaccination programme for dealing with this virus, and then I will be more inclined to think the 50+ cutoff more reasonable as a permanent state of affairs.


----------



## Cid (Oct 5, 2020)

The FT article...









						Less than half UK population to receive coronavirus vaccine, says task force head | Free to read
					

PM warns of ‘bumpy’ winter while data ‘issue’ blamed for 16,000-case backlog pushing numbers to record high




					www.ft.com
				




Maybe elbows will drill down into vaccine types and efficacy. I should be at work... It sounds like this is a specific vaccine which provides partial protection from the effects.

Er... also:



> Ms Bingham, *who is also managing partner at fund manager SV Health Investors*


----------



## Badgers (Oct 5, 2020)

Going well then...


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 5, 2020)

Shocking:


----------



## Cid (Oct 5, 2020)

Can someone copy the content of the FT article? I've gone paywalled. Had thought their coronavirus content was paywall-free.

e2a: no, am just an idiot, the link doesn't go to the article. Can't work out how to link it, easy to google anyway.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 5, 2020)




----------



## Cid (Oct 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Shocking:




Isn't it a basic tenet of data geeks that anyone using excel for proper databases is, essentially, a n00b and an idiot?


----------



## existentialist (Oct 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> Isn't it a basic tenet of data geeks that anyone using excel for proper databases is, essentially, a n00b and an idiot?


It should be a basic tenet of every right-thinking human being.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> Isn't it a basic tenet of data geeks that anyone using excel for proper databases is, essentially, a n00b and an idiot?


----------



## prunus (Oct 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> Isn't it a basic tenet of data geeks that anyone using excel for proper databases is, essentially, a n00b and an idiot?



Harsh, but fair. A fair amount of my work used to be setting up proper databases for small companies that were still balancing their entire edifice on a rickety old excel spreadsheet that was originally written by someone who left 6 years ago and had been as hoc ‘improved’ since by whoever was around that had or at least thought they had excel skills.  Excel makes it terrifyingly easy to fuck up in any number of ways. It should never be used for anything critical unless at the very least it is done in parallel by two independent workbooks written by two different people from first principles. And even then some of excel’s kooky attempts at floating point arithmetic can still bite you in the arse.

P.S. and don’t get me started on data typing...


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Somewhat peripheral but have you seen this Atlantic article, elbows?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Cheers for bringing it to my attention. Ive read some of it but I skimmed a fair chunk.

I dont think that in practice there is actually so much difference in how you would try to deal with a pandemic that was largely spread by super spreading events and one that was driven more by generalised transmission. It makes contact tracing even more important, but we already knew how important that aspect was. And we cant predict who will be a superspreader, and the scenarios in which these superspreading events can occur involve the same risk factors as any other sort of spread.

So I dont think I need to have a firm answer in my mind in regards how much the epidemic waves are driven by superspreaders, in order to determine where the focus should be.

Timely testing and test result delivery, isolation, contact tracing. Incentivise people to do the right thing. Pay a lot of attention to ventilation. Wear masks. Avoid crowding. Put a lot of effort into infection control in hospitals and care homes. Reduce contacts between households. Only have pubs and restaurants open during periods of minimal community spread, and shut them as soon as contact tracing linked to pubs etc shows there is a problem. Or dont open them in the first place.

Makes little difference to the long-term lessons either. Which involve population obesity, population density, pollution, poverty & housing, work environment and healthcare capacity.


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

Oh and there are probably some other long term lessons involving attitudes and practicalities of education and not conflating it with childcare. But I dont think I'll be able to get into that properly until my head is clear of the immediate pandemic issues.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Cheers for bringing it to my attention. Ive read some of it but I skimmed a fair chunk.
> 
> I dont think that in practice there is actually so much difference in how you would try to deal with a pandemic that was largely spread by super spreading events and one that was driven more by generalised transmission. It makes contact tracing even more important, but we already knew how important that aspect was. And we cant predict who will be a superspreader, and the scenarios in which these superspreading events can occur involve the same risk factors as any other sort of spread.
> 
> ...



Yes fair play. I thought the stress on backwards then forwards test/tracing was interesting, enabling the  lower cost test methods. Also the analysis of results in the different countries, but you've studied much more than I have so it was likely not new for you. A good summary of what seems the important factors, though.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


>


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 5, 2020)

Fucking. Idiots.


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes fair play. I thought the stress on backwards then forwards test/tracing was interesting, enabling the  lower cost test methods. Also the analysis of results in the different countries, but you've studied much more than I have so it was likely not new for you. A good summary of what seems the important factors, though.



I've not dwelt on those aspects as much as I should because it would probably drive me crazy since the UK establishment show no interest in much of it. For example there is an extremely conservative and controlling attitude towards which sorts of tests have been deemed acceptable in the UK so far, robbing us of various options.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 5, 2020)

MrSki said:


>



You. Are. Fucking. Joking.

It's like the last 30 years of IT just didn't happen.

Why the fuck did I get out of that business? I could have been making six-digit money a year for vomiting out this kind of old shit...oh yes, I remember, I kept tripping over my conscience.

ETA: I'd quite like to see a source for that claim, though - it's almost too batshit to be believable, and that's saying something...

Found a source, even if it is the _spit_ Daily Mail.

Screenshot for them as don't want to get their broadband dirty:

And a link for them as isn't proud: Blame game after 16,000 Covid cases missed due to Excel glitch

I'm quite looking forward to The Register getting onto this...


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 5, 2020)

MrSki said:


>




Yebbut, you can't expect them to fork out for a proper database with their teeny tiny covid contract budget!  Our database costs *several *thousand pounds a year for a small organisation.  Stop being so mean to Serco.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 5, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Fucking. Idiots.


Nah. Quote for tailor-made data handling solutions, use Excel. There's a strong track record of that type of thing not mattering if you're a private sector government contractor.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Yebbut, you can't expect them to fork out for a proper database with their teeny tiny covid contract budget!  Our database costs *several *thousand pounds a year for a small organisation.  Stop being so mean to Serco.


I have wondered more than once what would have happened if a visionary government had done - a little as IBM did with bits of Linux - something like throw this out there as an open source project, judiciously funded (and certainly not on the scale that Serco et al have been featherbedded). I suspect that a lot would have happened pretty bloody fast.

Ah, but I said "visionary"


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Yebbut, you can't expect them to fork out for a proper database with their teeny tiny covid contract budget!  Our database costs *several *thousand pounds a year for a small organisation.  Stop being so mean to Serco.


Yeah the 12 billion wouldn't stretch to database software.


----------



## prunus (Oct 5, 2020)

existentialist said:


> You. Are. Fucking. Joking.
> 
> It's like the last 30 years of IT just didn't happen.
> 
> ...



They weren’t using _columns_ for the records were they....? Surely not.


----------



## maomao (Oct 5, 2020)

So was it actually Serco or PHE that fucked it? Or is it an agreed format for communication between the two?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

Pah I use Excel and it's great - I do my accounts and have my to-do list on there. Nothing wrong with it once you get used to using equations.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 5, 2020)

MrSki said:


>



That's quite alarming.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 5, 2020)

prunus said:


> They weren’t using _columns_ for the records were they....? Surely not.


Yes, apparently. And it all fell over at 2^14


----------



## existentialist (Oct 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Pah I use Excel and it's great - I do my accounts and have my to-do list on there. Nothing wrong with it once you get used to using equations.


There's a big difference between one person updating a spreadsheet in place using non-critical and re-generable information, and using them as a bulk data transfer format. TBH, comma-separated files would have been a better bet.

And not storing records in columns, obviously


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

and I just looked up TBH thinking it was a database name


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Pah I use Excel and it's great - I do my accounts and have my to-do list on there. Nothing wrong with it once you get used to using equations.



Spreadsheets are great.

Spreadsheets aren’t suitable for tracking a million records of tests, people and locations   for a deadly flu.


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

Errors have shown up before too. I remember back in the daily press conference days there was a period where they had a particular graph and for one days figures they got the Scottish and Welsh numbers the wrong way round and nobody seemed to notice, despite the way the lines crossed over eachother and then back on the graph.


----------



## Mation (Oct 5, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Yes, apparently.


Christ. Fucking clowns.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 5, 2020)

Mation said:


> Christ. Fucking clowns.


Makes (neoliberal) sense tbf...the lowest cost option...the only possible downside/negative externality being the increased deaths accruing from the 50k missed tracings.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Spreadsheets are great.
> 
> Spreadsheets aren’t suitable for tracking a million records of tests, people and locations   for a deadly flu.



I know  Before I transferred my accounts to Excel (actually LibreOffice Calc) I used dBase 3  they could have used that. 

What's the problem with storing in columns specifically by the way? Apart from cutting off loads of data - is it just that there were too many columns?


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

Yes


> Worksheet and workbook specifications and limits
> 
> FeatureMaximum limitTotal number of rows and columns on a worksheet1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns*Column width*255 characters*Row height*409 pointsPage breaks1,026 horizontal and vertical
> 32 more rows


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

ahhh ta

I don't have quite that many in my accounts


----------



## editor (Oct 5, 2020)

Good luck policing this proposal: 



> The Welsh Government is considering imposing quarantine periods on people travelling from other parts of the UK.
> 
> Unlike in Wales, where people in areas in local lockdown are banned from leaving the county without a reasonable excuse, in England there are no such restrictions.
> 
> ...











						Wales considers coronavirus quarantines for some visitors from England
					

People visiting from coronavirus hotspots in England might have to self-isolate for two weeks if they visit Wales




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

I would do that if I were Wales. Effective policing is not required to get some effect out of it, for example a percentage of people will self-police and wont make the journey.


----------



## editor (Oct 5, 2020)

Curtains for the Gunnersaurus 









						Arsenal mascot Gunnersaurus becomes latest victim of Covid cuts
					

The man behind Arsenal mascot Gunnersaurus has been let go by the club as part of their coronavirus cost-cutting process, according to The Athletic.




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## fishfinger (Oct 5, 2020)

editor said:


> Curtains for the Gunnersaurus
> 
> http://[URL='https://www.standard.c...avirus-costcutting-a4563256.html[/URL[/COLOR]]


Covid killed the dinosaurs


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 5, 2020)

fishfinger said:


> Covid killed the dinosaurs


that's nothing, video killed the radio star


----------



## Wilf (Oct 5, 2020)

I feel like there's so much that they've fucked up over this that there's never one single thing for the public to build up into a head of steam of protest, aside from a general feeling  they are idiots. A bit like a lion trying to bring down a wilderbeast amid a broiling herd of the things. It never manages to focus on a single one to the point where it can track it and pounce.


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> I would do that if I were Wales. Effective policing is not required to get some effect out of it, for example a percentage of people will self-police and wont make the journey.



And especially if a quarantine angle is introduced, judging by the coverage of people racing home from abroad we were treated to every weekend for a while.









						Covid: Welsh quarantine considered for UK coronavirus hotspots
					

Quarantine restrictions are considered after the prime minister declined to impose a travel ban.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Oct 5, 2020)

Mapping the scale of the government's failure:

to the left - what things looked like with the data missing

to the right - the grim reality


----------



## Lurdan (Oct 5, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I feel like there's so much that they've fucked up over this that there's never one single thing for the public to build up into a head of steam of protest, aside from a general feeling  they are idiots. A bit like a lion trying to bring down a wilderbeast amid a broiling herd of the things. It never manages to focus on a single one to the point where it can track it and pounce.



Seems a little defeatist to me 



Spoiler


----------



## editor (Oct 5, 2020)

> Almost 500 people have tested positive for coronavirus at the University of Sheffield.  According to an online tracker on the university’s website, 474 students and five staff members have tested positive for Covid-19 as of September 28. A university spokesperson said: ‘We recognise how difficult it is for students who are new to Sheffield and need to self-isolate because of Covid-19 cases. ‘To make sure we are supporting students in the best way possible, we will contact all students who are self-isolating to check on their welfare and offer practical and emotional support.’ They added those affected by coronavirus were following Government guidelines and that support is available.
> Read more: Almost 500 students at Sheffield University test positive for coronavirus



(I like the "I hate my flatmate" sign!)


----------



## brogdale (Oct 5, 2020)

To my (limited IT knowledge) mind, this explanation seemed pretty good:

Coronavirus: Data can save lives, data can cost lives - and this latest testing blunder will likely prove it


----------



## prunus (Oct 5, 2020)

brogdale said:


> To my (limited IT knowledge) mind, this explanation seemed pretty good:
> 
> Coronavirus: Data can save lives, data can cost lives - and this latest testing blunder will likely prove it
> 
> View attachment 233067



OMFG, and I don't say that very often.

So, the data was coming in to PHE as csv, which is the obvious obvious way to do it.  And obviously obviously intended to be loaded into a database.

They weren't using columns as records (I can only assume, as a csv in that format would be too insane to contemplate).

They were 'loading'* the csv into Excel to do the 'work'.  They're using the old version of Excel, with a 65,536 row [record] limit.  They had no error handling (it seems) to warn them that if the incoming data was more than 65,536 rows it would truncate it, silently discarding the balance.

It was clearly being done in a cargo cult manner 'press this button, then this, then click here, out will come the results' without any intelligent human sense checking, or even basic automated sense checking (number of input records=number of output records perhaps?).

Absolute fucking shit show.

£12,000,000,000.

* I am intrigued by this step, as if I recall correctly if you 'load' a csv with more than 65536 rows into the old excel by double-clicking on it, or using the 'open' dialog, it gives you a (modal, so not ignorable) warning that it's not all loaded, which suggests to me that someone wrote a (vba, for such is the joy of old excel) loading macro with zero error checking...  Although thinking about it it's not clear how they did that - usually one would do a line by line loop parsing each line in turn (and checking it looks like what you expect, otherwise throw an error), then writing into a worksheet, but that would throw an error when you tried to write to row 65537;  I wonder if someone did a 'record macro' of loading a csv, and turned off the warning flag in the command, I think that was possible... fucking stupid thing to do through.  Anyway, I digress.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

From today's NYTimes.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 5, 2020)

But it's never been the law to wear masks while outside, leading to people desperately ripping them off in doorways of shops as though they are gagging to breathe.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

miss direct said:


> But it's never been the law to wear masks while outside, leading to people desperately ripping them off in doorways of shops as though they are gagging to breathe.


It doesn't say that. Just that rules about mask wearing are frequently ignored.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

So the rate amongst students in Manchester is 3%.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 5, 2020)

Faced with questions about the data debacle in the commons, HanCock said that they'd known about this "legacy PHE data" problem since July and that he'd commissioned it's replacement and that was presently being worked on.

Cunt.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Faced with questions about the data debacle in the commons, HanCock said that they'd known about this "legacy PHE data" problem since July and that he'd commissioned it's replacement and that was presently being worked on.
> 
> Cunt.


Making sure that anything that goes wrong is associated with PHE (the soon to be scrapped scapegoat) & not Serco or other contractors.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 5, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Making sure that anything that goes wrong is associated with PHE (the soon to be scrapped scapegoat) & not Serco or other contractors.


exactly; that and thinking that a response that they'd known about this in July (probably another lie) was some sort of explanation or justification for their fucking shambles.


----------



## Sue (Oct 5, 2020)

Listening to the discussion on the radio right now. Some MP asked why they weren't using 'specialist database technology'. Why are politicians always so utterly rubbish when talking about anything even vaguely technical? _Specialist database technology,_ I'll have you know. _Specialist_. _Technology_.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 5, 2020)

Sue said:


> Listening to the discussion on the radio right now. Some MP asked why they weren't using 'specialist database technology'. Why are politicians always so utterly rubbish when talking about anything even vaguely technical? _Specialist database technology,_ I'll have you know. _Specialist_. _Technology_.


----------



## SlideshowBob (Oct 5, 2020)

Sue said:


> Listening to the discussion on the radio right now. Some MP asked why they weren't using 'specialist database technology'. Why are politicians always so utterly rubbish when talking about anything even vaguely technical? _Specialist database technology,_ I'll have you know. _Specialist_. _Technology_.



Because most of them quite genuinely know feck all about technology. Not that I'd like to see the UK Government transformed into a Silicon Valley-style technocracy - but some people in key government posts who come from, say, an IT background would probably actually be quite useful.


----------



## Sue (Oct 5, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> Because most of them quite genuinely know feck all about technology. Not that I'd like to see the UK Government transformed into a Silicon Valley-style technocracy - but some people in key government posts who come from, say, an IT background would probably actually be quite useful.


And then you end up with fuckwits like Dominic Cummings talking bollocks about technology and getting away with it...


----------



## SlideshowBob (Oct 5, 2020)

Sue said:


> And then you end up with fuckwits like Dominic Cummings talking bollocks about technology and getting away with it...



Cummings is one of those types who has some mild passing knowledge on a whole variety of subjects and then uses that as a remit to peddle himself as having expertise in those areas.


----------



## souljacker (Oct 5, 2020)

SlideshowBob said:


> Because most of them quite genuinely know feck all about technology. Not that I'd like to see the UK Government transformed into a Silicon Valley-style technocracy - but some people in key government posts who come from, say, an IT background would probably actually be quite useful.



Getting people with an IT background wouldn't necessarily help though. Because you'd get some CEO from Computacentre or a project manager from BT who, I'm sure, have worked in the IT field but wouldn't have a scooby about the actual ins and outs of it all. They probably see Dido Harding as "from the IT field" because she worked in comms but I bet she couldn't tell you what layer 3 of the OSI model does.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

I cannot believe how much of a cunt Hancock is. He has stopped answering reasonable questions & just insulting the questioner. Surely the speaker must be made to make sure Ministers at least try to answer the question. Fucking cheek of it.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 5, 2020)

MrSki said:


> It doesn't say that. Just that rules about mask wearing are frequently ignored.


I know, but it talks about the streets of London. Is it the law in NY to wear a mask outside?


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

So there were 12,594 positive tests reported in the UK today.

When they told us about the data cockup on Saturday, the figure that was released late on that day turns out to now be the sort of daily figure we should be expecting every day. Sundays much higher figure was far more heavily distorted by the cockup correction data.

I had to switch to using data for England only when making my colour-coded graph today, because lack of full UK data over weekend would make it unfair to use the UK one for reasons I wont bore on about right now.

Since they say the cockup-related data had all been published by yesterday, todays spread (in red) of where the reported cases belong in terms of test specimen date should now be back to reflecting the typical reporting lag in this system that is always there.

So yeah, England on its own started topping 10,000 cases per day picked up by testing by the end of September. Later this week we will have a better idea what very early October looked like. Because even without the cockups, the delays between specimen being taken and us seeing the results published as this data is not very impressive.


Here is a little UK one without the colour-coding so that people can see how many more cases that adds to the daily picture, given we are used to talking about the UK number and my graphs were previously for the UK not just England.



I will probably switch to posting these graphs in the nerdy thread after today, since the cockup aspect of this data story isnt new any more and my colour-coding is mostly now showing an ongoing phenomenon.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 5, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Getting people with an IT background wouldn't necessarily help though. Because you'd get some CEO from Computacentre or a project manager from BT who, I'm sure, have worked in the IT field but wouldn't have a scooby about the actual ins and outs of it all. They probably see Dido Harding as "from the IT field" because she worked in comms but I bet she couldn't tell you what layer 3 of the OSI model does.


YEah, and the problem for this shower of clowns is that rank is all that matters. They genuinely believe that a CEO will be more useful by virtue of their status, as opposed to some lowly grunt who's written scripts to upload files, and has a rough idea of the kind of shit that goes down when you do that stuff.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I know, but it talks about the streets of London. Is it the law in NY to wear a mask outside?


Yeah you see the reasonable people who obviously wear masks indoors but take them off outside. I am one of those. Sorry I am not up to date on the current laws of New York. I did hear that they are shutting public schools from Wednesday though.


----------



## purenarcotic (Oct 5, 2020)

editor said:


> Curtains for the Gunnersaurus
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I don’t know why, but that’s made me profoundly sad. He can’t be on a lot of money, it makes kids happy. What a shit thing to do.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 5, 2020)

Interesting that some of today's cases actually have a specimen date 10 (yes ten !) days previous ...

I'm now wondering how much of that "dip" 24th to 28th September will actually get filled in in the next few days as the rest of the back log clears ...
(There's 750+ students in Newcastle upon Tyne tested +ve in that period, but not all of them seem to be on the cases map, unless more of them are "at home" as opposed to being all in Halls.)

Still think they should not have had higher education students back before there's a vaccine in general use ...
tbh, nor should the full entertainment / hospitality industry be operating. 
One or the other, not both.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 5, 2020)

editor said:


> Curtains for the Gunnersaurus
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Mezut Ozil earns £18.2 million p.a


----------



## editor (Oct 5, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> I don’t know why, but that’s made me profoundly sad. He can’t be on a lot of money, it makes kids happy. What a shit thing to do.


Premiership clubs are all about money first, fans a long distant second. As are just about all of their stinking rich, superstar players.


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Interesting that some of today's cases actually have a specimen date 10 (yes ten !) days previous ...
> 
> I'm now wondering how much of that "dip" 24th to 28th September will actually get filled in in the next few days as the rest of the back log clears ...
> (There's 750+ students in Newcastle upon Tyne tested +ve in that period, but not all of them seem to be on the cases map, unless more of them are "at home" as opposed to being all in Halls.)



There have tended to be weekend-related dips most weeks in the 'by specimen date' data, so I suppose I'm not expecting the gap to be entirely filled by more reported data, but its hard to tell given the large increases over the broader period either side.


----------



## PD58 (Oct 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, that's tinfoil hat bollocks.


It wasn't serious- even this government is not that stupid...edit... actually clever enough


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 5, 2020)

editor said:


> Premiership clubs are all about money first, fans a long distant second. As are just about all of their stinking rich, superstar players.


I’d generally agree but this is somewhat of a sweeping statement. Arsenal players agreed a pay cut to assist the club I very much doubt that they did that expecting the club to start sacking non playing staff . Others like Chelsea haven’t made any redundancies and have financed community initiatives during the pandemic .


----------



## editor (Oct 5, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I’d generally agree but this is somewhat of a sweeping statement. Arsenal players agreed a pay cut to assist the club I very much doubt that they did that expecting the club to start sacking non playing staff . Others like Chelsea haven’t made any redundancies and have financed community initiatives during the pandemic .


Even taking their selfless 'pay cut' into account they're still on absolute shitloads of money and I don't see too many lining up to dish it out to those less well off than themselves. Like the club mascot, for example. With very few exceptions, most of them are selfish cunts, happy to employ shitty agents to squeeze as much money as possible out of clubs and, in turn, the fans.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

You'd think the negative publicity this will gain would shame them into taking him back on again

or there again perhaps not.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

editor said:


> Even taking their selfless 'pay cut' into account they're still on absolute shitloads of money and I don't see too many lining up to dish it out to those less well off than themselves. Like the club mascot, for example. With very few exceptions, most of them are selfish cunts, happy to employ shitty agents to squeeze as much money as possible out of clubs and, in turn, the fans.


As I said on the Arse thread if each first team player took it turns to pay his weekly wage they wouldn't even notice it. Shame on AFC.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 5, 2020)

I've seen some broken down data for where there have been spreading events... I'd be interested to know what it's like for museums/galleries/historic attractions. Or maybe they're not having enough people through to really show a pattern?


----------



## brogdale (Oct 5, 2020)

CWS had it right back in June:


----------



## weepiper (Oct 5, 2020)

I speculate that we're going to get a new lockdown announcement of some sort in the Scottish Parliament tomorrow. This is a pretty big thing to be suddenly shifting back a day.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 5, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Yes, apparently. And it all fell over at 2^14







__





						Sign the Petition
					

Increase the maximum number of columns in Excel to 32,768




					www.change.org


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

Excel: Why using Microsoft's tool caused Covid-19 results to be lost
					

The decision to use a spreadsheet format that dates back to the 1980s has proved to be unwise.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




BBC saying it was the rows that were the problem? 



> The problem is that PHE's own developers picked an old file format to do this - known as XLS.
> As a consequence, each template could handle only about 65,000 rows of data rather than the one million-plus rows that Excel is actually capable of.
> And since each test result created several rows of data, in practice it meant that each template was limited to about 1,400 cases.
> When that total was reached, further cases were simply left off.
> ...



also said it was PHE's fault not the privatized contractors.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 5, 2020)

weepiper said:


> I speculate that we're going to get a new lockdown announcement of some sort in the Scottish Parliament tomorrow. This is a pretty big thing to be suddenly shifting back a day.




Different country but we were given a formal lockdown (schools closure) strategy today at school.

That could be good forward planning by our shiny great new Head but it could also be the result of the formal meeting she had with top bods for 3 hours the other day...


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

2hats said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> Actually, to make it safe can we ask for it to be doubled every 7 days.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

Guardian saying it was the rows, too, also blaming on PHE









						Covid: how Excel may have caused loss of 16,000 test results in England
					

Public Health England data error blamed on limitations of Microsoft spreadsheet




					www.theguardian.com
				






> But while CSV files can be any size, Microsoft Excel files can only be 1,048,576 rows long – or, in older versions which PHE may have still been using, a mere 65,536. When a CSV file longer than that is opened, the bottom rows get cut off and are no longer displayed. That means that, once the lab had performed more than a million tests, it was only a matter of time before its reports failed to be read by PHE.
> 
> Microsoft’s spreadsheet software is one of the world’s most popular business tools, but it is regularly implicated in errors which can be costly, or even dangerous, because of the ease with which it can be used in situations it was not designed for.
> In 2013, an Excel error at JPMorgan masked the loss of almost $6bn (£4.6bn), after a cell mistakenly divided by the sum of two interest rates, rather than the average. The news led James Kwak, a professor of law at the University of Connecticut, to warn that Excel is “incredibly fragile”.
> ...



Just don't understand it - works really well for my accounts


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

So a Yes or No question. That cunt Hancock is coming more cuntish as the day goes on. At a guess for the fact he didn't answer I reckon it might be a Yes.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

They need to be questioned under oath, with actual answers demanded. They're just avoiding parliamentary questions, it's now just a sham. Unaccountable government by presidential decree now.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 5, 2020)

two sheds said:


> They need to be questioned under oath, with actual answers demanded. They're just avoiding parliamentary questions, it's now just a sham. Unaccountable government by presidential decree now.


The speaker should be able to insist that they answer the fucking question. If they knowingly lie then they should be out of politics forever. There is less honour in UK politics than at a cock fight.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2020)

You would think though that the questioner would have the courage to ask for an actual answer to the question. If the speaker then rules them out of order they could surely object to that and make some sort of stink about the whole thing rather than just sitting down again. I can't see the Beast of Bolsover having stood for that shit.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

weepiper said:


> I speculate that we're going to get a new lockdown announcement of some sort in the Scottish Parliament tomorrow. This is a pretty big thing to be suddenly shifting back a day.




Half term begins quite soon in some parts of Scotland doesnt it? I guess the long rumoured circuit breaker stuff, timed to have some half term holiday overlap, is indeed going to materialise and its just a question of the precise detail and how much they do nationally rather than regionally/locally.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

Row after London council is warned off enforcing mask rules in shops
					

Exclusive: council says BEIS official intervened on shops’ side after it raised issue of non-compliance




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Ministers have been accused of putting the high street above public health after the business department warned council leaders against enforcing mask-wearing in supermarkets.
> 
> Four retailers – Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Morrisons and B&M homeware stores – were issued with warning notices by Barking and Dagenham council in east London after their staff were seen failing to enforce mask-wearing and social distancing by customers.





> After the enforcement notices were issued under antisocial behaviour legislation, stores are understood to have complained to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
> 
> A senior official at BEIS then phoned the council and said it “did not have powers to enforce these guidelines using the government’s Covid-19 emergency powers” and that “the action had caused a negative reaction from the operators”, according to a letter of complaint from the council to Alok Sharma, the business secretary.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

If I call them superspreadermarkets loudly enough will I get a call from the BEISty boys?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> If I call them superspreadermarkets loudly enough will I get a call from the BEISty boys?



It's 3 o'clock go to bed  

I went to bed but had an email going round in my head that I had to write so I got up again but I'm going back to bed soon so go to bed


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

I didn’t realise I was subject to a curfew. It’s not like I have to be up early to make myself COVID secure before breakfast either. But as it happens it is approaching my bedtime so until the next hideously predictable pandemic story, farewell.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> I didn’t realise I was subject to a curfew. It’s not like I have to be up early to make myself COVID secure before breakfast either. But as it happens it is approaching my bedtime so until the next hideously predictable pandemic story, farewell.


Carry on your good work at what ever time but don't burn yourself out.


----------



## Cid (Oct 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> If I call them superspreadermarkets loudly enough will I get a call from the BEISty boys?



I hadn't quite digested the full implications of superspreader events until that Atlantic article... It does make the way we're going about things seem doubly daft. It's not as if the lockdown policy of limited entry to supermarkets and special hours for the elderly was particularly onerous (though I suppose it's getting colder, which presents a few problems wrt outdoor queueing). We seem to be limiting the thing that is easy to limit, outdoor exposure, but probably a bit useless and increasing the thing that is hard to limit but potentially useful (extended time in poorly ventilated indoor spaces). How er... surprising . I think you've been talking about this to an extent from the start (especially in the sense of difference between coronavirus and flu spread), but as I say took that article to fully connect all the dots for me...


----------



## TopCat (Oct 6, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> I don’t know why, but that’s made me profoundly sad. He can’t be on a lot of money, it makes kids happy. What a shit thing to do.


They have deep and full pockets. This is cunty.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 6, 2020)

Commons rebellions expected at votes on curfew and rule of six
					

Conservative and Labour MPs are unhappy with lack of evidence behind 10pm closing time




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 6, 2020)

Seems obvious that 10pm closing is not going to make much difference tbh. Maybe when combined with other stuff?


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Seems obvious that 10pm closing is not going to make much difference tbh. Maybe when combined with other stuff?


Early opening?


----------



## Cid (Oct 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Seems obvious that 10pm closing is not going to make much difference tbh. Maybe when combined with other stuff?



What it is is an attempt to keep hospitality open, while limiting spread. As are all the other bits like keeping music down and banning dancing... it may still be too early to see effects. But tbh it is nearly 2 weeks and cases are still rising.

Problem here is that it seems totally arse about face to suggest that the right response to that is to remove the curfew.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 6, 2020)

> The Office for National Statistics says a total of 215 coronavirus-related deaths were registered in the week to 25 September.
> 
> In the week before, there were 139 COVID-19-related deaths registered, and before that it was 99.



* Those figures are only England & Wales, UK wide it was  234 deaths w/e 25 Sept.

So, that's more than double in numbers of deaths in two weeks, and judging by the daily figures since, that is likely to continue - meaning over 400 this week, and over 1000 in the last week of the month.   









						Coronavirus: Excess deaths involving COVID-19 rise for third week in a row, ONS says
					

COVID-19 now accounts for 2.2% of all deaths in England and Wales, according to the statistics agency.




					news.sky.com
				








__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, by age, sex and region.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## 2hats (Oct 6, 2020)

two sheds said:


> BBC saying it was the rows that were the problem?


It might be acceptable for doing your SOHO accounts, but if you think the answer to building any serious, robust data science analysis or warehousing pipeline is Excel then you haven't digested the question.


----------



## LDC (Oct 6, 2020)

2hats said:


> It might be acceptable for doing your SOHO accounts, but if you think the answer to building any serious, robust data science analysis or warehousing pipeline is Excel then you haven't digested the question.



Yeah Excel is what a bunch of us use when we go on holiday as a group to work out who's bringing what food and similar costs ffs, not for a nationally important database where people's lives are relying on it. I hysterically laughed when I saw the news. Mind blowing.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Seems obvious that 10pm closing is not going to make much difference tbh. Maybe when combined with other stuff?


What I think is really needed is different rules for pubs than for restaurants/cafes people behave different in pubs. Will not happen as they don't have the nerve and there is the problem of where you draw the line. I have not been out at busy times but even then I can see a defence in behaviour. People in pups are just more lax on distancing and table service.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> What I think is really needed is different rules for pubs than for restaurants/cafes people behave different in pubs. Will not happen as they don't have the nerve and there is the problem of where you draw the line. I have not been out at busy times but even then I can see a defence in behaviour. People in pups are just more lax on distancing and table service.


In Paris bars are shut as of today.
But not those that serve food...


----------



## TopCat (Oct 6, 2020)

I ain't going to no pub whatever the time.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 6, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> In Paris bars are shut as of today.
> But not those that serve food...


Which I think is good but most pubs serve food and those that don't could suddenly develop a sandwich menu easy enough.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 6, 2020)

Cid said:


> I hadn't quite digested the full implications of superspreader events until that Atlantic article... It does make the way we're going about things seem doubly daft. It's not as if the lockdown policy of limited entry to supermarkets and special hours for the elderly was particularly onerous (though I suppose it's getting colder, which presents a few problems wrt outdoor queueing). We seem to be limiting the thing that is easy to limit, outdoor exposure, but probably a bit useless and increasing the thing that is hard to limit but potentially useful (extended time in poorly ventilated indoor spaces). How er... surprising . I think you've been talking about this to an extent from the start (especially in the sense of difference between coronavirus and flu spread), but as I say took that article to fully connect all the dots for me...



It was also quite instructive about the things that Sweden is really getting right (by chance or design) - schools open, yes but U16s only - all 16-18 and college / uni courses are online only.

And " In reality, although Sweden joins many other countries in failing to protect elderly populations in congregate-living facilities, its measures that target super-spreading have been stricter than many other European countries. "
"It also encouraged social-distancing, and closed down indoor places that failed to observe the rules. From an overdispersion and super-spreading point of view, Sweden would not necessarily be classified as among the most lax countries, but nor is it the most strict. It simply doesn’t deserve this oversize place in our debates assessing different strategies. "

link again to Atlantic article, as it's a few pages back now. whole article is worth a read.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 6, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I ain't going to no pub whatever the time.


I basically went for breakfast and even at that time I could see a difference.


----------



## editor (Oct 6, 2020)

As someone who has recently been to a funeral, this must been particularly awful...









						Son 'angry' at being moved away from mum at dad's funeral
					

Craig Bicknell just wanted to comfort his "lost mother" at his dad's funeral in Milton Keynes.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## TopCat (Oct 6, 2020)

editor said:


> As someone who has recently been to a funeral, this must been particularly awful...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Grim.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Which I think is good but most pubs serve food and those that don't could suddenly develop a sandwich menu easy enough.


That's what I meant. Most bars do some type of food, even if only croissants to go with your morning coffee.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

Further restrictions for Nottingham sound likely:









						Coronavirus: Nottingham mixing ban 'likely' after spike
					

Restrictions similar to those in northern England could be announced later this week.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (Oct 6, 2020)

2hats said:


> It might be acceptable for doing your SOHO accounts, but if you think the answer to building any serious, robust data science analysis or warehousing pipeline is Excel then you haven't digested the question.



 I'm joking about it being good enough because I do my accounts on it. Really 

The posts I saw on here have blamed the private sector contractors and say that the problems came (amongst many other reasons) because Excel doesn't allow enough columns. The two pieces I put up blame PHE and say that they came because Excel didn't allow enough rows. The stories probably come from a single source, but I thought that was worth pointing out.


----------



## Cid (Oct 6, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> That's what I meant. Most bars do some type of food, even if only croissants to go with your morning coffee.



Early prohibition era bars serving a free beer with a $2* wurst.

*conversion may not be exact.

There are probably ways around that though.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

Well Scotlands new measures wont be announced till tomorrow after all, but Sturgeon has already mentioned some stuff that will not be included:









						Covid in Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon 'not proposing return to full lockdown'
					

The first minister will announce new restrictions on Wednesday - but says it will not be a return to full lockdown.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 6, 2020)

editor said:


> As someone who has recently been to a funeral, this must been particularly awful...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's the crematiorium where we had my mum's funeral - it looks a bit different there now.
I don't recall anyone there being anything other than respectful then, so I'd guess they were just trying to get everything right.

I hope they do change the rules for funerals -  if six people from different households are allowed to sit next to each other in a pub, it seems particularly cruel that two or three family members from different households can't sit closer than 2m at a funeral. (if indeed those are rules, and not insensitively interpreted 'guidance').


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 6, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> That's the crematiorium where we had my mum's funeral - it looks a bit different there now.
> I don't recall anyone there being anything other than respectful then, so I'd guess they were just trying to get everything right.
> 
> I hope they do change the rules for funerals -  if six people from different households are allowed to sit next to each other in a pub, it seems particularly cruel that two or three family members from different households can't sit closer than 2m at a funeral. (if indeed those are rules, and not insensitively interpreted 'guidance').



I don't really understand what happened here.  I don't think MK is under any special measures so surely the rule of 6 people from different households mixing would have applied here?  Are there different rules for funerals?  Seems like either an oversight in the law or a misinterpretation by the crem.


----------



## Thora (Oct 6, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I don't really understand what happened here.  I don't think MK is under any special measures so surely the rule of 6 people from different households mixing would have applied here?  Are there different rules for funerals?  Seems like either an oversight in the law or a misinterpretation by the crem.


The 6 people still have to social distance though, don’t they?


----------



## mr steev (Oct 6, 2020)

emanymton said:


> What I think is really needed is different rules for pubs than for restaurants/cafes people behave different in pubs. Will not happen as they don't have the nerve and there is the problem of where you draw the line. I have not been out at busy times but even then I can see a defence in behaviour. People in pups are just more lax on distancing and table service.



It completely depends on the pub though - a small local differs from a large chain, a gastro pub differs from a city center bar. There's no one size fits all


----------



## Wilf (Oct 6, 2020)

Cid said:


> Early prohibition era bars serving a free beer with a $2* wurst.
> 
> *conversion may not be exact.
> 
> There are probably ways around that though.


So, there are wurst ways round it?

coat.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 6, 2020)

Thora said:


> The 6 people still have to social distance though, don’t they?



That may well be it but no one sits a metre a way from each other when in a group in a cafe or whatever.  The groups are just split from each other, so not sure why it would be different in a crem.

Seems a bit over zealous from the crem.  I went to a funeral a few weeks back where the numbers were limited and and there was space for the chairs to be moved to small groups.  No one questioned whether that family of four all still lived together etc.  I mean lets face it they likely will have been a lot of hugs and embraces flying around anyway.


----------



## Doodler (Oct 6, 2020)

Went for the flu jab today at my local clinic. Everything was well organised, with an easy-to-use touchscreen display for each injectee to confirm their attendance, an information board propped up outside telling you in large type to be ready with your jacket off and sleeve rolled up, floor stickers showing where to stand.

But funny to hear the grumbling in the queue: bloody ridiculous this is, I'm not touching that screen you do it. The old are bigger snowflakes than the young!


----------



## brogdale (Oct 6, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Went for the flu jab today at my local clinic. Everything was well organised, with an easy-to-use touchscreen display for each injectee to confirm their attendance, an information board propped up outside telling you in large type to be ready with your jacket off and sleeve rolled up, floor stickers showing where to stand.
> 
> But funny to hear the grumbling in the queue: bloody ridiculous this is, I'm not touching that screen you do it. The old are bigger snowflakes than the young!


"The old" sound pretty sensible to me...can't think of anything better designed to spread virus than a doctor's touchscreen, tbh.


----------



## editor (Oct 6, 2020)

Oh it's all going to be OK in a year. Boris said so









						Social distancing 'to end by October 2021', Boris Johnson promises
					

The PM previosuly said he hopes for 'normality' by November this year.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Doodler (Oct 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> "The old" sound pretty sensible to me...can't think of anything better designed to spread virus than a doctor's touchscreen, tbh.



Should have added: one of the clinic admin people was hovering around to clean the screen with a medicated wipe. The grumbling was not justified but maybe that's one of the pleasures of old age - I'll know soon enough!


----------



## brogdale (Oct 6, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Should have added: one of the clinic admin people was hovering around to clean the screen with a medicated wipe. The grumbling was not justified but maybe that's one of the pleasures of old age - I'll know soon enough!


Yeah, the hollowed out alienation of the neoliberal, consolidator state's reluctant provision of socialised healthcare; rather than employ someone to meet/greet and register patients...just use a MaccaDee-style germ spreading screen that requires constant cleaning.

A personal irritant, as you can probably tell.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 6, 2020)

editor said:


> Oh it's all going to be OK in a year. Boris said so
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's.... not really his decision is it?


----------



## existentialist (Oct 6, 2020)

Cloo said:


> That's.... not really his decision is it?


He's just doing that thing he does - throwing something out there for the benefit of the remaining shreds of his government's "credibility". Bland assurances and bullshit.


----------



## Sue (Oct 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Yeah, the hollowed out alienation of the neoliberal, consolidator state's reluctant provision of socialised healthcare; rather than *employ someone to meet/greet and register patients*...just use a MaccaDee-style germs-reading screen that requires constant cleaning.
> 
> A personal irritant, as you can probably tell.



This is what mine did. Loads of staff, all very slick, was in and out within five minutes.


----------



## Cid (Oct 6, 2020)

editor said:


> Oh it's all going to be OK in a year. Boris said so
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Oh fuck, this is on us for the next decade then?


----------



## Doodler (Oct 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Yeah, the hollowed out alienation of the neoliberal, consolidator state's reluctant provision of socialised healthcare; rather than employ someone to meet/greet and register patients...just use a MaccaDee-style germs-reading screen that requires constant cleaning.
> 
> A personal irritant, as you can probably tell.



The clinic did have the usual admin staff in attendance. If the screen cuts down on talking time inside the clinic, that means less airborne droplets per visitor. People were in and out of there very quickly.


----------



## maomao (Oct 6, 2020)

He's just picked a date by when it's almost certain that he'll no longer be prime minister.

I couldn't bear to actually listen to him but just read some of the highlights of his speech and he really is a tedious unfunny wanker isn't he. The country's falling to pieces and he's making jokes about leg wrestling. I wish he'd just fucking fuck off.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 6, 2020)

Doodler said:


> The clinic did have the usual admin staff in attendance. If the screen cuts down on talking time inside the clinic, that means less airborne droplets per visitor. People were in and out of there very quickly.


Yes, I'm aware that I'm coming across as a grumpy old Luddite; it's just that I see people touching screens and shudder that doctors' think it's progress. 

FWIW, when called to my jab I'm going to carry an iPad pen/thing/jabber with me just in case they insist on screen work.


----------



## Doodler (Oct 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Yes, I'm aware that I'm coming across as a grumpy old Luddite; it's just that I see people touching screens and shudder that doctors' think it's progress.
> 
> FWIW, when called to my jab I'm going to carry an iPad pen/thing/jabber with me just in case they insist on screen work.



I share your dislike of touchscreens in many settings where they've replaced even very brief forms of human contact and acknowledgment, like in supermarkets.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 6, 2020)

Jab it with your elbow, you can make several appointments at once


----------



## Cid (Oct 6, 2020)

I dislike most forms of human interaction and look forward to the day they’re all replaced by touch screens.


----------



## Septimus Rufiji (Oct 6, 2020)




----------



## MrSki (Oct 6, 2020)

editor said:


> Curtains for the Gunnersaurus
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ozil has offered to pay he wages.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 6, 2020)

Thora said:


> The 6 people still have to social distance though, don’t they?



No the law states...



> Exemptions include cases where a single household or support bubble is larger than six people. The rule also does not apply to gatherings for work or education purposes, and to other gatherings including weddings, funerals, and team sports organised in a COVID-19 secure way.
> 
> Venues following COVID-19 secure guidelines – such as places of worships, gyms, restaurants and other hospitality venues – can still hold more than six people in total. But within those venues, there must not be individual groups larger than six, and groups must not mix socially or form larger groups.



A chapel, including those at a crematorium, are a place of worship, so groups of six are OK, as long as they socially distance from others attending, that's what's happening around here, according to my funeral director mate. 

The crematorium in this case is barking mad to think a group of six can sit together in a pub, but not at a funeral. Although it does sound like their funeral directors are partly to blame, for not making their needs known to the crematorium. 

Even more nuts, according to BBC TV news report just aired, the sons had already moved in with their mother, to support her back in mid Sept., so were one household anyway.   

The guidance, not law, says you should stay 2 metres apart from people you do not live with or 1 metre with extra precautions, such as a face covering.



> Everyone should continue to follow guidance on:
> 
> 
> Washing your hands regularly and for 20 seconds
> ...











						Rule of six comes into effect to tackle coronavirus
					

Rule applies across indoor and outdoor settings, with police able to disperse gatherings of over six people and fine individuals involved.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 6, 2020)

Oh FFS, 14,542 new cases today!

I thought they had dealt with the back-log, so this is the actual figure?

And, 76 new deaths, but that's catching-up on the lag from the weekend, last Tuesday it was 71.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 6, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Mezut Ozil earns £18.2 million p.a


Like a genie lamp . Ozil’s just offered to pay the fellas salary as long as he is an Arsenal player


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh FFS, 14,542 new cases today!
> 
> I thought they had dealt with the back-log, so this is the actual figure?
> 
> And, 76 new deaths, but that's catching-up on the lag from the weekend, last Tuesday it was 71.



They dealt with the error-related backlog but there is always some reporting delay so the daily number has never reflected the number of positive samples taken on one particular day.

But yeah as I said yesterday, Saturdays number was actually somewhat indicative of what the new normal really was at that time, and it was only Sundays over 20,000 number that was distorted so massively by the error-correction catchup.

I guess I will repeat my colour-coding exercise in this thread again but with a fresh graph for UK positive tests by specimen date. Blue is everything reported up to and including yesterdays data release, green is where the positive tests reported today fit into the picture by specimen date.


If we attempt a vague mental exercise of imagining how additional data will add to this picture, it is possible to imagine that even by specimen date there will soon be days showing up that hit 14,000 or more by specimen date. I might therefore tentatively conclude that the daily reported number has probably returned to being a reasonable proxy for how many positive tests by specimen date there really were around that day.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> They dealt with the error-related backlog but there is always some reporting delay so the daily number has never reflected the number of positive samples taken on one particular day.
> 
> But yeah as I said yesterday, Saturdays number was actually somewhat indicative of what the new normal really was at that time, and it was only Sundays over 20,000 number that was distorted so massively by the error-correction catchup.
> 
> ...


To the untrained eye, it does look as though the month of August took us from low fluctuating flat-lining to the "preconditions got take-off". The Sunak legacy?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 6, 2020)

brogdale said:


> To the untrained eye, it does look as though the month of August took us from low fluctuating flat-lining to the "preconditions got take-off". The Sunak legacy?



Holiday season will absolutely play a big role as well.


----------



## xenon (Oct 6, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> That's the crematiorium where we had my mum's funeral - it looks a bit different there now.
> I don't recall anyone there being anything other than respectful then, so I'd guess they were just trying to get everything right.
> 
> I hope they do change the rules for funerals -  if six people from different households are allowed to sit next to each other in a pub, it seems particularly cruel that two or three family members from different households can't sit closer than 2m at a funeral. (if indeed those are rules, and not insensitively interpreted 'guidance').



This is very much a er, live issue, for me as I'm sad to say my dad passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.

It's going to be particularly shit if I can't sit next to my sister. Which is what the crem, Croydon in this case, information suggests. Mourners must wear masks and stay 2M apart for the duration of the service.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 6, 2020)

Goodall picking up on the rise in those on ventilators:


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 6, 2020)

xenon said:


> This is very much a er, live issue, for me as I'm sad to say my dad passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.
> 
> It's going to be particularly shit if I can't sit next to my sister. Which is what the crem, Croydon in this case, information suggests. Mourners must wear masks and stay 2M apart for the duration of the service.



So sorry to hear that your dad has passed away, Xenon.

Looking closer at the Rule of six guidance (& see cupid_stunt's post above) it does seem like crematoriums are enforcing more social distancing than they are actually required to.  I can only hope that that the publicity given to the case above, means they decide they can interpret it more sensitively after all.




			
				Rule of six guidance said:
			
		

> Exemptions include cases where a single household or support bubble is larger than six people. The rule also does not apply to gatherings for work or education purposes, and to other gatherings including weddings, funerals, and team sports organised in a COVID-19 secure way.
> 
> Venues following COVID-19 secure guidelines – such as places of worships, gyms, restaurants and other hospitality venues – can still hold more than six people in total. But within those venues, there must not be individual groups larger than six, and groups must not mix socially or form larger groups.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

Admissions went up by a fair leap too:



> The number of people admitted to hospital with coronavirus has jumped by a quarter in England in a day.
> 
> There were 478 people admitted to hospital on Sunday - the largest daily figure since early June - up from 386.





> More than two-thirds of the new admissions in England (334) were in the North West, North East and Yorkshire, according to the government's coronavirus dashboard.











						Covid hospital cases jump nearly 25% in England
					

There were 478 people admitted to hospital on Sunday - the largest daily figure since early June.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




By the way I dont think the admissions number are literally the number of Covid patients that were admitted on a particular day, for several reasons including that the number includes people who werent already confirmed positive when admitted but tested positive later.

To quote from an NHS document:



> Worked example: the estimated admissions figure for 10 Sept is calculated by adding admissions collected on 11 Sept (because they are admissions that took place on 10 Sept) to diagnoses collected on 12 Sept (because diagnoses reported on 12 Sept took place on 11 Sept and we assume the all diagnoses on 11 Sept relate to admission that took place the previous day, i.e. on 10 Sept).



In fact they are aware that the assumption that all diagnoses on a particular day relate to admissions that took place the previous day is not actually safe, there is a longer lag between admission and diagnosis at times, very much including times where the person caught it while in hospital. So they try to make the picture clearer bu also offering some other data but the differences are pretty tedious so I dont go on about these alternative figures much. But here is the relevant NHS webpage anyway. Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

Oh and this is a graph showing the regional hospital picture for England since the start of June. Its Covid-19 patient numbers in hospital, not admissions per day, because I havent had a chance to update my admissions graph yet.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

Quick stab at an admissions by region of England graph turned out a bit messy but I ran out of time to do any better so here it is. Again, only shows from June onwards. Also colours are not mapped to the same regions that they were in the previous graphs, sorry.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

Remdesivir rationing:









						Global shortage of key Covid drug leads to NHS rationing
					

Pressure mounts on manufacturer to allow other companies to supply remdesivir




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Dr Andrew Hill, senior visiting research fellow at Liverpool University, said the crisis was predicted in June, when the US secured all production of the drug until October. He had heard, he said, that some UK hospitals were down to their last few doses of the drug. Others were figuring out how to ration it, for instance by giving fewer than five doses if a patient seemed to be doing well.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 6, 2020)

Scientists call for Covid herd immunity strategy for young
					

Critics describe proposal to isolate vulnerable, disabled and older people as ‘grotesque’




					www.theguardian.com
				




Somewhat irresponsible reporting by the guardian here


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Scientists call for Covid herd immunity strategy for young
> 
> 
> Critics describe proposal to isolate vulnerable, disabled and older people as ‘grotesque’
> ...



Whats wrong with the article? It spends most of its time quoting people who are pissing on the foul ideas of the dangerous pandemic clowns.

For example:



> William Hanage, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard, said the declaration seemed to be attacking a position of mass, ongoing lockdowns that nobody was taking. “After pointing out, correctly, the indirect damage caused by the pandemic, they respond that the answer is to increase the direct damage caused by it,” he said.





> Work by Hanage and others suggests that Covid becomes more lethal than flu from the mid-30s and climbs exponentially from there, meaning that great swathes of the population, who are not in nursing homes, would need protecting. “Stating that you can keep the virus out of places by testing at a time when the White House has an apparently ongoing outbreak should illustrate how likely that is,” he said.





> Tweeting in response to the declaration, Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist at Yale University, said shutdowns and other interventions would have to happen to get rates of infection down. With nearly half of the population having some underlying health risk for Covid-19, he said herd immunity strategies “are about culling the herd of the sick and disabled. It’s grotesque.”



The headline doesnt begin to do the story justice but I'm used to that.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> Whats wrong with the article? It spends most of its time quoting people who are pissing on the foul ideas of the dangerous pandemic clowns.
> 
> For example:
> 
> ...


On the guardian front page it says 'Scientists call for herd immunity strategy for young' and the opening para gives the impression their ideas have credibility outside a fringe, whereas in fact it's just Gupta and a few others


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

Only 17 votes against the rule of 6 etc in the end:









						Coronavirus: 'Rule of six' doesn't make sense, say rebel Tory MPs
					

The government wins a vote to keep the restriction in England despite rebels clashing with a minister.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> On the guardian front page it says 'Scientists call for herd immunity strategy for young' and the opening para gives the impression their ideas have credibility outside a fringe, whereas in fact it's just Gupta and a few others



I shall be keeping an eye on signatories of the 'Great Barrington Declaration'.









						Great Barrington Declaration and Petition
					

As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection




					gbdeclaration.org
				




Most of what else I could say is probably redundant at this point. Fuckwits.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

There are warnings that my town might end up with extra restrictions.

And I have noticed a trend towards more public health officials conceding that pubs and restaurants are implicated in some infections.









						Rapid rise of coronavirus cases could lead to mini local lockdown
					

Health bosses say the borough could become an 'area of concern'




					www.coventrytelegraph.net
				






> "Household transmission has been identified as the main cause of the increase in cases in the borough, so keeping to the rule of six is essential," she said.
> 
> "We have also seen an increase in cases in people visiting public houses and restaurants and we have been working closely with local businesses to ensure that people visiting the premises are adhering to the rules.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 6, 2020)

3000 people now in hospital


----------



## Oula (Oct 6, 2020)

xenon said:


> This is very much a er, live issue, for me as I'm sad to say my dad passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.
> 
> It's going to be particularly shit if I can't sit next to my sister. Which is what the crem, Croydon in this case, information suggests. Mourners must wear masks and stay 2M apart for the duration of the service.


So sorry to hear this xenon*. *I hope you are able to sit together and support each other.


----------



## Supine (Oct 6, 2020)

On the subject of funerals try to be careful. At my aunties funeral last month everyone seemed fine but 8 people out of 17 came down with bad colds within a couple of days. Luckily is wasn't covid but the event was definately a superspreader event.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 3000 people now in hospital



The official number is still below 3000 unless I missed something, but in terms of actual current reality at this moment, as in actual reality not just that which we've deduced via testing and added to the data, it may well be over 3000.

Meanwhile, oh shit:









						Patients' access to vital NHS tests delayed by warehouse failure
					

Covid swabs and key tests for cancer could be unavailable after problems at diagnostics firm Roche.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Coronavirus swabs and other key NHS tests are under threat after a supply chain failure at a major diagnostics company.
> 
> Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche said problems during a move to a new warehouse had caused a "very significant drop" in its processing capacity.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

> In a letter sent to NHS trusts, seen by the BBC, Roche said: "In September we moved from our old warehouse to a new automated warehouse capable of much higher volumes.
> 
> "However, during the transition we encountered some unforeseen issues and a very significant drop in our processing capacity. Since then we have worked around the clock to prioritise and manage orders as well as increase this capacity".
> 
> The letter went on to advise local NHS services to "activate [their] local contingency plans" and "look to prioritise essential services only".



It wasnt capable of higher volumes then was it. Automated clusterfuck.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 6, 2020)

xenon said:
			
		

> This is very much a er, live issue, for me as I'm sad to say my dad passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.
> 
> It's going to be particularly shit if I can't sit next to my sister. Which is what the crem, Croydon in this case, information suggests. Mourners must wear masks and stay 2M apart for the duration of the service.



Biggest sympathies xenon !


----------



## Mation (Oct 6, 2020)

xenon said:


> This is very much a er, live issue, for me as I'm sad to say my dad passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.
> 
> It's going to be particularly shit if I can't sit next to my sister. Which is what the crem, Croydon in this case, information suggests. Mourners must wear masks and stay 2M apart for the duration of the service.


Sorry for your loss, xenon. It must be especially hard, now. I hope you're able to do what you need to, to get through the funeral. x


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 6, 2020)

xenon said:


> This is very much a er, live issue, for me as I'm sad to say my dad passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.
> 
> It's going to be particularly shit if I can't sit next to my sister. Which is what the crem, Croydon in this case, information suggests. Mourners must wear masks and stay 2M apart for the duration of the service.


I'm so sorry


----------



## miss direct (Oct 6, 2020)

I'm really sorry xenon 
At my Dad's funeral in August, there was a limit on numbers and masks had to be worn unless you were speaking, but no enforced distancing. How are they to know who's in your household? I hope they are understanding given the circumstances. Funerals are hard enough.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> On the guardian front page it says 'Scientists call for herd immunity strategy for young' and the opening para gives the impression their ideas have credibility outside a fringe, whereas in fact it's just Gupta and a few others



Oh you should see what the Daily Mail have done with it on their front page. The pandemic clowns have been elevated to worlds top scientists.


From Newspaper headlines: Let life 'return to normal' and lockdown 'row'


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> The official number is still below 3000 unless I missed something, but in terms of actual current reality at this moment, as in actual reality not just that which we've deduced via testing and added to the data, it may well be over 3000.
> 
> Meanwhile, oh shit:
> 
> ...


Sorry, yes, I think that the post I saw was someone who had approximated it. The number I saw quoted in the guardian was 2783.


----------



## xenon (Oct 7, 2020)

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.

This year has been stressful, like for many others I know, worrying how social care would continue, regarding staff off sick potential short staffedness (SP) re coronavirus.

Won't go into details here but it wasn't covid he died of FWIW. But he would have been highly vunrible to it anyway, had he got it.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

I was very sorry to hear of your loss.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 7, 2020)

xenon said:


> This is very much a er, live issue, for me as I'm sad to say my dad passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.
> 
> It's going to be particularly shit if I can't sit next to my sister. Which is what the crem, Croydon in this case, information suggests. Mourners must wear masks and stay 2M apart for the duration of the service.


So sorry to hear your bad news Xenon.    That's an awful thing to cope with at the best of times, but this makes it so much worse. My Mum died in May and nobody was that sure about the funeral regs for mourners. I hope that at least runs as smoothly as it can for you and your family.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 7, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I'm really sorry xenon
> At my Dad's funeral in August, there was a limit on numbers and masks had to be worn unless you were speaking, but no enforced distancing. How are they to know who's in your household? I hope they are understanding given the circumstances. Funerals are hard enough.


I'm sorry to hear about your loss too miss direct  Hope you are coping as well as can be.


----------



## xenon (Oct 7, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I'm really sorry xenon
> At my Dad's funeral in August, there was a limit on numbers and masks had to be worn unless you were speaking, but no enforced distancing. How are they to know who's in your household? I hope they are understanding given the circumstances. Funerals are hard enough.



Thank you. And sorry, yes and condolences to you too miss direct. I've seen some of your posts regarding having to move back to the UK but missed this bit. Hope you're doing OK yourself.


----------



## Chairman Meow (Oct 7, 2020)

I'm sorry for your losses, Xenon and miss direct.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

A sensitive subject, so positive spin drives activated at the BBC:









						Coronavirus: Scientists to map hospital spread
					

UK researchers want to pin down how Covid-19 can spread in hospitals despite best efforts to stop it.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Scientists are to map the spread of Covid in over 15 UK hospitals, to see how it can defeat even the best infection-control defences.



Spare me the laughable framing, even the best infection-control defences, best efforts, bah. There is less of that varnishing when the people involved talk about it:



> Prof Judith Breuer, who is leading the work, said: "By sequencing Covid-19 viruses rapidly, we hope to establish how hospital staff and patients became infected.
> 
> "This will allow hospitals to put effective measures in place faster, to try to interrupt onward transmission of the virus and reduce the number and size of outbreaks."


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

And when I did a quick search for UCL in the news to get more info about that study, I found this instead:


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

I found another article about the hospital genome study. Here are a few of the quotes from Judith Breuer that didnt make it to the BBC article at the time of me writing this. I simply can't imagine why the BBC left some of these out, honest.









						Spread of coronavirus mapped in hospitals to ‘break the chain’ of transmission
					

The study could help the NHS reduce transmission by determining if an individual caught the virus from someone else in the same hospital.




					www.largsandmillportnews.com
				






> Spread of Covid-19 infections in hospitals is now recognised to be a major problem for both healthcare workers and patients, and breaking the chain of these transmissions is critical.





> “Despite these measures, Covid-19 transmission to patients and staff is still occurring and has sadly proven fatal.
> 
> “So it is essential that we try out new tools such as viral sequencing to find out why this is happening and to help reduce hospital spread.”


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

A much fairer reflection of reality from the BBC here:



> *Inspectors have demanded improvements from a hospital after a report highlighted a number of failings over Covid-19 precautions.*
> The Care Quality Commission inspected the emergency department and medical wards at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent, on 11 August.
> Staff were seen to be wearing masks incorrectly, not using hand sanitiser and not adhering to social distancing.





> Ted Baker, Chief Inspector of Hospitals, said: "It is extremely disappointing to find that despite being warned about their hygiene, not enough work had been carried out to address infection control issues within the trust.
> "It is particularly concerning during a time when infection control could never have been more important.
> "Following the inspection, we reported our findings to the trust so its leaders know what they must address. We used our enforcement powers by imposing conditions on the trust's registration, to ensure people are safe."











						East Kent Hospitals Trust: Covid-19 practice failings revealed by inspection
					

Staff wore PPE incorrectly and sanitiser bottles were left empty at the William Harvey Hospital.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 7, 2020)

Condolences to miss direct  and xenon


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 7, 2020)

wrt to hospitals / covid .

I know that on "Tyneside" there was a plan to keep at least the Freeman "covid-free"

Since Bezza's been at Cramlington (that's Northumberland's specialist A&E) I think that may be in the same category [or the internal precautions / divisions are intended to be better - the design is "nuclear" with lots of individual rooms / small units]
I'll report back when I know more].


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 7, 2020)

xenon said:


> This is very much a er, live issue, for me as I'm sad to say my dad passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.
> 
> It's going to be particularly shit if I can't sit next to my sister. Which is what the crem, Croydon in this case, information suggests. Mourners must wear masks and stay 2M apart for the duration of the service.



Very sorry to hear this xenon.  I hope the funeral goes as well as it can for you and your sister.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 7, 2020)

Just to echo what quimcunx said above. Thoughts to you xenon and miss direct


----------



## Badgers (Oct 7, 2020)

FFS 





__





						Greene King pub closures: Chain to axe 800 jobs
					

Greene King is reportedly set to close pubs and axe 800 jobs, as the hospitality industry is hit hard by the Government's new 10pm curfew.



					metro.co.uk


----------



## weepiper (Oct 7, 2020)

Shitting hell, more than a thousand new cases in Scotland today


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 7, 2020)

They've lost control of it (again), haven't they ?

Bliddy 'ell weepiper - that is a huge leap in cases.

I repeat what I've said before - you can't have hospitality, (esp pubs) and education (esp the universities) both open. Only one of them at a time. IMO the lockdown relaxations have been done too quickly and too widely.

I don't want it without the furlough scheme being extended, the economy is already suffering - but Sunak's new scheme isn't much help - We really need another three or four weeks of a very strict lockdown.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

Some peoples thoughts on the pandemic clown scientists and their latest shit that we were discussing last night.


----------



## belboid (Oct 7, 2020)

Sheffield may we’ll be back in lockdown by tonight, it’s definitely coming very soon.  The only reason it isn’t already is because the big rise is (shock, horror) due to lots and lots of students having it, but since they’re being pretty much isolated away from the wider community we’re getting an extra day or two to play.


----------



## Mation (Oct 7, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> We really need another three or four weeks of a very strict lockdown.


We really, really do.

I can currently hear a housemate sneezing outside my room door. One housemate keeps having her boyfriend to visit from Nottingham, wandering about the house sans mask. I'm expected to go to work on site with too many people for the space and facilities we have. Public transport is way too crowded to be able to keep your distance, given that there are so many dick-noses about.

I know that's all me, me, me, but there must be a great many risks, similar or different, that people are being subjected to, in this clown car crash. 

No one can reasonably claim we don't have the benefit of hindsight, now. There are lots of roads to disaster, but the economic ones are all fixable, if there's the will to do it. Deaths and long-term debilitation aren't.


----------



## mack (Oct 7, 2020)

xenon said:


> This is very much a er, live issue, for me as I'm sad to say my dad passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.
> 
> It's going to be particularly shit if I can't sit next to my sister. Which is what the crem, Croydon in this case, information suggests. Mourners must wear masks and stay 2M apart for the duration of the service.



Very sorry to hear of your loss, my dad passed at the beginning of April - we couldn't cremate him for six weeks. 

At the service at Croydon crem we had to basically sit on individual rows (which was awful for my mum) wear the masks etc.

The whole thing felt very clinical and was over in a flash, btw no flowers were allowed either - don't know if the rules have changed since then.

Still not been able to have a get together with all the family - so the whole situation feels unresolved.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

Its time to find out what the new Scottish restrictions will be. Sturgeon is speaking now.



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-54424816


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

Says that an evidence paper today suggests they would be back to the levels of infection seen at the first peak by the end of the month if it keeps growing at the current rate.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

Not recommending that people who shielded in the past return to staying indoors only. But they should be careful, especially in the central belt.

The new hospitality rules are quite complicated so I wont try to describe them properly now. But as a preview, alcohol indoors is not an option for a bit, times are restricted and there are a lot of closures for the central belt.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 7, 2020)

Sorry to read this, condolences xenon .


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

They've gone for 16 days as the time period, so that they can include 3 weekends.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 7, 2020)

belboid said:


> Sheffield may we’ll be back in lockdown by tonight, it’s definitely coming very soon.  The only reason it isn’t already is because the big rise is (shock, horror) due to lots and lots of students having it, but since they’re being pretty much isolated away from the wider community we’re getting an extra day or two to play.


I heard Saturday. Will be interested to read the exact details of what "lockdown" means.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

Scotland are also tightening mask rules and are asking supermarkets etc to return to 2 metre distancing etc.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> Scotland are also tightening mask rules and are asking supermarkets etc to return to 2 metre distancing etc.


Which. To be fair should never have been relaxed anywhere in the UK


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> They've gone for 16 days as the time period, so that they can include 3 weekends.



Don't they know the best time to bring these in is Monday so everyone can get a weekend in first?


----------



## weepiper (Oct 7, 2020)

Good thread of the new Scottish restrictions here.


----------



## LDC (Oct 7, 2020)

Meanwhile the rest of the UK (cough... cough.... England...) does very little at a painfully slow pace.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Meanwhile the rest of the UK (cough... cough.... England...) does very little at a painfully slow pace.


Perhaps only keeping pubs open till 21:45 will solve everything?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 7, 2020)

Full round-up of measures being taken...









						Covid: Pubs and restaurants in central Scotland to close
					

The new rules will apply to all licensed premises in the central belt of the country - including Glasgow and Edinburgh.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## weepiper (Oct 7, 2020)

The rationale for the closing of hospitality


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

The nearest England equivalent to that very interesting Scottish data is this from the PHE weekly surveillance report:


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...eekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_40.pdf


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 7, 2020)

I know this is likely to come across as "my mate down the pub says" but my bezzer works in a hospice and says they're being told two weeks max before full lockdown in England to be added on to half term.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Meanwhile the rest of the UK (cough... cough.... England...) does very little at a painfully slow pace.



Apart from the infections, it’s crucial we power through those.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 7, 2020)

weepiper said:


> The rationale for the closing of hospitality
> 
> View attachment 233300



Doesn't mention work in that graph? I'd thought factories were major contribution - Leicester and Pool in Cornwall as two examples. You'd imagine that would then feed back through the households.


----------



## LDC (Oct 7, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I know this is likely to come across as "my mate down the pub says" but my bezzer works in a hospice and says they're being told two weeks max before full lockdown in England to be added on to half term.



Yeah, I can't see them holding this wait and see pattern for much longer, even with the position against restrictions held by some in the party and industries.


----------



## xenon (Oct 7, 2020)

mack said:


> Very sorry to hear of your loss, my dad passed at the beginning of April - we couldn't cremate him for six weeks.
> 
> At the service at Croydon crem we had to basically sit on individual rows (which was awful for my mum) wear the masks etc.
> 
> ...



Sorry for your loss too. Yeah, I'm not sure how much has changed. You are allowed up to 30 now I believe. Will obviously be looking at this in more detail. At least it won't be on bloody Zoom.

Hoep you can have a family get together soon.

As an aside, it was quite surprising how many people were not wearing masks in the hospital. Some visitors and at least one member of staff . My uncle was getting quite irate about it.


----------



## killer b (Oct 7, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I know this is likely to come across as "my mate down the pub says" but my bezzer works in a hospice and says they're being told two weeks max before full lockdown in England to be added on to half term.


Is that something the hospice management are being told by someone in government, or just what they're expecting to happen based on case numbers and direction of travel at the moment though? 

I'm looking at work clients are booking this month and gently encouraging them to go sooner rather than later - I'd imagine lots of people are working on the hypothesis that there's a good chance there's going to be much heavier restrictions before the end of the month...


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 7, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I know this is likely to come across as "my mate down the pub says" but my bezzer works in a hospice and says they're being told two weeks max before full lockdown in England to be added on to half term.



I'm not sure the government have it worked out that far ahead tbh, let alone having communicated it to people working in affected areas whilst keeping it out of the media.


----------



## maomao (Oct 7, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I know this is likely to come across as "my mate down the pub says" but my bezzer works in a hospice and says they're being told two weeks max before full lockdown in England to be added on to half term.


I'm waiting to be sent on a school placement and was told (rather vaguely tbh) by a tutor today that it may be put back slightly due to 'lots of places having two week half terms'. Which doesn't mean it will happen but people in education obviously think it will.


----------



## editor (Oct 7, 2020)

On the one hand









						Coronavirus: Health experts join global anti-lockdown movement
					

Scientists warn of the "devastating" effect of Covid-19 policies, calling for a return to normal for healthy people.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




And on the other hand









						Covid: Pubs and restaurants in central Scotland to close
					

The new rules will apply to all licensed premises in the central belt of the country - including Glasgow and Edinburgh.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




No wonder people are confused.

I wonder how many infections that twat Cummngs is indirectly responsible for. When he got away with that driving jolly you could almost hear the fractures in lockdowns happening all over the country.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 7, 2020)

Yes for time being my freinds funeral was 30 last week with zoom for others no particular distancing and we got an Indian restaurant to book us 5 groups of 6 and it was a free for all really as we weren't visable from the Street xenon no pubs were interested.


----------



## killer b (Oct 7, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'm waiting to be sent on a school placement and was told (rather vaguely tbh) by a tutor today that it may be put back slightly due to 'lots of places having two week half terms'. Which doesn't mean it will happen but people in education obviously think it will.


lots of places do have two week half terms anyway tbf


----------



## weepiper (Oct 7, 2020)

Scottish Nat 5 exams (our GCSEs) off for 2021, to be assessed on coursework instead. Highers and Advanced Highers to go ahead but later than usual.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 7, 2020)

Mation said:


> We really, really do.
> 
> I can currently hear a housemate sneezing outside my room door. One housemate keeps having her boyfriend to visit from Nottingham, wandering about the house sans mask. I'm expected to go to work on site with too many people for the space and facilities we have. Public transport is way too crowded to be able to keep your distance, given that there are so many dick-noses about.
> 
> ...


FWIW sneezing isn’t a C19 symptom


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2020)

14,162 cases today


----------



## LDC (Oct 7, 2020)

editor said:


> On the one hand
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That first article is exactly the type of thing that's causing problems. The media are sowing confusion by pretending the science for the lockdown is massively disputed, which it really isn't. The they claim the public are confused about it all. It's infuriating and highly irresponsible.


----------



## chilango (Oct 7, 2020)

Not hearing anything in Education regarding a looming lockdown...yet.


----------



## xenon (Oct 7, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Yes for time being my freinds funeral was 30 last week with zoom for others no particular distancing and we got an Indian restaurant to book us 5 groups of 6 and it was a free for all really as we weren't visable from the Street xenon no pubs were interested.



THink we're looking at a hotel bar. But yeah, the way things are going who knows what restrictions are just round the corner.



frogwoman said:


> 14,162 cases today



I'm a bit out of touch, the spreadsheet fuckups I read about. But is this number ^ new cases with the error already corrected for or new cases including some of that number?

I know this was all done the other day but still can't believe they were using Excell. It's not a fucking database...


----------



## LDC (Oct 7, 2020)

chilango said:


> Not hearing anything in Education regarding a looming lockdown...yet.



Nor in primary care medical. Although not sure we would tbh. I expect the goverment have so little clue and are lurching moment by moment from one thing to the next like a spice smoking donkey with ADHD it's highly unlikely to be anything more than rumours whatever anyone hears atm.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 7, 2020)

I think there is going to be a spike in hospital acquired covid soon, mostly non severe. Whether its kept quiet or leaked is the question.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 7, 2020)

xenon said:


> THink we're looking at a hotel bar. But yeah, the way things are going who knows what restrictions are just round the corner.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It’s mostly new cases now, the spreadsheets been sorted.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> FWIW sneezing isn’t a C19 symptom



Except when it is.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 7, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> They've lost control of it (again), haven't they ?
> 
> Bliddy 'ell weepiper - that is a huge leap in cases.
> 
> ...



I said this ^^^ before today's UK figures were out.
Having looked at them ...
Yep, they have lost control, definitely.
We need that 4 weeks minimum of strict lockdown asap.
not waiting for after the weekend or school half-term, NOW !


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 7, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Scottish Nat 5 exams (our GCSEs) off for 2021, to be assessed on coursework instead.


My nephew, who has Aspergers, is delighted.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 7, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Except when it is.


Beg pardon? Sneezing/a snotty nose means it’s a common cold or hay fever. Covid is a dry cough, a temperature and/or loss of smell/taste




__





						Redirect Notice
					





					www.google.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (Oct 7, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> My nephew, who has Aspergers, is delighted.



exams are a fucking stupid idea anyway. I had good short term memory so I could cram for them in two weeks, forgot everything afterwards.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2020)

Don't a minority of covid patients sneeze and get runny noses tho? And a blocked nose could also be flu which could be serious.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2020)

When I had covid I didn't have swollen glands weirdly enough despite having a sore throat, but with flu and colds I did.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 7, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I said this ^^^ before today's UK figures were out.
> Having looked at them ...
> Yep, they have lost control, definitely.
> We need that 4 weeks minimum of strict lockdown asap.
> not waiting for after the weekend or school half-term, NOW !



Certainly in the north, maybe some areas in the Midlands, and perhaps London too, but I see no reason for a national lockdown, when much of the country has very low infection rates.


----------



## maomao (Oct 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Beg pardon? Sneezing/a snotty nose means it’s a common cold or hay fever. Covid is a dry cough, a temperature and/or loss of smell/taste
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I often sneeze when I'm not even ill. About 30% of people with covid have increased mucous and any respiratory illness can make you sneeze more often and more uncomfortably.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 7, 2020)

maomao said:


> I often sneeze when I'm not even ill. About 30% of people with covid have increased mucous and any respiratory illness can make you sneeze more often and more uncomfortably.


Aye, I sneeze loads after drinking


----------



## weepiper (Oct 7, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> My nephew, who has Aspergers, is delighted.


My middle son, who may also have Asperger's, is not overly upset by this news either.


----------



## andysays (Oct 7, 2020)

Sneezing isn't one of the top three symptoms of Covid, but if I was sharing a house with someone who invited their boyfriend over ATM, and said boyfriend wandered around my home sneezing while not wearing a mask, I'd be pretty pissed off.

What do your other flatmates think about this, Mation ? Is there any way you can bring some collective pressure to bear?


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

Over 14,000 cases reported again.

Here again is how they fit into the picture by specimen date (todays are in orange).


----------



## teuchter (Oct 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> Over 14,000 cases reported again.
> 
> Here again is how they fit into the picture by specimen date (todays are in orange).
> 
> View attachment 233318


Thanks so much for doing these graphs - they are a million times more useful than people just posting OMG x thousand new cases today.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Certainly in the north, maybe some areas in the Midlands, and perhaps London too, but I see no reason for a national lockdown, when much of the country has very low infection rates.



I would probably do something similar to Scotland.

Rates vary a lot over the country but there is no region of it that I would be hugely comfortable to describe as having very low infection rates, even though that is true in some ways.

Put it this way, even the number of people in hospital in the South West has gone from 12 to 68 in the last month. In the South East its more like having gone from 50 to 129. In the East of England its gone from 27 to 125. And those are the places considered to be doing quite well, and I dont think thats good enough. They may not be dramatic enough rises for some people, but then again some of those people would also not be convinced by London going from 92 to 336, the Midlands from 95 to 484, the North West from 164 to 1030 or the North East and Yorkshire from 97 to 772.

So personally I would impose some new restrictions in all parts of England, and go further in the worst affected places.

I couldnt say how long I would do this for unless I had access to the same modelling output that the government has. But the timescale Scotland are going with may be quite reasonable depending on exact objectives (ie how far they want to push transmission down at this stage).

As for exactly when to do it, again thats hard for me without seeing the models, and also because I would have taken a more cautious approach to the easing of restrictions in the first place, and would likely have reimposed some in the weeks before education reopened. So by my personal preference things are already late. If I knew exactly what they were aiming for in terms of trigger points (eg number of admissions per day or ICU occupancy levels) and what they consider to be the maximum tolerable level of infection, hospitalisation and death, it would be easier for me to predict their choice of timing.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 7, 2020)

The graphs would make a good time lapse.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 7, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Thanks so much for doing these graphs - they are a million times more useful than people just posting OMG x thousand new cases today.



Yep thanks for the graphs, but people posting OMG x thousand new cases is genuine too


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> The graphs would make a good time lapse.



I'd probably attempt it if I had actually collected the 'cases per date of specimen' data every single day from the dashboard, but I havent, so I cannot complete that mission. If the dashboard API makes this possible or some other source has collected the data in this way and I stumble upon it or someone points it out to me then I will consider attempting it.


----------



## Sue (Oct 7, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Certainly in the north, maybe some areas in the Midlands, and perhaps London too, but I see no reason for a national lockdown, when much of the country has very low infection rates.


In Scotland, it's maybe not a national lockdown but it is a majority of the population lockdown.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

The other reason I would think it wise to press the brakes to some degree across the whole country is the situation with testing capacity.

The levels of positivity seen in some areas is too high and is one indication that there is nowhere near enough testing taking place.

I recommend the following for one particular angle on that sort of thing, since part of it compares what level of positivity NYC uses to determine school closures (3%) with WHO May recommendations for considering reopening of stuff (5%) with Liverpools rate according to the week 40 PHE report (almost 15%).





__





						We Are Still Not Doing Enough Testing: A Case Study of New York and Liverpool Schools - Dr Duncan Robertson
					

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that “New York City on Wednesday will close public schools and nonessential businesses in parts of Brooklyn and Queens that have registered a week-long spike in coronavirus cases” Let’s look at New York and then compare to a UK city, Liverpool. Cases are high...



					www.duncanrobertson.com


----------



## Thora (Oct 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Beg pardon? Sneezing/a snotty nose means it’s a common cold or hay fever. Covid is a dry cough, a temperature and/or loss of smell/taste
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Runny or congested nose is quite a common symptom, I'm not sure about sneezing.  Nasal congestion was one of Trump's symptoms.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Thanks so much for doing these graphs - they are a million times more useful than people just posting OMG x thousand new cases today.



I'm still annoyed with myself that I didnt do a lot of extra work to work around weekend reporting issues with total UK number. My failure to do that meant I couldnt just carry on my original colour-coded stuff for every day since last Friday fairly. Never mind, the graphs tend to hurt my brain when too many different colours are present anyway, but it did reduce the comparative value my graph could offer.

By the way I originally performed the same exercise months ago but with the daily reported deaths figure and how that mapped to deaths by actual date of death. But that was only using NHS hospital deaths figure which was a rather incomplete measure, and I didnt do it for long, just long enough to illustrate the point about what sort of lag and spread the daily announced number consisted of.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 7, 2020)

Sue said:


> In Scotland, it's maybe not a national lockdown but it is a majority of the population lockdown.



Indeed.

The BBC was just reporting the UK average infection rate is at around 50 per 100,000, with some areas in the north running at more than ten times that number, here we are on about 15. 

There's a massive different between 15 & 500+, hence I don't think we are likely to have a national lockdown anytime soon, I agree with elbows that it should be different in various area, I like the idea of a traffic light system, 3 different levels of restrictions depending on infection rates, nice and simple compared to the mishmash we have ATM.


----------



## LDC (Oct 7, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Indeed.
> 
> The BBC was just reporting the UK average infection rate is at around 50 per 100,000, with some areas in the north running at more than ten times that number, here we are on about 15.
> 
> There's a massive different between 15 & 500+, hence I don't think we are likely to have a national lockdown anytime soon, I agree with elbows that it should be different in various area, I like the idea of a traffic light system, 3 different levels of restrictions depending on infection rates, nice and simple compared to the mishmash we have ATM.



Yeah I struggle to get why we haven't had such a clear 'traffic light' system from early on.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm still annoyed with myself that I didnt do a lot of extra work to work around weekend reporting issues with total UK number.



Don't be silly  

You've done huge amounts of work on this, also huge amounts of extra work, and you'll recall how stressed you were getting at various points with obsessively detailing what was going on.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Indeed.
> 
> The BBC was just reporting the UK average infection rate is at around 50 per 100,000, with some areas in the north running at more than ten times that number, here we are on about 15.
> 
> There's a massive different between 15 & 500+, hence I don't think we are likely to have a national lockdown anytime soon, I agree with elbows that it should be different in various area, I like the idea of a traffic light system, 3 different levels of restrictions depending on infection rates, nice and simple compared to the mishmash we have ATM.



Yeah a system like that is required to simplify the public health comms and general sense of muddle. My fear at the moment is how much it will be compromised by political arguments over the measures it includes, which I believe is one of the things going on behind the scenes at the moment. Or whether such disagreements will mess with the timescale for either publishing the detail of the new system or acting upon it.

I might have more thoughts on how bad or good the low numbers seen in some places really are later, I'm still trying to establish what my own thoughts on that really are and whether I can explain myself properly.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Don't be silly
> 
> You've done huge amounts of work on this, also huge amounts of extra work, and you'll recall how stressed you were getting at various points with obsessively detailing what was going on.



I wasnt that stressed really, only stressed enough to let off steam about it here and attempt to cut down, with a fair bit of success, how much time I spent on pandemic matters over the summer.

In some key ways I'm one of the lucky ones in this pandemic because the timing of some personal circumstances has enabled me to opt out of 99% of the risk in this pandemic without being eaten alive by financial insecurity. Which is not something I could have said if this pandemic had happened before 2018 and that I likely wont be able to say if there are similar circumstances to endure some years down the line. But for once in my life my accidental timing didnt end up looking like one of those really bad jokes life throws at us.


----------



## Sue (Oct 7, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Indeed.
> 
> The BBC was just reporting the UK average infection rate is at around 50 per 100,000, with some areas in the north running at more than ten times that number, here we are on about 15.
> 
> There's a massive different between 15 & 500+, hence I don't think we are likely to have a national lockdown anytime soon, I agree with elbows that it should be different in various area, I like the idea of a traffic light system, 3 different levels of restrictions depending on infection rates, nice and simple compared to the mishmash we have ATM.


In my area of London, it's 92. I'm not sure if they could feasibly have different lockdowns in different boroughs here really even if the infection rates were very different in different areas. I mean, many people live in one borough, work in another, maybe cross another one or two on the way. One neighbouring borough is a 15 min walk from my flat, another two are a bit further away but still very walkable. I suspect many people -- me included -- aren't completely clear where all the borders lie.


----------



## Mation (Oct 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> FWIW sneezing isn’t a C19 symptom


I know. It's just an indication of potentially generic virus-spreading stuff that's not part of some of my housemates' concerns. (E.g. getting a non-c19 virus with some overlapping c-19 symptoms might mean people having to self-isolate and try to book a flight to somewhere they can get tested at the airport, etc)


andysays said:


> Sneezing isn't one of the top three symptoms of Covid, but if I was sharing a house with someone who invited their boyfriend over ATM, and said boyfriend wandered around my home sneezing while not wearing a mask, I'd be pretty pissed off.
> 
> What do your other flatmates think about this, Mation ? Is there any way you can bring some collective pressure to bear?


Possibly. But likely with internal ill will. Much easier to do if it's an external requirement.

In any case, now isn't the time to be doing this individual situation by individual situation, bar proper idiosyncratic exceptions.


----------



## andysays (Oct 7, 2020)

Mation said:


> I know. It's just an indication of potentially generic virus-spreading stuff that's not part of some of my housemates' concerns. (E.g. getting a non-c19 virus with some overlapping c-19 symptoms might mean people having to self-isolate and try to book a flight to somewhere they can get tested at the airport, etc)
> 
> Possibly. But likely with internal ill will. Much easier to do if it's an external requirement.
> 
> In any case, now isn't the time to be doing this individual situation by individual situation, bar proper idiosyncratic exceptions.


I don't entirely understand that, but good luck with it anyway


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 7, 2020)

Sue said:


> In my area of London, it's 92. I'm not sure if they could feasibly have different lockdowns in different boroughs here really even if the infection rates were very different in different areas. I mean, many people live in one borough, work in another, maybe cross another one or two on the way. One neighbouring borough is a 15 min walk from my flat, another two are a bit further away but still very walkable. I suspect many people -- me included -- aren't completely clear where all the borders lie.



I agree, in London it would be very hard to lock-down at borough level, it would probably need to be London wide.

Bit different here in West Sussex, overall the county is at around 27 infection per 100,000, but it's a lot higher in the borough & district council areas north of the South Downs National Park, because they are part of the main London commuter belt, whereas we are far better off on the West Sussex coastal strip. Over in Brighton & Hove city, their infection rate rests between the different in the north & south of WS, much like they do with numbers commuting in & out of London.  

I would hate to be the person that draws the lines at region/city/county or borough/district councils levels.


----------



## andysays (Oct 7, 2020)

Sue said:


> In my area of London, it's 92. I'm not sure if they could feasibly have different lockdowns in different boroughs here really even if the infection rates were very different in different areas. I mean, many people live in one borough, work in another, maybe cross another one or two on the way. One neighbouring borough is a 15 min walk from my flat, another two are a bit further away but still very walkable. I suspect many people -- me included -- aren't completely clear where all the borders lie.


I've noticed that rates seem to be generally high in pretty much all east London boroughs, but agree that a lockdown would most likely be an all-London thing.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah I struggle to get why we haven't had such a clear 'traffic light' system from early on.



Because we're ruled by fuckwits?


----------



## Mation (Oct 7, 2020)

andysays said:


> I don't entirely understand that, but good luck with it anyway


People infected with a virus, such as a cold, can spread it to other people. Even if it's just a cold, some of the symptoms might overlap with covid 19, enough that, to be on the safe side, it would be sensible to self-isolate. (Housemate sneezes and has stuffy nose. I catch what they've got but mostly get the stuffy nose, not the sneezes so much. I don't know if it's their cold or covid 19 caught elsewhere. I have to self-isolate/get tested.)

Easier to say to housemates 'no, this isn't allowed, you can't do that here', if it's mandated rather than being seen as the 'fussily over-worrying individual housemate'.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

An interesting example of the local authorities getting ahead of centralised government announcements.



> *Everyone living in Nottinghamshire has been asked to avoid mixing with other households indoors after a "dramatic" rise in coronavirus cases.*
> The government has not introduced tougher measures but local authorities have urged residents to start taking precautions now.
> Nottingham currently has the fourth-highest infection rate in England, and the wider county has also seen a rise.
> Local authorities expect a government decision by the end of the week.











						Coronavirus: Nottinghamshire residents told not to mix indoors
					

Authorities say they are acting ahead of an expected government tightening of rules.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Badgers (Oct 7, 2020)

Feels like lockdown (part or full or something vague) is inevitable doesn't it? It would have been nice to have it properly at the start with furlough (for some  anyway) but that window is gone.

I do think lockdown is the answer. It is going to hurt deeply for people and businesses, but the alternative is that we keep this loop going for a year or more 

On a selfish note I have a CT in a couple of weeks, dental work to be completed, oncology appointment, MummyBadgers moving house (after six months delay) and have to find a fucking job in the next month. Appreciate I am not alone with such challenges but feels like a kick in tne teeth when most of us have obeyed the rules while others have been off on holidays and having a merry old time.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2020)

If there is a lockdown I hope they use the time to actually do something sensible in terms of building up testing/tracing capacity and hospital space etc. If not then you might as well not do it


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I do think lockdown is the answer. It is going to hurt deeply for people and businesses, but the alternative is that we keep this loop going for a year or more



The sort of lockdown we saw the first time is I expect reserved for if the hospital data shows an overload on the near horizon.

Im not sure I will want to use the term lockdown for the other stuff that is proposed for situations less drastic, not when people are still asked to go to work etc.

I unfortunately dont really understand your point about the loop though because lockdowns full or partial are very much part of the loop you describe, they dont bring about a permanent conclusion to the pandemic on their own.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

The story evolves predictably:



> The government is likely to tighten coronavirus restrictions for parts of England on Monday - including the possibility of closing pubs and restaurants, the BBC understands.
> 
> The government is expected to introduce three tiers for local lockdowns - as reported by the BBC last week.
> 
> ...











						Covid-19: New restrictions for parts of England likely next week
					

Closing pubs and restaurants and banning overnight stays in the worst-affected areas are being discussed.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Oct 7, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Because we're ruled by fuckwits?



I get what you mean, but don't agree 100%, I think there's an element of fuckwittery about it for sure, but some of it is ideological and a very clear choice rather than incompetence. But I know you know that!


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2020)

This is a response to the 'herd immunity' proposal 




__





						expert reaction to Barrington Declaration, an open letter arguing against lockdown policies and for ‘Focused Protection’ | Science Media Centre
					





					www.sciencemediacentre.org


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah I struggle to get why we haven't had such a clear 'traffic light' system from early on.



We did, it got ignored in the rush to open back up because the government wanted to keep pace with the rest of Europe rather than have the population locked down for two more weeks


----------



## LDC (Oct 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> This is a response to the 'herd immunity' proposal
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks, bedtime reading,  and


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 7, 2020)

> Pubs and restaurants in swathes of the north of England could face restrictions within days in a scramble to stem an alarming rise in coronavirus cases, after Nicola Sturgeon announced a nationwide crackdown on indoor drinking in Scotland.
> 
> UK ministers will meet again on Thursday to try to come to a resolution, along with local leaders, on what harsher measures should be imposed, following what Sturgeon described as “short, sharp action” for Scotland.
> 
> “It’s no surprise we are considering measures at the tougher end,” one Whitehall source said, adding that public health officials were alarmed by a 60% rise in hospital admissions in the north-east in recent days. “We know hospitality is a big factor, especially the comings-and-goings in fast food or in bars.”











						Covid: pubs in north of England face new restrictions within days
					

Alarming rise in cases puts pressure on ministers to act as Nicola Sturgeon imposes Scotland crackdown




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## chilango (Oct 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I get what you mean, but don't agree 100%, I think there's an element of fuckwittery about it for sure, but some of it is ideological and a very clear choice rather than incompetence. But I know you know that!



The privatisation of the pandemic has required us to become epidemiologists of the self.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

I dont know about anyone else tend to feel a bit better when health officials etc start acknowledging the role of things that were previously deliberately played down, like the role of hospitality settings in increasing transmission.

All the ways people pissed on the angles taken by the Barrington clowns were good stuff too, good for my state of mind.


----------



## Celyn (Oct 7, 2020)

Sue said:


> In Scotland, it's maybe not a national lockdown but it is a majority of the population lockdown.


A member of staff at the care home my Dad recently moved into in Glasgow has tested positive for it. Visiting suspended.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

IC3D said:


> I think there is going to be a spike in hospital acquired covid soon, mostly non severe. Whether its kept quiet or leaked is the question.



Non-severe hospital outbreaks are a bit of an oxymoron in my book. In that its often hard to escape the serious consequences, either to hospital patients, staff or those discharged to care homes and everyone in those homes.

A near constant theme of mine has been the underreporting and lack of analysis of this subject, and a huge unwillingness for national journalists to tell evolving, joined up stories about this aspect of the pandemic. Its been a while since I looked at various stats about what proportion of hospital Covid-19 illness was from cases acquired in hospital in the first wave but it was quite a fair proportion and I will go back over this ground again one day.

Several serious, deadly, outbreaks have been reported in the news since the end of the intense part of the first wave, unlike during the peak of the wave when there was pretty much no news about this side of things at all. Partly because these outbreaks stood out a mile when they happened against a backdrop of low levels of community infection and serious illness. Perhaps this stuff will disappear back into the pandemic fog as general transmission increases again. But there are some per hospital-trust stats that come out monthly which may allow us to spot notable outbreaks in hindsight.


----------



## LDC (Oct 7, 2020)

It's clear we just need to shut pubs, restaurants, bars, etc. to slow this, and it needs to come with support so it can happen, as I think if not it'll be resisted by some (Starmer and Burnham are already making noises to that end) and won't work well.

Some local bars and breweries to me are already circulating petitions and calls to write to MPs to end the 10pm curfew as they say they're being fucked by it. (I also think there's plenty of small businesses that are just pissed off and no amount of clear messaging and scientific evidence will convince them closing is the right thing to do.)


----------



## IC3D (Oct 7, 2020)

Can't share here elbows the thrust is returning to normal service and absorbing community covid cases that appear on wards. There is an element of risk but I don't think anyone should avoid hospitals anymore if they need them.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Can't share here elbows the thrust is returning to normal service and absorbing community covid cases that appear on wards. There is an element of risk but I don't think anyone should avoid hospitals anymore if they need them.



No problem, I dont expect any detail, am not fishing for that.

My own attitude about whether people should avoid hospitals is that every situation should be judged on its own merit, very much including where the hospital is, its reputation for the infection control side of things, and what the patient needs the hospital for.

Like other settings, how busy the hospital is also makes a difference to risk and the magnitude of potential consequences. Its a numbers game in a number of ways, and I really hope that things like influenza are suppressed by peoples behavioural changes this winter so that some of the usual seasonal NHS pressures are reduced.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

Its also impossible for me to claim to know whether the current NHS plans to keep other stuff going is a doomed, reckless idea that will cause much death, or whether it represents a decent attempt at balancing the different merits and risks of such options. Because it will come down to what levels of infection we end up with in the coming months. In theory they should try, so long as they have a good plan for how to change approach in a timely way if thats what circumstances end up demanding.

If hard choices are not made in regard to other transmission settings like hospitality, to keep infection levels in the community down below a certain level, then its much easier to predict that the current NHS plan is doomed.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> No problem, I dont expect any detail, am not fishing for that.
> 
> My own attitude about whether people should avoid hospitals is that every situation should be judged on its own merit, very much including where the hospital is, its reputation for the infection control side of things, and what the patient needs the hospital for.
> 
> Like other settings, how busy the hospital is also makes a difference to risk and the magnitude of potential consequences. Its a numbers game in a number of ways, and I *really hope that things like influenza are suppressed by peoples behavioural changes this winter *so that some of the usual seasonal NHS pressures are reduced.


my bold :
comment ...
I've already had a 'flu jab (too young for the pneumonia one) in preparation for this winter, but I do hope that all the anti-covid stuff also acts as anti-flu precautions ...


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I've already had a 'flu jab (too young for the pneumonia one) in preparation for this winter, but I do hope that all the anti-covid stuff also acts as anti-flu precautions ...



There are signs in some places that had their winter already that flu was at levels far below normal. But I cannot have too much confidence about whether that will end up applying here too given that we currently have a situation where covid-19 transmission is not under control, rhinovirus had no problem doing its normal 'back to school explosion of cases' thing etc. Other interplay factors may exist too that are not too well understood yet, such as whether our immune responses against covid make it less likely we will catch flu for a while, something I would expect to have an effect on the potential for any flu epidemics if these sorts of immunity factors turn out to be a strong phenomenon. Competition between viruses usually has losers I guess.


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## Roadkill (Oct 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's clear we just need to shut pubs, restaurants, bars, etc. to slow this, and it needs to come with support so it can happen, as I think if not it'll be resisted by some (Starmer and Burnham are already making noises to that end) and won't work well.
> 
> Some local bars and breweries to me are already circulating petitions and calls to write to MPs to end the 10pm curfew as they say they're being fucked by it. (I also think there's plenty of small businesses that are just pissed off and no amount of clear messaging and scientific evidence will convince them closing is the right thing to do.)



It's clear in public health terms, but without financial support it's the end for countless pubs, restaurants and the rest of it.  They'll be boarded up and all their staff on the dole.  Unless the government is prepared to underwrite the cost of temporarily shutting them down again - or at least restricting their activities to the point it could well bankrupt them - I can't blame them for pressing for restrictions to be lifted.


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## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

I have more sympathy when they press for bailouts.


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## Roadkill (Oct 7, 2020)

Don't we all?  And they should be.  But if that isn't happening there's only one other way to keep going.


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## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

Its more likely the government will cave in over funding than on the public health measures.


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its more likely the government will cave in over funding than on the public health measures.


You reckon? I think it might be the other way round


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## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> You reckon? I think it might be the other way round



Depends on the context. My statement was a little too broad.

But I'm saying it in the current context, which is that further restrictions on hospitality are highly likely to be imposed, at least regionally, so much more likely than the idea they will be lifted.

They might dick around with the 10pm thing under pressure but overall one of the few options they've left themselves to manage the levels of infection, given the reluctance to close schools etc, is to target hospitality. And I'm sure they will target hospitality, because no matter the other factors or levels of government incompetence, we've already seen that they are going to act on data that tells them the NHS would otherwise reach a point of collapse at some stage if the current trends were maintained. And since they are keen to avoid the most draconian levels of lockdown as much as possible, they simply have to be prepared to do other things instead to alter the timing of increases and waves.

In England they tried all the other sorts of local lockdown stuff that didnt achieve enough, so I dont think they have any choice.

Some of the detail may end up different to how Scotland has gone about this today, but the overall theme will be much the same I'm sure.


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## mauvais (Oct 7, 2020)

I went to the park for a walk today and it was distinctly busy with the Orthodox Jewish community - I think because it's a religious holiday at the moment. Hard to tell who is distancing because there's some big families but noone seemed bothered. Two caveats: It is Manchester so arguably the baseline is pretty poor to begin with, and also if I hung out around universities I would be writing something else, it's not exactly unique.

Anyway my wife sees patients from this community in a work capacity and some of them reported (albeit early this year) to her that government and media advice doesn't necessarily make it to constituents. Shortly after that, the Graun ran a piece on the same.

I wonder: is this manifesting in cases or casualty figures? Is there any data other than guessing at MSOAs?


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## killer b (Oct 7, 2020)

They will cave over funding IMO. It can't work otherwise.


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## Cloo (Oct 7, 2020)

I was wondering why those local lockdowns weren't lowering cases, but I looked up the rules and saw that's because they're hardly lockdowns at all and basically everything's open but maybe for not quite as long and it's like 'No, really, do wear a mask please'. Doesn't seem much point to that!

Went to the cinema tonight for first time since all this and was a bit shocked that they didn't even close alternate rows, and although there were only 10 of us there (we were 3 - and then there were 3 other groups that amounted to 7 people) our assigned seats put me sitting directly behind someone and then the other group was on the row behind and only and 3 or 4 seats to the left of us. But we were told not to move from our assigned seats so I didn't want to until the film started and we knew who was there - I moved to other side of my husband so I wasn't right behind someone but we still had three groups who were less than 2m apart when they could easily have closed off every other row. Given there were just 10 of us I suspect the risk is pretty low, but all the same...

mauvais  - This week is the festival of Succot. There will absolutely be high deaths in the Orthodox community within a few weeks, there's no way they will observe social distancing or lower numbers in shul during the _chaggim _There were high death rates in Jewish community anyway - I can tell you that at peak in April death announcement emails from my synagogue were coming in 2-3 a day for about a fortnight then when it's normally about 1 or 2 a week, it was pretty awful.


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## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

I may have expressed more confidence in that previous final sentence than I intended. When it comes to the detail of any particular measure, I dont have faith in this government. But they have proven to me since about March 16th that those who would promote a do nothing approach do not genuinely have the ear of this regime. Those options arent considered viable in exactly the same way the Barrington clowns are not credible. Its easy for individuals, publications etc that arent responsible for actually get the NHS through winter to take all manner of stances, but even if the government was fine with seeing many tens of thousands more deaths they do not have the same luxury as the clowns because of responsibility for hospitals etc.


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2020)

There's orthodox and then there's orthodox tho. My shul's nominally orthodox and they took the whole thing extremely seriously when I went for yom kippur. Won't be going back for a while tho because of the long train journey


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## frogwoman (Oct 7, 2020)

Didn't Gupta and a few others meet with Downing Street officials last week or something tho?


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## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I was wondering why those local lockdowns weren't lowering cases, but I looked up the rules and saw that's because they're hardly lockdowns at all and basically everything's open but maybe for not quite as long and it's like 'No, really, do wear a mask please'. Doesn't seem much point to that!



In theory the stuff done in local lockdowns, for example limiting contact between housholds, should still have some effect. Clearly not enough on its own, and usually not possible to judge each measure individually because of other stuff happening at the same time and the fact we dont know how much worse the rise in cases would have been without those measures.

The reluctance to close all manner of things in those local lockdowns does stand in stark contrast to the principals of the proposed 'short, sharp shock' circuit-breaker things that have been floated for a while now. It has subjected people to extended periods of restrictions and this is one of the trade-offs the powers that be have made - by keeping so many things open they have prolonged the length of restrictions in those areas, and key objectives have not been achieved.

I cannot currently predict whether even a full hospitality shutdown will be enough, it depends on many things including enforcement of other measures. If they have to go even further than hospitality then they will have to reduce their ambitions regarding how many people are going to work, or reduce their education ambitions, and or do more NHS reconfiguration and cancellation of routine stuff than they would like.


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## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Didn't Gupta and a few others meet with Downing Street officials last week or something tho?



I dont care if they met the pope and then flew around on a magic cloud. As far as I'm concerned that was just the government paying lip-service to the concerns of their swivel-eyed backbenchers. At most they were searching for viable alternatives but Gupta & co wont have given them anything that was any use in practice so its a dead end.

So this is not the danger that I'm focussed on. The danger for me is the same as always, that the government will act but not necessarily at the right time with the right strength or the right messages. But all that means is that eventually they have to slam on the brakes much harder again, it does not mean they will say fuck it, cut the brake cables and then go for a smoke in the boot as the car careens down a cliff.


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## elbows (Oct 7, 2020)

And the main danger of the pandemic clowns is that they sew confusion and reduce public compliance with measures that require people to take responsibility for their own behaviour. Its not that they will manage to convince the government to ignore all the NHS data and go off on a weird path. In just the same way that despite the initial instincts of the Johnson regime in this pandemic, even his sorry bunch had to throw their original plan in the bin and get in touch with pandemic reality when the time came (mid March).


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## mr steev (Oct 7, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I was wondering why those local lockdowns weren't lowering cases, but I looked up the rules and saw that's because they're hardly lockdowns at all and basically everything's open but maybe for not quite as long and it's like 'No, really, do wear a mask please'. Doesn't seem much point to that!



The main thing is that you are not supposed to visit anyone outside of your household or allow anyone into your home or garden.


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## flypanam (Oct 8, 2020)

chilango said:


> Not hearing anything in Education regarding a looming lockdown...yet.


My brother lectures at the IoE, he's of the opinion that half term will be two week circuit breaker kind of lockdown, and he's preparing he's preparing his student teachers for it. As for higher ed, i suspect we'll remain open otherwise what will the students do? Where could they go?


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## emanymton (Oct 8, 2020)

mr steev said:


> The main thing is that you are not supposed to visit anyone outside of your household or allow anyone into your home or garden.


Which is a rule commonly ignored. This is why I don't think a harder lock down on pubs will be that effective.


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## TopCat (Oct 8, 2020)

mack said:


> Very sorry to hear of your loss, my dad passed at the beginning of April - we couldn't cremate him for six weeks.
> 
> At the service at Croydon crem we had to basically sit on individual rows (which was awful for my mum) wear the masks etc.
> 
> ...


I really feel for you. That is so sad.


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## TopCat (Oct 8, 2020)

Badgers said:


> while others have been off on holidays and having a merry old time.


Sorry mate.


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## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> It's clear in public health terms, but without financial support it's the end for countless pubs, restaurants and the rest of it.  They'll be boarded up and all their staff on the dole.  Unless the government is prepared to underwrite the cost of temporarily shutting them down again - or at least restricting their activities to the point it could well bankrupt them - I can't blame them for pressing for restrictions to be lifted.



Sunak is apparently making noises about local support having been against it to start with I think. Yeah, I did say financial support needs to be in place, but even so the amount of people from the 'hospitality industry' (whatever the fuck that is) making noises saying the evidence doesn't support it as a clear attempt to stop their businesses being closed is highly irresponsible I think, as are the media giving time to some random pub landlord's opinion as a public health expert.

Also the government are 'thinking' about restrictions from Monday. FFS, just do it now you bunch of slow moving faffing pricks.


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2020)

Exclusive: Anti-Maskers Are Scamming Pubs with a Fake NHS Tracking App
					

The app, named "Covid 1984", allows users to enter pubs and restaurants without scanning a QR code or providing contact information.




					www.vice.com
				




Dickheads


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## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> the amount of people from the 'hospitality industry' (whatever the fuck that is) making noises saying the evidence doesn't support it as a clear attempt to stop their businesses being closed is highly irresponsible


The people I know in the hospitality industry making those noises actually believe it tbf.


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## mr steev (Oct 8, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Which is a rule commonly ignored. This is why I don't think a harder lock down on pubs will be that effective.



It's difficult to tell tbh. Most people I know are abiding by it. 
It means that I'm not allowed to have a couple of friends round for a beer and a socially distanced fire in my garden, so perversley, after not going to the pub for months, we have now started to arrange weekly pub visits so we can see each other


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## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Whenever I see a story like this one, I think back to the absolute bullshit the WHO team that went to China told us about low levels of asymptomatic cases there.









						Covid: more than 80% of positive UK cases in study had no core symptoms
					

ONS survey said 86.1% of people between April and June had none of the virus’ main symptoms




					www.theguardian.com
				




This area these days involved a lot of the "we've learnt a lot, now with the benefit of hindsight...." sentiment which does not do the story justice since actually the reasonable assumption should always have been that asymptomatic cases and spread were likely to be quite relevant to this pandemic.


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## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Although if I want to go out of my way to be fair, I am conflating presymptomatic (eventually develops symptoms) and asymptomatic. But when it comes to the practical implications of whether an infectious person is displaying symptoms at the time, there isnt much difference anyway.


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## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> The people I know in the hospitality industry making those noises actually believe it tbf.



Yup.  I was speaking with a friend who is an old school style landlady.  I've never seen her more depressed as they had nothing to look forward to.  No big rugby events, no parties, no big bookings.  Nothing but the sunday lunch market (even that has suffered) and George nursing his pint of mild till 10pm. 

I think a lot of pubs were going under this winter anyway but if they are forced to close they may as well just hand the keys back now.

This is going to be a horrible winter.  I feel so sorry for everyone who works in an industry which has been hammered by this whether it be travel, live entertainment, the arts etc.  Any of us who has a job which has been largely protected from the worst or indeed have even benefitted should be counting their lucky stars.  I also think those that are demanding full lockdown immediately just need to check themselves on this.  I'm not saying it's not needed (I don't know) but yeah, just a check.


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## StoneRoad (Oct 8, 2020)

We are covered by one of the zones of increased local restrictions, but I'm not seeing it make much difference to behaviour - the lack of local cases being the factor at play in the decision-making.

However, we are within 40 miles / half an hour's drive of "Tyneside" and I will not go anywhere near that area under any pretext with the current circumstances.

Effectively, the risk assessments mean my household has gone back to the near hibernation / isolation we practised in the first wave - only one person is going shopping or making trips off the property. Unfortunately, our immediate neighbour works in "hospitality" although not actually customer facing, so any conversations are at very long range, and they are very worried about transmissions. That particular group of industries needs proper, additional and long term support.

The present complication is that my bezza is in hospital with a dodgy gall-badder. We can't visit but can drop off supplies at the ward door and they've given up on the can't use your own phone bollacks so we can chat. Still don't know what is planned ...
BTW, our isolation policy appears to be working - bezza's test when admitted was -ve.

I still think having hospitality and education both open is the problem - one or the other, not both - especially as the under 35s seem to be the majority of current cases. I want to say "I TOLD YOU SO" but the full tragedy of increased deaths is only just beginning,

I want the gov't to re-impose a near full lockdown in the areas with high case rates, and enforce the rules properly. That includes isolation / quarantine when needed, eg coming back after travelling abroad or from an area with high case rates r when "NHS T&T" say so.


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## cupid_stunt (Oct 8, 2020)

Interesting new report just published by the ONS.



> Of all death occurrences between January and August 2020, there were 48,168 deaths due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) compared with 13,619 deaths due to pneumonia and 394 deaths due to influenza.
> The proportion of deaths occurring in care homes due to COVID-19 was almost double the proportion of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia (30.0% and 15.2% respectively).
> In comparison with the deaths due to influenza and pneumonia occurring in the year to 31 August 2020, deaths due to COVID-19 have been higher than every year monthly data are available (1959 to 2020).







__





						Deaths due to coronavirus (COVID-19) compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics
					

Comparison of deaths from the coronavirus (COVID-19) with deaths from influenza (flu) and pneumonia. Includes deaths by date of death occurrence and breakdowns by sex and age.



					www.ons.gov.uk


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## cupid_stunt (Oct 8, 2020)

> The Times today (paywall) is saying that pubs and restaurants in the north of England will be closed on Monday. It says:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well that would be something, but what about help for the businesses?

Here comes the traffic light system...


> And the Sun gives this explantation of how the new, simplified three-tier system of restrictions may work.
> 
> 
> 
> ...











						UK coronavirus live: delaying new restrictions creates risk of 'party weekend', ministers warned
					

Latest updates: government warned people will seek ‘one last blow out’ if new restrictions on pubs in England are delayed until next week




					www.theguardian.com


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2020)

A lot of pubs have gone out their way to make it safe. I can understand if they're pissed off at being blamed if infections are by and large happening elsewhere, eg in households and other places of work (are they? I don't know)


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## StoneRoad (Oct 8, 2020)

No. you political twerps, impose the new restrictions before the weekend, not afterwards.

Otherwise you'll get the Blackpool effect, again ...

and yet more cases leading to more deaths ...


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## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

This might just be me but I'm detecting a hardening of attitudes against lockdown measures and increasing them.  I noticed it first at the weekend with my group of friends. These are all guys who's jobs have been unaffected but they have young families.   I also noticed a shift in attitude amongst my work colleagues.  Its not a _fuck the rules_ thing its a more _we have to get on with it now_ sort of thing.

I don't know whether this is just fatigue with the situation or the loss of any sort of faith in the government and even loss of faith in each other as a population.  It might be a combination of things.

I really think the government would struggle to enforce really strict measures again.  I think they'd get pelters from all sides and there is a strong likelihood of opposition and disobedience growing exponentially (ha).


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## StoneRoad (Oct 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> A lot of pubs have gone out their way to make it safe. I can understand if they're pissed off at being blamed if infections are by and large happening elsewhere, eg in households and other places of work (are they? I don't know)



Yep, the pubs and so on have largely done their best to be "covid-secure"
BUT, and it is a big BUT, their clients are often not abiding by the rules once they've had a few jars ... or they are disappearing into houses for non-covid-secure activities ...

As I've said before "When the booze is in, the brains are out"

[witness some of the student / freshers parties that took place !]


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Interesting new report just published by the ONS.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What about 1957 or 1968 (there were horrible flu pandemics then)


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## Buddy Bradley (Oct 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> A lot of pubs have gone out their way to make it safe. I can understand if they're pissed off at being blamed if infections are by and large happening elsewhere, eg in households and other places of work (are they? I don't know)


That's what I don't understand in all this. If the government has data on where/how infections are spreading (which is literally the point of Track and Trace), and it points to bars/restaurants being a key transmission vector, why don't they just release it?


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## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> A lot of pubs have gone out their way to make it safe. I can understand if they're pissed off at being blamed if infections are by and large happening elsewhere, eg in households and other places of work (are they? I don't know)



I dunno.  The pubs round my way are all being super careful and doing everything strictly by the rulebook.  On this site though its rare to see the word 'pubs' without it being prefaced by 'crowded'.  I don't know how bad the situation has got in pubs but I've not seen it so far.


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## chilango (Oct 8, 2020)

One thing that may be of significance in the coming weeks is that - as a consequence of the Government strategy of individualising responsibility and preemptively pointing the finger of blame at people when cases rise - increasing numbers of people seem to be viewing "lockdown" measures as punitive and so resent the injustice of being punished when they haven't done anything wrong. I fear this will reduce compliance with any increased measures somewhat.


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## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> A lot of pubs have gone out their way to make it safe. I can understand if they're pissed off at being blamed if infections are by and large happening elsewhere, eg in households and other places of work (are they? I don't know)



Covid secure is a lie in most settings. Things can be done to reduce the risk but they dont eliminate it.

Countries all over the world do not shut down hospitality for a laugh, its role is not really in question and authorities know that and so when forced to act, this is an area they should and will target.


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## Buddy Bradley (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Countries all over the world do not shut down hospitality for a laugh, its role is not really in question and authorities know that


Would still be interesting to know what proportion of cases appear to be spreading via that route in comparison to, say, universities and schools reopening, or people visiting others' homes. Or even what the number of cases looks like if you take care homes out of the equation.


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2020)

chilango said:


> One thing that may be of significance in the coming weeks is that - as a consequence of the Government strategy of individualising responsibility and preemptively pointing the finger of blame at people when cases rise - increasing numbers of people seem to be viewing "lockdown" measures as punitive and so resent the injustice of being punished when they haven't done anything wrong. I fear this will reduce compliance with any increased measures somewhat.



Yep


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## cupid_stunt (Oct 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What about 1957 or 1968 (there were horrible flu pandemics then)



The figures are from when records began in 1959 to 2020, so 1957 is excluded, but 1968 is included.


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## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I dunno.  The pubs round my way are all being super careful and doing everything strictly by the rulebook.  On this site though its rare to see the word 'pubs' without it being prefaced by 'crowded'.  I don't know how bad the situation has got in pubs but I've not seen it so far.


There's only one place I've been to so far that I'd think is a bit of a danger and it wasn't a pub.


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## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The figures are from when records began in 1959 to 2020, so 1957 is excluded, but 1968 is included.



Yeah and there are other limitations to their comparison. When I read the ONS report, it says this:



> “Since 1959, which is when ONS monthly death records began, the number of deaths due to influenza and pneumonia in the first eight months of every year have been lower than the number of COVID-19 deaths seen, so far, in 2020.”



So this does not capture all historic epidemic and pandemic waves of the period properly, because they often occur over winter and so will only be partially captured by data in the Jan-August timeframe. For example the daily deaths data I've looked at starts on January 1st 1970, when a late 1960s H3N2 influenza pandemic wave was peaking on the first days of 1970 and then falling away. So the late 1969 chunk of that wave is missing, and will also be missing from the monthly data they used as they are only using 8 months of each year so they can make a comparison with the 2020 so far.

The total number of deaths per day from all causes in the 1970 onwards data I have only features one day where the number of deaths was higher than that seen at the very peak of the first wave of the current pandemic. And that was very early January 1970 during the peak of the aforementioned H3N2 pandemic wave.


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## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Peoples impression of danger is distorted by a lack of consideration of the role of poor ventilation, and too much focus on the more visible measures, measures which are designed to reassure and to do something but are far from the whole story.

Most pubs are inherently unsafe settings in this pandemic.


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## cupid_stunt (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Peoples impression of danger is distorted by a lack of consideration of the role of poor ventilation, and too much focus on the more visible measures, measures which are designed to reassure and to do something but are far from the whole story.
> 
> Most pubs are inherently unsafe settings in this pandemic.



Especially now the weather has changed, and few opportunities to drink outside.


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## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Would still be interesting to know what proportion of cases appear to be spreading via that route in comparison to, say, universities and schools reopening, or people visiting others' homes. Or even what the number of cases looks like if you take care homes out of the equation.



There's plenty out there showing the risk in hospitality. The measures for them are pretty universally implemented across the world, and not just because the various governments think it's fun to do so.


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## Cloo (Oct 8, 2020)

mr steev said:


> The main thing is that you are not supposed to visit anyone outside of your household or allow anyone into your home or garden.


Which I guess is not much good if you can still congregate with large numbers of other people without masks to eat and drink.


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## editor (Oct 8, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Would still be interesting to know what proportion of cases appear to be spreading via that route in comparison to, say, universities and schools reopening, or people visiting others' homes. Or even what the number of cases looks like if you take care homes out of the equation.


I'd love to see the figures for tube journeys as some remain packed at peak times and I can't think of a more risky environment, particularly with the idiots who wear their masks with their hooter exposed.


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## teuchter (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Peoples impression of danger is distorted by a lack of consideration of the role of poor ventilation, and too much focus on the more visible measures, measures which are designed to reassure and to do something but are far from the whole story.
> 
> Most pubs are inherently unsafe settings in this pandemic.


Yes, because buildings and their ventilation is part of my day job, I'm pretty aware of the variability in decent ventilation between different settings but I think this is quite invisible to most people. 

My advice as we go into winter is stay well away from anywhere you can see the windows steaming up.


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## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Which I guess is not much good if you can still congregate with large numbers of other people without masks to eat and drink.



Or if no one pays any attention and just carries on meeting up as before.  Which lets face it is happening on a massive scale.  I'm not blaming anyone here but a lot of people have long since given up on a lot of these restrictions.


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## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

Just some rambling observations on communal places I've seen/been in over the last couple of weeks:

I've been out twice in the last 2 weeks - birthday season... First was a nice restaurant, second food hall type restaurant. I have no plans for any more out-goings because frankly these made it seem somewhat risky. The food hall probably had somewhat better ventilation, I wasn't paying attention but did see that building when it was still being converted (old workshops). Just can't remember exactly what kind of system they were using. But the general volume of speech there was pretty high... It's difficult to say _why_ exactly, but it was. Restaurant was... well, a fairly standard English restaurant set-up. Medium sized ground floor space. There was some level of distancing, but you're sitting 1-1.5m away from other people for 1-2 hours. Certainly wasn't 2m. 

The other thing I noticed was two gyms open near me... One is a pure gym (business model rather than brand), the other a boxing gym. Quick point - I walked past these mildly pissed, I wasn't about to stop and make detailed observations of y'know, people using a gym. The machine spacing in the pure gym was as normal, but with people only using alternate machines... They do have extensive ventilation systems normally, but afaik these are usually designed around recirculation - vent-axia seem to have issued a warning to that effect (though, I mean, ventilation company saying you must upgrade your ventilation). But just seeing people barely 2m apart, in a student district, going full gas on a running machine/bike. Yeah. I have a turbo-trainer at home and know just how much air you can put out when working at a high heart rate. The boxing gym was, from what I could see, people doing solo pad work distanced. But I cannot imagine that place is well ventilated (quite apart from anything else the amount of condensation on windows indicated otherwise).


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

I suppose I shall try to make time to follow these joint hearings:









						Former ministers to hold 'rapid' inquiry into government's Covid-19 response
					

Senior Tory MPs Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark will lead cross-party investigation




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> I suppose I shall try to make time to follow these joint hearings:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Jeremy Hunt?  I'm sure he'll want to get to the root of the problem, leave no stone unturned.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Or if no one pays any attention and just carries on meeting up as before.  Which lets face it is happening on a massive scale.  I'm not blaming anyone here but a lot of people have long since given up on a lot of these restrictions.



Its probably only a matter of time till psychological stuff is ramped up again, eg desperate appeal from NHS workers.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Jeremy Hunt?  I'm sure he'll want to get to the root of the problem, leave no stone unturned.



I'm not a fan but he has been useful in the past when asking some of the right questions to people like Whitty at heath committee meetings.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 8, 2020)

Cid said:


> The other thing I noticed was two gyms open near me... One is a pure gym (business model rather than brand), the other a boxing gym. Quick point - I walked past these mildly pissed, I wasn't about to stop and make detailed observations of y'know, people using a gym. The machine spacing in the pure gym was as normal, but with people only using alternate machines... They do have extensive ventilation systems normally, but afaik these are usually designed around recirculation - vent-axia seem to have issued a warning to that effect (though, I mean, ventilation company saying you must upgrade your ventilation). But just seeing people barely 2m apart, in a student district, going full gas on a running machine/bike. Yeah. I have a turbo-trainer at home and know just how much air you can put out when working at a high heart rate. The boxing gym was, from what I could see, people doing solo pad work distanced. But I cannot imagine that place is well ventilated (quite apart from anything else the amount of condensation on windows indicated otherwise).


 yeah, my Purgym is open and I'm keeping paying my fee as it's not much and I'd like to stay open until I can go back, but it just seems an unnecessary risk.

We're going to lunch for gsv's birthday on Sunday, but I'm not planning on eating out frequently, certainly not while you can't eat outside. Nowhere's really going to be distanced or well ventilated enough to be safe inside.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm not a fan but he has been useful in the past when asking some of the right questions to people like Whitty at heath committee meetings.



Sure, but given a large part of the government's response was dictated by (and indeed handicapped by) the situation the country and NHS was in at the start of the pandemic I cannot think of anyone (apart from Hancock himself) who has a bigger conflict of interest.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Sure, but given a large part of the government's response was dictated by (and indeed handicapped by) the situation the country and NHS was in at the start of the pandemic I cannot think of anyone (apart from Hancock himself) who has a bigger conflict of interest.



Thats a problem if I want to entire story via Hunt. But because he will be desperate to look at all the other important angles that dont implicate him, he should be able to help expose stuff on those other fronts, and then someone else can expose the stuff that dooms Hunt.

If I manage to sit through streams of the committee hearings then it will be lots of small revelations that I'm after, rather than the broader picture which, as you point out, is already known really.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 8, 2020)

mr steev said:


> It's difficult to tell tbh. Most people I know are abiding by it.
> It means that I'm not allowed to have a couple of friends round for a beer and a socially distanced fire in my garden, so perversley, after not going to the pub for months, we have now started to arrange weekly pub visits so we can see each other


I agree it is hard to tell and you nearly show why. No household mixing doesn't just mean at home it applies across the board. If you cannot see your friends in your house you cannot meet them in a pub either. Seems to be a common misunderstanding. 

Well you could meet them in a pub if each household sat at a different socially distanced table and you didn't mix.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Also regarding Hunt, he probably knows that he wont have to shoulder too much of the blame on his own since its a multi-decade story. I dont yet have all the long term statistics I want to make this case properly, but here is one crude clue about what Im on about.









						Hospital beds in the UK 2000-2019 | Statista
					

The number of hospital beds in the United Kingdom has undergone a decline since the year 2000.




					www.statista.com


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

More 'world beating' shite.



> The latest figures from the Test and Trace service in England show that the close contacts of 68.6% of people who tested positive for Covid-19 were reached in the week ending 30 September.
> 
> That is down from 72.5% the previous week and is the lowest weekly percentage since Test and Trace began in May. It comes as the service faced its largest ever number of positive tests with 51,475 confirmed cases, a 56% increase on the previous week.
> 
> In cases handled by local health protection teams, 97.1% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate. But when cases were handled online or by call centres, only 62.4% of close contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate



From 11:32 on BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54460270


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 8, 2020)

Clearly she's talking about certain areas, but still depressing.  




> On the World at One *Chris Hopson*, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals and other NHS trusts, said hospitals in the north if England were now seeing admission levels equivalent to those in the spring, when the epidemic was at its peak. He also said health chiefs in the region wanted to see restrictions tightened soon to stop the problem getting worse. He told the programme:
> "I’ve spoken to three chief executives in the north of England today all three of whom are saying, ‘Please, please everybody, don’t be misled by the national statistics’, which show that, yes, hospital admissions are much lower on a national basis than they were in the first phase. What they’re saying is they are seeing admission levels which are now at the same as they were in the north of England in the peak. And what they’re saying to us is they’re concerned.
> In their view, it’s pretty clear evidence that the local lockdown measures that are in place aren’t working sufficiently well ...
> So what they’re saying is, we need to think really carefully, really quite quickly, about whether we do need to go for tougher local lockdowns."











						Scotland cancels National 5 exams amid new restrictions; UK sees 14,162 more cases – as it happened
					

National 5 exams cancelled next year for Scottish pupils; new measures brought in for Scotland; new cases in UK down very slightly




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I agree it is hard to tell and you nearly show why. No household mixing doesn't just mean at home it applies across the board. If you cannot see your friends in your house you cannot meet them in a pub either. Seems to be a common misunderstanding.
> 
> Well you could meet them in a pub if each household sat at a different socially distanced table and you didn't mix.



I’m not sure that’s true. Or at least if it is, it’s very unclear from reading the rules.

e2a: I had thought this myself incidentally, and noted that it appears widely ignored.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Somewhat more useful hospital bed stats than I managed earlier:









						NHS hospital bed numbers
					

The number of NHS hospital beds in England has more than halved over the past 30 years. This briefing examines the data on hospital beds, explores the drivers underpinning the changes observed and considers whether STPs’ proposed bed reductions are realistic.




					www.kingsfund.org.uk


----------



## andysays (Oct 8, 2020)

chilango said:


> One thing that may be of significance in the coming weeks is that - as a consequence of the Government strategy of individualising responsibility and preemptively pointing the finger of blame at people when cases rise - increasing numbers of people seem to be viewing "lockdown" measures as punitive and so resent the injustice of being punished when they haven't done anything wrong. I fear this will reduce compliance with any increased measures somewhat.


Agreed, and the language used in reporting restrictions tends to encourage that thinking, and also the attitude of "how can I avoid these rules where possible?"


----------



## Looby (Oct 8, 2020)

We’ve mostly avoided any indoor activities at all. We went on holiday in Devon but mostly ate at the house and went inside one pub the whole time.
My bezzer took me for a late birthday dinner last night, they offered an inside table but neither of us wanted to, so we shivered a little outside with our coats on. The staff seemed surprised that we wouldn’t go in. There was a group in there for a birthday, loud, drinking, shouting, singing. I didn’t want to be near them. 
That was probably one of the last times we’ll get to do that for a while.
We’ll do wrapped up dog walks and stuff I expect. 

I still have a gym membership because I’m waiting for our bathroom to be done. Selfishly I would like them to stay open long enough that we can shower whilst we have no bathroom. 😄

I guess for me I’m taking enough risks at work that I can’t do so in my private life too, I have to minimise potential exposure where I can. Other people are making different choices but I think most I know are being careful and we’re not under any local restrictions.

I’m having a spell of feeling quite shit about it all, I guess we all have waves of this. My birthday has just passed and there was no big night out, no hugs and dancing. 
I miss that, I’m tactile and I want to hug my friends and feel relaxed and comfortable with them. 
I want to go in a supermarket without feeling I have to rush and constantly scanning if people are too close to me or coughing and not wearing masks.

I do have fucking shitloads of toilet roll though as I’ve signed up to a Who Gives A Crap subscription. 👍


----------



## emanymton (Oct 8, 2020)

Cid said:


> I’m not sure that’s true. Or at least if it is, it’s very unclear from reading the rules.
> 
> e2a: I had thought this myself incidentally, and noted that it appears widely ignored.


As far as I am aware the national rule that households can mix but only up to a max of 6 people. And it applies in all situations.

Where a local ban on household mixing is in place it again applies in all situations. Be crazy if it didn't. I guess an area could have different rules and allow mixing in some cases and not others.

This is ignoring any specific exemptions, like workplaces.


----------



## xenon (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I dunno.  The pubs round my way are all being super careful and doing everything strictly by the rulebook.  On this site though its rare to see the word 'pubs' without it being prefaced by 'crowded'.  I don't know how bad the situation has got in pubs but I've not seen it so far.



Hasn't been crowded in the few I've been in. Granted a self selecting sample as neither I or friends want to go any where crowded. Using the NHS app, mask on when walking in and going to the loo etc.

I think the problem with attributing outbreaks to venue types is this issue of super spreaders. Crowded poorly ventilated venues are the environment these events can best occur. But obviously this doesn't describe all hospitality venues by any means and does describe some households, shops, factories etc.


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

emanymton said:


> As far as I am aware the national rule that households can mix but only up to a max of 6 people. And it applies in all situations.
> 
> Where a local ban on household mixing is in place it again applies in all situations. Be crazy if it didn't. I guess an area could have different rules and allow mixing in some cases and not others.
> 
> This is ignoring any specific exemptions, like workplaces.



Right, misunderstanding... iirc if households mix in any situation outside restaurants, even in groups of 6, they should socially distance. In restaurant not needed. And there are additional restrictions dependant on region outside restaurant settings, which may have been what mrsteev was getting at.

The fact I am failing to keep this shit in my head gives me something of an indication as to how a lot of people end up just ignoring it.

E2a: and obviously meeting indoors restrictions are more onerous, which is going to be far more important over the next few months.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

2h ago 10:14 



> The Times today (paywall) is saying that pubs and restaurants in the north of England will be closed on Monday. It says:
> 
> 
> > The prime minister signed off on the lockdown last night alongside new financial support and a simplified system of restrictions in England.
> > The measures will include wage support for employees of businesses that were forced back into lockdown three months after opening. The new system of restrictions divides England into three tiers of escalating severity.





> And the Sun gives this explantation of how the new, simplified three-tier system of restrictions may work.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

_"Critical hospital admission levels in about ten days?"_

Government twiddles thumbs on restrictions until Monday...


----------



## mr steev (Oct 8, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Which I guess is not much good if you can still congregate with large numbers of other people without masks to eat and drink.



That's presuming you can afford to go to the pub or out to eat (bearing in mind that these extra restrictions are in some very deprived areas) - psychologically, I think it's tougher than a full lockdown in some ways... Some people don't get to see anyone, where as others mix at work, school, college and can afford to go out. At least with a full lockdown there was a feeling of everyone in it together


----------



## mr steev (Oct 8, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I agree it is hard to tell and you nearly show why. No household mixing doesn't just mean at home it applies across the board. If you cannot see your friends in your house you cannot meet them in a pub either. Seems to be a common misunderstanding.
> 
> Well you could meet them in a pub if each household sat at a different socially distanced table and you didn't mix.



You can still meet with up to 6 people in a pub, but not at home


----------



## two sheds (Oct 8, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Well you could meet them in a pub if each household sat at a different socially distanced table and you didn't mix.



And just shout to the other table to make yourself heard over the other people shouting to the other table.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Somewhat more useful hospital bed stats than I managed earlier:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The idea that an empty hospital bed is a wasted resource is one of those things that is insanely short sighted and sadly prevalent in both the NHS upper management (after years of putting cash before safety) and in the political sphere.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 8, 2020)

Not going well in Northern Ireland, the number of cases in the Derry and Strabane area now higher than anywhere in England, the area is currently experiencing 636 cases per 100,000 compared to Liverpool, at 552 cases per 100,000.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 8, 2020)

two sheds said:


> And just shout to the other table to make yourself heard over the other people shouting to the other table.


about the only time I would want people to be texting each other ! or maybe a mini-zoom ?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 8, 2020)

I don't really understand the ban on people going round to other peoples' gardens. If you're outside there's surely little risk, although I suppose they'll sometimes have to go indoors to use the toilet.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 8, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I don't really understand the ban on people going round to other peoples' gardens. If you're outside there's surely little risk, although I suppose they'll sometimes have to go indoors to use the toilet.



Because there's no way of enforcing social distancing, I doubt many would stick with the 2m rule, esp. if drinking is involved.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

10PM curfew vote and another vivid example of the way the government will now confess the role that hospitality plays in the pandemic.



> Boris Johnson's spokesman said the vote on the measure will take place on Tuesday - risking a rebellion by backbench Tories, even as Labour's leader said his MPs will not be asked to vote against it (see our post at 13:20).
> 
> Asked about infections in hospitality venues, the spokesman said: "Early data does suggest that a significant proportion of exposure to the virus is seen in the hospitality sector and that is even more pronounced in younger age groups where we have been seeing the most rapid rise in infections.
> 
> "The data is new and we will continue to gather evidence and review it."



From 13:40 of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54460270


----------



## 20Bees (Oct 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Because there's no way of enforcing social distancing, I doubt many would stick with the 2m rule, esp. if drinking is involved.


Someone calling in to whatever I had on the radio the other day said, “COVID loves alcohol, it makes its mission so much easier”!


----------



## teuchter (Oct 8, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I don't really understand the ban on people going round to other peoples' gardens. If you're outside there's surely little risk, although I suppose they'll sometimes have to go indoors to use the toilet.


Because you go round for a barbecue, it starts to rain or get a bit chilly, people have had some beers, next thing everyone's sitting inside. That's what I've assumed the logic to be at least.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

There was an excellent programme on BBC North West last night. They were saying that one of the reasons it's so bad here now is that our levels never got down as low as the rest of the country's when lockdown was lifted, meaning we started the 'second wave' higher to begin with. 

I've just been told by a mate that a school he deals with has been given Govt money to buy a load of new laptops for the kids, with an eye on school closures.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 8, 2020)

Just had a call from the local council. They were checking I would be able to arrange food deliveries if the govt reintroduced shielding. 

If it happens there will be no Boris Box of food.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> _"Critical hospital admission levels in about ten days?"_
> 
> Government twiddles thumbs on restrictions until Monday...



Yeah and a load of hospitality businesses wondering whether they should order any stock and risk having to through it all away again or run out of stuff and have to turn custom down.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

sojourner said:


> There was an excellent programme on BBC North West last night. They were saying that one of the reasons it's so bad here now is that our levels never got down as low as the rest of the country's when lockdown was lifted, meaning we started the 'second wave' higher to begin with.



That makes sense to me.  The virus did seem to roll up the country from South to North.  Of course now it appears to be on its way back down again.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2020)

Facebook comment threads are awash with the idea that because testing makes the number of cases go up, we should stop testing and then there will be no more cases. 

I almost think we should give this a try, just to see how many months of bodies piling up it'll take before these people start to say hang on a minute, there may have been a small gap in my thinking on this.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 8, 2020)

The Trump Hypothesis


----------



## existentialist (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Jeremy Hunt?  I'm sure he'll want to get to the root of the problem, leave no stone unturned.


He's got the knives out for Johnson, so I'd say there's a fairly good chance of him digging at least some dirt.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Facebook comment threads are awash with the idea that because testing makes the number of cases go up, we should stop testing and then there will be no more cases.
> 
> I almost think we should give this a try, just to see how many months of bodies piling up it'll take before these people start to say hang on a minute, there may have been a small gap in my thinking on this.


This "don't test and then the numbers will be fine" thing always reminds me of the way infants are so perplexed by the idea that you're still there even if they put their hands over their eyes.

So, it's essentially "Peep-bo" for idiots...


----------



## 2hats (Oct 8, 2020)

existentialist said:


> This "don't test and then the numbers will be fine" thing always reminds me of the way infants are so perplexed by the idea that you're still there even if they put their hands over their eyes.
> 
> So, it's essentially "Peep-bo" for idiots...


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> 10PM curfew vote and another vivid example of the way the government will now confess the role that hospitality plays in the pandemic.



I see the BBC have one of the slides.










						Covid: MPs call for more clarity on local lockdowns
					

Pubs and restaurants in worst-hit areas could close next week in an effort to stall rising infection rates.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> The idea that an empty hospital bed is a wasted resource is one of those things that is insanely short sighted and sadly prevalent in both the NHS upper management (after years of putting cash before safety) and in the political sphere.



I suspect that one of the things that kept a lot of hospital capacity intact was emergency scenario cold war plans, and once the soviet union was gone a lot of countries in europe took the opportunity to erode capacity in a big way over subsequent decades.


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 8, 2020)

Long Covid is a worry. Given that it may ruin your life I wonder whether it should persuade all adults to categorise themselves as high risk?


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

Holy shit it’s mad in Leeds rn. I personally know six people who have had it, there’s multiple people off in my team at work, and my sons year at school has 22 kids with the covids!

It’s totally inevitable that I’ll get it so have stopped worrying myself. Luckily I’m no longer neutropenic. There’s also a lot of grumbling about ineffective local lockdown measures that are just decimating businesses and doing fuck all. I don’t think this is sustainable...


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Long Covid is a worry. Given that it may ruin your life I wonder whether it should persuade all adults to categorise themselves as high risk?


I've two mates with it, same age as me. 6 months in, and they're still incapacitated, and one has an ongoing heart problem cos of it. Scares the living shit out of me.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Holy shit it’s mad in Leeds rn. I personally know six people who have had it, there’s multiple people off in my team at work, and my sons year at school has 22 kids with the covids!
> 
> It’s totally inevitable that I’ll get it so have stopped worrying myself. Luckily I’m no longer neutropenic. There’s also a lot of grumbling about ineffective local lockdown measures that are just decimating businesses and doing fuck all. I don’t think this is sustainable...


Same in St Helens mate. It's creeping in all around me - loads of people I know in and outside of work all have someone in their close friend group or family who've got it/had it. Like a really quick encroachment over the last 4 weeks or so.

I'm shitting it if I get it. 52 now, nearly 53, and just diagnosed with SVT (more tests to come) - I really can't do with something else that's gonna fuck up my heart. Glad you've got better T count now, but still - scary shit mate.


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

FFS, there should be a press briefing tomorrow to announce all hospitality (pubs, bars, restaurants, etc) close midnight tomorrow for 2 weeks.

It would give us a breathing space if nothing else. If nothing like that happens soon we're heading quickly towards a very bad second wave.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS, should be a press briefing tomorrow, all hospitality (pubs, bars, restaurants, etc) close midnight tomorrow for 2 weeks.


Are you serious? Oh man we are fucked in the North. We just cannot cope with that economically.

What are the numbers looking like in Ponty Carlo? LTHT admissions are rising but still low compared to overall capacity.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2020)

Seriously? Crap, I was meant to have lunch out with a mate at the weekend. Guess if we take a picnic might be ok. Or have lunch at mine with the door open


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Seriously? Crap, I was meant to have lunch out with a mate at the weekend. Guess if we take a picnic might be ok. Or have lunch at mine with the door open



No, SHOULD be. Don't worry, they'll dither for a few more days.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

And when they do announce it, there will be some financial support.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

New measures are expected next Wednesday - I can't see pubs being open in the north from then.


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Are you serious? Oh man we are fucked in the North. We just cannot cope with that economically.
> 
> What are the numbers looking like in Ponty Carlo? LTHT admissions are rising but still low compared to overall capacity.



I'm at the point where I think fuck the economics, that can be sorted if there is the will. I'm much more worried about another 60,000 dead which the more data comes out the more likely is looking possible.  

Yes, admissions are currently low, but the predicted ones on this trajectory are potentially worse than the first wave now.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Same in St Helens mate. It's creeping in all around me - loads of people I know in and outside of work all have someone in their close friend group or family who've got it/had it. Like a really quick encroachment over the last 4 weeks or so.
> 
> I'm shitting it if I get it. 52 now, nearly 53, and just diagnosed with SVT (more tests to come) - I really can't do with something else that's gonna fuck up my heart. Glad you've got better T count now, but still - scary shit mate.


Eugh sorry to hear about your SVT. Will they give you an ablation? Don’t worry about it too much sweet. You’ll almost certainly be fine. Your fifties isn’t in the danger zone for covid, although I can understand your concern if you’ve got a new diagnosis. Remember that the vast majority of folk sail through with a minor illness.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

The wallet opens, although not in the way we have just been talking about (yet)....

*



			Local councils in England will receive £30m to fund measures including Covid marshals, to ensure the public and businesses follow coronavirus rules.
		
Click to expand...

*


> A further £30m in government funding will be split between police forces in England and Wales to aid enforcement.











						Covid-19: Councils get millions of pounds for marshals
					

Marshals will advise people of virus rules while police forces share £30m to help with enforcement.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm at the point where I think fuck the economics, that can be sorted if there is the will. I'm much more worried about another 60,000 dead which the more data comes out the more likely is looking possible.
> 
> Yes, admissions are currently low, but the predicted ones on this trajectory are potentially worse than the first wave now.


Literally thousands of people are gonna be unemployed by Christmas. My local just cannot sustain another 2 week lockdown they don’t reckon, let alone an indeterminate one. It’s all a bit fucking desperate eh.

Edit: good on Andy Burnham for saying he won’t do it without evidence. The way that man fights for Manchester is impressive.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Literally thousands of people are gonna be unemployed by Christmas.



In the wider job market I can easily see another million being added to the unemployed list by Christmas.  Its going to be a job massacre and its fucking bleak.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Burnham will do it. They didnt like the 10PM thing or the lack of financial support, but since the measures for the North will soon go much further than that and include financial support, I'm sure he will move on from the stance you may have heard him take in recent days. A stance which was already a bit more nuanced than the limited soundbites would suggest.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Holy shit it’s mad in Leeds rn. I personally know six people who have had it, there’s multiple people off in my team at work, and my sons year at school has 22 kids with the covids!
> 
> It’s totally inevitable that I’ll get it so have stopped worrying myself. Luckily I’m no longer neutropenic. There’s also a lot of grumbling about ineffective local lockdown measures that are just decimating businesses and doing fuck all. I don’t think this is sustainable...


Would you advocate stronger lockdown measures in Leeds right now or something else?


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> And when they do announce it, there will be some financial support.


Bloody hope so. We truly are fucked up here without it.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Eugh sorry to hear about your SVT. Will they give you an ablation? Don’t worry about it too much sweet. You’ll almost certainly be fine. Your fifties isn’t in the danger zone for covid, although I can understand your concern if you’ve got a new diagnosis. Remember that the vast majority of folk sail through with a minor illness.


Tbh, I'm not sure I want one. My brother had one for his, and it gave him full on Afib - they said it might happen, but he's absolutely fucked with it now, in and out of hossy with rampant fucking Afib. They've stuck me on beta blockers for now.  Thanks love, can't help but fret when I see previously healthy mates with long covid though, y'know?


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Would you advocate stronger lockdown measures in Leeds right now or something else?


I have no idea mate. It’s rock and a hard place. I do not envy the Government having to make these calls.

I guess I do think that shielding vulnerable older people whilst letting younger folk go about their business and build up herd immunity sounds sensible. But only if that can be done without overwhelming the NHS locally. I don’t think we can or should go back to full lockdown. There will be widespread disobedience if so I reckon.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Local councils in England will receive £30m to fund measures including Covid marshals, to ensure the public and businesses follow coronavirus rules.


There's 343 councils in England. £30m / 343 = £87,463.55 per council.

BEWARE THE MIGHTY COVID MARSHAL TASK FORCE!


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Tbh, I'm not sure I want one. My brother had one for his, and it gave him full on Afib - they said it might happen, but he's absolutely fucked with it now, in and out of hossy with rampant fucking Afib. They've stuck me on beta blockers for now.  Thanks love, can't help but fret when I see previously healthy mates with long covid though, y'know?


Absolutely. I’ve not met anyone with Long Covid. Were they people with ME/fibromyalgia before they got covid or people who were totally well before? 

AF is a pain, your poor brother.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Long Covid is a worry. Given that it may ruin your life I wonder whether it should persuade all adults to categorise themselves as high risk?



Nobody should be blase about it that's for sure. Mrs Frank has struggled for months with the long covid and she's only 30, non smoker, ticks all the 'healthy lifestyle' boxes. Covid doesn't give a fuck.

That being said, never leaving the house and/or living in a state of perpetual dread aren't great for your health either. Everyone's got to find their own level with it, as the kinds of probabilities and the number of unknowns involved don't really allow an entirely rational approach. Took me a long while to get my head around that at first.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

I would summarise the complains and concerns by local leadership, not just now but at various points in the past and no doubt more in future as including:

The government fucking everything up in general in this pandemic
Issues with testing capacity in their area
The government not consulting and informing local government about proposed changes
Plans being told to the press before the aforementioned local governments are told about them
The government making arbitrary decisions about local lockdowns without clearly spelling out what the data trigger points for action/relaxation are (and a related suspicion that the government have treated tory areas differently)
Areas under local restrictions being stick in limbo for ages when those measures fail to have the desired results
Lack of financial support


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Absolutely. I’ve not met anyone with Long Covid. Were they people with ME/fibromyalgia before they got covid or people who were totally well before?
> 
> AF is a pain, your poor brother.


I mentioned upthread that two of my mates have it. Same age as me, previously fit and healthy, no 'pre existing conditions'. 6 months in now and both are still fucked with it, and one has ongoing heart problems.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

sojourner said:


> I mentioned upthread that two of my mates have it. Same age as me, previously fit and healthy, no 'pre existing conditions'. 6 months in now and both are still fucked with it, and one has ongoing heart problems.


Urgh  Do we know what % develop long term problems?


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> I guess I do think that shielding vulnerable older people whilst letting younger folk go about their business and build up herd immunity sounds sensible.



That is, to put simply, a completely bollocks suggestion that has been roundly dismissed by everyone (WHO, all the UK CMOs, and many, many more) except a few people who've been given undue attention by the media.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 8, 2020)

From the Mirror yesterday.  Hospital admissions and the number of people currently receiving treatment in hospital for Covid-19 in North West England and North East England and Yorkshire are at about 1/3 of the April peak.
Covid divide laid bare with hospital patients in parts of North at 33% of peak

From today's Guardian - ICU cases could pass April's peak in Northern England by the end of the month.
ICU cases in northern England could pass peak in 22 days, MPs told

And those are big regions with some areas within much heavily affected than others, so certain hospitals will be much closer to critical than even those figures show.  Its scary.

More about that slide:


> In slides marked “official – sensitive”, seen by the Guardian, a senior government official cited a study by the US Centers for Disease Control which found that, compared with Covid-free people, those with coronavirus were twice as likely to report having dined at a restaurant in the 14 days before becoming infected.


So not quite the proof about tracked and traced UK covid transmissions in hospitality settings, rather more a generalised guide to behaviour and what setting might lead to covid transmission.

The lack of decisiveness around additional local measures, leaking to the press but neither announcing anything or negotiating to local councils is probably the worst thing they can do at this point.


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> New measures are expected next Wednesday - I can't see pubs being open in the north from then.



Oh great, let's have that nice 'last weekend out' effect.


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Urgh  Do we know what % develop long term problems?



No, as nobody has had anything post-Covid long term yet as it's so new. But there seems to be a longer recovery period for some, with some and growing evidence that longer term health issues are suffered by some people, although it is a minority.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That is, to put simply, a completely bollocks suggestion that has been roundly dismissed by everyone (WHO, all the UK CMOs, and many, many more) except a few people who've been given undue attention by the media.



Sadly I've had colleagues trotting out a simillar line recently. Which would be bad enough even if my colleagues were not trainee science teachers.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> I have no idea mate. It’s rock and a hard place. I do not envy the Government having to make these calls.
> 
> I guess I do think that shielding vulnerable older people whilst letting younger folk go about their business and build up herd immunity sounds sensible. But only if that can be done without overwhelming the NHS locally. I don’t think we can or should go back to full lockdown. There will be widespread disobedience if so I reckon.



If it was even vaguely possible to actually do that then they would have done it that way the first time.

It isnt possible because the risk from this disease goes up in general with every year of age, leaving a large percentage of the country in the vulnerable category.

And because even if we artificially narrow the definition to only consider the vulnerable as being ill people and people in care homes, it still doesnt work. Not unless you can isolate all the people who work in those places from the rest of society. Some care homes did actually get some of their staff to move into the premises in order to attempt this, and where it is actually possible it can make a real difference. As can reducing the reliance on bank staff that move between more than one care home.

To do the same with healthcare requires dedicated Covid and non-covid hospitals etc, but again the problem is that you then need to segregate staff so they dont work in both settings. And there arent enough NHS staff to keep everything working properly in normal times, so there certainly arent enough to do it in this pandemic context.

We saw what protective bubble the Queen got. If that could be offered to everyone else vulnerable to this disease then we wouldnt need lockdowns. It cant, so we will have differing degrees of much harsher measures at different points in order to cope.

Also the immunity picture is complex so even if we were in a position to go for herd immunity, the goal of that strategy may never actually be reached.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Urgh  Do we know what % develop long term problems?


I don't know, no. But it seems to be pretty random - no telling who's gonna suffer from it. One is part of a big FB group, and she says there's all kinds in there in terms of age and pre-covid health and lifestyle.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That is, to put simply, a completely bollocks suggestion that has been roundly dismissed by everyone (WHO, all the UK CMOs, and many, many more) except a few people who've been given undue attention by the media.


Good job I’m not in Government


----------



## Numbers (Oct 8, 2020)

17540 new cases recorded.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Some care homes did actually get some of their staff to move into the premises in order to attempt this, and where it is actually possible it can make a real difference.


I guess there's a lot more spare rooms in the care homes now, if more places want to try it this time round.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Good job I’m not in Government


they literally tried what you suggested, and gave up in panic within a week.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> I guess there's a lot more spare rooms in the care homes now, if more places want to try it this time round.


_wince_


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> I don’t think we can or should go back to full lockdown. There will be widespread disobedience if so I reckon.



I think you're bang on the money with the widespread disobedience.  There is a lot of trouble brewing.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

Numbers said:


> 17540 new cases recorded.



How many deaths?


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think you're bang on the money with the widespread disobedience.  There is a lot of trouble brewing.


There’s a lot of anger and a lot of fuck you about the prospect eh. You only need to read the comments on your local rags Facebook


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> How many deaths?


77


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> You only need to read the comments on your local rags Facebook


those guys will kick off at literally anything mind.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> That being said, never leaving the house and/or living in a state of perpetual dread aren't great for your health either. Everyone's got to find their own level with it, as the kinds of probabilities and the number of unknowns involved don't really allow an entirely rational approach. Took me a long while to get my head around that at first.



I think one of the government's many, many failures on handling this is their total failure to be open and to educate people on the science behind it. And in particular the community level side and the degree to which distancing etc are for a much wider benefit than yourself. When I see people going 'ooh distancing has broken down, nobody gives a fuck anymore,' I don't really see that. I think people in general want to do the right thing and if you give them clear instructions then in general they'll do it. What I do see is that people aren't living in fear to the same degree any more - they're not cowering round people in the street like they were in March. To be honest I think they're right in that, others might disagree, but ultimately it doesn't matter because that sort of nervousness will only motivate people for so long IMO.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> those guys will kick off at literally anything mind.


This is true but make no mistake people are being sick of being put in detention.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Good job I’m not in Government


I know. How awful to be in a secure job with a solid salary, decent pension, subsidised bars and restaurants, likely a nice expenses account, long holidays, possibly a second home and a pocket stuffed full of money from private party donors. 

(((government)))


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> they literally tried what you suggested, and gave up in panic within a week.



Even the original plan A that went in the bin did involve a lengthy period of quite large restrictions. But we never got to see that because it all fell apart in record time due to the double whammy of getting both the measures and the timing wrong in early March.

If we had almost no obesity in this country, some other demographic differences and had vastly more healthcare capacity, staff, etc, then I think the establishment in this country would have tried much harder to stick to their preferred approach. The UK, the Netherlands and Sweden were all originally up for variations on that theme. We were least well placed to pull it off, then the Netherlands, then Sweden. I will rejudge this once we have seen what winter is like in all those places.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I know. How awful to be in a secure job with a solid salary, decent pension, subsidised bars and restaurants, likely a nice expenses account, long holidays, possibly a second home and a pocket stuffed full of money from private party donors.
> 
> (((government)))


Say what you like about being an MP but stable job it ain’t. They work fucking hard for their money too on the whole. The decent ones anyway. I’ve never had a Tory MP.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

A variety of work environments now telling staff not to use the NHS app. I know Orang Utan  has been facing this.









						NHS Covid-19 app: Why are some teachers being told not to use it?
					

Some school heads are telling teachers to ignore or switch off contact tracing, BBC News has learned.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> This is true but make no mistake people are being sick of being put in detention.



People aren't being 'put in detention' though, and talking like that is nonsense. There's a few restrictions in place short term to stop thousands of the most vulnerable people dying.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I think one of the government's many, many failures on handling this is their total failure to be open and to educate people on the science behind it. And in particular the community level side and the degree to which distancing etc are for a much wider benefit than yourself. When I see people going 'ooh distancing has broken down, nobody gives a fuck anymore,' I don't really see that. I think people in general want to do the right thing and if you give them clear instructions then in general they'll do it. What I do see is that people aren't living in fear to the same degree any more - they're not cowering round people in the street like they were in March. To be honest I think they're right in that, others might disagree, but ultimately it doesn't matter because that sort of nervousness will only motivate people for so long IMO.


Mmm, round here, there's a sort of misplaced rebellion over distancing. It is actually impossible in many places to do it, cos folk just walk into you, walk up behind you in shops etc, in a 'fuck you' kind  of way.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 8, 2020)

sojourner said:


> A variety of work environments now telling staff not to use the NHS app. I know Orang Utan  has been facing this.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


We have since been told we're welcome to use it now and to keep our phones on us, if that makes us feel safer.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> People aren't being 'put in detention' though, and talking like that is nonsense. There's a few restrictions in place short term to stop thousands of the most vulnerable people dying.


I know but that’s not how many see it 🤷🏻‍♀️


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> We have since been told we're welcome to use it now and to keep our phones on us, if that makes us feel safer.


Oh good!! Did they just change their minds on their own, or was there some negotiation on your part? I know you said your union had been crap over it.


----------



## andysays (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Literally thousands of people are gonna be unemployed by Christmas. My local just cannot sustain another 2 week lockdown they don’t reckon, let alone an indeterminate one. It’s all a bit fucking desperate eh.
> 
> Edit: good on Andy Burnham for saying he won’t do it without evidence. The way that man fights for Manchester is impressive.


The way things are going, literally tens of thousands more are likely to be dead by Christmas, in large part because the government was too keen on prioritising the short term effect on some sectors of the economy than actually doing anything to get the spread under control before re-opening pubs etc.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

sojourner said:


> 77



Its a mad situation.  My first thought was 'well at least that aspect of it is stable'.  Then I sort of imagined a single event where 77 people died like a plane crash or terrorist event, the fall out from it would be huge yet this is happening every day.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its a mad situation.  My first thought was 'well at least that aspect of it is stable'.  Then I sort of imagined a single event where 77 people died like a plane crash or terrorist event, the fall out from it would be huge yet this is happening every day.



Just wait till I start boring everyone with the latest daily hospital data again once I've had a chance to process the data.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> People aren't being 'put in detention' though, and talking like that is nonsense. There's a few restrictions in place short term to stop thousands of the most vulnerable people dying.



Edie is just relaying how people are feeling. This is also the feeling I'm getting from speaking with people.  You can rationalize it all you want but that doesn't change what is happening out there.    I think you are perhaps a bit blind as to what is actually happening out there and how much it is influencing government decision making.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 8, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Oh good!! Did they just change their minds on their own, or was there some negotiation on your part? I know you said your union had been crap over it.


Think it was just me and others taking a stand. The unions did fuck all. Perhaps we should start our own union. I'd make a crap rep though!


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> This is true but make no mistake people are being sick of being put in detention.


Maybe - all I know is that as each new restriction has approached, it's been widely predicted that there'll be widespread disobedience, when in the breach, each time... there hasn't. 

Gobby dicks on local paper facebook pages are all fucking mouth.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Edie is just relaying how people are feeling. This is also the feeling I'm getting from speaking with people.  You can rationalize it all you want but that doesn't change what is happening out there.    I think you are perhaps a bit blind as to what is actually happening out there and how much it is influencing government decision making.



Its not influencing the government that much. If it was, they would not have brought in the rule of 6, and they would not be looking at hospitality closures.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Think it was just me and others taking a stand. The unions did fuck all. Perhaps we should start our own union. I'd make a crap rep though!


Well done. That's brilliant. Hey, why not? I think you'd make a great rep!


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 8, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Well done. That's brilliant. Hey, why not? I think you'd make a great rep!


not so good with details tho


----------



## sojourner (Oct 8, 2020)

I see they're gonna start doing daily briefings again. Deja fucking vu anyone? Except this time the buffoon won't be leading them.









						Ex-Journalist Allegra Stratton to lead No 10 TV briefings
					

No 10 announced earlier this year it plans to hold daily White House-style press conferences.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Edie is just relaying how people are feeling. This is also the feeling I'm getting from speaking with people.  You can rationalize it all you want but that doesn't change what is happening out there.    I think you are perhaps a bit blind as to what is actually happening out there and how much it is influencing government decision making.


Absolutely this. The hard line ‘close it all down’ brigade are missing the general mood. Which isn’t pretty. Yes, there are those that are scared of a big second wave- most of us!!- but there is also a complete lack of sense of the fact that people need to earn a living! If you are on a zero hours job, what are you gonna do if you get a ‘isolate for two weeks’ text? Not having the app for a start. Or what if you’re gonna lose your job with a second total lockdown cos you work in a hairdressers or in a pub. Surprise surprise people don’t want to be without a job. Universal credit, if you even get it, takes weeks and weeks to come through.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its not influencing the government that much. If it was, they would not have brought in the rule of 6, and they would not be looking at hospitality closures.



Not sure about that, the rule of 6 seemed like a pretty clear compromise and is one of the reasons why it hasn't worked. They are dragging their feet regarding hospitality closures as well.   I think how the people will react is and has been influencing pretty much all their decision making to a greater and lesser degree.  They are, after all politicians first and foremost.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> Maybe - all I know is that as each new restriction has approached, it's been widely predicted that there'll be widespread disobedience, when in the breach, each time... there hasn't.
> 
> Gobby dicks on local paper facebook pages are all fucking mouth.


This is also a possibility to be fair.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 8, 2020)

Today's figures make depressing reading, not just the cases (with a 6.88% positivity rate) nor the appalling 77 deaths.

But there have been another 609 people admitted to hospital today and of the 3,412 now in hospital, some 442 are in beds equipped for mechanical ventilation.

Not happy about all the dilly-dallying going on, within the decision making process.
Personally, health of the population comes first. 
With suitable will-power and funding, the economy can be boot-strapped later ...


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

A brief hospital admissions narrative for England.

At its lowest point after months of falling after the first lockdown, 316 people were admitted with Covid-19 in a 7 day period in England. That was in the latter part of August.

When I add up the England admissions figures for the last 7 days data that are currently published, which means the period of 30th September->6th October, that figure is 2927. So nearly 10 times higher. Almost 3000 people a week. I cant actually say thats literally 3000 people hospitalised a week from covid because these admission numbers also include people that were already in hospital and then diagnosed later, which will also include people who caught it in hospital.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Absolutely this. The hard line ‘close it all down’ brigade are missing the general mood. Which isn’t pretty. Yes, there are those that are scared of a big second wave- most of us!!- but there is also a complete lack of sense of the fact that people need to earn a living! If you are on a zero hours job, what are you gonna do if you get a ‘isolate for two weeks’ text? Not having the app for a start. Or what if you’re gonna lose your job with a second total lockdown cos you work in a hairdressers or in a pub. Surprise surprise people don’t want to be without a job. Universal credit, if you even get it, takes weeks and weeks to come through.


I think this mood is at least partly informed by the government's bullish approach to financial support - no-one here is suggesting closing anything down without significant financial support for affected people & businesses.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> If you are on a zero hours job, what are you gonna do if you get a ‘isolate for two weeks’ text? Not having the app for a start. Or what if you’re gonna lose your job with a second total lockdown cos you work in a hairdressers or in a pub. Surprise surprise people don’t want to be without a job. Universal credit, if you even get it, takes weeks and weeks to come through.


A friend of mine is on a zero hours contract through an agency. She got a positive test and is isolating. She's gutted as she needs the money, but surely two weeks off work is better than the prospect of infecting those around you? It must be a really hard choice  Especially for those who are told to isolate just because they have been in contact with someone else but haven't had a test.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think this mood is at least partly informed by the government's bullish approach to financial support - no-one here is suggesting closing anything down without significant financial support for affected people & businesses.


Absolutely. Yes. The Government need to put money on the table, quickly.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2020)

miss direct said:


> A friend of mine is on a zero hours contract through an agency. She got a positive test and is isolating. She's gutted as she needs the money, but surely two weeks off work is better than the prospect of infecting those around you? It must be a really hard choice  Especially for those who are told to isolate just because they have been in contact with someone else but haven't had a test.


Sometimes if you have two weeks off it's hard to get any more work once you're back. What are the placement like? Does she have a sympathetic manager?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Absolutely this. The hard line ‘close it all down’ brigade are missing the general mood. Which isn’t pretty. Yes, there are those that are scared of a big second wave- most of us!!- but there is also a complete lack of sense of the fact that people need to earn a living! If you are on a zero hours job, what are you gonna do if you get a ‘isolate for two weeks’ text? Not having the app for a start. Or what if you’re gonna lose your job with a second total lockdown cos you work in a hairdressers or in a pub. Surprise surprise people don’t want to be without a job. Universal credit, if you even get it, takes weeks and weeks to come through.



Yes and if you're in danger of losing your job, livelihood, home etc when the vast majority will know no one who has died from it and many won't know anyone who's had it or at least had a bad case of it it just exacerbates the feeling.  

I'm not saying the virus isn't a massive problem, it clearly is.  I'm also not saying that extra measures need to be taken, they do.  All I'm saying is that there are a lot of things going on here and _the lock it all down now and fuck the consequences crowd_ should at least acknowledge what that means and how others may not feel too positive about it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 8, 2020)

sojourner said:


> I see they're gonna start doing daily briefings again. Deja fucking vu anyone? Except this time the buffoon won't be leading them.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



TBF the buffoon rarely hosted the daily briefings anyway.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

miss direct said:


> A friend of mine is on a zero hours contract through an agency. She got a positive test and is isolating. She's gutted as she needs the money, but surely two weeks off work is better than the prospect of infecting those around you? It must be a really hard choice  Especially for those who are told to isolate just because they have been in contact with someone else but haven't had a test.



I guess it depends on how desperate you are.  If you need the money to feed you and a kid, heat the house etc.  Well, I'd probably go to work under those circumstances.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Say what you like about being an MP but stable job it ain’t. They work fucking hard for their money too on the whole. The decent ones anyway. I’ve never had a Tory MP.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 8, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Sometimes if you have two weeks off it's hard to get any more work once you're back. What are the placement like? Does she have a sympathetic manager?


It's Amazon... but through an agency. Think they are always busy so should be ok.


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Think it was just me and others taking a stand. The unions did fuck all. Perhaps we should start our own union. I'd make a crap rep though!



Who are you with now? Join the IWGB and start a branch or join the holding branch?


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2020)

I don't necessarily think it needs a full lockdown tbh. There are countries like South Korea which are controlling it pretty well without one. The problem is that the government has let this get out of control to such an extent that more restrictions are likely, and even if they don't materialise people will soon be scared of going out anyway 

Still feels a bit surreal down here and Reading all these posts because our infection rate isn't that high, we pretty much have the same restrictions as in the summer apart from the 6 people thing and so on.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Who are you with now? Join the IWGB and start a branch or join the holding branch?


Unite, GMB and Unison - though on the brink of cancelling membership of GMB and Unison.


----------



## andysays (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes and if you're in danger of losing your job, livelihood, home etc when the vast majority will know no one who has died from it and many won't know anyone who's had it or at least had a bad case of it it just exacerbates the feeling.
> 
> I'm not saying the virus isn't a massive problem, it clearly is.  I'm also not saying that extra measures need to be taken, they do.  All I'm saying is that there are a lot of things going on here and _the lock it all down now and fuck the consequences crowd_ should at least acknowledge what that means and how others may not feel too positive about it.


Who is this "_lock it all down now and fuck the consequences crowd" _you refer to, because TBH it seems to be figment of your imagination, and by presenting it in this way, you are in danger of down playing the seriousness of the problem and the urgent need to take action to deal with it.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 8, 2020)

Cid said:


> Right, misunderstanding... iirc if households mix in any situation outside restaurants, even in groups of 6, they should socially distance. In restaurant not needed. And there are additional restrictions dependant on region outside restaurant settings, which may have been what mrsteev was getting at.
> 
> The fact I am failing to keep this shit in my head gives me something of an indication as to how a lot of people end up just ignoring it.
> 
> E2a: and obviously meeting indoors restrictions are more onerous, which is going to be far more important over the next few months.


Got you, yes I think that is the case.

I thought you meant you were in an area with a ban on all household mixing.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

More on hospital admissions. All of these are figures for 7 days worth of admissions, since the numbers otherwise wobble around a lot due to daily variations in testing etc.

In the South West the weekly admissions figure fell as low as 9 at the end of August. It is now 98.

In the South East it fell as low as 32 in August and is now at 133.

In the East of England it fell as low as 17 and is now 117.

In London 36 became 273.

In the Midlands 59 became 482.

In the North East and Yorkshire, 52 became 809.

In the North West, 54 became 1015.


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Edie is just relaying how people are feeling. This is also the feeling I'm getting from speaking with people.  You can rationalize it all you want but that doesn't change what is happening out there.    I think you are perhaps a bit blind as to what is actually happening out there and how much it is influencing government decision making.



No, I do see it for sure, and some of it is understandable for fear of job and income loss, but some of it is selfishness and a lack of collective solidarity and care that needs challenging not accepting.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

andysays said:


> Who is this "_lock it all down now and fuck the consequences crowd" _you refer to, because TBH it seems to be figment of your imagination, and by presenting it in this way, you are in danger of down playing the seriousness of the problem and the urgent need to take action to deal with it.



I admit I did slip into a bit of hyperbole there but it was based on several comments on this thread.  Its certainly not completely made up.  I'm not going to quote them here because its a distraction.  They are on the thread for all to read and make up their own mind.  

The point I am trying to get across is that its easy to insist full lockdown is the only way when you have a secure job.  Oh and for the record me playing something down or up on here makes not one jot of difference to what will happen.  I really don't have that level of influence but its nice to be thought of in that way.


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I admit I did slip into a bit of hyperbole there but it was based on several comments on this thread.  Its certainly not completely made up.  I'm not going to quote them here because its a distraction.  They are on the thread for all to read and make up their own mind.
> 
> The point I am trying to get across is that its easy to insist full lockdown is the only way when you have a secure job.  Oh and for the record me playing something down or up on here makes not one jot of difference to what will happen.  I really don't have that level of influence but its nice to be thought of in that way.



Not sure anyone on here is pushing for a 'full lockdown' (whatever that is) though?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not sure anyone on here is pushing for a 'full lockdown' (whatever that is) though?



It has been stated several times by different people over the last few days. But as I say, this is a distraction...


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> The point I am trying to get across is that its easy to insist full lockdown is the only way when you have a secure job.


But it's in the government's control to make insecure workers more secure via support for companies and individuals. The idea that anyone here is advocating a _full lockdown now!_ without this support is a bit silly. 

(I'm not, fwiw, advocating a full lockdown now)


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> But it's in the government's control to make insecure workers more secure via support for companies and individuals. The idea that anyone here is advocating a _full lockdown now!_ without this support is a bit silly.



But they're not really doing that at the moment* and this is the point where we came in at and the reason why I believe there may be trouble in store over winter in the form of disobedience on a much larger scale than we've seen so far.

* We'll have to wait and see what they are propose next week.


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

What's just ridiculous and tragic is the longer they delay some restrictions now the more likely it is we'll have no alternative but to have a 'full lockdown' later.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 8, 2020)

I'd love to see modelling of what would have happened pandemically and economically if the government had made different choices earlier on.  Yes one where the modellers use hindsight so they manage to make perfect choices all along but also following the best science knowledge at the time. Or if we had a different nhs or shut down all but essential air travel with quarantines at the start etc. 

Test out my stitch in time saves nine  theory  hypothesis. 

I expect most good modellers are quite busy right now though....


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> But they're not really doing that at the moment* and this is the point where we came in at and the reason why I believe there may be trouble in store over winter in the form of disobedience on a larger scale than we've seen so far.
> 
> * We'll have to wait and see what they are propose next week.


they'll be proposing closing the pubs across the north (and maybe beyond), and financially supporting the owners & staff. because there is no way to do one without the other.


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> But they're not really doing that at the moment* and this is the point where we came in at and the reason why I believe there may be trouble in store over winter in the form of disobedience on a much larger scale than we've seen so far.
> 
> * We'll have to wait and see what they are propose next week.



It'll only take people to know someone dying or hospitalized for them to turn round their attitude very quickly though. I bet the strongest 'fuck lockdown' person will be the ones screaming the loudest that we all need locking up in hermetically sealed rooms once a friend or close family member ends up on a ventilator.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It'll only take people to know someone dying or hospitalized for them to turn round their attitude very quickly though. I bet the strongest 'fuck lockdown' person will be the ones screaming the loudest that we all need locking up in hermetically sealed rooms once a friend or close family member ends up on a ventilator.



But that's not going to happen to the vast majority of people because it won't be allowed to.  This is the point I'm making about people not being able to see it.

I should say this is not a position I hold and I agree that extra measure should be taken and the financial assistance that goes with it.  What I am saying is that we're a bubble here and quite an old bubble too.  I don't see the attitude here when I'm out and about, quite the opposite in fact.  

At the moment I see nothing but a winter of discontent and disorder ahead.  I hope I am wrong.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Not sure about that, the rule of 6 seemed like a pretty clear compromise and is one of the reasons why it hasn't worked. They are dragging their feet regarding hospitality closures as well.   I think how the people will react is and has been influencing pretty much all their decision making to a greater and lesser degree.  They are, after all politicians first and foremost.


My Covid conspiracy theory is that they will try and structure any lockdowns so that cases are low and going down in the run up to Christmas. Don't want Boris being the PM who called off Christmas do we?

But I am probably giving them too much credit thinking they are even trying to plan that far ahead.

To be frank that might not be a bad thing if they did. Christmas will give a spike whatever and better to spike form a low level than a high one.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 8, 2020)

I phoned the local pub to try to arrange emergency beer deliveries at the start of lockdown but they didn't phone back  . The local shop has greatly expanded its deliveries, pubs should deliver/off-licence sell flagons - take some of the profits their way and away from the supermarkets. Saves beer going to waste, too.


----------



## prunus (Oct 8, 2020)

emanymton said:


> My Covid conspiracy theory is that they will try and structure any lockdowns so that cases are low and going down in the run up to Christmas. Don't want Boris being the PM who called off Christmas do we?
> 
> But I am probably giving them too much credit thinking they are even trying to plan that far ahead.
> 
> To be frank that might not be a bad thing if they did. Christmas will give a spike whatever and better to spike form a low level than a high one.



I’d love to think they have that much of a grasp of how to control it as to be able to pull that off.  We have the worst possible government, at the worst possible time.


----------



## andysays (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I admit I did slip into a bit of hyperbole there but it was based on several comments on this thread.  Its certainly not completely made up.  I'm not going to quote them here because its a distraction.  They are on the thread for all to read and make up their own mind.
> 
> The point I am trying to get across is that its easy to insist full lockdown is the only way when you have a secure job.  Oh and for the record me playing something down or up on here makes not one jot of difference to what will happen.  I really don't have that level of influence but its nice to be thought of in that way.


I agree that it's easier for people who won't be directly affected by eg pub closures to say that they're important and urgent, but I also think, as has been mentioned a few times recently, that the society we live in now gives a greater importance in people's thinking to "how does this affect me?" in terms of hardship or even just inconvenience over "how can we collectively do what needs to be done".

We as a society are not in a strong position to overcome covid, not just because public services have been run down over decades, but also because ideas of collective responsibility have been largely replaced by individualistic thinking in many people's consciousness.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 8, 2020)

It's grim up north.



> The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care in the north of England will surpass the April peak if infections continue rising at the current rate, MPs have been warned in a briefing chaired by Chris Whitty and a minister.
> 
> *MPs were also shown early research by Public Health England suggesting that bars, pubs and restaurants accounted for 41% of cases in which two or more under-30s had visited the same venue in the week before testing positive. This fell to a quarter of infections across all age groups, the MPs were told.*
> 
> With new restrictions expected to be announced next week for millions of people, and likely to hit hospitality venues, MPs were told there would be 304 people in intensive care units across the north of England in 22 days on the current trajectory. This is two more than in the peak of the first wave in April in the region.











						Covid ICU cases in northern England could pass April peak in 22 days, MPs told
					

Leaked slides suggest hospitality accounted for 41% of linked Covid cases among under-30s




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## emanymton (Oct 8, 2020)

prunus said:


> I’d love to think they have that much of a grasp of how to control it as to be able to pull that off.  We have the worst possible government, at the worst possible time.


Ah, but they don't know that, they think they are geniuses. Trying to do that doesn't  mean succeeding.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I phoned the local pub to try to arrange emergency beer deliveries at the start of lockdown but they didn't phone back  . The local shop has greatly expanded its deliveries, pubs should deliver/off-licence sell flagons - take some of the profits their way and away from the supermarkets. Saves beer going to waste, too.


Lots of pubs did this - but I think apart from those with a specialist range it wasn't really worth it.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 8, 2020)

A lot of the local pubs here were doing takeaway only during the actual lockdown


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 8, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's grim up north.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


aye - just looked at the Covid map for Leeds and surrounding area and it's gone mostly dark blue. A lot of it is clustered around the universities and areas of high student accommodation, unsurprisingly


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

A certain sort of somewhat rational anti-lockdown types really missed a trick by not going completely nuts at the government when the test & trace system failed to live up to expectations or, eventually, to level of demand for tests.

Because the government spent months talking about how that side of things was a big key to being able to unlock and reopen things. So when it failed to meet demand, it was pretty obvious that the test & trace level of pandemic management was not enough, even for that stage of the pandemic.

There are limits to this stuff, for example even if test & trace had been excellent, timely and hugely resourced, its rather unlikely that it could have effectively managed the pandemic throughout winter, not without certain things being closed for certain periods. But done right it could have changed the timing and magnitude of the challenge.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

andysays said:


> I agree that it's easier for people who won't be directly affected by eg pub closures to say that they're important and urgent, but I also think, as has been mentioned a few times recently, that the society we live in now gives a greater importance in people's thinking to "how does this affect me?" in terms of hardship or even just inconvenience over "how can we collectively do what needs to be done".
> 
> We as a society are not in a strong position to overcome covid, not just because public services have been run down over decades, but also because ideas of collective responsibility have been largely replaced by individualistic thinking in many people's consciousness.


What’s your evidence for this, that people no longer feel collective responsibility? It sounds a bit ‘good old days during the Blitz’ crap to me. I’m not sure human nature has changed all that radically. People still pull together when valled, (but will also often quietly do whatever they think suits them best when they don’t think anyone’s looking).


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

Yep...

The more boozy friends/acquaintances whatsapp group I'm on has a 'let's get some boozing in this weekend' thing.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Yeah I think levels of support for measures and the degree of compliance was probably larger the first time round, to start with, than the governments own experts had dared to hope it would be.

But those sorts of experts were also the ones to warn about the various ways such things could erode over time. For reasons not just of lockdown fatigue, but also if anything was done that demonstrated that we were really not all in this together, and that there were different rules and standards for different people. The Cummings thing was a vivid example of exactly what they feared.

The other aspect is very much about financial support, jobs etc. People find it much easier to do the right thing if they are given a viable way to actually behave in that manner without facing terrible personal consequences (financial etc).


----------



## two sheds (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> Lots of pubs did this - but I think apart from those with a specialist range it wasn't really worth it.



I wouldn't mind paying a bit more if it helped keep them open. They have Doombar which is quite drinkable.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> More on hospital admissions. All of these are figures for 7 days worth of admissions, since the numbers otherwise wobble around a lot due to daily variations in testing etc.
> 
> In the South West the weekly admissions figure fell as low as 9 at the end of August. It is now 98.
> 
> ...


Jesus.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 8, 2020)

At the low end but Truro hospital has reopened its  covid ward - 4 in there so far, I assume from the Pool factory outbreak.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> This is true but make no mistake people are being sick of being put in detention.



You're the one advocating indefinite detention for the old. 

I don't really care what people are sick of tbh. A lot of people need to grow the fuck up.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I wouldn't mind paying a bit more if it helped keep them open. They have Doombar which is quite drinkable.


You've got to sell quite a lot of beer quite fast to make it worthwhile broaching a barrel - the whole lot needs to go in a week.  72 pints. Easy enough if you've got drinkers in the pub, less so if you're doing take out and competing with the supermarkets.


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> What’s your evidence for this, that people no longer feel collective responsibility? It sounds a bit ‘good old days during the Blitz’ crap to me. I’m not sure human nature has changed all that radically. People still pull together when valled, (but will also often quietly do whatever they think suits them best when they don’t think anyone’s looking).



That's kind of the point though. People _can_ pull together. When valued. But that has failed here... elbows post while I was writing this sums up some of the reasons for that. It's nothing unique about the UK, or about British people. It's just a piece of incredible mismanagement. The will was there, but the lack of consistency, the shitty messaging, the one rule for us, the failure to use time bought effectively (this list could go on for a long time), all effectively poisoned the well.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You're the one advocating indefinite detention for the old.
> 
> I don't really care what people are sick of tbh. A lot of people need to grow the fuck up.


I most certainly am not. I absolutely believe that people should be free to make their own calls. My mum gives no fucks and goes out in her wheelchair every day.


----------



## Supine (Oct 8, 2020)

I don't think it's a case of people pulling together or not. The covid results are mainly dictated by government policy as this is what the public by and large respond to.

The rules got too relaxed (IMHO) and the results are starting to show.


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> The other aspect is very much about financial support, jobs etc. People find it much easier to do the right thing if they are given a viable way to actually behave in that manner without facing terrible personal consequences (financial etc).



And yes, this part of it really cannot be understated. Funnily enough a group of people on £80k+/year and - being tories - probably with other substantial incomes, don't quite seem to get this.


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

Cid said:


> That's kind of the point though. People _can_ pull together. When valued. But that has failed here... elbows post while I was writing this sums up some of the reasons for that. It's nothing unique about the UK, or about British people. It's just a piece of incredible mismanagement. The will was there, but the lack of consistency, the shitty messaging, the one rule for us, the failure to use time bought effectively (this list could go on for a long time), all effectively poisoned the well.


Honestly? It’s not like any other country is doing any better. It’s a fucking hard situation. There is no ‘right answer’. It’s a balancing act, and no matter what you do some people will shit n moan about it. I don’t think the Tories have done too badly overall. There was a lot they got right. Including the furlough scheme, the NHS Nightingales (despite them not being needed), the conceding to teacher-decided A level grades, the attempt to involve science and modelling-based policy decisions. Sometimes I think people are so bloody blinkered to “their side” that they lose the ability to actually acknowledge that some decisions are good.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I don't really care what people are sick of tbh. A lot of people need to grow the fuck up.



With hindsight the fact I've spent too much of today reading facebook comments has probably skewed my thinking here. Obviously there are extremely real concerns about people keeping the lights on and food in the fridge. Most people aren't scamdemic, they took our freedom type fuckwits and everyone deserves better than this this shitheap of a year we've had.


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> Honestly? It’s not like any other country is doing any better. It’s a fucking hard situation. There is no ‘right answer’. It’s a balancing act, and no matter what you do some people will shit n moan about it. I don’t think the Tories have done too badly overall. There was a lot they got right. Including the furlough scheme, the NHS Nightingales (despite them not being needed), the conceding to teacher-decided A level grades, the attempt to involve science and modelling-based policy decisions. Sometimes I think people are so bloody blinkered to “their side” that they lose the ability to actually acknowledge that some decisions are good.



Many, many other countries are doing better. 204 of them according to Worldometer.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> It’s not like any other country is doing any better.


what the fuck.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You're the one advocating indefinite detention for the old.
> 
> I don't really care what people are sick of tbh. A lot of people need to grow the fuck up.



Come on Frank.  This is classic U75 _gotcha_ bollocks.  Its a total misrepresentation.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> I most certainly am not. I absolutely believe that people should be free to make their own calls. My mum gives no fucks and goes out in her wheelchair every day.



You know what 'shielding' means in practice yes? We have no medical interventions with which to shield the vulnerable, so it means confinement. Indefinite confinement.


----------



## LDC (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> I absolutely believe that people should be free to make their own calls.



That attitude is _exactly _part of the problem. It's not like drinking alcohol or not. It's like drink driving or not.

What people decide to do on 'their own' has a potentially life ending impact on some others. Bit depressing to hear you spout that tbh.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's not like drinking alcohol or not. It's like drink driving or not.


Banning drink driving really fucked it for a lot of country pubs tbf. Will no-one think of the rural landlords!


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Supine said:


> The rules got too relaxed (IMHO) and the results are starting to show.



Yes and the government were told by their own scientific advisors that in order for the reopening education agenda to proceed, they needed to create 'room' in the infection picture by restricting things for a period leading up to the start of term. They didnt do that, and so we had the situation of the last month+ and the resulting application of the brakes that will be required soon.


----------



## andysays (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> What’s your evidence for this, that people no longer feel collective responsibility? It sounds a bit ‘good old days during the Blitz’ crap to me. I’m not sure human nature has changed all that radically. People still pull together when valled, (but will also often quietly do whatever they think suits them best when they don’t think anyone’s looking).


Your ridiculous posts on this thread today are the most immediate and obvious example, though I certainly wouldn't expect you to see them as such.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

andysays said:


> Your ridiculous posts on this thread today are the most immediate and obvious example, though I certainly wouldn't expect you to see them as such.


Do you have something a bit more rigorous? I'd be interested in seeing it too.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

My own opinion on what measures to impose now is that I still cannot be precise because I havent got the government modelling output, latest per-hospital figures, data from experimental sewage testing programmes etc.

Without that info my position is not to have a 'full lockdown' now but I would certain close hospitality in badly affected regions for a number of weeks, with financial support, and I would have preferred the Scottish timing in terms of things kicking in before a weekend begins, and the measures cover 3 weekends.

Its harder for me to say what I would do now in the currently less badly affected regions, as thats where I really need more nuanced data and modelling.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

Something that has been kicking around my head all day is that it appears to me that the various forms of local and national measures taken since August have largely failed. Is that a fair thing to say?  I guess you could argue that they may have slowed the rate down a bit but given all these new measures that are needed it looks to me like they have failed.

If they have failed the next question must be why have they failed?  Were they the wrong measures?  Were they doomed to failure?  Did not enough people take any notice?

I think this is important because the obvious question to follow is will more measures make any difference?  The way the government keeps ratcheting up the fines seems to be a little insight into what is going on.  You know you're in trouble when you're having to do that.


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> Do you have something a bit more rigorous? I'd be interested in seeing it too.



Go for a wander round your town centre this Saturday night.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Cid said:


> Go for a wander round your town centre this Saturday night.


My town centre has been empty on Saturday night for weeks.


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> My town centre has been empty on Saturday night for weeks.



Well go wherever the popular drinking spots are.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That attitude is _exactly _part of the problem. It's not like drinking alcohol or not. It's like drink driving or not.
> 
> What people decide to do on 'their own' has a potentially life ending impact on some others. Bit depressing to hear you spout that tbh.



When I posted earlier about people 'finding their own level' in terms of what they're comfortable doing or not doing, I meant to add a rider along the lines of '...up to the point where you'd be preventing someone else from making a similar choice for themselves'. Not comfortable wearing a mask? OK, but are you giving a fair shake to people who aren't comfortable around maskless strangers but who still need to catch a bus?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> Do you have something a bit more rigorous? I'd be interested in seeing it too.



Indeed.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Cid said:


> Well go wherever the popular drinking spots are.


It's really silly to use modern town centre drunken disorder as some sort of proof that there's no social solidarity these days - you think they didn't have those kinds of problems in the rose-tinted past? The government employed a million blackout warden over the course of the blitz to enforce _social solidarity._ WTF do you think they had to do?


----------



## Edie (Oct 8, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That attitude is _exactly _part of the problem. It's not like drinking alcohol or not. It's like drink driving or not.
> 
> What people decide to do on 'their own' has a potentially life ending impact on some others. Bit depressing to hear you spout that tbh.


You can’t force people mate. We don’t live in a dictatorship.


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's really silly to use modern town centre drunken disorder as some sort of proof that there's no social solidarity these days - you think they didn't have those kinds of problems in the rose-tinted past? The government employed a million blackout warden over the course of the blitz to enforce _social solidarity._ WTF do you think they had to do?



I don't know what you think you're arguing against, but I'm certainly not approaching this with some kind of idealised view of past events. I mean really that's kind of the point. You can't just say 'work it out for yourselves'. You need a whole host of measures from restrictions, through effective communication, public figures setting examples etc etc. People will go out and get wrecked this weekend. It's not a bad thing in itself. I won't laugh when some of them get ill... I might have joined them had I not been out once this week already. It doesn't show they're cunts. What it does show is a government that is unwilling to make decisive moves, and doesn't seem to appreciate that announcing they'll probably close pubs next week might just mean more people going to them this weekend.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 8, 2020)

Rules to save lives doesn't make anywhere a dictatorship ffs


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Cid said:


> I don't know what you think you're arguing against, but I'm certainly not approaching this with some kind of idealised view of past events. I mean really that's kind of the point. You can't just say 'work it out for yourselves'. You need a whole host of measures from restrictions, through effective communication, public figures setting examples etc etc. People will go out and get wrecked this weekend. It's not a bad thing in itself. I won't laugh when some of them get ill... I might have joined them had I not been out once this week already. It doesn't show they're cunts. What it does show is a government that is unwilling to make decisive moves, and doesn't seem to appreciate that announcing they'll probably close pubs next week might just mean more people going to them this weekend.


You responded to a post where we were talking about social solidarity, and whether there was less of it about at the moment?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> You can’t force people mate. We don’t live in a dictatorship.



Some days I feel like we live in the Dictatorship of the Lowest Common Denominator.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 8, 2020)

sojourner said:


> I see they're gonna start doing daily briefings again. Deja fucking vu anyone? Except this time the buffoon won't be leading them.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> earlier this year, she quit journalism to become the director of strategic communications for Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
> 
> When the job was advertised on the Conservative Party LinkenIn page it said the salary would be "based on experience", but the Daily Telegraph suggested it was likely to be more than £100,000-a-year.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 8, 2020)

Tbf Stratton has experience of broadcasting announcements for the Tories - Newsnight, for instance


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 8, 2020)

100k a year is taking the piss.


----------



## kebabking (Oct 8, 2020)

It may not _quite _reach the threshold of being National news, but the village bulk buy delivery service, courtesy of the rather wonderful Lauren, has restarted.

And _sotto voce, _the nice man will be spending less time with his chickens.


----------



## Cid (Oct 8, 2020)

killer b said:


> You responded to a post where we were talking about social solidarity, and whether there was less of it about at the moment?



Fair enough, I don't completely agree with Andy's post. Though I'm not sure that 'people never had very much solidarity anyway' is particularly reassuring.


----------



## Supine (Oct 8, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> 100k a year is taking the piss.



I wouldn't do it for less. It's going to be a terrible job!


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

Cid said:


> Fair enough, I don't completely agree with Andy's post. Though I'm not sure that 'people never had very much solidarity anyway' is particularly reassuring.


Thankfully that's not what I think or what I was saying. I think what I've thought throughout this, that a loud and overly-visible minority of DGAF clowns fuck things up for everyone else, if you let 'em.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2020)

Supine said:


> I wouldn't do it for less. It's going to be a terrible job!



A great job for someone with no conscience. Ten minutes work a day reading out government bullshit, for 100k per year?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 8, 2020)

Edie said:


> You can’t force people mate. We don’t live in a dictatorship.



Plenty of other states are enforcing restrictions far better than us, and they are not dictatorships, funny enough once it gets around just how seriously their governments are enforcing, people soon fall into line.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Something that has been kicking around my head all day is that it appears to me that the various forms of local and national measures taken since August have largely failed. Is that a fair thing to say?  I guess you could argue that they may have slowed the rate down a bit but given all these new measures that are needed it looks to me like they have failed.
> 
> If they have failed the next question must be why have they failed?  Were they the wrong measures?  Were they doomed to failure?  Did not enough people take any notice?
> 
> I think this is important because the obvious question to follow is will more measures make any difference?  The way the government keeps ratcheting up the fines seems to be a little insight into what is going on.  You know you're in trouble when you're having to do that.



Its a complex subject, I will have to approach it in incomplete chunks to avoid a nightmarishly long post. It still wont be short, sorry.

No point just looking at the measures, have to look at the relaxations over time too. And what levels of infection they got things down to before they did the relaxations.

The relaxations were not designed to be sustainable over winter. They were for summer. A lot of them were economic and to give people a break from the stuff that was closer to full lockdown.

The test & trace system was supposed to take more of the strain off the situation than they actually managed.

It is usually impossible to judge a single measure on its own, and I cannot call the various local lockdowns that happened from June onwards to be a complete failure as we cant see what would have happened without them, but they certainly failed to send infections plummeting to very low levels.

More measures will make real differences in future if they are strong measures at the right time. And just like before, the pandemic challenge is so big that single measures on their own are not enough, it always has to be a combination of things. The full lockdown had the expected impact, but there are some anti-lockdown types who refuse to believe that. And I certainly dont expect those people to believe further measures will help, they will remain adrift from reality because they can (since they arent the ones propping up the NHS and making the hard decisions), they made a decision not to believe that lockdowns work in the same way that some people choose to be skeptical about whether masks do anything.

Anything that reduces contact between people makes a difference. With this virus as with any other. Its doing enough to make enough of a difference that one person infects less than one person rather than more than one person thats key, and that requires multiple measures, behavioural changes etc. And the government werent even necessarily looking for that strong a result at every stage. Sometimes they may want to change the trajectory enough to slow the increases and keep the peak to a certain maximum, but not totally reverse them at that time. ie make R lower but not below 1. Thats another reason I cannot say whether they will judge everything done locally as a failure, if they were just playing for time then it did provide more time than doing nothing and having no restrictions at all would have. Same with masks.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

On a very much related note, people probably saw articles a month or so ago, probably in the likes of the Guardian, about how some specific local areas in places like the North West never really stopped seeing virus transmission, with some people describing this as Covid-19 already having become endemic in some communities in those areas.

There was a point to such articles and some real data, so endemic may be a fair description, but that still isnt the whole picture and it was a dangerous narrative when taken in isolation, as it was used by some to express a 'why did we bother' attitude.

The beef I have with that narrow view of things is that even though infections were never fully suppressed in those communities, that wasnt the actual goal in the first place, it was an ideal they didnt seriously expect to achieve, since they never thought that total eradication of this virus was viable (although at one stage the Scottish government claimed that was their goal, but it didnt take all that long to demonstrate how unlikely that was).

And most importantly, despite the lingering community transmission, the fact is that the achievements of lockdown and a staggered relaxation are clear even in those areas when it comes to the hospital and death data. We still got hospital admissions in the north west down to single digits per day for some brief periods in late summer. Sometimes people including myself fixate on peak numbers, but its the whole area under the death graph that matters, and months of having cases down to low levels is a lot better for the total number of deaths than doing less and having those figures higher for longer as a result.


----------



## andysays (Oct 8, 2020)

Cid said:


> Fair enough, I don't completely agree with Andy's post. Though I'm not sure that 'people never had very much solidarity anyway' is particularly reassuring.


I may not have worded my post perfectly, and you and others are, of course, welcome to agree or not, in part or in full.

But anyone who claims that there hasn't been a shift in public attitudes over the last forty years, away from the social or collective and towards the individual is either a fool or a rogue, or possibly both.


----------



## Supine (Oct 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> A great job for someone with no conscience. Ten minutes work a day reading out government bullshit, for 100k per year?



I'm pretty sure it'll be an 18hr a day job plus weekend working. Bit nieve to think it's a quick ten minutes and then off to the artisan coffee shop.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

andysays said:


> I may not have worded my post perfectly, and you and others are, of course, welcome to agree or not, in part or in full.
> 
> But anyone who claims that there hasn't been a shift in public attitudes over the last forty years, away from the social or collective and towards the individual is either a fool or a rogue, or possibly both.



A shift has been encouraged and achieved in certain domains.

A key early pandemic question was the extent to which this had been overstated, and the extent to which such changes could evaporate in a heartbeat if a shocking, emergency situation beyond peoples normal experiences occurred.


----------



## killer b (Oct 8, 2020)

andysays said:


> I may not have worded my post perfectly, and you and others are, of course, welcome to agree or not, in part or in full.
> 
> But anyone who claims that there hasn't been a shift in public attitudes over the last forty years, away from the social or collective and towards the individual is either a fool or a rogue, or possibly both.


I just want to see the data tbh.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 8, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Think it was just me and others taking a stand. The unions did fuck all. Perhaps we should start our own union. I'd make a crap rep though!


Standing together with your colleagues facing bosses down is what unionism is, not being able to recite the compete Law at Work.
Sounds like you'd be an excellent rep to me OU.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

A brief and incomplete guide to attitude change factors and milestones during a particular pandemic period, skipping the initial ramp up of concerns and goodwill as the first wave reared into view:

Attitudes started to shift once it was clear we had gotten past the first wave peak of hospital admissions and deaths.

Some fatigue showing by May. Which then combined in the worst way possible with the revelations about Cummings, we arent all in this together (widely regarded as a moment when Johnson squandered much pandemic goodwill in the same way Bush squandered 9/11 goodwill reserves via the Iraq war).

Frustration about how slowly things were taking, including the relaxation timetable being slowed at one or two stages.

Local measures, leading to local feelings of unfairness etc.

Rising numbers & signs of the test & trace system bucking under the demand by early September sent people like me back into the next repeat of the cycle. But some didnt want to get onboard for a second go round the loop even though it was always likely this would have to happen again at some stage, especially for autumn/winter.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

A final thought on prior local lockdowns, ineffectiveness of measures etc for tonight:

Another reason we cannot simply judge or deduce the effect of individual measures is that it isnt just the direct effect of the measures themselves that is in play, but the signals such measures send which does affect some peoples behaviour in additional ways.

So the 10pm pub curfew was not just about the time of drinking (and indeed the undesired consequences such as crowding after leaving/on public transport). Its also about how hearing about the 10pm thing and hearing the stuff in recent days about what role hospitality settings play in infection, is likely to put some people off going to the pubs at all.

Likewise the relaxation phases were not just about the specific relaxations themselves, but also the influence on peoples behaviour of the mood music and feeling of emergency and abnormality. So for example they had several motives for stopping the daily pandemic briefings. And one of them was that they wanted people to feel like it was a different phase, they didnt want to keep people in a certain frame of mind by having a press conference every day. There was even a stage in the pandemic where the press at large in this country were showing signs of moving on, relegating the pandemic to a story below the top slot. But that ended almost before it began because bad news from the USA and then some countries in Europe kicked in a long time before summer ended. Plus the data itself has a similar role in affecting some peoples sense of where things are at and how much of their lives to put on hold.

If the current rate of infection increases really did start to slow in some ways/by some measures in recent weeks then the rule of 6 and 10pm curfew would not be able to claim all the credit, it would be a combination of those things coming in and the new mood music and daily stories of woe that we've been under for what, a bit over a month now? When you see some users of a forum like this one starting to say we need to lockdown now, I would take that as one small indicator that some peoples attitudes to risk and behaviours has shifted again recently.

Our picture is distorted when we only consider the obvious signs of plenty of people who are not on board with restrictions etc, so dont overlook all the people in the opposite camp, who have responded to the changing situation far more appropriately. I wish I had a tidy number to indicate what sort of proportion of the public fall into either camp but I dont.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 8, 2020)

Nicked from John Hyde off twitter.



> So the new Downing Street press secretary is Allegra Stratton, who is married to the political editor of the Spectator, who works alongside the commissioning editor who happens to be married to Dominic Cummings, who is the chief adviser to Boris Johnson.



Talk about keeping it in the family.


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## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

The pandemic daily briefings may have given them ideas in regards the viability of the new format of political government briefings but this Stratton role and daily briefings are not really supposed to be about the pandemic. Inevitably given that the pandemic is the dominant issue at the moment those press conferences will end up involved in that side of things in some way, but I still dont really think of it as a pandemic story to be honest. Since they are most looking forward to using this stuff for the rest of their agenda beyond the pandemic when they get the chance. And I'm not sure, for example, that they will want to mix these new political press conferences with the pandemic public health message ones, that could get very messy. Its awkward enough when Johnson is joined by Whitty & Vallance, but at least Johnson is supposed to be the one who actually makes decisions, and the dynamic would be even worse if big pandemic things were left to a spokesperson + medical/science expert combo.


----------



## Supine (Oct 8, 2020)

Downing street does West Wing


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 8, 2020)

Just looked at the ZOE data map, and it reckons there are 5,322 active cases in Newcastle upon Tyne, so 17,863 per million population (and am I right in thinking its 20-69 year olds only and excludes disabled people in care homes).  So 4 x the current national rate and about 50 per cent of the estimated national rate at the peak on April 3rd


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## elbows (Oct 8, 2020)

My usual graph, where todays 17,540 reported cases actually belong by specimen date is in red.


----------



## editor (Oct 8, 2020)

Apols if already posted but this is a good examination of the Great Barrington Declaration



> But the media reports about this great “scientific divide” are right about one thing. The lead signatories are prominent, successful scientists. Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard University, Sunetra Gupta a professor at Oxford University and Jay Bhattacharay a professor at Stanford University Medical School. So why are they relying on press releases and champagne-clinking events with libertarian think tanks rather than following the scientific method of testing their hypotheses in a rigorous way and publishing their findings for critique?





> A quick look at the preprint server medRxiv shows that these three lead signatories have been publishing papers related to Covid-19, but they haven’t – to the best of my knowledge – published any modelling that puts their shielding theory to the test. In May, Gupta published a study suggesting that coronavirus may have infected half of the UK population already. She was wrong – in London the proportion of those infected seems to be close to 18 per cent – but that’s how science works. You allow your results to be scrutinised, you adjust and you try and get closer to the truth next time. With this declaration, the three lead signatories are positioning themselves on one side of a manufactured scientific debate, but they’re not putting the science front and centre at all.











						There is no ‘scientific divide’ over herd immunity
					

There’s a lot of talk of scientists divided over Covid-19, but when you look at the evidence any so-called divide starts to evaporate




					www.wired.co.uk


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 8, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Nobody should be blase about it that's for sure. Mrs Frank has struggled for months with the long covid and she's only 30, non smoker, ticks all the 'healthy lifestyle' boxes. Covid doesn't give a fuck.
> 
> That being said, never leaving the house and/or living in a state of perpetual dread aren't great for your health either. Everyone's got to find their own level with it, as the kinds of probabilities and the number of unknowns involved don't really allow an entirely rational approach. Took me a long while to get my head around that at first.


There's a compromise. I have ME, so the WHO classifies me as high risk but the NHS doesn't.  I don't stay at home, I go out every day, without a mask if I'm not in a crowded area. If there are lots of people, or beggars, I put the mask on. (The many beggars in Brixton have no notion of distancing - they get right in your face. ) I keep the mask on in shops.  I only go to cafes if I can have coffee outside. Any socialising is also outside.  So all in all I feel safe. I think shutting myself away at home is unnecessary. And even if I didn't have ME, the risk of long Covid would dictate the same safety measures. I think everyone should do the same, at least until long Covid is well understood. It seems that anyone can get it, and it might mean never working again, living on disability benefits forever.  Best be very careful until we get a vaccine sometime next year.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 8, 2020)

In the space of a couple of weeks we've gone from just generally being very careful because Mr W is high risk, but not knowing anyone IRL who has had it, to positive cases in both my sons' years at school (these kids are in several classes with each of them so quite possible that they have been exposed, although we haven't been advised to self isolate yet) and I now know two adults who have tested positive and several others who are having to isolate. It's a bit frightening.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> The pandemic daily briefings may have given them ideas in regards the viability of the new format of political government briefings but this Stratton role and daily briefings are not really supposed to be about the pandemic. Inevitably given that the pandemic is the dominant issue at the moment those press conferences will end up involved in that side of things in some way, but I still dont really think of it as a pandemic story to be honest. Since they are most looking forward to using this stuff for the rest of their agenda beyond the pandemic when they get the chance. And I'm not sure, for example, that they will want to mix these new political press conferences with the pandemic public health message ones, that could get very messy. Its awkward enough when Johnson is joined by Whitty & Vallance, but at least Johnson is supposed to be the one who actually makes decisions, and the dynamic would be even worse if big pandemic things were left to a spokesperson + medical/science expert combo.



It's a load of bollocks anyway, the PM and cabinet are the people in charge, there job literally involves selling themselves and their ideas to the public and they can't be fucked to get in front of the camera occasionally?

Cunts.


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 8, 2020)




----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 8, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


>



Sounds like the 'spoons saga with the guy wot owns that chain


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

I dont think I expected this sort of front page from the fucking Express of all papers but then again I've paid so much attention to shit the likes of the daily mail and the telegraph come out with in this pandemic that I probably havent even kept a proper eye on the pandemic stance of the Express.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 9, 2020)

In Soho tonight the 10pm curfew lead to actual crowds on the streets. The place I was in got round it by serving drinks in plastic cups - several people came in at 9:30 to order multiple drinks and take them to drink outside. 

It was an extremely covid-preventative bar. Weirdly dystopian. Plastic chairs in groups of two or three, really far apart, with perspex screens all around each little grouping. It felt like being in a window in the red light district in Amsterdam. 

I still think it would be better to stop venues serving alcohol at an earlier time - 9pm, maybe - but allow them to serve food and soft drinks till 11. 



cupid_stunt said:


> Because there's no way of enforcing social distancing, I doubt many would stick with the 2m rule, esp. if drinking is involved.



But it's such a blunt instrument. Kids should be excluded, and adults should be able to visit their parents, and not just for essential care visits. Then families can meet up to an extent in their gardens, with the adults choosing to take the small risk the kids present. Meeting up in gardens isn't all drunken bbqs.



sojourner said:


> Same in St Helens mate. It's creeping in all around me - loads of people I know in and outside of work all have someone in their close friend group or family who've got it/had it. Like a really quick encroachment over the last 4 weeks or so.
> 
> I'm shitting it if I get it. 52 now, nearly 53, and just diagnosed with SVT (more tests to come) - I really can't do with something else that's gonna fuck up my heart. Glad you've got better T count now, but still - scary shit mate.



I have SVT too - had the ablation because I can't go on betablockers due to shitty asthma. Still have SVT but not as badly; sorry to hear it went wrong for your brother. 

My doctors gave me the impression that it's a relatively minor condition, and it doesn't seem like it would necessarily predispose you to other heart problems. It's not something I dismiss out of hand either, and if you've just been diagnosed then it's scarier (hope that doesn't sound patronising, it's just the way I've known it go with diagnoses), but it's not a big risk factor.



Edie said:


> Say what you like about being an MP but stable job it ain’t. They work fucking hard for their money too on the whole. The decent ones anyway. I’ve never had a Tory MP.



Nah mate, they get huge pay-offs when they are voted out, enormous pensions and a Monty Python sized foot in the door for almost any job. Some MPs, the good ones, do work very hard, but they are well paid while they're in the job (£81k plus expenses) and well compensated when they leave.



andysays said:


> Who is this "_lock it all down now and fuck the consequences crowd" _you refer to, because TBH it seems to be figment of your imagination, and by presenting it in this way, you are in danger of down playing the seriousness of the problem and the urgent need to take action to deal with it.



I've seen lots of people just say "lock it all down now" without any nuances about extending furlough. They might well be thinking the nuances, but they're not expressing them.


----------



## Aladdin (Oct 9, 2020)

Our NPHET ( national public health emergency team) advised gov to move straight to level 5 (full lockdown) on Sunday last. 
Gov moved to level 3. Cases in Donegal are at 380 per 100,000. There are huge issues around the border area because NI assembly has not garnered funds from the UK gov to support a full lockdiwn yet so our government are holding off on a full lockdown until the UK government gets to that stage with the UK.

Stage 3 here means no travel outside your own home county. Work from home unless you're essential service and certain other jobs. 
Only allowed visit one other household. 
No wet pubs open.
Pubs serving food can open  to serve 15 customers outside. 
Schools remain open.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

Latest evolution of the story of some government scientific advisors not being happy with the timing the government are ending up with in regards the 'circuit breaker' or whatever we end up with instead.









						Planned new Covid rules for north of England are not enough, say scientists
					

Advisers say action was needed weeks ago and anti-lockdown fringe has too much influence




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) believe that a potential shutdown of pubs and restaurants in the north and Midlands, which is expected next week after delays that one MP has called “reckless”, are unlikely to bring cases down to a more manageable level.



Speaking anonymously, some of the experts maintained that a circuit breaker-style intervention of the type being imposed in Scotland from Friday should have been enacted in England two or three weeks ago when such a move was discussed with ministers. This would have involved a two-week shutdown for hospitality venues and other parts of society to drive down cases and hospital admissions.[/QUOTE]



> One senior scientist said the UK was at a critical point and that deeper measures were needed to bring the resurgence under control.
> 
> Another epidemiologist, Prof John Edmunds, who sits on Sage, said a circuit breaker was needed to prevent the health service from becoming overwhelmed.
> 
> “The epidemic is increasing and widely,” Edmunds said. “It is, of course, more severe in the north and north-west but it is increasing everywhere and so we have to take action unless we want to face really large numbers of hospitalisations in the quite near term and, unfortunately, large numbers of deaths. This is still a killer virus, despite improvements in treatment.”



I suppose this shouldnt really be news to people because weeks ago when the last measures were brought in, there was coverage of how scientists had told the government to go further then than the government actually ended up going at that time. And we have been talking about the circuit breakers for too long already without it happening. Its been clear for ages that the original timing hopes of overlapping such circuit breakers with school holidays was being thwarted by the fact the major resurgence of the virus was happening 'ahead of schedule'. But the government have still ended up stretching things out as long as they could, fucking up the timing far more than needed to be the case. And what they are soon to announce is probably still not the circuit breaker the scientific advisors were asking for in the first place, especially if not too much is changed nationally straight away.

The poor timing picture is even worse than that when we include things from an earlier part of the story of government scientific advice. The stuff about 'making room' in the infection picture for schools etc to reopen more safely, which would have required measures to drive down infection in the period before they reopened. Articles like the above tend not to go back very far to tell these broader stories, which I think is especially unfortunate in this case because its probably an important part of whats gone wrong at accelerating pace since schools and then universities went back.

Anyway the problem with getting the timing wrong is not just more avoidable deaths not being avoided, but also that to compensate somewhat for the error and regain control eventually, even harder braking ends up being required.

Some Sage members are also worried about the influence of the Barrington clowns, certainly sound more worried that I was in some of my posts in recent days. I do share their annoyance about the coverage of the clowns proposal though.



> There is also worry within Sage about the influence of a relatively small number of public health academics who oppose new lockdown moves, with some members understood to be annoyed at the level of coverage they have received.



For a long time now I've been rather confidently stating my opinion that government will be forced to act strongly on this pandemic again at various points, because they cannot live with the hospital consequences otherwise. The problem is that ultimately this confidence can only really extend to the government not sticking with a 'do nothing plan' all the way through. It doesnt actually allow me to be confident about the timing and strength of measures the government will choose to impose at various important stages. Only that at a minimum, eventually, once a lot more people are dead, more substantial brakes will actually come on. And thats really quite far below the bare minimum acceptable level of government aims and achievements during this next phase of the pandemic.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 9, 2020)

Sugar Kane said:


> Our NPHET ( national public health emergency team) advised gov to move straight to level 5 (full lockdown) on Sunday last.
> Gov moved to level 3. Cases in Donegal are at 380 per 100,000. There are huge issues around the border area because NI assembly has not garnered funds from the UK gov to support a full lockdiwn yet so our government are holding off on a full lockdown until the UK government gets to that stage with the UK.
> 
> Stage 3 here means no travel outside your own home county. Work from home unless you're essential service and certain other jobs.
> ...



Apart from needing clarification on what wet pubs are, that seems pretty straightforward.


----------



## Aladdin (Oct 9, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Apart from needing clarification on what wet pubs are, that seems pretty straightforward.




Pubs that only serve drinks.
No food.


----------



## Mation (Oct 9, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> It has been stated several times by different people over the last few days. But as I say, this is a distraction...


I've been calling (via my non-influential personal opinion) for full lockdown. Financial support is part and parcel of that, afaic. As I said upthread, economic ruin can be prevented if there is the political will, but we can't yet bring dead people back, nor reverse chronic debilitation.


----------



## LDC (Oct 9, 2020)

Sugar Kane said:


> Our NPHET ( national public health emergency team) advised gov to move straight to level 5 (full lockdown) on Sunday last.
> Gov moved to level 3. Cases in Donegal are at 380 per 100,000. There are huge issues around the border area because NI assembly has not garnered funds from the UK gov to support a full lockdiwn yet so our government are holding off on a full lockdown until the UK government gets to that stage with the UK.
> 
> Stage 3 here means no travel outside your own home county. Work from home unless you're essential service and certain other jobs.
> ...



It fucking stuns me that the government haven't got round to producing an easy to understand table like this that's widely distributed.

Cover the main questions, produce it in multiple languages, advertise it widely, have a website where you enter your postcode and it tells you what level you area is at, and has links to more detailed info.


----------



## sparkybird (Oct 9, 2020)

The thing about a circuit breaker is that if you don't fix the problem while it's switched off, the breaker will continue to trip when it's switched back on.
As I'm an electrician, the BBC contacted me to do a short interview on 'how circuit breakers work' when they were first talked about. Funnily enough I decided not to do it.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 9, 2020)

sparkybird said:


> As I'm an electrician, the BBC contacted me to do a short interview on 'how circuit breakers work' when they were first talked about.



 

Media people are too stupid to run the media.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It fucking stuns me that the government haven't got round to producing an easy to understand table like this that widely distributed.



It takes to time to get jobs like this properly sub- sub- sub- contracted. And though it may surprise you to know this, Michael Gove actually has a limited number of mates.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 9, 2020)

Edie said:


> What’s your evidence for this, that people no longer feel collective responsibility? It sounds a bit ‘good old days during the Blitz’ crap to me. I’m not sure human nature has changed all that radically. People still pull together when valled, (but will also often quietly do whatever they think suits them best when they don’t think anyone’s looking).





killer b said:


> Do you have something a bit more rigorous? I'd be interested in seeing it too.





andysays said:


> I may not have worded my post perfectly, and you and others are, of course, welcome to agree or not, in part or in full.
> 
> But anyone who claims that there hasn't been a shift in public attitudes over the last forty years, away from the social or collective and towards the individual is either a fool or a rogue, or possibly both.


It’s certainly a debated topic.  On the one hand, there are those that have gone looking for hard evidence for a loss of collectivism and have not found it.  For example (20 years out of date now, and a lot has changed in 20 years, but these issues were theoretically already in place by 1999):


			https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8543.00126
		



> There is a widely held view that important changes are occurring in the character of employee attitudes. With the growth of individualistic human resource management techniques, it is argued that employees' collectivist work orientations are in decline. Drawing on data from a large-scale survey of bank employees in Britain and Australia, this paper explores the attitudes of employees to work, trade unions and collective action and identifies the determinants of those attitudes. In both countries, collectivism is found to have a significant effect on the preparedness of individuals to fulfil their union obligations and duties and to take industrial action. There is little evidence to indicate the demise of collectivism.



On the other hand, this more recent paper (2018) suggests a rise in individualism amongst the youth, which possibly ties in with the idea that growing up in an entirely post-Thatcherite world, or being the children of the children of Thatcher, may have taken its toll:









						Market Values and Youth Political Engagement in the UK: Towards an Agenda for Exploring the Psychological Impacts of Neo-Liberalism
					

This article seeks to develop a preliminary analysis of how neo-liberal thought and policies have impacted on youth political engagement in the UK, specifically by attempting to understand how macro-economic and other public policies can influence the individual psychology of citizens and their...




					doi.org
				






> It argues that the main psychological effects that result, and which underpin and define the personal experience of neo-liberal policy, are declines in political efficacy and increases in individualism, the ramifications of which for political engagement are discussed.





> *4.2. Responsibilisation*
> Our second impact is the rise of ‘responsibilisation’, defined by the Sage Dictionary (undated) as ‘the process whereby subjects are rendered individually responsible for a task which previously would have been the duty of another—usually a state agency—or would not have been recognized as a responsibility at all’, designating it a ‘neo-liberal strategy’ [76]. Lister draws attention to a general trend over the past few decades which has seen successive governments arguing for the need for citizens to take increasing personal responsibility for their own individual educational, health and welfare needs [77].
> ...
> Others have also argued that the responsibilisation narrative, particularly in regard to welfare services, can undermine our sense of citizenship and our relationship with the state [88]. At its heart then, this is a process of individualising risk and responsibility, making citizens think and act more as competing individuals, unreliant on mutual aid and also undermining a belief that government or other forms of collective provision could, or indeed even should, be responsive to citizens’ needs (external political efficacy).



This is a good attempt to separate out the various strands with research based on attitudinal discussion:
Identifying attitudes to welfare through deliberative forums: the...: Ingenta Connect

I think it pretty much supports the issues raised by the 2018 paper.


> Findings
> The DFs provide a picture of attitudes to major changes facing the UK welfare state as our participants understood them and their desired policy responses. They also show how attitudes shifted (or failed to shift) as people discussed the issues. This is brought out in the comparison of the before and after surveys which summed up people’s individual views either side of the DF experience. The most noteworthy shifts are in relation to income inequality (more find it acceptable), welfare state financing (support for NHS and pensions but less confidence in sustainability) and immigration (stronger anti-immigrant sentiment). Attitudes correspond broadly to the BSA. In the first two areas broadly speaking they reinforce the neoliberal agenda: majorities emphasise the work ethic and individual responsibility and see government as unable to provide decent services as time goes on.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 9, 2020)

On the flip side of that remember how many people volunteered their services at the beginning of lockdown and how quickly the public set up informal local mutual aid groups.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 9, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> On the flip side of that remember how many people volunteered their services at the beginning of lockdown and how quickly the public set up informal local mutual aid groups.


Yes, I would say the overall picture is that if human nature is anything, it is of collectivism and society.  We still see this come out in times of crisis.  However, these impulses are increasingly constrained as governments with neoliberal agendas manage to increasingly create a social narrative that the atomised individual is primary.


----------



## andysays (Oct 9, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It’s certainly a debated topic.  On the one hand, there are those that have gone looking for hard evidence for a loss of collectivism and have not found it.  For example (20 years out of date now, and a lot has changed in 20 years, but these issues were theoretically already in place by 1999):
> 
> 
> https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8543.00126
> ...


Thanks for that. I'll have a proper read of it later.


----------



## Edie (Oct 9, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> On the flip side of that remember how many people volunteered their services at the beginning of lockdown and how quickly the public set up informal local mutual aid groups.


Exactly. And maybe andysays just hasn’t been anywhere like Leeds after we got promoted.


----------



## Cid (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It fucking stuns me that the government haven't got round to producing an easy to understand table like this that widely distributed.
> 
> Cover the main questions, produce it in multiple languages, advertise it widely, have a website where you enter your postcode and it tells you what level you area is at, and has links to more detailed info.



Quite apart from anything else, the UK is stuffed to the gills with decent graphic designers who are always looking for work. It's something we're noted for. I could recruit the necessary talent from my immediate family.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 9, 2020)

What I describe still fits into what kabbes quoted about the shift to personal responsibility. Covid response can be seen as an exception to that as being extraordinary and outside personal responsibility.  It does show that the human impulse is still there.  Governments, media etc can choose to encourage  or discourage human characteristics. Eg boost competitiveness and restrain cooperativeness.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 9, 2020)

Thanks Edie for giving us a view from Leeds. Sorry people who take another view jumped on your head. This is urban though.


----------



## Edie (Oct 9, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Thanks Edie for giving us a view from Leeds. Sorry people who take another view jumped on your head. This is urban though.


Who are you and what have you done with TopCat  😘


----------



## Mation (Oct 9, 2020)

Sugar Kane said:


> Our NPHET ( national public health emergency team) advised gov to move straight to level 5 (full lockdown) on Sunday last.
> Gov moved to level 3. Cases in Donegal are at 380 per 100,000. There are huge issues around the border area because NI assembly has not garnered funds from the UK gov to support a full lockdiwn yet so our government are holding off on a full lockdown until the UK government gets to that stage with the UK.
> 
> Stage 3 here means no travel outside your own home county. Work from home unless you're essential service and certain other jobs.
> ...


loved for the graphic, not for the situation.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 9, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Yes, I would say the overall picture is that if human nature is anything, it is of collectivism and society.  We still see this come out in times of crisis.  However, these impulses are increasingly constrained as governments with neoliberal agendas manage to increasingly create a social narrative that the atomised individual is primary.



Everything is monetised, everything, and our jobs and career prospects are nearly entirely focused on removing collective solidarity from the equation aside from vague corporate training platitudes.

Our perceptions of what we can do is increasingly related to this, people find it harder to work together because it costs money and time we don't have and everything around us tells us that we should be focused on what benefits "me" the most. 

Food banks are one of the few pretty selfless things I can think of as being mainstream right now. Even charity work is packaged as making you feeling good or as an experience if your volunteering.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 9, 2020)

I’m sure hospitality was at the top of the list a day or two ago?


----------



## kabbes (Oct 9, 2020)

I wonder if a teacher or hospitality or care home worker gets infected at work whether that comes under “workplace” or the relevant segment


----------



## nagapie (Oct 9, 2020)

I wonder if that's equally distributed between schools and universities.


----------



## killer b (Oct 9, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> I’m sure hospitality was at the top of the list a day or two ago?



The problem with that tory fibs account is that he shares information either without understanding what it means, or intentionally misrepresents it.

The data is from the 'community surveillance' section of that, and is a record of 'acute respiratory infection incidents' linked to specific locations, and reported to PHE. Reporting criteria is different depending on the sector.

I'm guessing if they've only got 116 incidents nationally for food outlets and restaurant settings over the last month, that they are significantly under-reported for this sector - whereas every single infection in a school or uni will be reported - so it skews the figures.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 9, 2020)

if that graphic's come on the creaking back of test n trace, how accurate is it ?


and, NB there has been a whopping increase in the number of infected / isolating students in just the last few days.
(which is where - I'm guessing - most of the recent surge in cases have been found)


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 9, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> I’m sure hospitality was at the top of the list a day or two ago?



There was a slide going around yesterday with an extremely small sample identifying bars, pubs, restaurants as the largest areas of transmission. On top was a disclaimer that said something like Govt has priortised work and education so these are the only areas we can intervene with. Of course it missed out households and care homes as well.


----------



## killer b (Oct 9, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> There was a slide going around yesterday with an extremely small sample identifying bars, pubs, restaurants as the largest areas of transmission.


it wasn't quite this - it suggested bars etc were the biggest area of transmission for young adults, not overall.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 9, 2020)

In case anyone doubts why the decision to completely close pubs in the central belt has been taken


----------



## Edie (Oct 9, 2020)

Leeds City Council coming out against the ridiculous 10pm curfew. Supported by my local (Labour) councillor.









						Leeds Council joins bars across city to urge government to scrap "devastating" 10pm curfew
					

Leeds Council has joined forces with bars and restaurants across the city to call on the Government to scrap the "devastating" 10pm curfew.




					www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Oct 9, 2020)

Edie said:


> Leeds City Council coming out against the ridiculous 10pm curfew. Supported by my local (Labour) councillor.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Why do you think it's ridiculous? What do you propose in it's place? Places shut completely, or take away only, or something else? If the evidence showed it slowed the infection rate would you support it? Why do you think so many countries are doing it?


----------



## Edie (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why do you think it ridiculous? What do you propose in it's place? Places shut completely, or take away only, or something else? If the evidence showed it slowed the infection rate would you support it? Why do you think so many countries are doing it?


Have you been in town at 10pm on a Friday? My lad has. People get kicked out then carry on the party in the street. It’s way less controlled. That’s one reason.

The second is that as a city we are massively dependent on hospitality. And in the next three months are gonna be like taking a wet cloth to a white board. You are gonna wipe out jobs. Leeds cannot sustain that. I was in The Wardrobe last night. It was calm, distanced, safe. And we were asked to leave at 9.30. Madness. The waiter/Barman told us he expects to lose his job within the next month.


----------



## LDC (Oct 9, 2020)

Edie said:


> Have you been in town at 10pm on a Friday? My lad has. People get kicked out then carry on the party in the street. It’s way less controlled. That’s one reason.
> 
> The second is that as a city we are massively dependent on hospitality. And in the next three months are gonna be like taking a wet cloth to a white board. You are gonna wipe out jobs. Leeds cannot sustain that. I was in The Wardrobe last night. It was calm, distanced, safe. And we were asked to leave at 9.30. Madness. The waiter/Barman told us he expects to lose his job within the next month.



Why do you think the government has done it then?

What do you propose in it's place, no restrictions beyond the T&T etc.?

Either way it'll be places shut next week I expect as hospitality is a significant driver of infection rates. Job losses can be sorted with financial help, deaths can't.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 9, 2020)

Edie said:


> Leeds City Council coming out against the ridiculous 10pm curfew. Supported by my local (Labour) councillor.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Judging by the inflection rate in Leeds more than doubling in a week, from 154.6 to 346.6 cases per 100,000 people*, I suspect they are wasting their time, as pubs will likely be forced to close.   

* source


----------



## LDC (Oct 9, 2020)

Edie said:


> Have you been in town at 10pm on a Friday? My lad has. People get kicked out then carry on the party in the street. It’s way less controlled. That’s one reason.



That's also a good argument for them being made to close entirely.


----------



## andysays (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's also a good argument for them being made to close entirely.


There would also have been a good argument for ensuring that off licences, supermarkets and other sources of alcohol didn't remain open to sell booze after the pubs etc shut, but it looks like it's a little too late for that now.


----------



## maomao (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why do you think the government has done it then?


To be seen to be doing something but nothing drastic enough that they would have to provide financial support.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

Edie said:


> Have you been in town at 10pm on a Friday? My lad has. People get kicked out then carry on the party in the street. It’s way less controlled. That’s one reason.
> 
> The second is that as a city we are massively dependent on hospitality. And in the next three months are gonna be like taking a wet cloth to a white board. You are gonna wipe out jobs. Leeds cannot sustain that. I was in The Wardrobe last night. It was calm, distanced, safe. And we were asked to leave at 9.30. Madness. The waiter/Barman told us he expects to lose his job within the next month.


Yep. Throwing everyone out in the street at 10pm just sends people directly to the nearest offie to stock up and then (a) party in the street if it's not too cold or (b) off to super spreader house parties.

People are arriving earlier in the lively pubs and power drinking right up to the last minute and then all piling out together at the same time into the street. It's really not ideal.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why do you think it's ridiculous? What do you propose in it's place? Places shut completely, or take away only, or something else? If the evidence showed it slowed the infection rate would you support it? Why do you think so many countries are doing it?


I've yet to see an in depth study about how dangerous pubs are, but I don't think it's fair that pubs acting responsibly should be forced to close down and all the staff lose their jobs.  I felt considerably safer here than I do on a bus or a tube, or a supermarket, where there's plenty of twats with no masks on, but if pubs are taking the piss, then they should be forced to close. 









						Saturday night in a 10pm curfew pub – Railway Tulse Hill, Sat 26th Sept 2020
					

Yesterday, we ran a photo feature documenting the closed bars of Brixton after the 10pm curfew, and last night we thought we’d check out what it’s like to drink in a bar with the new re…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## andysays (Oct 9, 2020)

BBC reporting ONS announcing that cases are up rapidly in England, with one in 240 people infected


----------



## killer b (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> I don't think it's fair that pubs acting responsibly should be forced to close down and all the staff lose their jobs.


Yep - so they should close the pubs altogether and furlough the staff.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> Yep - so they should close the pubs altogether and furlough the staff.


Why should pubs acting safely be forced to close? But if you want them closed, then riskier areas like tube trains should also be forced to close too, no?

And do you actually think the government is going to provide a furlough scheme for pub workers that they can live off?


----------



## killer b (Oct 9, 2020)

(this is what they're going to do btw)


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 9, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I wonder if that's equally distributed between schools and universities.



Round here (Devon) the universities are accounting for most of it.


----------



## killer b (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Why should pubs acting safely be forced to close? But if you want them closed, then riskier areas like tube trains should also be forced to close too, no?
> 
> And do you actually think the government is going to provide a furlough scheme for pub workers that they can live off?


The news this morning is full of the 80% furlough scheme the government is about to announce, for businesses they're about to close.

I guess there's a difference between public transport infrastructure and places people go to get pissed, but I'm not sure what it is.


----------



## LDC (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Why should pubs acting safely be forced to close? But if you want them closed, then riskier areas like tube trains should also be forced to close too, no?
> 
> And do you actually think the government is going to provide a furlough scheme for pub workers that they can live off?



So every pub gets checked and safe ones are allowed to stay open? That's totally not realistic. And some pubs would just make it look safe for the inspection then slacken off.

Shut all pubs, support them financially.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> So every pub gets checked and safe ones are allowed to stay open? That's totally not realistic. And some pubs would just make it look safe for the inspection then slacken off.
> 
> Shut all pubs, support them financially.



Its also not the sort of thing that would form part of a circuit-breaker type plan to bring down infections region or nationwide.

It also doesnt help with inconvenient facts such as most pubs being inherently unsafe in a pandemic, during periods with high numbers of community infections, regardless of how responsible they try to be and how much they follow the guidelines, because the guidelines themselves are a crap fudge.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Shut all pubs, support them financially.


Repeating this phrase isn't going to magically happen though. How about tube trains?  At peak hours they seem way riskier than pubs.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 9, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Round here (Devon) the universities are accounting for most of it.



Just seen our local map & it’s the same. Falmer campus is rife!


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Repeating this phrase isn't going to magically happen though. How about tube trains?  At peak hours they seem way riskier than pubs.



No magic needs to be involved.



> *The chancellor will set out on Friday more support for businesses forced to close by law, with tighter virus rules expected in England next week.*
> Rishi Sunak will outline the next stage of the Job Support Scheme to help firms that "may have to close in the coming weeks or months", the Treasury says.











						Covid-19: Rishi Sunak to announce help for shut down businesses
					

The chancellor will outline the next stage of the Job Support Scheme later.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> No magic needs to be involved.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Let's see how that trickles down into the pockets of the individual zero-hours pub workers.


----------



## killer b (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Let's see how that trickles down into the pockets of the individual zero-hours pub workers.


presume it'll work in the same way as it did in March


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

Just got this press release:



> *MENTAL HEALTH PRESCRIPTIONS DISPENSED DURING LOCKDOWN UP BY 61 PER CENT*
> 
> – Number rises to 92 per cent for people aged 20-29 –
> 
> ...


----------



## LDC (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Repeating this phrase isn't going to magically happen though. How about tube trains?  At peak hours they seem way riskier than pubs.



Travel to and from work, school, medical appointments, etc. all much more essential than having a pint out though aren't they?


----------



## Edie (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why do you think the government has done it then?
> 
> What do you propose in it's place, no restrictions beyond the T&T etc.?
> 
> Either way it'll be places shut next week I expect as hospitality is a significant driver of infection rates. Job losses can be sorted with financial help, deaths can't.


Maybe the best we can hope for is a full furlough scheme for the hospitality industry. Looks like it’s on it’s way. I still sense that a significant proportion of the population will just not abide by the rules this time. But maybe it’s just the company I keep.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> presume it'll work in the same way as it did in March


I've had precisely £1,200 since March 2020.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Travel to and from work, school, medical appointments, etc. all much more essential than having a pint out though aren't they?


Except not all tube journeys are for those reasons, are they?
And an easily dismissed 'pint out' (in a safe environment) can help ward off mental health problems. A lot of people in London live in tiny flats or in home circumstances where they need to take a break from in a cafe or pub or whatever.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> it wasn't quite this - it suggested bars etc were the biggest area of transmission for young adults, not overall.


This is the one I saw  with two categories :all adults/ under 30s and universities, workplaces, schools etc omitted

.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> This is the one I saw  with two categories :all adults/ under 30s and universities, workplaces, schools etc omitted
> 
> . View attachment 233601


It's not particularly useful that pubs are lumped together with entertainment and day trips, which would involve traveling thorough multiple environments.


----------



## killer b (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Except not all tube journeys are for those reasons, are they?
> And an easily dismissed 'pint out' (in a safe environment) can help ward off mental health problems. A lot of people in London live in tiny flats or in home circumstances where they need to take a break from in a cafe or pub or whatever.


In Scotland pubs are allowed to serve non-alcoholic drinks for this reason - I'd imagine they _might_ do something like that.


----------



## chilango (Oct 9, 2020)

We can't have


schools 
universities
pubs
cafes
office blocks
shops

all open and expect to keep any sort of a lid on the pandemic


so that leaves "hard choices" to be made.

The government has shown what it's murderous priorities are.

What are ours?


----------



## killer b (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> I've had precisely £1,200 since March 2020.


I know a few people who've fallen between the gaps of the schemes and it's really shit - but you were talking about zero hours bar staff, who were explicitly allowed for in the original furlough scheme - some still fell through the gaps, but many were covered.


----------



## Cid (Oct 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> Thankfully that's not what I think or what I was saying. I think what I've thought throughout this, that a loud and overly-visible minority of DGAF clowns fuck things up for everyone else, if you let 'em.



I mean we’ve had this discussion before... I think there is a fair bit of good going on. In visual terms I have certainly seen a rise in mask wearing along with the changing state of affairs. But I don’t think we’re talking about a minority of twats here. I think we have a huge number of entirely normal people who aren’t particularly engaged with a wider sense of social responsibility, specifically as regards the pandemic... as you said yourself the blitz required wardens, it required extensive propaganda, restriction of what we now think of as fundamental rights.

I don’t think this really requires looking back at social change over the last 40 years, this would be an extremely hard situation in any era. What we have now is something that we sometimes have difficulty tracking _on here_, a place which has ridiculous levels of political nerdery. In wider society people are focused on job insecurity, housing insecurity, not being able to see friends and family etc. That _is_ solidarity - look out for each other in an increasingly precarious situation. But it doesn’t manifest itself in obedience to the authorities that have allowed this situation to get out of control. It doesn’t manifest in people making rational decisions to stay at home when they’re allowed to go out.

Of course it is possible to harness that solidarity, that sense of responsibility, as happened at the start of the crisis. But it becomes increasingly difficult and requires a competent and compassionate hand at the wheel. Which is totally lacking.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 9, 2020)

16.2% positive of those newly tested in Scotland today


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

I am reminded that Sturgeon said something about solidarity and love when announcing their new measures.

We're going to need an extra helping of that here if some initial responses to the idea of closing pubs are anything to go by.


----------



## Edie (Oct 9, 2020)

Cid said:


> I mean we’ve had this discussion before... I think there is a fair bit of good going on. In visual terms I have certainly seen a rise in mask wearing along with the changing state of affairs. But I don’t think we’re talking about a minority of twats here. I think we have a huge number of entirely normal people who aren’t particularly engaged with a wider sense of social responsibility, specifically as regards the pandemic... as you said yourself the blitz required wardens, it required extensive propaganda, restriction of what we now think of as fundamental rights.
> 
> I don’t think this really requires looking back at social change over the last 40 years, this would be an extremely hard situation in any era. What we have now is something that we sometimes have difficulty tracking _on here_, a place which has ridiculous levels of political nerdery. In wider society people are focused on job insecurity, housing insecurity, not being able to see friends and family etc. That _is_ solidarity - look out for each other in an increasingly precarious situation. But it doesn’t manifest itself in obedience to the authorities that have allowed this situation to get out of control. It doesn’t manifest in people making rational decisions to stay at home when they’re allowed to go out.
> 
> Of course it is possible to harness that solidarity, that sense of responsibility, as happened at the start of the crisis. But it becomes increasingly difficult and requires a competent and compassionate hand at the wheel. Which is totally lacking.


Yes yes yes. Excellent post.


----------



## killer b (Oct 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> I am reminded that Sturgeon said something about solidarity and love when announcing their new measures.
> 
> We're going to need an extra helping of that here if some initial responses to the idea of closing pubs are anything to go by.


Just been chatting to my pub running mate and he sounds relieved tbh. Early closure was absolutely fucking his boozers, but he had no choice but to push on.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 9, 2020)

chilango said:


> We can't have
> 
> 
> schools
> ...



1. Healthcare
2. Schools
4. Food and infrastructure
3. Anything else

Anything else would include keeping students 'at' university just to milk them for rent money.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Except not all tube journeys are for those reasons, are they?
> And an easily dismissed 'pint out' (in a safe environment) can help ward off mental health problems. A lot of people in London live in tiny flats or in home circumstances where they need to take a break from in a cafe or pub or whatever.



The slide isn't helpful in many ,any ways tbh not least its sample size but the omission of the larger categories that have driven the rate up and doesn't offer any real context of bars/cafes as a % of the total figure. Is the problem simply the location or the behaviour within them or a mixture of both would be my first question. I fully agree with your sentiments on 'well being' and pubs and cafes , here they are the heart of communities. I have no problem them with closing early  and other restrictions but total closure is just over the top imo.
In contrast the numbers of cases  around universities is much much larger , the behaviour issues more severe and unfortunately students just don't stay on campus.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> Just been chatting to my pub running mate and he sounds relieved tbh. Early closure was absolutely fucking his boozers, but he had no choice but to push on.



Ah yes the 'be careful what you wish for when trying to stay open' thing where actually being closed & bailed out is usually much preferable to being left open with a level of customer footfall that cant turn a profit.

I've checked my notes and it was July 31st when Whitty talked about how we had pretty much reached the limits of how much we can relax things, and that there are difficult tradeoffs ahead. Within a day the press had picked up on that and converted it into a simple story of pubs vs schools. So people should have had some time to come to terms with this dimension already.


----------



## killer b (Oct 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Ah yes the 'be careful what you wish for when trying to stay open' thing where actually being closed & bailed out is usually much preferable to being left open with a level of customer footfall that cant turn a profit.


It absolutely is - if the 80% furlough thing that's being floated is real, it'll take a lot of the heat out of the debate - the pubs would rather be open full time, but if they can't be then closure w/support is the next best thing.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Repeating this phrase isn't going to magically happen though. How about tube trains?  At peak hours they seem way riskier than pubs.


People don’t spend more than a few minutes in them though


----------



## LDC (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Except not all tube journeys are for those reasons, are they?
> And an easily dismissed 'pint out' (in a safe environment) can help ward off mental health problems. A lot of people in London live in tiny flats or in home circumstances where they need to take a break from in a cafe or pub or whatever.



No, of course they're not, but nobody is (currently) suggesting only essential travel - although at this rate we might get to that yet this winter.

And yes, it's really shit, but that's the only option. Some things have to close. It's not fair, but then this situation isn't.


----------



## Supine (Oct 9, 2020)

Not fact checked by me but if true


----------



## Edie (Oct 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> It absolutely is - if the 80% furlough thing that's being floated is real, it'll take a lot of the heat out of the debate - the pubs would rather be open full time, but if they can't be then closure w/support is the next best thing.


Yes, that makes sense


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> Not fact checked by me but if true
> 
> View attachment 233607



Makes sense to do that, as there's such a massive different in cases per area now, from as low as around 20 here, to well over 335 per 100,000.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 9, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I have SVT too - had the ablation because I can't go on betablockers due to shitty asthma. Still have SVT but not as badly; sorry to hear it went wrong for your brother.
> 
> My doctors gave me the impression that it's a relatively minor condition, and it doesn't seem like it would necessarily predispose you to other heart problems. It's not something I dismiss out of hand either, and if you've just been diagnosed then it's scarier (hope that doesn't sound patronising, it's just the way I've known it go with diagnoses), but it's not a big risk factor.


Hey scifisam , thanks for this. I had a couple of really scary episodes over summer, 40 minutes long, where I felt like I was gonna pass out, and my heart was going absolutely ape shit but not working properly. Was really close to ringing an ambulance. Over the last couple of years, I've  been getting increasingly frequent shorter episodes where it feels like I'm gonna faint, and my heart just isn't pushing the blood through properly, and as my Dad had Afib that gave him a stroke, and my brother has it so bad, that's what worries me tbh.  My mate with long Covid heart problems didn't have any problem beforehand, and I can't help but think if I've already got arrythmia, then more arrythmia isn't a Good Thing!


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> Not fact checked by me but if true
> 
> View attachment 233607



Looks like one is 'Covid Surveillance Report' and one is 'Influenza and Covid Response' - whatever the relative situation you'd expect the second one to have higher figures.

ETA - although it does also say COvid rate on both so it might be right actually.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> People don’t spend more than a few minutes in them though



And we know from the first time that they wont want to shut the tube due to essential workers needing to use that mode of transport. So choices about reducing tube infection risk are more along the lines of choices about which workers you say should still go to work, which businesses stay open etc.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> People don’t spend more than a few minutes in them though


The average tube journey length is not a 'few minutes.' It's _way_ more than that.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> Not fact checked by me but if true



Its a tricky one because there was a real need to change the colour-coding ranges, in order not to lose granularity within the ranges now seen all over the place.

In terms of being deliberately misleading, I would have more time for that angle if (a) these particular charts were actually supposed to be compared week to week to show trends and (b) if PHE and the rest of government was really interested in playing down the scale of the problem. In fact its usually the opposite at the moment, since the government need to make a case for imposing new measures and want evidence and graphics to support that, not downplay the threat.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> Not fact checked by me but if true


Easily checked, Week 40 v Week 41:

Exploding case rate necessitates change of scale.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> The average tube journey length is not a 'few minutes.' It's _way_ more than that.


10-20 minutes. Not really comparable to an evening in the pub. 
the key factor here is alcohol.
People cannot be trusted to socially distance when alcohol is involved, no matter what measures are employed


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> 10-20 minutes.


Are you're getting this from....?


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Are you're getting this from....?


Experience. This is a red herring anyway, as elbows explained. People have to get to work.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Experience. This is a red herring anyway, as elbows explained. People have to get to work.


Wiki says: 


> The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transport in London, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 84 minutes, and 30% of passengers ride for more than 2 hours every day.


----------



## LDC (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> The average tube journey length is not a 'few minutes.' It's _way_ more than that.



But that's only specific to London anyway. I don't get what you think we should close instead? Schools? Or is there something else?

Are you saying the tube and public transport should be closed before pubs etc.?


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

I found a different PHE graph to complain about.

They havent updated the scale for the 10-16 years graph, so the most deprived in this group exceeded the top of the chart some weeks ago.


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W41.pdf via National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports


----------



## Fruitloop (Oct 9, 2020)

Why does it look like the lowest quintile is going through the roof in the10-16 year age bracket, but for the 17-19 it's the poshos who are all getting it?


----------



## weepiper (Oct 9, 2020)

Fruitloop said:


> Why does it look like the lowest quintile is going through the roof in the10-16 year age bracket, but for the 17-19 it's the poshos who are all getting it?


Lowest quintile don't go to university.


----------



## Fruitloop (Oct 9, 2020)

Aha. Bleak.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> But that's only specific to London anyway.


That's because I was specifically talking about tubes. 


LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Are you saying the tube and public transport should be closed before pubs etc.?


Obviously not.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> aye - just looked at the Covid map for Leeds and surrounding area and it's gone mostly dark blue. A lot of it is clustered around the universities and areas of high student accommodation, unsurprisingly


I feel like the Ancient Mariner, compelled to keep expressing my anger at this (when it shared by just about everybody on urban): 'right, so cases are rising and rising most of all in the student age group. So, let's gather these people up and house them together in houses and halls, for the very moment in their university lives when they are most likely to do random shagging and drinking, or just watching telly sat a couple of feet from each other. And then let's watch them wander back to their home towns at random points to meet family and other people of the same age.'

It's not so much neo-liberalism as Trump level stupidity. Bigly.


----------



## xenon (Oct 9, 2020)

One of the problems with a national closure of hospitality businesses is when do you allow them to reopen. When the national infection rate average falls below a given number?
After x weeks?
Not until there's a vacceen?


----------



## Supine (Oct 9, 2020)

Independant Sage was very good today. Clear message - changes need to happen within hours not days or weeks. The current rules and restrictions are not working. T&T needs to be taken from private companies and placed with the experts in public health ASAP.


----------



## 20Bees (Oct 9, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I feel like the Ancient Mariner, compelled to keep expressing my anger at this (when it shared by just about everybody on urban): 'right, so cases are rising and rising most of all in the student age group. So, let's gather these people up and house them together in houses and halls, for the very moment in their university lives when they are most likely to do random shagging and drinking, or just watching telly sat a couple of feet from each other. And then let's watch them wander back to their home towns at random points to meet family and other people of the same age.'
> 
> It's not so much neo-liberalism as Trump level stupidity. Bigly.


As I posted yesterday on the Universities thread, friend’s daughter popped home by train for the weekend after her first couple of weeks at Exeter, saw people socially and then more at a sports event, displayed symptoms Sunday night, tested positive on Monday. Obviously caught in Devon, potentially spread on her journey home, at home, and whilst out and about over the weekend. Will be a local statistic as tested here, will return by train when allowed to travel and will have to isolate there as new flat mates now positive too. I don’t know whether mother and/or daughter have the NHS COVID app. Hope so. 
Spread the love...


----------



## andysays (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> Why should pubs acting safely be forced to close? But if you want them closed, then riskier areas like tube trains should also be forced to close too, no?
> 
> And do you actually think the government is going to provide a furlough scheme for pub workers that they can live off?


I don't think we've seen any evidence that tubes are necessarily more risky than pubs (I don't think we've seen anything conclusive about the risks of either, but I'm happy to be corrected).

But if we accept that lots of workplaces are going to remain open for now, the tube is necessary in a way that pubs aren't. 

But of course workers who find themselves out of work if pubs are shut should be properly supported.


----------



## Aladdin (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It fucking stuns me that the government haven't got round to producing an easy to understand table like this that's widely distributed.
> 
> Cover the main questions, produce it in multiple languages, advertise it widely, have a website where you enter your postcode and it tells you what level you area is at, and has links to more detailed info.




Here you can look at electoral areas and see how many cases in that area.


----------



## LDC (Oct 9, 2020)

Supine said:


> Independant Sage was very good today. Clear message - changes need to happen within hours not days or weeks. The current rules and restrictions are not working. T&T needs to be taken from private companies and placed with the experts in public health ASAP.



Just watched it.

TBH after watching it I think we need to go back to the lockdown we had in March/April on a nation wide basis (maybe with the exception of schools this time) or we're fucked in the coming weeks.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 9, 2020)

20Bees said:


> As I posted yesterday on the Universities thread, friend’s daughter popped home by train for the weekend after her first couple of weeks at Exeter, saw people socially and then more at a sports event, displayed symptoms Sunday night, tested positive on Monday. Obviously caught in Devon, potentially spread on her journey home, at home, and whilst out and about over the weekend. Will be a local statistic as tested here, will return by train when allowed to travel and will have to isolate there as new flat mates now positive too. I don’t know whether mother and/or daughter have the NHS COVID app. Hope so.
> Spread the love...


Jesus christ 

Fella in work said his mate, who works at a massive water company, had a young lass on the team who had been away in a caravan with a load of mates, 3 of which got Covid, and she told him she wasn't getting tested yet as she had an appointment to have her nails done, and hadn't had them done for months so was going there first


----------



## sojourner (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just watched it.
> 
> TBH after watching it I think we need to go back to the lockdown we had in March/April on a nation wide basis (maybe with the exception of schools this time) or we're fucked in the coming weeks.


Where did you watch it LynnDoyleCooper ?


----------



## Cid (Oct 9, 2020)

xenon said:


> One of the problems with a national closure of hospitality businesses is when do you allow them to reopen. When the national infection rate average falls below a given number?
> After x weeks?
> Not until there's a vacceen?



No simple answer to that.

Any lifting of measures has to take into account a number of factors. Modelling is one element of that, but from what I’ve seen this is not an easy disease to do that with... total laypersons impression of course, but this is a combination of how humans responds to relaxed measures (unpredictable, dependant on many things) and the nature of something where random occurrences (superspreaders) can have a huge effect. Something something clustering, more something stochastic.

So rather than relying totally on models, also need several methods of t&t - waste water testing and the faster but less accurate method to establish patterns which allow closer monitoring of specific situations and _very_ targeted lockdowns.

Then also potentially many of the other measures in place. But the problem with these is that they’re hard to keep track of and can seem unfair. Moving back to wfh and online teaching at universities would be the big ones I think.

And alongside all of this, funding. Ideally with some flexibility... E.g a business could furlough front of house staff but keep running delivery and takeaway.

And... just doing things quickly. Responsiveness. Clear guidance on a traffic light system.


----------



## zahir (Oct 9, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Where did you watch it LynnDoyleCooper ?


----------



## sojourner (Oct 9, 2020)

Ta!


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 9, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Jesus christ
> 
> Fella in work said his mate, who works at a massive water company, had a young lass on the team who had been away in a caravan with a load of mates, 3 of which got Covid, and she told him she wasn't getting tested yet as she had an appointment to have her nails done, and hadn't had them done for months so was going there first


that lass is a selfish idiot !


----------



## zora (Oct 9, 2020)

We really are fucked, aren't we?  Based on the current stats, and those anecdotes upthread. 
I know I ranted the other day about seeing in the headlines "second wave coming quicker than expected" and "unforeseen demand", and yet I have got to say this has gone to absolute shit much quicker than I expected!!!
Mind you, the people I ranted about where the ones in a position to do something about it. So when I allowed myself my brief period of optimism prior to this, it was because I thought something like return to uni would be stopped if the situation was developing in the way it has!


----------



## sojourner (Oct 9, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> that lass is a selfish idiot !


She'd be on her fucking arse out the door be now if it was me! Surely that's gross misconduct (coming into work, deliberately untested), let alone the potential damage wrought at the nail bar, possibly inflicting it on a zero hours employee


----------



## zora (Oct 9, 2020)

Btw, something I have been meaning to clarify for ages (and sort of shows the potential for confusion about the rules, if a covid buff like myself doesn't know this). 
The rule of six, when it came in - didn't it increase the potential for spread rather than mitigate it? Am I right in thinking that prior to it, indoors meetings were only supposed to happen between a group of up to six from a maximum of two households? And the two households thing got dropped?


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

Todays daily reported pasitive cases were down (to 13,864) but perhaps that makes data showing cases by specimen date even more important.

So here is my usual graph, with todays reported numbers in purple. As mentioned previously I cannot carry on the UK colour-coded   graph properly over weekends due to lack of reporting for certain nations. So there will soon be another brief break from me doing this graph, and then when I resume I'll be resetting the graph again so that everything is blue apart from the cases I will add after Monday next week.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 9, 2020)

87 deaths  fuck


----------



## Mation (Oct 9, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Jesus christ
> 
> Fella in work said his mate, who works at a massive water company, had a young lass on the team who had been away in a caravan with a load of mates, 3 of which got Covid, and she told him she wasn't getting tested yet as she had an appointment to have her nails done, and hadn't had them done for months so was going there first


That's why we need a lockdown. It shouldn't be possible for her to do that. I can understand the thinking/not thinking. It's all gone to shit and I might test positive and I'm going to do the nice thing I had planned for myself because fuck knows when I'll be able to do anything nice again. The rational bits of our brains don't always (often? ever?) hook up that well with our emotional drivers, when we're faced with potential personal crises.


----------



## Numbers (Oct 9, 2020)

On the BBC news feed.

13,864 new cases. 87 deaths


----------



## sojourner (Oct 9, 2020)

Mation said:


> That's why we need a lockdown. It shouldn't be possible for her to do that. I can understand the thinking/not thinking. It's all gone to shit and I might test positive and I'm going to do the nice thing I had planned for myself because fuck knows when I'll be able to do anything nice again. The rational bits of our brains don't always (often? ever?) hook up that well with our emotional drivers, when we're faced with potential personal crises.


You're being very generous towards her. I think she's a selfish little twat meself.


----------



## Mation (Oct 9, 2020)

sojourner said:


> You're being very generous towards her. I think she's a selfish little twat meself.


She is selfish. But that's human.

Looked at the other way, is it likely that she's actively thinking: fuck everyone else. I know I've probably got it and I'm likely to infect other people, and they might get really ill and die, and spread it to other people, but my nails are more important and I don't care.

My guess is not; that there's a hazy, non-logical driver to act, that's only in play when things affect us personally, and it can go in all sorts of directions.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 9, 2020)

Mation said:


> She is selfish. But that's human.
> 
> Looked at the other way, is it likely that she's actively thinking: fuck everyone else. I know I've probably got it and I'm likely to infect other people, and they might get really ill and die, and spread it to other people, but my nails are more important and I don't care.
> 
> My guess is not.


I think she's thinking fuck everyone else, yeh.  I genuinely think she doesn't give a shit. I don't know how you wouldn't manage to string the simple facts together and not realise how dangerous it might be for other folk.

This is not to say that I might not have also been a massively selfish twat myself at that age. I probably would. I couldn't give a shite about other people either at that age.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 9, 2020)

University districts are up to 7x the rate of infections in the other worst affected areas - and up to 45x the England average:




__





						Covid infection rates are 'seven times higher' in student areas
					





					www.msn.com
				




Well done Johnson, well done Williamson.


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

That Barrington thing: 



> A widely-circulated open letter calling on governments to pursue herd immunity is counting homeopaths, therapists and fake names among its "medical" signatories, leading to accusations that it falsely represents scientific support for the controversial position.
> 
> The Great Barrington Declaration, a letter organised by prominent advocates of *herd immunity*, claims to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners, as well as more than 150,000 members of the general public.
> 
> ...











						Coronvirus: 'Dr Johnny Bananas' and 'Dr Person Fakename' among medical signatories on herd immunity open letter
					

Other listed supporters include Dr Harold Shipman and Dominic Cummings of "Durham Univercity".




					news.sky.com


----------



## Mation (Oct 9, 2020)

sojourner said:


> I think she's thinking fuck everyone else, yeh.  I genuinely think she doesn't give a shit. I don't know how you wouldn't manage to string the simple facts together and not realise how dangerous it might be for other folk.


I edited/added a bit prior to your quote (actually probably after, but before I saw your post ).

It's loads easier to be rational when we're looking at someone else's situation (in a biological/physiological sense).


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> That Barrington thing:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Excellent 



> Dr. Johnny Bananas, who listed himself as a "Dr of Hard Sums".





> One medical professional on the list gives his name as Dr Harold Shipman, a general practitioner in the United Kingdom.
> 
> Other famous names included *Dominic Cummings*, who is described as "PhD Durham Univercity".





> In addition, the letter has been signed by well over 100 therapists, including massage therapists, hypnotherapists, psychotherapists and one Mongolian Khöömii Singer who describes himself as a "therapeutic sound practitioner".


----------



## editor (Oct 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Excellent


This is like those ones that get dredged out by 9/11 loons full of people describing themselves as professional architects because they built a dog kennel once


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 9, 2020)

editor said:


> That Barrington thing:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Plus...



> One medical professional on the list gives his name as Dr Harold Shipman, a general practitioner in the United Kingdom.
> 
> Other famous names included *Dominic Cummings*, who is described as "PhD Durham Univercity".


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 9, 2020)

Wilf said:


> University districts are up to 7x the rate of infections in the other worst affected areas - and up to 45x the England average:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Good grief.  The school thing was a bit of an unknown and it seems to have worked out okay-ish.  The uni situation was entirely predictable.  What a mess.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 9, 2020)

It's like that save Blair petition, time for urban to attack it?


----------



## Wilf (Oct 9, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Good grief.  The school thing was a bit of an unknown and it seems to have worked out okay-ish.  The uni situation was entirely predictable.  What a mess.


What's most shocking is nobody in government appears to be anywhere near the point where they are saying 'oh fuck, what kind of emergency measures do we need? Let's get back to online teaching immediately, let's think about what financial guarantees are needed, let's think how we get the students home who want to go home'.  Cowardly fucks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 9, 2020)

Bollocks, you need to confirm your e-mail address, I'll now need to sort out a fake e-mail account.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 9, 2020)

Specialist in Radical Panic Quelling


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 9, 2020)

Haven't listened to the independent sage thing yet. But been doing maths in my head, and seriously - in the areas like Central Newcastle, Nottingham, and parts of Leeds, where a massive rise in infections in a large student population in an already steeply rising community infections is happening - something drastic needs doing NOW - full lockdown and probably shielding for all older and vulnerable people, and a serious effort around rest and tracing and helping people to stick to measured (financially, well being support, etc). Closing pubs next week is not enough and far too late.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 9, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Specialist in Radical Panic Qualming



(marine based)


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Oct 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Cheers for bringing it to my attention. Ive read some of it but I skimmed a fair chunk.
> 
> I dont think that in practice there is actually so much difference in how you would try to deal with a pandemic that was largely spread by super spreading events and one that was driven more by generalised transmission. It makes contact tracing even more important, but we already knew how important that aspect was. And we cant predict who will be a superspreader, and the scenarios in which these superspreading events can occur involve the same risk factors as any other sort of spread.
> 
> ...





elbows said:


> Oh and there are probably some other long term lessons involving attitudes and practicalities of education and not conflating it with childcare. But I dont think I'll be able to get into that properly until my head is clear of the immediate pandemic issues.



I know this bit of the discussion was from days ago but it’s pertinent to something that I've been thinking about.

It’s not possible to factor it in properly (and also impossible to do anything to stop it) but I do wonder about the specific effects the conspiracy theories are having /will have on the spread rate.

In some circles I’m seeing people who know it’s real and are prepared to take a chance within their own social groups but are very respectful of the rules and regulations. So they’re hugging each other and leaning in to talk close to each other while also observing social distancing with others, wearing masks in shops, adhering to the rule of six for indoor gatherings and so forth. Essentially, they’ve just created a really big baggy bubble. There are a lot of urban youngsters who live very peripatetic lives these days, they don’t really have a conventional home base or family set up so they’re having to interpret the rules in a way that makes sense for them. I’m not especially concerned about them because they’re respectful of the preferences and needs of others outside their group.

But what of all these many others I’m encountering who not only don’t believe it’s real, but actively believe it’s a ploy and they seem really motivated to stand their ground, prove a point, stand up against the perceived problem. They utterly refuse to wear masks and they absolutely refuse to take a step back. (A woman in the shop was asked if she had a face covering, she said she didn’t need one because she didn’t want one; my colleague said “that’s okay” and tried to explain that we have policy of one unmasked adult in the shop at any time, just so she knows that. Then she started to give chapter & verse for her choice while we just stood and listened to it - because we’ve learned that that’s the best thing to do - and she wound herself up to the point of suddenly saying “actually, you know what, I’m not going to buy this and I’m not going to shop here any more, you can’t tell me what to do” and stormed out.)

Anyway, my point is that I think there is a significant number of such people in certain communities, and there must be a potential for superspreader events to grow in such a community.

I’ve no clue how this might be tackled, but I wonder if any of this stuff has been part of the discussion about how the virus moves through the population.



Another thing I’ve been thinking about over the summer is the question of second infection. If the virus is changing, and if immunity doesn’t last very long (in some people at least) will a second infection be worse, better, the same as the first infection? And what happens if someone with long Covid gets it a second time?

It’s starting to look as if the second infection is worse, at least in some cases. Although I suppose it’s also possible that some people are getting a second infection that is asymptomatic. Also possible that someone with Covid symptoms now is actually experiencing a second infection after a first that was asymptotic.

We’re less than a year out from the first reports of this virus and we’re already seeing second infections. It’s very worrying.









						Coronavirus reinfections: three questions scientists are asking
					

Second infections raise questions about long-term immunity to COVID-19 and the prospects for a vaccine.




					www.nature.com


----------



## LDC (Oct 9, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Haven't listened to the independent sage thing yet. But been doing maths in my head, and seriously - in the areas like Central Newcastle, Nottingham, and parts of Leeds, where a massive rise in infections in a large student population in an already steeply rising community infections is happening - something drastic needs doing NOW - full lockdown and probably shielding for all older and vulnerable table people, and a serious effort around rest and tracing and helping people to stick to measured (financially, well being support, etc). Closing pubs next week is not enough and far too late.



Yup. NOW, as in this evening. Will it happen? Not likely. Next week... hopefully. Wonder how many deaths that delay will have caused when we look back at it. Fucking AGAIN.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 9, 2020)

Coronavirus outbreak at Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital as 'small number of patients' reported dead
					

An outbreak of Covid-19 in a ward at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh has already some patients dead.




					www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com
				




We were just there for an outpatient appointment on Wednesday


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yup. NOW, as in this evening. Will it happen? Not likely. Next week... hopefully. Wonder how many deaths that delay will have caused when we look back at it. Fucking AGAIN.



Yeah but its Friday night and Johnson and Hancock probably fancy a pint or two.  Tomorrow is Saturday and well, its the weekend and nothing gets done on the weekend. Defo get it all sorted on Monday or Tuesday if too hungover on Monday.

Anyone up for a massive night down the Bigg Market?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 9, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> *In some circles I’m seeing people who know it’s real and are prepared to take a chance within their own social groups *but are very respectful of the rules and regulations.* So they’re hugging each other and leaning in to talk close to each other* while also observing social distancing with others, wearing masks in shops, adhering to the rule of six for indoor gatherings and so forth. Essentially, they’ve just created a really big baggy bubble. There are a lot of urban youngsters who live very peripatetic lives these days, they don’t really have a conventional home base or family set up so they’re having to interpret the rules in a way that makes sense for them. I’m not especially concerned about them because they’re respectful of the preferences and needs of others outside their group.



That's part of problem, some people think they are safe with friends & family.

And, they are, until one of those people test positive, then they are fucked.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 9, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Haven't listened to the independent sage thing yet. But been doing maths in my head, and seriously - in the areas like Central Newcastle, Nottingham, and parts of Leeds, where a massive rise in infections in a large student population in an already steeply rising community infections is happening - something drastic needs doing NOW - full lockdown and probably shielding for all older and vulnerable people, and a serious effort around rest and tracing and helping people to stick to measured (financially, well being support, etc). Closing pubs next week is not enough and far too late.





LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yup. NOW, as in this evening. Will it happen? Not likely. Next week... hopefully. Wonder how many deaths that delay will have caused when we look back at it. Fucking AGAIN.





Teaboy said:


> Yeah but its Friday night and Johnson and Hancock probably fancy a pint or two.  Tomorrow is Saturday and well, its the weekend and nothing gets done on the weekend. Defo get it all sorted on Monday or Tuesday if too hungover on Monday.
> 
> Anyone up for a massive night down the Bigg Market?



If I can see the need for
 i) lockdown in areas with high student counts (not that they should have been to uni this year, in any case).
ii) lockdown of pubs / hospitality (booze in = brains out) plus proper support for employees and businesses in the sector
iii) shielding for vulnerable people
iv) a general 'circuit breaker' lockdown (three weekends and the two weeks in between)

Why can't the politicians get their act together and do what's needed to save lives !
The failure to act quickly enough gave us the first wave and opening up too much, too soon and getting students back at uni has given us the second wave.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> We had a hell of a spike in Worthing, after weeks of just 2 or 3 new cases a week, it shot up to 37 in the first 7 days of this month. The County Council said most the cases were linked, and they had been successful in contact tracing, the 7-day rolling average has started to drop again, and we are down to 2 cases a day, still 7 times more than in August.
> 
> I was in a zoom meeting earlier and found out what had happened, apparently three guys in their 20's returned from holiday and decided the self-isolation rule didn't apply to them, went and met some mates at a pub, which had to close for a deep clean, then went on to a house party, and general mixing in the community over several days, spreading it about.
> 
> Fucking cunts.



Sussex police confirmed recently that they had issued just three £1000 fines to people breaking the self-isolation law, just found out it was these three cunts on the receiving end, this has made my day.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Oct 9, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's part of problem, some people think they are safe with friends & family.
> 
> And, they are, until one of those people test positive, then they are fucked.




Yes, I know, which is why I see them rarely, outdoors as much as possible, and keep my distance. It’s actually not feasible for them to be in proper lockdown, some of them don’t have physical homes, they rotate around a set of shared open houses. And they are their own family, they don’t have places they can go home to, most of them either don’t have parents or are estranged from them. Their incomes before this was erratic at best, and these days they’re fucked. They all work in the music business but at the lower end, there’s no financial support for them, no prospect of income any time soon. They’re honestly doing the the best they can in incredibly hard circumstances. If they didn’t have each other to look out for each other they’d be on the street, having MH breakdowns, falling (back) into serious drug addiction. What are they meant to do, how are they supposed to live if not like this? Those of them who could retreat to a place of safety have done so. These are the ones who had no option. Some were made homeless by their landlord in June with two weeks notice.  All of them ask me “Am I sat too close? Do you want me to sit further away? Shall I wear a mask?” and if I say yes they comply without hesitation, and they stick to it. One of them recently had symptoms and kept himself isolated by staying in his dad’s garage for the week. Some of them say they think they had it in February when they had a gig in Italy. They’re not being reckless, they’re dealing with their RL situation as best they can.

I honestly feel safer with them than I do in the shop with customers who live in homes, have steady jobs and conventional families but refuse to believe the virus is real


----------



## teuchter (Oct 9, 2020)

The ZOE covid thing needs to update the colour bands on its map - it's banded up to 5000cpm but some places are more than three times that number now, so the map doesn't really show you where the worst spots are unless you go round and click on them manually.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 9, 2020)

Can someone please infect Professor Gupta, and kill her off, pretty please.


----------



## Supine (Oct 9, 2020)

Heat map of age


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 9, 2020)

Mation said:


> She is selfish. But that's human.
> 
> Looked at the other way, is it likely that she's actively thinking: fuck everyone else. I know I've probably got it and I'm likely to infect other people, and they might get really ill and die, and spread it to other people, but my nails are more important and I don't care.
> 
> My guess is not; that there's a hazy, non-logical driver to act, that's only in play when things affect us personally, and it can go in all sorts of directions.


As time goes on I have more and more empathy - if not sympathy - with people who think "the rules are barmy, they don't know what's going on, they contradict themselves all the time, I'm just going to do what I want". I mean that's actually my position - the "rules" are irrelevant apart from that they indicate what I might get done for and even then it's super unlikely. I do what I think is for the best. Just that means staying away from people and wearing masks when I can't, because that's what seems to be the best course for not spreading this particular virus.

But my individual actions won't make a difference. I can't set up a track and trace system on my own, which is what is needed on a broader basis. I can be as sensible as I like and it means bog all. I have no political influence to change the behaviour of anyone who does have power, they don't care what I think, and the system that promises a mechanism whereby they do is a big lie. So a big part of me thinks "why not just have fun then?" Only there's not a lot of fun around to have in the first place.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

You cant make a big difference to the big picture on your own but you can do your bit in just the ways you mention. And since its everyones behaviour that drives the story of the virus forwards, its still important to do that, even if the consequences of your actions seem tiny and insignificant compared to the dramatic changes to the picture that certain government action or terrible failings can bring.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> You cant make a big difference to the big picture on your own but you can do your bit in just the ways you mention. And since its everyones behaviour that drives the story of the virus forwards, its still important to do that, even if the consequences of your actions seem tiny and insignificant compared to the dramatic changes to the picture that certain government action or terrible failings can bring.


I am unfortunately very familiar with the balance between "do the things that might make a very small difference overall maybe, with no immediate, promised, or expected reward" and "fuck it all, fuck all this bullshit, fuck all these idiots, just fucking *have it*".


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Oct 9, 2020)

I had a 1/3 of my students on campus on Tuesday with 2/3  online
Quite a lot of the on campus attendees work in education/childcare and have been working throughout ...I wonder if this creates a fatalistic viewpoint? They've been at risk for six months...university is much safer than a toddler room or reception class


----------



## Mation (Oct 9, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> It’s starting to look as if the second infection is worse, at least in some cases. Although I suppose it’s also possible that some people are getting a second infection that is asymptotic. Also possible that someone with Covid symptoms now is actually experiencing a second infection after a first that was asymptotic.
> 
> We’re less than a year out from the first reports of this virus and we’re already seeing second infections. It’s very worrying.
> 
> ...


Asymptomatic (without symptoms), not asymptotic (limited), you mean?

Sorry to nitpick over such a thoughtful post; it's because it confused me at first, wondering if it was some specific property of infection with this.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 9, 2020)

That Nature article is more than a month old now.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2020)

On my list of concerns about hospital outbreaks and deaths is just how much of a harder time hospitals have in preventing such outbreaks when levels of virus within the community rise above a certain level. I fear that a number of areas in the UK are into the zone where such outbreaks become more common and act as death amplifiers. It is likely that a fair chunk of the first wave of death came down that path.

And now:









						Covid in Scotland: Deaths in Edinburgh cancer ward after outbreak
					

A number of deaths are reported at Edinburgh's Western General, while a ward is also closed at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 9, 2020)

Fuck that's horrible.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Oct 10, 2020)

Mation said:


> Asymptomatic (without symptoms), not asymptotic (limited), you mean?
> 
> Sorry to nitpick over such a thoughtful post; it's because it confused me at first, wondering if it was some specific property of infection with this.




I meant to say asymptomatic in that post, but asymptotic is also something to be concerned about, I think. That was probably autocorrect (I’ve been discussing it here with colleagues). Or some kind of latent machine intelligence at work behind the scenes!

(I’ll go back and edit. Thanks for pointing it out Mation )

I’m really worried about this issue tbh.
We now know it’s not a respiratory disease per se. It’s an inflammation disease that manifests most obviously and primarily in the respiratory system. And uses the respiratory system as a vector.

But we just don't know if it could recur with full on symptoms in all cases, or if it could recur with no symptoms and go completely unnoticed, or with limited symptoms, that may not even manifest in the respiratory system. It could easily travel around that way too. We know it travels asymptomatically, and I’m saying it could also, possibly, travel around asymptotically, in people who have something so mild “it couldn’t possibly be Covid, that’s really serious”., or something that’s giving them (for e.g.) headaches but no respiratory symptoms

We need to have a better idea of minor Covid symptoms - runny nose, sore throat, pains in the joints? Nerve pain? Old injuries and ailments nagging at us? That seems to be a thing for some people, and so easy to ignore that.

Maybe it will evolve to be less deadly, but if that does happen, there will necessarily be a process during which slight symptoms for some can still cause severe symptoms in those who catch it from them.

I’m just thinking this through tbh. Asking the questions.

We need track and trace to stay safe but we also need it so that we can study this thing and get to know it properly, thoroughly. The more we know, the better equipped we'll be to find a way to live with it. Right now that seems to be the best option.

We can't just lock down in the hope that it will miraculously disappear. We can't seem to lock down enough to stay safe anyway. We can't just stay indoors til The Vaccine comes charging over the hill like the cavalry, and even if one of these vaccines is available next year there's no guarantee of it's efficacy, either in the short or the long term.

These youngsters I was talking about, I'm already seeing social changes happening: "save my seat" is the new "d'you want a drink?" before they wander off for a bit; hands over the mouth when they talk to each other, hesitating to hug to make sure you want to. We have to find a way to live with it. We just have to. Knowing about second infection dangers will be a part of that.








teuchter said:


> That Nature article is more than a month old now.




Yes. It's not new news, this second infection thing.

What's your point?

There's loads out there about second infection, I chose that one because it comes from a respected journal that's being referenced by other articles.

There's so much that you don't even need to search for "covid second infection" just "second infection" will bring back plenty of results.


Here are some more recent ones









						COVID: Second infection can be worse than first for some, shows study
					

The findings of the study have dashed expectations that second-time infection with coronavirus should be milder.




					www.newindianexpress.com
				








__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com
				












						Flurry of coronavirus reinfections leaves scientists puzzled
					

Though far from common, some patients developed worse symptoms the second time they became infected with Covid-19




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## DexterTCN (Oct 10, 2020)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 10, 2020)

So, in theory we have now overtaken both France and Spain in the number of cases per 100,000, although looking at worldometers we have carried out more than twice as many tests, per million, compared to those two countries, so I wonder how many cases they are missing.



> The UK’s rate of coronavirus cases has risen to the third highest of all major European nations, new figures show.
> 
> Over the past seven days 153 cases per 100,000 people have been recorded in the UK. This is more than countries such as France and Spain, which have rates of 141 and 124 respectively.
> 
> ...











						UK’s Covid-19 case rate is third highest of major European nations
					

The UK’s rate of coronavirus cases has risen to the third highest of all major European nations, new figures show.




					www.heraldscotland.com


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 10, 2020)

Are they having testing capacity issues? If not could weather be a factor?


----------



## Badgers (Oct 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, in theory we have now overtaken both France and Spain in the number of cases per 100,000, although looking at worldometers we have carried out more than twice as many tests, per million, compared to those two countries, so I wonder how many cases they are missing.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


#worldbeating


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 10, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Are they having testing capacity issues? If not could weather be a factor?



According to THIS REPORT,  France has increased its testing capacity and carried out 664,000 tests in a week (5 days old figure), we have done over 1,750,000 in the last week.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 10, 2020)

Badgers said:


> #worldbeating



On numbers being tested per day is seems we are doing bloody well compared to other countries, just a shame tracing is shit.


----------



## andysays (Oct 10, 2020)

As previously stated by many here, pub and hospitality workers who lose income because of necessary closures should get full support. 

I'm less concerned about the "hospitality" industry, however,



> One pub manager in Otley, West Yorkshire, said the scheme "doesn't even touch the sides" in terms of its impact on pubs. "Two-thirds of somebody's wage isn't going to cut it," said Mel Green, 41, of The Black Bull.





> "We're in a trade where everyone's on national minimum wage pretty much. They're the ones that are losing out. A lot of them are living hand to mouth already and they've already had hours reduced."



Maybe the breweries etc should put their hands in their own metaphorical pockets and agree to sort out their highly exploitative industry before calling for public bailouts.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> According to THIS REPORT,  France has increased its testing capacity and carried out 664,000 tests in a week (5 days old figure), we have done over 1,750,000 in the last week.



Hm this story from beginning September talks of issues getting tests but also says in that week they'd tested over a million, so more than 640,0000 (struggling) capacity a month ago. Of course they could be obfuscating like our government. 




			https://www.thelocal.fr/20200909/covid-19-why-testing-one-million-people-a-week-is-giving-france-a-real-headache


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

andysays said:


> As previously stated by many here, pub and hospitality workers who lose income because of necessary closures should get full support.
> 
> I'm less concerned about the "hospitality" industry, however,
> 
> ...



If there's ever been a time for a Windfall Tax this is it.


----------



## Supine (Oct 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> On numbers being tested per day is seems we are doing bloody well compared to other countries, just a shame tracing is shit.



Although people testing positive is up to 10-12% in the north. This can indicate a lot more testing is required. I think WHO recommends a max of 5% doesn't it?


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

two sheds said:


> If there's ever been a time for a Windfall Tax this is it.


Are the breweries making fat profits? My impression was the entire industry was running on empty from top to bottom even before this crisis. Six months of massively reduced turnover won't have helped top up the kitty either.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

I was thinking more generally with companies who've made high profits. But I'd have thought the large breweries make good profits - they have tied pubs over a barrel with pub rents and beer prices.

Can only see one at first glance - not huge profit but I'd never heard of them:



> Annual reports now being issued by various brewery companies confirm market views that the industry is thriving. Brewery stocks and shares have been extensively bought in markets for some time and the section is maintaining a good tone while other industrials are inclined to slip back. A report for the year to March 31 last is issued by Barclay Perkins & Company, the London brewery, which has already announced a 6 per cent. Ordinary dividend for the year against 5 per cent for 1942 and 3.5% per cent for 1941. The profit last year was £125,002, after making provision for depreciation, Government taxation, ...











						Brewery Profits
					

Here's a real shock - breweries were doing well during the war. Who would have thought it? Barclay Perkins were doing nicely, at least accor...




					barclayperkins.blogspot.com


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I was thinking more generally with companies who've made high profits. But I'd have thought the large breweries make good profits - they have tied pubs over a barrel with pub rents and beer prices.
> 
> Can only see one at first glance - not huge profit but I'd never heard of them:
> 
> ...


This seems to be for a brewery operating during the war?

(I had a quick look, and Greene King made a profit of 250 million on a turnover of just over 2 billion in 2019 which... doesn't seem very much. It'll certainly have been completely wiped out by the last 6 months.)


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

two sheds said:


> they have tied pubs over a barrel


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> This seems to be for a brewery operating during the war?
> 
> (I had a quick look, and Greene King made a profit of 250 million on a turnover of just over 2 billion in 2019 which... doesn't seem very much. It'll certainly have been completely wiped out by the last 6 months.)



 it was dated August 2020 that's just misleading - well if they'd banked the money given interest rates it would be worth a fortune by now 

Yes fair enough on the profit, but with pubs going out of business and people in the industry on minimum wage I'd have thought still room for a windfall tax for even them.

As I say though, I meant more broadly - companies and their directors etc. who've done well out of neoliberalism  years and particularly those who've done well out of covid.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> Are the breweries making fat profits? My impression was the entire industry was running on empty from top to bottom even before this crisis. Six months of massively reduced turnover won't have helped top up the kitty either.



Plenty of pubcos were doing very nicely indeed before all this. Although TBF a lot of the places they run wouldn't qualify as 'pubs' by my standards.

Independent pubs have been up against it for years though. Particularly those that lease their premises. Just add it to the list of things ruined by grasping property cunts.


----------



## belboid (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> This seems to be for a brewery operating during the war?
> 
> (I had a quick look, and Greene King made a profit of 250 million on a turnover of just over 2 billion in 2019 which... doesn't seem very much. It'll certainly have been completely wiped out by the last 6 months.)


12.5% return looks pretty good to me, almost exactly the UK non-financial company average in fact.   Tho I agree they’ll have made duck all this year


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

You think





belboid said:


> 12.5% return looks pretty good to me, almost exactly the UK non-financial company average in fact.   Tho I agree they’ll have made duck all this year


 you're right, my mental arithmetic put the decimal point one place further to the left...


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Plenty of pubcos were doing very nicely indeed before all this. Although TBF a lot of the places they run wouldn't qualify as 'pubs' by my standards.
> 
> Independent pubs have been up against it for years though. Particularly those that lease their premises. Just add it to the list of things ruined by grasping property cunts.



Yes good point - windfall tax definitely for landlords who have been raking it in. Many  (domestic too) would hardly feel it if rents were halved.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> You think
> you're right, my mental arithmetic put the decimal point one place further to the left...



at least you were talking about the right century


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

No landlords have been raking it in this year though. Theres no windfalls to tax.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

No landlords have large amounts of cash in the bank?

Even if not, then I'm sure they could sell a few properties off - the larger domestic landlords too.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> This seems to be for a brewery operating during the war?
> 
> (I had a quick look, and Greene King made a profit of 250 million on a turnover of just over 2 billion in 2019 which... doesn't seem very much. It'll certainly have been completely wiped out by the last 6 months.)



Greene King has vast property assets. A dip in cashflow won't hurt them that much.


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

two sheds said:


> No landlords have large amounts of cash in the bank?
> 
> Even if not, then I'm sure they could sell a few properties off - the larger domestic landlords too.


Who's buying pubs right now tho?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> Who's buying pubs right now tho?



Housing developers. There'll be plenty of people nosing around for a bargain, as there always are in a crisis.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> Who's buying pubs right now tho?



I'm not just talking about pubs though. You're against a windfall tax in principle?


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

So the answer to this is to force pubcos to sell off viable pubs to property developers?


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I'm not just talking about pubs though. You're against a windfall tax in principle?


You were talking about pub landlords in the post I was replying to?

I'm not against a windfall tax in principle, of course not - but the companies to windfall tax are not the ones which have had to close for much of the last 6 months, and are about to have to close again.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> You were talking about pub landlords in the post I was replying to?
> 
> I'm not against a windfall tax in principle, of course not - but the companies to windfall tax are not the ones which have had to close for much of the last 6 months, and are about to have to close again.



Yes but I have said a couple of times that I'm not just talking about pubs & pub landlords.


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

Gotcha. Maybe stop typing 'landlords' when you mean something else then.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

to be fair when I said landlords I meant landlords and when I said something else I meant something else.

Yes indeed though, I'm only advocating a windfall tax for companies and people who've done well enough to build up large profits or large assets. And no I'm not suggesting they sell off their pubs to property developers (although it looks like that's happening anyway), but I certainly am suggesting that some of the large landlords should sell off some of their houses if they don't have the money in the bank but have large realizable assets.

I'm not sure why I've annoyed you with this. Simply pointing out that not all brewers and pub landlords had made large profits would have been enough and I'd have agreed with you. Apart from confusing covid with world war II I thought I'd been quite coherent, particularly since it's a saturday and I hadn't had breakfast


----------



## Mation (Oct 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> On numbers being tested per day is seems we are doing bloody well compared to other countries, just a shame tracing is shit.


Is that because we're still creatively counting the numbers of tests actually done?


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2020)

Supine said:


> Although people testing positive is up to 10-12% in the north. This can indicate a lot more testing is required. I think WHO recommends a max of 5% doesn't it?



Yeah and we are probably making a mistake if we just compare whole nations, rather than at least zooming in to the regional level for those other countries too.

I do hesitate to make comparisons about our trajectory given this, and given my inability to have as intimate a knowledge of those countries testing system woes or other possible factors.

For example with France there was a dip in the 7 day rolling average for french positive cases not long ago, and I dont know why, it certainly didnt last an the previous trajectory seems to have resumed. Something very specific might have happened that affected the test system, or it could be that previously increasing numbers in one region fell as they got a grip, some time before another regions increases came along to override the decreases.

I know that French lab test workers went on strike last month due to being overworked, and Im not suggesting this made a big difference but its the sort of thing I'd need to learn about and factor in when looking closely. Burned out and abused: French COVID-19 testers strike over work conditions


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2020)

This is one of the least subtle things I've seen in the press in this pandemic so far:


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2020)

I was reading some detail from my counties health bod about which areas in particular in my town are being affected most by the resurgence of the virus. Last time my ward was part of the most affected area, this time one of the better off, middle class wards has been fingered instead.

I was still pondering the possible reasons for this when I read this London story, and my mind started whirring.



> However, an analysis of 412 positive cases in Richmond since September 20 found that out of 212 for which the council has postcodes, 49 of them were for places including Leeds, Exeter, Manchester and Durham.
> 
> They were nearly all in the 17-21 age group. The assumption is that these are London students whose cases have been recorded using their home addresses, possibly through details given of their GP.
> 
> The pattern is likely to be replicated in areas across the capital and wider country, however it may be more marked in Richmond given the high number of students who come from the borough.



Is this the next data fiasco story in the making?









						London's coronavirus figures 'skewed by students in other cities'
					

Covid-19 figures in London appear to be skewed by including students at universities in other cities who have tested positive, the Standard reveals today.




					www.standard.co.uk
				




Also note how many cases that council had not been given postcode data about.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> So the answer to this is to force pubcos to sell off viable pubs to property developers?



It's what will probably happen in many cases. I didn't say it was 'the answer'. And it won't be the big companies forced to sell in any case, as they have assets to balance out their costs and liabilities. They're not dependent on day to day cashflow like and independent landlord will be.


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> It's what will probably happen in many cases. I didn't say it was 'the answer'. And it won't be the big companies forced to sell in any case, as they have assets to balance out their costs and liabilities. They're not dependent on day to day cashflow like and independent landlord will be.


What do you imagine the big pubco's assets are?


----------



## kabbes (Oct 10, 2020)

You need to apply for a change of use from the planning authority to redevelop a pub as a house.  To date, there has been strong presumption against granting this.  So it’s not that straightforward.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

it's a shame that business outlook is so poor for pubs, otherwise there'd be people wanting to buy as a going concern moving out into the country, might save some of them.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 10, 2020)

kabbes said:


> You need to apply for a change of use from the planning authority to redevelop a pub as a house.  To date, there has been strong presumption against granting this.  So it’s not that straightforward.



Although two pubs in one near village closed before covid, now becoming houses (Lord Falmouth owned one, really lovely friendly pub, stupid twats - Falmouth twats not landlord - gutted it only to discover it was grade I listed so were told they had to put it back as it was - not sure whether they have done yet), now only one left. The other near village has two pubs sounds like one of them will close. I think when they've closed there's not much can be done .


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2020)

This story reminds me that what I was saying about how much harder it is to stop outbreaks in hospitals when number of infections in the community grows beyond a certain point also applies to other institutions.









						Covid in Scotland: Barlinnie prisoners locked down after outbreak
					

More than 250 inmates and 12 staff are isolating after positive cases were reported at Glasgow's Barlinnie prison.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 10, 2020)

Sept 26th in this region (NE Lincs) the rate was 20 cases per 100k and under 300 total. Today it's 97 per 100k and 154 cases in the last _week_ - total 540 :-(


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 10, 2020)

kabbes said:


> You need to apply for a change of use from the planning authority to redevelop a pub as a house.  To date, there has been strong presumption against granting this.  So it’s not that straightforward.



One of my fav village pubs closed before covid, and has planning permission to be converted into flats, with 2 or 3 small bungalows to be built on the car-park.

Two in town have had planning permission granted late last year/early this year, one to be demolished to make way for a block of flats, the other was purchased by the council to be converted into 13 flatlets for the homeless.

All three are within 2 miles of my place, two different councils involved, which suggests to me that there's no 'strong presumption' against such developments.

ETA - and one in the nearest village to where I used to live in Somerset, got planning permission to be demolished and replaced by four houses, around 5 or 6 years ago.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 10, 2020)

Fucking hell. I suppose it will reduce the work of the CTs


----------



## Supine (Oct 10, 2020)

^ and it says don't try to T&T public transport. World beating.


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

The schools themselves are doing contact tracing within the school - if my recent experience of it is anything to go by, probably much better than a remote contact tracer could do. so I can understand why you'd not bother repeating that work tbf.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> One of my fav village pubs closed before covid, and has planning permission to be converted into flats, with 2 or 3 small bungalows to be built on the car-park.
> 
> Two in town have had planning permission granted late last year/early this year, one to be demolished to make way for a block of flats, the other was purchased by the council to be converted into 13 flatlets for the homeless.
> 
> ...


How long did it take between the pub closing and the housing development being granted?  They normally have to demonstrate a sustained period of non-viability.  The other thing is whether there is another pub in the same village.  I know of pubs round here that have been closed for years with the building owner desperate for a change of use.  Although I think it’s easier in a town than a village.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 10, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Fucking hell. I suppose it will reduce the work of the CTs



NHS England.


----------



## LDC (Oct 10, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Fucking hell. I suppose it will reduce the work of the CTs




Tory Fibs Twitter isn't the most reliable source of facts and without knowing the context and reasons for the above I'll hold off the outrage TBH.


----------



## chilango (Oct 10, 2020)

kabbes said:


> You need to apply for a change of use from the planning authority to redevelop a pub as a house.  To date, there has been strong presumption against granting this.  So it’s not that straightforward.



I dunno if that's the case everywhere.

Here in Reading they'd happily turn the Church of the Holy Sepulchre into "city living" flats if it was located a bit closer to the railway station rather than in Jerusalem.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 10, 2020)

There's a current push to remove planning "red tape" anyway.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 10, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There's a current push to remove planning "red tape" anyway.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> Who's buying pubs right now tho?



Anyone got Mike Ashley's number?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 10, 2020)

We might need a spin-off thread for pubs at this rate.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Tory Fibs Twitter isn't the most reliable source of facts and without knowing the context and reasons for the above I'll hold off the outrage TBH.


I am not aware of any unreliable information from Tory Fibs. Where have you heard that from?


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

Lol


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

Theres actually  a thread about him here somewhere, I'll see if I can find it


----------



## Spandex (Oct 10, 2020)

UK Covid Dashboard still hasn't updated with today's figures. Normally they do it around 4pm.

Currently they have this message: _We are awaiting data for cases in England. We will update the data as soon as possible._

Have they fucked it up again? Should someone get in touch with PHE to remind them to check their spreadsheet in case someone has left a filter on one of the columns?


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> The schools themselves are doing contact tracing within the school - if my recent experience of it is anything to go by, probably much better than a remote contact tracer could do. so I can understand why you'd not bother repeating that work tbf.


They should still trace all outside of school contact tho.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 10, 2020)

Spandex said:


> UK Covid Dashboard still hasn't updated with today's figures. Normally they do it around 4pm.
> 
> Currently they have this message: _We are awaiting data for cases in England. We will update the data as soon as possible._
> 
> Have they fucked it up again? Should someone get in touch with PHE to remind them to check their spreadsheet in case someone has left a filter on one of the columns?



Looks like someone forgot to switch the oven on for the books.


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> Theres actually  a thread about him here somewhere, I'll see if I can find it


No specific thread actually, but if you search his name (eoin clarke) you'll find discussions going back a decade detailing his... relaxed attitude to reality.

Butchers gives some specifics of his MO (which is unchanged) in this thread, and there's plenty more if you can be bothered to look. Either way, avoid.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> No specific thread actually, but if you search his name (eoin clarke) you'll find discussions going back a decade detailing his... relaxed attitude to reality.
> 
> Butchers gives some specifics of his MO (which is unchanged) in this thread, and there's plenty more if you can be bothered to look. Either way, avoid.


So nothing more recent than 2012 apart from Guido Fawkes from 2013? I have looked and that is what I have come up with.


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

Yeah there's loads. That just had the most comprehensive info about why he's to be treated with caution.


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

Someone posted one of his tweets earlier this week which turned out on investigation to be a misreading of the data. Presumably he sometimes gets it right, but so much of it is bollocks that I tend to just discount anything he says.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 10, 2020)

15166 & 81 departed according to Sky.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Oct 10, 2020)




----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

sigh


----------



## 20Bees (Oct 10, 2020)

15,166 new cases
81 new deaths
Just on Sky news (and worldometers)


----------



## xenon (Oct 10, 2020)

Looked at the Bristol average today. Last I checked it was 31 / 100K. Now 79. With UK average at 74...


----------



## Wilf (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> The schools themselves are doing contact tracing within the school - if my recent experience of it is anything to go by, probably much better than a remote contact tracer could do. so I can understand why you'd not bother repeating that work tbf.


If that's the same for universities - leaving it them to do the tracing - there's a problem. AT my place I've seen protocols that say you only need to isolate/test if you have _breached social distancing_ with someone who is infected.  Being in a classroom with an infected person isn't itself a trigger )though I think sharing a house automatically is).


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 10, 2020)

Our local patch has a few cases now (less than 10) unlike "studentville" in the middle of Newcastle & Gateshead which has had several areas with cases in three figures in the past few days.

I see Bangor have taken action amounting to a local lockdown.

As a result of the former situation, this household has decided to enter purdah again. Especially as Bezza's just out of hospital (just far enough over 48 hours to get tested for the second time - both negative results - before discharge)


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

Wilf said:


> If that's the same for universities - leaving it them to do the tracing - there's a problem. AT my place I've seen protocols that say you only need to isolate/test if you have _breached social distancing_ with someone who is infected.  Being in a classroom with an infected person isn't itself a trigger )though I think sharing a house automatically is).


What I would say is that all the info we have is a single page update of some guidelines for contact tracers, without seeing the guidelines themselves, or knowing what other protocols might be in place for these specific areas. Without that context I don't think it really says anything.


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2020)

Wasnt there an earlier story that came up some weeks ago about schools being told to call a special new hotline rather than the PHE one to report and get advice about outbreaks? I sort of expect both these stories to be part of the same bigger story, a story that probably involves the sort of management fudges that come from the balancing act between staffing levels and sticking to the proper contact tracing/isolation guidelines. These sorts of stories almost inevitably involve double standards and obvious flaws/consequences that come from the chosen balance. Also has some overlap with long-term attitudes about working whilst ill, there is the theory and best practice and then there is what actually happens 'for practical reasons' and the way people are 'encouraged' to work when they shouldnt be working.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> What I would say is that all the info we have is a single page update of some guidelines for contact tracers, without seeing the guidelines themselves, or knowing what other protocols might be in place for these specific areas. Without that context I don't think it really says anything.


It seems like what they are being told is to no longer pass cases from educational settings to staff who handle complex cases. It's not clear what this implies - are the cases therefore not traced, or are they traced but not treated as complex?


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2020)

This was the story from some weeks ago that I was on about.









						DfE revamps covid reporting system after school delays
					

The government has set up a national helpline for schools to report positive coronavirus cases following some being left in "limbo" waiting three days to get official health advice. A Schools Week investigation revealed yesterday how schools were waiting days for advice from local health...




					schoolsweek.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

Ah! so there it is. Cheers. Chalk another tweet of Eoin's up as an alarmist fantasy.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> Ah! so there it is. Cheers. Chalk another tweet of Eoin's up as an alarmist fantasy.


Is it an alarmist fantasy though? Unless pupils who test +ve are at a boarding school then there is a good chance they will have had contact outside the school environment. Is the DfE or the school taking on the responsibility for T&T in the rest of the community? I doubt teachers have time for this & unless the DfE has taken out a contract with Serco then I doubt they will be able to either. 10-19 year olds seems to be the largest growing +ve age group & to ignore it is only asking for trouble.


----------



## LDC (Oct 10, 2020)

I'm not spending any time getting outraged by single context free Tweets, and I don't think it's helpful to post them here either. A decent article yes, single Tweets no.

There's plenty of real shit to be pissed off or worried about without bollocks like that.


----------



## Supine (Oct 10, 2020)

There are lots of infections at the moment. The guideline seems to be protecting valuable expert T&T staff from investigating schools. 

Better to use their time investigating other people who could be more seriously impacted maybe? Basically letting it rip through schools


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Is it an alarmist fantasy though? Unless pupils who test +ve are at a boarding school then there is a good chance they will have had contact outside the school environment. Is the DfE or the school taking on the responsibility for T&T in the rest of the community? I doubt teachers have time for this & unless the DfE has taken out a contract with Serco then I doubt they will be able to either. 10-19 year olds seems to be the largest growing +ve age group & to ignore it is only asking for trouble.


I don't know any of this detail, and nor do you, and nor does Eoin Clarke. Maybe the DfE are handling all the contact tracing for school infections - it probably makes sense doesn't it, rather than having two separate sets of contact tracers doing it? 

What I do know - because my daughter's just finished two weeks off school after the kid who sits next to her in history tested positive - is that the in-school contact tracing is very quick and efficient: they worked out all the close contacts of my kids classmate within a few hours of getting the report, and told all of them to isolate by the end of the school day. I was pretty impressed tbh.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not spending any time getting outraged by single context free Tweets, and I don't think it's helpful to post them here either. A decent article yes, single Tweets no.
> 
> There's plenty of real shit to be pissed off or worried about without bollocks like that.


It was not a single context free tweet. This was attached too.







Or is that bollocks or photoshopped too?


----------



## LDC (Oct 10, 2020)

MrSki said:


> It was not a single context free tweet. This was attached too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It doesn't give any context or background. Is someone else dealing with it? Is it not being T&T'ed due to other issues, for example I work in the NHS and we're not being T&T'ed using the central system but a work one? It's just not helpful or reliable at all IMO. I'm at work tomorrow, and a few people do T&T as extra, I'll ask them and see what they say.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't know any of this detail, and nor do you, and nor does Eoin Clarke. Maybe the DfE are handling all the contact tracing for school infections - it probably makes sense doesn't it, rather than having two separate sets of contact tracers doing it?
> 
> What I do know - because my daughter's just finished two weeks off school after the kid who sits next to her in history tested positive - is that the in-school contact tracing is very quick and efficient: they worked out all the close contacts of my kids classmate within a few hours of getting the report, and told all of them to isolate by the end of the school day. I was pretty impressed tbh.


Fair enough but do you know if the school contacted non pupils who the kid who sits next to her might have had contact with?


----------



## killer b (Oct 10, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Fair enough but do you know if the school contacted non pupils who the kid who sits next to her might have had contact with?


Look, you just shared some poorly sourced bollocks off twitter, there's no need to carry on with this. Can we stop now?


----------



## MrSki (Oct 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It doesn't give any context or background. Is someone else dealing with it? Is it not being T&T'ed due to other issues, for example I work in the NHS and we're not being T&T'ed using the central system but a work one? It's just not helpful or reliable at all IMO. I'm at work tomorrow, and a few people do T&T as extra, I'll ask them and see what they say.


Maybe the NHS has a bit more experience of T&T than a school?


----------



## muscovyduck (Oct 10, 2020)

.


----------



## LDC (Oct 11, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Maybe the NHS has a bit more experience of T&T than a school?



Give that (for example) the take up/use of the app in kids is going to be low (at best), and there's also issues about them taking calls from unknown adults, and then being given medical advice to follow and questioned about their contact with other people, I think schools are much better placed to deal with it via parents etc. IME it's being dealt with OK by the schools I know of.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 11, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There's a current push to remove planning "red tape" anyway.


Building housing in the Tory shires is a good idea.


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 11, 2020)

Worrying new symptom to watch out for:




Covid “makes you act out of character”.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 11, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Worrying new symptom to watch out for:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



"A big virus did it and ran away"


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 11, 2020)

That's some shameful shit.

Presumably she has always been an unselfish, intelligent non-prick in the past


----------



## two sheds (Oct 11, 2020)

Doe explain Trump's recent narcissistic, irresponsible, aggressive, ... 

ah


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 11, 2020)

S☼I said:


> That's some shameful shit.
> 
> Presumably she has always been an unselfish, intelligent non-prick in the past


I wasn’t aware of her before she became Margaret Covid. But, yeah, in some ways I’m not entirely sure I’m convinced by her excuse.


----------



## andysays (Oct 11, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I wasn’t aware of her before she became Margaret Covid. But, yeah, in some ways I’m not entirely sure I’m convinced by her excuse.


You're only saying that because you hate the idea of scottish independence, danny la rouge


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 11, 2020)

andysays said:


> You're only saying that because you hate the idea of scottish independence, danny la rouge


Yeah, I’m waiting for one of my “favourite” posters to come along and say that.


----------



## andysays (Oct 11, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Yeah, I’m waiting for one of my “favourite” posters to come along and say that.


I notice you don't deny that it's true...


----------



## danny la rouge (Oct 11, 2020)

andysays said:


> I notice you don't deny that it's true...


🎼 _Land of ho-ope and glory!_


----------



## Cerv (Oct 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Give that (for example) the take up/use of the app in kids is going to be low (at best), and there's also issues about them taking calls from unknown adults, and then being given medical advice to follow and questioned about their contact with other people, I think schools are much better placed to deal with it via parents etc. IME it's being dealt with OK by the schools I know of.


take up of the app by kids is assumed to be low. 
when you first sign up it tells you it's for ages 16+ only. for the usual reasons of children not being able to consent to whatever.


----------



## Cerv (Oct 11, 2020)

existentialist said:


> "A big virus did it and ran away"


not sure that her excuse of "the rules were too complicated because they changed months ago" helps her case for not resigning. shows a lack of qualification for the job of understanding legislation, papers, etc

grade A muppet


----------



## LDC (Oct 11, 2020)

The rules have never allowed someone with symptoms to do anything but self isolate.

She's trying to play on the idea that the public find the rules confusing, and is hoping she'll get some empathy if she says she finds them confusing too.


----------



## hash tag (Oct 11, 2020)

Fireworks night is cancelled, no surprise really; Battersea, Brockham, and Lewis are all not going ahead, not sure about Crystal Palace.
I am sure it will be the same for many more parties.


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 11, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Worrying new symptom to watch out for:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This is a bit like my 3 year old grandson saying he didn't know  where the chocolate had gone when it was smeared over his face, didn't believe him either.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 11, 2020)

I await outed racists claiming covid caused N word utterances.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 11, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> Yeah, I’m waiting for one of my “favourite” posters to come along and say that.


'Candyman... Candyman... *NO!'*


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

Van-Tam:









						Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam's Op-Ed
					

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam outlines the current Covid-19 situation.




					www.gov.uk
				






> In our national fight against Covid-19, we are at a tipping point similar to where we were in March; but we can prevent history repeating itself if we all act now.
> 
> ONS data show that an estimated 224,000 people have the virus – up from 116,000 last week, hospital admissions for Covid-19 are rising again, as are intensive care admissions. Although the epidemic re-started in younger adult age groups in the last few weeks, there is clear evidence of gradual spread into older age groups in the worst affected areas. Sadly, just as night follows day, increases in deaths will now follow on in the next few weeks. The good news, is that we are much more certain now that children are usually not badly affected by this virus.





> The R for the UK is between 1.2 – 1.5. Roughly this means that every one case generates more than one new case, through onward transmission – so the epidemic grows larger. Every NHS region of England has an R that is well above 1.0, suggesting that widespread increases in transmission continues across the country, not just in the north of England. Scientists estimate that the doubling time in the UK for new infections is between 8 and 16 days and is even faster in some areas.





> SAGE is clear that we need to act now.
> 
> Winter in the NHS is always a difficult period, and that is why in the first wave our strategy was: “contain, delay, research and mitigate” to push the first wave into Spring. This time it is different as we are now are going into the colder, darker winter months. We are in the middle of a severe pandemic and the seasons are against us. Basically, we are running into a headwind.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

Another shit idea:









						Pub desks: Sick of home working? I made the pub my office for a day
					

Sick of home working? Pubs in the UK have been offering "pub desk" deals to remote-workers.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> For landlords, it's a way to make up for lost revenue after months spent grappling with the impact of Covid-19, including the introduction of the 10pm closing time in England and the shutting of pubs and restaurants in central Scotland until 25 October.
> 
> Some pub-goers have queried whether "pub desks" offer a safe way of working, but industry leaders argue more coronavirus transmissions take place in educational settings and care homes than in pubs and restaurants.



Fuck off 'industry leaders'.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 11, 2020)

I'm going to cancel my plan to take a laptop and get some work done in a care home, if it's actually safer for me to do this in a pub instead.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 11, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Fireworks night is cancelled, no surprise really; Battersea, Brockham, and Lewis are all not going ahead, not sure about Crystal Palace.
> I am sure it will be the same for many more parties.


Really sad about this. My first Autumn in the UK since 2007, and my partner's here too, and I was looking forward to introducing him to bonfire night.


----------



## Espresso (Oct 11, 2020)

It's all over the media that Margaret Ferrier called for Dominic Cummings to resign when he went driving up and down the country and to test his eyesight at Barnard Castle. 
Presumably he should have gone on the train, then all would have been tickety-boo.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I'm going to cancel my plan to take a laptop and get some work done in a care home, if it's actually safer for me to do this in a pub instead.



Shield the vulnerable by moving them into pubs whilst we are at it. Or give care homes a license to sell alcohol.


----------



## Maltin (Oct 11, 2020)

Espresso said:


> It's all over the media that Margaret Ferrier called for Dominic Cummings to resign when he went driving up and down the country and to test his eyesight at Barnard Castle.
> Presumably he should have gone on the train, then all would have been tickety-boo.


Did Cummings resign? Maybe she’s just following his precedent.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Another shit idea:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think most freelancers who have tried it would agree that working every day from the pub, even if it were pretty much empty and safe from COVID, is a poor idea in terms of your general health.


----------



## hash tag (Oct 11, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Really sad about this. My first Autumn in the UK since 2007, and my partner's here too, and I was looking forward to introducing him to bonfire night.


This may not light up the sky, but hey Fireworks next to the O Millennium Dome


----------



## Cloo (Oct 11, 2020)

So there are rumblings of an announcement from the government tomorrow. How feeble is it going to be, do you think?

'Uhm, wear masks in offices and.... maybe we'll shut restaurants and pubs at 8.30pm' or some shit?


----------



## LDC (Oct 11, 2020)

Cloo said:


> So there are rumblings of an announcement from the government tomorrow. How feeble is it going to be, do you think?
> 
> 'Uhm, wear masks in offices and.... maybe we'll shut restaurants and pubs at 8.30pm' or some shit?



They're being pulled in all sorts of directions now so they're going to struggle with what to do. It's not just the split pro/anti restrictions and lockdown in the party now, but local councils and 'business leaders' saying they might not obey any restrictions. Really feels like a fucking mess tbh, and that is mirrored in what I see among people. Locally to me small business owners are edging more towards no additional restrictions I think. Severe virus fatigue has set in, all exacerbated by the mess that's been made of it all.

A bit dreading the next six months, I already know more people with symptoms and +tive tests this time around than last...


----------



## magneze (Oct 11, 2020)

If they get someone other than Johnson to present it then perhaps there's a chance that it'll be clear and followed. Sadly I suspect we get the incompetent bumbling clown.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 11, 2020)

It seems to me that we should have started a 4-week closedown of everything except essential shops two weeks ago, but the government was so keen on trying to act as though everything was back on track that they were just crossing their fingers and hoping it would be OK.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 11, 2020)

I was chatting to a friend of mine in Belgium about this earlier, and I mentioned that local authorities in the NE were getting sick of never being consulted and how random and inappropriate the regulations were and announced without warning and at 11:59pm the day before they were supposed to take effect, and that they had started to say "no this is stupid and we just won't do it".

She was a bit shocked and said "can they do that? so what happens then?" All I could say was "well they need local authorities to enforce this, there aren't enough cops and they don't do anything anyway".

At least I managed to make her feel a bit better about how things are going in Belgium I guess.


----------



## magneze (Oct 11, 2020)

How does the 3 tier lockdown relate to the 4 levels of coronavirus alert?


----------



## Raheem (Oct 11, 2020)

Espresso said:


> Presumably he should have gone on the train, then all would have been tickety-boo.


No, trains stopped making that noise quite a few years ago.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 11, 2020)

magneze said:


> How does the 3 tier lockdown relate to the 4 levels of coronavirus alert?


It doesn't. 

The old Covid alert level system was based on the thinking about the situation at the time it was written and was irrelevant in weeks.

The new Covid alert system is based on the thinking about the situation now. There's no way it'll be irrelevant in weeks. Oh no.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 11, 2020)

So, northern leaders were moaning about leaks of further restrictions without consultation, having now been consulted, they are leaking what tier their area is going be in.  

Clowns to the left of me,  jokers to the right.


----------



## magneze (Oct 11, 2020)

Oh sorry there were 5 levels of coronavirus alert.


----------



## LDC (Oct 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, northern leaders were moaning about leaks of further restrictions without consultation, having now been consulted, they are leaking what tier their area is going be in.
> 
> Clowns to the left of me,  jokers to the right.




Yeah, it looks like there's lots of egos and local/national politicking going on tbh, think some of the local councillors and business people aren't covering themselves in glory at all. Leeds city council can barely get the bins empty, not sure I trust them at all to make health and life/death pandemic related decisions, far too close to being influenced by local connections to business and personalities. Actually would rather central government makes these decisions (arguing for decent financial support a different issue I think which fair game for them to do).


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, northern leaders were moaning about leaks of further restrictions without consultation, having now been consulted, they are leaking what tier their area is going be in.



Lods of things have been said by local 'leaders' that I fear undermines the pandemic public health cause, which pains me greatly. Especially when specific things they've demanded are taken out of context and make what they are sounding seem totally anti-lockdown, which is not usually the case.

Usually it is about lack of consultation and lobbying for money. Which I do have sympathy with, especially as the recent consultation exercise was more like the government sharing some plans a few days in advance rather than an actual consultation.

But the public face of it certainly seems messy right now so I am concerned. However I am also used to this level of leadership rolling over when they get some of what they want, and are compensated for feeling like their toes have been trodden on. I dont know if thats exactly what will happen next, it might be, especially if more wiggle room is found in the new furlough etc plans, and if local leadership shits themselves at the prospect of getting some blame if the pandemic management falls well short of what the level of infection in their area demands.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

And I say that with a heavy heart because when picking over a lot of the issues that made the establishment especially shit at dealing with this pandemic, crap centralising instincts were pretty high on the list.

But I only favour the decentralised approach when its part of a well established system with existing funding in all the right places and a level of local leadership that is used to real power in more areas, and less of the games they are used to being there to play under the current crappy 'decentralised but not really' state this country is stuck in.

Although really my favoured approach would in reality go numerous stages beyond that, away from 'leaders' altogether but I'll just go mad if I consider that stuff in detail in this pandemic because its so far removed from how things are actually done here. And even if thats how the world was setup and how power was diluted and spread, a pandemic would test it massively.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 11, 2020)

Cloo said:


> So there are rumblings of an announcement from the government tomorrow. How feeble is it going to be, do you think?
> 
> 'Uhm, wear masks in offices and.... maybe we'll shut restaurants and pubs at 8.30pm' or some shit?



It's just to explain the _new_, new, less confusing alert/tier rules isn't it?
The ones where Boris makes a brief show to make it appear that they're spending their days doing more than just lobbing scrumpled up bits of paper into a bin making _plans_.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They're being pulled in all sorts of directions now so they're going to struggle with what to do. It's not just the split pro/anti restrictions and lockdown in the party now, but local councils and 'business leaders' saying they might not obey any restrictions. Really feels like a fucking mess tbh, and that is mirrored in what I see among people. Locally to me small business owners are edging more towards no additional restrictions I think. Severe virus fatigue has set in, all exacerbated by the mess that's been made of it all.
> 
> A bit dreading the next six months, I already know more people with symptoms and +tive tests this time around than last...



I suppose that despite the noise I am still expecting the stuff we've been quite widely told in the press to go ahead. So pubs shut in the areas put into the highest level of alert. 

I dont have a very good sense of how far they will go with regards London at this time.

I dont have a really huge degree of confidence that this will happen in quite the way we've been told. But I still think its the most likely option, with some small additional possibility that they will go even further (eg if the data theyve got has scared them more since the last time they made a decision about this privately last week).

And if its been even further watered down then I will not fall off my chair with shock, but if that happens I dont think it will be very long before they have to ramp up the restrictions further and it will look like u-turn number 586.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> It's just to explain the _new_, new, less confusing alert/tier rules isn't it?
> The ones where Boris makes a brief show to make it appear that they're spending their days doing more than just lobbing scrumpled up bits of paper into a bin making _plans_.



No its also to apply those rules to some areas in a way that has a noticable impact on peoples lives in the days ahead.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 11, 2020)

I thought pubs were already shut in the local lockdown areas?


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

And recall the words of Van-Tam I posted earlier today, words that were published today.



> In our national fight against Covid-19, we are at a tipping point similar to where we were in March; but we can prevent history repeating itself if we all act now.





> SAGE is clear that we need to act now.











						Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam's Op-Ed
					

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam outlines the current Covid-19 situation.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> No its also to apply those rules to some areas in a way that has a noticable impact on peoples lives in the days ahead.



Yes.  Without much concern over putting any proper financial help into that, afaics.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought pubs were already shut in the local lockdown areas?



Nope, only in Bolton, IIRC.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Nope, only in Bolton, IIRC.



I think they reopened last weekend 









						On Bolton's streets on Saturday night as pubs and restaurants reopen
					

Some bars have adapted to the 10pm curfew much easier than others




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## Raheem (Oct 11, 2020)

I can see people from locked-down areas pouring into neighbouring free areas (perhaps Derbyshire, for example) at the weekends. Don't think it is going to work very well.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

Raheem said:


> I can see people from locked-down areas pouring into neighbouring free areas (perhaps Derbyshire, for example) at the weekends. Don't think it is going to work very well.



That concern was expressed when Leicester became the first place to have a 'local lockdown' and in the end I dont think the phenomenon was anything like as widespread as some feared.

But that doesnt mean it didnt happen at all, and it doesnt mean that things will pan out in exactly the same way everywhere else next time.

Its also one of the reasons that London is apparently not planning any per-borough variation in restrictions, at least according to whats been said publicly so far and again recently. So at the very least this stuff is a factor when considering how broad a geography to impose stuff on, and so far London sounds like it will do things citywide.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 11, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought pubs were already shut in the local lockdown areas?


No - here (North East England) they are open until 10pm, the law is to only go to indoor pubs with members of your own household/support bubble, and should not mingle while there - guidance advises against meeting people in pub gardens, but it's not against the law so long as you're in group of less than 6 people.  The legal ban of meeting indoors in pubs and cafe's was brought in a week or so after the initial restrictions, and after a political row, leading to headlines that its still legal to meet outside, so weakening the guidance - which didn't change. Its an absolute fuck up.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 11, 2020)

Raheem said:


> I can see people from locked-down areas pouring into neighbouring free areas (perhaps Derbyshire, for example) at the weekends. Don't think it is going to work very well.



There are reports suggesting bans on leaving a given area, except for essential reasons.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 11, 2020)

Having been living under restrictions since July, imposed when local viral levels were 30-40 per 100,000, I am going to be livid, but unsurprised, when tomorrow we find out that the criteria for 'tier 2' is something much higher than that. It really is time the pain was shared a bit more fairly and consistently.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There are reports suggesting bans on leaving a given area, except for essential reasons.



UK government and English authorities have been rather keen to avoid such things up till now, unlike Wales for example, but I dont rule out the possibility they will have to think again on that at some point. It will be quite a moment if it happens as its territory where so far they've been more likely to foam at the mouth about how unthinkable it is for such liberties to be suspended in this country, but then we saw what happened with other previously unthinkable things earlier in the pandemic and this stuff is likely no exception if they get desperate enough.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There are reports suggesting bans on leaving a given area, except for essential reasons.


But probably meaningless without enforcement. Which could quite quickly descend into police roadblocks protecting areas with golf courses and Tory MPs from the urban scum.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 11, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There are reports suggesting bans on leaving a given area, except for essential reasons.


That's essentially the situation in parts of Wales, though I don't know how rigorously it is enforced. Though OB are picking up quite a few drink and drug drivers in the process...


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> And I say that with a heavy heart because when picking over a lot of the issues that made the establishment especially shit at dealing with this pandemic, crap centralising instincts were pretty high on the list.
> 
> But I only favour the decentralised approach when its part of a well established system with existing funding in all the right places and a level of local leadership that is used to real power in more areas, and less of the games they are used to being there to play under the current crappy 'decentralised but not really' state this country is stuck in.
> 
> Although really my favoured approach would in reality go numerous stages beyond that, away from 'leaders' altogether but I'll just go mad if I consider that stuff in detail in this pandemic because its so far removed from how things are actually done here. And even if thats how the world was setup and how power was diluted and spread, a pandemic would test it massively.



Is there any data on the success of local T&T, in comparsion to the shite centralised version (97% success to 66%? odd)?
What I mean is that I understand that it's something that some councils have taken into their own hands, with no extra funding - that it's been much more successful but will also come at a cost, obviously - but outside of Manchester, where I know the fire service were being used for eg, I've not seen any list of the councils currently implementing it, or others due to roll it out, so am interested to know how/where that is happening.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Is there any data on the success of local T&T, in comparsion to the shite centralised version (97% success to 66%? odd)?
> What I mean is that I understand that it's something that some councils have taken into their own hands, with no extra funding - that it's been much more successful but will also come at a cost, obviously - but outside of Manchester, where I know the fire service were being used for eg, I've not seen any list of the councils currently implementing it, or others due to roll it out, so am interested to know how/where that is happening.



Success measurements I've seen so far are of the crude variety, how many contacts they actually managed to get in touch with compared to how many the centralised call centres did. And the difference is massive.

Contact tracing and stuff like that is something I think could be handled in a decentralised way pretty well, given the right funding. Most of what I was moaning about earlier was more along the lines of problems with big decisions made by local government, given how used they often are to prioritising local business and the economy. When it comes to boots on the ground for epidemiological reasons, I dont have quite the same complaints and concerns.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

Here is just one small example from a month or so ago of the sort of 'local council coffers drained aspect' of this pandemic that would factor into my thinking about where their priorities could potentially end up as a result, if they had more pandemic power.



> Lockdown led to almost £1million in losses in car parks across Nuneaton and Bedworth.
> 
> The stark picture of how the coronavirus crisis has hit council coffers is in a cabinet report and parking is among the hardest hit.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus lockdown hits council car parks by almost £1m
					

Free parking was given to NHS workers - but lockdown hugely hit car parks




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Success measurements I've seen so far are of the crude variety, how many contacts they actually managed to get in touch with compared to how many the centralised call centres did. And the difference is massive.
> 
> Contact tracing and stuff like that is something I think could be handled in a decentralised way pretty well, given the right funding. Most of what I was moaning about earlier was more along the lines of problems with big decisions made by local government, given how used they often are to prioritising local business and the economy. When it comes to boots on the ground for epidemiological reasons, I dont have quite the same complaints and concerns.



Ok, get that.

On your following post - what DO councils do, under greater lockdown measures and with their normal incomes reduced due to parking charges/fines for eg, if that's not also accounted for by central gov?
Who _is_ responsible for putting budgets over obvious health measures, I guess (assuming I have it right that your worry is over la's using rising cases/lockdown threats as a barganing tool for stripped budgets there, when the gov is not providing adequate funding)?
Asking cos I have _no idea_ - rather than challenging the thought behind it, fwiw!


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

I was just using the lost parking fee revenue as an example of the sort of factor that may weigh on local politicians minds if they were in charge of getting the balance right between pandemic mitigation and the economy, with bad decisions as a result. I havent got the brain space to consider the other stuff you mentioned at the moment, too much else going on.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

If, as the following article suggests, Merseyside is the only area going straight into tier 3 then its more of the same weak response from the government. They will surely be left relying on everyone everywhere else suddenly changing their behaviour again, or putting some not previously discussed stuff in tier 2 and adding a fair chunk of the country to that tier, or planning to put quite a number of other places into tier 3 within a fairly short period of time.









						Covid: Three-tier lockdown system to be unveiled in England
					

The Liverpool City Region is expected to face the tightest Covid restrictions under the new system.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## xenon (Oct 11, 2020)

Cloo said:


> It seems to me that we should have started a 4-week closedown of everything except essential shops two weeks ago, but the government was so keen on trying to act as though everything was back on track that they were just crossing their fingers and hoping it would be OK.



Seriously though, and yeah I said this before. WHat happens after 4 weeks? (hint you don't get an effective track, track and isolate system in that time.)


I mean it's all shit. But if I'm honest, I'm fed up with calls for a national lock down that will just push it all back into winter. Nothing's gonna change in 4 weeks just cos you shut the pubs and cafes.

TT and I of course. But we aren't getting that, so you know...


----------



## xenon (Oct 11, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, it looks like there's lots of egos and local/national politicking going on tbh, think some of the local councillors and business people aren't covering themselves in glory at all. Leeds city council can barely get the bins empty, not sure I trust them at all to make health and life/death pandemic related decisions, far too close to being influenced by local connections to business and personalities. Actually would rather central government makes these decisions (arguing for decent financial support a different issue I think which fair game for them to do).



O'course, they're useless cunts that couldn't quite make it to national politics. Come on, as if local politicians should have some special place, voice that needs listening too other than. 

War time economics, test trace, isolate, that's where I am on this.

National lock downs. What's the fucking point. Get to do all this again in January.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 11, 2020)

But what's the alternative? A huge wave of hospitalisations and deaths?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> I was just using the lost parking fee revenue as an example of the sort of factor that may weigh on local politicians minds if they were in charge of getting the balance right between pandemic mitigation and the economy, with bad decisions as a result. I havent got the brain space to consider the other stuff you mentioned at the moment, too much else going on.



Yes, I understood it was an example - and no worries re the rest.


----------



## xenon (Oct 11, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> But what's the alternative? A huge wave of hospitalisations and deaths?




It's shit, there are no good choices but saying everything needs to shut right now. When does it open again.
We can avoid most Covid19 deaths if we all stay in for the next 2 years...

Of course I can live with a 4 week lockdown. I can. But then what. What changes in that time?

Not directed at you or anyone specifically here TBH. But at the general querulous calling for lockdown, lock it all down now. Then what.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 11, 2020)

The problem we seem to have now is enormous. Test and trace and isolate is broken. Lots of people no longer trust the science. People are angry at the government. There is total restriction fatigue here I'd say - generally people making their own judgements on risk rather than particularly considering what the restrictions are this week. 

Seems like my area will be tier 2 if rumours that only Liverpool is going into tier 3 is correct. Which is basically the same as we've had since July - which has led cases to increase tenfold - so really what is the point? I can't see anything other than a proper lockdown making any difference to this surge.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 11, 2020)

xenon said:


> It's shit, there are no good choices but saying everything needs to shut right now. When does it open again.
> We can avoid most Covid19 deaths if we all stay in for the next 2 years...
> 
> Of course I can live with a 4 week lockdown. I can. But then what. What changes in that time?
> ...


Well the government could sort out track trace and isolate (yeah, I know, some hope.)

But also what changes is the viral level goes down, and people don't die or end up with a disability. Yes it will need doing again a month or two later. I just don't see there's another answer.


----------



## xenon (Oct 11, 2020)

Well, maybe we can slow infections down.... No of course, a stricter lock down will have that effect. But people need a sense of when will this end, what's the goal. TO what end are we forsaking things.

LEadershipp., Social responsibility. Etc. I'm sick of hearing doctors just sayin wear masks and stay at home. Useless BMA cunts. 7 years as  a doctor and you got the media job where you can sayh stay at home don't drink alcohol, don't smoke, don't eat fatty foods, eat greens, exercise, get fresh air, don't get stressed and oh , this new thing, wear masks and stay at home...


----------



## xenon (Oct 11, 2020)

I know. I was writing reply before that one.

I'm just...Fucked off.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 11, 2020)

Aren't we all. It feels intolerable, even though I accept that I can't see an alternative. I am so angry that I haven't been able to have friends round all summer and now other places have the same viral rates and no restrictions. I'm bored. And I watch the cases mount up locallyon that interactive map thing and I feel increasingly scared and without any sense of solidarity whatsoever, unlike the spring.


----------



## editor (Oct 11, 2020)

Excellent news



> A legal action has been launched over the government’s failure to disclose details of its spending on contracts related to the pandemic, as it emerged that it has failed to account for £3bn spent on private contracts since the start of lockdown.
> 
> Three cross-party MPs and Good Law Project, a non-profit-making organisation, have filed a judicial review against the government for breaching the law and its own guidance and argue that there are mounting concerns over coronavirus procurement processes.





> Jolyon Maugham QC, director of Good Law Project, said: “What we know about the government’s procurement practices during this pandemic gives real cause for concern.
> 
> “Huge sums of public money have been awarded to companies with no discernible expertise. Sometimes the main qualification seems to be a political connection with key government figures.
> 
> ...











						MPs launch legal action against UK government over Covid contracts
					

The government has failed to account for £3bn spent on private contracts since the start of lockdown, new figures show




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

xenon said:


> Well, maybe we can slow infections down.... No of course, a stricter lock down will have that effect. But people need a sense of when will this end, what's the goal. TO what end are we forsaking things.



The minimum goal of the government is just to keep number of simultaneous serious cases down to a level that doesnt overwhelm the NHS.

This equation is expected to be harder in winter due to all the seasonal pressures that are difficult for the NHS at the best of times.

Beyond that its mostly about playing for time till things like vaccines and/or treatments and rapid mass tests are ready to go.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2020)

And thats been true since the start, and they made no secret of it, and our reasonable expectations for the pandemic should have been set by those basic realities.

Later along the way various other hopes and plans have been dangled, but none of those were magically going to solve everything or give us a new normal that more people could be really happy about. Some of it was just desperate wishful thinking, or stuff said for morale purposes, to give people sight of a happy end game, and a false sense of immediacy. Or it was said during summer reopening phases when the priority was to try to reduce fear in order to get more people to resume economic activity for a bit. A temporary phenomenon, always likely to go away again in the autumn/winter I'm afraid.

If different strategies had been pursued then it is possible to imagine some variations on this theme being possible, but there is no way to dodge the overall pandemic themes. eg we could have tried to push levels of virus down to much lower levels than was actually managed since the first wave, or we could even have gone for a strategy of full suppression of the virus. To attempt such things would have required different timing and scale of hardships for people, and it could easily have been much harder on us all, another level of economic paralysis, but with some real gains in terms of numbers of people infected, seriously ill or deceased. 

Or plans could have been framed very differently and done with a different spirit, stuff which can make a real difference to peoples mental health and attitudes regarding whether the sacrifice is worth it or whether it achieves anything at all. A little further still in that direction come possibilities that are sadly more in tune with my ideal pandemic response fantasy than likely reality, eg stuff that involves a revolution in how everything is ordered, run and owned and our priorities as individuals, families, communities, classes, regions and countries. You know, stuff that was never going to happen at this stage of where we are at as humans with attitudes, at this stage of where capitalism and power are at, or where we are at with this pandemic virus.


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## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Make sacrifices and make demands, the two should go hand in hand. In exchange for that sacrifice and for not demanding the unreasonable during impossibly difficult pandemic circumstances, something bigger and more permanent should be demanded for all our sakes long term, once the acute pandemic phase is past. Ideally an understanding of the deal should be clear long before all the sacrifices are made, otherwise the usual worms will try to wriggle out of it later. But an alternative variant exists where the nature of the horrors and failures and injustices we have seen, and the material circumstances created by the pandemic including long lasting ones, create feelings in people which eventually turn into a series of demands and a movement to win them.


----------



## Mation (Oct 12, 2020)

xenon said:


> Well, maybe we can slow infections down.... No of course, a stricter lock down will have that effect. But people need a sense of when will this end, what's the goal. TO what end are we forsaking things.


Plan for things to be relatively normal again in 2023. Don't rely on the government for clarity or put your (one's) mental health in their hands. We've seen that their guidance is only going to be given in fits and starts, and you're right that a few days or weeks of this and a couple of months of that isn't going to make this all go away. Work may be out of our control, and sometimes our own attitude isn't under our control, either. But I think that if we're going to get through this, we need to shift as far as possible, when we can, to an internal locus of control. Not flouting restrictions, but accepting now that there will be a load of them for the next couple of years.  Some you'll agree with, and some you won't, but that's not going to stop, now or soon. It's shitty and unfair and not what we expected from our lives, and we don't deserve it, but it's happening anyway. Plan for the long haul.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> Plan for things to be relatively normal again in 2023. Don't rely on the government for clarity or put your (one's) mental health in their hands. We've seen that their guidance is only going to be given in fits and starts, and you're right that a few days or weeks of this and a couple of months of that isn't going to make this all go away. Work may be out of our control, and sometimes our own attitude isn't, either. But I think that if we're going to get through this, we need to shift as far as possible, when we can, to an internal locus of control. Not flouting restrictions, but accepting now that there will be a load of them for the next couple of years.  Some you'll agree with, and some you won't, but that's not going to stop, now or soon. It's shitty and unfair and not what we expected from our lives, and we don't deserve it, but it's happening anyway. Plan for the long haul.



I know that's very sensible, but I think planning for three years in the future, even in the abstract, is exceptionally difficult right now. 

Mentally you can plan for things to get better eventually - I think that's what you meant? And that can help. We are all descendants of people who survived much worse plagues than this one, and life genuinely is better now, especially if you're female. 

But in the day to day reality of planning things, it's difficult in a practical sense.


----------



## Mation (Oct 12, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I know that's very sensible, but I think planning for three years in the future, even in the abstract, is exceptionally difficult right now.
> 
> Mentally you can plan for things to get better eventually - I think that's what you meant? And that can help. We are all descendants of people who survived much worse plagues than this one, and life genuinely is better now, especially if you're female.
> 
> But in the day to day reality of planning things, it's difficult in a practical sense.


I didn't mean planning external actions, so preparing would have been a better word to use, perhaps. Preparing, internally, for things not to be normal again for a couple of years, rather than a few months.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> I didn't mean planning external actions, so preparing would have been a better word to use, perhaps. Preparing, internally, for things not to be normal again for a couple of years, rather than a few months.



Yeah, preparing internally would be a good way of putting it. 

Even if you do think the world is going to continue to get worse, which is what most people I know seem to think, preparing for it to be better is beneficial. Otherwise you end up just throwing a beer can in the general rubbish bag because we're all fucked anyway.

I'm not sure it helps all that much in practical terms apart from avoidance tactics, though.


----------



## LDC (Oct 12, 2020)

Yeah, I've a bit re-framed my thought processes for things to be back to normal in 2022 now rather than 2021.


----------



## LDC (Oct 12, 2020)

_"We demand evidence that bars and restaurants are a source of transmission and should be shut."_

"Here's the evidence."
_
"Not that evidence, other evidence."_

FFS


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

I think we'll be dealing with this thing for years.  I really hope we're in a better position to deal with pandemics when the next one comes along. Because there will be a next one whether its covid-20 or avian flu or something else


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

Timetable for today -

3.30pm - Johnson is expected to address the House of Commons.

6,00pm - Johnson will address the nation, together with Sunak and Whitty.


----------



## Mation (Oct 12, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Yeah, preparing internally would be a good way of putting it.
> 
> Even if you do think the world is going to continue to get worse, which is what most people I know seem to think, preparing for it to be better is beneficial. Otherwise you end up just throwing a beer can in the general rubbish bag because we're all fucked anyway.
> 
> I'm not sure it helps all that much in practical terms apart from avoidance tactics, though.


I think we're coming at this from different angles. I'm not really talking about preparing for things to be better; more making a decision, now, to not expect anything to be better for a couple of years; to not wait for the next announcement in a few weeks, hoping that it will provide relief. 

I think the ups and downs of dashed hopes based on what we wait to be told will be harder to bear (my keyboard helpfully suggests a cute bear emoji, at this point) than making our own decision, now, that things will not be normal for a long time.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> I think we're coming at this from different angles. I'm not really talking about preparing for things to be better; more making a decision, now, to not expect anything to be better for a couple of years; to not wait for the next announcement in a few weeks, hoping that it will provide relief.
> 
> I think the ups and downs of dashed hopes based on what we wait to be told will be harder to bear (my keyboard helpfully suggests a cute bear emoji, at this point) than making our own decision, now, that things will not be normal for a long time.



No, I think we're coming at from the same angle, though I'm not expressing it well. It's an acceptance thing, isn't it? And it helps.

But accepting that it will not be better for you, or in general, is different to accepting that it will be different for your loved ones, or anyone you're responsible for. We are all going to have to accept that things are not going to be normal for a long time, and if you have a child who's four, or 10, or 16, that's a huge chunk of the time of the life where they become themselves. And then the practicalities of paying rent and bills keep rudely asking for attention.


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, it looks like there's lots of egos and local/national politicking going on tbh, think some of the local councillors and business people aren't covering themselves in glory at all. Leeds city council can barely get the bins empty, not sure I trust them at all to make health and life/death pandemic related decisions, far too close to being influenced by local connections to business and personalities. Actually would rather central government makes these decisions (arguing for decent financial support a different issue I think which fair game for them to do).



Tbf the argument about being too much influenced by business (Serco, anyone?) and personalities applies to national government as well, and you could make a pretty good case for delegating some aspects of the pandemic response down to local government to a far greater extent than has been the case so far, especially where local knowledge can make a difference.  AFAIK those councils which have set up local contact-tracing systems have reached a greater proportion of contacts than the national system, for instance.


----------



## chilango (Oct 12, 2020)

Personally I think we should have a full, national lockdown (but with schools and some sort of leisure/sport opportunity open) from November till  February. Lifted for a week or two over Christmas and then gradually eased from Easter to Summer with a warning that this will be a seasonal pattern till vaccine or whatever.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

chilango said:


> Personally I think we should have a full, national lockdown (but with schools and some sort of leisure/sport opportunity open) from November till  February. Lifted for a week or two over Christmas and then gradually eased from Easter to Summer with a warning that this will be a seasonal pattern till vaccine or whatever.



Well that's never going to happen.


----------



## Mation (Oct 12, 2020)

scifisam said:


> No, I think we're coming at from the same angle, though I'm not expressing it well. It's an acceptance thing, isn't it? And it helps.
> 
> But accepting that it will not be better for you, or in general, is different to accepting that it will be different for your loved ones, or anyone you're responsible for. We are all going to have to accept that things are not going to be normal for a long time, and if you have a child who's four, or 10, or 16, that's a huge chunk of the time of the life where they become themselves. And then the practicalities of paying rent and bills keep rudely asking for attention.


Acceptance in the form of not expecting things to change for the better, for now, and realising that we'll have to deal with that for a long time, rather than acceptance as in making your peace/being ok with things. It's not ok, but it's not going to be ok for a long time.


----------



## chilango (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well that's never going to happen.



I know.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2020)

chilango said:


> Personally I think we should have a full, national lockdown (but with schools and some sort of leisure/sport opportunity open) from November till  February. Lifted for a week or two over Christmas and then gradually eased from Easter to Summer with a warning that this will be a seasonal pattern till vaccine or whatever.



I think Christmas is going to be very dangerous and we need to think long and hard about the implications.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 12, 2020)

xenon said:


> Seriously though, and yeah I said this before. WHat happens after 4 weeks? (hint you don't get an effective track, track and isolate system in that time.)


No, totally fair point. Part of me wonders if it's worth seeing if 'short sharp' lockdowns help at all, another part, like you, says 'OK, but what if there's naff-all change after 4 weeks?'

I think scifisam makes a very good point - the best responses don't look the same to everyone. I totally get why people without kids go 'Oh my god, why the fuck are schools open?! What the fuck is wrong with people?!'. But as parent it looks quite different from where I'm sitting.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 12, 2020)

chilango said:


> Personally I think we should have a full, national lockdown (but with schools and some sort of leisure/sport opportunity open) from November till  February. Lifted for a week or two over Christmas and then gradually eased from Easter to Summer with a warning that this will be a seasonal pattern till vaccine or whatever.


Kids are probably going to be sent home to quarantine if ill so I'd like to see a proper online national curriculum teaching program rolled out so that teaching could be done remotely as well as in the classroom (using the same resource) not just some ad hoc thing flung together by individual schools and teachers. This would mean taking on staff to run it alongside education as it stands but would provide some security against the rubbish of the last few months.


----------



## chilango (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well that's never going to happen.





> Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. We can now revise that and witness the attempt to imagine capitalism by way of imagining the end of the world.


Fredric Jameson


----------



## chilango (Oct 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think Christmas is going to be very dangerous and we need to think long and hard about the implications.



it certainly is.

hence hard squashing now and a brief enough lifting to avoid time for a spike to build.

...but as pointed out above that wont happen, so Christmas is largely off the agenda right now for me.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 12, 2020)

I'm operating on the basis that it's a lot easier just to assume that Christmas is largely not going to happen for me. But I can live with that.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

.


----------



## chilango (Oct 12, 2020)

...but, yet again, this illustrates the expectations that we become "epidemiologists of the self" and make the "right choice".


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## Cloo (Oct 12, 2020)

Well I've done my high holy days without family we'd normally celebrate with - it was hard but not impossible. I do fear the gov will do something stupid around Xmas because the Mail and the Sun will be lip-wobbling about 'Save our Christmas' and they will cave and tell people they can do what they like but just for 2 days or some bullshit.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 12, 2020)

Queen got 'bored of twiddling thumbs with Philip' in Balmoral isolation
					

The couple were said to have found their stay 'a bit tedious' due to coronavirus restrictions.




					metro.co.uk
				






> ‘Balmoral can sometimes be a little hard going, but coronavirus made things even more difficult. There was quite a lot of time spent sat around, twiddling thumbs.’


----------



## moochedit (Oct 12, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Fireworks night is cancelled, no surprise really; Battersea, Brockham, and Lewis are all not going ahead, not sure about Crystal Palace.
> I am sure it will be the same for many more parties.



I would be very surprised if any public displays go ahead anywhere this year. I guess there will still be fireworks in peoples gardens.


----------



## moochedit (Oct 12, 2020)

Also i guess no trick or treating on halloween this year. Going round houses a great way to catch/spread the disease.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

moochedit said:


> Also i guess no trick or treating on halloween this year. Going round houses a great way to catch/spread the disease.


Only if you're invited in surely? Although I guess theres a risk of fomite transmission


----------



## Cid (Oct 12, 2020)

Cloo said:


> No, totally fair point. Part of me wonders if it's worth seeing if 'short sharp' lockdowns help at all, another part, like you, says 'OK, but what if there's naff-all change after 4 weeks?'
> 
> I think scifisam makes a very good point - the best responses don't look the same to everyone. I totally get why people without kids go 'Oh my god, why the fuck are schools open?! What the fuck is wrong with people?!'. But as parent it looks quite different from where I'm sitting.



I think it’s fairly clear that something like a 4 week lockdown will have an effect. With some caveats like we’re not really sure about transmission in schools, and obviously there are huge benefits to keeping those open. The problem remains what you do with a lockdown... is it just to temporarily take the load off the nhs? Because that seems the approach so far. And that does mean a continuous cycle of restrictions until vaccine, and probably some way beyond that.

I personally think doing more than that is _possible_, if only because there are countries that seem to have had success with suppressing the virus. But it may require more invasive approaches. It certainly would require a more local approach, and probably would mean some fundamental changes to how this country operates. I also think that the idea that extreme measures are weighed against economic performance is just wrong. Uncertainty is shit for economic productivity, and I think that will be far more striking this winter than it was in the summer, when the unusually nice weather, lower infection rates and sense of getting back to normal gave a bit of a boost.


----------



## andysays (Oct 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Only if you're invited in surely? Although I guess theres a risk of fomite transmission


Surely everyone knows by now that you *never *invite a vampire into your house, covid or no covid


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Surely everyone knows by now that you *never *invite a vampire into your house, covid or no covid



Handy to remember in case Priti Patel turns up on your doorstep.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

For a lockdown to work you have to use the time do a bunch of things that it seems to me haven't really been done here at all (or in loads of other European countries) stuff like tracing capacity, probably training/ recruiting hundreds if not thousands of hospital staff and so on. That's not really been done here or in much of Europe for that matter.


----------



## moochedit (Oct 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Only if you're invited in surely? Although I guess theres a risk of fomite transmission



Well i guess there's the 15 min thing and people could wear facemasks but i'm not a doctor so don't know what the exact risks are.

 I may stick up a notice on my door on oct 31st saying i have covid. Great excuse not to open the door


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 12, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Queen got 'bored of twiddling thumbs with Philip' in Balmoral isolation
> 
> 
> The couple were said to have found their stay 'a bit tedious' due to coronavirus restrictions.
> ...


the last sentence was funny
 'while Prince Andrew keeps a low profile elsewhere'


----------



## editor (Oct 12, 2020)

This surely can't be real, can it?


----------



## killer b (Oct 12, 2020)

It is real, but it's from last year and was part of a series


----------



## killer b (Oct 12, 2020)

cf.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

editor said:


> This surely can't be real, can it?
> 
> View attachment 234018



It was posted on the memes thread, it's part of a campaign.



cupid_stunt said:


> That particular image does seem a bad choice in view of the arts being in trouble, but it's one of a whole series of ads using different stock images of young people, doing various jobs, from stacking shelves, via working in a kitchen to someone doing some engineering job. Not a bad campaign in normal times, but they certainly wasn't reading the room when choosing to run with that image ATM.
> 
> The scheme itself is - 'the CyberFirst  programme offers bursaries to undergraduate students, delivers short courses in cyber security for young people aged 11 – 19', that seems to have been launched on the 23rd January 2020, so clearly planned well before covid.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> It is real, but it's from last year and was part of a series



I didn't know it was from last year, that explains it even better.


----------



## andysays (Oct 12, 2020)

Nightingale hospitals put on standby in various northern cities


----------



## ruffneck23 (Oct 12, 2020)

Today's standard on the pulse 









						Fury over Government ad suggesting dancer retrain in cyber security
					

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden today condemned the advert as 'crass'




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Oct 12, 2020)

I have to say, looking at the whole campaign outside the context of Covid-19, that "he/she just doesn't know it yet" has a somewhat sinister undertone that probably wasn't particularly well-judged in the first place.


----------



## Doodler (Oct 12, 2020)

Can't really envisage anything better happening here than buying time while treatments improve. Back around February/March some commentators were claiming they hoped to catch it quickly so they'd get hospital treatment ahead of the surge when oxygen supplies were meant to run out and so forth. Bad idea in foresight never mind hindsight.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 12, 2020)

> Professor Stephen Powis - @NHSEnglandNMD - says hospital admissions are clearly rising again, especially in North West & North East He says "we now have more patients in hospital with Covid-19 than we did before the government announced restrictions... in the spring"


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 12, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I have to say, looking at the whole campaign outside the context of Covid-19, that "he/she just doesn't know it yet" has a somewhat sinister undertone that probably wasn't particularly well-judged in the first place.



Apparently they also meant "cybersecurity" and not "cybersex", because obviously that's what "cyber" always means


----------



## Raheem (Oct 12, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Apparently they also meant "cybersecurity" and not "cybersex"


Don't be so sure.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Apparently they also meant "cybersecurity" and not "cybersex", because obviously that's what "cyber" always means




Come to Mondas and you will have no need of emotions. You just dont know it yet.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> Nightingale hospitals put on standby in various northern cities



Not surprising considering there's more patients in hospital with Covid than in March when the nationwide restrictions were imposed. 

And, most of those at in the north.



> *Jane Eddleston*, an intensive care consultant from the Manchester Royal Infirmary, is speaking now.
> The north-west has about 40% of all Covid cases at the moment and this is proving very challenging for us.
> 
> 
> ...











						UK coronavirus: Chris Whitty warns tier 3 measures alone 'not enough to get on top' of spread — as it happened
					

Boris Johnson says national lockdown now ‘would do immediate harm’ as he sets out England’s new three-tier lockdown restrictions




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## killer b (Oct 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> It is real, but *it's from last year* and was part of a series


I think I might have this bit wrong, so sorry about that.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 12, 2020)

not sure about this mail headline being as from their own image the uk is sliced into 4.

unless the conservative and unionist party no longer consider the six counties of northern ireland, wales and scotland to be part of the uk


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## magneze (Oct 12, 2020)

Wow, Christmas might be affected. It's getting serious now.


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## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

I note that in the press conference Powis announced that they are going to be routinely testing NHS workers in the badly affected areas, even when they dont have symptoms. Since this is an essential element of hospital infection control I should bloody well hope so.


----------



## Fruitloop (Oct 12, 2020)

Bloodninja
					

Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat. I cast Lvl. 3 Eroticism. You turn into a real beautiful woman.




					www.albinoblacksheep.com


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## Fruitloop (Oct 12, 2020)

Those adverts are just  

Firstly, all of those people seem to be doing quite useful stuff. Also, nobody in the world talks about 'jobs in cyber'. Wtf were they thinking.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 12, 2020)

Have study of that image, will you ?

It makes me despair, it really does.

Only one mask visible, and that worn incorrectly.
But the behaviour reinforces my comment booze in = brain out 
and demonstrates why pubs need to be shut


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Have study of that image, will you ?
> 
> It makes me despair, it really does.
> 
> ...



They are outside, I don't wear a face covering when I'm outside as everything I've read suggests the risk of transmission outdoors is tiny.  

Sure, their distancing isn't great but young adults have long since given up on that because they are fed up and know they are not really at risk.  I'm not saying they shouldn't shut the pubs but these sort of parties will continue just as house parties / other venues (as they were during the summer).


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> They are outside, I don't wear a face covering when I'm outside as everything I've read suggests the risk of transmission outdoors is tiny.



Its a lot lower than indoors but I dont think I would call it tiny. 

And for example Italy recently made masks mandatory outside. Coronavirus: Masks made mandatory outdoors across Italy


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

Does anyone say 'cyber' any more?


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## mauvais (Oct 12, 2020)

So as of today whenever this kicks in, I'm not allowed to meet other households in the pub any more, even though I can still go to the pub, but I am newly allowed to meet them in my garden.

Cases are five times higher than when the pubs shut completely.

This is presumably straight from the management school of 'how do I exit this screen, I'll just press things randomly until it goes away'.


----------



## killer b (Oct 12, 2020)

mauvais said:


> This is presumably straight from the management school of 'how do I exit this screen, I'll just press things randomly until it goes away'.


this is how they ended up losing all those records on that spreadsheet, so it's obv. standard operating policy.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Does anyone say 'cyber' any more?



Van-Tam was on about the three C's earlier and I wondered where he was going with it. Turns out he wasnt talking about Johnson, Hancock and Cummings, but rather a Japanese pandemic health message involving closed spaces, crowded places and close contact. So it didnt involve cunts or the first step in changing our message to hands, face, cyberspace.


----------



## LDC (Oct 12, 2020)

Pubs staying open in the NE? Fucks sake.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Oct 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think I might have this bit wrong, so sorry about that.


They did have this campaign on the go previously, and have brought it out again, apparently.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 12, 2020)

.


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## killer b (Oct 12, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> They did have this campaign on the go previously, and have brought it out again, apparently.


I'm not sure they did use these specific images before - there's lots of people saying they did on twitter (some people are saying it's a three year old campaign), but no actual receipts. So I'm back to assuming it's new.


----------



## LDC (Oct 12, 2020)

Maybe we could leave the chat about an old ad campaign to another time?


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## chilango (Oct 12, 2020)

So...at the highest alert level pubs and bookies shut?

is that it?


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## Threshers_Flail (Oct 12, 2020)

Manchester Tier 2 only. People like Sacha Lord (Night Time Economy Adviser for Greater Manchester and Grade A Twat) celebrate a 'big win' yet don't offer any help for staff working in hospitality who are risking their health to work, are seeing their hours cut and know that we'll be in Tier 3 before the month is out. Big win that mate.


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## Threshers_Flail (Oct 12, 2020)

The pub is defo where we should all be right now you fucking arse.


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## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2020)

Does anyone have a link to the tier system and what it means or has it not been fully announced yet?


----------



## Wilf (Oct 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Pubs staying open in the NE? Fucks sake.


Yeah, I've just seen that - just about the same time I saw a report of hospital admissions rising in the North East.  Even at the very point where they are talking about simplifying the message and restrictions, they revert to ineffectual faffing about as the default position.  A position that is already killing people. Yet again.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Does anyone have a link to the tier system and what it means or has it not been fully announced yet?



Hasnt been fully unveiled yet but has been widely leaked to the press in recent days, eg the detail the BBC has here:









						Covid: Three-tier lockdown system to be unveiled in England
					

The Liverpool City Region is expected to face the tightest Covid restrictions under the new system.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Not sure how much detail is missing compared to what will be announced later.


----------



## Sue (Oct 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Does anyone have a link to the tier system and what it means or has it not been fully announced yet?


Not fully announced I think..?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Does anyone have a link to the tier system and what it means or has it not been fully announced yet?



Johnson is addressing the Commons at 3.30pm, that's when we will know more.

Then he's addressing the nation at 6pm.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 12, 2020)

Pretty much this again:


----------



## Sue (Oct 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Hasnt been fully unveiled yet but has been widely leaked to the press in recent days, eg the detail the BBC has here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Or this could be yet another 'let's leak some stuff, see how it goes down then announce something way weaker' thing.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Sue said:


> Or this could be yet another 'let's leak some stuff, see how it goes down then announce something way weaker' thing.



It cant be much weaker than those details or it wont be anything at all, and it looks like much of the weakness will come from the low number of areas they intend to put straight into tier 3 restrictions.

Even in the area expected to go into tier 3, Merseyside or at least bits of that area, shutting pubs but not restaurants is a sign of how they view the 'balancing act'.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 12, 2020)

New Government Spokesperson appointed to add clarity and consistency to messaging:


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 12, 2020)

If places like Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire are not going into Tier 3, then really what they are about to announce is that despite a surge in cases and hospitalisations, no action will be taken whatsoever.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 12, 2020)

What happened to the 'circuit breaker' idea, adding a week to school half term etc? Was it seen as unlikely to work by sensible people or could Johnson just not be arsed arguing with his back bench ultras?


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

After the previous news a few days ago about hospital outbreaks in Scotland ( Covid in Scotland: Deaths in Edinburgh cancer ward after outbreak ) there is another one being reported:









						Covid in Scotland: Outbreak in ward at Glasgow hospital
					

A number of positive cases are detected in a ward at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> If places like Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire are not going into Tier 3, then really what they are about to announce is that despite a surge in cases and hospitalisations, no action will be taken whatsoever.



I await more detail about tier 2 restrictions before launching into my inevitable rant about this.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 12, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> If places like Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire are not going into Tier 3, then really what they are about to announce is that despite a surge in cases and hospitalisations, no action will be taken whatsoever.


Yep, that. A failure of ideology, a failure of policy, an inability to get a fucking grip, all leading to the inability to take sensible measure to slow down the biggest public health disaster in a Century.  Even now they could start to play catch up and take the necessary action, but still they remained trapped in their neo-liberal inactivity.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

I often go on about how school closures and school holidays have an impact in theory not just because of any role of kids in transmission, but also because it affects the behaviour and mixing patterns of a large number of adults.

So its nice to see this get a mention in the press.


----------



## souljacker (Oct 12, 2020)

Threshers_Flail said:


> The pub is defo where we should all be right now you fucking arse.




Have to admit to being slightly relived at this. I'm working in manc over the weekend so was worried I wouldn't have anywhere to eat. I was contemplating taking my own plate and cutlery for Deliveroo.

It's going to be busy in the pubs now though, if Liverpool is shut.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2020)

Wilf said:


> What happened to the 'circuit breaker' idea, adding a week to school half term etc? Was it seen as unlikely to work by sensible people or could Johnson just not be arsed arguing with his back bench ultras?



I still remain pretty sceptical about the idea.  I'm not sure its been a successful idea anywhere yet.  Also we were in lockdown for quite a while before the numbers started coming down to better levels.  I'm just not sure a couple of weeks is enough to make a meaningful difference.  It would be great of it could be made to work though.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I still remain pretty sceptical about the idea.  I'm not sure its been a successful idea anywhere yet.  Also we were in lockdown for quite a while before the numbers started coming down to better levels.  I'm just not sure a couple of weeks is enough to make a meaningful difference.  It would be great of it could be made to work though.



Part of the problem is where to set the bar for successful, meaningful difference etc.

Even with the full on lockdown and the subsequent results I thought there was worryingly little chatter from people about what a success it had been, leading me to suspect that real and meaningful success during the pandemic still wont resemble success to people. And this has unfortunate implications for peoples strength of resolve.

I think thats an issue with the short cuircuit breaker idea - I would expect such things to have an impact on infections but when they take place at a time of rising numbers and other problems, I dont know if the benefit from them would be very visible to people, even when I would still describe what was achieved as meaningful compared to the trajectory if nothing had been done.

Another issue with the circuit breakers is that after a few weeks the data would only just be expected to start showing any changes, and those changes may be modest. So there will always be a temptation to 'give it another week or two' to see more results, leading to creeping timescales compared to what was originally announced. This might end up happening in some parts of Scotland, time will tell, and Scotland is certainly useful for comparative purposes at the moment.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 12, 2020)

Does sound like they thought up a good sounding name and then asked themselves 'what can we use this for?'


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Johnson has entered the chamber.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Oh well at least he pissed on the core argument of the Barrington clowns.


----------



## editor (Oct 12, 2020)

State of him.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 12, 2020)

So who on here is now on tier 2? 

Just as it's got cold, as well. Outside socialising. There's not many places to socialise outside.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Johnson has passed the buck of blame in regards the other northern areas that havent agreed to tier 3 (very high) measures yet back to their local leadership, putting pressure on them to reach a deal and act. Given some of the sentiments that have come from those leaders in recent days, I think its fair that they share blame over inaction, although its obviously a complex subject and part of the problem is funding/furlough terms.


----------



## LDC (Oct 12, 2020)

Yeah, Leeds is (I think), thought looking at the figures I thought we'd be in Very High (Tier 3).


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 12, 2020)

I think "Too Little, Too Late" already applies.

BJ is listening too much to the "economists" and too little to the real health experts.

The fact that three of the Northern Nightingale Hospitals are gearing up for admissions say it all.

I still say that he can't have pubs and the uni's open together and the unlockening was too quick and too much.


----------



## chilango (Oct 12, 2020)

Is it true that 'spoons and other "food led" (🤮) pubs will still be able to stay open in tier 3 areas?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2020)

chilango said:


> Is it true that 'spoons and other "food led" (🤮) pubs will still be able to stay open in tier 3 areas?



I didn't get that from his speech then again it was short on detail.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

chilango said:


> Is it true that 'spoons and other "food led" (🤮) pubs will still be able to stay open in tier 3 areas?



There's some confusion about that, because restaurants are allowed to stay open, but pubs not, so where is the line drawn?

Nothing has been said in the Commons, this is from the Guardian live blog, 2 hours ago.



> It is further understood that “food-based pubs” will be allowed to stay open in areas with the tightest restrictions – while bars and pubs that do not serve substantial food will have to close.
> 
> This is likely to lead to significant confusion given the vast amount of pubs that do serve food, such as Wetherspoons venues which appear to be allowed to remain open under the new rules.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 12, 2020)

Starmer sounded like a wet fart who was trying to dry out a bit today. Don't know why he doesn't go hard with the Universities, who will be staying open in Tier 3 even.  It's a relatively easy win for him. Something along the lines of  'we all know they will be online at some point, let's do it know before we fuck things up any further... find a way to get those students who want to go home safely... do whatever underwriting is needed to ensure universities survive and to protect them against any deals they've done with landlords'.  

I mean there's a much bigger case he should be making about these murderous incompetents, but that would be a specific start.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's some confusion about that, because restaurants are allowed to stay open, but pubs not, so where is the line drawn?
> 
> Nothing has been said in the Commons, this is from the Guardian live blog, 2 hours ago.



Lot of pubs reopening as Sandwich Bars then

with beer on the side


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

13, 972 new cases reported today, and 50 deaths.

That death figure is worrying, as Monday's figures are for Sunday, so normally low, due to a lag in weekend reporting, last Monday the figure was 'just' 19.

The combined weekend figure, as reported on Sun. + Mon., is 115 this week, and was 52 last week.

I hate to think what tomorrow's figure will be, as it catches up on the weekend lag.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 13, 972 new cases reported today, and 50 deaths.
> 
> That death figure is worrying, as Monday's figures are for Sunday, so normally low, due to a lag in weekend reporting, last Monday the figure was 'just' 19.
> 
> ...



Lag picture is as usual more complex than just the weekend phenomenon. I've started looking at deaths by date of death again. Not quite ready to start my colour-coded graph showing when each days reported deaths actually happened, but I will be able to start showing that tomorrow.

My current concern would be that as more days of data has come in, the figure for deaths that actually happened on the 7th October has risen to 91.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 12, 2020)

So, government are pretty much at the point of waiting for a vaccine, which is likely to be at least 9 months before it could conceivably start affecting national life (and probably much longer).  May well not see the R rate below 1 for several months?


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Wilf said:


> So, government are pretty much at the point of waiting for a vaccine, which is likely to be at least 9 months before it could conceivably start affecting national life (and probably much longer).  May well not see the R rate below 1 for several months?



Whats new about that? Thts been the reality on one level since the start. The main thing that changed was we had summer and a lull in infections due to months of restrictions, and that led to different mood music and a reopening things agenda. Winter was always likely to see the sort of resurgence we are now seeing and a further change in mood music and measures, it just came a bit sooner than they were expecting.

Also there are other countries including many countries in europe as a guide. And there the story both in terms of virus resurgence and government response is more of the same, some variations on a common theme. The same theme we were told about when the pandemic got going in the first place. Not a surprise.

The current predicament should only be a surprise to those who really thought it likely that even a decent testing & tracing system would be able to do all of the heavy lifting in this pandemic (it cant, not even in places like Germany) or that the local epidemics/local restrictions picture would be far more patchy than is actually the case. Or to those who had weird hopes and ideas about the first wave ending as a result of population immunity and suchlike rather than it being a result of lockdown & other restrictions.

Beyond those fringes I just described I dont recall any substantial talk about other possible future scenarios that could have given people other hopes about how this winter would go. People didnt buy into ridiculous claims about how quickly a vaccine would be available, and Johnsons Moonshot plan was not taken as credible or something that would unlock options quickly. So I dont realy know what else people were expecting.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 12, 2020)

Back in March / April / May it took five weeks or so to get to the then peak figures (for cases & deaths).
It took five months to get them down far enough to allow the unlockening but really, not far enough down everywhere.

It has taken six weeks to get to the current peak of cases, although deaths and hospital admissions etc are lagging slightly, they are still rising.
I foresee at least another six months of tweaking the restrictions before cases drop below the reopening point.
And that will not happen unless the population buy into the need for the restrictions and follow them carefully.
if supposedly intelligent students are the major vector and not just pubs ...


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Back in March / April / May it took five weeks or so to get to the then peak figures (for cases & deaths).
> It took five months to get them down far enough to allow the unlockening but really, not far enough down everywhere.



Five weeks from what starting point exactly?

Absolute peak deaths per day was April 8th, a little over 2 weeks after lockdown and a little over 3 weeks since really massive behavioural changes began (eg travel figures falling off a cliff). Decline took ages but that was partly because initial community outbreaks and hospitalisations then led to waves of infection within hospitals that then led to waves of infection within care homes, so there were different peak timings in those settings but I dont have any great graphs to show this.

Relaxations happened in a number of different phases. Johnsons first attempt at 'back to work' rhetoric came as early as May 10th, although he had to back track. Contact tracing started in late May. An atmosphere of relaxation was in the air by then since Van-Tam said 'dont rip the pants out of it' on the last day of May. Shops reopened mid June. Pubs etc reopened July 4th.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Whats new about that? Thts been the reality on one level since the start. The main thing that changed was we had summer and a lull in infections due to months of restrictions, and that led to different mood music and a reopening things agenda. Winter was always likely to see the sort of resurgence we are now seeing and a further change in mood music and measures, it just came a bit sooner than they were expecting.
> 
> Also there are other countries including many countries in europe as a guide. And there the story both in terms of virus resurgence and government response is more of the same, some variations on a common theme. The same theme we were told about when the pandemic got going in the first place. Not a surprise.
> 
> ...


You are right in the sense that I didn't expect anything further or better today. It's par for the course and exactly what was expected, so I was just being rhetorical as to what the government's thinking is/where they and we are.

However, even within their overall neo-liberal bullshit there has always been room for better policy.  I only take the universities because it was the easiest fix. They knew a month ago that we'd be exactly where we are in terms of the rise in cases. So in those circumstances it would be have been easy to get the VCs and university groupings in: 'right, there's no way we can let students back on campus, especially now.  What do you need to make sure your finances are stable and to protect you from risk if we go back to online default'?


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

They prioritised all sectors of education staying open above almost everything else, so I didnt expect them to do that or to abandon that priority at this stage. If they ever do abandon that then it will be a sign of a level of desperation that still does not exist at this stage. And establishment minds are still slow to adapt to emerging realities. I think they thought the university student situation would be an issue at the end of term more than the start of term, and general 'press on regardless' feelings meant they made no policy change when the start of term turned out to be a problem due to virus resurgence timing in the month or so leading up to that point.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Although when I say 'they prioritised', thats according to their standards, not mine. Since as I've said before, they were told by the scientific advisors that 'room in the infection picture' needed to be made to enable schools and unis to reopen successfully, which would have meant closing some stuff before summer ended, and they made a decision not to do that.


----------



## bimble (Oct 12, 2020)

Where are we supposed to look up what tier we are living in ? 
Autocomplete just now suggests that i just googled the same thing as everybody else right now and the whole first page of results is just newspaper articles. Total crap communication ongoing.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> Where are we supposed to look up what tier we are living in ?
> Autocomplete just now suggests that i just googled the same thing as everybody else right now and the whole first page of results is just newspaper articles. Total crap communication ongoing.
> View attachment 234068


Here's what tier 3 means:


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> Where are we supposed to look up what tier we are living in ?
> Autocomplete just now suggests that i just googled the same thing as everybody else right now and the whole first page of results is just newspaper articles. Total crap communication ongoing.
> View attachment 234068



Johnson mentioned that it will be on the gov website and the covid app.  I don't think its up and running yet.  In short though Liverpool is the only area in 'very high', every other place that had local restrictions will be in high and everyone else in moderate.  I think Nottingham is moving from moderate to high.


----------



## bimble (Oct 12, 2020)

If nothing else good comes out of this maybe at least in future people will think twice before voting for someone to be PM because they think they're a bit of a laugh and entertaining on the telly.


----------



## bimble (Oct 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Johnson mentioned that it will be on the gov website and the covid app.  I don't think its up and running yet.  In short though Liverpool is the only area in 'very high', every other place that had local restrictions will be in high and everyone else in moderate.  I think Nottingham is moving from moderate to high.


Why is it not up and running yet ffs obviously everyone wants to know now, when the whole things is being announced, not on wednesday when it becomes law.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Although when I say 'they prioritised', thats according to their standards, not mine. Since as I've said before, they were told by the scientific advisors that 'room in the infection picture' needed to be made to enable schools and unis to reopen successfully, which would have meant closing some stuff before summer ended, and they made a decision not to do that.


The irony is, whilst things vary considerably across institutions and courses, we're already at something like 'online plus' for many university programmes. Something like online lectures with a few in person seminars, to allow them to say it's a 'hybrid model', which means they don't have to cut fees to online only levels. So that's the very worst of all worlds - relatively little on campus teaching, combined with students dishonestly brought onto campus to end up in plague ship accommodation. Couldn't fucking make it up.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Johnson mentioned that it will be on the gov website and the covid app.  I don't think its up and running yet.  In short though Liverpool is the only area in 'very high', every other place that had local restrictions will be in high and everyone else in moderate.  I think Nottingham is moving from moderate to high.



My covid app is showing I am in a medium risk area already.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 12, 2020)

It may just be because I've switched from watching a convention panel where the energy is a bit more... manic, but Johnson sounds utterly shagged.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why is it not up and running yet ffs obviously everyone wants to know now, when the whole things is being announced, not on wednesday when it becomes law.



It has to be debated in Parliament etc.  There is at least a theoretical risk it may not become law.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> My covid app is showing I am in a medium risk area already.



Yes, its been giving that info since it was launched.  This is just formalizing and expanding the system that was already being used.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> My covid app is showing I am in a medium risk area already.


Everywhere shows that. There's nowhere that shows as low risk, unless that's changed too.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why is it not up and running yet ffs obviously everyone wants to know now, when the whole things is being announced, not on wednesday when it becomes law.



The app is updated, and the PM's statement explaining what areas are in what tier is on the website.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Everywhere shows that. There's nowhere that shows as low risk, unless that's changed too.



That's because there're no low risk areas.

It's medium, high or very high.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 12, 2020)

This has just appeared in Facebook. So it's our fault and we'll to be blame if businesses close. 

I don't know how to respond to it


----------



## bimble (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The app is updated, and the PM's statement explaining what areas are in what tier is on the website.


Which website?
the first gov.co.uk link that comes up when i seach 'what tier am i in' is this which is of no use to me.

oh.


----------



## prunus (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> My covid app is showing I am in a medium risk area already.



Those (in the app) are unrelated and uncharacteristically un-joined-up risk ratings of low medium and high. It is possible that they’ll correspond to the 3 new medium high and very high levels we now have (ie what was medium will become high), but I bet they don’t...


----------



## agricola (Oct 12, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> This has just appeared in Facebook. So it's our fault and we'll to be blame if businesses close.
> 
> I don't know how to respond to it
> 
> View attachment 234072



TBF you could read that as being a damning indictment of the current regime - "_people who think the problem is everyone else_" especially.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> Which website?
> the first gov.co.uk link that comes up when i seach 'what tier am i in' is this which is of no use to me.



The main site, easily found with a simple google search for 'current uk covid rules' - Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance and support

It's also reported by just about every news website, the information is hardly difficult to find.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Yeah its too soon bimble, they havent even done their proper launch press conference yet.


----------



## prunus (Oct 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> Which website?
> the first gov.co.uk link that comes up when i seach 'what tier am i in' is this which is of no use to me.



I think what’s being referred to is this

PM Commons statement on coronavirus: 12 October 2020

which is spaffer’s statement this afternoon. It does mention a few places as going into high (Cheshire west and east) and also (un)helpfully “parts of high peak” (which parts? Play along-a-boris’s guess the vital information I’ve left out game). But as it’s a Boris statement I’d take it all with a pinch of salt anyway.
I imagine they’ll publish a list shortly. Once they’ve worked out where Wigan actually is. 
I mean you wouldn’t want to have it ready when the announcement is made or anything or you might not look like a pulsating heap of quivering incompetents. Which is clearly the aim.


----------



## bimble (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The main site, easily found with a simple google search for 'current uk covid rules' - Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance and support
> 
> It's also reported by just about every news website, the information is hardly difficult to find.


eh?
that link doesn't do what you think it does.
Where is the postcode checker that the PM just talked about and told me to use?

sorry cupid_stunt not meant to sound aggressive i'm just exhausted by the shitness of it all.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 12, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> This has just appeared in Facebook. So it's our fault and we'll to be blame if businesses close.
> 
> I don't know how to respond to it
> 
> View attachment 234072



I take it the leader of the council is just an algorithm trained on local paper letters pages?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

prunus said:


> Those (in the app) are unrelated and uncharacteristically un-joined-up risk ratings of low medium and high. It is possible that they’ll correspond to the 2 new medium high and very high levels we now have (ie what was medium will become high), but I bet they don’t...



Mine was showing 'low' before, it's now showing 'medium', which I can only assume is down to the announcement today, as our case numbers haven't changed.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

I'm adding Andy Street (west mids authority mayor) to my list of pandemic shitheads.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 12, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I think "Too Little, Too Late" already applies.
> 
> BJ is listening too much to the "economists" and too little to the real health experts.


It's not just Johnson though is it. Lots of Labour local leaders saying similar things - _we need to keep the pubs open_.  And what have the national LP got as a strategy - do the same but better? 

Fuck the whole lot of the shits.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 12, 2020)

Tories everywhere are out-torying themselves today.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

'Conservative mayor of the best region in the world"


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> eh?
> that link doesn't do what you think it does.
> Where is the postcode checker that the PM just talked about and told me to use?



I said it had been updated with the PM's announcement, which it has. 

I've no idea about a 'postcode checker', I guess that's something new, and hasn't been added to the site yet.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> It's not just Johnson though is it. Lots of Labour local leaders saying similar things - _we need to keep the pubs open_.  And what have the national LP got as a strategy - do the same but better?
> 
> Fuck the whole lot of the shits.



Starmer etc badly behind the curve. They should have used the test & trace system bucking under demand to savage the government over 30 days ago, now they are late with that angle and are sending dangerous signals at a critical moment.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Oct 12, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> This has just appeared in Facebook. So it's our fault and we'll to be blame if businesses close.
> 
> I don't know how to respond to it
> 
> View attachment 234072


Wow. It reads like someone drunk-ranting on fb, did a council honestly sign this off? Just wow.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 12, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I take it the leader of the council is just an algorithm trained on local paper letters pages?


Andrew Johnson, he has form for being a cunt. 









						Council Christmas card warns London tenants to 'pay your rent'
					

Postcard advises tenants not to 'overindulge' over the festive period




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 12, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> It's not just Johnson though is it. Lots of Labour local leaders saying similar things - _we need to keep the pubs open_.  And what have the national LP got as a strategy - do the same but better?
> 
> Fuck the whole lot of the shits.


I think the local leaders are in an impossible bind. They can feel the level of restriction fatigue and anger in northern areas. People are so pissed off, you can see how the tone has changed on local social media etc. However, I think they're short sighted as when the deaths start rolling in the government will be able to deflect the blame onto them.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Andrew Johnson, he has form for being a cunt.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Lol that's just down the road from me.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

The cards, which were distributed across approximately 17,000 households, advises tenants not to "overindulge" during the festive period. The text is accompanied by an image showing a pound coin fizzing in a glass.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Starmer etc badly behind the curve.



Save this bit, you'll be needing it again and again.


----------



## prunus (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Mine was showing 'low' before, it's now showing 'medium', which I can only assume is down to the announcement today, as our case numbers haven't changed.



Mine was showing medium before and still is now.  Maybe need to wait for a rolling update or something. But I don’t think there was any suggestion that London (where I am) is going to be in the new ‘high’ category - so I suspect the real new rating here is ‘medium’, which given that it wasn’t ‘low’ before, means there isn’t a one-to-one mapping.


----------



## Supine (Oct 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Starmer etc badly behind the curve. They should have used the test & trace system bucking under demand to savage the government over 30 days ago, now they are late with that angle and are sending dangerous signals at a critical moment.



He has been doing exactly that for over 30 days


----------



## Mation (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's also reported by just about every news website, the information is hardly difficult to find.


Please don't do that. This is difficult and stressful and important, and none of that will be helped by being impatient with people who are trying to find accurate information.


----------



## Supine (Oct 12, 2020)

I note that no trigger levels for number of cases have been agreed. I can foresee up and coming bun fights between central Gov and local leaders on what triggers an area moving between medium, high and very high.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 12, 2020)

Supine said:


> I note that no trigger levels for number of cases have been agreed. I can foresee up and coming bun fights between central Gov and local leaders on what triggers an area moving between medium, high and very high.


Yep, and yet again we will see areas escape higher tiers because of lobbying by Tory MPs etc - though perhaps that kind of thing will dwindle as the bodies pile up. They really should have made the criteria fair and upfront, it would cause a lot less pain and public resentment down the track.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 12, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> This has just appeared in Facebook. So it's our fault and we'll to be blame if businesses close.
> 
> I don't know how to respond to it
> 
> View attachment 234072



Fuck you tory bastards is a good place to start


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

What's happening? Are we back in lockdown or not?


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 12, 2020)

Nope we not in lockdown unless you are in liverpool or surrounding areas


even then still go to the shops and buy shit and go to work even if you have to go on public transport


as Work or shopping does not involve the mixing of households


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> Please don't do that. This is difficult and stressful and important, and none of that will be helped by being impatient with people who are trying to find accurate information.



I am just pointing out where the information can be found, how is that 'being impatient with people'? I am just being helpful.


----------



## Maltin (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Mine was showing 'low' before, it's now showing 'medium', which I can only assume is down to the announcement today, as our case numbers haven't changed.


When the app downloaded on my phone, which was about a week after it launched (so around end September), my area was medium, which surprised me. I checked the FAQ and it said no area in England was low, so your area hasn’t changed today.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

So how do I find out what restrictions were under?


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Oct 12, 2020)

At least the new three tier system is a bit simpler than the ridiculous hokey-cokey of which area is in or out of various types of restrictions.  It was far too complicated so understandably people ignored it.  


frogwoman said:


> 'Conservative mayor of the best region in the world"


Typical deluded tory cunt.


----------



## chilango (Oct 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What's happening? Are we back in lockdown or not?



if by lockdown you mean can't go to pubs that don't sell food? Then the answer is still no. Unless you live in Liverpool. Where, like Will in the Inbetweeners, you can only get a pint if you're having a carvery (or bag of crisps, it's a bit vague tbh).


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Oct 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> So how do I find out what restrictions were under?


My local rag had a postcode checker so there may be one in your area as they are mostly run by the same company.


----------



## bimble (Oct 12, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> My local rag had a postcode checker so there may be one in your area as they are mostly run by the same company.


what your local news has it before the government website?


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Oct 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> So how do I find out what restrictions were under?


Liking your local council page on fb might help for stuff like this but also





__





						Redirect Notice
					





					www.google.com


----------



## editor (Oct 12, 2020)

Not sure why I get sent this, but...



> *Responding to the new Covid-19 tier system announced by the Prime Minister, Richard Burge, Chief Executive of London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said:*
> 
> “Bringing in a simplified system to manage and understand Covid-19 restrictions makes sense in theory, but it must be accompanied by evidence that explains clearly why certain businesses and sectors are the target of increased restrictions.
> 
> ...


----------



## Cid (Oct 12, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I think the local leaders are in an impossible bind. They can feel the level of restriction fatigue and anger in northern areas. People are so pissed off, you can see how the tone has changed on local social media etc. However, I think they're short sighted as when the deaths start rolling in the government will be able to deflect the blame onto them.



I'm not sure about that. I mean I can see why they're doing it, but it's essentially an entirely reactive position... Their failure to weigh in against previous policy has just left them in what is really kind of a bizarre situation to me. I could understand if it was 'no further measures without full support', but the way this has been framed just doesn't seem to fit the actual situation.


----------



## bimble (Oct 12, 2020)

found this but it does not seem to function at all




__





						LockdownChecker
					





					www.lockdownapi.com


----------



## andysays (Oct 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> So how do I find out what restrictions were under?


This is what the BBC website is currently showing

*Medium*

All areas, excluding those listed below
*High*

Cheshire (Cheshire West and Chester, Cheshire East)
Greater Manchester (Manchester, Bolton, Bury, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, Salford, Rochdale, Oldham)
Warrington
Derbyshire (High Peak - the wards of Tintwistle, Padfield, Dinting, St John’s, Old Glossop, Whitfield, Simmondley, Gamesley, Howard Town, Hadfield South, Hadfield North)
Lancashire (Lancashire, Blackpool, Preston, Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley)
West Yorkshire (Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees, Calderdale, Wakefield)
South Yorkshire (Barnsley, Rotherham, Doncaster, Sheffield)
North East (Newcastle, South Tyneside, North Tyneside, Gateshead, Sunderland, Durham, Northumberland)
Tees Valley (Middlesborough, Redcar and Cleveland, Stockton-on-Tees, Darlington, Hartlepool)
West Midlands (Birmingham, Sandwell, Solihull, Wolverhampton, Walsall)
Leicester (Leicester, Oadby and Wigston)
Nottingham (Nottinghamshire, Nottingham City)
*Very High*

Liverpool City Region (Liverpool, Knowsley, Wirral, St Helens, Sefton, Halton)


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 12, 2020)

hmm i'm still confused how this clears up any of the confusions about covid rules?


----------



## Mation (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am just pointing out where the information can be found, how is that 'being impatient with people'? I am just being helpful.


If someone says they're having trouble with something and your response is "it's hardly difficult," it doesn't come across as particularly kind, even if you only meant to be helpful.

Glad you meant to be helpful!


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Oct 12, 2020)

Postcode checker I shared upthread seems to work ok


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Oct 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> what your local news has it before the government website?


Are you surprised at that?


----------



## andysays (Oct 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> This is what the BBC website is currently showing
> 
> *Medium*
> 
> ...


And here are the restrictions for the various levels


and that's only for England, because different rules apply in Scotland, Wales and NI...


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

So can I just carry on what I am doing then?


----------



## savoloysam (Oct 12, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> hmm i'm still confused how this clears up any of the confusions about covid rules?



You Filthy Northerns = Have a wash and sort yourselves or we are coming for you.

The Southern Wealth Providers = As you were or we are coming for you.

HTH


----------



## Supine (Oct 12, 2020)

Nothing about limiting movement between risk areas.

Nothing about ventilation being important. 

Nothing about enforcing social distancing for venues that can remain open.

No detail on what T&T is finding out about cluster formations or settings. 

Nothing on improvements being made to T&T.

Nothing on supporting people who need to isolate. 

Today's announcement was an abject failure of leadership by Boris and his merry band of brixiteers.


----------



## Supine (Oct 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> So can I just carry on what I am doing then?



Reading urban? You should be safe


----------



## bimble (Oct 12, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> hmm i'm still confused how this clears up any of the confusions about covid rules?


Exactly. the Big Idea today was that these 3 tiers with traffic light colours (?) would simplify things, that we could easily check and quickly respond to changes. i'm just moaning about how there's not a simple way to look up whether right now i'm in a yellow or a green area and what that means.
Which it seems to me would be the thing to turn todays news into any sort of actual step forward from where we've been anyway for weeks.


----------



## andysays (Oct 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> So can I just carry on what I am doing then?


I guess that depends where you are and what you're doing.

Also, these new measures don't come into force until Wednesday, so if you're in Liverpool, you've still got time for two more nights in the pub.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Oct 12, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> You Filthy Northerns = Have a wash and sort yourselves or we are coming for you.
> 
> The Southern Wealth Providers = As you were or we are coming for you.
> 
> HTH


Fuck off you weird-talking freak scummy tea.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> I guess that depends where you are and what you're doing.
> 
> Also, these new measures don't come into force until Wednesday, so if you're in Liverpool, you've still got time for two more nights in the pub.



I'm in the south east. Meeting mates outdoors and so on.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Oct 12, 2020)

Supine said:


> Reading urban? You should be safe


Just ask elbows what to do - more reliable than HMG at any rate.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 12, 2020)

andysays said:


> I guess that depends where you are and what you're doing.
> 
> Also, these new measures don't come into force until Wednesday, so if you're in Liverpool, you've still got time for two more nights in the pub.


Unless you can find a pub that serves food.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Unless you can find a pub that serves food.



Its really odd.  I know there will be regional variations but I can't think of a single pub in my town which doesn't serve food.  Actually thinking about it we have a Be at Ones which I don't think does food.  One in 25 pubs and bars.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Supine said:


> He has been doing exactly that for over 30 days



Sort of, I believe I read stuff about his own side telling him to step up the attacks and then subsequently there were stories about him taking the gloves off etc, implying that he wasnt on the attack till more recently.

I dont think it is very easy to get the blanace right as the leader of the opposition in this sort of pandemic, but they've still manged to underwhelm me. I dont know exactly what I wanted from them though, other than more opportunities to be taken to attack the tory government in the summer so that the politics of that was not taking place with a backdrop of infections spiralling out of control.

Now that I think about it, perhaps I would have liked Labour to spent summer coming up with the sort of comprehensive plan that they fairly accuse the government of not having. One with plenty of concrete stuff and with mixed messages carefully removed.

I will rejudge this once I've seen more of how local Labour leaders behave now that Johnson has set them up for a share of the blame, and once we see whether they will try to scupper any government stuff via votes in parliament.

If leaders of all the different stripes, from local to national, fail to show pandemic leadership then people could always agitate for some kind of general strike. Or at least the threat of such a strike, although I am aware that this idea is laughably out of step with most of whats happened in this country in my lifetime.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 12, 2020)

So let me get this right - even in the highest risk areas pubs and schools will be open


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Its a bit surreal that as part of piling the pressure on other local leaders, Johnson praised the local government of Liverpool for agreeing to go into tier 3. Because whenever I hear Liverpool politicians talking to the press, they say there was no real proper consultation and that the government made it sound to them like there was no choice about them going into tier 3, so they better just accept it. But clearly something was different with Liverpool that enabled Johnson to announce their tier 3 stuff today in contrast to other places. It would be nice to know the actual detail of all of this, I assume there is a story that makes sense in there somewhere but we havent been treated to all of it.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 12, 2020)

So that postcode checker that HoratioCuthbert posted is quite good, here's what I get






So we actually have a more locked down lockdown than the 'Very High' that Bojo has just announced for Merseyside.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Oct 12, 2020)

S☼I said:


> So let me get this right - even in the highest risk areas pubs and schools will be open



No. In tier 3 the pubs close.

What the Tories have done here is simple. They’ve dumped the rest of us into Tier 2.

This means the pubs and restaurants stay open, but nobody can meet anyone else in them.

Put simply, this means they do not have to provide support to workers or businesses as they would if they were in tier 3.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

I suppose I shall force myself to watch the press conference via the official number 10 youtube channel.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 12, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> No. In tier 3 the pubs close.
> 
> What the Tories have done here is simple. They’ve dumped the rest of us into Tier 2.
> 
> ...


Sorry, I meant restaurants and pubs serving food

Another question is can't find an answer to - what's the threshold for moving from say tier two to three? I've read it's "the areas where transmission is moving fastest" but how fast? How much notice will people get?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2020)

As far as I can tell nothing much has changed today unless you happen to live in Liverpool or Nottingham.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 12, 2020)

Yep,  pubs serving food can stay open in tier 3, but only serve alcohol with 'main meals'.

Good luck enforcing that one.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Oct 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> As far as I can tell nothing much has changed today unless you happen to live in Liverpool or Nottingham.



In Birmingham I can no longer see my dad, go to the pub or a restaurant (except on my own) or travel unless it’s ‘essential’ (work or school).


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 12, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> No. In tier 3 the pubs close.
> 
> What the Tories have done here is simple. They’ve dumped the rest of us into Tier 2.
> 
> ...



quite surprised they even got to put tier 3 into place in areas like liverpool

they be calling out "bring out your dead" before the impose that on london


----------



## chilango (Oct 12, 2020)




----------



## prunus (Oct 12, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Postcode checker I shared upthread seems to work okView attachment 234085



Not sure it’s updated to the new statuses yet:


----------



## chilango (Oct 12, 2020)

Will we see a shift in the next week or two?



> we still have one week left before the point at which students are entitled to withdraw from studies and receive a full refund of any fees paid.






> .During the autumn term, most schools in the nation are set to have their October half-term break between Monday 26 October and Friday 30 October 2020.


----------



## savoloysam (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep,  pubs serving food can stay open in tier 3, but only serve alcohol with 'main meals'.
> 
> Good luck enforcing that one.



I'll have the mushroom starter and 5 bottles of vino please.

"Excellent choice, Sir"


----------



## Badgers (Oct 12, 2020)

Watching the cunt bluster on... 

What is the point?


----------



## Sue (Oct 12, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Watching the cunt bluster on...
> 
> What is the point?


Exactly. I'm not watching and relying on you lot to let me know anything I need to know.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep,  pubs serving food can stay open in tier 3, but only serve alcohol with 'main meals'.
> 
> Good luck enforcing that one.



At this point I refuse to believe that these decisions aren't being made by a monkey rolling dice.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Oct 12, 2020)

Sue said:


> Exactly. I'm not watching and relying on you lot to let me know anything I need to know.


Boris is going to squash(sic) the virus anywhere it shows up. 
I've switched off now.


----------



## LDC (Oct 12, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> At this point I refuse to believe that these decisions aren't being made by a monkey rolling dice.



It wasn't a solely government decision though, plenty of businesses and local 'leaders' kicked off and argued for less restrictions.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 12, 2020)

hmm they are trying to polish the turd that is 2/3 pay protection

its means test fair enough


but to use an example of a worker basic wages who does 35 hours a week odd


the average working  week is 39 or more


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 12, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Watching the cunt bluster on...
> 
> What is the point?



Tiers of a clown.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 12, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> I'll have the mushroom starter and 5 bottles of vino please.
> 
> "Excellent choice, Sir"


It's going to be Tapas 'Tober on Merseyside.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 12, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> I'll have the mushroom starter and 5 bottles of vino please.
> 
> "Excellent choice, Sir"



can nightclubs and pubs  go back to serving microwave burgers and horrible chips to stay open later


"couple of e for the dog as well mate"


----------



## BCBlues (Oct 12, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> In Birmingham I can no longer see my dad, go to the pub or a restaurant (except on my own) or travel unless it’s ‘essential’ (work or school).



But, shops are still open, say Primark for example.  How are we supposed to get there if its classed as non essential travel? I've not seen it mentioned anywhere that non essential shops are closed again like they were in March.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Watching the cunt bluster on...
> 
> What is the point?



Not much, but as usual Whitty offers more clues and more appropriate framing of the past and the future.

Of note today was a Whitty point that the base tier 3 restrictions arent enough on their own, and that the extra measures on top (that are the ones they try to agree with local governments) are required too.

There seems to be all the room in tier 3 in terms of extending timescales and measures as there was under the previous local lockdown regime.

So yeah todays stuff was largely just the rebranding exercise thats been talked about for weeks, which due to resurgence timing has been combined with extra measures for Liverpool etc, strengthening of Birmingham etc rules. And pressure placed on other local leaders to choose from a menu of extra restrictions for their own badly affected areas on top of the tier 3 basics, and then have their areas go into tier 3.

edit - oops I typed weakening in the above paragraph when I meant to say strengthening, I guess thats what listening to Johnson talk too much does to me.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 12, 2020)

Basically, we're going to be left with 5 or so years of empty, desultory high streets after this.


----------



## Cid (Oct 12, 2020)

So... tier 2 aka High risk <fucking hell>, you can go to a restaurant but only with your household or your support household? Is there support available to those businesses?


----------



## Raheem (Oct 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> So... tier 2 aka High risk <fucking hell>, you can go to a restaurant but only with your household or your support household? Is there support available to those businesses?


That's how it already was, though.


----------



## LDC (Oct 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> So... tier 2 aka High risk <fucking hell>, you can go to a restaurant but only with your household or your support household? Is there support available to those businesses?



Yeah, I think that's ridiculous tbh, open to abuse. I do think though there's plenty of places in Tier 2 that will very shortly be in Tier 3.


----------



## Cid (Oct 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> That's how it already was, though.



No, it was rule of 6 wasn't it?


----------



## Raheem (Oct 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> No, it was rule of 6 wasn't it?


Not in pubs/restaurants, in areas that were what is now tier 2.


----------



## Cid (Oct 12, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Not in pubs, in areas that were what is now tier 2.



Sure, but tier 2 high risk now applies much more widely than previously.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

Part of the confusion here is surely due to the fact that a large number of people who werent living in local lockdown areas have not kept up with the ever changing landscape of the detail of the rules in those areas. Thats certainly why I do not intend to attempt to explain the prior rules myself.


----------



## Cid (Oct 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I think that's ridiculous tbh, open to abuse. I do think though there's plenty of places in Tier 2 that will very shortly be in Tier 3.



The 'we're housemates' exemption.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 12, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Basically, we're going to be left with 5 or so years of empty, desultory high streets after this.



Not exactly buzzing before unless you count charity shops


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 12, 2020)

Cid said:


> The 'we're housemates' exemption.



though lie was covered with the last divorce


----------



## Cid (Oct 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Part of the confusion here is surely due to the fact that a large number of people who werent living in local lockdown areas have not kept up with the ever changing landscape of the detail of the rules in those areas. Thats certainly why I do not intend to attempt to explain the prior rules myself.



Yes, that is admittedly the case.


----------



## steveo87 (Oct 12, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> can nightclubs and pubs  go back to serving microwave burgers and horrible chips to stay open later
> 
> 
> "couple of e for the dog as well mate"


The Krazy House in Liverpool  used to have a cafe in it.
Shame its closed (and I live in Somerset/in my 30s) cos having a burger at 2 in the morning whilst I'm off my face, dancing to shite Indie seems like a top idea right now.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 12, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Not exactly buzzing before unless you count charity shops


Certainly not in Finchley!

The frustrating thing is there is an opportunity to turn some shit around and make society and cities run better - maybe bigger chains getting at least short lets in more secondary/suburban areas so people don't have to travel to them and won't just buy from amazon. Finding ways to make it possible for low and medium-income people to also live in city centres so they're not dependent on tourism and workplaces, fewer people who need to use public transport etc. But no one in power will do that. I saw a great comment about this government that the people in charge are 'deeply invested in making things worse' - they're not interested in solutions that don't = quick profit in a way they're familiar with. Even though I think a lot of these measures would lead to longer term, more sustainable profit, as well as helping society.


----------



## andysays (Oct 12, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I think that's ridiculous tbh, open to abuse. I do think though there's plenty of places in Tier 2 that will very shortly be in Tier 3.


It sounds as if they're trying to get agreement from "local leaders" before going to Tier 3, though quite how that works is anyone's guess.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 12, 2020)

I (think) that the not being able to go to restaurants with other households is new for me - we just had no mixing in houses here. But I think they had the restaurant thing in Lancashire and some other places.


----------



## zora (Oct 12, 2020)

And what is this about local authorities having to add extra restriction [on top of Tier 3, I guess?] in the worst hit areas? Do they have the..err..authority to do that? , let alone the all important financial means for support for businesses etc?


----------



## xenon (Oct 12, 2020)

test


----------



## killer b (Oct 12, 2020)

zora said:


> And what is this about local authorities having to add extra restriction [on top of Tier 3, I guess?] in the worst hit areas? Do they have the..err..authority to do that? , let alone the all important financial means for support for businesses etc?


the behind the scenes wrangling with local political leaders we're seeing hints of is 100% about funding to support whatever closures are being mooted


----------



## Mation (Oct 12, 2020)

xenon said:


> test


and


----------



## killer b (Oct 12, 2020)

Andy Burnham doesn't care about keeping the pubs open in Manchester, he just wants the money to make it possible for them to reopen afterwards. Which is currently pretty lacking.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> and


trace?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 12, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Certainly not in Finchley!
> 
> The frustrating thing is there is an opportunity to turn some shit around and make society and cities run better - maybe bigger chains getting at least short lets in more secondary/suburban areas so people don't have to travel to them and won't just buy from amazon. Finding ways to make it possible for low and medium-income people to also live in city centres so they're not dependent on tourism and workplaces, fewer people who need to use public transport etc. But no one in power will do that. I saw a great comment about this government that the people in charge are 'deeply invested in making things worse' - they're not interested in solutions that don't = quick profit in a way they're familiar with. Even though I think a lot of these measures would lead to longer term, more sustainable profit, as well as helping society.



Oh absolutely,think I said something similar at the start of lockdown.

This is a perfect chance to rethink and regroup our ways and Boris fucking Johnson is in charge. A man with so little imagination he can't even act like Churchill properly.


----------



## baldrick (Oct 12, 2020)

'No mixing indoors' is going to royally fuck what remains of the hospitality industry.  There is literally no point going to the pub or a restaurant if you can only sit at a table with people in your household.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 12, 2020)

Does the government's announcement boil down to: 'We're going to make the harshest lockdowns the responsibility of local government so you can't blame us'?


----------



## Cid (Oct 12, 2020)

baldrick said:


> 'No mixing indoors' is going to royally fuck what remains of the hospitality industry.  There is literally no point going to the pub or a restaurant if you can only sit at a table with people in your household.



Yep. The only customers will be those ignoring the rules and pretending they live together. Or just ignoring the rules, without any particular intent.


----------



## agricola (Oct 12, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Does the government's announcement boil down to: 'We're going to make the harshest lockdowns the responsibility of local government so you can't blame us'?



Yes, with of course the proviso that if the lockdowns don't work then also don't blame us.


----------



## killer b (Oct 12, 2020)

Local governments have been asking for more autonomy and more control over local infection control, track & trace etc tbf, for 6 months now.


----------



## Cid (Oct 12, 2020)

Indeed... I don't see any problem with delegation in principle. I'm guessing it will be underfunded and resourced though.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Oct 12, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> But, shops are still open, say Primark for example.  How are we supposed to get there if its classed as non essential travel? I've not seen it mentioned anywhere that non essential shops are closed again like they were in March.



Nothing is being forced closed here, including shops. But people are banned from travelling to them. No, I can’t work out how they are getting away with this shite either


----------



## BCBlues (Oct 12, 2020)

baldrick said:


> 'No mixing indoors' is going to royally fuck what remains of the hospitality industry.  There is literally no point going to the pub or a restaurant if you can only sit at a table with people in your household.



What about bubbles? Can we still sit with him/her?


----------



## agricola (Oct 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> Local governments have been asking for more autonomy and more control over local infection control, track & trace etc tbf, for 6 months now.



That is true.  Perhaps the best parallel in history that I am aware of to this is General Kléber asking for Napoleon to plan things better during the Egyptian campaign, to which Napoleon replied by getting a boat back to France.


----------



## BCBlues (Oct 12, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Nothing is being forced closed here, including shops. But people are banned from travelling to them. No, I can’t work out how they are getting away with this shite either



I see the inevitable has happened and the statement is now "reduce the number of journeys (you) make where possible". 
Which again makes it impossible to police.


----------



## zora (Oct 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> the behind the scenes wrangling with local political leaders we're seeing hints of is 100% about funding to support whatever closures are being mooted



Yes, I do get that, and this is all the stuff around the question whether Manchester et al should/will go up to Tier 3 from Tier 2, right?

But then there is this Whitty quote from the Downing Street now in the media:
"I am not confident - and nor is anybody confident - that the Tier 3 proposals for the highest rates, if we did the absolute base case and nothing more, would be enough to get on top of it," he added.
"And that is why there's a lot of flexibility in the Tier 3 level for local authorities... to actually go up that range, so that they can do significantly more than the absolute base.
"Because the base will not be sufficient, I think that's very clearly the professional view.
"But there are quite a lot more additional things that can be done within that, with local guidance.

This sounds rather ominous, and once again confusing and unclear. I mean, I agree that what was announced today didn't sound at all like it would do much to slow down transmission significantly, but shouldn't it have been spelt out clearly what these additional measures at the top end of Tier 3 should/might/will be and under what circumstances, otherwise it sounds like yet another Tier entirely, or am I missing something? Maybe I am just too tired...


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 12, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

zora said:


> This sounds rather ominous, and once again confusing and unclear. I mean, I agree that what was announced today didn't sound at all like it would do much to slow down transmission significantly, but shouldn't it have been spelt out clearly what these additional measures at the top end of Tier 3 should/might/will be and under what circumstances, otherwise it sounds like yet another Tier entirely, or am I missing something? Maybe I am just too tired...



Liverpool in tier 3 is an example of what the extra tier 3 measures can look like in a particular area, they agreed to close some other stuff like gyms and bookies.

Other examples will probably arrive in the coming days as more areas go into 3.

And just like local measures were previously strengthened and relaxed per area over time, so these additional measures per region may be varied over time.


----------



## killer b (Oct 12, 2020)

zora said:


> Yes, I do get that, and this is all the stuff around the question whether Manchester et al should/will go up to Tier 3 from Tier 2, right?
> 
> But then there is this Whitty quote from the Downing Street now in the media:
> "I am not confident - and nor is anybody confident - that the Tier 3 proposals for the highest rates, if we did the absolute base case and nothing more, would be enough to get on top of it," he added.
> ...


the top tier is what Bolton has been under for weeks, without it levelling off - so it won't be enough. But I guess it's probably sensible to take into account local conditions and peculiarities when looking at what further interventions are necessary. I think I cautiously welcome the handing over of responsibilities to more local teams tbh.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 12, 2020)

xenon said:


> test


This your new job with Serco?


----------



## editor (Oct 12, 2020)

These fucking idiots. 



> *Three students have been fined £10,000 each for holding a house party that up to 100 people attended.*
> 
> The students from the University of East Anglia in Norwich were supposed to be self-isolating after showing symptoms of Covid-19.
> 
> ...











						Covid-19: University of East Anglia party students fined £10,000
					

Police say three students have been issued with fines after holding a party for up to 100 people.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## xenon (Oct 12, 2020)

Mation said:


> and



Ha and trace.

Actually I was just trying to post something but internet has been playing up all day. Draft posts just hanging. IBeen answered now anyway. SP issue. Can read but not post, nor send email. So pun wasn't actually intended...


----------



## TopCat (Oct 12, 2020)

baldrick said:


> 'No mixing indoors' is going to royally fuck what remains of the hospitality industry.  There is literally no point going to the pub or a restaurant if you can only sit at a table with people in your household.


No point? Come on think about that. I go to eat out with my partner I dont bring a neighbour.


----------



## xenon (Oct 12, 2020)

baldrick said:


> 'No mixing indoors' is going to royally fuck what remains of the hospitality industry.  There is literally no point going to the pub or a restaurant if you can only sit at a table with people in your household.




And single occupancy households are just meant to sit on tables by themself... not really viable is it.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 12, 2020)

editor said:


> These fucking idiots.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Bloody idiots !
UEA should kick them off their courses (without a refund) and all 100 that were reputed to be at that party must be quarantined, not just be isolated and tested ...
(and if they knew the hosts were +ve in advance, then they should also be sent down).


----------



## MrSki (Oct 12, 2020)

So it will be 'three cod & chips & 15 pints of Stella please'


----------



## bimble (Oct 12, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Bloody idiots !
> UEA should kick them off their courses (without a refund) and all 100 that were reputed to be at that party must be quarantined, not just be isolated and tested ...
> (and if they knew the hosts were +ve in advance, then they should also be sent down).


O really. Whats the difference between quarantined and isolated or do you just mean they should all be grounded on the naughty step if not actually imprisoned . This is so depressing.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 12, 2020)

bimble said:


> O really. Whats the difference between quarantined and isolated or do you just mean they should all be grounded on the naughty step if not actually imprisoned . This is so depressing.


I think a quarantine is usually taken as something that is being enforced rather than the DIY self isolation
e2a: a couple of friend who just went back to OZ were a bit shocked that they had a police escort to their quarantine hotel.


----------



## bimble (Oct 12, 2020)

This whole thing is totally unenforceable and relies on us feeling that we are part of a wider whole which attitudes like the above (lock em up!) will not do anything to foster.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2020)

> *The government's scientific advisers called for a short lockdown in England to halt the spread of Covid-19 last month, newly-released documents show.*
> The experts said an immediate "circuit breaker" was the best way to control cases, at a meeting on 21 September.











						Covid: Sage scientists called for short lockdown weeks ago
					

The government took "robust action" at the time, such as the rule of six, a cabinet minister says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I havent read the documents yet, I need to cook some food first.


----------



## strung out (Oct 12, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Bloody idiots !
> UEA should kick them off their courses (without a refund) and all 100 that were reputed to be at that party must be quarantined, not just be isolated and tested ...
> (and if they knew the hosts were +ve in advance, then they should also be sent down).


Nothing quite like demanding that kids who have just been fined £10k, should get made to pay a further £9k and have their career prospects ruined before they've even started.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid: Sage scientists called for short lockdown weeks ago
> 
> 
> The government took "robust action" at the time, such as the rule of six, a cabinet minister says.
> ...


that's what they said


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 13, 2020)

The punitive stuff is not gonna do any good, it's just going to a bigger stigma around the disease and people hiding symptoms. It has literally led to nothing good anywhere that approach has been tried.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid: Sage scientists called for short lockdown weeks ago
> 
> 
> The government took "robust action" at the time, such as the rule of six, a cabinet minister says.
> ...


Make sure you bloody eat mate.gotta keep the fuel up for your fantastic posting.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Make sure you bloody eat mate.gotta keep the fuel up for your fantastic posting.



Cheers. I have eaten, but I will save many of my thoughts about these revelations till tomorrow. Hopefully the story is still a big deal by then, since the last time there were revelations about the government not following restriction-related SAGE advice, the story didnt seem to gain much traction.

What I will say tonight is that the government have now severely eroded the scientific cover they had for some of their actions, inactions and timing. When I studied the failings in the January to March period, there was a fair chunk of tory & Johnson blame, but there were loads of other bits of the establishment that got blindsided by the pandemic and were partially culpable. In particular there were a bunch of timing factors that were fucked up by poor data & inappropriate interpretation of that laggy when deciding how to feed it into some models. So our lockdown being late could be split into 2 aspects. The lateness caused by failing to accurately monitor the stage the pandemic had reached and related things like failing to estimate the doubling time correctly. And then, after the orthodox scientific and medical establishment managed to think the unthinkable and got a better handle on the timing, some additional lateness directly attributable to the Johnson government.

Well this time the situation is different. The data is better, the old orthodox do little approach to pandemics is not in the way of reasonable thoughts forming in the scientific and medical community. Advisors and modellers could still make fresh timing prediction errors, but they shouldnt get so far behind the curve as last time, because more than the tip of the iceberg can be seen in the data this time. And we now have two examples of the government being given scientific advice to act at a particular time and not doing so.

So I dont think the government have any SAGE cover for the death that is to come as a result of their decisions this time. They will either have to own the death, or try to blame the public or local politicians etc.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

Just one quote from one of the key SAGE documents from me this evening too, as I usually find it hard not to overdo my quoting of such documents.



> Given that admissions and deaths will increase for 2-3 weeks after R is bought below 1, cessation of the current growth is required by the start of October to prevent a repeat of the first months of the epidemic. The 3000 admissions per day at the end of October is largely driven by the infections that occur by the first week of October. It is possible that improvements in treatment and prevention of transmission in health and social care settings will reduce deaths associated with infections but will not generally prevent admissions. To reduce R from 1.6 to 0.8 would require interventions to reduce transmission by 50% - a substantial amount.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/925854/S0769_Summary_of_effectiveness_and_harms_of_NPIs.pdf


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

Oh one more quote (here I go again already), since its a subject I go on about all the time and it makes me feel better when I at least see it in print somewhere.



> The implementation of tightened infection control measures in all hospitals, care homes, and other enclosed settings including regular testing of staff should be seen as a priority if infections continue to grow. Such measures are likely to have a major impact on deaths and hospitalisations for COVID-19. SAGE has also previously noted the risks associated with discharging people from hospitals into the community without testing to ascertain whether they may be infectious. However, these issues are beyond the scope of this paper.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

If yu want to see a table from September outlining all sorts of different restrictions and what sort of impact, including the impact on R, SAGE think each one might offer, then this is the document for you:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/925856/S0770_NPIs_table__pivot_.pdf
		


The first couple of entries are rather long but the stuff gets a bit snappier and easier to skim through later on.

One word of caution, they are not very confident about the R estimates for each measure. And in another document from the period they warn that the effect of combinations is not expected to be as simple as adding the different R reduction estimates together.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

Another BBC article on the same subject with various cherrypicked quotes and details, including some of those R reduction estimates for various measures.









						Covid-19: Are we still listening to the science?
					

Sage and Prof Chris Whitty appear at odds with the political decisions made by government.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I didnt really need to check my notes in order to have a sense of what else was happening on the day of the SAGE meeting, September 21st. But I did anyway and my notes said:

Whitty and Vallance made a presentation to the public.
More disgraceful shit from Nick Triggle.
Sturgeon said new measures to be announced for Scotland within next few days.

So just as happened in mid March, certain kinds of shit from Nick Triggle seems like a reasonable indicator that there is establishment disagreement behind the scenes at that time. Almost like the warning indicators on the dashboard of a plane, to shamelessly steal a line from Johnson. Not a surprise to me, I was watching for this, but I needed another example beyond the March 13th example to help confirm, and now I have one.

On a related note this recent period may also be an example of how the likes of the Barrington clowns can be something of a decoy. Because when I am forced to deal in absolute scenarios by anti-restrictions clowns, I will inevitably and repeatedly spend time going on about how the government isnt going to do nothing when the data tells them hospitals are going to end up overwhelmed. But this 'lockdown vs no lockdown' argument is in some key ways not really where the action is. Its not about the government doing nothing. Its about whether the government do the right things at the right time. And I would never accuse this government of being likely to get that right, or of having the right priorities and the ability to deliver on them.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

The Guardians take on it.









						Covid: ministers ignored Sage advice to impose lockdown or face catastrophe
					

Most Sage proposals not acted upon by government despite strong warnings over second wave




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Ministers were warned three weeks ago that the country faced a “very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences” unless they took immediate action by imposing a two-week “circuit breaker” lockdown to reduce the spread of coronavirus.
> 
> The government’s Sage committee of experts urged ministers to move urgently as new infections rose in all age groups across the country, even as the full impact of opening schools and universities had yet to be felt.





> The group proposed five measures including the circuit breaker – a short period of lockdown to drive new infections down – that it urged ministers to consider to head off a second wave of the virus that “would fall disproportionately on the frailest in our society, but also those on lower incomes and BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] communities”.





> The experts said: “As over 90% of the population remain susceptible, not acting now to reduce cases will result in a very large epidemic with catastrophic consequences in terms of direct Covid-related deaths and the ability of the health service to meet needs.”



Since I am mostly preoccupied with that side of it I hope others pick up on the other stuff in these articles such as the SAGE view of how marginally useful the shit test & trace system was proving to be in controlling infections.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> The Guardians take on it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


At least we know now what not to do in the case of a pandemic


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Cheers. I have eaten, but I will save many of my thoughts about these revelations till tomorrow. Hopefully the story is still a big deal by then, since the last time there were revelations about the government not following restriction-related SAGE advice, the story didnt seem to gain much traction.



Well, it's been the main news story on Sky this morning, but the papers have run with the PM's announcement on their front papers, with the exception of the Telegraph, which has splashed on the SAGE story.

ETA - Also the main news story on BBC News


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 13, 2020)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Nothing is being forced closed here, including shops. But people are banned from travelling to them. No, I can’t work out how they are getting away with this shite either



I see nothing in the rules, inc. tier 3, that says that, in fact it says the opposite -



> You should continue to:
> 
> travel to venues or amenities that are open, for work or to access education, but aim to reduce the number of journeys you make


The only travel restriction guidelines involve moving in & out of high risk areas, which is just the whole Mersey region at present.



> you should try to avoid travelling outside the very-high alert level area you are in or entering a very-high alert level area, other than for things like work, education or youth services, to meet caring responsibilities or if you are travelling through as part of a longer journey
> you should avoid staying overnight in another part of the UK if you are resident in a very-high alert level area, or avoid staying overnight in a very-high alert level area if you are resident elsewhere











						Coronavirus: how to stay safe and help prevent the spread
					

Find out how to stay safe and help prevent the spread of coronavirus.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, it's been the main news story on Sky this morning, but the papers have run with the PM's announcement on their front papers, with the exception of the Telegraph, which has splashed on the SAGE story.



Got released to late to make the papers which is something we see again and again with these things. Keeps them off front pages for most part.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 13, 2020)

The three tier restrictions seem simple enough to understand for what individuals should do, like restrictions on mixing with others socially, and there doesn't seem to be any plan to have any variations to them in the different tiers.

The only variations in tier 3 will involve what businesses/venues will close, which will be easy enough to understand, i.e. if you turn up to the gym and it's closed, you know you can't go to the gym.

These are the likely variations in tier 3 -



> This is the baseline in very-high alert level areas. The government will also seek to agree additional interventions in consultation with local authorities, in order to drive down transmission of the virus. These could include the following options:
> 
> restrictions preventing the sale of alcohol in hospitality or closing all hospitality (except takeaway and delivery)
> closing indoor and outdoor entertainment venues and tourist attractions
> ...











						Coronavirus: how to stay safe and help prevent the spread
					

Find out how to stay safe and help prevent the spread of coronavirus.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## brogdale (Oct 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The three tier restrictions seem simple enough to understand for what individuals should do, like restrictions on mixing with others socially, and there doesn't seem to be any plan to have any variations to them in the different tiers.
> 
> The only variations in tier 3 will involve what businesses/venues will close, which will be easy enough to understand, i.e. if you turn up to the gym and it's closed, you know you can't go to the gym.
> 
> ...


In presentational/communication terms, using the numerical tiering and then, almost inexplicably, immediately translating them into descriptors of severity level has the potential to confuse some folk and muddies the waters.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 13, 2020)

brogdale said:


> In presentational/communication terms, using the numerical tiering and then, almost inexplicably, immediately translating them into descriptors of severity level has the potential to confuse some folk and muddies the waters.



Yeah agreed on that.  They'd be better off just talking moderate, high and very high.  Talking about tiers has the potential for a bit of confusion.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 13, 2020)

It's odd to have "medium" as "level 1". I can see why you might choose not to have a "low" tier, in order to emphasise to people that nowhere should be considered without risk - but if you then give it the number '1' that contradicts that thinking.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 13, 2020)

1 = deadly
2 = very deadly
3 = we're fucked


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 13, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It's odd to have "medium" as "level 1". I can see why you might choose not to have a "low" tier, in order to emphasise to people that nowhere should be considered without risk - but if you then give it the number '1' that contradicts that thinking.



Yes, though I guess the baseline is zero when no restrictions are needed.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes, though I guess the baseline is zero when no restrictions are needed.


Rockall


----------



## chilango (Oct 13, 2020)

Just watching Sunak from yesterday...the Government is basically just bunging money to commercial landlords aren't they?


----------



## andysays (Oct 13, 2020)

chilango said:


> Just watching Sunak from yesterday...the Government is basically just bunging money to commercial landlords aren't they?


Every crisis is an opportunity, innit...


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 13, 2020)

All these cunts going on about protecting the economy when what they mean is protecting their pension and investments so they can dodge any trouble.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 13, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It's odd to have "medium" as "level 1". I can see why you might choose not to have a "low" tier, in order to emphasise to people that nowhere should be considered without risk - but if you then give it the number '1' that contradicts that thinking.



It's like chips  - you don't get 'small' and 'medium any more, they're the same size but they're called 'medium' and 'large'


----------



## Cid (Oct 13, 2020)

brogdale said:


> In presentational/communication terms, using the numerical tiering and then, almost inexplicably, immediately translating them into descriptors of severity level has the potential to confuse some folk and muddies the waters.



Yeah this pissed me off. Every tiny choice like this seems to get over complicated. Almost as if it was being run through the filter of a board room of somewhat incompetent middle managers


----------



## mr steev (Oct 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The three tier restrictions seem simple enough to understand for what individuals should do, like restrictions on mixing with others socially, and there doesn't seem to be any plan to have any variations to them in the different tiers.



We've gone into tier 2 here, as we had local restrictions - no one seems to be quite sure whether the local restrictions will still be in place along with the new tier 2 restrictions. If they are, then to single people, we are not much different than tier 3 (no socialising anywhere unless you want to go and sit in the pub on your own) even though our rate has gone from 80 to 70/100,000, which is less than other places which are still on tier 1 - you can see why people are confused


----------



## Cid (Oct 13, 2020)

mr steev said:


> We've gone into tier 2 here, as we had local restrictions - no one seems to be quite sure whether the local restrictions will still be in place along with the new tier 2 restrictions. If they are, then to single people, we are not much different than tier 3 (no socialising anywhere unless you want to go and sit in the pub on your own) even though our rate has gone from 80 to 70/100,000, which is less than other places which are still on tier 1 - you can see why people are confused



I think you mean you’re at level high risk. Dunno what these tier things are.


----------



## Cid (Oct 13, 2020)

It’s worth remembering that NZ has had a 4 level alert system since March. Obviously very different situation. But still. March.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 13, 2020)

Cid said:


> It’s worth remembering that NZ has had a 4 level alert system since March. Obviously very different situation. But still. March.



We’ve had a 5 tier one it’s just not been used.

Did I dream the Nando’s chart because apparently the government forgot it existed in June.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 13, 2020)

mr steev said:


> We've gone into tier 2 here, as we had local restrictions - no one seems to be quite sure whether the local restrictions will still be in place along with the new tier 2 restrictions. If they are, then to single people, we are not much different than tier 3 (no socialising anywhere unless you want to go and sit in the pub on your own) even though our rate has gone from 80 to 70/100,000, which is less than other places which are still on tier 1 - you can see why people are confused



The actual restrictions in each tier seem simple enough, but I agree how different areas get put into different tiers is likely to be confusing, and needs addressing.

From my understanding the new system replaces all the various local restrictions*, certainly it's reported that Oldham, with over 350 cases per 100k, is coming out of their 'very high' level local restrictions into tier 2 with the rest of Manchester.

It's certainly weird that whatever tier doesn't seem to reflect case numbers, Nottingham has moved to tier 2 despite having higher cases than Liverpool, which is tier 3, although the hospitals are filling up there, perhaps they are not yet in Nottingham.

ETA - yep, from the press release...



> The “high” alert level will reflect many current local interventions, but there will now be consistency across the country.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's certainly weird that whatever tier doesn't seem to reflect case numbers, Nottingham has moved to tier 2 despite having higher cases than Liverpool, which is tier 3, although the hospitals are filling up there, perhaps they are not yet in Nottingham.



Cases more concentrated amongst the student population in Nottingham perhaps? Just a guess though, could be something much less coherent.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 13, 2020)

So high risk, level 2, which NE England has been put in, is an easing off of the local restrictions. Under high risk measures we can meet other households anywhere outside, subject to the rule of 6; under the local restrictions it was against the law to meet in private gardens, and guidance was not to meet other households anywhere, and specific guidance not to spectate sport. The high risk measures say reduce the number of journeys you make where possible; the local restrictions guidance was to minimise non-essential travel, with a list of reasons for essential travel. The high risk measures allow for indoor exercise classes so long as there is no mixing; the local restrictions allowed indoor exercise classes for one household at a time only.

On the other hand, it is set out more clearly than the previous guidance, so maybe more people will follow it.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 13, 2020)

Supine said:


> Nothing about limiting movement between risk areas.
> 
> Nothing about ventilation being important.
> 
> ...


Yep and that ongoing failure of leadership will kill people and seriously harm a larger number.


----------



## LDC (Oct 13, 2020)

Didn't they make infection rate in the over-65s a significant marker for the which Tier places go into decision? So maybe in places with high infection rates in younger people they are holding off a bit until the cases rise in the over-65s?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 13, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Cases more concentrated amongst the student population in Nottingham perhaps? Just a guess though, could be something much less coherent.



That could well be one of the considerations, and perhaps why Exeter is staying in tier one, despite a case number of almost 500, but that's mainly amongst students.



> Day-by-day, Exeter's coronavirus infection rate has been moving up the national league table. On Friday 9 October, the city had the seventh highest rate in England.
> 
> But the majority of cases are at the University of Exeter, where a dedicated testing service was established at the start of term.
> 
> ...











						Exeter students' covid rate five times city average
					

But rate in community is rising too




					www.radioexe.co.uk


----------



## Badgers (Oct 13, 2020)

two sheds said:


> It's like chips  - you don't get 'small' and 'medium any more, they're the same size but they're called 'medium' and 'large'


See also pizza


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Oct 13, 2020)

The situation with students in Glasgow and Edinburgh is starting to sound desperate.... don't know if it has been mentioned here but my friend is telling me that on top of everything else the police are being really heavy handed with them, kicking doors in, pushing people around and swearing at them. This is Glasgow uni, and they've been totally unprepared in terms of getting decent food to folks who have actually paid through the nose for catering. Heard some more positive stuff re Glasgow Caley- they've been getting boxes of fresh fruit and veg, packages with DVD's to watch etc... the least you would expect when they aren't fucking allowed to go home.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 13, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Didn't they make infection rate in the over-65s a significant marker for the which Tier places go into decision? So maybe in places with high infection rates in younger people they are holding off a bit until the cases rise in the over-65s?



I would guess so, and of course that would be reflected in hospital admissions.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 13, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Didn't they make infection rate in the over-65s a significant marker for the which Tier places go into decision? So maybe in places with high infection rates in younger people they are holding off a bit until the cases rise in the over-65s?


Newcastle/North of Tyne politicians were arguing against tier 3 as claiming outbreak confined to students and young people. 
Thing is the students and young people still shop, eat, drink, exercise and travel often in the same shops, cafes, pubs, gyms, parks, and public transport used by local people of all ages - and the slides shown in the science press conference yesterday showed that infections in older people and hospitalisation were rising. A number of pubs near me (and close to Newcastle uni) have temporarily closed because of covid cases, but they by no means only or mainly drunk in by students. Also while many private halls have been built, there's still plenty of students and staff living in ordinary residential areas, and a significant proportion of Northumbria Uni students who come from the local area. And plenty local people work at the unis in some capacity - whether as academics or cleaners. 

There's no way won't spread to older people here, and people will die.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 13, 2020)

editor said:


> These fucking idiots.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've always gone with the line that the government creates the context for all this and has no real links into communities and the decisions people take. But then you see fuckwits like this. Astonishing and they deserve everything that's coming to them. Whilst the government is also responsible for...


----------



## LDC (Oct 13, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Newcastle/North of Tyne politicians were arguing against tier 3 as claiming outbreak confined to students and young people.
> Thing is the students and young people still shop, eat, drink, exercise and travel often in the same shops, cafes, pubs, gyms, parks, and public transport used by local people of all ages - and the slides shown in the science press conference yesterday showed that infections in older people and hospitalisation were rising. A number of pubs near me (and close to Newcastle uni) have temporarily closed because of covid cases, but they by no means only or mainly drunk in by students. Also while many private halls have been built, there's still plenty of students and staff living in ordinary residential areas, and a significant proportion of Northumbria Uni students who come from the local area. And plenty local people work at the unis in some capacity - whether as academics or cleaners.
> 
> There's no way won't spread to older people here, and people will die.



I agree, and have said elsewhere that I think some business 'leaders' and local councillors and personalities etc. haven't covered themselves in glory in these arguments about which Tier their area goes in.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 13, 2020)

bimble said:


> This whole thing is totally unenforceable and relies on us feeling that we are part of a wider whole which attitudes like the above (lock em up!) will not do anything to foster.


Things are so fucked up that I'm beyond caring what happens to idiots like this (I _think _I'm still an anarchist...). But yeah, that's exactly it. Neoliberalism and consumerism don't leave us in a good place when it comes to community ties and organising for the common good. Lots of people have shown great instincts and solidarity throughout this whole period but 'we' or the left haven't put in place our own structures and ways of protecting our own communities. I do think people are willing to think of the common good amid a pandemic, but everything in our society serves to dissipate that positivity.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 13, 2020)

I think part of the problem with "students" and the "under 35s" is that they think they are invulnerable or they will only get a mild case of the plague.

But, some 20% of them will be the spreaders out into the community, they all go out into shops etc even if they, as students, live on campus or work in town (the slightly older group). This is without deliberate parties ...

And thus it will spread in the wider community. And kill people.

I've already lost several friends during the pandemic, admittedly not all to covid-19 itself, but it had played a direct part in most cases. 
Luckily my wider family has been OK so far, but that group includes people with health problems. Epecially my Bezza who's just been in hospital for surgery !
I don't want any more unnecessary deaths, in general or amongst my family and friends, so I'm taking actions and all precautions as much as I can.


----------



## mr steev (Oct 13, 2020)

dp.


----------



## mr steev (Oct 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> From my understanding the new system replaces all the various local restrictions



That would make sense, and the Gov article you linked to seems to say this. Yet our local paper are reporting " People in Wolverhampton, Walsall, Sandwell, Solihull and Birmingham will also be barred from allowing others they do not live with or who are not in their support bubble into their homes or gardens - as is already the case under local restrictions in parts of the region. " (and for which you will get fined for)

Clear as mud


----------



## kalidarkone (Oct 13, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Didn't they make infection rate in the over-65s a significant marker for the which Tier places go into decision? So maybe in places with high infection rates in younger people they are holding off a bit until the cases rise in the over-65s?


Yes and also if the number of infected is high but mainly within the student population and so contained because they are locked down.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 13, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> We’ve had a 5 tier one it’s just not been used.
> 
> Did I dream the Nando’s chart because apparently the government forgot it existed in June.



And they launched the five-tier system with the news that we were at level three and a half


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 13, 2020)




----------



## GarveyLives (Oct 13, 2020)

GarveyLives said:


> in the midst of Covid-19-related protests about being unable to go to pubs or sunbathe, or having to wear face coverings, a very sad story:
> 
> ‘I feel she was abandoned’: The life and terrible death of Belly Mujinga



This sad case made national headlines at the time - several months later, it appears that like many others, *Belly Mujinga* was simply disposable:

*Belly Mujinga's* death: Searching for the truth


----------



## Raheem (Oct 13, 2020)

Listening to Matt Hancock speaking atm. Most of what he's saying seems to reflect the science (except he just claimed the UK has one of the most effective testing systems in the world). But there's such a massive gap between that and what the government is doing. We're in a clueless mess.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

> London could be put in a stricter lockdown within days, Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned.
> The government unveiled a three-tier system of restrictions in England to try to stop Covid spreading.
> London is classed as Tier One, the lowest level, and subject to national rules including the rule of six and the 22:00 curfew on hospitality venues.
> "Londoners should understand that this could change very quickly - potentially even this week," the mayor said.











						Covid-19: London restrictions could increase 'within a week'
					

London is classed as Tier One, the lowest level, but Mayor Sadiq Khan warns things could change.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid-19: London restrictions could increase 'within a week'
> 
> 
> London is classed as Tier One, the lowest level, but Mayor Sadiq Khan warns things could change.
> ...



Not really surprising, there have been murmurings for a while now.  Mt borough has suddenly gone from quite good to really bad.  I'm sure its just coincidence that it was the same time the big uni down the road started up again.

ETA: Essex is another one to look our for in the South East.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> ETA: Essex is another one to look our for in the South East.



Ah yes, I think they've asked to be upgraded to tier 2 ASAP, someone there has a clue about public health in a pandemic.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 13, 972 new cases reported today, and 50 deaths.
> 
> That death figure is worrying, as Monday's figures are for Sunday, so normally low, due to a lag in weekend reporting, last Monday the figure was 'just' 19.
> 
> ...



17,234 new cases reported today, and 143 deaths, but that takes up lag from the weekend reporting, still scary compared to last Tuesday's figure of 76.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 17,234 new cases reported today, and 143 deaths, but they takes up lag from the weekend reporting, still scary compared to last Tuesday's figure of 76.



My colour coded deaths graph is almost ready to go and that will show when those 143 deaths happened.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

And the same type of graph but for positive cases by test specimen date (like I did last week).


----------



## zahir (Oct 13, 2020)

Thanks for the graphs elbows. I think there's a date wrong at the top of the first one (15/10 twice).


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 13, 2020)

143? That's sad


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

zahir said:


> Thanks for the graphs elbows. I think there's a date wrong at the top of the first one (15/10 twice).



Cheers and thanks for the error spot. Good thing I now have several days to correct that error before that label points to any data anyway


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 17,234 new cases reported today, and 143 deaths, but that takes up lag from the weekend reporting, still scary compared to last Tuesday's figure of 76.



So it's more or less doubled compared to last week?


----------



## brogdale (Oct 13, 2020)

So Starmer is now calling for the national 'circuit-breaker' recommended by SAGE; smart call, I'd say.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 17,234 new cases reported today, and 143 deaths, but that takes up lag from the weekend reporting, still scary compared to last Tuesday's figure of 76.


Just bad.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

brogdale said:


> So Starmer is now calling for the national 'circuit-breaker' recommended by SAGE; smart call, I'd say.



I suppose I will watch his press conference.



> Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will hold his first live televised news conference this afternoon, responding to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's statement yesterday, and discussing the recent rise in coronavirus cases.
> 
> We'll be bringing all the latest as the conference gets under way at around 17:00 BST.



Quote is from BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54520651


----------



## brogdale (Oct 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> I suppose I will watch his press conference.
> 
> 
> 
> Quote is from BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54520651


Positions Johnson as precisely not following the science.


----------



## editor (Oct 13, 2020)

And there you have it 



> The organisation sponsoring the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocates a ‘herd immunity’ approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, has received PR support from an agency bankrolled by the Charles Koch Foundation to the tune of $1.4 million to support a range of climate science denial groups.











						Koch-Funded PR Agency Aided Great Barrington Declaration Sponsor – Byline Times
					

The company Emergent Order has provided extensive multimedia public relations support services to a network of climate science deniers bankrolled by the Charles Koch Foundation, Nafeez Ahmed reports




					bylinetimes.com


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 13, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> So it's more or less doubled compared to last week?



It is of course entirely predictable and Johnson and co will have known this was coming weeks ago.  It makes me wonder what sort of death numbers they have in their heads as being an acceptable number to keep the economy going in the way they have decided.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> It is of course entirely predictable and Johnson and co will have known this was coming weeks ago.  It makes me wonder what sort of death numbers they have in their heads as being an acceptable number to keep the economy going in the way they have decided.


I'd imagine that their capacity for collateral damage amongst the _useless mouths _is pretty large when they sense that their unearned income is threatened.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 13, 2020)

Ugh... feeling increasingly pessimistic today. I think we'll have another respite next spring and summer (though there is 0 chance of the weather being that good two years in a row) but I can't see that we won't be back exactly where we are now this time next year at this rate. Brexit's going to prevent any chance of any work on improving the UK's response, and totally compromise our ability to do so with access to people and resources being made much harder and more expensive.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

editor said:


> And there you have it
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Hancock took a big shit on the Barrington clowns today.



> “The Great Barrington declaration is underpinned by two central plains, and both are emphatically false. First, it says that if enough people get Covid, we will reach herd immunity. This is not true,” he said.
> 
> “Many infectious diseases never reached herd immunity like measles and malaria and flu … We should have no confidence that we would ever reach herd immunity to Covid, even if everyone caught it.





> “The second central claim is that we can segregate the old and the vulnerable on our way to herd immunity … we cannot somehow fence off the elderly and the vulnerable from risk, while everyone else returns to normal,” he said.
> 
> ]“It’s neither conscionable nor practicable, not when so many people live in intergenerational homes where older people need carers … and when young people can suffer the facilitating impact of long Covid. Whenever we’ve seen cases among young people rise sharply, we then see cases among the over-60s rise inevitably thereafter, and we are not the kind of country that abandons our vulnerable, or just locks them up.”











						Tory rebels fire warning shot as 42 MPs vote against stricter Covid measures
					

Matt Hancock criticises lockdown sceptics amid angry scenes in the Commons




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Positions Johnson as precisely not following the science.



The SAGE papers, Whitty etc already managed to do that, but I am very pleased to see Labour seize the moment.

I have no predictions about what will happen next on this front, and frankly am still in shock that the SAGE papers circuit-breaker stuff has not resulted in a lot of angry outrage on the forum today, or really any conversation at all. WTF?


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> The SAGE papers, Whitty etc already managed to do that, but I am very pleased to see Labour seize the moment.
> 
> I have no predictions about what will happen next on this front, and frankly am still in shock that the SAGE papers circuit-breaker stuff has not resulted in a lot of angry outrage on the forum today, or really any conversation at all. WTF?


For me, it's because I feel like there was this talk of needing a circuit breaker and schools half term being too late. I don't consume much news that I don't filter through here first but I assumed that was a sage leak at the time so this bit doesn't feel new. Iyswim.

Edit: it's hard to muster specific outrage when I feel like I've already been outraged over that and the entire handling is such a shitshow anyway.


----------



## LDC (Oct 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> I have no predictions about what will happen next on this front, and frankly am still in shock that the SAGE papers circuit-breaker stuff has not resulted in a lot of angry outrage on the forum today, or really any conversation at all. WTF?



I did write an incoherent hate filled rant on this thread when I heard the news this morning calling all the goverment cunts that need a people's justice court, then I gave up before I posted it.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Oct 13, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> For me, it's because I feel like there was this talk of needing a circuit breaker and schools half term being too late. I don't consume much news that I don't filter through here first but I assumed that was a sage leak at the time so this bit doesn't feel new. Iyswim.
> 
> Edit: it's hard to muster specific outrage when I feel like I've already been outraged over that and the entire handling is such a shitshow anyway.


as a British citizen,   I'm so overdrawn on outrange in recent years
No longer expect my government to act in my interest in any way

ETA: or to help anyone except if it adds to capital accumulation


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I did write an incoherent hate filled rant on this thread when I heard the news this morning calling all the goverment cunts that need a people's justice court, then I gave up before I posted it.



I know that feeling! Apart from the morning part.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> For me, it's because I feel like there was this talk of needing a circuit breaker and schools half term being too late. I don't consume much news that I don't filter through here first but I assumed that was a sage leak at the time so this bit doesn't feel new. Iyswim.
> 
> Edit: it's hard to muster specific outrage when I feel like I've already been outraged over that and the entire handling is such a shitshow anyway.



Cheers for the explanation.

We are really fucked if we've run out of outrage but sadly I do know that feeling in this pandemic.

As for whether it was news, various circuit breaker detail had been leaked before, but seeing it in writing along with plenty of detail and plenty of indications aobut what timing SAGE thinks was required and the implications of not doing it are very much news. They have certainly given Labour something to get its teeth into without having to come up with their own scientific/medical advisors to create an alternative plan for them.


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 13, 2020)

Something odd on the government data dashboard when I went to check the latest figures:



Anything in particular happening in Broxtowe?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 13, 2020)

I've never believed that the government were ever fully following the science.  I'm not sure many governments have.  There has been a big switch in tone from Johnson over the last few months from _we'll do everything in our power to prevent a second wave_ to _oh well its inevitable, strap in and lets try and get through it._

Where we are at now employing the circuit breaker would have surprised me as would have actually doing a nationwide shut down of hospitality yesterday.  Plus I've said on here before how sceptical I am about the effectiveness of a circuit breaker.  I am just a lay person though.


----------



## Mation (Oct 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> The SAGE papers, Whitty etc already managed to do that, but I am very pleased to see Labour seize the moment.
> 
> I have no predictions about what will happen next on this front, and frankly am still in shock that the SAGE papers circuit-breaker stuff has not resulted in a lot of angry outrage on the forum today, or really any conversation at all. WTF?


There's no surprise in it. It was obvious weeks ago that from a stopping the spread point of view, there should have been a lockdown. (I know there are lots of valid reasons for people not wanting to have one, though.)


----------



## Mation (Oct 13, 2020)

[double post]


----------



## brogdale (Oct 13, 2020)

Mation said:


> There's no surprise in it. It was obvious weeks ago that from a stopping the spread point of view, there should have been a lockdown. (I know there are lots of valid reasons for people not wanting to have one, though.)


The surprise element here is the political one; HMLO actually opposing, for once.


----------



## agricola (Oct 13, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The surprise element here is the political one; HMLO actually opposing, for once.



It will be interesting to see what the papers do tomorrow morning; if they remain true to form they'll have a massive go at him.  However if they do that they might paint themselves into a corner they can't get out of, especially now that XR showed everyone how much of a panic can be caused by just stopping them going out.


----------



## Mation (Oct 13, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Something odd on the government data dashboard when I went to check the latest figures:
> 
> View attachment 234224
> 
> Anything in particular happening in Broxtowe?




Perhaps it quietly declared independence?


----------



## smokedout (Oct 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 17,234 new cases reported today, and 143 deaths, but that takes up lag from the weekend reporting, still scary compared to last Tuesday's figure of 76.



I think the hospital admission figures are the most worrying.  We're now at around the same daily rate as 20th/21st March two days before the big lockdown and about two and a half weeks before we were at 1000 deaths a day.  Given full lockdown didn't prevent that number of deaths then it seems that's where we're heading again.


----------



## Mation (Oct 13, 2020)

smokedout said:


> I think the hospital admission figures are the most worrying.  We're now at around the same daily rate as 20th/21st March two days before the big lockdown and about two and a half weeks before we were at 1000 deaths a day.  Given full lockdown didn't prevent that number of deaths then it seems that's where we're heading again.


Deaths lag infections, though. Surely the lockdown prevented 1000 deaths a day - a reflection of pre-lockdown infection rates - from becoming even higher.


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 13, 2020)

Mation said:


> Perhaps it quietly declared independence?



Nottinghamshire getting in there before Kent.


----------



## killer b (Oct 13, 2020)

We aren't on the same trajectory as March though are we - due to what measures there are in places, doubling is every 10 day (ish) and slowing, whereas it was every 3 days iirc back then.


----------



## andysays (Oct 13, 2020)

I see Starmer is calling for a 2 to 3 week circuit breaker.

Is that really enough to make a significant difference?


----------



## smokedout (Oct 13, 2020)

Mation said:


> Deaths lag infections, though. Surely the lockdown prevented 1000 deaths a day - a reflection of pre-lockdown infection rates - from becoming even higher.



Well yeah, it could be worse this time.


----------



## smokedout (Oct 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> We aren't on the same trajectory as March though are we - due to what measures there are in places, doubling is every 10 day (ish) and slowing, whereas it was every 3 days iirc back then.



That's assuming the testing regime is consistent and giving an accurate picture.  If we assume that people are being hospitalised at the same rate as the first wave then surely we have roughly the same number of infections in circulation as we did just before the beginning of lockdown which wasn't enough to stop 1000 daily deaths at its peak.  I don't know, I hope someone shows me I'm wrong, but it really doesn't look good.  Hopefully improvement in treatment will mitigate things a bit, but those hospital figures only look to be going one way.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

andysays said:


> I see Starmer is calling for a 2 to 3 week circuit breaker.
> 
> Is that really enough to make a significant difference?



He has called for that because it allows them to say 'this is what SAGE wanted' rather than having to come up with their own ideas.

The problem is that the SAGE circuit breaker plan was based on it being activated during a certain moment in the curve, and weeks have passed since then so we are a now at a different point which may change the calculation significantly.

The other problem involves what people think counts as significant difference, and whether they can spot that difference. And that obviously we dont have parallel universes with different measures that we can compare to what actually happens under the measures we actually did.

I would expect a significant different. The timing and trajectory of the wave would be changed by a circuit breaker. Light would not suddenly appear at the end of the tunnel, and plenty of people would struggle to see it as a success. But at a minimum it buys time and in a situation where the seasonal pressures threaten the NHS buying time is its own reward, even when people notice that the government squanders the time that was bought. Because actually they cannot squander all that such time brings, because all time bought brings us closer to the end of winter, to vaccines, to some other stuff. Success in these acute pandemic phases mostly means keeping various numbers within a certain range. As such, failure is much easier to spot.


----------



## zahir (Oct 13, 2020)

YouGov poll: Daily Question  | 13/10/2020  |  YouGov


> It has been reported that the government’s scientific advisory committee (SAGE) recommended in September that there should have been a three week national lockdown period. Do you think the government should have introduced a national lockdown period in September?




54% in favour
28% against


----------



## LDC (Oct 13, 2020)

zahir said:


> YouGov poll: Daily Question  | 13/10/2020  |  YouGov
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, it's worrying and depressing how many people are against any more restrictions tbh.


----------



## BCBlues (Oct 13, 2020)

zahir said:


> YouGov poll: Daily Question  | 13/10/2020  |  YouGov
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And "superforecaster" Cummings couldn't see this popular support for a critical move and thus advise (push) Johnson/Hancock down this route


----------



## two sheds (Oct 13, 2020)

smokedout said:


> I think the hospital admission figures are the most worrying.  We're now at around the same daily rate as 20th/21st March two days before the big lockdown and about two and a half weeks before we were at 1000 deaths a day.  Given full lockdown didn't prevent that number of deaths then it seems that's where we're heading again.



And that's not likely to be a result of increased testing .


----------



## LDC (Oct 13, 2020)

smokedout said:


> That's assuming the testing regime is consistent and giving an accurate picture.  If we assume that people are being hospitalised at the same rate as the first wave then surely we have roughly the same number of infections in circulation as we did just before the beginning of lockdown which wasn't enough to stop 1000 daily deaths at its peak.  I don't know, I hope someone shows me I'm wrong, but it really doesn't look good.  Hopefully improvement in treatment will mitigate things a bit, but those hospital figures only look to be going one way.
> 
> View attachment 234226



Yeah, I think it's really looking bad given we have these figures now, 5+ months of winter ahead of us, and a population split on whether they want, or will comply with, restrictions.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

smokedout said:


> That's assuming the testing regime is consistent and giving an accurate picture.  If we assume that people are being hospitalised at the same rate as the first wave then surely we have roughly the same number of infections in circulation as we did just before the beginning of lockdown which wasn't enough to stop 1000 daily deaths at its peak.  I don't know, I hope someone shows me I'm wrong, but it really doesn't look good.  Hopefully improvement in treatment will mitigate things a bit, but those hospital figures only look to be going one way.



Key differences this time are trajectory realted, eg how many people each of those infected people goes on to infect, and how many days it takes for the number of infections to double.

These are not expected to be close to the values they were the first time around because our combined behaviour and mixing patterns had not gone back to exactly what it was in late February and early March.

Coupled with the fact we could see this reemergence coming much better this time due to far more testing, the current situation resembles the first one in slow motion. That slow motion allows more time for political dithering, and even a false sense of security about how bad it could get or how quickly action is required. But is also affects how quickly lhealthcare gets overwhelmed, how quickly the deaths will rise, etc.

The other big difference this time is much greater regional variation. That has lots of implications and for me it also invalidates those who are seeking to downplay the second wave by making comparisons to 1000 deaths per day at the first waves peak. We should look at regional death peak figures and judge this next wave based on how rates in particular regions compare to rates in those areas the first time, not only the UK figures in total.

And though the ultimate peaks are eye-catching but its the total area of the death graph that counts, and that can end up worse in a slow motion replay than it was in a short sharp spike.

I shall set out the ultimate first wave daily deaths peak value according to the most recent ONS daily figures anyway, so people will have some guide when judging the next one at different levels of geography/population.

Peak deaths per day, by actual date of death. (Peak on April 8th unless otherwise stated):

UK 1449
England 1279
Scotland 105 (9th April)
Wales 72 (a figure that was also matched on the 12th April)
Northern Ireland 24 (9th April)

London 326
West Midlands 161
East Midlands 90 (April 12th)
South East 193 (9th April)
South West 91 (10th April)
East 135
North West 213 (April 16th)
North East 79 (April 10th)

And of course there is no reason that level of zooming in should be the limit, and in reality when attempting to judge this next wave in badly affected places I will be comparing more local stats including hospital deaths per NHS trust.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

50 hospital trusts with the most Covid-19 admissions for the period of 30th September-October 6th (since we dont get this data straight away). Raw numbers, not adjusted for size of the populations they serve:



Data obtained from the weekly admissions document from the following page, although I added the totals column and then sorted it by those totals and only included the first 50 here. Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## smokedout (Oct 13, 2020)

> These are not expected to be close to the values they were the first time around because our combined behaviour and mixing patterns had not gone back to exactly what it was in late February and early March.



I'm not convinced by that just based on personal observation.  By mid March most pubs were shut, everyone was obsessively washing hands and lots of people were already working from home.  People had just seen the horror shows in Wuhan and Italy and there was a genuine sense of fear which was reflected in people's interactions.  I don't see that now, I see people acting like it's gone away, meeting friends and hugging and shaking hands and pubs full of pissed people whilst people are going back to work and taking more risks out of economic necessity.

I do think that's an important point about regional differences.  The hospital situation in London doesn't look quite as dire as nationally, presumably there's some level of immunity that's slowing things down and things like the city being shut down, lack of tourism and no large events probably have a disproportionate impact on infection rates in London.  It's places like the South West that have escaped the worst so far that might turn out to be the next hotspots.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

smokedout said:


> I'm not convinced by that just based on personal observation.  By mid March most pubs were shut, everyone was obsessively washing hands and lots of people were already working from home.  People had just seen the horror shows in Wuhan and Italy and there was a genuine sense of fear which was reflected in people's interactions.  I don't see that now, I see people acting like it's gone away, meeting friends and hugging and shaking hands and pubs full of pissed people whilst people are going back to work and taking more risks out of economic necessity.
> 
> I do think that's an important point about regional differences.  The hospital situation in London doesn't look quite as dire as nationally, presumably there's some level of immunity that's slowing things down and things like the city being shut down, lack of tourism and no large events probably have a disproportionate impact on infection rates in London.  It's places like the South West that have escaped the worst so far that might turn out to be the next hotspots.



I'm not being complacent about that, and I cringe if I hear anyone confidently predicting that we wont have as much death as last time.

All Im talking about is the doubling time and R. Those are not the same as last time, I can be quite confident about that because the numbers we've had since the uptick began to show up in August prove it. If the doubling time and R were what they were last time, the trajectory of hospital admissions would have been different to what it has been.

There are limits to what I am saying. R can still increase from where it has been in the period I describe, the doubling time can still decrease further. And the current official estimate of the doubling time is quite broad, indiating how much uncertainty there is about exactly what the doubling time is. They dont know if its one week or two weeks (ish).

There are indeed lots of reasons like the ones you've seen that explain why R is much higher now than it was some months ago. And seasonal factors can make it worse still as the next few months go by. But 100% of the population have not returned to behaving exactly as they did before the pandemic. Masks arent a difference-maker on their own, but they are expected to do more than no masks. Everything matters because the trajectory matters, there are different degrees of success and failure, nothing is pointless.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 13, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, it's worrying and depressing how many people are against any more restrictions tbh.


Some of that may well be motivated by loss of income . We have a two or three tier system whereby some can work from home or self isolate on full salary but many will only receive 66% of pay for new furloughs which simply isn’t sufficient and what about the swathes of self employed ? .


----------



## Spandex (Oct 13, 2020)

smokedout said:


> That's assuming the testing regime is consistent and giving an accurate picture.  If we assume that people are being hospitalised at the same rate as the first wave then surely we have roughly the same number of infections in circulation as we did just before the beginning of lockdown which wasn't enough to stop 1000 daily deaths at its peak.  I don't know, I hope someone shows me I'm wrong, but it really doesn't look good.  Hopefully improvement in treatment will mitigate things a bit, but those hospital figures only look to be going one way.
> 
> View attachment 234226


The chart you posted shows hospital admissions are going up much more slowly than they were in March. And that'll be because of the many things being done now that weren't 7 months ago: widespread use of facemasks, lots of people working from home, mixing households discouraged, some things like nightclubs still shut, etc, as well as the general awareness of Covid. But the numbers are still rising and with most of autumn and the whole winter ahead of us the current trajectory still looks like a slow motion repete of spring. There'll probably (hopefully) be less people dying on any one day than the April peak, but over a longer period meaning still a huge death toll. More needs doing to put those numbers in reverse. 

The measures actually announced yesterday (a few pubs, betting shops and leisure centres shutting in Liverpool) will do almost nothing to slow the rise. As more places go into tier three (or whatever it's called today) - and many more places will have to - it should slow the rise some more, but that alone is unlikely to be enough. 

There absolutely needs to be better central government financial support for businesses shut by the lockdown - at least equal to the 80% furlough scheme - to encourage acceptance of going into tier three. There needs to be more support for people expected to self isolate. Universities should be online only already (the Uni fuck up is going to be hard to undo now it's done). There's a long list of things of things that should be done - and done yesterday - if the government want to avoid another full lockdown, which at a certain level of deaths will become unavoidable. 

But the government seems determined to do as little as possible. They are happy to sacrifice huge numbers of lives on the altar of The Economy, which will ultimately prove counterproductive as they won't do what is required to prevent another hugely damaging major lockdown. 

I'm nervous of the two or three week 'circuit breaker' lockdown. One, because there's a real risk that a lack of immediate results will lead to it keeping going once it's started and two, because I don't trust the government not to squander the time it buys as other issues pop up to preoccupy them. I'm dreading another full lockdown. I had a bad time during the last one. But the more the government try to avoid taking the measures they need to, the more likely it becomes.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

And as I've said several times recently, I'm also not complacent because the R we hear about is for the community, it doesnt usually include the hospital or care home picture. And the 'hospital admissions' figures also include people who were in hospital for other reasons but then tested positive.

So there is a range of hospital figures that, if they explode in certain ways at some points, are not necessarily an indication that behaviour in the community deteriorated at some recent stage. It could be a sign that community infection levels just carried on at the same trajectory but at some stage reached a point where as a result of number of infections in the community, hospitals found it increasingly difficult to stop outbreaks occurring within the hospital, and I suspect that can have a really dramatic effect on the numbers.


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## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

The way the government are handling the current phase seems completely incompatible with the agenda to keep lots of other bits of the NHS running this time that were suspended last time. And so despite whatever the plans say on paper, I think there is a widely held expectation that the following sort of thing will become the norm again:



> Plymouth's Derriford Hospital has announced a temporary pause in non-critical inpatient surgery due to the "growing number of Covid patients and a need to ensure we can keep everyone safe".
> 
> Chief operating officer Kevin Baber said: "We appreciate how difficult it is for a patient to have their surgery cancelled and apologise for the distress and inconvenience this causes."
> 
> ...



From BBC live updates page at 18:31 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54520651


----------



## zora (Oct 13, 2020)

elbows, I hope you have been reassured that our collective non-response to the SAGE stuff was not because we don't care.

Like others, I had some half-finished "fuckety fuck we are really fucked"-posts sitting in my various comments boxes.  And this morning while in the bathroom I composed a lengthy rant in my head; the central gist of which was that Johnson and the Tories could even have sold a "circuit breaker" in a xenophobic jingoistic manner if that's what it takes to get them to act: "Unlike the French, we won't be fooled by this enemy twice, we are going to stamp on it hard so that we can emerge strong into the new Brexit dawn...control our borders against the virus...blah blah blah"...I mean it writes itself...[only I didn't want to give them any ideas ]

And also like others, I was completely unsurprised. Universities being allowed to go back and the resulting unfolding clusterfuck did still shock me, because that came at the time when I had allowed myself a glimmer of hope that maybe just maybe they wouldn't repeat the whole shitshow bit. by. bloody.bit.
So now, if anything, I am somewhat relieved at the revelation, which is putting a stronger lockdown at least back on the agenda.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 13, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I think it's really looking bad given we have these figures now, 5+ months of winter ahead of us, and a population split on whether they want, or will comply with, restrictions.


Yep, it really looks bad.  it's the sort of scenario where we should be really worried about our families and communities, it gets me close to tears when I allow myself to think about it (bit fragile anyway, by the by).  As you say, we know its coming and we know it will be difficult to get the population avoiding the things that spread the virus. We can't rely on the state and there's not much sign that we can organise any of this ourselves. What I find most depressing is that whilst the polls show relatively low levels of support for Johnson's handling of the virus, there's nothing like a new politics emerging or even a decent wave of hate being directed against the vermin.


----------



## killer b (Oct 13, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Some of that may well be motivated by loss of income . We have a two or three tier system whereby some can work from home or self isolate on full salary but many will only receive 66% of pay for new furloughs which simply isn’t sufficient and what about the swathes of self employed ? .


Totally - plus lots of people take their cues from government action, and if the government are taking it all 14% less seriously than they were in the spring, then it follows that so will large swathes of the population.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> Totally - plus lots of people take their cues from government action, and if the government are taking it all 14% less seriously than they were in the spring, then it follows that so will large swathes of the population.



There is the opposite thing in play as well though, where people started to change their behaviour behcause they thought the government was too slow last time.

I expect some of that again this time, but probably much diminished for reasons I wont bore on about right now. Customer footfall and travel data from various different areas may eventually provide some guide as to what effect the different mood music of the last month+ compared to the summer mood, and the renewed sense of government doing too little  is having. Doesnt help with all the infection scenarios where people feel they have no choice (eg needing to go to work to keep a roof over their heads)


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

zora said:


> elbows, I hope you have been reassured that our collective non-response to the SAGE stuff was not because we don't care.



Dont worry, that was not one of the possibilities I was considering. Especially as those who dont care or dont get it either dont bother with this thread or only pop in very sporadically to demonstrate how little they care and understand. Speaking of which I think one of the last examples from that category is due back to indulge further in their ignorance by going on about how 'see, we havent got the 50,000 cases a day by 13th October that Whitty & Vallance were on about in their September 21st example of exponential growth graphs'. Hopefully they wont bother.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 13, 2020)

When the news came out and I realised that SAGE had advised for the "circuit breaker" of lockdown, plus other measures and been largely ignored (other than the WFH if you can) I was flabbergasted for some time. Until I realised that BJ and his yes men  the cabinet were effectively beholden to The Money Makers so had to try to get the economy going at all costs. 
Reading this beeb piece says it all ...









						Covid-19: Are we still listening to the science?
					

Sage and Prof Chris Whitty appear at odds with the political decisions made by government.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I've said repeatedly that I don't think pubs and higher education should have been opened up at the same time, one or t'other but not both.
I've also said, several times, booze in = brains out - at the very least being drunk tends to reduce inhibitions ... and common sense.*

* A group of young men I worked with were on a night out (I had been there but left very early as I had no desire to get totally smashed mid-week). When I left everyone was very happy and somewhat merry, and several tried to get me to stay, but I went home ...
... next morning I came into work, and the place was very sombre - far more so than a collective hangover warranted, someone was quick to explain - before I could say anything - that several of the guys had tried, after rather too much to drink, to swim across the Tyne to save walking around by the Swing Bridge and board the Tux. (Nightclub ex-ferry that lived ubder the Tyne Bridge).
Not all of them made it.
One was pulled out by the Swing Bridge and another washed up at Dunston Staithes a couple of days later.
Sober, they would never have tried ...


----------



## teuchter (Oct 13, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> And "superforecaster" Cummings couldn't see this popular support for a critical move and thus advise (push) Johnson/Hancock down this route


That survey represents popular opinion now, with hindsight, though. The answer might have been quite different if you'd asked the same question back in September.


----------



## Supine (Oct 13, 2020)

Big


----------



## killer b (Oct 13, 2020)

teuchter said:


> That survey represents popular opinion now, with hindsight, though. The answer might have been quite different if you'd asked the same question back in September.


when they asked a similar question back in september (when some initial new measures were being brought in, I forget what) there was something like 75% supportive of those measures, and a substantial number within that 75% wanting them to go further then. Had stronger measures been being proposed at that point, I reckon you'd have got similar numbers to now.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 13, 2020)

Supine said:


> Big



Well, starmer's timing was quite good to start pushing on this then.  Suspect the outcome will be zilch though, or rather a panicked lockdown at some point in November, when it's too late.


----------



## killer b (Oct 13, 2020)

I dunno - I think one of the reasons Starmer has gone in hard on the circuit breaker is because it's logic looks inescapable at this point - so when they crumble next week (as they'll need to if they want to use half term), it looks like a win for him.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

I dont have a way to judge how accurate any of the estimates and models for numbers of infections are, or future death predictions.

But here are the latest MRC Biostatistics Unit estimates anyway.

Their estimate for number of daily infections is quite close to what Whitty and Vallance showed in their model as happening by this stage of October, but if I remember correctly the Whitty/Vallance graph had the number of cases actually being picked up at the time by the testing system as the starting point, so it would be cheating of me to suggest this 47,000 estimate simply validates what they showed.



			https://joshuablake.github.io/public-RTM-reports/iframe.html
		




> Updated findings
> 
> Our current estimate of the number of infections occurring each day across England is 47,000 (28,900–74,900, 95% credible interval).
> We predict that the number of deaths each day is likely to be between 240 and 690 on the 26th October
> ...


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 13, 2020)

It really won't just be Starmer that pushes the Government into bringing in a half-term-or longer lockdown though -- that FT article above suggests there'll be a fair few other forces pushing it really strongly

And the infection-rate figures alone may leave the Government with little choice.


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## killer b (Oct 13, 2020)

no of course - the momentum is all building in that direction. Starmer onboard just adds a bit more weight to it.


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## hash tag (Oct 13, 2020)

You couldn't make it up Margaret Ferrier votes in Commons with the help of MP suspended for assaulting his wife


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> I dunno - I think one of the reasons Starmer has gone in hard on the circuit breaker is because it's logic looks inescapable at this point - so when they crumble next week (as they'll need to if they want to use half term), it looks like a win for him.



They need to crumble this week really since half term is next week in some places, and the week after in others.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 13, 2020)

hash tag said:


> You couldn't make it up Margaret Ferrier votes in Commons with the help of MP suspended for assaulting his wife



Nice of Boris to chip in.


----------



## killer b (Oct 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> They need to crumble this week really since half term is next week in some places, and the week after in others.


fair point, although it's the last week of the month most places iirc


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> fair point, although it's the last week of the month most places iirc



Yeah, one of the reasons I'm aware of it is that I'm in Warwickshire close to the Leicestershire border and unlike Warwickshire, Leicestershire is one of those places that has half term a week earlier. I dont know where else shares that timing, I'm investigating.

edit - my slightly sloppy investigation seems to show that in addition to Leicestershire, Devon, Cornwall, Nottinghamshire and the Isle of Wight appear to have the earlier half term holiday. Its possible I have missed some others.


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## belboid (Oct 13, 2020)

Starmers rationale for not opposing government measures before has been ‘we don’t have access to the scientific evidence the government are basing their decisions on’ 

The release of the specific sage advice that the government rejected has given him the chance to finally say something different.  Failing to do so would undermine his previous position, so he couldn’t really not call for implementing sage and a lockdown without being a hypocrite.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Oct 13, 2020)

hash tag said:


> You couldn't make it up Margaret Ferrier votes in Commons with the help of MP suspended for assaulting his wife





> Margaret Ferrier has refused to stand down



Bloody typical


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 13, 2020)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Bloody typical



that was the first song played after the news broadcast announcing her standing down on BBC Radio 1 when I heard the news.


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2020)

Pilot to see what effect spitting at the moon has fell short.









						'Operation Moonshot': doubts over UK's Covid test ambitions after trial scaled back
					

Salford saliva-testing scheme revised to focus on ‘high-risk environments and groups’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## BCBlues (Oct 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> That survey represents popular opinion now, with hindsight, though. The answer might have been quite different if you'd asked the same question back in September.



Isnt that Cummings alleged skillset though, forecasting? I wouldnt trust him to tell me tomorrows date.


----------



## Mation (Oct 14, 2020)

teuchter said:


> That survey represents popular opinion now, with hindsight, though. The answer might have been quite different if you'd asked the same question back in September.


Hmm. They've just left it long enough and get bad enough that most people now want lockdown.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 14, 2020)

Students handed used test kits.









						Students handed coronavirus test kits that had already been used
					

They opened the kits and found sealed bags inside




					metro.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Oct 14, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Students handed used test kits.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sabotage!


----------



## Wilf (Oct 14, 2020)

My guess is that starmer's call on the circuit breaker, though correct, probably pushes back the governments inevitable crumble. So, they'll miss the chance to do it at half term and will be, literally, too little too late.


----------



## bimble (Oct 14, 2020)

Wilf said:


> My guess is that starmer's call on the circuit breaker, though correct, probably pushes back the governments inevitable crumble. So, they'll miss the chance to do it at half term and will be, literally, too little too late.


You mean if he’d not said anything they’d likely done a screeching u turn as usual but now they won’t so as not to appear to have listened to him?


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 14, 2020)

Wilf said:


> My guess is that starmer's call on the circuit breaker, though correct, probably pushes back the governments inevitable crumble. So, they'll miss the chance to do it at half term and will be, literally, too little too late.


Circuit breaker without proper financial remuneration for workers isn’t correct.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> You mean if he’d not said anything they’d likely done a screeching u turn as usual but now they won’t so as not to appear to have listened to him?


I certainly think that Labour's positioning on this means they'll fiddle around within the 3 tiers thing for a bit longer than would have otherwise been the case. I don't think Labour's positioning is anything like the key factor in all of this, it's a multi-level fuck up that's built up for months in all the key dimensions of the Covid response.  That's been a mixture of ideology and incompetence.  But Labour are, finally, saying we need to shift the balance over to the 'saving lives' bit of the economy v lives continuum*, which in turn is a very clear political statement that the government are wrong in _their _version of that balance. I'm only making a small point really, which is that mapping out some new Labour territory, almost by definition, Johnson will pull away from that.

* I realise the continuum/balance is more complicated than that and that Sage advice features in there/


----------



## editor (Oct 14, 2020)

Imagine providing such shit leadership that the public almost end up begging you to make an unpopular total lockdown.


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2020)

Hospital outbreak news from this week so far, with various degrees of information and clues:









						Doncaster hospital ward in lockdown after four patients test positive for Covid-19
					

A Doncaster hospital has had a partial lockdown after four patients tested positive for Covid-19.




					www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk
				












						Covid outbreak at Swansea's Morriston Hospital
					

Swansea Bay health board say 10 patients and five staff had tested positive at Morriston Hospital.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




And a QCQ report into failings at Hillingdon a while back:









						Study day with dozens of Hillingdon Hospital staff led to Covid-19 outbreak
					

Inspectors also found some staff were not following PPE rules




					www.mylondon.news


----------



## Wilf (Oct 14, 2020)

editor said:


> Imagine providing such shit leadership that the public almost end up begging you to make an unpopular total lockdown.


Take your  point about the shit leadership, of course, but I'm not sure about the rest of it. I suspect we're in (or will be in a fortnight or so) a period of pessimism, fear, fatalism and all kinds of other negative emotions about the pandemic and lockdowns. In the middle of that, a large % won't see a proper lockdown as worthwhile, because of that same mixture of emotions.  Because there isn't a national campaign for a lockdown, I can see Johnson dragging it out for another month before shifting anything.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont have a way to judge how accurate any of the estimates and models for numbers of infections are, or future death predictions.
> 
> But here are the latest MRC Biostatistics Unit estimates anyway.
> 
> ...


One way to judge likely deaths is to compare with what's been happening in Spain and France. In Spain, daily deaths have levelled out at around 110-120 a day. In France, they haven't reached 100 a day yet. Both countries have more people currently in hospital than the UK. On that basis, I would call their prediction of 240-690 deaths per day in the UK in 12 days' time extremely unlikely, even at its bottom end. I see no reason why the UK would suddenly veer so far beyond what's happened in Spain or France, having tracked along behind them relatively closely thus far.


----------



## Mation (Oct 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> One way to judge likely deaths is to compare with what's been happening in Spain and France. In Spain, daily deaths have levelled out at around 110-120 a day. In France, they haven't reached 100 a day yet. Both countries have more people currently in hospital than the UK. On that basis, I would call their prediction of 240-690 deaths per day in the UK in 12 days' time extremely unlikely, even at its bottom end. I see no reason why the UK would suddenly veer so far beyond what's happened in Spain or France, having tracked along behind them relatively closely thus far.


The weather and consequent differences in behaviour? (I don't know.)


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> One way to judge likely deaths is to compare with what's been happening in Spain and France. In Spain, daily deaths have levelled out at around 110-120 a day. In France, they haven't reached 100 a day yet. Both countries have more people currently in hospital than the UK. On that basis, I would call their prediction of 240-690 deaths per day in the UK in 12 days' time extremely unlikely, even at its bottom end. I see no reason why the UK would suddenly veer so far beyond what's happened in Spain or France, having tracked along behind them relatively closely thus far.



I will try to be brief for once, and will just pick one or two angles for now.

My first angle woud be to look at the regional picture, not just the national one, especially when comparing countries.

My second is that when I hear the authorities warning about 'tipping points', I remain concerned that one of the tipping points they really mean is the one where community infections and admissions reach a level where it becomes much harder for them to prevent hospital outbreaks.

I do not have a HSJ subscription so cannot read the following article from October 9th. But the intro is hopefully enough to get a sense of what point I'd seek to make with it:









						Covid cases caught in hospital more than double in a week
					

The number of covid-19 cases likely to have been caught by patients already in hospital for other conditions has more than doubled in a week - rising more quickly than coronavirus admissions from the community.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				






> The number of covid-19 cases likely to have been caught by patients already in hospital for other conditions has more than doubled in a week — rising more quickly than coronavirus admissions from the community.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 14, 2020)

I don't understand their workings. The current daily death rate is probably now getting close to 100, will possibly hit that this week. And may continue to rise for next week, but why would it explode like that, given that the R numbers around the country, while still above 1, have been falling? Looking at hospital admissions, only two regions currently - NW and NE - are at levels much higher than around 10% of first wave peak. Most regions are not increasing rapidly. So in 12 days, it could be 150-odd perhaps. No way it could be 690. That just makes no sense at all. But they judge 690 to be more likely than 230!!!

Re looking at things regionally, of course that's important anywhere bigger than a single town, but doing that for Spain, for example, shows various places past peak now. Spain's overall rate of infection is now on its way down, but its rate of increase fell for a while first. It wasn't a sudden turnaround. 

Any considerations for hospital infections also apply in Spain and France.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> One way to judge likely deaths is to compare with what's been happening in Spain and France. In Spain, daily deaths have levelled out at around 110-120 a day. In France, they haven't reached 100 a day yet. Both countries have more people currently in hospital than the UK. On that basis, I would call their prediction of 240-690 deaths per day in the UK in 12 days' time extremely unlikely, even at its bottom end. *I see no reason why the UK would suddenly veer so far beyond what's happened in Spain or France, having tracked along behind them relatively closely thus far.*



Tracked along behind them?

The 7-day rolling average of deaths in France & the UK are now equal on 82 per day, on 30th Sept. France was on 73 & the UK on 40, our death rate is accelerating more rapidly than in France.


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2020)

One more reply for now. Cannot assume hospital outbreak situation will be the same everywhere. I dont know what the picture is like in Spain and France but I know that if we were comparing Germany to the UK, I would be busy implying that they do things on that front better than us, in part because having loads more capacity in the system helps with infection control.

Its tempting to just wait until the requisite amount of time has passed before judging their estimates and your impressions of what was likely and not likely. But I will say a few things before then, but am busy for the next few hours and will likely attempt this in the context of todays figures by date of actual death, once I've had time to process that data and make todays graph.

For now I'll just say that it is unwise to take at face value the estimates for R dropping that you have seen. And this also ties into my point about hospital infections as a death amplifier, since the R the likes of Zoe attempt to ascertain is probably for community only so misses the hospital and care home picture.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 14, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> that was the first song played after the news broadcast announcing her standing down on BBC Radio 1 when I heard the news.


Shows you how effective political songwriting can be. Took less than 10 years.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 14, 2020)

Saying you have lower infections than Spain and France isn't necessarily something to be congratulatory at given France had something like 26k on a single day last week. Its not that hard to be better than them


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 14, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Saying you have lower infections than Spain and France isn't necessarily something to be congratulatory at given France had something like 26k on a single day last week. Its not that hard to be better than them



We also also testing a lot more than both France & Spain, over 219k tests yesterday*.

*ETA just short of 265k today.


----------



## Edie (Oct 14, 2020)

editor said:


> Imagine providing such shit leadership that the public almost end up begging you to make an unpopular total lockdown.


Well, not all of em


----------



## editor (Oct 14, 2020)

Edie said:


> Well, not all of em



It's precisely because of the lack of coherent leadership that people end up acting like that - and I put the blame for that right on the twat Cummings with his fucking eyesight piss-taking trip.  You could almost feel any hope of national solidarity tearing apart when he got away with it.


----------



## Edie (Oct 14, 2020)

editor said:


> It's precisely because of the lack of coherent leadership that people end up acting like that - and I put the blame for that right on the twat Cummings with his fucking eyesight piss-taking trip.  You could almost feel any hope of national solidarity tearing apart when he got away with it.


True. I think the reality is as well that people feel less afraid, and utterly utterly sick of their own four walls. Think how scared we all were in April. A lot of people do not feel like that now, despite the ICU in Liverpool being at 95% occupancy and more covid patients than during the first peak.


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2020)

I misread that video title as something to do with crowd surfing a police car.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 14, 2020)

19,724 new cases


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 14, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 19,724 new cases



And, 137 deaths, up from 70 last Wednesday, taking our 7-day rolling average to 91-92 per day, from 53 a week ago,


----------



## killer b (Oct 14, 2020)

Edie said:


> True. I think the reality is as well that people feel less afraid, and utterly utterly sick of their own four walls. Think how scared we all were in April. A lot of people do not feel like that now, despite the ICU in Liverpool being at 95% occupancy and more covid patients than during the first peak.


tbh it feels closer in this time to me - during the spring peak I didn't know anyone who actually got ill, this time I've had my kid off school 'cause her classmate tested positive, mrs B's neice is laid up at uni with it, and last night my sister in law (a primary teacher) told us she's been infected.

It doesn't escape my notice all of these are in education settings...


----------



## emanymton (Oct 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> tbh it feels closer in this time to me - during the spring peak I didn't know anyone who actually got ill, this time I've had my kid off school 'cause her classmate tested positive, mrs B's neice is laid up at uni with it, and last night my sister in law (a primary teacher) told us she's been infected.
> 
> It doesn't escape my notice all of these are in education settings...


Same I don't know anyway or even know anyone who knew anyone who had had it until a few weeks ago. Now I know 3 people who have had it.


----------



## smokedout (Oct 14, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't understand their workings. The current daily death rate is probably now getting close to 100, will possibly hit that this week. And may continue to rise for next week, but why would it explode like that, given that the R numbers around the country, while still above 1, have been falling? Looking at hospital admissions, only two regions currently - NW and NE - are at levels much higher than around 10% of first wave peak. Most regions are not increasing rapidly. So in 12 days, it could be 150-odd perhaps. No way it could be 690. That just makes no sense at all. But they judge 690 to be more likely than 230!!!
> 
> Re looking at things regionally, of course that's important anywhere bigger than a single town, but doing that for Spain, for example, shows various places past peak now. Spain's overall rate of infection is now on its way down, but its rate of increase fell for a while first. It wasn't a sudden turnaround.
> 
> Any considerations for hospital infections also apply in Spain and France.



We're currently at the point we were just before lockdown in terms of number of people hospitalised daily.  It took three weeks for hospital admissions to start coming down even after full lockdown was introduced.  So whilst the rise, at present, may be slower, I don't see any reason to assume it won't get just as bad without drastic action, it will just take a bit longer.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Oct 14, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Same I don't know anyway or even know anyone who knew anyone who had had it until a few weeks ago. Now I know 3 people who have had it.


London in March and April had cases everywhere very quickly - it felt so rapid


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> tbh it feels closer in this time to me - during the spring peak I didn't know anyone who actually got ill, this time I've had my kid off school 'cause her classmate tested positive, mrs B's neice is laid up at uni with it, and last night my sister in law (a primary teacher) told us she's been infected.
> 
> It doesn't escape my notice all of these are in education settings...


Innit.
I knew OF people who had it first time. We didn't have any cases in college in March (we locked down the Thursday before the gov locked down everywhere on the Monday). But now we've had 3 cases in college, our numbers in the region are rocketing, and yet it seems my college isn't closing any time soon and so it's basically "do I/my wife/my son get it before enough others get it that they HAVE to close down the college".

As for those crowds in Liverpool, well. You can only have so much tolerance for the argument that unclear messages from a shambolic government are the sole reason people are behaving like thick selfish cunts, you know? People DO have a to take SOME responsibility for their actions


----------



## emanymton (Oct 14, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> London in March and April had cases everywhere very quickly - it felt so rapid


Yeah, I don't think the North had anything like the same number of cases. Might be why it is worse up here now.


----------



## Edie (Oct 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> tbh it feels closer in this time to me - during the spring peak I didn't know anyone who actually got ill, this time I've had my kid off school 'cause her classmate tested positive, mrs B's neice is laid up at uni with it, and last night my sister in law (a primary teacher) told us she's been infected.
> 
> It doesn't escape my notice all of these are in education settings...


Absolutely the same. I mean surely everyone, especially in the North now, knows someone in their immediate friends/family/work colleagues. I know two nurses from my team at work, my mates daughter, and my lads both have _multiple_ cases among their friends. It’s bloody everywhere!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 14, 2020)

Kinell. Cases in my area were under 300 TOTAL until mid-Sept. There have been 249 in the last week, and up to 157 per 100,000 from around 12 a month ago. The 35 deaths have become 37, but I expect that will grow soon enough.


----------



## killer b (Oct 14, 2020)

S☼I said:


> As for those crowds in Liverpool, well. You can only have so much tolerance for the argument that unclear messages from a shambolic government are the sole reason people are behaving like thick selfish cunts, you know? People DO have a to take SOME responsibility for their actions


I don't think the _selfish cunts_ chat serves any good purpose tbh. You only need a tiny % of the population in a city the size of liverpool to make a substantial crowd, so that kind of thing happening occasionally is unavoidable - you'll never convince everyone. The only purpose tutting at images like that serves is to reinforce the government's contention that it's us not doing what we're told that's the problem.


----------



## LDC (Oct 14, 2020)

Shitting hell, go to work at 12 noon, come out at 5pm and it's all gone even more bonkers.

Everyone at work knows people with +tive tests now in the community. It's totally everywhere now. We're a bit fucked.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think the _selfish cunts_ chat serves any good purpose tbh. You only need a tiny % of the population in a city the size of liverpool to make a substantial crowd, so that kind of thing happening occasionally is unavoidable - you'll never convince everyone. The only purpose tutting at images like that serves is to reinforce the government's contention that it's us not doing what we're told that's the problem.


I know, I know. It's just...I don't see why ANYONE would think that's sensible. Especially in Liverpool


----------



## killer b (Oct 14, 2020)

as an aside, how come 'boomp there it is' has become the default chant of the drunken covid crowd?


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 14, 2020)

Edie said:


> Absolutely the same. I mean surely everyone, especially in the North now, knows someone in their immediate friends/family/work colleagues. I know two nurses from my team at work, my mates daughter, and my lads both have _multiple_ cases among their friends. It’s bloody everywhere!


 No one I know personally has had it


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 14, 2020)

The government are launching a new version of the dashboard - TESTING HERE  - the increases is hospital admissions in a week are bad enough, but the increase is deaths is really shocking.


----------



## LDC (Oct 14, 2020)

Edie said:


> Absolutely the same. I mean surely everyone, especially in the North now, knows someone in their immediate friends/family/work colleagues. I know two nurses from my team at work, my mates daughter, and my lads both have _multiple_ cases among their friends. It’s bloody everywhere!



Yeah, I'm Leeds too, and it's all over the place. Last time I knew 2 people (both HCPs) that had it (and one of those was in London). This time I already know 10 directly, more one step removed and I'm hearing of more everyday.


----------



## bimble (Oct 14, 2020)

This makes me think its much more likely to happen.


I'm convinced the gov look very closely at things like this, do their own research on where public mood is at before announcing any strong measures.
Which makes sense both for crappy political reasons but also to guage how likely people are to comply.








						Daily Question  | 14/10/2020  |  YouGov
					

Would you support or oppose a two-week nation-wide "circuit breaker" lockdown at the start of the school half term later this month?




					yougov.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> This (yougov poll that says a solid majority of people are now saying they'd support an imminent two week lockdown) makes me think its much more likely to happen.  I'm convinced the gov look very closely at things like this, do their own research on where public mood it as before announcing any strong measures. Which makes sense both for crappy political reasons but also to guage how likely people are to comply.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I have been wondering how much the government's actions are dictated by behavioral science rather that the pandemic science.  Wait till it gets really bad etc.


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I have been wondering how much the government's actions are dictated by behavioral science rather that the pandemic science.  Wait till it gets really bad etc.



In early March it became clear that their timing was so bad that I did start asking silly questions on this forum as to whether they might be relying on reverse psychology, and the idea that people will act themselves if they think the authorities have been too slow.

However the reality turned to be more like the experts getting the epidemic timing wrong, due to poor disease surveillance data and some modelling errors, combined with crap instincts from Johnson & Co. Most of the behavioural science documents released show they were more concerned with maintaining the credibility of the authorities so that there was trust in the measures, high adherence to them, etc, rather than reverse psychology and bouncing people into action via government inaction.


----------



## bimble (Oct 14, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I have been wondering how much the government's actions are dictated by behavioral science rather that the pandemic science.  Wait till it gets really bad etc.


Yeah, i think that makes sense though tbh, at least to some extent, because compliance has to be pretty widespread and voluntary for the most part. 

The results of that yougov poll today surprise me, really didn't think that the percentage in favour would be anything like that high.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yeah, i think that makes sense though tbh, at least to some extent, because compliance has to be pretty widespread and voluntary for the most part.
> 
> The results of that yougov poll today surprise me, really didn't think that the percentage in favour would be anything like that high.


Could be/could not be significant, but those YG numbers are based upon about a question that includes a time-limited event (2 week lockdown).


----------



## Wilf (Oct 14, 2020)

Whether you call it a circuit breaker or something else, does anyone see Johnson doing  it any time soon? Hasn't he talked himself into a corner, setting the 3 tiers thing up. His whole response to Labour was about letting that happen, so any kind of mini national lockdown would be a complete u turn. The other thing to factor in are the headbangers in his party who want to keep the pubs shops and grouse moors open. He's not at the point where his leadership is up for grabs, but you could see that becoming a possibility if he keeps floundering around.


----------



## bimble (Oct 14, 2020)

oh they managed it postcode checker exists now!








						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## LDC (Oct 14, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Whether you call it a circuit breaker or something else, does anyone see Johnson doing  it any time soon? Hasn't he talked himself into a corner, setting the 3 tiers thing up. His whole response to Labour was about letting that happen, so any kind of mini national lockdown would be a complete u turn. The other thing to factor in are the headbangers in his party who want to keep the pubs shops and grouse moors open. He's not at the point where his leadership is up for grabs, but you could see that becoming a possibility if he keeps floundering around.



Yeah, yesterday and earlier today I thought it was on the cards. Since Starmer backed it I think Johnson's backed away from it. Today in PMQs I thought he made it clear it wasn't on the cards in the immediate future.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 14, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Whether you call it a circuit breaker or something else, does anyone see Johnson doing  it any time soon? Hasn't he talked himself into a corner, setting the 3 tiers thing up. His whole response to Labour was about letting that happen, so any kind of mini national lockdown would be a complete u turn. The other thing to factor in are the headbangers in his party who want to keep the pubs shops and grouse moors open. He's not at the point where his leadership is up for grabs, but you could see that becoming a possibility if he keeps floundering around.


He's talked himself into a 'libertarian' corner in which thousands will now die that needn't have done.


----------



## LDC (Oct 14, 2020)

<Edited: a sentiment I have, but not one suitable for public airing.>


----------



## bimble (Oct 14, 2020)

Johnson clearly saying he definitely isn't about to do a thing is no help in predicting whether he's about to do that thing though. 




__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 14, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, yesterday and earlier today I thought it was on the cards. Since Starmer backed it I think Johnson's backed away from it. Today in PMQs I thought he made it clear it wasn't on the cards in the immediate future.



Tbf Johnson's career is littered with examples of him saying one thing and then doing something completely different the following week.  He's absolutely shameless.  I can well imagine that happening in this instance too.  But probably not for a few days, and every day matters right now...

e2a - bugger. bimble got there first.


----------



## LDC (Oct 14, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Tbf Johnson's career is littered with examples of him saying one thing and then doing something completely different the following week.  He's absolutely shameless.  I can well imagine that happening in this instance too.  But probably not for a few days, and every day matters right now...
> 
> e2a - bugger. bimble got there first.



I hope so, every hour delayed likely means more deaths.


----------



## xenon (Oct 14, 2020)

So NI are doing a 4 week lockdown from Friday. Wales considering it. But tier 3 areas in England can still have pubs popen if they sell food, unless local authorities decide otherwise or something.


----------



## bimble (Oct 14, 2020)

Johnson is such a stupid man. Why go and call a two week national lockdown 'a disaster' as he did today. There's nothing to be gained from saying that. Am constantly amazed at how many people don't realise he really is thick.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 14, 2020)

The UCL (?) report provided a mixture of cover and kecks shitting panic for government before the first lockdown.  The Sage report could have provided similar cover for a circuit breaker incorporating half term (and also some other things they recommended such as getting universities back online).  I'm not sure if there's going to be a similar trigger point this time, other than waiting another couple of weeks till it's too late.

You've got polls saying the public would be okay with a circuit breaker and I imagine we'll soon be back to cancelling routine surgery, along with a general rise in deaths/hospitalisation.  How and when this all translates into action by a neoliberal, lazy twat is anyone's guess.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 14, 2020)

The latest REACT analysis is out (round 5: 18Sep-5Oct) which suggests prevalence in London was (recently) quite flat, possibly even exhibiting a slight decline (R=0.91+/0.31). Everywhere else it was on the rise, greatly so in the north (see in particular figure 4).


----------



## Wilf (Oct 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> Johnson is such a stupid man. Why go and call a two week national lockdown 'a disaster' as he did today. There's nothing to be gained from saying that. Am constantly amazed at how many people don't realise he really is thick.


True, certainly, though I think he was quoting what Labour had said in terms of the word disaster.


----------



## bimble (Oct 14, 2020)

Wilf said:


> True, certainly, though I think he was quoting what Labour had said in terms of the word disaster.


Oh i see, he was defending himself in that peuerile PMQs way as in no my ideas aren't a disaster yours are?  Great. Still stupid.


----------



## chilango (Oct 14, 2020)

I fear an English "circuit breaker" will merely be a fortnight of Tier 3 style continued transmission everywhere except bookies, pubs and casinos.

Surely the whole point of a short, sharp shock to shut everything down?


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 14, 2020)

Whatever you call the "circuit breaker" lockdown - nationally or regionally based - very soon two weeks isn't going to be nearly long enough - and that will be a disaster to the people that are going to lose family members, friends and neighbours or those that get "long covid" ...


----------



## bimble (Oct 14, 2020)

Two weeks is just enough for everyone to watch the numbers keep rising isn't it.


----------



## editor (Oct 14, 2020)

Lambeth update Lambeth leader Jack Hopkins demands an immediate circuit-breaker lockdown to fight coronavirus


----------



## Wilf (Oct 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> Oh i see, he was defending himself in that peuerile PMQs way as in no my ideas aren't a disaster yours are?  Great. Still stupid.


Yep. I saw a bit of pmqs and you'd hardly have known you were dealing with something causing multiple deaths every single day. Every word he came out with was along the lines of 'but you said this... ha ha, you've changed your mind!'


----------



## miss direct (Oct 14, 2020)

Anyone else in the teaching world heard multiple rumours of two week half term? Surely it's not up to individual schools? I'd be happy to stay at home for two weeks if it meant a lowering of cases and eventually, restrictions. At the moment, here in Sheffield, we are hurtling towards an inevitable tier 3.


----------



## editor (Oct 14, 2020)

A long term urbanite has just posted on FB that she's just tested positive


----------



## chilango (Oct 14, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Anyone else in the teaching world heard multiple rumours of two week half term? Surely it's not up to individual schools? I'd be happy to stay at home for two weeks if it meant a lowering of cases and eventually, restrictions. At the moment, here in Sheffield, we are hurtling towards an inevitable tier 3.



Not heard anything, but primary schools of my acquaintance are emailing out home/online learning plans "just in case".


----------



## Wilf (Oct 14, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Anyone else in the teaching world heard multiple rumours of two week half term? Surely it's not up to individual schools? I'd be happy to stay at home for two weeks if it meant a lowering of cases and eventually, restrictions. At the moment, here in Sheffield, we are hurtling towards an inevitable tier 3.


That's the thing about the 'regional approach', even if you think that's the best way to act, the bar is set far too low.  To have a chance of slowing this down, everywhere that's currently classed as high should be in full lockdown, give or take the schools.

The other thing about not facing up to the need for lockdowns is a failure to plan for subsequent short or longer shutdowns (at the level of areas, boroughs, individual businesses, schools etc.).


----------



## Wilf (Oct 14, 2020)

And broken record as I am on this, in the middle of this helter skelter, we've played the ultimate practical joke on 18 year old students: 'got them on campus and locked into accommodation costs... pretended they are getting a hybrid model to stop them getting a fees reduction... stuck them in virus happy halls and houses and then, ha ha… wait for it... pretty much reverted to online teaching in practice!' Who says Tories don't have a sense of humour. Still, they'll let them go home for Christmas. Probably.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> Johnson is such a stupid man. Why go and call a two week national lockdown 'a disaster' as he did today. There's nothing to be gained from saying that. Am constantly amazed at how many people don't realise he really is thick.



And yet everyone will have forgotten he said that in a fortnight's time, when his hand is forced and we get another national lockdown. It'll be all maverick genius Boris Johnson creates brilliant 'circuit breaker' plan all by himself and didn't he do well?


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 14, 2020)

Wilf said:


> And broken record as I am on this, in the middle of this helter skelter, we've played the ultimate practical joke on 18 year old students: 'got them on campus and locked into accommodation costs... pretended they are getting a hybrid model to stop them getting a fees reduction... stuck them in virus happy halls and houses and then, ha ha… wait for it... pretty much reverted to online teaching in practice!' Who says Tories don't have a sense of humour. Still, they'll let them go home for Christmas. Probably.



My prediction is that the latest No.10 brain-fart - which is unworkable - will be quietly ditched in the course of next week.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 14, 2020)

I know some of this has already been covered, but the beeb have produced quite a good summary of the evidence SAGE used to produce the advice to Gov't and the associated actions / in-actions. These are the 21st Sept papers, btw.









						Covid Sage documents: The scientific evidence and what No 10 then did
					

The government did not take the recommendation of a "circuit breaker" lockdown.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2020)

Todays episode of putting the daily announced deaths figure (with positive test, 28 days cutoff) into context by way of the colour-coded graph showing reporting dates matched to actual date of death.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 14, 2020)

Thanks, elbows - it does show that there are a few time lags in that data - and some long outliers ( even if only of ones or twos) over that 15 days span between deaths and reports.


----------



## killer b (Oct 14, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Whether you call it a circuit breaker or something else, does anyone see Johnson doing  it any time soon?


I'm currently assuming tuesday or wednesday next week.


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Thanks, elbows - it does show that there are a few time lags in that data - and some long outliers ( even if only of ones or twos) over that 15 days span between deaths and reports.



It used to be even worse lag in terms of that form of death data picking up cases that happened long ago.

Its still an incomplete picture compared to ONS data, which also covers deaths without a positive test and involves even greater lag. Those are the figures I rely on more for totals, but when trying to measure the situation in near realtime the daily announced stuff has to do.

The number of deaths actually reported each day does at certain stages of the pandemic end up being a reasonable proxy for how many deaths on that day the data by actual date of death will eventually end up showing. Looking at the colours we can already see clues about when certain past days by date of death are likely to breach 100, for example, and it will be reasonably close to the date the number reported reached that level. So I'm unlikely to carry these graphs on forever but will certainly continue for now.

Same graph but for number of positive cases by specimen date coming soon.


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2020)

So then, daily positive cases. It feels like the right time to repeat something I said in early September when the test system started creaking under the load. I cannot tell how many cases per day maximum the system is going to be able to capture via tests. ie I cannot tell where the artificial ceiling may lurk in this data in future. The positivity rate is already so high in some regions that it acts as an indicator that far more testing is required, but we know there are limits as to how much is available. If tests are increasingly rationed towards those who stand a greater chance of testing positive then they will yet be able to find even more positives per day by way of further increases in the percentage positive. But there are limits to that too, and under rationing conditions they would then be failing to continue to capture parts of the picture that were previously measurable back when testing wasnt restricted to a narrower range of groups.


----------



## kebabking (Oct 14, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> And yet everyone will have forgotten he said that in a fortnight's time, when his hand is forced and we get another national lockdown. It'll be all maverick genius Boris Johnson creates brilliant 'circuit breaker' plan all by himself and didn't he do well?



I'm not sure where you get that idea. The Tory press has been scathing about him and his government for several months. There are some headbangers/bots on twitter going on about how great he is, but Tory voters, constituency associations and MP's are all honking off about him being a disastrously poor PM, and getting an MP/minister to go on even friendly(ish) media to support whatever this week's policy is is getting harder by the day.

Therese Coffey (DWP) went on Time Radio earlier. She was greeted by John Pienarr asking her when the U-turn would be announced.

They/he isn't getting supportive coverage anywhere - the Mail and Times went anti months ago, even the torygraph makes it clear that he's out of his depth.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 14, 2020)

kebabking said:


> I'm not sure where you get that idea. The Tory press has been scathing about him and his government for several months. There are some headbangers/bots on twitter going on about how great he is, but Tory voters, constituency associations and MP's are all honking off about him being a disastrously poor PM, and getting an MP/minister to go on even friendly(ish) media to support whatever this week's policy is is getting harder by the day.
> 
> Therese Coffey (DWP) went on Time Radio earlier. She was greeted by John Pienarr asking her when the U-turn would be announced.
> 
> They/he isn't getting supportive coverage anywhere - the Mail and Times went anti months ago, even the torygraph makes it clear that he's out of his depth.


That's _now_, but when he actually does it, the backbenchers and the Tory press are not going to try to damage him more and give Labour a boost. (As if that matters right now anyway, but Tory intermural loyalty is very strong.)


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> Johnson clearly saying he definitely isn't about to do a thing is no help in predicting whether he's about to do that thing though.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Aye, lockdown wasn't going to happen till it did. Everyone locked themselves down first before Boris went for it.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 14, 2020)

Now I know this is a bit radical, but my prediction is that they'll blither about for a while, eventually put a lockdown on, not improve track and trace, and then lift the lockdown before it actually makes enough difference to let T&T work better even as it is. Because Christmas. Also a bunch of people will die and they'll blame northeners.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 14, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Now I know this is a bit radical, but my prediction is that they'll blither about for a while, eventually put a lockdown on, not improve track and trace, and then lift the lockdown before it actually makes enough difference to let T&T work better even as it is. Because Christmas. Also a bunch of people will die and they'll blame northeners.


Pretty much. They'll say something about trusting people's common sense over Christmas not to gather several households together in unventilated spaces with gallons of alcohol on hand.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 14, 2020)

Yep, yep and yep.


----------



## maomao (Oct 14, 2020)

kebabking said:


> I'm not sure where you get that idea. The Tory press has been scathing about him and his government for several months. There are some headbangers/bots on twitter going on about how great he is, but Tory voters, constituency associations and MP's are all honking off about him being a disastrously poor PM, and getting an MP/minister to go on even friendly(ish) media to support whatever this week's policy is is getting harder by the day.
> 
> Therese Coffey (DWP) went on Time Radio earlier. She was greeted by John Pienarr asking her when the U-turn would be announced.
> 
> They/he isn't getting supportive coverage anywhere - the Mail and Times went anti months ago, even the torygraph makes it clear that he's out of his depth.


BBC are his best press at the moment.


----------



## chilango (Oct 14, 2020)

chilango said:


> Not heard anything, but primary schools of my acquaintance are emailing out home/online learning plans "just in case".



Having said all that...

...I am hearing the beginning of whispers from various sources that we're about to hit a tipping point of some sort.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 14, 2020)

Absolutely no talk in my school of an extra week of half term and no covid cases. Although our council leader is calling for a circuit breaker.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 14, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Absolutely no talk in my school of an extra week of half term and no covid cases. Although our council leader is calling for a circuit breaker.



Definitely talk in mine of 2 week half term. Only rumour, but we think Wales is sitting on it until the last minute, hopefully now prompted by N.Ireland. Too little, too late, but something. Maybe.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 14, 2020)

Edie said:


> Absolutely the same. I mean surely everyone, especially in the North now, knows someone in their immediate friends/family/work colleagues. I know two nurses from my team at work, my mates daughter, and my lads both have _multiple_ cases among their friends. It’s bloody everywhere!



Where I am at work (London, but mostly with blokes coming in from Kent & Essex & outer London) it feels like March again, in the denial / disbelief of the scale of the increase of cases & how it might rise in the next few weeks.

Except that back everyone thought they'd maybe had a touch of it back in February , and now everyone knows someone who's isolating because they've been in contact with a +ve case, but no-one knows anyone who's actually got it, or got it badly.

So it still feels, here, again, like there's a large tranche of people who won't believe it's serious until it spirals out of control.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 14, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Now I know this is a bit radical, but my prediction is that they'll blither about for a while, eventually put a lockdown on, not improve track and trace, and then lift the lockdown before it actually makes enough difference to let T&T work better even as it is. Because Christmas. Also a bunch of people will die and they'll blame northeners.


If they don't blame Northerners, it'll be the students carrying the can ...


----------



## MrSki (Oct 14, 2020)

Saying like it is.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 14, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Absolutely no talk in my school of an extra week of half term and no covid cases. Although our council leader is calling for a circuit breaker.


I jinxed it. First confirmed case, a member of staff. Just got an email from our headteacher.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 14, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I jinxed it. First confirmed case, a member of staff. Just got an email from our headteacher.


 deleting my response expressing surprise at lack of cases. Chemistry is neighbouring borough. Caught covid - not the only teacher. Various teachers and kids through the school are isolating at any given time.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 14, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Saying like it is.




Where's the mystery? Is it a mystery Cummings is still in a job?

It's called cuntitude. I reckon that's in the dictionary.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 14, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> deleting my response expressing surprise at lack of cases. Chemistry is neighbouring borough. Caught covid - not the only teacher. Various teachers and kids through the school are isolating at any given time.


I'm sure we've had loads of cases, just no one testing until now.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 14, 2020)

Plenty of loose talk around my workplace today and yesterday about a general lockdown in Wales for at least two weeks.

I'm still slightly sceptical myself, but Mark Drakeford usually makes any significant general announcement around midday on Fridays.

Whether it will go full-on, and include workplace closures and pub, etc. closures, and whether a lockdown would include the whole of Wales though??? All that remains to be seen.

I generally support the idea of a circuit breaker lockdown, while retaining many doubts about how effective that would actually be.

But personally , I'd be up for *four* weeks, so long as it included workplace closures    ...

*ETA* : But I do _seriously_ appreciate that many people, especially in hospitality, are in temp/insecure/low-paid/even zero-hours contracts , so support for them will *HAVE* to happen 

None of the workplace gossips know anything about any details of any upcoming lockdown yet though, hence remaining scepticism on my part that the talk will come to much


----------



## xenon (Oct 14, 2020)

I'd support a circuit breaker type lockdown up to 4 weeks, if the time was properly used to get track and trace fit for purpose.
If support was offered to hospitality businesses.

Allbeit this may mean we couldn't hold a face to face funeral service for my dad and certainly no get together in a venue afterwards. The latter still may not happen if London goes into level 2 or 3 in the next week or so anyway. 

e2a

As in to the govt. If you do decide to do this, do not waste the time you cunts.


----------



## xenon (Oct 14, 2020)

And of course Johnson will U-Turn with no quarms when it's expedient. He contradicts himself on a near daily basis.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

2hats said:


> The latest REACT analysis is out (round 5: 18Sep-5Oct) which suggests prevalence in London was (recently) quite flat, possibly even exhibiting a slight decline (R=0.91+/0.31). Everywhere else it was on the rise, greatly so in the north (see in particular figure 4).
> View attachment 234344



I note their estimate of 45,000 infections per day, and that they also got in on the 'do something!' act:



> In combination with the high prevalence, and evidence of faster growth in some regions, the country is now at a critical point in the second wave. Continued vigilance and adherence to the public health message of social distancing, hand washing, face covers are required, along with testing of symptomatic individuals and, if positive, isolation and rapid tracing of contacts. However, further fixed-duration measures should be considered to reduce the infection rate and limit the numbers of hospital admissions and deaths from COVID-19.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

This sort of story stands a chance of playing right into my hospital infection control take on things.









						Covid: NHS staff testing 'dismantled' in virus hotspots
					

Health leaders' representative says it has taken a "herculean effort" to restore capacity.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Is it a simple tale of being left unprepared for the resurgence by that failure to test staff enough? Or is it really an even bigger story where the failure to test is partly responsible for the scale of resurgence via the community->hospital->community infection amplifier loop?

Did many London hospitals end up in a better position to control hospital infections earlier, and maintain that grip, partly explaining the sharper first wave curve seen in London and the slower resurgence there these days? Was there more routine testing of staff including asymptomatic staff done in more London hospitals than elsewhere, for example as part of studies and trials involving such testing?

I dont have the answers, but these are possibilities I shall not soon forget.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Definitely talk in mine of 2 week half term. Only rumour, but we think Wales is sitting on it until the last minute, hopefully now prompted by N.Ireland. Too little, too late, but something. Maybe.


Several schools in Pembrokeshire are doing a two week half term, but that was already planned.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 15, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Several schools in Pembrokeshire are doing a two week half term, but that was already planned.



Yes, nothing to do with circuit breaking or lockdown. Everything to do with working that extra week in the summer (which achieved nothing but a small bit of childcare) and going against union decisions. Fuck them frankly.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Yes, nothing to do with circuit breaking or lockdown. Everything to do with working that extra week in the summer (which achieved nothing but a small bit of childcare) and going against union decisions. Fuck them frankly.


It's caused a certain amount of chaos, as some schools are on a one week half term, others on two. Parents have booked holidays  in a week they thought was in half term at their school, and been told that the school is just having one week, and it's not that one. All a bit of a mess. Classic Pembrokeshire.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Now I know this is a bit radical, but my prediction is that they'll blither about for a while, eventually put a lockdown on, not improve track and trace, and then lift the lockdown before it actually makes enough difference to let T&T work better even as it is. Because Christmas. Also a bunch of people will die and they'll blame northeners.



The blaming northeners bit is baked in to the current set of lockdown restrictions which completely ignore all the virus hotspots south of Chester. Where I live has one of the fastest-growing local outbreaks anywhere but we're still 'medium' risk for some reason.


----------



## Supine (Oct 15, 2020)

Blaming the north will be a short lived phenomena. The south will catch-up within weeks and force the government's hand in making further restrictions.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 15, 2020)

My area has 127 per 100,000  





__





						Buckinghamshire Council | COVID-19 Dashboard
					

Get the latest COVID-19 data at your fingertips with our new COVID-19 Dashboard. Our dashboard provides you with the latest data and insight in your local authority.




					www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 15, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> That's _now_, but when he actually does it, the backbenchers and the Tory press are not going to try to damage him more and give Labour a boost. (As if that matters right now anyway, but Tory intermural loyalty is very strong.)



I'm not so sure, because there are years until an election so damaging Boris doesn't mean handing it to Labour because there's easily time to replace him:


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 15, 2020)

This was last week, Gd knows what it is going to be this week


----------



## Supine (Oct 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> Blaming the north will be a short lived phenomena. The south will catch-up within weeks and force the government's hand in making further restrictions.



Posted less than an hour ago and I hear on the news London might be going up a tier.


----------



## maomao (Oct 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> Posted less than an hour ago and I hear on the news London might be going up a tier.


I don't even know what tier London is. We don't go out anymore anyway and I'm tired of listening to all of their ever-changing bollocks.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> True. I think the reality is as well that people feel less afraid, and utterly utterly sick of their own four walls. Think how scared we all were in April. A lot of people do not feel like that now, despite the ICU in Liverpool being at 95% occupancy and more covid patients than during the first peak.


Yup. You'd barely know anything was occurring, if you walked round our way. Sure, there's mostly masks on buses, but get off the bus and you walk into great big crowds of folk, zero social distancing, coughing like fucking bastards everywhere. One GP practice had to completely close down as all the GPs are infected. In the week 5-11 Oct, we had 435 per 100,000. That will only be rising. It's becoming quite scary now.


----------



## zora (Oct 15, 2020)

maomao said:


> I don't even know what tier London is. We don't go out anymore anyway and I'm tired of listening to all of their ever-changing bollocks.


 
This is kinda true for me, too. I might as well be in the very highest tier for all I do outside my home. 
Work, go to shops once a week. Working in retail, the closing of which sadly does not seem on the cards at all. And even if we did close to in-store customers, with the run-up to Christmas I am sure there'll be enough mail order work for us to do. 
The only thing that's of interest to me is being able to still see my non-cohabiting partner but then again we hardly see each other anyway because I am often freaked out by the latest covid scare at work and don't want to risk passing anything on to him. :/

Oh, I tell a lie: I did go out for a burger and pint on my own in a beer garden the other day -but I think that's also allowed until lockdown proper, so...


----------



## zora (Oct 15, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Yup. You'd barely know anything was occurring, if you walked round our way. Sure, there's mostly masks on buses, but get off the bus and you walk into great big crowds of folk, zero social distancing, coughing like fucking bastards everywhere. One GP practice had to completely close down as all the GPs are infected. In the week 5-11 Oct, we had 435 per 100,000. That will only be rising. It's becoming quite scary now.



That does sound terrifying.


----------



## Numbers (Oct 15, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Yup. You'd barely know anything was occurring, if you walked round our way. Sure, there's mostly masks on buses, but get off the bus and you walk into great big crowds of folk, zero social distancing, coughing like fucking bastards everywhere. One GP practice had to completely close down as all the GPs are infected. In the week 5-11 Oct, we had 435 per 100,000. That will only be rising. It's becoming quite scary now.


It’s still less than 100 cases per 100,000 in my area and for the life of me I can’t see how the way people are.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 15, 2020)

OH have to use the "teacher's voice" to 'suggest' some twunts put their masks on properly a few days ago. I think the malefactors thought it was the shop's PA system ! Actually, they did comply.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> Posted less than an hour ago and I hear on the news London might be going up a tier.



They've been talking about it for well over a week now.  The situation in London is patchy with several real hotspots as bad as anywhere but also some boroughs with low rates.  It seems inevitable now that all the big urban areas will end up in 'very high risk' (tier 3) before long.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

London goes up to Tier 2...


----------



## andysays (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> London goes up to Tier 2...


Not until Friday, so still time for one last night's partying


----------



## sojourner (Oct 15, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> OH have to use the "teacher's voice" to 'suggest' some twunts put their masks on properly a few days ago. I think the malefactors thought it was the shop's PA system ! Actually, they did comply.


I've given up trying to say owt to people. I'd just end up in constant fights. Had some cunt walk straight into me the other day in the Co op, striding to get to the scab tills. No mask. No apology. It's actually fucking exhausting.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 15, 2020)

According to the BBC, London is moving from Tier 1 to Tier 2 

<edit: wait, is Tier 1 or Tier 3 the highest?? Shows how much attention I've been paying...  >


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2020)

Anyone know what is happening in London?


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 15, 2020)

andysays said:


> Not until Friday, so still time for one last night's partying



Saturday. Doesn’t say what time on Saturday yet...


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2020)

sojourner said:


> I've given up trying to say owt to people. I'd just end up in constant fights. Had some cunt walk straight into me the other day in the Co op, striding to get to the scab tills. No mask. No apology. It's actually fucking exhausting.



That's horrible.  The mask thing I can deal with as long as people do the spacing thing.  We've all got terrible at spacing again though and I think that is a massive part of the problem right now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> According to the BBC, London is moving from Tier 1 to Tier 2
> 
> <edit: wait, is Tier 1 or Tier 3 the highest?? Shows how much attention I've been paying...  >



Tier 3 is the highest.



Teaboy said:


> Anyone know what is happening in London?



As Lord C says, moving to tier 2, details - Local COVID alert levels: what you need to know



Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Saturday. Doesn’t say what time on Saturday yet...



Friday at midnight.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> <edit: wait, is Tier 1 or Tier 3 the highest?? Shows how much attention I've been paying...  >



Tier 3 is 'very high risk' which is the highest category... so far.  This highlights the problem of using both numbered tiers and descriptive language interchangeably.  Just think the lot in government now were once acclaimed for their ability to deliver a clear and concise message.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As Lord C says, moving to tier 2, details - Local COVID alert levels: what you need to know
> .



Sorry, I was making an urban joke.


----------



## strung out (Oct 15, 2020)

Wish they'd called it something better than 'tier'. Reckon people would be far more likely to heed it if it was called THREAT LEVEL 3 or something like that.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2020)

strung out said:


> Wish they'd called it something better than 'tier'. Reckon people would be far more likely to heed it if it was called THREAT LEVEL 3 or something like that.



I reckon.  'moderate', 'high' and 'very high' was fine.  Gets the point across.   I dunno why the water has been muddied by this tier stuff.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Sorry, I was making an urban joke.


In my defence, I was aware others had already reported that London's tier had changed, I was just questioning them reporting it was moving "up" from Tier 1 to Tier 2, because I thought 1 was the highest.

Not the strongest defence, I'll admit...


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

strung out said:


> Wish they'd called it something better than 'tier'. Reckon people would be far more likely to heed it if it was called THREAT LEVEL 3 or something like that.


They're reserving THREAT for cross-channel migrants, don't want to confuse people.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Just think the lot in government now were once acclaimed for their ability to deliver a clear and concise message.


_When_??


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> _When_??


'take back control'


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

strung out said:


> Wish they'd called it something better than 'tier'. Reckon people would be far more likely to heed it if it was called THREAT LEVEL 3 or something like that.



On the government's site, it's '*Local COVID alert level - medium/high/very high'*, but as the media had been talking about a three tier system for at least a couple of weeks before it was introduced, that seems to have struck.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> _When_??



"Take back control"

"Get Brexit done"

Both seemed to resonate with the public and were the straplines for very successful campaigns.  Simple, concise and effective language.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

I guess there's a difference between creating a resonant slogan that persuades people to vote for you and creating a resonant slogan that persuades a whole population to completely change their behaviour, tbf.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 15, 2020)

strung out said:


> Wish they'd called it something better than 'tier'. Reckon people would be far more likely to heed it if it was called THREAT LEVEL 3 or something like that.



Maybe "DEFCON" would be appropriate ...

At least with " 3 " as the current highest level, they can always add more, when needed - which it will be, sooner or later.


----------



## maomao (Oct 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> "Take back control"
> 
> "Get Brexit done"
> 
> Both seemed to resonate with the public and were the straplines for very successful campaigns.  Simple, concise and effective language.


Effective in terms of getting votes maybe but not in terms of communicating an idea. Both phrases play on the possibility of multiple positive interpretations without committing to a specific course of action. Which helps with big ideas, or Brexit at least, but is fuck all good for managing the minutiae of a national health crisis.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> I guess there's a difference between creating a resonant slogan that persuades people to vote for you and creating a resonant slogan that persuades a whole population to completely change their behaviour, tbf.



Sure but they seemed to have gone from being very good to dangerously clumsy.  This mixing up of descriptive and numbered tiers was pointed out immediately here.  It was a really fundamental mistake.  It suggests to me a level of panic is setting in.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Sure but they seemed to have gone from being very good to dangerously clumsy.  This mixing up of descriptive and numbered tiers was pointed out immediately here.  It was a really fundamental mistake.  It suggests to me a level of panic is setting in.


or maybe their usual inability to have concise and agreed terminology ?


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Sure but they seemed to have gone from being very good to dangerously clumsy.  This mixing up of descriptive and numbered tiers was pointed out immediately here.  It was a really fundamental mistake.  It suggests to me a level of panic is setting in.



Their communication has been pretty shit throughout. It is just a very different situation from Brexit where they were essentially just creating dog-whistle slogans that played off an existing sentiment.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 15, 2020)

"Stay home. Protect the NHS. Save lives" was pretty clear and seemed to work.

The problem is the current restrictions are quite complex, vary from place to place and need looking up if you want to do anything that you don't normally do.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> "Take back control"
> 
> "Get Brexit done"
> 
> Both seemed to resonate with the public and were the straplines for very successful campaigns.  Simple, concise and effective language.





maomao said:


> Effective in terms of getting votes maybe but not in terms of communicating an idea. Both phrases play on the possibility of multiple positive interpretations without committing to a specific course of action. Which helps with big ideas, or Brexit at least, but is fuck all good for managing the minutiae of a national health crisis.


Yeah, I think this was more the perspective I was coming from, where they actually communicate information rather than just something that others can attach their own ideas to.

But, it's a fair point, their election sloganing did seem to work pretty effectively.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

fucking hell. im a londoner.

so i cant go see my gf on the weekend?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

Essex is going into tier 2 as well.


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> fucking hell. im a londoner.
> 
> so i cant go see my gf on the weekend?



If either of you is in a single person household, the other can be a support household

e2a: check the specifics on that, and bear in mind you can only support one household.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I reckon.  'moderate', 'high' and 'very high' was fine.  Gets the point across.   I dunno why the water has been muddied by this tier stuff.



level 1 to level 5 seemed to be pretty successful in new zealand


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

Cid said:


> If either of you is in a single person household, the other can be a support household.



I have two flatmates, so does she.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 15, 2020)

_On their own pages_ they're using Medium, High and Very High rather than numbered tiers


----------



## mauvais (Oct 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I reckon.  'moderate', 'high' and 'very high' was fine.  Gets the point across.   I dunno why the water has been muddied by this tier stuff.


Hard to add more and more on top of this. You end up having to invent new ones like 'catastrofucked'.


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I have two flatmates, so does she.



Then no.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 15, 2020)

Spandex said:


> "Stay home. Protect the NHS. Save lives" was pretty clear and seemed to work.
> 
> The problem is the current restrictions are quite complex, vary from place to place and need looking up if you want to do anything that you don't normally do.



Created by the failure to act decisively and clearly from the start with clearly defined and understandable tables such as those produced by New Zealand, Ireland and Spain, and muddied and muddled by Johnson's need to kowtow to parts of his party which do not agree with a lot of the measures taken, particularly paying out 'money for nothing' in furlough schemes etc.  Which is why we get stupid phrases such as Johnson calling himself a 'Covid Centrist'.

And leaves the rest of us scratching our heads.


----------



## bimble (Oct 15, 2020)

So just checking tier 2 means pubs and restaurants stay open get no extra help but you can’t meet anyone in them who you don’t already live with?


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> So just checking tier 2 means pubs and restaurants stay open get no extra help but you can’t meet anyone in them who you don’t already live with?



Or a Llanelli lockdown as we now call it in Wales.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> According to the BBC, London is moving from Tier 1 to Tier 2
> 
> <edit: wait, is Tier 1 or Tier 3 the highest?? Shows how much attention I've been paying...  >


You get fries with tier three


----------



## souljacker (Oct 15, 2020)

Manc on Tier 3 now. Which is where I'm going tomorrow for work.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 15, 2020)

Make it really simple.

Act Normal
Spend Money
Stay Home


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 15, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> _On their own pages_ they're using Medium, High and Very High rather than numbered tiers


They should call them Grande, Venti and Trenta or possibly 'Deep Sigh', 'Major Pain' and 'Oh Fuck Not Again'


----------



## chilango (Oct 15, 2020)

Absolute shambles.

Libertarian Paternalism proven beyond doubt to be utter bullshit.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 15, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Manc on Tier 3 now. Which is where I'm going tomorrow for work.



I'm watching the Tyne/Wear conurbation carefully - we live a long way out in the hinterland, but are still covered by Northumberland. Although our local caserate is very, very low I can see us being grouped with areas having very high (students ?) caserates.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 15, 2020)

I'm pissed off. So me and my family are forced back into isolation but everything is still open. Not to mention that I work with up to 800 people every day in a school.
I can't say it makes me want to follow the rules.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

How the fuck did we get into this situation?

And what the fuck is a 'substantial meal'? Do they count the calories?


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I'm pissed off. So me and my family are forced back into isolation but everything is still open. Not to mention that I work with up to 800 people every day in a school.
> I can't say it makes me want to follow the rules.



Yep. So I can hang out with my gf in the pub but not have dinner (and a shag) and her place.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yep. So I can hang out with my gf in the pub but not have dinner (and a shag) and her place.


I don't think you can hang out with her in the pub any more, you can only go with your household. 
But still, pubs are open! Like everything.

What happens if your support person lives out of London?


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yep. So I can hang out with my gf in the pub but not have dinner (and a shag) and her place.


no you can't. you can only go to the pub with your housemates.


----------



## zora (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yep. So I can hang out with my gf in the pub but not have dinner (and a shag) and her place.



I _think_ you can meet in the pub garden, not indoors in a pub? [Eta: I know that wasn't really the point you were making. It's not great - it was officially allowed to meet non-cohabiting partners who don't live with others for what, three weeks since end of September..?]


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 15, 2020)

It's just so all so fucking ridiculous. I fucking hate this government. Everytime I think I couldn't hate them more I do. Cunts


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yep. So I can hang out with my gf in the pub but not have dinner (and a shag) and her place.



You can't even do that, outdoors only. .

Tier 2 & 3 -



> you must not socialise with anybody outside of your household or support bubble in any indoor setting, whether at home or in a public place
> you must not socialise in a group of more than 6 outside, including in a garden or other spaces like beaches or parks (other than where specific exemptions apply in law)


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

nagapie said:


> What happens if your support person lives out of London?



You can't see them.


----------



## maomao (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yep. So I can hang out with my gf in the pub but not have dinner (and a shag) and her place.


No. Dump her and start a relationship with one of your flatmates instead. 

I'm going to a strangers house to buy a guitar this afternoon. I should probably wear a mask and hand him the money on the doorstep really.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> I guess there's a difference between creating a resonant slogan that persuades people to vote for you and creating a resonant slogan that persuades a whole population to completely change their behaviour, tbf.


And one that changes more often than I change me knickers.


----------



## zora (Oct 15, 2020)

^^^But yeah, great there is no confusion..


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> It's just so all so fucking ridiculous. I fucking hate this government. Everytime I think I couldn't hate them more I do. Cunts



I mean I do too, I consider them responsible for thousands of deaths, but the restrictions themselves make sense within the logic by which the government views things, and tbh is also what many in the population want, which is to keep as much open as possible, and within that we have to make some changes and household mixing (inside and socially outside) is the obvious one.

I also think this Tier system is much better than what we had previously, it's just shocking we took months to get to it.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 15, 2020)

Not heard of Dan Carden before. A Liverpool MP to watch. He certainly makes his point in last night's debate.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

nagapie said:


> What happens if your support person lives out of London?





LynnDoyleCooper said:


> You can't see them.



You can, it's only at tier 3 (very high) that you can't travel in or out of the area, with the usual exceptions.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> You can, it's only at tier 3 (very high) that you can't travel in or out of the area, with the usual exceptions.



I was thinking no inside mixing, guess you can see them outside then, unless they're from a Tier 3 area as then travel not allowed.


----------



## Edie (Oct 15, 2020)

One aspect of all this is seeing the food poverty especially at my kids school. They do free breakfasts (I think these are mainly supplied by local businesses) but could no longer mix year groups to give them. So the kids who need free breakfasts queue at different entrances according to their year group and get handed out their bagel and bit of fruit.

Then free school meals work fine if your in school. But my school has had to send year groups home in turn (a week per year group) so there’s usually a year off. Those kids who want dinner also have to queue. So basically there is a coming and going queue of kids round the back and side of school waiting for the hand outs.

On top of that is the absolute permanent bloody daily texts from school either about food being available to collect, having been donated. Or saying there is none left and please don’t send your kid as it’s unnecessary risk.

In between all that apparently some kind of education is meant to be going on but I’m really not sure much is


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I was thinking no inside mixing, guess you can see them outside then, unless they're from a Tier 3 area as then travel not allowed.



I assumed 'support person' was as in a 'support bubble', in which case it's OK to meet inside, but if they are not in a 'support bubble', then outside only.


----------



## zora (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I was thinking no inside mixing, guess you can see them outside then, unless they're from a Tier 3 area as then travel not allowed.



Support bubbles can still operate as one household, I believe, even in the highest tier areas? And would probably also allow for travel inside and outside highest tier areas.


----------



## zora (Oct 15, 2020)

Urgh, so cross as well.   What I would like to see investigated is how much got fucked up by introducing the "rule of six" which watered down the "no more than two households mixing indoors", only now a few weeks later to be at a point when hardly anyone can mix indoors anymore. Wasn't that also the first point (or one of the first points) when some scientists piped up to say this is not based on any of our advice, and the government is not following the science anymore?

Of course, I agree that we are at a point when something badly needs to be done, but how could this be fucked up so catastrophically, twice!!!


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I mean I do too, I consider them responsible for thousands of deaths, but the restrictions themselves make sense within the logic by which the government views things, and tbh is also what many in the population want, which is to keep as much open as possible, and within that we have to make some changes and household mixing (inside and socially outside) is the obvious one.
> 
> I also think this Tier system is much better than what we had previously, it's just shocking we took months to get to it.


Yeah I know they're are no easy answers and we need these, or some restrictions, though I do think they are a bit contradictory in cases and having two classifications ie Tiers and Medium, High, Very High is confusing.

I think like nearly everyone I'm just tired and pissed off with everything, including trying to get my head around the fact that we are going to have to deal with the presence of Covid for a long time.

I just needed to have a virtual scream! 

The government are still cunts though


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> How the fuck did we get into this situation?
> 
> And what the fuck is a 'substantial meal'? Do they count the calories?


Some smartalec is going to try and get round this by putting out bowls of peanuts


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Is anyone actually confused about what the new rules in their area mean, or do you just not want to abide by them? They are arbitrary and unfair and miserable to have to stick by, but I don't think any of them are particularly confusing are they?


----------



## Numbers (Oct 15, 2020)

sojourner said:


> And one that changes more often than I change me knickers.


Easy, don’t wear any knickers and nothing will change.


----------



## zora (Oct 15, 2020)

I feel you QueenOfGoths - I am clearly still screaming, judging by my uncharacteristic flurry of posts. As you say, it's the longhaulness of it now that is so grim. And that there isn't even the pretence of putting anything in place that will get us *out* of these measures any time soon. Of course, in spring a two week lockdown turned into 3+ months, but at least there was the idea of implementing test/trace/isolate, but now it's just going to be languishing in the utter grimness of this absolute Tory toilet.


----------



## Supine (Oct 15, 2020)

So if you really need a shag you can do it outdoors only?


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 15, 2020)

Am I reading this right Edie ?



Edie said:


> Then free school meals work fine if your in school. But my school has had to send year groups home in turn (a week per year group) so there’s usually a year off. Those kids who want dinner also have to queue. So basically there is a coming and going queue of kids round the back and side of school waiting for the hand outs.



Kids who's year group is on a week at home but need school dinners must come to the school and queue up for a hand out to take away with them?


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Am I reading this right Edie ?
> 
> 
> 
> Kids who's year group is on a week at home but need school dinners must come to the school and queue up for a hand out to take away with them?


yeah - they did this through the whole of lockdown too


----------



## Edie (Oct 15, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Am I reading this right Edie ?
> 
> 
> 
> Kids who's year group is on a week at home but need school dinners must come to the school and queue up for a hand out to take away with them?


How else they gonna get them? Do they deliver round your way?!


----------



## brogdale (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is anyone actually confused about what the new rules in their area mean, or do you just not want to abide by them? They are arbitrary and unfair and miserable to have to stick by, but I don't think any of them are particularly confusing are they?


Vox pops (usual caveats) would suggest that the wo/man in the street is confused because of the rapidity of change in Government designation/rule especially given the mixed messaging from Lockdown to the Eat, Drink & be Merry of the summer and now back to piecemeal, spatially differentiated responses.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> How else they gonna get them? Do they deliver round your way?!


Round here they moved to supermarket vouchers.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> How else they gonna get them? Do they deliver round your way?!




I had no idea, that's just awful on so many levels.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is anyone actually confused about what the new rules in their area mean, or do you just not want to abide by them? They are arbitrary and unfair and miserable to have to stick by, but I don't think any of them are particularly confusing are they?


I have definitely needed clarity as a non nuclear household with a few extras.
And I'm fucked off and don't want to abide by them.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 15, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Round here they moved to supermarket vouchers.



Is what I thought was happening. 

Queueing at the school, like it's a food bank, ffs


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

I think the speed of the restrictions changing is partly to blame for confusion (although I think some of it is people being pissed off rather than confused tbh) so hopefully that will shift if we stay with this Tier system which I do think is much better and clearer.


----------



## zora (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is anyone actually confused about what the new rules in their area mean, or do you just not want to abide by them? They are arbitrary and unfair and miserable to have to stick by, but I don't think any of them are particularly confusing are they?



Well for a start, I think you were wrong about someone not being able to go to the pub with their g/f, because I think they can if they sit outside. (But then again, I might have got it wrong!). This is not me trying to game the system, but trying to understand what the tiers mean.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is anyone actually confused about what the new rules in their area mean, or do you just not want to abide by them? They are arbitrary and unfair and miserable to have to stick by, but I don't think any of them are particularly confusing are they?


I completely misunderstood the bubble thing. I thought it was two households, so thought it was fine for my lass to visit after not seeing her for 6 months. Turns out it wasn't, it had to be a 1 person household with another household, but I only realised when I double-checked what a bubble was.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is anyone actually confused about what the new rules in their area mean, or do you just not want to abide by them? They are arbitrary and unfair and miserable to have to stick by, but I don't think any of them are particularly confusing are they?


IN the abstract I think you are right. If it's a case of 'read this, do you understand it, yeah' the vast majority will get it. But it's a shifting set of instructions and conditions over months, layered on to a jaded population. It's not so much that people don't understand it, it's that they are not in a place to listen any more.  And as always, the reality of people's lives means they can't always stop visiting loved ones or doing some of the things that are now 'on the list'.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

zora said:


> Well for a start, I think you were wrong about someone not being able to go to the pub with their g/f, because I think they can if they sit outside. (But then again, I might have got it wrong!). This is not me trying to game the system, but trying to understand what the tiers mean.



I think some of it with the restrictions is people guessing/assuming you know, but if you look into it it'll be pretty easy to find a definitive answer as to what you're allowed to do.


----------



## Edie (Oct 15, 2020)

The whole kids queuing for food thing breaks my heart especially cos it’s outside. I mean what the fuck man. Why can their parents not feed them? Not in a punitive sense to the parents who are on low wages or benefits, but just how the hell do we have a situation whereby the money coming in is literally not enough to pay the rent and feed the kids. 

If you get UC do you get your housing paid for you? Does anyone have any experience of the system? How can SO MANY kids be reliant on both breakfast AND lunch from the school? I’m talking 10s of kids in each year, not a handful, probably well over a hundred kids or more in a 1200 population high school. That for two meals a day are fed by who? The Government or local businesses. It’s insane.


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Vox pops (usual caveats) would suggest that the wo/man in the street is confused because of the rapidity of change in Government designation/rule especially given the mixed messaging from Lockdown to the Eat, Drink & be Merry of the summer and now back to piecemeal, spatially differentiated responses.



Yeah I think you have to remember that engagement with media here is ludicrously high. A few people from my old university circles probably on a similar level, but no one in my normal social and professional groups even comes close.


----------



## chilango (Oct 15, 2020)

From the safety of my Tier 1 zone I think that a lot of people - myself included - don't see much point in tinkering with (or paying much heed to) who you share a table at the pub with whilst schools, universites and workpkaces remain open and recklessly putting us at risk for money. It cert6 generates a degree of fatalism.


----------



## Edie (Oct 15, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Round here they moved to supermarket vouchers.


That’s interesting. Why is this not happening at my kids school? The breakfasts in particular seem to involve a degree of insecurity- some days they’re there, some days there’s extra, some days not enough?

The lunch thing I guess is understandable now there’s an expectation kids are back in school- and if there not it’s ‘just’ a week (year 11 one week, year 10 next week etc). So I guess the food will already be delivered by council suppliers and need to be given out.


----------



## bimble (Oct 15, 2020)

I'm definitely guilty of maintaining a sort of wilful ignorance over the last few months because I didn't want to know that as a person who lives alone I'm only supposed to have one household as my support bubble when in fact all my support (pretty much all social stuff basically) has come from two local friends who both also live alone and we kind of all 3 need each other. It's easier to pretend you don't understand than to admit you're knowingly going to flout the rules.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think the speed of the restrictions changing is partly to blame for confusion (although I think some of it is people being pissed off rather than confused tbh) so hopefully that will shift if we stay with this Tier system which I do think is much better and clearer.


I think it's better than what went before but is so late in the day that we'll see (already are) government moving lots of areas up the list at the point where we need a full on national lockdown. Better and clearer though it is, I suspect in the long run it's getting in the way of a better/necessary solution.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 15, 2020)

I was queuing outside the building society the other day and an old lady behind me was getting well grumpy. "Why do we have to queue outside?" she asked me as if it was somehow my fault. "Because of Covid and that" I told her. "Is that still a thing? I thought it was all over now" she says.

While I think I understand the rules (I was just explaining the rules for going to the pub in a high risk area to someone - it doesn't lend itself to simple slogans), some people are completely clueless about the basics of what's going on. Getting them to grasp the details of the various rules in the various tiers isn't going to be a simple task.


----------



## souljacker (Oct 15, 2020)

I'm confused now because Hancock hasn't even mentioned Manchester in his statement to the house?


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> I'm definitely guilty of maintaining a sort of wilful ignorance over the last few months because I didn't want to know that as a person who lives alone I'm only supposed to have one household as my support bubble when in fact all my support (pretty much all social stuff basically) has come from two local friends who both also live alone and we kind of all 3 need each other. It's easier to pretend you don't understand than to admit you're knowingly going to flout the rules.


I've found myself bubble-less - me and mrs b were planning on flouting the rules and carrying on hanging out, but decided it's too risky. Not really sure what to do about it!


----------



## souljacker (Oct 15, 2020)

Ahh...discussions 'continuing'. Burnham has clearly told them to fuck off.


----------



## Edie (Oct 15, 2020)

Is anyone NOT flouting the rules in some minor sense. I know I am.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I was queuing outside the building society the other day and an old lady behind me was getting well grumpy. "Why do we have to queue outside?" she asked me as if it was somehow my fault. "Because of Covid and that" I told her. "Is that still a thing? I thought it was all over now" she says.
> 
> While I think I understand the rules (I was just explaining the rules for going to the pub in a high risk area to someone - it doesn't lend itself to simple slogans), but some people are completely clueless about the basics of what's going on. Getting them to grasp the details of the various rules in the various tiers isn't going to be a simple task.



Yeah early on in the pandemic (February/March) one of the shocking things to me was how low engagement with news and 'facts' (for want of a better term) was among people I talked to. People saw headlines or FB posts or maybe saw bits on TV, but mostly didn't seem to have much depth or understanding beyond that.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is anyone NOT flouting the rules in some minor sense. I know I am.


I'm not anymore.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is anyone NOT flouting the rules in some minor sense. I know I am.


When you've been under these sorts of rules since July it's pretty much impossible not to break them at some point. Though now I'm doing my best because of the scary level of cases.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is anyone NOT flouting the rules in some minor sense. I know I am.



No, I'm not really. Someone I live with kind of did one step removed as they saw someone else (in our support bubble) that had had close contact with someone inside they shouldn't have, and then that person tested positive 10 days later... so there's a lesson in there somewhere.

I did go inside someone's house a couple of months ago when we were eating outside and it started pissing it down, but on a day to day basis no. I think outside exceptional circumstances it's really important to stick to them.

How are you breaking them?


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is anyone NOT flouting the rules in some minor sense. I know I am.



I don’t think I know anyone. I mean I kind of stick to them. Only mix with people at work. But er... that is basically my life anyway.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 15, 2020)

I think the rule of six can be confusing when it includes support bubbles. If I'm reading the rules correctly you can meet up with more than six if they are in your support bubble and I don't think that has changed within the tier system, well not in tier 1 and 2 at least.

Tbh I've not really had to think about it as there are 3 of us and we're not really meeting anyone at the moment!.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 15, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah I think you have to remember that engagement with media here is ludicrously high. A few people from my old university circles probably on a similar level, but no one in my normal social and professional groups even comes close.


This. I was saying this to the fella last night. We watch the news and keep up daily - R4 in the morning, online news during the day, urban, then tea time news both national and local. I genuinely doubt whether most people, certainly round here, do the same.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> That’s interesting. Why is this not happening at my kids school? The breakfasts in particular seem to involve a degree of insecurity- some days they’re there, some days there’s extra, some days not enough?
> 
> The lunch thing I guess is understandable now there’s an expectation kids are back in school- and if there not it’s ‘just’ a week (year 11 one week, year 10 next week etc). So I guess the food will already be delivered by council suppliers and need to be given out.


I think the vouchers were only for lunch, don't think breakfasts were happening at all.
Also not sure the system would kick in again as not in full lockdown. Just having some kids off here means less of an organised system.
In answer to your other question UC is not a livable amount and the system is full of holes and contradictions that impact negatively on housing.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is anyone NOT flouting the rules in some minor sense. I know I am.


I totally did cos my lass was moving up to Scotland after I'd not seen her for 6 months, and there was no way on this fucking earth I wasn't hugging her before she went.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is anyone NOT flouting the rules in some minor sense. I know I am.



My sister and her partner haven't left their flat (actually her partner's flat, her flat has been empty the whole time) since March, and they'll definitely not be going anywhere any time soon. We've been to see them a couple of times and stood in the carpark outside and talked to them from several metres away. I think there's probably quite a lot of people like that tbh. For everyone trying to maintain some sort of life outside of home I expect most people have bent the rules a bit by now, although I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

I've heard a lot of people coming out with variations on 'well, you can go to work, you can go on the bus, you can go to the pub, so I'm going to carry on seeing my friend' etc.  It's not the right conclusion - adding more risk to existing risk - but you can see why people think that. And it's that can kind of logic, a logic grounded in people's real lives, that gets in the way of any simple compliance with the new rules.


----------



## Supine (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is anyone NOT flouting the rules in some minor sense. I know I am.



I'm following stricter rules


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I think the rule of six can be confusing when it includes support bubbles. If I'm reading the rules correctly you can meet up with more than six of they are in your support bubble and I don't think that has changed within the tier system, w to not in tier 1 and 2 at least.
> 
> Tbh I've not really had to think about it as there are 3 of us and we're not really meeting anyone at the moment!.



Quite a few people don’t seem to get the support bubble. It’s a good idea - an essential idea really - but it’s very limited in application. Essentially it’s only there so that single person households, especially vulnerable ones, are able to have an extended household to, well, support them. That’s how it should be regarded really -  a limited exception that extends a household.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> no you can't. you can only go to the pub with your housemates.



What if we're in an 'established relationship'? 

And eating a 'substantial meal'?

And shagging in the bushes?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 15, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I've heard a lot of people coming out with variations on 'well, you can go to work, you can go on the bus, you can go to the pub, so I'm going to carry on seeing my friend' etc.  It's not the right conclusion - adding more risk to existing risk - but you can see why people think that. And it's that can kind of logic, a logic grounded in people's real lives, that gets in the way of any simple compliance with the new rules.



People have quite a strong sense of fairness around things like this don't they? I think that's behind a lot of this sort of stuff - people will put up with a lot if it's seen to be spread equally. If not though it's very hard to make it stick however good the reasoning behind it is.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> What if we're in an 'established relationship'?
> 
> And eating a 'substantial meal'?
> 
> And shagging in the bushes?


If you after advice, I'd say don't have a substantial meal before shagging.


----------



## chilango (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, I'm not really. Someone I live with kind of did one step removed as they saw someone else (in our support bubble) that had had close contact with someone inside they shouldn't have, and then that person tested positive 10 days later... so there's a lesson in there somewhere.
> 
> I did go inside someone's house a couple of months ago when we were eating outside and it started pissing it down, but on a day to day basis no. I think outside exceptional circumstances it's really important to stick to them.
> 
> How are you breaking them?



Well, for example.

My SIL lives nearby. My daughter and her kids are very close. Go to school together etc. If we're altogether there's 7 of us. Sticking to the rules means one adult is missing out on a family activity only to exposed to the same risk later in the day.

The risk we pose to others is also  - surely - the same whether we're 6 or 7?

The only argument, afaics, is that cooperation with rules (or not) is socially "contagious".

For now. we're sticking to the rules. But it seems utterly flimsy and pointless and I'm not convinced we'll stick to it.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> People have quite a strong sense of fairness around things like this don't they? I think that's behind a lot of this sort of stuff - people will put up with a lot if it's seen to be spread equally. If not though it's very hard to make it stick however good the reasoning behind it is.



The problem is we have absolutely no confidence in the competence of this govt. I just don't believe them. I would do a couple of months of TOTAL lockdown if it meant after that we could be normal again, a la south korea and new zealand. 

For starters, close the fucking borders. My ex took my little boy on a disease ridden flight to and back from Turkey a couple of weeks ago. How in god's name is that allowed?


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> What if we're in an 'established relationship'?
> 
> And eating a 'substantial meal'?
> 
> And shagging in the bushes?


Go for it dude


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> What if we're in an 'established relationship'?
> 
> And eating a 'substantial meal'?
> 
> And shagging in the bushes?


do what you like tbh, I don't give a fuck.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

A random thought, as soon as they start to roll out a vaccine - whenever and however effective that may or may not be - the 'rules in place at that point will fall apart.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> do what you like tbh, I don't give a fuck.



I wasn't actually asking you dickwallah


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> I think the rule of six can be confusing when it includes support bubbles. If I'm reading the rules correctly you can meet up with more than six if they are in your support bubble and I don't think that has changed within the tier system, well not in tier 1 and 2 at least.
> 
> Tbh I've not really had to think about it as there are 3 of us and we're not really meeting anyone at the moment!.



Only single people can form a support bubble with others, so 6 meeting (for example) could only be 5 from one household and 1 person living alone.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 15, 2020)

.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 15, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I've heard a lot of people coming out with variations on 'well, you can go to work, you can go on the bus, you can go to the pub, so I'm going to carry on seeing my friend' etc.  It's not the right conclusion - adding more risk to existing risk - but you can see why people think that.


This is exactly what my teenagers are coming out with. "Why can't we go shopping, it's just the same as being at work!" They see risk as a binary rather than a cumulative thing.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I wasn't actually asking you dickwallah


Ah, gabi. I thought you were familiar.


----------



## chilango (Oct 15, 2020)

If you can't swim it doesn't matter if you get chucked into 10ft or 100ft of water.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> Well, for example.
> 
> My SIL lives nearby. My daughter and her kids are very close. Go to school together etc. If we're altogether there's 7 of us. Sticking to the rules means one adult is missing out on a family activity only to exposed to the same risk later in the day.
> 
> ...



It's not pointless though. It might seem so from a 'common sense' perspective, but from an infection perspective the rules do make sense - when balaced with other factors of course. 

There are always going to be bits that feel weird to it, like why 6 rather than 7? But then why 7 rather than 8, etc. Six was chosen for all sorts of reasons as a balance between it being easy to manage internally (walking with groups of people makes it really hard to stay distanced, even outside), and it allows a family of 4 to meet with grandparents, or 2 single parents with 2 kids, or a small group of friends to meet, etc. etc.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Ah, gabi. I thought you were familiar.



Wtf does that mean?


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is anyone actually confused about what the new rules in their area mean, or do you just not want to abide by them? They are arbitrary and unfair and miserable to have to stick by, but I don't think any of them are particularly confusing are they?



In Wales four separate households can form an extended household.

The rules state six people from those households can meet up indoors. More if there are children under 11.

The rules imply those households can all meet separately indoors in groups of six, four times over though.

And if we are thirty people we can all meet up in the garden together regardless.

I think that's pretty confusing if things are meant to be logical. 

I don't break the rules Edie.


----------



## Looby (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> How else they gonna get them? Do they deliver round your way?!


Here they were emailing supermarket vouchers to all families on FSM. Some schools were also doing weekly hampers on top of the LA organising food bank deliveries for isolating families. 
It took a while to set up and the success was variable from school to school but we definitely didn’t have kids queuing at school. That’s awful. 😞


----------



## chilango (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's not pointless though. It might seem so from a 'common sense' perspective, but from an infection perspective the rules do make sense - when balaced with other factors of course.
> 
> There are always going to be bits that feel weird to it, like why 6 rather than 7? But then why 7 rather than 8, etc. Six was chosen for all sorts of reasons as a balance between it being easy to manage internally (walking with groups of people makes it really hard to stay distanced, even outside), and it allows a family of 4 to meet with grandparents, or 2 single parents with 2 kids, or a small group of friends to meet, etc. etc.



Yeah. I get the abstract logic. but irl it makes no difference to my individual situation. And there'll be be millions of people who've been conditioned and coerced into making decisions on an  individualised basis. When the rules make no sense. seem unfair, appear pointless in the individual IRL situation then the rules start to get bent. People make exceptions. Perfectly reasonable exceptions and the whole thing collapses.

As I said above this ideology of Libertarian Paternalism utterly fails.


----------



## sparkybird (Oct 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> So just checking tier 2 means pubs and restaurants stay open get no extra help but you can’t meet anyone in them who you don’t already live with?


That's my understanding.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yeah. I get the abstract logic. but irl it makes no difference to my individual situation. And there'll be be millions of people who've been conditioned and coerced into making decisions on an  individualised basis. When the rules make no sense. seem unfair, appear pointless in the individual IRL situation then the rules start to get bent. People make exceptions. Perfectly reasonable exceptions and the whole thing collapses.
> 
> As I said above this ideology of Libertarian Paternalism utterly fails.



I think the fairness thing is a really big factor in it all. It's one reason why the national restrictions worked so much better than what we have now, people really struggle with the perceived 'unfairness' of their area being in tighter restrictions.


----------



## mauvais (Oct 15, 2020)

Noone seems to be able to decide if Manchester is in Tier 3 or not.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think the fairness thing is a really big factor in it all. It's one reason why the national restrictions worked so much better than what we have now, people really struggle with the perceived 'unfairness' of their area being in tighter restrictions.



The whole devolution thing isn't helping either. Boris is effectively PM of England.


----------



## campanula (Oct 15, 2020)

I see my offspring pretty much every day. I don't realy give a fuck about the rules because my shielded D-i-L has to go to work every day in a fucking nursery (or else starve and be evicted) - basically abandonned.  They stop at my house after work, I cook them a meal and my partner drives them home. I work with  my oldest offspring (outdoors) and will be visiting my daughter and grand-daughter. I don't give even the tiniest consideration to any of the shite which pours out of Westminster since I believe it is down to us to look out for each other. Not for one single second would I refuse to see my children while they are still having to work...as we need and support each other.
Otoh, I have not been in a pub, restaurant, busy shop or been out of east anglia. I understand MY rules and risks. I do not think I am unique in this.


----------



## chilango (Oct 15, 2020)

Yeah (perceived) fairness is vital.

...but I'd add (perceived) effectiveness as well. 

Does anyone really think all this tier stuff is enough to make a big enough difference whilst there's an insitence on keeping major sites of transmission open for £££?


----------



## bimble (Oct 15, 2020)

Can't shake this sense of massive foreboding about the coming months, in terms of social and mental health stuff tbh more than the virus itself.  Not so much for me personally, i'm really lucky because i'm an introvert with a garden and a work from home job but this is going to be so hard for so many people, its going to be winter, everyone's already fed up, most will be increasingly skint, i have a really bad feeling.


----------



## Mation (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is anyone actually confused about what the new rules in their area mean, or do you just not want to abide by them? They are arbitrary and unfair and miserable to have to stick by, but I don't think any of them are particularly confusing are they?





Wilf said:


> IN the abstract I think you are right. If it's a case of 'read this, do you understand it, yeah' the vast majority will get it. But it's a shifting set of instructions and conditions over months, layered on to a jaded population. It's not so much that people don't understand it, it's that they are not in a place to listen any more.  And as always, the reality of people's lives means they can't always stop visiting loved ones or doing some of the things that are now 'on the list'.


Do we have to do this again? 

Don't assume that because you find something possible or easy to understand that other people are making it up or have stopped listening when they say they are confused. Those things do happen, too, but they are by no means the only reasons.

It's a really common habit to assume that everyone is cognitively the same, but we're not, and it makes it hard to communicate.

(So yes, clearly we do have to do this again!  )


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yeah (perceived) fairness is vital.
> 
> ...but I'd add (perceived) effectiveness as well.
> 
> Does anyone really think all this tier stuff is enough to make a big enough difference whilst there's an insitence on keeping major sites of transmission open for £££?



Isn't the whole tier thing really based around £££s anyway rather than saving lives? In that it's designed to keep government help (tier 3/tier oh not afuckinggain) at bay as long as possible i.e as long as we can keep areas out of tier 3 for?


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> Can't shake this sense of massive foreboding about the coming months, in terms of social and mental health stuff tbh more than the virus itself.  Not so much for me personally, i'm really lucky because i'm an introvert with a garden and a work from home job but this is going to be so hard for so many people, its going to be winter, everyone's already fed up, most will be increasingly skint, i have a really bad feeling.



Yep, me too. I'm lucky to have just landed a new job. But I really really fear for those in low paid jobs in hospitality, the arts etc. I'm upping my game on helping out with voluntary work. The govt has to let homeless people back into the hotels they were in during lockdown surely. It's going to be a terrible winter.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 15, 2020)

A gym on the Wirral refused to close yesterday, saying that the measures they had taken to make it covid-secure were enough, and that the benefits to the population outweighed any other risk

They got fined and told to close Wirral gym fined and ordered to close after Tier 3 restrictions imposed

Not sure if they did though.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> This is exactly what my teenagers are coming out with. "Why can't we go shopping, it's just the same as being at work!" They see risk as a binary rather than a cumulative thing.



But, they can go shopping, shops haven't been closed.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 15, 2020)

One thing that really doesn't help with understanding the rules is crap media reporting of what they are and what they mean. Made worse by a load of news articles before any change about what the new rules might be. Which then turn out to be half truths at best.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 15, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Ahh...discussions 'continuing'. Burnham has clearly told them to fuck off.


More like the Tory treasury telling Manc to fuck off.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, they can go shopping, shops haven't been closed.


I was just about to say the same thing. But I think they mean as a group from different households.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think the fairness thing is a really big factor in it all. It's one reason why the national restrictions worked so much better than what we have now, people really struggle with the perceived 'unfairness' of their area being in tighter restrictions.



Trouble is people around here, about 28 cases per 100k, will not be happy to be treated the same as areas with cases running into many hundreds, it's a no win situation.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Mation said:


> Do we have to do this again?
> 
> Don't assume that because you find something possible or easy to understand that other people are making it up or have stopped listening when they say they are confused. Those things do happen, too, but they are by no means the only reasons.
> 
> ...


It was a question, not a statement.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Wtf does that mean?


that if you re-register under a new name to a forum you've been banned from, don't carry on using the same unique insult that only you ever use?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, they can go shopping, shops haven't been closed.


True - but I want them to minimise unnecessary journeys. Wandering around the shops touching stuff and surrounded by strangers is an unnecessary risk, IMO.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 15, 2020)

emanymton said:


> One thing that really doesn't help with understanding the rules is crap media reporting of what they are and what they mean. Made worse by a load of news articles before any change about what the new rules might be. Which then turn out to be half truths at best.



Yes lots of stories came out before the fact based on 'leaks' of what was definitely going to happen. Must verge on willful and dangerous misinformation in some cases, but it doesn't matter because the press can do whatever the fuck they like.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Trouble is people around here, about 28 cases per 100k, will not be happy to be treated the same as areas with cases running into many hundreds, it's a no win situation.



And yet I dont remember the South West moaning that full lockdown in March was just too early for them, as they didnt have as many cases as elsewhere. Rather they ended up with a lockdown that wasnt as poorly timed as elsewhere.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 15, 2020)

brogdale said:


> More like the Tory treasury telling Manc to fuck off.



This is the thing, I've got time for people saying they can't shut down when they can't afford it because it's true.

Rishy hasn't done nearly enough to persuade people the government will look after them financially.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> It was a question, not a statement.


I am confused. I must have rules fatigue or something as I'm usually very good at reading .gov
I also don't really want to understand as it feels like contradictory nonsense. My child can go to nursery and my partner can work in a school but my child can't have a sleepover at her cousins (2 kids in school, two parents wfh). I know it's all the increased transmission points but we could sit outside a pub (if we left one parent at home).


this helps make it clearer in general but not clear enough. tbh. It's too fucking complicated. humans are better with binary (no I'm not a behavioural scientist)


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yeah. I get the abstract logic. but irl it makes no difference to my individual situation. And there'll be be millions of people who've been conditioned and coerced into making decisions on an  individualised basis. When the rules make no sense. seem unfair, appear pointless in the individual IRL situation then the rules start to get bent. People make exceptions. Perfectly reasonable exceptions and the whole thing collapses.
> 
> As I said above this ideology of Libertarian Paternalism utterly fails.



Yeah this is what I was getting at earlier when mentioning the level of engagement on here. You probably understand the rules and the reasoning behind them better than 90% of people simply by keeping up to date on this forum. But even then there’s a leap when you have to apply that logic to the messy world around you.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 15, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> I am confused. I must have rules fatigue or something as I'm usually very good at reading .gov
> I also don't really want to understand as it feels like contradictory nonsense. My child can go to nursery and my partner can work in a school but my child can't have a sleepover at her cousins (2 kids in school, two parents wfh). I know it's all the increased transmission points but we could sit outside a pub (if we left one parent at home).
> 
> 
> ...



The rules make no bloody sense to me because it's literally just saying nearly everything is open but your not allowed to be around other people.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

sojourner said:


> A gym on the Wirral refused to close yesterday, saying that the measures they had taken to make it covid-secure were enough, and that the benefits to the population outweighed any other risk
> 
> They got fined and told to close Wirral gym fined and ordered to close after Tier 3 restrictions imposed
> 
> Not sure if they did though.



I guessing that was the one featured on the news yesterday, I thought what a twat for going on national TV to declare his intentions, whilst expecting him to get a visit today as a result.

IIRC, the £1000 fine keeps doubling up to a certain amount, for every time he gets a visit, it's going to get bloody expensive for him.


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

campanula said:


> I see my offspring pretty much every day. I don't realy give a fuck about the rules because my shielded D-i-L has to go to work every day in a fucking nursery (or else starve and be evicted) - basically abandonned.  They stop at my house after work, I cook them a meal and my partner drives them home. I work with  my oldest offspring (outdoors) and will be visiting my daughter and grand-daughter. I don't give even the tiniest consideration to any of the shite which pours out of Westminster since I believe it is down to us to look out for each other. Not for one single second would I refuse to see my children while they are still having to work...as we need and support each other.
> Otoh, I have not been in a pub, restaurant, busy shop or been out of east anglia. I understand MY rules and risks. I do not think I am unique in this.



And above very much combined with this. The application of the rules has a level of cruelty to it. Don’t meet with friends and family. But we won’t support you shielding. We won’t let you stop working in a position that puts you at risk.


----------



## Edie (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, I'm not really. Someone I live with kind of did one step removed as they saw someone else (in our support bubble) that had had close contact with someone inside they shouldn't have, and then that person tested positive 10 days later... so there's a lesson in there somewhere.
> 
> I did go inside someone's house a couple of months ago when we were eating outside and it started pissing it down, but on a day to day basis no. I think outside exceptional circumstances it's really important to stick to them.
> 
> How are you breaking them?


I’m meeting up with mates to go for walks and sometimes going in their garden or getting a coffee. Thing is I’m a single mum on my own majority of the time and I just cannot cope with the stress of the lads without having someone to talk to irl, and I’m lonely.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> And yet I dont remember the South West moaning that full lockdown in March was just too early for them, as they didnt have as many cases as elsewhere. Rather they ended up with a lockdown that wasnt as poorly timed as elsewhere.



No one moaned around here last time, but the mood has changed because the outbreak is more regional this time, and people are very aware that we are at very low levels.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I guessing that was the one featured on the news yesterday, I thought what a twat for going on national TV to declare his intentions, whilst expecting him to get a visit today as a result.
> 
> IIRC, the £1000 fine keeps doubling up to a certain amount, for every time he gets a visit, it's going to get bloody expensive for him.


I'm not sure he rang the BBC to tell them tbh, more that it got picked up by local and then went national.

He could always choose not to pay. This is Liverpool anyway, he'd get the fine paid by crowdfund in no time.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

sojourner said:


> I'm not sure he rang the BBC to tell them tbh, more that it got picked up by local and then went national.



Well if it's the one I saw, he did a face-to-face interview on TV, red rag to a bull, he was bound to get visited quicker than otherwise.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’m meeting up with mates to go for walks and sometimes going in their garden or getting a coffee. Thing is I’m a single mum on my own majority of the time and I just cannot cope with the stress of the lads without having someone to talk to irl, and I’m lonely.


This doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong, whatever your tier is. You're allowed to meet outdoors and you're allowed in gardens (although in areas with extra restrictions, you weren't prior to tiers coming in). Only thing is probably bring your own coffee in a flask, but I think even that isn't a rule.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> No one moaned around here last time, but the mood has changed because the outbreak is more regional this time, and people are very aware that we are at very low levels.



That sentiment is easy to understand, but we dont have any local polls to demonstrate what attitudes are like do we? I would like to be wrong about that and to see such a poll, since I suspect there would still be more support for a 'circuit-breaker' there than you might think.

I dont believe that being at relatively low levels of infection only leads to a reaction of 'so we dont need to do anything further' as opposed to 'so lets keep it that way or drive rates even lower still'.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well if it's the one I saw, he did a face-to-face interview on TV, red rag to a bull, he was bound to get visited quicker than otherwise.


A member of the public reported them, the police were called, local news got a whiff of it and then it naturally travels up the ladder to national. I suppose he felt he was making a stand, they do a lot of work with disadvantaged kids, differently-abled kids, and I guess he sees it as a work place that he's put a huge effort into making 'covid secure'. Be interesting to see if there were any infections from the place eh?

The fine was already on its way before he went on telly.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Trouble is people around here, about 28 cases per 100k, will not be happy to be treated the same as areas with cases running into many hundreds, it's a no win situation.



I just struggle to sympathize with that point of view tbh.

Like all the 'bad areas' start off as 'not bad' areas, can people not get that? It just makes me feel we're fucked and that selfish individualism is too deeply ingrained now, even in the face of mass death people are moaning they can't go for a pint or shopping.

(I know it's much more complicated than that btw, but I'm having a fucked off moan.)


----------



## strung out (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> that if you re-register under a new name to a forum you've been banned from, don't carry on using the same unique insult that only you ever use?


All makes sense now after they admitted accidentally getting a job with the Tory party recently.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Trouble is people around here, about 28 cases per 100k, will not be happy to be treated the same as areas with cases running into many hundreds, it's a no win situation.


It's interesting how 28 per 100,000 is now perceived as very low, when areas in the north were put into restrictions on levels not very much higher than this - IIRC my area was put into restrictions at around 35-40, and we weren't taken out even when it had got down to 20. Of course after that it soared to over 200 within a month or so.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> I am confused. I must have rules fatigue or something as I'm usually very good at reading .gov
> I also don't really want to understand as it feels like contradictory nonsense.


This is what I was asking really - I guess it's very difficult to disentangle rule fatigue from _not really wanting to understand _because the rules seem contradictory and unfair though.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Oct 15, 2020)

Just looking at those tiers. Even number 3 seems a bit weak. Is that it??


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I just struggle to sympathize with that point of view tbh.
> 
> Like all the 'bad areas' start off as 'not bad' areas, can people not get that? It just makes me feel we're fucked and that selfish individualism is too deeply ingrained now, even in the face of mass death people are moaning they can't go for a pint or shopping.
> 
> (I know it's much more complicated than that btw, but I'm having a fucked off moan.)



I think people are seeing regional lockdowns across Europe, and so see no reason why it shouldn't happen in the UK too, and there's annoyance with images coming out of the big cities of people not giving a shit, whereas behaviour around here has been near on perfect.

Personally, I would be happy with another lockdown & government help, even at 67% it would make me better off than I am now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Just looking at those tiers. Even number 3 seems a bit weak. Is that it??



Yes, and it's unlikely it will work.


----------



## chilango (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I just struggle to sympathize with that point of view tbh.
> 
> Like all the 'bad areas' start off as 'not bad' areas, can people not get that? It just makes me feel we're fucked and that selfish individualism is too deeply ingrained now, even in the face of mass death people are moaning they can't go for a pint or shopping.
> 
> (I know it's much more complicated than that btw, but I'm having a fucked off moan.)



... except you can go for a pint and go shopping.

You can't see your friends and family though.

It's ££££ not public health that is defining these rules right now.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> This is what I was asking really - I guess it's very difficult to disentangle rule fatigue from _not really wanting to understand _because the rules seem contradictory and unfair though.


Yeah. I think I'm both going cross eyed trying to understand then retain the information but also eye rolling really hard at the same time. bit of both.


And I think I've been fine doing my own thing in the summer but now that feels irresponsible so I'm angry that I want to do what I can to get through this shit but I don't feel like the government are pulling their weight.


----------



## strung out (Oct 15, 2020)

For what it's worth, I don't think I've broken any of the rules and have probably been even stricter than necessary for the last 7 months. We don't have kids though, can work from home, and are content with staying in touch with family via text. 

We haven't gone out to a pub or restaurant all year, except for a lunchtime burger in an empty pub garden once.

Figure us being so strict makes up for our neighbours who had their kids and grandkids visiting pretty much the whole of lockdown.


----------



## sovereignb (Oct 15, 2020)

campanula said:


> I see my offspring pretty much every day. I don't realy give a fuck about the rules because my shielded D-i-L has to go to work every day in a fucking nursery (or else starve and be evicted) - basically abandonned.  They stop at my house after work, I cook them a meal and my partner drives them home. I work with  my oldest offspring (outdoors) and will be visiting my daughter and grand-daughter. *I don't give even the tiniest consideration to any of the shite which pours out of Westminster since I believe it is down to us to look out for each other. Not for one single second would I refuse to see my children while they are still having to work...as we need and support each other.*
> Otoh, I have not been in a pub, restaurant, busy shop or been out of east anglia. *I  understand MY rules and risks.* I do not think I am unique in this.



Some common sense, finally. I wish and hope people would do this more instead of looking towards the powers that be for something logical.


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 15, 2020)

zora said:


> Well for a start, I think you were wrong about someone not being able to go to the pub with their g/f, because I think they can if they sit outside. (But then again, I might have got it wrong!).


I think that's right, we can meet people in pub outdoor spaces


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 15, 2020)

Question is, even if people obey these rules, will they work? Seems like we probably need the circuit breaker lockdown.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> ... except you can go for a pint and go shopping.
> 
> You can't see your friends and family though.
> 
> It's ££££ not public health that is defining these rules right now.



I half agree, it's both in a complicated swirling mix that's shifting all the time, plus a few other factors too!

I think it's mostly the economy atm, but also that's not possible to disentangle from people's own needs and desires under the current system, hence we see some people pushing for some things to stay open in the face of public health, and not just the government.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

Stockton care home outbreak:









						'Significant' covid outbreak with 36 cases reported at single care home
					

A presentation to councillors on Tuesday revealed the stark scale of covid’s reach in Stockton




					www.thenorthernecho.co.uk
				




Aberdeen Royal Infirmary orthopaedic trauma unit outbreak:









						Coronavirus Scotland: Latest hospital coronavirus outbreak forces ward to close
					

Another major Scottish hospital has discovered an outbreak of coronavirus, leading to one of its wards closing.




					www.heraldscotland.com


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Question is, even if people obey these rules, will they work? Seems like we probably need the circuit breaker lockdown.



Whitty admitted Tier 3 is not enough at the briefing the other day, so no, it's not enough.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

So twitter appears to be telling me this is gonna be at least 6 months in London. Ie, the whole fucking winter.

Hancock was very reticent to give timelines earlier in the Commons, I suppose understandably. It's certainly not gonna be two weeks anyway.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

On the theme of not routinely testing asymptomatic hospital workers until very recently in some hospital settings despite the importance of this being known for many months:









						Coronavirus: Queen Elizabeth Hospital suspends cancer transplants
					

Two nurses are thought to be the source as cancer patients are treated for coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *Blood cancer transplants have been halted at Birmingham's QE Hospital after three patients caught Covid-19.*
> A woman with myeloma tested positive for coronavirus on a specialist haematology ward, nearly a week after a transplant.
> Two more haematology patients who were nearby have also since tested positive.





> The specialist ward, known as ward 625, is a Covid-free zone, meaning patients are only allowed into it once they have tested negative for the virus.
> Sources have told the BBC it was likely to have been spread by two nurses who showed no symptoms, but subsequently tested positive.
> Those sources claim that the need to routinely test staff dealing with very vulnerable cancer patients was first raised in May, but staff only began having routine tests this week after the outbreak had occurred.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 15, 2020)

That's interesting. 
When Bezza was having gall-bladder problems (it was whipped out) there was a covid test even before admission to wards and repeated at 48hrly intervals (more if showing relevant symptoms).
This was a hospital to the immediate north of Newcastle / Tyne only a few days ago ...


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> That's interesting.
> When Bezza was having gall-bladder problems (it was whipped out) there was a covid test even before admission to wards and repeated at 48hrly intervals (more if showing relevant symptoms).
> This was a hospital to the immediate north of Newcastle / Tyne only a few days ago ...



They got the regime for testing patients somewhat closer to where it needed to be, especially for patients with routine operations etc planned. Although this could deteriorate at any point, no room for complacency.

Its the giant holes in routine testing of all hospital staff, regardless of symptoms or lack of, thats been exposed by that QE Brum story. As its asymptomatic staff that have been identified as the source of the outbreak, not patients.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 15, 2020)

As an aside, have you looked at Covid-related vacancies lately?

£9 per hour for handling used test kits 








						Covid Test Pickers - Alderley Edge SK10 - Indeed.com
					

Blue Arrow




					www.indeed.co.uk
				




£9.50 per hour for cleaning up, handling used kits, disposing of 'waste' at various Covid sites








						Covid-19 - Multiskilled Operative - Local Test Site - Cheadle - Indeed.com
					

Sodexo




					www.indeed.co.uk
				




Fucking joke wages for front line work in potentially dangerous conditions. Having a fucking laugh.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't understand their workings. The current daily death rate is probably now getting close to 100, will possibly hit that this week. And may continue to rise for next week, but why would it explode like that, given that the R numbers around the country, while still above 1, have been falling? Looking at hospital admissions, only two regions currently - NW and NE - are at levels much higher than around 10% of first wave peak. Most regions are not increasing rapidly. So in 12 days, it could be 150-odd perhaps. No way it could be 690. That just makes no sense at all. But they judge 690 to be more likely than 230!!!



I dont understand where you got the 'they judge 690 to be more likely than 230" bit from. Those are confidence interval based ranges.

Have you looked at the death modelling graphs on the page? Look at the regional ones and pay attention to the shaded blue area that represent the full scope of the range of their model estimates, a lot of it is quite reasonable.

As for why they end up with the numbers they do, they are bound to the maths used in the model and the data they feed into it. And as of the last version, the actual case data they fed in only goes up to October 3rd. I dont see anything too unreasonable in the ranges they present, although that is not the same as me claiming that the upper bounds values are highly likely to occur. But I dont see why the numbers that will be seen in the coming days cannot fit within the ranges they present. Especially not when the number of Covid-19 patients in hospital for the North West graph looks like this:


If you cant find a region in France or Spain that has this sort of shape to its number of people in hospital with Covid-19 graphs then you should not be relying on data from those other countries to form your opinions of what will happen here in the coming weeks.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

On 'the rules' I think there are some specifics that affect people directly - hairdresser opens, workers told to work from home etc. But beyond that we've been living with this for a long while and have established our own ways of living with it and our own perspectives on risk, community, obligations and all that stuff. That in turn is obviously affected by what our lives were before covid. That means any change in regulations will only have a mushy impact on what person x does, living in circumstances y.  Take me as an example, I have couple of health conditions that make getting the virus a bad idea. I've been lucky in that my work hasn't been under threat and I've been working from home (I'm a lecturer but not had to go back on campus because of the health stuff).

I've lived an exemplary covid life for the last 6 months, one visit to see a sick relative, a few supermarket visits (mainly deliveries and online shopping), 2 pub visits, walking most days.  But not one bit of that has been about obeying anything. In fact I've watched very little news because it fucks with my MH after a bereavement (though ironically I've posted numerous fact free rants on here ). I know how the virus is transmitted and I know how to avoid those situations, it's a simple as that. But my step daughter as an example, works in a supermarket with no sick pay and has to expose herself to a very different level of risk. It's largely about where your life and circumstances are at, not the specifics of the rules.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont understand where you got the 'they judge 690 to be more likely than 230" bit from. Those are confidence interval based ranges.
> 
> Have you looked at the death modelling graphs on the page? Look at the regional ones and pay attention to the shaded blue area that represent the full scope of the range of their model estimates, a lot of it is quite reasonable.
> 
> ...


Look up Spain to find these kinds of shapes - Madrid went up in this way, as did other areas. More dramatically if anything. Other areas in the UK look very different at the moment.

As for the confidence interval, presumably 240-690 is their 95% confidence interval with the most likely figure in the middle of that. Therefore, they think that the upper end of their confidence interval is more likely than something below the bottom end, ie they think 690 is more likely than 230 (if they reckon on a normal distribution). If some other distribution is being used, perhaps it would be safer to say that they reckon 670 is more likely than 220.


----------



## Espresso (Oct 15, 2020)

There is a Covid denier march in my town on Saturday, calling for an end to the tyranny and the facemasks and the lockdown and the vaccine and for us to stop all being sheep in the face of the scamdemic.  
Splendid.


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> ... except you can go for a pint and go shopping.
> 
> You can't see your friends and family though.
> 
> It's ££££ not public health that is defining these rules right now.



I think even the economic argument isn’t that great... we just have a very extended period of uncertainty. And we’ll probably need a circuit breaker lockdown anyway at some point either way... I just suspect that having a baseline of rules similar to the summer ones with a kind of ‘please be aware that one month in three is likely to be a full lockdown, with x fixed funding streams and y allowed to continue’ would a) allow more economic activity in normal periods and b) potentially be more palatable. And also allows for the outside possibility that someone might get their head around the trace element of t&t and actually take advantage of lockdown periods.

I dunno... might read up on how things have panned out in more successful countries. But comparisons are always difficult for a number of reasons and I have better things to do. It just strikes me that extreme uncertainty is pretty much always bad in economic terms.


----------



## Weller (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> The whole kids queuing for food thing breaks my heart especially cos it’s outside. I mean what the fuck man. Why can their parents not feed them? Not in a punitive sense to the parents who are on low wages or benefits, but just how the hell do we have a situation whereby the money coming in is literally not enough to pay the rent and feed the kids.
> 
> If you get UC do you get your housing paid for you? Does anyone have any experience of the system? How can SO MANY kids be reliant on both breakfast AND lunch from the school? I’m talking 10s of kids in each year, not a handful, probably well over a hundred kids or more in a 1200 population high school. That for two meals a day are fed by who? The Government or local businesses. It’s insane.



Surely its just parents that are struggling making use of the help that is out there , I am sure my widowed working mother could have brought the 4 of us a tin of soup and bread but made use of the free school dinner option for single parent families when we were growing up the meals were more substantial then though unless you chose ryvita healthy option and tapioca pudding 
WE were not reliant on it but it helped probably helped in the empathy I have now too Im sure there's a minority of parents spending benefit money on other thing's than kids food but doubt its widespread , locally we have a fantastic food support hub group one of the good things to have come out of this but seems much more reliable its become a great way of bringing the community together too and start doing more for each other not just the food thing


----------



## ash (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is anyone NOT flouting the rules in some minor sense. I know I am.


Well I’m going to let my daughter have friends round for the first time in months (we are in tier 2 now). I’d rather that than them going to the common (as they can only meet outside) and getting up to all sorts.


----------



## prunus (Oct 15, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Hard to add more and more on top of this. You end up having to invent new ones like 'catastrofucked'.



Oi, no spoilers!


----------



## Mation (Oct 15, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> I am confused. I must have rules fatigue or something as I'm usually very good at reading .gov
> I also don't really want to understand as it feels like contradictory nonsense. My child can go to nursery and my partner can work in a school but my child can't have a sleepover at her cousins (2 kids in school, two parents wfh). I know it's all the increased transmission points but we could sit outside a pub (if we left one parent at home).
> 
> 
> ...


The graphic is easier to follow. I hadn't seen it, so thanks for posting it 

Here's a link to all 3 levels:


----------



## prunus (Oct 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> So if you really need a shag you can do it outdoors only?



I think you need to do it from a meter or more away as well.


----------



## Mation (Oct 15, 2020)

prunus said:


> I think you need to do it from a meter or more away as well.


www.reallylongsextoys.com must be raking it in!


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Look up Spain to find these kinds of shapes - Madrid went up in this way, as did other areas. More dramatically if anything. Other areas in the UK look very different at the moment.



Spains data pains me, especially their laggy and incomplete death data, but I have graphed the daily version of their hospital data since it became available.

So, Madrid:


The most obvious thing to say is that if we can take this data at face value, we are looking at a situation there where a peak or plateau can already be seen, whereas we dont yet know when or where such a peak will fall in our North West England hospital data.

And lets compare those Madrid daily admissions stats to the shape of the North Wests:



The admissions trajectory does not look too similar to me.

Now positive cases detected. Madrid:


The North West (by specimen date, with the most recent days incomplete):

Same story there, comparisons with Madrid are limited by the lack of knowing how far the North West is from a peak.


----------



## editor (Oct 15, 2020)

From the New Scientist











						England & Wales had most excess deaths in Europe’s covid-19 first wave
					

England, Wales and Spain suffered the biggest increases in deaths by all causes during the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic, while countries including New Zealand, Norway and Poland appear to have escaped relatively unscathed




					www.newscientist.com


----------



## Petcha (Oct 15, 2020)

editor said:


> From the New Scientist
> 
> View attachment 234450
> 
> ...



Why has that chart completely ignored Asia and Africa?


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Is it because Asia and Africa aren't in Europe?


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Why has that chart completely ignored Asia and Africa?



Much harder to get reliable data I'd guess. Also original paper looks at industrialized countries only.

Original paper here Magnitude, demographics and dynamics of the effect of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on all-cause mortality in 21 industrialized countries

On data availability they say: "We selected countries for our analysis if their total population in 2020 was more than 4 million and if we could access weekly data on all-cause mortality divided by age group and sex that went back at least to 2015 and extended through late-May 2020." Which would rule out plenty of countries tbh.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is it because Asia and Africa aren't in Europe?


Presumably not, because neither are Australia and NZ.


----------



## Mation (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is it because Asia and Africa aren't in Europe?


If we define Europe as those countries that might be allowed to enter the Eurovision song contest, then yes.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Presumably not, because neither are Australia and NZ.


They must be analysing Eurovision europe then I guess.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Mation said:


> If we define Europe as those countries that might be allowed to enter the Eurovision song contest, then yes.


snap.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> They must be analysing Eurovision europe then I guess.


Yeah, there's all kinds of everything on that list.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

Mation said:


> If we define Europe as those countries that might be allowed to enter the Eurovision song contest, then yes.


TBF, the Scandinavian countries voted for each other to be on the list.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 15, 2020)

Mation said:


> If we define Europe as those countries that might be allowed to enter the Eurovision song contest, then yes.


I'm slightly embarrassed to know this, but Morocco and Algeria are eligible to enter Eurovision, although they don't.

ETA: All of North Africa, according to Wikipedia.


----------



## bimble (Oct 15, 2020)

Whilst we’re on an international tangent there’s a rare bit of good news that I don’t see people talking about much, in that the expected calamitous infection and deaths that were  predicted (by aid agencies etc) in African countries just haven’t happened. From all I can see nobody knows the reasons but it is not just low testing or reporting rates it’s really not happened despite confirmed cases everywhere. 
Some interesting hypotheses on why but no answers as yet. Learnt yesterday that there’s a widespread & obviously dangerous idea in some places that the virus only goes for rich people and but when you look at the global numbers mapped its not hard to see where such ideas might come from.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

littlebabyjesus Just to finish off what I was saying about the Madrid comparison.

After staring at the graphs some more, it is tempting to put it something like 'Madrid took 3 weeks for their numbers in hospital to double, the North West took more like 2 weeks'. With a little vagueness deliberately thrown in, since when I look at raw numbers I could probably claim that for the recent trajectory, the North West took 11 days for its numbers in hospital to double.

Anyway as I probably said before, main weaknesses with the model we are disagreeing about is the maths baked into the model and the fact their projections will be based on thigs like estimates of R at one moment in time, and so cannot account for anything thats happened since to change R and the trajectory of various things.

So I do not bet my life that their numbers will be spot on. But they still arent weird numbers to me, and next time I post about this I will use the latest UK data to describe the 'explosive' bit that their projection relies on and that you dont undersatand the validity of. I will include all regions since you keep mentioning the UK regions that arent currently faring as badly as the likes of the North West.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 15, 2020)

editor said:


> From the New Scientist
> 
> View attachment 234450
> 
> ...



Just eyeballing that it would seem to match up pretty well with known covid deaths.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

I am not watching the Burnham press conference live but I see he has invoked the words of Van-Tam as part of his complaint about the proposals:



> Mr Burnham adds that the Deputy Chief Medical Officer Jonathan Van-Tam said bringing infection rates down would "require widespread closures way beyond pubs".



From BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54550644


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yeah, there's all kinds of everything on that list.


I _said_... 'yeah, there's all kinds of everything on that list.'

I can wait.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

sure dad.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

Covid: Circuit-breaker lockdown 'likely for Wales'
					

Restaurateurs, food businesses and unions call for urgent clarity on the Welsh Government's plans.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> Whilst we’re on an international tangent there’s a rare bit of good news that I don’t see people talking about much, in that the expected calamitous infection and deaths that were  predicted (by aid agencies etc) in African countries just haven’t happened. From all I can see nobody knows the reasons but it is not just low testing or reporting rates it’s really not happened despite confirmed cases everywhere.
> Some interesting hypotheses on why but no answers as yet. Learnt yesterday that there’s a widespread & obviously dangerous idea in some places that the virus only goes for rich people and but when you look at the global numbers mapped its not hard to see where such ideas might come from.


A far more rational argument is that the virus does not thrive in hot climate as well as it does in cooler  ones. Another very good point is that the average age of the population in African states is lower than it is in the developed world.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 15, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> A far more rational argument is that the virus does not thrive in hot climate as well as it does in cooler  ones.


Not very rational if you think about it.


----------



## xenon (Oct 15, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> A far more rational argument is that the virus does not thrive in hot climate as well as it does in cooler  ones. Another very good point is that the average age of the population in African states is lower than it is in the developed world.



Arizona is pretty hot you know.


----------



## Mation (Oct 15, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> A far more rational argument is that the virus does not thrive in hot climate as well as it does in cooler  ones. Another very good point is that the average age of the population in African states is lower than it is in the developed world.


The climate in some of South America doesn't support that very clearly. And are you going to write off all Africa as not developed?

In any case, it doesn't seem especially surprising that countries that have recent experience of deadly epidemics might be better prepared than those that don't.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 15, 2020)

I think there is a simpler explanation. I don't think epidemics are being seeded into Africa in such great numbers as there are in Europe and America so the pandemic hasn't arrived there properly yet, partly because of border closures and less international travel, and poorer transport links in some areas. Plus many African countries have prior experience in contact tracing, quarantine, social  distancing and so on for deadly diseases like Ebola.


----------



## maomao (Oct 15, 2020)

Couple of differences between Arizona and Africa. Rich hot places have air con, poor ones not so much. In rich hot countries people spend more time indoors. Also 'seasonal' may not be as straightforward hot v cold, it could, for instance, be dependant on seasonal physiological changes to human immune systems that aren't as pronounced in equatorial regions.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

In general I would expect that population age and obesity levels could make a very large difference to the pandemic burden. Without studying each country in detail in a way I dont currently have time for, I hesitate to apply that to an entire continent but I would certainly look in that direction for part of the explanation.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

Plus my usual theme of hospital infections. All manner of differences including in hospital capacity and how stuff is done in normal times could make a difference to the nature of outbreaks and their toll.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 15, 2020)

Edie said:


> Is anyone NOT flouting the rules in some minor sense. I know I am.


We did pick my niece up from school the other day, but otherwise, no.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid: Circuit-breaker lockdown 'likely for Wales'
> 
> 
> Restaurateurs, food businesses and unions call for urgent clarity on the Welsh Government's plans.
> ...



And this sums up why we need a straightforward lockdown.









						Covid-19 lockdown: Llanelli shoppers 'making their own rules up'
					

There has been a dramatic drop in trade since a Llanelli lockdown was announced nearly three weeks ago.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




*Covid-19 lockdown: Llanelli shoppers 'making their own rules up'*

*Business owners in Llanelli say people are "making their own rules up" because of confusion over Covid-19 restrictions.*
Shops and cafes have seen a dramatic drop in trade since the first town-only lockdown in Wales was announced nearly three weeks ago.
Diane Cheshire, from Joly's Cafe in the town centre, said people were "not sure what is the right thing to do".

Ms Cheshire, who has has owned and run the cafe for more than 20 years, said she has never seen the town so quiet.
"I'm very worried to be honest. *I don't want total lockdown but that's the only way to stop this," she said.*
She said the differences in rules in different areas meant people were "making their own rules up because they're not sure what is the right thing to do".
"I can't see an end to it. It's going to take a long time to even remotely get back to normal."
The case rate in Llanelli has reduced from 152 per 100,000 of the population to 99.9.
But this compares with a 58.8 per 100,000 case rate for the county of Carmarthenshire as a whole.

Andrew Jones, who owns the D&A Heel Bar in Llanelli market, said: "I know people are afraid to come out because they're shielding but it doesn't help business for me.
"I do have an older customer base here. I can understand they're afraid to come out. We're doing as much as we can to help them, offering collections service where possible, but *people are frustrated - they can't see an end in sight."*
Llanelli town councillor Sean Rees said people living in his ward of Glanymor were confused about the rules.
*"We need much clearer communication coming through to the community, *particularly for our businesses," he said.
"Our town centre is very much open for business for people within the area and I'd encourage people to shop locally to support family-run businesses and market traders, because they need our help right now."
*Carmarthenshire County Council said social distancing and behaviour inside licensed premises like pubs and clubs continued to cause concern.*


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

the newly-crowned king of the north's press conference is worth watching


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> the newly-crowned king of the north's press conference is worth watching



Man’s got a point.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

He's for sure got a point, but think he's wrong in delaying the Manchester restrictions, and it's probably going to cost lives.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 15, 2020)

that he has.

sunak's replacement  for furlough ain't fit for purpose, and certainly does't help my team !


because , health-wise, we need another, proper national lockdown and support measures.
at least four weeks for everybody.

then, if there are areas with very low caserates, maybe some lessening of measures can be done in those areas.

and back into stricter measures / support schemes if the rates go back up

Jobs can be re-invented, but once lives are lost, the dead stay dead.
(and I've already lost friends to Covid ...)


----------



## bimble (Oct 15, 2020)

Just quickly on the Africa thing (because its potential good news and there’s not much of that around ) basically all of the above are being considered as potential contribution factors but interestingly also theres people studying the possibility that there is a level of immunity due to exposure to similar coronaviruses.








						Africa has held off the worst of the coronavirus. Researchers are working to figure out how.
					

The reasons are still something of a mystery, but scientists said the success of many African countries offers crucial lessons.




					www.nbcnews.com
				



Just maybe there’ll be a sort of Medical golden age after this, in the way that sometimes good things do happen after major convulsions.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

My usual graph, deaths first, cases I will do later.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> My usual graph, deaths first, cases I will do later.
> 
> View attachment 234460


Seems like the deaths are slowing down? I hope so


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He's for sure got a point, but think he's wrong in delaying the Manchester restrictions, and it's probably going to cost lives.


He's trying to lever 80% furlough out of them is all. He's damn right there.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> Whilst we’re on an international tangent there’s a rare bit of good news that I don’t see people talking about much, in that the expected calamitous infection and deaths that were  predicted (by aid agencies etc) in African countries just haven’t happened. From all I can see nobody knows the reasons but it is not just low testing or reporting rates it’s really not happened despite confirmed cases everywhere.
> Some interesting hypotheses on why but no answers as yet. Learnt yesterday that there’s a widespread & obviously dangerous idea in some places that the virus only goes for rich people and but when you look at the global numbers mapped its not hard to see where such ideas might come from.



Isn't it a case of less travel = less transmission?

The three biggest countries by far affected are South Africa (way ahead), Egypt and Morocco. Basically the three most visited places in Africa. Then comes Nigeria. Which is probably the 4th. (I can't explain Ethiopia)


----------



## Supine (Oct 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Seems like the deaths are slowing down? I hope so



The way they presents that graph looks like that at first glance but it's not. The deaths are just spread backwards in time. Easier to look at the Gov graph for a general idea of trajectory.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 15, 2020)

I don't think deaths are slowing much, if at all. There's too much timelag in the system.


----------



## Mation (Oct 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> Just quickly on the Africa thing (because its potential good news and there’s not much of that around ) basically all of the above are being considered as potential contribution factors but interestingly also theres people studying the possibility that there is a level of immunity due to exposure to similar coronaviruses.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


We've all been exposed to coronaviruses. The immunity thing doesn't really work very well as an explanation of why sub-Saharan Africa is faring reasonably well, unless you add in some mystery genetic factor.

Reaching for any other explanation for why people 'we' thought should do worse than 'us' in the natural course of things, seems to be a thing, though.

(Not saying it's your thing. It's clear that you have a question and are looking for answers. Be aware that the answers you find may not be neutral!)


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 15, 2020)

Haven't we all been exposed to coronaviruses at some point?


----------



## nagapie (Oct 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Isn't it a case of less travel = less transmission?
> 
> The three biggest countries by far affected are South Africa (way ahead), Egypt and Morocco. Basically the three most visited places in Africa. Then comes Nigeria. Which is probably the 4th. (I can't explain Ethiopia)
> 
> View attachment 234461


South Africa is doing much better than us. Younger population but poor healthcare system. The big difference is their president is really trying to do the right things.
My sister just messaged me from there to ask why my queen and William are on CNN visiting a factory with no masks on 😂


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Isn't it a case of less travel = less transmission?
> 
> The three biggest countries by far affected are South Africa (way ahead), Egypt and Morocco. Basically the three most visited places in Africa. Then comes Nigeria. Which is probably the 4th. (I can't explain Ethiopia)
> 
> View attachment 234461



As I recall Ethiopia has had a sustained period of growth and development. Whether that means a lot more travel I'm not sure, but it may impact other factors.


----------



## bimble (Oct 15, 2020)

Yep anyway, big tangent, probably it’s own thread and definitely not this thread. Other places that were seen as complete disasters waiting to happen also haven’t been (the vast and incredibly densely populated rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh for instance). Just scraping the good news barrel but will stop it.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> The way they presents that graph looks like that at first glance but it's not. The deaths are just spread backwards in time. Easier to look at the Gov graph for a general idea of trajectory.



Yes one of the points of that graph is to see how previous days are likely to increase further as more data comes in. Another is to look for when the previous recent highs happened, and how high they were. So even by this measure of death, there were 98 deaths on the 7th October and 103 on the 11th, and unlike the number reported per day, the numbers for those dates can grow further in future.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 15, 2020)

I have heard tho that about 20% of infected people create 80% of the infections and the majority of people who have it don't give it to anyone. So if one person gets it there it's not necessarily a disaster.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2020)

I can see why Andy Burnham is pissed.  For vast swathes of business this is pretty much the worst case scenario.  Nowhere near enough customers to make the business viable due to restrictions but also nowhere near enough compensation to survive a temporary closure.

Essentially the government has thrown the towel in a load more business sectors just as it has with the arts, travel etc. Its a terrible position to be in and what a choice.  Lose a load of lives to covid or mass job losses which will lead to increased poverty and destitution (and all that entails) for years (maybe generations) to come.

Thanks Rishi.


----------



## bimble (Oct 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I have heard tho that about 20% of infected people create 80% of the infections and the majority of people who have it don't give it to anyone. So if one person gets it there it's not necessarily a disaster.


Didn’t know that at all! Can it be true wouldn’t the R number be 0.2 or something then?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 15, 2020)

No because the 20% can each spread it to quite a few people.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

Last Thursday 77 new cases were reported, today it's 138. taking the 7-day average to 99-100 reported daily deaths.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I have heard tho that about 20% of infected people create 80% of the infections and the majority of people who have it don't give it to anyone. So if one person gets it there it's not necessarily a disaster.



Without any decent test, track and trace system, and we certainly don't have one, I don't see how this can be stated with any relevant degree of accuracy. Do you have a source for this?


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 15, 2020)

How ‘Superspreading’ Events Drive Most COVID-19 Spread
					

As few as 10 percent of infected people may drive a whopping 80 percent of cases in specific types of situations




					www.scientificamerican.com


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 15, 2020)

I think it's because it often spreads in clusters and in poorly ventilated environments.


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> Didn’t know that at all! Can it be true wouldn’t the R number be 0.2 or something then?



This article has been linked to a few times, it's a bit long but it explains this very clearly...









						This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic
					

It’s not R.




					www.theatlantic.com


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> How ‘Superspreading’ Events Drive Most COVID-19 Spread
> 
> 
> As few as 10 percent of infected people may drive a whopping 80 percent of cases in specific types of situations
> ...



Thanks. But that study is based on 5-7 events in Hong Kong. So I remain "hmmm" about drawing any meaningful conclusions from it.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yes one of the points of that graph is to see how previous days are likely to increase further as more data comes in. Another is to look for when the previous recent highs happened, and how high they were. So even by this measure of death, there were 98 deaths on the 7th October and 103 on the 11th, and unlike the number reported per day, the numbers for those dates can grow further in future.



Likewise, here are the positive cases by specimen date. So with where it is at right now, we already have two days, 7th and 8th October that breached 18000 cases per day. And the 12th is already showing just under 17,000 so I will be using quite how high the figure for the 12th ends up after several more days data have come in as a guide.

Also as I mentioned previously, unlike the deaths and hospital data I dont have any confidence as to the extent these case figures are affected by testing system limits, there is probably an artificial invisible ceiling lurking there that we wont really know about much unless the data hits it. And then we'll need other data to prove its a false limit rather than a real peak in cases.


----------



## bimble (Oct 15, 2020)

Cid said:


> This article has been linked to a few times, it's a bit long but it explains this very clearly...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you. Real eye opener.


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Thanks. But that study is based on 5-7 events in Hong Kong. So I remain "hmmm" about drawing any meaningful conclusions from it.



In what sense? I don't think there's anything particularly controversial about super spreading events being a major characteristic of this disease, or coronaviruses in general.


----------



## ash (Oct 15, 2020)

I’ve already noticed a change in behaviour- barriers up and queue at the supermarket, people queuing and distancing at corner shop which hasn’t happened since July.  Maybe raising the risk in London will change people’s behaviour.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 15, 2020)

Cid said:


> In what sense? I don't think there's anything particularly controversial about super spreading events being a major characteristic of this disease, or coronaviruses in general.



In the sense that we can give an accurate figure of 10% infections = 80% spread. That may be true, but you can't draw that conclusion from that small study alone.

Much more informative is the other article you linked to, which talks about dispersal, more studies, being in the 'wrong place at the wrong time' and mass transit. It is of no surprise to me, having some knowledge of Ecuador, that the main affected places are the Guayas, Manabi  and Pichincha. All transport hubs in a country that has relatively little else national travel.


----------



## Sue (Oct 15, 2020)

ash said:


> I’ve already noticed a change in behaviour- barriers up and queue at the supermarket, people queuing and distancing at corner shop which hasn’t happened since July.  Maybe raising the risk in London will change people’s behaviour.



Although I was just at the chemist and one of the counter staff was wearing her mask under her nose so... (I know I'm massively extrapolating but it did seriously piss me off. FFS.)


----------



## Supine (Oct 15, 2020)

Cid said:


> In what sense? I don't think there's anything particularly controversial about super spreading events being a major characteristic of this disease, or coronaviruses in general.



There are literally thousands of super spreader events documented. Many of them have been studied in really good detail (not uk obviously, we're shit at this kind of stuff).  

It's one thing we can be sure about.


----------



## rutabowa (Oct 15, 2020)

editor said:


> A long term urbanite has just posted on FB that she's just tested positive


We were both at the same place! and i lost smell yesterday so looks like we both got it! am now in isolation too.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> There are literally thousands of super spreader events documented. Many of them have been studied in really good detail (not uk obviously, we're shit at this kind of stuff).
> 
> It's one thing we can be sure about.



I expect UK research wil be up to the task of providing eventual insight into hospital transmission, and this might include superspreader aspects if thats what results from their genome based studies imply.

eg the sort of study I have in mind when setting my epectations:



> UCLH will be part of a first-of-its kind clinical trial, led by scientists at UCL, that will evaluate the use of ‘real time’ viral genomic data to reduce the spread of COVID-19 within hospitals.







__





						Spread of COVID-19 mapped in hospitals to ‘break the chain’ of transmission
					






					www.uclh.nhs.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

littlebabyjesus so just finishing off my response to this confusion about how the death rate could possibly increase in an explosive way.

Its the old exponential growth thing again really. The first wave came so quick that the exponential growth was very easy for all to see within quite a shot period of time.

This time around things are far more complicated and in some ways is like the first time in slow motion. For this and possibly some other reasons, it is much easier to look at graphs of recent periods and think they might be showing something that resembles linear growth more than it does exponential growth. In my book those are not safe assumptions to make, so I just have to keep watching the data and waiting to see how things evolve further.

The following is deaths reported on the dashboard by date of death, for regions in England. If you imagine the increases that are to come as a linear continuation of the increases seen so far, then I can understand why you think the numbers from the model are hard to fathom. The confusing 'explosive' bit that would be required for the level to reach the modelled estimates would be if what we see in future is not a linear continuation, but rather the sort of exponential growth curve we were used to seeing in the past. In my book both outcomes are plausible for the upcoming period in question, but there is no way its safe in my mind to rule out exponential growth in these figures. And regardless of my feelings on the matter, the curve is the reason the model has to end up with the figures it does, as the logic and maths of such curves is baked into their modelling.



The model:


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 15, 2020)

is not any uptick  worrying as any official report is under reported

and more worried about the economy


----------



## Edie (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> the newly-crowned king of the north's press conference is worth watching



Fucking love Andy Burnham.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 15, 2020)

two sheds said:


> No because the 20% can each spread it to quite a few people.





frogwoman said:


> How ‘Superspreading’ Events Drive Most COVID-19 Spread
> 
> 
> As few as 10 percent of infected people may drive a whopping 80 percent of cases in specific types of situations
> ...



On the subject of Africa I'm wondering if lower travel distance rates play a factor then. Compared to Heathrow and traveling around like loon spuds.

Note I know nothing about Africa so this is just me guessing.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> littlebabyjesus so just finishing off my response to this confusion about how the death rate could possibly increase in an explosive way.
> 
> Its the old exponential growth thing again really. The first wave came so quick that the exponential growth was very easy for all to see within quite a shot period of time.
> 
> ...



With cases looking pretty exponential already it's not too much of a leap to imagine deaths following suit quite soon. 

Of course 'exponential growth' is a pattern, not a specific rate of change but in casual usage it may get used interchangeably with 'rapid growth' so that probably doesn't help.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 15, 2020)

the airspace is a lot more open that within the global outbreak




so more transition by super spreaders


just an after effect of opening airspace again its evitable


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

What's Burnham going to do if government continue to say no to increased furlough, which they have? Refuse any more restrictions and watch the death count rise?

His arguments are incoherent. He's saying Tier 3 isn't going to work (but the reason it isn't is that it's not strict enough), and that it needs a national lockdown, and he doesn't want more restrictions at all, and that's it's not fair (despite other areas getting restrictions), and that Manchester are being used as 'canaries'. He's being supported by lots of Tory MPs too.

Not to mention his stance is playing into the hands of people that think we should have no restrictions and go for the mythical 'herd immunity' or who think it's all fake/exaggerated anyway.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 15, 2020)

without gunning the fella he is all about business


odd that old guard in labour want to replace Corbyn with him


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> With cases looking pretty exponential already it's not too much of a leap to imagine deaths following suit quite soon.
> 
> Of course 'exponential growth' is a pattern, not a specific rate of change but in casual usage it may get used interchangeably with 'rapid growth' so that probably doesn't help.



Yeah I have no reason at all to abandon exponential growth expectations. I'm just trying to get my head around why littlebabyjesus takes the view they do.

I suppose if behaviours and measures cause the R and doubling times to change over time, it is possible to end up with a situation where some measures end up looking like they are experiencing linear growth rather than exponential growth. But people who look at graphs and think they only see linear growth need to be careful that they arent being hypnotised by trajectories that will eventually betray their expectations by not actually stay the same over the coming period.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 15, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> On the subject of Africa I'm wondering if lower travel distance rates play a factor then. Compared to Heathrow and traveling around like loon spuds.
> 
> Note I know nothing about Africa so this is just me guessing.



A pretty small fraction of air traffic involves sub-saharan Africa IIRC. Have a look at this:



Bearing mind Africa has about as many people in it as Europe and North America combined.

Travel won't be the only factor though. Good public health work will be a huge factor, just as it is everywhere else.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What's Burnham going to do if government continue to say no to increased furlough, which they have? Refuse any more restrictions and watch the death count rise?
> 
> His arguments are incoherent. He's saying Tier 3 isn't going to work (but the reason it isn't is that it's not strict enough), and that it needs a national lockdown, he doesn't want more restrictions at all, and that's it's not fair (despite other areas getting restrictions), and that Manchester are being used as 'canaries'. He's being supported by lots of Tory MPs too.
> 
> Not to mention his stance is playing into the hands of people that think we should have no restrictions and go for the mythical 'herd immunity' or who think it's all fake/exaggerated anyway.


I dunno. When you've been in an area with ineffective damaging restrictions for months, that have NOT been applied to the rest of the country consistently, it's hard not to feel a sense of grievance at a new set of restrictions without proper financial support - and disbelieve that the same will be applied to London if/when the time comes. I can't blame him for trying to screw as much out of the government as possible.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah I have no reason at all to abandon exponential growth expectations. I'm just trying to get my head around why littlebabyjesus takes the view they do.
> 
> I suppose if behaviours and measures cause the R and doubling times to change over time, it is possible to end up with a situation where some measures end up looking like they are experiencing linear growth rather than exponential growth. But people who look at graphs and think they only see linear growth need to be careful that they arent being hypnotised by trajectories that will eventually betray their expectations by not actually stay the same over the coming period.



I'm a biologist so I don't expect to ever see a nice neat steady state change in anything. Least of all a virus.


----------



## editor (Oct 15, 2020)

rutabowa said:


> We were both at the same place! and i lost smell yesterday so looks like we both got it! am now in isolation too.


Sorry to hear this. Hope you both get through with the lightest of symptoms. Was it a venue you were both at?


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I'm a biologist so I don't expect to ever see a nice neat steady state change in anything. Least of all a virus.



And humanity rarely sees the naked virus for what it is anyway, we just measure various crudely detectable impacts of the virus on humans at particular moments in time.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

Plus my usual topic, that some of the 'tipping points' might actually be about thresholds being crossed between levels of community infection that allow virus outbreaks being somewhat containable in settings such as hospitals and care homes, and that threshold being breached in a manner that quickly leads to explosive growth in cases within vulnerable groups.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

I think we're so fucked this winter and all this wrangling is partly an illustration of why that's going to be the case.









						Europe's daily Covid deaths could reach five times April peak, says WHO
					

Hans Kluge says epidemic could worsen drastically, but latest controls could save lives




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## rutabowa (Oct 15, 2020)

editor said:


> Sorry to hear this. Hope you both get through with the lightest of symptoms. Was it a venue you were both at?


yeh it was a pub quiz.... only place we have been out the house, so fairly sure it was there. Didn't even win.

thanks, I feel more or less fine at moment except for the loss of smell, at least i found out relatively quickly so haven't being going to shops and spreading it around etc.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I'm a biologist so I don't expect to ever see a nice neat steady state change in anything. Least of all a virus.



Blimey you're a biologist, as well as a trained pilot, who until recently was teaching cyclists, is there no end to your skills?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Blimey you're a biologist, as well as a trained pilot, who until recently was teaching cyclists, is there no end to your skills?



Since you ask I'm also quite good at judging which threads are especially unsuitable for tedious cross-thread trolling.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 15, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Since you ask I'm also quite good at judging which threads are especially unsuitable for tedious cross-thread trolling.



You are of course right, I shouldn't be surprised that you always claim to be an expert on different threads, I'll not mention it again.

At least, not on this thread, sorry everyone.


----------



## rutabowa (Oct 15, 2020)

i will NOT  allow you 2 to upstage me in my shining moment.


----------



## Numbers (Oct 15, 2020)

rutabowa said:


> i will NOT  allow you 2 to upstage me in my shining moment.


Too late, some cupid stunt spooked frank.


----------



## Spymaster (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Blimey you're a biologist, as well as a trained pilot, who until recently was teaching cyclists, is there no end to your skills?


He's an astronaut, submariner, commando, physicist too.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 15, 2020)

zora said:


> elbows, I hope you have been reassured that our collective non-response to the SAGE stuff was not because we don't care.
> 
> Like others, I had some half-finished "fuckety fuck we are really fucked"-posts sitting in my various comments boxes.  And this morning while in the bathroom I composed a lengthy rant in my head; the central gist of which was that Johnson and the Tories could even have sold a "circuit breaker" in a xenophobic jingoistic manner if that's what it takes to get them to act: "Unlike the French, we won't be fooled by this enemy twice, we are going to stamp on it hard so that we can emerge strong into the new Brexit dawn...control our borders against the virus...blah blah blah"...I mean it writes itself...[only I didn't want to give them any ideas ]
> 
> ...



I haven't got further than here - and I normally hold off from posting when I haven't caught up - but I haven't caught up _because_ I have a child back at school and work in a school myself, aswell as having some other major, ongoing issues that me and mine need tending to, as a result of everything slowing down previously (and possibly again).

To be clear, I didn't think wtfftw's post (which looked to kick this convo off) actually expressed '_running out of_ outrage', so I don't think you need to worry there elbows !
It was outrage already done, continuing outrage, outrage that has to be taken elsewhere.

From my pov, my objections are just as strong but they're also more widely spread and more time consuming, having returned to work - and I feel it's important to add my voice there.

Think I just wanted to assure you that what may feel like quieter voices on this forum, now, don't necessarily result in quiet voices off it. 
I find your updates really helpful cos they're so reliable - and that's really important info to _pass on_.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What's Burnham going to do if government continue to say no to increased furlough, which they have? Refuse any more restrictions and watch the death count rise?
> 
> His arguments are incoherent. He's saying Tier 3 isn't going to work (but the reason it isn't is that it's not strict enough), and that it needs a national lockdown, and he doesn't want more restrictions at all, and that's it's not fair (despite other areas getting restrictions), and that Manchester are being used as 'canaries'. He's being supported by lots of Tory MPs too.
> 
> Not to mention his stance is playing into the hands of people that think we should have no restrictions and go for the mythical 'herd immunity' or who think it's all fake/exaggerated anyway.


The death count is going to rise with the new restrictions too - what he's arguing for is for more support and more restrictions, not less restrictions. 

A half arsed partial lockdown which people can't afford to observe is the worst of both worlds. It'll fuck everyone economically, and then they'll die anyway.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Think I just wanted to assure you that what may feel like quieter voices on this forum, now, don't necessarily result in quiet voices off it.
> I find your updates really helpful cos they're so reliable - and that's really important info to _pass on_.



Cheers. And dont worry I didnt think that, it was just that I didnt understand the lack of responses to SAGE revelations on one day in the grand scheme of things. Turns out that day was just a brief lull.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 15, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> A pretty small fraction of air traffic involves sub-saharan Africa IIRC. Have a look at this:



Yes which is why I said it. Less people travelling, less spreading. I'm just not sure of the pattern for travel between population centres and countries in Africa or what the case is in dense population centres like Lagos. 

I note from one of the pictures of spread that SA is up there in infections which does correlate with a more fully Western/'Developed' style of living and travel as I understand it.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> The death count is going to rise with the new restrictions too - what he's arguing for is for more support and more restrictions, not less restrictions.
> 
> A half arsed partial lockdown which people can't afford to observe is the worst of both worlds. It'll fuck everyone economically, and then they'll die anyway.


Yes, that's all true and that is his position. I'd just say from the bits I've seen today, it doesn't quite come through as clearly as that.  Given that he's literally and metaphorically got the mic today, he should probably be kicking off a national campaign for a fully funded 3 week circuit breaker or similar.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yes, that's all true and that is his position. I'd just say from the bits I've seen today, it doesn't quite come through as clearly as that.  Given that he's literally and metaphorically got the mic today, he should probably be kicking off a national campaign for a fully funded 3 week circuit breaker or similar.



Yeah from watching him talk he wasn't clear on that at all. He seemed to want an incoherent mess of a whole load of things. And given he's being supported by a raft of the no-lockdown at all crowd I think plenty of others aren't clear either.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yes, that's all true and that is his position. I'd just say from the bits I've seen today, it doesn't quite come through as clearly as that.  Given that he's literally and metaphorically got the mic today, he should probably be kicking off a national campaign for a fully funded 3 week circuit breaker or similar.


I dunno, I thought he seemed pretty clear in that press conference. 

There's already a groundswell building for a fully funded circuit breaker, and this will add substantially to it - a bit of fire that Starmer seemingly can't provide. But Burnham isn't a national politician anymore, and it's understandable that his first priority to to the people of Greater Manchester, which if he doesn't fight like a bastard for is going to be absolutely screwed by the new restrictions.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> The death count is going to rise with the new restrictions too - what he's arguing for is for more support and more restrictions, not less restrictions.
> 
> A half arsed partial lockdown which people can't afford to observe is the worst of both worlds. It'll fuck everyone economically, and then they'll die anyway.



But it'll rise less. So what's his plan if government don't back down? Keep refusing more restrictions and have more deaths, but the pubs will be open?

Why didn't he say Manchester will have its own 3 week circuit breaker and demand funding for that? I think he's got his eye on the economy and is close to local business 'leaders' more than the Tories.


----------



## killer b (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> But it'll rise less. So what's his plan if government don't back down? Keep refusing more restrictions and have more deaths, but the pubs will be open?


He won't get to refuse them - they'll be imposed. 

How else is someone like Burnham able to negotiate here? Should he just suck up whatever they offer gratefully, even though it's totally inadequate?


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 15, 2020)

Cid said:


> As I recall Ethiopia has had a sustained period of growth and development. Whether that means a lot more travel I'm not sure, but it may impact other factors.



Addis Ababa is a massive hub airport, as per wikipedia:

"Ethiopian is Africa's largest airline in terms of passengers carried, destinations served, fleet size, and revenue. Ethiopian is also the world's 4th largest airline by the number of countries served"


----------



## xenon (Oct 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> You are of course right, I shouldn't be surprised that you always claim to be an expert on different threads, I'll not mention it again.
> 
> At least, not on this thread, sorry everyone.



TBF Frank has mentioned a couple of times over the years, he studied genetics at undergrad level. Certainly something in that area. And yeah, I do believe him as I've seen him talk credibly about related matters over those years too.

Just seemed fair to point out.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> He won't get to refuse them - they'll be imposed.
> 
> How else is someone like Burnham able to negotiate here? Should he just suck up whatever they offer gratefully, even though it's totally inadequate?



I don't know, but I don't think he has anymore legitimacy than the MPs in Westminster.

Maybe Manchester should declare itself an autonomous anarcho-communist workers commune?


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 15, 2020)

I don't think people down south get how angry people are up here. First the lockdown is lifted too early for the north when there is still plenty of infection. Then we go back into local restrictions just a few weeks later. We endure them all summer and in most places they make hardly any difference. The government tells everyone to eat out and help out and go back to work in complete contradiction of the local policies. Then schools go back, adding an extra source of viral circulation on places that still have not got it under control. And then everyone realises that places in the rest of the country that have rates higher than that sent us into restrictions are not being treated the same. Burnham has no choice but to channel this anger.


----------



## Yossarian (Oct 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> Just quickly on the Africa thing (because its potential good news and there’s not much of that around ) basically all of the above are being considered as potential contribution factors but interestingly also theres people studying the possibility that there is a level of immunity due to exposure to similar coronaviruses.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think this was key paragraphs in that NBC story: "He said it's possible that some African countries are better equipped to respond to infectious disease outbreaks 'because we have a lot of experience from Ebola and other diseases.'"

It seems to be the same story as with East Asian countries that successfully got things under control - these countries had recent experience dealing with this kind of public health challenge and they put their experience into use with a lot less dithering - many African countries set up extensive contact tracing operations early and mask mandates were in place across a lot of the continent by early April. There also seem to have been a lot fewer people in African countries arguing that the pandemic was a hoax or that masks were for cowards.

But as the opinion piece I posted in the other thread noted, these success stories just don't seem to be part of the conversation in Western countries - when people are discussing different responses to the pandemic, the examples that always get reached for are the US, Sweden, New Zealand, and other countries that haven't experienced a public health issue on this scale for more than a century.


----------



## Cid (Oct 15, 2020)

Elpenor said:


> Addis Ababa is a massive hub airport, as per wikipedia:
> 
> "Ethiopian is Africa's largest airline in terms of passengers carried, destinations served, fleet size, and revenue. Ethiopian is also the world's 4th largest airline by the number of countries served"



 <at self> Fuck, of course Ethiopian is a significant airline.


----------



## xenon (Oct 15, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I haven't got further than here - and I normally hold off from posting when I haven't caught up - but I haven't caught up _because_ I have a child back at school and work in a school myself, aswell as having some other major, ongoing issues that me and mine need tending to, as a result of everything slowing down previously (and possibly again).
> 
> To be clear, I didn't think wtfftw's post (which looked to kick this convo off) actually expressed '_running out of_ outrage', so I don't think you need to worry there elbows !
> It was outrage already done, continuing outrage, outrage that has to be taken elsewhere.
> ...



TBH I use this thread to occasionly vent, ask questions but otherwise as a preces of the day's developments.

I don't post for various reasons. A dirth of hangem all type disgust for our political class is not one of them.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I don't think people down south get how angry people are up here. First the lockdown is lifted too early for the north when there is still plenty of infection. Then we go back into local restrictions just a few weeks later. We endure them all summer and in most places they make hardly any difference. The government tells everyone to eat out and help out and go back to work in complete contradiction of the local policies. Then schools go back, adding an extra source of viral circulation on places that still have not got it under control. And then everyone realises that places in the rest of the country that have rates higher than that sent us into restrictions are not being treated the same. Burnham has no choice but to channel this anger.



I'm in the north in a high infection area too. I didn't see him or anyone else like him demanding we stay in lockdown longer back then. Nor going against the eat out scheme, or against universities or schools opening, etc.


----------



## Supine (Oct 15, 2020)

The local mayors are being set up for a massive fall.

The Gov said that they would need to agree with local conditions to move to tier 3. Some are pushing back on moving up a tier while pushing for more money.  

Whitty said even tier 3 wont be enough to stem the tide. The scientist who promoted the two week circuit breaker now says that was relevant last month but it's too late for that to be enough. 

Over the next few months it'll be calculated how many excess deaths occurred because the local politicians pushed back against tighter restrictions. The Gov will blame the mayors rather than their own reluctance to lockdown.  The losers will be the extra dead people.

Fuck Boris. Lockdown!


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm in the north in a high infection area too. I didn't see him or anyone else like him demanding we stay in lockdown longer back then. Nor going against the eat out scheme, or against universities or schools opening, etc.


You're quite right - I'm not suggesting he's done things right up to now. But I think hes tuned into how frustrated people are now and if it wrings a bit more money or sense out of the government then brilliant.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm in the north in a high infection area too. I didn't see him or anyone else like him demanding we stay in lockdown longer back then. Nor going against the eat out scheme, or against universities or schools opening, etc.


Don't know about Burnham, but this surely qualifies as someone like him:



The thing now, though, is that there are good reasons to think the current restrictions will have a low-to-negligible impact on the virus, but they may well cost a significant number of jobs. To be worth doing, the measures need to be tougher and, in order not to amount to social vandalism, there needs to be stronger financial support directed at the jobs that will be affected. I'm not a fan of Burnham, but it seems obvious to me that it is the government's approach that is confused, rather than his response.


----------



## LDC (Oct 15, 2020)

He should declare a 3 week Manchester full-on lockdown, rent and mortgage and bills break for that time, and expropriate all the food for all the residents. That would get everyone's support and might be the only chance he could demand something like that in living memory and not be laughed at.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 15, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yes, that's all true and that is his position. I'd just say from the bits I've seen today, it doesn't quite come through as clearly as that.  Given that he's literally and metaphorically got the mic today, he should probably be kicking off a national campaign for a fully funded 3 week circuit breaker or similar.



Genuine question - why should he be responsible for a _national_ campaign, after months of loudly objecting to what's going on in his own area, with no effect?
Having employed the local fire service (I think?) to door knock, to track and trace, without enough funding (country-wide) to ensure costs for that will be recouped and with so many accusations of egotism (on here, too, afaics) - I don't understand, I _really_ don't, why there is any objection to what he is pursuing? Can you explain, please?!


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He should declare a 3 week Manchester full-on lockdown, rent and mortgage and bills break for that time, and expropriate all the food for all the residents. That would get everyone's support and might be the only chance he could demand something like that in living memory and not be laughed at.



Slight problem being a lack of cask there. But you knew that.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 15, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Genuine question - why should he be responsible for a _national_ campaign, after months of loudly objecting to what's going on in his own area, with no effect?
> Having employed the local fire service (I think?) to door knock, to track and trace, without enough funding (country-wide) to ensure costs for that will be recouped and with so many accusations of egotism (on here, too, afaics) - I don't understand, I _really_ don't, why there is any objection to what he is pursuing? Can you explain, please?!


On phone so brief answer. Starmer has been lamentable and his call for circuit breaker wasn't convincing. Burnham is every bit the politician but sounded real in his anger today. But he was ultimately trying to leverage money today. I just think the time has come to go beyond that. 'You people in government are planning to allow thousands to die. Again'.


----------



## Mation (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah from watching him talk he wasn't clear on that at all. He seemed to want an incoherent mess of a whole load of things. And given he's being supported by a raft of the no-lockdown at all crowd I think plenty of others aren't clear either.


What I heard was:

We need a national lockdown
We need 80% furlough, including self-employed people, too
We reject local measures that are inadequate from a public health perspective
We reject local measures that are inadequate from an economic perspective
We initially gave you the benefit of the doubt on local measures, but now see they haven't worked
We won't be guinea pigs for further, ineffectual, local measures


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm in the north in a high infection area too. I didn't see him or anyone else like him demanding we stay in lockdown longer back then. Nor going against the eat out scheme, or against universities or schools opening, etc.


TBF LDC Burham actually did say that the national lockdown was released too early for the north back in the spring/summer. 1, 2


----------



## MrSki (Oct 16, 2020)

Can the UK get worse? (sadly I expect so)


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Genuine question - why should he be responsible for a _national_ campaign, after months of loudly objecting to what's going on in his own area, with no effect?
> Having employed the local fire service (I think?) to door knock, to track and trace, without enough funding (country-wide) to ensure costs for that will be recouped and with so many accusations of egotism (on here, too, afaics) - I don't understand, I _really_ don't, why there is any objection to what he is pursuing? Can you explain, please?!



I object as his actions are delaying tighter restrictions which will cause more deaths. I also object as I think what he's doing causes more public confusion and frustration about the need for more restrictions, which fuels the calls for a 'herd immunity strategy' which also will cause more deaths. I also think he's playing on the north/south card which I think is politically dodgy and unhelpful in all sorts of ways.

I get his anger, but I think he's pursuing the wrong course of action, one that I suspect is driven by pressure from local businesses many of whom are against _any _more lockdown and restrictions. (Also look at what Manchester's nightlife 'tsar' is saying for example.)


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

I don't get it - how can it be driven by local businesses who're against lockdowns and restrictions when he's calling for a full national lockdown? You've really got this arse about tit.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't get it - how can it be driven by local businesses who're against lockdowns and restrictions when he's calling for a full national lockdown? You've really got this arse about tit.



Hopefully I have, but all I see is it delaying tighter restrictions that are needed now. And the government have ruled out a national lockdown at the moment, so where does that leave it all? It just all feels really, really fucked up.


----------



## mauvais (Oct 16, 2020)

Where do you live LDC?


----------



## TopCat (Oct 16, 2020)

rutabowa said:


> We were both at the same place! and i lost smell yesterday so looks like we both got it! am now in isolation too.


I hope you and other Urb are ok.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Where do you live LDC?



Leeds, and I expect our 'council leaders' are likely to follow the same path as Burnham (in a less charismatic and more incompetent way) when they try to bring Tier 3 in here.

I feel like the Tier system is a massive and overdue improvement on what we had, and it's being fucked up at the first hurdle.


----------



## chilango (Oct 16, 2020)

It's tricky discussing this because what is needed isn't on the table. So we're either discussing hypotheticals or picking which version of human sacrifice sounds least worst.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 16, 2020)

So... we've all got to "lean in" what the fuck is that even meant to mean? Raab said it at least 3 times on the radio this morning, so it's obviously quite important. 

It's just management speak and has no real clear meaning. How are my old parents meant to interpret that. Confused, unclear, jumbled up messages and no leadership.  A governance of ineptitude.


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Hopefully I have, but all I see is it delaying tighter restrictions that are needed now. And the government have ruled out a national lockdown at the moment, so where does that leave it all? It just all feels really, really fucked up.


There isn't going to be a national lockdown (this week), but Burnham will settle for a local lockdown with better support. 

What do you think would save more lives? A massively unpopular and widely ignored lockdown brought in yesterday, or one with better provisions that local leadership can live with - with the additional buy in that brings from the local population - brought in today?


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 16, 2020)

Oh man this is so funny. I won't ever link to Twitter but in the interests of comedy, have a tweet from Ian Brown.

Have you ever heard an Ian Brown song? (I don't mean Stone Roses songs) They go like this. He's started tweeting like he writes lyrics.



> The strategy of tension
> Mass mind manipulation
> A psychological operation
> The General population
> Hypnotised right in front of your eyes. #Drama and Lies



4,000 likes.


----------



## klang (Oct 16, 2020)

rutabowa said:


> We were both at the same place! and i lost smell yesterday so looks like we both got it! am now in isolation too.


all the best mate. hope you ok.


----------



## Cid (Oct 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> There isn't going to be a national lockdown (this week), but Burnham will settle for a local lockdown with better support.
> 
> What do you think would save more lives? A massively unpopular and widely ignored lockdown brought in yesterday, or one with better provisions that local leadership can live with - with the additional buy in that brings from the local population - brought in today?



Yeah, I think I agree with that position. The way Labour approached this has been pretty clumsy, particularly wrt the wider party... and that makes it somewhat challenging to properly convey his actual intent. I thought he did a reasonable job in that speech, it’s just a bit tainted by context and perhaps requires some additional clarification.

But his broad point is kind of undeniable. You cannot just keep putting whole regions into lockdown without funding. Especially when the form of lockdown is at best half arsed, and therefore likely to continue indefinitely.


----------



## Yossarian (Oct 16, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Oh man this is so funny. I won't ever link to Twitter but in the interests of comedy, have a tweet from Ian Brown.
> 
> Have you ever heard an Ian Brown song? (I don't mean Stone Roses songs) They go like this. He's started tweeting like he writes lyrics.



He also recorded an anti-lockdown, anti-mask, anti-vaccine songs - I listened to the first 30 seconds out of curiosity and it was so shit that I don't think I'll ever be able to listen to the Stone Roses again.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 16, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> He also recorded an anti-lockdown, anti-mask, anti-vaccine songs - I listened to the first 30 seconds out of curiosity and it was so shit that I don't think I'll ever be able to listen to the Stone Roses again.


Fools gold was ok. Other than that it's always been shit dirge.


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> He also recorded an anti-lockdown, anti-mask, anti-vaccine songs - I listened to the first 30 seconds out of curiosity and it was so shit that I don't think I'll ever be able to listen to the Stone Roses again.


they were rubbish anyway


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Oh man this is so funny. I won't ever link to Twitter but in the interests of comedy, have a tweet from Ian Brown.
> 
> Have you ever heard an Ian Brown song? (I don't mean Stone Roses songs) They go like this. He's started tweeting like he writes lyrics.
> 
> ...



He just comes across like an acid casualty.

I remember seeing him at glasto years ago.  He only played about six songs and spent the rest of his time incoherently rambling on about hoodies.


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He should declare a 3 week Manchester full-on lockdown, rent and mortgage and bills break for that time, and expropriate all the food for all the residents. That would get everyone's support and might be the only chance he could demand something like that in living memory and not be laughed at.


He can't do that for practical reasons, he doesn't have access to the financial assets he would need to fund it nor an organised group loyal to him that could do the actual expropriating and distributing (and he would need the full support of the police to prevent them from stopping the expropriating). What he does have going for him is Boris and his ilk's desire to avoid being blamed. The Govt doesn't need the co-operation of local authorities but it desperately wants it because if it does resort to imposition then it has to stand up and take full responsibility for its actions and they're not good at that. Burnham is using the tools he has available and is playing politics but isn't that what politicians are supposed to do? He's doing his job as Mayor of Manchester by standing up for what the people who live in Manchester tell him they want. Maybe he isn't getting everything right and pleasing everyone but you can't fault the man for speaking up for the people who elected him.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 16, 2020)

Never thought I'd see Andy Burnham go from generic Labour leadership candidate #3 to actual useful.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 16, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Never thought I'd see Andy Burnham go from generic Labour leadership candidate #3 to actual useful.


He is a shameless opportunist and won't want to waste this crisis.


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

Burnham was #2 tbf - he would probably have won (and might have been prime minister right now...) if Corbyn hadn't managed to get the noms.

(that said he's been a pretty lacklustre GM Mayor up to now)


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 16, 2020)

TopCat said:


> He is a shameless opportunist and won't want to waste this crisis.



He's made a few of the right noises last 5 years, didn't join the chicken coup either. It'd be nice to think he learned a few lessons by being reminded that Labour members want Labour policies.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 16, 2020)

It'd be nice to see Sadiq Khan stick it to the government. What about a Liverpool, Manchester, London alliance against the Tory bullshit. That would be beautiful and the government would look like weak fools to the whole country and world. 
Just dreaming.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

Whether it's Burnham saying it or anyone else the point still stands.  The government are content for the economies of the North to just collapse.  Poverty is way more effective killer than covid could ever hope to be (though of course the two are linked).  Also, unlike covid, poverty will keep on killing huge numbers for years and years to come.  Its like a disease that's passed down through generations.

Fuck this shit.  The callous disregard for people by Johnson and his shitcunt mates is the cause of all of this.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Oct 16, 2020)

Raab's moaning that the government shouldn't be held over a barrel. 
Reminds me of when the DUP had them over a different barrel a few years ago. They were quite happy to pay up on that occasion when it was all about saving their own necks!


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

Lancashire is going into Tier 3 - no full details yet, but this from the article is worth noting:

_The county has secured £42m out of the £58.2m it was seeking as a package of financial support for businesses, the care sector and schools. Initially. only £12m was on the table. _


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 16, 2020)

BlanketAddict said:


> Raab's moaning that the government shouldn't be held over a barrel.
> Reminds me of when the DUP had them over a different barrel a few years ago. They were quite happy to pay up on that occasion when it was all about saving their own necks!


Well yes, The irony is probably lost on him though


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

I'm just fucking angry as fuck tbh, and maybe Burnham isn't a completely fair target, but I'm a bit carefree shotgun-like with the rage today.

Angry at the fucking government for the litany of fuck-ups and calculated moves that have left thousands dead earlier this year. And at the now new list of fuck-ups and cold calculations that are looking likely to do the same again, without even the 'excuse' of lack of warning we had last time. Angry that we have thousands of kids in food poverty collecting hand-outs daily for fucking breakfast for their families ffs, and angry that people in care homes are dying on their own, etc. etc.

But I'm also fucking angry at all the dickheads not complying to rules for the collective good 'cos they're like really confusing' or 'I just want a pint'. Angry at all the conspiracy theory arseholes saying it's all fake or exaggerated. Angry at the small business owners who usually fuck over their staff but who are now pretending to give a fuck about them. And fucking angry at the media for _continually_ still giving the 'herd immunity' stuff an airing. That fucking cunt Tim Martin was on the BBC _again_ this morning saying we should be more like Sweden.

Honestly, we're going to need a fucking long wall to line all these murderous pricks up against when this is over.

Sorry for the rant, I'll go and have a cold shower now.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And fucking angry at the media for _continually_ still giving the 'herd immunity' stuff an airing. That fucking cunt Tim Martin was on the BBC _again_ this morning saying we should be more like Sweden.



Yeah, his fake concern at his workers plight was sickening, did he even hint at when the redundancies are starting. He might have made a fuck ton of money with his big town center pubs but he's still a knownothing that isn't worth listening to.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That fucking cunt Tim Martin was on the BBC _again_ this morning saying we should be more like Sweden.
> 
> Honestly, we're going to need a fucking long wall to line all these murderous pricks up against when this is over.



Notice how the 'impartial' state broadcaster always sees fit to counter psychopathic, disaster capitalists like Martin when they give such a platform...er...not.


----------



## krink (Oct 16, 2020)

I keep hearing people on TV talking about the Northern lockdowns saying it is mainly being transmitted in people's homes. Has anyone got a link to good evidence of this? I'm interested in finding out where people are catching the virus and how you get this information in the first place. Thanks.


----------



## Fruitloop (Oct 16, 2020)

It's a bit weird. Are people really all in and out of each other's houses all the time, rather than like, going to work and stuff?


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Yeah, his fake concern at his workers plight was sickening, did he even hint at when the redundancies are starting. He might have made a fuck ton of money with his big town center pubs but he's still a knownothing that isn't worth listening to.



Dragged naked by his ankles through town centres behind galloping horses is his destiny.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

krink said:


> I keep hearing people on TV talking about the Northern lockdowns saying it is mainly being transmitted in people's homes. Has anyone got a link to good evidence of this? I'm interested in finding out where people are catching the virus and how you get this information in the first place. Thanks.





Fruitloop said:


> It's a bit weird. Are people really all in and out of each other's houses all the time, rather than like, going to work and stuff?



I think it's wishful thinking to lay the blame on anything but hospitality tbh. The stuff I've seen shows restaurants play a clear role in transmission for example.


----------



## krink (Oct 16, 2020)

Fruitloop said:


> It's a bit weird. Are people really all in and out of each other's houses all the time, rather than like, going to work and stuff?


Where I live there was a lot of this going on during the lockdown - it was at ridiculous levels. Now the kids are back at school and the weather is changing it seems to be keeping people in their own homes. But honestly, it was crazy round here in the spring and summer.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

Fruitloop said:


> It's a bit weird. Are people really all in and out of each other's houses all the time, rather than like, going to work and stuff?



Its more that most homes are multiple occupancy so if the virus is brought into the home everyone living there is going to get it.  Its a numbers game.  Our homes are designed to be as air tight as possible and the virus loves poorly ventilated places.

And yes, far far more people spend time going around other peoples homes than go to restaurants and pubs etc.  Millions and millions of people never ever go to those places.  I use to go to the pub loads but I've not been inside one since February.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

krink said:


> Where I live there was a lot of this going on during the lockdown - it was at ridiculous levels. Now the kids are back at school and the weather is changing it seems to be keeping people in their own homes. But honestly, it was crazy round here in the spring and summer.



The thing is even if this is the case it's nearly impossible to police and enforce. It's the area of the restrictions you just have to rely on people obeying them. Hospitality etc. is one area that you can restrict and then make sure happens.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think it's wishful thinking to lay the blame on anything but hospitality tbh. The stuff I've seen shows restaurants play a clear role in transmission for example.



Yes lets forget about all those massive house parties.  Lets forget about all the holidays, especially the foreign ones.   Lets completely ignore the situation in Education.  

I get you're pissed off.  We all are but come on.  There are multiple vectors for transmission.  Yes, hospitality is a serious one but if we closed everything tomorrow this aint just going to go away.  And to repeat I say this as someone who hasn't stepped into a pub since February.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its more that most homes are multiple occupancy so if the virus is brought into the home everyone living there is going to get it.  Its a numbers game.  Our homes are designed to be as air tight as possible and the virus loves poorly ventilated places.



Actually the study I saw recently said transmission within the house was much lower than you'd expect, can't recall exact figures but I was shocked it was so low.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes lets forget about all those massive house parties.  Lets forget about all the holidays, especially the foreign ones.   Lets completely ignore the situation in Education.
> 
> I get you're pissed off.  We all are but come on.  There are multiple vectors for transmission.  Yes, hospitality is a serious one but if we closed everything tomorrow this aint just going to go away.  And to repeat I say this as someone who hasn't stepped into a pub since February.



I also think we need to shut universities and schools for 16 plus for this winter though, and pretty much ban overseas holidays, so I'm equally scorched earth across the board with my policies!


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Actually the study I saw recently said transmission within the house was much lower than you'd expect, can't recall exact figures but I was shocked it was so low.



I'm all ears but I find that very hard to believe and would love to know the methodology.  It just stands to reason that the nature of air tight homes, combined with prolonged close contact (and indeed very tactile) would make homes a perfect vector.  Its certainly where my b-i-l got it when he was hospiltized as he'd barely left the house during lockdown.  His wife however had to keep on teaching through lockdown.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I also think we need to shut universities and schools for 16 plus for this winter though, and pretty much ban overseas holidays, so I'm equally scorched earth across the board with my policies!



Fair enough.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I also think we need to shut universities and schools for 16 plus for this winter though, and pretty much ban overseas holidays, so I'm equally scorched earth across the board with my policies!



Overseas holidays is a mental idea right now and plenty still seem to be doing it or were over summer.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 16, 2020)

*Blood pressure trigger    *


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Overseas holidays is a mental idea right now and plenty still seem to be doing it or were over summer.



Yeah, on one hand I think it's completely bonkers as well. But I do get why after months of this, working hard, or especially if you've been locked up with kids/partner/housemates, and if you haven't really got personal experience of the virus in your circle, that 2 weeks somewhere warm by a pool drinking beer seems _very_ appealing, and a nice bit of normality.

For me it's just another illustration of how fucked up things are. Like of course people want holidays if their day-to-day life is actually pretty depressing and/or hard grind. I'd hope that some big shifts in how we organise society and prioritise stuff in our lives might come of this; all sorts of things have been shown to be really flawed and fucked up.


----------



## Cid (Oct 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its more that most homes are multiple occupancy so if the virus is brought into the home everyone living there is going to get it.  Its a numbers game.  Our homes are designed to be as air tight as possible and the virus loves poorly ventilated places.
> 
> And yes, far far more people spend time going around other peoples homes than go to restaurants and pubs etc.  Millions and millions of people never ever go to those places.  I use to go to the pub loads but I've not been inside one since February.



This study seems to reflect that at least... and not necessarily in the sense of spreading through big parties etc. So I think your first paragraph is probably the more relevant... household transmission is essentially inevitable, unless you have isolation outside the home as China did, and is going to make up a substantial proportion of infections. But may not be that important for the actual spread of the disease...


----------



## Fruitloop (Oct 16, 2020)

My house is the opposite of hermetically sealed, it's just a big collection of draughts with a roof on, so maybe we'll be okay.


----------



## Cid (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, on one hand I think it's completely bonkers as well. But I do get why after months of this, working hard, or especially if you've been locked up with kids/partner/housemates, and if you haven't really got personal experience of the virus in your circle, that 2 weeks somewhere warm by a pool drinking beer seems _very_ appealing, and a nice bit of normality.
> 
> For me it's just another illustration of how fucked up things are. Like of course people want holidays if their day-to-day life is actually pretty depressing and/or hard grind. I'd hope that some big shifts in how we organise society and prioritise stuff in our lives might come of this; all sorts of things have been shown to be really flawed and fucked up.



Yep. But I don’t hold out much hope. The lacklustre Labour response hasn’t helped.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

The latest tragic demonstration of the hospital infection point I never stop going on about.



> A health board battling Covid outbreaks at three of its hospitals is preparing to admit more patients to its field hospital on Friday.
> Cwm Taf Morgannwg reported 47 deaths from infections caught in hospitals in Llantrisant, Merthyr Tydfil and Bridgend.





> The health board has declared Covid-19 infection outbreaks in three of its main hospitals, with 205 Covid cases linked to the outbreak, including patients.
> It said earlier this week there had been 47 deaths: 38 at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant, five at Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil, and four at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend.













						Covid: Emergency cases to return to Royal Glamorgan Hospital
					

Health bosses say they can start lifting restrictions at a hospital hit by 38 deaths from Covid-19.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Makes a real difference when this stuff isnt obfuscated in the way that has so often happened in England.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 16, 2020)

I think some of my frustration with Burnham yesterday come out of a backhanded compliment. Even after all this fucking death and misery it was rare to see someone in public life actually angry and loud. The frustration was that he and the other local leaders were (rightly) about getting some money to partially offset the economic disaster in their areas. But ultimately, whether they were supporting the 3 tiers or even the circuit breaker (it's not a lockdown, we've never had a lockdown), it won't be enough. All the components are in place, we're heading back towards mass death and it's just about impossible to see a scenario where our rulers will even try to do anything (other than a strategy that fucks the hospitality workers).  I'm also sickened that we, the left, the people haven't managed to put any kind of strategy together.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 16, 2020)

Fortnight Covid 'fire-break' lockdown within days in Wales
					

Wales faces a two-week stay-at-home "fire-break" lockdown, says First Minister Mark Drakeford.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




*Wales faces a two-week national lockdown, according to a union chief and the leader of Wales largest county.*
Welsh Government officials - including the first minister - have been meeting local authorities and key stakeholders over a potential "circuit-breaker".
BBC Wales has been told an announcement on a short limited lockdown will be made over the next few days.
"We are talking about a stay-at-home fortnight," said Shavanah Taj, general secretary of Wales TUC.
"The question is, what does that look like and how does that actually impact jobs?"
Welsh Government minister Eluned Morgan confirmed on Thursday that detailed discussions were ongoing, but there was unlikely to be a decision before the weekend.


Wales' worst kept secret.

Thing is, nobody thinks they will close schools. But it's half-term next Friday and if they want us to teach online via google classroom we are running out of days to provide disadvantaged pupils (you know, the ones they're soooo concerned about) with laptops and devices to work on. The ones that were promised last May and never materialised. The ones that are now going to materialise magically within days.

Yeah. Course they are.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 16, 2020)

krink said:


> I keep hearing people on TV talking about the Northern lockdowns saying it is mainly being transmitted in people's homes. Has anyone got a link to good evidence of this? I'm interested in finding out where people are catching the virus and how you get this information in the first place. Thanks.


Clearly the answer to this is to stay in the pub until ten and then sleep in a hedge  being at home is dangerous.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think it's wishful thinking to lay the blame on anything but hospitality tbh. The stuff I've seen shows restaurants play a clear role in transmission for example.


I find it hard not to see schools as the main factor that has led to the surge. In my area the restrictions had seen levels go down from around 45-50 per 100,000 to just above 20 - then schools opened and the figures went mental.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Clearly the answer to this is to stay in the pub until ten and then sleep in a hedge  being at home is dangerous.



Invest in some artic wear and brave it in the pub garden and sleep in the hedge (after covering it in bleach).  Its the only option left to us.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I find it hard not to see schools as the main factor that has led to the surge. In my area the restrictions had seen levels go down from around 45-50 per 100,000 to just above 20 - then schools opened and the figures went mental.



They are certainly a big factor but I think it could have been managed had we had a better control going into that period.  Locally we went from quite low to crazy out of control a couple of weeks after the schools went back.  There is also the matter of that big uni down the road...


----------



## two sheds (Oct 16, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Clearly the answer to this is to stay in the pub until ten and then sleep in a hedge  being at home is dangerous.



Following a fine tradition


----------



## prunus (Oct 16, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Clearly the answer to this is to stay in the pub until ten^H^H^H closing and then sleep in a hedge  being at home is dangerous.



So my early 20s were just all training for this? It all makes sense now.


----------



## clicker (Oct 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Invest in some artic wear and brave it in the pub garden and sleep in the hedge (after covering it in bleach).  Its the only option left to us.


Nooooo you need to drink the bleach. Won't people ever learn.


----------



## xenon (Oct 16, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I find it hard not to see schools as the main factor that has led to the surge. In my area the restrictions had seen levels go down from around 45-50 per 100,000 to just above 20 - then schools opened and the figures went mental.



it’s probably a bit of everything, a culmination. But let’s remember the pubs opened on the 4th of July. This rapid surge call it what you will didn’t seem to take hold until September.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I think some of my frustration with Burnham yesterday come out of a backhanded compliment. Even after all this fucking death and misery it was rare to see someone in public life actually angry and loud.
> 
> I'm also sickened that we, the left, the people haven't managed to put any kind of strategy together.



Yup, my thoughts and disappointments exactly.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I find it hard not to see schools as the main factor that has led to the surge. In my area the restrictions had seen levels go down from around 45-50 per 100,000 to just above 20 - then schools opened and the figures went mental.



I thought it was pretty clear the under 15 year olds weren't a significant source of transmission, that is was 16-25 year olds, so in terms of education it's colleges and universities (although I guess people use 'schools' more broadly to include that sometimes) much much more.


----------



## chilango (Oct 16, 2020)

So the first two (neighbouring) areas under Tier 3 already have slightly different rules/restrictions?

This won't end well.


----------



## chilango (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I thought it was pretty clear the under 15 year olds weren't a significant source of transmission, that is what 16-25 year olds, so in terms of education it's colleges and universities much much more.



I saw something the other day (on Novara iirc) suggesting that the under 16s might well be significant but aren't getting picked because asymptomatic or something?


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

chilango said:


> So the first two (neighbouring) areas under Tier 3 already have slightly different rules/restrictions?
> 
> This won't end well.


I guess you could get a flood of people crossing the border from Merseyside to Lancashire so they can go to the gym, but I can't really see it.


----------



## chilango (Oct 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> I guess you could get a flood of people crossing the border from Merseyside to Lancashire so they can go to the gym, but I can't really see it.



That's not really the point though.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 16, 2020)

Don't worry, it will be some different system next week anyway. "You can't do that pal, these two streets are in Category Kumquat, don't you watch the news."


----------



## Mation (Oct 16, 2020)

xenon said:


> it’s probably a bit of everything, a culmination. But let’s remember the pubs opened on the 4th of July. This rapid surge call it what you will didn’t seem to take hold until September.


The numbers have been going up since 7 July.


----------



## Supine (Oct 16, 2020)

Sitting down with my mum to watch indi SAGE live. Not expecting any happy news.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 16, 2020)

Not been in a pub recently. Why I have I had to put on a mask to walk 10 metres to my table in the pub and then am allowed to take it off for the next few hours I intend to spend here while sitting a couple of metres from old men? What's the science there.

This is all mental.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I thought it was pretty clear the under 15 year olds weren't a significant source of transmission, that is was 16-25 year olds, so in terms of education it's colleges and universities (although I guess people use 'schools' more broadly to include that sometimes) much much more.


No significant post-16 provision in my area. There may be another explanation, but the change in the rate was absolutely stark in the weeks after schools went back. I don't know if this was the experience elsewhere, but I have been watching my local figures very closely.


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> No significant post-16 provision in my area. There may be another explanation, but the change in the rate was absolutely stark in the weeks after schools went back. I don't know if this was the experience elsewhere, but I have been watching my local figures very closely.


All the people I know who've caught it recently it's been in an education setting of one sort or another


----------



## magneze (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Not been in a pub recently. Why I have I had to put on a mask to walk 10 metres to my table in the pub and then am allowed to take it off for the next few hours I intend to spend here while sitting a couple of metres from old men? What's the science there.
> 
> This is all mental.


The science of economics. Which isn't a science.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> All the people I know who've caught it recently it's been in an education setting of one sort or another


Yep. Every single day I’m coming in to work wondering “will it be today”.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Not been in a pub recently. Why I have I had to put on a mask to walk 10 metres to my table in the pub and then am allowed to take it off for the next few hours I intend to spend here while sitting a couple of metres from old men? What's the science there.
> 
> This is all mental.



It _slightly_ lessens the risk of transmission on a population level.

The alternatives would be to close the pubs, or have more people get infected. Which would you rather?


----------



## Petcha (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It _slightly_ lessens the risk of transmission on a population level.
> 
> The alternatives would be to close the pubs, or have more people get infected. Which would you rather?



I just dont see how I'm more likely to transmit it walking a couple of metres than sitting at a table for hours with people sitting nearby. It doesn't make sense.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 16, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Fortnight Covid 'fire-break' lockdown within days in Wales
> 
> 
> Wales faces a two-week stay-at-home "fire-break" lockdown, says First Minister Mark Drakeford.
> ...



I share your scepticism about how far this temporary "lockdown" in Wales will be taken.

Devil as always will be in the detail.  That BBC story doesn't tell us many specifics 

I'm not at my workplace today anyway, but I have literally zero idea yet whether 'lockdown' will apply or not to workplaces like mine (large CS unit where working from home can only be an option for some).

I hope we'll know more on Monday 

In the meantime, does this from Drakeford tell us much?




			
				Mark Drakeford said:
			
		

> "*We would all have to stay at home* to once again save lives. But this time it would be for weeks not months."



Anyway, I hope things work out OK for you and your workplace planetgeli


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think it's wishful thinking to lay the blame on anything but hospitality tbh. The stuff I've seen shows restaurants play a clear role in transmission for example.


What stuff is this ?


----------



## Looby (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I just dont see how I'm more likely to transmit it walking a couple of metres than sitting at a table for hours with people sitting nearby. It doesn't make sense.


Who cares, really? How does it negatively impact your life to just wear the mask?


----------



## andysays (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I just dont see how I'm more likely to transmit it walking a couple of metres than sitting at a table for hours with people sitting nearby. It doesn't make sense.


I would imagine the idea is that when you're sitting at your table, you're expected to be consuming your drink, so you need your mask off, but when you're walking about, you're not, so you can wear it.

It's about reducing risk, not eliminating it all together. Sitting down is not inherently any less risky than walking about, but if you had to wear your mask all the time, you'd struggle to consume your drink, so going to the pub would be pointless.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 16, 2020)

Looby said:


> Who cares, really? How does it negatively impact your life to just wear the mask?



It doesn't. But it's completely non-sensical. I hope you can see that.

I don't mind wearing it at the table. I just dont see the logic in the walking to my table with a mask to sitting at the table for hours without a mask. It's one of the most ridiculous things i've ever been asked to do. I'm not a scientist, but I dont know where they've plucked this rule from. Am I allowed to express that opinion?


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I thought it was pretty clear the under 15 year olds weren't a significant source of transmission, that is was 16-25 year olds, so in terms of education it's colleges and universities (although I guess people use 'schools' more broadly to include that sometimes) much much more.



No, not what I've read. And not what this study says.





__





						DEFINE_ME
					





					www.thelancet.com
				




We cannot treat 'schools' as some homogeneous entity. That report makes very clear that any 'safe' measure of transmission applies to children apparently under 10 years old. And states that,

*If young children are less infectious than adults, then there must be an age when they start to become as infectious as older individuals. The French and Korean studies suggest that this might occur during adolescence, which could have major implications when schools, colleges, and universities return fully, as they must do soon.*

Another side issue from that article is,

*It is likely that children from low-income backgrounds will probably be more adversely affected than children from high-income backgrounds.*

Well, yes. But maybe this is true for education in general where pupils from low income backgrounds are expelled at the drop of a hat compared to children from privileged socio-economic backgrounds. Maybe it's about time we addressed that if we are constantly going to use economically deprived pupils as an excuse for keeping schools open.


----------



## Cid (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I thought it was pretty clear the under 15 year olds weren't a significant source of transmission, that is was 16-25 year olds, so in terms of education it's colleges and universities (although I guess people use 'schools' more broadly to include that sometimes) much much more.



I think the problem with transmission in schools is that there was basically very little evidence at all. Back in September I believe there was a study on an outbreak in an Israeli school, and an outbreak in a US summer camp. On phone at work so not going to dig now, but imperial seem to have started some research. They do mention increasing evidence that transmission isn’t as common, but equally they don’t in any way suggest a clear picture... Iirc there was a degree of taper in the Israel study (which had no young children); more significant in older kids, but still some spread down to 12/13. And evidence that reduces as kids get younger.

All the advice from international bodies has also come with the caveat of making school environments as COVID safe as possible, which again is a huge variable.

I suppose the thing is that with such close contact environments occurring all over the country, events that may seem rare within more limited populations may be more significant with the clustering nature of COVID transmission.

But broadly it just isn’t very clear. And was probably something to approach with a good deal of caution. I suppose we shall see.


----------



## Looby (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It doesn't. But it's completely non-sensical. I hope you can see that.
> 
> I don't mind wearing it at the table. I just dont see the logic in the walking to my table with a mask to sitting at the table for hours without a mask. It's one of the most ridiculous things i've ever been asked to do. I'm not a scientist, but I dont know where they've plucked this rule from. Am I allowed to express that opinion?


Express what you like it just seems petty. Wear yours at the table too if you feel you should. Personally I wouldn’t spend hours inside a pub at all at the moment and would rather shiver outside.
I’m just really sick of nit-picking about stuff like this. Selfishly I worry every day about all the places I have to go where I know the rules aren’t followed and I feel at risk. But that’s my stuff not yours.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 16, 2020)

Looby said:


> Express what you like it just seems petty. Wear yours at the table too if you feel you should. Personally I wouldn’t spend hours inside a pub at all at the moment and would rather shiver outside.
> I’m just really sick of nit-picking about stuff like this. Selfishly I worried every day about all the places I have to go where I know the rules are followed and I feel at risk. But that’s my stuff not yours.



Fair do's. Was just an observation as someone who hasn't actually had to observe this properly for a while.

No offence meant. I feel really sorry for the staff here. There don't appear to be many rules being applied at all.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It doesn't. But it's completely non-sensical. I hope you can see that.
> 
> I don't mind wearing it at the table. I just dont see the logic in the walking to my table with a mask to sitting at the table for hours without a mask. It's one of the most ridiculous things i've ever been asked to do. I'm not a scientist, but I dont know where they've plucked this rule from. Am I allowed to express that opinion?



I agree it doesn't make much sense but that's what you get when you compromise.  I'm pretty sure the science says the pubs & restaurants etc should be shut but the government doesn't want to pay any more money to them. 

Its quite clear to me that they should be shut with an suitable compensation arrangement but that seems very unlikely.  On the plus side these businesses will become less of a problem as they all go bust.  Every cloud eh?


----------



## BlanketAddict (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Not been in a pub recently. Why I have I had to put on a mask to walk 10 metres to my table in the pub and then am allowed to take it off for the next few hours I intend to spend here while sitting a couple of metres from old men? What's the science there.
> 
> This is all mental.



Bow down to the economy. It's all money and growth and forecasts and downturns and stability and stimulus and rates and all that crap. 

Won't be long before the old 'essential' industries comes back into play when and if another lockdown returns. 
Nowhere is safe, don't go near anybody. Except for work of course.


----------



## prunus (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It doesn't. But it's completely non-sensical. I hope you can see that.
> 
> I don't mind wearing it at the table. I just dont see the logic in the walking to my table with a mask to sitting at the table for hours without a mask. It's one of the most ridiculous things i've ever been asked to do. I'm not a scientist, but I dont know where they've plucked this rule from. Am I allowed to express that opinion?



It’s not nonsensical, look at the rules the other way round: to reduce the number of transmission events wear a mask everywhere there is risk of transmission except where you can’t. So you wear one everywhere indoors except when you are putting things into (or taking them out of) your mouth, as there it is impossible so to do. Eating, drinking, dentists and so on. Even then wear a mask in those settings whenever not actually in the mask-impossible scenario, so in waiting rooms, getting up to go the bar or toilet, wandering around.

Makes perfect sense that way round - the default is you are wearing a mask, exceptions are where you physically can’t, rather than the default is you are not wearing a mask, except in these particular instances where you should.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

I'm linking to the same story I posted earlier because there is a different bit of it I want to quote.









						Covid: Emergency cases to return to Royal Glamorgan Hospital
					

Health bosses say they can start lifting restrictions at a hospital hit by 38 deaths from Covid-19.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> NHS Wales chief executive Andrew Goodall earlier this week spoke of the challenges of dealing with Covid, saying it was a virus that "surprises us with its ability, particularly in closed settings, in its ability to transmit across to other parts of hospital and healthcare settings".



It surprises them. What excuses are there for being surprised by this? I dont even work in that setting or have qualifications in a relevant field and yet it was easy to spot this angle well before the pandemic took hold in the UK. 

And the lesson was right there in the news, via the initial Wuhan hospital spread and via South Korea having an early outbreak in a hospital ward setting and quickly learning the lessons from it (combined with the lessons they learnt from SARS).

But of course we are in the UK where lessons are learned by the establishment in a slow and stubborn manner, where the testing regime including testing for patients and healthcare workers etc was awful, and where the PPE supplies and guidelines were a terrible fit for this pandemic. No time for proper fit testing for all, a different sort of fit test reveals the establishment to be not fit for purpose.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 16, 2020)

prunus said:


> It’s not nonsensical, look at the rules the other way round: to reduce the number of transmission events wear a mask everywhere there is risk of transmission except where you can’t. So you wear one everywhere indoors except when you are putting things into (or taking them out of) your mouth, as there it is impossible so to do. Eating, drinking, dentists and so on. Even then wear a mask in those settings whenever not actually in the mask-impossible scenario, so in waiting rooms, getting up to go the bar or toilet, wandering around.
> 
> Makes perfect sense that way round - the default is you are wearing a mask, exceptions are where you physically can’t, rather than the default is you are not wearing a mask, except in these particular instances where you should.



Ok, fair point. But then they should just shut all the pubs. Because I'm currently more at risk and putting others more at risk by sitting here sipping a pint than I am walking 10 seconds to my table.


----------



## Cid (Oct 16, 2020)

BlanketAddict said:


> Bow down to the economy. It's all money and growth and forecasts and downturns and stability and stimulus and rates and all that crap.
> 
> Won't be long before the old 'essential' industries comes back into play when and if another lockdown returns.
> Nowhere is safe, don't go near anybody. Except for work of course.



I keep saying this, but it’s more about a specific ideology than it is the economy. It’s an avoidance of government responsibility in favour of putting everything on the shoulders of the public. There’s no particular reason that the current situation should be any better economically than severe but well funded national lockdowns with extended periods of normal(ish) activity.


----------



## editor (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Ok, fair point. But then they should just shut all the pubs. Because I'm currently more at risk and putting others more at risk by sitting here sipping a pint than I am walking 10 seconds to my table.


Shut the pubs because you have a problem wearing a mask? Yeah, nice one.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I just dont see how I'm more likely to transmit it walking a couple of metres than sitting at a table for hours with people sitting nearby. It doesn't make sense.



You're not _more _likely. It's about lessening risk. This stuff is complex, epidemiology is sometimes, and it might seem not to make sense to you, but it does lessen the risk.

And as been said, so what, just wear the fucking mask, the person you bump into and cough in by mistake walking that couple of metres might be on their one night out after six months of cancer treatment that makes them very vulnerable.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It doesn't. But it's completely non-sensical. I hope you can see that.
> 
> I don't mind wearing it at the table. I just dont see the logic in the walking to my table with a mask to sitting at the table for hours without a mask. It's one of the most ridiculous things i've ever been asked to do. I'm not a scientist, but I dont know where they've plucked this rule from. Am I allowed to express that opinion?



Go right ahead and express it, but you clearly don't know what you're talking about and seem to struggle with following a simple logical thought process about wearing it reducing risk.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 16, 2020)

editor said:


> Shut the pubs because you have a problem wearing a mask? Yeah, nice one.



I'm just questioning the logic. If it's dangerous for me to walk a couple of metres to my table or to the loos then I can't see how me sitting down for hours isn't at least, or probably more dangerous. Does that make sense?

Believe me I don't want the pubs to shut. I have too many friends reliant on it. But following the logic I can't see how they can stay open.


----------



## Cid (Oct 16, 2020)

Fuck me, one of the guys in my workshop is ‘going for a drink with some mates, and my brother is coming up over the weekend’. 

Tier 2


----------



## Petcha (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Go right ahead and express it, but you clearly don't know what you're talking about and seem to struggle with following a simple logical thought process about wearing it reducing risk.



Explain to me then, how I'm more hazardous walking 10 seconds from the front door of a pub with a mask to a table than sitting at a table for hours without one. Please, educate me.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

I'll try to pluck a couple of thigs out of this weeks PHE surveillance report that are somewhat related to recent conversation here.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/927142/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w42.pdf
		


and



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/926847/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W42.pdf
		




> The overall number of acute respiratory infection incidents reported to PHE Health Protection Teams increased from 885 in the previous week to 1140 in week 41 in England. In the majority of these incidents SARS-CoV-2 has been detected. Educational settings still account for the highest proportion of reported incidents. Increases were seen in incidents reported in care homes, hospitals, educational settings, workplace settings, food outlet/restaurants and other settings.


----------



## Cid (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Explain to me then, how I'm more hazardous walking 10 seconds from the front door of a pub with a mask to a table than sitting at a table for hours without one. Please, educate me.



You probably aren’t. However let’s say there are 10 million of you. And 1 in 10,000 of you are asymptomatic super spreaders. Can you see the problem yet?

e2a: and the person you’re with can only be from your household. So there’s very little change to risk there.


----------



## bimble (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Explain to me then, how I'm more hazardous walking 10 seconds from the front door of a pub with a mask to a table than sitting at a table for hours without one. Please, educate me.


I know it feels ridiculous but think some of the idea is when you’re sat at your table if you’re spluttering virus on people it’s mostly those people who came to the pub with you (easy to trace / probably caught it from you already)but when you’re walking past other people to get to the loo / your table then your face is above everybody whose sat down and you might sprinkle it more indiscriminately ?


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 16, 2020)

Looks like RBWM are going to ask to be put into Tier 2 from next week. Though tbh it's not that much different from tier 1 really apart from not seeing people inside.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Explain to me then, how I'm more hazardous walking 10 seconds from the front door of a pub with a mask to a table than sitting at a table for hours without one. Please, educate me.


As you breath out, some of your germ riddled particles - the larger ones - will fall on the floor within 2 meters of you. The smaller ones will hang in the air for others the breath in.

If you wear a mask as you walk about the pub the spread of your breath will be reduced and those larger particles won't land on as many people. Once you're at your table and take your mask off, the bigger particles you pump out will fall only on those close to you and the nearby area. The smaller particles will join the general fug in the air for all to share, which is why good ventilation is essential.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> What stuff is this ?



Studies on sites of transmission. I'll try and find links to the papers.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 16, 2020)

Spandex said:


> As you breath out, some of your germ riddled particles - the larger ones - will fall on the floor within 2 meters of you. The smaller ones will hang in the air for others the breath in.
> 
> If you wear a mask as you walk about the pub the spread of your breath will be reduced and those larger particles won't land on as many people. Once you're at your table and take your mask off, the bigger particles you pump out will fall only on those close to you and the nearby area. The smaller particles will join the general fug in the air for all to share, which is why good ventilation is essential.



Thank you


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

The current situation is well beyond the point where I would skip past the pubs in masks arguments stright to why the fuck are the pubs and many things open at all? Shut them, for fucks sake, and restaurants, and plenty of other things I wont list right now. And bloody well fund the shutdown properly.


----------



## xenon (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Explain to me then, how I'm more hazardous walking 10 seconds from the front door of a pub with a mask to a table than sitting at a table for hours without one. Please, educate me.



The point is not more. It’s just another risk that you could rule out by wearing a mask. You can’t do that if you’re drinking a beer. Go to the pub or don’t, that is up to you but they are trying to minimise the risk opportunity in that environment.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Explain to me then, how I'm more hazardous walking 10 seconds from the front door of a pub with a mask to a table than sitting at a table for hours without one. Please, educate me.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'll try to pluck a couple of thigs out of this weeks PHE surveillance report that are somewhat related to recent conversation here.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks for posting those.  I'm surprised the Primary School numbers are so high not because primary school children don't spread it (I reckon they must because they do for most other things) but that there is that much testing going on.  I just assumed young kids would be asymptomatic or have light symptoms which could be easily dismissed as a cold or such like.

Maybe its the teachers who are getting ill and being tested?  A grim thought.


----------



## xenon (Oct 16, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Looks like RBWM are going to ask to be put into Tier 2 from next week. Though tbh it's not that much different from tier 1 really apart from not seeing people inside.




that is quite a significant difference for A lot of people though. People in flats, single occupancy households with no gardens. Hanging around in the park does not have the appeal it did six months ago.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

xenon said:


> that is quite a significant difference for A lot of people though. People in flats, single occupancy households with no gardens. Hanging around in the park does not have the appeal it did six months ago.



I'm in Tier 2 now.  I've just invested in a heavy duty winter jacket.  I suspect I'm going to be spending a lot of time outdoors this winter.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

Johnson press conference soon apparently.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Johnson press conference soon apparently.


Further disgrace incoming


----------



## editor (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Explain to me then, how I'm more hazardous walking 10 seconds from the front door of a pub with a mask to a table than sitting at a table for hours without one. Please, educate me.


It doesn't matter. By wearing a mask some of the time, you still could be protecting yourself and others.


----------



## editor (Oct 16, 2020)

xenon said:


> that is quite a significant difference for A lot of people though. People in flats, single occupancy households with no gardens. Hanging around in the park does not have the appeal it did six months ago.


It's going to really bite into some people's mental health (mine included).


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 16, 2020)

were and when are they doing 350000 test a day


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

They added ventilation of spaces to Johnsons rhetoric.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 16, 2020)

Asking Boris what to do if you want to see your children is just mean


"you suppose to  stay in contact and  visit them"


----------



## Cid (Oct 16, 2020)

Is anyone here WFH? I make stuff, so even in lockdown I was still going to work... But walking home just now I see no real difference in traffic. Walked past an estate agents with several people working, no noticeable measures. Same for (what I think is) an ad agency. Though another ad agency (fuck me, how Sheffield has fallen) just had one guy working. Lockdown there was this huge, sudden change in everything. I have no sense of anything approaching that.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 16, 2020)

What's he having a press conference for now? Havent we suffered enough.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 16, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What's he having a press conference for now? Havent we suffered enough.



Distracts from Brexit for a bit methinks


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 16, 2020)

136 deaths reported today, taking our 7-day rolling average to 108, that's close to double in a week, last Friday it was 'just' 56.

If that rate continues, we'll hit over 400 a day by the end of the month, and over 1600 by mid-Nov. 

Shit.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What's he having a press conference for now? Havent we suffered enough.



Because we are in the middle of a political and public health crisis in regards to places like Manchester resisting going into further restrictions, and Johnson resisting a national circuit breaker.


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

Cid said:


> Is anyone here WFH? I make stuff, so even in lockdown I was still going to work... But walking home just now I see no real difference in traffic. Walked past an estate agents with several people working, no noticeable measures. Same for (what I think is) an ad agency. Though another ad agency (fuck me, how Sheffield has fallen) just had one guy working. Lockdown there was this huge, sudden change in everything. I have no sense of anything approaching that.


I'm in the office, most of the rest of the team are working from home. 

TBH the heating here is warmer than at home, and - crucially - I don't have to pay for it. I think the extra heating bills this time round are going to be much more prominent than they were in spring...


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

Johnson put his foot in it by describing how his measures 'have a chance' of working and then realised and had to go, 'errrr more than a chance!'.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm in the office, most of the rest of the team are working from home.
> 
> TBH the heating here is warmer than at home, and - crucially - I don't have to pay for it. I think the extra heating bills this time round are going to be much more prominent than they were in spring...



This is a really good point.  Not just heating but lighting and power for the laptop etc.  Its going to make a difference for sure.


----------



## xenon (Oct 16, 2020)

editor said:


> It's going to really bite into some people's mental health (mine included).



Yep. We are still in level one in Bristol but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it move up in the next week or two.  look after yourself Ed.  If there’s anything us lot Urban, can do, let us know.


----------



## Cid (Oct 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm in the office, most of the rest of the team are working from home.
> 
> TBH the heating here is warmer than at home, and - crucially - I don't have to pay for it. I think the extra heating bills this time round are going to be much more prominent than they were in spring...



Is that something that's changed much over the last few weeks?


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Johnson put his foot in it by describing how his measures 'have a chance' of working and then realised and had to go, 'errrr more than a chance!'.



Yeah I noticed that. Great, 'a chance'. "Here's a parachute, there's a _chance_ it'll open." Fuck that.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 16, 2020)

Cid said:


> Is anyone here WFH? I make stuff, so even in lockdown I was still going to work... But walking home just now I see no real difference in traffic. Walked past an estate agents with several people working, no noticeable measures. Same for (what I think is) an ad agency. Though another ad agency (fuck me, how Sheffield has fallen) just had one guy working. Lockdown there was this huge, sudden change in everything. I have no sense of anything approaching that.



the Government has mandated that like going to university

your chance of catching covid at work is low

sort of like still going shopping


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 16, 2020)

There's a _chance_ aliens will land on Salisbury plain and hand a working covid vaccine to the lads at Porton Down, but it's not the kind of chance I'd bet 100,000 lives on.


----------



## chilango (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah I noticed that. Great, 'a chance'. "Here's a parachute, there's a _chance_ it'll open." Fuck that.



Nah. It's more "I'm gonna chuck you out of a plane. I'm not giving you a parachute, but there's a _chance_ you'll land in a lake."


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Cunting Sun 'journalist' asking about a Christmas circuit breaker.

General summary of it all; keep shopping, but mind the dead bodies on the way.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 16, 2020)

Australia Exit?


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

Cid said:


> Is that something that's changed much over the last few weeks?


Everyone had more or less come back in to the office, then within days there was the new working from home advice (about a month ago?). Nothing much changed since then.

Thinking back, it's more or less the same situation as March before full lockdown came in - the people who can work from home easily are doing, those of us who it's a bother for are in the office. Imagine that's how it is for a lot of people tbh.


----------



## Numbers (Oct 16, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> the Government has mandated that like going to university
> 
> your chance of catching covid at work is low
> 
> sort of like still going shopping


I feel safer in work than anywhere else apart from my home.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 16, 2020)

Guardian is telling me Johnson is describing the Manchester situation as 'grave'. 

He's a wag isn't he? Did I say wag? I meant cunt.


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

Cid said:


> Lockdown there was this huge, sudden change in everything.


there was a period (about a week? maybe a little longer) at the start where people were advised to work from home if they can - I think that's what you should be comparing things to rather than full lockdown


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 16, 2020)

Does someone know if a councils receives money for being in tier 1 and 2. 

Maidenhead Facebook feeds are full of people convinced that the council are only moving to tier 2 to get money but, though I am no fan of the Tory run RBWM, I'm not sure this is true. I've tried finding evidence but can't.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 16, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I feel safer in work than anywhere else apart from my home.



I've worked all the way thru this but was the spike in new cases not cause by forcing people out of furlough and back into the offices and making students
go back to school and the line now is it had no effect

tbf half my company has now reverted back to working from home

just now if it gets worse the government will not offer enough resources to support company forced to do this or close if a harsh lockdown is enforced


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 16, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> What's he having a press conference for now? Havent we suffered enough.



It seemed mainly designed to shame Burnham, basically Merseyside & Lancashire has got their act together, pull your socks up, or we will enforce it anyway, to protect the NHS, and reduce potential deaths in Manchester.


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Does someone know if a councils receives money for being in tier 1 and 2.
> 
> Maidenhead Facebook feeds are full of people convinced that the council are only moving to tier 2 to get money but, though I am no fan of the Tory run RBWM, I'm not sure this is true. I've tried finding evidence but can't.


they do get extra funding, and it's a standard thing to complain about by local paper comments pages people - I wouldn't bother arguing with them though, they're massive cunts.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

What's RBWM, you used it a few times?


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

royal borough of windsor & maidenhead


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> they do get extra funding, and it's a standard thing to complain about by local paper comments pages people - I wouldn't bother arguing with them though, they're massive cunts.


Thanks, I'll ignore it


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Thanks, I'll ignore it



Yeah the extra funding is a means of compensating for the massive problems caused by moving up a tier.  The money is nowhere near enough hence the Manchester situation. No one in their right mind would want their local area to move up the tiers if they didn't deem it to be absolutely necessary.


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

Here in Preston - a flagship hard-left socialist council - the men who shout in the local paper facebook comments have been claiming the council is in bed with the tory government to personally line the pockets of the council leaders themselves. There is literally nothing you can say or do that will get through to these maniacs, but while they're (too) visible and noisy, they're actually a very small number of people. You can safely ignore everything they say.


----------



## chilango (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What's RBWM, you used it a few times?



Literally not 20 minutes ago I had to remind myself to change RBWM to "Windsor & Maidenhead" in a table I'd created...


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Johnson put his foot in it by describing how his measures 'have a chance' of working and then realised and had to go, 'errrr more than a chance!'.



Maybe we'll get away with it! 

If I _scrunch my eyes shut real tight_ I might not hit the wing mirrors of _all_ of those parked cars with my humvee.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 16, 2020)

Their is an obsession with the council and money here.

The council tax was kept artificially low by the previous (also Tory) administration and basically the money was spunked away. However most voters didn't care because they were happy to pay a reduced rate.

Now the council is virtually bankrupt, services are having to be cut and the same people who kept voting the council in  because their council tax was so low are moaning about the very things they helped to bring about.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Their is an obsession with the council and money here.
> 
> The council tax was kept artificially low by the previous (also Tory) administration and basically the money was spunked away. However most voters didn't care because they were happy to pay a reduced rate.
> 
> Now the council is virtually bankrupt, services are having to be cut and the same people who kept voting the council in  because their council tax was so low are moaning about the very things they helped to bring about.



T'was ever thus with tory voters.  

I don't know if anyone else has noticed but there appears to be a little bit of _what's in it for me?_ with that lot


----------



## Wilf (Oct 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah the extra funding is a means of compensating for the massive problems caused by moving up a tier.  The money is nowhere near enough hence the Manchester situation. No one in their right mind would want their local area to move up the tiers if they didn't deem it to be absolutely necessary.


Which in turn is part of the problem. Even Tier 3 won't be enough to slow things down in a meaningful way, but the very areas that need it most have a reason to resist it. It's not so much that a disaster will happen if we don't do x, y and z, all the factors are in place.  Daily deaths will be in the hundreds at some point next week.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Oct 16, 2020)

Plus Serco runs RBWM bin collections. Ha ha


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Daily deaths will be in the hundreds at some point next week.



They already are.  It will be into the multiple hundreds next week and after that we're going to need a calculator.  Grim.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

QueenOfGoths said:


> Plus Serco runs RBWM bin collections. Ha ha



Have you got Group 4 doing lost dog patrols too?


----------



## Wilf (Oct 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> They already are.  It will be into the multiple hundreds next week and after that we're going to need a calculator.  Grim.


Yeah, that's what I meant (over 100 now, but not yet in 'hundreds),


----------



## Wilf (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Have you got Group 4 doing lost dog patrols too?


And Ratner's doing the accounts. Commodore installing IT and Delorean running the car pool.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

I think the language against a national lockdown/restrictions has _slightly_ softened, I suspect we'll get one soon when they can't hold off any longer, maybe it'll be the end of next week.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 16, 2020)

Anyway, time for a bit of positivity now that Betamax have got the contract for Test and Trace.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

Wilf said:


> And Ratner's doing the accounts...



Ratner is a financially very successful guy.  After the jewelry mess he went on to make a lot of money from subsequent business ventures.  I once had the dubious pleasure of watching him do an after dinner speech (The Concrete Awards, yes really).  It was fascinating, very funny and very scary all in one.  He is a clear and obvious sociopath.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Ratner is a financially very successful guy.  After the jewelry mess he went on to make a lot of money from subsequent business ventures.  I once had the dubious pleasure of watching him do an after dinner speech (The Concrete Awards, yes really).  It was fascinating, very funny and very scary all in one.  He is a clear and obvious sociopath.


That thing about psychopaths and successful entrepeneurs having the same psychological make up?


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Wilf said:


> That thing about psychopaths and successful entrepeneurs having the same psychological make up?



TBH I wouldn't mind a psychopath in charge at the moment, might get shit done efficiently rather than the vicious incompetence we have now.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH I wouldn't mind a psychopath in charge at the moment, might get shit done efficiently rather than the vicious incompetence we have now.


Er....aren't the psychopaths are 'in charge'?


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH I wouldn't mind a psychopath in charge at the moment, might get shit done efficiently rather than the vicious incompetence we have now.


We have incompetent psychopaths


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

Aside from the main political purposes of the press conference, the other aspects I would draw attention to today are:

Johnson has now got some really shitty rhetoric about how a lockdown in Cornwall doesnt help reduce cases in the North West. Never mind the possible merits of reducing cases in Cornwall, those are nowhere to be seen in the picture he paints with his arse.

They have started to give the ventilation of spaces more of a mention.

He went on about testing of asymptomatic people in their masses, with some small doses of actual realism rather than just pure Moonshot shit. But then wanted to use that point to talk sternly about how people need to self-isolate if testing positive etc. Probably because they have data showing that far too few people have complied with such things.

The limitations of the testing system mean that they are increasingly relying on estimates instead of the daily positive figures when giving these sorts of press conferences. This relates to the invisible ceiling stuff I have mentioned in regards positive case data recently. The testing system was never going to catch every case so is always an underestimate, but when there is enough capacity then it is somewhat safe to use it as a guide to changing rates of infection. But when there is no spare capacity and various ceilings are being hit, causing other indicators like percentage positive to rise notably, it cannot then be relied upon to detect upward trends properly. Well it can tell those trends are happening, but it loses certain abilities to measure them and display them in the headline numbers.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> It doesn't. But it's completely non-sensical. I hope you can see that.
> 
> I don't mind wearing it at the table. I just dont see the logic in the walking to my table with a mask to sitting at the table for hours without a mask. It's one of the most ridiculous things i've ever been asked to do. I'm not a scientist, but I dont know where they've plucked this rule from. Am I allowed to express that opinion?


Not in public dealing with someone who is paid minimum wage to risk their lives dealing with whiny awkward pricks who like arguing


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Er....aren't the psychopaths are 'in charge'?



I'd say not, it lets them off the hook as they can't help it if so. Anyway, aren't psychopaths cold, calculating, and efficient (I know, shit stereotype)? This lot look like bumbling incompetents promoted beyond their abilities after going to the right school blinkered by ideology rather than anything else. Anyway, enough of a diversion.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 16, 2020)

I think the Cornwall rhetoric is dangerous, it will encourage people to rebel against future national restrictions. My area was relatively low in cases in the first wave, but people understand that every area needed to be locked down to prevent spread.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

Some of what Vallance said today was the same point that Whitty made at the start of the week but that sections of the press did not understand fully.

Some accounts of what was said suggest that Whitty said nobody he spoke to thought that tier 3 would work. Actually his point was talking about how the base tier 3 measures arent enough on their own, but there is a menu of additional restrictions that local leaders are invited to choose from when negotiating themselves into Tier 3. Both he and Vallance were talking about the base not being enough without some of those extra things on top, but this was not too well communicated or clarified later.

Misinterpreting this stuff actually comes at an understandable time because clearly there are other hot issues about whether the governments measures are enough, and what SAGE etc told them to do, and the people involved may not be happy with what the government chose and so might not mind if their points, which are not actually direct attacks on the government approach, are somewhat construed as such.

Vallance for example danced around all sorts of subjects today in a way that leaves little doubt that Johnsons current plan is inadequate, and what greater results other options would have, without actually saying it in a way that is incompatible with his role. So for he can talk about how important it is 'from a purely epidemiological point of view' to bring R and infections down quickly, and also talks about how circuit-breakers can bring R down more quickly than lesser measures, but also manages to weasel around the subject in a way that doesnt criticise Johnson for not doing a circuit breaker and leaves Johnson & Co some political wiggle room because of indirect deaths; lockdown and recession deaths etc.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH I wouldn't mind a psychopath in charge at the moment, might get shit done efficiently rather than the vicious incompetence we have now.



Give over.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Give over.



Fair enough, I'm just a bit pissed and pissed off!


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I think the Cornwall rhetoric is dangerous, it will encourage people to rebel against future national restrictions. My area was relatively low in cases in the first wave, but people understand that every area needed to be locked down to prevent spread.



Also I think he had the nerve to mention in the same press conference the importance of keeping other NHS services going this time. Actually to do that anything like safely it is important to keep the rate of infections down to low levels that we struggle to see in any part of the country at the moment. So its a point I would bring up when advocating national measures.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah I noticed that. Great, 'a chance'. "Here's a parachute, there's a _chance_ it'll open." Fuck that.



He also showed some sign of instant regret that he had just found himself describing the first lockdown as 'the bad old days' at one point, perhaps because he had allowed some of his instincts to show, including one that he would normally prefer to keep at least thinly veiled for the broader audience.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> T'was ever thus with tory voters.
> 
> I don't know if anyone else has noticed but there appears to be a little bit of _what's in it for me?_ with that lot


Really???


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 16, 2020)

The longer these political divas fiddle around the edges, the more deaths there will be, in both the short, and longer, term.

We need more carrot than stick with things like TT&I ...

What the country needs is another circuit breaker - but at least three weeks / four weekends in length - to bring the case-rate down.
It will need to be longer because it is working against a higher rate of infections and the current raft of measures are not working well enough.
That period of time will also require proper financial and other support to be available to places like pubs, restaurants and live arts performers, as well as other concerns and organisations. The new job support offering from sunak is not fit for purpose ...

Additionally, the unis need to go on-line as much as possible, maybe courses with a higher lab / practical content will have to have a series of "summer schools" for that sort of work.


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> What the country needs is another circuit breaker - but at least three weeks / four weekends in length - to bring the case-rate down.
> It will need to be longer because it is working against a higher rate of infections and the current raft of measures are not working well enough.
> That period of time will also require proper financial and other support to be available to places like pubs, restaurants and live arts performers, as well as other concerns and organisations.


this is exactly what one of the 'political divas' you're complaining about in the paragraph above is demanding ffs.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 16, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Give over.



What's happening over your way, is there a big outbreak amongst students?

Only I see a big increase in Brighton & Hove cases over the last few weeks, you are well up on the start of Sept., whereas Worthing cases have actually gone down in that period.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> What's happening over your way, is there a big outbreak amongst students?
> 
> Only I see a big increase in Brighton & Hove cases over the last few weeks, you are well up on the start of Sept



Huge rise from Falmer campus, which is the hotbed.

Opening universities was the biggest fuck up of all.


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Only I see a big increase in Brighton & Hove cases over the last few weeks, you are well up on the start of Sept., whereas Worthing cases have actually gone down in that period.



So far as I can see it's a mixed picture.  There are universities which have created big outbreaks that inevitably have started to spill out into the wider community, but that looks to be mainly smaller cities where infections were very low and there were few previous signs of a 'second wave.'  That's certainly what's happening in Exeter and Norwich.  On the other hand, one of the problems in the big cities - London largely excepted so far, the north-west and west Midlands worst hit, along with Newcastle - is that universities opened just when cases were rising quickly anyway, and inevitably university and city outbreaks have fed off each other.  Conversely again, here the university has only had a handful of cases so far but there's a nasty outbreak in the city centre.  I've not been keeping an eye on Brighton's figures - what have they been like?


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

This may be the last time I present the colour coded positive cases by specimen date graph for now. Because people are now well used to the pattern the colour-coding shows and this system may already have hit some limits to how many positives its going to pick up on a given day.

I shall certainly switch more focus to other ways to estimate cases, along with hospital and death data.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

And these are the estimates they presented in the press conference.




			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/927327/20201016_press_conference_slides.pdf


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 16, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> So far as I can see it's a mixed picture.  There are universities which have created big outbreaks that inevitably have started to spill out into the wider community, but that looks to be mainly smaller cities where infections.....I've not been keeping an eye on Brighton's figures - what have they been like?



Latest figure I’ve seen from Brighton (couple of days ago) was 80/100k - highest in East Sussex & was climbing. All centred around Falmer campus.


----------



## PD58 (Oct 16, 2020)

For those into data, not sure if this has been referred to in the past  COVID-19 Cases Tracker - Overview for England | LG Inform

Pretty good re display as you can change format - also the maps really show the spread over time.

As with all data it can be critiqued but useful nevertheless.


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 16, 2020)

Cid said:


> Is anyone here WFH? I make stuff, so even in lockdown I was still going to work... But walking home just now I see no real difference in traffic. Walked past an estate agents with several people working, no noticeable measures. Same for (what I think is) an ad agency. Though another ad agency (fuck me, how Sheffield has fallen) just had one guy working. Lockdown there was this huge, sudden change in everything. I have no sense of anything approaching that.



The company I am contracting with officially has a "rule of 6", no more than 6 people in the office at any one time but in practice it's more like a "rule of 10-12" in an office which has capacity for 24 people. I am always in however as I have to use a desktop PC for various reasons. I wouldn't be able to work from home without a bunch of IT equipment the company (commercial cleaning) would be too mean to provide. I also have very poor internet speed at home.

Traffic here seems to be lower, I drive some of the same roads as I did about a year ago and the traffic lights where I would wait 5-6 times to get through I now go through first time with very little queue. I assume more people are walking their kids to school if they're WFH.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 16, 2020)

Question about bubbles. We're in a childcare bubble with my partner's parents - they have the little man while we're at work. But we were also in a single person bubble with my brother in law who lives alone.

I know you're only allowed one single person bubble but can you have that and a childcare bubble? I'm thinking probably not but the other half thinks otherwise (wishful thinking it seems to me). Anyone know for sure?

Inadequate though they are I want to stick to the restrictions and have done so all the way through but the BIL has mental health problems and needs aupoort so if it is allowed I want to have him round.

Edit: I'm asking because we move into high risk at midnight (chesterfield)


----------



## Thora (Oct 16, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Question about bubbles. We're in a childcare bubble with my partner's parents - they have the little man while we're at work. But we were also in a single person bubble with my brother in law who lives alone.
> 
> I know you're only allowed one single person bubble but can you have that and a childcare bubble? I'm thinking probably not but the other half thinks otherwise (wishful thinking it seems to me). Anyone know for sure?
> 
> ...


I think you can - they're two different things.  The support bubble with your BIL makes you effectively one household.  The informal childcare bubble is between two different households but it doesn't mean you can mix socially with the childcarers.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 16, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Question about bubbles. We're in a childcare bubble with my partner's parents - they have the little man while we're at work. But we were also in a single person bubble with my brother in law who lives alone.
> 
> I know you're only allowed one single person bubble but can you have that and a childcare bubble? I'm thinking probably not but the other half thinks otherwise (wishful thinking it seems to me). Anyone know for sure?
> 
> ...


This question makes me wonder whether some nerd hasn't stuck together a questionnaire-style website where you could put your postcode in and ask various questions, to have it say "Yea" or "Nay".

ETA: it occurred to me that it could be done with some sort of AI model, but then I realised that there was no way that would ever be an accurate reflection of government policy.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 16, 2020)

Thora said:


> I think you can - they're two different things.  The support bubble with your BIL makes you effectively one household.  The informal childcare bubble is between two different households but it doesn't mean you can mix socially with the childcarers.


I thought only single people could be in support bubbles with other single people (excluding children because single parents)?


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

existentialist said:


> This question makes me wonder whether some nerd hasn't stuck together a questionnaire-style website where you could put your postcode in and ask various questions, to have it say "Yea" or "Nay".
> 
> ETA: it occurred to me that it could be done with some sort of AI model, but then I realised that there was no way that would ever be an accurate reflection of government policy.



I tried prototyping one but the AI I used meant that all the answers came back the same, Johnson is a useless cunt who would have stood more chance of managing the pandemic properly if he was dead in a fridge, I mean ditch. Then Vince Cables lot hacked it, seeking to recreate the level of smugness he achieved when he came up with the commons quip that Gordon Brown had gone from Stalin to Mr Bean. Their suggestion that Johnson had gone from World King to Pandemic Joker seems unlikely to me to reach the top of the charts even within the Westminster bubble.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 16, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Latest figure I’ve seen from Brighton (couple of days ago) was 80/100k - highest in East Sussex & was climbing. All centred around Falmer campus.



Yeah, about 3.5 times what we have, and going up, whereas we are actually going down, so I'll now be demanding not only the border to the north is closed, but to the east as well.  



Spoiler: The north south border.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Question about bubbles. We're in a childcare bubble with my partner's parents - they have the little man while we're at work. But we were also in a single person bubble with my brother in law who lives alone.
> 
> I know you're only allowed one single person bubble but can you have that and a childcare bubble? I'm thinking probably not but the other half thinks otherwise (wishful thinking it seems to me). Anyone know for sure?
> 
> ...



Officially there isn't such a thing as a 'childcare bubble' I think. Only single people can form bubbles with another household and effectively be one household, like you have done with your BiL, assuming he's not doing that with anyone else. Or children can go between both their parent's houses if their parents live apart. But what you describe with your partner's parents is something else. It might be allowed for childcare needs, but calling it a 'bubble' is incorrect I think...?


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I thought only single people could be in support bubbles with other single people (excluding children because single parents)?


no, it's two households one of which needs to be a single person household - the second can have as many as there is in the house


----------



## emanymton (Oct 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> This is a really good point.  Not just heating but lighting and power for the laptop etc.  Its going to make a difference for sure.


Won't those extra  costs be way less than transport costs for most people? They are for me.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Officially there isn't such a thing as a 'childcare bubble' I think. Only single people can form bubbles with another household and effectively be one household, like you have done with your BiL, assuming he's not doing that with anyone else. Or children can go between both their parent's houses if their parents live apart. But what you describe with your partner's parents is something else. It might be allowed for childcare needs, but calling it a 'bubble' is incorrect I think...?


Yeah I've probably got the terminology wrong there but it's definitely one of the exceptions. So sounds like we can still have the single person bubble. 

To be honest if we're still appowed the bubble and childcare the new restrictions don't make much difference to us anyway, only ever go out to work and to the shops and I've avoided socialising right the way through anyway.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 16, 2020)

In fact the childcare thing definitely isn't a bubble, we have to drop him off and pick him up at the door without going in.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

I'm about to take a partial break for a few days but I will try to read this report and comment further on it before I do.

*



			Ethnic minorities' higher risk of dying from Covid-19 is linked to where they live and the jobs they do, rather than their health, figures for England and Wales suggest.
		
Click to expand...

*


> The Office for National Statistics analysis found all ethnic minority groups, other than Chinese, are more likely to die than white people.
> Black African men and black Caribbean women had the highest risk.
> The figures are based on deaths up to the end of July.











						Coronavirus: Higher ethnic death risk 'not linked to health'
					

Where people live and the jobs they do are more likely to explain the differences, research shows.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 16, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Won't those extra  costs be way less than transport costs for most people? They are for me.



Most?  I don't know.  I would have thought most people just jump on a bus or do a very short drive but as I say, I don't know.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Officially there isn't such a thing as a 'childcare bubble' I think.


Nope it's a thing. I've got this from the NHS app so can't link.



> The following people can provide childcare support in private homes and gardens:
> 
> registered childcare providers, including nannies
> people in your support bubble
> ...


----------



## SpineyNorman (Oct 16, 2020)

I clearly don't know what the fuck I'm talking about then


----------



## emanymton (Oct 16, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Most?  I don't know.  I would have thought most people just jump on a bus or do a very short drive but as I say, I don't know.


My bus pass is £18 a week. No way is extra gas electric anywhere near that.


----------



## Thora (Oct 16, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I thought only single people could be in support bubbles with other single people (excluding children because single parents)?


Only one person has to be single - the single BIL can join the married sibling's family.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Studies on sites of transmission. I'll try and find links to the papers.


Be interesting to see what you come up with


----------



## killer b (Oct 16, 2020)

emanymton said:


> My bus pass is £18 a week. No way is extra gas electric anywhere near that.


How much do you normally spend on gas?


----------



## chilango (Oct 16, 2020)

> A childcare bubble is where someone in one household provides informal (unpaid and unregistered) childcare to a child aged 13 or under in another household. For any given childcare bubble, this must always be between the same 2 households



from Local COVID alert level: high


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 16, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> I clearly don't know what the fuck I'm talking about then



Do what you need to do for you & your family - Cos gov couldn’t give two fucks.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> How much do you normally spend on gas?


About  £15 a month.


----------



## LDC (Oct 16, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Be interesting to see what you come up with



elbows posted some stuff up-thread I think too. Do you think hospitality (restaurants etc.) aren't sites for transmission at all, or just not significant ones?


----------



## Supine (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> elbowsDo you think hospitality (restaurants etc.) aren't sites for transmission at all, or just not significant ones?



Really good example I read last week. Now we know that covid can be transmitted via droplets AND aerosols think of it this way. If your sharing space with a smoker can you smell the cigarette? If you can, you can catch coviD. 

Basically being outdoors is by far the best option.  

Sitting 2m from someone in a poorly ventilated pub / bar / restraunt is potentially dangerous.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

This is from a few days ago but I am still catching up with such news. I am mostly plucking out stuff that fits my usual themes but there is much else in the article.









						Hospitals battle coronavirus outbreaks as workforce shortages drive cancellation fears
					

‘The last few winters have shown that the NHS is somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 beds short of what we ideally need’




					www.independent.co.uk
				






> A report on the numbers of outbreaks in the northeast and Yorkshire region, seen by _The Independent_, revealed there were 70 separate Covid-19 outbreaks in hospitals and care homes on Monday.
> 
> The report said South Tees Hospital Trust had seven separate outbreaks of Covid-19, with Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals Trust and Tees, Esk and Wear Valley Trust each having six separate outbreaks.
> 
> ...





> “NHS England seem deluded and appear to be pushing trust executives to repeat their mantra. They clearly want to keep public confidence to seek medical help when needed but failing to highlight the NHS needing public support to keep going means we’ve got idiotic scenes like Liverpool last night.”





> A message to consultants on Tuesday said: “Admissions to [Nottingham University Hospital] are way past 100 and rising fast. There are also outbreaks of Covid on certain wards which have resulted in the closures of beds. I am afraid the elective programme [routine operations] is going to be disrupted but we are doing everything we can to preserve as much elective work as possible.”





> NHS England declined to answer questions on how many outbreaks there were in hospitals but a spokesperson said: “Across most of the NHS the ‘window of opportunity’ for extra elective operating is still fully open, since Covid inpatient numbers in most of England is still low.
> “But there is a lag between community infection and hospitalisation, and in geographies where Covid admissions are rapidly increasing it is obviously putting pressure on non-urgent care. That is why it is vital that public measures to cut infection growth succeed, and it’s why each area has flexibility to respond based on its particular local pressures, with a local contingency plan based on various Covid second wave scenarios.”


----------



## Petcha (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


>


----------



## IC3D (Oct 16, 2020)

A hospital outbreak is any more than 3 patients. With tests taking 24 hrs it's enough to infect beds either side of a positive patient. With rates going up in the community the wards will reflect what's going on outside, there is no capacity to isolate everyone. Infection control and PPE prevent staff spreading now which is a positive.


----------



## Cid (Oct 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


>


----------



## two sheds (Oct 16, 2020)

two sheds said:


>


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

Burnham retweets stuff like this.



I cant say I'm happy about it. Not when it is hard to tell exactly what underlying reality that graph is actually caused by.

It could be caused by hitting limits of how many positive tests it is possible for the current system to detect, and/or lag in that system.

Or it could be that the student thing was its own brief wave and as that diminishes, overall positive cases detected fall. If that happened it could mask continued rises in other age groups including more vulnerable ones.

So rather than retweeting this sort of thing, maybe he could use his position to provide more context and better data, eg if I could see recent trends in Manchester positive case numbers by age then it would be easier to rule some possibilities in or out.

And yes it could be that it actually turns out to be possible to take the numbers and that graph at face value, in which case I can understand why its a trend they would be tempted to point out and make a case around, but even this can still quickly get into unwise territory when there are urgent public health messages to underline.

As for the person he was retweeting, well I dont have time to look into them or their history of tweets so just by looking at their twitter description and extremely recent stuff:





Bah, I dont have many words left in me right now. So here is a hospital admissions graph for the trust that he made a shit point about using a graph, its the sort of thing I could stick up his arse if I were routinely arguing with people like him on twitter.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

IC3D said:


> A hospital outbreak is any more than 3 patients. With tests taking 24 hrs it's enough to infect beds either side of a positive patient. With rates going up in the community the wards will reflect what's going on outside, there is no capacity to isolate everyone. Infection control and PPE prevent staff spreading now which is a positive.



Prevents some staff spreading, not all. 



> Sources have told the BBC it was likely to have been spread by two nurses who showed no symptoms, but subsequently tested positive.
> 
> Those sources claim that the need to routinely test staff dealing with very vulnerable cancer patients was first raised in May, but staff only began having routine tests this week after the outbreak had occurred.



From an article I already posted. Coronavirus: Queen Elizabeth Hospital suspends cancer transplants


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 16, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> elbows posted some stuff up-thread I think too. Do you think hospitality (restaurants etc.) aren't sites for transmission at all, or just not significant ones?


The data's not clear. I don't think there is one big factor more a complex set of interactions. However to focus on bars/pubs is mistaken in my view unless we have any real  clear evidence..


----------



## bendeus (Oct 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> Ah, gabi. I thought you were familiar.


Oh god, really?


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> The data's not clear. I don't think there is one big factor more a complex set of interactions. However to focus on bars/pubs is mistaken in my view unless we have any real  clear evidence..



Some forms of evidence and data on this theme generally falls well below the standard required to draw strong scientific conclusions. However they do not have the luxury of waiting for such strong evidence to emerge, and countries all around the world have recognised the role of hospitality and so tend to target those settings. Countries that actually had decent test & trace systems have often found clusters linked to bars and nightclubs, and restaurants, and acted upon what they found. But that still leaves room for people who wish to believe that the good old english pub is somehow a world away from exotic bars in far off locations.

Pubs etc are not targeted because closing them is expected to have the single biggest impact on R, because indeed that isnt true, there are other things that would be expected to have the same or greater effect on reducing R. But closing these settings is still expected to influence R enough that its well worth doing as part of a collection of measures, and its one of the first ones they reach for because of the need to prioritise. Back to balancing acts that were crudely discussed in the past as a choice between pubs and schools.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 17, 2020)

SpineyNorman said:


> Question about bubbles. We're in a childcare bubble with my partner's parents - they have the little man while we're at work. But we were also in a single person bubble with my brother in law who lives alone.
> 
> I know you're only allowed one single person bubble but can you have that and a childcare bubble? I'm thinking probably not but the other half thinks otherwise (wishful thinking it seems to me). Anyone know for sure?
> 
> ...



Also, if your BIL needs support for his mental health problems, and not just feeling a bit frustrated about not seeing people, then there are exceptions for that anyway. I can't find a cite, but it was something about there being an exception for essential care needs. At one end it would mean that you shouldn't feel like you're breaking the law if someone you know sounds suicidal and needs to see someone in person, and anyone who argued against that would be crazy themselves, but I don't think it only applies to extreme situations like that.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 17, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> The data's not clear. I don't think there is one big factor more a complex set of interactions. However to focus on bars/pubs is mistaken in my view unless we have any real  clear evidence..


I have said it a few times now, but I think a big source of transmission is people ignoring rules on no household mixing and this is happening in peoples homes and in pubs etc. In might even be more common in pubs as there seems to be a common misunderstanding that no household mixing means you can't go to peoples houses but meeting them in pubs is fine.

I think if a venue is well run with proper spacing between tables and with table service only, then any infection is likely to between people who are there as a group, rather than between different groups.

Thing is a lot of pubs will not fit that picture as people just don't behave like that on a night out to the pub rather than a night out for a meal. Which I think is why pubs can be a big source of transmissions.

I said upthread that what was needed was tighter rules for pubs than cafes and restaurants so (loopholes aside) I am glad they have introduced that now although it should kick in well below tier 3. But then the whole country will probably be tier 3 in a few weeks.


----------



## LDC (Oct 17, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> The data's not clear. I don't think there is one big factor more a complex set of interactions. However to focus on bars/pubs is mistaken in my view unless we have any real  clear evidence..



It's obviously a complex set of factors, nobody said it was solely bars/pubs, but they are one of the easiest things (along with other similar stuff like gyms, etc.) to control by closing, as opposed to household mixing for example. Other people have made comments last page or so that explain why it's important they close as well. You might not like it personally, and you could make an economic argument to keep them open, but there's no good infection transmission reason that they should stay open.


----------



## LDC (Oct 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Burnham retweets stuff like this.
> 
> View attachment 234652
> 
> ...



elbows that David Paton seems to spend all his time on twitter saying it's not as bad as everyone says, and has approvingly re-tweeted a whole load of anti-lockdown stuff, and articles from Unherd and Spiked, as well as Carl Heneghan. Disappointing to see Burnham re-tweet him as well.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> elbows that David Paton seems to spend all his time on twitter saying it's not as bad as everyone says, and has approvingly re-tweeted a whole load of anti-lockdown stuff, and articles from Unherd and Spiked, as well as Carl Heneghan. Disappointing to see Burnham re-tweet him as well.



Paton sounds like a complete disgrace then  -- _anyone_ taking any approving or serious notice of Spiked  is an *utter* tosser in my book 

And Burnham should know or at least be advised better  -- I suspect (?) that he may only have read a few? bits and pieces from Paton and doesn't actually know of full-on loon connections, but even if that is the case,, that would still be *zero* fucking excuse 

Himself, or someone in the Mayor's office, needs to wise him up ASAP!


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 17, 2020)

In partly! more credible mode, Mark Drakeford contributed a piece in yesterday's Guardian.




			
				Guardian headline said:
			
		

> *Boris Johnson's inaction has forced me to ban travel to Wales from England's Covid hotspots*
> *We are keeping people safe. But the prime minister refuses to recognise the fears of people in other parts of the country*



The start of it (and headline) are to do with attempting to 'close the border' between Wales and England/elsewhere for people driving from high-risk areas, as if that's in any way enforceable 

But the latter part looks more generally at the need for a lockdown, at least for a while. I liked that part, especially where he talks about infection trends in Wales.
Drakeford does at least _seem_ to be 'listening to the science' more that the useless Johnson bloody does 

Also :

More about Wales' plans in today's Guardian here.
It's half-term in Wales or at least will be soon (not too sure of H/T dates, do they vary in different parts of Wales?) so that stuff about avoiding closing schools is a tad misleading, given that I didn't see a mention of half-term in the article.

I hope there'll be more clarity about plans in Wales  on Monday -- I heard elsewhere that Monday is when the real details will be announced.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 17, 2020)

Cruise ship doctor took own life in Cornwall over Covid concerns
					

The cruise ship The World was moored at Falmouth Docks for four months from May




					www.cornwalllive.com
				




This is a pretty sad story.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's obviously a complex set of factors, nobody said it was solely bars/pubs, but they are one of the easiest things (along with other similar stuff like gyms, etc.) to control by closing, as opposed to household mixing for example. Other people have made comments last page or so that explain why it's important they close as well. You might not like it personally, and you could make an economic argument to keep them open, but there's no good infection transmission reason that they should stay open.



There's a fair bit of  goal post shifting here tbh  . Your original position was that  ' it's wishful thinking to lay the blame on anything but hospitality '  now you are saying that 'nobody said it was solely bars/pubs' . You've moved from looking for evidence for their role in transmissions to looking for things that are easy to control without any suggestion about how much we might control or what difference it would make. The ease of shutting places isnt the issue. The issue its what contribution the closure of such places might make and how the  financial impact of those  closures on workers employed ( and in the case of hospitality its not just the staff at the establishments its the wider chain of self employed, freelancers and other contributors) are satisfactorily addressed.

Whether or not I like it personally isn't here or there tbh , I don't like personally wearing a mask but see the validity of doing so for example .


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 17, 2020)

This is completely daft. The virus spreads where people gather indoors. Pubs are one type of such place. Ergo, closing pubs will make some difference to transmission.


----------



## andysays (Oct 17, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Paton sounds like a complete disgrace then  -- _anyone_ taking any approving or serious notice of Spiked  is an *utter* tosser in my book
> 
> And Burnham should know or at least be advised better  -- I suspect (?) that he may only have read a few? bits and pieces from Paton and doesn't actually know of full-on loon connections, but even if that is the case,, that would still be *zero* fucking excuse
> 
> Himself, or someone in the Mayor's office, needs to wise him up ASAP!


Burnham has also used the language of scepticism himself over this, talking about people being used as guinea pigs and canaries in mines.

If he was simply pushing the point that affected areas need more financial support I'd be in full agreement, but he also seems to be arguing that government suggested measures won't have any effect, without suggesting much as an alternative, and it appears to me that he's doing so at least partly in support of business interests rather than people's health.



But because he's also using regionalism to present himself as the champion of "oop north", some gullible twats seem to be lapping it up without much questioning.


----------



## killer b (Oct 17, 2020)

andysays said:


> But because he's also using regionalism to present himself as the champion of "oop north", some gullible twats seem to be lapping it up without much questioning.


are you trying to start a fight?


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> Some forms of evidence and data on this theme generally falls well below the standard required to draw strong scientific conclusions. However they do not have the luxury of waiting for such strong evidence to emerge, and countries all around the world have recognised the role of hospitality and so tend to target those settings. Countries that actually had decent test & trace systems have often found clusters linked to bars and nightclubs, and restaurants, and acted upon what they found. But that still leaves room for people who wish to believe that the good old english pub is somehow a world away from exotic bars in far off locations.
> 
> Pubs etc are not targeted because closing them is expected to have the single biggest impact on R, because indeed that isnt true, there are other things that would be expected to have the same or greater effect on reducing R. But closing these settings is still expected to influence R enough that its well worth doing as part of a collection of measures, and its one of the first ones they reach for because of the need to prioritise. Back to balancing acts that were crudely discussed in the past as a choice between pubs and schools.



I read this post last night and went to be thinking about the phrase  'There are things known, and things unknown, and in between are the doors. ' tbh.  Yup, many countries that have restrictions on hospitality , limits on the amount of people at weddings/celebrations, limits on numbers on tables, early closing hours , alcohol only served with food after a certain time etc .All make some sense and I'm certainly not against not against such restrictions, I am in favour of closure of premises no matter what they are if clusters are linked and appropriate measures taken.  I would like extra powers given to local authorities to do so.  However what is proposed in the UK under tier3 is total closure of hospitality per se without any evidence or adequate financial compensation for those who work in this large industry most of who  are on minimum or low wages.  If evidence is a luxury and it might be due to  the  mixed economy of test and trace or due to data sharing issues in the UK then it needs to be fixed.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> This is completely daft. The virus spreads where people gather indoors. Pubs are one type of such place. Ergo, closing pubs will make some difference to transmission.


Like it did in Bolton?


----------



## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

Pubs and restaurants are inherently unsafe settings in a pandemic of this nature.

But no, in addition to a rising R we also have a rise in Q, the Quibble factor, which has risen above 1 and causes my list of know-nothing, no to everything that helps in the pandemic cunts to grow by the day.


----------



## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

andysays said:


> Burnham has also used the language of scepticism himself over this, talking about people being used as guinea pigs and canaries in mines.



Yeah, not so much a canary in a coal mine as a cunt in a coronavirus pandemic.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 17, 2020)

I think it's reasonable to sceptical of the measures. That can also come from a POV of them not being enough. And canary would work because it's miners stuff innit.


----------



## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

As for info from contact tracing and how authorities should respond to it, the point of cluster detection is not only to shut the venues in question, its to give broader clues that lead to broader action. Its a guide as to risky settings in general. Which is probably why, after Aberdeen had a cluster linked to a bar, the subsequent lockdown of Aberdeen a bit later involved pubs and restaurants in general closing.

The crude schools vs pubs framing was triggered by things Whitty said on July 31st. That was the time to have a debate about it and come to terms with such things. Not in mid October when the number of people with covid-19 in hospital in the North West looks like this:



Given the circumstances I think I am allowed to be upset with the nature of recent quibbling. Its part of the problem, only one small part, but one I am forced to spend too much time on when people question things that should be rather low on the list of things to focus on right now, stuff that should be a no brainer. Stuff people had plenty of opportunities to get their heads around long before we reached this hideous tipping point in the resurgence of the virus.


----------



## Cid (Oct 17, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I read this post last night and went to be thinking about the phrase  'There are things known, and things unknown, and in between are the doors. ' tbh.  Yup, many countries that have restrictions on hospitality , limits on the amount of people at weddings/celebrations, limits on numbers on tables, early closing hours , alcohol only served with food after a certain time etc .All make some sense and I'm certainly not against not against such restrictions, I am in favour of closure of premises no matter what they are if clusters are linked and appropriate measures taken.  I would like extra powers given to local authorities to do so.  However what is proposed in the UK under tier3 is total closure of hospitality per se without any evidence or adequate financial compensation for those who work in this large industry most of who  are on minimum or low wages.  If evidence is a luxury and it might be due to  the  mixed economy of test and trace or due to data sharing issues in the UK then it needs to be fixed.



Firstly, if you mean closing specific premises linked with clusters, that's essentially pointless. Closing the gate after the horse has bolted. Apart from some limited utility if e.g the staff need to be tested, or they have particularly bad practices... You also can't just 'fix' evidence. There is a vast amount of research going on around this pandemic, probably an unprecedented amount. You can gather data with different resolutions; e.g the stuff elbows posted a page or two ago, which gives locations prior to infection, is useful for establishing a broad picture, but is lacking in detail. Problem is that for that detail, you need to do proper, medium/long-term studies in a particular environment. Which is a little challenging given the situation. So we have to go on population level findings, we have to look at what other countries are doing and at what we do know about how coronavirus spreads. 

And of course on here no one is going to argue that these measures shouldn't be fully funded. We have all been saying that throughout.


----------



## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

Funding the shutdowns is very important, I've no beef with that argument at all and every beef with the government about this aspect.

Its also related to why people should be careful what they wish for. Because if you leave the pubs open without support at a time when rising fears of the virus, along with restricted opening hours, then reduced customer numbers are to be expected and that can kill the viability of businesses more than a properly funded shutdown of those businesses.


----------



## xenon (Oct 17, 2020)

Hold on. There's still valid questions in if you shut this industry down, without proper support, that could leave to a whole miriad of health problems. Homlelessness, strife etc. That's is the point of tension IMO regarding closing hospitality.

I don't think The39thStep is saying otherwise.

Nor any of us. Close places down for a time but give the staff proper support. Print the virtual money, whatever needs to be done.

Continual half measures fuckign up these business and doing next to nothing to actually reduce cases, seemingly, leaves the NW getting the worst of both worlds.

e2a, posted before seeing above post.


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## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Like it did in Bolton?



What happened in places like Bolton demonstrates that pubs closures are not expected to be enough on their own. They are just one thing that needs to be done, there are many others that may be necessary to actually bring R below one as opposed to reducing it a bit but not enough.

Nobody said that closing pubs was enough on its own to deal with the first wave and nobody is claiming the same this time.


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## Cid (Oct 17, 2020)

xenon said:


> Hold on. There's still valid questions in if you shut this industry down, without proper support, that could leave to a whole miriad of health problems. Homlelessness, strife etc. That's is the point of tension IMO regarding closing hospitality.
> 
> I don't think The39thStep is saying otherwise.
> 
> ...



That's exactly what we're saying. We've been saying it for ages. I'm not sure where this confusion has come from.


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## xenon (Oct 17, 2020)

Burnham's tweets have muddied things, apparently. And andysays is trolling or out of coffee...


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## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

xenon said:


> I don't think The39thStep is saying otherwise.



There are people here who have additional reasons for not wanting the pubs to close, well beyond the businesses, the staff, the funding, which is why they dont stick to the funding aspects and instead question the validity of such measures more broadly. They make me angry.


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## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

Cid said:


> Firstly, if you mean closing specific premises linked with clusters, that's essentially pointless. Closing the gate after the horse has bolted. Apart from some limited utility if e.g the staff need to be tested, or they have particularly bad practices... You also can't just 'fix' evidence. There is a vast amount of research going on around this pandemic, probably an unprecedented amount. You can gather data with different resolutions; e.g the stuff elbows posted a page or two ago, which gives locations prior to infection, is useful for establishing a broad picture, but is lacking in detail. Problem is that for that detail, you need to do proper, medium/long-term studies in a particular environment. Which is a little challenging given the situation. So we have to go on population level findings, we have to look at what other countries are doing and at what we do know about how coronavirus spreads.
> 
> And of course on here no one is going to argue that these measures shouldn't be fully funded. We have all been saying that throughout.



Temporary closure of premises where there has been an out break isn't  pointless. Schools, workplaces, restuarants, pubs  have all been closed tempoarly when theres been an out break. Secondly the I said that if the problem around lack of evidence is due to the mixed economy over test and trace then it should be fixed, not the data itself.Finally who is 'we'?


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## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> What happened in places like Bolton demonstrates that pubs closures are not expected to be enough on their own. They are just one thing that needs to be done, there are many others that may be necessary to actually bring R below one as opposed to reducing it a bit but not enough.
> 
> Nobody said that closing pubs was enough on its own to deal with the first wave and nobody is claiming the same this time.


I'd be interested to hear posters view on the many others that may be necessary.


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## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

A decent test & trace system, even in the countries in the world who have been best at it, is only workable during certain pandemic phases, when infections stay within a vertain range. Once they breach a certain level then contact tracing is no longer a suitable tool to fight the putbreaks with. Which is why countries with excellent test & trace capabilities (sometimes because they are basically police states) have had to have periods of more broad lockdowns or fairly sweeping closures themselves.

If we waited for perfect evidence about everything before acting in this pandemic then our response would have been even more inappropriate than it has been. There is no time for that.

The pubs should have been shut ages ago to reduce the wave of infection in young people which then spreads to other parts of society, and to generally reduce R to compensate for the big increase in R that education reopening was expected to bring. That opportunity was missed. Now we need to go much further and pubs are just one small part of that.


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## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I'd be interested to hear posters view on the many others that may be necessary.



Well here is a likely incomplete list:

Close:
Restaurants
Gyms
 'non-essential' retail
Places of worship
Close schools, colleges and universities (or do distance learning)
Limit various sports scenarios

Limit contacts between households
Tell all non-essential workers to stay at home
Cancel a whole bunch of NHS stuff to reduce number of people in hospital for other reasons that could catch it in hospital, and to free up staff to be involved with coronavirus care or to run segregated covid/non-covid facilities.

I probably missed a few obvious ones, those are just off the top of my head.


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## Cid (Oct 17, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Temporary closure of premises where there has been an out break isn't  pointless. Schools, workplaces, restuarants, pubs  have all been closed tempoarly when theres been an out break. Secondly the I said that if the problem around lack of evidence is due to the mixed economy over test and trace then it should be fixed, not the data itself.Finally who is 'we'?



As I said, closure has a certain limited utility... And in places with larger populations that have repeat contacts, like schools and universities, they become more useful. But in hospitality your outbreak _has already happened_. Your infectious person may very well no longer be infectious by the time you find the source. You have to have the infections showing symptoms, they have to get tested, tracing then has to happen. They may not work there. They may not regularly visit there... So yes, you have to close in the sense of due diligence. Test staff, try to trace the source of the outbreak. But the major event has happened.

The problem with the data is that we don't have that much information. And again, timing. There are ways of doing this... I take it you'd endorse an app that gives proper location data and is compulsory for anyone wishing to use public indoor spaces?


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## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

I am very concerned that a long grind with some intense moments thrown in will brutalise the NHS and those who work in it this winter. Featuring staff who are probably still exhausted on several levels by what happened earlier in the year.


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## Cid (Oct 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> I am very concerned that a long grind with some intense moments thrown in will brutalise the NHS and those who work in it this winter. Staff who are probably still exhausted on several levels by what happened earlier in the year.



Yep... and now we're going into long hours of darkness, and hospitals often have limited daylight anyway.


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## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

Cid said:


> As I said, it has closure has a certain limited utility... And in places with larger populations that have repeat contacts, like schools and universities, they become more useful. But in hospitality your outbreak _has already happened_. Your infectious person may very well no longer be infectious by the time you find the source. You have to have the infections showing symptoms, they have to get tested, tracing then has to happen. They may not work there. They may not regularly visit there... So yes, you have to close in the sense of due diligence. Test staff, try to trace the source of the outbreak. But the major event has happened.
> 
> The problem with the data is that we don't have that much information. And again, timing. There are ways of doing this... I take it you'd endorse an app that gives proper location data and is compulsory for anyone wishing to use public indoor spaces?


I downloaded the Portuguese Stay Away app that’s strongly recommended by the government earlier this week. Bluetooth based and relies on users punching in a code if they have tested positive to warn others. It doesn’t , apparently , use location data and users aren’t identified aside from being given some generated number  . The local track and trace teams do use location data but not from phones. Interestingly enough the Socialist Party government is proposing that app is compulsory , gets debated in Parliament next week with both the Communist Party and Left Bloc opposed. Doesn’t seem to be a due in the ditch issue as the Socialist Party say they are relaxed about the outcome of the vote.


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## cupid_stunt (Oct 17, 2020)

I heard yesterday that Anderson's brother was in hospital with covid, it's just been announced he's died.   









						Brother of Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson dies after covid battle
					

The mayor also lost another brother to cancer in recent months




					www.liverpoolecho.co.uk


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## planetgeli (Oct 17, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I'd be interested to hear posters view on the many others that may be necessary.



All the polls I've seen, both national and local, have majority support for full lockdown. Nearly everybody, if not everybody, arguing for this says they do so reluctantly but feel it is necessary.

I'm one of those people. And I've been encouraging everyone I speak to who has this line to argue for full financial support for everyone affected, often pointing out that during the banking fuck-up of 2008 we had no qualms about throwing £500 billion at the problem straightaway, and this pandemic has had nothing like that amount in a bail out so far.


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## quimcunx (Oct 17, 2020)

We've completely fucked it up at every stage so far and that will doubtless continue.  Really we need to do it properly from now on to amend that which unfortunately would probablu include a 'reset' lockdown similar to march but with proper financial and structural support to enable the necessary structures to be put in place to get to some sort of 'normality' at some point. Harsh but true.  Unfortunately I'm not sure that everything can be fixed on account of decade plus austerity and tory undermining of public health NHS education etc. 

Yes a lockdown is shit but this is also shit and will be for longer. We can see quite easily that taking the right action at the right time enables more net normality.


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## emanymton (Oct 17, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I downloaded the Portuguese Stay Away app that’s strongly recommended by the government earlier this week. Bluetooth based and relies on users punching in a code if they have tested positive to warn others. It doesn’t , apparently , use location data and users aren’t identified aside from being given some generated number  . The local track and trace teams do use location data but not from phones. Interestingly enough the Socialist Party government is proposing that app is compulsory , gets debated in Parliament next week with both the Communist Party and Left Bloc opposed. Doesn’t seem to be a due in the ditch issue as the Socialist Party say they are relaxed about the outcome of the vote.


How do you make an app compulsory without giving everyone a phone to run it on?


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## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

emanymton said:


> How do you make an app compulsory without giving everyone a phone to run it on?


Same question being asked here


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## Weller (Oct 17, 2020)

emanymton said:


> How do you make an app compulsory without you give everyone a phone to run it on?


Yes this is my beef this week  even if you have smartphones they are not all compatible with required firmware for the nhs app
  I prefer  and use small provider unlocked  Iphones and keep 2 of same model to use 1 as easy backup on sim only no commitment rolling contracts
I replaced my 2 old 5s with version 6 phones so it supported my local pubs app only to find they now  wont accept the ios version now that the NHS app needs and was asked to install after my covid test this week
I hate being on an expensive tied in contract or paying out for newer models which dont survive a drop on the floor as well 
Perhaps they should release a simpler less demanding version of the app for us iphone poverty users after all they used a simple excel script for the world breaking track and trace infections recording 
We have  got better things to do with my money at moment and sellling old Iphones on ebay etc is a PITA  too 
But if Cummings wants to supply an iphone 11 free from his council tax savings etc count me in


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## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 17, 2020)

Weller said:


> Yes this is my beef this week  even if you have smartphones they are not all compatible with required firmware for the nhs app
> I prefer  and use small provider unlocked  Iphones and keep 2 of same model to use 1 as easy backup on sim only no commitment rolling contracts
> I replaced my 2 old 5s with version 6 phones so it supported my local pubs app only to find it wont accept the ios version now that the NHS app needs and was asked to install after my covid test this week
> I hate being on an expensive tied in contract or paying out for newer models which dont survive a drop on the floor as well
> ...


the problem here is that iphone 6 are not being upgraded to the latest iOS which is the one that support the app and not a problem with the app itself.


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## Wilf (Oct 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> What happened in places like Bolton demonstrates that pubs closures are not expected to be enough on their own. They are just one thing that needs to be done, there are many others that may be necessary to actually bring R below one as opposed to reducing it a bit but not enough.
> 
> Nobody said that closing pubs was enough on its own to deal with the first wave and nobody is claiming the same this time.


Indeed and the Sage minutes on the circuit breaker actually had 5 proposals iirc, including returning the universities to online and sorting test and trace.


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## Weller (Oct 17, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> the problem here is that iphone 6 are not being upgraded to the latest iOS which is the one that support the app and not a problem with the app itself.


I know but so many older people and poverty struck  use older iphones or cheaper android phones from lidl or aldi which are still  above £100 and some often wont run it corrctly even if it installs too 
The last thing most that even wish to install the NHS app will do is fork out £500 or sign a new £40 a month contract at the moment especially when many are after a cheaper bill or cancelling contracts too and they are hearing or reading  its been rushed , is shit and far from being world class it wont install as easy or work as good as the pubs app 
Not saying those views are 100 percent mine but its the overwhelming reason around here for most not using it


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## LDC (Oct 17, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Indeed and the Sage minutes on the circuit breaker actually had 5 proposals iirc, including returning the universities to online and sorting test and trace.



Yeah, just watched it and it seems like a good set of proposals. No chance of it being adopted though.


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## Wilf (Oct 17, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> We've completely fucked it up at every stage so far and that will doubtless continue.  Really we need to do it properly from now on to amend that which unfortunately would probablu include a 'reset' lockdown similar to march but with proper financial and structural support to enable the necessary structures to be put in place to get to some sort of 'normality' at some point. Harsh but true.  Unfortunately I'm not sure that everything can be fixed on account of decade plus austerity and tory undermining of public health NHS education etc.
> 
> Yes a lockdown is shit but this is also shit and will be for longer. We can see quite easily that taking the right action at the right time enables more net normality.


This. Doesn't really matter what you call it, but the only way to make the death curve less steep is to drastically reduce human interaction. There's the stuff that should be obvious, about getting everybody working from home who can, making public transport and workplaces safe for those who have to go in. But then there's a myriad of things along the lines of making sure those with symptoms or are isolating get 100% pay to ensure they don't go in.  There's probably got to be a longer term solution that allows schools to stay open beyond a circuit breaker, but in much safer circumstances (particularly as older teenagers seem to be a source of transmission).  So many things that are about the virus but are really about inequality. If we did all that it would still be about hanging on for a vaccine. But because any such lockdown strategy smacks of 'war socialism' (more 'war social democracy') there's nil chance of it happening.


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## farmerbarleymow (Oct 17, 2020)

Oh dear - some random idiot ranting about Burnham and the situation in the North.


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## Wilf (Oct 17, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Oh dear - some random idiot ranting about Burnham and the situation in the North.


Which Cabinet member is she?


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## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Indeed and the Sage minutes on the circuit breaker actually had 5 proposals iirc, including returning the universities to online and sorting test and trace.



Sorting test & trace is not one of the 5 proposals. The 5 things were:

Circuit breaker
Work from home for all those that can
Ban contact within the home with members of other households
Close all bars, restaurants, cafes, indoor gyms, and personal services such as hairdressers
All uni & college teaching to be online unless face-to-face teaching is essential

The meeting minutes dont mention test and trace. The only time they mention testing is when they say:



> SAGE has previously noted the risks associated with discharging people from hospitals into the community without testing to ascertain whether they may be infectious. Specific attention to reducing spread to Care Homes and within Hospitals is critically important. This needs to be considered when assessing prioritisation within constrained testing capacity.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...768_Fifty-eighth_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19.pdf

In other words their focus was on redirecting testing to critical areas (such as hospital and care home staff) rather than attempting to prop up the illusion that test & trace plays a big role in the sort of phase we are in now. Well, its failures played a role in creating the situation, but fixing those failures is a longer term solution, not one of the emergency brakes they were calling for.

Now the document that SAGE endorsed in that meeting does make mention of test & trace:

Summary of effectiveness and harms of NPIs



> An effective test, trace and isolate (TTI) system is important to reduce the incidence of infections in the community. Estimates of the effectiveness of this system on R are difficult to ascertain. The relatively low levels of engagement with the system (comparing ONS incidence estimates with NHS Test and Trace numbers) coupled with testing delays and likely poor rates of adherence with self-isolation suggests that this system is having a marginal impact on transmission at the moment. Unless the system grows at the same rate as the epidemic, and support is given to people to enable them to adhere to self-isolation, it is likely that the impact of Test, Trace and Isolate will further decline in the future. Addressing these issues is beyond the scope of this document.



Even if it magically grew at the same rate as the epidemic it would still be as rubbish as it has been in the recent past, so this is a bigger, longer term issue that is one of the reasons we've ended up needing like a circuit breaker in the first place. It is correct for them to still mention it because this stuff wont go away and needs to be addressed. But now is a moment where most of the focus needs to be on the other emergency measures, as the first window of opportunity to concentrate on test & trace is closed, and that is reflected by the meeting minutes.


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## lazythursday (Oct 17, 2020)

I guess even a highly competent and well organised, locally responsive track and trace will fail once the case level gets beyond a certain point. Sorting out track and trace is needed but it won't help a bit until the numbers go down.


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## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I guess even a highly competent and well organised, locally responsive track and trace will fail once the case level gets beyond a certain point. Sorting out track and trace is needed but it won't help a bit until the numbers go down.



Yes I was a crushing bore about this back in the early months when some people were pointing to countries that had done well up to that stage and imagining relatively easy solutions. Places like Singapore and South Korea and Germany. I had to keep pointing out that test & trace only scales up to a certain point, and that those countries still have to go further with other measures when their outbreaks escalate. Plus countries that do relatively well may do so for multiple reasons. For example hospital infection control is likely to be part of some success stories and some dismal stories of failure such as the ones the UK seems doomed to tell repeatedly.

I've also been a bore over several periods of the pandemic about how sometimes what effective test & trace does is end up telling you where you have bigger problems that require bigger actions than individual isolation. It doesnt carry all the load on its own and make other measures unnecessary.


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## xenon (Oct 17, 2020)

The iPhone 6 came out in 2014. It's not unreasonable to assume it probably won't run a lot of modern apps. Same of old Android phones too.


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## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

xenon said:


> The iPhone 6 came out in 2014. It's not unreasonable to assume it probably won't run a lot of modern apps. Same of old Android phones too.



Its not even the apps fault, its an issue that draws attention to companies like Apple not offering OS updates for their devices once more than a few years have gone by.

As various resource and energy constraints kick in this is the sort of thing that might end up being legislated against one day. Our expectations of how long something should last, how long before its considered obsolete, will have to change, as will the behaviour of companies and the cycles they promote.


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## Cid (Oct 17, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I downloaded the Portuguese Stay Away app that’s strongly recommended by the government earlier this week. Bluetooth based and relies on users punching in a code if they have tested positive to warn others. It doesn’t , apparently , use location data and users aren’t identified aside from being given some generated number  . The local track and trace teams do use location data but not from phones. Interestingly enough the Socialist Party government is proposing that app is compulsory , gets debated in Parliament next week with both the Communist Party and Left Bloc opposed. Doesn’t seem to be a due in the ditch issue as the Socialist Party say they are relaxed about the outcome of the vote.



My point was related to gathering evidence for transmission in certain places. There probably are some cohort studies going on that do take account of this... But time is an issue there. We do have some information from test and trace, which I assume is what elbows posted up thread. I'll dig it out and quote it since its probably been a few pages.



elbows said:


> I'll try to pluck a couple of thigs out of this weeks PHE surveillance report that are somewhat related to recent conversation here.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



In the end this is the data that people are working with. Can it be improved? Undoubtedly. But to do that via test and trace would mean a more invasive process... And, as elbows points out, we're not at a stage where TTI is actually particularly useful for infection control. So it would be instituting a huge public project that risks further resentment mainly to increase the resolution of data... And it will not be quick to set up, even assuming it's effectively set up at all.

Personally I don't have a problem with more invasive systems, except that I don't trust this government. I suspect the only way for it to have enough credibility would be for it to have cross-party agreement (although labour are looking shit right now), with some independent oversight, as well as judicial oversight. But it would still be a major commitment in terms of technology, money and manpower.

I would like to see an improved TTI system launched following a major lockdown. It is potentially the route to a fairly normal quality of life. But we're nowhere near ready. I also think it would have to go alongside a major rethink of how we are operating healthcare, education and work environments. And it is fucking frustrating that much of this (e.g online teaching for universities) wasn't thought through over the summer. But there we are.


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## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

So long as there are still spare testing resources available and local contact tracing teams etc, they should still try that stuff and try to get better data about the settings in which infections spread. 

For example the September 21st SAGE minutes I linked to say:



> It is important that studies are undertaken to evaluate the risks in different settings and populations and the impact of different control policies in order to inform future decisions on which NPIs to apply. The existing evidence base for the effectiveness and harms of individual interventions is generally weak.



Thats the sort of thing that would needed to have been done properly in the past in order to be useful for decision-making right now. So its important for the future to keep trying to learn more about such things, but its irrelevant as far as the decisions that need making right now are concerned. This is a big part of my current attitude, why I say this is not the time for quibbling over that stuff. But the people involved in the day to day of it need to keep going. Opportunities to learn more of this stuff over the summer were squandered!

Another thing they say also implies another important aspect that some may overlook:



> There are important interventions which have a significant effect on reducing individuals risk, which are not considered here because their population level effect would be small (eg because they address situations which occur relatively infrequently)



Which is why by the same token they focus on stuff that is a very common activity when they are looking for measures to use to bring down levels of infection in the population. Pubs qualify easily for that, as do restaurants. Going to work certain qualifies, as does educational, big time, but they dont want to go there because of the priorities they chose.


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## elbows (Oct 17, 2020)

Anyway the weak evidence base is still more than enough for me for now. Because despite the huge gaps in knowledge they have, it is still possible to deduce significant clues.

The document that SAGE endorsed has this:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/925854/S0769_Summary_of_effectiveness_and_harms_of_NPIs.pdf
		




> Household transmission remains the most widely recorded setting of transmission. PHE reports secondary attack rates of around 40-50% within households, confirming the key role the household plays in transmission. Outside the household, preliminary analysis of a recent case-control study by PHE suggests that working in health and social care remains a risk factor, as is working in close personal services and hospitality.





> Activities associated with increased risk amongst cases include frequenting entertainment venues e.g. bars and restaurants. Outbreaks associated with restaurants and bars have also been recorded, both in the UK and elsewhere. Outbreaks in educational settings are leading to widespread disruption. It is still not clear to what extent (if any) schools magnify transmission in communities rather than reflect the prevalence within the community.


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## Cloo (Oct 17, 2020)

Re closing non-essential retail - I do wonder if we need to close down local 'secondary' high street non essential retail? I think central and mall shops should maybe be shut, but when I look at my local flower shop or bed shop, there's seldom more than one customer at a time and they're not in them for more than 15 mins, and those retailers struggle at the best of times. And although I know the floorplates aren't generally big enough, landlords could look at encouraging chains to take 'pop up' shops, maybe with limited stock or focusing on one thing in the 'burbs, so they have something to keep them ticking over? Honestly, I can see it easily being 12 months+ before mall/city centre shopping can get going again.


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## frogwoman (Oct 17, 2020)

16,171 cases and 150 deaths


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## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 17, 2020)

150 death announced today


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## killer b (Oct 17, 2020)

This is... interesting. The people behind the Zoe app have collaborated with Samantha Cameron's fashion label to produce a range of silk facemasks. This is an actual real thing.


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## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

Two articles that might give some insight/ context  regarding Manchester and Liverpool









						Inside Greater Manchester's lockdown battle with government
					

SPECIAL REPORT: As ministers have ramped up pressure on leaders and MPs here this week, millions have looked on in incredulity and anxiety. Jen Williams reports on a week of chaos.




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


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## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

The second is behind a paywall so I've tried to cut  and paste



> On Monday afternoon, as Boris Johnson laid out the details of a new three-tier system for local lockdowns, I noticed for the first time in several months a police helicopter hovering over the area of south Liverpool I’ve lived in for eight years. The 10-minute walk to collect my children from school was punctuated by a couple of police vans whizzing past, while adjacent to the primary school an “incident support unit” — a blocky reinforced lorry with no windows — was parked ominously on a residential street.
> You never quite know what’s going on under your nose in Liverpool, a city marked by what its mayor Joe Anderson describes as “a Dickensian level of poverty”, but it felt as though we were being warned to behave ourselves, or else.
> The Liverpool City Region, with a population of 1.5m and covering Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley, Wirral, Halton and St Helens, this week became the first area of England to be placed under Tier 3 Covid-19 restrictions, meaning that all pubs, bars, gyms, betting shops and casinos must close for a minimum of four weeks and all household mixing indoors is banned.
> In recent weeks, Anderson has appeared on national and international news channels, barely able to contain his rage at what he describes as “10 years of austerity coming home to roost”. Liverpool alone — not the larger city region — has 68,000 new claims for universal credit out of a population of 500,000, which the mayor sees as adding to a “potent cocktail” of incoming students, skeleton services and winter flu that will create the conditions for a public-health catastrophe in the city’s poorest areas.
> ...


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## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

> More than anger, though, there’s a sense of inevitability and resignation that creeps into these conversations. It is taken as read that a government based in London, and long detached from the historical recall that motivated Michael Heseltine to defend Liverpool to the rest of Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet as a city worth saving from “managed decline”, has collectively no idea what it is like to live here and no interest in finding out.
> In his former life as a journalist, Boris Johnson published an editorial in the Spectator in 2004 arguing that Liverpudlians possessed a “peculiar, and deeply unattractive, psyche” based on “vicarious victimhood” and “an excessive predilection for welfarism”. This claim generated such anger in the city that Johnson was forced to put in a personal visit — “Operation Scouse-grovel”, he called it — in order to apologise.
> What the editorial termed a “predilection” for state welfare was no such thing, given that Liverpool — once Britain’s shipping and trade capital, made rich from slavery — had experienced the precipitous decline of its docks since the 1950s, followed by successive rounds of factory closures in the 1970s and 1980s. The qualities the piece misnamed in Scousers — a strong, city-specific pride and a willingness to demand more, not less, of government — remain in abundance, bolstered by the city’s spectacular architecture and the fact that the whole world knows The Beatles and LFC.
> Such attitudes have long spanned the political divide. In The Northern Question, an expansive account of the north-south divide published last month, Tom Hazeldine notes wryly that Tony Blair once told a fellow London-based Labour candidate not to worry about contesting a northern seat. “I only have to go up once a month,” he reportedly said. “You can do the same.”
> ...


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## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

> Looking at a “heat map” of England’s coronavirus cases this week, however, it was possible to see “a north” united by a phenomenon that differentiates it from the rest of the country. This is the real “red wall”: a continuous band of high coronavirus rates running from Liverpool in the west to Newcastle in the east. What unites “the north” in this sense, and what this “red wall” highlights, is the nature of working poverty.
> Though disparate in character, the economies of the transpennine cities are almost entirely reliant on three sectors: hospitality and events, health and social care, and universities. On the peripheries of those cities, and on the edges of the towns and villages that link them, lie the logistics warehouses and meatpacking factories that keep headline unemployment rates down but mostly offer hourly paid, casual work.
> What these sectors have in common is that most of the jobs they offer have to be done on site, in person, rather than at home. In this sense, the “job” of the student is to pay rent and use services — pubs, takeaways, local shops — in the city in which their university is located. In other words, their money is too important to keep at home.
> The most affected towns and cities might have been able to withstand localised outbreaks, in factories or in apartment blocks, were it not for the combined effect of “public-facing” employment sectors and their centrality to the region’s economy.
> ...


----------



## ska invita (Oct 17, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> .


Where was that published? I've read her Respectable book, which had lots of good bits in, but could hit some annoying notes in places. This article didn't suffer from that


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 17, 2020)

__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com
				





ska invita said:


> Where was that published? I've read her Respectable book, which had lots of good bits in, but could hit some annoying notes in places. This article didn't suffer from that


Financial Times today


----------



## two sheds (Oct 18, 2020)

Just out walking the dog and realized that people are going to be more aware of aerosols because it's getting colder and you can see peoples' breath


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 18, 2020)

What do you think of this killer b LynnDoyleCooper ?


----------



## MrSki (Oct 18, 2020)

Well the ONS stats seem to point to schools transmission being the main factor in the surge.


----------



## andysays (Oct 18, 2020)

This was inevitable, I suppose, but there's clearly a danger it will do more harm than good

Coronavirus: Police get access to NHS Test and Trace self-isolation data


> People in England who have been told to self-isolate through NHS Test and Trace could have their details shared with the police on a "case-by-case basis". But the British Medical Association said it was worried police involvement might put people off being tested.





> A spokesman for the British Medical Association, which represents doctors in the UK, said the test-and-trace system needed "the full confidence of the public" to be effective.





> He said: "We are already concerned that some people are deterred from being tested because they are anxious about loss of income should they need to self-isolate - and we are worried should police involvement add to this.





> "Therefore, the government's emphasis should be on providing support to people - financial and otherwise - if they need to self-isolate, so that no-one is deterred from coming forward for a test."


----------



## mauvais (Oct 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its not even the apps fault, its an issue that draws attention to companies like Apple not offering OS updates for their devices once more than a few years have gone by.
> 
> As various resource and energy constraints kick in this is the sort of thing that might end up being legislated against one day. Our expectations of how long something should last, how long before its considered obsolete, will have to change, as will the behaviour of companies and the cycles they promote.


I've no love for Apple but they do a reasonable job of this, in part because it's easier. The 6S got the latest update and that came out in 2015.

On Android you get two major updates if you're lucky. However since about 2014 it matters a lot less in terms of compatibility.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 18, 2020)

andysays said:


> This was inevitable, I suppose, but there's clearly a danger it will do more harm than good
> 
> Coronavirus: Police get access to NHS Test and Trace self-isolation data





> Just under 11% of people traced as a close contact of someone with coronavirus said they self-isolated for 14 days, according to a government-commissioned study.



And, that is the problem.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 18, 2020)

andysays said:


> This was inevitable, I suppose, but there's clearly a danger it will do more harm than good
> 
> Coronavirus: Police get access to NHS Test and Trace self-isolation data


Police here in Portugal got info on covid postive tests from just about day one.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 18, 2020)

I heard Burnham going on about cases in Manchester are going down, whilst correct, he was very selective by only talking about the city, there's some big increases in the Greater Manchester region.






And, the average is England is now 164.2, fuck.   









						Latest borough-by-borough coronavirus infection rates for Greater Manchester
					

Rochdale now has the highest infection rate in Greater Manchester, the latest figures confirm




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## andysays (Oct 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, that is the problem.


I agree it's a problem, but I'm not sure getting the police to attempt to enforce it will help, unless in addition the reasons why many people aren't following the requirement to isolate are understood and addressed.

_"We are already concerned that some people are deterred from being tested because they are anxious about loss of income should they need to self-isolate - and we are worried should police involvement add to this. Therefore, the government's emphasis should be on providing support to people - financial and otherwise - if they need to self-isolate, so that no-one is deterred from coming forward for a test." _


----------



## LDC (Oct 18, 2020)

Whatever Burnham says I think he'll be bypassed this week. Just heading to work frogwoman I'll try and look at that clip tonight (work blocks stuff like that).


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 18, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Whatever Burnham says I think he'll be bypassed this week. Just heading to work frogwoman I'll try and look at that clip tonight (work blocks stuff like that).


Ok, it's Steve Rotherham talking about the financial package he's secured and pushing for more.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 18, 2020)

andysays said:


> I agree it's a problem, but I'm not sure getting the police to attempt to enforce it will help, unless in addition the reasons why many people aren't following the requirement to isolate are understood and addressed.
> 
> _"We are already concerned that some people are deterred from being tested because they are anxious about loss of income should they need to self-isolate - and we are worried should police involvement add to this. Therefore, the government's emphasis should be on providing support to people - financial and otherwise - if they need to self-isolate, so that no-one is deterred from coming forward for a test." _



Of course they should be covering the loss of wages for those isolating, they should have done that from the bloody start. 

But, it's a bit pointless having £1000 fines for not isolating, if there's no enforcement.


----------



## bimble (Oct 18, 2020)

Apologies if already posted but I just found this mapped access to local statistics and it’s interesting if a bit alarming (looked at on here I seem to live in a more worrying area than I thought). 








						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk


----------



## two sheds (Oct 18, 2020)

Interesting, ta. This page was linked to a while ago - it says new experimental version requesting feedback although not sure when this was done.









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




It links to the same map your page shows bimble.

Anyone know what the white 'suppressed' areas mean?


----------



## bimble (Oct 18, 2020)

i don't know what to make of it tbh i'm in a dark blue area but a few minutes walk is safe green pastures.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 18, 2020)

andysays said:


> I agree it's a problem, but I'm not sure getting the police to attempt to enforce it will help, unless in addition the reasons why many people aren't following the requirement to isolate are understood and addressed.
> 
> _"We are already concerned that some people are deterred from being tested because they are anxious about loss of income should they need to self-isolate - and we are worried should police involvement add to this. Therefore, the government's emphasis should be on providing support to people - financial and otherwise - if they need to self-isolate, so that no-one is deterred from coming forward for a test." _



No-one at work will thank me if they have to self-isolate on 2 weeks SSP, if I've named them as a contact to Track & Trace, is how I see it.

(Although would sharing an office even count as close contact, if there's an 18 inch high perspex screen between us? Or would it be similar to schools, and only count if its within 1m for over 15 minutes?)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> Apologies if already posted but I just found this mapped access to local statistics and it’s interesting if a bit alarming (looked at on here I seem to live in a more worrying area than I thought).
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's clever, I like the way you can zoom in for different data, county level, borough/district council area, and finally council wards. 



bimble said:


> i don't know what to make of it tbh i'm in a dark blue area but a few minutes walk is safe green pastures.



It's handy at council levels, but it seems a bit pointless at ward level, at least if there's not many cases locally, eg. the 7-day average for West Sussex is 42.6 per 100k (up 23.5%), Worthing borough is unchanged at 27.1, as most cases tend to be in the north of county, where a lot more people commute in & out of London. 

At ward level, no cases in my white area, a mile up the road the ward is dark green, but that's 'only' 4 cases.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 18, 2020)

I'm in a 'suppressed' area - maybe no cases this week?


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, it's a bit pointless having £1000 fines for not isolating, if there's no enforcement.


With a bang to right case like, travelling across the country to a second home perhaps


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 18, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I'm in a 'suppressed' area - maybe no cases this week?



Yeah, if it's showing as a white area, there's no cases, so is described as suppressed.

Sorry, got that wrong, see posts below.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yeah, if it's showing as a white area, there's no cases, so is described as suppressed.


I know for a fact there were confirmed cases back in March and April tho. Maybe just none this week?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 18, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I know for a fact there were confirmed cases back in March and April tho. Maybe just none this week?



Yep, it says it's the seven–day rolling rate of new cases.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> Apologies if already posted but I just found this mapped access to local statistics and it’s interesting if a bit alarming (looked at on here I seem to live in a more worrying area than I thought).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Crawley is a little island of low infection, presumably because nobody needs to go to Gatwick any more...


----------



## Mation (Oct 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Anyone know what the white 'suppressed' areas mean?


_resists making ill-advised gag_


----------



## kabbes (Oct 18, 2020)

I’m a little confused as to what the numbers show.  Are cases per day, per week or in total?  Similarly, that seven day rolling average — is that total active cases or the number of new reported cases in the seven day window?  It doesn’t appear to have been converted to a daily rate, so I’m guessing that it isn’t that.

ETA: I’ve just seen that in little writing somewhat buried in the page (on a phone, at least), it refers to “new cases” and elsewhere it says it is weekly.  So that’s that confusion cleared up for me.

It does mean that the numbers are not comparable to the headline daily rate per 100,000 that you so often see.  When I saw figures of 90 for my region, I was concerned, but that’s actually a daily rate of 12.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Interesting, ta. This page was linked to a while ago - it says new experimental version requesting feedback although not sure when this was done.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The change was made earlier this week.
Although there's more information on the new, improved dashboard, that map is not as good to use as the previous version. Having said that, it has been tweaked again (possibly overnight ?).

The solid colours are rather too "bright" and clunky over the boundaries especially when changing scale.

The white areas seem to mean either no data, missing data or "suppressed" , the latter implies that information exists but isn't available / being published at that scale. [there's a MSOA near me that's white this week, but had data last week]


----------



## two sheds (Oct 18, 2020)

I'm surprised if Truro doesn't have any new cases. I've heard the hospital there has a new ward although transferred from Plymouth, also one year of the school there I thought had been sent home.

Eta: What StoneRoad just said makes sense


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 18, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I'm in a 'suppressed' area - maybe no cases this week?


It doesn't - necessarily - mean no cases. Suppressed data is data that isn't released to protect Identification of individuals.

 In the previous version of the local area (msoa) covid cases map, they suppressed data for an area where there were zero, one or two cases in the area. This map shows 0-10 cases for one of the colours though so not entirely sure what's going on - maybe something to do with the data by neighbourhood (lsoa) (data at this level is not available in the interactive map, but is released in reports). 

So basically you have very few cases or possibly zero cases, but they won't release the specific figure.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Anyone know what the white 'suppressed' areas mean?


Data withheld to avoid identifying individuals - ie the count is 1 or 2 which risks revealing the people concerned. 'Noise' of a sort is added to counts to avoid this (actually the numbers are tweaked between adjacent geographic areas, sharing out a small number of cases but preserving the overall statistical qualities, in order to maintain patient privacy - a standard biomedical statistical masking technique, see eg _differential privacy_).


----------



## kalidarkone (Oct 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> This is... interesting. The people behind the Zoe app have collaborated with Samantha Cameron's fashion label to produce a range of silk facemasks. This is an actual real thing.



I've been reporting in every day since March on the zoe app and have seen no evidence of this. I've just scoured the app and there is nothing regarding selling anything......


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I've been reporting in every day since March on the zoe app and have seen no evidence of this. I've just scoured the app and there is nothing regarding selling anything......


I don't have the Zoe app so I can't speak for what alerts may have been sent out for this, but they're selling them on the Cefinn website









						Cefinn by Samantha Cameron | Women's designer fashion
					

Founded by Samantha Cameron, Cefinn is a London-based clothing label creating chic, grown-up designer fashion for the multitasking urban woman. Every piece is designed to be smart, modern and feminine. Easy to wear and elegant.




					www.cefinn.com


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 18, 2020)

Research updates section. Which is basically the news/blog bit


----------



## kabbes (Oct 18, 2020)

”For the multitasking urban woman”


----------



## Doodler (Oct 18, 2020)

Out of curiosity have posted some moderate-toned 'wear a mask' messages on the Daily Mail site, eg 'It's no big inconvenience to wear a mask for a few minutes while in a shop. I wear one at work for hours at a time. It's worth it to protect older people.' 30 approving votes against 62 disapproving ones.

The balance of commenters' opinions there has changed noticeably over the last few months, from a majority supporting various protective measures to a majority opposed, and a broader range of opposing opinions too, including conspiracy theories and nihilistic efforts such as 'it's just like the wind shaking dead leaves out of the trees'.


----------



## kalidarkone (Oct 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't have the Zoe app so I can't speak for what alerts may have been sent out for this, but they're selling them on the Cefinn website
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ok so this company is donating some profit to the zoe app. Why are people outraged?


----------



## Mation (Oct 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't have the Zoe app so I can't speak for what alerts may have been sent out for this, but they're selling them on the Cefinn website
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Murky advertising cunts.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Oct 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I've been reporting in every day since March on the zoe app and have seen no evidence of this. I've just scoured the app and there is nothing regarding selling anything......


same here


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> ”For the multitasking urban woman”


I had a look through the range, and found the most tory jumper I've ever seen.









						Eva Blouson Sleeve Roll Neck Jumper - Khaki
					

Eva Blouson Sleeve Roll Neck Khaki Jumper from Samantha Cameron. Style & Fit Notes With its roll neck and shapely blouson sleeves our new Eva knit hints at the 1970s bourgeois dressing seen on the AW19 catwalks. We love it teamed with our Selby pencil skirt, a flowing A-line midi or sharp...




					www.cefinn.com


----------



## kalidarkone (Oct 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> ”For the multitasking urban woman”


That's a bit exclusive.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I've been reporting in every day since March on the zoe app and have seen no evidence of this. I've just scoured the app and there is nothing regarding selling anything......


I've just found it on their website - it's in their 'news and research' section - which you can subscribe by email to (but the subscription is completely separate to registering or reporting through the app).


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Ok so this company is donating some profit to the zoe app. Why are people outraged?


because a public health initiative is being used to publicise a womenswear company run by the ex-prime minister's wife?


----------



## Mation (Oct 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Ok so this company is donating some profit to the zoe app. Why are people outraged?


It's using the app/covid as cheap advertising that will get her profits from knock-on sales.


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

this is a graph showing their google search stats for the last 7 days. Reckon she'll have sold a few jumpers off the back of her mask philanthropy huh?


----------



## Cid (Oct 18, 2020)

Also see nothing on the app...

It is at best misjudged though. Might send a strongly worded email later.


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

You'll also see if you go to the website that the masks are already sold out, but you can go on their mailing list and they'll let you know when they're back in stock! (they'll also let you know about their tory jumpers)


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

Cid said:


> Also see nothing on the app...
> 
> It is at best misjudged though. Might send a strongly worded email later.


I don't think it's anything more than a misjudgement either, but it's the kind of misjudgement that keeps on happening because the people who make these decisions are thick as mince, all went to school with each other and give their old schoolmates a shout whenever they need something done.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 18, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> It doesn't - necessarily - mean no cases. Suppressed data is data that isn't released to protect Identification of individuals.



Blimey you are right, and I was wrong above you, just checked 30 cases across my borough, but the coloured wards only add up to 21, leaving 9 across all the white wards.

But, I don't understand how not reporting 1 or 2 cases in a ward protects identification of individuals, but reporting 3+ cases is fine. 



> In the previous version of the local area (msoa) covid cases map, they suppressed data for an area where there were zero, one or two cases in the area. This map shows 0-10 cases for one of the colours though so not entirely sure what's going on - maybe something to do with the data by neighbourhood (lsoa) (data at this level is not available in the interactive map, but is released in reports).



The colours seem to apply to inflection rate per 100k, rather than cases. Light green (11-50) area near me is 4 cases, but inflection rate 48.1.


----------



## kalidarkone (Oct 18, 2020)

Mation said:


> It's using the app/covid as cheap advertising that will get her profits from knock-on sales.


The profits are donated to the app. I dont see the problem.
Also its not very obvious advertising .....I scoured the app and didn't find it.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I've been reporting in every day since March on the zoe app and have seen no evidence of this. I've just scoured the app and there is nothing regarding selling anything......



No it was real, I saw it yesterday via the app (before I'd seen it reported anywhere)

I've tried to look for it today & can't find it - maybe it's gone now?
It was on one of the report pages that I don't usually go on to.


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> The profits are donated to the app. I dont see the problem.
> Also its not very obvious advertising .....I scoured the app and didn't find it.


Just for practical reasons it's a really bad idea - the Zoe app has an interest for the sake of the quality of data it collects to appear non-partisan and non-commercial - delivering targeted advertising on behalf of a luxury clothing brand linked to the governing political party doesn't really help with that aim. 

The fact that the profits from a small number of cheap facemasks (sold out overnight so they didn't make many) are donated to the app is meaningless - it's not a charity donation, it's an advertising expense. People who click through from the advert to the website don't only get to see the facemasks, they get to see everything else they have for sale - including an offer on knitwear - and people are (not)coincidentally buying knitwear atm because of the change of the seasons.


----------



## elbows (Oct 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I heard Burnham going on about cases in Manchester are going down, whilst correct, he was very selective by only talking about the city, there's some big increases in the Greater Manchester region.



As Ive probably said already I dont like relying on the headline case number figures without seeing other info such as number of tests, percentage positive, and positives per age band. Otherwise its much harder to tell if a real peak has been reached or whether it just looks that way because of the testing system. 

And I consider it vital to know the age ranges concerned, otherwise a fall in the number of stuents testing positive can mask rises in other age groups that are more relevant to future hospital admissions and deaths.

I havent found much in terms of age groups testing positive on the local level, which is a problem.

I have found some slightly out of date stuff for Manchester number fo tests and percentage positives. Both fell for the week in question compared to the week before, although its not showing the most recent week yet. Since both the number of tests and the percentage positive fell, rather than just the former, I could assume the system has picked up a real change, but this only makes me feel the need to see data per age even more.





__





						What we know about current levels of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Manchester  | What we know about current levels of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Manchester | Manchester City Council
					

What we know about current levels of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Manchester




					secure.manchester.gov.uk


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> No it was real, I saw it yesterday via the app (before I'd seen it reported anywhere)
> 
> I've tried to look for it today & can't find it - maybe it's gone now?
> It was on one of the report pages that I don't usually go on to.


it looks like they pulled it this morning after getting a lot of... _feedback_


----------



## Doodler (Oct 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> I had a look through the range, and found the most tory jumper I've ever seen.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The sleeves make the model look like a human-poodle hybrid, which tbf iwould be a pretty radical evolutionary jump.


----------



## kalidarkone (Oct 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> Just for practical reasons it's a really bad idea - the Zoe app has an interest for the sake of the quality of data it collects to appear non-partisan and non-commercial - delivering targeted advertising on behalf of a luxury clothing brand linked to the governing political party doesn't really help with that aim.
> 
> The fact that the profits from a small number of cheap facemasks (sold out overnight so they didn't make many) are donated to the app is meaningless - it's not a charity donation, it's an advertising expense. People who click through from the advert to the website don't only get to see the facemasks, they get to see everything else they have for sale - including an offer on knitwear - and people are (not)coincidentally buying knitwear atm because of the change of the seasons.


I wonder if it works the other way round? People clicking on the zoe app because they have gone to the clothing website...? I wonder if that was the justification..... 
I think I'm being defensive because I'm disappointed


----------



## Mation (Oct 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> The profits are donated to the app. I dont see the problem.
> Also its not very obvious advertising .....I scoured the app and didn't find it.


She could just donate money to the project if that was the main aim.


----------



## klang (Oct 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I wonder if it works the other way round? People clicking on the zoe app because they have gone to the clothing website...? I wonder if that was the justification.....
> I think I'm being defensive because I'm disappointed


I think the justification was the usual tory corruption money making bollocks.


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I wonder if it works the other way round? People clicking on the zoe app because they have gone to the clothing website...? I wonder if that was the justification.....
> I think I'm being defensive because I'm disappointed


it's a pretty niche brand tbh - the traffic would not be significant in the other direction.


----------



## Cid (Oct 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> it's a pretty niche brand tbh - the traffic would not be significant in the other direction.



It can't be _that_ significant in the other direction surely? I mean percentage of people who opted to get updates, and actually read the newsletter, and click through, and then buy. But it's a benefit to the brand whichever way you look at it. Even if it was only existing customers buying, it's an image thing and they probably threw in a few things to wear at the post hunt meet and greet.

It will be a choice made by some Bristol graduate in the marketing department who knew her back in the day. It is definitely a stupid and objectionable thing to do.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> I had a look through the range, and found the most tory jumper I've ever seen.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I showed that to the kabbess with the comment about “the most Tory jumper” and she replied, “I quite like that”.  I don’t really know what to say to that.


----------



## Sue (Oct 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I showed that to the kabbess with the comment about “the most Tory jumper” and she replied, “I quite like that”.  I don’t really know what to say to that.


Divorce..?


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I showed that to the kabbess with the comment about “the most Tory jumper” and she replied, “I quite like that”.  I don’t really know what to say to that.


Seem to recall you mentioning the kabbess taking you to a country outfitters to buy you clothes, so I'm not surprised. 

Did she have a pony when she was a kid?


----------



## kabbes (Oct 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> Seem to recall you mentioning the kabbess taking you to a country outfitters to buy you clothes, so I'm not surprised.
> 
> Did she have a pony when she was a kid?


No, she was born and grew up in a dodgy Northern Welsh town.  She hates the country set, she just likes the aesthetic...


----------



## killer b (Oct 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> No, she was born and grew up in a dodgy Northern Welsh town.  She hates the country set, she just likes the aesthetic...


fair play, I don't mind a barbour jacket and a tweed cap myself.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 18, 2020)

kabbes said:


> No, she was born and grew up in a dodgy Northern Welsh town.


What was dodgy about it?


----------



## campanula (Oct 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> fair play, I don't mind a barbour jacket and a tweed cap myself.


Mmm, I admit to a liking for brogues, stout tweed skirts and Fairisle jumpers myself...worn ironically, obvs as I am actually the very definition of lumpen.


----------



## xenon (Oct 18, 2020)

Oh not this again.


----------



## xenon (Oct 18, 2020)

Not you campanula, post above.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 18, 2020)

teuchter said:


> What was dodgy about it?


One of her classmates was stabbed, another was on the game and one became a member of Coldplay.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> One of her classmates was stabbed, another was on the game and one became a member of Coldplay.


There's always a black sheep.


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 19, 2020)

Quite a good article in today's Guardian asking pointed questions about who's funding the Barrington Declaration clowns.



> Rightwing free-market foundations and institutions have long attempted to savage the public reputation of well-intentioned policies such as those aimed at curbing ecological threats and limiting smoking. Some of the tactics these organisations have used in the past are those we see at play in the Great Barrington declaration: discredit the scientific consensus, spread confusion about what the right response is and sow the seeds of doubt. It seems that lockdown restrictions aimed at bringing the virus under control are merely the latest target in this rightwing stealth campaign.


----------



## LDC (Oct 19, 2020)

What's all this about Burnham saying cases and hospital admissions are being exaggerated by the government? Have heard it reported a few times, but not seen anything from him directly.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What's all this about Burnham saying cases and hospital admissions are being exaggerated by the government? Have heard it reported a few times, but not seen anything from him directly.


BBC Breakfast had a guy from Oldham (I think) council saying their hospitals were doing okay, then ten minutes later Jenrick was on saying that the NW hospital ICUs were already at capacity.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 19, 2020)

There's plenty of reports about how bad the hospital situation is in Greater Manchester, plus predictions on how it will get worst, and they started before the tier system was even introduced, this one from yesterday makes grim reading.









						Covid: Greater Manchester running out of intensive care beds, leak reveals
					

NHS document shows no spare beds for patients in Salford, Stockport and Bolton




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## LDC (Oct 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's plenty of reports about how bad the hospital situation is in Greater Manchester, plus predictions on how it will get worst, and they started before the tier system was even introduced, this one from yesterday makes grim reading.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, I have no doubt it's as bad as reported by the staff working there and NHS bosses, I was surprised and disappointed to see Burnham coming out with stuff like that.


----------



## andysays (Oct 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I have no doubt it's as bad as reported by the staff working there and NHS bosses, I was surprised and disappointed to see Burnham coming out with stuff like that.


And he's allowing Jenrick to take the high ground of being concerned that more lives will be put at risk if there are further delays bringing in stricter measures.

He's not directly blaming Burnham, but it doesn't take much imagination to make that connection.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I have no doubt it's as bad as reported by the staff working there and NHS bosses, I was surprised and disappointed to see Burnham coming out with stuff like that.


Tricky for Burnham I suppose. 

I respect him a fucking damn sight more than the cabinet of vultures and their (much more now) wealthy cronies! 

They have been banging the 'economy, back to work and back to school/uni' drum really hard and their failings from the start and throughout have caused this. Now Burnham is trying to protect businesses the cabinet of cunts are accusing him of political posturing and other self serving nonsense. 

If the billions and billions spunked up the wall to Tory cronies and cunts had not been spaffed up the wall then this would not even be an issue. The Tories spent millions advertising the 'Eat Out to Help Out' and back to work/school/uni agenda to feed their own and their mates property investments and are now 'up in arms' because someone is taking a stand. They are directly responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and now Burnham is playing a 'risky game'  

#fuckthetories


----------



## teuchter (Oct 19, 2020)

I've been comparing numbers on the Zoe map and the Gov.uk one, to try and see how similar they are.

The Zoe map gives an estimate of the number of active cases per million. For example, Lambeth currently shows as 5,432 cases per million.
On the gov.uk map, it gives a "7-day rolling rate" per 100,000 population. Currently showing Lambeth as 94.2 (which would be 940 per million).

As I understand it, that's the number of positive test results in the past 7 days, so it's not the same as number of active cases, because it's only the ones caught by testing, and also presumably there are people who tested positive 2 or 3 weeks ago who are still active cases.

How would you try and convert that number into an estimate of currently active cases (even in a scenario where you were testing 100% of the population regularly)? Would you take an estimate of the average duration of an infection, and then count the number of positive results over that duration, something like that?

Anyway - I am quite frequently comparing Lambeth (where I live) with the scottish highlands (where much of my family lives). At the moment, the Zoe map shows a figure of 4463 (Highlands) vs 5432 (Lambeth). But the gov.uk shows 17.0 (Highlands) vs 94.2 (Lambeth). In other words, Zoe thinks that infection levels are of a similar order in each place - but the gov.uk thinks that things are about 5 times worse in Lambeth. Which should I be paying more attention to?


----------



## killer b (Oct 19, 2020)

Manchester's Council Leader Richard Leese published this blog today, which lays out Manchester's position - looks like bollocks to me. 





__





						Covid 16  What Matters is What Works - The Leader's Blog
					





					www.manchester.gov.uk


----------



## Wilf (Oct 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Manchester's Council Leader Richard Leese published this blog today, which lays out Manchester's position - looks like bollocks to me.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ironically, it sounds like something a tory mp might come out with. The whole 'let the economy carry on but shield the most vulnerable' is indeed bollocks in all kinds of ways. He really should - -and probably does - know better.


----------



## killer b (Oct 19, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Ironically, it sounds like something a tory mp might come out with.


I was saying to my brother just now, it's like one of those facebook status updates by pompous uncles we've all been rolling our eyes at and scrolling right past for months.


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 19, 2020)

Can't have these bloody people with diabetes and lung conditions and the elderly holding up Manchester's development gravy train and night time economy. Or the council might have to rethink its entire raison d'etre.


----------



## prunus (Oct 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Manchester's Council Leader Richard Leese published this blog today, which lays out Manchester's position - looks like bollocks to me.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Oh shit, what’s this covid 16 now?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 19, 2020)

Wales is going into a 2-week 'fire-break', starting 6 pm on Friday, everyone must stay at home unless they can't WFH, all none essential retail, leisure, hospitably & tourist businesses will have to close, as will places of worship, community centres, libraries and recycling centres.

Child care will stay open, schools will re-open after half-term week, but secondary schools only for years 7 & 8.

No mixing with anyone outside your household, or bubble, indoors or outdoors.

Business funding of £300m, details to follow.

ETA - Bonfire night celebrations will not be allowed. But remembrance day events will be allowed, he says. He says they are more important than ever.


----------



## ddraig (Oct 19, 2020)

Wales lockdown from Friday to Monday 9 November








						Covid: Wales to go into 'firebreak' lockdown from Friday
					

People in Wales told to stay home from Friday, with pubs and restaurants ordered to close.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## editor (Oct 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Wales is going into a 2-week 'fire-break', starting 6 pm on Friday, everyone must stay at home unless they can't WFH, all none essential retail, leisure, hospitably & tourist businesses will have to close, as will places of worship, community centres, libraries and recycling centres.
> 
> Child care will stay open, schools will re-open after half-term week, but secondary schools only for years 7 & 8.
> 
> ...


Man that's going to be tough for some people.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 19, 2020)

prunus said:


> Oh shit, what’s this covid 16 now?


Manchester had a secret outbreak 3 years prior.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Can't have these bloody people with diabetes and lung conditions and the elderly holding up Manchester's development gravy train and night time economy. Or the council might have to rethink its entire raison d'etre.


Around the time of the miners strike and a bit further on into the 80s I was involved in attempts to build the left in local government in Greater Manchester and beyond. I remember meetings with a group including Leese who would go on to run Manchester City Council. I can't remember his affiliations but they were the non-Militant urban left. There's no point me saying you could see signs of where he would end up at that point, there wasn't. The one thing I do remember is they all seemed rather 'slick', even a tad cynical. And it wasn't that long after that Manchester Council under that group and Graham Stringer was heading off towards new labour.


----------



## killer b (Oct 19, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Around the time of the miners strike and a bit further on into the 80s I was involved in attempts to build the left in local government in Greater Manchester and beyond. I remember meetings with a group including Leese who would go on to run Manchester City Council. I can't remember his affiliations but they were the non-Militant urban left. There's no point me saying you could see signs of where he would end up at that point, there wasn't. The one thing I do remember is they all seemed rather 'slick', even a tad cynical. And it wasn't that long after that Manchester Council under that group and Graham Stringer was heading off towards new labour.


They are slick, but tbh Labour Party has dominated Manchester's local politics for so long that anyone who wants to get anything done there knows there's zero point in bothering with the tories or the Lib Dems - so they all join the Labour Party instead.


----------



## killer b (Oct 19, 2020)

Worth noting that despite having one of the more effective local Momentum groups and an active and organised left wing, the left in the city have had very limited success making inroads into the council.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Wales is going into a 2-week 'fire-break', starting 6 pm on Friday, everyone must stay at home unless they can't WFH, all none essential retail, leisure, hospitably & tourist businesses will have to close, as will places of worship, community centres, libraries and recycling centres.
> 
> Child care will stay open, schools will re-open after half-term week, but secondary schools only for years 7 & 8.
> 
> ...





ddraig said:


> Wales lockdown from Friday to Monday 9 November
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Good, hope the back-up finance is enough !
Good, hope that it works well and brings the case rates down. 

Unfortunately, I don't think it is quite long enough ; three weekends plus the two included weeks, although it seems almost everything shuts, which may counteract the relative shortness.
I hope that the "student vector is also controlled during this period.

Remembrance Sunday is right at the end of the period, so someone has got the right idea for timing.


----------



## editor (Oct 19, 2020)

Hey coronavirus! Give this Tory plum a visit!


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 19, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Unfortunately, I don't think it is quite long enough ; three weekends plus the two included weeks, although it seems almost everything shuts, which may counteract the relative shortness.



That's my fear as well.  I hope I'm wrong.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Worth noting that despite having one of the more effective local Momentum groups and an active and organised left wing, the left in the city have had very limited success making inroads into the council.


I was trying to cast my mind back to how the promising group of youngish councillors I met with mid 80s got to become the 'moderate' leadership under Stringer and explicitly new labour a few years ago. Militant was never a majority in Manchester but Kinnock's moves against them were in the mix as were attempt to defeat the old guard. Just found this which jogged my memory a bit and might be of interest to some. It's written from an anti-Militant perspective.








						Splits on the Left
					

This chapter mostly covers the conflict, splits and deals between different parts of the Labour Group on the Council and the City Labour Party in the period 1988 to 1992.




					manchester1984.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 19, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Unfortunately, I don't think it is quite long enough ; three weekends plus the two included weeks, although it seems almost everything shuts, which may counteract the relative shortness.



The isolation time is normally 14 days, so putting a large percentage of the population into a slightly longer period of isolation should have a decent impact.

But, as Drakeford said, you'll not see it in the hospital admissions & deaths during that period, but should do in the weeks following it.


----------



## elbows (Oct 19, 2020)

Limited output from me at the moment as I have done something to my neck and need to wait another day or two before the pain subsides properly.

Anyway I'm not commenting on all of Nick Triggles output these days, but I will have to make an exception for this:



> Hospitals in the North West are incredibly busy, but talk of them being overwhelmed with Covid patients is somewhat premature.
> 
> In the spring the number of admissions across the region went from under 100 a day to over 400 in the space of a week.
> 
> Cases have been rising much more gradually in recent weeks. In fact there are signs they may have started levelling off at around 200 cases a day.



From Covid: Greater Manchester restrictions delay 'puts lives at risk'

This is what looks like levelling off to Triggle:


Fuck off Triggle. I shall cheer a little if this weeks data does end up showing a levelling off, but to make that claim at the stage he did demonstrates an agenda.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> Limited output from me at the moment as I have done something to my neck and need to wait another day or two before the pain subsides properly.
> 
> Anyway I'm not commenting on all of Nick Triggles output these days, but I will have to make an exception for this:
> 
> ...


I agree ...
That doesn't look like levelling off, maybe a slight reduction in the previous week, but the rolling average doesn't show a flattening.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Man that's going to be tough for some people.


I have suddenly realised that this means zero opportunities for face-to-face contact for me, and that is my big Achilles' heel - I don't do well with complete isolation, and will probably end up talking to the loftrats again. 

I'll start to worry when they talk back.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Hey coronavirus! Give this Tory plum a visit!



The 1970s rockstar throwback cunt


----------



## editor (Oct 19, 2020)

The FT continues to provide excellent analysis 


> By whatever measure the pandemic’s grimmest accounting is computed, the UK’s death toll — and particularly England’s — remains among the highest in the world. By its headline figure, 38,524 people in England have died within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test, but this rises to 42,672 if you extend the cutoff to 60 days, according to the UK’s coronavirus dashboard.
> 
> The Office for National Statistics, meanwhile, has tallied 50,642 death certificates mentioning Covid-19 up to October 2, and, if you begin counting on March 6, the day that the 100th positive case was recorded, 56,537 deaths in excess of the average for the same period in the past five years. This figure includes deaths from all causes, including Covid-19.







__





						Loading…
					





					ig.ft.com


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## Wilf (Oct 19, 2020)

It would be interesting if Scotland followed Wales example and went for a circuit breaker (though there are no signs?). Would leave England and Johnson still digging their heels in about the 3 tier thing, but even more exposed. The way things are going it's hard to imagine anything other than a lockdown by any other name within a fortnight, but these are not rational times.


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## killer b (Oct 19, 2020)

Scotland half-term is over now so it's not as straightforward a decision to make I'd imagine.


----------



## Sue (Oct 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Scotland half-term is over now so it's not as straightforward a decision to make I'd imagine.


Depends on the local education authority. Some are going back later this week, some are back today.

ETA Where I'm from originally is back next Monday as is Edinburgh, Glasgow's back today, W Lothian's back on Wednesday (for example).


----------



## killer b (Oct 19, 2020)

Oh yeah, you're right - lots still out this week. Looks like quite a lot of authorities had a two week holiday too, they could have had a circuit-breaker and no-one would have noticed!


----------



## Sue (Oct 19, 2020)

Well the additional measures in the Central Belt (covering the majority of the Scottish population) are kind of a move towards that.


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## quimcunx (Oct 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Oh yeah, you're right - lots still out this week. Looks like quite a lot of authorities had a two week holiday too, they could have had a circuit-breaker and no-one would have noticed!



A two week break in October is standard.  For the tattie picking...  I think it's only one week at Easter.  Opposite way round for England?


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## Sue (Oct 19, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> A two week break in October is standard.  For the tattie picking...  I think it's only one week at Easter.  Opposite way round for England?


Tattie howking  .


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 19, 2020)

Sue said:


> Tattie howking  .



not to be confused with neep clatting.


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## Sue (Oct 19, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> not to be confused with neep clatting.


My BIL's from the same place as you and my sister's constantly rolling her eyes at his vernacular.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 19, 2020)

Monday's death figures are usually low, because of the weekend lag, but they are up on last Monday, from 50 to 80.   

18,804 new cases.


----------



## Sue (Oct 19, 2020)

On the interactive map, it's interesting that part of Fitzrovia/Bloomsbury has gone purple (400+ cases). Assume that's down to students being back?









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk


----------



## killer b (Oct 19, 2020)

Sue said:


> On the interactive map, it's interesting that part of Fitzrovia/Bloomsbury has gone purple (400+ cases). Assume that's down to students being back?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I was reading somewhere that some areas of london were possibly having their cases artificially raised because students catching it elsewhere in the country are still registered with their parents dr, so that's where the case is recorded instead of manchester or newcastle or whatever.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 19, 2020)

Sue said:


> On the interactive map, it's interesting that part of Fitzrovia/Bloomsbury has gone purple (400+ cases). Assume that's down to students being back?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Could be. That's basically the UCL campus so it could be that. It's also the attached hospital, UCLH, though. I don't know if hospital figures are included?


----------



## Sue (Oct 19, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Could be. That's basically the UCL campus so it could be that. It's also the attached hospital, UCLH, though. I don't know if hospital figures are included?


Don't know. Pretty sure when I looked the other day, it wasn't purple though which is why I'm thinking it's maybe more of a student thing.


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## not-bono-ever (Oct 19, 2020)

UCL has tons of it around the Campbell house accommodation


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## elbows (Oct 19, 2020)

Wales paper about firebreakers actually tells people what their modelling shows. And they dont cover up the likely scale of hospital infections. And they actually list the various trigger points that show action is required. They even mention wastewater sampling.





__





						Loading…
					





					gov.wales
				






> We are currently tracking to our Reasonable Worst Case (RWC) that projects around 18,000 hospitalisations and 6,000 deaths due to Covid-19 over the winter period . By comparison, since the beginning of the pandemic there have been around 5,300 hospital cases, around 1,800 of which may have been hospital acquired, and around 2,600 deaths from Covid-19.





> Wastewater sampling, case incidence analysis and insights from genomic sequencing of the virus show that there is now high confidence that there is a relatively heterogeneous seeding of the virus across the country.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 19, 2020)

In that graph, it seems obvious why a "firebreak" might stall a rising rate of deaths briefly - but why does it also create a lower peak than would otherwise be the case?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 19, 2020)

teuchter said:


> In that graph, it seems obvious why a "firebreak" might stall a rising rate of deaths briefly - but why does it also create a lower peak than would otherwise be the case?



Assuming testing and tracing capacity is fixed, you can successfully isolate a higher proportion of cases where the total number of cases is lower.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 19, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Assuming testing and tracing capacity is fixed, you can successfully isolate a higher proportion of cases where the total number of cases is lower.


But the total number of cases post-firebreak is just the same as it was few weeks previously. So why does it not then follow the same trajectory?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 19, 2020)

teuchter said:


> But the total number of cases post-firebreak is just the same as it was few weeks previously. So why does it not then follow the same trajectory?



Even in the business as usual case, there's still a fairly rapid fall after the peak. So the model must include something that's going to bring cases and thus deaths back down again, besides the 'firebreak'.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 19, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Assuming testing and tracing capacity is fixed, you can successfully isolate a higher proportion of cases where the total number of cases is lower.



If, as widely reported, only 11% contacted by T&T actually self-isolate for 14 days, the whole exercise becomes somewhat pointless.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> If, as widely reported, only 11% contacted by T&T actually self-isolate for 14 days, the whole exercise becomes somewhat pointless.


Think cause and effect might run in both directions a bit, though.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> If, as widely reported, only 11% contacted by T&T actually self-isolate for 14 days, the whole exercise becomes somewhat pointless.


I am bitterly disappointed that I still haven't been granted my free 2 week staycation.


----------



## Looby (Oct 19, 2020)

Had an apology email re the mask thing from the Zoe app.


----------



## killer b (Oct 19, 2020)

must've been a _lot_ of people uninstalling from that huh.


----------



## Looby (Oct 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> must've been a _lot_ of people uninstalling from that huh.


I’d imagine so. I did get the email promoting them but didn’t click the link or realise what the deal was until I read it here. 
I’ve just bought 200 reuseables from home bargains, they’re better than the ones work had and I can never get enough there.


----------



## zora (Oct 19, 2020)

I like the bit where they go "without you, our loyal contributors, we are nothing"  
And it's true as well! I also considered stopping using it after 5 months of indeed loyal, daily input, but I pretty much learnt about them having pulled the ad at the same time as first hearing about it.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> I was reading somewhere that some areas of london were possibly having their cases artificially raised because students catching it elsewhere in the country are still registered with their parents dr, so that's where the case is recorded instead of manchester or newcastle or whatever.



Which surely also means those areas are having their cases artificially lowered by the same amount?
Though perhaps not by a significant amount compared to cases in the wider community.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 20, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> Which surely also means those areas are having their cases artificially lowered by the same amount?
> Though perhaps not by a significant amount compared to cases in the wider community.


Newcastle City Council said last week in a social media post that University numbers  had now been integrated into the City figures, but haven't given any detail, and I can't find anything from PHE.


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

Radio 4 is currently giving a long slot to the Swedish State epidemiologist herd immunity scientist proponent (can't remember his name)...


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Radio 4 is currently giving a long slot to the Swedish State epidemiologist herd immunity scientist proponent (can't remember his name)...



Balance init.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 20, 2020)

I'm sure they'll have a load of African public health officials who have actually succeeded in controlling the virus on any day now.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 20, 2020)

Could always put the mayor of Moscow on where they are actually attempting such a strategy as set out in the great Barrington thingy and deaths are unsurprisingly going through the roof.


----------



## xenon (Oct 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> I was reading somewhere that some areas of london were possibly having their cases artificially raised because students catching it elsewhere in the country are still registered with their parents dr, so that's where the case is recorded instead of manchester or newcastle or whatever.



yep, I read that or something similar. Accounting for why the London Borough of Richmond had such high cases.


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

Burnham was also on earlier and it sounded like he was skating closer to 'protect the vulnerable, the rest get on' from what he said too. The interviewer raised it and he said something like 'Yes, that's part of the solution'.


----------



## Cid (Oct 20, 2020)

Fuck’s sake. The level of shitness in politics here is just relentless.

And, indeed, at the bbc.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 20, 2020)

So, perhaps a slightly naive question, here...


Burnham gives Westminster the middle finger
Westminster "gets tough", sets a deadline to impose tier 3
The deadline passes, and Westminster imposes tier 3
Who enforces, and what form does that enforcement take?
Because I just can't see a way that Westminster can come out of this well. They're going to - at least - need the local police force to conduct enforcement, and I could see that being tricky. What then? Martial law?


----------



## existentialist (Oct 20, 2020)

Also, I should just like to say that any news story which forces me to look at the smug, entitled face of that cunt Jenrick *pisses me off from the start*, regardless of the rest of it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2020)

existentialist said:


> So, perhaps a slightly naive question, here...
> 
> 
> Burnham gives Westminster the middle finger
> ...



Enforcement could be a problem, because Burnham as mayor also acts as the region's 'police and crime commissioner'.


----------



## killer b (Oct 20, 2020)

the coppers said they'd enforce whatever was decided on, presumably that includes whatever is imposed if it comes to that.


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 20, 2020)

existentialist said:


> So, perhaps a slightly naive question, here...
> 
> 
> Burnham gives Westminster the middle finger
> ...


GMP's Chief Constable was on the telly a few days ago giving vague answers about upholding the law and being impartial but sayng he was unwilling to go against Burnham and hinting he generally agreed with him  which is fair enough since he and Burnham will have to work together to make any lockdown work whereas BoZo can come in throw his weight around and then sod off back to London to leave others to clean the mess up.
If he can't get Plod fully on side which means Burnham as well then BoZo is going to look like a twat (well even more of a twat), this is the UK he doesn't have federal or national police forces he can send and talk of the Army is just plain barmy.
We saw a lot of this during the early seasons of Brexit, Johnson and his ilk like to talk the talk about democracy and accountability but are much less keen on it when it makes it harder for them to do what they want.
I have a sneaking feeling that unless a compromise deal is worked out (and BoZo will have to give some ground) then the deadline action will consist of extending the deadline.
BoZo obviously enjoys making decisions he thinks will be popular but much less keen on decisions he knows won't be and he knows this won't be.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 20, 2020)

Interesting article on the problems of asking a simple question about ICU capacity in Greater Manchester The secrecy and spin surrounding Greater Manchester’s hospital figures


----------



## existentialist (Oct 20, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Interesting article on the problems of asking a simple question about ICU capacity in Greater Manchester The secrecy and spin surrounding Greater Manchester’s hospital figures


It is astonishing. As if the fight between the various fiefdoms and loci of influence is far more important than anything else, including working out the best way to manage this pandemic. 

Never have I felt so much like I'd want to wade in there and bang some heads together - it's utterly bonkers. I almost can't believe that public anger hasn't boiled over yet.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 20, 2020)

I'm also somewhat suspicious of the fact that the Government appears to be saying to Manchester "if you don't accept tier 2, we'll impose tier 3".

Which is a fucking good way of making it look very much like the tier system is punitive...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I'm also somewhat suspicious of the fact that the Government appears to be saying to Manchester "if you don't accept tier 2, we'll impose tier 3".
> 
> Which is a fucking good way of making it look very much like the tier system is punitive...



I thought they were already in tier 2, and the debate is about going into tier 3 joining Liverpool & Lancashire.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Oct 20, 2020)

Fantastic greatness from Chris Bryant here - calls out this cancerous lump of shit 'talk radio' cunt: 'you're a nutcase and dangerous'. All COVID tinfoil hat trash must be treated like this at all times.


----------



## Jeff Robinson (Oct 20, 2020)

Looks like he wound up a tory cunt lol


----------



## komodo (Oct 20, 2020)

Does anyone know what counts as a Covid hospital admission, given that anyone who is admitted is tested.

Is it anyone admitted to hospital e.g. with a heart attack or traffic accident who then test positive for C19? And the posoitive C19 test doesn’t impact on their health (though of course does impact how they are cared for).

Or is it just people who are admitted with Covid type symptoms who test positive and are being treated for Covid?


----------



## emanymton (Oct 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I thought they were already in tier 2, and the debate is about going into tier 3 joining Liverpool & Lancashire.


Yep already at tier 2.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 20, 2020)

People like Dan Wootton with their half baked understanding of infection are dangerous nutters though, and do need to be pulled up on this.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

komodo said:


> Does anyone know what counts as a Covid hospital admission, given that anyone who is admitted is tested.
> 
> Is it anyone admitted to hospital e.g. with a heart attack or traffic accident who then test positive for C19? And the posoitive C19 test doesn’t impact on their health (though of course does impact how they are cared for).
> 
> Or is it just people who are admitted with Covid type symptoms who test positive and are being treated for Covid?



It includes people diagnosed in hospital, so it includes people who caught it in hospital, people who were originally there for other reasons, people with no symptoms or mild symptoms.

I would have been angry if the hospital data didnt include these cases, they are an important part of the pandemic dynamics.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2020)

Latest ONS report, figures up to w/e 9/10/20. 



> *UK has now had 59,079 deaths involving Covid, latest figures show*
> 
> The number of deaths involving Covid-19 has surpassed 59,000 in the UK as a whole.
> 
> ...











						UK coronavirus: Hancock says financial support 'remains on table' after Greater Manchester tier 3 imposed – as it happened
					

Boris Johnson confirms strictest tier 3 restrictions from Friday but confusion persists over funding available to support those affected




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Burnham was also on earlier and it sounded like he was skating closer to 'protect the vulnerable, the rest get on' from what he said too. The interviewer raised it and he said something like 'Yes, that's part of the solution'.



No surprise as the Manchester City leader Richard Leese has been pushing that:





__





						Covid 16  What Matters is What Works - The Leader's Blog
					





					www.manchester.gov.uk
				






> They do though know who in the population is, if they catch the virus, most at risk of hospitalisation - older people and people with existing underlying conditions, diabetes, obesity, high-blood pressure, other respiratory illnesses. If this is the evidence, wouldn't it be much better to have an effective shielding programme for those most at risk, rather than have a blanket business closure policy of dubious efficacy. Greater Manchester have estimated the cost of a shielding programme at around £14m a month, less than a fifth of the estimated cost of business closures. Sadly, government, having forced through badly thought regulations, seem unwilling to think again.



I would be inclined to piss on that for all the obvious reasons, although I would prefer to see what their 14 million quid shielding plan actually consists of first.

I hate these cunts in this pandemic. Its a red herring to just point at certain conditions as requiring shielding, the risk increases with age in general so a large percentage of the population would need effective shielding for it to work. Johnson demonstrated the limits of a narrow definition of vulnerable by requiring hospitalisation himself. All the blah blah bullshit about shielding in a country where it is unlikely that we've properly dealt with care home shielding yet, let alone anything else.

Who will shield us all from the killer clowns?


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 20, 2020)

I was told when I started the ONS surveillance testing programme that I'd only be told a test result if it was positive.  Not so, apparently.  I had a letter on Saturday to say I'd tested negative at my first one a couple of weeks earlier - which is good, though if it had been positive it'd have been too late to do much about it - and have just had another one to the effect that my test on 10th was also negative.  The letter is dated 16th, so they've processed the result pretty quickly, although I'd like to think if it came back positive they'd email or ring rather than waiting on the postal service to get a letter through.  At least both tests have returned a result, so I've not cocked up the swab!


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 20, 2020)

It seems to be the loathsome Leese who has gone all Great Barrington - Burnham was likely just being diplomatic when he said the shielding 'could be _part_ of a solution'. Suspect there have been some huge intra-Labour rows behind the scenes about that curveball blog from Leese.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 20, 2020)

Does the £14 monthly millions include the cost of building that "Shielding camp" which would be needed for this to actually work?


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

Andy Preston (business man and mayor of Middlesborough) has been on Radio 4 just now, disputing his area needs to go into Tier 3 as well. He talked about the Goverment's data being a week old, and that the CMO was reading it incorrectly and they don't have the local knowledge he has.

This really is all falling apart quite significantly.


----------



## tommers (Oct 20, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I was told when I started the ONS surveillance testing programme that I'd only be told a test result if it was positive.  Not so, apparently.  I had a letter on Saturday to say I'd tested negative at my first one a couple of weeks earlier - which is good, though if it had been positive it'd have been too late to do much about it - and have just had another one to the effect that my test on 10th was also negative.  The letter is dated 16th, so they've processed the result pretty quickly, although I'd like to think if it came back positive they'd email or ring rather than waiting on the postal service to get a letter through.  At least both tests have returned a result, so I've not cocked up the swab!


we got asked if they can send ours by SMS or email from now on. We've had three sets and no results yet


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

FFS, Radio 4 is just full of the 'Barrington declaration' today. Someone pushing it again now. WTF.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 20, 2020)

IN passing, Andy Preston is the twat who refused to open Middlesbrough's parks earlier in the year, ensuring that people in those parts  of the town that are street houses with no gardens passed within inches of each other on their walks. Preston himself lives in a mansion within its own parkland.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

5pm Johnson press conference with special guest star Van-Tam.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> 5pm Johnson press conference with special guest star Van-Tam.


#worldbeating


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 20, 2020)

Badgers said:


> #worldbeating


jonathan claude van-tam

they wanted van damme but he told them to fuck off


----------



## Supine (Oct 20, 2020)

Local politicians trying to analyse complex epidemiology data is not a brilliant idea. They really are setting themselves up for a fall.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> Local politicians trying to analyse complex epidemiology data is not a brilliant idea. They really are setting themselves up for a fall.



Khan is moaning about the 10PM curfew again, wants more people in restaurants, fuck off with that.



> "Now London and other parts of the country have moved into Tier 2 and higher restrictions, which prohibit household mixing, the current 10pm curfew policy makes even less sense and should be scrapped.
> 
> "Immediately scrapping the 10pm curfew would allow more sittings of single households in restaurants throughout the evening, helping with cashflow at a time when venues need all the support they can get."



From 13:33 of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54611402


----------



## Badgers (Oct 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> Local politicians trying to analyse complex epidemiology data is not a brilliant idea. They really are setting themselves up for a fall.


Compared to cabinet ministers?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> No surprise as the Manchester City leader Richard Leese has been pushing that:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fucking hell is Richard Leese still there? The man who did austerity before it was cool.

Also, lest we forget...









						Manchester council leader Richard Leese cautioned over stepdaughter assault
					

Labour council leader accepts common assault caution after striking 16-year-old stepdaughter during domestic row




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> jonathan claude van-tam
> 
> they wanted van damme but he told them to fuck off



He is just bitter that the rave in an ice cave was not deemed to be Covid secure.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS, Radio 4 is just full of the 'Barrington declaration' today. Someone pushing it again now. WTF.



Legitimate scientists don't do 'declarations'. They also provide references, and seek peer review before publishing anything.

I'm gonna just take a wild guess that the BBC coverage negelcted to mention any of that.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 20, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Fucking hell is Richard Leese still there? The man who did austerity before it was cool.
> 
> Also, lest we forget...
> 
> ...


Ah yes, domestic violence, a 'private matter':



> The Manchester Labour Group secretary and councillor, Pat Karney, said: "Councillor Leese was detained late Monday night following an incident, "He was released last night with a caution and there is no further legal action pending. This was a private family matter which the family now consider closed."


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

komodo said:


> Does anyone know what counts as a Covid hospital admission, given that anyone who is admitted is tested.
> 
> Is it anyone admitted to hospital e.g. with a heart attack or traffic accident who then test positive for C19? And the posoitive C19 test doesn’t impact on their health (though of course does impact how they are cared for).
> 
> Or is it just people who are admitted with Covid type symptoms who test positive and are being treated for Covid?



I don't work in hospital anymore, but from what I was told...

Covid admission figures are those admitted for treatment due to Covid. Positive tests from other people admitted for non-Covid treatment don't count, but will count towards positive test figures.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS, Radio 4 is just full of the 'Barrington declaration' today. Someone pushing it again now. WTF.



They wont win.



> "It's difficult," says Pat, the landlady of the Flying Horse in Rochdale.
> 
> She told BBC Radio Manchester that the pub has to "keep reinventing themselves" in line with the restrictions - for example, by doing more takeaways. She suggests a national lockdown would be better.
> 
> ...





> Meanwhile Chris in Atherton, believes local leaders should agree to enter tier three. "The Manchester leaders are putting the moral argument for the people on low pay which I don't disagree with," he says.
> 
> "But there's no one putting the argument for the people in my age group, 70 and up. I'm 74, coming up for 75 in December. All those people, we are going to be in the front line.
> 
> "All we can do, I think when you get to the situation we've got, the government says, 'right, this is what we're doing, get on and do it. And do it'."



From 14:08 of BBC live updates page. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54611402


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 20, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Fucking hell is Richard Leese still there? The man who did austerity before it was cool.
> 
> Also, lest we forget...
> 
> ...



Trying to shift local councillors is like trying to shift a tick. They burrow right in there.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I don't work in hospital anymore, but from what I was told...
> 
> Covid admission figures are those admitted for treatment due to Covid. Positive tests from other people admitted for non-Covid treatment don't count, but will count towards positive test figures.



That is incorrect.

To quote from the dashboard:



> England data include people admitted to hospital who tested positive for COVID-19 in the 14 days prior to admission, and those who tested positive in hospital after admission. Inpatients diagnosed with COVID-19 after admission are reported as being admitted on the day prior to their diagnosis. Admissions to all NHS acute hospitals and mental health and learning disability trusts, as well as independent service providers commissioned by the NHS are included.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> They wont win.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Flying Horse in Rochdale (((happy memories)))


----------



## Raheem (Oct 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> Local politicians trying to analyse complex epidemiology data is not a brilliant idea. They really are setting themselves up for a fall.


Can't be worse than national politicians.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 20, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Can't be worse than national politicians.


Nothing can


----------



## Cid (Oct 20, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Can't be worse than national politicians.



I dunno about that. I’m sure there are some who are genuinely interested in local politics, but these ones are apparently just too thick/toxic to make it on the national stage.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Khan is moaning about the 10PM curfew again, wants more people in restaurants, fuck off with that.
> 
> 
> 
> From 13:33 of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54611402



There is a certain logic to what he is saying in regards to restaurants.  Due to distancing and kitchen capacity they will have a finite amount of tables they can use at any one time. The 10pm curfew means that everyone is booking for the same evening slots so they're unable turn around any of the tables for two sittings which is just not financially sustainable.

If we follow the logic and it is safe for people from one household to have a meal at 7pm why is it not safe for a different household to use the same table at 9pm?  Its either safe or its not.

And there in lies the problem.  Whilst he is being logical the situation is not.  Its also virtually impossible to separate pubs and restaurants, from a legal perspective anyway.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 20, 2020)

Today's numbers are bad.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2020)

21,331 new cases today.

A grim total of 241 new deaths, which is picking up from the weekend lag, but still up from 143 last Tue.

That takes the 7-day average to 136 deaths per day, compared to 82 last Tuesday, and 53 the one before.


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

Downing Street press briefing at 5pm. Burnham and other local politicians just given press conference in Manchester as well.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

As a result of Nick Triggles 'levelling off' bullshit in regards North West hospital patient admissions, I will continue to post the North West admissions graph this week.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 20, 2020)

Anyone know the latest ONS figures for total deaths versus total infections up to October? 

Last I have figures for infections is " 3.4 million people – 6% of the population – had already been infected by COVID-19 by 13 July 2020"


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

Be interesting to know how Burnham and the Government's row, and now the imposition of rules will change how people obey the Tier 3 restrictions in the coming 28 days. Fag pack psychology would expect less adherence.


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

Van Tam just said he didn't agree with a national lockdown/circuit breaker currently as it didn't fit the pattern of the virus spreading that we were seeing now. It did sound (to me) that he emphasized _at the moment_ a bit though and was clear in saying that everywhere was on the rise, and I'd speculate they are expecting national restrictions at some point.


----------



## teqniq (Oct 20, 2020)




----------



## Supine (Oct 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Van Tam just said he didn't agree with a national lockdown/circuit breaker currently as it didn't fit the pattern of the virus spreading that we were seeing now. It did sound (to me) that he emphasized _at the moment_ a bit though and was clear in saying that everywhere was on the rise.



I'm not able to watch it but I've always had the impression that he uses his words very carefully.


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> I'm not able to watch it but I've always had the impression that he uses his words very carefully.



Yeah, I agree. He's the one of the lot I have the most time for.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2020)

Greater Manchester has more covid cases in hospital, than the whole of the South East & South West regions combined.


----------



## editor (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Khan is moaning about the 10PM curfew again, wants more people in restaurants, fuck off with that.
> 
> 
> 
> From 13:33 of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54611402


I've walked through West End/Soho/Mayfair a couple of times recently around 6pm/7pm. It's so sad. There's pubs with just two people in there and completely empty restaurants. They need proper financial help urgently.


----------



## andysays (Oct 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Greater Manchester has more covid cases in hospital, than the whole of the South East & South West regions combined.


I wonder how many people will die in Manchester as a result of effectively delaying the move to tier 3 for a week after it could have happened.


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Greater Manchester has more covid cases in hospital, than the whole of the South East & South West regions combined.



Yeah, that was a shocking bit of info. That and whatever is done today (even complete shutdown of everything) we will still see infections, hospitalisations, and deaths increase for about 3 weeks. It's obvious, but I think it gets a bit forgotten sometimes, and is shocking for some people when it comes on the back of a daily death toll of 241.


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 20, 2020)

editor said:


> I've walked through West End/Soho/Mayfair a couple of times recently around 6pm/7pm. It's so sad. There's pubs with just two people in there and completely empty restaurants. They need proper financial help urgently.



Same up here.  This is why the line about there being a conflict between public health and 'the economy' is wrong.  You can open everything back up, but where is the custom coming from?  Better to lock down - with proper financial support - and try to suppress the outbreak as far as possible.  Too late for that now in much of the country, though.  The choice now is that they can either lock down again, and compensate pubs and other venues for doing so, or keep them in this half-life of slowly tightening restrictions and shrinking income, which in the long run will probably send a lot more of them to the wall.


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

andysays said:


> I wonder how many people will die in Manchester as a result of effectively delaying the move to tier 3 for a week after it could have happened.



Van Tam got asked that I think, but didn't catch the answer - but obviously it predictably wasn't a clear figure but some stats I think.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Greater Manchester has more covid cases in hospital, than the whole of the South East & South West regions combined.



BTW the SE & SW regions have a combined population of about 14 million, GM has 2.8 million.


----------



## Supine (Oct 20, 2020)

andysays said:


> I wonder how many people will die in Manchester as a result of effectively delaying the move to tier 3 for a week after it could have happened.



I'm sure the Telegraph or someone will tell us on Sunday.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Van Tam just said he didn't agree with a national lockdown/circuit breaker currently as it didn't fit the pattern of the virus spreading that we were seeing now. It did sound (to me) that he emphasized _at the moment_ a bit though and was clear in saying that everywhere was on the rise, and I'd speculate they are expecting national restrictions at some point.



Since some other questions then forced him into similar territory, a contradiction could be spotted. Because he made the point that the earlier you do those sort of things, the bigger effect it has.

Its certainly true that the balancing act can vary regionally when there is such a big difference in regional levels of infection. Thats one of the main reasons that I said I wasnt sure about a circuit breaker, at least not without seeing the modelling the government sees. My stance later changed to thinking that we should have had a national circuit breaker, partly because by then we knew what SAGE had recommended. Another reason I would be likely to lean towards having one is that otherwise the half term opportunity is lost. And I would try to be a bit more proactive in this pandemic than they have shown any intention of being.


----------



## andysays (Oct 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> I'm sure the Telegraph or someone will tell us on Sunday.


Strange response.

Do you not think it's a valid question?


----------



## Supine (Oct 20, 2020)

andysays said:


> Strange response.
> 
> Do you not think it's a valid question?



Yes


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Because he made the point that the earlier you do those sort of things, the bigger effect it has.


I noticed that - it seems quite a deliberate statement for when things go tits up again and he can blame the government for being useless shitheads.  

I wish I hadn't watched the briefing as it just irritates me how that lying bastard won't answer straight questions.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Van Tam got asked that I think, but didn't catch the answer - but obviously it predictably wasn't a clear figure but some stats I think.



Yeah he just gave examples of how much some other figures had changed in a week.

A real answer is not very easy to calculate, especially since we dont know what difference the new restrictions will make to R. And to do it properly we'd need to take account of what proportion of the public think fuck that during periods of political delay and change their behaviours of their own accord rather than waiting. And a bunch of other complications that I wont talk about now because my neck still hurts.


----------



## andysays (Oct 20, 2020)

.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> BTW the SE & SW regions have a combined population of about 14 million, GM has 2.8 million.



In a much larger area, obvs - the SE and SW have a comparatively low combined total of a little over 500 cases in hospital, with far fewer cases.
What was the context/relevance of that being brought up (I haven't watched yet - just gathering my putrid eggs)? 
Feels a bit like further pressure applied on Manchester, especially, as well as a get out clause for swerving a national circuit breaker, which seems pretty moronic for the reasons elbows just gave (tied in with half term/getting ahead of cases, which are still rising all over) - kill two birds with one stone.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> I noticed that - it seems quite a deliberate statement for when things go tits up again and he can blame the government for being useless shitheads.



If that was heavily on his mind I dont think he'd have said what he said about the circuit breaker. He was perfectly in tune with the government line over the circuit breaker and if things get bad in some of those regions later I shall bring up what Van-Tam said and moan about it.

Perhaps sections of the media will run in an interesting direction with something he said. But his point about doing stuff earlier to get bigger results was part of the epidemiological foundations that I would expect someone with his background and role to reiterate when necessary, even when other things they say fail to properly take that fact into account.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> In a much larger area, obvs - the SE and SW have a comparatively low combined total of a little over 500 cases in hospital, with far fewer cases.
> What was the context/relevance of that being brought up (I haven't watched yet - just gathering my putrid eggs)?
> Feels a bit like further pressure applied on Manchester, especially, as well as a get out clause for swerving a national circuit breaker, which seems pretty moronic for the reasons elbows just gave (tied in with half term/getting ahead of cases, which are still rising all over) - kill two birds with one stone.



Johnson had already announced that GM would being going into tier 3 from midnight on Thursday, long before the guy from the NHS made that comment.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Anyone know the latest ONS figures for total deaths versus total infections up to October?
> 
> Last I have figures for infections is " 3.4 million people – 6% of the population – had already been infected by COVID-19 by 13 July 2020"



3.4 million infections was the estimate from the REACT-2 study. The number presented was a one off, not something that will be updated regularly. Though there might be follow up REACT-2 study results published in future, I dont know. Its antibody based so ability to determine a grand total could easily be affected in future by waning immunity factors.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> If that was heavily on his mind I dont think he'd have said what he said about the circuit breaker. He was perfectly in tune with the government line over the circuit breaker and if things get bad in some of those regions later I shall bring up what Van-Tam said and moan about it.



One Plan Van-Tam?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Johnson had already announced that GM would being going into tier 3 from midnight on Thursday, long before the guy from the NHS made that comment.



Yes, I know that - but public perception/adherence/trust blah blah blah is still all relevant, obvs - some arse covering (eta - plus I'm not sure that is all _neatly wrapped now_, either).


----------



## 2hats (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Though there might be follow up REACT-2 study results published in future, I dont know.


AFAIK there are further rounds planned.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 20, 2020)

Watching now - just paused to post that Van Tam, slowing heat map slides, says 'prime minister asked me to focus a little on Greater Manchester'.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> Watching now - just paused to post that Van Tam, slowing heat map slides, says 'prime minister asked me to focus a little on Greater Manchester'.



I was hoping they might treat us to some better localised hospital data, but they didnt. And some of the slides were not done properly and had bits of labels missing, think Van-Tam noticed and rushed through the last faulty slides.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I was hoping they might treat us to some better localised hospital data, but they didnt. And some of the slides were not done properly and had bits of labels missing, think Van-Tam noticed and rushed few the last faulty slides.



Would be interested to hear more about that - but absolutely ONLY if and when you have time and can be arsed!


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I was hoping they might treat us to some better localised hospital data, but they didnt. And some of the slides were not done properly and had bits of labels missing, think Van-Tam noticed and rushed few the last faulty slides.



Yeah, I saw that as well, rushed graphics team! One early on has two lines on the graph both labeled 'north'. Assuming one was supposed to actually be 'south'...


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I saw that as well, rushed graphics team! One early on has two lines on the graph both labeled 'north'. Assuming one was supposed to actually be 'south'...



Maybe North West and North East & Yorkshire were the intended labels.

Ah having said that I went to the official website and the slides were there without the problem.

Before:

After:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/928022/Press_conference_slides_-_Tuesday_20_October.pdf
		




edit - oh that last one was still missing a bit, I would think it should be Lancashire & South Cumbria.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

I suspect that if I were making decisions about things like a national circuit breaker, I would want to look at every region for signs that the number of infections in the community had gone past the point where it was possible to prevent most hospital outbreaks.

NHS England are not exactly keen on waving such numbers around though.

However, they do publish data which includes tables described as the following:

Shows the number of patients admitted in previous 24 hours for the first time with COVID-19 plus the number of patients diagnosed in hospital in previous 24 hours.

Shows the number of patients admitted in previous 24 hours for the first time with COVID-19 plus the number of patients diagnosed in hospital in previous 24 hours where the test was within 7 days of admission.

So its just too temping not to take away the numbers in the second table away from the numbers in the first table, which should leave people whose positive test came after they had been in hospital for more than 7 days. And that will just have to do for now as a vague guide to hospital infections.

When I complete that exercise using the latest available data, I get the following. Using data from the Daily Admissions files at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


Clearly the hospital infection situation is much worse in some places than others but its showing up in all regions by this measure. I suppose if I were making the national circuit breaker decision I would want to zoom in even further, eg to look at Cornwall, but then there are also some times I'd want to act nationally to preserve a sense of the whole country being in the struggle together. But that feeling has already been eroded badly by the government over many months of mistakes, including the Cummings thing.


----------



## zora (Oct 20, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Same up here.  This is why the line about there being a conflict between public health and 'the economy' is wrong.  You can open everything back up, but where is the custom coming from?  Better to lock down - with proper financial support - and try to suppress the outbreak as far as possible.  Too late for that now in much of the country, though.  The choice now is that they can either lock down again, and compensate pubs and other venues for doing so, or keep them in this half-life of slowly tightening restrictions and shrinking income, which in the long run will probably send a lot more of them to the wall.



^^^ This, so much. 

Was very disappointed with the Van-Tam line of national lockdown not being justified due to the differing picture in different regions. Clearly, the figures aren't great anywhere, and even the lowest tier of restrictions is still pretty restricted, compared to, well, normal. 
So I think it shouldn't be too hard to sell a stricter lockdown, if the political will and financial support was there, with the promise of lighter or at least no worse restrictions. Being in this half-arsed thing for the next six months or so in vast areas of the country surely is both socially and economically infinitely worse? 

I am finding the lack of ambition from this government to get this thing under any kind of proper control pretty staggering.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 20, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Newcastle City Council said last week in a social media post that University numbers  had now been integrated into the City figures, but haven't given any detail, and I can't find anything from PHE.


This is how they've started presenting the figures from today


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2020)

One lesson from the Manchester debacle is that they should publish more hospital data to stop the bullshit and erosion of trust. But then I would say that because I always want more hospital data.

Here is a Guardian article that tries to get some facts straight.









						Tier 3 Manchester: what are the true Covid patient figures?
					

Hospital patient numbers were key to whether region entered tier 3. We look at the data




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Burnham’s aides said the 82% figure was not unusual for the time of year. However, doctors in the region said ICUs had never before had scores of beds filled with Covid-19 patients heading into a winter that would inevitably mean wards further filled with people with serious breathing problems, such as those who had flu or pneumonia. Hospitals can expand the number of ICU beds from 257 by triggering “surge” plans to increase capacity but staffing problems could mean care not being of the usual high quality.





> As of last Friday, Greater Manchester hospitals were treating a total of 520 inpatients left seriously ill by the coronavirus, of whom 90 were in ICU and 20 were receiving Cpap or Bipap, the dashboard said. However, the Health Service Journal reported on Monday that there had been “a large increase in Covid patients since yesterday, with beds occupied by Covid-positive patients rising from just over 500 to around 650”.





> Burnham said there were “around 62” Covid patients in ICU. Is that right?
> 
> Burnham’s statement was made on The Andrew Marr Show on 18 October. The “dashboard” from last Friday, however, said the figure was between 90 and 110. The difference seems to be that while the mayor is only referring to people confirmed to have Covid-19, the NHS document includes confirmed and suspected cases as one category; hospitals do the same in order to be able to manage patients properly.



I struggle to manage my patience properly when discussing Burnham. If he stuck to the economic argument instead of this disgusting undermining of the hospital situation or anything else he could grasp them my attitude would be different.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Oct 20, 2020)

zora said:


> I like the bit where they go "without you, our loyal contributors, we are nothing"
> And it's true as well! I also considered stopping using it after 5 months of indeed loyal, daily input, but I pretty much learnt about them having pulled the ad at the same time as first hearing about it.


It put me off in recent days but that email above will make me reconsider


----------



## LDC (Oct 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> One lesson from the Manchester debacle is that they should publish more hospital data to stop the bullshit and erosion of trust. But then I would say that because I always want more hospital data.
> 
> Here is a Guardian article that tries to get some facts straight.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I've just hd a bit of a row with someone I know (who's very Labour through and through) who won't hear a bad word about Burnham in relation to this. I gave up.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 20, 2020)

Meanwhile, here in Wales, our 'circuit-breaking'/'fire-breaking' lockdown starts from Friday (e.g. all pubs and restaurants close at 6 pm on Friday)

I've heard almost no hostility (about lockdown generally) either at work or even in the pub.

The pub landlords aren't delighted, obviously (I've had quick chats with a couple), but there will be _some_ level of business support at least.

I do think Drakeford is guilty with his public statements of pushing this as a full-on, everyone to stay at home lockdown.

Not the case when you look at the details..

The big exception is that that so long as work-places are deemed safe, everyone who is unable to work from home is 'permitted' to go to work *IF* their work is deemed essential.

Civil Servant me, along with most others where I am,  will continue to be at work next week and the one after. Just saying!

It's possible that Whitehall/Central Government Departments were able to impose some (??) limitations (I speculate  ) on how much the Welsh Government could impose a full lockdown CS-wise, in that respect.

In combination with that, those in Wales who in the previous lockdown were expected to be shielding (that is, those with or recovering from very severe conditions) are this time *NOT* being confined to the house to the point they can't get to the shop or are being stopped from doing some daily exercise/walks.


----------



## Sue (Oct 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I've just hd a bit of a row with someone I know (who's very Labour through and through) who won't hear a bad word about Burnham in relation to this. I gave up.


A friend's husband who's left wing and a quite senior hospital doctor in Manchester (was redeployed to ICU last time as his speciality wasn't really happening at  that point) seems to have some sympathy with Burnham re longer-term outcomes but seems pretty worried about the current situation. (I'm not sure but expect he'll be redeployed to ICU again.)


----------



## Sprocket. (Oct 21, 2020)

Covid: South Yorkshire to move into tier 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54627017


Breaking news but not unexpected. Dan Jarvis, Barnsley MP and regional mayor accepted deal this morning. Not surprised. I personally have no time for him. More to follow apparently.


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> Covid: South Yorkshire to move into tier 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54627017
> 
> 
> Breaking news but not unexpected. Dan Jarvis, Barnsley MP and regional mayor accepted deal this morning. Not surprised. I personally have no time for him. More to follow apparently.



Yeah, expecting West Yorkshire to follow next week.


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2020)

Sue said:


> A friend's husband who's left wing and a quite senior hospital doctor in Manchester (was redeployed to ICU last time as his speciality wasn't really happening at  that point) seems to have some sympathy with Burnham re longer-term outcomes but seems pretty worried about the current situation. (I'm not sure but expect he'll be redeployed to ICU again.)



Yeah, I'm the same. Have sympathies with what he's been trying to do; but concerns over the way it's been done, the political games being played, what some of his support have been pushing on the back of his efforts, and how it might all play out in the figures to come in the next weeks.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 21, 2020)

I was having a count up of pubs in my local area and of the 25 that are in walking distance (less than 20 minutes) I can only think of 2 that would have to automatically close if we were to be put into tier 3.  The rest all do a full meal service.

Combine that with the fact the schools will all still be going and that big uni down the road will still be broadcasting covid across the whole borough its really hard to see what difference it would make.  

Have I missed something here?


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I was having a count up of pubs in my local area and of the 25 that are in walking distance (less than 20 minutes) I can only think of 2 that would have to automatically close if we were to be put into tier 3.  The rest all do a full meal service.
> 
> Combine that with the fact the schools will all still be going and that big uni down the road will still be broadcasting covid across the whole borough its really hard to see what difference it would make.
> 
> Have I missed something here?



There's variations within Tier 3 for a variety of things to close (or not) depending on councils. The restaurant/food thing is a mix of reasons; some business and economic related, and some actual risk related (people drinking alcohol and moving = higher risk). I expect universities to go online after the holidays though. But yeah, I think more should shut, but that's far from what many people think. Even some people I know who were very pro-hard restrictions previously are much less so this time.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 21, 2020)

Sue said:


> A friend's husband who's left wing and a quite senior hospital doctor in Manchester (was redeployed to ICU last time as his speciality wasn't really happening at  that point) seems to have some sympathy with Burnham re longer-term outcomes but seems pretty worried about the current situation. (I'm not sure but expect he'll be redeployed to ICU again.)



Pissed down here all day and night yesterday ( Storm Barbara) so I spent the most of the day talking to friends and family in Manchester . Lots of support for Burnham's position even from people who I normally disagree with on politics.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Greater Manchester has more covid cases in hospital, than the whole of the South East & South West regions combined.


Follows low income/poor health   areas


----------



## belboid (Oct 21, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> Covid: South Yorkshire to move into tier 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54627017
> 
> 
> Breaking news but not unexpected. Dan Jarvis, Barnsley MP and regional mayor accepted deal this morning. Not surprised. I personally have no time for him. More to follow apparently.


I am shocked, shocked, that DJ didn’t hold out for a better deal, he’s normally such a fighter.


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Pissed down here all day and night yesterday ( Storm Barbara) so I spent the most of the day talking to friends and family in Manchester . Lots of support for Burnham's position even from people who I normally disagree with on politics.



Solely on the financial support package? I've just seen and heard some support on the basis that no restrictions were needed, and behind that was a mix of reasons, including some 'herd immunity' stuff, businesses should be prioritised, and the 'figures are exaggerated' positions among them. That's one of my concerns, that his sometimes slightly ambiguous rhetoric has fueled some shit and dangerous positions.


----------



## Sprocket. (Oct 21, 2020)

belboid said:


> I am shocked, shocked, that DJ didn’t hold out for a better deal, he’s normally such a fighter.


He has probably rolled over on this seeing how much financial support the region may lose if any pushback is employed?


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Solely on the financial support package? I've just seen and heard some support on the basis that no restrictions were needed, and behind that was a mix of reasons, including some 'herd immunity' stuff, businesses should be prioritised, and the 'figures are exaggerated' positions among them. That's one of my concerns, that his sometimes slightly ambiguous rhetoric has fueled some shit and dangerous positions.



Trying to paint Burnham as an enabler for herd immunity evangelists  isn't on.


----------



## killer b (Oct 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Solely on the financial support package? I've just seen and heard some support on the basis that no restrictions were needed, and behind that was a mix of reasons, including some 'herd immunity' stuff, businesses should be prioritised, and the 'figures are exaggerated' positions among them. That's one of my concerns, that his sometimes slightly ambiguous rhetoric has fueled some shit and dangerous positions.


TBF I have seen him slapping down some of those guys on twitter.


----------



## killer b (Oct 21, 2020)

eg:


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 21, 2020)

There seems not much point in introducing hard restrictions and then faffing around doing nothing in terms of strengthening the capacity of the testing system etc during that time tho. If cases are increasing despite restrictions I understand people getting fucked off tbh.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Solely on the financial support package? I've just seen and heard some support on the basis that no restrictions were needed, and behind that was a mix of reasons, including some 'herd immunity' stuff, businesses should be prioritised, and the 'figures are exaggerated' positions among them. That's one of my concerns, that his sometimes slightly ambiguous rhetoric has fueled some shit and dangerous positions.


I think Burnham was trying to build support for his position by appealing to as many groups of voters as he could: protecting wages for workers, protecting business, calling for stronger measures, and some dog whistles for the no lockdown people. That might've led to some mixed messages, but has meant he's maintained support in his risky battle with central government for more money for Manchester as they go into Tier 3. Just what you'd expect from an experienced politician.


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Trying to paint Burnham as an enabler for herd immunity evangelists  isn't on.



I'm not trying to paint him as such, nor am I saying he means to be, but some have been using his position to push their own agenda.

E2A: Good to hear he's been distancing himself from them as killer b said.


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> TBF I have seen him slapping down some of those guys on twitter.



Good on him.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 21, 2020)

andysays said:


> I wonder how many people will die in Manchester as a result of effectively delaying the move to tier 3 for a week after it could have happened.


We knew measures taken would be ineffectual and late.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 21, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Meanwhile, here in Wales, our 'circuit-breaking'/'fire-breaking' lockdown starts from Friday (e.g. all pubs and restaurants close at 6 pm on Friday)
> 
> I've heard almost no hostility (about lockdown generally) either at work or even in the pub.
> 
> ...


Are they shutting the off licence outlets early doors as well?


----------



## teuchter (Oct 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've been comparing numbers on the Zoe map and the Gov.uk one, to try and see how similar they are.
> 
> The Zoe map gives an estimate of the number of active cases per million. For example, Lambeth currently shows as 5,432 cases per million.
> On the gov.uk map, it gives a "7-day rolling rate" per 100,000 population. Currently showing Lambeth as 94.2 (which would be 940 per million).
> ...



Two days later the difference is even greater ... the Zoe map shows both areas on about the same rate, while the gov.uk one shows it 6.5 times higher in Lambeth.

What explains this enormous difference?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Follows low income/poor health   areas



Not sure it's quite that simple. Cornwall has some of the worst deprivation in the country, and I believe places like East Kent are in a similar state. 

Levels of deprivation will however affect both the survival rate for covid and the health impacts of lockdown.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 21, 2020)

andysays said:


> I wonder how many people will die in Manchester as a result of effectively delaying the move to tier 3 for a week after it could have happened.



The Tory government have imposed it starting Friday midnight


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 21, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Not sure it's quite that simple. Cornwall has some of the worst deprivation in the country, and I believe places like East Kent are in a similar state.
> 
> Levels of deprivation will however affect both the survival rate for covid and the health impacts of lockdown.


Yes should have added population density.


----------



## andysays (Oct 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> The Tory government have imposed it starting Friday midnight


Which by my reckoning is a week after it could have happened. 

When did it start in Liverpool?


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Yes should have added population density.



Housing quality and type and % of BAME as total as well, although those strongly connected to what you said already. Probably a whole host of other stuff too tbh.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 21, 2020)

teqniq said:


>


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 21, 2020)

andysays said:


> Which by my reckoning is a week after it could have happened.
> 
> When did it start in Liverpool?


Pretty much the day after the financial packet was agreed


----------



## emanymton (Oct 21, 2020)

andysays said:


> I wonder how many people will die in Manchester as a result of effectively delaying the move to tier 3 for a week after it could have happened.


I'm not sure it will make much difference. The gap between tier 2 and 3 is pretty small.

The 2 main differences as far as I can tell are that at tier 2 you can meet people who are not in your household/bubble outside but not inside at tier 3 you cannot meet them at all. And pubs can only stay open if the operate as a restaurant. 

The first will we ignored by anyone who wants to. The second might have an impact but not sure how big. 

There is some stuff for tier 3 about avoiding traveling outside the area but not a hard rule stopping you.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Two days later the difference is even greater ... the Zoe map shows both areas on about the same rate, while the gov.uk one shows it 6.5 times higher in Lambeth.
> 
> What explains this enormous difference?


The Zoe app figures are logarithmic estimates based on a reports of symptoms and test results reported in the app.  It estimates are not dependent on how widespread testing is (though it does rely on a certain percentage of the population of any area to report in the app)

The gov.uk 7 day rolling data is of numbers of positive tests reported to PHE. So if more tests are carried out in a particular area (which might be as simple as a new test site opening, or information being given out in a community language) more positive tests will be found in an area with particular prevalance.

The Zoe app estimates active cases - ie people who are infectious, symptomatic, or hospitalised - so if everyone with symptoms got tested, the estimated number of active cases should be more than the 7 day total (as some people take much longer to recover than 7 days - though they don't include "long covid symptoms) Their method is explained here.
I assume that they also use demographic and geographic data in the logarithm - so issues like housing density and average age of the population will be used to get to the estimate. ETA: and presumably greater housing density means the virus spread more quickly, but a younger population will have more fast recoveries but fewer deaths.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 21, 2020)

Basically, take heed of both.


----------



## teqniq (Oct 21, 2020)

platinumsage said:


>



Just for clarity:


----------



## killer b (Oct 21, 2020)

What - a journalist working for a newspaper edited by a former conservative chancellor of the exchequer credulously repeated something she'd been told by a tory MP without getting the other side's version? This is highly unusual.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 21, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> The Zoe app figures are logarithmic estimates based on a reports of symptoms and test results reported in the app.  It estimates are not dependent on how widespread testing is (though it does rely on a certain percentage of the population of any area to report in the app)
> 
> The gov.uk 7 day rolling data is of numbers of positive tests reported to PHE. So if more tests are carried out in a particular area (which might be as simple as a new test site opening, or information being given out in a community language) more positive tests will be found in an area with particular prevalance.
> 
> ...



It seems such a large discrepancy though - gov.uk saying that both places are at about the same rate, but zoe saying that it's 6.5 times higher in one.

If zoe is getting it's estimates about right, it would suggest that 6 times as many tests per head are being carried out in Lambeth. Maybe that's plausible.

If testing rates vary by such a large amount across the country though, to me that makes the gov.uk map a bit pointless - it shows where testing is happening, rather than infection rates. Wouldn't it be better showing % of test results coming back positive?


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> There seems not much point in introducing hard restrictions and then faffing around doing nothing in terms of strengthening the capacity of the testing system etc during that time tho. If cases are increasing despite restrictions I understand people getting fucked off tbh.



An understandable stance but one I consider to be wide of the mark.

I would agree in as much as leaving areas in local lockdowns for many weeks and months without driving the numbers down enough or giving people a sense of the route out of that was a bad thing to do, and was a sign that they needed to go further in those areas.

However if we look at the original national lockdown then people endured weeks of full lockdown before there was any sign of the numbers turning around. And the testing system of the time meant that case decreases didnt really show up properly till a fair bit later than number of deaths, hospitalisations etc had clearly peaked and started to decline.

A slowing of the rate of increase in cases would also be something people should judge things against, but thats not always easy when people dont have a sense of what that trend would have been like without further measures.

There are several forms of testing which it sounds like the government still intends to bring in eventually. They are part of the way that things could be handled better next time. But even if none of this happens, driving down the number of infections via stricter measures is its own reward, even if the government squanders the time bought via such measures. Because it gets us closer to the end of winter and some people who would otherwise have been infected over winter will not be infected.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 21, 2020)

Gyms allowed to open in Liverpool, following the fucking ridiculous idea to allow them to open in other Tier 3 areas but not Liverpool.









						Covid-19: Gyms can reopen in Liverpool City Region
					

They were ordered to close when the area was placed into tier three of the coronavirus restrictions.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (Oct 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It seems such a large discrepancy though - gov.uk saying that both places are at about the same rate, but zoe saying that it's 6.5 times higher in one.
> 
> If zoe is getting it's estimates about right, it would suggest that 6 times as many tests per head are being carried out in Lambeth. Maybe that's plausible.
> 
> If testing rates vary by such a large amount across the country though, to me that makes the gov.uk map a bit pointless - it shows where testing is happening, rather than infection rates. Wouldn't it be better showing % of test results coming back positive?



I'm stretching here because I'm out of my depth but isn't that what the REACT1 study is doing? 









						Community coronavirus infections growing nationally, REACT study shows | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

The latest report from the largest home COVID-19 testing study has shown that infections are continuing to rise in England as 1 in 170 test positive.




					www.imperial.ac.uk
				






> October 9: The latest report from the largest home COVID-19 testing study has shown that infections are continuing to rise in England as 1 in 170 test positive.
> 
> An analysis of swab tests taken by 175,000 people between 18th September and 5th October found that the virus is infecting around 45,000 people each day.
> 
> The research, led by Imperial College London, reports that 0.60% of the population, or 60 per 10,000, had the SARS-CoV-2 virus, compared to 0.13% in the previous round of testing.


----------



## Espresso (Oct 21, 2020)

It's saying on the news that Johnson wrote a letter to Burnham, accusing him of putting his own ego before the health of his people. 
Boris wash your hands and sing happy birthday Johnson.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It seems such a large discrepancy though - gov.uk saying that both places are at about the same rate, but zoe saying that it's 6.5 times higher in one.
> 
> If zoe is getting it's estimates about right, it would suggest that 6 times as many tests per head are being carried out in Lambeth. Maybe that's plausible.
> 
> If testing rates vary by such a large amount across the country though, to me that makes the gov.uk map a bit pointless - it shows where testing is happening, rather than infection rates. Wouldn't it be better showing % of test results coming back positive?


I agree, it would be much better if gov.uk gave both both number of positive cases and positivity rate for it to be really meaningful.  Its not just the testing rate though - demographic differences might mean that the average time cases are considered active by the Zoe logarithm might be longer in some areas than others.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I'm stretching here because I'm out of my depth but isn't that what the REACT1 study is doing?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Quite possibly ... doesn't look like they have an easily perusable live map like the ones offered by gov.uk and zoe though.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Oct 21, 2020)

I have a question - apologies if this isn't really the right thread but I'm having trouble finding an answer.

If someone comes back from a non-exempt country and has to isolate for 14 days, do the other members of their household also have to isolate for 14 days?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 21, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I have a question - apologies if this isn't really the right thread but I'm having trouble finding an answer.
> 
> If someone comes back from a non-exempt country and has to isolate for 14 days, do the other members of their household also have to isolate for 14 days?



I've not looked it up but I guess the idea is you quarantine away from the rest of the household because you really don't want to give it to other people if you can avoid it..  If that is not possible than logic dictates the whole household should isolate.  It wouldn't be much use otherwise.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Quite possibly ... doesn't look like they have an easily perusable live map like the ones offered by gov.uk and zoe though.


The REACT studies collect data in separate rounds over several days (typically about a week), roughly monthly, then analyse it (takes a few days). There is no 'live' data (the maps you refer to are themselves not 'live' but recent). There is, of course, no widespread (population/geographically-wise) near-instantaneous measurement (waste water analysis might come closest).


----------



## spitfire (Oct 21, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I have a question - apologies if this isn't really the right thread but I'm having trouble finding an answer.
> 
> If someone comes back from a non-exempt country and has to isolate for 14 days, do the other members of their household also have to isolate for 14 days?



I had to do this when Mlle Fire and Minifire came back from France in August.

The advice is (was) you should try and maintain extreme social distancing from the returner(s). So no sharing mealtimes, beds, toilets etc. without strict sanitation procedures in place.

It was physically impossible for us to do that so I moved out for a large section of the 14 days and returned to share isolation with them for the last few days. It's very hard to do if you don't live in a house.

The advice was hard to find, short and opaque. We did our best.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 21, 2020)

Fuck this winter is gonna be brutal isnt it.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Trying to paint Burnham as an enabler for herd immunity evangelists  isn't on.



On a number of occasions he augmented his central message (which I have no problem with) with some stuff that muddied the waters and used language that played into the hands of pandemic shitheads. This was distressing to me, and I was quite vocal in my unhappiness. I dont think Burnham is one of the Barrington killer clowns though, the closest he got to that was retweeting something by someone that is close to the Barrington position.

In order to be fair I have since reviewed Burnhams pandemic stance going back as far as mid May. It was pretty good and included the opinion in late May that lockdown easing was being done too soon and that the crappy government decisions about that were based more on the situation in London than the numbers coming out of the North West at the time.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Fuck this winter is gonna be brutal isnt it.


Yup


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Oct 21, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I've not looked it up but I guess the idea is you quarantine away from the rest of the household because you really don't want to give it to other people if you can avoid it..  If that is not possible than logic dictates the whole household should isolate.  It wouldn't be much use otherwise.





spitfire said:


> I had to do this when Mlle Fire and Minifire came back from France in August.
> 
> The advice is (was) you should try and maintain extreme social distancing from the returner(s). So no sharing mealtimes, beds, toilets etc. without strict sanitation procedures in place.
> 
> ...


Thanks

I can't seem to find an answer to this on the government website. It makes sense to me that the rest of the household should isolate unless it's possible to totally isolate the returning person within the home.

I ask in relation to booking hospital appointments. We wanted to book someone who's daughter had returned from a non-exempt country and was isolating. We weren't sure what the rules are for the rest of the household and can't find an answer. We're going to err on the side of caution anyway and not allow appointments for people like that until after the quarantine period.


----------



## spitfire (Oct 21, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Thanks
> 
> I can't seem to find an answer to this on the government website. It makes sense to me that the rest of the household should isolate unless it's possible to totally isolate the returning person within the home.
> 
> I ask in relation to booking hospital appointments. We wanted to book someone who's daughter had returned from a non-exempt country and was isolating. We weren't sure what the rules are for the rest of the household and can't find an answer. We're going to err on the side of caution anyway and not allow appointments for people like that until after the quarantine period.



I found the page I referred to through the magic of my browsing history. Make of it what you will. But yeah, err on the side of caution sounds like the way forward.









						Coronavirus (COVID-19): how to self-isolate when you travel to the UK
					






					www.gov.uk
				



.

*"If you arrive in the UK without any symptoms*
You must self-isolate for 14 days, from the day after you leave a non-exempt country or territory. If you still have no symptoms after 14 days, your isolation ends.

Your household does not need to self-isolate.

It’s important to avoid as much contact with other people as possible in your home in order to reduce the risk of transmitting coronavirus. You should stay in a well-ventilated room with a window to the outside that can be opened, separate from other people in your home."

eta: Hospital appointments are one of the exemptions so that's probably made it even murkier now!


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Oct 21, 2020)

spitfire said:


> I found the page I referred to with the magic of my browsing history. Make of it what you will. But yeah, err on the side of caution sounds like the way forward.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks!! I just couldn't see it.
We will still be cautious though. We want to minimise the risk as much as possible. Most of our appointments are routine anyway and so can wait a bit.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 21, 2020)

An eye watering 26,668 new cases reported today.

And, another 191 deaths, up from 137 last Tue. Wed.

Fuck.  

Edit - Wed., not Tue.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 21, 2020)

I'm angry at how many lives are being lost, at least some of those should have been preventable.

Personally, I'm back in something approaching lockdown.
I'm definitely not going anywhere near the Tyne / Wear conurbation.

All those "studentville" cases must be spreading out into the community and into older & more vulnerable sectors of the population.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)

> Prof Edmunds, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told a select committee things were "getting to the point where the health service will be under strain in much of the North in the next few weeks".
> 
> He said: "There's no way we come out of this wave now without counting our deaths in the tens of thousands”



From 16:53 entry on the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54626928


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 21, 2020)

Mrs Miggins said:


> Thanks!! I just couldn't see it.
> We will still be cautious though. We want to minimise the risk as much as possible. Most of our appointments are routine anyway and so can wait a bit.


It's the same for if anyone in a household is in precautionary isolation. Once symptomatic the entire household isolates as the other members are in precautionary isolation. So like, my living with a teacher means I carry on if he is sent home due to contact not symptoms.

Which does make sense but some infections are bound to slip through.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)

> Asked about the government’s three-tier local Covid alert levels, Edmunds said it was not a strategy he would follow. The restrictions in tier 3 might at best bring the R value (the average number of infections caused by someone infected with Sars-CoV-2) close to 1, he said, but that meant regions that were placed in the top tier when their cases soared would continue to have high levels of new infections, increased pressure on hospitals, and high death rates.
> 
> “What that means is we all end up at a high level of incidence where hospitals are really overstretched and we have large numbers of deaths. That for me is the logical conclusion of the strategy we are following – and I would not follow that strategy,” he said.
> 
> Edmunds argued that if regions imposed a strict two-week circuit breaker first, they could potentially halve the rate of new infections and hold cases at a lower level where the NHS was under less strain. Alternatively, he said, the entire country could move to tier 3 to prevent places with low levels of infection reaching the situation in Liverpool now and elsewhere in the north of England.











						Warning of tens of thousands of deaths in England from Covid-19 second wave
					

Tiered lockdown system not adequate for preventing high rate of virus infections daily, epidemiologist tells MPs




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Warning of tens of thousands of deaths in England from Covid-19 second wave
> 
> 
> Tiered lockdown system not adequate for preventing high rate of virus infections daily, epidemiologist tells MPs
> ...



Shitting hell.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)

Those concepts that Edmunds hinged his point around are really vital. I get frustrated when people talk of measures not working or of lockdown being pointless or of time being squandered. The stuff he is on about is the right way to think about it, especially the different between R being below 1 and being reduced but still above 1, and how the scale of the implications attached to that depend on the level of existing infection in that area at the time. This is the way that people can talk about local lockdown failings and related matters, and issues to consider when thinking about circuit breakers, their timing and what sorts of gains can be expected in different situations.

I think it fits ok with my general stance that measures are hardly ever a complete waste of time, but there is a very broad range of quite how much difference they can make depending on when you do them and how they are combined with other things.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> An eye watering 26.668 new cases reported today.
> 
> And, another 191 deaths, up from 137 last Tue.
> 
> Fuck.


Remember back two and a half weeks ago when that new cases figure of 25,000 came out, but it was okay cos such a huge number couldn't possibly be right and was all because of a fucked up excel spreadsheet?

Well, now there's an even bigger number and - issues with this how this figure is calculated aside - I don't think anyone is madly surprised by it 

I keep hearing that the rate of increase is flattening based on community testing surveys. I've been hearing it for weeks. When the fuck is that going to be reflected in the new case figures? This relentless increase is making me tense.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I keep hearing that the rate of increase is flattening based on community testing surveys. I've been hearing it for weeks. When the fuck is that going to be reflected in the new case figures? This relentless increase is making me tense.



You have been misinformed.

The ONS community infection survey of October 16th says the number of infections has continued to increase rapidly in recent weeks. It said the same on October 9th. Similar language about increases stretches further back, and September 4th was the last time their language about small increases that had levelled off was used.

Language about flattening can be quite broad and vague, and its probably not hard for expectations based on that to get out of whack with reality. A lot of talk about flattening increases just means that the doubling time is getting longer, not that numbers of infections will stop doubling. And there are thought to be some quite large regional variations still. For example, ehre is an October 16th quote from Tim Spector of the Zoe covid thing:



> “The data is no longer showing the exponential increases that we were seeing a couple of weeks ago, but is clearly showing new cases continuing to rise. The North West still has the most cases and the fastest acceleration of cases with doubling times of around 10 days. Slowing this rapid rise is a priority. Scotland, Wales, London and the Midlands are slowly increasing with a doubling time of 14-28 days and the South and East of England remaining relatively flat with five-fold fewer cases than the worst hit regions. Our data is roughly 7-10 days ahead of other sources meaning that it acts like an early warning system, whilst we wait for the data from the confirmed cases.











						Case rising steadily and rapidly in the North of England
					

The latest COVID Symptom Study data shows that cases are continuing to rise steadily in the UK and daily new cases in the North are rising rapidly. This week we introduce the new Tier Prediction model, which predicts which regions in the UK may be made a Tier 3 region.




					covid.joinzoe.com
				




In any case the official cases positive data does show a slowing of increases in cases detected, but I am unable to tell to what extent that reflects the true picture as opposed to limits of the testing system. Or perhaps other phenomenon where student infections decline and mask increases in other age groups if you only follow the single headline daily cases figure. When the testing system is under this much strain, I am likely to be more reliant on community testing survey type stuff to monitor infection trends. And those arent perfect either. Hopsital data will be my ultimate guide but this has additional lag.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)

I will augment what I just said with a graph that I added to.

Its the Zoe covid number of infections in the uk graph. The period that I have pointed to with a green arrow represents a period where they estimated some slowing and, when this was the latest estimate available, some people would have taken that opportunity to indulge in wishful thinking and spin. As opposed to the periods I marked in red which had steeper trajectories that dont have the same potential for that sort of bullshit.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> You have been misinformed.


I suspect I just keep seeing...


elbows said:


> some people would have taken that opportunity to indulge in wishful thinking and spin


misreading the data either innocently because they want to see the best or deliberately because they're promoting an agenda.

I'm just in a bit of a despairing mood tonight because it all looks so fucking fucked


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)

I cant say its fun making the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 graphs at the moment.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 21, 2020)

How is it looking in the south east elbows ? It looks like it might go into Tier 2 where my nan lives


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> How is it looking in the south east elbows ? It looks like it might go into Tier 2 where my nan lives



Similar to London so far. A pronounced rise in number of Covid-19 patients in hospital in recent times, but not to anything like the extent seen in the North West and North East.

All the more reason to act sooner to prevent them sharing a similar fate eventually.


----------



## Supine (Oct 21, 2020)




----------



## editor (Oct 21, 2020)

Front page of the Evening Standard today


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 21, 2020)

This looks interesting ---









						Coronavirus: Cases among students in Newcastle 'contained effectively'
					

Data showed a substantial fall in new cases among young people in Newcastle.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




there's a useful graph



which seems to show the bulge in cases was almost entirely "students" or that age group.

I'm hoping that the plague hasn't escaped into the general population ...
that's a wait n see situation.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 21, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> It's the same for if anyone in a household is in precautionary isolation. Once symptomatic the entire household isolates as the other members are in precautionary isolation. So like, my living with a teacher means I carry on if he is sent home due to contact not symptoms.
> 
> Which does make sense but some infections are bound to slip through.



Its a headache to try and work out what to do, like in theory the wife, who is commuting to work everyday via tube so higher probability of illness, should safe isolate and stay clear of me if she gets a notification on the app but we cannot actually do that in this flat. Do I get a hotel for 14 days? Can't do that surely because then I'm a possible vector. So we get to stay in our small flat and infect the person we love and thats going to suck if it happens.


----------



## Supine (Oct 21, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I'm hoping that the plague hasn't escaped into the general population ...
> that's a wait n see situation.



Indy SAGE presented data last week showing it has.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 21, 2020)

How come the testing isn't being run at capacity?  Today- capacity 374000 , tests done 280000 .


----------



## baldrick (Oct 21, 2020)

This is terrifying stuff. Thanks for all your continued analysis elbows it's much appreciated.

Do you think pressure is building to impose any sort of short-term lockdown/circuit breaker? I get the feeling the people at large would be willing to deal with a lockdown of specific timing and length to help slow down what looks like a tsunami of covid building towards Christmas. Whereas the Tier 2/Tier 3 stuff could go on forever - there's no defined thresholds for moving up and down, the measures used seem to depend on the area and the particular pattern of covid infections, but nothing is explicitly said about what they are.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> which seems to show the bulge in cases was almost entirely "students" or that age group.
> 
> I'm hoping that the plague hasn't escaped into the general population ...
> that's a wait n see situation.



Dont let the large numbers generated by student outbreaks distract from the fact that rises had already been going on for some time before the universities even went back, and that rises in other age groups have still been quite significant. So if the large bump falls away, people might look at headline case numbers and think things are much better, when actually the situation could still be deteriorating in at risk age groups.

There are probably quite a few different scenarios that could be described as tipping points. In terms of hospital admissions/diagnoses the change began quite some time ago now. The following is generated from data that I only get once a week, and tomorrow there should be a new version and I should be in a position to post latest versions from any hospital trusts people might be interested in.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Its a headache to try and work out what to do, like in theory the wife, who is commuting to work everyday via tube so higher probability of illness, should safe isolate and stay clear of me if she gets a notification on the app but we cannot actually do that in this flat. Do I get a hotel for 14 days? Can't do that surely because then I'm a possible vector. So we get to stay in our small flat and infect the person we love and thats going to suck if it happens.


We have the same problem. My two teenage boys share a (not very big) room. What do we do if one of them gets symptoms?


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 21, 2020)

Thanks for the work elbows 

No, I'm not disregarding the background rise (ie excluding the "student" surge) - that's been going on. My impression is that increase in background cases is fallout from the general re-opening of pubs and "the economy", as well as people coming back off holiday. Some specific events produce notable hot spots - I recall that there was one from a charity football match.

What I'm dreading/expecting is community spread from the student cases that gets into the vulnerable groups in the population.

I'm actually covered by Northumbria, out here in the sticks - and Tyne/Wear-side has a plethora of hospital trusts.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 22, 2020)

baldrick said:


> This is terrifying stuff. Thanks for all your continued analysis elbows it's much appreciated.
> 
> Do you think pressure is building to impose any sort of short-term lockdown/circuit breaker? I get the feeling the people at large would be willing to deal with a lockdown of specific timing and length to help slow down what looks like a tsunami of covid building towards Christmas. Whereas the Tier 2/Tier 3 stuff could go on forever - there's no defined thresholds for moving up and down, the measures used seem to depend on the area and the particular pattern of covid infections, but nothing is explicitly said about what they are.


Feels to me like we are all like that frog in the once cold pan of water.  We get the tiers put in place... it gets worse... nothing else happens... gets worse... nothing else happens etc.  Not sure what tips Johnson into action, surely not numbers alone. The sight of ambulances being turned away from hospitals, maybe not even that. It's fucking grim.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

baldrick said:


> Do you think pressure is building to impose any sort of short-term lockdown/circuit breaker? I get the feeling the people at large would be willing to deal with a lockdown of specific timing and length to help slow down what looks like a tsunami of covid building towards Christmas.



The one or two polls I saw a while ago suggested people favour getting on with a lockdown if thats whats required.

Pressure has built at times but since everything is happening more slowly than last time, there is far more time for things to drag on than there was before. So I find it all much less easy to predict. Some of the heat got directed at the regional situation rather than the failure to do a circuit breaker, but even with some of that now out of the way I would not like to predict next weeks news agenda.


----------



## mx wcfc (Oct 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> The one or two polls I saw a while ago suggested people favour getting on with a lockdown if thats whats required.
> 
> Pressure has built at times but since everything is happening more slowly than last time, there is far more time for things to drag on than there was before. So I find it all much less easy to predict. Some of the heat got directed at the regional situation rather than the failure to do a circuit breaker, but even with some of that now out of the way I would not like to predict next weeks news agenda.


I live in a "low" covid area, though everywhere is "medium" or higher according to the App.  I absolutely agree that a "fire break" or "circuit breaker" national hard lock down is needed.  That needs to be harder than the last one - no Amazon etc deliveries, only food shops/chemists open, no travel/football/gyms anything for, say two weeks or three  The tories ran it up the flagpole a few weeks ago and I am astonished/appalled they haven't done it.

Clearly in such a situation there needs to be proper support for people who can't work because of a lockdown.  That starts with cash to people who need it and rent & mortgage holidays, and business loan repayments.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 22, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> I live in a "low" covid area, though everywhere is "medium" or higher according to the App.  I absolutely agree that a "fire break" or "circuit breaker" national hard lock down is needed.  That needs to be harder than the last one - no Amazon etc deliveries, only food shops/chemists open, no travel/football/gyms anything for, say two weeks or three  The tories ran it up the flagpole a few weeks ago and I am astonished/appalled they haven't done it.
> 
> Clearly in such a situation there needs to be proper support for people who can't work because of a lockdown.  That starts with cash to people who need it and rent & mortgage holidays, and business loan repayments.



Um, no deliveries??


----------



## Wilf (Oct 22, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> I live in a "low" covid area, though everywhere is "medium" or higher according to the App.  I absolutely agree that a "fire break" or "circuit breaker" national hard lock down is needed.  That needs to be harder than the last one - no Amazon etc deliveries, only food shops/chemists open, no travel/football/gyms anything for, say two weeks or three  The tories ran it up the flagpole a few weeks ago and I am astonished/appalled they haven't done it.
> 
> Clearly in such a situation there needs to be proper support for people who can't work because of a lockdown.  That starts with cash to people who need it and rent & mortgage holidays, and business loan repayments.


Yep. Even though it goes on month after month, it still deserves the title of genuine national emergency.  It should have happened already and the fact that it hasn't kills lots of people (and I feel odd that I can type that and move on to the next point so quickly).  But it's still about the only thing that puts a dent in the curve, so to speak. In fact in the long psycho-history of the pandemic, I'd have thought a funded 3 week full on lockdown was just about the least unpalatable option. Everything else is going to be partial, reactive and ultimately more expensive (certainly in the long run).


----------



## Spandex (Oct 22, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Um, no deliveries??


I can see his thinking. Behind the delivery driver with a cardboard package there's a huge network of warehouses and distribution centers, full of people spreading the virus about. I remember people commenting in the first lockdown how the number of cases was staying high in areas with lots of big distribution centers.

But, it's not just frivolous tat people get delivered. if people are stuck at home, self isolating and shielding then food deliveries become crucial, and sorting out essential and non-essential deliveries is almost impossible. Tescos sell some pointless crap while Amazon sell Cornflakes.


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

No deliveries is never going to be on the cards as an option.


----------



## maomao (Oct 22, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Tescos sell some pointless crap while Amazon sell Cornflakes.


I get Morisson's deliveries from Amazon in an Amazon van. Also just had a very frivolous (by my standards) Asda delivery last night. It would be unenforcable.

I think we're going to end up with a 4-8 week lockdown over Christmas.


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yep. Even though it goes on month after month, it still deserves the title of genuine national emergency.  It should have happened already and the fact that it hasn't kills lots of people (and I feel odd that I can type that and move on to the next point so quickly).  But it's still about the only thing that puts a dent in the curve, so to speak. In fact in the long psycho-history of the pandemic, I'd have thought a funded 3 week full on lockdown was just about the least unpalatable option. Everything else is going to be partial, reactive and ultimately more expensive (certainly in the long run).



I think one of the issues is that a 2-3 week lockdown, however strict, won't be nearly enough to get this thing under control. And that the figures are now going to rise for a while, so if they impose a lockdown now it'll be impossible to release it while deaths are still high and maybe even still creeping up as they will be for a while, so it'll be much longer than a 2-3 week one.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 22, 2020)

Yeah I don't think everyone wanting to see improving trends in the data has an agenda, maybe they are just trying to hold on to hope it won't be so bad? Everything looks so fucked at the moment.


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah I don't think everyone wanting to see improving trends in the data has an agenda, maybe they are just trying to hold on to hope it won't be so bad? Everything looks so fucked at the moment.



I think there's a huge amount of people and orgs in denial about the situation and the coming months tbh. The media coverage is partly to blame; headlines like ten of thousands dead are there for a day, then get moved off by something else that's mundane in comparison. But also people's capacity for avoiding difficult things, and that happens in orgs as well... an NHS Trust I know of has basically acted like everything is going back to normal and it's all over. Until today and now they're panicking again like they did in Feb/Mar. Quite stunningly fucked up and incompetent.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 22, 2020)

Yeah LynnDoyleCooper I also think a lot of people are equally worried about their jobs / lack of financial support by govt and the prospect of a long dark winter lockdown with not much relief in sight. I mean I'm in that position tbh. Everything looks fucked.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 22, 2020)

[In relation to the imminent changes in Wales] :



TopCat said:


> Are they shutting the off licence outlets early doors as well?



Don't know yet.  I don't think so (??), but I'll try and find out today!


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 22, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Um, no deliveries??



That would cause a riot on here even though  the weekly reality for most low paid workers. Those on the new 66% will be  socially distancing at the reduced section.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 22, 2020)

I remember just before the first lockdown someone I was in a pilates class with complaining that the whole thing was scaremongering, that it wasn't going to happen here lol and she was a working in the NHS !


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah LynnDoyleCooper I also think a lot of people are equally worried about their jobs / lack of financial support by govt and the prospect of a long dark winter lockdown with not much relief in sight. I mean I'm in that position tbh. Everything looks fucked.


One of the key points made by Burnham


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 22, 2020)

If they say no deliveries then I'm out of a job. Not that they would. I don't think they give a fuck either way.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 22, 2020)

Brother of a colleague has tested positive. He doesn't live with her but they were together Sunday. She's isolating and awaiting a test. I'm now shitting myself


----------



## teqniq (Oct 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> [In relation to the imminent changes in Wales] :
> 
> 
> 
> Don't know yet.  I don't think so (??), but I'll try and find out today!


My favourite local is shutting at 6pm on Firiday


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2020)

Quite a lot of stories like this coming out of Preston atm - lots of people fucked off at the landlords for trying to get round the rules, but as the support available isn't anywhere near enough, and it's coming at the end of a long period of artificially depressed trade already, I can't really blame them myself. 

On top of this, just as all these pubs are being forced to close, news has landed about some fairly substantial arts council grants for a few other pubs which also serve as arts venues in the town. The comments sections are alight.


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Brother of a colleague has tested positive. He doesn't live with her but they were together Sunday. She's isolating and awaiting a test. I'm now shitting myself



Good luck. That's quite a few steps for you to catch it, especially if they were social distancing, and then if you've not been in close/long contact with her.

When did he get symptoms then? It must have been Monday, then test and results by today?


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> That would cause a riot on here even though  the weekly reality for most low paid workers. Those on the new 66% will be  socially distancing at the reduced section.



Well it better not because most of my job is about online delivery. I don't think it will tho.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Good luck. That's quite a few steps for you to catch it, especially if they were social distancing, and then if you've not been in close/long contact with her.
> 
> When did he get symptoms then? It must have been Monday, then test and results by today?


He's asymptomatic. No idea what prompted a test. Don't want to bombard her with questions tbh. We're fairly isolated in the office but have spent a fair while in there at the same time, and she's been closer than 1m a couple of times for a minute or two. I guess if it's happened it's already too late.


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> He's asymptomatic. No idea what prompted a test. Don't want to bombard her with questions tbh. We're fairly isolated in the office but have spent a fair while in there at the same time, and she's been closer than 1m a couple of times for a minute or two. I guess if it's happened it's already too late.



Have you been contacted by T&T? Or know if she has been and passed your details on?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Have you been contacted by T&T? Or know if she has been and passed your details on?


Apparently he started feeling ill Monday, had Tues, got result late last night. She has no symptoms, is awaiting result of test. So we don't know if she's got it yet. T&T wouldn't come into play would it?


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Apparently he started feeling ill Monday, had Tues, got result late last night. She has no symptoms, is awaiting result of test. So we don't know if she's got it yet. T&T wouldn't come into play would it?



I think they should contact her if he's told them he's had a +tive test, then if she's +tive they should contact you.

The person in my house was in contact with a +tive case and T&T got in touch to tell her she didn't need to isolate as the contact was too long before the case developed symptoms.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 22, 2020)

Top Cat said:
			
		

> Are they shutting the off licence outlets early doors as well?






			
				William of Walworth said:
			
		

> [In relation to the imminent changes in Wales] :
> 
> Don't know yet.  I don't think so (??), but I'll try and find out today!





teqniq said:


> My favourite local is shutting at 6pm on Firiday



Your favourite local pub? Yes, all the pubs in Wales have to shut at 6 pm on Friday (23rd), and *no* licensed *on-*premises will reopen until Monday 9th November at the earliest. As I'm sure you know .... 

That 6 pm thing is just specific to lock-down-day -- I haven't seen anything yet about changes to shops and supermarkets generally  

And I haven't yet seen anything about off-licenses specifically  ... I'll just ask, when out later today.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Apparently he started feeling ill Monday, had Tues, got result late last night. She has no symptoms, is awaiting result of test. So we don't know if she's got it yet. T&T wouldn't come into play would it?


I now this is not coming from you but I am confused by feeling ill but not having symptoms.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 22, 2020)

*MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY* : Best of luck, @*S☼I !! *


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> If they say no deliveries then I'm out of a job. Not that they would. I don't think they give a fuck either way.


No deliveries is not an option, not least because even the suggestion of it will cause another massive wave of hoarding. Secondly long queues at local shops are even more infectious.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 22, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I now this is not coming from you but I am confused by feeling ill but not having symptoms.


Yeah, my mistake - SHE is asymptomatic, he isn't. In my rush to find out info I got it wrong


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

No, unless she has tested +tive, then she has no symptoms. Asymptomatic would be no symptoms _with_ the virus.

Sorry, medical pedantry.

(Actually much of this would be better in the chat sub-forum rather than clogging up this one.)


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I now this is not coming from you but I am confused by feeling ill but not having symptoms.



What do you mean, feeling ill but with not the symptoms of the virus?


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What do you mean, feeling ill but with not the symptoms of the virus?


See above. Catsbum got it mixed up.


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

Got it cheers, I read it weirdly.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 22, 2020)

The numbers are grim.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 22, 2020)

Blimey, hospitals in Liverpool are now treating more covid cases than at the peak.


----------



## hegley (Oct 22, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> No deliveries is not an option, not least because even the suggestion of it will cause another massive wave of hoarding. Secondly long queues at local shops are even more infectious.


Christmas is fast approaching - the utter madness that is the UK at that time of year in shops and supermarkets has to be a massive worry. I always find food shopping in December stressful enough as it is - can't imagine what shop workers will be feeling like.


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2020)

My finger in the air makes me think it's worse in the north-west - community spread wise at least - than it was in the spring. Lots more people reporting they're ill.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 22, 2020)

hegley said:


> Christmas is fast approaching - the utter madness that is the UK at that time of year in shops and supermarkets has to be a massive worry. I always find food shopping in December stressful enough as it is - can't imagine what shop workers will be feeling like.


They have Christmas music, on a loop to cheer their spirits.


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> My finger in the air makes me think it's worse in the north-west - community spread wise at least - than it was in the spring. Lots more people reporting they're ill.


(maybe this is just because it's infecting a younger cohort though, on reflection)


----------



## Cid (Oct 22, 2020)

Fuck me, just overhearing 6 music news... is the bbc genuinely setting up the main conflict here as shield+business vs full lockdown? Just... fuck.


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> My finger in the air makes me think it's worse in the north-west - community spread wise at least - than it was in the spring. Lots more people reporting they're ill.



Yeah, same here in Yorkshire. I already know more people testing +tive than last wave. As I have said elsewhere I'm not seeing much to dissuade me of the possibility it will be worse this time.


----------



## LDC (Oct 22, 2020)

Cid said:


> Fuck me, just overhearing 6 music news... is the bbc genuinely setting up the main conflict here as shield+business vs full lockdown? Just... fuck.



The BBC is wall-to-wall of shield/herd immunity tbh. The other day it came up on R4 loads all morning on a variety of shows all relatively unchallenged.


----------



## Cid (Oct 22, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The BBC is wall-to-wall of shield/herd immunity tbh. The other day it came up on R4 loads all morning on a variety of shows all relatively unchallenged.



Yeah I did see elbows mention it upthread. I suppose it just didn’t hit home until I heard it just trotted out uncritically.


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2020)

Sunak's announcing more funding in parliament atm - let's see...


*Sunak*_ says he is announcing three measures.

First, there will be grants available for businesses in tier 2 areas.

Councils will be able to distribute them, he says.

But he says they will mean that accommodation, hospitality and leisure businesses will be able to get up to £2,100 for every month tier 2 restrictions apply.

That is equivalent to 70% of the value of the grants for closed businesses in tier 3.

These grants will be retrospective. They can cover any business affected by enhanced restrictions since August.
_


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2020)

_*Sunak* says his second measure will make the job support scheme more generous.

The employer contribution will be cut from 33% to 5%, he says.

 And he says support for the self-employed will be made more generous. Its value will rise from 20% to 40%, meaning people will be able to get £3,750 a month. _


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2020)

(I think the second measure is only for companies which are directed to close)

edit: actually, no - they don't have to pay anything.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> _And he says support for the self-employed will be made more generous. Its value will rise from 20% to 40%, meaning people will be able to get £3,750 a month. _



The £3,750 limit is for the 3 month period, sadly.


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2020)

NB, furlough remains at 67% as far as I can tell.


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2020)

Press release here: Plan for Jobs: Chancellor increases financial support for businesses and workers


----------



## Wilf (Oct 22, 2020)

I'll be interested to see how the Burnham stuff plays out in opinion polls, particularly in the 'red wall'.  His desire for cash is genuine, but I suspect he's doing a good job of creating a north/south anti-Toryism. I have my doubts as to how that plays out as a long term strategy for Labour, but it'll have to do for the moment. Andy Burnham ‘open-mouthed’ after government unveils tier 2 support ‘to help London’


----------



## sojourner (Oct 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> My finger in the air makes me think it's worse in the north-west - community spread wise at least - than it was in the spring. Lots more people reporting they're ill.





LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, same here in Yorkshire. I already know more people testing +tive than last wave. As I have said elsewhere I'm not seeing much to dissuade me of the possibility it will be worse this time.


Yep, and here in St Helens too.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah I did see elbows mention it upthread. I suppose it just didn’t hit home until I heard it just trotted out uncritically.



I tend to pick on specific people etc on the BBC, I would not describe their entire output in that manner. I dont listen to R4 so I cant comment on that, but I would expect some narrow and dismal stuff there. I mostly judge their website output and some bits of their main BBC One news broadcasts and local news (in my case BBC (west) midlands today) that I occasionally see. On that latter front I was starting to shout 'interview less hospitality workers and more hospital workers for crying out loud' but then they started to find a number of hospitality workers/owners who actually favoured a proper lockdown. 

It is of no surprise that the Home Counties class of death consider the burden of this pandemic to be worthy of resting firmly on the shoulders of other, more expendable people. They have their own bubble that extends well beyond 6 people, especially when they were born with a silver shield in their mouth. They'll take the high road and we'll take the furlough, and I'll die in Poundland afore you. The mask slips, revealing dangerous aerosols emitting death from their arseholes.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 22, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I'll be interested to see how the Burnham stuff plays out in opinion polls, particularly in the 'red wall'.  His desire for cash is genuine, but I suspect he's doing a good job of creating a north/south anti-Toryism. I have my doubts as to how that plays out as a long term strategy for Labour, but it'll have to do for the moment. Andy Burnham ‘open-mouthed’ after government unveils tier 2 support ‘to help London’


Hasn't sunak said they'll be retrospective, so businesses outside London that have been shut down for a while already will also benefit?


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah I don't think everyone wanting to see improving trends in the data has an agenda, maybe they are just trying to hold on to hope it won't be so bad? Everything looks so fucked at the moment.



There is a difference between wanting to see something and claiming it is already there or that brief changes in trajectory will inevitably carry on in a positive direction.

I dont see the merit in hopes that have a very short life, I dont want any part in short cycles of repeatedly crushed hope.  Especially not given the deadly priorities some promote under the cover of hope and positivity. No wonder people get fatigued if they employ that approach.


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Hasn't sunak said they'll be retrospective, so businesses outside London that have been shut down for a while already will also benefit?


yeah, but it's still reasonable to question why this has happened now (as London went into tier 2) instead of months ago when the north-west was places under tier-2-like restrictions. Lots of pubs, bars and restaurants have closed permanently in that time.


----------



## Cid (Oct 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> I tend to pick on specific people etc on the BBC, I would not describe their entire output in that manner. I dont listen to R4 so I cant comment on that, but I would expect some narrow and dismal stuff there. I mostly judge their website output and some bits of their main BBC One news broadcasts and local news (in my case BBC (west) midlands today) that I occasionally see. On that latter front I was starting to shout 'interview less hospitality workers and more hospital workers for crying out loud' but then they started to find a number of hospitality workers/owners who actually favoured a proper lockdown.
> 
> It is of no surprise that the Home Counties class of death consider the burden of this pandemic to be worthy of resting firmly on the shoulders of other, more expendable people. They have their own bubble that extends well beyond 6 people, especially when they were born with a silver shield in their mouth. They'll take the high road and we'll take the furlough, and I'll die in Poundland afore you. The mask slips, revealing dangerous aerosols emitting death from their arseholes.



Because of the way bbc news works, every radio station is essentially going to have the same headline copy. There will be other provisions for regional stations (though I expect headline news is just taken from the same source generally), but for radios 1-whatever it will be broadly the same. R4 another exception because obviously it has its own current affairs programmes. But essentially if I’m hearing Thomasina Myers banging on about shielding on 6music, so are people on most other radio stations.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

Fears about people avoiding hospitals too much mean the following sentiments were always going to be expressed, but this one is almost bound to come back to haunt Hancock later.



> The coronavirus pandemic calls for "ingenuity" from us all, Health Secretary Matt Hancock tells the House of Commons as he opens a general debate.
> 
> He says health leaders have learnt how to keep essential NHS services going even as infections increase in a second wave.
> 
> "The central message across all parts of the UK is that the NHS remains open," he says.



From BBC live updates page at 14:29 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54641846

Other news includes a Johnson, Sunak and Vallance press conference at 4pm, Coventry, Slough and Stoke-on-Trent into tier 2, Warrington in tier 3 talks.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 22, 2020)

as an aside there was an interesting program on radio 4 yesterday morning about impartiality in the media. 
One (small) part of it said that, in relation to climate change deniers, the BBCs "impartiality rules" means they give 50% airtime to each side in a debate despite the fact that scientist are divided more along the 97% real vs 3% deny on the subject  [this is a crude (not so) precis of the actual program]


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Fears about people avoiding hospitals too much mean the following sentiments were always going to be expressed, but this one is almost bound to come back to haunt Hancock later.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No pay raise for the nhs though because of course not.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

Barking and Dagenham have had enough of the shit testing system.









						London council sets up own same-day Covid testing service
					

Exclusive: Barking and Dagenham says it acted because of delays at official test centres




					www.theguardian.com
				




Although looking at the detail its a 6 week pilot and their main priority is cases involving pupils and key workers, which is understandable given that staffing issues will be one of the biggest things to navigate this winter.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 22, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> as an aside there was an interesting program on radio 4 yesterday morning about impartiality in the media.
> One (small) part of it said that, in relation to climate change deniers, the BBCs "impartiality rules" means they give 50% airtime to each side in a debate despite the fact that scientist are divided more along the 97% real vs 3% deny on the subject  [this is a crude (not so) precis of the actual program]



This has also been mentioned in regards to brexit and other causes.

Even if Mr Fruitloop Mcbatshit says something they need to get him on to ensure they ‘represent all vires’


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Other news includes a Johnson, Sunak and Vallance press conference at 4pm



Thanks for the heads up on that, I would have missed it otherwise.

FFS, why can't they give more warning of these events, and keep them to the same fucking time?

Useless bunch of twats.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

Johnson delivering a free lesson in Greek mythology that I didnt ask for, comparing the Barrington clowns to Charybdis. They are still useful to Johnson though as their extreme position allows Johnson to pose as someone taking the sensible middle ground approach as opposed to being Boris the Butcher.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 22, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> That would cause a riot on here even though  the weekly reality for most low paid workers. Those on the new 66% will be  socially distancing at the reduced section.



You think deliveries are just for wealthy people? 😅 I'm low income and rely on deliveries because I'm disabled and have no car. Before that it was because I was a single parent and had better things to do during my daughter's waking hours. They don't actually cost more than going in person.

It's especially bizarre to propose not letting people leave their homes and also not let them get deliveries.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

At least in todays press conference there were sensible point made about how test & trace is more useful when number of cases is way lower.  Some LBC twat still repeated the myths about some countries not needing other restrictions because of their test & trace systems, and a lot of the press writeups about what was said today will probably focus more on the acknowledgement of various test & trace failings, but at least the point I often mention was made by Vallance several times.

I also note that they conveniently colour-coded some graphs to show 'when a month ago was' and that period just happened to be when SAGE called for a circuit breaker.

I also note the new estimated number of daily infections from SPI-M.




From https://assets.publishing.service.g..._conference_slides_-_Thursday_22_October_.pdf


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

I also note that Johnsons latest attempt to dismiss a circuit breaker involves the fact that we might need another one in future, and then another one.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 22, 2020)

And, another 189 reported deaths today, I wonder what they think is an acceptable number?

I had a conversation with my brother last week, we concluded an average of 200 a day over the next 6 months would be considered acceptable, as that would be on a level with a bad flu season.

But, we're going to be hitting that number in the next week, and ATM it's more than doubling every 2 weeks, so could be 800 in just 4 or 5 weeks, and 1600+ two weeks later, clearly that's not going to be politically acceptable.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, another 189 reported deaths today, I wonder what they think is an acceptable number?
> 
> I had a conversation with my brother last week, we concluded an average of 200 a day over the next 6 months would be considered acceptable, as that would be on a level with a bad flu season.
> 
> But, we're going to be hitting that number in the next week, and ATM it's more than doubling every 2 weeks, so could be 800 in just 4 or 5 weeks, and 1600+ two weeks later, clearly that's not going to be politically acceptable.


Wait till they shift it back into care homes.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 22, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Wait till they shift it back into care homes.



Hopefully that will be contained this time, care home staff are being tested every week.

Residents are being tested every 4 weeks, unless a staff member tests positive, in which case all residents are re-tested straight away.


----------



## flypanam (Oct 22, 2020)

flypanam said:


> BofE is financing it by printing money, the gov can decide how much and for how long they want to pay it back, if at all. They are not borrowing from the international markets.


From BBC website:
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) this afternoon also published a chart showing that of the £262bn that the Treasury has borrowed by issuing gilts, £246bn has been bought by the Bank of England.
The central bank has indirectly created and lent most of the extra money required by the government.
Overall, the government has not had to raise the funds from the private sector or abroad.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Hopefully that will be contained this time, care home staff are being tested every week.
> 
> Residents are being tested every 4 weeks, unless a staff member tests positive, in which case all residents are re-tested straight away.


I genuinely admire your optimism.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

I get the following using data from the weekly report which was updated today at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


Since the number includes people diagnosed in hospital, it presumably also includes people who didnt actually catch the virus in the care home but during their hospital stay (or a previous hospital stay).


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

Since regional data for that is available I thought perhaps I should post that version too.


----------



## agricola (Oct 22, 2020)

flypanam said:


> BofE is financing it by printing money, the gov can decide how much and for how long they want to pay it back, if at all. They are not borrowing from the international markets.



that must be one of the very few sensible decisions they've made all crisis


----------



## two sheds (Oct 22, 2020)

Peoples' Quantitative Easing  

well nearly, apart from the bit on giving money to their mates


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 22, 2020)

scifisam said:


> You think deliveries are just for wealthy people? 😅 I'm low income and rely on deliveries because I'm disabled and have no car. Before that it was because I was a single parent and had better things to do during my daughter's waking hours. They don't actually cost more than going in person.
> 
> It's especially bizarre to propose not letting people leave their homes and also not let them get deliveries.


I’m not proposing the last para. I’m not against home deliveries , I’ve used them in the U.K. on the odd occasion and if I was there during corona virus prob would have used them then. Merely pointing out that the major demographic that uses it isn’t likely  to be low paid workers especially those on 66% of low pay.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2020)

I've been scrunching the latest hospital data from the weekly file at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Its horrible. They werent kidding about some hospitals being back to the levels seen the last time. I cannot go down to a per hospital level, only hospital trust level, but here are some of the worst ones I noticed. There are a bunch of others I could of included but too many graphs already. These graphs show number of Covid-19 patients in hospital.


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2020)

Looking at that, we're currently at the same hospitalisation level in Lancashire that we were at two weeks into hard lockdown in the spring.


----------



## xenon (Oct 22, 2020)

at this point funding wise, it’s which fiction do you choose to believe in. Which fairytale do you want to cling onto over the lives and well-being of people.


----------



## 20Bees (Oct 22, 2020)

hegley said:


> Christmas is fast approaching - the utter madness that is the UK at that time of year in shops and supermarkets has to be a massive worry. I always find food shopping in December stressful enough as it is - can't imagine what shop workers will be feeling like.


This one is glad that 99.9% of customers and staff wear face coverings; glad that I work on a checkout, with a screen, floor markers for distancing, and freedom to clean the surfaces and contact points in my workspace as often and as thoroughly as I like; glad that my workplace will not be at risk of closure, nor subject to the awful arithmetic of job-retention schemes. It’s a low-end job but I’m glad to have it, and the whole team are immensely proud to be there for our community, whatever winter brings.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 22, 2020)

What makes an item essential? Seems a bit over the top to me.



ETA sorry if this has been posted before but I have been away from here today.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 22, 2020)

The above from MrSki  is a thing that's *completely* new to this Swansea-dwelling former-SE17 boy!!    

I had a quick chat with a mini-Tesco manager in town today.
I was just (and only!) picking up the paper on my way for 'a' pre-lockdown pint in a rare pub that's quality in SA  

But manager had not heard _anything at all_ about increased restrictions on shops like his.

And he'd definitely not heard anything about alcohol-takeaway sales being banned after 10 pm (as now), or at all, in Welsh lockdown times.

More information needed!  Further research planned for tomorrow afternoon  ........

Will all home deliveries anywhere in Wales (i.e deliveries involving food and all sorts) from any shop/supermarket be stopped??
Will any deliveries from any microbrewery? (  )  be stopped?

I remain sceptical but additionally paranoid ...... .

teqniq existentialist ?? Or any other Wales-based Urbans??


----------



## PursuedByBears (Oct 23, 2020)

It's like the Welsh government hasn't heard of Amazon


----------



## LDC (Oct 23, 2020)

Chatted to someone I know yesterday who works on the ambulances in Yorkshire/Humber area. They said in the last few weeks the numbers of patients they're seeing with the virus that they're going to has massively increased to the point where it's about 50% of their calls now. Lots of 30-50 year olds very unwell and being taken to hospital according to them. And recently a load of people got redeployed to another area that was so short staffed they had 200 calls waiting for an ambulance.

(Sorry, I know these unverified anecdotes are sometimes not helpful and provoke more worry, but I do think they can also help form a picture of where things are when put together with other news, etc.)


----------



## TopCat (Oct 23, 2020)

Grim as fuck...


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 23, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> The above from MrSki  is a thing that's *completely* new to this Swansea-dwelling former-SE17 boy!!
> 
> I had a quick chat with a mini-Tesco manager in town today.
> I was just (and only!) picking up the paper on my way for 'a' pre-lockdown pint in a rare pub that's quality in SA
> ...


Have you considered establishing your own microbrewery to ensure your supply of beer?


----------



## TopCat (Oct 23, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Have you considered establishing your own microbrewery to ensure your supply of beer?


There will be a rush on brewing equipment at Wilko.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 23, 2020)

TopCat said:


> There will be a rush on brewing equipment at Wilko.


I'd imagine someone like William of Walworth has received a load as gifts over the years


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 23, 2020)

elbows do you have figures for either Wexham Park, Stoke Mandeville or Wycombe? Our local hosps (although I don't think Wycombe admitted covid patients the first time)


----------



## Badgers (Oct 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Hopefully that will be contained this time


Glad we are down to relying on hope alone


----------



## existentialist (Oct 23, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Have you considered establishing your own microbrewery to ensure your supply of beer?


Exactly what I have done. The Christmas batch is about to go on.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 23, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Glad we are down to relying on hope alone


Farewell faith and charity


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 23, 2020)

One for elbows -



> The project has already worked successfully in an area in the South West of England, where sewage sampling data showed a spike in coronavirus material despite relatively low numbers of people seeking tests.
> 
> This was passed on to NHS Test and Trace and the local council, who were able to alert local health professionals to the increased risk and contact people in the area to warn of the increase in cases.
> 
> Testing has now been rolled out across more than 90 wastewater treatment sites in the UK, covering approximately 22 per cent of the population in England, with plans to expand in the future.











						Sewage signals early warning of coronavirus outbreaks
					

Government-led programme is providing an early warning of coronavirus outbreaks by monitoring sewage and sharing data with NHS Test & Trace




					www.gov.uk


----------



## LDC (Oct 23, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Grim as fuck...



Yeah healthcare workers can be a macho and bluster-filled bunch sometimes, but I don't know anyone in a variety of healthcare settings that's not a bit scared and/or dreading this winter.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> One for elbows -
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh, that's lovely. He does all the hard work, and then you give him shit.


----------



## elbows (Oct 23, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Oh, that's lovely. He does all the hard work, and then you give him shit.



Fear not, the patented elbow grease to arse gravy conversion process will earn me ever larger royalty fees as Operation Moonshit expands.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah healthcare workers can be a macho and bluster-filled bunch sometimes, but I don't know anyone in a variety of healthcare settings that's not a bit scared and /or dreading this winter.


I'm fairly well linked in to a number of NHS nurses and anxiety abounds.


----------



## elbows (Oct 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> elbows do you have figures for either Wexham Park, Stoke Mandeville or Wycombe? Our local hosps (although I don't think Wycombe admitted covid patients the first time)



I can only get down to the trust level. So for example Wexham is under Frimley Health Foundation Trust, and the figures will also include Frimley Park and Heatherwood hospitals. Likewise Stoke Mandeville is under Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, and Wycombe hospital is under the same trust.

I can still graph these trusts later if its any use.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> I can only get down to the trust level. So for example Wexham is under Frimley Health Foundation Trust, and the figures will also include Frimley Park and Heatherwood hospitals. Likewise Stoke Mandeville is under Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, and Wycombe hospital is under the same trust.
> 
> I can still graph these trusts later if its any use.


Please if you're not too busy!


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 23, 2020)

Just looking at those graphs that elbows has been so kind to produce (they are a lot easier to "generally understand" than the details tucked away in tabulated data).

I am not hopeful that BJ has got anything more substantial than  the lightest hold on controlling the plague this time around. 

There's and interesting article pp30/31 in the current issue of Rail ]#916] - on passenger numbers on public transport, the two illustrations are the German and French experiences with determining sources of infection.


Sorry that it's a massive image.

two points I noted,
A) In both cases, the "transport" contribution was tiny (I% in Germany and 1.2% of French clusters)
B) ditto for "domestic" settings (61% in Germany !) and probably 60% for the dark blue grouping in France.


----------



## elbows (Oct 23, 2020)

I would want to review the original source material for some of those claims, since there is stuff to be careful of and I would not expect Rail to be unbiased on this matter.

Specifically when it comes to cluster tracing, there are some settings that such tracing systems find it much more difficult to solidly confirm as sources than others. For example, in the UK the authorities said it would be difficult to establish when people caught the virus in a supermarket.

So I would tend to augment such data with other sorts, for example the risk to transport workers vs those in other jobs.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 23, 2020)

Should also be noted that even if the tracing is reliable (very unlikely - it's inevitably a highly biased process) it doesn't tell you directly, even approximately, how risky the various environments are. It could be, for example, that offices and public transport are exactly as risky as each other, it's just that more people are spending more time in offices.


----------



## elbows (Oct 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> One for elbows -
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks for sharing that.

I was mildly annoyed about how vague they were about the location where they successfully detected an outbreak, but just found this BBC story about it that spills the beans.









						Covid: Sewage sites to test for more traces of virus
					

The aim is to create an early warning system to detect local outbreaks before they spread.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> But a pilot in south-west England has already helped to spot a rise in infections that occurred last month in Plymouth, where a cluster was silently growing as a result of several asymptomatic cases.



And clues about the expansion:



> Waste from sites such as Beckton Sewage Treatment Works in East London, will be tested four times a week from now on.


----------



## Supine (Oct 23, 2020)

ONS 

Last week 336,500 infected and 27,900 new infections per day.

This week 433,300  infected and 35,200 new infections per day.


----------



## elbows (Oct 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Please if you're not too busy!



As requested. Shows number of Covid-19 patients in hospital, not daily admissions.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 23, 2020)

Thanks, numbers seem to be very low in Buckinghamshire , but a bit of a worrying picture in Berkshire


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> I would want to review the original source material for some of those claims, since there is stuff to be careful of and I would not expect Rail to be unbiased on this matter.
> 
> Specifically when it comes to cluster tracing, there are some settings that such tracing systems find it much more difficult to solidly confirm as sources than others. For example, in the UK the authorities said it would be difficult to establish when people caught the virus in a supermarket.
> 
> So I would tend to augment such data with other sorts, for example the risk to transport workers vs those in other jobs.



No, I don't expect Rail to be un-baised, either. 
The railway professional press is trying to encourage passengers back onto public transport, by stressing the relative safety, but Rail is largely talking to other railway professionals, not the general public.
The German graphic source was "RKI" and the French one was from "Sante Publique" - I've no idea about the former but I'm guessing the French one translates as "Public Health" (my French is almost non-existent).
I'm also assuming that these graphics were based only on the cases with a confirmed source and I've no idea what that was as a proportion of actual cases, nor the timeframe.


----------



## elbows (Oct 23, 2020)

Latest R estimates from The R number and growth rate in the UK


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 23, 2020)

BBC using an interesting photo to illustrate their story on Scotland's new 5-tier scheme:



Anyone know what the story is behind that? It doesn't actually appear in the related article.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 23, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> BBC using an interesting photo to illustrate their story on Scotland's new 5-tier scheme:
> 
> View attachment 235528
> 
> Anyone know what the story is behind that? It doesn't actually appear in the related article.


I don't know where it is exactly but it'll be in the central belt somewhere and be a premises defined as a pub or a restaurant, therefore only able to open as a takeaway right now under current local restrictions, rather than a cafe, which is allowed to open as normal. Some businesses in Glasgow have been making noises about a legal challenge to this I think.

Edit: here









						Covid in Scotland: Glasgow delis win legal fight to stay open
					

The delis had been told they did not qualify for an exemption that would allow them to be classed as cafés.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 23, 2020)

Another depressing figure for deaths today - 224 up from 136 last Fri., and 87 the week before.

The 7-day rolling average will now be 163, that's up from 59 two weeks ago, so we have well & truly moved on from doubling every 2 weeks to almost tripling.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I’m not proposing the last para. I’m not against home deliveries , I’ve used them in the U.K. on the odd occasion and if I was there during corona virus prob would have used them then. Merely pointing out that the major demographic that uses it isn’t likely  to be low paid workers especially those on 66% of low pay.



Banning deliveries during a strict lockdown is banning deliveries while telling people to stay home. 

I don't think it's true about low income people not using deliveries. The goods don't cost more than in the shops - often less - and you can usually get free delivery. I'm low income myself.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 23, 2020)

I had to get the bus today, and it was fine, lots of social distancing and everyone wearing a mask. Generally I don't feel unsafe on the bus, or like I'm going to pass anything on.

Then there was an accident up ahead so our whole bus had to be loaded onto another bus. It was as crowded as pre-covid rush hour. Felt really unsafe. Couldn't even get to a seat, and they were all taken anyway. I wish the driver had said "only get on the bus if you absolutely need to," or something like that, because I couldn't walk the three stops now (unusually long stops, TBF) but a few years ago I would have. Actually even given the potential wait I would have preferred him not to let anyone on. I'd have been pissed off but wouldn't have spent ten minutes trying to stand on the bus with my face right to a stranger's.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 23, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Banning deliveries during a strict lockdown is banning deliveries while telling people to stay home.
> 
> I don't think it's true about low income people not using deliveries. The goods don't cost more than in the shops - often less - and you can usually get free delivery. I'm low income myself.



I'll repeat very loudly that I am not advocating banning home deliveries


----------



## scifisam (Oct 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I'll repeat very loudly that I am not advocating banning home deliveries



OK, but that's not what you actually said. You said your preferred scenario would ban deliveries, as part of a much stricter lockdown.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 23, 2020)

I thought another poster wanted to ban deliveries, don't think The39thStep did.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 23, 2020)

scifisam said:


> OK, but that's not what you actually said. You said your preferred scenario would ban deliveries, as part of a much stricter lockdown.


Please point me to that post, I honestly don't remember posting that tbh. If i did i whole heartedly apologise


----------



## scifisam (Oct 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Please point me to that post, I honestly don't remember posting that tbh. If i did i whole heartedly apologise



Sorry, frogwoman is right, I mixed you up with the person who did want to ban home deliveries. I even looked back to check and somehow missed the names. Apologies.

I really don't think banning home deliveries would affect low income people less, though. They'd affect disabled people, single parents, and people who don't have cars, and they're all more likely to be low income. I mean, even Iceland does free home deliveries.


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## The39thStep (Oct 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Sorry, frogwoman is right, I mixed you up with the person who did want to ban home deliveries. I even looked back to check and somehow missed the names. Apologies.
> 
> I really don't think banning home deliveries would affect low income people less, though. They'd affect disabled people, single parents, and people who don't have cars, and they're all more likely to be low income. I mean, even Iceland does free home deliveries.


No probs scifisam We can discuss home deliveries another day .


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## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

Cross posted

Wrt to non essential stuff for sale in Wales.


Idiots and covidiots and anti Welsh idiots kicking off about non essential items not being sold in Wales for 2 weeks and missing the point that it's to stop supermarkets selling stuff that specialists who've been asked to close for 2 weeks

"They'll be burning books next", "2 week trial for communism" etc etc


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## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

im in wales, i ripped my jeans earlier & my toaster just went kaput! cant get what i need fromlocal shops but amazon has everything i need and they dont even pay tax in the uk, great way to kill the economy drakeford


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## Raheem (Oct 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Idiots and covidiots and anti Welsh idiots kicking off about non essential items not being sold in Wales for 2 weeks and missing the point that it's to stop supermarkets selling stuff that specialists who've been asked to close for 2 weeks


In other words, it's for slightly weird small business lobbyists' reasons, rather than health reasons.

Even though it's only for a short period, a pair of pants for a growing child might fairly considered more essential than a bottle of Sambuca, say. Reducing the number of shops open has a point to it, but reducing what you can buy in the ones that are open is just going to cause people unnecessary minor hardships and increase social contact as they seek out the things they need by whatever means or trek out to Hereford Tesco's.

Banning the sale of books and stationery at the same time as you're asking parents to homeschool for a week also doesn't come across as especially smart.


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## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> In other words, it's for slightly weird small business lobbyists' reasons, rather than health reasons.
> 
> Even though it's only for a short period, a pair of pants for a growing child might fairly considered more essential than a bottle of Sambuca, say. Reducing the number of shops open has a point to it, but reducing what you can buy in the ones that are open is just going to cause people unnecessary minor hardships and increase social contact as they seek out the things they need by whatever means or trek out to Hereford Tesco's.


Nah









						Wales lockdown: Supermarkets covering up non-essential items
					

Some shops are blocking off clothing and decorations after being told to stop selling them.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> im in Wales, i ripped my jeans earlier & my toaster just went kaput! cant get what i need fromlocal shops but amazon has everything i need and they dont even pay tax in the uk, great way to kill the economy drakeford


And one appears!


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## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> And one appears!


sorry if the truth is offensive to you


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## two sheds (Oct 24, 2020)

it's offensive to all of us  

and I was so encouraged by "dont even pay tax in the uk, great way to kill the economy drakeford        "


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## Raheem (Oct 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Nah


Reckon Drakeford couldn't do much better as a defence either.


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## existentialist (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> sorry if the truth is offensive to you


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## LDC (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> sorry if the truth is offensive to you



Fuck off cunt. On ignore, can't be arsed to wait until you get banned.


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

Can non essential items still get delivered? Sorry to bring up the dreaded home deliveries again.


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## two sheds (Oct 24, 2020)

Can in Cornwall - mind you I'm not sure whether alcohol classes as non essential, you'd have thought so during lock down.


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## killer b (Oct 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Can non essential items still get delivered? Sorry to bring up the dreaded home deliveries again.


yeah.


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## LDC (Oct 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Can non essential items still get delivered? Sorry to bring up the dreaded home deliveries again.



Where, in Wales? There's no restrictions on any deliveries anywhere in the UK. That's not been talked about as a possibility anywhere.


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## pesh (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> im in wales, i ripped my jeans earlier & my toaster just went kaput!


Lot of helpful advice in this thread   


			https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/how-to-get-melted-pen-out-of-toaster.363936/


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Where, in Wales? There's no restrictions on any deliveries anywhere in the UK. That's not been talked about as a possibility anywhere.


I meant in Wales yeah.


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## LDC (Oct 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I meant in Wales yeah.



AFAIK it's just supermarkets to try and make it fairer for shops that have had to close as they only sell 'non-essential' items.


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## killer b (Oct 24, 2020)

There isn't going to be any restrictions on home deliveries anywhere, someone just floated it as something they should do on this thread.


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

I didn't think there were.


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## platinumsage (Oct 24, 2020)

Non-essential products include bedding, telephones and crockery. A bit OTT really.


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## LDC (Oct 24, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Non-essential products include bedding, telephones and crockery. A bit OTT really.



I can get the logic though, makes it fairer for smaller shops that have to close. It's only a short period of time, and if someone is desperate they can order things.

We have more important things to be bothered about and discuss tbh.


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## killer b (Oct 24, 2020)

Is there a word limit on the thread or something?


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## LDC (Oct 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is there a word limit on the thread or something?



If that's aimed at me, then no, we don't have a word limit, to answer your passive aggressive question.

But I was more referring to the drama it seems to have created in some sections of the media where as the country creeps up to another wave of thousands of dead it seems odd to get that bothered about not being able to buy pants in supermarkets for a short period of time. But if it's worthy of reams of words go for it.


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## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

Listening to LBC, I know, I know. But they're all going to be playing the tedious as fuck, what counts as an essential item. What about blankets, what about shoes... For fuck sake. Have these people never bene skint and had to wait a few weeks to get stuff.

Crazy I know but it's possible to boil water on a hob and if you really only have 1 pair of jeans / trousers, what the hell kinda life are you living. Sort yourself out.


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## killer b (Oct 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If that's aimed at me, then no, we don't have a word limit, to answer your passive aggressive question.
> 
> But I was more referring to the drama it seems to have created in some sections of the media where as the country creeps up to another wave of thousands of dead it seems odd to get that bothered about not being able to buy pants in supermarkets for a short period of time. But if it's worthy of reams of words go for it.


I don't take very kindly to being accused of passive aggression from someone who's trying to enforce strict thread discipline with the spectre of 'thousands dead'. Especially as one of the people talking about essential items was asking out of concern for her actual job. Wind it the fuck in.


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## Ms Ordinary (Oct 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Sorry, frogwoman is right, I mixed you up with the person who did want to ban home deliveries. I even looked back to check and somehow missed the names. Apologies.
> 
> I really don't think banning home deliveries would affect low income people less, though. They'd affect disabled people, single parents, and people who don't have cars, and they're all more likely to be low income. I mean, even Iceland does free home deliveries.



I do think that somehow discouraging people who don't really need to, from ordering shedloads of non-essential crap to alleviate the boredom of 2 whole weeks of being at home, would actually help the people you've listed, to access deliveries that they do really need.  Plus it would be less pressure on the delivery bods to overwork or work unsafely (wasn't there a hazard bonus for Amazon drivers during the main lockdown?)

Maybe that's what the poster was getting at?

It would be un-enforceable though, and practically unmentionable without setting off the curtain twitchers of the 'did you go out for a second jog?' variety, who would no doubt feel entitled to start grassing up any single mum who got deliveries that didn't look essential...


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

im not that concerned about the wales thing in terms of my job (well I am worried about my job but I don't know how much revenue comes from Wales?) It was just curiosity really and memories of march where deliveries of items took several weeks at the least. We ordered plants and they took about eight or nine weeks to arrive, they emailed twice saying my order was cancelled and then a few weeks later they arrived anyway 

In South Africa alcohol sales were banned during lockdown.


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> I do think that somehow discouraging people who don't really need to, from ordering shedloads of non-essential crap to alleviate the boredom of 2 whole weeks of being at home, would actually help the people you've listed, to access deliveries that they do really need.  Plus it would be less pressure on the delivery bods to overwork or work unsafely (wasn't there a hazard bonus for Amazon drivers during the main lockdown?)
> 
> Maybe that's what the poster was getting at?
> 
> It would be un-enforceable though, and practically unmentionable without setting off the curtain twitchers of the 'did you go out for a second jog?' variety, who would no doubt feel entitled to start grassing up any single mum who got deliveries that didn't look essential...



Yeah problem is though with two weeks of items not being delivered would build up an immense backlog so the delivery staff after the lockdown would be working overtime getting those deliveries plus the new deliveries ordered the day the lockdown stops and the build up to Christmas, Black Friday etc. And it would probably necessitate taking on extra people which would increase transmission, and generally put people in a hugely pressurised environment where social distancing is not gonna be top of the list.


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## LDC (Oct 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't take very kindly to being accused of passive aggression from someone who's trying to enforce strict thread discipline with the spectre of 'thousands dead'. Especially as one of the people talking about essential items was asking out of concern for her actual job. Wind it the fuck in.



You got out of bed the wrong side today didn't you? Enforce 'strict thread discipline', yeah that's _exactly _what I was trying to do. Maybe you missed the bit where I said it was aimed at the fuss in society/some bits of the media. Whatever, irrelevant to the thread.


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## platinumsage (Oct 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If that's aimed at me, then no, we don't have a word limit, to answer your passive aggressive question.
> 
> But I was more referring to the drama it seems to have created in some sections of the media where as the country creeps up to another wave of thousands of dead it seems odd to get that bothered about not being able to buy pants in supermarkets for a short period of time. But if it's worthy of reams of words go for it.



As you just stated, this has nothing to do with stopping thousands of deaths - it's about protecting retailers who have closed (and who are eligible for financial support anyway). Public compliance and confidence in the lockdown measures is already seeping away, and banning people from certain supermarket aisles is going to generate the kind of contemptuous reaction xenon is hearing on LBC, and yet achieve nothing positive with regard to transmission of the virus.


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

It's a health and safety nightmare working in those amazon warehouses at the best of times.


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## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> I do think that somehow discouraging people who don't really need to, from ordering shedloads of non-essential crap to alleviate the boredom of 2 whole weeks of being at home, would actually help the people you've listed, to access deliveries that they do really need.  Plus it would be less pressure on the delivery bods to overwork or work unsafely (wasn't there a hazard bonus for Amazon drivers during the main lockdown?)
> 
> Maybe that's what the poster was getting at?
> 
> It would be un-enforceable though, and practically unmentionable without setting off the curtain twitchers of the 'did you go out for a second jog?' variety, who would no doubt feel entitled to start grassing up any single mum who got deliveries that didn't look essential...



I read them, @MXWCFC IIRC as meaning it just as another way to stop a potential virus spreading vector and reading between the lines there, born of general frustration / worry. It of course as you say is completely unworkable.

I have been ordering essential stuff like soap, litres of alcohol (handwash,) and les so essential items like litres of alcohol for drinking over the last few months. Seem to recall as well that the actual risk of fomite transmition of the virus was pretty low anyway.

The point about the conditions for workers is a good one. Same applies to the food processing plants, clothing industry too though...


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## kalidarkone (Oct 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> Listening to LBC, I know, I know. But they're all going to be playing the tedious as fuck, what counts as an essential item. What about blankets, what about shoes... For fuck sake. Have these people never bene skint and had to wait a few weeks to get stuff.
> 
> Crazy I know but it's possible to boil water on a hob and if you really only have 1 pair of jeans / trousers, what the hell kinda life are you living. Sort yourself out.


I think that's really harsh. Some people are in situations that perhaps you can't imagine with nothing but the clothes on their back.


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## planetgeli (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> im in wales, i ripped my jeans earlier & my toaster just went kaput!



"And I never learnt to sew, have only one pair of trousers and no grill on my cooker"

Oh well, never mind. It's just going to be absolute hell for you for 17 whole days. 









						Emergency Coronavirus Thread: ONLY post here if you need community help NOW
					

This is urban's 'emergency help' thread, so please ONLY post here if you are in need of immediate help and assistance from the community.  If you want to chat about anything related to any requests please use this thread. Thank you.




					www.urban75.net


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## editor (Oct 24, 2020)

Time to book those covid-spreading business meetings 



> “A table for six? No, sir, that is against the Covid-19 restrictions … unless you promise that your party will discuss business, not pleasure.”
> 
> Some of London’s fanciest restaurants have discovered a loophole in the tier-2 coronavirus lockdowns restrictions designed to prevent households from mixing and thereby slow the spread of the virus.
> 
> An exemption that the government included in the rules to allow freelancers to work over lunch is being exploited by high-end restaurants encouraging up to 30 people to dine together as long as “the topic is business”.











						Top London restaurants find loophole in tier 2 Covid rules
					

An exception meant for freelancers sees a roaring lunch trade, and No 10 doesn’t seem too bothered




					www.theguardian.com


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## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I think that's really harsh. Some people are in situations that perhaps you can't imagine with nothing but the clothes on their back.



And how does a supermarket not selling jeans for 2 weeks impact on that then? I mean if you're that skint, this 2 week thing is kinda irrelevant. I don't think our new friend is in that position anyway and is just moaning.


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## LDC (Oct 24, 2020)

editor said:


> Time to book those covid-spreading business meetings
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I saw that as well. Fucking guillotine sharpening rage inducing.


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

Everyone knows that SARS-COV-2 leaves business discussions well alone.


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## MrSki (Oct 24, 2020)

If you need any PPE get it before the end of the month. I suppose I should not be surprised at these bastards.


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## kalidarkone (Oct 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> And how does a supermarket not selling jeans for 2 weeks impact on that then? I mean if you're that skint, this 2 week thing is kinda irrelevant. I don't think our new friend is in that position anyway and is just moaning.


I was referring to your ' sort yourself out sentiment' not the limitations of the supermarket.


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## bimble (Oct 24, 2020)

MrSki said:


> If you need any PPE get it before the end of the month. I suppose I should not be surprised at these bastards.


This is so spectacularly stupid. Why is there VAT on these things in the first place ? Eta oh we all pay 20% vat on loo rolls I just learnt. Luxury.


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## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I was referring to your ' sort yourself out sentiment' not the limitations of the supermarket.



See what you mean. But I was only directing at this particular poster and their general centiment. Admittidly on the presumption anyone who's only got the clothes on their back probably isn't going to be complaining on urban about 17 days of supermarket restrictions...


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## TopCat (Oct 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> im not that concerned about the wales thing in terms of my job (well I am worried about my job but I don't know how much revenue comes from Wales?) It was just curiosity really and memories of march where deliveries of items took several weeks at the least. We ordered plants and they took about eight or nine weeks to arrive, they emailed twice saying my order was cancelled and then a few weeks later they arrived anyway
> 
> In South Africa alcohol sales were banned during lockdown.


Loads of alcoholics will have died because of that policy. 
Conversely domestic violence and murder dropped quite a bit.


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## Raheem (Oct 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> And how does a supermarket not selling jeans for 2 weeks impact on that then? I mean if you're that skint, this 2 week thing is kinda irrelevant. I don't think our new friend is in that position anyway and is just moaning.


Life is going to go on during those two weeks, and people will find themselves suddenly in new accommodation with nothing to cook with or eat off. Mobile phones will suddenly die. People will suddenly realise their kid has had a growth spurt.

It is going to be mostly livable for most people, but it's just a pointless bit of authoritarianism which will do nothing useful and will undermine support for the restrictions that actually matter.


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

Well people can still get home deliveries tbh although there's going to be a lot of pressure on the system, items may not arrive in time etc as in the first lockdown. And of course people's internet is gonna go down etc. 

As far as I know tho you could get electrical items like chargers although could be wrong there. None of the people commenting on the last few pages actually live in Wales either iirc


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## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

I dont know as its pointless. Leaving completely aside the issue of fairness in regards supermarkets vs small retailers who had to close, there is another aspect.

Crowding in supermarkets has bothered me quite a lot during certain phases of this pandemic. And there is a tendency for people looking to get out of their home to consider any available shopping experiences. I'm pretty sure there were issues with behaviour and crowding at some stage with things like the Argos sections of Sainsburys. And when few options are available, everyone tends to get the same idea at the same time and compound the issue.

So at a minimum its something I would want to carefully consider if I were involved with planning their firebreaker. Since I'm not involved with actual planning I havent given it as much thought as I would in that situation, but as things stand with my thoughts right now I support the Welsh move.

And ideally I'd have shut supermarkets during full lockdown if an alternative food distribution system was actually available that could serve everyone. Obviously this wasnt an option because alternative distribution could not scale to anything like the level required and even if it could there wasnt a tidy way to ensure nobody was left out of that.


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## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

I also consider anything that reduces a sense of normality during periods where you are trying to do a strict lockdown to be worth considering.

So when I read the following from Drakeford, I think of that and tend to approve.

"This is not a period to be browsing around supermarkets looking for non-essential goods."


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

The first few weeks of lockdown or so was one of the hardest I've ever worked in my life tbh. We actually had to remove all advertising for certain shops because too many people going online ordering deliveries and the shops couldn't cope so we had to take the pages down. Don't know what percentage of delivery demand comes from Wales as a whole.


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## planetgeli (Oct 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Well people can still get home deliveries tbh although there's going to be a lot of pressure on the system, items may not arrive in time etc as in the first lockdown. And of course people's internet is gonna go down etc.
> 
> As far as I know tho you could get electrical items like chargers although could be wrong there. *None of the people commenting on the last few pages actually live in Wales either iirc*



Raises hand.

And I went to Tesco yesterday. It was noticeably more full than usual, but people acting as best they could to socially distance and everyone in a mask. Definitely a few people with foresight to go round the more non-essential bits.

Some people acting with foresight and a sensible attitude. Who'd have thunk it eh? 

I'd wager the same people whinging on about how unfair it is not to be able to buy non-essential stuff would have moaned about inconsistency if the rule was the other way around. At the heart of this is people who don't really want to do lockdown.

Fuck them.


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Raises hand.


What do you reckon about the new rules then? I didn't want to give my opinion and end up making an ill informed comment.


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## planetgeli (Oct 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What do you reckon about the new rules then? I didn't want to give my opinion and end up making an ill informed comment.



I've edited my post. Have a look.


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## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

By the way I can tell you that a lot of shops do cater to low income customers. Especially clothes shops and 'fast fashion' selling jeans t shirts and what have you for £2-10 a pop with no/minimal delivery charges. Unfortunately these shops often have very questionable business practices which was one of the things that lead to the Leicester outbreak iirc. 

On the other side of that there are some 'artisan' type shops particularly those selling furniture which are absolutely eye watering. Slightly surprised how well they've done this year tbh.


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## William of Walworth (Oct 24, 2020)

Another Wales-dweller here, and ddraig contributed earlier too.

I tend to agree with elbows (above) about the closing non-essential sections of supermarkets thing.
I'm sure in practice that there'll be various annoyances and inconsistencies that will get peoples' goats, but to bang on like that Twitter twat about 'book-burning under Drakeford's regime' is sheer lunacy


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## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Life is going to go on during those two weeks, and people will find themselves suddenly in new accommodation with nothing to cook with or eat off. Mobile phones will suddenly die. People will suddenly realise their kid has had a growth spurt.
> 
> It is going to be mostly livable for most people, but it's just a pointless bit of authoritarianism which will do nothing useful and will undermine support for the restrictions that actually matter.



It's primarily an economic decision designed to partially protect smaller businesses and then the secondry attempt at limiting browsing. The restrictions, all of them, effect someone in some way. It will be harder for some than others. Standard. Innumerating all the ways and potentialities is a bit pointless.

Though length of time here is key of course. I'd be less blasé if this went on for many weeks.


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## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

I just wish I lived somewhere that was prepared to do firebreakers rather than just watching the graphs climb.


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## planetgeli (Oct 24, 2020)

I'm not sure why you changed your reaction to 'wow' frogwoman and then removed it altogether. But I'll explain further. I've been consistent in arguing for full lockdown. But full lockdown with full financial compensation for those affected. I have no time for people whinging about impingements on their freedom because they are asked to wear a mask or can't buy a toaster on a Tuesday. And I don't understand people whining about that instead of putting 2 and 2 together and asking why we bailed out the bankers for greed with an immediate £500 billion in 2008 but we are apparently 'ruining the economy' when we spend a small fraction of that on protecting people's health.


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## miss direct (Oct 24, 2020)

How's it going in Swansea, William of Walworth ? Are people out and about, or is it very quiet?


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## William of Walworth (Oct 24, 2020)

miss direct said:


> How's it going in Swansea, William of Walworth ? Are people out and about, or is it very quiet?



I'm entirely staying in today!   -- we have supplies at home  

festivaldeb drove out for a shop earlier, she says it's as insanely quiet around town as it was here back in March. 
On a normal Saturday especially, the centre of Swansea and the shops there have of late been rammed, but not today 

There'll be more traffic on Monday -- hopefully not too much -- because of essential workers


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## miss direct (Oct 24, 2020)

Have a nice peaceful weekend. I still hope I can move to Swansea one day.


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## bimble (Oct 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> I also consider anything that reduces a sense of normality during periods where you are trying to do a strict lockdown to be worth considering.
> 
> So when I read the following from Drakeford, I think of that and tend to approve.
> 
> "This is not a period to be browsing around supermarkets looking for non-essential goods."


This makes a lot of sense, after all these months we’ve gotten used to the masks etc that were disconcerting at the start, and the strong forces of habit and boredom and wishful thinking are all pushing people to want to see normalness and act like normal and whenever  that illusion’s disrupted it probably helps a bit.


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## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't understand their workings. The current daily death rate is probably now getting close to 100, will possibly hit that this week. And may continue to rise for next week, but why would it explode like that, given that the R numbers around the country, while still above 1, have been falling? Looking at hospital admissions, only two regions currently - NW and NE - are at levels much higher than around 10% of first wave peak. Most regions are not increasing rapidly. So in 12 days, it could be 150-odd perhaps. No way it could be 690. That just makes no sense at all. But they judge 690 to be more likely than 230!!!



I was going to wait till the 26th to judge their prediction and continue this conversation but have realised that plan was flawed because:

I think you are talking about UK numbers but the modelling we were discussing seems to be England only. So that makes the model even further out of whack with your sense of where the numbers would be at by then.

I believe the death figures they are using are basically the same as the UK dashboard England deaths within 28 days by date of death. Not date of reporting, so I will have to wait till quite a few days beyond 26th October to see what the number really is for that date.

They already updated their estimates again this last week, and have brought their ranges down to something that may be less baffling to you.

In terms of their new prediction, in their written material they have a different date to focus on so we cant do a direct comparison:



> We predict that the number of deaths each day is likely to be between 230 and 515 on the 31st of October.



However I did take screenshots of their previous graph so I can still compare previous October 26th prediction with their updated version:

Old:

New:

I doubt anything fundamental changed with their modelling between the predictions, its probably just a consequence of having more days worth of real death figures to feed into the model.

Its too early for me to have a proper sense of what the real number of deaths for England will be for October 26th so I'll save most thoughts on that for later. So far I can say that by date of death, the highest point currently reached for England is 148 deaths on the 17th October (163 for whole of UK). I dont know how much higher the figure for that date will get as more data comes in, or quite what level subsequent days up to the 26th will reach. I dont know if it would be unfair for me to say that UK deaths are already looking to be a fair bit higher than where you expected them to be, probably not too unfair I guess, especially if you were going by daily announced deaths rather than actual date of death. But your wider point about not understanding where the explosive growth shown in their model comes from is a subject I would say is still in progress and that I will revisit later.

As for why the model isnt spot on, its broadly the same issue that caused us to take the piss out of the IHME model during a much earlier stage of this pandemic. These arent hugely sophisticated attempts to simulate pandemic reality, they are mostly a fairly basic bunch of assumptions and the mathematical means to generate curve that may be a reasonable approximation featuring the basic realities of disease epidemic growth. And they are bound to change when newer real data is fed into them.



			https://joshuablake.github.io/public-RTM-reports/iframe.html
		


Edited to add - Also note that because they appear to be using data by actual date of death, due to lag this means the cutoff point for the real data they feed into a model run is already quite old, which is bound to affect prediction accuracy (although I still think its much better than using deaths by date of reporting, even though thats more timely). In this case the number of deaths they fed into the model for the 21st October report only went up to October 11th. So by the time we read such estimates our personal sense of how things have progressed has the benefit of seeing more of what really happened next than the model did.


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## William of Walworth (Oct 24, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Have a nice peaceful weekend. *I still hope I can move to Swansea one day.*



Enjoy yourself too! 
Come and visit and have (another?) a look round at some point, in *More Normal Times!*


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> "And I never learnt to sew, have only one pair of trousers and no grill on my cooker"
> 
> Oh well, never mind. It's just going to be absolute hell for you for 17 whole days.
> 
> ...



i dont have a grill, i have more than one pair of trousers, my point was that not only have my civil liberties and human rights been stripped overnight, i am now being limited on what i am allowed to spend my money on.  if the government want to pay my bills and monthly outgoings i may consider some consent to some of whats going on. 

85 people a day on average died this time last year, we didnt care about them and less than that are dying today WITH covid, big deal


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> I just wish I lived somewhere that was prepared to do firebreakers rather than just watching the graphs climb.



It’s fine, England declared war on kids this week to ensure we beat covid


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

Ferguson:









						Covid-19: Schools may need to close to some year groups, scientist warns
					

Sending some children home may be the only way to control infection rates, Prof Neil Ferguson says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> "We now have 8,000 people in hospital with Covid. That is about a third of the level we were at at the peak of the pandemic in March," he said.
> "If the rate of growth continues as it is, it means that in a month's time we'll be above that peak level in March and that is probably unsustainable.
> "We are in a critical time right now. The health system will not be able to cope with this rate of growth for much longer."





> Mr Ferguson, who leads Imperial College London's Covid-19 response team, said it was "too early to say" if current restrictions were having an effect and "we'll have to wait another week or two".
> He said while there were "little hints" of slowing, for example in the North East of England, "we're not seeing the sort of slowing that we really need to get on top of this".
> "What we're seeing is case numbers coming down quite quickly in a narrow age band, in 18-21 year olds," he said.
> "Unfortunately in every other age group case numbers continue to rise at about the same rate they were."





> He said the impact of rules on households mixing should be "significant" - although "as yet we haven't been able to see it definitively".
> He added: "If we go beyond that there is a limit to what we can do in terms of reducing contacts, short of starting to target, for instance, the older years in schools and sixth form colleges where we know older teenagers are able to transmit as adults.
> "Of course, nobody wants to start moving to virtual education and closing schools even partially. The challenge may be that we are not able to get on top of the transmission otherwise."



Also contains some stuff about Christmas that I have no intention of thinking about right now.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> It's primarily an economic decision designed to partially protect smaller businesses and then the secondry attempt at limiting browsing.


It's political, rather than economic. It's to say to the non-food retail sector "I have listened". But it is not going to benefit them massively. Stopping Asda selling clothes was never really their point anyway - they wanted to continue trading.

The point, though, is that it's a political measure, not a health one. And it's for fairly trivial political considerations that shouldn't matter at the moment. It doesn't have a scientific basis, and "people shouldn't be browsing for non-essentials" is a disingenuous afterthought, as well as being a moral, rather than scientific, statement.

The result is a lockdown that's unnecessarily arduous and less unreasonable to object to, costs which I don't think are worth any tiny, speculative benefit from stopping people going window-shopping for kettles twice a day.


----------



## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> It's political, rather than economic. It's to say to the non-food retail sector "I have listened". But it is not going to benefit them massively. Stopping Asda selling clothes was never really their point anyway - they wanted to continue trading.
> 
> The point, though, is that it's a political measure, not a health one. And it's for fairly trivial political considerations that shouldn't matter at the moment. It doesn't have a scientific basis, and "people shouldn't be browsing for non-essentials" is a disingenuous afterthought, as well as being a moral, rather than scientific, statement.
> 
> The result is a lockdown that's unnecessarily arduous and less unreasonable to object to, costs which I don't think are worth any tiny, speculative benefit from stopping people going window-shopping for kettles twice a day.


And how do you know this?
Does it even effect you?


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

Anything that affects behaviour in a way that reduces contact and crowding in this pandemic is a thing I would list under health measures.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

I can see the logic as I guess having big supermarkets being able to undercut you by selling the same stuff as well as competition from Amazon etc and not having a big  budget for that sort of thing could be a death blow for a lot of small shops at the moment. On economic grounds and in terms of helping small shops it does make a kind of sense.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> It's political, rather than economic. It's to say to the non-food retail sector "I have listened". But it is not going to benefit them massively. Stopping Asda selling clothes was never really their point anyway - they wanted to continue trading.
> 
> The point, though, is that it's a political measure, not a health one. And it's for fairly trivial political considerations that shouldn't matter at the moment. It doesn't have a scientific basis, and "people shouldn't be browsing for non-essentials" is a disingenuous afterthought, as well as being a moral, rather than scientific, statement.
> 
> The result is a lockdown that's unnecessarily arduous and less unreasonable to object to, costs which I don't think are worth any tiny, speculative benefit from stopping people going window-shopping for kettles twice a day.



Do you think all shops should be open then? Because if I can buy a kettle and some shoes in Asda, why should I not be able to elsewhere.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 24, 2020)

In central London today, was about to cross Charing Cross Road, when one of those freedom-loving, pro-conspiracy theory, anti-mask marches went past, followed by half a dozen police vans. Drums & flags & people carrying 'Don't be afraid, we're all safe' placards & shouting 'take off your mask' at bemused shoppers & tourists who mainly weren't wearing masks anyway, unless they'd just that minute popped out of a shop.

It made me want to put my mask on, in case they viewed maskless onlookers as supporters, but I didn't as a) I don't generally wear one outside unless somewhere really busy & b) wasn't feeling confrontational.  But I noticed a few people putting their masks on specifically to cross the road through the Covid-deniers...

It wierded me out a bit though, in a way that seeing a demo of (say) Countryside Alliance or anti-BLM-ers wouldn't,  because a fair few looked like types I might have seen at a Reclaim the Streets, or JayDay, or teaching me yoga or whatever over the years.

Didn't stop me thinking they were a bunch of selfish wankers though.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 24, 2020)

I love the way they push the "don't be afraid" line to a virus that has killed 60,000 odd people in the UK, while banging on about how dangerous 5G signals are. Which are likely to cause cancer in 0 people and make people more susceptible to coronavirus (how does that work again if we've not got to be afraid of it?)


----------



## Wilf (Oct 24, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> No probs scifisam We can discuss home deliveries another day .


When? Anytime between 7 am and 7 pm? Though we will send you a text to give you a 4 hour window.

Coat.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is there a word limit on the thread or something?


Yeah, its Tier 3.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> Anything that affects behaviour in a way that reduces contact and crowding in this pandemic is a thing I would list under health measures.


But we're not in a context of "anything that affects behaviour", are we? This is a limited intervention, not a campaign of giving the virus no quarter.

Where measures have small/speculative/arguable public health benefits, the possible wider effect on people's behaviour ought to be weighed on the other hand. If people start breaking the rules because they don't respect them, or losing faith in the whole thing longer term, then those consequences are unlikely to be worth it, IMO. Just the fact that this measure has kicked off a public controversy makes it a major own-goal.


----------



## killer b (Oct 24, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> It wierded me out a bit though, in a way that seeing a demo of (say) Countryside Alliance or anti-BLM-ers wouldn't, because a fair few looked like types I might have seen at a Reclaim the Streets, or JayDay, or teaching me yoga or whatever over the years.


I'm just having an argument elsewhere with my kid's grandma, an anti-fracking activist and environmentalist of many years standing, who's currently recommending I 'suspend my prejudices' and read some nonsense on a website set up by Toby Young. Recently she was pushing a denialist youtube vid hosted by some holocaust deniers.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> Do you think all shops should be open then? Because if I can buy a kettle and some shoes in Asda, why should I not be able to elsewhere.


Because the main point is to limit the number of excursions from home the average household makes, and not to ensure that absolutely everything they do is "necessary". Hopefully, people will limit their shopping trips, but it would be a nonsense to ask them to while allowing all shops to remain open. Once someone is in the supermarket, though, I think it's trivial to worry about how many bags of Hula Hoops is excessive, whether they impulse-buy a comb or whether socks can count as necessary, and under what circumstances.


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

Raheem said:


> But we're not in a context of "anything that affects behaviour", are we? This is a limited intervention, not a campaign of giving the virus no quarter.



No idea what you mean. Its a firebreaker, its like a mini lockdown minus a couple of aspects. If I were designing it then I would try to make it just as harsh as a full lockdown, just shorter in duration.

The measures that you would use to try to suppress the virus completely are not different to the measures you would use to try to significantly reduce infections over a short period.



> Where measures have small/speculative/arguable public health benefits, the possible wider effect on people's behaviour ought to be weighed on the other hand. If people start breaking the rules because they don't respect them, or losing faith in the whole thing longer term, then those consequences are unlikely to be worth it, IMO. Just the fact that this measure has kicked off a public controversy makes it a major own-goal.



Thats true but in exactly the same category comes various comparisons and quibbles relating to double standards and a sense of unfairness. Allowing supermarkets to keep selling non-essential items would fit into that latter category for me.

Also there are no end of measures that I consider to be necessary in this pandemic that some people find to have an arguable public health benefit. Even if we did nothing and let everyone just die for several years whilst sufficient evidence were gathered, it still wouldnt satisfy some people, they would still be arguing about why they couldnt go down the pub or why they dont think masks do anything or why sector x should be left alone to spread the virus in peace. There is no time to gather evidence of the quality that would be ideal, the time for that would have been over many decades before this pandemic arrived. But we do know enough to reasonably deduce all manner of things about which scenarios carry risk, and to act on that. And with that in mind I would most certainly cut out non-essential retail during the most intense periods of lockdown, during firebreakers, circuitbreakers or whatever you want to call them.


----------



## Doodler (Oct 24, 2020)

Herd immunity advocates like Peter Hitchens and Toby Young have missed the chance to lead by example through deliberately getting themselves infected. In place of a Committee of 100 they could have organised a Guinea Pig Club of 100 made up of prominent fellow travellers.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 24, 2020)

History is not going to look back on this and say "You know what? Remember that time when the Welsh government gave a tiny appeasement to small businesses and asked Tesco not to sell socks for a couple of weeks? That was a major own-goal." So I don't really know what Raheem is getting his non-essential knickers in a twist about.

Comparatively, they might though just look back at the documents, note the 51 page 'back to school guidance' from the Welsh government which totally denigrated the use and importance of face masks, see that it was followed by a complete u-turn just two weeks later, and form a critique that starts with "WTF was that all about? Made themselves look stupid there."

Public controversy? Major own-goal? Nope. I think your perspective needs fine tuning.


----------



## teqniq (Oct 24, 2020)

Idiotic lemmings:


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> my point was that not only have my civil liberties and human rights been stripped overnight,



Yeah, I'm fully aware where you're coming from.

Can you just queue up with those refugees over there? Someone will be along to help you in  a minute   a few years.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> i dont have a grill, i have more than one pair of trousers, my point was that not only have my civil liberties and human rights been stripped overnight, i am now being limited on what i am allowed to spend my money on.


----------



## Mation (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> i dont have a grill, i have more than one pair of trousers, my point was that not only have my civil liberties and human rights been stripped overnight, i am now being limited on what i am allowed to spend my money on.  if the government want to pay my bills and monthly outgoings i may consider some consent to some of whats going on.
> 
> 85 people a day on average died this time last year, we didnt care about them and less than that are dying today WITH covid, big deal


You've really caught the mood of these boards.


----------



## bimble (Oct 24, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Idiotic lemmings:



No masks. Does that mean the people there are not just against lockdowns but don't believe the virus is real ?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> No masks. Does that mean the people there are not just against lockdowns but don't believe the virus is real ?



Yep


----------



## teqniq (Oct 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> No masks. Does that mean the people there are not just against lockdowns but don't believe the virus is real ?


Fuck knows. conspiracy theories have a lot to answer for imo. I've just come back from my local shop where one selfish dick was having a row with one of the shop assistants because he didn't like queing outside. His argument went along the lines of: 'Is there less than 5 people in the shop? It's not my responsibility to do the mathematics'.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 24, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Idiotic lemmings:




foooking covidiots ...

someone introduce them to the family of one of my friends that died from covid a few months back.


----------



## smokedout (Oct 24, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I think that's really harsh. Some people are in situations that perhaps you can't imagine with nothing but the clothes on their back.



Precisely, what happens if a kids shoe's gets holes in them and they're the only shoes you have for them.  Or your microwave blows up and it's all you've got to heat up food. And who are the retailers being saved, that nice boutique that no-one poor can afford to shop in or Argos and Primark.  It's a stupid rule that's just going to mean supermarket workers getting a load of additional grief whilst everyone orders from amazon instead unless at The39thStep manages to get that banned too


----------



## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> i dont have a grill, i have more than one pair of trousers, my point was that not only have my civil liberties and human rights been stripped overnight, i am now being limited on what i am allowed to spend my money on.  if the government want to pay my bills and monthly outgoings i may consider some consent to some of whats going on.
> 
> 85 people a day on average died this time last year, we didnt care about them and less than that are dying today WITH covid, big deal


1 you're a liar and not in Wales
2 what civil liberties and human rights have been stripped away from you? The right to buy whatever whenever? It's 2 fucking weeks for fucks sake


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> 1 you're a liar and not in Wales
> 2 what civil liberties and human rights have been stripped away from you? The right to buy whatever whenever? It's 2 fucking weeks for fucks sake



1.  proof of your claim?

2. freedom to do what i lawfully want, like a trek up pen y fan for example


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

Today's stats are grim.


----------



## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> 1.  proof of your claim?
> 
> 2. freedom to do what i lawfully want, like a trek up pen y fan for example


So you can't wait 16 days?
You going to stamp your feet next?
Siomedig


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> So you can't wait 16 days?
> You going to stamp your feet next?
> Siomedig



rumpelstiltskin justanotherME77 recently


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> i dont have a grill, i have more than one pair of trousers, my point was that not only have my civil liberties and human rights been stripped overnight, i am now being limited on what i am allowed to spend my money on.  if the government want to pay my bills and monthly outgoings i may consider some consent to some of whats going on.
> 
> 85 people a day on average died this time last year, we didnt care about them and less than that are dying today WITH covid, big deal


you've a sense of entitlement the size of massachusetts


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> 1.  proof of your claim?
> 
> 2. freedom to do what i lawfully want, like a trek up pen y fan for example



Watch out! He's got a map!


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 24, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Watch out! He's got a map!


not necessarily


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Today's stats are grim.


and tomorrow's will be grimmer


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown


----------



## weepiper (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown


Tough shit. I hope one of your neighbours shops you before you kill your granny.


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

Looks like a couple of people at Sky news took a look at the issue I warned about of falls in cases in the young, often student population masking rises in other age groups if people only look at the headline figures.









						Coronavirus: Falling rates in university areas could be hiding a wider outbreak in cities, analysis shows
					

Cases peaked in some student areas when they returned to campuses - but they could still be rising, despite reported falls.




					news.sky.com


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 24, 2020)

smokedout said:


> Precisely, what happens if a kids shoe's gets holes in them and they're the only shoes you have for them.  Or your microwave blows up and it's all you've got to heat up food. And who are the retailers being saved, that nice boutique that no-one poor can afford to shop in or Argos and Primark.  It's a stupid rule that's just going to mean supermarket workers getting a load of additional grief whilst everyone orders from amazon instead unless at The39thStep manages to get that banned too


sorry but what am I managing to get banned ?


----------



## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown


What TrOoF do "we all know"?


----------



## andysays (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown


Don't go too far...


> Wales entered the first full day of a national lockdown amid border patrols to stop non-essential travel. Gloucestershire Constabulary said it will patrol routes into the Forest of Dean area and pull over vehicles suspected of making unnecessary journeys out of Wales.





> Drivers without a valid excuse will be advised to turn around and, if they do not, will be reported to police in Wales who can issue fines, the force added.


----------



## smokedout (Oct 24, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> sorry but what am I managing to get banned ?



Amazon deliveries.  You bastard.


(it was a joke)


----------



## MrSki (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown


What a fucking rebel. If you get it then I hope you have the decency to lock yourself in your room & not bother with the NHS. I am sure that Londoners & others did not consent to the blitz but had to try and live with it. Hope you get nicked & fined. 

A twat of the second order.


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown



Sounds familiar.









						Angry man rips coverings off non-essential items at Tesco store under lockdown
					

Gwilym Owen was filmed removing the plastic from items that Tesco supermarket in Wales isn't allowed to sell as the country was placed in a fire-break lockdown




					www.mirror.co.uk
				






> A man had a bizarre meltdown as he ripped coverings from non-essential items in a supermarket.
> 
> Gwilym Owen, 28, was filmed as he removed plastic from items in the F&F clothing section in Bangor Tesco Extra store last night.





> "I don't expect everyone to do what I've done here but I do expect everyone to know that denying the public clothing is nothing but immoral and inhuman."
> 
> Owen thinks the public should "wake up and have a backbone" amidst the ongoing coronavirus restrictions.
> 
> ...


----------



## miss direct (Oct 24, 2020)

"denying the public clothing"...  Are we to expect to see hordes of naked people in Wales, queueing outside Tesco?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown



You are a twat, and I doubt you will survive here for long.


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

miss direct said:


> "denying the public clothing"...  Are we to expect to see hordes of naked people in Wales, queueing outside Tesco?



At least if they are naked he will be able to see if they have a backbone.

Angry man makes laughable noises about backbones whilst simultaneously displaying no clue about the sort of resolve that is actually required in this pandemic, nor the nature and priorities of the majority who support restrictions to stop public health systems being overwhelmed.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 24, 2020)

It's idiots like justanotherME77 that have spread this plague around ...

To my elderly and vulnerable friends, some of whom have died.
And caused my mates / family in the NHS to be seriously overworked.

Seriously, mate - Shut up and stop digging holes to fall into.


PS - one of those deaths was in North Wales ...


----------



## bimble (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it.


If you all keep being so mean he won't stick around to spell out the truth for people like me who don't know what it is.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 24, 2020)

Surely it's a banned returned with that name.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 24, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Surely it's a banned returned with that name.


it's the guy whose tweet was posted by ddraig isn't it?


----------



## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it's the guy whose tweet was posted by ddraig isn't it?


Is it??


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Is it??


I assume so


----------



## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I assume so


Sorry if I brought them here!


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Surely it's a banned returned with that name.



can you post me some of what you have been smoking or maybe you could provide 6 numbers for next weeks lottery please? you seem to have a unique set of skills, i have never been banned from this forum as i have never been a member until recently, i have however lurked and been reading for almost 10years so i do feel like i know some of you cunts already


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> can you post me some of what you have been smoking or maybe you could provide 6 numbers for next weeks lottery please? you seem to have a unique set of skills, i have never been banned from this forum as i have never been a member until recently, i have however lurked and been reading for almost 10years so i do feel like i know some of you cunts already


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 24, 2020)

I don't believe it is a bannable offence to disagree with aspects of public policy. On the other hand if this goes down to "virus isn't real" shit then yes no thank you none today.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 24, 2020)

smokedout said:


> Amazon deliveries.  You bastard.
> 
> 
> (it was a joke)


Sorry speed read it and replied . Had some Openshaw Pork Scratchings delivered by Amazon Spain here last Tuesday . Too moreish only got four packets left out of 8 .


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> can you post me some of what you have been smoking or maybe you could provide 6 numbers for next weeks lottery please? you seem to have a unique set of skills, i have never been banned from this forum as i have never been a member until recently, i have however lurked and been reading for almost 10years so i do feel like i know some of you cunts already


everybody likes the lurkers


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

miss direct said:


> "denying the public clothing"...  Are we to expect to see hordes of naked people in Wales, queueing outside Tesco?



and it has started









						Man visits Tesco in boxer shorts in protest over new rules
					

Christopher Noden, 38, took a trolley into a branch of Tesco in Newport while wearing just his underpants




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## teqniq (Oct 24, 2020)

Just another dickhead.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> and it has started
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ah well, there's always one (or ten or ...)
I wanted to ask:
can you explain *why* you do not consent to this "lockdown"?


----------



## killer b (Oct 24, 2020)

Does the BBC report every time some bellend humiliates himself in tesco, or is this a special service for this weekend?


----------



## teqniq (Oct 24, 2020)

It's Walesonline to be fair, so local news.

E2a all we need now is Goldie Lookin Chain to do a pisstake of it. Sorted.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Does the BBC report every time some bellend humiliates himself in tesco, or is this a special service for this weekend?



It's not the BBC, Walesonline is part of Reach plc, publisher of hundreds of local/regional rags, and 3 national titles - the Mirror, Express & Daily Star.


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I wanted to ask:
> can you explain *why* you do not consent to this "lockdown"?



in a nutshell, i do not agree with civil liberties and human rights being stripped overnight for a virus that effects such a small number of the population, for every covid death 15 other people die from something else but we dont care about them, nor do we care about those who have had their cancer treatments/operations put on hold.

bottom line is, this government has been at war with the sick, disabled and vunerable for the past 10yrs under austerity measures and now all of a sudden they are concerned about our health? im not sold even if the rest of you are


----------



## bimble (Oct 24, 2020)

But he was wearing underwear and socks, totally undermining his message.


----------



## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> in a nutshell, i do not agree with civil liberties and human rights being stripped overnight for a virus that effects such a small number of the population, for every covid death 15 other people die from something else but we dont care about them, nor do we care about those who have had their cancer treatments/operations put on hold.
> 
> bottom line is, this government has been at war with the sick, disabled and vunerable for the past 10yrs under austerity measures and now all of a sudden they are concerned about our health? im not sold even if the rest of you are


What civil liberties and human rights have been removed from you?

Link to your claims on 15 other people dying for every covid death please?


----------



## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> in a nutshell, i do not agree with civil liberties and human rights being stripped overnight for a virus that effects such a small number of the population, for every covid death 15 other people die from something else but we dont care about them, nor do we care about those who have had their cancer treatments/operations put on hold.
> 
> bottom line is, this government has been at war with the sick, disabled and vunerable for the past 10yrs under austerity measures and now all of a sudden they are concerned about our health? im not sold even if the rest of you are


So what reason do you think an uncaring capitalist government would have for keeping its worker bees at home?


----------



## maomao (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> nor do we care about those who have had their cancer treatments/operations put on hold.


You're the one that wants the health service crushed by covid cases. How's that going to impact on cancer treatment?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> What civil liberties and human rights have been removed from you?
> 
> Link to your claims on 15 other people dying for every covid death please?



Be fair, that's certainly true taken over the last 15 years.


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> What civil liberties and human rights have been removed from you?
> 
> Link to your claims on 15 other people dying for every covid death please?



already answered the last time you asked and you never answered my question to you so what makes ewe think you will get a civil discussion from me when you fail to participate yourself...rhetorical question no need to reply


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> in a nutshell, i do not agree with civil liberties and human rights being stripped overnight for a virus that effects such a small number of the population, for every covid death 15 other people die from something else but we dont care about them, nor do we care about those who have had their cancer treatments/operations put on hold.
> 
> bottom line is, this government has been at war with the sick, disabled and vunerable for the past 10yrs under austerity measures and now all of a sudden they are concerned about our health? im not sold even if the rest of you are



So, you don't believe that if the virus was allowed to run wild, filling up the hospitals, resulting in even more cancelled hospital appointments & operations, and resulting in hundreds of thousands of excess deaths?


----------



## killer b (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> ewe


clever.


----------



## bimble (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> bottom line is, this government has been at war with the sick, disabled and vunerable for the past 10yrs under austerity measures and now all of a sudden they are concerned about our health? im not sold even if the rest of you are


Why are they doing all this then? I get what you’re saying about them not caring about the sick and vulnerable so why is this really all happening now then, in your opinion?


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

maomao said:


> You're the one that wants the health service crushed by covid cases. How's that going to impact on cancer treatment?


 please quote where i have stated this, stop projecting your own intentions.


----------



## maomao (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> please quote where i have stated this, stop projecting your own intentions.


You're refusing to follow infection control measures. That's the consequence.


----------



## teqniq (Oct 24, 2020)

Having watched the vid and upon reflection I could have told them they would be refused entry. Tesco St. Mellons and Pengam Green have long had a policy of no people in dressing-gowns and slippers (women) and no topless (men). It's reasonably safe to assume that would also apply to Newport or possibly even further afield.


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why are they doing all this then? I get what you’re saying about them not caring about the sick and vulnerable so why is this really all happening now then, in your opinion?



what do you care of my opinion? you're all a bunch of cunts


----------



## killer b (Oct 24, 2020)

TBF I don't think anyone does care. Hopefully you'll get bored and go away soon.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 24, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I don't believe it is a bannable offence to disagree with aspects of public policy. On the other hand if this goes down to "virus isn't real" shit then yes no thank you none today.



Perhaps at least a thread ban, because it's crapping all over an important thread?


----------



## bimble (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> what do you care of my opinion? you're all a bunch of cunts


I am a cunt but interested in why you think this is all happening, genuinely curious. You must have a belief about what the real reason is, who benefits from the lockdowns etc.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> in a nutshell, i do not agree with civil liberties and human rights being stripped overnight for a virus that effects such a small number of the population, for every covid death 15 other people die from something else but we dont care about them, nor do we care about those who have had their cancer treatments/operations put on hold.
> 
> bottom line is, *this government has been at war with the sick, disabled and vunerable for the past 10yrs under austerity measures and now all of a sudden they are concerned about our health? im not sold even if the rest of you are*


I very much doubt anyone here thinks the governement cares about the sick and disabled unless it involves a photo opportunity.
What civil rights and liberties have been taken away?
These are measures put in place to try and protect the (seriously underfunded) NHS from being overwhelmed and then putting even more people at risk, why are you objecting to this?
THe only reason the governement is doing this is that if they did nothing and the numbers had gone through the roof there would be even more of an uproar from a much larger group of people and tbh I believe you would be one of them.


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Perhaps at least a thread ban, because it's crapping all over an important thread?



you should have just spelt your username correctly as you truly are a stupid cunt, if you dont like other peoples opinions or views on a public forum then maybe you should cancel your internet subscription you snowflake


----------



## ddraig (Oct 24, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Be fair, that's certainly true taken over the last 15 years.


Yes but these shits have only just "woken up" because they're being asked to give a shit about others


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown



You do know that the virus doesn't give a flying fuck about your not consenting to the lockdown. It's a virus and all that will happen is that your non-consent (or myopic selfishness) will provide the virus with opportunities to spread and to kill thousands of people, to damage the long term health of many thousands of others and to compromise the ability of the NHS to provide much needed health care for millions more. 

It can't be just about you; it needs to be about all of us. 

That's not a truth to be somehow submitted to; it's an active choice to be made. Unfortunately at the moment you don't seem to be able to raise your sights any higher than your own little wants (albeit dressed up in the language of needs and rights), so you're missing a much much bigger and potentially more exciting and happier picture.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> You do know that the virus doesn't give a flying fuck about your not consenting to the lockdown. It's a virus and all that will happen is that your non-consent (or myopic selfishness) will provide the virus with opportunities to spread and to kill thousands of people, to damage the long term health of many thousands of others and to compromise the ability of the NHS to provide much needed health care for millions more.
> 
> It can't be just about you; it needs to be about all of us.
> 
> ...


 too long to read


----------



## two sheds (Oct 24, 2020)

too many big words


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> too long to read



I don't think the length of it is what you're having a problem with.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> in a nutshell, i do not agree with civil liberties and human rights being stripped overnight for a virus that effects such a small number of the population, for every covid death 15 other people die from something else but we dont care about them, nor do we care about those who have had their cancer treatments/operations put on hold.
> 
> bottom line is, this government has been at war with the sick, disabled and vunerable for the past 10yrs under austerity measures and now all of a sudden they are concerned about our health? im not sold even if the rest of you are



Aspects of what you are getting at are why I dont claim to know that there is some particular level of death that the government care about and are keen to avoid.

Instead I focus on hospital numbers. The government do care about those, since even if you dont think they care about hospitals for all the right reasons, there are other reasons for them to care about that stuff.

They also care a lot about levels of staff absences during large epidemics. All sorts of different critical jobs that are required to keep the wheels turning, and they worry about everything from hospitals to law and order and keeping the lights on when they crunch the numbers and consider the reasonable worst case possibilities.

Twice as many people as normal were dying every day at the very peak of the first wave. And the hospital admission rate was completely unbearable if it had continued. I cannot say exactly what level those things would have reached with no lockdown or extensive behavioural changes, but in some areas they 'only just got away with it' in terms of the scenes at some hospitals the government were keen to avoid. And they have pushed their luck again severely this time. I anything we will end up with more restrictions at various points in winter, and your malformed views on the level of death do not factor into their equations.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 24, 2020)

far too many big words


----------



## bimble (Oct 24, 2020)

Disappointing. His whole thought process is I'm doing what i feel like cos i'm FREE and you cant stop me losers so there. crap troll is crap, not even a bill gates theory to offer.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 24, 2020)

These virus nonces are getting very dull


----------



## killer b (Oct 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> virus nonce


yes.


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

Time for some polling results I suppose.


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2020)

And although I have clearly been in favour of Wales limiting the supermarket goods, as I read articles about the backlash, petition etc, I will admit that response to it does seem rather predictable.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown



boring whiner. Do what you want. But don’t give it the plaintive oh my kettle is broke I’ve only got one pair of trousers bullshit. Sad. You just don’t like the lock down because your freedom et cetera. You live in a dream worrld


----------



## scifisam (Oct 24, 2020)

Banning phone sales in supermarkets is bizarre, especially if the grounds are that phone shops have had to close. It genuinely is difficult to function without one at the moment, and not just for restaurants, etc, keeping in touch with family and friends, using them as satnavs, all the other things that can possibly be put off briefly. Some people have to use them to check in to work every day, and the NHS covid app only runs on phones. If you're newly on benefits then you'll probably need to do a phone appointment. They're really not non-essential and sometimes you need them that day, and waiting for a delivery could fuck up things for you in a major way.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 24, 2020)

I assumed the books had been cordoned off to prevent browsing


----------



## MrSki (Oct 24, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Banning phone sales in supermarkets is bizarre, especially if the grounds are that phone shops have had to close. It genuinely is difficult to function without one at the moment, and not just for restaurants, etc, keeping in touch with family and friends, using them as satnavs, all the other things that can possibly be put off briefly. Some people have to use them to check in to work every day, and the NHS covid app only runs on phones. If you're newly on benefits then you'll probably need to do a phone appointment. They're really not non-essential and sometimes you need them that day, and waiting for a delivery could fuck up things for you in a major way.


I think they will have to re-visit the list. Expecting people to stay at home for 17 days but banning the sale of books when the libraries have been shut seems a bit odd to me. Like in the March lockdown they shut off licences but soon changed that. Mistakes will be made but as long as they are reconsidered & altered asap then they should not be a problem.


----------



## Espresso (Oct 24, 2020)

Time will tell if the fire break in Wales has worked. Speculating ahead of the results is more pointless than a football. 
Good luck to all of my Welsh bretheren.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Surely it's a banned returned with that name.



I know but, it’s nice to hit a punch bag now and then.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 24, 2020)

Espresso said:


> Time will tell if the fire break in Wales has worked. Speculating ahead of the results is more pointless than a football.
> Good luck to all of my Welsh bretheren.


I don't think the Welsh Government expect the numbers to go down, just not shoot up uncontrollably so that the hospitals can't cope.


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> boring whiner. Do what you want. But don’t give it the plaintive oh my kettle is broke I’ve only got one pair of trousers bullshit. Sad. You just don’t like the lock down because your freedom et cetera. You live in a dream worrld



if youre going to quote me then atleast do it verbatim, ive never stated i only one pair of trousers or my kettle is broken idiot, do you wear your mask when youre sat at your keyboard in your crusty pants?


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> in a nutshell, i do not agree with civil liberties and human rights being stripped overnight for a virus that effects such a small number of the population, for every covid death 15 other people die from something else but we dont care about them, nor do we care about those who have had their cancer treatments/operations put on hold.
> 
> bottom line is, this government has been at war with the sick, disabled and vunerable for the past 10yrs under austerity measures and now all of a sudden they are concerned about our health? im not sold even if the rest of you are



so it’s not about your broken toaster then?


----------



## MrSki (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> if youre going to quote me then atleast do it verbatim, ive never stated i only one pair of trousers idiot


I thought you were being a rebel & going out to meet your mates? (mate as in your mirror)


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> if youre going to quote me then atleast do it verbatim, ive never stated i only one pair of trousers idiot


cunt off you dozy cunt.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

What a dribbling fuck wit. Standing up for the freedom but can’t even buy a toaster online Jesus


----------



## justanotherME77 (Oct 24, 2020)

Ed: drivel removed


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

ddraig said:


> What civil liberties and human rights have been removed from you?
> 
> Link to your claims on 15 other people dying for every covid death please?



and yes please answer this. Unless you’re out buying a toaster at your grands house, or whatever it is. brave freedom fighter that you are.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

you degenerate fucking shit pipe. Freedom my freedom my freedom fucking wanker.


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 24, 2020)

I'm far from convinced that banning supermarkets from selling non-essential goods is a sensible policy, If folks are in the supermarket buying food how does it increase the risk of the virus spreading if they buy socks or a kettle? It strikes me as more of a attempt to mollify non-food retailers complaining about unfair competition rather than a public health issue. And I don't think it will work either since there is nothing stopping people buying online with everyone's favourite tax dodging megacorp being the big winner here.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> suck your mum out you fassy


I have reported you cos you are more of a boring cunt than Marty1 There is one thing to argue the toss but another to insulting someone's mum.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

Can’t buy a kettle, what about my liberty, what a waste of fucking DNA.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2020)

MrSki said:


> I have reported you cos you more of a boring cunt than Marty1 There is one thing to argue the toss but another to insulting someone's mum.



what is a fassy anyway...


----------



## MrSki (Oct 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> what is a fassy anyway...


Don't ask me I am a toboganist.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 24, 2020)

Please people. stop feeding the troll, that's enough of a derail for a serous thread,


----------



## prunus (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown



You, sir, are a fuckwit.


----------



## teqniq (Oct 24, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> I'm far from convinced that banning supermarkets from selling non-essential goods is a sensible policy, If folks are in the supermarket buying food how does it increase the risk of the virus spreading if they buy socks or a kettle? It strikes me as more of a attempt to mollify non-food retailers complaining about unfair competition rather than a public health issue. And I don't think it will work either since there is nothing stopping people buying online with everyone's favourite tax dodging megacorp being the big winner here.


i think it's pretty ill-considered tbh.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 24, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> mock all you like but you all know the truth and dont have the backbone to do anything about it. i just been to my mates for a cup of tea and catch up and later will be travelling to the next county to have an evening gathering with another group of friends. i do not consent to this lockdown


We're mocking, all right. Don't you worry about that.

Selfish cunt.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 24, 2020)

Why respond to the troll? Ignore, report & stop the derail.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> By the way I can tell you that a lot of shops do cater to low income customers. Especially clothes shops and 'fast fashion' selling jeans t shirts and what have you for £2-10 a pop with no/minimal delivery charges. Unfortunately these shops often have very questionable business practices which was one of the things that lead to the Leicester outbreak iirc.
> 
> On the other side of that there are some 'artisan' type shops particularly those selling furniture which are absolutely eye watering. Slightly surprised how well they've done this year tbh.


Boohoo, nastygal, cheap clothes delivered just so. Wish there was such choice for me.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 24, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> In central London today, was about to cross Charing Cross Road, when one of those freedom-loving, pro-conspiracy theory, anti-mask marches went past, followed by half a dozen police vans. Drums & flags & people carrying 'Don't be afraid, we're all safe' placards & shouting 'take off your mask' at bemused shoppers & tourists who mainly weren't wearing masks anyway, unless they'd just that minute popped out of a shop.
> 
> It made me want to put my mask on, in case they viewed maskless onlookers as supporters, but I didn't as a) I don't generally wear one outside unless somewhere really busy & b) wasn't feeling confrontational.  But I noticed a few people putting their masks on specifically to cross the road through the Covid-deniers...
> 
> ...


I think we all need to re read 2001ad. Again.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 24, 2020)

Boohoo have a men's section.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Boohoo have a men's section.


I know. The clothes dont wear well. 
I saw a bloke in one of their ten quid tracksuits in Deptford market recently. Grey at the ankles, slight frayed look. Not good.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 24, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I know. The clothes dont wear well.
> I saw a bloke in one of their ten quid tracksuits in Deptford market recently. Grey at the ankles, slight frayed look. Not good.


I miss Deptford flea market. Once saw a sonar machine used to detect deep sea shoals of fish for sale there.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I miss Deptford flea market. Once saw a sonar machine used to detect deep sea shoals of fish for sale there.


It's going well the (scabby bit of the) market. Not seen a sonar fish detector there but would probably haggle and buy one if I did. Then get a boat etc.

There is a stall that has a mint vintage Burberry mac I covet. Not paying a hundred quid though. But no point trying to haggle in this pissy weather.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 25, 2020)

TopCat said:


> It's going well the (scabby bit of the) market. Not seen a sonar fish detector there but would probably haggle and buy one if I did. Then get a boat etc.
> 
> There is a stall that has a mint vintage Burberry mac I covet. Not paying a hundred quid though. But no point trying to haggle in this pissy weather.


the litter fines enforcers are out in the area at the moment, beware. (sorry for derail, guess the council needs cash)


----------



## Raheem (Oct 25, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Don't ask me I am a toboganist.


Ooh great! Can I have 2 ounces of tobogo, please.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 25, 2020)

Well, the troll may be able to buy a toaster & jeans next week.



> *A ban on supermarkets selling non-essential items during Wales' lockdown will be reviewed after the weekend, First Minister Mark Drakeford has said.*
> 
> Pressure has mounted on the Welsh Government to reverse the decision to prohibit supermarkets from selling items such as clothes and microwaves.
> 
> ...





> "The purpose of selling essential items only during firebreak is to discourage spending more time than necessary in shops and to be fair to retailers who have to close."
> It continued: "This is not for the sake of being difficult - we need to do everything we can to minimise the time we spend outside our homes. This will help save lives and protect the NHS."
> 
> In a statement, the Welsh Government added: "The fire-break is designed to reduce all physical contact between households to an absolute minimum in order to slow the spread of coronavirus and save lives.











						Covid in Wales: Supermarket rules 'will not be reversed'
					

The First Minister says a ban non-essential goods being sold was right, despite public backlash.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (Oct 25, 2020)

It's not being able to buy them that's at issue - it's the _right _to be able to buy them whether you need them or not that's at issue.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 25, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I know. The clothes dont wear well.
> I saw a bloke in one of their ten quid tracksuits in Deptford market recently. Grey at the ankles, slight frayed look. Not good.



I have a boohoo jumper. One of the sleeves is unravelling even though it hasn't been worn much. True story.


----------



## Hyperdark (Oct 25, 2020)

justanotherME77 said:


> what do you care of my opinion? you're all a bunch of cunts




Not all.
Though a significant minority have minds completely closed to views outside their echo chamber and circle of online friends
Its a weakness.


----------



## teqniq (Oct 25, 2020)

Yes folks it's all about money:









						Seven-day Covid quarantine — and none for jet set
					

People who are told to stay indoors because a household member has coronavirus will soon have to self-isolate for as little as seven days after widespread refusal to comply with the current 14-day




					www.thetimes.co.uk
				






> People who are told to stay indoors because a household member has coronavirus will soon have to self-isolate for as little as seven days after widespread refusal to comply with the current 14-day period.
> 
> Separately, City dealmakers, hedge fund managers and company bosses flying into the UK will be exempt from the 14-day quarantine period under plans to “promote global Britain”.
> 
> ...


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 25, 2020)

It's like they're deliberately trying to piss people off into not complying with restrictions.


----------



## maomao (Oct 25, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> Not all.
> Though a significant minority have minds completely closed to views outside their echo chamber and circle of online friends
> Its a weakness.


Or maybe we have so much contact with weirdos and wankers in our real lives that we appreciate an environment without so many of them. It's an oasis not a bubble for a lot of us.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 25, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Yes folks it's all about money:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This bit makes some sense TBH -



> “If you get a much higher proportion of people self-isolating for seven days, that would provide an overall benefit compared with a much smaller number of people doing it for 14 days. If people aren’t going to self-isolate at all then the benefits of cutting it to seven days could be significant.”



And, this bit has been denied by Brandon Lewis, he has said any new rules will apply to everyone -



> Separately, City dealmakers, hedge fund managers and company bosses flying into the UK will be exempt from the 14-day quarantine period under plans to “promote global Britain”.



I would normally take a denial from the government with a massive pinch of salt, but I am not sure on this, because it would be a deeply unpopular move.


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 25, 2020)

Clearly they're losing control of the situation, no matter how they try and spin it reducing isolation from 14 to 7 days because they know 14 days is unenforceable smacks of defeat. 
As for letting City slickers off isolating there is no way that can be sold as anything other than allowing those who can afford it to buy their way out of the rules. Clearly the man has learned nothing from the Barnard Castle Eye test fiasco. 
One rule for us, one rule for you is going to undermine respect for the rules even further.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 25, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Clearly they're losing control of the situation, no matter how they try and spin it reducing isolation from 14 to 7 days because they know 14 days is unenforceable smacks of defeat.
> As for letting City slickers off isolating there is no way that can be sold as anything other than allowing those who can afford it to buy their way out of the rules. Clearly the man has learned nothing from the Barnard Castle Eye test fiasco.
> *One rule for us, one rule for you is going to undermine respect for the rules even further.*



Indeed, that's why I doubt it will happen, even The Times only mention two ministers as being sympathetic to the idea, I doubt the cabinet and its chief clown will go for it.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 25, 2020)

Seven days would be fine if people could get tested on day 6 and results back next day? Which there's no chance of at the moment I'd have thought.


----------



## elbows (Oct 25, 2020)

There are some good bits in this:









						Frustration is rising as clampdowns spread across UK: are we in grip of Covid fatigue?
					

A sense of unfairness has dented public confidence and compliance with fast-changing restrictions




					www.theguardian.com
				






> “There is no evidence to suggest people are getting tired. People are getting angry, frustrated and resentful – they’re not getting tired,” she told theObserver. “The collective solidarity of ‘we’re all in this together’ is a really important part of people following challenging restrictions, [but] adherence is being undermined by many kinds of perceived unfairness.”
> 
> Michie believes the tolerance of Dominic Cummings’ trip to Durham in the spring, the perceived fuelling of a north-south divide which culminated in the rows over financial support involving Greater Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, and “the ideology of privatisation, giving huge amounts of money seemingly to their contacts” for the test, trace and isolate programme have savaged public confidence and, in turn, compliance.





> Both said Westminster’s approach of imposing fines and encouraging neighbours to snitch on one another would backfire.
> 
> “It’s a bad road to go down,” said Byrne. “The data shows that the vast majority of people want to adhere to the measures in their areas and it’s really important to boost those levels of solidarity and trust.”





> On Friday, a major report by the London School of Economics revealed that government policies had exacerbated the problem of non-compliance. Researchers advised that communities be put at the centre of pandemic policy if the rules were expected to be followed.
> 
> Reicher said: “If people see restrictions which don’t seem to have achieved very much being imposed again, they will be sceptical. The British public have shown remarkable resilience and would get behind a national lockdown. The polling has consistently shown that by a ratio of three to one, people want the government to do more rather than less and do it sooner rather than later.”


----------



## bimble (Oct 25, 2020)

These people. Last time they devised a 5 level system to simplify things and then had to tell people they were at 2.5 or 3.5 on it, this time they come up with a 3 tier system and then belatedly realise it needs to go up to at least a 4. 








						Government 'considering Tier 4 local lockdowns'
					

It's been reported some shops and restaurants could close under the 'Tier 3 plus' or 'Tier 4' proposals




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 25, 2020)

unsurprised


----------



## elbows (Oct 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> These people. Last time they devised a 5 level system to simplify things and then had to tell people they were at 2.5 or 3.5 on it, this time they come up with a 3 tier system and then belatedly realise it needs to go up to at least a 4.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes and as usual Scotland easily demonstrated the flaws in the UK government approach.

I note that this also gets mentioned in that article:



> Short-term local circuit breaker lockdowns to bring the R value of transmission below 1 are also said to be under consideration.



And of course there is also Wales.









						Wales national lockdown in new year 'likely', says minister
					

The current 17-day lockdown could be followed by another in January or February, minister says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> He added: "This is not the last lockdown we are likely to see. The projections we published in a worst case scenario show it's likely we are going to need another firebreak in January or February."





> Mr Waters said he expected England to follow Wales with a firebreak "before too long" while the Welsh Government was trying to be "consistent and cautious" in trying to flatten the curve of cases.


----------



## Mation (Oct 25, 2020)

After Tier 3+ Extra, they can start naming them after desserts and animals and things. It's gonna be great.


----------



## bimble (Oct 25, 2020)

Mation said:


> After Tier 3+ Extra, they can start naming them after desserts and animals and things. It's gonna be great.


They could try to get corporate sponsorship for the news tiers to bring in a bit of cash - this collection of rules we just thought up is brought to you by.. i cant believe its not butter.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 25, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It's like they're deliberately trying to piss people off into not complying with restrictions.



More like they're continuing their strategy of blaming the general public for their failures.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 25, 2020)

bimble said:


> They could try to get corporate sponsorship for the news tiers to bring in a bit of cash - this collection of rules we just thought up is brought to you by.. i cant believe its not butter.



'I can't believe it's not better'

And if they want to actually use that, I get a cut


----------



## elbows (Oct 25, 2020)

I cant actually read this article but the intro should be enough for me to determine whether I am interpreting certain hospital data properly, next time I have a chance to check.









						Fifty people each day catching covid in region’s hospitals
					

The North West region is now seeing around 50 new cases of coronavirus per day that are likely to have been caught in hospital by patients being treated for other conditions.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 25, 2020)

Yep, seems like a good fit for what I can graph by subtracting one table from another of the data at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


Which means the hospital infection picture for England as a whole is:


----------



## Anju (Oct 25, 2020)

Only a small thing but it annoys me to hear/read government representatives and reporters almost exclusively using the word excuse rather than reason when talking about various restrictions. Like 'people can travel if they have a reasonable excuse'. 

Maybe it's just me but that makes it sound like it's acceptable to find an excuse rather than having to do something because you have a reason.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yep, seems like a good fit for what I can graph by subtracting one table from another of the data at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity
> 
> View attachment 235836
> Which means the hospital infection picture for England as a whole is:
> ...



As a comparison:



> The total number of NHS hospital beds in England, including general and acute, mental illness, learning disability, maternity and day-only beds, has more than halved over the past 30 years, from around 299,000 in 1987/88 to 141,000 in 2018/9, while the number of patients treated has increased significantly.


 NHS hospital bed numbers

And 90% bed occupancy before the virus gives 14,000 spare beds in England as a whole? with presumably the overwhelming majority being in the south, particularly affluent areas. So particularly stress on northern hospitals as you say.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 25, 2020)

Mation said:


> After Tier 3+ Extra, they can start naming them after desserts and animals and things. It's gonna be great.


_'Today, the Minister announced that Rochdale will go to Tier Alpha Omega Gracie Fields Lisa Stansfield Hollands Pies. Happily, next door, Bury will remain at Tier Famous Tripe Stall'._


----------



## existentialist (Oct 25, 2020)

Anju said:


> Only a small thing but it annoys me to hear/read government representatives and reporters almost exclusively using the word excuse rather than reason when talking about various restrictions. Like 'people can travel if they have a reasonable excuse'.
> 
> Maybe it's just me but that makes it sound like it's acceptable to find an excuse rather than having to do something because you have a reason.


I thought the same thing, until I realised that it's a legal term - "without reasonable excuse" pops up all over the place in Acts of Parliament, where "excuse" has a specific legal meaning, rather than the one we use for day-to-day speech.


----------



## elbows (Oct 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> As a comparison:
> 
> NHS hospital bed numbers
> 
> And 90% bed occupancy before the virus gives 14,000 spare beds in England as a whole? with presumably the overwhelming majority being in the south, particularly affluent areas. So particularly stress on northern hospitals as you say.



I havent been able to study regional variations in the bedsopulation ratio because I dont know where to find such data and havent had time to explore.

Other reasons may exist for regional variations in hospital infection levels, such as amount of staff testing and PPE availability, and I will keep an eye on the figures to see how every region performs in the difficult times ahead. At the moment the regional data suggests hospital infections are broadly tracking along with the level of community infections, which is to be expected.


----------



## Mation (Oct 25, 2020)

Wilf said:


> _'Today, the Minister announced that Rochdale will go to Tier Alpha Omega Gracie Fields Lisa Stansfield Hollands Pies. Happily, next door, Bury will remain at Tier Famous Tripe Stall'._


Tannoy: _It is imperative that we do not reach Tier Honey Badger. It is imperative that we do not reach Tier Honey Badger. It is imperative that we do not reach Tier Honey Badger._

That's when the _really_ bad shit goes down.


----------



## Anju (Oct 25, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I thought the same thing, until I realised that it's a legal term - "without reasonable excuse" pops up all over the place in Acts of Parliament, where "excuse" has a specific legal meaning, rather than the one we use for day-to-day speech.



Fair enough, though surely it would be better to use day to day meaning of words as we're mostly day to day people. Not that this one thing would make any difference given the pathetic attempts to inform us what we should be doing and why.

My biggest complaint is that the timescale we were looking at has never been clearly spelled out. Just reading this thread in March helped me realise that we were probably looking at a year minimum and most likely more. Had people not been told that it would all be over or under control within weeks or by Christmas behaviour and reactions to restrictions and masks would probably be very different.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 25, 2020)

Anju said:


> My biggest complaint is that the timescale we were looking at has never been clearly spelled out. Just reading this thread in March helped me realise that we were probably looking at a year minimum and most likely more. Had people not been told that it would all be over or under control within weeks or by Christmas behaviour and reactions to restrictions and masks would probably be very different.



Nobody knows at the end of the day.

Dr Anthony Fauci was interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, well worth watching, and he suggested that if a vaccine was approved by the end of
next month, by the time enough doses were produced and administered to enough people, we could be looking to return to 'some form of normal' sometime during the third quarter next year, so between July & Sept.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Seven days would be fine if people could get tested on day 6 and results back next day? Which there's no chance of at the moment I'd have thought.



That's the thing with all of it. Whether they lock down or not, or restrict business opening or not, set isolation periods at 7 days or 10 days or 14 days, or restrict travel or not, the infrastructure and finance isn't ever fully there to support people to comply. 

And VAT on masks now apparently. I cant even.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 25, 2020)

is operation money shot already in place?


----------



## ska invita (Oct 25, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> is operation money shot already in place?


its abandoned








						Covid-19: Government shelves plans to invest £100bn in mass testing
					

The UK government has abandoned plans to spend £100bn on a massive expansion of its national testing programme, legal documents have shown.  A letter from government lawyers also reveals that the ambitious Operation Moonshot programme, first revealed in leaked documents seen by The BMJ last...




					www.bmj.com
				











						£100bn budget for Covid Operation Moonshot dumped as project swallowed up by Test and Trace
					

Lawyers’ letter reveals budget for mass testing not ‘anything approaching’ leaked figure




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 25, 2020)

It was always a fantasy anyway.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 25, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> And VAT on masks now apparently. I cant even.



Wow.









						Treasury confirms it is to end VAT waiver on PPE in UK
					

Items such as protective face masks and gloves will no longer be exempt from 20% sales tax




					www.theguardian.com
				






> An official said the cut was only ever intended to maintain the supply to healthcare providers, *not to reduce costs for businesses and consumers.*



Consumers. Fuck. Me.

Nothing should surprise us anymore.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 25, 2020)

ska invita said:


> its abandoned
> 
> 
> 
> ...



How much cash found its way into the pockets of consultants before the idea was quietly shitcanned though? Are we talking a Boris Bridge, or a mere Boris Island?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 25, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Wow.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I predict this will save minus quite a lot of money, if it deters people from wearing masks, employers from providing them for staff etc and thus worsens the rise in cases. But we really need to get away from the idea that they actually give a shit about saving money, they just enjoy being cunts and that's really all there is to it.


----------



## hash tag (Oct 25, 2020)

Another big outdoor even cancelled  News
The Regent Street show as well will have gone Regent Street Motor Show 2019


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 25, 2020)

So, this shower of shite-spouting twunts want people to wear face coverings to reduce transmission rates ... and then they increase the price by 20% .
Somehow, I don't think the compliance rate will do anything but take a dive.


----------



## MrSki (Oct 25, 2020)

151 deaths today compared to 67 last Sunday.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 25, 2020)

MrSki said:


> 151 deaths today compared to 67 last Sunday.



Fuck, that's high for a Sunday figure, the weekend lag in reporting is normally reflected in Tuesday's figure, I hate to think what that's going to be now.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 25, 2020)

So it's more than doubled? Never mind I'm sure Hancock will work his powers of necromancy again at some point to explain why they've died of covid and not with covid or something


----------



## Sue (Oct 25, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> So it's more than doubled? Never mind I'm sure Hancock will work his powers of necromancy again at some point to explain why they've died of covid and not with covid or something


I think you'll find it's been taken out of context. (Given that seem to be the current excuse for fucking everything...)


----------



## elbows (Oct 25, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> So it's more than doubled? Never mind I'm sure Hancock will work his powers of necromancy again at some point to explain why they've died of covid and not with covid or something



I may as well take that as an opportunity to say that the dashboard these days also has bits where ONS death figures are shown, and when drilling down to England there is even a graph at the bottom which shows deaths within 60 days of a test rather than 28.

Not that the 28 day vs 60 day differences in definition leads to as big a gap at this stage of the pandemic as it did for the period when they brought it in, as this graph from the weekly surveillance report demonstrates:


From https://assets.publishing.service.g.../Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w43_FINAL.pdf


----------



## Edie (Oct 25, 2020)

You can use this evidence based tool to stratify your risk of covid19, and for discussion with your workplace about risk management. It was developed by a group of GPs in Leeds and the North in memory of their colleague who died of covid, and takes into consideration ethnicity.





__





						Check your SAAD Score and your Covid-19 Risk - SAAD Score
					

What is your SAAD Score? Share on print Print & PDF




					saadscore.com


----------



## two sheds (Oct 25, 2020)

Interesting, ta. Scored well on everything except asthma (low bmi, work from home, have basic ppi) which put me medium risk which sounds about right. So I'm treating it as low risk of catching if I'm careful but high risk if I do catch it.


----------



## Edie (Oct 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Interesting, ta. Scored well on everything except asthma (low bmi, work from home, have basic ppi) which put me medium risk which sounds about right. So I'm treating it as low risk of catching if I'm careful but high risk if I do catch it.


I’ve got one high risk (immunosupressed) but scored low, which is great!


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 25, 2020)

Edie said:


> You can use this evidence based tool to stratify your risk of covid19, and for discussion with your workplace about risk management. It was developed by a group of GPs in Leeds and the North in memory of their colleague who died of covid, and takes into consideration ethnicity.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


top of the mild risk, then again a lot of the binary questions I actually fall right bang in the middle of the yes/no options, so I would guess medium risk.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Dr Anthony Fauci was interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, well worth watching, and he suggested that if a vaccine was approved by the end of
> next month, by the time enough doses were produced and administered to enough people, we could be looking to return to 'some form of normal' sometime during the third quarter next year, so between July & Sept.



This is really for the cures and vaccines thread I'd say ....

But, despite my dreadful tendancy towards over-positivity/over-optimism re vaccines , I _do_ think that (timescale-wise) Dr. Fauci may well be pushing over optimism (himself!) on availability, _*AND*_ over-pessimism on distribution ....

I suppose we can discuss all this further on the other thread, maybe?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 25, 2020)

Edie said:


> I’ve got one high risk (immunosupressed) but scored low, which is great!



Ah confused me since I've got only one category A and I take vitamin D and things .... but I'm 67 which explains it.

Eta: forgetting that I'm 67 - there's a word for that


----------



## andysays (Oct 25, 2020)

Edie said:


> You can use this evidence based tool to stratify your risk of covid19, and for discussion with your workplace about risk management. It was developed by a group of GPs in Leeds and the North in memory of their colleague who died of covid, and takes into consideration ethnicity.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That looks good, and should be particularly helpful for those whose employers aren't already doing something along those lines. 

Mine did something along broadly similar lines, although a few of the items on this one weren't included.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 25, 2020)

I'm not doing that risk survey until tomorrow. Would prefer sobriety 

Glad that some get positive scores though


----------



## Cid (Oct 25, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Another big outdoor even cancelled  News
> The Regent Street show as well will have gone Regent Street Motor Show 2019



Oh no. What a tragedy.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 25, 2020)

Edie said:


> You can use this evidence based tool to stratify your risk of covid19, and for discussion with your workplace about risk management. It was developed by a group of GPs in Leeds and the North in memory of their colleague who died of covid, and takes into consideration ethnicity.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's very useful. I'm mild risk but if I answer as Mr W or as my diabetic colleague they both come out as moderate risk.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 25, 2020)

Thanks Edie
I've done that SAAD score as well.
I'm also low risk, but OH and bezza both come out as moderate risk (but only just).


----------



## hash tag (Oct 25, 2020)

Another thanks Edie. Just tried for the hell of it. Scored 8, moderate. Unless I missed it, no mention of cancer/lymphoma.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 25, 2020)

weepiper said:


> That's very useful. I'm mild risk but if I answer as Mr W or as my diabetic colleague they both come out as moderate risk.


Assumes you have a workplace and that you travel to it every day, though.


----------



## Sue (Oct 25, 2020)

Yes, thanks Edie. Just sent the link to a friend who's been shielding/self-isolating since the start, even though he's no underlying healthy conditions/additional risk factors. He won't even meet face-to-face outside and distanced because he's so worried. (I'm concerned about his mental health and given he keeps banging on about evidence-based stuff....well...maybe that'll help.)


----------



## two sheds (Oct 25, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Assumes you have a workplace and that you travel to it every day, though.



I work from home they still asked me whether I used walk/cycle/car/public transport to get there.


----------



## Mation (Oct 25, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Another thanks Edie. Just tried for the hell of it. Scored 8, moderate.


Same.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 25, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Another thanks Edie. Just tried for the hell of it. Scored 8, moderate. Unless I missed it, no mention of cancer/lymphoma.



I think that would come under the bit about immune risk, but it should be separated, surely? I mean that really makes a big difference.



two sheds said:


> I work from home they still asked me whether I used walk/cycle/car/public transport to get there.



Yeah. I scored 17 (high risk) but I'd take a point or two off because I don't actually travel to work. Guess it's still somewhat relevant because if I do go anywhere it's via public transport.

It also doesn't include unemployed. That would be lone working, I guess.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 25, 2020)

yes, retired too which I am semi

can't remember whether they asked who you live with though


----------



## nagapie (Oct 25, 2020)

I'm mild but only just as on 7. I think it's mostly because I catch public transport and said yes to customer facing as work in a school. With the bad kind of children, not the good kind (primary) who don't spread Covid.


----------



## xenon (Oct 25, 2020)

I got 5 but maybe shoulda ticked public transport. Not daily but I use trains, tube and busses  once a month or so. Said no to vit D, though I take a multi. Presumed it doesn’t count.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> yes, retired too which I am semi
> 
> can't remember whether they asked who you live with though



They didn't, but I'm not sure it's all that relevant for an assessment of individual risk. 

I answered putting in my daughter's stats and she came out as five, mild risk. Put her down as lone working due to her being on the cusp of unemployed and a student; studying wasn't counted anyway. She's slightly overweight and if she did go out it would be public transport, but she doesn't go out.

xenon - a multivitamin would count if it includes vitamin D. Though it's not certain how much of a difference that makes, so it's a dodgy thing to include.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 25, 2020)

Would make a difference if you're a grandparent living in multi-generational household with young schoolkids, or if I were living in a house with someone with a lot of close contact with public though.

I think they're talking about higher doses of vitamin D rather than multivitamins. The one I take is 5000 IU (125mcg)/day which is pretty well top end - 625% of RDA -  but I've seen it recommended. Mainly important coming into winter though.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Would make a difference if you're a grandparent living in multi-generational household with young schoolkids, or if I were living in a house with someone with a lot of close contact with public though.
> 
> I think they're talking about higher doses of vitamin D rather than multivitamins. The one I take is 5000 IU (125mcg)/day which is pretty well top end - 625% of RDA -  but I've seen it recommended. Mainly important coming into winter though.



Our multivitamin is 400% of RDA. For adult multivitamins, that's not uncommon.

In my borough almost nobody can get vitamin D supplements on the NHS because it would cover almost everyone. Mine had to be below a level that my GP called "about to die" before they'd prescribe anything. Over the counter stuff is as effective and, although overdosing has side effects, it's not as common as with iron overdoses.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Our multivitamin is 400% of RDA. For adult multivitamins, that's not uncommon.
> 
> In my borough almost nobody can get vitamin D supplements on the NHS because it would cover almost everyone. Mine had to be below a level that my GP called "about to die" before they'd prescribe anything. Over the counter stuff is as effective and, although overdosing has side effects, it's not as common as with iron overdoses.


they're cheaper OTC than on prescription anyhow


----------



## Sue (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Our multivitamin is 400% of RDA. For adult multivitamins, that's not uncommon.
> 
> In my borough almost nobody can get vitamin D supplements on the NHS because it would cover almost everyone. Mine had to be below a level that my GP called "about to die" before they'd prescribe anything. Over the counter stuff is as effective and, although overdosing has side effects, it's not as common as with iron overdoses.


That's interesting. My consultant just said I needed them as there's a link between RA and Vit D deficiency. If you don't get them on prescription, you should definitely ask so you don't need to pay for them. (Mine are high-strength ones that are on prescription.)


----------



## two sheds (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Our multivitamin is 400% of RDA. For adult multivitamins, that's not uncommon.
> 
> In my borough almost nobody can get vitamin D supplements on the NHS because it would cover almost everyone. Mine had to be below a level that my GP called "about to die" before they'd prescribe anything. Over the counter stuff is as effective and, although overdosing has side effects, it's not as common as with iron overdoses.



My vit D were around £10 for 200 which I'd have thought was reasonable compared with NHS prescription. Interesting at 400% of RDA though - that's a lot better than I'd have thought.


----------



## Sue (Oct 26, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> they're cheaper OTC than on prescription anyhow


Not if you've a PPC/get free prescriptions -- suspect one or other could maybe apply to scifisam.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 26, 2020)

Sue said:


> That's interesting. My consultant just said I needed them as there's a link between RA and Vit D deficiency. If you don't get them on prescription, you should definitely ask so you don't need to pay for them. (Mine are high-strength ones that are on prescription.)



Fair point - I don't actually pay prescription charges, but don't mind getting them from the web.

I've read that you also need to take vitamin K to absorb the vitamin D but I've also read that this has been promoted by a company that makes vitamin K, and I've also read (on urban from a fine scottish poster) that you don't need vitamin K to absorb the vitamin D if you drink milk, which I do


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

Sue said:


> That's interesting. My consultant just said I needed them as there's a link between RA and Vit D deficiency. If you don't get them on prescription, you should definitely ask so you don't need to pay for them. (Mine are high-strength ones that are on prescription.)



Yep - I think that's why I was tested to begin with. But I was still refused them on prescription just one borough over. When I changed GP five years ago they tested me for vitamin D again, and they said the same. I don't think it's part of my regular blood tests.

I do get iron (ferrous fumarate) on prescription due to levels "so low they couldn't be detected," so it's a little difficult taking multivitamins. I basically skip the iron supplements every other day in order to take the multivit with vitamin D. But I also need B vitamins and calcium (vegetarian and lactose intolerant), so separate vitamins for everything aren't the best option. I really hate taking tablets and Sjogren's makes it more difficult physically too.

ETA: Prescriptions given by consultants and GPs aren't always the same, IME. I might ask my RA consultant next time rather than my GP. I've just had a (phone) appt, but have been referred for further scans, so might be able to ask then, maybe.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 26, 2020)

That tool seems to mix up the probability of infection with the dangers associated with being infected.  

And I’m curious to see the evidence of independent or even interaction risk of ethnicity distinct from the other risk factors, rather than it just being a surrogate indicator of the other factors.


----------



## Boudicca (Oct 26, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The one I take is 5000 IU (125mcg)/day which is pretty well top end - 625% of RDA -  but I've seen it recommended. Mainly important coming into winter though.



Back in around February, I was prescribed Vitamin D as I was deficient.  When they ran out, I didn't want to go back to the GP, so ordered the highest strength I could find (5,000) from Boots.  When I collected them, I went to talk to the pharmacist for some information about the difference between IU and ug.  She told me I shouldn't have been taking the prescription ones for more than 6 weeks (I think they were 20,000 twice a week for 3 months),  5000 was far too high and to return them and get a refund.

So I gave it a break as I am naturally outside a lot during the summer and probably didn't need them.  I've just bought more and have settled on the 1000 ones.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 26, 2020)

Interesting, ta - yes will do a bit more study on it and perhaps get lower dose. Also possible side effects with prednisolone which I hadn't realized and am taking a brief course of at the moment. That finishes over the next day or so though.

Eta: side effects are with prednisone not prednisolone  I hadn't heard of prednisone although it's related to prednisolone - there have been reports that vitamin D is good for reducing side effects of prednisolone. 

Did strike me as strange because I read through the prednisolone leaflet and it didn't mention problems with vit D.


----------



## Cid (Oct 26, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> Back in around February, I was prescribed Vitamin D as I was deficient.  When they ran out, I didn't want to go back to the GP, so ordered the highest strength I could find (5,000) from Boots.  When I collected them, I went to talk to the pharmacist for some information about the difference between IU and ug.  She told me I shouldn't have been taking the prescription ones for more than 6 weeks (I think they were 20,000 twice a week for 3 months),  5000 was far too high and to return them and get a refund.
> 
> So I gave it a break as I am naturally outside a lot during the summer and probably didn't need them.  I've just bought more and have settled on the 1000 ones.



Yeah I was prescribed a large dose for 6 weeks, then a much lower one. I’ll check what it is later. Also the high strength one was only take once/week.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 26, 2020)

Interesting again because I'll swear I've seen conflicting advice on maximum you can take from proper NHS type sites. Would definitely like to clear it up. Also taking one a week sounds a good solution if that's the way to go.


----------



## Hyperdark (Oct 26, 2020)

I dont know if its been previously mentioned but remember to take with some food containing fat to aid absorbrion


----------



## two sheds (Oct 26, 2020)

Yes I've been hoping that milk in coffee was enough but I'm going to take a small glass of milk with it in future.


----------



## Sue (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Yep - I think that's why I was tested to begin with. But I was still refused them on prescription just one borough over. When I changed GP five years ago they tested me for vitamin D again, and they said the same. I don't think it's part of my regular blood tests.
> 
> I do get iron (ferrous fumarate) on prescription due to levels "so low they couldn't be detected," so it's a little difficult taking multivitamins. I basically skip the iron supplements every other day in order to take the multivit with vitamin D. But I also need B vitamins and calcium (vegetarian and lactose intolerant), so separate vitamins for everything aren't the best option. I really hate taking tablets and Sjogren's makes it more difficult physically too.
> 
> ETA: Prescriptions given by consultants and GPs aren't always the same, IME. I might ask my RA consultant next time rather than my GP. I've just had a (phone) appt, but have been referred for further scans, so might be able to ask then, maybe.


Vitamin D isn't one of my standard blood tests either. (They do it maybe once or twice a year if they remember.) The Vit D ones I get are soluble and combined with calcium and actually taste okay. My GP just does me prescriptions for whatever my consultant says so surprised yours isn't the same. Who knows how this works though...


----------



## Looby (Oct 26, 2020)

I’ve just had a notification flash up then disappear about possible Covid exposure (which I knew about anyway). I can’t find this now to read what it actually said.


----------



## maomao (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I basically skip the iron supplements every other day in order to take the multivit with vitamin D. But I also need B vitamins and calcium (vegetarian and lactose intolerant), so separate vitamins for everything aren't the best option. I really hate taking tablets and Sjogren's makes it more difficult physically too.


Are the little gel caps any easier? Most of the good Vit D tablets are gel caps. I don't really trust the vit D in multi vitamins but I'm not a nutritionist so I'm not going to try and justify that. Also, Berroca type soluble vitamins tend to have B vits in them. I know Berocca are very expensive but Asda and Lidl do cheap versions (and Aldi if you aren't repulsed by 'tropical' flavour).


----------



## existentialist (Oct 26, 2020)

Looby said:


> I’ve just had a notification flash up then disappear about possible Covid exposure (which I knew about anyway). I can’t find this now to read what it actually said.


It's a known thing. Your phone has exchanged details with someone, but the app has filtered it out on the basis of range and length of contact.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

maomao said:


> Are the little gel caps any easier? Most of the good Vit D tablets are gel caps. I don't really trust the vit D in multi vitamins but I'm not a nutritionist so I'm not going to try and justify that. Also, Berroca type soluble vitamins tend to have B vits in them. I know Berocca are very expensive but Asda and Lidl do cheap versions (and Aldi if you aren't repulsed by 'tropical' flavour).



They are, but that would still mean extra tablets. Unfortunately I loathe Berocca.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 26, 2020)

I've still got a good tan from the early summer, so I'm waiting until that starts to fade before taking anything other than a multi-vit supplement. It's the B group - esp B12 - I usually miss out on.
According to my father's GP, when I was discussing diet & supplements (based on my own experience) I have a generally good diet and should not suffer from deficiencies in either trace minerals or vitamins - aside from B12.


----------



## Boudicca (Oct 26, 2020)

Cid said:


> Yeah I was prescribed a large dose for 6 weeks, then a much lower one. I’ll check what it is later. Also the high strength one was only take once/week.





two sheds said:


> Interesting again because I'll swear I've seen conflicting advice on maximum you can take from proper NHS type sites. Would definitely like to clear it up. Also taking one a week sounds a good solution if that's the way to go.


Recent experiences have made me trust pharmacists more than doctors.  Another pharmacist told me not to buy B12 from the pharmacy she worked at but to go to H&B and get natural ones.  Given that they think Vitamin D deficiency is a factor in Covid 19, it would be helpful to have a recommended dose.

two sheds the once/twice a week ones are prescription only, I think, and only given if you have had a blood test which shows that you are 'deficient'.  I would go to Boots, ask to see the pharmacist and see what he/she recommends.


----------



## weltweit (Oct 26, 2020)

Just received a negative test result by email from the random test program. 
Would have been very surprised had it been positive.


----------



## Looby (Oct 26, 2020)

existentialist said:


> It's a known thing. Your phone has exchanged details with someone, but the app has filtered it out on the basis of range and length of contact.


Cheers.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 26, 2020)

I've been taking immune support tablets which contain turmeric, ginger, and bits C, E, and D3


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 26, 2020)

Boots to offer 12-minute turnaround on Covid nasal swab test
					

The £120 nasal swab test will be available to people not showing any symptoms.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




*A Covid test that can provide a result in 12 minutes will be made available at high street pharmacy Boots.
The nasal swab test, which will cost £120, will be available in selected stores in the UK to people who are not showing symptoms*.

Well, Boots do have overheads. I imagine Superdrug will do it for a quid?


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

I just ordered a test after two people i saw recently tested positive, and noticed this:

If you have symptoms, the 10 days starts from when they started.

If you have not had symptoms, the 10 days starts from when you had the test.


... Meaning that if you're _not_ ill you're supposed to isolate for longer than if you are ill. And it doesn't even specify isolating for ten days after a test only if it's positive. 

And I've been at home since my last contact with those people - accidentally isolating and then intentionally - so, uh, am I really supposed to stay home for an additional 10 days after getting the test? That'd end up being at least 22 days' isolation despite having no symptoms. That makes no sense.

The NHS app only notified me today that I'd been in contact with someone who'd tested positive and I should self isolate from when I last had contact with them. Obviously I don't have a time machine so it's a good thing my friend contacted me herself (it can't be a more recent contact because there haven't been any).

As far as I'm concerned, if the test is negative then surely I'm not infectious and can go out on Saturday, which is after 14 days' isolation. I'm not sure if that's what the rules say, but it's the only interpretation that makes any sense. I'd be the safest person there.


----------



## Cid (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I just ordered a test after two people i saw recently tested positive, and noticed this:
> 
> If you have symptoms, the 10 days starts from when they started.
> 
> ...



Did you just order it from the online service and lie about symptoms? Thinking of getting one as I’ve had mild shortness of breath... unlikely to be COVID as no other symptoms, but obviously still want to go to GP and should confirm first.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

Cid said:


> Did you just order it from the online service and lie about symptoms? Thinking of getting one as I’ve had mild shortness of breath... unlikely to be COVID as no other symptoms, but obviously still want to go to GP and should confirm first.



Yup. Which will piss some people on here off. I really want to know I'm safe - not just for fun socialising reasons (though I might have done it for those reasons too) but because one of my medical appointments is finally progressing and I need to have a chest x-ray. I'd rather be virus free before going around other people with breathing problems, even with social distancing etc.

The app then tells you to self isolate for ten days from whenever the symptoms supposedly started, so put it in from a few days back. (Or you could uninstall and reinstall the app).


----------



## Weller (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I just ordered a test after two people i saw recently tested positive, and noticed this:
> 
> If you have symptoms, the 10 days starts from when they started.
> 
> ...


My recent test was done because I had flu like symptoms came back negative within 48 hours and the staff that did it told me I was safe to go out if I felt well and symptoms had not worsened and the test came back negative 
It was confusing to me too online and that is why I asked them as could do without a fine
is it different if you have been close to someone , they contact you even if you get a negative test 

Locally our council are now asking and offering tests for people without any symptoms too so its all a bit up in the air imho


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

Weller said:


> My recent test was done because I had flu like symptoms came back negative within 48 hours and the staff that did it told me I was safe to go out if I felt well and symptoms had not worsened and the test came back negative
> It was confusing to me too online and that is why I asked them as could do without a fine
> is it different if you have been close to someone , they contact you even if you get a negative test



They contact you and ask you to get tested if you have symptoms. It also says to self isolate for 14 days from last contact if you don't have symptoms. Then when you put in that you have symptoms it says to isolate for ten days from when the symptoms started. So again that's less isolation time if you're symptomatic. 

I know asymptomatic transmission occurs, but, for an aerosol borne disease, transmission is definitely going to be higher if you're coughing and sneezing.


----------



## maomao (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> As far as I'm concerned, if the test is negative then surely I'm not infectious and can go out on Saturday, which is after 14 days' isolation.



If it's negative you get a text and email telling you you're fine to go out. I lied (about occupation) too. More people should lie, then they'd have to provide the tests.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

A lot of the timing differences are because if you test positive they have some idea of timescale for your infectiousness, but if you dont have symptoms they are allowing time for you to go on to develop them. Plus they never got testing capacity up to a level where they would feel comfortable offering widespread testing to asymptomatic members of the general population.

Asymptomatic transmission is likely rather a big deal in this pandemic, so I utterly disregard the clasic thoughts about being more infectious when coughing and sneezing.


----------



## Cid (Oct 26, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> Recent experiences have made me trust pharmacists more than doctors.  Another pharmacist told me not to buy B12 from the pharmacy she worked at but to go to H&B and get natural ones.  Given that they think Vitamin D deficiency is a factor in Covid 19, it would be helpful to have a recommended dose.
> 
> two sheds the once/twice a week ones are prescription only, I think, and only given if you have had a blood test which shows that you are 'deficient'.  I would go to Boots, ask to see the pharmacist and see what he/she recommends.



I’m not sure the gp and pharmacy advise is any different. The high dose is prescribed short term as an initial boost, then dropped to a lower level.


----------



## Boudicca (Oct 26, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Boots to offer 12-minute turnaround on Covid nasal swab test
> 
> 
> The £120 nasal swab test will be available to people not showing any symptoms.
> ...


For hyp


Cid said:


> I’m not sure the gp and pharmacy advise is any different. The high dose is prescribed short term as an initial boost, then dropped to a lower level.


My gp gave me a three months prescription at a level which the pharmacist said I should only be taking for 6 weeks


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> A lot of the timing differences are because if you test positive they have some idea of timescale for your infectiousness, but if you dont have symptoms they are allowing time for you to go on to develop them. Plus they never got testing capacity up to a level where they would feel comfortable offering widespread testing to asymptomatic members of the general population.
> 
> Asymptomatic transmission is likely rather a big deal in this pandemic, so I utterly disregard the clasic thoughts about being more infectious when coughing and sneezing.


That has to be balanced with the difference in the probabilities that you are actually infected if you a) show symptoms vs b) don't show symptoms. Danger is that a very large number of non-infected people could be ordered to isolate in a way that only prevents a relatively tiny handful of infections.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> A lot of the timing differences are because if you test positive they have some idea of timescale for your infectiousness, but if you dont have symptoms they are allowing time for you to go on to develop them. Plus they never got testing capacity up to a level where they would feel comfortable offering widespread testing to asymptomatic members of the general population.
> 
> Asymptomatic transmission is likely rather a big deal in this pandemic, so I utterly disregard the clasic thoughts about being more infectious when coughing and sneezing.



So you think it makes sense for asymptomatic people to isolate for _longer_?? Sick people would be going out while healthy ones were stuck at home. 

And I'm not saying there's no asymptomatic transmission, but it's simply physically impossible for breathing out normally to infect as many people as coughing on them. The aerosols spread further.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That has to be balanced with the difference in the probabilities that you are actually infected if you a) show symptoms vs b) don't show symptoms. Danger is that a very large number of non-infected people could be ordered to isolate in a way that only prevents a relatively tiny handful of infections.



Also you need to take into account how compliant people are going to be if they're repeatedly told to isolate for weeks while healthy.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 26, 2020)

I thought the 14 days was incase you develop symptoms and then you'd start then days from when symptoms started.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 26, 2020)

Government have added VAT back to face masks - again, just wonder what the political calculations are here. _Surely_ whatever you get from the added VAT, you lose in terms of public support/perception 

Honestly wouldn't be surprised if some of them were thinking "we've got a massive majority for four years, people will forget what we've done now by the time we have to con them again". That said, I'd be equally unsurprised if they hadn't thought any of this through at all.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Also you need to take into account how compliant people are going to be if they're repeatedly told to isolate for weeks while healthy.


There's that as well, although there is also another factor, which is that, orders to isolate or no, a sick person will modify their behaviour in ways that reduce the chances of transmission. A perfectly healthy person is likely to be less careful.

Knowledge is still pitifully low, seems to me. How do asymptomatic people generally transmit to others? Do we understand that well yet? Also, while two weeks may be needed in order to _guarantee_ 100% no infection, how are the odds affected if the isolation lasts, say, one week with no symptoms? It will surely be above 50% better than no isolation, but how much above it? Is that then _good enough_ with a group of people who we know are probably not infected anyway?


----------



## maomao (Oct 26, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> My gp gave me a three months prescription at a level which the pharmacist said I should only be taking for 6 weeks


Yes but he told you take it twice a week. I was on that dosage (20,000) daily for four weeks a couple of years ago. 40,000 a week is just under 6,000 a day which can be taken for longer than six weeks.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That has to be balanced with the difference in the probabilities that you are actually infected if you a) show symptoms vs b) don't show symptoms. Danger is that a very large number of non-infected people could be ordered to isolate in a way that only prevents a relatively tiny handful of infections.



There are all sorts of balances and if the government reduce the times it will be with one eye on key worker staffing levels for winter.


----------



## LDC (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> So you think it makes sense for asymptomatic people to isolate for _longer_?? Sick people would be going out while healthy ones were stuck at home.



Sick people shouldn't be going out. If they still have symptoms at the end of the isolation then they continue to isolate.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sick people shouldn't be going out. If they still have symptoms at the end of the isolation then they continue to isolate.



Unless you still have a cough or loss of sense of smell or taste. The guidance says you can go out after ten days with those symptoms.


----------



## LDC (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I just ordered a test after two people i saw recently tested positive, and noticed this:
> 
> If you have symptoms, the 10 days starts from when they started.
> 
> ...



You're complicating things by adding in your own self-isolation period, not sure what you mean by accidentally self isolating. The rules are there to continue to self isolate after contact and a negative test as if tested early in the infection it might not show. I have no idea of the timeline as it's not clear to me from what you said. But a negative test doesn't always mean you can just go out.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> There are all sorts of balances and if the government reduce the times it will be with one eye on key worker staffing levels for winter.


The calculations also need to be appropriate to the general level of infection and the intention of the measure. Guaranteeing that everyone told to isolate avoids infecting anyone else may make sense if overall levels are very low and you're aiming at elimination. Doing so when infection levels are high and your concern is to reduce the R number below 1 may make far less sense.

tbh this government, the UK government, throughout the pandemic pretty much, has shown little evidence that it actually knows what the intention is behind many of its measures.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> So you think it makes sense for asymptomatic people to isolate for _longer_?? Sick people would be going out while healthy ones were stuck at home.
> 
> And I'm not saying there's no asymptomatic transmission, but it's simply physically impossible for breathing out normally to infect as many people as coughing on them. The aerosols spread further.



I already explained why it makes sense to me, you have to allow enough time for potential cases to develop.

I would vastly prefer to have systems that involve mass, routine testing. We dont have that at the moment so less than ideal strategies have to be followed instead.

Compliance is one of the issues that has to be balanced against other things, and many aspects of the system have been a fudged failure in this pandemic so far. So I wont necessarily complain loudly if they change the fudge ingredients a bit. Especially since none of this stuff is working well enough to avoid the need for more draconian measures that reduce the quibbling and force more people in general to keep out of the way of other people.

I utterly reject the dodgy assumptions about coughing etc, I'm not interested in maintaining the myths that governments relied on early on just because they couldnt come to terms with the implications that stem from asymptomatic people being infectious. Eventually even the establishment somewhat came to terms with this stuff and I am not really interested in debating the issue with people who cling to the old, false ways of thinking about respiratory virus transmission. Not when we are dealing with a virus that has likely thrived on this aspect. Especially not when the famous early 'UK superspreader' was asymptomatic during the spreading event.


----------



## LDC (Oct 26, 2020)

Asymptomatic means infected with the virus but has no symptoms btw. People might be using it meaning 'has no symptoms and no known infection'.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> You're complicating things by adding in your own self-isolation period, not sure what you mean by accidentally self isolating. The rules are there to continue to self isolate after contact and a negative test as if tested early in the infection it might not show. I have no idea of the timeline as it's not clear to me from what you said. But a negative test doesn't always mean you can just go out.



Accidentally self isolating - I happened to stay at home for days after to the occasion on which I was exposed. The rules say to self isolate for 14 days from the date of contact, so obviously I'm going to include the days I happened to be at home. They're part of the 14 days. That's not complicating things at all. If you think I should add an extra 14 days to that time, then you're wrong.

I don't see anything that specifically says to isolate after a negative test. Maomao received a text saying he was fine to stop isolation after his test.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The calculations also need to be appropriate to the general level of infection and the intention of the measure. Guaranteeing that everyone told to isolate avoids infecting anyone else may make sense if overall levels are very low and you're aiming at elimination. Doing so when infection levels are high and your concern is to reduce the R number below 1 may make far less sense.



I dont understand why that would not still be a component of bringing R down.

I still end up agreeing with you in part but only in the same sense that leads me to frequently say that contact tracing is not a big part of the solution when prevalence is at very high levels. So only because I believe that at such times measures need to go much further, limiting contacts between people in general, making crude assumptions that every contact could be infectious etc. So lockdown etc.


----------



## LDC (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Accidentally self isolating - I happened to stay at home for days after to the occasion on which I was exposed. The rules say to self isolate for 14 days from the date of contact, so obviously I'm going to include the days I happened to be at home. They're part of the 14 days. That's not complicating things at all. If you think I should add an extra 14 days to that time, then you're wrong.
> 
> I don't see anything that specifically says to isolate after a negative test. Maomao received a text saying he was fine to stop isolation after his test.



I just couldn't quite follow your timeline from what you wrote that's all.

Depends on why you had the test re: isolating. If you're getting tested due to having symptoms then you can stop self-isolating if you test negative.

If you're testing due to contact with confirmed positive case then you have to isolate for the full length of time afaik (but not looked at the rules for a while).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont understand why that would not still be a component of bringing R down.


It's a question of balancing harm. Ordering huge numbers of people to self-isolate is not cost-free (and I don't just mean economic cost). If the net benefit of that wrt R is tiny compared to the scale of the problem, then it may not be a proportionate thing to do.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Asymptomatic means infected with the virus but has no symptoms btw. People might be using it meaning 'has no symptoms and no known infection'.



A lot of the initial studies into signs of the scale of asymptomatic infection did tend to drive me nuts because they didnt follow people for long enough to know if they remained asymptomatic all the way through or whether they should actually be classed as pre-symptomatic because they eventually went on to develop symptoms.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> I already explained why it makes sense to me, you have to allow enough time for potential cases to develop.
> 
> I would vastly prefer to have systems that involve mass, routine testing. We dont have that at the moment so less than ideal strategies have to be followed instead.
> 
> ...



But you haven't explained why you think it should be 14 days rather than ten.

Reject the "dodgy" assumptions about coughing all you like, but I will continue to maintain that coughing spreads aerosols more than not coughing. You seem to think I'm arguing that asymptomatic transmission doesn't happen, but that's not what I've said at all. 

Lynne you have got to be absolutely fucking kidding.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I just couldn't quite follow your timeline from what you wrote that's all.
> 
> Depends on why you had the test re: isolating. If you're getting tested due to having symptoms then you can stop self-isolating if you test negative.
> 
> If you're testing due to contact with confirmed positive case then you have to isolate for the full length of time afaik (but not looked at the rules for a while).



Honestly, it doesn't say that anywhere in the rules.









						What to do if you have coronavirus (COVID-19) or symptoms of COVID-19
					

Advice on staying at home (self-isolation) and avoiding contact with others if you have tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) or have symptoms of COVID-19




					www.nhs.uk
				




Actually, looking elsewhere it says you do have to stay in for the full 14 days. Not that doesn't make sense. You could still develop symptoms... Of a disease you don't have? And the people in your household don't even have to self isolate for any of that time, supposedly, which doesn't make sense either. One of those rules is illogically cautious and the other is illogically risky.









						If you're told to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace
					

What to do if you're told by NHS Test and Trace that you must stay at home (self-isolate) because you've been in contact with someone with coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.nhs.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's a question of balancing harm. Ordering huge numbers of people to self-isolate is not cost-free (and I don't just mean economic cost). If the net benefit of that wrt R is tiny compared to the scale of the problem, then it may not be a proportionate thing to do.



At various severe moments the balancing act in this regard for authorities is a choice between quite broad self-isolation parameters and going further via lockdown, closures etc.

So its more of the common pandemic phenomenon of being caught between a rock and a hard place. I certainly dont claim its ideal, and it wont surprise me if the government tweak the timings. 

A lot of the measures have a small effect relative to the full scale of the problem, which is why we end up with packages of many measures thrown together, so that collectively they have a more substantial impact on R. In this sense there arent too many things that I would consider to be pointless pissing in the wind, but there are certainly moments where the scale of the challenge requires a dramatic ramping up of measures.


----------



## maomao (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Maomao received a text saying he was fine to stop isolation after his test.


The text of the email was as follows:


Your coronavirus test result is negative. You did not have the virus when the test was done.
You only need to self-isolate if:



you develop symptoms of coronavirus (you’ll need a new test)
someone you live with tests positive
you’ve been traced as a contact of someone who tested positive
For advice on how long to self-isolate, go to www.nhs.uk/coronavirus and read ‘Self-isolation and treating symptoms’.

Otherwise, you may return to work if you’ve not had a high temperature for 48 hours and feel well. Talk to your employer first.

If you’re going into hospital, keep self-isolating until the date you go in.



So while I read that as 'I'm going down the shops', I'm not sure how the third bullet point affects you.


----------



## LDC (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Honestly, it doesn't say that anywhere in the rules.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You didn't read it all then. Says in that; "If your test is negative, you must keep self-isolating for the rest of the 14 days."

I know people who have tested negative in the early stages of the 14 days and been told to continue to self isolate until the end of the 14 days.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> But you haven't explained why you think it should be 14 days rather than ten.



Because the incubation period has been determined to be up to 14 days.

As discussed by others and myslf in other posts, there are balancing acts involved so I already said I probaby wouldnt complain loudly if they reduced the time to 10 ays. But that would certainly be a compromise and ideally these systems would be in tune with the 14 days parameter.

The balancing act would ideally take account of what proportion of cases actually take the full 14 days to develop, and if there are any examples that take even longer. If the numbers are thought to be very low then the balancing equation does change a little, which again is why Im not going to go nuts if they reduce it. But I have no problem understanding why it was set at 14 to start with.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

maomao said:


> The text of the email was as follows:
> 
> 
> Your coronavirus test result is negative. You did not have the virus when the test was done.
> ...



It's theoretical for me this time around because I'm not intending to go out till 14 days are up anyway. Getting the test is more about making sure I'm actually safe rather than strictly following the rules.

Tbh I'm not entirely sure why I was contacted in the first place - there was more than 48 hours between my contact with that person and them falling ill (and it was over a week with the other contact). I was staying in just to be on the safe side, and because I can at the moment, before I got the text.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> You didn't read it all then. Says in that; "If your test is negative, you must keep self-isolating for the rest of the 14 days."
> 
> I know people who have tested negative in the early stages of the 14 days and been told to continue to self isolate until the end of the 14 days.



You didn't read all my post either 😃

Sorry, but that rule is going to be very hard to enforce. Christ, if they enforce it in the NHS it's going to have no staff while they sit at home, healthy and with a negative test.


----------



## LDC (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> It's theoretical for me this time around because I'm not intending to go out till 14 days are up anyway. Getting the test is more about making sure I'm actually safe rather than strictly following the rules.
> 
> Tbh I'm not entirely sure why I was contacted in the first place - there was more than 48 hours between my contact with that person and them falling ill (and it was over a week with the other contact). I was staying in just to be on the safe side, and because I can at the moment, before I got the text.



It is quite complicated. The person I live with had contact with a +tive case recently, so had to look into it all in detail and work it out.


----------



## LDC (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> You didn't read all my post either 😃
> 
> Sorry, but that rule is going to be very hard to enforce. Christ, if they enforce it in the NHS it's going to have no staff while they sit at home, healthy and with a negative test.



But if they've been social distancing and the other stuff (wearing PPE in the NHS for example) then in theory very few people should be having significant contact with anyone that tests positive...


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Knowledge is still pitifully low, seems to me. How do asymptomatic people generally transmit to others? Do we understand that well yet? Also, while two weeks may be needed in order to _guarantee_ 100% no infection, how are the odds affected if the isolation lasts, say, one week with no symptoms? It will surely be above 50% better than no isolation, but how much above it? Is that then _good enough_ with a group of people who we know are probably not infected anyway?



Despite the enormous stakes in this pandemic and the disruption it causes, dont be surprised if knowledge remains pitifully low. Because I wasnt very impressed by the level of knowledge ascertained by humanity up to the point I took an interest in pandemics around 2005, and nothing thats happened since has given me cause to expect this to change in dramatic fashion.

I dont think the concept of 'people who we know are probably not infected anyway' has a sensible place in this pandemic. On what basis do we know they are probably not infected? Sounds too similar to the sorts of mistakes and behind the curve thinking that cause the likes of Whitty, Hancock, Johnson or teams of NHS staff planning for the first wave to end up infected themselves.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Reject the "dodgy" assumptions about coughing all you like, but I will continue to maintain that coughing spreads aerosols more than not coughing. You seem to think I'm arguing that asymptomatic transmission doesn't happen, but that's not what I've said at all.



If I were a virus I would much prefer not to cause overt symptoms in the hosts I'm infecting. Then I can spread silently without such symptoms tipping people off that I am present, without sending them to bed or isolation where their potential to infect people is reduced.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

The incubation period is said to be 14 days, in the UK... But you can only be tested for eight days. You know those figures aren't universally agreed upon and definitely accurate.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It is quite complicated. The person I live with had contact with a +tive case recently, so had to look into it all in detail and work it out.



Yeah, and to be fair, some of the complications are unavoidable. But I still don't know why I was contacted. It's weird.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> But if they've been social distancing and the other stuff (wearing PPE in the NHS for example) then in theory very few people should be having significant contact with anyone that tests positive...



I was wearing an N95 mask and maintaining social distancing with this contact, too, and I see far fewer people than anyone working face to face in the NHS.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

scifisam said:


> The incubation period is said to be 14 days, in the UK... But you can only be tested for eight days. You know those figures aren't universally agreed upon and definitely accurate.



All the same, some figure has to be settled on. Should try to be as conservative as is possible practically when setting such numbers.

I'm certainly going to go with the orthodox number rather than settle on a lower one just because you dont like the higher one.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> All the same, some figure has to be settled on. Should try to be as conservative as is possible practically when setting such numbers.


Not necessarily. Again, it comes down to what you judge to be _good enough_ for the purposes you are trying to achieve. A lot of the current measures are totally out of proportion in this regard. 

14 days mandatory isolation when returning from countries that have a lower, or even similar, infection level than the UK is a case in point. Very different calculation of the potential benefit to that compared to a situation where infection here is very low and you're trying to avoid adding extra infection. Telling a person returning from, say, Turkey atm to self-isolate is going to bring no greater benefit than just choosing a random person in the street and telling that person to self-isolate.


----------



## editor (Oct 26, 2020)

Whining church twats 



> One person, who appears to be the church pastor, addresses the police officers and says: "This is really strange and, I say it respectfully, we love you guys as police officers and we are not law-breaking people.
> 
> "But when they say to us that it is illegal to come and worship our God, this is the West, this isn't a nation somewhere far off somewhere else."
> 
> ...











						Police called to church going ahead with service despite ban on gatherings
					

Officers from South Wales Police were called to New Hope Community Church in Cardiff as adults and children congregated despite Wales' fire-break lockdown restrictions




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 26, 2020)

That's not true about the singing thing.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 26, 2020)

Religions, always very selective about right and wrong.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not necessarily. Again, it comes down to what you judge to be _good enough_ for the purposes you are trying to achieve. A lot of the current measures are totally out of proportion in this regard.
> 
> 14 days mandatory isolation when returning from countries that have a lower, or even similar, infection level than the UK is a case in point. Very different calculation of the potential benefit to that compared to a situation where infection here is very low and you're trying to avoid adding extra infection. Telling a person returning from, say, Turkey atm to self-isolate is going to bring no greater benefit than just choosing a random person in the street and telling that person to self-isolate.



Again, thats why I say that I wont go crazy if they fiddle with that number. Especially given the current situation, and if such things are changed whilst at the same time tightening other aspects of our approach.

Speaking of what measures are proportionate and what we are trying to achieve, where is your head at in regards such things at this stage in the pandemic? How far do you think we should be going considering the current level of infections in the UK? What are your thoughts on firebreaker stuff and the next few months? We spent quite a lot of time disagreeing about various things during the waning of the first wave and the subsequent trough, but some of those disagreements were about differences in expectations of the subsequent threat. So I was wondering what your thoughts were now that many countries are back in the shit again.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 26, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That's not true about the singing thing.



yep, and the rest isn't either


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 26, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That's not true about the singing thing.



No shit.

What an absolute loonspud he is.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 26, 2020)

'This isn't a nation far off somewhere else'


----------



## two sheds (Oct 26, 2020)

"they say to us that it is illegal to come and worship our God"


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

Looks like evangelical shit, no surprise there.

Their facebook page is fond of including posts from Jeremiah Johnson Ministries. Including this sort of politicised drivel:



> 8/28/20 THE FATAL LEFT HOOK TO DONALD TRUMP THAT WILL MISS THE MARK IN NOVEMBER
> On July 17, 2020 at
> Daystar Television Network
> , I prophesied on national television that Satan’s final strategy against the presidency of Donald Trump would come through the sports and entertainment industry.
> ...


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 26, 2020)

I thought that several clusters (like some in Sth Korea) had been proven to trace back to religious premises / events as the source ...


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

Die, then, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the Superspreader event, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I'll lead you all to your Death, said he


----------



## two sheds (Oct 26, 2020)

"Hear the word of the Lord"

Dem bones Dem bones Dem dry bones Dem bones Dem bones Dem dry bones


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Again, thats why I say that I wont go crazy if they fiddle with that number. Especially given the current situation, and if such things are changed whilst at the same time tightening other aspects of our approach.
> 
> Speaking of what measures are proportionate and what we are trying to achieve, where is your head at in regards such things at this stage in the pandemic? How far do you think we should be going considering the current level of infections in the UK? What are your thoughts on firebreaker stuff and the next few months? We spent quite a lot of time disagreeing about various things during the waning of the first wave and the subsequent trough, but some of those disagreements were about differences in expectations of the subsequent threat. So I was wondering what your thoughts were now that many countries are back in the shit again.



The second wave in Europe is hitting hardest mostly in those places that were hit hardest first time, with one or two exceptions (Sweden lowish still, Czechia fully blown). So we still have little idea how to control the spread - the various measures and systems put in place by the UK, France, Spain, Belgium, etc, have all clearly failed. The reasons for that? I don't know.  

I'll be watching with interest to see what happens in Wales over the next three weeks. Zoe Covid estimated R at 1.2 in Wales last week, so that's the benchmark. I am sceptical about how effective it will be just as I'm sceptical about the effectiveness of most of what is being done - it's been reactive, and it's failing. The state we're in now is a direct result of things that were and weren't done months ago. That said, I don't want to prejudge it. If Wales's lockdown shows clear benefits, I'll be genuinely pleased, cos it will show a measure that does work. Too late, though, in most places - too little done early on and too much later on is still the pattern I see. And the sharper you go up, the earlier you go down still seems to be the way - Madrid, for example, shot up with this second wave and is now the first part of Spain to appear to be going down from its peak. 

I don't really have any answers in the sense that I can't explain the patterns. Much of what I have suggested/expected has been proven wrong. Some of it hasn't. Very little of what is happening is under anybody's control. At least death numbers are lower this time.


----------



## Supine (Oct 26, 2020)

Rule of 6 and 10pm curfew make little difference





__





						The impact of local and national restrictions in response to COVID-19 on social contacts in the England: a longitudinal natural experiment.
					

We present the analyses of the impact of national and local restrictions on the number of setting-specific contacts that people have prior to and during the restrictions from an ongoing survey (CoMix) which tracks social contact behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic.




					cmmid.github.io


----------



## Wilf (Oct 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Nobody knows at the end of the day.
> 
> Dr Anthony Fauci was interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, well worth watching, and he suggested that if a vaccine was approved by the end of
> next month, by the time enough doses were produced and administered to enough people, we could be looking to return to 'some form of normal' sometime during the third quarter next year, so between July & Sept.


TBH, I'd settle for that.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The second wave in Europe is hitting hardest mostly in those places that were hit hardest first time, with one or two exceptions (Sweden lowish still, Czechia fully blown). So we still have little idea how to control the spread - the various measures and systems put in place by the UK, France, Spain, Belgium, etc, have all clearly failed. The reasons for that? I don't know.
> 
> I'll be watching with interest to see what happens in Wales over the next three weeks. Zoe Covid estimated R at 1.2 in Wales last week, so that's the benchmark. I am sceptical about how effective it will be just as I'm sceptical about the effectiveness of most of what is being done - it's been reactive, and it's failing. The state we're in now is a direct result of things that were and weren't done months ago. That said, I don't want to prejudge it. If Wales's lockdown shows clear benefits, I'll be genuinely pleased, cos it will show a measure that does work. Too late, though, in most places - too little done early on and too much later on is still the pattern I see. And the sharper you go up, the earlier you go down still seems to be the way - Madrid, for example, shot up with this second wave and is now the first part of Spain to appear to be going down from its peak.
> 
> I don't really have any answers in the sense that I can't explain the patterns. Much of what I have suggested/expected has been proven wrong. Some of it hasn't. Very little of what is happening is under anybody's control. At least death numbers are lower this time.



Cheers for the reply, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I think part of the problem is that we want to see clear signs of full success, which means an R below 1. But the balancing act with economic etc considerations generally means the measures done outside of periods of lockdown have only tended to be enough to bring the R down from its 'natural' level (the level it can achieve when people are behaving completely normally) but not below 1. So it still tends to resemble failure, even though I would consider something like halving the 'natural' R (eg from 3 to 1.5) to be a massive achievement. But not enough of an achievement to be seen as a big success. And where successes are spotted, infinite quibbling about which aspects of our response was responsible for the success are still available.

One of the things that scares me about the current approach is that levels of infection were allowed to get so high that even if badly affected places get R down to around 1, the level of infection and hospitalisation that will endure with R at 1 is still completely unsustainable. And that even if the peak daily death rate in those places were to remain a fraction of those seen the first time, if it continues for a longer period then eventually the totals will match or exceed the total deaths seen the first time.

But in terms of success so far and what the measures, which havent been enough to prevent resurgence, have managed to achieve, the much different doubling time compared to that seen pre-lockdown in the first wave is my main guide. We and other countries in Europe did enough that the resurgence has happened in slow motion compared to last time. But its still happened, and the stuff we've done only changes the timing rather than automatically affecting the ultimate peak scale. Very similar to the publicly stated aims of the original UK plan A really, the one that was ditched by mid March, where they kept telling us how they were going to push down on the curve, flattening the peak but prolonging the time period.

My thoughts on Madrids second wave arent anywhere near fully formed yet and I need to check some things including timing of various recent measures in Madrid, but I do look forward to having a fruitful discussion with you about that at some point in the future.

Yes Wales will be interesting for comparison to England, as is Scotland. Probably the easiest thing to predict is that intending measures to last a few weeks is a tricky to pull off, because we'd only just be expecting to glimpse signs of success at the end of that period, and the temptation to extend things further to achieve more will be there. In theory, even without a circuitbreaker/firebreaker, Englands R should be temporarily affected by half term holidays. But I dont know if the effect will be strong enough to show up via our attempts to deduce R, especially given the short time period involved. Plus I dont know how much a temporary spike in Uni student driven infections has affected R in a way that means it will drop back again once that student wave has passed, but wont actually help with R in other age groups/settings where the wave is probably still growing. Speaking of which the R in hospitals and care homes probably becomes more important again now, but I dont think they publicly estimate such things. And we might expect further delay between successes in reducing R in the general community feeding through to reduce R in hospitals and care homes. These latter aspects and the timing of waves of hospital and care home infections relative to wider community waves are factors that probably go into what you have observed in terms of some places having much spikier waves that fall more quickly. Because if there is a cascading effect from community to hospitals to care homes over time, these can show up in the overall headlines figures as a much longer and fatter tail. In just the same way that if regional timing of waves varies a lot, we'll get an ugly drawn out affair in the overall national graphs as opposed to the differently timed distinct waves that are visible when zooming in on the regions etc.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 26, 2020)

One of my worries is that if/when we get a vaccine and the roll out gets going, government will start to remove restrictions and the population will ease back into something like normal life (give or take the significant numbers who will still be de facto shielding and/or too worried to go out much).  For example, you could imagine some sort of reduced capacity indoor gigs being attended, around May/June with a 50/50 vaccinated/unvaccinated crowd. So just at the point where the vaccine might start to reduce R, social distancing disappears, keeping it up. Eventually, the vaccine hopefully/probably gets the virus, but any kind of free for all pushes that back.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

Wilf said:


> One of my worries is that if/when we get a vaccine and the roll out gets going, government will start to remove restrictions and the population will ease back into something like normal life (give or take the significant numbers who will still be de facto shielding and/or too worried to go out much).  For example, you could imagine some sort of reduced capacity indoor gigs being attended, around May/June with a 50/50 vaccinated/unvaccinated crowd. So just at the point where the vaccine might start to reduce R, social distancing disappears, keeping it up. Eventually, the vaccine hopefully/probably gets the virus, but any kind of free for all pushes that back.



I tend not to look too far ahead in any detail but I tend to imagine that for quite some time the vaccine will be targeted in very particular directions. eg If various leaks are to be believed, it will be healthcare workers who are first invited to be vaccinated. This will be done not just for their health and the health of their patients, but also to reduce NHS staff self-isolation pressures on staffing levels. And as staffing levels are a major concern of the government, I'll be surprised if vaccines arent directed there first.

For the sort of scenario you envisage, I think that various other forms of rapid, mass testing are going to be a really large part of that mix. I know the Johnson government have undermined the credibility of such things by hyping them up long before they were in a position to deliver on such ambitions, but in reality that stuff should still be a large part of the 2021 version of the new normal.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> For the sort of scenario you envisage, I think that various other forms of rapid, mass testing are going to be a really large part of that mix. I know the Johnson government have undermined the credibility of such things by hyping them up long before they were in a position to deliver on such ambitions, but in reality that stuff should still be a large part of the 2021 version of the new normal.


As an aside, I think this exemplifies the reason why countries with populist governments have fared so badly. Populism isn't about what you did yesterday or what you're doing today. It's all about promises concerning what will happen tomorrow. That's been a strong characteristic of Johnson's government, not just with covid. It is of course an utterly useless way to tackle an emergency. Even now, they're more concerned with looking good than they are with doing good.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 26, 2020)

Went for a walk down the high street today. Bank closed due to "staff illness". Travel agent closed due to "staff illness". And still loads of tits walking around B&M (for some reason this is always the worst place) with masks on chins, no mask at all, blocking aisles, etc.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> I tend not to look too far ahead in any detail but I tend to imagine that for quite some time the vaccine will be targeted in very particular directions. eg If various leaks are to be believed, it will be healthcare workers who are first invited to be vaccinated. This will be done not just for their health and the health of their patients, but also to reduce NHS staff self-isolation pressures on staffing levels. And as staffing levels are a major concern of the government, I'll be surprised if vaccines arent directed there first.
> 
> For the sort of scenario you envisage, I think that various other forms of rapid, mass testing are going to be a really large part of that mix. I know the Johnson government have undermined the credibility of such things by hyping them up long before they were in a position to deliver on such ambitions, but in reality that stuff should still be a large part of the 2021 version of the new normal.


Yes, I agree as to the timings. In my optimistic version, approval before Xmas might lead to NHS and other specified occupations getting it - guesswork - February (same logic as the airline safety thing, 'sort your own oxygen before you try and help anyone else'). In that scenario, it moves through the medical conditions and age groups, to the point where lots have people have been inoculated, but lots haven't. That point could be, who knows, 12 months from now. I'm just speculating that that in itself might be a dangerous moment.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 26, 2020)

The sneaky nose pointing out of mask lots piss me off so fucking much and one day I’ll swing for one of the bastards


----------



## Sprocket. (Oct 26, 2020)

Doncaster hospital covid admissions 'double in a week' Doncaster hospital covid admissions 'double in a week'
This is really worrying me now. Although at high-risk and pretty much isolated since March I am now for the first time really, scarily concerned. 
Trying to avoid everything and everyone.


----------



## killer b (Oct 26, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> The sneaky nose pointing out of mask lots piss me off so fucking much and one day I’ll swing for one of the bastards


I have them in the same category as people who bag up their dog's shit then hang it from the railings


----------



## zora (Oct 26, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> The sneaky nose pointing out of mask lots piss me off so fucking much and one day I’ll swing for one of the bastards


^^^ This, especially after seeing that meme that I cannot unsee of likening it to the incorrect wearing of underpants. 
I just want to shout "tuck yourself in, mate" everytime I see someone like that! 

Was pleased to hear the announcement at a rail station today that face coverings are to be worn over mouth AND nose...


----------



## Wilf (Oct 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> I have them in the same category as people who* bag up their dog's shit then hang it from the railings*


 Metaphor for electing a Tory MP?


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

Regarding the 'North West admissions showing signs of levelling off' claim by Nick Triggle that I criticised the other week. When he said it there wasnt much publicly available data that could possibly justify the claim. Some of the recent figures mean that if he made the claim today I would at least be able to see where this idea was coming from. But its still too early for me to make such a claim myself, so I will post this graph again towards the end of the week when it might be clearer whether that a sustained trend or a blip on the way up.


As for the total number of Covid-19 patients in hospital, I dont think this is the only time I am going to post the following graphs this week, and I feel sick when I look at them.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> As an aside, I think this exemplifies the reason why countries with populist governments have fared so badly. Populism isn't about what you did yesterday or what you're doing today. It's all about promises concerning what will happen tomorrow. That's been a strong characteristic of Johnson's government, not just with covid. It is of course an utterly useless way to tackle an emergency. Even now, they're more concerned with looking good than they are with doing good.



I expect there are some 'acts in the here and now' that can form part of a popularist approach, for example chucking money at people whose vote you will be targeting one day.

Some of the talk from the government at certain stages about mass testing, vaccines etc did actually make sense to me when done properly, because its probably one of the things they reach for when trying to 'boost the nations morale and resolve' by giving them lights at the end of the tunnel. But the government botched it, including being misleading about the length of the tunnel.

For example I think Hancock started wanking on about tests from chemists, antibody tests and stuff in April, and there was a real sense of immediacy in the language he used. Such claims had very short lifetimes as a result, similar to how quickly they've had to u-turn so many times. Some forms of lie and the political goals of the lairs who tell them are utterly doomed in this pandemic because much of the power of such lies requires them to be untested for a while. But in this pandemic there have been many occasions where crap utterances have have a sustainable life measured in days or a few weeks rather than the months or years the swine normally take for granted that they have the luxury to manoeuvre in.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 26, 2020)

Sorry posted twice


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 26, 2020)

*20,890 new cases* and *102 new deaths* in *the United Kingdom* [source]


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 26, 2020)

Sorry if this has been done to death in this huge thread, but how about an N95 mask for shopping? It might be the key to avoiding the virus pre-vaccine. There are too many people not masking up in the shops. I have a feeling the public would have been recommended better masks if there were enough.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 26, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> There are too many people not masking up in the shops.



Not around here, 99% of people are wearing masks in shops, and observing social distancing where possible.


----------



## Supine (Oct 26, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Sorry if this has been done to death in this huge thread, but how about an N95 mask for shopping? It might be the key to avoiding the virus pre-vaccine. There are too many people not masking up in the shops. I have a feeling the public would have been recommended better masks if there were enough.



Is what I wear. Why wear a fasion accessory for a mask when you can get yourself some decent protection. You can buy them everywhere so no reason not to imho.


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not around here, 99% of people are wearing masks in shops, and observing social distancing where possible.


Lots of Covid deniers in Brixton. Lots of parties. Plus some very persistent beggars who get inches from your face. If I wore a better mask it would help me resist the urge to push them. I'm on the brink of it tbh. They're really pissing me off.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 26, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Lots of Covid deniers in Brixton. Lots of parties. Plus some very persistent beggars who get inches from your face. If I wore a better mask it would help me resist the urge to push them. I'm on the brink of it tbh. They're really pissing me off.



Well, there you go, hence why London is now a 'high risk' area, whereas we remain 'medium', different behaviour seems to result in different inflection rates, which is hardly surprising TBH.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 26, 2020)

isn't brixton supposed to have a very high level of mental health issues which might explain some of this?
e2a: I seem to remember coldharbour ward being mentionned in this respect in the past.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 26, 2020)

In Cambridge there is a high level of compliance with the rules. Everyone seems to be wearing a mask and distancing. 

Travelling back up north last week on three different trains, the further north meant the fewer masks. In my part of Sheffield (tier 3!) I see people every day on transport, in shops etc with no mask or on their chin. I cant believe they are all exempt. Some clearly have special needs, but not all. The ticket inspector on the tram the other day had his mask on his chin while collecting fares. And the very same tram service is on a reduced service because so many staff are off self isolating


----------



## Cloo (Oct 26, 2020)

Went across town on tube and then a train today, and much better compliance with mask wearing than I have seen in half a dozen or so tube trips in the last 4 months - I think people are now getting worried enough/giving enough of a shit to wear them.

That said, had a meal in a pub courtyard last night and very young waiter had to valiantly break up hugs between a table of 6 and another bunch of people who turned up for them. Afraid to say, cliche as it is, that was a bunch of 20-somethings. 

Saw discussion online today about Christmas and a lot of people saying 'Oh, we're going to stay with my family, I don't care' - which annoys me, as we have done Passover, Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur respectively with no one else, two other people and two other people because those were the rules. Those are our big times to gather all the family, and we didn't. TBF, I guess there is a huge difference when all the media and advertising is going CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS at you.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 26, 2020)

Big family christmas, big February funerals.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 26, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Went across town on tube and then a train today, and much better compliance with mask wearing than I have seen in half a dozen or so tube trips in the last 4 months - I think people are now getting worried enough/giving enough of a shit to wear them.
> 
> That said, had a meal in a pub courtyard last night and very young waiter had to valiantly break up hugs between a table of 6 and another bunch of people who turned up for them. Afraid to say, cliche as it is, that was a bunch of 20-somethings.
> 
> Saw discussion online today about Christmas and a lot of people saying 'Oh, we're going to stay with my family, I don't care' - which annoys me, as we have done Passover, Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur respectively with no one else, two other people and two other people because those were the rules. Those are our big times to gather all the family, and we didn't. TBF, I guess there is a huge difference when all the media and advertising is going CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS at you.


I might PM you on this at some point


----------



## Cloo (Oct 26, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Big family christmas, big February funerals.


You're not wrong. Part of me think they just need to plan on shutting everything the fuck down Jan-end Feb or even end March because people are just going to do All The Shit They Shouldn't at Christmas regardless of the rules. But then if you telegraph that, it guarantees everyone will. No easy answers.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 26, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Sorry if this has been done to death in this huge thread, but how about an N95 mask for shopping? It might be the key to avoiding the virus pre-vaccine. There are too many people not masking up in the shops. I have a feeling the public would have been recommended better masks if there were enough.



I wear a KN95 on the tube and a snazzy number in more trusted surroundings.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 26, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> isn't brixton supposed to have a very high level of mental health issues which might explain some of this?
> e2a: I seem to remember coldharbour ward being mentionned in this respect in the past.


Yes. But there's also a thing about distrust of authority amongst some groups. It's fairly ripe territory for those who want to encourage conspiracy theories.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:
			
		

> Dr Anthony Fauci was interviewed on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, well worth watching, and he suggested that if a vaccine was approved by the end of
> next month, by the time enough doses were produced and administered to enough people, we could be looking to return to 'some form of normal' sometime during the third quarter next year, so between July & Sept.





Wilf said:


> TBH, I'd settle for that.





In reaction to my favourite Corona-subject above, I posted a good while ago (not at all sure now which thread though  ) that I thought Fauci (on vaccine timesales) was _simultaneously_ being over-optimistic (about vaccine could be ready by Xmas) *AND* over-pessimistic (about vaccine can't be distributed properly/widely enough until July, etc.)

I don't really get** the pessimism about vaccine distribution/dispensing,  or about the negativity aabout the timing thereof.

Huge amounts of reasearch, and money, are going into vaccine trials, many of which are heading towards phase 3 by now.

Many Western/1st World** Govts at least. seem to be making *big* efforts to reserving supplies. Big Pharma who have the good vaccine supplies will welcome the promise of money and good publicity about that.

**I *do fully* understand why access to vaccines for developing-world countries will be a nightmare 

So obviously, that's likely to be utterly shite for the developing world 

But I _very honestly doubt_ that once safe/reliable vaccines get approved in well regulating/safety-rule focussed countries, there'd be _too_ much trouble in those countries with making them as widely available as possible -- production and distribution would surely? be prioritised big-style.

Given what a *huge* game-changer a safe vaccine could mean .......


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 26, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Yes. But there's also a thing about distrust of authority amongst some groups. It's fairly ripe territory for those who want to encourage conspiracy theories.




That lot can go without vaccines, as far as I'm concerned  

CT-ists and anti-vaccination freaks can die happy if they want to


----------



## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

REACT-2 interim results out, somewhat concerning









						Proportion of people in England with Covid antibodies has fallen, study says
					

Figure has dropped by over a quarter in three months, fuelling concerns over reinfection




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The proportion of people in England with coronavirus antibodies dropped by more than a quarter in the space of three months, researchers have revealed, fuelling concerns over reinfection.
> 
> The findings come from the React-2 study, which is based on home finger-prick antibody test results from random participants across all 314 local authorities.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> But I _very honestly doubt_ that once safe/reliable vaccines get approved in well regulating/safety-rule focussed countries, there'd be _too_ much trouble in those countries with making them as widely available as possible -- production and distribution would surely? be prioritised big-style.



The stakes and the priorities involved will make a difference to what is achievable but they do not magically overcome the vast logistical hurdles. There is a complex chain of things which, even when done right, means that delivery will come at a certain rate, so there will be priorities about who gets the vaccine first, and then who gets it next etc etc.

How optimistic I would be about the issue really depends on what I am expecting vaccines to achieve at various stages. We arent likely to wake up one day with the ability to suddenly vaccinate everyone in a very short space of time and return life to the old normal. Its a safer bet to imagine things happening gradually, and various situations such as hospital staffing levels having a much improved outlook as a result, but not in a way that changes the entire game suddenly.

And plenty of detail that I'm not certain about yet can have a big effect on this stuff. The manufacturing method required by particular types of vaccine (eg many types of vaccine traditionally require lots of animal cells to grow). What temperature those vaccines need to be kept at. One dose or more than one, how long immunity lasts , etc.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

two sheds said:


> REACT-2 interim results out, somewhat concerning
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Concerning but not very surprising really. These sorts of possibilities have been widely considered to be quite plausible since the start, often based on what we know about other coronaviruses which are endemic in human populations.

I'm glad for the REACT-2 update. But I suppose one reason this picture isnt shocking to me is that the weekly PHE surveillance reports have a section on antibody levels and since late July they started to mention waning immunity a a possible factor in the changing levels they were seeing over time.

eg July 31st: https://assets.publishing.service.g...ID19_Surveillance_Report_week_31_FINAL_V2.pdf



> For the first time this week, we have observed a small rise in the number of samples in the equivocal range, which could suggest waning immunity may also be contributing to this lower prevalence. This should become clearer in time as we continue to monitor trends and through additional studies.



A week later it said the following:



> For the second week running, we have observed a small rise in the number of samples in the equivocal range, which suggests waning immunity may be a contributing factor to the lower prevalence. Overall the proportion of samples in the equivocal range (assay results 0.8 to 1.1) increased from 0.6% during June to 1.1% during July.



Since then the weekly reports just contained an unchanged sentence every week about waning immunity, with no more interesting info about percentage of samples in the equivocal range.


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## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

I'd like to look at the figures tomorrow, I'm still somewhat confused as to what percentage of people in the UK are estimated to have actually been infected whether with or without symptoms. 

Last estimate in June I think was around 5 or 6% of the population (3.4 million out of 68 million population). We've had a relatively infection free summer after lockdown, with infections starting to increase again in September.


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## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

I havent checked that REACT-2 update in detail yet. But in terms of the numbers from a different source, blood donors, which is the basis of the stuff in the weekly surveillance reports, the latest version is as follows and is still broadly consistent with 6%:


From https://assets.publishing.service.g.../Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w43_FINAL.pdf

Take some of the changes over time with a pinch of salt, since there are explanations in the reports for some of the reasons for changes over time other than waning immunity (mostly differences in who was sampled in different periods). And note the ranges of the error bars, indicating these figures could be out by a percent or so in either direction.


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## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

Interesting, ta. At first sight though - without knowing that the antibody protection has dropped - a constant 6% infection rate would suggest that nobody has been infected since June. 

Sorry I'm obsessing on this, the anti-vaxxer I'm engaging with on another forum reckons that 10 million people in the UK have been infected and that we're well on the way to herd immunity  

cunt that he is  but again I'm not particularly talking to him but rather other people on the forum.


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## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

Here is the REACT-2 preprint that the news article was based on, and a few quotes.





__





						Loading…
					





					www.imperial.ac.uk
				






> There were 17,576 positive tests over the three rounds. Antibody prevalence, adjusted for test characteristics and weighted to the adult population of England, declined from 6.0% [5.8, 6.1], to 4.8% [4.7, 5.0] and 4.4% [4.3, 4.5], a fall of 26.5% [-29.0, -23.8] over the three months of the study. There was a decline between rounds 1 and 3 in all age groups, with the highest prevalence of a positive result and smallest overall decline in positivity in the youngest age group (18-24 years: -14.9% [-21.6, -8.1]), and lowest prevalence and largest decline in the oldest group (75+ years: -39.0% [-50.8, -27.2]); there was no change in antibody positivity between rounds 1 and 3 in healthcare workers (+3.45% [-5.7, +12.7]).
> The decline from rounds 1 to 3 was largest in those who did not report a history of COVID- 19, (-64.0% [-75.6, -52.3]), compared to -22.3% ([-27.0, -17.7]) in those with SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed on PCR.





> These findings provide evidence of variable waning in antibody positivity over time such that, at the start of the second wave of infection in England, only 4.4% of adults had detectable IgG antibodies using an LFIA. Antibody positivity was greater in those who reported a positive PCR and lower in older people and those with asymptomatic infection. These data suggest the possibility of decreasing population immunity and increasing risk of reinfection as detectable antibodies decline in the population.


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## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

ta  I shall take a look tomorrow


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## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

Ooh they recreated epidemic curves by employment type in that REACT-2 study.

Looks pretty consistent with hospital infections and care home waves of infection that came later than the wave peak in the broader community.


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## Mation (Oct 27, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Lots of Covid deniers in Brixton. Lots of parties. Plus some very persistent beggars who get inches from your face. If I wore a better mask it would help me resist the urge to push them. I'm on the brink of it tbh. They're really pissing me off.


If you can afford to, carry some spare masks to give to people on the street. Those self-seal sandwich bags are good for keeping one or two hygienically handy.


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## Supine (Oct 27, 2020)

This is a new way of expressing covid in UK


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## Chairman Meow (Oct 27, 2020)

Supine said:


> This is a new way of expressing covid in UK



 Fucking hell. My cousin works in the hospital in Derry and told me last week things were very bad, and about to get horrifically worse. Looks like she was right. My folks are in the Derry and Strabane area, which has the highest rates in NI. I wish I could bring them here to be safe.


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## cupid_stunt (Oct 27, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> In reaction to my favourite Corona-subject above, I posted a good while ago (not at all sure now which thread though  ) that I thought Fauci (on vaccine timesales) was _simultaneously_ being over-optimistic (about vaccine could be ready by Xmas) *AND* over-pessimistic (about vaccine can't be distributed properly/widely enough until July, etc.)



Wil posted this on another thread as well, so I'll copy over my reply -



cupid_stunt said:


> William of Walworth, he didn't say 'can't be distributed properly/widely enough until July', he said it'll take to at least July 2021 to have administered it to enough people, basically to reach some sort of herd immunity. See from 3 minutes in - BBC One - The Andrew Marr Show, 25/10/2020, Dr Anthony Fauci: 'Coronavirus vaccine roll-out won't come till 2021'
> 
> Just think of the sheer numbers involved, in the UK if they are looking at over 40 million, with 2 doses each (based on reports about the Oxford vaccine), you need 80 million doses manufactured, distributed to 'jab centres', then administered by a limited pool of trained staff. 80 / 6 months, means you would be injecting 13.3 million per month, that's one hell of an operation.



That link takes you to the clip of Fauci's interview, it's well worth watching the full 12.30 minutes, if you have missed it.


----------



## TopCat (Oct 27, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> The sneaky nose pointing out of mask lots piss me off so fucking much and one day I’ll swing for one of the bastards


Try and stay calm. Cutting your knuckles on their teeth is a sure fire covid catcher. Plus you would feel bad. Probably.


----------



## Cerv (Oct 27, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Saw discussion online today about Christmas and a lot of people saying 'Oh, we're going to stay with my family, I don't care' - which annoys me, as we have done Passover, Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur respectively with no one else, two other people and two other people because those were the rules. Those are our big times to gather all the family, and we didn't. TBF, I guess there is a huge difference when all the media and advertising is going CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS at you.



if a billion Chinese people can miss Lunar New Year with the extended family, and that's just as bad for that kind of advertising, then I think we can manage to miss one Xmas in the UK.


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## Cloo (Oct 27, 2020)

Cerv said:


> if a billion Chinese people can miss Lunar New Year with the extended family, and that's just as bad for that kind of advertising, then I think we can manage to miss one Xmas in the UK.


The fact is, even if things are better than now Christmas (which I somewhat doubt), doing an extended family Christmas will be a bad idea and really the government ought to be giving that message as Nicola Sturgeon seems to have in Scotland - the message that people need to make plans now about how they'll do a separate Christmas, because COVID will still be there and extended indoor meetings cannot be made safe.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 27, 2020)

Cerv said:


> if a billion Chinese people can miss Lunar New Year with the extended family,


Not sure that's quite what actually happened in China...


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 27, 2020)

I agree that it would be way better if we all just missed Christmas this year but I'm not hopeful that many will agree with me.

I was down on the South Coast on the weekend (1st day of half term) and the families were out in large groups, way beyond six.  Victoria Derbyshire has been sounding off on radio about how she would break the rules to have a family Christmas.  I just think Christmas has been elevated up to such a level that for too many people not having that family Christmas is unthinkable.


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## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

The fuss around Xmas really pisses me off. The media can't leave it alone. It's 2 fucking months away ffs who knows where we'll be then. Plenty of people have also missed important stuff to them (including other religious and cultural holidays and important festivals) already, just shut the fuck up about it and address the important things.


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## frogwoman (Oct 27, 2020)

Lol I have had to do almost every important religious festival at home this year apart from yom kippur where I sat freezing in a coat and several jumpers in the synagogue because all the doors and windows had to be open because covid. I'm actually fed up with people going on about Christmas now.


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## maomao (Oct 27, 2020)

I am praying for a Christmas lockdown. Extra week or two on the school hols. No family crammed into my spare room. No dragging kids and presents halfway across London on the tube. I mean it's a shame about the virus and everything but surely it's going to be the best Christmas ever.


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## frogwoman (Oct 27, 2020)

It won't happen anyway. Can you imagine the uproar if Christmas was banned. The daily mail, telegraph and the people who religiously vote Tory would go apeshit. Boris Johnson will be worried about 'Scrooge' headlines. Not saying that you're not allowed to like it and stuff but I can't see it happening.


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## Miss-Shelf (Oct 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, there you go, hence why London is now a 'high risk' area, whereas we remain 'medium', different behaviour seems to result in different inflection rates, which is hardly surprising TBH.


Neaerly all South London boroughs  last week had considerably lower cases per 100k than north london for some reason


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## StoneRoad (Oct 27, 2020)

The only family members that we would normally have contact with over the winter solstice are still shielding - and actually went into their version of purduh even before the official lockdown on 23rd March. Apart from three or four very infrequent work trips (less than one a month and only then when the case rates were at their lowest) they've not been out their house and garden ...
Presents will be wiped down and left on their doorstep ...


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## Supine (Oct 27, 2020)

I see missing Christmas with the extended family as a bonus. We'll see if it happens.


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## StoneRoad (Oct 27, 2020)

Not that it is up to me, but here's another vote for a proper Lockdown over the "festive season" ...


otherwise, with all those young adult students back down form college visiting more aged rellies and partying with their mates
lots of alcohol + lowered inhibitions = much hugging 'n' kissing so by mid January there'll be loads of new cases and by early February that'll be feeding into massively increased hospital admissions and a couple or three weeks after that there'll be a surge in the death rate as more grannies and granppies get taken away.

I can see that happening, and it worries me.


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## teuchter (Oct 27, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> Neaerly all South London boroughs  last week had considerably lower cases per 100k than north london for some reason


Is that based on the gov.uk map? I don't feel like these numbers are reliable or meaningful. And the fact that you can now zoom in to ward level data makes me wonder if they give people a false sense of accuracy. I was already going on about this a few days ago, comparing those numbers with the estimates from the Zoe project. Comparing Lambeth with the scottish Highlands - the gov.uk map now has Lambeth with a 7x higher rate, whilst Zoe has the Highlands with a 1.3x higher rate. So one or the other (or both) are completely wrong - not just a bit wrong, but wildly wrong.

The Zoe map currently shows relatively consistent rates in most of the London Boroughs, North or South.


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## teuchter (Oct 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Not that it is up to me, but here's another vote for a proper Lockdown over the "festive season" ...
> 
> 
> otherwise, with all those young adult students back down form college visiting more aged rellies and partying with their mates
> ...


I expect that for some people, who already have stressful Christmases, there will be a whole extra layer of potential conflict on top, resulting from differing attitudes to Covid risk and probably some people pressured into being part of things they aren't comfortable with.


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## maomao (Oct 27, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It won't happen anyway. Can you imagine the uproar if Christmas was banned. The daily mail, telegraph and the people who religiously vote Tory would go apeshit. Boris Johnson will be worried about 'Scrooge' headlines. Not saying that you're not allowed to like it and stuff but I can't see it happening.


And if we're on 7 or 800 deaths a day in early December with no sign of it going down?


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## frogwoman (Oct 27, 2020)

I'm not talking about what I want to happen, I'm talking about what I think the Tories will do


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## Sue (Oct 27, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> Neaerly all South London boroughs  last week had considerably lower cases per 100k than north london for some reason


The numbers in Stamford Hill/South Tottenham are really high. (Coming on for 600 per 100k in one or two of the areas). From the map view, looks like the biggest cluster in London.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 27, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Yes. But there's also a thing about distrust of authority amongst some groups. It's fairly ripe territory for those who want to encourage conspiracy theories.


Yes, I knew a few 9/11 and Icke fans around 17 years ago in the area. Don't seem to have any left in my circles these days.


William of Walworth said:


> That lot can go without vaccines, as far as I'm concerned
> 
> CT-ists and anti-vaccination freaks can die happy if they want to


The problem here is that it fucks up the "herd immunity" for those that can't have the vaccine. ALso, it's mostly their kids which will go unvaccinated, most of the antivax lot were fully vaccinated as kids...


two sheds said:


> REACT-2 interim results out, somewhat concerning
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Was reading an article (in french) about a couple of studies following antobodies levels in people who had had the virus.
Similar results with some antibodies persisting for 3 months,  they got published here for those with scientific understanding.


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## Cloo (Oct 27, 2020)

Re: vaccines, I've wondered elsewhere what is the minimum baseline to open things up. Would, for example, NHS staff, care staff, over 70s (maybe over 60s) be enough? I mean, that's still a fucktonne of people. Certainly 20-30something without conditions would seem to be a lowish priority.

My concern about implementing a vaccine is the general incompetence of this government (althought the Nightingale setups show that at least some people can get their arses in gear) and whether Brexit is likely to cause issues with necessary materials.


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## StoneRoad (Oct 27, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Yes, I knew a few 9/11 and Icke fans around 17 years ago in the area. Don't seem to have any left in my circles these days.
> The problem here is that it fucks up the "herd immunity" for those that can't have the vaccine. ALso, it*'s mostly their kids which will go unvaccinated, most of the antivax lot were fully vaccinated as kids...*
> Was reading an article (in french) about a couple of studies following antobodies levels in people who had had the virus.
> Similar results with some antibodies persisting for 3 months,  they got published here for those with scientific understanding.



In reply to the bit I've enbolded ...
I wonder. Normally, I'm all for informed choice, but in certain circumstances I'm a bit more tending to dictatorial where community health is involved.

E2A - this bit seems unpopular, so forget it . How about taking these kids into care for some months, vaxxing them during that period - as part of protecting their health development. whilst educating them - and then handing them back ? 

When I found some of these rabid fools in Newcastle a year or two back, and I had the time, my main argument was the eradication of polio, smallpox and TB [I know that polio and especially TB aren't quite gone yet, although smallpox is extinct as even the last two official refence samples were destroyed].


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 27, 2020)

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along to explain better but as I understand it you need to get 80%ish vaccinated or immune via exposure to prevent the virus from spreading, at that level one infected person isn't likely to come in contact with enough other infectable people during the window they're contagious for the virus to jump to the next person. Those unfortunate enough to be unable to be vaccinated are basically depending on luck to protect them but if there are fewer people with it then the less lucky they have to be.
The more that do get vaccinated the closer to that magic figure we get and the safer everyone gets to be. I don't think the anti-vaxxer loons are common enough in this country to upset the apple cart but possibly they might be in the USA.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> How about taking these kids into care for some months, vaxxing them during that period - as part of protecting their health development. whilst educating them - and then handing them back ?



No, fuck that shit.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 27, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Not sure that's quite what actually happened in China...



As I recall that’s what really got the ball rollling and covid starting to spread beyond Wuhan and out into the world


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> In reply to the bit I've enbolded ...
> I wonder. Normally, I'm all for informed choice, but in certain circumstances I'm a bit more tending to dictatorial where community health is involved.
> 
> How about taking these kids into care for some months, vaxxing them during that period - as part of protecting their health development. whilst educating them - and then handing them back ?
> ...



I think those measures, even leaving aside the political/social arguments, are actually more likely to reinforce the anti-vaxxers, and also probably drive more people into their way of thinking. IIRC research shows public education is the best way rather than mandatory vaccination programs, and it's something I think the government and NHS should be getting on with now.

I think there's a gray area where it's not mandatory to get vaccinated, but to access certain public services a proof of vaccination is needed, and tbh I think I'd be supportive of some of those, schools only open to vaccinated kids for example, although I do get there's risk with them too.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

There is no way I am leaping to thoughts about population immunity via vaccination. Not when we dont have data about how good the vaccines will be or how long immunity will last, or how long it would take to immunise a huge percentage of the population.

For now I will just think about what impact a vaccine targeted at healthcare workers and other key workers can have, and what a combination of that stuff and mass rapid testing could mean for the new normal next year. And then later an expanded version of that where a big chunk of the population over 50 are offered the vaccine.

Or to put it another way, I am 45 and not an essential worker, and I dont currently anticipate being offered a vaccine in 2021. Things might happen that change my expectations on that front, but thats my current starting point.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think those measures, even leaving aside the political/social arguments, are actually more likely to reinforce the anti-vaxxers, and also probably drive more people into their way of thinking. IIRC research shows public education is the best way rather than mandatory vaccination programs, and it's something I think the government and NHS should be getting on with now.
> 
> I think there's a gray area where it's not mandatory to get vaccinated, but to access certain public services a proof of vaccination is needed, and tbh I think I'd be supportive of some of those, schools only open to vaccinated kids for example, although I do get there's risk with them too.


Just make it illegal to go into a homeopath's or a crystal shop without a vaccine certificate. That'd do it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> When I found some of these rabid fools in Newcastle a year or two back, and I had the time, my main argument was the eradication of polio, smallpox and TB [I know that polio and especially TB aren't quite gone yet, although smallpox is extinct as even the last two official refence samples were destroyed].



Liked for this bit, not the taking kids in homes part.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 27, 2020)

I think any kind of stuff like taking kids away would be a disaster. I wouldn't even consider it tbh


----------



## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

Take them into care for 6 minutes perhaps 

but no


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Victoria Derbyshire has been sounding off on radio about how she would break the rules to have a family Christmas.



What I understand to actually have happened was that she gave that response to a question from the Radio Times in an interview conducted a while back. And is now horrified to see it splashed all over the news, and has been busy apologising today.

As for the fucking media banging on about Christmas, this is one of the few areas where I've even been tempted to have sympathy with politicians for vanishingly brief moments. Because since this subject came up in summer, when I see a stupid quote from a politician about Christmas, checking press conferences etc almost always shows that they only mentioned Christmas in the first place because a journalist asked a stupid question about it in order to grab a quote to make a headline out of.

Some journalists impressed me at times during press conferences by asking just the right questions at the right time. Even some journalists that I dont have much time for in normal times. But I have not forgotten that when it came to the first signs of 'lockdown fatigue', the media were leading the way with that shit, a very long time ago now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 27, 2020)

We knew people were discharged without having tests, but WTF were they doing discharging people tested before they had the results? 



> A damning report into Britain’s coronavirus first wave has found hospital patients were discharged early and before receiving test results.
> 
> The Red Cross and Healthwatch England found *three out of every ten patients who were able to access a Covid-19 test were not given their results before they were discharged.*
> 
> ...











						Damning report on first UK coronavirus wave finds patients were sent home early
					

The Red Cross and Healthwatch England report suggests many will have returned to infect vulnerable family members or trigger deadly outbreaks in care homes




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Oct 27, 2020)

Suspect Christmas will coincide with us getting to the peak of the 2nd wave and we'll have that in conjunction with everybody getting outraged about pissed up office parties. Mixture of anxiety, inertia and anger. Happy Christmas!


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think those measures, even leaving aside the political/social arguments, are actually more likely to reinforce the anti-vaxxers, and also probably drive more people into their way of thinking. IIRC research shows public education is the best way rather than mandatory vaccination programs, and it's something I think the government and NHS should be getting on with now.
> 
> I think there's a gray area where it's not mandatory to get vaccinated, but to access certain public services a proof of vaccination is needed, and tbh I think I'd be supportive of some of those, schools only open to vaccinated kids for example, although I do get there's risk with them too.


Yep. Totally this. Persuasion and reasoned argument, combined with a demonstration of competence by the authorities, is what is most needed here. I do think we've lost somewhat the idea of a social duty to do certain things, which was stronger a generation or two ago, but we can live with a very small number of refuseniks. Doesn't make their beliefs right or reasonable or anything other than anti-social, but enforcement needs to be proportionate.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> We knew people were discharged without having tests, but WTF were they doing discharging people tested before they had the results?



And last time I checked, which was probably a month or so ago now, journalists seeking reassurances that NHS England will not repeat their deadly 'reverse triage' approach in the second wave, did not get a straight answer. So although the testing situation is quite a bit different now, I am not reassured that the same sort of thing wont happen again. The pressure to discharge people ASAP will certainly still be there.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> No, fuck that shit.



OK, I was only wondering if there was a way of circumventing antivaxx parents.

I did say that under normal circumstances I was in favour of informed choice ! (through proper education)


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Suspect Christmas will coincide with us getting to the peak of the 2nd wave and we'll have that in conjunction with everybody getting outraged about pissed up office parties. Mixture of anxiety, inertia and anger. Happy Christmas!



I think the one thing we can say with a great degree of certainty is that there will be very few (if any) pissed up office parties this Christmas.  Unless, of course the government decides to drop the restrictions so everyone can have a well deserved Christmas etc.  I wouldn't put it past them to do that.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> OK, I was only wondering if there was a way of circumventing antivaxx parents.
> 
> I did say that under normal circumstances I was in favour of informed choice ! (through proper education)


If you get high enough compliance, the refuseniks get to freeload off the herd immunity provided to them by everybody else, and they don't get to cause significant harm. It may leave a bitter taste in the mouth, but it's a question of picking your fights sometimes.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> OK, I was only wondering if there was a way of circumventing antivaxx parents.
> 
> I did say that under normal circumstances I was in favour of informed choice ! (through proper education)



The vaccination of children against this particular virus wont even become an important issue unless they decide that children have a far greater role in the spread of this virus than the orthodox establishment currently accepts is the case.

And even then, if immunity doesnt last very long and logistics cant scale beyond a certain level of delivery, then its far more likely we'll see an ongoing, rolling vaccination programme for older groups and key workers that repeatedly targets those groups rather than attempts to achieve total population immunity thresholds.

Not that it is sensible for me to predict the future, my stance is ready to be modified as facts emerge. But for now I still think the role of vaccines may be overinflated in peoples minds, and mass testing will be a very large part of 2021 that carries much of the weight.


----------



## editor (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The fuss around Xmas really pisses me off. The media can't leave it alone. It's 2 fucking months away ffs who knows where we'll be then. Plenty of people have also missed important things (including other religious and cultural holidays and important festivals) already, just shut the fuck up about it and address the important things.


I get that, but for a lot of businesses, Christmas is what keeps them alive for the rest of the year, so it is an important time.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> The vaccination of children against this particular virus wont even become an important issue unless they decide that children have a far greater role in the spread of this virus than the orthodox establishment currently accepts is the case.
> 
> And even then, if immunity doesnt last very long and logistics cant scale beyond a certain level of delivery, then its far more likely we'll see an ongoing, rolling vaccination programme for older groups and key workers that repeatedly targets those groups rather than attempts to achieve total population immunity thresholds.
> 
> Not that it is sensible for me to predict the future, my stance is ready to be modified as facts emerge. But for now I still think the role of vaccines may be overinflated in peoples minds, and mass testing will be a very large part of 2021 that carries much of the weight.


Yes, indeed. I will of course take the vaccine as soon as it is offered to me, but I will be near the back of a very long queue, as will most children probably, and that is only right. 

There was an idea mooted a couple of months ago for a quick and cheap (though imperfect) test that could be rolled out in a way that meant everybody could test themselves regularly. Do you know if any progress has been made on that?


----------



## Cerv (Oct 27, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Not sure that's quite what actually happened in China...


you're correct. I'd totally confused the timeline. 
travel in & out of Hubei was shutdown earlier but the nationwide travel restrictions didn't come in until 23/01. too late to prevent a mass movement of people to visit their families.
public events were at least cancelled.

think I got mixed up cos I remember a friend having to spend new year alone in Shanghai cos he couldn't go back to the family. but they're in Wuhan.
1 guy missed it, not 1 billion I quoted. only slightly out by a few orders of magnitude.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes, indeed. I will of course take the vaccine as soon as it is offered to me, but I will be near the back of a very long queue, as will most children probably, and that is only right.
> 
> There was an idea mooted a couple of months ago for a quick and cheap (though imperfect) test that could be rolled out in a way that meant everybody could test themselves regularly. Do you know if any progress has been made on that?



Theres loads of different sorts. We've been extremely conservative about using them so far, but that will change eventually.

Quite a few of the differnt sorts are mentioned in this article. Ignore the reference to Moonshot, since even without that discredited, hype-ridden Johnson pitch these plans are still in motion:









						Covid-19: Which rapid tests is the UK pinning its hopes on?
					

Rapid diagnostic tests are integral to the government’s Moonshot plan to carry out up to 10 million covid-19 tests a day by early next year. Jacqui Wise looks at the options being developed and trialled  The UK’s testing system is currently under immense strain partly owing to a lack of...




					www.bmj.com
				




I took part in a trial of a saliva one in the summer but I dont even know which one it was, and when the media have mentioned saliva trials they tend to focus on other trials (eg one in Southampton) and the one I did is never even mentioned.


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Suspect Christmas will coincide with us getting to the peak of the 2nd wave and we'll have that in conjunction with everybody getting outraged about pissed up office parties. Mixture of anxiety, inertia and anger. Happy Christmas!


Got New Year to come as well, are the pubs still going to have to close at 10pm on 31 Dec as well?


----------



## editor (Oct 27, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Got New Year to come as well, are the pubs still going to have to close at 10pm on 31 Dec as well?


It's going to be a spectacularly shitty Christmas.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 27, 2020)

Cerv said:


> 1 guy missed it, not 1 billion I quoted.


Respect to you for what might set a record as the highest-magnitude graceful acknowledgement of an error seen on urban75.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

In theory, since the schools are shut at Christmas, reducing R, some other things could be temporarily relaxed for that period without the overall R increasing too much. And even if R did increase, its not for a long time.

But its not that simple. The level of infection in the community at the start of the period would also make a big difference. If incidence was relatively low at the time and I was in charge, I wouldnt find it too hard a decision to temporarily relax certain rules. Unfortunately the signs are not currently promising that incidence levels will be low enough at that time to consider it. And away from the overall big picture numbers game, there is still the specific risk to individuals, ie the different contact mixing patterns of older peole over normal Christmas periods. Another reason it could be a non-starter would be that a lot of government focus is understandably on health system pressures, and the Christmas period is often a peak challenge both in terms of staffing levels and levels of respiratory illness, even without a pandemic. And things like the weather will alter the general healthcare burden at that time too.


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

editor said:


> I get that, but for a lot of businesses, Christmas is what keeps them alive for the rest of the year, so it is an important time.



Fair enough, wasn't thinking of businesses, although they're going to have to get used to the fact it's not going to be a normal Xmas at all. All this faffing about avoiding that isn't going to help anyone.



MickiQ said:


> Got New Year to come as well, are the pubs still going to have to close at 10pm on 31 Dec as well?



Shit, hadn't even thought of NYE. I think the government might just say open but everyone 'use your common sense' or something. It's disaster in the making.


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Shit, hadn't even thought of NYE. I think the government might just say open but everyone 'use your common sense' or something. It's disaster in the making.


Lot of that about on NYE


----------



## GarveyLives (Oct 27, 2020)

chainsawjob said:


> With regards to the *higher number of BAME people dying of Covid-19*, I thought this letter in the Guardian about the role of vitamin D was interesting:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So is this:

_Structural racism_ led to worse Covid impact on BAME groups – report


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 27, 2020)

Why are people even considering going out on NYE?


----------



## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

Because last year's NYE resolutions were so successful, or perhaps have another go at them?


----------



## skyscraper101 (Oct 27, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Why are people even considering going out on NYE?



I say this every year TBF.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> There was an idea mooted a couple of months ago for a quick and cheap (though imperfect) test that could be rolled out in a way that meant everybody could test themselves regularly. Do you know if any progress has been made on that?



Following up what I said in response to this earlier, a student angle on this is now in the news:



> De Montfort and Durham universities are now running pilot projects for rapid Covid testing, including identifying those who might be infectious but have no symptoms.











						Covid Christmas: Rapid tests could get students home
					

Covid testing pilot projects are launched in universities - as plans begin to get students home at Christmas.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## fucthest8 (Oct 27, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Why are people even considering going out on NYE?



TBF that's how I've felt about it for the last 10 years

Edit: skyscraper beat me to it, page refresh fail


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 27, 2020)

editor said:


> I get that, but for a lot of businesses, Christmas is what keeps them alive for the rest of the year, so it is an important time.



I know this lol, I work for one of them. I'm still sick of 'this wonderful time of year' tho. The amount of focus on Christmas is completely ridiculous. Black Friday is also something many businesses depend on but nobody has any qualms about slagging that off as imported American commercialism and having a go at people fighting over TVs etc.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

Covid Christmas: Rapid tests could get students home
					

Covid testing pilot projects are launched in universities - as plans begin to get students home at Christmas.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




That could be hopeful for some


----------



## eoin_k (Oct 27, 2020)

Cloo said:


> [...]
> Saw discussion online today about Christmas and a lot of people saying 'Oh, we're going to stay with my family, I don't care' - which annoys me, as we have done Passover, Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur respectively with no one else, two other people and two other people because those were the rules. Those are our big times to gather all the family, and we didn't. TBF, I guess there is a huge difference when all the media and advertising is going CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS at you.



Christmas is likely to have disastrous consequences and the government will continue to handle different festivals with double standards, as it already has done with the last-minute lockdown over Eid. But I'm not sure how useful it is to frame Christmas as exceptional in terms of individual behaviour, any more than it would be to read too much into the outbreaks in Charedi neighbourhoods, for instance. Cultural differences come into play to some extent, but individuals from all sorts of backgrounds are taking this more or less seriously, while the government has completely failed to deliver an effective public health strategy.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think the one thing we can say with a great degree of certainty is that there will be very few (if any) pissed up office parties this Christmas.  Unless, of course the government decides to drop the restrictions so everyone can have a well deserved Christmas etc.  I wouldn't put it past them to do that.


I was being a bit loose with my language there. Agree there will be hardly any traditional piss ups _in _offices, but there's still going to be concentrations of drinkers in the pubs/streets, in varying degrees in various places. Suspect there might even be an element of fatalism about the whole thing, 'fuck this, the virus is winning, let's get pissed'.  Suspect you might be right about the government at least 'turning a blind eye' to family mixing and even house parties over Christmas.  If they do it will be a significant source of transmission, but they'll be weighing that up against images of the police 'breaking up family chrismas parties'.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 27, 2020)

I am also sick of hearing about Christmas. It's October. At this rate, I will be here on my own, keep the curtains closed and binge watch a series. Nothing else I'm allowed to do under the current tier 3 restrictions. For people who live with their partner/family, yes, you could have a reasonable time, but some of live alone or in houseshares/as lodgers, which means the prospect of a celebration feels pretty bleak.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 27, 2020)

They would also have to find enough coppers to be on duty ...

A good few years ago, late afternoon (just after Brenda's speech) MiL opened door to a copper, who asked if we had seen a brown or black and white goat ? No ? can I have a cuppa ? (I honestly hadn't recognized him in uniform, but It was a cousin of my OH) He then said that he was half of Gateshead West police force that afternoon and quite seriously, he was looking for a couple of lost goats ...


----------



## Badgers (Oct 27, 2020)




----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 27, 2020)

I thought the Nightingales were for covid patients ...


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 27, 2020)

Surely Care Homes can just refuse to take them? unless they were admitted from that care home in the first place?


----------



## Wilf (Oct 27, 2020)

In terms of student testing, to allow them to go home, not sure what the incentive to get tested is for all but the most community minded of students.  In fact, 'fuck it, I'm just getting the bus/train/car home' is about the only likely/self interested response.  This is 100% the endgame of the government's potentially deadly decision to make universities go through the charade of 'staying open'.


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> In terms of student testing, to allow them to go home, not sure what the incentive to get tested is for all but the most community minded of students.  In fact, 'fuck it, I'm just getting the bus/train/car home' is about the only likely/self interested response.  This is 100% the endgame of the government's potentially deadly decision to make universities go through the charade of 'staying open'.


I doubt they're actually deliberately planning that scenario more a case of sitting in a Cabinet meeting with the conversation going along the lines of 
"What do we do now then?"
"Dunno let's bang together some vague sounding plan that makes it look like we're doing something and are in control when we don't really have a scoobies"
Then putting their finger in their ears and going "Lala I can't hear you" when someone points out teenagers are not big on following either orders or plans.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 27, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> I doubt they're actually deliberately planning that scenario more a case of sitting in a Cabinet meeting with the conversation going along the lines of
> "What do we do now then?"
> "Dunno let's bang together some vague sounding plan that makes it look like we're doing something and are in control when we don't really have a scoobies"
> Then putting their finger in their ears and going "Lala I can't hear you" when someone points out teenagers are not big on following either orders or plans.


Next you'll be telling me the moonshot isn't real.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 27, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> I doubt they're actually deliberately planning that scenario more a case of sitting in a Cabinet meeting with the conversation going along the lines of
> "What do we do now then?"
> "Dunno let's bang together some vague sounding plan that makes it look like we're doing something and are in control when we don't really have a scoobies"
> Then putting their finger in their ears and going "Lala I can't hear you" when someone points out teenagers are not big on following either orders or plans.


Let's hope that the student landlords all did okay though eh?


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

Since I'm guilty of sometimes going on about NHS England pandemic reverse triage plans without explaining what that means, its largely the care home stuff that Amnesty are going on about above.

And its one of those things where I know that naturally a lot of people assumed this wouldnt happen again, but that I have always expected to happen again unless I saw strong evidence that the entire NHS England approach had changed. I dont think they can make any of the numbers add up in their planning scenarios without big efforts on the discharge side of things, so they use that sort of reverse triage policy to carry a lot of the weight. Unless a huge great sustained media & public backlash of a form that actually forced at least a sensible public discussion about this aspect happened, I would expect the policy to remain in place, and they will justiy it to themselves on the basis of the aforementioned numbers needing to add up, and with the idea that PPE and testing improvements will make a substantial difference this time around. Things I wouldnt be too confident about. And this was an argument that really needed to happen no later than the summer in order to stand a better chance of something else being implemented for the second wave instead of that form of reverse triage.


----------



## Supine (Oct 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Next you'll be telling me the moonshot isn't real.



Only the spending vast sums of money bit


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 27, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Surely Care Homes can just refuse to take them? unless they were admitted from that care home in the first place?



Yes they can, someone I know that runs a care home refused to take on new residents from the local hospital last time around, unless they were tested and had a negative result, she would do the same even if it had been on of her own residents that had gone into hospital, no return without a negative test result. 

Mind you, that's a small independent home, not part of the 'granny farming' set-up run by some large & greedy operators.


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 27, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Let's hope that the student landlords all did okay though eh?


Let us not get on to the subject of student landlords, when my son was at Uni, I had to resort to paying a solicitor to write a very threatening letter in order to get a (very large) deposit that his cunt of a landlord hummed and hawed about giving me back. 
I did wonder if would be cheaper (and possibly more effective) to find a couple of dudes with baseball bats.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 27, 2020)

My mum was a care home nurse back in the 90's.  It was happening all the time then that residents were being discharged back to the homes with hospital acquired infections.  People have been dying this way for a long time and covid is just shining a light on it.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

The other reason they go for the reverse triage option is that in many ways it resembles an inflated version of business as usual, and government/management is bound to favour such things as opposed to, for example, real emergency 'war effort' type responses involving other institutions like the army. Even the consequences probably have much in common with normal times, just on a much greater scale and with public attention that is normally absent. By this I mean that the hospital<->care home infection possibilities are not a new phenomenon in this pandemic, it probably happens quite a bit with flu etc.

edit - oops you beat me to it with that point Teaboy.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes they can, someone I know that runs a care home refused to take on new residents from the local hospital last time around, unless they were tested and had a negative result, she would do the same even if it had been on of her own residents that had gone into hospital, no return without a negative test result.
> 
> Mind you, that's a small independent home, not part of the 'granny farming' set-up run by some large & greedy operators.


My dad was in a home for a period last month. He was tested twice before he went in and once on leaving. He moaned about it, but it was reasonably reassuring. They weren't letting anyone in without a confirmed test. 

He was also in isolation for the whole time he was there, mind. This is a shit time to be old.


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Surely Care Homes can just refuse to take them? unless they were admitted from that care home in the first place?



Care homes are people's homes, and people are (almost always) discharged back to the care home they came from. Should someone not be allowed access to their own home if they want it? Should everyone be forcibly quarantined somewhere if they test positive in a hospital and are well enough to go home?


----------



## Badgers (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Care homes are people's homes, and people are (almost always) discharged back to the care home they came from. Should someone not be allowed access to their own home if they want it? Should everyone be forcibly quarantined somewhere if they test positive in a hospital and are well enough to go home?


Yes. If they are bringing a deadly virus with them.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Care homes are people's homes, and people are (almost always) discharged back to the care home they came from. Should someone not be allowed access to their own home if they want it? Should everyone be forcibly quarantined somewhere if they test positive in a hospital and are well enough to go home?


Honestly? Yes, of course, in certain circumstances people should be quarantined somewhere other than a place where other people live. This is a big thing, of course, and requires a lot of resources thrown at it in order to do it in a kind way. But they've had since March now to sort out a system.


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Yes. If they are bringing a deadly virus with them.



And a reply to littlebabyjesus too. Fine, but people need to be honest with that, and it probably needs a very big society wide discussion.

So if anyone tests positive should they should be refused to be allowed back to their care home, even if they're medically fit in other ways? And they can also be removed from the care home where they live and put somewhere else until recovered due to the danger to other residents then following that logic?

What about people that test +tive in a non-care home setting, but living with other people in the house that might be as vulnerable as a care home resident? Do they get allowed to stay? What's the legal grounds for removing care home residents and not residents in other homes? I'm not being obtuse, I think this is a really massively complicated subject that has no easy answers.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Care homes are people's homes, and people are (almost always) discharged back to the care home they came from. Should someone not be allowed access to their own home if they want it? Should everyone be forcibly quarantined somewhere if they test positive in a hospital and are well enough to go home?



But they are not well enough to return to a care home if they are positive, whilst the staff have decent PPE this time, they can't make care homes as covid secure as hospitals should be, and we still see outbreaks in hospitals, you shouldn't let it rip in a care home.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> So if anyone tests positive should they should be refused to be allowed back to their care home, even if they're medically fit in other ways? And they can also be removed from the care home and put somewhere else until recovered due to the danger to other residents then following that logic?


Put in a care home full of very vulnerable people? Honestly?


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 27, 2020)

United Kingdom COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer
					

United Kingdom Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.




					www.worldometers.info
				




Oh fuck!!! 367 ffs


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 27, 2020)

367 deaths reported today, up from 241 last Tue.  

That takes the 7-day average to around 200 a day. 

22,855 new cases.


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Put in a care home full of very vulnerable people? Honestly?



That's not what I'm saying. (Hospitals are also full of vulnerable people as well obviously.)

What I'm saying is that it is a very complicated and difficult situation that will require much more planning and thinking and a huge shift in what people are willing to allow. And cupid_stunt plenty of people _are _well enough to go, or be at, home, even old people. A GP friend of mine has just had a few care home residents come out asymptomatic (+tive with no symptoms). Their removal from their home to some other place where they'll be at risk from other things is complex, nobody should pretend otherwise.

I'm happy to say I have no fucking clue what to do about the care home infection problem. It's a system that's so broken there's no easy answers, and it's something that I really really hope gets addressed properly once this is all over. But some of the suggestions seem to me also be treating older people in a really shit way, _"Over 75, test positive, and in a care home, or want to go back to it? Well, we're taking you out of your home and putting you in a quarantine centre. Anyone else, nah, no restrictions." _Maybe everyone is OK with that, but I'm less sure.

(My short answer what to do is throw fuck tonnes of money (and mythical staff and huge quantities of PPE) at the problem, at least in the short term that might help.)


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> United Kingdom COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer
> 
> 
> United Kingdom Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.
> ...



Shitting hell.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 27, 2020)

367 new deaths puts the uk back at the top slot,  world beating indeed...


----------



## maomao (Oct 27, 2020)

Cancer is the country's biggest killer at approximately 450 deaths a day. Covid will exceed that by next week without a dramatic slowing down of deaths. And with nothing stronger than 'tier 3' to fight it it's hard to see the other side of the curve.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 27, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> 367 new deaths puts the uk back at the top slot,  world beating indeed...



Not on deaths per million population.


----------



## maomao (Oct 27, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> 367 new deaths puts the uk back at the top slot,  world beating indeed...


Only because a few haven't declared yet. The US figure will be a lot more than that by tomorrow morning.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's not what I'm saying. (Hospitals are also full of vulnerable people as well obviously.)
> 
> What I'm saying is that it is a very complicated and difficult situation that will require much more planning and thinking and a huge shift in what people are willing to allow. And cupid_stunt plenty of people _are _well enough to go, or be at, home, even old people. A GP friend of mine has just had a few care home residents come out asymptomatic (+tive with no symptoms). Their removal from their home to some other place where they'll be at risk from other things is complex, nobody should pretend otherwise.
> 
> ...


None of this is simple sadly. The sheer volume of deaths in care homes already has to point to a better solution though.


----------



## andysays (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's not what I'm saying. (Hospitals are also full of vulnerable people as well obviously.)
> 
> What I'm saying is that it is a very complicated and difficult situation that will require much more planning and thinking and a huge shift in what people are willing to allow. And cupid_stunt plenty of people _are _well enough to go, or be at, home, even old people. A GP friend of mine has just had a few care home residents come out asymptomatic (+tive with no symptoms). Their removal from their home to some other place where they'll be at risk from other things is complex, nobody should pretend otherwise.


There are (at least) two separate things here which you appear to be conflating.

The original question was whether a care home resident who is currently in hospital should return to their care home if they are known to have covid. Unless it's possible to have them in complete quarantine within the care home, including having their own staff who aren't in contact with other residents, I don't think they should return until they're no longer a risk.

But this is a different question to what should happen to a resident who tests positive while actually in residence at the care home.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> 367 new deaths puts the uk back at the top slot,  world beating indeed...


It's the Tuesday catch-up, remember. It's a high figure, but it's not the actual daily death rate at the moment, any more than the 100 figure from yesterday was.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

maomao said:


> Cancer is the country's biggest killer at approximately 450 deaths a day. Covid will exceed that by next week without a dramatic slowing down of deaths. And with nothing stronger than 'tier 3' to fight it it's hard to see the other side of the curve.


No, it won't. The real figure atm is probably about half that.


----------



## maomao (Oct 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> No, it won't. The real figure atm is probably about half that.


A little more than half if previous weeks are anything to go by. And the doubling rate is slightly less than two weeks. To clarify by 'next week' I meant 'at some point next week' not 'next Monday'. I'm sticking with my prediction, grisly as it is.


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

andysays said:


> There are (at least) two separate things here which you appear to be conflating.
> 
> The original question was whether a care home resident who is currently in hospital should return to their care home if they are known to have covid. Unless it's possible to have them in complete quarantine within the care home, including having their own staff who aren't in contact with other residents, I don't think they should return until they're no longer a risk.
> 
> But this is a different question to what should happen to a resident who tests positive while actually in residence at the care home.



Yeah, of course they're 2 different things, but they're closely related. If the first is going to happen, then logically the second follows as an issue as well. Anyway, like I said no easy answers and I'll leave the discussion on it, I'm very glad I'm not working it all out though.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 27, 2020)

367* - so, guesstimating and all that, suitable qualifications about the graph maybe having a different shape this time round - maybe about 2 weeks away from 1000 a day dying?

Edit, point taken about it being a Tuesday figure, but we probably are about 2 weeks out from the previous figure in terms of daily deaths?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> 367 - so, guesstimating and all that, suitable qualifications about the graph maybe having a different shape this time round - maybe about 2 weeks away from 1000 a day dying?


No. The actual figure at the moment is likely to lie somewhere between 200 and 250. We've been doing this for a while now. *Tuesday catch up! *


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> 367 - so, guesstimating and all that, suitable qualifications about the graph maybe having a different shape this time round - maybe about 2 weeks away from 1000 a day dying?



What amount of that 367 (if any) is likely to be weekend figures? I can't be arsed looking or working it out myself....


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 27, 2020)

Of course a lot of it is weekend figures but its not great is it. It's about 100 more than last Tuesday.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not on deaths per million population.


Luckily yes, we have been squeezed out of the top 10 by mostly south american countries with dreadful death tolls.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What amount of that 367 (if any) is likely to be weekend figures? I can't be arsed looking or working it out myself....


Very, very roughly, add Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and divide by three. That gives you just over 200. As numbers are currently rising, it may be a little higher than that. But it's between 200 and 250, possibly closer to 250.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 27, 2020)

Whatever the Tuesday effect, the figures are horrific. There's a real disconnect between all that death and the warblings on Johnson et all.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

If you want real figures, as in deaths by actual date of death, the best indicator I can give is that the numbers were around 200 deaths per day for the UK on October 21st and 22nd. Those numbers for those dates could yet increase a little more, and the numbers for dates since then will certainly increase more from their current totals due to lag, which is why I'm not mentioning them yet.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 27, 2020)

It's around 200 a day, based on daily reported figures, depends how worldometers has rounded up or down the current figure of 182, we will see in the morning.

367 - 241 = 18 + current figure 182 = 200.



cupid_stunt said:


> 367 deaths reported today, up from 241 last Tue.
> 
> That takes the 7-day average to around 200 a day.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

And the usual graph, minus the colour-coding.


----------



## Supine (Oct 27, 2020)

Just took a train from Liverpool to Warrington. At least 2/3 people on the train were not wearing masks. At least 30 people. 

Stupid cunts.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's the Tuesday catch-up, remember. It's a high figure, but it's not the actual daily death rate at the moment, any more than the 100 figure from yesterday was.


True, but 241 last Tuesday, assuming that Tuesdays are comparable, that's not looking good, is it?


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

FFS, just lock the whole country down now for a month. This is fucking ridiculous. Our local hospital already has more covid patients than it did at the height of the first wave.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

Due to the interest in the high figure and how much of it is weekend lag, I decided to bring back the colour-coding, initially as a one off. But maybe I will keep it going all week if there is interest. I'm always interested in this data because I want to know what the deaths rate by date of death was so I can avoid all the reporting & weekends issues, and to improve my sense of timing as to how bad things really were at particular moments.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

brogdale said:


> True, but 241 last Tuesday, assuming that Tuesdays are comparable, that's not looking good, is it?


No it isn't. But we haven't just discovered that today. Given previous figures in the last week, I would have been very surprised today by any figure below 300.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS, just lock the whole country down now for a month. This is fucking ridiculous. Our local hospital already has more covid patients than it did at the height of the first wave.


Yes, for everybody's sake, the vermin need to get over their cognitive dissonance of congratulating themselves on the effectiveness of the Spring lockdown and their 'policy' of being dead set against another national lockdown.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS, just lock the whole country down now for a month. This is fucking ridiculous. Our local hospital already has more covid patients than it did at the height of the first wave.


Yep, we're now at that point. Inaction by government has got us to a point where most of the measures short of a lockdown will even dent it. But they won't and we have to watch it transpire. Fucking grim.


----------



## Numbers (Oct 27, 2020)

elbows home setup.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 27, 2020)

Are there any signs that any of the local restrictions / tiers / lockdowns / whatevs are actually working?

I know the tier system is still very recent and areas are moving tiers all the time but there have been a series of local restrictions in place in many areas for a while now.

ETA: To clarify I suppose they may well be slowing the spread so what I'm really asking is whether any areas are seeing their numbers decline?


----------



## brogdale (Oct 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> No it isn't. But we haven't just discovered that today. Given previous figures in the last week, I would have been very surprised today by any figure below 300.


OK, fair enough...I don't follow the data as closely as some here, but I suppose the highest daily death toll since last May was always going to catch the attention?


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Is there any signs that any of the local restrictions / tiers / lockdowns / whatevs are actually working?
> 
> I know the tier system is still very recent and areas are moving tiers all the time but there have been a series of local restrictions in place in many areas for a while now.



We're in Tier 2, and now have more patients in hospital than in the first wave and are cancelling all sorts of routine NHS care. TIER 2 FFS, which barely seems to have made any difference to anything.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Is there any signs that any of the local restrictions / tiers / lockdowns / whatevs are actually working?
> 
> I know the tier system is still very recent and areas are moving tiers all the time but there have been a series of local restrictions in place in many areas for a while now.


There were signs a few weeks ago of the rate of increase slowing, according to ZoeCovid. It has since gone up back again in many places. So no.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 27, 2020)

Let's hope we don't end-up with much flu this season.



> Being infected with coronavirus and flu at the same time could make you nearly six times more likely to die, new research shows.
> 
> As the UK begins to grapple with a second wave of Covid-19, Britons have been urged to get a flu jab if they are at high risk of catching or spreading that infectious disease.
> 
> Experts said people should "not be complacent" over flu - which kills around 11,000 people each year in England - as new research has shown dire consequences of co-infection of flu and Covid -19.











						Having coronavirus and flu at same time makes you 6 times more likely to die
					

New research from Public Health England reveals those who had Covid-19 and flu at the same time during the initial peak in March had a significantly higher risk of death




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

Numbers said:


> elbows home setup.



If you ever see my in the vicinity of a keep calm and trade on mouse mat then it will likely be because I am busy shoving it up someones arse.

Just the one monitor here, although I admit it is an ultrawide. And much like PHE I am guilty of running the pandemic on a spreadsheet, except thank fuck I am not actually responsible for running anything in this pandemic other than my mouth.


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

I would love to read the minutes from the psychology sub-group on SAGE. I was supportive of the Tier measures as being clearer and better than what we had before, but I suspect there's some complex behavioural shit going on among people. Oh we're only Tier 2, it's not so bad, carry on as normal etc. etc. I think it also just creates this fragmentation of the feeling of us all doing the same thing and it being fair, which then also encourages people to not follow the rules.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Let's hope we don't end-up with much flu this season.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Very 2020, all this


----------



## editor (Oct 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> My dad was in a home for a period last month. He was tested twice before he went in and once on leaving. He moaned about it, but it was reasonably reassuring. They weren't letting anyone in without a confirmed test.
> 
> He was also in isolation for the whole time he was there, mind. This is a shit time to be old.


It's a horrible thing to hear myself saying, but I'm sort of glad that my mum died before all this kicked off.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 27, 2020)

Looking at that worldometers tally.

At the current rate of new cases, we'll be joining the millionaire club before the end of October. 

I know I'm preaching to the converted here BUT >>>> "Hands Face Space" ...

I can't see the shower of shitetwunts and cockwombles nominally in charge getting a handle on this second wave anytime soon.
[and I blame them being in too much of a hurry to re-open the economy, holidays and the universities without getting the case rate right down in all areas]
LDC's right, we need another full lockdown from now until at least the end of November.
And I say that, living in an area that's had only 3 new cases this week (with a rolling case rate per 100k of less than 45, the national average is 137 for that measure)


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 27, 2020)

I'm wondering how the projection for Pillar 1 capacity has suddenly risen by over 50,000, in a single day, when it's been ticking along at a pretty regular figure for months.
Have they opened up more labs (today) or is this some shady business to do with meeting the promised 500k daily tests by the end of the month?

(For further confusion, they give two different numbers for capacity, with no apparent difference in the formula for gathering those figures - and no obvious deduction that I can see  - will post the other in a minute but have bolded all the relevant bits)

*Testing capacity by Pillar*
*Testing capacity is a projection based on reports from labs on how many lab-based tests they have capacity to carry out each day based on availability of staff and resources.*
Click to display contentDataClick to display contentAbout
*Data*
Showing a table of the data

DatePillar 1Pillar 2Pillar 3Pillar 4Total26-10-2020*136,112*293,200120,00019,511*568,823*25-10-202083,164281,000120,00014,932499,09624-10-202083,246278,000120,00014,193495,43923-10-202083,668273,000120,00013,580490,24822-10-202083,574264,100120,00014,999482,67321-10-202083,108284,000120,00014,041501,149


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 27, 2020)

editor said:


> It's a horrible thing to hear myself saying, but I'm sort of glad that my mum died before all this kicked off.



No, it's not, I know what you mean and I agree with you. 
If my father had been still alive in January this year, I very much doubt if he would have survived much beyond March or April - Despite living at home, He had carers four times a day and was increasingly frail.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 27, 2020)

*Testing and capacity, by test type*
Virus tests
Antibody tests
Number of confirmed positive, negative or void lab-based COVID-19 test results, by test type. This is a count of test results and may include multiple tests for an individual person. Virus tests test for the presence of COVID-19 and include all pillar 1 and 2 lab-based tests and any virus tests undertaken in pillar 4. Antibody serology tests test for COVID-19 antibodies and include pillar 3 tests and any antibody serology tests undertaken in pillar 4. *Testing capacity is a projection based on reports from labs on how many lab-based tests they have capacity to carry out each day based on availability of staff and resources.*
Click to display contentDailyClick to display contentCumulativeClick to display contentDataClick to display contentAbout
*Data*
Showing a table of the data

Date reportedDaily virus tests processedCumulative virus tests processedVirus testing capacity26-10-2020261,85529,994,301*447,723*25-10-2020321,11329,729,949377,99624-10-2020317,89529,408,836374,33923-10-2020346,67129,090,941369,14822-10-2020340,13228,744,108361,57321-10-2020310,32228,399,151380,049


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 27, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Let's hope we don't end-up with much flu this season.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Boots have already had to suspend their private flu jab service.


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I would love to read the minutes from the psychology sub-group on SAGE. I was supportive of the Tier measures as being clearer and better than what we had before, but I suspect there's some complex behavioural shit going on among people. Oh we're only Tier 2, it's not so bad, carry on as normal etc. etc. I think it also just creates this fragmentation of the feeling of us all doing the same thing and it being fair, which then also encourages people to not follow the rules.



Perhaps there's also the fact it came so late in the day and after so much faffing about with local restrictions that were often sensible in themselves but inconsistent across areas, and with no clear criteria for how and when they would be applied and taken off.  Inevitably people have ended up confused and resentful, especially when it's coming from politicians who manifestly don't have a clue what they're doing.

'Second waves' and possible responses to them have been in the air since the spring.  It can't have been beyond the wit of the British state to devise a tiered system over the summer, to be applied as and when needed, and with clear and consistent messaging about what it was for and under what circumstances it would happen.  Something like it exists in Germany, for a start, although I don't know the details.  Actually I'm sure it's not beyond the wit of the British state to devise such a thing, but it is beyond the wit of the current government to tell the civil service to do it.


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

editor said:


> It's a horrible thing to hear myself saying, but I'm sort of glad that my mum died before all this kicked off.



Yeah, both my parents are dead, one in 2014, one in mid-2019, and I feel the same tbh. They both would have been very vulnerable if they'd lived a bit longer and I live a long way from them. Would have been really difficult.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, both my parents are dead, one in 2014, one in mid-2019, and I feel the same tbh. They both would have been very vulnerable if they'd lived a bit longer and I live a long way from them. Would have been really difficult.


tbf my mum, who is 88 and ticks every high risk category possible, is one of those oldsters who is really past caring. She was told to shield, but refused help for shopping because she likes to choose her own bread! Even refused to play the age card and push in at the queues ('Oh we're all old here'). I can't blame her - her attitude is that she isn't going to shut herself away when she's going to die soon anyway. 

Biggest problem my parents have had is the way covid has disrupted my dad's care - they've both suffered considerably from the withdrawal of various services.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 27, 2020)

Just on testing, I had some routine (non-Covid) bloods done late morning one day last week. Results were back and the GP surgery rang me about a follow up at 9 a.m. the following morning.  I was astonished, particularly as there were stories about surgeries trying to avoid routine bloods just a few miles away in North Yorkshire. 

I'm not really making a point about anything, except that things are very patchy throughout the pandemic and NHS at the moment.  You get to the point where you try and manage these things yourself. I needed a steroid injection in my hand in Spring, but missed the boat as the clinic closed down in May. My GP finally got me in as an NHS patient at a special 'Trigger Finger Clinic' at a local private unit last week. Turned out she'd actually referred me for surgery when I got there, but I was worried it might get cancelled before it was scheduled, so I bargained them down to another steroid injection which got done.  Minor/routine stuff in my example, but I wonder how many people are doing this with more serious conditions?


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbf my mum, who is 88 and ticks every high risk category possible, is one of those oldsters who is really past caring. She was told to shield, but refused help for shopping because she likes to choose her own bread! Even refused to play the age card and push in at the queues ('Oh we're all old here'). I can't blame her - her attitude is that she isn't going to shut herself away when she's going to die soon anyway.
> 
> Biggest problem my parents have had is the way covid has disrupted my dad's care - they've both suffered considerably from the withdrawal of various services.



Yeah, I think there's some balancing going on isn't there? Like if I was vulnerable and 65 I might be very good about shielding for a year or whatever, but if I was vulnerable and 85 I might actually not be so bothered tbh. I mean I could spend a year inside and then drop dead of a heart attack at the end of a very miserable year.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I would love to read the minutes from the psychology sub-group on SAGE. I was supportive of the Tier measures as being clearer and better than what we had before, but I suspect there's some complex behavioural shit going on among people. Oh we're only Tier 2, it's not so bad, carry on as normal etc. etc. I think it also just creates this fragmentation of the feeling of us all doing the same thing and it being fair, which then also encourages people to not follow the rules.



Yeah I've been out to the pub with mates, looked at the local stats and thought 'yeah only 5 people have it here so it's probably fine'.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

I always look at what framing shitheads use and what detail they leave out.

In this case, fucking Nick Triggle talking on the BBC live updates page about the daily deaths figure. Much like me he mentions 200 deaths by actual date of death, but unlike me he doesnt say what date this relates to, and his choice of language (have not topped) is also deliberately different.



> These are deaths that have actually happened over the past week or so. If you look at the deaths as they correspond to the date they occurred, the numbers have not topped 200 a day throughout this second wave.



From 17:22 of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54702693


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah I've been out to the pub with mates, looked at the local stats and thought 'yeah only 5 people have it here so it's probably fine'.



The government and businesses love you for it though!


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 27, 2020)

elbows said:
			
		

> the numbers have not topped 200 a day throughout this second wave.



What a relief! I'm going to organise a party with 70 people immediately


----------



## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

Sorry to come in late to a conversation that seems to have finished, but wouldn't a Nightingale type setup be good for releasing patients from hospital before they go back into care homes?


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Sorry to come in late to a conversation that seems to have finished, but wouldn't a Nightingale type setup be good for releasing patients from hospital before they go back into care homes?



The problem with the Nightingales in general and many other aspects of this pandemic is staffing levels. The NHS had approximately 8 billion vacancies long before this pandemic, so to say they are stretched at the best of times is an understatement.

I would try something anyway, but as mentioned earlier it wouldnt resemble business as usual and would be a real war mode type thing. There doesnt seem to be the appetite for that in this country, at least not at the levels of hospitalisations reached at the first peak or subsequently.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

Yes indeed - staffing is indeed the problem.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What a relief! I'm going to organise a party with 70 people immediately



Have a blender reveal party, as in what sort of blender we can threaten to stick Triggles head in when he appears at the inevitable public inquiry.


----------



## agricola (Oct 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> The problem with the Nightingales in general and many other aspects of this pandemic is staffing levels. The NHS had approximately 8 billion vacancies long before this pandemic, so to say they are stretched at the best of times is an understatement.
> 
> I would try something anyway, but as mentioned earlier it wouldnt resemble business as usual and would be a real war mode type thing. There doesnt seem to be the appetite for that in this country, at least not at the levels of hospitalisations reached at the first peak or subsequently.



Have they made any attempts to increase staffing within the NHS in response to this crisis?  I know there was that volunteer thing at the beginning, and they've sped up the last year of some nursing degrees, but that doesnt seem to have continued.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

You'd think there are enough people who don't believe the virus is real to staff several Nightingales. 

Not that I'd like to be "cared for" by that sort of twat, mind.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 27, 2020)

I was also wondering how the Nightingales were to be staffed ?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I was also wondering how the Nightingales were to be staffed ?


think of them as a movie set: all front no innards.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 27, 2020)

agricola said:


> Have they made any attempts to increase staffing within the NHS in response to this crisis?  I know there was that volunteer thing at the beginning, and they've sped up the last year of some nursing degrees, but that doesnt seem to have continued.



Reinstating bursaries for trainee nurses would be the main thing to do here.

They haven't done that.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 27, 2020)

Nicking nurses from overseas seemed in the past to be the other main thing to do. Hardly ethical at the moment, but that would hardly weigh on Johnson's conscience. Keeping foreigners out because of Brexit instead puts it out of bounds.


----------



## LDC (Oct 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I was also wondering how the Nightingales were to be staffed ?



There was a bit of a clash of egos and institutions (NHS, government, military, etc.) and various medical specialities when they set-up. That and the disagreements about what they were for really confused the matter. I think if they had been needed in any significant way it would have been a bit of a mess tbh.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 27, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Nicking nurses from overseas seemed in the past to be the other main thing to do. Hardly ethical at the moment, but that would hardly weigh on Johnson's conscience. Keeping foreigners out because of Brexit instead puts it out of bounds.


those bloody EU nurses with criminal records


----------



## MrSki (Oct 27, 2020)

agricola said:


> Have they made any attempts to increase staffing within the NHS in response to this crisis?  I know there was that volunteer thing at the beginning, and they've sped up the last year of some nursing degrees, but that doesnt seem to have continued.


They originally asked staff who had retired to do their bit for the country but when they started dying I think less people volunteered. They also called in air stewards to do the basics in the Nightingales but don't know how that is going.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 27, 2020)

MrSki said:


> They originally asked staff who had retired to do their bit for the country but when they started dying I think less people volunteered. They also called in air stewards to do the basics in the Nightingales but don't know how that is going.



They 'offered' my mum (community psych nurse, former general nurse) reassignment to the covid+ bit of the psych ward. She told them to get to fuck.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

Another horrible milestone reached, this time in Leeds.









						Covid-19: Patient rise halts non-essential operations in Leeds
					

The trust running hospitals in Leeds expects an increase in intensive care patients in the coming days.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Most non-essential operations in Leeds are being postponed after the number of hospitalised Covid-19 patients rose to a higher level than at the first wave's peak.
> Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust said it had 263 Covid patients on Tuesday, with 22 in intensive care units (ICU).
> The trust runs Leeds General Infirmary and St James' Hospital and expects ICU numbers to go up in the next 48 hours.
> It said "only essential operations are going ahead in most cases".
> Hospital staff have been told the rapid rise of admissions means that it is "looking even more likely" that Leeds will be moved into tier three of coronavirus restrictions.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 27, 2020)

North East Lincolnshire

Sept 26 - 20 per 100k, 43 cases in last week, under 300 cases total
October 27 - 349 per 100k, 557 in last week, 1652 cases total

Still Tier 1


----------



## Cloo (Oct 27, 2020)

Sue said:


> The numbers in Stamford Hill/South Tottenham are really high. (Coming on for 600 per 100k in one or two of the areas). From the map view, looks like the biggest cluster in London.


Just as I feared  - Charedi Jewish community may be a big epicentre, then.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Oct 27, 2020)

Family of six in work today doing the weekly shop. Both parents wearing masks, non-trolley-seated children literally licking the surfaces. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

I'm on holibobs from now, but after that I'm installing the app on my knackered old 6S so that I can get my overdue paid two weeks quarantine


----------



## Wilf (Oct 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS, just lock the whole country down now for a month. This is fucking ridiculous. Our local hospital already has more covid patients than it did at the height of the first wave.


Just going back to this, along with others on here I thought the University charade would have collapsed a couple of weeks into term, amid a government panic about the spread in halls of residence.  Also, there was speculation on here that they'd have to abandon the Tiers thing and go for some kind of circuit breaker. None of that has happened and here we are with rates rocketing and specific NHS Trusts hitting the crisis right now. But none of that has happened and the 'balance' remains pretty much as it was. I keep thinking we are the frog in the pan, so what has to happen to get some change? Even with these fucks in power you think _something _has to give... like, y'know, thousands more dead people.  But when we get to December, it's probably 'oh, do nothing, keep washing your hands and, well why bother doing anything as its nearly vaccine time'*.  That's it isn't it?

* which it won't be of course.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

It wasnt a case of abandoning the tiers thing, a short circuit breaker would be on top of that stuff and then when it ended the localised restrictions system would still be in place.

The thing the government are most likely respond to, apart from a much larger and enduring political shitstorm about their lack of action than we have seen so far, is still to do with hospital numbers. Its just I cant predict exactly how bad it will need to get before they do something. Nor do I rule out the possibility that there is the classic London/Southern bias to their thinking, so it is tempting to suspect that national action would be more likely if the London situation got very bad.

A variation on the theme will be no national action, and the addition of an extra level or two of restrictions for the local tier system, levels that more closely resemble lockdown than the current tier 3 restrictions. ie Similar to what Scotland have built into their tier system.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Just going back to this, along with others on here I thought the University charade would have collapsed a couple of weeks into term, amid a government panic about the spread in halls of residence.  Also, there was speculation on here that they'd have to abandon the Tiers thing and go for some kind of circuit breaker. None of that has happened and here we are with rates rocketing and specific NHS Trusts hitting the crisis right now. But none of that has happened and the 'balance' remains pretty much as it was. I keep thinking we are the frog in the pan, so what has to happen to get some change? Even with these fucks in power you think _something _has to give... like, y'know, thousands more dead people.  But when we get to December, it's probably 'oh, do nothing, keep washing your hands and, well why bother doing anything as its nearly vaccine time'*.  That's it isn't it?
> 
> * which it won't be of course.


They will no way do a lockdown over Christmas. You know that that's an absolute priority for Tory PR right now, that they get to say they've saved Christmas, keeping the insane capitalist "holidays magically make wasting the rest of your life fine" myth going at the most critical time in the pantheon. And we're way too close to it now.


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2020)

At the start of October SAGE had a look at a paper from late September by GlaxoSmithKline. The paper looked at excess mortality data for countries in Europe and treid to determine if there were any simple predictor variables that could be correlated to high levels of excess mortality in the pandemic wave of the first half of this year.

This is what GSK determined.



> Using logistic regression, we find that whether a country experienced high excess mortality in 2020-H1 is well-predicted by OECD healthcare spending, percentage of healthcare spent on residential care (as a proxy for nursing home utility) and maximum recorded 2018-H1 Z-score. After adjusting for these covariates, average stringency of government response was not a predictor of high excess mortality (date of onset rather than an average measure was not tested). We find that reducing per capita OECD healthcare spending, increasing the proportion spent on residential care and the magnitude of previous excess mortality in 2018-H1 all increase the likelihood of high 2020-H1 excess mortality. As noted from the simple correlation analysis, countries that have a history of being affected by high excess seasonal mortality are more likely to have been affected by COVID19 in 2020.



GSK: Evaluation of excess mortality in European all-cause mortality data, 25 September 2020

I'll quote another bit covering the same conclusions, because it is clearer about what it is getting at in regards percentage of healthcare spent on residential care.



> Maximum 2018-H1 mortality was positively correlated with 2020-H1 mortality, implying past high excess mortality predicts high 2020-H1 excess mortality.
> Lower per capita spending on healthcare, increased residential care and high previous excess mortality are significant predictors of countries with high 2020-H1 excess mortality.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 27, 2020)

Yeah can you imagine how apeshit the people who religiously vote Tory will go if there is a lockdown over Christmas lol, it's not gonna happen.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 28, 2020)

They won't close Christmas down, no way. They might close Winterval down though.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah can you imagine how apeshit the people who religiously vote Tory will go if there is a lockdown over Christmas lol, it's not gonna happen.



How apeshit people go is not the only predictor I would use though, the actual levels in hospital cannot be bullshitted away. Epidemic evolution timing is far more important than anything else, no matter the political aspects.

As I mentioned earlier, there are a couple of 'free' circuit breakers built into a normal Christmas though - educational facilities being closed and certain sorts of jobs having a reasonably long break over the period. But extended family meetups etc during a normal Christmas create new circuits over this period. 

At least whatever happens there should be far less Christmas office parties to provide additional outbreak opportunities this year.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 28, 2020)

Mate's daughter and friend is coming back from London to Cornwall at Christmas - her first year of college and first time she's been away from home, family missing her I can see why.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

I doubt it will ever be possible for me to read a Nick Triggle article in this pandemic without some of the wording winding me up and causing me to rant. But in this case some of the points are actually helpful to my cause, and it even includes a graph that is a really very useful fit for the excess mortality prediction paper I was just talking about.










						Covid: How busy are hospitals as the second wave rolls in?
					

Some routine treatments are being cancelled but there is space, if not enough staff.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Discussions we've had here that could benefit from that chart include 'why did Germany do much better than us?' and the recent 'why are Frances hospitalisation figures always so much higher?'.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

With some further thought it will probably be possible to come up with a new pandemic rule of six, six reasons why the healthcare funding/hospital bed realities in the UK made a huge different to our level of pandemic death. This is just a first late night stab at it.

Pressure to admit less patients, patients that would really benefit from hospital care.
Pressure to discharge patients into care homes.
Hospital infection control issues and bed availability made worse by crowding, staffing levels, building and equipment issues.
Less ability to maintain non-Covid services.
Staff safety, morale and burnout issues.
Management issues stemming from management mindsets formed by their role in managed decline at the best of times.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> How apeshit people go is not the only predictor I would use though, the actual levels in hospital cannot be bullshitted away. Epidemic evolution timing is far more important than anything else, no matter the political aspects.



There doesn't seem to be much of an appetite for a lockdown like it was in March tho. I think there's way more fatalism and stuff now. People have got blase and used to things being a bit more normal, leaving aside the economic issues and the whole issue of people who think it is exaggerated or that it doesn't even exist.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> There doesn't seem to be much of an appetite for a lockdown like it was in March tho. I think there's way more fatalism and stuff now. People have got blase and used to things being a bit more normal, leaving aside the economic issues and the whole issue of people who think it is exaggerated or that it doesn't even exist.



Whose appetite? The establishment didnt have much appetite for it the first time either but they were bounced into it by the sheer speed of events and the magnitude of predicted (and then actual) hospital admissions involved.

This time its happening more slowly with more regional variation so they have more opportunities to resist, but that doesnt mean some point cannot be reached where they will have to change their tune again.

As for the public, the opinion polls still indicate significant support for measures that are much more like lockdown. But certainly things are different in various ways and the number of people who are no on board with strong measures has grown notably, and government blew the whole sense of 'all in it together' in many ways including the Cummings thing.

We'll see. The government have a number of approaches to 'saving the NHS' in this pandemic, many of which come at the price of far more lives lost. So lockdown isnt the only emergency option up their sleeve. But despite the failure to do a circuit breaker when SAGE advised to, I am nowhere near the point where I would think that further government measures are unlikely. There will be a hospital admission rate they cannot stomach, I just cant say exactly what it is or whether we'll reach it nationally. And thats not much comfort given that there are still unpleasant hospital admission rates that they probably can stomach, and if those stick around for a long time the death toll will really add up to large numbers without them acting.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Whose appetite? The establishment didnt have much appetite for it the first time either but they were bounced into it by the sheer speed of events and the magnitude of predicted (and then actual) hospital admissions involved.
> 
> This time its happening more slowly with more regional variation so they have more opportunities to resist, but that doesnt mean some point cannot be reached where they will have to change their tune again.
> 
> ...


I suspect that 'saving the NHS' is a different thing in the mind of government now. The NHS survived last time - just, and on the backs of astonishing death and stress amongst NHS and care staff, but it did survive. Last time their risk assessments were panicked (although correct) and led to lockdown. I suspect there's some hard faced shit in their psyche at the moment, elements of 'fuck this we aren't paying that much again' + 'the treatments are getting better' + 'we've got the Nightingale's capacity', merging into a mushy childlike hope about the vaccines.  It's not that vaccinations deliver much at all in the first couple of months, but government will feel inoculated against having to do anything else.  The geniuses of the psychological nudge are being nudged around by a virus.


----------



## kalidarkone (Oct 28, 2020)

Nicking nurses from overseas seemed in the past to be the other main thing to do. Hardly ethical at the moment, but that would hardly weigh on Johnson's conscience. Keeping foreigners out because of Brexit instead puts it out of bounds.
[/QUOTE]

We _already do that _because of the shortfall - nothing to do with covid.


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> There was a bit of a clash of egos and institutions (NHS, government, military, etc.) and various medical specialities when they set-up. That and the disagreements about what they were for really confused the matter. I think if they had been needed in any significant way it would have been a bit of a mess tbh.



Tbh the lesson I took from the Nightingales - which were set up astonishingly quickly - was that although the civilian state's capacity to respond to emergencies has been hollowed out by ten years of austerity, compounded in this instance by the Johnson government's dishonesty and ineptitude, the military's capabilities are still pretty impressive.  Although, as you say, there'd have been plenty of scope for squabbling over responsibilities.


----------



## LDC (Oct 28, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Tbh the lesson I took from the Nightingales - which were set up astonishingly quickly - was that although the civilian state's capacity to respond to emergencies has been hollowed out by ten years of austerity, compounded in this instance by the Johnson government's dishonesty and ineptitude, the military's capabilities are still pretty impressive.  Although, as you say, there'd have been plenty of scope for squabbling over responsibilities.



TBH I was in favour of handing the whole lot of the Nightingales over to the military to run too, although another one of the problems with that is that all (the vast majority at least) of the higher skilled military medical staff (consultants, surgeons, etc.) are NHS in their day-to-day lives and then military reserve, so there's not much higher level staffing capacity that could come from them anyway.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 28, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> > Nicking nurses from overseas seemed in the past to be the other main thing to do. Hardly ethical at the moment, but that would hardly weigh on Johnson's conscience. Keeping foreigners out because of Brexit instead puts it out of bounds.
> 
> 
> 
> We _already do that _because of the shortfall - nothing to do with covid.


Yes true I should have said "Nicking extra nurses from overseas ..."


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 28, 2020)

BBC is reporting that a leaked SAGE report predicts 25,000 in hospital by the end of November, that's about 5,000 more than at the peak.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 28, 2020)

Full Lockdown coming very soon surely
How long will it last though


----------



## LDC (Oct 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> BBC is reporting that a leaked SAGE report predicts 25,000 in hospital by the end of November, that's about 5,000 more than at the peak.



Yeah _The Guardian _live feed thing reports _The Telegraph_ saying a leaked report is showing the government are expecting more deaths than the first wave. Maybe by end of next month we'll get Tier 3+ or something....


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 28, 2020)

How can they possibly think this is acceptable collateral damage to save the economy?


----------



## Cloo (Oct 28, 2020)

It looks to me like the only way to avoid an absolute clusterfuck after Christmas is an outright curfew over that week, which of course they won't do, because people will forgive you starving kids, lying to them, recklessly destroying the economy to solve an intraparty argument and underfunding health and social services but not for BANNING CRISTMUS!

I have no particular problem with a family of 5 seeing their grandparents if they want to, or 8 people meeting outdoors - but millions of people hanging out and getting drunk in one anothers' homes for a week should not be happening. But it will.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 28, 2020)

Cloo said:


> It looks to me like the only way to avoid an absolute clusterfuck after Christmas is an outright curfew over that week, which of course they won't do, because people will forgive you starving kids, lying to them, recklessly destroying the economy to solve an intraparty argument and underfunding health and social services but not for BANNING CRISTMUS!
> 
> I have no particular problem with a family of 5 seeing their grandparents if they want to, or 8 people meeting outdoors - but millions of people hanging out and getting drunk in one anothers' homes for a week should not be happening. But it will.


The government is relying on it as it's so much easier to get away with shit when there's a pandemic raging


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah _The Guardian _live feed thing reports _The Telegraph_ saying a leaked report is showing the government are expecting more deaths than the first wave. Maybe by end of next month we'll get Tier 3+ or something....


Super league


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 28, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Full Lockdown coming very soon surely
> How long will it last though


Until we know what's good for us


----------



## magneze (Oct 28, 2020)

Fuck Christmas


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH I was in favour of handing the whole lot of the Nightingales over to the military to run too, although another one of the problems with that is that all (the vast majority at least) of the higher skilled military medical staff (consultants, surgeons, etc.) are NHS in their day-to-day lives and then military reserve, so there's not much higher level staffing capacity that could come from them anyway.


Maybe hand over local government to police and crime commissioners too


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 28, 2020)

All I'm getting from the news this morning (Classic FM and reading Beeb web news) is an impression of massive confusion, especially amongst the politicians ...

I still think we need another very strong clamp down during November if they want to "save crimble" ...

If they don't get the case rate right down again by early December, the travelling and mixing of students going home, frentic shopping trips and large family gatherings over Xmas and New Year ARE going to produce a tsunami of cases in mid to late January, overloaded hospitals (even if they sort out staffing the "Nightingales") and even with the slightly better treatments & knowledge, there is going to be a huge number of deaths. And an insanely long period before the economy really recovers, even with a working vaccine.

Note that I suspect the UK is going to join the Millionaires Club for Covid Cases before the end of October. 
[Which will give this winterval tsunami of cases I'm expecting a really good head start ...]


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 28, 2020)

Is this going to turn into the tories easiest way to fuck the nhs and force people to accept more privatisation of healthcare


----------



## andysays (Oct 28, 2020)

S☼I said:


> How can they possibly think this is acceptable collateral damage to save the economy?


Unfortunately, we already know the answer to that question


----------



## two sheds (Oct 28, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Is this going to turn into the tories easiest way to fuck the nhs and force people to accept more privatisation of healthcare



Saw a report that's already happening - presumably only way people will be able to get elective surgery


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH I was in favour of handing the whole lot of the Nightingales over to the military to run too, although another one of the problems with that is that all (the vast majority at least) of the higher skilled military medical staff (consultants, surgeons, etc.) are NHS in their day-to-day lives and then military reserve, so there's not much higher level staffing capacity that could come from them anyway.



However, to add to that (which I agree with) I think squaddies that are trained in using NBC gear would have no trouble in working in full PPE [tbh NBC gear is pretty comprehensive protection ... and if squaddies can fight in them, I'm sure they can do a lot of other things in the suits ...]


----------



## maomao (Oct 28, 2020)

Once the shopping and office parties are over Christmas isn't really a busy season for anything except household visits and people seem to do nothing but moan about that anyway. I really don't see any 'Tory base rebellion' happening over restrictions on home visits over Christmas. There's no election for four years anyway. People already know there will be restrictions over the holiday period. That annoying woman off BBC News has already been told off for saying she was going to have seven people over. Those who find it really unacceptable will just break the rules.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 28, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> All I'm getting from the news this morning (Classic FM and reading Beeb web news) is an impression of massive confusion, especially amongst the politicians ...
> 
> I still think we need another very strong clamp down during November if they want to "save crimble" ...
> 
> ...


Lock up the government and let the people who know about these things take charge of the pandemick (and brexit negotiations)


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 28, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Saw a report that's already happening - presumably only way people will be able to get elective surgery


It'd be a pity to let a pandemick go to waste


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Oct 28, 2020)

They're ignoring the obvious for long enough that the now inevitable "circuit breaker" lockdown is timed for lifting at christmas.  "But the numbers aren't coming down" we'll all say.

"Numbers have lag of up to 4 weeks" will be the response, "the circuit breaker has worked and you're all now safe to see your families and spend that all important money.  We've saved your Christmas, trust us..."

Wankers, mass-murdering wankers.


----------



## killer b (Oct 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> Once the shopping and office parties are over Christmas isn't really a busy season for anything except household visits and people seem to do nothing but moan about that anyway. I really don't see any 'Tory base rebellion' happening over restrictions on home visits over Christmas. There's no election for four years anyway. People already know there will be restrictions over the holiday period. That annoying woman off BBC News has already been told off for saying she was going to have seven people over. Those who find it really unacceptable will just break the rules.


absolutely this.


----------



## Cid (Oct 28, 2020)

S☼I said:


> How can they possibly think this is acceptable collateral damage to save the economy?



And, as has been something of a litany for me on this thread, it doesn’t actually seem a particularly good way of doing that. It’s just the default Tory hands off, let the market decide way.


----------



## maomao (Oct 28, 2020)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> spend that all important money.


What money? Most Christmas shopping already happens online and that will be even more true this year. There'll be no sales in Oxford Street  but there'll be sales online.  If it's the economy they're interested in why would they lift it during what for most businesses is the deadest two weeks of the year?

Half term's (almost) gone. Most of the country is agreed that school has to be a priority. If there's a lockdown it will be Christmas and there will be very few complaints.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> What money? Most Christmas shopping already happens online and that will be even more true this year. There'll be no sales in Oxford Street  but there'll be sales online.  If it's the economy they're interested in why would they lift it during what for most businesses is the deadest two weeks of the year?
> 
> Half term's (almost) gone. Most of the country is agreed that school has to be a priority. If there's a lockdown it will be Christmas and there will be very few complaints.



I just find it hard to picture Boris wanting to risk being lumped in with Cromwell as the dictator who cancelled Christmas.

Fundamentally the man craves being loved.


----------



## Cid (Oct 28, 2020)

My guess is it would run Dec 6-20 or something. People might accept a Christmas lockdown, but there is no way they’re actually aiming for that. It’s a question of legacy more than the next election.


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Oct 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> What money? Most Christmas shopping already happens online and that will be even more true this year. There'll be no sales in Oxford Street  but there'll be sales online.  If it's the economy they're interested in why would they lift it during what for most businesses is the deadest two weeks of the year?
> 
> Half term's (almost) gone. Most of the country is agreed that school has to be a priority. If there's a lockdown it will be Christmas and there will be very few complaints.



Maybe the money part of my comment was a bit flippant, accepted.

But in reputational terms, what the Tories will do is make sure that Christmas is seen as less restrictive as what's gone just before.  They simply have to be able to say that they've managed the crisis such than nan can come over and drink your sherry.


----------



## maomao (Oct 28, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I just find it hard to picture Boris wanting to risk being lumped in with Cromwell as the dictator who cancelled Christmas.
> 
> Fundamentally the man craves being loved.


Christmas boxes for shielding old people and free Netflix for everyone. Something like that. Make an event of it. Because the bits of it that you're worried about being cancelled are already cancelled.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> Half term's (almost) gone. Most of the country is agreed that school has to be a priority. If there's a lockdown it will be Christmas and there will be very few complaints.



I think schools are a priority but the more people I talk to the more I think they are the massive honking elephant in the room.  I don't have children and I don't know anyone who has had a positive test.  Neither to any of my local friends who are childless.

Over the weekend I spoke with a few different people who have teenage children.  They paint a picture of chaos in the schools.  Constant positive tests, bubbles having to isolate and a constantly changing line-up of pupils and teachers in class.  That aside the parents are largely running open houses because well what else can you do?  Plus, and I quote from one neighbour "... they're at that age where they are out snogging different people every weekend".

I know its all the fault of pubs, sorry _crowded _pubs but I really think someone should have a look at what is going on in the schools if we are serious about stopping this pandemic.


----------



## LDC (Oct 28, 2020)

If it was me I'd go for a six week national wide lockdown now, balanced and sold to the public on the back that if it works it'll slacken off for a period of time over the holidays to enable families and friends to meet (albeit in a careful and limited way).


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Oct 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> There's no election for four years anyway.


Everyone says this but so far, since they introduced fixed-term parliaments, we haven't had a full length Parliament. Anything could happen. Maybe, for example, 41 Tory MP's will die of Covid, causing by-elections, Labour, SNP and Plaid victories resulting in a vote in Parliament for a new election. Unlikely possibly, but who foresaw Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Brexit and Covid?


----------



## LDC (Oct 28, 2020)

... followed up after the slacking period with re-imposition of re-jigged Tier system; more hospitality closed properly in 2 and 3, all universities to go online, better financial support for all, and a close look at schools and exams and what to do about them. Plus a few other bits that people have mentioned already.


----------



## maomao (Oct 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think schools are a priority but the more people I talk to the more I think they are the massive honking elephant in the room.  I don't have children and I don't know anyone who has had a positive test.  Neither to any of my local friends who are childless.
> 
> Over the weekend I spoke with a few different people who have teenage children.  They paint a picture of chaos in the schools.  Constant positive tests, bubbles having to isolate and a constantly changing line-up of pupils and teachers in class.  That aside the parents are largely running open houses because well what else can you do?  Plus, and I quote from one neighbour "... they're at that age where they are out snogging different people every weekend".
> 
> I know its all the fault of pubs, sorry _crowded _pubs but I really think someone should have a look at what is going on in the schools if we are serious about stopping this pandemic.



The bit you're not taking into account is the effect of closing schools on children is massive whereas you not being able to have a pint is pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Get some tins in.


----------



## Cid (Oct 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If it was me I'd go for a six week national wide lockdown now, balanced and sold to the public on the back that if it works it'll slacken off for a period of time over the holidays to enable families and friends to meet (albeit in a careful and limited way).



I think the problem with that is that we’re not in a position to take full advantage of six weeks. I mean such an extended lockdown would ideally be a precursor to launching a much improved tti programme, along with backward tracing, community/wastewater testing etc. Though of course if it needs to happen anyway, it should.

The management of it would also need to learn some lessons from the last one. Shutting people up in damp flats watching the heating bill for 6 weeks... not something to be approached lightly. That bit seems unlikely.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> The bit you're not taking into account is the effect of closing schools on children is massive whereas you not being able to have a pint is pretty unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Get some tins in.



My point really was the chronic situation in schools that we seem to be turning a blind eye to.  I'm beginning to think that no measures will really work unless we take that seriously.

I do think schools are a priority along with peoples jobs and livelihoods.

ETA: I've not been inside a pub since February so your last dig was wasted.


----------



## maomao (Oct 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> My point really was the chronic situation in schools that we seem to be turning a blind eye to.


I'm starting work in a school on Tuesday and from what I know so far it's being taken very seriously within schools. Loads of schools and individual year groups have had closures where there have been outbreaks. They could do with more resources, and more teachers, but it's not just being ignored.

Bubbles are more effective in primary schools than secondaries though, my daughter literally has no contact with anyone who's not in her class and you can't pick your kids up without a mask (I've seen parents sent home to get one). Secondary schools would need more resources to be able to do the same. They are centres for transmission, unavoidably so, but there aren't any blind eyes being turned.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If it was me I'd go for a six week national wide lockdown now, balanced and sold to the public on the back that if it works it'll slacken off for a period of time over the holidays to enable families and friends to meet (albeit in a careful and limited way).


I would like this now. Not only is this needed now but my family would actually like to spend Christmas with their loved ones.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If it was me I'd go for a six week national wide lockdown now, balanced and sold to the public on the back that if it works it'll slacken off for a period of time over the holidays to enable families and friends to meet (albeit in a careful and limited way).


i think it'll be a more ineffectual two weeks as they're trying to avoid spending/printing/borrowing money now


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 28, 2020)

Interesting development regarding the North West Nightingale Hospital.



> A spokesperson said: “The NHS Nightingale Hospital North West will be able to accept patients later this week to provide care for those who do not have Covid-19, but need further support before they are able to go home, such as therapy and social care assessments. Some patients who were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 but are still recovering could also be sent to the facility, a spokesperson confirmed.
> 
> NHS Trusts wanting to use the extra bed capacity will have to give NHS England two weeks’ notice and send their own staff to work at the facility. The first ward has been commissioned by Manchester Foundation Trust, which will run the facility alongside agency staff sourced by NHS Professionals.
> 
> NHS England is expecting the first patients within the next couple of days.











						How the Nightingale hospital will work when it reopens later this week
					

MANCHESTER’S Nightingale hospital will reopen later this week – but will be run differently to how it was in the first wave of the coronavirus…




					www.theoldhamtimes.co.uk


----------



## emanymton (Oct 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah _The Guardian _live feed thing reports _The Telegraph_ saying a leaked report is showing the government are expecting more deaths than the first wave. Maybe by end of next month we'll get Tier 3+ or something....


I have seen the possibility of a tier 4 being introduced being reported. Don't know if it has come from government or just some journalist talking shit.


----------



## maomao (Oct 28, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I have seen the possibility of a tier 4 being introduced being reported. Don't know if it has come from government or just some journalist talking shut.


They'll regret making tier 1 'medium'. Tier four will have to be 'really fucking high' or something.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

The Guardian have an insanely misleading title for their live updates page at the moment due to the erroneous inclusion of 'a day'. Even my bowels would go into lockdown if the daily admissions reached 25,000.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> The Guardian have an insanely misleading title for their live updates page at the moment due to the erroneous inclusion of 'a day'. Even my bowels would go into lockdown if the daily admissions reached 25,000.
> 
> View attachment 236254


I think 25,000 people being hospitalised each day would loosen a lot of bowels


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> The Guardian have an insanely misleading title for their live updates page at the moment due to the erroneous inclusion of 'a day'. Even my bowels would go into lockdown if the daily admissions reached 25,000.
> 
> View attachment 236254


Yesterday the guardian declared Boris Johnson was foreign secretary when he was mayor of London so their casual attitude to the actualité is no great surprise


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> I think 25,000 people being hospitalised each day would loosen a lot of bowels



Yes but I try to get ahead of the curve so by then everything I have to offer would already be well past the u-bend.


----------



## Cid (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> The Guardian have an insanely misleading title for their live updates page at the moment due to the erroneous inclusion of 'a day'. Even my bowels would go into lockdown if the daily admissions reached 25,000.
> 
> View attachment 236254



They’ve corrected now.

e2a: 25000 total by end of November... dunno how likely that is, it’s quoted as ‘not unrealistic’ (Mark Walport).


----------



## andysays (Oct 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Interesting development regarding the North West Nightingale Hospital.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


the bit about sending their own staff along with the patients might be problematic, I would have thought


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> They'll regret making tier 1 'medium'. Tier four will have to be 'really fucking high' or something.


Bigly High, the very best of High


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

The front page of the telegraph has a headline and graph that is broadly compatible with some of the stuff I've gone on about in recent days. eg that its the area under the graph that matters rather than the size of the peak alone. And that getting R to around 1 when incidence levels remain high is not a victory, it needs to come down to well below 1 or we get stuck with a long period of lots of death.



Pressure mounts on the government to go further I guess. But I wouldnt expect it this week, since whilst other countries looked at the incidence-reduction potential of half term holidays, our establishment probably looked at the potential for them to have a holiday and deal with the shit later.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> I'm wondering how the projection for Pillar 1 capacity has suddenly risen by over 50,000, in a single day, when it's been ticking along at a pretty regular figure for months.
> Have they opened up more labs (today) or is this some shady business to do with meeting the promised 500k daily tests by the end of the month?



I would guess that its not down to more labs, but rather different forms of testing equipment that are to be used by hospitals. Not that I can really rule out stuff happening on the lab side of things either.

And yes there will be pressure to fudge the numbers to meet or get closer to the target, but some of the increase will still be real.

Here is an article which mentions a specific issue with one of the new types of testing and problems with the 500,000 a day target. I include it because it provides some context in regards the new forms of testing rolled out to hospitals.









						Government testing target in jeopardy as new figures reveal shortfall
					

Exclusive: Concerns that too few rapid test machines placed in hospitals, with certain sites said to have rejected devices due to operational concerns




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

So in the news today there is a Public Health Scotland report into care home outbreaks.

eg:









						Covid in Scotland: 78 patients sent to care homes after testing positive
					

A report reveals 78 patients who had tested positive were sent to care homes in the early weeks of the pandemic.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *Dozens of patients who had tested positive for Covid-19 were transferred from Scottish hospitals to care homes, a report has revealed. *
> Public Health Scotland (PHS) said 78 such patients were discharged to care homes between 1 March and 21 April.
> Only 650 of the total 3,599 elderly patients discharged from hospital during the period had been tested.
> Nicola Sturgeon, however, said there was "no statistical evidence" hospital discharges led to care home outbreaks.



Summary of the report and a link to the full report here:





__





						Discharges from NHSScotland hospitals to care homes - Between 1 March and 31 May 2020 (revised) - Discharges from NHSScotland hospitals to care homes - Publications - Public Health Scotland
					

This publication by Public Health Scotland (PHS) presents management information statistics on people aged 18 and over who were discharged from an NHSScotland hospital to a care home between 1 March and 31 May 2020.




					beta.isdscotland.org
				




The authorities are making much of the fact the report says that hospital discharges to care homes did not increase the risk of outbreaks by a statistically significant amount.

Lack of statistical significance is not usually enough to fob me off, so I am reading the report. I will have further thoughts later, but for now I will quote someone from the BBC story:



> Dr Donald Macaskill, chief executive of Scottish Care which represents private sector care homes, said the report was a "robust statistical analysis" but did not "tell the whole story".
> He said: "The whole story can only really be told, and to be fair the report acknowledges this, when we talk to people at ground level - that's the staff, the managers, the operators of care homes - to see what their experience is.
> "Behind each statistic there is a human story and behind each incident and outbreak there are the experiences of staff, some of whom are convinced in some cases that the infection arrived in the care home as a result of discharge.
> "That's a minority but we need to hear that story and need to hear that as part of the evidence."
> He repeated his call for a "human rights-based inquiry" into the experiences of care homes during the pandemic.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

I need to cut some corners and zoom in, in order not to make my posts about this too long.

When the report looked at unadjusted correlations between different aspects of care homes, they found plenty. The size of the care home is the biggest one, and overshadows all the others in their calculations.

When it comes to a more nuanced and detailed view of their conclusions than media stories and Sturgeon sentiments are currently providing, there are many paragraphs and tables I could choose from in the report, but for now I will just settle on this one:



> In the statistical modelling, hospital discharge is associated with an increased risk of an outbreak when considered on its own. However, care home size is much more strongly associated with risk of an outbreak than hospital discharge. After accounting for care home size and other care home characteristics, the estimated risk of hospital discharge reduces and is not statistically significant. The best estimate of the risk of a care home outbreak in the period soon after a hospital discharge is that risk was 21% higher than it was in a period without a recent hospital discharge. 21% is a relative increase (ie risk is about one fifth higher than it otherwise would be). The 95% confidence interval for this estimate ranges from 6% lower after hospital discharge to 54% higher (not statistically significantly different from no risk).



And in terms of future research recommendations, one of the ones in the report is:



> Linkage of epidemiological data with genomic epidemiology data to define whether or not infections in care homes are the same viral strain as each other, and/or the same viral strain as in hospitals.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

And I wont let my particular interest in hospital-related infections detract from the size of care home factor. A risk factor which I am taking the time to go on about further via the following quote because I dont know if the media will even seize on that angle and lesson for the future from the Scotland report:



> In the adjusted analysis, the care home characteristic most strongly associated with care home outbreaks was care home size. Risk of an outbreak increased progressively with care home size. After adjustment for all other care home characteristics, care homes with ≥90 registered places had seventeen times the risk of an outbreak compared to care homes with <20 beds (adjusted hazard ratio HR 17.3).


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 28, 2020)

Tier 1 plus in Bristol now? The Tiers were meant to simplify so that people could be sure what the rules were and be confident they were based on evidence. They are such dicks.


----------



## Supine (Oct 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> They are such dicks.



Perfect summary


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Tier 1 plus in Bristol now? The Tiers were meant to simplify so that people could be sure what the rules were and be confident they were based on evidence. They are such dicks.



Doesn't seem to have come from the government, just something Bristol City Council has invented, fuck knows why, it just seems designed to seed confusion. 



> "We regard ourselves now as being in Tier 1 plus," said Bristol's director of public health Christina Gray.
> 
> Ms Gray said the Tier 1+ concept was a local one, and not a national one. She said it had been discussed by local authorities throughout the South West but Bristol is the first place to try it.











						Bristol moved in to new coronavirus 'Tier 1+'
					

Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees has explained what Tier 1 plus will mean for Bristol, including new Covid marshals




					www.bristolpost.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 28, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Tier 1 plus in Bristol now? The Tiers were meant to simplify so that people could be sure what the rules were and be confident they were based on evidence. They are such dicks.



I might be wrong but I thought the tiers were to simplify but they were also a framework which local areas could then add to as they see fit.  The idea being that one size fits all wasn't the right approach.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 28, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Everyone says this but so far, since they introduced fixed-term parliaments, we haven't had a full length Parliament. Anything could happen. Maybe, for example, 41 Tory MP's will die of Covid, causing by-elections, Labour, SNP and Plaid victories resulting in a vote in Parliament for a new election. Unlikely possibly, but who foresaw Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Brexit and Covid?


if 41 seats go to other parties the tories would still have a majority

current position - tories 364 everyone else 278
under your revised hoc - tories 323 everyone else 319


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I might be wrong but I thought the tiers were to simplify but they were also a framework which local areas could then add to as they see fit.  The idea being that one size fits all wasn't the right approach.


Ah, okay, I don't see how they can expect people to keep up with the changes though, and I think that really undermines trust in the system. If no-one is even sure of the rules then no-one is going to worry about obeying them all. It's a mess.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I might be wrong but I thought the tiers were to simplify but they were also a framework which local areas could then add to as they see fit.  The idea being that one size fits all wasn't the right approach.



No, it was only in tier 3 where local authorities could add extra measures beyond the basic tier 3 restrictions.

Bristol City Council has decided to be the dicks in this case.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

> Mark Drakeford tweeted: "I am deeply saddened the number of coronavirus deaths in Wales reported over the past 24 hours is 37 - the highest number in more than 6 months."



Thats from 14:41 entry of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54716676


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 28, 2020)

BBC News has just covered & interviewed some poor bloke finally being discharged after spending 7-months in hospital fighting covid. 

And, sadly, he's still not recovered completely, he has tubes in his nose, attached to a oxygen tank.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> Once the shopping and office parties are over Christmas isn't really a busy season for anything except household visits and people seem to do nothing but moan about that anyway. I really don't see any 'Tory base rebellion' happening over restrictions on home visits over Christmas. There's no election for four years anyway. People already know there will be restrictions over the holiday period. That annoying woman off BBC News has already been told off for saying she was going to have seven people over. Those who find it really unacceptable will just break the rules.


Agree entirely about the lack of/irrelevance of any tory rebellions. Only thing I'd add is that the Christmas shopping + informal piss ups (instead of office parties) + returning students is significant in terms of spread.  Also, I'm reaching here, but it may be significant that 'normal Christmas' often sees family who haven't met for months in the same house. How significant that is versus, say, regularly meeting the _same _people at work... I don't know.  Anyway, I'm just saying the period from the height of Christmas shopping and Universities closing, through to New Year could be disastrous in terms of spread/NHS capacity.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 28, 2020)

According to the Mirror there's another 248 deaths reported today, up from 191 last Wednesday.

That increases the 7 day average from 200 to 208 a day, that figure was 'just' 40 at the end of Sept., I can see us breaking 240 by Saturday - six times more deaths in a month.   .









						UK coronavirus hospital deaths increase by 248 in second highest rise since May
					

The coronavirus hospital death toll has risen sharply again as some hospitals stop performing routine procedures and amid warnings that daily deaths will remain high without further restrictions



					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> According to the Mirror there's another 248 deaths reported today, up from 191 last Wednesday.
> 
> That increases the 7 day average from 200 to 208 a day, that figure was 'just' 40 at the end of Sept., I can see us breaking 240 by Saturday - six times more deaths in a month.   .
> 
> ...



I would guess that they've used NHS England hospital deaths data in order to jump the gun before the UK dashboard is updated, and added that to more comprehensive totals from the other nations, and that the number which is published on the dashboard later may be quite different. I would expect the dashboard number to be higher, but I cannot be sure ahead of its publication.

(NHS deaths data that I mention is at Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths )


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Oct 28, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> if 41 seats go to other parties the tories would still have a majority
> 
> current position - tories 364 everyone else 278
> under your revised hoc - tories 323 everyone else 319


I forgot to mention the ones who had been imprisoned for corruption.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> I would guess that they've used NHS England hospital deaths data in order to jump the gun before the UK dashboard is updated, and added that to more comprehensive totals from the other nations, and that the number which is published on the dashboard later may be quite different.* I would expect the dashboard number to be higher*, but I cannot be sure ahead of its publication.
> 
> (NHS deaths data that I mention is at Statistics » COVID-19 Daily Deaths )



You were right, it's 310 deaths on the dashboard. 

That increases the 7 day average from 200 to about 217 a day, fuck.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 28, 2020)

310 ffs.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 28, 2020)

Not testing anywhere near capacity today.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)




----------



## editor (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> View attachment 236303


Can any glimmer of hope be extracted from the past few days in that graph?


----------



## Supine (Oct 28, 2020)

editor said:


> Can any glimmer of hope be extracted from the past few days in that graph?



No. His graphs are misleading if you only want to understand rate change.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

My graphs are not misleading, they are just open to misinterpretation if people dont take account of lag. And clues about lag are what the colours are supposed to provide.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 28, 2020)

Yeah, they're not misleading at all. Short answer to the question is that the graph shows every sign that the number is still rising. They don't give strong evidence that the rate of increase is rising. I would say that they give weak evidence that the rate of increase may be falling. But only weak evidence.


----------



## editor (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> My graphs are not misleading, they are just open to misinterpretation if people dont take account of lag. And clues about lag are what the colours are supposed to provide.


I for one are eternally grateful for your fantastic contributions to this thread, even if I don't always fully understand all the data being presented!


----------



## LDC (Oct 28, 2020)

editor said:


> I for one are eternally grateful for your fantastic contributions to this thread, even if I don't always fully understand all the data being presented!



Yup, seconded. And everyone else that contributes sensibly too. It's the best place on the web for good reliable info and discussion I've found. Luckily I was here already!


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

editor said:


> I for one are eternally grateful for your fantastic contributions to this thread, even if I don't always fully understand all the data being presented!



Cheers, and yeah I'm aware that no matter whether I say too much or too little, some concepts will be harder to grasp and keep in mind.

Whe it comes to the rate of death, if I were forced to make predictions then I'd probably end up using hospital admission rates as a slightly advanced indicator of what we should expect in terms of deaths.

The following is for England only as I have more recent data for England compared to the UK as a whole, but it does not demonstrate a decline in the trajectory. This particular graph also shows an example of something we have to try to look past when trying to build a picture of reality using such data. In this case I'm talking about 3 recent days when the number hovered around 1000 instead of continuing the previous climb. But then a couple of more days data arrive and show that the growth in admissions was still there. This is one reason why I will not often be at the forefront of good news, there is always a chance the good news is just a data blip (eg under reporting or testing less people those days) and I always want to wait for more data to come in before making good news claims.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 28, 2020)

I'm not going to say "thirded"...oh, bollocks. YKWIM


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 28, 2020)

Thanks for these graphs and all the information elbows 

That graph does show some significant backdates between date reported and actual date of death. Most within a week, then a few each day for up to 14 days, and lastly a very few odd ones even further back ... at least a month in a one or two isolated cases.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

And unfortunately constant linear growth like that is what passes for good news for people like me these days. Since the bad news/expected trajectory is more like one of those exponential horror curves that we got used to seeing the first time around, where the rates keep getting steeper. This relates to a point I sometimes make about how we measure success in this pandemic and how disheartened people get by measures not achieving enough - the measures arent achieving enough but they are achieving plenty, otherwise we'd already see more exponential curves in data of recent months. A lot of what we've seen is what epidemic growth with some brakes on looks like.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Thanks for these graphs and all the information elbows
> 
> That graph does show some significant backdates between date reported and actual date of death. Most within a week, then a few each day for up to 14 days, and lastly a very few odd ones even further back ... at least a month in a one or two isolated cases.



Thanks, and thanks everyone else.

One of the deaths reported in NHS England daily data earlier today (which I only looked at because of the Mirror story) happened on 27th March!


----------



## Supine (Oct 28, 2020)

> happened on 27th March!


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thanks, and thanks everyone else.
> 
> One of the deaths reported in NHS England daily data earlier today (which I only looked at because of the Mirror story) happened on 27th March!


if you can't trust the government to count what can you do?


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

Supine said:


>



Being a nerd, after seeing that one I had a look through the rest of Octobers daily NHS England numbers and that example is the exception rather than the rule these days, although there are some other examples.

Numbers published October 9th included 1 death on 31st March and 1 on 21st April.
Numbers published on October 10th included 1 death on 30th March and 1 on 15th April.
Numbers published on October 11th included 1 death on 28th March.
Nubers published on October 24th included 1 death on 6th April and 1 on 21st May.

Apart from these, most of the deaths in the reports are for October, although there are a fair few single death entries for dates in August and September featured in Octobers daily reporting too. It shouldnt be anywhere near large enough a phenomenon to distort our impression of current death rates.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

Covid rules: Confusion as social clubs serve alcohol in tier 3 areas
					

But government says social clubs cannot sell alcohol on site unless served with a substantial meal.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

Cid said:


> They’ve corrected now.
> 
> e2a: 25000 total by end of November... dunno how likely that is, it’s quoted as ‘not unrealistic’ (Mark Walport).



I havent got a proper model but there are very crude and easy ways to reach that sort of number by that date, just carry on with roughly the current trajectory:


Edited to add - and this crude projection isnt curvy enough to be assumed to be a good fit with future reality. The question is whether the actual curve will bend in a good direction or one that rapidly makes things even worse in terms of how quickly the hospitals fill up. And how sharp any bends will be.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid rules: Confusion as social clubs serve alcohol in tier 3 areas
> 
> 
> But government says social clubs cannot sell alcohol on site unless served with a substantial meal.
> ...


Reckon the error isn't leaving the loophole, it's not taking into account that it wouldn't just apply to some members' clubs.


----------



## komodo (Oct 28, 2020)

Isn’t the talk of a future ‘lampshade’ graph rather than a hump. I.E numbers go up ( to something less than the spring peak) and stay up over the winter....


----------



## Roadkill (Oct 28, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I have seen the possibility of a tier 4 being introduced being reported. Don't know if it has come from government or just some journalist talking shit.



It'll probably have to happen at some point.  It was obvious from the moment they announced the tiered system that tier 3 doesn't go far enough.  So there'll have to be more changes, probably announced at short notice, which will just create more confusion and resentment, and higher levels of non-compliance.  It's criminal incompetence.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

komodo said:


> Isn’t the talk of a future ‘lampshade’ graph rather than a hump. I.E numbers go up ( to something less than the spring peak) and stay up over the winter....



Thats one of the possibilities.

I dont have a prediction because it depends what measures are taken in future and how the epidemic waves evolve in different regions.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid rules: Confusion as social clubs serve alcohol in tier 3 areas
> 
> 
> But government says social clubs cannot sell alcohol on site unless served with a substantial meal.
> ...





> Mill Hill Working Men's Club in Blackburn posted on Facebook that it is planning to reopen on Friday, prompting some to celebrate and others to condemn the move.
> 
> Blackburn with Darwen has the highest rate of new cases of Covid-19 in England, with 1,176 new cases recorded in the seven days to October 23 - the equivalent of 785.6 cases per 100,000 people.



Fucking dickheads.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 28, 2020)

Where the figures go next and what the graphs will look like depends on what action is taken. Most of the hospital admission and death figures at the moment will be people who caught the virus two or three weeks ago. Any effects from the new tier restrictions introduced a fortnight ago will only start to show up from now. I don't think anyone expects them to bring R below 1 and cause the numbers to decrease, but the question is if and how much they'll cause the line to stop going up. Probably a bit, and not just from the restrictions but also people in high risk areas changing their behavior regardless of what the government says. Assuming death figures continue to rise the government will have to do something eventually: introduce a tier 4 or a circuit breaker or a national lockdown or whatever they manage to agree amongst themselves. And that should bring the line down a bit more.

The problem with the current measures slowing the increase without stopping it is there isn't that _oh my fucking god_ pressure on the government that caused them to take decisive action when there was the massive spike in March. And were past the point where something effective should happen to stop the second wave killing another huge number of people.


----------



## Supine (Oct 28, 2020)

30k cases a day or 1000 deaths a day is where I'm thinking the pressure will be impossible for the Gov to avoid full lockdown. Too late in my books.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 28, 2020)

Supine said:


> 30k cases a day or 1000 deaths a day is where I'm thinking the pressure will be impossible for the Gov to avoid full lockdown. Too late in my books.


Those are quite different, though. We could conceivably reach 30k cases a day next week. We're still nowhere near 1000 deaths a day. To reach that, you'd first need to have had a period of perhaps 80k new cases a day.


----------



## Supine (Oct 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Those are quite different, though. We could easily reach 30k cases a day next week. We're still nowhere near 1000 deaths a day. To reach that, you'd first need to have had a period of perhaps 80k new cases a day.



I meant one or the other not both at the same time. One of the stats will cause lockdown.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 28, 2020)

Hey, hey, LBJ BJ, how many kids oldies did you kill today?


----------



## Wilf (Oct 28, 2020)

In terms of when will they act, in a way they are not under that much pressure. Of course they are facing major pressures in the sense of this being a deadly disease, 'balancing' that with jobs/accumulation (take your pick). But whilst the government are under scrutiny and a generic 'pressure', I wouldn't characterise it as significant political pressure. Labour are no more than drawing in the polls and we are 4 years from an election.  However much anger there is about specific fuck ups, the desire that they act decisively comes up against that amorphous world weariness that is out there. People want a lockdown... people want their jobs... people want a social life.  That doesn't add up to real pressure to do x.  So they'll bumble on and even more will die that need be the case. Everything is shit.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 28, 2020)

Supine said:


> I meant one or the other not both at the same time. One of the stats will cause lockdown.


Don't think I agree. We really are quite likely to hit 30k cases next week. I don't think we'll lock down next week. There will be processes gone through first. Not saying that's right or sensible, just that that is what I expect to happen.


----------



## Supine (Oct 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Don't think I agree. We really are quite likely to hit 30k cases next week. I don't think we'll lock down next week. There will be processes gone through first. Not saying that's right or sensible, just that that is what I expect to happen.



Any thoughts as to what would tip them over? I was just reading about the French lockdown and reckon that can only add pressure on Boris. If he wasn't so focused on fucking us over with brexit he might have taken action sooner.


----------



## Yossarian (Oct 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Hey, hey, LBJ BJ, how many kids oldies did you kill today?



Hey, hey, Boris Blue, shame the virus didn't kill you too.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 28, 2020)

Supine said:


> Any thoughts as to what would tip them over? I was just reading about the French lockdown and reckon that can only add pressure on Boris. If he wasn't so focused on fucking us over with brexit he might have taken action sooner.


France is locking down two weeks after first hitting 30k cases a day. They went through a series of measures first - curfew etc.

I may be wrong. But the UK and France have acted in similar ways, even if their specific measures have been different. Truth is that there is zero evidence that any of the measures - rule of six, pubs closing early here; curfew, mandatory masks outside, etc, in France -  has made much difference. That hasn't stopped them from going through these processes.

France has handled the pandemic very badly as well, remember. They had their own PPE and testing scandals in the first wave, and they've been impotently reactive in this second wave, as here.

One thing that could change the calculation here would be clear evidence emerging from Wales that its lockdown has made a difference. Problem is that it will take a couple of weeks before we can really tell.


----------



## Supine (Oct 28, 2020)

A lot of info on T&T to take in here. Pasted ready for a proper read tomorrow.





__





						i-sense COVID Response Evaluation Dashboard
					






					covid.i-sense.org.uk


----------



## Wilf (Oct 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> France is locking down two weeks after first hitting 30k cases a day. They went through a series of measures first - curfew etc.
> 
> I may be wrong. But the UK and France have acted in similar ways, even if their specific measures have been different. Truth is that there is zero evidence that any of the measures - rule of six, pubs closing early here; curfew, mandatory masks outside, etc, in France -  has made much difference. That hasn't stopped them from going through these processes.
> 
> ...


It's pretty much beyond doubt now that we need a full lockdown, almost certainly with school closures, to even turn the tide.  Find it crazy that I'm writing this when the government know this full well, but won't do the one thing needed to save lives.  It's beyond even being an issue of saving profits/their mates, every route is crazily expensive. 

In terms of the lack of political pressure, organised demands for a lockdown, just about the only consistent pressure is coming from scientists.  So a government that hid behind science early on is now ignoring that same science.  Sage should resign on mass.  Might not make any difference, but its worth trying anything.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> One thing that could change the calculation here would be clear evidence emerging from Wales that its lockdown has made a difference. Problem is that it will take a couple of weeks before we can really tell.


Two sort-of related stories today from BBC Wales :

More deaths here  :




			
				BBC Wales said:
			
		

> *A further 37 people have died with coronavirus, a Welsh Government briefing has been told.*



However, it seems that *Wales lockdown : Shops, pubs and gyms to reopen after firebreak* (that is, from Monday 9th November onwards)



			
				BBC Wales said:
			
		

> Non-essential shops, pubs, restaurants, cafes, gyms and leisure centres will reopen after Wales' firebreak lockdown ends, the first minister has promised.
> The venues will be able to reopen on "essentially the same terms", Mark Drakeford said.
> But there were issues to be resolved on what rules there should be on household gatherings and travel, added.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 28, 2020)

I would not want SAGE to resign.
Instead, I think they should publish at least a regular summary of their papers and advice - and when it was given - to BJ and co.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> One thing that could change the calculation here would be clear evidence emerging from Wales that its lockdown has made a difference. Problem is that it will take a couple of weeks before we can really tell.



Unlike you they dont really need further evidence that lockdown works. Or that various other measures add up to a much reduced R compared to R when people behave totally as if no pandemic is happening. 

The question is only whether various versions of lockdown that are weaker than the original lockdown are enough to bring R below 1. The lockdown France announced today is weaker than the original one in some areas.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

Or to add a further question to that, there is also the question of whether even a lockdown as strong as the original one (with as much compliance) will be enough to bring R below one given the other variables that are changed by it being autumn and then winter as opposed to spring.

Its not shocking for me to imagine countries ending up having to go further than last time, so I'm not going to be surprised if weaker versions dont get the job done.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 28, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I would not want SAGE to resign.
> Instead, I think they should publish at least a regular summary of their papers and advice - and when it was given - to BJ and co.


I'm not convinced it would make much difference, though it would be a spectacularly big news story.  All I'm saying I'd prefer any kind of stunt/demo/pressure/divine intervention to get some action, rather than the thing _will _eventually trigger it: mass death.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Oct 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Unlike you they dont really need further evidence that lockdown works. Or that various other measures add up to a much reduced R compared to R when people behave totally as if no pandemic is happening.
> 
> The question is only whether various versions of lockdown that are weaker than the original lockdown are enough to bring R below 1. The lockdown France announced today is weaker than the original one in some areas.


You misunderstood my post rather. I was commenting on the political decisions of this government, nothing else - demonstrable changes in Wales would change the political calculation.

It's also a bit of a false dichotomy to contrast my questioning of various measures with what would happen doing nothing at all. Both here and in France, the R number in many areas has actually gone up following the introduction of certain measures - eg rule of six here, mandatory masks in the street in France.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

Well it rarely sounds like you are convinced that any measure does anything so its easy to get frustrated.

I dont know as the results from Wales will change the political equation much, other factors should have a much bigger impact. Hospital data milestones and various modelling for a start. Having said that I'm still trying to work out which daily data from Wales I will best be able to use to judge firebreaker impact. Id expect a lot of the sucess to be easier to spot if we could compare it with Wales not having a firebreaker at all, which obviously we cannot.

Same with France. New measures introduced at the same time that things are spiralling out of control are not going to prevent things looking worse for some time.

Every day there is less time with daylight


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

How badly they shit themselves over whats happened in France is likely to influence the politics in the days ahead. I'll be looking out for indicators about that next week, once chunks of the establishment have finished their holidays. Since the establishment here saw the half term not as a firebreaker opportunity, but the opportunity to have a break themselves as usual.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 28, 2020)

Are there any decent articles on what's went wrong in France? I can't really find very much on it.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

There will be specific stories of failure but it will broadly be the same story as everywhere else thats getting bad, too much contact between people, too many sectors kept open, loss of seasonal advantage, and the numbers really get going after months of gradually building a base, just as exponential growth demands. Any country that failed to keep its numbers really low during summer (or suppress the number of infections later) is likely to meet the same fate this autumn & winter, especially when plenty of summer holiday seeding was done. Timing of european relaxations varied a little but was broadly similar, so the resurgence across the continent has a broadly similar timetable too.

It shouldnt be a surprise. We already got to see this stuff happening in some states of the USA months ago, especially where original measures were poor and relaxation timetables were swift. And that was without the additional factors of winter.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2020)

I could also describe things as 'If you want to keep schools, colleges and universities open then you have to go further than before with other measures, not weaker than before, in order to even hope to maintain the balance, otherwise R inevitably ends up where it needs to be to cause another wave'. Likewise the idea we can get away with weaker measures in a winter than in a spring/summer is a joke.


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

A small snapshot of parts of some newspaper front pages also imply that change looms. And no prizes for guessing that its the pandemic disgrace that is the fucking daily mail that is responsible for the don't do it, Boris headline.


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

REACT-1 has produced some eye watering numbers:









						Covid-19: Nearly 100,000 catching virus every day - study
					

England is at a "critical stage" with infections doubling every nine days, a major analysis estimates.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The study compared the latest swabs collected between 16 and 25 October with the last round of swabs, between 18 September and 5 October.
> It suggests:
> 
> The number of people infected has more than doubled since the last round, with one in every 78 people now testing positive.
> ...





> The pace of the epidemic has accelerated with the R number - the number of people each infected person passes the virus on to on average - increasing from 1.15 to 1.56.
> Overall, the number of people infected is doubling every nine days.
> The South East, South West, east of England and London all have an R above 2.0. London has an estimated R of 2.86.
> Cases are spiking in young people in the South West in a repeat of the pattern seen in northern England just over a month ago.
> 96,000 people are now catching the virus every day.



And quite the understatement in the BBC piece:



> "If we are going to consider at some point over the winter something much more stringent it becomes a question of timing. I think these results do argue for something sooner rather than later," Prof Riley said.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> REACT-1 has produced some eye watering numbers:



TBH 'eye watering numbers' is quite the understatement too, those R numbers are fucking frightening, surely with that, plus Spain declaring a 'national state of emergency', and both France & Germany following the Republic of Ireland into national lockdowns, we can't be far behind doing similiar now.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 29, 2020)

Germany isn't doing a full lockdown tho. You can see the new rules here Germany to impose new coronavirus rules amid record rise in cases | Germany | The Guardian


----------



## Spandex (Oct 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBH 'eye watering numbers' is quite the understatement too, those R numbers are fucking frightening, surely with that, plus Spain declaring a 'national state of emergency', and both France & Germany following the Republic of Ireland into national lockdowns, we can't be far behind doing similiar now.


Looks like there's a lot of opposition to a lockdown from _won't somebody think of the economy_ types. The Mail has a big headline today shouting 'Don't Do It Boris', The Telegraph reports "senior Tories" urging the prime minister to "protect the economy". I think there'll be a battle in government over the coming days over what to do. We can expect every wobble in the upward line of doom to be reported as it flattening, either 'showing the tier system is working' or calling for more time to let it work. Today's Express is leading with the 'Covid Cancer Timebomb', emphasising the downsides of lockdown. I suspect we'll see more of that kind of thing. Probably some choice quotes from Barrington adjacent people. And it'll all lead to more dithering and the minimum possible being done while the death rate continues to climb.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 29, 2020)

Problem is that when covid infections start multiplying and filling up hospitals it starts becoming very difficult for anyone else to get treated including cancer patients etc  if you have an uncontrolled covid outbreak almost nobody else is getting near a hospital basically


----------



## two sheds (Oct 29, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Today's Express is leading with the 'Covid Cancer Timebomb', emphasising the downsides of lockdown.



As Froggy said though, that's down to pressure on hospitals with a lot of covid patients filling beds isn't it? Nothing to do with lockdown - in fact lockdown should prevent beds filling. 

Did the article say how Diana's doing?


----------



## Spandex (Oct 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Did the article say how Diana's doing?


I didn't read the fucking thing, just looked at the headline.

Don't worry though, Diana is still dead.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> REACT-1 has produced some eye watering numbers:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The REACT estimate of 96,000 new cases per day compares with the ZOE one which has been at about 20,000 new (symptomatic?) cases per day for the past few days. Does this suggest a very large number of asymptomatic cases?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid rules: Confusion as social clubs serve alcohol in tier 3 areas
> 
> 
> But government says social clubs cannot sell alcohol on site unless served with a substantial meal.
> ...



We're at the stage now where these things cannot ever be considered to be an oversight or a mistake made in rushing through hasty new laws and regulations.  I'm convinced that everything they do is designed to limit the impact upon them personally and especially their mates as much as possible.

Its not a loophole that social clubs have been allowed to continue to serve booze.  It might be Northern social clubs this week but sooner or later it'll be elegant private members clubs in London.  Its simply won't do to have to prevent the Garrick etc from serving fine wines and Port.

Its like the silly _loophole_ that all you have to do is call your gathering down the pub a business meeting and all bets are off.  These things don't come about by accident.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 29, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Germany isn't doing a full lockdown tho. You can see the new rules here Germany to impose new coronavirus rules amid record rise in cases | Germany | The Guardian



Nor is France in any meaningful way.  Any lockdown that doesn't include factories and schools (two of the major locations where transmissions occurs) is not really worthy of the name.

I know this is a very fine balancing act and I don't know the answer but I do know that is not a full lockdown, it seems more of a slightly lengthened firebreak.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 29, 2020)

Our lockdown in March largely included schools but not factories.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 29, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Our lockdown in March largely included schools but not factories.



It did indeed.  I work for a manufacturer of construction products.  It was business as usual for us but a lot of manufacturing did shut down anyway for various reasons.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 29, 2020)

I wouldn't judge too much from Wales' firebreak. It's nothing like March lockdown. I've only been out once for milk from the Co-op but that seemed about 75% normal, people are definitely going to work from my village, there are cars on the A40, right now opposite my house a farmer has decided this is a good time to have a team of three fixing a fence that didn't need fixing, yesterday I stepped outside to get wood in and got asked by two separate people for directions (one to Tipi Valley) - it's just nothing like March lockdown. I don't think people are even trying. Plus everyone's toaster seemed to break on Friday.

Disappointing.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 29, 2020)

Is Rome burning yet?


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 29, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Nor is France in any meaningful way.  Any lockdown that doesn't include factories and schools (two of the major locations where transmissions occurs) is not really worthy of the name.
> 
> I know this is a very fine balancing act and I don't know the answer but I do know that is not a full lockdown, it seems more of a slightly lengthened firebreak.



Petty but one of my pet hates or at what I find least highly irritating is the use of the word lockdown to describe a set of restrictions which clearly are nothing like a lockdown.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 29, 2020)

"WHY ARE WE WAITING" for the lockdown that is so clearly needed.

The economy is clearly going to be fucked for some time. but that - ultimately - can be fixed by throwing money at the problem.
What can't be fixed is un-necessary deaths. 

To me, it was highly irresponsible to do that unlockening so fast and to open up so many sectors - especially getting the students travelling away to university and without the test & trace bollocks being resilient enough to cope with huge numbers.

I know that the majority of the students that had the plague at the beginning of this second wave will have had mild cases (after all, most cases are mild) but it will have travelled out into the community by various means and will now be afflicting people with higher levels of vulnerability - hence the increases in hospital admissions, which were somewhat masked by the student wave, and now the death rate is climbing again.

And these political idiots & journalistic clowns want to have the seasonal festivities as normal ?
It beggars belief. it really does.

tbh, my household have gone back into "high protection" mode. 
I've not been to a pub locally since February (although I did have a coffee, outside, at one place in Whitehaven in July).
99% of our interactions are by phone or online, 99% of items are delivered with the exception of fresh food and milk (and that shopping is done by one person only).
The miniscule amount of interaction that we do have outside the household is done from behind masks and with gloved hands.


----------



## killer b (Oct 29, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Plus everyone's toaster seemed to break on Friday.


my toaster actually did break on friday!


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 29, 2020)

killer b said:


> my toaster actually did break on friday!



It would appear Judgement Day is upon us.


----------



## LDC (Oct 29, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> "WHY ARE WE WAITING" for the lockdown that is so clearly needed.
> 
> The economy is clearly going to be fucked for some time. but that - ultimately - can be fixed by throwing money at the problem.
> What can't be fixed is un-necessary deaths.
> ...



I'm fucking absolutely fuming they're still denying any need for, and refusing to implement, a national set of restrictions approaching the level of March/April. It's so fucking obvious it needs to happen and these delays are going to result in more people dying. Fucking total murdering pricks. And all their enablers in the media, business, etc. going on about the economy.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 29, 2020)

I wonder which bits of the economy they are hoping to save by avoiding another lockdown.  Businesses that are open but devoid of customers aren't 'saved'. Neither are businesses that are closed because of staff sickness.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 29, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm fucking absolutely fuming they're still denying any need for, and refusing to implement, a national set of restrictions approaching the level of March/April. It's so fucking obvious it needs to happen and these delays are going to result in more people dying. Fucking total murdering pricks. And all their enablers in the media, business, etc. going on about the economy.


Absolutely agree.
I'm doing my bit (all of us here are).


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 29, 2020)

Thinking aloud here but I'm beginning to wonder to what degree the English government think they can just ride it out till the peak (which will happen sooner or later naturally) and then when numbers start to reduce just claim the local measures are working?


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 29, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Thinking aloud here but I'm beginning to wonder to what degree the English government think they can just ride it out till the peak (which will happen sooner or later naturally) and then when numbers start to reduce just claim the local measures are working?



The hospitals will run out of ICU beds first. imo (since there was no proper plan to staff the nightingales ...)


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 29, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> The hospitals will run out of ICU beds first. imo (since there was no proper plan to staff the nightingales ...)



Probably.  The way they are treating it now seems less intensive though with less need for ventilators.  It seems to be more now targeted drugs and oxygen.


----------



## klang (Oct 29, 2020)

killer b said:


> my toaster actually did break on friday!


my in-laws' did as well, seriously!


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 29, 2020)

littleseb said:


> my in-laws' did as well, seriously!


Yeh after you swiped it off their counter, dashed it to the floor and stamped on it thrice


----------



## klang (Oct 29, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Yeh after you swiped it off their counter, dashed it to the floor and stamped on it thrice


nah it started to smoke all on its own.
bit like me when I was in my teens.


----------



## LDC (Oct 29, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> The hospitals will run out of ICU beds first. imo (since there was no proper plan to staff the nightingales ...)



I don't think it was ever would have been possible to staff the Nightingales as ICUs though whatever plans they might have dreamed up.


----------



## zora (Oct 29, 2020)

This government is so fucking shit. 

Watching yet another German talkshow, where politicians and epidemologists are congratulating themselves and each other on the lockdown "light" that was agreed yesterday. (Not as smug as it sounds, they are all very seriously concerned). Looks like they arrived at really broad agreement: From one of the most hardline lockdown advocates, to a lockdown "we must save the economy" sceptic to the minister presidents in the states that are currently still less affected. 

The above mentioned lockdown advocate called it a textbook exercise to intervene strongly at this stage - and what is all the more galling is that they refer to the circuit breaker model as developed by University of Warwick!!!


----------



## two sheds (Oct 29, 2020)

killer b said:


> my toaster actually did break on friday!



Did you check it for mice?


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The REACT estimate of 96,000 new cases per day compares with the ZOE one which has been at about 20,000 new (symptomatic?) cases per day for the past few days. Does this suggest a very large number of asymptomatic cases?



I dont think ZOE was at 20,000 recently, when I looked some days ago I think it was somewhere in the 30,000's and today its at 43,569. And their analysis was updated today according to their website.

I dont have the means to figure out all the likely flaws and limitations with the various different studies. Nor do I have a solid number in mind in terms of proportion of asymptomatic cases, other than plenty.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont think ZOE was at 20,000 recently, when I looked some days ago I think it was somewhere in the 30,000's and today its at 43,569. And their analysis was updated today according to their website.
> 
> I dont have the means to figure out all the likely flaws and limitations with the various different studies. Nor do I have a solid number in mind in terms of proportion of asymptomatic cases, other than plenty.


These are the numbers I'm looking at


But yes I see their headline estimate for today is 43,000 (based on 11th-25th Oct data)


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> These are the numbers I'm looking at
> View attachment 236428View attachment 236429View attachment 236430
> 
> But yes I see their headline estimate for today is 43,000 (based on 11th-25th Oct data)



Oh you were on about 20,000 because you were comparing the difference between each days total number of cases in that graph?

Dont do that, because thats total number of people they think have Covid-19 on a given day. And you cant just subtract one days number from another to get a number for new daily infections because their total number infected includes the removal of the large number of people they deem to have recovered each day.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh you were on about 20,000 because you were comparing the difference between each days total number of cases in that graph?
> 
> Dont do that, because thats total number of people they think have Covid-19 on a given day. And you cant just subtract one days number from another to get a number for new daily infections because their total number infected includes the removal of the large number of people they deem to have recovered each day.


Ah, I see. That makes sense.


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Looks like there's a lot of opposition to a lockdown from _won't somebody think of the economy_ types. The Mail has a big headline today shouting 'Don't Do It Boris', The Telegraph reports "senior Tories" urging the prime minister to "protect the economy". I think there'll be a battle in government over the coming days over what to do. We can expect every wobble in the upward line of doom to be reported as it flattening, either 'showing the tier system is working' or calling for more time to let it work. Today's Express is leading with the 'Covid Cancer Timebomb', emphasising the downsides of lockdown. I suspect we'll see more of that kind of thing. Probably some choice quotes from Barrington adjacent people. And it'll all lead to more dithering and the minimum possible being done while the death rate continues to climb.



Alternatively, when the level of noise from those quarters rises its an indicator that they realise the game is lost and that events are rendering their shit opinions irrelevant.

Speaking of the noise:



> Food chain Pret a Manger has given a testy response to its founder's comments on the possibility of another national lockdown in the UK.
> 
> Julian Metcalfe, who founded Pret as well as Itsu, told the Daily Mail a tightening of nationwide restrictions would be "impossible", adding: "Society will not recover if we do it again to save a few thousand lives of very old or vulnerable people."
> 
> ...



From 11:26 of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54730092


----------



## editor (Oct 29, 2020)

Brixton this Saturday Windrush Square rally against the government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis, Sat 31st Oct 2020


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

I support that cause but rallies and handshake logos dont seem very appropriate right now.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 29, 2020)

The number of patients in hospital with coronavirus in Wales has increased by nearly a quarter on last week.

Latest figures from NHS Wales show 1,110 Covid-19 patients are currently in hospital - which is more than 80% of the level at the pandemic's peak in April.


----------



## bimble (Oct 29, 2020)

This is really good, a visual explainer of how aerosol transmission works (and likely outcomes in homes school restaurants depending on measures taken) 








						A room, a bar and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through the air
					

The risk of contagion is highest in indoor spaces but can be reduced by applying all available measures to combat infection via aerosols. Here is an overview of the likelihood of infection in three everyday scenarios, based on the safety measures used and the length of exposure




					english.elpais.com


----------



## Doodler (Oct 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is really good, a visual explainer of how aerosol transmission works (and likely outcomes in homes school restaurants depending on measures taken)
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Information like that combined the graphic skills of a modern-day Abram Games could do some good.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 29, 2020)

Looks like B’ham will be in tier 3 next week.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is really good, a visual explainer of how aerosol transmission works (and likely outcomes in homes school restaurants depending on measures taken)
> 
> 
> 
> ...



For so long now the ventilation thing has seemed so important.  Its very frustrating that the government have largely not talked about it, they should have been banging on about it. 

I had the misfortune to have to stay at a hotel with work the other day.  At breakfast the hotel had made a real effort to have the all the windows slightly open and it felt well ventilated.  Then the other guests all pitched up and the first thing they did was close all the windows.  The lack of basic covid literacy is really beginning to piss me off.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 29, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Looks like B’ham will be in tier 3 next week.



And probably London the week after showing what a roaring success Tier 2 is.


----------



## andysays (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I support that cause but rallies and handshake logos dont seem very appropriate right now.


What I find slightly concerning is that they appear to have absolutely nothing to say about the government's failure to limit infection rates, hospital admissions and deaths.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 29, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> For so long now the ventilation thing has seemed so important.  Its very frustrating that the government have largely not talked about it, they should have been banging on about it.



I've said it before but it's worth criticizing twice. The Welsh government's back-to-school guidance in September, a 51 page report that included 3 pages on register codes for absentee pupils, spent a lot of time denigrating the use of face masks and JUST ONE LINE on the importance (lack of in their case) of ventilation.

They spent all summer preparing that guidance.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 29, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> For so long now the ventilation thing has seemed so important.  Its very frustrating that the government have largely not talked about it, they should have been banging on about it.
> 
> I had the misfortune to have to stay at a hotel with work the other day.  At breakfast the hotel had made a real effort to have the all the windows slightly open and it felt well ventilated.  Then the other guests all pitched up and the first thing they did was close all the windows.  The lack of basic covid literacy is really beginning to piss me off.


Also, people on trains who not only have their masks on their chins but are jabbering away loudly on trivial phone conversations.

And the stupid face shields which likely are as good as nothing.


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

I expect this will get picked up by the media more and I dont know what misleading stories will be spun out of it:

2h ago 11:16



> A coronavirus variant that originated in Spanish farm workers has spread rapidly through much of *Europe* since the summer, and now accounts for the majority of new Covid-19 cases in several countries, including 80% in the *UK*, the Financial Times (paywall) reports.
> 
> An international team of scientists that has been tracking the virus through its genetic mutations described the extraordinary spread of the variant, called 20A.EU1, in a research paper to be published on Thursday.
> 
> Their work suggests that people returning from holiday in *Spain *played a key role in transmitting the virus across Europe, raising questions about whether the second wave that is sweeping the continent could have been reduced by improved screening at airports and other transport hubs.



How about it raising questions about whether summer holiday etc travel should have been allowed at all?

I expect this is the paper in question: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.25.20219063v1.full.pdf

It includes detail that demonstrates that there is one thing the  UK does well compared to many other countries, for a change. We do lots and lots of genome sequencing of this virus. But much care needs to be taken not to misinterpret the results.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is really good, a visual explainer of how aerosol transmission works (and likely outcomes in homes school restaurants depending on measures taken)
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's really good, thanks. Among other things it's cleared up half an idea that has hung around for me from the beginning, on 'superspreaders' and '20% of people being responsible for 80% of cases'. 

It's less to do with how infectious the person is (although that presumably does influence it, particularly if they're sneezing, or at the other end of the scale if they've only just themselves been infected or have nearly recovered). It's the situation people find themselves in  - described as a superspreader scenario in that piece.


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> And the stupid face shields which likely are as good as nothing.



I would expect face shields to have a role in reducing infection via the eyeballs, a different job to that of masks. It is inappropriate to use them instead of masks, and there hasnt been enough education about that.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I expect this will get picked up by the media more and I dont know what misleading stories will be spun out of it:
> 
> 2h ago 11:16
> 
> ...



Abso-fucking-lutely!


----------



## miss direct (Oct 29, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Looks like B’ham will be in tier 3 next week.


Welcome to the club, an exclusive one in which almost every pub is shut and there's nothing to do after 4:30pm.


----------



## LDC (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I would expect face shields to have a role in reducing infection via the eyeballs, a different job to that of masks. It is inappropriate to use them instead of masks, and there hasnt been enough education about that.



Especially when loads of people wear them in a ridiculous way at some 45 degree angle from their forehead. Why the fucking fuck has there not been some national public health messaging about masks, visors, and ventilation etc.? Some A level graphics or media student could probably knock up a decent animation with voice-over covering that in a few days. Fucking stunning lack of care and incompetence.


----------



## bimble (Oct 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> That's really good, thanks. Among other things it's cleared up half an idea that has hung around for me from the beginning, on 'superspreaders' and '20% of people being responsible for 80% of cases'.
> 
> It's less to do with how infectious the person is (although that presumably does influence it, particularly if they're sneezing, or at the other end of the scale if they've only just themselves been infected or have nearly recovered). It's the situation people find themselves in  - described as a superspreader scenario in that piece.


oh yeah, it does help explain that too. 
For people like me visual explanations like that are really helpful, i think just seeing that will actually help me to move away from unsafe situations, ask people to open a  window and put a jumper on even. I don't know whether the gov is doing tv public info broadcasts but there definitely should be more of this sort of easy to grasp visual information.


----------



## editor (Oct 29, 2020)




----------



## klang (Oct 29, 2020)

There are easier ways to break the rules if people feel the need to do so. They could just have their family around and not boast about it. Meanwhile the virus keeps spreading.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 29, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> For so long now the ventilation thing has seemed so important.  Its very frustrating that the government have largely not talked about it, they should have been banging on about it.
> 
> I had the misfortune to have to stay at a hotel with work the other day.  At breakfast the hotel had made a real effort to have the all the windows slightly open and it felt well ventilated.  Then the other guests all pitched up and the first thing they did was close all the windows.  The lack of basic covid literacy is really beginning to piss me off.



We have mechanical ventilation at work, and _every single day_ the first person in, switches on the 'heating & circulating' button, but not the 'fresh air intake' one.

(in mitigation, the buttons have fairly incomprehensible symbols, but their significance has actually been explained to us).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 29, 2020)

Another 280 deaths reported today, up from 189 last Thur.

23, 065 new cases, and 10, 308 patients in hospital - more than 50% at the peak.

Grim.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 29, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> We have mechanical ventilation at work, and _every single day_ the first person in, switches on the 'heating & circulating' button, but not the 'fresh air intake' one.
> 
> (in mitigation, the buttons have fairly incomprehensible symbols, but their significance has actually been explained to us).



Worth doing a sticker with "Press THIS one please, it brings in fresh air"?

At the risk of being added to the annoying office e-mail thread.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Worth doing a sticker with "Press THIS one please, it brings in fresh air"?
> 
> At the risk of being added to the annoying office e-mail thread.



I really should, shouldn't I - I usually just switch it on when I get in, if I remember


----------



## editor (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I support that cause but rallies and handshake logos dont seem very appropriate right now.


There's oodles of space in Windrush Square.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 29, 2020)

Ms Ordinary said:


> We have mechanical ventilation at work, and _every single day_ the first person in, switches on the 'heating & circulating' button, but not the 'fresh air intake' one.
> 
> (in mitigation, the buttons have fairly incomprehensible symbols, but their significance has actually been explained to us).



I used to work in a building which could be sealed up. We tried it a few times, to see if anyone noticed ... what they did notice was the smell of fresh air when we re-opened the ventilation system to admit fresh air ...


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

editor said:


> There's oodles of space in Windrush Square.



There will be even more space if people pay too much attention to the flyer, I just noticed it says 11.30PM instead of AM!


----------



## Badgers (Oct 29, 2020)

__





						UK ‘sleepwalking’ to mental health crisis as pandemic takes its toll | Mental health | The Guardian
					

Coronavirus uncertainty and isolation will have a greater effect on the vulnerable during winter, say charities




					amp.theguardian.com
				




Not surprising and likely a modest prediction % wise


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

Covid-19 patients in hospital in England, by region.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 29, 2020)

North and Northeast Lincolnshire going to Tier 2 from midnight Sat.


----------



## LDC (Oct 29, 2020)

West Yorkshire Tier 3 from Monday. Finally.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 29, 2020)

Just call a national lockdown and be done with it ffs


----------



## Sue (Oct 29, 2020)

So they've confirmed the levels that will apply in Scotland from Monday -- looks to be essentially the same as currently for the Central Belt, with some other places (like Dundee) added. 









						Covid in Scotland: Has your area changed level?
					

Some councils have been placed into a tougher tier. Find out which ones.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 29, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> West Yorkshire Tier 3 from Monday. Finally.


Well it should have happened ages ago but I'm skeptical it will have much effect. AFAIK Universities in the area are not planning on cutting back on face-to-face teaching.


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

I'm interested in the extent that context, differing levels of hospital numbers in different regions the first time, scale and how much I stretch the graph horizontally alters perceptions of what is being shown.

Here is the South West on its own using the same data as the previous graph.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid-19 patients in hospital in England, by region.
> 
> View attachment 236480


Is it easy to show this per head of population?


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Is it easy to show this per head of population?



Its not something I am setup to calculate, partly because I dont like to process data too much in case I mess up and nobody notices. But I will see if some other form of the data exists where I can just use their graphs directly.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 29, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> West Yorkshire Tier 3 from Monday. Finally.


Sunday


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 29, 2020)

How is Buckinghamshire looking this week elbows? Last week it seemed to be stable or even reducing slightly


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its not something I am setup to calculate, partly because I dont like to process data too much in case I mess up and nobody notices. But I will see if some other form of the data exists where I can just use their graphs directly.



Best I can manage is weekly stuff from the weekly surveillance report, and it shows admission rate not number of patients in hospital. I am leaving out the (b) graphs mentioned in the titles because those are for influenza.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/930818/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w44_FINAL.PDF
		



It has one for intensive care admissions too.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 29, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Sunday


Nope, I was wrong. They can’t even get their press releases right


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 29, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Well it should have happened ages ago but I'm skeptical it will have much effect. AFAIK Universities in the area are not planning on cutting back on face-to-face teaching.


While the North East figures are still dire, stopping most face to face teaching at the universities had a very swift noticeable effect on numbers of new cases. I'm just gobsmacked that other universities that have outbreaks on campus in surrounding badly affected areas have not done the same.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Oct 29, 2020)

Coronavirus: New data shows COVID-19 cases in Leeds care homes higher than spring peak
Sky News reporting that there is a significant level of infection in care homes in Leeds, with case numbers exceeding the previous peak in May (though obviously this is partly due to the increase in testing).


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> How is Buckinghamshire looking this week elbows? Last week it seemed to be stable or even reducing slightly



Same story really, but as the numbers there are so small the picture is inevitably noisy and I would describe it as natural fluctuations in a slowly rising direction rather than a reduction.

I just graphed the recent period this time so you can see what I mean.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Same story really, but as the numbers there are so small the picture is inevitably noisy and I would describe it as natural fluctuations in a slowly rising direction rather than a reduction.
> 
> I just graphed the recent period this time so you can see what I mean.
> 
> View attachment 236488


Thanks, not looking too bad for now then.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 29, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> Coronavirus: New data shows COVID-19 cases in Leeds care homes higher than spring peak
> Sky News reporting that there is a significant level of infection in care homes in Leeds, with case numbers exceeding the previous peak in May (though obviously this is partly due to the increase in testing).



Take with a massive pinch of salt.

Very little testing was happening back in May, now care home workers are being tested every week, nothing in that report suggests there's any large scale outbreak in care homes, most likely workers being picked-up early, which is a good thing TBF.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Oct 29, 2020)

I've not caught up so apologies if it's already been posted but I've just had the latest email update from the Good Law Project, in relation to the contracts handed out, and - not that we don't already know they're a bunch of the most hideous, filthy sort of profiteering cunts - thought it was worth posting the further detail. 






__





						Cabinet contacts awarded COVID contracts
					





					action.goodlawproject.org


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Take with a massive pinch of salt.
> 
> Very little testing was happening back in May, now care home workers are being tested every week, nothing in that report suggests there's any large scale outbreak in care homes, most likely workers being picked-up early, which is a good thing TBF.



Just to add, on Sky News on the telly just now, the reporter has said he was told most of these cases are staff and not residents.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 29, 2020)

I was puzzled by the news that Scotland's highest tier is 4, when I thought they had introduced a 5 tier system. 

Apparently the lowest tier is '0', which would imply no restrictions whatsoever, but that's not the case.   

LINK

If anyone is confused by the rules in England, Scotland has managed to out do us.


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just to add, on Sky News on the telly just now, the reporter has said he was told most of these cases are staff and not residents.



The available Covid-19 hospital daily admissions data from August 1st to October 25th has a tab for hospital admissions from care homes. Leeds teaching hospitals NHS trust has the highest figure in England for that period, 56, which is higher than the whole London region which had 49.

Of the 56 currently recorded in the data for that Leeds NHS trust, 29 of them were in the period 19th-25th October.

Data is from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


One caveat is that since this data also includes people who were diagnosed whilst in hospital, these numbers can include people who went from a care home to hospital for another reason and then caught it in hospital.


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2020)

And here is a quick look at the regional picture of the daily hospital admissions(and diagnoses in hospital) data for people coming from care homes.


----------



## weepiper (Oct 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was puzzled by the news that Scotland's highest tier is 4, when I thought they had introduced a 5 tier system.
> 
> Apparently the lowest tier is '0', which would imply no restrictions whatsoever, but that's not the case.
> 
> ...


It's less confusing if you understand that tiers 1 to 3 are broadly equivalent to English tiers 1 to 3. 4 is a step higher than English tier 3 and 0 is a step lower than English tier 1. 0 is 'as close to normal as is likely to be possible' which is still not 'back to normal', because that's not going to happen without mass vaccination.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 29, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Whatever the Tuesday effect, the figures are horrific. There's a real disconnect between all that death and the warblings on Johnson et all.


I keep thinking about this too. I keep thinking we've got totally desensitised


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I keep thinking about this too. I keep thinking we've got totally desensitised


It's not, I don't think. It's just that trying to make sense of it all is pretty much all we can do innit. Besides, who wants to be 'sensitised' at a time like this?


----------



## kabbes (Oct 30, 2020)

elbows, by eye it looks as if the south-east is proportionally less affected so far (compared to its own first wave) than other regions.  Am I right?

if so, interesting to speculate why.  I suspect it’s  partly that its own first wave was heavily commuter-driven, whereas a lot of those people are now WFH.  The same thing (for various reasons) wouldn’t be so true in other regions.  It’s also probably partly due to the lack of big metropolitan universities in the south-east region (relatively speaking as compared with other regions).


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 30, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Whatever the Tuesday effect, the figures are horrific. There's a real disconnect between all that death and the warblings on Johnson et all.


Yeah, it's nuts. Feels like we could be back at 1000 deaths a day within 6 weeks. The one thing that could have stopped it has been refused by the government, and everyone carries on as normal. You begin to understand how the Spanish flu was (a) allowed to happen and then (b) forgotten about.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 30, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Yeah, it's nuts. Feels like we could be back at 1000 deaths a day within 6 weeks. The one thing that could have stopped it has been refused by the government, and everyone carries on as normal. You begin to understand how the Spanish flu was (a) allowed to happen and then (b) forgotten about.


Seems to me that a genuine lockdown is the only way to stop the acceleration we are going to see - already are seeing - over the next few weeks. Short of that we should be actually planning for circuit breakers (plural). We've already missed the chance to do it at half term, which will kill an unspecified number of people. Government objections about disruption to the economy would be minimised if people, organisations and businesses knew in advance they'd be reverting to working from home, online sales etc. Instead we carry on with a system that scientists are unanimous, afaik, won't work. Depressing as fuck and lethal.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 30, 2020)

A lockdown will be depressing but the country is tired and stressed and scared. The measures are hard to understand and although I think local restrictions make some sense there does not seem the will or resources to make it work. If there is a lockdown (month like France for example) then everyone knows where they stand and we have a chance to stem the second wave.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 30, 2020)

Definitely looking at a situation that is going to become horrendous in terms of hospital admissions and then death rates in a remarkably short time, unless the politicians actually listen to the scientists and impose a strict lockdown / circuit breaker for at least three or four weeks as soon as possible.
I'm planning on doing that for my household, but it needs more than individuals ...
That would need a bit of pre-planning, but would surely cost less (in the long run) than letting chaos reign until the early part of January.

[internationally, looking at the worldometer tally for 28th & 29th - both days had more than seven thousand deaths and half a million new cases ... ]


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 30, 2020)

> The public health chief in England’s worst-hit coronavirus area has called for an immediate three-week “circuit breaker” across the country, calling Boris Johnson’s current approach “the worst of all possible outcomes”.
> 
> Prof Dominic Harrison, the director of public health at Blackburn with Darwen borough council, said it was “highly unlikely” that the strictest tier 3 restrictions would reduce the infection rate or protect the NHS.
> 
> ...





> “The idea of British exceptionalism, that we can fix it ourselves with some other kind of strategy, is going to be increasingly hard to defend,” he said.
> 
> Harrison suggested primary schools should continue to operate as normal but that secondary schools should operate on a two-week rota basis, except for pupils with special educational needs and the children of key workers who would remain in school full-time. The disruption, he said, would be less than the current situation of whole year group bubbles being sent home.
> 
> ...











						Health chief in England's worst-hit Covid area calls for immediate lockdown
					

Dominic Harrison says Johnson’s tiered approach will not reduce infection or protect NHS




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## weepiper (Oct 30, 2020)

High school pupils of GCSE age and above and their teachers to have mandatory facemasks in class as well as in communal areas in tier 3 or 4 areas of Scotland (currently that's the majority of the population). My eldest will be pleased because she has doggedly been wearing a mask in class since the start of term in the face of peer pressure.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> A lockdown will be depressing but the country is tired and stressed and scared. The measures are hard to understand and although I think local restrictions make some sense there does not seem the will or resources to make it work. If there is a lockdown (month like France for example) then everyone knows where they stand and we have a chance to stem the second wave.


Although I am pleased thinking about all the bragging cunts who spent lockdown1 being 'productive' and now will have fuck all left to do apart from moaning


----------



## not-bono-ever (Oct 30, 2020)

Not sure where to post this but here’s a Jeremy deller print you can send to your loved ones to commemorate the rona 










						FUCK YOU 2020 Poster Print
					

Fuck You 2020 170gsm gloss digital poster print 42cm x 59.4cm (unframed) Open edition, signed by artist on back of print Poster print sent rolled THIS ITEM IS NOW SOLD OUT. **Please note this item was a pre-order with stock arriving in early December. Orders are being processed and you will you...




					houseofvoltaire.org


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> A lockdown will be depressing but the country is tired and stressed and scared. The measures are hard to understand and although I think local restrictions make some sense there does not seem the will or resources to make it work. If there is a lockdown (month like France for example) then everyone knows where they stand and we have a chance to stem the second wave.



Broadly speaking I’m just convinced peoples lives are to interlinked and wide ranging in the UK for a local lockdown to work in the UK. Living in one local authority, working in another, shopping in a third, family/friends in a fourth and fifth 

Boundaries need to be very clear. Could isolate Cornwall and Wales, not sure you can really successfully isolate Birmingham from Walsall etc.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 30, 2020)

kabbes said:


> elbows, by eye it looks as if the south-east is proportionally less affected so far (compared to its own first wave) than other regions.  Am I right?
> 
> if so, interesting to speculate why.  I suspect it’s  partly that its own first wave was heavily commuter-driven, whereas a lot of those people are now WFH.  The same thing (for various reasons) wouldn’t be so true in other regions.  It’s also probably partly due to the lack of big metropolitan universities in the south-east region (relatively speaking as compared with other regions).



This absolutely has to be a massive factor in why the numbers are not significantly higher yet.  Anyone who's been into the City in the last few months will know that whilst its not a ghost town it's not far from it.  

The decision most businesses and most people took to tell Johnson to go fuck himself when he was saying _everyone back to work _a few months back has undoubtedly slowed the spread and saved lives.


----------



## elbows (Oct 30, 2020)

kabbes said:


> elbows, by eye it looks as if the south-east is proportionally less affected so far (compared to its own first wave) than other regions.  Am I right?
> 
> if so, interesting to speculate why.  I suspect it’s  partly that its own first wave was heavily commuter-driven, whereas a lot of those people are now WFH.  The same thing (for various reasons) wouldn’t be so true in other regions.  It’s also probably partly due to the lack of big metropolitan universities in the south-east region (relatively speaking as compared with other regions).



Since all regions are still showing the classic curve shapes, I am not currently prepared to try to differentiate between areas that may continue to stay well below their first wave levels, and those that are just a bit further behind with the resurgence and will eventually get there. Time will tell.

As for reasons why, I do speculate about these things, but in reality it is pretty much impossible for me to separate all the possible factors.

For example, people know by now that I do go on about hospital infections a lot (largely because the media doesnt build that stuff into their standard narratives much). And right now I am analysing per-trust hospital data to see if enough data has been provided to spot such outbreaks (I think it has, just in a slightly obscured way that requires spreadsheet work from me that is prone to me making mistakes and so makes me nervous). But when I spot one of these, and the community in question then also ends up having higher rates of infetion and hospitalisation than other parts of the region, I should be careful about what this 'proves'. Because as time goes on I am starting to think more and more about things in terms of tipping points. eg if the levels of infection rise in the community, then past a certain point it becomes much harder to prevent hospital outbreaks. Same with care home data. And then in theory these things will end amplifying infection in all settings in that area. Under this way of thinking about things, me finding hospital outbreaks doesnt necessary prove anything about that hospital, but I can potentially use these things to spot areas that are in danger of going well past the tipping point and into dangerous territory where we might expect the situation to get worse in the near future.

With that last point in mind, I have to say that there are some trusts in the South East which show up on my provisional list of hospital outbreaks. I need to check my facts a lot more before I would even consider publishing such a list, but I am at the stage where I see possible outbreaks in the data and then I go looking for news stories from the relevant hospitals to see if there is a probable good fit that gives me more faith in my data. I have not attempted this for the South East yet. I've tried it with one trust in the South West that showed up, University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, and my method worked, I went looking for confirmation and found mid-October local news stories about an outbreak at Poole Hospital Visiting restrictions on two wards at Poole Hospital after patients test positive


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 30, 2020)

Drakeford admits local lockdowns did not work.



> *There will not be local lockdowns after the end of Wales' 17-day firebreak, First Minister Mark Drakeford has confirmed.*
> Once the current Wales-wide restrictions end on 9 November, there will not be any local variations.
> Bars, non-essential shops, restaurants, cafes and churches will reopen at the end of the current lockdown.
> But the system of 17-separate local lockdowns will not return when new restrictions are announced on Monday.
> ...


----------



## Badgers (Oct 30, 2020)




----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 30, 2020)

planetgeli : I thought I'd just add the link, but thanks a lot for today's Wales update  (I'd missed it)

Drakeford might be boring, but the useless Johnson could learn (if he wanted to!  ) quite a lot from him about common sense ! 

I'm personally not convinced yet that just a two week firebreaker was long enough in Wales, but at least its introduction was decisive


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 30, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> planetgeli : I thought I'd just add the link, but thanks a lot for today's Wales update  (I'd missed it)
> 
> Drakeford might be boring, but the useless Johnson could learn (if he wanted to!  ) quite a lot from him about common sense !
> 
> I'm personally not convinced yet that just a two week firebreaker was long enough in Wales, but at least its introduction was decisive



How's things going in Wales William of Walworth ?  Are the rules being observed?  Does it feel like March & April again?


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> How's things going in Wales William of Walworth ?  Are the rules being observed?  Does it feel like March & April again?



Not all that far off is my impression -- Swansea town centre had been very quiet, and so have the roads -- far less in the way of traffic.

I think there are more workers counted as 'essential' than last time, so there is still some pretty moderate-level commuting traffic, but vastly fewer vehicles than prior to this firebreaker. 

On my  'essential work'  bus (Mondays to Thursdays), I'm now getting temperature checked with the driver's 'gun' every day both directions, which never happened before.

Sainsbury's and Lidls are also a fair bit quieter from what I've seen, maybe (even) more people are now ordering supplies on-line -- about half an hour ago, for instance, I had some class beer delivered from our local brewery **  ,  and we haven't  had much of that done at all during the pubs-open period .....

**got just 12 of those, plus some 'beer in a box' of another of theirs, Chocolate Vanilla Porter


----------



## Badgers (Oct 30, 2020)




----------



## Teaboy (Oct 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 236628



Not sure that's strong enough for the Government to act yet.  This bunch of liars and crooks govern by reaction, gotta think of your approval ratings first and foremost.


----------



## PursuedByBears (Oct 30, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Health chief in England's worst-hit Covid area calls for immediate lockdown
> 
> 
> Dominic Harrison says Johnson’s tiered approach will not reduce infection or protect NHS
> ...


So the rest of England has to wait for London to start feeling worse before we get some restrictions that will actually do something to stop the spread? That speaks volumes


----------



## Badgers (Oct 30, 2020)

The natives are getting restless


----------



## Badgers (Oct 30, 2020)

Not a good news day/week/year 





__





						ONS finds 2m people still on furlough days before scheme ends | UK job furlough scheme | The Guardian
					

Findings come as chancellor is told new support measures not enough to protect jobs or firms




					amp.theguardian.com


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 30, 2020)

Look at those new figures. I am angry at the negligence of this government today and struggling to channel it into any positive thought or useful work. Ideally they would all die of covid. Perhaps after watching their parents (who clearly raised them without a shred of empathy) die of covid first and knowing they are responsible.


----------



## zora (Oct 30, 2020)

Btw, has there been any word on the use of saliva antigen tests since the overblown and quickly abandoned "moonshot" nonsense?
Anything on the sensible and more realistic application of them, like testing of hospital
and care home staff/teachers or visitors of care homes?

Eta: Just answered my own question to an extent with this article from yesterday's *Guardian, *but would like to hear people's thoughts.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 30, 2020)

Covid spreading faster than 'worst-case scenario' in England

Covid is spreading "significantly" faster through England than the government's predicted "worst-case" scenario, documents reveal.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) says there are around four times as many people catching Covid-19 than anticipated.

A "reasonable worst-case scenario", used by officials and the NHS to plan, had estimated 85,000 deaths from Covid-19 over the course of winter.

But an official Sage document, dated 14 October and published on Friday, estimated that, by mid-October, there were between 43,000 and 74,000 people being infected with coronavirus every day in England.

Their report said: "This is significantly above the profile of the reasonable worst-case scenario, where the number of daily infections in England remained between 12,000-13,000 throughout October."

It added that the number of people with Covid-19 needing hospital care is already higher than the winter plan and deaths will "almost certainly" exceed the plan in the next two weeks.


----------



## elbows (Oct 30, 2020)

zora said:


> Btw, has there been any word on the use of saliva antigen tests since the overblown and quickly abandoned "moonshot" nonsense?
> Anything on the sensible and more realistic application of them, like testing of hospital
> and care home staff/teachers or visitors of care homes?
> 
> Eta: Just answered my own question to an extent with this article from yesterday's *Guardian, *but would like to hear people's thoughts.



Yeah its real stuff that will be part of the future, despite the Moonshot hype version going down badly.

But I've said that before, and I dont have much to add. Except that trials continue and are gradually getting more ambitious, eg:









						Covid-19 tests to be offered to all Redcar residents
					

Sites will be set up with the help of the Army after the town is chosen as part of a pilot.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *A mass coronavirus testing programme will be rolled out across Redcar with all 36,000 residents being offered a test whether they have symptoms or not.*
> Sites will be set up with the help of the Army after the town was chosen as a pilot alongside two other areas.
> The town's Conservative MP, Jacob Young, backed the move and said testing would begin on 23 November.
> He said the tests offered would use saliva samples rather than swabs, with results available in half an hour.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 30, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Covid spreading faster than 'worst-case scenario' in England
> 
> Covid is spreading "significantly" faster through England than the government's predicted "worst-case" scenario, documents reveal.
> 
> ...



Well that's all well and good but we can't be far away from herd immunity?


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 30, 2020)

Any day now


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Well that's all well and good but we can't be far away from herd immunity?  Surely Gupta has a solution?



Any day now.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 30, 2020)

There's an echo in here.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Any day now





planetgeli said:


> Any day now.



LOL etc


----------



## elbows (Oct 30, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> A "reasonable worst-case scenario", used by officials and the NHS to plan, had estimated 85,000 deaths from Covid-19 over the course of winter.



I note that the late August story featured the usual obligatory Heneghan quote, demonstrating how wrong a pandemic prediction path a particular agenda and narrowness of mind can get you, even if you are an 'expert' in this pandemic.



> Prof Carl Heneghan, from Oxford University, said some of the assumptions made in the model were "implausible" and that the report assumes that "we've learnt nothing from the first wave of this disease".



In fact lessons from the first wave include not listening to Heneghan when he goes in that direction.


----------



## elbows (Oct 30, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Well that's all well and good but we can't be far away from herd immunity?



Due to an unfortunate hearing error it turns out that the only threshold that may be reached is that of herd buffoonery.


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 30, 2020)

Most people are still thinking about hand washing and physical distance because that's what they've been told to think about. The government has not bothered to educate them properly on transmission in enclosed spaces.

Most people are still thinking of covid as something you die from or survive, rather than something potentially debilitating to many survivors. Government doesn't like to talk about it.

And the government reject the circuit breaker lockdown that is the only thing that could make up (somewhat) for their previous negligence.

It's mass manslaughter caused by gross negligence. I can't think of it any other way now.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 30, 2020)

I wonder what is going into guidance for businesses?  You would hope that at least would have a bigly section on shared spaces and ventilation.  So probably one sentence about opening a window if there is one.


----------



## pesh (Oct 30, 2020)

sounds like the whole country will be in the chips with your pint tier soon then.


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 30, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I wonder what is going into guidance for businesses?  You would hope that at least would have a bigly section on shared spaces and ventilation.  So probably one sentence about opening a window if there is one.


I think they're advised to ventilate well but many don't, and most people don't bother to check for it ime. Still plenty of places with doors shut when they could easily prop it open.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 30, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Most people are still thinking about hand washing and physical distance because that's what they've been told to think about. The government has not bothered to educate them properly on transmission in enclosed spaces.


In-laws are round now. Mrs SI set the room up to be distanced but her da has just sat near the TV, has been passing his phone to my lad, my lad has moaned he's cold so the patio door has been shut...ffs


----------



## Oula (Oct 30, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I wonder what is going into guidance for businesses?  You would hope that at least would have a bigly section on shared spaces and ventilation.  So probably one sentence about opening a window if there is one.


Husband has been told to open the windows at work. It has been suggested that he shouldn't refuse to work due to covid fears but if keeping the window open makes the room too cold he should refuse to work on that basis.


----------



## elbows (Oct 30, 2020)

The final graph of this weeks UK figures by date of actual death with colour-coded reporting dates.

I will stop with this particular graph for a while, until such a time as there is confusion that it can help explain, or the trajectory clearly changes, or if I have cause to compare it to some specific modelled predictions.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 30, 2020)

26th seems to have been a terrible day


----------



## elbows (Oct 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 26th seems to have been a terrible day



Subsequent days will be expected to be worse once more deaths are entered into that system. The 26th is just continuing the trend seen previously, as subsequent days will eventually and inevitably tend to reach new highs during periods when the trajectory is upwards.

I have a particular eye on the 26th but only because it was the date that certain modelling predictions looked at. Since the numbers for that date are still growing it is too soon for me to perform my final comparison between the two model estimates and the real number on that date.


----------



## elbows (Oct 30, 2020)

> Mayor of London Sadiq Khan believes a tier three London lockdown is “highly likely” in the coming weeks if the government does not introduce national circuit breaker restrictions, according to City Hall sources.
> 
> He has repeatedly called for a short nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus, arguing that early action would halt the worst health and economic consequences of a second wave.





> Every borough now has more than 100 infections per 100,000 people, with more than 200 per 100,000 in three council areas – Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Kingston.
> 
> A source close to the mayor said: “The more we delay in implementing measures, the more stringent they need to be and the longer they have to be in place."



From earlier today, 13:54 of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-54745196


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 30, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Most people are still thinking about hand washing and physical distance because that's what they've been told to think about. The government has not bothered to educate them properly on transmission in enclosed spaces.
> 
> Most people are still thinking of covid as something you die from or survive, rather than something potentially debilitating to many survivors. Government doesn't like to talk about it.
> 
> ...


It's the complete failure to have a proper test and trace system in place that does it for me. Even if they did a circuit breaker it wouldn't mean much without a proper T&T after it ended. It seems that the only way this thing gets managed is if you cut levels down to manageable ones then really aggressively test and trace, thus doing what are effectively super aggressive but micro lockdowns, which leave the rest of society relatively free. But actually they'd rather just fuck about paying enormous sums to cronies who muff it and are amazingly getting _worse_.


----------



## hash tag (Oct 30, 2020)

And what will happen, will anyone take any action








						Evidence of Dominic Cummings offences in dossier, ex-chief prosecutor claims
					

EXCLUSIVE: Nazir Afzal claims his solicitors have uncovered new evidence they have submitted in a 225-page dossier to the Crown Prosecution Service




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 30, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's the complete failure to have a proper test and trace system in place that does it for me. Even if they did a circuit breaker it wouldn't mean much without a proper T&T after it ended. It seems that the only way this thing gets managed is if you cut levels down to manageable ones then really aggressively test and trace, thus doing what are effectively super aggressive but micro lockdowns, which leave the rest of society relatively free. But actually they'd rather just fuck about paying enormous sums to cronies who muff it and are amazingly getting _worse_.



Its a significant part of how to do it properly, but I still think the concept has been oversold and so long as countries insist on reopening various things and keeping mass face to face teaching going, there come periods in the epidemic waves when test & trace has no chance. For example the first time around Germany got a lot of praise for amount of testing & contact tracing, but its probably far from the only reason they did relatively well. And its not been enough to allow Germany to prevent a resurgence and some form of milder lockdown in response to the resurgence, or from having to lockdown the first time around.

None of that is an excuse for doing it badly. But expectations of what even a good system could achieve have been oversold for sure. Most of the lights at the end of the tunnel are actually pretty dim in isolation, we need combinations.

I wouldnt expect short circuit breakers to bring the numbers down to a level where contact tracing could be really effective again, they dont tend to last long enough for that, but we shall see. On the testing side of things the numbers game can be changed by bringing in the other forms of testing, but this will only lead to a sea change if the self-isolation compliance side of things improves a lot.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 30, 2020)

It was shocking that it t&t over a week to get to me, though. The actual isolation was down to my friend calling me, not them.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a significant part of how to do it properly, but I still think the concept has been oversold and so long as countries insist on reopening various things and keeping mass face to face teaching going, there come periods in the epidemic waves when test & trace has no chance. For example the first time around Germany got a lot of praise for amount of testing & contact tracing, but its probably far from the only reason they did relatively well. And its not been enough to allow Germany to prevent a resurgence and some form of milder lockdown in response to the resurgence, or from having to lockdown the first time around.
> 
> None of that is an excuse for doing it badly. But expectations of what even a good system could achieve have been oversold for sure. Most of the lights at the end of the tunnel are actually pretty dim in isolation, we need combinations.
> 
> I wouldnt expect short circuit breakers to bring the numbers down to a level where contact tracing could be really effective again, they dont tend to last long enough for that, but we shall see. On the testing side of things the numbers game can be changed by bringing in the other forms of testing, but this will only lead to a sea change if the self-isolation compliance side of things improves a lot.


Yeah, no, none of the aspects are solutions in themselves and all need to be part of an overall system; this is just the particular thing that's making me cross at the moment. I'm sure I will move on to something else. It's not like they are doing _any_ of it right that I can see, so plenty of opportunities.

And that in itself makes things worse because when it's so obvious there's no plan or real effort, just an array of half-hearted and apparently random regulations which they seem to personally break as and when they feel like it, nobody trusts a central message anyway. I mean I don't, why should anyone else?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 30, 2020)

hash tag said:


> And what will happen, will anyone take any action
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It actually says in that article that nobody will take any action.


----------



## hash tag (Oct 30, 2020)

No surprises though


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 30, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> It actually says in that article that nobody will take any action.


That's not a surprise, despite it probably being the trigger for a lot of the non-compliance problems that are developing.

More a case of Us & Them (as in rules for the plebs don't apply to me)


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 30, 2020)

Lockdown coming next week


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 30, 2020)

In what fucking way is keeping schools, colleges and unis open a lockdown


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 30, 2020)

In a sane universe this should be the ruin of this lot, simply for pretending not to see what was coming. But of course there's no sanity here any more.


----------



## zora (Oct 30, 2020)

Wow, I didn't expect to see non-essential retail on there!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 30, 2020)

Plus that surely should read "essential shops"


----------



## zora (Oct 30, 2020)

Oh yeah, I see, it actually says the opposite, but yeah that must be a typo? Otoh, all retail closing has not been on the cards for a long time...interesting...


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 30, 2020)

I bet I still have to go to work, but tbh, that’s better than staying at home


----------



## LDC (Oct 30, 2020)

S☼I said:


> In what fucking way is keeping schools, colleges and unis open a lockdown



I think school for under-16s is a fair one though, keeping them open is a priority for many different groups of people. Sixth forms and universities though should totally close/move to online teaching.

At fucking last though.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> At fucking last though.



It's a newspaper headline that no other paper is running with yet. 

I wouldn't go counting chickens quite yet.


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 30, 2020)

I’m currently working for a company that supplies school cleaners so I expect I will still need to work as the staff will still want paying.

However I do expect this to delay my house move again!


----------



## LDC (Oct 30, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> It's a newspaper headline that no other paper is running with yet.
> 
> I wouldn't go counting chickens quite yet.



The pressure has significantly built the last few days though, even been a change in tone in the media today, I do think they'll have to crack very soon.


----------



## Sue (Oct 30, 2020)

With impeccable timing as ever, my work was trying to encourage people to go back to the office earlier...


----------



## magneze (Oct 30, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> It's a newspaper headline that no other paper is running with yet.
> 
> I wouldn't go counting chickens quite yet.


The Mail has it too it seems.


----------



## zora (Oct 30, 2020)

Sue said:


> With impeccable timing as ever, my work was trying to encourage people to go back to the office earlier...



I settled for the "wow" emoji, but could have just as well gone for laughing, crying or don't know whether to laugh or cry anymore one..


----------



## magneze (Oct 30, 2020)

Now breaking news on the Mirror too.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 30, 2020)

Just in time for my birthday! Woo! It's the right thing to do though. Have already organised a Zoom party anyway.

But a bit pointless to try to do it so people can have Christmas though - the message should be (and I know I'm a fucking broken record on this) - no big family Christmas this year, it's not an option in any circumstances.


----------



## Sue (Oct 30, 2020)

zora said:


> I settled for the "wow" emoji, but could have just as well gone for laughing, crying or don't know whether to laugh or cry anymore one..


Yeah, it didn't go down very well. It makes no sense whatever -- it's a technology company and we've all been working from home since March, really, really don't understand. (They tried this before, right before the Government told everyone who could to start working from home again.   )


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 30, 2020)

*If* that Times story is accurate at all, it looks like some sort of lockdown in England will start next Wednesday -- 4th November.

That is, not far ahead of Wales' one being _lifted_ -- end of Welsh lockdown due to come in on Monday 9th November ....

Just saying!!


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 30, 2020)

The Mirror story says "According to The Times"

The Times story says "No final decision has been made."

Wednesday 4th is "could be" in The Times article.

Just saying.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 30, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> *If* that Times story is accurate at all, it looks like some sort of lockdown in England will start next Wednesday -- 4th November.
> 
> That is, not far ahead of Wales' one being _lifted_ -- end of Welsh lockdown due to come in on Monday 9th November ....
> 
> Just saying!!




Indeed. How does this fit in with the co-ordinated approach to Christmas that Drakeford is claiming Johnson wants?



> *The UK government intends to hold a meeting to discuss a UK-wide approach to Covid rules at Christmas, the Welsh first minister has said.*
> Mark Drakeford said PM Boris Johnson had told him to expect an invitation to talks on a "common approach".
> Mr Drakeford said there was a need for leaders to "get round the table" and "share ideas".


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 30, 2020)

Sue said:


> With impeccable timing as ever, my work was trying to encourage people to go back to the office earlier...



We've 200 odd people returning from furlough on Monday.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 30, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> It's a newspaper headline that no other paper is running with yet.
> 
> I wouldn't go counting chickens quite yet.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 31, 2020)

Eat out to help out may have lead to up to 1/5 of the August clusters:








						'Eat out to help out' may have caused sixth of Covid clusters over summer
					

Treasury rejects researcher’s claim that its scheme was closely linked to rise in cases




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

I see the BBC fact checking service did a real number on the dangerous, shitty and entirely self-interested claims of sir cunt Rocco Forte.

Contains quite a lot of interesting graphs of pneumonia and flu deaths. Not that those graphs tell the whole story properly, but I will save my tedious lecture about that for some other time.









						Covid: Sir Rocco Forte's claims fact-checked
					

The hotelier says the government "overreacted" and "panicked" in its response to the pandemic.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Eat out to help out may have lead to up to 1/5 of the August clusters:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Seems like a good opportunity for me to repeat some Johnson quotes from October 4th, where I'm sure his language was far too much of an admission for the Treasuries liking:



> Mr Johnson also stood by the Eat Out to Help Out restaurant discount introduced in August, which some critics have said added to the rise in coronavirus cases in September.
> 
> "*In so far as that scheme may have helped to spread the virus then obviously we need to counteract that* and we need to counteract that with the discipline and the measures that we're proposing," he said.
> 
> ...



From a Marr interview detailed at Covid: Things 'bumpy to Christmas and beyond' - PM


----------



## PursuedByBears (Oct 31, 2020)

ska invita said:


>



Guardian has it now as well


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

PursuedByBears said:


> Guardian has it now as well











						National Covid lockdown expected across England next week
					

Boris Johnson bows to pressure from experts who warned worst-case scenario could soon be surpassed




					www.theguardian.com
				




Yes and I'm focussing on the timing in regards Christmas from the Guardian article, because there is a real possibility the Christmas angle could end up being used by the government.



> Tildesley, an epidemiologist from the University of Warwick, helped produce a “reasonable worst-case scenario” for the modelling sub-group of Sage, which warned that 85,000 people could die from Covid this winter.
> 
> He told the Guardian: “As epidemiologists we need to think about the impact on public health and that’s really key, but I think it’s important for us to acknowledge that the general public has had a pretty rotten year [but] I don’t think any of the science group would advocate that we should remove all restrictions at Christmas – it’s clear that that’s not possible.
> 
> “But speaking on behalf of myself, what I would like to see is that we are in a position to do a minor relaxation, for example allowing slightly larger family groups to be together, maybe having the rule of 10 or 12 instead of six. To do that we have to do something like a circuit break or something on a more national scale to bring incidents down … sooner rather than later.”





> Dr Julian Tang, a consultant virologist at Leicester Royal Infirmary, said: “If we started now I would say you’d need at least six weeks of lockdown with total compliance across the nation. The government would have to fund that because the economy would be catastrophically hit.
> 
> “Unfortunately after Christmas and new year the cases are going to rise again, but if we want that break we might have enough drop in [the reproduction number] to give everyone a break … If you say ‘if you want to save Christmas from the coronavirus Grinch’, then I think people will do it.”





> Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh, said tighter restrictions in the devolved nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland seemed to be working and that England should follow suit with a national circuit breaker.
> 
> “I think it should be done, I don’t really see any other options, but I don’t think it would allow us to have a normal Christmas,” she said. “However, I would hope if you did have a circuit breaker it would bring the whole country in line with tier 1 by Christmas.
> 
> “I’m cautiously optimistic here in Scotland that we might be able to meet people indoors from two or three households, say. It’s not normal, but it would allow you to see immediate family.”


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Oct 31, 2020)

Sue said:


> With impeccable timing as ever, my work was trying to encourage people to go back to the office earlier...


my work told us all to go back to campus again next week after two weeks teaching online - cynically I think it's just a pr for students so they don't withdraw now before a lockdown - it's a London university and London is said to have a 2.36 R rate at the moment


----------



## Sue (Oct 31, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> my work told us all to go back to campus again next week after two weeks teaching online - cynically I think it's just a pr for students so they don't withdraw now before a lockdown - it's a London university and London is said to have a 2.36 R rate at the moment


Yep, utterly stupid or cynical or both. The R rate in London was mentioned to management in a company meeting this afternoon and they were still saying they were 'encouraging' people to come back to the office. Ridiculous.


----------



## Tankus (Oct 31, 2020)

maybe  the Welsh one will get  extended  ?


----------



## SlideshowBob (Oct 31, 2020)

Tankus said:


> maybe  the Welsh one will get  extended  ?



I think they've stated quite definitively for now that it won't be extended, although that's not to say new measures won't come into place in a few weeks again if the situation doesn't improve.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

IMO opinion this is a reaction to the economic situation not the death figures. The first lockdown happened because the economy was already collapsing (London was a ghost town well before we were all told to work from home, plenty had lost their jobs before the furlough scheme was brought in) and now the same thing is happening. The economy is in free fall again and they will be handing out just enough money to ensure rents and bills are paid.

Schools staying open will guarantee that transmission continues to some extent, probably with an R over 1, but it's understandable to do this, there is evidence of school closures causing widespread harm to children. But there's no excuse whatsoever for keeping universities open for face to face teaching. 

I also note that the Daily Mail is still counting the lockdown from day 1 at the top of its front page. Today is LOCKDOWN DAY 222' apparently. Which suggests that to them any restrictions at all count as a 'lockdown'. I'm not expecting much from this new set of restrictions at all. Maybe pubs will close at 9.30?


----------



## kabbes (Oct 31, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't understand their workings. The current daily death rate is probably now getting close to 100, will possibly hit that this week. And may continue to rise for next week, but why would it explode like that, given that the R numbers around the country, while still above 1, have been falling? Looking at hospital admissions, only two regions currently - NW and NE - are at levels much higher than around 10% of first wave peak. Most regions are not increasing rapidly. So in 12 days, it could be 150-odd perhaps. No way it could be 690. That just makes no sense at all. But they judge 690 to be more likely than 230!!!
> 
> Re looking at things regionally, of course that's important anywhere bigger than a single town, but doing that for Spain, for example, shows various places past peak now. Spain's overall rate of infection is now on its way down, but its rate of increase fell for a while first. It wasn't a sudden turnaround.
> 
> Any considerations for hospital infections also apply in Spain and France.


Like all good actuaries, I like to do a bit of backtesting of estimates.  The 26 October death rate is probably reasonably represented by the 7-day average as at 30 October, which was 237 for the official reported count.  So that 230-690 confidence interval for 26 October that we were talking about on 14 October looks like it did encapsulate the true number after all.  Sadly, 150 was woefully short.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

I see the headlines everywhere but no actual content - what sort of a lockdown are they talking about will it be like March?


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Leaking news to the press is the Tory policy so it is likely accurate 

Also it is needed so I don't doubt it. Likely this will give people a chance to go mental again for a few days.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> I see the headlines everywhere but no actual content - what sort of a lockdown are they talking about will it be like March?



That is being discussed over the weekend and will probably be finalised on Monday morning, then I guess announced in the Commons as I see a 'General Debate on Covid-19' is scheduled in the afternoon, followed by a Downing Street press briefing. 

On a side note, having a drink with my brother yesterday afternoon, I said I expected some form of national lockdown to announced next week or the following, he disagreed, we have a £20 bet on it.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Silver linings, you win £20 and I get to feel smug about not caring at all whether the gyms close or not.  
really hope this is a proper lockdown and that it actually works, not some more tinkering.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Silver linings, you win £20 and I get to feel smug about not caring at all whether the gyms close or not.
> really hope this is a proper lockdown and that it actually works, not some more tinkering.



Nothing to be smug about, he offered the bet, so I took it.

Nothing to do with gyms either, I too hope it's a proper lockdown now, the only reason I used the words 'some form of....', is because I expect schools to remain open.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 31, 2020)

So, a lockdown coming but schools and universities and workplaces will still be open.

So, not even a fucking lockdown then, is it?


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, a lockdown coming but schools and universities and workplaces will still be open.
> 
> So, not even a fucking lockdown then, is it?


Is there details as to which businesses?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

...not even the government ATM, nothing has been finalised.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 31, 2020)

So food shops open and everyone can go shopping?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 31, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Is there details as to which businesses?


No, as ever it’s policy by drip fed rumour, rather than having the bollocks to simply stand up and show actual leadership.


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 31, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> So food shops open and everyone can go shopping?



It would be nice to see only one person per household limits on shopping. Don’t see why it needs to be a family outing


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

The whole point of the 'leak things three days in advance' model of government is that they can judge public opinion before they make actual decisions. Though if they did it properly you'd think they'd come up with better decisions.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Elpenor said:


> It would be nice to see only one person per household limits on shopping. Don’t see why it needs to be a family outing


With exclusions for single parents or people whose partners are working I hope.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> With exclusions for single parents or people whose partners are working I hope.


Single parents maybe, but unless I’m being thick why would having a working partner mean you needed to go together


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 31, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Single parents maybe, but unless I’m being thick why would having a working partner mean you needed to go together



I guess he means they can’t leave kid alone as partner at work so bring them shopping

The people I saw last night at Aldi were all adults though so no such excuse!

hopefully internet supermarket deliveries have ramped up so less need for physical presence in shops


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Single parents maybe, but unless I’m being thick why would having a working partner mean you needed to go together


If I'm at work my wife would have to leave the kids at home unattended to go shopping. Though not if the nurseries are still open.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

No details, every newspaper story merely a copy of The Times, drip, drip, England only, 'co-ordinated (UK) nationally for Christmas' - yeah, this is going to be good.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

I'm betting on all non-essential shops closed, but no restrictions on essential shopping like March. And all hospitality closed again. To be honest if they want to keep schools and universities open then they haven't got much else they can do above Tier 3.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Theyve learned nothing about leaking shit from the first lockdown then. Where's Peston?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> If I'm at work my wife would have to leave the kids at home unattended to go shopping. Though not if the nurseries are still open.


So go shopping after work


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

So is this basically shut pubs and some shops?


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

I think leaking it is fine tbh. It means if it's anything like the first one then people will start being stricter from today in anticipation of the restrictions. Hopefully the media won't now have a constant stream of people saying it's not needed...


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> So is this basically shut pubs and some shops?



Hopefully also 'stay at home' message, only go out for essentials, and everywhere WFH again.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Oct 31, 2020)

I'm starting to get survivors guilt!

Jeez, it's awful what's happening for you all. From experience I know things often look much worse from a distance, than when you're actually living it..but I don't think that's what's happening here. It's shit for England, the UK, Europe.... 

My 93 year old dad lives in London, I was so lucky to go visit him last year, I can't believe how lucky I was to do that last year   He's holding up well, I've long suspected that he's immortal.


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Hopefully also 'stay at home' message, only go out for essentials, and everywhere WFH again.



Stay at home.

(apart from taking kids to school, going food shopping, going to do f2f lectures, my wife going to work, picking kids up from school?)

Too little, too late.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

I can understand not wanting to shut schools but why universities? That's where loads of infections are coming from? Loads of places are doing classes online anyway aren't they?


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 31, 2020)

What I really need to know most of all is what evening should I be dancing and chanting in the town centre after several lagers and alcopops?


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I can understand not wanting to shut schools but why universities? That's where loads of infections are coming from?



Speaking to someone high up in the sector the other day their get out was "well, legally, we can't just send students home so..."


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Elpenor said:


> What I really need to know most of all is what evening should I be dancing and chanting in the town centre after several lagers and alcopops?


Tuesday.

Are alcopops even a thing anymore?


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> Speaking to someone high up in the sector the other day their get out was "well, legally, we can't just send students home so..."



Why not? It's not going to get the R number below 1 as long as universities are open I wouldn't have thought. So the shitshow in university is just gonna carry on?


----------



## magneze (Oct 31, 2020)

Interviewer: so if we do have another lock down,is it possible to save Christmas?
Epidemiologist: well,the point is to save lives 


Fuck off with this Christmas bullshit you fucking twats.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So go shopping after work


Wouldn't have worked in my previous job (which at the time my boss claimed had key worker status) as I was out from 5.30am to after 8 every day. Also debatable how much shopping I could carry while already fully laden. But you just keep attacking the people who are living through this and not the politicians who've landed us in the mess if it makes you happy.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think leaking it is fine tbh. It means if it's anything like the first one then people will start being stricter from today in anticipation of the restrictions.



I think you're being incredibly optimistic.

The Wales firebreak has been NOTHING like March lockdown and will become even less so next week with the return to schools. And then of course by the time you lot in England have had a couple of days of this, we will be back dancing in the streets.

This isn't how you do national policy,


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Leaking news to the press is the Tory policy so it is likely accurate
> 
> Also it is needed so I don't doubt it. Likely this will give people a chance to go mental again for a few days.



Indeed... The Times' political editors are closer to government than the back benches.


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Why not? It's not going to get the R number below 1 as long as universities are open I wouldn't have thought. So the shitshow in university is just gonna carry on?



Hell yeah. It's like Blackadder 4 in HE right now.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> Stay at home.
> 
> (apart from taking kids to school, going food shopping, going to do f2f lectures, my wife going to work, picking kids up from school?)
> 
> Too little, too late.



I agree it's late, but it will help if it's adhered to. And I think people won't accept schools shut tbh, although I think sixth form and universities should clearly shut. Some of those other things risk can be reduced significantly, ie. food shopping as infrequently as possible/wear mask/one person, and knock non-essential retail on the head, and close all hospitality.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Listening to radio 4 earlier, scientist absolutely clear about what’s happening how seriously bleak it is, and then they hand the mike to the politician who says yeah well the models are always wrong, what about the economy etc. It’s so irresponsible.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

What counts as a non essential shop?


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

They've really shit the bed on this.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> They've really shit the bed on this.



On everything ever.


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I agree it's late, but it will help if it's adhered to. And I think people won't accept schools shut tbh, although I think sixth form and universities should clearly shut. Some of those other things risk can be reduced significantly, ie. food shopping as infrequently as possible/wear mask/one person, and knock non-essential retail on the head, and close all hospitality.



Sure.

...but as we've said ad nauseum the rules need to make sense, seem fair and seem to make a difference if we want more than token compliance. 

I'm skeptical that this is the case.


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> What counts as a non essential shop?



Check Companies House.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

'Oh well, we tried'


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> What counts as a non essential shop?


Not sure. I need to pop in Hotel Chocolat before my wife's birthday on Friday. Presumably despite selling only edible goods they're not strictly speaking essential (they closed last time).


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> What counts as a non essential shop?



It's not about whether in the supermarket you pick up a few pairs of socks or not alongside your food. It's about people browsing clothes etc. shops in city centres then getting a coffee etc. more. Go out for essentials: food, medicine, etc. as little as possible.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> What counts as a non essential shop?



Last time just about everything apart from food shops, off-licences, chemists, banks & post offices, IIRC.


----------



## magneze (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Listening to radio 4 earlier, scientist absolutely clear about what’s happening how seriously bleak it is, and then they hand the mike to the politician who says yeah well the models are always wrong, what about the economy etc. It’s so irresponsible.


John Redwood. On Halloween. Someone has a sense of humour at the BBC.


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

The university thing is so fucking stupid. East Asian universities (At least ROK and China, and I think Japan) have been operating hybrid models, or fully online throughout. I have a friend in China who recently submitted their PhD application on multi modal learning in mixed online/offline models. I have other friends studying at Chinese universities in completely different timezones (stuck in Europe). It's challenging, sure, and not suited to some degrees... But I can't understand why it's barely even been attempted here. Well, I suppose I can. All those nice new student developments.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 31, 2020)

I absolutely loathe online learning, as a student and a teacher. But it's better than killing people. Or dying myself, of course.



miss direct said:


> What counts as a non essential shop?



I don't know about the rules, but I'd try to really class my shopping as essential., like you can't manage without it. Like a mobile phone might actually be essential to buy that day (and anyone who says they aren't is not living in the real world), so they should be allowed to be sold in person, but if you _can_ wait for a delivery, then wait.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Last time just about everything apart from food shops, off-licences, chemists, banks & post offices, IIRC.


Ok. My boyfriend works in an off licence, so good to know. Did places like home bargains, which sell food as well as other stuff, stay open last time? The nearest places to me to buy food are this sort of place.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 31, 2020)

Cid said:


> The university thing is so fucking stupid. East Asian universities (At least ROK and China, and I think Japan) have been operating hybrid models, or fully online throughout. I have a friend in China who recently submitted their PhD application on multi modal learning in mixed online/offline models. I have other friends studying at Chinese universities in completely different timezones (stuck in Europe). It's challenging, sure, and not suited to some degrees... But I can't understand why it's barely even been attempted here. Well, I suppose I can. All those nice new student developments.


I'd have thought universities would have been trying to move towards more on-line methods for some time and was a bit surprised they didn't use the this as an excuse to push it as there must be a way to make more money that way. Shows what I know I guess


----------



## emanymton (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Ok. My boyfriend works in an off licence, so good to know. Did places like home bargains, which sell food as well as other stuff, stay open last time? The nearest places to me to buy food are this sort of place.


I know M&S kept their food part open. Or the one near me did.


----------



## kenny g (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Last time just about everything apart from food shops, off-licences, chemists, banks & post offices, IIRC.


During the last lockdown, as time went on the interpretation of the definitions of what were allowed to remain open became more lax. Essential was never referred to in legislation. When it was realised that household goods could include furniture and curtains then the shop to browse flood gates opened. 

If current regulations were actually enforced properly it would make a difference.


----------



## agricola (Oct 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> On everything ever.



This is true, but rarely as much as this.  

At least with most previous British Government fuckups we didn't know about the advice they were given at the time _and_ had examples of people following the advice and getting better results. Getting away with loads has made them think they can get away with anything, which I doubt they will (at least over this).


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

I might lose my job next week. whatever this dithering is about it clearly isn't about 'the economy'. It's smash and grab with this lot.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Oh they'll get away with it.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 31, 2020)

hmm wait for a watered down locked to be announced still go to work, school and make money for the economy

but because you plebs can stay away from each other in the pubs they are closing


----------



## Yossarian (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> During the last lockdown, as time went on the interpretation of the definitions of what were allowed to remain open became more lax. Essential was never referred to in legislation. When it was realised that household goods could include furniture and curtains then the shop to browse flood gates opened.
> 
> If current regulations were actually enforced properly it would make a difference.



Enforcing regulations properly is probably the key - it doesn't sound like many infections have happened in shops whether they're essential or nonessential, but a lot more have happened when people decided that because the rules on shops opening seem arbitrary and nebulous, it's OK to ignore the rules on households mixing as well.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 31, 2020)

so people plan for the weekend buy all the toilet rolls and build a fort again


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> So is this basically shut pubs and some shops?


Gyms as well maybe? What about restaurants?


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Yossarian said:


> Enforcing regulations properly is probably the key - it doesn't sound like many infections have happened in shops whether they're essential or nonessential, but a lot more have happened when people decided that because the rules on shops opening seem arbitrary and nebulous, it's OK to ignore the rules on households mixing as well.


I'm studying behaviour management at the moment and the key points of the whole thing are consistency, fairness and lack of complexity. I don't see why adults would be any different from 11-18 year olds in this respect.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

OK I'll stand up and say what I think. It's not a lockdown without shutting schools, secondary schools at the least. Transmission does occur in schools and then spreads out wider with further contact. It's not a freaking coincidence all these numbers started rising in September. And putting some sort of lockdown on secondary schools is not as unpopular as some people think otherwise you wouldn't have had the massive amount of absentees you had in March just before lockdown was announced. And you are still getting massive amounts of absentees. In Wales the figure for attendance is around 80%, England just under 90%.

And when you don't shut schools, you get the school run. From the school run comes an excuse to 'get out' and once people are out a certain percentage of them will take that chance to do something else which is 'out' and involves mixing.

People moving around is what is spreading this virus. By not closing schools, at least secondary schools, you are giving people an excuse to move around. And once people see others moving around, that changes their behaviour too and they think it's ok for them to move around. This is how the last lockdown collapsed into laxness.


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 31, 2020)

I suppose the panic buying will start today. Get ready for rationing of toilet roll.


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2020)

I hope the tourist trade is shut. Walking around town last night the restraunts were all busy and I wouldn't have assessed any of them as being covid safe. Doors shut, no ventilation, people sitting in groups close to each other no masks. Madness.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Not sure I agree about secondary schools just yet though obviously slightly biased due to my current situation. But the universities exemption is purely there so that the government can try and get away with providing no support at all to the HE sector rather than any belief that it's particularly necessary. Plenty of young people 18+ will be locked down anyway as they're not at uni.

A partial lockdown for schools might make more sense at this point. Something like two days a week on site for each year (or less for older kids and more for younger kids) but with more available for kids who lack space and resources to study at home.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Wouldn't have worked in my previous job (which at the time my boss claimed had key worker status) as I was out from 5.30am to after 8 every day. Also debatable how much shopping I could carry while already fully laden. But you just keep attacking the people who are living through this and not the politicians who've landed us in the mess if it makes you happy.


I’m not attacking anyone, more trying to point out that if we want any possible chance of getting this crap under control we all have to accept things being difficult for a while.


----------



## kenny g (Oct 31, 2020)

Closing swimming pools just because they close gyms is stupid. I have been on a forced non-swim for a couple of weeks and will be gutted if they close the pool before Wednesday!


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Where is the useless slug anyway? Eating a massive roast dinner somewhere?


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I suppose the panic buying will start today. Get ready for rationing of toilet roll.


Good luck. We were building a Brexit pile anyway and have picked up a few extra cans on top of that. At some point I'm going to have to actually eat those tinned spuds.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 31, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I suppose the panic buying will start today. Get ready for rationing of toilet roll.



Did the fortnightly online shop yesterday, the announcement came through to late to add bog roll


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I’m not attacking anyone, more trying to point out that if we want any possible chance of getting this crap under control we all have to accept things being difficult for a while.


But only attacking in one direction and without taking actual situations into account. You've actually just told me I should go from the known centre of infection where I will be working straight into a supermarket every day.


----------



## kenny g (Oct 31, 2020)

I know it is a touchy topic for some but I strongly continue to believe that schools should be the last places to close.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> OK I'll stand up and say what I think. It's not a lockdown without shutting schools, secondary schools at the least. Transmission does occur in schools and then spreads out wider with further contact. It's not a freaking coincidence all these numbers started rising in September. And putting some sort of lockdown on secondary schools is not as unpopular as some people think otherwise you wouldn't have had the massive amount of absentees you had in March just before lockdown was announced. And you are still getting massive amounts of absentees. In Wales the figure for attendance is around 80%, England just under 90%.
> 
> And when you don't shut schools, you get the school run. From the school run comes an excuse to 'get out' and once people are out a certain percentage of them will take that chance to do something else which is 'out' and involves mixing.
> 
> People moving around is what is spreading this virus. By not closing schools, at least secondary schools, you are giving people an excuse to move around. And once people see others moving around, that changes their behaviour too and they think it's ok for them to move around. This is how the last lockdown collapsed into laxness.


Quite. Shut the fucking schools ffs.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Good luck. We were building a Brexit pile anyway...



Why? We are net exporters of bog roll, we are hardly going to run out whatever happens with Brexit.


----------



## Boudicca (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> What counts as a non essential shop?


Last time, hardware was included in essential.  B&Q were very good, closed completely until they worked out how they could operate safely, then covered up what they considered to be non-essential.  Wilko did very well out of this as they sold huge amounts of paint.  Home Bargains also benefitted.  The Range went as far as opening a food section so that they could legitimately stay open.


----------



## Looby (Oct 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Did the fortnightly online shop yesterday, the announcement came through to late to add bog roll


We picked the right time to sign up for Who Gives A Crap. 😄


----------



## Looby (Oct 31, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> Last time, hardware was included in essential.  B&Q were very good, closed completely until they worked out how they could operate safely, then covered up what they considered to be non-essential.  Wilko did very well out of this as they sold huge amounts of paint.  Home Bargains also benefitted.  The Range went as far as opeing a food section so that they could legitimateyl stay open.


Yeah I spotted they have Iceland in our local store now.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> I know it is a touchy topic for some but I strongly continue to believe that schools should be the last places to close.



why?


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why? We are net exporters of bog roll, we are hardly going to run out whatever happens with Brexit.


We haven't stockpiled bog roll.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Looby said:


> Yeah I spotted they have Iceland in our local store now.


The Range/Iceland thing was underway before lockdown kicked in. Was first announced in Feb 2019.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

Looby said:


> We picked the right time to sign up for Who Gives A Crap. 😄
> View attachment 236713


We just got a delivery too, and I've been told NOT to buy any more loo roll by my landlady. I just feel bad at the amount I get through...


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 31, 2020)

Well I'm glad they're doing it finally. A thousand people who are now dead would be alive if they had done it when the scientists told them to do it.


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 31, 2020)

If everyone wore a mask we wouldn't need a lockdown. And we could go to the pub if we had masks with a sensible straw arrangement...a little hole which seals itself when you take the straw out. Rather like the military gas masks. But you wouldn't need to hold your drink above the mask as you do in the military. You don't need everything to be radiation proof.


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Not sure I agree about secondary schools just yet though obviously slightly biased due to my current situation. But the universities exemption is purely there so that the government can try and get away with providing no support at all to the HE sector rather than any belief that it's particularly necessary. Plenty of young people 18+ will be locked down anyway as they're not at uni.
> 
> A partial lockdown for schools might make more sense at this point. Something like two days a week on site for each year (or less for older kids and more for younger kids) but with more available for kids who lack space and resources to study at home.



Move Unis online

Move 14-18 online (switch exams for coursework)

Primary and KS3 remain open (for now)


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> Move Unis online
> 
> Move 14-18 online (switch exams for coursework)
> 
> Primary and KS3 remain open (for now)


Well they'll have to keep part of KS4 open for keyworkers' kids so if they make sure there is specific provision for kids who don't have the space or facilities to work online at home then we're pretty much in agreement. Though 'switching online' should be a real thing. Live tutorials and small group sessions not just a big pile of homework.

Oh, and abandon the outdated and redundant GCSE system immediately.


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well they'll have to keep part of KS4 open for keyworkers' kids so if they make sure there is specific provision for kids who don't have the space or facilities to work online at home then we're pretty much in agreement. Though 'switching online' should be a real thing. Live tutorials and small group sessions not just a big pile of homework.
> 
> Oh, and abandon the outdated and redundant GCSE system immediately.



The switching online you describe (live, online classes etc.) happened in the private sector last time.


----------



## agricola (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Closing swimming pools just because they close gyms is stupid. I have been on a forced non-swim for a couple of weeks and will be gutted if they close the pool before Wednesday!



Hope not - the pool I use has been really good in terms of measures, in fact its probably the most COVID secure thing I know.  A strict one-way system, lane times have to be booked in advance and they limit the number of people using lanes at the same time, and all the staff are really quick to challenge people who aren't doing what they should be.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well they'll have to keep part of KS4 open for keyworkers' kids so if they make sure there is specific provision for kids who don't have the space or facilities to work online at home then we're pretty much in agreement. Though 'switching online' should be a real thing. Live tutorials and small group sessions not just a big pile of homework.
> 
> Oh, and abandon the outdated and redundant GCSE system immediately.



That all sounds pretty sensible, so it probably won't happen.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> The switching online you describe (live, online classes etc.) happened in the private sector last time.


It happens in unis too and can be very effective. Good online sessions can be better than a live lecture.


----------



## Oula (Oct 31, 2020)

ice-is-forming said:


> From experience I know things often look much worse from a distance, than when you're actually living it..but I don't think that's what's happening here. It's shit for England, the UK, Europe....


Your suspicion is right - things are as bad as they look at a distance. Glad you got to see your dad.


----------



## kenny g (Oct 31, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> why?


Because I believe in universal education.


----------



## Oula (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr Oula teaches on an FE course in an HE institution and has repeatedly been told that the HE courses can go fully online but as FE finding is different the students have to be guaranteed face to face time. 
I'm so glad I no longer work in FE. Fuck knows what the situation at my old college is, but it must be terrible.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 31, 2020)

Cid said:


> The university thing is so fucking stupid. East Asian universities (At least ROK and China, and I think Japan) have been operating hybrid models, or fully online throughout. I have a friend in China who recently submitted their PhD application on multi modal learning in mixed online/offline models. I have other friends studying at Chinese universities in completely different timezones (stuck in Europe). It's challenging, sure, and not suited to some degrees... But I can't understand why it's barely even been attempted here. Well, I suppose I can. All those nice new student developments.


Absolutely this, University towns have blocks of new flats for students as far as the eye can see, revenue has to be gathered at all costs.  Online courses is so obviously the way forward, not just in a plague but in normal times too. And with schools as well, online learning alongside national curriculum and exams/assessment, wouldn't that work for classroom teaching too? of course it would. World beating choices being squandered.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Oct 31, 2020)

Oula said:


> Your suspicion is right - things are as bad as they look at a distance. Glad you got to see your dad.



Thanks Oula, words can't even express how lucky I feel for me and mine.. I'm also lucky that my dad's mastered face book and we speak almost every day


----------



## scifisam (Oct 31, 2020)

I tested positive! I'm really surprised - I'm sure the contact was outside the 48 hour window. 

But as it goes I'm fucking delighted. With all my underlying health conditions, to get away with contracting covid and having no symptoms feels like a HUGE win. It also means my daughter - who has a cold - has probably had it, so is relatively safe now. 

And I'm really glad my friend contacted me a week before the NHS did so that I could isolate and don't feel guilt for passing it on to people who might not have been as lucky as me.

(Due to that I also don't have anyone extra to contact, I think).


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> The switching online you describe (live, online classes etc.) happened in the private sector last time.


Meanwhile the Academy my daughter goes to gave every kid in the school a couple of dozen sheets of photocopies (that were far too easy in our case), stuck half the staff on furlough and then made the remaining staff work through the Easter holidays and half term looking after keyworkers' kids. I'm not sure but I reckon they saved a couple of quid doing it that way.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I tested positive! I'm really surprised - I'm sure the contact was outside the 48 hour window.
> 
> But as it goes I'm fucking delighted. With all my underlying health conditions, to get away with contracting covid and having no symptoms feels like a HUGE win. It also means my daughter - who has a cold - has probably had it, so is relatively safe now.
> 
> ...


Crikey! Hope you've had it long enough to be truly asymptomatic. Fingers crossed for you. 🤞


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows chilango do you know what the hospital situation is in Reading? A friends mum is going for a major op very soon.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

agricola said:


> Hope not - the pool I use has been really good in terms of measures, in fact its probably the most COVID secure thing I know.  A strict one-way system, lane times have to be booked in advance and they limit the number of people using lanes at the same time, and all the staff are really quick to challenge people who aren't doing what they should be.



It's not just about measures for individual places though. It's about a feeling that people can still go out and do 'stuff' generally. Visiting a 'covid secure' (highly debatable term anyway) place like that then leads to people bumping into someone, getting a coffee, nipping into a shop, etc.

It's harsh but nearly everything needs to shut, it's the only thing that works.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

The concept of 'Covid Secure' has been really damaging imo - people think that because their business follows government guidelines their premises are completely safe, when it's just not true - and it leads to them feeling hard done by (not perhaps unreasonably - making their business covid secure has cost a lot of money) when they're closed down.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Crikey! Hope you've had it long enough to be truly asymptomatic. Fingers crossed for you. 🤞



I haven't seen anyone outside the house for 9 days, so I think it's likely. 

(Counting back to when my friend called me to tell me I should self-isolate. The NHS contacted me a week later).

Still have to isolate for ten days from the test, which is fine.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> The concept of 'Covid Secure' has been really damaging imo - people think that because their business follows government guidelines their premises are completely safe, when it's just not true


Aye, the health and safety boss for the college asked if our staffroom was "COVID secure". The Curriculum Manager laughed and told him that was impossible. Mitigation is all you can do, and of course in people's heads that means a whole spectrum of measures.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

It is so tiring having these crap tricksters in charge, i look at this tweet and immediately assume its another lie, that the leaks must have been on purpose. That constant layer upon layer of incompetent lying is just the worst thing for everyone right now.


----------



## Looby (Oct 31, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I haven't seen anyone outside the house for 9 days, so I think it's likely.
> 
> (Counting back to when my friend called me to tell me I should self-isolate. The NHS contacted me a week later).
> 
> Still have to isolate for ten days from the test, which is fine.


That’s fucking mad isn’t it that you could have spent a week going out and about because the tracing took so long. 
Stay well!


----------



## kabbes (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> The concept of 'Covid Secure' has been really damaging imo - people think that because their business follows government guidelines their premises are completely safe, when it's just not true - and it leads to them feeling hard done by (not perhaps unreasonably - making their business covid secure has cost a lot of money) when they're closed down.


Right.  And not only is “Covid secure” contextual  (since security is not binary), it is also dependent on rigorously following all procedures at all times.  I’m going to stick my neck out and say that I’ve actually never been into a “Covid secure” pub and observed _every_ staff member wearing face coverings properly and all ventilation _properly_ operating.  It’s like having a deadlock and bolt but then not actually using them.


----------



## zora (Oct 31, 2020)

^^ This; it's just really really hard to do the whole distancing thing properly; it goes against so much of our social interaction grain.

Recent example: I am having to move house next month (not a time of my choosing!) and had to do viewings this past week. I saw four places, and just like in my workplace I was by far the most cautious, i.e. actually properly trying to adhere to distancing and mask-wearing, and even I fell short of my standards a little in the face of this subtle social pressure.
In only one of four places the people were wearing masks indoors, yet the others were still proceeding to clamber over me to show me the storage cupboard (I did in all but one, and boy, it was tough sitting there with my mask while having a chat and trying to be personable!). In the one were masks were being worn inside (albeit somewhat incorrectly), we sat in the garden for a while, but way too close. I had been sat on a step away from the garden bench, but they enthusiastically and hospitable waved me over to sit with them at the garden table (tbf in pub gardens this would be allowed, too, but I think that even outdoors you could give each other covid sat at such proximity facing each other). Bleurgh, I am actually having bare paranoia that I did pick up covid on one of those visits. 

And just like in my workplace, they all seemed like very decent, sensible people, no raging covid deniers or anything like that.
Just to illustrate how tricky it actually is to do social distancing properly in social situations - it goes against so many of our usual ways to interact and to show that we are open, trust each other, are friendly and cool, or whatever we are trying to convey.

For this reason, I have also avoided most in person meetings myself, even when allowed. Doing distancing properly is just too bloody awkward, so I'd much rather have my yoga class online or do board games with people online from the physically distanced comfort of my own home.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> The concept of 'Covid Secure' has been really damaging imo - people think that because their business follows government guidelines their premises are completely safe, when it's just not true - and it leads to them feeling hard done by (not perhaps unreasonably - making their business covid secure has cost a lot of money) when they're closed down.



And a bubble isn't just a bunch of mates going out for a drink together. 'Bubbles' and 'covid secure' ffs.


----------



## agricola (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's not just about measures for individual places though. It's about a feeling that people can still go out and do 'stuff' generally. Visiting a 'covid secure' (highly debatable term anyway) place like that then leads to people bumping into someone, getting a coffee, nipping into a shop, etc.
> 
> It's harsh but nearly everything needs to shut, it's the only thing that works.



I couldn't disagree more tbh - you are allowed to go out and exercise, this is a fantastic and safe way in which to do it and it keeps the facility going.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And a bubble isn't just a bunch of mates going out for a drink together. 'Bubbles' and 'covid secure' ffs.


I dunno, I think a bubble is a reasonable idea, and easy enough to understand unless you choose not to. 

I guess Covid Secure was coined when they were trying to encourage people back into pubs, shops and workplaces - difficult to row back on now though...


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

agricola said:


> I couldn't disagree more tbh - you are allowed to go out and exercise, this is a fantastic and safe way in which to do it and it keeps the facility going.


it isn't safe.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

The chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales is not happy, and rightly so, as there's bound to be more partying this weekend.



> He tweeted on Saturday morning: “To those briefing selective media on a potential national lockdown please understand the impact this has. It creates a media frenzy, causes confusion and ahead of any official announcement encourages some to make the most of their pre-lockdown time. This is not a good mix!”
> 
> He added: “This can add immense pressure to the 999 services who are already struggling with the demand they have. Please be more responsible. Clear communication, not corridor briefings.”











						Police Federation boss criticises coronavirus ‘briefing’
					

It is not the first time communications have been criticised during the pandemic.




					www.shropshirestar.com


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

agricola said:


> I couldn't disagree more tbh - you are allowed to go out and exercise, this is a fantastic and safe way in which to do it and it keeps the facility going.



Generally yes, in a proper lockdown no. Exercise like walking or running or cycling. Not gyms or pools or classes.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> I dunno, I think a bubble is a reasonable idea, and easy enough to understand unless you choose not to.
> 
> I guess Covid Secure was coined when they were trying to encourage people back into pubs, shops and workplaces - difficult to row back on now though...



Yeah, I think it's a great idea. It was just very poorly communicated and then widely misunderstood and abused.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

Yeah, I guess they needed to be more explicit about how they applied to HMOs. Otherwise the 'misunderstandings' were misunderstandings of convenience IMO


----------



## kabbes (Oct 31, 2020)

The label of “Bubble” is very easily misinterpreted by populations that have already shown an inability to understand ideas such as “trolling” and “staycation”.  I’m not at all surprised that people interpret it situationally rather than longitudinally.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

I don't know, I think a couple of the places I ate out in were pretty safe during the summer, doors wide open etc. I'm confused about the risk outside tho because I had thought it was negligible but I'm starting to think maybe that's not the case?


----------



## kabbes (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I don't know, I think a couple of the places I ate out in were pretty safe during the summer, doors wide open etc. I'm confused about the risk outside tho because I had thought it was negligible but I'm starting to think maybe that's not the case?


Define negligible


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Define negligible


As in it hardly ever happens because the virus dissipates outdoors in the open air unless you are right up next to someone's face. But maybe that's not true?


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Also other variables. If you stand outside shouting in each others faces for an hour then definitely not negligible risk to give extreme example.
Depends on wind, distance, time, viral load, all sorts of stuff.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

We have work bubbles which are a joke. It just means no working at other branches to cover absences. But we still work all day with security guards who also work in hospitals, making a mockery of the idea


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> We have work bubbles which are a joke. It just means no working at other branches to cover absences. But we still work all day with security guards who also work in hospitals, making a mockery of the idea


Yup, at our place (uni library) our bubbles were mixing in the first few weeks, and now they're adding student temps, in addition to all the students we're already interacting with.

Apparently, "adding to bubbles is ok, it's mixing between bubbles that is an issue".

Nooooooot sure that's true


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Like all good actuaries, I like to do a bit of backtesting of estimates.  The 26 October death rate is probably reasonably represented by the 7-day average as at 30 October, which was 237 for the official reported count.  So that 230-690 confidence interval for 26 October that we were talking about on 14 October looks like it did encapsulate the true number after all.  Sadly, 150 was woefully short.



Always good to have other people look into that stuff!

The thing is that those model figures were for England, not the UK. And when they issued an updated version on about the 21st October, their new range for October 26th was 178-344. They have since done another version on the 29th which I havent looked at properly yet. See here for my comparison between those earlier two model runs, since I took screenshots of the graphs:            #22,310        

So far with the data thats in as of yesterday, the actual number of deaths for England by date of death not date of reporting, is 197 for 26th October and there is still some time for that number to grow a bit more.

For the whole of the UK, which is what littlebabyjesus's 150 prediction relates to, the number for the 26th is already up to 242.


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Meanwhile the Academy my daughter goes to gave every kid in the school a couple of dozen sheets of photocopies (that were far too easy in our case), stuck half the staff on furlough and then made the remaining staff work through the Easter holidays and half term looking after keyworkers' kids. I'm not sure but I reckon they saved a couple of quid doing it that way.



Same at my daughter's school pretty much.


----------



## agricola (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> it isn't safe.



Is there any evidence to support that?


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales is not happy, and rightly so, as there's bound to be more partying this weekend.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It needs to be done without warning, we're locking down in 2 hours go home now and fucking stay there


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 31, 2020)

Make it a vague so you can let yer mates off when they get caught doing wrong things


----------



## 2hats (Oct 31, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Define negligible


Virus risk:

Low virus risk:





Negligible virus risk (almost _covid safe_):


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

Need, as LynnDoyleCooper suggested, everything shut. Cos right now people are (for perfectly rational and logical reasons) bending the rules to fit their particular circumstances. Which means the rules are pretty pointless tbh.


----------



## Cerv (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> It is so tiring having these crap tricksters in charge, i look at this tweet and immediately assume its another lie, that the leaks must have been on purpose. That constant layer upon layer of incompetent lying is just the worst thing for everyone right now.



on purpose but by who? 
I wouldn't be surprised if this genuinely wasn't one of the usual government sanctioned leaks but Sunak or one of the other anti-lockdown members trying to whip up a backlash that pre-empt Johnson's Monday announcement forcing him to back down.
it's a Conservative civil war and we're all caught in the crossfire.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

agricola said:


> Is there any evidence to support that?


Any evidence that _covid secure_ workplaces, pubs, schools and leisure centres aren't actually covid secure? You've seen the infection rates haven't you?


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

It's less about evidence for specific places now, and more about being in a situation where the only option is another tight set of restrictions. 

Looking at possibly _more than_ 85,000 dead lest anyone forgetting....


----------



## agricola (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> Any evidence that _covid secure_ workplaces, pubs, schools and leisure centres aren't actually covid secure? You've seen the infection rates haven't you?



I have, but the question is how much of that increase is driven by people going to swimming pools?   Have there been any cases attributed to that, at all?


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's less about evidence for specific places now, and more about being in a situation where the only option is another tight set of restrictions.
> 
> Looking at possibly _more than_ 85,000 dead lest anyone forgetting....


And to clarify that estimate again, that's 85,000+ in the second wave. So (adding the lower figure which we know isn't true) a minimum of 130,000 in under a year.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 31, 2020)

agricola said:


> I have, but the question is how much of that increase is driven by people going to swimming pools?   Have there been any cases attributed to that, at all?


I swim twice a week and will be gutted when the pools close. I agree that you don't get anywhere near someone else so transmission is highly unlikely. However it's too bitty trying to keep a bit of a leisure centre open, everything just needs to close.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

agricola said:


> I have, but the question is how much of that increase is driven by people going to swimming pools?   Have there been any cases attributed to that, at all?


What percentage of cases are attributed to anything in particular anyway? Outside of care homes and hospital wards it's a guess at best. If fomite transmission is a thing at all then changing rooms strike me as pretty dangerous.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> And to clarify that estimate again, that's 85,000+ in the second wave. So (adding the lower figure which we know isn't true) a minimum of 130,000 in under a year.


Plus all the people condemned to death through the withdrawal or delay of treatment for other ailments


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

agricola said:


> I have, but the question is how much of that increase is driven by people going to swimming pools?   Have there been any cases attributed to that, at all?



I don't want my pool to shut. But it needs to. 30 people crammed in to 3 lanes isn't great for social distancing.

It was fine until the schools reopened. Then, of course, lucrative school bookings limited the amount of public sessions and now instead of spreading demand across the day it's concentrated in a handful 9f slots.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's less about evidence for specific places now, and more about being in a situation where the only option is another tight set of restrictions.
> 
> Looking at possibly _more than_ 85,000 dead lest anyone forgetting....


And I doubt any of the people who have made this pandemic a disaster will be numbered among the victims


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> And to clarify that estimate again, that's 85,000+ in the second wave. So (adding the lower figure which we know isn't true) a minimum of 130,000 in under a year.



But, but _Whack-a-mole_?

(We were always playing _Risk, _just without any strategy.)


----------



## agricola (Oct 31, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I swim twice a week and will be gutted when the pools close. I agree that you don't get anywhere near someone else so transmission is highly unlikely. However it's too bitty trying to keep a bit of a leisure centre open, everything just needs to close.



I'd agree, if the proposal is to shut everything.  Instead they'll end up closing them whilst keeping Weatherspoons open, as they tried to in Liverpool.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

agricola said:


> I'd agree, if the proposal is to shut everything.  Instead they'll end up closing them whilst keeping Weatherspoons open, as they tried to in Liverpool.



No, I think bars etc. will shut this time round nationally.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> elbows chilango do you know what the hospital situation is in Reading? A friends mum is going for a major op very soon.



Which hospital trust?

The Royal Berkshire Trust has started to see hospital deaths again recently. And they have around 40 Covid-19 patients as of recent figures, up from number in the teens at the start of the month.

If that isnt the right hospital trust then you'll have to tell me which one to look at.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 31, 2020)

Cerv said:


> on purpose but by who?
> I wouldn't be surprised if this genuinely wasn't one of the usual government sanctioned leaks but Sunak or one of the other anti-lockdown members trying to whip up a backlash that pre-empt Johnson's Monday announcement forcing him to back down.
> it's a Conservative civil war and we're all caught in the crossfire.



I reckon that these forthcoming deaths are seen as acceptable collateral damage by these money-(making)-driven oiks.
And they are most definitely not acceptable to me.

Too much warning and the parties & drinking will be "super-spreading" events plus too many stockpilers will panic buy and those unable to get out will, again, suffer shortages.

Too little warning and there are other costs from being unable to cancel things ... and support structures in the community don't have time to be erected.

Today is the day I expect the UK will join the "millionaire" club for the number of confirmed cases.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Which hospital trust?
> 
> The Royal Berkshire Trust has started to see hospital deaths again recently. And they have around 40 Covid-19 patients as of recent figures, up from number in the teens at the start of the month.
> 
> If that isnt the right hospital trust then you'll have to tell me which one to look at.


That's the one yeah


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

agricola said:


> I have, but the question is how much of that increase is driven by people going to swimming pools?   Have there been any cases attributed to that, at all?



We’re in the middle of this thing with a poor tracing system and a fuck of a lot of different variables that researchers have to consider. All we can do is observe broader patterns and try to apply measures consistently. Swimming pools do have indoor spaces... some might have better facilities than others. Some are going to be better run than others. Some will implement measures properly, others won’t. It’s much easier to regulate that using a blanket measure than individual monitoring... it’s not ideal, but doing it another way just doesn’t seem viable at the moment.


----------



## Cerv (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> I don't want my pool to shut. But it needs to. 30 people crammed in to 3 lanes isn't great for social distancing.
> 
> It was fine until the schools reopened. Then, of course, lucrative school bookings limited the amount of public sessions and now instead of spreading demand across the day it's concentrated in a handful 9f slots.


that's a shame. my local pool has stayed open but with bookings limited to much less than that. don't think I've ever seen more than 6 in a lane even at the busiest times I've been. 
also alternate lane dividers removed to double the width to aid distancing.

I recall back in March before they were forced to shut they did claim, via Swim England, that actually the chlorine in the pool was enough to offer significant protection from passing the virus between swimmers. But not sure if that was wishful thinking or actually backed up by anything.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

In March they still didn't really know how it spread, and there were concerns it could be spread through the water itself - that's turned out to be not the case, but we do know that it's spread through the air - which swimming pools are also full of - and physical activity (such as swimming) increases the amount of infected particles each infected person expels.

The measures taken by leisure centres in order to open mitigate some of the risks, if they're diligently applied by all users. But that's all they do, mitigate - there's still a raised risk of infection to other activities such as staying at home and not mixing with any other people. During periods of low infection, the benefits to the public of opening outweigh the additional infection risks - but during periods of high infection, they just don't. Sorry your fave activity is about to be banned though agricola


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, I think bars etc. will shut this time round nationally.


Bars and restaurants need to shut, I get the logic that says pubs generating X infections, going to see your granny generates X infections, we can afford X infections but not X*2 and the communal good of keeping pubs open is greater than letting people visit granny. But closing pubs and restaurants can be enforced whereas it is much harder to police infractions on people visiting family.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Ok. My boyfriend works in an off licence, so good to know. Did places like home bargains, which sell food as well as other stuff, stay open last time? The nearest places to me to buy food are this sort of place.


Yeah. All the B&M or Poundland shops seemed to be open.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

BBC version of the lockdown story includes several graphs that have been thrust in front of the government.









						Coronavirus: Cabinet to meet as PM considers England lockdown
					

A new month-long "stay at home" order could be announced as soon as Monday, it is understood.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Documents seen by the BBC suggest the UK is on course for a much higher death toll than during the first wave unless further restrictions are introduced.
> 
> Deaths could reach more than 4,000 a day, one of the models suggests.
> 
> This figure is based on no policies being brought in to slow the spread of the disease, but most of the models peak at about 2,000 a day.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> IMO opinion this is a reaction to the economic situation not the death figures. The first lockdown happened because the economy was already collapsing (London was a ghost town well before we were all told to work from home, plenty had lost their jobs before the furlough scheme was brought in) and now the same thing is happening. The economy is in free fall again and they will be handing out just enough money to ensure rents and bills are paid.



No, its a reaction to hospital figures (and projections) and to some extent deaths. Economic considerations are part of the mix but are not in the driving seat in this phase. The economy has been put in the driving seat during relaxation phases, but this clearly isnt a relaxation phase.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> It is so tiring having these crap tricksters in charge, i look at this tweet and immediately assume its another lie, that the leaks must have been on purpose. That constant layer upon layer of incompetent lying is just the worst thing for everyone right now.



I dunno, could be true.

If they have accepted a new lockdown has to happen, the four of them probably hoped to spend the weekend with their advisers cobbling together some new lockdown rules, then announcing it as a fait accompli on Monday. Now they're probably spending the weekend being bothered by anti-lockdown MPs demanding they 'protect the economy' and business interest groups arguing their members should be exempt because... or they need £x million to survive.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Downing Street press conference at 4 5 pm TODAY.

* edited for anyone just catching up on the thread, as they've changed the time, useless twats couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street press conference at 4 pm TODAY.



Here we go!

On a side note I keep seeing 1/100 people current have covid mentioned today. My maths is making it ten times less than that. I hope my maths is better than Peston.


----------



## Numbers (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street press conference at 4 pm TODAY.


Where’s that from mate?


----------



## MBV (Oct 31, 2020)

I expected them to keep us in limbo until Monday


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

I just came back from the shops with sweets to leave out for any children who might walk around the neighbourhood tonight...Hope they still come.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> Here we go!
> 
> On a side note I keep seeing 1/100 people current have covid mentioned today. My maths is making it ten times less than that. I hope my maths is better than Peston.



1 in 100 seems a fair estimate, based on over 50k new cases a day X days of infection.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Where’s that from mate?



Sky News on the telly box.

ETA - Although I got a text from a mate about 15 minutes before.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I just came back from the shops with sweets to leave out for any children who might walk around the neighbourhood tonight...Hope they still come.


I hope they don't. Nothing personal but doing Halloween is crazy imo


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I hope they don't. Nothing personal but doing Halloween is crazy imo


No contact at all. Individually wrapped sweets left on the wall at the front, kids walk around to see the decorated windows and take some sweets. Is there really any risk involved?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> No contact at all. Individually wrapped sweets left on the wall at the front, kids walk around to see the decorated windows and take some sweets. Is there really any risk involved?


Depends if everyone is as conscientious as you. I wouldn't risk it.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Depends if everyone is as conscientious as you. I wouldn't risk it.


Do you mean other households? It's tier 3 here, there's been a neighbourhood campaign for no door knocking but a "pumpkin walk". People have decorated their entire houses, some amazing looking ones. Already seen one neighbour has pegged bags of sweets to a tree and stuck lollies in a pumpkin to take. I'm struggling to see the harm?


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> No, its a reaction to hospital figures (and projections) and to some extent deaths. Economic considerations are part of the mix but are not in the driving seat in this phase. The economy has been put in the driving seat during relaxation phases, but this clearly isnt a relaxation phase.


I disagree. It was clear the NHS would be crushed a good couple of weeks before they locked down and a good proportion of the government would be happy to see it crushed. I believed in March, and I still believe now, that we are in a global crisis of capitalism, the largest ever, and the public health story is merely the opening chapter. Twenty years from now the pandemic will be seen as the beginning of the real disaster.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Do you mean other households? It's tier 3 here, there's been a neighbourhood campaign for no door knocking but a "pumpkin walk". People have decorated their entire houses, some amazing looking ones. Already seen one neighbour has pegged bags of sweets to a tree and stuck lollies in a pumpkin to take. I'm struggling to see the harm?


That's good then 🙂


----------



## kabbes (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Always good to have other people look into that stuff!
> 
> The thing is that those model figures were for England, not the UK. And when they issued an updated version on about the 21st October, their new range for October 26th was 178-344. They have since done another version on the 29th which I havent looked at properly yet. See here for my comparison between those earlier two model runs, since I took screenshots of the graphs:            #22,310
> 
> ...


On the other hand, was the prediction for reported deaths or for actual deaths?


----------



## Wilf (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Not sure I agree about secondary schools just yet though obviously slightly biased due to my current situation. But the universities exemption is purely there so that the government can try and get away with providing no support at all to the HE sector rather than any belief that it's particularly necessary. Plenty of young people 18+ will be locked down anyway as they're not at uni.
> 
> A partial lockdown for schools might make more sense at this point. Something like two days a week on site for each year (or less for older kids and more for younger kids) but with more available for kids who lack space and resources to study at home.


I think the Universities staying open is also a result of their previous stupidity in keeping them open. Testing students in halls and then getting those who want to go home would be the best solution, but that would be such a massive climbdown (and probably cost the government as they might have to pay the accommodation providers). Essentially, an act of gross negligence in September that their political pride won't allow them to go back on.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> As in it hardly ever happens because the virus dissipates outdoors in the open air unless you are right up next to someone's face. But maybe that's not true?


 If you want “hardly ever happens” as a definition, that’s already the case for catching this disease in any given situation even without mitigations in place.  The prevalence of the disease is low in absolute terms and most encounters won’t spread it even if somebody has it.  You need a rather better definition of “negligible”.

This isn’t me being picky, by the way.  The first step in risk mitigation is identifying what you actually mean by the risk.  If you want to know whether the risk is negligible then I need to know what you mean by negligible risk.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News on the telly box.
> 
> ETA - Although I got a text from a mate about 15 minutes before.



I texted him, asking how he got the news over 15 minutes before Sky.

He's replied, 'I am in the cabinet meeting, mate',


----------



## Wilf (Oct 31, 2020)

I haven't seen the news this morning and I'm several pages behind on this thread, but the 'national' bit in a national lockdown is an amazing admission of failure. Only yesterday ministers were stressing that a targeted/local approach was the best way to go. Useless murderous cunts.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> No contact at all. Individually wrapped sweets left on the wall at the front, kids walk around to see the decorated windows and take some sweets. Is there really any risk involved?



Yes. People leaving houses, wandering about, meeting others etc.

I'll say it again, _worse predictions than 85,000 dead._


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I haven't seen the news this morning and I'm several pages behind on this thread...



As you are so far behind ...


cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street press conference at 4 5 pm TODAY.
> * edited for anyone just catching up on the thread, as they've changed the time, useless twats couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

dfm said:


> I expected them to keep us in limbo until Monday



With today’s front pages they had to make a statement.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes. People leaving houses, wandering about, meeting others etc.
> 
> I'll say it again, _worse than 85,000 dead._


Are you leaving your house ever?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> Are you leaving your house ever?


Tbf I'm only leaving the house to go to work or the shop.


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I texted him, asking how he got the news over 15 minutes before Sky.
> 
> He's replied, 'I am in the cabinet meeting, mate',



Tbf it’s the only place you can go out for a drink these days. Even if the other patrons are right cunts.


----------



## zora (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes. People leaving houses, wandering about, meeting others etc.
> 
> I'll say it again, _worse predictions than 85,000 dead._



I don't know; a pumpkin walk organised by the neighbourhood seems to me a bit more like the bunting parties and beach going of the spring and summer that people got agitated about (including myself admittedly!, because I am ultra-cautious), but don't actually seem to have been an issue. It's just people trying to wrest a tiny bit of joy, entertainment and tradition for the kids (or even themselves) from this complete dumpster of a year, while being precisely sensible and responsible.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As you are so far behind ...


Just got there as you posted that.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> Are you leaving your house ever?



Yes, for essential things, seeing friends outside, exercise, and NHS work. Not wandering about in a group dressed as a ghost picking up sweets from strangers houses.


----------



## Numbers (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> No contact at all. Individually wrapped sweets left on the wall at the front, kids walk around to see the decorated windows and take some sweets. Is there really any risk involved?


Sadly, if I was to leave sweets on the wall around here the first person to see them would probably take them all


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

We've stuck a note on our door saying sorry no Trick or Treat this year but double chocs for everyone next year (or triple in 2022 if it grinds on).


----------



## klang (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> We've stuck a note on our door saying sorry no Trick or Treat this year but double chocs for everyone next year (or triple in 2022 if it grinds on).


what's your exact address?


----------



## scifisam (Oct 31, 2020)

I've only just discovered that you can't post tests at the weekend. The GF needs a test, and probably has it. But if she takes the test today then it'll be less reliable after it's finally collected on Monday. 

Or will it? They box says to do it and then send it off asap.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

littleseb said:


> what's your exact address?


666 Spoooooooooky Street.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes, for essential things, seeing friends outside, exercise, and NHS work. Not wandering about in a group dressed as a ghost picking up sweets from strangers houses.


The latter would quite strange behaviour from an adult and might attract the attention of any concerned citizen


----------



## scifisam (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes. People leaving houses, wandering about, meeting others etc.
> 
> I'll say it again, _worse predictions than 85,000 dead._



They're not meeting others, though, except from a distance outdoors. It sounds well planned to give the kids some fun without increasing risk.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I've only just discovered that you can't post tests at the weekend. The GF needs a test, and probably has it. But if she takes the test today then it'll be less reliable after it's finally collected on Monday.
> 
> Or will it? They box says to do it and then send it off asap.


Check the map for the priority post boxes. They should go in a different postbox from normal post and have a different deadline. Most likely at your sorting office.


----------



## scifisam (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Check the map for the priority post boxes. They should go in a different postbox from normal post and have a different deadline. Most likely at your sorting office.



I did. They're all 12 noon on a Saturday. They're normal postboxes but have a sticker on them indicating they're priority boxes.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> I disagree. It was clear the NHS would be crushed a good couple of weeks before they locked down and a good proportion of the government would be happy to see it crushed. I believed in March, and I still believe now, that we are in a global crisis of capitalism, the largest ever, and the public health story is merely the opening chapter. Twenty years from now the pandemic will be seen as the beginning of the real disaster.



There are indeed a number of long emergencies including ones relating to the economy and energy that are highly likely to end up defining this century.

You misunderstand the role of government if you think that they would be happy to see the health system crushed. Our structures and economy dont work without some degree of healthcare, hospitals etc in the modern age.

Anyway I spent quite long enough on the first wave and the response to it at the time. My predictions and sense of timing back then were better than I expected them to be, and I based everything at that time on the obvious public health aspects, so I'm never going to buy into some ridiculous alternative theory.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Johnson is such a stupid man. Why go and call a two week national lockdown 'a disaster' as he did today. There's nothing to be gained from saying that. Am constantly amazed at how many people don't realise he really is thick.


poor johnson, i just remembered this, from.. exactly 2 weeks ago.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 31, 2020)

So. Lockdown till December. Furlough stops on Monday. 5 week lag to get universal credit. Is all that correct?

I’m lucky enough to have a job. But I’ve just seen the news go around the bar staff in the pub I’m in. Not exactly cheerful. Fuck you covid.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 1 in 100 seems a fair estimate, based on over 50k new cases a day X days of infection.



that's a population of 5 million though, as Supine says it should be 1 in 1000


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So. Lockdown till December. Furlough stops on Monday. 5 week lag to get universal credit. Is all that correct?
> 
> I’m lucky enough to have a job. But I’ve just seen the news go around the bar staff in the pub I’m in. Not exactly cheerful. Fuck you covid.


Furlough stops on Monday? What the fuck are they thinking.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

And I still think there is a fair chance that this is the last gasp for neoliberalism, but that doesnt mean the economy is why they really locked down.

The economy is why they tried to avoid lockdowns, but the health realities forced their hand. It is certainly true that their timing was worse than that of other countries and the populations sense of where we were at and what should be done. But this just means that the arguments against locking down are reduced, because the economy is already fucked at that point, once behaviours change in a huge way you may as well lockdown and bail things out. Its not the reason why they have to take measures in the first place. They are forced to act because of utterly unsustainable hospital admission rates, thats the reality foundation upon which all this other stuff sits. It was true the first time and its true this time.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 31, 2020)

two sheds said:


> that's a population of 5 million though, as Supine says it should be 1 in 1000



Ah - if cases are lasting 10 days plus then indeed 1 in 100 sorry


----------



## 2hats (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> there were concerns it could be spread through the water itself - that's turned out to be not the case


A lack of evidence through not having completed extensive research studies isn't the same as "does not".

Most of the advice around communal swimming facilities is based on studies of non-enveloped viruses, which are inactivated quite quickly in adequately chlorinated water. There is comparably little research into inactivation times for enveloped viruses (such as SARS-CoV-2 is). The assumption is also being made that these environments are always sterilised to the same approved industry standards.

Though clearly distancing, and aerosol/droplet transmission are going to be major factors in such recreational environments.

Also bear in mind that faecally mediated distribution is a clear possibility with SARS-CoV-2.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> poor johnson, i just remembered this, from.. exactly 2 weeks ago.



Could probably fill a book with ridiculous stances and claims that had shelf-lives of 2 weeks or less in this pandemic. At some stages the shelf-life has been even lower, just a day or two in some instances the first time around.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 31, 2020)

What does ‘lockdown’ actually mean now?  That pubs and restaurants that I’m not going to anyway won’t be open? Anything else? Doesn’t sound like much of a change tbh.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

2hats said:


> A lack of evidence through not having completed extensive research studies isn't the same as "does not".
> 
> Most of the advice around communal swimming facilities is based on studies of non-enveloped viruses, which are inactivated quite quickly in adequately chlorinated water. There is comparably little research into inactivation times for enveloped viruses (such as SARS-CoV-2 is). The assumption is also being made that these environments are always sterilised to the same approved industry standards.
> 
> ...



Yeah they thought there was some faecal / oral transmission didn't they?


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> The economy is why they tried to avoid lockdowns, but the health realities forced their hand.


I just don't see it as this clear cut, particularly because of the timing of events. And the NHS has been allowed to teeter on the brink of collapse every winter for many years anyway. I'm not proposing a conspiracy theory, just a slightly different analysis of current events. A full analysis won't be possible for a decade or two anyway and this isn't really the thread for the discussion.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

As viruses aren't alive in the same way as other stuff killed by chlorine it can't really be killed in the same way surely, unless the chlorine is actually breaking down/dissolving the virus somehow.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

Petcha said:


> So. Lockdown till December. Furlough stops on Monday. 5 week lag to get universal credit. Is all that correct?
> 
> I’m lucky enough to have a job. But I’ve just seen the news go around the bar staff in the pub I’m in. Not exactly cheerful. Fuck you covid.


There's a furlough replacement at 67% wages (which I think is 3% lower than the current furlough amount)


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

80% furlough was the original


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

2hats said:


> A lack of evidence through not having completed extensive research studies isn't the same as "does not".


ok, 'seems unlikely to be a significant factor' then if you like.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 80% furlough was the original


it's been reduced each month for the past three months though.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> As viruses aren't alive in the same way as other stuff killed by chlorine it can't really be killed in the same way surely, unless the chlorine is actually breaking down/dissolving the virus somehow.


Oxidative damage of the viral capsid proteins leads to inactivation.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> ok, 'seems unlikely to be a significant factor' then if you like.


Less likely factor than ... (risk is all relative).


----------



## Petcha (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> it's been reduced each month for the past three months though.



im not sure that’s correct is it?

I live with a chef and a barista. I’m fairly sure it’s been 80 throughout?


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

Petcha said:


> im not sure that’s correct is it?
> 
> I live with a chef and a barista. I’m fairly sure it’s been 80 throughout?


I just checked - the amount the government pays has reduced each month for the last few months, but the employer is expected to make it up to (at least) 80%

Either way, there's a(n inadequate) replacement to furlough which means everyone isn't just getting dumped onto UC tomorrow.


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2020)

4pm press conference is now at 5pm. They couldn't even manage to avoid fucking that up.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

[QUOTE="Dogsauce, post: 16790545, member: 55]What does ‘lockdown’ actually mean now?  That pubs and restaurants that I’m not going to anyway won’t be open? Anything else? Doesn’t sound like much of a change tbh.
[/QUOTE]
Presumably it will be that nobody can meet up with anyone outside their household (or bubble)? Apart from if you’re at school . Or something. That’s what I’m expecting, no visiting, whether that includes outdoors as well idk.
Could also be pubs shut at 9.45 .


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> I just checked - the amount the government pays has reduced each month for the last few months, but the employer is expected to make it up to (at least) 80%


Which is why a lot of people lost their jobs in June when some employers were too tight even to do this.


----------



## Petcha (Oct 31, 2020)

Frances O'Grady (@FrancesOGrady) Tweeted: If England is going back into lockdown, for starters the government must:

guarantee furlough at 80% of wages, open to all employers closed or hit by low demand
get more help to the self employed
fix sick pay
That’s how we protect jobs and livelihoods.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> 4pm press conference is now at 5pm. They couldn't even manage to avoid fucking that up.


He's probably half cut and they reckon he needs more than 2 hours of coffee and cold showers to get to his usual level of coherence.


----------



## BristolEcho (Oct 31, 2020)

I see the Secretary of the TUC has "demanded" 80% of wages to be paid if lockdown happens again. Absolute waste of space - 80% of low pay is fucking awful especially when you are already struggling. I understand that this is what we were given before, but it's shortsighted.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Which is why a lot of people lost their jobs in June when some employers were too tight even to do this.


Sure, although plenty of employers will still have had nothing coming in to pay wages with in June too.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I see the Secretary of the TUC has "demanded" 80% of wages to be paid if lockdown happens again. Absolute waste of space - 80% of low pay is fucking awful especially when you are already struggling. I understand that this is what we were given before, but it's shortsighted.


Full wages up to 25k. That would piss some people off.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> Sure, although plenty of employers will still have had nothing coming in to pay wages with in June too.


Mine did, the tight wanker. Never mind, done me a favour.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

Presumably it will be that nobody can meet up with anyone outside their household (or bubble)?
[/QUOTE]
bimble 
Already the rule in tier 3 areas. Perhaps the whole country will be tier 3..


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Business cunt roundup:









						'A new lockdown will be far worse for businesses'
					

Several entrepreneurs tell the BBC what is at stake, for their industry and wider society.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I will pick on Mullins because he is one of the worst:



> He thinks another lockdown will "finish many businesses off", and is also concerned about the toll of coronavirus restrictions on people's wellbeing.
> 
> "They're basically going the wrong way about it. The virus is going to be here for a while, we've got to learn to work around it, we can't surrender to it," he tells the BBC.
> 
> "We need to protect the elderly and vulnerable, of course, but the rest of us need to get back to work."





> "The last furlough scheme they did was too generous, it's created an atmosphere of, 'I want to work from home and stay at home'," he says.
> 
> "Boris must stand firm and ignore the fear junkies who want to play Russian roulette with our economy."



Thanks Mullins for letting your fears of what this pandemic might do to the 'work ethic' show up clearly in your shitty sentiments.

Let me cut to the core of the matter, using part of what he said:



> we've got to learn to work around it



It wont take long for me to describe what, in the real world, such a thing would require. if we place to one side all of the foam and shit, and also all of the unknowns about how much will be achievable with vaccines and mass testing, what we are left with in my book is:

To work around it and live with it differently we require a permanent change to the amount of hospital beds per person, or some radical alternative that achieves the same result. We also need a care sector that is configured differently and much better funded. There is lots of detail to that including all manner of things to do with staffing levels and size of facilities (smaller numbers are better according to care home research so far, in that for example the larger the care home the greater the risk in this pandemic).

None of those fundamental pieces of the picture that would enable us to live with this virus to a somewhat different extent are things that could be achieved quickly. And they will both require that a different proportion of the 'national wealth' be allocated to those areas in future, in a sustained manner. And these are just a few examples of other things these cunts will have to learn to live with long term as a result of this pandemic, long past the acute stages of the pandemic. So we better get used to hearing these sorts of shits going nuts that the world they knew and exploited has gone down the shitter.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Bit convenient it was leaked to the press, resulting in Johnson bringing forward the press conference from Monday, therefore not having to announce it in parliament first, thus taking the wind out of some of his backbenchers.


----------



## agricola (Oct 31, 2020)

I especially like this, from Mullins:



> Mr Mullins said his firm has attended over 200,000 house calls through the pandemic and not one employee or customer has caught the coronavirus.



This from a bloke (and a firm) who went to the Supreme Court to deny that people attending house calls on its behalf were its employees.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Yep,


miss direct said:


> Presumably it will be that nobody can meet up with anyone outside their household (or bubble)?


bimble
Already the rule in tier 3 areas. Perhaps the whole country will be tier 3..
[/QUOTE]
Yep thats what i think most likely, we are all in 'tier three' but it will have a new name, because the whole tier system is  to be forgotten about, like the 5 stage alert system before it.


----------



## AverageJoe (Oct 31, 2020)

Pushed back to five. Because they'll be watching the rugby.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Given they're doing this all quickly and in a panic (again) and they're going to have to deal with serious resistance from within the party I think an hour delay is entirely explicable tbh.


----------



## clicker (Oct 31, 2020)

Essential Halloween viewing.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 31, 2020)

I just read (some of) that beeb piece.
Those featured twunts have absolutely fuck all idea of what's really involved.

I'm involved in a very specialised small business. Sunak's new scheme isn't any real help to me.
And as most of my team all have elderly relatives and know other people in vulnerable categories I think they would all much prefer that peoples lives & the nhs were protected rather than twunts like that mullins get to keep their privileges.

tbh, the economy can wait, throwing money at it later is always an option - lost lives stay lost.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

clicker said:


> Essential Halloween viewing.



I am putting my horrific response to this behind spoilers so that people who dont want to see repurposed Eraserhead imagery dont have to.



Spoiler



EraseYerDead


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

The BBC are full on about the possibility of 4k deaths a day. Could be more locked down than we imagine.

These aren't brand new models, the 'lampshade' model we were all shown last week just didn't make sense. Where was the reduction in R coming from?


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Yeah, BBC pushing hard on the modelling and how bad it looks. Good. Wonder what/if any the resistance to the lockdown will be?


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> The BBC are full on about the possibility of 4k deaths a day. Could be more locked down than we imagine.
> 
> These aren't brand new models, the 'lampshade' model we were all shown last week just didn't make sense. Where was the reduction in R coming from?



I think it'll be a 'stay at home' instruction as in March, but schools, colleges, and universities open.


----------



## Edie (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think it'll be a 'stay at home' instruction as in March, but schools, colleges, and universities open.


I really really hope so. Do you know what time he’s doing the press conference? (Edit: see it’s five)


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think it'll be a 'stay at home' instruction as in March, but schools, colleges, and universities open.


Having looked at the modelling even that's going to be too little too late. They could preserve some level of education for under 18s if they approached it sensibly now. Unfortunately keeping unis open for the wrong reasons will probably tip it to the point where schools have to close too.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 31, 2020)

Tell you what though... now is exactly the right time to give health and care workers a pay rise. Those are the people who society is going to be depending on now not the self serving twats that awarded themselves, 3.5 % was it?


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

Hopefully no arguments about whether Tescos can sell tampons and nappies this time.


----------



## kenny g (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> The concept of 'Covid Secure' has been really damaging imo - people think that because their business follows government guidelines their premises are completely safe, when it's just not true - and it leads to them feeling hard done by (not perhaps unreasonably - making their business covid secure has cost a lot of money) when they're closed down.


If you have a relatively high number of customers for a number of months and no transmission traced back to your business I feel confident it is pretty 😇secure. Especially if decent measures are in place. My local Wetherspoon's is probably a safer place to get a beer than an over crowded supermarket on a Saturday. A chlorinated pool sans pre swim changing is safe as fuck.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> If you have a relatively high number of customers for a number of months and no transmission traced back to your business I feel confident it is pretty 😇secure. Especially if decent measures are in place. My local Wetherspoon's is probably a safer place to get a beer than an over crowded supermarket on a Saturday. A chlorinated pool sans pre swim changing is safe as fuck.



This sloppy attitude towards risk only adds up ending to the risk in such settings.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> If you have a relatively high number of customers for a number of months and no transmission traced back to your business I feel confident it is pretty 😇secure. Especially if decent measures are in place. My local Wetherspoon's is probably a safer place to get a beer than an over crowded supermarket on a Saturday. A chlorinated pool sans pre swim changing is safe as fuck.


yesterday there was some analysis released which demonstrated that Eat Out to Help Out directly and significantly contributed to a rise in cases over August. The fact that a shitty failing track & trace system hasn't linked any specific cases to your local spoons or swimming pool does not mean your local spoons or swimming pool is safe.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

I'm not convinced universities need to close. The R doesn't seem much above 1 at Cambridge University (which is the only one I know of publishing results of asymptomatic testing of all students resident in halls, there are probably others).





__





						Data from the COVID-19 testing service from October 2021 to January 2022
					

Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases each week from Monday 5 October 2020, including data from our Pooled (asymptomatic) Screening programme.




					www.cam.ac.uk
				




I think spread at certain universities is a lot more about the bars and social arenas, or insufficient measures and testing by the unis concerned.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> If you have a relatively high number of customers for a number of months and no transmission traced back to your business I feel confident it is pretty 😇secure. Especially if decent measures are in place. My local Wetherspoon's is probably a safer place to get a beer than an over crowded supermarket on a Saturday. A chlorinated pool sans pre swim changing is safe as fuck.



<off ignore >  <on ignore>


----------



## kenny g (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> yesterday there was some analysis released which demonstrated that Eat Out to Help Out directly and significantly contributed to a rise in cases over August. The fact that a shitty failing track & trace system hasn't linked any specific cases to your local spoons or swimming pool does not mean your local spoons or swimming pool is safe.


Eat out to help out included plenty of premises with very poor if not no measures in place.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> A chlorinated pool sans pre swim changing is safe as fuck.


Do I walk to the pool in my trunks or do I swim in my clothes? Am I allowed to change after the swim? I hope so cause it's chilly out.


----------



## kenny g (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> <off ignore >  <on ignore>


Thank you for your contribution!


----------



## gentlegreen (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> If you have a relatively high number of customers for a number of months and no transmission traced back to your business I feel confident it is pretty 😇secure. Especially if decent measures are in place. My local Wetherspoon's is probably a safer place to get a beer than an over crowded supermarket on a Saturday. A chlorinated pool sans pre swim changing is safe as fuck.


But people are wearing a mask in a supermarket and not hanging around so buying beer does not add to your risk unless you grow all your own food.
And Wetherspoons FFS....


----------



## kenny g (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Do I walk to the pool in my trunks or do I swim in my clothes? Am I allowed to change after the swim? I hope so cause it's chilly out.


Go swim ready as I am doing now.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

I'm not convinced swimming in your own shit is covid secure.


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 31, 2020)

Furlough technically dropped in July for an employer - although employees as they had to pick up Employers NI (13.8%) and pension (3%)

Now there are minimum income thresholds before paying either but basically it meant a company was paying for every 6th / 7th worker even if furloughed due to the ongoing employment costs (to say nothing for holiday accruals)

Maybe we need to start selling UK assets (the royal family?) to Middle East or East Asia to get us through the winter


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Go swim ready as I am doing now.



You walk back in wet trunks?


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> If you have a relatively high number of customers for a number of months and no transmission traced back to your business


How do you know this didn't happen btw?


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> You walk back in wet trunks?


He only says no pre swim change. Which presumably means you're allowed to change after. Which he believes is safe because he's been swimming in chlorine I reckon. Not sure how you chlorinate your respiratory system without drowning though.


----------



## kenny g (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> You walk back in wet trunks?


Nope. Change out of them after the swim. Look up better leisure risk assessment if interested. Anyway. Time for the swim so see ya...


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm not convinced swimming in your own shit is covid secure.


Me, swimming in my _own_ shit is probably fine.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

I decided to pop out to check my local outdoor-seating drinks establishment and it's absurdly heaving - I know it's Halloween plus the rugby's on but even so. Everyone outdoors with great ventilation but sat at tables feet away from each other at best.


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

Expect announcements at 4pm.


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Expect announcements at 4pm.



 don't hold your breath


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Expect announcements at 4pm.


It was rescheduled to 5pm. Or do you mean there'll be early leaks?

E2a: even more early leaks?


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

A few days extra to do stuff so they can natter about it in parliament:


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 31, 2020)

Peston leaking: 

No mention there of people not being allowed to meet outdoors. Wonder if they'll maintain the rule of six outdoors?


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Why does this government operate like this. Friendly journos announcing major crisis policy on Twitter two hours before the government. It's just sordid.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Why does this government operate like this. Friendly journos announcing major crisis policy on Twitter two hours before the government. It's just sordid.


Is it that this way it lessens the blow like getting your mate to tell someone the bad news so you don’t have to, maybe Johnson thinks like that.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it that this way it lessens the blow like getting your mate to tell someone the bad news so you don’t have to, maybe Johnson thinks like that.


Well it can't not be deliberate. Preston is one of the chief arse lickers at the new BBC. 

It may be to allow reactions they may not have considered to materialise and allow for last minute u turns?


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Maybe that , like a big focus group. They’ll be in there watching the reactions to peston and scribbling on napkins .


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Why does this government operate like this. Friendly journos announcing major crisis policy on Twitter two hours before the government. It's just sordid.


I literally don't think they know any other way to do things. The whole of what passes for expertise there is in the sphere of PR via leaks and contacts. They don't do anything else, they just manage PR day to day, and they don't realise that empty PR is very obvious because it's always worked for them.

ETA: they'll be assuming that whatever they do now will be generally ignored by the time of the next election when they will just monster Labour as usual and they are probably right.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I'm not convinced universities need to close. The R doesn't seem much above 1 at Cambridge University (which is the only one I know of publishing results of asymptomatic testing of all students resident in halls, there are probably others).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Cambridge is doing online lectures only.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 31, 2020)

there's a poll here ...
Boris Johnson 'considering' second national lockdown for England next week | Wiltshire Times 

currently 60:40 for and against (too much economic damage)


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I literally don't think they know any other way to do things. The whole of what passes for expertise there is in the sphere of PR via leaks and contacts. They don't do anything else, they just manage PR day to day, and they don't realise that empty PR is very obvious because it's always worked for them.
> 
> ETA: they'll be assuming that whatever they do now will be generally ignored by the time of the next election when they will just monster Labour as usual and they are probably right.


But why do they choose to announce massive news like this, by proxy on twitter, instead of at their bloody press conference on tv? I mean what is the advantage to them as they perceive it, I don’t get it.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Cambridge is doing online lectures only.



They are still doing face to face teaching, seminars etc. It’s pretty obvious that lectures are the element of least concern anyway, generally occurring in the largest of rooms with social distancing and limited interaction between students.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> But why do they choose to announce massive news like this, by proxy on twitter, instead of at their bloody press conference on tv?



It might not be from the top, could be anyone in cabinet. “Guys i’ll give you this but you owe me regarding that thing on Grindr not happening.”


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> But why do they choose to announce massive news like this, by proxy on twitter, instead of at their bloody press conference on tv?


Because they want to control how it gets out - going to Peston and the Times and so on first means they can determine the sort of spin it will get, rather than the actual press conference which goes out to everyone.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Peston leaking:
> 
> No mention there of people not being allowed to meet outdoors. Wonder if they'll maintain the rule of six outdoors?


People treating Peston like the fucking Argos customer services dept.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> They are still doing face to face teaching, seminars etc. It’s pretty obvious that lectures are the element of least concern anyway, generally occurring in the largest of rooms with social distancing and limited interaction between students.


I'm in the fifth year of my life spent at university and I've never been to a lecture in a room that could hold more than forty or fifty people and usually crowded.

And, according to what is known so far, one person. talking at length to a group of people is the ideal way to create a superspreading event.


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

I wonder how much in the way of food stocks people have?


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I wonder how much in the way of food stocks people have?


Why, you think people should stockpile food ? The food shops are staying open. There will be enough food, unless people pointlessly stockpile food, again.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 31, 2020)

Didn't they effectively use to announce this stuff to parliament first, as in announcing/debating it there before announcing it to the press?


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'm in the fifth year of my life spent at university and I've never been to a lecture in a room that could hold more than forty or fifty people and usually crowded.
> 
> And, according to what is known so far, one person. talking at length to a group of people is the ideal way to create a superspreading event.



Unis shouldn’t be giving lectures in crowded lecture theatres now, if they are they’re breaking the law and that’s not a reason why unis should be shut. IME class frequencies and thus sizes are reduced and there is social distancing in teaching rooms.

If just the lecturer is talking, is separated from the students by several metres and there is adequate ventilation, then the risk is minimal in comparison to the other scenarios students are involved in on campus.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 31, 2020)

I'm hoping medicine stocks are going to be ok. My doctors' surgery has run out of flu vaccines before even the under 65s have been vaccinated.


----------



## xenon (Oct 31, 2020)

So we've got.
1. Schools should stay open, cos it's too detrimental to children to have them closed.
2. Swimming pools should stay open, cos clorine or something and I like swimming.
3. Whetherspoons or the like, should stay open, cos I've never heard of a case being linked to their.
4. Universities should stay open, cos lecture halls are low risk, or something.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 31, 2020)

Total UK cases, according to the dashboard / worldometers have now gone past the 1,000,000 cases line, which makes the UK the ninthe member of the covid millianaire club.

Shame on you, Johnson.

Why didn't you do as SAGE suggested on 21st September and have a circuit breaker ! 
How many have died because of that decision ?


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Oct 31, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Didn't they effectively use to announce this stuff to parliament first, as in announcing/debating it there before announcing it to the press?


That's one the things that has been criticised I think. But they're cunts so nothing is a surprise anymore.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

326 ffs. On a Saturday as well


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Unis shouldn’t be giving lectures in crowded lecture theatres now, if they are they’re breaking the law and that’s not a reason why unis should be shut. IME class frequencies and thus sizes are reduced and there is social distancing in teaching rooms.
> 
> If just the lecturer is talking, is separated from the students by several metres and there is adequate ventilation, then the risk is minimal in comparison to the other scenarios students are involved in on campus.



My current lecture room has been declared Covid safe for twenty three students. It's five by seven metres at most. Ceiling lower than three metres. The lecturer is within two metres of the front row unless he stands with his back pressed against the wall. The nature of the class involves group work and student presentations. Masks are compulsory but the lecturer only wears a visor. And to emphasis this is after making changes and being declared Covid safe by the uni.


----------



## oryx (Oct 31, 2020)

I don't see much point in having another lockdown if schools and universities remain open, TBH.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> My current lecture room has been declared Covid safe for twenty three students. It's five by seven metres at most. Ceiling lower than three metres. The lecturer is within two metres of the front row unless he stands with his back pressed against the wall. The nature of the class involves group work and student presentations. Masks are compulsory but the lecturer only wears a visor. And to emphasis this is after making changes and being declared Covid safe by the uni.



Perhaps they should only close unis such yours then, that aren't using appropriate risk assessments.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Unis shouldn’t be giving lectures in crowded lecture theatres now, if they are they’re breaking the law and that’s not a reason why unis should be shut. IME class frequencies and thus sizes are reduced and there is social distancing in teaching rooms.
> 
> If just the lecturer is talking, is separated from the students by several metres and there is adequate ventilation, then the risk is minimal in comparison to the other scenarios students are involved in on campus.


This is nonsense.  Lots of universities are still doing lectures in lecture theatres for dozens of people and more.  These are the classic superspreader-risk events.  Cambridge, however, is not doing this at all.

If you want to talk about other facets of life, however: Cambridge accommodation is very different to the kind of residence you get at other universities.  And Cambridge tutorials are generally 1-to-2, not a seminar in a classroom.  Cambridge is just not a guide to how other universities are performing in this.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Very tough and new. They rushed this marketing brainstorm session didn’t they.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 31, 2020)

Keeping secondary schools and unis open is less likely to work more quickly than the full fat version in the spring.

Let's see what _they_ come up with ...

I'm already doing something akin to the near shielding I was doing in the spring.


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

I wonder which categories of businesses will be shutdown this time and if the furlough scheme will be restarted.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

How about 'the November pause to save Santa Claus'.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Perhaps they should only close unis such yours then, that aren't using appropriate risk assessments.


Because all the others are. You were talking about how lectures were safe anyway. Unis generally do have one or two large lecture halls for events and such but most lectures happen in much smaller rooms.

Also, online study can be very positive. Everything is recordable and reviewable with far less hassle than dragging a dictaphone to class and group sessions can be far more productive and less awkward. Also makes better use of time. Less of an issue for students in halls perhaps but most students in London commute.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

It'll work, even with schools and universities open.

But the reduction will be slower and longer and I expect the restrictions will have to be extended beyond early December to work.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> View attachment 236761
> Very tough and new. They rushed this marketing brainstorm session didn’t they.


So they plan to go back to the failed and discredited regional tier system after this 4 week don't-call-it-a-lockdown


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> How about 'the November pause to save Santa Claus'.



That's better than the old Eat Out To Help Spread About


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

I’m curious what the estimated compliance % will be this time compared to March.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It'll work, even with schools and universities open.



Wanna bet?

No chance with schools and uni's open.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Wanna bet?
> 
> No chance with schools and uni's open.


It will reduce infections compared to leaving things as they are today, thats all ‘work’ means isn’t it?


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It'll work, even with schools and universities open.
> 
> But the reduction will be slower and longer and I expect the restrictions will have to be extended beyond early December to work.



Define 'work'.

This will be nothing like March lockdown because you will have lots of movement with schools open. People in March were at least partially scared to move about because of the visibility of doing so. With this there will be many periods of invisibility where movement can be masked by legitimate school and work movement.

I don't share your optimism that people will adhere to rules they'll find easy to break.


----------



## BCBlues (Oct 31, 2020)

6.30 now the complete tosspots.
He probably wants to watch the rugby first


----------



## brogdale (Oct 31, 2020)

Has Tim Martin objected?


----------



## felixthecat (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Because all the others are. You were talking about how lectures were safe anyway. Unis generally do have one or two large lecture halls for events and such but most lectures happen in much smaller rooms.
> 
> Also, online study can be very positive. Everything is recordable and reviewable with far less hassle than dragging a dictaphone to class and group sessions can be far more productive and less awkward. Also makes better use of time. Less of an issue for students in halls perhaps but most students in London commute.


My masters is being done entirely on teams and is working really, really well. I'm happy not to have to drive 45mins each way - it means I can get up late and do the sessions in my pyjamas. I dont think less of it for being online, in fact I think it promotes self study.


----------



## Espresso (Oct 31, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> 6.30 now the complete tosspots.
> He probably wants to watch the rugby first


And be finished in time for Strictly. The cockwomble.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 326 ffs. On a Saturday as well



Saturdays are normal reporting days, as the figure is from Friday. It's Sun. & Mon. that tends to be low, and Tue. high as they catch-up on the weekend lag.

But 326 is still a bloody big number, considering it's almost double last Saturday's figure of 174,  and pushes up the 7-day average from 237 yesterday to 258 or 259 today taking us above a six fold increase this month.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 31, 2020)

For * a month * to work - it would have to be shutting down everything possible and with a very high level of compliance.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> 6.30 now the complete tosspots.
> He probably wants to watch the rugby first


For fucks sake seriously? Who said 6.30?


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Because all the others are. You were talking about how lectures were safe anyway. Unis generally do have one or two large lecture halls for events and such but most lectures happen in much smaller rooms.
> 
> Also, online study can be very positive. Everything is recordable and reviewable with far less hassle than dragging a dictaphone to class and group sessions can be far more productive and less awkward. Also makes better use of time. Less of an issue for students in halls perhaps but most students in London commute.



Lectures should in lecture halls or other large venues. I know a London uni that is doing for each student one hour face-to-face teaching per course per week. Should be possible to do this while using suitable rooms.

But regarding closure, I think sending sending students home would be the worst thing - cases of course shot up when all the students arrived, but seem to have stabilised now. Stopping face-to-face might make sense for some courses but not for others if it can be done safely, I don't see that banning it makes sense.

Of course if the government released all the advice, modelling and data they use, we'd be able to see where the greatest risks lay (or what they were missing data about).


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> 6.30 now the complete tosspots.
> He probably wants to watch the rugby first



No, they're panicing and arguing, and Johnson can't make a decision.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Has Tim Martin objected?
> 
> View attachment 236763


Please spare a moment for the TV news anchors having to vamp through all this.


----------



## felixthecat (Oct 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Lectures should in lecture halls or other large venues. I know a London uni that is doing for each student one hour face-to-face teaching per course per week. Should be possible to do this while using suitable rooms.



Why? I dont agree at all that lectures should be in lecture theatre - what nonsense is this?

Learning doesn't need a venue


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> It will reduce infections compared to leaving things as they are today, thats all ‘work’ means isn’t it?



Sure.  But to take such a massive step surely you want it to work more than a bit?

This will cost a lot of people their jobs and livelihoods.  I think we can do better than sort of OK.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Wanna bet?
> 
> No chance with schools and uni's open.



Yes, as all non-essential shops and all hospitality and leisure is closing. So it's a big change. I'd do more, but it will work, just slower.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 31, 2020)

xenon said:


> So we've got.
> 1. Schools should stay open, cos it's too detrimental to children to have them closed.
> 2. Swimming pools should stay open, cos clorine or something and I like swimming.
> 3. Whetherspoons or the like, should stay open, cos I've never heard of a case being linked to their.
> 4. Universities should stay open, cos lecture halls are low risk, or something.


 indeed.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> 6.30 now the complete tosspots.
> He probably wants to watch the rugby first



It'll back to bloody Monday soon.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Perhaps they should only close unis such yours then, that aren't using appropriate risk assessments.


Perhaps you shouldn't be so fucking silly.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> 6.30 now the complete tosspots.
> He probably wants to watch the rugby first


He's drunk.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Absolute joke of a country. People i know who hardly ever watch tv are sat there, as told, waiting to hear the pm tell us all what our lives are going to be like , and its a picture of the closed front door of number 10.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yes, as all non-essential shops and all hospitality and leisure is closing. So it's a big change. I'd do more, but it will work, just slower.



OK.  All proceeds to the server fund.  I say this will make a very minor difference.  Ignoring the schools remains the massive huge honking great elephant in the room.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> No, they're panicing and arguing, and Johnson can't make a decision.


Yep. Sounds like they planned to work out the details over the weekend and announce it Monday to start Wednesday, but the leak to The Times means they've bought the announcement forward to today and now they're running around like headless chickens trying to decide what exactly they're going to announce.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Absolute joke of a country. People i know who hardly ever watch tv are sat there, as told, waiting to hear the pm tell us all what our lives are going to be like , and its a picture of the closed front door of number 10.



I'm going out on a limb here but I predict he will mumble something incomprehensible and lecture us about science he blatantly doesn't understand.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

The 6.30 timing 100% fits in with the rugby.


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> OK.  All proceeds to the server fund.  I say this will make a very minor difference.  Ignoring the schools remains the massive huge honking great elephant in the room.



To keep schools open and still make a decent hit on the pandemic you need to shut pretty much everything else down. So no uni. No construction. No  non-essential manufacturing etc. etc.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> OK.  All proceeds to the server fund.  I say this will make a very minor difference.  Ignoring the schools remains the massive huge honking great elephant in the room.



Well if it's only a minor difference we're really fucked as it'll take a month to know, then we'll have to make it tighter anyway. Double plus fucked.


----------



## clicker (Oct 31, 2020)

He's struggling to get into the pumpkin onesie.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

6:30? I've already started drinking 😠


----------



## IC3D (Oct 31, 2020)

Compliance will be woeful as its unenforceable and everyone knows this now. Covid 19 is never going to be eliminated and theories that common cold varients were initially pandemics hold water. It is a balance but lockdowns are hurting people in need of medical care. I just feel we need to absorb it and provide material support for the minority that are shielding.





__





						An uncommon cold
					





					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


----------



## 2hats (Oct 31, 2020)

kenny g said:


> If you have a relatively high number of customers for a number of months and no transmission traced back to your business


Except there's no effective tracing because, well, there is next to no tracing.

In England, 23% of persons identified as positive (which is less than half of all infected) are traced and only 14% of their close contacts are reached (see performance of test, trace and isolate here).


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Absolute joke of a country. People i know who hardly ever watch tv are sat there, as told, waiting to hear the pm tell us all what our lives are going to be like , and its a picture of the closed front door of number 10.


But it's important that the BBC explain the policy clearly before the drunken sot comes on and confuses everyone.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 31, 2020)

Maybe Johnson is waiting for Matt Lucas to draft his speech for him.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

IC3D said:


> lockdowns are hurting people in need of medical care


Could you explain how this happens? There won't be much medical care to speak of for the next six months unless we bring infection rates down. I don't think you understand how hospitals work.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

Fuck sakes, delayed trick or treating for this 





trick or treating this year = spotting pumpkins and dishing out a sweet for each one she sees...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Compliance will be woeful as its unenforceable and everyone knows this now. Covid 19 is never going to be eliminated and theories that common cold varients were initially pandemics hold water. It is a balance but lockdowns are hurting people in need of medical care. I just feel we need to absorb it and provide material support for the minority that are shielding.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



WTF?

Without lockdown the hospitals will be overwhelmed with covid cases, with no hope of treating anyone else.


----------



## Sprocket. (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> How about 'the November pause to save Santa Claus'.


So stay in through November 
Or be in a coffin by December.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

Remember this graph back in March? Nothing's changed since then.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Fuck sakes, delayed trick or treating for this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wait how does your own sprog get sweets? And are you dressed up?


----------



## blairsh (Oct 31, 2020)

How much chang has Boris got ffs!?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

chilango said:


> To keep schools open and still make a decent hit on the pandemic you need to shut pretty much everything else down. So no uni. No construction. No  non-essential manufacturing etc. etc.



You cannot keep schools open and make a decent hit on the pandemic.  Obvs I hope I am wrong but every parent of teenage children I speak to paints a picture of absolute covid chaos.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Wait how does your own sprog get sweets? And are you dressed up?



We bought sweets for her, will give her one for each pumpkin she sees...


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Compliance will be woeful as its unenforceable and everyone knows this now. Covid 19 is never going to be eliminated and theories that common cold varients were initially pandemics hold water. It is a balance but lockdowns are hurting people in need of medical care. I just feel we need to absorb it and provide material support for the minority that are shielding.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



As I explained earlier, learning to live with it in the longer term means a scaling up of healthcare and other stuff that cannot be achieved in the short term.

If those who were at risk of hospitalisation were a small enough percentage of the population that some kind of shielding-based approach could take quite a lot of the weight of this pandemic, then this is an option they would have persued properly and they would not have had to resort to the more extreme stuff.

Even if shielding could magically be achieved, which it cant, It isnt enough, especially not at this stage.

And the journey of a virus from pandemic nightmare to endemic normal seasonal illness takes time, there have not been any options available in 2020 to accelerate that journey and bring us close to that destination. So at this stage it is entirely irrelevant how many people blather on about learning to live with it, or compare its possible future impact to that of the common cold. That stuff is at best some part of the long-term big picture, it doesnt change 2020's equations.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> 6:30? I've already started drinking 😠


I had three pints at the pub to steel my nerves for it and now where am I? (I was a good three metres away in the open air from any other table I'd like to add.)


----------



## zora (Oct 31, 2020)

They had a slide on Independent Sage yesterday on that, duration and case reductions with "tougher" or lesser restrictions.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

blairsh said:


> How much chang has Boris got ffs!?


None. He's drunk and waiting for his chang man to turn up so he can get it together for the telly.


----------



## Sue (Oct 31, 2020)

Was out for walk and just back -- knew this wouldn't have bloody started yet. The 4pm, then 5pm then fuck knows when thing just adds to the completely incompetent look.

Saying that, I never actually understand what Johnson's saying, I rely on you lot to interpret it for me. I wonder if I'm spectacularly thick but loads of friends are exactly the same (maybe we're all thick).


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Compliance will be woeful as its unenforceable and everyone knows this now. Covid 19 is never going to be eliminated and theories that common cold varients were initially pandemics hold water. It is a balance but lockdowns are hurting people in need of medical care. I just feel we need to absorb it and provide material support for the minority that are shielding.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You don't know what you're talking about clearly.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

I've almost finished all my booze already 😠


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> You don't know what you're talking about clearly.


It's a conspiraloons trying to adjust for a sane audience but fucking it up.


----------



## zora (Oct 31, 2020)

I am comfort eating my way through a massive bag of Lidl lebkuchen. Waiting for this and simultaneously for a call from my hopefully-soon-to-be-landlord is quite a challenge for the old nerves!


----------



## neonwilderness (Oct 31, 2020)




----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

England actually doing quite shite in the rugby so maybe he'll sack it off and surprise us at 6pm instead.

Bahnhof Strasse and Sue - Peston has given us the detail, tweets two pages back. Are you seriously waiting around to see Johnson going "but, but , but, but, the, the, the ,the," etc?

Go and have some fun.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Obviously there are arguments going on. Apparently backbenchers involved. I wonder if they're discussing schools


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> England actually doing quite shite in the rugby so maybe he'll sack it off and surprise us at 6pm instead.
> 
> Bahnhof Strasse and Sue - Peston has given us the detail, tweets two pages back. Are you seriously waiting around to see Johnson going "but, but , but, but, the, the, the ,the," etc?
> 
> Go and have some fun.



Nah, waiting on BB1 who’s engrossed in some games where she’s killing people on the internet...


----------



## Sue (Oct 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> England actually doing quite shite in the rugby so maybe he'll sack it off and surprise us at 6pm instead.
> 
> Bahnhof Strasse and Sue - Peston has given us the detail, tweets two pages back. Are you seriously waiting around to see Johnson going "but, but , but, but, the, the, the ,the," etc?
> 
> Go and have some fun.


Yes, yes I am.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I've almost finished all my booze already 😠


You've time to pop to the shops. Unless it's been leaked to them that they need to close


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Nah, waiting on BB1 who’s engrossed in some games where she’s killing people on the internet...



She's on urban?


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Obviously there are arguments going on. Apparently backbenchers involved. I wonder if they're discussing schools


The unions are calling for schools and universities to close, according to the BBC a short while ago. (UCU and another union I can't remember.) Whether that's reaching or having an effect on the clown car is another matter...


----------



## pesh (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Nah, waiting on BB1 who’s engrossed in some games where she’s killing people on the internet...


Sounds brilliant


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> You've time to pop to the shops. Unless it's been leaked to them that they need to close


I know as soon as I go out, the black door will open..besides barely anyone wears a mask in the local shop so I try to avoid it.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Can't think of anything I'd less like to do than listening to that slug flapping his lips


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

Yes I can just see Johnson in deep discussions with unions at this moment. Or yes, perhaps a concerned backbencher. One of his 80 majority.

Like fuck I can. I can see him half cut in front of a crap rugby match.


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

Neil Ferguson wants his advisory role back, from the sounds of him.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

He's running around looking for his trousers.
eta not neil furguson.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

neonwilderness said:


> View attachment 236769



Maybe they can get her on to give us her well informed opinion.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Teachers unions coming out for shutting schools.


----------



## magneze (Oct 31, 2020)

Perhaps Johnson will also resign. That'd be worth the wait.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Looks like Johnson is winning over Steve Baker. 









						Tory MP Steve Baker asks for 'careful reflection' on new COVID data
					

Conservative MP Steve Baker has asked his colleagues to  'reflect carefully' after seeing new data on COVID-19




					news.sky.com


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Teachers unions coming out for shutting schools.



Damn right.  My b-i-l got hospitalized because my sister is a teacher.  I'm not having this.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

They've let the graphs out to try and persuade the country stronger measures are needed and everyone's going 'why the fuck are the school's still open?'. That's what's happened.


----------



## magneze (Oct 31, 2020)

Utterly fucked up the message again. Stunning. If he takes questions the media should ask him if he'll resign. Bet they don't.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

Never thought I’d agree with everything David Davis MP said in a radio interview.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 31, 2020)

IMO they should shut everything, complete lockdown; but also close all the schools and cancel next year's exams so we can put the country's kids to work in the NHS and doing all of the jobs that adults would have been doing if they were allowed out and/or not sick.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

Lots of shots of the door now..

Shut the bloody schools. What's the point otherwise? It's not just about students but teachers staff and their families.


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

zora said:


> They had a slide on Independent Sage yesterday on that, duration and case reductions with "tougher" or lesser restrictions.
> 
> View attachment 236768



well that is extremely not promising.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 31, 2020)

hmm still 34 minutes left on the Italy game


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)




----------



## Espresso (Oct 31, 2020)

He's probably not going to bother his arse speaking to us at all. Leak it out to the journalists and let Rita Chakrabati tell us on the news.


----------



## xenon (Oct 31, 2020)

There'll still be a problem in university halls during this. Students aren't going to sit in their box rooms or stick to their own flat for a whole month. If they go home to their families that will demonstrate what might happen at Christmas. Not because the youth are irresponsible but cos the average room in a hall of residence isn't somewhere you want to spend days on end in.

Shutting leisure, hospitality etc will obviously have some effect but how much. There's not a lot else you can close without causing actual harm. Food shops, supermarkets, chemists need to stay open.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 31, 2020)

If I wasn't lazy I'd do an FOI request on all discussions about opening or closing universities.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 31, 2020)

Is there any furlough thing happening alongside this new lockdown or not?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Is there any furlough thing happening alongside this new lockdown or not?


Who the fuck knows? Ask Peston!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Utterly farcial to have the six o'clock news announce the new measures half an hour before the PM's twice-delayed presser and everyone already knows them as Preston leaked everything two hours ago


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

Where did the clown car's reasonable worst case scenario come from? Did they just stick a pin on a chart and go that'll do, or was it based on anyone's actual data? Because they seem to be the only ones surprised that things are this bad this soon.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Is there any furlough thing happening alongside this new lockdown or not?



We don't know because our useless oaf of a prime minister is busy watching the rugby.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Is there any furlough thing happening alongside this new lockdown or not?



Suspect that might be one of the issues they're arguing about tbh. It'll either get hinted at tonight or Sunak will say something in the next few days I expect.


----------



## Sue (Oct 31, 2020)

FFS, they're now saying 6:30. If I did this at work -- organise an important meeting for 4, then change it to 5, then 6:30 -- I'd get so much shit for looking/being completely incompetent.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> We don't know because our useless oaf of a prime minister is busy watching the rugby.



Oh get real, there's plenty of criticisms to make but that's a childish and ridiculous one.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Sue said:


> FFS, they're now saying 6:30. If I did this at work -- organise an important meeting for 4, then change it to 5, then 6:30 -- I'd get so much shit for looking/being completely incompetent.


That's presumably because you're immediately accountable to someone


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

Sue said:


> FFS, they're now saying 6:30. If I did this at work -- organise an important meeting for 4, then change it to 5, then 6:30 -- I'd get so much shit for looking/being completely incompetent.


Suggested a short while ago that it might be 'in the next hour or so'.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Sue said:


> FFS, they're now saying 6:30. If I did this at work -- organise an important meeting for 4, then change it to 5, then 6:30 -- I'd get so much shit for looking/being completely incompetent.



Sky was saying between 6.30 & 7.00.

They didn't mention what day.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Can we just have it replaced with a documentary about slugs tbh


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Did i just hear them say that this time there has to be a vote on the measures where in march that wasnt the case? 
Maybe thats whats going on, hussling for support.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Sue said:


> FFS, they're now saying 6:30. If I did this at work -- organise an important meeting for 4, then change it to 5, then 6:30 -- I'd get so much shit for looking/being completely incompetent.



Yeah, but at work I expect you're not sorting out a massive fucking mess where thousands of people's lives are at stake, and at the same time trying to convince a load of skeptics about the need for certain measures and balance out all the competing concerns.

Seriously, moaning about it being delayed is idiotic imo.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Christ the BBC reporting is terrible, I never watch it and it's truly bad


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Oh get real, there's plenty of criticisms to make but that's a childish and ridiculous one.



Is it childish and ridiculous to point out that Johnson should be able to show up for his own press conference on time? If so you'd better let everyone else on this thread know.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, but at work I expect you're not sorting out a massive fucking mess where thousands of people's lives are at stake, and at the same time trying to convince a load of skeptics about the need for certain measures and balance out all the competing concerns.
> 
> Seriously, moaning about it being delayed is idiotic imo.


Nonsense. Why call a press conference before you have something concrete and agreed to announce?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Christ the BBC reporting is terrible, I never watch it and it's truly bad



Sky is better IMO.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Nonsense. Why call a press conference before you have something concrete and agreed to announce?



It was rushed from Monday due to the serious and pressing nature of the problem. We have no idea what has happened behind the scenes. A backbench revolt? More data just come out? Bargaining off competing factions? Talking to the devolved leaders? Deciding/arguing on the restrictions to bring it? Fuck knows, but entirely understandable it gets delayed imo. Suggesting it's because he's watching rugby is just deluded.


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Can we just have it replaced with a documentary about slugs tbh


It is about slugs like the slugs johnson and cummings


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Oh get real, there's plenty of criticisms to make but that's a childish and ridiculous one.



It's entirely feasible.

Your suggestion they are thrashing out a deal about furlough, minutes before going on TV to announce major policy, is more ridiculous.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 31, 2020)

QUOTE="LynnDoyleCooper, post: 16791119, member: 65283"]Suggesting it's because he's watching rugby is just deluded.
[/QUOTE]

this is Boris


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Nonsense. Why call a press conference before you have something concrete and agreed to announce?


Yep this, another entirely unforced and totally avoidable fuckup, they could have just kept to the plan of doing this on monday if they were this clueless. 
And even this, telling people it will be at 4 then 5 then 6.30 will further erode any remaining trust that they have a clue what they're doing, and right now that matters.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> It is about slugs like the slugs johnson and cummings



Preferably voiced by David Attenborough


----------



## Pickman's model (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Preferably voiced by David Attenborough


And involving a squashing


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Your suggestion they are thrashing out a deal about furlough, minutes before going on TV to announce major policy, is more ridiculous.



That's fucking _exactly _how they work and have worked for months in this.


----------



## Sue (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, but at work I expect you're not sorting out a massive fucking mess where thousands of people's lives are at stake, and at the same time trying to convince a load of skeptics about the need for certain measures and balance out all the competing concerns.
> 
> Seriously, moaning about it being delayed is idiotic imo.



I'm sorry but if you announce you're doing something, sort out when the fuck you're going to do it and stick to it. I mean what kind of message does it convey if you're literally still working out what you're going to say/what your strategy is on such an important issue? FFS. Makes you look completely incompetent.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

I'm starting to think my preferred metaphor may be an insult to slugs tbh, I mean birds and hedgehog eat them and they're probably useful for soil etc. I don't think the same goes for the inhabitant of downing street


----------



## zora (Oct 31, 2020)

You can't deny it's got a certain sense of occasion though, all of us sitting here glued to the screens with our popcorn and pitchforks!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It was rushed from Monday due to the serious and pressing nature of the problem. We have no idea what has happened behind the scenes. A backbench revolt? More data just come out? Bargaining off competing factions? Talking to the devolved leaders? Deciding/arguing on the restrictions to bring it? Fuck knows, but entirely understandable it gets delayed imo. Suggesting it's because he's watching rugby is just deluded.


It's a good job I didn't suggest that, then.

Why announce a press conference before you've had those conversations? I don't doubt there are details being thrashed out as we speak but surely this is all the wrong way round?


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Sue said:


> I'm sorry but if you announce you're doing something, sort out when the fuck you're going to do it and stick to it. I mean what kind of message does it convey if you're literally still working out what you're going to say/what your strategy is on such an important issue? FFS. Makes you look completely incompetent.



They _are_ (almost) completely incompetent. Suggesting they're watching rugby suggests they have it all sorted and they're calm and know what's going on.


----------



## magneze (Oct 31, 2020)

It is incompetence. If this wasnt a pandemic then I wouldn't be surprised to see huge numbers of people on the streets demanding new elections or something.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)




----------



## Sue (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They _are_ (almost) completely incompetent. Suggesting they're watching rugby suggests they have it all sorted and they're calm and know what's going on.


I didn't suggest they were watching the rugby.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They _are_ (almost) completely incompetent. Suggesting they're watching rugby suggests they have it all sorted and they're calm and know what's going on.



I don't know or care what the fuck they're doing I just know governing competently ain't it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Can we move on from for SpookyFrank's dumb, but throw away, comment about rugby?


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

zora said:


> You can't deny it's got a certain sense of occasion though, all of us sitting here glued to the screens with our popcorn and pitchforks!


Perfect summary


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Sue said:


> I didn't suggest they were watching the rugby.


----------



## Sue (Oct 31, 2020)

(Where the vomit reaction emoji when you need it?)


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

That's an image I didn't want to have


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

In the meantime, I've had two sets of children take some sweets from the wall. Glad I put some out now.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, but at work I expect you're not sorting out a massive fucking mess where thousands of people's lives are at stake, and at the same time trying to convince a load of skeptics about the need for certain measures and balance out all the competing concerns.


Neither is Johnson.


----------



## xenon (Oct 31, 2020)

Bollocks, I'm off to the pub.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Late. Again.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Hope you're having a 'substantial meal' there xenon because everyone knows that stops SARS-COV-2 in its tracks


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

I'm gonna put on the exotic marigold hotel film at quarter to. Had enough of this waffling.. just heard something about being able to meet one person but wasn't listening properly... anyone catch it?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Hope you're having a 'substantial meal' there xenon because everyone knows that stops SARS-COV-2 in its tracks



Ha ha.

Oh, gallows humour.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Is he on yet? I can't face actually listening to the cunt, I was hoping for commentary.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

If you cant stand the media talking heads the official youtube stream is here, and had a start time of 6.45pm although the pre-show graphics and muzak is already running now.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)




----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Is he on yet? I can't face actually listening to the cunt, I was hoping for commentary.


Nope.


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> If you cant stand the media talking heads the official youtube stream is here, and had a start time of 6.45pm although the pre-show graphics and muzak is already running now.



I'm enjoying the disappointing support acts. On repeat.


----------



## neonwilderness (Oct 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Late. Again.


World beating


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

Right. Rugby has finished. Any time now.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

neonwilderness said:


> World beating


Bishop bashing more like.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

I like the way the newsreader said "professor Gupta"


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

FFS, BBC has that bloody idiot Sunetra Gupta on, talking complete nonsense as usual.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

I can’t decided between the BBC’s inane interviews on bad webcams or Sky’s repeated global weather map holding music.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 31, 2020)

Gupta's alternative plan is 'surely there must be something else we can do' which I'm sure we can all get behind just as soon as she lets us all know what it is.


----------



## flypanam (Oct 31, 2020)

The delays suggest they didn’t know the rugby was on today.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 31, 2020)

Well to be fair to her a massive investment into the health and care services was/is a pretty good idea.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Gupta's alternative plan is 'surely there must be something else we can do' which I'm sure we can all get behind just as soon as she lets us all know what it is.



This line of reasoning has been somewhat tiresome for a long time now.


Protect the vulnerable
OK great, how do we do that?
Protect the vulnerable
Yes but care workers and nurses have homes and children
Protect the vulnerable
fuck off


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 31, 2020)

What's this Gupta character a professor of? Hindsight? The bleeding obvious?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Gupta's alternative plan is 'surely there must be something else we can do' which I'm sure we can all get behind just as soon as she lets us all know what it is.


Yeah, it was very noticeable her answer to the question "what's the alternative" was "well, here's what we should have done in June".

YES BUT WE DIDN'T SO WHAT DO WE DO _NOW_??


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

At fucking last!


----------



## belboid (Oct 31, 2020)

You never know, we might get some sense from Johnson today.  It is a blue moon, after all.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Well to be fair to her a massive investment into the health and care services was/is a pretty good idea.


Was thinking this today. Massive expansion of the health service right now would make sense from every possible angle given the economy is collapsing round their ears. They're so dependant on overseas staff now that the training structures to do it probably no longer exist though.


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> At fucking last!


You didn't fall for that static image of the door again did you, silly!


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Wow.

Only nearly 3 hours late. He is getting serious about the tens of thousands of dead people.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Slides are fucked on our telly - cropped out


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Slides are barely visible and this waffling is barely coherent.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 31, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> What's this Gupta character a professor of? Hindsight? The bleeding obvious?


As obvious as it may be I did hear any politicians talk about some sort of re-organisation of the health and care sectors into a 'war' footing. Shifting people into employment into these sectors, thus providing jobs as well as protecting people.

Don't get me wrong I think Gupta's line is dangerous but she is not arguing exactly the same tripe as, say, John Redwood.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 31, 2020)

Sound is buggered as well.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Slides are fucked on our telly - cropped out



BBC’s fault, it’s ok on the other streams.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Mation said:


> You didn't fall for that static image of the door again did you, silly!


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Mation said:


> You didn't fall for that static image of the door again did you, silly!



There was a cat on the doorstep earlier and I saw it move because I was specifically checking that it wasnt just a still image.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Slides are barely visible and this waffling is barely coherent.



Witty sounds on the point of resignation


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Slides are fucked on our telly - cropped out


what. the fuck. is wrong with them? How can they get even this wrong ffs?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

So the exponential rise started in September.

What happened in September..?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Fu


Mr.Bishie said:


> Witty sounds on the point of resignation


He always does.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> So the exponential rise started in September.
> 
> What happened in September..?


Lol, just what I said


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

You would think at some point over the past EIGHT MONTHS they would have employed someone who was good at science communication.

Except, not for this government.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Is there any furlough thing happening alongside this new lockdown or not?


We won't know till Wednesday


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

presentation is utterly dire , who are they talking to?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.



Yup. You’re all gunna die & no fucks given.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> So the exponential rise started in September.
> 
> What happened in September..?



I can only assume we all started going to restaurants in an entirely different way then we did in August and July.  We've only ourselves to blame.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

He just said they've had those projections for two weeks. The one that says 4k a day dead. They've had that for two weeks.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> So the exponential rise started in September.
> 
> What happened in September..?


Think it's more about what happened in August ("Back to work everyone, don't forget to pop into a Subway on your way home.")


----------



## T & P (Oct 31, 2020)

Haven’t checked the last few pages so apologies if this has been said already, but clearly the cunts haven’t even finished writing Boris’s speech yet have they


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Has he sobered up yet? 

Nobody needs unreadable slides delivered by a waffling drone. Most people want a lockdown but they want to know when and how.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 31, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Think it's more about what happened in August ("Back to work everyone, don't forget to pop into a Subway on your way home.")


End of August is when schools started going back in Scotland.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Patrick Errrr Errrr Vallence


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 31, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> presentation is utterly dire , who are they talking to?


elbows.


----------



## Ax^ (Oct 31, 2020)

the lack of pie charts was disappointing


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Do they think that dull, confusing graphs looks "serious and professional"?


----------



## Cloo (Oct 31, 2020)

I wonder, given they're not shutting schools now, whether their backup is shut schools in December - only 3 weeks missed (for at least one of which not much learning happens anyway), adding up to 5 weeks off. Unfortunately would be cancelled out by all the people going round to each others' for Christmas.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Think it's more about what happened in August ("Back to work everyone, don't forget to pop into a Subway on your way home.")



Yup.  Lets stay on script.  Its better to ignore that massive pile of elephants (next to the bodies of the elderly) over there. 

Meh.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

i can't believe that i am better at powerpoint slideshows than the government is. (watching on iplayer and the top and bottom are missing, the whole time)


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I wonder, given they're not shutting schools now, whether their backup is shut schools in December - only 3 weeks missed (for at least one of which not much learning happens anyway), adding up to 5 weeks off. Unfortunately would be cancelled out by all the people going round to each others' for Christmas.


Plus, y'know, all the deaths in the meantime.

<edit: to avoid doubt, directed at the government, not you!>


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> elbows.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

the shamelessness of it. starts with i still believe that delaying this was the right thing to do.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

I want to thank my parents, I want to thank Jesus....


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Silly tool still thinks he was right to do the tier thing. Sneakily just blamed local authorities though


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Getting online notifications saying he HAS announced new restrictions. Before he has said anything about them.


----------



## Sue (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> End of August is when schools started going back in Scotland.


Mid August.


----------



## eatmorecheese (Oct 31, 2020)

#worldbeating

The waffling haystack waffles


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

To be fair he did say "no responsible prime minister..."


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Humble in the face of nature is one of todays Johnson quotes. Back to Cameron and the pig head.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

lulz he actually thinks he can lecture us about morality.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Witty sounds on the point of resignation


Al lot of us are resigned to the point of resignation


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

HUMBLED IN THE FACE OF NATURE

ffs


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Silly tool still thinks he was right to do the tier thing. Sneakily just blamed local authorities though


We thought we could rely on strong local leadership - but apparently it needed fucking up at a national level.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

The man used the word "moral". Just let that sink in a mo
(


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

I know it's a stupid thing to get hung up on, but I'm amazed they still think that hair's a good idea.

I get that it's his 'brand', it's got him this far, but eight months into a global pandemic is _maybe_ the time to reconsider?


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> elbows.



And I use those sorts of graphs here to make a case and attempt to improve knowledge all the way along. It doesnt resonate with everyone but I think it has an important place and I'm not into lowest common denominator dumbing down.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

If there was ever an explanation why they leak all this stuff beforehand, it's because they know what happens when they let this waffling cunt out onto a live stream.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

S☼I said:


> To be fair he did say "no responsible prime minister..."





S☼I said:


> The man used the word "moral". Just let that sink in a mo
> (


I bumped on both of those too!


----------



## prunus (Oct 31, 2020)

Spoiler



Cunt


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

God, now he's mansplaining / gaslighting us about the NHS.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Fucking pathetic announcement, it's waffling and stupid


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Has he sobered up yet?
> 
> Nobody needs unreadable slides delivered by a waffling drone. Most people want a lockdown but they want to know when and how.



They gave him a cheeky bump of K off Dom’s Amex and that should straighten him out for the next 20 minutes or so.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 31, 2020)

Furlough scheme extended through November


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Furlough scheme extended through November


"There will be differences" = "you won't get as much"

(One would imagine)


----------



## Indeliblelink (Oct 31, 2020)

"For the first time in our lives the NHS won't be there for us" - He's obviously never tried to get a doctors appointment round my way.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

this is so pathetic. 
he mumbled it, the you must stay at home line, eyes down. 
very obvious he did not want to have to say it at all.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

People can meet with family this Christmas as long as its 6 feet underground and they had a positive test within 28 days of their death.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 31, 2020)

Indeliblelink said:


> "For the first time in our lives the NHS won't be there for us" - He's obviously never tried to get a doctors appointment round my way.



Not the last time in our lives if him and his asset-stripping, free marketer buddies have their way.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

Hear that teachers?  He's grateful.


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

Clinically vulnerable people shouldn't go to work if they're not able to work from home but also no shielding? Did I hear that right?


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 31, 2020)

Stay at home from Thursday.

No, you fucking cockwomble, midnight tonight or even better NOW !!!


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Hear that teachers?  He's grateful.


Clap-clap-clap


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

He has been comparatively coherent. For him.


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> They gave him a cheeky bump of K off Dom’s Amex and that should straighten him out for the next 20 minutes or so.



The drip just came back on him though.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

What are the new restrictions?


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Clap-clap-clap


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What are the new restrictions?


Same as the first lockdown apart from schools aren't closing, basically.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What are the new restrictions?


Everything closed except education and medical services. You can leave your house for these, essential shopping, outdoor exercise, to take food to vulnerable people or to escape violence.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

Anyone believe the quick turnaround test bit?

No, thought not.


----------



## 8115 (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Same as the first lockdown apart from schools aren't closing, basically.


You go to work if you can't work from home such as construction and manufacturing. That's a big change.


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What are the new restrictions?



WFH where possible.
No non-essential retail.
Exercise with one other person.
No household mixing, though children can move between households of separated parents.
Education still going.
Pubs and restaurants takeaway/delivery only.
e2a:
Single person households can form a bubble with another household.
Furlough extended 'through November'.
No mention of self-employed.
Construction and manufacturing should still work.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

Apart from the magic test thing, nothing about test and trace, which is fair enough as they are hardly going to admit that it's fucked.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What are the new restrictions?


exactly! he totally mumbled it in 3 seconds. 
Stay at home apart from for work, childcare, school, emergencies, .. err. bubble . 

then loads of fluff and nonsense spoken clearly and leisurely.


----------



## 8115 (Oct 31, 2020)

Cid said:


> WFH where possible.
> No non-essential retail.
> Exercise with one other person.
> No household mixing, though children can move between households of separated parents.
> ...


I think you can bubble if you are a single person.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> You go to work if you can't work from home such as construction and manufacturing. That's a big change.


It was the case. Its just official now.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 31, 2020)

Well we all knew it was coming but it's still a punch to the gut ain't it?


----------



## chilango (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> You go to work if you can't work from home such as construction and manufacturing. That's a big change.



i.e. you have to go to work if your boss wants you to.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> I think you can bubble if you are a single person.


yes. if you are an adult living alone you are supposed to choose one other household and they become your support bubble.


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> I think you can bubble if you are a single person.



Oh, and furlough extended.


----------



## 8115 (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> It was the case. Its just official now.


I didn't think it was the case in the first lockdown, not sure though.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

Cid said:


> Oh, and furlough extended.


But at what level ?


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> But at what level ?



Not specified. I think it was implied it's continuing as it has been. I'm not furloughed, so don't know specifics.
No mention of self-employed.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

did he mention gyms? (not that i care either way but friend's freaking out)


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

Fuck me.  Did he just say the r was never lower than 1?


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)




----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> You go to work if you can't work from home such as construction and manufacturing. That's a big change.



That's what happened in the first lockdown tho.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Fuck me.  Did he just say the r was never lower than 1?


Don't think so. The graph showed it hovering round 0.9 June and July. If they'd smashed it down to 0.5 in the summer we might have a chance but it barely shrunk at all.


----------



## Raheem (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> did he mention gyms? (not that i care either way but friend's freaking out)


He didn't, but I think the overall shape of things (all non-essential leisure and hospitality is closing) means it's virtually certain they will be shut.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> Everything closed except education and medical services. You can leave your house for these, essential shopping, outdoor exercise, to take food to vulnerable people or to escape violence.



Im sure women will be reassured knowing they’re not breaking any rules when fleeing from violence in the home.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

lol she asked him about why he called a national lockdown a disaster the other day. he blames the scientists for confusing him with their many  different models.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> did he mention gyms? (not that i care either way but friend's freaking out)



Closed clearly.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

Cid said:


> Not specified. I think it was implied it's continuing as it has been. I'm not furloughed, so don't know specifics.
> No mention of self-employed.


Its about 60% at the moment isn't it? And yes you are right no mention of the self employed. If I'm right this is going to push some people completely over the edge , and what about mortgage/rent measures?


----------



## Indeliblelink (Oct 31, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Stay at home from Thursday.
> 
> No, you fucking cockwomble, midnight tonight or even better NOW !!!


Parliament need to pass it


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> At fucking last!


This is a funny definition of 1600, We were going to watch it and then I would order a takeaway aftewards., At 1700 MrsQ said order the food Mick, I'm not going to go hungry waiting for this tool. Food was ordered, went for it at 1730, Ate it, washed up, still fucking waiting. Watched Humphrey the cat sat on the doorstep, watched the guy in yellow come out of No 10, I reckoned he was a cop, Mrs Q reckoned pizza delivery. Waited some more till finally the floppy haired one appeared at nearly 10 to 7.
He still pretty much said what everyone predicted what took so long ??


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)

Indeliblelink said:


> Parliament need to pass it



At their own glacial pace. No reason they can’t start debating now and have it done by Monday morning.


----------



## Callie (Oct 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Anyone believe the quick turnaround test bit?
> 
> No, thought not.


There will be one/some. If it's what I think it is there will likely be rapid turnaround and increased capacity BUT the antigen tests are less sensitive and specific than the PCR test, which already has its limitations. There are also other alternative PCR type methods but to my knowledge none are up and running or as good as current PCR tests. We'll see.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Anyone believe the quick turnaround test bit?
> 
> No, thought not.



What was that?


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> There was a cat on the doorstep earlier and I saw it move because I was specifically checking that it wasnt just a still image.


The cat was the high spot of the whole thing


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

Guardian is streaming it all if anyone is enough of a masochist


----------



## A380 (Oct 31, 2020)

It will be hilarious if his Buffton Tuffton contingent rebel and he is forced to rely on Labour votes....


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

Cid said:


> Oh, and furlough extended.





The39thStep said:


> But at what level ?



Boris doesn’t do detail, so expect to find out Monday or Tuesday.


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> You go to work if you can't work from home such as construction and manufacturing. That's a big change.



Construction and manufacturing were both allowed to continue during the first lockdown. It was framed more severely, but the message was always that you could travel to work if no other option. Early on many firms took furlough anyway, but the government moved to actively encouraging the construction sector to get back to work fairly quickly. 

That's how I remember it anyway, and it did directly apply to me.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 31, 2020)




----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Boris doesn’t do detail, so expect to find out Monday or Tuesday.



He’ll wheel out Sunak on Monday to do that dirty work.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

its' a small comfort than Johnson thought being PM would be a laugh and it's clearly been very disappointing for him.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> I think you can bubble if you are a single person.


Lots to think/guess about then


----------



## 8115 (Oct 31, 2020)

Cid said:


> Construction and manufacturing were both allowed to continue during the first lockdown. It was framed more severely, but the message was always that you could travel to work if no other option. Early on many firms took furlough anyway, but the government moved to actively encouraging the construction sector to get back to work fairly quickly.
> 
> That's how I remember it anyway, and it did directly apply to me.


Thanks, I remembered otherwise but I was questioning myself.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Shitting hell to this all though. Fucking grim days ahead in all sorts of ways.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Hear that teachers?  He's grateful.


I shouted "fuck off!" at this point prompting an argument from Mrs SI


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> He’ll wheel out Sunak on Monday to do that dirty work.


Will it be broadcast from 'off shore'?


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> What was that?



*'Immediate prospect' of rapid Covid tests*
The PM says: "I am optimistic that this will feel very different and better by the spring."
He says this is because of the "immediate prospect" of rapid turnaround coronavirus tests.
"Over the next few days and weeks we plan a steady but massive expansion in the deployment of these quick turnaround tests," he says.
They could be used to test "whole towns and even whole cities", says the PM, adding that the programme will "begin in a matter of days" and will be assisted by the military.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

Vallance optimistic about the rapid testing too, which carries some actual weight rather than Johnson's empty promises.


----------



## MickiQ (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Boris doesn’t do detail, so expect to find out Monday or Tuesday.


Big Picture Guy


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

The rapid testing stuff is a real part of the future, its the speed at which they are preapred to scale it up that is the big unknown and where people are right to be skeptical.

What he was on about today sounds like a heated up version of this previous saliva test plan:

       Covid-19 tests to be offered to all Redcar residents


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> did he mention gyms? (not that i care either way but friend's freaking out)



Iirc he made some mention of leisure facilities. But yes, they'll be closed.


----------



## Espresso (Oct 31, 2020)

The way he gave stern looks to Whitty and Vallance when he said that the scientists were gloomy made me swear a very lot.
He's incredible.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Vallance optimistic about the rapid testing too, which carries some actual weight rather than Johnson's empty promises.



It’s going to be handed out to Serco.

I don’t think I need to say anything else.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Espresso said:


> The way he gave stern looks to Whitty and Vallance when he said that the scientists were gloomy made me swear a very lot.
> He's incredible.



He is parroting the sort of language the Daily Mail have been using this last week, repeatedly calling the experts gloomy on its front page. And then tries to bend it in a different direction by pointing out the areas where they are optimistic and are emitting rays of sunshine from various orifices.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Absolute refusal to answer first two press questions


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

He's proper rattled.  A mess of a human being.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 31, 2020)

Indeliblelink said:


> Parliament need to pass it


But they don't need to take until Thursday ...

In the meantime ;
a) loads of people will do things that result in super-spreader events - which will push the infection rate up even further before the "lockdown" starts.
We've already seen that the former occurs - I refer you to the scenes in Blackpool before the regional restrictions ...
b) panic buy stuff so the vulnerable can't get bog roll and the like ...

I don't think keeping secondary schools and the universities open is a good idea, both seem to be sources of infection clusters that spill out into the wider community ...


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

Rays of fucking sunshine.


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 31, 2020)

Give him a break. Six nations decider starts in less than half an hour.


----------



## Hollis (Oct 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> *'Immediate prospect' of rapid Covid tests*
> The PM says: "I am optimistic that this will feel very different and better by the spring."
> He says this is because of the "immediate prospect" of rapid turnaround coronavirus tests.
> "Over the next few days and weeks we plan a steady but massive expansion in the deployment of these quick turnaround tests," he says.
> They could be used to test "whole towns and even whole cities", says the PM, adding that the programme will "begin in a matter of days" and will be assisted by the military.



I'm sure this has been covered to death on here, but lockdown is ultimately a failure of policy - South Korea has this sorted months ago..   There's a good article on 'Western Exceptionalism'  posted on twiter explaining our response...

The West has failed – US and Europe have made a mess of handling the crisis

Also relevant on S Korea

What’s Behind South Korea’s COVID-19 Exceptionalism?


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Its about 60% at the moment isn't it? And yes you are right no mention of the self employed. If I'm right this is going to push some people completely over the edge , and what about mortgage/rent measures?


There's a feeling now the south is in it then its going to be 80% rather than the 60 odd % that Manchester and the North got in Tier3.


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> *'Immediate prospect' of rapid Covid tests*
> The PM says: "I am optimistic that this will feel very different and better by the spring."
> He says this is because of the "immediate prospect" of rapid turnaround coronavirus tests.
> "Over the next few days and weeks we plan a steady but massive expansion in the deployment of these quick turnaround tests," he says.
> They could be used to test "whole towns and even whole cities", says the PM, adding that the programme will "begin in a matter of days" and will be assisted by the military.


We are so doomed.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> He's proper rattled.  A mess of a human being.


You think so? He looks healthier and apart from saying Spetember instead of November I didn't notice any major clangers. He's obviously not happy about it but we know he doesn't run the country anyway.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 31, 2020)

Jesus, what a floundering bullshitter. The tier system would have worked had it not failed to work because there was too much Covid nationally, apparently


----------



## Sweet FA (Oct 31, 2020)




----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

brilliant halloween tho


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Furlough scheme extended through November



And, once again no mentioned of the self-employed, cunts.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 31, 2020)

The media are fucking OBSESSED with Christmas


----------



## Spandex (Oct 31, 2020)

Did they cut the bit where Johnson apologises to the nation, adding some clever quote about Odysseus not learning from his mistakes, hangs his head in shame and reigns his position in disgrace? That's what he should be doing about now having fucked everything up so badly, again, and caused thousands of people to die, again, by his ongoing ineptitude.


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> But they don't need to take until Thursday ...
> 
> In the meantime ;
> a) loads of people will do things that result in super-spreader events - which will push the infection rate up even further before the "lockdown" starts.
> ...



Afaik they do actually have additional powers for public health emergencies. They didn't use them last time... I have no idea of the reasoning though.


----------



## gentlegreen (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> You think so? He looks healthier and apart from saying Spetember instead of November I didn't notice any major clangers. He's obviously not happy about it but we know he doesn't run the country anyway.


Must be all the exposure to Trump recently, but he came across surprisingly well...


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Almost feel sorry for the poor bastards who have pegged this guy as their great hope and leader.

Some of them probably genuinely believed it, 'n' all.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> The rapid testing stuff is a real part of the future, its the speed at which they are preapred to scale it up that is the big unknown and where people are right to be skeptical.
> 
> What he was on about today sounds like a heated up version of this previous saliva test plan:
> 
> Covid-19 tests to be offered to all Redcar residents



I know I am selfish, but fast tests being part of life is what will get travel going again, for better or worse. Germany is happy with LAMP tests; take one at check in, 15 mins later you get the all-clear to fly. LAMP tests are 85-90% accurate vs PCR tests which are 95% accurate, that’s good enough for Germany and good enough for me. But in the U.K. nothing is happening, IAG posted a five billion pound loss yesterday, U.K. government reaction has been to stick fingers in ears. Are they really willing to let the aviation sector die? Would be good for the environment I guess...


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> You think so? He looks healthier and apart from saying Spetember instead of November I didn't notice any major clangers. He's obviously not happy about it but we know he doesn't run the country anyway.



It was in the eyes.  It was what he didn't say.  He looked scared, I've never seen that before.

Sure, he's lost a bit of weight.  He got very ill and we all pay for his expensive personal trainer.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The media are fucking OBSESSED with Christmas


yeah its ridiculous now, verging on the offensive tbh. Half the questions in that brief opportunity were about bloody eating turkey for jesus in 2 months time? idiotic.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


>



Suez? WTF remembers that?


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Suez? WTF remembers that?



People who took history A-levels at Eton 40 years ago.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Ha ha.
> 
> Oh, gallows humour.



'Nah bruv this person just grabbed a few chips, reckon we're good to go down their respiratory tract'


----------



## kabbes (Oct 31, 2020)

What they’ve never done is shown us predictions for what happens to their graphs with the extra measures


----------



## gentlegreen (Oct 31, 2020)

I'm looking forward to less traffic again, but there isn't the consolation of sunshine.

Apparently I now qualify as "vulnerable".. ...

I hope Screwfix stays open as it's click and collect...


----------



## agricola (Oct 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


>




fairly sure there is a much more apt comparison when it comes to disasterous policies from a Tory PM that almost destroys the country than Suez


----------



## quiet guy (Oct 31, 2020)

Badgers said:


> We won't know till Wednesday


Because they won't have made any definite decisions until Wednesday morning.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

quiet guy said:


> Because they won't have made any definite decisions until Wednesday morning.


No. That gives their voter base time to travel to their second homes and move money off shore.


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2020)

kabbes said:


> What they’ve never done is shown us predictions for what happens to their graphs with the extra measures



because they don't know how the masses will react i'd imagine. i think they were surprised first time around that compliance was so good. 

Indy Sage presented some scenarios forecasting rates of decline yesterday.


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I'm looking forward to less traffic again, but there isn't the consolation of sunshine.



I dunno, check the weather for the first day of lockdown. Looks good enough for a nice ride.


----------



## quiet guy (Oct 31, 2020)

Is there a forecast on how many times Dom breaks the next lockdown?


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

I know its trivial, but hoping I'll be able to get a haircut on Monday. I've been putting it off and off but am really starting to resemble a bedraggled scarecrow. A month more won't help.

Also wondering if my volunteering will go ahead. Meant to be starting at a primary school once a week from next week. Sorry this should probably all go in personal consequences but 😒


----------



## gentlegreen (Oct 31, 2020)

Cid said:


> I dunno, check the weather for the first day of lockdown. Looks good enough for a nice ride.


I'm worried the local cycle routes will be full of furloughed Strava wankers again....


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Can you still go for walks with a person outside your household / bubble or not?


----------



## 8115 (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Can you still go for walks with a person outside your household / bubble or not?


I think you can meet one other person outside.


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> Can you still go for walks with a person outside your household / bubble or not?



I thought he was ambiguous about that. He said outside exercise with one person in another household I think, but then also said no household mixing, so I was unclear if that first one meant single people in bubbles or just anyone.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Oct 31, 2020)

It's not like anyone will check or care.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> I think you can meet one other person outside.


Thank god for that. My relationship has become very teenage like, mainly involving walks in the park....


----------



## nagapie (Oct 31, 2020)

Can you bubble with a person who has to take a train to see you 🤔


----------



## LDC (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Thank god for that. My relationship has become very teenage like, mainly involving walks in the park....



That sounds perfect tbh.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's not like anyone will check or care.


no, of course, but i really would like to know exactly what rules i am interpreting if i'm going to.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 31, 2020)

My most immediate worry is that this will result in a slashing of public transport again. Every time restrictions have been tightened services are cut the next day. With the increasing number of people back in work I am now traveling on full busses and trains on a regular basis and I can only see that getting worse now. I was only meant to be working form the office 4 days in November but as other people will now not have childcare I will have to go in a lot more and on shit and crowded public transport. Assuming I can get on at all.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

see this pisses me off. Guardian explainer: 
*Can I travel? *Most outbound international travel will be banned, aside from for business purposes. 

My parents, who are 7000 miles away, have the virus right now and might ask me to help them at short notice and i cant go because its not business?


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

What does "banned" mean? Are they going to question everyone at check in? Will there be any demand for flights?


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> see this pisses me off. Guardian explainer:
> *Can I travel? *Most outbound international travel will be banned, aside from for business purposes.
> 
> My parents, who are 7000 miles away, have the virus right now and might ask me to help them at short notice and i cant go because its not business?


Well you're allowed to leave your house to help needy people. There was no limit put on distance.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> see this pisses me off. Guardian explainer:
> *Can I travel? *Most outbound international travel will be banned, aside from for business purposes.
> 
> My parents, who are 7000 miles away, have the virus right now and might ask me to help them at short notice and i cant go because its not business?


Charge them for your help.

But yeah it's shit.


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> What does "banned" mean? Are they going to question everyone at check in? Will there be any demand for flights?


There were zero checks before.


----------



## Jay Park (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I know its trivial, but hoping I'll be able to get a haircut on Monday. I've been putting it off and off but am really starting to resemble a bedraggled scarecrow. A month more won't help.
> 
> Also wondering if my volunteering will go ahead. Meant to be starting at a primary school once a week from next week. Sorry this should probably all go in personal consequences but 😒



I think with this being a second lockdown, there’s not much difference between them now.


----------



## Jay Park (Oct 31, 2020)

agricola said:


> fairly sure there is a much more apt comparison when it comes to disasterous policies from a Tory PM that almost destroys the country than Suez



it’s that deeply entrenched nostalgia for the empire seeping out as per


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Stay at home from Thursday.
> 
> No, you fucking cockwomble, midnight tonight or even better NOW !!!



It has to be debated and voted on in parliament first.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> I think with this being a second lockdown, there’s not much difference between them now.


I dont know what that means. I wasn't in the uk for the first one.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

will they get round to deleting this tweet ?


----------



## Jay Park (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I dont know what that means. I wasn't in the uk for the first one.



almost everyone is gonna be affected now, as quite possibly they were before. Don’t see much of a diff between either thread


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> see this pisses me off. Guardian explainer:
> *Can I travel? *Most outbound international travel will be banned, aside from for business purposes.
> 
> My parents, who are 7000 miles away, have the virus right now and might ask me to help them at short notice and i cant go because its not business?



Yes you can.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

So keep the factories and schools open.  Also keep construction open which is great for me.    

Honestly what a shambles.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

The 'travel is banned unless its for business' thing is just ridiculous, because obviously unenforceable but also how can you be so thick as to announce that and not add or family emergency etc.


----------



## Jay Park (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Yes you can.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> almost everyone is gonna be affected now, as quite possibly they were before. Don’t see much of a diff between either thread


Aside from 9million attending schools and a further 2 and half million in post school education plus staff


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I know its trivial, but hoping I'll be able to get a haircut on Monday. I've been putting it off and off but am really starting to resemble a bedraggled scarecrow. A month more won't help.


do you have an appointment on Monday? if so it's all good. If not, I'd imagine they're all going to fill up pretty quick...


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

I missed it all as I was cooking and eating my tea. Can’t find anything about libraries and council services, nor cinemas. Are there going to be further announcements on restrictions?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I missed it all as I was cooking and eating my tea. Can’t find anything about libraries and council services, nor cinemas. Are there going to be further announcements on restrictions?



Don’t do anything if you don’t absolutely need to.

Simples.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I missed it all as I was cooking and eating my tea. Can’t find anything about libraries and council services, nor cinemas. Are there going to be further announcements on restrictions?


No cinema, I'd imagine no library. Dunno about other council services - probably not in person.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Don’t do anything if you don’t absolutely need to.
> 
> Simples.


That’s not simples


----------



## Badgers (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I missed it all as I was cooking and eating my tea. Can’t find anything about libraries and council services, nor cinemas. Are there going to be further announcements on restrictions?


It was mostly waffle. Check their journalist mates for the details which were leaked before the 4pm/5pm/6.30pm/6.44pm announcement from our Disgraced Prime Minister.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

Just as well I have two weeks leave booked, I guess. Will see if there are any alternatives to working from home after that. What a shit show.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

There is no sentence so meaningful and informative that it can't be rendered instantly worthless by the addition of _simples_ on the end of it.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Thank god for that. My relationship has become very teenage like, mainly involving walks in the park....



Have you considered employing them as your cleaner? They can come round as often as they like then.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 31, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> Have you considered employing them as your cleaner? They can come round as often as they like then.


Ha! Its all complicated, mainly because I'm a lodger.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

FWIW As far as I can tell the full regulations haven't yet been published - all we have is what Johnson outlined in the press conference, which probably won't cover lots of people's specific circumstances. The Guardian has a precis here, but if it isn't on there then it's unlikely anyone knows yet.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> The 'travel is banned unless its for business' thing is just ridiculous, because obviously unenforceable but also how can you be so thick as to announce that and not add or family emergency etc.




Family business. Covered.

Back in April we complied, now we don’t. The difference is Cummings.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> FWIW As far as I can tell the full regulations haven't yet been published - all we have is what Johnson outlined in the press conference, which probably won't cover lots of people's specific circumstances. The Guardian has a precis here, but if it isn't on there then it's unlikely anyone knows yet.



That's because it has to be debated & voted on in parliament first.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Both my parents' birthdays fall at the end of November. Naturally, they'd like me to visit, and they 'only' live the other side of London.

I live alone, so assume they can be my 'support bubble'? Still not sure if I should go, as it's not 'necessary', and I know other people have missed far more important things.

I really hate this kind of bollocks.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Just as well I have two weeks leave booked, I guess. Will see if there are any alternatives to working from home after that. What a shit show.



If I were you I’d cancel my two weeks’ leave in order to deal with my workplace being shut for a month.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Thank god for that. My relationship has become very teenage like, mainly involving walks in the park....


Quite like that sort of stuff tbh . Brief Encounter wouldn't have been quite the same if they had just text each other.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> FWIW As far as I can tell the full regulations haven't yet been published - all we have is what Johnson outlined in the press conference, which probably won't cover lots of people's specific circumstances. The Guardian has a precis here, but if it isn't on there then it's unlikely anyone knows yet.


Yup, and again goes to the utter incompetence with which they've handled and communicated all this. They've had _eight months _to get better at this, but I'm honestly not sure they could even if they tried.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Both my parents' birthdays fall at the end of November. Naturally, they'd like me to visit, and they 'only' live the other side of London.
> 
> I live alone, so assume they can be my 'support bubble'? Still not sure if I should go, as it's not 'necessary', and I know other people have missed far more important things.
> 
> I really hate this kind of bollocks.


Do you live by yourself?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Both my parents' birthdays fall at the end of November. Naturally, they'd like me to visit, and they 'only' live the other side of London.
> 
> I live alone, so assume they can be my 'support bubble'? Still not sure if I should go, as it's not 'necessary', and I know other people have missed far more important things.
> 
> I really hate this kind of bollocks.



Do what you need to do. If my folks are happy for me to visit (one on one) I will, regardless of some fucking crap spouted earlier.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Quite like that sort of stuff tbh . Brief Encounter wouldn't have been quite the same if they had just text each other.


My relationship with mrs B currently consists of bi-weekly walks on the west pennine moors. I guess tomorrows will be the last one for a month though.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> If I were you I’d cancel my two weeks’ leave in order to deal with my workplace being shut for a month.


No, it’s good timing for me. Means I won’t have to work from home for two of those four weeks. Absolutely shitting it for my mental health for the other two weeks. WFH means speaking on the phone all day doing a completely different job that I hate and cannot do and I’ll do anything to avoid  not doing that again. I’ll even work as a snot wiper in a Covid hospital ward rather than do that.


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

I thought you're allowed to walk outside with one other person? That's what it says in the guardian article about it


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> Do you live by yourself?


Yes.


Mr.Bishie said:


> Do what you need to do. If my folks are happy for me to visit (one on one) I will, regardless of some fucking crap spouted earlier.


I guess, but I'm trying to think of the larger picture. If everyone thinks like that, and keeps travelling, this bollocks just keeps on going. And as I alluded to in the first post, it feels kinda wrong when everyone else has been missing stuff.

Oh, and added to the mix is that I work at a uni, and will still be going on campus and interacting with students, and my brother, who lives with them, has been temping at primary schools.

They're obviously happy with me visiting, just not sure I am.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Yes


You're good then - they can be your bubble (as long as they aren't already a bubble with someone else)


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

Do what you like, compliance will be minimal. If our kids can go to school why can’t they have a play date with the same kids they are spending all day with?

It’s over, people will no longer comply, since Dom done Durham it’s been finished. They’re dreaming if they think they can go back to before he did that and they tried to cover it up.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> That’s not simples



I don’t know how it can possibly be simpler, would you like me to explain with sock puppets?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> My relationship with mrs B currently consists of bi-weekly walks on the west pennine moors. I guess tomorrows will be the last one for a month though.



Oh.  After everything you two have been through. After everything she's been and going through.  This is very sad.  What a pile of bollocks.


----------



## Espresso (Oct 31, 2020)

I am supposed to be back at work on Monday after furlough. Seven months of nothing to go in for three days. Why?
Given that I am plague central North West and I have two octogenarian parents living close by who depend on me and who are now going to hunker down for the forseeable, I am seriously considering telling work that I have the lurgy, so as to avoid having to go in for three days and potentially actually become lurgified.


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Do what you like, compliance will be minimal. If our kids can go to school why can’t they have a play date with the same kids they are spending all day with?
> 
> It’s over, people will no longer comply, since Dom done Durham it’s been finished. They’re dreaming if they think they can go back to before he did that and they tried to cover it up.



anyone using dom as an excuse for breaking the rules is a bit of a wanker tbh. i think people will generally comply, but yes, maybe not as much as last time.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I don’t know how it can possibly be simpler, would you like me to explain with sock puppets?


If you think it’s simple, then you are.
‘Need’ isn’t an absolute.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> anyone using dom as an excuse for breaking the rules is a bit of a wanker tbh. i think people will generally comply, but yes, maybe not as much as last time.



Fuck off will they. And Cummings was the wanker where joe public stopped giving a fuck.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> anyone using dom as an excuse for breaking the rules is a bit of a wanker tbh. i think people will generally comply, but yes, maybe not as much as last time.



Nah.  The government keep saying this problem doesn't apply to children.  Parents have to parent, the government should fucking govern.


----------



## klang (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Yes.
> I guess, but I'm trying to think of the larger picture. If everyone thinks like that, and keeps travelling, this bollocks just keeps on going. And as I alluded to in the first post, it feels kinda wrong when everyone else has been missing stuff.
> 
> Oh, and added to the mix is that I work at a uni, and will still be going on campus and interacting with students, and my brother, who lives with them, has been temping at primary schools.
> ...


fwiw, I just spent a week working in the town my family lives in. Would have loved to see my mum and sisters for dinner and to visit them properly as we hadn't seen each other since before covid. We all decided against it as we thought hanging out in somebody's flat was too risky. So we met for a walk. The weather was shit so the long walk ended up being very short. It was heart breaking but we are all glad we did what seemed right, regardless of whatever rules are currently in place.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Stop talking as if the far greater number of people who will break rules and quibble this time represent everyone. They dont, otherwise the polls about lockdown would have been different.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> You're good then - they can be your bubble (as long as they aren't already a bubble with someone else)


Yeah, 'legally' I'm good, just don't know if it's actually the right thing to do.


Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Do what you like, compliance will be minimal. If our kids can go to school why can’t they have a play date with the same kids they are spending all day with?
> 
> It’s over, people will no longer comply, since Dom done Durham it’s been finished. They’re dreaming if they think they can go back to before he did that and they tried to cover it up.


Fair enough, that's just not an attitude I subscribe to. There's what's legal, there's what others do, and then there's what's responsible, from a societal POV.

No worries, this is just the kind of thing I struggle with. Too many variables, can't work out the impact, and not a simple 'right' answer.

Moving on...


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Oh.  After everything you two have been through. After everything she's been and going through.  This is very sad.  What a pile of bollocks.


ah cheers - we're ok. Just can't risk her being around my kids though - or by extension around me - while they're at school.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 31, 2020)

Espresso said:


> I am supposed to be back at work on Monday after furlough. Seven months of nothing to go in for three days. Why?
> Given that I am plague central North West and I have two octogenarian parents living close by who depend on me and who are now going to hunker down for the forseeable, I am seriously considering telling work that I have the lurgy, so as to avoid having to go in for three weeks and potentially actually become lurgified.



Fuck knows what’s happening with furlough, the end of the scheme is literally tonight right?

 What does the extension mean for those going back on Monday?

Absolute shit show.


----------



## Espresso (Oct 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Fuck knows what’s happening with furlough, the end of the scheme is literally tonight right?
> 
> What does the extension mean for those going back on Monday?
> 
> Absolute shit show.


I know. 
Just when you think they can't get any worse, they astound us all.


----------



## klang (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Yeah, 'legally' I'm good, just don't know if it's actually the right thing to do.
> Fair enough, that's just not an attitude I subscribe to. There's what's legal, there's what others do, and then there's what's responsible, from a societal POV.
> 
> No worries, this is just the kind of thing I struggle with. Too many variables, can't work out the impact, and not a simple 'right' answer.
> ...


where I was working I had a few co-workers, who also had various 'bubbles'. Simple maths told us that too many people were in close contact with me to put my mum at risk. A shit situation, but it is what it is for now.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I guess, but I'm trying to think of the larger picture. If everyone thinks like that, and keeps travelling, this bollocks just keeps on going. And as I alluded to in the first post, it feels kinda wrong when everyone else has been missing stuff.
> 
> Oh, and added to the mix is that I work at a uni, and will still be going on campus and interacting with students, and my brother, who lives with them, has been temping at primary schools.
> 
> They're obviously happy with me visiting, just not sure I am.



I’ll be travelling 175 miles, granted I won’t come into contact with anyone else as I’ll be driving, but at the end of the day it’s up to my auld Ma & dad if they want me to visit, not some fucking cunt called Boris.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Fuck knows what’s happening with furlough, the end of the scheme is literally tonight right?
> 
> What does the extension mean for those going back on Monday?
> 
> Absolute shit show.



Furlough has been extended until the end of November, not sure how much clearer that could be.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Yeah, 'legally' I'm good, just don't know if it's actually the right thing to do.


I get you - I'm in a position where I could be in a bubble with several different households, but have decided against each of them in turn because of the increased risk of infection my kids bring with them, and there being clinically vulnerable people in each possible household... I think as ever you've got to balance the risks to them/you of covid infection and the risks loneliness etc bring with them too. There isn't a right answer I don't think.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Furlough has been extended until the end of November, not sure how much clearer that could be.



It has been  but there are 200 odd people at my work supposedly back on Monday but are they meant to show up or phone for password details or what? 

It’s a little short notice to be making plans.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> I’ll be travelling 175 miles, granted I won’t come into contact with anyone else as I’ll be driving, but at the end of the day it’s up to my auld Ma & dad if they want me to visit, not some fucking cunt called Boris.


Fuck Johnson, I'm not thinking about this because of Johnson or his shower of inept buffoons he calls a cabinet.

Like I've said, it's about what's right from a societal POV. If we all keep thinking "this one thing won't hurt" then that's millions of things and we're stuck in this for longer, meanwhile more people are getting sick, dying, losing their jobs, losing their homes.

We _have_ to think of this as a collective, not as isolated individuals.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

Chris witty said a good thing on the tv this eve, said there are no good options, all of the options are bad, its just a question of weighing up the least worst.


----------



## killer b (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> I’ll be travelling 175 miles, granted I won’t come into contact with anyone else as I’ll be driving, but at the end of the day it’s up to my auld Ma & dad if they want me to visit, not some fucking cunt called Boris.


what happened to you man? I remember at the start of the  Spring lockdown you were raging at people out walking in the sunshine instead of staying indoors. what changed?


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Just been chatting to my mum, we're going to see my grandma on wednesday before the new lockdown rules kick in. All through the last lockdown she was having people round to the house, going driving with friends etc. My dad doesn't really have anyone he can easily go and see and I'd never forgive myself if I/we put him at risk (I'd rather be in a bubble with him and go have walks with him outside tbh), whereas she doesn't really give a shit, she was trying to claim on the phone to my mum that she had 'exemptions' and didn't have to listen to the lockdown lol


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> I get you - I'm in a position where I could be in a bubble with several different households, but have decided against each of them in turn because of the increased risk of infection my kids bring with them, and there being clinically vulnerable people in each possible household... I think as ever you've got to balance the risks to them/you of covid infection and the risks loneliness etc bring with them too. There isn't a right answer I don't think.


Aye, as I say, they actively _want_ me to visit, even though my dad's 70+ with various health conditions. So, from an infection POV, they're apparently willing to take the risk.

But... it's only one birthday each, and I can call them, send them something. Hell, my dad's missed plenty of my birthdays in the past because he's been on holiday 

Don't know the details of your situation, but from the little you've said on here in the past few posts sounds like it's a lot harsher than mine


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Do what you like, compliance will be minimal. If our kids can go to school why can’t they have a play date with the same kids they are spending all day with?
> 
> It’s over, people will no longer comply, since Dom done Durham it’s been finished. They’re dreaming if they think they can go back to before he did that and they tried to cover it up.



People won't be able to go out because there's nowhere to go but it's dark early now and people won't think twice about having visitors in the house. In April I tutted at a neighbour who had a visitor over sitting in the garden (and I feel bad about that now she's had his baby that she was pregnant with at the time). Now I'm surprised they went to all the bother of sitting in the garden.

We've had four months of everchanging rules that never quite made sense given to us by people who not only lack the moral authority to make rules but have used every opportunity to show their contempt for the British people by blaming them for every setback. None of the changes stated today will make a jot of difference to the lives of me or my family because we weren't going anywhere anyway but we're not doing it cause of anything that morally bankrupt waste of fucking oxygen said this evening. It's the nation's deepest misfortune the virus didn't kill him and I hope he dies as soon and as painfully as possible.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> I get you - I'm in a position where I could be in a bubble with several different households...



No you can't, a single person can form a bubble with ONE other household. 



> A support bubble is a close support network between a household with only one adult in the home (known as a single-adult household) and one other household of any size. This is called making a ‘support bubble’.
> 
> Once you’re in a support bubble, you can think of yourself as being in a single household with people from the other household. It means you can have close contact with that household as if they were members of your own household.
> 
> Once you make a support bubble, you should not change who is in your bubble.











						[Withdrawn] Making a support bubble with another household
					

How you can safely expand the group of people you have close contact with during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

he knows that. Its about trying to choose which is the 'best' household to bubble with. I've interpreted the bubble to mean me plus two other people who both also live alone have no kids and work from home. Which is wrong, but on a risk rational level, i think perfectly sensible.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Fuck Johnson, I'm not thinking about this because of Johnson or his shower of inept buffoons he calls a cabinet.
> 
> Like I've said, it's about what's right from a societal POV. If we all keep thinking "this one thing won't hurt" then that's millions of things and we're stuck in this for longer, meanwhile more people are getting sick, dying, losing their jobs, losing their homes.
> 
> We _have_ to think of this as a collective, not as isolated individuals.



I hear you, ask your folks if they’re happy for you to visit. I only get to see my folks twice a year - but if they’re not happy for me to make the visit I will. But like you I’m also mindful as I work in a school! It is a dilemma but I don’t see the collective, for me & millions of others it is individualistic.[/QUOTE]


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> People won't be able to go out because there's nowhere to go but it's dark early now and people won't think twice about having visitors in the house. In April I tutted at a neighbour who had a visitor over sitting in the garden (and I feel bad about that now she's had his baby that she was pregnant with at the time). Now I'm surprised they went to all the bother of sitting in the garden.
> 
> We've had four months of everchanging rukes that never quite made sense given to us by people who not only lack the moral authority to make rules but have used every opportunity to show their contempt for the British people by blaming them for every setback. None of the changes stated today will make a jot of difference to the lives of me or my family because we weren't going anywhere anyway but we're not doing it cause of anything that morally bankrupt waste of fucking oxygen said this evening. It's ther nation's deepest misfortune the virus didn't kill him and hope he dies as soon and as painfully as possible.



Yeah, we’ll have people round and the curtains closed, be easier to break the rules than when it was in gardens...


----------



## Sue (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Fuck Johnson, I'm not thinking about this because of Johnson or his shower of inept buffoons he calls a cabinet.
> 
> Like I've said, it's about what's right from a societal POV. If we all keep thinking "this one thing won't hurt" then that's millions of things and we're stuck in this for longer, meanwhile more people are getting sick, dying, losing their jobs, losing their homes.
> 
> We _have_ to think of this as a collective, not as isolated individuals.


Yeah, various colleagues keep pointing out loopholes and saying if you do x, you're unlikely to get caught. It's doing my head in cos that's really not the point. Our CEO was saying the other day that teams should get together and have lunch etc (which would be purely a social thing) and saying it's fine because it'd be for business reasons which is, frankly, bollocks.


----------



## A380 (Oct 31, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Quite like that sort of stuff tbh . Brief Encounter wouldn't have been quite the same if they had just text each other.



There’s something in my I. LOL.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> what happened to you man? I remember at the start of the  Spring lockdown you were raging at people out walking in the sunshine instead of staying indoors. what changed?



Raging? You must have me mixed up with someone else, as I was also out walking in the sunshine.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Sue said:


> Yeah, various colleagues keep pointing out loopholes and saying if you do x, you're unlikely to get caught. It's doing my head in cos that's really not the point. Our CEO was saying the other day that teams should get together and have lunch etc (which would be purely a social thing) and saying it's fine because it'd be for business reasons which is, frankly, bollocks.


Exactly, people don't seem to grasp that it's _fucking biology_ (as well as some psychology, obviously).

It's like thinking you can stand on a broken leg because "snooker isn't really sport"*. What the government 'allows' you to do should count for very fucking little in your estimations.


*apologies to any snooker fans, I do think it's a sport, I'm portraying an idiot here.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> It is a dilemma but I don’t see the collective, for me & millions of others it is individualistic.



Concepts of collective solidarity and society may manifest in a number of forms including peer pressure. If a load of people end up criticising your stance here and perhaps calling you rude names, that would count.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 31, 2020)




----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

No alcohol takeaways from pubs etc apparantly


----------



## klang (Oct 31, 2020)

will play grounds stay open?


----------



## klang (Oct 31, 2020)

littleseb said:


> will play grounds stay open?


they will stay open I just saw.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


>




Interestingly no mention of dubious and ill advised drug deals.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2020)

looks like playgrounds are there on the list of allowed outdoor venues.








						Coronavirus: how to stay safe and help prevent the spread
					

Find out how to stay safe and help prevent the spread of coronavirus.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> Concepts of collective solidarity and society may manifest in a number of forms including peer pressure. If a load of people end up criticising your stance here and perhaps calling you rude names, that would count.



As per the (so-called rules), one household can visit another can it not? It’s about individual choices.


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> If I were you I’d cancel my two weeks’ leave in order to deal with my workplace being shut for a month.


I've also got two week's leave coming up. I'd planned to use it to lock myself down, and, as I imagine my workplace will trundle on, I'm sticking to my plan.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 31, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Interestingly no mention of dubious and ill advised drug deals.



It doesn't say I can't stand on one leg reciting the national anthem while juggling plates around me mams so I can do that.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Oct 31, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> No alcohol takeaways from pubs etc apparantly



Oh noes, can’t spend a fiver on a pint of Stella that costs a quid at the Co-Op...


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> looks like playgrounds are there on the list of allowed outdoor venues.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nothing about libraries or council services


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> As per the (so-called rules), one household can visit another can it not? It’s about individual choices.


No.

If you are in a support bubble with someone, they can visit you or vice-versa. Otherwise no household visits, even in private gardens. You can visit a public area, but only 2 _people, _not 2 complete households.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Oh noes, can’t spend a fiver on a pint of Stella that costs a quid at the Co-Op...



It really is a fucking clusterfuck of bollicks innit?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Nothing about libraries or council services


My guess is libraries will close, as it was back in March.


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

Anyone know if the rule of 6 has been cancelled?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Oh noes, can’t spend a fiver on a pint of Stella that costs a quid at the Co-Op...



Fiver?

Ha ha.

How life is in the provinces.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> My guess is libraries will close, as it was back in March.


Need to know about council services too. Why can’t they be clear from the start?


----------



## nagapie (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Need to know about council services too. Why can’t they be clear from the start?


BJ doesn't use council services, and he probably thought they'd manage to cut them all by now.


----------



## The39thStep (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Oh noes, can’t spend a fiver on a pint of Stella that costs a quid at the Co-Op...


Obviously  your not a golfer


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> No.
> 
> If you are in a support bubble with someone, they can visit you or vice-versa. Otherwise no household visits, even in private gardens. You can visit a public area, but only 2 _people, _not 2 complete households.



News to me. And probably a few million more folk too! Clusterfuck.


----------



## Sue (Oct 31, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> My guess is libraries will close, as it was back in March.


I don't think the ones here ever re-opened. Hope not anyway as I've had a book out since before lockdown. I did get an email at one point saying they'd suspended fines etc and haven't heard anything since... (Annoyingly I've only still got it out as I forgot to pick it up when I returned the others  )


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Oct 31, 2020)

It's interesting that the new guidelines still heavily emphasise hand-washing in several places, even though virtually everyone agrees that transmission via touching things is not happening.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> News to me. And probably a few million more folk too! Clusterfuck.



Yes it is news, todays news. You'll be hearing much more about it in the days and weeks ahead, dont worry.


----------



## agricola (Oct 31, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> it’s that deeply entrenched nostalgia for the empire seeping out as per



he'll be waving a bit of paper on Purley Way next


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> It's interesting that the new guidelines still heavily emphasise hand-washing in several places, even though virtually everyone agrees that transmission via touching things is not happening.


Wait, what?? I'm still washing or quarantining my deliveries for three days!


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> News to me. And probably a few million more folk too! Clusterfuck.


It's literally what's just been announced - full rules here:






						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

weltweit said:


> It is a dilemma but I don’t see the collective, for me & millions of others it is individualistic.


What do you mean? Surely this whole thing is about the collective response?


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Wait, what?? I'm still washing or quarantining my deliveries for three days!


Wow!


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

For some reason garden centres are being allowed to remain open alongside supermarkets.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> What do you mean? Surely this whole thing is about the collective response?



It maybe was, but it soon went down the shitter. And it’ll continue to go south whilst Unis remain open for business. It’s a piss take.


----------



## Looby (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Wait, what?? I'm still washing or quarantining my deliveries for three days!


God no, we stopped washing shopping months ago! We never quarantined anything.


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

I'm just testing my sense of recent timing. In this case the pandemic favourite, how short the shelf life of particular stances and the rhetoric they come up with to accompany them is.

In the case of the following quote, the fumbling doom time was 15 days as this was said on October 16th:



elbows said:


> Johnson has now got some really shitty rhetoric about how a lockdown in Cornwall doesnt help reduce cases in the North West. Never mind the possible merits of reducing cases in Cornwall, those are nowhere to be seen in the picture he paints with his arse.



Speaking of sense of time, when I was writing the above I originally typed March instead of October by mistake. My brain is clearly back in 'witnessing one of the largest u-turns you will see, lockdown looms mode'.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> It maybe was, but it soon went down the shitter. And it’ll continue to go south whilst Unis remain open for business. It’s a piss take.


No it still is. Using other people’s behaviour as an excuse to behave selfishly is well Thatcher


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

weltweit said:


> For some reason garden centres are being allowed to remain open alongside supermarkets.


 
Supermarkets never closed did they.  As for garden centres, they’re obviously now regarded as essential. As I said, it’s a piss take.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

We gave up washing shopping week 2 of lockdown.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Looby said:


> God no, we stopped washing shopping months ago! We never quarantined anything.


_WHAT??_

At work we're still obsessively washing hands and wiping down surfaces? I would have figured they at least would know if it's necessary or not


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> We gave up washing shopping week 2 of lockdown.


We never did. Just seemed madness to me.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

I don’t even wash my hands much tbh. Just after coming from work and after touching things other people have touched. Aside from after the loo of course.


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> We never did. Just seemed madness to me.


I did usually leave my items for a day or two before touching them once they were inside my house.


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm just testing my sense of recent timing. In this case the pandemic favourite, how short the shelf life of particular stances and the rhetoric they come up with to accompany them is.
> 
> In the case of the following quote, the fumbling doom time was 15 days as this was said on October 16th:
> 
> ...


How long till the next press conference, when they realise they do actually have to shut face to face teaching in schools and universities?


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Dont stop washing your hands or cleaning certain surfaces in shared environments. The stuff that has come out so far which doesnt demonstrate high risk from certain vectors, often involving whether packages might be contaminated, does not negate the various merits of frequent hand washing in a pandemic.


----------



## Looby (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> _WHAT??_
> 
> At work we're still obsessively washing hands and wiping down surfaces? I would have figured they at least would know if it's necessary or not


We’re still wiping surfaces at work and washing hands etc. I don’t think the risk is zero from surfaces like desks etc but the risk from shopping and takeaways etc is tiny if any.


----------



## agricola (Oct 31, 2020)

Mation said:


> How long till the next press conference, when they realise they do actually have to shut face to face teaching in schools and universities?



two weeks, and then two weeks two hours


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Using other people’s behaviour as an excuse to behave selfishly is well Thatcher



Me wanting to visit my auld Ma before Xmas, who I only ever get to see twice/three times a year, who may not have much longer on this mortal coil is selfish behaviour akin to Thatcher is it? Fuck off!


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Me wanting to visit my auld Ma before Xmas, who I only ever get to see twice/three times a year, who may not have much longer on this mortal coil is selfish behaviour akin to Thatcher is it? Fuck off!


No, I was responding to what you said about collectivism vs individualism


----------



## elbows (Oct 31, 2020)

Mation said:


> How long till the next press conference, when they realise they do actually have to shut face to face teaching in schools and universities?



I cant give great timing estimates in this phase.

Various European countries that have introduced broadly similar lockdowns taking effect some days before our own have also tended to keep all or most educational settings open under their current version of the plans. Some also let their hospital situation get even worse than ours before acting. So in theory in the next week or three they may offer advanced clues about how much further than the current measures nations such including ours might feel the need to go in future.


----------



## 8115 (Oct 31, 2020)

When people say they wash shopping, I'm always like, with hot water and soap? Or do you just give it a quick run under the tap, which I really wouldn't think would do the trick.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> No, I was responding to what you said about collectivism vs individualism



It’s a very fine fucking line!!


----------



## frogwoman (Oct 31, 2020)

Flu lives on surfaces iirc as does things like norovirus and you don't want to get that especially now.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> When people say they wash shopping, I'm always like, with hot water and soap? Or do you just give it a quick run under the tap, which I really wouldn't think would do the trick.


I've used hot water and soap (basically like doing the dishes) or wiped them down with some disinfectant wipes my friend gave me  

Only stuff in packaging though, and most of the time I can't be bothered and just leave it somewhere out of the way for three days and then use it.


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

Well it looks like for me this shutdown will be similar to #1 with WFH being the main issue. Our work will continue as long as we have customers for our stuff which might become an issue if it drags on more than 4 weeks. And if it becomes an issue then we will have to resort to furloughs again.

And panic buying may again limit supplies I can get my hands on.


----------



## ddraig (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> When people say they wash shopping, I'm always like, with hot water and soap? Or do you just give it a quick run under the tap, which I really wouldn't think would do the trick.


Spray with disinfectant, wipe down and rinse shopping here


----------



## Looby (Oct 31, 2020)

8115 said:


> When people say they wash shopping, I'm always like, with hot water and soap? Or do you just give it a quick run under the tap, which I really wouldn't think would do the trick.


When we were doing this we were taking everything we could out of packaging. Veg in net bags etc 
Anything we couldn’t, we used antibac wipes on the packaging.


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> It’s a very fine fucking line!!


Seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face to say fuck it to being as safe as possible, just because we've got nothing but shit show from the clown car.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


>



Food shops, supermarkets, garden centres and certain other retailers providing essential goods and services can remain open.

How the fuck are garden centres essential?


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

emanymton said:


> ..
> How the fuck are garden centres essential?


I asked the same question.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

emanymton said:


> How the fuck are garden centres essential?


I guess they sell herbs and veg seeds..?


----------



## Struwwelpeter (Oct 31, 2020)

I get the thing about not wanting to do what Johnson says, but as others have said, it's for the collective good. 

My current approach is risk-based:

I will not do anything that someone else is not comfortable with.
I will not do anything that a reasonable judgement would say increases the risk beyond government rules
I will not blindly follow the law, provided that I meet 1 and 2.
For example, if someone wants to visit me in my back garden and stay more than 4 m away from me, that's fine.  I'll even give them a cup of tea - boiled water in a freshly washed cup is not going to transmit any viral particles.  The risk is much lower than anything that I could legally do at work.  I'm confident my neighbours won't grass me up, because they were breaking the rules in a similar way during the last lockdown.  On the other hand, I was wearing a mask long before it was mandatory and have been keeping away from indoor groups - including not taking up Sunak's eating out thing in the summer.  I won't be bribed into risking my health or others'.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Oct 31, 2020)

Grow for victory, was that a thing?


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

Is there permitted exercise?

Didn't notice it yet..


----------



## Struwwelpeter (Oct 31, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I guess they sell herbs and veg seeds..?


To be fair, the risks with garden centres are lower than supermarkets - much lower customer density (in my experience), much of the retail space is outside and people are visiting them less frequently.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Mation said:


> Seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face to say fuck it to being as safe as possible, just because we've got nothing but shit show from the clown car.



Its between me an my Ma - no one else.


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Is there permitted exercise?
> 
> Didn't notice it yet..


Yes it is there..


----------



## campanula (Oct 31, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Food shops, supermarkets, garden centres and certain other retailers providing essential goods and services can remain open.
> How the fuck are garden centres essential?


Well, they are to me, but I get why others may feel they are not. Mind, I am going to stock up on a shit load of John Innes 3 on Monday just in case. Autumn is actually the start of the gardening year (imo).


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Its between me an my Ma - no one else.


Replicated how many times around the country? Can you see how that scales up?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Mation said:


> Replicated how many times around the country? Can you see how that scales up?



She may say no, stay home, & I’d be ok with that. This isn’t some reckless ‘fuck you Boris’ crap you know. But you’re not living my & her life are you?


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2020)

CDC determined risk from shopping items was low risk. I never did any washing of stuff. 

From manufacturing of a supermarket product, to it being picked up from the shelf, there are virtually no human touch points. Maybe the shelf stacker touches it but no other human does. 

I'm very keen on hand washing though


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2020)

I just don’t have the patience for so much _labour_


----------



## Gerry1time (Oct 31, 2020)

emanymton said:


> How the fuck are garden centres essential?



I'd always figured that they were essential mostly because the elderly / retired tory voting demographic really like going to them. Same way grouse shooting suddenly became essential a few months ago.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 31, 2020)

I never washed anything from shops - apparently there haven't been any cases where they can say for certain it was just from surface transmission; you'd have to pick up and awful lot of fresh droplets and transfer a lot of those to your mouth/nose pretty sharpish to pick it up that way from what I've read and seen discussed by a virologist. It's not a 'one droplet' infection like measles. 

And so much for booking my birthday and the day after off week after next (Thurs and Fri) - but glad I already fixed a zoom 'party', given I figured we'd be well out of contact with multiple people by then.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 31, 2020)

campanula said:


> Well, they are to me, but I get why others may feel they are not. Mind, I am going to stock up on a shit load of John Innes 3 on Monday just in case. Autumn is actually the start of the gardening year (imo).


Perhaps I should say who decided they are more essential then say bookshops.


----------



## Mation (Oct 31, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> She may say no, stay home, & I’d be ok with that. This isn’t some reckless ‘fuck you Boris’ crap you know. But you’re not living my & her life are you?


No, I'm not. But you did make it sound very much as though it was some reckless fuck you Boris crap.

Anyway. Hope you and your ma both stay safe and well, however you do it.


----------



## emanymton (Oct 31, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> I'd always figured that they were essential mostly because the elderly / retired tory voting demographic really like going to them. Same way grouse shooting suddenly became essential a few months ago.


This to.


----------



## maomao (Oct 31, 2020)

It was a big thing in the spring. All the online ones were struggling. It took a month for my yougarden order to turn up. The Tory papers were up in arms about it.


----------



## quiet guy (Oct 31, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> ...since Dom done Durham ...


The worst remake of Debbie does Dallas 😀


----------



## weltweit (Oct 31, 2020)

I suppose the covid app might provide evidence of where transmission is taking place. Or will the privacy rules prevent it from producing such statistics?


----------



## kenny g (Oct 31, 2020)

Struwwelpeter said:


> To be fair, the risks with garden centres are lower than supermarkets - much lower customer density (in my experience), much of the retail space is outside and people are visiting them less frequently.


Loads is inside. They sell tat to old folk. In November they are hardly essential.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> It was a big thing in the spring. All the online ones were struggling. It took a month for my yougarden order to turn up. The Tory papers were up in arms about it.



Aye.

Its a shit time of year for anything in the garden though. At least next weeks supposed to be decent weather.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Oct 31, 2020)

Mation said:


> No, I'm not. But you did make it sound very much as though it was some reckless fuck you Boris crap.
> 
> Anyway. Hope you and your ma both stay safe and well, however you do it.



Urban is very quick to judge. Thanks though,  I’m sure we will make the right decision. I prob I will cancel!


----------



## Cid (Oct 31, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Food shops, supermarkets, garden centres and certain other retailers providing essential goods and services can remain open.
> 
> How the fuck are garden centres essential?



Do hydroponics shops count as garden centres?


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2020)

Cid said:


> Do hydroponics shops count as garden centres?



essential. staffed by keyworker heroes.


----------



## savoloysam (Oct 31, 2020)

It's not a case of what should be open it's a case of what _they_ want closed. Difference.


----------



## AnandLeo (Oct 31, 2020)

PM Johnson has agreed to a month lockdown. He emphasised the need to balance various factors in making the decision. However, I am inclined to suggest, if the decision for nationwide lockdown was made a month or few weeks earlier the cost to the economy and businesses is the same, if not less. However, the benefits to the society from reduced deaths, exponential rise in infection, costs to the NHS and so forth would be greater. I think you have to make hard decisions swiftly, like some other countries do and achieve results.


----------



## 20Bees (Oct 31, 2020)

I wonder if non-essential retail chains that close for lockdown will reschedule their Black Friday events. Not that I have ever participated in the spend-fest, but it’s a pretty significant weekend for retailers already contemplating how many staff (and premises) they want to take forward.
I work in a supermarket and as we head into peak season the mood will surely be affected by customers’ uncertainty. The March/April level of stockpiling would be surprising as schools are staying open for now, but Christmas brings out a certain madness in many.


----------



## Jay Park (Nov 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> he'll be waving a bit of paper on Purley Way next



over my heid there, can you tell me what it means please?


----------



## Raheem (Nov 1, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Food shops, supermarkets, garden centres and certain other retailers providing essential goods and services can remain open.
> 
> How the fuck are garden centres essential?



During the original lockdown, there was a lot of lobbying, supported by quite a lot of Tory backbenchers and garden centres were allowed to re-open. Think the main arguments were that garden centres are usually partly outside, which makes them less risky, and that people would be more likely to stay at home if they had access to fertilizer and wotnot.


----------



## Jay Park (Nov 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> People won't be able to go out because there's nowhere to go but it's dark early now and people won't think twice about having visitors in the house. In April I tutted at a neighbour who had a visitor over sitting in the garden (and I feel bad about that now she's had his baby that she was pregnant with at the time). Now I'm surprised they went to all the bother of sitting in the garden.
> 
> We've had four months of everchanging rules that never quite made sense given to us by people who not only lack the moral authority to make rules but have used every opportunity to show their contempt for the British people by blaming them for every setback. None of the changes stated today will make a jot of difference to the lives of me or my family because we weren't going anywhere anyway but we're not doing it cause of anything that morally bankrupt waste of fucking oxygen said this evening. It's the nation's deepest misfortune the virus didn't kill him and I hope he dies as soon and as painfully as possible.



and have some cunts martyr him? Nah.

Johnson, May, Cameron, Duncan-Smith, Hague, that other guy, Major, Thatcher.... There’s always another cunt to fill in. Cunts that always handle their internal crisis’ quite well.

just be another robot from the Tory robot production factory of bastards.


----------



## Jay Park (Nov 1, 2020)

Raheem said:


> During the original lockdown, there was a lot of lobbying, supported by quite a lot of Tory backbenchers and garden centres were allowed to re-open. Think the main arguments were that garden centres are usually partly outside, which makes them less risky, and that people would be more likely to stay at home if they had access to fertilizer and wotnot.



no they sold food. No?


----------



## Raheem (Nov 1, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> no they sold food. No?


They don't sell food. Bird food, maybe. They often have cafes, but so do a lot of shops.


----------



## Jay Park (Nov 1, 2020)

Raheem said:


> They don't sell food. Bird food, maybe. They often have cafes, but so do a lot of shops.



what do cafes sell where you’re from?


----------



## AnandLeo (Nov 1, 2020)

savoloysam said:


> It's not a case of what should be open it's a case of what _they_ want closed. Difference.


Debatable issue, but don’t have the passion for a debate on what and how to prioritise the measures to control the spread of the disease, optimising the costs, benefits, indeed both economic and social, and equity.


----------



## Raheem (Nov 1, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> what do cafes sell where you’re from?


From Thursday, nothing.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 1, 2020)

Do I have to start clapping again? Perhaps for the modelers and Powerpoint preparers this time?


----------



## muscovyduck (Nov 1, 2020)

There's a garden centre round here which is basically a really open plan posh supermarket (not exaggerating) and another one that is a bit like a supermarket that focuses more towards homeware rather than food. The third one further away that has a food store section. It's probably completely different in more urban areas. Here they're a good access point for people who struggle with actual supermarket eg they have more space for groups of people in wheelchairs or people with massive buggies.  Easier to keep an eye on someone you care for, slower pace etc


----------



## Jay Park (Nov 1, 2020)

Hollis said:


> Also relevant on S Korea
> 
> What’s Behind South Korea’s COVID-19 Exceptionalism?



A few sporadic cases appeared from Chinese visitors or Koreans from China. A week later some mental cult (about 300 from one church) all tested positive. This was in their 4th largest city.

Track and trace was operant at the airports after the very first case.

After the spread toward other regions they introduced stage 1/2/3.

Also as there was a massive shortage of masks on the market, the government gave tons of masks to local pharmacies where you could buy one mask per day, with ID. Retired and/or disabled people didn’t have to pay. Others about 70p

Cases dwindled and only recently we had about 10 days of stage 3. Restaurants closing at nine. Schools, Universities, and academies went online. Coffee shops had to remove the option of half of their seating - social distance basically - some food sellers became take-away only.

Back down to 126 cases on the 30th.

And yet this is how they behave. Everyday. Just outside where I live and hundreds more office locales all over. They can’t smoke a cigarette without spitting.




Two people popped dimps in my beer (which was on the wall and I wasn’t looking) two weeks ago - and yes I drank more before noticing.


----------



## Jay Park (Nov 1, 2020)

I wanna know why they don’t have more cases here. Has the virus mutated?


----------



## campanula (Nov 1, 2020)

Regarding the garden centre Tory lobbying...firstly, gardening is a very egalitarian hobby...and is by no means confined to those with large houses and gardens. This summer of lockdown, the horticultural industry was insanely busy as practically everyone with so much as a windowsill, rushed to buy seeds and rediscover the joys of being outside. For a few weeks, there were no seeds to be had anywhere as the entire seasonal output sold in moments. Obviously, I am biased, but I think a lot of people found a surprising amount of joy and improved mental health, messing about in soil. True, I consider bookshops to be as essential, at least for me, but I don't really subscribe to  some greenfingered Tory plot, given the benefits noted by those of all ages, classes and political persuasions who found some peace and satisfaction from growing things.
To be fair, I tend to avoid actual garden centres in favour of small independent plant nurseries and a couple of local set ups for people with learning difficulties - one of which sells seeds and composts and animal foods, along with plants, while another sells herbs.

Honestly, Artaxerxes, this is the busiest and most productive time of the year in the garden. Sowing seeds, bulbs, bare-roots, fruit trees, propagating, lifting, dividing and planting perennials, start of winter pruning and clear up, all building, compost turning, leaf-collecting, soil improving, cover crop growing...


----------



## bendeus (Nov 1, 2020)

So BoZo, and in spite of a request from the WG, apparently denied furlough payments to Welsh workers for the circuit breaker here but is happy to provide one for English workers. Now don't get me wrong: ALL workers should receive 100% of wages for hours/days lost but the thought of there being a nationally tiered economic response to the lockdown makes me very fucking queasy.

Sry - link here:









						Welsh Government to hold talks with Treasury for furlough for business in Wales
					

Chancellor "could have said yes" to support for Welsh businesses, according to Mark Drakeford.




					www.southwalesargus.co.uk


----------



## ddraig (Nov 1, 2020)

bendeus said:


> So BoZo, and in spite of a request from the WG, apparently denied furlough payments to Welsh workers for the circuit breaker here but is happy to provide one for English workers. Now don't get me wrong: ALL workers should receive 100% of wages for hours/days lost but the thought of there being a nationally tiered economic response to the lockdown makes me very fucking queasy.
> 
> Sry - link here:
> 
> ...


Think it will be uk wide, was confusing but this suggests Wales too Covid: Who can go back onto furlough?


----------



## bendeus (Nov 1, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Think it will be uk wide, was confusing but this suggests Wales too Covid: Who can go back onto furlough?


Yeah, but two weeks ago when WG asked for support for the circuit breaker they were told it wasn't going to happen. I dunno, maybe I'm just being an angry provincial. The extended furlough should've been offered to Welsh workers on request but they held out because they wanted to continue to indulge their insane experiment with the population of England and saw Wales' sensible stance as a threat to business as usual. Now the penny has dropped (again) they're only too swift to do the right thing.


----------



## ddraig (Nov 1, 2020)

bendeus said:


> Yeah, but two weeks ago when WG asked for support for the circuit breaker they were told it wasn't going to happen. I dunno, maybe I'm just being an angry provincial. The extended furlough should've been offered to Welsh workers on request but they held out because they wanted to continue to indulge their insane experiment with the population of England and saw Wales' sensible stance as a threat to business as usual. Now the penny has dropped (again) they're only too swift to do the right thing.


Totally agree dwd


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 1, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> over my heid there, can you tell me what it means please?



Chamberlin returned from. Munich to Croydon aerodrome and declared “peace for our time”


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 1, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> I wanna know why they don’t have more cases here. Has the virus mutated?




China claims to be back to normal, I know they are bullshitting arseholes, but hard to cover up? Is Korea almost normal too?


----------



## Jay Park (Nov 1, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> China claims to be back to normal, I know they are bullshitting arseholes, but hard to cover up? Is Korea almost normal too?



pretty much not even an issue, I’ve seen people on the subway remove their masks and sneeze without covering their mouth (masks being mandatory). Not even supposed to talk on the subway, but loads are doing so.


----------



## Jay Park (Nov 1, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Chamberlin returned from. Munich to Croydon aerodrome and declared “peace for our time”



ah that one, Nev the pacifier


----------



## planetgeli (Nov 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> Stop talking as if the far greater number of people who will break rules and quibble this time represent everyone. They dont, otherwise the polls about lockdown would have been different.



You are correct and they don't represent everyone but please don't anyone kid themselves that with 10 million schoolchildren going about their business you are going to see and feel a lockdown in any way resembling what you had in March. 

Or having the same effect.

Johnson is right about one thing. This shouldn't be called a lockdown. Because it isn't one.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 1, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Chamberlin returned from. Munich to Croydon aerodrome and declared “peace for our time”


Heston, actually


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 1, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Heston, actually



So it was. Really should know that, what with being born in Heston an’all


----------



## kenny g (Nov 1, 2020)

20Bees said:


> I wonder if non-essential retail chains that close for lockdown will reschedule their Black Friday events. Not that I have ever participated in the spend-fest, but it’s a pretty significant weekend for retailers already contemplating how many staff (and premises) they want to take forward.
> I work in a supermarket and as we head into peak season the mood will surely be affected by customers’ uncertainty. The March/April level of stockpiling would be surprising as schools are staying open for now, but Christmas brings out a certain madness in many.



Completely agree. It is going to be extremely difficult to manage December in retail. Pre-booked timeslots to go to supermarkets are starting to look even more likely.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

It strikes me that as much as this lockdown should have come at least two if not four weeks earlier, it couldn’t have.  It would have fallen into the classic trap — if it had worked, people would have complained that it was unnecessary because there were never many cases anyway.  A panic whipped up for nothing.  The problem with timely and effective risk mitigation is that _because it works_, hindsight makes it look like it was pointless.

And that’s if the lockdown had been followed and therefore had worked.  When we were still at <50 deaths a day, I’m not convinced that compliance for following a lockdown would have been very high anyway.  If people are not wanting to follow it even now, where we are on the brink of disaster, it doesn’t speak well for compliance at an earlier stage.

This government is not up for imposing big costly things that people then blame them for when they work or get irate about when they don’t.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It strikes me that as much as this lockdown should have come at least two if not four weeks earlier, it couldn’t have.  It would have fallen into the classic trap — if it had worked, people would have complained that it was unnecessary because there were never many cases anyway.  A panicked whipped up for nothing.  The problem with timely and effective risk mitigation is that _because it works_, hindsight makes it look like it was pointless.
> 
> And that’s if the lockdown had been followed and therefore had worked.  When we were still at <50 deaths a day, I’m not convinced that compliance for following a lockdown would have been very high anyway.  If people are not wanting to follow it even now, where we are on the brink of disaster, it doesn’t speak well for compliance at an earlier stage.
> 
> This government is not up for imposing big costly things that people then blame them for when they work or get irate about when they don’t.



Whilst I understand all this, if you're not up for communicating difficult and complex things to the public and making tough decisions then you probably shouldn't become a politician. And the tories have never balked at telling us we've got to eat more austerity, more privatisation, no deal brexit or whatever else; and that's all stuff with no benefit to it at all for anyone not running a hedge fund or an outsourcing company.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> he knows that. Its about trying to choose which is the 'best' household to bubble with. I've interpreted the bubble to mean me plus two other people who both also live alone have no kids and work from home. Which is wrong, but on a risk rational level, i think perfectly sensible.



Apologies to killer b, I missed read your post, whilst I skimmed read the fast moving thread, trying to get to the end before going out.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 1, 2020)

campanula said:


> Honestly, Artaxerxes, this is the busiest and most productive time of the year in the garden. Sowing seeds, bulbs, bare-roots, fruit trees, propagating, lifting, dividing and planting perennials, start of winter pruning and clear up, all building, compost turning, leaf-collecting, soil improving, cover crop growing...



Copied to _campanula.doc_ for adding to checklist


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> going out.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 1, 2020)

campanula said:


> Regarding the garden centre Tory lobbying...firstly, gardening is a very egalitarian hobby...and is by no means confined to those with large houses and gardens. This summer of lockdown, the horticultural industry was insanely busy as practically everyone with so much as a windowsill, rushed to buy seeds and rediscover the joys of being outside. For a few weeks, there were no seeds to be had anywhere as the entire seasonal output sold in moments. Obviously, I am biased, but I think a lot of people found a surprising amount of joy and improved mental health, messing about in soil. True, I consider bookshops to be as essential, at least for me, but I don't really subscribe to  some greenfingered Tory plot, given the benefits noted by those of all ages, classes and political persuasions who found some peace and satisfaction from growing things.
> To be fair, I tend to avoid actual garden centres in favour of small independent plant nurseries and a couple of local set ups for people with learning difficulties - one of which sells seeds and composts and animal foods, along with plants, while another sells herbs.
> 
> Honestly, Artaxerxes, this is the busiest and most productive time of the year in the garden. Sowing seeds, bulbs, bare-roots, fruit trees, propagating, lifting, dividing and planting perennials, start of winter pruning and clear up, all building, compost turning, leaf-collecting, soil improving, cover crop growing...



I'm just covering everything in shit then covering up till spring...


Might look after the allotment a bit if I can


----------



## Cid (Nov 1, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> China claims to be back to normal, I know they are bullshitting arseholes, but hard to cover up? Is Korea almost normal too?



I have friends in China... Yeah, that is the impression I get. Foreign students haven't been allowed back yet though. At least the ones I know haven't. I'm not sure to what extent other courses are still online, will ask. China is an odd one in general. Yes the state has vast power, but people talk a surprising amount of crap on social media...


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> .. When we were still at <50 deaths a day, I’m not convinced that compliance for following a lockdown would have been very high anyway.  If people are not wanting to follow it even now, where we are on the brink of disaster, it doesn’t speak well for compliance at an earlier stage.


i might be wrong but i don't think that this makes any real difference to compliance now. I don't think people much understand exponential growth and more importantly nobody believes a word the gov says, so don't think compliance will be any better now than it would have been two weeks ago.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Whilst I understand all this, if you're not up for communicating difficult and complex things to the public and making tough decisions then you probably shouldn't become a politician. And the tories have never balked at telling us we've got to eat more austerity, more privatisation, no deal brexit or whatever else; and that's all stuff with no benefit to it at all for anyone not running a hedge fund or an outsourcing company.


I’m not sure the Tories quite have the same motivations regarding being politicians than you would.

As for things like austerity and privatisation — the politicians in those circumstances get to choose the metrics that are used to identify success, such as GDP and national debt.  They most certainly can make it look like things need doing because they are bad (eg national debt is high) and then their actions were successful (look, national debt is lower).  This pandemic is a lot more straightforward when it comes to what people prioritise looking at.  If you start a lockdown when deaths are low, you will be blamed for doing something when there was perceived as there being no need to do it.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> i might be wrong but i don't think that this makes any real difference to compliance now. I don't think people much understand exponential growth and more importantly nobody believes a word the gov says, so don't think compliance will be any better now than it would have been two weeks ago.


But people know that there were over 300 deaths reported yesterday.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


>



Last weekend before lockdown & we had a table booked for 9.30, in the pub's marquee, which is reserved for people that are eating.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 1, 2020)

agricola said:


> I especially like this, from Mullins:
> 
> 
> 
> This from a bloke (and a firm) who went to the Supreme Court to deny that people attending house calls on its behalf were its employees.


Mullins is the Pimlicunt Plumber, right?


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> But people know that there were over 300 deaths reported yesterday.


Yes, but for reasons that are interesting (but not rational) i get the strong impression that a very large % of people who were totally ready to comply in March just don't care this time. I do know that making inferences from the comments on the daily mail is not clever but i cant help looking, and every single one of the popular comments there today are about how its all nonsense and scaremongering, and the opposite was the case in Spring.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> But people know that there were over 300 deaths reported yesterday.



They could be clearer is getting information over concerning deaths, a simple message like -

In September we had deaths increase by 5 times, in October it was almost 6.5 times, taking the average daily from 40 to 259, if we allow that to continue we could be over 1,500 a day by the end of November, and over 9,000 a day by the end of December, which is why we need to act now.

It's simple maths, a simple message, a soundbite that would be played/quoted over and over.


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yes, but for reasons that are interesting (but not rational) i get the strong impression that a very large % of people who were totally ready to comply in March just don't care this time. I do know that making inferences from the comments on the daily mail is not clever but i cant help looking, and every single one of the popular comments there today are about how its all nonsense and scaremongering, and the opposite was the case in Spring.



Yeah, that's what I feel too, but polls do consistently show support for restrictions. I think it's likely for things to change very quickly one way or the other, but as the death rate climbs I expect better compliance mostly. And the modelling allows for compliance not to be 100% anyway. 

The media could help by not constantly interviewing dicks who are encouraging non-compliance too.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

Remember that even if 80% of a country are in favour of doing something (_NB: numbers made up_), 20% are not.  That 20% represents millions of people and they can be very vocal but the 80% will still be where the battle is won and much of the 20% will feel the social pressure to fall into line.

If only 20% of a country are in favour of doing something, by contrast, you’re in trouble.


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They could be clearer is getting information over concerning deaths, a simple message like -
> 
> In September we had deaths increase by 5 times, in October it was almost 6.5 times, taking the average daily from 40 to 259, if we allow that to continue we could be over 1,500 a day by the end of November, and over 9,000 a day by the end of December, which is why we need to act now.
> 
> It's simple maths, a simple message, a soundbite that would be played/quoted over and over.



Yeah totally. And a few simple graphs, not multiple complex ones. Something like one on infections, one on deaths, one on NHS capacity.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

I totally agree on the presentation of the information.  Presentation of complicated information is part of what I do for a living.  I have to show much more complicated things than exponential growth to much more motivated and contextually educated people than the general audience of these press conferences.  And yet, I still find a way to do it that is much, much, _much_ simpler than Whitty and co.  They break every rule in the book — just off the top of my head they include too much information per graph, too many graphs per page, lack of presentational formats other than graphs, unexplained jargon, overly complex symbolic representations and lack of transparency of those symbols and references to other numbers as if they are already familiar to people.

But this is what happens when you have a scientific education system that places inadequate focus on effective communication of data to those who have not shared your professional experience.  It’s rife across the medical establishment, for example.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> If only 20% of a country are in favour of doing something, by contrast, you’re in trouble.



Percentage of U.K. inhabitants that voted Tory last year, for example.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

a month old this survey, which says 44% were supportive of another national lockdown:
Less than half of Britons support a second complete national lockdown 
compared to apparently 93% up for it in March. 
Thats a big difference, and the reasons have to be a whole load of different things but barnard castle will be in the mix.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 1, 2020)

Am I right I cant meet a pal in my garden? But can in the park?


----------



## mauvais (Nov 1, 2020)

I don't know what the level of compliance will be but it's fundamentally eroded by a lot of things - the ever changing, highly complex conditions of it, the incoherent narrative, the lack of underlying structural support, the array of exceptions and inequities that are much more than just Dom, etc etc.

It's been an absolute dogshit way to run this kind of control.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 1, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Am I right I cant meet a pal in my garden? But can in the park?



Only one person, and only in outdoor public spaces unless in a support bubble. 

However this has to go through parliament and there might be amendments so wait until Thursday to know for sure.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 1, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Am I right I cant meet a pal in my garden? But can in the park?



Ive just had to have a look here -https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54767118 as I ain’t got a scobby wtf is going on


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

What percentage of people are actually locked down? Only non-essential retail, leisure and hospitality that seem to be shut. You're still to go to work if you're in education, health, care, manufacturing, construction, essential retail, transport or are some other kind of keyworker that I can't think of right now. A large proportion of the rest are already working from home. Not much of a lockdown is it. And when it doesn't work the anti-lockdown lot will be using it as evidence that lockdowns don't work.


----------



## Mation (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I totally agree on the presentation of the information.  Presentation of complicated information is part of what I do for a living.  I have to show much more complicated things than exponential growth to much more motivated and contextually educated people than the general audience of these press conferences.  And yet, I still find a way to do it that is much, much, _much_ simpler than Whitty and co.  They break every rule in the book — just off the top of my head they include too much information per graph, too many graphs per page, lack of presentational formats other than graphs, unexplained jargon, overly complex symbolic representations and lack of transparency of those symbols and references to other numbers as if they are already familiar to people.
> 
> But this is what happens when you have a scientific education system that places inadequate focus on effective communication of data to those who have not shared your professional experience.  It’s rife across the medical establishment, for example.


I suspect some of that is deliberate. Lines that go up high but the rest too complicated for most people to grasp (quickly). It's clearly the wrong thing to do, but there are a lot of people who think that complicated graphs make their work look serious and important. Not usually at top level, though.


----------



## Hollis (Nov 1, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Am I right I cant meet a pal in my garden? But can in the park?



Yep that is right.

The guidance is all here.. 

New National Restrictions from 5 November

I can't say I'm greatly looking foward to the next month.. zzz.


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

Hollis said:


> Yep that is right.
> 
> The guidance is all here..
> 
> ...



Next month? Next 5 months....


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 1, 2020)

Hollis said:


> Yep that is right.
> 
> The guidance is all here..
> 
> ...


I actually think the rules are pretty clear once you read that.


----------



## Combustible (Nov 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> I have friends in China... Yeah, that is the impression I get. Foreign students haven't been allowed back yet though. At least the ones I know haven't. I'm not sure to what extent other courses are still online, will ask. China is an odd one in general. Yes the state has vast power, but people talk a surprising amount of crap on social media...


Universities are essentially back to normal, in person teaching, students are allowed off campus, and little mask wearing from what I can see. The only thing I saw was that in the recent national holiday they didn't want students travelling (despite many other people traveling within the country). They did keep restrictions on the campus up longer  than outside, which I suspect was largely due to university management not wanting to get it in the neck if there was a campus wide outbreak.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

campanula said:


> Regarding the garden centre Tory lobbying...firstly, gardening is a very egalitarian hobby...and is by no means confined to those with large houses and gardens. This summer of lockdown, the horticultural industry was insanely busy as practically everyone with so much as a windowsill, rushed to buy seeds and rediscover the joys of being outside. For a few weeks, there were no seeds to be had anywhere as the entire seasonal output sold in moments. Obviously, I am biased, but I think a lot of people found a surprising amount of joy and improved mental health, messing about in soil. True, I consider bookshops to be as essential, at least for me, but I don't really subscribe to  some greenfingered Tory plot, given the benefits noted by those of all ages, classes and political persuasions who found some peace and satisfaction from growing things.
> To be fair, I tend to avoid actual garden centres in favour of small independent plant nurseries and a couple of local set ups for people with learning difficulties - one of which sells seeds and composts and animal foods, along with plants, while another sells herbs.
> 
> Honestly, Artaxerxes, this is the busiest and most productive time of the year in the garden. Sowing seeds, bulbs, bare-roots, fruit trees, propagating, lifting, dividing and planting perennials, start of winter pruning and clear up, all building, compost turning, leaf-collecting, soil improving, cover crop growing...


The trouble is you can make this kind of reasoned case for a lot of things that aren't _necessary_, merely helpful.


----------



## quimcunx (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It strikes me that as much as this lockdown should have come at least two if not four weeks earlier, it couldn’t have.  It would have fallen into the classic trap — if it had worked, people would have complained that it was unnecessary because there were never many cases anyway.  A panicked whipped up for nothing.  The problem with timely and effective risk mitigation is that _because it works_, hindsight makes it look like it was pointless.
> 
> And that’s if the lockdown had been followed and therefore had worked.  When we were still at <50 deaths a day, I’m not convinced that compliance for following a lockdown would have been very high anyway.  If people are not wanting to follow it even now, where we are on the brink of disaster, it doesn’t speak well for compliance at an earlier stage.
> 
> This government is not up for imposing big costly things that people then blame them for when they work or get irate about when they don’t.



My thought yesterday in response to this govt's float the idea see what public opinion is bullshit is that a decent, trustworthy govt that the public know want to look after their interests would take decisions in line with the science and bring the public with them with good communications*.  I doubt many New Zealanders are looking round saying we didn't need the all those precautions Arden put through, everything is fine. Unfortunately we don't have one of those governments. 

*and a supportive media, so not any govt led by that monster, Corbyn.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

S☼I said:


> The trouble is you can make this kind of reasoned case for a lot of things that aren't _necessary_, merely helpful.


Yes. The gyms thing is a good example, i personally don't give a monkeys but my friend was seriously heartbroken at the news last night that they'd be taken away again, i think for her going to the gym probably does the same sort of good as pottering round the garden does for me, mental health wise.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yes. The gyms thing is a good example, i personally don't give a monkeys but my friend was seriously heartbroken at the news last night that they'd be taken away again, i think for her going to the gym probably does the same sort of good as pottering round the garden does for me, mental health wise.


Like chatting in the pub is for others?


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yes. The gyms thing is a good example, i personally don't give a monkeys but my friend was seriously heartbroken at the news last night that they'd be taken away again, i think for her going to the gym probably does the same sort of good as pottering round the garden does for me, mental health wise.



I don't get that, I mean I go to the gym and it's a big thing in my life that I really enjoy and helps with all sorts of stress etc., but you just adapt and do exercise stuff in a park or a yard or something surely? It's a much easier thing to replace than some of the other things that are restricted.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I don't get that, I mean I go to the gym and it's a big thing in my life that I really enjoy and helps with all sorts of stress etc., but you just adapt and do exercise stuff in a park or a yard or something surely?


yeah i don't get it either tbh but thats humans for you.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

Bit confused about the guidance on the website saying public gardens are fine but botanical gardens are not? Surely they are the same thing?


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

The garden centres being kept open thing is just that 'necessary' includes the upkeep of the house you live in, which for many people include a garden isn't it?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I don't get that, I mean I go to the gym and it's a big thing in my life that I really enjoy and helps with all sorts of stress etc., but you just adapt and do exercise stuff in a park or a yard or something surely? It's a much easier thing to replace than some of the other things that are restricted.



Fitness equipment has been in short supply for months. I went to Decathlon just before the last lockdown kicked in and the shelves had been picked clean.


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

Professor Calum Semple from University of Liverpool has been on the BBC a fair bit yesterday and this morning.

He's on SAGE but speaking in personal capacity, and made the excellent point this morning that other essential sectors of society would start to crumble if we didn't have these restrictions. He's really clear and a great speaker, always good on sticking up for NHS staff as well.


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Fitness equipment has been in short supply for months. I went to Decathlon just before the last lockdown kicked in and the shelves had been picked clean.



Yeah for sure, but there's an endless supply of stuff you can do with no equipment.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Fitness equipment has been in short supply for months. I went to Decathlon just before the last lockdown kicked in and the shelves had been picked clean.


So what? 

Go for a walk
Lift some bricks


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah for sure, but there's an endless supply of stuff you can do with no equipment.


I hate gyms and I exercise at home with no equipment (ok, I have a yoga mat) but clearly a lot of people do like them and find them useful for their mental health beyond the equipment they contain. The weirdos. Seriously though, it will be upsetting for many even if they know it needs to happen.


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> The garden centres being kept open thing is just that 'necessary' includes the upkeep of the house you live in, which for many people include a garden isn't it?


No it's because they got closed first time and the Mail and Telegraph went nuts until they opened them.

I'm not that bothered, most garden centres are open air anyway aren't they (I haven't been to one since I was a kid)? But the exception is to keep certain people and newspapers from moaning not because they're essential in the same way food shops are.


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Bit confused about the guidance on the website saying public gardens are fine but botanical gardens are not? Surely they are the same thing?


Botanical gardens generally have gift shops and greenhouses. They're public attractions rather than recreational grounds.


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I hate gyms and I exercise at home with no equipment (ok, I have a yoga mat) but clearly a lot of people do like them and find them useful for their mental health beyond the equipment they contain. The weirdos. Seriously though, it will be upsetting for many even if they know it needs to happen.


Likewise I don't get why people find gardening to be beneficial for their mental health - for me it's like every other chore, to be done hurriedly and halfheartedly when it's got to the point of there being no other option but to get it done, and a source of gnawing guilt the rest of the time.


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> No it's because they got closed first time and the Mail and Telegraph went nuts until they opened them.
> 
> I'm not that bothered, most garden centres are open air anyway aren't they (I haven't been to one since I was a kid)? But the exception is to keep certain people and newspapers from moaning not because they're essential in the same way food shops are.


they are essential in the same way DIY shops are though. There's a reasonable argument for keeping them open.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

What can be bought from a garden centre _necessary for the upkeep of a garden_ that can't be bought online or you know done without for a month in a time of extreme plaguey danger?


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> they are essential in the same way DIY shops are though. There's a reasonable argument for keeping them open.


DIY shops were click and collect only last time and seeds etc. easily available online.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

I'm not picking on garden centres btw, or gyms, or anything. Just saying half-measures are the curse of it.


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What can be bought from a garden centre _necessary for the upkeep of a garden_ that can't be bought online or you know done without for a month in a time of extreme plaguey danger?


Fence panels when your fence blows down in a storm next week perhaps?


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> Fence panels when your fence blows down in a storm next week perhaps?


Order online


----------



## Looby (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> Fence panels when your fence blows down in a storm next week perhaps?


We couldn’t get fence panels for weeks after the storms and had to hire someone to collect them as Wickes wouldn’t deliver them.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Nov 1, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Am I right I cant meet a pal in my garden? But can in the park?


That was the rule last time around as well, but most sensible people can make their own decision on that one. If you can get to a garden without going through the house, what can be the problem? Whereas meeting a friend in a crowded park with potentially narrow gates etc could be more dangerous. These broad brush rules can never fit the complexities of human life and lifestyles.


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Order online


how many days am I going without a fence if I do that?


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> Fence panels when your fence blows down in a storm next week perhaps?



Use it as a chance to upgrade your garden defences with barbed wire and a minefield?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> how many days am I going without a fence if I do that?


But there's a pandemic on.


----------



## Looby (Nov 1, 2020)

S☼I said:


> But there's a pandemic on.


You’d be happy for your dogs to be running free if your fence blew down?
This exact problem happened to us last lockdown.
I agree about garden centres btw. The vast majority around here have huge indoor spaces are treated like an afternoon out. Especially when they’re piled up with Christmas crap.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yes. The gyms thing is a good example, i personally don't give a monkeys but my friend was seriously heartbroken at the news last night that they'd be taken away again, i think for her going to the gym probably does the same sort of good as pottering round the garden does for me, mental health wise.


MIL said being able to go to they gym again had been 'transformative' for her, so she'll be gutted. I've stayed away from mine (but kept paying the fees so it can hopefully still be there when I can go again - it's Pure Gym, so cheap). 

It doesn't seem very wise to me to be trying to do this so they can open shops, restaurants and pubs before Christmas so everyone who wants to go to them 'for the festive season' can cram that into 4 weeks.  I'm wondering whether the inevitably still climbing numbers at the start of next month will actually convince them not to do that or whether 'business will die without Christmas' (which is absolutely a legitimate concern as well) will win over.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> how many days am I going without a fence if I do that?


My heart bleeds for your few days


----------



## Spandex (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It strikes me that as much as this lockdown should have come at least two if not four weeks earlier, it couldn’t have.  It would have fallen into the classic trap — if it had worked, people would have complained that it was unnecessary because there were never many cases anyway.  A panicked whipped up for nothing.  The problem with timely and effective risk mitigation is that _because it works_, hindsight makes it look like it was pointless.
> 
> And that’s if the lockdown had been followed and therefore had worked.  When we were still at <50 deaths a day, I’m not convinced that compliance for following a lockdown would have been very high anyway.  If people are not wanting to follow it even now, where we are on the brink of disaster, it doesn’t speak well for compliance at an earlier stage.
> 
> This government is not up for imposing big costly things that people then blame them for when they work or get irate about when they don’t.


There's a lot of truth to that, but it's a problem of the government's own making.

It's not like Covid was a new problem in September or that people weren't concerned about it. The government spent most of the summer saying: Go to the shops! Go to the pub! Go for a cheap meal at a restaurant! Go on holiday! Go back to work! Go back to school! Football is back on telly! The germ pits (aka soft play centres) are reopen! It's back to normality (except wearing a mask and not in large groups)!

After all that time and effort pushing for normality it would've seemed incongruous to turn around and say, "oh, actually we're locking down again". But not impossible. An 'if you like this normality we need to do this, for a limited period' message could've been sold. But they didn't want to. There was too much thinking of the economy and not enough thinking of the looming second wave. Even as the virus ran out of control in the north they hoped it'd all be okay. And now it's not okay and thousands are going to die and the economy is going to get fucked anyway.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

i keep thinking about how the government paid for half of my steak dinner a few weeks ago and now the Pm says that was absolutely the right thing to do but we have to be “humble in the face of nature”.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

Looby said:


> You’d be happy for your dogs to be running free if your fence blew down?
> This exact problem happened to us last lockdown.
> I agree about garden centres btw. The vast majority around here have huge indoor spaces are treated like an afternoon out. Especially when they’re piled up with Christmas crap.


Walk them


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

Looby said:


> You’d be happy for your dogs to be running free if your fence blew down?


It's not about being _happy_, it's about doing what needs doing. I wasn't _happy_ trying to walk trainee mechanics through the concept of accessing their emails and online work every afternoon through summer by phone but I did it.

My dogs live inside anyway and if the fence blew down I'd just have to take them into the garden on a lead for a piss.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> So what?
> 
> Go for a walk
> Lift some bricks


Buy a piece o rope.


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

Cloo said:


> It doesn't seem very wise to me to be trying to do this so they can open shops, restaurants and pubs before Christmas so everyone who wants to go to them 'for the festive season' can cram that into 4 weeks


I think the priority at Christmas is family visits. Once the office party season is done with and aside from nye it's not a busy season for pubs and restaurants anyway.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 1, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I actually think the rules are pretty clear once you read that.


Are you sure. They use the term "should" a lot?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 1, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> That was the rule last time around as well, but most sensible people can make their own decision on that one. If you can get to a garden without going through the house, what can be the problem? Whereas meeting a friend in a crowded park with potentially narrow gates etc could be more dangerous. These broad brush rules can never fit the complexities of human life and lifestyles.


Because there is a clear difference in being round someone’s house in a private garden verses being out in a public area. People will naturally let their guard down a bit, they’ll “just pop to your loo, will only be quick”, “oh just come grab a coffee, it won’t do any harm” and so on.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 1, 2020)

Perhaps worth noting that MPs have to vote on the lockdown on Wednesday.  It'll go through - Labour are hardly likely to vote against after calling for it weeks ago - but the libertarian/ERG Tory right are on manouevres so BJ might face a backbench rebellion.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

Seriously people?

Lockdown is not nice for anyone. Certainly a problem for the nations mental health. However I have fuck all sympathy for people wanting to go to the spa or gym, worried about their garden landscaping for a few weeks, wanting to go to the pub or needing some precious entitlement while people are dying and teachers, doctors and nurses put themselves at risk.

FFS


----------



## andysays (Nov 1, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> My thought yesterday in response to this govt's float the idea see what public opinion is bullshit is that* a decent, trustworthy govt that the public know want to look after their interests would take decisions in line with the science* and bring the public with them with good communications*.  I doubt many New Zealanders are looking round saying we didn't need the all those precautions Arden put through, everything is fine. Unfortunately we don't have one of those governments.
> 
> *and a supportive media, so not any govt led by that monster, Corbyn.


Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but 


> In the Sunday Telegraph, former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith accused the prime minister of "giving in to the scientific advisers".
> Sir Iain said the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) had "pressurised" the government into taking this decision, with its members "publicly lecturing" the government.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 1, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Are you sure. They use the term "should" a lot?


Cross thread digs are the best kind, eh


----------



## Spandex (Nov 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but


Those nefarious scientists with their science pressuring the government. How dare they


----------



## Cloo (Nov 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> I think the priority at Christmas is family visits. Once the office party season is done with and aside from nye it's not a busy season for pubs and restaurants anyway.


They shouldn't be trying to get family Christmas visits because it's not going to become safe for everyone to do it by then whatever happens in the interim - they need to be messaging now not to expect that.


----------



## thismoment (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Like chatting in the pub is for others?



just to add that on my very bad days when I needed to be away from my household and it was raining (so a walk wasn’t ideal) I went to the pub and if there was an empty section, I sat alone and had a drink and some chips. my local pub took more Covid precautions than my local cafes...in fairness the pub is much larger.
I do however understand that they have to close.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

Spandex said:


> There's a lot of truth to that, but it's a problem of the government's own making.
> 
> It's not like Covid was a new problem in September or that people weren't concerned about it. The government spent most of the summer saying: Go to the shops! Go to the pub! Go for a cheap meal at a restaurant! Go on holiday! Go back to work! Go back to school! Football is back on telly! The germ pits (aka soft play centres) are reopen! It's back to normality (except wearing a mask and not in large groups)!
> 
> After all that time and effort pushing for normality it would've seemed incongruous to turn around and say, "oh, actually we're locking down again". But not impossible. An 'if you like this normality we need to do this, for a limited period' message could've been sold. But they didn't want to. There was too much thinking of the economy and not enough thinking of the looming second wave. Even as the virus ran out of control in the north they hoped it'd all be okay. And now it's not okay and thousands are going to die and the economy is going to get fucked anyway.


Oh, I completely agree with you and quimcunx that the whole situation is as a result of the government’s own actions in terms of pissing away any credibility or trust it had and intentionally undermining any kind of expert opinion.  It’s the reality of the UK’s position, not some kind of universal law.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> i keep thinking about how the government paid for half of my steak dinner a few weeks ago and now the Pm says that was absolutely the right thing to do but we have to be “humble in the face of nature”.


Surrealism...


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

what do people think is the reason why they are insisting on schools staying open?


----------



## TopCat (Nov 1, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Cross thread digs are the best kind, eh


I am a bad person. I wont do it again.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 1, 2020)

If you've got a body of scientific experts on the pay roll, taking their advice about scientific matters isn't giving in.
If a doctor told me I had cancer I wouldn't say "Hah! You know nowt, you!


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> what do people think is the reason why they are insisting on schools staying open?


The cynical side of me says it’s because people can’t cope with spending too much time with their own children.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> what do people think is the reason why they are insisting on schools staying open?



Concern over kids forever falling behind socially and educationally.

I do have some sympathy for the social aspect and mental health of the kids but we've long stopped teaching kids things beyond passing exams.


----------



## thismoment (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> what do people think is the reason why they are insisting on schools staying open?



i naively think that they are worried about the children’s mental health and education. My happy go lucky teenage nephew didn’t fair so well with the extended period away from school. I was quite pleased for him when he able to return.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 1, 2020)

Espresso said:


> If you've got a body of scientific experts on the pay roll, taking their advice about scientific matters isn't giving in.
> If a doctor told me I had cancer I wouldn't say "Hah! You know nowt, you!



Surprised they haven't replaced some of them, like they did with their chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs when he suggested ecstasy was safer than horse riding.


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

Cloo said:


> They shouldn't be trying to get family Christmas visits because it's not going to become safe for everyone to do it by then whatever happens in the interim - they need to be messaging now not to expect that.


Well that's what they actually said on their press conference last night. But I was just countering the idea that it was just about consumption because that's not what people are worried about. Kids will get presents (most of mine's are bought already and on top of the wardrobe) and plenty of  food and drink will be available.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Seriously people?
> 
> Lockdown is not nice for anyone. Certainly a problem for the nations mental health. However I have fuck all sympathy for people wanting to go to the spa or gym, worried about their garden landscaping for a few weeks, wanting to go to the pub or needing some precious entitlement while people are dying and teachers, doctors and nurses put themselves at risk.
> 
> FFS



Pretty much agreed, I'm ok with garden centers though as it's at least a partial safety valve for mental health and it's something mostly done outside.

I will miss my weekly ceramics sessions though.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

it is noteable that germany france ireland have all done the same with their 2nd lockdowns not including schools.


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Seriously people?
> 
> Lockdown is not nice for anyone. Certainly a problem for the nations mental health. However I have fuck all sympathy for people wanting to go to the spa or gym, worried about their garden landscaping for a few weeks, wanting to go to the pub or needing some precious entitlement while people are dying and teachers, doctors and nurses put themselves at risk.
> 
> FFS


Why stop with closing the garden centres - Ban deliveries of non-essential items. Close the booze sections of supermarkets - only basic food essentials allowed to be purchased. There's a pandemic on.


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> what do people think is the reason why they are insisting on schools staying open?


I think it's the right thing but it's hard to comprehend that the party that won't even feed kids takes their welfare that seriously.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The cynical side of me says it’s because people can’t cope with spending too much time with their own children.


It's very hard keeping children entertained day after day in winter while trying to work and trying to counter the fact that they are also anxious and unsettled by what is going on.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> Why stop with closing the garden centres - Ban deliveries of non-essential items. Close the booze sections of supermarkets - only basic food essentials allowed to be purchased. There's a pandemic on.


Glad we agree


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

nagapie said:


> It's very hard keeping children entertained day after day in winter while trying to work and trying to counter the fact that they are also anxious and unsettled by what is going on.


In my day, we were told to shut up and watch old Bonanza! repeats whilst the adults got stuck into the beer.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

One aspect will be that if you want people to keep on working from home its better if their kids aren't there all day. The % of women who have lost their jobs already is  quite a lot higher than men, wouldn't be surprised if thats connected.


----------



## thismoment (Nov 1, 2020)

Cloo said:


> They shouldn't be trying to get family Christmas visits because it's not going to become safe for everyone to do it by then whatever happens in the interim - they need to be messaging now not to expect that.


 I agree and I think that advertising for Christmas should also bear that mind. Less of those adverts with lots of family and friends round the dinner table then opening presents. Be as realistic (not depressing) as possible. Maybe an advert of a family going for a walk while carrying your branded shopping bag full of “Christmas goodies”


----------



## purenarcotic (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> what do people think is the reason why they are insisting on schools staying open?



Kids in school makes it easier for people to work. Although given they are extending furlough, there will be plenty of parents at home with no work to do. I also wonder whether they are thinking about GCSEs and A levels next year... four / five weeks of no school is a lot to miss out for those children. It would be very different from last time though, in that schools are now much more prepared and ready for teaching remotely.


----------



## emanymton (Nov 1, 2020)

thismoment said:


> I agree and I think that advertising for Christmas should also bear that mind. Less of those adverts with lots of family and friends round the dinner table then opening presents. Be as realistic (not depressing) as possible. Maybe an advert of a family going for a walk while carrying your branded shopping bag full of “Christmas goodies”


Watching kids open presents on a zoom call.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What can be bought from a garden centre _necessary for the upkeep of a garden_ that can't be bought online or you know done without for a month in a time of extreme plaguey danger?



Loads of things in the garden can't wait a month. That's the nature of gardening, it's seasonal. 

And it's difficult to deliver a lot of them online. Plants don't cope well with it - and I know that because I generally do get my garden stuff delivered.

That said, their cafes should be closed to deter people hanging around longer than necessary and they should do a lot more curbside pick-ups for things like compost.


----------



## purenarcotic (Nov 1, 2020)

I think schools should shut, partly because my OH works in one and I don’t think she and others should be treated as cannon fodder, partly because people will think it’s ridiculous their kids can mix in school but can’t come round to play, so they’ll break the rules... and they are sources of transmission. OH’s school had 31 staff isolating the last day before half term. They had to send the kids home early. It’s totally unsustainable.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> Kids in school makes it easier for people to work. Although given they are extending furlough, there will be plenty of parents at home with no work to do. I also wonder whether they are thinking about GCSEs and A levels next year... four / five weeks of no school is a lot to miss out for those children. It would be very different from last time though, in that schools are now much more prepared and ready for teaching remotely.


Hard call. 

My sister is a primary school teacher in Yorkshire. Lots of key worker parents and not a wealthy area. 

The government did supply about 10% of the laptops they (lied about) promised but with no software on. Her underfunded school paid for the software but a large % of the kids who needed the laptops did not have broadband. The school could not afford that and they are trying to raise the funds to supply this too. 

She has barely had a single day off since the start of the first lockdown.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Watching kids open presents on a zoom call.


Good that we have that option eh?


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

Could get interesting.


----------



## emanymton (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Good that we have that option eh?


No I'd rather watch Netflix.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

emanymton said:


> No I'd rather watch Netflix.


Good on you


----------



## 5t3IIa (Nov 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> ...some other kind of keyworker that I can't think of right now...



I am an essential keyworker in the Ministry of Justice, and a lot of other Civil Service positions would come under this.

My office is/was planning to start back 5 days a week (after 1 day a week since April) tomorrow. I am assuming this is going ahead, and our RAG recovery plan will stay Amber... We felt out of step opening, additionally as our area (more of West Yorks) goes into Tier 3 as of one second past midnight tonight, and I guess even more so after yesterday’s announcement but... We are the _other_ essential key workers. Just FYI, like 😊


----------



## purenarcotic (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Hard call.
> 
> My sister is a primary school teacher in Yorkshire. Lots of key worker parents and not a wealthy area.
> 
> ...



That’s a very true point and I know it’s far from ideal... OH’s school in similarly deprived area and had all sorts of issues getting kids online. It’s very hard. I know the overall benefits for kids being in, especially kids where home is not a safe place, but I also don’t want my OH to die. Or any of her friends and colleagues. Of course if we had better governance some of these issues wouldn’t exist...


----------



## two sheds (Nov 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Professor Calum Semple from University of Liverpool has been on the BBC a fair bit yesterday and this morning.
> 
> He's on SAGE but speaking in personal capacity, and made the excellent point this morning that other essential sectors of society would start to crumble if we didn't have these restrictions. He's really clear and a great speaker, always good on sticking up for NHS staff as well.



Interesting - did he give examples?


----------



## xenon (Nov 1, 2020)

The garden centre thing is clearly an anomaly. As arguments for them being regarded as essential in some capacity can clearly be made for loads of other shops.

Your fence blown down = my washing machine has packed up, etc


----------



## planetgeli (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> what do people think is the reason why they are insisting on schools staying open?



Largely because of the 'noise' last time from people who didn't think they should have been closed.

It might have helped if they hadn't opened the pubs before the schools. This was an appalling display of priorities and gave people an easy moral argument against the government.

However, the re-opening of schools was all done on a basis of how it hurt disadvantaged kids most to have them shut. This was, to anyone who works in schools with disadvantaged kids, clearly just using these kids as moral fodder than for any real concern for them. Because if there was real concern for them then people like me wouldn't work in condemned buildings with the most disadvantaged, and Gavin Williamson (anyone remember who he actually is?) would have provided the laptops that were promised and never materialised. And have now been cut back to something like 10% of what was offered in the first place should we have to close the schools.

Remember how far this concern extends towards feeding these kids too.

They want people at work, where possible. And that's a bit harder to achieve with kids at home. That's the bottom line. And if anyone really thinks it's a concern for the welfare of the most socially and economically disadvantaged kids come visit me and I can show you why that's a lie.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

xenon said:


> The garden centre thing is clearly an anomaly. As arguments for them being regarded as essential in some capacity can clearly be made for loads of other shops.
> 
> Your fence blown down = my washing machine has packed up, etc


My telly is not working 
Have run out of lube 
I deserve a holiday 
My plastic surgery would cheer me up
A dog would cheer my kids up
The new PlayStation is out 
Really fancy a KFC 
That patio needs some weedkiller


----------



## Sue (Nov 1, 2020)

I'm just hoping we'll still be okay on the grouse shooting front tbh.


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Interesting - did he give examples?



Police, fire brigade, and (I think) food supply. He said something like widespread sickness across those and then some stupid incidents/behaviour and suddenly things look much worse.


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> My telly is not working
> Have run out of lube
> I deserve a holiday
> My plastic surgery would cheer me up
> ...



Sorry you're having such a hard time. Chin up though, it'll all be over by Xmas. Maybe.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sorry you're having such a hard time. Chin up though, it'll all be over by Xmas. Maybe.




Anyone honestly think it WILL be over by Christmas?


----------



## 5t3IIa (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Anyone honestly think it WILL be over by Christmas?


I suppose one might think that we will be even more shut over Xmas...as Cloo speculates, it is ‘simpler’ to shut schools over a traditionally school holiday period.


----------



## xenon (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Anyone honestly think it WILL be over by Christmas?



I think they might close the schools / unis early, if this lockdown (I know, right but what else we calling it,) doesn't get extended. The papers are going to be especially obnoxious of course.

This might be the first year I've ever stayed in Bristol for Christmas...


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

Starmer's making good use of the union cash that funds him by telling the neu to shut up and go to work. Also fishing for some sort of national unity gov again. Fucking cunt he is.


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Anyone honestly think it WILL be over by Christmas?



No. I'd bet a few week extension of these restrictions, then an allowed (but ill-advised) slackening over Xmas, then back into Tiers, then a gradual climb in cases again.


----------



## Cid (Nov 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I don't get that, I mean I go to the gym and it's a big thing in my life that I really enjoy and helps with all sorts of stress etc., but you just adapt and do exercise stuff in a park or a yard or something surely? It's a much easier thing to replace than some of the other things that are restricted.



I think it’s pretty difficult to get the kind of exercise you can get in a gym outside of one. Or at least it’s a lot less accessible. And that exercise is pretty vital for anyone who’s struggled with disordered eating etc... but it would just be daft to keep them open. And the previous lockdown should have provided a pretty clear warning that this was likely to happen again. It would just have been nice if this had been thought through a bit more... e.g vat holiday on bikes and fitness equipment or something.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Anyone honestly think it WILL be over by Christmas?



There's a good chance of it being over by Christmas 2021.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Nov 1, 2020)

Just a reminder schools weren't shut last time. They were open for those who needed them due to vulnerability or parent/carer's work status.

Keeping Unis open just seems daft.

Also the dishonesty of saying this is for a month is staggering. This lockdown light, plus whatever else develops, will need to be in place for as long as it takes...unless of course the government changes/manipulates the 'protect the NHS' goal posts.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## clicker (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Anyone honestly think it WILL be over by Christmas?


2022? Possibly.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> It would just have been nice if this had been thought through a bit more... e.g vat holiday on bikes and fitness equipment or something.


There are some bike schemes available. Do you want me to send some links?


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> I think schools should shut, partly because my OH works in one and I don’t think she and others should be treated as cannon fodder, partly because people will think it’s ridiculous their kids can mix in school but can’t come round to play, so they’ll break the rules... and they are sources of transmission. OH’s school had 31 staff isolating the last day before half term. They had to send the kids home early. It’s totally unsustainable.



TBF, if the kids have been mixing at school all day, it's not ridiculous to think they can mix outside school too. It's part of the point of bubbles, surely? I really can't see how that would increase transmission rates.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Anyone honestly think it WILL be over by Christmas?



I notice you didn't say WHICH Christmas !

Not this year, for certain. 
This "lockdown" which was needed weeks ago, will have an effect only if the compliance is high - and even then it might not be enough.
I still think they need to shut secondary schools and the universities. And probably more of the economy to really reduce transmission.

If we get started on a vaccination programme next spring (say early in March 2021) and the "had the jab" ratio is high enough for real herd immunity to be develop by the late summer [assuming the immunity-by-jab lasts long enough !] then maybe the plague will be controlled enough to have winterval next year.
But somehow, I have my doubts !


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> TBF, if the kids have been mixing at school all day, it's not ridiculous to think they can mix outside school too. It's part of the point of bubbles, surely? I really can't see how that would increase transmission rates.


Because kids just mix with a class at school, but at home with siblings, mates in the street, etc


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> TBF, if the kids have been mixing at school all day, it's not ridiculous to think they can mix outside school too. It's part of the point of bubbles, surely? I really can't see how that would increase transmission rates.


And since the kids mix with their parents at home, there’s no point in preventing the parents mixing with each other.  And the kids have siblings in other classes and other schools, so ALL parents may as well mix.  And some of those parents are in a support bubble with a single household.  And others are sharing child rearing with a key worker who is mixing with other key workers.  Frankly, there’s no point in preventing any mixing, there’s no way it could increase transmission rates.


----------



## Cid (Nov 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. I'd bet a few week extension of these restrictions, then an allowed (but ill-advised) slackening over Xmas, then back into Tiers, then a gradual climb in cases again.



Yeah that’s my take. I personally don’t think more than 2 week extension... but yeah, anything possible really. Christmas itself they will absolutely want most of the country at tier 1-2, and will probably just go for it regardless.

Longer term I suspect that many of the problems of the previous lockdown (e.g outbreaks in the worst run manufacturing and production businesses) will be compounded by some continuing level of infection in education etc. There is also bound to be somewhat lower compliance, though I do kind of get the sense people are taking it seriously. So Christmas will spread it all around a bit more, then return to school and uni. Probably be back where we are now some time in February.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 1, 2020)

The main areas of mixing that this shutdown will limit are hospitality and inter family mixing in the home. Well inter family mixing in the home and outside.

Were those areas the places where the majority of infections were coming from, I suppose now we will find out.

Oh and mixing in the retail environment.


----------



## Cid (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> There are some bike schemes available. Do you want me to send some links?



I have plenty of bikes. I meant more in general... fitness equipment is expensive, and I’m just guessing that a £15pcm gym membership is more accessible to a lot of people. Not to mention space to put it etc.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> I have plenty of bikes. I meant more in general... fitness equipment is expensive, and I’m just guessing that a £15pcm gym membership is more accessible to a lot of people. Not to mention space to put it etc.


I do get that 

But we are in a pandemic. Go to a park or the woods and lift something or do some press ups.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Because kids just mix with a class at school, but at home with siblings, mates in the street, etc



They'd be mixing at home with their siblings anyway. Mixing with kids in the street is different, but we're not talking about that.



kabbes said:


> And since the kids mix with their parents at home, there’s no point in preventing the parents mixing with each other.  And the kids have siblings in other classes and other schools, so ALL parents may as well mix.  And some of those parents are in a support bubble with a single household.  And others are sharing child rearing with a key worker who is mixing with other key workers.  Frankly, there’s no point in preventing any mixing, there’s no way it could increase transmission rates.



Not really. I'm talking specifically about kids who already mix with other kids. And yes, those kids will be taking their diseases home anyway. That doesn't mean the parents and everyone else should all mix. 

It's not actually a slippery slope.


----------



## xenon (Nov 1, 2020)

weltweit said:


> The main areas of mixing that this shutdown will limit are hospitality and inter family mixing in the home. Well inter family mixing in the home and outside.
> 
> Were those areas the places where the majority of infections were coming from, I suppose now we will find out.
> 
> Oh and mixing in the retail environment.



It's already known where most infections occur.

In a non hierarchical list:
Within the home,
Hospitality sector
Educational settings
Work places with poor ventilation and unavoidable close quarters work involving several people

The lack of ventilation and mixing of different households (albeit by proxy in the case of a household member coming into contact with various other households and transmitting the virus at home,.) - seem to be the key relative high risk factors.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> They'd be mixing at home with their siblings anyway. Mixing with kids in the street is different, but we're not talking about that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It’s not so much a slippery slope as the fact that your logic equally applies to each link in the chain.  The parents are all mixing with their children as much as the children are mixing with each other, for example.

The reason it all actually doesn’t work like that is because exposure isn’t binary, it’s cumulative.  But that applies to the kids as much as the adults.  Reduce the cumulative risk by reducing the time they spend with each other.  Don’t treat it as all or nothing.


----------



## Thora (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I do get that
> 
> But we are in a pandemic. Go to a park or the woods and lift something or do some press ups.


It's dark pretty early now.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It’s not so much a slippery slope as the fact that your logic equally applies to each link in the chain.  The parents are all mixing with their children as much as the children are mixing with each other, for example.



But the parents aren't mixing with each other. The kids genuinely are mixing together all day.


----------



## magneze (Nov 1, 2020)

Each extra link in the chain is a reduction in risk.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> But the parents aren't mixing with each other. The kids genuinely are mixing together all day.


Not all day.  Some of the day.  It’s you that wants to make it all day, remember?


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> I have plenty of bikes. I meant more in general... fitness equipment is expensive, and I’m just guessing that a £15pcm gym membership is more accessible to a lot of people. Not to mention space to put it etc.



Yeah, I think most of the people I know who really rely on gyms don't have space to exercise fully at home (prison-style workouts aren't the same), and it's getting really cold outside, plus the outdoor gyms are closed. Doesn't mean gyms should be opened, but I'm sympathetic to people who miss them. I mean, if it were as easy to exercise at home or in the park as at the gym then they wouldn't exist in the first place.


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> Could get interesting.



All relevant information in that tweet is compressed into the first four words


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Not all day.  Some of the day.  It’s you that wants to make it all day, remember?



Er, no. And it's several hours a day at school - it's not like they pass each other in the street.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 1, 2020)

Months ago, when "they" first said something about children not really being important vectors, both OH and I said "that's got to be bollocks"

Albeit anecdotal, but our reasoning was that shortly after almost every start of a new term, OH would catch something like a cough or a cold as whatever it was went around the school (and I would often get whatever it was from OH).


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

This isn’t well enough known:









						A room, a bar and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through the air
					

The risk of contagion is highest in indoor spaces but can be reduced by applying all available measures to combat infection via aerosols. Here is an overview of the likelihood of infection in three everyday scenarios, based on the safety measures used and the length of exposure




					english.elpais.com
				




It shows that in a WELL VENTILATED classroom with the teacher wearing a mask, an infected individual will likely only pass the infection on to one other person over four hours. Without ventilation or masks, it becomes a superspreader event.

What this means is that if you want to keep schools open, you need to limit the kids’ exposure to those controlled classroom settings and that’s it. Don’t let them then go running around with each other indoors in an uncontrolled setting.  It’s not the case that just because they are spending some time together, they may as well spend all their time together.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 1, 2020)

Everyone should imagine everyone else is radioactive. You may have to be exposed, but you want to be exposed as little as possible. So the kids mix at school, and you mix with your kids, but that doesn't mean you can then mix with anyone because you're just adding more exposure.

Orrrrr, it's like keeping the door closed when it's cold.  You open it only if you absolutely have to, but once it's open you close it again as soon as possible. You don't leave it open because "oh well, it's open now!"; you close it as soon as possible to keep as much warmth in as you can. 

If you have to mix with people, you do so as infrequently and for as little time as possible. The fact you've mixed with people doesn't give you immunity to mix with everyone.


----------



## teqniq (Nov 1, 2020)

Cold War Steve has excelled himself here:


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Er, no. And it's several hours a day at school - it's not like they pass each other in the street.


You said that “if the kids have been mixing at school all day, it's not ridiculous to think they can mix outside school too.”  By doing that, you’re the one turning a limited amount of time together in school into a large amount of time across the whole day.


----------



## Hollis (Nov 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> I think it’s pretty difficult to get the kind of exercise you can get in a gym outside of one. Or at least it’s a lot less accessible. And that exercise is pretty vital for anyone who’s struggled with disordered eating etc... but it would just be daft to keep them open. And the previous lockdown should have provided a pretty clear warning that this was likely to happen again. It would just have been nice if this had been thought through a bit more... e.g vat holiday on bikes and fitness equipment or something.



There's actually lots of options for exercising outside gyms.  At home, you really don't need much space to effectively 'workout', and there's now loads of online videos etc available.  If you're doing cardio then it's really a case of getting the right clothing to exercise outside..   Though I agree gyms will always be a preference for some because that's what they're used to.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> You said that “if the kids have been mixing at school all day, it's not ridiculous to think they can mix outside school too.”  By doing that, you’re the one turning a limited amount of time together in school into a large amount of time across the whole day.



But did I say that I want the kids to mix all day? I get that you're pissed off, but there's no need to make things up.

Kids don't spend a limited amount of time together in school. They're in support bubbles spending 6+ hours together.


----------



## lazythursday (Nov 1, 2020)

I really miss the gym but haven't been since March - logically gyms are just about the worst environment for transmission, it seems daft to take the risk. I know that they haven't been seen as a major source of the virus in this country but there have been a number of superspreader events associated with gyms elsewhere. I'm slowly but surely getting my home gym setup sorted - but the big difference is the motivation you get from exercising with other people. Really though I am sceptical that they should have been open in any area with a significant case rate (eg Tiers 2 and 3) anyway.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Kids don't spend a limited amount of time together in school. They're in support bubbles spending 6+ hours together.


But it _is_ limited to the time at school? It might be quite a high limit, but it's still limited.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

i'm pretty sure the yoga teacher next door will carry on holding classes in his house.  i've been going to his classes again, only 4 students allowed in the room at a time so there's sort of enough space. We all paid upfront for the term, the silly twat hasn't said anything yet on the whatsapp group so i think he'll just sit there and wait and see how many show up regardless.


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> But it _is_ limited to the time at school? It might be quite a high limit, but it's still limited.


All our time is limited by human mortality and the inevitable heat death of the universe but the original quote contrasted 'limited' with 'large' and a few hours on top of a 30+ a week is not a big difference.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> But it _is_ limited to the time at school? It might be quite a high limit, but it's still limited.



I don't think that's what Kabbes meant by kids supposedly spending a limited amount of time at school vs a large amount of time across the day (because I supposedly want kids to spend all day together).  Kids go to bed early. School is the vast majority of their day. Limited in that context means small.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It strikes me that as much as this lockdown should have come at least two if not four weeks earlier, it couldn’t have.  It would have fallen into the classic trap — if it had worked, people would have complained that it was unnecessary because there were never many cases anyway.  A panic whipped up for nothing.  The problem with timely and effective risk mitigation is that _because it works_, hindsight makes it look like it was pointless.
> 
> And that’s if the lockdown had been followed and therefore had worked.  When we were still at <50 deaths a day, I’m not convinced that compliance for following a lockdown would have been very high anyway.  If people are not wanting to follow it even now, where we are on the brink of disaster, it doesn’t speak well for compliance at an earlier stage.
> 
> This government is not up for imposing big costly things that people then blame them for when they work or get irate about when they don’t.


Don't agree with this. Partly because it's simply the job of government to take these decisions at the right time and to deliver on compliance (however shit the tories have been about doing either of those things).  The other is that most of the measures included in lockdown are not reliant on public compliance i.e. non-essential shops are simply shut, as are bars and restaurants. You might have a point about households mixing, people meeting up in various ways. That's something that's been increasingly frayed round the edges for a while. Aside from this particular stage in the regulations, the government doesn't have ways of getting communities on board to comply, look out for each other. We are only consumers.

Main reason I don't agree is that it lets the government off for killing people.  Not what you are doing/saying, of course, but I could imagine future defences of the government, at the time of the inevitable inquiries: 'they only did what could and were able to get the people on board with.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I don't think that's what Kabbes meant by kids supposedly spending a limited amount of time at school vs a large amount of time across the day (because I supposedly want kids to spend all day together).  Kids go to bed early. School is the vast majority of their day. Limited in that context means small.


No it doesn't. Limit doesn't specify size, it simply means there is an upper level that the thing doesn't go past.

As maomao points out (though I don't think this is the point they were making), human life is limited. It's limited to decades, which is not a small amount of time, but it is still limited.


maomao said:


> All our time is limited by human mortality and the inevitable heat death of the universe but the original quote contrasted 'limited' with 'large' and a few hours on top of a 30+ a week is not a big difference.


a) whether it's big or small, every difference matters and why take any more risk than you have to?
b) that difference rises with each person who takes more risk. You've got millions of kids in millions of families, if they all take a little bit more risk it very quickly becomes a massive, huge risk.

<edit: aaaaaaaand, again, it's not just about the literal physical exposure. Everyone 'bending the rules, just a little bit' has a corrosive effect on people's behaviour, degrading resolve in other areas too.>


----------



## xenon (Nov 1, 2020)

Hollis said:


> There's actually lots of options for exercising outside gyms.  At home, you really don't need much space to effectively 'workout', and there's now loads of online videos etc available.  If you're doing cardio then it's really a case of getting the right clothing to exercise outside..   Though I agree gyms will always be a preference for some because that's what they're used to.



Arguments like this are a bit like those for why are people fat when you can make cheap nutricious food with vege.

Doing press ups in the carpark or jogging around the rec in the pissing rain, is not most people's idea of exercise. If it were, gyms would not exist. Never mind that for a lot of gym users, they attend organised classes and need that motivational aspect.

I'm lucky in that living alone, I at  least have room for an exercise bike, a bar bell under the bed and a pullup thing on the door. Still, it's not the same as going out, that bit of interaction, fresh air and chance to use machines I don't have the money or space for at home.

Course I understand why they have to close. But let's not invent reasons for why they're unnecessary or should be unimportant to people.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> No it doesn't. Limit doesn't specify size, it simply means there is an upper level that the thing doesn't go past.
> 
> As maomao points out (though I don't think this is the point they were making), human life is limited. It's limited to decades, which is not a small amount of time, but it is still limited.
> a) whether it's big or small, every difference matters and why take any more risk than you have to?
> ...



That really is not what limited means in this context. Limited can mean small, especially when contrasted in the way it was. 

I take the point about it not being about the literal exposure, but the literal exposure won't actually be larger. You have to assume a slippery slope in order for there to be additional exposure.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 1, 2020)

Re fence panels and stuff - and bear in mind I'm a couple of pages behind - won't the likes of b&q still be able to deliver (and contractors to do fencing or other landscaping) under these regs?


----------



## weltweit (Nov 1, 2020)

Because of the schools and universities not shutting down this time this shut down will be less complete than the last one.


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Re fence panels and stuff - and bear in mind I'm a couple of pages behind - won't the likes of b&q still be able to deliver (and contractors to do fencing or other landscaping) under these regs?


Not only that but plenty of us rely on delivery for bulky items even when there isn't a lockdown.


----------



## Looby (Nov 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Re fence panels and stuff - and bear in mind I'm a couple of pages behind - won't the likes of b&q still be able to deliver (and contractors to do fencing or other landscaping) under these regs?


Last time what you could order was heavily limited. Lots of stuff out of stock and they wouldn’t deliver anything that meant two people had to be within 2 metres of each other.
Bulky stuff was often click and collect so we hired a man and van.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

small shoutout to screwfix, who i think have been really good this whole year, properly responsible down to restricting what they had on sale (to essential type  tools & materials)  and being totally on the case with a functioning click and collect system straight away.


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> small shoutout to screwfix, who i think have been really good this whole year, properly responsible down to restricting what they had on sale (to essential type  tools & materials)  and being totally on the case with a functioning click and collect system straight away.


When I was at my local Screwfix they turned a bloke away for not wearing a mask which took some balls.


----------



## Doodler (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> small shoutout to screwfix, who i think have been really good this whole year, properly responsible down to restricting what they had on sale (to essential type  tools & materials)  and being totally on the case with a functioning click and collect system straight away.



So they should! Their parent company Kingfisher (which also owns B&Q) had large pre-pandemic cash reserves and lockdown stimulated sales.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

Doodler said:


> So they should! Their parent company Kingfisher (which also owns B&Q) had large pre-pandemic cash reserves and lockdown stimulated sales.


Good for them. I don’t think having plenty of money is a good predictor for whose going to make the most responsible decisions tho.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 1, 2020)

Our local(ish) screwfix have been very good with getting stuff and their organisation for click n collect / covid mask wearing generally and the like, has been excellent.
Which is more than can be said for some places !


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> Good for them. I don’t think having plenty of money is a good predictor for whose going to make the most responsible decisions tho.


I take it you mean the likes of Mullins and Tim Martin ?


----------



## Hollis (Nov 1, 2020)

xenon said:


> Arguments like this are a bit like those for why are people fat when you can make cheap nutricious food with vege.
> 
> Doing press ups in the carpark or jogging around the rec in the pissing rain, is not most people's idea of exercise. If it were, gyms would not exist. Never mind that for a lot of gym users, they attend organised classes and need that motivational aspect.
> 
> ...



Except I haven't said any of the bollox that you're spouting.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 1, 2020)

I was driving over to the ex's yesterday to do a bit more getting my huge piles of junk in the shed ready for disposal, when I got pulled over and questioned in some detail by the police, and had to argue my case quite assertively before they'd let me continue.

Good. (this is Wales, BTW)


----------



## xenon (Nov 1, 2020)

Hollis said:


> Except I haven't said any of the bollox that you're spouting.



You did say 
"
There's actually lots of options for exercising outside gyms.  At home, you really don't need much space to effectively 'workout', and there's now loads of online videos etc available.  If you're doing cardio then it's really a case of getting the right clothing to exercise outside..   Though I agree gyms will always be a preference for some because that's what they're used to."         

HTH.


----------



## Supine (Nov 1, 2020)

I was thinking about how the next lockdown will affect me. I don't think it will as I never actually came out of the last lockdown


----------



## Hollis (Nov 1, 2020)

xenon said:


> You did say
> "
> There's actually lots of options for exercising outside gyms.  At home, you really don't need much space to effectively 'workout', and there's now loads of online videos etc available.  If you're doing cardio then it's really a case of getting the right clothing to exercise outside..   Though I agree gyms will always be a preference for some because that's what they're used to."
> 
> HTH.



Perhaps you should focus on the relation between this, and the subsequent bollox you've been spouting.. 

HTH.


----------



## xenon (Nov 1, 2020)

Hollis said:


> Perhaps you should focus on the relation between this, and the subsequent bollox you've been spouting..
> 
> HTH.



What bollocks is that then. You replied to someone talking about gym equipment with a load of guff why gyms aren't necessary. I replied to that. With a rhetorical embellishment, granted.

Keep up.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Because of the schools and universities not shutting down this time this shut down will be less complete than the last one.


Thank goodness you've arrived to explain that tricky concept to the thread


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> i'm pretty sure the yoga teacher next door will carry on holding classes in his house.  i've been going to his classes again, only 4 students allowed in the room at a time so there's sort of enough space. We all paid upfront for the term, the silly twat hasn't said anything yet on the whatsapp group so i think he'll just sit there and wait and see how many show up regardless.


There is a woman round the corner from us who runs her beauticians business from her house and there are almost always several different cars outside her house through the day. We actually moved into Tier 2 yesterday so I was wondering if this meant she would stop, it will be even more interesting to see what happens after Thursday.
Youngest has texted me today to ask me if this means her driving lessons will be suspended again, I reckon yes but perhaps she should ask her instructor. He was planning on retirement when all his current pupils finish and isn't taking any more. This is going to push that date further back for him if he sticks to his plan


----------



## cybershot (Nov 1, 2020)

No clear guidance on what happens with the housing market just yet. I’m literally about to exchange contracts this week and secure a completion date. Will I be able to move?

🤷‍♂️
Fun times. Really wanted to be moved before Christmas but so be it if not. At the very least o hope we can exchange because the longer this drags on without contracts being done and dusted my bum gets squeakier by the day.
I’m assuming it will be allowed to stay open otherwise they will have to extend the stamp duty holiday by a month.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

I'm pretty sure that will go ahead fine cybershot, the sellers & estate agent will be feeling lucky to have you.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I don't think that's what Kabbes meant by kids supposedly spending a limited amount of time at school vs a large amount of time across the day (because I supposedly want kids to spend all day together).  Kids go to bed early. School is the vast majority of their day. Limited in that context means small.


No, it’s exactly what I meant when I said it’s limited.  Six hours is not “the whole day”


----------



## cybershot (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> I'm pretty sure that will go ahead fine cybershot, the sellers & estate agent will be feeling lucky to have you.



Its not just them it’s the whole chain. Only a 3 property chain that realistically should have been done by now, and the longer fiddley bits of paperwork someone hasn’t completed drags on it feels like walking on egg shells.


----------



## tommers (Nov 1, 2020)

cybershot said:


> No clear guidance on what happens with the housing market just yet. I’m literally about to exchange contracts this week and secure a completion date. Will I be able to move?
> 
> 🤷‍♂️
> Fun times. Really wanted to be moved before Christmas but so be it if not. At the very least o hope we can exchange because the longer this drags on without contracts being done and dusted my bum gets squeakier by the day.
> I’m assuming it will be allowed to stay open otherwise they will have to extend the stamp duty holiday by a month.



Same. Fingers are crossed.


----------



## Anju (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> small shoutout to screwfix, who i think have been really good this whole year, properly responsible down to restricting what they had on sale (to essential type  tools & materials)  and being totally on the case with a functioning click and collect system straight away.



Selco were even better. Closed for longer than any other similar businesses and when they opened again had fully screened off all customer facing positions.  Didn't start offering click and collect until early may and it wasn't until end of June that all shops were open to customers. Even then they always had staff controling numbers at the entrance. Probably the most responsible response from a retailer I came across.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> No, it’s exactly what I meant when I said it’s limited.  Six hours is not “the whole day”



Sorry, but you didn't just say limited. This is what you said:

"You’re the one turning a limited amount of time together in school into a large amount of time across the whole day."

Do you really not think six hours is already a large amount of time? 

You were contrasting the time spent in schools to time spent potentially playing after school. Kids spend more than six hours a day at school. They will not have time in the day to just play with their friends for longer than that.

If your kid had a birthday and they wanted to invite a couple of kids from their bubble at their class to watch a movie, would you actually be spreading more germs? That's the real situation that I know is happening, not an imagined one where kids have more hours for play out of school than in school and spend all of them together.


----------



## Cid (Nov 1, 2020)

So we’ve got starmer saying schools must stay open, Gove already saying same, and lockdown may need to be extended (is Gove relevant these days?).

Reading up it seems utterly batshit that education remains open... SAGE reckons potential reduction in r of 0.2-0.5 from universities, and a further 0.2-0.5 from schools. I do completely understand why it’s very desirable for schools to remain open. Universities less so. But those numbers would be hugely significant.

It is pretty clear that this lockdown is what it says on the tin. A circuit breaker. Just a way of buying a bit of time, not a precursor to introducing measures that may allow a return to something like the before time.


----------



## teqniq (Nov 1, 2020)

It is particularly batshit when you consider schoolkids have been identified as a major transmission vector. Until, of course you consider that the vermin's overarching concen is that the proles continue to work.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 1, 2020)

teqniq said:


> It is particularly batshit when you consider schoolkids have been identified as a major transmission vector. Until, of course you consider that the vermin's overarching concen is that the proles continue to work.



Make no mistakes the number one concern from the politicians is the economy to the exclusion of all else.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> If your kid had a birthday and they wanted to invite a couple of kids from their bubble at their class to watch a movie, would you actually be spreading more germs?


You'd be providing more opportunity for the germs to spread.


----------



## zora (Nov 1, 2020)

xenon said:


> With a rhetorical embellishment, granted.



Massive hyperbole, more like. And imo a complete misrepresentation. To highlight the many options for exercising outside the gym to tide people over for a few weeks while still getting the benefit is hardly comparable to the rabid poor people shaming that some Daily Mail trolls have been engaging in online!

Yes, some people might miss it. But I reckon it's been one of the areas that has extremely well adapted, see for example the explosion of the Joe Wicks exercise craze. 
For me personally, it's actually been a massive improvement. My favourite teachers that I had over the years (yoga, HIIT, Tai Chi) that I had lost touch with due to them moving away or stopping teaching have all started doing classes online, so I am doing more than ever before and am actively enjoying doing them from the comfort of my own home and not having to trek across London after work.
You might say, pah good for you, but I don't think I am in a particularly privileged position in this; I have literally got a yoga mat's worth of space in my room which a lot of people will have, and I think also the vast majority of gym goers will have a smartphone or other internet connection. 

Like Hollis, I acknowledge of course that some people might have a preference for the gym but I think it's one of the easier things to replace meaningfully under the circumstances.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> So we’ve got starmer saying schools must stay open, Gove already saying same, and lockdown may need to be extended (is Gove relevant these days?).
> 
> Reading up it seems utterly batshit that education remains open... SAGE reckons potential reduction in r of 0.2-0.5 from universities, and a further 0.2-0.5 from schools. I do completely understand why it’s very desirable for schools to remain open. Universities less so. But those numbers would be hugely significant.
> 
> It is pretty clear that this lockdown is what it says on the tin. A circuit breaker. Just a way of buying a bit of time, not a precursor to introducing measures that may allow a return to something like the before time.


Burnham calling schools to close in Greater Manchester


----------



## Cid (Nov 1, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Make no mistakes the number one concern from the politicians is the economy to the exclusion of all else.



I seem to say this every other page now, but it isn’t. It is a very particular ideological take on the economy. It is in no sense good to have prolonged periods of uncertainty, with unpredictable and massive contractions. It’s not even particularly ‘because capitalism’; see Korea, Japan, NZ, Australia etc. It’s just free-marketeer recklessness.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> You'd be providing more opportunity for the germs to spread.



If they'd already spent all day together at school? What do you think these kids will be doing in between - going to the spa?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> I seem to say this every other page now, but it isn’t. It is a very particular ideological take on the economy. It is in no sense good to have prolonged periods of uncertainty, with unpredictable and massive contractions. It’s not even particularly ‘because capitalism’; see Korea, Japan, NZ, Australia etc. It’s just free-marketeer recklessness.



I didn't say it was the right one, its hideously blinkered and straight jacketed but its certainly the priority. I'm still very sure that Boris and co expect things to just go back to normal within weeks of any vaccine and aren't thinking of the human costs, the scars in mental health or changing things for the better. Sticking tirelessly to the low government, the market as a saviour rhetoric they truly cherish.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

I wouldn't mind if they cared about the economy, I might lose my job next week so i am a bit concerned about it. The problem is their dithering has trashed the fucking economy anyway. 'Eat out to help out' ffs, fat lot of good that 'helped out' in the end, unless you are talking about SARS-COV-2.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

'It was the right thing to do' but spread the coronavirus around even more? Fuck off.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> If they'd already spent all day together at school? What do you think these kids will be doing in between - going to the spa?


You're working on the assumption that if they've spent 6 hours together in school then they've already passed on whatever they're going to pass on.

If some manage to get through the day without catching it, why give them extra chance to catch it elsewhere?

And, again, it's not just about the literal spreading of the disease. Once you start thinking "it doesn't matter" then other things start to not matter too.


----------



## Cid (Nov 1, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I didn't say it was the right one, its hideously blinkered and straight jacketed but its certainly the priority. I'm still very sure that Boris and co expect things to just go back to normal within weeks of any vaccine and aren't thinking of the human costs, the scars in mental health or changing things for the better. Sticking tirelessly to the low government, the market as a saviour rhetoric they truly cherish.



Yeah it’s just become something of a trigger point for me. It’s become something that justifies their behaviour to a certain type of person. What they’ve actually done is totally fuck the economy out of incompetence and laziness.


----------



## Cid (Nov 1, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> You're working on the assumption that if they've spent 6 hours together in school then they've already passed on whatever they're going to pass on.
> 
> If some manage to get through the day without catching it, why give them extra chance to catch it elsewhere?
> 
> And, again, it's not just about the literal spreading of the disease. Once you start thinking "it doesn't matter" then other things start to not matter too.



Also important to bear in mind characteristics of disease spread. There are going to be many kids that, even when infected, don’t spread the disease. If their parents only have contact with them, no problem. If, on the other hand, a school has one asymptomatic super spreader who also visits a few different households, then you get the potential of an outbreak.


----------



## campanula (Nov 1, 2020)

sorry, just whipped to the end to clarify something about garden centres because when it comes down to the health of people, I will always defer to sensible rules involving a full lockdown and think that nitpicking about lifestyle choices, over actual lives is just a bit mental. I just wanted to challenge the idea that they had been allowed to open (in June) because Tory home-owners in the shires had a cob on.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

Bubbles are stupid but better than nothing.


----------



## cybershot (Nov 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> So we’ve got starmer saying schools must stay open, Gove already saying same, and lockdown may need to be extended (is Gove relevant these days?).
> 
> Reading up it seems utterly batshit that education remains open... SAGE reckons potential reduction in r of 0.2-0.5 from universities, and a further 0.2-0.5 from schools. I do completely understand why it’s very desirable for schools to remain open. Universities less so. But those numbers would be hugely significant.
> 
> It is pretty clear that this lockdown is what it says on the tin. A circuit breaker. Just a way of buying a bit of time, not a precursor to introducing measures that may allow a return to something like the before time.



Gove also said this morning they must follow the science. Something they’ve been failing to do since they said they would otherwise we wouldn’t be where we are now.

It didn’t take long for the economy > science & health.

Basically this lockdown is nothing more than a ‘stop mingling, stop socialising, stop having fun, but go to work & school’


----------



## two sheds (Nov 1, 2020)

Not sure how Toolstation compares for coronavirus but they're superb if you don't have a car - spend £10 and you get free delivery, have used them lots. Screwfix you have to spend £50 for free delivery. Having said that I see delivery charge is only a fiver which I'll swear is lower than it was. Good on them for cv action though I'll check them next time I need something.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 1, 2020)

Just on the universities, to some extent the damage has already been done with freshers week piss ups and the rest. Then they would have to find a way to get students home from campus without spreading it further.  Don't get me wrong, universities *should *shut, maybe with the exception of socially useful courses such as nursing.  But doing something now is in the context of the damage already done.  Ultimately though, it's about loss of face for government, in fact keeping them open is almost peevish in its motivation.


----------



## Mation (Nov 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's a good chance of it being over by Christmas 202*2*.


Fixed that for you 


LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I don't get that, I mean I go to the gym and it's a big thing in my life that I really enjoy and helps with all sorts of stress etc., but you just adapt and do exercise stuff in a park or a yard or something surely? It's a much easier thing to replace than some of the other things that are restricted.


I used to go to a spin class followed by a weights class. They were magnificent. The timing was right; the instructor was right; seemingly the only one who knew how to actually use music to make very intense exercise lots easier to do and enjoy. When he changed his work pattern, it didn't suit me at all. I tried to go running or do any number of exercise bits away from the gym, but didn't manage any regular exercise for over a year afterwards as I just didn't enjoy it. Can't (not won't) make myself keep doing something I don't enjoy (given that I'm not responsible for any children).

The gyms should still close, for sure, but I can understand the feeling of loss.


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 1, 2020)

UWE (Bristol) seems to have already upped its game in the space of a week - masks all the time for everyone as well as face shields for lecturers and frontline staff ...
I'll see what the VC says next week about sending the over-60s home... though it's now only of academic interest in my case ...


----------



## Mation (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I don't think that's what Kabbes meant by kids supposedly spending a limited amount of time at school vs a large amount of time across the day (because I supposedly want kids to spend all day together).  Kids go to bed early. School is the vast majority of their day. Limited in that context means small.


It's not about the relative proportion of their (or anyone's) day. It's about minimising the actual amount of time people are in contact. As school hours are already long, they don't need any more on top (risk-wise). Every bit of extra time increases the risk.


----------



## belboid (Nov 1, 2020)

Have we had the Marjoram (alternative sage) graph of likely deaths and cases yet?  Shows very clearly how closing schools will save lives - and allow a quicker return to normal teaching for all.


----------



## Mation (Nov 1, 2020)

belboid said:


> Have we had the Marjoram (alternative sage) graph of likely deaths and cases yet?  Shows very clearly how closing schools will save lives - and allow a quicker return to normal teaching for all.
> 
> View attachment 236904


You need to crop that so we can't see the title, axes or rightmost side of the graph as a whole.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 1, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> UWE (Bristol) seems to have already upped its game in the space of a week - masks all the time for everyone as well as face shields for lecturers and frontline staff ...
> I'll see what the VC says next week about sending the over-60s home... though it's now only of academic interest in my case ...


At my place, north east ex poly, we got an email from the VC on Friday saying he expected the town to be going to Tier 3 next week, with a suggestion the university might reassess its provision if that happened (reasonable assumption was that meant going 'more online' for most courses).  By the by, I think it's interesting that university VCs are getting the nod on these things ahead of the population, even if it was overtaken a matter of hours later. But the bigger irony is that we end up 'more locked down' than if we'd gone into Tier 3, but that comes with a government announcement that Universities will stay open. World Fucking Beating.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Just on the universities, to some extent the damage has already been done with freshers week piss ups and the rest. Then they would have to find a way to get students home from campus without spreading it further.  Don't get me wrong, universities *should *shut, maybe with the exception of socially useful courses such as nursing.  But doing something now is in the context of the damage already done.  Ultimately though, it's about loss of face for government, in fact keeping them open is almost peevish in its motivation.


Should be on line . Student populations are a blight in residential areas . Coming of age rituals should be in their home areas


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 1, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Student populations are a blight in residential areas . Coming of age rituals should be in their home areas



For those that don’t know, Bevendean is a huge student HMO;









						WATCH: Halloween hell as police respond to screaming teens and partying students
					

MARAUDING youths were ordered to disperse from a Halloween party just hours after the Prime Minister announced a second national lockdown.




					www.theargus.co.uk


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> Starmer's making good use of the union cash that funds him by telling the neu to shut up and go to work. Also fishing for some sort of national unity gov again. Fucking cunt he is.


_Well he may be to the right of Corbyn but's he's going to keep the same policies!_


----------



## Wilf (Nov 1, 2020)

On one side, there's the polls and common sense saying Biden has got it, but on the other there are so many uncertainties about this election with increased early voting, actual voter suppression, sneaky voter suppression and the inevitable legal challenges.  Still squeaky bum time till a couple of significant counties start showing actual results in the swing states.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> On one side, there's the polls and common sense saying Biden has got it, but on the other there are so many uncertainties about this election with increased early voting, actual voter suppression, sneaky voter suppression and the inevitable legal challenges.  Still squeaky bum time till a couple of significant counties start showing actual results in the swing states.


A few worries about replying to the correct thread as well.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

Wilf said:


> On one side, there's the polls and common sense saying Biden has got it, but on the other there are so many uncertainties about this election with increased early voting, actual voter suppression, sneaky voter suppression and the inevitable legal challenges.  Still squeaky bum time till a couple of significant counties start showing actual results in the swing states.


Wilf did you mean to post this on a different thread?


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)




----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> View attachment 236908


#wearefuckingtwats


----------



## Wilf (Nov 1, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> A few worries about replying to the correct thread as well.





S☼I said:


> Wilf did you mean to post this on a different thread?


Nah, I'll leave it in as a testament to my stupidity.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

campanula said:


> sorry, just whipped to the end to clarify something about garden centres because when it comes down to the health of people, I will always defer to sensible rules involving a full lockdown and think that nitpicking about lifestyle choices, over actual lives is just a bit mental. I just wanted to challenge the idea that they had been allowed to open (in June) because Tory home-owners in the shires had a cob on.


I am 50/50 on this. 

Assume on that basis you think opening loads of things are acceptable for the nations health? 

There is very little at a garden centre you can't order online is there? 

I would prefer garden centres to be open but to suggest they are (we think) only open for middle class and toff cunts is incorrect. On that basis all art galleries, museums, craft workshops, cinemas, theatres and venues would be open too. 

Order seeds online


----------



## BristolEcho (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> View attachment 236908


Majority of tweets seem to be calling it out.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I am 50/50 on this.
> 
> Assume on that basis you think opening loads of things are acceptable for the nations health?
> 
> ...



I think she was just saying that keeping them open isn't down to class, and it definitely isn't. I also disagreed with the idea that stuff at garden centres can be put off for a month or all ordered online, because that's not how gardening works.

I'm still not sure they should be open except for pick-ups and trade purchases. But if an exception is made for something other than supermarkets, this is one of the least-bad ones.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I think she was just saying that keeping them open isn't down to class, and it definitely isn't. I also disagreed with the idea that stuff at garden centres can be put off for a month or all ordered online, because that's not how gardening works.
> 
> I'm still not sure they should be open except for pick-ups and trade purchases. But if an exception is made for something other than supermarkets, this is one of the least-bad ones.


Yup. Non-essential


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I think she was just saying that keeping them open isn't down to class, and it definitely isn't.


Many non middle class people enjoy gardening and garden centres. However it was the Tory press going into meltdown about it earlier in the year that made it a priority for this government to allow.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> Many non middle class people enjoy gardening and garden centres. However it was the Tory press going into meltdown about it earlier in the year that made it a priority for this government to allow.



I thought they were open from the start?


----------



## planetgeli (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I thought they were open from the start?



No. They were closed for over 2 months.

And I haven't seen any stories of garden tragedies that outweigh the virus.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

It was hardware stores that were open from the start


----------



## pinkmonkey (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> It was hardware stores that were open from the start


But you could only order certain essentials (seeds and things to grow food ween't included) and it was click and collect.


----------



## Sprocket. (Nov 1, 2020)

The nearest supermarkets to us are around two miles drive, but we have a few to chose from. East of here apart from a few sparse large villages the only shops are the little village store/post office and a couple of garden centres. My nephew lives in North Notts and the nearest supermarket to him is eighteen miles away. He uses the garden centre four miles away as they have freezers and a farm shop on site. It’s a bit rubbish driving four miles for a pint of milk. Sadly they are not all millionaires that live outside of towns.


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

jesus are we still arguing about garden centres?


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

i'm sort of dreading going to the supermarket but will have to do it probably tomorrow. I imagine its horrible in there with people grim facedly buying multiple of stuff again but maybe i'm underestimating my fellow humans.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> No. They were closed for over 2 months.
> 
> And I haven't seen any stories of garden tragedies that outweigh the virus.



I'm sure at least some were open. My local, small one wasn't (it didn't even do deliveries, which was shortsighted of them), but I'm sure I read people complaining about others being open.

For some people, nothing can outweigh the virus. It's become the new "you can't complain, do you have CANCER!!!???"


----------



## Sprocket. (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> jesus are we still arguing about garden centres?


My response was to a few posts higher up, sorry if it upset you.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> jesus are we still arguing about garden centres?



I think it's discussing, not arguing. Just because you're not the one wasting your time with this particular discussion doesn't mean we can't!


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> jesus are we still arguing about garden centres?



Would you prefer we argued about whether or not it's OK to argue about garden centres?


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Would you prefer we argued about whether or not it's OK to argue about garden centres?


that's next.


----------



## campanula (Nov 1, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Its a shit time of year for anything in the garden though. At least next weeks supposed to be decent weather.





Artaxerxes said:


> I'm just covering everything in shit then covering up till spring...





Badgers said:


> I am 50/50 on this.
> 
> Assume on that basis you think opening loads of things are acceptable for the nations health?
> 
> ...


I thought I had been clear that all the arguments for individual lifestyle choices are specious, when weighed against the potential for actual loss of life. I can make a reasoned argument for all sorts of things, particularly as to how they apply to me and my individual needs...but this is not an argument I would have in the current circumstances.
I do think that one of the contentious issues  relates to authority - who has it and on what basis is this granted...and unfortunately, the govt. has absolutely lost trust and any sense that they are acting transparently and honestly in the interests of public health.. However, when it comes down to a choice between individual rights and the collective good, I have no problem whatsoever abnegating personal freedoms - mine or anyone else's in favour of public safety.

In truth, I don't need garden centres either - I collect my own seeds, grow my own plants and make my own topsoil. 

Also, killer b,  garden centres, gyms, clothes shops and so on are basically proxies for the bigger questions of personal rights versus the collective good and of little significance when taken as specific examples.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

Whilst we were waiting for Johnson to go on tv yesterday Slovakia managed to test half of its entire population apart from kids under ten, the second half to be done next weekend.  Thats quite impressive.


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> i'm sort of dreading going to the supermarket but will have to do it probably tomorrow. I imagine its horrible in there with people grim facedly buying multiple of stuff again but maybe i'm underestimating my fellow humans.


I'm just back now and it was no different tbh. You might get some local flare ups, but the panic buying in the spring was mostly a function of people not knowing what was going to happen, thinking everything was going to be closed, etc. I reckon most people know the drill now so it's unlikely to happen on the same scale.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> Whilst we were waiting for Johnson to go on tv yesterday Slovakia managed to test half of its entire population apart from kids under ten, the second half to be done next weekend.  Thats quite impressive.



The BBC news person who was on to pad out the time while Johnson was being dragged away from the bar to do his press conference asked someone she was interviewing, 'where are the countries that have done well in this pandemic then? France, Spain are both going back into lockdown...' as if the UK plus France and Spain amounted to a complete list of all the countries on the planet.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> Majority of tweets seem to be calling it out.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm just back now and it was no different tbh. You might get some local flare ups, but the panic buying in the spring was mostly a function of people not knowing what was going to happen, thinking everything was going to be closed, etc. I reckon most people know the drill now so it's unlikely to happen on the same scale.



Same here. Wasn't even that busy for a Sunday. I didn't even have to queue and everything I needed was in stock.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

our deaths figures are up, seems to be not as bad as last weekend?


----------



## planetgeli (Nov 1, 2020)

Tesco round my way have 16 loo rolls on special offer.

There will be no shortages.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> jesus are we still arguing about garden centres?


Much more essential and unprecedented compared to schools and universities


----------



## Wilf (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> jesus are we still arguing about garden centres?


(((Baby eating anarchists)))


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm just back now and it was no different tbh. You might get some local flare ups, but the panic buying in the spring was mostly a function of people not knowing what was going to happen, thinking everything was going to be closed, etc. I reckon most people know the drill now so it's unlikely to happen on the same scale.


I went to Booths in Otley today and it was fine. No panic buying, no crowds, no queues. Probably a different story in more urban areas I imagine


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

Queues at Cleethorpes Tesco. Fine at Grimsby ASDA


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> our deaths figures are up, seems to be not as bad as last weekend?



162 reported today, up from 151 last Sunday, but wait for the Tuesday figure, which catches up on the weekend reporting lag, that was 367 last Tue.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 1, 2020)

I passed the outdoor pub that I was at yesterday and saw that it was open today, which I'd not expected as it is normally closed on Sundays. They're opening every day until Thursday now, and they were reminding everyone of this and that they were taking bookings. Seemed cheerful enough but in a resigned way.


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I passed the outdoor pub that I was at yesterday and saw that it was open today, which I'd not expected as it is normally closed on Sundays. They're opening every day until Thursday now, and they were reminding everyone of this and that they were taking bookings. Seemed cheerful enough but in a resigned way.


they'll have a load of beer to get rid of tbf


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> they'll have a load of beer to get rid of tbf


It's mostly an oven-baked pizza, wine and negroni type place so I guess maybe most of their stock will survive for a month. Railway arches though and that can be vicious for rent....


----------



## chilango (Nov 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. I'd bet a few week extension of these restrictions, then an allowed (but ill-advised) slackening over Xmas, then back into Tiers, then a gradual climb in cases again.



Lockdown III in February as they desperately, once again. try and get to the half-term without closing schools.


----------



## LDC (Nov 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I went to Booths in Otley today and it was fine. No panic buying, no crowds, no queues. Probably a different story in more urban areas I imagine



Even in the zombie apocalypse Booths will be a lovely oasis of calm and nice food. I went to the Ilkley one on Saturday and wanted to never leave. Survive the pandemic and but died from an overdose of deli counter treats.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 1, 2020)

We'll keep having them until there's an even vaguely passable test and trace.

I'm fairly sure there will never be one on a national basis, they seem entirely averse to that, but it's possible that local systems will get set up which will do the job.


----------



## chilango (Nov 1, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Even in the zombie apocalypse Booths will be a lovely oasis of calm and nice food. I went to the Ilkley one on Saturday and wanted to never leave. Survive the pandemic and but died from an overdose of deli counter treats.



I went to Windermere Booths the other day. I now have a fine bottle of Islay Single Malt to help me through Lockdown II.

Good job there's another Lockdown though, 'cos after going to Booths I can't afford to go out for a month now anyway.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 1, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> We'll keep having them until there's an even vaguely passable test and trace.
> 
> I'm fairly sure there will never be one on a national basis, they seem entirely averse to that, but it's possible that local systems will get set up which will do the job.



In the past week I've had a couple of calls purporting to be test n trace, trying to tell me I've been in contact with a +ve case, and I need to pay for a premium 'rona test and can they have my card details ...
I kept the one guy on for almost 10 minutes - before telling him to bugger off.

I know it's a scam.

I've not been out of the house n garden for the past three weeks ... bar once for a business meeting and that wasn't on the date these plonkers were using.
[Emailed the three people at that meeting, no-one's even got the slightest sniffle, never mind had a test]

Unfortunately, the call back number was spoofed to an unobtainable one, so I had nothing for the police fraud squad other than a time and voice description.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> We'll keep having them until there's an even vaguely passable test and trace.



Contact tracing is a expensive waste of time & money, when under 20% of those told to self-isolate actually do so, that's the biggest problem.

The only way to deal with that is full wages for those told to self-isolate, and heavy enforcement of the £1000 fines if they don't, if that means having [unarmed] troops backing-up the police & local authority workers knocking doors, so be it.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 1, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> In the past week I've had a couple of calls purporting to be test n trace, trying to tell me I've been in contact with a +ve case, and I need to pay for a premium 'rona test and can they have my card details ...
> I kept the one guy on for almost 10 minutes - before telling him to bugger off.
> 
> I know it's a scam.
> ...


I generally have a line of not bothering to get angry with scammers, just hang up and report the number, but anyone doing that really is scum tbh.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Contact tracing is a expensive waste of time & money, when under 20% of those told to self-isolate actually do so, that's the biggest problem.
> 
> The only way to deal with that is full wages for those told to self-isolate, and heavy enforcement of the £1000 fines if they don't, if that means having [unarmed] troops backing-up the police & local authority workers knocking doors, so be it.


This is true, there also needs to be proper follow-up for the test and trace that is fair to people affected, and that's another reason why I don't think it will ever happen nationally because that's not what they do.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 1, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I generally have a line of not bothering to get angry with scammers, just hang up and report the number, but anyone doing that really is scum tbh.



yep I ask them who they're calling from and as soon as they say "... finance company" I say "no thank you" and put the phone down - I do bear in mind that they have my phone number and I don't want them to start phoning me at 3 am.


----------



## savoloysam (Nov 1, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> We'll keep having them until there's an even vaguely passable test and trace.



I can promise the house a world beating one up and running on June the 1st 2019

Not long to go now


----------



## campanula (Nov 1, 2020)

Apols for confusion - what is the status of the 'shielded' group? I thought they had been explicitly told to not work. Asking cos D-i-L has been forced back to work since August despite having no functioning immune system. She works as a nursery teacher. I had hoped she could go on furlough (as she certainly can't afford to pay rent on SSP).


----------



## Looby (Nov 1, 2020)

campanula said:


> Apols for confusion - what is the status of the 'shielded' group? I thought they had been explicitly told to not work. Asking cos D-i-L has been forced back to work since August despite having no functioning immune system. She works as a nursery teacher. I had hoped she could go on furlough (as she certainly can't afford to pay rent on SSP).


They don’t need to completely shield and should go outside for exercise but if they can’t work from home, they shouldn’t work. How that will be financed, I’m not sure.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> No alcohol takeaways from pubs etc apparantly



Very sensible considering the piss taking by some pubs & bars last time.

It would be fine to sell alcohol in take-away containers, which was the intention.

Selling it in plastic pint 'glasses', resulting in crowds of pissheads gathering outside the pubs and on the streets, was serious piss taking.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

Is it alcohol with food that's banned or just alcohol on its own? That's going to screw my favourite pub  unless there's serious financial help for them


----------



## Supine (Nov 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Very sensible considering the piss taking by some pubs & bars last time.
> 
> It would be fine to sell alcohol in take-away containers, which was the intention.
> 
> Selling it in plastic pint 'glasses', resulting in crowds of pissheads gathering outside the pubs and on the streets, was serious piss taking.



Tbf that was a summer activity. Won't be so tempting in November.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is it alcohol with food that's banned or just alcohol on its own? That's going to screw my favourite pub  unless there's serious financial help for them


Pubs will have to close


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Very sensible considering the piss taking by some pubs & bars last time.
> 
> It would be fine to sell alcohol in take-away containers, which was the intention.
> 
> Selling it in plastic pint 'glasses', resulting in crowds of pissheads gathering outside the pubs and on the streets, was serious piss taking.


Quite easily enforced by local councils and the Police tbh and such scenarios had neglible effect on the figures .


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is it alcohol with food that's banned or just alcohol on its own? That's going to screw my favourite pub  unless there's serious financial help for them


Alcohol per se with or without food . Home deliveries are ok though


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Pubs will have to close


Yeah I know. In May alcohol takeaways were allowed tho.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah I know. In May alcohol takeaways were allowed tho.


Yeah, but offies will be open.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

I'll send them an email and ask if they can do delivery. They do really nice local beer and cider and I'd like to support them really


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I'll send them an email and ask if they can do delivery


It’ll cost you loads more than an offie


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 1, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Queues at Cleethorpes Tesco. Fine at Grimsby ASDA


Did you see how it was at the Sainsbury's by the fishing heritage centre?


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

I don't drink much anyway tbh. Was more out of wanting to support the business


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It’ll cost you loads more than an offie


Not the point though , loads of good pubs/ bars and micro breweries in the U.K. do great beers and ciders not the normal fodder that offies or supermarkets do


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It’ll cost you loads more than an offie


You know the price of everything and the value of nothing


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Not the point though , loads of good pubs/ bars and micro breweries in the U.K. do great beers and ciders not the normal fodder that offies or supermarkets do


Ah get ya.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> You know the price of everything and the value of nothing


Fuck off


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> In the past week I've had a couple of calls purporting to be test n trace, trying to tell me I've been in contact with a +ve case, and I need to pay for a premium 'rona test and can they have my card details ...
> I kept the one guy on for almost 10 minutes - before telling him to bugger off.
> 
> I know it's a scam.
> ...



When they called me it was from an 0300 number. But yup, no shit about card details. What scum.


----------



## chilango (Nov 1, 2020)

Perhaps over-stating to claim Pubs are "commons"  but it's a valid line of concern.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Quite easily enforced by local councils and the Police tbh and such scenarios had neglible effect on the figures .



How? If take-away is allowed, and some pubs sell take-away in pints, what is there to enforce?

And, I think you are failing to understand how things escalate. Last time there was reports of a bar on Brighton seafront serving takeaway pints, within a few days so were a couple on Worthing's seafront, with drinkers spilling out onto the road, than some in town opened up, serving from their doorways, and so the problem grow.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> How? If take-away is allowed, and some pubs sell take-away in pints, what is there to enforce?
> 
> And, I think you are failing to understand how things escalate. Last time there was reports of a bar on Brighton seafront serving takeaway pints, within a few days so were a couple on Worthing's seafront, with drinkers spilling out onto the road, than some in town opened up, serving from their doorways, and so the problem grow.


Really think you are making a mountain out of a molehill here tbh . I’m sure these a few rogue businesses about and a few rogue punters but isn’t it possible to play by the rules providing they are enforced ?


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

chilango said:


> Perhaps over-stating to claim Pubs are "commons"  but it's a valid line of concern.




Tbf my local Tesco dropped my card in the front door when I left it there and on another occasion held it there for me to collect it. I've also left stuff in pubs and theyve been no bloody help at all. It's a valid concern but the romanticism around them can be misplaced, and there's just as much a community around many cafes etc. 

I know the point your making but I don't think its uniformly true and there are plenty of people who are uncomfortable/unable to go to pub for whatever reason.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Really think you are making a mountain out of a molehill here tbh . I’m sure these a few rogue businesses about and a few rogue punters but isn’t it possible to play by the rules providing they are enforced ?



I think you are missing the point, those pubs & bars found a loophole, they weren't breaking the rules/law, so there could be no enforcement.

If people find loopholes & take the piss, don't be surprised if those loopholes get closed, that's how things work.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I think you are missing the point, those pubs & bars found a loophole, they weren't breaking the rules/law, so there could be no enforcement.
> 
> If people find loopholes & take the piss, don't be surprised if those loopholes get closed, that's how things work.


I’m not convinced that the scenes you describe weren’t breaking the rules/ law tbh and equally I’m not sure that ‘that’s how things work’ however if you are correct then change the rules/laws .Ludicrous situation if   supermarkets who don’t specialise in beer sales are open to sell as many trays / crates as you want but an establishment does specialise can’t do takeaways?


----------



## scifisam (Nov 1, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> I’m not convinced that the scenes you describe weren’t breaking the rules/ law tbh and equally I’m not sure that ‘that’s how things work’ however if you are correct then change the rules/laws .Ludicrous situation if   supermarkets who don’t specialise in beer sales are open to sell as many trays / crates as you want but an establishment does specialise can’t do takeaways?



I'd have thought they were breaking by-laws about their customers drinking on the street, anyway.

Didn't see any of that in London, but it's more difficult with narrow pavements and less of a culture where people do actually sometimes get takeouts from the pub to drink on the seafront, pre-Covid.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 1, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I'd have thought they were breaking by-laws about their customers drinking on the street, anyway.
> 
> Didn't see any of that in London, but it's more difficult with narrow pavements and less of a culture where people do actually sometimes get takeouts from the pub to drink on the seafront, pre-Covid.


Yes there may be local problems which require local solutions .


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

For fucks sake the opportunist shitweasel has thought of a way to be relevant again.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I think you are missing the point, those pubs & bars found a loophole, they weren't breaking the rules/law, so there could be no enforcement.
> 
> If people find loopholes & take the piss, don't be surprised if those loopholes get closed, that's how things work.


TBF, I think the police would have been perfectly able to move such a crowd on. And, while one could argue that selling them pints in a form which might encourage on-the-spot consumption isn't exactly helping people abide by the spirit of the rules, it's not entirely their responsibility when their customers then consume the goods right outside the venue. They should put the beer in Tetrapaks that are a proper bastard to open - that way, in the worst-case scenario, half the contents would have ended up on the street


----------



## Mation (Nov 1, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> In the past week I've had a couple of calls purporting to be test n trace, trying to tell me I've been in contact with a +ve case, and I need to pay for a premium 'rona test and can they have my card details ...
> I kept the one guy on for almost 10 minutes - before telling him to bugger off.
> 
> I know it's a scam.
> ...


I know this isn't the point of your post and you're probably very well aware of this, but just in case anyone else tuning in now isn't ...

Had it not been a scam and you'd contacted the people at the meeting and they'd not had even a sniffle, the lack of sniffle wouldn't be any indicator that they weren't infected or shouldn't self-isolate. You can have it but not know you have it. You can pass it on without knowing/before it's confirmed that you have it.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> For fucks sake the opportunist shitweasel has thought of a way to be relevant again.
> View attachment 236954


lockdownexit party anyone?


----------



## editor (Nov 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> How? If take-away is allowed, and some pubs sell take-away in pints, what is there to enforce?
> 
> And, I think you are failing to understand how things escalate. Last time there was reports of a bar on Brighton seafront serving takeaway pints, within a few days so were a couple on Worthing's seafront, with drinkers spilling out onto the road, than some in town opened up, serving from their doorways, and so the problem grow.


I don't think pubs are allowed to sell takeaway booze this time around, are they?


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

Just saw a tweet saying estate agents can continue to operate


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Just saw a tweet saying estate agents can continue to operate


Fairly sure housing comes under the 'essential' bracket tbf


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Just saw a tweet saying estate agents can continue to operate



it not having business, schools and uni's open  that is cause the spike in cases


its the unruly plebs who cannot stop hugging each other in the pub

also estate agents have stated record business in people want to move because of lockdown


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> Fairly sure housing comes under the 'essential' bracket tbf


I can understand removals services, but estate agents? Although there are times when moving is essential I guess.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

Drop in house prices will cause the Tory party election headaches 

basically


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I can understand removals services, but estate agents?


I know they're mostly scum, but if I needed to buy or rent a house in the next 4 weeks - and there's plenty of plausible reasons why someone might need to do that - then it's pretty difficult to do without an estate agent.


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> Drop in house prices will cause the Tory party election headaches
> 
> basically


people need to move house, even in the middle of a pandemic you bellend.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 1, 2020)

Mation said:


> I know this isn't the point of your post and you're probably very well aware of this, but just in case anyone else tuning in now isn't ...
> 
> Had it not been a scam and you'd contacted the people at the meeting and they'd not had even a sniffle, the lack of sniffle wouldn't be any indicator that they weren't infected or shouldn't self-isolate. You can have it but not know you have it. You can pass it on without knowing/before it's confirmed that you have it.



The scam artists were saying I had been in contact with someone who had tested positive the previous week. So I checked the people I had been meeting with, none of them had been tested, nor had they been in contact with someone +ve either. Not only that, our meeting was actually more than two weeks previous ...

Most of our meeting was held in the open air, and with masks on ! The rest of it, maybe 15 mins total, was in a very well ventilated workshop and still with our masks on  ...


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

Closing lots of pubs will too tho. Just seemed weird given that the shops are shut.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> people need to move house, even in the middle of a pandemic you bellend.



Bellend?

aye people need to move 


a drop in house prices would be a issue for the tory parties  voting demographic 


asshat


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

I've work through out the whole thing

and i can say that half arsed attempted at a lock down is not something i'm looking forward to

also its not going to affect the r number


----------



## savoloysam (Nov 1, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I can understand removals services, but estate agents? Although there are times when moving is essential I guess.



Lots of people on the move at the moment due to the stamp duty reduction. I hope evictions are banned again though.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

moving household whilst its banned for the rest of the population

because of reduced stamp duty

might as well start clapping for the nhs again


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> Bellend?
> 
> aye people need to move
> 
> ...


Sorry but it's so much bullshit - every exception or restriction people don't immediately understand and it's definitely corruption, house prices or the daily mail that's responsible. 

You can't really move house without an estate agent being involved. Thousands of people are already in the process of moving in November, with other people moving into the houses they're vacating. Lots of co-habiting couples will split up, and one will need to move out. Houses will burn down, will flood and collapse, and people will need to move, and they'll need to do it quickly, and estate agents will need to be open and providing their services for all of these moves to happen.


----------



## Supine (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> also its not going to affect the r number



Says somebody on the internet. Luckily the experts think it will.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> Sorry but it's so much bullshit - every exception or restriction people don't immediately understand and it's definitely corruption, house prices or the daily mail that's responsible.
> 
> You can't really move house without an estate agent being involved. Thousands of people are already in the process of moving in November, with other people moving into the houses they're vacating. Lots of co-habiting couples will split up, and one will need to move out. Houses will burn down, will flood and collapse, and people will need to move, and they'll need to do it quickly, and estate agents will need to be open and providing their services for all of these moves to happen.



so why close down any other party of the economy


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 1, 2020)

To be clear I didn't think it was any of those things killer b, just thought it seemed odd when other shops were shut


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> so why close down any other party of the economy


what the fuck are you talking about?


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

Supine said:


> Says somebody on the internet. Luckily the experts think it will.



they experts suggest a lock down before half term

they were ignored now the party leading the country is estimating how many deaths this year


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Did you see how it was at the Sainsbury's by the fishing heritage centre?


Nope, it wasn't me out. In-laws at Tesco (they sent a photo), Mrs SI at ASDA


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 1, 2020)

dp


----------



## BlanketAddict (Nov 1, 2020)

Looking forward to a healthy debate about the definition of essential work (again) tomorrow morning at the dream factory.


----------



## Mation (Nov 1, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> The scam artists were saying I had been in contact with someone who had tested positive the previous week. So I checked the people I had been meeting with, none of them had been tested, nor had they been in contact with someone +ve either. Not only that, our meeting was actually more than two weeks previous ...
> 
> Most of our meeting was held in the open air, and with masks on ! The rest of it, maybe 15 mins total, was in a very well ventilated workshop and still with our masks on  ...


Yup. I wasn't on about how you behaved or when you met, only that in the event that someone is genuinely contacted about test and trace, people not having symptoms isn't a good measure for what you should do. As I said, not really aimed at you or your specific situation. I'm just being a bulletin board pedant about the public health message


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

Estate agents were shut during the spring lockdown weren’t they, it’s possible that caused a whole load of problems too.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> what the fuck are you talking about?



if the advise is to stay at home and stay strictly with a 6 people social bubble is announced by the government next week

how is moving to a new area and having people into move your shit to the next house achieving this


----------



## Looby (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> so why close down any other party of the economy


People may need to move house but they don’t need to go clothes shopping or to the gym. It’s ridiculous to try and make the comparison.


----------



## Looby (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> if the advise is to stay at home and stay strictly with a 6 people social bubble is announced by the government next week
> 
> how is moving to a new area and having people into move your shit to the next house achieving this


So you’re two weeks away from exchange/completion, you’ve all spent thousands on fees and searches and they could call that all off for an indefinite time?
You’ve given notice on your flat/split with your partner and all the other scenarios that killerb suggested but you shouldn’t be able to move?
I know someone who’s been allocated an LA property and is due to move very soon. Should this family who desperately need this move cancel it and leave the property sitting empty?


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

Looby said:


> People may need to move house but they don’t need to go clothes shopping or to the gym. It’s ridiculous to try and make the comparison.



you were protected from eviction during the last lock down


will people who just been laided off because envisioned end of furlough scheme

not be offered protection when a second lock down is confirmed a week later ?


----------



## Supine (Nov 1, 2020)

I'm sure removal men can work socially distanced. Unless there are loads of them crammed in a van. 

I can't see a problem with moving house tbh.


----------



## Looby (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> you were protected from eviction during the last lock down
> 
> 
> will people who just been laided off because envisioned end of furlough scheme
> ...


Eviction isn’t the only reason people need to move house. I hope the ban on evictions will be extended obviously.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2020)

Unsurprising there’ll be more people than usual looking to move right now not just for stamp duty or evictions also because of relationships breaking down under the strain of this year.








						'Divorce boom' forecast as lockdown sees advice queries rise
					

Data shows more people are searching for advice on getting a divorce according to Citizens Advice.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

bimble said:


> Unsurprising there’ll be more people than usual looking to move right now not just for stamp duty but because of relationships breaking down under the strain of this year.


Ax says they have to stay together for another month though, so they'll have to suck it up.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

I understand that but why even bring in a lockdown if the caveats

make it fucking redundant


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

you're a moron.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> you're a moron.



fuck you to sir and your stamp duty


----------



## Looby (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> I understand that but why even bring in a lockdown if the caveats
> 
> make it fucking redundant


Fuck yeah, you’re right. A limited number of people moving from one house to another definitely means we should keep the pubs open and go to Top Shop. 👍


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

never said that

more the other way

my 64 year old dad gets to go to work because construction must stay open


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

And anyone fleeing domestic violence just needs to suck it up too


----------



## two sheds (Nov 1, 2020)

I wasn't thinking of moving but I might now


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

tbf i'm not against anyone moving house


i'm more why call a lockdown if most businesses are going to stay open due to the rules being unenforceable
and its not going to reduce the R number

I was at the Office throughout the first lockdown

and think without heavy restrictions to people lives and business the second lockdown is going to achieve nothing
and we will still be in the same situation in december


feel free to move to County Durham if the mood takes you or you eyesight is bad


----------



## Thora (Nov 1, 2020)

campanula said:


> Apols for confusion - what is the status of the 'shielded' group? I thought they had been explicitly told to not work. Asking cos D-i-L has been forced back to work since August despite having no functioning immune system. She works as a nursery teacher. I had hoped she could go on furlough (as she certainly can't afford to pay rent on SSP).


As I understand it, if you are "Clinically Extremely Vulnerable" (and I think the list has narrowed a bit from what it was originally) you should work from home, and if you can't you mustn't go to work.  But I think you qualify for SSP rather than furlough.


----------



## Supine (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> tbf i'm not against anyone moving house
> 
> 
> i'm more why call a lockdown if most businesses are going to stay open due to the rules being unenforceable
> ...



I'm sorry but I really don't get your statement 'its not going to reduce the r number'. Where have you got that from???


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

explain to be how its is going to if most of the economy is still open?


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

I still don’t understand what the R number is.


----------



## Supine (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> explain to be how its is going to if most of the economy is still open?



Stay at home. Not rocket science. You know a new lockdown is coming don't you?


----------



## Supine (Nov 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I still don’t understand what the R number is.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 1, 2020)

Just like food, energy and a few other things, having a roof over your head is pretty much an essential to prevent people  dying. Cultural venues, gyms, cafes, and record stores, while absolutely vital to society in the longterm, are things we can all live without for a month or so in order to prevent people  dying in another way. It is, essentially, all about stopping people dying.

Many examples have been given above as to why you may not able to postpone it over the next month. I know one of my colleagues was basically evicted in the past month and had to find a new place at very short notice. Another is literally moving next week, although I don't know the details.

Estate agents, while frequently loathsome, are sadly quite often fundamental to helping people get or keep a roof over their heads. Thus, a risk we have to take while all those other services are not.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

Supine said:


> Stay at home. Not rocket science. You know a new lockdown is coming don't you?




unless it forces people to stay at home it will mean nothing

no news on any business closing apart from pubs and hospitality having to close

both have been on massive restrictions and have adopted massive problems within the business model to adapt to covid

its not changed bugger all in respect to the infection rate


----------



## killer b (Nov 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I still don’t understand what the R number is.


It's the average number of people each infected person goes on to infect.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

which goes up if you interact with more people oddly


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> no news on any business closing apart from pubs and hospitality having to close


Except all the other places they’ve announced that have to close


----------



## maomao (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> no news on any business closing apart from pubs and hospitality



Most shops in your local shopping centre will be closed. 
Hairdressers and nail salons, leisure centres (inc. soft play) and gyms will be closed.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's the average number of people each infected person goes on to infect.


Ta, have not been reading that side of it.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Except all the other places they’ve announced that have to close



which are sure boris stated yesterday it will confirmed next week


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

maomao said:


> Most shops in your local shopping centre will be closed.
> Hairdressers and nail salons, leisure centres (inc. soft play) and gyms will be closed.


Vape shops too.
Love how they’ve pronounced the verdict on all of these places, but not a word on libraries. Shows how low down the pecking order they’ve consider such places


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> which are sure boris stated yesterday it will confirmed next week


All of it is to be confirmed next week as it needs to be voted on


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 1, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> All of it is to be confirmed next week as it needs to be voted on


My understanding is they're going to walk down a local high street and at each shop do a show of hands as to whether it should stay open or not.

Should clear things right up


----------



## blameless77 (Nov 1, 2020)

kabbes said:


> This is nonsense.  Lots of universities are still doing lectures in lecture theatres for dozens of people and more.  These are the classic superspreader-risk events.  Cambridge, however, is not doing this at all.
> 
> If you want to talk about other facets of life, however: Cambridge accommodation is very different to the kind of residence you get at other universities.  And Cambridge tutorials are generally 1-to-2, not a seminar in a classroom.  Cambridge is just not a guide to how other universities are performing in this.


Its true. Even seminars are rarely more than eight people.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

not sure if closing pubs, clothes shops and hair dressers is going to lead to a drop in the infection rate

unless we reduce the amount of movement and mixing of the population it is just going to keep raising 

seriously don't think Boris has the balls to call a situation like that

so it will not reduce the amount of cases and we will still be in lockdown around Christmas


----------



## chilango (Nov 1, 2020)

I'm sure* it will lead to a reduction, or a least a slowing in the rise, of cases. 

I'm equally sure** that this will be too small a reduction at too slow a rate to be enough to avoid the need for either tighter restrictions or an extension of their duration (or indeed both).




* as in not at all sure and pulling confidence out of my arse on this.

** no, still not a clue tbh


----------



## Cerv (Nov 1, 2020)

I was close to exchange on buying a flat. But last week work announced redundancies so I'll be having to reapply for my job in a couple of weeks when the mandatory consultation's been rubber stamped. Bad timing lol

Selfishly I'd quite like the housing market to be shut down for the duration of Lockdown 2. Cos that will force the matter, instead of me having to ask the seller if they're willing to hold off on exchanging till December & hoping they don't decide to just walk away.
Going to be fun waiting till Weds to see what's actually put in law.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> Ax says they have to stay together for another month though, so they'll have to suck it up.



this post was had nothing to do with the point i was trying to make 

for the record


----------



## Cid (Nov 1, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> tbf i'm not against anyone moving house
> 
> 
> i'm more why call a lockdown if most businesses are going to stay open due to the rules being unenforceable
> ...



Housing is an odd hill to chose to die on. Fact is estate agents is how we do housing, I think they're a bunch of cunts and the whole system is fucked, but that's not changing. So estate agents stay open, because there isn't really an option. They should probably be limited in some ways, but there you go. 

But broadly, yeah. This is a circuit breaker. It's fuck all else. It's a shitty, half-arsed method that will cause enough of a drop in cases to avoid a catastrophic collapse of health infrastructure. That's why they're calling it. They're a bunch of lazy, insulated shitwads whose complete fucking incompetence should be blindingly obvious by now. It is incomprehensible how we've ended up like this. With the toothless dog of opposition licking away at its sores. And fuck the press too. I mean jesus fucking christ, what even is the point in them now? 

Er... excuse me, most of the rant had nothing to do with you, I just... I mean fuck. What the fuck is wrong with this place?


----------



## xenon (Nov 1, 2020)

zora said:


> Massive hyperbole, more like. And imo a complete misrepresentation. To highlight the many options for exercising outside the gym to tide people over for a few weeks while still getting the benefit is hardly comparable to the rabid poor people shaming that some Daily Mail trolls have been engaging in online!
> 
> Yes, some people might miss it. But I reckon it's been one of the areas that has extremely well adapted, see for example the explosion of the Joe Wicks exercise craze.
> For me personally, it's actually been a massive improvement. My favourite teachers that I had over the years (yoga, HIIT, Tai Chi) that I had lost touch with due to them moving away or stopping teaching have all started doing classes online, so I am doing more than ever before and am actively enjoying doing them from the comfort of my own home and not having to trek across London after work.
> ...



No idea what you mean re the Daily Mail poor shaming, I don't read it.

Not sure what you're arguing with me about TBH. I didn't say gyms shouldn't close. Rather this idea that they're unnecesaray because you can put your tracksuit on and go for a jog, get the yoga mat out or whatever. This is missing the point. As I said I can cope without access to the gym. But clearly for a lot of people, it's a harder thing than just swapping gym visits for a few pushups in the lounge.

As implicit in what you say. You could do online exercise classes all along. Yoga doesn't need a studio. online exercise instruction hasn't just been invented this year. That's not what people are missing when they can't go to the gym.

Thought it was a fairly simple point I was making but gotta be an argument I spose.


----------



## xenon (Nov 1, 2020)

So according to the radio ads now, you can still meet up to 6 people outside. No, it's not an old ad, because it specifically says you should not meet anyone outside your household group / bubble inside. 

This is contrary to the only meet 1 person outside thing raised earlier.

I don't care what the gov.uk site says, that's not my point. Rather that still contradictory advice is being broadcast.


----------



## Cid (Nov 1, 2020)

xenon said:


> So according to the radio ads now, you can still meet up to 6 people outside. No, it's not an old ad, because it specifically says you should not meet anyone outside your household group / bubble inside.
> 
> This is contrary to the only meet 1 person outside thing raised earlier.
> 
> I don't care what the gov.uk site says, that's not my point. Rather that still contradictory advice is being broadcast.



You still can until Thursday I suppose. But your point stands I think.


----------



## xenon (Nov 1, 2020)

Cid said:


> You still can until Thursday I suppose. But your point stands I think.



They've clearly modified the ad, as you can still meet up to 6 people in doors until Thursday too. 

Will see if I can find it.


----------



## zora (Nov 1, 2020)

xenon said:


> No idea what you mean re the Daily Mail poor shaming, I don't read it.
> [...]
> Thought it was a fairly simple point I was making but gotta be an argument I spose.



I think we can do a lot better with this arguing over gyms - garden centres and estate agents have been running to multiple pages each!

I took issue with what I saw as a harsh misrepresentation of another's poster's views (who acknowledged that gyms will be a preference for some and just highlighted some alternatives; he did not say they were unnecessary or shouldn't exist)

Wrt the Daily Mail poor people shaming - strangely enough, I don't read it either, I just used a rhetorical device myself. I just had a look back at your post and admittedly I got somewhat the wrong end of the stick. You likened the poster's view to wondering why people are fat when there is cheap nutritious veg, and I did conflate that with the social posts around the campaign for free school meals these past few days, where some people bragged about the stews they can make for £1.50 and why can't poor people do the same. Mind you, those two are not a million miles away.
I felt that was a harsh and completely off-piste comparison to make and said so.


----------



## xenon (Nov 1, 2020)

zora said:


> I think we can do a lot better with this arguing over gyms - garden centres and estate agents have been running to multiple pages each!
> 
> I took issue with what I saw as a harsh misrepresentation of another's poster's views (who acknowledged that gyms will be a preference for some and just highlighted some alternatives; he did not say they were unnecessary or shouldn't exist)
> 
> ...



Yeah fair dos, it's a trifling diversion really.


----------



## elbows (Nov 1, 2020)

SInce the BBC are currently doing a breaking news thing about Prince William having caught it in April at a similar time to Charles, may I be the first to remind everyone of idiotic comments that eminated from the royal orifice in March.



> “I bet everyone’s like, ‘I’ve got coronavirus, I’m dying,’ and you’re like, ‘No, you’ve just got a cough,'” the Duke of Cambridge quipped to first responder Joe Mooney, according to video footage of their exchange. He added: “It does seem quite dramatic about coronavirus at the moment. Is it being a little hyped up, do you think, by the media?”





> Prince William’s quips continued during the event. In another video clip, he was heard saying, “By the way, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are spreading coronavirus. Sorry!”











						Prince William Jokes About 'Spreading Coronavirus' At Royal Engagement in Dublin
					

The royal also questioned whether the virus is being "hyped up" by the media




					time.com
				




And the current BBC story about him having had it. Prince William 'contracted Covid-19 in April'


----------



## A380 (Nov 2, 2020)

Stupid question but I can’t find an answer in GOV.UK or in the media. When they say lockdown starts on Thursday, does that mean 0001 Thursday morning or 2359 Thursday night.

(And yes I know it still needs a vote in the HoC but given Labour support that’s only going to be interesting because we will see how many Tories decide to stick two fingers up at Bojo.)


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2020)

A380 said:


> Stupid question but I can’t find an answer in GOV.UK or in the media. When they say lockdown starts on Thursday, does that mean 0001 Thursday morning or 2359 Thursday night.
> 
> (And yes I know it still needs a vote in the HoC but given Labour support that’s only going to be interesting because we will see how many Tories decide to stick two fingers up at Bojo.)


thursday morning


----------



## Mation (Nov 2, 2020)

Cid said:


> Er... excuse me, most of the rant had nothing to do with you, I just... I mean fuck. What the fuck is wrong with this place?


One word; five syllables. It's pretty much always what's wrong.


----------



## andysays (Nov 2, 2020)

Covid: PM warns of virus deaths 'twice as bad' as spring

The good news


> Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick confirmed that moving house will still be allowed during the restrictions, adding that removals firms, estate agents and tradespeople can continue to work but must follow Covid safety guidelines.



The bad


> In his address to MPs, the prime minister is expected to say: "Models of our scientists suggest that unless we act now, we could see deaths over the winter that are twice as bad or more compared with the first wave.





> On Sunday, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said the lockdown could be extended if it took longer to bring the transmission rate of the virus down.



And the ugly


> Mr Johnson faces a rebellion from several senior Tory MPs, including Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers. Mr Brady told BBC Radio 4's The Westminster Hour: "If these kinds of measures were being taken in any totalitarian country around the world, we would be denouncing it as a form of evil - and here the removal of people's fundamental liberties is going almost without comment."


----------



## bimble (Nov 2, 2020)

This whole Tory Rebellion bit, theres no way they'll be enough to stop the act (act?) from passing is there so they're just posturing really, making a load of noise and maybe helping reduce the percentage of people who will choose to comply.


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

bimble said:


> This whole Tory Rebellion bit, theres no way they'll be enough to stop the act (act?) from passing is there so they're just posturing really, making a load of noise and maybe helping reduce the percentage of people who will choose to comply.



I hate them being given any airtime at all, but I do want to see one of them interviewed properly. Like ripped into about numbers of dead if we do nothing, and asking what they want to do instead. And if they bring up the 'shield vulnerable/everyone else get on' bollocks then have that roundly laughed at and disproved.


----------



## zora (Nov 2, 2020)

God, I hate the line of lockdown causing mental health problems. What's causing me problems is living under this incompetent and callous government.
I would be delighted by a proper lockdown, ideally with two weeks or so of school closures, rather than languishing in this limbo forever.

I have also not yet heard anyone being pulled up on the idea of  "exiting from lockdown back into the tier system". As has been discussed, Tier 2 and 3 are actually appalling both for businesses and people's personal connections. Just like lockdown but without any hope!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 2, 2020)

zora said:


> God, I hate the line of lockdown causing mental health problems. What's causing me problems is living under this incompetent and callous government.
> I would be delighted by a proper lockdown, ideally with two weeks or so of school closures, rather than languishing in this limbo forever.
> 
> I have also not yet heard anyone being pulled up on the idea of  "exciting from lockdown back into the tier system". As has been discussed, Tier 2 and 3 are actually appalling both for businesses and people's personal connections. Just like lockdown but without any hope!


Also, if the Tier system clearly hasn't worked...


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 2, 2020)

Like covid itself doesn't cause mental health issues.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 2, 2020)

My mask/Covid dreams returned with a vengeance last night


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 2, 2020)

Also the lockdown/social distancing does clearly cause mental health issues to some people, but delaying it and doing nothing just makes it even more interminable


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

I thought Whitty was good in the last briefing when he was very clear that, "There are no good options, they all are bad." or something similar. I think some people are scrabbling about looking for some mythical good answer to all this.


----------



## maomao (Nov 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I thought Whitty was good in the last briefing when he was very clear that, "There are no good options, they all are bad." or something similar. I think some people are scrabbling about looking for some mythical good answer to all this.


But as always there are much better options than the bowl of shit we're being fed. Though tbh most of them involved acting a lot earlier and with more competence.


----------



## Looby (Nov 2, 2020)

S☼I said:


> My mask/Covid dreams returned with a vengeance last night


😞
I had a Covid dream last too. I don’t think it was sad, I remember trying to get tested.


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> But as always there are much better options than the bowl of shit we're being fed. Though tbh most of them involved acting a lot earlier and with more competence.



Yeah, nearly added some caveat to my post to that end. Bigger discussion than I can be arsed having this morning, but there are also things that made the UK inevitably have a much harder time of it than some other places though.


----------



## planetgeli (Nov 2, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Anyone believe the quick turnaround test bit?
> 
> No, thought not.



So, we may have a problem with this already. Shock.









						Doubts over 'rapid turnaround' Covid tests pledged by Johnson
					

PM promised public could get results in ‘10 to 15 minutes’ but tests are designed for lab staff




					www.theguardian.com
				




Not designed for those without Covid symptoms and also only designed to be interpreted by experts.


----------



## zora (Nov 2, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Also, if the Tier system clearly hasn't worked...



Yes, exactly! 

And sorry to hear of your troubling covid dreams


----------



## teqniq (Nov 2, 2020)

Dodgy disinformation going on here, thread:


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

My understanding is that the Tier system _could_ work, just not on top of the mess we have now, and only with some more things in place, T&T and stricter international travel restrictions being two.


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Dodgy disinformation going on here, thread:




Yeah, I'm not on Twitter and have been shown that Tweet coming from a number of different 'accounts'.

Anyone caught spreading that bollocks needs to be sentenced to a year grave digging. With a teaspoon.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 2, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> So, we may have a problem with this already. Shock.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Various rapid tests have been used successfully by other countries for months, especially in Asia. Our public health "experts" need to get their heads out of their arses. Here's just a few approved for US use: Global Progress on COVID-19 Serology-Based Testing


----------



## Cloo (Nov 2, 2020)

bimble said:


> what do people think is the reason why they are insisting on schools staying open?


Enables people to work,  innit? And it's easy to sneer about it but it was a fucking nightmare having to educate one child and manage another and I can't imagine what it must be like having young school-age children and feeling you actually have to teach them reading, writing and basic maths. 

Also primary kids don't seem to be an infection vector.  Secondary school is a more complex issue though.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I'm not on Twitter and have been shown that Tweet coming from a number of different 'accounts'.
> 
> Anyone caught spreading that bollocks needs to be sentenced to a year grave digging. With a teaspoon.



I read a study saying most posts on twitter supporting herd immunity were actually by bots.


----------



## zora (Nov 2, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Various rapid tests have been used successfully by other countries for months, especially in Asia. Our public health "experts" need to get their heads out of their arses. Here's just a few approved for US use: Global Progress on COVID-19 Serology-Based Testing



Interesting link, how would you think they would best used?

I guess the important point, like so many things in this, is that they need to be used as part of a strategy. 
And of course, once again, with that moonshot nonsense, making out that people could test themselves before going to the theatre, it was completely missold to the public (though I think most of the general public didn't even notice, apart from us geeks, everyone else has probably long since learnt to zone out anything Johnsons warbles. )

The one application Johnson mentioned that I actually thought was realistic, was the example of a partner being present during birth. Means a test could be administered and interpreted there and then by a healthcare professional - can't maybe rule out covid 100%, but to 99.9% that the individual is not infectious for the next few hours. (That's how I understand at least one version of these tests.)

It'll be extremely interesting to see what happens in Slovakia with their mass testing programme; though again, it needs a wider strategy. Ideally you would want to test people again in 5 days time I would have thought, to pick up the people who didn't yet have a high enough viral load - but who must be infected already. If you have 1% of the population testing positive, there must be many many people already infected but not showing on the test yet. And support people in isolation in the home etc. etc.


----------



## maomao (Nov 2, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Enables people to work,  innit? And it's easy to sneer about it but it was a fucking nightmare having to educate one child and manage another and I can't imagine what it must be like having young school-age children and feeling you actually have to teach them reading, writing and basic maths.
> 
> Also primary kids don't seem to be an infection vector.  Secondary school is a more complex issue though.


We had a comparatively good lockdown with a two year old and a four (now five) year old but the four year old was very upset for the first month and wet her knickers daily, it had lasting effects on her personality and she's really had a shit year. She's amazing and I'm sure she'll grow up fine but she'll never forget 2020, lockdown is a key formative event in her life now. The two year old was happy with the situation (mummy and daddy home all day) but developed a lot of anxiety about leaving the house when it was all over and I think it has affected his overall activity level on a permanent basis. And that was with neither of us working and a pretty rigorous exercise/education schedule. I can imagine it's been a lot worse for other kids.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 2, 2020)

zora - my parents are in Slovakia so I am particularly interested in how that turns out!


----------



## Badgers (Nov 2, 2020)

It is tough on kids for sure. 

My little sis has it hard because she teaches at one school and her two daughters both attend different schools. Some of the 'bubbles' (whole classrooms or years) are isolated while others are not. The nieces don't understand why they can be with their friends all day but not in the evenings or weekends. Sis said a lot of families are now struggling both emotionally and financially  more a hangover from the past lockdown than this impending lockdown but guess that it will get worse rather than better. 

In more cheering news she has drafted my old mum into the school (somehow ) and the old girl is great with kids. She is practising singing 'Michael Finnegan' at home


----------



## zora (Nov 2, 2020)

Cloo said:


> zora - my parents are in Slovakia so I am particularly interested in how that turns out!



Yes, I first heard about it when you posted about it. Also saw the pic of your mum looking stylish in the (very well organised looking) swab queue!


----------



## andysays (Nov 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I hate them being given any airtime at all, but I do want to see one of them interviewed properly. Like ripped into about numbers of dead if we do nothing, and asking what they want to do instead. And if they bring up the 'shield vulnerable/everyone else get on' bollocks then have that roundly laughed at and disproved.


According to the Telegraph, there are apparently 80 Tories threatening to vote against lockdown.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 2, 2020)

andysays said:


> According to the Telegraph, there are apparently 80 Tories threatening to vote against lockdown.


80 cunts trying to avoid doing what other cunts should have done a long time ago then?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 2, 2020)

There was a scientist on BBC News saying opticians can stay open this time, including the one at Barnard Castle.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 2, 2020)

Tbh I would have thought opticians and dentists would come under medical services.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 2, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Dodgy disinformation going on here, thread:




I presume they chose Scotland as well because Scotland is actually doing slightly better than England is at controlling they thing?


----------



## Badgers (Nov 2, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Tbh I would have thought opticians and dentists would come under medical services.


I think for prescriptions and emergencies only?


----------



## maomao (Nov 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There was a scientist on BBC News saying opticians can stay open this time, including the one at Barnard Castle.


Even dry cleaners will be open this time. Presumably because so many people are still going to work.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2020)

A security guard at work has tested positive. Have been spending two hours a day in PPE about 3 metres away from them, in a lobby that has automatic doors that open every minute or two, so it’s well-ventilated. Haven’t been advised to self-isolate yet - anyone know if that’s right?


----------



## zora (Nov 2, 2020)

Yes, that sounds like it is under the threshold of being a close contact who needs to quarantine.

ETA: There's been an update and I stand corrected, everybody please ignore me!


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 2, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Tbh I would have thought opticians and dentists would come under medical services.


i have an optician's appointment for next week & i'll tell you if they cancel it


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There was a scientist on BBC News saying opticians can stay open this time, including the one at Barnard Castle.


barnard castle has become for eye problems what gretna green was for ill-advised marriages


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> A security guard at work has tested positive. Have been spending two hours a day in PPE about 3 metres away from them, in a lobby that has automatic doors that open every minute or two, so it’s well-ventilated. Haven’t been advised to self-isolate yet - anyone know if that’s right?



How do you know they tested +tive, work news? Have they reported it to T&T/the app? TBH I'd self isolate for that whatever anyone told me. Not only the proximity and time thing but surely some shared surfaces and other spaces.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> How do you know they tested +tive, work news? Have they reported it to T&T/the app? TBH I'd self isolate for that whatever anyone told me. Not only the proximity and time thing but surely some shared surfaces and other spaces.


Dunno, got told by another security guard


----------



## klang (Nov 2, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> i have an optician's appointment for next week & i'll tell you if they cancel it



could you answer the above next week then?


----------



## miss direct (Nov 2, 2020)

My next door neighbour (who works in a school office) has it, and also went to a funeral while positive (before she knew) and her elderly Mum caught it.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2020)

Just been told to go home until they can ascertain what’s going on


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Nov 2, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Tbh I would have thought opticians and dentists would come under medical services.


Opticians don't, my sister works for Boots and they've been all over the place in terms of what they're allowed to do or not.


----------



## A380 (Nov 2, 2020)

Quite like this graphic on the difference between mitigation and elimination.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 2, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I presume they chose Scotland as well because Scotland is actually doing slightly better than England is at controlling they thing?


I note that the madogs93 account is now suspended by Twitter. Which I suspect someone anticipated  hence the screengrab of the tweet by "her".


----------



## miss direct (Nov 2, 2020)

I am supposed to start volunteering in a school next week, once a week. Can't find any guidance as to whether this will go ahead. Any ideas?


----------



## maomao (Nov 2, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I am supposed to start volunteering in a school next week, once a week. Can't find any guidance as to whether this will go ahead. Any ideas?


School placements are still going ahead for teacher training so I don't see why you would be any different.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 2, 2020)

andysays said:


> According to the Telegraph, there are apparently 80 Tories threatening to vote against lockdown.


That's all right - the Tories can rely on Starmer to prop them up


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I am supposed to start volunteering in a school next week, once a week. Can't find any guidance as to whether this will go ahead. Any ideas?



They announced volunteering was a permitted activity, although expect it depends in what context. Have you read the published guidance? And surely the school will tell you anyway?


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

existentialist said:


> That's all right - the Tories can rely on Starmer to prop them up



United as one against the teaching unions too.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They announced volunteering was a permitted activity, although expect it depends in what context. Have you read the published guidance? And surely the school will tell you anyway?


All I can see is that volunteering is permitted. I have a meeting later in which I should find out the answer to this, am just curious beforehand.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 2, 2020)

Gammons in work moaning their fucking heads off about the new lockdown, whinging about the data being 3 weeks behind, and our local numbers showing a decrease.


----------



## Thora (Nov 2, 2020)

My LA is very strict on no visitors to schools or early years settings unless strictly necessary - there’s even quibbling about speech therapists etc.


----------



## andysays (Nov 2, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> i have an optician's appointment for next week & i'll tell you if they cancel it


In the meantime we can spend the rest of the day arguing about whether or not it's as essential as estate agents.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 2, 2020)

andysays said:


> In the meantime we can spend the rest of the day arguing about whether or not it's as essential as estate agents.


crack on


----------



## maomao (Nov 2, 2020)

They were open for repairs etc but not eye tests last time I think.


----------



## editor (Nov 2, 2020)

Are these stats correct?


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 2, 2020)

editor said:


> Are these stats correct?
> 
> View attachment 237031



It's from this which is "sites of multiple outbreaks" that have been identified and reported to PHE, which isn't the same thing as % of cases at all.


----------



## killer b (Nov 2, 2020)

yeah it's a misreading of some stats rather than the stats being wrong or made up. You'd have though that a better attempt to explain what 'sites of multiple outbreaks' means might be made, as it's not totally obvious from the original data and angry landlords have been posting these figures for months now...


----------



## IC3D (Nov 2, 2020)

editor said:


> Are these stats correct?
> 
> View attachment 237031


 Schools and Universities are far more accountable for track and trace numbers Id have thought with widespread community transmission.


----------



## maomao (Nov 2, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Schools and Universities are far more accountable for track and trace numbers Id have thought with widespread community transmission.


Yes, schools have to be rigorous about it whereas pubs get to sling a book in the corner and pretend people are filling it in properly.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 2, 2020)

The actual stats can be found in the weekly report:

"The denominator (the overall number of settings in each category) will differ by the setting category, for example there are fewer hospitals than workplaces, as will the propensity to report incidents to PHE.* Therefore these data are more useful for monitoring trends over time than making comparisons across setting categories *"



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/930818/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w44_FINAL.PDF
		


(page 19)


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> yeah it's a misreading of some stats rather than the stats being wrong or made up. You'd have though that a better attempt to explain what 'sites of multiple outbreaks' means might be made, as it's not totally obvious from the original data and angry landlords have been posting these figures for months now...



Exactly.

There are no proper stats that give us a clear and correct view of where infections are happening.

There is a bunch of data that attempts to explore the issue from a couple of angles, but it is not a definitive guide, and does not claim the things that some people think it claims.

Here is a different example, from the weekly surveillance report, in the additional graphs document. It does not claim that these locations are the source of infection, its just counting the events that people who've tested positive indulged in before testing positive. I would expect it to contain clues but the nature of such analysis only provides more quibble opportunities.

None of the data provides a reasonable basis for people to make arguments that the pubs should stay open.






__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk


----------



## killer b (Nov 2, 2020)

The only pubs I've noticed announcing outbreaks and closing are those who've had staff outbreaks, so I'm guessing those will make up the bulk of the 4% (or whatever it is this week)


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> The only pubs I've noticed announcing outbreaks and closing are those who've had staff outbreaks, so I'm guessing those will make up the bulk of the 4% (or whatever it is this week)



We had a local news story where a pub shut as a punter tested positive. I suspect they would not have closed if test & trace hadnt contacted lots of their staff when tracing the contacts of the infected customer.









						Pub closes after punter tests positive Covid-19
					

It took the decision to close its doors for a week for the safety of staff and customers




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## kabbes (Nov 2, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It's from this which is "sites of multiple outbreaks" that have been identified, which isn't the same thing as % of cases at all.


It’s not a bad surrogate for cases, mind.

Whether or not the stats perfectly measure the origin of cases is really of less matter than what you do with the information, though.

Firstly, “education“ includes universities, which I think many of us already agreed should be shut for face to face lectures and already thought it crazy that were in residence to students.

Secondly, when I hear that 4% of cases originate in hospitality, it makes me think it is worth closing hospitality because it reduces the R by 4%, more or less.  It certainly doesn’t make me think it’s not worth doing anything unless we do everything.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 2, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It’s not a bad surrogate for cases, mind.



It definitely is. Schools and hospitals are far more likely to discover and report multiple cases to PHE compared to pubs. This is what PHE say in that quote I gave above.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 2, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It definitely is. Schools and hospitals are far more likely to discover and report multiple cases to PHE compared to pubs. This is what PHE say in that quote I gave above.


As I said, it doesn’t really matter anyway.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 2, 2020)

kabbes said:


> As I said, it doesn’t really matter anyway.



It clearly does if prominent trade union officials are tweeting the figures and equating them with the actual case rates in these settings.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 2, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It definitely is. Schools and hospitals are far more likely to discover and report multiple cases to PHE compared to pubs. This is what PHE say in that quote I gave above.


What actually happens in reality to the names/ addresses that pubs collect btw ?


----------



## killer b (Nov 2, 2020)

It does matter - these figures are the foundation stone of the strong resistance to lockdown I'm seeing in the pub trade.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 2, 2020)

killer b said:


> It does matter - these figures are the foundation stone of the strong resistance to lockdown I'm seeing in the pub trade.


A resistance that is illogical even if you take the numbers at face value


----------



## Wilf (Nov 2, 2020)

I see that filthy cunt farage is rebranding the Brexit party as an anti-lockdown/pro herd immunity party. The 'Let's Kill More People Party'?





__





						Nigel Farage rebrands Brexit Party as anti-lockdown Reform UK
					





					www.msn.com


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

I wont be able to see the next batch of NHS staff absences due to COVID (positive or self-isolating) until the data is published on November 12th (final spreadsheet tab, COVID Absences, from the monthly spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity ) but in the meantime Shaun Lintern has seen leaked data:









						Tens of thousands of NHS staff off sick because of Covid-19, data reveals
					

Exclusive: Almost half of all staff absence linked to coronavirus in parts of northern England




					www.independent.co.uk
				






> More than a third of Friday’s total, 27,136, were off work because they were either infected with coronavirus or forced to self-isolate.
> 
> In total 9,137 nurses were off work because of Covid, along with 7,273 other clinical staff such as care assistants. Also hit by Covid-19 were 2,000 doctors and 1,580 allied health professionals such as physiotherapists and paramedics.
> 
> ...


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 2, 2020)

At least 3 non-mask wearers in Aldi this morning - woman 20s pushing stroller, woman 50s, woman 70s ... plus a bonus sneezer at the till ...


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

I will be able to semi-retire from pandemic commentary at this rate.









						NHS to target risk of Covid outbreaks on wards after watchdog investigation
					

Safety watchdog warns of risk to staff and patients from poor hospital design




					www.independent.co.uk
				






> NHS England has started publishing weekly rates of coronavirus cases caught by patients and staff in hospitals and will target those NHS trusts with high rates for investigation.
> 
> It comes as a new report by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch warned hospital staff and patients were at risk from being infected because they were forced to congregate in areas to use computers, access records and take breaks.





> The risk of coronavirus spreading in hospitals, known as nosocomial transmission, has been highlighted by the government scientific advisers who estimated up to 20 per cent of hospital Covid cases were caught in hospital, including 11 per cent of hospitals deaths linked to the virus.





> In its report, published on Thursday, the safety body said it had “identified evidence to suggest that people were being admitted to hospital without signs of Covid-19 and by the time they were discharged, or soon after, they had contracted Covid-19.”
> 
> It added the risks of spreading the virus between staff who had no symptoms was not “always well understood”.
> 
> It added problems with “hospital design” increased the risk of the virus spreading in hospitals.





> In response to the report NHS England said: “Data on nosocomial transmission rates would begin to be published on a weekly basis” adding: “Data will be reviewed to allow targeted investigation of known nosocomial hot-spots.”



The HSIB report is here, I havent had a chance to read it yet:Final report - Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 2, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I see that filthy cunt farage is rebranding the Brexit party as an anti-lockdown/pro herd immunity party. The 'Let's Kill More People Party'?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hasn't that name already be used?


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> At least 3 non-mask wearers in Aldi this morning - woman 20s pushing stroller, woman 50s, woman 70s ... plus a bonus sneezer at the till ...


what relevance is their gender, age or parental status?


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> what relevance is their gender, age or parental status?


I was trying to identify a trend.
I now fit into the "vulnerable elderly" demographic myself ...


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I was trying to identify a trend.


as you already know, there are many reasons why someone might not wear a mask, none of them knowable to an observer, so why bother?


----------



## editor (Nov 2, 2020)

The English government really are a fucking shower of useless cunts 









						Welsh Government: Wales will not take part in national lockdown
					

The news comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson is considering new national lockdown measures for England




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> as you already know, there are many reasons why someone might not wear a mask, none of them knowable to an observer, so why bother?


I want to know if  conspiranuttery is encroaching into my neighbourhood...


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> I want to know if  conspiranuttery is encroaching into my neighbourhood...


and this is how you're measuring it? ffs!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 2, 2020)

editor said:


> The English government really are a fucking shower of useless cunts
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well, yes, but how does that relate to the article?


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> and this is how you're measuring it? ffs!


You don't think demographics are significant ?
I was always surprised that even back in the spring there were unmasked elderly people shopping in there.
I wore a mask right from the start and with the shit being propagated now, I may start upping my game to protect myself rather than just looking out for others ...


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Well, yes, but how does that relate to the article?



I'm tentatively assuming that editor is referring to the idea that if the authorities in England had gone for a circuit breaker when they should have, the measures England is finally getting would not have needed to be in place for so long. But I'm only guessing.


----------



## editor (Nov 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm tentatively assuming that editor is referring to the idea that if the authorities in England had gone for a circuit breaker when they should have, the measures England is finally getting would not have needed to be in place for so long. But I'm only guessing.


Yep. England dithered and dithered until a longer, more damaging lockdown became inevitable.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> You don't think demographics are significant ?
> I was always surprised that even back in the spring there were unmasked elderly people shopping in there.
> I wore a mask right from the start and with the shit being propagated now, I may start upping my game to protect myself rather than just looking out for others ...


i don't think one oddball observing whether people are wearing masks in one shop can extract anything meaningful about demographics


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

editor said:


> Yep. England dithered and dithered until a longer, more damaging lockdown became inevitable.



And its true. The only thing it needs to be balanced against is whether the shorter thing Wales did is actually going to be enough that they can stick to the sort of 'no more action needed for a bit' timetable that their leaders are currently promoting. And I'll just have to wait and see on that one.


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> i don't think one oddball observing whether people are wearing masks in one shop can extract anything meaningful about demographics


They were within aerosol range of this 60 year old oddball's face and I'm pretty sure the late-teens sneezer took off her mask to do it.


----------



## nogojones (Nov 2, 2020)

editor said:


> The English government really are a fucking shower of useless cunts
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That article also screams out to me that mark drayford is also a huge useless cunt


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2020)

gentlegreen said:


> They were within aerosol range of this 60 year old oddball's face and I'm pretty sure the late-teens sneezer took off her mask to do it.


and that has what to do with demographics?


----------



## souljacker (Nov 2, 2020)

I bumped into an old school mate at the weekend and he wasn't wearing a mask and was very proud of himself. He pointed out that he was not a conformist. I told him he was a selfish cunt.

He was thick as pigshit at school though so I'm not surprised.


----------



## editor (Nov 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> And its true. The only thing it needs to be balanced against is whether the shorter thing Wales did is actually going to be enough that they can stick to the sort of 'no more action needed for a bit' timetable that their leaders are currently promoting. And I'll just have to wait and see on that one.


I know it's a gamble and I know Wales has made some shit decisions in the past, but something they got absolutely right in the first lockdown, like limiting travel and reopening pubs on a gardens-only basis on Monday, rather then England's idiotic SOOOOPER SATURDAY reopening two weeks before.

This month is going to be a real test for some people suffering with their mental health, especially those living alone*

*raises hand


----------



## maomao (Nov 2, 2020)

I have a classmate who claims an exemption from wearing masks on the basis that he has already had Covid (and possibly other reasons that he has told uni but not us) but makes regular contributions to our class Whatsapp group about 'unnecessary lockdowns' and the 'so-called virus'. I really want to kick off (and did politely the first time he did it) but don't want to be the dick in the group. And he's a personable enough fellow otherwise.  It really fucking bugs me though. Thankfully no more on site lectures for the time being.


----------



## Supine (Nov 2, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> and that has what to do with demographics?



Hey, he's getting better. Last time his observation was also racist against eastern Europeans.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

editor said:


> This month is going to be a real test for some people suffering with their mental health, especially those living alone*
> 
> *raises hand



Yes its grim. I have to hold back on my judgements about other peoples attitudes towards aspects of lockdown and various quibbling that goes on around those themes, at least as much as I can, because I am aware that there are mental health aspects to that and the quibbling itself is one possible coping strategy.

I find it difficult to get the balance right though because my mind continually wanders to subjects like the physical and mental health of NHS workers, who are on the front lines and mentally drained far beyond the periods of acute lockdown.


----------



## editor (Nov 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yes its grim. I have to hold back on my judgements about other peoples attitudes towards aspects of lockdown and various quibbling that goes on around those themes, at least as much as I can, because I am aware that there are mental health aspects to that and the quibbling itself is one possible coping strategy.
> 
> I find it difficult to get the balance right though because my mind continually wanders to subjects like the physical and mental health of NHS workers, who are on the front lines and mentally drained far beyond the periods of acute lockdown.


It must be incredibly tough - a paramedic friend who lives in my block got Covid back in May and said it was a horrific experience. but tough though the work is it must be very satisfying to be doing something useful and being busy while literally saving lives. 

The other side of the coin is people like me who border on workaholic now being left with absolutely nothing to do, no income, and no immediate prospect of getting back to the thing they like doing. I'm going to struggle this time around and I normally pride myself on being a real chirpy optimistic kind of fella.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

Its probably impossible for me to offer advice on that without just ending up patronising and useless, but I suppose I'll try anyway.

You need a new vehicle for your optimism and drive. Something that can be done within the confines of the home with much less direct social contact. Far from ideal, but perhaps still possible to come up with something. Figure out what some of the raw underlying ingredients of the things you thrive on in normal times are, and try to find new ways to channel them. Either that or explore some areas inside your mind that never really got a look in during normal times, and whether this nightmare can be turned into an opportunity to do something in those other realms.

A sense of purpose and doing your bit in the pandemic is certainly something, I think there are ways to frame our current plight within such things and to turn the period of sacrifice into a sense of doing our bit. I think its doable even for those of us who are not on the front lines ourselves.

Hmmm, I dont think I will be writing any self-help books anytime soon!

I think I heard that many health workers are struggling especially this time. Because of ongoing fatigue from the first wave but also because the sheer pace of events the first time, and the fact it was all new, put them into a sort of emergency response mode with a strong emphasis on the team getting through it, and not having too much spare time to dwell on all the hideous details. The feelings wont be quite the same this time round, even in places where the 'slow motion resurgence' aspect has given way to giddy levels of admissions etc.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

AKA Find a project, or find a mindset. Speaking of which, I plan to post less about the pandemic this month, in order to spend more time with my synthesisers.


----------



## andysays (Nov 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> I have a classmate who claims an exemption from wearing masks on the basis that he has already had Covid (and possibly other reasons that he has told uni but not us) but makes regular contributions to our class Whatsapp group about 'unnecessary lockdowns' and the 'so-called virus'. I really want to kick off (and did politely the first time he did it) but don't want to be the dick in the group. And he's a personable enough fellow otherwise.  It really fucking bugs me though. Thankfully no more on site lectures for the time being.


Sounds like he's already established himself as the number one dick in the group.

It's worth remembering that it's now been demonstrated that it's definitely possible to catch it a second time, though whether it's worth pointing this out is for you to judge.


----------



## Numbers (Nov 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> AKA Find a project, or find a mindset. Speaking of which, I plan to post less about the pandemic this month, in order to spend more time with my synthesisers.


elbows avoiding Urbs and the Pandemic this month.


----------



## andysays (Nov 2, 2020)

editor said:


> It must be incredibly tough - a paramedic friend who lives in my block got Covid back in May and said it was a horrific experience. but tough though the work is it must be very satisfying to be doing something useful and being busy while literally saving lives.
> 
> The other side of the coin is people like me who border on workaholic now being left with absolutely nothing to do, no income, and no immediate prospect of getting back to the thing they like doing. I'm going to struggle this time around and I normally pride myself on being a real chirpy optimistic kind of fella.


I'd second elbows suggestion of finding something that you can do, but wonder if there's something you can volunteer for where you feel you are contributing in some way to a collective help against covid project.

I've moaned before (half joking, half seriously) about having to continue working through the last lockdown when it sometimes felt as though many others were having an extended holiday, but carrying on working, with all the issues and challenges it threw up, has actually been better for my long term mental health than having nothing much to do for six months.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 2, 2020)

Kieth Starmer, just now: "We all agree schools must stay open..."

Er, no, you robot cunt


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 2, 2020)

Johnson: "I wish (Starmer) would stop knocking the NHS trust and trace system"


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

> On the closure of schools during the lockdown – something demanded by education unions – professor Hayward said it was clear there was “substantial transmission” within secondary schools, but said children infected are “very unlikely” to have severe consequences.
> 
> He added: “But I think one of the consequences of not closing secondary schools would be we may need to be in lockdown for longer than we might otherwise have to be. So it’s really a trade-off between education and other parts of the economy and to a certain extent the number of deaths we’re prepared to see.”



From an article with the main point that:



> A circuit breaker lockdown weeks ago would “definitely have saved thousands of lives” and inflicted substantially less damage on the economy, a government scientific adviser has claimed.
> 
> Professor Andrew Hayward, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Body for Emergencies (Sage), said the threat of Covid-19 had been “repeatedly underestimated” and waiting to see if less intense measures would work was a “dangerous” strategy.











						Covid circuit breaker weeks ago would ‘definitely have saved thousands of lives,’ Sage member says
					

‘I think we’ve repeatedly underestimated Covid and done too little, too late really to control the virus and save both lives and livelihoods’




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## A380 (Nov 2, 2020)

No idea if this is genome or not. I think I probably tend  slightly towards the not. What say you Hive Mind.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 2, 2020)

Herd immunity? That's not reassuring. And wtf is 'national inside month'?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 2, 2020)

Looks like spoof to me


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 2, 2020)

Probably not but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was genuine


----------



## maomao (Nov 2, 2020)

Advent extra. That's the one that just couldn't be real.


----------



## A380 (Nov 2, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Herd immunity? That's not reassuring. And wtf is 'national inside month'?



It was the Advent Extra that tipped it over for me.


----------



## planetgeli (Nov 2, 2020)

A380 said:


> It was the Advent Extra that tipped it over for me.



That, plus Lock-Up (LOL) plus the fact Johnson was the first to use "Circuit Breaker" which he nicked from Singapore anyway.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 2, 2020)

"lock up" was the giveaway for me.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 2, 2020)

In a way though, I agree. I detest the term "lockdown", it's meaningless.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 2, 2020)

reckon it's fake as the signature's precisely the same as in online images eg


----------



## not-bono-ever (Nov 2, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It strikes me that as much as this lockdown should have come at least two if not four weeks earlier, it couldn’t have.  It would have fallen into the classic trap — if it had worked, people would have complained that it was unnecessary because there were never many cases anyway.  A panic whipped up for nothing.  The problem with timely and effective risk mitigation is that _because it works_, hindsight makes it look like it was pointless.
> 
> And that’s if the lockdown had been followed and therefore had worked.  When we were still at <50 deaths a day, I’m not convinced that compliance for following a lockdown would have been very high anyway.  If people are not wanting to follow it even now, where we are on the brink of disaster, it doesn’t speak well for compliance at an earlier stage.
> 
> This government is not up for imposing big costly things that people then blame them for when they work or get irate about when they don’t.


 
Agreed - it’s always difficult to justify possibly expensive risk mitigation strategy until it is needed, then it’s probably too late and the fingers start pointing afterwards.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Nov 2, 2020)

26m ago16:59

*Richard Thomson *(SNP) asks about this Sunday Times story about the head of the vaccine taskforce showing confidential government data to American investors.

*Johnson *says he thanks people who are working for the government pro bono. He does not address the substance of the story.


----------



## Mation (Nov 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> I have a classmate who claims an exemption from wearing masks on the basis that he has already had Covid (and possibly other reasons that he has told uni but not us) but makes regular contributions to our class Whatsapp group about 'unnecessary lockdowns' and the 'so-called virus'. I really want to kick off (and did politely the first time he did it) but don't want to be the dick in the group. And he's a personable enough fellow otherwise.  It really fucking bugs me though. Thankfully no more on site lectures for the time being.


Can you just follow his gubbins by posting links that refute it, without comment, so that anyone who wants to can find out why what he says is bollock?


----------



## maomao (Nov 2, 2020)

Mation said:


> Can you just follow his gubbins by posting links that refute it, without comment, so that anyone who wants to can find out why what he says is bollock?


The one time I did reply to his nonsense I got instant support and agreement. I think others already know and are just better at ignoring him than me. Better all round to keep schtum in this case.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 2, 2020)

not-bono-ever said:


> Agreed - it’s always difficult to justify possibly expensive risk mitigation strategy until it is needed, then it’s probably too late and the fingers start pointing afterwards.


One of the significant aspects of the uselessness of this government is their sensitivity towards having fingers pointed at them. More specifically, well-moneyed fingers used to leafing through large wads of banknotes.


----------



## kenny g (Nov 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> The one time I did reply to his nonsense I got instant support and agreement. I think others already know and are just better at ignoring him than me. Better all round to keep schtum in this case.


Main thing is to keep lines of communication open rather than send people further down the rabbit hole.


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

NW Ambulance Service declared a major incident due to volume of calls. Shitting hell.


----------



## MrSki (Nov 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> NW Ambulance Service declared a major incident due to volume of calls. Shitting hell.



Just started a thread cos I wasn't sure that it is Covid related.









						North West Ambulance Service declares major incident
					

As it says in the title. Sure more details will follow & if it is Covid related.




					www.urban75.net


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

T-cell immunity stuff that I dont actually have time to read and think about properly right now but I should post it anyway.









						T-cell Covid immunity 'present in adults six months after first infection'
					

Study suggests white blood cell levels higher in people who had symptoms




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Nov 2, 2020)

maomao said:


> I have a classmate who claims an exemption from wearing masks on the basis that he has already had Covid (and possibly other reasons that he has told uni but not us) but makes regular contributions to our class Whatsapp group about 'unnecessary lockdowns' and the 'so-called virus'. I really want to kick off (and did politely the first time he did it) but don't want to be the dick in the group. And he's a personable enough fellow otherwise.  It really fucking bugs me though. Thankfully no more on site lectures for the time being.


Raise it with course leaders. Students should be wearing masks unless exempt especially on a school focused course


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Nov 2, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Kieth Starmer, just now: "We all agree schools must stay open..."


Talking about it at work with an international team - the Chinese guy was very surprised our schools and colleges were open. Apparently in China, they were the last things to re-open after the lockdown, and even then only after several weeks without any new cases in the wider community.


----------



## maomao (Nov 2, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> Raise it with course leaders. Students should be wearing masks unless exempt especially on a school focused course


He's got the little uni exemption sticker. He may even be genuinely exempt for some reason just not for the reasons he's told classmates and he's a conspiracist. And I have no idea what the rules are at his placement and whether he's claimed an exemption there or not.


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

Anyone done any number crunching with March and April rates and lockdown reducing them back then, compared with where we are now and what we can expect the coming weeks in reduction of cases? Feels _highly_ unrealistic to me that with where we are now and the restrictions we have about to start we can get the rates down in anything like the planned 4 weeks. Even if they are down surely in 4 weeks we'll be in still having high rates of hospitalisations and deaths still? Be interested to see the figures and timescale...


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anyone done any number crunching with March and April rates and lockdown reducing them back then, compared with where we are now and what we can expect the coming weeks in reduction of cases? Feels _highly_ unrealistic to me that with where we are now and the restrictions we have about to start we can get the rates down in anything like the planned 4 weeks. Even if they are down surely in 4 weeks we'll be in still having high rates of hospitalisations and deaths still? Be interested to see the figures and timescale...


You won't be surprised when this purgatory lasts longer than four weeks


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

I'm not convinced if it goes to parliament for a vote on any extension in 4 weeks that it will get passed though?


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not convinced if it goes to parliament for a vote on any extension in 4 weeks that it will get passed though?


The lockdown is too short to make any real difference. The government insists on keeping major channels of infection open in schools and universities. There is no reasonable track and trace system or a testing regime which would identify precisely the nodes of contagion. It's all grasping at straws in the dark while billions of pounds of taxpayers' money are spaffed into Johnson's mates' pockets. And we have yet to see how the virus really transmits in the cold. There'll be an extension. Because what else can they do, admit their utter incompetence?


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anyone done any number crunching with March and April rates and lockdown reducing them back then, compared with where we are now and what we can expect the coming weeks in reduction of cases? Feels _highly_ unrealistic to me that with where we are now and the restrictions we have about to start we can get the rates down in anything like the planned 4 weeks. Even if they are down surely in 4 weeks we'll be in still having high rates of hospitalisations and deaths still? Be interested to see the figures and timescale...



Such an exercise would not be easy to accomplish, and even if it were I would not likely be capable.

Its not easy because they dont know what R the measures will actually achieve. And if R varies in other settings like care homes and hospitals then this also changes the timescale of how quickly and how to expect things to improve. After all, even the admission rate statistics are not pure, they include people who are already in hospital and are catching it there, so they dont give us an unblemished indicator of new community severe case levels. This also includes the idea that some of the people who catch it in hospital will not become ill enough from Covid-19 to have otherwise been admitted to hospital, they remain in hospital for the other reasons that caused them to be admitted in the first place.

The closest I might be able to suggest from other sources is things like that graph the other day of how long lockdown needs to last under a variety of possible values for R. I think it was from independent sage and it wasnt me that posted it.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> The lockdown is too short to make any real difference.



I do not recognise this concept, or rather I consider it to be a dangerous and counterproductive sentiment especially when what counts as a 'real difference' is not defined.

It all matters. Whether its enough depends on what goals you are trying to achieve. But in terms of individual lives being saved, it all matters, even when it falls well short of being ideal or bringing the situation under control. Anything is better than nothing, the little things arent pointless and dont let anyone tell you otherwise.


----------



## LDC (Nov 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Such an exercise would not be easy to accomplish, and even if it were I would not likely be capable.
> 
> Its not easy because they dont know what R the measures will actually achieve. And if R varies in other settings like care homes and hospitals then this also changes the timescale of how quickly and how to expect things to improve. After all, even the admission rate statistics are not pure, they include people who are already in hospital and are catching it there, so they dont give us an unblemished indicator of new community severe case levels. This also includes the idea that some of the people who catch it in hospital will not become ill enough from Covid-19 to have otherwise been admitted to hospital, they remain in hospital for the other reasons that caused them to be admitted in the first place.
> 
> The closest I might be able to suggest from other sources is things like that graph the other day of how long lockdown needs to last under a variety of possible values for R. I think it was from independent sage and it wasnt me that posted it.



Thanks, yeah it'd be a complex mix of factors, expect somewhere it's been done, and I have seen modelling that shows what fraction of R1.0 each aspect of lockdown will bring. My SWAG makes it not at all likely we'll be anywhere near sorting the rates in 4 weeks. Less compliance, less strict, and less time than March/April.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Thanks, yeah it'd be a complex mix of factors, expect somewhere it's been done, and I have seen modelling that shows what fraction of R1.0 each aspect of lockdown will bring. My SWAG makes it not at all likely we'll be anywhere near sorting the rates in 4 weeks. Less compliance, less strict, and less time than March/April.



They have a fairly low degree of confidence in their estimates for what difference each measure for R has, and also end up suggesting that its not as simple as just adding up all the different R impacts of each measure to reach a total. And there is a very complicated picture nationally in terms of how busy hospitals are (and busy is also bad for hospital infection) and how much behaviours had already been modified for months by local lockdowns and the level of infection within the community, the base level of current infection that the impact of R will then either decrease or increase.

And as I always say with things like closing schools, that measure has a big impact not just because of the direct school infection pathway, but because closing schools disrupts other activities that adults do when things are more normal. eg the lack of 'schools as childcare facilities' is one of the reasons the measure works, and thats not in effect when schools are fully open and people are told to still go to work.

The first time round the behavioural changes and then lockdown a week later showed up very dramatically in all of the hospital data. It was a change that couldnt be missed and it didnt even take too many days of lag before it being obvious that the peak really had been reached, even via deaths statistics which are especially laggy.

But when I drill down to data I have now for use in hindsight, but that I didnt have at the actual time of the first wave, such as total COVID-19 beds occupied per hospital trust, the picture the first time around is quite a bit more complicated. There are stories to be figured out that the data merely tips me off about but does not provide the underlying story of. I will fish out a couple of graphs and make a follow up post with a pretty vivid example of what I mean, and then I will rant about what unfinished business this reveals that leaves me very unsatisfied right now.


----------



## andysays (Nov 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> I do not recognise this concept, or rather I consider it to be a dangerous and counterproductive sentiment especially when what counts as a 'real difference' is not defined.
> 
> It all matters. Whether its enough depends on what goals you are trying to achieve. But in terms of individual lives being saved, it all matters, even when it falls well short of being ideal or bringing the situation under control. Anything is better than nothing, the little things arent pointless and dont let anyone tell you otherwise.


One 'target' which I've seen mentioned for these 4 weeks of restrictions is to bring R down below 1.

I suspect, though this is a gut feeling rather than anything more scientific, that that target won't be met, and that an extension is therefore likely.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> I do not recognise this concept, or rather I consider it to be a dangerous and counterproductive sentiment especially when what counts as a 'real difference' is not defined.
> 
> It all matters. Whether its enough depends on what goals you are trying to achieve. But in terms of individual lives being saved, it all matters, even when it falls well short of being ideal or bringing the situation under control. Anything is better than nothing, the little things arent pointless and dont let anyone tell you otherwise.


 Ok, it won't stop the circulation of the disease even if it temporarily reduces the r number. If there was any genuine will to bring this plague under control then there wouldn't be this arbitrary month, they'd have said straight off this will be at least a month. This won't be the last lockdown.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> This won't be the last lockdown.



Indeed most of my predictions since the first wave happened have been almost entirely sponsored by the simple idea that there is a level of strain on the hospital system which forces even this shit government to blink and then act, and that it is therefore makes no sense to ever predict no more lockdowns, tightening of measures and u-turns. And that the Barrington clowns with their 'just shield the vulnerable' bullshit have nothing of substance to offer that could seriously change that fundamental equation.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 2, 2020)

What I didn't realise until the other day was that the Barrington declaration is a bit like that Backing Blair petition we had some fun with years ago. One of the eminent clinicians who's signed it is actually longdog.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 2, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> What I didn't realise until the other day was that the Barrington declaration is a bit like that Backing Blair petition we had some fun with years ago. One of the eminent clinicians who's signed it is actually longdog.



I knew their were loads of fake names, I tried to sign up as Dr Toby Jug, but needed a fake email address, so didn't bother, fair play to longdog,


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I knew their were loads of fake names, I tried to sign up as Dr Toby Jug, but needed a fake email address, so didn't bother, fair play to longdog,



Ah.  Longdog obviously has quite a lot of those left over from his 419-baiting days.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> But when I drill down to data I have now for use in hindsight, but that I didnt have at the actual time of the first wave, such as total COVID-19 beds occupied per hospital trust, the picture the first time around is quite a bit more complicated. There are stories to be figured out that the data merely tips me off about but does not provide the underlying story of. I will fish out a couple of graphs and make a follow up post with a pretty vivid example of what I mean, and then I will rant about what unfinished business this reveals that leaves me very unsatisfied right now.



I just cobbled some graphs together to illustrate a point or two but they are rather unpolished. My focus is on the first wave and these graphs vary a little in terms of how much recent data I tacked onto the end of them, but that period isnt the point anyway so...

There is what I would call the classic shape of curve for number of Covid patients in hospital, very similar to all the other sorts of data curves you'll have seen throughout this pandemic. Variations on this shape were seen across many trusts. Here is just one example:



But there are plenty of exceptions to this too, and therein lies stories. Some may be stories of bad data, or when sudden changes happen, a correction of data or change in case definitions. Some might be stories about the success of lockdown in that particular area, or less success, or specific ongoing outbreaks. Some are stories about hospital outbreaks which were eventually spotted and dealt with. Hospital outbreaks that were eventually dealt with is actually a good fit for very many of the different shapes shown, but since I am biased about that issue I am bound to see it and be keen to attribute things I see to that cause, perhaps unfairly.

And when I look at them, I also think of other stories from past months, such as the ones about how lockdown never brought the virus under control in various places up North in the same way it did down south and in the zoomed out, big picture national statistics. I have mixed feelings about some of those stories, because even the hospital graphs I look at do show that even in places that allegedly never got the virus under control in the first place, eventually their numbers did come down, there was still respite for the healthcare service for a chunk of summer. So something must have worked at some point! Which being me often leads me straight back to one of my subjects of strong focus, hospital infections and periods where a grip was eventually gotten on such things. And much of what I say about hospital infections can also be applied to the care home sector.

I'm sticking the other graphs that deviate from the classic one shown above in spoiler tags to stop this post from being way too long when scrolling through this thread. Many other examples are available but I got overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of data, points I could try to make, correlation between extra peaks on some of these graphs and known hospital outbreaks (eg Weston) so I just picked a few examples at random.

Also, in regards to looking for signs of when measures have worked big time, these graphs all have one thing in common - even though the subsequent downwards trajectory varies considerably, and there are timing variations between different places, they all show the moment when the numbers stopped increasing. So the first signs of success were very large and dramatic, even where later moments in the graphs are stories of failure. Although do have to be a bit careful with this point because hospital data is also influenced by admissions policies (including artificial demand destruction by raising the bar for admission), discharge policy, and how many patients are dying and how quickly. So I should repeat the exercise with other data such as admissions, especially when looking for signs in the coming weeks. So I dont consider the following to be completely ideal illustrations for my points today, but they are all I have to hand right now and I'm rushing so I can take a break from this side of things for a little while.



Spoiler











By the way despite all the horrible death-related graphs I've done in this pandemic, so far its actually been the degree of variation between different hospital trust graphs that I've found most upsetting to contemplate. But its just the starting point for further inquiry, I am not in a position to tell all the proper stories that lurk behind the variety of shapes shown.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 2, 2020)

I'm starting to find it a bit confusing, I have friends from all levels of class , and they are all good people , i mean proper sound  people, who put on your parties and festivals , work in your banks and in our pubs and EVERYONE is chatting about civil unrest. Its weird ,ive never seen it before at this level


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

Well thats an increasing issue in Europe and the authorities here are probably expecting more trouble than last time. I wouldnt know what to predict myself, and there are many different ways people could talk about it. For example lots of people here were talking about it the first time around, but not in the sense that they supported it, just that they expected it. In the end there was much less of a backlash than they expected. My own expectations are pretty blank, I will just wait and see, but in theory I would expect more trouble this time than last. Most people I know support lockdown, but then I dont know that many people, and I am currently mostly disconnected from the younger members of society. I am somewhat connected to bitter middle-aged people who will make noises about unrest in order to let off steam and justify their petty rulebreaking as being part of some grand cause, but right now I'm trying to avoid reading what they say online and I'm certainly not mixing with any of them in the physical world.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 2, 2020)

ruffneck23 said:


> I'm starting to find it a bit confusing, I have friends from all levels of class , and they are all good people , i mean proper sound  people, who put on your parties and festivals , work in your banks and in our pubs and EVERYONE is chatting about civil unrest. Its weird ,ive never seen it before at this level



Keep people cooped up for 6 months to a year and shit starts to bubble.


----------



## lazythursday (Nov 2, 2020)

Accidental post!


----------



## existentialist (Nov 2, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Accidental post!


Accidental reply!


----------



## MrSki (Nov 2, 2020)

Have we had the  20A.EU1 variant which is said to account for 80% of new cases in the UK?

Free to read FT article here.









						Scientists warn of new coronavirus variant spreading across Europe | Free to read
					

Genetic mutation that originated in Spain transmitted by returning holidaymakers, researchers find




					www.ft.com
				




Non peer reviewed copy of the paper here.





__





						Emergence and spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020
					

A variant of SARS-CoV-2 emerged in early summer 2020, presumably in Spain, and has since spread to multiple European countries. The variant was first observed in Spain in June and has been at frequencies above 40% since July. Outside of Spain, the frequency of this variant has increased from...




					www.medrxiv.org


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 2, 2020)




----------



## lazythursday (Nov 2, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Accidental reply!


Never leave a half written post about garden centres you decided was far too dull to post sat in the edit box...

I obsessively look at the interactive map every day. It's interesting that the Liverpool city region has been on a downward slope since going into Tier 3, but the same measures appear to have had no impact whatsoever on Greater Manchester or Lancashire. I know Liverpool went in first, but some improvements should have showed up by now.


----------



## bendeus (Nov 2, 2020)

editor said:


> I know it's a gamble and I know Wales has made some shit decisions in the past, but something they got absolutely right in the first lockdown, like limiting travel and reopening pubs on a gardens-only basis on Monday, rather then England's idiotic SOOOOPER SATURDAY reopening two weeks before.
> 
> This month is going to be a real test for some people suffering with their mental health, especially those living alone*
> 
> *raises hand


Did some work for a guy fairly recently who is the medical director for Bro Morgannwg Health Board. Nice guy. He reckons that a combination of fortuitous timing (national lockdown coming just before the wave really hit Wales) and government action in terms of the extra measures imposed by the Senedd saved a lot of lives. Claimed that if the Welsh figures were extrapolated across to England 25,000 fewer people would have died there in the first wave. Me, I don't know. Perhaps elbows would be able to give it a bit of a look?


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

I'm not going to attempt that sort of extrapolation. But to quickly add to that theme you can find some clues about the mortality rate in different parts Wales for the first wave, and a comment about how the rates everywhere in Wales were lower than England and all of the English regions apart from the South East and South West here:









						Coronavirus: Wales has 'one of lowest' Covid-19 mortality rates
					

Figures also show 14 Welsh communities have not registered any deaths involving Covid-19.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




The figures mentioned are for up till the end of July so first wave only.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 2, 2020)

I thought the report from Liverpool on the 10 O'clock news was really good - clearly explaining what the situation is, both what the problems are, and that although we still don't have as many people in hospital and on ventilators than at last peak, and treatment has improved, the NHS is trying to keep up the treatment of other conditions more than last time, and we are heading into winter - so it can get much, much worse unless something is done.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I thought the report from Liverpool on the 10 O'clock news was really good - clearly explaining what the situation is, both what the problems are, and that although we still don't have as many people in hospital and on ventilators than at last peak, and treatment has improved, the NHS is trying to keep up the treatment of other conditions more than last time, and we are heading into winter - so it can get much, much worse unless something is done.



This is the written version of that story.









						Covid: 'We are hanging by a thread' - hospital doctor
					

If you want to know why England is going into lockdown, this hospital offers a glimpse.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 2, 2020)

Cloo said:


> I thought the report from Liverpool on the 10 O'clock news was really good - clearly explaining what the situation is, both what the problems are, and that although we still don't have as many people in hospital and on ventilators than at last peak, and treatment has improved, the NHS is trying to keep up the treatment of other conditions more than last time, and we are heading into winter - so it can get much, much worse unless something is done.



My fear is this is not going to be a strong enough measure

lockdown works by restricting the interaction of the population , looking at what's been reported by the media

and the governments delay in relaying the information to the public

it just makes be believe the party is currently in the process of watering down the lockdown to keep the economy flowing

i myself think this policy will lead to the restrictions being in place longer


----------



## komodo (Nov 3, 2020)

I’ve heard that a lot of the students in Nottingham have already headed home.....


----------



## crossthebreeze (Nov 3, 2020)

Yeah, I've been running round a field next to Newcastle Uni halls of residence, and it's extremely quiet - apart from a few middle aged dog walkers, there was one mushroom forager on Sunday, compared to the usual runners, cyclists, frisbee players, drone flyers, and people trailing back with shopping.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

Sounds like we are going to find out how much they fuck up a city-wide testing scheme:









						Covid-19: Liverpool to pilot city-wide coronavirus testing
					

It will use rapid results tests that could be offered to "millions" by Christmas, the PM says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Nov 3, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anyone done any number crunching with March and April rates and lockdown reducing them back then, compared with where we are now and what we can expect the coming weeks in reduction of cases? Feels _highly_ unrealistic to me that with where we are now and the restrictions we have about to start we can get the rates down in anything like the planned 4 weeks. Even if they are down surely in 4 weeks we'll be in still having high rates of hospitalisations and deaths still? Be interested to see the figures and timescale...


The first lockdown was a fairly clear contrast between normal (fully open) and then people stopping meeting in most areas of daily life, though a fair number of people still went to work.  The comparison now is between a society that is still half heartedly social distancing and has varying levels of restrictions in place throughout the country, moving into something where the main difference will just be in pubs and non-essential shops closing.  All the other aspects of the latest lockdown are perhaps a tightening on what we are already doing (in broad terms).  So yeah, I don't see it doing much, particularly with schools and universities open.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 3, 2020)




----------



## ska invita (Nov 3, 2020)

Some very relative degree of good news in this piece ,which sounds reasonable

*The UK’s second wave of coronavirus may not be worse than the first
Five reasons lockdown might be coming earlier in the virus’s cycle than in March and is likely to cause less economic pain*





__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com
				




if you dont have a paywall bypass click on the first result here




__





						ft Five reasons lockdown might be coming earlier - Google Search
					





					www.google.com
				




In particular this looks promising


----------



## andysays (Nov 3, 2020)

You won't believe number 4...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 3, 2020)

ska invita said:


> *The UK’s second wave of coronavirus may not be worse than the first
> Five reasons lockdown might be coming earlier in the virus’s cycle than in March and is likely to cause less economic pain*


Everyone's already out of work


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 3, 2020)

Not convinced by anything quoting Heneghan tbh. I do think tho that the rate appears to be rising slower than March if you look at the worldometers chart


----------



## ska invita (Nov 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Everyone's already out of work


yes...why i said


> Some very relative degree  of good news





frogwoman said:


> Not convinced by anything quoting Heneghan tbh.


Theres nothing in that piece which rests on Heneghan - his name comes up in relation to the range of projections. That section isnt trying to convince of one truth, more show the landscape of projections


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 3, 2020)

Fair enough. It's going to be a long few months,


----------



## killer b (Nov 3, 2020)

If your 'range of projections' includes a comment from someone who one month ago was claiming there's no evidence of a second wave, then I guess you can probably discount his end of the range.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> If your 'range of projections' includes a comment from someone who one month ago was claiming there's no evidence of a second wave, then I guess you can probably discount his end of the range.


have you read the piece? what bit of it are you disagreeing with?


----------



## killer b (Nov 3, 2020)

The bit where they quote Carl Heneghan without mentioning he's a shameless hustler.

I did read the piece earlier, but none of it's really stuck in my mind enough to disagree with other than that guy.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 3, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> The lockdown is too short to make any real difference. The government insists on keeping major channels of infection open in schools and universities. There is no reasonable track and trace system or a testing regime which would identify precisely the nodes of contagion. It's all grasping at straws in the dark while billions of pounds of taxpayers' money are spaffed into Johnson's mates' pockets. And we have yet to see how the virus really transmits in the cold. There'll be an extension. Because what else can they do, admit their utter incompetence?


Good summary.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> The bit where they quote Carl Heneghan without mentioning he's a shameless hustler.
> 
> I did read the piece earlier, but none of it's really stuck in my mind enough to disagree with other than that guy.


The only mention he has in the article is not in any claims he is making now or has made, but as set up for a comment from Neil Ferguson. He's completely irrelevant in the statistical information being presented in the article


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 3, 2020)

It was talking about how 'epidemiologists disagree' iirc he isn't one. I don't know about the rest of the article tho


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 3, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Everyone's already out of work


posting sadly from work


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 3, 2020)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 237107


the worst of all worlds, where no one can plan for reopening at the end of this because the government say they'll review the position the day the lockdown is supposed to end.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 3, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> the worst of all worlds, where no one can plan for reopening at the end of this because the government say they'll review the position the day the lockdown is supposed to end.


They may review during lockdown if we reach a "bring out yer dead" situation.


----------



## prunus (Nov 3, 2020)

TopCat said:


> They may review during lockdown if we reach a "bring out yer dead" situation.



“I’m getting better!”


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 3, 2020)

At this point it's not even trying to reduce the virus, just keep ICUs from collapse. I saw the slug claimed that humanity has 'defeated every other infectious disease'.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sounds like we are going to find out how much they fuck up a city-wide testing scheme:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm really glad that my area, St Helens, is gonna be covered by this. Will report back, obviously, but me and the fella will be going for these tests, see how regular we can get them, and how accessible they will actually be.

Rates are coming down round here though, since Tier 3 started. Here and in Liverpool. So that's a tiny something, eh?


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 3, 2020)

Well they bleached the Beatles statues so that canny use of resources must have paid off:


----------



## TopCat (Nov 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sounds like we are going to find out how much they fuck up a city-wide testing scheme:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It should be fascinating.  How bad do you think it will go? What will they do with test refusniks?


----------



## sojourner (Nov 3, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Well they bleached the Beatles statues so that canny use of resources must have paid off:
> 
> View attachment 237135


Every single fucker that visits the city touches them statues. They are lurgy in bronze.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 3, 2020)

TopCat said:


> What will they do with test refusniks?


Taser the cunts, hopefully.


----------



## Sprocket. (Nov 3, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Every single fucker that visits the city touches them statues. They are lurgy in bronze.



Lurgy in Bronze, sounds like a Bjork album.


----------



## dessiato (Nov 3, 2020)

Ive been watching all this with interest. I’m also watching what is happening with regard to Brits wanting to come over here. I’m shocked that so many are finding different ways of breaking the rules both here and there. It seems to be becoming almost a matter of pride with some to find a way of coming here on holiday and flouting the closure of our internal borders, and ignoring the nothing but essential travel rules there.

There‘s a huge amount of pedantic semantics around the regulations in the U.K. and the fact that there are several days before they come into effect. People are unutterably short sighted. 

I’m following the rules, as are all my Spanish friends, but Brits think they have the right to do exactly as they please. I had to go to the airport three or four weeks ago, the vast majority of people not wearing masks were almost all British. What the fuck is wrong with you people?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 3, 2020)

dessiato said:


> Ive been watching all this with interest. I’m also watching what is happening with regard to Brits wanting to come over here. I’m shocked that so many are finding different ways of breaking the rules both here and there. It seems to be becoming almost a matter of pride with some to find a way of coming here on holiday and flouting the closure of our internal borders, and ignoring the nothing but essential travel rules there.
> 
> There‘s a huge amount of pedantic semantics around the regulations in the U.K. and the fact that there are several days before they come into effect. People are unutterably short sighted.
> 
> I’m following the rules, as are all my Spanish friends, but Brits think they have the right to do exactly as they please. I had to go to the airport three or four weeks ago, the vast majority of people not wearing masks were almost all British. What the fuck is wrong with you people?



You are seeing a very tiny subset of people.  By the very nature anyone pulling this sort of trick is going to be a selfish wanker so its hardly surprising that they are all selfish wankers.


----------



## CH1 (Nov 3, 2020)

editor said:


> And there you have it
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sir Rocco Forte was banging on about the Great Barrington Declaration on Sky business news this morning.
He is obviously an excitable fellow - abeit at 75. According to Wikipedia he paid for a victory party to celebrate Boris becoming leader of the Tory Party - then gave £100,000 towards the Tory General Election campaign last year.

Boris is not doing what he was told by Rocco though - yet.

Nice to know that Rocco is in company with Mr Banana Rama and Harold Shipman in supporting Great Barrington  Great Barrington Declaration - Wikipedia


----------



## LDC (Nov 3, 2020)

We're freedom loving innit.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Nov 3, 2020)

dessiato said:


> What the fuck is wrong with you people?



Messaging so mixed people aren't convinced it's that bad, I reckon. They opened the travel corridor to Brit favourite Tenerife (among other places)last week, before locking down and saying don't travel, this week. School's were closed last lockdown, but not this. The Government ran a scheme subsidising getting as many people as possible out into restaurants, but is now closing them all. Plus some politicians very clearly not following government guidelines with no censure whatsoever. 

(Plus all of this leading to more than usual belief in conspiracy lunacy)


----------



## 2hats (Nov 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> T-cell immunity stuff that I dont actually have time to read and think about properly right now but I should post it anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Broad overview here. Apparent immunity measured but this study does not provide evidence of correlation with protection against reinfection (that would require exposure trials). It does underline that antibody assays alone do not provide sufficient information about the immunity of any given person.

Preprint - 'Robust SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cell immunity is maintained at 6 months following primary infection', Zuo et al., DOI:10.1101/2020.11.01.362319


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

TopCat said:


> It should be fascinating.  How bad do you think it will go? What will they do with test refusniks?



I dont know, there are many aspects of new testing that I support and think is part of the future, so most of my skepticism is sponsored by the government midhandling of things every step of the way so far, rather than anything specific with these tests.

I dont think they will push the test refusenik issue at this stage, they will focus on those who are willing to engage. I'll be very interested to see what sort of numbers this scale of testing produces.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 3, 2020)

TopCat said:


> It should be fascinating.  How bad do you think it will go? What will they do with test refusniks?


There has just been a man on the news who is the director (I think) of public health in Liverpool and he has said it's not mandatory.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 3, 2020)

Espresso said:


> There has just been a man on the news who is the director (I think) of public health in Liverpool and he has said it's not mandatory.


It really puts the focus on them as a city. I'm not sure they will like this much.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 3, 2020)

TopCat said:


> It really puts the focus on them as a city. I'm not sure they will like this much.


On the contrary, I think people will be made up to be able to access testing without symptoms.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

It wont be surprising if this happens, since its been on the cards for a while. If infections due to the reduction in self-isolation time are more than compensated for by greater compliance then I wont complain.



> The Guardian also understands that the self-isolation period for those who test positive for coronavirus, and their contacts, could be cut from the current 14-day period to seven days as early as this week.











						Liverpool to pioneer UK's first attempt at mass Covid testing
					

Up to 500,000 people in city will be tested in bid to measure feasibility of mass population screening




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 3, 2020)

What do you say to someone who isn't worried because the average age of death in the uk is 82? They even know a couple of people with post viral fatigue, but still think it's basically a problem of very elderly people dying slightly earlier.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 3, 2020)

sojourner said:


> On the contrary, I think people will be made up to be able to access testing without symptoms.



Agreed. If I had some sort of family event tomorrow that was being attended by my parents, it would be great to go and get us all tested before hand. I've mentioned before in other threads that the only way I can see us getting back to normality is through testing. We are never going to get track and trace sorted whilst it's being run by the governments cronies and vaccines aren't ready yet so it's either mass testing or more lockdowns.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> What do you say to someone who isn't worried because the average age of death in the uk is 82? They even know a couple of people with post viral fatigue, but still think it's basically a problem of very elderly people dying slightly earlier.



I would probably resort to intensive care statistics like those I stuck on the nerdy thread recently.

       ICNARC – Reports


----------



## Wilf (Nov 3, 2020)

This has just gone out to HE students. Sorry for the formatting fuck up, I got it through work and haven't got time to disentangle it. Presumably a more readable version will be out there. The underlined was the bit that struck me. A bit vague and the possibility of phased returns home?

What a truly fucking stupid decision it was to get them on campus in the first place.



> Michelle Donelan MP Minister of State for Universities Sanctuary Buildings 20 Great Smith Street Westminster London SW1P 3BT tel: 0370 000 2288 www.education.gov.uk/help/contactus 2 nd November 2020
> 
> Dear students, I understand the questions that many of you may have following the Prime Minister’s announcement on Saturday, outlining the new national restrictions due to come into place on 5 November 2020. Things have moved quickly as we continue to respond to the pandemic, but I wanted to write to you at the earliest opportunity to explain how these restrictions will affect you and your studies. We are in the process of finalising guidance setting out what these new restrictions will mean for Higher Education, universities, and students, and this will be available shortly. This guidance will explain that: • By keeping universities open, we are prioritising education so that there is no gap in your academic journeys and lives. • As for everyone under the new national restrictions from 5 November, you should stay in your current home. This means you should not leave your term time address to return to your parents’ or carer’s home until at least 2 December - and should continue to learn at university for the remainder of this term. o The reason we are asking you to remain at your university area and not to travel home before the new restrictions come into place on Thursday is to prevent any further spread of COVID 19 – any movement around the country will risk the lives of our loved ones. o I know and appreciate that a number of you may want to be back with your family during this difficult time, but I urge you to stay where you are in order to save lives. I can assure you that I will work with universities to ensure well-being, communications and mental health support are prioritised. • We as a government recognise the importance of face to face teaching, including for your mental health and wellbeing, and we expect this to continue. Universities have worked hard to make teaching and learning COVID-secure, and we have not seen evidence of increased transmission within these environments. If you have any concerns, please do speak to your university – it is crucial that you and staff members feel safe. • Your university must ensure the quality of the tuition you receive. If more teaching is moved online, standards must be maintained. This means ensuring that courses provide a high-quality academic experience, students are supported and achieve good outcomes, and standards are protected. We have been very clear about this and have worked with the Office for Students to regularly review the online tuition being provided. o If you have any concerns please do speak to your university. If you need to, you can make a formal complaint, and if you are still not happy you can refer your case to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. • I know that the current year has been hard, but I want to reassure you that your education, health and wellbeing remain my top priority. Universities are required to provide mental health and pastoral support and this will be available to you in the coming weeks. Please also take a look at the Student Space platform, which you may find helpful. I want to thank you again for your hard work and perseverance. I remain committed to helping you to continue your university studies during these unprecedented and challenging times. Yours sincerely, Michelle Donelan MP Minister of State for Universities


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

Rather unsurprisingly excess mortality is back in a more notable way.









						Covid: Deaths 10% higher than normal as virus deaths rise
					

There were nearly 12,300 deaths in latest week - 1,100 linked to Covid.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






And another graphic that I got off the BBC live updates version of the story.


----------



## zora (Nov 3, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Agreed. If I had some sort of family event tomorrow that was being attended by my parents, it would be great to go and get us all tested before hand. I've mentioned before in other threads that the only way I can see us getting back to normality is through testing. We are never going to get track and trace sorted whilst it's being run by the governments cronies and vaccines aren't ready yet so it's either mass testing or more lockdowns.



I reckon it's extremely important though to highlight what these tests can and cannot do, and that they are being sensibly deployed as part of a wider strategy and really good messaging.
While incidence is so high it could be counterproductive if it gave people the much invoked false sense of security.
As I understand it, the tests can only really show infectiousness for that moment in time/that very day, so if people think they can safely have a gathering the next day they might be mistaken. 
But I am also very hopeful that for the time being they could be very useful in identifying asymptomatic infectious people and getting them to self-isolate and therefore help drive incidence right down. At that point they might then also be helpful in the scenario you mention. 

In my (patchy) understanding, very keen to learn more!


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> I would probably resort to intensive care statistics like those I stuck on the nerdy thread recently.
> 
> ICNARC – Reports
> 
> View attachment 237143


Ah, that is interesting, thanks. So average age for admission to intensive care is more like 65 by the looks of it, with significant admissions in (presumably) late forties, and fifties. I don't think that is widely known.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 3, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Agreed. If I had some sort of family event tomorrow that was being attended by my parents, it would be great to go and get us all tested before hand. I've mentioned before in other threads that the only way I can see us getting back to normality is through testing. We are never going to get track and trace sorted whilst it's being run by the governments cronies and vaccines aren't ready yet so it's either mass testing or more lockdowns.


So you're in Liverpool too then? I've just been saying to my lass on Whatsapp that it will mean when we do get to visit, we'll have been tested regularly so it'll be more relaxed all round.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 3, 2020)

sojourner said:


> So you're in Liverpool too then? I've just been saying to my lass on Whatsapp that it will mean when we do get to visit, we'll have been tested regularly so it'll be more relaxed all round.



No, not a scally (although I did go to uni in the pool). I'm thinking for the whole country to be on this program.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Ah, that is interesting, thanks. So average age for admission to intensive care is more like 65 by the looks of it, with significant admissions in (presumably) late forties, and fifties. I don't think that is widely known.



By the way I should have said that those figures are for cases from September 1st onwards.

The fairly broad range of people who need intensive care is one of the reasons I keep going on about how governments wont listen to anti-lockdown fuckwits even if they would like to lean in that direction ideologically, the number of hospitalisations and intensive care patients is just too great and is not restricted to the very old.

Here are some more figures in that report so you can see the averages and the cases before September 1st, as well as some other aspects such as ethnicity and index of deprivation. Again this is for intensive care, not hospitalisations in general.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

Covid secure...



> The business secretary, Alok Sharma, is facing questions after a union health and safety inspection identified concerns over social distancing in his private office days before a member of his inner circle tested positive for Covid-19.
> 
> The Guardian has learned that an employee in Sharma’s private office tested positive last Monday after reporting Covid symptoms a day earlier, with other members of staff in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) forced to isolate.
> 
> But Sharma – who had a meeting with the individual the Thursday before, with the pair also in the department’s Whitehall office the following day – went on a trip to South Korea on Saturday, where he continued meeting foreign dignitaries after being informed of his colleague’s positive test result when it came through on Monday.











						Alok Sharma faces Covid safety questions as staff member tests positive
					

Exclusive: unions express ‘extreme concern’ over social distancing in business secretary’s private office




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> By the way I should have said that those figures are for cases from September 1st onwards.
> 
> The fairly broad range of people who need intensive care is one of the reasons I keep going on about how governments wont listen to anti-lockdown fuckwits even if they would like to lean in that direction ideologically, the number of hospitalisations and intensive care patients is just too great and is not restricted to the very old.
> 
> ...


Thanks, this is useful to know. Feels like we have lost so much awareness of what is going on by the media/govt just focusing on the couple of figures of death count and hospitalisation count. I guess you need to simplify figures for daily announcements but it would be good if there were weekly releases of more detailed stats that the media was reporting.


----------



## Indeliblelink (Nov 3, 2020)

watching this live at the moment
*Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance give evidence to MPs on second England lockdown – watch live*


----------



## editor (Nov 3, 2020)

Ah just what the situation needs: the thoughts of a rich successful artist declaring those less successful than him 'dead wood,' The twat.









						Grayson Perry criticised after suggesting Covid-19 will clear arts of 'dead wood'
					

Comments come after the artist signed an open letter in April calling on the government to support the struggling arts sector




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## xenon (Nov 3, 2020)

"
Aaron Angell, who runs the Troy Town Pottery in London, told The Guardian that Perry was disconnected from the reality of Covid-19’s effect.
"The people losing their jobs are not the gang of cheek-kissing curators, but the invigilators, educators and hospitality staff that exist to make the museum more accessible,” he said. “They are there to make the audience tackle work a bit more complicated than the words ‘hate speech’ written on a teapot.”


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

Indeliblelink said:


> watching this live at the moment
> *Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance give evidence to MPs on second England lockdown – watch live*



I watched up till Hunt had finished asking questions but couldnt continue because the questions from everyone were so awful I'd had enough. Much time wasted obsessing over the model that came out with the 4000 deaths figure, no real understanding of how the models work (partly due to some shit answers that wont win any plain English awards) and a complete misreading of certain graphs. Hunt appeared to be talking absolute shit about a hospital admission graph and neither Whitty or Vallance pointed that out.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

This was the Hunt bit that sent me over the edge:

"slide 4, England daily hospital admissions.... that showed those hospital admissions going up - not doubling, or not tripling or not quadrupling, but going up by 25%, approximately, that was the medium term projection."

What the fuck was he talking about?



Maybe he was confused about the fact that when we talk of doubling and halving times, its relative to the current level. The projection goes up so much more than 25% higher than the most recent actual level. Is his 25% relative to the peak of the first wave instead? I aint impressed at Whitty and Vallance not drawing his attention to his mistake.


----------



## Supine (Nov 3, 2020)

I enjoyed watching it.  Very much me paraphrasing:

"Don't you think the graphs had too much information"

"We were critized for not showing enough information"

"Fair point"


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 3, 2020)

I feeling pretty despondent with all this today.

I hope I am wrong but I can't see this month long semi lockdown having the desired outcome.  The situation in the schools is crazy, my sister who is a teacher just starting her second isolation period since summer because of positive tests in the class.

I was looking at local figures of cases the other day for my area.  We're a low rise low population density of London but we do have a lot of families.  We had hardly any covid first time round and our numbers were barley a background whisper until the middle of September when they went bonkers and have stayed stubbornly high since.  I still don't know anyone who has a positive test but my neighbours with kids can name 30 or 40.  

Oh hum.


----------



## LDC (Nov 3, 2020)

Was that Labour MP drunk on the committee today? He was completely incoherent. And the Tory one (mid/late 40s, male, glasses, bald) that was asking questions remotely to Vallance and Whitty came across as an anti-lockdown type.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 3, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I feeling pretty despondent with all this today.
> 
> I hope I am wrong but I can't see this month long semi lockdown having the desired outcome.  The situation in the schools is crazy, my sister who is a teacher just starting her second isolation period since summer because of positive tests in the class.
> 
> ...


What's your cases per 100,000 where you are? Like you we weren't very much affected first go round but in five weeks we've gone from 10 per 100k and 300 cases to 420 per 100k and 2,340 cases


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 3, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> We had hardly any covid first time round...



How would you know that, there was no community testing first time around.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 3, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What's your cases per 100,000 where you are? Like you we weren't very much affected first go round but in five weeks we've gone from 10 per 100k and 300 cases to 420 per 100k and 2,340 cases



Looks like last week we were at 142 cases per 100k.  On the plus side though our trend line is on its way back down.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 3, 2020)

editor said:


> Ah just what the situation needs: the thoughts of a rich successful artist declaring those less successful than him 'dead wood,' The twat.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





The Telegraph chopped up this article and then pasted the Dead Wood section out of context and front and centre to drive up clicks.



> ‘I think every part of life has probably got a bit of fat that needs trimming, a bit of dead wood,’ he suggests. ‘It’s awful that the culture sector has been decimated, but I think some things needed to go. Too often, the audience for culture is just the people making it – theatres with whole audiences of actors, or exhibitions only put on to impress other curators. With Covid, it’s been like turning a computer off and on again, and seeing which files reappear. Some of them we don’t really give a damn about. What’s interesting is what might not re-emerge.’


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> How would you know that, there was no community testing first time around.



I'll rephrase.  Our death rate was low.  Even when testing did become available (and we were one of the first places to get a drive in test centre) it remained low.  It's gone mental since mid September.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 3, 2020)

dessiato said:


> Ive been watching all this with interest. I’m also watching what is happening with regard to Brits wanting to come over here. I’m shocked that so many are finding different ways of breaking the rules both here and there. It seems to be becoming almost a matter of pride with some to find a way of coming here on holiday and flouting the closure of our internal borders, and ignoring the nothing but essential travel rules there.
> 
> There‘s a huge amount of pedantic semantics around the regulations in the U.K. and the fact that there are several days before they come into effect. People are unutterably short sighted.
> 
> I’m following the rules, as are all my Spanish friends, but Brits think they have the right to do exactly as they please. I had to go to the airport three or four weeks ago, the vast majority of people not wearing masks were almost all British. What the fuck is wrong with you people?


We elected a government of fools who treated us like bigger fools than them, and...well, give a dog a bad name...


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

One of the things Whitty correctly warned about today was not to get a false sense of security from case numbers that level off or fall, unless you've checked that it applies to all age groups and not just falls in the young masking other possibilities such as the older, more vulnerable groups case numbers still rising.


----------



## MrSki (Nov 3, 2020)

Have we had today's figures or...


----------



## Bingo (Nov 3, 2020)

Excel's crashed again. Probably that little paper clip guy with the face on it....


----------



## Badgers (Nov 3, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Have we had today's figures or...



They are working out how to bury or fudge or manipulate bad news then?


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 3, 2020)

Saw a proposal for week-on week-off lockdowns. Can't say im overly enthusiastic about that idea tbh


----------



## Supine (Nov 3, 2020)

Numbers are out in about 5mins. There is a request not to refresh their website until after 19:58..


----------



## weltweit (Nov 3, 2020)

I would love to know how many of the current infections are caused by people not following the recommended practices, mask, wash hands, social distance?  

If people are doing that and still getting infected - and spreading it - then I have less hope for the future.


----------



## mx wcfc (Nov 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I would love to know how many of the current infections are caused by people not following the recommended practices, mask, wash hands, social distance?
> 
> If people are doing that and still getting infected - and spreading it - then I have less hope for the future.


We've been very careful.  Following all the rules.  Mrs mx got a positive test result today.
In the absence of lockdown, or self isolation, I fear people will get it sooner or later.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 3, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> We've been very careful.  Following all the rules.  Mrs mx got a positive test result today.
> In the absence of lockdown, or self isolation, I fear people will get it sooner or later.


Oh ok. Does she have any suspicions as to where she might have gotten it?


----------



## LDC (Nov 3, 2020)

397 dead.


----------



## eoin_k (Nov 3, 2020)

That seems quite low in terms of week on week increase.


----------



## mx wcfc (Nov 3, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Oh ok. Does she have any suspicions as to where she might have gotten it?


She's been going to work recently.  That's my guess, but no-one else has rung in.  One of us could be sympton free and passed it to her.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 3, 2020)

eoin_k said:


> That seems quite low in terms of week on week increase.



TBF it is, 'only' up 30 on last Tuesday.

But, a big increase in patients in hospital - 11,458, and patients in ventilator beds have gone over the 1k figure - 1,075.


----------



## Mation (Nov 3, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> We've been very careful.  Following all the rules.  Mrs mx got a positive test result today.
> In the absence of lockdown, or self isolation, I fear people will get it sooner or later.


Hope she's not too badly affected and all are well again soon.


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 3, 2020)

I appreciate that the Grayson Perry issue is of less importance than the more important stuff on this thread, but .....




			
				editor said:
			
		

> Ah just what the situation needs: the thoughts of a rich successful artist declaring those less successful than him 'dead wood,' The twat.
> 
> 
> *                         Grayson Perry criticised after suggesting Covid-19 will clear arts of 'dead wood'                     *
> ...





Artaxerxes said:


> The Telegraph chopped up this article and then pasted the Dead Wood section out of context and front and centre to drive up clicks.




I really can't wok out to make that Twitter screenshot of the piece in any way readable??


----------



## killer b (Nov 3, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I really can't wok out to make that Twitter screenshot of the piece in any way readable??


I started reading it elsewhere and can confirm it doesn't seem as bad as the headline, but is still a bit crass and stupid. I didn't bother finishing it though, and would recommend you don't bother starting.


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> I started reading it elsewhere and can confirm it doesn't seem as bad as the headline, but is still a bit crass and stupid. I didn't bother finishing it though, and would recommend you don't bother starting.



OK, fair enough, I'll be more busy with US Election news before long anyway!


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 3, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I appreciate that the Grayson Perry issue is of less importance than the more important stuff on this thread, but .....
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The significant part is the quote. It's just the telegraph taking comments from elsewhere and then making their own article and headline.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 3, 2020)

*



			11. Travel
		
Click to expand...

*


> You should avoid travelling in or out of your local area, and you should look to reduce the number of journeys you make. However you can and should still travel for a number of reasons, including:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've been looking at the travel guidelines from Thursday.

Last time round, I was quite scrupulous about travel - didn't go anywhere except for where I could walk or cycle from the front door. Meanwhile I was well aware that many people with cars were driving 50 or 100 miles away to go for a nice walk in the countryside or see the sea.

This time, they aren't quite saying "essential" travel only.

It seems it's up to me to decide what my "local area" is and what a "short journey" is.

Why can't we just have a distance based guideline? Try not to travel more than 10 miles from your home, something like that?


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, a big increase in patients in hospital - 11,458, and patients in ventilator beds have gone over the 1k figure - 1,075.



That UK number of hospitalised patients was actually a drop from the day before. But thats because this data is a bit messy at times for reasons including:

The UK number is several days behind the number available for England, because the Scotland and Wales numbers are 1 day later than Englands on the dashboard, and Northern Irelands are 2 days behind Englands. So that latest UK total is for November 1st.

Also Northern Ireland retroactively fiddle with the numbers on given dates. I presume that if someone tests positive, they go back and add that to the admissions and in hospital numbers for dates in the past. Which means the UK totals for dates already published can still change later.

And sometimes there are reporting gaps where some hospitals in a region dont report their numbers properly on a given day. For example looking at data for England by region, For example the North East and Yorkshires number of people in hospital went from 2374 on 31st October to 2162 on 1st November and then 2574 on 2nd November and 2662 on the 3rd. Therefore I consider the 2162 number to be invalid, a blip. When combined with other possible blips on the same day, the number for England went 9213->9077->9816->10377 and the 9077 figure should be disregarded.

Such blips show up pretty clearly in the graphs. They are also a reason why I have to be careful about getting excited at first signs of changing trajectories, because I have to wait a while to make sure those arent data blip realted too. And when it comes to hospital data at times of very high pressure on services, I also have to think about whether there are any ceilings in the numbers that are caused by lack of capacity in the system rather than what is actually happening with numbers of people getting seriously ill. We know that there was some demand reduction due to people who should have been hospitalised staying at home to 'protect the NHS' in the first wave, either of their own accord of because of bad telephone advice or temporarily altered admissions criteria etc. Also the number of people in hospital is also obviously affected by people being discharged or dying.

Anyway the overall hospital trajectory remains unpleasant and we are at the stage where the North has reached or gone past the number of patients in hospital with Covid-19 at the peak of the first wave.


----------



## Mation (Nov 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've been looking at the travel guidelines from Thursday.
> 
> Last time round, I was quite scrupulous about travel - didn't go anywhere except for where I could walk or cycle from the front door. Meanwhile I was well aware that many people with cars were driving 50 or 100 miles away to go for a nice walk in the countryside or see the sea.
> 
> ...


 Durham is more than 10 miles from London.


----------



## emanymton (Nov 4, 2020)

Police attend Zizzi restaurant in Bristol over alleged Covid test breach
					

Investigation into reports of staff ordered to go to work while awaiting virus test results




					www.theguardian.com
				







> A source familiar with the matter told the Guardian: “A manager told staff to go to work while awaiting test results. One staff member was also told if they didn’t go to work they wouldn’t receive statutory sick pay. One asymptomatic staff member received a positive test result text while they were at work and didn’t go home.”
> 
> They said a member of kitchen staff had also been at work exhibiting symptoms of a fever, but was not sent home. Another asymptomatic person continued to work after their partner had tested positive
> 
> ...


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 4, 2020)

Unused testing capacity of 300 000 ?  So testing is as poorly organised as tracing


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Nov 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Why can't we just have a distance based guideline? Try not to travel more than 10 miles from your home, something like that?


Because what people have within 10 miles of their home is not uniformly distributed.


----------



## mauvais (Nov 4, 2020)

All it needs is a simple formula based on localised population density and the modal journey time for a spread of different essential trips.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 4, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Unused testing capacity of 300 000 ?  So testing is as poorly organised as tracing



Tbf they are building up testing capacity so it could partly reflect that.

One place where there are definitely problems is the ONS/Oxford surveillance testing programme, which I'm on.  I was supposed to have my fourth weekly test the weekend before last but heard nothing from them, so I rang up on the Monday and was told they'd had some difficulties but I'd get a call back in a couple of days.  Tbf I did, but I was at work at the time the woman had available so she said she'd pass it to a colleague to pick up and it'd be done on Saturday, and since then I've heard nothing.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 4, 2020)

mauvais said:


> All it needs is a simple formula based on localised population density and the modal journey time for a spread of different essential trips.


SERCO could write this for a measly 12 billions or so.


----------



## Mation (Nov 4, 2020)

mauvais said:


> All it needs is a simple formula based on localised population density and the modal journey time for a spread of different essential trips.


We need smart front doors that will only open after we've told them where we're going and it has made the calculation based on this formula. 

SERCO could make and install these, too.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 4, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Because what people have within 10 miles of their home is not uniformly distributed.


So?


----------



## andysays (Nov 4, 2020)

teuchter said:


> So?


So what happens when someone needs to make an essential purchase (a new lock for their bathroom door, for instance), but there is no supplier within the somewhat arbitrary 10 mile limit you've suggested?


----------



## teuchter (Nov 4, 2020)

andysays said:


> So what happen when someone needs to make an essential purchase (a new lock for their bathroom door, for instance), but there is no supplier within the somewhat arbitrary 10 mile limit you've suggested?


If it's essential and not available within the limit, go outside of the limit. Everything else, stay within the limit. Not very complicated.


----------



## clicker (Nov 4, 2020)

andysays said:


> So what happen when someone needs to make an essential purchase (a new lock for their bathroom door, for instance), but there is no supplier within the somewhat arbitrary 10 mile limit you've suggested?


Order online?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Nov 4, 2020)

clicker said:


> Order online?


Because everyone has internet and a computer?


----------



## scifisam (Nov 4, 2020)

andysays said:


> So what happen when someone needs to make an essential purchase (a new lock for their bathroom door, for instance), but there is no supplier within the somewhat arbitrary 10 mile limit you've suggested?



Wouldn't it be the same as apparently sometimes happens in Wales, you're stopped and asked the reason for your travel? If you genuinely do have a good reason (like a hospital appointment, one of the occasions you're most likely to need to travel more than ten miles), fine, you have an exceptional reason.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 4, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Wouldn't it be the same as apparently sometimes happens in Wales, you're stopped and asked the reason for your travel? If you genuinely do have a good reason (like a hospital appointment, one of the occasions you're most likely to need to travel more than ten miles), fine, you have an exceptional reason.


But there is a border between England and Wales. So the police can put patrols on all the roads that cross the border to ask people where they are going and why. 
That doesn't apply to a ten mile radius from your house or my house or anyone else's house.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 4, 2020)

Espresso said:


> But there is a border between England and Wales. So the police can put patrols on all the roads that cross the border to ask people where they are going and why.
> That doesn't apply to a ten mile radius from your house or my house or anyone else's house.



That's true, it would be difficult to police.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 4, 2020)

Espresso said:


> But there is a border between England and Wales. So the police can put patrols on all the roads that cross the border to ask people where they are going and why.
> That doesn't apply to a ten mile radius from your house or my house or anyone else's house.


The border is wiggly and crossed by many small roads, sometimes repeatedly - it'd be a nightmare to enforce strictly.


----------



## clicker (Nov 4, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Because everyone has internet and a computer?


Yes, I think you get them free when you buy a bathroom door.


----------



## Indeliblelink (Nov 4, 2020)

Local MP posted this -
“Click-and-collect” or phone orders of alcohol will now be allowed from pubs and microbreweries during lockdown. This will be a massive help for a lot of community pubs and small local brewers.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 4, 2020)

existentialist said:


> The border is wiggly and crossed by many small roads, sometimes repeatedly - it'd be a nightmare to enforce strictly.


Obviously that's true, but at least they have some chance of doing it. 
Unlike trying to stop people going more than ten miles from their house in this country. Because there is zero chance of that. 
If we were the sort of country that had mandatory ID cards, then it would be possible. I'm not saying we should have mandatory ID cards, before anyone asks, but I know they exist elsewhere and would be the only way I can see that anyone could be challenged or fined for being too far away from home.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 4, 2020)

Although I think people were being stopped by police inside Wales, weren't they? Not just at the border.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 4, 2020)

Espresso said:


> But there is a border between England and Wales. So the police can put patrols on all the roads that cross the border to ask people where they are going and why.
> That doesn't apply to a ten mile radius from your house or my house or anyone else's house.


It would be impossible to fully police a 10 mile limit just like it's impossible to police a "avoid leaving your local area" limit.

In a scenario where you're trying to establish whether what someone's done is reasonable, it's much easier to ask the question "are you within X miles of your home" than "are you within a short journey of your home" and get a yes or no answer. Even if someone ever actually gets challenged, that's the question that's in the back of their mind when they are making decisions about what to do. You have a better chance of reasonably consistent behaviour throughout the population because the limit of travel doesn't depend on the attitude of the individual it applies to.

The point is, at least everyone is working to the same guidelines, rather than it being left up to individual interpretation. Because when you leave it to individual interpretation, then you effectively penalise the most conscientious people, and you increase the likelihood that people feel a sense of unfairness. This was a problem right through the first lockdown.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 4, 2020)

Police only need to do a quick reg check to see where you live. One of the reasons we're not going to Scotland.


----------



## xenon (Nov 4, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Police attend Zizzi restaurant in Bristol over alleged Covid test breach
> 
> 
> Investigation into reports of staff ordered to go to work while awaiting virus test results
> ...



Shit. That place gets busy too and comprises a large open dining area with different food styles on offer.


----------



## xenon (Nov 4, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Although I think people were being stopped by police inside Wales, weren't they? Not just at the border.



A mate who's a teacher in Wales, living in Cardif and teaching in Newport, has to carry information to show to the Police if stopped. (not sure he has been stopped though, will ask next time we speak.)


----------



## andysays (Nov 4, 2020)

New advice about "shielding"



> Clinically extremely vulnerable people in England are being strongly advised not to go to work outside their homes during lockdown from Thursday. Under updated government guidance, they should go out only for exercise or to attend health appointments


----------



## weepiper (Nov 4, 2020)

Fifty deaths in Scotland today


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 4, 2020)

Holy shit! What a sight I've just seen on my lunchtime walk.

On the river towpath we got caught up in a group of 60 - 70 schoolkids (around 15 year olds) walking back from I'm guessing a playing field because there were a couple of teachers there.  After the kids had formed one mega bubble the teachers made a half hearted attempt to split them into their smaller bubble which last about 6 seconds before they reformed the mega bubble taking over the whole tow path and ambled their way back to school.

This is the first time since this all started that I've actually been worried about outside transmission, I couldn't get away from them quickly enough.  Just a couple of classes in one school.  Upscale that if you will?

Insanity abounds.  I for one cannot wait for the announcement that the schools are going to have to close anyway and as a result we can add another couple of months to lockdown not to mention another few thousand deaths.


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2020)

The following Nick Triggle article includes the usual suspects, but also a subject close to my heart, no doubt because NHS England have started publishing these figures so I dont have to extrapolate them myself from other data. I havent actually tracked down their new data yet, so here is the BBC version.











						Covid: The things we’re not being told as lockdown looms
					

Ministers say lockdown needed, but some questions remain unanswered as MPs get ready for key vote.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




This is also of interest:



> Prof Tim Spector, who leads the Covid Symptom Study, has gone even further, tweeting the peak of the second wave may have passed.
> 
> But he said this would take one to two weeks to translate to hospital infections and four weeks to change the trend on deaths.



Thats not a scenario I would bet huge amounts of money against. But as I've warned repeatedly, it is not a good idea to focus only on the overall headline numbers, especially if the wave timing are different for the young and students compared to the more vulnerable groups, and if care home and hospital outbreaks perpetuate the serious situation. And I always hedge my bets and would rather wait and see what the real data shows int he weeks ahead. And even if this lockdown is yet again what some would describe as 'too late', I will be bound to say it still has deep meaning, since the current levels of hospital admissions are already too much to cope with and we need to push down the numbers of infected people as quickly as possible.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 4, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Holy shit! What a sight I've just seen on my lunchtime walk.
> 
> On the river towpath we got caught up in a group of 60 - 70 schoolkids (around 15 year olds) walking back from I'm guessing a playing field because there were a couple of teachers there.  After the kids had formed one mega bubble the teachers made a half hearted attempt to split them into their smaller bubble which last about 6 seconds before they reformed the mega bubble taking over the whole tow path and ambled their way back to school.
> 
> ...


I've just seen from a town centre optician's window what happens when schoolkids finish for the day. Huge crowds, bumping into each other, clear mixing of year bubbles, not a mask in sight. Why the fuck are they letting them all out at the same time? They have staggered starts. My daughter goes there. Jesus wept


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2020)

I still havent found the new form of hospital infection data but the following article which was originally in the Telegraph is highlighting the same sort of trusts I was seeing in my own cobbled together version of the data.









						Nearly half of Covid patients in some hospitals likely to have caught virus after admission - barraco55
					

Some of the highest levels of infection within hospitals are in the North-West. At Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, 271 patients were diagnosed with Covid in the week ending October 25. Of those, 27 per cent were likely to have been infected after they went to hospital, the...




					barraco55.org
				






> Some of the highest levels of infection within hospitals are in the North-West. At Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, 271 patients were diagnosed with Covid in the week ending October 25. Of those, 27 per cent were likely to have been infected after they went to hospital, the figures suggest.
> 
> Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust saw 210 patients diagnosed with Covid in the same week, with 25 per cent of cases likely to involve infection after admission. At Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, and University Hospitals Dorset NHS Foundation Trust, more than 44 per cent of Covid cases were probably “hospital-acquired”, the figures show.





> Mr Hunt, the chairman of the Commons health select committee, said: “These are shocking figures. Many people died in the first wave after picking up the infection inside a hospital or a care home.
> 
> “We seem to have learned the lessons in care homes, but are still not doing weekly testing of hospital staff. To make the same mistake twice would be indefensible.”


----------



## Badgers (Nov 4, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Holy shit! What a sight I've just seen on my lunchtime walk.
> 
> On the river towpath we got caught up in a group of 60 - 70 schoolkids (around 15 year olds) walking back from I'm guessing a playing field because there were a couple of teachers there.  After the kids had formed one mega bubble the teachers made a half hearted attempt to split them into their smaller bubble which last about 6 seconds before they reformed the mega bubble taking over the whole tow path and ambled their way back to school.
> 
> ...


My sis (teacher) just got out of 14 days Isolation last week and this morning her youngest (10) has C19 symptoms so is being tested. 

Some years are there, some are not. It is a daily changing mess.


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2020)

So we are going to be treated data about hospital infections this time around, but much murk and avoidance of scrutiny remains.


----------



## IC3D (Nov 4, 2020)

elbows the bottom quote implies staff transmission while I believe was a factor first time round this time PPE is worn constantly. What I have seen is patient to patient while awaiting results of first and second swabs. How to mitigate without faster more accurate tests I don't know. Encourage patients to wear masks would help but not really practical.


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2020)

IC3D said:


> elbows the bottom quote implies staff transmission while I believe was a factor first time round this time PPE is worn constantly. What I have seen is patient to patient while awaiting results of first and second swabs. How to mitigate without faster more accurate tests I don't know. Encourage patients to wear masks would help but not really practical.



Most of the experts are quite correct to call for routine testing of staff too, the problem hasnt been solved just because some very large holes in the PPE situation have been plugged.

The design of some hospitals themselves is also a problem, especially when it comes to corridors and meeting places/break areas for staff.

And there are current stories such as this one:









						Six NHS staff contract Covid after car sharing without wearing masks
					

University Hospitals of North Midlands trust already has 600 personnel off work due to virus




					www.theguardian.com
				




I blame the authorities because a lot of these things are predictable and there is only so much that individuals can achieve themselves, all it takes is one lapse of judgement, and we need the systems to be responsive to this. And one of the reasons asymptomatic transmission is an issue with such large implications is that we cannot help but base a lot of our behaviour on how we feel, and not having symptoms causes lapses time and time again. Routine testing of everyone in these situations is required to carry a big chunk of the weight of this problem, and none of my constant noise about hospital infections in this pandemic is seeking to focus on individual failings.


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2020)

I had to resort to a bloody daily mail graphic so that I could work out whether the numbers I've been generating myself by subtracting one set of official statistics from another are in line with what the media are reporting on this week. I've only checked three of the affected trusts so far but my numbers are a solid match so far, so I will be able to talk about specific NHS trust hospital infection levels with more confidence from now on. Not that any of my data is ready to bore people with yet, so here is the aforementioned Daily Mail graphic. These percentages are for one weeks figures, not the whole pandemic or the whole second wave so far. They are for the week ending October 25th, and the graphic is far from exhaustive, there are plenty of other trusts I could show.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 4, 2020)

Er...fuck...if correct:


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 4, 2020)

It is correct, and up 182 on the deaths reported last Wed - 310.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 4, 2020)

500 becoming the non-weekend ball-park now.


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2020)

I guess the number is so high today that I should drag out the colour-coded graph again to put the number in context?


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> I guess the number is so high today that I should drag out the colour-coded graph again to put the number in context?


go on then


----------



## killer b (Nov 4, 2020)

The last few days have been (comparatively) low so I guess it's a catch up?


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2020)

Yes.


----------



## IC3D (Nov 4, 2020)

Routine testing of staff should have been a no brainer from day 0. Its incredibly frustrating elbows esp as trusts appear to follow govt guidelines and not take any initiative.


----------



## Mation (Nov 4, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Routine testing of staff should have been a no brainer from day 0. Its incredibly frustrating elbows esp as trusts appear to follow govt guidelines and not take any initiative.


With what budget?


----------



## andysays (Nov 4, 2020)

> MPs have backed a four-week lockdown in England to combat coronavirus, which will kick in at midnight. Boris Johnson saw off a rebellion by Tory MPs opposed to the move, with the support of Labour. The government won the vote by 516 to 38, a majority of 478.



Not that there was really any doubt about the result, only perhaps about the number who would vote against. Predictions of 80 Tories rebelling appear to have been an exaggeration


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2020)

Since my colour-coded graph has still managed to cause confusion in the past, I will have another stab at demonstrating the lag and reporting patterns that people should expect when looking at figures like these which shows deaths by date of death. eg Some people seem to end up wondering if the more recent days levels not being higher than previous ones is a good sign, when in fact its usually a consequence of laggy reporting.

So I have repeated the colour-coding exercise but using a whole weeks worth of changes to the deaths by date of death figures. So the blue is what the graph looked like a week ago and the red represents all the deaths reported since then. So when you look at the more recent days data in such graphs, you need to imagine similar patterns of more cases to be added on top of those later, just like some of the red figures ended up on top of some of the blue ones.

Also serves as a stark reminder that its the area occupied by the graph that matters, and how even modest increases per day quickly add up to considerably higher death totals over time.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Nov 4, 2020)

Tory-linked firm involved in testing failure given new £347m Covid contract
					

Exclusive: Hancock has backed transfer of nearly £500m to Randox during pandemic




					www.theguardian.com
				




God, they make my fucking skin crawl.


----------



## IC3D (Nov 4, 2020)

By using funds pissed away on Tory chums see above Mation


----------



## Mation (Nov 4, 2020)

IC3D said:


> By using funds pissed away on Tory chums see above Mation


Absolutely that's what the pissed away money should have been spent on, I just don't see how trusts could have commandeered it on their own initiative.

Well. Not without some, erm... _major _changes in strategy.


----------



## Mation (Nov 4, 2020)

2020: The year that brought us the Provisional NHS


----------



## IC3D (Nov 4, 2020)

So fucked off the money wasted hasn't been invested in NHS labs and research. The waste of an established infrastructure and all the talented HCPs is a declaration of war!


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Was that Labour MP drunk on the committee today? He was completely incoherent. And the Tory one (mid/late 40s, male, glasses, bald) that was asking questions remotely to Vallance and Whitty came across as an anti-lockdown type.



Well I'm just looking at who voted against lockdown ( Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020 - Commons' votes in Parliament - UK Parliament ) and who didnt vote (Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020 - Commons' votes in Parliament - UK Parliament ) and I see that the MP I believe you are referring to, Graham Stringer, did not vote.

McVey voted against lockdown, and there are other names we would expect to see in that category too, like Fysh, Drax, Redwood, IDS.

Mundell, Theresa May and Grayling are amongst those who didnt vote. I know the press have focussed a fair bit on May giving a speech in parliament criticising the data used, the model that had a 4000 deaths per day peak etc.


----------



## LDC (Nov 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well I'm just looking at who voted against lockdown ( Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020 - Commons' votes in Parliament - UK Parliament ) and who didnt vote (Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No.4) Regulations 2020 - Commons' votes in Parliament - UK Parliament ) and I see that the MP I believe you are referring to, Graham Stringer, did not vote.
> 
> McVey voted against lockdown, and there are other names we would expect to see in that category too, like Fysh, Drax, Redwood, IDS.
> 
> Mundell, Theresa May and Grayling are amongst those who didnt vote. I know the press have focussed a fair bit on May giving a speech in parliament criticising the data used, the model that had a 4000 deaths per day peak etc.



Cheers, any idea who the Tory one was?


----------



## Supine (Nov 4, 2020)




----------



## teqniq (Nov 4, 2020)

Great use of police time and resources here:


----------



## editor (Nov 4, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Gret use of police time and resources here:



That's insane.


----------



## Supine (Nov 4, 2020)

Huge queue outside wagamama in Liverpool. At least 45 minute wait to be seated. Impending lockdown isn't putting off the locals


----------



## IC3D (Nov 4, 2020)

Police did a good job of pulling over my black nursing colleagues during lockdown on their way to covid wards. Useless cunts.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 4, 2020)

Supine said:


> Huge queue outside wagamama in Liverpool. At least 45 minute wait to be seated. Impending lockdown isn't putting off the locals



Loads on on the piss in Reading too. My local is doing 2 pints for a £5 and is currently heaving.


----------



## Numbers (Nov 4, 2020)

Nuts around my area this evening.  Walking from the tube home all the shops, chicken shops, restaurants, barbers, supermarkets, the 2 pubs I pass - all packed, streets busy too, and with the fireworks going off everywhere it was like Mardi Gras.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 4, 2020)

Lots of firework parties going on tonight too.


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Cheers, any idea who the Tory one was?



Which one? The chair? Greg Clark, voted for lockdown. 

If you meant a different one you can see the list of committee members here, and as far as my quick check goes, the tory members all voted in favour of lockdown:









						Science and Technology Committee - Membership - Committees - UK Parliament
					

Committee membership for the Science and Technology Committee.




					committees.parliament.uk


----------



## klang (Nov 4, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Nuts around my area this evening.  Walking from the tube home all the shops, chicken shops, restaurants, barbers, supermarkets, the 2 pubs I pass - all packed, streets busy too, and with the fireworks going off everywhere it was like Mardi Gras.





souljacker said:


> Lots of firework parties going on tonight too.


that's alright. Corona won't start till tomorrow.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 4, 2020)

I looked at that voting list.

Mine voted for lockdown - but by proxy.

If he had voted against, or abstained, I was being sorely tempted to write and ask him if he liked murdering people's grannies ...


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 4, 2020)

I live on the top floor of a building that is built on the highest point for miles around, I have an amazing view of the B’ham skyline. It is currently absolutely erupting with fireworks, never seen anything like it.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 4, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I live on the top floor of a building that is built on the highest point for miles around, I have an amazing view of the B’ham skyline. It is currently absolutely erupting with fireworks, never seen anything like it.


Thank heavens Nov 5th is months away


----------



## nagapie (Nov 4, 2020)

Are there no rules about travel then? My support bubble would need to travel to me on public transport.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 4, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Are there no rules about travel then? My support bubble would need to travel to me on public transport.


I posted them here


----------



## LDC (Nov 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> Which one? The chair? Greg Clark, voted for lockdown.
> 
> If you meant a different one you can see the list of committee members here, and as far as my quick check goes, the tory members all voted in favour of lockdown:
> 
> ...



Thanks, it was Andrew Griffith, Tory MP for Arundel and South Downs. Wikipedia says his father died of the virus weirdly enough.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 4, 2020)

I’m confused too. I’ve been told to self-isolate cos of contact at work with someone who has COVID but I live with my 78 year old dad (though trying to keep my distance) and he’s ok to go out and do what he wants (within lockdown regulations). How does that make sense? (Not that I want him to be cooped up inside as well)


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Nov 4, 2020)

This had passed me by somehow, apparently new rules for secondary schools starting tomorrow:









						Covid-19: All pupils and staff must wear masks in secondary school corridors
					

New government guidance also says teachers who are "clinically vulnerable" should not come in to school.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Mation (Nov 4, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> This had passed me by somehow, apparently new rules for secondary schools starting tomorrow:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Not somehow. The story is only 4 hours old and the US election is on. The clown car is just doing its shambolic thing again, giving no one any notice or the chance to act in time.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Nov 4, 2020)

Absolute scenes of chaos in Brixton.


----------



## killer b (Nov 4, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m confused too. I’ve been told to self-isolate cos of contact at work with someone who has COVID but I live with my 78 year old dad (though trying to keep my distance) and he’s ok to go out and do what he wants (within lockdown regulations). How does that make sense? (Not that I want him to be cooped up inside as well)


there has to be a balance - if you were positive yourself he'd have to isolate, but it's not practical to ask everyone living with someone who's isolating for contact reasons to isolated too .


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 4, 2020)

killer b said:


> there has to be a balance - if you were positive yourself he'd have to isolate, but it's not practical to ask everyone living with someone who's isolating for contact reasons to isolated too .


aye, I don't have any symptoms and my contact with the other person has been minimal - the only risk is we may have touched the same surfaces


----------



## weepiper (Nov 4, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> This had passed me by somehow, apparently new rules for secondary schools starting tomorrow:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It seems absolutely wild that that is not already the case. Scottish kids have been doing this for more than two months already!





__





						Redirect Notice
					





					www.google.com


----------



## mx wcfc (Nov 4, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Loads on on the piss in Reading too. My local is doing 2 pints for a £5 and is currently heaving.


I don't know whether you know the Nag's Head, but they put out a plea to their regulars to drink the 1,500 pints they had left.  They update Twitter every know and again.  It looks like they are making good progress.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 4, 2020)

I took a walk around the neighbourhood around 9pm. The only pub that's still open is spoons (tier 3...) and they are selling all their real ale for 99p. Only a few tables were occupied.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 4, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> This had passed me by somehow, apparently new rules for secondary schools starting tomorrow:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Seems a reasonable idea but should have been made clearer to everyone. Daughter (Y8) already takes a mask to school since they went back, I'm guessing that means they wear them in the corridors already, I can't remember what they specified them for.


----------



## Cerv (Nov 4, 2020)

how many kids are going to turn up to school tomorrow not having heard the announcement? seems odd to announce in the middle of the week, and not say last Friday or over the weekend.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 4, 2020)

Report from friend who was daft enough to go to the pub tonight in town - he's struggled to find one that would let him in. Not because they're all shut, but because they're all utterly rammed


----------



## souljacker (Nov 4, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> I don't know whether you know the Nag's Head, but they put out a plea to their regulars to drink the 1,500 pints they had left.  They update Twitter every know and again.  It looks like they are making good progress.



I know it very well. One of these days we should really have a Reading Urban meet up.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 4, 2020)

No discernible fireworks, but plenty of HGVs and cars belting along the nearby road.


----------



## Dogsauce (Nov 4, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Food shops, supermarkets, garden centres and certain other retailers providing essential goods and services can remain open.
> 
> How the fuck are garden centres essential?



during the first lockdown a pub down the hill from here had some bags of compost and other bits in the beer garden, and a sign saying ‘Garden Centre’. They were also doing take-out beers


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 5, 2020)

Dogsauce said:


> during the first lockdown a pub down the hill from here had some bags of compost and other bits in the beer garden, and a sign saying ‘Garden Centre’. They were also doing take-out beers


A pub near me sold fresh fruit and veg during the period when only food shops and pharmacies could be open. You could also buy a beer and sit on the kerb outside. Kind of funny but not really to be encouraged when the point is to try to protect people.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Report from friend who was daft enough to go to the pub tonight in town - he's struggled to find one that would let him in. Not because they're all shut, but because they're all utterly rammed



I think its worth clarifying what rammed actually means here.  The pubs round my way were all full (the ones that hadn't already closed or gone out of business) and most were not letting people in.  They were full because they had much reduced table capacity, table service only and no standing.  Maybe pubs elsewhere were not observing the rules but I suspect the vast majority were.  I'm sure the press will be able to dig out a story of a community pub that had a lock in somewhere.

I know that doesn't sound as exciting as rammed and on this site we we can't use the word pubs without a prefix such as crowded or rammed (fuck knows where all these crowded pubs are because everyone I see is empty and going down the tubes) but given how scared some people are we do have a duty to try and be accurate with our words.

If pubs were actually rammed then that is terrible.  If they had just reached capacity within the current framework of the rules than I don't actually think that its that bad.  Less exciting obviously.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think its worth clarifying what rammed actually means here.  The pubs round my way were all full (the ones that hadn't already closed or gone out of business) and most were not letting people in.  They were full because they had much reduced table capacity, table service only and no standing.  Maybe pubs elsewhere were not observing the rules but I suspect the vast majority were.  I'm sure the press will be able to dig out a story of a community pub that had a lock in somewhere.
> 
> I know that doesn't sound as exciting as rammed and on this site we we can't use the word pubs without a prefix such as crowded or rammed (fuck knows where all these crowded pubs are because everyone I see is empty and going down the tubes) but given how scared some people are we do have a duty to try and be accurate with our words.
> 
> If pubs were actually rammed then that is terrible.  If they had just reached capacity within the current framework of the rules than I don't actually think that its that bad.  Less exciting obviously.


Apparently most were following the rules but I’ve seen a photo of at least one that really wasn’t...


----------



## Badgers (Nov 5, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I looked at that voting list.
> 
> Mine voted for lockdown - but by proxy.
> 
> If he had voted against, or abstained, I was being sorely tempted to write and ask him if he liked murdering people's grannies ...


He does regardless of this vote


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Apparently most were following the rules but I’ve seen a photo of at least one that really wasn’t...



Yes and this weekend (and every weekend in lockdown) there will be thousands of house parties up and down the country.  _shrug_


----------



## xenon (Nov 5, 2020)

I went to a couple of pubs last night. They were both pretty busy. As in most tables occupied. Table service, masks worn whengetting up to go to the loo. One pub only lets one person use the loo at a time. Was going to go to one in the city centre but suspected it would be full so stayed local. anyway, not carnage.


----------



## LDC (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m confused too. I’ve been told to self-isolate cos of contact at work with someone who has COVID but I live with my 78 year old dad (though trying to keep my distance) and he’s ok to go out and do what he wants (within lockdown regulations). How does that make sense? (Not that I want him to be cooped up inside as well)



Yeah, it's already been answered, it's a mix of pragmatism and likely infection risk or the whole country would be isolating. But it does cause a bit of confusion.

If you had symptoms or tested +tive your dad would also have to isolate, but the contact is one chain link away from him currently.

If the +tive contact is A, and you are B, and your dad is C, and then say D is a contact of C, and > means contact then it works itself down the chain one by one if that makes sense.

A +tive or symptoms > B isolate > C not isolate > D not isolate > etc.
A +tive or symptoms > B +tive or symptoms > C isolate > D not isolate > etc.


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> aye, I don't have any symptoms and my contact with the other person has been minimal - the only risk is we may have touched the same surfaces


Forget about symptoms....you could easily be asymptomatic....get a test.


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, it's already been answered, it's a mix of pragmatism and likely infection risk or the whole country would be isolating. But it does cause a bit of confusion.
> 
> If you had symptoms or tested +tive your dad would also have to isolate, but the contact is one chain link away from him currently.
> 
> ...


🤪


----------



## Badgers (Nov 5, 2020)

Not going out much myself. Certainly not for pubs or takeaway. There are a lot of cars on the road here though, far far more than Lockdown1.


----------



## Numbers (Nov 5, 2020)

Got the Jubilee line this morning from East to Central, it was much busier than I thought it would be.  

Thankfully from tomorrow I’ll be back WFH 4 days a week and just the 1 day in the office.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 5, 2020)

The streets of Brixton were very busy last night.


----------



## Doodler (Nov 5, 2020)

Good eerie atmosphere in the local shopping centre with nearly all shop units closed and shuttered, a few people shuffling around inside, a female voice over the tannoy system calmly recites government advice on Covid-19.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

Its going to be interesting.  I have a feeling that this won't really feel like a lockdown and people will largely carry on as they have been but without hospitality and clothes shopping.


----------



## Sue (Nov 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes and this weekend (and every weekend in lockdown) there will be thousands of house parties up and down the country.  _shrug_


My upstairs and downstairs neighbours both had lots of people round last night.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

Sue said:


> My upstairs and downstairs neighbours both had lots of people round last night.



Yeah this is it.  Almost certainly against the rules that were in place yesterday so the changing rules today are unlikely to make them that bothered.


----------



## Sue (Nov 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah this is it.  *Almost certainly against the rules that were in place yesterday* so the changing rules today are unlikely to make them that bothered.


Yes, this is London so shouldn't have been doing it.


----------



## killer b (Nov 5, 2020)

Sue said:


> Yes, this is London so shouldn't have been doing it.


the idea that there was anywhere in the country you were allowed to have people round yesterday sounds strange - it's not been legal here for months...


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 5, 2020)

Minister blames public for second English lockdown
					

Robert Buckland says it will be ‘huge challenge’ to get public to follow strict coronavirus restrictions again




					www.theguardian.com
				




Yeah, it's the public's fault that you and your corporate mates and your corrupt fucking government fucked up every single fucking thing that could be fucked up. Get to fuck.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> the idea that there was anywhere in the country you were allowed to have people round yesterday sounds strange - it's not been legal here for months...



Yes it does seem odd that up until midnight you could still have a party of six people in your house in large parts of the country.  Then again in a lot of places the idea of a lockdown now probably seems odd.  My parents live in the forest of dean and there has hardly been any cases at all.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Sue said:


> My upstairs and downstairs neighbours both had lots of people round last night.



My mean next door neighbour had most of her family over. It's against the rules. OTOH she genuinely does have pretty big mental health problems that might be lessened by seeing the grandkids once before the lockdown - and from my POV, the less mentally unwell she is, the better it is for me. They haven't been over loads of times - haven't been taking the piss in a big way.


----------



## andysays (Nov 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, it's already been answered, it's a mix of pragmatism and likely infection risk or the whole country would be isolating. But it does cause a bit of confusion.
> 
> If you had symptoms or tested +tive your dad would also have to isolate, but the contact is one chain link away from him currently.
> 
> ...


I think what Orang Utan is asking about is whether/how he should protect his dad from possibly becoming infected by him, rather than whether his dad should isolate to prevent infection to others.

This is clearly an important question in general, how do we protect particularly vulnerable people we live with from infection risk if we are ourselves infectious?


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Forget about symptoms....you could easily be asymptomatic....get a test.


You’re not supposed to get one if you don’t have symptoms


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> You’re not supposed to get one if you don’t have symptoms



Or if you've potentially been exposed which it appears you have been.  Regardless I think under your circumstances no one would think it unreasonable if you booked a test, quite the opposite in fact.

The rules are about stopping knobheads who want to get tested regularly so they can carry on life as normal and don't have to bother with all the other stuff.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 5, 2020)

Zoe Covid App reporting nationally that R=1 for the first time in a long time today.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> You’re not supposed to get one if you don’t have symptoms



You should, though. It's not a pleasant test - you're not going to be doing it often for fun.


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> You’re not supposed to get one if you don’t have symptoms


I would understand the sense in that if you hadn't been in contact with someone with a + test result, however given you have and you live with an elderly person with risk factors .....and there is plenty of evidence now of a% of people not displaying symptoms.....its what I would do in order to put my mind at rest.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Zoe Covid App reporting nationally that R=1 for the first time in a long time today.



Fuck me this lock down is working fast.  At this rate we'll be down below 0.5 by 4pm.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Fuck me this lock down is working fast.  At this rate we'll be down below 0.5 by 4pm.


With a warning note that they reported R falling to 1.1 in September and then rising again, a bit of a false dawn, that is a calculation taken over the two weeks to 1 November. The very latest figures show that it _may_ have fallen below 1 now. It is consistent with the flattening of new cases over the last fortnight. (It also doesn't include care homes, and is for symptomatic covid only.)


----------



## andysays (Nov 5, 2020)

Just announced, furlough scheme extended until March and to be UK-wide


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> Just announced, furlough scheme extended until March and to be UK-wide



I fucking hope they do the same for the self-employed.


----------



## Ted Striker (Nov 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> Just announced, furlough scheme extended until March and to be UK-wide



Why would you announce a furlough scheme _that_ long, without an expectation for Lockdown to last a similar time?


----------



## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

I'll be briefly digging ito some SAGE minutes and papers that were released int he last week or two.

I know there were some stories about how we were still going to discharge patients from hospital without a negative test, and the following from SAGE Meeting 60 of October 1st relates to that:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/931034/S0798_Sixtieth_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19.pdf
		




> SAGE has previously advised testing of hospital patients prior to discharge. The Senior Clinicians Group agrees that universal testing of discharged hospitalised patients is beneficial. However, current constraints on testing means that prioritisation of capacity is required for other uses e.g. for health and social care staff.



Also in that meeting they looked at the report looking at excess mortality around Europe and possible correlations. They decided to look more closely at the link between high mortality in this pandemic and high mortality in a recent influenza epidemic.

I noticed some weeks back that Johnson had started including a mention of adequate ventillation in his press conference rhetoric. Its probably because SAGE were looking at the issue in this meeting, and endorsed the following Environmental and Modelling group paper. Its a fairly big document that I dont have time to read properly right now but it could be useful to anyone who needs a weighty ventilation study, for example to bash useless management with.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/928720/S0789_EMG_Role_of_Ventilation_in_Controlling_SARS-CoV-2_Transmission.pdf


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> You should, though. It's not a pleasant test - you're not going to be doing it often for fun.


“
You can only get a free NHS test if at least one of the following applies:


you have a high temperature
you have a new, continuous cough
you've lost your sense of smell or taste or it's changed
you've been asked to by a local council
you're taking part in a government pilot project “


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I would understand the sense in that if you hadn't been in contact with someone with a + test result, however given you have and you live with an elderly person with risk factors .....and there is plenty of evidence now of a% of people not displaying symptoms.....its what I would do in order to put my mind at rest.


I’m not worried - people on the internet are!


----------



## andysays (Nov 5, 2020)

Ted Striker said:


> Why would you announce a furlough scheme _that_ long, without an expectation for Lockdown to last a similar time?


I think you may have just answered your own question...


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 5, 2020)

Ted Striker said:


> Why would you announce a furlough scheme _that_ long, without an expectation for Lockdown to last a similar time?




And the one announced on Saturday was too late for everyone made redundant at the end of October's furlough, their redundancies were processed and can't be reversed...


----------



## andysays (Nov 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I fucking hope they do the same for the self-employed.





> Sunak says the support for the self-employed will double to 80% of average earnings in the previous year, up to a maximum of £7,500.


----------



## ddraig (Nov 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> Just announced, furlough scheme extended until March and to be UK-wide


link?

e2a here Sunak to extend furlough scheme to end of March


----------



## killer b (Nov 5, 2020)

Ted Striker said:


> Why would you announce a furlough scheme _that_ long, without an expectation for Lockdown to last a similar time?


The previous furlough scheme was running all summer and only ran out last week - the dampening of demand caused by lockdown  doesn't stop the moment you reopen, so support measures need to continue well beyond the expected end of the lockdown itself.


----------



## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> With a warning note that they reported R falling to 1.1 in September and then rising again, a bit of a false dawn, that is a calculation taken over the two weeks to 1 November. The very latest figures show that it _may_ have fallen below 1 now. It is consistent with the flattening of new cases over the last fortnight. (It also doesn't include care homes, and is for symptomatic covid only.)



I take their number with a large pinch of salt but it is interesting and I do include it in my sense of where we are at. Caveats include the possibility that this app is much better at tracking the eidemic in certain age groups than others, and that it may not capture epidemic waves in vulnerable groups and non-community settings at all well.

In theory the increasingly sombre mood music that has grown since the start of September, and the increase in severity of regional measures, should have seen quite a lot of behavioural changes and somewhat reduced opportunities for the virus to spread, although this picture will be patchy with a lot of regional variation. Speaking of which, I wouldnt go so far as to call national numbers useless at the moment, but they could be very misleading. Because there will be complex interaction in overall numbers between places at different stage of their local epidemics, a tug of war between places showing a flattening or decrease in number of cases and those still on the up. Same sort of phenomenon that may be present by looking at cases in different age groups. A good time to zoom in on specific areas and age groups.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> “
> You can only get a free NHS test if at least one of the following applies:
> 
> 
> ...



Or you say you have one of those in order to get a test.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Fuck me this lock down is working fast.  At this rate we'll be down below 0.5 by 4pm.



 

Probably due to half term.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Or you say you have one of those in order to get a test.


Nope, I’m not crying wolf


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m not worried - people on the internet are!



I don't give a shit either way.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Nope



Why not, though?


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Why not, though?


Cos you’re not supposed to if you don’t have symptoms


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cos you’re not supposed to if you don’t have symptoms



OK. But it would be more responsible to get the test. Then if you test positive you know you need to stay at home for longer. You'll also know that you are much less at risk for future infections, either getting them or passing them on.

It's not crying wolf.

It is a little odd that an anarchist board actually has so many people very much in favour of blindly following rules.


----------



## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

SAGE meeting 61 of October 8th mentions issues with data that comes via testing:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/931136/S0800_Sixty-first_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19.pdf
		




> Operational issues in the testing systems, including the demand for symptomatic testing and testing delays, as well as corrections to the data on positive cases, have increased the level of uncertainty in estimates. There are also data issues following the return of students to universities relating to where cases are recorded.



That last issue (students testing positive being linked to their home address/GP rather than Uni address) was briefly visible in the news a while back and I mentioned it here as potentially being the next big data fuckup, but the issue never rose to prominence.

This meeting also had some thoughts on why the wave may be evolving more slowly in London:



> Data show lower prevalence and incidence in London compared to some other UK cities but there is variation within London. The reasons for apparent lower levels in London are not known but could include some degree of immunity (lower than 20%); different population behaviours because London was hard hit in the first wave; the effects of the loss of tourism and people working from home; differences in population structure and housing densities; or differences in levels of deprivation compared to other cities.
> 
> CoMix data suggest lower rates of contact in London than the North West of England over the summer period which may have also influenced current incidence rates.
> 
> ONS data also suggest a greater reduction in activity in the hospitality sector in London than elsewhere, in part due to reduced tourism.



If I were looking at that I would also want to check whether hospital and care home infection control may be better in London, what role that could have, and the reasons. Reasons could include more attentive trusts, more resources, different capacity, different size of individual institutions, more staff routine testing pilots in the area, or more staff having immunity due to more of them catching it in the first wave. None of these necessarily happened at all, they are just areas I would want to explore but I dont have the contacts & data to do that.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> OK. But it would be more responsible to get the test. Then if you test positive you know you need to stay at home for longer. You'll also know that you are much less at risk for future infections, either getting them or passing them on.
> 
> It is a little odd that an anarchist board actually has so many people very much in favour of blindly following rules.


I’m just concerned about wasting resources unnecessarily


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## klang (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m just concerned about wasting resources unnecessarily


it's not really wasting recourses when you live with a vulnerable person though.


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## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

Cos there’s going to be another spike in Leeds soon if this pic from last night is owt to go by:


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## IC3D (Nov 5, 2020)

That's worrying.. The furlough til march


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## Smokeandsteam (Nov 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> The previous furlough scheme was running all summer and only ran out last week - the dampening of demand caused by lockdown  doesn't stop the moment you reopen, so support measures need to continue well beyond the expected end of the lockdown itself.



That is spot on. I suspect the Tories have also twigged that a lot of hospitality isn’t coming back from the latest lockdown and they want to kick that can down the road.

Sunak's strategy has been to provide as little security as possible and then be pushed into announcements at the last minute. The economic fall out from that is becoming clearer. I suspect this is an attempt to get ahead of the curve, but it’s too little too late in that sense.


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## wtfftw (Nov 5, 2020)

That looks like a socially distanced well ventilated queue to me?


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## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cos there’s going to be another spike in Leeds soon if this pic from last night is owt to go by:
> View attachment 237457



Not sure how that's a good reason _not_ to get tested.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 5, 2020)

Downing Street press briefing at 5 pm today.


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## killer b (Nov 5, 2020)

IC3D said:


> That's worrying.. The furlough til march


it isn't. We'd literally only just brought staff back off furlough about 3 weeks ago from the first lockdown. It takes a long time for demand to bounce back


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## andysays (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> OK. But it would be more responsible to get the test. Then if you test positive you know you need to stay at home for longer. You'll also know that you are much less at risk for future infections, either getting them or passing them on.
> 
> It's not crying wolf.
> 
> It is a little odd that an anarchist board actually has so many people very much in favour of blindly following rules.


Isn't there still an issue about the tests being less accurate if you have been infected but haven't yet developed symptoms?

Not sure about likely time scales here though.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Not sure how that's a good reason _not_ to get tested.


Cos many people will come down with it, and will need to get tested


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## Thora (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> OK. But it would be more responsible to get the test. Then if you test positive you know you need to stay at home for longer. You'll also know that you are much less at risk for future infections, either getting them or passing them on.
> 
> It's not crying wolf.
> 
> It is a little odd that an anarchist board actually has so many people very much in favour of blindly following rules.


Does getting the test really make any difference if you're isolating for 14 days anyway?

I didn't think there was any conclusive proof about having it giving any immunity either.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cos many people will come down with it, and will need to get tested



Not today, though. Getting the tests processed is the main issue.


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## cupid_stunt (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cos many people will come down with it, and will need to get tested



The current testing capacity is over 526k, and only 265k tests carried out were reported yesterday, so there's plenty of capacity ATM.


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## Thora (Nov 5, 2020)

Even if you're negative on the day of the test during the incubation period, you could still become positive later, so you don't particularly gain anything from a negative.


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## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

I’m very very reluctant I have to say. Official advice is not to, so I won’t


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## editor (Nov 5, 2020)

So rehearsal rooms and studios can stay open


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## IC3D (Nov 5, 2020)

killer b said:


> it isn't. We'd literally only just brought staff back off furlough about 3 weeks ago from the first lockdown. It takes a long time for demand to bounce back


Its a lot of time off for a 4 week partial lockdown


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## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

Thora said:


> I didn't think there was any conclusive proof about having it giving any immunity either.



A view from the frontlines that is well worth reading for those who havent spotted it because its in a different subforum:            #1,579


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## Helen Back (Nov 5, 2020)

So - lockdown 2.0 is here. How are the streets round where you live? Any different? Any quieter? Are people respecting it this time round?
Ipswich here. I have been out myself but Mr Back has and says the town centre is not as empty as it should be.


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## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Its a lot of time off for a 4 week partial lockdown



It would be absolutely fucking stupid not to have extended the furlough for that length of time. Everyone knows that the period of increased danger doesnt pass till spring and as others have pointed out, there is a big difference between lockdown formally ending and customers returning in sufficient numbers. Get the timing wrong and employers equations will change, leading to lots more unemployed people more quickly than will be the case with an extended furlough.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 5, 2020)

Helen Back said:


> So - lockdown 2.0 is here. How are the streets round where you live? Any different? Any quieter? Are people respecting it this time round?
> Ipswich here. I have been out myself but Mr Back has and says the town centre is not as empty as it should be.



My town's much busier than during lockdown 1, but quieter than of late, but the local schools partnership has an inset day for all primary & junior schools in the area, so tomorrow will give a more realistic picture.


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## Steel Icarus (Nov 5, 2020)

editor said:


> So rehearsal rooms and studios can stay open



What's the justification here?


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## Steel Icarus (Nov 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street press briefing at 5 pm today.


Or 6. Or 6.35. Or 7.10...


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## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Thora said:


> Does getting the test really make any difference if you're isolating for 14 days anyway?
> 
> I didn't think there was any conclusive proof about having it giving any immunity either.



If you test positive without symptoms then you're supposed to isolate from the date you took the test.

I think the consensus is that it's extremely unlikely that you can catch it twice. 









						Coronavirus immunity: Can you catch it twice?
					

Immunity is the crucial question and understanding it will tell us how the pandemic will end.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> There were early reports of people appearing to have multiple coronavirus infections in a short space of time.
> But the scientific consensus is that testing was the issue, with patients being incorrectly told they were free of the virus.
> Scientists from Hong Kong recently reported on the case of a young, healthy man who recovered from a bout of Covid-19 only to be re-infected more than four months later. Using genome sequencing of the virus, they could prove he caught it twice because the virus strains were different.
> 
> Experts say re-infection isn't surprising, but it's likely to be rare, and larger studies are needed to understand why this might happen.



This other article is more circumspect, but still comes down on the side of extremely unlikely to contract it twice.








						Why scientists are still divided on immunity to Covid-19 - and what the NHS says
					

Matt Hancock said in September that 'credible' cases of coronavirus reinfection were being investigated by scientists




					inews.co.uk
				




The uncertainty is because we can't be sure about anything, really, but it doesn't seem likely at all. Also, if you can catch it multiple times, then why bother developing a vaccine?

I wouldn't assume you're completely safe, and I'm still going to wear a mask and so on, especially since the risk seems to be being asymptomatic (therefore able to pass it on), rather than actually getting ill. But what I said to OU was that there is "much less risk." That's definitely true.


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## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Cos there’s going to be another spike in Leeds soon if this pic from last night is owt to go by:
> View attachment 237457



That's basically the same scene that I see every day at 3pm at the local primary school across the way.   As a country we gave up on distancing some months ago.  At least they are outside.

It'll also be the same scene at every supermarket queue that has one, certainly was yesterday.

Board needs to chill out about this sort of stuff.  Its the stuff you don't see which is the real problem, the stuff going on behind closed doors.


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## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street press briefing at 5 pm today.



The usual process is to end up having to do something which was obvious weeks ago.

Schools and Uni's?  More likely just some waffle about extending furlough.


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## killer b (Nov 5, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Its a lot of time off for a 4 week partial lockdown


the original lockdown was only supposed to be for three weeks, the original furlough period was for three months, so it's in line with the spring scheme. I don't think you can necessarily read anything into the length of time the scheme is initially running for, although it's obvious lockdown may need to be intensified or extended this time, same as it was then.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Thora said:


> Even if you're negative on the day of the test during the incubation period, you could still become positive later, so you don't particularly gain anything from a negative.



Well, you're not going to become positive from that particular exposure, if you isolate. You could still develop symptoms or be exposed another time, and that's when you'd get another test.


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## IC3D (Nov 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> Everyone knows that the period of increased danger doesnt pass till spring


Do you mean increased respiratory illness in general or c19 as I was under the impression its not a seasonal virus at all.


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## killer b (Nov 5, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What's the justification here?


it's a place of work that can't be done from home I suppose.


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## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I think the consensus is that it's extremely unlikely that you can catch it twice.



No, I do not in any way support the idea that there is a real consensus behind that issue. In part because its on the list of things that would be very inconvenient, and every step of the way authorities have resisted inconvenient pandemic truths. The quantity and role of asymptomatic cases and spread, the ability of children to spread the virus, the benefit of masks for the public are other examples.

Which is not to say that I have fixed negative expectations about what the full immunity picture is really like. I will have a better idea at some point, but now is still too soon.

And certainly have a look at the post I linked to earlier            #1,579


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## sojourner (Nov 5, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> And the one announced on Saturday was too late for everyone made redundant at the end of October's furlough, their redundancies were processed and can't be reversed...


Says on the BBC article - As part of the revised scheme, anyone made redundant after 23 September can be rehired and put back on furlough. 

Whether that will actually happen or not...


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## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> The usual process is to end up having to do something which was obvious weeks ago.
> 
> Schools and Uni's?  More likely just some waffle about extending furlough.



Probably furlough and in any case I would always have expected a press conference around this time to underline the fact we are now under new national restrictions.

They will likely be dangling the hope carrots again. More stuff about mass testing where I will have to unpick the hype from the real stuff, since this is still a key area no matter how much Johnson uses it for booster shit purposes.


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## sojourner (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> You should, though. It's not a pleasant test - you're not going to be doing it often for fun.


This. I just went for one after a fella in work tested positive, who I have walked past many times in work and who has 3 staff stuffed into the one windowless office (they're still in there). 

Proper retched doing the test. And Orang Utan , I lied and said the Zoe app told me to get one. Well, we're due to be under the pilot scheme soon anyway.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 5, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Says on the BBC article - As part of the revised scheme, anyone made redundant after 23 September can be rehired and put back on furlough.
> 
> Whether that will actually happen or not...





Hmm, I've just paid my man over £10k for his redundancy + unused holiday...


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## klang (Nov 5, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What's the justification here?


rec studio here and I can honestly say that I have to work.I will take precautions and limit the number of people indoors but I'm glad I will make some money over the next few weeks.


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## LDC (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> OK. But it would be more responsible to get the test. Then if you test positive you know you need to stay at home for longer. You'll also know that you are much less at risk for future infections, either getting them or passing them on.
> 
> It's not crying wolf.
> 
> It is a little odd that an anarchist board actually has so many people very much in favour of blindly following rules.



No, you're not supposed to get the test, as has been pointed out, and there's some very good reasons for it that have been explained.

I think you have an odd understanding of anarchists and anarchism if you think it's about following rules or not, especially in a public health emergency.


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## cupid_stunt (Nov 5, 2020)

Let's hope we can repeat the success of Ireland, which went into lockdown 2 weeks ago, with the schools still open, and daily reported cases have basically halved in those 2 weeks.


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## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

elbows said:


> No, I do not in any way support the idea that there is a real consensus behind that issue. In part because its on the list of things that would be very inconvenient, and every step of the way authorities have resisted inconvenient pandemic truths. The quantity and role of asymptomatic cases and spread, the ability of children to spread the virus, the benefit of masks for the public are other examples.
> 
> Which is not to say that I have fixed negative expectations about what the full immunity picture is really like. I will have a better idea at some point, but now is still too soon.
> 
> And certainly have a look at the post I linked to earlier            #1,579



Why don't you support that idea, when experts who work in this area do? Why should I believe you over all of them?

Even articles with scary headlines, like this one, end up admitting that there have only been a few cases of reinfection found out of 37 million.









						Covid reinfection: Man gets Covid twice and second hit 'more severe'
					

The report raises questions about how much immunity can be built up to the virus and how long it may last.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Do you actually, seriously, disagree that having it once means you're "much less likely" to get it again?

If you do it would mean that a vaccine is pointless. So maybe we shouldn't bother with that.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, you're not supposed to get the test, as has been pointed out, and there's some very good reasons for it that have been explained.
> 
> I think you have an odd understanding of anarchists and anarchism if you think it's about following rules or not, especially in a public health emergency.



Nope, the reasons have not been explained. 

I did kinda think anarchism was about not blindly following government dictats, yes.


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## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Let's hope we can repeat the success of Ireland, which went into lockdown 2 weeks ago, with the schools still open, and daily reported cases have basically halved in those 2 weeks.
> 
> View attachment 237463



My understanding is that the lockdown is much more severe over there.  Construction all closed etc.  Can any Irish urbs confirm this?


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## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, you're not supposed to get the test, as has been pointed out, and there's some very good reasons for it that have been explained.
> 
> I think you have an odd understanding of anarchists and anarchism if you think it's about following rules or not, especially in a public health emergency.


It’s not an anarchist website anyway. That’s the Mail view of it.


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## andysays (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Nope, the reasons have not been explained.
> 
> I did kinda think anarchism was about not blindly following government dictats, yes.


As I mentioned a few posts ago, for example, the tests are less accurate if you haven't developed symptoms.

And absolutely no one is saying follow the government dictats blindly.

Your choice of words and your refusal to acknowledge the (at least) ambiguity around some of the issues is in danger of making you sound like a denialist. You'll be calling the rest of us sheeple before you know it...


----------



## Thora (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Well, you're not going to become positive from that particular exposure, if you isolate. You could still develop symptoms or be exposed another time, and that's when you'd get another test.


But you could test positive at any point during the 14 days after exposure though couldn't you?  So you might get a negative on day 3, but a positive on day 4?  That's how I understood the 14 day isolation period.


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## Raheem (Nov 5, 2020)

Being an anarchist, if that's what you aspire to, doesn't mean ignoring traffic lights.


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## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> As I mentioned a few posts ago, for example, the tests are less accurate if you haven't developed symptoms.
> 
> And absolutely no one is saying follow the government dictats blindly.
> 
> Your choice of words and your refusal to acknowledge the (at least) ambiguity around some of the issues is in danger of making you sound like a denialist. You'll be calling the rest of us sheeple before you know it...


Pipe down, Hector


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> As I mentioned a few posts ago, the tests are less accurate if you haven't developed symptoms.
> 
> And absolutely no one is saying follow the government dictats blindly.
> 
> Your choice of words and your refusal to acknowledge the (at least) ambiguity around some of the issues is in danger of making you sound like a denialist. You'll be calling the rest of us sheeple before you know it...



They're not less accurate for positive results - it's false negatives where the issues lie. Which is why you're advised to still self-isolate after a negative test. Knowing OU, and his general concern for other people, he would still self-isolate.

Lots of people on here have been saying to follow the govt dictats blindly. That is what we're arguing about right this moment.

And seriously, fuck off with the insults. That is totally fucking out of order.


----------



## editor (Nov 5, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What's the justification here?


So bands can rehearse for the live shows they're never going to play and earn some money they're never going to get.


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## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Thora said:


> But you could test positive at any point during the 14 days after exposure though couldn't you?  So you might get a negative on day 3, but a positive on day 4?  That's how I understood the 14 day isolation period.



Isn't that due to the problem with false negatives? It doesn't mean you can actually develop the disease after testing negative - if you're isolating - just that the negative test was incorrect. And that's why there's an isolation period.


----------



## LDC (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Nope, the reasons have not been explained.
> 
> I did kinda think anarchism was about not blindly following government dictats, yes.



Unreliability of tests when no symptoms, false sense of security if test -tive, and unnecessary use of resources.

Right, I'm off to jump in my car after a few pints, fuck blindly following that government no drunk driving dictat, down with the fascist state comrades.


----------



## Cid (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Why don't you support that idea, when experts who work in this area do? Why should I believe you over all of them?
> 
> Even articles with scary headlines, like this one, end up admitting that there have only been a few cases of reinfection found out of 37 million.
> 
> ...



There are only a few _confirmed_ cases. This is because you need to sequence the genetics of the virus in both infections. Since afaik samples aren’t generally stored, that means detection is only going to happen within studies that are specifically looking at these things.


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 5, 2020)

andysays said:


> Isn't there still an issue about the tests being less accurate if you have been infected but haven't yet developed symptoms?
> 
> Not sure about likely time scales here though.


Not everyone that is positive develops symptoms though.....that's part of the problem and why they are trialing testing people without symptoms in Liverpool.


----------



## Thora (Nov 5, 2020)

I just don't see what you even gain by lying to get a test if you are isolating anyway and a negative doesn't stop you isolating


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

Thora said:


> I just don't see what you even gain by lying to get a test if you are isolating anyway and a negative doesn't stop you isolating


aye, it's just one more thing to lose sleep over and i'm having trouble enough as it is


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> There are only a few _confirmed_ cases. This is because you need to sequence the genetics of the virus in both infections. Since afaik samples aren’t generally stored, that means detection is only going to happen within studies that are specifically looking at these things.



I don't think that's true. The few cases that have been found have been people who caught it, then tested positive again, and their tests were compared. They weren't in any specific studies, they were just ill, and got tested again. That indicates that the results are stored somehow, even if the actual samples aren't.

Covid-19 is a novel virus, but that doesn't mean it's going to act completely differently to every other virus in every way. It's a virus, not a magic spell.

If repeat infections were anything other than extremely unusual, we'd have noticed by now. For example, in Italy, you have to test negative in order to get on a plane. You don't escape the test just because you've already had the virus. That would have caught some repeat infections by now, wouldn't it? Even with lower test reliability (because of the way they're processed), they'd have picked up some repeat infections, if they were in any way common. But we're talking literally single numbers of people worldwide, including in countries where there's lots of repeat testing.

I'm still going to wear a mask and socially distance partly in order to keep up the social pressure on everyone else to do that, too. But I'm nowhere near as worried about contracting it as I was before I did contract it, and it's honestly bizarre to be told that this is unreasonable. Is it a guarantee? No. Is it hugely less likely? Yes.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Thora said:


> I just don't see what you even gain by lying to get a test if you are isolating anyway and a negative doesn't stop you isolating



Because, if it's positive, knowing that you've had it without getting ill, and are therefore much less likely to get it and get ill, or make anyone else ill. For me as a vulnerable person, that's a relief.

This depends on believing the science that says that a literal handful of people worldwide have developed it twice, but I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to believe. There's been a huge amount of money and resources plugged into this in every country. 

We can't know what the long-term effects are, exactly, because the virus is new, so the scientists can only extrapolate from what happens with similar viruses. But short term the evidence is pretty conclusive.


----------



## Looby (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> OK. But it would be more responsible to get the test. Then if you test positive you know you need to stay at home for longer. You'll also know that you are much less at risk for future infections, either getting them or passing them on.
> 
> It's not crying wolf.
> 
> It is a little odd that an anarchist board actually has so many people very much in favour of blindly following rules.


That only works if you have a test at the end of your isolation period. Someone could test negative today and positive in 3 days during the potential incubation period. It’s not about wasting resources for me but about giving people a false sense of confidence.
I do actually think that everyone should get tested at the end of their period of isolation.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Looby said:


> That only works if you have a test at the end of your isolation period. Someone could test negative today and positive in 3 days. It’s not about wasting resources for me but about giving people a false sense of confidence.
> I do actually think that everyone should get tested at the end of their period of isolation.



Same as I said to Thora - I don't think you can test negative today and positive in three days, if you're isolating, unless the test gives you a false negative. The false negatives are still running at a high rate, hence the isolation period. You don't actually develop the disease in that interval, you just take a more accurate test.


----------



## Looby (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Same as I said to Thora - I don't think you can test negative today and positive in three days, if you're isolating, unless the test gives you a false negative. The false negatives are still running at a high rate, hence the isolation period. You don't actually develop the disease in that interval, you just take a more accurate test.


My understanding is this is about incubation periods not false negatives.
Person 1 tests positive
Person 2 saw person 1 the day before the positive test.
Person 2 is told to isolate for 14 days but gets tested on day 2 and it’s negative.
If the incubation period is up to 14 days then person 2 could develop symptoms or test positive on day 4 or 7 from the same exposure.
That first test only tells us that person 2 wasn’t testing positive on that day. 
If this was wrong then the whole point of isolating goes out of the window and people could just get tested and crack on.


----------



## Cid (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I don't think that's true. The few cases that have been found have been people who caught it, then tested positive again, and their tests were compared. They weren't in any specific studies, they were just ill, and got tested again. That indicates that the results are stored somehow, even if the actual samples aren't.



I mean you could just look up the studies. You have to genetically sequence both tests to eliminate factors like false positives, inactive rna, or some kind of longer infection. I don’t know the details of how they do this... perhaps some places routinely store a subset of samples, though that might be ethically dubious. Or perhaps it’s that a certain subset are asked if their samples can be stored. But they certainly aren’t going to store millions of test samples.



> Covid-19 is a novel virus, but that doesn't mean it's going to act completely differently to every other virus in every way. It's a virus, not a magic spell.
> 
> If repeat infections were anything other than extremely unusual, we'd have noticed by now. For example, in Italy, you have to test negative in order to get on a plane. You don't escape the test just because you've already had the virus. That would have caught some repeat infections by now, wouldn't it? Even with lower test reliability (because of the way they're processed), they'd have picked up some repeat infections, if they were in any way common. But we're talking literally single numbers of people worldwide, including in countries where there's lots of repeat testing.
> 
> I'm still going to wear a mask and socially distance partly in order to keep up the social pressure on everyone else to do that, too. But I'm nowhere near as worried about contracting it as I was before I did contract it, and it's honestly bizarre to be told that this is unreasonable. Is it a guarantee? No. Is it hugely less likely? Yes.



I mean why do you think flu vaccines are annual? Immunity is variable. For all I know these reinfections _may_ be very rare. But when you say that the scientific consensus is that they are, it’s just wrong. The consensus in all the material I’ve read is ‘well we know it can happen, but not much more than that’.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Looby said:


> Person 1 tests positive
> Person 2 saw person 1 the day before the positive test.
> Person 2 is told to isolate for 14 days but gets tested on day 2 and it’s negative.
> If the incubation period is up to 14 days then person 2 could develop symptoms or test positive on day 4 or 7 from the same exposure.
> ...



The incubation period is for symptoms, not for testing positive. The NHS tests check for the presence of the virus, and you can test positive without having symptoms (obviously). There's a high error rate, so there is a point in having an isolation period.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> I mean you could just look up the studies. You have to genetically sequence both tests to eliminate factors like false positives, inactive rna, or some kind of longer infection. I don’t know the details of how they do this... perhaps some places routinely store a subset of samples, though that might be ethically dubious. Or perhaps it’s that a certain subset are asked if their samples can be stored. But they certainly aren’t going to store millions of test samples.



I looked up articles about the cases that have been identified. They weren't in studies, they were people that had been identified.

Maybe you could point me towards the studies you think I'm missing.



> I mean why do you think flu vaccines are annual? Immunity is variable. For all I know these reinfections _may_ be very rare. But when you say that the scientific consensus is that they are, it’s just wrong. The consensus in all the material I’ve read is ‘well we know it can happen, but not much more than that’.



Because they're vaccinating for different strains of the flu. The problem isn't catching the same strain repeatedly, it's that the flu virus mutates quickly. Coronaviruses in general mutate more slowly, and this one hasn't been shown to mutate yet. It might well mutate eventually (it's even likely, though how much it mutates is important), so repeated infection might be an issue in the long term. Then we might need annual immunisations like we do with the flu, or we might need them more on the schedule of vaccinations against viral pneumonia - we'll have to wait and see.






						COVID-19: Is the virus mutating? | BBC Science Focus Magazine
					

Occasionally, viruses mutate in a way that gives them an advantage in spreading through the population.



					www.sciencefocus.com
				




Even if mutates eventually, that doesn't mean that having covid now doesn't offer any protection against further infections, especially in the short to medium term. It would be extremely strange if it didn't, and all the circumstantial evidence says the same.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 5, 2020)

Well, it seems like we also have mink COVID now...


----------



## Cid (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> I looked up articles about the cases that have been identified. They weren't in studies, they were people that had been identified.
> 
> Maybe you could point me towards the studies you think I'm missing.
> 
> ...



I don’t know the science. It’s complex... as far as I understand reinfections are from forms of the virus that are a bit different, but similar enough that a vaccine would still be useful. And sure, infection is probably going to mean medium term immunity... but the point is that reinfections can occur, and that the science around that is still very unclear.









						What reinfections mean for COVID-19
					

One of the key questions in predicting the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is how well and how long the immune responses protect the host from reinfection. For some viruses, the first infection can provide lifelong...



					www.thelancet.com


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

It’s lovely to read a debate about epidemiology conducted by amateurs


----------



## IC3D (Nov 5, 2020)

Common colds can be Corona virus and mutate. 

Coronaviruses (CoVs) are enveloped positive-strand RNA viruses from the Coronaviridae family. Five members have been reported to infect humans, including 229E, OC43, the newly discovered NL63 and HKU1, and the emerging SARS-CoV. Human CoVs (HCoVs) 229E and NL63 are closely related and belong to the alphacoronavirus genus, whereas OC43, HKU1, and SARS-CoV belong to betacoronavirus genus. HCoVs infect airways and are responsible for different respiratory diseases (19, 44). Although the SARS-CoV was associated with a severe acute respiratory disease during the 2002–2003 pandemic, most HCoVs cause only a mild respiratory infection (49). Epidemiological studies suggest that HCoVs account for 15 to 30% of common colds, with only occasional spreading to the lower respiratory tract. Airway epithelial cells represent the primary target of infection (19, 44). Nevertheless, in vitro experiments demonstrate that other cell types can be infected. For example, HCoV-229E was reported to infect and replicate in neural cells, hepatocytes, monocytes, and macrophages (3, 11, 12). The neurotropism of HCoV-229E and OC43 has also been documented in vivo, and a possible association with multiple sclerosis has been suggested









						A Human Coronavirus Responsible for the Common Cold Massively Kills Dendritic Cells but Not Monocytes
					

Human coronaviruses are associated with upper respiratory tract infections that occasionally spread to the lungs and other organs. Although airway epithelial cells represent an important target for infection, the respiratory epithelium is also composed ...




					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


----------



## IC3D (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s lovely to read a debate about epidemiology conducted by amateurs


The references are exciteing though


----------



## miss direct (Nov 5, 2020)

I feel really annoyed at someone I know, who's just arrived in London from another country, and should be in quarantine, but instead is posting photos of her walks around the city!


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 5, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I feel really annoyed at someone I know, who's just arrived in London from another country, and should be in quarantine, but instead is posting photos of her walks around the city!



Quarantine for arrivals is a joke here. It should be mandatory confinement in e.g. an airport hotel, which are basically empty anyway, until you test negative.


----------



## scifisam (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s lovely to read a debate about epidemiology conducted by amateurs



Yeah. But all of us here are amateurs, including the ones disagreeing with me when I say that having the virus once means it's _less likely_ that you'll get it again.



Cid said:


> I don’t know the science. It’s complex... as far as I understand reinfections are from forms of the virus that are a bit different, but similar enough that a vaccine would still be useful. And sure, infection is probably going to mean medium term immunity... but the point is that reinfections can occur, and that the science around that is still very unclear.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The point is that reinfections have so far reoccurred in a tiny number of people, and having the virus now does confer immunity in the short to medium term, possibly longer. 

Which is not only my point, but the entire point of trying to make a vaccine. Honestly, if it was as hopeless as some people on here imply, we shouldn't bother with a vaccine at all, because if actually being infected confers no immunity, then a vaccine won't either. Am I writing in gibberish or something? Because I've stated that a couple of times and I don't really see why people are arguing with it.

Fucking stupid argument. I'm only engaging because I'm avoiding doing things I don't want to do - going to give up and back out now.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 5, 2020)

I rushed back to the UK in June before they brought the quarantine rule in, spent loads of money on a stupid indirect flight via Minsk, hated it all, then when I did arrive, barely went out, kept a massive distance between myself and others.


----------



## Cid (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Yeah. But all of us here are amateurs, including the ones disagreeing with me when I say that having the virus once means it's _less likely_ that you'll get it again.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The point that you’re not getting is that the tiny number of detected reinfections tells us precisely fuck all about the actual rate. I mean forgive me if I give a bit more weight to someone writing in the lancet than I give to your opinion, but there you go.

For what it’s worth I’m kind of working on similar assumptions, but it’s just daft to go around making definitive statements when the actual researchers are saying ‘honestly we’re not sure’.


----------



## andysays (Nov 5, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Not everyone that is positive develops symptoms though.....that's part of the problem and why they are trialing testing people without symptoms in Liverpool.


That's also true, which is why the whole thing is complicated.

I'm not seeking to tell anyone whether or not they should take a test, in the end it's up to them, but I do think it's worth challenging simplistic or misleading things that others posts, whether around testing or anything else.


----------



## IC3D (Nov 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> The point that you’re not getting is that the tiny number of detected reinfections tells us precisely fuck all about the actual rate. I mean forgive me if I give a bit more weight to someone writing in the lancet than I give to your opinion, but there you go.
> 
> For what it’s worth I’m kind of working on similar assumptions, but it’s just daft to go around making definitive statements when the actual researchers are saying ‘honestly we’re not sure’.


Don't know about that. There's a enough data being scrutanised worldwide to indicate  a trend.
Cavet: shrugs, in my opinion man.


----------



## Supine (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s lovely to read a debate about epidemiology conducted by amateurs



I think it's safe to say we've all increased our understanding of epidemiology this year


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

Supine said:


> I think it's safe to say we've all increased our understanding of epidemiology this year


Not me! I avoid getting bogged down with stuff I have no understanding of


----------



## Cid (Nov 5, 2020)

IC3D said:


> Don't know about that. There's a enough data being scrutanised worldwide to indicate  a trend.
> Cavet: shrugs, in my opinion man.



From the paper the article I linked is discussing



> The degree of protective immunity conferred by infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is currently unknown. As such, the possibility of reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 is not well understood. We describe an investigation of two instances of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the same individual.



From the article:



> Due to the paucity of broad testing and surveillance, we do not know how frequently reinfection occurs among individuals who recovered from their first infection.



The CDC position:



> In general, reinfection means a person was infected (got sick) once, recovered, and then later became infected again. Based on what we know from similar viruses, some reinfections are expected. We are still learning more about COVID-19. Ongoing COVID-19 studies will help us understand:
> 
> 
> How likely is reinfection
> ...




I could go on... there’s plenty of discussion in various journals etc. All that can really be said is it’s still poorly understood.


----------



## Cid (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Not me! I avoid getting bogged down with stuff I have no understanding of



Have you thought of a career in politics?


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> Have you thought of a career in politics?


Lol, fuck no. 
(though I can’t be the only person who can’t even begin to start reading about stats and graphs and projections and r numbers, you know, science, lol - it’s just so dry it’s hard to get interested in even if it’s literally a matter of life and death)


----------



## Cloo (Nov 5, 2020)

Has anyone thought to do any research on surveying where Brits traveled to over summer (UK and abroad),  how long and by what means and how many of them developed C19 within a fortnight of return? Would seem to be a useful thing to know ahead of next summer if you could query a decent sample.


----------



## Cid (Nov 5, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Lol, fuck no.
> (though I can’t be the only person who can’t even begin to start reading about stats and graphs and projections and r numbers, you know, science, lol - it’s just so dry it’s hard to get interested in even if it’s literally a matter of life and death)



Well quite. Shoe-in for health secretary.


----------



## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

scifisam said:


> Why don't you support that idea, when experts who work in this area do? Why should I believe you over all of them?



Your failure to appreciate the nuanced position of various experts in the relevant scientific communities, and your ability to treat science as some kind of monolith when you find certain tentative conclusions appealing and seek to cement them inappropriately as established facts is noted. Nor it is a good idea to mistake a lack of evidence as being strong proof of something, that isnt how scientific evidence works and I repeatedly see people making this mistake and misinterpreting scientific papers as a result. In this case, lack of evidence about reinfection is not a sign that reinfection is a non-issue.

You should not simply believe me. You could use some of what I say as a basis to take a more cautious approach and to explore the topic in more depth. You may also note my track record of shitting on certain assumptions made earlier in this pandemic, inclucing assumptions made by experts who should know better, and how I have been vindicated on those fronts more often than not.

The likes of SAGE choose their language carefully for good reason. Its not just a question of belief, but of strength of confidence in something, and strength of evidence. On this subject the evidence is not sufficiently strong to make really bold claims with yet, so caution is the order of the day when it comes to immunity issues. Which doesnt mean that I have some bizarre and wacky views about immunity that are utterly at odds with the scientific community, far from it, just that its still early days and bold claims and certainties are dangerous.

For example, SAGE meeting 55, 3rd September includes:



> There is an antibody response in nearly all infected people, including those who are asymptomatic (high confidence). It is not yet known how long these responses last, the degree of protection conferred, or effects on transmission, but where neutralising antibodies are present protection against infection seems very likely (medium confidence). There is some evidence of antibody levels waning. T cell reactivity may be more widespread in the population than antibodies (medium confidence).



(from https://assets.publishing.service.g...0739_Fifty-fifth_SAGE_meeting_on_COVID-19.pdf )

Medium confidence isnt useless, it means something, but its still a reason to proceed with care and not resort to crude assumptions that may not stand the test of time. Especially as human understanding of the immune system is pretty weak in some areas.


----------



## Cid (Nov 5, 2020)

There’s a temporary fireworks place near my workshop. It is a) open, b) no-one in it mask wearing, c) busy.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 5, 2020)

So, the message is back to - Stay at Home > Protect the NHS > Save lives.

But, no one thought of changing the signs on the podiums, that still read - Hands > Face > Space.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 5, 2020)

Cid said:


> There’s a temporary fireworks place near my workshop. It is a) open, b) no-one in it mask wearing, c) busy.



That's clearly not essential but those pop-up shops are often run by dodgy characters so I guess they are not bothered by rules.


----------



## LDC (Nov 5, 2020)

NHS head was surprisingly good, and his (single) slide and animation clearly done by someone that knew about information presentation.


----------



## Hyperdark (Nov 5, 2020)

Loking at the Latest cases/Deaths figures for Wales, I dont think the 17 day firebreak is enough to stem the tide, partly because most people seem to be completely ignoring it with the only difference being the pubs and cafes are shut.
Talking of which, allowing pubs and gyms to open back up at this stage is not going to help


----------



## Espresso (Nov 5, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> NHS head was surprisingly good, and his (single) slide and animation clearly done by someone that knew about information presentation.



I liked him too. He's obviously used to explaining things plainly to people he knows are not as clever as him, without talking down to them.

If someone could teach that to Johnson and Hancock and Jenrick and Williamson and Gove and all the rest, that would be very nice. I'd suggest that he Simon Stevens could so it, but I'd imagine he's got a lot on his plate at the moment.


----------



## Cid (Nov 5, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> That's clearly not essential but those pop-up shops are often run by dodgy characters so I guess they are not bothered by rules.



Yeah absolutely... It's more that it's basically in central Sheffield, and I'm pretty sure some police will have driven past it and clearly ignored it. And also that clearly there a bunch of people who are happy to buy their shit. 

I'm rather pessimistic for this one. It feels so different from lockdown 1. Popped into Tesco on the way home, goof mask wearing (or at least no worse than normal), but no social distancing and very busy. Though I suppose it is harder to limit customers when it's cold out.

This morning traffic was certainly light, but again nothing like lockdown 1. Loads of fireworks this evening... Just guaranteed that many of those represent the 'little exceptions' attitude. Well. We'll see.


----------



## zora (Nov 5, 2020)

Just as I was having concerns about Johnson's messaging during the press conference around the deployment of the rapid tests in Liverpool, right on cue, there is an article in the Guardian about the Operation Moonshot trials in Greater Manchester, and its successes or rather failures.
They apparently failed to identify over 50% of cases. Now, sensitivity of these was always going to be lower, and I guess given that you can test vastly higher numbers of people, even picking up 50% of asymptomatic cases that might otherwise go undetected could be somewhat helpful, so maybe they can still have a role to play. 
But Johnson in his urge to make things sound better than they are, put an imo dangerous opinion across that those who test negative can act more normalish. Of course, yes, they won't have to self-isolate like the people testing positive but I wouldn't be surprised if people took it as green light to abandon precautions or not take current restrictions as seriously.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 5, 2020)

Espresso said:


> I liked him too. He's obviously used to explaining things plainly to people he knows are not as clever as him, without talking down to them.
> 
> If someone could teach that to Johnson and Hancock and Jenrick and Williamson and Gove and all the rest...



I can see one small problem there.


----------



## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

zora said:


> Just as I was having concerns about Johnson's messaging during the press conference around the deployment of the rapid tests in Liverpool, right on cue, there is an article in the Guardian about the Operation Moonshot trials in Greater Manchester, and its successes or rather failures.
> They apparently failed to identify over 50% of cases. Now, sensitivity of these was always going to be lower, and I guess given that you can test vastly higher numbers of people, even picking up 50% of asymptomatic cases that might otherwise go undetected could be somewhat helpful, so maybe they can still have a role to play.
> But Johnson in his urge to make things sound better than they are, put an imo dangerous opinion across that those who test negative can act more normalish. Of course, yes, they won't have to self-isolate like the people testing positive but I wouldn't be surprised if people took it as green light to abandon precautions or not take current restrictions as seriously.



I need to see more data from other trials of the same type of test since they are claiming that the results seen in Greater Manchester dont match other evaluations of that test. I cant judge without the data.

Whats described in that story is especially annoying because this country has been very slow and conservative at using different sorts of tests at all. So the hope would be that we at least get something in exchange for all that was lost by not rolling such things out a lot sooner. That we'd eventually get approved tests with the best accuracy and less chance of making terrible mistakes of using using tests in inappropriate ways.


----------



## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

We dont even live in a country that can manage to publish its daily data within 4 hours of the time its supposed to be published. Todays is still absent even now.

"Owing to technical difficulties, we have not received the data for England. We will update the service as soon as possible."


----------



## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Like all good actuaries, I like to do a bit of backtesting of estimates.  The 26 October death rate is probably reasonably represented by the 7-day average as at 30 October, which was 237 for the official reported count.  So that 230-690 confidence interval for 26 October that we were talking about on 14 October looks like it did encapsulate the true number after all.  Sadly, 150 was woefully short.



By the way, I get the impression that the model in question may be the same one that generated the 4000 peak curve that has caused a stink when Whitty & Vallance used it recently to justify lockdown. I cant be 100% sure because the version of the model output that we were talking about that is routinely published gets chopped off at a point not too many weeks into the future. And I dont have time to try to check my facts in other ways. But it seems like a reasonable fit and it does make criticism of the press conference use of it more valid, I'd probably already commented here on this forum about a later run of that model that produced different results, before they even presented that old version.









						Covid: Regulator criticises data used to justify lockdown
					

Government used out-of-date model predicting 4,000 deaths a day in TV briefing.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I still havent found time to comment on the most recent version of the model we discussed here last month. So much real data to look at, and my interest in the models decreases at this sort of stage in a wave, that I might not bother. But I'll link to it anyway. And I will still make that final post about how many UK and England deaths were actually reached on October 26th eventually, once its reasonable to assume that most of the data for that date has been reported/published.



			https://joshuablake.github.io/public-RTM-reports/iframe.html


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 5, 2020)

Today's figures have finally been published, deaths are 378, up from 280 last Thursday.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 5, 2020)

Definitely seems like the case rate is levelling off though. Death stats are always behind case stats too. Maybe this 4 week think might just work, at least until January anyway.


----------



## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

The weekly surveillance report, which came out on Thursday has this to say about that sort of thing. Although it does lag behind a bit, so its not really able to accurately describe the latest infection picture.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/932943/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w45_FINAL.PDF
		




> Detections of COVID-19 cases in England remained high in week 44. Case detections decreased slightly compared to last week though this is likely to be driven by reduced testing over the half term period as well as a lag in results for the most recent days. Overall positivity rates continued to increase. Incidence and positivity rates remain highest in the North of England though there are some indications that positivity is starting to decline in the North East and North West. By age group, cases rates were highest in the 20 to 29 year olds with decreases continuing to be noted in the 10 to 19 year olds. Positivity rates were highest in the 80+ year olds tested through both Pillar 1 (NHS and PHE testing) and in the 10 to 19 year olds tested through Pillar 2 (community testing).



There are quite a number of graphs fromt he report that I would use to make my point, but I shall restrain myself and just post two.


----------



## elbows (Nov 5, 2020)

Actually forgive me, for I really wanted to include some graphs that show the positivity rates, since the trends have some subtle differences compared to number of cases. And many of these levels are well above the recommended percentage, indicating that testing is not being done at the ideal scale to capture an epidemic of this size properly. I've only focussed on pillar two because otherwise there would be even more graphs.


----------



## Supine (Nov 6, 2020)

^ when you say above the recommended percentage of 15% - this is considered as 'spreading like wildfire' in the US apparently


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

Supine said:


> ^ when you say above the recommended percentage of 15% - this is considered as 'spreading like wildfire' in the US apparently



It still drives me mad that when the likes of the BBC reported on some temporary attempts in the USA to limit testing to exclude asymptomatic people, they were prepared to casually mention experts there saying that bit was a vital aspect of controlling the pandemic, and yet that concept never quite seems to make it across the pond when it comes to how they report on our own response and test regime. At least not until our authorities are somewhat ready to actually do it.

But I mention that now because I suppose whether or not you test asymptomatic people would make a difference for how you judge positivity levels.

Meanwhile I cannot let the pandemic pass without recording this particular turd from the Telegraph, a newspaper that has certainly done plenty to demonstrate its shit credentials and priorities in this pandemic. I'm not even interested in the body of the article, I just want to record the headline for posterity.


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

Oh and regarding percentage positive, I think back in May the WHO recommended countries only consider reopening things where it had been below 5% for several weeks first.


----------



## Mation (Nov 6, 2020)

.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 6, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Lol, fuck no.
> (though I can’t be the only person who can’t even begin to start reading about stats and graphs and projections and r numbers, you know, science, lol - it’s just so dry it’s hard to get interested in even if it’s literally a matter of life and death)


I thought you are a librarian?


----------



## maomao (Nov 6, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I thought you are a librarian?


You just need to know the alphabet for that really. My five year old can put books in alphabetical order.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 6, 2020)

Noooooo 

you need to be able to count too for Dewey classification.


----------



## maomao (Nov 6, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Noooooo
> 
> you need to be able to count too for Dewey classification.


That's even easier tbh.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 6, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I thought you are a librarian?


Aye, how does that make me less bored by graphs?


----------



## two sheds (Nov 6, 2020)

maomao said:


> That's even easier tbh.



true - only 10 digits, but the 26 letters you can't count on just two hands, and not enough with toes even if you take your socks off


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 6, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Noooooo
> 
> you need to be able to count too for Dewey classification.


Not even that


----------



## Cloo (Nov 6, 2020)

Telegraph is saying government death predictions to justify lockdown were overstated, but I don't actually care - you don't wait until it's untenable to lock down, you do it before then.


----------



## andysays (Nov 6, 2020)

Test and Trace 'has made no difference to Covid spread' ( Posted at 09:18) 



> The NHS Test and Trace system has made no difference to the spread of coronavirus in the UK, a scientist has warned. James Naismith, professor of structural biology at Oxford University, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the system was only reaching a fraction of the people it should be.





> He said: "It hasn't been effective at all. The only ways we are currently able to control infection spreading are social restrictions. "Tracking and tracing hasn't really made any difference to the spread of the epidemic."





> He said the issue was that the testing system only identified just under half of those being infected. "You miss over half right at the start, and then as you walk through the various losses through the system you are actually reaching 20% of the contacts you want to reach overall."





> He added: "Given where we are now in infections, it is not until we get proper mass testing that the system can really recover."


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 6, 2020)

costly mistake then


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 6, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I thought you are a librarian?


Always reminds me of the time  when Man Utd faced  George Weah and David Beckham kept  putting his finger to his lips and saying 'shush'


----------



## two sheds (Nov 6, 2020)

Not sure what he was like as a president but Weah was a majestic footballer.


----------



## Numbers (Nov 6, 2020)

That goal against Verona where he collected the ball in his own box. Superb.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 6, 2020)

hadn't seen it before but  

I loved the way he always seemed to run so casually

but end of digression back to diseases


----------



## sojourner (Nov 6, 2020)

That brilliant pilot scheme that was gonna run Liverpool 'city wide' for weeks is now down to 10 fucking days with central testing stations only. Fucked if you're in St Helens with no car and can't get there in that time frame. Absolute wankers. Can fucking NOTHING get done properly?!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 6, 2020)

A mate is in town and just sent me these lockdown photos.



Main shopping street, just a few people in the distance.



Shit loads of taxis, the rank is actually much further down the road, so this is just part of the queue waiting to pull into the rank.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 6, 2020)

We've been here before


----------



## andysays (Nov 6, 2020)

sojourner said:


> That brilliant pilot scheme that was gonna run Liverpool 'city wide' for weeks is now down to 10 fucking days with central testing stations only. Fucked if you're in St Helens with no car and can't get there in that time frame. Absolute wankers. Can fucking NOTHING get done properly?!


For what it's worth, according to this report they seem to be promising more test centres and an extension to the current two week period, but only time will tell

Covid: Liverpool's city-wide coronavirus testing begins


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 6, 2020)

sojourner said:


> That brilliant pilot scheme that was gonna run Liverpool 'city wide' for weeks is now down to 10 fucking days with central testing stations only. Fucked if you're in St Helens with no car and can't get there in that time frame. Absolute wankers. Can fucking NOTHING get done properly?!



They've only booked 2 weeks at Pontins. 









						Soldiers move into Pontins as Army helps roll-out mass coronavirus testing
					

Soldiers are staying at the Pontins complex in Southport, Merseyside, to help make sure everybody who lives and works in Liverpool can get a coronavirus test as part of the "moonshot" programme




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## andysays (Nov 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They've only booked 2 weeks at Pontins.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


At the end of that two weeks, I would imagine even the toughest the army has to offer will be ready to go AWOL unless they are relieved...


----------



## Badgers (Nov 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They've only booked 2 weeks at Pontins.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The. Horror.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 6, 2020)

andysays said:


> For what it's worth, according to this report they seem to be promising more test centres and an extension to the current two week period, but only time will tell
> 
> Covid: Liverpool's city-wide coronavirus testing begins


It's all a bit vague though isn't it? We 'might' get it, might not. There's been zero info on where these mobile testing units might be and that article is the first I've heard of them. Given it is starting today, it's fucking shit information dissemination. I'm eager to participate, so I'll be seeking out info, but what about those who aren't? Set up to fucking fail.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 6, 2020)

Since the cuts I doubt the good old British Army can't afford the crippling medical costs PTSD (Pontins Triggered Stress Disoder)


----------



## Supine (Nov 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They've only booked 2 weeks at Pontins.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Training to simulate getting captured by isis


----------



## teuchter (Nov 6, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> A mate is in town and just sent me these lockdown photos.
> 
> View attachment 237630
> 
> ...


I'd have to say that doesn't look much out of the ordinary for a British seaside small town on a November weekday morning.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 6, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I'd have to say that doesn't look much out of the ordinary for a British seaside small town on a November weekday morning.



We've not a 'small' town, population over 110k, and the main shopping centre for a catchment area of circa. 250k+ people. The town centre tends to be busy all year round, different story on the seafront.


----------



## Cid (Nov 6, 2020)

sojourner said:


> It's all a bit vague though isn't it? We 'might' get it, might not. There's been zero info on where these mobile testing units might be and that article is the first I've heard of them. Given it is starting today, it's fucking shit information dissemination. I'm eager to participate, so I'll be seeking out info, but what about those who aren't? Set up to fucking fail.



I wouldn’t pre-judge it too much... it is a pilot after all. And, although it aims to test everyone, the focus is on public health workers, students etc, and it may be easier to get the message out in those groups.

The country can’t handle a tti program, and at current levels it would be of little use. Brute forcing through mass testing may offer an alternative, provided the capacity is there. Not overly optimistic, but provided they’re not handing it over to serco etc, I’d like to maintain a glimmer of hope.


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

Grim. And NHS management failures, what a surprise, not. The single-minded emphasis on maintaining other patient care over winter but not doing the things that would make a meaningful difference to that picture are one of the reasons it has gone so horribly wrong now, including failures to implement a sufficiently robust staff and patient testing regime well before this wave kicked off. I'm sure we will read much more about that sort of thing in the years to come, because there are plenty of NHS England decisions that I expect will be condemned at a future inquiry.









						NHS bosses accused of ‘putting politics before patient safety' as leading hospital struggles to cope with second wave
					

‘I am utterly demoralised by the catastrophic leadership failure at a national and regional level,’ says Liverpool hospital medical director




					www.independent.co.uk
				






> In the WhatsApp message to doctors, shared with _The Independent_ by multiple sources, Dr Cope, a consultant in anaesthesia and critical care, said: “LUH is now essentially overwhelmed by the demand. We cannot maintain patient flow and usual standards of care. We have put forward a proposal to further reduce elective [planned] activity, but maintaining capacity for the most urgent cases that would suffer from a two-four week delay.
> 
> “It is a very sound plan that our divisional teams have worked up. However, NHS England are prevaricating and delaying with the usual request for more detail, more data, etc. It is clear to me that the politics is outweighing the patient safety issues of the acute crisis.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

Latest ONS infection survey results show the same sort of thing we've heard from other studies recently.









						UK coronavirus infections may be 'stabilising'
					

Although the number of new cases continues to rise, the growth rate is slowing, latest data show.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

The latest data/presentation fuckup makes absolutely no difference to my understanding of this wave, but they deserve criticism for undermining their own credibility. It makes no difference to me because models are just a curiosity at this point, the real data about whats already happened tells its own story.

I do roll my eyes at the particular way sections of the media crying about it though, because normally they pay fuck all attention to the ranges offered, ignoring interquartile ranges in favour of single numbers. But when there is an anti-lockdown agenda to serve, then they pay attention. I speak mostly of the Telegraph who thought it was worthy of being their front page story.









						Covid: Johnson says Covid statistics 'irrefutable' amid new row
					

The PM insists the "upward curve" in deaths is "unmistakeable" after government charts had to be revised.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## TopCat (Nov 6, 2020)

Supine said:


> Training to simulate getting captured by isis


Chained to a slightly warm radiator.


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

It was a bloody stupid mistake to let slip through though, given that the visual presentation of the faulty interquartile ranges shows up very clearly visually.



The shaded area should be expected to start off narrow at the point where real data transitions to modelled data. Because deaths are not suddenly going to leap up to the top of the shaded range estimate in the space of a day or two. Not unless you've used an older run of the model and are just crudely chopping off earlier bits of the earlier model run and replacing them with real data as it comes in.

But I shouldnt be surprised since its been clear all through the pandemic that these presentations arent checked properly. I still remember when they accidentally transposed some days data for Scotland and Wales, and nobody noticed even though it made the lines for those countries graphs cross-over in a way that should have been a clear sign that a mistake had been made.


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

Sadly it is now possible to say that UK deaths by date of death reached at least 300 by the start of November.


----------



## Supine (Nov 6, 2020)

Indy SAGE was very good today


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

I only found time to watch about 15 minutes of that so far but I grabbed some of their graphs from that bit.


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

That hospital admissions graph reminds me that so much of the attention during the 'arguments about regional lockdowns' period went on the North West at the expense of more questions as to whether the data in the North East at the time was really a good enough reason to further delay stronger regional measures there.


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

Stupid data questions on my mind today include why the official dashboard currently has a death in Wales as having happened on January 2nd.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> Stupid data questions on my mind today include why the official dashboard currently has a death in Wales as having happened on January 2nd.


I would hope that it's almost certainly an error in data entry.


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2020)

Yes, thats mostly why I mentioned it, because data errors are a pretty common theme at the moment. I wont be surprised if, for example, the entry for October or November 2nd is missing one.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 7, 2020)

Independent shops hit out at high street chains trading during lockdown  ffs.



> Thousands of independent retailers have urged the government to crack down on major chains such as The Range, Carpetright and Ryman for continuing to trade during lockdown despite largely selling “non-essential” goods.
> 
> Andrew Goodacre, the chief executive of Bira, a trade association representing 3,000 independent retailers, said his members were furious that large homewares and other non-food businesses were continuing to trade while small businesses were sticking to the rules. “They are using words like injustice, unfair and un-level playing field,” he said.
> 
> “The government need to make it very clear to these large companies that they cannot open or can only sell what they deem essential, not a whole range of Christmas trees and lights.”


----------



## kabbes (Nov 7, 2020)

elbows said:


> The latest data/presentation fuckup makes absolutely no difference to my understanding of this wave, but they deserve criticism for undermining their own credibility. It makes no difference to me because models are just a curiosity at this point, the real data about whats already happened tells its own story.
> 
> I do roll my eyes at the particular way sections of the media crying about it though, because normally they pay fuck all attention to the ranges offered, ignoring interquartile ranges in favour of single numbers. But when there is an anti-lockdown agenda to serve, then they pay attention. I speak mostly of the Telegraph who thought it was worthy of being their front page story.
> 
> ...


It’s another reason why hitting people with a deluge of graphs that each contain a sea of information is just a bad idea.  There are so many opportunities to have an error in a piece of data visualisation, and there’s no way you can rigorously check that amount of information produced at the last minute.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 7, 2020)

'I was refused a home Covid test after credit check'
					

A BBC investigation finds people are being refused home Covid tests because of their credit histories.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 7, 2020)

Badgers said:


> 'I was refused a home Covid test after credit check'
> 
> 
> A BBC investigation finds people are being refused home Covid tests because of their credit histories.
> ...



 "reduce fraud and prevent multiple testing kits being ordered, diverting capacity from where it is needed most". 

Testing capacity has not been used to its full extent for days. The only fraud seems to be the amount the gov paid for the system, which seems to have an element of a data grab to it.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Nov 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Independent shops hit out at high street chains trading during lockdown  ffs.


Not surprised. I've just been into town and on the high Street it was like a regular Saturday tbh. 

The only places closed are charity shops, hairdressers, pubs and restaurants. Lots of people out and about, loads of traffic. It just all seems so inconsistent.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 7, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> "reduce fraud and prevent multiple testing kits being ordered, diverting capacity from where it is needed most".
> 
> Testing capacity has not been used to its full extent for days. The only fraud seems to be the amount the gov paid for the system, which seems to have an element of a data grab to it.


Why would 'fraud' be involved in people getting a test? Nobody wants to be made to stay at home 14 days when they dont need it.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Why would 'fraud' be involved in people getting a test? Nobody wants to be made to stay at home 14 days when they dont need it.


Loads of people do


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Why would 'fraud' be involved in people getting a test? Nobody wants to be made to stay at home 14 days when they dont need it.


Who knows, it's a concept that's been trotted out all along. The idea being that someone will try to turn tests round on ebay for a crafty quid if they are given out freely.

At first I think it covered up the not enough tests thing, now it seems that all the faults are in how the whole shit show is run, as the tests are there but just not being used. 

Nearly a quarter million unused test capacity a few days ago


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Loads of people do


And risk not being paid etc? Doubt it.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> And risk not being paid etc? Doubt it.


Only if you’re on zero hours. Most full timers would love to get two weeks off paid staycation. That’s why I installed T&T on my phone. It’s just my rotten luck that my two weeks off has coincided with my leave


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Only if you’re on zero hours. Most full timers would love to get two weeks off paid staycation. That’s why I installed T&T on my phone. It’s just my rotten luck that my two weeks off has coincided with my leave



Oh ok, I've been on zero hours for pretty much all of my working life tbh. Some places I've worked permanent staff have had an 'absence procedure' triggered if they've had more than a few days sick leave. That's why I find it hard to believe.


----------



## andysays (Nov 7, 2020)

Update from Liverpool

Covid: Liverpool testing trial sites doubled after queues on first day



> The number of coronavirus testing sites in Liverpool has doubled after "really good interest" in the scheme, its public health director has said. Matthew Ashton said a total of up to 12,000 people were tested at six centres on Friday as England's first trial of city-wide testing began.





> Mr Ashton said a further eight sites were brought in on Saturday. The city council said it could extend the two-week pilot scheme as more opened.


----------



## Thora (Nov 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Only if you’re on zero hours. Most full timers would love to get two weeks off paid staycation. That’s why I installed T&T on my phone. It’s just my rotten luck that my two weeks off has coincided with my leave


Not many people would get paid full for self isolation.  I think you get SSP which is about £70 a week right?


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 7, 2020)

Thora said:


> Not many people would get paid full for self isolation.  I think you get SSP which is about £70 a week right?


Really? I would have thought most people on full time contracts would get full pay and they wouldn’t count as sick days


----------



## Thora (Nov 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Really? I would have thought most people on full time contracts would get full pay and they wouldn’t count as sick days


Maybe if they're in certain public sector roles?  Most people don't get sick pay.


----------



## killer b (Nov 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Really? I would have thought most people on full time contracts would get full pay and they wouldn’t count as sick days


lol. no.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 7, 2020)

Thora said:


> Maybe if they're in certain public sector roles?  Most people don't get sick pay.


Ok, I’ve never had a job where you don’t get sick pay and not all of them have been public sector


----------



## LDC (Nov 7, 2020)

413 dead today.

Went out this afternoon, fuck all like any lockdown. A good few shops open that were clearly non-essential. Loads of people and traffic about, and in a supermarket hardly any social distancing and plenty of non-mask wearing. Feels like we're a bit fucked.


----------



## andysays (Nov 7, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Really? I would have thought most people on full time contracts would get full pay and they wouldn’t count as sick days


Even if you have a full time contract (and many people don't), it will depend on the details your contract and, to some extent, the attitude and financial position of your employer.

And it will also depend on whether or not you can potentially work from home, in some fashion, while isolating.

In short, there will be some people for whom it would be an nice opportunity to have a couple of weeks with their feet up at home on full pay, but probably far more for whom it will involve a significant loss of income, in some cases simply unaffordable.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 7, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> 413 dead today.
> 
> Went out this afternoon, fuck all like any lockdown. A good few shops open that were clearly non-essential. Loads of people and traffic about, and in a supermarket hardly any social distancing and plenty of non-mask wearing. Feels like we're a bit fucked.


On a Saturday? That is really bad  
It doesn't feel like a "lockdown" here either. The high street was pretty much as busy as any other Saturday.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 7, 2020)

miss direct said:


> On a Saturday? That is really bad
> It doesn't feel like a "lockdown" here either. The high street was pretty much as busy as any other Saturday.



Saturdays are normal reporting days, as they are reporting Friday's figures. It's Sun. & Mon. that tend to be low, and Tue. is high, catching-up on the weekend lag.


----------



## elbows (Nov 7, 2020)

I am sticking a picture of the queen wearing a mask in public here to mark that milestone in the journey of our establishments attitudes towards masks. A journey that was rather predictable and drawn out. One where the strength of the pandemic meant that resistance was ultimately futile, and where dismal and rigid attitudes towards what the done thing was around these parts were no match for the virus.










						Queen wears face mask as she marks Unknown Warrior centenary
					

The monarch attended a private ceremony in Westminster Abbey to mark 100 years since the burial.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Supine (Nov 7, 2020)

The lakes is really quiet now. The place was swarming with tourists and now it's just the locals. It's really really quiet and rather lovely I have to say.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 7, 2020)

Supine said:


> The lakes is really quiet now. The place was swarming with tourists and now it's just the locals. It's really really quiet and rather lovely I have to say.


 
Did Liz visit then, & everyone fucked off?


----------



## Looby (Nov 7, 2020)

My husband did shopping for his mum today and everywhere seemed really busy.
His mum’s town was like a normal Saturday, loads of people milling around.
Shops I saw open that didn’t seem essential included a fucking gun shop. 😡
Sainsburys was apparently busier than usual too. I didn’t actually go in anywhere, just stayed with the dog and chauffeured him around.
It felt very different to the last lockdown.


----------



## Supine (Nov 7, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Did Liz visit then, & everyone fucked off?



Pubs shut and everyone fucked off I reckon.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 7, 2020)

quiet today in cornwall too although we don't get a lot of traffic here anyway - I never mind the walkers, cyclists, horse riders who use the road


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 8, 2020)

__





						Tories warn Boris Johnson of bigger revolt if there’s a third lockdown | Coronavirus | The Guardian
					

No 10 will lose support of party if restrictions are extended, say senior MPs




					amp.theguardian.com
				




Senior Tory MPs have warned Boris Johnson that there would be mass revolts in the party and the country against any attempt to extend the national lockdown beyond 2 December as anger grows in Conservative ranks over government handling of the pandemic.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 8, 2020)

Quiet as quiet can be in SE London.


----------



## andrewc (Nov 8, 2020)

As I'm in Liverpool I made an online appointment for a walk in test yesterday , lots of info requested including my NHS number, which I didn't have.   I was sent an email with a QR code & told to show this when I went for the test.

Got to the test centre for 10:20 this morning, the university sports centre 5 minutes from my flat.  I appeared to be the only testee there,  lots of soldiers standing around looking bored.   All info I'd filled in online & the QR code was ignored.  They asked me the same questions again & filled in the details on an iPad.   Into a cubical with a little hatch through which I was passed a swab onna stick.  Arrgh throat, ughh nose.  Passed it back & was ushered out via the fire exit.  

Email & text about 30 minutes later with the expected negative result.


----------



## elbows (Nov 8, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They make a lot of noise because they are not in the driving seat.

The biggest factor that will determine how far future action goes, and when, is the hospital situation, number of daily admissions and number of Covid-19 patients in hospital. No misleading modelling of death will change that.

Plus the polling still indicates lockdown support, with the following being from that same article:



> Today the latest Opinium poll for the Observer shows a majority of people in England (64%) support the new lockdown, with a similar proportion (62%) believing it was introduced too late. Only 20% oppose it.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 8, 2020)

andrewc said:


> As I'm in Liverpool I made an online appointment for a walk in test yesterday , lots of info requested including my NHS number, which I didn't have.   I was sent an email with a QR code & told to show this when I went for the test.
> 
> Got to the test centre for 10:20 this morning, the university sports centre 5 minutes from my flat.  I appeared to be the only testee there,  lots of soldiers standing around looking bored.   All info I'd filled in online & the QR code was ignored.  They asked me the same questions again & filled in the details on an iPad.   Into a cubical with a little hatch through which I was passed a swab onna stick.  Arrgh throat, ughh nose.  Passed it back & was ushered out via the fire exit.
> 
> Email & text about 30 minutes later with the expected negative result.


30 minutes, wow!


----------



## thismoment (Nov 8, 2020)

andrewc said:


> As I'm in Liverpool I made an online appointment for a walk in test yesterday , lots of info requested including my NHS number, which I didn't have.   I was sent an email with a QR code & told to show this when I went for the test.
> 
> Got to the test centre for 10:20 this morning, the university sports centre 5 minutes from my flat.  I appeared to be the only testee there,  lots of soldiers standing around looking bored.   All info I'd filled in online & the QR code was ignored.  They asked me the same questions again & filled in the details on an iPad.   Into a cubical with a little hatch through which I was passed a swab onna stick.  Arrgh throat, ughh nose.  Passed it back & was ushered out via the fire exit.
> 
> Email & text about 30 minutes later with the expected negative result.



30mins later! I didn’t realise that the results could be that quick.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 8, 2020)

thismoment said:


> 30mins later! I didn’t realise that the results could be that quick.



They can’t with PCR, physically impossible. Must be one of the new rapid kits, I wonder if they’ve managed to buy the reliable ones this time.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Plus the polling still indicates lockdown support, with the following being from that same article:



What were those polls showing first lockdown as opposed to now? Tried to find them but failed.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 8, 2020)

Little quiet Mole Valley now has amongst the worst cases per head in the country, at twice the rate and more of neighbouring districts.

In unrelated news, my village of 100 residents has been absolutely fucking HEAVING this weekend with day trippers.


----------



## elbows (Nov 8, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> What were those polls showing first lockdown as opposed to now? Tried to find them but failed.



I dont recall any polls at the time. There might have been some, but everything happened quickly the first time and I was consumed by other aspects.


----------



## elbows (Nov 8, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> They can’t with PCR, physically impossible. Must be one of the new rapid kits, I wonder if they’ve managed to buy the reliable ones this time.



The Liverpool mass testing trial includes the sort of tests that the press have been negative about recently, going on about how poorly they performed during a trial in Salford.

I dont think there is currently enough proper validation info about those tests in the public domain for me to form my own opinion of them. And I dont have the name of the test or links to the articles in question handy, but they did come up on this thread at some point in the last week.


----------



## killer b (Nov 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont recall any polls at the time. There might have been some, but everything happened quickly the first time and I was consumed by other aspects.


There were some, and it was more widely supported than the current restrictions - maybe in the 70s IIRC.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 8, 2020)

kabbes said:


> In unrelated news, my village of 100 residents has been absolutely fucking HEAVING this weekend with day trippers.



This is not a lockdown. Stuff is closed, yeah, but apart from that people are doing whatever the fuck they like.


----------



## LDC (Nov 8, 2020)

souljacker said:


> This is not a lockdown. Stuff is closed, yeah, but apart from that people are doing whatever the fuck they like.



Yeah, same around here. And a friend in another city living in a shared house said her housemate is having people to visit still, including a doctor friend. Feel like a fair few people have given up caring, whatever the polls say about supporting lockdown.


----------



## zora (Nov 8, 2020)

Re the mass tests/quick turnaround tests:

I'd linked to this article before








						Operation Moonshot: rapid Covid test missed over 50% of cases in pilot
					

Exclusive: mass-testing experts say tests should not be widely used in hospitals or care homes




					www.theguardian.com
				




and there has also been this one









						Covid: Liverpool mass testing trial 'could do more harm than good'
					

Health experts raise concerns as large queues form on first day of pilot scheme




					www.theguardian.com
				




I still sort of think that these tests might have a role to play, because the lower sensitivity could in some settings (i.e. mass testing of asymptomatic people) been made up for by sheer volume and turnaround time, but as with all things pandemic: No one thing is a panacea and every bit of gold can be turned to shit in the hands of this government while not being embedded into a solid strategy and without proper public health messaging and information .


----------



## Spandex (Nov 8, 2020)

souljacker said:


> This is not a lockdown. Stuff is closed, yeah, but apart from that people are doing whatever the fuck they like.


There's a few things working against the lockdown this time.

Some people have had enough of lockdowns and can't be arsed any more. 

Some people don't take Covid as seriously any more. When it first hit no-one knew quite what would happen. Would people be coughing themselves to death and collapsing in front of you in the street? Would there be mass graves? Covid has been more subtle than that. Individual risk is low - lots of people know someone who's had it and just been a bit ill - it's just that a death here and a death there quickly adds up, but there isn't the carnage that might've been envisaged.

Then there's the new rules. They start off with "Stay at home, except for specific purposes", but then the specific purposes include: going to work, going to school, taking the kids to school, going to college, going to university, going to shops that are open, going out for exercise, taking the kids to a playground. Between those, there's plenty of reasons not to stay home.

The rules allow shops to open for click and collect, so loads of shops that were closed last time are still open. Cafes can stay open. Shops that sell a wide definition of essential goods can stay open. And if they are open people can to go to them.

No arguments about what counts as exercise this time, or how long you should be out for,  just "You should minimise time spent outside your home", so basically 'do what you want'.

You're only supposed to meet one person from another household, but then you go to work or a shop or do the school run and that's impossible. The kids are in "bubbles" of over 100 other kids. It doesn't encourage people to stick to just one person for their social lives.

When it was announced Johnson gave one of his rambling speeches that left people vague about what the rules are. Follow up interviews the next day showed a range of ministers didn't know the details of the rules. It didn't inspire confidence that the people making the rules didn't know what they are.

Then on the day the lockdown started all the news was talking about was the US election and that's been the main topic of conversation since. The main mention of the lockdown was the much publicised (especially on the BBC) complaints about the figures used to justify the lockdown - the graph said 1500 deaths per day, but should've said 1000, as if a thousand people dying every day is just fine and dandy.

It's hardly surprising that it's not been much of a lockdown so far.


----------



## prunus (Nov 8, 2020)

Spandex said:


> There's a few things working against the lockdown this time.
> 
> Some people have had enough of lockdowns and can't be arsed any more.
> 
> ...



This is as level-headed summary of the situation as I have read.


----------



## AverageJoe (Nov 8, 2020)

I followed the first lockdown tightly. This one... Well like above, I'm Covid weary.

Im still staying in as opposed to going out, not seeing friends etc and all that jazz. But today I did something that I didn't do in Lockdown 1.

I went fishing with my son. And it was nice. And didn't break any rules. Outside, socially distanced, exercise (of a sort).

So. Fuck Lockdown 2. I'm tired of it all. I'm going fishing.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 8, 2020)

'Course it's exercise  casting, reeling in ...


----------



## AverageJoe (Nov 8, 2020)

two sheds said:


> 'Course it's exercise  casting, reeling in ...



Like most others, we look for loopholes. This time round we start looking for loopholes. 

Necessity is the mother of invention. I'm going fishing until this is all done.

If you need me, I'll be on the bank.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 8, 2020)

I walk the dog which is perfectly acceptable exercise - you probably get as much exercise walking to and from the river bank. Not an activity I've ever done, but has to be healthy and calming in the fresh air. Building up vitamin D levels too


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 9, 2020)

So my thoughts after the first weekend of lockdown 2 is that we are in a very different situation than lockdown 1.  My local town centre is not really retail more cafes, deli's, butchers, fishmongers etc.  This meant that virtually every business was still open except restaurants and pubs.

The town centre was very busy on both Saturday and Sunday when I passed through on my walks.  The various parks and walks we have round here will all very busy as well. Hardly any obvious rules breakers as it was mostly families and groups of two but it was busy.  I guess if you close all the things and activities that families would normally do on a weekend what else is there to do in fine weather but go for a nice walk.  The local car parks were busy as well indicating people were driving in from surrounding areas.

I didn't really have a problem with the vast majority of it as people seemed to be interpreting the rules in a similar way to me.  It was lovely weather and we're entitled to be outside for a nice walk.  The only thing that did disappoint me was one local pub that was doing take aways in pints.  Its a riverside pub so it has a long river bank outside which was pretty busy with people enjoying a pint.  There were some groups of 4 or 5 who clearly were not from the same household.  

Whilst the pub was staying within the rules I don't think they were really within the spirit of the rules and they didn't really seem to be that bothered about it.  I understand why they are doing it and as it was relaxed and outside (only open between 12pm & 4pm I believe) I don't think there was much risk there but I just think it doesn't reflect well on them or the wider industry.  They could have been a more sensitive to that.  I did not stop for a drink.

On the plus side the Zoe app had our local r number tumbling prior to lockdown starting so when combined with the extra restrictions there is a chance of a better December still to come.


----------



## Edie (Nov 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, same around here. And a friend in another city living in a shared house said her housemate is having people to visit still, including a doctor friend. Feel like a fair few people have given up caring, whatever the polls say about supporting lockdown.


Leeds is just like normal, except the shops and pubs are shut. Nothing like the first lockdown.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 9, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> So my thoughts after the first weekend of lockdown 2 is that we are in a very different situation than lockdown 1.  My local town centre is not really retail more cafes, deli's, butchers, fishmongers etc.  This meant that virtually every business was still open except restaurants and pubs.



I assume the cafes are only doing takeaway?

As that's all they are allowed to do, same with restaurants and pubs.


----------



## maomao (Nov 9, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I walk the dog which is perfectly acceptable exercise - you probably get as much exercise walking to and from the river bank. Not an activity I've ever done, but has to be healthy and calming in the fresh air. Building up vitamin D levels too


You won't get vitamin D from the sun in this country between September and March. If you're shadow's longer than you are tall or you've got long sleeves on forget about it.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 9, 2020)

Edie said:


> Leeds is just like normal, except the shops and pubs are shut. Nothing like the first lockdown.



Was Leeds already in Tier 3?  We were in tier 2 prior to the lockdown but it feels like the only thing that has changed is hospitality is either closed or doing take aways.  Pretty much how I imagine tier 3 would be.



cupid_stunt said:


> I assume the cafes are only doing takeaway?
> 
> As that's all they are allowed to do, same with restaurants and pubs.



Yes, but not many people were sitting inside before anyway.  Loads of places to sit around town and down by the river.

One thing that did take me flying back to lockdown 1 was the unseasonably good weather we had yet again.  It was t-shirt weather on Saturday and Sunday was nice.  Its human nature to be outside in decent weather.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 9, 2020)

Leeds never went into Tier 3 as it was superceded by the second ‘lockdown’


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 9, 2020)

I've not been out to see how things are in the local centre of population, but judging by the amount of traffic, not a lot has changed from before 5th November 2020.
OH is currently doing some shopping, I'll ask the question ...


----------



## maomao (Nov 9, 2020)

I've been in town today and it's nothing like the first lockdown. Most of the shops in the malls are closed but somehow Rymans is open. Just in case someone urgently needs a pencil I suppose. Roads are much busier than I expected. Dry cleaner is open but business is bad apparently. I wish they'd close it then I'd have an excuse not to wear a suit.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> I've been in town today and it's nothing like the first lockdown. Most of the shops in the malls are closed but somehow Rymans is open. Just in case someone urgently needs a pencil I suppose. Roads are much busier than I expected. Dry cleaner is open but business is bad apparently. I wish they'd close it then I'd have an excuse not to wear a suit.


Ryman’s is probably allowed to stay open cos they do printing


----------



## killer b (Nov 9, 2020)

maomao said:


> I wish they'd close it then I'd have an excuse not to wear a suit.


no-one else needs to know they're open


----------



## teuchter (Nov 9, 2020)

I expect the vaccine news might have a fairly substantial negative impact on compliance with "lockdown" rules.


----------



## maomao (Nov 9, 2020)

killer b said:


> no-one else needs to know they're open


Except the scores of suit wearers in my workplace.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 9, 2020)

The Dear Leader is giving a press conference starting any mo now apparently.  Some waffle about vaccines by the sounds of it.


----------



## Sue (Nov 9, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> The Dear Leader is giving a press conference starting any mo now apparently.  Some waffle about vaccines by the sounds of it.


Dammit, thought YOU MEANT THE OTHER DEAR LEADER.

(Wrong thread.   This is bound you be way less fun though.)


----------



## LDC (Nov 9, 2020)

Daily briefing. Jesus fucking Christ that Brigadier is painful to watch.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 9, 2020)

Huzzah


----------



## zora (Nov 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Daily briefing. Jesus fucking Christ that Brigadier is painful to watch.



Ah, I see now - I thought "brigadier" was some sort of euphemism!


----------



## elbows (Nov 9, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Daily briefing. Jesus fucking Christ that Brigadier is painful to watch.



I got through it by distracting myself with the size of his pockets. He could carry a lot of lateral flow tests in those.


----------



## elbows (Nov 9, 2020)

Van-Tam isnt perfect but he is head and shoulders above the rest of the official pandemic comms bunch. Prepared to talk about vaccine reality, how rubbish everyone feels about the current situation and even to refer to the virus by its actual name which includes SARS.


----------



## LDC (Nov 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> I got through it by distracting myself with the size of his pockets. He could carry a lot of lateral flow tests in those.



Yeah I saw that, fucking huge. They weren't bulging full of charisma though.


----------



## Santino (Nov 9, 2020)

He's not wearing a poppy. Why does he hate Our Boys?


----------



## elbows (Nov 9, 2020)

Van-Tam reports that he has hit peak analogy, choo choo.


----------



## Weller (Nov 9, 2020)

elbows said:


> Van-Tam reports that he has hit peak analogy, choo choo.


Yes saw the train  analogy just     
I am working from home but still got the usual Monday meeting full of similar annoying analogies off our quality fat controller guy too


----------



## elbows (Nov 9, 2020)

Mind the Watford gap.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 10, 2020)

My parents are planning to come back from Slovakia when flights resume next month, but I'm not convinced it's a good idea, much as I'd love to see them.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> My parents are planning to come back from Slovakia when flights resume next month, but I'm not convinced it's a good idea, much as I'd love to see them.



Personally I felt for a long time now that international travel during a pandemic is very far from being a good idea.  Given the situation we found ourselves in in August and September and reports linking the latest virulent strain with Spain I think I was probably right.  

I also have a pretty jaded view of the safety of air travel.  If someone is sat beside you or near you and has the virus i don't care what air filters the airline claim they have, you're getting the virus.

2 week isolation doesn't sound much fun either.  A couple of friends did it in Ireland this summer.  They drove over from the UK with all their food and supplies with them. They still said it was a real slog.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Nov 10, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Personally I felt for a long time now that international travel during a pandemic is very far from being a good idea.


Travel company share prices have all spiked massively after yesterday's vaccine news.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 10, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Travel company share prices have all spiked massively after yesterday's vaccine news.



Of course.  The industry is absolutely fucked and they're going to be desperate to try and get as much travel going as possible.  Doesn't mean its a good idea.

My g/f has just had to listen to a 25 minute rant from the boss of a major London advertising company saying that now we have a vaccine coming we should all be getting back to normal and now.  I think its probably best we don't trust wealthy executives to act in the best interest of the country.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Nov 10, 2020)

maomao said:


> I've been in town today and it's nothing like the first lockdown. Most of the shops in the malls are closed but somehow Rymans is open. Just in case someone urgently needs a pencil I suppose. Roads are much busier than I expected. Dry cleaner is open but business is bad apparently. I wish they'd close it then I'd have an excuse not to wear a suit.


Same here. The number of people on the busses I use is exactly the same as last week and road traffic in general is also at exactly the same level as last week.
There's people out and about on the streets all over the place.
And also...inexplicably....WH Smith is open....just in case someone urgently needs a pencil.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 10, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Personally I felt for a long time now that international travel during a pandemic is very far from being a good idea.  Given the situation we found ourselves in in August and September and reports linking the latest virulent strain with Spain I think I was probably right.
> 
> I also have a pretty jaded view of the safety of air travel.  If someone is sat beside you or near you and has the virus i don't care what air filters the airline claim they have, you're getting the virus.
> 
> 2 week isolation doesn't sound much fun either.  A couple of friends did it in Ireland this summer.  They drove over from the UK with all their food and supplies with them. They still said it was a real slog.


TBF The flight I came on from Portugal Sunday was about a third full , loads of empty rows and after take off they allowed anyone who wanted to move move . Everyone wore masks , had to press the attendant bell to go to the toilet . Even getting off the plane people attempted to socially distance and were patient.


----------



## 2hats (Nov 10, 2020)

I was talking to a senior surgeon at a major London hospital (teaching/A&E), the evening before the Pfizer news release. They are working in ICU on the frontline dealing with COVID patients (around 40 right now), as well as being involved in a key SARS-CoV-2 research study and vaccine development. They and colleagues observe a very soft lockdown ("this isn't really a lockdown") and would, from a medical/scientific point of view, expect the current 'lockdown' to have to be extended. Of course, what politicians decide to do is entirely another matter.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 10, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> TBF The flight I came on from Portugal Sunday was about a third full , loads of empty rows and after take off they allowed anyone who wanted to move move . Everyone wore masks , had to press the attendant bell to go to the toilet . Even getting off the plane people attempted to socially distance and were patient.



Well yes, because much less people are flying, the airline would fill that up much more if they could.  This only works if enough of us think flying is a bad idea or are prevented from doing so.


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 10, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Well yes, because much less people are flying, the airline would fill that up much more if they could.  This only works if enough of us think flying is a bad idea or are prevented from doing so.


This concerns me about Christmas travel. As I understand it, trains aren't selling tickets at reduced capacity there's just less demand + face masks.


----------



## ddraig (Nov 10, 2020)

Firebreak in Wales ended, lots of people about, queuing round the block for toasters and tin openers they've been denied for 2 weeks!


----------



## Doodler (Nov 10, 2020)

The big shed shop I work in was dead quiet on the first day of lockdown 2.0 but things are now busier. Loads of people love shopping or maybe feel at a loose end if they can't shop. Where I live there's not much else to do anyway.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 10, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Well yes, because much less people are flying, the airline would fill that up much more if they could.  This only works if enough of us think flying is a bad idea or are prevented from doing so.


Of course . I think there are some countries now where you have to have proof of a negative test before you can fly .


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 10, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Of course . I think there are some countries now where you have to have proof of a negative test before you can fly .


Tests for people arriving here would have been a good plan, bit late now though


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 10, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Tests for people arriving here would have been a good plan, bit late now though


Closing the borders earlier would have been better, then tests to re-open.


----------



## elbows (Nov 10, 2020)

The list of 67 additional locations for mass testing provides some guide as to what locations they are most worried about at the moment. It is included in the latter part of this article.









						Covid: Mass testing for 67 local areas in England
					

Areas including Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and parts of the West Midlands will receive new rapid tests.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> The list of 67 additional locations for mass testing provides some guide as to what locations they are most worried about at the moment. It is included in the latter part of this article.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Looking at the London boroughs there is also a crossover with where they have existing drive thru testing facilities as well which can be scaled up.  Which makes sense.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 10, 2020)

Ah, that's why my brother was saying my parents might get back from Slovakia in time to be tested again (they're in Enfield)


----------



## elbows (Nov 10, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Looking at the London boroughs there is also a crossover with where they have existing drive thru testing facilities as well which can be scaled up.  Which makes sense.



Yes, various practicalities are the other consideration I suppose.

My focus on hospital infection control means I was also pleased to hear Hancock mention twice weekly testing for staff being rolled out, although I dread to think how long it will take to make that comprehensive. Should have been in place months ago really.









						UK to roll out twice-weekly testing for health service staff
					

Britain will start rolling out twice-a-week COVID-19 tests to all National Health Service (NHS) staff from Tuesday, health minister Matt Hancock said, in order to protect patients and health workers.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## Johnny Doe (Nov 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Ah, that's why my brother was saying my parents might get back from Slovakia in time to be tested again (they're in Enfield)



So at my old house you weren't far from us and at my new one your folks are similarly near


----------



## Cloo (Nov 10, 2020)

Harry Smiles said:


> So at my old house you weren't far from us and at my new one your folks are similarly near


Obviously in some strange orbit around one another!


----------



## miss direct (Nov 10, 2020)

532...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 10, 2020)

miss direct said:


> 532...



The figure of deaths reported on a Tuesday is always high, but that's well up on last Tuesday's figure of 397.


----------



## Spandex (Nov 10, 2020)

Anyone got any ideas what's going on with the daily new cases numbers?

For the last 3 weeks they've hovered between 20,000 and 25,000 per day. It looks like new cases have leveled off, which would be great. But other things might be going on. 

The new cases figure has always reflected the testing system. The number of tests processed in that time dropped significantly before going back up again. Could it be that the current testing system has reached the limit of new cases it can detect.

Could it be that while new cases are dropping in some badly affected areas - parts of the north? universities? - that masks rises in other areas - London? the south? 

These figures will be for people who caught the virus before the new national 'lockdown'. That only came in 5 days ago, about the incubation period of the virus, so people who caught it since then will only be showing up from now. Did the regional lockdowns have an impact, either by working as intended, or by causing people to change their behavior or take more care in those areas?

Something else?

Obviously time will tell but while we wait, any speculation or insights?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 10, 2020)

625 per 100,000 cases in NE Lincs now. Fucking hell. 950 cases last week.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 10, 2020)

S☼I said:


> 625 per 100,000 cases in NE Lincs now. Fucking hell. 950 cases last week.



Fuck,   

We're on 80.5 per 100,000 cases, down 17% in the last week.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 10, 2020)

What you mean is 625 (and 80.5) new positive test results in the past 7 days per 100,000 population, isn't it?

Not cases.

According to Zoe (if you believe it), NE Lincs is currently estimated at about 2400 active cases per 100,000 population, and Worthing at about 500.

Meanwhile most of London seems to be wobbling around between about 600 and 800.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 10, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Anyone got any ideas what's going on with the daily new cases numbers?
> 
> For the last 3 weeks they've hovered between 20,000 and 25,000 per day. It looks like new cases have leveled off, which would be great. But other things might be going on.
> 
> ...


The Zoe project - again, if you believe it's getting it right, as these are estimates - seems to think there has been a drop off in total active cases in the past wee or so.


----------



## elbows (Nov 10, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Obviously time will tell but while we wait, any speculation or insights?



I dont think I have anything new to add, I already talked about that stuff for weeks. 

Use the weekly surveillance reports to look at positive cases broekn down into age ranges and by region, and to see things like positivity rate. 









						National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports
					

National influenza and COVID-19 report, monitoring COVID-19 activity, seasonal flu and other seasonal respiratory illnesses.




					www.gov.uk
				




And even then, dont rely on positive case data alone, since like you said we wont nevessarily be able to tell the difference between cases plateauing and the system reaching the limits of how many cases its likely to pick up. Although some clues can be found by looking into the case data in more detail, as per my previous point with the weekly surveillance report.

Augment the picture by using survey-testing type surveillance, such as zoe covids figures and the weekly ONS report.





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

Estimates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This survey is being delivered in partnership with University of Oxford, University of Manchester, Public Health England and Wellcome Trust.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				












						Latest Daily UK COVID-19 Data: Vaccines, Cases, Trends | ZOE
					

COVID infection & vaccination rates in the UK today, based on public data and reports from millions of users of the ZOE Health Study app




					covid.joinzoe.com
				




At times like these I end up paying more attention to hospital data, although admissions stats arent perfect either and they can be influenced by multiple factors. All the same they indicate what is happening at the sharp end of things.

I dont find it that easy to pick the right moments to try to describe the picture accurately. There is always a fair chance that tomorrows data will leave me with a different impression than the data I have now, especially when searching for signs of a levelling off or meaningful and sustained drop. 

I will still force myself to talk about the hospital admissions picture at some point in the coming days, because there are some indicators there of a picture that has been changing in the last few weeks, but the detail matters and there is some notable regional variation. I can see why some have described a levelling off in recent times, but when I look deeper it is no way near that simple and so I think such a characterisation ends up being quite inappropriate. I will try to explain better when I have a graph or two on a regional basis, and several days more data.


----------



## elbows (Nov 10, 2020)

And yes just to put it bluntly, it is reasonable to think there may have been a peak and subsequent fall in younger people very much including uni students, and that this may obscure the infection picture in more vulnerable age groups. I tend to talk about it on a Thursday or Friday, once the weekly surveillance report is out and I have time to look at it.


----------



## editor (Nov 11, 2020)

Sigh


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2020)

Countdowns just make time slow down for me.


----------



## marty21 (Nov 11, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Firebreak in Wales ended, lots of people about, queuing round the block for toasters and tin openers they've been denied for 2 weeks!


Are the English from over the border flocking to the pubs now ?


----------



## marty21 (Nov 11, 2020)

editor said:


> Sigh
> 
> View attachment 238388


I have my own lockdown atm


----------



## ddraig (Nov 11, 2020)

marty21 said:


> Are the English from over the border flocking to the pubs now ?


Dunno! Safely in Cardiff a fair distance from the border here


----------



## marty21 (Nov 11, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Dunno! Safely in Cardiff a fair distance from the border here


A relatively short trip for  desperate for a pint Bristolians


----------



## Numbers (Nov 11, 2020)

595 further deaths reported, brings the UK over the 50k mark (50,365)


----------



## brogdale (Nov 11, 2020)

Numbers said:


> 595 further deaths reported, brings the UK over the 50k mark (50,365)


Bad; so even with the 28 day stipulation that's >50k dead. 
God know what the true figure is now.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 11, 2020)

one thing i must give the BBC is that during there reporting of quick testing in british uni
they managed to reach out to the albino monk from the the da vinci code

good to see that guy get some extra work


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Bad; so even with the 28 day stipulation that's >50k dead.
> God know what the true figure is now.



If I use ONS figures where Covid-19 is mentioned on death certificate, and where they added other organisations figures for Northern Ireland and Scotland to their publication since the ONS only covers England and Wales, then the highest UK number I get is 63005. Thats for the period up to 30th October.

If I try to use excess deaths as a guide then there are some complications, such as less people dying of other things during some parts of the year, including before the pandemic deaths started because the winter flu season was early and so deaths were lower than normal early on. If I fiddle around a bit with the time periods I use for excess death, to avoid the pre-pandemic period, then I can get very close to 69,000 excess deaths so far. But its not possible for me to account for everything, including less deaths of various sorts than normal due to lockdown, reduced economic activity, reduced pollution etc. I know people were often looking for more deaths of other sorts due to lockdown, and there may have been some of those, but the documents from experts trying to predict this stuff thought there would initially be a decrease in non-covid deaths rather than an increase, since thats what happens at the start of recessions etc, less death not more. Longer term the economic consequences make that flip eventually. And then there is also the picture with people not seeking or receiving the same medical care they would have without the pandemic.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 11, 2020)

S☼I said:


> 625 per 100,000 cases in NE Lincs now. Fucking hell. 950 cases last week.



Yes, NE Lincs and Hull are getting hammered this time around after getting off pretty lightly before, and I'm trying to figure out why that might be.  In the spring I thought Hull's relative isolation had worked in its favour, and I can't see why that should be different now.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 11, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Yes, NE Lincs and Hull are getting hammered this time around after getting off pretty lightly before, and I'm trying to figure out why that might be.  In the spring I thought Hull's relative isolation had worked in its favour, and I can't see why that should be different now.



Lockdown 1 came in early enough to stop it getting a toe hold and Lockdown 2 was too late for that?


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> One way to judge likely deaths is to compare with what's been happening in Spain and France. In Spain, daily deaths have levelled out at around 110-120 a day. In France, they haven't reached 100 a day yet. Both countries have more people currently in hospital than the UK. On that basis, I would call their prediction of 240-690 deaths per day in the UK in 12 days' time extremely unlikely, even at its bottom end. I see no reason why the UK would suddenly veer so far beyond what's happened in Spain or France, having tracked along behind them relatively closely thus far.



Hve you managed to get your head round death increase curves more than when you said this around a month ago?

The UK deaths by date of death number is somewhat stable for the date in question now, October 26th, so now is the time for me to bring this subject up for the last time. Currently the figure for that date is 274.

So if that models number had been for the whole of the UK, it would have been within the range of that particular run of their model. But as I've mentioned previously, their numbers were actually for England only, and the very next time they shared their results they had downgraded their prediction. The current figure for that date for England is 220. So their older model runs range of 241-686 for that date was not met. The real figure was a better fit for their next published model run, which had a range of 178-344 for England for that date.

Anyway I'm not planning to talk about subsequent runs of that model as I'd rather use real data at this point, but they did do another update today if anyone is interested https://joshuablake.github.io/public-RTM-reports/iframe.html


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Hve you managed to get your head round death increase curves more than when you said this around a month ago?
> 
> The UK deaths by date of death number is somewhat stable for the date in question now, October 26th, so now is the time for me to bring this subject up for the last time. Currently the figure for that date is 274.
> 
> ...


It's certainly got bad rather quickly, as it has in Spain and France. I actually thought the model was for the UK so assumed they had just sneaked in right at the bottom. But I still maintain that they got something badly wrong to miss the number while giving themselves such an enormous range. I don't think I said what my guess would be just on the 'tracking Spain/France' criterion, but it would have been around 160-200 (for the whole UK), so I would have been significantly under. 

One thing that I hadn't factored in then was the difference in hospitalisation figures in different countries. That probably led me to think that the UK wasn't quite as bad as it was as both France and Spain seem to measure a bit differently and get higher figures.


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's certainly got bad rather quickly, as it has in Spain and France. I actually thought the model was for the UK so assumed they had just sneaked in right at the bottom. But I still maintain that they got something badly wrong to miss the number while giving themselves such an enormous range. I don't think I said what my guess would be just on the 'tracking Spain/France' criterion, but it would have been around 160-200 (for the whole UK), so I would have been significantly under.
> 
> One thing that I hadn't factored in then was the difference in hospitalisation figures in different countries. That probably led me to think that the UK wasn't quite as bad as it was as both France and Spain seem to measure a bit differently and get higher figures.



I think the fundamental problem in most of these models is how simple they are. And I think the number of deaths that they know already happened is the main thing they feed in, and this makes their prediction ranges especially broad and lacking in confidence when the period they have data for doesnt include a very large number of daily deaths yet. And when we comment on such models we normally have a good number of days additional data compared to what they used. Every subsequent run of that model that has been published gave results that should be much less hard for you to believe plausible than the earlier one we looked at, an extra week or so's data made a big difference to their results.

I suspect one of the differences between our hospital data and some other countries may be that they have admissions policies (and discharge policies/policies on when someone stops counting as a covid patient) that differ to ours. I know I said that Frances was especially high relative to some others when we discussed this before, but when I added intensive care cases to the figures from Italy, which it turns out were not a part of the hospital numbers for Italy I was previously using, they hit much more similar levels to that of France.

Its tricky trying to predict by sight and feel. Because these things are curves but with periods of growth that look more like straight lines than curves, and its hard to say exactly when trajectories will change so that the overall trend ends up a curve rather than a straight line. Your 150 prediction was reasonable if imagining a straight line of growth upwards from the period when you made the comment, but the trajectory got steeper, leading to a large gap between your prediction and what actually happened by October 26th. France at the time in earlier October wasnt the best guide because things were only just really getting going there (in terms of death), and Spains numbers were complicated by additional data issues and lag, and maybe also because the timing of Madrid was ahead of the other regions and started to plateau in a manner that affected the overall national figures. The hospital figures for Italy have really exploded, up to similar levels as France, over 30,000, so I really should start looking at their death figures. I should also compare intensive care numbers this time to last time, for countries where I have enough data. Generally expect to see that where hospitalisation levels are matching or exceeding thsoe of the first wave, intensive care numbers are not close to those seen the first time round.


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Yes, NE Lincs and Hull are getting hammered this time around after getting off pretty lightly before, and I'm trying to figure out why that might be.  In the spring I thought Hull's relative isolation had worked in its favour, and I can't see why that should be different now.



I wouldnt rely too much on number of cases testing positive in the area when trying to compare this wave to the first wave in any particular location. Primarily because the testing was very limited the first time around, the figures from the first wave are a tiny fraction of the full picture of that time.

I would rely quite heavily on daily death figures and hospital data to judge. I havent looked at Hulls hospital levels yet, but I have looked into deaths there....

Unfortunately the media cant be relied upon to do that bit properly, leading to stories like this one:









						Hull's deadliest day so far as coronavirus ravages city
					

'These aren’t just statistics. The numbers represent real people who are seriously ill'




					www.hulldailymail.co.uk
				






> Hull has seen its deadliest ever day for coronavirus deaths, revealed on the same day that the city became the worst area in the country for weekly coronavirus infections.
> 
> Since the start of the pandemic, the most deaths that occurred on any single day was seven, which happened on April 24, at the height of the first wave.
> 
> ...



That reporting is a mess, focussing on totals for individual days rather than the broader picture. And focussing on deaths by day they were announced. And using the NHS England death data per hospital trust instead of the broader measure of deaths per area that can be found on the official dashboard.

So what they are actually describing is the spike in this picture via the NHS data, for Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust:


And that does offer some guide as to how to think about this wave in Hull so far compared to the last one.

The one I would favour using from the dashboard is this one, because it deals with where people live rather than hospital trusts. Very similar pattern but slightly different peaks for newspapers to make stories out of.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 11, 2020)

Today I spoke to a London nurse and she said this wave is presenting as much less severe. Patients are not as ill and many asymptomatic cases. Was good to hear.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> I wouldnt rely too much on number of cases testing positive in the area when trying to compare this wave to the first wave in any particular location. Primarily because the testing was very limited the first time around, the figures from the first wave are a tiny fraction of the full picture of that time.
> 
> I would rely quite heavily on daily death figures and hospital data to judge. I havent looked at Hulls hospital levels yet, but I have looked into deaths there....
> 
> ...



You don't need to tell me the HDM is shite!  

Tbf I've been looking mainly at case rather than death figures and obviously they're not really comparable now with the spring.  Nevertheless, watching the figures rise inexorably in a city that's had low numbers for a long time has been alarming, and anecdotally I know of a lot more people who've either had symptoms or been told to self-isolate than before.


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Today I spoke to a London nurse and she said this wave is presenting as much less severe. Patients are not as ill and many asymptomatic cases. Was good to hear.



Alternatively, the very difference pace so far in London means that admissions standards and public attitudes towards seeking care are so far different in this wave and more milder cases are being seen in the healthcare system than the first time around.

Since I posted those charts for Hull I suppose I mayas well post a few others from the government dashboard to show a few more examples. Partly because I dont know as people have really been looking at this stuff much.

An obvious example to choose, Liverpool:



An example of an area experiencing a deadly 2nd wave that probably hasnt had much attention because its in a region that is usually considered to not be at big risk, and numbers overall have been low in the first wave and the second wave so far. Bournmouth, Christchurch and Poole. But I post it because it could help bust some myths and impressions people hold about the second waves spread so far:



A different sort of example, Birmingham:




As usual with me these are deaths by date of death and so the figures shown for more recent days are subject to future increases.


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2020)

Now then, when it comes to studying the two waves, it seems to me that in addition to drowning in graphs, I should really look at totals for each wave in order to be able to correctly emphasise that its the area under the graph that counts, and how lower peaks can still produce more deaths over time if they carry on for too long.

So the question is, what is a reasonable date with which to seperate the first wave and second wave death statistics? July? 1st August? 1st September? I want a few opinions on that before I start doing it for national, regional and local death numbers.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Now then, when it comes to studying the two waves, it seems to me that in addition to drowning in graphs, I should really look at totals for each wave in order to be able to correctly emphasise that its the area under the graph that counts, and how lower peaks can still produce more deaths over time if they carry on for too long.
> 
> So the question is, what is a reasonable date with which to seperate the first wave and second wave death statistics? July? 1st August? 1st September? I want a few opinions on that before I start doing it for national, regional and local death numbers.



1st August looks a good break point between the two waves. as I think July had the last of the first wave deaths.


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> 1st August looks a good break point between the two waves. as I think July had the last of the first wave deaths.



Cheers for the feedback. Having poked around with the data a bit it doesnt make a huge difference so I may as well be conservative about it and start from September 1st. In which case using the 28-days positive test daily deaths by date of death UK data from the dashboard, I get 41,544 deaths before 1st September and 8,817 since. I would normally rather use ONS data as it was more complete in the first wave, but its lagging behind a lot when trying to measure the 2nd wave so far in a reasonably timely manner, so I probably wont. But just to give a one off indication of ONS levels in the 2 waves, by date of death it has 57,546 before September 1st and 5,459 after, with no November deaths included yet and likely more late October ones to add.


----------



## Sunray (Nov 11, 2020)

I think the takeaway message from the two graphs is:-

We are testing a lot more people now, so I suspect the 1st wave and the second are similar in size, the 1st perhaps being bigger than the 2nd.
Health professionals have been talking and are much better at keeping the very sick alive.
I also think we are going to go into an intense vaccination schedule for the most vulnerable way sooner than I would have expected on the basis something is better than nothing.  The hope is the deaths will start to tail off and we can start to get back to some semblance of normal.  I think the light really is visible at the end of what has been a pretty fucked year.

If there is one thing this government has done (generally they are doughnuts) is to put down massively expensive punts on possible vaccines.  If a gov is going to gamble big on anything, surely this is one thing worth gambling on. Some might fail, but it appears to have paid off big time. We have 30 million doses of the Pfizer 90% effective (will be revised down) vaccination on order. Double dose, so 15 million people.


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2020)

Somebody tell Nick Triggle that London has gone missing from one of the graphics in his article.









						Covid: How the UK reached 50,000 virus deaths
					

The death toll has hit a grim milestone. But behind the figure, there's a complex picture.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## mx wcfc (Nov 11, 2020)

Sunray said:


> We have 30 million doses of the Pfizer 90% effective (will be revised down) vaccination on order. Double dose, so 15 million people.


There's a big difference between ordering 30 (I thought it was 40) million doses and getting them.

If Pfizer is manufacturing in the US, I can't see us getting any whilst Trump is in charge. Maybe not even under Biden.


----------



## Supine (Nov 12, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> There's a big difference between ordering 30 (I thought it was 40) million doses and getting them.
> 
> If Pfizer is manufacturing in the US, I can't see us getting any whilst Trump is in charge. Maybe not even under Biden.



It is also being manufactured in Germany and Belgium for EU supply. Remember it's a BioNTech development, so not just a Pfizer US product.


----------



## Maltin (Nov 12, 2020)

Supine said:


> It is also being manufactured in Germany and Belgium for EU supply. Remember it's a BioNTech development, so not just a Pfizer US product.


And if we leave the EU without a deal, maybe getting it from the EU might be a problem too


----------



## Sunray (Nov 12, 2020)

Let's consider anti vaxx people, 1st.  If you are one of those, die collectively. Be a marter. You can even cough your very last cough in my face if you like.  * shrug *

Ordering from a big company like Pfizer* is a reasonable gamble, IMO. Life is a risk.  Pfizer started manufacturing the vaccination way before they knew it even worked on the basis if it was even slightly effective, it would be approved.

We have 15 million doses.


*Pfizer Market Cap: 213.94B for Nov. 11, 2020


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 12, 2020)

All this talk of a vaccine being rolled out tomorrow morning is unlikely to help with lockdown compliance levels IMO.


----------



## LDC (Nov 12, 2020)

All the data is also far from finished and released for scrutiny. Could easily not be as great as it seems now.


----------



## weepiper (Nov 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Somebody tell Nick Triggle that London has gone missing from one of the graphics in his article.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Scotland's reputation as the sick man of Europe might have to be revised.


----------



## mauvais (Nov 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Somebody tell Nick Triggle that London has gone missing from one of the graphics in his article.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Good spot - raised and fixed


----------



## mauvais (Nov 12, 2020)

.


----------



## killer b (Nov 12, 2020)

Thought people might like to know some figures I've just got back from a traffic volume survey I did last week, which straddled the new restrictions coming in on Thursday - one site was in Malvern, the other in Knowsley, and both showed a drop in vehicle movements of almost exactly 10%


----------



## kabbes (Nov 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> Thought people might like to know some figures I've just got back from a traffic volume survey I did last week, which straddled the new restrictions coming in on Thursday - one site was in Malvern, the other in Knowsley, and both showed a drop in vehicle movements of almost exactly 10%


I included it within the worldwide stats thread, but this includes this table:



*Table 3: Mobility and Reproduction numbers**Decline in mobility in first wave (%-pt)**Decline in R in first wave**Impact on R of a 10%-pt decline in mobility**Latest peak in R**Recent decline in mobility (%-pt)**Implied latest reading for R*Germany-63-2.2-0.351.49-270.55Spain-92-2.9-0.321.15-250.35UK-81-3.4-0.421.36-200.52US-49-1.7-0.351.30-41.16Source: J.P. Morgan. 'R' refers to the reproduction number and is based on hospitalization data.

The mobility rate comes from the Google Mobility Index, which is the graph below.



I have to say that I'm not sure based on that graph where they are getting a 20% recent decline in mobility from.  It looks to me that it has dropped from approximately -25% of baseline to -35%, or .65/.75, which is more like a 15% decline.  Hard to tell from just inspecting the graph, though.  Either way, your 10% seems like a reasonable ballpark that agrees with the mobility index.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 12, 2020)

Just walked past the McDonalds in Angel.  Very, very busy with teens ordering take-away.  An absolute free for all and obvs no masks or distancing.  Oh hum. 

I really think it would have been better if we as a country at least tried to get the kids on board with it all.  For a long time now they've suspected this virus is nothing to do with them and the decision to shut vast swathes of our economy just to keep their plague pits open just confirmed it to them.  Not about blame because I would have been the same and its their future we're currently mortgaging to the skies.


----------



## not a trot (Nov 12, 2020)

Todays numbers looking grim.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 12, 2020)

not a trot said:


> Todays numbers looking grim.



Fucking hell, 33,470 new cases, lockdown v2 is working well.  

And, another 595 563 deaths, up from last Thursday's 378. 

EDIT - corrected figure, I hadn't spotted the error on the government's dashboard.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 12, 2020)

not a trot said:


> Todays numbers looking grim.



The death rate is going to be bad for a while, we knew that.  They key is whether infections are slowing as has been hoped.  That r thing again.


----------



## emanymton (Nov 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fucking hell, 33,470 new cases, lockdown v2 is working well.
> 
> And, another 595 deaths, up from last Thursday's 378.


There was never going to be much impact from it. People's work patterns have basically settled into whatever they are going to be.

Schools are still open

And rules on no household mixing are routinely ignored.

Frankley I didn't see much point is restricting pubs past what was in place for level 3 and closing a few shops. It might slow the growth a bit but not much more.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 12, 2020)

I'm inclined to think today's jump in infections might (just guessing) have something to do with the "last hurrahs" going on with people dashing about etc before the 5th November ...


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fucking hell, 33,470 new cases, lockdown v2 is working well.



Its a shit lockdown we know that. Its not really worthy of the lockdown name.  This being said I don't think we can make judgement calls on its effectiveness after just 1 week.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 12, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I'm inclined to think today's jump in infections might (just guessing) have something to do with the "last hurrahs" going on with people dashing about etc before the 5th November ...



Nah, its been heading in this direction for a while now.  Its pretty clear to me we're just seeing the realisation of where we've been going for a long time.  We've seen with this virus things don't just appear from nowhere in dramatic style.  There is a sustained build-up.

ETA: No doubt it will be terrible again next week and there will be people pointing the finger at the vaccine announcement and people's reaction to it being the cause but in reality it'll just be because the virus is so widespread at the moment.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fucking hell, 33,470 new cases, lockdown v2 is working well.
> 
> And, another 595 deaths, up from last Thursday's 378.



Dashboard is a mess. 595 is yesterdays number reported and I dont see data added properly for today.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Nah, its been heading in this direction for a while now.  Its pretty clear to me we're just seeing the realisation of where we've been going for a long time.  We've seen with this virus things don't just appear from nowhere in dramatic style.  There is a sustained build-up.


It's not really. It's been nearly flat for three weeks. Even suggestions that infection levels are now falling in some parts of the country. Other areas may be rising more quickly, perhaps. 

But as ever with one day's figure, you need to look at date of test rather than date reported. This big figure today may be a catch-up more than anything. We'll see.

595 is yesterday's death figure, btw. They haven't changed it yet.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 12, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fucking hell, 33,470 new cases, lockdown v2 is working well.
> 
> And, another 595 deaths, up from last Thursday's 378.


We won't see any changes in infection rates until another week or two I don't think


----------



## teuchter (Nov 12, 2020)

The Zoe graph continues to show a consistent decline in estimated active infections. It has the peak around 5/6 Nov.


----------



## Cid (Nov 12, 2020)

Another data balls up?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 12, 2020)

I think one of the effects of the vaccine announcement must be that it will be extremely difficult for the government to impose further restrictions to what we have now. Ramp up the restrictions.

I mean, the government had to talk about the vaccine and they tried to play it down but the situation has rather boxed them into a corner.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 12, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The Zoe graph continues to show a consistent decline in estimated active infections. It has the peak around 5/6 Nov.


It does, but different parts of the country are at different stages. It shows NW, Scotland falling rapidly now. NE, Wales just starting to fall. South of England, east, west and London, all of which have been much less badly affected, are all around level at the moment. We've seen elsewhere (Catalonia, for instance) rates level off before taking off again.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> We won't see any changes in infection rates until another week or two I don't think


I know that deaths tend to lag intervention by at least 3 to 4 weeks, but I'd have thought that the infection rate should respond much sooner than that to an effective intervention?


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 12, 2020)

Takes about a week to show symptoms I think.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

Regarding infections, this weeks surveillance report came out today. Too many graphs for me to post all the appropriate ones so I just cherrypicked two. 







__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk


----------



## Sue (Nov 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It does, but different parts of the country are at different stages. It shows NW, Scotland falling rapidly now. NE, Wales just starting to fall. South of England, east, west and London, all of which have been much less badly affected, are all around level at the moment. We've seen elsewhere (Catalonia, for instance) rates level off before taking off again.


Much of Scotland had been in comparatively stricter measures since the start of November so maybe that's now showing up.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Takes about a week to show symptoms I think.


Could well be, and we're 1 week into 'Lockdown' 2 already?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 12, 2020)

Sue said:


> Much of Scotland had been in comparatively stricter measures since the start of November so maybe that's now showing up.


In the Zoe stats, the falls in Scotland show as having started around 20 October. Their estimate of daily new symptomatic covid rate shows Scotland turning a pretty sharp corner around then, down from nearly 100 per 100,000 to just over 50 now. NW England is also shown plummetting atm, having started to fall a few days after Scotland.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> In the Zoe stats, the falls in Scotland show as having started around 20 October. Their estimate of daily new symptomatic covid rate shows Scotland turning a pretty sharp corner around then, down from nearly 100 per 100,000 to just over 50 now. NW is also shown plummetting atm, having started to fall a few days after Scotland.



I dont have access to their regional figures, are any still going up?


----------



## Sue (Nov 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> In the Zoe stats, the falls in Scotland show as having started around 20 October. Their estimate of daily new symptomatic covid rate shows Scotland turning a pretty sharp corner around then, down from nearly 100 per 100,000 to just over 50 now. NW is also shown plummetting atm, having started to fall a few days after Scotland.


Interesting, especially as they're introducing stricter measures in a couple of new areas from tomorrow.


----------



## emanymton (Nov 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think one of the effects of the vaccine announcement must be that it will be extremely difficult for the government to impose further restrictions to what we have now. Ramp up the restrictions.
> 
> I mean, the government had to talk about the vaccine and they tried to play it down but the situation has rather boxed them into a corner.


I don't get this thinking at all. It's like people don't get how vaccines work. As if it can somehow retroactively make things better.

It really should make it easier, lock down hard now to save lives until the vaccine is ready and distributed. Having some light at the end of the tunnel should make it eraser for people to mange being locked down.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont have access to their regional figures, are any still going up?


Yeah, I don't see on the website where you can get anything other than current figures


----------



## teuchter (Nov 12, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I don't get this thinking at all. It's like people don't get how vaccines work. As if it can somehow retroactively make things better.



People simply reckoning a solution is on the way - so it doesn't matter if things go up a bit now - we'll have something to sort it out soon.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont have access to their regional figures, are any still going up?


Midlands is flat. Everywhere else is possibly turning down, but for the south of England generally, it's still basically flat enough not to call it as a fall yet. NW, NE, Scot and Wales are all given as falling. They give UK R as 0.9.

About two or three days ago, for the first time in ages, their estimated R was 1.0 or lower in every region - that's done for a date four days ago (currently 8 Nov), based on the two weeks up to that date.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 12, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Yeah, I don't see on the website where you can get anything other than current figures


If you are signed up to it, they give you access to special data. 

I can only access it from my phone, so I have to relay it.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

Also regarding infection levels, REACT-1 study has updated but I havent had a chance to absorb its findings yet. But I will quote a bit.





__





						Loading…
					





					spiral.imperial.ac.uk
				






> In contrast with our findings for mid- to late-October, we found evidence for a slowdown in the epidemic during the final days of October and beginning of November 2020, with suggestion of a fall and then rise in prevalence during that period. This slowdown was seen across the country, both North and South, and was not being driven by any one region. The largest falls in prevalence were seen during late October to beginning November in Yorkshire and The Humber, which had previously had the highest prevalence in the country. We also saw reductions in prevalence at the sub-regional level in that region. Falls in prevalence during this period were also observed at the youngest ages in our study (5 to 12 years).





> During this period there was evidence of a downturn in daily infections from the national surveillance data on symptomatic cases (“Pillar 1 and 2”) [1] and from the coronavirus symptom app (Zoe app) [12], and a plateau in data from the Office for National Statistics Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey [13]. Despite differences between these data streams in their recruitment strategy including whether this is influenced by symptom status [1, 12], all four are broadly consistent in identifying an inflection point towards the end of our study period.



I would expect half term to be one of the factors that probably affected both testing and reality for the period in question.


----------



## Supine (Nov 12, 2020)

Today's result does not show 'lockdown isn't woorking'. Same result in a couple of weeks would be a different matter.


----------



## Raheem (Nov 12, 2020)

Supine said:


> Today's result does not show 'lockdown isn't woorking'. Same result in a couple of weeks would be a different matter.


Well, if we were having a lockdown...


----------



## LDC (Nov 12, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Takes about a week to show symptoms I think.



Can be more, but average is 3-5 days from exposure to any symptoms showing.

I do think the vaccine announcement has come at a bad time. It was going to be very hard to extend the restrictions anyway, and even though the vaccine won't make any difference this side of 2021 (assuming it works anyway) some people (some MPs and businesses are particularly jumping on it) are already thinking we're on the way back to normal soon because of it.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

Since I will be using things like hospital admission figures to judge the extent to which measures and other factors have changed the picture, I am currently preparing data. Admissions vary quite a bit day to day which creases very messy graphs, so I am probably going to have to use 7 day averages to smooth things out.

I will post a preliminary version in a bit.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

So this is what daily hospital Covid-19 admissions (and new diagnoses in hospital) look like by region if I dont use averages to smooth things out:



And this is how much clearer things look when I use 7 day rolling averages:


Using data from covid-19-hospital-activity


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Also regarding infection levels, REACT-1 study has updated but I havent had a chance to absorb its findings yet. But I will quote a bit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Maybe, although the Zoe app at least shows these trends continuing. Encouraging that the various methods broadly agree with one another.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 12, 2020)

From the REACT report



Round 5: 18/9 to 5/10
Round 6: 16/10 to 2/11

Round 6a: 16/10 to 25/10
Round 6b 26/10 to 2/11

In other words the left hand map illustrates change between late september and late october; the right hand map illustrates change between mid october and late october.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Maybe, although the Zoe app at least shows these trends continuing. Encouraging that the various methods broadly agree with one another.



Yes I dont think half term was the only significant thing likely to have made a difference at that time or subsequently. But it is equivalent to a quick jab quite hard on the brakes, so I feel bound to mention it when people are mostly considering the other stuff like regional restrictions, reduced opening times, and then the national measures.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

Northern Ireland have extended their measures by a week but there was a lot of political disagreement involved.









						Covid-19 restrictions in NI extended for one more week
					

A proposal from the DUP was supported as the executive faced pressure to reach a compromise.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## maomao (Nov 12, 2020)

An alternative explanation for seasonal rates of infection. I was pooh-poohed on these boards when I suggested this as one of the many possible explanations for seasonal waves of infection:









						Seasonal rhythms within immune systems may explain infection rates – study
					

Study finds fluctuations in white blood cells according to time of day and season, suggesting stronger or weaker immune function




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> An alternative explanation for seasonal rates of infection. I was pooh-poohed on these boards when I suggested this as one of the many possible explanations for seasonal waves of infection:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Its interesting stuff, one of the areas where it drives me mad that we still understand so little about it.

I'm pretty neutral on the subject due to the lack of study so I probably didnt pooh-pooh it, but I remember pooh-poohing ideas about the virus itself having its own rhythm that could explain epidemic waves.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

Plus if they study it too hard and act on the implications, it could be the end of night shifts and we might consider spending less hours indulging in infection-prone activities at times of the year where there are less hours of daylight. But this is a rather crude interpretation on my part of those tentative findings.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

The BBC have not currently found a nice, convenient, comforting reason for the increase in positive cases reported today.



> BBC health and science correspondent James Gallagher said the spike in cases could have been driven by changes in people's behaviour in the run-up to England's four-week national lockdown, which began on 5 November but was announced on 31 October



Triggle doesnt have any sugar coating either.



> We've not seen this kind of jump before - it is both 10,000 above Wednesday's figure and the current rolling average.
> 
> It's unclear why this is. The government says there was no backlog of tests that were processed, which could have explained it.
> 
> ...











						Covid: UK daily cases reach new high of 33,470
					

The jump in cases comes a day after the UK became the first European country to pass 50,000 deaths.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

And there was a retail and recreation spike in UK google mobility data, before that figure then fell.



from https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-11-08_GB_Mobility_Report_en-GB.pdf


----------



## maomao (Nov 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Plus if they study it too hard and act on the implications, it could be the end of night shifts and we might consider spending less hours indulging in infection-prone activities at times of the year where there are less hours of daylight. But this is a rather crude interpretation on my part of those tentative findings.


It's already well established that working nights knocks years off your life but that knowledge hasn't lead to any decrease in night working. I don't think the findings _prove_ anything about covid btw, it's just another 'could be' on the long list of possible reasons for seasonal variation that aren't as simple as 'cold weather'.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

They updated the deaths on the dashboard and todays reporting figure is 563.

Assuming they havent made a mess of the data, by date of death the UK figure for November 9th is already 400.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 12, 2020)

emanymton said:


> I don't get this thinking at all. It's like people don't get how vaccines work. As if it can somehow retroactively make things better.
> 
> It really should make it easier, lock down hard now to save lives until the vaccine is ready and distributed. Having some light at the end of the tunnel should make it eraser for people to mange being locked down.



Yeah but you're looking at it from a different angle.  There is already massive pressure to move on from this and whilst its primarily from business its much wider than that. There is a large movement to move on and start rebuilding and a vaccine is the catalyst for that. 

I mentioned this before but the day after the vaccine announcement my partner watched the head boss of a major UK advertising agency go into a long rant about how everything should be back to normal ASAP now that a vaccine is on its way.  Not when it arrives, not when enough people have been given it but now. 

The pressure to get out of this malaise and move on is intense.  You may not feel it and you're right it doesn't make logical sense from a healthcare perspective but I very much doubt the government will now impose any increased restrictions unless the situation becomes catastrophic.

ETA: But they should close the fucking schools.


----------



## elbows (Nov 12, 2020)

The government already failed to act sufficiently and in good enough time to prevent healthcare in the North reaching terrible levels. They did not go far enough until the hospital limits that force them to act were in sight. The vaccine news doesnt change that fundamental calculation. I know it changes some of the pressure and noise, but ultimately there is a level of hospital pressure that trumps all else. And if the vaccine news leads to widespread stupid behavioural changes with consequences for the infection rate, then the government will end up having to go further to compensate for that.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> The government already failed to act sufficiently and in good enough time to prevent healthcare in the North reaching terrible levels. They did not go far enough until the hospital limits that force them to act were in sight. The vaccine news doesnt change that fundamental calculation. I know it changes some of the pressure and noise, but ultimately there is a level of hospital pressure that trumps all else. And if the vaccine news leads to widespread stupid behavioural changes with consequences for the infection rate, then the government will end up having to go further to compensate for that.



Yes, well put.   

I've no sympathy for the government but right now I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.  They're in a horrible bind.


----------



## Cid (Nov 12, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes, well put.
> 
> I've no sympathy for the government but right now I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.  They're in a horrible bind.



Of their own making.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Nov 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> ETA: But they should close the fucking schools.



My main mates' whatsappb group has 21 of us on it. 4 of 21 have had kids sent home this week with classes or whole schools closed. All North London


----------



## editor (Nov 13, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes, well put.
> 
> I've no sympathy for the government but right now I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.  They're in a horrible bind.


This government should be held criminally negligent for their incompetent handling of the crisis, their dodgy 'jobs and fat contracts for pals' policy and the thousands of preventable deaths that their fucking idiocy has caused.


----------



## Numbers (Nov 13, 2020)

Just been up my high street, it’s actually quite depressing how busy it is.  The school kids don’t give a fuck about distancing and in general it’s very lax.


----------



## Supine (Nov 13, 2020)

Prof Pagel's summary of the UK numbers on today's indy sage is probably the best explanation I've seen throughout the situation. Worth a watch.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 13, 2020)

Went the tesco this morning. Absolutely rammed again, people queueing up each aisle for the checkouts.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 13, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Went the tesco this morning. Absolutely rammed again, people queueing up each aisle for the checkouts.


Aren’t there quotas on numbers in supermarkets in the U.K.?


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 13, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Aren’t there quotas on numbers in supermarkets in the U.K.?


My local Aldi has sensors and a red / green light.
the deli up the road has a limit of 5 in the shop and had a portable unit for a while ...


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Nov 13, 2020)

There are more people in my office this month than last, a couple of people who were furloughed due to (mild) vulnerabilities returned to work at the beginning of November, more or less out of boredom. They drive & don't use public transport. 

I know a few other people who worked at home through the first lockdown & right through the summer, who started commuting in by train a few days a week in October when their offices partially opened - none of those people have gone back to WFH this month. 

To be fair, although I said boredom, most of those people were genuinely going a bit nuts from the isolation of WFH (they didn't start going out over the summer when a lot of other people did & were just getting confidence to head out again recently).

I don't know anyone who's restricted their work pattern, unless they were forced to (retail/hospitality).


----------



## killer b (Nov 13, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Aren’t there quotas on numbers in supermarkets in the U.K.?


I think there might be in theory, but I've not seen them enforced since the summer. In supermarkets at least - other shops I've been in have operated fairly strict number controls.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 13, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Went the tesco this morning. Absolutely rammed again, people queueing up each aisle for the checkouts.



That's odd, my local Tesco reintroduced a queueing system a week or two before this 'lockdown' started.


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 13, 2020)

Been out to my local shops. Much busier than I expected. And as I ducked into boots I heard a woman shout, "it's supposed to be lockdown".


----------



## Johnny Doe (Nov 13, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's odd, my local Tesco reintroduced a queueing system a week or two before this 'lockdown' started.



Yeah, just back from our big Asda* and it's quiet but well controlled. When it was busy last Saturday evening they were operating to a strict capacity and you had to queue. 

*Incidentally, are we meant to hate Asda? Our local one is well run and the staff always seem quite happy. Could be forced customer service friendliness, but doesn't feel that way


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 13, 2020)

I went to Tesco last week and they were limiting numbers, I was quite lucky in timing as there was a queue round the building by the time I left. Guess it's down to the individual store whether they do it properly or not though.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 13, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> Been out to my local shops. Much busier than I expected. And as I ducked into boots I heard a woman shout, "it's supposed to be lockdown".


Lol so what was she doing out then?


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 13, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Lol so what was she doing out then?


Panicking by the sound of it.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 13, 2020)

2,829.


----------



## elbows (Nov 13, 2020)




----------



## two sheds (Nov 13, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Lol so what was she doing out then?



Public service announcements that people shouldn't have been out  we need more people like this.


----------



## xenon (Nov 13, 2020)

So we're having this again. People going out to the shops and saying OOMG I can't believe how busy it is, look at all these people in the shops. 


I mean no where else is open and it's been really mild. Why are you going out.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 13, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Public service announcements that people shouldn't have been out  we need more people like this.



Hypocritical busybodies?  I think there are more than enough already.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 13, 2020)

I'm not going out ...

The recent figures are, frankly, frightening - but not surprising.
I just hope that * most * are mild cases, but from the figures elbows was supplying upthread, the plague is getting into the older, more vulnerable sectors. 

As for those fricking tories and their no lockdown/open the economy mantra ...


----------



## xenon (Nov 13, 2020)

In my case, milk, eggs and beer, 20 minutes walk.

I've stopped giving a fuck about the number of peple out and about. It would wind me up first time round, when they'd take too long faffing around in the corner shop whilst I waited outside. I'm done with that. Not because vaccine woo, the vaccine  but just CBA with it all any more. 

Course still doing the handwashing, mask business, avoiding crowded places but the feeling on edge, nope.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 13, 2020)

Is there any sign the number of cases has been slowing down?


----------



## Cloo (Nov 13, 2020)

One message I do think this country needs now is that if they don't visit family and friends for just this one sodding Christmas, they will see much more of them, much sooner next year.

But this will not get backed up if they open everything up for one frenzy of activity in December and vaguely tell people 'Well, use your common sense'


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 13, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is there any sign the number of cases has been slowing down?











						R number for UK has fallen to between 1 and 1.2
					

ONS data also says the number of people infected with coronavirus is slowing down.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




R rate falling apparently. Of course that's a slower increase still rather than a decrease.


----------



## killer b (Nov 13, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is there any sign the number of cases has been slowing down?


yeah, loads - look at hospital admissions and positive tests which have been posted on this thread in the last couple of days. Deaths is the last thing for them to show up in, unfortunately...


----------



## killer b (Nov 13, 2020)

(also it only seems to be the north-west (in england at least) on it's way down - we've had heavier restrictions for longer though)


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 13, 2020)

Cloo said:


> One message I do think this country needs now is that if they don't visit family and friends for just this one sodding Christmas, they will see much more of them, much sooner next year.
> 
> But this will not get backed up if they open everything up for one frenzy of activity in December and vaguely tell people 'Well, use your common sense'



Or ever again.  For me its not so much that Christmas will really spread the virus as much as it is who it will spread to.

My fear is that there is a lot of elderly grandparents out there who have been isolated from the virus whether it be by choice or circumstance.  The traditional family Christmas with gran and gramps and all the generations really puts these people at risk.  Especially as the toxic _it's ok if it's its just close family / close friends, I trust you giggle _ attitude still pervades.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 13, 2020)

Cloo said:


> One message I do think this country needs now is that if they don't visit family and friends for just this one sodding Christmas, they will see much more of them, much sooner next year.


Really agree with this. 

It is hard though. 

My sister (teacher, two kids at other schools and husband a key worker) is struggling. Despite being a very logical fellow and nearly 80 suggested he could drive up (6 hours) and help out  to which she said firmly NO and chided him for suggesting it. He is a hard old bastard and very fit/strong but got floored by pneumonia last year ffs. 

Am not saying he is right (the idiot) but families get protective and a bit desperate. 

I have been training him on Zoom for some virtual Winterval times. Will see how that goes


----------



## xenon (Nov 13, 2020)

Cloo said:


> One message I do think this country needs now is that if they don't visit family and friends for just this one sodding Christmas, they will see much more of them, much sooner next year.
> 
> But this will not get backed up if they open everything up for one frenzy of activity in December and vaguely tell people 'Well, use your common sense'




This would be sensible.

Were he still around, would likely have gone to my dad's , just me and him for Christmas itself as I've done for most of my adult life. May well have reconsidered of course. , given the situation. IN any event, have been invited to other family this year but think I'll stay here for various reasons but also that same one. i.e. trains will probably be busy and if infection rates are still high, that seems an unnecessary risk to take with older family mmembres.


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 13, 2020)

xenon said:


> So we're having this again. People going out to the shops and saying OOMG I can't believe how busy it is, look at all these people in the shops.
> 
> 
> I mean no where else is open and it's been really mild. Why are you going out.


I thought I was on the London lockening thread tbh. 
Two pharmacies, flu jab and parcel return


----------



## Cloo (Nov 13, 2020)

People are very bad at delayed gratification.


----------



## Mation (Nov 13, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Aren’t there quotas on numbers in supermarkets in the U.K.?


The Sainsbury's I went to a couple of days ago was counting people in and out, but I haven't seen that elsewhere. (Only been to the corner shop since, though, now I think about it; so I don't know.)


----------



## elbows (Nov 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> yeah, loads - look at hospital admissions and positive tests which have been posted on this thread in the last couple of days. Deaths is the last thing for them to show up in, unfortunately...



After a period where the increases mostly stalled when looked at overall nationally, more recent England total daily hospital admissions trends are disturbing to me.


As for the latest (smoothed via 7 day rolling averages) regional admissions/hospital diagnosis picture, the decrease seen in North West admission rates has most recently stopped, and I am waiting to see if it continues at this level, starts to decrease or goes back up. I will probably zoom in on the major hospital trusts in the region so I can see what sort of a mix of increases/decreases/no change are happening in that region. Also the South Easts daily admissions are now overtaking Londons. I am in the Midlands where things are becoming very bad.


Using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## killer b (Nov 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> After a period where the increases mostly stalled when looked at overall nationally, more recent England total daily hospital admissions trends are disturbing to me.
> 
> View attachment 238700
> As for the latest (smoothed via 7 day rolling averages) regional admissions/hospital diagnosis picture, the decrease seen in North West admission rates has most recently stopped, and I am waiting to see if it continues at this level, starts to decrease or goes back up. I will probably zoom in on the major hospital trusts in the region so I can see what sort of a mix of increases/decreases/no change are happening in that region. Also the South Easts daily admissions are now overtaking Londons. I am in the Midlands where things are becoming very bad.
> ...


Yeah, sorry - I'm a bit too tightly focused on North West. My assumptions from the hospital figures is that the first drop is from the level 3 restrictions, and it's likely to continue downwards once the effects of the tighter restrictions kick in though? Maybe not.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 13, 2020)

elbows said:


> After a period where the increases mostly stalled when looked at overall nationally, more recent England total daily hospital admissions trends are disturbing to me.
> 
> View attachment 238700
> As for the latest (smoothed via 7 day rolling averages) regional admissions/hospital diagnosis picture, the decrease seen in North West admission rates has most recently stopped, and I am waiting to see if it continues at this level, starts to decrease or goes back up. I will probably zoom in on the major hospital trusts in the region so I can see what sort of a mix of increases/decreases/no change are happening in that region. Also the South Easts daily admissions are now overtaking Londons. I am in the Midlands where things are becoming very bad.
> ...


Is this because of people going out the week before lockdown? Seems weird it would slow down and then come back again


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 13, 2020)

I'm in the south east. That line looks bad


----------



## Elpenor (Nov 13, 2020)

My mum has cancer so I’m not sure if I can delay gratification for another Christmas. I don’t want to be the person who gives her covid tho given how immune compromised she is from chemo


----------



## LDC (Nov 13, 2020)

Elpenor said:


> My mum has cancer so I’m not sure if I can delay gratification for another Christmas. I don’t want to be the person who gives her covid tho given how immune compromised she is from chemo



I know a few people in similar situations who have strictly isolated for the 14 days prior to seeing someone vulnerable. Probably not a bad compromise.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 13, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I'm in the south east. That line looks bad



The SE is a big region, have you looked at what's happening in your local area? 

I am in the SE, but I know from my SiS there's 'only' 16 covid cases in our 3-hospital wide trust, so maybe 6 or 7 from the Worthing borough, new daily cases are down over 20% in the last 7 days, whereas nationally they are up 26%, I find some comfort in that.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 13, 2020)

6 people in the week to 8th November apparently so its a few days out of date.


----------



## Elpenor (Nov 13, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I know a few people in similar situations who have strictly isolated for the 14 days prior to seeing someone vulnerable. Probably not a bad compromise.


I’ve considered that but my job is office based and need to be in office as internet connection too slow at home


----------



## Supine (Nov 13, 2020)

Heat map of cases/100k by age


----------



## elbows (Nov 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> Yeah, sorry - I'm a bit too tightly focused on North West. My assumptions from the hospital figures is that the first drop is from the level 3 restrictions, and it's likely to continue downwards once the effects of the tighter restrictions kick in though? Maybe not.



There are so many variables that I struggle to properly tell accurate stories about a bunch of national and regional trends, until those trends far far more pronounced.

Within the following spolier tag is an initial attempt to graph major North West hospital trusts daily admissions/diagnoses. I post them here in a form that is too small to read the details, and each trust has its own scale on the y axis, but the idea is to look at the various different shapes as an overview to see how complicated the daily hospital admissions/diagnoses data is when looking below the surface. Its a mixed pixture, plus there are more factors that can influence admission rates than just how many people would ideally be treated in hospital that day there are. And this is the same data that, as has been recently mentioned in this conversation, only extends as far as November 8th.



Spoiler


----------



## LDC (Nov 13, 2020)

Elpenor said:


> I’ve considered that but my job is office based and need to be in office as internet connection too slow at home



Throw a sickie? I mean it's kind of true, it'd be a prevent-sickie....


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 13, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think there might be in theory, but I've not seen them enforced since the summer. In supermarkets at least - other shops I've been in have operated fairly strict number controls.


I rang my sister up this afternoon she works in Morrison’s , ironically in Barnard Castle. They have a clicker counter app or something counting people in/out, obviously that’s just her store .


----------



## LDC (Nov 13, 2020)

Elpenor said:


> My mum has cancer so I’m not sure if I can delay gratification for another Christmas. I don’t want to be the person who gives her covid tho given how immune compromised she is from chemo



I'm very strict with the rules, and generally have very little (no) sympathy for people breaking them day to day. For exactly the reason that it's then OK for some people that really need to (single parents/carers with kids in flats, people really struggling living on their own, people with ill or old relatives or friends, etc. etc.) to break them, and it also makes it safer for them when they do.


----------



## Elpenor (Nov 13, 2020)

Yeah I get that. I don’t want to break any rules, and don’t intend to.

Am a contractor so don’t get any sick pay.


----------



## elbows (Nov 14, 2020)

Sage modelling group consensus from November 4th for a meeting the next day, so just before the new measures took effect. Covers England only. As the next week or so brings in the data for the crucial period I shall be likely to refer to these for comparison.

Document also includes regional graphs but I'll just put the national ones here for now.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/935132/spi-m-o-consensus-statement-covid-19-sage-66-051120-s0864.pdf


----------



## Numbers (Nov 14, 2020)

xenon said:


> So we're having this again. People going out to the shops and saying OOMG I can't believe how busy it is, look at all these people in the shops.
> 
> 
> I mean no where else is open and it's been really mild. Why are you going out.


I had to go to the chemist and I fully adhere to safety protocol.

It’s just the way people are behaving around here which is worrying, the kids are the worst but they’re not alone.


----------



## LDC (Nov 14, 2020)

Elpenor said:


> Yeah I get that. I don’t want to break any rules, and don’t intend to.
> 
> Am a contractor so don’t get any sick pay.



Ah, sorry if I wasn't clear, I wasn't having a go, I was more saying that I think the situation you're in (sick relative) is a case _for_ breaking the rules.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 14, 2020)

This bullshit tepid "lockdown" isn't working. I don't care if there's no evidence in the figures yet. I see people's behaviour daily. Without another March type lockdown for a couple of months thousands of people are going to die needlessly. There's no system any any supermarket I've been in, nobody observes distancing and staff don't challenge anyone. Kids in college mainly wear masks but then go sit next to other students all day. Many students treat mask wearing as something they must avoid being caught for, not something to do for everyone's benefit. Many staff don't gaf about challenging bad behaviour or modelling good behaviour around masks or sanitising. Every bus has maskless people upstairs. Kids from different families are still all playing or hanging out together. People are still going round their mum's and mates. Grimsby now has three Covid wards. We've rocketed into fourth place nationwide after being in the bottom three until September.


----------



## 5t3IIa (Nov 14, 2020)

We (Kirklees = Huddersfield & Dewsbury) are 9th, up from 13th. This is rates of infection, right? Is there a list? Like a Top 40 chart?

I went to a bloody takeaway last night and didn’t wear a mask and...I was tipsy and it didn’t cross my mind to 🤦🏽‍♀️ What an absolute fucking state 😶


----------



## elbows (Nov 14, 2020)




----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 14, 2020)

Excuse the sweary bits, please ...

But, Fuck Me, are these fooking wankers trying to kill off the elderly and other vulnerable groups ?

I'm referring to both the tory cockwombles with their "keep my profits up" motive and the even more stupid cockwombling covidiots wandering around unmasked in shops etc.

WE don't yet have a vaccine released into the general public (and even the limited amounts of puffizer one will not be ready for a few weeks yet) ...

Arrrggghhhh ! I've plenty of vulnerable / elderly friends and I'm not that young myself.
Looking at that information - which elbows has so ably presented - I'm starting to get worried, again.
I live on the edges of North-East, in a rural area, and still our local case rate is climbing.
This so-called circuit breaker is far too full of loopholes.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 14, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Aren’t there quotas on numbers in supermarkets in the U.K.?


There were. Not so sure there are anymore.



cupid_stunt said:


> That's odd, my local Tesco reintroduced a queueing system a week or two before this 'lockdown' started.


Why is it odd? You live in a completely different place to me.



xenon said:


> So we're having this again. People going out to the shops and saying OOMG I can't believe how busy it is, look at all these people in the shops.
> 
> 
> I mean no where else is open and it's been really mild. Why are you going out.


I loathe shopping of all kinds, but there is the issue of having to eat to survive, so food shopping is essential, knobber.  I was pissed off after being in a densely populated shop and then having to stand in a fucking queue for half an hour waiting to get to the checkout, which is why I mentioned it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 14, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Why is it odd? You live in a completely different place to me.



It's odd because I would expect nationwide supermarkets to have a national policy on safe-guarding, during a national crisis.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's odd because I would expect nationwide supermarkets to have a national policy on safe-guarding, during a national crisis.


I would prefer that councils set and strictly enforced said policy. Rather than hope the private sector step up.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's odd because I would expect nationwide supermarkets to have a national policy on safe-guarding, during a national crisis.


Yeh, I live in a fucking shit hole though. No one gives a fuck.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 14, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I would prefer that councils set and strictly enforced said policy. Rather than hope the private sector step up.



Not a hope in hell, they don't have the resources.

Anyway, this is Tesco's national policy, last updated 2/11/20.



> In line with guidance, we have social distancing measures in stores, including:
> 
> Floor markings in our car parks to help you to maintain safe distances when queuing.
> Where necessary, we will limit the flow of people coming into our stores to ensure they don’t get too congested.
> ...



So, it seems sojourner's local Tesco is not sticking to the rules set by head office, and needs reporting.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 14, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I would prefer that councils set and strictly enforced said policy. Rather than hope the private sector step up.



Councils can't even sort out potholes let alone manage genuine crisis


----------



## sojourner (Nov 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not a hope in hell, they don't have the resources.
> 
> Anyway, this is Tesco's national policy, last updated 2/11/20.
> 
> ...


Can't prove owt though can I? They'll just say they were. There's no one counting people in or out, but they have managed to stick some bright yellow tape on the floor by the checkouts.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 14, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Councils can't even sort out potholes let alone manage genuine crisis



Do you have photographs with councillors pointing out such potholes as proof of your wild statement?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 14, 2020)

sojourner said:


> Can't prove owt though can I? They'll just say they were. There's no one counting people in or out, but they have managed to stick some bright yellow tape on the floor by the checkouts.



Next time take a few photos, stick in a complaint to Tesco, and copy it to your local rag, basically light the blue touch paper & enjoy the fireworks.


----------



## planetgeli (Nov 14, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Do you have photographs with councillors pointing out such potholes as proof of your wild statement?



Blackburn, Lancashire earlier today.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 14, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Do you have photographs with councillors pointing out such potholes as proof of your wild statement?


----------



## teqniq (Nov 14, 2020)

This is all a bit crazy:


----------



## Badgers (Nov 14, 2020)

Lot's of the cunts wearing masks at an anti lockdown demo ffs


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 14, 2020)

AFAIK the only law regarding what you can do in shops is that customers need to wear a mask and that's not enforced and loads of people don't do it and nothing happens so, you know.


----------



## Supine (Nov 14, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> AFAIK the only law regarding what you can do in shops is that customers need to wear a mask and that's not enforced and loads of people don't do it and nothing happens so, you know.



I can't remember the last time I saw somebody in a shop without a mask here. At least a couple of weeks ago...


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 14, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Lot's of the cunts wearing masks at an anti lockdown demo ffs


Do you think that could be because its harder to be identified?
Also there seem to be a variety of reasons why people may object to lockdown, not everyone that objects is a covid denier afaik which may account for protesters wearing masks?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 14, 2020)

Supine said:


> I can't remember the last time I saw somebody in a shop without a mask here. At least a couple of weeks ago...


About fifteen minutes ago for me. I popped into Sainsburys and four or five people didn't have them on, came in yakking away to each other. Daytime is usually better but there are usually a couple without them no matter where I go.

Also they didn't have any fucking cabbage  I mean who runs out of cabbage, who is buying up all the cabbage, must be Bill Gates

I passed a popular chicken shop which has a "MASKS MANDATORY" sign in the window and there were six people queueing inside, none with masks.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 14, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Also there seem to be a variety of reasons why people may object to lockdown, not everyone that objects is a covid denier afaik which may account for protesters wearing masks?


This is true; as much as it's fun to take the piss out of the loons who go there and organise the demos, there are a lot of people with different reasons who attend. Otherwise they wouldn't get the numbers.


----------



## panpete (Nov 14, 2020)

I just want dentist, don't like waiting until things become emergencies.


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 14, 2020)

panpete said:


> I just want dentist, don't like waiting until things become emergencies.


Dentists and other health services are open as usual.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 14, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Dentists and other health services are open as usual.



Not exactly, my own dentist gave 3-months notice that they were ending their NHS contract, because covid precautions were limiting how many people they could see in a day, so I needed to find another dentist.

Having called over a dozen NHS dentists locally, not a single one is currently taking on new patients, not NHS nor even private, because of covid.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not exactly, my own dentist gave 3-months notice that they were ending their NHS contract, because covid precautions were limiting how many people they could see in a day, so I needed to find another dentist.
> 
> Having called over a dozen NHS dentists locally, not a single one is currently taking on new patients, not NHS nor even private, because of covid.


Same round here, although there is a rumour that one "local" practice may, if you pay an extra premium, treat you privately ...


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 14, 2020)

Not dismissing or disbelieving that it is tough to find a dentist at the moment...but...









						Coronavirus (COVID-19): Accessing dental services
					

During the coronavirus pandemic you can get dental advice by contacting your local dentist and you can access urgent dental treatment through your local urgent dental care centre.




					www.nhsinform.scot


----------



## panpete (Nov 14, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Dentists and other health services are open as usual.


Oh! someone on Facebook said emergencies only, mine normally sends me reminder, its been well over a year, maybe a backlog.


----------



## Thora (Nov 14, 2020)

My dad had a routine dentist check the other day, but it was social distanced and the dentist said he couldn't touch him or look in his mouth, just offer advice


----------



## panpete (Nov 14, 2020)

Thora said:


> My dad had a routine dentist check the other day, but it was social distanced and the dentist said he couldn't touch him or look in his mouth, just offer advice


Blimey, what's the point in that, I got non painful cavities, need a scale and polish big time.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 14, 2020)

I had an appointment the other day with the hygienist and it was fine, except they couldn't use the hose as it was an aerosol generating procedure so had to clean manually which was very uncomfortable . Seems to be operating as normal except they can't do a few things


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 14, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Dentists and other health services are open as usual.



Maybe but even more with dentists than hairdressers I'd be very wary of going anywhere that requires close contact that see's customers.

I would however like a good clean and polish.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 14, 2020)

The one I saw the other day was in full PPE, another appointment I'd had a few weeks earlier wasn't tho.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 14, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Maybe but even more with dentists than hairdressers I'd be very wary of going anywhere that requires close contact that see's customers.
> 
> I would however like a good clean and polish.



The hygienist I saw did her best but told me to come back in May when things were a bit more back to normal to give it a go with the hose


----------



## miss direct (Nov 14, 2020)

My local Tesco has a limit of 150 and were counting in. What's the point of that when people are walking around inside with masks on their chins?


----------



## Badgers (Nov 15, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Do you think that could be because its harder to be identified?
> Also there seem to be a variety of reasons why people may object to lockdown, not everyone that objects is a covid denier afaik which may account for protesters wearing masks?




This sort of thing?


----------



## smmudge (Nov 15, 2020)

Thora said:


> My dad had a routine dentist check the other day, but it was social distanced and the dentist said he couldn't touch him or look in his mouth, just offer advice



Wow if all dentist appointments were like that, I might actually go!


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 15, 2020)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 238911
> 
> This sort of thing?



bliddy 'ell.

that's a wonderful advert FOR wearing masks.
Supa-spreader reet thar ...


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 15, 2020)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 238911
> 
> This sort of thing?


Tbh I was thinking more specifically of the Bristol protest...but I take your point


----------



## Badgers (Nov 15, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Tbh I was thinking more specifically of the Bristol protest...but I take your point


The cunts protesting in Bristol are as selfish, deluded and stupid as any other global protester.


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 15, 2020)

Badgers said:


> The cunts protesting in Bristol are as selfish, deluded and stupid as any other global protester.


I feel I'm unable to tar them all with the same brush knowing that within that movement there are diverse reasons for protesting lockdown. 

Although I have no time for covid deniers.

A big part of me just thinks that people protesting is inevitable in light of the huge and continued government mismanagement.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 15, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I feel I'm unable to tar them all with the same brush knowing that within that movement there are diverse reasons for protesting lockdown.
> 
> Although I have no time for covid deniers.
> 
> A big part of me just thinks that people protesting is inevitable in light of the huge and continued government mismanagement.


I tar and feather them with the same brush


----------



## xenon (Nov 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> The hygienist I saw did her best but told me to come back in May when things were a bit more back to normal to give it a go with the hose



I'm over due a regular checkup. Normally this is all I need, might wait a bit longer then, not like I enjoy the process at the best of times.


----------



## Mation (Nov 15, 2020)

24,962 new cases seems pretty high for a Sunday (during 'lockdown'), doesn't it? And 168 new deaths. 

The latter more in line with lower weekend reporting?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 15, 2020)

Half term effect wearing off.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2020)

Mation said:


> 24,962 new cases seems pretty high for a Sunday (during 'lockdown'), doesn't it? And 168 new deaths.
> 
> The latter more in line with lower weekend reporting?



Yes todays and tomorrows death figures will be lower due to weekend effect on reporting.

As for case numbers, I dont pay much attention to single days figures and the story there is yet to really emerge.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> As for case numbers, I dont pay much attention to single days figures and the story there is yet to really emerge.



Plus tests carried out reported today are almost 100k up on last Sunday.


----------



## dshl (Nov 15, 2020)

Age concern says:


*The Office for National Statistics report that by 29 May more than 46,000 people had died from coronavirus in England and Wales, and that more than 4 in 5 of those people were aged 70 or over. When we look at the number of deaths from coronavirus for each thousand people there is an even more stark relationship.



In age groups up to and including 60-69, fewer than 1 in 1,000 people have died from coronavirus.
Age 70-79, it’s 2 in every 1,000 people.
Age 80-89, it’s 7 in every 1,000 people.
Age 90 and over, it’s 18 people in every 1,000 people.
Males have a higher risk in every age group than females.*

I'm going to ask an utterly stupid question here but when they say 'in every 1,000' they mean every 1,000 that contracted covid, right?


----------



## prunus (Nov 15, 2020)

dshl said:


> Age concern says:
> 
> 
> *The Office for National Statistics report that by 29 May more than 46,000 people had died from coronavirus in England and Wales, and that more than 4 in 5 of those people were aged 70 or over. When we look at the number of deaths from coronavirus for each thousand people there is an even more stark relationship.
> ...



I don’t think so - I think it’s x in every 1000 of the total population in each age bracket.


----------



## LDC (Nov 15, 2020)

dshl said:


> Age concern says:
> 
> 
> *The Office for National Statistics report that by 29 May more than 46,000 people had died from coronavirus in England and Wales, and that more than 4 in 5 of those people were aged 70 or over. When we look at the number of deaths from coronavirus for each thousand people there is an even more stark relationship.
> ...



No, as it says per 1000 people, not per 1000 covid +tive cases. For people over 75 it's been horrendously bad.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Yes, NE Lincs and Hull are getting hammered this time around after getting off pretty lightly before, and I'm trying to figure out why that might be.  In the spring I thought Hull's relative isolation had worked in its favour, and I can't see why that should be different now.



Sky News is just reporting that Hull is now the worst affected area.  

Oh, it's on their website too...



> The UK's COVID-19 hotspot should have a tighter lockdown and school closures to reduce spiralling cases, Hull's NHS boss has said.
> 
> Hull in East Yorkshire became England's worst affected area this week as infection rates soared to well above 700 per 100,000 people.
> 
> ...





> In the first two weeks of November 50 people died at the Royal Infirmary.
> 
> "We need to be looking quite seriously at much stiffer lockdown restrictions than we have got," Mr Long added.
> 
> "We are seeing very high transmission rates around us and that's because, despite the lockdown, a lot of people are just going about their normal lives."











						COVID-19: Hull NHS boss calls for tighter lockdown and school closures
					

Chris Long says transmission rates are increasing because lots of people "are just going about their normal lives".




					news.sky.com


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 15, 2020)

Looking at the figures for my very local area, with a fairly low case rate to start with, any increase is worrying, but the recent trends in the surrounding and nearby areas are not good.

I'm doing my best ...


----------



## existentialist (Nov 15, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Looking at the figures for my very local area, with a fairly low case rate to start with, any increase is worrying, but the recent trends in the surrounding and nearby areas are not good.
> 
> I'm doing my best ...


Yeah, Carmarthenshire has spiked up quite sharply on the Zoe numbers - it's looking as bad as it's been in the Far West here...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Looking at the figures for my very local area, with a fairly low case rate to start with, any increase is worrying, but the recent trends in the surrounding and nearby areas are not good.
> 
> I'm doing my best ...



Worthing & the West Sussex coastal strip* still remains a low case area, but it's a bit grim all around us.  


*Chichester only looks that grim, because most of the district council area covers north of the coast.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News is just reporting that Hull is now the worst affected area.
> 
> Oh, it's on their website too...
> 
> ...



Yes, even with out of date 'number of Covid-19 patients in hospital' data, its already looking bad there compared to last time.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2020)

Although I do always worry when I post something like that that it reinforces the impression we have of a couple of very bad areas, which show up via positive tests and get a lot of press attention, at the expense of all sorts of other places that are having a bad time of it at the moment.

For example there are plenty of other places where generate graphs of a similar shape. I wont try to post them all so here is just one example.


----------



## dshl (Nov 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, as it says per 1000 people, not per 1000 covid +tive cases. For people over 75 it's been horrendously bad.




Just to confirm because I've got my stupid hat on: if it's not per 1000 covid, then it's saying that if you just take 1000 people randomly from England and Wales between the age of 60 and 69, whether they have had covid or not, two of them would have died from covid.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Although I do always worry when I post something like that that it reinforces the impression we have of a couple of very bad areas, which show up via positive tests and get a lot of press attention, at the expense of all sorts of other places that are having a bad time of it at the moment.
> 
> For example there are plenty of other places where generate graphs of a similar shape. I wont try to post them all so here is just one example.
> 
> View attachment 239054



Can you please post a link to where you get the cases per trust from?

I am looking at the government dashboard, and that only seems to offer data down to regional level, not by trust.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2020)

dshl said:


> Just to confirm because I've got my stupid hat on: if it's not per 1000 covid, then it's saying that if you just take 1000 people randomly from England and Wales between the age of 60 and 69, whether they have had covid or not, two of them would have died from covid.



Well, they would clearly have to have had covid to die from it, but yes it's per 1,000 people, so 2 out of 1,000 aged 60-69.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Can you please post a link to where you get the cases per trust from?
> 
> I am looking at the government dashboard, and that only seems to offer data down to regional level, not by trust.



I have to make my own graphs. I normally link to the page where I get the data but I didnt today. To be able to compare the first wave to the second, I have to join results together from two spreadsheets - the monthly one which currently goes up to November 5th for this particular data, and a weekly one which only contains data from August onwards but currently has 5 additional days data at the moment compared to the monthly one.





__





						Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity
					

Health and high quality care for all,  <br />now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk
				




Perhaps there is a website that presents this data nicely, I havent looked recently. I am available for requests, on the understanding there is always a chance I will make a mistake when attempting to combine & present the data. And I need people to be explicit with NHS trust names. And theres quite a lot of different data including various sorts I only post here rarely or never, like number of Covid-19 staff absences, per-trust mechanical ventilator bed patient numbers, discharges per day.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2020)

Cheers elbows, and fair play that you make your own graphs from playing around with all that data.   

I think I'll stick to just asking my SiS for updates on our local trust*, seems a lot easier. 

* 3 hospitals, covering around 250-300k population, and 'only' had 16 cases in, as of last Friday.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 15, 2020)

Johnson self-isolating after MP tests positive - BBC News
					

The prime minister says he was contacted by NHS Test and Trace but is not showing any symptoms.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Johnson self-isolating after MP tests positive - BBC News
> 
> 
> The prime minister says he was contacted by NHS Test and Trace but is not showing any symptoms.
> ...



Seems kinda careless.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Johnson self-isolating after MP tests positive - BBC News
> 
> 
> The prime minister says he was contacted by NHS Test and Trace but is not showing any symptoms.
> ...



Well, that saves him from having to deal with difficult questions in the commons over cummings & brexit, how convenient.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 15, 2020)

Probably thought he was immune


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 15, 2020)

It's the MP that's tested +ve, and is isolating. (and he has a wife who was shielding ...)

BoJo's isolating 'cos serco nhs T&T told him he was in contact with a specific (+ve) person ...

hope he gets it again (poor virus)


----------



## Raheem (Nov 15, 2020)

He'll be able to return to work once his test results come back. So, sometime in the New Year.


----------



## Petcha (Nov 16, 2020)

This is utterly toe curling.

Can he not, at some stage, be serious about this situation we're in?


----------



## prunus (Nov 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is utterly toe curling.
> 
> Can he not, at some stage, be serious about this situation we're in?




If that smug cunt doesn’t get it again now after that then there is no god - oh, wait, hang on... shit


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News is just reporting that Hull is now the worst affected area.
> 
> Oh, it's on their website too...
> 
> ...



Yep. The figures are terrifying, and yet...  Fucking idiots.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 16, 2020)

Lol why can't he be serious rather than talking about boxing gloves etc? And stop with the stupid slogans ffs.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 16, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Lol why can't he be serious rather than talking about boxing gloves etc? And stop with the stupid slogans ffs.



Because Boris Johnson.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 16, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Because Boris Johnson.


You'd have thought he'd have advisers telling him to stop doing this sort of thing. 

Oh


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 16, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> You'd have thought he'd have advisers telling him to stop doing this sort of thing.
> 
> Oh



They've never told him to stop before. 

Its interesting considering his whole "I want to be Churchill" fetish because Boris mistakes buffoonery for wit.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 16, 2020)

Not sure the thought of having two huge boxing gloves to pummel covid to the ground hits the right note tbh. It's like the whole 'battle with cancer' thing.


----------



## dshl (Nov 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, they would clearly have to have had covid to die from it, but yes it's per 1,000 people, so 2 out of 1,000 aged 60-69.


Yes, 2 died from covid and 998 of them may or may not have ever had covid in the first place.

..as opposed to 998 being known covid survivors.

That's what I'm now taking from this.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 16, 2020)

I really, really don't want to give Morgan credit, and certainly don't hold him up as some great champion of the people, but this is at least a little bit of excruciating fun for a Monday morning.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 16, 2020)

Blank look in the eyes as he responds, the cunts have no shame


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 16, 2020)

Why isn't the window open?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 16, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I really, really don't want to give Morgan credit, and certainly don't hold him up as some great champion of the people, but this is at least a little bit of excruciating fun for a Monday morning.


Pointless little thing, but I'm pretty sure he's talking to ITV while standing outside BBC Broadcasting House  Guess he's doing the rounds, but still amused my simple mind.


----------



## Mation (Nov 16, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Why isn't the window open?


Where? Here?





Windows closed. No masks. Less than 2 metres. Great job, BoJo.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 16, 2020)

Mation said:


> Where? Here?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Nothing to do with Covid, I know, but wouldn't you think that people in the public eye - you know, like MPs - would get a few lessons in how to present well. That pair standing there, mimicking each other's posture, look like a couple of washed-up song-and-dance men. Without the creativity or charisma, naturally.

And neither of them seems to know how to tie a tie propely, either.


----------



## Mation (Nov 16, 2020)

existentialist said:


> That pair standing there, mimicking each other's posture, look like a couple of washed-up song-and-dance men. Without the creativity or charisma, naturally.


If only they would retrain.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 16, 2020)

Yeah it looks like some terrible laurel and hardy tribute


----------



## existentialist (Nov 16, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah it looks like some terrible laurel and hardy tribute


"And it's 'fuck off, poor people' from him..."


----------



## Wilf (Nov 16, 2020)

They look like the welcoming party dammed souls will get as enter Hades.


----------



## Petcha (Nov 16, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I really, really don't want to give Morgan credit, and certainly don't hold him up as some great champion of the people, but this is at least a little bit of excruciating fun for a Monday morning.




That was after 200 days of refusing to appear on GMB. And coincidentally a couple of days after Cummings left No.10.

They've also been boycotting C4 news and newsnight for that entire period so I hope the cunts are now free to appear on those shows too. The viewership of all three combined is fucking huge so the boycott's been a disgrace.

I wish Piers had had longer at the little weasel.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 16, 2020)

Wilf said:


> They look like the welcoming party dammed souls will get as enter Hades.


Good, then the "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here" sign will be superfluous.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Nov 16, 2020)

My 93 yr old dad thinks he's doing lockdown proper. So far this last week has included a walk around a very busy Beckenham place park, going to Tescos, riding his bicycle around and tommorrow driving to Portsmouth with my brother in law to deliver scaffolding for work. My sister who lives with him works in a large secondary school, plus last weekend he's been visiting with my niece and her two school aged kids. 

None of them are silly, but there seems to be a huge disconnect between what they're doing and the death and infection rates.. and still they consider that they are doing a lawful and responsible lockdown   

There seems to be many societal family and individual dynamics and world views at play here,  that totally blind-side people.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2020)

Those unhappy with the fudged end of various restrictions in Northern Ireland are expressing this via sentiments about when action will likely next be required.









						Coronavirus: Executive aiming to 'protect' Christmas period
					

Michelle O'Neill says people need hope, as officials warn more restrictions could come mid-December.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 16, 2020)

ice-is-forming said:


> My 93 yr old dad thinks he's doing lockdown proper. So far this last week has included a walk around a very busy Beckenham place park, going to Tescos, riding his bicycle around and tommorrow driving to Portsmouth with my brother in law to deliver scaffolding for work. My sister who lives with him works in a large secondary school, plus last weekend he's been visiting with my niece and her two school aged kids.
> 
> None of them are silly, but there seems to be a huge disconnect between what they're doing and the death and infection rates.. and still they consider that they are doing a lawful and responsible lockdown
> 
> There seems to be many societal family and individual dynamics and world views at play here,  that totally blind-side people.



I reckon this article has a point in arguing that it's down to perceptions of risk, and that many people have simply stopped seeing covid as a serious risk to them.

Tbh I reckon the other issue might be that, with so many workplaces open this time, some people are working on the assumption that if they have to take the risk of going to work they might as well take other risks too.


----------



## zora (Nov 16, 2020)

The Guardian has got something on an outbreak in a boarding school, 50+ positive tests.
"Mobile testing units would test all students and staff on Tuesday and Wednesday, the principal said. *Those who test positive will be asked to travel home and isolate for 10 days*."

My bold - ...err...travel home how? On public transport..? Each one being collected by a parent and infecting them on the car journey..? That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense..?


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 16, 2020)

Much of my area is now in the red zone


----------



## belboid (Nov 16, 2020)

zora said:


> The Guardian has got something on an outbreak in a boarding school, 50+ positive tests.
> "Mobile testing units would test all students and staff on Tuesday and Wednesday, the principal said. *Those who test positive will be asked to travel home and isolate for 10 days*."
> 
> My bold - ...err...travel home how? On public transport..? Each one being collected by a parent and infecting them on the car journey..? That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense..?


It’s a posh boarding school.  One of the help can go, so it doesn’t matter if they get infected.


----------



## maomao (Nov 16, 2020)

zora said:


> The Guardian has got something on an outbreak in a boarding school, 50+ positive tests.
> "Mobile testing units would test all students and staff on Tuesday and Wednesday, the principal said. *Those who test positive will be asked to travel home and isolate for 10 days*."
> 
> My bold - ...err...travel home how? On public transport..? Each one being collected by a parent and infecting them on the car journey..? That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense..?


If they're going to be in a house with their parents for ten days then being in a car with them for an hour or two won't make much difference.


----------



## Thora (Nov 16, 2020)

zora said:


> The Guardian has got something on an outbreak in a boarding school, 50+ positive tests.
> "Mobile testing units would test all students and staff on Tuesday and Wednesday, the principal said. *Those who test positive will be asked to travel home and isolate for 10 days*."
> 
> My bold - ...err...travel home how? On public transport..? Each one being collected by a parent and infecting them on the car journey..? That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense..?


We used to do guardianship for a local boarding school (overseas students legally have to have a UK guardian) - kids from Russia or Hong Kong would stay with you on free weekends or half terms when they couldn’t go home.  I can’t imagine their local guardian would want a covid positive kid coming to stay


----------



## LDC (Nov 16, 2020)

Mation said:


> Where? Here?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



"From the suspects now paraded in front of you, can you identify any of them as the guilty party? What do you mean both of them?"


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 16, 2020)

Downing Street briefing on now, with Hancock, JVT & Hopkins, for NHS test & trace.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 16, 2020)

can't make this shit up. 


> Asked about a photo of the prime minister and Mr Anderson taken at the meeting, Downing Street said: "They are stood side-by-side, rather than face-to-face."


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street briefing on now, with Hancock, JVT & Hopkins, for NHS test & trace.



Music to my ears that the move towards proper diagnostics testing in this country is going to be permanent. Should help to establish routine testing in routine healthcare and reduce the guessing game, as well as improving the winter picture in general every winter. There is always the chance of saving more lives in the decades ahead than were lost to this pandemic. Good riddance to shit UK establishment attitudes towards diagnostic testing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 16, 2020)

Plus 3 million tests went out to the NHS in the last week, as the start of finally testing NHS workers regularly.  

Although, only bi-weekly, whereas care home workers are tested weekly.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Plus 3 million tests went out to the NHS in the last week, as the start of finally testing NHS workers regularly.
> 
> Although, only bi-weekly, whereas care home workers are tested weekly.



The term bi-weekly is ambiguous and can refer either to once every 2 weeks or twice a week.

Based on whats previously been said, I am expecting healthcare worker testing twice a week, eg        UK to roll out twice-weekly testing for health service staff


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 16, 2020)

zora said:


> The Guardian has got something on an outbreak in a boarding school, 50+ positive tests.
> "Mobile testing units would test all students and staff on Tuesday and Wednesday, the principal said. *Those who test positive will be asked to travel home and isolate for 10 days*."
> 
> My bold - ...err...travel home how? On public transport..? Each one being collected by a parent and infecting them on the car journey..? That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense..?



I've got no problem with them infecting their parents because the parents will be the kind of scum that ships their kids off to boarding school.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2020)

Van Tam has scored another goal in his penalty shootout analogy. Thats Vaccine United 2, Covid Town 0 for those keeping score.


----------



## Petcha (Nov 16, 2020)

I think you mean JVT


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> I think you mean JVT



Hancock can count vaccine orders better than JVT, he wants us to know that.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 16, 2020)

It all seems to be kicking off in Manchester this last week judging by the twitter hashtags.



Can't wait for the Mail and Government to go on about lecturers radicalising students again.


----------



## planetgeli (Nov 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Van Tam has scored another goal in his penalty shootout analogy. Thats Vaccine United 2, Covid Town 0 for those keeping score.



I hope you've got that right and it is United playing? Not Vaccine Albion?

Coz Albion are notoriously shit at penalties.


----------



## andysays (Nov 16, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I've got no problem with them infecting their parents because the parents will be the kind of scum that ships their kids off to boarding school.


Except that their parents will potentially go on to infect loads more people, some of whom may not actually be the sort you consider scum (though as this appears to cover much of the population, I admit that this last is unlikely).


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2020)

In todays press conference the idea of strengthening the tier system restrictions when the national lockdown ends came up. Now there is an article about it. If the numbers are still very grim come December 2nd then thats one way they can continue harsher measures while claiming to have stuck to their word about national lockdown ending on December 2nd under all circumstances.









						Covid: England tier system may need strengthening - government adviser
					

The impact of the three-tier Covid system in England was varied, says a senior health official.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Badgers (Nov 16, 2020)

As things stand and are forecast the only reason to be lightening (let alone lifting) lockdown is for financial/landlord/donor reasons.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 16, 2020)

Can you imagine the pubs on the first weekend of December?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> In todays press conference the idea of strengthening the tier system restrictions when the national lockdown ends came up. Now there is an article about it. If the numbers are still very grim come December 2nd then thats one way they can continue harsher measures while claiming to have stuck to their word about national lockdown ending on December 2nd under all circumstances.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This doesn't come as any surprise to me, does it to anyone else on here?


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 16, 2020)

Talking - on the 'phone - about the general (covid) situation with a mate today, one of our conclusions was that the 'general public' are not scared enough about the possible personal consequences of catching covid, or are fatalistic about the results, so they find loopholes or other avoiding tactics.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Nov 16, 2020)

So here, Brighton and Hove, we've had 230 new reported cases today (on a Monday)!
Previous highest total has been 95, iirc and previous highest day by specimen date was 96 (on Oct 26th) , I think.
Looks like a lot of numbers have been backdated, so we now have several more days hitting 90+ by specimen date, much earlier on (around the the third week of October just before half term), along with 100 on Nov 9th (which is less of a surprise as it was always another 'stand out' day).
Any way to check that? Whether/why such huge numbers have been added 3-4 weeks later?


----------



## existentialist (Nov 16, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Can you imagine the pubs on the first weekend of December?


Nice spike, just in time for the death rates to peak over the season...

"On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me..."


----------



## Looby (Nov 16, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> So here, Brighton and Hove, we've had 230 new reported cases today (on a Monday)!
> Previous highest total has been 95, iirc and previous highest day by specimen date was 96 (on Oct 26th) , I think.
> Looks like a lot of numbers have been backdated, so we now have several more days hitting 90+ by specimen date, much earlier on (around the the third week of October just before half term), along with 100 on Nov 9th (which is less of a surprise as it was always another 'stand out' day).
> Any way to check that? Whether/why such huge numbers have been added 3-4 weeks later?


You reminded me to check ours. 455 today, fucking hell. 😞 I don’t have the headspace to try and work out if this is caused by a big lag or we’ve had some superspreader events. I think we were around 200 per day last week.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 16, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> So here, Brighton and Hove, we've had 230 new reported cases today (on a Monday)!
> Previous highest total has been 95, iirc and previous highest day by specimen date was 96 (on Oct 26th) , I think.
> Looks like a lot of numbers have been backdated, so we now have several more days hitting 90+ by specimen date, much earlier on (around the the third week of October just before half term), along with 100 on Nov 9th (which is less of a surprise as it was always another 'stand out' day).
> Any way to check that? Whether/why such huge numbers have been added 3-4 weeks later?


My dad is in Lewes and they messaged today to say they are going to isolate for a while. Also we all agreed to postpone Christmas till January or when things are safe.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 16, 2020)

Badgers said:


> My dad is in Lewes and they messaged today to say they are going to isolate for a while. Also we all agreed to postpone Christmas till January or when things are safe.



Lewes District has under half the cases of Brighton & Hove City, slightly higher than Worthing Borough, not by a lot, but equally scary being there's a lot of people from both places commuting in & out of Brighton.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 16, 2020)

How do you find out daily cases in a particular region?


----------



## Badgers (Nov 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Lewes District has under half the cases of Brighton & Hove City, slightly higher than Worthing Borough, not by a lot, but equally scary being there's a lot of people from both places commuting in & out of Brighton.


Elderly population (round the whole area) 

I thought you would have to prise car boot sales from my dad's cold dead hands but he gave them (Brighton) up before they were closed down. He lives in Lewes but (not at the moment) shops and potters round Brighton a lot.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 16, 2020)

S☼I said:


> How do you find out daily cases in a particular region?



Here, and select by local authority. The figures for the Humber are grim.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Nov 16, 2020)

Looby said:


> You reminded me to check ours. 455 today, fucking hell. 😞 I don’t have the headspace to try and work out if this is caused by a big lag or we’ve had some superspreader events. I think we were around 200 per day last week.



Looks like a similar rise in reported cases.
There's no easy option now (which I can see!) to check when reported cases were added, locally, but I do scroll back to look at 'worst' days by specimen date, and this looked to add significant amounts onto those, from weeks ago. Dunno if it's pressure on testing (while testing has apparently grown but not been utlised/is meaningless), or track and trace results, or what - but there are certainly some late specimen results being added here. I do try to shy away from anything that's not factual but it is difficult when you have to guess at so much, with such a bad record.

Badgers - glad your dad is up for halting things. Alt. Xmas ahoy  x


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 16, 2020)

S☼I said:


> How do you find out daily cases in a particular region?



The government's dashboard, towards the bottom of this page you can use the postcode checker or map. 





__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 16, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Here, and select by local authority. The figures for the Humber are grim.


Innit. I'm just the other side of the river from you


----------



## Badgers (Nov 16, 2020)

sheothebudworths said:


> @Badgers - glad your dad is up for halting things. Alt. Xmas ahoy  x


He does not care for Christmas and is not really social generally. But is fiercely family so it is a bit hard. Christmas is the only time of year he 'entertains' anyone (badly mostly) but am going to make it up. His missus is genuinely scared of C-19 and is going out less and less which is a bit sad. 

A positive (there is always is isn't there?) is we are talking more on the phone, writing more and now have a new 'thing' which is every morning I send a photo of an Otter with a message saying 'Good Morning from the Isolation Station'  Now if I forget or am late he worries


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 16, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Elderly population (round the whole area)
> 
> I thought you would have to prise car boot sales from my dad's cold dead hands but he gave them (Brighton) up before they were closed down. He lives in Lewes but (not at the moment) shops and potters round Brighton a lot.



As you can see, there's three council areas in both East Sussex & West Sussex doing OKish, separated by B&H City, but also with problem areas surrounding us in all directions.



That's a bit of luck, that could easily run out, so solidarity with those areas, we are all in this together.


----------



## xenon (Nov 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> In todays press conference the idea of strengthening the tier system restrictions when the national lockdown ends came up. Now there is an article about it. If the numbers are still very grim come December 2nd then thats one way they can continue harsher measures while claiming to have stuck to their word about national lockdown ending on December 2nd under all circumstances.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I checked Bristol earlier and fear we might end up as L2 or L3 if restrictions are lifted on 2nd Dec. Was 429 /100K. A big increase on the last time I looked a couple of weeks ago.

Edited. Is 429.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As you can see, there's three council areas in both East Sussex & West Sussex doing OKish, separated by B&H City, but also with problem areas surrounding us in all directions.
> 
> View attachment 239184
> 
> That's a bit of luck, that could easily run out, so solidarity with those areas, we are all in this together.



Pah!  You call those problem areas?!


----------



## Cloo (Nov 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Music to my ears that the move towards proper diagnostics testing in this country is going to be permanent. Should help to establish routine testing in routine healthcare and reduce the guessing game, as well as improving the winter picture in general every winter. There is always the chance of saving more lives in the decades ahead than were lost to this pandemic. Good riddance to shit UK establishment attitudes towards diagnostic testing.


What was the issue with diagnostic testing? Seen as too cumbersome/expensive?


----------



## lazythursday (Nov 16, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Pah!  You call those problem areas?!
> 
> View attachment 239189


Needs to be a colour worse than purple, to make those of us living in a sea of purple be grateful that at least we're not Hull.


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 16, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Needs to be a colour worse than purple, to make those of us living in a sea of purple be grateful that at least we're not Hull.



Thanks for your solidarity.


----------



## Looby (Nov 16, 2020)

Badgers said:


> He does not care for Christmas and is not really social generally. But is fiercely family so it is a bit hard. Christmas is the only time of year he 'entertains' anyone (badly mostly) but am going to make it up. His missus is genuinely scared of C-19 and is going out less and less which is a bit sad.
> 
> A positive (there is always is isn't there?) is we are talking more on the phone, writing more and now have a new 'thing' which is every morning I send a photo of an Otter with a message saying 'Good Morning from the Isolation Station'  Now if I forget or am late he worries


That’s so sweet! 
It’s really helped Mr Looby be more involved with his mum and they speak a lot more. We used to go months without seeing her because he didn’t make the effort but now we see her fortnightly to do her shopping. We chat through the window because she’s vulnerable  and very frightened but it’s still nice. She really needs it and I wish she’d done a bit more in the summer when cases were low. She’s left the house once since March and that was for her flu jab. 
We had a takeaway coffee together last week and Mr Looby picked the dog up so she could give him a kiss and take his picture. 😄


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 16, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is utterly toe curling.
> 
> Can he not, at some stage, be serious about this situation we're in?



His inability to speak without smirking and suppressing a chuckle makes it incredibly hard to take him seriously. When he doesn’t appear to grasp the gravity of any situation, he has no hope of looking (or sounding) like a statesman. It’s so unpleasant watching and hearing him address the nation.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 16, 2020)

The least he could do is appear halfway sorry that 51,000 people are dead rather than going on about butcher's dogs ffs.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 16, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> The least he could do is appear halfway sorry that 51,000 people are dead rather than going on about butcher's dogs ffs.



He's never had to have or desired empathy with another human being in his life. 

We're lucky he doesn't get his dick out and piss on the coffins.


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 16, 2020)

From near the foot of the previous page on this thread :



miss direct said:


> Can you imagine the pubs on the first weekend of December?



And beyond!   

2020 will bring my third serious (and near-completely!)  *Dry December*, 1st to 24th** December inclusive ........

**up to about 2 pm on Xmas Eve, anyway 

Pre-Xmas pubs will, as ever, and especially this year, be utterly horrendous everywhere!


----------



## Raheem (Nov 16, 2020)

Bit of gossip from a civil servant friend.

The daily briefings used to be supported by a  team of statisticians, who were redeployed when they were stopped. They have not been brought back for the resurrected briefings, which is why the graphs have been so awful.

They've now gone round different gov departments trying to poach new statisticians to work on the graphs etc.


----------



## elbows (Nov 17, 2020)

Cloo said:


> What was the issue with diagnostic testing? Seen as too cumbersome/expensive?



I dont think I've ever tried to research the background properly but its the sort of situation that probably developed over many decades, and the establishment got comfortable with using sentinel surveillance systems to monitor things instead. Which only requires testing on a vastly smaller scale. And I assume those in the medical profession have been well used to routine diagnostics being used for certain conditions and not others, because it was probably always that way, especially with widespread respiratory diseases, and the impetus for change was not there until this pandemic. This country has long contributed in its own ways to the diagnostics industry and we are not ignorant of the technological advances over decades that unlocked all sorts of possibilities on paper, but I expect there was never the ambition, funding of sense of priorities to actually make it happen here at scale. 

The way things have been on these fronts in my lifetime, I could not even guarantee that every nasty epidemic that has been though to be flu in my lifetime was really always a straightforward influenza story. Our surveillance of the other human coronaviruses, that tend to get lumped together with some other viruses as 'the common cold', hasnt been very impressive for a start.


----------



## elbows (Nov 17, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Bit of gossip from a civil servant friend.
> 
> The daily briefings used to be supported by a  team of statisticians, who were redeployed when they were stopped. They have not been brought back for the resurrected briefings, which is why the graphs have been so awful.
> 
> They've now gone round different gov departments trying to poach new statisticians to work on the graphs etc.



For quite a while in the first wave, daily slides and accompanying data file from the number 10 press conferences were the only publicly published source for a lot of the daily pandemic data. This included some useful hospital data which they just stopped publishing one day at a crucial moment, and then resumed some time later. It used to drive me nuts because I didnt have other sources so their whims had a big impact. But at some point that data and more besides became a part of the dashboard, and I can also get various NHS England data from the NHS website. So in terms of proper access to meaningful daily data, I'm not bothered by the lack of graphs from number 10 these days.

But in terms of public communication and making this feel like a period of extra restrictions with a different mood, emphasis etc, the lack of sombre graphs evolving every day at the press conferences may be an issue. I dont know though, there are reasons other than lack of available statisticians why they may be avoiding most graphs these days. They came in for a lot of criticism about various aspects of various graphs Whitty & Vallance used when delivering messages about the need for tougher measures to the public on several occasions. Some of the criticisms were the anti-lockdown sections of the media being shitty, but plenty of the complaints were valid in one way or another. And then they had the NHS bloke at a press conference who made a big deal of how he only had one graph to show, and spoke about things using plain language, and that seemed to go down quite well with people on that day. They've used an updated version of that graph has been used once or twice since, and I will paste the last version of it that I saw below.



from https://assets.publishing.service.g.../935031/20201112_-_Press_conference_slide.pdf

If I were making such decisions then I certainly think it would be hospital data that I would focus on right now, and despite the number of graphs I churn out I do recognise the need to stick to a few and not bombard people with too much. I think I might struggle a little if I only got to show number of Covid-19 patients in hospital because I'd want to show some regional info about that picture too, and I would also want to do the same for number of daily hospital admissions. Regardless of what the government get round to presenting in the days ahead, there will probably be a number of occasions over the next 10 days where I will want to show such graphs here myself. I prefer to post them when I can attach a proper story to them though, and that can be tricky at times like these where we wait to see if things get worse or better. Every recent trend in the data runs the risk of not standing the test of time, making it tricky for me to choose the right moment to draw attention to the data.


----------



## AverageJoe (Nov 17, 2020)

Go go my little town! An oasis of green. Mainly cos there's nothing worth going out for, but hey - little victories eh...


----------



## AverageJoe (Nov 17, 2020)

So good I had to post the pic twice. Apparently. 

Go me 👍


----------



## Petcha (Nov 17, 2020)

20Bees said:


> His inability to speak without smirking and suppressing a chuckle makes it incredibly hard to take him seriously. When he doesn’t appear to grasp the gravity of any situation, he has no hope of looking (or sounding) like a statesman. It’s so unpleasant watching and hearing him address the nation.



This is a serious question.

Has there _ever_ been a worse PM? How did we end up here?


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Nov 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not exactly, my own dentist gave 3-months notice that they were ending their NHS contract, because covid precautions were limiting how many people they could see in a day, so I needed to find another dentist.
> 
> Having called over a dozen NHS dentists locally, not a single one is currently taking on new patients, not NHS nor even private, because of covid.


Solidarity 
I rang all dentists in Croydon 
Non taking on nhs patients 
'Cept one in west Norwood but I wouldn't trust him as he's genuinely scary, angry and shouty


----------



## 5t3IIa (Nov 17, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Go go my little town! An oasis of green. Mainly cos there's nothing worth going out for, but hey - little victories eh...
> 
> View attachment 239205View attachment 239205


Could I have a link for this please? Thanks. Using the link Roadkill posted a page back my area (Kirklees = Huddersfield & Dewsbury) has _three times_ the cases of the adjacent area (Calderdale = Halifax) i.e. 95 v 31 😐 I’d like to see this is colours.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 17, 2020)

5t3IIa said:


> Could I have a link for this please? Thanks. Using the link Roadkill posted a page back my area (Kirklees = Huddersfield & Dewsbury) has _three times_ the cases of the adjacent area (Calderdale = Halifax) i.e. 95 v 31 😐 I’d like to see this is colours.



Zoom in on this map - Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard


----------



## Roadkill (Nov 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is a serious question.
> 
> Has there _ever_ been a worse PM? How did we end up here?



I can't think of one.  There've been some forgettable and short-lived Prime Ministers (e.g. Douglas-Home, Canning), some incompetent ones (Goderich, perhaps Bute) and some scoundrels (Walpole, for a start), but I can't think of another one who's combined incompetence and dishonesty in the way Johnson does.


----------



## maomao (Nov 17, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I can't think of one.  There've been some forgettable and short-lived Prime Ministers (e.g. Douglas-Home, Canning), some incompetent ones (Goderich, perhaps Bute) and some scoundrels (Walpole, for a start), but I can't think of another one who's combined incompetence and dishonesty in the way Johnson does.


The nearest competition comes from the last two.


----------



## AverageJoe (Nov 17, 2020)

5t3IIa said:


> Could I have a link for this please? Thanks. Using the link Roadkill posted a page back my area (Kirklees = Huddersfield & Dewsbury) has _three times_ the cases of the adjacent area (Calderdale = Halifax) i.e. 95 v 31 😐 I’d like to see this is colours.



Of course. Here you go 









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 17, 2020)

Petcha said:


> This is a serious question.
> 
> Has there _ever_ been a worse PM? How did we end up here?



Eden was stacked up on Meth and nearly caused the third world war but he'd probably have encouraged people to wash hands a bit better


----------



## flypanam (Nov 17, 2020)

maomao said:


> The nearest competition comes from the last two.


And Brown.


----------



## Boudicca (Nov 17, 2020)

Looby said:


> You reminded me to check ours. 455 today, fucking hell. 😞 I don’t have the headspace to try and work out if this is caused by a big lag or we’ve had some superspreader events. I think we were around 200 per day last week.


It's the bloody students - central Bournemouth, East Cliff and Winton. 

(It probably isn't, I'm just being a grumpy old woman)


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 17, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> It's the bloody students - central Bournemouth, East Cliff and Winton.
> 
> (It probably isn't, I'm just being a grumpy old woman)



It very likely remains a big part of the problem.  From speaking with a couple of students it does seem that there is some fairly large scale testing going on with that particularly group and we know the more you look the more you find.


----------



## elbows (Nov 17, 2020)

Well the wider Bournemouth area (eg including Poole hospital) had a hospital outbreak problem a while back, and such things are both an indicator of wider community transmission and also something that can feed back into the community, causing a cycle of infections that very much includes vulnerable groups.

In terms of testing numbers, looking at Bournemouth local news has revealed a big change to national case reporting, probably to try to undo the distortions that were caused by students testing positive often being added to the local totals for their home address rather than their term-time address. So what I found applies to the whole of England, not just a local Bournemouth issue:









						Why BCP's coronavirus figures were so high on November 16
					

PUBLIC Health England has updated the way it records the location of people tested for Covid-19.




					www.bournemouthecho.co.uk
				






> A statement on the government website said: “Cases are allocated to the person's area of residence. From 16 November 2020, PHE has updated the way it records the location of people who test positive or negative for COVID-19.
> 
> “It now prioritises addresses given at the point of testing over the details registered on a patient’s NHS Summary Care Record. This better reflects the distribution of cases and testing.





> It continued: “However, it may give rise to differences in previously reported numbers of cases and rates in some areas. The change has been retrospectively applied to tests carried out from 1 September 2020, and data in the dashboard was updated to reflect this change on 16 November 2020.
> 
> “Due to reallocation of cases in this way, the number of cases reported by local authority may be artificially high or low on 16 November 2020.”



This has been a known issue for some time and the press could have turned it into another story of a pandemic data disaster if they had wanted to. But for whatever reason they didnt really run with the story in that direction, lets see if its noticed now that PHE have fixed the issue.

With or without that change, I do not recommend people build a sense of risk in their local area thats based only on positive test numbers. Its not a complete picture, access to testing varies by location, and certain groups are more likely to be tested than others.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> As you can see, there's three council areas in both East Sussex & West Sussex doing OKish, separated by B&H City, but also with problem areas surrounding us in all directions.
> 
> View attachment 239184
> 
> That's a bit of luck, that could easily run out, so solidarity with those areas, we are all in this together.



The Zoe map doesn't really agree with this - the coastal areas showing somewhat higher rates than the inland ones.

I think this gov.uk map is liable to be misleading, because it gives the appearance of accurate and specific data but as far as I can make out it's going to be heavily influenced by the level of testing in each place.

It doesn't even try to show the results as a rate per tests done, as far as I can understand.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 17, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The Zoe map doesn't really agree with this - the coastal areas showing somewhat higher rates than the inland ones.
> 
> I think this gov.uk map is liable to be misleading, because it gives the appearance of accurate and specific data but as far as I can make out it's going to be heavily influenced by the level of testing in each place.
> 
> It doesn't even try to show the results as a rate per tests done, as far as I can understand.



Well hospital admissions & deaths are a lot lower in the coastal area of West Sussex than the north of the county, so I'll take what Zoe reports with a pinch of salt.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 17, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> It's the bloody students - central Bournemouth, East Cliff and Winton.
> 
> (It probably isn't, I'm just being a grumpy old woman)



No, you're not.

I watched the absolute tsunami of cases on the banks of the Tyne & Wear around the start of term.
That was mostly caused by the case rate in the students, and very much mainly in Freshers.
As I suspected, it got off campus and into the general population, at least partly because many students live in the community (shared houses in ordinary streets) and they relax (drink), shop and travel among the general public.
I'm still horrified by the case rate in those zones and the areas surrounding them, and especially the deaths.

[I've not been to Tyneside since March ... and I'm not going until I've been vaccinated, apart from one masked, gloved and socially distanced business meeting in mid-August]


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 17, 2020)

Thoroughly pissed off that UK deaths per million population is now worse than USA


----------



## Badgers (Nov 17, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Thoroughly pissed off that UK deaths per million population is now worse than USA


but unsuprised


----------



## elbows (Nov 17, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> As I suspected, it got off campus and into the general population, at least partly because many students live in the community (shared houses in ordinary streets) and they relax (drink), shop and travel among the general public.
> I'm still horrified by the case rate in those zones and the areas surrounding them, and especially the deaths.



It is absolutely not safe or fair to assume that the wider community transmission was driven by University students. Students may just have demonstrated an intense and more easily detected version of what was happening in other sections of society at the same time.

People noticed a rise in cases in August, well before schools went back, let alone universities. By the start of September the testing system was under strain due to demand, and it became clear that a 2nd wave was emerging. And if we are going to talk about students as a big factor, its wrong to focus on university students alone when schools are clearly also a factor. And summer holidays. And restaurants and pubs, with eat out to help out heavily implicated. And workplaces, and a failure to offer regular testing of care home and hospital staff in a comprehensive way that would have reduced the feedback loops between infections in those settings and those in the broader community.


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 17, 2020)

Badgers said:


> but unsuprised


Yeah I suppose

My ancient father says its the worst government he's ever seen


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 17, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Thoroughly pissed off that UK deaths per million population is now worse than USA



TBF, it was until some point in the summer when they over took us by a bit, I suspect they will again over the coming weeks.


----------



## elbows (Nov 17, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> The least he could do is appear halfway sorry that 51,000 people are dead rather than going on about butcher's dogs ffs.



It pains me to see those that are unhappy with the government pandemic response still using the lowest government figure for deaths. Just because thats the number the media go on about every day doesnt mean we have to go along with it. Once a week, on a Tuesday when ONS data comes out, we do get BBC graphics showing the different levels of death by different measures.



from 10:30 entry on their live updated page. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54971208


----------



## Badgers (Nov 17, 2020)

Chilli.s said:


> Yeah I suppose
> 
> My ancient father says its the worst government he's ever seen


As does my eldery pop


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> It pains me to see those that are unhappy with the government pandemic response still using the lowest government figure for deaths. Just because thats the number the media go on about every day doesnt mean we have to go along with it. Once a week, on a Tuesday when ONS data comes out, we do get BBC graphics showing the different levels of death by different measures.
> 
> View attachment 239240
> 
> from 10:30 entry on their live updated page. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54971208



If the population is 67 million that would mean over 1 in 1000 people have died from COVID-19 ffs.


----------



## elbows (Nov 17, 2020)

I should also say that although I disllike using the dashboard daily deaths figure to calculate overall totals, it actually does a much better job of capturing the Covid-19 deaths than the official government daily number did in the first months. Thats in great part due to the fact that initially that system was mostly only reporting hospital deaths. These days its doing a good job of producing daily numbers that are similar to the ones that come out from the ONS, which also makes me wonder if Covid-19 is being mentioned less on death certificates than it was, since thats the measure the ONS use. And the other ONS measure, excess deaths, is probably failing to capture the full picture at the moment because my understanding is that non-Covid deaths are still down compared to 5 year averages, so when considering the 70,000+ excess deaths we have to keep in mind that this has happened despite less deaths than normal from a range of other caouses during the pandemic/lockdowns etc.

For example if I use a September 1st starting point for counting 2nd wave deaths, I get:

10,595 using dashboard UK daily deaths by date of death.
7,873 using ONS/NISRA/NRS deaths by date of death and Covid-19 mentioned on death certificate.
Hard for me to give an exact excess mortality figure for that period, but somewhere around 5,000.

The latter 2 measures have more lag than the dashboard but that doesnt come close to accounting for all the difference.


----------



## LDC (Nov 17, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> If the population is 67 million that would mean over 1 in 1000 people have died from COVID-19 ffs.



Yeah, and that's an average, and if you break that into age groups it's even worse. Like in the younger age groups it's very, very low, and obviously in the older ones it's shockingly high.


----------



## prunus (Nov 17, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> If the population is 67 million that would mean over 1 in 1000 people have died from COVID-19 ffs.



That stacks up yes; about 1 in 10 people have had it, about 1% death rate, therefore about 0.1% of the whole population have died of it (all figures approximate but they’re the right orders of magnitude).


----------



## editor (Nov 17, 2020)

prunus said:


> That stacks up yes; about 1 in 10 people have had it, about 1% death rate, therefore about 0.1% of the whole population have died of it (all figures approximate but they’re the right orders of magnitude).


Strange how a 0.1% death rate sounds a lot less scary than one in a thousand. Or is that just me?


----------



## two sheds (Nov 17, 2020)

The anti-vax or-herd immunity twat and his mates on another board keep going on about <0.1% death rate (rather than 60,000 and of course that's exaggerated because they include people who are labelled coronavirus even if they're run down by a bus) and how that's quite acceptable and how it's mainly old people with an existing condition who would probably have died soon anyway.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The anti-vax or-herd immunity twat and his mates on another board keep going on about <0.1% death rate (rather than 60,000 and of course that's exaggerated because they include people who are labelled coronavirus even if they're run down by a bus) and how that's quite acceptable and how it's mainly old people with an existing condition who would probably have died soon anyway.


I've spoken to a few people around here with very much the same viewpoint. It's depressing


----------



## two sheds (Nov 17, 2020)

He also bangs on about drugs/vaccine companies being in it for the profit and how corrupt they are which I can only really by starting off with "I have no great like of drugs companies but what you're talking about now is a huge conspiracy between doctors, nurses, researchers, virologists ..."


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 17, 2020)

Someone my OH knows about (so hearsay on hearsay !) is a covid-denier.
Or at least they were - having had a nearly fatal bout in their local ICU, they've now changed tunes and are quite fervent supporters of lock-down etc.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> The anti-vax or-herd immunity twat and his mates on another board keep going on about <0.1% death rate (rather than 60,000 and of course that's exaggerated because they include people who are labelled coronavirus even if they're run down by a bus) and how that's quite acceptable and how it's mainly old people with an existing condition who would probably have died soon anyway.


And it's not really about the death rates, it's about NHS capacity. I think people understand that it's not an unbearable tragedy in itself if a person over 80 dies (but that they should have to do so alone and in distress is another matter) - it's that we don't want to break the NHS..


----------



## IC3D (Nov 17, 2020)

It's about double the deaths of a very bad flu year (30,000) but still counting.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 17, 2020)

I always thought the £10k fines wouldn't work, and they are not.



> Police chiefs have suspended the on-the-spot £10,000 Covid fines amid fears of challenges over the lack of means testing.
> 
> The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said forces would no longer be handing out £10,000 fixed notice penalties because of concerns over “inequalities” as those choosing to go to court could pay less.
> 
> ...


----------



## two sheds (Nov 17, 2020)

Cloo said:


> And it's not really about the death rates, it's about NHS capacity. I think people understand that it's not an unbearable tragedy in itself if a person over 80 dies (but that they should have to do so alone and in distress is another matter) - it's that we don't want to break the NHS..



Can be a bit of an unbearable tragedy if she's your nan and would have lived for another ten years or so. But yes NHS loading and stress on doctors and nurses is key. Twat is however saying there's only 14,000 coronavirus patients so loads of spare beds in NHS, with others piping up that their cousin works in NHS and they've go no patients there at all.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 17, 2020)

IC3D said:


> It's about double the deaths of a very bad flu year (30,000) but still counting.


The relevant comparison is not with the number who've died of Covid but the number who would have died without disruptive restrictions on society - because that's what the deniers are advocating.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Can be a bit of an unbearable tragedy if she's your nan and would have lived for another ten years or so. But yes NHS loading and stress on doctors and nurses is key. Twat is however saying there's only 14,000 coronavirus patients so loads of spare beds in NHS, *with others piping up that their cousin works in NHS and they've go no patients there at all.*


my bold ...
my reply. That's Bolloocks !
That might be because that particular hospital is deliberately being kept clear of Covid. Certainly, during the first wave, that was the case in the large conurbation near me. Out of the three or four big hospitals, one at least was kept clear ... (  + that's depending on how you define the area, as one is the general surgical hospital for the surrounding area)


----------



## two sheds (Nov 17, 2020)

I know  I said that I'd seen statements from people in the NHS saying they're overwhelmed and exhausted from the last months work (taken from posts on here), and that was the response.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 17, 2020)

further info on the cases moved by PHE to better reflect location ...

Covid: Thousands of cases relocated in England in data change - BBC News 


Principally, this has been re-allocating cases in the students population away from their home address
[not all students will have had the opportunity to register with a GP for their term time address]


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 17, 2020)

IC3D said:


> It's about double the deaths of a very bad flu year (30,000) but still counting.



And don't forget we've been in lockdown for months.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> (rather than 60,000 and of course that's exaggerated because they include people who are labelled coronavirus even if they're run down by a bus) .



Is there any evidence that this has actually happened? How many hundreds of bus accidents are taking place every day lmao, you'd think that they'd have done something about it by now. Maybe some sort of lockdown?


----------



## two sheds (Nov 17, 2020)

I know - the count was changed from died within 60 days to died within 28 days in August as I recall anyway and a graph elbows (again as I recall) pointed to showed there was bugger all difference between the two figures). Doesn't stop them though  

And the idea that a doctor is going to attend to someone who's died because they've been knocked down by a bus and see they've been knocked down by a bus but write 'coronavirus' on the death certificate is fucking loon


----------



## sheothebudworths (Nov 17, 2020)

See it's already been explained but was just coming to report back on that weird case bump. From the dashboard -

*Cases are allocated to the person's area of residence. From 16 November 2020, PHE has updated the way it records the location of people who test positive or negative for COVID-19. It now prioritises addresses given at the point of testing over the details registered on a patient’s NHS Summary Care Record. This better reflects the distribution of cases and testing. However, it may give rise to differences in previously reported numbers of cases and rates in some areas. The change has been retrospectively applied to tests carried out from 1 September 2020, and data in the dashboard was updated to reflect this change on 16 November 2020. Due to reallocation of cases in this way, the number of cases reported by local authority may be artificially high or low on 16 November 2020.*

- and yes, student populations would defo account for a great majority of those, so uni areas all having increases (and equivalent reductions in their home areas, which will obvs be much less dramatic).

This is a bit of the Brighton and Hove updated figures (originally reported figures on the left, yesterday's updated figures on the right) -


07/10/2020​34​35​08/10/2020​43​46​09/10/2020​44​58​10/10/2020​31​36​11/10/2020​19​22​12/10/2020​39​44​13/10/2020​46​58​14/10/2020​44​54​15/10/2020​30​30​16/10/2020​36​49​17/10/2020​40​39​18/10/2020​37​48​19/10/2020​68​83​20/10/2020​85​96​21/10/2020​76​94​22/10/2020​72​79​23/10/2020​67​80​24/10/2020​54​59​25/10/2020​48​53​26/10/2020​95​96​27/10/2020​72​77​28/10/2020​55​62​29/10/2020​59​66​30/10/2020​35​37​31/10/2020​40​38​01/11/2020​27​29​02/11/2020​68​67​03/11/2020​80​77​04/11/2020​64​57​05/11/2020​51​51​06/11/2020​60​56​07/11/2020​67​70​08/11/2020​62​73​09/11/2020​98​100​10/11/2020​76​78​11/11/2020​88​85​12/11/2020​45​54​13/11/2020​54​57​14/11/2020​39​36​15/11/2020​2​2​


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 17, 2020)

Just quote this back to them, as it's actually more sensible than that load of bollocks.



> Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child.
> 
> She must be found and stopped.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I know - the count was changed from died within 60 days to died within 28 days in August as I recall anyway and a graph elbows (again as I recall) pointed to showed there was bugger all difference between the two figures). Doesn't stop them though
> 
> And the idea that a doctor is going to attend to someone who's died because they've been knocked down by a bus and see they've been knocked down by a bus but write 'coronavirus' on the death certificate is fucking loon



'Died of covid not with covid'


----------



## elbows (Nov 17, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I know - the count was changed from died within 60 days to died within 28 days in August as I recall anyway and a graph elbows (again as I recall) pointed to showed there was bugger all difference between the two figures). Doesn't stop them though



There was a difference when they wanted, during the summer, which added up to thousands over time. But as expected the difference is more negligible during this phase of the second wave.



from https://assets.publishing.service.g...-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W46.pdf


----------



## two sheds (Nov 17, 2020)

ta, that was the one


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just quote this back to them, as it's actually more sensible than that load of bollocks.


the earth is flat you globalist


----------



## DaveCinzano (Nov 18, 2020)

DaveCinzano said:


> Motherboard/Vice suggests it was the work of “an anonymous white supremacist group called the Hundred-Handers, which was recently active in the UK”.



Recently had an advisory at work from Counter Terrorism Policing (usual quality, caveats apply, etc) mentioning them:


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 18, 2020)

xenon said:


> I checked Bristol earlier and fear we might end up as L2 or L3 if restrictions are lifted on 2nd Dec. Was 429 /100K. A big increase on the last time I looked a couple of weeks ago.
> 
> Edited. Is 429.


Whatever we end up as officially....I predict the youth in the city partying MASSIVELY  for nye.


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 18, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Can be a bit of an unbearable tragedy if she's your nan and would have lived for another ten years or so. But yes NHS loading and stress on doctors and nurses is key. Twat is however saying there's only 14,000 coronavirus patients so loads of spare beds in NHS, with others piping up that their cousin works in NHS and they've go no patients there at all.


Omg .....well tell your mate that for the last four weeks in my hospital lots of surgery has had to be cancelled (including) really big operations because 1) There are not enough beds in ITU where very poorly people go post op.  2) There have not been enough beds and aside from emergency surgery we have mostly been only able to accommodate day case surgery.

My post op recovery department turns into a short stay ward...for people who need a next day review, before discharge or live on their own and have no one to care for them at home. Normally we 8 at the most....last night it was 18. This poses massive problems with the shortage of staff (so many of sick right now) and completely impacts the quality of care given.

I know you know this sheds.....


----------



## elbows (Nov 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This doesn't come as any surprise to me, does it to anyone else on here?



In addition to the lack of surprise with that one (which was stricter tier measures once the national thing ends on December 2nd) here is another thoroughly unsurprising possibility they are considering:









						Covid-19: Family Christmas get-togethers being considered
					

Rules could be relaxed for a few days, with people urged to travel by car and not hold big gatherings.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> BBC health correspondent Nick Triggle said any rule change would be for a limited time, maybe just a few days.
> 
> Cabinet minister Alok Sharma said it was too early for "conclusions" but he wanted to see his family for Christmas.





> Our correspondent said any final decisions would not be made for a few weeks while health chiefs wait to see whether cases have started to come down during the lockdown in England.
> 
> But, he said, the advice was likely to urge families not to hold big gatherings and to travel by car, rather than public transport.



It is likely I will knock out a few graphs later showing where we are at with he hospital situation in England. I will try to cover Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland in that regard at some point soon too. Todays data will not offer us conclusions about the future trajectory and I cannot say when that moment will be reached, but I certainly hope to be able to say some things with more confidence at some point in the next 10 days.


----------



## elbows (Nov 18, 2020)

Daily hospital admissions/diagnoses situation in England by region. Hopefully some things hinted at by this graph continue, get even better, while others reverse. Still a bit early for me to attach bold claims to recent trends seen in any of the region, but clearly its now been quite some time since the rate in the North West went up in a sustained way, and it is fluctuating around slightly below its last peak.

Main graph is with values smoothed out using 7 day rolling averages, but I've also put the raw daily version in spoilers.




Spoiler







Graphs made using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> In addition to the lack of surprise with that one (which was stricter tier measures once the national thing ends on December 2nd) here is another thoroughly unsurprising possibility they are considering:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They will 100% do a "Tories save Christmas" thing - I called that a while ago and there's no way they'll resist it. It's just a question of whether it's simply a bad idea or a really fucking terrible no-no-no idea.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 18, 2020)

I'm predicting that it'll be a free-for-all shindig from mid-December to maybe first week in January.
At that point the case rate will explode upwards, because no-one was taking precautions because "christmas" & booze / parties ...
Sure as the sun rises in the east, hospital admissions will do the same a couple or three weeks later and deaths after another couple of weeks.

Vaccinations will be too late to prevent this ... mainly because they'll not have had time to get far enough down the priority lists.

I hope I'm wrong, and that enough vaccinations do happen to make a difference.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 18, 2020)

In China people are clubbing and having pool parties. They were in July.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 18, 2020)

Have had older friends and family switch from hating/resenting lockdown to opting for no family over Christmas due to deaths rising and seeing selfish peoples actions (not mutually exclusive). Especially as there are a lot of relatives who are key workers and/or have kids. 

Equally lots of people I know are saying 'it will be okay just the 4/5/6 of us without thinking of how many contacts people and/or their kids bring into their homes.

Some people want or feel they need Christmas but it is going to cause (another) a fucking mess.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 18, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> In China people are clubbing and having pool parties. They were in July.


They had strict isolation, quarantine and lockdown rules at airports and internally. They might well be hiding numbers  and did fuck up at first but the few people I know there are calm and confident.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 18, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They will 100% do a "Tories save Christmas" thing - I called that a while ago and there's no way they'll resist it. It's just a question of whether it's simply a bad idea or a really fucking terrible no-no-no idea.


*December* 
You plebs can have a few days off to enjoy Christmas as a Tory Treat #voteus. 

*January*
The public took the piss and let us all down. Especially the poor and the foreigners. More lockdown and misery for you all. Don't get me started on 'adequate food'  because you don't deserve it plebs.


----------



## prunus (Nov 18, 2020)

There’s an element of the prisoners dilemma on a societal scale in this - if we all hang together (and all forgo contact at Christmas) we all benefit by an earlier overall release from restrictions - however, individuals can cheat the system - and have the benefit of a family Christmas while still benefitting from others’ forbearance - provided not too many too; however if too many do, then everyone will get punished by no early release, and the only people who do get a benefit are the people who broke the rules and had a family Christmas.  So what do you do...?


----------



## Badgers (Nov 18, 2020)

prunus said:


> prisoners dilemma





prunus said:


> So what do you do...?


Smear shit all over the walls and throw handfuls of semen at the guards?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 18, 2020)

Patients in UK hospitals now stand at 16,271, not that far behind the peak back in April when it was around 19.5k.


----------



## prunus (Nov 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Smear shit all over the walls and throw handfuls of semen at the guards?



I didn’t know you’d been to one of our family Christmases?


----------



## magneze (Nov 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Smear shit all over the walls and throw handfuls of semen at the guards?


It's what Jesus did. Probably.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Smear shit all over the walls and throw handfuls of semen at the guards?


A normal family Christmas for you?


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 18, 2020)

I thought cases were starting to decline now?


----------



## bimble (Nov 18, 2020)

Sorry not caught up with thread but this Boris Saves Christmas crap was obvious from around september, we will allow you to eat turkey for jesus with your nan but then you'll all have to pay for it, is just a load of bollocks, i think they the government know perfectly well now that compliance has broken down so far that people will do whatever they want on that day regardless of what is decreed and they are just trying to minimise the damage to themselves not to anyone else.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 18, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought cases were starting to decline now?


It is regional ups and downs which are bad/good. 

Some parts of the country are slowing down or decreasing. Other are static or rising.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 18, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought cases were starting to decline now?



Nope, cases are still going up a bit, but that could be down to more testing.

The rate of increase certainly seems to have started to level out.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 18, 2020)

This ladies Twitter is very good at diving into some of the problems in libraries and zero hours right now.



Spoiler


----------



## teuchter (Nov 18, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought cases were starting to decline now?


If you believe the Zoe project numbers they are and have been for ten days or so.


----------



## elbows (Nov 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Patients in UK hospitals now stand at 16,271, not that far behind the peak back in April when it was around 19.5k.



Yes unfortunately so. Here is the regional and nations picture of number of covid-19 patients in hospital, using government dashboard data.



The jump down in Scotlands numbers in September was due to a change in what the data was covering (forgot details, might be that they were previously counting suspected cases).

And this is what the combined regional numbers in England do, getting closer to levels of the first peak even without such a large contribution from London so far this time around.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 18, 2020)

Oh Christ, even worse than I thought about Christmas. The genie's out of the bottle now. Cannot believe how scared this government is of upsetting the the Daily Mail and the Sun. It's not up to them to 'Save Christmas', it can't be saved this year, it needs putting in fucking quarantine like everything else.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 18, 2020)

There's a very large contribution from the North East and Yorkshire - but as with the county of Northumberland - they are covering a very large and disparate area.


----------



## quimcunx (Nov 18, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Oh Christ, even worse than I thought about Christmas. The genie's out of the bottle now. Cannot believe how scared this government is of upsetting the the Daily Mail and the Sun. It's not up to them to 'Save Christmas', it can't be saved this year, it needs putting in fucking quarentine like everything else.



While I totally take your point and that other religious celebrations have had to be curtailed by lockdown, because we are traditionally a Christian society a large % of people of all religions have 'free' time off work at christmas and use the time to visit family. 

Christmas probably should be cancelled and we should all know whose fault it is.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 18, 2020)

I've worked on Christmas and/or Christmas Eve for the last few years. A lot of the time people find it hard getting time off for other religious holidays at the best of times, get pressured to work Saturday or other days etc. So they do end up seeing family on Christmas, one reason being it might not be possible on other occasions. I totally get why cloo is pissed off, I am too frankly. Everyone else has had to give up their religious holidays and I probably should have more sympathy than I do.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 18, 2020)

It’s impetus, it’s deeply ingrained that Christmas is time off and time to see the family, exacerbated by captialism really selling us the myth of Christmas.


I can understand why people aren’t going to behave during it but it is very frustrating that the inevitable disaster is going to happen with people rushing around.


I haven’t seen my family since last November or my work colleagues in person since March. It’s been a very long year. Just fucking deal with one low key Christmas and save it till next year people.


----------



## thismoment (Nov 18, 2020)

it’ll make it harder for people that had already decided to remain in their current households/bubbles for Christmas when their family puts pressure on them by saying stuff like “but it’s ok for us all to spend Christmas together, it’s not breaking any rules”


----------



## spitfire (Nov 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> They had strict isolation, quarantine and lockdown rules at airports and internally. They might well be hiding numbers  and did fuck up at first but the few people I know there are calm and confident.



My friend and his family moved to Shanghai a few weeks ago. 2 weeks in a hotel strict quarantine and he is now living a normal life from what I see on his social.

Also Taiwan had a massive festival last week. I can't get the video to share which is probably just as well as the music is terrible EDM.

God knows how draconian it was and who knows what happened that we never heard about but it seems to have worked.


----------



## xenon (Nov 18, 2020)

prunus said:


> I didn’t know you’d been to one of our family Christmases?



there aren’t many laughs on this thread but I did a proper LOL at that.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 18, 2020)

Sorry quimcunx I didn't mean to have a go, I'm feeling a bit fed up this evening ,  it can be really difficult to get time off school/work for other dates for other religions tho which is one big reason why some people spend the time then as opposed to other times. I am luckily in a position where I can take those days off and usually volunteer to work on Christmas at least a few hours tbh, I don't mind and there's usually fewer distractions as less people are online.


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 18, 2020)

Apologies for facetiousness here, but ...

*'They'*** can abolish Xmas as much as they fucking want 

**'*They'*? Wot? Those Muslimiacs?    

And if 'they' _did_ 'stop 'hard-working families' enjoying their 'Family Xmas' , , I'd agree with all and any Covid-safety-related reasons cited   

*BUT!!*

If they abolish, or even 'ban'  , any *Time-Off-(Mas* *)* over Xmas, then there'll be trouble ahead ....


----------



## Badgers (Nov 18, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> If they abolish, or even 'ban' , any *Time Off-(Mas*  ) over Xmas, then there'll be trouble ahead ....


Why would they WoW?


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 18, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Why would they WoW?



Because the Sun  arnd Mail 'could well'  threaten that *PC Gorn Boring* 'will' undermine your family lie-in , and would publicise that for 'reasons' of their own 

(I *was* taking the piss big-style, FFS  -- still am  )


----------



## Badgers (Nov 18, 2020)

I am lost


----------



## mx wcfc (Nov 18, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Apologies for facetiousness here, but ...
> 
> *'They'*** can abolish Xmas as much as they fucking want
> 
> ...


I think I'm with you here. Not sure, as I'm fairly pissed.  

The prospect of not being able to see family over xmas is positively appealing.  

My reading of the various output at the moment is that they are gearing up to an announcement that the pubs will stay shut and there will be no non-league football, etc in order to enable "family christmas" to happen.  Bastards.  

(sorry, christmas in my family is fairly grim historically)


----------



## panpete (Nov 18, 2020)

As there are more dysfunctional families than we can shake a stick at, or that these families themselves will admit and insist on drunken argy-bargy xmases year in year out, maybe many will be glad of COVID in this sense in a sick kind of way, no feeling forced to spend time with people we dont want to.


----------



## mx wcfc (Nov 18, 2020)

panpete said:


> no feeling forced to spend time with people we dont want to.


Absolutely this.  I wasn't looking for sad responses to my post.  I don't like my wider family.  They don't like me.  An excuse not to have to spend time with each other is a big plus for all involved.


----------



## panpete (Nov 19, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> Absolutely this.  I wasn't looking for sad responses to my post.  I don't like my wider family.  They don't like me.  An excuse not to have to spend time with each other is a big plus for all involved.


Sorry you are one of the ones who have the misfortune to have a dysfunctional family.
I used to think I hated Christmas when in reality I later realised I hated spending time with so many people.
I once told my mum it was overwhelming and she rolled her eyes, I'm aspie though so now I know it was overwhelming.
I remember drawing a circle with six little circles inside of the circle, this represented my family, I drew a small circle outside of the large circle containing the six small circles, that little circle was me. Sorry for derail. Back to COVID the imposed mass OCD of 2020.


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 19, 2020)

Slightly less facetiously now -- neither festivaldeb nor I ever have any family commitments over any Xmas ....

Deb was adopted, and she now has no relatives bar one or two pretty elderly adopting-family's cousins in the IoW -- rarely seen.

The 'Walworth family'  generally don't meet up until well into the NY -- the last time we met up _between_ Xmas and NY, it was OK, but after that, we all decided ... for reasons   ... to revert to meeting up the following Jan or Feb  ....

There's talk in 2021 of an Edinburgh gathering for our lot,  because my nephew has a new (and well-paid) job with flat up there now and he's invited us  .... but if that happens before late-Feb, I'd be beyond surprised.

Hence importance for us of *Happy Lie-In-Mas* over the actual Xmas week


----------



## Mation (Nov 19, 2020)

Just how desperate are people to have Christmas saved, out there in the world? Is that actually what the public wants, overall, or is it just the papers?


----------



## maomao (Nov 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> Just how desperate are people to have Christmas saved, out there in the world? Is that actually what the public wants, overall, or is it just the papers?


I think a lot of people want to be with their families at Christmas, especially this year when they've seen little of them. But there's going to be a big variation in what people mean by a 'normal' Christmas. Does it mean a famliy get-together for the 25th/26th or two weeks of family visits and drinks with old friends?


----------



## Mation (Nov 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> I think a lot of people want to be with their families at Christmas, especially this year when they've seen little of them. But there's going to be a big variation in what people mean by a 'normal' Christmas. Does it mean a famliy get-together for the 25th/26th or two weeks of family visits and drinks with old friends?


Ok, I did say want when really I meant how many will actually do it. Anyone rabidly anti-lockdown is going to do what they want anyway, assuming they have anyone to do it with, but what about everyone else? Are some people who generally support public health measures really thinking that even a two-day family get-together is worth the risk?


----------



## maomao (Nov 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> Ok, I did say want when really I meant how many will actually do it. Anyone rabidly anti-lockdown is going to do what they want anyway, assuming they have anyone to do it with, but what about everyone else? Are some people who generally support public health measures really thinking that even a two-day family get-together is worth the risk?


Yes. My kids have only seen their cousins once all year, miss them a lot, and we stayed home at half term when we had arranged to meet. Not decided yet but lack of contact with friends (and her favourite cousin) is taking a definite toll on my daughter's mental health (she was back at school for a couple of months but is home again now). We will in part be taking our cues from public health policy though.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> Just how desperate are people to have Christmas saved, out there in the world? Is that actually what the public wants, overall, or is it just the papers?


I wondered that because I found it difficult to conceive that people were that desperate.  But then I made a facetious comment to someone based on the idea that nobody is that bothered _really_ and I got back some serious shock and reproachment.


----------



## maomao (Nov 19, 2020)

Also my mother is very sad she can't come. She's 78, lives a 400 mile train journey away and every year could be (though hopefully isn't) her last visit. I'm very busy this year and am glad of the peace and quiet but I'd be a horrible person not to acknowledge that it's very sad for her and her grandchildren (not just our two) that love her.


----------



## quimcunx (Nov 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> Ok, I did say want when really I meant how many will actually do it. Anyone rabidly anti-lockdown is going to do what they want anyway, assuming they have anyone to do it with, but what about everyone else? Are some people who generally support public health measures really thinking that even a two-day family get-together is worth the risk?



Personally I'm undecided. Either go up for longer and wfh there a bit to provide a bit of support for elderly parents. I can travel with fairly minimal contact. And my family this year would split the day into 2 pairs of households one of which is already a bubble. Maybe they'll meet briefly in someone's garden. Or I won't bother at all which I'm ok with re missing the actual day.

But if I do that january will be out because there will be a post christmas surge and regardless of christmas relocating there for a little while to support my parents (and make sure I see them in case they dont survive winter!) is something that's been on my mind.


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## Mation (Nov 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Yes. My kids have only seen their cousins once all year, miss them a lot, and we stayed home at half term when we had arranged to meet. Not decided yet but lack of contact with friends (and her favourite cousin) is taking a definite toll on my daughter's mental health (she was back at school for a couple of months but is home again now). We will in part be taking our cues from public health policy though.


But you're not going to get any genuine public health policy that says it's ok at this stage of the pandemic. You might get _permission, _but that's not the same thing.

This is taking its toll on everyone's mental health, though granted some even more severely than others. This year is shit. It's fucking miserable, but that's just how it is right now.

Is it that you think the risk within your own family will be small, or that you think the risk* is worth it? (Sorry if this is a bit unfair in making it all about you; I just don't understand the balance of the scales and want to know what anyone in similar position is thinking.)

*E2a: not just the personal/family risk, but also the risk of overwhelming the NHS, many deaths, long covid played out all across the country. I just can't get my head round it.


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## maomao (Nov 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> Is it that you think the risk within your own family will be small, or that you think the risk is worth it?



Five out of eight of us are in schools or nurseries almost every day (excepting lockdowns) anyway so we don't think we're adding a significant transmission risk, none of us are in high risk groups for serious consequences and several of us have probably had it already (which I know doesn't guarantee immunity).

And there's a difference between accepting hardship as adults and expecting four small children under the age of ten to do the same.


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## Mation (Nov 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Five out of eight of us are in schools or nurseries almost every day (excepting lockdowns) anyway so we don't think we're adding a significant transmission risk, none of us are in high risk groups for serious consequences and several of us have probably had it already (which I know doesn't guarantee immunity).
> 
> And there's a difference between accepting hardship as adults and expecting four small children under the age of ten to do the same.


Ok. I can understand that. Still running low on sympathy, though. Small children all around the world have to endure all sorts of hardship and it just seems really whiny and bratty (the adults, not the kids) to say we - _our _family - can't possibly have one year where we miss Christmas.


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## Steel Icarus (Nov 19, 2020)

I won't be disappointed if my in-laws aren't round on Christmas Day. I'd rather they were but greater good, etc


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## maomao (Nov 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> Ok. I can understand that. Still running low on sympathy, though. Small children all around the world have to endure all sorts of hardship and it just seems really whiny and bratty (the adults, not the kids) to say we - _our _family - can't possibly have one year where we miss Christmas.


Luckily I haven't said anything of the sort. 

It also seems convenient in terms of halting any possible transmission to do it between Christmas and New Year as we won't be going anywhere else for two weeks and it gives a week's buffer either side.


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## kabbes (Nov 19, 2020)

It seems to me that whilst there is some prisoner’s dilemma playing out, it is more a case of tragedy of the commons.  Everybody rightly identifies that their family is unlikely to make much difference at an individual level and they also rightly identify that they can’t control what everybody else is doing and that society is placing them in harm’s way anyway.  So they figure, what the hell.


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## Mation (Nov 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Luckily I haven't said anything of the sort.
> 
> It also seems convenient in terms of halting any possible transmission to do it between Christmas and New Year as we won't be going anywhere else for two weeks and it gives a week's buffer either side.


You haven't said it in those specific words. It would be in your actions.

And all around the country, if people are telling themselves the same thing, we will continue to be fucked.


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## kebabking (Nov 19, 2020)

As someone who isn't fussed about Christmas normally I'm surprised by how much I'm investing in the idea of at least _some _contact with my parents - not getting hammered for two weeks and licking my neighbours door handles - but just going to theirs for lunch, kids playing Lego (my Lego, mainly space Lego, from when I was a kid..) with my dad...

It's not a religious thing, it's just something nice that seemed not unreasonable to look forward to after unending months of shit.


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## wtfftw (Nov 19, 2020)

It's supposed to be Chemistry's family Christmas this year and we've been working on the assumption that we can't - would be travel to wolves on a train and three households totalling 7 people. One nurse, one secondary school teacher, one nursery snotbag. 2 of us have had covid in September.

I would still think cross country on a train is out tbh. But I might think differently if we drove and if they were fine with it.



Really what I want is a firm instruction to stay home and not mix. 

My family have been trying to work out how to do Christmas within the rules. I've been saying we should just do it later. But my dad is pretty cautious. The cousins are in their uncles support bubble. It would be my child that misses out except she's 3 so I'm literally just prepping her that there won't be snow.


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## wtfftw (Nov 19, 2020)

Tl;Dr example of what kabbes said


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## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

People will do what they're allowed to do, and you can't really blame them for doing it tbh. If we continue to be fucked because of it, then the government who relaxed the measures will be responsible, not the people who - understandably - take the relaxing of measures to be the green light.


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## Mation (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> People will do what they're allowed to do, and you can't really blame them for doing it tbh. If we continue to be fucked because of it, then the government who relaxed the measures will be responsible, not the people who - understandably - take the relaxing of measures to be the green light.


"I was only following instructions."


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## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

I'm sorry, are you comparing going to visit your parents at christmas with nazi concentration camp guards?


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## kabbes (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> People will do what they're allowed to do, and you can't really blame them for doing it tbh. If we continue to be fucked because of it, then the government who relaxed the measures will be responsible, not the people who - understandably - take the relaxing of measures to be the green light.


Yes, tragedy of the commons is precisely why you need to issue clear and consistent rules preventing the behaviour that will aggregate to cause a problem.


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## kebabking (Nov 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> "I was only following instructions."



''I took advice from the Chief Medical Officers rather than some no-mark off the internet - how unendingly stupid of me....'


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## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

All of the reasons people are saying about Christmas is stuff that applies to other cultural and religious events though. Nobody has been able to do anything normally this year. I find the whole debate its causing nauseating and it's just going to cause more resentment when people see how readily the rules are relaxed when they've had to do everything over zoom or not at all. If you're observant you won't be using technology at all on some of these festivals, not much scope for that in 2020. And what about new years? People are going to be saying 'ah we need a party we havent had one all year' with exactly the same arguments applying.

The people who are screeching about it in the Sun, Mail etc. seem to be the same ones going 'Muslims spreading the virus' so yeah. work that one out.

To be honest I'm dreading it, my sister and her husband thinking they're immune because they just had it, my grandma (who's 94) expecting things are going to be normal etc. my family will be largely quite happy not to do it but it's going to cause endless shit especially because her husbands family love big christmases.

To be honest I'm usually at work or go away, can't do that this year. Depending on workload I'll treat it as a normal day tbh.

Anyway I do understand that it's important to people tbh. I just find the whole treating of it as some sacrosanct thing when literally every other festival hasn't been able to go ahead as normal (and indeed often been blamed for spreading it), absolutely nauseating.


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## Mation (Nov 19, 2020)

kebabking said:


> ''I took advice from the Chief Medical Officers rather than some no-mark off the internet - how unendingly stupid of me....'


Because those are the options...


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## Mation (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm sorry, are you comparing going to visit your parents at christmas with nazi concentration camp guards?


Yikes. It was meant to be about shirking responsibility. But yes, I can totally see what you mean, given that that's where the phrasing comes from, and it wasn't appropriate at all. Literal thoughtlessness.

Apologies.


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## Looby (Nov 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> "I was only following instructions."


I actually agree with you and others who don’t agree we should take the risk of having a ‘normal’ Christmas but maybe back off a bit? People are struggling, worried about family members and missing human contact. So I can understand why people would be finding this hard.

FWIW, I don’t have family I can spend Christmas with, all the things about Christmas that I like and that make it bearable for me won’t be happening anyway. I understand why but it’s shit and lonely and it’s important to recognise that without attacking people. You’re not really going to win anyone over that way.


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## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32464-8/fulltext


> For Christians across the world, Christmas is a time for families and friends to come together and revel in their importance to one another. Similarly, for Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and some Buddhists, Diwali represents a celebration of the relationships between family and friends. The importance of each celebration for their respective cultural groups cannot be overstated. The connotation of family in both Christmas and Diwali is particularly of note given research has consistently shown the significance of family and friends for the mental health and wellbeing of university students during the COVID-19 pandemic.
> 1
> The UK Government's recent announcement of new national restrictions mentions that university students “should only return home at the end of term for Christmas”.
> 2
> ...




I thought this was a good piece . Makes the point that people have been forbidden from going home from uni for Diwali and other festivals in order for Christmas not to be affected.

Anyway I've got nothing against people wanting to celebrate Christmas but the way it's being treated by the government is sick tbh, and having a few 'days of freedom' is just gonna make the next lockdown even more interminable. In terms of encouraging following the rules the rest of the time it makes no sense to say this is a deadly virus and you have to stay at home etc except on Christmas where it takes a day off and you can have 20 people to your house.

I'm not angry with people wanting to do it, I'm angry with the government treating this as a priority above everything / everyone else.


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## Mation (Nov 19, 2020)

Looby said:


> I actually agree with you and others who don’t agree we should take the risk of having a ‘normal’ Christmas but maybe back off a bit? People are struggling, worried about family members and missing human contact. So I can understand why people would be finding this hard.
> 
> FWIW, I don’t have family I can spend Christmas with, all the things about Christmas that I like and that make it bearable for me won’t be happening anyway. I understand why but it’s shit and lonely and it’s important to recognise that without attacking people. You’re not really going to win anyone over that way.


It's really unusual for me not to be empathetic and sympathetic. I'm going to allow myself some expression of frustration via comments* on the internet about something with serious consequences. Not really expecting to win anyone over.

* Bar the one I apologised for.


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## Cloo (Nov 19, 2020)

thismoment said:


> it’ll make it harder for people that had already decided to remain in their current households/bubbles for Christmas when their family puts pressure on them by saying stuff like “but it’s ok for us all to spend Christmas together, it’s not breaking any rules”


Yes because my parents will (if they make it back to the uk) and it's going to feel really hard to say no.


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## chilango (Nov 19, 2020)

I personally don't give a fuck about Christmas.

...but I think it's really hard to try and expect people to take individual personal responsibility for our collective safety in our social lives when we are (in the main) given no fucking choice or control over our collective safety when being sent out to work.


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## Brainaddict (Nov 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Yes, tragedy of the commons is precisely why you need to issue clear and consistent rules preventing the behaviour that will aggregate to cause a problem.


Just a reminder to everyone that the 'tragedy of the commons' is an ideological phrase made popular by someone who knew nothing about the commons, and that despite Hardin's paper on it being debunked by people who actually knew stuff, it is the most widely cited paper in history because it is such a convenient prop to the ideology that passes for 'economics' in most institutions of learning and government. Getting the phrase into general circulation is one of the most successful propaganda coups of neo-liberalism.


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## souljacker (Nov 19, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I'm angry with the government treating this as a priority above everything / everyone else



I really don't think this is anything to do with the religious angle. It's about shops being able to sell their tat and pubs being able to be open for drinking sessions. I really don't think Johnson gives a flying fuck if little Timmy gets to see Grandma but he really cares that Grandma will be able to buy him some lego or some nintendo games and that Timmys Dad can go and spunk £100 down the boozer on xmas eve.


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## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I really don't think this is anything to do with the religious angle. It's about shops being able to sell their tat and pubs being able to be open for drinking sessions. I really don't think Johnson gives a flying fuck if little Timmy gets to see Grandma but he really cares that Grandma will be able to buy him some lego or some nintendo games and that Timmys Dad can go and spunk £100 down the boozer on xmas eve.


Of course not, there is a whole capitalist industry around Christmas that doesn't exist for other stuff really , or not to the same extent. But a lot of it is cultural and to appeal to Tory newspapers and voters.


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## souljacker (Nov 19, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Of course not, there is a whole capitalist industry around Christmas that doesn't exist for other stuff really , or not to the same extent



Exactly. They aren't doing this to 'save our christmas' or to give everyone something to be happy about after a tough year, They are doing it to keep the money flowing.


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## chilango (Nov 19, 2020)

Plus a relaxing of rules over the festive period will enable the murdering public school bastards to blame disobedient plebs for the inevitable Lockdown III in Jan/Feb (rather than their own prioritization of the economy over lives).


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## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

I think the reactions of the sun, mail, torygraph and their readership is absolutely a factor in their thinking though.


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## teuchter (Nov 19, 2020)

The prevailing attitude to the virus on these forums (that generally, restrictions have not been strong enough) is way out of sync with what I see in many places elsewhere (online and in real life). This doesn't just apply to Christmas; it's applied right the way through.

That doesn't say anything about what's "right", it's just a reality. We can sit here and talk about tragedy of the commons, but to some extent we just have to accept that a lot of people don't agree. They might believe the risk is over-stated, or they might simply be prepared to take the risk, do stuff and know that a bunch of people will die anyway. 

Criticising someone for considering a risk-managed visit to their family at Christmas has to be in that context, especially if there's no official guidance that specifically says not to. If there's no guidance that says not to, then the fact is, a load of people are going to go and mix at christmas, and yes a load of people will be ill/die as a result. That'll happen whether or not someone with a relatively cautious attitude does a family visit where there is indeed some risk but in relative terms it is small.


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## AverageJoe (Nov 19, 2020)

We're just going to have Christmas in March


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## maomao (Nov 19, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> We're just going to have Christmas in March


July might be a better bet. March is still winter.


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## maomao (Nov 19, 2020)

I don't think family Christmases are going to affect consumption in the way people think it is. There'll be more small turkeys sold rather than less big ones but they seem to have thought of that already. People will post presents (or have them delivered) rather than taking them to houses and the pubs will likely still be shut.


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## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

chilango said:


> Plus a relaxing of rules over the festive period will enable the murdering public school bastards to blame disobedient plebs for the inevitable Lockdown III in Jan/Feb (rather than their own prioritization of the economy over lives).


That doesn't really follow does it? Everyone knows there will be an increase in transmission because of Christmas. When it happens it's more or less priced in.


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## chilango (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> That doesn't really follow does it? Everyone knows there will be an increase in transmission because of Christmas. When it happens it's more or less priced in.



We'll still get blamed.


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## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

chilango said:


> We'll still get blamed.


We'd get blamed when there's a rise in infections because of christmas if they don't relax the restrictions too though. More in fact.


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## chilango (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> We'd get blamed when there's a rise in infections because of christmas if they don't relax the restrictions too though. More in fact.



True.


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## maomao (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> That doesn't really follow does it? Everyone knows there will be an increase in transmission because of Christmas. When it happens it's more or less priced in.


Depends. Schools will be closed. Will family visits produce more transmission than schools do?


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## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Depends. Schools will be closed. Will family visits produce more transmission than schools do?


yeah, loads more, and to more vulnerable demographics.


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## chilango (Nov 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Depends. Schools will be closed. Will family visits produce more transmission than schools do?



I'm not sure you can separate the two. Family visits will bring kids from different schools into contacts that wouldn't otherwise be made.


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## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

Lots of grandparents I know are pretty gung ho, and say they would be happy to die as long as they can see their family at christmas. I'm not sure if they're still going to feel that way in the ICU in 6 weeks time, but it'll be too late then.


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## Badgers (Nov 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> I don't think family Christmases are going to affect consumption in the way people think it is. There'll be more small turkeys sold rather than less big ones but they seem to have thought of that already. People will post presents (or have them delivered) rather than taking them to houses and the pubs will likely still be shut.


I am looking forward to buying a lot of discounted turkeys


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## Brainaddict (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Lots of grandparents I know are pretty gung ho, and say they would be happy to die as long as they can see their family at christmas. I'm not sure if they're still going to feel that way in the ICU in 6 weeks time, but it'll be too late then.


I've encountered this attitude a bit from older people. At the risk of being patronising, I think it represents a failure to understand the threat to them, like they've decided not to adjust their worldview to this big new thing because it would be too much work.


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## teuchter (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Lots of grandparents I know are pretty gung ho, and say they would be happy to die as long as they can see their family at christmas. I'm not sure if they're still going to feel that way in the ICU in 6 weeks time, but it'll be too late then.


Another way of stating it, which is not gung ho but pragmatism, is that they are happy to take a risk in order to see their family this christmas when they know there's a chance they won't be around next christmas, with or without Covid's intervention.


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## Brainaddict (Nov 19, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Another way of stating it, which is not gung ho but pragmatism, is that they are happy to take a risk in order to see their family this christmas when they know there's a chance they won't be around next christmas, with or without Covid's intervention.


I've heard it from grandparents who have a good ten years left to live. I think they just don't want to understand the situation.


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## Yossarian (Nov 19, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> We're just going to have Christmas in March



Marchmas isn't a bad idea - it's Thanksgiving in the US next week and from the way things are going there, it seems like it will be followed by a truly horrendous explosion in cases within a few weeks, which might influence government decisions elsewhere on Christmas restrictions.

I think a lot is going to depend on how the timeline for the vaccination program is looking in a few weeks, people might be less inclined to take risks over Christmas if the end is in sight within months, at least for those most at risk.


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## MickiQ (Nov 19, 2020)

I'm far more concerned about the possibility of transmission over New Year rather than Xmas, I think people taking the kids to see grandpa and grandma will at least show some common sense and take some precautions. After all these are people you care about or you wouldn't go and visit them anyway.
I think people especially younger people are going to want to celebrate New Year especially given 2020 has been a complete disaster for many people. Are the pubs really going to close at 10pm on New Year's Eve or even be shut completely? Even if there are no official firework diplays, I think we are going to end up with large crowds in important public spaces.
I can see restrictions being lifted on the 24th, being imposed again on the 27th and utterly ignored on the 31st. It's a lot harder to care about infecting complete strangers and even more so after you've had a few drinks.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Lots of grandparents I know are pretty gung ho, and say they would be happy to die as long as they can see their family at christmas. I'm not sure if they're still going to feel that way in the ICU in 6 weeks time, but it'll be too late then.


Sounds like my mum.


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## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Another way of stating it, which is not gung ho but pragmatism, is that they are happy to take a risk in order to see their family this christmas when they know there's a chance they won't be around next christmas, with or without Covid's intervention.


these are mostly healthy older people with decades of life left.


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## Espresso (Nov 19, 2020)

My elderly father goes to Mass every Sunday, or he did until all of this. None of the rest of the family goes, apart from on Christmas Day. The Christmas morning Mass is just as much part of our family Christmas tradition as the dinner, watching the Queen and all getting sozzled. All churches say that they all have more people in on Christmas day than any other day, so I presume my family is far from unusual in this once a year attendance. 
If they let families get together and they permit services on Christmas Day, that will be a pretty serious set of spreading events up and down the country. Orchestrated national plague transmission, courtesy of the Christian faith. On Jesus' birthday.  Bugger. 
I really hope that they will say that there can't be any church services on Christmas Day, but I don't see it, somehow.


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## Teaboy (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Lots of grandparents I know are pretty gung ho, and say they would be happy to die as long as they can see their family at christmas. I'm not sure if they're still going to feel that way in the ICU in 6 weeks time, but it'll be too late then.



Well us humans are notoriously terrible at assessing risk.  Its easy to be gung ho when we know deep down it won't be us.

That being said I do understand it and for the older the grandparent the more it makes sense.  My g/f last her last remaining grandparent over the summer (not covid) and she hated the virus because it took her life away.  She was elderly and knew she would die soon so just wanted to live life as best she could until then,. which we'd all understand.  Fortunately our last memory of her was last Christmas and lovely hour or two down the pub on Christmas day.

I totally get why people would say ..._to heck with the virus.  Some things are important!_


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## MickiQ (Nov 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I am looking forward to buying a lot of discounted turkeys


You'll be like the guy in the old Pizza Hut advert, endless variations of Turkey for weeks afterward


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## kabbes (Nov 19, 2020)

I can’t help noticing there is a lot of talking about risk either in:
A) a very abstracted way (or, more precisely, in a reified way, ie where “risk” is a thing in its own right abstracted from what it is a risk of); or
B) in a localised way, in which families are taking risks only on behalf of themselves (“we accept there is a risk that grandma will catch it”)

I think it’s worth remembering, however, is that when we “accept that a relaxation over Christmas means we will see cases rise again”, what that means is that we are accepting that thousands of additional people — people who may not have wanted to “accept” this risk — will die.  Cases going up doesn’t just affect the direct relative that catches it on Christmas Day; they will go on to infect others.  It means thousands of additional tragedies, affecting tens of thousands of grieving people.  I’m not glib about that side of the equation.  I think there should be something better to account for it than people’s desire to make personal contact with their loved ones literally a handful of months earlier than vaccines will allow for anyway.


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## Teaboy (Nov 19, 2020)

Obviously most people will have read the stuff in the press today about trade offs for a few days over Christmas.  As this is a standard (and frankly disgusting) way for this Government to communicate I'm going to hold off thinking too much about it until we hear actual policy announcements.

What I will say though is that trading a few days over Christmas for a month of lock down is probably the most 'UK response' thing I've heard so far.  Neatly sums up why we're in such a mess.


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## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I think it’s worth remembering, however, is that when we “accept that a relaxation over Christmas means we will see cases rise again”, what that means is that we are accepting that thousands of additional people — people who may not have wanted to “accept” this risk — will die.


I totally recognise that fwiw. I think there is a wide understanding that lots of people will die as a result of christmas mixing, but that_ it probably won't be us_.


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## kabbes (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> I totally recognise that fwiw. I think there is a wide understanding that lots of people will die as a result of christmas mixing, but that_ it probably won't be us_.


So fuck those guys?


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## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> So fuck those guys?


I'm agreeing with you!


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## kabbes (Nov 19, 2020)

I guess if nothing else, this crisis has revealed the vapidity of that old philosophical saw “what would you do if you could press a button and get a million pounds but a random person dies?”  Turns out that most people in this country when presented with that situation for real are actually happy to hammer that button just for a chance to bicker with their mum for an afternoon.


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## kabbes (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm agreeing with you!


I know!


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## Teaboy (Nov 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> In guess if nothing else, this crisis has revealed the vapidity of that old philosophical saw “what would you do if you could press a button and get a million pounds but a random person dies?”  Turns or that most people in this country when presented with that situation for real are actually happy to hammer that button just for a chance to bicker with their mum for an afternoon.



I think the fact that the virus overwhelmingly kills the elderly is a large reason why this has come about.  If the virus was killing children and young adults to a much greater degree we'd now be seeing a very different public response.  In fact we'd probably dealt with the problem by now.


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## andysays (Nov 19, 2020)

kebabking said:


> As someone who isn't fussed about Christmas normally I'm surprised by how much I'm investing in the idea of at least _some _contact with my parents - not getting hammered for two weeks and licking my neighbours door handles - but just going to theirs for lunch, kids playing Lego (my Lego, mainly space Lego, from when I was a kid..) with my dad...
> 
> It's not a religious thing, it's just something nice that seemed not unreasonable to look forward to after unending months of shit.


I think it's absolutely reasonable that many people having been looking forward to having a normal Xmas, whatever that happens to mean to them. 

Apart from anything else, there are obvious physiological and hence cultural reasons why we have a festival involving getting together with family etc and consuming lots of food and drink in the middle of winter. 

But I also question whether it's entirely realistic to think that we can do it as normal this year.

And has already been mentioned, the blame for the absence of a realistic weighing up of the situation lies with the government and those who seek to prioritise the economy over public health.


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## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I know!


Well, I don't think 'fuck those guys', no. That they don't have a clear grasp of the risks involved isn't totally their fault - none of us really do. and they deserve protection regardless.


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## Badgers (Nov 19, 2020)

andysays said:


> I think it's absolutely reasonable that many people having been looking forward to having a normal Xmas, whatever that happens to mean to them.


Get that but one could argue that a lot of people are looking forward to being able to live, be in good health and other trifiling matters.


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## kabbes (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Well, I don't think 'fuck those guys', no. That they don't have a clear grasp of the risks involved isn't totally their fault - none of us really do. and they deserve protection regardless.


No, I mean that don’t you think those expressing the views you mentioned (“someone will die but it’s not me”) are effectively saying “... and fuck those guys”?


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## Badgers (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Lots of grandparents I know are pretty gung ho, and say they would be happy to die as long as they can see their family at christmas. I'm not sure if they're still going to feel that way in the ICU in 6 weeks time, but it'll be too late then.


Nice of them to potentially risk leaving their kids full of worry if they end up sick. Or organising a funeral and explaining to the grandchildren (they wanted to see on jesus birthday) that they have died. 

#gungho


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## andysays (Nov 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Get that but one could argue that a lot of people are looking forward to being able to live, be in good health and other trifiling matters.


And in many cases they will even be the same people wanting both those potentially contradictory things.


----------



## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> No, I mean that don’t you think those expressing the views you mentioned (“someone will die but it’s not me”) are effectively saying “... and fuck those guys”?


They effectively are, but I don't think it's something they've thought very hard about. The 'I'm prepared to die to hug my grandchildren!' stuff is a way of avoiding thinking about it and changing the internal narrative from one of selfishness to one of self sacrifice I think.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> “what would you do if you could press a button and get a million pounds but a random person dies?”


That doesn't really represent the situation though does it?

They can press a button and get something and it _might_ lead to someone dying.

But that's what everyone does every day in normal life anyway.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 19, 2020)

teuchter said:


> That doesn't really represent the situation though does it?
> 
> They can press a button and get something and it _might_ lead to someone dying.
> 
> But that's what everyone does every day in normal life anyway.


The button they are pressing is called “clamour to have restrictions lifted at Christmas”.  And it will _definitely_ result in thousands of people dying.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 19, 2020)

andysays said:


> I think it's absolutely reasonable that many people having been looking forward to having a normal Xmas, whatever that happens to mean to them.
> 
> Apart from anything else, there are obvious physiological and hence cultural reasons why we have a festival involving getting together with family etc and consuming lots of food and drink in the middle of winter.
> 
> ...



Totally agree about the need for something like Christmas at this time of year.  Given how dark and grim the weather is its no surprise we want colourful and twinkly lights and indulgence.

I do slightly disagree that its a case of prioritising the economy over public health.  The two are symbiotically linked and it should have been a question of how you protect both.  The populist twats we have have protected neither.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 19, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Totally agree about the need for something like Christmas at this time of year. Given how dark and grim the weather is its no surprise we want colourful and twinkly lights and indulgence.


Twinkly lights, food and drink will be available as they are all year round  

Just eat them at home


----------



## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> They effectively are, but I don't think it's something they've thought very hard about. The 'I'm prepared to die to hug my grandchildren!' stuff is a way of avoiding thinking about it and changing the internal narrative from one of selfishness to one of self sacrifice I think.


In fact, thinking about this the most vocal grandma I'm thinking of talks about her willingness to die to embrace her grandchildren as if it's a universal feeling shared by all grandparents.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Twinkly lights, food and drink will be available as they are all year round
> 
> Just eat them at home



Of course.  We were making general comments about why a festival at this time of year is important.


----------



## Cid (Nov 19, 2020)

I agree up to a point with what people are saying over the last couple of pages. I mean clearly from a strictly statistical perspective it is absolutely true that travelling and meeting for Christmas _will_ kill people. But I can see why people will do it anyway. The situation of people with kids (which afaik, is not the situation of most posters for the last couple of pages) seems pretty distressing. On here and off here there are plenty of stories of children developing mental health problems. I mean how the fuck does a parent react to that?

Cleary that does not mean that meeting at Christmas is a solution. But Christmas has been allowed to become the pivot point that this wider problem rests on. It was always going to be without some kind of major government intervention... either in terms of actually bringing infection levels down in a managed way, or in terms of really raising understanding of the nature of the risks involved. This has not happened. And so humans will human.


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2020)

The idea of having to spend January basically in doors, is particularly depressing. This idea that 5 days of lock down for every day of Xmas jollies. Fuck off.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 19, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Of course.  We were making general comments about why a festival at this time of year is important.


Summer is nicer  

Jesus is flexible these days


----------



## ash (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> yeah, loads more, and to more vulnerable demographics.


I agree that however much people try to be sensible and safe social and family meet ups ( unless in carefully regulated hospitality settings) have been a big source of infection.  I witnessed this yesterday at a funeral.  Initially everyone obeyed social distancing etc.  The funeral was only 20 mins and then a chat outside afterwards.  By the end people who  said 'thats not allowed' at the beginning were hugging without masks.   This was without alcohol in the equation as a wake was not allowed.


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The button they are pressing is called “clamour to have restrictions lifted at Christmas”.  And it will _definitely_ result in thousands of people dying.


There isn't a direct causal connection between person A going to visit dear old Mum and person B dying in ICU a month later. There are LOTS of person A's doing things that will contribute collectively towards conditions that will result in lots of dead B's but the actions of an individual A doesn't matter which is what people think about.  People don't think a great deal in terms of abstracts and even when they do such things get rapidly pushed aside where more immediate concerns come into play.
Don't go and see granny because you will give her the lurgy is one thing, Don't go and see granny who you might never see again because some total stranger at the other end of the country might die is just not going to cut it.
The lives and wellbeing of people we care about is worth far more than the lives and wellbeing of people we don't know, that's one of the most fundamental parts of our nature.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

xenon said:


> The idea of having to spend January basically in doors, is particularly depressing. This idea that 5 days of lock down for every day of Xmas jollies. Fuck off.



That's exactly what I was thinking tbh. Not looking forward to an interminably long January and February+ lockdown because of a festival and time of year I hate anyway and which is almost always a shitshow in my house. A few months of lockdown next year is gonna put even more people out of work too, and will do the longer this drags on.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The button they are pressing is called “clamour to have restrictions lifted at Christmas”.  And it will _definitely_ result in thousands of people dying.


I thought we were talking about individual decisions about what to do at Christmas.

If we're talking about pressing a button in favour of a policy that will definitely result in thousands of people dying, then, again, this is what we do all the time in regular life.


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Summer is nicer
> 
> Jesus is flexible these days


He just pinched the date off the pagans anyway


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 19, 2020)

ash said:


> I agree however much people try to be sensible and safe social and family meet ups ( unless in carefully regulated hospitality settings have been a big source of infection).  I witnessed this yesterday at a funeral.  Initially everyone obeyed social distancing etc.  The funeral was only 20 mins and then chat outside afterwards.  By the end people who  said 'thats not allowed' at the beginning were hugging without masks.   This was without alcohol in the equation as a wake was not allowed.


Literally just before i got covid I'd seen pretty much all my family for a 40th birthday. Mainly outside, I wore a mask indoors, each household had a separate loo. Probably shared serving utensils. I certainly kept better distance as teacher partner already had positive cases at school (so he didn't come).
So I either caught it on the weds/Thurs/,Fri. Saw everyone on Sunday. Maaybe caught it from stinky handyman on Monday. Symptomatic on Wednesday. Very relieved a fortnight later that everyone else was fine.


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I guess if nothing else, this crisis has revealed the vapidity of that old philosophical saw “what would you do if you could press a button and get a million pounds but a random person dies?”  Turns or that most people in this country when presented with that situation for real are actually happy to hammer that button just for a chance to bicker with their mum for an afternoon.



DOn't we all do that anyway. Eating meat, buying phones made from elements mined by kids, using plastic and oil?

Or does everyone just pretend it's a cost free path to consumer heaven.

I'm being a bit tongue in cheek as is probably obvious but you take my point...


----------



## bimble (Nov 19, 2020)

The christmas thing I’m convinced (but have no evidence to support it obvs) that government simply knows that whatever they might decree on those particular days compliance would be tiny, so they just need for their own remaining credibility to appear to be allowing it to go ahead.


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> The christmas thing I’m convinced (but have no evidence to support it obvs) that government simply knows that whatever they might decree on those particular days compliance would be tiny, so they just need for their own remaining credibility to appear to be allowing it to go ahead.



This just makes them look weak and pandering though. A strong message of don't travel cross country to see your family at this time. We know it's difficult etc...

Bbut that's about pah for this lot. Weak, venal and a bit dim. They could actually have won back some confidence with a stronger message on this but no, they do the obvious thing. Dismal cunts.


----------



## bimble (Nov 19, 2020)

xenon said:


> ..A strong message of don't travel cross country to see your family at this time. We know it's difficult etc...


Barnard castle, after that imo it just would not work. I mean the people who would heed it will probably just not do it anyway, because they give a shit.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 19, 2020)

xenon said:


> This just makes them look weak and pandering though. A strong message of don't travel cross country to see your family at this time. We know it's difficult etc...
> 
> Bbut that's about pah for this lot. Weak, venal and a bit dim. They could actually have won back some confidence with a stronger message on this but no, they do the obvious thing. Dismal cunts.


It will okay for them and their mates/donors though. They have big houses with huge 'distanced' high ceilling dining rooms, ample spare bedrooms all en-usuite, acres of land and cleaners to disinfect everything afterwards


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

I really hope I haven't come across as insensitive BTW. I've had to forego a whole lot of stuff that is really important to me this year and saying 'oh lots of people who aren't religious or Christian get together on Christmas etc' well, yea, but a huge part of that is because its so difficult to see family on other important times throughout the year and it's a huge reminder of what pisses me off so much about it anyway


----------



## elbows (Nov 19, 2020)

I might have to force myself to watch this later:









						Was the scientific advice for lockdown flawed?
					

A BBC documentary highlights weaknesses in the expert analysis of the likely impact of coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




It sounds like a lot of its focus is about the modelling flaws that contributed to the first lockdown being late. At least one person will talk about the benefit of hindsight, but we know that is a shit defence because some of us knew that they were getting the timing and estimated sim of epidemic all wrong at the time (via things like the claim that we were 4 weeks behind Italy when really simple data anyone could look at indicated we were 2 weeks behind).

Without recycling everything I said in the buildup to that and for months afterwards, my simplified summary of the delays was that when factoring in political factors, public sentiments and timing of reality checks in some European countries, the best we could have hoped for was to have locked down 2 weeks earlier than we actually did. Which would have made a large difference to deaths etc. And when apportioning blame, I would have blamed the first weeks delay on science/modelling failures, and the second weeks delay on the politics of Johnson & co.


----------



## lazythursday (Nov 19, 2020)

Why can't the government have some imagination and announce now, a new 2-3 day one-off national holiday in June, to include all sorts of special events and baubles, as a substitute for Christmas (and other missed religious events) and reward for coping with a terrible winter? Give people a reason for doing the right thing and a sense of something to look forward to.


----------



## emanymton (Nov 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Why can't the government have some imagination and announce now, a new 2-3 day one-off national holiday in June, to include all sorts of special events and baubles, as a substitute for Christmas (and other missed religious events) and reward for coping with a terrible winter? Give people a reason for doing the right thing and a sense of something to look forward to.


Because there is no way of knowing what the situation will be in June.


----------



## elbows (Nov 19, 2020)

I dont have much to say about the Christmas stuff yet because I wait to see how hospitals are looking over the next few days and weeks first.

But meanwhile in Northern Ireland:









						Coronavirus: Talks continue to reach agreement on restrictions
					

The executive has been meeting to consider calls for new Covid interventions by the end of November.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *tormont ministers have been told that more Covid-19 interventions are necessary before the end of this month, BBC News NI understands.*
> The warning is part of Health Minister Robin Swann's latest advice to the executive.
> It is believed the paper spells out that interventions are needed in late November.
> Otherwise, a full lockdown in mid-December would not be enough to prevent hospital services being overwhelmed.
> Ministers are set to discuss the advice from Mr Swann and his officials at Thursday's executive meeting.



This does not surprise me as Northern Ireland does not exactly have a wonderful hospital and intensive care capacity, and just look at the number of people in hospital compared to the first wave there:


Made using UK dashboard data.


----------



## emanymton (Nov 19, 2020)

Can I just say I was looking forward to Christmas on my own. I'll be deverstated if I don't have government rules to hide behind.


----------



## lazythursday (Nov 19, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Because there is no way of knowing what the situation will be in June.


It's almost certainly going to be better than now, given increasing evidence of a certain amount of seasonality to the virus, and the fact plenty of vaccine should have been distributed by then.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> It's almost certainly going to be better than now, given increasing evidence of a certain amount of seasonality to the virus, and the fact plenty of vaccine should have been distributed by then.


Plenty of or 'adequate' vaccine?


----------



## zora (Nov 19, 2020)

Someone talking sense, publicly, at last:


> *Trying to have near-normal Christmas risks 'throwing fuel on fire' of Covid pandemic, says government science adviser*
> A scientist who advises the government as a member of Sage, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, has said that trying to allow people to have a near-normal Christmas risks “throwing fuel on the fire” of the Covid pandemic.
> *Andrew Hayward,* professor of infectious disease epidemiology at University College London (UCL), made the comment in an interview on the Today programme when he said that allowing families to mix at Christmas would pose “substantial risks”. Speaking in a personal capacity, Hayward said:
> 
> ...


----------



## Thora (Nov 19, 2020)

My family usually do a big Christmas (eg 40-50 people coming from across the country to get together) so obviously we're not doing that.  I intend to follow whatever rules are in place then though.  We were planning on sticking to the rule of 6.


----------



## elbows (Nov 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> It's almost certainly going to be better than now, given increasing evidence of a certain amount of seasonality to the virus, and the fact plenty of vaccine should have been distributed by then.



So far the main evidence is that human behaviour is key, and there is far more to that than seasonality, although the seasons do influence human behaviour.

I say this because countries in Europe experienced summer lulls in the virus because of the lingering effects of lockdowns, and slow relaxation of those measures. In the USA where lockdowns were incomplete to start with and where some states rushed to reopen everything quickly, they ended up with an extra wave as a result, a resurgence that summer did not offer protection against. Eventually, once the relaxations were complete in Europe, schools were back and pubs and restaurants open, we also ended up with massive viral resurgence, before summer had even really ended.

But this picture is incomplete, since I need to see quite how bad things can get in winter, and am not trying to claim that winter doesn't make things even worse. But its unlikely that even then I will be able to separate human behaviour from weather conditions etc.


----------



## xenon (Nov 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> It's almost certainly going to be better than now, given increasing evidence of a certain amount of seasonality to the virus, and the fact plenty of vaccine should have been distributed by then.


IS there any seasonality to the virus other than people spend more time out doors and the possible vitemine D boost that activity may bring?

It would be daft to promise anything in June at this stage. As we speak, there is no date of a vaccine roll out. Then there's that little thing called Brexit and it's supply implications...

I'm not being negative and do feel reasonably confident things will be a lot better this time next year, from summer 21 onwards.  Just I'm more of a chickens vs eggs counter.


----------



## chilango (Nov 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Why can't the government have some imagination and announce now, a new 2-3 day one-off national holiday in June, to include all sorts of special events and baubles, as a substitute for Christmas (and other missed religious events) and reward for coping with a terrible winter? Give people a reason for doing the right thing and a sense of something to look forward to.



Cos we're gonna get that anyway when Liz Windsor shuffles off.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

Hope that happens in 2022 because if she dies of covid it will be unbearable lol.


----------



## zora (Nov 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Why can't the government have some imagination and announce now, a new 2-3 day one-off national holiday in June, to include all sorts of special events and baubles, as a substitute for Christmas (and other missed religious events) and reward for coping with a terrible winter? Give people a reason for doing the right thing and a sense of something to look forward to.



I quite like that idea. No, we don't know exacly what things will be like, but being able to do stuff outdoors would certainly seem better. (I would probably have more of a personal caveat around it being some sort of terrible flag-wavy, festival of Brexit sort of occasion under this government...eta see also chilango's post above).
But how feasible this particular idea is or not, it's at least an imaginative attempt of getting somehow in front of this issue, rather than the desperate "normality" at Christmas thing, as has been discussed.


----------



## Cid (Nov 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Why can't the government have some imagination and announce now, a new 2-3 day one-off national holiday in June, to include all sorts of special events and baubles, as a substitute for Christmas (and other missed religious events) and reward for coping with a terrible winter? Give people a reason for doing the right thing and a sense of something to look forward to.



Because it’s asking people to defer something they want/need to break up the winter for 6 months. It _could_ be done, probably. Going to be interesting to see how places in the east handle Christmas/Lunar new year. But a government capable of pulling that off would be using different lockdown models, would have used the summer lull, would have funded development of offline teaching etc etc.


----------



## chilango (Nov 19, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Hope that happens in 2022 because if she dies of covid it will be unbearable lol.



She'd probably just get the strain that Johnson and Trump got anyway.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 19, 2020)

chilango said:


> She'd probably just get the strain that Johnson and Trump got anyway.


You mean the one you get when you've had a lifetime of privilege and riches. Yes, sadly.


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 19, 2020)

chilango said:


> Cos we're gonna get that anyway when Liz Windsor shuffles off.


I don't think it will be much of an holiday when Brenda pegs it to be honest, We'll probably get a day or two off work but I suspect all the good places will be shut as a sign of respect so the nation can grieve


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Why can't the government have some imagination and announce now, a new 2-3 day one-off national holiday in June, to include all sorts of special events and baubles, as a substitute for Christmas (and other missed religious events) and reward for coping with a terrible winter? Give people a reason for doing the right thing and a sense of something to look forward to.





chilango said:


> Cos we're gonna get that anyway when Liz Windsor shuffles off.





frogwoman said:


> Hope that happens in 2022 because if she dies of covid it will be unbearable lol.


We are getting an extra day of holiday in June 2022 for some jubilee 








						Platinum Jubilee: A four day bank holiday will mark the Queen's 70-year reign in 2022 - CBBC Newsround
					

The Queen will have been on the throne for 70 years, a milestone no other monarch has reached before.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> We are getting an extra day of holiday in June 2022 for some jubilee
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's a bit optimistic in the middle of a pandemic that targets the elderly


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 19, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That's a bit optimistic in the middle of a pandemic that targets the elderly


But Brenda has lizard blood that is refreshed weekly by the blood of young innocents


----------



## ignatious (Nov 19, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That's a bit optimistic in the middle of a pandemic that targets the elderly


If June 2022 is the middle of the pandemic it’ll be the least of our worries.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

ignatious said:


> If June 2022 is the middle of the pandemic it’ll be the least of our worries.



The pandemic will be over by then but it's a bit optimistic to plan for the platinum jubilee to be celebrated in 2022 when we still have 2020 and most of 2021 to go


----------



## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> The pandemic will be over by then but it's a bit optimistic to plan for the platinum jubilee to be celebrated in 2022 when we still have 2020 and most of 2021 to go


The events guys have a bit of spare time on their hands atm, so they might as well crack on. They can probably switch most of it to funeral stuff if she carks it before then.


----------



## quimcunx (Nov 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> these are mostly healthy older people with decades of life left.



They probably won't be killed by covid. Humans are not great at assessing risk or probabilities. We do lots of things in the hope we wont be one of the unlucky ones. Doesn't mean people aren't making any sort of assessment.

My 86 year old dad climbs ladders onto the roof, uses chainsaws, still drives. Gets indoor visits from my siblings.  Goes to the shops. His risk assessments may or not be spot on every time but they do exist. It's a balancing act between living the life you have left as you can/want to and sitting bored out if your skull to beat your auntie's 103 years of age target.


----------



## quimcunx (Nov 19, 2020)

emanymton said:


> Because there is no way of knowing what the situation will be in June.



They could deal with that in June.


----------



## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> They probably won't be killed by covid. Humans are not great at assessing risk or probabilities. We do lots of things in the hope we wont be one of the unlucky ones. Doesn't mean people aren't making any sort of assessment.
> 
> My 86 year old dad climbs ladders onto the roof, uses chainsaws, still drives. Gets indoor visits from my siblings.  Goes to the shops. His risk assessments may or not be spot on every time but they do exist. It's a balancing actvetween living the life you have left as you can/want to and sitting bored out if your skull to beat your auntie's 103 years of age target.


I know they won't, and for all their claims that they would welcome death for one last touch of their grandchild's hand, I think their risk assessment is that it's not going to get them. People who are actually vulnerable tend to be much more circumspect - From a personal POV, my girlfriend has a shorter life expectancy than most of them, and we haven't held hands since September. Not sure what we're going to do about Christmas yet, but we actually _do_ have to seriously consider if it might be the last, every year. Ho hum.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I am looking forward to buying a lot of discounted turkeys


Always remember a big Tesco’s opening in December in Didsbury years ago ( became Richard Madelys shoplifting haunt).Me and a work mate nipped in Xmas eve lunchtime before hitting the pubs to get some Cranberry sauce and some wine to find a near mountain of turkey , beef and pork reductions mostly half price . They obviously hadn’t got either their ordering algorithms or Bank Holiday dates right . So put about £100s worth on a card and filled the boot up. My freezer was only the top bit of the fridge but as it was icy and snowy weather kept it in the boot over Xmas Day and Boxing Day until I found some pals who had some freezer space .


----------



## killer b (Nov 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Always remember a big Tesco’s opening in December in Didsbury years ago ( became Richard Madelys shoplifting haunt).Me and a work mate nipped in Xmas eve lunchtime before hitting the pubs to get some Cranberry sauce and some wine to find a near mountain of turkey , beef and pork reductions mostly half price . They obviously hadn’t got either their ordering algorithms or Bank Holiday dates right . So put about £100s worth on a card and filled the boot up. My freezer was only the top bit of the fridge but as it was icy and snowy weather kept it in the boot over Xmas Day and Boxing Day until I found some pals who had some freezer space .


the christmas eve reductions are going to be amazing this year, they're really going to struggle to get the orders right.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

Work is absolutely nuts atm especially with the run up to Black Friday.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Always remember a big Tesco’s opening in December in Didsbury years ago ( became Richard Madelys shoplifting haunt).Me and a work mate nipped in Xmas eve lunchtime before hitting the pubs to get some Cranberry sauce and some wine to find a near mountain of turkey , beef and pork reductions mostly half price . They obviously hadn’t got either their ordering algorithms or Bank Holiday dates right . So put about £100s worth on a card and filled the boot up. My freezer was only the top bit of the fridge but as it was icy and snowy weather kept it in the boot over Xmas Day and Boxing Day until I found some pals who had some freezer space .


I am torn this year. 
Try to avoid soopermarkets over Winterval but do love a bargain. Not seeing anyone this year so was thinking I might just get a frozen Turkey and or gammon roll for a few quid this weekend and be done with it. That said I had a scavange round a couple of soopermarkets a day or two after Winterval last year and did very well


----------



## Wilf (Nov 19, 2020)

prunus said:


> There’s an element of the prisoners dilemma on a societal scale in this - if we all hang together (and all forgo contact at Christmas) we all benefit by an earlier overall release from restrictions - however, individuals can cheat the system - and have the benefit of a family Christmas while still benefitting from others’ forbearance - provided not too many too; however if too many do, then everyone will get punished by no early release, and the only people who do get a benefit are the people who broke the rules and had a family Christmas.  So what do you do...?


Yep and the tories have been spectacularly bad at managing this/ensuring people are community minded in their behaviour. Not surprising really, given their whole approach to society, the econony and life more generally is about a narrow individualism.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I am torn this year.
> Try to avoid soopermarkets over Winterval but do love a bargain. Not seeing anyone this year so was thinking I might just get a frozen Turkey and or gammon roll for a few quid this weekend and be done with it. That said I had a scavange round a couple of soopermarkets a day or two after Winterval last year and did very well


Turkey thank heavens isn’t that traditional here at Xmas . You can get it and it’s only a little more expensive as it is normally . I usually eat at my neighbours but don’t know what the restrictions will be here yet however if that’s off I’m going to buy seafood , salt cod and either goose or duck breasts for Xmas eve and Xmas day . Prob sit in my pyjamas and watch a load of old films Xmas Day , cook and drink some artisanal ales and later red wine . Boxing Day doesn’t exist here .


----------



## Badgers (Nov 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Turkey thank heavens isn’t that traditional here at Xmas . You can get it and it’s only a little more expensive as it is normally . I usually eat at my neighbours but don’t know what the restrictions will be here yet however if that’s off I’m going to buy seafood , salt cod and either goose or duck breasts for Xmas eve and Xmas day . Prob sit in my pyjamas and watch a load of old films Xmas Day , cook and drink some artisanal ales and later red wine . Boxing Day doesn’t exist here .


I am not that fussed about turkey tbh 
The bulk of my effort goes on the roast potatoes, pigs in blankets and the gravy  
I got loads goose fat and cranberry sauce in January this year already.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I am not that fussed about turkey tbh
> The bulk of my effort goes on the roast potatoes, pigs in blankets and the gravy
> I got loads goose fat and cranberry sauce in January this year already.


Tbh aside from when I was a kid I’ve never been that bothered about Xmas dinner .


----------



## Numbers (Nov 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Tbh aside from when I was a kid I’ve never been that bothered about Xmas dinner .


I prefer the picking and grazing you get in the days following a good Christmas dinner.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Tbh aside from when I was a kid I’ve never been that bothered about Xmas dinner .



We skipped turkey for a nice roast pork or ham and it was much better.


----------



## emanymton (Nov 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> It's almost certainly going to be better than now, given increasing evidence of a certain amount of seasonality to the virus, and the fact plenty of vaccine should have been distributed by then.


It will probably be better than now. But good enough to allow a fuck it do what you want weekend? I don't know and neither does anyone else. And I certainly don't share you confidence in the vaccine. I hope you are right but I am not convinced.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 19, 2020)

Marks & Spencer to open 400 stores to midnight for Christmas
					

Late hours are part of drive by retailers to recoup billions in sales lost during lockdown




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## PD58 (Nov 19, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Marks & Spencer to open 400 stores to midnight for Christmas
> 
> 
> Late hours are part of drive by retailers to recoup billions in sales lost during lockdown
> ...



What about those who work in the stores FFS?


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 19, 2020)

*From page 843 -- apologies* 



AverageJoe said:


> We're just going to have Christmas in March






			
				maomao said:
			
		

> July might be a better bet. March is still winter.



Our *real* Xmas (in normal years anyway  ) is always at the ten days approaching the last weekend of June and thereafter


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## 20Bees (Nov 19, 2020)

On BBC Look East just now, health officials in Hertfordshire are saying 30% of people who tested positive contracted the virus whilst shopping, 20% in education settings (schools, universities and nurseries), 11% in healthcare settings, 9% eating out, and 5% exercising (gyms). The leader of Stevenage Borough Council said it should have been made clearer what was meant by ‘essential shopping’, as the reporter spoke to people shopping just for Christmas decorations.


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## Artaxerxes (Nov 19, 2020)

20Bees said:


> On BBC Look East just now, health officials in Hertfordshire are saying 30% of people who tested positive contracted the virus whilst shopping, 20% in education settings (schools, universities and nurseries), 11% in healthcare settings, 9% eating out, and 5% exercising (gyms). *The leader of Stevenage Borough Council said it should have been made clearer what was meant by ‘essential shopping’, as the reporter spoke to people shopping just for Christmas decorations.*


Sorry but how much clearer do you need? If your idea of essential is Christmas decorations your insane.


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 19, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Why can't the government have some imagination and announce now, a new 2-3 day one-off national holiday in June, to include all sorts of special events and baubles, as a substitute for Christmas (and other missed religious events) and reward for coping with a terrible winter? Give people a reason for doing the right thing and a sense of something to look forward to.



Good plan. 
Friday 25th June and Monday 28th June would be *ideal* for 2021!


----------



## Supine (Nov 19, 2020)

20Bees said:


> On BBC Look East just now, health officials in Hertfordshire are saying 30% of people who tested positive contracted the virus whilst shopping, 20% in education settings (schools, universities and nurseries), 11% in healthcare settings, 9% eating out, and 5% exercising (gyms). The leader of Stevenage Borough Council said it should have been made clearer what was meant by ‘essential shopping’, as the reporter spoke to people shopping just for Christmas decorations.



Did they say how they know that?


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 19, 2020)

Supine said:


> Did they say how they know that?


No, it was “We start tonight’s programme on why health officials in Herts say shopping, especially in supermarkets, is driving the spread of coronavirus in the county” - no source for their statistics was quoted.


----------



## andysays (Nov 20, 2020)

Here's an interesting and surprisingly damning look at why the test and trace system isn't working

Coronavirus: Inside test-and-trace - how the 'world beater' went wrong



> Just half of close contacts given to England's NHS Test and Trace are being reached in some areas, a BBC investigation has found. Exactly six months after Boris Johnson promised a "world beating" contact tracing system, it can be shown that the network is failing in areas with some of the highest infection rates.





> The research also found no-one from NHS labs was at a key government meeting with private firms about testing. The government has yet to comment.


----------



## MrSki (Nov 20, 2020)

PD58 said:


> What about those who work in the stores FFS?


Well they won't have anywhere else to go.
Poor old turkeys. The fat fuckers will be spared for turkey twizlers & the younguns will be at a premium.


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## The39thStep (Nov 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> Did they say how they know that?


There's a bit of controversy about whether data can say where people actually catch coronavirus . According to Public Health UK 'common exposure data does not prove where people are contracting covid-19.It simply shows where people who have tested positive have been in the days leading up to their test and it is used to help identify possible outbreaks' . Which is all well and good but wasn't similar  data was used to justify closing pubs, cafes and restaurants?









						Supermarkets revealed as place visitors are most likely to be exposed to Covid | ITV News
					

Supermarkets were the most common location reported by people testing positive for Covid-19, new data shows. | ITV National News




					www.itv.com


----------



## teuchter (Nov 20, 2020)

This is just nonsense isn't it? Like 95% of crack addicts having started out drinking milk?


----------



## Supine (Nov 20, 2020)

teuchter said:


> This is just nonsense isn't it? Like 95% of crack addicts having started out drinking milk?



Basically yes. 

Without backwards tracing to investate locations for spreading events it's just meaningless.


----------



## xenon (Nov 20, 2020)

The accuracy seems over confident but it's not nonsense to investigate and estimate where most cases of infection are occurring.


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 20, 2020)

xenon said:


> The accuracy seems over confident but it's not nonsense to investigate and estimate where most cases of infection are occurring.


It's not nonsense to investigate. It is nonsense to create estimates using invalid inferences. In that list of places above, you have 20% of people testing positive visiting supermarkets. What's the percentage of people who haven't caught covid visiting supermarkets? It's a meaningless stat if you don't also have that. If the percentage of people not catching it visiting supermarkets is also 20%, it could be that virtually nobody is catching it in supermarkets.

And the list of places visited in the report above fails to mention the most important place that everybody has visited - their own homes. Serology tests have shown big differences in infection rates depending on how many people you live with, so it is clear that ' own home' is one of the major places people are catching it, quite probably the no.1 major place.


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 20, 2020)

The link earlier in post 25,371 does list ‘household fewer than 5’ way down the list of figures from PHE, and that ITV report expands on the BBC local one.
As a supermarket cashier I would observe that it can be a very social setting where customers see someone they know, and greetings with hugs or handshakes are not at all uncommon. And the teenage staff in particular have little inclination for social distancing.


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## Boudicca (Nov 20, 2020)

A better question might be 'where do you think you are most likely to have caught it?'.  

I'd also like to ask 'and were you following the guidelines at the time?' but I'm not hopeful of an accurate response.

On the other hand, I saw a couple of lads in Tesco who I think met in the supermarket to have a chat somewhere warm rather than buy anything.


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## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> There's a bit of controversy about whether data can say where people actually catch coronavirus . According to Public Health UK 'common exposure data does not prove where people are contracting covid-19.It simply shows where people who have tested positive have been in the days leading up to their test and it is used to help identify possible outbreaks' . Which is all well and good but wasn't similar  data was used to justify closing pubs, cafes and restaurants?



Such figures were wheeled out in the face of demands for strong evidence, but the evidence requested doesn't exist. Nor in my book does it need to exist in order to justify the approach to pubs and restaurants. Weaker evidence combined with no-brainer concepts about respiratory viruses is all that is required....

The risk is there anywhere that people mix. The risk is worse when people are indoors. Household transmission is the worst offender, but since households cannot be closed, the sources of the virus getting into a member of that household in the first place is the area to target. Hospitality is an obvious vector and in some ways its low-hanging fruit, because such locations can actually be closed, whereas much less can be done for other known risks such as working and health and social care, we can't just stop doing those other things.

For me the combination of basic facts about respiratory viral transmission and some data we do actually have showing increased risks for those who work in hospitality is more than sufficient evidence to justify closing hospitality, and I do not think more is required just because such closures are distressing to some people. Plus I strongly suspect that even if strong, direct evidence was presented, those who dont want to come to terms with these facts will then just quibble about the percentage. 'Only 7.5% (my made up number) of cases come from pubs' I can almost hear them crying now. To which my response would be, that's a fair chunk of the pie and justifies the closures. Numbers like that would just indicate to me that other settings need to be closed too, not that pubs had been unfairly targeted. I also look at what most other countries feel compelled to do and the similarities are obvious, hospitality is almost always part of the mix and results are achieved when these things are closed in combination with other measures.

Behind the scenes, this is the sort of things SAGE were saying in September when they were looking at the next required steps:



> Household transmission remains the most widely recorded setting of transmission. PHE reports secondary attack rates of around 40-50% within households, confirming the key role the household plays in transmission. Outside the household, preliminary analysis of a recent case-control study by PHE suggests that working in health and social care remains a risk factor, as is working in close personal services and hospitality. Activities associated with increased risk amongst cases include frequenting entertainment venues e.g. bars and restaurants. Outbreaks associated with restaurants and bars have also been recorded, both in the UK and elsewhere. Outbreaks in educational settings are leading to widespread disruption. It is still not clear to what extent (if any) schools magnify transmission in communities rather than reflect the prevalence within the community.



Thats a mostly fair summary of what it is reasonable to say without stronger evidence being available, and if I were a decision maker I would not hesitate to act on it. I am not interested in putting hospitality and close personal service workers at risk, and their customers, just because some people demand a stronger form of evidence than is available. Not that this would be my only focus, since I am also disgusted by the attempts to do education as normal, and by the falling rate of people working from home as demonstrated by another SAGE quote:



> For example, ONS data show that rates of working from home are continuing to decline, from around 40% who “worked from home only” at the start of June, to 20% at the start of September.



Both SAGE quotes are from a September 21st paper.


			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/925854/S0769_Summary_of_effectiveness_and_harms_of_NPIs.pdf


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

And I should also have said that the knowledge gaps are unfortunate and I would like to see more effort into improving that side of things. In many ways it goes hand in hand with improving contact tracing, very much including backwards contact tracing. The same SAGE paper does go on about that and includes quite a long list of suggested studies and analysis. Its a bit long for me to quote everything in that section but here is a bit:



> Knowledge gaps and proposed short, and medium-term research activities
> The evidence base into the effectiveness and harms of these interventions is generally weak. However, the urgency of the situation is such that we cannot wait for better quality evidence before making decisions. Nevertheless, NPIs will need to be in place for a considerable period of time and it is important, therefore, that studies are undertaken to evaluate the risks in different settings and the impact of different control policies. Such work will need to be kept continually under review as evidence emerges and the dominant modes of transmission alter.





> Collection and analysis of contact-tracing data, particularly from backward contact tracing. This requires improved record-linkages, so that routes of transmission can be routinely investigated. At present this is only available for a small minority of cases, so the power of these data to inform decisions is not being maximised. In addition, care needs to be taken when analysing these data as they lack a control group.





> Regular (perhaps every 1 or 2 weeks) case control studies should be undertaken in which a large random sample of cases are matched with community controls and their risk factors are examined. Any such study would need to be large enough to examine regional differences, should they emerge (or be able to oversample to look at regional differences) or differences by socio-economic and demographic groups. PHE have recently undertaken a case-control study that meets most of these requirements.



From the same document as in my last post https://assets.publishing.service.g...ummary_of_effectiveness_and_harms_of_NPIs.pdf

Aside from PHEs somewhat improved attempts at the latter, I expect that if we ever reach the point where planned trials of reopening major sports for spectators and some entertainment events actually go ahead as planned, new data will emerge from those. Which does get a mention in the last part of their list:



> • Studies on the impact of harms of interventions.
> • Studies on the effectiveness of interventions in different settings.
> • Studies on the effectiveness of “COVID-security” measures on viral transmission.
> • Detailed pilot studies on the safe opening of indoor and outdoor entertainment venues should be considered so that cultural and sporting events can be opened up as rapidly as possible as restrictions are eased once more



So I am not against any of this further study, it is necessary and I'm annoyed more wasn't done on these fronts sooner. But in the absence of that stuff, I am a fan of acting on what we do know or can reasonably logically deduce.

(By the way, NPIs = non-pharmaceutical interventions)


----------



## killer b (Nov 20, 2020)

You can also justify the pub & hospitality closures (now at least) by looking a the regional variations in infection rates, and comparing them to a list of which regions have had pub closures for a few weeks longer than the others. It's pretty obvious.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 20, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Sorry but how much clearer do you need? If your idea of essential is Christmas decorations your insane.


Well yes, but when places like B&M, Costa and the cake shop are open... people will go there to buy highly essential pork rolls, take away coffees, and scented candles.


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## The39thStep (Nov 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> Such figures were wheeled out in the face of demands for strong evidence, but the evidence requested doesn't exist. Nor in my book does it need to exist in order to justify the approach to pubs and restaurants. Weaker evidence combined with no-brainer concepts about respiratory viruses is all that is required....
> 
> The risk is there anywhere that people mix. The risk is worse when people are indoors. Household transmission is the worst offender, but since households cannot be closed, the sources of the virus getting into a member of that household in the first place is the area to target. Hospitality is an obvious vector and in some ways its low-hanging fruit, because such locations can actually be closed, whereas much less can be done for other known risks such as working and health and social care, we can't just stop doing those other things.
> 
> ...


So aside from closing down education( I assume that means from nurseries to Universities?) , increase home working where possible  is there anything else you'd want to reccomend?Is there anything in your opinion that  the UK should  do about supermarkets, definition of essential services or the possible lifting of restrictions for xmas for example?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 20, 2020)

Sky is reporting the R number is down from 1.0-1.2 to 1.0-1.1, which is nowhere near where we need to be.


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## The39thStep (Nov 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky is reporting the R number is down from 1.0-1.2 to 1.0-1.1, which is nowhere near where we need to be.



Manchester Evening News saying the R number has dropped to below 1 in the North West








						Coronavirus R number 'has dropped below one' in the north west
					

The R number is 'around one' for the whole of the UK - but has fallen below one in some parts of the country, according to new research




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## teuchter (Nov 20, 2020)

Lots of nice graphs here:





__





						Loading…
					





					covid-assets.joinzoe.com
				






> > *Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London, comments: *
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## kalidarkone (Nov 20, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> I think I'm with you here. Not sure, as I'm fairly pissed.
> 
> The prospect of not being able to see family over xmas is positively
> 
> (sorry, christmas in my family is fairly grim historically)


Same which is why I've worked on Xmas day the last few years.


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## editor (Nov 20, 2020)

And a slapdown for Professor Brookes 









						The number of people dying right now is not the same as in any other year - Full Fact
					

It was also claimed on talkRADIO that deaths from other respiratory diseases have simply been “replaced“ with Covid-19.




					fullfact.org


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## Cid (Nov 20, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> So aside from closing down education( I assume that means from nurseries to Universities?) , increase home working where possible  is there anything else you'd want to reccomend?Is there anything in your opinion that  the UK should  do about supermarkets, definition of essential services or the possible lifting of restrictions for xmas for example?



You do what the available data tells you you should do, combined with some level of balancing depending on social needs. We’ve discussed this at length on this thread and others... you can’t really close supermarkets because the delivery infrastructure could never handle that kind of demand. You could make the bring back some of the distancing policies they had in the first lockdown, though in practice that’s harder with cold weather (outdoor queues). But in the end people move through supermarkets quickly, the contact points are brief and the ventilation is usually adequate afaik. It’s a marginal case.

In contrast with education iirc there were estimates of reductions in r of 0.2 or more for each of higher and lower education. Which is huge. And complete closures may not have been necessary. Now? Dunno. Need to read up again, elbows is probably keeping track better. But broadly the ideas are the same - cut extended contacts in enclosed, poorly ventilated spaces.


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky is reporting the R number is down from 1.0-1.2 to 1.0-1.1, which is nowhere near where we need to be.


We're seeing the same patterns, more or less, as the first wave. First and hardest hit is also the first and fastest to come down. 

Overall R of 1 includes the fact that the Midlands is still getting worse while the NW, Scotland, Wales, and probably NE are getting better. 

These patterns all started before the England 'lockdown'. I don't think it's really making a measurable difference, tbh.


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## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> So aside from closing down education( I assume that means from nurseries to Universities?) , increase home working where possible  is there anything else you'd want to reccomend?Is there anything in your opinion that  the UK should  do about supermarkets, definition of essential services or the possible lifting of restrictions for xmas for example?



I am currently a bit sick of saying what I think about every aspect all the time, so this response is not attempting to be fully comprehensive. The education sector is complex, I would have prioritised it but that would have meant doing things the likes of SAGE mentioned in the summer, ie you close other things well before schools even reopen, in order to create room in the infection incidence picture to give education reopening the best chance of reopening without instantly magnifying the problem. I wouldn't have tried to stop so many people working from home. I would probably have made it clear during the relaxation phase that pubs and restaurants were likely only reopening on a temporary basis. I would incentivise people to do the right thing in terms of work and self isolation and quarantine by making it financially viable for even the poorest workers. I would not have been keen about allowing foreign travel during the summer, and I would not have done eat out to help out. Test & trace was not a complete solution in itself but it should have been done a lot better. Hospital and care home routine testing, very much including for staff, should have been a huge priority that got sorted out properly in the summer, instead of the situation where they left it to come in too late and in a patchy way. The daily press conferences should not have been paused in summer, the mood music in that period was all wrong.

Supermarkets have always bothered me, especially at pre-lockdown moments where various frenzies ensued, but also at other times. I can understand why authorities shy away from closing essential retail like that, its a big risk that can cause much harm unless a really robust home delivery network that doesn't miss anyone vulnerable is put in place on a scale far beyond the routine delivery slots supermarkets are setup to provide. So I dont know exactly what I would have done, beyond the obvious of stating that 'covid secure' workplace guidelines are a load of shit.

As for Christmas, I have the luxury of being able to wait longer before forming my own opinion on that than the authorities have. They probably have to make some decisions next week, and the data may be showing more interesting signs by then, but it will still be too soon for me to know what the incidence levels of virus int he community will be at Christmas. If they are not low by the time Christmas comes then it is very hard for me to advocate even a short relaxation. And the current measures look like they are enough to do something, but nowhere close to being enough to reduce incidence levels to anything I would call low. I therefore suspect that the only circumstance where I could get behind a temporary relaxation is if that comes a after a period where we increase restrictions. But as others have pointed out on this thread, there is the angle where governments suspect many people will ignore some of the rules over Christmas anyway, which somewhat changes the equation about what effect putting the official seal of approval on such relaxations will actually have.


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We're seeing the same patterns, more or less, as the first wave. First and hardest hit is also the first and fastest to come down.
> 
> Overall R of 1 includes the fact that the Midlands is still getting worse while the NW, Scotland, Wales, and probably NE are getting better.
> 
> These patterns all started before the England 'lockdown'. I don't think it's really making a measurable difference, tbh.



I dont remember there being many signs that you thought the first lockdown was responsible for what actually happened to levels of infection either though.

For me it is still slightly too early to judge but we are now sort of into that zone, I'm watching hospital data very carefully. All the patterns so far to me look like partially muted epidemic growth with some of the brakes being on being visible via the trajectory. But its not just the bad news that is happening in slow motion compared to the first wave, the good news might be a bit limp and thus harder to spot too. I dunno, there are some signs of certain things peaking, but as you say those could so far mostly be attributed to other measures that applied to certain regions for a while before the national measures came in. I'm sure I will indulge in another flurry of graphs on several occasions in the days ahead.


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## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

I don't know what to say about the deaths by date of death for England at the moment either. At the moment it looks like a plateau with a single days peak that was much higher, but part of me keeps expecting to see a different picture in the next days worth of data, or wondering whether there may have been some sort of additional reporting lag or data fuckup. I will be happy if it is a real plateau, but then I won't be happy until I see it coming down as thats not a daily rate we want to be stuck with for a long time.

I'll post a graph when todays data has been added to the picture, and will tell a different story if thats what the data shows in contrast to the above.


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## 8115 (Nov 20, 2020)

Hancock on the tv. Free flu vaccination for all over 50s this year.


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## quimcunx (Nov 20, 2020)

8115 said:


> Hancock on the tv. Free flu vaccination for all over 50s this year.



I already paid for one! Lots will have.

E2a

!This claim is disputed and withdrawn in later posts.


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 20, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I already paid for one! Lots will have.


Where the hell did you get one? I've been unable to pay for one in London - all stock reserved for NHS allocation.


----------



## andysays (Nov 20, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Where the hell did you get one? I've been unable to pay for one in London - all stock reserved for NHS allocation.



I also found it impossible to source any when I tried to find some in late October.

This latest batch was announced overnight (I think) and was definitely on BBC website early this morning, because I linked to it on another thread.

I would imagine that supplies and vaccination slots at GPs will get booked up pretty quick...


----------



## quimcunx (Nov 20, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> Where the hell did you get one? I've been unable to pay for one in London - all stock reserved for NHS allocation.



My local pharmacy. However just now it occurs to me that he waved me away when I asked how much so it was free. They would know my dob but this was a month or more ago so dunno about this being news or just a reminder from Hancock.


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 20, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> My local pharmacy. However just now it occurs to me that he waved me away when I asked how much so it was free. They would know my dob but this was a month or more ago so dunno about this being news or just a reminder from Hancock.


Maybe you just got a sympathetic pharmacist. I've been wanting to get one because I still have lung function issues from long covid but it's not possible because NHS bureaucracy hasn't yet decided that covid damage is something that might require people to have extra protection. I've been rolling my eyes hard about this. I know bureaucracies usually act slowly but maybe just in these very particular circumstances they could be a bit quicker on their feet. But no


----------



## Numbers (Nov 20, 2020)

JVT with his “over” on the presser.


----------



## Mation (Nov 20, 2020)

Stop with the flying analogies. Over.


----------



## Mation (Nov 20, 2020)

Not entirely sure that Hancock meant to reveal that we don't know how effective the vaccine will be at bringing down R.


----------



## Supine (Nov 20, 2020)

Numbers said:


> JVT with his “over” on the presser.



Loved that 

I'm going to use it in meetings now lol


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 20, 2020)

I got a flu jab, but back in September, when my GPs were pushing their "flu clinic" ... and as everybody else in my household are over 65 ...
(I had one for the past several years because I was carer for my very elderly & frail father).

So I'm hoping for the same with the CovidJab


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 20, 2020)

8115 said:


> Hancock on the tv. Free flu vaccination for all over 50s this year.



This was announced about 3 months ago, but first to get the jab were those that normally get it, they have been done now, so now onto the under 65's. 

Basically they are doubling the jabs this from 15m to 30m.


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## ignatious (Nov 20, 2020)

Mation said:


> Not entirely sure that Hancock meant to reveal that we don't know how effective the vaccine will be at bringing down R.


As I understand it, it isn’t known if any of the vaccines currently undergoing trials will affect the R value, as it isn’t known if they prevent infection and spread (claims, thus far, are limited to their success in preventing illness).


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 20, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> I already paid for one! Lots will have.
> 
> E2a
> 
> !This claim is disputed and withdrawn in later posts.


I've paid for mine, cost me £12 on 14th October and I'm over 60 never mind 50 so fuck you Hancock


----------



## 8115 (Nov 20, 2020)

ignatious said:


> As I understand it, it isn’t known if any of the vaccines currently undergoing trials will affect the R value, as it isn’t known if they prevent infection and spread (claims, thus far, are limited to their success in preventing illness).


This goes against everything (albeit limited) I know about illness.


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## frogwoman (Nov 20, 2020)

I've already had mine 15 quid at the chemist's. Supposedly a lot of people my mum knows have had bad reactions to it so she hasn't had hers yet.


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

I have resorted to a different version of my colour-coding in order to talk myself out of a false sense of plateaus in the daily death data when viewed by date of death.

Previously I was wheeling these graphs out with different colours for each individual days reporting. The following ones instead use a single colour for an entire 7 days worth of results, and a different colour for all results before that 7 day period.

The first graph is one from late October/early November when I last attempted this particular exercise, for reference/comparison. The second one is using the latest available daily data from the UK dashboard. If I force myself not to get too distracted by the high number for 9th November, the pattern of how a weeks worth of data ads to the picture shows some similarities, but also implies a reduced rate of increase more recently. This also matches what's been seen in terms of the rate of increase in deaths when measured by date of reporting not date of death. However it is still an awkward moment to make strong claims, since if there is some additional backlog in the system it could yet be that the trend ends up continuing at a more alarming pace that is more in tune with a continued increase beyond the high number seen for November 9th, at the trajectory that the November 9th number implies, rather than the much more appealing trajectory that other recent dates currently point towards. Either way the numbers are way too high for me to be happy, but I feel compelled to try to describe the picture anyway, even when as usual I feel like I need to wait for another weeks data to tell the story. But given the reasonably large numbers that were still being added to periods such as 6th-8th November in the data published from the 14th to 20th, I'm not too optimistic about a tidy plateau emerging before our eyes, but I can always hold out hope, it might. Maybe the best I dare hope for right not is a slowing in the increase speed, and I hope I am seeing that rather than it just being number of deaths affected by reporting lag growing as total numbers increase.

I will probably bore on about some hospital data in a bit and then give it a rest till sometime next week.


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## 8115 (Nov 20, 2020)

When you get ill the virus starts replicating itself inside your body. This is how you get ill and this is how you become infectious. Your immune system is primed by the vaccine to recognise the virus so it can attack it and stop it replicating. How would you therefore be infectious but not ill?


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## two sheds (Nov 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I've already had mine 15 quid at the chemist's. Supposedly a lot of people my mum knows have had bad reactions to it so she hasn't had hers yet.


tell her I've not even had a sore arm 

mind you coronavirus vaccine kept at -70 has to make your  arm somewhat sore


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## cupid_stunt (Nov 20, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> I've paid for mine, cost me £12 on 14th October and I'm over 60 never mind 50 so fuck you Hancock



Why did you do that, when it was announced months ago that it would be expanded to include everyone over 50?


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## Supine (Nov 20, 2020)

two sheds said:


> tell her I've not even had a sore arm
> 
> mind you coronavirus vaccine kept at -70 has to make your  arm somewhat sore



They might let it warm up a bit first


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

I'm also aware that my previous post might not be terribly helpful, but I attempted it anyway because of the shape of that data at the moment, and because if people are instead looking at deaths by date of reporting, they are seeing this sort of thing at the moment:


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## MickiQ (Nov 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why did you do that, when it was announced months ago that it would be expanded to include everyone over 50?


It wasn't very well publicised then since I certainly didn't know about it


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## cupid_stunt (Nov 20, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> It wasn't very well publicised then since I certainly didn't know about it



It was all over the news at the time, TV, radio & papers, and discussed on here, sorry you missed it somehow.

I thought it was announced  back in late Aug./early Sept., in fact it was actually announced back in July.









						Most comprehensive flu programme in UK history will be rolled out this winter
					

Providers will work to vaccinate more than 30 million people during this flu season – millions more than received it last year.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

I see that the vaccine for NHS workers as part of the initial wave of vaccinations got a brief mention today in the press conference. I wonder what uptake will be like. I know that for a number of years they were shamed by relatively low uptake of influenza vaccination in this sector, and spent a fair amount of money on internal campaigns to improve that picture, managing to get it above 70% for the first time a couple of years ago I believe. Its not just the wider public where skepticism towards vaccination can have unwanted impacts.


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It was all over the news at the time, TV, radio & papers, and discussed on here, sorry you missed it somehow.
> 
> I thought it was announced  back in late Aug./early Sept., in fact it was actually announced back in July.
> 
> ...


Bummer, well £12 won't break me and I know for next year. Well actually £24 since I paid for Mrs Q's as well. She's 58 so she would have been free as well. Son got a voucher off his employer and his G/F was jabbed at the hospital since nurses get it for free anyway. Don't know if that isa  regular thing or just a 2020 special cause of the lurgy.


----------



## LDC (Nov 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I see that the vaccine for NHS workers as part of the initial wave of vaccinations got a brief mention today in the press conference. I wonder what uptake will be like. I know that for a number of years they were shamed by relatively low uptake of influenza vaccination in this sector, and spent a fair amount of money on internal campaigns to improve that picture, managing to get it above 70% for the first time a couple of years ago I believe. Its not just the wider public where skepticism towards vaccination can have unwanted impacts.



I've been meaning to write a longer post about that issue and the conversations I had recently with some NHS workers (who were bordering on covid conspiracy) but as part of that encounter I did come across a vaccine refuser at work. They said they refuse all vaccines and generally 'would rather die than take a pill every day'. They also went on to say the government figures are massively exaggerated, 'with covid/not of covid' and all that nonsense. So yes, working in the NHS doesn't insulate you from idiotic conspiracy thinking around covid, vaccines, etc.


----------



## ignatious (Nov 20, 2020)

8115 said:


> When you get ill the virus starts replicating itself inside your body. This is how you get ill and this is how you become infectious. Your immune system is primed by the vaccine to recognise the virus so it can attack it and stop it replicating. How would you therefore be infectious but not ill?


You can have suppressed symptoms but still be contagious, just as you can be asymptomatic and contagious. The table on page 2 of this article shows that none of the ongoing trials are aiming to prove their vaccine can interrupt person to person transmission. Hopefully they will but it’s not scientifically certain fwiu.


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

So in todays press conference they had the same sort of issues when trying to talk about the picture that I've been having recently, ie the temptation to talk about peaks and plateaus whilst at the same time being cautious about what several days further data may show.

And as per a previous conversation here, they are still sticking with the 'just show one graph' approach.






__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				




One additional days data is actually available from the same source, and the 14,479 has reduced to 14,236. And here is my graph of the regional version of the same data:


Source of data I used for that graph is the daily spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## Supine (Nov 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I've been meaning to write a longer post about that issue and the conversations I had recently with some NHS workers (who were bordering on covid conspiracy) but as part of that encounter I did come across a vaccine refuser at work. They said they refuse all vaccines and generally 'would rather die than take a pill every day'. They also went on to say the government figures are massively exaggerated, 'with covid/not of covid' and all that nonsense. So yes, working in the NHS doesn't insulate you from idiotic conspiracy thinking around covid, vaccines, etc.



Although it's almost certainly a minority view in an organisation that employs a million+ people.


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

Mation said:


> Stop with the flying analogies. Over.



You know we'll be in trouble if we tune into a press conference and see this. Or perhaps given the performance of the current bunch we will be better off. I dont see so much of Whitty and Vallance these days, think they got punctured and the puncture repair kit is stuck in some port backlog.


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

Numbers said:


> JVT with his “over” on the presser.



Thanks to my amazing abilities to research and present only the most vital and pressing details in this pandemic, I can reveal that a flurry of local media stories (from what I can tell, literally the exact same story), reported on November 11th that the over thing is something he has already been doing when having video calls behind the scenes:



> Amid the euphoria of this week’s announcement of a possible vaccine, Prof Van-Tam – who marks the end of his input in behind-the-scenes video briefings with the sign-off “over” – drew from his own love of football to sound a word of caution.











						Professor Jonathan Van-Tam: The epidemiology expert with a touch of the everyman
					

The deputy chief medical officer for England draws on his own experiences to explain the impact of coronavirus.




					www.expressandstar.com
				




This Guardian piece on todays over action did not pick up on that history. But they did notice his backdrop of Boston United programmes, although when discussing his history of strained analogies, I believe they missed the 2nd goal in the penalty shootout.









						Van-Tam Covid show is all 'over' but far from out
					

Deputy chief medical officer employs two-way radio jargon for self-isolated press briefing




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

And yes, some aspects of this belong in the 'big up the expert' file that I opened when the most obvious pieces in regards Whitty appeared in the press back in the day. They really didnt have much to work with on that one, nothing warm and personal they could play off to build Whitty into a more well rounded character that could hope to resonate on additional levels. I could more than tolerate Whitty in the early months because when stood in the same room as Johnson and Vallance, he was not offensive and did not routinely insult our intelligence. However he did mostly fit a certain caricature of a somewhat remote doctor. And it was inevitable that since he was one of the figureheads who had to announce the original, doomed government timetable for action against the first wave, that would do some damage, as did subsequent events such as his and Vallances responses to the Cummings thing, in contrast to Van-Tams. And then with the second wave response Whitty and Vallance were rather used to take a fair chunk of the heat coming from anti-lockdown sections of the media and the tory party. I dont think they are now totally useless in any public messaging role, but it is sensible to save them for particular occasions and use Van-Tam as the regular. I think I've been calling for this since the Cummings thing, but mostly in the form of naff humour.

Speaking of which, I'd be interested to see a new format where Van-Tam will take requests from the public to use particular flavours of analogy of their choosing, in return for peoples pledges to adhere more stringently to the restrictions than they were previously.

I would like to request a knobbly-knees contest analogy before this thing is over.


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why did you do that, when it was announced months ago that it would be expanded to include everyone over 50?


It was indeed well publicised that over-50s would be eligible for a free flu jab this winter. I paid for mine at Boots last year and received a  reminder letter early in September, booked it online that day and had the jab on 30 September. As I work in a public facing role I wanted to be protected before flu season kicked in, rather than having to wait until the core group of over-65s and those with medical reasons had (rightly) been prioritised.
I wonder whether the option for those not in priority groups to pay privately (eg in Boots) for the Covid-19 vaccine will become commonplace within a year or so.


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 20, 2020)

Talking of Van-Tam (as a little way upthread), his letter to The Guardian criticising their sensationalist front page crap**  wasn't half bad I thought -- look at this from the letter :




			
				Jonathan Van-Tam said:
			
		

> It is oversimplistic to imply that any vaccines are “superior” or “inferior”. The results we will have initially for any vaccine will pertain to efficacy determined over a relatively short timeframe. A vaccine with slightly lower headline efficacy than another may prove to be the one that offers more durable protection or a greater effect on transmission. Comparing vaccines based on a single interim estimate of effectiveness is therefore a mistake.
> 
> The UK has targeted seven vaccines, procuring, over time, a total of 355m doses for the UK population, and vaccine effectiveness will be closely monitored in real time.





**I can't now find the original Guardian piece -- about vaccines and their availability  
But it was ridiculously sensational -- front page too!  -- about how poor availability would be.


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2020)

I have very little opinion formed about what availability to expect because I havent looked much at what production rates the key manufacturers are likely to achieve. We shall see, and its not hard to imagine the Guardian over-egging certain angles, especially as they were probably seeking to counter some of the giddy predictions from those who were indulging a bit too hard in vaccine fanfare.

I'm just catching up with this news about T-cells that came about as a result of a PHE study.









						Covid antibodies 'last at least six months'
					

The more antibodies people have, the lower their chances of re-infection, a study suggests.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




There are several different aspects to that side of the story but for now I am focussing more on this bit:



> It found in June about a quarter of the key workers studied had high levels of T-cells which recognised the Covid virus in their blood - but only just over half of them appeared to have had Covid-19.
> 
> The paper concluded this immunity was likely to be there "because of previous infection with coronaviruses other than SARS-CoV-2", for example the common cold virus.
> 
> ...



This is certainly one angle that should be considered by those who are seeking additional factors to explain the complete picture of variation between timing and severity of outbreaks in various regions and nations. It is a shame that I believe most nations routine surveillance of the various different sorts of existing human coronaviruses is likely to have been rather unimpressive, and I dont know how much data I will find that could indicate the timing of previous large outbreaks of different coronaviruses in different countries. Probably hardly any at all. These other coronaviruses have very dull names like OC43 and NL63, and there are I believe 4 of them that we have discovered so far and lump together, along with some other viruses that aren't coronaviruses at all, as the common cold.


----------



## LDC (Nov 21, 2020)

Supine said:


> Although it's almost certainly a minority view in an organisation that employs a million+ people.



For sure, although all the three people at my work that I chatted to at the same time about it in the staff room had some level of conspiracy thinking. Although I was less interested in the antivax stuff and more the general beliefs around the pandemic. I just keep being surprised how deep some elements of conspiracy thinking have gone within society, and then I had a long conversation with them trying to understand why.

The very short version is a mistrust of the government and experts and a bit of anti-Chinese racism - one of the people thought it was purposefully created and released by the Chinese State. When I gave some facts, one of them actually said in response, "Yes, maybe that's true, but this is what I feel is going on." One of them came up with the classic, "Well my friend's cousn works in a lab and has seen the virus under a microscope and it's too perfect to be natural." TBH I found it very depressing, made me feel quite fucking despairing.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 21, 2020)

Since we’re talking about flu jabs, maybe somebody with more epidemiology knowledge than me can help me out.

My understanding of vaccines has always been that it is dangerous to undervaccinate a population.  That is, if you don’t vaccinate at high enough a level, you risk accelerating the evolution (or risk causing epigenetic change to enact) either of virulence or infectiousness in the virus, making it much harder to contain.  You should either vaccinate to herd immunity levels and kill the virus off or you should let it mutate more harmlessly.

So I don’t understand why this thinking is not applied to the flu vaccine, despite flu proving itself particularly adaptable.  Why are we happy to vaccinate a pretty small % of the population and risk the consequences that can come with this?


----------



## andysays (Nov 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Since we’re talking about flu jabs, maybe somebody with more epidemiology knowledge than me can help me out.
> 
> My understanding of vaccines has always been that it is dangerous to undervaccinate a population.  That is, if you don’t vaccinate at high enough a level, you risk accelerating the evolution (or risk causing epigenetic change to enact) either of virulence or infectiousness in the virus, making it much harder to contain.  You should either vaccinate to herd immunity levels and kill the virus off or you should let it mutate more harmlessly.
> 
> So I don’t understand why this thinking is not applied to the flu vaccine, despite flu proving itself particularly adaptable.  Why are we happy to vaccinate a pretty small % of the population and risk the consequences that can come with this?


My understanding (and I don't claim to have more epidemiology knowledge than the next person) is that what you're saying applies more to things that don't evolve or mutate naturally anyway, so one course of vaccine lasts many years (eg the stuff most people get in infancy/early childhood).

But as the flu virus mutates rapidly anyway, having a vaccination one year won't protect you the following year, you need to get the new one, which protects against the particular strain which is expected to be prevalent. So the idea of lasting herd immunity through vaccination doesn't work with flu, it's more a question of protecting those within the population who are considered most vulnerable.

I'm happy to be corrected on any or all of that if anyone with more epidemiology knowledge than me or kabbes knows better.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 21, 2020)




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## Mation (Nov 21, 2020)

Not really sure who March for Change are. Well, I've looked at their website and am still none the wiser, other than that they're "a campaigning organisation all about citizen empowerment in the political issues of the day." Couldn't find them mentioned on here, either...

But good to see more emphasis on aerosol transmission.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Nov 21, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Since we’re talking about flu jabs, maybe somebody with more epidemiology knowledge than me can help me out.
> 
> My understanding of vaccines has always been that it is dangerous to undervaccinate a population.  That is, if you don’t vaccinate at high enough a level, you risk accelerating the evolution (or risk causing epigenetic change to enact) either of virulence or infectiousness in the virus, making it much harder to contain.  You should either vaccinate to herd immunity levels and kill the virus off or you should let it mutate more harmlessly.
> 
> So I don’t understand why this thinking is not applied to the flu vaccine, despite flu proving itself particularly adaptable.  Why are we happy to vaccinate a pretty small % of the population and risk the consequences that can come with this?


I've done a quick search, and found a few articles/papers addressing this. It's been a concern for a while and various people and organisations have advocated programmes aiming for herd-immunity levels of flu vaccination. Perhaps the covid crisis will provide renewed impetus.

This article from 2012 advocates vaccinating the low-risk population to protect the high-risk population, which would require a shift in the priorities in the UK and elsewhere atm. Not only are the elderly the most at risk, but they are also those least likely to develop good immunity from a vaccine. You shouldn't necessarily target your vaccination attempts at the high-risk group. It may make more sense to target low-risk groups instead. Different priorities emerge depending on whether your focus is protecting individuals or protecting populations.

The vaccination coverage required to establish herd immunity against influenza viruses


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Nov 21, 2020)

Interesting article about the last smallpox death in the world, and how they managed quarantine and tracing contacts.









						‘It was a total invasion’: the virus that came back from the dead
					

In 1978, a photographer at a Birmingham lab fell ill with smallpox, prompting a race against time to prevent an epidemic. Does the outbreak carry lessons for Covid-19?




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## maomao (Nov 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> Not really sure who March for Change are. Well, I've looked at their website and am still none the wiser, other than that they're "a campaigning organisation all about citizen empowerment in the political issues of the day." Couldn't find them mentioned on here, either...
> 
> But good to see more emphasis on aerosol transmission.



They're some sort of remainer campaign/think tank. The kind of campaign that has directors. And while their covid secure plan is quite good it's not implementable because of the government we have. And there's a link to their 'don't trade with trump' campaign on the front page. Which might only really alienate idiots but any sort of national anti covid strategy needs idiots on board.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 21, 2020)

Leaving aside the problem of refusniks, and their poison-ness attitude, my impression that relatively low levels of flu jabs in an area can be related to the relative difficulty of getting the jab (and cost, for that part of the population that pays for 'scripts). 
I know my local GPs have run jab clinics for some years now, and some of the sessions are outside normal hours to address this access problem. 

I shall be interested to see how they manage doing the covid-19 jabs.


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## farmerbarleymow (Nov 21, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Leaving aside the problem of refusniks, and their poison-ness attitude, my impression that relatively low levels of flu jabs in an area can be related to the relative difficulty of getting the jab (and cost, for that part of the population that pays for 'scripts).
> I know my local GPs have run jab clinics for some years now, and some of the sessions are outside normal hours to address this access problem.
> 
> I shall be interested to see how they manage doing the covid-19 jabs.


That's a good point - I wonder if the vaccine will be free for everyone?  I presume it would be otherwise the take up will be affected in groups that normally have to pay for flu jabs.  

My GP have run Saturday morning flu jab sessions for a few years so guess they might do similar with this vaccine, unless we're all shepherded to a dedicated vaccination centre somewhere.


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## StoneRoad (Nov 21, 2020)

My GPs normally have a flu jab clinic that lasts just over a week, usually including two weekends - and a catch-up session a few days later. This is usually September-ish and they have flyers etc around the main street and in some of the shops as well as a banner pushing jabs.

This year, it seems that they put in even longer hours - partly because of social distancing etc - I haven't been in the main street to look at shop windows for some months, but I'm told the usual displays were put up. I got a text message advising me to book. September was for the main priority groups and they carried on into October with over 65s. One of the nurses said they needed yet more jabs to go down the age groups to include the over 50s.
Note that the over 65s who hadn't had the pneumonia vaccination were also being offered that as well.

As I've said, I think they were well organised and had plenty of customers. More than last year ! 
Also, one of the Docs said he would have jabbed over 100 people during the past three days of the clinic (he'd been on the general appointments duty list for the other three days that week - and he'd done a few during that as well).


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Nov 21, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Note that the over 65s who hadn't had the pneumonia vaccination were also being offered that as well.


Yeah, I'd encourage anyone to get that vaccine too if they can - even though it won't protect against all types, it's better than nothing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 21, 2020)

Some GPs around here have come together to provide flu jab clinics in various place like church halls and community centres, with extended hours, community & district nurses have been visiting vulnerable patients, such as my mother, to do home jabs.

Pharmacies, including at the local Tesco & Asda, are offering NHS jabs for those entitled to it, and privately from as little as £8.

GPs are contacting patients to get them to attend, my SiS got 2 voicemails when her phone was switched off at work, then they called the landline, and my brother confirmed she had already had it at work/hospital. 

Seems very well organised TBH.


----------



## Looby (Nov 21, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Yeah, I'd encourage anyone to get that vaccine too if they can - even though it won't protect against all types, it's better than nothing.


I’ve never been offered the pneumonia vaccine even though I’ve been entitled to a flu jab for 12 years. I asked this year when I booked and they said yes. I don’t get why I had to ask as I assumed I wasn’t entitled.


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## two sheds (Nov 21, 2020)

Said before but I asked my doctor about the pneumonia vaccine and she said I'd had it two years ago


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## Looby (Nov 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Said before but I asked my doctor about the pneumonia vaccine and she said I'd had it two years ago


😄
I did wonder myself but I hadn’t.


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## farmerbarleymow (Nov 21, 2020)

Looby said:


> I’ve never been offered the pneumonia vaccine even though I’ve been entitled to a flu jab for 12 years. I asked this year when I booked and they said yes. I don’t get why I had to ask as I assumed I wasn’t entitled.


I guess it's all about your underlying risk factors.  I was offered it due to asthma but I've hear others with the same condition who weren't so it might depend on the attitude of your GP.


----------



## Looby (Nov 21, 2020)

farmerbarleymow said:


> I guess it's all about your underlying risk factors.  I was offered it due to asthma but I've hear others with the same condition who weren't so it might depend on the attitude of your GP.


I just don’t think they’re pushing it like they do the flu jab. I get texts and reminders annually about flu and nothing about pneumonia. But when I asked they didn’t have to check if I could have it because I think they use the same criteria. Oh well, had it now. 👍


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## farmerbarleymow (Nov 21, 2020)

Definitely worth getting it done if you're vulnerable to chest problems.


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## two sheds (Nov 21, 2020)

Looby said:


> I just don’t think they’re pushing it like they do the flu jab. I get texts and reminders annually about flu and nothing about pneumonia. But when I asked they didn’t have to check if I could have it because I think they use the same criteria. Oh well, had it now. 👍



Perhaps because it's a one off rather than yearly.


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## two sheds (Nov 21, 2020)

I had tetanus injection when I moved here nearly 20 years ago because I was going to be doing loads of gardening. Can't remember whether I've had or need a booster though. I'll swear I asked my doctor but can't remember what she said  again


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## farmerbarleymow (Nov 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I had tetanus injection when I moved here nearly 20 years ago because I was going to be doing loads of gardening. Can't remember whether I've had or need a booster though. I'll swear I asked my doctor but can't remember what she said  again


My last tetanus jab was at least 15 years back - can't remember exactly.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 21, 2020)

Tetanus
					

Information about tetanus, a rare bacterial infection, including how you get it, the symptoms, how it's treated, and the tetanus vaccination.




					www.nhs.uk
				






> The full course of vaccination includes 5 injections, usually given on the following schedule:
> 
> 
> the first 3 doses are given as part of the 6-in-1 vaccine at age 8, 12 and 16 weeks
> ...



I won't have had the childhood ones but looks like we're ok.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 21, 2020)

I was bitten by a dog about 5 years ago, I went straight to see the GP for a tetanus jab, and he told me the current thinking is that it lasts a lifetime, so he just cleaned my bloody wound & dressed it.

I think I am still alive.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 21, 2020)




----------



## AverageJoe (Nov 21, 2020)

So as I suspected, we _will_ come out of National lockdown on 2 Dec. 

And go straight back into regional tier three lockdown across the country. 

Which fucking sucks.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 21, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> So as I suspected, we _will_ come out of National lockdown on 2 Dec.
> 
> And go straight back into regional tier three lockdown across the country.
> 
> Which fucking sucks.



As suspected. No great surprise is it.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 21, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> So as I suspected, we _will_ come out of National lockdown on 2 Dec.
> 
> And go straight back into regional tier three lockdown across the country.
> 
> Which fucking sucks.


A strengthened tier three lockdown


----------



## killer b (Nov 21, 2020)

they're talking about 'a strengthened three-tiered system', which doesn't imply everywhere will be tier three does it?


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## 8115 (Nov 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> they're talking about 'a strengthened three-tiered system', which doesn't imply everywhere will be tier three does it?


They were saying tier 1, basically doesn't work.


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## 8115 (Nov 21, 2020)

Tier 3 works, tier 2 sometimes works, tier 1 doesn't work.


----------



## AverageJoe (Nov 21, 2020)

It's just a fucking joke. 

I don't qualify for any help from the government as I set up a new business in Jan and work from home so don't have any business premises. 

I feel like I'm in an open prison. I can do some things but only when I'm allowed or told to. 

I'm a reasonable, patient, law abiding citizen and I'm being treated like a cunt by the government. My resentment is slowly turning into anger. And I can't be the only one. 

I want to live goddammit, not exist.


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## The39thStep (Nov 21, 2020)

Have to wait for the full announcement and details .  The Telegraph is reporting more areas to be placed into the higher tiers and restrictions in tiers strengthened . 
They are also quoting some proposal of a ‘freedom pass’ for next year in which if individuals are tested negative for covid twice a week they can ‘live a normal as life as possible ‘ whatever that means .


----------



## AverageJoe (Nov 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Have to wait for the full announcement and details .  The Telegraph is reporting more areas to be placed into the higher tiers and restrictions in tiers strengthened .
> They are also quoting some proposal of a ‘freedom pass’ for next year in which if individuals are tested negative for covid twice a week they can ‘live a normal as life as possible ‘ whatever that means .



Which bits of what you just wrote make you happy? 

Probably none of it. And that's what sucks.


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## AverageJoe (Nov 21, 2020)

If it gets to the stage (soon, if this is actually what's going to happen) my "freedom pass" will be writ large on my knuckles. That's no way to live. Forcing honest people to make the choice of feeding the kids or breaking the law. 

Civil war beckons


----------



## Supine (Nov 21, 2020)

Calm down son. It's shit. But this is what we have to deal with.


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## teqniq (Nov 22, 2020)

What is actually the matter with people?


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## AverageJoe (Nov 22, 2020)

Supine said:


> Calm down son. It's shit. But this is what we have to deal with.



Where'd you get your degree in patronising from 'son'.


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## andysays (Nov 22, 2020)

Covid-19: Strengthened tier system for England after lockdown


> A tougher three-tiered system of local restrictions will come into force in England when the lockdown ends on 2 December, Downing Street has said.





> Boris Johnson is expected to set out his plan - including details of how families can see different households at Christmas - to MPs on Monday. More areas are set to be placed into the higher tiers to keep the virus under control, No 10 said. And some tiers will be strengthened to safeguard lockdown progress.



But at least there's some good news


> It is not yet clear exactly how restrictions could change - but it is understood the 10pm curfew on pubs and restaurants will be altered. Mr Johnson is expected to say that, while last orders must be called at 10pm, *people will get an extra hour to finish their food and drinks.*


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## Badgers (Nov 22, 2020)

Lockdown3 in January then 

#worldbeating


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## maomao (Nov 22, 2020)

What's the difference between a strengthened tier 3 and a half-arsed lockdown anyway?


----------



## andysays (Nov 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> What's the difference between a strengthened tier 3 and a half-arsed lockdown anyway?



Only one of them is called a lockdown, so it can be presented as some sort of improvement, even though it isn't really.


----------



## LDC (Nov 22, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> It's just a fucking joke.
> 
> I don't qualify for any help from the government as I set up a new business in Jan and work from home so don't have any business premises.
> 
> ...



What do you suggest happens then to limit the deaths and massive social damage from covid if we don't have some restrictions?


----------



## LDC (Nov 22, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> If it gets to the stage (soon, if this is actually what's going to happen) my "freedom pass" will be writ large on my knuckles. That's no way to live. Forcing honest people to make the choice of feeding the kids or breaking the law.
> 
> Civil war beckons



Civil war, lol, get a grip.


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## killer b (Nov 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> What's the difference between a strengthened tier 3 and a half-arsed lockdown anyway?


depends what they strengthen i guess. You can go out for dinner with your housemate or go and buy knickers in tier 2 though, expect that'll be coming back?


----------



## LDC (Nov 22, 2020)

My guess is they'll broadly be the same, except in Tier 3 more that was optionally shut like gyms last time will be shut for sure this time. I expect non-essential retail will stay open in even the highest Tier due to it being Xmas.

I also expect it to be for about 2 weeks, then a free-for-all (even if they pay lip service to some 'use your common sense/be careful' bollocks) for Xmas and NYE. Then again back into something stricter after that.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 22, 2020)

My sister reckons they're going to let everything go with no restrictions for a few days and then have a worse lockdown afterwards.

New years is going to be nuts.


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## Badgers (Nov 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> My sister reckons they're going to let everything go with no restrictions for a few days and then have a worse lockdown afterwards.


Am almost certain this will be the case sadly.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I've worked on Christmas and/or Christmas Eve for the last few years. A lot of the time people find it hard getting time off for other religious holidays at the best of times, get pressured to work Saturday or other days etc. So they do end up seeing family on Christmas, one reason being it might not be possible on other occasions. I totally get why cloo is pissed off, I am too frankly. Everyone else has had to give up their religious holidays and I probably should have more sympathy than I do.


It's not a religious holiday though is it? For the vast majority of people who celebrate Christmas in the UK, religion has no part of it.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 22, 2020)

When will the details of the new status quo be announced?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 22, 2020)

TopCat said:


> It's not a religious holiday though is it? For the vast majority of people who celebrate Christmas in the UK, religion has no part of it.



Oh lord don't try and tell the truth. It's amazing how few give a shit but suddenly do when you point out the last time they went to church was 20 years ago to baptize the kids.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> When will the details of the new status quo be announced?



11:50pm December 1st


----------



## miss direct (Nov 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> What's the difference between a strengthened tier 3 and a half-arsed lockdown anyway?


Here in sheffield it was tier 3. The main difference is restaurants and pubs that sell food are open, but you can only go with your household.


----------



## Thora (Nov 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> When will the details of the new status quo be announced?


Various details seem to be leaking out all over the media at the moment, but think I read Monday & Thursday as announcements to parliament and the masses.


----------



## maomao (Nov 22, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Oh lord don't try and tell the truth. It's amazing how few give a shit but suddenly do when you point out the last time they went to church was 20 years ago to baptize the kids.


Secular Christmas is the most widely celebrated festival in the country and shouldn't be disparaged just because it doesn't always exactly connect to religious Christmas. Last time I went in a church (other than to vote) was for a funeral more than a decade ago and I don't believe in God. Doesn't mean I don't think family Christmas isn't something worth having or even defending.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> Secular Christmas is the most widely celebrated festival in the country and shouldn't be disparaged just because it doesn't always exactly connect to religious Christmas. Last time I went in a church (other than to vote) was for a funeral more than a decade ago and I don't believe in God. Doesn't mean I don't think family Christmas isn't something worth having or even defending.


I dont think they were arguing that. 
Christmas is a huge big deal, our midwinter festival. It's not religious for most though.


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> My sister reckons they're going to let everything go with no restrictions for a few days and then have a worse lockdown afterwards.
> 
> New years is going to be nuts.


I dont think what the govt say will make any difference now....that horse has bolted. Here in Bristol people are doing what they like and that will continue to get more extreme.

Even in hospital...well the one I work for....the rules are not clear, different depending on who is manager of the day....its a mess and there does not seem to be any clear leadership, just a load of patsy's happy to toe the party line whether it makes sense or not.

I've decided that all that little ol band 3 me can do is question the logic behind dumb decisions. 
I won't be very popular by Christmas.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> Secular Christmas is the most widely celebrated festival in the country and shouldn't be disparaged just because it doesn't always exactly connect to religious Christmas. Last time I went in a church (other than to vote) was for a funeral more than a decade ago and I don't believe in God. Doesn't mean I don't think family Christmas isn't something worth having or even defending.



Secular Christmas is absolutely fine but the minute you try and generalise it or say it's not really about God then you get hordes of people going on about PC gone mad and don't strip out the Christianity from it despite them having no stake in the church


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 22, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I dont think what the govt say will make any difference now....that horse has bolted. Here in Bristol people are doing what they like and that will continue to get more extreme.
> 
> Even in hospital...well the one I work for....the rules are not clear, different depending on who is manager of the day....its a mess and there does not seem to be any clear leadership, just a load of patsy's happy to toe the party line whether it makes sense or not.
> 
> ...



Yeah my sister is in Bristol.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 22, 2020)

This winter solstice (note : NOT christmas, I'm an atheist and don't observe any religion's holy days) is indeed something to celebrate.

However, this year celebrations will be confined to my own house ...
unless we've been lucky enough to have been vaccinated already.
All the elder generation are gone, and the two youngest members of OH's family are still shielding with their household.
That just leaves "my" generation ...

tbh, I'm quite happy to give the wider "family" celebrations a miss this year.

Despite the fact I own and run a workshop based business, I've been working from home since early March, with very limited interactions with my team. I'm quite happy to continue in the same fashion until the science says otherwise. ie I've been vaccinated and I've allowed enough time for my immune system to have been "trained" ...


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 22, 2020)

maomao said:


> Secular Christmas is the most widely celebrated festival in the country and shouldn't be disparaged just because it doesn't always exactly connect to religious Christmas. Last time I went in a church (other than to vote) was for a funeral more than a decade ago and I don't believe in God. Doesn't mean I don't think family Christmas isn't something worth having or even defending.


Yup. I keep up membership of both the Scottish Secular Society and Humanist Society Scotland.  When I was young and radical I used to use alternative names for the festival, but long ago realised that was totally missing the point that society had long ago secularised it.  

It’s important that we have festivals throughout the winter months, to reaffirm community and connection.  And for me the 25th December is a lovely family feast. It’s name matters to me about as much as the names of the days of the week.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 22, 2020)

Evidence that we shouldn't be giving parliament five days to debate new lockdown measures:


----------



## Looby (Nov 22, 2020)

Someone has just shared this on Facebook. This is from a nurse at a hospital in an area which isn’t considered to have a particularly high level of cases compared to areas in the north.
Frontline nurse at UK’s Royal Bournemouth Hospital speaks out as COVID-19 cases surge


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 22, 2020)

Looby said:


> Someone has just shared this on Facebook. This is from a nurse at a hospital in an area which isn’t considered to have a particularly high level of cases compared to areas in the north.
> Frontline nurse at UK’s Royal Bournemouth Hospital speaks out as COVID-19 cases surge


This seems an accurate reflection of what is going on in my trust.
She is so right about the unions.
Before this year I never considered not being in a union.....but now I am.


----------



## Boudicca (Nov 22, 2020)

Looby said:


> Someone has just shared this on Facebook. This is from a nurse at a hospital in an area which isn’t considered to have a particularly high level of cases compared to areas in the north.
> Frontline nurse at UK’s Royal Bournemouth Hospital speaks out as COVID-19 cases surge


Yea, I saw that.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 22, 2020)

Looby said:


> Someone has just shared this on Facebook. This is from a nurse at a hospital in an area which isn’t considered to have a particularly high level of cases compared to areas in the north.
> Frontline nurse at UK’s Royal Bournemouth Hospital speaks out as COVID-19 cases surge


That's appalling !

When bezza had the gall-bladder problem last month (this is in NE England) they had a covid test, and were admitted to a single room. when the -ve result came back - and the single room was needed for another new patient, they were moved into out the ward proper. [no visitors, btw] and discharged the same afternoon as the lunchtime operation. Luckily, I already knew what to do as my OH had lost their gall-bladder a couple of years ago ...


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

Thora said:


> Various details seem to be leaking out all over the media at the moment, but think I read Monday & Thursday as announcements to parliament and the masses.



Yes.  It seems that information regarding the revised tier system will be announced tomorrow.  They are waiting until Thursday to announce which areas will be in which tier.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes.  It seems that information regarding the revised tier system will be announced tomorrow.  They are waiting until Thursday to announce which areas will be in which tier.


Oh, I thought the point was that everyone would be in tier 3. But I only got that impression from reading this thread.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Oh, I thought the point was that everyone would be in tier 3. But I only got that impression from reading this thread.



No I don't think that will be the case.  There wouldn't be much point in a tier system if everyone is stuck in the same tier.  Lots of rural areas are still largely covid free so it doesn't make much sense for them to be in tier 3.  

This is just a guess but I reckon that which tier you were in pre-lockdown 2 will be a reasonable guide as to what tier you will move into come the end of the month.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes.  It seems that information regarding the revised tier system will be announced tomorrow.  They are waiting until Thursday to announce which areas will be in which tier.


Surely they should wait until they see the figures at the end of the shutdown before deciding which category to put each area in?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Surely they should wait until they see the figures at the end of the shutdown before deciding which category to put each area in?



Apparently that is why they are delaying announcing which areas into which tier until Thursday.


----------



## MrSki (Nov 22, 2020)

398 deaths reported today. 230 up on last Sunday & 18662 cases down 6300 on last Sunday.

ETA 141 of those deaths were omitted from yesterday.


----------



## elbows (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> This is just a guess but I reckon that which tier you were in pre-lockdown 2 will be a reasonable guide as to what tier you will move into come the end of the month.



I'd be surprised if some areas aren't put into a higher tier than they were in before the November measures.


----------



## Looby (Nov 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'd be surprised if some areas aren't put into a higher tier than they were in before the November measures.


Yeah, I think we’ll be in tier 2 at least this time. 400+ cases per 100,000 this week in a few areas close by.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 22, 2020)

I'm amazed NE Lincs wasn't already in Tier 3 before this wet fart of a mockdown was introduced. Got as high as 650 per 100k. Now at 479. 765 cases last week, 4500 total, 4200 of those in last 2 months


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'd be surprised if some areas aren't put into a higher tier than they were in before the November measures.



Well tier 1 doesn't seem to have been very effective so likely see more tier 2's this time.  The real kicker will be how many areas are put into tier 3.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 22, 2020)

We were already in tier 3 before the "lockdown" ; now, our latest case rate is 85.3 / 100,000 compared to the "national rate" at 237.6


----------



## elbows (Nov 22, 2020)

MrSki said:


> 398 deaths reported today. 230 up on last Sunday & 18662 cases down 6300 on last Sunday.
> 
> ETA 141 of those deaths were omitted from yesterday.



And the 141 that were omitted yesterday were deaths that had already been published in the past (ie they are part of numbers of deaths by date of death that I show graphs of quite often). So these were deaths we have been able to see on the dashboard in the past apart from when looking at it after Saturdays update and before todays update, rather than deaths that have been missing from the picture completely until they were added today.

For example, for a very long time the number of deaths on July 1st has been 27, but yesterday the dashboard figures showed it as 26. The missing one from that date is one of the 141 they are on about, and it is back today.

I have graphed the approximate Saturday missing deaths picture and its largely from the first wave figures. (I say approximate because I cannot remove some later fluctuations that may have been proper corrections rather than due to this error)


And this is the current deaths by date of death picture, now that Sundays corrected data is available.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 22, 2020)

So deaths seem to be on a plateau rather than going up or down massively. That's still absolutely grim mind you.


----------



## Mation (Nov 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I'm amazed NE Lincs wasn't already in Tier 3 before this wet fart of a mockdown was introduced. Got as high as 650 per 100k. Now at 479. 765 cases last week, 4500 total, 4200 of those in last 2 months


Mockdown. Yes. That's the word.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

Mation said:


> Mockdown. Yes. That's the word.



At the moment it feels like a lot of upheaval and negative impact for very little gain.  Hopefully we will see the positive impact over the next couple of weeks.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> At the moment it feels like a lot of upheaval and negative impact for very little gain.  Hopefully we will see the positive impact over the next couple of weeks.


 

Hands, Space, Positive Impact


----------



## elbows (Nov 22, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> So deaths seem to be on a plateau rather than going up or down massively. That's still absolutely grim mind you.



Yeah, although during times of rising numbers this sort of data normally looks like a plateau near the more recent dates, because of lag, we might actually be seeing something closer to a plateau for real now. Or at the very least nothing like the rate of growth that we saw previously.


----------



## thismoment (Nov 22, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Evidence that we shouldn't be giving parliament five days to debate new lockdown measures:




the leaked news always gets on my nerves. Whenever there’s an announcement to be made there seems to be endless leaked news and then we have to wait what seems like an age to actually finds out what’s what. Pisses me and my anxiety of waiting for confirmation of what’s next


----------



## miss direct (Nov 22, 2020)

I've forgotten what tier 3 means to be honest. Shops open?


----------



## killer b (Nov 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I've forgotten what tier 3 means to be honest. Shops open?


yep, plus restaurants/pubs that serve food (though you can only go there with a housemate), and you can meet up to 6 people outdoors


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I've forgotten what tier 3 means to be honest. Shops open?



It means you have to order a packet of dry roasted nuts with your pint.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

The tier rules are being rewritten.  Exciting times.


----------



## killer b (Nov 22, 2020)

not so, you need to order a 'substantial meal' with your pint.

A pub in town here was offering chicken and chips for free until he got warned off by the council, so he started selling it for a penny a portion.


----------



## elbows (Nov 22, 2020)

This time the top tier should really mean pubs and restaurants shut, but what they will actually decide is unknown to me.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> This time the top tier should really mean pubs and restaurants shut, but what they will actually decide is unknown to me.



Yes it should.  No dancing on a pin head.  Also close the schools as well.  All in.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> It means you have to order a packet of dry roasted nuts with your pint.



No it doesn't, you twat.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> No it doesn't, you twat.


yeah you have to order an officially-defined meal, like chips


----------



## miss direct (Nov 22, 2020)

I did go out on my own for an English breakfast but couldn't remember why I felt the urgency to do so. Perhaps it was just before this four weeks of restrictions (I refuse to use the meaningless l word 😆) 

If they open pub again I literally will sit there on my own and have a meal and get drunk, purely for the change of scene.


----------



## killer b (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes it should.  No dancing on a pin head.  Also close the schools as well.  All in.


they won't be closing the schools in a tier 3 that isn't supposed to be as stringent as current measures are they? Case numbers in the parts of England that were in tier 3 before lockdown coming down suggests it's not really necessary too. Or that they'll certainly deem it unnecessary anyway.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> they won't be closing the schools in a tier 3 that isn't supposed to be as stringent as current measures are they? Case numbers in the parts of England that were in tier 3 before lockdown coming down suggests it's not really necessary too. Or that they'll certainly deem it unnecessary anyway.



Sure.  I know this, I'm just saying what I think they should do.  I remain utterly convinced that that unless we address the real honking great problem in our education sector we are just treading water until vaccination.  All the meanwhile more and more damage is done to the economy, peoples lives and the future of the next generation.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 22, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> yeah you have to order an officially-defined meal, like chips



Nope, chips on their own don't count as a 'substantial meal'.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Nope, chips on their own don't count as a 'substantial meal'.


cheesy chips


----------



## Sue (Nov 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I've forgotten what tier 3 means to be honest. Shops open?


Me too. My family in Scotland were asking me about it all yesterday and I realised I've completely lost track of things. 

(I'm wfh and not seeing anyone or doing anything so it's not like I'm breaking any rules even if I don't know what they are. 🤷‍♀️)


----------



## killer b (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Sure.  I know this, I'm just saying what I think they should do.  I remain utterly convinced that that unless we address the real honking great problem in our education sector we are just treading water until vaccination.  All the meanwhile more and more damage is done to the economy, peoples lives and the future of the next generation.


But case numbers are coming down in the North West and North East, without closing the schools - not only would the government not deem it necessary under those circumstances, 'm not sure what the reason would be - much less how you'd get people to consent to it.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 22, 2020)

I strongly suspect many schools will close early for christmas..


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> But case numbers are coming down in the North West and North East, without closing the schools - not only would the government not deem it necessary under those circumstances, 'm not sure what the reason would be - much less how you'd get people to consent to it.



In Ireland (RoI) they have kept schools open, and yet they have seen new daily cases drop from almost 1,200 to under 400.

Although they were sensible enough to lockdown again some 2 weeks before England did.


----------



## elbows (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Sure.  I know this, I'm just saying what I think they should do.  I remain utterly convinced that that unless we address the real honking great problem in our education sector we are just treading water until vaccination.  All the meanwhile more and more damage is done to the economy, peoples lives and the future of the next generation.



Broadly speaking the government mission is just to have the NHS survive a challenging winter, and to have various things not grind to a halt. Other ambitions include keeping education open, even if its a massively disrupted mess.

So I know what you mean but surviving a challenging winter in a pandemic like this one is far more than simply treading water in my eyes. And winter pressure mean other ambitions have to be placed to one side for a while, to varying extents. Various parts of their economic agenda that they attempted in the summer are not compatible with winter, and they know it.

Now obviously they've done so many things wrong and a lack of ambition in the pandemic plans was part of the original problem with our orthodoxies pandemic approach. I'd rather have been talking about an attempt to suppress virus levels right down to a very low level over the summer than all the stuff we've actually had to talk about then and since. But since it clear that their plans never pointed in that direction, trying to manage the numbers to keep them within what they think is reasonable range for the NHS to just about cope with is their game here. And then they expect vaccines to gradually offer them a way back to their orthodox comfort zone. And no matter how much they fuck things up, I cannot see all this as simply treading water, and even the useless Johnson can't stop spring and summer eventually arriving.

They will temporarily sacrifice their ambitions in regards keeping education open only if they end up with a lot of data that points towards doom. And they know that if they can play for time, normal school/uni holidays loom on the horizon again, giving them some temporary wiggle room over that period without having to do pandemic closures.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> But case numbers are coming down in the North West and North East, without closing the schools - not only would the government not deem it necessary under those circumstances, 'm not sure what the reason would be - much less how you'd get people to consent to it.



If case numbers are coming down to that degree there should be no need for tier 3 anyway.  If there is need for tier 3 can we not do more?  I mentioned this on another thread but the potential and actual damage that is being done out there to some kids is far greater and more profound than missing a couple of weeks of not understanding trigonometry.

I know I'm doing correlation, but by the time line of this most recent wave seems stark to me.  Also the nice little blip we had after half term. A lot of people here are worried about Christmas, increasingly I'm not because schools / uni's  will be off so we'll probably see a net positive.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> In Ireland (RoI) they have kept schools open, and yet they have seen new daily cases drop from almost 1,200 to under 400.
> 
> Although they were sensible enough to lockdown again some 2 weeks before England did.



Yes but they shut everything down except the schools.  I've spoken to guys out there in construction who were in tears down the phone. 

I want the schools to stay open, I want children to get a good education and be happy. My point is that its hard to have a happy childhood if your parents are falling apart around you as I know all too well.


----------



## Cid (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes but they shut everything down except the schools.  I've spoken to guys out there in construction who were in tears down the phone.
> 
> I want the schools to stay open, I want children to get a good education and be happy. My point is that its hard to have a happy childhood if your parents are falling apart around you as I know all too well.



Construction isn't shut down. It is in fact doing relatively well, though I imagine this varies across the sector.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

Cid said:


> Construction isn't shut down. It is in fact doing relatively well, though I imagine this varies across the sector.



OK, well I'm talking about the heavy side and new projects.  I've spoken with several guys who had just taken possession and had to stop.


----------



## killer b (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> If case numbers are coming down to that degree there should be no need for tier 3 anyway. If there is need for tier 3 can we not do more?


I'm not sure what you want - you want case numbers reducing - fine, it's happening in the north, plateauing elsewhere and I'm fairly sure about to follow. So the current measures are working. The fact that the numbers are falling in the north first - where we were in tier 3 for a couple of weeks ahead of the national lockdown - suggests to me that tier 3 is probably enough to keep things on a downwards trajectory once we're out of the current restrictions.

What are you hoping closing the schools would achieve? It'd make cases drop a bit faster for the time they were closed, but not to the point where we'd be able to fully open up afterwards. Whatever happens we're still basically hanging on with half the economy closed until spring and the vaccine.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 22, 2020)

‘Let us disobey’: Churches defy lockdown with secret meetings
					

Gathering in barns, cafes and bookshops, worshippers are flocking to illegal services around the country




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Weller (Nov 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I did go out on my own for an English breakfast but couldn't remember why I felt the urgency to do so. Perhaps it was just before this four weeks of restrictions (I refuse to use the meaningless l word 😆)
> 
> If they open pub again I literally will sit there on my own and have a meal and get drunk, purely for the change of scene.


Id do the same but our local last time for those on thier own you had to pre book a table lucky if you got one and then stay was limited to 2.15 hrs which sadly wasnt anywhere near enough time to get pissed with the slow table service and 1 drink only allowed on the table too
I found it a nightmare trying to get drunk in a change of scenery living on my own with the no households mixing indoors tier ruling
In summer I ate and drank outdoors but that is out of the question now if we wont even be able to cuddle to keep warm outside 
This time I really fear for peoples mental health especially living alone and away from family  through this winter many I have spoken with at work etc have said that they feel depression and other mental health issues that they haven't felt for many years returning some you can see it in their faces now before they say anything
Its difficult to understand people and problems at work too if having to shout from a distance away behind a mask and screen unable to see the mouth too it gets very stressful and frustrating at least the pub gave a little break from that scenery with a nice meal or just trying to get drunk on your own people watching , seeing those you knew were still ok or whatever


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm not sure what you want - you want case numbers reducing - fine, it's happening in the north, plateauing elsewhere and I'm fairly sure about to follow. So the current measures are working. The fact that the numbers are falling in the north first - where we were in tier 3 for a couple of weeks ahead of the national lockdown - suggests to me that tier 3 is probably enough to keep things on a downwards trajectory once we're out of the current restrictions.
> 
> What are you hoping closing the schools would achieve? It'd make cases drop a bit faster for the time they were closed, but not to the point where we'd be able to fully open up afterwards. Whatever happens we're still basically hanging on with half the economy closed until spring and the vaccine.



I guess I'm arguing that the damage being caused by tier 3 / lockdown is greater than a circuit breaker in education.  

I'm really pleased that things are going in the right direction in your area but when I look at my local area it seems blindingly obvious that the vast majority of our problems are based in the education sector.  This is not about blame, blame is a useless concept.  Its about trying to have something left when we come out of this.

I'll leave it to future historians to decide whether the decision to let the virus rip through our education system was a good one.


----------



## killer b (Nov 22, 2020)

So you're suggesting closing the schools and opening the pubs?


----------



## elbows (Nov 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> In Ireland (RoI) they have kept schools open, and yet they have seen new daily cases drop from almost 1,200 to under 400.
> 
> Although they were sensible enough to lockdown again some 2 weeks before England did.



I dont think the results have met their full expectations. I think I read that they hoped that most areas after lockdown would end up with a lower level of restrictions than it now seems likely they will have to decide to go for in the coming days. Because the rate of new cases hasn't gone down to as low a level as they were hoping for.

Meanwhile I saw but did not previously have time to comment on Northern Ireland agreeing new restrictions (2 week circuit break to come in on the 27th), I was somewhat interested in the details mentioned in the 2nd of the two articles I'm linking to. I have only quoted a few of the ones of interest.









						Coronavirus: Foster denies DUP U-turn on restrictions
					

First Minister Arlene Foster says evidence presented to the Executive 'has changed' from last week.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				





> Stormont ministers know that last week was very damaging for executive relations.
> 
> That penny particularly dropped with the DUP.
> 
> ...











						Coronavirus: How Northern Ireland's new restrictions affect you
					

The latest guidance on the new restrictions that have been imposed across the UK.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				





> From Friday 27 November, restaurants, cafes pubs, and bars can only offer takeaway, drive-through or delivery
> All takeaway businesses must close by 23:00
> Off-licences and supermarkets must not sell alcohol after 20:00
> Food served in motorway services, airports and harbour terminals is exempt





> From 27 November, places of worship must close, except for funerals and weddings, which were limited to 25 people with no receptions, regardless of venue





> Soft play areas reopened from 14 September after an original date for reopening on 7 August was postponed, but must close again on 27 November


----------



## killer b (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I'm really pleased that things are going in the right direction in your area


I'm not saying _my area is doing well so it's all fine_ btw - I'm saying we've been locked down for a few weeks longer than you so it can give you a  rough guide of what's probably coming for the rest of the country.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> So you're suggesting closing the schools and opening the pubs?



No.  Though it will be interesting to see what happen in NYC in the next few weeks.

I'm arguing if that if we are to take drastic measures we should ensure that it is worthwhile and we get a good outcome.  If we're going to do the damage we are to peoples lives, livelihoods and futures we should do better than a slight improvement for a bit.


----------



## Cid (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> OK, well I'm talking about the heavy side and new projects.  I've spoken with several guys who had just taken possession and had to stop.



Civil engineering projects have taken something of a knock... and obviously there is going to be a lot of rethinking of office projects. But none of this is because lockdown is keeping the sector closed.


----------



## Cid (Nov 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> No.  Though it will be interesting to see what happen in NYC in the next few weeks.
> 
> I'm arguing if that if we are to take drastic measures we should ensure that it is worthwhile and we get a good outcome.  If we're going to do the damage we are to peoples lives, livelihoods and futures we should do better than a slight improvement for a bit.



It's not a slight improvement, it's ditch measures to keep healthcare functioning. The whole crisis has been totally mismanaged, and we shouldn't be in this position. But given where we are, this kind of light measures lockdown is the minimum needed. As it happens I think the approach to education is daft and counter-productive. But more stringent measures there would be in addition to current stuff, not instead of.


----------



## elbows (Nov 22, 2020)

I see all manner of details are continuing to be leaked to the press. A new round of promises based on various mass testing ideas, including changes to self-isolation rules for contacts of a positive case, Christmas stuff, and some retail closures relaxed but hospitality tier rules strengthened.









						Mass Covid-19 testing to start in England to head off Tory revolt
					

Proposals include plans to limit self-isolation and to allow household mixing at Christmas




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Boris Johnson will on Monday outline plans for a tougher three-tiered set of restrictions to come into force once current measures lift on 2 December. He is also expected to unveil proposals for a temporary UK-wide relaxation to allow mixing between households over Christmas.





> It is understood that all the new tiers will allow nonessential shops and gyms to remain open. Rules for pubs and restaurants will vary between tiers, but will be tougher overall than under the previous system, addressing a well-identified source of infection but dismaying the hospitality industry.



Also I havent got as much energy as I'd like for the quest of pissing on the shitheads of the Covid Recovery group, but I'm sure my rants would be on the usual themes that are well known by now.



> In a starkly worded letter to the prime minister, 70 Tory MPs from the newly formed Covid Recovery Group said the government must prove the new restrictions “will save more lives than they cost”.
> 
> The letter, also signed by 14 Conservative peers, told Johnson that a tiered system “infringes deeply upon people’s lives with huge health and economic costs”.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Oh actually the BBC version of the story suggests I will have to wait at least one extra day before hearing the Christmas plans. I'm sure I'll cope.









						Covid: Boris Johnson to unveil post-English lockdown plans
					

Boris Johnson will unveil the latest Covid plans, including lifting a ban on outdoor grassroots sport.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The PM had hoped to announce arrangements for the Christmas period on Monday, but this has been delayed until at least Tuesday to allow the Scottish and Welsh cabinets to agree the plans.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

Self-isolation to be scrapped for Covid case contacts, Government reveals
					

Under new plans, contacts of those infected will take daily tests for a week and not be made to stay home




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				




What could possibly go wrong lol


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 23, 2020)

(This exchange is from page  350 -- apologies  )




			
				Looby said:
			
		

> Someone has just shared this on Facebook. This is from a nurse at a hospital in an area which isn’t considered to have a particularly high level of cases compared to areas in the north.
> Frontline nurse at UK’s Royal Bournemouth Hospital speaks out as COVID-19 cases surge





kalidarkone said:


> This seems an accurate reflection of what is going on in my trust.
> She is so right about the unions.
> *Before this year I never considered not being in a union.....but now I am*.



I read that arricle and it's a shocker 

Could you maybe explain though, why you might think leaving a union is going to help any healthcare professional in any way??  

I do get why the union doesn't come out of that story well in any way , but surely?  the only way to improve, even a bit,  a union's effectiveness is by staying in it and by _some _members having a bit of time to be active ...... I know most members will be too busy  -- but my point stands I think .......


----------



## Mation (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> ‘Let us disobey’: Churches defy lockdown with secret meetings
> 
> 
> Gathering in barns, cafes and bookshops, worshippers are flocking to illegal services around the country
> ...


_some sort of joke about repetitive beads_


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> (This exchange is from page  350 -- apologies  )
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Leaving wouldn't help exactly, I just think people often leave in frustration after trying to get anything done through the union.

From the article:

"In the hospital, most of us are members of the Royal College of Nursing, Unison and Unite. I wonder what these trade unions are doing. They’ve not lifted a finger even when their members have died while trying to save the lives of others. The unions are busy working with the management and the government after throwing their members to the wolves."

And what they suggest as an alternative:

"I think we need to take matters on to our own hands and build independent safety committees of workers, separate from the unions, to safeguard the health and well-being of patients and staff."


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> ‘Let us disobey’: Churches defy lockdown with secret meetings
> 
> 
> Gathering in barns, cafes and bookshops, worshippers are flocking to illegal services around the country
> ...



Fuck them. And fuck all those Tory MPs threatening to revolt over new restrictions. And also fuck all the moaning business owners insisting their sector _must_ stay open too.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 23, 2020)

Loads of (semi) ex-healthcare workers in my sector criticise the RCN for being especially shit.
And the response from unions generally has been crap, as the person quoted in that article says too much working with management.

The last few weeks I've seen people on U75 talk about left infighting or ideological purity but the actions of my union (at both the national and branch level) have exposed that any infighting is less about ideological purity and more about real existing political difference. 
Is the purpose of unions to sit on committees, look over policies, effectively act as second, more worker friendly HR department or is it to organise, empower and build a membership capable of forcing management to make concessions. I argue the latter but I'm having to make that argument against branch committee members as much as against management.


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

Yup, especially over PPE unions threw workers under the bus. And then reversed back over us.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fuck them. And fuck all those Tory MPs threatening to revolt over new restrictions. And also fuck all the moaning business owners insisting their sector _must_ stay open too.



Yeah, everyone has their favourite thing that they think is essential and has to stay open. I do agree that people should be paid properly to compensate for this period tho.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

I'm struggling to find out the reason why self isolation is going to be scrapped, the WHO says it's a corner stone of an effective response, (more so than lockdown etc) just pay people properly so they can afford to do it ffs.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I'm struggling to find out the reason why self isolation is going to be scrapped, the WHO says it's a corner stone of an effective response, (more so than lockdown etc) just pay people properly so they can afford to do it ffs.



Something something hard working families something something


Because the only thing that matters about you is that you work.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 23, 2020)

Sky has just reported that Johnson will be speaking about the new restrictions at 3.30pm today, I assume in the commons.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fuck them. And fuck all those Tory MPs threatening to revolt over new restrictions. And also fuck all the moaning business owners insisting their sector _must_ stay open too.



If you want businesses to stay shut - or deeply restricted - then proper financial support is required. Otherwise, without income - of some form - at least matching expenditure, they'll go bust, and no-body wants that in the long run. Whether the re-instated furlough scheme on it's own is enough, or whether more support is needed will depend on the sector.

[my little company has work for less than half staff until maybe January, then nothing. We are in a massive workshop with good ventilation, wearing masks etc.
I had thought that one of three possible jobs would materialise soon, but as yet, it looks like they're not happening, Furlough will cover most of my staffing costs after that work finished, but not all of it, but the other costs will steadily overwhelm what's left of my income streams without a new project eg rent, energy supplies, service charges ...]


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky has just reported that Johnson will be speaking about the new restrictions at 3.30pm today, I assume in the commons.



That'll be to explain the new "beefed up" tier system.  Thursday will be the announcement which will let us know which tier we are going into in December.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> If you want businesses to stay shut - or deeply restricted - then proper financial support is required. Otherwise, without income - of some form - at least matching expenditure, they'll go bust, and no-body wants that in the long run. Whether the re-instated furlough scheme on it's own is enough, or whether more support is needed will depend on the sector.
> 
> [my little company has work for less than half staff until maybe January, then nothing. We are in a massive workshop with good ventilation, wearing masks etc.
> I had thought that one of three possible jobs would materialise soon, but as yet, it looks like they're not happening, Furlough will cover most of my staffing costs after that work finished, but not all of it, but the other costs will steadily overwhelm what's left of my income streams without a new project eg rent, energy supplies, service charges ...]


What sector do you work in?


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> What sector do you work in?


Unfortunately, what I do doesn't actually fit into the SIC pigeonholes.

Sort of transport, sort of construction, involving mostly timber ...


----------



## miss direct (Nov 23, 2020)

So rumour is that tier 3 will just mean shops open. Hospitality to remain closed apart from take away. Can't say I'm surprised. Everywhere would be so busy after weeks at home/in the park. This must go on until after New Year, surely?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

miss direct said:


> So rumour is that tier 3 will just mean shops open. Hospitality to remain closed apart from take away. Can't say I'm surprised. Everywhere would be so busy after weeks at home/in the park. This must go on until after New Year, surely?



I certainly expect tier 3 to be basically what is happening now but with an allowance for further region specific restrictions.  Its going to be miserable for those who come out of lockdown 2 just to go straight into tier 3 and as such very little will change.

Looking at the maps there will certainly be some Northern areas in tier 3.  Down here in London it could be a toss up.  I really hope we have tier 2.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 23, 2020)

Just my luck that I moved back to the UK to Yorkshire, which seems to have a very high proportion of cases. Thank goodness for the countryside.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I certainly expect tier 3 to be basically what is happening now but with an allowance for further region specific restrictions.  Its going to be miserable for those who come out of lockdown 2 just to go straight into tier 3 and as such very little will change.
> 
> Looking at the maps there will certainly be some Northern areas in tier 3.  Down here in London it could be a toss up.  I really hope we have tier 2.



I'd like to think Reading would be spared the worst too, seeing as we are only at 161/100k and 3 deaths a week.


----------



## killer b (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I certainly expect tier 3 to be basically what is happening now but with an allowance for further region specific restrictions.  Its going to be miserable for those who come out of lockdown 2 just to go straight into tier 3 and as such very little will change.
> 
> Looking at the maps there will certainly be some Northern areas in tier 3.  Down here in London it could be a toss up.  I really hope we have tier 2.


just a minute - you were recommending closing schools yesterday, now you're wanting to be in tier 2 instead of 3?


----------



## xenon (Nov 23, 2020)

Although. shops + gyms can open everywhere apparently. Source, Sky news on radio just now. 

Reckon Bristol will be in tier 3 though. 469 / 100K. I hope you can at least meet more than one person outside. I had a can of beer with a mate sat on the harbour side the other day. Bit chili and access to bogs prevented more drinkage but doable...


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> just a minute - you were recommending closing schools yesterday, now you're wanting to be in tier 2 instead of 3?



No.  I think in the highest most tier schools should close as well.  I also think they should have closed during this most recent lockdown and in general there should have been a far greater focus on what was happening in our education sector because I strongly believe that was / is where the biggest problem is / was.  I think the decision to just shrug shoulders has caused the second wave to be much worse and as a consequence more people have died and the long term economic damage is far greater. 

I believe the long term damage of this decision on children will be far greater than had we closed the schools or at least taken greater measures.  That's before we start discovering what long term health implications there may be. 

Obviously no one wants to be in tier 3 do they?  I don't make that decision though so its irrelevant what I hope for same as everyone else.


----------



## Spandex (Nov 23, 2020)

The new Tiers in full:

Tier 1 - the virus can spread as it pleases
Tier 2 - hmm, that doesn't look good. We should do something.
Tier 3 - oh fuck, it's out of control and the hospitals are filling up! Shut stuff!


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Obviously no one wants to be in tier 3 do they?



Just as there are times where I want us to be in lockdown, there are also times I'm going to want various areas to be in tier 3, including my own area. Because I want infection rates to be controlled, and I want a response that is appropriate given the data.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 23, 2020)

Considering this is where we are - basically Spring Peak Covid in terms of hospitalisations - I'm curious to know what areas will get Tier 3. Do we know when those regions get announced?


Looks grossly irresponsible to lift lockdown in December to me, but I know its the years peak shopping and boozing time, so thats 100% the logic behind it.


----------



## xenon (Nov 23, 2020)

Announcement re which areas in  which tiers on Thursday I think.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Considering this is where we are - basically Spring Peak Covid in terms of hospitalisations - I'm curious to know what areas will get Tier 3. Do we know when those regions get announced?



Thursday apparently.  The justification is they want to leave themselves as much time as possible to assess the impact of Lockdown 2 but also leave enough time so every region knows what is happening and what to expect come December 2nd (or whenever lockdown finishes).


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 23, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Just my luck that I moved back to the UK to Yorkshire, which seems to have a very high proportion of cases. Thank goodness for the countryside.


You are in God's Own though


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Just as there are times where I want us to be in lockdown, there are also times I'm going to want various areas to be in tier 3, including my own area. Because I want infection rates to be controlled, and I want a response that is appropriate given the data.



Sure.  There is a realisation that sometimes it just has to be and that is the best option but in and itself it is not a situation you want to find yourself in.


----------



## killer b (Nov 23, 2020)

I'm expecting and hoping to be in tier 3 come december despite cases coming down in my region tbh.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Thursday also fits with their previous schedule for weekly reporting data used to make regional tier decisions in the past.

There aren't many areas that I would currently be happy to see in tier 2 rather than 3. Because most regional R estimates have still been too high, and where such estimates are within a more comfortable range, the overall levels of infection and hospitalisations are too high, eg the North West. The picture may well improve further before the decision so I may tweak my opinion, but there is only so far it can go in the right direction in the coming days, so I dont expect to have a massive change of heart.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 23, 2020)

We were in tier three before this alleged lockdown, so I presume we'll still be in it come December. 
And January and probably until they roll the vaccines out.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm expecting and hoping to be in tier 3 come december despite cases coming down in my region tbh.


Greater Manchester looks like it’s going to be in tier 3 plus pubs, bars , restaurants and cafes closed aside of takeaways . The wet led traditional pub is going to be a rare thing of beauty in the future


----------



## killer b (Nov 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> The wet led traditional pub is going to be a rare thing of beauty in the future


if this is the case it's because the government hasn't given appropriate support to the trade, not because the measures aren't necessary.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 23, 2020)

I really don't get this thing with last orders being at 10pm but you get an hour to drink up. I'll just buy three pints at 10pm.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Greater Manchester looks like it’s going to be in tier 3 plus pubs, bars , restaurants and cafes closed aside of takeaways . The wet led traditional pub is going to be a rare thing of beauty in the future



I would anticipate that we won't have to talk about extra stuff bolted onto tier 3 in particular regions this time.

Wont be surprised if the 'pubs shut unless they serve substantial meals' thing is moved to tier 2, and that the new tier 3 will involve more complete pub closures without the meals loopholes.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 23, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I really don't get this thing with last orders being at 10pm but you get an hour to drink up. I'll just buy three pints at 10pm.


If it's still going to be the case that you can only order a drink if you're eating, then brace yourself for eating three dinners at half ten at night.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

The 'substantial meal' loophole was always on odd thing to have in the top tier.


----------



## Nanker Phelge (Nov 23, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I really don't get this thing with last orders being at 10pm but you get an hour to drink up. I'll just buy three pints at 10pm.



The guy that runs GAY said that this morning. People just line up their drinks if they have a deadline.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> if this is the case it's because the government hasn't given appropriate support to the trade, not because the measures aren't necessary.


We’ll disagree on the former agree on the latter


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 23, 2020)

Nanker Phelge said:


> The guy that runs GAY said that this morning. People just line up their drinks if they have a deadline.


Yep.

Reminds me of living in Ireland in 80s, closing time was 10.pm on Sundays, so in the nightclubs you would grab 4 pints before the bar reopened at 12.01 am on Monday.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 23, 2020)

Espresso said:


> If it's still going to be the case that you can only order a drink if you're eating, then brace yourself for eating three dinners at half ten at night.



I'm not going to have to order a meal with every pint though. surely.


----------



## killer b (Nov 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> We’ll disagree on the former agree on the latter


have you got what we agree on and disagree on the wrong way round?


----------



## xenon (Nov 23, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I really don't get this thing with last orders being at 10pm but you get an hour to drink up. I'll just buy three pints at 10pm.



Why, did you do that at 11:30 PM in regular times then?


----------



## Cerv (Nov 23, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I'm not going to have to order a meal with every pint though. surely.


you may need to take up an interest in tapas


----------



## souljacker (Nov 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> Why, did you do that at 11:30 PM in regular times then?



Last orders used to be about 10 mins before closing though. And I would always try and grab an extra pint at last orders! Doesn't everyone?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

When I read stories like this I find it pretty random how there can suddenly be these massive spikes in places where not much was being said about before









						Covid rules 'disregarded' as Swale becomes second worst-hit area
					

The Swale district of Kent now has the second highest coronavirus infection rate in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I suppose if you have fairly low numbers in your area it would be easy to get complacent.  Where I am everyone (well everyone over 21) is viably following the rules.  There is just a constant threat here I suppose.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I suppose if you have fairly low numbers in your area it would be easy to get complacent.  Where I am everyone (well everyone over 21) is viably following the rules.  There is just a constant threat here I suppose.



We have fairly low numbers, and people haven't got complacent.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> When I read stories like this I find it pretty random how there can suddenly be these massive spikes in places where not much was being said about before
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Coverage of areas with rising cases has been very patchy and incomplete. I am never surprised by sudden spikes because that just demonstrates how explosive this virus can be. There are plenty of hospitals down south where I look at the data and feel the situation has not been covered well by the media.

Peoples standards for what counts as bad also seems to change massively over time. People seem to be judging places relative to other places numbers at that moment in time, forgetting what number of cases per 100,000 used to count as bad and requiring local lockdowns months ago.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Also the detail is of interest to me, and there are plenty of hints at that detail in the article.



> Prison Service officials will join the meeting following suggestions that outbreaks in the area's three prisons could be making a "limited contribution" to the high infection rate.





> Prof Jackie Cassell, of Brighton and Sussex Medical School, said there were "two epidemics" in the area - one in prisons and another in the community.





> There had also been a rise in infection rates in towns such as Sheerness and Sittingbourne, which are densely populated, with many people in jobs that can not be done from home, Prof Cassell said.


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Last orders used to be about 10 mins before closing though. And I would always try and grab an extra pint at last orders! Doesn't everyone?



Just seems like dickhead behaviour in a pandemic tbh.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Where I am everyone (well everyone over 21) is viably following the rules.



No they aren't. And just because you decided to pin the wave on students as the main driving force doesn't make it so. They are just one of many factors that has driven this wave.


----------



## killer b (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just seems like dickhead behaviour in a pandemic tbh.


I think longer drinking up time and the resulting dickheads who order extra pints at last orders is probably a good thing - not everyone will order extra pints so it means everyone won't leave the pubs at the same time.


----------



## belboid (Nov 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> No they aren't. And just because you decided to pin the wave on students as the main driving force doesn't make it so. They are just one of many factors that has driven this wave.


Students are no longer included in their university’s town figures now, I gather.  They’re down as living back with their parents even though they’re still actually in halls!

(edit: This is wrong, its the other way around - so you can all stop telling me it is now )


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> No they aren't. And just because you decided to pin the wave on students as the main driving force doesn't make it so. They are just one of many factors that has driven this wave.



From what I've seen (I meant visibly rather than viably - typo) yes they are.  I'm sure there is lots of invisible rule breaking going on.  The only large groups of people I see out and about are under 21. That is what I see.

I'm not pinning anything on anything just saying what I've seen from my walks.  Right now, out of my window I can see a about 15 people having a kick-about in the park.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> have you got what we agree on and disagree on the wrong way round?


Sorry your right .


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

belboid said:


> Students are no longer included in their university’s town figures now, I gather.  They’re down as living back with their parents even though they’re still actually in halls!



Other way around. It was a problem with the data for ages, students testing positive being attached to their parental home postcode not their term-time address, but that has been corrected recently and the corrections have been backdated to apply to positive case data from September 1st onwards.


----------



## killer b (Nov 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Sorry your right .


why do you think wet pubs should be allowed to stay open? It's pretty obvious to me that  the current fall in infections in the north dates to the tier 3 restrictions being brought in, and pubs were a significant part of that - before they shut the pubs it was well out of control. Be interested to hear what the alternative might be?


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 23, 2020)

Nanker Phelge said:


> The guy that runs GAY said that this morning. People just line up their drinks if they have a deadline.


In NZ they call it the 6 o’clock swill


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> From what I've seen (I meant visibly rather than viably - typo) yes they are.  I'm sure there is lots of invisible rule breaking going on.  The only large groups of people I see out and about are under 21. That is what I see.
> 
> I'm not pinning anything on anything just saying what I've seen from my walks.  Right now, out of my window I can see a about 15 people having a kick-about in the park.



Fair enough. The invisible side of things is where a lot of the action is though. I see the usual stuff quoted in the Swale article, the obvious rule breaking being blamed, but they say that stuff because it is much easier than talking about the politically difficult stuff like workplace and prison and hospital infections. And because, unlike in those institutional settings, general public visible flouting of rules is something they think they can improve by appealing to the public. I am still annoyed that they did this here in Nuneaton in June when actually the spike here was due to a hospital outbreak and it was brought under control when they sorted out hospital infection control, not by getting the public to behave differently. But that particular hospital situation was much easier to spot at the time because it happened when levels of the virus in the community were not that high so the hospital figures stuck out like a sore thumb.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> why do you think wet pubs should be allowed to stay open? It's pretty obvious to me that  the current fall in infections in the north dates to the tier 3 restrictions being brought in, and pubs were a significant part of that - before they shut the pubs it was well out of control. Be interested to hear what the alternative might be?


You’ll have to convince me that pubs were a significant part never mind cafes / coffee houses etc . Whilst I am sure there were a few rogue pubs my most recent experience of the U.K. was that many shops and other outlets didn’t apply the same stringent conditions that  most hospitality venues have.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

I see that in addition to the afternoon stuff in parliament, Johnson is now scheduled to address the public (via videoconferencing as he is still self-isolating) around 7pm.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> You’ll have to convince me that pubs were a significant part never mind cafes / coffee houses etc . Whilst I am sure there were a few rogue pubs my most recent experience of the U.K. was that many shops and other outlets didn’t apply the same stringent conditions that  most hospitality venues have.



The opportunities to be convinced have been around long enough that I no longer have any patience with this stance, and will just start writing people off as pathetic pandemic pub wankers.


----------



## killer b (Nov 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> You’ll have to convince me that pubs were a significant part never mind cafes / coffee houses etc . Whilst I am sure there were a few rogue pubs my most recent experience of the U.K. was that many shops and other outlets didn’t apply the same stringent conditions that  most hospitality venues have.


Don't the infection numbers more or less speak for themselves? Areas which have had pubs closed the longest are seeing drops in infections when places which only closed the pubs at the start of the month are only starting to plateau now. Where else are those reductions coming from?


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> You’ll have to convince me that pubs were a significant part never mind cafes / coffee houses etc . Whilst I am sure there were a few rogue pubs my most recent experience of the U.K. was that many shops and other outlets didn’t apply the same stringent conditions that  most hospitality venues have.



Why do you think they're closing pubs etc. then? The government would avoid that if at all possible, and in fact they have tried to, to the detriment of infection rates. Just because you went to a few that you thought seemed OK doesn't mean anything.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just seems like dickhead behaviour in a pandemic tbh.


Come off it. If I've been in the pub all evening another hour isn't going to be more dangerous.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

The more I hear that sort of drivel, the more I want all pubs everywhere to remain closed.


----------



## killer b (Nov 23, 2020)

wow is it october again? who does everyone think is going to win the presidential election?


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

If it sounds like I am in a bad mood today, I am utterly sick of hearing almost nothing from people or the media about the plight of healthcare workers in this wave, at the same time as hearing a never-ending stream of shit from pub wankers. Disgusting priorities.


----------



## prunus (Nov 23, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Come off it. If I've been in the pub all evening another hour isn't going to be more dangerous.



Yes it is. That’s the whole point about how it works.  Every second a person spends in a potential infection scenario increases the chance of being infected, and that’s without taking into account the infection acceleration effects of people getting more drunk as a night in a pub wears on.


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Come off it. If I've been in the pub all evening another hour isn't going to be more dangerous.


 
Go away and have a read about risk, risk mitigation, how infections spread, and then come back with a more informed opinion.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Go away and have a read about risk, risk mitigation, how infections spread, and then come back with a more informed opinion.



I'll have a read up when I'm next in the pub.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> The opportunities to be convinced have been around long enough that I no longer have any patience with this stance, and will just start writing people off as pathetic pandemic pub wankers.


Thats entirely up to you and I’m not going to enter a slanging match about wankers . I read your posts learn a lot but feel free to have an option , I’m sure you wouldn’t want to deny me that and discussion can take place , with or with out you on a civil basis . Your general line has been  that evidence of pubs being a problem in themselves was inconclusive but that following the logic that we can’t wait for conclusive figures in order to cut transmission closed locations that have people in them should be closed . My view is that the government isn’t following your view and is cherry picking areas that can be closed ie you can have a warehouse of people in B&Q with less restrictions than a pub  , you can have gyms open but not a local cafe . I don’t think it’s wrong to question inconsistencies.[/QUOTE]


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

Patient of mine the other day, about my age, previously fit and healthy. Did some time in ICU they're totally fucking traumatised from. Now at home, using a wheelchair, and awaiting a likely limb amputation due to covid related complications. They had been very careful and thinks most likely it that it was caught from shopping or a cafe. Yeah, an anecdote not data, but fuck right off with this moaning about the pubs and ordering loads of drinks at the last minute to try and game the rules.


----------



## robsean (Nov 23, 2020)

The mooted return of spectator sport on 2/12 strikes me as a marvellous idea.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

At this stage of the pandemic is pointless arguing that any enclosed space with multiple people in will not pose a risk.  The more people from different households that are in there and the less well ventilated it is the higher the risk.

Indoors hospitality is a clear risk and there is no getting away from it. What doesn't help was all those 'We wouldn't be doing it if we didn't think it was safe' comments coming from the government back in June and July.  Managing risk is one thing make false claims of safety is another all together.


----------



## Supine (Nov 23, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Come off it. If I've been in the pub all evening another hour isn't going to be more dangerous.



It would be an hour of risk more dangerous.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why do you think they're closing pubs etc. then? The government would avoid that if at all possible, and in fact they have tried to, to the detriment of infection rates. Just because you went to a few that you thought seemed OK doesn't mean anything.


The same that


LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why do you think they're closing pubs etc. then? The government would avoid that if at all possible, and in fact they have tried to, to the detriment of infection rates. Just because you went to a few that you thought seemed OK doesn't mean anything.



I’m out just finished a meal but I’ve got very little connection here so have to come back


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Thats entirely up to you and I’m not going to enter a slanging match about wankers . I read your posts learn a lot but feel free to have an option , I’m sure you wouldn’t want to deny me that and discussion can take place , with or with out you on a civil basis . Your general line has been that evidence of pubs being a problem in themselves was inconclusive but that following the logic that we can’t wait for conclusive figures in order to cut transmission closed locations that have people in them should be closed . My view is that the government isn’t following your view and is cherry picking areas that can be closed ie you can have a warehouse of people in B&Q with less restrictions than a pub , you can have gyms open but not a local cafe . I don’t think it’s wrong to question inconsistencies.



My view has been that evidence has not been firm enough to satisfy everyone, but that enough is known both in theory and in practice to say that hospitality is clearly a very sensible sector to target. Its a no brainer, and countries all around the world have taken action on that front, and got results.

And my view also includes the idea that combinations of measures are required to bring things under control. And that which combinations are chosen depends on governments other priorities in regards the economy and education.

Pubs and restaurants are low-hanging fruit because they are not essential services and they are some of the first things I would target when trying to manage a pandemic. I would have gone further than the government in some other areas, my balancing act would not have been the same as theirs and my timing would certainly have differed, but I do not disagree with the basic principal of choosing which things to target based on a variety of other factors and priorities.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

robsean said:


> The mooted return of spectator sport on 2/12 strikes me as a marvellous idea.



I've been thinking about that.  I think it should be possible to manage risk with low capacities for out door sports.  If it can be done in the palladium than I don't see why it can't be done in small numbers at sports stadia.  You can't get much more ventilated than being outside.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I've been thinking about that.  I think it should be possible to manage risk with low capacities for out door sports.  If it can be done in the palladium than I don't see why it can't be done in small numbers at sports stadia.  You can't get much more ventilated than being outside.


Some months back there was an outbreak around, IIRC [or rather, nearish to  Chester-le-street]. After investigation, this was traced back to a couple of pubs or WMCs having a football match to raise funds for a charity. Which took place outside. The only time everybody was together was on the touchlines ...

E2A - assuming no porkiepies about hanging out in t'club afterwards. of course ...


----------



## editor (Nov 23, 2020)

Watching your local non league football team seems infinitely safer than, say, going to the supermarket or getting on a crowded tube.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 23, 2020)

If they're having a football match and they take the temperature of punters at the gate, there will be inevitable kick offs when people get told to go home and self isolate.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Some months back there was an outbreak around, IIRC [or rather, nearish to  Chester-le-street]. After investigation, this was traced back to a couple of pubs or WMCs having a football match to raise funds for a charity. Which took place outside. The only time everybody was together was on the touchlines ...



Our world beating track n trace system actually tracked and traced something?  I find this scenario highly implausible.

This is why the situation would need to be managed.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Our world beating track n trace system actually tracked and traced something?  I find this scenario highly implausible.
> 
> This is why the situation would need to be managed.



Was T&T'ed by the people themselves, I think. either that, or it was at a point in time when T&T was not overloaded and was more or less working as intended - or probably a combination of the two ...


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

editor said:


> Watching your local non league football team seems infinitely safer than, say, going to the supermarket or getting on a crowded tube.



These things don't just happen in some neutral way though, it depends massively on the behaviour of people once there. Will they really socially distance, not chat and get closer during the game, not hug after their team scores, and then not hang out afterwards? Who will enforce stuff like that at games?

Someone trying to justify that what they like doing is safe, or safer than other things that other people like doing, isn't a great road to go down.


----------



## robsean (Nov 23, 2020)

.......and, by definition, unnecessary travel will be involved in getting there.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

Everyone's got their favourite thing that should be open, if you allow games you'll get people saying why not theatres why not this why not that etc. I actually agree that games shouldn't be that much of a risk but it could spiral very quickly,


----------



## editor (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> These things don't just happen in some neutral way though, it depends massively on the behaviour of people once there. Will they really socially distance, not chat and get closer during the game, not hug after their team scores, and then not hang out afterwards? Who will enforce stuff like that at games?


With the pubs closed there was nowhere to hang out. But all those activities would happen anyway if those people wanted to - the point is that being able to watch outdoor sports in near-empty grounds with no cover is a minimal risk I say is worth it because of the mental health/health benefits.


----------



## editor (Nov 23, 2020)

robsean said:


> .......and, by definition, unnecessary travel will be involved in getting there.


Not so much if it's a local non league game. I walk there. It's not like people aren't already travelling to go to parks.


----------



## editor (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Everyone's got their favourite thing that should be open, if you allow games you'll get people saying why not theatres why not this why not that etc. I actually agree that games shouldn't be that much of a risk but it could spiral very quickly,


Theatres are indoor and usually in city centres, necessitating longer travel and closer contact with other people.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> These things don't just happen in some neutral way though, it depends massively on the behaviour of people once there. Will they really socially distance, not chat and get closer during the game, not hug after their team scores, and then not hang out afterwards? Who will enforce stuff like that at games?



That's why plans would need to be in place and it would need trials to see how it goes.  It shouldn't be beyond our wit to develop a system that works or at least we shouldn't just assume it without trying.

Of course if we are just looking solely at the spread of covid than it would be easier just to say no to all these things and ban everything apart from shopping at Tesco.  We have to consider other factors though.  We have a chronic mental health and loneliness crisis going on at the moment something which will continue to kill for decades to come, long after covid has gone away.

We had cinemas open all summer and I'd rather be outside in a sparsely populated sports ground than sat in a cinema any day of the week.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

editor said:


> Theatres are indoor and usually in city centres, necessitating longer travel and closer contact with other people.


Yeah I know, but that's not the point I'm making.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 23, 2020)

My old stomping ground becomes the hardest hit local authority in the country with *631.7 cases per 100,000* people for the week to 18 November.  



Other deprived parts of Kent like Thanet & Medway are not far behind; looks like the second wave is breaking in the county.


----------



## xenon (Nov 23, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Last orders used to be about 10 mins before closing though. And I would always try and grab an extra pint at last orders! Doesn't everyone?



You usually get about 25 minutes after last orders to drink up. Normally I'm on the shorts by then anyway.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Our world beating track n trace system actually tracked and traced something?  I find this scenario highly implausible.
> 
> This is why the situation would need to be managed.





StoneRoad said:


> Was T&T'ed by the people themselves, I think. either that, or it was at a point in time when T&T was not overloaded and was more or less working as intended - or probably a combination of the two ...



No matter how rubbish the national general contact tracing system has been, far more goes on than just that side of things.

For example various systems exist for managing outbreaks tied to specific locations. Local health protection teams are supposed to get involved with those. We probably dont detect and report on anything like all of them, but we still find plenty.

Aside from sporadic articles in the press, one way that stuff is reported is via the weekly PHE surveillance report, which has this section:



> Information on acute respiratory infection (ARI) incidents is based on situations reported to PHE Health Protection Teams (HPTs). These include:
> 
> confirmed outbreaks of acute respiratory infections ie two or more laboratory confirmed cases (SARS-CoV-2, influenza or other respiratory pathogens) linked to a particular setting
> setting situations where an outbreak is suspected
> ...






			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/936671/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w47_FINAL.PDF
		


The overall data they share via such reports is too vague to get our teeth into much, but the authorities have the detail of each of those outbreaks, which venues they involved etc. Still only a fraction of the full picture, but much more than some would assume is discovered, because the not unreasonable views about how crap test & trace has been overall is not the full story.


----------



## xenon (Nov 23, 2020)

belboid said:


> Students are no longer included in their university’s town figures now, I gather.  They’re down as living back with their parents even though they’re still actually in halls!




Seriously? They only just changed that a week or 2 ago to the opposite. Which supposedly accounted for some jumps in case figures and should have been the way it was done from the beginning. i.e. where you currently live is where the case is recorded.

e2a ignore, have seen elbows clarification.


----------



## belboid (Nov 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> Seriously? They only just changed that a week or 2 ago to the opposite. Which supposedly accounted for some jumps in case figures and should have been the way it was done from the beginning. i.e. where you currently live is where the case is recorded.


It seems my informant may have got it arse over tit.  Tho considering they want to send the fuckers home from next week, it seems fairly pointless to have done it now.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

editor said:


> Watching your local non league football team seems infinitely safer than, say, going to the supermarket or getting on a crowded tube.



My view on such things doesn't involve much comparison of risks between one setting and another. For me its more about the current levels of virus in the community, and the state of things like hospital capacity and mass testing.

Below a certain level of community infection, and with other systems working well, I would have a much more relaxed attitude towards pubs and restaurants being open, so I would certainly have a more positive approach to spectator sports under those conditions too.


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 23, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> (This exchange is from page  350 -- apologies  )
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've been in a union  since 1994 and the only one that was good was the Royal College Of Midwives.
I've been in GMB since 2017 and now that things have become so critical working in healthcare.....I need to know that my monthly subscription is paying someone to fight for me...for better pay....for better conditions....and with covid for regular testing. I've not seen any evidence of any of this....so what the fuck am I paying for? I do not feel supported.


----------



## editor (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah I know, but that's not the point I'm making.


You either go for complete lockdown - and that would have to include tube/bus travel/shopping because they all feel a lot less safe than standing in a park watching a football game -  or you find areas which have a low risk attached as a compromise to help loneliness/mental health etc.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

belboid said:


> It seems my informant may have got it arse over tit.  Tho considering they want to send the fuckers home from next week, it seems fairly pointless to have done it now.



As I said earlier, they also backdated the fix to apply to all results from September 1st.


----------



## editor (Nov 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> My view on such things doesn't involve much comparison of risks between one setting and another. For me its more about the current levels of virus in the community, and the state of things like hospital capacity and mass testing.
> 
> Below a certain level of community infection, and with other systems working well, I would have a much more relaxed attitude towards pubs and restaurants being open, so I would certainly have a more positive approach to spectator sports under those conditions too.


Well, yes. I wouldn't expect football to be allowed if we were at the highest level of infection.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

And hot off the press...









						Fans set to be allowed at outdoor sports
					

Up to 4,000 fans are set to be allowed at outdoor events in the lowest-risk areas when the national lockdown in England ends.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

But everyone has a different thing they like / that helps them mentally so some people are going to want religious services / buildings open, some people are going to want football etc. Don't get me wrong I'm desperate for stuff to be open but I don't think you can argue there's no risk attached. I don't think you can argue that football stuff should be open at full capacity at the moment because it's not just the stands, it's the toilets, getting food, turnstiles etc.  I'm desperate to go but I think 4000 might be far too many? Sometimes we struggle getting that number to a regular game!


----------



## andysays (Nov 23, 2020)

editor said:


> Watching your local non league football team seems infinitely safer than, say, going to the supermarket or getting on a crowded tube.


What it feels like isn't necessarily an accurate indication of how risky something is.
Risk is cumulative, so even if activity A is less risky than activity B, the risk of doing both is still A+B, regardless of the actual values of A and B.
For many people, activities like visiting the supermarket or travelling to work on public transport aren't things they can choose not to do, whereas watching your local non league football probably is.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> But everyone has a different thing they like / that helps them mentally so some people are going to want religious services / buildings open, some people are going to want football etc. Don't get me wrong I'm desperate for stuff to be open but I don't think you can argue there's no risk attached.



Sure but surely these things should be based upon level of risk.  I'd argue that in general outdoor events will most likely be much lower risk than a lot of indoor events.  Its certainly worth looking into.

I don't think it should be based upon who shouts the loudest.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

Shouldn't be but it will be because of whose in government,


----------



## two sheds (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I don't think it should be based upon who shouts the loudest.


True, only increases the chance of infection, that.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

editor said:


> Well, yes. I wouldn't expect football to be allowed if we were at the highest level of infection.



Peoples standards of what counts as a high level of infection seem to move though, as I briefly mentioned earlier. So many places have recently had infection levels which, if seen during the summer, would have placed them straight on the oh shit local lockdown coming list. But people sometimes still describe their areas rate as low, but this seems like a relative judgement to me, relative to even higher levels they've seen elsewhere as the 2nd wave emerged. Pretty much everywhere hospital admission rates really suck compared to the summer, and that tells me most of what I need to know about risk right now.

One consequence of the national restrictions seems to have been that the media havent bothered to provide a complete picture of where is suffering badly at the moment, just occasionally mentioning an area that suddenly claims the highest infection rate crown, but not discussing the regions sensibly. With regional tier restrictions coming back the focus should now shift somewhat back in that direction, and it will be interesting to see how much surprise people experience when the tier levels are announced for each area.


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

Some stuff about mass testing for people in Tier 3 areas beng announced, with some stuff about that enabling people who test negative to meet up with others who test negative as well. Doesn't sound like a great plan tbh.

Some classic Guardian accuracy here,

"He says the lockdown for England will end next week. From Wednesday next year people will be able to leave their homes. Shops will be able to reopen. And in tier 3 indoor entertainment and hotels will close, and restaurants and pubs will only be able to serve."


----------



## Badgers (Nov 23, 2020)

So it is all fine? 

Phew


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

BBC attempt is less Guardiantastic.



> Tier one will now mean that people should continue to work from home where possible
> Tier two will now mean only pubs serving meals can open
> Tier three will now mean hospitality will close except for delivery and takeaway and indoor entertainment venues must also close


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Some stuff about mass testing for people in Tier 3 areas beng announced, with some stuff about that enabling people who test negative to meet up with others who test negative as well. Doesn't sound like a great plan tbh.
> 
> Some classic Guardian accuracy here,
> 
> "He says the lockdown for England will end next week. From Wednesday next year people will be able to leave their homes. Shops will be able to reopen. And in tier 3 indoor entertainment and hotels will close, and restaurants and pubs will only be able to serve."



Liverpool style mass testing for all tier 3 areas which sounds good.  The other bit was about daily tests for people instead of isolating and then only isolating if a positive test returned.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 23, 2020)

Christ, just got a message in a WhatsApp group of local players:


> Football's back 🕺 🕺


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 23, 2020)

It's just fiddling around the edges, it's not going to help much.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

Only thing that surprised me was the bit about spectators not only back at outdoor sports but also indoor sports.  Also a brief mention that would be the same for theatres and presumably live music venues.  Obviously all within strict number control and guidelines.


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

_"Get ready to come on in third wave, your time is up in about late January."_


----------



## Mation (Nov 23, 2020)

editor said:


> You either go for complete lockdown - and that would have to include tube/bus travel/shopping because they all feel a lot less safe than standing in a park watching a football game -  or you find areas which have a low risk attached as a compromise to help loneliness/mental health etc.


Difficult to manage across large areas, though. The rules apparently now say that up to 4000 can go to an outdoor sporting event. I know 4k are unlikely to turn up to a DHFC game (  soz  ), but if that's a general rule, then 4k could.

Outdoors or no, how safe would that be? Does anyone have the capacity to work out and report/communicate and enforce safe (mostly) outdoor (but indoors for bar and loo) numbers for every individual event/location?


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 23, 2020)

Tier two will now mean only pubs serving meals can open
Slight change from before, you may only drink in a pub whilst eating, once you finish your food you must leave. Encouraging obesity during a pandemic that kills the obese...


----------



## souljacker (Nov 23, 2020)

Mation said:


> Difficult to manage across large areas, though. The rules apparently now say that up to 4000 can go to an outdoor sporting event. I know 4k are unlikely to turn up to a DHFC game (  soz  ), but if that's a general rule, then 4k could.



A percentage of capacity would make more sense.


----------



## Looby (Nov 23, 2020)

Mation said:


> Difficult to manage across large areas, though. The rules apparently now say that up to 4000 can go to an outdoor sporting event. I know 4k are unlikely to turn up to a DHFC game (  soz  ), but if that's a general rule, then 4k could.
> 
> Outdoors or no, how safe would that be? Does anyone have the capacity to work out and report/communicate and enforce safe (mostly) outdoor (but indoors for bar and loo) numbers for every individual event/location?


I would imagine/hope that it’ll be worked out based on capacity with an upper limit of 4k.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

Mation said:


> Difficult to manage across large areas, though. The rules apparently now say that up to 4000 can go to an outdoor sporting event. I know 4k are unlikely to turn up to a DHFC game (  soz  ), but if that's a general rule, then 4k could.
> 
> Outdoors or no, how safe would that be? Does anyone have the capacity to work out and report/communicate and enforce safe (mostly) outdoor (but indoors for bar and loo) numbers for every individual event/location?



These things are already all in place anyway as part of their risk assessments and their licences.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> _"Get ready to come on in third wave, your time is up in about late January."_



They've found a way to make sure the third wave never comes - dont let the second wave end!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 23, 2020)

That idiot Tory MP suggesting the tiers should be drilled down to borough/district rather than county/city region levels. 

FFS, out of 6 local council areas in West Sussex, Worthing Borough is the only one with under 100 cases per 100k, it's the biggest town for work, shopping & leisure, so loads of people from the surrounding district council areas travel in & out of the borough, it would be fucking nuts to have us in a different tier to the rest of the county.

I doubt West Sussex will be in tier 3, but I hope the whole county is in tier 2, rather than 1 as we were before.



And, think about London, different tiers for different boroughs, fucking bonkers.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Tier two will now mean only pubs serving meals can open
> Slight change from before, you may only drink in a pub whilst eating, once you finish your food you must leave. Encouraging obesity during a pandemic that kills the obese...



Yes, he seemed to say that drinks can only be purchased when having a substantial meal.  This seems to be a shift away from it just being enough for the venue to serve meals.  Back into the bind of having to open but your potential customer base being further and further reduced.  Death by a thousand cuts.

Just pay them to stay shut ffs.  All this stupid dancing on a pin head shit.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Back into the bind of having to open but your potential customer base being further and further reduced.  Death by a thousand cuts.



With the furlough thing extended throughout winter, I dont think its back to quite that stark a choice, not quite the situation that for example Manchester was in for a while. I suppose I'll wait till Thursday when we find out what area is in what tier before having too much more to say about this.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Only thing that surprised me was the bit about spectators not only back at outdoor sports but also indoor sports.  Also a brief mention that would be the same for theatres and presumably live music venues.  Obviously all within strict number control and guidelines.



Probably because indoor sports are going to be at a disadvantage with not being able to start up, train and so on and presumably providing just as much enjoyment and mental / physical health benefits. When pubs open there's going to be loads of people saying 'why can I sit in a pub but not watch/play ice hockey/basketball/figure skating/badminton etc at a safe distance'


----------



## Badgers (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes, he seemed to say that drinks can only be purchased when having a substantial meal.  This seems to be a shift away from it just being enough for the venue to serve meals.  Back into the bind of having to open but your potential customer base being further and further reduced.  Death by a thousand cuts.
> 
> Just pay them to stay shut ffs.  All this stupid dancing on a pin head shit.


Policing meal sizes ffs


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Probably because indoor sports are going to be at a disadvantage with not being able to start up, train and so on and presumably providing just as much enjoyment and mental / physical health benefits. When pubs open there's going to be loads of people saying 'why can I sit in a pub but not watch/play ice hockey/basketball/figure skating/badminton etc at a safe distance'



But that's what I meant earlier about based on risk.  It seems to me that these decisions are not being taken based upon risk.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Its risk combined with a load of other stuff as discussed earlier. Which doesn't lead to the same results as it would if risk were their only consideration.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 23, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Policing meal sizes ffs



I once went for a celebration meal at Jumbo floating restaurant in Hong Kong and it lasted 6 hours, endless small courses, one exciting one was the broccoli course, a bowl with a single floret in it. That kind of thing could catch on here...


----------



## andysays (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Liverpool style mass testing for all tier 3 areas which sounds good.  The other bit was about daily tests for people instead of isolating and then only isolating if a positive test returned.


It may sound good, but I really wonder if the capacity is there to do it, or at least do it properly.


----------



## killer b (Nov 23, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> I once went for a celebration meal at Jumbo floating restaurant in Hong Kong and it lasted 6 hours, endless small courses, one exciting one was the broccoli course, a bowl with a single floret in it. That kind of thing could catch on here...


You're describing a tasting menu - that has already caught on here.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

I dunno.  It all just seems bereft of ideas.   Very downbeat and really quite pessimistic.  Not much new there, with the only thing that seems a step forward is the mass testing roll out which appears to have been very successful in Liverpool meaning a chance to move down from tier 3 to tier 2.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

andysays said:


> It may sound good, but I really wonder if the capacity is there to do it, or at least do it properly.



Well apparently so.  Every local area in tier 3 will be allocated 8 weeks or something like that.  I guess the ability to deliver this will be conditional on how many areas end up in tier 3.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> You're describing a tasting menu - that has already caught on here.



Not sure how many regulars at my local would fancy the broccoli course, but if sausages came first, followed by a chip course and so on...


----------



## andysays (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Well apparently so.  Every local area in tier 3 will be allocated 8 weeks or something like that. * I guess the ability to deliver this will be conditional on how many areas end up in tier 3.*


And the danger there is that they will allocate areas to tiers based on testing capacity rather than any other consideration. 

Decisions around tiers already seem somewhat arbitrary, or at least the reasoning is less than transparent; this is likely to make it even worse


----------



## Spandex (Nov 23, 2020)

So here are the new restrictions and tier levels: Local restriction tiers: what you need to know

It looks like it has the same basic problem as the old tier system: in tier 1 the restrictions are at a level that won't stop Covid outbreaks. Tier 2 will do something, but not enough. Tier 3 is getting there and will probably flatten the curve, if not bring it down. That means where things are bad action is taken, but where things aren't yet bad the plan is for things to get bad before taking anything approaching effective action. It's a reactive system rather than a proactive system and is likely to lead to another lockdown, and the deaths that means, before the vaccination programme is rolled out.

It'll be interesting to see what tiers places are put in. Leicester was locked down in August when it hit 42.2 cases per 100,000. There's no local council in England with such such a low level at the moment. With restrictions likely to be eased over Xmas, I guess it's time to start planning for lockdown 2021.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes, he seemed to say that drinks can only be purchased when having a substantial meal.  This seems to be a shift away from it just being enough for the venue to serve meals.


But that was the requirement before. In tier 3 anyway. Or is this something else?


----------



## two sheds (Nov 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> You're describing a tasting menu - that has already caught on here.



Do you just spit the broccoli out like with wine? I could live with that.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> But that's what I meant earlier about based on risk.  It seems to me that these decisions are not being taken based upon risk.


Yeah I think they stopped pretending it was wholly risk based some time ago


----------



## Mation (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> These things are already all in place anyway as part of their risk assessments and their licences.


Based on what? On guidance from when?

I'm not rubbishing anyone's risk assessments, but wondering how often/if they change, and how easily, given shifting understanding of the pandemic, and how nuanced the guidance is.

At my (completely indoor) workplace we've got lots of comprehensive risk assessments based on fomites and social distancing, but nothing on airborne transmission. I don't know whether/at what point they might update that or be required to.

Have mostly outdoor places already done risk assessments that consider airborne transmission for their indoor bits? Is it required? Are there any recommendations or specifications beyond numbers of people? Are there any checks on the risk assessments? What's the process?

(These are general questions and concerns, rather than specifically aimed at you  )


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

miss direct said:


> But that was the requirement before. In tier 3 anyway. Or is this something else?



I think they've changed the wording.  Whereas before it was worded to make it seem like all you needed was the place to serve meals to now saying you can only buy drinks along with a meal.

tbh.  I'll be amazed if any pubs in tier 2 bother to open under these guidelines.  There doesn't seem to be any consideration of outdoors v indoors either which is a real kick in the teeth to all those places that have invested in upgrading their outdoor spaces for the winter.

Not much different for restaurants though so they should be able to open OK in tiers 1 and 2.


----------



## maomao (Nov 23, 2020)

killer b said:


> You're describing a tasting menu - that has already caught on here.


It's dim sum. Also quite popular here in certain circles.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Spandex said:


> It'll be interesting to see what tiers places are put in. Leicester was locked down in August when it hit 42.2 cases per 100,000. There's no local council in England with such such a low level at the moment. With restrictions likely to be eased over Xmas, I guess it's time to start planning for lockdown 2021.



I expect they hope that infections caused by Christmas relaxation are more than offset by school/uni holidays over a longer period.

My expectations for the future are somewhat flexible in that my attitude towards Christmas relaxations will depend on the levels of infection in the community as we enter that period. And we still dont know how much worse the winter weather will make things, it would be expected to change human behaviour in a way that will require more measures to compensate against this. Likewise we dont know what level of non-Covid winter pressure the NHS will face, which can also change the sorts of equations the government consider.


----------



## editor (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> But everyone has a different thing they like / that helps them mentally so some people are going to want religious services / buildings open, some people are going to want football etc. Don't get me wrong I'm desperate for stuff to be open but I don't think you can argue there's no risk attached.


I've never argued that there is no risk attached. I've just stated my opinion that I feel there is less risk when I'm stood in a field watching Peckham Town play than when I'm on a tube/bus/busy shop.

And for what it's worth, I think 4,000 is too high too, unless it's a very big ground with loads of space and loads of wide entrances.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 23, 2020)

editor said:


> I've never argued that there is no risk attached. I've just stated my opinion that I feel there is less risk when I'm stood in a field watching Peckham Town play than when I'm on a tube/bus/busy shop.
> 
> And for what it's worth, I think 4,000 is too high too, unless it's a very big ground with loads of space and loads of wide entrances.



It's limited to whichever is lower: 50% capacity, or either 4,000 people outdoors or 1,000 people indoors, so it'll need to be a fairly large ground to allow 4,000 in.


----------



## Mation (Nov 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> And we still dont know how much worse the winter weather will make things, it would be expected to change human behaviour in a way that will require more measures to compensate against this.


Met Office long range forecast up to 21 December is essentially (and understandably) a horoscope. But at the moment it looks like they're not expecting anything unusual for the time of year. (I've no idea how early unusual deviations can be predicted.)


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 23, 2020)

Mation said:


> Based on what? On guidance from when?
> 
> I'm not rubbishing anyone's risk assessments, but wondering how often/if they change, and how easily, given shifting understanding of the pandemic, and how nuanced the guidance is.
> 
> ...



The various sports governing bodies have been doing vast amounts of work behind the scenes to get to this place.  They have been vocally very frustrated that up until this point they feel that work has been ignored.

I don't know the exact ins and outs and clearly someone like Liverpool FC will have a more advanced and detailed strategy then some small local basketball club that gets 30 spectators.

I doubt supermarkets, diy stores, clothes shops etc have the level of assessment your place of work has gone into yet they will all be open and welcoming customers come December.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 23, 2020)

Holy moly, N. Kent & Inner Essex are an absolute shitshow and in a different league to the rest of the South East:


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> The various sports governing bodies have been doing vast amounts of work behind the scenes to get to this place.  They have been vocally very frustrated that up until this point they feel that work has been ignored.
> 
> I don't know the exact ins and outs and clearly someone like Liverpool FC will have a more advanced and detailed strategy then some small local basketball club that gets 30 spectators.
> 
> I doubt supermarkets, diy stores, clothes shops etc have the level of assessment your place of work has gone into yet they will all be open and welcoming customers come December.



DIY stores are already open.


----------



## 2hats (Nov 23, 2020)

Mation said:


> Met Office long range forecast up to 21 December is essentially (and understandably) a horoscope. But at the moment it looks like they're not expecting anything unusual for the time of year. (I've no idea how early unusual deviations can be predicted.)


Fairly strong La Niña forecast until at least February 2021. So likely milder/wetter/stormier weather rocking up for the UK through winter/spring 2021.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 23, 2020)

What are SAGE and ALT SAGE saying about this, anyone know? Are they going along with these end of Lockdown to Tier plans?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 23, 2020)

Let's be honest the whole of England should in tiers 2 & 3.

But if tier 1 was allowed for counties under 100 cases per 100k, that would be Cornwall, Dorset, Isle of Wight & Suffolk, and that's it.


----------



## blameless77 (Nov 23, 2020)

belboid said:


> Students are no longer included in their university’s town figures now, I gather.  They’re down as living back with their parents even though they’re still actually in halls!



I'm pretty sure it's the other way round


----------



## Boudicca (Nov 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> that would be Cornwall, Dorset, Isle of Wight & Suffolk, and that's it.



BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) isn't looking great at the moment, although the figures are going down now.  So our tier would depend on whether we are included in Dorset or not.

But I'm glad the 'rule of 6' outdoors is back.  I didn't really understand why I was only allowed to meet one friend at a time.  I go to campervan meetups in the New Forest sometimes and since everyone has their own gear, it's pretty safe socialising.


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> I didn't really understand why I was only allowed to meet one friend at a time.  I go to campervan meetups in the New Forest sometimes and since everyone has their own gear, it's pretty safe socialising.



Do you _really_ not understand that? It's quite simple, more people meet together = higher risk.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Nov 23, 2020)

Aye, it's not just about the X number of hours you spend in each other's company, it's also the getting there and back, and the "oh, well, we're out now so might as well do Y and Z too...".

And sure, lots of individuals will be very good even when going out, but the more people who go out, the more chances there are for someone to cut corners or just fuck up because humans fuck up sometimes.


----------



## Boudicca (Nov 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Do you _really_ not understand that? It's quite simple, more people meet together = higher risk.


 Well yes of course, but I guess I was looking at it from my perspective which would be a very tame socially distanced gathering or walk.


----------



## Looby (Nov 23, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) isn't looking great at the moment, although the figures are going down now.  So our tier would depend on whether we are included in Dorset or not.


Exactly, in BCP there are areas like Christchurch with low rates which brings down the overall figures but those hotspots are worrying.


----------



## killer b (Nov 23, 2020)

I have never seen a socially distanced gathering remain socially distanced for very long, I have to say


----------



## Boudicca (Nov 23, 2020)

Looby said:


> Exactly, in BCP there are areas like Christchurch with low rates which brings down the overall figures but those hotspots are worrying.


Am I the only one choosing where to go shopping based on the hotspot map?


----------



## Supine (Nov 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> What are SAGE and ALT SAGE saying about this, anyone know? Are they going along with these end of Lockdown to Tier plans?



Nothing from Indy Sage yet but they have just published some suggestions regarding holiday season. 



			https://www.independentsage.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Winter-celebrations-final.pdf


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 23, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> BCP (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) isn't looking great at the moment, although the figures are going down now.  So our tier would depend on whether we are included in Dorset or not.



That's an good example of where do you draw the lines?

Bournemouth & Christchurch used to be in the Hampshire county council area, and Poole in Dorset, I guess they would consider BCP as a 'city region'. 

Bit like Brighton & Hove City used to be in the East Sussex county council area, but  the 'Greater Brighton area' includes much of West Sussex too.


----------



## LDC (Nov 23, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> Well yes of course, but I guess I was looking at it from my perspective which would be a very tame socially distanced gathering or walk.



Sorry if I was sharp Boudicca I'm just quite pissed off with some of the arguments people are using to argue against restrictions.


----------



## Looby (Nov 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's an good example of where do you draw the lines?
> 
> Bournemouth & Christchurch used to be in the Hampshire county council area, and Poole in Dorset, I guess they would consider BCP as a 'city region'.
> 
> Bit like Brighton & Hove City used to be in the East Sussex county council area, but  the 'Greater Brighton area' includes much of West Sussex too.


As far as I’m concerned, anything past County Gates is still Hampshire and it’s a hill I’ll die on. 😡
I’ve never heard the term city region when living in Brighton or here.  
The three councils only merged last year. We call it a total fucking shambles.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Oh god, squeeze the disease and tis the season to be jolly careful are phrases used in this evenings Johnson speech.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 23, 2020)

Looby said:


> As far as I’m concerned, anything past County Gates is still Hampshire and it’s a hill I’ll die on. 😡
> I’ve never heard the term city region when living in Brighton or here.
> The three councils only merged last year. We call it a total fucking shambles.



Oh, you are new to this unitary authority stuff.

Brighton & Hove became a unitary authority in 1997, and was granted city status in 2001.

Wiki Link

The so-called 'Greater Brighton City Region', includes B&H City, plus Lewes district in East Sussex, and in West Sussex - Adur, Worthing, Arun. Mid-Sussex & even Crawley.  

Wiki link


----------



## miss direct (Nov 23, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think they've changed the wording.  Whereas before it was worded to make it seem like all you needed was the place to serve meals to now saying you can only buy drinks along with a meal.
> 
> tbh.  I'll be amazed if any pubs in tier 2 bother to open under these guidelines.  There doesn't seem to be any consideration of outdoors v indoors either which is a real kick in the teeth to all those places that have invested in upgrading their outdoor spaces for the winter.
> 
> Not much different for restaurants though so they should be able to open OK in tiers 1 and 2.


I'm fairly confident that in tier 3 you could only have a drink with a meal anyway. I went to Wetherspoons (yes, I know, but it was the only place left open) and some men were told they couldn't order drinks without a meal.


----------



## weepiper (Nov 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh god, squeeze the disease and tis the season to be jolly careful are phrases used in this evenings Johnson speech.


Fucking bellend.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 23, 2020)

I can't listen to the briefings they're just too annoying. I can get all the info from here without having to see Johnson's face.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 23, 2020)

I haven't seen Boris's speech yet but any lifting of restrictions for Christmas will increase the spread of Covid-19 and will likely include the transmission of it to elderly and vulnerable family members.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I haven't seen Boris's speech yet but any lifting of restrictions for Christmas will increase the spread of Covid-19 and will likely include the transmission of it to elderly and vulnerable family members.



Nothing is being announced about Christmas until Thursday.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

'Fit and healthy' wrestler, 19, dies days after testing positive for Covid
					

Cam Wellington was rushed to hospital when his breathing deteriorated but, despite emergency surgery, he tragically died just over a week after his diagnosis.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Looby (Nov 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh, you are new to this unitary authority stuff.
> 
> Brighton & Hove became a unitary authority in 1997, and was granted city status in 2001.
> 
> ...


No, all three towns were their own unitary authorities for years then all merged last year to make one. The rest of Dorset was made up of lots of little council areas and then all merged last year too so the county now has two councils instead of shitloads. 

Anyway, this is all entirely irrelevant to the discussion except I guess it will affect decisions about tiers. BCP will be assessed separately to Dorset Council I would guess.


----------



## Mation (Nov 23, 2020)

2hats said:


> Fairly strong La Niña forecast until at least February 2021. So likely milder/wetter/stormier weather rocking up for the UK through winter/spring 2021.


I understand nothing at all from those graphics, but have confidence in your words 

If we have a relatively mild winter a-coming, I hope it will be enough to counteract Christmas.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 23, 2020)

2hats said:


> Fairly strong La Niña forecast until at least February 2021. So likely milder/wetter/stormier weather rocking up for the UK through winter/spring 2021.



I really don't need either a wetter or stormier than usual winter ie Dec to March, thanks.

It is already unpleasantly cold, wet and windy here in SW Northumberland.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

Wetter and stormier is preferable because it should mean milder, and temperature affects health and pressure on the NHS.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh god, squeeze the disease and tis the season to be jolly careful are phrases used in this evenings Johnson speech.


I'm very angry right now.

Give the dead some dignity Boris you cunt.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

Have any of them said they are sorry that so many people have died?


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> Wetter and stormier is preferable because it should mean milder, and temperature affects health and pressure on the NHS.


As long as it isn't significantly worse than normal ...

(I have a type of nueralgia that's made very much worse by cold and damp)


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

I find pain from a shoulder injury years ago is worse when it's wet and cold


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I find pain from a shoulder injury years ago is worse when it's wet and cold


True


----------



## ska invita (Nov 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> Nothing from Indy Sage yet but they have just published some suggestions regarding holiday season.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.independentsage.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Winter-celebrations-final.pdf


Thanks, yeah i saw that one tweet....
I cant find a peep from SAGE on this. Last thing i heard from them was that Tiers are pretty shit


----------



## ska invita (Nov 23, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I can't listen to the briefings they're just too annoying. I can get all the info from here without having to see Johnson's face.


There is never a need to hear a speech by a politician, ever


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Thanks, yeah i saw that one tweet....
> I cant find a peep from SAGE on this. Last thing i heard from them was that Tiers are pretty shit





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/937449/S0879_SAGE67_201111_SPI-M-O_Statement_Impact_of_Tier_system_and_other_measures_in_the_UK.pdf


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

I am only skimming that SAGE document for now but I noticed this bit:



> When considering transitions from national measures to a localised tiered approach or between tiers, *both prevalence and growth rate of the virus need to be considered*. Basing transitions on prevalence alone leads to a perverse outcome where growth rates are highest in the lower prevalence areas and interventions sufficient to halt this growth do not take place until prevalence is very high.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 23, 2020)

Shouldn't one of these guys be at the podium on front of a camera saying we support this measure, the government are following our advice? 

sorry i cant read a document right now


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

And also:



> Test and trace, including mass testing, is most effective when prevalence is low. Even the most effective test and trace system will have little impact when caseloads are high. Given that the impact of tiers will vary depending on the characteristics of different areas, a "tier 4" needs to be considered for those parts of the country where tier 3 is not able to shrink the epidemic. This is particularly important in the run up to the winter festive period if relaxation of measures is under consideration. Keeping incidence flat or decreasing between now and then is crucial.


----------



## CH1 (Nov 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> ‘Let us disobey’: Churches defy lockdown with secret meetings
> 
> 
> Gathering in barns, cafes and bookshops, worshippers are flocking to illegal services around the country
> ...


I suspect this is a political matter.
Please remember the Conway Hall/National Secular Society got a two hundred thousand plus arts grant to tide them over the last few months. 
As regards the Angel Church - they are clearly like Brixton Soup Kitchen with divine encouragement


Regarding all the other stuff about all the religions in the UK appealing to Boris and seeking a judicial review over closure - since when has democratic action been a matter to call out?

Can't speak for many denominations myself, but my parish church - St John's Angell Town was built for over a thousand at a sitting.
These days they are very lucky to get eighty. Social distancing not too much of problem there then
Even it you wanted to dispute communication of covid by Holy Communion/Mass - there are various remedies for this.
Intiction - dipping the wafer in the wine, or Methodist/Presbyterian style individual miniature glasses, or even communion in one kind - that is not taking the wine at all, as the Catholics do - I mean don't.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

Don't be silly. 

We can get around 200 on a good day. I want that stuff opened asap but it can't open as usual at full capacity at the moment. The last time I was at synagogue (in September) we had around 75 people maximum, it was freezing cold because all doors and windows open. On a usual yom kippur you get 4+ times that number easily and on a usual Saturday its about 100-150. This is one of the bigger synagogues btw, smaller ones have far less space and are much more tightly packed. Religious buildings vary widely in how many people go to them and on which days. We have a lot of very elderly and vulnerable people going as well and relying on for social support, as well as things like making food for homeless people etc. 

I suspect my local village church is rather spacious and easy to do social distancing in but there are others for which it just isn't the same. Same in the synagogue where there's often classes and all sorts of activities going on. I know at my friends church you have bible studies and meetings going on in people's homes too. One of the earliest outbreaks was in a South Korean church, and one of the reasons it started spreading so much in the Jewish community in London was because of Purim celebrations in March. I don't think a lot of people would forgive themselves if they found themselves at the centre of an outbreak. 

I'd love for religious things to go back as normal but it isn't possible at the moment.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Shouldn't one of these guys be at the podium on front of a camera saying we support this measure, the government are following our advice?
> 
> sorry i cant read a document right now



That isn't quite how things flow anyway. SAGE give their advice and then the government does what it wants with it. Some people with SAGE etc links also have roles that cause them to appear on occasion at these press conferences, and they all have their own ways of wording things but they aren't truly independent of government. As shown in the past and in that BBC programme about lockdown 1 the other day, a lot of professional experts with official roles feel the need to maintain a united front in public, and will come out with positions that support the government even when they privately disagree with something. This doesn't always happen, but at press conferences when announcing new measures it mostly will. The press will look for any signs of disagreement and will sometimes misinterpret even the mildest detail as being some expert speaking out, eg when the likes of Whitty said in October that tier 3 on its own wouldn't be enough - he was actually referring to regional leaders also need to choose from a menu on top of the basic tier 3 measures. At best we get to read between the lines and see some areas where the likes of Whitty are uneasy about how far the government are or are not going with something, but this is not terribly useful compared to reading the SAGE papers and minutes. Even in those some reading between the lines is sometimes required, depends on the subject and how much SAGE members are able to contain their frustration, and how the summary of the meeting is written (they aren't proper minutes at all, individuals rarely feature by name or direct quote).


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2020)

The following SAGE meeting of November 12th looked at the paper I previously linked to, but what they say is largely already covered by my previous quotes so I will highlight some different bits instead:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/937450/S0881_Sixty-seventh_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19.pdf
		




> Changing patterns in testing continue to make it hard to interpret changes in confirmed case numbers. As testing becomes more locally-led, the application of Pillar 2 testing is varying more from place to place. As a result, it is very difficult to interpret changes in pillar 2 testing data in different parts of the country.





> SAGE noted progress on wastewater testing for SARs-CoV-2, which can be used to detect traces of the virus in sewage and therefore potentially provide an early warning of a local outbreak. Testing has been rolled out across several wastewater treatment sites in the UK, covering approximately 22 per cent of the population in England. SAGE will consider this further at a future meeting.



They also had a look at the mutations in mink stuff but I have run out of energy so am not quoting from that bit.


----------



## circleline (Nov 23, 2020)

So, Swale in Kent; the latest COVID hotspot.  Sheerness and Leysdown, Faversham and Sittingbourne:









						Swale in Kent becomes England's Covid hotspot after cases rise
					

Rate of 631.7 cases per 100,000 blamed on deprivation and ‘wilful disregard’ of rules




					www.theguardian.com
				




There are 3 x prisons in Swale.  Elmley is, primarily, a remand centre and: 








						Swale's 3 prisons and the truth about area's surging COVID infection rate
					

Some residents blame prisons for the area having the second worst-hit COVID-19 in the country




					www.kentlive.news
				




* "  More than 90 inmates have contracted COVID-19 at HMP Elmley alone, where an entire wing has been closed. "*

Yet:

*The worsening situation has prompted Swale Borough Council to call an emergency meeting, with leader Roger Truelove using the announcement to accuse people in the area of displaying a “wilful disregard of the rules”. 

However public health professor Jackie Cassell has said the prison cases are making only a "limited contribution". 
*


----------



## brogdale (Nov 23, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Holy moly, N. Kent & Inner Essex are an absolute shitshow and in a different league to the rest of the South East:
> 
> View attachment 240138


Not sure that the hack responsible for this piece has ever been to Sittingbourne, Sheppey or Fav.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> @The39thStep


I think you need to edit your post at the bottom of page 854 mate, something has gone wrong with the quoting and I only saw the rest of it when I pressed 'click to expand'


----------



## CH1 (Nov 23, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Not sure that the hack responsible for this piece has ever been to Sittingbourne, Sheppey or Fav.
> 
> View attachment 240174


I had been under the impression that even the people not in prison were somewhat like Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs.
They's have a Guardian reporter for breakfast - assuming they lacked the mantrap.


----------



## Mation (Nov 24, 2020)

CH1 said:


> I had been under the impression that even the people not in prison were somewhat like Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs.
> They's have a Guardian reporter for breakfast - assuming they lacked the mantrap.


What do you mean?


----------



## chilango (Nov 24, 2020)

*Timeline for the next few weeks/months*

(Mostly) Deprived areas move into Tier 3 restrictions. They don't have any disposable cash to chuck into the economy anyway right? Plus the plebs can't be trusted to behave themselves.

(Mostly) More affluent areas move into Tier 2. Middle class boomers flock to the shops en masse to prepare for a "family christmas", meet their friends for lunch at Zizzi's a couple of proseccos later they all pop round Joan's house for a couple of sherries because "it can't hurt". After all they're law abiding sensible folk who've paid their dues.

Chain pubs desperate to make up a shortfall offer crazy promotions  on "Christmas non-party" bookings. Besuited mockneys in the "financial sector" swarm town centres getting pissed up and leary.

Meanwhile at the Universities thousands of students are gathered together for "mass testing" and then dispersed around the country.

A knackered, scared and confused populace gather with their elderly relatives at Christmas.

Johnson mumbles incherently something about " you probably shouldn't go out on NYE" during his televised address on Boxing Day. Nobody sees it, The Great Escape is on the other channel.

The broadsheets publish big glossy supplements on "quarantine free" ski destinations.

Noone is quite sure when the tiers kick back in, or even if they do. Apart from some people on the internet, they definitely know.

Some people gather in town centres on NYE. The pubs chuck out at 11.00 pm. Lots of street drinking follows. Some aggro with the cops.

Schools reopen

Hundreds of thousands of students travel all around the country again.

Covid cases soar. Johnson mutters somenthing about the selfish behavious on NYE means "we might have to think about introducing some stricter measures again, maybe, if you can't behave yourselves".

People start to talk about a looming "Lockdown III".

Half-term comes and goes with schools staying open,  Gove announces that all exams will definitely take place. Relieved private school parents across Tier 2 go their quarantine free ski holdays.

Schools reopen.

Schools close a week later for a "factory reset" of two weeks.

Johnson tests positive for Covid again.

Lockdown III starts at the end of February...


----------



## Badgers (Nov 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> Lockdown III starts at the end of February...


Optimistic


----------



## maomao (Nov 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> Johnson tests positive for Covid again.


I reckon they'll be giving the cabinet the vaccine early on whether they tell the rest of us about it or not.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 24, 2020)

I reckon it will fall apart by the end of December tbh and people will be back to doing their own thing much like the summer. Johnson to be out by the end of January and the rest of the next few months to be taken up with finding a new Tory leader while things spiral


----------



## two sheds (Nov 24, 2020)

Not convinced he will go but yes that sounds quite possible.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 24, 2020)

I am tbh. February at a push


----------



## two sheds (Nov 24, 2020)

liked in hope then


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 24, 2020)

Be careful what you wish for, could be Steve Baker or someone


----------



## two sheds (Nov 24, 2020)

Eta: although it might be better if he limped along for a couple more years


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Be careful what you wish for, could be Steve Baker or someone



No it won't be anyone like that. And if somehow it was they would soon change their tune on coronavirus, because there is a big difference between posturing from the margins and actually having to stop the NHS being overwhelmed. He's got more chance of being the next Doctor Who, and is currently being mocked for looking at the European convention on human rights for a way to fight against lockdown legislation despite being an arch brexiteer.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> No it won't be anyone like that. And if somehow it was they would soon change their tune on coronavirus, because there is a big difference between posturing from the margins and actually having to stop the NHS being overwhelmed. He's got more chance of being the next Doctor Who, and is currently being mocked for looking at the European convention on human rights for a way to fight against lockdown legislation despite being an arch brexiteer.



Agree with most of that, although the European convention on human rights is nothing to do with the EU.


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Agree with most of that, although the European convention on human rights is nothing to do with the EU.



I should have mentioned that he voted to repeal the ECHR in 2016.


----------



## CH1 (Nov 24, 2020)

Mation said:


> What do you mean?


I mean that resdents of the Isle of Sheppey, many of whom work in the prisons, have a reputation of being spiky and aloof. Seems likely you have not seen or read about the film Straw Dogs - which exaggerated such behaviour to criminally violent degree, though somewhat unfairly in my opinion set the location in Cornwall. Starred Dustin Hoffman, Susan George and a mantrap.

For your information here is a synoposis - possibly from Wikipedia via Google

David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), a mild-mannered academic from the United States, marries Amy (Susan George), an Englishwoman. In order to escape a hectic stateside lifestyle, David and his wife relocate to the small town in rural Cornwall where Amy was raised. There, David is ostracized by the brutish men of the village, including Amy's old flame, Charlie (Del Henney). Eventually the taunts escalate, and two of the locals rape Amy. This sexual assault awakes a shockingly violent side of David.

PS bear in mind I was responding to the post above mine, viz

Not sure that the hack responsible for this piece has ever been to Sittingbourne, Sheppey or Fav.


----------



## andysays (Nov 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> *Timeline for the next few weeks/months*
> 
> (Mostly) Deprived areas move into Tier 3 restrictions. They don't have any disposable cash to chuck into the economy anyway right? Plus the plebs can't be trusted to behave themselves.
> 
> ...


(((Joan)))


----------



## Sue (Nov 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> *Timeline for the next few weeks/months*
> 
> (Mostly) Deprived areas move into Tier 3 restrictions. They don't have any disposable cash to chuck into the economy anyway right? Plus the plebs can't be trusted to behave themselves.
> 
> ...


And some people ('fools' I call them) reckon we've nothing to look forward to...


----------



## miss direct (Nov 24, 2020)

Ufff it's all so


andysays said:


> (((Joan)))


I want to come to Joan's for a sherry. Oh whoops, not allowed.


----------



## chilango (Nov 24, 2020)

Sue said:


> And some people ('fools' I call them) reckon we've nothing to look forward to...



They hate Britain.


----------



## chilango (Nov 24, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Ufff it's all so
> 
> I want to come to Joan's for a sherry. Oh whoops, not allowed.



You could probably get a gig as Joan's "help".


----------



## Sue (Nov 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> You could probably get a gig as Joan's "help".


Sweet sherry and cheese footballs FTW.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 24, 2020)

Not sure about that tbh. Maidenhead was about to go into Tier 2 or 3 when the lockdown was called. There's a lot of places that were Tier 1 round here that I suspect will end up in stronger restrictions this time around. Besides a lot of places in the tier 3 areas have Tory MPs so not all down to political considerations imo


----------



## miss direct (Nov 24, 2020)

Twiglets and After 8s please. And nuts but no nutcracker.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 24, 2020)

I just suspect it will get to a certain point where enforcement won't be possible regardless


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

I'll stick this quote here since its Hancock acknowledging that excess deaths is the true measure.



> The health secretary, who's answering questions from MPs, is asked about his confidence in the accuracy of death certificates as a measure.
> 
> He says it's an "absolutely reasonable" question and it was a "serious challenge", adding the only true measure is "excess" deaths.
> 
> "Excess" deaths are the difference between the deaths seen this year and the average over the previous five years for the same weeks.



From 12:36 of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55055295

And the latest graph from Deaths in UK 'a fifth higher than normal levels'


----------



## chilango (Nov 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I just suspect it will get to a certain point where enforcement won't be possible regardless



I don't think enforcement has ever been possible. They know that, hence the cack-handed "nudge" strategy.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'll stick this quote here since its Hancock acknowledging that excess deaths is the true measure.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I remember someone from the ONS being interviewed on TV around the end of April/early May, explaining they were only counting covid deaths, when covid was mentioned on the death certificate.

He went on to explain there were additional excess deaths, mainly put down to alzheimer's, dementia or a non specific cause such as 'old age', he said there was no reason for these peaks, and that they suspected that they should have been recorded as covid deaths.

Also a funeral director friend, who was dealing with a big increase in funerals, told me at the time that some doctors simply refused to put covid on the death certificate without a positive test, and of course we weren't testing much at the time, especially not testing people that had died.

All of which would suggest most, if not all, of those excesses deaths back at the peak were indeed down to covid.


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

Yeah,, and its the same story during nn-pandemic times too, which is why excesss winter death figures are paid attention to every year.

During the first wave the daily deaths reported by government were so limited (mostly only hospital deaths for quite some time during that period) that the ONS death certificate deaths were considerably higher than the daily numbers. But the daily numbers have been much improved since then, and in this second wave there are some dates where the ONS deaths via death certificate mentioning Covid-19 are actually failing to keep up with the daily government figures.

Excess death figures aren't perfect either. Events such as influenza epidemics can affect the 5 year average, and the effects of the virus, healthcare issues, lockdown measures and recession are a complex mix. For example less deaths of certain kinds are expected at the start of a recession/lower economic activity due to things including pollution levels, and it takes quite a long time before recessions are expected to lead to more deaths rather than fewer deaths. The negative consequences of lockdowns were also very unlikely to lead to statistically significant deaths during the peak of the first wave. But Im not including affected hospital services in that, which will have had their own consequences. And a bunch of other stuff that I can't be arsed to drone on about right now. The point is that these things impact where the baseline of non-covid deaths should be, above which deaths are counted as excess. And the baseline will be further out of whack with reality if, for example, we end up with far fewer flu deaths than normal over winter, since those deaths in previous seasons are baked into the 5 year averages. And its not like we count normal flu deaths properly either, so I cannot simply remove all the flu deaths from the last 5 years figures to come up with a more appropriate baseline for a winter that lacks flu deaths.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 24, 2020)

Apologies if already posted, but I'm about 10 pages behind. There's not much background in this story, but it's an extended clip of an elderly woman being arrested after protesting outside the bill and linda gates foundation in London. Really not a good look and perfect ammo for anti vacc conspiracists and others:




__





						Elderly anti-vaccine protester arrested outside Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation office in London
					





					www.msn.com
				



There really needs to be a serious push in persuading people to accept the vaccine. Needs to be a mature and informed discussion. Suspect some of that will come when the vaccine(s) become available, but the damage will be done by then. Feels to me like the field has been left open for the loons to peddle their wares and to weave vaccines into all sorts of other narratives.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 24, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Apologies if already posted, but I'm about 10 pages behind. There's not much background in this story, but it's an extended clip of an elderly woman being arrested after protesting outside the bill and linda gates foundation in London. Really not a good look and perfect ammo for anti vacc conspiracists and others:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What did she get nicked for? It doesn't matter what shit you are coming out with, you are still allowed to protest.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 24, 2020)

souljacker said:


> What did she get nicked for? It doesn't matter what shit you are coming out with, you are still allowed to protest.



No other news stories yet but from this video it sounds like the officer says breach of the peace, but I might be imagining it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 24, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Apologies if already posted, but I'm about 10 pages behind. There's not much background in this story, but it's an extended clip of an elderly woman being arrested after protesting outside the bill and linda gates foundation in London. Really not a good look and perfect ammo for anti vacc conspiracists and others:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I am sure plenty of anti-vaxxers will change their minds when they find they can't go on holiday aboard unless they are vaccinated.


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

Todays 608 deaths includes the usual post-weekend catchup and does not change the probable plateau picture.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am sure plenty of anti-vaxxers will change their minds when they find they can't go on holiday aboard unless they are vaccinated.


I'm sure that's right and there's going to have to be some 'official' proof that you've had the vaccine for any of that to work. But aside from all that, insurance companies will no doubt be asking covid related questions when it comes to insuring travellers. In fact, and this is a wild guess, I wonder whether questions about travel and vaccinations might at some point be entirely delegated to insurance companies (maybe not in the first few months after vaccines become available)?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 24, 2020)

Anyone have any thoughts about when is a reasonable time frame to start making assessments about how effective (or otherwise) the November lockdown / mockdown has been?


----------



## killer b (Nov 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Anyone have any thoughts about when is a reasonable time frame to start making assessments about how effective (or otherwise) the November lockdown / mockdown has been?


I'd say you can probably start drawing some conclusions now.



elbows said:


> Todays 608 deaths includes the usual post-weekend catchup and does not change the probable plateau picture.
> 
> View attachment 240277


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'd say you can probably start drawing some conclusions now.



That's deaths isn't it.  Wouldn't new infections be more telling and we'd need a week or two yet?  I dunno.  Cases do seem to be drifting downwards as far as I can tell.


----------



## LDC (Nov 24, 2020)

souljacker said:


> What did she get nicked for? It doesn't matter what shit you are coming out with, you are still allowed to protest.



Depends on what you're doing and where, and of course it matters what shit you're coming out with, threatening, hate speech, being disruptive, etc. Not to mention the vagaries of the police that deal with you. There's no blanket, "I'm protesting therefore it's allowed."


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> That's deaths isn't it.  Wouldn't new infections be more telling and we'd need a week or two yet?  I dunno.  Cases do seem to be drifting downwards as far as I can tell.



Deaths is the last thing to filter through isn't it. Cases then hospitalisations then deaths. So if deaths are plateauing you'd expect the first two to have done the same already - although the cases figures are probably less reliable I guess.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 24, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Deaths is the last thing to filter through isn't it. Cases then hospitalisations then deaths. So if deaths are plateauing you'd expect the first two to have done the same already - although the cases figures are probably less reliable I guess.


AFAIA, yes...deaths lag 3 to 4 weeks behind any effective intervention.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 24, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Deaths is the last thing to filter through isn't it. Cases then hospitalisations then deaths. So if deaths are plateauing you'd expect the first two to have done the same already - although the cases figures are probably less reliable I guess.



Yes sure.  I'm just thinking that there were signs that things were beginning to turn before the second lockdown started which could account for a proportion of the plateauing of deaths.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 24, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Depends on what you're doing and where, and of course it matters what shit you're coming out with, threatening, hate speech, being disruptive, etc. Not to mention the vagaries of the police that deal with you. There's no blanket, "I'm protesting therefore it's allowed."



Well, obv


----------



## brogdale (Nov 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes sure.  I'm just thinking that there were signs that things were beginning to turn before the second lockdown started which could account for a proportion of the plateauing of deaths.


You reckon?

tbh that graph from elbows looks like Lockdown 2 was about a month too late.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> That's deaths isn't it.  Wouldn't new infections be more telling and we'd need a week or two yet?  I dunno.  Cases do seem to be drifting downwards as far as I can tell.



Yep, only 11,299 new cases reported today, although the number of tests are down around 70k compared to last Tue., so there could be an issue with today's figures, but there has certainly been a downward trend over the last few days.

The number of covid cases in hospital seem to have started to go down too, although the drop is fairly small, the next few days will give a better idea of what's happening.

That will not be reflected in number of deaths for another 2-4 weeks.


----------



## killer b (Nov 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes sure.  I'm just thinking that there were signs that things were beginning to turn before the second lockdown started which could account for a proportion of the plateauing of deaths.


You what.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 24, 2020)

brogdale said:


> You reckon?



Yes, there were signs and indeed talk that tier 3 in particular might be working (edit having a positive effect) and / or the peak of the second wave may passed.  This is infections of course which lags onto...



> tbh that graph from elbows looks like Lockdown 2 was about a month too late.



Quite possibly / probably.  There were a lot of people calling for that circuit breaker around half term.


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 24, 2020)

This doesn't read very positively to me. I know it's contact isolation absence reasons but the numbers in schools isn't decreasing.








						‘Collapse’ in secondary school attendance warning
					

Covid disruption worsens for England's secondary schools as 22% of pupils sent home.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> You what.



You seem to what to say something, feel free.

If cases per 100,000 per were levelling off at the start of the month than a level of that would be reflected in deaths at the end of the month?  I know there is other factors as who the virus is spreading to etc.

I just would like to know when we can start judging the effectiveness of the last month.  Its fairly standard thing to try and take stock of decisions made etc.

ETA: To add further to this my reading of the this Covid-19 in the UK: How many coronavirus cases are there in your area? is that there are areas where cases are rising, most prominently in the South East, East and London.  Rising cases after what was supposed to be a lockdown doesn't sound great to me.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes, there were signs and indeed talk that tier 3 in particular might be working (edit having a positive effect) and / or the peak of the second wave may passed.  This is infections of course which lags onto...
> 
> 
> 
> Quite possibly / probably.  There were a lot of people calling for that circuit breaker around half term.


In some limited (T3 areas) there is some evidence that the interventions were bringing the case number under some degree of control, but not the extent that it can explain much of the current, apparent plateauing.



> Knowsley Council leader Graham Morgan said he believed the restrictions were working, but the area remained "far from being in a good position".


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

The lag picture between different sorts of data and between behavioural changes and our ability to see the results of those changes is really quite a messy picture that often fails to live up to the simplistic timescales that get mentioned in the press etc. 

I attempted to graph different sorts of data in order to see what the lag looked like in the first and second waves, in the London lockdown thread earlier (because thats where it came up in conversation)            #410          

The first time round, where the brakes were more strongly applied, there was only about 2 weeks between lockdown being formally implemented and the number of daily deaths peaking. But massive behavioural changes that showed up via things like measures of mobility plummeting happened a week earlier than that, around the time Johnson asked people not to go to the pub. And a somewhat milder version of behavioural changes had been underway for even longer than that. 

The current deaths by date of death numbers are not necessarily a total plateau, but with every passing day I am more likely to describe them as that. And at the very least they will end up as a much reduced rate of increase in deaths, the trajectory of death increases we saw until recently should have started to show up by now in more recent numbers if it was going to happen. Either that or there has been some kind of data fuckup, but with such an obviously similarity in numbers over a good number of days, I'd really hope that someone would have double-checked for that possibility by now. But hope is not enough, and I dont like to make assumptions about how quickly government will spot its own mistakes, so I suppose I cannot completely exclude that possibility yet.


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

This is the latest daily hospital admissions regional picture I have available, using daily data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Its very similar to a graph I think someone posted from IndieSAGE recently, except theirs is adjusted for population size of each region and mine is not.

First graph is smoothed out using rolling 7 day averages so for anyone who wants to see the raw version, I've put it in spoiler tags.




Spoiler


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 24, 2020)

South East hospital admissions still seem to be going up.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> South East hospital admissions still seem to be going up.


The estuary effect?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 24, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> South East hospital admissions still seem to be going up.



Yes.  This is what I was trying to get at.  The situation seems quite confused with some very positive signs in the North and Midlands but worrying stuff elsewhere.  I would have hoped at this stage we would all have been on a downward trend to some degree.

The Zoe app has painted a not good picture for London for a few days now.  I don't really understand it.


----------



## chilango (Nov 24, 2020)

This Christmas thing is going to end really, really, badly isn't it?


----------



## steveo87 (Nov 24, 2020)

I've quite enjoyed the 'we can't can't meet cos of Rona' angle with family. 
This has ballsed it up completely.


----------



## belboid (Nov 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> This Christmas thing is going to end really, really, badly isn't it?


don't worry, nobody's going to move from one three household bubble to another to another, _nobody.  _With a quick call in at the pub between groups, maybe for a formal handover.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 24, 2020)

.


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

> *Britons should stop "soldiering on" by going to work when sick and making others ill, the health secretary says.*
> 
> Matt Hancock said people in the UK were "peculiarly unusual and outliers" for still going to work when unwell.
> 
> ...











						Don't go to work when sick, 'peculiar' Brits told
					

People have tendency to soldier on, potentially making colleagues sick, health secretary says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Always good to see the idea of the mass diagnostics being used to actually deal with flu in future rather than the previous shit approach. But this is another of my common themes so no need for me to say much more about that I dont think.

As for going to work when ill, to change it we need a different management culture attitude towards illness, a better sick pay system, more job security in general, less terrible understaffing issues at essential workplaces at the best of times. Then with all those things in place yes, there is also some work that can be done on workers attitudes. But I wouldn't insult their intelligence by attempting this if they still live and work in an atmosphere of mixed messages, pressure to do the wrong thing, and insecurity.


----------



## killer b (Nov 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> This Christmas thing is going to end really, really, badly isn't it?


It probably won't make that much of a difference i reckon. Maybe a bit of a bump mid January.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> It probably won't make that much of a difference i reckon. Maybe a bit of a bump mid January.


Or, then again, the inter-generational mixing might just be enough to seed a third wave? Who knows; we're not epidemiologists, are we?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> Don't go to work when sick, 'peculiar' Brits told
> 
> 
> People have tendency to soldier on, potentially making colleagues sick, health secretary says.
> ...



Absolutely spot on.  The toxic culture of presentism that we have which has been hammered down by management.  How many companies out there will stick someone on ssp from day one of being ill?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 24, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The estuary effect?
> 
> View attachment 240287



Yep, the increasing South East hospital admissions must be down to north Kent & south-west Essex, it's certainly not happening around here.


----------



## killer b (Nov 24, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Or, then again, the inter-generational mixing might just be enough to seed a third wave? Who knows; we're not epidemiologists, are we?


Sure, we're all novices at this, but I can't see the point in just assuming doom. While there'll be more mixing with family etc, there'll be less/no mixing in schools and the workplace. The government will try and keep things pretty tight both sides, and pub restrictions are going to be pretty strict if they open at all. It's not very predictable at all what the christmas break is going to do to infection rates.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Sure, we're all novices at this, but I can't see the point in just assuming doom. While there'll be more mixing with family etc, there'll be less/no mixing in schools and the workplace. The government will try and keep things pretty tight both sides, and pub restrictions are going to be pretty strict if they open at all. It's not very predictable at all what the christmas break is going to do to infection rates.


All true, but I'd imagine that the policy/decison making around the relaxation for this festival were far more politically based than they were epidemiological.


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> Sure, we're all novices at this, but I can't see the point in just assuming doom. While there'll be more mixing with family etc, there'll be less/no mixing in schools and the workplace. The government will try and keep things pretty tight both sides, and pub restrictions are going to be pretty strict if they open at all. It's not very predictable at all what the christmas break is going to do to infection rates.



And as I've probably said already, they have a bit of extra wiggle room when doing the sums because of the effect of school holidays.

My own views on Christmas measures are strongly affected by the levels of infection in the community at the time, so my opinions are more likely to make themselves clearer and louder nearer to the time.


----------



## killer b (Nov 24, 2020)

brogdale said:


> All true, but I'd imagine that the policy/decison making around the relaxation for this festival were far more politically based than they were epidemiological.


Maybe it's a bit of both? People are going to take things into their own hands at christmas if they aren't given permission, so there's good reasons for a directed and controlled relaxation of restrictions. Will they do it right? Unlikely, but maybe this time.  And even if they don't get the balance right on purpose, it could still work out largely ok. or, at least, as ok as things can be right now. 

There was lots of bell ringing and shouts of 'doom, doom' after the VE celebrations, and then there wasn't doom. This is obviously a lot more significant event than that, but I think there's a reasonable chance of a similar lack of movement in the infection rates - certainly no reason for total despondency.


----------



## chilango (Nov 24, 2020)

Within literally moments of the announcement we had elderly. and previously very careful, parents on the phone trying to arrange successive visits on each day of the break by various parts of the family.


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

Well its already given the BBC an opportunity to go on about some of the reasons why mixing indoors is risky and why it can be worse in winter (shut windows etc).


----------



## chilango (Nov 24, 2020)

intergenerational mixing? check
interregional mixing? check
alcohol? fuck yeah.
small spaces with windows shut? check
anything happening in the couple of weeks after that might make things worse? Hmm. Schools, Universities and workplaces reopening. Does that count?


I know. people were going to mix anyway, but this really is the Government encouraging people to kill their Nan.


----------



## chilango (Nov 24, 2020)

> But in families where, for example, three children live away from home, they would not all be able to return for Christmas
> 
> ..but
> 
> University students returning from halls of residence at the end of term would automatically rejoin their family household and therefore not be counted as a separate household



Absolute madness.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> There was lots of bell ringing and shouts of 'doom, doom' after the VE celebrations, and then there wasn't doom.



That's probably because the VE celebrations were cancelled.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Nov 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's probably because the VE celebrations were cancelled.


Oh I don't know. A handful of people round our way did the hokey-cokey outside in the street while social distancing.


----------



## killer b (Nov 24, 2020)

There was loads of streetparties, which lots of people claimed would result in a spike in infections.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> There was loads of streetparties, which lots of people claimed would result in a spike in infections.



Where?  



> *Towns and cities around England had planned parades and street parties to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VE Day but with events cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, how are people getting ready to mark the day?*
> 
> Victory in Europe (VE) Day on 8 May 1945 saw Britain and its Allies formally accept Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender after almost six years of war.
> 
> ...











						VE Day 2020: England prepares for lockdown celebrations
					

How are communities in England preparing to celebrate VE Day in lockdown?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Nov 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> I know. people were going to mix anyway, but this really is the Government encouraging people to kill their Nan.


It's the government trying to have some influence over the size and type of gatherings that happen. The gatherings were going to happen anyway.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Nov 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's the government trying to have some influence over the size and type of gatherings that happen. The gatherings were going to happen anyway.


Some gatherings would have happened anyway, but some people will now put pressure on family members to travel long distances and others will feel pressurised. Still others will think this gives the green light to do whatever they want. The detail of the message (vague enough anyway) will get lost in all the excitement (yea! It's Christmastime!).


----------



## Cloo (Nov 24, 2020)

The only comment from a government (think it might have been NI rather than England) that made _some_ sense of this was along the lines of 'We are giving people time to plan' and I can see the point that if you say nothing, or don't give any outlines until mid December, or say outright 'no one can see anyone' it'll just be a free for all anyway. So if you give guidelines, at least a reasonable number of people will plan around those I suppose. Still pretty weaksauce and they still ought to say 'But this whole thing will be over quicker and you'll see a lot more of everyone next year if you don't visit anyone outside your household or support bubble at Christmas and just stick to digital contact'.

I agree Kevbad the Bad that allowing visits at all is going to create pressure and stress and a lot of arguments between parts of the family that want a get together and others that had planned not to go but could be guilted into it.

We don't actually celebrate Christmas, but my parents have been stuck abroad since late August and (providing they make it back) will want to see us - it won't create arguments if we say 'no' in our case but I plan only to agree with mitigation, eg it's outdoors, or if indoors is an hour tops and no meal or something at the absolute most.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Nov 24, 2020)

My mum's in a nursing home at the other end of the country anyway and the logistics of me seeing her just won't work this year. I just think that if we're not all very careful then Christmas could see a new spike. It might not happen but raising expectation this early on is asking for trouble, and then Brexit. The usual complete absence of real forethought from Johnson & co.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 24, 2020)

It will be a little like the students travelling across the country bringing their virus's with them and then, after the break, traveling back with new ones. 

Families with vulnerable members better think carefully about this Christmas, a vaccine is just around the corner, why risk getting infected now?


----------



## two sheds (Nov 24, 2020)

Mate's daughter is in London, planning to come back to Cornwall with a friend, but her brother (16ish) is asthmatic I'm hoping he's going to be ok


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2020)

I found a pretty vivid example relating to some of what I was saying earlier about excess deaths not being a perfect measure in this second wave either, being at risk of the excess being lower than the actual number of covid-19 deaths, eg if its at a time when there are probably less deaths than normal from some other causes.

In the ONS figures for England and Wales that were published today, for the week ending 13th November there were 12,254 deaths in total compared to a 5 year average of 10,350. So that weeks provisional excess would be 1,904. However, looking at their data which shows number of weekly Covid-19 death registrations for the same week ending November 13th, they have 2,466.

Data comes from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional        - Office for National Statistics


----------



## Spandex (Nov 24, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes sure.  I'm just thinking that there were signs that things were beginning to turn before the second lockdown started which could account for a proportion of the plateauing of deaths.


Something (or things) were going on before 'lockdown 2' started on 5th Nov. Looking at the 7 day average line on the 'new cases by specimen date' chart on the UK Covid Dashboard the line was going up at a steep 70° angle until about 22nd Oct, when it went to a 50° angle, up to a peak on 9th Nov and has been coming down sharply since then.

But beneath that headline there have been a number of things going on. The Tier system was introduced, which had an impact on the severest hit areas once they went into Tier 3. Universities started getting their campus outbreaks under control, but as numbers in student areas started falling, university towns saw some rises in their community figures. As the numbers rose and people saw a new lockdown was imminent more people started taking the whole thing more seriously. As the numbers started coming down in the Tier 3 areas, they were also going up in the Tier 1 areas, especially in the south. There was that big spike in new cases around a week after lockdown eve (I still suspect these are related - as I walked home from work through town on 4th Nov the shops were packed, there were traffic jams, the streets were full of people with bags of shopping, and there was lots of drunkenness in the street outside that night). There's all kind of stuff going on at a local and regional level and in different age groups where things have got better and worse at different times which have affected the overall national picture. 

But, yes the line wasn't going up as steeply for a couple of weeks before lockdown and - let's be optimistic - even the half-hearted lockdown 2 looks to be bringing the number of new cases down. I know one day's figures can't be looked at on their own, but today's 11,299 new cases is the lowest figure for quite some time and gives me hope. I'd like to think the death figures will start decreasing soon too.

Shame I don't have the same optimism that the government will put places in appropriate tiers when they're announced on Thursday, opting to put most places in as low a tier as possible because (once again) the economy. Then we can watch where that line goes next...


----------



## Mation (Nov 24, 2020)

Covid-19: Three households can mix over Christmas in UK
					

People can form a "Christmas bubble" and mix in homes and outdoors between 23 and 27 December.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				





> Existing support bubbles count as one household towards the three household limit
> People are allowed to form a different Christmas bubble from the people they live with normally - they can choose to stay with different people for this period



So up to 6 households can form a bubble? And each of those bubbles could, for 5 days, involve up to 3 alternative/temporary replacement (effectively additional) households, until they return to those households that usually form their bubble?

Someone please tell me I've got that wrong.


----------



## 8115 (Nov 24, 2020)

Mation said:


> Covid-19: Three households can mix over Christmas in UK
> 
> 
> People can form a "Christmas bubble" and mix in homes and outdoors between 23 and 27 December.
> ...


No you can only make one big bubble. Not loads of simultaneous bubbles. As I understand it.


----------



## 8115 (Nov 24, 2020)

3 households, 5 days. A support bubble counts as 1 household.


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## 8115 (Nov 24, 2020)

But you can split from your previous households.


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## Mation (Nov 24, 2020)

8115 said:


> 3 households, 5 days. A support bubble counts as 1 household.


'Counts as' is not the same as 'is'. Each support bubble involves two households.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 24, 2020)

Mation said:


> Covid-19: Three households can mix over Christmas in UK
> 
> 
> People can form a "Christmas bubble" and mix in homes and outdoors between 23 and 27 December.
> ...


it's so Boris can see all of his kids


----------



## 8115 (Nov 24, 2020)

So yes there is scope for a lot of mixing.


----------



## killer b (Nov 24, 2020)

Mation said:


> Covid-19: Three households can mix over Christmas in UK
> 
> 
> People can form a "Christmas bubble" and mix in homes and outdoors between 23 and 27 December.
> ...


where did you get the 6 households bit from?


----------



## Mation (Nov 24, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> it's so Boris can see all of his kids


Nah. Some. Most?


----------



## 8115 (Nov 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> where did you get the 6 households bit from?


3 support bubbles. Although I think in practice those occasions will be rare. People aren't completely stupid.


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## Orang Utan (Nov 24, 2020)

we're not risking it, even though there's 3 households and 9 people


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## Mation (Nov 24, 2020)

killer b said:


> where did you get the 6 households bit from?


Each current support bubble comprises two households. Each support bubble counts as one household for purposes of Christmas. Three Christmas households will be allowed.


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## two sheds (Nov 24, 2020)

This is going to be an exam question in future years.

If one support bubble comprises two households, each support bubble counts as one household for the purposes of Christmas, and three Christmas households will be allowed, how many of his children will Boris Johnson be able to see?


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 24, 2020)

I'm very confused tbh


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## 8115 (Nov 24, 2020)

3 households, 5 days, better not to if you can avoid it.


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## 8115 (Nov 24, 2020)

Much like most years, then.


----------



## blameless77 (Nov 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> *Timeline for the next few weeks/months*
> 
> (Mostly) Deprived areas move into Tier 3 restrictions. They don't have any disposable cash to chuck into the economy anyway right? Plus the plebs can't be trusted to behave themselves.
> 
> ...




So, do you think mass testing Will be effective?


----------



## chilango (Nov 24, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> So, do you think mass testing Will be effective?



effective in what?


----------



## killer b (Nov 24, 2020)

Mation said:


> Each current support bubble comprises two households. Each support bubble counts as one household for purposes of Christmas. Three Christmas households will be allowed.


basically this allows for (for example) me and my kids and my brother and his partner and kids to go to my mum & dads for a few days over christmas, should we want to. If my partner (who doesn't live with me) was in a support bubble with me, then she'd be able to come too. We wouldn't be able to visit anyone else during the christmas period.


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## FridgeMagnet (Nov 24, 2020)

Basically it's so complex you can do what you like, as long as you don't meet up in groups that are too big at any one time too obviously.


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## Kevbad the Bad (Nov 24, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Basically it's so complex you can do what you like, as long as you don't meet up in groups that are too big at any one time too obviously.


But only for five days, because even six days would be too dangerous obviously.


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## Raheem (Nov 24, 2020)

Boris Johnson says the virus doesn't know it's Christmas. Someone get Geldof on the blower.

(Yes, it's November, but don't blame me, I didn't say it.)


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## mx wcfc (Nov 24, 2020)

Christ, my family are already trying to come up with arguments around how we could get four households together on Boxing Day in a sort of  "X is already in a support bubble with Y & Z [bollocks, incidentally] so that's one household, so even with A there, that's only two households, so we can go and see them" type nonsense.  

This is going to go on everywhere and hundreds of thousands are just going to ignore the three household rule.

Me?  Well, if I was that bothered about going to my dad's, I would - he lives in the back end of nowhere, so unless his only neighbour shops us, no-one is going to know. But, actually, I'd rather go to the Boxing Day football, for the first time pretty much ever.   

(I am delighted for people who want to spend xmas with family and can now as a result of this rule)


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## 8115 (Nov 24, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> Christ, my family are already trying to come up with arguments around how we could get four households together on Boxing Day in a sort of  "X is already in a support bubble with Y & Z [bollocks, incidentally] so that's one household, so even with A there, that's only two households, so we can go and see them" type nonsense.
> 
> This is going to go on everywhere and hundreds of thousands are just going to ignore the three household rule.
> 
> ...


Yeah but I think in my family we definitely won't go up to the max which we could, we usually do. Parents are older and vulnerable, it's just not worth the risk. Swings and roundabouts.


----------



## blameless77 (Nov 24, 2020)

chilango said:


> effective in what?



Managing risk? Eg students returning?


----------



## mx wcfc (Nov 24, 2020)

8115 said:


> Yeah but I think in my family we definitely won't go up to the max which we could, we usually do. Parents are older and vulnerable, it's just not worth the risk. Swings and roundabouts.


My dad will be 77 on Boxing Day, but he's healthy, and not generally at risk in terms of being in a rural location.  I doubt him and his wife are at risk, simply because they don't come into close contact with people very much and, I'm sure, they follow the rules.  The likeliest vector into their house is my half siblings, plus one spouse, who will be there anyway.  I'm more likely to pick up the virus at the football than I am at that family gathering.  
Given that both my wife and daughter have had it, and I haven't,  I'm sort of thinking I'm exempt anyway. (It's Ok, I know I'm not).


----------



## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

Sounds to me like it's just going to cause transport mayhem so I'd rather go and visit family a month or two later without all that and a five day limit, and maybe my more elderly relatives will have been given a vaccine by then meaning a bit less worry about them getting something as a result.


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## Steel Icarus (Nov 25, 2020)

Social distancing doesn't apply in those bubbles, too. Mrs SI burst into tears as she realised she could hug her mum and dad.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> This is going to be an exam question in future years.
> 
> If one support bubble comprises two households, each support bubble counts as one household for the purposes of Christmas, and three Christmas households will be allowed, how many of his children will Boris Johnson be able to see?



“If Boris refuses to see his child does it exist?”


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> This is going to be an exam question teacher assessed task in future years.
> 
> If one support bubble comprises two households, each support bubble counts as one household for the purposes of Christmas, and three Christmas households will be allowed, how many of his children will Boris Johnson be able to see?



ffy


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 25, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Social distancing doesn't apply in those bubbles, too. Mrs SI burst into tears as she realised she could hug her mum and dad.


This is the bit that I don't understand. I'm pleased for Mrs SI obvs but hugging parents carries exactly the same risk no matter the rules.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Social distancing doesn't apply in those bubbles, too. Mrs SI burst into tears as she realised she could hug her mum and dad.


The change in the guidelines has zero effect on the risk of doing stuff though.


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The change in the guidelines has zero effect on the risk of doing stuff though.



...except in changing people's behaviour. Including before and after this momentary hug.


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

blameless77 said:


> Managing risk? Eg students returning?



Dunno. 

Will the risk of processing thousands of students together in a smallish space over a short period of time to take a test (which by the University's admission isn't the most rigorous) outweigh the benefits of potentially identifying students with the virus - on that day - and pulling them out of circulation for a couple of weeks?

I don't know. 

...but given as it's been decided to disperse them around the country again I'm not sure there's much choice.


----------



## Boudicca (Nov 25, 2020)

How easy is it to get a private test these days?  One way of minimising the risk might be for those visiting elderly relatively to take a test just before they go.


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## StoneRoad (Nov 25, 2020)

Better still, save the visits until After the elderly rellies have had their jabs and the time to develop full effectiveness has elapsed.
A few extra weeks could make all the difference.

Unless the households planning to mix can prove absence by teat and maintain that status with a strict isolation / quarantine for two weeks.

Otherwise there is going to be a massive spike in cases, again, in January, followed by hospital admissions surging 2 -3 weeks later and finally deaths peaking shortly afterwards. Sometime during the middle part of that process, will be the third attempt to flatten the curve ... possibly the amount of vaccinations done will help to reduce the amount of grannies that will otherwise die.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Better still, save the visits until After the elderly rellies have had their jabs and the time to develop full effectiveness has elapsed.
> A few extra weeks could make all the difference.



This is what seems a bit mad to me. If there were no vaccines currently in prospect, then the risk/benefit balance would be rather different.

However, it seems reasonably realistic that the elderly may be able to be given a vaccine that will offer them some protection, within the next couple of months. If that's the case then surely it makes sense to put off a visit, by a relatively short amount of time, in order to be able to make that visit at a time when the risk (hopefully) will be hugely reduced.


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

Given that the vaccines (welcome as they are) are being produced in, by and for neo-liberal capitalism...I'm not sure it's wise to pin our hopes (behaviour wise) on their rapid roll out to us all.


----------



## editor (Nov 25, 2020)

chilango said:


> Given that the vaccines (welcome as they are) are being produced in, by and for neo-liberal capitalism...I'm not sure it's wise to pin our hopes (behaviour wise) on their rapid roll out to us all.


I thought the Oxford one was not-for-profit


----------



## weltweit (Nov 25, 2020)

chilango said:


> Given that the vaccines (welcome as they are) are being produced in, by and for neo-liberal capitalism...I'm not sure it's wise to pin our hopes (behaviour wise) on their rapid roll out to us all.


The Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine is looking most promising because of its better storage requirements, and my understanding is it is to be distributed at cost price. So making it even more attractive.


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

It's not just the profit making aspect, but also about prioritisation, distribution etc.


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

i.e. decisions about who, how. when. where and what will be made according to the logic of neo-liberalism.


----------



## killer b (Nov 25, 2020)

chilango said:


> i.e. decisions about who, how. when. where and what will be made according to the logic of neo-liberalism.


What do you think that would look like?


----------



## weltweit (Nov 25, 2020)

chilango said:


> i.e. decisions about who, how. when. where and what will be made according to the logic of neo-liberalism.


What do you expect that will result in?

My understanding is that at least in the UK, priority will be given to car home residents, their carers, then NHS workers (and possibly patients) including carers, followed by people in vulnerable groups before eventually getting to more general distribution.


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

killer b said:


> What do you think that would look like?



Prioritising the economy, followed the politically symbolic vulnerable.

Distribution by DPD, vaccination centres run by Servo with an online booking system powered by AskJeeves or something.

Yes, it's in capital's interest to get things up and running again* but the market isn't very good at managing this kind of thing.

*to a point. Don't underestimate the interests of the disaster capitalists in all this.


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

Even if there's a "not for profit" vaccine there will still be a lot of money to be made and the "hidden hand" (i.e. the market) will be busy passing brown envelopes around...


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 25, 2020)

Not to mention a huge grey market in "private" practice - where the £££ you can pay is the determinant, not clinical need nor even societies' need for you to be vaccinated ...


----------



## nagapie (Nov 25, 2020)

Absolutely. There's very little NHS and community infrastructure to roll out vaccines after 10 years of austerity cutbacks. A few more cool millions to Serco etc to fuck it up.


----------



## Supine (Nov 25, 2020)

chilango said:


> Given that the vaccines (welcome as they are) are being produced in, by and for neo-liberal capitalism...I'm not sure it's wise to pin our hopes (behaviour wise) on their rapid roll out to us all.



how are the communist vaccines doing?


----------



## Supine (Nov 25, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Absolutely. There's very little NHS and community infrastructure to roll out vaccines after 10 years of austerity cutbacks. A few more cool millions to Serco etc to fuck it up.



it's being rolled out by NHS. although I'm sure they will be supported by the army and whoever  can distribute cold chain DHL etc


----------



## nagapie (Nov 25, 2020)

Supine said:


> it's being rolled out by NHS. although I'm sure they will be supported by the army and whoever  can distribute cold chain DHL etc


Actually, I think I did know that. Doesn't change the fact that the reason vaccination programs have been most successful in the past is the structures that can reach out into the communities, especially hard to reach communities, most of which do not exist any more.


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

Supine said:


> how are the communist vaccines doing?



Your point?


----------



## ska invita (Nov 25, 2020)

Considering we only came out of lockdown when hospital admissions were as low as this:


I feel really uncomfortable about the current lifting and going into "Teir 2" - a tier where pubs, restaurants, schools, universities and all shops are open.
I havent followed government dates so far and am trying to weigh up whether to ignore this new shift on the 2nd - anyone got any thoughts?

According to SAGE we're going to have a third wave anyhow because of the five days of Xmas, but a months worth of this before hand seems disastrous to do.
??


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 25, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Considering we only came out of lockdown when hospital admissions were as low as this:
> View attachment 240356
> 
> I feel really uncomfortable about the current lifting and going into "Teir 2" - a tier where pubs, restaurants, schools, universities and all shops are open.
> I havent followed government dates so far and am trying to weigh up whether to ignore this new shift on the 2nd - anyone got any thoughts?



Personally I'm not second guessing anything until I've heard tomorrow's announcement about which area into which tier.  There is a very good argument that vast swathes of the country should just go straight into tier 3 which is little different than what we have right now.  Just more shops open.

As it has been throughout its probably best we continue to exercise our own risk assessment rather than rely on what the government says is safe one day but not the next.  I think most people who are regular contributors to this thread are pretty clued up and should trust themselves to make sensible assessments.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 25, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Personally I'm not second guessing anything until I've heard tomorrow's announcement about which area into which tier.  There is a very good argument that vast swathes of the country should just go straight into tier 3 which is little different than what we have right now.  Just more shops open.
> 
> As it has been throughout its probably best we continue to exercise our own risk assessment rather than rely on what the government says is safe one day but not the next.  I think most people who are regular contributors to this thread are pretty clued up and should trust themselves to make sensible assessments.


im torn....and it has implications on my public facing working life.
I just feel if this was February not December thered be no chance in hell the lockdown would be lifted to Tier 2


----------



## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

I'm waiting for the tier decisions too. But on a basic level I think I prefer Frances more cautious lockdown easing in stages, and there is certainly plenty of potential for the plan in England to go wrong.

If they mostly get away with their plan, I think it will only be because lots of people will be more cautious than the rules say they have to be. Lots won't, but they get all the attention so I have to keep going on about those who remain cautious to remind myself and others that they exist and are not a tiny group.


----------



## Supine (Nov 25, 2020)

I certainly won't be relaxing my behaviour if the rules change here. and so far there is no talk of a return to the big family christmas gathering. I think my mum watching indy sage every week has made her more cautious now than she had been previously


----------



## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

I was relieved that my Dad left it till early September to ask whether I would meet him down the pub. If he had asked a month or two earlier then I would have found it harder to say no, but since his timing was crap and he was asking me at a time where the testing system was bucking under the strain, it was much easier to reject this request.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 25, 2020)

I do get while people are worried / frustrated with the Christmas plans.  It feels like we've been here before with jeopardising hard fought wins for short term gratification. See 'eat out to help out' and 'save the great British summer holiday' both of which certainly helped prise the door back open for the virus.

What stands out about the Christmas plans though is that the devolved governments are on board as well.  I can see why they're trying to get ahead of the game but there remains a lot of risk.


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

Slots at our mass testing appear to have run out within 20 minutes of being released...


----------



## quimcunx (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Sounds to me like it's just going to cause transport mayhem so I'd rather go and visit family a month or two later without all that and a five day limit, and maybe my more elderly relatives will have been given a vaccine by then meaning a bit less worry about them getting something as a result.



My 99% decision is to stay away at christmas and go in january. But after all the christmas shenanigans will it be possible? My personal complication is I want to support my dad who is facing a long winter caring for dementia mum so stay for about a month.  I'll be quite pissed off if I can't travel up in January because everyone else did christmas when I didnt.


----------



## thismoment (Nov 25, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Considering we only came out of lockdown when hospital admissions were as low as this:
> View attachment 240356
> 
> I feel really uncomfortable about the current lifting and going into "Teir 2" - a tier where pubs, restaurants, schools, universities and all shops are open.
> ...



Does this graph suggest that if had stayed in lockdown a bit longer (don’t know what a “bit” would be) that we might have got to such few hospital admissions that the virus would’ve been significantly reduced in communities?
(Apologies for my ignorance)

eta: furlough scheme would’ve had to continue at an actually supportive rate for employees and businesses and mental health support


----------



## ska invita (Nov 25, 2020)

thismoment said:


> Does this graph suggest that if had stayed in lockdown a bit longer (don’t know what a “bit” would be) that we might have got to such few hospital admissions that the virus would’ve been significantly reduced in communities?
> (Apologies for my ignorance)


It was summer holidays and potentially yes - eat out to help out followed by  letting schools go back, all without an effective working test and trace system seems to me the biggest problems. From what I can tell


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 25, 2020)

chilango said:


> Slots at our mass testing appear to have run out within 20 minutes of being released...



Well that's good in a way, no?.  For mass testing to be successful you are going to need a large uptake and a lot of buy-in from the public.  It sounds like people are pretty motivated round your way.  Obviously there is a capacity issue but mass testing doesn't mean test everyone in the first few days.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 25, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> My 99% decision is to stay away at christmas and go in january. But after all the christmas shenanigans will it be possible? My personal complication is I want to support my dad who is facing a long winter caring for dementia mum so stay for about a month.  I'll be quite pissed off if I can't travel up in January because everyone else did christmas when I didnt.


 i think it will be even worse in January, Id go now if anything. Cases are only going up as of the 2nd Dec


----------



## chilango (Nov 25, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Well that's good in a way, no?.  For mass testing to be successful you are going to need a large uptake and a lot of buy-in from the public.  It sounds like people are pretty motivated round your way.  Obviously there is a capacity issue but mass testing doesn't mean test everyone in the first few days.



In this particular case it does. There's thousands of students about to disperse around the country in very narrow window. There's an equally narrow window for meaningful testing beforehand.

High demand is great though.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> My 99% decision is to stay away at christmas and go in january. But after all the christmas shenanigans will it be possible? My personal complication is I want to support my dad who is facing a long winter caring for dementia mum so stay for about a month.  I'll be quite pissed off if I can't travel up in January because everyone else did christmas when I didnt.


My thinking is Feb/March rather than Jan, partly for that reason.
I think people might be overplaying the effect the 5 days of Christmas will have, in terms of overall numbers, and the idea that it'll cause a massive surge afterwards seems a bit melodramatic. To me it seems the main thing to worry about is the impact it might have on the more elderly part of the population.
My guess is London going into tier 3 for a while after christmas and then maybe being able to ease a month or two later, at which point we will be allowed to travel again. But who knows.


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 25, 2020)

I don’t ‘get’ the fuss about Christmas even in normal times and dislike big family gatherings, I’m glad to avoid them this year and not be driving 100 miles each way simply because it’s expected. As a supermarket worker we only close for the Friday and Saturday this year anyway, people gotta shop...!
Yet for wider family, and friends, who have lost spouses and worse, children, horribly young to vile illnesses or to accidents, I hear their views that they’ll live for today, and see and hug their loved ones when they choose, because nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. Listening to a phone-in on radio earlier, clearly there will be people for whom the 23-27 December are nothing more than arbitrary dates that will be interpreted with some.... flexibility.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 25, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> My 99% decision is to stay away at christmas and go in january. But after all the christmas shenanigans will it be possible? My personal complication is I want to support my dad who is facing a long winter caring for dementia mum so stay for about a month.  I'll be quite pissed off if I can't travel up in January because everyone else did christmas when I didnt.


Tols my dad I would see him in January or February or July


----------



## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

thismoment said:


> Does this graph suggest that if had stayed in lockdown a bit longer (don’t know what a “bit” would be) that we might have got to such few hospital admissions that the virus would’ve been significantly reduced in communities?
> (Apologies for my ignorance)
> 
> eta: furlough scheme would’ve had to continue at an actually supportive rate for employees and businesses and mental health support



To achieve much more than was managed over summer, what would have been required was the belief that eradication of the virus was actually possible and feasible. The authorities here did not believe in that plan, and this is not surprising because it is tricky to achieve, and because the establishment see this country as a global hub and had no appetite for ongoing travel restrictions and strong border measures.

Another way of putting that is that even the strongest lockdown measures we had at any point would not have been expected to push cases down to nothing, just to low levels. Even for a region such as the South West which was relatively less affected by the first wave, and where lockdown was early enough relative to their epidemic curve to do a lot of good, they only achieved a handful of days over summer where they had 0 recorded hospital admissions/diagnoses. And on the other hand, even a region like the North West where press reports painted a picture of an epidemic that never really ended, by August daily hospital admissions there were down to a level that didnt massively stand out compared to other large regions. 

I suppose I would say that the original lockdown and the pace of easing of restrictions was enough to give us a several month long window of opportunity, where levels of infection in the community were low enough in July and parts of June and August that there was a real opportunity to get on top of things further using a proper test & trace & isolate system. But the chances are that data from such a system would have told authorities about outbreak situations that they had no will do deal with properly, eg workplace outbreaks that, to manage effectively across the board, would have required new measures which were incompatible with their economic agenda. And there are not many opportunities to compare ourselves to countries in Europe to see what we did wrong, because they mostly all made similar mistakes, the pace of relaxation of measures was broadly similar and they all ended up facing similar 2nd wave viral resurgence. And they probably dont view all the mistakes as actual mistakes, but rather an inevitable consequence of them thinking that it was inevitable the virus would come back big time for autumn/winter and that they should use the summer as an opportunity to temporarily resume various economic activities. 

Much may be claimed about what would have been done differently with the benefit of hindsight here and across the world, but in most cases I dont think hindsight was actually required, rather it was a question of what fundamentals were baked into their cold calculations and expectations. Something very large would have to have been added to the mix to get countries to follow a very different strategy, such as if there was never much reaonable chance of a vaccine ever coming. So long as a vaccine offered them a long term solution, things boiled down to a numbers game where it was all about trying to do normal economic activities when possible, and resorting to drastic restrictions only when the hospital numbers threatened a system collapse. Its mostly only been smaller countries with somewhat different economies and sense of what was possible in terms of border and travel restrictions, where efforts to actually minimise the number of deaths appear to have been done more sincerely.


----------



## lazythursday (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> My thinking is Feb/March rather than Jan, partly for that reason.
> I think people might be overplaying the effect the 5 days of Christmas will have, in terms of overall numbers, and the idea that it'll cause a massive surge afterwards seems a bit melodramatic. To me it seems the main thing to worry about is the impact it might have on the more elderly part of the population.
> My guess is London going into tier 3 for a while after christmas and then maybe being able to ease a month or two later, at which point we will be allowed to travel again. But who knows.


My understanding is that the somewhat-similar-to-Christmas event of Canadian Thanksgiving produced exactly the massive surge many are worrying about. I don't think it's melodramatic to be concerned about this at all. Of course by Christmas we will also be able to see the impact of Thanksgiving in the US. If that's bad, I hope it gets plenty of coverage here as might encourage people to be more careful over the Xmas break.


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## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

Following on from what I just said, there was a period where the Scottish administration made noises about full suppression of the virus. I did not judge such sentiments to be completely sincere though, but thats partly because Scotland does not have control of all policy areas and was inevitably still tied to an extent to the UK government approach.


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## Wilf (Nov 25, 2020)

chilango said:


> This Christmas thing is going to end really, really, badly isn't it?


Yep. 'Hello Nan, we come bearing gifts and viruses'.   

Seems to me the formulation about meeting x number of people y number of bubbles over Christmas is just about meaningless. People will have reached their own conclusions about risk now and will be doing as few or as many visits as they think fit. The new rules may have some bearing on how people act over Xmas, but I doubt there will be much. Certainly there will be no enforcement. Admittedly, the government had to come up with some kind of formulation, but the only logical and consistent message would be 'don't do it'. Beyond that, the focus should be on finding ways for elderly and vulnerable people to get some support and contact should be the priority, along with some level of family visiting for those people.  The ideal would be for people planning on visiting the elderly or vulnerable to get a test first, but we don't seem to have the moonshot in place yet.  

Maybe some of this is/should be about community rather than top down rules. The misty eyed version is one of social organisations working in communities to bring people together over Christmas and beyond. But whilst lots of people have been actively doing that, there isn't enough mutual aid. Not easy to recreate it of lockdown.


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## Wilf (Nov 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> This is going to be an exam question in future years.
> 
> If one support bubble comprises two households, each support bubble counts as one household for the purposes of Christmas, and three Christmas households will be allowed, how many of his children will Boris Johnson be able to see?


I think you'll find that Mr Johnson is shielding. Shielding from the Child Support Agency and from paternity tests that is.


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## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> My understanding is that the somewhat-similar-to-Christmas event of Canadian Thanksgiving produced exactly the massive surge many are worrying about.


This seems overstated to me. It looks to me that they are following a gradual increase just like many places. There's not anything that looks like a "massive surge" to me.

I'm not saying Christmas won't have an effect, nor am I saying that I think it's a good idea, in general, for people to go and see family.

I'm saying it seems unlikely to me that it will create some kind of massive upsurge that will result in us going into a strict lockdown, or anything like that. This is in the context of discussing whether significant travel restrictions are going to appear post-christmas, for a long time.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 25, 2020)

chilango said:


> Dunno.
> 
> Will the risk of processing thousands of students together in a smallish space over a short period of time to take a test (which by the University's admission isn't the most rigorous) outweigh the benefits of potentially identifying students with the virus - on that day - and pulling them out of circulation for a couple of weeks?
> 
> ...


The student testing they are setting up at my place has a very heavy emphasis on being voluntary, so nothing like the government's soundings a while back.  They also want staff volunteers to help administer the tests, not just managing the queue, but also having some direct role in the testing itself. Nope!


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## Wilf (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> This is what seems a bit mad to me. If there were no vaccines currently in prospect, then the risk/benefit balance would be rather different.
> 
> However, it seems reasonably realistic that the elderly may be able to be given a vaccine that will offer them some protection, within the next couple of months. If that's the case then surely it makes sense to put off a visit, by a relatively short amount of time, in order to be able to make that visit at a time when the risk (hopefully) will be hugely reduced.


Yep. A nice/creative solution would be to say there will be a 2 day bank holiday at a time to be announced in the Summer. Do Xmas then.  From their perspective, they'd also get an increase in spending/travel around that date.


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## brogdale (Nov 25, 2020)

696


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## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

Can't we just agree not to post up single-day stats all the time? They really don't tell us very much.


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## brogdale (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Can't we just agree not to post up single-day stats all the time? They really don't tell us very much.


Apparently not.
Cunt.


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## frogwoman (Nov 25, 2020)

56,533?!


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## brogdale (Nov 25, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 56,533?!


Blood all over their useless fucking neoliberal hands.


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## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Cunt.


Why do I get this for a request that we focus on meaningful, useful statistics?


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## cupid_stunt (Nov 25, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 56,533?!



66,713 deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate, nearer 75,000 with the extra 'unexplained' excess deaths.


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## Spandex (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Can't we just agree not to post up single-day stats all the time? They really don't tell us very much.


But they do tell us something.

For a start we know that another 696 people have died from Covid.

We know that we aren't past the peak for people dying in the second wave yet.

We know that yesterday's lower 11,299 new cases hasn't been sustained, so not to get our hopes up that new cases are falling dramatically. 

We know that new case figures remain below 20,000 per day, so that total is coming down from where it was since October.

In total isolation with no context they may be meaningless but for those that follow the figures they do have meaning.


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## Orang Utan (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Why do I get this for a request that we focus on meaningful, useful statistics?


cos it's not up to you


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## andysays (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Why do I get this for a request that we focus on meaningful, useful statistics?


Could it be because you're being a bit of a cunt?

Apart from anything else, brogdale's post wasn't just a single day's stat.



brogdale said:


> 696
> 
> View attachment 240402



Haven't you got a bathroom you could go and lock yourself in, or something?


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## frogwoman (Nov 25, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 66,713 deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate, nearer 75,000 with the extra 'unexplained' excess deaths.


That basically means around 1 in 1000 people have died of covid!


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## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

Spandex said:


> But they do tell us something.
> 
> For a start we know that another 696 people have died from Covid.


We don't know from that single number, on which days they are spread across, or how they are distributed.



Spandex said:


> We know that we aren't past the peak for people dying in the second wave yet.


We don't know that. We don't know either way. And in any case even if we did know, the numbers posted don't tell us.



Spandex said:


> We know that yesterday's lower 11,299 new cases hasn't been sustained, so not to get our hopes up that new cases are falling dramatically.


As above, we don't know from that single number, on which days they are spread across, or how they are distributed.
The single number tells us nothing useful about this.




Spandex said:


> We know that new case figures remain below 20,000 per day, so that total is coming down from where it was since October.


You don't necessarily know that, again due to the reporting delays.



Spandex said:


> In total isolation with no context they may be meaningless but for those that follow the figures they do have meaning.


Even if you follow the figures closely, they have little meaning.


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## killer b (Nov 25, 2020)

I think it's probably best not to get to hung up on the daily numbers just because it's bad for you. The broader picture remains one of cases going down in parts of the country, and slowing or plateauing elsewhere, so things appear to be going in the right direction - maybe the higher number of deaths in the daily numbers today is an outlier, or some late reporting, or whatever. Maybe they're an indication of a bigger problem, but it's likely not to be.


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## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

Todays numbers make the recent plateau look slightly more like a slow increase than a plateau, but that was sort of expected hence the caveats I added to my waffle when speaking of plateaus in recent days.

So long as people talk about that daily data, it is somewhat inevitable that I will feel like posting my graph several times a week, recently most usually to put large numbers in context it seems.


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## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

Your coloured-by-day-of-report graphs are very helpful and much appreciated elbows . Really the ones on the official gov.uk pages should be like this too.


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## Spandex (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> We don't know from that single number, on which days they are spread across, or how they are distributed.
> 
> 
> We don't know that. We don't know either way. And in any case even if we did know, the numbers posted don't tell us.
> ...


Daily figures don't give any kind of precision - you have to wait days or weeks for that. But, looked at as part of an ongoing pattern they do give a clue of where we might be now rather than a week or two ago. Of course it's better to look back with hindsight to get an accurate picture of where we were, but with a rapidly changing situation I like to have an idea (without certainty) where we are. Also, I'm impatient to know what's going on.

If you want to be pedantic, all top line national figures are largely meaningless as they disguise significant variations in the regional and demographic pictures.


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## brogdale (Nov 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> Todays numbers make the recent plateau look slightly more like a slow increase than a plateau, but that was sort of expected hence the caveats I added to my waffle when speaking of plateaus in recent days.
> 
> So long as people talk about that daily data, it is somewhat inevitable that I will feel like posting my graph several times a week, recently most usually to put large numbers in context it seems.
> 
> View attachment 240414


Which is very useful.
Thanks for what you do.


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## brogdale (Nov 25, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think it's probably best not to get to hung up on the daily numbers just because it's bad for you. The broader picture remains one of cases going down in parts of the country, and slowing or plateauing elsewhere, so things appear to be going in the right direction - maybe the higher number of deaths in the daily numbers today is an outlier, or some late reporting, or whatever. Maybe they're an indication of a bigger problem, but it's likely not to be.


I'd agree that the daily figures certainly don't lift the spirits, but they are published by Gov and to completely overlook those, frankly desperate, numbers seems almost disrespectful to all of those affected by the deaths.

That said, I'm fully aware that I'm able to do the easy task of posting up the daily toll in the knowledge that elbows will do the much harder task of putting them in context.


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## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Daily figures don't give any kind of precision - you have to wait days or weeks for that. But, looked at as part of an ongoing pattern they do give a clue of where we might be now rather than a week or two ago. Of course it's better to look back with hindsight to get an accurate picture of where we were, but with a rapidly changing situation I like to have an idea (without certainty) where we are. Also, I'm impatient to know what's going on.
> 
> If you want to be pedantic, all top line national figures are largely meaningless as they disguise significant variations in the regional and demographic pictures.


The deaths reported each day often vary, literally, by a factor of 2 or 3 from one day to the next.


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## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

I know most of my focus is on daily deaths per date of death rather than by day of reporting, but I think if the 7 day rolling average of daily announced deaths by date of announcement is used instead, a reasonably useful and not too misleading picture is also generated.

Cheers for the thanks by the way. If I went the extra mile to produce graphics that were not open to misinterpretation, then my daily deaths graph should really have an area near the end that is colour coded to indicate that numbers over that date range shouldn't be taken seriously because the data is still catching up in large ways for those dates. But I just had an initial attempt at this and my choice of colour leads to a quite disgusting result. But I'm sticking it here anyway just for the benefit of anyone who might not have picked up on that aspect of my graphs yet.


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## killer b (Nov 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I'd agree that the daily figures certainly don't lift the spirits, but they are published by Gov and to completely overlook those, frankly desperate, numbers seems almost disrespectful to all of those affected by the deaths.


I've more or less ignored the daily figures since April, and really don't understand how that could seem disrespectful. It's data that only really makes sense or is any use in context. Posted to make a blunt political point or similar - as many are doing this afternoon - is closer to disrespectful IMO.


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## brogdale (Nov 25, 2020)

killer b said:


> I've more or less ignored the daily figures since April, and really don't understand how that could seem disrespectful. It's data that only really makes sense or is any use in context. Posted to make a blunt political point or similar - as many are doing this afternoon - is closer to disrespectful IMO.


Really don't think it's making an overtly political point to express anger or profound disappointment/sadness that the death of 696 of our compatriots has been announced today. Although the fact that other political decisions might have saved a number of them from dying is a salient point.


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## frogwoman (Nov 25, 2020)

I guess if there are fewer cases the case fatality will lessen as there can be less pressure in the hospitals and therefore better care given to each patient, probably more can be admitted to hospital at an earlier stage of the illness in the first place too.


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## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

I had to use daily deaths a lot for the first wave because the testing system barely even captured the tip of the iceberg and there was an important period where I had access to approximately no hospital data at all. Far more measures of how things are going are available this time, too many for me to make a serious attempt to cover them every day, I just pick and choose, often based on what other people are talking about.

Sometimes it has been necessary to make blunt political points using deaths data because otherwise the chance of having the right measures at the right time and getting across the seriousness of the situation and the extent of governmental failure was reduced.

The daily figures, no matter of what quality or quality of interpretation, have also formed part of a thin strand that ended up in many peoples daily lockdown routine earlier in the year, eg via the daily press briefings, and in a situation like this I can see why people still find it tempting to follow along.

I've got daily estimates for things like people in England admitted to hospital with Covid-19 who live in care homes, and a crude estimate of daily hospital-acquired covid infections. So far I havent much felt like adding them to the constant stream of info.


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## Spandex (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The deaths reported each day often vary, literally, by a factor of 2 or 3 from one day to the next.


Yes they do. And the figures announced on Sunday and Monday are always artificially low, the figures on Tuesday and to a lesser extent Wednesday are artificially high. But if you follow the figures and take all this into account they do give an indication of what's going on. The UK Covid dashboard gives figures by date reported and sample date/date of death if you want to compare. It's not as meaningless as you make out, if not as accurate as looking back a week or two later, taking into account community surveys as well.


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## killer b (Nov 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Really don't think it's making an overtly political point to express anger or profound disappointment/sadness that the death of 696 of our compatriots has been announced today. Although the fact that other political decisions might have saved a number of them from dying is a salient point.


I was talking to a guy earlier who - cause he pays attention mostly to the headline deaths figures - is convinced that the current lockdown restrictions are pointless and aren't doing anything. He was miserable and hopeless, and it took a while (and a couple of elbows graphs, so thanks for that...) to show him that things actually are (most probably) starting to improve. 

It's been a really difficult few months round here - there's been various additional special measures since September - I'm seeing lot of this kind of hopelessness about, and it's a bit frustrating and sad, as it's at least partly influenced and informed by this kind of information, shared without context, with a frowny face or a swear about Boris Johnson - there's also a political partisan aspect to it too, with one incomplete story shared by the lockdown sceptics, denialists & tories, and another incomplete story being shared by the other side. We're pretty privileged here to be able to have a detailed and in depth conversation about this stuff without it dissolving into rancour. Very often.


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## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Yes they do. And the figures announced on Sunday and Monday are always artificially low, the figures on Tuesday and to a lesser extent Wednesday are artificially high.


The figures on certain days of the week tend to be artificially high or low. But this is also unreliable.

For example you could compare two recent sundays (15th and 22nd) and see a massive rise from 168 deaths to 398 deaths.
Then you could compare the two mondays directly after (16th and 23rd) and see a moderate fall from 213 deaths to 206 deaths.

Even comparing with the same day of the week, a week ago, is totally unreliable, as a one-off excercise. The numbers are only any use seen in quite a wide context. And if you have to go and look at them in that wider context to make any sense of them, what's the point of posting up the numbers on their own? The risk of people getting a completely wrong impression of what's going on is massively greater than any benefit of just seeing the bare numbers.

As others have said, if you're going to post a single figure at least present a rolling average (which is also something that updates every day).


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## Supine (Nov 25, 2020)

Rolling average is the way to go. There is plenty of variation in the data due to all sorts of reasons. The general trajectory of the rolling average is enough to get a flavour of change over time imho. Going into greater detail just makes you study variations and to me at least isn't that isn't very interesting.


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## cupid_stunt (Nov 25, 2020)

Supine said:


> Rolling average is the way to go. There is plenty of variation in the data due to all sorts of reasons. The general trajectory of the rolling average is enough to get a flavour of change over time imho. Going into greater detail just makes you study variations and to me at least isn't that isn't very interesting.



And, the different between deaths reported today compared to last Wednesday [79] shows the 7-day rolling average has increased by just over 11 a day.


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## Supine (Nov 25, 2020)

I do like this way of displaying the data.


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## Maltin (Nov 25, 2020)

But the rolling average isn’t that helpful for other analysis. The daily figures are what are used in averages. If I want to know what the average is for a week, or a month, or three days, I need the daily data. Publishing averages on their own aren’t that useful for others to use.


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## two sheds (Nov 25, 2020)

Although daily data doesn't really work if the figures are coming in a few days later. Weekly figures (if they are correct) would seem to give the best for analysis.


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## Maltin (Nov 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Although daily data doesn't really work if the figures are coming in a few days later. Weekly figures (if they are correct) would seem to give the best for analysis.


But they are the quickest measure we have. In the midst of a pandemic, I don’t think it would be acceptable if they just released weekly data.


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## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Although daily data doesn't really work if the figures are coming in a few days later. Weekly figures (if they are correct) would seem to give the best for analysis.



Weekly stuff has the advantage of simplifying the picture and making changes over time very obvious. It doesn't really help with lag, and often lags even further behind than daily data, because typically we have to wait a whole week before getting a release that is then out of date (or still incomplete) before its even published. I do use various weekly things for past analysis but its not that timely.


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## two sheds (Nov 25, 2020)

Maltin said:


> But they are the quickest measure we have. In the midst of a pandemic, I don’t think it would be acceptable if they just released weekly data.



Yes true, but if you're trying to find trends then I think weekly is what you'd need. And if you want to find changes in trends - i.e. see what has led to the changes in trends - you'd work from the weekly figures again.


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## two sheds (Nov 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> Weekly stuff has the advantage of simplifying the picture and making changes over time very obvious. It doesn't really help with lag, and often lags even further behind than daily data, because typically we have to wait a whole week before getting a release that is then out of date before its even published. I do use various weekly things for past analysis but its not that timely.



Yes agreed, but again the daily is actually inaccurate because the figures take a few days to come in. They're valuable but not if you want to see trends. Yes we have to wait a week but then that weekly figure is actually correct because all the figures have come in? 

And yes totally - for past analysis - but that's what you need if you want to see what changes in policy have led to changes in the data. 

Not trying to devalue your daily data charts at all, but if you want to see trends then you'd need to look at weekly data I think (as you say).


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## killer b (Nov 25, 2020)

i think it's probably good to use all of the data that's available to us tbf


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## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes agreed, but again the daily is actually inaccurate because the figures take a few days to come in. They're valuable but not if you want to see trends. Yes we have to wait a week but then that weekly figure is actually correct because all the figures have come in?



No I wouldn't say that. Not all deaths are registered within a week of the death, or otherwise entered into data collecting systems within that amount of time.

Take for example the weekly ONS number. The report published on November 24th includes deaths registered up to November 13th. It also includes other data that covers deaths by date of death rather than date of registration, again going up to November 13th, but the numbers given in that report for some days leading up to the 13th will have grown larger again by the time they publish the next version next Tuesday.

Personally I dont need stuff broken down into weekly figures in order to understand trends, I can look at wiggly daily lines and see a picture, but people vary in what sort of a picture they want and what sort of mental processing they perform when looking at graphs, so I dont have a fixed view of what the 'right' approach is.


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## two sheds (Nov 25, 2020)

Yep totally agree - but you need to use the data appropriately. Daily figures (allowing for delays in updating them) are good for headline. There are also differences in weekend/Monday figures, too, as they get updated? Weekly figures correct for these. 

If you're trying to find out what changed that affected the results then you need accurate figures. Daily figures will be fine if they've been corrected - so daily figures are fine from a few days ago (as elbows has shown in his latest graph). Otherwise weekly figures will be more accurate for looking at trends.


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## teuchter (Nov 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes agreed, but again the daily is actually inaccurate because the figures take a few days to come in. They're valuable but not if you want to see trends. Yes we have to wait a week but then that weekly figure is actually correct because all the figures have come in?
> 
> And yes totally - for past analysis - but that's what you need if you want to see what changes in policy have led to changes in the data.
> 
> Not trying to devalue your daily data charts at all, but if you want to see trends then you'd need to look at weekly data I think (as you say).


The _whole point_ of elbows charts is to illustrate the fact that the closer you are to the present date, the less confident you can be about what the trend is at that point.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> No I wouldn't say that. Not all deaths are registered within a week of the death, or otherwise entered into data collecting systems within that amount of time.
> 
> Take for example the weekly ONS number. The report published on November 24th includes deaths registered up to November 13th. It also includes other data that covers deaths by date of death rather than date of registration, again going up to November 13th, but the numbers given in that report for some days leading up to the 13th will have grown larger again by the time they publish the next version next Tuesday.
> 
> Personally I dont need stuff broken down into weekly figures in order to understand trends, I can look at wiggly daily lines and see a picture, but people vary in what sort of a picture they want and what sort of mental processing they perform when looking at graphs, so I dont have a fixed view of what the 'right' approach is.



In that case, the monthly figures are the accurate ones? Again I'm talking about looking back to see what changes in policy started to affect the actual numbers of people infected (for example). For that you need stable, accurate figures.


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## two sheds (Nov 25, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The _whole point_ of elbows charts is to illustrate the fact that the closer you are to the present date, the less confident you can be about what the trend is at that point.



Yep can't argue with that.


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## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

two sheds said:


> In that case, the monthly figures are the accurate ones? Again I'm talking about looking back to see what changes in policy started to affect the actual numbers of people infected (for example). For that you need stable, accurate figures.



All of the data that is recorded by actual date of death etc is the best data eventually, whether its presented in the form of individual days, weeks or months. For all of it, to get the most accurate version you just have to be prepared to wait quite a long time, to know that the last week+ of data is incomplete to varying degrees. Stability in death figures takes time to develop, so averaged out daily reported deaths is an alternative measure to look at, as are hospital daily admissions and these days, with a larger testing system, daily positive cases is also some guide.

Theres nothing to stop me taking daily data and turning it into charts that show it as a weekly number instead. I could even do a rolling thing and produce a chart every day, but still only showing single numbers for each 7 day period. I'll probably try it as an exercise just to see how it turns out. It will be regional. I havent decided whether to do it for cases or deaths or something else. eg if the indie SAGE one posted above is of interest than I can do a version of that I suppose, but I usually avoid adjusting things to be shown as a rate per 100,000, partly because I havent checked what figure for different regions populations are used to achieve this.


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## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

What I'll probably do its wait for tomorrows data & tier announcements, see how they frame the decisions and data, and see if there are any obvious explanations or stories of interest that can be told with data in a different form.

Because the SAGE papers made clear that government should be making the new tier location decisions based not just on current rates of prevalence of the virus in those areas, but also on the rate of increase/decrease.


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## elbows (Nov 25, 2020)

The Guadians take on what tiers places are likely to end up in contains no surprises that I can think of.









						Most of England to enter two toughest tiers when lockdown is lifted
					

Signs of growing parliamentary rebellion amid fears measures could stay in place until spring




					www.theguardian.com
				




Nor are the complaints surprising. Although if the bloody Covid Recovery Group of MPs manages to maintain a fair chunk of its focus on making the test & trace system better then it is yet possible that that bunch of anti-lockdown numbskulls could manage to contribute pressure towards achieving something actually useful.


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## BCBlues (Nov 26, 2020)

Hancock's former neighbour won Covid test kit work after WhatsApp message
					

Alex Bourne ran pub frequented by UK health secretary close to his former constituency home




					www.theguardian.com
				




All your Covid19 testing kit requirements sorted in one bouncy castle


----------



## ska invita (Nov 26, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> Hancock's former neighbour won Covid test kit work after WhatsApp message
> 
> 
> Alex Bourne ran pub frequented by UK health secretary close to his former constituency home
> ...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Although if the bloody Covid Recovery Group of MPs manages to maintain a fair chunk of its focus on making the test & trace system better then it is yet possible that that bunch of anti-lockdown numbskulls could manage to contribute pressure towards achieving something actually useful.


Bit shocked to find myself agreeing at least partially with a Tory backbencher this morning. I don't think this will become the new normal though.


> “Our argument is, if you got [test and trace] working, and you had lower restrictions, and you did actually get the vaccine out by Easter, you would save 2.4% on the unemployment rate. That’s 200,000 people [who] wouldn’t lose their jobs, and there would be no scarring of GDP long-term, rather than a 3% hit.”


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Nov 26, 2020)

Does anyone know how the Christmas rules are intended to apply to people who work over the festive celebration ?
E.g. My son, who lives on his own, works as a porter at a local hospital. He'll probably be working on Xmas day itself, or Boxing Day. Do the rules allow him to mix with our household despite the fact that he'll be mixing with loads of people in a Covid hotspot on a daily basis? How many others will be in the same boat? Or does the government think that nobody works over Christmas?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Does anyone know how the Christmas rules are intended to apply to people who work over the festive celebration ?
> E.g. My son, who lives on his own, works as a porter at a local hospital. He'll probably be working on Xmas day itself, or Boxing Day. Do the rules allow him to mix with our household despite the fact that he'll be mixing with loads of people in a Covid hotspot on a daily basis? How many others will be in the same boat? Or does the government think that nobody works over Christmas?



I've got to ask but in this scenario why do you care about the small print in a hastily cobbled together set of totally unenforceable rules?  Because of various other laws I'd say it is extremely unlikely that the government could make the rules different for those who are working over Christmas, it would amount to discrimination.

To be honest though I can't be bothered to check and suggest you don't bother either.  You either feel its safe, a risk worth taking or too much of a risk. I really don't think we should rely on someone who can barely dress himself each morning to definitively tell us what is safe and what isn't.

Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, I've got a grump on today.


----------



## tommers (Nov 26, 2020)

You're right though.  These Xmas rules are utter bollocks.  Do what you feel is safe.  I'm not going to go and see my immune-compromised mum and her cancer-surviving wife just cos Matt fucking Hancock says it's OK.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I've got to ask but in this scenario why do you care about the small print in a hastily cobbled together set of totally unenforceable rules?  Because of various other laws I'd say it is extremely unlikely that the government could make the rules different for those who are working over Christmas, it would amount to discrimination.
> 
> To be honest though I can't be bothered to check and suggest you don't bother either.  You either feel its safe, a risk worth taking or too much of a risk. I really don't think we should rely on someone who can barely dress himself each morning to definitively tell us what is safe and what isn't.
> 
> Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, I've got a grump on today.


Don't worry. Grump away. We weren't going to take much notice of the rules anyway as we think they're probably far too lax. I just thought how indicative it is of this government that they don't seem to have given much consideration to the millions of people who will at some point be working during the 5 day period.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 26, 2020)

They've put up a postcode checker for the new tiers -









						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk
				




It's struggling with demand ATM.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They've put up a postcode checker for the new tiers -
> 
> 
> 
> ...



   Yeah it's borked already.

Anyway, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds in tier 3 for starters.  Liverpool and London are tier 2.


----------



## Boudicca (Nov 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They've put up a postcode checker for the new tiers -
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They didn't need to do a fancy postcode lookup thing, a three coloured map would have been fine.


----------



## LDC (Nov 26, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> They didn't need to do a fancy postcode lookup thing, a three coloured map would have been fine.



Nope, far too much room for error around the border areas, maps are often a bit laggy to load anyway. Pleased I'm in Tier 3 anyway.


----------



## prunus (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah it's borked already.
> 
> Anyway, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds in tier 3 for starters.  Liverpool and London are tier 2.



I particularly like the way they’ve added

Brexit transition: 36 days to go

underneath it, just to remind you whatever tier you’re in, you’re fucked shortly anyway.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 26, 2020)

It seems only Cornwall, Isle of Wight and the Isles of Scilly are in tier 1.

They all have under 75 cases per 100k, whereas areas on 80+ are all in tier 2 or 3.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

List of areas here:  Full list of local restriction tiers by area

Just Cornwall, IoW and Isles of Scilly in tier 1.  

They're going to be busy for Christmas and NYE getaways.


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 26, 2020)

Well this give me confidence


----------



## LDC (Nov 26, 2020)

I dunno, website crashes are common, in the scale of things I'm a bit meh, it'll be OK in a bit.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 26, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> View attachment 240497
> Well this give me confidence


Kinda sums up our government


----------



## weltweit (Nov 26, 2020)

Hmm I am Tier 2 ..


----------



## Boudicca (Nov 26, 2020)

*Tier 1: Medium alert*
*South East*

Isle of Wight
*South West*

Cornwall
Isles of Scilly
*Tier 2: High alert*
*North West*

Cumbria
Liverpool City Region
Warrington and Cheshire
*Yorkshire*

York
North Yorkshire
*West Midlands*

Worcestershire
Herefordshire
Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin
*East Midlands*

Rutland
Northamptonshire
*East of England*

Suffolk
Hertfordshire
Cambridgeshire, including Peterborough
Norfolk
Essex, Thurrock and Southend on Sea
Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes
*London*

all 32 boroughs plus the City of London
*South East*

East Sussex
West Sussex
Brighton and Hove
Surrey
Reading
Wokingham
Bracknell Forest
Windsor and Maidenhead
West Berkshire
Hampshire (except the Isle of Wight), Portsmouth and Southampton
Buckinghamshire
Oxfordshire
*South West*

South Somerset, Somerset West and Taunton, Mendip and Sedgemoor
Bath and North East Somerset
Dorset
Bournemouth
Christchurch
Poole
Gloucestershire
Wiltshire and Swindon
Devon
*Tier 3: Very High alert*
*North East*

Tees Valley Combined Authority:
Hartlepool
Middlesbrough
Stockton-on-Tees
Redcar and Cleveland
Darlington

North East Combined Authority:
Sunderland
South Tyneside
Gateshead
Newcastle upon Tyne
North Tyneside
County Durham
Northumberland

*North West*

Greater Manchester
Lancashire
Blackpool
Blackburn with Darwen
*Yorkshire and The Humber*

The Humber
West Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
*West Midlands*

Birmingham and Black Country
Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent
Warwickshire, Coventry and Solihull
*East Midlands*

Derby and Derbyshire
Nottingham and Nottinghamshire
Leicester and Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
*South East*

Slough (remainder of Berkshire is tier 2: High alert)
Kent and Medway
*South West*

Bristol
South Gloucestershire
North Somerset
Published 26 November 2020


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

This weeks ONS infection survey has some extra caveats in it due to a lab issue:



> This analysis does not count as positive those swab results from the laboratory at Milton Keynes where only the single ORF1ab gene was detected at visits from 15 to 21 November 2020. The numbers of this very specific type of positive result are generally very few (under 5%), but increased very substantially and abnormally during this short period at the Milton Keynes laboratory only. This is consistent with reported technical issues of PCR primer contamination in samples processed between 19 to 23 November 2020. These results were removed from this analysis. Initial analysis indicates that almost all of these removed positives will have been incorrectly recorded, and inadvertently removing a very small number of true positives will have a negligible impact on the results presented. The laboratory is reviewing and reissuing reports for the specimens included and the updated data will be included in the next report.







__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

Estimates for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## xenon (Nov 26, 2020)

Boudicca said:


> They didn't need to do a fancy postcode lookup thing, a three coloured map would have been fine.



not if you can’t see...
anyway site is still broken. But I’ve heard Bristol is in T3. Kind of expected that. need to check London London as well.


----------



## butchersapron (Nov 26, 2020)

xenon said:


> not if you can’t see...
> anyway site is still broken. But I’ve heard Bristol is in T3. Kind of expected that. need to check London London as well.


Yes, and North Somerset and South Gloucs too  - so everywhere around us.


----------



## prunus (Nov 26, 2020)

xenon said:


> not if you can’t see...
> anyway site is still broken. But I’ve heard Bristol is in T3. Kind of expected that. need to check London London as well.



London all tier 2


----------



## andysays (Nov 26, 2020)

If Tier 3 is already Very High Alert, what are they going to call Tier 4 when, as seems inevitable, they need to introduce a higher level?


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> If Tier 3 is already Very High Alert, what are they going to call Tier 4 when, as seems inevitable, they need to introduce a higher level?



Maximum Alert.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> If Tier 3 is already Very High Alert, what are they going to call Tier 4 when, as seems inevitable, they need to introduce a higher level?



Local areas can add more restrictions as they see fit I believe.


----------



## Supine (Nov 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> If Tier 3 is already Very High Alert, what are they going to call Tier 4 when, as seems inevitable, they need to introduce a higher level?



The RED ZONE


----------



## editor (Nov 26, 2020)

Venues (and punters) are going to really take the piss with this because the instructions are so vague









						Substantial meal or a snack with your pint? Brixton heads into confusing Tier 2 Covid-19 restrictions.
					

As expected, London has been classified under the Tier 2 ‘High Alert’ Covid-19 restrictions from Dec 2nd, 2020. Pubs and bars must stay closed unless operating as restaurants, meaning t…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 26, 2020)

Bristol tier 3.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 26, 2020)

No surprises here in Sheffield. But I do need to buy a coat so at least I can go to shops other than the supermarket to get one. And can cycle in a group rather than with just one other.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

editor said:


> Venues (and punters) are going to really take the piss with this because the instructions are so vague
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, my feeling is that restaurants and gastro pubs will be able to make it work.  The vast majority of places won't so it'll either be stay shut (assuming they can get some government support) or game the system.  The latter seems very likely. 

The government have made it clear they don't want pubs to be open so they should just close them and compensate them.  The substantial meal is a stupid rule and stupid rules invite stupid responses.


----------



## quiet guy (Nov 26, 2020)

Tier 4 - Your fooked
Tier 5 - We're doomed


----------



## souljacker (Nov 26, 2020)

Does a children's party (5 10yr olds and 1 adult at a restaurant) get an exemption based on this: 



> for supervised activities provided for children, including wraparound care (before and after-school childcare), groups and activities for under 18s, and children’s playgroups



My daughter has had so many things cancelled this year that I really don't want to have to cancel something else.


----------



## editor (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah, my feeling is that restaurants and gastro pubs will be able to make it work.  The vast majority of places won't so it'll either be stay shut (assuming they can get some government support) or game the system.  The latter seems very likely.
> 
> The government have made it clear they don't want pubs to be open so they should just close them and compensate them.  The substantial meal is a stupid rule and stupid rules invite stupid responses.


I was talking to one desperate local venue owner and he was thinking of essentially just throwing in some cheap food and more or less operating as before (with the same social distancing/non mixing rules). Can't say I blame him.  With no time limit, you could order a pasty and chips and then essentially spend a regular night boozing down the pub until close.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 26, 2020)

I've already had 2 whatsapp messages moaning that Worthing is in tier 2, because we have under 75 cases/100k as per all the tier 1 areas, yes, but West Sussex county is on 106 cases, and it needs to be done at county level, not borough/district council areas. 

Whilst checking figures, I was surprised to see the three urban council areas in West Sussex are all on under 100 cases, whereas the 4 rural council areas are on over 100.


----------



## LDC (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Local areas can add more restrictions as they see fit I believe.



I think that was the 'old' tier system, I think with this one there's a single set of restrictions across the board.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 26, 2020)

Blimey - was fully expecting to be put back into Tier 3 again. Feel strangely pleased about being in Tier 2. This is what passes for a good time these days!


----------



## LDC (Nov 26, 2020)

.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 26, 2020)

The Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital is struggling, so the Exeter Nightingale Hospital is opening for covid cases.









						Coronavirus: Exeter Nightingale to get first patients
					

The emergency field hospital will get patients from the "very busy" Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## prunus (Nov 26, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Does a children's party (5 10yr olds and 1 adult at a restaurant) get an exemption based on this:
> 
> 
> 
> My daughter has had so many things cancelled this year that I really don't want to have to cancel something else.



 I'm afraid not, no; sorry


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> there's also a political partisan aspect to it too, with one incomplete story shared by the lockdown sceptics, denialists & tories, and another incomplete story being shared by the other side.


Immediate example of this kind of stuff this afternoon, as people go wild at Lancashire being tier 3, claiming it's to punish Andy Burnham, or to punish Labour voting regions, etc etc. Total madness.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

Even though Burnham says that based purely on the data, they should indeed be in tier 3 at the moment.


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

yeah it's not based on reality, only partisan newsfeeds and a frustrated longing for the pub.


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 26, 2020)

I’m probably missing it but when is the new tier system to be reviewed?


----------



## Sue (Nov 26, 2020)

20Bees said:


> I’m probably missing it but when is the new tier system to be reviewed?


It's just going to go on forever. (Or maybe it just feels like that.... )


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 26, 2020)

We were in Tier 2 before lockdown but emerging into Tier 3 
Mrs Q 's parents in Merseyside were in Tier 3 but are now in Tier 2, we haven't actually visited them since LAST Xmas now, Mrs Q's mum was moaning at weekend that they haven't seen their youngest great-grandchild (born in July) yet because of the lurgy


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

20Bees said:


> I’m probably missing it but when is the new tier system to be reviewed?



Every two weeks I believe but that probably needs double checking.


----------



## Sue (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Every two weeks I believe but that probably needs double checking.





Sue said:


> It's just going to go on forever. (Or maybe it just feels like that.... )


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 26, 2020)

We're in Tier 2. We were in Tier 1 last time and cases were exploding by the time of lockdown because 'we don't have any cases here it's fine'


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Every two weeks I believe but that probably needs double checking.



That's what sky was reporting, seems sensible as it takes a couple of weeks to see the impact.


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> Immediate example of this kind of stuff this afternoon, as people go wild at Lancashire being tier 3, claiming it's to punish Andy Burnham, or to punish Labour voting regions, etc etc. Total madness.


That's bollocks, I'm no fan of Boris but he's not Trump, get things wrong definitely but not collective punishment because he's annoyed at a specific individual


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's what sky was reporting, seems sensible as it takes a couple of weeks to see the impact.



Yeah and they were too slow last time around to move regions into higher tiers so it needs to be pretty responsive and fluid.


----------



## MrSki (Nov 26, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's what sky was reporting, seems sensible as it takes a couple of weeks to see the impact.


But first review not for three weeks from today (16/12/20) & then weekly according to an answer from Hancock in HoCs The special Xmas rules will be in the middle of this so really apart from Xmas these tiers are until next year at the earliest.

edited to correct date.


----------



## LDC (Nov 26, 2020)

Mass testing for everyone in Tier 3 areas is supposed to be available. All 23 million or so of us. I won't hold my breath for that to work well....

News is also a rolling stream of business owners moaning about how whatever Tier they're in is unfair and they should be allowed to open.


----------



## LDC (Nov 26, 2020)

Also the news is now full of different variations on the Xmas bubbles (fuck I hate that term already) for Scotland and England. I thought the whole point was to have the same rules across the board?!


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> That's bollocks, I'm no fan of Boris but he's not Trump, get things wrong definitely but not collective punishment because he's annoyed at a specific individual


how about this one? My facebook is awash with this total madness...


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Nov 26, 2020)

Tier 2 here and local Facebook groups are already plagued by people who

a. Work in Slough (neighbouring borough in tier 3)
b. Work with people who live in Slough

And want to know WHAT WILL HAPPEN!!! 

My understanding is that you can still travel to or from Tier 3 for work. But that doesn't look as good written in capitals!!


----------



## belboid (Nov 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> how about this one? My facebook is awash with this total madness...
> 
> View attachment 240509


Where the fuck do you find these people?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> how about this one? My facebook is awash with this total madness...
> 
> View attachment 240509



In fairness I reckon the London economy at Christmas was a very big factor in the tier 2 decision.  The situation in some of the boroughs is pretty bad.


----------



## LDC (Nov 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> how about this one? My facebook is awash with this total madness...
> 
> View attachment 240509



This pandemic has really killed much of my faith in humans tbh. So much fucking idiocy around.


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

belboid said:


> Where the fuck do you find these people?


friends, friends of friends. not all of them were totally insane 6 months ago.


----------



## Shellee (Nov 26, 2020)

Tier 3 here, I just don’t get people’s reactions. 

Them: “ pubs and restaurants are closed. ....moan, moan......

Me: “Oh my gawd, we’re surrounded by deadly virus, help!


----------



## 2hats (Nov 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> how about this one? My facebook is awash with this total madness...
> 
> View attachment 240509


You forgot to redact the bit at the bottom where they signed it.


----------



## emanymton (Nov 26, 2020)

So apparently in tier 3 cat cafe type places van still open, despite being cafes as they can class themselves as animal attractions.

So  cafes in which people tend to actively get up and walk around in can open but ones ones where people tend to stay at their table can't.

I normally just shut my shoulders at little inconsistencies in the rules as they are bound to happen. Bit this one is bugging me for some reason.

Probably juts pure self interest as I do like to go out for a coffee when working in the office. Can't stand sitting in the office all day.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 26, 2020)

emanymton said:


> So apparently in tier 3 cat cafe type places van still open, despite being cafes as they can class themselves as animal attractions.
> 
> So  cafes in which people tend to actively get up and walk around in can open but ones ones where people tend to stay at their table can't.
> 
> ...


Cat cafes. Totnes?


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This pandemic has really killed much of my faith in humans tbh. So much fucking idiocy around.



Mine was rather low before the pandemic and actually went up a bit as a result of the number of people who demonstrated that they could grasp reality and do the right thing, especially in the first lockdown but also sometimes subsequently.


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

I haven't lost faith in humanity at all - there is something quite concerning going on atm though - partly to do with isolation and fatigue, how that's affected by a collapse of trust in national and local politicians etc. I think people will mostly toe the line, but much less willingly than they did first time round.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> In fairness I reckon the London economy at Christmas was a very big factor in the tier 2 decision.  The situation in some of the boroughs is pretty bad.


!00% - theres been a lot lobbying going on.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 26, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Cat cafes. Totnes?


There’s cat cafes all over the place


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 26, 2020)

Tier two confuses me, according to the BBC...



You will not be allowed to mix with anyone from outside your household or support bubble indoors, either in a private home or a public place.


Whereas under the current lockdown:


You can meet one other person at a time from another household, in an outdoors public place (such as a park, a street, countryside, an allotment or a children's playground).


So tier two forbids even this???


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Tier two confuses me, according to the BBC...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


'indoors' is a key ingredient to the first statement


----------



## inva (Nov 26, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Tier two confuses me, according to the BBC...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


One is indoors the other is outdoors


----------



## Thora (Nov 26, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Tier two confuses me, according to the BBC...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The first bit is talking about private or public *indoor* space.
Second is public outdoors.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 26, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Tier two confuses me, according to the BBC...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No -  you must not socialise in a group of more than 6 people outside, including in a garden or a public space – this is called the ‘rule of 6’ 









						Coronavirus: how to stay safe and help prevent the spread
					

Find out how to stay safe and help prevent the spread of coronavirus.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This pandemic has really killed much of my faith in humans tbh. So much fucking idiocy around.



It’s fortunate I never really had any


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 26, 2020)

Ah right, in the absence of pub I seems to have mis-read it...


----------



## teuchter (Nov 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> how about this one? My facebook is awash with this total madness...
> 
> View attachment 240509


There are people who would read things being posted on here about restrictions being too lax, and people's lives being sacrificed for the sake of economic ideology, and schools only going back so people can go back to work and earn the mates of people in the government more ££££ and so on and similarly consider it madness.


----------



## chilango (Nov 26, 2020)

killer b said:


> how about this one? My facebook is awash with this total madness...
> 
> View attachment 240509



In fairness economic reasons have led the Government response to this leading to some fucking stupid decisions being made because £££. Universities spring immediately to mind.

I have absolutely no doubt at all that economic arguments will have been prominent in the discussion about Tiers too. Not at as crudely as that FB post suggests, and with less room for manoeuvre, but still there and preeminent.


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

teuchter said:


> There are people who would read things being posted on here about restrictions being too lax, and people's lives being sacrificed for the sake of economic ideology, and schools only going back so people can go back to work and earn the mates of people in the government more ££££ and so on and similarly consider it madness.


I know. So what?


----------



## ChrisD (Nov 26, 2020)

2 questions - So can posh folk go to their second homes?  Expect a rush of people down to Cornwall. 
- when are the distribution of tiers being reviewed?


----------



## LDC (Nov 26, 2020)

chilango said:


> In fairness economic reasons have led the Government response to this leading to some fucking stupid decisions being made because £££. Universities spring immediately to mind.
> 
> I have absolutely no doubt at all that economic arguments will have been prominent in the discussion about Tiers too. Not at as crudely as that FB post suggests, and with less room for manoeuvre, but still there and preeminent.



It's the lack of logic and reasoning in people's thinking that has done my head in tbh. Like a complete inability to see how some things connect. And to not understand risk, or how their actions might impact on other people. That and then add in a mix of conspiracy ideas (which are frighteningly common, even if they're not full blown 5G/it's all a fake) and I fucking despair sometimes.

(Yeah, I get the reasons why and it's not people's fault etc. etc. But fucking hell it's hard work and really quite depressing.)


----------



## Supine (Nov 26, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Ah right, in the absence of pub I seems to have mis-read it...
> 
> View attachment 240515



Make sure you follow the rule of at least six glasses


----------



## LDC (Nov 26, 2020)

ChrisD said:


> 2 questions - So can posh folk go to their second homes?  Expect a rush of people down to Cornwall.
> - when are the distribution of tiers being reviewed?



Reviewed 2 weeks from day they're implemented.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

ChrisD said:


> 2 questions - So can posh folk go to their second homes?  Expect a rush of people down to Cornwall.



Yes but only in tier 1 & 2 and you're obliged to follow the rules of the tier you actually live in when you get there.  So for example it would be OK for a couple who live in South Kensington to go to their third home in Cornwall but not OK for them to mix with other people indoors when they get there.  Its unclear whether they would have to order a meal with every glass of chilled Chablais.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 26, 2020)

Seems an odd thing to have a dig at killer b for teuchter since he's one of the consistently more rational and less ideologically driven posters on here regarding this stuff


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

chilango said:


> In fairness economic reasons have led the Government response to this leading to some fucking stupid decisions being made because £££. Universities spring immediately to mind.
> 
> I have absolutely no doubt at all that economic arguments will have been prominent in the discussion about Tiers too. Not at as crudely as that FB post suggests, and with less room for manoeuvre, but still there and preeminent.


In fairness almost all mad shit people post on facebook has some starting point in reality.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Seems an odd thing to have a dig at killer b for teuchter since he's one of the consistently more rational and less ideologically driven posters on here regarding this stuff



He wasn't having a dig at killer b specifically he was having a dig at all of us.  Its kinda his thing.


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

I don't mind anyway, it's all good.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 26, 2020)

Like he's been one of the people pointing out that the less restrictive...er...restrictions like estate agents being open aren't all about the economy over lives and all that and had a logic behind it and stuff so it just seemed weird.


----------



## Sue (Nov 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Reviewed 2 weeks from day they're implemented.


So they review in the middle of December then the Christmas stuff kicks in then they review after the end of the Christmas thing or just go back to whatever it was from mid December..?


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Nov 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's the lack of logic and reasoning in people's thinking that has done my head in tbh. Like a complete inability to see how some things connect. And to not understand risk, or how their actions might impact on other people. That and then add in a mix of conspiracy ideas (which are frighteningly common, even if they're not full blown 5G/it's all a fake) and I fucking despair sometimes.
> 
> (Yeah, I get the reasons why and it's not people's fault etc. etc. But fucking hell it's hard work and really quite depressing.)


We have 4 governments making rules, at times seemingly quite arbitrarily, and varying numbers of tiers within different areas within the 4 countries. We are told what the rules were, what they are now, what they will be and now what they will be at Christmas and then after that later on. Further speculation on how things may be when a vaccine kicks in. How all this affects different ages, different social groups etc The information comes from a government which often doesn't know what is going on, which is as corrupt as hell and which lies through its teeth. Filtered through a right wing media with libertarian tendencies. Add to that mix anti-vax, 5g nutters and all the other conspiracy freaks and I'm not at all surprised that some people are confused and will grasp at anything supposedly straightforward. Mostly they are not fully committed to whatever's it is, just temporarily that way aligned.


----------



## chilango (Nov 26, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's the lack of logic and reasoning in people's thinking that has done my head in tbh. Like a complete inability to see how some things connect. And to not understand risk, or how their actions might impact on other people. That and then add in a mix of conspiracy ideas (which are frighteningly common, even if they're not full blown 5G/it's all a fake) and I fucking despair sometimes.
> 
> (Yeah, I get the reasons why and it's not people's fault etc. etc. But fucking hell it's hard work and really quite depressing.)



Yeah. It's a fucked up situation. It's not a surprise that we're all struggling to make sense of it all.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

A handy map.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Bit shocked to find myself agreeing at least partially with a Tory backbencher this morning. I don't think this will become the new normal though.



Indeed, normal service has been resumed.

                            8m ago    16:48                    



> The *Covid Recovery Group*, which represents anti-lockdown or lockdown-sceptic Tories, has released some more quotes from Conservative MPs unhappy about the new restrictions.
> 
> This is from *Harriet Baldwin*, a former minister and MP for West Worcestershire
> 
> ...



Left to their instincts I expect all they'd have achieved is that we'd all have ended up in tier 4 eventually.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

I suppose I will force myself to watch the imminent Johnson, Whitty & Vallance show.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 26, 2020)

498 deaths and 17555 new cases. I know you cant tell much from the data but it does seem to be on a plateau in terms of cases.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> A handy map.
> 
> View attachment 240524



Well the lockdown clearly worked then.


----------



## prunus (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes but only in tier 1 & 2 and you're obliged to follow the rules of the tier you actually live in when you get there.  So for example it would be OK for a couple who live in South Kensington to go to their third home in Cornwall but not OK for them to mix with other people indoors when they get there.  Its unclear whether they would have to order a meal with every glass of chilled Chablais.



At what point would they be considered inhabitants of the tier their second home was in?  What if they stayed there for a month? Surely, logically, if the second home was in tier
2 and their main home in tier 1 they’d have be act like inhabitants of tier 2 on returning to main home?   And vice versa, after a month in a tier 1 second home coming from a tier 2 main home surely, logically, they should be tier 1 inhabitants for the purposes of risk? (Possibly after just 14 days - I picked a month to avoid precise timings arguments).


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Indeed, normal service has been resumed.
> 
> 8m ago    16:48
> 
> ...


I honestly wonder whether a lot of MPs believe in the future at all. If there was a hurricane warning they'd be wandering around outside saying "well it's not even breezy, can't go boarding things up, what about the economy eh?"

I mean I know the Cabinet's attitude is frequently that the consequences of what you do don't matter as long as you can spin your way out of them when the time comes. But I wonder whether this has gone on so long that there's a basic conceptual problem now.


----------



## xenon (Nov 26, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Cat cafes. Totnes?


It is a thing, for weirdos, obviously but yeah.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

I feel bad for tier 2 areas, since when discussing stuff in the press conference Whitty was clear that they think that at this time of year, tier 1 wont stop cases rising, they think tier 2 will keep levels roughly where they are but not reduce them, and only tier 3 is expected to bring numbers down. Being in Warwickshire I am in tier 3 this time so am not currently freaking out.

They also had a map like the BBC one so I wont post it, but it also contained this list of factors they currently use to set the tiers:



Meanwhile Johnson has gone from boxing an invisible mugger to wrestling with an envelope & his notes.

Oh the shitty journalists questions right now such as Kuenssberg asking what the point of the lockdown was if we were just going to end up with new measures like these afterwards. Maybe her new source is in the Covid Recovery Group of fuckwits.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 26, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Seems an odd thing to have a dig at killer b for teuchter since he's one of the consistently more rational and less ideologically driven posters on here regarding this stuff


Why do you think it's a "dig"?


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

And now Peston asks why Whack-a-mole didnt work.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

Whitty forced to reiterate that there is this thing called winter where brr its a bit nippy out.


----------



## Raheem (Nov 26, 2020)

They've stupidly given Berkshire special treatment with Slough in tier 3 and the rest of it in tier 2. Presumably to try to placate some of the headbangers. But that could well turn out to be an Achilles heel, with MPs from all over the country asking why their lovely rural area can be split of from the neighbouring scummy bits too, and the government being unable to explain by Berkshire is a unique case.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

"Madness is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result" says Whitty.


----------



## prunus (Nov 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> "Madness is doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result" says Whitty.



Madness is electing Tories to be in charge and expecting them to do anything other than fuck the people, either through malice or incompetence. Or if you’re really lucky - an unholy mixture of both.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

Raheem said:


> They've stupidly given Berkshire special treatment with Slough in tier 3 and the rest of it in tier 1. Presumably to try to placate some of the headbangers. But that could well turn out to be an Achilles heel, with MPs from all over the country asking why their lovely rural area can be split of from the neighbouring scummy bits too, and the government being unable to explain by Berkshire is a unique case.


There is nowhere in Berkshire that is in tier 1.  Its all tier 2 except the areas in tier 3.


----------



## Raheem (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> There is nowhere in Berkshire that is in tier 1.  Its all tier 2 except the areas in tier 3.


Yes, typo.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I honestly wonder whether a lot of MPs believe in the future at all. If there was a hurricane warning they'd be wandering around outside saying "well it's not even breezy, can't go boarding things up, what about the economy eh?"



Some but not all of the stances are from people who are comfortable in the knowledge that their stated preferred position isn't going to happen, so it will never be tested and they wont be blamed. A bit like Brexit, except that is going to be tested because that side accidentally got their way.

A similar thing seems to have happened in Northern Ireland recently. The DUP tried to ignore reality at the end of a period of tough restrictions, and then they got their way. And then they realised they would get blamed if it all went wrong and had left themselves no political or scientific cover, so they freaked out and did a giant u-turn by agreeing to new restrictions.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

Whitty advises people not to hug and kiss an elderly relative, if you would like them to survive to be hugged in future.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

JVT did not gatecrash the press conference in a cape whilst singing 'dont tier the rants out of it'.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> Whitty advises people not to hug and kiss an elderly relative, if you would like them to survive to be hugged in future.



Best of luck stopping young kids giving gran and gramps a massive hug.  Fortunately the young kids don't appear to be very infectious.


----------



## D'wards (Nov 26, 2020)

We are so close to a vaccine. Cannot understand why people are fighting the lockdown, or even moaning. 

Just hold it down for another 3 or so months and next spring will be fine


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

D'wards said:


> We are so close to a vaccine. Cannot understand why people are fighting the lockdown, or even moaning.
> 
> Just hold it down for another 3 or so months and next spring will be fine


because it's miserable and cold and we've all barely spoken to another human being in 6 months, the company we work is about to go under or already has done and jesus christ it's fucking shit, in most cases.


----------



## xenon (Nov 26, 2020)

D'wards said:


> We are so close to a vaccine. Cannot understand why people are fighting the lockdown, or even moaning.
> 
> Just hold it down for another 3 or so months and next spring will be fine



slightly optimistic. It will be well into next year until it has any effect on restrictions.


----------



## xenon (Nov 26, 2020)

And I aint staying in until June.


----------



## Numbers (Nov 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> JVT did not gatecrash the press conference in a cape whilst singing 'dont tier the rants out of it'.


<over>


----------



## brogdale (Nov 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> A handy map.
> 
> View attachment 240524


The associated numbers...



Not exactly a post-lockdown endorsement of the previous tiering arrangement.


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

That there was a lockdown at all suggests the previous tiering arrangement was flawed tbf. And there are multiple indicators that the previous tier 3 did have an impact.


----------



## andysays (Nov 26, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The associated numbers...
> 
> View attachment 240531
> 
> Not exactly a post-lockdown endorsement of the previous tiering arrangement.


It doesn't strike me as a ringing endorsement of the actual "lockdown" either, if even after four weeks of national restrictions, we still need tighter tier based-restrictions than we had before


----------



## Raheem (Nov 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> It doesn't strike me as a ringing endorsement of the actual "lockdown" either, if even after four weeks of national restrictions, we still need tighter tier based-restrictions than we had before


Could alternatively be that we needed much tighter restrictions before.


----------



## MrSki (Nov 26, 2020)

Sue said:


> So they review in the middle of December then the Christmas stuff kicks in then they review after the end of the Christmas thing or just go back to whatever it was from mid December..?


Reviewed 16/12/20 so could change for a week before the Christmas 5 day plan comes in on 23rd. It says they are reviewed every two weeks but Hancock said in the HoCs this morning that it will be weekly after that so don't know who to believe.


----------



## andysays (Nov 26, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Could alternatively be that we needed much tighter restrictions before.


I agree that we needed tighter restrictions before "lockdown 2", but I also think "lockdown 2" itself wasn't as tight as it should have been, and that it's too soon to relax it.


----------



## Sue (Nov 26, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Reviewed 16/12/20 so could change for a week before the Christmas 5 day plan comes in on 23rd. It says they are reviewed every two weeks but Hancock said in the HoCs this morning that it will be weekly after that so don't know who to believe.


Fuck's sake. I'm trying to keep track off what's going on in different bits of Scotland too. Think I'm failing at all of it tbh.


----------



## xenon (Nov 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> I agree that we needed tighter restrictions before "lockdown 2", but I also think "lockdown 2" itself wasn't as tight as it should have been, and that it's too soon to relax it.



tea at three is basically the same as lockdown two, except you can go to Primark as well.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> I agree that we needed tighter restrictions before "lockdown 2", but I also think "lockdown 2" itself wasn't as tight as it should have been, and that it's too soon to relax it.



And purely from a data point of view, I dont think now is the best moment to have to make these tier decisions or for national restrictions to be lifted on December 2nd. There is some positive data they can find now, but only just. If I had the misfortune of having to publicly sell the results of the current measures and the plan for the next phase to people, I would have wanted at least another week before having to do so, and hopefully I would have more graphs pointing downwards by then than I have right now.


----------



## MrSki (Nov 26, 2020)

Sue said:


> Fuck's sake. I'm trying to keep track off what's going on in different bits of Scotland too. Think I'm failing at all of it tbh.


I would not be surprised if many areas go from T2 to T1 on the 16th with pressure from tory Mps in time for Xmas & then end up in T3 by mid Jan. cos of people meeting indoors.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

xenon said:


> tea at three is basically the same as lockdown two, except you can go to Primark as well.



If we strip away all the chosen rhetoric, regional, national aspects and various government and media framing of the various measures of recent months and for the rest of winter, we could have told a simple story of having to shut pubs and restaurants to keep schools open and compensate for winter. And how we were late with restrictions so had to go further by shutting various shops too, but now those can reopen.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 26, 2020)

andysays said:


> It doesn't strike me as a ringing endorsement of the actual "lockdown" either, if even after four weeks of national restrictions, we still need tighter tier based-restrictions than we had before



To the untrained eye it looks to me that this second lockdown has had a mixed effect at best.  Some good news in the North but infections have increased throughout the last month in pretty much all of the South.  I suppose the best thing you could say is that it has slowed the problem and brought a little time which is the strategy I guess.


----------



## Supine (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Fortunately the young kids don't appear to be very infectious.



From what I understand that is far from certain.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> To the untrained eye it looks to me that this second lockdown has had a mixed effect at best.  Some good news in the North but infections have increased throughout the last month in pretty much all of the South.  I suppose the best thing you could say is that it has slowed the problem and brought a little time which is the strategy I guess.



People weren't very happy with what success looked like with the first lockdown either. Which was understandable but also a shame because it contributes to fatigue if people can't see what was achieved. But probably the only way to show people what had been achieved would be to show them a parallel universe where the lockdowns didnt happen.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2020)

And we are about 1 or 2 weeks away from me forming a more complete opinion of quite what this period of extra national restrictions achieved. My primary means of judgement is daily covid-19 hospital admissions per region. And I simply require more time to see what happens next with those. The most recent picture I have is using data for admissions rates up to November 24th, smoothed using 7 day rolling averages. And I wait to see how the continued falls in the North and Midlands evolve, and what happens in the other regions that are either plateauing or increasing more slowly at the moment.


Using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## 2hats (Nov 26, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Fortunately the young kids don't appear to be very infectious.


Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The evidence can be found, if looked for.

Avoid magical thinking.









						Children may transmit coronavirus at the same rate as adults: what we now know about schools and COVID-19
					

The risk associated with schools is tied to the level of community transmission. The more community transmission there is, the more transmission there will be in schools.




					theconversation.com


----------



## Dr. Furface (Nov 26, 2020)

I just bumped into Martin Fry in Camden. I asked him what he thought of the new restrictions. He said ‘Tiers are not enough’


----------



## killer b (Nov 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> And we are about 1 or 2 weeks away from me forming a more complete opinion of quite what this period of extra national restrictions achieved. My primary means of judgement is daily covid-19 hospital admissions per region. And I simply require more time to see what happens next with those. The most recent picture I have is using data for admissions rates up to November 24th, smoothed using 7 day rolling averages. And I wait to see how the continued falls in the North and Midlands evolve, and what happens in the other regions that are either plateauing or increasing more slowly at the moment.
> 
> View attachment 240547
> Using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


To me the chart seems to be pretty conclusive - most of the north-west was in old tier 3 by early to mid october: 2-3 weeks after that, the hospitalisation figures plateaued and dropped. Yorkshire and the rest of the North East and parts of the midlands entered old tier 3 towards the end of the month, 2-3 weeks after that, and bingo - hospitalisations start dropping. So it's not that lockdown isn't working in the other regions - it's just that it's only just starting to show in the figures. Another week or so's data would be good before making any big changes I'd agree, but these guys are nothing if not risk-takers. 

It's reasonable to assume from the last month's interventions and data that the current level of lockdown works, and that the old tier 3 works in reducing infections. Which means the new tier 3 certainly will, and the new tier 2 might well do, if not as well, I reckon.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 26, 2020)

This should help clear it up:


----------



## Spandex (Nov 26, 2020)

elbows said:


> A handy map.
> 
> View attachment 240524





SpookyFrank said:


> Well the lockdown clearly worked then.


I don't think that comment follows from those maps. 

The tier levels before lockdown 2 were a joke. Far too many places were in tier 1 and far too few in tier 3. This was largely because the government didn't want to pay for the support needed to put places into tier 3, as seen by the arguments in Manchester. They were too focused on keeping local/regional areas happy and not on what needed to be done. They only bought in the tier system to avoid having a 'circuit breaker lockdown' and the whole thing was such a disaster that in 3 weeks there had to be a national lockdown. Just because there's wider restrictions now doesn't mean lockdown 2 has been a failure. We need to wait a bit longer to make that judgment, but there's plenty of positive signs about.

Some credit where it's due: if we're going to have a tier system, I'm pleased to see around 97% of the population in tier 2 & 3, otherwise they'd just be repeating the same mistake as before. And all the right people are whinging loudly about the new tier levels - mainly anti-lockdown pro-business short-sighted right-wing shitfuckers from what I've seen.

Sure, there's plenty to pick at in the new system: another whole new set of rules to get used to; some areas clearly in the wrong tier (Redbridge with 302.4 per 100k, with cases rising put in tier 2, because London); whether now is the right time for this new system to come in (probably not, if it wasn't for Xmas lockdown would've probably been extended until cases came down some more). But the government have made many far worse decisions since March.


----------



## ddraig (Nov 26, 2020)

Glad to be in tierless Wales!


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 26, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Glad to be in tierless Wales!


You won’t be when the whole of London comes to visit


----------



## ddraig (Nov 26, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> You won’t be when the whole of London comes to visit


Covered, apparently!








						Covid: Cardiff police given random vehicle check powers
					

Officers are granted extra powers to search vehicles this weekend in Cardiff to stop Covid breaches.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 26, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I don't think that comment follows from those maps.
> 
> The tier levels before lockdown 2 were a joke. Far too many places were in tier 1 and far too few in tier 3. This was largely because the government didn't want to pay for the support needed to put places into tier 3, as seen by the arguments in Manchester. They were too focused on keeping local/regional areas happy and not on what needed to be done. They only bought in the tier system to avoid having a 'circuit breaker lockdown' and the whole thing was such a disaster that in 3 weeks there had to be a national lockdown. Just because there's wider restrictions now doesn't mean lockdown 2 has been a failure. We need to wait a bit longer to make that judgment, but there's plenty of positive signs about.
> 
> ...



I would have preferred another two weeks of lockdown but realistically that would lead to such a ruinous orgy of shopping in the week or so left between restrictions easing and christmas that any progress made would be swiftly undone. Cancelling christmas altogether, while perhaps the only sane and fair thing to do particularly in light of Eid having already been cancelled without warning, was never on the cards. 

We're staying the fuck home for christmas anyway. I do miss my mum, but the important thing is to still have a mum this time next year, and for as many people as possible to have as many of their loved ones still with them as possible. Anyone talking about christmas spirit and goodwill to all men but forgetting the whole 'keep people alive' thing really needs to go fuck themselves.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 26, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Glad to be in tierless Wales!



Looks like the whole of Wales is heading towards the same restrictions as tier 3 in England.









						Covid: Christmas tier rules being considered for Wales
					

Wales' first minister is looking at similar coronavirus rules as the top English and Scottish tiers.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## magneze (Nov 26, 2020)

I fear that tier 2 is just the waiting room until tier 3 is necessary, just like before. I hope not, but otherwise tier 3 for London before Christmas.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 26, 2020)

I am putting myself in tier 7 

Can go to second home in the South West or Cotswolds. Can play golf and shoot anything I want as long as I wear tweed. Can hire escorts as long as they don't hug my mum.


----------



## magneze (Nov 26, 2020)

You're better off hiring a Chevette.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 26, 2020)

magneze said:


> I fear that tier 2 is just the waiting room until tier 3 is necessary, just like before. I hope not, but otherwise tier 3 for London before Christmas.



Where we are cases are still pretty low but hospital capacity is also very low so I'm happy to be in tier 2 and would be happier in tier 3.


----------



## BCBlues (Nov 26, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I am putting myself in tier 7
> 
> Can go to second home in the South West or Cotswolds. Can play golf and shoot anything I want as long as I wear tweed. Can hire escorts as long as they don't hug my mum.



Dont forget you can have alt-med tests on your eyes and such up in Durham


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 26, 2020)

After this "lockdown" that isn't, despite being in very rural Northumberland, I'm lumped in with the Tyne/Wear conurbation and thus Tier 3.

Actually, not a problem, I'm still very much WFH and effectively still shielding. And I'm staying like that until 30+ days after the second jab.
I want other people to be able to hug their grannies next year ...


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 26, 2020)

How will the 'travel window' to get students home for Christmas work? | ITV News
					

The government has announced after lockdown ends in England, students will have a limited window to travel home to spend Christmas with their families.




					www.itv.com
				




The student travel window is from 3 to 9 December and will see countless spider-webs of journeys criss-crossing the U.K. during the tier system announced today.

‘Students will be encouraged to practice “refined behaviour” in the days between the end of lockdown and their return home.
More information about what “refined behaviour” entails will be released in a communication campaign by the government closer to the time’.

(From the link above, to the ITV article on 11 November).


----------



## two sheds (Nov 26, 2020)

Not sure I'd have considered "refined behaviour" when I was a student


----------



## ska invita (Nov 27, 2020)

exactly


----------



## miss direct (Nov 27, 2020)

Students here in Sheffield have been told to leave within 24 hours of getting their negative test result. I wish I could also get a test before Christmas, as I'm sure many others do.


----------



## Supine (Nov 27, 2020)

ska invita said:


> exactly




The whole of the UK is leaving lockdown with better results than it started with (maybe not Sheppey but most of the UK). 

Covid restrictions is a whole different question. They are needed.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 27, 2020)

ska invita said:


> exactly



The answer is “what lockdown”?

We haven’t had a second lockdown. Loads of shops are still open. Kids are at school. People are still going to work. The roads are still packed with traffic. Parks are packed with people.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 27, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Students here in Sheffield have been told to leave within 24 hours of getting their negative test result. I wish I could also get a test before Christmas, as I'm sure many others do.



I'm sure the 24 hour thing and the need to book transport in advance will work together just fine.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 27, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> The answer is “what lockdown”?
> 
> We haven’t had a second lockdown. Loads of shops are still open. Kids are at school. People are still going to work. The roads are still packed with traffic. Parks are packed with people.


I'm trying hard to get the word "mockdown" to catch on.
Ok, I'm not, but it's still good


----------



## ska invita (Nov 27, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> The answer is “what lockdown”?
> 
> We haven’t had a second lockdown. Loads of shops are still open. Kids are at school. People are still going to work. The roads are still packed with traffic. Parks are packed with people.


well non-essential shops, gyms and pubs are closed, and i cant meet my friends outside or parents inside, so there is a degree of lockdown and it has very slowly reduced cases - R is probably below 1 in most places

the government has created huge resentment here, not because of their incompetence or corruption - the electorate seem endlessly forgiving on that score, in part because its not reported enough by the supine press - but they've miscommunicated their own plans. we're in strong degrees of restrictions right up to march now. they gave an impression of a little lockdown which will finish on the 2nd

Not doing a two week circuit breaker like SAGE said where everything stopped, - schools included - was another massive fuck up


----------



## Spandex (Nov 27, 2020)

Supine said:


> The whole of the UK is leaving lockdown with better results than it started with (maybe not Sheppey but most of the UK).


It's not just Sheppey that's fucked (although Sheppey East's 1109.1 per 100k is particularly eye catching). The whole north Kent coast, spreading into east London has been deteriorating in recent weeks. Thanet, Medway, Gravesend and Willmington are all over 400 per 100k. So are Deal and Dover, round the corner away from the estuary. The whole area was tier 1 before lockdown.

Looking at the hospital admissions as well, I suspect that lockdown 2 has prevented a complete disaster happening in that part of the south east.


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

ska invita said:


> well non-essential shops, gyms and pubs are closed, and i cant meet my friends outside or parents inside, so there is a degree of lockdown and it has very slowly reduced cases - R is probably below 1 in most places
> 
> the government has created huge resentment here, not because of their incompetence or corruption - the electorate seem endlessly forgiving on that score, in part because its not reported enough by the supine press - but they've miscommunicated their own plans. we're in strong degrees of restrictions right up to march now. they gave an impression of a little lockdown which will finish on the 2nd
> 
> Not doing a two week circuit breaker like SAGE said where everything stopped, - schools included - was another massive fuck up


Conor Burns knows all this, so his tweet is just posturing. 

He sounds like an interesting character:

_He has resigned from Her Majesty's Government three times, the latest being from his position as Minister of State for Trade Policy in May 2020, after a Standards Committee inquiry found he had made "veiled threats" to use privilege to "further his family's interests" during a financial dispute involving his father._


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

The posturing from politicians on all sides does throw up a lot of shite - the narrative of the North being punished and suchlike from northern council leaders & MPs today is unlikely to aid compliance to necessary restrictions, but is likely to aid their reelection chances. 

They could of course be critical of the government being late and too soft with their previous restrictions, had they not been, on the whole, resistant to those restrictions being imposed in the first place... I'm pleased to see Burnham at least accept the ongoing measures are necessary, but he's relatively rare if you look across the region

My own council leader wrote an open letter before the tiers were announced 'making the case' for tier 2 instead of tier 3, and is making disappointed noises now, although he must know like Burnham that it remains necessary. That said, he copped a massive amount of flak locally in September when he asked for extra support and measures to help bring down the infection rate, so I can understand him trying to take a different tack.


----------



## LDC (Nov 27, 2020)

ska invita said:


> well non-essential shops, gyms and pubs are closed, and i cant meet my friends outside or parents inside, so there is a degree of lockdown and it has very slowly reduced cases - R is probably below 1 in most places
> 
> the government has created huge resentment here, not because of their incompetence or corruption - the electorate seem endlessly forgiving on that score, in part because its not reported enough by the supine press - but they've miscommunicated their own plans. we're in strong degrees of restrictions right up to march now. they gave an impression of a little lockdown which will finish on the 2nd
> 
> Not doing a two week circuit breaker like SAGE said where everything stopped, - schools included - was another massive fuck up



I think the media bear a _huge _amount of blame for this as well tbh. They're constantly reeling out a load of lockdown skeptics, giving Tory MPs and business owners far, far too much time on how the lockdown is 'unfair' or doesn't work etc. Not questioning them when they say clearly incorrect things, or correcting them when they come out with some bullshit idea about how to do things 'better'. That and the stream of vox pop bollocks they seem obsessed with presenting as news or important and worthwhile comment.


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They're constantly reeling out a load of lockdown skeptics, giving Tory MPs and business owners far, far too much time on how the lockdown is 'unfair' or doesn't work etc.


I was just reading an article in the Graun where they're interviewing some landlords talking about their 'covid secure' premises as it happens.

TBF I'm not sure if I really blame the media or the landlords for this kind of thing - the government really sold the idea of covid secure businesses in the summer, and you can't blame people for believing them that it's a real thing.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 27, 2020)

These tory anti-lockdown rebels are going to be morally responsible for quite a few deaths ...
(pity we can't prove it well enough legally to put them in the slammer)

e2a - and the irresponsible media, and tbh I'm starting with that twat cummings and his trip to Barnard Castle ...


----------



## LDC (Nov 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> These tory anti-lockdown rebels are going to be morally responsible for quite a few deaths ...
> (pity we can't prove it well enough legally to put them in the slammer)



I've not seen one of them questioned properly in the media. Never asked about what they propose instead of restrictions, how even with restrictions so far we've had thousands of deaths, about deaths that will result from their measures (or lack thereof), what they'd say to people who would have loved ones die with their plan, etc. etc. Just allowed to spout some bollocks about the economy and freedom or something.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> The posturing from politicians on all sides does throw up a lot of shite - the narrative of the North being punished and suchlike from northern council leaders & MPs today is unlikely to aid compliance to necessary restrictions, but is likely to aid their reelection chances.



Yeah, the north is being punished just like that well known Labour voting county called Kent.  

One of our MPs, Tim Loughton, the twat, is moaning about Worthing being in tier 2, because our numbers are so low, ignoring the fact that the borough is surrounded by areas with much higher rates, and loads of people from those areas travel into the town for work, shopping & leisure, hence the whole county needs to be in tier 2.

I am still puzzled by the fact the 3 most urban council areas in West Sussex have the lowest cases, compared to the 4 rural areas.


----------



## xenon (Nov 27, 2020)

Supine said:


> The whole of the UK is leaving lockdown with better results than it started with (maybe not Sheppey but most of the UK).
> 
> Covid restrictions is a whole different question. They are needed.



That's not true in terms of cases per 100K. They're higher now than they were on Nov 4th here and no doubt elsewhere.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 27, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I'm sure the 24 hour thing and the need to book transport in advance will work together just fine.


Good point. The idea is their parents pick them up, because of course every single student has two parents with cars, who live within driving distance, and are available to come and fetch them...


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

ska invita said:


> exactly




That ridiculous lack of understanding is like hurtling down a hill with the brakes only very gently applied, then belatedly being forced to press the brakes harder as a result, and then being shocked that afterwards, whilst still travelling down the hill, further applications of the brakes are still required to keep the car below a certain speed. Dont worry the drunk driver cried to his passengers, this black ice of winter will slow us down!


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> That ridiculous lack of understanding is like hurtling down a hill with the brakes only very gently applied, then belatedly being forced to press the brakes harder as a result, and then being shocked that afterwards, whilst still travelling down the hill, further applications of the brakes are still required to keep the car below a certain speed. Dont worry the drunk driver cried to his passengers, this black ice of winter will slow us down!


As good an analogy as I’ve heard so far


----------



## miss direct (Nov 27, 2020)

Why are people so thick. I'm actually pleased to be in tier 3, even though it's boring. The numbers need to come down, and if the pubs had opened, people would have gone nuts in the lead up to Christmas, meeting up with everyone they've not seen for a while.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 27, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Why are people so thick. I'm actually pleased to be in tier 3, even though it's boring.


well lets not forget that tens of thousands are worried about becoming bankrupt/lose jobs because of not being able to trade/reduced takings during december


----------



## miss direct (Nov 27, 2020)

ska invita said:


> well lets not forget that tens of thousands are worried about becoming bankrupt/lose jobs because of not being able to trade during december


Ok, fair enough. I hope we don't end up with all the nice independent pubs/restaurants closed down and only Wetherspoons left


----------



## ska invita (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> That ridiculous lack of understanding


i realise i misundestood the tweet
i took it to mean how can you end lockdown with more cases than before starting it - which seems to be the case in london


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> As good an analogy as I’ve heard so far



Cheers, I'm sure I can spoil it by pushing it too far.

The Roadside Recovery Group of MPs have obtained a report by the RAC (Reality Avoidance Club) which states that fitting cars with brakes that are too strong is clearly the problem. The group intends to shock the world into a new approach by holding a press conference with eminent epidemiologist F Flintstone, who will be demonstrating the latest innovations in foot-based braking technologies. This could also be a nice little earner for the chair of the Roadside Recovery Group, as he retains links to his old tennis partner who now heads up the R Soles footwear manufacturing empire.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

ska invita said:


> i realise i misundestood the tweet
> i took it to mean how can you end lockdown with more cases than before starting it - which seems to be the case in london



When that sort of question is asked sincerely, possible answers include:

Because more time is needed to see the results show up in the data.
Because the lockdown wasn't strong enough or long enough and was not intended to be the complete solution to winter.
Because the rise in cases maybe in groups that were not locked down in any meaningful sense at all, eg schoolchildren or people who still had to go to work.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

And:

Because the testing regime continues to evolve and to vary more by location.
Because conditions and behaviours (more indoors stuff) get worse as we head into winter, forcing stronger compensatory measures.
Because more hospitals are closer to capacity than they were (although others seems to have passed the moment of maximum pressure)
Because the additional winter NHS pressures loom and they dont actually know how much these pressures will differ from a normal winter (eg whether there will be a large flu outbreak, much icy weather, or how many days there will be with temperatures that cause health problems).

Some of these dont alter the number of cases people will see in the data, but they are certainly factored into the thinking by authorities and the measures they feel the need to impose.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

Meanwhile in Wales, thoroughly unsurprising new restrictions given that their firebreaker was rather short and some time ago now.



> Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford is giving a press conference about the new restrictions being introduced.
> 
> He says in the last few days, figures have started to rise again.
> 
> ...



From 12:31 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55098996


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

And in Scotland, discussions about whether to extend the school holidays have leaked.









						Covid in Scotland: Talks held over extending Christmas holidays
					

It has been suggested that all schools could close on 18 December and reopen on 11 January.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> And in Scotland, discussions about whether to extend the school holidays have leaked.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Extending them nationwide to somewhere around March should do it.


----------



## ska invita (Nov 27, 2020)

When are they doing a vote in parliament?


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

ska invita said:


> When are they doing a vote in parliament?



Next Tuesday I believe, although very few shits are given about that because there is no prospect of the measures being defeated unless Labour decided not to back the new measures, and such a scenario seems rather implausible.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 27, 2020)

As before, I hope that Hansard will tell us who votes "nay" or abstains ...

I would much rather take risks with the economy than with lives. Money is just that, lives are irreplaceable.
What's more, I don't think the restrictions, even in tier3, are sufficiently rigorous.
Especially without the vaccines having been widely utilised. (note : that there is a period even after the second jab before the immunity is "fully developed")


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

This is what success looks like at this stage:









						R number for UK below 1 for first time since August
					

Scientific advisers to the government estimate the coronavirus epidemic is no longer growing.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> This is what success looks like at this stage:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



but that's not any reason to let up on the safety measures just yet - we need those elusive vaccinations !


----------



## weepiper (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> And in Scotland, discussions about whether to extend the school holidays have leaked.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've had a flurry of emails this week from my kids' high school with passwords and so forth for remote learning which suggests this is probably happening.


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I hope that Hansard will tell us who votes "nay" or abstains ...


has there ever been an occasion Hansard hasn't done this?


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 27, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> As before, I hope that Hansard will tell us who votes "nay" or abstains ...
> 
> I would much rather take risks with the economy than with lives. Money is just that, lives are irreplaceable.
> What's more, I don't think the restrictions, even in tier3, are sufficiently rigorous.
> Especially without the vaccines having been widely utilised. (note : that there is a period even after the second jab before the immunity is "fully developed")



I think like last time when it comes to voting there won't be much of a rebellion from disgruntled tory MP's.  They may be mouthing off now about it but when Labour confirm they will be supporting the motion its always going to pass by a massive margin.  No point in pissing off the whipps for a vote you're going to lose by miles anyway.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 27, 2020)

weepiper said:


> I've had a flurry of emails this week from my kids' high school with passwords and so forth for remote learning which suggests this is probably happening.



Needless to say this seems like a good idea to me and I'm not sure why its been dismissed out of hand in England.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> has there ever been an occasion Hansard hasn't done this?


nope, but I'll want to check what my wimp has done ... I may just remind him not to fuck this vote, the UK really can't afford the waste this pandemic is generating.


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

it doesn't matter which way your MP votes, do something less tedious instead.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Needless to say this seems like a good idea to me and I'm not sure why its been dismissed out of hand in England.


Because this fucking shit show means most kids have had at least two extra weeks at home already isolating. Quite frankly I don't see the point of planned time off school when we all know there's a ton of unplanned time off school still to come. Especially if shops, gyms and Xmas are still a go and track and trace is not.


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

I'm not sure most kids have had time off have they? One of mine had 10 days but the other hasn't, and there has been surprisingly few infection alerts at their school, considering we're in a national hotspot.


----------



## weepiper (Nov 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm not sure most kids have had time off have they? One of mine had 10 days but the other hasn't, and there has been surprisingly few infection alerts at their school, considering we're in a national hotspot.


None of mine have yet. There's only been five confirmed cases at their school since August. Obviously quite a few kids did have to self isolate because of that but we haven't had any whole year groups sent home or anything yet.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Because this fucking shit show means most kids have had at least two extra weeks at home already isolating. Quite frankly I don't see the point of planned time off school when we all know there's a ton of unplanned time off school still to come. Especially if shops, gyms and Xmas are still a go and track and trace is not.



Because if all schools are closed for a time then its expected to have a useful effect on R. Partly because closing schools affects adult behaviour/mixing patterns. This happens when schools are closed for holidays, so making those holidays longer is an obvious option.


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

I'd also say having an extra week of school holidays at the start of January is a no-brainer as far as these things go - it's probably the week of the year you can close everything while causing the least economic damage.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 27, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Because this fucking shit show means most kids have had at least two extra weeks at home already isolating. Quite frankly I don't see the point of planned time off school when we all know there's a ton of unplanned time off school still to come. Especially if shops, gyms and Xmas are still a go and track and trace is not.



Well, the point would be to delay the spread and save lives.  Buy some more time until the vaccines start making a difference.  But anyway, I'm a stuck record on this subject so I'll leave it here.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm not sure most kids have had time off have they? One of mine had 10 days but the other hasn't, and there has been surprisingly few infection alerts at their school, considering we're in a national hotspot.


Maybe not most but loads, all over the country. Both my children's year groups have been sent home, two different schools but most year groups at my eldest's school have had an isolation period.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm not sure most kids have had time off have they? One of mine had 10 days but the other hasn't, and there has been surprisingly few infection alerts at their school, considering we're in a national hotspot.


All three of my school-going nephew and nieces have had to self-isolate in term times and on different occasions - they all go to different schools


----------



## nagapie (Nov 27, 2020)

weepiper said:


> None of mine have yet. There's only been five confirmed cases at their school since August. Obviously quite a few kids did have to self isolate because of that but we haven't had any whole year groups sent home or anything yet.


Most primaries in England are operating year group bubbles so whole year group gets sent home.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Because if all schools are closed for a time then its expected to have a useful effect on R. Partly because closing schools affects adult behaviour/mixing patterns. This happens when schools are closed for holidays, so making those holidays longer is an obvious option.


It's not an option I'm fond of for all the reasons I mentioned. Let's see all pubs, restaurants, gyms etc closed for an extended period first. And without track and trace feels like sacrifice for nothing.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Well, the point would be to delay the spread and save lives.  Buy some more time until the vaccines start making a difference.  But anyway, I'm a stuck record on this subject so I'll leave it here.


See my answer above.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 27, 2020)

My sister is a primary school teacher.  She is isolating again, this is the third time since the schools restarted in September.   In the local high school where I live they've had loads of cases, well over a hundred.

I'm very glad it's not being mirrored across the country.


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

the pubs & restaurants have been closed for a month, six weeks here. for much of the country they won't open til at best mid December. Schools closing for an extra week in january doesn't seem too much of a sacrifice next to that.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

nagapie said:


> It's not an option I'm fond of for all the reasons I mentioned. Let's see all pubs, restaurants, gyms etc closed for an extended period first. And without track and trace feels like sacrifice for nothing.



Track & trace is not a miracle solution, often it just ends up giving you a better view of when the right time to lockdown is.

If anything has driven me to despair this year, its people not being able to grasp what has been achieved. Every day where a hospital is not overwhelmed is a result, and I refuse to have that dismissed as just playing for time or wasted sacrifice.

But sure, I would not open pubs, restaurants or gyms anywhere at the moment.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 27, 2020)

nagapie said:


> It's not an option I'm fond of for all the reasons I mentioned. Let's see all pubs, restaurants, gyms etc closed for an extended period first. And without track and trace feels like sacrifice for nothing.



No problem with any of that but we've just had that for a month and in the South East cases have continued to rise.  Its personal as well because my b-i-l was hospitalised back in the first wave because his wife (my sister) is a teacher.  We're asking a hell of a lot of our teachers and their families. 

Anyway, I said I'd leave it...


----------



## Sue (Nov 27, 2020)

weepiper said:


> None of mine have yet. There's only been five confirmed cases at their school since August. Obviously quite a few kids did have to self isolate because of that but we haven't had any whole year groups sent home or anything yet.


Likewise with my lot. And they're in Glasgow which has obviously not been good at all.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> No problem with any of that but we've just had that for a month and in the South East cases have continued to rise.



You keep saying that but I'm not sure what data you are using to form that opinion.

I dont think I could make that claim using number of people testing positive per region.

I could make it using number of daily covid hospital admissions per region, but that data lags behind infections and can also indicate a rise in infections in the more at-risk age groups rather than a rise in cases as a whole.


----------



## chilango (Nov 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Needless to say this seems like a good idea to me and I'm not sure why its been dismissed out of hand in England.



Many Private Schools shut on the 11th. Discussion is ongoing in others that don't about shutting then too.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm not sure most kids have had time off have they? One of mine had 10 days but the other hasn't, and there has been surprisingly few infection alerts at their school, considering we're in a national hotspot.



Both of mine have had to isolate, one at junior school and one at sixth form college.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> You keep saying that but I'm not sure what data you are using to form that opinion.
> 
> I dont think I could make that claim using number of people testing positive per region.
> 
> I could make it using number of daily covid hospital admissions per region, but that data lags behind infections and can also indicate a rise in infections in the more at-risk age groups rather than a rise in cases as a whole.



OK I'm probably misreading a graph then.  It comes from here Covid-19 in the UK: How many coronavirus cases are there in your area? and the cases rising / falling chart halfway down the page.  I am not a stats person though so its probably something I've got wrong.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> OK I'm probably misreading a graph then.  It comes from here Covid-19 in the UK: How many coronavirus cases are there in your area? and the cases rising / falling chart halfway down the page.  I am not a stats person though so its probably something I've got wrong.



Ah I see. Assuming its the following chart you mean, the misinterpretation is simply down to timing. They are comparing rolling averages on 6th November with ones on 20th November. Two weeks is not enough to see the lockdown effect in full, especially when rolling 7 day averages are used as these smooth things out in a manner that effectively adds a little lag, in so much as the numbers they use for November 20th are still influenced by numbers from days before then. So that particular graphic mostly ends up showing the results of regional and other-nations measures which were in effect in the period before the national measures in England, and will only reflect the humble beginnings of national measures impact.


There are likely to be other, less discussed factors too. For example we dont spend much time thinking about what the timing of an epidemic without the brakes on would look like. And I would tend to expect that the potential for larger reductions in cases is greater in areas where a rather large epidemic was allowed to steadily build over a long period of time up to a very high level. Because peoples sense of risk changes in the most affected areas, and because lots of people have had the virus and are therefore temporarily unavailable to get it again. Think of it as a watered down version of the herd immunity stuff we heard so much shit about. Because even very far below some theoretical level where full on herd immunity would be temporarily achieved, the percentage of the population that have recently had the virus is still a factor to some lesser extent. It can still impact R, just not to the extent that all other brakes become unnecessary. Or another way to think of it would be that if we had reached a point where say 10% of the population had been vaccinated, this would not be considered enough to totally change the game, but it would still be better than nothing. And in these respects it is plausible that the North and Midlands are now in better shape than the South, and depending on how much immunity is left from the first wave, the South may be more vulnerable in the 'not as much immunity from 2nd wave infections' sense right now.


----------



## mr steev (Nov 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm not sure most kids have had time off have they? One of mine had 10 days but the other hasn't, and there has been surprisingly few infection alerts at their school, considering we're in a national hotspot.



My daughter hasn't had to yet, but half her class have, as have lots of other bubbles and the whole 6th form. Loads of my mates kids have been off at some point. A colleague at work had to go and pick his daughter up this morning and start another 2 weeks - they've only just finished doing 2 weeks because their son's best schoolmate tested positive. There are some schools round here that are closed completely.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Ah I see. Assuming its the following chart you mean, the misinterpretation is simply down to timing. They are comparing rolling averages on 6th November with ones on 20th November. Two weeks is not enough to see the lockdown effect in full, especially when rolling 7 day averages are used as these smooth things out in a manner that effectively adds a little lag, in so much as the numbers they use for November 20th are still influenced by numbers from days before then. So that particular graphic mostly ends up showing the results of regional and other-nations measures which were in effect in the period before the national measures in England, and will only reflect the humble beginnings of national measures impact.
> 
> View attachment 240673
> There are likely to be other, less discussed factors too. For example we dont spend much time thinking about what the timing of an epidemic without the brakes on would look like. And I would tend to expect that the potential for larger reductions in cases is greater in areas where a rather large epidemic was allowed to steadily build over a long period of time up to a very high level. Because peoples sense of risk changes in the most affected areas, and because lots of people have had the virus and are therefore temporarily unavailable to get it again. Think of it as a watered down version of the herd immunity stuff we heard so much shit about. Because even very far below some theoretical level where full on herd immunity would be temporarily achieved, the percentage of the population that have recently had the virus is still a factor to some lesser extent. It can still impact R, just not to the extent that all other brakes become unnecessary. Or another way to think of it would be that if we had reached a point where say 10% of the population had been vaccinated, this would not be considered enough to totally change the game, but it would still be better than nothing. And in these respects it is plausible that the North and Midlands are now in better shape than the South, and depending on how much immunity is left from the first wave, the South may be more vulnerable in that sense right now.



Yes, that's the one.  Thanks for the clarification, that all makes sense.


----------



## magneze (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Ah I see. Assuming its the following chart you mean, the misinterpretation is simply down to timing. They are comparing rolling averages on 6th November with ones on 20th November. Two weeks is not enough to see the lockdown effect in full, especially when rolling 7 day averages are used as these smooth things out in a manner that effectively adds a little lag, in so much as the numbers they use for November 20th are still influenced by numbers from days before then. So that particular graphic mostly ends up showing the results of regional and other-nations measures which were in effect in the period before the national measures in England, and will only reflect the humble beginnings of national measures impact.
> 
> View attachment 240673
> There are likely to be other, less discussed factors too. For example we dont spend much time thinking about what the timing of an epidemic without the brakes on would look like. And I would tend to expect that the potential for larger reductions in cases is greater in areas where a rather large epidemic was allowed to steadily build over a long period of time up to a very high level. Because peoples sense of risk changes in the most affected areas, and because lots of people have had the virus and are therefore temporarily unavailable to get it again. Think of it as a watered down version of the herd immunity stuff we heard so much shit about. Because even very far below some theoretical level where full on herd immunity would be temporarily achieved, the percentage of the population that have recently had the virus is still a factor to some lesser extent. It can still impact R, just not to the extent that all other brakes become unnecessary. Or another way to think of it would be that if we had reached a point where say 10% of the population had been vaccinated, this would not be considered enough to totally change the game, but it would still be better than nothing. And in these respects it is plausible that the North and Midlands are now in better shape than the South, and depending on how much immunity is left from the first wave, the South may be more vulnerable in the 'not as much immunity from 2nd wave infections' sense right now.


Seems odd that London is tier 2 based on that chart.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yes, that's the one.  Thanks for the clarification, that all makes sense.



No problem. And just to be clear, I am not saying that the national measures have been a wonderful success either, just that it is too early to judge from that data. 

If I could be sure that the testing system was capturing the same proportion of cases in every area every day, that it was consistent, then I would be pointing to more recent daily case data for the region and making claims. But I prefer not to do that, and will be judging the regional impact of lockdown on hospital admissions data instead. And so far for the Southern regions I can point to the failure of such curves to take off exponentially into rapid doom territory as the success so far, and still have more days of data to observe before I reach conclusions about whether it was enough to create a levelling off, or a reduction.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 27, 2020)

magneze said:


> Seems odd that London is tier 2 based on that chart.



Yes.  Other factors are certainly in play for that decision.  It is a very confused situation across London though with the numbers varying significantly from borough to borough. For example my borough has a per 100k figure of just over 100 yet two neighbouring boroughs are double that.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

magneze said:


> Seems odd that London is tier 2 based on that chart.



The chart is out of date, I wouldn't want to use it for making regional tier decisions.

London was a tricky decision though. Some parts of London indicate tier 3 is needed, others enable them to take a more relaxed approach. And they factor in hospital capacity in the region when making decisions, as well as economic and political pressures, and for London its not surprising that those pointed towards tier 2 more than would have been the case in a region with very limited hospital capacity.

I'm pretty sure I would have given London at least a little bit of time in tier 3 before considering tier 2, we will just have to wait and see whether they get away with the choice they made.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 27, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> No problem with any of that but we've just had that for a month and in the South East cases have continued to rise.  Its personal as well because my b-i-l was hospitalised back in the first wave because his wife (my sister) is a teacher.  We're asking a hell of a lot of our teachers and their families.
> 
> Anyway, I said I'd leave it...


I'm a secondary school teacher and I will tell you that my work environment, although with a lot of new rules, does not keep me safe from Covid. In fact I'm entirely sure that we have had tons of cases of Covid but our pupils come from deprived backgrounds where  many would not have the resources or time to jump through the hoops of getting tested.
In the South East all the bloody shops etc have been open and until recently restaurants and all sorts. So don't really feel like the alternatives have been given a good go. 
But I don't want my own kids nor the ones I teach out of school any more than necessary, the damage to children is very aparent right now if you are a parent or work with young people.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> the pubs & restaurants have been closed for a month, six weeks here. for much of the country they won't open til at best mid December. Schools closing for an extra week in january doesn't seem too much of a sacrifice next to that.


But down here in London we have had everything open until recently. I can see how it's different if you've been in a proper lockdown anyway but we haven't and now we're going into tier 2!


----------



## nagapie (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> Track & trace is not a miracle solution, often it just ends up giving you a better view of when the right time to lockdown is.
> 
> If anything has driven me to despair this year, its people not being able to grasp what has been achieved. Every day where a hospital is not overwhelmed is a result, and I refuse to have that dismissed as just playing for time or wasted sacrifice.
> 
> But sure, I would not open pubs, restaurants or gyms anywhere at the moment.


Track and trace is not a miracle but if pubs etc were all closed for a decent amount of time, the R number could be reduced significantly for  track and trace, were it run properly, to deal with school cases.


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

nagapie said:


> But down here in London we have had everything open until recently. I can see how it's different if you've been in a proper lockdown anyway but we haven't and now we're going into tier 2!


The bars in london will have been closed for a month when we come out of lockdown, it's not that recent. 

Doesn't matter anyway cause they're not going to do it. But it seems to me to be a relatively low-cost way of getting some additional suppression in, that would result in fewer infections (and less kids having to isolate) through January, February and March.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Track and trace is not a miracle but if pubs etc were all closed for a decent amount of time, the R number could be reduced significantly for  track and trace, were it run properly, to deal with school cases.



That would also require a country where staffing level pressures did not tempt the authorities and management to break or fudge their own self-isolation guidelines, ask teachers to turn off the tracking app, etc. There are some settings where they actually fear that the proper application of track & trace would have implications they couldn't live with.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> The bars in london will have been closed for a month when we come out of lockdown, it's not that recent.
> 
> Doesn't matter anyway cause they're not going to do it. But it seems to me to be a relatively low-cost way of getting some additional suppression in, that would result in fewer infections (and less kids having to isolate) through January, February and March.


Well not where I am as then we'll be in tier 2, everything open.


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Well not where I am as then we'll be in tier 2, everything open.


the latest national lockdown started on the 5th November, and is finishing on 2nd December, which is a month. So yes, where you are.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> the latest national lockdown started on the 5th November, and is finishing on 2nd December, which is a month. So yes, where you are.


I meant that if we get an extra week of holiday, which starts on 18th, we'll be out of lockdown and in tier 2 so just about everything open.


----------



## killer b (Nov 27, 2020)

ok, I think we're talking at cross purposes, and as it's a fantasy scenario anyway I don't think I'm too bothered about untangling it.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 27, 2020)

So I suppose shops will be open again after the 3rd so no excuse for not buying crimble pressies.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 27, 2020)

weltweit said:


> So I suppose shops will be open again after the 3rd so no excuse for not buying crimble pressies.



Avoiding everyone has always been my go-to plan for avoiding buying christmas presents and this year I have an iron-clad excuse


----------



## weltweit (Nov 27, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Avoiding everyone has always been my go-to plan for avoiding buying christmas presents and this year I have an iron-clad excuse


I don't want any presents either. I don't need anything and if / when I do I can buy it myself. This whole Christmas buying spree of things people might like but probably won't appreciate is a bonanza for the shops but is based on a wholly unnecessary premise.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

> Drinkers visiting pubs in tier two regions will have to leave when they finish eating, under new restrictions being introduced from 2 December, No 10 has confirmed.











						Covid: People in tier two 'will have to leave pub after meal'
					

People can only drink when eating, under new restrictions, the prime minister's spokesman confirms.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 2hats (Nov 27, 2020)

2hats said:


> Children may transmit coronavirus at the same rate as adults: what we now know about schools and COVID-19
> 
> 
> The risk associated with schools is tied to the level of community transmission. The more community transmission there is, the more transmission there will be in schools.
> ...


As a footnote to this today's Indie SAGE covered schools in some detail (and published advice for improving safety in schools).

Test positivity rates over age cohorts and time clearly highlight the risk of spread in school environments. Schoolchildren have 7-day 'case rates' variously 20-100 times the trigger (20/100k) that was used to impose quarantine on travellers over the summer (from 400/100k rising to 2000/100k). Compare that to the figure of 200/100k across England right now (all areas of England are well above 20/100k; only the most remote areas of Scotland and Wales manage to dip under it). 

(ONS and PHE data).


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> This weeks ONS infection survey has some extra caveats in it due to a lab issue:
> 
> This analysis does not count as positive those swab results from the laboratory at Milton Keynes where only the single ORF1ab gene was detected at visits from 15 to 21 November 2020. The numbers of this very specific type of positive result are generally very few (under 5%), but increased very substantially and abnormally during this short period at the Milton Keynes laboratory only. This is consistent with reported technical issues of PCR primer contamination in samples processed between 19 to 23 November 2020. These results were removed from this analysis. Initial analysis indicates that almost all of these removed positives will have been incorrectly recorded, and inadvertently removing a very small number of true positives will have a negligible impact on the results presented. The laboratory is reviewing and reissuing reports for the specimens included and the updated data will be included in the next report.
> 
> ...



I was wondering if that issue would have broader consequences and thus eventually emerge in other news. I suspect it now has:









						Hundreds get wrong results due to Covid test error
					

More than 1,300 people were incorrectly told they had coronavirus by NHS Test and Trace.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> DHSC said it was an "isolated incident" caused by an "issue with a batch of testing chemicals" which had affected tests taken across the UK.
> It is "being fully investigated to ensure this does not happen again," the department said.
> Mr Larcombe's daughter has now received a negative result after taking a second test on Thursday.
> "Given that [the government] have just decided to put the whole of Kent in tier 3, you just wonder, is their modelling flawed," he said.
> Asked if the 1,311 incorrect results would affect regional figures for infection rates, which are represented as the number of cases per 100,000 people, DHSC issued a statement saying: "Any impact on regional figures would be minimal, but in any event this incident was taken into account when the tiering discussions took place."


----------



## thismoment (Nov 28, 2020)

.


----------



## thismoment (Nov 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid: People in tier two 'will have to leave pub after meal'
> 
> 
> People can only drink when eating, under new restrictions, the prime minister's spokesman confirms.
> ...



How can they say that there are clear about something and use the word believe in the sentence. Belief is subjective isn’t?

_The prime minister's official spokesman, asked how long drinkers can stay in a pub after buying a meal, said: "We've been clear that,* in tier two I believe*, that you need to have a substantial meal if ordering any alcohol and it remains the case that the guidance says that once the meal is finished, it is at that point [you have to leave]."_


----------



## AverageJoe (Nov 28, 2020)

Don't eat the meal. Stay for longer


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 28, 2020)

I said this on another thread but stupid rules invoke stupid responses.


----------



## TopCat (Nov 28, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Don't eat the meal. Stay for longer


Have staff coming over and telling you to keep eating.


----------



## AverageJoe (Nov 28, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Have staff coming over and telling you to keep eating.



Wouldn't happen would it.


----------



## Boudicca (Nov 28, 2020)

A lot of the restaurants here now book you into a time slot.  Someone on Trip Advisor was having a bit of a go at a restaurant which only gave you an hour, but they have changed it now to 1.5 hours (for lunch) which seems OK.  

So you don't put the last mouthful in until your time slot is nearly finished.


----------



## killer b (Nov 28, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I said this on another thread but stupid rules invoke stupid responses.


anything that doesn't let you behave as you normally would in the pub is going to feel stupid - but what's the alternative?


----------



## nagapie (Nov 28, 2020)

Independent Sage this week is on schools. 10% of the student population out of schools due to covid. Lots of good suggestions of how to improve things without shutting schools that will never happen because of our criminal government.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 28, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Independent Sage this week is on schools. 10% of the student population out of schools due to covid. Lots of good suggestions of how to improve things without shutting schools that will never happen because of our criminal government.


agreed.
this gov't is too much "in hock" to the business world, which needs people working to keep their profits up, people can't work if they have to look after their sprogs, ergo keep the schools open.
a problem with that approach is that older children are also catching covid ...


----------



## nagapie (Nov 28, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I was just coming here to post that beeb story ...
> 
> agreed.
> this gov't is too much "in hock" to the business world, which needs people working to keep their profits up, people can't work if they have to look after their sprogs, ergo keep the schools open.
> a problem with that approach is that older children are also catching covid ...


There was plenty of suggestion about how to keep schools open more safely to avoid the social fallout caused by closing them. But the government will not even acknowledge the issues because then they'd have to act, they are deliberately concealing the evidence.


----------



## 2hats (Nov 28, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Independent Sage this week is on schools. 10% of the student population out of schools due to covid. Lots of good suggestions of how to improve things without shutting schools that will never happen because of our criminal government.


Was it really?


StoneRoad said:


> a problem with that approach is that older children are also catching covid ...


A problem with that approach is that, like adults, children of all ages can catch and spread SARS-CoV-2. A *small* number of children develop COVID-19 (risk of developing serious _disease/dying_ typically dropping with age; for deaths between/across sub-15 y.o. age cohorts the difference is close to negligible).


----------



## Doodler (Nov 28, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Wouldn't happen would it.



It did all the time in Wong Kei, aka 'London's rudest restaurant': "You go now!"


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2020)

A copy of this newspaper should be shown to every one of those Tory rebel MPs, then it should be rolled-up and shoved up their arses. 



> A 'major incident' has been declared within the critical care unit at the Royal Stoke as more seriously-ill coronavirus patients are being transferred to hospitals across the West Midlands.
> 
> The critical care unit has seen its alert level increased from three to four as the Royal Stoke University Hospital last night had 38 Covid-19 patients on ventilators.
> 
> ...











						Major incident declared at Royal Stoke as 38 38 Covid patients in critical care
					

The level four alert affects critical care as more Covid patients are sent across the West Midlands




					www.stokesentinel.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Nov 28, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I honestly wonder whether a lot of MPs believe in the future at all. If there was a hurricane warning they'd be wandering around outside saying "well it's not even breezy, can't go boarding things up, what about the economy eh?"
> 
> I mean I know the Cabinet's attitude is frequently that the consequences of what you do don't matter as long as you can spin your way out of them when the time comes. But I wonder whether this has gone on so long that there's a basic conceptual problem now.



Even Gove is forced to resort to saying sensible things when trying to appeal for sense from the deluded tory backbenchers.









						Covid: Hospitals could be overwhelmed without new tiers, says Gove
					

Michael Gove warns MPs strict rules are still needed in England despite lockdown ending on 2 December.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> "The tiers we had in place before the lockdown had not suppressed [Covid] sufficiently: they were neither strong enough to reduce social contact sufficiently, nor applied widely enough to contain the virus's spread," he wrote.
> 
> He added that, across the UK, about 16,000 beds are filled with Covid-19 patients, compared to a peak in April of almost 20,000 and a low of 740 on 11 September.
> 
> "When the country is facing such a national crisis, the truth is that all of us who have been elected to Parliament, not just ministers, must take responsibility for difficult decisions," he said.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 28, 2020)

And people (in general) need to take proper care by following the rules ...

A lot of cases would be avoided if people did that.

Even keeping to the simplistic "Hands, Face, Space" would make a difference, if everybody was doing it.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 28, 2020)

Fucking cunts


----------



## magneze (Nov 28, 2020)

There's a livestream if you've watched all of Netflix.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 28, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Fucking cunts



Doesn't anyone wear masks in London?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Doesn't anyone wear masks in London?



Not when they are marching against wearing them.


----------



## maomao (Nov 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not when they are marching against wearing them.


There'll be plenty of anti mask nutters there but it's an anti lockdown march and there'll be plenty who are okay with masks but not other restrictions too. In my experience masks aren't widely worn outdoors nor are they required to be.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 28, 2020)

Father Xmas gets arrested 😂 😂 😂


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not when they are marching against wearing them.


There were people crossing through the march and obviously not on it who didnt have masks on.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 28, 2020)

maomao said:


> There'll be plenty of anti mask nutters there but it's an anti lockdown march and there'll be plenty who are okay with masks but not other restrictions too. In my experience masks aren't widely worn outdoors nor are they required to be.


Compulsory here if you cant socially distance on the streets


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2020)

Oh great, swans are dying all over the place, because of an outbreak of bird flu in the UK. 

Poultry farms are being locked down.

Just fuck off 2020.   









						Bird flu: Swan deaths in UK investigated for link to European outbreak - reports
					

Some dying swans were found spinning in circles and bleeding from the nostrils, according to a report.




					news.sky.com


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh great, swans are dying all over the place, because of an outbreak of bird flu in the UK.
> 
> Poultry farms are being locked down.
> 
> ...


Maybe this needs it's own thread. An uncontrolled bird flu pandemic would be a civilisation ending event, luckily it doesn't transmit efficiently between humans really.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 28, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Compulsory here if you cant socially distance on the streets


Not here except indoors in certain circumstances, and even then, not really. I mean technically the guidance is to distance at all times, but you are actually required by law to wear masks in shops too and loads of people don't and nothing happens to them.


----------



## David Clapson (Nov 28, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Not here except indoors in certain circumstances, and even then, not really. I mean technically the guidance is to distance at all times, but you are actually required by law to wear masks in shops too and loads of people don't and nothing happens to them.


In Brixton lots of the staff don't, even in the major retailers.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 28, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> In Brixton lots of the staff don't, even in the major retailers.


Staff are exempt from the law anyway, it's just customers.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 28, 2020)

We had some beautiful swans on the lake in a park near us and they all died this week with that bloody flu.  The lake has all been cordoned off now and you can't walk anywhere near it in case you step in bird flu lurgy and tramp it elsewhere.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Not here except indoors in certain circumstances, and even then, not really. I mean technically the guidance is to distance at all times, but you are actually* required by law to wear masks in shops too and loads of people don't *and nothing happens to them.



In *some areas, *which seems to be areas of fairly high infection rates, judging by posts on here & media reports. 

Around here over 99% of people do, which I am sure is part of the reason we are now down to under 40 cases per 100k.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Staff are exempt from the law anyway, it's just customers.


 
No they are not, that changed well before lockdown 2.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> No they are not, that changed well before lockdown 2.


I am pretty sure that they still are. Either that or literally every shop here, including the big chains, is breaking the law constantly.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh great, swans are dying all over the place, because of an outbreak of bird flu in the UK.
> 
> Poultry farms are being locked down.
> 
> ...


Bad news all round ..


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I am pretty sure that they still are. Either that or literally every shop here, including the big chains, is breaking the law constantly.



Well you are wrong, and yes they are breaking the law.

Again, around here shop staff are wearing masks, unless behind plastic screens on the tills, and even then some are.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 28, 2020)

56,030 UK peeps have died now within 28 days of a positive covid test. 
Many more if you look at excess deaths.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well you are wrong, and yes they are breaking the law.
> 
> Again, around here shop staff are wearing masks, unless behind plastic screens on the tills, and even then some are.


This is the point where you cite the actual law. I could well not be up to date.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 28, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Not here except indoors in certain circumstances, and even then, not really. I mean technically the guidance is to distance at all times, but you are actually required by law to wear masks in shops too and loads of people don't and nothing happens to them.



Here if you haven’t got a mask they won’t serve you and the local Police inspect premises . I haven’t ever seen anyone kick off about it , they just go. By and large bars remind you to put a mask on moving about inside , some stricter than others . Don’t have to wear a mask in bars or cafes if you sit outside in the sheltered area. Fortunate where I am that infections are very low .Tbh it’s the economic downturn with long term lay offs that mean the bars and cafes don’t have many people in them .


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> This is the point where you cite the actual law. I could well not be up to date.



This report is dated 22nd Sept.





__





						Face masks made compulsory for retail workers from this week - Retail Gazette
					

Prime minister Boris Johnson has said that all retail workers will need to wear face coverings from this week, or businesses face fines of up to £10,000.




					www.retailgazette.co.uk


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This report is dated 22nd Sept.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


not a law

he says a lot of things


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 28, 2020)

Breaking news just now quoted on LBC and I wasn’t paying attention as the presenter began, but the PM has said the forthcoming tier system has a ‘sunset of 3 February 2021’


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> not a law
> 
> he says a lot of things



It became a legal requirement, at the same time that pubs were made to close at 10pm by law



> “From Thursday, we will extend the requirement to wear face coverings to include staff in retail, all users of taxis and private-hire vehicles and staff and customers in indoor hospitality, except when seated at a table to eat or drink,” Johnson said.
> 
> *“In retail, leisure and tourism and other sectors, our Covid-secure guidelines will become legal obligations.”*


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 28, 2020)

I actually found the specific law by looking on my own - it _has_ been amended, I was wrong. (The amendment covers any staff member who "is in any part of a relevant place listed in Schedule 3 which is open to the public, and comes or likely to come within close contact of any member of the public".)

The thing is that it makes no difference so why does it matter? People go into shops all the time without masks. Staff wander around with their noses hanging out. Nothing happens. I mean apart from virus transmission of course.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Nov 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It became a legal requirement, at the same time that pubs were made to close at 10pm by law


A statement by Boris Johnson is not a law. This is something that the cops and press, for example, have found hard to deal with, particularly in lockdown 1, where he said you could only go out once a day.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I actually found the specific law by looking on my own - it _has_ been amended, I was wrong. (The amendment covers any staff member who "is in any part of a relevant place listed in Schedule 3 which is open to the public, and comes or likely to come within close contact of any member of the public".)
> 
> *The thing is that it makes no difference so why does it matter? People go into shops all the time without masks. Staff wander around with their noses hanging out*. Nothing happens. I mean apart from virus transmission of course.



Which part of 'some areas' are struggling to understand? 

That maybe the case in London, and other areas with fairly high infection rates, it is not the case everywhere, some areas don't have so many fucking dickheads, hence most people comply, and it results in far lower infection rates.


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 28, 2020)

Where I work (a large supermarket) all staff must wear masks unless exempt, visors alone are not acceptable face coverings. Cashiers working behind a Perspex screen may choose not to wear a face covering ONLY whilst behind the screen - almost all staff do still wear them. My own feeling is that my face mask helps prevent my exhaled droplets from landing on the customer’s groceries as I scan them, a visor protects my face from droplets exhaled by the customer who is standing much higher than my seated position. The perplex screens are reassuring but customers do lean around them!

We have had occasional unannounced visits from the police, and have been congratulated on the level of compliance.


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 28, 2020)

COVID-19: Boris Johnson tells Tory MPs tiered restrictions 'have a sunset of 3 February'
					

The PM has angered some of his party with a plan to impose stringent restrictions across much of England after lockdown.




					news.sky.com


----------



## thismoment (Nov 28, 2020)

20Bees said:


> Breaking news just now quoted on LBC and I wasn’t paying attention as the presenter began, but the PM has said the forthcoming tier system has a *‘sunset of *3 February 2021’
> [/QUOTE
> 
> the language is maddening!!


----------



## ska invita (Nov 29, 2020)

Always worth checking the lead story in the Sunday Times
This is quite a big one if true









						Boris Johnson in retreat as Tory revolt over Covid lockdown tiers rocks No 10
					

Boris Johnson capitulated to Tory MPs last night, announcing that he would reform his new coronavirus crackdown before Christmas after threats by backbenchers t




					www.thetimes.co.uk


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Always worth checking the lead story in the Sunday Times
> This is quite a big one if true
> 
> 
> ...


80 seat majority ?


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 29, 2020)




----------



## David Clapson (Nov 29, 2020)

I keep seeing people claiming Covid is no more fatal than flu, so I tried to look up the latest numbers. In England and Wales during the first 8 months of this year, 394 people died of flu and 48,168 died of Covid.  Deaths due to coronavirus (COVID-19) compared with deaths from influenza and pneumonia, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics So Covid is more than a hundred times worse. Would that look good on a placard at a Covid hoax demo?


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Maybe this needs it's own thread. An uncontrolled bird flu pandemic would be a civilisation ending event, luckily it doesn't transmit efficiently between humans really.



I dont think there are any respiratory disease threats on the radar that I would automatically describe as a civilisation ending event. 

One key unknown factor is that in order to determine how deadly a bird flu pandemic would be, we would need to wait and see what a strain that had adapted to spread more effectively between humans was actually like in terms of infection fatality rate, hospitalisation rate etc.

Also 'bird flu' is a name that has been attached to a number of very different influenza strains this century. The most recent outbreaks and concern are about a H5N8 strain I believe. Most of what I learnt about bird flu in the past was in regards to the H5N1 strain, so I have quite some catching up to do regarding H5N8.


----------



## Badgers (Nov 29, 2020)

Can't wait to get back in the pubs


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 29, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> A statement by Boris Johnson is not a law. This is something that the cops and press, for example, have found hard to deal with, particularly in lockdown 1, where he said you could only go out once a day.



I think it was Gove who said you could only excercise outside for a period of one hour. That never had any basis in law either.


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Always worth checking the lead story in the Sunday Times
> This is quite a big one if true
> 
> 
> ...



I am not currently treating this news (varieties of which have now been reported widely) as significant. There will be several opportunities for me to change my mind on that in future, for example if they make a load of obviously political decisions next time they review the tiers in mid December, or if they actually bring the system to a premature end in early February. But for now I just file it under 'Johnson flounders around and tries to push the rebellion off to a future date'.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 29, 2020)

This bird flu business is taking hold, I see on the BBC it's been detected in a turkey farm in Yorkshire and all the birds will have to be culled.


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2020)

Espresso said:


> This bird flu business is taking hold, I see on the BBC it's been detected in a turkey farm in Yorkshire and all the birds will have to be culled.



That strain of bird flu remains firmly in the 'disease with immediate consequences for the poultry industry' but where broader public health issues have not even reached first base. Because we lack evidence of this strain infecting humans, and past studies of this strain imply that it remains well adapted to birds rather than mammals. Which still requires vigilance from authorities and industries, and continued tracking of outbreaks and the evolution of the virus. But not a situation that I or anyone else should assume will turn into a disease that affects humans, otherwise I could have spent this whole century fretting that this or one of the other multitude of strains of bird flu was about to lead to an imminent pandemic. And that would not be a sustainable form of assumption or level of vigilance, credibility would quickly erode once these threats failed to deliver in a timely way. Even H5N1 bird flu, which did manage to cause some human infections, outbreaks and deaths, in a bunch of countries from 2003 onwards, and thus was well past first base, did not go far in a direction that made me think a pandemic was highly likely and imminent, although I had a different opinion when first learning about that strain, before I became more clued up. And such assessments can always change, especially with influenza that has reassortment potential where different strains can borrow parts from other strains when co-infection of both strains occurs within one host, so we do need suitable expert vigilance and monitoring of these things. But one of the reasons I learnt about pandemics and respiratory diseases in the first place was so that I would have a better idea of when the right time for me to be concerned and share those concerns is, so I dont run myself ragged with false alarms.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 29, 2020)

I made no mention of it spreading to humans, sorry if you thought that's what I meant. But it's been mentioned in this thread earlier and I was sad to see the local swans dying of it and I think it's a terrible thing for all the farmers who might have been hoping for a bit of cheer and a few quid after such a drastic year.


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2020)

I know but I feel bound to say those things because when the subject comes up in a thread like this one, I make assumptions about what will be on some peoples minds. There are a lot of people out there who wont have paid much attention to such things in the past, but have new found vigilance in these areas because of the pandemic we've found ourselves with this year.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> I know but I feel bound to say those things because when the subject comes up in a thread like this one, I make assumptions about what will be on some peoples minds. There are a lot of people out there who wont have paid much attention to such things in the past, but have new found vigilance in these areas because of the pandemic we've found ourselves with this year.


aye, I agree - especially as I understood that this plague is thought to have spread from a wet market, and one dealing with live wildlife ...


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 29, 2020)

Covid restrictions will have an effect on flu as well, so it isn't such a serious issue for humans. Terrible news for farmers and wildlife tho


----------



## Mation (Nov 29, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Covid restrictions will have an effect on flu as well, so it isn't such a serious issue for humans. Terrible news for farmers and wildlife tho


This strain of flu hasn't been known to infect humans (afaik), so that's why it isn't as serious an issue for all, rather than because of the knock-on effects of covid restrictions. Some bird flu viruses do cause human epidemics or pandemics, but (so far) this isn't one of them.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2020)

The latest Imperial College London REACT study findings are out, covering the 2 weeks ending 24/11, it shows we've stopped cases increasing, they were doubling every 9 days, and instead seen a reduction of 30% in new cases, with the 'R' number estimated at 0.88. 



> Swab tests on over 105,000 people as part of a major research study have shown that coronavirus infections are declining in England.
> 
> An interim report from the REACT programme, which includes results from home coronavirus tests taken between 13th and 24th November, shows that an estimated 0.96% of England’s population has the virus, or around 1 in 100 people.
> 
> This is roughly a 30% drop in the number of infections compared with previous findings, where more than 1 in 80 or 1.3% of people had the virus as of 2nd November.



Let's hope the stronger tier system will continue to drive numbers down, before whatever clusterfuck is released over Christmas.









						Coronavirus prevalence has fallen nationally with R below 1, REACT study shows | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

Swab tests on over 105,000 people as part of a major research study have shown that coronavirus infections are declining in England.




					www.imperial.ac.uk


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Can't wait to get back in the pubs
> 
> View attachment 240946


The crowd in there is too young. I don’t think they check ID at all.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 30, 2020)

I can’t get past the paywall but it’s “no”, isn’t it?


----------



## tommers (Nov 30, 2020)

Those people aren't scientists.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 30, 2020)

tommers said:


> Those people aren't scientists.


They have lab coats.


----------



## killer b (Nov 30, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> They have lab coats.


he's in a lab coat, but her's is not like any lab coat_ I've _ever seen.

It looks like a screenshot from the opening scene of some corona-based porno


----------



## fishfinger (Nov 30, 2020)

Corona Boner: Look at the baubles on that!*










*tree


----------



## 2hats (Nov 30, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> I can’t get past the paywall but it’s “no”, isn’t it?


Broadly correct.


Spoiler: Should you visit your relatives for Christmas? What the scientists say (part 1)



Should you visit your relatives for Christmas? What the scientists say
The rules allow three bubbles to come together for five days, but is that a good idea? Three experts explain what they will be doing

Damian Whitworth
Monday November 30 2020, 12.01am, The Times

And so it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree that said there would be five days of Christmas. And some took these good tidings of great joy and went with the multitude that came forth unto a “bubble” (maximum two other families.)

But others were sore afraid and said: “Let us abide in the home, keeping watch over our flock and wait until next year when the virus might be gone away.”

Here is the Christmas coronavirus conundrum. The government says that from December 23 to 27 we can travel around freely and gather in three-household groups. But is that actually a good idea? We asked three experts on the virus what they are planning to do and for their advice to those who want to navigate the season in larger groups.

“I’m afraid that I can’t comprehend the calculation that argues that, faced with an ongoing winter crisis of a lethal virus that’s been destroying our lives and our livelihoods, we need to temporarily suspend the battle for the sake of Christmas,” says Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London. “I find this simply mind-boggling, and not just as one who is a rational scientist and an atheist. If other religions have had to devise distanced ways to deal with Eid, Diwali, Passover, Yom Kippur, why wasn’t this possible for Christmas? Will it have been worthwhile if the ITUs [intensive therapy units] start to fill up? So, ‘no’ to joint Christmas bubbles. Sorry to sound grumpy.”

Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh, says that ideally people wouldn’t mix, but “obviously there are circumstances where people would wish to and that’s fine. Mental health, depression, anxiety and loneliness are really important to consider. Those are other harms that we have to balance.”

Ian Jones, a professor of virology at Reading University, says that families should carefully assess the risks of meeting other households. “It can happen, but on a reduced scale. ‘Come round for a sherry,’ should be abandoned this year. Limited meetings will typically be with family groups that you have been in touch with routinely and where their history for the two weeks before the meeting is known. Generally these will be local, at the same tier level. Longer-distance interactions, especially from a high tier to a lower tier, should be limited. ‘See you when all this is over,’ would be the sensible option.”

Are you planning to meet other households?

“No. Christmas will be just our family,” Altmann says.

“Yes,” Jones says. “I will see my children and grandchildren, all of whom are local, but even that will be subject to the kids’ runny nose status at the time. I am sure it will be only this Christmas, and even if virus circulation is lower than today, which I hope will be the case in a month’s time, there will be a higher than normal risk for this time of year, which should factor in to anyone’s thinking.”

Bauld plans a visit to an uncle who lives in the Scottish Borders. “I would prioritise that. He lives alone. I have not seen him for months and I will go and see him either in a well-managed local café or for a walk. I can go in my own vehicle. Nobody else will be disadvantaged.”

Should we try to avoid including older and more vulnerable people in bubbles if possible?

“Completely and utterly. It would be incredibly cruel and inappropriate to endanger the elderly and vulnerable,” Altmann says.

Bauld says that it depends on how older and vulnerable relatives are managing nine months into the pandemic. “If you’ve got elderly relatives who live together and everybody’s comfortable that they’d rather err on the side of caution and not see each other face to face, and they’re not isolated and lonely, then yes, I think we should avoid seeing older and vulnerable relatives if we can. But there will be circumstances where the benefits of meeting outweigh the disadvantages.”

Jones says that when making a risk assessment we should remember that the overall goal is to keep virus circulation to a minimum. “But more personally, it would be awful for anyone to feel they brought the virus to someone who then suffers a serious bout of illness.”

Would you advise paying for a private Covid test before going into a Christmas bubble?

“If people want to take advantage of private testing, that’s fine,” Bauld says. “They need to recognise that a single test is not a foolproof indicator that they don’t have the virus.”

Altmann says that it could be a pragmatic step, but Jones disagrees. “Current over-the-counter prices effectively rule them out for many families, and in order for the concept to work you would need the group you are mixing with to also be tested. I think a mental risk assessment that errs on the side of caution is the most useful approach for most people under most circumstances.”

If a day trip is practical, is that better than staying overnight?

“Far better to try and have a brief visit because duration of contact, particularly indoors, is really important. We know from studies that the longer people are together, the greater the risk,” Bauld says.

Better still would be snacks and drinks in the garden, Altmann says.

“I doubt it makes much difference,” Jones says. “The time of contact with an infected individual is a factor in transmission, but it is very hard to quantify in everyday circumstances. If there is a risk then you place yourself or others in it as soon as you meet, and it remains in place until you leave. The much more important decision is whether to go at all.”

If local hotels are open, would it be better to stay in one to reduce exposure to others during a stay?

Bauld thinks that it might be a good idea if visiting older and more vulnerable family members.

Altmann agrees, as long as the hotel allows for proper social distancing from other guests.

Jones says that the issues around distancing from strangers makes this a complicated calculation, “and unless there is a really pressing need I think the situation is best avoided”.

Would you travel by public transport to visit relatives or during the run-up to a visit?

“No,” says Altmann, who adds that parents collecting students from university by car should wear a mask and so should their offspring. “Because of cases at my son’s school, we’ve been doing the school run in masks and with all car windows open.”

Bauld says that visiting relatives by car is preferable to a train or a bus, “while recognising that some people don’t have that luxury, and remembering we are being advised only to share private vehicles with household members”.

Jones says that as long as you follow the guidelines travelling on public transport should not matter. “I continue to commute by train. The carriages are relatively empty, there is regular cleaning and the majority of travellers are masked. Contrast that with a long car journey with petrol, coffee and pee breaks. A clear either/or is simply not possible, but public transport does not come out badly.”

Should we maintain social distancing while in the bubble?

Yes, as far as possible, Altmann suggests.

Bauld describes as “hilarious” a recommendation in America last week that Thanksgiving guests should be spread through different rooms in a house when eating dinner. “You can see that in a ranch-style American house, but if you’re in a two-up two-down in Canterbury it’s not really an option.”

Jones is sceptical about the practicality of social distancing in a Christmas bubble. “For me that gets a bit silly. You make your decision to meet and then wear a mask and sit at the opposite end of the room? The decision to meet or not meet should be the focus, not some sort of fudged halfway house.”

Will you be hugging anyone from outside your household in a “Christmas bubble”?

“No, unfortunately,” Bauld says.

“Other than immediate family, once we have decided to meet — no,” Jones says.

“Definitely not,” says Altmann, whose house will be free of mistletoe. “Looking a bit like we may not even get a tree — minimising unnecessary shopping!”

Will you sit down for a meal with those who are not normally in your household?

“No,” say all three of our experts. “But I completely understand the circumstances where people would. Just make sure one person is in the kitchen and takes responsibility there, and try to avoid, in terms of your seating, having people from different households facing one another,” Bauld says.

“As long as the risk assessment is done, I think it could happen,” Jones says.

In America at Thanksgiving the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recommended taking your own food, drink, plates, cups and utensils to dinner. Is this a good idea for Christmas lunch?

“Not a bad idea,” Altmann says.

“Really maintain high hand hygiene when you’re in somebody else’s home, but avoiding sharing cutlery and dishes is a good idea,” Bauld says.

“Not for me,” Jones says. “The relative level of virus transmission via inanimate surfaces, compared to aerosols, is low, and if we think that most of what we use will have come out of a dishwasher, I don’t think there are any additional risks. If the household has an infection, that is the risk, so again the yes/no decision to meet is the critical one. If you are alarmed and are going to feel threatened whenever you touch something, don’t go.”


----------



## 2hats (Nov 30, 2020)

Spoiler: part 2



Should we maximise ventilation by opening windows?

“Very much so,” Altmann says.

Keep a window open, Bauld advises.

“If you are stuffy, yes. But it won’t have any impact on the virus,” Jones says. “The household will have an infection or not, and if it does you cannot shoo it out of the window.”

Any rules on sharing bathrooms in an expanded bubble?

“No change of normal hygiene practices is required,” Jones says. “If the household has an infection the risk is present whatever you do.”

However, Altmann says that it is worth keeping a window open and leaving a few minutes between each visitor to the bathroom.

“When flushing the toilet close the lid,” Bauld says.

Should we go a bit easier on the booze this year?

Bauld suggests that overindulging can leave you run-down and compromise immunity as well as clouding judgment in a way that reduces effective social distancing, especially as an evening gets later. “If you can go for your visit earlier in the day, that means alcohol is less a part of the equation.”

Jones says that he’d be surprised “if anyone felt like bingeing this year. But the obvious advice year-round on general health grounds is St Paul’s: take only ‘a little wine’.”


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 30, 2020)

killer b said:


> he's in a lab coat, but her's is not like any lab coat_ I've _ever seen.
> 
> It looks like a screenshot from the opening scene of some corona-based porno


I knew it was familiar.


----------



## Espresso (Nov 30, 2020)

Putting your finger on the end of a pipette to stop the liquid flowing back into the flask is what you do when you've used your mouth to suck the liquid up there in the first place.
That was out of date when I was last in a lab, which must be thirty years ago. Before yon pair in that photo were even born. So nope, they're not scientists. And nor is whoever told the models what to do in that photo. 
Go on, you're surprised.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 30, 2020)

Is anyone claiming they are scientists? As far as I can see, they are the relatives who you should or shouldn't see at christmas.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 30, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Is anyone claiming they are scientists? As far as I can see, they are the relatives who you should or shouldn't see at christmas.


It is hard to escape the idea that, by dressing a couple of people up in white coats and safety glasses, and giving them laboratory glassware to play with, all above a headline about what the scientists think, they are suggesting that the image is meant to represent scientists.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2020)

danny la rouge said:


> They have lab coats.



I have a lab coat, but I am certainly not a scientist.

* Left over from when I was press-ganged into being on the hospital's carnival float, a couple of years ago.


----------



## tommers (Nov 30, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Is anyone claiming they are scientists? As far as I can see, they are the relatives who you should or shouldn't see at christmas.



They look like a lot of fun.  I'd go round.


----------



## danny la rouge (Nov 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I have a lab coat, but I am certainly not a scientist.
> 
> * Left over from when I was press-ganged into being on the hospital's carnival float, a couple of years ago.


Lyrics from the Killers’ first draft.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 30, 2020)

existentialist said:


> It is hard to escape the idea that, by dressing a couple of people up in white coats and safety glasses, and giving them laboratory glassware to play with, all above a headline about what the scientists think, they are suggesting that the image is meant to represent scientists.


The headline also mentions visiting relatives, and the background to the photo is a christmas tree in some kind of ostentatious living room. They are clearly not in a laboratory, nor do they appear to be doing any kind of serious work, so I don't see why anyone would assume they are scientists. It seems much more likely that they are relatives who have recieved a chemistry set as a christmas gift.

It seems that some people really are focused on finding controversy where there is none.


----------



## andysays (Nov 30, 2020)

teuchter said:


> ...It seems that some people really are focused on finding controversy where there is none.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2020)

Wales is going back into a semi-lockdown, with pubs etc. having to close by 6 pm, and a ban on them selling alcohol. 



> Mr Drakeford said: ‘From 6pm on Friday, our national measures will be amended to introduce new restrictions for hospitality and indoor entertainment attractions. ‘Pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes will have to close by 6pm and will not be allowed to serve alcohol. After 6pm they will only be able to provide takeaway services.
> 
> ‘From the same date, indoor entertainment venues, including cinemas, bingo halls, bowling alleys, soft play centres, casinos, skating rinks and amusement arcades, must close.’
> 
> He also defended the implementation of the firebreak lockdown and said it had ‘delivered’ everything the country had hoped for – but suggested the country could have come out of the measures into harsher restrictions. ‘Numbers have gone up faster than we had anticipated or hoped’, he added suggesting that is why today’s action was needed.











						Pubs ordered to close by 6pm from Friday as Wales enters new lockdown
					

There is also a total ban on alcohol sales just three weeks after a 'firebreak' lockdown in the country ended.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## BristolEcho (Nov 30, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Is anyone claiming they are scientists? As far as I can see, they are the relatives who you should or shouldn't see at christmas.



If they were my relatives then I think I'd avoid them for Christmas. 



andysays said:


>


 And this.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 30, 2020)

We're staying at home this year. The household is just two couples and the dog, anyway.

Neither couple will be visiting siblings this solstice. Possible parcels and zoom ...
Real life visits are definitely not happening until after everybody has had their jabs, plus the waiting period to allow immunity to build up.
So next year, around March, maybe ?

The staff in my little business are going to get a buffet in the workshop a few days before the seasonal break, but no booze and socially distanced.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Wales is going back into a semi-lockdown, with pubs etc. having to close by 6 pm, and a ban on them selling alcohol.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Really need a discussion on the 1881 Sunday Closing (Wales) Act


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 30, 2020)

No vegan option though









						Covid-19: Drinkers in tier two 'could order Scotch egg' as substantial meal
					

They would count as a "substantial meal" under new rules for parts of England, a minister says.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## Badgers (Nov 30, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> No vegan option though
> 
> 
> 
> ...


_Downing Street has not ruled out tier two drinkers being able to order a Scotch egg, but would not set out the difference between a snack and a meal_

FFS


----------



## Raheem (Nov 30, 2020)

Presumably a snack would be a boiled egg.


----------



## Pickman's model (Nov 30, 2020)

Badgers said:


> _Downing Street has not ruled out tier two drinkers being able to order a Scotch egg, but would not set out the difference between a snack and a meal_
> 
> FFS


no one in downing street has cheese and beans on a jacket potato, they all have either beans or cheese. they're that shite.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 30, 2020)

Beginning to wonder if our great leaders actually want to save the nation from covid.

From here, it doesn't look like it !


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 30, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Presumably a snack would be a boiled egg.



not in a pub !
pickled egg, surely


----------



## Raheem (Nov 30, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> not in a pub !
> pickled egg, surely


Pickled egg would be pudding.


----------



## prunus (Nov 30, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The headline also mentions visiting relatives, and the background to the photo is a christmas tree in some kind of ostentatious living room. They are clearly not in a laboratory, nor do they appear to be doing any kind of serious work, so I don't see why anyone would assume they are scientists. It seems much more likely that they are relatives who have recieved a chemistry set as a christmas gift.
> 
> It seems that some people really are focused on finding controversy where there is none.



The (clean room level 2 containment) lab I worked in always had an open fire going and a 10 foot tree in the corner.

We’d only decorate it at Christmas though - we weren’t maniacs.


----------



## ddraig (Nov 30, 2020)

Wales pubs have to shut from 6pm from Friday! eek
Hope it works








						Covid: Alcohol ban for Welsh pubs and restaurants from Friday
					

Pubs and restaurants will have to shut at 6pm and will not be able to serve alcoholic drinks.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Nov 30, 2020)

Are pickled eggs still popular in upmarket bars? I remember them going through a bit of a weird renaissance about a decade ago - it never struck me as a trend with staying power tho...


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 30, 2020)

killer b said:


> Are pickled eggs still popular in upmarket bars? I remember them going through a bit of a weird renaissance about a decade ago - it never struck me as a trend with staying power tho...


in the  pub under Stockport Viaduct they've always done pickled eggs, pork pies  and some really good pork scratchings . Obviously they are in tier 3 but when that's lifted that's a pretty good three course meal with a couple of pints.


----------



## killer b (Nov 30, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> in the  pub under Stockport Viaduct they've always done pickled eggs, pork pies  and some really good pork scratchings . Obviously they are in tier 3 but when that's lifted that's a pretty good three course meal with a couple of pints.


sure, but places like the Port Street Beerhouse and The Castle and whatnot were doing artisan pickled eggs for a time - just wondering if that was sustained, or if they're back to being backstreet boozer barsnacks only again.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 30, 2020)

Hope may be just around the corner in Wales 









						Swansea trials to see if cold remedy from Boots can stop coronavirus
					

If successful it has the potential to add an extra prevention strategy to the fight against Covid-19




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 30, 2020)

killer b said:


> sure, but places like the Port Street Beerhouse and The Castle and whatnot were doing artisan pickled eggs for a time - just wondering if that was sustained, or if they're back to being backstreet boozer barsnacks only again.


I'll have to ask my future son in law he hangs around upmarket artisan places


----------



## xenon (Nov 30, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Wales pubs have to shut from 6pm from Friday! eek
> Hope it works
> 
> 
> ...



Is this because there's no central funding for businesses that have to close?  As on the face of it, it's a fucking stupid idea. Nobody goes to the pub for an orange juice and pie. Alright I know loads of people do but not enough to actually make a business viable. Stinks of we can't trust the prolls not to get pissed and fall all over each other, as well.


----------



## ddraig (Nov 30, 2020)

xenon said:


> Is this because there's no central funding for businesses that have to close?  As on the face of it, it's a fucking stupid idea. Nobody goes to the pub for an orange juice and pie. Alright I know loads of people do but not enough to actually make a business viable. Stinks of we can't trust the prolls not to get pissed and fall all over each other, as well.


Maybe
People do give far less of a shit when in pub pissed mind


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 30, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> No vegan option though
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This is what I was getting at when I said I thought it was a stupid rule and it will likely invoke a stupid response.  This is a very imperfect situation where very difficult decisions are having to be made with a fine balancing act but when you're attempting to legislates what constitutes a meal its probably time to take a step back because you should know you're not in a good place.

It just strikes me as muddled thinking because they are being told they should shut the cafes, pubs and restaurants but they don't want to.  I'm on several pubs mailing lists and the emails regarding reopening have been carefully worded but also quite cryptic.  They seem to be putting the responsibility onto the the customer.


----------



## killer b (Nov 30, 2020)

If the old tier three rules (now more or less the tier 2 rules) proved to be an effective enough dampening of demand and behaviour to bring infections under control - as it looks like they were - then it seems reasonable enough to me to allow pubs to open serving food. I'm not sure why they're being so coy about how a substantial meal should be defined though - perhaps it's to give the councils who're enforcing it a bit of leeway on what they allow and don't allow, I dunno.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2020)

The trade should be well versed in what a 'substantial meal' is, considering 16 & 17 year olds have been allowed alcoholic drinks with such meals for years.

No doubt a few will try it on, but I doubt most will risk the fines TBH.


----------



## Teaboy (Nov 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The trade should be well versed in what a 'substantial meal' is, considering 16 & 17 year olds have been allowed alcoholic drinks with such meals for years.
> 
> No doubt a few will try it on, but I doubt most will risk the fines TBH.



I don't think there is any risk of fines unless you completly and utterly take the piss because its virtually unenforceable.  And besides throughout this action has only been taken against the most obvious and consistent of rule breakers.


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The trade should be well versed in what a 'substantial meal' is, considering 16 & 17 year olds have been allowed alcoholic drinks with such meals for years.
> 
> No doubt a few will try it on, but I doubt most will risk the fines TBH.


Isnt the 16/17 year old thing actually at the landlords discretion?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 30, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Beginning to wonder if our great leaders actually want to save the nation from covid.
> 
> From here, it doesn't look like it !



Once in a lifetime chance to solve the pension crisis and just kill the elderly off.


----------



## killer b (Nov 30, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Isnt the 16/17 year old thing actually at the landlords discretion?


everything served in a pub is at the landlord's discretion isn't it?


----------



## The39thStep (Nov 30, 2020)

killer b said:


> everything served in a pub is at the landlord's discretion isn't it?


or everyone yes.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2020)

The fucking LibDems are going to join with Tory rebels in not voting for the new restrictions tomorrow.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 30, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The headline also mentions visiting relatives, and the background to the photo is a christmas tree in some kind of ostentatious living room. They are clearly not in a laboratory, nor do they appear to be doing any kind of serious work, so I don't see why anyone would assume they are scientists. It seems much more likely that they are relatives who have recieved a chemistry set as a christmas gift.
> 
> It seems that some people really are focused on finding controversy where there is none.


Oh, I wouldn't go as far as "controversy". I don't think laughing at clumsy representations of stereotypes is necessarily controversial. But yes, your explanation sounds eminently plausible, and I am grateful to you for opening my eyes to that alternative viewpoint.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2020)

Are we all sitting comfortably?

Covid press briefing is about to start.


----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The fucking LibDems are going to join with Tory rebels in not voting for the new restrictions tomorrow.



I havent looked into this yet but maybe they are bitter that the R for number of Lib Dems in parliament has been below 1 for quite some time.


----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Are we all sitting comfortably?
> 
> Covid press briefing is about to start.



Not sure if I will get through the whole thing today, since its Hat Mancock and General Giant Pockets.


----------



## prunus (Nov 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The fucking LibDems are going to join with Tory rebels in not voting for the new restrictions tomorrow.



Surely doesn’t make any actual difference? There can’t be more that what, 6, 7 of them. Let them have their fun.


----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2020)

Oh its not General Giant-Pockets at the press conference, I got my pandemic military bods mixed up.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2020)

prunus said:


> Surely doesn’t make any actual difference? There can’t be more that what, 6, 7 of them. Let them have their fun.



I thought that, but it's actually 11 now, almost enough to fill a mini-bus. 

But, yeah, it'll not  make any actual difference, just gives us another excuse to point and laugh at them.


----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2020)

Powis answered a question about what proportion of hospitalised people who test positive for Covid-19 are in hospital for a non-Covid-19 reason by doing the usual dance around the subject of hospital infections without actually drawing attention to that possibility.


----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2020)

The use of Liverpool to demonstrate that mass community testing/testing of asymptomatic people was a great success is unsafe, since that was not the only change in measures/behaviours taking place there at the time. And I say that as a fan of mass and asymptomatic testing, or as the government now want it to be referred to, community testing.


----------



## frogwoman (Nov 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The fucking LibDems are going to join with Tory rebels in not voting for the new restrictions tomorrow.


Lol what's their justification for this


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Lol what's their justification for this



Getting some media attention.


----------



## andysays (Nov 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Lol what's their justification for this






> Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey





> has said his party is prepared not to back the government's "arbitrary" and "chaotic" new tier system for England in a vote on Tuesday.





> He wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to say his party's 11 MPs would not support the plan unless a number of demands were met, including publishing the scientific evidence behind the system, setting out a clearer exit strategy and providing extra financial support to pubs.





> In a statement, Davey added: "As it stands, we cannot in all conscience vote for this unsafe plan."



But mostly what cupid_stunt said


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 30, 2020)

Some stuff from the beeb
Coronavirus: Government publishes data behind stricter tiers - BBC News 

which references this report
Analysis of the health, economic and social effects of COVID-19 and the approach to tiering (publishing.service.gov.uk) 

I would like to get members of that group of tories in a corner.
They seem immune to the loss of life, and are only concerned for loss of £££s by their "mates".


----------



## LDC (Nov 30, 2020)

Labour abstaining from supporting the new Tier restrictions?!


----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2020)

I havent read it yet but I was looking for that, so cheers for the links.

A BBC article late last night accidentally referred to those MPs as the Covid Research Group instead of the Covid Recovery Group, which is not surprising given the various similarities to the European Research Group. They've since fixed that error.


----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Labour abstaining from supporting the new Tier restrictions?!



They probably want to be in a position to criticise the new tier system if it falls well short of what's required, without it being pointed out that they voted in favour of it.

It wont stop it getting through will it?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Labour abstaining from supporting the new Tier restrictions?!



Sounds like both the LibDems & Labour don't want to upset their voters that are against the tiers their local areas are being placed in, whilst having the cover that it'll make no difference to the outcome of the vote.

Basically playing politics, instead of doing the decent thing.


----------



## Mation (Nov 30, 2020)

andysays said:


> Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey


Who?

(Please don't waste any time answering this question.)


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 30, 2020)

Does a pint of Guinness count as a substantial meal?


----------



## Raheem (Nov 30, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Does a pint of Guinness count as a substantial meal?


No, one is a snack. You need four or five.


----------



## maomao (Nov 30, 2020)

Surely the substantialness of a meal depends on the eater as much as anything else. A scotch egg is a substantial meal for my five year old (though she'll have a fruit shoot not a beer) but I'd need half a dozen.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Does a pint of Guinness count as a substantial meal?



Only if there's a raw egg added to it.

* brings back nightmares of one of the crazy competitions at the ABC Radio Roadshow, back in the early 80s, when three volunteers came forward to drink a pint & raw egg to win a tenner, and one throw-up all over the stage.  I can't remember who ended-up clearing up that mess, but it wasn't me.


----------



## killer b (Nov 30, 2020)

I would not make any plans to be downwind of you for a while after you'd eaten that meal.


----------



## Sue (Nov 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Surely the substantialness of a meal depends on the eater as much as anything else. A scotch egg is a substantial meal for *my five year old (though she'll have a fruit shoot not a beer) *but I'd need half a dozen.


I'm glad you clarified... (Beer is wasted on children.)


----------



## Raheem (Nov 30, 2020)

Sue said:


> (Beer is wasted on children.)


And vice versa.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 30, 2020)

Raheem said:


> And vice versa.


----------



## weepiper (Nov 30, 2020)

Jungle drums tell me that vaccination is starting for medical staff in Edinburgh hospitals from the 7th.


----------



## Supine (Nov 30, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Jungle drums tell me that vaccination is starting for medical staff in Edinburgh hospitals from the 7th.



Yeah, FT reporting MHRA to give approval by Dec 7th for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It has also just started getting air freighted into the US for expected FDA approval by mid Dec.


----------



## xenon (Nov 30, 2020)

killer b said:


> I would not make any plans to be downwind of you for a while after you'd eaten that meal.



"Can you smell gas?"

/Alan Partridge


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Wales is going back into a semi-lockdown, with pubs etc. having to close by 6 pm, and a ban on them selling alcohol.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I wanted to react both  and  to that, but such is not possible from the 'likes' bit.

A facetious part of me thinks that Drakeford timed today's announcement deliberately to suit my personal convenience -- my *Dry December*, 1st to 23rd Dec., starts from tomorrow 

*But!* 

I was 'out and about'   tonight, the last day of November , and friends -- both 'just drinkers' and actual trade -- are *all *sad and depressed about it -- pubs stand to lose a lot of money, and even food-featuring pubs will lose out a fair bit because of on-premises alcohol sales not being possible.

There's no clarity here about when licenced premises can (properly   ) reopen -- there's supposed to be an update later this week, and I saw somewhere that a proper review might (?) emerge on 17th December (a Thursday  ... I wonder when the real, non-US, 'Black Friday' is  ???)

However, and _despite_ all the above, I *really do* agree (genuinely) with this (ultra) cautious approach from the Welsh Government ... I just hope the amount of business-support cash they're promising will be enough to stop a depressing number of pubs closing altogether ......


----------



## Chilli.s (Dec 1, 2020)

Reelly fancies a scotch egg


----------



## Hyperdark (Dec 1, 2020)

William of W, IMO calling the Welsh Gov's guidance ultra cautious just shows how little people are willing to accept personal responsibility (I call it guidance as it is barely and loosely enforced instead relying on people's sense of responsibility and consideration for others which as we all know is in short supply)

China had a real lockdown and it worked, largely destroying the arguements of businesses, Pub and restauraunt goers who say its not me gov whilst all around infections climb.
Nowhere in the west has done anything like it and nowhere in the West has it under control we will have wave after wave till the majik potion poofs itself into existance.
 Whilst I understand why,  the Term Lockdown being thrown around by the media to describe what is little more than very loose guidance, that is even more loosely interpreted is a nonsense.

Im very pro -  personal responsibility and not following rules for the sake of conformity, doesnt mean that some rules actually make sense


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 1, 2020)

Is it true you can drink alcohol ( without a substantial meal)  in cinemas, sports venues and theatres that are in Tier2 areas?


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

I reckon Burnham will have to stay on my list of pandemic cunts. Not because of reasonable comments about funding which I usually agree with, but because he so often feels the need to make disgusting claims about measures being too strict and it being some kind of avoidable punishment. Fucking cunt.









						Covid: Boris Johnson urges MPs to back tough tiers for England
					

The prime minister said the NHS remained under pressure, despite a four-week national lockdown.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Greater Manchester's Labour mayor Andy Burnham said the government was doing to the country in December what it did to Manchester in October which was to "railroad it into a punishing, underfunded lockdown".
> 
> He told the Today programme the government was "being too strict in December" to allow the rules to be relaxed for five days over Christmas, saying that "a more balanced approach should have been taken".


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sounds like both the LibDems & Labour don't want to upset their voters that are against the tiers their local areas are being placed in, whilst having the cover that it'll make no difference to the outcome of the vote.
> 
> Basically playing politics, instead of doing the decent thing.



They likely are playing politics because that's how things work in our country.  I have no doubt the tories would be making it ten times harder for any labour government trying to enact the exact same policy.  In fact it's very easy to see Johnson railing against the injustices of loss of liberty etc etc.

Thing is though this thread has expended a lot of energy on criticism of the government's handling of the pandemic from the start.  By any metric you care to use the UK figures are always amongst the worst in the world.  It seems rather odd, incongruous even that that we are now talking about just accepting whatever they've decided this week because it's for the greater good.  That doesn't seem a very healthy approach to me.

I really don't like the current strategy and it goes way beyond things like Scotch Eggs.  I believe there are better ways to save lives and still have some sort of future worth living for.  I wouldn't be able to support Government policy as its stands if I was to have to vote.  However, given the large majority the government has in the commons its going to pass anyway so abstaining in this regard is a means of registering protest whilst recognizing that there are no other good alternatives being made available.

I don't think blindly following this government is the doing the decent thing but likewise the only alternative to the new proposal is far worse.


----------



## andysays (Dec 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> I reckon Burnham will have to stay on my list of pandemic cunts. Not because of reasonable comments about funding which I usually agree with, but because he so often feels the need to make disgusting claims about measures being too strict and it being some kind of avoidable punishment. Fucking cunt.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Burnham appears to be attempting to make political capital out of this, presumably hoping to increase his vote for the future.

Not sure how well that will work if all his likely voters are dead from Covid19 though.


----------



## andysays (Dec 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> They likely are playing politics because that's how things work in our country.  I have no doubt the tories would be making it ten times harder for any labour government trying to enact the exact same policy.  In fact it's very easy to see Johnson railing against the injustices of loss of liberty etc etc.
> 
> Thing is though this thread has expended a lot of energy on criticism of the government's handling of the pandemic from the start.  By any metric you care to use the UK figures are always amongst the worst in the world.  It seems rather odd, incongruous even that that we are now talking about just accepting whatever they've decided this week because it's for the greater good.  That doesn't seem a very healthy approach to me.
> 
> ...


Don't see too many people here arguing we should be blindly and uncritically following the government line, TBH


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I don't think blindly following this government is the doing the decent thing but likewise the only alternative to the new proposal is far worse.



It's not just the UK government, it's agreed by all four nations.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Don't see too many people here arguing we should be blindly and uncritically following the government line, TBH



The post I was responding to?  The opposition parties are getting criticised (in the same language that Johnson uses) for not towing the line.


----------



## andysays (Dec 1, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> The post I was responding to?  The opposition parties are getting criticised (in the same language that Johnson uses) for not towing the line.


Not sure that's true, and it's "toeing" the line, not "towing"


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Not sure that's true, and it's "toeing" the line, not "towing"



Ok


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's not just the UK government, it's agreed by all four nations.



Oh this again.

Look, I have a memory, and I well remember that back near the start of this thing you had a 'trust the government' approach. And part of your framing at the time was to repeatedly point to agreement by all four nations when it suited your argument, as some kind of proof that the right thing was being done. And you would accuse the leaders of those nations of playing politics on the occasions where they publicly failed to agree with Johnson & Co.

I'm sure your impression of how good a job of handling this pandemic the Johnson government have managed has changed since then, but this basic game of accusing other of playing politics when it suits and pointing to the four nations agreement when that suits remains unchanged. I do not think this approach does justice to the issues, and indeed the claim that others are playing politics is usually a form of playing politics itself.


----------



## killer b (Dec 1, 2020)

I saw some stuff in the news the other day that suggested London was placed into tier 2 instead of tier 3 after aggressive lobbying about job losses in the hospitality and entertainments industry - while I'm not keen on the narrative of punishment many local leaders are leaning into, the question does need to be asked why these job losses are bearable in Manchester and Birmingham (and Preston, Lancaster, Leeds and Newcastle etc etc) but not in London.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's not just the UK government, it's agreed by all four nations.



I'm sure that Westminster will tell the other nations what to do.


----------



## killer b (Dec 1, 2020)

What is 'playing politics' anyway? It all just looks like 'politics' to me.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> Oh this again.
> 
> Look, I have a memory, and I well remember that back near the start of this thing you had a 'trust the government' approach. And part of your framing at the time was to repeatedly point to agreement by all four nations when it suited your argument, as some kind of proof that the right thing was being done. And you would accuse the leaders of those nations of playing politics on the occasions where they publicly failed to agree with Johnson & Co.
> 
> I'm sure your impression of how good a job of handling this pandemic the Johnson government have managed has changed since then, but this basic game of accusing other of playing politics when it suits and pointing to the four nations agreement when that suits remains unchanged. I do not think this approach does justice to the issues, and indeed the claim that others are playing politics is usually a form of playing politics itself.



That's somewhat unfair, my 'trust the government' approach was for a fucking very limited time, before it became clear a couple of weeks before lockdown that we were in a worst mess than the scientists had suggested. And, I don't recall accusing the leaders of the other nations of playing politics, well certainly not after the point I lost all faith in the UK government, and what the scientists had been saying.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 1, 2020)

andysays said:


> Burnham appears to be attempting to make political capital out of this, presumably hoping to increase his vote for the future.
> 
> Not sure how well that will work if all his likely voters are dead from Covid19 though.


Funnily enough the Tory line of attack was that Burnham was just making political capital. He was elected with nearly 65% of the vote last time. You may or may not agree with some of his comments on covid (which to be frank are hardly heretical) but he has been extremely consistent on the effects of decades of economic and political decision making that does nothing to address inequalities in the deindustrialised north which covid has worsened.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's somewhat unfair, my 'trust the government' approach was for a fucking very limited time, before it became clear a couple of weeks before lockdown that we were in a worst mess than the scientists had suggested. And, I don't recall accusing the leaders of the other nations of playing politics, well certainly not after the point I lost all faith in the UK government, and what the scientists had been saying.



Perhaps my memory has overinflated certain aspects. All I know is that once I'd seen that pattern a few times, I had to bite my tongue on several further occasions, resisting making the sort of response to you that I did earlier today. I was quite pleased with myself for resisting because I thought that your overall pandemic output was much improved. But on this latest occasion my sense of 'oh not again' was too much for me and I blurted out my opinion about this particular angle.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> some of his comments on covid (which to be frank are hardly heretical)



Its a complete fucking disgrace to describe the winter plan as too strict. If I'd been his public health director I would have resigned, but of course someone like me wouldn't have been his public health director in the first place so thats easy for me to say.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> I saw some stuff in the news the other day that suggested London was placed into tier 2 instead of tier 3 after aggressive lobbying about job losses in the hospitality and entertainments industry - while I'm not keen on the narrative of punishment many local leaders are leaning into, the question does need to be asked why these job losses are bearable in Manchester and Birmingham (and Preston, Lancaster, Leeds and Newcastle etc etc) but not in London.



Yes I need to talk more about London. I have a graph that may surprise people that I will prepare later.

I suspect its a combination of very heavy lobbying, combined with the mixed picture the data shows. I dont have the same quality and quantity of data that the government has, but from what is available I can see why the London decision was delicately poised between tiers 2 and 3, leaving the lobbyists with it all to play for.

Other issues that may have tipped the balance include Londons hospital and critical care capacity, the ability to spread patients around to hospitals in lesser-affected parts of London if thats what the situation required, and some obvious dinner party and restaurant weaknesses of the intelligentsia. The nature of 'professional' jobs in London and the South East may also be part of the explanation for why these regions have so far fared better in the second wave, does anybody have any regional data for percentage of workers working from home?


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 1, 2020)

killer b said:


> I saw some stuff in the news the other day that suggested London was placed into tier 2 instead of tier 3 after aggressive lobbying about job losses in the hospitality and entertainments industry - while I'm not keen on the narrative of punishment many local leaders are leaning into, the question does need to be asked why these job losses are bearable in Manchester and Birmingham (and Preston, Lancaster, Leeds and Newcastle etc etc) but not in London.


Yes I read a few reports/speculation that Gove had argued for Tier3 , Hancock had argued for the worst areas to go Tier 3 the others in Tier 2. Other positions were put however its suggested  the clinching argument was that in Tier 3 job losses would be  550,000  and Tier 2 50, 000.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

Before I get to my surprising graph, some other London data.

Much was made about what the latest REACT study showed, but most of the focus was on the overall national numbers.

The regional picture is not brilliantly presented in the report but I dont have time or ability to present it in a different form. For London it tends to show the expected pattern, that London is doing comparatively badly in terms of R, but relatively well in terms of recently levels of prevalence. 


These next charts indicate that London has seen a significant decrease in the age group at greatest risk. Especially compared to the West Midlands where numbers in the 65+ age group have gone in a deadly direction This chart is also of interest in terms of all the other regions, and increases in young age groups.

From https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...lth-innovation/imperial_react1_r7_interim.pdf


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a complete fucking disgrace to describe the winter plan as too strict.



Agreed.

I am struggling with people around here moaning that we are in tier 2 when cases are the lowest in England - 28/100k, including the tier 1 areas of Cornwall & Isle of Wight.

Last week I was pointing out we were surround by district council areas with high case numbers, but those have dropped a lot, and whole of West Sussex has dropped to something just over 60, so now I am having to point we are surrounded by other counties with higher numbers, but I seem to be a lone voice.   

FFS, people travel between those counties, yes we have fucking low numbers, but I want to keep it that way, and the Christmas period is going to be enough of a problem, without further relaxation of restrictions. 









						Sussex town has the lowest coronavirus rate in the whole of England
					

A SUSSEX town now has the lowest coronavirus rate in the whole of England.




					www.theargus.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

So here is the London data that I find surprising.

First a graph that is not surprising, number of Covid-19 patients in hospital, where we are used to seeing London well below the sort of level that badly affected second wave regions have faced:



But look where London is in terms of number of covid-19 patients in mechanical ventilator beds, its now got the second most patients in this category:


Data is from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

I think one of the reason Burnhams comments often wind me up so much is that much of what else he says is reasonable, and then he goes and blows it all with one ill-considered phrase.

For example the local press covered his comments more comprehensively than the earlier BBC thing I linked to:









						Andy Burnham slams ministers for the way they spared London from Tier 3
					

"That is clearly unfair. It gives the impression that jobs outside of London are not worth the same"




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
				






> Mr Burnham said the decision to allow three households to mix at Christmas was 'too much' and risked another spike in January when the NHS struggles even at the best of times.
> 
> He said: "This is I think part of the problem. The government has been too strict in December to allow a too permissive a Christmas period... I think a more balanced approach should have been taken here"
> 
> The mayor added: "I think a more steady approach would have been better because January is the worst possible time in the National Health Service with or without Covid. And I think it's a risk to allow five days of mixing of three households."



If I had been interviewing his when he said that then I would have asked for examples of what they were doing that was too strict. Also if you are worried about January then you should still be worried about January even if we were having an isolated Christmas without special rules. And if you are worried about January, you have to do things in the months leading up to January, which last time I checked very much includes December.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

Its fair to say I am not a big fan of hospital upper management, and that certainly includes my local hospital.



> Nuneaton hospital's chief executive has said staff there have "not all faced the economic hardship of others" during the coronavirus pandemic so there is not a "strong economic argument" to give them free parking.
> 
> Glen Burley, CEO of George Eliot Hospital, made the comment in a report to hospital board members after concerns and complaints about why staff have to pay to park at the site.











						Hospital boss explains why staff have to pay for parking
					

Glen Burley, CEO of George Eliot Hospital, speaks in a report to hospital board members




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

I have not been able to face watching MPs debating in parliament today, but from what I've just been reading Starmer seems to have managed to say mostly the right things today.



> Responding to the prime minister, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says he recognises the need for continued restrictions and tougher measures.
> 
> But he says the financial support in place for affected communities is "nowhere near sufficient".
> 
> He adds that without the right health measures in place - such as a working trace and isolate system "there are real risks that this plan is incapable of controlling the virus this winter".





> "We've been here before," says Sir Keir Starmer.
> 
> He recalls the PM telling MPs on 10 June that local restrictions would only last for "a few weeks or even a few days".
> 
> ...





> Sir Keir says the public cannot be blamed for being "sceptical" about government's handling of the pandemic.
> 
> "This is at least plan number five and the first four didn't work," Sir Keir says.
> 
> ...





> Sir Keir Starmer says one of the main problems the prime minister hasn't addressed is that only a fraction of people who should be self-isolating are doing so.
> 
> The Labour leader says there are "huge gaps in support" for these people, with only one in eight workers qualifying for the £500 self-isolation support payment.
> 
> “People want to do the right thing but for many there’s a real fear that self-isolation means a huge loss of income that they simply can’t afford," he says.





> Sir Keir Starmer says there are half a million people who should be self-isolating but have been missed by the test and trace system.
> 
> "That is a huge gap in the defences," he says adding "blind optimism is not a plan."





> On economic support, Starmer says despite "six economic plans in nine months" the level of support is still insufficient.
> 
> He says the scheme "doesn't fairly reflect" the difficulties of different regions and notes that Manchester has been given the same level of support as the Isle of Wight.
> 
> ...





> Sir Keir Starmer finishes his speech by saying it is "not in the national interest" to vote down the restrictions so his party will allow them to pass.
> 
> He says he accepts the case for restrictions but we “want a plan that’s going to work” and the prime minister’s is “full of holes”.
> 
> ...



I have taken these from various entries on the BBC live updates page. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55142152


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

Quite a lot of Labour MPs seem destined to make my pandemic shit list.









						Northern Labour MPs reluctant to abstain on Covid tiers vote
					

Several MPs say they wanted to vote against tier restrictions and some may still break party line to do so




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## two sheds (Dec 1, 2020)

I'd have thought starmer would have done better proposing amendments on funding for workers affected by the regulations. 

Not that it would make any difference.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

Yes meaningful amendments have been rather thin on the ground in this pandemic. Nor would I expect them to properly address the education elephants in the room.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 1, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I'd have thought starmer would have done better proposing amendments on funding for workers affected by the regulations.
> 
> Not that it would make any difference.


#worldbeating


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

Another look at the stance of some Labour MPs:









						Labour’s Covid rebels are not breaking the whip for the same reasons – LabourList
					

Labour MPs are being instructed by the leadership to abstain on the House of Commons vote tonight that will see parliamentarians express their views on…




					labourlist.org
				




Emma Lewell-Buck and Derek Twigg easily make it onto the shit list, idiots. Several others likely make it based on comments that I can at least understand, but are still far too stupid when it comes to pubs and restaurants, such as Andrew Gwynne.

I'm glad I dont have to spend too much time in this pandemic looking at what MPs think, today is a relatively rare exception.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 1, 2020)

Gove seems to have done a U-turn, this morning saying scotch eggs were not a substantial meal and this afternoon insisting they are. I'm a bit terrified of the scotch egg lobby now.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

I fear I will have to create an entirely new category on my pandemic shit list for Desmond Swayne.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

Well I suppose he has ensured that no matter the restrictions, the spirit of pantomime season is still with us.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

Covid: Daily Mail gave NHS masks linked to Chinese Uighur factory
					

A PPE delivery is believed to have come from a Chinese factory suspected of using a labour scheme.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Badgers (Dec 1, 2020)

Peston but mildly interesting


----------



## andysays (Dec 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well I suppose he has ensured that no matter the restrictions, the spirit of pantomime season is still with us.


Oh no it isn't


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Peston but mildly interesting



Mildly amusing but covid rates change , UKIPs vote in that election doesn’t .


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 1, 2020)

So, 78 MPs voted against the new restrictions, no news yet on the breakdown, but most will be Tory cunts.

ETA - 56 Tory cunts, 22 other cunts.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 1, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Peston but mildly interesting


----------



## zora (Dec 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> I fear I will have to create an entirely new category on my pandemic shit list for Desmond Swayne.



This man's rantings were infinitely improved by the gently falling snow of the new festive style.


----------



## souljacker (Dec 1, 2020)

elbows said:


> I fear I will have to create an entirely new category on my pandemic shit list for Desmond Swayne.




What a tool. My covid-denying mate has already posted that on our whatsapp whilst bitching that he won't be able to go on holiday.


----------



## mx wcfc (Dec 1, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, 78 MPs voted against the new restrictions, no news yet on the breakdown, but most will be Tory cunts.
> 
> ETA - 56 Tory cunts, 22 other cunts.



Jeremy Corbyn voted against.  (apologies as ever for the poor copy from Twitter.



Jeremy Corbyn
@jeremycorbyn

I voted against the Government's proposals tonight. I don't believe the measures are what is needed to drive down the levels of the virus. The financial support packages being offered are inadequate, inconsistent and unfair to many areas.

(clearly ding his best to get the whip restored)


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2020)

Of the Labour (+ Corbyn) MPs who voted against the government, I had a brief go at ascertaining which ones were doing so more along the lines of the financial support + zero covid, fight against the virus more strongly position, as opposed to those who seemed to be coming out with the sort of economy + less restrictions position that I spend time shitting on.

I'd say it was roughly 50-50 but a few of them didnt make it very easy for me to quickly establish their full position, so its possible that one outnumbered the other by a couple.


----------



## gosub (Dec 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well I suppose he has ensured that no matter the restrictions, the spirit of pantomime season is still with us.


oh no it isnt


----------



## Raheem (Dec 2, 2020)

andysays said:


> Oh no it isn't


You're behind him!


----------



## DaveCinzano (Dec 2, 2020)

“I think my R's getting bigger...”

“I SHOULD SAY SO”


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 2, 2020)

From earlier :



			
				William of Walworth said:
			
		

> However, and _despite_ all the above, I *really do* agree (genuinely) with this (ultra) cautious approach from the Welsh Government ... I just hope the amount of business-support cash they're promising will be enough to stop a depressing number of pubs closing altogether ......





Hyperdark said:


> *William of W, IMO calling the Welsh Gov's guidance ultra cautious just shows how little people are willing to accept personal responsibility (I call it guidance as it is barely and loosely enforced instead relying on people's sense of responsibility and consideration for others which as we all know is in short supply)*


Bolded bit : was that aimed at me personally, or more just at my post generally? 

My personal responsibility about avoiding pubs  mainly consists of having a Dry December , but obviously that's coincidence of timing, and the Welsh Government are making it even easier to stay dry .
But even if I _was_ drinking, I definitely would not moan about staying at home.

I think it's possible to think that yes, the Welsh Government's measures are being very cautious -- and the 'correctly so' argument is fair -- while also being very concerned for the (financial) fate of the trade -- I have a fair few friends in it.
I would also agree though that packed pre-Xmas pubs in Wales would be a nightmare for Covid risk if allowed to operate as the notorious Wine Street here in Swansea does in normal years .
I also  suspect that controlling distancing in pubs, and enforcing table-service only rules would be an utter nightmare for bar staff at this time of year in particular


----------



## andysays (Dec 2, 2020)

gosub said:


> oh no it isnt


Audience participation a bit slow right now


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I think it's possible to think that yes, the Welsh Government's measures are being very cautious -- and the 'correctly so' argument is fair -- while also being very concerned for the (financial) fate of the trade -- I have a fair few friends in it.



There are very few measures taken by government in this pandemic that I would describe as very cautious. I'd be much more likely to describe measures as the bare minimum.

Wales oversold how much would be achieved with a short firebreak. I dont think the data supported a full relaxation once the firebreak ended. And so much like Northern Ireland, backtracking and new measures were therefore required. But there was a stupid gap between end of previous measures and the new ones, because of silly things said by administrations that ended up backing themselves into a political corner.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 2, 2020)

*Downing street press conference at 4.30pm today. *


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> *Downing street press conference at 4.30pm today. *



Presumably just reiterating what's been all over the news today anyway.  That's been the usual routine.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> *Downing street press conference at 4.30pm today. *



Oh joy.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 2, 2020)

It'll be all about how the UK government will make our vaccination programme world beating. Or jolly world beating.


----------



## Supine (Dec 2, 2020)

If it's anything like Twitter it'll be the Gov banging on about how brexit allowed it to happen so quickly


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

Supine said:


> If it's anything like Twitter it'll be the Gov banging on about how brexit allowed it to happen so quickly



Hancocks parade got rained on:









						No 10 and regulator contradict Hancock's 'because of Brexit' Covid vaccine claim
					

Speedy approval for Pfizer/BioNTech jab was possible under existing European law




					www.theguardian.com
				






> But June Raine, chief executive of the MHRA, said the approval was made using provisions under European law, which still binds the UK until the end of the Brexit transition period on 1 January.
> 
> She told a media briefing about the vaccine: “We have been able to authorise the supply of this vaccine using provisions under European law, which exist until 1 January. Our speed or our progress has been totally dependent on the availability of data in our rolling review and the independent advice we have received.”


----------



## Cloo (Dec 2, 2020)

I saw Nadine Dorries, I think, banging on about how Brexit made this possible and my brain's 'BULLSHIT' klaxon was immediately activated.

So I guess if they really do get it out to the top vulnerability list that fast then we could start seeing an impact on hospital admissions in January? Although it'd be even better if millions of people weren't going to be in and out of each other's houses at the end of this month.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

I wouldn't get carried away with quite how fast they will deliver to groups on a very large scale, so I would currently expect January hospital admissions to be mostly affected by the other usual stuff such as what restrictions are in place and which direction the epidemic wave is going more broadly.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 2, 2020)

Cloo said:


> So I guess if they really do get it out to the top vulnerability list that fast then we could start seeing an impact on hospital admissions in January? Although it'd be even better if millions of people weren't going to be in and out of each other's houses at the end of this month.



January to see any difference seems optimistic to me and as you say Christmas is going to have an impact for sure.



Espresso said:


> It'll be all about how the UK government will make our vaccination programme world beating. Or jolly world beating.



Uh oh.  If its going to be "world beating" that'll mean managing to vaccinate only 3 people by April and in each case they've been injected with Anthrax by mistake.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 2, 2020)

I think the most significant influence over January's hospital admissions will be the amount of household mixing (and alcohol consumption) during crimble and new year.

I shall not be doing anything outside my existing household. No visits, no parties. Very limited do at the workshop.

I'm saving any celebrations until after the vast majority of UK vaccinations are done and herd immunity has been achieved. And even then, I'm going to be significantly more careful ...


----------



## andysays (Dec 2, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I think the most significant influence over January's hospital admissions will be the amount of household mixing (and alcohol consumption) during crimble and new year.
> 
> I shall not be doing anything outside my existing household. No visits, no parties. Very limited do at the workshop.
> 
> I'm saving any celebrations until after the vast majority of UK vaccinations are done and herd immunity has been achieved. And even then, I'm going to be significantly more careful ...


See you in about 2025 then.

(ETA. sorry, that probably sounds like a dig at you. it's not intended that way at all, just a complete lack of confidence that anything approaching herd immunity through vaccination will he achieved any time soon)


----------



## ska invita (Dec 2, 2020)

Seen two pubs open in London (tier 2) neither serving food - neither do food


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

andysays said:


> See you in about 2025 then.
> 
> (ETA. sorry, that probably sounds like a dig at you. it's not intended that way at all, just a complete lack of confidence that anything approaching herd immunity through vaccination will he achieved any time soon)



I don't even think herd immunity via vaccination is on the main agenda. Reducing hospitalisations and deaths to a level that the system can take in its stride is more like the aim.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 2, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Seen two pubs open in London (tier 2) neither serving food - neither do food



That's not a good start, bit brazen as well.  Out of 20 odd pubs in walking distance of my home only a couple don't offer food.

I've just been for my daily walk around the area and a few pubs are open, most are still closed.  One had quite a few people sat outside under heaters and they all had menus at the table but not food except one pudding being served.  It seems you can just pop by order a drink and the menu.  Decide you don't want to eat, finish your drink and move on to the next place. Rinse and repeat.

A rule that encourages pub crawling, tidy.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 2, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Seen two pubs open in London (tier 2) neither serving food - neither do food


Isn’t there a hot line for this sort of thing ?


----------



## clicker (Dec 2, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Isn’t there a hot line for this sort of thing ?


Deliveroo?


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 2, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Isn’t there a hot line for this sort of thing ?



Call the council I imagine.  No point calling the police as they really won't give a fuck and besides most people in the pub are probably off duty cops.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 2, 2020)

clicker said:


> Deliveroo?



That's a point as well.  How many people will be waiting for their delivery to arrive?


----------



## ska invita (Dec 2, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Isn’t there a hot line for this sort of thing ?


I'm not complaining, more observing, possible friction to come for them


----------



## Petcha (Dec 2, 2020)

I'm in my local spoons. Ordered a burger and three pints. Bliss.

There are blatantly people just ordering pints on the app though and not getting hauled up.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 2, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Seen two pubs open in London (tier 2) neither serving food - neither do food


Same for the 3 closest to me, 1 of them is packed too, it’s a very small pub but has about 20+ people in it.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 2, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Same for the 3 closest to me, 1 of them is packed too, it’s a very small pub but has about 20+ people in it.



Fucks sake.  I was expecting places to play fast and loose with the 'substantial meal' rubbish but not ignore all the rules.  Honestly if it was me I'd be reporting them because its flagrant. 

Places like that fuck it for everyone in every regard.


----------



## Petcha (Dec 2, 2020)

The Spoons I'm in is far more equipped to deal with things than the Tesco I was just in. It's completely and utterly unfair on the hospitality industry. Yes, they're serving pints without food in some cases (although I think everyone bought a meal with the first one) but everyone is social distancing and put masks on when they go to the bogs. How is that worse than standing in a queue in a supermarket with coughing people buying xmas decorations?


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The Spoons I'm in is far more equipped to deal with things than the Tesco I was just in. It's completely and utterly unfair on the hospitality industry. Yes, they're serving pints without food in some cases (although I think everyone bought a meal with the first one) but everyone is social distancing and put masks on when they go to the bogs. How is that worse than standing in a queue in a supermarket with coughing people buying xmas decorations?



To be honest I don't think there is any point going down this road.  I'm not happy with many aspects of government policy in this area but the science is pretty unequivocal on the impact of bars and hospitality on the virus and its been seen in many countries.  No one would be in Tesco or any other supermarket if they had the choice but we need to eat.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The Spoons I'm in is far more equipped to deal with things than the Tesco I was just in. It's completely and utterly unfair on the hospitality industry. Yes, they're serving pints without food in some cases (although I think everyone bought a meal with the first one) but everyone is social distancing and put masks on when they go to the bogs. How is that worse than standing in a queue in a supermarket with coughing people buying xmas decorations?



If you can't understand the difference, I honestly feel sorry for you.


----------



## Petcha (Dec 2, 2020)

The pubs around me have spent shitloads on perspex screens etc in line with govt demands. And then been sold up the river. It's insane. They'll be going to the wall - the pub is the epicentre of this country and they've been totally fucked over.


----------



## Petcha (Dec 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> If you can't understand the difference, I honestly feel sorry for you.



Oh please.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 2, 2020)

Today's numbers really scream get out and go down the boozer, don't they?


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 2, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Today's numbers really scream get out and go down the boozer, don't they?
> 
> View attachment 241481



I wonder how many people actually follow the stats that closely and base decisions upon it?    The government makes the decisions because they have access to all the info. I'm not going to hang anyone out for doing something which the government say is permitted.   What should happen instead?  Open all the shops and hospitality but no should use them?

Those places taking the piss are a different matter though...


----------



## andysays (Dec 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> The pubs around me have spent shitloads on perspex screens etc in line with govt demands. And then been sold up the river. It's insane. They'll be going to the wall - *the pub is the epicentre of this country* and they've been totally fucked over.



"Oh please" yourself

Shut the hospitals, shut the schools, shut the supermarkets, keep the boozers open, they're the really important thing here


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 2, 2020)

Much as I like the idea of having a trip to one or other of the various museums, pubs, restaurants and shops that I would normally patronise, I'm not going to until after I've been vaccinated and had the waiting period to allow the immunity to develop.

And I'm going to be the last of the people in my household to get the jab, as I'm the youngest (by several years) and I'm down in group7 (according to that phase1 list that came out this morning) ...


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 2, 2020)

andysays said:


> "Oh please" yourself
> 
> Shut the hospitals, shut the schools, shut the supermarkets, keep the boozers open, they're the really important thing here



Far be it from me to answer for someone else but that's not the argument and you know it.    I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that no one is suggesting we shut hospitals or supermarkets.


----------



## andysays (Dec 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Far be it from me to answer for someone else but that's not the argument and you know it.    I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that no one is suggesting we shut hospitals or supermarkets.


But the pub is the epicentre of this country


----------



## killer b (Dec 2, 2020)

Personally I prefer to hang out on the major trauma ward of the local hospital - you make the best friends there, though some - alas - don't last very long.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 2, 2020)

andysays said:


> But the pub is the epicentre of this country



I've no idea   

The argument that if x is ok then why isn't y also ok?  It's a very very common discussion on here and amongst the population all the time.  Reducing that to close the hospitals to keep the pub open isn't really fair.


----------



## Petcha (Dec 2, 2020)

andysays said:


> "Oh please" yourself
> 
> Shut the hospitals, shut the schools, shut the supermarkets, keep the boozers open, they're the really important thing here



Yes, coz that's exactly what I said. Idiot.


----------



## Petcha (Dec 2, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I've no idea
> 
> The argument that if x is ok then why isn't y also ok?  It's a very very common discussion on here and amongst the population all the time.  Reducing that to close the hospitals to keep the pub open isn't really fair.



When did I say to close the hospitals?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 2, 2020)

Went out earlier and the high street certainly had a few pairs of cops/council people wandering around. I imagine they'll be gone tomorrow. (Well, they might be back on Friday and/or Saturday.)


----------



## brogdale (Dec 2, 2020)

Hmmm...specialist in influenza, including its epidemiology, transmission, vaccinology, antiviral drugs and pandemic preparedness or Johnson? Toughie.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 2, 2020)

Those two positions are not mutually exclusive ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 2, 2020)

Petcha said:


> Yes, coz that's exactly what I said. Idiot.



He was taking the piss out of your posts that imply a 'me, me, me' attitude.

As in you want the pubs open, so you can go drinking, and fuck the rest of society, let the virus spread, let the hospitals get overloaded, and fuck those that end up dead.

But, if you can't understand the different between supermarkets & pubs in this pandemic, and think 'plastic screens' are some silver bullet that makes everyone safe from virus droplets floating in the air, rather than a minor bit player in the fight against covid, there's no real hope for you.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

If I use the governments daily death within 28 days of a positive test, by date of death figures, and September 1st deaths as the first day of the second wave deaths, then so far I have:

41552 first wave deaths.
18146 second wave deaths.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 2, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Hmmm...specialist in influenza, including its epidemiology, transmission, vaccinology, antiviral drugs and pandemic preparedness or Johnson? Toughie.
> 
> View attachment 241489



I wouldn't rely on the Guardian live feed to accurately summarise anything, they're consistently shit at it. The above is not my reading of the exchange between those two.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> He was taking the piss out of your posts that imply a 'me, me, me' attitude.
> 
> As in you want the pubs open, so you can go drinking, and fuck the rest of society, let the virus spread, let the hospitals get overloaded, and fuck those that end up dead.
> 
> But, if you can't understand the different between supermarkets & pubs in this pandemic, and think 'plastic screens' are some silver bullet that makes everyone safe from virus droplets floating in the air, rather than a minor bit player in the fight against covid, there's no real hope for you.



Are you advocating a boycott of premises ie pubs, bars, cafes etc that are permitted to be open in tier 2  ?


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

I was busy during the press conference and am just getting round to watching it now. Johnson didnt notice that in his opening remarks he said the virus needed to be stored at minus 70 degrees.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 2, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Are you advocating a boycott of premises ie pubs, bars, cafes etc that are permitted to be open in tier 2  ?


I'm not in tier two, but I haven't been to the pub since March. I haven't thought of it as a boycott, but you could call it that.

Incidentally, I'm not trying to broadcast my piety - I've done a lot of non-essential things, just not the pub, because I think it is an especially risky environment.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 2, 2020)

I certainly did go to pubs when it was warmer and I could sit outside, but sod (a) sitting inside anywhere with other people - I'll go on tubes but that's it and not for long and not if they're busy - and (b) sitting there eating a scotch egg _very slowly_ so that I can have a few beers.

OTOH I am not the sort of pub goer who it is most important to discourage (I go on my own to chill and try not to sit next to other people regardless of pandemics). Whether the regulations will put people who _do_ mix in groups off, I don't know.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

JVT got annoyed with a journalists question and ended up telling her that the vaccine wasn't a yoghurt. He also added to his train analogy and now the train needs people to get on board as it travels around the country.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 2, 2020)

in other pub news, my local big chain pub ONeils, which has a huge outdoor area and serves food, has not reopened and will not  for the forseeable, according to the sign in the window. I'm surprised going on shocked.


----------



## LDC (Dec 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> JVT got annoyed with a journalists question and ended up telling her that the vaccine wasn't a yoghurt.



I quite enjoyed his slapdown using that!


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 2, 2020)

Raheem said:


> I'm not in tier two, but I haven't been to the pub since March. I haven't thought of it as a boycott, but you could call it that.
> 
> Incidentally, I'm not trying to broadcast my piety - I've done a lot of non-essential things, just not the pub, because I think it is an especially risky environment.


I can respect that view but that isnt what I was asking tbh


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I wouldn't rely on the Guardian live feed to accurately summarise anything, they're consistently shit at it. The above is not my reading of the exchange between those two.



My reading of the exchange was that Johnson was not listening closely to what Van-Tam was actually getting at, causing Johnson to start going on about his hopes for normality, and Van-Tam then felt the need to make his point more clearly. Van-Tam was talking about whether peoples behaviour and personal hygiene in terms of reducing the spread of viruses may be something that continues long after formal restrictions end. This relates to a hope that I am fond of expressing, that as a result of this pandemic we could yet save more people over the long term than have been killed in these pandemic waves, by doing various things that reduce for example seasonal flu deaths. I usually go on about stuff like proper routine mass diagnostics testing, hospital infection control etc when making that point, but personal hygiene and behaviour is a fair chunk of the picture and source of hope too.

Probably the exchange was also a sign of lingering anti-mask establishment attitudes, masks are not the English way shit. Van-Tam mentioned there not being a day when everyone just suddenly throws their masks away, and I bet that got that side of Johnsons brain whirring in horror, so he focussed on that rather than the other stuff Van-Tam was also getting at like washing your hands. Even after Van-Tams clarification Johnson was seeking to establish whether he meant like 'the Far East' and I took the as a further sign that masks were on Johnsons mind. He probably fantasizes about a day when he can burn his mask on live tv. I fantasize about seeing less excess winter mortality in future.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Dec 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> washing your hands


Unrelated, but I was wondering earlier today and since you mentioned hand-washing - have there actually ever been any cases of fomite transmission documented anywhere? I'm pretty sure that was the case a few months ago, so I was wondering why "Hands" is still part of all the slogans.


----------



## Supine (Dec 2, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Unrelated, but I was wondering earlier today and since you mentioned hand-washing - have there actually ever been any cases of fomite transmission documented anywhere? I'm pretty sure that was the case a few months ago, so I was wondering why "Hands" is still part of all the slogans.



In NZ there was some tracing that showed things like a door knob did I think.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

I'm so far behind on the science news that its not even funny, so I can't answer that question, you'll just get a load of general waffle about how we should keep on with regular hand washing because of the effect it has on our vigilance and on the spread of other diseases, even if it turned out to be having a very limited direct impact on this particular pandemic.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

I'm not really sure how accurate the lateral flow tests are, so I am unsure if its really a good idea to use them at this stage to allow care home visits, although I would obviously want to bring in the harm of isolation and loneliness as factors when trying to balance that decision.

Touching as some of the images are, some are also the wrong sort of touching, and I will quite loudly suggest that it is not a good idea to have your 95 year old mother kiss your mask 











						Rapid Covid test: Daughter and mum, 95, hug for first time since March
					

Christine Colburn embraces her mum for the first time in months after taking a rapid Covid test.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 2, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Unrelated, but I was wondering earlier today and since you mentioned hand-washing - have there actually ever been any cases of fomite transmission documented anywhere? I'm pretty sure that was the case a few months ago, so I was wondering why "Hands" is still part of all the slogans.


It seems to be negligible in terms of COVID-19, but there's a big reluctance to say so, I suspect because (a) everybody medical is a bit reluctant to say things are safe given still limited understanding and (b) washing your hands helps avoid all sorts of other stuff. That's why it was originally suggested after all - surface contact is a big thing with flu iirc.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

Even if its a problem for flu not covid, that would be no reason to abandon that advice in winter when they are worried both about flu pressures combining with covid pressures on hospitals, and of the possible much worse health outcomes if people get infected with flu and this pandemic virus at the same time. And the effects of flu cases on clogging up covid-19 testing systems, and the effects of a flu epidemic on staff absence rates. Hence the extra emphasis on flu vaccinations this year.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> I don't even think herd immunity via vaccination is on the main agenda. Reducing hospitalisations and deaths to a level that the system can take in its stride is more like the aim.



This was pretty much confirmed in the press conference, but I should say current phase agenda, since the main agenda I speak of is the one they can go for with currently available info for the initial vaccines, have to wait for more data on several matters before the feasibility of a population immunity plan could be properly evaluated and a bigger agenda attempted.

As someone under 50 with no identified major Covid-19 health condition risks, the vaccine is currently still not on my personal radar for example.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 2, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Are you advocating a boycott of premises ie pubs, bars, cafes etc that are permitted to be open in tier 2  ?



No. What on earth makes you think that? Are you drunk?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 2, 2020)

elbows said:


> Even if its a problem for flu not covid, that would be no reason to abandon that advice in winter when they are worried both about flu pressures combining with covid pressures on hospitals, and of the possible much worse health outcomes if people get infected with flu and this pandemic virus at the same time. And the effects of flu cases on clogging up covid-19 testing systems, and the effects of a flu epidemic on staff absence rates. Hence the extra emphasis on flu vaccinations this year.


I've continually said that one of the things that the 'rona has demonstrated is how stupidly casual "society" is about infectious disease - I was saying this before pandemic time - so I am absolutely fine with keeping on saying "wash your hands and don't touch stuff other people have touched", even if after a while we'll be expected by "society" (capitalists) to go right back to normal. Anything which might have a long term effect on people's behaviour to counteract the demands of capital is great.

I am certainly washing my hands every time I can, even if I've not touched anything. I don't disinfect my groceries and phone any more though.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 2, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> No. What on earth makes you think that? Are you drunk?



No I’m drinking tea watching the football . Can you explain what you meant in your response to the person who went to the pub if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick ?


----------



## Cid (Dec 2, 2020)

Supine said:


> In NZ there was some tracing that showed things like a door knob did I think.



Had a quick read of this reasonably recent wired article summing up opinion on fomite transmission (most in-depth thing googling 'new zealand fomite')... It seems basically still very little evidence. There is an NZ case mentioned, but the article says aerosol transmission now seems more likely in those cases. A door knob is also in there, but relating to a friend of microbiologist. I mean, it's not a paper, but there didn't seem to be much out there.


----------



## Cid (Dec 2, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> No I’m drinking tea watching the football . Can you explain what you meant in your response to the person who went to the pub if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick ?



The person who went to the pub then said they were just as safe as supermarkets really and the whole thing is terribly unfair on the hospitality sector (which it is, but not because pubs are somehow safe)? You may be watching the football, but you've clearly been following that discussion.


----------



## xenon (Dec 2, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I certainly did go to pubs when it was warmer and I could sit outside, but sod (a) sitting inside anywhere with other people - I'll go on tubes but that's it and not for long and not if they're busy - and (b) sitting there eating a scotch egg _very slowly_ so that I can have a few beers.
> 
> OTOH I am not the sort of pub goer who it is most important to discourage (I go on my own to chill and try not to sit next to other people regardless of pandemics). Whether the regulations will put people who _do_ mix in groups off, I don't know.



Similar. I mean, I'll meet friends in the pub, not a massive group but otherwise go on my own and see who's there, or not. I've been to pubs several times since July, including sitting inside, none since Nov 5th obviously. I would avoid those that were crowded though. Well actually walked out of a couple that were making me feel uncomfortable. Loud and busy. The 2 I mainly use have been OK in this respect.

I think we've all been drawing our own lines based on perceived risk. Only been on the bus a couple of times since March but that's more cos I can't stand waiting for them if I can walk. Fairly comfortable using tube and train several times but not at peak times, travelling into London and back from Bristol.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 2, 2020)

Cid said:


> The person who went to the pub then said they were just as safe as supermarkets really and the whole thing is terribly unfair on the hospitality sector (which it is, but not because pubs are somehow safe)? You may be watching the football, but you've clearly been following that discussion.


Thanks however I was referring to CupidStunts final comment to the poster who went to the pub .


----------



## xenon (Dec 2, 2020)

It is daft to argue pubs are safer than supermarkets. Not to say either are particularly dangerous. It depends on all the other factors that can apply any where people are in numbers in doors. Ventilation, crowding, capacity for keeping away from other households. The disinhibiting effect of alcohol adds an extra risk element though, can't deny that.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

Van-Tams three c's (that he's borrowed from Japan) plus d and v that he adds on came up yet again in the press conference. They are far from the worst way of thinking about much of the pub risk too.

To quote from some random article I located from a previous occasion a little earlier this year where JVT went on about this:



> But what are the three Cs?
> 
> – Closed spaces: This sets out that it cannot be assumed that large rooms are safe, or that small rooms are unsafe. Instead, ventilation is very important.
> 
> ...





> Prof Van-Tam said that as well as the three Cs, people need to be aware of duration and volume.
> 
> He explained that there is increasingly strong evidence about shouting and singing as pressure points on the virus in terms of making the expulsion of virus laden particles, go further.
> 
> When speaking about duration he said that the duration of time someone spent in one of the three Cs would also impact the likelihood of Covid-19 being spread.











						Evening Express The Press and Journal combined
					

About the new Press and Journal and Evening Express combined website Our newspapers Press and Journal subscribers Evening Express subscribers Evening




					www.eveningexpress.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

And if I heard people talking about ventilation as often as I heard them talk about the pub, I would be less inclined to moan about pandemic pub wankers.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2020)

And to be clear, I use the term pandemic pub wankers to refer to people who take a particular ignorant stance about risk in those settings. I do not attach it to everyone that has happened to visit a pub in this pandemic. Although if I had my way pubs in London and elsewhere would not have opened right now.


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## AverageJoe (Dec 3, 2020)

A lot of of people view the pub as their church insofar as its where they go to meet people and have a chat. Most towns and villages were set up around churches and pubs, indeed they're probably the oldest buildings in most inhabited places.

Wetherspoons pubs in particular seem to be full of older people in the daytime, those that live on their own. They nurse a pint for hours and just.... have someone to talk to. Or watch the world go by.

At the moment, all those people are indoors. On their own.

So pubs do have a function in terms of helping mental health.

I know there's a point I'm trying to make but I can't quite get it right.  But it's something about people don't always go to the pub to get pissed.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 3, 2020)

I understand and sympathise with all of AverageJoe 's post, especially as (in normal times) I often go to the pub on my own when  festivaldeb is doing other stuff. Sometimes i meet friends, more often not. I definitely drink more slowly when alone too.

(I am somewhat younger than most Spoons pensioners mind, being slightly pre-retirement  .... and I've nearly given up going to actual Wetherspoons as well.)

But one thing I absolutely could *not* ever do is sit in the pub on my own without something to read!


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## chilango (Dec 3, 2020)

I thought January was going to be grim. But I fear "wave 3" might hit by Christmas given how people I know are reacting to the Tier rules


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## chilango (Dec 3, 2020)

I think one of the biggest problems is that 4 decades of Thatcher's Britain have left people operating in such a "selfish" paradigm that the rules are viewed as being about self- protection - which people are willing to take a risk on - rather the protection of others.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 3, 2020)

Professor Van Tan was on the BBC this morning answering questions about the vaccines. He has such a calm demeanour.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 3, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> No I’m drinking tea watching the football . Can you explain what you meant in your response to the person who went to the pub if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick ?



The poster concerned, boasted about ordering three pints with a burger, clearly that's not in the sprit of the law, that is not normal behaviour, they were acting to get around the law and stay in the pub longer. They mentioned spoons were serving drinks after people had eaten, and seemed happy about that, despite it clearly being against the law.

No doubt because in their head the risk is no greater in a pub for a couple of hours, with people talking and not wearing masks, thus spreading far more aerosols, than half an hour in a supermarket where most people will be wearing masks and not chatting away. Then there's the fact that supermarkets tend to have better ventilation than most pubs.

I am sick of people looking for loopholes in the law, and pubs & other businesses breaking the law, sure it's shit, but we are in the middle of a pandemic, so suck it up until we start coming out the other side, which hopefully will be only a few months away now. 

Frankly, that spoons serving drinks after meals, and allowing the poster to buy three pints with a burger, should be closed down for a month & issued with a £10k fine.


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## chilango (Dec 3, 2020)

I bet you that the vaccine will be available, for a fee, via the private sector long before the bulk of the "low risk" population get it (around the time if phase 8 or 9).


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## The39thStep (Dec 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The poster concerned, boasted about ordering three pints with a burger, clearly that's not in the sprit of the law, that is not normal behaviour, they were acting to get around the law and stay in the pub longer. They mentioned spoons were serving drinks after people had eaten, and seemed happy about that, despite it clearly being against the law.
> 
> No doubt because in their head the risk is no greater in a pub for a couple of hours, with people talking and not wearing masks, thus spreading far more aerosols, than half an hour in a supermarket where most people will be wearing masks and not chatting away. Then there's the fact that supermarkets tend to have better ventilation than most pubs.
> 
> ...



Ta . I understand now you are calling for stricter enforcement.  Just to explain , my  question about boycotts was based on what I perceived to be the logic of ' despite the government allowing pubs being open in Tier 1/2 areas they arent safe, therefore in the interests of safety communities should boycott pubs in those areas' .


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## The39thStep (Dec 3, 2020)

chilango said:


> I think one of the biggest problems is that 4 decades of Thatcher's Britain have left people operating in such a "selfish" paradigm that the rules are viewed as being about self- protection - which people are willing to take a risk on - rather the protection of others.


Thats a fair point and may explain how sections of those who call themselves on the left now appear to have so little trust in communities and community solidarity they once championed


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## chilango (Dec 3, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Thats a fair point and may explain how sections of those who call themselves on the left now appear to have so little trust in communities and community solidarity they once championed



I'd imagine most of us under 50 have little memory of anything else.


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## SpookyFrank (Dec 3, 2020)

chilango said:


> I bet you that the vaccine will be available, for a fee, via the private sector long before the bulk of the "low risk" population get it (around the time if phase 8 or 9).



All the more reason to resist any kind of 'covid pass' type systems. They'd just be yet another way for the privileged to extend their already gruesome headstart on the rest of us.


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## The39thStep (Dec 3, 2020)

Example of local authority guidance for 'substantial meals' note at the end that 'there is no requirement for customers who do not wish to consume alcohol to order a substantial meal'


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## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> note at the end that 'there is no requirement for customers who do not wish to consume alcohol to order a substantial meal'


Is that a problem? The purpose of the substantial meal rule is to change the way people drink alcohol during their visit to the pub, it's not just a weird arbitrary rule. So if your aren't drinking alcohol, then...


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## StoneRoad (Dec 3, 2020)

Nuts to that - I frequently have soup or a jacket spud as my lunch (I don't eat bread rolls or sarnies) and I've a small appetite at the best of times !

And most per-plague visits to the pub, I used to have a soft drink anyway !


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## Espresso (Dec 3, 2020)

The idea that you can go to a pub and sit around drinking pop with no requirement to have a substantial meal will just mean that there will be pubs where people go to buy a glass of Coke and filling it up with rum or vodka from their own bottle. So the pub has six people on pop, taking up space for a table where six other people might buy six pints or some bottles of wine and six dinners. 
It's not good for the pub and it's just a jolly jape for the sorts of people who like to tell their pals how clever they are and how edgy.


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## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

It's to allow pubs to function as coffee shops is all. I think it's the right move (if you're going to open at all) - they can kick out people who bring their own whisky (which won't actually be a significant number anyway)


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## Teaboy (Dec 3, 2020)

Petcha said:


> When did I say to close the hospitals?



 

You didn't and that was exactly my point.  I'm guessing you were onto your third pint by this stage. Anyway, hope it was a good night.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The poster concerned, boasted about ordering three pints with a burger, clearly that's not in the sprit of the law, that is not normal behaviour, they were acting to get around the law and stay in the pub longer. They mentioned spoons were serving drinks after people had eaten, and seemed happy about that, despite it clearly being against the law.



Actually this isn't true.  The law is so poorly defined that those responsible for it can't even explain it to a basic level.  This is clearly by design so all the blame has and will be shifted onto the business and its customers rather than the government. Its been a constant tactic throughout this and we've decried it when this disgusting government have used it time and time again against the general populace, why should we support that tactic now?

I said stupid laws invoke stupid responses and yesterday proved exactly that.   My neighbour is a pub manager.  There is nowhere to go to get clear guidance on the rules and there is no one to call.  You're on your own and its by design.



> I am sick of people looking for loopholes in the law, and pubs & other businesses breaking the law, sure it's shit, but we are in the middle of a pandemic, so suck it up until we start coming out the other side, which hopefully will be only a few months away now.



Like many industries the hospitality industry has time and time again been thrown under the bus.  Unending changes in laws and what can and can't be done and usually all last minute costing millions in waste.

You must close.  Time to reopen and we're going to use government money to subsidise it.  Oh now you can open but you must do this.  Oh now you must do this but only in this area.  Now you must do this.  Now you must close.  Now you can open again but you must do this this and this but no one is going to explain what that means in practice as you're on your own but we're still going to fine you anyway (and publicly shame you) if we want.

This whole discussion has been reduced down to a few selfish wankers who can't just drink some cans at home and not that hospitality is a fooking huge industry (3rd largest I believe, though that might just be jobs) which supports millions and millions of jobs and livelihoods.  And now we're turning on them using the language of the government when in reality its just normal people trying to navigate their way through a pandemic with their job and business intact whilst being left largely to fend for themselves and all the time being strapped into an ever tightening straight-jacket.



> Frankly, that spoons serving drinks after meals, and allowing the poster to buy three pints with a burger, should be closed down for a month & issued with a £10k fine.



It was always going to happen because it was a stupid rule.  Why would anyone intentionally sabotage their own business?  Why would anyone want to be so utterly confrontational with their customers over stupid, non-sensical and totally unenforceable rules?

Yeah there are some twats out there.  The pubs who don't do food opening anyway and the ones that don't observe the clear rules of table service etc.  By and large though its just normal people trying to get through a terrible terrible year with something left intact.

Can't survive if stay closed.  Can't survive if you follow the rules exactly (if if it was possible to understand and implement them which its not).  Get shamed and blamed for the pandemic if you take the only sensible option of arbitrarily applying the rules as best you can.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Its a shame I need to keep reiterating this but I know I'll just be accused of being a selfish wanker who can't drink cans at home but for the record I have not been inside a pub (except to use the toilet) since early February.

We're turning on each other and this of course is by design.


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## elbows (Dec 3, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its been a constant tactic throughout this and we've decried it when this disgusting government have used it time and time again against the general populace, why should we support that tactic now?



Its not a tactic the government have ended up using anything like as much as people claimed would happen. Partly because they are conscious of the warnings they've had from behavioural experts about how to frame the pandemic, how they should not resort to blame, and should instead be encouraging people and continually making noises about how everyone has done their bit and risen to the challenge.

The main exceptions that spring to mind are that when very large failings have happened with test & trace, the likes of Hancock have sometimes sought to blame problems on the demand side of things, and thus the public. This is disgusting shit that is rightly condemned, but I can't think of all that many other examples of this kind.



> We're turning on each other and this of course is by design.



Bollocks.


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## StoneRoad (Dec 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its not a tactic the government have ended up using anything like as much as people claimed would happen. Partly because they are conscious of the warnings they've had from behavioural experts about how to frame the pandemic, how they should not resort to blame, and should instead be encouraging people and continually making noises about how everyone has done their bit and risen to the challenge.
> 
> The main exceptions that spring to mind are that when very large failings have happened with test & trace, the likes of Hancock have sometimes sought to blame problems on the demand side of things, and thus the public. This is disgusting shit that is rightly condemned, but I can't think of all that many other examples of this kind.
> 
> ...



Hope I live long enough to be able to read the relevant cabinet minutes ... assuming those are actually accurate and a true record, of course !


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## Teaboy (Dec 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> Bollocks.



Oh right, all these comments must just be a mirage then.  

I think we'll have to agree to disagree otherwise we'll end up doing it again.


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## Chilli.s (Dec 3, 2020)

The thing with pubs is that they are kinda fucked already, the economics don't make a lot of sense. what with the brewery/landlords squeezing them for rent and tying them to stock contracts. Then the government has always treated booze as the go to tax and run it up as one of their revenue raisers.


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## cupid_stunt (Dec 3, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> > They mentioned spoons were serving drinks after people had eaten, and seemed happy about that, despite it clearly being against the law.
> 
> 
> 
> Actually this isn't true.



Yes it is, alcohol can only be served with a meal, people can play around with how they define a meal, but it certainly doesn't allow alcohol to be served after a meal is finished. 



> Why would anyone want to be so utterly confrontational with their customers over stupid, non-sensical and totally unenforceable rules



It's not a nonsensical rule, it makes perfect sense. Likewise it's not unenforceable, and easier to enforce than dealing with, for example, out of control drunks. Licensees have all sorts of responsibilities, otherwise they risk fines or losing their licences, in this case a £10k fine & possible closure, which has happened in some cases, but needs to happen more. 

I do agree that there should be more support for the industry.


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## elbows (Dec 3, 2020)

A brief history of such fears, just off the top of my head so very far from perfect and complete:

They will blame us when lockdown 1 doesn't work.
Well, lockdown 1 worked, and they were going for a certain tone of messaging, so that didnt stand a chance of happening.

They will blame us for lockdown fatigue.
Well, the media got lockdown fatigue first and encouraged it, and then the Cummings thing blew up, drawing attention to shit elite behaviours and attitudes and who hasn't been doing the right thing in the pandemic, with a special focus on those who had a position of responsibility in the pandemic response.

They will blame us for a resurgence after summer relaxations / blame us for local lockdowns.
Employment and living conditions got a lot of the blame in Leicester.
Eat out to Help Out got a lot of blame for the national resurgence.
The failure of test & trace got a lot of the blame.
The government resorted to comparing whats happened here to whats happened in European countries, creating a sense of how it was inevitable, rather than blaming the public.

Probably the most successful blame game in terms of the public turning on each other was along tired, cliched generation gap lines. Lots of focus on the behaviour of young people. But even in this area, the governments agenda and plans for keeping education going ended up firmly in the frame.

Other factors such as the clear links between deprivation and high rates of virus, and links between occupation and risk of infection, and ethnicity and risk of infection, have acted as a brake on attempts to tell a shit story of pubic non-compliance.

Also the shitty right wing garbage press like the Daily Mail were, in late summer, far more interested in sentiments such as 'you've had your cheap meal, now get back to work!' and the desire to pressure people into behaving more normally. The back to work agenda required encouraging people to be irresponsible, and this got in the way of the sort of pandemic blame narrative we are discussing, somewhat incompatible agendas so they had to pick one, and they favoured the pro-business, throw away your fears one.

The likes of Johnson will occasionally make reference to how we got too relaxed in the summer, let our guard down etc. But he hasn't gone for this angle big time because again Im sure he is well aware that he was the one encouraging people to relax during the summer phase, including ill-considered language about how he wanted to see bustle.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Oh right, all these comments must just be a mirage then.
> 
> I think we'll have to agree to disagree otherwise we'll end up doing it again.



My bollocks moment was in regards that us turning on each other was by design. No, its just an inevitable consequence of the agenda to open up more hospitality at this stage than it is sensible to do. And my own outbursts at people whose pandemic views I consider ignorant and dangerous are entirely my own and have been in place for many years before this pandemic got started, I didnt need to take any cues from the Johnson regime on that.


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## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Oh right, all these comments must just be a mirage then.
> 
> I think we'll have to agree to disagree otherwise we'll end up doing it again.


FWIW I think the amount of _turning on each other _that's going on atm is well down from the levels it was earlier on in the pandemic. Here and elsewhere I'm noticing people are much less likely to be wanking on about people not sticking to the rules etc being responsible for infections - I haven't seen any polling recently on this specific topic, but I bet it's nothing like what it was in the spring.


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## chilango (Dec 3, 2020)

Yeah. I suspect (with no evidence other than limited observations) there's less blame being slung around because more people are "bending" the rules now.


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## elbows (Dec 3, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yeah. I suspect (with no evidence other than limited observations) there's less blame being slung around because more people are "bending" the rules now.



Exactly the situation where I feel like slinging more blame around, not less.

Not that I have no sympathy. People are probably well used to trying to survive and retain some tiny, temporary sense of control and justice by bending rules. Its a national sport, like being hyper vigilant in regards spotting hypocrisy and double-standards, which are never hard to find due to the joke that is labelled 'British sense of fair play'. Love of a rigged game more like, love of tiny victories against the man and arbitrary rules.


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## Badgers (Dec 3, 2020)

Beans on toast is not substantial meal FFS 

Four slices of toast with a can of beans would do me


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## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yeah. I suspect (with no evidence other than limited observations) there's less blame being slung around because more people are "bending" the rules now.


That's definitely part of it, for sure. But I think even many people who are remaining vigilant probably have a more sympathetic view now too - we're all very tired.


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## Teaboy (Dec 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes it is, alcohol can only be served with a meal, people can play around with how they define a meal, but it certainly doesn't allow alcohol to be served after a meal is finished.



OK.  Please define when a meal is finished and who is to decide that?  Is it OK if you graze on a bowl of chips all night?  If not is Tapas not OK? Is it Ok to leave a hour or so between each course? All this shit is impossible to define which is why they have not tried to.  The moment they did they got into a right mess with Scotch Eggs (horrible food by the way, I'd support imposition of fines and forced closures for any place that served them).  I've even got a Ukrainian mate who prefers his food to be almost cold before eating it.  He will happily sit there and pick at it all night.

Trying to legislate for how much people eat and in what way and what speed is impossible.



> It's not a nonsensical rule, it makes perfect sense. Likewise it's not unenforceable, and easier to enforce than dealing with, for example, out of control drunks. Licensees have all sorts of responsibilities, otherwise they risk fines or losing their licences, in this case a £10k fine & possible closure, which has happened in some cases, but needs to happen more.



It is non-sensical because it doesn't pass any test a rule should pass.  Where people have been fined is for egregious flouting of clearly defined rules, these are the twats I referred to and I'm happy for them to face the consequences.  Does anyone think we're really going to see a court case where people are arguing over what constitutes a meal and what is an acceptable time for it to be eaten in?  In fairness it would be fucking hilarious.



> I do agree that there should be more support for the industry.



Yeah look, I don't want to be having a go at people and I understand the anger, frustration and sometimes even fear but I have friends who work in hospitality and they are decent people just trying to get through this.

I don't have access to or the knowledge to understand all the science behind it (I have enough knowledge to know what I don't know) but if it really is as bad as it would appear then hospitality should be shut.  If that is to happen we need to understand what that means in terms of massive job losses, destruction of livelihoods and generational poverty.  The stakes really are that high and we're already seeing it in retail.

If we don't accept that then clearly there are only two options left: compromise and balance or massive bail-out time and everything that involves for the future of the country. The government have opted for balance and this is what it looks like.  Personally I think the last option would be best but I'm under no illusions what that means for the future and future generations.

One last thing (I know).  This is just hospitality and there are loads of industries out there who have been hammered and are employing similar tactics.  The government say all foreign travel should be avoided unless its essential yet I'm getting bombarded by emails from travel companies about winter getaways and ski trips.  I'm not getting on any flights but I understand why they are doing it.


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## SpookyFrank (Dec 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> FWIW I think the amount of _turning on each other _that's going on atm is well down from the levels it was earlier on in the pandemic. Here and elsewhere I'm noticing people are much less likely to be wanking on about people not sticking to the rules etc being responsible for infections - I haven't seen any polling recently on this specific topic, but I bet it's nothing like what it was in the spring.



I have formed a similar impression but that could just be result of my having put one particular u75 poster on ignore back in May.

Realistically if you'd not managed to make some kind of peace with the fact that X% of the population will ignore whatever rules entirely and Y% will make some dodgy decisions or have some blind spots then you'd have gone mad with rage by now. The intransigence, selfishness and daftness of humans is of necessity baked into the problem of how do we protect as many humans as possible. They're part of the price we pay for being the kind of species that can actually invent and implement solutions to a potentially existential threat on a timescale of less than a year.

Still though, if you're a vaper who deliberately blows large, clearly visible plumes of pulmonary emissions around in public spaces you share with many people who are likely to be anxious enough as it is then I hope rats eat your balls. And don't drive around with that fucking thing clenched in your paw like that, you can (or really should be able to) survive without it for ten fucking minutes.


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 3, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Beans on toast is not substantial meal FFS
> 
> Four slices of toast with a can of beans would do me


Two slices and a tin is easily 500kcal, then add butter and cheese. That's definitely a substantial meal. .


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> FWIW I think the amount of _turning on each other _that's going on atm is well down from the levels it was earlier on in the pandemic. Here and elsewhere I'm noticing people are much less likely to be wanking on about people not sticking to the rules etc being responsible for infections - I haven't seen any polling recently on this specific topic, but I bet it's nothing like what it was in the spring.



I think thats part of how societies come to terms with, communicate and reinforce rules and values. So when the rules change and restrictions are brand new, when the behavioural changes required are still fresh, I expect to hear far more noise about non-compliance and what the right thing to do really is.

Really simple visuals seem to be another constant factor. Pictures of crowded beaches, parks, streets outside pubs etc were a sure-fire way to get people going. And a similar story in the period where the government were trying to avoid an initial lockdown, except that time the anger and concern generated by images of mass gathering at racecourses, marathons and football matches was directed largely at the government for not having shutdown such things earlier. When there are less opportunities to see such gatherings, eg because the weather sucks, then there is less potential for loud complaining about these things.

The story of masks has also evolved quite a lot over time. Again it was not surprising that a lot of the complaints about non-compliance with mask wearing came in the early days of masks for the public, when it was a new rule and people were still coming to terms with it. But now that mask wearing has been normalised, I would expect people to be as annoyed as ever when they end up in a situation where someone who should be wearing a mask isn't.

Personally I cannot really bring myself to moan at people for going to the pub if thats what the rules in their area currently allow. I will moan about the people who set those rules, although I will also end up moaning at those that try to justify their pub visits in a way that is not compatible with the realities of virus transmission. I do not recommend visiting pubs and restaurants this winter.  When people ignore this recommendation, I do not consider them public enemy number 1, but I do frequently feel the need to talk about the issues.


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## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> Two slices and a tin is easily 500kcal, then add butter and cheese. That's definitely a substantial meal. .


Some of the guidance is clearly going to be built around whether the substantial meal is something a landlord could serve for pence to allow them to sell beer, rather than the number of calories in it.


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> FWIW I think the amount of _turning on each other _that's going on atm is well down from the levels it was earlier on in the pandemic. Here and elsewhere I'm noticing people are much less likely to be wanking on about people not sticking to the rules etc being responsible for infections - I haven't seen any polling recently on this specific topic, but I bet it's nothing like what it was in the spring.



I think people are less frightened than they were in the Spring.


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## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> I think people are less frightened than they were in the Spring.


yep, although I can't see any real reason why they should be (other than fatigue).


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 3, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> I think people are less frightened than they were in the Spring.



Absolutely.  The numbers speak for themselves and its reflecting in peoples behaviour as well as lockdown fatigue etc.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 3, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> I think people are less frightened than they were in the Spring.



I hope this is true. I'm sure (entirely legitimate) feelings of powerlessness and dread have been a factor behind all sorts of unhelpful stuff, from ignoring restrictions to following the 'this isn't true because I don't want it to be' line of thinking down the conspiraloon rabbit hole.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> yep, although I can't see any real reason why they should be (other than fatigue).



I'd say there were many unknowns around Spring about how in danger we all were. The data now is pretty stark on risk of death and I think we all know this.  The young knew this first and that is spreading to older generations as well.

Of course we don't assess the risk of things like long covid because as humans we're not great at assessing that sort of risk.  I just think its inherent for us to consider risk to ourselves over risk to others.  I still hear it in the language friends use all the time.  I'm an outlier in people I know in how seriously I've taken it and this is amongst people who have good qualifications in Biochemistry and the like and jobs in pharma.

I think its quite normal now if you're fortunate enough to be young and healthy enough to see covid as not your problem.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 3, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think its quite normal now if you're fortunate enough to be young and healthy enough to see covid as not your problem.


Yup, sadly.

Although, even people like my parents (69 and 75, the latter with various health conditions) are saying they're "willing to take the risk", which I just feel again is them just not genuinely coming to terms with what the risk is. I don't know, maybe I'm doing them a disservice there.

But there is definitely a general theme of "I'm willing to risk myself" rather than talking about the risk to society at large. The death figures are just numbers


----------



## IC3D (Dec 3, 2020)

Table service, small dishes all evening, not too crowded.
It's exactly how I want pubs to be.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> yep, although I can't see any real reason why they should be (other than fatigue).



The initial shock wore off. I'd have to go back to check exactly when this happened but from memory I think it was some time in May, not long before the Cummings revelations. I felt it too, even though I doubt I experienced quite the same level of shock in the first place as a result of my pre-existing pandemic vigilance.

There was also a weird-feeling but understandable anti-climax aspect, as a result of actually locking down just in time to prevent hospital collapse (although thats not the whole story, since that was also achieved by having crap hospital admission standards and encouraging people to die at home). People working in hospitals often felt that weird anti-climax for a time in April, there was all the hype and adrenaline and mental preparation for the massive surge and battle, but depending on where in the country your hospital was, the magnitude of what was actually faced did not always live up to those expectations.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 3, 2020)

I see track and trace has finally realised that separate calls to a household for each child might be part of the reason for their useless contact rate  HuffPost is now a part of Verizon Media


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## frogwoman (Dec 3, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I think its quite normal now if you're fortunate enough to be young and healthy enough to see covid as not your problem.


Not sure about this tbh, people my age seem to give more of a shit than older people. And having had covid I'm terrified of getting it again. My sister tested positive in October and still hasn't got her sense of smell back. 

I don't think it is seeing it as not your problem, the government  is so shit so people are just using their judgement, with some people interpreting it much more loosely than others. The amount of people thinking it's just the flu or whatever is actually really low.


----------



## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

elbows said:


> The initial shock wore off. I'd have to go back to check exactly when this happened but from memory I think it was some time in May, not long before the Cummings revelations. I felt it too, even though I doubt I experienced quite the same level of shock in the first place as a result of my pre-existing pandemic vigilance.
> 
> There was also a weird-feeling but understandable anti-climax aspect, as a result of actually locking down just in time to prevent hospital collapse (although thats not the whole story, since that was also achieved by having crap hospital admission standards and encouraging people to die at home). People working in hospitals often felt that weird anti-climax for a time in April, there was all the hype and adrenaline and mental preparation for the massive surge and battle, but depending on where in the country your hospital was, the magnitude of what was actually faced did not always live up to those expectations.


I guess that's fair - I think I said last month that in the first wave, I didn't know anyone personally who'd even had it (other than those who self diagnosed) let alone who'd been seriously ill - and I imagine that will have been the same for many people in lesser-affected areas. That personal experience of nothing really happening must be a pretty powerful thing for public health authorities to overcome... and of course the longer it goes on, and the damage people _can _directly observe the various restrictions doing to their communities... then it's understandable people's priorities changing.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 3, 2020)

I'd add btw that yeah pubs are massively important and I can't wait for them to open up again but plenty of people my age and younger don't do the bulk of their socialising in pubs (not surprisingly given the prices half the time) plenty of people can't go in pubs because of mental health and addiction issues either tbh and saying they are the epicentre of the country or whatever is kinda stretching the point a bit. Note that this doesn't mean that they shouldn't receive financial support or should be boycotted or any of that


----------



## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

They are the epicentre of the country tbf, _and it fucking sucks. _


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 3, 2020)

How come so many of them have closed since changes to licensing in supermarkets etc then? Anyway I don't really want an argument about pubs lol


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 3, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> How come so many of them have closed since changes to licensing in supermarkets etc then? Anyway I don't really want an argument about pubs lol


There's been loads of factors that have led to pub closures over the past 20 years not just licensing changes to  supermarkets


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is that a problem? The purpose of the substantial meal rule is to change the way people drink alcohol during their visit to the pub, it's not just a weird arbitrary rule. So if your aren't drinking alcohol, then...


Nope alls fine here . I didn't post that to illustrate any problem . There was a discussion on rules,  enforcement and local councils so I thought the example from Essex was useful.


----------



## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Nope alls fine here . I didn't post that to illustrate any problem . There was a discussion on rules,  enforcement and local councils so I thought the example from Essex was useful.


I was wondering why you'd drawn attention to that particular clause is all


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 3, 2020)

killer b said:


> I was wondering why you'd drawn attention to that particular clause is all


Not because it was some sort of a problem, I think sometimes people forget that not everyone orders alcohol in pubs/bars  etc. and tbh I wasn't aware that that clause existed.


----------



## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

I think one of the tiers in Scotland is non-booze drinks only, I'm a little surprised that wasn't in the tiers here tbh


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 3, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> There's been loads of factors that have led to pub closures over the past 20 years not just licensing changes to  supermarkets


Yeah I'm not saying that's the only reason, just that they don't necessarily occupy the place they once did


----------



## miss direct (Dec 3, 2020)

It's ridiculous that it's cheaper to get a tea or coffee (£1ish) in Wetherspoons than it is to sit down in most actual cafes. I would prefer to hang around in cafes, but can't afford £3+ for a hot drink. It's bloody rubbish now it's so cold outside. Wish there was at least some wooden huts selling mulled wine and open fire pits in the city centre  Europe seems to manage. 
#tier3


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 3, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah I'm not saying that's the only reason, just that they don't necessarily occupy the place they once did


I think that's indisputable.


----------



## killer b (Dec 3, 2020)

Anyway, my half thought out theory that the current lockdown is radicalising the entire pub sector was lent a little more weight this afternoon when a landlord friend of mine shared a Nigel Farage video...


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 3, 2020)

frogwoman 
a few years old but this map might explain a bit more about geographical perceptions of the pub and community


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 3, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> frogwoman
> a few years old but this map might explain a bit more about geographical perceptions of the pub and community
> 
> View attachment 241628


That figure for Wales is quite interesting.
It isn't that long ago that the last bits of North Wales stopped being "dry" on Sundays ...
- not to mention the changing influence of certain non-drinking religious groups ...


----------



## brogdale (Dec 3, 2020)

So, even on the Government's own 28-day criteria, the UK has passed another grim 'milestone' in the pandemic:


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 3, 2020)

Just looking at my local area's case rate.
20 cases in the past week (actually to the 28th November) has now put the rate up to around 235 cases per 100,000

Still staying in as much as possible. Gloves, mask and sanitizer when I have to go out ...

Hurry up with those jabs, please.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 3, 2020)

brogdale said:


> So, even on the Government's own 28-day criteria, the UK has passed another grim 'milestone' in the pandemic:
> 
> View attachment 241641


#worldbeating


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 3, 2020)

If you want another nasty shock, pop over to the world-o-meters tallying site. It makes very grim reading.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 3, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> If you want another nasty shock, pop over to the world-o-meters tallying site. It makes very grim reading.


any link?


----------



## chilango (Dec 3, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> That figure for Wales is quite interesting.
> It isn't that long ago that the last bits of North Wales stopped being "dry" on Sundays ...
> - not to mention the changing influence of certain non-drinking religious groups ...



They still held referendums on dry Sundays when I was a teenager (Last one was 1996).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 3, 2020)

brogdale said:


> any link?











						Coronavirus Update (Live): 129,471,257 Cases and 2,828,154 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
					

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## Badgers (Dec 3, 2020)

This should help


----------



## Sue (Dec 3, 2020)

Badgers said:


> This should help



'High value'.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 3, 2020)

Sue said:


> 'High value'.


=='tory donors & chums'


----------



## xenon (Dec 3, 2020)

Just looked at Bristol's cases per 100K. Glad to say very much lower than about 10 days ago when it was 469. Now 175. Hopefully a downwards pattern we'll see across the country.

Don't know what happens regarding restrictions between say January and whenever some / enough of the populas is vaccinated, How in fact that is measured. Clearly there will be a lot more pressure to open stuff up again ahead of whatever the threshold is in the new year, Feb onwards I'd say.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 3, 2020)

Just checked Sheffield's. 165. Surprisingly not too bad although above average. 

Neighbour in his 80s is in hospital with it now  Taken away by ambulance.


----------



## ddraig (Dec 3, 2020)

Can't get into a pub here for last night! meh


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 3, 2020)

West Sussex county is on under 60 now, I wish the rest of the county & indeed the country were at the Worthing borough level of under 25.

I can't see those numbers being that low after Christmas.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 3, 2020)

xenon said:


> Just looked at Bristol's cases per 100K. Glad to say very much lower than about 10 days ago when it was 469. Now 175. Hopefully a downwards pattern we'll see across the country.



That's excellent news, I've just looked at Mr.Bishie land, Brighton & Hove City, which had a student related outbreak causing some big numbers, but they have gone right down to 60 now, slightly lower than West Sussex & well below East Sussex on around 90.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 3, 2020)

Quarantine to end.

from Saturday business people entering England will not have to quarantine if the purpose of their trip will generate a deal worth more than 100k or save >50 jobs.

As deals take multiple trips to achieve, this new rule is unenforceable and therefore applies to anyone who claims it. Batten down your hatches for third wave...

Danish mink farmers will be allowed in to relocate their farms, ffs...


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 3, 2020)

Shapps is an idiot !


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 3, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Shapps is an idiot !



You've only just noticed?


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 3, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> You've only just noticed?


No, I already knew he was a pratt, this jumping the quarantine thing is just further proof, of the extreme level of his prattness !


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 3, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> No, I already knew he was a pratt, this jumping the quarantine thing is just further proof, of the extreme level of his prattness !



It ties in with Williamson’s tongue poking at verifying the sodding vaccine, just public school pricks.

I shall again quote Mick Jones on being reminded Shapps is his cousin, “He’s a cunt.”


----------



## Sue (Dec 3, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> It ties in with Williamson’s tongue poking at verifying the sodding vaccine, just public school pricks.
> 
> I shall again quote Mick Jones on being reminded Shapps is his cousin, “He’s a cunt.”


Wait, what, Mick Jones is Grant Shapps' cousin? Mick Jones from The Clash Mick Jones?


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 3, 2020)

Sue said:


> Wait, what, Mick Jones is Grant Shapps' cousin? Mick Jones from The Clash Mick Jones?



Yup.


----------



## Sue (Dec 3, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Yup.


Christ.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 3, 2020)

Afaik they have never met, but the biology is there.


----------



## Sue (Dec 3, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Afaik they have never met, but the biology is there.


We all have embarrassing relations but there's embarrassing and there's_ embarrassing_.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 3, 2020)

Well, you can pick your friends and get all the flack that is deserved.
But, unfortunately, you don't get to pick your relatives (unless you are adopted, of course)


----------



## weltweit (Dec 3, 2020)

More than 60,000 UK deaths now - not a good milestone..


----------



## elbows (Dec 4, 2020)

It was a milestone that was likely reached in the first wave but we have to have this establishment pissing about where the daily number is treated as though its the real number, the most accurate number.

I will continue to sporadically report on the number of deaths since 1st September by that measure, to provide some sense of the second wave impact, a sense the media seem uninterested in providing. Well I did see some BBC thing that said 80% of the deaths happened in the first wave, but this was using ONS data which did a better job of capturing the first wave totals but has been much poorer at even matching the number of 28-day positive deaths in more recent months.

UK Covid-19 deaths from 1st September onwards: 18,560.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 4, 2020)

What’s the latest on excess deaths so far guys second wave?


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 4, 2020)

This comes from a long way down the beeb daily covid figures report page  ( Covid-19 in the UK: How many coronavirus cases are there in your area? - BBC News )


----------



## elbows (Dec 4, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> What’s the latest on excess deaths so far guys second wave?



As the graph StoneRoad posted shows, deaths from non-Covid causes are recently down below the normal excess 5 year average. ie the grey area in the BBC graph does not reach as high as the dashed line recently. Which means that for the 2nd wave I expect excess death totals to fail to capture the full extent of Covid deaths, and for various ONS numbers to be lower than even the governments 'deaths within 28 days of a positive test' numbers. If we dont end up with lots of flu and other sorts of excess winter death, then I expect this gap to become even more pronounced, since the 5 year average number of deaths will increase quit a lot as we get further into winter.

Such a reduction in non-Covid deaths is likely to be down to a combination of factors. Various aspects of lockdown and recession were always expected to lead to less of various sorts of deaths to start with, including a reduction in deaths due to a decrease in pollution. High flu vaccination rates and a possible lack of flu epidemic (still too early to tell) will, if that happens, make a big difference too. And I know some people were expecting less deaths because some of the people who would have died at this time of year already died earlier in the year due to Covid-19. I will only be able to analyse that picture properly with quite a lot of hindsight, since I'll want to wait for non-provisional ONS deaths for the entire season to come out that show all the  deaths by cause of death, and will then need to compare that to rates of death for all those causes in previous years. Some provisional version of this probably already exists and comes out weekly or monthly but its a bit heavy so I havent looked into it yet and may just wait for the complete data later.


----------



## elbows (Dec 4, 2020)

For example, if I count UK deaths in ONS reports that mention Covid-19 on the death certificate, from September up to November 20th (last date of current ONS data by date of death), and ONS (& NRA & NISRA) excess deaths for the same period:

Excess deaths are at about 11,400.

Death certificate Covid-19 deaths are at about 14,000. And dashboard 'deaths with positive test within 28 days' for the same period only up to November 20th are also at around 14,000.

Meanwhile dashboard 28 day deaths from September 1st all the way up to December 3rd are currently at 19,059.

So in this second wave so far, the ONS totals aren't giving me bigger numbers than I can get off the more timely daily dashboard figures. And the excess death estimates aren't helping me get a sense of how many Covid-19 deaths happened but weren't recorded as covid deaths, but in the first wave they were of much more use for that.


----------



## elbows (Dec 4, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm not really sure how accurate the lateral flow tests are, so I am unsure if its really a good idea to use them at this stage to allow care home visits, although I would obviously want to bring in the harm of isolation and loneliness as factors when trying to balance that decision.
> 
> Touching as some of the images are, some are also the wrong sort of touching, and I will quite loudly suggest that it is not a good idea to have your 95 year old mother kiss your mask
> 
> ...



Well I didnt see much subsequent awareness in the media etc about why mask kissing is not something to encourage, but then again I wasn't looking so maybe there was some realisation on that front. I know my mother was hopping mad that nobody in the media thought about that before using such footage.

But when it comes to my earlier point about the effectiveness of this sort of testing, it appears authorities are having second thoughts:



> Greater Manchester councils have become the latest to pause rapid testing for care home visitors over concerns they fail to detect enough infections.
> 
> Data suggests the rapid kits miss about a third of the most infectious cases picked up by conventional lab tests.
> 
> Lateral flow tests are being used in England so residents can see family indoors for the first time since March.











						Covid: Greater Manchester stops care home tests over accuracy fears
					

The rapid tests picked up five infections out of every 10 found by conventional lab tests.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 4, 2020)

And some more detail from that same article:



> It was already known that lateral flow tests were less sensitive - they miss about 50% of infections overall.
> 
> But lab tests had suggested that figure could fall to 5% when a high level of virus was present.
> 
> ...



The previous government claims about this remind me why I bothered to get clued up about pandemics in the first place and why I have a 'bad attitude'.


----------



## elbows (Dec 4, 2020)

So a huge period of delay between the likes of Hancock hyping up alternative sorts of mass rapid testing (probably in early April but I havent time to check), and actually deciding to use some of these tests as part of the pandemic response. And not rushing into those things at the time was said by the likes of Whitty to be because of how unhelpful and counterproductive inaccurate tests would be, so they needed to judge them carefully. Fast forward many months and the government finally end up promoting a bunch of uses for one particular type of these tests, and it still turns out that they were exaggerating the effectiveness of these tests and suggesting they be used inappropriately as a result. Well done.


----------



## elbows (Dec 4, 2020)

So what are lateral flow tests still safe/useful for?

Well I dont think I'd use them for any of these 'demonstrate someone isn't infected' purposes like care home visits at all, just not good enough for that.

If you were keen to pick up a proportion of cases that would otherwise have been missed entirely due to limitations in PCR test capacity when it comes to mass testing of large chunks of a population, then these lateral flow tests can still be used for that. So long as the resulting data interpretation and peoples behaviour is based on the knowledge that you aren't going to find anything like every case using this method. Finding a proportion of, for example, asymptomatic cases, is still better than nothing, better than not finding any of them. But given the resources and logistics required to do the mass community testing everywhere, do have to consider how much difference all that effort will actually make when the tests involved are that unreliable.


----------



## elbows (Dec 4, 2020)

Oops if I had bothered to read all of the BBC article then I would have known that they already made the points I made in that last post.


----------



## elbows (Dec 6, 2020)

I decided to watch a UK 1919 influenza film, next scroll please  









						Watch Dr. Wise on Influenza - BFI Player
					

A hard-hitting public information film made at the height of the Great Influenza 1918-18.




					player.bfi.org.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 6, 2020)

Anopther crap idea that was found wanting rather quickly:









						Nottingham's Christmas market closes for the rest of the year
					

The market in Nottingham closes for the rest of the year, following "unprecedented high footfall".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Jo Cox-Brown, from Night Time Economy Solutions, said she had been in the city centre to support Small Business Saturday and witnessed crowds where people were close together and not wearing masks.
> 
> She said she worried the market could cause a spike in local coronavirus cases.
> 
> ...


----------



## Serene (Dec 6, 2020)




----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> Anopther crap idea that was found wanting rather quickly:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



If it's anything like the normal Nottingham 'christmas market' they pack in so many tat stalls that there's little room left for people in much of the city centre.


----------



## marty21 (Dec 6, 2020)

elbows said:


> Anopther crap idea that was found wanting rather quickly:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


What a lovely Christmas story , let's go to to ye old Christmas Market and shit in a doorway.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 6, 2020)

Still trying to work out the cause of our local "spike" in cases (OK, it is "only" 30 in the past week, compared to single figures or zero/less than three suppression level until a few cases in mid-October, this good run was from April) 

Doubt it is the local plastic bottle making plant - people from all over work there, and the case rates in neighbouring areas are going down .
We do have some "hospital / elderly care" facilities ... 
alternatively, the local schools have not been totally clear of cases, either.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 7, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Still trying to work out the cause of our local "spike" in cases (OK, it is "only" 30 in the past week, compared to single figures or zero/less than three suppression level until a few cases in mid-October, this good run was from April)
> 
> Doubt it is the local plastic bottle making plant - people from all over work there, and the case rates in neighbouring areas are going down .
> We do have some "hospital / elderly care" facilities ...
> alternatively, the local schools have not been totally clear of cases, either.



Sounds like you live in a relatively small area.  I think there is always the danger with smaller areas that haven't really seen many cases for people to get a bit complacent.  Its certainly been the experience of a few friends and families.  People have been largely fine just nipping round for a cup of tea, dropping of Christmas presents and holding small social gatherings because the area was virus free but soon as it does turn up it can spread very quickly.

It may not be a particular place or event just a bit of complacency combined with general fatigue.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 7, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Sounds like you live in a relatively small area.  I think there is always the danger with smaller areas that haven't really seen many cases for people to get a bit complacent.  Its certainly been the experience of a few friends and families.  People have been largely fine just nipping round for a cup of tea, dropping of Christmas presents and holding small social gatherings because the area was virus free but soon as it does turn up it can spread very quickly.
> 
> It may not be a particular place or event just a bit of complacency combined with general fatigue.


Quite possibly - it is a mainly rural area, one "town" and several villages plus many farms. Unfortunately, we are within commuting distance of a large urban area which had a significant peak recently ( a couple of months ago ). Mostly, though, people are quite good with masks and social distancing. Narrow pavements and small shops are a potential problem.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 7, 2020)

First look at new NHS Covid-19 vaccination identity card
					

Human Rights advocacy group Liberty fear those without the Covid-19 vaccination ID card could be blocked from accessing from 'essential public services, work or housing' in Britain.




					www.dailymail.co.uk
				



i see they aren't including wales in the first tranche of vaccinations


----------



## Spandex (Dec 7, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> i see they aren't including wales in the first tranche of vaccinations


That's okay. According to that map they appear to be moving Wirral Hospital over the Dee into Wales. They also seem to be moving Epsom Racecourse to Tonbridge Wells and the Excel Centre to Canvey Island. I know Johnson loves big projects, but this is really ambitious...


----------



## teuchter (Dec 7, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> View attachment 242210
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I see you're kind enough to link us to the Daily Mail for this information.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 7, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I see you're kind enough to link us to the Daily Mail for this information.


you are a master at pointing out the bleeding obvious. however do you manage to do it?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 7, 2020)

Spandex said:


> That's okay. According to that map they appear to be moving Wirral Hospital over the Dee into Wales. They also seem to be moving Epsom Racecourse to Tonbridge Wells and the Excel Centre to Canvey Island. I know Johnson loves big projects, but this is really ambitious...


sadly that's only because mail hacks aren't that proficient with computers


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 7, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> sadly that's only because mail hacks aren't that proficient with computers


Nor are they especially good with locating places on maps


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 7, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Nor are they especially good with locating places on maps



Let's be honest, they are just fucking hopeless all round.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 7, 2020)

Mate is keeping his own graphs (like elbows ) - sent me this today showing actual daily reported cases and 7 day rolling average now above firebreak levels.

(Wales, obviously)

There are apparently rumours the Senedd may close down schools a week early this Friday.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 7, 2020)

Is any of that down to higher testing?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 7, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is any of that down to higher testing?



I don't think so. At least I'm not aware of any greatly increased testing since the firebreak.


----------



## elbows (Dec 7, 2020)

There does seem to have been an increase in testing according to the official Wales dashboard, but that may be primarily down to an increase in demand and I would certainly not let it distract from the fact that Wales has problems again that the authorities know they will have to act on.


from Tableau Public

I'd suggest thats whats happening in most places is a reasonable fit for opinions of how much various measures would achieve, when those opinions were fairly balanced between pessimism and optimism.

Wales firebreak stopped the rise and somewhat stabilised the situation for a time, but it was a short firebreak so the amount of time bought as a result was relatively modest. It is entirely unsurprising that they have been forced into further measures again recently and may yet have to go further still. Northern Ireland was a similar story, they used measures to stop a bad situation getting too much worse, but didnt buy themselves enough wiggle room to relax for a prolonged period. I'm a bit out of date with regards Scotland but much like England I'm not overjoyed by the data, some real achievements show up but I'm not sure as they are enough for me not to have to sound the alarm again till 2021, the situation in December is fragile and could yet deteriorate quickly.

Some combination of earlier, stronger and longer would have been better in all these places, with a more cautious and prolonged set of relaxations afterwards. Overall most actions resemble the bare minimum to me, which usually means that at some point they will have to do more.


----------



## elbows (Dec 7, 2020)

For example the following represents the latest data I have for number of Covid-19 patients in hospital in English regions. And for example there is no situation in which I can imagine being happy for pubs and restaurants to reopen in regions where the number of people in hospital has not fallen but has only plateaued for a time before rising further.

I expect data on this front over the next 5-10 days to further develop my sense of where I think things are going, how well previous measures worked, how ill-advised the current restrictions/lack of restrictions are in various places etc.


Using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## elbows (Dec 7, 2020)

Another danger for Wales is if they try to hang on till after Christmas before having to go further with measures. I mean they've already panicked and stopped pubs serving alcohol, and would now like to do the standard 'we need to wait 2 weeks to see the results of this' but I'm not sure they will end up with the luxury of not going further with measures in the meantime.









						Wales considers new Covid lockdown amid rapid rise in infections
					

Welsh health minister refuses to rule out more restrictions as hospital cases hit new high




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## belboid (Dec 7, 2020)

My welsh hospitality working mates are basically saying its all gonna be fucked and shut until March, they are largely accepting of it.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 7, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> View attachment 242210
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I'd be surprised if that's actually the case about Wales.
There's nothing more up-to-date (yet) thatn 2nd December on the gov.Wales site   but there was this

Also, this statement on the Public Health Wales site from Vaughm Gething (Wales Health minister)

*Mail Map Misleading* shocker.

ETA : More up-to-date BBC Wales story .....

And (also BBC Wales) a less than opitimistic timescale for Wales is predicted here


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 7, 2020)

Spandex said:


> That's okay. According to that map they appear to be moving Wirral Hospital over the Dee into Wales. They also seem to be moving Epsom Racecourse to Tonbridge Wells and the Excel Centre to Canvey Island. I know Johnson loves big projects, but this is really ambitious...



*Mail in Crap Map as Well shocker*


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 7, 2020)

I think the thing about that Mail map was that it was a list of NHS sites. And Wales has a completely separate NHS to England.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 7, 2020)

belboid said:


> My welsh hospitality working mates are basically saying its all gonna be fucked and shut until March, they are largely accepting of it.



That not until March thing sounds like a definite risk for sure , but I've heard mixed views round here myself, so 'not a certainty' would be my speculation.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2020)

Lots of Scottish data explored in this article.









						Covid in Scotland: Have the level four restrictions worked?
					

As people in Scotland wait to hear what Covid alert level their area will be put in to, we analyse the statistics and ask whether the toughest measures have been working.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




In regards my concerns expressed yesterday which included Scotland, its not that I am totally unhappy with progress made, but that I have concerns about relaxing measures when levels are still relatively high.


----------



## steveo87 (Dec 8, 2020)

SHOW EMOTION! MAKE IT LOOK LIKE WE CARE, THE PLEBS WILL *DEFINITELY * VOTE FOR US THEN:
(was also going to go with 'look at this Thunder Cunt', but as Pierce Morgan is there too, the point may have been missed)


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 8, 2020)

steveo87 said:


> SHOW EMOTION! MAKE IT LOOK LIKE WE CARE, THE PLEBS WILL *DEFINITELY * VOTE FOR US THEN:
> (was also going to go with 'look at this Thunder Cunt', but as Pierce Morgan is there too, the point may have been missed)



And modern William Shakespeare is also from Warwickshire, apparently.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 8, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Still trying to work out the cause of our local "spike" in cases (OK, it is "only" 30 in the past week, compared to single figures or zero/less than three suppression level until a few cases in mid-October, this good run was from April)
> 
> Doubt it is the local plastic bottle making plant - people from all over work there, and the case rates in neighbouring areas are going down .
> We do have some "hospital / elderly care" facilities ...
> alternatively, the local schools have not been totally clear of cases, either.



Some discussions today suggest that the bottle plant may well be the current culprit, even if the original source was the local secondary school - we're getting an army unit doing testing tomorrow (they've requisitioned the far side of the yard outside the workshop (again).

The lack of current / uptodate information really makes a mockery of trying to plan work-based activities ...


----------



## tommers (Dec 8, 2020)

steveo87 said:


> SHOW EMOTION! MAKE IT LOOK LIKE WE CARE, THE PLEBS WILL *DEFINITELY * VOTE FOR US THEN:
> (was also going to go with 'look at this Thunder Cunt', but as Pierce Morgan is there too, the point may have been missed)




I didn't clock that he had said "it makes you so proud to be British" as he was welling up.

That. Is. Outstanding.

What an absolute pillock.


----------



## steveo87 (Dec 8, 2020)

Its like one of your man of twitter's (Micheal Spider, I think his name is) skits, just real. Horribly real....


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 8, 2020)

And, cases are up today ...

(not surprised)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 8, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> And, cases are up today ...
> 
> (not surprised)





The government dashboard is reporting 12,282 new cases, that's lower than last Tuesday - 13.430, and everyday in-between.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Dec 8, 2020)

Cases have levelled out around 14k a day for the last week or so, down from many weeks over 20k. That hides a few details - cases have fallen massively (from a very high high) in the NW, NE of England. Cases in London, SE are more level, but never reached the highs of the NW, NE.

Similar stories with hospitalisations and deaths.

So it's good news generally, but more mixed when you drill down into it.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Dec 8, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Some discussions today suggest that the bottle plant may well be the current culprit, even if the original source was the local secondary school - we're getting an army unit doing testing tomorrow (they've requisitioned the far side of the yard outside the workshop (again).
> 
> The lack of current / uptodate information really makes a mockery of trying to plan work-based activities ...


tbh when you drill right down to local level, it's easy to be alarmed. Everywhere goes up and down at the very local level because, as you suggest, single infection events can cause an apparent surge. I'm not sure it is a good thing to fixate on it too much.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 8, 2020)

I was looking at this ...



the red on the uplift at the tail  ...


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> tbh when you drill right down to local level, it's easy to be alarmed. Everywhere goes up and down at the very local level because, as you suggest, single infection events can cause an apparent surge. I'm not sure it is a good thing to fixate on it too much.



When the local area had managed to stay relatively clear for most of the summer, to now be getting a high peak (now over 45 cases in last seven days to 2nd December and a case rate of over 640 per 100k) does become worrying ...


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Dec 8, 2020)

This shows cases by specimen date. It's flattened out certainly, but as I said, that hides some more local trends.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2020)

Putting London in tier 2 wasn't the only mistake they made with setting the level of restrictions, but it was the most obvious one, and so stories like the following one are entirely unsurprising to me.

*



			Londoners have been urged to "stick by the rules" amid fears the capital may be put into tier three restrictions following a rise in Covid-19 cases.
		
Click to expand...

*


> Two-thirds of the capital's boroughs registered an increase in coronavirus cases in the week to 3 December.
> 
> Outer London now has a higher infection rate than some areas in tier three, according to Public Health England (PHE) figures.
> 
> Officials are due to meet on 16 December to review the tier system.











						Coronavirus: Londoners 'must stick to rules' amid tier 3 fears
					

Rising Covid-19 cases, especially in outer boroughs, could see tighter restrictions imposed.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Dec 8, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> When the local area had managed to stay relatively clear for most of the summer, to now be getting a high peak (now over 45 cases in last seven days to 2nd December and a case rate of over 640 per 100k) does become worrying ...


Everywhere stayed relatively clear for most of the summer.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2020)

Relative to what is the question.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Dec 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Relative to what is the question.


Well relative to now, certainly.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus & elbows 

I'm comparing to the area's cases (&case rate) being in low enough numbers to be in the "data suppressed" or "less than 3 cases" category.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Well relative to now, certainly.



It does drive me a little crazy when people describe their local rates as quite good at the moment, when similar rates would have been seen as bad anywhere they happened in summer.

I dont think Leicester qualified for the 'everywhere' mentioned earlier.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> Putting London in tier 2 wasn't the only mistake they made with setting the level of restrictions, but it was the most obvious one, and so stories like the following one are entirely unsurprising to me.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It always looked like the economics won out over the health with that decision.  A bit worrying that that was in the week running up to the end of lockdown 2.  Rather suggests a notable degree of non-compliance with the rules.

My borough is currently at 83 cases per 100,000 so still comparatively low but far from ideal but its double or more that in the neighbouring boroughs.

It always seemed certain that London would go into tier 3 on Jan 1st or near as possible.  Will they shut down it all down before Christmas?  Hmmmm.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Dec 8, 2020)

elbows said:


> It does drive me a little crazy when people describe their local rates as quite good at the moment, when similar rates would have been seen as bad anywhere they happened in summer.
> 
> I dont think Leicester qualified for the 'everywhere' mentioned earlier.


Moving over 50 per 100,000 was initially the benchmark for taking action in the summer. A couple of weeks ago, Liverpool marked the point it dropped below 100 as hugely significant, so perspectives are certainly changed on that score. 

Drill down so far that you're watching individual infection events unfold and you can see your local rate quadruple within a week and start to be alarmed. But these kinds of mini-explosions are taking place all over the place. It's the nature of the infection that it's extremely uneven at that level of focus.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Drill down so far that you're watching individual infection events unfold and you can see your local rate quadruple within a week and start to be alarmed. But these kinds of mini-explosions are taking place all over the place. It's the nature of the infection that it's extremely uneven at that level of focus.



Yeah despite all the times I went on about zooming in, I dont usually go further than the NHS trust level of zoom. For example I've never found the very local data (eg MSOA maps where cases are suppressed below a certain level) to be very compelling for my purposes. My opinion might be different if such data could actually capture close to every case and outbreak, but that sort of data often ends up telling me as much about access to testing and local health team cluster detection and institutional outbreaks as anything else, and I dont use the evolving figures for the MSOA where I live as a guide to my own personal pandemic risk. And the numbers in small areas are often very small, which can make trends harder to spot in amongst the natural random noise.

Last Thursday when the weekly NHS trust data came out, there were a number of trusts around the country where, in contrast to many others, I wasn't really happy with what the admissions data showed. Some were in areas that are now tier 3, some are in tier 2 areas so bother me especially. But that data only went up to November 29th so I decided to give it till another weeks worth of data is available this coming Thursday before pointing out some examples.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 8, 2020)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Moving over 50 per 100,000 was initially the benchmark for taking action in the summer. A couple of weeks ago, Liverpool marked the point it dropped below 100 as hugely significant, so perspectives are certainly changed on that score.
> 
> Drill down so far that you're watching individual infection events unfold and you can see your local rate quadruple within a week and start to be alarmed. But these kinds of mini-explosions are taking place all over the place. It's the nature of the infection that it's extremely uneven at that level of focus.



At some point, we'll be working to control these individual outbursts of infections - which is when T&T would actually work.

But not knowing where these infections are coming from in my local area makes it very difficult to avoid them (ie deciding on shopping trips, getting fuel for the car ...)
Most of the early autumn we deliberately avoided the local conurbation when purchasing supplies.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> At some point, we'll be working to control these individual outbursts of infections - which is when T&T would actually work.
> 
> But not knowing where these infections are coming from in my local area makes it very difficult to avoid them (ie deciding on shopping trips, getting fuel for the car ...)
> Most of the early autumn we deliberately avoided the local conurbation when purchasing supplies.



My preferred personal local risk approach is not to focus on the idea of actually finding out how many infected people there are in a particular place, just assume it is everywhere and instead concentrate on the risk from specific behaviours and settings. Distance, crowding, ventilation etc. I would factor in a general sense of how prevalent the virus was in the region and country too, but not really a local sense of the present situation, because I just dont believe the local info will be complete and timely enough to be safe from the risk of being misleading.

People who placed too much hope in how much pandemic burden test & trace could carry in this country, and how much we would learn about outbreaks and spread in specific settings, have been left disappointed so far. I'd suggest that only a portion of this failure to live up to expectations is down to Johnson & Co incompetence, profiteering, centralised approach, funding etc. Dont get me wrong, lots could be done better in those areas, it was reasonable to demand more. But even if they had made a more thorough attempt, I still think such things are only likely to pick up a proportion of the picture, and there is much unease about how far to pry when it comes to tracing outbreaks and trying to join every potentially available dot. And the establishment in this country have never shown any genuine signs of trying to play a complete viral suppression game. So we never get close to the sort of test & trace efforts that we've famously seen in countries that have only ever had limited outbreaks and so are playing a very different game, of trying to keep the virus out of their country completely and totally squash local transmission ASAP when outbreaks begin. I dont see the UK establishment changing on that front because there is the whole 'we are an open country with so many international links' angle, and indeed the whole suppression subject overlaps with border infection control policies stuff, where again its the same story as far as UK plc is concerned, a slack story of 'its way too much effort and conflicts with our other priorities so lets just not consider it viable and move on'.

Having said that there are still real outbreak detection efforts that have been part of the picture in England for a long time. There are lots of outbreaks in specific settings detected and reported and to some extent managed, especially since local teams got better access to some data than they had in the early months of the testing regime. But again these clusters they detect are sort of low-hanging fruit, they dont represent anything like enough of the picture to help with my own personal sense of risk when interacting with other people. They are often tales of outbreaks that happen in an institution that is large enough that these things are large enough to be noticed, and where formal processes for the institution reporting the outbreak are in place. And a lot of the time these sorts of outbreaks are not actually the source of growing levels of infection elsewhere in the community, rather they are just a big warning sign that levels of infection in the wider community are growing. In other words the tip of the iceberg is noteworthy for being visible, rather than being the cause of the rest of the iceberg that lurks beyond view.

What I just described also has similarities with how new pandemics tend to be discovered in the first place, if you dont have a huge, well tuned and ever-present surveillance effort that leaves no stone unturned. The outbreaks are detected only once they reach a size large enough to cause an unusual strain on hospitals, and then some enquiring minds are still required to notice and respond appropriately rather than resting on prior assumptions such as blaming it on another known disease


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 8, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> And modern William Shakespeare is also from Warwickshire, apparently.


He also looks like he’s been dead for 400 years


----------



## brogdale (Dec 9, 2020)

So, 1 week on from the end of LD2 and the case rate has risen:


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 9, 2020)

brogdale said:


> So, 1 week on from the end of LD2 and the case rate has risen:
> 
> View attachment 242513



Seems inevitable really.  I would have expected that to happen anyway to a degree but given the season and shopping and everything.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 9, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Seems inevitable really.  I would have expected that to happen anyway to a degree but given the season and shopping and everything.


The only way is up now.


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2020)

If my job was to report the news, very much including pandemic news and tier restrictions news, then I wouldn't fancy the chances of keeping my job after breaching the regulations. It was only December 1st when I went on about the intelligentsia having dinner party and restaurant weaknesses when I was moaning about the London tier 2 decision. Apart from still not being happy that I only managed to come up with the word intelligentsia rather than some broader term that I was searching for but my mind failed to deliver, it didnt take long for an example of this point to wander into view. I was going to mention it when the first details of the story broke but didnt get round to it, but I see it has expanded in scope since then.



> *Sky News presenter Kay Burley and three colleagues have been taken off air while an investigation into breaches of Covid guidelines is carried out.*
> 
> Political editor Beth Rigby, north of England correspondent Inzamam Rashid and presenter Sam Washington are also off air while the inquiry takes place.
> 
> BBC media editor Amol Rajan said Burley's job is hanging in the balance.





> Writing on Twitter on Monday, Burley said she had been at a "Covid compliant" restaurant on Saturday and had later "popped into another" venue to use the toilet.
> 
> Amol Rajan said she was one of a party of 10 people at the Century Club, a private members' club on London's Shaftesbury Avenue. Her group took up two tables, with six people on one and four on the other.
> 
> ...



I dont make a habit of watching Sky News but anyone who has forced themselves to watch many of the press conferences in full has probably seen that Beth Rigbys questions were often far from the worst of the bunch. Its hard for me to currently imagine her being able to ask such questions in future, it would be too awkward surely. Like Angus Deayton trying to carry on presenting Have I got News For You after becoming part of the news himself.









						Kay Burley: Sky News presenter off air during Covid breach inquiry
					

The TV journalist and Sky News political editor Beth Rigby are among four people taken off air.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Numbers (Dec 9, 2020)

I’ve no time for Burley whatsoever but liked Beth Rigby.  

Idiots.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 9, 2020)

It would be a big Christmas bonus if they sacked Kay Burley.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 9, 2020)

I can see that lot having loads of dinner parties but I'm surprised they can still rent out clubs etc.  It was the same with that party Rita Ora had, just rented a club out no questions asked.

I increasingly feel like we're the mugs here for following the rules.

ETA: I do wonder how much influence it had on tier allocation the fact that so many of the wealthy and influential live in London.


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2020)

However many people break pandemic rules, it doesn't make those who stick to them mugs. It makes those who stick to them responsible, and those who dont irresponsible shits whose reputations are going to take a hit.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 9, 2020)

I sort of broke one of the rules yesterday. Saw my mate who lives on his own in Marlow, has family in London, only been seeing them outside etc and has been on a train twice since March, both times to see me lol. I went to an Indian restaurant with him as my 'support bubble'. He's the first one of my mates I've seen since about the end of October and the only one I've seen indoors since like august.

It's breaking the rules because my dad is supposed to be in the support bubble and my mum's been shopping with him a week ago, he never comes in the house tho and ive not seen him in about two months. I won't be seeing anyone else this side of Christmas tho.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 9, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I can see that lot having loads of dinner parties but I'm surprised they can still rent out clubs etc.  It was the same with that party Rita Ora had, just rented a club out no questions asked.



These venues are supposed to be slapped with £10k fines.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 9, 2020)

And, IHMO, these people should be setting an example, by closely following the rules - even exceeding the requirements ...

not finding ways around the provisions ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2020)

21012 UK Covid-19 deaths from September 1st onwards. (Dashboard data so only deaths within 28 days of a positive test).


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 10, 2020)

I do find the situation with flying and holidays quite odd at the moment.

The Government advice is that all foreign travel should be avoided unless essential.  Also Tier 3 restrictions basically say you shouldn't leave your local area unless under very certain circumstances.

Yet, I keep getting bombarded by emails from the airlines promoting their Christmas and winter holidays. The one from Wizz this morning tells me I cam turn this Christmas into the highlight of 2020 by jetting off to Spain from Doncaster (tier 3).

Its quite clear to me that loads of people are off on holiday as per usual.  That fuckwit Kay Burley followed up her hedged none apology with a (now deleted) _fuck you mugs I'm off on safari_ tweet.

Its likely that from next week I won't be able to sit in the corner of an empty cafe but its still OK to carry on with my foreign travel as normal.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 10, 2020)

Nicola Sturgeon is actively discouraging people from booking summer holidays abroad in 2021 at the press briefings, much to the disgust of the guy who runs Edinburgh airport.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 10, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I do find the situation with flying and holidays quite odd at the moment.
> 
> The Government advice is that all foreign travel should be avoided unless essential.  Also Tier 3 restrictions basically say you shouldn't leave your local area unless under very certain circumstances.
> 
> ...


When I flew back for my operation in November both Faro and Manchester airports were like a ghost town . Only one terminal in use at Manchester , three shops open and possibly 50 people plus staff in the entire terminal . 15 people on the flight to England , ten on the way back .


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 10, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> When I flew back for my operation in November both Faro and Manchester airports were like a ghost town . Only one terminal in use at Manchester , three shops open and possibly 50 people plus staff in the entire terminal . 15 people on the flight to England , ten on the way back .



Sounds like a paradise tbh.



weepiper said:


> Nicola Sturgeon is actively discouraging people from booking summer holidays abroad in 2021 at the press briefings, much to the disgust of the guy who runs Edinburgh airport.




Fuck me I might start respecting her at this rate. The messaging for airports and travel has been fucking shameful.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 10, 2020)

Discussion with mate, a couple of weeks ago. His bratts want to see their nan (*who is in pretty good health for 87).
I told him, not until after the jabs ...

If you go hug Nan now, you risk killing her. (especially as their school has had several of the bubbles isolating recently)
Much better to wait and be able to have several more years of hugging Nan.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 10, 2020)

Looks like someone in the EU in reading my posts and taking note:









						Holidaymakers from Great Britain barred from EU after 1 January under Covid rules
					

European commission indicates Britons will face ban on non-essential travel at end of Brexit transition




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 10, 2020)

weepiper said:


> Nicola Sturgeon is actively discouraging people from booking summer holidays abroad in 2021 at the press briefings, much to the disgust of the guy who runs Edinburgh airport.



She was doing this in the summer as well.  I don't know how much impact it has had.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 10, 2020)

I notice Tesco over the road has marked out 2m spaces outside and put some barriers by the door - evidently expecting queues again the next few weeks. I don't think they're limiting numbers currently, but guess they're planning to in run up to Christmas.


----------



## souljacker (Dec 10, 2020)

Our two local Tesco Express stores have installed a traffic light over the door.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 10, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Our two local Tesco Express stores have installed a traffic light over the door.



Same


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont make a habit of watching Sky News but anyone who has forced themselves to watch many of the press conferences in full has probably seen that Beth Rigbys questions were often far from the worst of the bunch. Its hard for me to currently imagine her being able to ask such questions in future, it would be too awkward surely. Like Angus Deayton trying to carry on presenting Have I got News For You after becoming part of the news himself.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They haven't sacked her.   

Just 6 months off air, and 3 months for both Beth Rigby and Inzamam Rashid.









						Kay Burley agrees to be off air for six months after COVID-19 breach
					

Political editor Beth Rigby and correspondent Inzamam Rashid have also agreed not to be on air for three months.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 10, 2020)

Its bullshit.  Hypocrisy galore.  One rule for them...


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

I suppose I'm not that surprised that they fudged it. Sidelining them from the screens until the winter period is over sounds like the bare minimum, wonder if it will even be enough.

Meanshile I continue to not like the look of data for London, the South East and the East of England. Putting those areas in tier 2 was an obvious mistake and now the consequences of that shit judgement are unfolding. These are just simple dashboard screenshots, as I havent had time to look at the hospital data yet.

Cases by specimen date:

London:





South East:



East of England:



I wonder what will be said in todays press conference. I suppose I'll tune in at 5.


----------



## sojourner (Dec 10, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Our two local Tesco Express stores have installed a traffic light over the door.


I noticed our local Co op had one of those today.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 10, 2020)

Oh FFS, new cases reported today are 20,946, the highest since 19th Nov.

People were moaning around here that Worthing Borough had not gone into tier 1, because our cases were so low, they've gone up 96% in the last 7-day, we are back to around 46 per 100k.

And, the same was going on about Tunbridge Wells Borough going into tier 3 with the rest of Kent, they have gone up 72% in the last 7-day, around 209 per 100k,

My gut feeling is these figures will continue to creep up until until Christmas, and explode soon after, with another national lockdown in January.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 10, 2020)

Government briefing at 5pm today  wonder if it’s an update on vaccinations or tier reviews.


----------



## LDC (Dec 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They haven't sacked her.
> 
> Just 6 months off air, and 3 months for both Beth Rigby and Inzamam Rashid.
> 
> ...



Poor Kay, sadness in her eyes.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

oops double post accident.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

thismoment said:


> Government briefing at 5pm today  wonder if it’s an update on vaccinations or tier reviews.



Tier reviews arent due till the 16th but they may feel the need to make noises urging people to follow the restrictions.

I would love them to surprise me by responding proactively to the situation, but thats not been their way so far.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 10, 2020)

Ah ok thanks


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 10, 2020)

The London data posted above by elbows is fascinating.  There seems to have been a large breakout in the last week in November.  I'm tired of speculating but interesting and really dispiriting all the same.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> I suppose I'm not that surprised that they fudged it. Sidelining them from the screens until the winter period is over sounds like the bare minimum, wonder if it will even be enough.
> 
> Meanshile I continue to not like the look of data for London, the South East and the East of England. Putting those areas in tier 2 was an obvious mistake and now the consequences of that shit judgement are unfolding. These are just simple dashboard screenshots, as I havent had time to look at the hospital data yet.
> 
> ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 10, 2020)

Matt Knobhead is on now.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

I still dont like whats shown by hospital data either, silimar trend as last time I posted this.

7 day rolling average hospital admissions:



Number of Covid-19 patients in hospital:


Data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## Mation (Dec 10, 2020)

Does he go to sleep thinking he's done a good job?


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Matt Knobhead is on now.



I note they decided to actually do something about London now, but its mass testing for secondary school children rather than other measures. And this will become an excuse for not doing other things rapidly.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 10, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> There are apparently rumours the Senedd may close down schools a week early this Friday.



And so it came to pass...









						Covid Wales: Secondary schools 'move online' from Monday
					

Mixed reaction as secondary schools and FE colleges in Wales are told to close on Friday.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> I note they decided to actually do something about London now, but its mass testing for secondary school children rather than other measures. And this will become an excuse for not doing other things rapidly.



Only 3 months too late as well.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

The three regions I mentioned earlier, London, the South East and the East of England were all name checked by Hancock today in relation to worrying rises.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> The three regions I mentioned earlier, London, the South East and the East of England were all name checked by Hancock today in relation to worrying rises.


At least if he lurks on here he might learn something.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 10, 2020)

Espresso said:


> At least if he lurks on here he might learn something.



Learn? Those cunts don’t learn owt.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 10, 2020)

Espresso said:


> At least if he lurks on here he might learn something.


like the bourbons he has never learned anything or forgotten anything


----------



## Cloo (Dec 10, 2020)

It's beginning to look a lot like... tier 3 in London before Christmas.


----------



## LDC (Dec 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> It's beginning to look a lot like... tier 3 in London before Christmas.



I wonder about the timing though. National Tier review on the 16th, so earliest new Tiers would be in is the 17th, but then the Xmas infection bonus break is only 6 days later on the 23rd, so wonder if they'll hold off until after that's over? I expect they'll be _huge_ pressure from the hospitality industry to leave that week in Tier 2...


----------



## mack (Dec 10, 2020)

Pesky kids! Was on a tram full of them on my way home - most without a mask.

I get the feeling the powers that be in London are desperate just to get through to Christmas eve in tier 2.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

From https://assets.publishing.service.g...-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W50.pdf

I would be inclined to see the rise in levels of various education-age cohorts in certain regions as both something to focus on specifically, but also as a likely warning indicator of increasing infections in those regions in general across far more age groups.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 10, 2020)

Cloo said:


> It's beginning to look a lot like... tier 3 in London before Christmas.



Which is basically no fucking different to Tier 2 anyway.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Which is basically no fucking different to Tier 2 anyway.



I call pubs and restaurants being shut quite a notable difference. Buy yes, in various ways tier 3 is not enough either. But I'd much rather be in a tier 3 area, which I currently am (Warwickshire) than a tier 2 area.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 10, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I wonder about the timing though. National Tier review on the 16th, so earliest new Tiers would be in is the 17th, but then the Xmas infection bonus break is only 6 days later on the 23rd, so wonder if they'll hold off until after that's over? I expect they'll be _huge_ pressure from the hospitality industry to leave that week in Tier 2...


I’d hope that they won’t be thinking too much about “saving” Christmas when reviewing the tiers and instead focus on the infection rates and what the experts advise. But I’m not that naive!
 I wish they’d delayed laying out the plans for Christmas until nearer the time because they have put people’s hopes up about Christmas, some have already started/done food/gift shopping in preparation for 3 households getting together for how ever long.So this makes me think that the government won’t change their minds no matter the covid trend prior to Christmas  ( incoherent rambling over)


----------



## weepiper (Dec 10, 2020)

What's the situation in English high schools with mandatory face masks?


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

weepiper said:


> What's the situation in English high schools with mandatory face masks?



I dont have the detail firmly in my brain but I'm pretty sure the same shitty attitudes towards masks in the classroom still exists in the minds of the English establishment.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> I call pubs and restaurants being shut quite a notable difference. Buy yes, in various ways tier 3 is not enough either. But I'd much rather be in a tier 3 area, which I currently am (Warwickshire) than a tier 2 area.


And at least pubs and restaurants forced to close will have to be helped. Right now it's "Oh, you can serve booze but only with a substantial meal" which most pub goers can't afford to do; or in other words "You can stay open but too bad if it ain't a viable business model!"


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 10, 2020)

Masks in corridors not in class.


----------



## killer b (Dec 10, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Which is basically no fucking different to Tier 2 anyway.


this simply isn't anything like true


----------



## maomao (Dec 10, 2020)

weepiper said:


> What's the situation in English high schools with mandatory face masks?


Compulsory outside of classrooms but not inside them where I work. About as well enforced as tie wearing (in that 99% of kids will have them on but a sizeable minority are wearing them wrong in some way).


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 10, 2020)

weepiper said:


> What's the situation in English high schools with mandatory face masks?



Where we are masks are mandatory indoors in corridors etc, optional in classrooms. Staff have to wear masks in corridors and other shared spaces and when close to students in classrooms, but not while teaching at the front of the class. Much of this is adhered to and enforced indifferently.


----------



## killer b (Dec 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont have the detail firmly in my brain but I'm pretty sure the same shitty attitudes towards masks in the classroom still exists in the minds of the English establishment.


it's sentimentality that's the barrier as far as I can tell. _We can't allow our darlings to be isolated from each other like this!_


----------



## Cid (Dec 10, 2020)

Why do they tie shit like reviews to set dates? I mean obviously it does make sense to say 'we're going to have a review on x date regardless', but if the situation changes, shift the damn thing. I do also realise that it makes sense to time things according to when you have a full picture of the data, maybe that's partly the case here... But it's something that has been there to an extent throughout. Like starting measures after a last weekend down the pub. Clunky centralised responses. There is emergency legislation you can use. It's a fucking virus, it's not working to a timetable.


----------



## killer b (Dec 10, 2020)

Cid said:


> Why do they tie shit like reviews to set dates?


So businesses which are open / closed  by the changing restrictions aren't throwing away all their stock, cancelling shows, etc etc.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

thismoment said:


> I’d hope that they won’t be thinking too much about “saving” Christmas when reviewing the tiers and instead focus on the infection rates and what the experts advise. But I’m not that naive!
> I wish they’d delayed laying out the plans for Christmas until nearer the time because they have put people’s hopes up about Christmas, some have already started/done food/gift shopping in preparation for 3 households getting together for how ever long.So this makes me think that the government won’t change their minds no matter the covid trend prior to Christmas  ( incoherent rambling over)



The most they would have considered doing before 2020 ended was via the tier system, and almost all of the tier rules do not change over the Christmas relaxation period.

The Christmas relaxations involve travel and families meeting in private. They dont affect whether pubs or restaurants are open and whether multiple households are allowed to meet in such settings.

So if everyone is making plans based on what they are really allowed to do under the announced Christmas rules, those plans should not be affected by any tier allocation changes made before Christmas.

So its all the other usual pressures that I would blame for any crap tier decisions, rather than pressure because there is a Christmas relaxation incompatibility with certain tiers rules. The way they've set things up means they cannot be incompatible, the Christmas rules work in all tiers and indeed across the four nations.


----------



## Cid (Dec 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> So businesses which are open / closed  by the changing restrictions aren't throwing away all their stock, cancelling shows, etc etc.



Fair point. Still, it is a rather fatal way of doing things.


----------



## xenon (Dec 10, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Which is basically no fucking different to Tier 2 anyway.



Well in tier 2, you can have a pint and scotch egg at the pub on your own, no mixing with other households. Very festive...


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> So if everyone is making plans based on what they are really allowed to do under the announced Christmas rules, those plans should not be affected by any tier allocation changes made before Christmas.
> 
> So its all the other usual pressures that I would blame for any crap tier decisions, rather than pressure because there is a Christmas relaxation incompatibility with certain tiers rules. The way they've set things up means they cannot be incompatible, the Christmas rules work in all tiers and indeed across the four nations.



Erm...you sure?

I live in Wales. My grandchildren live on the edge of London. They are currently Tier 2. If they move to Tier 3 before Christmas I can't see them as we're banned from travelling to tier 3 areas.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

Cid said:


> Why do they tie shit like reviews to set dates? I mean obviously it does make sense to say 'we're going to have a review on x date regardless', but if the situation changes, shift the damn thing. I do also realise that it makes sense to time things according to when you have a full picture of the data, maybe that's partly the case here... But it's something that has been there to an extent throughout. Like starting measures after a last weekend down the pub. Clunky centralised responses. There is emergency legislation you can use. It's a fucking virus, it's not working to a timetable.



In general when trying to make judgements based on data its always tempting to want an extra weeks data, but that temptation never really stops. Sometimes there is a logic to waiting a particular period of time, eg to allow enough time to see the result of some previous measures or relaxations. For example part of the current alarm is that recent data doesnt even reflect too much of the post-national-measures period yet, we are seeing bad signs from data for London etc because things seemed to have taken a bad turn there before the national measures even ended. And it was also possible to judge that putting London in tier 2 looked like a bad idea when they made that decision, never mind waiting till the next review for confirmation.

The other reason they like to put timetables on things is to provide some business certainty for planning purposes. Even when its bad news for the business in question, at least they end up with a sense of when things could next change. This is useful although it sometimes leads to people feeling like they are just being strung along. When Leicester was placed under stricter measures the likes of Johnson tried to make noises about how they hoped things would only last a matter of days and would be frequently reviewed, but as of the previous tier decisions made in late November, Leicester had been under restrictions for 150 days.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 10, 2020)

Ffs


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 10, 2020)

Are Tier 3 people allowed to visit Tier 2 people at Christmas?


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Erm...you sure?
> 
> I live in Wales. My grandchildren live on the edge of London. They are currently Tier 2. If they move to Tier 3 before Christmas I can't see them as we're banned from travelling to tier 3 areas.





Orang Utan said:


> Are Tier 3 people allowed to visit Tier 2 people at Christmas?



Yes and I'm sure and they crafted the whole thing this way deliberately, to offer certainty in very specific and limited ways that wont be spoilt by tier decisions. Only an emergency of great intensity and immediacy that quickly forced new national measures could scupper this stuff.

Wales version of the guidance:









						Coronavirus (COVID-19) | Topic | GOV.WALES
					

Advice and support on coronavirus




					gov.wales
				




Travel to/from bubble bits, my bold:



> Between 23 and 27 December:
> 
> 
> you can form an exclusive ‘Christmas bubble’ composed of no more than three households
> ...





> If you are travelling away from home, you should meet your Christmas bubble and return home within the designated window (23-27 December). Anyone travelling to or from Northern Ireland may also travel on the 22 and 28 December, but cannot meet up with the bubble outside the 23-27 December window.





> Between 23 and 27 December, you may travel anywhere within the UK if necessary to meet with other households in your Christmas bubble or return home. Once at your destination, you should follow the rules in place there.
> 
> You should not travel to see your bubble before 23 December, or travel back after 27 December except in exceptional circumstances (for example, if you develop coronavirus symptoms while you are staying with your Christmas bubble far from home and are required to self-isolate, in which case you should continue to stay where you are if you can do so safely until you have reached the end of the self-isolation period).
> 
> ...



And a travel bit from the England guidelines to help confirm what I'm on about:









						Making a Christmas bubble with friends and family
					






					www.gov.uk
				






> Between 23 and 27 December, you may travel between tiers and other nations of the UK if necessary to meet with other households in your Christmas bubble or return home. Once at your destination, you should follow the rules in that tier.
> 
> You should not travel to see your bubble before 23 December, or travel back after the 27 December except in exceptional circumstances (for example, if a member of your Christmas bubble develops symptoms of COVID-19 and you are required to self-isolate). Anyone travelling to or from Northern Ireland may travel on the 22 and 28 December.



And Scotland:





__





						Coronavirus in Scotland - gov.scot
					

Up to date information on the coronavirus situation in Scotland, including what you can do, statistics and data, how to get tested, links to support and guidance and the Scottish Government's phased approach to exiting lockdown.




					www.gov.scot
				






> You can travel anywhere in Scotland and the rest of the UK to meet people in your bubble – but you should follow local travel rules once you arrive


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yes and I'm sure and they crafted the whole thing this way deliberately, to offer certainty in very specific and limited ways that wont be spoilt by tier decisions. Only an emergency of great intensity and immediacy that quickly forced new national measures could scupper this stuff.
> 
> Wales version of the guidance:
> 
> ...



Cheers. I never knew that.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 10, 2020)

I think I can forego seeing my S-i-L and her extended household in person this "festive season" . I would much rather wait for a few weeks (month or three) until we've all had our jabs. There are two small kids (one with serious health issues, and the other is a real hugger) and of the adults, three have serious health issues of their own. I've managed without visits for more than nine months ...

OH could rig up something like zoom ... if we really needed the contact.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

When I think of the extent to which the country might 'get away with' the Christmas relaxations, or the extent to which they make things much worse, there are two big factors in my mind. The number of people infected at the time the relaxation begins, and the number of people who decide not to have all the family meetups that the Christmas rules allow. And the governments full Christmas guidance does include bits where they try to discourage people from physically meeting.

So as with various other things in this pandemic, I do allow myself to be slightly reassured when I hear people talking about how they are not going to push their behaviour and contact micing patterns right up to the maximum limits of what the rules allow. When people are sensible and go further with precautions than they have to, they are helping to compensate for all the people who wont or cant behave in a perfect pandemic-suppressing manner at all times.


----------



## killer b (Dec 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> the number of people who decide not to have all the family meetups that the Christmas rules allow.


My mum and dad, who have had a fairly lax approach throughout, told me they aren't having anyone. Quite surprised tbh. 

I've no idea how common this is likely to be, but they're the bellwether for the average boomer for me, so it might be more widespread then expected...


----------



## Sue (Dec 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> My mum and dad, who have had a fairly lax approach throughout, told me they aren't having anyone. Quite surprised tbh.
> 
> I've no idea how common this is likely to be, but they're the bellwether for the average boomer for me, so it might be more widespread then expected...


My sister's parents-in-law were exactly the same. Said they wouldn't be having anyone in their house till they'd been vaccinated. She was very surprised as they've been pretty relaxed about it up till now too. (My sister's quite pleased as the logistics were going to be very difficult.)


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 10, 2020)

elbows said:


> When I think of the extent to which the country might 'get away with' the Christmas relaxations, or the extent to which they make things much worse, there are two big factors in my mind. The number of people infected at the time the relaxation begins, and the number of people who decide not to have all the family meetups that the Christmas rules allow. And the governments full Christmas guidance does include bits where they try to discourage people from physically meeting.
> 
> So as with various other things in this pandemic, I do allow myself to be slightly reassured when I hear people talking about how they are not going to push their behaviour and contact micing patterns right up to the maximum limits of what the rules allow. When people are sensible and go further with precautions than they have to, they are helping to compensate for all the people who wont or cant behave in a perfect pandemic-suppressing manner at all times.



I should think this pattern would be part of the modelling?


----------



## killer b (Dec 10, 2020)

Sue said:


> My sister's parents-in-law were exactly the same. Said they wouldn't be having anyone in their house till they'd been vaccinated. She was very surprised as they've been pretty relaxed about it up till now too. (My sister's quite pleased as the logistics were going to be very difficult.)


That is interesting - I guess now things aren't so open ended, it's gone from '_what purpose is there to life if I can't see my beautiful grandchildren_' to '_actually we're getting vaccinated in a month or so, probably best not risk dying in the meantime_'


----------



## clicker (Dec 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> My mum and dad, who have had a fairly lax approach throughout, told me they aren't having anyone. Quite surprised tbh.
> 
> I've no idea how common this is likely to be, but they're the bellwether for the average boomer for me, so it might be more widespread then expected...


I reckon and hope it could be quite common.  Speaking to a couple of friends today, both usually host quite big and lovely family get togethers.  But both battening down the hatches and keeping things simple. Much more simple than technically allowed. That seems good to me, we've nearly done a year of this crap, why blow it now.


----------



## killer b (Dec 10, 2020)

clicker said:


> I reckon and hope it could be quite common.  Speaking to a couple of friends today, both usually host quite big and lovely family get togethers.  But both battening down the hatches and keeping things simple. Much more simple than technically allowed. That seems good to me, we've nearly done a year of this crap, why blow it now.


Yeah, we've thought about the various options available to us and all of them involve more risk than we're prepared to take, so me and Mrs B are most likely just having christmas with the two of us. It was a fairly simple decision once we'd actually sat down and looked at it.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 10, 2020)

Maybe when people get round to working out the logistics/practicality/cost of doing all the travelling etc within a 5-day window, more will be inclined to decide it's not worth the hassle.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 10, 2020)

Yup, why risk blowing it, when in a few more weeks you can begin building up to some real interactions, with a lot less risk.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 10, 2020)

The early closing of schools/moving leaning online -- mainly from Monday 14th December -- has already been announced here in Wales, as planetgeli said further up.


But look at this map (from above link)  :



We in Swansea have the third-highest rate in Wales  

And according to this other BBC Wales report, there'll be another lockdown (or "lockdown"?  ) in Wales from Monday 28th December .....  possibly for four weeks??, if various rumours are anything to go by.

That would take you to Monday 25th January  -- at least.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> The early closing of schools/moving leaning online -- mainly from Monday 14th December -- has already been announced here in Wales, as planetgeli said further up.
> 
> 
> But look at this map (from above link)  :
> ...



That map is sobering isn't it William of Walworth 

Llanelli got a local lockdown 2 months ago when its cases went over 100 per 100,000. Look at that map now. And barely nothing is happening. My county there has 350 per 100K. My local town is, if hearsay is to be believed, riddled with Covid. 

I think the Welsh government has lost the plot. And it never really had much of a handle on the plot in the first place. 

Waiting for Dec 28th is too late. Covid doesn't pack up for Christmas.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 10, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> The early closing of schools/moving leaning online -- mainly from Monday 14th December -- has already been announced here in Wales, as planetgeli said further up.
> 
> 
> But look at this map (from above link)  :
> ...



Grim.

Given how hard Boris resisted Lackdown 2.0 I'm not entirely sure there will be one in England but there  will probably need to be around first week in Jan.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 10, 2020)

planetgeli Artaxerxes : Grim, yes, I have to agree.

If there has to be another lockdown in Wales, which obviously no-one will be delighted about, the sooner the more effective ....

ETA : so long as it's a *real/proper* lockdown!!

Not sure when Drakeford's next announcement is due, but it should be a *big* one!


----------



## Wilf (Dec 10, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> My gut feeling is these figures will continue to creep up until until Christmas, and explode soon after, with another national lockdown in January.


Yep.  The household mixing thing over Christmas will be just about the perfect scenario for spreading the virus - indoors, closed windows, more people in a house/single room than usual and a tendency to go round to visit the elderly. Quite simply it will kill a lot of people. The only sensible thing for government to have said would have been 'put Christmas off till next Summer' (along with things like making sure the elderly and vulnerable are okay, have access to technology and other ways of keeping in touch).  The vaccine won't sort everything, but the risks of mixing will be much less in 6 months. The other thing is the '3 (?) households can mix' rule will itself be flaky and beyond policing, so those who want to will mingle with as many people as they want.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2020)

Yeah and whenever the hospital data is looking bad, I presume that action will eventually follow.

And Wales certainly stood out in a graph I just ened up posting in the worldwide thread but hopefully nobody minds me posting it here too.

This is for number of Covid-19 patients in hospital, using UK government dashboard data. By the way Northern Ireland has a somewhat different reporting methodology and so their numbers for days already announced are subject to change later, eg their numbers for the part of December thats already behind us will have changed again by the next time data is published on the dashboard. And I stuck England in its own chart because the scale of number is 10 times greater and would have dwarfed the other nations curves if I used the same scale for all nations.


Its not good enough.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 10, 2020)

if Wales is basing the need for a potential lockdown from 28th December on the data now what on earth with that data look like by end of December? All red?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 10, 2020)

killer b said:


> That is interesting - I guess now things aren't so open ended, it's gone from '_what purpose is there to life if I can't see my beautiful grandchildren_' to '_actually we're getting vaccinated in a month or so, probably best not risk dying in the meantime_'


Yes, that would be significant. My typically negative take was that the availability of the vaccine would lead to social distancing fraying even further and at a pretty rapid rate.  How/whether that sentiment plays out through the age ranges will be interesting.


----------



## elbows (Dec 11, 2020)

Seems to be breaking news that the UK self-isolation period is being reduced to 10 days from Monday.

Long rumoured, finally arrived.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Seems to be breaking news that the UK self-isolation period is being reduced to 10 days from Monday.
> 
> Long rumoured, finally arrived.


Is this science led or economy led?


----------



## elbows (Dec 11, 2020)

I'm not against it if it, when combined with other stuff like self-isolation payments via the app, increases self-isolation compliance. That side of things will be part of the scientific rationale, since any small benefits from having it at 14 days instead of 10 are easily outweighed if less people bothering to self-isolate at all under a 14 day regime.

I wouldnt call it a purely scientific decision because very few things in this pandemic are.

I was a bit late noticing the 'breaking news' and full news articles are already available eg Covid: UK isolation period shortened to 10 days


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Seems to be breaking news that the UK self-isolation period is being reduced to 10 days from Monday.



I'd completely missed that this change was announced in Wales yesterday!


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 11, 2020)

Apologies for concentrating only on Wales right now  .... but there's been a new announcement from Drakeford :




			
				BBC Wales said:
			
		

> *A post-Christmas lockdown will come into force if Covid cases do not begin to fall, the first minister has warned.*
> Restrictions will be relaxed for the festive period but there is pressure for tougher rules from 28 December with more than 1,900 in hospital.
> Mark Drakeford said that while stricter rules were not a "foregone conclusion" the NHS will "not be able to cope" if admissions continue to rise.
> Outdoor attractions will be told to shut in an announcement expected later.



As in : The post-Xmas lockdown discussed a bit earlier for Wales isn't yet a nailed-on certainty, but could well be becoming ever-more likely ......


----------



## weltweit (Dec 11, 2020)

10 days rather than 14 in isolation.

eta I see it is already in the thread, apologies.

I suppose medics concur. 2 weeks is easy to see in a diary or not even.


----------



## maomao (Dec 11, 2020)

elbows said:


> Seems to be breaking news that the UK self-isolation period is being reduced to 10 days from Monday.
> 
> Long rumoured, finally arrived.


Does this apply to people who are already self-isolating?


----------



## elbows (Dec 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> Does this apply to people who are already self-isolating?



According to the BBC article I read about it, yes.



> And it means anyone who has been self-isolating for 10 days or more will be able to end their quarantine on Monday.











						Covid: UK isolation period shortened to 10 days
					

The change will apply to contacts of coronavirus cases and people quarantining after travel.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Supine (Dec 11, 2020)

The stats summary at the start of today's indy sage was really good (and depressing). Infact the whole thing was really interesting.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> Does this apply to people who are already self-isolating?


Does this apply to school bubbles sent home for two weeks?


----------



## maomao (Dec 11, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Does this apply to school bubbles sent home for two weeks?



Don't know. I haven't been asked to go in next week yet. Technically Monday would be ten days since exposure in my department.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 11, 2020)

maomao said:


> Don't know. I haven't been asked to go in next week yet. Technically Monday would be ten days since exposure in my department.


For my son too.


----------



## Hyperdark (Dec 12, 2020)

Up untill the last so called lockdown (One that was IMO too short and too limited in scope), I was comparatively happy with the WA's approach, but since then they have lost the plot and seem more worried about breaking promises than adapting to a rapidly accelerating situation, Wales in a right shit


----------



## brogdale (Dec 12, 2020)

Jail those anarchist headteachers


----------



## killer b (Dec 12, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Jail those anarchist headteachers
> 
> View attachment 243119


this is interesting - my kids' school has moved to online teaching for the final week before christmas, claiming they didn't have full cleaning capacity. They also stayed closed for an extra day after a recent long weekend (there was inset days on the friday and monday), this time claiming the power to the school was off (they were somehow able to give lessons online from classrooms though).

Other parents have reported early closures too - are we seeing individual headmasters clandestinely providing additional firebreak style protections to their pupils and staff that the government is refusing to do?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 12, 2020)

killer b said:


> this is interesting - my kids' school has moved to online teaching for the final week before christmas, claiming they didn't have full cleaning capacity. They also stayed closed for an extra day after a recent long weekend (there was inset days on the friday and monday), this time claiming the power to the school was off (they were somehow able to give lessons online from classrooms though).
> 
> Other parents have reported early closures too - are we seeing individual headmasters clandestinely providing additional firebreak style protections to their pupils and staff that the government is refusing to do?


It is interesting, as you say.

From the reported comments of the Headteacher featured in the piece, it seems that their primary concern was with the bizarrely ill-timed school- based mass testing that would ensure Xmas isolation for pupils testing +ive, and the staff's responsibility for passing on that news to the families affected:



> Warren said he and and his senior team were now “dreading” having to call parents, particularly of younger pupils, to tell them their child would have to avoid all contact with anybody else on Christmas Day.



Which is very understandable. I have to say that I'd imagine there are also increasing pressures from the very genuine high levels of staff absence, low levels of pupil attendance, massively re-jigged TTs, and the general quality/effectiveness of the learning experience that can be provided under such circumstances.

But, for the Government to threaten legal action


----------



## Hyperdark (Dec 12, 2020)

Is it not a good thing for children who test positive to isolate?, I dont think allowing infections to spread because teachers feel uncomfortable doing the right thing is in any way defensible


----------



## Thora (Dec 12, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> Is it not a good thing for children who test positive to isolate?, I dont think allowing infections to spread because teachers feel uncomfortable doing the right thing is in any way defensible


Contact tracing and instructing families to isolate isn’t a teaching job.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 12, 2020)

Thora said:


> Contact tracing and instructing families to isolate isn’t a teaching job.


It’s no one’s job though


----------



## Cerv (Dec 12, 2020)

it's Dido Harding's job surely


----------



## ice-is-forming (Dec 12, 2020)

My sister teaches in a big school in SE London, she told me last week that no pupils she taught had tested positive, and that she'd been very alert etc.. but just now messaged me to say that the school had tested all the teachers ( regardless of any symptoms) and she's got a positive result. She lives with her high risk husband and my 93 year old dad. So they are all isolating for ten days now. A bit of a worry


----------



## Thora (Dec 12, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s no one’s job though


It’s Test & Trace’s job.


----------



## maomao (Dec 12, 2020)

Thora said:


> It’s Test & Trace’s job.


Schools do their own test and trace afaik which was the source of earlier confusion about why t&t hadn't followed up certain people (it was because it had been dealt with by schools). It's normally managed by the school office rather than the teachers themselves though. Both me and my daughter have been sent home from schools as close contacts without test and trace ever being involved.


----------



## Thora (Dec 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> Schools do their own test and trace afaik which was the source of earlier confusion about why t&t hadn't followed up certain people (it was because it had been dealt with by schools). It's normally managed by the school office rather than the teachers themselves though. Both me and my daughter have been sent home from schools as close contacts without test and trace ever being involved.


Sure but it’s really not a teachers job is it?


----------



## maomao (Dec 12, 2020)

Thora said:


> Sure but it’s really not a teachers job is it?


It's the schools' job. Legally, which is why t&t don't touch school related stuff. It's not the job of classroom teachers but a lot of the people involved in it would describe themselves as teachers (for instance where I work it's the heads of year that work out close contacts on the basis of seating plans).


----------



## Thora (Dec 12, 2020)

I understand that the government have offloaded this burden to schools, but I don’t think that’s a good thing and I totally understand why school leadership is pushing back on doing the job of contact tracers over Christmas when the govt has promised families can celebrate together.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 12, 2020)

Apparently some GPs are not giving covid vaccinations because they haven't got the people available to do it with their current workload. I can imagine that would hold for testing with quite a few teachers too.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 12, 2020)

Thora said:


> It’s Test & Trace’s job.


They're failing though, leaving it to schools and local authorities do their own - we're being forced to do the same as teachers. It's fucked up - barely any training, distressing interactions with upset or truculant customers and many of us are not mentally up to it, but keep getting told we need to be flexible and get used to the 'new normal'. Fuck that IMO.


----------



## maomao (Dec 12, 2020)

Thora said:


> I understand that the government have offloaded this burden to schools, but I don’t think that’s a good thing and I totally understand why school leadership is pushing back on doing the job of contact tracers over Christmas when the govt has promised families can celebrate together.


Sorry, I misunderstood your point. I thought you were saying it isn't their job rather than it shouldn't be. 

The t&t app is only recommended for over 16s though and lots of schools don't allow mobiles to be turned on and on the students' person all day. In addition to primary school children who are less likely to have a phone at all. So I'm not sure who could actually do test and trace for schoolkids other than the schools. If test and trace did it themselves they'd have to be in constant contact with the teachers anyway.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 12, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> Is it not a good thing for children who test positive to isolate?, I dont think allowing infections to spread because teachers feel uncomfortable doing the right thing is in any way defensible


tbh I can well appreciate why teachers are thoroughly pissed off with this situation. Given that "allowing infections to spread" has been the govt. policy since the return to school in September, the belated introduction of testing, with virtually no notice to schools is bad enough. But timed to ensure isolation at precisely the time when families have been promised a relaxation of restrictions and then telling teachers they've got to pass on the bad news. How shit is all that?


----------



## Thora (Dec 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> Sorry, I misunderstood your point. I thought you were saying it isn't their job rather than it shouldn't be.
> 
> The t&t app is only recommended for over 16s though and lots of schools don't allow mobiles to be turned on and on the students' person all day. In addition to primary school children who are less likely to have a phone at all. So I'm not sure who could actually do test and trace for schoolkids other than the schools. If test and trace did it themselves they'd have to be in constant contact with the teachers anyway.


Yes I think actual contact tracers should do it.


----------



## Thora (Dec 12, 2020)

And as was the plan in August/September, whole  classes should be sent home.
It’s an airborne virus so this bullshit about teachers being immune because they’re supposed to stand 2m away and all children face the front so only the kids next to them need to isolate is clearly nonsense.


----------



## maomao (Dec 12, 2020)

Thora said:


> Yes I think actual contact tracers should do it.


How? I don't understand what mechanism they would use. Do you mean the teachers hand over the list of names and t&t call them? Because the teachers are the ones who know whose been in contact with who (and have records of registers and seating plans). And they're also the ones who enforce the non-attendance at school part of the isolation.


----------



## maomao (Dec 12, 2020)

Thora said:


> And as was the plan in August/September, whole  classes should be sent home.
> It’s an airborne virus so this bullshit about teachers being immune because they’re supposed to stand 2m away and all children face the front so only the kids next to them need to isolate is clearly nonsense.


Well they'd be applying a different standard to schools than they do to everything else then.


----------



## Thora (Dec 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> How? I don't understand what mechanism they would use. Do you mean the teachers hand over the list of names and t&t call them? Because the teachers are the ones who know whose been in contact with who (and have records of registers and seating plans). And they're also the ones who enforce the non-attendance at school part of the isolation.


Close the child’s bubble at school.
Contact tracer speaks to child/parent about who they have had contact with outside school.


----------



## Thora (Dec 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well they'd be applying a different standard to schools than they do to everything else then.


The standard at school _is_ different to elsewhere - there’s no social distancing, schools aren’t “covid secure” in the way any other workplace is supposed to be, children aren’t wearing masks indoors.


----------



## maomao (Dec 12, 2020)

Thora said:


> The standard at school _is_ different to elsewhere - there’s no social distancing, schools aren’t “covid secure” in the way any other workplace is supposed to be, children aren’t wearing masks indoors.


This very much depends on the school. I've heard varying reports.


----------



## Thora (Dec 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> This very much depends on the school. I've heard varying reports.


I don’t believe any school can achieve social distancing with all children in, and I doubt any enforce mask wearing all the time indoors.


----------



## maomao (Dec 12, 2020)

Thora said:


> I don’t believe any school can achieve social distancing with all children in, and I doubt any enforce mask wearing all the time indoors.


Yes, genuine social distancing is not possible. Not without more rooms and more teachers.


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's the schools' job. Legally, which is why t&t don't touch school related stuff. It's not the job of classroom teachers but a lot of the people involved in it would describe themselves as teachers (for instance where I work it's the heads of year that work out close contacts on the basis of seating plans).



Thats not how I'd describe test & trace matters in relation to schools.

There is more than one part of test and trace. There has always been the PHE & local health protection teams stuff. Institutions, very much including schools, would report to and work with PHE/local health teams when there were cases with links to the institutions, so that judgements could be made about whether there was a notable cluster linked to the institution, and so that tailored advice could be give and responses developed for that particular situation.

However there were issues, including the limited resporces of PHE and local health teams, and pressure from government to do things in such a way that the governments broader pandemic schools agenda wasnt thwarted by cautious and reasonable responses to school outbreaks. So at some point I recall there was a story about how schools were given a different sort of hotline to call for advice when dealing with cases/outbreaks linked to the school. I've not heard about that since, and my info in general is incomplete. And I'm sure plenty of schools feel like they didnt get the advice, support and correct decisions they deserved when dealing with these other entities. I just wanted to paint a picture of test & trace that doesnt involve too much focus on the centralised test & trace regime instead of the local institutional outbreak response teams that are more appropriate to think about when discussing schools.


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## Wilf (Dec 12, 2020)

Schools going online for the final week is just about the only logical response to the government instituting Kill Your Nan Week over Christmas.  The kids need to have gone through something like a full isolation cycle before getting into the multi-household virus transfer programme from the 23rd.  But no, the fucking government threaten legal action against the schools.


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2020)

The Christmas relaxation timing in relation to epidemic stage, levels of infection and trajectory is looking increasingly hideous.

Plus shitting of bricks is going on because much of the data implies that the 'lockdown 2' measures were not enough to keep a lid on things, let alone the tier restrictions that came after.

I suppose the large holes in lockdown 2 allowed infections to continue in a range of settings, and the limited success looked more impressive than it really was because epidemic timing in some badly hit places meant things were on their way to steep falls in certain places at the time anyway.

There is regional variation in timing and scale but possibly not by as much as news and data detail of recent weeks might make people think. So although I will place special emphasis on London, the South East and the East of England at the moment, the other regions data bothers me too.

Cold feet are developing in Wales about the agreed UK Christmas relaxation. At this rate we will hear the same sentiments in regards England.


----------



## Thora (Dec 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thats not how I'd describe test & trace matters in relation to schools.
> 
> There is more than one part of test and trace. There has always been the PHE & local health protection teams stuff. Institutions, very much including schools, would report to and work with PHE/local health teams when there were cases with links to the institutions, so that judgements could be made about whether there was a notable cluster linked to the institution, and so that tailored advice could be give and responses developed for that particular situation.
> 
> However there were issues, including the limited resporces of PHE and local health teams, and pressure from government to do things in such a way that the governments broader pandemic schools agenda wasnt thwarted by cautious and reasonable responses to school outbreaks. So at some point I recall there was a story about how schools were given a different sort of hotline to call for advice when dealing with cases/outbreaks linked to the school. I've not heard about that since, and my info in general is incomplete. And I'm sure plenty of schools feel like they didnt get the advice, support and correct decisions they deserved when dealing with these other entities. I just wanted to paint a picture of test & trace that doesnt involve too much focus on the centralised test & trace regime instead of the local institutional outbreak response teams that are more appropriate to think about when discussing schools.


When my child had covid at the beginning of September, schools & settings called local PHE for advice.  For my childminding setting they took the details of all children and also took details of any other settings they attended.  They took details of my children's schools and advised that my daughter's class closed and also another class as they shared toilets.
Then contact tracers also contacted me and traced all my child's movements outside of school - friends she played with, extra curricular activities she'd been to.

By the 3rd week in September it was changed to calling a DfE hotline and they would tell schools/settings how to do contact tracing - iirc it then wasn't considered an "outbreak" until there were several cases in one class/bubble and schools had to look at seating plans and only send home children sitting next to positive cases.


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2020)

elbows said:


> Cold feet are developing in Wales about the agreed UK Christmas relaxation. At this rate we will hear the same sentiments in regards England.



Wales cold feet example here:









						Covid: Christmas five-day relaxation period 'a mistake'
					

The warning from a public health expert comes as the UK reports a further 519 deaths.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Also includes a glimpse of what attempts to resist changing the Christmas plan in response to terrible data and hospital situation will look like - framed as an issue of trust and public compliance.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 12, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Schools going online for the final week is just about the only logical response to the government instituting Kill Your Nan Week over Christmas.  The kids need to have gone through something like a full isolation cycle before getting into the multi-household virus transfer programme from the 23rd.  But no, the fucking government threaten legal action against the schools.



A 1500 pupil comp near me closed its doors on Wednesday, ahead of the shutdown called the following day and in direct defiance of our local (county) Director of Education who told the Headmistress she couldn't do it.

Brave and sensible woman. More Heads need to have her courage.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 12, 2020)

Is there any info available on how many people are being vaccinated per day? It still all feels rather ad hoc and like there's not much of plan other than sort of grabbing the nearest over- 80-year-old and injecting them?  It would be good to know if there was a plan of how, where and how many people they expected to get to per day/week etc.

OTOH I was pleased to see shared on next door (and I shared on other local forums) a survey from trusts in North London about where people would be happy to receive vaccinations, both in terms of distance to travel, what sort of venue (eg library, GP, leisure centre, hospital, place of worship etc). Parents and I have responded to it.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 12, 2020)

What is this business that a scotch egg can be considered a substantial meal for the purposes of selling alcohol?

[Just overheard a snippet on the news]


----------



## oryx (Dec 12, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Is there any info available on how many people are being vaccinated per day? It still all feels rather ad hoc and like there's not much of plan other than sort of grabbing the nearest over- 80-year-old and injecting them?  It would be good to know if there was a plan of how, where and how many people they expected to get to per day/week etc.



I was thinking the same thing, also news on the roll-out has gone very quiet.


----------



## Cid (Dec 13, 2020)

weltweit said:


> What is this business that a scotch egg can be considered a substantial meal for the purposes of selling alcohol?
> 
> [Just overheard a snippet on the news]



A fucking stupid misinterpretation of legislation by the people who drafted it. And a fucking stupid distraction.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2020)

NHS Providers arent impressed by the current situation and how hard it may be for them to cope over the next few months.









						Covid: Public must think carefully about Christmas risk, NHS bosses warn
					

NHS bosses say they are worried about January, after the US saw a spike in cases after Thanksgiving.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> In its letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, NHS Providers said while there were "good signs of progress" in some parts of the country, there was a "worrying increase in infection rates across a wide range of areas", including Essex, Kent, London and parts of Lincolnshire.
> 
> It called for areas to be moved into tier three - the highest level of restrictions - "as soon as this is needed, without any delay".





> NHS Providers added that "the evidence of the second wave suggests that unless infection rates fall to a very low level, as they did in London after the first wave, the virus will spread again quickly as soon as restrictions on social contact are relaxed".
> 
> "Trust leaders are worried that if infection rates remain as high as they are at the moment, relaxing the restrictions will trigger a third wave," it said.





> Citing evidence of a rise in infection rates following Thanksgiving celebrations in the US, NHS Providers warned "a relaxation of restrictions on social contact, combined with the natural desire to come together for a traditional festival, will inevitably increase the spread of the virus".
> 
> "We are concerned that the current public debate on these rules is ignoring the significant extra risk involved in this temporary relaxation," it said.
> 
> "The prevailing public perception is: 'Thank goodness we can celebrate Christmas.' We believe it is vital for the public to understand that any extra social contact, particularly with those who are vulnerable to the effects of the virus, is risky and that they need to think very carefully before initiating such contact over the Christmas period."


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## Cloo (Dec 13, 2020)

oryx said:


> I was thinking the same thing, also news on the roll-out has gone very quiet.


It may be in part because it sounds like a lot may be down to local trusts and maybe there will be more local rather than national roll-out schemes. Which does make some kind of sense as obviously the needs of Dorset will be very different to those of Greater Manchester and so on, and it does sound as though more local approaches have worked better than national. One reason I was heartened to see our local trusts surveying people as obviously it'll be important to find out how far people will be willing to travel and to what venues so evidently they're trying to deliver in the right places at the right density.

But I know there are issues with the Pfizer being available in large batches and how that's got outside of hospitals.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 13, 2020)

Covid in Scotland: Care home vaccinations to begin on Monday An update on how it's going in Scotland, some of it is presumably more general though, around how the batches are being handled etc.


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## Badgers (Dec 13, 2020)

Sensible and obvious news shocker 









						Five-day Christmas relaxation period 'a mistake' - BBC News
					

The warning from a public health expert comes as the UK reports a further 519 deaths.




					www.bbc.com


----------



## andysays (Dec 13, 2020)

I posted yesterday on one of the other threads that an 80+ acquaintance of mine had already been given an appointment for a vaccination next week.

And here's an extract from an email I got at work yesterday

_This week, the Government has started to roll out the nation-wide Coronavirus vaccination programme. The first cohort of those eligible for the vaccine are those over 80 years old, residents in care homes, carers and frontline health and social care workers. Hackney residents will start to receive the vaccine from 15 December. People will be contacted by the NHS with information on how to receive the vaccine. Our frontline social care workers have been contacted already, and further details on the programme will soon be available for other frontline staff._


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## oryx (Dec 13, 2020)

Cloo said:


> It may be in part because it sounds like a lot may be down to local trusts and maybe there will be more local rather than national roll-out schemes. Which does make some kind of sense as obviously the needs of Dorset will be very different to those of Greater Manchester and so on, and it does sound as though more local approaches have worked better than national. One reason I was heartened to see our local trusts surveying people as obviously it'll be important to find out how far people will be willing to travel and to what venues so evidently they're trying to deliver in the right places at the right density.
> 
> But I know there are issues with the Pfizer being available in large batches and how that's got outside of hospitals.


I saw something on the news yesterday (BBC rolling news or C4) with a number of those vaccinated in Scotland and it said they didn't have the figures for England yet. 

I did see someone on another forum saying they'd just had the jab so it's happening. I'm just surprised that the government and their friends in the media haven't made more of it given that it's good news, bearing in mind the former have been laughably triumphal in bragging about the 'world-beating' track and trace. 

I did wonder if there had been a problem, such as with storage or in the supply chain, so little is there in the media, when it's a good news story and would give encouragement to so many people.

Probably just the government being crap at media management as they are about everything else.


----------



## LDC (Dec 13, 2020)

oryx said:


> I saw something on the news yesterday (BBC rolling news or C4) with a number of those vaccinated in Scotland and it said they didn't have the figures for England yet.
> 
> I did see someone on another forum saying they'd just had the jab so it's happening. I'm just surprised that the government and their friends in the media haven't made more of it given that it's good news, bearing in mind the former have been laughably triumphal in bragging about the 'world-beating' track and trace.
> 
> ...



I saw a report that did have figures. It's being done by a number of places and Trusts though, so no central place that collates numbers afaik, and it's early days too, mostly not really got going yet. It's definitely more organised than just grabbing an over 80 year old though.


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## elbows (Dec 13, 2020)

oryx said:


> I did see someone on another forum saying they'd just had the jab so it's happening. I'm just surprised that the government and their friends in the media haven't made more of it given that it's good news, bearing in mind the former have been laughably triumphal in bragging about the 'world-beating' track and trace.
> 
> I did wonder if there had been a problem, such as with storage or in the supply chain, so little is there in the media, when it's a good news story and would give encouragement to so many people.
> 
> Probably just the government being crap at media management as they are about everything else.



A really huge deal was made of the first vaccines being administered. Huge press photo opportunity etc that they all made the most of.

So I dont really understand what you're expecting to see and hear on this front. I do not expect a daily running commentary on exact numbers. I expect fanfare when they hit various milestones, and plenty of media attention if/when there are supply issues.

Its an incredible large and long process, and daily updates would add little to the picture and would probably drive me nuts by amplifying the sense of just how long this will take. So I am quite content with less frequent upates, although I would not complain if we got some numbers once a week.

Also both the government and responsible sections of the media have been quite concerned with people inappropriately changing their pandemic behaviour long before vaccines will make any difference. So the government messages so far have tending to be a mix of nationalistic grandstanding, hope dangling, and caution because the vaccine can make a difference to some individuals this winter but is not expected to radically shift the parameters of the game this winter.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2020)

Greenwich is closing their schools from today, with the exception of key worker children and those with specific needs, is this the first local authority to go against the government on this?



> Danny Thorpe, the council leader, said: “I’m writing this open letter to let you know the situation in Greenwich in relation to Covid-19 is now escalating extremely quickly and I have today been briefed by colleagues from Public Health England that the pandemic in Greenwich is now showing signs that we are in a period of exponential growth that demands immediate action.”
> 
> Writing to headteachers, Thorpe described the issue as “honestly one of the most difficult questions I have wrestled with during all my time as leader”. He underlined that Greenwich now had the highest rate of infection at any time since March. Schools have been told to move to online learning for the rest of the term from Monday evening, with the exception of key worker children and those with specific needs.











						Greenwich schools to close after 'exponential growth' of Covid in London borough
					

Council leader demands immediate action after briefing from Public Health England




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## teuchter (Dec 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Greenwich is closing their schools from today, with the exception of key worker children and those with specific needs, is this the first local authority to go against the government on this?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sadiq Kahn is saying all London schools should shut down early.


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## StoneRoad (Dec 14, 2020)

Word I'm getting locally is that some parents are taking kids out of school to isolate so that they can celebrate the crimble / new year with at last some of their relatives. Other families are postponing until they've all been jabbed ...

Unfortunately, my local area now has a very, very high case rate - no news (yet) as to why that's happened. Rumours abound, but logic suggests three possible causes. One local employer with a largish workforce, but with a fairly wide "commute" zone.
Local secondary school(s) - also with wide commute zones, and a known infection spike earlier. And one of it's feeder primaries has had a few 'rona cases recently.
Our local cottage hospital has a large number of elderly patients ... but can't find out if that has had a jump in deaths.

Additionally, one of the busier local take-aways has had a f/t staff member catch the 'rona (and rumour suggests that they didn't fully isolate at once).

Result - I'm being even more careful on the infrequent times I leave my home. And concentrating on WFH ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

No wonder the news today seems to imply that London is moving to tier 3 before the tier review date of the 16th is reached.

Just look at the daily hospital admissions/diagnoses, the recent trajectory is hideous. (data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity )


----------



## Cloo (Dec 14, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Word I'm getting locally is that some parents are taking kids out of school to isolate so that they can celebrate the crimble / new year with at last some of their relatives. Other families are postponing until they've all been jabbed ...


I'm getting the impression that as Xmas comes closer, the vaccines roll out and the current numbers rise, more people _are_ thinking 'You know what, let's not risk it with mum and dad' - even my usually blase brother is saying that he's inclined to be extra careful because our parents should be vaccinated quite soon. I mean, it won't be this year, they're 70 and not super vulnerable, but maybe by end February is a possibility. Will have to wait until they get back on Thursday and see what they want - I think maybe just meeting in their garden which can be reached via a side gate.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 14, 2020)

The situation in London does of course have repercussions for everyone and not just those who live and work (back when jobs and employment was a thing) here.  Each year at Christmas there is a big getaway and whilst it doesn't empty out it is noticeably a lot quieter over the period.  With so many people leaving the heading of to various parts of the country this is going to be a massive problem, potentially.

If you're going to do what the government have decided to do and suspend restrictions for Christmas then you've got to give yourself a fighting chance of it not being a disaster.  Tier 3 of course but I believe its too little too late  Even just buying a week before Christmas by shutting the schools would save some lives.  Very little gets done in the last week and loads of kids are off anyway at the moment.

I hope the local authorities ignore the government and take action because it will save lives.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 14, 2020)

Yeah, I don't get why they didn't just shut schools this week - as you say Teaboy , they're not missing out on loads of meaningful learning. If they're saying people can go to families, it might have cut risk. Then again, it could increase the number of people travelling. Still think a big shutdown in Feb, including schools, might be an idea anyway - slow business month, only 3 weeks of school to miss out on. Could improve things a lot while the first mitigations from vaccination could start becoming apparent.


----------



## souljacker (Dec 14, 2020)

There are lots of people on my kids primary school facebook mums group saying they aren't sending in their kids after tomorrow so the whole family can isolate until christmas day. Makes total sense to me if I'm honest. They are usually just pissing about this close to xmas anyway,


----------



## maomao (Dec 14, 2020)

souljacker said:


> There are lots of people on my kids primary school facebook mums group saying they aren't sending in their kids after tomorrow so the whole family can isolate until christmas day. Makes total sense to me if I'm honest. They are usually just pissing about this close to xmas anyway,


That's alright for those who can but a lot of families rely on schools for childcare while they work. Knowing the Tories they're probably seeing it from that perspective as schools going home early means people not going to work.


----------



## souljacker (Dec 14, 2020)

maomao said:


> That's alright for those who can but a lot of families rely on schools for childcare while they work. Knowing the Tories they're probably seeing it from that perspective as schools going home early means people not going to work.



Yeah, of course. I know it's not easy for everyone.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

maomao said:


> That's alright for those who can but a lot of families rely on schools for childcare while they work. Knowing the Tories they're probably seeing it from that perspective as schools going home early means people not going to work.



Thats also one of the reasons why closing schools in a bad pandemic is a good idea. The disruption to adults of working age is one of the reasons closing schools helps suppress the virus.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

Sounds like Tier 3 for London is indeed the decision and MPs have been told.


----------



## BassJunkie (Dec 14, 2020)

I would welcome a 'Vaccines given' "dashboard" that was updated daily. It would be an entirely good news number over which to obsess each day.

I understand though that this isn't that plausible.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

BassJunkie said:


> I would welcome a 'Vaccines given' "dashboard" that was updated daily. It would be an entirely good news number over which to obsess each day.
> 
> I understand though that this isn't that plausible.



It will be a long time before that number reaches levels I could begin to describe as good news.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sounds like Tier 3 for London is indeed the decision and MPs have been told.



Not surprising.

On BBC radio they were saying gyms can stay open, WTF.


----------



## maomao (Dec 14, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Not surprising.
> 
> On BBC radio they were saying gyms can stay open, WTF.


Well people can't exercise outside so easily this time of year and sedentary behaviour is a leading cause of ill health and early death so it's not completely unreasonable.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Not surprising.
> 
> On BBC radio they were saying gyms can stay open, WTF.



Yes, but group exercise classes (including fitness and dance) should not go ahead.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

Tier 2 is a joke and Tier 3 doesnt go far enough, thats my opinion. Especially when some countries in europe that are seeing bad trajectories have realised that shopping is one of the problems, and are shutting non-essential retail.

Schools and non-essential retail should close, but those are things I expect the government to resist. Although never say never, I'm sure they are a last resort that even the Johnson government would do if they had run out of other options and things were still getting much worse.


----------



## maomao (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Tier 2 is a joke and Tier 3 doesnt go far enough, thats my opinion. Especially when some countries in europe that are seeing bad trajectories have realised that shopping is one of the problems, and are shutting non-essential retail.
> 
> Schools and non-essential retail should close, but those are things I expect the government to resist. Although never say never, I'm sure they are a last resort that even the Johnson government would do if they had run out of other options and things were still getting much worse.


They've just shut non essential retail in London and schools are closing on Thursday anyway.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

maomao said:


> They've just shut non essential retail in London and schools are closing on Thursday anyway.



Unless I've ended up in a parallel universe and confused myself, non-essential retail doesnt shut in tier 3 so I dont know what you are referring to.


----------



## maomao (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Unless I've ended up in a parallel universe and confused myself, non-essential retail doesnt shut in tier 3 so I dont know what you are referring to.


Apologies. I was mistaken. Not sure what the difference between tiers two and three is then.


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## maomao (Dec 14, 2020)

Just pubs and restaurants then. We only ate out the once this year so don't really keep track.


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## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

Hancock is talking about a new strain (or variant as he called it) and how cases of it are being picked up in the South.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

And no I dont yet know anything of the science behind these new variant comments. Its something I would be tempted to go on about if I were in that position and needed a new angle for public health messaging that might get people to pay more attention and take things more seriously.


----------



## belboid (Dec 14, 2020)

Only just seen this bit of the tier 3 restrictions. Not entirely sure what it means

“Businesses must not provide shared smoking equipment for use on the premises.”


----------



## Badgers (Dec 14, 2020)

belboid said:


> Only just seen this bit of the tier 3 restrictions. Not entirely sure what it means
> 
> “Businesses must not provide shared smoking equipment for use on the premises.”


Hookah and such


----------



## LDC (Dec 14, 2020)

belboid said:


> Only just seen this bit of the tier 3 restrictions. Not entirely sure what it means
> 
> “Businesses must not provide shared smoking equipment for use on the premises.”



Shisha.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 14, 2020)

maomao said:


> They've just shut non essential retail in London and schools are closing on Thursday anyway.



Apart from gyms, hairdressers, pools and many many shops...


----------



## chilango (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Hancock is talking about a new strain (or variant as he called it) and how cases of it are being picked up in the South.



Fuck.  

The nightmare superbug coronavirus that can infect before 10pm and is resistant to substantial meals?!?!


----------



## maomao (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> And no I dont yet know anything of the science behind these new variant comments. Its something I would be tempted to go on about if I were in that position and needed a new angle for public health messaging that might get people to pay more attention and take things more seriously.


Claiming fresh danger also works as an excuse for not taking things more seriously sooner.


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## StoneRoad (Dec 14, 2020)

Yet, they are waiting until Wednesday for Tier3 to apply in London. ...


----------



## philosophical (Dec 14, 2020)

New variant.
I assume we're all fecked now.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 14, 2020)

Will this affect the planned 5 day easing from the 23rd?


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Will this affect the planned 5 day easing from the 23rd?



Not yet. If I were making decisions it would, and there is I suppose still a chance the government will panic and go further, but thats not what todays announcements were about.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 14, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Yet, they are waiting until Wednesday for Tier3 to apply in London. ...



Yeah its my birthday tomorrow and I have contacts and influence.  Its like when Johnson delayed lockdown 1 for a week so his girlfriend could host a baby shower.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 14, 2020)

I hope tier 3 in London is more effective than tier 3 has been so far in Kent


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 14, 2020)

It may be quite a tricky thing to assess its success or otherwise given the timing of it all, what with elements of it being suspended in a couple of weeks anyway


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2020)

Worthing was still a tiny island of light green, under 50 cases per 100k, as of the 8/12/20 sample date currently on the government's website map.



I had to screen grab this, because that will change as it's updated over coming days, as of yesterday's daily figures, we have seen a 176.7% increase in 7-days.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

So far the main consequence of the Hancock new variant claims is that hashtags like Covid-20 started trending on twitter.

There are variants popping up all the time, its what properties if any change that matter, and most changes will not be deemed worthy of giving the disease or the virus a new name. The virus will still be SARS-CoV-2 and I cant think of many reasons why the disease name would change from Covid-19.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> So far the main consequence of the Hancock new variant claims is that hashtags like Covid-20 started trending on twitter.



No words, just >


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

On the minus 11th day of Covidmas Matt Hancock said to me
New variant under the tree!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 14, 2020)

"Nothing to do with with _us_ obviously."


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2020)

Things are getting a lot worst in Wales.   



> Hospitals in Wales are almost full due to a surge in the number of patients with coronavirus, the director of the Welsh NHS Confederation has said.
> 
> Darren Hughes warned that more hospitals around the country could soon suspend non-urgent care after two health boards said they were doing so in response to a large increase in cases.
> 
> The warning came as health minister Vaughan Gething said more than 14,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 had been recorded in Wales in the last week, while an intensive care consultant called for the planned relaxation of rules over Christmas to be aborted and the country put into immediate lockdown.





> Figures calculated by the PA news agency show Neath Port Talbot’s latest seven-day case rate is 722.2 per 100,000 of the population, second only to Merthyr Tydfil’s 822.2.











						Hospitals in Wales ‘nearly full’ due to Covid-19, NHS director says
					

One intensive care consultant called for Wales to go into immediate lockdown to help deal with a surge in patients




					www.expressandstar.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

Its a tragedy how badly the Welsh administration messed things up in recent months.

For a firebreak-based policy to stand any chance of working the first firebreak needs to be done nice and early, and then you need more than feeble mesures to come in when it ends, and then you need to be ready to do further short firebreakers at the correct time. Even then I dont know how well it would have worked, maybe if timed correctly even short firebreakers could work for managing an autumn situation and beginning winter without terribly high levels of community infection. Even then once winter has been around a while it is probably necessary to switch to a different policy, because otherwise so many firebreaks would probably be needed that the absurdity of switching things on and off every couple of weeks would probably be too great, and a single longer lockdown more appropriate.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 14, 2020)

I went to my (Welsh) GP surgery this morning for a blood test. Got chatting to the nurse. She told me two things.

1) Take up of this year's flu vaccine is at an all time low. They don't know exactly why but think it is obviously something to do with the new Covid vaccine and Covid itself. They are genuinely mystified and concerned by this.

2) When I asked her if they were going to be giving the new Covid vaccine she told me they don't know. Her words - it's a logistical nightmare. Doesn't see how they can administer it with all that is involved - both the bookings logistics and the giving of it and keeping each patient waiting around afterwards to monitor adverse reactions in a small surgery that is the only one around in an eight mile radius.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 14, 2020)

Welcome to tier 3, friends. It's been months here. I vaguely remember going out for breakfast several months ago.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Hancock is talking about a new strain (or variant as he called it) and how cases of it are being picked up in the South.





elbows said:


> So far the main consequence of the Hancock new variant claims is that hashtags like Covid-20 started trending on twitter.
> 
> There are variants popping up all the time, its what properties if any change that matter, and most changes will not be deemed worthy of giving the disease or the virus a new name. The virus will still be SARS-CoV-2 and I cant think of many reasons why the disease name would change from Covid-19.


A new variant could be a cause for concern, apparently quite a few cases of it in the south. 
Porton Down are apparently looking into it.   

Could be a ploy to scare people into better behaviour in the weeks ahead.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a tragedy how badly the Welsh administration messed things up in recent months.



Those recent months stretch back quite a way and take in the education fiasco as well as general Covid management. 

I am convinced, because I know how Welsh Labour work, as well as Welsh nationalism generally, that the firebreak was purely a political move, a desire to be seen to be doing something that England wasn't. 

I don't think they have a clue. As I repeatedly refer back, take some time to read the back to school guidance for September. The guidance that totally trashed facemasks, going so far as to tell us (staff) that if we turned up to school in a mask we were to remove them before entering through the school gates.

They are a travesty of an authority.


----------



## killer b (Dec 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> 1) Take up of this year's flu vaccine is at an all time low. They don't know exactly why but think it is obviously something to do with the new Covid vaccine and Covid itself. They are genuinely mystified and concerned by this.


I haven't gone to get my flu jab, mostly because I assumed it would be oversubscribed...


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> 1) Take up of this year's flu vaccine is at an all time low. They don't know exactly why but think it is obviously something to do with the new Covid vaccine and Covid itself. They are genuinely mystified and concerned by this.



I've dug out the overall Wales stats for this.

2019/20 season:


from http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sites3/Documents/457/Seasonal influenza in Wales 201920_v1.pdf

2020/21 season as of the start of December:


from http://www2.nphs.wales.nhs.uk:8080/CommunitySurveillanceDocs.nsf/($All)/9F9C36692470D7468025863A00621F2A/$File/PHW Influenza Surveillance Report for 2020 week 49.pdf


----------



## two sheds (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> So far the main consequence of the Hancock new variant claims is that hashtags like Covid-20 started trending on twitter.
> 
> There are variants popping up all the time, its what properties if any change that matter, and most changes will not be deemed worthy of giving the disease or the virus a new name. The virus will still be SARS-CoV-2 and I cant think of many reasons why the disease name would change from Covid-19.



I saw Covid-20 referred to a couple of months ago by a conspiracy theorist who said it was going to be a laboratory created version


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> I've dug out the overall Wales stats for this.
> 
> 2019/20 season:
> 
> ...



Not the picture that was painted this morning in my Welsh town which has a bigger than average cohort of over 65s. Her other words? "We are desperate to get people in. They aren't coming in."


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 14, 2020)

The ridiculous easing of the rules over xmas is going to totally fuck us, isn't it?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Things are getting a lot worst in Wales.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


BBC covering it too 









						Covid: Christmas coronavirus rules easing 'makes no sense'
					

Front-line staff warn relaxing rules for the festive period is not a "luxury" the NHS can afford.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Badgers (Dec 14, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> The ridiculous easing of the rules over xmas is going to totally fuck us, isn't it?


It is a bombshell  

NHS, virologists and other experts are desperate for lockdown, don't want people traveling and mixing over Winterval. 

But the economy...


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 14, 2020)

Badgers said:


> It is a bombshell
> 
> NHS, virologists and other experts are desperate for lockdown, don't want people traveling and mixing over Winterval.
> 
> But the economy...


It's not even the economy, it's so Boris isn't the man who cancelled xmas


----------



## agricola (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its a tragedy how badly the Welsh administration messed things up in recent months.
> 
> For a firebreak-based policy to stand any chance of working the first firebreak needs to be done nice and early, and then you need more than feeble mesures to come in when it ends, and then you need to be ready to do further short firebreakers at the correct time. Even then I dont know how well it would have worked, maybe if timed correctly even short firebreakers could work for managing an autumn situation and beginning winter without terribly high levels of community infection. Even then once winter has been around a while it is probably necessary to switch to a different policy, because otherwise so many firebreaks would probably be needed that the absurdity of switching things on and off every couple of weeks would probably be too great, and a single longer lockdown more appropriate.



The big error was not co-ordinating with England - for understandable reasons, but without an effective border to stop it opening up like they did just guaranteed people would come and do the things they were banned from doing in the occupied territories.   Other than that there have been a load of little errors that they really didn't have to make, though most governments have made the same errors (all the effort to keep pubs open for example - they (and HMG) should have just bit the bullet, told them to close for six months but compensated them properly).


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Not the picture that was painted this morning in my Welsh town which has a bigger than average cohort of over 65s. Her other words? "We are desperate to get people in. They aren't coming in."



They might be afraid of catching it in a health setting. Its not an unreasonable fear, but media etc dont know how to talk about it and related subjects such as the level of hospital infections in this pandemic, because they fear making the problem worse. And journalists will have lots of professional contacts who probably reinforce such fears about patients not coming, doing more harm than good etc. 

Its a tricky one. I err on the side of going on about hospital infections mostly because there is a big gap in reporting there. I am aware that if I had a larger platform, the equation might start to look different and I might have to moderate myself.

A lot of subjects stray into this difficult territory at times. For example one of SAGEs concerns earlier in the year, when planning winter influenza vaccine strategy, was some past evidence that influenza vaccines may leave the person receiving the vaccine more susceptible to catchig other seasonal coronaviruses for a period of some days after vaccination. This made them wonder whether the same thing could be true for this pandemic coronavirus. But Im not sure what the historical evidence was like, and they decided to go for it anyway because of the risks stemming from a large flu outbreak at the same time hospitals were busy from Covid-19, etc.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

Badgers said:


> It is a bombshell
> 
> NHS, virologists and other experts are desperate for lockdown, don't want people traveling and mixing over Winterval.
> 
> But the economy...



I fear that bombshell also captured too much attention too soon, and the first Covidmas bombshell was crowded non-essential retail AKA Christmas shopping.


----------



## ddraig (Dec 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Those recent months stretch back quite a way and take in the education fiasco as well as general Covid management.
> 
> I am convinced, because I know how Welsh Labour work, as well as Welsh nationalism generally, that the firebreak was purely a political move, a desire to be seen to be doing something that England wasn't.
> 
> ...


Why do you think this?


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

Press conference soon.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 14, 2020)

killer b said:


> I haven't gone to get my flu jab, mostly because I assumed it would be oversubscribed...


My GP surgery did ours in a big church hall, all social distanced (well, except for the actual jab of course)


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 14, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Why do you think this?



Which bit?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> My GP surgery did ours in a big church hall, all social distanced (well, except for the actual jab of course)



That's what they did around here too.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

Hancock had to start by demolishing the picture he painted just days ago of cases rising predominantly in school-aged children.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 14, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> It's not even the economy, it's so Boris isn't the man who cancelled xmas


Just speaking to someone at work. They booked Christmas in Dubai to see their family. Are not getting tested in case 'it is positive so we can't go'  

I did point out that (unlike the feckless UK) there is a good chance (certainty?) they will get tested on arrival in Dubai. The response was that that is fine because it is sunny there and we can isolate at their big house in the garden annex and eat meals in the garden. 

Asked about all the people/staff at the airport and worse on the plane? They didn't care.


----------



## ddraig (Dec 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Which bit?


that WG did it to "be different" and it was "political" and the bit about knowing how WG works?


----------



## Sue (Dec 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes, but group exercise classes (including fitness and dance) should not go ahead.


My gym (which only does classes) has just mailed, saying they're closing from tomorrow night. Feel really sorry for them tbh as it's a very small, independent chain and imagine they must be really struggling.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 14, 2020)

My local health centre is usually shut on a Saturday, but they were open this past Saturday, just to do the flu jabs. 

First time I've had a flu jab, because it's the first time they've been offered for the over 50s. Got my letter, rang up and was given a time to attend. 

It was really well organised; ten staff doing the jabs, one in each of the consulting rooms and two staff checking you in and another one marshalling the queue and telling you which room to go to. She had a placard that read "Please take your jacket off while you are in the queue". Sensible stuff. 
There was a one way system in place so I went in the front door, identified myself, queued up, took my coat off, got jabbed and was out the back door and putting my coat back on in less time than it's taken me to type this. I would say there were something like twenty other people in there while I was. Impressive system.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

Tory ministers talking about new variants takes me back to the days of child burger eating propaganda in response to new variant CJD.

New variant clown-pants torn disease.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 14, 2020)

*North* 
People are taking the piss and causing figures to rise. 

*South* 
New variant detected.


----------



## andysays (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> Tory ministers talking about new variants takes me back to the days of child burger eating propaganda in response to new variant CJD.
> 
> New variant clown-pants torn disease.


I was trying to remember what the phrase "new variant" reminded me of!

Getting all nostalgic for those far off hazy days of Mad Cow Disease


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 14, 2020)

ddraig said:


> that WG did it to "be different" and it was "political" and the bit about knowing how WG works?



Johnson was in the middle of his 'nothing to be seen here' phase. Castigating Starmer for being a lockdown scarer. Despite the very concept of a possible 'firebreak' being 'originally' a Johnson idea he'd nicked from Singapore. So as the Johnson government activated a policy of inertia, and with things getting obviously worse all round, the Welsh government took it upon themselves to nick 'his' idea and 'do something.' Despite knowing that this was the absolute minimum of what needed to be done and that the advice had been to do it weeks earlier. But it was an open window to do something, when the UK government was doing nothing. 1-0 to the Senedd.

But this limited action didn't take place in a vacuum. It took place in the midst of the Welsh government completely ballsing up a education covid policy that they were forced to retract just two weeks after publication. The whole Welsh back-to-school guidance that told us we were not allowed to wear face masks, and spent an awful long time in a 51 page directive to do so. The Welsh government that issued useless face shields but not masks. The Welsh government that spent 3 pages of that guidance telling teachers what marks to put in the register against fearful Covid-absentee pupils.

The same Welsh government that told its Directors of Education last Wednesday that schools must stay open at all costs and threatened to discipline a Headmistress who closed hers - 24 hours before a massive about turn where they closed the schools.

I work in a job more affected by Welsh government decisions on this than most. That's how I know. It's (partly) my job to read this stuff and act on it.


----------



## ddraig (Dec 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Johnson was in the middle of his 'nothing to be seen here' phase. Castigating Starmer for being a lockdown scarer. Despite the very concept of a possible 'firebreak' being 'originally' a Johnson idea he'd nicked from Singapore. So as the Johnson government activated a policy of inertia, and with things getting obviously worse all round, the Welsh government took it upon themselves to nick 'his' idea and 'do something.' Despite knowing that this was the absolute minimum of what needed to be done and that the advice had been to do it weeks earlier. But it was an open window to do something, when the UK government was doing nothing. 1-0 to the Senedd.
> 
> But this limited action didn't take place in a vacuum. It took place in the midst of the Welsh government completely ballsing up a education covid policy that they were forced to retract just two weeks after publication. The whole Welsh back-to-school guidance that told us we were not allowed to wear face masks, and spent an awful long time in a 51 page directive to do so. The Welsh government that issued useless face shields but not masks. The Welsh government that spent 3 pages of that guidance telling teachers what marks to put in the register against fearful Covid-absentee pupils.
> 
> ...


So you don't think they just did it off their own backs to do "something"?
Just because Wales has taken different decisions it seems to have been made out to be "doing it deliberately", "trying to show Boris/tories/englund up", and even "copying what englund do a few weeks later"
Seen all this kinda rubbish over and over on online comments along with "just do the same as the rest of the country"

e2a - apart from your area of work and expertise the rest is just your opinion/extrapolation?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 14, 2020)

ddraig said:


> So you don't think they just did it off their own backs to do "something"?
> Just because Wales has taken different decisions it seems to have been made out to be "doing it deliberately", "trying to show Boris/tories/englund up", and even "copying what englund do a few weeks later"
> Seen all this kinda rubbish over and over on online comments along with "just do the same as the rest of the country"
> 
> e2a - apart from your area of work and expertise the rest is just your opinion/extrapolation?



I literally have no idea what you are talking about and can't make sense of your post.


----------



## Supine (Dec 14, 2020)

What a shit show of a press conference now. The Gov messaging is really poor at the moment. 

I can see a Jan/Feb lockdown after the Xmas period relaxation had its affect on the numbers. 

People really need to understand that family gatherings are very dangerous this year.


----------



## bimble (Dec 14, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> The ridiculous easing of the rules over xmas is going to totally fuck us, isn't it?


This is a really crap attempt at a silver lining but I think the number of people who would have complied with the rules / any rules over Christmas is probably quite low. And many of those people (who would have complied) will be making sensible decisions anyway.
So to some extent all that’s happening is the stupid government just trying to not make itself look even more useless, they had a choice between mass disobedience of totally unenforceable rules or Johnson benevolently gifting everyone Christmas.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 14, 2020)

I wish I felt as reassured by that statement as Whitty, no doubt, hoped it would be when he said it.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 14, 2020)

Supine said:


> What a shit show of a press conference now. The Gov messaging is really poor at the moment.


If they actually gave a shit they would realise that every time they do this stuff and demonstrate that they have no consistent policy, no attention to the science until they're pushed into it, and are just winging it until a vaccine comes and saves their arses, compliance with anything goes down. But then if they gave a shit they wouldn't do all that in the first place. Or use it as an opportunity to funnel money to their cronies of course.


----------



## andysays (Dec 14, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is a really crap attempt at a silver lining but I think the number of people who would have complied with the rules / any rules over Christmas is probably quite low. So to some extent all that’s happening is the stupid government just trying to not make itself look even more useless, they had a choice between mass disobedience of totally unenforceable rules or Johnson benevolently gifting everyone Christmas.



if this is true, you also need to ask yourself *why *you think the number of people who would have complied with the rules / any rules over Christmas is probably quite low.

And I suggest that the utter shitness right from day one of the government response in explaining and prioritizing keeping people safe over short term economic reasons is a large part of why many people are getting sick of the whole thing and inclined to say, "fuck it, we've had a shit year, let's at least enjoy Xmas"


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

Supine said:


> What a shit show of a press conference now. The Gov messaging is really poor at the moment.



Its not even fun when a journalist tries to get the likes of Whitty to say something negative about the governments response, tiers etc.

Because he invariably responds with a bunch of stuff that I see the merits of, but then goes too far in defending things by feeling the need to go on about the risk of acting too soon. He can fuck off when he frames it like that, the risk of going too early with measures in this pandemic is the one fucking risk this fucking government have been in no danger of contributing to in this fucking pandemic.

He was very coy about saying anything about the new variant that would allow nerds to instantly know which strain and mutations they are referring to with all this new variant talk.


----------



## bimble (Dec 14, 2020)

andysays 100%. Wasn’t inevitable at all. The driving eye test debacle is where I think they lost any semblance of trust and authority in the eyes of pretty much everybody .


----------



## ddraig (Dec 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I literally have no idea what you are talking about and can't make sense of your post.


Oh ffs
You are making the point that WG made decisions just to be different to englund, can you not see that they are just making their own decisions? (however muddled)


----------



## brogdale (Dec 14, 2020)

brogdale said:


> View attachment 243527
> I wish I felt as reassured by that statement as Whitty, no doubt, hoped it would be when he said it.


Hold my beer, says Whitty...


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 14, 2020)

ddraig said:


> Oh ffs
> You are making the point that WG made decisions just to be different to englund, can you not see that they are just making their own decisions? (however muddled)



Muddled for sure. Glad we agree on something (so simply illustrated by massive immediate U-turns).

But yes. I do believe some of those decisions are being made to show a contrast with the UK government, rather than a deeply thought out strategy. 

Like the local lockdown Llanelli received. The first 'town' lockdown in the UK. Done 'because' Llanelli's figures went over 100 per 100,000 cases. Now, two months on, the county Llanelli is in has cases rising above 350/100,000. Three and a half times worse than the Llanelli local lockdown. So where is the consistency now? Where's the lockdown, local or otherwise? Where is this deeply thought out strategy?

There isn't one. So yes, I conclude those earlier moves were a knee-jerk response to be seen to be doing something, something the UK wasn't. If it wasn't that then why does Carmarthenshire now have no new policy, no lockdown, not even a firebreak, when things are 3.5 times worse?


----------



## ddraig (Dec 14, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Muddled for sure. Glad we agree on something (so simply illustrated by massive immediate U-turns).
> 
> But yes. I do believe some of those decisions are being made to show a contrast with the UK government, rather than a deeply thought out strategy.
> 
> ...


You conclude, in your opinion


----------



## 2hats (Dec 14, 2020)

elbows said:


> He was very coy about saying anything about the new variant that would allow nerds to instantly know which strain and mutations they are referring to with all this new variant talk.


Smart money appears to be on N501Y with the H69/V70 double deletion.

May have increased ACE2 affinity and able to evade some antibodies. Not likely to evade most of the new vaccines though. Has been seen elsewhere before, so I understand.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 14, 2020)

Great, my parents are flying back on Thursday to one of the worst rates in London (Enfield) - probably just as well they'll need to quarantine. Have offered to drop shopping over on Weds night, though my mum is sufficently organised that she may well have ordered a shop in for their arrival some time ago.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

2hats said:


> Smart money appears to be on N501Y with the H69/V70 double deletion.



Soon to be known as the GrinS:N501Y that stole Christmas. Or at least maybe thats the emergency backup plan on the u-turn excuses/get the public to take things seriously front.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Hold my beer, says Whitty...
> 
> View attachment 243530



This was just him covering the same sort of territory that posters like me are on about when we mention selection pressure on the virus if we get to the point where lots of people are immune to common strains via vaccination. The mutations are random but those that just happen to offer an advantage such as being able to infect lots of people that are otherwise protected, would have a hefty advantage, which could cause them to dominate.

So its just standard theory really. And a lot of these experts will have long presumed that the most likely future for this virus is of it continuing to lurk on the scene, requiring ongoing vaccination programmes where the vaccine evolves whenever the virus evolves sufficiently to require a new vaccine strain selection. ie plenty of things in common with flu vaccination programmes. So when the press start asking vaccine questions in response to the new strain talk of today, this subject is part of the questioning and so the experts will end up going over aspects that arent actually one of their greatest concerns with this new strain.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

2hats said:


> Smart money appears to be on N501Y with the H69/V70 double deletion.
> 
> May have increased ACE2 affinity and able to evade some antibodies. Not likely to evade most of the new vaccines though. Has been seen elsewhere before, so I understand.



Yes, cheers for the info. I note that one of the things Whitty was trying to describe today was the difficulty in being able to easily tell the difference between a strain that is being seen more and more because it has some actual advantage, and a strain that is only being seen more and more because it was in the right place at the right time, ie somewhere that a lot of spread of the virus was happening for other reasons, and that strain had no built in special advantage that lead to its explosion in numbers.

That difficulty is certainly the main reason that my attempts to explore the genome side of this pandemic (via data and analysis done purely by other people, I dont have the skills) have not lead me to any interesting conclusions so far.

edit, oops there was a tweet I meant to include in this post, here it is:


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

One Brexit & pandemic moment in time via trending twitter tags.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2020)

Sky News reporting that Gavin Williamson has served notice on Greenwich to keep their schools open, under threat of them being taken to the High Court and getting issued with an injunction.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News reporting that Gavin Williamson has served notice on Greenwich to keep their schools open, under threat of them being taken to the High Court and getting issued with an injunction.


My son is at a Greenwich school. At the weekend we received notice they would close. This evening we received notice that they will reopen.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2020)

nagapie said:


> My son is at a Greenwich school. At the weekend we received notice they would close. This evening we received notice that they will reopen.



That would be because of this breaking story, I've got a link now.









						Government launches legal action against Greenwich school closures
					

Education secretary uses emergency Covid legislation for first time over London council’s plans




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News reporting that Gavin Williamson has served notice on Greenwich to keep their schools open, under threat of them being taken to the High Court and getting issued with an injunction.



Their amazing planning and priorities for winter season was to get the NHS to focus most of its effort on getting routine stuff going, and to force education to open in person at all costs.

And because they have had to u-turn on so much so many times, they seem to have decided to make education the battleground, their area of no surrender, a priority they would rather deliver in corrupt and useless form than do the right thing that involved an obvious u-turn and obvious economic implications. It seems only the magnitude and shock of the first wave, and the further shock of their experts having got the timing estimates all wrong, that forced their hand on education the first time. Now winter is testing it, and the government response is classic tory shit. They also know that school holidays will soon come anyway, and they can make temporary use of that when trying to ignore uncomfortable data. But then next year they wont have that automatic holiday wiggle room again for a while, so their stubbornness will be tested again.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 14, 2020)

nagapie said:


> My son is at a Greenwich school. At the weekend we received notice they would close. This evening we received notice that they will reopen.



Carmarthenshire. December 3rd.



> In a letter sent to parents, signed by both executive board member for education, Glynog Davies, and director of education and children’s services, Gareth Morgans, they admit that it is a “very challenging” time for the county’s schools but *that the decision has been made to keep them open.*
> 
> The letter states: “I am aware that there has been discussion in the press in regard to the pressures on the education system and suggestions in regard to the last week of term.
> 
> “*Having considered all the evidence and the scientific advice available, I write to confirm that our schools remain open until December 18 as planned*.



Carmarthenshire December 11th



> Secondary schools will close from today



And that was after threatening disciplinary action on a Head who closed her school on Dec 9th.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2020)

> *A man who crossed the Irish Sea from Scotland to the Isle of Man "on a jet ski" to visit his girlfriend has been jailed for breaching Covid-19 laws.*
> Douglas Courthouse heard 28-year-old Dale McLaughlan took four-and-a-half hours to travel from the Isle of Whithorn to Ramsey on Friday.
> McLaughlan, from North Ayrshire, made the crossing despite having never driven a water scooter before.
> He admitted arriving unlawfully on the island and was jailed for four weeks.











						Covid: Man jailed for Scotland-Isle of Man water scooter crossing
					

Dale McLaughlan travelled across the Irish Sea on a water scooter to see his girlfriend, a court hears.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Sounds a bit like a Milk Tray advert gone wrong (yay more dated references). And all because the island hates Covid-19.


----------



## Aladdin (Dec 15, 2020)

In a statement, Mr Hancock said: "Over the last few days, thanks to our world-class genomic capability in the UK, we have identified a new variant of coronavirus which may be associated with the faster spread in the South of England." 

Kind of reads a bit show offy?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Covid: Man jailed for Scotland-Isle of Man water scooter crossing
> 
> 
> Dale McLaughlan travelled across the Irish Sea on a water scooter to see his girlfriend, a court hears.
> ...


Apart from him being a fuckwit, as an aside, stories like this give you a real sense of how people's brains are wired differently in terms of risk. 'Never been on a jet ski? Fancy a 25 mile open see journey on your own? Yeah, why not?'


----------



## weltweit (Dec 15, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Apart from him being a fuckwit, as an aside, stories like this give you a real sense of how people's brains are wired differently in terms of risk. 'Never been on a jet ski? Fancy a 25 mile open see journey on your own? Yeah, why not?'


I hope he at least had a compass ..


----------



## Badgers (Dec 15, 2020)

Dutch going into full lockdown till 19/01
Germany till the 10/01


----------



## Supine (Dec 15, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Dutch going into full lockdown till 19/01
> Germany till the 10/01



We do it later and pay the price


----------



## Badgers (Dec 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> We do it later and pay the price




This (also posted in Xmas Bubble thread) seems sensible to me.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Dutch going into full lockdown till 19/01
> Germany till the 10/01



Plus the Czech Republic is going into a partial lockdown, and Italy is considering further restrictions too.



> The Netherlands and the Czech Republic have said they will follow Germany into strict second lockdowns over the holiday period, with Italy weighing similar measures to avoid a fresh surge in coronavirus infections over Christmas and new year.
> 
> In a rare television address, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, said non-essential shops and businesses, gyms, museums, cinemas and theatres would close for five weeks after *the country’s seven-day new case average rose by more than 40% in the past week.
> 
> Bars and restaurants in the Netherlands have been closed since mid-October but the partial lockdown has not slowed the spread of the virus enough*, Rutte said, as anti-lockdown protesters booed and whistled outside his office.



They are closing schools too.









						Netherlands and Czech Republic to enforce strict Christmas lockdowns
					

Countries follow Germany’s lead to try to stem cases, as Italy weighs up similar measures




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Dec 15, 2020)

The British (English) government, with its supine, tailending “opposition” now appears to be doing whatever it can to kill as many of us as possible, wreck the NHS and destroy what is left of the economy before the vaccines have a chance to change the situation. At least that is what it looks like.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Dec 15, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> The British (English) government, with its supine, tailending “opposition” now appears to be doing whatever it can to kill as many of us as possible, wreck the NHS and destroy what is left of the economy before the vaccines have a chance to change the situation. At least that is what it looks like.


Must still be more money that can be made out of it, somehow.


----------



## Supine (Dec 15, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> The British (English) government, with its supine, tailending “opposition” now appears to be doing whatever it can to kill as many of us as possible,



Don't blame me!


----------



## Cloo (Dec 15, 2020)

Supine said:


> We do it later and pay the price


Yup, they'll do it by February but then we'll still be struggling in March while other countries are sorting their shit out.


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Dec 15, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Must still be more money that can be made out of it, somehow.


Less “Disaster Capitalism” than “Complete and utter catastrophe capitalism”


----------



## flypanam (Dec 15, 2020)

Apologies if this has been posted but the Sunday Times insight team wrote a long piece at the weekend, it’s got my blood boiling but worth a read if only to further demonstrate how utterly cavalier Johnson and the rest are, makes me think the Brexit brinkmanship on Sunday was to hide this story https://archive.vn/UWnAm


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 15, 2020)

It strikes me that testing capacity is going to come under some serious strain over the next week to ten days, especially in the South East.  Clearly infection rates are very high but I imagine there will also be a fair amount of people who don't have symptoms but will want a negative test before they head off to see family at Christmas.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 15, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Yup, they'll do it by February but then we'll still be struggling in March while other countries are sorting their shit out.



I doubt we'll enter lockdown no matter the death toll. Not after the difficulty entering first times. Government has made it clear that no lives matter


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 15, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I doubt we'll enter lockdown no matter the death toll. Not after the difficulty entering first times. Government has made it clear that no lives matter



I can easily see there being a repeat of November's 'lockdown'.  In fact I think it very likely.  There really isn't that much difference from tier 3 anyway and millions are either living with that or will be very shortly anyway.


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

flypanam said:


> Apologies if this has been posted but the Sunday Times insight team wrote a long piece at the weekend, it’s got my blood boiling but worth a read if only to further demonstrate how utterly cavalier Johnson and the rest are, makes me think the Brexit brinkmanship on Sunday was to hide this story https://archive.vn/UWnAm


Cheers for this - that's quite a piece.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 15, 2020)

Following an encouraging-looking month or so, a change in trajectory is now visible in the ZOE estimates


----------



## chilango (Dec 15, 2020)

_Of course_ there will be another lockdown of some sort. The only question is whether they can manage to put it off until after the New Year.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I can easily see there being a repeat of November's 'lockdown'.  In fact I think it very likely.  There really isn't that much difference from tier 3 anyway and millions are either living with that or will be very shortly anyway.



I have low expectations from the government and at every stage they've not met them so I figured if I started exceptionally low maybe this time they'll give me a pleasant surprise.


----------



## LDC (Dec 15, 2020)

Given the rises in cases now and then we have the Xmas relaxations which will make that surge worse I can't see it being as long as January before things are 'bad' again and we need some kind of national level restrictions.

I do think there's a fair amount social, business, and cultural pressure on the government for this Xmas relaxation, I don't think it's as simple as them being careless. Plenty of people I know were going to significantly break the restrictions anyway, so I can see the argument that providing some sort of guidelines for people has advantages.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Given the rises in cases now and then we have the Xmas relaxations which will make that surge worse I can't see it being as long as January before things are 'bad' again and we need some kind of national level restrictions.



Interesting that you use the word "surge" there.  I found out yesterday that there is a construction project going on in Cambridge which is falling under the nightingale hospital set up.  They are literally calling the construction project "Project Surge".


----------



## LDC (Dec 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Interesting that you use the word "surge" there.  I found out yesterday that there is a construction project going on in Cambridge which is falling under the nightingale hospital set up.  They are literally calling the construction project "Project Surge".



Yeah, I was chatting with someone last night, and we deliberated about the use of 'wave'. Concluded that waves needed a trough between them, and what we were likely to see was a second lot of infections that pushes the current growing wave higher than it would otherwise have been, so not easily viewable and distinguishable on a simple plotted graph of time and rates of infections/deaths/etc. So we settled on 'surge' to describe that. Rock n roll Monday night.


----------



## magneze (Dec 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Given the rises in cases now and then we have the Xmas relaxations which will make that surge worse I can't see it being as long as January before things are 'bad' again and we need some kind of national level restrictions.
> 
> I do think there's a fair amount social, business, and cultural pressure on the government for this Xmas relaxation, I don't think it's as simple as them being careless. Plenty of people I know were going to significantly break the restrictions anyway, so I can see the argument that providing some sort of guidelines for people has advantages.


This doesn't make sense to me. Sure some people will break it anyway, but better to go with a guideline of 'don't do it' rather than 'it's ok'.


----------



## LDC (Dec 15, 2020)

magneze said:


> This doesn't make sense to me. Sure some people will break it anyway, but better to go with a guideline of 'don't do it' rather than 'it's ok'.



I'm not saying I agree with it, but it is a common response to lots of things like this, even on a smaller level. Plenty of people give guidelines for all sorts of dangerous things that people 'shouldn't do' like IV drug user needle exchanges, letting teenagers drink alcohol at home under supervision, etc.

I assume (maybe stupidly) that it has been discussed by the behavioral lot in SAGE as well, and they have some input into thinking it might be 'better' than an outright ban...?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 15, 2020)

Two leading medical journals have said the UK government's plan to ease Covid rules over Christmas is a "rash decision" that will "cost many lives".

Place your bets on the u-turn timing


----------



## prunus (Dec 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I assume (maybe stupidly) that it has been discussed by the behavioral lot in SAGE as well, and they have some input into thinking it might be 'better' than an outright ban...?



Reading the Sunday Times article linked above I’m not sure one can any more assume that any part of the government’s responses or actions is informed by any kind of science, behavioural or otherwise. I get the feeling none of it is joined up any more, ministers etc are just saying what they think with varying degrees of ignorance.


----------



## magneze (Dec 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not saying I agree with it, but it is a common response to lots of things like this, even on a smaller level. Plenty of people give guidelines for all sorts of dangerous things that people 'shouldn't do' like IV drug user needle exchanges, letting teenagers drink alcohol at home under supervision, etc.
> 
> I assume (maybe stupidly) that it has been discussed by the behavioral lot in SAGE as well, and they have some input into thinking it might be 'better' than an outright ban...?


Perhaps they've even thought that the current strategy of making it seem like it would happen and then banning it is more effective than banning it. 🤔


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 15, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Two leading medical journals have said the UK government's plan to ease Covid rules over Christmas is a "rash decision" that will "cost many lives".
> 
> Place your bets on the u-turn timing



I can't see it personally.  They've started to dig in on certain things, not taking the really easy and obvious decision to close the schools a few days earlier is the best example of this.  That decision will needlessly cost a lot of lives for no discernible gain.

I can't see them shifting ground on the Christmas plans unless something really major happens in the next few days.


----------



## maomao (Dec 15, 2020)

They will not shift on Christmas. And because it will involve kids from the covid ridden school system mixing with grandparents people will die. There was absolutely no reason for Williamson to force London boroughs back to school except not wanting to be seen to be responding to Kahn's demands.


----------



## editor (Dec 15, 2020)

I'm expecting January to be a total shower of shit with a long full-on lockdown piling on the misery.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 15, 2020)

editor said:


> I'm expecting January to be a total shower of shit with a long full-on lockdown piling on the misery.



I was fairly relaxed about the Christmas situation at the end of November.  I'm less so now given how fast things are moving.  At a guess I'd say those of us in tier 3 are going to be in it for the long haul and there will be many more joining us.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 15, 2020)

editor said:


> I'm expecting January to be a total shower of shit with a long full-on lockdown piling on the misery.


Can it really be any worse (I mean of course cases and deaths can and probably will go up, but in terms of restrictions)? I mean what can they shut that isn't already shut, or wasn't already shut last month?


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Can it really be any worse (I mean of course cases and deaths can and probably will go up, but in terms of restrictions)? I mean what can they shut that isn't already shut, or wasn't already shut last month?



Schools etc, and a broader range of workplaces. And right now non-essential retail is open, which is just one of many differences right now compared to the november national restrictions.


----------



## prunus (Dec 15, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Can it really be any worse (I mean of course cases and deaths can and probably will go up, but in terms of restrictions)? I mean what can they shut that isn't already shut, or wasn't already shut last month?



All the shops except food and medicine. Gyms, outdoor sports. No meeting of anyone anywhere. No going outside for anything except essential reasons. Schools and colleges. There’s plenty further to go than tier 3


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 15, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Can it really be any worse (I mean of course cases and deaths can and probably will go up, but in terms of restrictions)? I mean what can they shut that isn't already shut, or wasn't already shut last month?


The places that were shut in the full lockdown - non-essential shops, libraries, gyms etc


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

prunus said:


> Reading the Sunday Times article linked above I’m not sure one can any more assume that any part of the government’s responses or actions is informed by any kind of science, behavioural or otherwise. I get the feeling none of it is joined up any more, ministers etc are just saying what they think with varying degrees of ignorance.



Theres one thing I can still be reasonably sure of because its been true all the way along so far - there are levels of hospitalisation that force them to act and do giant u-turns.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 15, 2020)

I really can't see schools being closed. The government seem absolutely determined for that not to happen, despite the chaos it's caused all term.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 15, 2020)

That's what I mean though - so basically the same as last month.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

Number of covid-19 patients in hospital in England using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## miss direct (Dec 15, 2020)

prunus said:


> All the shops except food and medicine. Gyms, outdoor sports. No meeting of anyone anywhere. No going outside for anything except essential reasons. Schools and colleges. There’s plenty further to go than tier 3


But were those even the rules in the spring? (Sorry, wasn't in the UK so didn't follow the rules closely, too busy trying to keep up with the very strict rules where I was)


----------



## editor (Dec 15, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Can it really be any worse (I mean of course cases and deaths can and probably will go up, but in terms of restrictions)? I mean what can they shut that isn't already shut, or wasn't already shut last month?


Retail can close so you can't even buy a pointless jumper from TK Maxx to cheer yourself up.


----------



## editor (Dec 15, 2020)

Meanwhile: NTIA warns more than 5,000 New Year’s Eve illegal parties may take place


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2020)

miss direct said:


> But were those even the rules in the spring? (Sorry, wasn't in the UK so didn't follow the rules closely, too busy trying to keep up with the very strict rules where I was)



Basically, yes.

Although off licences, banks & post offices, garages (not sales showrooms) were allowed to stay open.


----------



## chilango (Dec 15, 2020)

miss direct said:


> But were those even the rules in the spring? (Sorry, wasn't in the UK so didn't follow the rules closely, too busy trying to keep up with the very strict rules where I was)



In Spring schools, Unis, shops, gyms we're all shut.

You were only allowed out for an hour a day or something to for a walk/run etc.

No meeting other people at all.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 15, 2020)

Were you only allowed out on your own, or could you go for a walk with someone from your household?


----------



## chilango (Dec 15, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Were you only allowed out on your own, or could you go for a walk with someone from your household?



Household iirc.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2020)

We knew things were getting very serious in Wales, now England is offering to help Welsh hospitals, by taking non-covid patients.



> The UK Government has offered to take non-Covid patients from Welsh hospitals to ease the pressure as cases of coronavirus threaten to overwhelm the health service.
> 
> In a letter to the First Minister Mark Drakeford, the UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock and the Welsh Secretary Simon Hart said that they were "concerned" by the rising rates in Wales, and offered support "so we can get on top of this disease together".
> 
> "We stand ready to support Welsh hospitals through mutual aid of patients across the border where this is needed due to undue strain on healthcare provision."











						England offers to take non-Covid patients to ease pressure in Welsh hospitals | ITV News
					

It comes as some health boards in Wales announced that non-urgent appointments would be rescheduled due to rising demand on the service.  | ITV News Wales




					www.itv.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2020)

BBC TV News - 'Number 10 says it still intends to allow household mixing over Christmas, but guidance is being kept under constant review.'  

Getting ready for a U-turn?


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Number of covid-19 patients in hospital in England using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity
> 
> View attachment 243609


Looking at this graph, I cant see how they're going to be able to push on with Christmas as it's currently planned. U-turn this week.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 15, 2020)

Things are (and have been for a while now) much worse in Wales. And there is no U-turn planned here. Nobody wants to be the one that cancels Christmas. I think politicians care more about politics than they do about health. It's Christmas tradition and festivities vs graphs few are reading and an unquantifiable number of deaths that haven't happened yet.

With every day that passes I'd argue it's less likely there will be a U-turn.

I'd love to be proved wrong. In any sane world I'd be proved wrong.


----------



## andysays (Dec 15, 2020)

Yeah, I would be utterly amazed if the planned easing of restrictions over Xmas is abandoned or even scaled back.


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Dec 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Things are (and have been for a while now) much worse in Wales. And there is no U-turn planned here. Nobody wants to be the one that cancels Christmas. I think politicians care more about politics than they do about health. It's Christmas tradition and festivities vs graphs few are reading and an unquantifiable number of deaths that haven't happened yet.
> 
> With every day that passes I'd argue it's less likely there will be a U-turn.
> 
> I'd love to be proved wrong. In any sane world I'd be proved wrong.


And the govt’s “flexible friends” in the media, especially the BBC are playing along - notice they were focusing on the death figures in bulletins today - (“encouraging”) was the word the propagandist sap used - rather than the infections and hospitalisation - because the death figures have a 2 week plus lag on the infections and hospitalisation they are still showing the slight benefit of the November “semi lockdown” rather than the infections and hospitalisations which probably show what the infection state of play was 5-7 days ago.


----------



## belboid (Dec 15, 2020)

I hope they do uturn, but they won’t.  We’re meant to be going down to mrsb’s family in Tottenham but I really don’t think we should be doing.   SIL currently has COVID, and two young kids to pass it on to (and a hubby).  Mum has dementia and dad has menieres so an infection could all too easily be crippling if it doesn’t kill them.  

I can’t really say much as mrsb thinks it’s just me not wanting to go to her folks.  Which is partly true, but I’d still prefer them not to die.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 15, 2020)

belboid said:


> I can’t really say much as mrsb thinks it’s just me not wanting to go to her folks.  Which is partly true, but I’d still prefer them not to die.



this scenario, I'm guessing, will be a common one...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2020)

I am not convinced they will change restrictions over Christmas, but I wouldn't rule it out, things seem to be moving at a pace.

Sky News has just reported that the cabinet office minister is to hold a call this afternoon with devolved nations over restrictions for Christmas.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Looking at this graph, I cant see how they're going to be able to push on with Christmas as it's currently planned. U-turn this week.


Anyone with an ounce of sanity can see a u-turn is required and we need a lockdown of some description over Christmas.

Sanity seems to be in short supply in government though, so I’m not going to hold out much hope.


----------



## chilango (Dec 15, 2020)

There's a lot of noise casting doubt on the Christmas easing being broadcast right now.

I wouldn't rule out some sort U-turn at this point. Just depends if the public mood can be nudged towards it a bit.

Obviously the Government will want to avoid the blame for it being laid on their crap tiers and pointless mockdown,  but also a widespread refusal to follow any tightened Christmas period restrictions will be disastrous.

So, they've got to try and shift and reframe and so on if they want to get away with tightening. I think we're seeing some tentative attempts at that this morning without - yet - any commitment.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2020)

One assumes it'll need all four nations to agree, which in turn would give cover to Johnson for cancelling Christmas.



> The leaders of all four UK nations will discuss plans for Christmas this afternoon after Downing Street said a relaxation of coronavirus restrictions is being kept "under constant review".
> 
> Boris Johnson's spokesperson said it remains the government's "intention" to allow up to three households to mix for five days over the Christmas period, but would not give a cut off point for when people can be confident that the arrangements will stay in place.
> 
> ...











						UK nations to 'reconvene' on Wednesday to discuss Covid Christmas rules | ITV News
					

Boris Johnson's spokesman said it remains the government's "intention" to allow up to three households to mix for five days over the Christmas period




					www.itv.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

Jeremiah18.17 said:


> And the govt’s “flexible friends” in the media, especially the BBC are playing along - notice they were focusing on the death figures in bulletins today - (“encouraging”) was the word the propagandist sap used - rather than the infections and hospitalisation - because the death figures have a 2 week plus lag on the infections and hospitalisation they are still showing the slight benefit of the November “semi lockdown” rather than the infections and hospitalisations which probably show what the infection state of play was 5-7 days ago.



No the BBC story is just part of the normal timing of news - every Tuesday the ONS figures for England & Wales come out and a story is written about them.

And on this occasion at the end of the story they make it clear what is likely to happen next:



> People dying from Covid in this period are likely to have caught the infection in the first half of November after cases peaked.
> 
> Since then cases continued to drop, before starting to climb again over the last week or so, particularly in the south east, which prompted the government to move London and some surrounding areas into tier three.
> 
> That suggests the next few weeks could see Covid deaths going down and then up again in the coming weeks.











						High death rate 'may be starting to fall'
					

Total deaths in the UK have been 20% above normal in recent weeks, but that figure has now dropped.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I actually think that its plausible the government doesnt want to formally change the Christmas rules, but came out with the stuff about a new strain yesterday in part to get the mood music in the media to change a bit. Because if they keep the Christmas rules in place but manage to encourage less of the population to take advantage of them, that serves the agenda a bit without an overt u-turn. Not that I exclude the possibility that they will realise this is still not enough, panic, and u-turn on Christmas. But certainly in terms of newspaper front pages today, I think they got what they were after with that. The BBC really didnt play along with that strain stuff much so far though, they downplayed it when they covered it yesterday. And there are other reasons for them to go on about the new strain, such as excusing their Southern tier fuckups and trying to counterbalance the loss of vigilance that stems from vaccine good news.

If the tabloids start calling it the Grinch strain then the Christmas game is probably up.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2020)

Resistance to any Xmas changes are already coming out of Wales, despite the fucking mess there, Mark Drakeford, 'the original 4 nation agreement was hard won, and I'll not lightly put it aside.'


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Things are (and have been for a while now) much worse in Wales. And there is no U-turn planned here.


U turns are never planned, they just happen. They're a panicked response to changing or unexpected (or totally misjudged) circumstances. 

It doesnt look to me like they have the wiggle room for another week of growth followed by 5 days of seeding it all out across the country before we hit those hard limits elbows talks about.


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 15, 2020)

If I were wanting to not change my mind on schools or household bubbles etc I could see myself restricting travel. Like you can have your bubble but you can't travel to it.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> U turns are never planned, they just happen. They're a panicked response to changing or unexpected (or totally misjudged) circumstances.



Really? They just happen in an instant, these policy decisions? Johnson will wake up one day and go 'bang'! ?









						Boris Johnson 'planning part-U-turn' on kids' school meals after public outrage
					

Matt Hancock appeared to hint at more cash over the Christmas holidays - after even some of the 322 Tories who voted down Marcus Rashford's campaign hit out. But will it be enough?




					www.mirror.co.uk
				




Etc.

Others might have taken my post to acknowledge Drakeford's intransigence as highlighted by cupid_stunt above. But you carry on with your pedantry. It's all good.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 15, 2020)

But yes, I hope Johnson does wake up one day and go bang.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> One assumes it'll need all four nations to agree, which in turn would give cover to Johnson for cancelling Christmas.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I swear this one of the few times they’ve actually bothered to consult with the devolved nations


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Really? They just happen in an instant, these policy decisions? Johnson will wake up one day and go 'bang'! ?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It isn't pedantry - just saying the lack of apparent planning for a u-turn isn't any indication a u-turn won't happen. Iirc on the morning - or certainly the afternoon before - the last national lockdown was announced the government were absolutely clear there wasn't going to be a lockdown. And then, there was.


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

You are right that sometimes there's some softening up beforehand though, which is what we're most probably seeing now


----------



## Wilf (Dec 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Given the rises in cases now and then we have the Xmas relaxations which will make that surge worse I can't see it being as long as January before things are 'bad' again and we need some kind of national level restrictions.
> 
> I do think there's a fair amount social, business, and cultural pressure on the government for this Xmas relaxation, I don't think it's as simple as them being careless. Plenty of people I know were going to significantly break the restrictions anyway, so I can see the argument that providing some sort of guidelines for people has advantages.





editor said:


> Meanwhile: NTIA warns more than 5,000 New Year’s Eve illegal parties may take place


In terms of the behavioural nudges and guidelines, I think we are somewhere between the 2 quotes above. Setting aside my hatred of the neoliberal scum - that wasn't easy - government do have a role in terms of setting some kind of framework in the middle of a crisis.  I agree with LDC that they have to do _something_ in terms of Christmas, particularly as it is the single most risky period in terms of household mixing and the rest.  The problem is the government don't have the kind of roots in communities that create anything _beyond _top down advice and rules. Governments don't generally, neoliberal ones even more so. That means any kind of relaxation will play out as individualism and consumerism. Basically, the January sales scrum + a desperate hedonism on New Year's Eve. 

= more dead.


----------



## andysays (Dec 15, 2020)

belboid said:


> I hope they do uturn, but they won’t.  We’re meant to be going down to mrsb’s family in Tottenham but I really don’t think we should be doing.   SIL currently has COVID, and two young kids to pass it on to (and a hubby).  Mum has dementia and dad has menieres so an infection could all too easily be crippling if it doesn’t kill them.
> 
> I can’t really say much as mrsb thinks it’s just me not wanting to go to her folks.  Which is partly true, but I’d still prefer them not to die.


Under normal circumstances,  I'd suggest meeting up if you were coming to Tottenham, but not this Xmas


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 15, 2020)

Wilf said:


> In terms of the behavioural nudges and guidelines, I think we are somewhere between the 2 quotes above. Setting aside my hatred of the neoliberal scum - that wasn't easy - government do have a role in terms of setting some kind of framework in the middle of a crisis.  I agree with LDC that they have to do _something_ in terms of Christmas, particularly as it is the single most risky period in terms of household mixing and the rest.  The problem is the government don't have the kind of roots in communities that create anything _beyond _top down advice and rules. Governments don't generally, neoliberal ones even more so. That means any kind of relaxation will play out as individualism and consumerism. Basically, the January sales scrum + a desperate hedonism on New Year's Eve.
> 
> = more dead.


It’s not just the government, Labour don’t have any alternative narrative or the means to communicate one even if they had . Having said that millions will be careful at Xmas and New Year .


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Resistance to any Xmas changes are already coming out of Wales, despite the fucking mess there, Mark Drakeford, 'the original 4 nation agreement was hard won, and I'll not lightly put it aside.'



I dont think what he said is a genuine sign of resistance, he is just trying to make noises that appeal to some, but he is very far from ruling change out. eg:



> "The choice is a grim one, isn't it," he said. "I have read in my own email account over the last couple of days heart-rending pleas from people not to reverse what we have agreed for Christmas.
> 
> "People who live entirely alone, who have made arrangements to be with people for the first time - they say to me that this is the only thing that they have been able to look forward to in recent weeks.
> 
> ...



From BBC live updates page at 14:09 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55313964


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> It’s not just the government, Labour don’t have any alternative narrative or the means to communicate one even if they had . Having said that millions will be careful at Xmas and New Year .











						Keir Starmer calls for ‘urgent review’ of Christmas coronavirus rules
					

Pressure is piling on the Government to rethink the Christmas rules




					www.standard.co.uk
				






> Labour leader Sir Keir is urging Mr Johnson to convene an emergency Cobra meeting in the next 24-hours to reconsider the current guidance.





> *Dear Prime Minister,*
> It has become increasingly clear over recent days that the tier system you introduced two weeks ago has failed to control transmission of Covid-19. Sadly, it does now appear that the Government has - once again - lost control of infections, putting our economy and our NHS at grave risk in the new year.
> 
> This will be a source of great anxiety for people across the country, who have made so many sacrifices to keep families, loved ones and communities safe.  The fantastic work of scientists and others in developing a vaccine has been a tremendous achievement for our country and allowed us to all feel hopeful again. But we have been brought back down to earth with a thud as the grim possibility of an increasingly bleak winter comes into view.
> ...


----------



## brogdale (Dec 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> You are right that sometimes there's some softening up beforehand though, which is what we're most probably seeing now


Yep.
There has to be a chance that Johnson's 'plan' was to put it out there that he'd 'given us Xmas' with the reserve position that it could be 'scaled-back' withdrawn if/when the numbers went wrong (our fault). _No-one can ever say we didn't want to give you all a happy, family Xmas just like they used to be...._


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> Keir Starmer calls for ‘urgent review’ of Christmas coronavirus rules
> 
> 
> Pressure is piling on the Government to rethink the Christmas rules
> ...


That’s just the same top down communications tbh . It’s focus is on what the government does not citizens.


----------



## bimble (Dec 15, 2020)

I’ll be very surprised if they announce a u-turn on Christmas , even though u turns are their favourite manoeuvre. 
As said before I think the impact would be fairly minimal due to people ignoring the government now, whilst he, Johnson, just wants so badly to be liked that he’d resist making this particular announcement with all the pathetic self interested short termist might at his disposal.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 15, 2020)

If they were worried about compliance before it must be even more of a worry now that a lot of people have put plans in place and have got into the headspace of seeing family over Christmas.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 15, 2020)

Leadership crisis in Britain 2016-2024 at this rate. 

Some consistent messaging and actual leadership would be very nice. It would also be nice not to have every speech used as part of the culture war and dismiss a chunk of the electorate.


----------



## bimble (Dec 15, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> If they were worried about compliance before it must be even more of a worry now that a lot of people have put plans in place and have got into the headspace of seeing family over Christmas.


Yep. They must have a fairly good grasp of likely compliance rates with any Xmas u-turn. Not helped by the way journalists have been obsessively asking about Christmas in press conferences about covid since October.


----------



## Sue (Dec 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yep. *They must have a fairly good grasp of likely compliance rates with any Xmas u-turn*. Not helped by the way journalists have been obsessively asking about Christmas in press conferences about covid since October.


You have more confidence in them than I do...


----------



## bimble (Dec 15, 2020)

Hmm. Maybe my insistence on the idea that most people won’t change their plans whatever government says now is partly because I find it depressing to think that a large proportion of us,  having all the information already as we do, would still wait for Johnson to tell us what to do. Loads of people will have chosen to not see vulnerable relatives this year regardless of Johnson’s gift, etc.


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 15, 2020)

bimble said:


> Hmm. Maybe my insistence on the idea that most people won’t change their plans whatever government says now is partly because I find it depressing to think that a large proportion of us,  having all the information already as we do, would still wait for Johnson to tell us what to do. Loads of people will have chosen to not see vulnerable relatives this year regardless of Johnson’s gift, etc.


I think cautious people will be more cautious but others will take official guidance as a green light and others will push it past what is permitted. It's like all the other restrictions but with more hype and desperation.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 15, 2020)

I reckon that those of us already in Tier 3 won't be put into Tier 2 tomorrow, because that clown in Downing St will say "You've all done jolly well. Stick it out for another few days until the we give everyone a chance to see their family for Christmas" then, the day before the Christmas free for all, he'll say he's cancelled it with a heavy heart and alas and how sorry he is and how he knows we're all good eggs who  don't want to swamp the NHS and that the scientists are all big nasty meanies.


----------



## Looby (Dec 15, 2020)

I’m really conflicted about the Christmas thing. I absolutely agree that it’s madness for households to be mixing over Christmas but I’m going to be one of those arseholes begging for an exception.
My relative is vulnerable, has MH issues and I really don’t want them to be alone this Christmas. I’d be desperately worried about them. They’re in tier 3 and travelling from almost the other end of the country on public transport. It probably is risky but actually not doing it could be worse.
Whatever happens, I hope they still come.


----------



## andysays (Dec 15, 2020)

Espresso said:


> I reckon that those of us already in Tier 3 won't be put into Tier 2 tomorrow, because that clown in Downing St will say "You've all done jolly well. Stick it out for another few days until the we give everyone a chance to see their family for Christmas" then, the day before the Christmas free for all, he'll say he's cancelled it with a heavy heart and alas and how sorry he is and how he knows we're all good eggs who  don't want to swamp the NHS and that the scientists are all big nasty meanies.


Have things actually got significantly better in any Tier 3 areas? Assuming we're all going to Xmas rules in a other week, wouldn't it be best to just wait until then before relaxing anything?


----------



## Espresso (Dec 15, 2020)

andysays said:


> Have things actually got significantly better in any Tier 3 areas? Assuming we're all going to Xmas rules in a other week, wouldn't it be best to just wait until then before relaxing anything?


I don't know what the rates are like in any other Tier 3 area, but in the North West where I am, it looks like the rate of infection is going down. 
That said, I am in no rush to come out of Tier 3 tomorrow or for Christmas. I think the Christmas relaxation idea is crackers. 

I'm just fed up of Johnson being such an arse and talking to us as if he's Bertie Wooster and we're all about three.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

andysays said:


> Have things actually got significantly better in any Tier 3 areas? Assuming we're all going to Xmas rules in a other week, wouldn't it be best to just wait until then before relaxing anything?



Depends how far they are willing to localise decisions.

On the broadest regional level, although London, the South East and the East of England have the most alarming trajectories, there are no regions where I am happy with the data, no region where I think wiggle room to relax is demonstrated to my satisfaction.

But in terms of the smaller areas they actually use when making decisions, perhaps they can still find some where they think the picture is still going in the right direction. A lot of the complaints from various MPs etc about the last set of tier decisions incolved which areas were lumpted together. eg I'm in Warwickshire and there was lots of moaning that they lumped Warwickshire in with Coventry and Solihull when making the decision, and some MPs seemed to be under the impression that Hancock had since assured them that wont happen again, but I dont know if those were false reassurances. And last time I checked, which was some time ago, there were also still big differences between North Warwickshire and South Warwickshire rates of infection.

If it were down to me I wouldnt relax tiers anywhere even if some data supported it, because the measures are too weak in general and the last message I'd want to be sending at this stage of the pandemic is that things are improving and we can relax a bit.


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

I would say there is zero chance of any tier 3 areas moving into tier 2 before Christmas.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> I would say there is zero chance of any tier 3 areas moving into tier 2 before Christmas.



The only way for restrictions was certainly up when it came to Scotland:









						Covid in Scotland: Tougher virus restrictions for three council areas
					

Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire and East Lothian will all move up to level three of the country's tiered system.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

There's no way that they'll announce tightening of stuff  at christmas - which I'm confident they're about to do - then announce looser restrictions in the run up. Had they not fucked up so badly with London maybe things might be different, but as it is...

The graun has some polling from Ipsos Mori where they asked about what people thought of the current christmas rules, and there's I don't think the numbers suggest there'd be a huge resistance to them changing again:


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

Ineptitude resurgence:









						Covid: Chaotic start for travellers' Covid testing system
					

The Test to Release programme is supposed to cut quarantine times for people arriving in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *Test to Release, a new system meant to cut quarantine times for travellers arriving in England, has been beset with problems on its first day.*
> Travellers are allowed to end self-isolation early if they pay for a coronavirus test and get a negative result five days after arriving.
> The government picked 11 firms to carry out the private tests.
> However, some of the largest Covid test providers were not included and many on the list have hit problems.
> ...


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 15, 2020)

On compliance: from the latest BBC blog.



> As London prepares for tougher coronavirus restrictions from tomorrow, Christmas shoppers give their verdict on the change.
> 
> "I don't plan on changing anything at all," one man told the BBC. Another woman said: "It's a mess, they don't know what they're doing, we don't know what we're doing."
> 
> ...



My bold. In fact, my words. I made the last bit up. But, y'know.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2020)

Looking at today's figures, they have a seriously big problem.

New cases are up 28.7% in the last 7-days, patients admitted to hospital up 14.7%, total patients in hospitals is a whopping 17,329 - that's well up from the 12,286 on the 31st Oct., when Johnson announced the second 'lockdown'.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 15, 2020)

Oh and about this 'tightening' that some think inevitable. The four nations telephone call is at the request of Sturgeon. It isn't being instigated by Johnson. In fact, he's not even in on the call, it's Gove. Discussing a request from Sturgeon. Against the background of Starmer calling for a change. So excuse me while I don't hold my breath. And the latest seems to be the idea of reducing the limit of households meeting down from 3 to 2.

Radical.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 15, 2020)

Looby said:


> I’m really conflicted about the Christmas thing. I absolutely agree that it’s madness for households to be mixing over Christmas but I’m going to be one of those arseholes begging for an exception.
> My relative is vulnerable, has MH issues and I really don’t want them to be alone this Christmas. I’d be desperately worried about them. They’re in tier 3 and travelling from almost the other end of the country on public transport. It probably is risky but actually not doing it could be worse.
> Whatever happens, I hope they still come.



I see what you mean, similar situation here, my bubble relative lives alone but fortunately drives. I’d be concerned leaving them alone at Christmas, particularly this year because of non Covid related issues. I must confess that I had hoped that the government would restrict the Christmas rules further because it would have given us time to get used to the idea and think of alternative things to do for Christmas virtually.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Oh and about this 'tightening' that some think inevitable. The four nations telephone call is at the request of Sturgeon. It isn't being instigated by Johnson. In fact, he's not even in on the call, it's Gove. Discussing a request from Sturgeon. Against the background of Starmer calling for a change. So excuse me while I don't hold my breath. And the latest seems to be the idea of reducing the limit of households meeting down from 3 to 2.
> 
> Radical.



Ah this makes more sense than the government willingly involving the devolved nations in decisions or consulting them before making a decision.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Oh and about this 'tightening' that some think inevitable. The four nations telephone call is at the request of Sturgeon. It isn't being instigated by Johnson. In fact, he's not even in on the call, it's Gove. Discussing a request from Sturgeon. Against the background of Starmer calling for a change. So excuse me while I don't hold my breath. And the latest seems to be the idea of reducing the limit of households meeting down from 3 to 2.
> 
> Radical.



3 households to 2 would surely make some difference I’d hope. I’d have preferred if they’d started with 2 households and worked their way up to 3 if the rate of infection/hospital admissions were not continuing to increase


----------



## Thora (Dec 15, 2020)

I’m not changing my Christmas plans


----------



## LDC (Dec 15, 2020)

thismoment said:


> 3 households to 2 would surely make some difference I’d hope. I’d have preferred if they’d started with 2 households and worked their way up to 3 if the rate of infection/hospital admissions were not continuing to increase



Can you imagine the frantic and tricky negotiations about which household gets told they're the one that can't come? Urgh. Best off just cancelling the whole thing and promising people an extra bank holiday weekend in the spring or summer or something.


----------



## chilango (Dec 15, 2020)

I think 3 to 2 will guarantee a very high rate of non-compliance. 

You'd get a better result going to no household mixing at all, both in terms of suppression and in terms of public consent and support.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 15, 2020)

Thora said:


> I’m not changing my Christmas plans



Me neither  I'm still on my own watching videos and eating and drinking too much


----------



## thismoment (Dec 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Can you imagine the frantic and tricky negotiations about which household gets told they're the one that can't come? Urgh. Best off just cancelling the whole thing and promising people an extra bank holiday weekend in the spring or summer or something.


Maybe I’m just thinking of myself....I’d be the household volunteering to stay at home


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

More polling, this time YouGov


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> I think 3 to 2 will guarantee a very high rate of non-compliance.



My thoughts too and why I followed my post immediately with the compliance one.


----------



## chilango (Dec 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> My thoughts too and why I followed my post immediately with the compliance one.



Yeah. And once this bit of non-compliance is rationalised the mental barrier to breaking other "little" bits is gone.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 15, 2020)

Looby said:


> I’m really conflicted about the Christmas thing. I absolutely agree that it’s madness for households to be mixing over Christmas but I’m going to be one of those arseholes begging for an exception.
> My relative is vulnerable, has MH issues and I really don’t want them to be alone this Christmas. I’d be desperately worried about them. They’re in tier 3 and travelling from almost the other end of the country on public transport. It probably is risky but actually not doing it could be worse.
> Whatever happens, I hope they still come.



There have always been exceptions for caring for vulnerable folk, and so there should be. Most people however haven't got anything in the 'risk' column under staying the fuck home, and it's those people who need to have a serious think about their priorities. I get that people are doing family stuff for the sake of their kids, but the ability of those kids to go back to school after christmas is in the balance right now.

I hope all here and all their loved ones find some way to make the best of all this. Christ what a miserable and brutal year we've had


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 15, 2020)

thismoment said:


> 3 households to 2 would surely make some difference I’d hope. I’d have preferred if they’d started with 2 households and worked their way up to 3 if the rate of infection/hospital admissions were not continuing to increase



I honestly think in most cases changing it to zero other households would be less upsetting than changing it to one other household. Like my dad and his wife have five kids between them, plus partners and grandkids. The grandkids all have separated parents who also see them and who have their own bubbles/households/workplaces with however many other people. Currently they're planning to have my sister and niece plus my stepsister for christmas. Changing the rules so only one of those could visit would create more strain on a family that's already been through the wringer of late, and which is even on a good day a tenuous alliance between my dad's clan and his wife's. Then you've got my mum and her fella, and a slightly different version of the same ugly mess there.

Me and Mrs Frank are staying home. It's simple and fair and it doesn't involve me driving so I can have as much port as I like.


----------



## clicker (Dec 15, 2020)

I wish the message, if there had to even be one, was that no one needs be alone (unless they don't mind.) No more.

No faffing about with 2 or 3 bubbling households. No travelling across the country, because Boris has said Aunty Ethel is allowed x number of visitors.

If you travel it's to join a single person household. And likewise a single person household can travel to you. Anything else hold fire a month. 
Yes, bound to be valid exceptions.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looking at today's figures, they have a seriously big problem.
> 
> New cases are up 28.7% in the last 7-days, patients admitted to hospital up 14.7%, total patients in hospitals is a whopping 17,329 - that's well up from the 12,286 on the 31st Oct., when Johnson announced the second 'lockdown'.



Speaking of figures, one of the reasons I used the hospital stats off the NHS site rather than the dashboard ones was because the number of patients in hospital in England and English regions tended to be lower on the dashboard for reasons I didnt look into. Other reasons inclde the NHS version including additional data, and also the dashboard numbers tending to be one day behind the NHS ones.

Anyway there is now one less reason for me not to use the dashboard ones, because as of 11th December they have finally switched to using exactly tthe same numbers as the NHS site for Covid-19 patients in hospital beds. They are still a day behind though. Here is a graph showing the numbers before and after the switch.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 15, 2020)

clicker said:


> I wish the message, if there had to even be one, was that no one needs be alone (unless they don't mind.) No more.
> 
> No faffing about with 2 or 3 bubbling households. No travelling across the country, because Boris has said Aunty Ethel is allowed x number of visitors.
> 
> ...



yes, I agree with this.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 15, 2020)

clicker said:


> I wish the message, if there had to even be one, was that no one needs be alone (unless they don't mind.) No more.
> 
> No faffing about with 2 or 3 bubbling households. No travelling across the country, because Boris has said Aunty Ethel is allowed x number of visitors.
> 
> ...



I 've now changed my mind. This is the only sane, and fair, way of doing it.


----------



## Sue (Dec 15, 2020)

So what do we reckon? Are they going to stick with the current relaxation over Christmas, tighten it up a bit or or u-turn (no doubt at the last minute when massively forced into it)?


----------



## thismoment (Dec 15, 2020)

I’ll say that they’ll stick to the current relaxation and tell us all to be sensible


----------



## LDC (Dec 15, 2020)

Sue said:


> So what do we reckon? Are they going to stick with the current relaxation over Christmas, tighten it up a bit or or u-turn (no doubt at the last minute when massively forced into it)?



I think they'll stick to it unfortunately, and just advice people to use 'common sense' and to 'be careful' as some kind of opt out. I think it'll be very hard to reverse the guidelines now tbh.


----------



## Sue (Dec 15, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think they'll stick to it unfortunately, and just advice people to use 'common sense' and to 'be careful' as some kind of opt out. I think it'll be very hard to reverse the guidelines now tbh.


I agree. Unfortunately.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

Sue said:


> So what do we reckon? Are they going to stick with the current relaxation over Christmas, tighten it up a bit or or u-turn (no doubt at the last minute when massively forced into it)?



I want at least 3 more days hospital data before I guess. Seeing what a few more days worth of press coverage and political pressure looks like might also help my guesswork. Although if I push this too far I might miss the window of opportunity to guess.


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

Screeching u-turn, Johnson to make a speech peppered throughout with his trademark 'alas!' from Downing Street tomorrow or Thursday


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 15, 2020)

I'm trying to work out what the maximum possible cock-up situation would be, but when I do, it'll be that.


----------



## maomao (Dec 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Screeching u-turn, Johnson to make a speech peppered throughout with his trademark 'alas!' from Downing Street tomorrow or Thursday


Johnson can't do two things at once and he's busy getting Brexit done. Meanwhile, Gove's in charge and this is probably the nearest he'll get to a chance to commit mass murder so he'll make sure as many die as possible.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 15, 2020)

Of course the flipside of 'nobody needs to be alone' should be that if you have a safe, warm home and food in the fridge and someone to not be alone with already you can give someone else in a less happy situation a present by staying home and leaving as much leeway as possible for those who need to travel/mix to do so. If you squint at it from the right angle it's actually quite a lovely idea.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Screeching u-turn, Johnson to make a speech peppered throughout with his trademark 'alas!' from Downing Street tomorrow or Thursday


We think the same here.

If it is to change we’d prefer to know early.  We don’t have massive plans but we do have plans, and both us here and the family we plan on seeing have started separate isolation protocol.


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

maomao said:


> Johnson can't do two things at once and he's busy getting Brexit done. Meanwhile, Gove's in charge and this is probably the nearest he'll get to a chance to commit mass murder so he'll make sure as many die as possible.


Gove (if that Times article is to be believed) is one of the more lockdown favouring members of cabinet, so if he's running it then perhaps it might look a bit better...


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Screeching u-turn, Johnson to make a speech peppered throughout with his trademark 'alas!' from Downing Street tomorrow or Thursday



Last time they did a big lockdown u-turn I was waiting for the word alas and it nearly didnt come, think it only came out in response to a press question in the end.

The scene is certainly well setup should they decide to go for the u-turn option. Theres various new problems and restrictions in European countries to point to, they already introduced the new strain angle, and much of the press sentiment is primed. And there is plenty of compelling data showing doom.


----------



## chilango (Dec 15, 2020)

I think they'll announce that they're sticking to it, urge caution and warn of consequences down the line...

...then early next week do a panicked U-turn once it's well and truly too late.


----------



## chilango (Dec 15, 2020)

killer b said:


> Gove (if that Times article is to be believed) is one of the more lockdown favouring members of cabinet, so if he's running it then perhaps it might look a bit better...



I'm running with a working assumption that Gove will take over as PM early next year once Johnson has "got Brexit done"/succumbed to long Covid/gone into rehab some sort.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2020)

The 4 nations are 'meeting' again tomorrow, which is also when any changes to the tier system are due to be announced, so I guess any changes will be rolled into that.


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> I'm running with a working assumption that Gove will take over as PM early next year once Johnson has "got Brexit done"/succumbed to long Covid/gone into rehab some sort.


I've been saying 'gove's next' since Cameron, and I've been wrong each time. Maybe this will be his moment to shine - certainly it felt like a subtext of that times piece was to cast Gove (and handjob) as the sensibles, and perhaps to launder Cummings somewhat.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 15, 2020)

elbows said:


> I want at least 3 more days hospital data before I guess. Seeing what a few more days worth of press coverage and political pressure looks like might also help my guesswork.





cupid_stunt said:


> The 4 nations are 'meeting' again tomorrow, which is also when any changes to the tier system are due to be announced, so I guess any changes will be rolled into that.



N.Ireland said the Christmas announcement will be on Thursday.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> I'm running with a working assumption that Gove will take over as PM early next year once Johnson has "got Brexit done"/succumbed to long Covid/gone into rehab some sort.


Applied to be steward of the grytviken hundreds


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 15, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> N.Ireland said the Christmas announcement will be on Thursday.



Wales also due to make some sort of announcement on Thursday (17th) -- as I'm sure you know 

No doubt that will become *The Xmas Announcement*, even though it was just deemed a 'review' of current restrictions, before.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 15, 2020)

chilango said:


> I think they'll announce that they're sticking to it, urge caution and warn of consequences down the line...
> 
> ...then early next week do a panicked U-turn once it's well and truly too late.



And then blame the public for flouting rules  in the new year


----------



## mr steev (Dec 15, 2020)

Our council are now advising people not to mix at christmas - they did similar before the tier system when we had a local lockdown (which was pushed as a way to stop us being put into tier 3 - which happened anyway). The advice is if you really must mix with another household then to isolate for 10 days before (which is great if you have that option!!)


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2020)

Grim in Northern Ireland:









						Covid-19: Ambulance queues 'at all NI emergency departments'
					

There were long queues at Antrim Hospital but the situation has now improved.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Chairman Meow (Dec 16, 2020)

I was talking to my mum in NI last night, the situation is very grim indeed. She says hardly anyone is following the rules, the shops are packed and lots of people are saying they will refuse the vaccine. Meanwhile my relative who works in Altnagelvin hospital is on her knees. And Xmas is going to make everything so much worse, as even if they tighten the rules, mum says most people she knows won't comply. Thankfully my mum is a sensible sort and is staying away from everyone. Even my idiot stepbrother is covid denier, even though his bloody wife had it!


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 16, 2020)

People were speculating earlier up about whether there'll be pre-Xmas announcements of rule-toughening.
(ETA : I mean properly strict rule-toughening, nit just urging people to behave  )

Some were saying there won't, the Government are too stupid/incompetent.

Both of which the Tories are, obviously.
But the figures are becoming so horrendous  that Govt. will IMO be *forced* into imposing stricter rules for Xmas and beyond -- in *all* the nations, too.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Grim in Northern Ireland:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That makes depressing reading.   

I bet the Republic, having done well bringing the second wave under control, are pissed of with how the North has handled it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2020)

Chairman Meow said:


> I was talking to my mum in NI last night, the situation is very grim indeed. She says hardly anyone is following the rules, the shops are packed and lots of people are saying they will refuse the vaccine.



I hope what's happening at the hospitals will get people to take it more seriously, I mean, FFS -



> Hospital capacity across the region stood at 104% on Tuesday.
> 
> At one point outside Antrim area hospital, 17 ambulances containing patients were lined up outside the emergency department. *Doctors were treating patients in the car park. *
> 
> Wendy Magowan, director of operations at the Northern Trust, said *one patient had waited 10 hours in an ambulance overnight.*











						Northern Ireland: patients treated in car parks as hospitals overflow
					

Ambulances formed queues outside several hospitals as the region’s circuit-breaker lockdown fails to stop rise in Covid-19 cases




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## 2hats (Dec 16, 2020)

2hats said:


> Smart money appears to be on N501Y with the H69/V70 double deletion.


Now dubbed VUI - 202012/01 (Variant Under Investigation) by PHE.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 16, 2020)

137,897 vaccinated so far. It's likely we will only get weekly figures as they are using the existing weekly flu vaccination stats system.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 16, 2020)

I wonder if that means fully vaccinated with two doses or just started with one dose


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 16, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I wonder if that means fully vaccinated with two doses or just started with one dose



It'll be one dose. IIRC it's a 3 or 4 week gap to the second dose. Then a week for that to be fully effective. 

I'm not sure if there's any interim protection from the first dose. Possibly they're deliberately not suggesting that in case people get over confident.


----------



## Chairman Meow (Dec 16, 2020)

Am I missing something? Its going to take a bloody long time to vaccinate everyone who needs it at that rate, especially if two doses are required.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 16, 2020)

Chairman Meow said:


> Am I missing something? Its going to take a bloody long time to vaccinate everyone who needs it at that rate, especially if two doses are required.



Well I think so yes - it's week one, there's not really any reason to expect that the rate will be set in the first week and that's it. You'd expect that rate to increase as things get geared up, particularly assuming the Oxford vaccine is approved.


----------



## zora (Dec 16, 2020)

Yes, you might have missed the discussions where it's been spelt out that it's going to take a while. Problems with the cold chain etc of this first available vaccine, as well as availability of doses are well documented.
It was always going to take some time to sort out the logistics and get enough vaccines, BUT what I would say is that because of that it would be good if another big effort was made to suppress the virus in other ways (the old test, trace, isolate, using new test technologies in joined up ways etc etc).


----------



## Spandex (Dec 16, 2020)

Chairman Meow said:


> Am I missing something? Its going to take a bloody long time to vaccinate everyone who needs it at that rate, especially if two doses are required.


The key bit in that tweet is: _That number will increase as we have operationalised hundreds of PCN (primary care networks)_

Because, yes, while 137,897 sounds a big number it'd take over 7 years to vaccinate everyone they plan to vaccinate at that rate...


----------



## Chairman Meow (Dec 16, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Well I think so yes - it's week one, there's not really any reason to expect that the rate will be set in the first week and that's it. You'd expect that rate to increase as things get geared up, particularly assuming the Oxford vaccine is approved.


 Fair enough!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2020)

Chairman Meow said:


> Am I missing something? Its going to take a bloody long time to vaccinate everyone who needs it at that rate, especially if two doses are required.



They only have limited supplies of vaccine so far, and IIRC there's only 50 odd hospitals & about 100 GP operated vaccination centres so far, that will be scaled up as more doses become available, especially if the Oxford one is approved. 

In Sussex only a Brighton hospital has the vaccine ATM, my SiS tells me Worthing will be in the next batch of hospitals, because they have a freezer that can handle it.

She actually retired last year, went back p/t to help in the lab earlier this year, is due to finish again this month, but has agreed to go on the 'staff bank' in case they need her next year, and has also volunteered for the training so she can help with vaccinations, have to say the family is well proud of her.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 16, 2020)

I was pleased to see _some_ numbers at least - I would expect it to pick up and apparently the 137k doesn't include some GP vaccinations that started on Monday


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 16, 2020)

Cardiff vaccination centre closed. Nine staff test positive.


----------



## prunus (Dec 16, 2020)

Chairman Meow said:


> Am I missing something? Its going to take a bloody long time to vaccinate everyone who needs it at that rate, especially if two doses are required.



It is going to take some time. Even the _target_ is only a little over 1/3 of the population by the end of 2021, and, well, this government’s record on hitting targets is as you know.

e2a: as per this report COVID-19: Less than half of UK population could be vaccinated in 2021, spending watchdog says


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 16, 2020)

prunus said:


> It is going to take some time. Even the _target_ is only a little over 1/3 of the population by the end of 2021, and, well, this government’s record on hitting targets is as you know.



Is it? I haven't seen that anywhere. From what I can tell they've been a bit cagy about targets but Hancock was definitely talking about the majority being vaccinated by Easter at one point.


----------



## clicker (Dec 16, 2020)

Do people still need to sit for 15 mins after the vaccine, to monitor adverse effects? They knew this would slow things down due to space.
If so, and they don't show any adverse effects, the 15 min waiting time may be waived for the second dose. That would speed up the process.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 16, 2020)

On the BBC just now, the Four UK nations agree to continue Christmas rule relaxation.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 16, 2020)

Easter Sunday  is 4th of April, so that's more or less sixteen weeks away. 
If they want to vaccinate everyone over 50 by then, lets say that's twenty five million people.
If twenty five million people need two jabs, that means fifty million vaccinations in sixteen weeks.
That's nearly half a million injections every day of the week between now and Easter.

Doesn't seem likely to me.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 16, 2020)

Espresso said:


> Easter Sunday  is 4th of April, so that's more or less sixteen weeks away.
> If they want to vaccinate everyone over 50 by then, lets say that's twenty five million people.
> If twenty five million people need two jabs, that means fifty million vaccinations in sixteen weeks.
> That's nearly half a million injections every day of the week between now and Easter.
> ...



Plus you'd need the first doses to have been completed four weeks before so even trickier.

Agreed,  I don't expect anything anywhere near that fast. Even a competent government would struggle with that. I am curious about how they see the numbers panning out though even if you have to be sceptical about them meeting it.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 16, 2020)

"You can meet with three households"

"But we'd rather you didn't meet with three households"

Consistent in their inconsistency, you have to give them that.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 16, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> "You can meet with three households"
> 
> "But we'd rather you didn't meet with three households"
> 
> Consistent in their inconsistency, you have to give them that.



That Matt Lucas impression of Johnson is still bang on isn't it, however many months down the line it is now.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 16, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Is it? I haven't seen that anywhere. From what I can tell they've been a bit cagy about targets but Hancock was definitely talking about the majority being vaccinated by Easter at one point.



 No fucking way we vaccinate everyone by easter


----------



## Spandex (Dec 16, 2020)

Looking at the testing system might give a clue to what's possible for vaccinations. It took a while to get going, and there were some bumps along the way, but they've been doing somewhere around 300,000 tests a day for the last few months, with a theoretical 'capacity' of somewhere between 500k and 600k.

Will we hear a lot about vaccination capacity from the government while the actual figures lag behind?


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Dec 16, 2020)

Last week my Dad (84) was offered appointments via his GP for both his Covid Vaccinations - 1 next week & then another 3 weeks later.
Although his first appointment has now been postponed until January as he carries an epipen & there were some issues with people with severe allergies being vaccinated & they want to see how that pans out. (His allergy is to wasp stings).


----------



## prunus (Dec 16, 2020)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Is it? I haven't seen that anywhere. From what I can tell they've been a bit cagy about targets but Hancock was definitely talking about the majority being vaccinated by Easter at one point.



I am sure I read in the news this morning that they were aiming for 25m people vaccinated by the end of 2021, but danged if I can find it now, so either I imagined it or it’s been removed from the [Guardian|BBC] website, possibly because it’s not true . Will edit original post.


Edit: Ah no here we go, national audit office report:



> [The NAO] said NHS England and NHS Improvement "is planning on the assumption it could vaccinate up to 25 million people with two doses throughout 2021".


COVID-19: Less than half of UK population could be vaccinated in 2021, spending watchdog says


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Dec 16, 2020)

If that's true, it seems counterintuitive to be vaccinating the elderly and at-risk first - surely you'd want to vaccinate the demographics that are the most likely to spread the virus around the most? No idea what that might mean in practice - kids, service industry workers, something like that, maybe. The number of people that the average 85-year-old interacts with is going to be far less than your average bus driver though.


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 16, 2020)

Just heard the last few minutes of PMQ on LBC Radio. Wales going for two families, five days. Johnson apparently said jolly stuff about Mariah Carey...


----------



## weepiper (Dec 16, 2020)

Numbers said:


> On the BBC just now, the Four UK nations agree to continue Christmas rule relaxation.


Nicola Sturgeon pretty unequivocal that it's a bad idea during her lunchtime press briefing. Scottish Government advice is 'don't do it, but if you must do it, do it only on one day, two households better than three, and don't travel'.



I'm not sure this is agreeing in the way Boris Johnson is suggesting


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 16, 2020)

Chairman Meow said:


> Am I missing something? Its going to take a bloody long time to vaccinate everyone who needs it at that rate, especially if two doses are required.



Vaccinating everyone isn't even a blue-sky objective at this point.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 16, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> If that's true, it seems counterintuitive to be vaccinating the elderly and at-risk first - surely you'd want to vaccinate the demographics that are the most likely to spread the virus around the most? No idea what that might mean in practice - kids, service industry workers, something like that, maybe. The number of people that the average 85-year-old interacts with is going to be far less than your average bus driver though.


Sterilising immunity is not a taken, indeed is not being presumed, hasn't even been established in trials, might not even occur to any effective degree (in early vaccines). This has been discussed before.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 16, 2020)




----------



## Espresso (Dec 16, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Looking at the testing system might give a clue to what's possible for vaccinations. It took a while to get going, and there were some bumps along the way, but they've been doing somewhere around 300,000 tests a day for the last few months, with a theoretical 'capacity' of somewhere between 500k and 600k.
> 
> Will we hear a lot about vaccination capacity from the government while the actual figures lag behind?



Isn't it the case that when they told us about those tests, each person's throat swab counted as one test and the same person's nose test counted as another test?

So those 300,000 tests in a day translates to 150,000 people. If they get to vaccinate 150,000 people a day, that's about a million in a seven day week, so it would take twenty five weeks to vaccinate twenty five million people once, but three weeks in, they'll all need their second vaccination; so at the rate of one million vaccinations a week, it would take fifty weeks to vaccinate twenty five million people twice.

I think this weaselly government will do all in their power not to bother their arses telling us how far behind their own target they are.

Edit - The BBC's man on the news now - Hugh Pym, I think  - has said that the number of people who've been vaccinated will be published each week.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 16, 2020)

Espresso said:


> Isn't it the case that when they told us about those tests, each person's throat swab counted as one test and the same person's nose test counted as another test?


I think they stopped doing that and then quietly knocked 1.3 million tests off the total in August.



Espresso said:


> I think this weaselly government will do all in their power not to bother their arses telling us how far behind their own target they are.


Of course. It'll all be world beating.


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2020)

Wales is further pushing its luck by not bringing new measures in until around or ater Christmas:









						Covid: Boxing Day sales off in Wales ahead of lockdown on 28 December
					

Non-essential shops will have to close from Christmas Eve, with a level 4 lockdown from 28 December.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2020)

Johnson press conference at half 3 apparently. Bit early for me, not sure if I will watch it live or later. Maybe a bit of both.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Johnson press conference at half 3 apparently. Bit early for me, not sure if I will watch it live or later. Maybe a bit of both.



Cheers for the heads up on that, why the fuck they can't stick to one time, so everyone knows when it's happening, is beyond me.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 16, 2020)

There will be a surge in cases hospitalisations and deaths after Christmas.
I see it as inevitable. However who will be to blame?


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 16, 2020)

weltweit said:


> There will be a surge in cases hospitalisations and deaths after Christmas.
> I see it as inevitable. However who will be to blame?



The government for not shutting down the airports before February half term.

However given where we are I think it's reasonable that it shouldn't be illegal for a family to meet over Christmas, the main risk is to elderly family members who are capable of deciding for themselves what sort of risk they want to take.


----------



## killer b (Dec 16, 2020)

Turned on Johnson's press conference in time for the first 'alas'


----------



## andysays (Dec 16, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> The government for not shutting down the airports before February half term.
> 
> However given where we are I think it's reasonable that it shouldn't be illegal for a family to meet over Christmas, the main risk is to elderly family members who are capable of deciding for themselves what sort of risk they want to take.


The main *immediate* risk, maybe, but if (when) transmission rates and hospital numbers go up in the weeks following Xmas, it will inevitably spread beyond those who decided to take that risk for themselves to those who tried to avoid the risk.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 16, 2020)

The current rules for crimble (& presumably new year) are going to create a tsunami of new cases then hospital admissions and then, probably deaths in January --->February / March.

The wording is simply not harsh enough, nor are the rules sufficiently strict.

Sod celebrating, we need to be preserving lives, the economy can be jump-started once this health crisis is dealt with.
jobs can be re-created, but lives can't !


----------



## editor (Dec 16, 2020)

elbows said:


> Wales is further pushing its luck by not bringing new measures in until around or ater Christmas:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They've been fairly strict though - pubs haven't been able to serve booze since the beginning of the month and they've all had to close at 6pm.



Here's what's coming in:



> Wales will go into a level four lockdown, the highest possible, from 28 December, with some sectors closing during the Christmas period.
> 
> Under the recently-published plans people will be expected to stay at home, with travel only allowed for essential reasons.
> 
> From 28 December, public facilities and holiday accommodation must be shut, and wedding receptions and wakes will need to be called off.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 16, 2020)

killer b said:


> Turned on Johnson's press conference in time for the first 'alas'


He has the cheek to say 'have yourselves a Merry little Christmas' and avoid boxing day sales. Cunt.


----------



## editor (Dec 16, 2020)

This is terrifying stuff:


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2020)

editor, yes it's grim, hence England is offering to help Welsh hospitals, by taking non-covid patients, before they end-up like Northern Ireland - treating patients in hospital car-parks. 









						England offers to take non-Covid patients to ease pressure in Welsh hospitals | ITV News
					

It comes as some health boards in Wales announced that non-urgent appointments would be rescheduled due to rising demand on the service.  | ITV News Wales




					www.itv.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2020)

Some grim new data in on long-covid, which is very worrying. 



> A fifth of people still have coronavirus symptoms five weeks after being infected, with half of them continuing to experience problems for at least 12 weeks, official data suggests, as concerns grow about the scale and impact of “long Covid”.
> 
> Previous estimates suggested 14.5% of people in the UK had symptoms for at least four weeks, with 2.2% likely to have symptoms lasting 12 weeks or more. But new figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest ongoing symptoms could be more common than previously thought.
> 
> The latest data for England, based on the Covid infection survey, which randomly samples households for coronavirus, reveals 21% of almost 8,200 participants who were followed up after testing positive still had symptoms five weeks after infection, with 9.9% reporting symptoms 12 weeks after infection.











						Long Covid alarm as 21% report symptoms after five weeks
					

Official UK data suggests nearly 10% still have symptoms 12 weeks after infection




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> editor, yes it's grim, hence England is offering to help Welsh hospitals, by taking non-covid patients, before they end-up like Northern Ireland - treating patients in hospital car-parks.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They already had a patient stuck in an ambulance for over 19 hours some days ago. He sounded like a non-covid pattient but its all the same thing when it comes to hospital strain and resulting failures in care 









						Covid-19: Welsh ambulance patient waits 19 hours outside hospital
					

Grange University Hospital is under "significant pressure" due to a high number of Covid patients.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 16, 2020)

So...in Wales...in theory...you can meet with 2 households mixing yes?

But - in theory - you can travel from Wales to England and the number becomes three households. Is that right?

Because it seems kinda illogical.


----------



## agricola (Dec 16, 2020)

Nice to see that the scientific advice has caused the government to change its policy to "its your fault if you die, plebs"


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 16, 2020)

agricola said:


> Nice to see that the scientific advice has caused the government to change its policy to "its your fault if you die, plebs"



Hasn't it always been that? Just as we've always been at war with Eurasia.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looking at today's figures, they have a seriously big problem.
> 
> New cases are up 28.7% in the last 7-days, patients admitted to hospital up 14.7%, total patients in hospitals is a whopping 17,329 - that's well up from the 12,286 on the 31st Oct., when Johnson announced the second 'lockdown'.



FFS, today's figures have increased those 7-day figures - new cases up 36.2% & patients admitted to hospital up 17%.

The most worrying figure is 18,038 in hospital, the highest since 22nd April, and almost 50% up on when the second 'lockdown' was announced.   

How the hell do they think the NHS is going to cope over the coming weeks?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 16, 2020)

Time to get those Nightingale hospitals at the ready, cos come mid Jan we’ll be needing them me thinks!


----------



## MrSki (Dec 16, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Time to get those Nightingale hospitals at the ready, cos come mid Jan we’ll be needing them me thinks!


But where are the staff coming from?


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 16, 2020)

Just been told that my SiL has had her first dose of vaccine.

She works in the NHS (radiologist) and has a good collection of allergies and asthma, plus she's recently had a minor stroke or similar.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 16, 2020)

MrSki said:


> But where are the staff coming from?



I think I remember that the original plan was to use a mixture of hospital (&bank) nurses, assisted by military personnel and airline cabin staff.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 16, 2020)

This is how much Drakeford knows. Fantastic awareness.



> The level 4 rules allow schools and colleges to stay open. But Drakeford said: “*Today is the last day of school for the majority of children in Wales before Christmas, as most schools have decided to take the last two days of term as an inset day.*”



Today is Wednesday 16th December.

Term ends on Tuesday 22nd December.

The two days being taken as inset days are 21st and 22nd December. Schools are in, or online, tomorrow and Friday.

And this bloke runs the country.


----------



## kalidarkone (Dec 16, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Time to get those Nightingale hospitals at the ready, cos come mid Jan we’ll be needing them me thinks!


Who's going to staff them though?

Sorry I see this has already been asked......


----------



## kalidarkone (Dec 16, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I think I remember that the original plan was to use a mixture of hospital (&bank) nurses, assisted by military personnel and airline cabin staff.


The hospitals are on their knees because there is nowhere bear enough staff....even with bank and agency. Also will need specialist ITU nurses and there is not enough of them normally.


----------



## Supine (Dec 16, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Also will need specialist ITU nurses and there is not enough of them normally.



nightingales dont have specialist itu equipment do they? I thought they'd be used  more for less ill people recuperating rather than the worst cases.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 16, 2020)

Allegedly may be an announcement from UK gov tomorrow about delaying school restarting, but I'll believe it when I hear it: Exclusive: DfE considering delay to start of next term


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2020)

So, we are stuck somewhere between government saying the rules are relaxed over Xmas/3 family bubble type thing.... along with beginning to admit that none of that is a good idea (shamed into it by the scientists and the fugures).  Suspect we'll get some other fuckwitted formulation in the next couple of days, a kind of unmanaged retreat from their last formulation.


----------



## kalidarkone (Dec 16, 2020)

Supine said:


> nightingales dont have specialist itu equipment do they? I thought they'd be used  more for less ill people recuperating rather than the worst cases.


Even then there is still not enough staff. Unless they use the army.


----------



## mx wcfc (Dec 16, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Allegedly may be an announcement from UK gov tomorrow about delaying school restarting, but I'll believe it when I hear it: Exclusive: DfE considering delay to start of next term


Just a day after threatening to sue Greenwich for trying to close early   

and in the meantime, Eton and at least one school round here in a Tory area have already closed.

I have no words for this shitstorm of a government.


----------



## kropotkin (Dec 16, 2020)

Supine said:


> nightingales dont have specialist itu equipment do they? I thought they'd be used  more for less ill people recuperating rather than the worst cases.


They were for tubed patients with nothing else going on (ie hardly any of them) who just need a slow wean of a ventilator. Any other medical problems and the plan was to repatriate to a hospital. Staffing was always going tk be an issue, as would patient selection. There would be a pressure to take too-sick patients and under-staff if they were ever needed.
I wouldn't want anyone I care about who got tubed to end up in one.


----------



## clicker (Dec 16, 2020)

They want to train teachers to carry out covid testing, which would delay schools going back by a week...was tweeted/reported/rumoured earlier.


----------



## mx wcfc (Dec 16, 2020)

clicker said:


> They want to train teachers to carry out covid testing, which would delay schools going back by a week...was tweeted/reported/rumoured earlier.


They should move teachers up the priority list for vaccinations then.

eta - they should move teachers up  the priority list anyway.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 16, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Allegedly may be an announcement from UK gov tomorrow about delaying school restarting, but I'll believe it when I hear it: Exclusive: DfE considering delay to start of next term



i wonder if this is what lockdown 3 is what it’s know as when it’s at home 

eta: although i guess school was open the last lockdown


----------



## thismoment (Dec 16, 2020)

clicker said:


> They want to train teachers to carry out covid testing, which would delay schools going back by a week...was tweeted/reported/rumoured earlier.



when would teachers even have time to do this on top of all the different online and in person teaching a plans that they have to do. I mean teachers had plenty to do before lockdown anyway. See, this is why all school should have a school based nurse like the private school I once worked at


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 16, 2020)

clicker said:


> They want to train teachers to carry out covid testing, which would delay schools going back by a week...was tweeted/reported/rumoured earlier.


Of course, with whole year groups self-isolating (Y8, Y10 and Y11 are all off after an outbreak at a secondary school near here), teachers will have LOADS of time to administer swab tests to the kids that are still attending. Are the staff to test each other too?


----------



## prunus (Dec 16, 2020)

What we need is leadership. What we’ve got is useless cunts.

Not a helpful useful or constructive comment I know, but fuck it, I’ve been drinking, and in vino veritas.


----------



## Sue (Dec 16, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I think I remember that the original plan was to use a mixture of hospital (&bank) nurses, assisted by military personnel and airline cabin staff.





kropotkin said:


> I wouldn't want anyone I care about who got tubed to end up in one.



I'd also rather have doctors/nurses than airline cabin staff.


----------



## Humberto (Dec 17, 2020)

The priority has to be helping to protect the most vulnerable, for example the elderly. The government fucked it up in dealing with care homes as far as I can tell. The government guaranteeing Christmas is irresponsible, and it is the elderly who will get the short end of the stick. We are becoming ever more a dog-eat-dog society, there is also generational animosity on social media (ok boomer?). I think that's dangerous nonsense. It worries me.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 17, 2020)

We knew Wales was doing badly, with new cases climbing very fast, but they have been under reporting, and a massive backlog of 11,000 new cases will be added to today's figures!  



> An additional 11,000 additional positive coronavirus cases will be reported by Public Health Wales (PHW) today after a ‘very large’ backlog from the last few days.
> 
> PHW said the due to planned maintenance of an Information Management System there’s been a “significant under reporting of lighthouse laboratory testing.”
> 
> Nearly 12,000 people tested positive last week, the additional missing cases due to the IT issue will take that to 23,000, an average of 3,285 per day.











						An 11,000 positive Covid tests ‘missing’ from Public Health Wales data will be reported today
					






					www.deeside.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 17, 2020)

The spread in the SE corner is frankly staggering, bearing in mind 2 weeks ago there was just three council areas in north Kent that had over 400 cases.

There's just 3 days between the screengrabs below, and look at the changing colours, the sample dates are [top] 8th & 11th, the most recent update to the map, so no doubt it's even worst now.


----------



## LDC (Dec 17, 2020)

The news is full of assumptions that people in Tier 3 all want their areas to go down. Fuck that, I want to stay in Tier 3 as does everyone else I know. Just being below some arbitrary figure and thinking that's low enough to go down is shitty. 

Fuck listening to all the council leaders and mayors who assume they speak for us all.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> as does everyone else I know.



The people who want restrictions lowered will say this too though.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 17, 2020)

Handjob already 10 minutes late


----------



## Jay Park (Dec 17, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Handjob already 10 minutes late



here he is again, smut-bollocks.

can’t go more than 5 posts without referencing self pleasure. What? The Audi not doing it for you anymore?


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The news is full of assumptions that people in Tier 3 all want their areas to go down. Fuck that, I want to stay in Tier 3 as does everyone else I know. Just being below some arbitrary figure and thinking that's low enough to go down is shitty.
> 
> Fuck listening to all the council leaders and mayors who assume they speak for us all.



It doesn't seem like a very good idea to move any area from tier 3 to tier 2 in the week before Christmas.  Would be a very odd thing to do but quite frankly who knows what is going on anymore.   🤷‍♂️


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 17, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> here he is again, smut-bollocks.
> 
> can’t go more than 5 posts without referencing self pleasure. What? The Audi not doing it for you anymore?



Fuck off you tedious twat.


----------



## Jay Park (Dec 17, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Fuck off you tedious twat.



gosh your conversational skills really take a dive when anyone mentions your Audi in a disparaging way


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 17, 2020)

Jay Park said:


> gosh your conversational skills really take a dive when anyone mentions your Audi in a disparaging way




You're busy shitting all over the boards with your crap, these are serious threads, so give it a fucking rest.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 17, 2020)

Is Buckinghamshire in tier 3?


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is Buckinghamshire in tier 3?



As of 0.01am Saturday, yes.


----------



## souljacker (Dec 17, 2020)

T3 for Berkshire :-(

Until the 23rd free-for-all kicks in obv.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 17, 2020)

Sad because it is necessary even though its the right thing


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

killer b said:


> I would say there is zero chance of any tier 3 areas moving into tier 2 before Christmas.



Never say never with this government eh! Bristol etc escape from tier 3.


----------



## kalidarkone (Dec 17, 2020)

Bristol going into tier 2. Gonna be a busy new year at work.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 17, 2020)

New tier 3 areas -

Bedfordshire

Buckinghamshire

Berkshire

Peterborough

The whole of Hertfordshire

Surrey, with the exception of Waverley

Hastings and Rother on the Kent border of East Sussex

Portsmouth, Gosport and Havant in Hampshire.

These areas will go into tier 3 at one minute past midnight on Saturday.

ETA  -


Bristol and North Somerset will move into tier two.

Herefordshire will move from tier two to tier one.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 17, 2020)

So in short, things improving in the west but getting a lot worse in the East, especially the South East.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 17, 2020)

Well I've just cancelled Christmas seeing my grandchildren and aren't I Mr Fucking Popular now.

Fuck this shit.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 17, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Bristol going into tier 2. Gonna be a busy new year at work.



Bit odd to at least not give it a month of tier 3.


----------



## LDC (Dec 17, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> You're busy shitting all over the boards with your crap, these are serious threads, so give it a fucking rest.



I stuck him on ignore, he's a fucking pain all over these boards atm, doesn't contribute anything useful at all, just dickhead comments.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Bit odd to at least not give it a month of tier 3.



I'll probably have something to say once I've seen the per-trust hospital data later today.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 17, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Well I've just cancelled Christmas seeing my grandchildren and aren't I Mr Fucking Popular now.
> 
> Fuck this shit.


Sucks you had to make the decision, and suffer also the fallout of it


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 17, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> So in short, things improving in the west but getting a lot worse in the East, especially the South East.



We have tier 3 coming at us from most directions, East Sussex, Hampshire to the west & Surrey to the north.

Thank fuck we've got the sea to the south.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 17, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Sucks you had to make the decision, and suffer also the fallout of it



Thanks. And tell me about it. Lots of people involved (which was the fucking problem) so yeah. It shouldn't even have had to be my decision. If people were thinking sensibly. This is an extended family who have been bang on up to now. But, y'know. Christmas.

I've had enough of today already. I'm going off to have an unashamed cry.


----------



## andysays (Dec 17, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Thanks. And tell me about it. Lots of people involved (which was the fucking problem) so yeah. It shouldn't even have had to be my decision. If people were thinking sensibly. This is an extended family who have been bang on up to now. But, y'know. Christmas.
> 
> I've had enough of today already. I'm going off to have an unashamed cry.


Good on you for making the right decision, especially knowing it would disappoint people.

Hopefully they will appreciate why you did it once the initial disappointment wears off, and you will be able to enjoy many more xmases together in the future.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 17, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I stuck him on ignore, he's a fucking pain all over these boards atm, doesn't contribute anything useful at all, just dickhead comments.



Yeah same.  Just a never ending stream of worthless drivel.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 17, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Thanks. And tell me about it. Lots of people involved (which was the fucking problem) so yeah. It shouldn't even have had to be my decision. If people were thinking sensibly. This is an extended family who have been bang on up to now. But, y'know. Christmas.
> 
> I've had enough of today already. I'm going off to have an unashamed cry.


Think that's fair enough.

I think it's the fact it's a decision that we're having to make as individuals that makes it so hard for people to accept. Various members of my family have missed birthdays and Christmases in the past because they were abroad, or in hospital, or otherwise unavailable, and people were sad but dealt with it.

But when I told my mum I wouldn't be visiting for her or my dad's birthdays in November (they're a week apart) she took it very personally and got very upset. So much so that, after a minor mental meltdown and, indeed, a bit of a cry, I caved and swung by for a couple of hours one evening.

But yeah, as andysays, um, says (  ), fair play for taking the decision and making that hard call. There will be other opportunities, and that's why you're doing it* 


*at the risk of making assumptions about your reasons


----------



## Chilli.s (Dec 17, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Well I've just cancelled Christmas seeing my grandchildren and aren't I Mr Fucking Popular now.
> 
> Fuck this shit.


Tough decision, but if you have things you care about there's no other choice.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Dec 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> We have tier 3 coming at us from most directions, East Sussex, Hampshire to the west & Surrey to the north.
> 
> Thank fuck we've got the sea to the south.



Well, if the rest of the year is anything to go by, the giant mutant killer lobsters will be emerging from the sea about now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 17, 2020)

Sasaferrato said:


> Well, if the rest of the year is anything to go by, the giant mutant killer lobsters will be emerging from the sea about now.



I could cope with that, it's farmerbarleymow's giant mutant killer seagulls I worry about.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 17, 2020)

I see Sunak has extended furlough for another month.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'll probably have something to say once I've seen the per-trust hospital data later today.



Yeah, I don't want to say whether it was a good decesion or a bad one it just looks odd.  

In the space of 6 or 7 weeks Bristol has gone from tier 1 to lockdown to tier 3 and now to tier 2.  Are things really changing that rapidly on the ground?  Bit odd.


----------



## Sue (Dec 17, 2020)

Don't know if anyone heard it at the time but near the start of Covid (I think, time's gone a bit weird), a woman was interviewed on the Today programme whose husband had Covid and who was in an induced coma and near death. He pulled through against the odds and after spending a very long time in hospital. Anyway, he was interviewed this morning with his wife. He was quite candid about the long-term and permanent consequences of the illness -- like his kidneys being shot, his lungs being in a bad way and having some fingers amputated. It's sobering stuff and another reminder (if one were needed) of why all these measures are in place. 









						Covid: 'Miracle' survivor Mal Martin feared his life was over
					

Mal Martin's family were told there was almost zero chance of survival after he contracted Covid-19.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah, I don't want to say whether it was a good decesion or a bad one it just looks odd.
> 
> In the space of 6 or 7 weeks Bristol has gone from tier 1 to lockdown to tier 3 and now to tier 2.  Are things really changing that rapidly on the ground?  Bit odd.



I still havent had a chance to look at all the data but when I do I expect to see some which indicates how they were able to make the decision.

This doesnt mean I will agree with that decision or most other decisions, since I mostly favoured a continuation of national measures throughout winter.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

I have gone looking for the 'data packs' that support the tier decisions yet, but I have skimmed through the tedious paragraphs of info about each location, which are below Hancocks statement on this page:









						Review of local restriction tiers: 17 December 2020
					

A written statement from the Health and Social Care Secretary to the House of Commons giving an update on local restriction tiers in England.




					www.gov.uk
				




Its not impressive stuff. Northampton has often bothered me during this pandemic and thats true of this wave. So I dont really consider it appropriate for them to be in tier 2, and I dont think the attempt to justify that is convincing:



> The overall picture remains mixed in Northamptonshire. Case rates are broadly increasing across the area, but case rates in over 60s are decreasing across the majority of the area. Case rates in all ages have increased by 25% or more over the last 7 days in Northampton and both East and South Northamptonshire, with Northampton also showing a rise in all indicators. The epidemiology indicators do not currently warrant inclusion in Tier 3.
> 
> The number of daily COVID hospital admissions in the Northamptonshire STP continues to rise and has doubled in the last 14 days. The daily COVID bed occupancy is above the national acute hospital average and continues to rise.



The Bristol stuff is hardly convincing either:



> Since the end of national restrictions, the situation in Bristol has broadly improved. The case rate remains high at 120 per 100,000 (though decreasing), and the case rate in over 60s is also high. In the most recent data however, the trajectory of case rates has levelled off. Epidemiology indicators have decreased sufficiently for the area to be de-escalated to Tier 2.
> 
> In the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire STP, COVID admissions, bed occupancy and critical care bed occupancy remain stable below the national average.



By contrast, places like Milton Keynes have also bothered me in data over the last month, and here is their explanation for increasing the tier there:



> Since the end of national restrictions, the situation in Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes has deteriorated and overall case rates are increasing. Case rates remain greater than 150 per 100,000 population in all four local authorities in the area and are over 200 per 100,000 in Luton and Milton Keynes. The case rates in the most recent few days shows rapid increases in Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes, and a very high rate in Luton. Case rates in people aged over 60 remain above 100 per 100,000 and are increasing in Central Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes. Positivity is increasing across all four local authorities. The rate of increase of the epidemiology indicators is concerning and warrants escalation to Tier 3.
> 
> The number of daily COVID hospital admissions in the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes STP continues to rise. The daily COVID bed occupancy is above the national acute hospital average and continues to rise. The proportion of critical care beds or beds with mechanical ventilation occupied by COVID patients remains high.



Maybe the data packs will be slightly more compelling to me, if I ever find them.


----------



## kalidarkone (Dec 17, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah, I don't want to say whether it was a good decesion or a bad one it just looks odd.
> 
> In the space of 6 or 7 weeks Bristol has gone from tier 1 to lockdown to tier 3 and now to tier 2.  Are things really changing that rapidly on the ground?  Bit odd.


Its a stupid fucking decision imo.
As restrictions are being lifted for 5 days over Christmas it would have been a better idea to put everyone in tier 3 before and after.

Bristol will just be having a huge party from Saturday onwards.....


----------



## MrSki (Dec 17, 2020)

Not good. Time to cancel Christmas.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 17, 2020)

The new tier area map for England.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 17, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Not good. Time to cancel Christmas.



11,000 of those new cases were from prior to yesterday, a backlog in reporting from Wales. 

Still grim, but not as grim as it appears.



> The number of new UK cases reported on 17 December 2020 includes around 11,000 previously unreported cases for Wales as a result of system maintenance in the NHS Wales Laboratory Information Management System.
> 
> Further information is available from Public Health Wales.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 11,000 of those new cases were from prior to yesterday, a backlog in reporting from Wales.
> 
> Still grim, but not as grim as it appears.



Yes the magically reappearing Wales case data affects todays figure in a notable way, ie most of the large red area in todays bar on this chart:



However, when looking at case graphs by date of test specimen instead of by date of reporting, which is not distorted by the Wales backlog being reported in a single day, there is still a bad recent spike, and its a spike where England is responsible for the bulk of it.



Not long left till the media make much of the 2 million positive UK cases milestone I guess.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

A few more crappy paragraphs from the tier decisions page mentioned earlier.

A fine example of describing a deteriorating situation but not doing anything about it:



> There is a deteriorating epidemiological picture across Oxfordshire, albeit starting from a relatively low level. Case rates in all local authorities (Oxford, South Oxfordshire, Cherwell, Vale of White Horse and West Oxfordshire) have seen large increases over the last 7 days. Test positivity is increasing across the area. Case rates in over 60s are above 100 per 100,000 and increasing in South Oxfordshire. The epidemiology indicators and trend are too high for allocation to Tier 1 but do currently not warrant inclusion in Tier 3.
> 
> In the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West STP the number of daily COVID hospital admissions continues to rise. The daily COVID bed occupancy is below the national acute hospital average but continues to rise.



Here in Warwickshire there was plenty of moaning at the county level and from MPS in the south of the county, and the wording of the Warwickshire stuff seems entirely focussed on that. First they gave Coventry and Solihull their own entries rather than lumping them in with Warwickshire, because they were lumped together last time (probably because of data about travel & work patterns) and people moaned about that. But giving those places their own entry doesnt really mean the decisions for these areas are entirely decoupled behind the scenes. And then the Warwickshire paragraph fails to mention the northern areas of Warwickshire at all, and fousses on the bits of South Warwickshire where MPs were moaning. I also include this as an example of them justifying an area to remain in tier 3:



> The overall picture remains concerning in Warwickshire. Case rates for all ages have increased in Warwick, Rugby and Stratford-on-Avon, and the most recent data also shows that this trend is continuing across the area. Warwick is of particular concern with a rapidly increasing case rate that now stands at 176 per 100,000 (increase of 76% over the last 7 days) and a case rate in the over 60s at 159 per 100,000 (also increasing at a concerning rate). The epidemiology indicators are still too high for Tier 2. In Stratford-on-Avon the case rate is lower but is on the increase (over 50% increase in case rate for all ages in the last 7 days). The changing trajectory of the epidemiology indicators does not support de-escalation to Tier 2. De-escalation now will likely lead to rising case numbers, and risks rapid re-escalation at, or in advance of, the next review point.
> 
> The number of daily COVID hospital admissions in the area continues to rise. The daily COVID hospital bed occupancy rate is below the national average but continues to rise. The proportion of critical care beds or beds with mechanical ventilation occupied by COVID patients remains high.



All in all and regardless of how many different indicators they claim to use to make these decisions, it still seems to fit the simple story of the government mostly only caring about hospitals being completely overwhelmed, and only getting tough with measures when that prospect looms large in the near future. They certainly have not learnt from the various SAGE recommendations about quickly doing enough to stop situations declining rather than waiting till the same bad picture emerges everywhere that has too weak restrictions. They've learnt to pay lip service to those concepts, but not much more.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 17, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Thanks. And tell me about it. Lots of people involved (which was the fucking problem) so yeah. It shouldn't even have had to be my decision. If people were thinking sensibly. This is an extended family who have been bang on up to now. But, y'know. Christmas.
> 
> I've had enough of today already. I'm going off to have an unashamed cry.



I know it's all shit but you're doing your bit to make it less shit for everyone and that's really all there is to be done.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 17, 2020)

Am I being unreasonable in thinking my brother’s family should not be going to see grandparents in Devon? They’re in Leeds (Tier 3) and Devon is 2. Also visiting is SIL’s sister’s  family from London (T3). Don’t know why they don’t all just stay put.


----------



## Thora (Dec 17, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Am I being unreasonable in thinking my brother’s family should not be going to see grandparents in Devon? They’re in Leeds (Tier 3) and Devon is 2. Also visiting is SIL’s sister’s  family from London (T3). Don’t know why they don’t all just stay put.


They’re following the rules.  A lot of people will be.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 17, 2020)

Thora said:


> They’re following the rules.  A lot of people will be.


The rules do not make sense. I’m talking common sense.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 17, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Am I being unreasonable in thinking my brother’s family should not be going to see grandparents in Devon? They’re in Leeds (Tier 3) and Devon is 2. Also visiting is SIL’s sister’s  family from London (T3). Don’t know why they don’t all just stay put.



Similar story with my family. I don't get it either. Most of the people involved have long since had the virus and recovered (although my sister is convinced she got in January, which seems pretty    to me) but that's not really the point is it?


----------



## Smangus (Dec 17, 2020)

Another change of rules just making things more confusing. Plus another load of mixed messages from Johnson and his coterie of cunts. People are having to make decisions based on their own perceptions of risk which is why we see these disparities in behaviour. Those at the lower end are also driven by the spetre of xmas spirit, god knows how many older relatives are going to get infected by visiting grandkids etc. 

The schools are rife with it atm, my parents, inlaws and us are all having quiet times at home with no visitors. It hurts obvs but not as much as ending up in an ICU. Hopefully we can make up for it at Easter.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

When I look at the weekly hospital data I usually get overwhelmed by how many graphs I end up with as a result, and dont know quite what to post.

Given the Bristol decision today, I have picked a couple on that basis. I remain available for requests, but please explicitly name the hospital trust you want to see graphs for.

This is number of Covid-19 patients in hospital beds in the trusts, and the blue line is a 7 day moving average. Made using the weekly data published today at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

And from the same data, this sort of data picture is why I can sometimes be found complaining about how they handle Northampton.



What this particular data lacks is context compared to both the first wave, and bed capacity at each trust. There is some other data that can help with that but it all gets too much for me in terms of trying to collate and present it, and I've barely had a chance to even look at that other data to do with bed capacity. I do like to see the second wave with the context of the first wave though so I will probably try to join together earlier and never data again at some point.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> When I look at the weekly hospital data I usually get overwhelmed by how many graphs I end up with as a result, and dont know quite what to post.
> 
> Given the Bristol decision today, I have picked a couple on that basis. I remain available for requests, but please explicitly name the hospital trust you want to see graphs for.
> 
> ...



I would be interested in the Royal Devon and Exeter Foundation Trust as that is reportedly full to bursting, although the area remains in tier 2.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> I remain available for requests, but please explicitly name the hospital trust you want to see graphs for.



I would be interested in seeing a graph for 'Western Sussex Hospitals' trust, if you can find the time.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

Thanks for the requests. I will sort those out shortly.

For now here are mini versions of the same data for type 1 acute NHS hospital trusts in London. I'm not a Londoner so I never know the full context or which ones are of most interest, and the few I picked the other day were not a carefully crafted selection. So I'm just presenting the whole lot instead. Note that the scales on the y axis can vary considerably between each trust and Im afraid in these versions that detail is rather small.

As per the previous posts, its number of Covid-19 patients in hospital beds.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 17, 2020)

Oh, in summary, dear


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> I would be interested in the Royal Devon and Exeter Foundation Trust as that is reportedly full to bursting, although the area remains in tier 2.



OK here we are for number of Covid-19 patients in hospital beds in that trust. As I've probably indicated in the past, what I dont have time to do often is to find the stories behind all these curves, for example whether patients are sometimes redirected to other trusts to cope with bad moments. And I've never looked at all the other data and combined it in an attempt to differentiate the contributions to the current bed numbers that will be a mix of admissions, discharges, deaths and running out of capacity.

If I get my head round data such as capacity then I'll be sure to present it for this trust.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

Oh and this is the daily Covid-19 admissions/diagnoses for that trust. Admissions figures are slightly further behind in terms of latest data available on a per trust basis.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Oh, in summary, dear



I bet they will leave a slightly different impression if they all showed the first wave levels on those graphs too. Its on my list of things to do. Still grim though, but the broader context would give more clues about how much capacity wiggle room the authorities think they have this time compared to the first wave.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 17, 2020)

elbows said:


> OK here we are for number of Covid-19 patients in hospital beds in that trust. As I've probably indicated in the past, what I dont have time to do often is to find the stories behind all these curves, for example whether patients are sometimes redirected to other trusts to cope with bad moments. And I've never looked at all the other data and combined it in an attempt to differentiate the contributions to the current bed numbers that will be a mix of admissions, discharges, deaths and running out of capacity.
> 
> If I get my head round data such as capacity then I'll be sure to present it for this trust.
> 
> View attachment 243936



The dip there is about when they opened the local Nightingale I think.

E2a: yup, they started moving patients there from the RD&E on 26th November.


----------



## BristolEcho (Dec 17, 2020)

I honestly cannot believe they have taken us out of tier 3 one weekend before Christmas. An absolute joke.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I would be interested in seeing a graph for 'Western Sussex Hospitals' trust, if you can find the time.



OK here are numbers in hospital, plus a bonus trust I decided to chuck in at the same time because of recent trajectory there.


The September peak seems worth investigating, was there a hospital or care home outbreak there at that time or some other community outbreak?

And Covid admissions per day:



I better stop with these graphs for tonight as I have rather filled the thread with them recently, sorry about that!


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 17, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I honestly cannot believe they have taken us out of tier 3 one weekend before Christmas. An absolute joke.



Lots of Tory and former Tory seats in and around Bristol no?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 17, 2020)

elbows - Brighton spike was Falmer Uni campus


----------



## BristolEcho (Dec 17, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> Lots of Tory and former Tory seats in and around Bristol no?



It's all labour in Bristol last couple of elections I think. Outlying areas of South Glos and Somerset are Tory.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 17, 2020)

Cheers for that.  



elbows said:


> The September peak seems worth investigating, was there a hospital or care home outbreak there at that time or some other community outbreak?



For Western Sussex, IIRC that was about the time that three young lads came back from holiday in Spain, and instead of self-isolating, went on a pub crawl, then a house party, back to work, generally spreading it about all over the bloody place, before the council's track & trace sussed what was going on with this sudden peak of new cases.

They all picked-up £1000 fines, frankly they deserved more, like a month in Pontins's Chamber Sands, Isle of Mann style.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

OK just one more graph.

One of the reasons we have probably seen the weak government response in recent months may be indicated by the following data. Its number of NHS England staff absences. Orange is overall levels of staff absences and blue is those they have recorded as being Covid-related absences (including self-isolation).


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2020)

Sounds like Northern Ireland are going for a tougher lockdown than has been the fashion in recent times:









						Coronavirus: NI facing six-week lockdown from 26 December
					

Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill says "while this is draconian, it's about saving lives".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




School details not established yet but sounds like they might be tough in that area too.


----------



## strung out (Dec 17, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> Lots of Tory and former Tory seats in and around Bristol no?


Not really. Like BristolEcho said, it's all Labour at the moment and there hasn't been more than one Tory seat in Bristol since the mid-90s. Plenty of Tories in South Gloucestershire, but that's stayed in Tier 3, which has annoyed all the Tory MPs there.


----------



## AverageJoe (Dec 17, 2020)

Orang Utan said:


> Am I being unreasonable in thinking my brother’s family should not be going to see grandparents in Devon? They’re in Leeds (Tier 3) and Devon is 2. Also visiting is SIL’s sister’s  family from London (T3). Don’t know why they don’t all just stay put.



I think you're right to be worried.

Firstly they are moving between Tiers which isn't encouraged. Secondly bu stopping in London that makes their three family bubble complete. 

This means that they can't visit anyone else. It also means that your SILs family and your brothers family will have filled two of their three bubble spaces as well meaning that both groups will only be able to meet one more family in the five days. 

I find it amazing that people still think that it's a bubble of three At Any One Time. It's not. It's a bubble of three and that's it. If your in a bubble you can't jojn another. I've no idea why this part hasn't been hammered home as it's probably what's driving the increase in cases. People think theyre following the rules but actually aren't because everything is so fucking unclear. 

#endrant


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 17, 2020)

Herefordshire going down to Tier 1 was a bit iof a surprise to me, although admittedly I haven't yet seen relevant figures.

Presumably those have been going down somewhat?

Also, is Herefordshire's proximity to Wales -- I've heard plenty of Welsh accents when I've gone to Hereford --not deemed at all relevant, or deemed much of a risk? 

ETA : Plus the Wales/Bristol proximity thing could also be relevant?


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 17, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> It's all labour in Bristol last couple of elections I think. Outlying areas of South Glos and Somerset are Tory.



Last couple of elections sort of yes. But Tories (indeed all parties) play the psepholigical longer game no? Bristol West was Tory before it turned Labour in 1997 before turning Lib Dem in 2005. It's a gently swinging seat, and it's been hugely gentrified over the last 20 years (e.g. Stokes Fucking Croft). Wait til the hipsters have kids and emigrate to the countryside, selling their close to the city centre georgian houses for lots of money.  Bristol North West was Conservative until 2015. Bristol East was close enough to swing in 2010 and 2015. Bristol South is admittedly pretty happy to let Labour do consistently little for it, whilst FaBS is Tory and Bristol East has had the Tories in second place since 2010. 

I'm not saying it's the only reason, but you can surely see some motivation on the Tory government's part to make sure Bristol has a happier christmas no?


----------



## strung out (Dec 17, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> Last couple of elections sort of yes. But Tories (indeed all parties) play the psepholigical longer game no? Bristol West was Tory before it turned Labour in 1997 before turning Lib Dem in 2005. It's a gently swinging seat, and it's been hugely gentrified over the last 20 years (e.g. Stokes Fucking Croft). Wait til the hipsters have kids and emigrate to the countryside, selling their close to the city centre georgian houses for lots of money.  Bristol North West was Conservative until 2015. Bristol East was close enough to swing in 2010 and 2015. Bristol South is admittedly pretty happy to let Labour do consistently little for it, whilst FaBS is Tory and Bristol East has had the Tories in second place since 2010.
> 
> I'm not saying it's the only reason, but you can surely see some motivation on the Tory government's part to make sure Bristol has a happier christmas no?


No. Bristol West had one of the biggest Labour majorities in the country in 2017, while Bristol East and South are nowhere near being marginals. Bristol North West now has a fairly comfortable Labour majority and has swung to Labour at every election after 2005. Filton and Bradley Stoke is still in Tier 3.


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 18, 2020)

strung out said:


> No. Bristol West had one of the biggest Labour majorities in the country in 2017, while Bristol East and South are nowhere near being marginals. Bristol North West now has a fairly comfortable Labour majority and has swung to Labour at every election after 2005. Filton and Bradley Stoke is still in Tier 3.



As I clearly said in my post, the point is not the most recent elections. The point is the long game. This is a campaigning government rather than a governing government, taking place in a time of big swings if you take the longer view. The idea that the Tories would give up on seats in the south west based on recent results is a nonsense.

ETA: If you read what I wrote, I also said nothing about Bristol South being a marginal.


----------



## flypanam (Dec 18, 2020)

elbows said:


> Sounds like Northern Ireland are going for a tougher lockdown than has been the fashion in recent times:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The problem is that people will slip over the border and go drinking and gambling as well as other activities and fire up infection rates in the south, and in returning increase the chances of infection in the north. Needs an All Ireland strategy to cope with this.


----------



## strung out (Dec 18, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> As I clearly said in my post, the point is not the most recent elections. The point is the long game. This is a campaigning government rather than a governing government, taking place in a time of big swings if you take the longer view. The idea that the Tories would give up on seats in the south west based on recent results is a nonsense.
> 
> ETA: If you read what I wrote, I also said nothing about Bristol South being a marginal.


And I'm saying that the Tories have virtually no chance in Bristol, even in the long term. The suggestion that they would lower Bristol to tier 2 on the remote chance they could win a single seat in the city in 4 or more likely 9+ years time, while simultaneously keeping or raising loads of other Tory/marginal seats to tier 3 is nonsense. It just won't be a factor.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 18, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> I find it amazing that people still think that it's a bubble of three At Any One Time. It's not. It's a bubble of three and that's it. If your in a bubble you can't jojn another. I've no idea why this part hasn't been hammered home as it's probably what's driving the increase in cases. People think theyre following the rules but actually aren't because everything is so fucking unclear.



I'm increasingly hearing the word 'bubble' being thrown around with abandon like its some sort of special word that makes all the rules and laws invalid.  Its becoming like a less loony version of _Magna Carta._

I do get that the rules are all over the place, especially the Christmas ones but still...


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 18, 2020)

flypanam said:


> The problem is that people will slip over the border and go drinking and gambling as well as other activities and fire up infection rates in the south, and in returning increase the chances of infection in the north. Needs an All Ireland strategy to cope with this.



We are hearing a lot about the situation in Norn Iron but little about the Republic.  Is the situation better over the border and any thoughts on why that might be?  I get the government in the North is a bit of a shower at the moment.


----------



## BassJunkie (Dec 18, 2020)

An ounce is 28.3495 no?

This is down the road from me:









						Ninebar
					

Ninebar, Leicester, United Kingdom. 2,559 likes · 15 talking about this · 3,335 were here. The daddy of Leicester West End watering holes, we opened our doors in 1997 and have been going from...




					www.facebook.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 18, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> We are hearing a lot about the situation in Norn Iron but little about the Republic.  Is the situation better over the border and any thoughts on why that might be?  I get the government in the North is a bit of a shower at the moment.



The Republic is doing fairly well, after IIRC their 6-week lockdown, that started two weeks before ours, average daily cases dropped from almost 1,200 to around 250, they have started to grow again, currently just over 350, but mainly in the border areas. Average daily deaths currently stand at 'just' 4.


----------



## flypanam (Dec 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The Republic is doing fairly well, after IIRC their 6-week lockdown, that started two weeks before ours, average daily cases dropped from almost 1,200 to around 250, they have started to grow again, currently just over 350, but mainly in the border areas. Average daily deaths currently stand at 'just' 4.


Yeah I think that's right although there are problems, the call to return to work early by IBEC made the situation worse. I'm not living there but can only relate what friends and family say, they think the present government has been a shambles especially around the meat factories that have seen a very high percentage of cases, testing has been shambolic too with the government promoting private firms to compete with the HSE. 

One thing that is apparent is that social solidarity is pretty robust in localities, when I was last home everyone was wearing masks, from the old farmers to the young ones when they were out and about or shopping/socialising. Of course there are gobshites that in the middle of the lockdown would go to Armagh or Belfast for a feed of pints.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 18, 2020)

If only there was someone he knew with the finances, power and influence to change things 

Wait...what's....his job again?


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 18, 2020)

S☼I said:


> View attachment 244032
> 
> If only there was someone he knew with the finances, power and influence to change things
> 
> Wait...what's....his job again?



Nailed on third lockdown coming then.


----------



## kalidarkone (Dec 18, 2020)

BassJunkie said:


> An ounce is 28.3495 no?
> 
> This is down the road from me:
> 
> ...


Wrong thread...... 😁


----------



## BassJunkie (Dec 18, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> Wrong thread...... 😁



You're not kidding. I wondered where my post had gone - thanks for finding it!


----------



## Supine (Dec 18, 2020)

S☼I said:


> View attachment 244032
> 
> If only there was someone he knew with the finances, power and influence to change things
> 
> Wait...what's....his job again?



He can hope all he wants. He hoped covid would be gone by Christmas.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 18, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The Republic is doing fairly well, after IIRC their 6-week lockdown, that started two weeks before ours, average daily cases dropped from almost 1,200 to around 250, they have started to grow again, currently just over 350, but mainly in the border areas. Average daily deaths currently stand at 'just' 4.


Ireland currently doing very significantly better than the UK.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 18, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Ireland currently doing very significantly better than the UK.
> 
> View attachment 244039



Interested as to why Slovenia appears at the top of almost every chart you publish. One could lazily say "Well they have a Trump acolyte for a PM". Which is true. But if you look at the measures they are taking, mandatory face masks, restrictions of movement between different areas, ban on all public transport except taxis, it does make me wonder why they are constantly showing up as terrible in these charts.

I'm interested because I love Slovenia. It's a beautiful place. And the actions taken + results don't at first appear to match up.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Dec 18, 2020)

That whole region seems like a shitshow at the moment, according to that chart.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 18, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Interested as to why Slovenia appears at the top of almost every chart you publish. One could lazily say "Well they have a Trump acolyte for a PM". Which is true. But if you look at the measures they are taking, mandatory face masks, restrictions of movement between different areas, ban on all public transport except taxis, it does make me wonder why they are constantly showing up as terrible in these charts.
> 
> I'm interested because I love Slovenia. It's a beautiful place. And the actions taken + results don't at first appear to match up.



Its an odd one for sure.  I suppose there may be a problem in people bothering with the rules?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 18, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Its an odd one for sure.  I suppose there may be a problem in people bothering with the rules?



I guess. At least that's all I'd thought of. Plus they have a small population. Would that skew the stats into a lack of real meaning, or a distortion of it?

Look at their measures. They are stricter than ours.









						Measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 infections | GOV.SI
					

To prevent the spread of Covid-19, the movement and gathering of people have been temporarily restricted in Slovenia.




					www.gov.si


----------



## Chilli.s (Dec 18, 2020)

All that guff about we don't know what the figures will be after xmas!  That translates as it should be lockdown now but let's not. World beating shambles


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2020)

I do not have time to investigate Slovakia at the moment but in general areas I would look at would include:

The timing of measures - if done too late then even strong measures are no miracle fix and take time to bring things down from very high levels where the damage was already done.

The state of their helathcare system including hospital capacity.

What gaping chasms may exist in terms of measures and compliance with those restrictions.


----------



## killer b (Dec 18, 2020)

Slovenia - I have a friend lives there, I'll ask him now.


----------



## Supine (Dec 18, 2020)

I didn't catch the exact numbers but indy sage today said that some Christmas modelling estimated:

2 households meeting = r of 1.9-2.1
3 households meeting= r of 2.8-3.4

It is currently 1-1.2. 

Something like those numbers anyway


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 18, 2020)

Such a shitshow. Again. Nothing learned. No stitch now, thank you. Let's have 9 stitches later instead.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 18, 2020)

R Rate between 1.1 and 1.2 (with the usual regional variations).  How shall we celebrate that fact?  How about mixing families and generations who may not have mixed for months in single houses, with more than the normal number of people in a single room, with alcohol and hugs?  Ideally, seat them facing each other on dining room tables.  Then give the virus a few days to work its magic and move on to New Year. Then appoint the young 'uns as Special Virus Ambassadors and send them to university campuses all over the country.  Happy Christmas from Boris, Matt and everyone needing a Barnard Castle eye test!
UK's crucial coronavirus R-rate is now 1.1-1.2 days before restrictions are eased - Mirror Online


----------



## Wilf (Dec 18, 2020)

Supine said:


> I didn't catch the exact numbers but indy sage today said that some Christmas modelling estimated:
> 
> 2 households meeting = r of 1.9-2.1
> 3 households meeting= r of 2.8-3.4
> ...




As with just about every stage of this, the government take things to the point where they end up having to do the right thing, but beyond the point where it might do much good. If those figures are even half right they provide enough ammo for johnson to 'cancel Christmas'. But given that turkeys have been ordered and plans made and also that we are only 7 days away from Christmas day, I can't see there being a u turn on this. Just a few desperate noises about 'restraint' and that 'whilst families _can _meet up they don't _have to'_. Basically, we know the plans we've made will kill lots of people but.... erm, well, that's it.


----------



## bimble (Dec 18, 2020)

Meanwhile in Wuhan.

I know it was not possible to do here what they did there, lockdownwise. But at this point it feels like we barely even tried.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 18, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Interested as to why Slovenia appears at the top of almost every chart you publish. One could lazily say "Well they have a Trump acolyte for a PM". Which is true. But if you look at the measures they are taking, mandatory face masks, restrictions of movement between different areas, ban on all public transport except taxis, it does make me wonder why they are constantly showing up as terrible in these charts.
> 
> I'm interested because I love Slovenia. It's a beautiful place. And the actions taken + results don't at first appear to match up.


It's worth bearing in mind that it's a very small country ... 2 million people. So, something like 1/5 the size of London, say.

There are probably Slovenia-sized regions of the UK, or other countries, that you could draw a line around, and produce similar looking peaks, but when those regions are counted in amongst the numbers for a larger country things get averaged out into something that looks less dramatic.

I think this is part of the story with Belgium too.


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It's worth bearing in mind that it's a very small country ... 2 million people. So, something like 1/5 the size of London, say.
> 
> There are probably Slovenia-sized regions of the UK, or other countries, that you could draw a line around, and produce similar looking peaks, but when those regions are counted in amongst the numbers for a larger country things get averaged out into something that looks less dramatic.
> 
> I think this is part of the story with Belgium too.



Thats certainly one of the reasons I didnt pay that much attention to 'per 100,000' versions of death stats in the first wave. But thats partly because the first time round the varying epidemic timing meant some countries locked down when hardly any areas were affected, a circumstance in which the total population of the country is not as relevant as the population actually exposed to fairly widespread community cases.


----------



## killer b (Dec 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> Slovenia - I have a friend lives there, I'll ask him now.


a report from our man in Llubljana

_I mean, the second wave numbers are atrocious and have not appreciably gone down in 2 months. They hover around the 1,500 to 2,000 a day mark, which when you consider it has a population of 2 million (what's that, the same as the Leeds metropolitan area?), it's astounding. And these numbers are not going down despite the fact that we are approaching our third month of total lockdown. 

Although they opened some non-essential shops this week, and plan to open more tomorrow, they will be closed very soon again, likely until the end of January. I've not been to a pub, restaurant or bookshop since mid-October, and a 9 pm curfew has been in place for nearly 8 weeks now. The buses and trains began running on Tuesday, the first time in 2 months. 

Reasons? Many. The withdrawal of financial support/furlough money has meant that people are going to infected workplaces, and going to work infected themselves, because they cannot afford to do otherwise. The furlough scheme was never as comprehensive or generous as even the UK scheme, with many, many people excluded. If I look out my window, there are just as many cars on the roads as there would be normally, or perhaps 10% less. They're not going out or to see friends, they're going to work. 

It took the government a long time to admit this. When the numbers kept rising after the first 2 weeks of this lockdown, they blamed illicit parties and gatherings, the weekly anti-government bicycle protests and, quite gloriously, St Martin's Day (11 November), which is the day new wine becomes 'wine' and is usually accompanied by feed-ups and piss-ups across the country. Well, the protests haven't gone on since then, no one's out and about, parties have (I believe) dwindled, and the numbers are still up. It's work. 

Mask compliance here is almost total, inside and out, although you do have the usual weirdos and misfits. But it's also and mostly this government. Thankfully, the fucking Guardian appears to have stopped referring to Janez Janša as centre-right. He's a far-right anti-democratic strongman, a real cunt, fully as nasty as Orban and Bolsonaro, but with added obvious head problems. He's used the pandemic for other purposes, basically: to change environmental legislation so that many NGOs are now banned from taking part in environmental assessment procedures (clear breach of EU law), strengthen the southern border (because, you know, it's immigrants that carry the virus), argue for the return of national service, get rid of the head of the army, the police, the police anti-corruption unit and the head of the national broadcaster (all of whom fucking hate him), threaten to put the army on the streets. 

Why does this matter, beyond the obvious? Because he's basically not addressed Covid for 2 months, the minutes of the cabinet and committee meetings barely mention it, he's closed the country down, stopped it going out after 9 pm and that's his cover. By the way, the corruption in PPE procurement is fully as eye-watering as it is in the UK. I think Slovenia now has enough masks to last 200 years or something, all sourced through a PO Box number set up about 9 months ago. 

They used to have a system of quarantine orders. So you'd get one of these and you'd be entitled to some cash. It's not that there was a conscious effort to get rid of them. It's just that they stopped being issued because the government's focus is elsewhere. I mean, negligence beyond belief. I say that Slovenia is almost totally mask-compliant and it is. But I don't know what goes on behind closed doors, really. Whether people are still gathering. I know people who have, don't know whether they still do. But the nature of this government, their appalling messaging, and their clear attacks (really fucking foul-mouthed and boorish) on civil society has meant that a lot of people on the left, including a lot of mates, just do not give a shit. Their rebellion against Janša has become a rebellion against Covid and, sadly, there are some who've moved into whacko territory. 

Tl;dr Fascism _


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2020)

The BBC took a look at some NHS England data and produced various charts.









						Pressure on hospitals 'at a really dangerous point'
					

Nearly 90% of hospital beds in England are full as hospitals try to cope with the demands of Covid.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Including:


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 18, 2020)

killer b said:


> a report from our man in Llubljana
> 
> _I mean, the second wave numbers are atrocious and have not appreciably gone down in 2 months. They hover around the 1,500 to 2,000 a day mark, which when you consider it has a population of 2 million (what's that, the same as the Leeds metropolitan area?), it's astounding. And these numbers are not going down despite the fact that we are approaching our third month of total lockdown.
> 
> ...



Crikey.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 18, 2020)

Polite request, can people take the Slovenia discussion to the worldwide thread, and keep this one on topic, please?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 18, 2020)

Thanks killer b. That was a really informative perspective and well written. Seems like you have a good friend there.


----------



## killer b (Dec 18, 2020)

he used to post here, much missed!


----------



## thismoment (Dec 18, 2020)

Anyone else receive texts about rise in COVID cases. Obviously, I know cases are rising but I wasn’t expecting a text alerting me to the fact


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 18, 2020)

yep, a few minutes ago. from lambeth.gov.  up 126% in 7 days.  get tested if you have symptoms.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 18, 2020)

😞


----------



## bimble (Dec 18, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> yep, a few minutes ago. from lambeth.gov.  up 126% in 7 days.  get tested if you have symptoms.


Just got the same text.
Don’t think I’ve received any previous texts from the gov about covid at all, have you?


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 18, 2020)

nope.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 18, 2020)

At this rate not sure if I should just sit home over Christmas and go quietly nuts.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> Just got the same text.
> Don’t think I’ve received any previous texts from the gov about covid at all, have you?


 No


----------



## thismoment (Dec 18, 2020)

that text was ever so timely, just as my bubble relative was returning from the shops to get the 3rd dessert for Christmas Day.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 18, 2020)

bimble said:


> Just got the same text.
> Don’t think I’ve received any previous texts from the gov about covid at all, have you?


The only one I got was the one back in March telling me to "lockdown" - that was the national alert. [for which the gov't had to make special arrangements with the mobile phone companies / networks] ... nothing since then, not even from the local council. Excluding the local health centre telling me to book a 'flu jab - that was back in September.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 18, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> The only one I got was the one back in March telling me to "lockdown" - that was the national alert. [for which the gov't had to make special arrangements with the mobile phone companies / networks] ... nothing since then, not even from the local council. Excluding the local health centre telling me to book a 'flu jab - that was back in September.


Got the Lambeth one too, I wonder if this is in breach of GDPR?


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2020)

Covid-19 patients in hospital by English region using data that is available both on the official dashboard and at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


Same data but presented in my more usual manner. Sorry that there some differences between how the colours are mapped between these two graphs.


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2020)

Meanwhile its quite easy to imagine Wales reaching levels of Covid-19 patients in hospital that is double what they had at the peak of their first wave. Except especially because of recent stories, I dont know what the maimum their figures could go to would be before they are full, and we already heard about an offer of Welsh patients being redirected to England.

Usual disclaimer for the Northern Ireland part  of this chart - they retroactively change their past figures so trends near the end of their chart should not be taken as fact, the trajectory shown will probably alter as more data comes in.

As for the sudden drop in Scotlands figures earlier in the year, the UK government dashboard describes it in a way that is also useful to consider more broadly when thinking about how full a picture this sort of hospital data does and does not offer.



> Scotland.
> 
> On 11 September 2020 the data were updated to exclude people (in larger NHS Boards) who had previously tested positive for COVID-19 but remain in hospital for another reason.


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2020)

I dont know what sort of Christmas break from data I will take by the way.

As you could probably tell long before now, the December data has a fresh urgency about it. So its not the sort of time that I would normally give it a rest. I'd normally do that if all trends were safely declining in a sustained way and peoples interest then understandably wanes, or when its gotten so bad that the government are forced to act in a more substantial way than they would like, and I can briefly 'relax about the politics' and wait some weeks for the results of new measures to show up in the data. Neither of those are a good fit with the current reality.

At least I was not posting the same charts every single day in the first place, so I dont feel obliged to update on that regular a basis. So chances are I will mostly end up updating the picture in slightly different ways several times a week, and will try to coincide that with a smattering of days where it might be necessary to comment on the latest news. I'll probably try to avoid Christmas eve, Christmas day and boxing day but with the amazing powers of timing this government possess I can make no promises.


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2020)

Although I'm not under any illusions that my commentary and charts are essential at this stage of the pandemic. If the government manage to shit themselves by Monday, Tuesday or even Wednesday and announce some new stuff, then if its dramatic enough I might manage to take a more substantial break. And I might still manage such a break in any case, see how long they can go after Christmas before they act and then I'll jump back in when it feels like that moment is imminent.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

This new strain, and the fact that they think it's more infectious, thus spreading faster, especially in London and the south-east, is clearly causing major concern amongst SAGE & the government.

There was an emergency meeting of ministers last night to discuss it, and further restrictions, including possible curbs on travel between the south-east and the rest of the UK, with an announcement possibly coming as earlier as today.

Merry fucking Christmas from covid.  



> The health secretary, Matt Hancock, expressed concerns earlier this week about the new strain as he announced that a large swathe of the south-east would be placed under the toughest, tier 3 restrictions.
> 
> It is understood that government scientists have subsequently presented new evidence to ministers about the behaviour of this variant. A government official said: “There are concerns that it is more transmissible than the existing strain – and that sense is hardening.”
> 
> An announcement could be made as soon as Saturday about how ministers plan to try to contain the new threat, with particular concerns about the risks of cross-UK travel in the run-up to Christmas.





> Hancock added: “I must stress at this point that there is currently nothing to suggest that this variant is more likely to cause serious disease and the latest clinical advice is that it’s highly unlikely that this mutation would fail to respond to a vaccine.
> 
> “But it shows we’ve got to be vigilant and follow the rules and everyone needs to take personal responsibility not to spread this virus.”











						Boris Johnson calls crisis meeting over new Covid strain
					

PM may introduce tighter travel restrictions due to rapid spread of virus mutation in south-east England




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

Still convinced it's just a way to cover there arses.


----------



## Aladdin (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Still convinced it's just a way to cover there arses.







__





						South Africa reports 'severe' new variant of Covid-19
					





					amp.rte.ie
				




In South Africa?


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Still convinced it's just a way to cover there arses.



Enough with the conspiracy nonsense, it's being reported in other countries, and all sorts of health bodies are looking into in. It is a bit worrying I think, reports so far are that it's as least as infectious, not sure about the severity yet apparently.


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Still convinced it's just a way to cover there arses.



The new strain of the virus is probably true, but as with all the things they've done this year them not being honest and doing something at the last minute on the basis of "new information" that isn't really new is going to wind people up far more than doing the sensible but (theoretically) politically risky thing would have done (in this case tell people not to celebrate Christmas together this year early enough so that arrangements werent made, which would have been a sensible position for them to take at any point after March onwards).  Its also going to be almost impossible to enforce at this short notice as well, unless they just stop trains / coaches etc - which is going to have a big impact on the firms concerned and a much bigger one on those using public transport to go and visit dying relatives, for work and so on - and physically block the roads, which I suppose would be easy in Kent but less so in other areas.  

I am not saying they shouldn't do it, but we are long past the point where we should have expected them to actually learn from previous disasters they've caused in this crisis and to not do them again.  They've focus-grouped (badly) the response to this throughout and its cost thousands of lives.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 19, 2020)

It can after all be the case that there both is a new strain, and that they are using it as a way to cover their arses.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It can after all be the case that there both is a new strain, and that they are using it as a way to cover their arses.



This.

I have no doubt it exists.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 19, 2020)

There's a new rapidly transmitting strain of the virus spreading across the south east. Should we:

a) Try to limit travel from this area to the rest of the country.
b) Give everyone 5 days to go where they want and meet in larger groups than are currently allowed.


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

Spandex said:


> There's a new rapidly transmitting strain of the virus spreading across the south east. Should we:
> 
> a) Try to limit travel from this area to the rest of the country.
> b) Give everyone 5 days to go where they want and meet in larger groups than are currently allowed.



Or to put it in a more sensible way:

There's a virus spreading across the country. Should we:

_a) Try to limit travel.
b) Give everyone 5 days to go where they want and meet in larger groups than are currently allowed._

This is after all what they've known for months.


----------



## maomao (Dec 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Enough with the conspiracy nonsense, it's being reported in other countries, and all sorts of health bodies are looking into in


It's hardly conspiracy to suggest that prominence is given to certain stories, sometimes beyond their actual importance, in order to spin the appearance of the government's management of the situation.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's hardly conspiracy to suggest that prominence is given to certain stories, sometimes beyond their actual importance, in order to spin the appearance of the government's management of the situation.



Especially when we know the government has paid very serious attention to 'nudge theory' and behaviour shifting within the last decade.


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Especially when we know the government has paid very serious attention to 'nudge theory' and behaviour shifting within the last decade.



Thats certainly how it has been advertised, but honestly unless they wanted the population to lose all trust in the government its hard to see that they paid that much attention to behaviour shifting.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

So its reported we are plus 90% hospital beds full. Not much slack left especially in London.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

Covid: Ministers meet amid rising infection rates in England
					

The PM is "hoping to avoid" another national lockdown as millions more enter England's toughest tier.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> So its reported we are plus 90% hospital beds full. Not much slack left especially in London.



Almost 18.5k covid cases in hospital, up 19% in the last 7 days, and just 3k short of the peak in April.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Almost 18.5k covid cases in hospital, up 19% in the last 7 days, and just 3k short of the peak in April.


Grim. 

I think I must have posted "grim" on this thread a few times this year.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

agricola said:


> Thats certainly how it has been advertised, but honestly unless they wanted the population to lose all trust in the government its hard to see that they paid that much attention to behaviour shifting.



Covid has punched the government in the face and it doesn't know what it's doing. You also can't nudge with this stuff, you have to lead, there's no time to nudge.

Nudge was deeply embedded under Cameron, I'm not sure how it's fared under his successors though.


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Covid has punched the government in the face and it doesn't know what it's doing. You also can't nudge with this stuff, you have to lead, there's no time to nudge.
> 
> Nudge was deeply embedded under Cameron, I'm not sure how it's fared under his successors though.



Indeed, though of course these don't really understand what leadership is - they've duped themselves (as most British politicians, journalists and business people have) into believing in the heroic model of leader in which strength of that person's will is much more important than competence, measureable success, ability, experience, extensive training, preparation and careful planning is.    

That a leader might not be able to turn back the tide just by looking at it is as shocking to them as it is patently obvious to everyone else.


----------



## chilango (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Covid has punched the government in the face and it doesn't know what it's doing. You also can't nudge with this stuff, you have to lead, there's no time to nudge.
> 
> Nudge was deeply embedded under Cameron, I'm not sure how it's fared under his successors though.



Last time I looked into it (some months ago) the nudge unit were busy with Covid stuff.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 19, 2020)

Grim isn't up to it now, and certainly will be an inadequate description in January.
Devastating might be more accurate when the affects of the crimble mixing show up.

In my area, the superspreading seems to be via the schools - the rise seems to primarily co-locate with the secondary school catchment and much less with the commuting to the main local employer.
Two glimmers of hope - 
a) a lot of kids were out of school/uni and in isolation in the past few days (maybe a week so far) and the case rate has dropped from a peal of almost 1350/100,00 to only 1280/100,000 (100 down to 90 cases in the past week - to 13th December)
b) some vaccinations have happened, not sure if any in this immediate area - my SiL lives almost 40 miles away, but she got her first jab as she's worked in NHS as a radiographer and had health issues enough to have been shielding.

I'm hoping that MHRA pass the Oxford Vaccine sooner rather than later, as rolling that out should be easier.
(interestingly, USA's FDA has passed their own "Moderna" in the past few hours (vote was 20-0 with 1 abstention for 18+ yr olds).


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's hardly conspiracy to suggest that prominence is given to certain stories, sometimes beyond their actual importance, in order to spin the appearance of the government's management of the situation.



That would still require loads of scientists and institutions in the UK and other countries to go along with it, but anyway, I read the quip as suggesting it possibly didn't exist in any meaningful or significant way, if they didn't mean that was my mistake. I'm a bit hyper vigilant for conspiracy stuff, sorry Artaxerxes


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This new strain, and the fact that they think it's more infectious, thus spreading faster, especially in London and the south-east, is clearly causing major concern amongst SAGE & the government.
> 
> There was an emergency meeting of ministers last night to discuss it, and further restrictions, including possible curbs on travel between the south-east and the rest of the UK, with an announcement possibly coming as earlier as today.
> 
> ...


Who thinks the new strain is more infectious?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 19, 2020)




----------



## Supine (Dec 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> Who thinks the new strain is more infectious?



A couple of blokes on urban and a few journalists who never studied biology at school


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm a bit hyper vigilant for conspiracy stuff,


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> Who thinks the new strain is more infectious?



No one has confirmed that, hence I posted, 'they think it's more infectious.'



Supine said:


> A couple of blokes on urban and a few journalists who never studied biology at school



From that link...



> It is understood that government scientists have subsequently presented new evidence to ministers about the behaviour of this variant. A government official said: “There are concerns that it is more transmissible than the existing strain – and that sense is hardening.”
> 
> Professor Sir Mark Walport – a member of the government’s scientific advisory group for emergencies (Sage) – said there was a real possibility that the strain could have a “transmission advantage”.


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> No one has confirmed that, hence I posted, 'they think it's more infectious.'
> 
> 
> 
> From that link...


 

I'm not sure that's the same as thinking it actually is more infectious, but I take your point; it's certainly being played like that.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 19, 2020)

Point of order: infectiousness and transmissibility are different albeit related terms.  When they say there are concerns that the new strain might have transmissibility advantages, that does not necessarily make it more infectious, although possibly increased infectiousness would be a transmissibility advantage — I’m no expert.


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Point of order: infectiousness and transmissibility are different albeit related terms.  When they say there are concerns that the new strain might have transmissibility advantages, that does not necessarily make it more infectious, although possibly increased infectiousness would be a transmissibility advantage — I’m no expert.


You're right that there is a difference between ability to pass between people and the ability to cause more severe disease within a person, but the term for the former is infectiousness (synonymous with transmissibility), and the term for the latter is infectivity.

I learned this not very long ago!


			https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/new-words-you-have-learnt-today.337390/post-16528383


----------



## kabbes (Dec 19, 2020)

Now I’m confused because I thought transmissibility was associated with contagiousness, which is different to infectiousness


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Now I’m confused because I thought transmissibility was associated with contagiousness, which is different to infectiousness


What's your understanding of the difference?

I'd have them (contageousness and infectiousness) as synonymous, also with transmissibility.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

Grim hospital figures in Kent.



> Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust had 221 Covid-19 patients on December 16 – around 120 more than the 98 they admitted during the first peak on April 8.
> 
> On Wednesday, the East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust treated 357 people with coronavirus – almost twice the maximum number they had at any point in spring. Figures reached 187 on April 20.





> London is still well below its first wave peak of coronavirus hospital patients, but NHS trusts are facing pressure as cases increase across the city. Some 2,543 patients were recorded in the capital on December 16 – up from 1,787 a week ago. London saw 5,201 patients in hospital during the first wave peak on April 9.



That's not far short of a 50% increase in a week!









						Hospitals in south-east cancel treatments as Covid cases surge
					

Trusts have promised cancer operations and other urgent treatments 'will go ahead as normal'.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

Well, a meeting late into last night with senior ministers, and starting about now Johnson is holding a virtual cabinet meeting, *with a press briefing this afternoon.*

Clearly, they are having a squeaky bum time.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, a meeting late into last night with senior ministers, and starting about now Johnson is holding a virtual cabinet meeting, *with a press briefing this afternoon.*
> 
> Clearly, they are having a squeaky bum time.



Rumours of a London lockdown and/or special tier 4 status.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Rumours of a London lockdown and/or special tier 4 status.



Plus possible travel restrictions and changes to the Christmas rules.


----------



## maomao (Dec 19, 2020)

So what time is the big u-turn announcement?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> So what time is the big u-turn announcement?



No time confirmed yet, it's only breaking news that is will be happening.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

Yeah the press were full of lockdown 3 and tier 4 stories last night.

Certainly better to announce stuff today rather than wait for some preposterously timed day next week.


----------



## maomao (Dec 19, 2020)

Well it's the Saturday before Christmas so it would be ideal to do just after half the country's done their biggest grocery shop of the year in preperation for large family dinners.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> What's your understanding of the difference?
> 
> I'd have them (contageousness and infectiousness) as synonymous, also with transmissibility.


Basically, as you said.  Infectious relates to the disease’s acquirability (as opposed, for example, to it being congenital) whereas contagious means its ability to specifically be acquired from others.

However, I worry this topic might be two people who don’t work in infectious diseases both trying to draw out distinctions outside of our respective expertise!


----------



## chilango (Dec 19, 2020)

chilango said:


> I think they'll announce that they're sticking to it, urge caution and warn of consequences down the line...
> 
> ...then early next week do a panicked U-turn once it's well and truly too late.



[insert hit song by the Hives here]


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well it's the Saturday before Christmas so it would be ideal to do just after half the country's done their biggest grocery shop of the year in preperation for large family dinners.



Unused Christmas food offers a handy brexit food stash.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 19, 2020)

But I bet they'll give far more time than is absolutely necessary before implementing whatever changes have been decided.

But it will be just enough time for people to go out and continue to spread the plague ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

*Emergency press briefing confirmed for 4pm today.  *


----------



## Sue (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> *Emergency press briefing confirmed for 4pm today.  *


Which probably means it'll actually start at 6:30.


----------



## Supine (Dec 19, 2020)

'sometime after 4pm'

Hopefully it won't keep getting delayed until after 7pm this time.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> *Emergency press briefing confirmed for 4pm today.  *


We must do something
We must do it late
We must make it ineffectual


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

Hands space boompsie daisy


----------



## Supine (Dec 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> We must do something
> We must do it late
> We must make it ineffectual



We must do exactly what we said we wouldn't do 24 hrs ago


----------



## Sue (Dec 19, 2020)

Supine said:


> We must do exactly what we said we wouldn't do 24 hrs ago


Sorted out my Christmas plans just last night...


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 19, 2020)

Anyone who thinks the CMO and NERVTAG are lying when they say they think it can spread more quickly is a conspiraloon.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

> Boris Johnson will address the nation after an emergency cabinet meeting this afternoon amid fears of a third lockdown.
> 
> The Prime Minister has come under intense pressure this week over his 'Christmas bubbles' as Covid-19 rates soar in parts of the UK, with the country said to be on a "knife edge".
> 
> *He will hold a briefing at 4pm today from Downing Street alongside chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, Number 10 has confirmed.*





> It follows grim warnings about a new highly-contagious strain of the virus which has sparked speculation that a third national lockdown could be just days away.
> 
> *Prof Whitty today said urgent work is underway to confirm whether the new strain is more deadly.*



 



> *Medics warn that the new strain is 50% more contagious than previous Covid-19 cases.*
> 
> In a statement today Prof Whitty said: "As announced on Monday, the UK has identified a new variant of Covid-19 through Public Health England's genomic surveillance.
> 
> "As a result of the rapid spread of the new variant, preliminary modelling data and rapidly rising incidence rates in the South East, *the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) now consider that the new strain can spread more quickly.*"











						PM to address nation today after emergency cabinet meeting on coronavirus
					

The Prime Minister has come under heavy pressure this week over his controversial 'Christmas bubbles' as Covid-19 rates soar in parts of the UK - sparking fears that a third national lockdown may be days away




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

Sue said:


> Sorted out my Christmas plans just last night...


Drat.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well it's the Saturday before Christmas so it would be ideal to do just after half the country's done their biggest grocery shop of the year in preperation for large family dinners.



Which of course, people will still go ahead with.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

50% more contagious rather changes matters.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Which of course, people will still go ahead with.


Travel restrictions seem most likely.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

Sue said:


> Sorted out my Christmas plans just last night...


----------



## Supine (Dec 19, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Anyone who thinks the CMO and NERVTAG are lying when they say they think it can spread more quickly is a conspiraloon.



Has anybody actually said that?


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

When are we predicted to run out of hospital beds?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> When are we predicted to run out of hospital beds?



Fairly soon the way things are going, see THIS POST.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Fairly soon the way things are going, see THIS POST.


Christmas is going to do us.


----------



## Sue (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


>


Ach, they just involve a friend coming from a different part of London and staying for a couple of nights so it's not like they're elaborate or anything. (She had been hoping she'd be able to go and visit her family in Sweden/Denmark but has finally conceded that's not going to happen.   )


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

Basically what GL & ROSEland need:


----------



## 2hats (Dec 19, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> PM to address nation today after emergency cabinet meeting on coronavirus
> 
> 
> The Prime Minister has come under heavy pressure this week over his controversial 'Christmas bubbles' as Covid-19 rates soar in parts of the UK - sparking fears that a third national lockdown may be days away
> ...



The bit about 50% more contagious is from an unnamed source rather than Whittys statement. When the Mirror say medic, I think they actually mean an unnamed source quoted in the Sun that they have pinched that detail from. I await proper info, or at least some direct quotes from the government.

As for the Mirrors crappy wording about confirming whether the new strain is more deadly, the actual wording from Whitty is weighted in the opposite direction.



> There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments although urgent work is underway to confirm this.











						Statement from Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, about new strain of COVID-19
					

New strain of COVID-19 reported to World Health Organization.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well it's the Saturday before Christmas so it would be ideal to do just after half the country's done their biggest grocery shop of the year in preperation for large family dinners.




As predicted four days ago...









						Government insists there will be no U-turn on houses mixing over Christmas until everyone has bought a massive turkey
					

The government has insisted today that there will be no U-turn on its decision to allow three households to mix indoors over the Christmas period until everyone has bought a massive turkey and forked out over £200 on food.




					newsthump.com
				





*The government has insisted today that there will be no U-turn on its decision to allow three households to mix indoors over the Christmas period until everyone has bought a massive turkey and forked out over £200 on food.*

As fears of a third wave of infections continue to rise in the UK, the Prime Minister has assured the nation that the current plan to allow families to mix indoors for five days over Christmas will still go ahead, for now, until your massive turkey arrives and you’ve spent all your money on food.

Speaking earlier today the Prime Minister revealed, “We have absolutely no plans whatsoever to cancel the easing of restrictions over Christmas at all, definitely not, we promise.

“We would therefore urge everyone in the country to order the biggest turkey they possibly can, and spend hundreds of pounds on food and booze for an almighty big get together, before we cancel it all at the last minute with a customary U-turn, giving little or no notice at all, like we do with everything else.

“We are aware that millions of people will be buying presents, and food for Christmas get-togethers, whilst making travel arrangements and booking time off work to go and spend time with their families.

“That’s why we will leave it till the last minute possible to tell everyone it’s off, and that you all need to stay home and watch telly instead.

Asked if people should hold off from spending money until a decision is finally made, we were told: “Don’t be stupid, we need the tax revenue.”


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 19, 2020)

These tiers are beginning to resemble  Nigel Tufnel's  amplifier


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

JVT not allowed at todays press conference over fears that the new strain would mutate his penalty shootout analogy so that the goalkeeper ended up with an extra pair of arms and legs.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> When are we predicted to run out of hospital beds?


As soon as the last ones have been taken by the cabinet


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> As predicted four days ago...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Satire is dead etc.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

This lot literally could not be shitter


----------



## klang (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> This lot literally could not be shitter


pretty impressive how extremely shit they are without giving a fuck what anybody thinks.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> This lot literally could not be shitter


----------



## Spandex (Dec 19, 2020)

The first tier system lasted 3 weeks before a national lockdown, the second tier system will have lasted two and a half weeks if, as expected, a new tier 4 is announced this afternoon. 

They really need to have a word with themselves about how to make the tier system work. A top tier that's tough enough to actually bring the virus figures down. Putting areas in higher tiers before it's got out of hand, not waiting til it's all gone wrong then putting them up. Accepting some people won't be happy and providing support to those who need it. Using tiers to prevent the virus running wild rather than reacting after it has.

Both times they've tried it they've fucked it up. Maybe a mutation to the virus has caught them out a bit this time, but it's been obvious both times that they haven't gone far enough and both times they've ended with hospitals filling up and huge numbers of people dying unnecessarily.

Fucks sake


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

We have a massive food and drink shop coming. Aw well.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 19, 2020)

Well Teir 3 was pretty meaningless - I was astounded that hairdressers, salons and gyms were still open in it. If people shouldn't be hanging out in pubs and restaurants surely they shouldn't be going to those places either?!


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> We have a massive food and drink shop coming. Aw well.







__





						Turkey curry recipe | BBC Good Food
					

Go classic with your turkey leftovers and whip up this healthy spice-filled stew with peppers and tomatoes



					www.bbcgoodfood.com


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

How completely stupid do you have to be to design a tiered alert system that only goes up to 3 and then realise it needs a 4. After the abandoned 5 level system that needed lots of half numbers in it. Absolute clowns. Not even funny how idiots get into positions of such serious responsibility.


----------



## not-bono-ever (Dec 19, 2020)

have told my family that i am in my room until 2021. good luck all


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2020)

Meanwhile, where it all started...



It didn't have to be like this


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> How completely stupid do you have to be to design a tiered alert system that only goes up to 3 and then realise it needs a 4. After the abandoned 5 level system that needed lots of half numbers in it. Absolute clowns. Not even funny how idiots get into positions of such serious responsibility.



SAGE made it clear in papers dated November 11th that a tier 4 would be needed to achieve certain results in certain circumstances.



> Tier 3 restrictions, taken as a whole, are associated with slowing growth rates. Estimates of the relative reduction in R from tier 1 to tier 3 range from around a quarter to a half. It is therefore unclear whether baseline tier 3 restrictions alone would be sufficient at a regional or national level to reduce R below 1. It is likely that some localities may need a “tier 4” to prevent the epidemic from growing. A “tier 4” that guarantees a reduction in prevalence would be required in most places, if the prevalence is to be reduced.





> Test and trace, including mass testing, is most effective when prevalence is low. Even the most effective test and trace system will have little impact when caseloads are high. Given that the impact of tiers will vary depending on the characteristics of different areas, a “tier 4” needs to be considered for those parts of the country where tier 3 is not able to shrink the epidemic. This is particularly important in the run up to the winter festive period if relaxation of measures is under consideration. Keeping incidence flat or decreasing between now and then is crucial.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/937449/S0879_SAGE67_201111_SPI-M-O_Statement_Impact_of_Tier_system_and_other_measures_in_the_UK.pdf


----------



## hash tag (Dec 19, 2020)




----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

Monday? Cool no rush. Nobody likes having to do zoom calls on weekends .


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> How completely stupid do you have to be to design a tiered alert system that only goes up to 3 and then realise it needs a 4. After the abandoned 5 level system that needed lots of half numbers in it. Absolute clowns. Not even funny how idiots get into positions of such serious responsibility.



The thing is Tier 1-3 now is just Tier 3-5 of the first lockdown.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Monday? Cool no rush. Nobody likes having to do zoom calls on weekends .
> 
> View attachment 244249


It has to be late. Its traditional.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Monday? Cool no rush. Nobody likes having to do zoom calls on weekends .
> 
> View attachment 244249



That's old news, things have moved on somewhat since that was announced.


----------



## Sue (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> The thing is Tier 1-3 now is just Tier 3-5 of the first lockdown.



Is it just me that's completely lost track of the different lockdowns and rules and tiers and which happened when?


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> The thing is Tier 1-3 now is just Tier 3-5 of the first lockdown.


Why did they bin the first system i can’t even remember. 
So fed up. And tbh it doesn’t even have that much impact on me personally, I’ve not got vulnerable relative Xmas dinner dilemmas to deal with.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's old news, things have moved on somewhat since that was announced.


Ah ok. I got it from here which is two hours old.








						Boris Johnson to hold coronavirus press conference as new strain spreads rapidly
					

Virus’s mutation prompts fears of third national lockdown for England in new year




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ah ok. I got it from here which is two hours old.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Two hours is old and mouldy these days.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why did they bin the first system i can’t even remember.
> So fed up. And tbh it doesn’t even have that much impact on me personally, I’ve not got vulnerable relative Xmas dinner dilemmas to deal with.



Because it only existed for like 2 weeks until Eat Out to get Covid Out wiped out any sense.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> 50% more contagious rather changes matters.


Hopefully this 50% bit is hyperbole.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Because it only existed for like 2 weeks until Eat Out to get Covid Out wiped out any sense.


Eat out to etc just looks insane now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ah ok. I got it from here which is two hours old.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sky News was reporting that at 7 am, long before news of the emergency cabinet meeting & press conference was announced. 

The Guardian is clearly quoting out of date reports.


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

it looked insane then too tbf


----------



## Badgers (Dec 19, 2020)

Wonder if all that money Shapps dished out to the coaches companies for Winterval travel?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Hopefully this 50% bit is hyperbole.


Could be higher, tbh...if the reports are true that it's mutated to be able to survive in Wetherspoons' dishwashers.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Two hours is old and mouldy these days.



news mutates fast in these conditions


----------



## weltweit (Dec 19, 2020)

This could scupper my Christmas Plan B, Plan C (home alone) is looking ever more likely!


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

When is this press conference then. Any advance on Saturday Afternoon?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> When is this press conference then. Any advance on Saturday Afternoon?


Meant to be now-ish


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> When is this press conference then. Any advance on Saturday Afternoon?


Sky is saying 4.05 pm.

Then Scotland up at 5.25 pm.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 19, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Eat out to etc just looks insane now.


Cost a fair bit too


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Meant to be now-ish


Ok so around 7.30 Johnson will shamble into frame.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

Figuring the 'make changes' to home delivery supermarket sites will be crashing bigly in a few mins...


----------



## Sue (Dec 19, 2020)

Can someone keep me updated? Every time I watch Johnson speak, I don't actually understand what he's just said so no point watching it.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ok so around 7.30 Johnson will shamble into frame.


That's when the Strictly final is on.  He'd get a big fat zero from me.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Figuring the 'make changes' to home delivery supermarket sites will be crashing bigly in a few mins...


Yellow label heaven for those brave enough to venture out?


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

He should not be fucking late to show up to make this announcement 5 days before Xmas to millions of people. What is he doing right now.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

Sue said:


> Can someone keep me updated? Every time I watch Johnson speak, I don't actually understand what he's just said so no point watching it.



We'll translate for you.

Sneak peek:

Alas, the invisible mugger got a pair of invisible knuckledusters as an early Christmas present. And roller skates. SAGE is advising the deployment of stingers as part of tier 4.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> He should not be fucking late to show up to make this announcement 5 days before Xmas to millions of people. What is he doing right now.


They're attempting to sober him up.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

Low down on the list of crimes I know but it really irritates me this bumbling cunt is always fucking late.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 19, 2020)

You can watch it at



			https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1DXxyRQlOXYKM
		


if you really want to, or there's a feed at the guardian live news page Coronavirus live news: Boris Johnson to give press briefing - follow live


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Low down on the list of crimes I know but it really irritates me this bumbling cunt is always fucking late.



deliberately late - Trump uses this trick all the time


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

Up to 70%


----------



## Badgers (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Up to 70%


Early days on that figure.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

We are off.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Early days on that figure.


Indeed, & early days on the 'reassurances' that the mutation is not more deadly or resistant to the jabs; didn't like the way that he gulped and repeated those points...


----------



## neonwilderness (Dec 19, 2020)

He can’t even cancel Christmas properly


----------



## Badgers (Dec 19, 2020)

No Christmas for tier 4 
Only Christmas day for the rest of the UK


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Screeching u-turn, Johnson to make a speech peppered throughout with his trademark 'alas!' from Downing Street tomorrow or Thursday


you win. Only he was a bit late, as usual.


----------



## Cid (Dec 19, 2020)

Think you meant ‘as day follows night’ Boris.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2020)

So, no overnight stays for anyone at xmas. No going anywhere at all for London and the SE. Everyone at home for NYE.

Good, we should have had this weeks ago.


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Basically, as you said.  Infectious relates to the disease’s acquirability (as opposed, for example, to it being congenital) whereas contagious means its ability to specifically be acquired from others.
> 
> However, I worry this topic might be two people who don’t work in infectious diseases both trying to draw out distinctions outside of our respective expertise!


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> you win. Only he was a bit late, as usual.


I didn't spot any 'alas', but yeah. As ever, I'm right.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 19, 2020)

He'll be alasing like nobody's business when he's not reading from a script - when the tame journalists question him at the end


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> No Christmas for tier 4
> Only Christmas day for the rest of the UK


Always winter but never Xmas

Like living in Narnia only without the evil witch handing out Turkish delight or any of the magic


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> No Christmas for tier 4
> Only Christmas day for the rest of the UK


The penguins are getting restless


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> I didn't spot any 'alas', but yeah. As ever, I'm right.


"with a heavy heart" counts as an alas.


----------



## andysays (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> How completely stupid do you have to be to design a tiered alert system that only goes up to 3 and then realise it needs a 4. After the abandoned 5 level system that needed lots of half numbers in it. Absolute clowns. Not even funny how idiots get into positions of such serious responsibility.


Nigel Tufnel for PM


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

Out of curiosity if you've booked train tickets but are now barred from travel will you get your money back?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

It took Robot Whitty to extend condolences to that woman who lost two family members


----------



## andysays (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Ah ok. I got it from here which is two hours old.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Two hours is a long time in pandemics...


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

New variant identified in September, then?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> It took Robot Whitty to extend condolences to that woman who lost two family members


No condolences from abdpj. Ever.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, no overnight stays for anyone at xmas. No going anywhere at all for London and the SE. Everyone at home for NYE.
> 
> Good, we should have had this weeks ago.


Do we all get on magic trains that run on Xmas day then?


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Out of curiosity if you've booked train tickets but are now barred from travel will you get your money back?



depends on the ticket - I had off-peak singles booked (on Avanti) and I've got refunds albeit they've taken £10 back as an "admin fee".


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

bitterly regret.. ALAS!


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

Espresso said:


> He'll be alasing like nobody's business when he's not reading from a script - when the tame journalists question him at the end


bingo


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Out of curiosity if you've booked train tickets but are now barred from travel will you get your money back?



Pretty sure yes because those trains should now be cancelled anyway.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

agricola said:


> depends on the ticket - I had off-peak singles booked (on Avanti) and I've got refunds albeit they've taken £10 back as an "admin fee".


Bastards


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Do we all get on magic trains that run on Xmas day then?


Essentially they're saying if you haven't got a car you're stuck at home, yes


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Do we all get on magic trains that run on Xmas day then?


Nah, you just lock your chauffeur's passport in the safe in your study.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> bitterly regret.. ALAS!


I bitterly regret he was allowed to survive to adulthood


----------



## pesh (Dec 19, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Essentially they're saying if you haven't got a car you're stuck at home, yes


no, they're saying if you're in tier 4 you can't leave


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Bastards



Normally yes, but if Branson was still in charge it would be £10 for me and £50-odd for him.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Nah, you just lock your chauffeur's passport in the safe in your study.


Sure that's already been done by many of the ruling class


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

pesh said:


> no, they're saying if you're in tier 4 you can't leave



its like Thunderdome, except even one man can't leave


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 19, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Good, we should have had this weeks ago.


Probably but making a last minute change - one that many will ignore - will do little to help the situation


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

agricola said:


> its like Thunderdome, except even one man can't leave


Logan's run


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Do we all get on magic trains that run on Xmas day then?


I think one of the logical conclusions - and one of the reasons - of christmas day only mixing is that if you can't get there and back on christmas day, you can't go.


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Logan's run



Fahrenheitier 4 (then 5) 1


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

Johnson's cowardice is probably the thing above all else that's cost so many people so much.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Do we all get on magic trains that run on Xmas day then?



Sorry, you're now in tier 4, you can't visit Cardiff.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 19, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Essentially they're saying if you haven't got a car you're stuck at home, yes


No need to worry. The taxpayer has bailed out (Ferry?) coach companies.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> I didn't spot any 'alas', but yeah. As ever, I'm right.



I dont remember you being right about there being zero chance of them reducing any areas tier level before Christmas 

Meanwhile Whittys attempt to justify why other regions, which do have some of this new strain in circulation, dont need the strongest new tier 4 to deal with this new strain at the moment, was a load of shit that is typical of the minimal, late, shit, approach seen in this pandemic so far. There are huge holes in his explanation and the logic involved invites this new strain to end up dominating in those regions in future.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 19, 2020)

I have a question. This new variant. Is it UK specific? And, if it is, why?


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Essentially they're saying if you haven't got a car you're stuck at home, yes





killer b said:


> I think one of the logical conclusions - and one of the reasons - of christmas day only mixing is that if you can't get there and back on christmas day, you can't go.


Unless you can afford a car. It's going to disproportionately affect the poor, many of whom will have already booked coaches, trains etc.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 19, 2020)

"From tomorrow morning" - that's a lot quicker implementation than I expected.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Unless you can afford a car. It's going to disproportionately affect the poor, many of whom will have already booked coaches, trains etc.


Well, as you're in London, even if you had a car you couldn't go to where I assume your plans were.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> "From tomorrow morning" - that's a lot quicker implementation than I expected.


They must be shitting it.

It should be shutdown for everyone. This new strain - which is already being used as the sole reason for the latest U-turn - is going to charge around the country


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

From diamondgeezer
Dec in London...


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Unless you can afford a car. It's going to disproportionately affect the poor, many of whom will have already booked coaches, trains etc.


yeah, it will. it's a shitshow.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I have a question. This new variant. Is it UK specific? And, if it is, why?


Yes that bit about 'we have informed the WHO'.
Its being reported in other countries' press a bit like it might be








						UK Confirms New Coronavirus Strain Spreads More Quickly, Informs WHO
					

England's chief medical officer Chris Whitty confirmed Saturday that a new coronavirus strain which surfaced in the country could spread faster and called for greater public vigilance to reduce transmission.




					www.ndtv.com
				











						The Coronavirus Is Mutating: What to Know About New Variants
					

Two new variants of the coronavirus have been found in the U.K. and South Africa. Both strains are thought to be more transmissible than previous ones.




					www.healthline.com
				




ah whitty answering that question now. He is saying 'it _may_ be in other countries as well..'.


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> "From tomorrow morning" - that's a lot quicker implementation than I expected.



If you are going to do this, you've got to do it quickly or everyone will just rush to travel before the restrictions come in.  I'd imagine motorway traffic out of London is going to spike this evening.


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> I dont remember you being right about there being zero chance of them reducing any areas tier level before Christmas


I'm right apart from when I'm wrong.


----------



## andysays (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Unless you can afford a car. It's going to disproportionately affect the poor, many of whom will have already booked coaches, trains etc.


You're absolutely right, and of course both coronavirus itself and the measures brought in to deal with it have disproportionately affected the poor, right from day one.

Given where we are now, I think it's right that people shouldn't travel significant distances to visit people over Xmas, by whatever means, but the reason we've arrived at this situation now is because of the government's consistent tendency to do too little, too late, and then have to do more, at the last minute, when the situation gets even worse.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 19, 2020)

And in case no-one has looked at the significance of the UK cases increase today ...

Those 27,052 extras take the total to 2,024,219 cases confirmed by testing (so not actually the "real" total at all).

we're fucked, again.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yes that bit about 'we have informed the WHO'.
> Its being reported in other countries' press a bit like it might be
> 
> 
> ...



Cheers bimble . I'm not watching. I just can't watch Johnson and co these days so I rely on people here. Who are a lot quicker updating me than BBC or the Guardian I might add.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 19, 2020)

Witty offered this as evidence that the increase in the south east is down to this new variant: A comparison with Yorkshire and the Humber, where cases of the new variant are low and tier 3 has been having an effect, and the SE, where cases of the new variant are higher and tier 3 hasn't worked. From which he concludes that the new strain is so infectious that tier 3 doesn't work.

Isn't this a completely dishonest analysis, since it ignores that the SE has only been in tier 3 for the blink of an eye? And doesn't his resorting to this suggest that there isn't any real evidence for him to point to?

Just wondering.


----------



## Sue (Dec 19, 2020)

andysays said:


> You're absolutely right, and of course both coronavirus itself and the measures brought in to deal with it have disproportionately affected the poor, right from day one.
> 
> Given where we are now, I think it's right that *people shouldn't travel significant distances to visit people* over Xmas, by whatever means, but the reason we've arrived at this situation now is because of the government's consistent tendency to do too little, too late, and then have to do more, at the last minute, when the situation gets even worse.


It's not even significant distances though, it's also within London as you can't stay overnight and there's no public transport on Christmas day.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

Fully understand why anyone would choose not to watch. He adds nothing but military metaphors and he absolutely hates telling people stuff they wont want to hear so is a terrible communicator for this stuff.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 19, 2020)

Cancelling Winterval 6 days before Winterval because Disgraced Prime Minister Johnson couldn’t face the pain of cancelling Winterval 10 days before Winterval.


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Witty offered this as evidence that the increase in the south east is down to this new variant: A comparison with Yorkshire and the Humber, where cases of the new variant are low and tier 3 has been having an effect, and the SE, where cases of the new variant are higher and tier 3 hasn't worked. From which he concludes that the new strain is so infectious that tier 3 doesn't work.
> 
> Isn't this a completely dishonest analysis, since it ignores that the SE has only been in tier 3 for the blink of an eye? And doesn't his resorting to this suggest that there isn't any real evidence for him to point to?
> 
> Just wondering.



Apart from theatres, restaurants and pubs being closed (or takeaway only for the last two) its really hard to discern what they expect Tier 3 in London to actually do.  Even the bookies are open, which I'd have thought are pretty much the definition of non-essential business.


----------



## T & P (Dec 19, 2020)




----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

all those london last-minute guys who were going to spend wednesday or thursday rushing round the shops will be feeling doom right now won't they?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

T & P said:


>


If only


----------



## mack (Dec 19, 2020)

agricola said:


> If you are going to do this, you've got to do it quickly or everyone will just rush to travel before the restrictions come in.  I'd imagine motorway traffic out of London is going to spike this evening.



My dim flatmate has just jumped in their car to go to bluewater shopping


----------



## mauvais (Dec 19, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I have a question. This new variant. Is it UK specific? And, if it is, why?


It's South East specific and is biologically only able to flourish in an environment where everyone has been doing their best to stay safe and _keep the economy moving_ but has now tragically been thwarted in those efforts by the deus ex machina appearance of A New Strain. Science, lad.

This is why we didn't have a fancy pants mutation in the North West, we got our big old ’rona increase predictably and frankly deservedly from our backwards halfwit practice of sharing a Covid-infested bathtub of gravy with the entire street like in Billeh fookin Elliot.


----------



## T & P (Dec 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> all those london last-minute guys who were going to spend wednesday or thursday rushing round the shops will be feeling doom right now won't they?


Not that it saves me anything other than going to the store now (as opposed to whenever everything reopens), but I’ve already told the missus her main Xmas present will be late this year. Not a biggie anyway. If it’d been a gift for a child it’d have been a completely different story though.


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

mack said:


> My dim flatmate has just jumped in their car to go to bluewater shopping



if its any comfort, the Brexit lorry queues in Kent should mean that they serve their quarantine period in the traffic before they get back


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Witty offered this as evidence that the increase in the south east is down to this new variant: A comparison with Yorkshire and the Humber, where cases of the new variant are low and tier 3 has been having an effect, and the SE, where cases of the new variant are higher and tier 3 hasn't worked. From which he concludes that the new strain is so infectious that tier 3 doesn't work.
> 
> *Isn't this a completely dishonest analysis, since it ignores that the SE has only been in tier 3 for the blink of an eye? And doesn't his resorting to this suggest that there isn't any real evidence for him to point to?*
> 
> Just wondering.



No, because before coming out of lockdown and since, most tier 3 areas have seen declining case numbers, except Kent where it's rapidly taken off, and spread out across much of the SE.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

Churches still open for business...time to say a little prayer for the elderly that tend to gather in them?


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

People will be getting some _really_ terrible last minute internet-bought scented candles & bath crap, the stuff that smells so bad even last minute man wouldn't buy it in an actual shop.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

This is going to hit some people's mental health really really bad. Especially old people, some of whom are now condemned to spend Christmas day alone. This decision should have been made weeks ago.


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> People will be getting some _really_ terrible last minute internet-bought scented candles & bath crap, the stuff that smells so bad even last minute man wouldn't buy it in an actual shop.


I would imagine a lot of stuff ordered this weekend will struggle to get delivered on time tbh. deliveries are heavily delayed right now. 

Lots of girlfriends in london are getting a box of Ferero Rocher and some wilting chrysanthemums...


----------



## chilango (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> This is going to hit some people's mental health really really bad. Especially old people, some of whom are now condemned to spend Christmas day alone. This decision should have been made weeks ago.



Yeah. My Mum is in pieces it's the only thing that's been keeping her going for months.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

There's some properly dangerous idiots sat behind Johnson...


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Do we all get on magic trains that run on Xmas day then?


That is a very good question.


----------



## neonwilderness (Dec 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Cancelling Winterval 6 days before Winterval because Disgraced Prime Minister Johnson couldn’t face the pain of cancelling Winterval 10 days before Winterval.


This performance from the last PMQs hasn't aged well


----------



## Sue (Dec 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> Lots of girlfriends in london are getting a box of Ferero Rocher and some wilting chrysanthemums...


Have you met my brother (in non-Covid times)?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> This is going to hit some people's mental health really really bad. Especially old people, some of whom are now condemned to spend Christmas day alone. This decision should have been made weeks ago.



The planned country wide lockdown in Wales, due to come into affect from 28 December, has been brought forward and will begin at midnight tonight. 

And, 2-households mixing now also reduced to Christmas Day only too. 









						Covid: Wales locks down as Christmas plans cut
					

All of Wales is under strict lockdown rules from Sunday, with only one day of mixing at Christmas.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## chilango (Dec 19, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yeah. My Mum is in pieces it's the only thing that's been keeping her going for months.



...but I'd rather she was in pieces than dead to be quite blunt.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> There's some properly dangerous idiots sat behind Johnson...
> 
> View attachment 244266


those twats should be done for encouraging something akin to murder.
all these delays will cause excess deaths ...
the vulnerable & elderly can't afford to wait while parliament picks it's collective nose has a debate & vote.

as I have said several times already.
jobs and the economy can be kickstarted with more money but lives lost are lost forever.
(I don't suppose these antilockdown/antimaskers actually have elderly realtives ?)


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

I’m really sorry, for all of the chilango’s mums.  It’s just so sad. Angry is easier but there’ll be so much real sadness out there right now.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> those twats should be done for encouraging something akin to murder.
> all these delays will cause excess deaths ...
> the vulnerable & elderly can't afford to wait while parliament picks it's collective nose has a debate & vote.
> 
> ...


The psychopathic, death-cult loons are all coming out of the woodwork...


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

Quick Q. My ex girlfriend is booked on a 5pm flight to Italy tomorrow. Will she be able to leave?


----------



## chilango (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> I’m really sorry, for all of the chilango’s mums.  It’s just so sad. Angry is easier but there’ll be so much real sadness out there right now.



Yeah. There's millions who could've been given time to manage, plan and prepare for an alternative this year but instead have had an impossible carrot dangled in their faces only for it to be cruelly snatched away at the last minute for no other reason than the Prime Minister is a fucking coward.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Quick Q. My ex girlfriend is booked on a 5pm flight to Italy tomorrow. Will she be able to leave?


They clearly said no international travel from tier 4 areas, but didn't say if this is law or guidance.

Italy would be crazy to let her in, of coure.


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Quick Q. My ex girlfriend is booked on a 5pm flight to Italy tomorrow. Will she be able to leave?


Who knows? Johson's press conference suggested not unless she's travelling for work, although there's other exceptions yet to be published,


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

At this point I'm thinking Europe is just going to put a fence around the UK and leave us to it.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

Its an important note and looking on Twitter I can see there are an awful lot of people wanting to know.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The psychopathic, death-cult loons are all coming out of the woodwork...
> 
> View attachment 244268


More grade A cuntery..


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> More grade A cuntery..
> 
> View attachment 244270


I hope he catches something nasty


----------



## agricola (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> More grade A cuntery..
> 
> View attachment 244270



When was the last time Buckingham was devastated?  During the Anarchy of the 1100s?


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

A couple of days ago I was sure people would largely ignore any last minute change of rules about Christmas but that feels wrong now, maybe because the change so drastic, not like it’s from 3 households to 2 it’s just stay at home.


----------



## T & P (Dec 19, 2020)

Two of the main right wing newspapers already using the headline ‘Christmas is cancelled’ to summarise the current situation. FFS...


----------



## Looby (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> There's some properly dangerous idiots sat behind Johnson...
> 
> View attachment 244266


My MP.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 19, 2020)

Tiers Of A Clown


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

Looby said:


> My MP.


Warwick Hunt


----------



## Doodler (Dec 19, 2020)

Two young women have been going up and down the aisle of my train telling people they've been indoctrinated to wear masks, but they don't need to because 99.7 per cent something or other. Masked passengers are trying to pretend they're not there. Some younger unmasked travellers have been chatting enthusiastically with the women. There has been some talk of common law. They've just got off at Stevenage thank fuck.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

I've only just twigged why Waverley keeps getting the Tier 2 golden ticket unlike the rest of Surrey...it's their way of shutting up Hunt.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 19, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Two young women have been going up and down the aisle of my train telling people they've been indoctrinated to wear masks, but they don't need to because 99.7 per cent something or other. Masked passengers are trying to pretend they're not there. Some younger unmasked travellers have been chatting enthusiastically with the women. There has been some talk of common law. They've just got off at Stevenage thank fuck.


Did you not have the energy to throw them out he train?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 19, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Two young women have been going up and down the aisle of my train telling people they've been indoctrinated to wear masks, but they don't need to because 99.7 per cent something or other. Masked passengers are trying to pretend they're not there. Some younger unmasked travellers have been chatting enthusiastically with the women. There has been some talk of common law. They've just got off at Stevenage thank fuck.


Facebook


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I've only just twigged why Waverley keeps getting the Tier 2 golden ticket unlike the rest of Surrey...it's their way of shutting up Hunt.



TBF,  Waverley has the lowest case numbers in Surrey, it borders tier 2 West Sussex, and has lower numbers than 2 council areas in WS.


----------



## Doodler (Dec 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Did you not have the energy to throw them out he train?



They were both pissed, it would have turned into a brawl and I don't want people like that breathing all over me!


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2020)

Shitting hell. I went for a walk and drink outside with a few people, then just home to see this.


----------



## 8ball (Dec 19, 2020)

So, am in Wales and they have said "essential retail only", and I have barely started Christmas shopping.
Everyone is getting a fucking lettuce this year.


----------



## Doodler (Dec 19, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Facebook



Not sure what you mean.


----------



## Weller (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> A couple of days ago I was sure people would largely ignore any last minute change of rules about Christmas but that feels wrong now, maybe because the change so drastic, not like it’s from 3 households to 2 it’s just stay at home.


If my local facebook group is anything to go by its scared people rather than them  angry about cancelling things now or carrying on regardless  they are all shouting New Virus 70 percent more deadly etc and saying they will throw  turkeys out etc and cancel but its very strange Boris love group mostly 
I only log in for local bargains and already asked a neighbor if I can have their spare huge chocolate fudge cake cheap but I havent really a good reputation to keep there anyway and wouldn't want to bubble with the majority


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

Massive turkeys will be 50p now won’t they.


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Massive turkeys will be 50p now won’t they.


The reduced to clear section is going to be glorious on Thursday.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Massive turkeys will be 50p now won’t they.


Boris Johnson is a massive turkey and I wouldn't give 5p let alone 50p for him


----------



## 8ball (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Massive turkeys will be 50p now won’t they.



Fuck lettuce, then.  Everyone is getting turkey.  In the post.  Around Jan 10th.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

T & P said:


> Two of the main right wing newspapers already using the headline ‘Christmas is cancelled’ to summarise the current situation. FFS...



Let me know if there are any signs of it being branded the grinch strain, or of headlines such as 'A new strain on the nations patients/patience'.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 19, 2020)

My brother has been living with friends rather than at my parents', where he actually lives, to try and keep them safe while he works in a primary school.

In theory, precisely because he's done that he now won't be able to see them over Christmas. I say "in theory", because it sounds like he's just going to go home anyway.

As I live alone, again in theory I can still visit them. Feel very, very uncomfortable about it all, though.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> The reduced to clear section is going to be glorious on Thursday.


There'll be fuck all cos some people have food for a party and other people have bare cupboards because they thought they were going to a party


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

The shops might be on the phone right now trying to sort things out so that they can sell us frozen turkey pies and turkey tika massalas all year.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

So, that's Scotland now joining Wales & most of England (except tier 4 areas - no mixing) in limiting household mixing to just Christmas Day.

The news from the experts. in the last 24 hours, about how fast this new strain is spreading has clearly come as a major shock to them all.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBF,  Waverley has the lowest case numbers in Surrey, it borders tier 2 West Sussex, and has lower numbers than 2 council areas in WS.


But that logic only ever seems to apply in the Home Counties.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

agricola said:


> When was the last time Buckingham was devastated?  During the Anarchy of the 1100s?


It's been too long. Perhaps some latter day john felton can do unto him what the famous puritan did unto George Villiers, erstwhile duke of Buckingham in 1628


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> The shops might be on the phone right now trying to sort things out so that they can sell us frozen turkey pies and turkey tika massalas all year.


Hope not, I was planning on filling my freezer for the January lockdown


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

Daily mail has two separate articles already about how Britons Vow to Ignore what the pm just said.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

Raheem said:


> But that logic only ever seems to apply in the Home Counties.



When did South Gloucestershire become part of the home counties?


----------



## Sprocket. (Dec 19, 2020)

Fortunately we have a couple of chickens in the freezer and some trapped spuds on the shelf.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> When did South Gloucestershire become part of the home counties?


What part of South Gloucestershire is getting special treatment?


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, that's Scotland now joining Wales & most of England (except tier 4 areas - no mixing) in limiting household mixing to just Christmas Day.
> 
> The news from the experts. in the last 24 hours, about how fast this new strain is spreading has clearly come as a major shock to them all.



The speed it's all moved is a worrying indicator that this variant is something they've very concerned about.


----------



## Pingety Pong (Dec 19, 2020)

I just read the German coverage of this, and they said that the new strain is very similar to the Danish mink outbreak  Weren't they really worried about the Danish strain a few weeks ago because it was so dangerous?


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Cancelling Winterval 6 days before Winterval because Disgraced Prime Minister Johnson couldn’t face the pain of cancelling Winterval 10 days before Winterval.


It's a bit brexit like.


----------



## Sue (Dec 19, 2020)

Right, I'm going into hibernation. Someone wake me up when Covid is over and Brexit is done.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 19, 2020)

Sue said:


> Right, I'm going into hibernation. Someone wake me up when Covid is over and Brexit is done.


You'll be sorry when you find out what the next thing is.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The news from the experts. in the last 24 hours, about how fast this new strain is spreading has clearly come as a major shock to them all.



I wouldnt put it quite like that. Data started to suck and cause alarm even before national measures ended. Data that followed in December caused a ramping up of alarm, and by Monday they were already starting to set the scene for what happened today.

It will probably be some time before I feel we have a good understanding of the new strain, so I'll probably have to keep an open mind about various details for quite some time. That wont stop me commenting on how this aspect has been used in regards the politics and public health messages and news management, because those aspects can be done quite cynically without casting any judgement on whether the underlying science regarding the new strain is valid or not.

Or to put it another way, its data such as number of positive cases, hospitalisations that really causes alarm and forces them to act. Part of the detail of this data was alarming trajectories seen in some areas, including before national measures ended. The stuff about a new strain offers an explanation for some or all of that data. But if we were not a nation that does genomic analysis much, and had not spotted this new strain at all at this stage, they would have had to speculate about other reasons and would still have been forced into tougher measures and Christmas u-turns.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

Pingety Pong said:


> I just read the German coverage of this, and they said that the new strain is very similar to the Danish mink outbreak  Weren't they really worried about the Danish strain a few weeks ago because it was so dangerous?


Have you got a link?


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

The mink strain concerns tend to involve stuff such as whether the virus is sufficiently different that it could more easily evade people immune responses, regardless of whether those responses are down to previous infection or vaccination.

When it comes to such concerns and this new UK strain, these are areas that will be high on the research list. In the meantime officialdom will tend to give us template answers where we need to pay attention to the language used - when they say there is currently no evidence for something, that is not the same as saying its untrue or that there is evidence that its untrue. Studies will be done and new evidence will come in, and judgements can then firm up over time.


----------



## MrSki (Dec 19, 2020)

Mt older sister has tested positive today. Fingers crossed for her. Could not handle losing both my brother & sister in less than a year.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 19, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Mt older sister has tested positive today. Fingers crossed for her. Could not handle losing both my brother & sister in less than a year.


oh no, I hope she is better soon


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

So I think my ex can get away tomorrow as Tier 4 comes into force on Monday 



> In London and parts of the south-east and east of England, which will enter tier four at 00:01 GMT on Sunday, a "stay at home" order will be imposed.
> Residents will only be allowed to celebrate Christmas with members of their own household and their support bubbles.
> The planned Christmas bubbles of up to three households coming together will now only be allowed on Christmas Day, instead of across a five-day period, in areas in England's tiers one, two and three.
> People in these tiers have also been encouraged to stay local and will not be allowed to host people who live in a tier four area.











						Christmas rules 2020: What are the new rules on mixing?
					

Plans for Christmas bubbles in the UK have been scaled back - so who can you see over the festive period?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

It’s sobering to read other countries’ coverage of the shit we are in.
This for instance,








						London Begins Emergency Lockdown as U.K. Fights New Virus Strain
					






					www.bloomberg.com
				



I don’t know what “virtually unique to the uk’ might mean, of the new strain of virus.
Worst recession since the Great Frost of 1709 tho.


----------



## magneze (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> So I think my ex can get away tomorrow as Tier 4 comes into force on Monday
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Tier 4 starts tomorrow. Sorry 😞


----------



## hash tag (Dec 19, 2020)

I have just heard of someone that has just had to cancel her wedding.

For the third time this year.


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> So I think my ex can get away tomorrow as Tier 4 comes into force on Monday
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sunday first thing that is, one minute past midnight Sunday morning.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> So I think my ex can get away tomorrow as Tier 4 comes into force on Monday
> 
> 
> 
> ...


0.01 GMT on Sunday is one minute after midnight tonight.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

Raheem said:


> What part of South Gloucestershire is getting special treatment?



There's no 'parts' of SG, it's one council area. The special treatment, is it's the only council area in tier 3 in the region, the rest of Gloucestershire remains in tier 2, and both Bristol & North Somerset has dropped to tier 2.

It's part of the transition from county council area restrictions, to being more local unitary/borough/district council area restrictions if it seems more logical to them.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> I don’t know what “virtually unique to the uk’ might mean, of the new strain of virus.



Its not quite the language I would use. Partly because there is a very variable amount of genomic analysis conducted on samples in different countries. the UK does rather a lot, so has a stronger eye on such matters. But even we only test a small fraction of positive cases, so our picture is far from complete.

It is possible we are the only country with a large percentage of cases of this particular strain. But its also possible that this strain was imported from somewhere else, such as a country that didnt have the capabilities to detect it specifically.

I still expect the relevance and importance of this new strain in the grand scheme of things may not become clear to me for some time. Or we may find out much quicker than that. My expectations on this are fairly neutral at the moment. The implications could be huge, or not.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

magneze said:


> Tier 4 starts tomorrow. Sorry 😞


Oh fuck. I'd always thought it the other way around.

Hang on - the BBC changed its text hence my confusion!


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Massive turkeys will be 50p now won’t they.



I'm very happy I got my shopping done by post at the start of the month, chocolate for everyone, job done, good luck  

In many ways this us actually the least stressful Christmas ever but I can't go out to enjoy my time off which is depressing.


----------



## not a trot (Dec 19, 2020)

Raheem said:


> But that logic only ever seems to apply in the Home Counties.



Still in tier 2, but a half hour walk with the dog I can enter 2 counties, surrey and berkshire, both in tier 3.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

I also note that when presenting slides of how the percentages of this strain in their samples increased over time in the south, they didnt put any numbers on the levels being seen in the other regions, preferring instead to say vague things about it being present in those other regions too, but at much lower levels of incidence. Maybe they will wait till it reaches high levels in those other places before giving us the figures


----------



## maomao (Dec 19, 2020)

Is there a clear list of the rules anywhere? I'm finding the various newspaper's rules unhelpful. Are non essential shops closed?


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

I haven't see my brother since his wide died and my trip up now is obviously cancelled. I'm going to struggle this Christmas.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Dec 19, 2020)

Could a new variant render just-released vaccines ineffective? Could it be that catastrophic in a worse case scenario?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I have just heard of someone that has just had to cancel her wedding.
> 
> For the third time this year.


Perhaps there's something she shouldn't do


----------



## Pingety Pong (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Have you got a link?



It's at the end of this article:








						Britischer Premier Johnson über neue Corona-Variante: Mutiertes Virus 70 Prozent ansteckender
					

Eine in England entdeckte Covid-Variante beschleunigt die Verbreitung massiv, die Regierung verschärft den Lockdown. Die Mutation könnte laut Experten auch für den Anstieg in Deutschland verantwortlich sein.




					www.spiegel.de
				




"The mutation appears to be very similar to the virus mutations that occurred on mink farms in Denmark and the Netherlands in the past few weeks."


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> So I think my ex can get away tomorrow as Tier 4 comes into force on Monday



My reading of  "00:01 GMT on Sunday " means just after midnight on Saturday night / Sunday morning, or to put it another way, tonight...

There was some confusion with earlier stages with government saying "midnight on X day" so nobody was quite sure which night they meant


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Is there a clear list of the rules anywhere? I'm finding the various newspaper's rules unhelpful. Are non essential shops closed?


It says



> Boris Johnson has cancelled Christmas for millions of people across London and south-east England after scientists said that a new coronavirus variant is spreading more rapidly.
> 
> The Prime Minister announced that from Sunday areas in the South East currently in Tier 3 will be moved into a new Tier 4 - effectively returning to the lockdown rules of November.
> 
> ...











						Boris Johnson speaks of 'heavy heart' as Christmas is sacrificed to protect the vulnerable
					

Boris Johnson spoke of his “heavy heart" as he condemned 16 million people to Christmas without seeing their relatives.




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

BlanketAddict said:


> Could a new variant render just-released vaccines ineffective? Could it be that catastrophic in a worse case scenario?



Yes, that sort of thing is one of the reasons they want to monitor changes to the virus over time. Takes a while to find out. Its by no means inevitable, and there are different degrees of this stuff, eg might make vaccine and existing immunity acquired through infection less effective, but not 0% effective.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> *I wouldnt put it quite like that. Data started to suck and cause alarm even before national measures ended. Data that followed in December caused a ramping up of alarm, and by Monday they were already starting to set the scene for what happened today.*
> 
> It will probably be some time before I feel we have a good understanding of the new strain, so I'll probably have to keep an open mind about various details for quite some time. That wont stop me commenting on how this aspect has been used in regards the politics and public health messages and news management, because those aspects can be done quite cynically without casting any judgement on whether the underlying science regarding the new strain is valid or not.
> 
> Or to put it another way, its data such as number of positive cases, hospitalisations that really causes alarm and forces them to act. Part of the detail of this data was alarming trajectories seen in some areas, including before national measures ended. The stuff about a new strain offers an explanation for some or all of that data. But if we were not a nation that does genomic analysis much, and had not spotted this new strain at all at this stage, they would have had to speculate about other reasons and would still have been forced into tougher measures and Christmas u-turns.



BIB - Yes, the data was showing spread growing fast in some areas, but they have only just come to the conclusion it's probably because of this new strain, which has caused the panic. 

Sturgeon was saying, they have had few recent outbreaks in care homes, but those that have occurred have spread faster & they didn't know why, but based on this new information they will now look into whether it's down to this new strain.


----------



## magneze (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Oh fuck. I'd always thought it the other way around.
> 
> Hang on - the BBC changed its text hence my confusion!
> 
> View attachment 244274


Bizarrely, I read that people should "think carefully" about international travel. So it may be OK through that loophole. Worth checking.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> My reading of  "00:01 GMT on Sunday " means just after midnight on Saturday night / Sunday morning, or to put it another way, tonight...
> 
> There was some confusion with earlier stages with government saying "midnight on X day" so nobody was quite sure which night they meant


That's where my confusion came from. I obviously know what 0.01 is


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Is there a clear list of the rules anywhere? I'm finding the various newspaper's rules unhelpful. Are non essential shops closed?


This seems to work , enter your postcode .








						Covid rules: What are the restrictions in your area?
					

Use our search tool to find out about coronavirus rules and restrictions where you live.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2020)

maomao said:


> Is there a clear list of the rules anywhere? I'm finding the various newspaper's rules unhelpful. Are non essential shops closed?



In Tier 4 in England, yes from midnight tonight. It's bascially much nearer the March lockdown with a stay at home instruction.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

magneze said:


> Bizarrely, I read that people should "think carefully" about international travel. So it may be OK through that loophole. Worth checking.


Although the Guardian says absolutely no:


> Tier 4 residents must not stay overnight away from home, and cannot travel abroad.











						Covid tier 4: what are the new restrictions for London and south-east England?
					

Areas will move to tier 4, where a new ‘stay at home’ message will be introduced




					www.theguardian.com
				




and the BBC:

"You are not allowed to travel abroad, unless for exceptional reasons."

So it's a no but yes.


----------



## magneze (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Although the Guardian says absolutely no:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


In the same article: "People in all tiers are advised to stay local, and “think carefully” about whether they need to travel abroad." 🤷‍♂️


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

Johnson said "exceptional reasons, such as work"


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Johnson said "exceptional reasons, such as work"



To be fair, for him doing a day's work is an exceptional situation.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Although the Guardian says absolutely no:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Clear unambiguous leadership


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

not a trot said:


> Still in tier 2, but a half hour walk with the dog I can enter 2 counties, surrey and berkshire, both in tier 3.



Surrey and Berkshire are both tier 4 from midnight tonight.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

Making sense for once:


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

This
Is really stark. What is my tier 4 area, is it my county? The supermarket is across the border in another tier 4 so that’s fine or is it ‘travel’.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 19, 2020)

chilango said:


> Yeah. There's millions who could've been given time to manage, plan and prepare for an alternative this year but instead have had an impossible carrot dangled in their faces only for it to be cruelly snatched away at the last minute for no other reason than the Prime Minister is a fucking coward.


I think this is going to go down really badly. If they'd prepared for something like this people would be annoyed but understand but having pushed the Christmas is going ahead line people really going to be upset.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Making sense for once:



I don't think sir keir starmer is the man to offer clear decisive leadership


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> I think this is going to go down really badly. If they'd prepared for something like this people would be annoyed but understand but having pushed the Christmas is going ahead line people really going to be upset.



What do you do though if the briefing they got yesterday (apparently) gave them new news about the variant and projections? I do understand people being upset, but it's just fucking Xmas ffs and this is a global pandemic that's killed tens of thousands in this country alone, and it's far from over.


----------



## maomao (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> This seems to work , enter your postcode .
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It'll be the local authority area that comes up when you enter your postcode. Though if the nearest supermarket is in another area and also tier 4 then it makes sense to use that.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> I don't think sir keir starmer is the man to offer clear decisive leadership


He's not but, like I said, I agreed with his one comment.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> I think this is going to go down really badly. If they'd prepared for something like this people would be annoyed but understand but having pushed the Christmas is going ahead line people really going to be upset.


And many, many people won't be prepared, they'll have a load of shopping to do, I know I do now


----------



## Threshers_Flail (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Making sense for once:




nah


----------



## chilango (Dec 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> I don't think sir keir starmer is the man to offer clear decisive leadership



Didn't he whip Labour to abstain on the vote?


----------



## nagapie (Dec 19, 2020)

Trying to get tests for someone who works in my home and their child, the testing system has broken again, offered tests 6 miles away when we have local walk ins.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> What is my tier 4 area, is it my county? The supermarket is across the border in another tier 4 so that’s fine is it?



or are you allowed to travel within the whole tier 4 region?

i'm not entirely sure.



and johnson accusing starmer of "wanting to cancel xmas" 3 days ago hasn't really aged well...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Making sense for once:




True, but he seems to want to ignore what Labour is doing in Wales, same shit, different parties in charge. 



Pickman's model said:


> I don't think sir keir starmer is the man to offer clear decisive leadership



Indeed.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

Threshers_Flail said:


> nah


Which bits do you disagree with in that statement?

(I think he's utterly useless in everything else, btw)


----------



## BlanketAddict (Dec 19, 2020)

Going to work for most people is still deemed acceptable. 
Will never understand this, I get the economic effect, but if restrictions are so tight that I can't go near other households/people recreationally then how could it be ok to mix with literally hundreds of households when I walk into work. Just because they're 'Covid Secure'?! All that entails is a temperature check on arrival and keeping your distance. 
It just doesn't ring true.


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> or are you allowed to travel within the whole tier 4 region?
> 
> i'm not entirely sure.
> 
> ...



No. Stay at home is the general instruction. I thought that was pretty clear.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. Stay at home is the general instruction. I thought that was pretty clear.


I wasn’t looking to go on a pleasure tour of the whole of the south east, but do have my supermarket click & collect to pick up tomorrow afternoon , from a separate but equally graded tier area. Would be nice to know if I’m breaking the rules or not.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Making sense for once:




Is he mad at Johnson for cancelling christmas, or for not cancelling it sooner? A strange detail for Mister Forensic to omit...


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> I wasn’t looking to go on a pleasure tour of the whole of the south east, but do have my supermarket click & collect to pick up tomorrow afternoon , from a separate but equally graded tier area. Would be nice to know if I’m breaking the rules or not.



Sorry, didn't mean to sound harsh, and wasn't replying to you. Going out for food is fine in any place isn't it?


----------



## xenon (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> I wasn’t looking to go on a pleasure tour of the whole of the south east, but do have my supermarket click & collect to pick up tomorrow afternoon , from a separate but equally graded tier area. Would be nice to know if I’m breaking the rules or not.



given that food shops aren’t closing, of course you can.


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> I wasn’t looking to go on a pleasure tour of the whole of the south east, but do have my supermarket click & collect to pick up tomorrow afternoon , from a separate but equally graded tier area. Would be nice to know if I’m breaking the rules or not.


I think if you interpret the rules very strictly, you might be breaching them. But no-one will be interpreting them that strictly.


----------



## xenon (Dec 19, 2020)

I feel really bad, concerned for those people who would have had family going to visit them over Christmas. in particular that is, Ppeople who  rely on carers rest of the time but have had that service cancelled because of those expected family visits.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 19, 2020)

killer b said:


> I would imagine a lot of stuff ordered this weekend will struggle to get delivered on time tbh. deliveries are heavily delayed right now.
> 
> Lots of girlfriends in london are getting a box of Ferero Rocher and some wilting chrysanthemums...


can't beat xmas shopping at the all night petrol station


----------



## xenon (Dec 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> can't beat xmas shopping at the all night petrol station



bottle of  Blue Nun and 20 B and H, lovingly wrapped in baking foil.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 19, 2020)

xenon said:


> bottle of  Blue Nun and 20 B and H, lovingly wrapped in baking foil.


Don't forget the card though


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> can't beat xmas shopping at the all night petrol station


My local petrol station has loads of cool gift items near the till. They have a head torch embedded in a beanie hat, an electric dog blanket. People round here will be fine.


----------



## smmudge (Dec 19, 2020)

The worst thing is seeing those graphs where the cases went so low in June/July... why oh why didn't we go for eradication in that time, yes it would have been painful for a short time but better for a whole lot more time afterwards. What were they thinking would happen after summer.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2020)

Tier 4 details now on the government's website...









						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> People will be getting some _really_ terrible last minute internet-bought scented candles & bath crap, the stuff that smells so bad even last minute man wouldn't buy it in an actual shop.


Not much point in getting anyone _scented _candles at this stage, I wouldn't have thought 😒


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

Reports of trains out of London sold out. Brilliant. So the new strain gets distributed all around the country


----------



## Sprocket. (Dec 19, 2020)

xenon said:


> bottle of  Blue Nun and 20 B and H, lovingly wrapped in baking foil.


I recall Christmases in the mid-eighties getting presents like this.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> Not much point in getting anyone _scented _candles at this stage, I wouldn't have thought 😒


This has been a very bad year for scented candle reviews.





__





						Spike in negative candle reviews may be tied to COVID-19
					

The average customer ratings for scented candles on Amazon fell in 2020, a trend that may correlate to Americans losing their loss of smell due to COVID-19, reports The Washington Post.




					www.beckershospitalreview.com


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Tier 4 details now on the government's website...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That explicitly says you can go to get your click & collect, bimble.


> *Essential activities*
> You can leave home to buy things at shops which are permitted to open in your area, but you should stay local. For instance you can leave home to buy food or medicine, or to collect any items - including food or drink - ordered through click-and-collect or as a takeaway, to obtain or deposit money (e.g. from a bank or post office), or to access critical public services (see section below).


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Reports of trains out of London sold out. Brilliant. So the new strain gets distributed all around the country


Fantastic..


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 19, 2020)

Christmas tree retailers will still be open in Tier 4, and outdoor horse riding centres


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Christmas tree retailers will still be open in Tier 4, and outdoor horse riding centres


A combined outlet might be a Christmas treat. Throw in some elves and a bit of tinsel.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Tier 4 details now on the government's website...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They seem to have forgotten to include this section:

Government.

If you work in government, dont forget to delay the announcements of tier 4 and Christmas u-turns until parliament is going into recess. A new strain of backbenchers may be operating in your area and represent a threat to public health.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

I think I will watch a replay of the Scottish press conference so I can compare the contrasting styles and messages.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Tier 4 details now on the government's website...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Tl;dr? If you're in a tier 4 area there is nothing you can do


----------



## prunus (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Daily mail has two separate articles already about how Britons Vow to Ignore what the pm just said.



Taking back control.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

oh yeah. Maybe there is a reason for this timing.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

prunus said:


> Taking back control.


Well there is still a few hours to make a deal. I am sure boris is feeling fresh and is on it.


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

Wakes will apparently continue to be allowed with 6 people in attendance. But I'm sure I read that today, in Tier 3, wakes aren't allowed (though funerals are).

(Thankfully this doesn't affect me at the moment. But ffs.)


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 19, 2020)

I'm furious about this. I'd actually prepared myself for not being able to have Christmas with my family - who I haven't seen for a year - when they said "It's OK, you can see your loved ones from 23rd - 27th". So I booked myself a train ticket to Birmingham and bought presents for everyone, and what do the bastards do? This feels like betrayal. It's not even the last minute cancellation, it's allowing us to make plans only to scupper them at the 11th hour. They've got to stop pissing us about, make a decision and fucking STICK TO IT!


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Tl;dr? If you're in a tier 4 area there is nothing you can do


Loads of opportunities to try something different :


outdoor gym, pools, sports courts and facilities
golf courses
archery/driving/shooting ranges (outdoors)
animal rescue centres, boarding facilities, and animal groomers (may continue to be used for animal welfare, rather than aesthetic purposes)
agricultural supplies shops
for training and rehearsal without an audience (in theatres and concert halls)
for the purposes of professional film and TV filming
blood donation sessions and food banks


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

smmudge said:


> The worst thing is seeing those graphs where the cases went so low in June/July... why oh why didn't we go for eradication in that time, yes it would have been painful for a short time but better for a whole lot more time afterwards. What were they thinking would happen after summer.



There are many reasons why UK Establishment PLC never took seriously a proper suppression strategy. Very much including attitudes towards travel bans, border controls and business closures that affect rich people. Marinaded in a sauce of dogma and a weakness for dinner parties and fancy restaurants.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 19, 2020)

If the new variant has an R of 0.4 higher than the previous one, then it's likely not containable with the new lockdown is it?

In the first lockdown R never went below +0.7, with the new variant that would be +1.1, meaning infections will continue to rise unless more severe measures are taken.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sturgeon was saying, they have had few recent outbreaks in care homes, but those that have occurred have spread faster & they didn't know why, but based on this new information they will now look into whether it's down to this new strain.



She mentioned hospital infections too. Which reminds me that there are some trials in England where they are studying genome sequences of infections in hospital staff and patients in an attempt to improve understanding of transmission in those settings. I wonder if the new strain has shown up much in those studies.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> If the new variant has an R of 0.4 higher than the previous one, then it's likely not containable with the new lockdown is it?
> 
> In the first lockdown R never went below +0.7, with the new variant that would +1.1, meaning infections will continue to rise unless more severe measures are taken.



Plus winter isnt exactly expected to have a nice effect on R. Even without new strain implications we dont really know how well the original measures would have fared in a winter.

Forms of lockdown will still exist that could deal with a virus with much increased R potential, but whether we'll ever go that far is another question.


----------



## Infidel Castro (Dec 19, 2020)

The lad was due back to Cardiff from London Town tomorrow with his girlfriend. Sucker punch. Correct decision, granted (if a bit late). Going to miss them hugely after the year we've had. I really had come to terms with them being here for Christmas (that wasn't easy given the general anxiety around covid) and was looking forward to an ounce or two of normality. Torpedoed. Hope everyone is alright.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 19, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> I'm furious about this. I'd actually prepared myself for not being able to have Christmas with my family - who I haven't seen for a year - when they said "It's OK, you can see your loved ones from 23rd - 27th". So I booked myself a train ticket to Birmingham and bought presents for everyone, and what do the bastards do? This feels like betrayal. It's not even the last minute cancellation, it's allowing us to make plans only to scupper them at the 11th hour. They've got to stop pissing us about, make a decision and fucking STICK TO IT!


You are speaking for the nation.


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> They've got to stop pissing us about, make a decision and fucking STICK TO IT!



And if new information comes in about a virus variant that's much more infectious and the projections show increased and rapid spread in certain areas of the country?


----------



## Infidel Castro (Dec 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And if new information comes in about a virus variant that's much more infectious and the projections show increased and rapid spread in certain areas of the country?


If I get the gist of LeytonCatLady's post, I think they would like the correct decision to be made in the first place.


----------



## AverageJoe (Dec 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> Plus winter isnt exactly expected to have a nice effect on R. Even without new strain implications we dont really know how well the original measures would have fared in a winter.
> 
> Forms of lockdown will still exist that could deal with a virus with much increased R potential, but whether we'll ever go that far is another question.



I don't know these things but can a virus evolve so that it can get into the water supply and survive?


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And if new information comes in about a virus variant that's much more infectious and the projections show increased and rapid spread in certain areas of the country?



I'm talking about all the other times they've changed the goalposts and back again, not just this. Maybe if they'd been more consistent since March, this would be unfortunate but necessary. But it just feels like yet more incompetence.


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Reports of trains out of London sold out. Brilliant. So the new strain gets distributed all around the country


I wonder, probably naively, whether they're sold out because there are even fewer services on?


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

There was absolutely no good reason for them to be promising everyone a Christmas back in October. They could have said sorry we don’t know.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> There was absolutely no good reason for them to be promising everyone a Christmas back in October. They could have said sorry we don’t know.



Yes the entire autumn and winter in this pandemic could have been framed very differently every step of the way. Indeed the summer relaxation should have been framed as a temporary thing that would end as the seasons turned. Instead we got a shit pandemic soap opera.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And if new information comes in about a virus variant that's much more infectious and the projections show increased and rapid spread in certain areas of the country?


Then the government should apologise for going against the science when they promised an Xmas relaxation. They should apologise for their serial ineptitude.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> There was absolutely no good reason for them to be promising everyone a Christmas back in October. They could have said sorry we don’t know.



This. I'd rather they just admitted they couldn't say at that stage instead of giving us some bullshit to keep us quiet. Are we children that need to be humoured?


----------



## Supine (Dec 19, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> I don't know these things but can a virus evolve so that it can get into the water supply and survive?



Billions of virus live in water. Luckily almost all are completely safe.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> I wonder, probably naively, whether they're sold out because there are even fewer services on?


Dunno, but look:


----------



## Chilli.s (Dec 19, 2020)

And this is why the silly unlocked lockdowns, with work school shops and travel open just dont work properly. Removing the possibility of infection and the natural lifespan of the virus would work, like it has in other countries.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yes the entire autumn and winter in this pandemic could have been framed very differently every step of the way. Indeed the summer relaxation should have been framed as a temporary thing that would end as the seasons turned. Instead we got a shit pandemic soap opera.


I'd like to see Boris Johnson written out of this particular soap


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

Scottish CMO at the press conference mentioned info of interest to me, that about 5-10% of all viral isolates in the UK are subject to genomic sequencing.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> This. I'd rather they just admitted they couldn't say at that stage instead of giving us some bullshit to keep us quiet. Are we children that need to be humoured?


Yes. He appears to feel that the people he’s talking to (in these press conferences, in his journalism) are idiots.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Dunno, but look:




Gosh, who could have seen that coming.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yes. He appears to feel that the people he’s talking to (in these press conferences, in his journalism) are idiots.



He has modelled data to indicate such. Unfortunately he didnt realise that this data, this proof of the ineptitude of his audience, stemmed from his practice sessions in front of a mirror.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

Thing is he drove a jcb through a polystyrene wall for brexit and people apparently liked it. And he got to be prime minister. So maybe his assessment of his audience isn’t that surprising.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 19, 2020)

bimble said:


> There was absolutely no good reason for them to be promising everyone a Christmas back in October. They could have said sorry we don’t know.


They should have said, waaaay ahead 'We don't know what the situation will be at Christmas, it will be best to assume you will do a distanced Christmas this year' -certainly once they had the vaccine they would know this should be the only Christmas where that would be necessary so an even better time to drive home the message that it's just for the one year. But no, they had to 'save Christmas'... oh, unless things got worse.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> This. I'd rather they just admitted they couldn't say at that stage instead of giving us some bullshit to keep us quiet. Are we children that need to be humoured?



Its the perpetual shitty tango in this country between politicians and the media. If people watched the press conferences in full all the way along they will have heard many immature, loaded and ridiculous questions from sections of the media during this pandemic.

There are many reasons I wouldnt want to be a politician within a system of national government and parties, but if I had taken such a path then I think it would have been very easy to become cynical after seeing what sorts of games are played at every level, very much including the press.

For example when we were first treated to quotes from the likes of Johnson about Christmas, months ago, it wasnt because he wanted to bring the subject up, its because journalists started asking stupid Christmas questions.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

I note that the Scottish announcement included a delay to the start of the new school term (except for children of essential workers). And they've given themselves to delay the school restart for other kids even further if thats what circumstances still demand by mid January.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> Its the perpetual shitty tango in this country between politicians and the media. If people watched the press conferences in full all the way along they will have heard many immature, loaded and ridiculous questions from sections of the media during this pandemic.


Yeah, a couple of the questions from media earlier today had me shaking my head and asking "what are you, twelve or something?"


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 19, 2020)

"Journalists these days are getting younger 'n' younger; they're bloody kids, I tell ya!"


----------



## Cloo (Dec 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> I note that the Scottish announcement included a delay to the start of the new school term (except for children of essential workers). And they've given themselves to delay the school restart for other kids even further if thats what circumstances still demand by mid January.


Which is what we should be doing here, certainly for secondaries. Have told daughter a school shutdown is a distinct possibility, though one, just like Christmas, this government will take at the last moment possible. I have been saying for ages they probably shouldn't go back to school this half term.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Tier 4 details now on the government's website...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wonderfully vague. I think my ex will be allowed to travel (and self isolate on arrival) but who knows. 


> *International travel to or from a tier 4 area*
> If you are in Tier 4, you should not be travelling abroad unless it is permitted. In addition, you should consider the public health advice in the country you are visiting.
> 
> If you live outside a tier 4 area you may still transit into or through a tier 4 area to travel abroad if you need to, but you should carefully consider whether you need to do so. In addition, you should follow the public health advice in the country you’re visiting.
> ...


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> Wakes will apparently continue to be allowed with 6 people in attendance. But I'm sure I read that today, in Tier 3, wakes aren't allowed (though funerals are).
> 
> (Thankfully this doesn't affect me at the moment. But ffs.)


My sister in law's funeral in Wales in August was made even more tragic with just 20 socially distanced people allowed and the pall bearers having to wear gloves and masks.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> She mentioned hospital infections too. Which reminds me that there are some trials in England where they are studying genome sequences of infections in hospital staff and patients in an attempt to improve understanding of transmission in those settings. I wonder if the new strain has shown up much in those studies.



Ah, as I slowly work my way through the Scottish press conference I see that a journalist picked up on the hospital & care home aspect and in response the Scottish CMO did mention things such as how they are talking several times a day to the other UK nations and that they are seeing the signal of the new strain in nosocomial spread data. That means hospital infections are happening in these institutional settings and they are picking up this new strain when doing genomic analysis on samples. Sturgeon indicated that more work still has to be done to make sure that the new strain is the real and only reason why they've seen greater than expected transmission recently within specific outbreak settings, eg some care home outbreaks. They arent 100% sure thats the reason, but obvious need to explore the possibility and its just too tempting not to join those dots in the meantime (very much my words not hers).


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

The worst thing about those packed trains leaving London is they shouldn't be travelling anyway. I understand people wanting to get to relatives or their hometowns but FFS this is just wilfully selfish behaviour.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Wonderfully vague. I think my ex will be allowed to travel (and self isolate on arrival) but who knows.


What's she coming to the UK for? And where's she going?

I think Italy have announced stronger rules this evening (ETA from 24th)


----------



## prunus (Dec 19, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> I don't know these things but can a virus evolve so that it can get into the water supply and survive?



In theory, yes; in practice, for a coronavirus, it’s incredibly unlikely. They are very fragile things.  I don’t imagine anyone is even considering such an eventuality in this case (though I do hope there is contingency planning for such an event in the abstract).


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> What's she coming to the UK for? And where's she going?
> 
> I think Italy have announced stronger rules thus evening


She's Italian and (trying ) to go home. Her grandmother is unlikely to last the winter, but I suppose she could manufacture a job to try and get around the vague instructions. She intends to self isolate and stay back in Italy for some time and help look after her family.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

Why the fuck are estate agents allowed to stay open? And does covid stay away from churches? 



> *These venues, business and settings can stay open *
> 
> Place of worship including for communal worship
> Food shops and supermarkets
> ...







Here's the govt list:



> non-essential retail, such as clothing and homeware stores, vehicle showrooms (other than for rental), betting shops, tailors, tobacco and vape shops, electronic goods and mobile phone shops, and market stalls selling non-essential goods - these venues can continue to be able to operate click-and-collect (where goods are pre-ordered and collected off the premises) and delivery services
> 
> hospitality venues such as cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars and social clubs; with the exception of providing food and drink for takeaway (until 11pm), click-and-collect, drive-through or delivery
> accommodation such as hotels, hostels, guest houses and campsites, except for specific circumstances, such as where these act as someone’s main residence, where the person cannot return home, for homeless people, or where it is essential to stay there for work purposes
> ...


----------



## klang (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> My sister in law's funeral in Wales in August was made even more tragic with just 20 socially distanced people allowed and the pall bearers having to wear gloves and masks.


I went to a funeral with similar rules a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember the last time I cried as much. Not only for my beloved friend who died way to young, but suddenly all the accumulated sadness and frustration of the entire year hit me hard. Funerals in times of Covid are a very cold, humbling and sad affair.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 19, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> I'd like to see Boris Johnson written out of this particular soap


Yeah, I think even his supporters are going to lose a lot of respect for him over this.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

littleseb said:


> I went to a funeral with similar rules a couple of weeks ago. I can't remember the last time I cried as much. Not only for my beloved friend who died way to young, but suddenly all the accumulated sadness and frustration of the entire year hit me hard. Funerals in times of Covid are a very cold, humbling and sad affair.


I probably said at the time but my sister in law was super popular so the streets were lined with people as the coffin made its journey to the crematorium. It was unbelievably moving, tragic and sad. Fuck covid.


----------



## BristolEcho (Dec 19, 2020)

They made the wrong decision in the first place. It was clearly to appease the need for the previous lockdown and to not cause to much upset. Would we expect anything else?

I'm getting a bit annoyed withwith my sister as she is insisting on seeing my parents at Christmas with her family. Children are in school and college. My parents have eachother and will be vaccinated soon I just don't see the point in risking it right now. Most of my siblings dropped in on them for her birthday last week too.


----------



## klang (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> I probably said at the time but my sister in law was super popular so the streets were lined with people as the coffin made its journey to the crematorium. It was unbelievably moving, tragic and sad. Fuck covid.


opposite for us. We were struggling to fill the 15 allowed seats. I hadn't realised how few people my friend had in his life. He died a lonely man in very lonely times.
May your sister in law rest in peace.


----------



## chilango (Dec 19, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Yeah, I think even his supporters are going to lose a lot of respect for him over this.



I don't think "respect" was ever a reason for that support in the first place tbh.


----------



## mauvais (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Dunno, but look:


Can't believe that people would want to get Corona so badly that they'd risk going to Leeds.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Why the fuck are estate agents allowed to stay open?


At a guess, because if they were all closed it could lead to a lot of homelessness from people getting evicted but not being able to arrange anywhere else to go.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 19, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Dunno, but look:



Fuck phoned and asked for his sakes back.

Test and trace are just going to shrug about it too, aren't they?


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 19, 2020)

In other circumstances, I might be home-hunting now, having been offered a job to start mid january that would have meant moving house

the idea of potentially trying to move house in the middle of a lockdown is just one of the reasons i decided against it...


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> At a guess, because if they were all closed it could lead to a lot of homelessness from people getting evicted but not being able to arrange anywhere else to go.


If only it were possible for someone to prevent people from being evicted in this situation.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 19, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> In other circumstances, I might be home-hunting now, having been offered a job to start mid january that would have meant moving house
> 
> the idea of potentially trying to move house in the middle of a lockdown is just one of the reasons i decided against it...


Puddy, this year I moved countries and have moved twice since being back in the UK. Moving house is allowed, and the various related services all operate.


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2020)

Raheem said:


> Fuck phoned and asked for his sakes back.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2020)

I think the 6 months notice for eviction rule is still in place?


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 19, 2020)

I'm trying to see if there is anything further I can do to protect myself (and my household). [our local case rate is 1248.6 / 100,000 ]

We are pretty much shielding now, as we are waiting for the vaccine jabs (all of us are 65 and over, except me and I'm not that much younger, tbh ) ...

So; food deliveries, click n collect for anything else, WFH, no socialising and staying in as much as possible.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> At a guess, because if they were all closed it could lead to a lot of homelessness from people getting evicted but not being able to arrange anywhere else to go.


I thought it was the council that sorted out homeless people, not estate agents.

And Technical guidance on eviction notices


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

Mation said:


> If only it were possible for someone to prevent people from being evicted in this situation.


But thank heavens the estate agents can stay open and continue to profit from it all.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> I thought it was the council that sorted out homeless people, not estate agents.
> 
> And Technical guidance on eviction notices


People are still going to need places to live - couples splitting up, someone may currently be halfway through buying a house, have given notice on a current place etc

Estate agents may be cunts, but I can see why they're kept open.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> People are still going to need places to live - couples splitting up, someone may currently be halfway through buying a house, have given notice on a current place etc
> 
> Estate agents may be cunts, but I can see why they're kept open.


Not sure why you'd have to physically sit in their swishy offices though.


----------



## hegley (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Not sure why you'd have to physically sit in their swishy offices though.


I doubt anyone who is moving is physically going into an EA office. We moved in October and everything was done by phone/post and email. None of the offices were accessible to the public, even if staff were there working.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> Not sure why you'd have to physically sit in their swishy offices though.


Not sure what the legal status is for signing documents of that type electronically...


----------



## BlanketAddict (Dec 19, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yes the entire autumn and winter in this pandemic could have been framed very differently every step of the way. Indeed the summer relaxation should have been framed as a temporary thing that would end as the seasons turned. Instead we got a shit pandemic soap opera.



Boris (and Trump) have spent the whole year carping on about turning the corner/all clear in a few weeks/soon be back to normal blah blah blah. 
Shameless bravado and wilful ignorance in the face of reality at the expense of people's lives.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Dec 19, 2020)

Are high-flying business types still allowed to drop by for their meetings?


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 19, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Puddy, this year I moved countries and have moved twice since being back in the UK. Moving house is allowed, and the various related services all operate.



From what i can gather, it was difficult during first lockdown, and I can see us being back in that position if not more so by january.

There were other reasons for deciding not to go ahead with it (including risk of being laid off before I could start if lockdown 3 started), but that was a factor. 

May or may not have been the right answer long term...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 19, 2020)

hegley said:


> I doubt anyone who is moving is physically going into an EA office. We moved in October and everything was done by phone/post and email. None of the offices were accessible to the public, even if staff were there working.


They're all open round here, rooms full of the parasites in full disgraceful view non stop.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Two young women have been going up and down the aisle of my train telling people they've been indoctrinated to wear masks, but they don't need to because 99.7 per cent something or other. Masked passengers are trying to pretend they're not there. Some younger unmasked travellers have been chatting enthusiastically with the women. There has been some talk of common law. *They've just got off at Stevenage thank fuck*.


Sorry, but that should become the standard thing to say when a conspiraloon leaves the room from now on.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 19, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Two young women have been going up and down the aisle of my train telling people they've been indoctrinated to wear masks, but they don't need to because 99.7 per cent something or other. Masked passengers are trying to pretend they're not there. Some younger unmasked travellers have been chatting enthusiastically with the women. There has been some talk of common law. They've just got off at Stevenage thank fuck.


I'm sure the BTP would have been delighted to teach them the error of their ways.

Film it and send it to BTP - if you cant'd find their local twatter, then use the security problem links (the see it say it sort it contact)


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 19, 2020)

editor said:


> I thought it was the council that sorted out homeless people, not estate agents.
> 
> And Technical guidance on eviction notices


Yeah, but it's often quicker to find a private letting. When I got a month's NTQ in August, I made an appointment with the council, and the earliest one was six weeks away. I did the rounds on Gumtree and Spare Room, found somewhere and had moved within two weeks.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2020)

Christmas then, a mega-fuck-omnishambles of politics, expectation management and fucking with people's lives and mental health. And 100% avoidable if politicians weren't such shithouses. But my question is 'what's next'?  If this (Tier4) is premised on the prevalence of the new strain, it will probably have spread beyond the Tier 4 areas already.  Can schools go back in January? I do hope the fuckwits who run our universities manage to just make a collective decision to go online (as much as possible) form Term/Semester 2. They won't and the government will fail to make a decision on that for another month. 

We're going to be in a really bad place till tens of millions get the vaccine. If they vaccine doesn't work on the new strain, doesn't bear thinking about. If the vaccine hope gets wiped out we _really _do get into a mental health crisis. Of fuck.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2020)

Wilf said:


> my question is 'what's next'?


More tier 4 areas after xmas, effectively giving a national lockdown. Schools delayed by a couple of weeks while we see if the tier 4 restrictions have worked/if this new variant is as bad as feared.

Would be my guess.


----------



## Cid (Dec 19, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They're all open round here, rooms full of the parasites in full disgraceful view non stop.



Same here. There's one on my way to work that perpetually annoys me. No distancing, no masks etc. Is there some aspect of estate-agenting that requires access to secure systems that can only be used in the office? I find it hard to believe they actually have the braincells needed for that kind of set-up.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 19, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> More tier 4 areas after xmas, effectively giving a national lockdown. Schools delayed by a couple of weeks while we see if the tier 4 restrictions have worked/if this new variant is as bad as feared.
> 
> Would be my guess.


Officially it's going to be a 'staggered return', but schools will be open in Tier 4.


> *Going to school, college and university*
> Schools and colleges will remain open during term time in Tier 4 areas. The Government will continue to prioritise the wellbeing and long-term futures of our young people. It remains very important for children and young people to attend, to support their wellbeing and education and help working parents and guardians. Senior clinicians still advise that school is the best place for children to be, and so they should continue to go to school during term time.
> 
> *Schools*
> ...


----------



## prunus (Dec 19, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Not sure what the legal status is for signing documents of that type electronically...



HMLR have made special dispensation to allow for electronic signatures on land transfer documents during this.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 19, 2020)

prunus said:


> HMLR have made special dispensation to allow for electronic signatures on land transfer documents during this.


just because I had to search on this as I'm bored
Still need a physical witness present to also elctronically sign the witnessing


----------



## Cid (Dec 19, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> just because I had to search on this as I'm bored
> Still need a physical witness present to also elctronically sign the witnessing



This would be more on the legal side wouldn't it? i.e solicitor rather than the estate agent (and I mean obviously the witness is whichever vaguely respectable person you can dredge up). Doesn't require anything to be done in the estate agent's office.


----------



## ash (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> My sister in law's funeral in Wales in August was made even more tragic with just 20 socially distanced people allowed and the pall bearers having to wear gloves and masks.


We had the same experience last month for
Uncle in law- dystopian funeral.   Now my aunt in law who lives in chessington and was supposed to be spending Christmas with her son in Bristol will presumably have to be alone


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

Cid said:


> This would be more on the legal side wouldn't it? i.e solicitor rather than the estate agent (and I mean obviously the witness is whichever vaguely respectable person you can dredge up). Doesn't require anything to be done in the estate agent's office.


true, I wish it was allowed to lynch the fuckers in tier 4 but we'll just have to wait.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2020)

ash said:


> We had the same experience last month for
> Uncle in law- dystopian funeral.   Now my aunt in law who lives in chessington and was supposed to be spending Christmas with her son in Bristol will presumably have to be alone


That's really sad.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 20, 2020)

I know we all hate estate agents but they do a fairly vital service.  You might need to get somewhere. There are lots of harrowing situations such as relationships breaking down and domestic abuse. Not everyone who is suddenly homeless is broke, without these people the options are limited. Hotels are shut. Might get an Airbnb if you’re lucky.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBF,  Waverley has the lowest case numbers in Surrey, it borders tier 2 West Sussex, and has lower numbers than 2 council areas in WS.



Though I walked to the high street around 2pm yesterday and it was fucking mobbed, so maybe we’ll be catching up with the rest of the county soon enough. I turned around and went home again. Then told my mum she can’t come over on Friday. And then had a bit of a cry.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Though I walked to the high street around 2pm yesterday and it was fucking mobbed, so *maybe we’ll be catching up with the rest of the county soon enough*. I turned around and went home again. Then told my mum she can’t come over on Friday. And then had a bit of a cry.



I think you will, as will us.

My niece & family lives in Tunbridge Wells borough, they had very low numbers (under 80 per 100k) when all of Kent went into tier 3, so I've been watching with interest & shock at how it has spread, from just 3 local council areas in the north of the county, turning most of Kent purple (over 400 cases per 100k) on the government's interactive map, now 9 out of 11 areas are purple.  Just TW & Sevenoaks boroughs have turned from light to dark blue, on around 300 cases per 100k, but I suspect not for much longer.

It's seriously hit Ashford in the last week, and spilled over into East Sussex, hitting both Rother district & Hastings borough - all 3 of those areas seeing increases of over 120% in a week. The other 3 council areas in ES have seen increases of between 78 & 210% in a week. 

It's not stopping at the border with West Sussex, it has already started creeping over, with the county seeing increases of around 80% in a week. For some reason the urban borough of Worthing maintains the lowest case numbers in WS, compared to the rural district areas around us, but it's still up over 100% in a week, taking us to just over 100 cases per 100k with yesterday's figures, from a low of under 25 a couple of weeks ago. 

It's scary watching it spread day by day, and the map changing to ever darker colours as it does, I wish they had put all parts of East Sussex into tier 4, together with Brighton & Hove City and West Sussex, before it gets totally out of control. We felt fairly safe right from the start of the pandemic, but that feeling has evaporated in the last week.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

The Dutch has banned flights from the UK, and who can blame them?

Although, I suspect they are too late, and this new strain, if it did actually start in the UK, has already travelled to mainland Europe.



> Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s cabinet had now taken the “precautionary decision” to ban flights from Britain, the statement said, adding that other forms of transport were still under review. He urged Dutch citizens not to travel unless strictly necessary.
> 
> “Over the next few days, together with other EU member states, (the government) will explore the scope for further limiting the risk of the new strain of the virus being brought over from the UK,” the statement said.
> 
> The Netherlands is under a five-week lockdown until mid-January with schools and all non-essential shops closed to slow a surge in the virus.











						More EU nations ban travel from UK amid fears of new virus strain
					

France, Germany, Ireland and a host of other European countries have imposed restrictions on travel with the UK, in a bid to stop the spread of a new strain of the coronavirus that is believed to be…




					www.france24.com
				




ETA - And, Israel too. 









						Coronavirus Israel live: 70,000 already vaccinated as cabinet set to debate lockdown
					

***




					www.haaretz.com


----------



## Badgers (Dec 20, 2020)

It is really maddening. Am very sad for people who desperately want to see family and businesses in that will struggle. Am also really angry at the government but that is nothing new. More than that a lot of people's Winterval plans. I am upset more people will get sick and die. Also worried about NHS staff, teachers and other frontline stuff.

This plan for relaxing over Winterval  idiotic. The government can't be trusted, the media can't be trusted and a lot of the selfish public can't be trusted.

This ^ is nothing new but am amazed anyone took the governments Winterval break seriously.

Would like to hope that these new unprecedented #worldbeating #moonshot Tier4 measures will be strictly managed by police/councils, and adhered to by the public


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 20, 2020)

Regarding estate agents, I am in a tier 4 area, sold my house on Wednesday when we were still tier 2 and currently live in a hotel as I am working locally until NYE

From January I am moving to another part of the country to start a new job so will certainly need an estate agent to find myself somewhere more permanent to live than a hotel


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Christmas then, a mega-fuck-omnishambles of politics, expectation management and fucking with people's lives and mental health. And 100% avoidable if politicians weren't such shithouses. But my question is 'what's next'?  If this (Tier4) is premised on the prevalence of the new strain, it will probably have spread beyond the Tier 4 areas already.  Can schools go back in January? I do hope the fuckwits who run our universities manage to just make a collective decision to go online (as much as possible) form Term/Semester 2. They won't and the government will fail to make a decision on that for another month.
> 
> We're going to be in a really bad place till tens of millions get the vaccine. If they vaccine doesn't work on the new strain, doesn't bear thinking about. If the vaccine hope gets wiped out we _really _do get into a mental health crisis. Of fuck.



I'm not sure about the chance of avoiding this latest episode really, short of changing the entire response from the beginning. I also think lots of the pressure for Xmas relaxation actually came from the media incessantly going on about Xmas since October, but I do think anecdotally plenty of people I have talked to have wanted something like that as well.

I also think a sudden change in restrictions when the news of the new variant was all they could do, and I'm not pissed off with them about that, and I do find the moaning about cancelled plans for Xmas, etc. quite ridiculous and selfish in the face of 80,000 dead in this country, and likely many more before this is over. I personally wish they'd been tighter restrictions all the way through, but I recognize that is not what many people want, and they also come with other disadvantages, and I do know that it is a balance between various competing needs in society.

My thoughts from reading and listening to stuff are that this variant is really worrying them (like in March when the modelling came in and forced a sudden change) and it seems clear that Tier 3 isn't enough to control its spread, hence the growing cases in some areas despite being under that level of restrictions. I think we'll see an inevitable spread across the country in the next 1-2 months, and we'll end up in a national lockdown/Tier 4 sometime in the new year. Fuck knows about schools, it's a hill they have chosen to die on.

I think the nightmare scenarios are either (1) the vaccine/s doesn't protect against the new variant, or (2) it causes more severe illness and outcomes in some way. Or both... (I also have some concerns the vaccine take-up is going to be low, and that the rollout is going to get fucked up and delayed in some ways...).

As an aside it doesn't even to have a higher fatality % rate to actually kill more people. If more people just get ill and overwhelm the NHS then more people will die, and/or if more people just get it than might otherwise have before we have a vaccinated population then also more people will die.

It really is going to be a very grim few months I think.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> As an aside it doesn't even to have a higher fatality % rate to actually kill more people. If more people just get ill and overwhelm the NHS then more people will die, and/or if more people just get it than might otherwise have before we have a vaccinated population then also more people will die.
> 
> It really is going to be a very grim few months I think.


Sadly this. 

The vaccination effort has been good (compared to everything else) so far. How long it will take and to roll out to the critical mass is hard to judge. 

I think a few months more is probably accurate


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

Fucking viruses though, very clever little fuckers.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 20, 2020)

My dad who's a retired biochemist says that if as has been mentioned in some news stories this new strain seems to be hitting younger people harder, then it would mean Covid is following the same pattern as the Spanish Flu pandemic, where at first it was old people who died then about a year later the virus mutated and started killing young adults. Nicola Sturgeon having taken serious measures to try and keep it out of Scotland and extending the school holidays/doing online learning for the start of next term may reflect this.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2020)

weepiper said:


> My dad who's a retired biochemist says that if as has been mentioned in some news stories this new strain seems to be hitting younger people harder, then it would mean Covid is following the same pattern as the Spanish Flu pandemic, where at first it was old people who died then about a year later the virus mutated and started killing young adults. Nicola Sturgeon having taken serious measures to try and keep it out of Scotland and extending the school holidays/doing online learning for the start of next term may reflect this.



I'd be inclined to post something in the way of evidence alongside a terrifying claim like that, personally. Too much innuendo and guesswork around as it is.

There's really no reason to expect this virus to behave like 'flu, in fact assuming that it would was a key reason why the initial modelling and the response (or lack of) based on it were so wide of the mark.


----------



## chilango (Dec 20, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> At a guess, because if they were all closed it could lead to a lot of homelessness from people getting evicted but not being able to arrange anywhere else to go.



There's a better fix for that than keeping estate agents open.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

Sadiq Khan on Sky News has just said he checked the latest figures this morning, and there's now more covid cases in London hospitals than at the peak in April.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 20, 2020)

This Dutch flight thing is fucking weird. I am in an airport right now in Italy waiting to fly to the UK with KLM (ie connecting in Amsterdam) and they're telling me that flights _to_ the UK are still running. So not sure how I'll get home back to Italy after Christmas but whatever


----------



## Pingety Pong (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The Dutch has banned flights from the UK, and who can blame them?
> 
> Although, I suspect they are too late, and this new strain, if it did actually start in the UK, has already travelled to mainland Europe.



I was watching an interview with the mayor of a town in Saxony where numbers have risen ridiculously fast over the last few weeks, and he said that he simply has no explanation why the situation is so bad despite really tough restrictions (and people sticking to them as well). So I wouldn't be surprised either if this strain is already in other parts of Europe.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

I found this thread an informative, seemingly very credible read:


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 20, 2020)

Flavour said:


> This Dutch flight thing is fucking weird. I am in an airport right now in Italy waiting to fly to the UK with KLM (ie connecting in Amsterdam) and they're telling me that flights _to_ the UK are still running. So not sure how I'll get home back to Italy after Christmas but whatever



Not running. I had a woman flying to Tokyo from London with KLM this morning, they have stuck her on Lufthansa to Frankfurt and JAL on to Tokyo.

edit, your flight may run, they are flying back empty.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 20, 2020)

Getting back into Europe after Christmas may prove quite tricky. I suspect other countries will quickly follow suit


----------



## Cid (Dec 20, 2020)

Sunray said:


> I know we all hate estate agents but they do a fairly vital service.  You might need to get somewhere. There are lots of harrowing situations such as relationships breaking down and domestic abuse. Not everyone who is suddenly homeless is broke, without these people the options are limited. Hotels are shut. Might get an Airbnb if you’re lucky.



The point was more whether they actually have to be in offices, and whether their offices are exempt from being covid compliant... the one near me doesn’t even have distancing in desk layout (they do have space). It is of course probably a relatively minor thing, but it’s just an easy and very visible example of how some exemptions can lead to complacency. Particularly when the exempted group were already massive wankers.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

The flight bans frightens me. Not that I had plans to go anywhere but the idea that we will all be trapped here on our island brings out a cornered animal feeling.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

Pingety Pong said:


> I was watching an interview with the mayor of a town in Saxony where numbers have risen ridiculously fast over the last few weeks, and he said that he simply has no explanation why the situation is so bad despite really tough restrictions (and people sticking to them as well). So I wouldn't be surprised either if this strain is already in other parts of Europe.



That is what I suspect, it wouldn't surprise me if it started in Europe, or somewhere else, and was imported into the UK, but we just happened to be the first to spot it, and its frightening transmission rate.


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

It's presumably likely that this new strain has appeared and caught hold in London for the same reason the virus first appeared and caught hold in London, ie because it's a massive melting pot of people constantly arriving and leaving from/to all over the world - so the new strain probably didn't start here, but it's certainly been exported everywhere else by now too.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)

I know bimble, I feel really depressed about living here at the moment. I had plans to go to Sweden in 2021 to see friends (not booked anything yet tho) and spend some time doing nature based stuff and the thought of going is one of the things I've been really looking forward to. I know they have their own covid issues but I'm devastated at the thought of having to cancel


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That is what I suspect, it wouldn't surprise me if it started in Europe, or somewhere else, and was imported into the UK, but we just happened to be the first to spot it, and its frightening transmission rate.



Take a look at the figures in places like Saxony, through the roof there


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)

Apparently they still don't have all the facts about whether it really does have a worse transmission rate though? There are other things that are driving the transmission upward too


----------



## BristolEcho (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not sure about the chance of avoiding this latest episode really, short of changing the entire response from the beginning. I also think lots of the pressure for Xmas relaxation actually came from the media incessantly going on about Xmas since October, but I do think anecdotally plenty of people I have talked to have wanted something like that as well.
> 
> I also think a sudden change in restrictions when the news of the new variant was all they could do, and I'm not pissed off with them about that, and I do find the moaning about cancelled plans for Xmas, etc. quite ridiculous and selfish in the face of 80,000 dead in this country, and likely many more before this is over. I personally wish they'd been tighter restrictions all the way through, but I recognize that is not what many people want, and they also come with other disadvantages, and I do know that it is a balance between various competing needs in society.
> 
> ...



I'm sick of hearing about Christmas. I hate it  normally, but this year has highlighted even more why I detest it so much. It's not actually healthy to put so much on to one day and it's no wonder that so many people are so unhappy and lonely around this time of year because you just can't escape it.

I can see some benefit for a winter festival and have mellowed out about it, but all that pressure for people to buy stuff and to have fun on this one day of the year? Bah humbug.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> The flight bans frightens me. Not that I had plans to go anywhere but the idea that we will all be trapped here on our island brings out a cornered animal feeling.



Innit, some bigger Gruinard Island.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Apparently they still don't have all the facts about whether it really does have a worse transmission rate though? There are other things that are driving the transmission upward too


Forcing millions of people to go to the shops at the same time perhaps


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I'm sick of hearing about Christmas. I hate it  normally, but this year has highlighted even more why I detest it so much. It's not actually healthy to put so much on to one day and it's no wonder that so many people are so unhappy and lonely around this time of year because you just can't escape it.
> 
> I can see some benefit for a winter festival and have mellowed out about it, but all that pressure for people to buy stuff and to have fun on this one day of the year? Bah humbug.



Totally agree.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> The flight bans frightens me. Not that I had plans to go anywhere but the idea that we will all be trapped here on our island brings out a cornered animal feeling.


Especially when you remember you're trapped on this island with the parliamentary conservative party


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Apparently they still don't have all the facts about whether it really does have a worse transmission rate though? There are other things that are driving the transmission upward too



I thought it wasn't 'official' but was almost certainly pointing for that to be the case though.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Forcing millions of people to go to the shops at the same time perhaps



Well that and despite the fact that it clearly does spread outside and in summer (south africa and Brazil are having a nightmare atm) something about winter and autumn weather helps droplets last longer or something?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

Having Boris Johnson run around Whitehall  shouting don't panic like some latter-day Corporal Jones would be more constructive than any measure the government has decided to impose this christmas


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Apparently they still don't have all the facts about whether it really does have a worse transmission rate though?



According to the expert from NERVTAG on Sky's 'Sophy Ridge on Sunday' they do, all the evidence came together on Friday and was immediately presented to the government, she thinks the figure of 70% higher transmission rate is a reasonable guide at present.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> According to the expert from NERVTAG on Sky's 'Sophy Ridge on Sunday' they do, all the evidence came together on Friday and was immediately presented to the government, she thinks the figure of 70% higher transmission rate is a reasonable guide at present.



The situation was already not exactly in control before this tho. It's just that I've read other stuff saying that the properties of the virus itself might not have that big effect and there are other factors around winter increasing it ( and the hopeless response both here and elsewhere in Europe ) Regardless of which it still needs to be investigated and treated seriously


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

Flavour said:


> This Dutch flight thing is fucking weird. I am in an airport right now in Italy waiting to fly to the UK with KLM (ie connecting in Amsterdam) and they're telling me that flights _to_ the UK are still running. So not sure how I'll get home back to Italy after Christmas but whatever


Please keep us updated as my ex is hoping to fly out to Italy later today. And good luck for your flight!


----------



## PD58 (Dec 20, 2020)

On the plus side, if there is one, no doubt the vaccines will be being tested on the new variant(s) so we will know fairly quickly if they still work and given how they are proposed to, in my limited understanding, I see no reason why they shouldn't... As for Xmas, maybe this year will bring back some sort of more rationale perspective going forward I.e. there are other times of the year when 'we' (friends and families) can meet up, not just on some socially constructed, arbitrary often miserable day (weather wise) in December.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 20, 2020)

I am looking forward to the Mayday celebrations with family


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)

Covid-19: New coronavirus variant is identified in UK
					

England’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, has told parliament that a new variant of covid-19 has been identified and may be driving infections in the south east, leading to headlines about “mutant covid.” Jacqui Wise answers some common questions  It’s been snappily named VUI-202012/01 (the...




					www.bmj.com
				




Here is an in depth looking BMJ article on the new variant


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

BristolEcho said:


> I'm sick of hearing about Christmas. I hate it  normally, but this year has highlighted even more why I detest it so much. It's not actually healthy to put so much on to one day and it's no wonder that so many people are so unhappy and lonely around this time of year because you just can't escape it.
> 
> I can see some benefit for a winter festival and have mellowed out about it, but all that pressure for people to buy stuff and to have fun on this one day of the year? Bah humbug.



I totally get why people like it, but there's been loads of important events and religious and cultural festivals and holidays fucked up this year. Just fucking annoys me as it feels really insensitive that such a big thing is made of this one tbh. The news is a constant stream of mawkish nonsense about it, I'd be really pissed off and upset if I'd had relatives die and the news just kept showing clips of people going on about Xmas turkeys ffs.

Also the ratio of business 'leaders' or retailers given time to spout off about restrictions compared to NHS workers or spokespeople is telling, the BBC is terrible for that.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Covid-19: New coronavirus variant is identified in UK
> 
> 
> England’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, has told parliament that a new variant of covid-19 has been identified and may be driving infections in the south east, leading to headlines about “mutant covid.” Jacqui Wise answers some common questions  It’s been snappily named VUI-202012/01 (the...
> ...



That's a bit out of date TBH, it was published 16th Dec., and the new data/evidence only came together on Friday 18th.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 20, 2020)

My son's partner is planning on flying to Madrid on Dec 26th to see her family for the first time in a year. Can this still happen?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## TopCat (Dec 20, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> My son's partner is planning on flying to Madrid on Dec 26th to see her family for the first time in a year. Can this still happen?
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice


No.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> The flight bans frightens me. Not that I had plans to go anywhere but the idea that we will all be trapped here on our island brings out a cornered animal feeling.


I was loosely planning on going to Ireland for all of Feb, I was planning on hiring an AirBnB for a month, arrive - isolate for 14 days whilst WFH then go see me Mam and Dad.  Me old Mam has Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s so hasn’t got much time left.  Wasn’t keen on flying but was prepared to do so.


----------



## andysays (Dec 20, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I am looking forward to the Mayday celebrations with family


...in 2025...


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 20, 2020)

TopCat said:


> No.



A bit more detail please?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

p.s. thanks for the quick response...and for info they are Brighton  based (i.e. tier 2).


----------



## TopCat (Dec 20, 2020)

I can understand the desperate desire to seek exemptions and try to find wriggle room to see family but it's clear enough. Unpack your bag. Stay where you are.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2020)

PD58 said:


> As for Xmas, maybe this year will bring back some sort of more rationale perspective going forward I.e. there are other times of the year when 'we' (friends and families) can meet up, not just on some socially constructed, arbitrary often miserable day (weather wise) in December.



While there is truth to this, and I hate Christmas, for those of us who work in schools, or those who are waiting to meet up with e.g grandchildren who go to school, or both, our times are limited by school breaks, especially in my case where the distance between us is hundreds of miles. Easter seems a long way away and with no guarantees. Summer even longer. It's depressing,

As for the 'trapped on the island' (others, not PD58 )bit...well, hmmm. Adjust your perspective if that's how you feel, because that's all you can really do. There are many people who are permanently trapped in somewhere a lot smaller than this island due to social and economic deprivation. And their confinement is far more long term, often permanent. Travel is my life, in that I work to be able to travel. So I do understand. But, ultimately, ours is not the worst deprivation in this shit-show.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 20, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> A bit more detail please?
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice
> 
> p.s. thanks for the quick response...and for info they are Brighton  based (i.e. tier 2).


They cant fly unless for work reasons. Also Spain might well refuse entry even if they got a job immediately and could show documents to this effect.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

Badgers said:


> I am looking forward to the Mayday celebrations with family


In august


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 20, 2020)

See this pub...






It's in tier 4. The Googlecar that took the picture was in tier 2. The landlord is reported to be "gutted."


----------



## Spandex (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not sure about the chance of avoiding this latest episode really, short of changing the entire response from the beginning


I'm not sure this latest episode was as inevitable as all that. In short, lockdown 2 ended too soon.

This can be seen quite well on elbows attractive and informative hospital admission charts:


elbows said:


> Covid-19 patients in hospital by English region using data that is available both on the official dashboard and at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity
> 
> View attachment 244113
> Same data but presented in my more usual manner. Sorry that there some differences between how the colours are mapped between these two graphs.
> ...


Looking at the total national figure on the top chart you can see how the second wave developed more slowly than the first wave, probably because of the restrictions in place this time, and the 2nd lockdown was bringing the number down at a shallower rate, partly because the lockdown was looser and possibly due to the new strain in the south east. But while the first lockdown lasted months and bought the figures right down before being eased, the second lockdown had only just turned the corner, leaving cases high before the 2nd tier system was introduced and cases started shooting up again. 

Looking at the regional picture, in the north you can see the upward trajectory of the second wave reduce because of the tier 3 restrictions and then come down during lockdown 2. In the south east and London, where the new strain is hitting, you can see hospital admissions were taking off before lockdown 2, held level during November and then took off again once restrictions were eased at the beginning of December.

I've been following the figures in the south east, because I've got friends and family in SE London, north Kent and south Essex. During lockdown 2 the worst hit areas of Kent - Swale and Thanet - were seeing new cases coming down by the end of lockdown 2. The new strain was mainly contained to the north Kent coast. MPs further south in Kent were furious they were put in tier 3 as their case numbers were still so low. Since that lockdown ended cases have exploded across the whole of Kent, London, most of Essex, into East Sussex and around the east of England. I'd cynically assumed this was caused by pre-Xmas activity - packed shops, meet ups, etc - but a new more transmittable strain does explain this rapid spread. But if lockdown 2 had continued until case numbers had come down much more, which it should've, then the problems of the new strain might have been identified before it had spread so far across the country.

All that, of course, ignores the politics and economics of Xmas. Johnson had decided to "Sacrifice November to save December", so whatever the figures demanded he'd decided lockdown 2 was only going to last a month. There was huge demand from retail to open for December, when they make a big part of their profits. There was huge demand from people who wanted normality at Christmas. And Johnson, as always wanting to avoid difficult decisions, tried to give it to them. But now he's ended up with the worst of both worlds - the virus has spread widely, shops are having to shut for some of their busiest days and Xmas is cancelled for millions of people.


----------



## andysays (Dec 20, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I can understand the desperate desire to seek exemptions and try to find wriggle room to see family but it's clear enough. Unpack your bag. Stay where you are.



Yeah, this.

I can understand it as well, but everyone is really going to have to get used to the idea that these sort of restrictions on meeting others and doing various things that we would normally take for granted are going to be with us for the foreseeable future.

The idea that everything would quickly get back to normal is a fantasy.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 20, 2020)

My family is scattered and wont be meeting up at all. I feel for my kids. For my parents.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 20, 2020)

andysays said:


> Yeah, this.
> 
> I can understand it as well, but everyone is really going to have to get used to the idea that these sort of restrictions on meeting others and doing various things that we would normally take for granted are going to be with us for the foreseeable future.
> 
> The idea that everything would quickly get back to normal is a fantasy.


If it is 70% more infectious then we are about to find a new new normal soon.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 20, 2020)

TopCat said:


> They cant fly unless for work reasons. Also Spain might well refuse entry even if they got a job immediately and could show documents to this effect.



To be clear my son's partner is a Spanish national from Madrid; my son is not going.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> A bit more detail please?
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice
> 
> p.s. thanks for the quick response...and for info they are Brighton  based (i.e. tier 2).


that is 6 days away
5 days ago we were in tier 2 and are now in 4
and Spain may join the other countries which are now not accepting UK arrivals

e2a: not meaning to be gloomy but really travel plans at the moment are a bit optimistic


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Please keep us updated as my ex is hoping to fly out to Italy later today. And good luck for your flight!


I would guess her nan not being expected to make it past winter does count as exceptional circumstances.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> My son's partner is planning on flying to Madrid on Dec 26th to see her family for the first time in a year. Can this still happen?
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice


Only if she can claim it's an 'essential' journey. Work is apparently essential.
There certainly are shitloads of planes in the sky right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if Spain bans Brits arriving too before then.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 20, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> that is 6 days away
> 5 days ago we were in tier 2 and are now in 4
> and Spain may join the other countries which are now not accepting UK arrivals




I get that, but as things currently stand the advice seems to be that it is possible to travel to Spain from a tier 2 area...I am getting confused!

Cheers and thanks to people for their input - Louis MacNeice


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> I get that, but as things currently stand the advice seems to be that it is possible to travel to Spain from a tier 2 area...I am getting confused!
> 
> Cheers and thanks to people for their input - Louis MacNeice


Assuming she lives here, she might also get stuck in Spain for some time (if she manages to get there in the first place). So guess it also depends whether that's doable or not.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 20, 2020)

If the vaccine means you develop antibodies, does that mean tests aren't going to be able to tell whether someone who's been vaccinated has then later actually caught/been exposed to the virus?


----------



## flypanam (Dec 20, 2020)

I was meant to fly out to belfast on the 26th and drive home to care for my brother for two weeks to give my parents some respite. I guess thats fucked now.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

flypanam said:


> I was meant to fly out to belfast on the 26th and drive home to care for my brother for two weeks to give my parents some respite. I guess thats fucked now.


I think that would probably be permitted. Sounds like it should be. Don’t know though.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 20, 2020)

flypanam said:


> I was meant to fly out to belfast on the 26th and drive home to care for my brother for two weeks to give my parents some respite. I guess thats fucked now.



Essential travel is permitted even from tier 4, so that would count.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

flypanam said:


> I was meant to fly out to belfast on the 26th and drive home to care for my brother for two weeks to give my parents some respite. I guess thats fucked now.



Caring responsibilities are OK and have been under all the various lockdown restrictions afaik.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

flypanam said:


> I was meant to fly out to belfast on the 26th and drive home to care for my brother for two weeks to give my parents some respite. I guess thats fucked now.



That would be OK.



> *Where and when you can meet in larger groups*
> There are still circumstances in which you are allowed to meet others from outside your household or support bubble in larger groups, but this should not be for socialising and only for permitted purposes. A full list of these circumstances will be included in the regulations, and includes:
> ---
> 
> to provide care or assistance to someone vulnerable, or to provide respite for a carer











						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## flypanam (Dec 20, 2020)

Thanks all of you. I've just booked a covid test for Tuesday. Will get the result on xmas eve.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Dec 20, 2020)

Sue said:


> Assuming she lives here, she might also get stuck in Spain for some time (if she manages to get there in the first place). So guess it also depends whether that's doable or not.



She does live here and she's ok with the getting stuck in Spain as she can work online. Who knows what will happen between now and Boxing Day!

Thank you, you lovely people of U75 - Louis MacNeice


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> While there is truth to this, and I hate Christmas, for those of us who work in schools, or those who are waiting to meet up with e.g grandchildren who go to school, or both, our times are limited by school breaks, especially in my case where the distance between us is hundreds of miles. Easter seems a long way away and with no guarantees. Summer even longer. It's depressing,
> 
> As for the 'trapped on the island' (others, not PD58 )bit...well, hmmm. Adjust your perspective if that's how you feel, because that's all you can really do. There are many people who are permanently trapped in somewhere a lot smaller than this island due to social and economic deprivation. And their confinement is far more long term, often permanent. Travel is my life, in that I work to be able to travel. So I do understand. But, ultimately, ours is not the worst deprivation in this shit-show.


Am well aware that I’m extremely fortunate to have food warm home two legs and a garden etc. Hopefully it’s permissible every now and then though, even on here, to just say something about how it all feels, like that this morning I feel scared.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Am well aware that I’m extremely fortunate to have food warm home two legs and a garden etc. Hopefully it’s permissible every now and then though, even on here, to just say something about how it all feels, like that this morning I feel scared.



I said I understood. And I offered constructive advice. I don't really get the defensiveness and passive-aggressiveness (hopefully it's permissible even on here etc) of your reply.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I said I understood. And I offered constructive advice. I don't really get the defensiveness and passive-aggressiveness (hopefully it's permissible even on here etc) of your reply.


Passive-aggressiveness?  

FFS.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 20, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> To be clear my son's partner is a Spanish national from Madrid; my son is not going.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice


Dont know then. Hope all works out though.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

flypanam said:


> Thanks all of you. I've just booked a covid test for Tuesday. Will get the result on xmas eve.


Good luck


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 20, 2020)

Schools remaining open in Tier 4. What fucking insanity. What was lockdown in March, then - equivalent of Tier 5?


----------



## Looby (Dec 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> I said I understood. And I offered constructive advice. I don't really get the defensiveness and passive-aggressiveness (hopefully it's permissible even on here etc) of your reply.


Because sometimes it’s ok to wallow or feel crap even if other people have it much harder or it’s a FWP. Of course there are worse situations, of course other people are having very much harder lives right now. There shouldn’t be guilt for having/expressing those feelings piled onto everything else.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2020)

Numbers said:


> Passive-aggressiveness?
> 
> FFS.



Fuck's sake yourself. I came here offering help for a different perspective, not a fucking argument.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Schools remaining open in Tier 4. What fucking insanity. What was lockdown in March, then - equivalent of Tier 5?


And unis


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

How fucked are we?
So much that we're the subject of Trump's desperate whataboutery...FFS


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 20, 2020)

Supermarkets will be open as usual, turkey and entertainment orders are coming in for collection from tomorrow. How many cancellations will remain to be seen.

Yesterday I served a Cambridge city GP who was teetering between rage and despair. He said cases in the city are out of control, though deaths are relatively low. The change to Tier 4 for the East of England includes Beds to the west and Herts to the south, but only Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, the rest of the county remains in Tier 2 presumably because of its large rural Fenland areas. 

Heard earlier that a friend’s teacher daughter’s partner, 40ish, has been very poorly with a collapsed lung and blood clot, he tested positive, starting to recover just as the rest of the family (two primary age kids), tested positive too.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 20, 2020)

Louis MacNeice said:


> To be clear my son's partner is a Spanish national from Madrid; my son is not going.
> 
> Cheers - Louis MacNeice



If you're in Tier 4, you're only supposed to travel abroad if it's classed as essential, which visiting family isn't. AFAIK, there's no exemption for foreign nationals if they are UK residents.

In other tiers, you are strongly discouraged from travelling abroad but you are allowed.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 20, 2020)

Can we make a big effort to be kinder please? A lot of people are hurting right now and people react in a lot of different ways to this. Ta. Much love urban x


----------



## Doodler (Dec 20, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I'm sure the BTP would have been delighted to teach them the error of their ways.
> 
> Film it and send it to BTP - if you cant'd find their local twatter, then use the security problem links (the see it say it sort it contact)



I am not really in the habit of approaching the police voluntarily. The last time was about 3 years ago when I was a witness in a serious crime case. But those stupid people on the train probably need some firm feedback on their actions as you suggest (I wouldn't be bothered if they just want to shout the odds in the middle of a park or some other open space).

BTP seem conspicuous by their absence. Their chiefs would likely claim there aren't enough of them to go round and perhaps this is true. A paranoid side of me wonders whether the lack of consistent enforcement on public transport and in shops is not some attempt at herd immunity by stealth. Occam's Razor suggests simpler explanations such as government incompetence and the profit motive.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Can we make a big effort to be kinder please? A lot of people are hurting right now and people react in a lot of different ways to this. Ta. Much love urban x


I think we are being very kind. But always room for more


----------



## Badgers (Dec 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Schools remaining open in Tier 4. What fucking insanity. What was lockdown in March, then - equivalent of Tier 5?


Purple Tier 5.8 I think?


----------



## IC3D (Dec 20, 2020)

Schadenfreude


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

The poor old island


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

Belgium joins Holland...









						COVID-19: Italy, Austria, Belgium and Netherlands ban UK flights over new coronavirus strain fears
					

The Dutch ban will last until at least the end of 2020, while the Belgian order is only for 24 hours at the moment.




					news.sky.com


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Can we make a big effort to be kinder please? A lot of people are hurting right now and people react in a lot of different ways to this. Ta. Much love urban x



Thank you for this. There's part of me that thinks I've no right to be unhappy at having the opportunity to see my folks for the first time in a year snatched away at the last minute when other people have got seriously ill and died. But having sympathy for them/protecting others from getting the virus and missing your own family are not mutually exclusive. We can feel both things. The way you feel isn't wrong or right, it's how you act on your feelings that matters.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Fuck's sake yourself. I came here offering help for a different perspective, not a fucking argument.


Whoa wasn’t intended as passive aggressive just a bit defensive. It’s all ok, I know you didn’t mean to come across as if you were saying pull your socks up. Just today the whole ‘be grateful for what you have’ thing hasn’t been working as well as it usually does for me.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Whoa wasn’t intended as passive aggressive just a bit defensive. It’s all ok, I know you didn’t mean to come across as if you were saying pull your socks up. Just today the whole ‘be grateful for what you have’ thing hasn’t been working as well as it usually does for me.


You have urban, throw that into the equation


----------



## IC3D (Dec 20, 2020)

I have family near Southend and loads of their freinds are coming ae testing +ve or down with covid. Its quite grim and paranoia making by the sound of it.
Also fucked my Christmas that I really needed.


----------



## IC3D (Dec 20, 2020)

Also heard of an outbreak at Tilbury docks and potential shutting down imenent


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

weepiper said:


> My dad who's a retired biochemist says that if as has been mentioned in some news stories this new strain seems to be hitting younger people harder, then it would mean Covid is following the same pattern as the Spanish Flu pandemic, where at first it was old people who died then about a year later the virus mutated and started killing young adults. Nicola Sturgeon having taken serious measures to try and keep it out of Scotland and extending the school holidays/doing online learning for the start of next term may reflect this.



I've seen no credible suggestions that this is a feature of the new strain. Maybe there is some, but I've not seen it, and the media just reach for their big book of pandemic mutation cliches at times like these. But then I've not even seen recent media articles that make this suggestion, so maybe I am missing something that has more merit.

Its not even clear that the 1918 wave pattern was as simple as that, and we dont have enough meaningful samples from the era to check. Its just as likely that, for example, some second wave 1918 flu viruses were better at transmitting and got into all sorts of populations in a big way that were relatively spared by the first wave. Its not clear and probably never will be, and some experts in the field will accept some traditional 1918 views whilst others are far from convinced.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The poor old island
> 
> View attachment 244394


I'm trying to continue to sound calm & upbeat when my old Mum & Dad keep asking me if I think they're OK to go to the doctors to get their jab this week. I don't fucking know...but I just keep on saying stuff like "I'm sure they'll have it all safe" etc.  but, in reality, there has to be a risk surrounding getting all these very old folk in one building. Just trying not to get to too anxious, so that they just get it done...


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> It's presumably likely that this new strain has appeared and caught hold in London for the same reason the virus first appeared and caught hold in London, ie because it's a massive melting pot of people constantly arriving and leaving from/to all over the world - so the new strain probably didn't start here, but it's certainly been exported everywhere else by now too.



By the way it turns out I was a bit out of date in terms of 'first UK cases, first UK death, how early did it start?' stuff.

Since early on a lack of surveillance in the first months was thought likely to have obscured the beginning of the UK outbreak. And indeed when we finally started noticing deaths, it was because we had just started actually looking for them properly, eg by testing hospital patients who didnt have a history of travel to China etc.

And there were no shortage of anecdotes about people in a choir getting sick early. and Fergus Walsh from the BBC testing positive for antibodies even though the last time he knew he got sick was before there was even any covid-19 awareness.

Well it turns out that someone got the authorities to explore the January death of their father, after an illness in December, and the virus was detected in lung samples so they got a death certificate with Covid-19 on it:









						Daughter of British man who ‘died from Covid-19 in January’ attacks China for ‘cover-up’
					

Jane Buckland says her father had a heart condition and would have been shielding had he known about the disease at the time




					www.independent.co.uk
				






> Peter Attwood, 84, from Chatham in Kent, died in hospital on 30 January, after falling ill in December with symptoms including cough and a fever. He had never travelled abroad.
> 
> Although heart failure and pneumonia were originally listed as the reason for his death, the Kent coroner has now confirmed that Mr Attwood had coronavirus in his lung tissue, _The_ _Sun_ reported.
> Covid-19 has since been named as his cause of death — making Mr Attwood the first known coronavirus victim outside China, only 19 days after the first fatality was reported in Wuhan.



A lot of death can happen from novel viruses before people notice. The above is not new news but I missed it at the time some months ago.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


>



My friend is over visiting her family, but now very worried she won't be able to get home to Vienna 

edit: she isolated in a single room of their house for 10 days upon arrival earlier this month, she's very by the book.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Will we ever again not live in interesting times. Hope so.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Apparently they still don't have all the facts about whether it really does have a worse transmission rate though? There are other things that are driving the transmission upward too



Such facts often take a long time to emerge, if ever, and require luck and masses of data to firmly establish.

It may be that specific details of their genomic surveillance give them more confidence about reaching certain conclusions, but they may be being coy about such detail. For example Scotland was not afraid to mention the new strain in the context of care home and hospital outbreaks. If the existing hospital genonic spread studies are part of whats picked up this new strain, then they may have had the opportunity to study the spread in particular institutions in a rather detailed way.

We'll see. So far in terms of info in the public domain, I am missing what would be required for my own impression of this situation to develop properly. Its quite weak stuff, but they may be sitting on stuff that is more compelling.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


>





"Britain isn't trapped in the EU with you, your trapped in the EU with Britain"


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

twitter is so weird today i dont know what is going on here.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

This is good. Puts Johnson’s pathetic behaviour into a wider context than just his personal failings as a human:








						‘Cancelling Christmas’ days after deriding the possibility shows how the prime minister is caught in the trap of populism
					

20th December 2020 Just days ago, at the last Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), this exchange took place. Click and watch it. At this point, the prime minister knew that there was a real ris…



					davidallengreen.com


----------



## Flavour (Dec 20, 2020)

Update : I have arrived in Amsterdam. Every single flight to the UK today is cancelled... Except my one. Apparently. For now. Gonna go talk to the staff.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

France reportedly ‘considering’ banning flights and trains from Uk too now. No mention of lorries.

eta Italy has stopped flights to and from uk apparently.
It’s happening so fast.


----------



## Chz (Dec 20, 2020)

Hoping Mrs. C will be able to get back from France, where she's attending a funeral. There doesn't seem to be anything that suggests you can't travel to your home if you were already away from it.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 20, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> My friend is over visiting her family, but now very worried she won't be able to get home to Vienna
> 
> edit: she isolated in a single room of their house for 10 days upon arrival earlier this month, she's very by the book.






To quote me, earlier in that chat thread: I just really loathe this government more with every passing day.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2020)

Flavour said:


> Update : I have arrived in Amsterdam. Every single flight to the UK today is cancelled... Except my one. Apparently. For now. Gonna go talk to the staff.



Keep us informed. And good luck.



Chz said:


> Hoping Mrs. C will be able to get back from France, where she's attending a funeral. There doesn't seem to be anything that suggests you can't travel to your home if you were already away from it.



Except flight cancellations. Good luck to Mrs C too.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Is it true the new strain was identified in Kent in mid September but we were not told about it for 3 months?


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Dec 20, 2020)

Slightly interesting paper comparing human behaviours between the 1665 plague and COVID.





__





						Loading…
					





					onlinelibrary.wiley.com


----------



## Raheem (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it true the new strain was identified in Kent in mid September but we were not told about it for 3 months?


I think finding a new strain isn't necessarily massively remarkable in itself.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it true the new strain was identified in Kent in mid September but we were not told about it for 3 months?



I think they said that yesterday, yes. At least that was what was reported in the media.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Raheem said:


> I think finding a new strain isn't necessarily remarkable in itself.


No, but 3 months to observe its increasing frequency? Seems long. Did they inform the WHO yesterday ?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2020)

I don't think anyone has mentioned this (sorry if I've missed it) so I will.









						Covid: New coronavirus variant 'in every part of Wales'
					

There could be a spike in Covid cases after Christmas, even with lockdown, the health minister says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Covid has rocketed in my (nearby) little town in the last 4 weeks. A student friend who works part-time in a care home has it. And three residents of the care home died of it last week.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Will we ever again not live in interesting times. Hope so.


Oh to greet friends and family with hugs and kisses.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it true the new strain was identified in Kent in mid September but we were not told about it for 3 months?


This slide was doing the rounds on twitter yesterday which appears to show recording of the new variant since the beginning of October, and in yesterday's briefing, one of Whitty or Vallance certainly mentioned monitoring since September.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Is it true the new strain was identified in Kent in mid September but we were not told about it for 3 months?



They discovered it in October, from a sample taken in September, and as new strains are appearing all the time, they had nothing to worry about. Then in November they started to look into WTF was happening in Kent, then last Friday week they concluded the new strain could be the problem.

Only last Friday did the evidence come together to confirm the link with the new strain and higher transmission rates, which was then presented to the government, hence the squeaky bum time over the last couple of days.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

They clearly erred on the side of not wanting to alarm anyone, including every other country in the world, until they were pretty certain it was a massive problem we have here.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They discovered it in October, from a sample taken in September, and as new strains are appearing all the time, they had nothing to worry about. Then in November they started to look into WTF was happening in Kent, then last Friday week they concluded the new strain could be the problem.
> 
> Only last Friday did the evidence come together to confirm the link with the new strain and higher transmission rates, which was then presented to the government, hence the squeaky bum time over the last couple of days.


Yes, that's certainly the story being told. But, looking at that graph above...if they were able to access that data in real time (?)...it looks to my untrained eye as though it was obvious that something was up (the growing proportion of 'S' variants as a % of total +ive cases) between 2 to 3 weeks ago.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 20, 2020)

I am really not v enthusiastic about the prospect of being stuck in the UK. Maybe I will have to pay a fishermen to sneak me over the channel to get back onto the continent


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

> A new strain of coronavirus driving spirally infection rates in London has already spread to every region in the UK, a health boss has warned.
> 
> Scientists first became aware of the variant, now identified as VUI 202012/01 in October, after analysing a sample from September.
> 
> But it is only this week that experts at the Government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) have concluded it is spreading more quickly.





> Dr Susan Hopkins, of Public Health England, said the new mutant strain has been detected in virtually all regions of the UK.
> 
> *She told Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday: "It has been detected in many other parts of the country.
> 
> ...











						New strain of Covid has already spread across country, health boss warns
					

Dr Susan Hopkins said she hopes people travelling around the country for Christmas will 'reduce their social contacts'




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

Italy about to close flights. I hope my ex makes it (her flight is 5pm) 



> Italy’s foreign minister Luigi Di Maio announced on Twitter: “As a government we have a duty to protect Italians, so for this reason, after warning the British government…we are about to sign the order to suspend flights with Great Britain.”


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Yes, that's certainly the story being told. But, looking at that graph above...if they were able to access that data in real time (?)...it looks to my untrained eye as though it was obvious that something was up (the growing proportion of 'S' variants as a % of total +ive cases) between 2 to 3 weeks ago.



Yes, they knew something was up, hence doing the research, it takes time to get the results, that (a) the new strain was spreading, and then (b) the rate of transmission compared to other strains. Hence the panic button being pushed, once the data & evidence came together last Friday, that confirmed their worst fears.

That graph represents their research, it wasn't real time reporting.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes, they knew something was up, hence doing the research, it takes time to get the results, that (a) the new strain was spreading, and then (b) the rate of transmission compared to other strains. Hence the panic button being pushed, once the data & evidence came together last Friday, that confirmed their worst fears.


We will probably hear more soon about what if anything they chose to share with other countries and when and whether everyone thinks they did a good job of those decisions.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not sure about the chance of avoiding this latest episode really, short of changing the entire response from the beginning. I also think lots of the pressure for Xmas relaxation actually came from the media incessantly going on about Xmas since October, but I do think anecdotally plenty of people I have talked to have wanted something like that as well.
> 
> I also think a sudden change in restrictions when the news of the new variant was all they could do, and I'm not pissed off with them about that, and I do find the moaning about cancelled plans for Xmas, etc. quite ridiculous and selfish in the face of 80,000 dead in this country, and likely many more before this is over. I personally wish they'd been tighter restrictions all the way through, but I recognize that is not what many people want, and they also come with other disadvantages, and I do know that it is a balance between various competing needs in society.
> 
> ...


Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my anger at them. I agree with you about the need for the latest interventions, my rant was aimed at them offering the Xmas relaxations in the first place.  It was crazy to say - weeks in advance - that living rooms would be set up as multi-generational virus transmission centres.  Crazy to make any kind of promises about Christmas in fact that far ahead.

We've got the worst situation possible now for lonely and isolated people - family reunions that were promised and then taken away. All along they should have been saying 'for the sake of everyone, in a pandemic, let's do Christmas next Summer'. The focus should have been on making sure elderly and vulnerable people have access to technologies that keep them in touch + the state putting more money into befriending schemes and the rest.  Fwiw, I'm not personally a fan of Christmas, but I think the virus is taking a real toll on the poorest and most vulnerable. That's what needs addressing, particuarly as we'll all be in tier 4 soon. Of course johnson will do none of that.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> We will probably hear more soon about what if anything they chose to share with other countries and when and whether everyone thinks they did a good job of those decisions.



They have been sharing info with the WHO at every stage, according to the WHO expert on the Andrew Marr show.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They have been sharing info with the WHO at every stage, according to the WHO expert on the Andrew Marr show.


But everyone shutting their borders to us just this morning?


----------



## chilango (Dec 20, 2020)

Well, if there was a General Election tomorrow, and the electorate consisted of 8 year olds,  polling in the chilango household appears to suggest a Labour landslide...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> But everyone shutting their borders to us just this morning?



How bad the transmission rate is only became apparent on Friday, England, Scotland & Wales reacted yesterday, now others are.

But, this strain is probably already spreading in Europe, as per posts on this thread, made this morning. 

It has certainly been found in Holland & Denmark, and likely explains the rapid raise in cases, in other countries too.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes, they knew something was up, hence doing the research, it takes time to get the results, that (a) the new strain was spreading, and then (b) the rate of transmission compared to other strains. Hence the panic button being pushed, once the data & evidence came together last Friday, that confirmed their worst fears.
> 
> That graph represents their research, it wasn't real time reporting.


That's helpful, thanks...I just don't believe a word that Johnson says and, therefore, suspect that they were aware of this earlier than they're saying but were looking at other economic and political factors.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 20, 2020)

This is all developing a little too rapidly for my liking. Italy blocking travel makes me think I should not bother continuing with my journey and just try and get home


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

This new strain, VUI-202012/01, doesn't show up in standard testing, random positive samples are subject to genetic sequencing, which takes longer.



> VUI-202012/01 was discovered in September 2020 by the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, which undertook random genetic sequencing of positive COVID-19 samples around the United Kingdom. The consortium is a partnership of the United Kingdom's four public health agencies and the Wellcome Sanger Institute and 12 other academic institutions.[4]
> 
> The consortium was set up in April 2020 and has sequenced 140,000 virus genomes from people infected with COVID-19. It uses the data to track outbreaks, identify variant viruses, and publishes a weekly report.



WIKI


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

brogdale said:


> That's helpful, thanks...I just don't believe a word that Johnson says and, therefore, suspect that they were aware of this earlier than they're saying but were looking at other economic and political factors.



I wouldn't believe it, if only the government was saying it.

I would recommend watching the Andrew Marr Show on iPlayer and see the interviews with the WHO expert & Dr Susan Hopkins from Imperial College, who heads up PHE's covid response.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I wouldn't believe it, if only the government was saying it.
> 
> I would recommend watching the Andrew Marr Show on iPlayer and see the interviews with the WHO expert & Dr Susan Hopkins from Imperial College, who heads up PHE's covid response.


Fair play, but i don't watch Marr.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 20, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Fair play, but i don't watch Marr.


Nobody does do they?


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

chilango said:


> Well, if there was a General Election tomorrow, and the electorate consisted of 8 year olds,  polling in the chilango household appears to suggest a Labour landslide...



chilango I do hope you issued a strongly worded communique denouncing the reformist and telling them Santa only visits anarchist-communists so they had better quickly re-think their political position?


----------



## 2hats (Dec 20, 2020)

weepiper said:


> My dad who's a retired biochemist says that if as has been mentioned in some news stories this new strain seems to be hitting younger people harder





elbows said:


> I've seen no credible suggestions that this is a feature of the new strain.


Some people are getting confused.

There is currently no indication that VUI-202012/01 (B.1.1.7 lineage characterised by 17 mutations including replacements on N501Y and P681H with a double deletion at H69/V70) is more infectious amongst the young in particular. Only that it _may_ have higher transmissivity, have higher ACE2 affinity and (_possibly_) improved anti-body evasion. More detail in the latest phylogenetic analysis:








						Preliminary genomic characterisation of an emergent SARS-CoV-2 lineage in the UK defined by a novel set of spike mutations
					

Preliminary genomic characterisation of an emergent SARS-CoV-2 lineage in the UK defined by a novel set of spike mutations Report written by: Andrew Rambaut1, Nick Loman2, Oliver Pybus3, Wendy Barclay4, Jeff Barrett5, Alesandro Carabelli6, Tom Connor7, Tom Peacock4, David L Robertson8, Erik...




					virological.org
				




The South African 501.V2 variant (shares a _couple_ of mutations with VUI-202012/0, but not all), which appears to be the main driver of the current wave there, is perhaps more concerning as it _appears_ to spread faster, results in a higher viral load, is _possibly_ more severe among young adults and the mutations therein _may_ improve immune escape.
Here’s what you need to know about the new coronavirus variant, now confirmed in SA


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> @chilango I do hope you issued a strongly worded communique denouncing the reformist and telling them Santa only visits anarchist-communists so they had better quickly re-think their political position?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Fair play, but i don't watch Marr.



Well try Sophy Ridge on Sunday...


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> chilango I do hope you issued a strongly worded communique denouncing the reformist and telling them Santa only visits anarchist-communists so they had better quickly re-think their political position?


I sense a parenting FAIL. Said eight-year old probably hasn't even read Capital yet.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well try Sophy Ridge on Sunday...



Useful; thanks.
So, notified Govt. on the 11th, then?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)




----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well try Sophy Ridge on Sunday...




Shitting hell, this really is seriously grim.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 20, 2020)

#worldbeating


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Usel; thanks.
> So, notified Govt. on the 11th, then?



Then more academic partner research and modelling before announcements when evidence was in, then final report Friday just gone.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Usel; thanks.
> So, notified Govt. on the 11th, then?



They report to the government weekly, on Fri. 11th they advised the government of their concerns, hence London & much of the SE being rushed into tier 3.

On Fri. 18th they advised the government that their research & modeling had now confirmed how bad things were, hence London & much of the SE being rushed into tier 4, and both Scotland & Wales taking further action.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Then more academic partner research and modelling before announcements when evidence was in, then final report Friday just gone.


Yep, but Hancock would have been aware of the work "in late November" to see why North Kent was stubbornly not responding to intervention?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

Badgers said:


> #worldbeating



Actually, on this occasion we may well be, because we got on the case fairly early, the suspicion is that a lot of countries haven't picked-up on it yet, so haven't realised how bad it is.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 20, 2020)

i am trying to resist telling someone on twitter to fuck off, as he seems to be blaming the handful of railway staff and even smaller handful of transport plod at each london terminus station for not preventing the mass exodus that happened at a couple of hours' notice yesterday...


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2020)

Flavour said:


> This is all developing a little too rapidly for my liking. Italy blocking travel makes me think I should not bother continuing with my journey and just try and get home



If you're constantly worried about being able to get home again it seems unlikely you'd enjoy your trip much.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Yep, but Hancock would have been aware of the work "in late November" to see why North Kent was stubbornly not responding to intervention?



He did respond by putting Kent into tier 3 straight after lockdown.

There's fucking plenty of reasons to kick this government over it's response to covid, but on this occasion they seem to have moved very quickly, to a rapidly changing situation.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> This new strain, VUI-202012/01, doesn't show up in standard testing, random positive samples are subject to genetic sequencing, which takes longer.
> 
> 
> 
> WIKI



Due to the increased prevalance of that strain, I think they've developed a crude method to check for it by proxy using more standard testing rather than proper genomic analysis.

The normal test checks for three things. When the S part of the test fails to detect what its looking for, they are now using that as a proxy for it being the new strain. But there are some other reasons why some tests have always failed to pick up the S bit. So its a noisy signal. However, once prevalance of the new strain reaches a certain level, it becomes safer for them to assume this isnt the usual background noise, and that it can be used as a rough indicator that its the new strain.

I deduced this mostly from blurb that accompanied ONS data. The same data that was used to make one of the slides yesterday, but that slide only included the southern regions and the full data covers the whole country by region. In this case it seems that mid-November was the tipping point where this methodology could actually be used with more confidence:



> This analysis was produced by Sarah Walker at the University of Oxford. Swabs are tested for 3 genes present in the coronavirus: N protein, S protein and ORF1ab. Each swab can have any one, any two or all three genes detected. Positives are those where one or more of these genes is detected in the swab other than tests that are only positive on the S-gene which is not considered a reliable indicator of the virus if found on its own. The new variant of COVID-19 has genetic changes in the S gene. This means the S-gene is no longer detected in the current test, and cases that would have previously been positive on all three genes are now positive only on the ORF1ab and the N gene (not the S gene). There are also other reasons why a swab may be positive for only these two genes, including lower viral load in the sample, which is why we have always seen a small percentage of this type of positive result. We have been advised that the dropping of the S-gene became a reliable indicator of the new variation in COVID-19 from mid-November (18th November in the attached Table). Prior to that, the data should not be read as being an indicator of the variant. However, we have published a fuller series for transparency. There has recently been an increase in the percentage of positive cases where only the ORF1ab and N genes were found and a decrease in the percentage of cases with all three genes. The data shows the new variant was evident in cases from 18 November onwards. We can use this information to approximate the growth of the new variant.



From Percentage of COVID-19 cases that are positive for ORF1ab and N genes - Office for National Statistics

They will still be doing the proper genomic analysis on various samples from various settings, but I dont have any proper data from those yet. And is useful for them to have a cruder and slightly less reliable, but easier and quicker means of estimating new variant levels.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

As soon as some of these new variant cases are detected in other areas in any significant numbers surely they'll go into Tier 4 as well? Can't be long now...


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> He did respond by putting Kent into tier 3 straight after lockdown.
> 
> There's fucking plenty of reasons to kick this government over it's response to covid, but on this occasion they seem to have moved very quickly, to a rapidly changing situation.


Exactly why I'm sceptical about this 'we didn't know' until 2 days ago line.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> As soon as some of these new variant cases are detected in other areas in any significant numbers surely they'll go into Tier 4 as well? Can't be long now...



What counts as a significant number?

There are some logical holes in their current approach, if the new strain has a significant advantage. They are inviting the new variant to grow in other regions, where they already know it is present at some level. And if the new variant does not take off big time in those other regions, that might imply that its not that much more transmissible than other strains, and that its growth in the south east is more because it happened to emerge in the right place at the right time than anything else. 

My view is still limited because I expect they've seen the growth of this new strain in some very specific contexts and settings, such as hospital outbreaks, and have formed some of their conclusions and fears based on whats been seen in those outbreaks. Too much guesswork on my part due to a lack of info.


----------



## clicker (Dec 20, 2020)

And we *really* don't want anyone who've just received the vaccine, to develop this new strain. 
But it seems whenever I think of worst case scenarios lately , they then happen.


----------



## chilango (Dec 20, 2020)

Sue said:


> I sense a parenting FAIL. Said eight-year old probably hasn't even read Capital yet.



it's okay. She's at a state school so her Marxist teachers will be indoctrinating her in Foucault and not being a racist and other such revolutionary ideas.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> How bad the transmission rate is only became apparent on Friday, England, Scotland & Wales reacted yesterday, now others are.
> 
> But, this strain is probably already spreading in Europe, as per posts on this thread, made this morning.
> 
> It has certainly been found in Holland & Denmark, and likely explains the rapid raise in cases, in other countries too.


Yep. 'Prepare for tier 5' would be a good message for the rest of the UK as well.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

Flavour said:


> This is all developing a little too rapidly for my liking. Italy blocking travel makes me think I should not bother continuing with my journey and just try and get home


unfortunately probably the correct move today.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

Sky News has got hold of the minutes from the Nervtag meeting last Friday, which confirms they think the transmission rate to be 71% above other strains, and provides a range of how it could increase the 'R' number, the scale being between 0.39 to 0.93.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 20, 2020)

NERVTAG minutes.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News has got hold of the minutes from the Nervtag meeting last Friday, which confirms they think the transmission rate to be 71% above other strains, and provides a range of how it could increase the 'R' number, the scale being between 0.39 to 0.93.



Cheers for the tip. Went looking to see if those minutes were officially released. They were:



			https://khub.net/documents/135939561/338928724/SARS-CoV-2+variant+under+investigation%2C+meeting+minutes.pdf/962e866b-161f-2fd5-1030-32b6ab467896?t=1608470511452
		


edit - oops I was too slow!


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

~Included in the 'currently insufficient data to draw any conclusion on:' section is:



> Antigenic escape. The location of the mutations in the receptor binding domain of the spike glycoprotein raises the possibility that this variant is antigenically distinct from prior variants. Four probable reinfections have been identified amongst 915 subjects with this variant but further work is needed to compare this reinfection rate with comparable data sets.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Please keep us updated as my ex is hoping to fly out to Italy later today. And good luck for your flight!


Latest in italian press is ban from midnight tonight from what I understand.
Flavour there are also talks in there of them considering banning flights from Holland too as the new variant has been detected there


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

ouch :/


----------



## teqniq (Dec 20, 2020)

Good article from Rachel Shabi:









						Opinion: Don’t let Boris Johnson and his government grind you down – here’s why
					

Christmas Covid restrictions are not just the fault of a new strain of the virus, they are a consequence of serious and repeated government mistakes, month after month, setting us on this doomed path




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

So my ex has been waiting at Heathrow. She was told that her flight had been rescheduled to 5.20 but she's now been told that it's cancelled. 

The press is rightfully pointing out how fucking dodgy it is that the announcement to go into Tier 4 was held back until after Parliament was put in recess and all the fucking MPs were able to slope off out of London.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 20, 2020)

And their mates:


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2020)

teqniq said:


> And their mates:
> 
> View attachment 244433



I'm gonna ask Santa for a surface-to-air missile.

She must know she's going to trigger a massive pile-on with that bullshit. And I'm sure she's just delighted about it, loathsome ghoul that she is.


----------



## prunus (Dec 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> NERVTAG minutes.



From in there:

"Antigenic escape ... Four probable reinfections have been identified amongst 915 subjects with this variant but further work is needed to compare this reinfection rate with comparable data sets"

A bit under 0.5% of the infected population then - as something on the order of 10% of the population have had it now, that would imply it's certainly not completely able to evade immunity from previous infection (if it is at all - as they say need to see if 0.5% is any higher than expected), and it's likely (or at least not unlikely) the same will obtain from vaccine-generated immunity.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> The press is rightfully pointing out how fucking dodgy it is that the announcement to go into Tier 4 was held back until after Parliament was put in recess and all the fucking MPs were able to slope off out of London.



But, the governments of the UK, and the WHO, were only given the new data/information on Friday.


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> The press is rightfully pointing out how fucking dodgy it is that the announcement to go into Tier 4 was held back until after Parliament was put in recess and all the fucking MPs were able to slope off out of London.


The reason it was held back - if it was - was to avoid the headbanger hard right of the tory party voting against new restrictions. I don't think anyone here can really doubt they're necessary, and if there's a chance they wouldn't pass then I can see the logic in it.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> So my ex has been waiting at Heathrow. She was told that her flight had been rescheduled to 5.20 but she's now been told that it's cancelled.
> 
> The press is rightfully pointing out how fucking dodgy it is that the announcement to go into Tier 4 was held back until after Parliament was put in recess and all the fucking MPs were able to slope off out of London.



More complex than that. Some backbench MPs would have resisted any new restrictions as they're against lockdown and would have tried to force a vote on it, and also there's a power play going on to replace Johnson, so anything he does is going to get some of his party angry atm.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2020)

prunus said:


> From in there:
> 
> "Antigenic escape ... Four probable reinfections have been identified amongst 915 subjects with this variant but further work is needed to compare this reinfection rate with comparable data sets"
> 
> A bit under 0.5% of the infected population then - as something on the order of 10% of the population have had it now, that would imply it's certainly not completely able to evade immunity from previous infection (if it is at all - as they say need to see if 0.5% is any higher than expected), and it's likely (or at least not unlikely) the same will obtain from vaccine-generated immunity.



Yeah I was doing some similar fag-packet maths in my head, but realistically there's not enough data there. Acquired immunity isn't going to be prevalent enough to make much of a dent in infection rates at this point anyway. What worries me is the vaccine(s) potentially being less effective against this new version, but presumably there's even less pertinent data about that.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, the governments of the UK, and the WHO, were only given the new data/information on Friday.



You are talking about the timing of formal processes, in this case NERVTAG reviewing things including a PHE paper of the same date. More informally behind the scenes these possibilities have probably been on the radar for some time, and I think its quite clear from the way Hancock talked about the new variant in public on Monday that they already had a pretty good idea what to expect later in the week. Especially as NERVTAG are mostly just formally approving of the tentative work done so far, and in many specific areas their stance is simply 'waiting for more evidence and data to come in' and attaching some formal degree of confidence to particular claims.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yeah I was doing some similar fag-packet maths in my head, but realistically there's not enough data there. Acquired immunity isn't going to be prevalent enough to make much of a dent in infection rates at this point anyway. What worries me is the vaccine(s) potentially being less effective against this new version, but presumably there's even less pertinent data about that.



Thats probably where the likes of Porton Down come in with research efforts. I did think of the conspiraloon reaction when the Scottish CMO mentioned how Porton Down were growing the new strain at the moment.


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> More complex than that. Some backbench MPs would have resisted any new restrictions as they're against lockdown and would have tried to force a vote on it, and also there's a power play going on to replace Johnson, so anything he does is going to get some of his party angry atm.


Actually yeah this is it: it would have passed in parliament but the government may have needed to look to Labour to get it over the line - which would have probably have meant Labour asking for extra items on the bill, and have been a - possibly fatal - blow to Johnson's leadership.

So loads of extra people get to die for Tory party leadership nonsense. Whoop.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Good article from Rachel Shabi:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This paragraph alone should have the government miles behind in the polls and Labour a certainty to form the next government.  That the polls are no better than tied at the moment shows how much Labour have hollowed themselves out. Probably something for another thread though.



> How do we begin to count the government’s failings? A non-comprehensive list would include: going into lockdown too late, twice; coming out of lockdown too fast; hiving off test and trace in questionable contracts to the private sector, which has stunted our ability to control the virus; sending potentially infected hospital patients back into care homes; keeping airports open; not providing people with the financial means to self-isolate; telling people to “Eat Out to Help Out”, which may have driven a Covid spike; telling us to “get back to work” in August; ignoring advice over schools and universities. Boris Johnson has repeatedly scorned scientific advice to act early, fast and hard, instead waiting until things are out of control before taking measures.


----------



## Cid (Dec 20, 2020)

They don’t actually have to pass Covid legislation through parliament. They’ve chosen to do so, I mean generally it is a better idea. But in a case like this - I.e a rapidly emerging new situation - it would be entirely justifiable to use emergency legislation. Labour would not be able to kick up a fuss, and it’s fairly easy to paint backbenchers as dangerous idiots. Because they are.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Will there be a tier 5?


----------



## maomao (Dec 20, 2020)

We had covid marshalls in the park today which was odd. They didn't approach us though.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Will there be a tier 5?


Tier 6, then XP and on to 7.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 20, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Tier 6, then XP and on to 7.


At which level do you finish the game?


----------



## teqniq (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> More complex than that. Some backbench MPs would have resisted any new restrictions as they're against lockdown and would have tried to force a vote on it, and also there's a power play going on to replace Johnson, so anything he does is going to get some of his party angry atm.


Been rumbled in any case:









						Top Tory claims PM deliberately waited to announce Tier 4 until MPs went home
					

Charles Walker, Vice Chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, claims the Government knew it intended to 'cancel' Christmas plans on Wednesday




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Tier 6, then XP and on to 7.


I thought XP came after 98 and millenium just before you ramp it up to a 100?


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 20, 2020)

I have the fear. The UK becoming some locked off shithole with an unstoppable mutation. The rest of the world will probably get over Covid while we will become a Mad Max wasteland with people frothing at the mouth and at war over food. 

Right, think it is time to log off and make a cup of tea.


----------



## peterkro (Dec 20, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> This winter solstice (note : NOT christmas, I'm an atheist and don't observe any religion's holy days) is indeed something to celebrate.
> 
> However, this year celebrations will be confined to my own house ...
> unless we've been lucky enough to have been vaccinated already.
> ...


If your interested live stream on 21st 22nd 8,45 am, Sun at Newgrange:


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

mwgdrwg said:


> I have the fear. The UK becoming some locked off shithole with an unstoppable mutation. The rest of the world will probably get over Covid while we will become a Mad Max wasteland with people frothing at the mouth and at war over food.


don't worry, it isn't going to work out like this. 


it's not going to just be us.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> More complex than that. Some backbench MPs would have resisted any new restrictions as they're against lockdown and would have tried to force a vote on it, and also there's a power play going on to replace Johnson, so anything he does is going to get some of his party angry atm.



twat of an mp locally (not sure i'd want to go as far as calling him 'my mp' is saying parliament should be recalled


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 20, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> twat of an mp locally (not sure i'd want to go as far as calling him 'my mp' is saying parliament should be recalled



These nobodies are just so full of their self importance.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Even if keeping quiet until last night was a pragmatic choice to ensure the necessary lockdown passed into law, it’s clear that johnson knew what would be necessary back on Wednesday when he ridiculed starmer for the crazy idea of cancelling Xmas? Is that right?
So is there any excuse for that extra little flourish of cuntishness or was that just for sport.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Even if keeping quiet until last night was a pragmatic choice to ensure the necessary lockdown passed into law, it’s clear that johnson knew what would be necessary back on Wednesday when he ridiculed starmer for the crazy idea of cancelling Xmas? Is that right?
> So is there any excuse for that extra little flourish of cuntishness or was that just for sport.



No. Full report on the variant only came to them Friday. They knew about it before, but didn't know full impact, spread, or modelling.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. Full report on the variant only came to them Friday. They knew about it before, but didn't know full impact, spread, or modelling.


So on Wednesday he really did think it a totally risible crazy idea that Christmas plans would have to change. I still don’t get it tbh. I mean I don’t believe there’s an excuse for that, that was a choice. Could have said I hope not instead of mocking the idea.

eta I mean look at it.This was Wednesday.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 20, 2020)

Update: I didn't fly to the UK. Too risky. I abandoned the airport at Amsterdam, where I still am. KLM would not send me back to Italy for free because technically my outgoing flight to the UK was still going. (though obviously the return was cancelled) - will be an interesting one. I'm getting a bus to Paris tonight, then we'll see. I'm not worried about crossing France to Italy border even if there is a super hard lockdown, I will literally walk across a mountain path if necessary


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

Plenty of angry scenes at Heathrow right now. I guess some people trying to leave aren't going to have anywhere to stay in the UK for the next month or whatever.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. Full report on the variant only came to them Friday. They knew about it before, but didn't know full impact, spread, or modelling.


But the whole _easing up for Christmas_ idea was a fucking shit one and should  never have been announced.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2020)

New variant aside things were already bad enough by Wednesday for Johnson to do something. Wednesday was when I cancelled my Christmas and I don't think I was particularly ahead of the game. I don't think he should be let off because of apparent new data about a variant two days later.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> But the whole _easing up for Christmas_ idea was a fucking shit one and should  never have been announced.



Yeah absolutely totally agree. But that was also wanted by a lot of people in the country. And I guess he could have done that, and then the data might not have been that bad. I do think with lots of these things there's no easy or right answers tbh. (They have obviously massively fucked up so many times this year though, so not excusing all those.)


----------



## Flavour (Dec 20, 2020)

It's a fucking disaster this for the people trapped in the UK. I'd at least have a cosy warm house to chill in if I'd have got stuck there.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

Flavour said:


> It's a fucking disaster this for the people trapped in the UK. I'd at least have a cosy warm house to chill in if I'd have got stuck there.



Are other countries not allowing their citizens back in from the UK?


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> But that was also wanted by a lot of people in the country.


Not really sure what relevance this has tbh - especially considering how much of that _wanting_ has been allowed to grow - encouraged - by the government that's just pulled the rug out.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah absolutely totally agree. But that was also wanted by a lot of people in the country. And I guess he could have done that, and then the data might not have been that bad. I do think with lots of these things there's no easy or right answers tbh. (They have obviously massively fucked up so many times this year though, so not excusing all those.)


Come on. The graphs were all pointing in the wrong direction. They've fucked this up from the start and have continued to fuck it up on a near-weekly basis.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> Not really sure what relevance this has tbh - especially considering how much of that _wanting_ has been allowed to grow - encouraged - by the government that's just pulled the rug out.


yeh if wanting got things then boris's head would have been on a spike long ago


----------



## chilango (Dec 20, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> yeh if wanting got things then boris's head would have been on a spike long ago



word for word I was about to post this


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> Not really sure what relevance this has tbh - especially considering how much of that _wanting_ has been allowed to grow - encouraged - by the government that's just pulled the rug out.


I think it’s very relevant, to his actions. The man is desperate to tell people whatever they want to hear.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Are other countries not allowing their citizens back in from the UK?


Yes. Several. Imagine following government guidance and booking your flight home and then finding yourself stranded at an airport with nowhere to go? People have got a right to be fucking livid. Some people won't now have anywhere to stay in the UK for weeks, possibly months.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Come on. The graphs were all pointing in the wrong direction. They've fucked this up from the start and have continued to fuck it up on a near-weekly basis.


not only have they fucked this up from the start they fucked it up before the start by the chronic underfunding of the nhs, so that there were more than 30,000 nursing vacancies before the pandemic started, and the pandemic planning from years back had been undermined by shortages of emergency equipment.


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

good job the estate agents are still open then, at least.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> good job the estate agents are still open then, at least.


one of the silver linings of this sorry year has been seeing a number of estate agents going out of business


----------



## weltweit (Dec 20, 2020)

I just watched the Friday WHO press conference. They mentioned having been made aware of a new UK variant of the virus, didn't say much about it, perhaps consistent with having just received the data.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Yes. Several. Imagine following government guidance and booking your flight home and then finding yourself stranded at an airport with nowhere to go? People have got a right to be fucking livid. Some people won't now have anywhere to stay in the UK for weeks, possibly months.



And it will just make people go round the houses via whichever countries they _can_ get to, which is counterproductive as far as infection control is concerned.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> Yes. Several. Imagine following government guidance and booking your flight home and then finding yourself stranded at an airport with nowhere to go? People have got a right to be fucking livid. Some people won't now have anywhere to stay in the UK for weeks, possibly months.


 What are they supposed to do these people?


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> Not really sure what relevance this has tbh - especially considering how much of that _wanting_ has been allowed to grow - encouraged - by the government that's just pulled the rug out.



I think it's relevant as they were under pressure to do something over Xmas that allowed people to meet. I think there is some truth to the fact that some people were going to do it anyway and maybe guidance was better than a free-for-all. Parliament on some level does have to react to what people want sometimes.

TBH I think it's possible to hate the government and think they've massively fucked this year up, without thinking that everything they do is always totally the wrong decision.



editor said:


> Yes. Several. Imagine following government guidance and booking your flight home and then finding yourself stranded at an airport with nowhere to go? People have got a right to be fucking livid. Some people won't now have anywhere to stay in the UK for weeks, possibly months.



Of course it's shit, but what should they have done on Saturday with the new evidence of the variant? Not changed the rules? Changed them last week at the first hint of a possibility things might be bad, then relaxed them again if the evidence changed? Or back in September when the variant was first detected?


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2020)

To give an idea of how fast things are progressing in my own little area of East London (seven-day rolling rate up to the date given per 100k taken from Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard)

01/12: 189.4 
08/12: 247 
14/12: 420
15/12: 527

The borough and wider surrounding area are following the same trend from what I can see. This is looking very bad.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> not only have they fucked this up from the start they fucked it up before the start by the chronic underfunding of the nhs, so that there were more than 30,000 nursing vacancies before the pandemic started, and the pandemic planning from years back had been undermined by shortages of emergency equipment.



All the contingency planning went into preparing for no-deal brexit instead. So at least we're ready for that


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think it's relevant as they were under pressure to do something over Xmas that allowed people to meet. I think there is some truth to the fact that some people were going to do it anyway and maybe guidance was better than a free-for-all. Parliament on some level does have to react to what people want sometimes.
> 
> TBH I think it's possible to hate the government and think they've massively fucked this year up, without thinking that everything they do is always totally the wrong decision.
> 
> ...


Maybe just informing other countries earlier that there might possibly - but not definitely - be a big problem here would have allowed people to not get stranded at airports overnight with nowhere to stay.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Maybe just informing other countries earlier that there might possibly - but not definitely - be a big problem here would have allowed people to not get stranded at airports overnight with nowhere to stay.



I haven't seen reports of people stranded at airports with nowhere to stay, are there some? I'm at work so restricted access to internet sites.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)

35k new cases on a sunday?


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I haven't seen reports of people stranded at airports with nowhere to stay, are there some? I'm at work so restricted access to internet sites.


Haven’t seen reports no.

eta looks like it’s being left to other countries to figure out how to repatriate their people.


“Totally cordon off the uk”


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

I had a brief poke at this detail from the NEVTAG minutes:


editor said:


> Come on. The graphs were all pointing in the wrong direction. They've fucked this up from the start and have continued to fuck it up on a near-weekly basis.



Indeed. Without knowing anything at all about a new variant I said this on December 12th:



> The Christmas relaxation timing in relation to epidemic stage, levels of infection and trajectory is looking increasingly hideous.
> 
> Plus shitting of bricks is going on because much of the data implies that the 'lockdown 2' measures were not enough to keep a lid on things, let alone the tier restrictions that came after.



And Hancock making public comments about the new variant on Monday was indicative of how far advanced their thinking was on that, its not something you just casually chuck out there.

I dont know what else to say to people who are confusing the timing of certain formalities with the timing of establishment recognition of this new variant. And if we had no genome surveillance and hadnt noticed this new variant at all, I still think the usual hospital etc data would have forced them to act.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

Sue said:


> To give an idea of how fast things are progressing in my own little area of East London (seven-day rolling rate up to the date given per 100k taken from Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard)
> 
> 01/12: 189.4
> 08/12: 247
> ...


if only these were the rates for sw1a rather than e8 & environs


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

So Ireland are banning Brit flights too.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> *New variant aside things were already bad enough by Wednesday for Johnson to do something.* Wednesday was when I cancelled my Christmas and I don't think I was particularly ahead of the game. I don't think he should be let off because of apparent new data about a variant two days later.


 This.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

Sue or rather this particular section of sw1a


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> good job the estate agents are still open then, at least.


Great news if you've got a handy wedge of cash, yes. Most stranded people are unlikely to be ringing them up right now, although I'm still baffled why estate agents seem to be one of the very few businesses unable to operate over Zoom and need to open their physical offices.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> So Ireland are banning Brit flights too.


and who can blame them


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> one of the silver linings of this sorry year has been seeing a number of estate agents going out of business


And yet in Brixton we get a new one opening in one of London's poorest wards with faux edgy 'not another f@cking estate agents' branding. Cunts.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I haven't seen reports of people stranded at airports with nowhere to stay, are there some? I'm at work so restricted access to internet sites.


What do you think is going to happen? Of course some people are going to be stranded.


----------



## IC3D (Dec 20, 2020)

The corona viruses that form part of the common cold started like this I'm sure. The rate of spread and potential to change make a real vaccine that does more than mitigate symptoms impossible. Give it 10 years and it will be forgotten or worse because of modern population density.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

So my ex is still at Heathrow trying to work out what the fuck is going on.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 20, 2020)

IC3D said:


> The corona viruses that form part of the common cold started like this I'm sure. The rate of spread and potential to change make a real vaccine that does more than mitigate symptoms impossible. Give it 10 years and it will be forgotten or worse because of modern population density.


i don't see why, when as i understand it the c19 vaccine affects how the virus attaches itself to cells in the body and not to the virus as a whole as a lot of other vaccines do


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> 35k new cases on a sunday?



Yeah, that's really bad. 326 dead too, up 182 from last week. Fuck.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> So my ex is still at Heathrow trying to work out what the fuck is going on.


If she lives in London, I would recommend going home.

Even if she manages to get an outbound flight soon, chances are she won't get a return journey so she could be stuck there for a while.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> If she lives in London, I would recommend going home.
> 
> Even if she manages to get an outbound flight soon, chances are she won't get a return journey so she could be stuck there for a while.


You're assuming that she has somewhere to stay for a month or whatever. She hasn't.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

These numbers are miniscule and can’t represent the reality surely?


----------



## Cid (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Maybe just informing other countries earlier that there might possibly - but not definitely - be a big problem here would have allowed people to not get stranded at airports overnight with nowhere to stay.



Most reports are saying the scientists involved are in constant communication internationally... Fact is to actually know what's going on you need data. And that means combining genomic analysis with trends on a population level. Sometimes you are just going to get 'oh shit' moments when that all comes together. 

In terms of travel, there was always going to be a risk of new developments. I'm pretty sure this has always been stated in travel guidance. Even deciding to travel knowing the current situation in Europe is, tbh, pretty irresponsible. Of course there are exceptions to that, whether it's care or last opportunities to see someone, and in those case, yeah. Grim.


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

There's nothing in the current trajectory that makes me think international travel in or out of the UK will be very easy at all for at least a month. My brother's much-hated mother in law is supposed to be arriving from Poland for christmas tomorrow - his look of horror when I suggested her two-week stay may be extended substantially was heart-rending: for his sake, I'm hoping Poland to UK flights are cancelled before she sets off...


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Cid said:


> Most reports are saying the scientists involved are in constant communication internationally... Fact is to actually know what's going on you need data. And that means combining genomic analysis with trends on a population level. Sometimes you are just going to get 'oh shit' moments when that all comes together.
> 
> In terms of travel, there was always going to be a risk of new developments. I'm pretty sure this has always been stated in travel guidance. Even deciding to travel knowing the current situation in Europe is, tbh, pretty irresponsible. Of course there are exceptions to that, whether it's care or last opportunities to see someone, and in those case, yeah. Grim.


If they’re communicating so well for such a long time I’m extra surprised that only one single case of our British variant has been found, in two other countries. With a grand total of 11 cases outside these islands. Sounds like not a lot of tests have been done to look for it?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Been rumbled in any case:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Actually,  Charles Walker, Vice Chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers loons, only said, "*I suspect *the Government knew they were going to cancel Christmas on Wednesday and Thursday when they were still telling the House of Commons they planned to press ahead".

The problem with the idea that Johnson & Co. actually knew for sure a curve ball was coming on Friday. would mean there was a conspiracy by the other 3 nations of the UK and a dozen academic institutions involved in Genomics UK, and that both Sturgeon and Drakeford held off restricting Christmas to a single day to help Johnson out.

Frankly if you believe that, you are going down a rabbit hole.


----------



## zora (Dec 20, 2020)

Wowsers. I have been a right doom-monger/well-informed realist throughout all this, but I didn't see this curveball coming.
Not feeling good about it. At all. Unhappily, for the first time since back in March, actually worried again about not having access to healthcare should the worst happen.

Maybe, like mwgdrwg said, time to have a cup of tea...


----------



## Cid (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> These numbers are miniscule and can’t represent the reality surely?
> View attachment 244453



It depends how those countries are tracking variation. Australia has very few cases in the first place, Denmark has a population of 5.8m compared to our population of 66m. Without actually knowing more about the science, we really have no idea on the significance.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Cid said:


> It depends how those countries are tracking variation. Australia has very few cases in the first place, Denmark has a population of 5.8m compared to our population of 66m. Without actually knowing more about the science, we really have no idea on the significance.


I suppose we will find out really soon, what with our strain being news all over the world today. Seems most likely to me that in a couple of weeks it’ll be known to be widespread all over.


----------



## ddraig (Dec 20, 2020)

mwgdrwg said:


> I have the fear. The UK becoming some locked off shithole with an unstoppable mutation. The rest of the world will probably get over Covid while we will become a Mad Max wasteland with people frothing at the mouth and at war over food.
> 
> Right, think it is time to log off and make a cup of tea.


Bydde ti'n iawn ar yr ynys na?


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)

what do they mean by '70% more infectious'? does this mean that you need less of the virus to become infected? or that it can last longer?


----------



## Cid (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> I suppose we will find out really soon, what with our strain being news all over the world today. Seems most likely to me that in a couple of weeks it’ll be known to be widespread all over.



That does seem very likely.

And 35k new cases today, fucking hell.


----------



## baldrick (Dec 20, 2020)

Flavour said:


> Update: I didn't fly to the UK. Too risky. I abandoned the airport at Amsterdam, where I still am. KLM would not send me back to Italy for free because technically my outgoing flight to the UK was still going. (though obviously the return was cancelled) - will be an interesting one. I'm getting a bus to Paris tonight, then we'll see. I'm not worried about crossing France to Italy border even if there is a super hard lockdown, I will literally walk across a mountain path if necessary


Keep us updated with your travels. I don't know if we could do anything to help, but do let us know if there is. Good luck 🍀


----------



## Raheem (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Actually,  Charles Walker, Vice Chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers loons, only said, "*I suspect *the Government knew they were going to cancel Christmas on Wednesday and Thursday when they were still telling the House of Commons they planned to press ahead".
> 
> The problem with the idea that Johnson & Co. actually knew for sure a curve ball was coming on Friday. would mean there was a conspiracy by the other 3 nations of the UK and a dozen academic institutions involved in Genomics UK, and that both Sturgeon and Drakeford held off restricting Christmas to a single day to help Johnson out.
> 
> Frankly if you believe that, you are going down a rabbit hole.


This is not a government that ever knows on Wednesday what it will be doing on Friday.


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

baldrick said:


> Keep us updated with your travels.


especially if you take the mountain path route, Flavour


----------



## miss direct (Dec 20, 2020)

Those poor people who can't leave. Not the ones going on holiday, but the ones who don't have anywhere to go. Hostels are obviously a bad idea (and are they even allowed to be open in tier 4?) Not allowed to leave tier 4 - hence higher rent/hotel/air bnb prices. Who has the money to just unexpectedly stay on in and around London, over Christmas?


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> what do they mean by '70% more infectious'? does this mean that you need less of the virus to become infected? or that it can last longer?



NERVTAG minutes go into detail a bit more on this.

Four analytic approaches were reviewed regarding the transmissibility of VUI-202012/01

o Growth rate from genomic data: which suggest a growth rate of VUI-202012/01 that that is 71% (95%CI: 67%-75%) higher than other variants.

*o Studies of correlation between R-values and detection of the variant: which suggest an absolute increase in the R-value of between 0.39 to 0.93.*

o PCR ct values: which suggest a decrease of ct value of around 2 associated with the new variant.

o Viral load inferred from number of unique genome reads: which suggests 0.5 increase in median log10 inferred viral load in Y501 versus N501.


----------



## xenon (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> what do they mean by '70% more infectious'? does this mean that you need less of the virus to become infected? or that it can last longer?



The way I've interpreted it, is easier to catch. That is, this particular strain is more able to bind to cells.


----------



## Cid (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> what do they mean by '70% more infectious'? does this mean that you need less of the virus to become infected? or that it can last longer?



I think it's limited to meaning that the virus is better at moving between hosts... LDC posted while I'm writing this... So effectively what it means is that it seems to push the r number up. It doesn't say anything about the mechanism by which this happens, just that it is happening.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Maybe just informing other countries earlier that there might possibly - but not definitely - be a big problem here would have allowed people to not get stranded at airports overnight with nowhere to stay.



The WHO spokesperson has said that they have been informed every step of the way on this, how many times do I have to keep pointing this out?


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> what do they mean by '70% more infectious'? does this mean that you need less of the virus to become infected? or that it can last longer?


A Dr I heard on the radio said there hadn't been any increase in severity  or length of illness observed, just there being more people infected.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> i don't see why, when as i understand it the c19 vaccine affects how the virus attaches itself to cells in the body and not to the virus as a whole as a lot of other vaccines do



They will always try to look carefully and monitor mutations in the area responsible for how the virus binds to human cells, because those sorts of mutations are a thing that has the potential to thwart vaccines that target that part of the virus.

I'm still trying to get to grips with the nuggets of science involving the new strain. Convalescent plasma has come up several times - I need more time to check my facts but its possible that they've seen this new variant of the virus thriving inside patients who have received other peoples convalescent plasma. This needs further research if they've seen it because it could imply this new strain has immune escape potential. And I suppose in theory they also need to check to make sure that convalescent plasma trials havent created selection pressure thats helped this new variant emerge in the first place. if that was the case then we'd expect it would also happen elsewhere, naturally, with people who have already been infected in the past, because many of the factors involved would be the same as when transferring convalescent plasma to someone else. But there could be key differences, including timing and amount of antibodies in the body relative to infection, other health differences in the person, and things like the possibility of hospital institutional outbreak if a patient with compromised immunity or trial participant ended up shedding a lot of this strain, etc. This is mostly speculation on my part at this stage, areas where I want to improve my own knowledge and see if experts are looking in those directions and publish anything relevant.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)

UK's coronavirus death toll overtakes the number of civilian deaths during the Second World War
					

A further 489 people have died within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Friday, bringing the UK total to 66,541




					inews.co.uk


----------



## Cid (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> There's nothing in the current trajectory that makes me think international travel in or out of the UK will be very easy at all for at least a month. My brother's much-hated mother in law is supposed to be arriving from Poland for christmas tomorrow - his look of horror when I suggested her two-week stay may be extended substantially was heart-rending: for his sake, I'm hoping Poland to UK flights are cancelled before she sets off...



It's funny how he just got a notification to self-isolate isn't it?


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The WHO spokesperson has said that they have been informed every step of the way on this, how many times do I have to keep pointing this out?


ok, i am going to sit here and watch the andrew marr show.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Those poor people who can't leave. Not the ones going on holiday, but the ones who don't have anywhere to go. Hostels are obviously a bad idea (and are they even allowed to be open in tier 4?) Not allowed to leave tier 4 - hence higher rent/hotel/air bnb prices. Who has the money to just unexpectedly stay on in and around London, over Christmas?



I'm just not sure who these people are? People that don't live here who've been visiting here and who are trying to return home? Or people from other countries that live here going home to see people over Xmas? I've not seen countries banning entry to their own citizens? Most of the bans to UK citizens entering other countries haven't come into operation yet either afaik.

People have repeatedly been told for months that traveling, especially abroad, is subject to short notice changes and cancelling. TBH I have limited sympathy for people traveling abroad atm (unless it's for emergencies/caring/etc.), it's never been government guidance to book a flight and go somewhere even if some people have interpreted it as an OK thing to do.


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

Cid said:


> It's funny how he just got a notification to self-isolate isn't it?


I don't think that would fly with my sister in law tbf


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> A Dr I heard on the radio said there hadn't been any increase in severity  or length of illness observed, just there being more people infected.



NERVTAG minutes cover this. Short version is they're not sure yet.


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> ok, i am goig to sit here and watch the andrew marr show.


That is above and beyond the call of duty.


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> especially if you take the mountain path route, Flavour


Flavour, please don't take the mountain path route. I strikes me as kind of....dangerous.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm just not sure who these people are? People that don't live here who've been visiting here and who are trying to return home? Or people from other countries that live here going home to see people over Xmas? I've not seen countries banning entry to their own citizens? Most of the bans to UK citizens entering other countries haven't come into operation yet either afaik.
> 
> People have repeatedly been told for months that traveling, especially abroad, is subject to short notice changes and cancelling. TBH I have limited sympathy for people traveling abroad atm (unless it's for emergencies/caring/etc.), it's never been government guidance to book a flight and go somewhere even if some people have interpreted it as an OK thing to do.


People finishing contracts who have followed government guidance until it suddenly changed. Like people working in the NHS or essential services who were looking forward to getting back to their families/country for Christmas. Students. Teachers. I'm not sure why you need this list explained to you.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I'm still trying to get to grips with the nuggets of science involving the new strain. Convalescent plasma has come up several times - I need more time to check my facts but its possible that they've seen this new variant of the virus thriving inside patients who have received other peoples convalescent plasma. This needs further research if they've seen it because it could imply this new strain has immune escape potential. And I suppose in theory they also need to check to make sure that convalescent plasma trials havent created selection pressure thats helped this new variant emerge in the first place.


Some of these mutations (deletions) have been observed in immunosuppressed patients with chronic episodes of COVID who were being treated for extended periods with convalescent plasma.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> So Ireland are banning Brit flights too.



Are they stopping ferries? 

It would be logical, considering this new strain is seeded right across Wales, and no doubt goes a long way in explaining the fucking mess in south Wales.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> If they’re communicating so well for such a long time I’m extra surprised that only one single case of our British variant has been found, in two other countries. With a grand total of 11 cases outside these islands. Sounds like not a lot of tests have been done to look for it?



NERVTAG say this bimble 

'Few cases of this variant have been reported internationally but one confirmed export from the UK to Australia has been reported. It was noted that other countries have lower sequencing capability than the UK.'


----------



## chilango (Dec 20, 2020)

Sue said:


> Flavour, please don't take the mountain path route. I strikes me as kind of....dangerous.



Would've been doable if the ski resorts on the border were open (e.g. La Thuile) but they're not.


----------



## xenon (Dec 20, 2020)

One of the many things that's grinding my gears about the general reportage around all this. The focus on Easter as some sort of milestone. I wish these people saying oh a few months this, the vaccine will rescue us... Shut the fuck up.

No one has AFAIK yet published a calculation on how much of the populas need to be vaccinated to make a positive practicle difference. At 1M vaccinations a week and 2 shots required, it would take 2 years to vaccinate everyone. Even if a quarter way through you didn't have to go round again due to immunity. wearing off.

Probably reads as a pesamistic, uninformed view. I know peple are trying to be positive. I just don't respond well to being treated like a child, being promised things that are not within the gift of the promiser.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> ok, i am going to sit here and watch the andrew marr show.



But you still have so much to live for


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2020)

xenon said:


> One of the many things that's grinding my gears about the general reportage around all this. The focus on Easter as some sort of milestone. I wish these people saying oh a few months this, the vaccine will rescue us... Shut the fuck up.
> 
> No one has AFAIK yet published a calculation on how much of the populas need to be vaccinated to make a positive practicle difference. At 1M vaccinations a week and 2 shots required, it would take 2 years to vaccinate everyone. Even if a quarter way through you didn't have to go round again due to immunity. wearing off.
> 
> Probably reads as a pesamistic, uninformed view. I know peple are trying to be positive. I just don't respond well to being treated like a child, being promised things that are not within the gift of the promiser.



1 million a week is the opposite of pessimistic I'd say. Half of that, consistently over a period of months, would be a huge achievement IMO.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Those poor people who can't leave. Not the ones going on holiday, but the ones who don't have anywhere to go. Hostels are obviously a bad idea (and are they even allowed to be open in tier 4?) Not allowed to leave tier 4 - hence higher rent/hotel/air bnb prices. Who has the money to just unexpectedly stay on in and around London, over Christmas?



trains will continue running during lockdown. They never stopped this year. People will always be able to get home.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> trains will continue running during lockdown. They never stopped this year. People will always be able to get home.



The difference between pre-booked and walk-up train ticket prices is often ruinous though.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> trains will continue running during lockdown. They never stopped this year. People will always be able to get home.


Depends where home is. I'm not referring to British people with homes elsewhere. I empathise because I had an awful time getting back to the UK from Turkey earlier in the year.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> Some of these mutations (deletions) have been observed in immunosuppressed patients with chronic episodes of COVID who were being treated for extended periods with convalescent plasma.



Cheers. I hadnt seen the paper, but I had just stumbled upon someone discussing a graph from it in the very long video that was recently posted on the mutation thread. 

I can certainly see where there are a number of different reasons for them to be concerned about this collection of mutations.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> That is above and beyond the call of duty.


Thank you I cheated though. 
Scooted to the bit with the WHO spokesperson, who does say that they were alerted to the existence of this variant some weeks ago, but understandably didn't particularly focus on this over other variants that are happening all over.
She then says about how it des not seem to cause more severe illness ' from the _preliminary information_ they have shared with us.. ' I suppose it means, the red flags had to come from here, where the mutation started and spread, and it just took quite a while before they were sure about hoisting it, the red flag.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> The difference between pre-booked and walk-up train ticket prices is often ruinous though.



I never book but during lockdown prebooking should be piss easy as very few people will be travelling.

During the first lockdown there were only 5-6 people on the Euston to Glasgow train. We literally had two carriages each!


----------



## xenon (Dec 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> trains will continue running during lockdown. They never stopped this year. People will always be able to get home.



There are restrictions on the Eurostar already.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2020)

xenon said:


> There are restrictions on the Eurostar already.



That is obviously a different kettle of fish.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> That is obviously a different kettle of fish.


If there's a crack in the tunnel wall, it can get that way.


----------



## xenon (Dec 20, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> 1 million a week is the opposite of pessimistic I'd say. Half of that, consistently over a period of months, would be a huge achievement IMO.



Well yeah. And that relies on consistent supply, effectiveness of vaccine holding up, staff and facilities able to operate at such high output. 

I do think we'll get out of this, more vaccines, better understanding and treatment for the virus. I just hate the flannel and morkish, just hang on for a few more months patronising fact free shite that abounds


----------



## 2hats (Dec 20, 2020)

elbows said:


> I can certainly see where there are a number of different reasons for them to be concerned about this collection of mutations.


The observed mutations thus far are not thought to compromise the current generation of vaccines, however, due to the conformational plasticity of the S protein (said to exceed that of HIV-1 Env), vaccine escape is anticipated at some point, particularly as selection pressure inevitably increases with vaccination deployment.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Are they stopping ferries?
> 
> It would be logical, considering this new strain is seeded right across Wales, and no doubt goes a long way in explaining the fucking mess in south Wales.


It's just said so on Channel 5 news. 48 hour cessation for both flights and ferries from midnight tonight.


----------



## xenon (Dec 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> That is obviously a different kettle of fish.



It's all fish talk in Brussels ATM.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> The observed mutations thus far are not thought to compromise the current generation of vaccines, however, due to the conformational plasticity of the S protein (said to exceed that of HIV-1 Env), vaccine escape is anticipated at some point, particularly as selection pressure inevitably increases with vaccination deployment.


Does this say, it is likely that this strain will evolve into something that will elude the current crop of vaccines?


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

Espresso said:


> It's just said so on Channel 5 news. 48 hour cessation for both flights and ferries from midnight tonight.



not the ferries  according to the Irish Times.









						Coronavirus: 48-hour ban on all flights from Britain due to fears over new virus strain
					

Flight suspension from midnight, ferries to carry hauliers only; no change for North




					www.irishtimes.com
				




The ferries will still be running but unless you are an essential worker (supply chain) then you should not travel is how I read it.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Does this say, it is likely that this strain will evolve into something that will elude the current crop of vaccines?


Not necessarily likely, but a clear possibility.


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)




----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> Not necessarily likely, but a clear possibility.


oh shit. Do you think that's part of why borders are shutting, not just the infectiousness but that possibility is worrying everyone?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 20, 2020)

It's worrying me


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

All those lorry drivers who bring us our food, and who already really do not want to have to come here to piss in a bottle for ten hours, what is going to happen with them now.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> oh shit. Do you think that's part of why borders are shutting, not just the infectiousness but that possibility is worrying everyone?


No. Mainly the transmissivity. Doubtless it's already loitering in many other populations anyway. It's just that their screening hasn't picked it up yet (surveillance less extensive and/or signal too low at present).

To repeat: mutations up to now do not appear to exhibit any signs of vaccine escape (this is an ongoing area of research) but one should not be surprised if, much further down the road, vaccines have to be redesigned to re-establish efficacy.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> All those lorry drivers who bring us our food, and who already really do not want to have to come here to piss in a bottle for ten hours, what is going to happen with them now.



The borders aren't closing though. I think some people need to reign in their drama with this, it's some passenger travel, we're not being shut down to freight or all travel in or out.


----------



## eatmorecheese (Dec 20, 2020)

Just popped in to say much love to the Urban massive. Hunker down, extend your middle finger to the bullshit while also be open to offer a helping hand to others. We will get through this. ONE LOVE x


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

S☼I said:


> It's worrying me



Every reason for that TBH.

Today's figures are scary, in the last 7 days - new cases up 51.2%, admissions to hospital up 18%, deaths up 9.9%. Total covid cases in hospital across the UK up to 18,771 now, the peak in April was 21,303.

We all thought the vaccines were shinning the light at the end of the tunnel, but it was covid with a torch bringing us more shit.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2020)

xenon said:


> It's all fish talk in Brussels ATM.



load of pollocks as far as I'm concerned.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> No. Mainly the transmissivity. Doubtless it's already loitering in many other populations anyway. It's just that their screening hasn't picked it up yet (surveillance less extensive and/or signal too low at present).
> 
> To repeat: mutations up to now do not appear to exhibit any signs of vaccine escape (this is an ongoing area of research) but one should not be surprised if, much further down the road, vaccines have to be redesigned to re-establish efficacy.





LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The borders aren't closing though. I think some people need to reign in their drama with this, it's some passenger travel, we're not being shut down to freight or all travel in or out.



Thank you. Was having a bit of a panic, will stop it now.


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

All outgoing travel from uk to France has been suspended 

But France can still send us Brie. I like Brie.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)




----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

eatmorecheese said:


> Just popped in to say much love to the Urban massive. Hunker down, extend your middle finger to the bullshit while also be open to offer a helping hand to others. We will get through this. ONE LOVE x


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


>



sorry! I don’t make the rules!


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The borders aren't closing though. I think some people need to reign in their drama with this, it's some passenger travel, we're not being shut down to freight or all travel in or out.


This aged well. Things so fast moving today


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Why are france stopping goods transport?


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why are france stopping goods transport?


Just accompanied freight, eg with drivers.


----------



## brix_kitty (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm just not sure who these people are? People that don't live here who've been visiting here and who are trying to return home? Or people from other countries that live here going home to see people over Xmas? I've not seen countries banning entry to their own citizens? Most of the bans to UK citizens entering other countries haven't come into operation yet either afaik.


Doesn't matter if your country hasn't banned your entry as a citizen/resident, if you can't find an airline to fly you there.


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why are france stopping goods transport?



Next tweet down says that non accompanied freight is allowed so just down to them not wanting infectious truckers en France.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why are france stopping goods transport?



Maybe until they get a robust testing system for the new variant in place?

I take back my earlier comment, TIME TO PANIC!!!


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

My dad is supposed to pick up the last wine order before Brexit from Newry tomorrow. That could be an interesting trip. He’s in Dublin. 

(He’s a retired H&S specialist so his risk assessment and preventive procedures are pretty much on the nose)


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

spitfire said:


> Next tweet down says that non accompanied freight is allowed so just down to them not wanting infectious truckers en France.



#notalltruckers


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Maybe until they get a robust testing system for the new variant in place?
> 
> I take back my earlier comment, TIME TO PANIC!!!



I’ll do the honours.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

It’s all fine I have loads of cheese.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> Why are france stopping goods transport?



Brexit benefit


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

spitfire said:


> Next tweet down says that non accompanied freight is allowed so just down to them not wanting infectious truckers en France.


That’s not being translated very well then.


----------



## oryx (Dec 20, 2020)

I'm not actually panicking, just decided today after a walk around & quick visit to the local shops for OH's final present that I'm going to try and stay indoors until either a) I unavoidably have to go out or b) I get cabin fever and need a walk around the block. 

Cases up by 500+ in my London borough yesterday. Think I'll start getting my daily exercise by doing more housework and more yoga.

I appreciate I'm lucky in being able to do this.


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> That’s not being translated very well then.
> View attachment 244470



Seul le fret non accompagné sera donc autorisé. Les flux de personnes ou de transports en direction du Royaume-Uni ne sont pas concernés", a précisé Matignon, alors qu'une variante du coronavirus a été découverte outre-Manche

_"Only non accompanied freight is authorised. People and transport travelling to the uk is not a concern."_

My french isn’t amazing but looks like it’s better than Pippa Crerars.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> That’s not being translated very well then.
> View attachment 244470



This is really starting to look like the start of a perfect storm of fuck ups and I'm starting to think we're going to be fucked for food in a couple of weeks, in the middle of winter.


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> This is really starting to look like the start of a perfect storm of fuck ups and I'm starting to think we're going to be fucked for food in a couple of weeks, in the middle of winter.



they’ll figure it out. Will be a handover procedure of some description and the freight will still get to us. Maybe not all of it but we’ll be fine. The 48 hour thing is a firebreak to give them a chance to sort it out.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

Yep it's only in the direction towards France, the brie is still pouring in for bah humbug.

The EU are having a meeting about the variant tomorrow for a coordinated response hence the short 48 hours ban at the moment from some EU countries.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)




----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

This is fine.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 20, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> This is really starting to look like the start of a perfect storm of fuck ups and I'm starting to think we're going to be fucked for food in a couple of weeks, in the middle of winter.



The last delivery of toilet roll and pasta has just arrived...


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

please tell me I’m being a mad conspiracy theorist: 
any chance this idea floated above by Germany (that all 27 might shut down sea road and rail links for 48 hours initially) is not entirely unrelated to an attempt to focus our minds on what a no deal brexit with zero preparation might look like?


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is fine.
> View attachment 244472



that would not be good  

I'm going wine shopping tomorrow (seriously)


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> please tell me I’m being a mad conspiracy theorist:
> any chance this idea floated above by Germany (that all 27 might shut down sea road and rail links for 48 hours initially) is not entirely unrelated to an attempt to focus our minds on what a no deal brexit with zero preparation might look like?



reality rather than conspiracy imo


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> please tell me I’m being a mad conspiracy theorist:
> any chance this idea floated above by Germany (that all 27 might shut down sea road and rail links for 48 hours initially) is not entirely unrelated to an attempt to focus our minds on what a no deal brexit with zero preparation might look like?


Not impossible
but
how they managed to sneak in that lab made variant back in September, we will never know.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Not impossible
> but
> how they managed to sneak in that lab made variant back in September, we will never know.


Obvs not that, but improvisation , or threat of it.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 20, 2020)

Certainly wouldn't be surprised if France and other EU countries are calculating that this may give them a negotiating advantage. But it's also a sensible precautionary thing to do for their populations, so likely coincidental win-win for them.


----------



## zora (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble: Yes, said in the kindest possible way.

Flatmate just came back from an outing and knocked on my door to check if it was okay if her friend came in for a short while for them to have their take-away meal. She was being very considerate and very much pre-empted that it would be fine for them to eat outside instead if I was uncomfortable with it (which indeed I am), but I still do wonder what exactly about this weekend's developments made her think it would be a good idea to invite someone into our tiny lounge to eat..?


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> please tell me I’m being a mad conspiracy theorist:
> any chance this idea floated above by Germany (that all 27 might shut down sea road and rail links for 48 hours initially) is not entirely unrelated to an attempt to focus our minds on what a no deal brexit with zero preparation might look like?



It depends how far you run with that idea.

I'd say that conspiracies arent necessary, its simply that events and politics do not exist in isolation, things interact, very different themes can merge together and moments happen.

I think of similar concepts when I discuss the recent government new variant announcements. Opportunities knock, one emerging reality can be used to obscure other failings. The framing of events can change dramatically, even whilst the underlying realities are actually a series of separate concerns, some of which get forgotten as the new star takes centre stage. The Brexiteers, via this pandemic, have already escaped the prospects of the effects of Brexit on the economy etc being witnessed in isolation, everything on that front is now merged with pandemic economic woe. Now the same may happen with border and port chaos, the flow of goods etc.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 20, 2020)

I have a friend who's British and currently in Greece, where she's been working. She's unhappy and has quit her job and has a flight back to the uk on Wednesday. Is there a chance she will be affected by all this and not be able to get back?


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Now, after ‘cancelling Xmas’, there is no way for Uk Gov to claim that the 27 would be overreacting to our virus problem or being nasty bullies, in response to this threat of cutting us off for 2 days.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I have a friend who's British and currently in Greece, where she's been working. She's unhappy and has quit her job and has a flight back to the uk on Wednesday. Is there a chance she will be affected by all this and not be able to get back?



One of the most obvious risks is with flight schedules.


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 20, 2020)

spitfire said:


> Only non accompanied freight is authorised.



Forgive my genuine ignorance, what's non accompanied freight? Surely all freight needs someone with it to get it to its destination? Or do they just herd a bunch of sheep up to the entrance to the channel tunnel and say "Voici les moutons, La Grande-Bretagne, allez-y!" and let them get on with it?


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 20, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> Forgive my genuine ignorance, what's non accompanied freight? Surely all freight needs someone with it to get it to its destination? Or do they just herd a bunch of sheep up to the entrance to the channel tunnel and say "Voici les moutons, La Grande-Bretagne, allez-y!" and let them get on with it?



freight is not quite my thing, but (for example) a container that's loaded on to a ship would be the obvious one


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> Forgive my genuine ignorance, what's non accompanied freight? Surely all freight needs someone with it to get it to its destination? Or do they just herd a bunch of sheep up to the entrance to the channel tunnel and say "Voici les moutons, La Grande-Bretagne, allez-y!" and let them get on with it?



Containers shipped.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

Puddy_Tat said:


> freight is not quite my thing, but (for example) a container that's loaded on to a ship would be the obvious one


Also for artic trailers they can be loaded onto ferries without the tractor unit and picked up by another truck on the other side, it does increase the load-in/out times massively for ferries
e2a: doubt it's an option for the chunnel trains though but could be wrong


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> Forgive my genuine ignorance, what's non accompanied freight? Surely all freight needs someone with it to get it to its destination? Or do they just herd a bunch of sheep up to the entrance to the channel tunnel and say "Voici les moutons, La Grande-Bretagne, allez-y!" and let them get on with it?



The trailer is dropped at the port by a driver and then driven onboard by one of the funny little tractor units that kick around ports. 

Then unloaded at the other end by a similar method. 
I do not know what proportion of freight this covers but hopefully it can ramp up quickly.


----------



## Pingety Pong (Dec 20, 2020)

bimble said:


> please tell me I’m being a mad conspiracy theorist:
> any chance this idea floated above by Germany (that all 27 might shut down sea road and rail links for 48 hours initially) is not entirely unrelated to an attempt to focus our minds on what a no deal brexit with zero preparation might look like?



I don't think the idea is being floated by Germany (that to me sounds like a Brexity conspiracy that Germany pulls all the strings when in reality it was other countries like the Netherlands and Belgium which banned all travel from the UK today first, and Merkel is usually very measured in her approach). I am more concerned that this new strain is even worse than they are letting on and leaves neighbouring countries with no option but completely closing the borders to the UK


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 20, 2020)

zora said:


> bimble: Yes, said in the kindest possible way.
> 
> Flatmate just came back from an outing and knocked on my door to check if it was okay if her friend came in for a short while for them to have their take-away meal. She was being very considerate and very much pre-empted that it would be fine for them to eat outside instead if I was uncomfortable with it (which indeed I am), but I still do wonder what exactly about this weekend's developments made her think it would be a good idea to invite someone into our tiny lounge to eat..?



Terribly sorry to bother you, erm, w-woudd you be ever so kind and allow my chum, to erm, erm enter the abode and eat, e-eat her ever so delicious nosh an, erm, p-possibly infect you with a, erm, d-deadly virus? Would that be ok?

(I am just imagining your female flatmate is Hugh Grant)


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 20, 2020)

Ah of course, thanks all  I still like the idea of sheep being told to find their own way through the tunnel though.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 20, 2020)

2hats said:


> Doubtless it's already loitering in many other populations anyway. It's just that their screening hasn't picked it up yet (surveillance less extensive and/or signal too low at present).


_Variante inglese_ a Fiumicino...








						Covid, l'Italia sospende i voli con Uk. Speranza: "Nuova variante è più veloce, ma sembra che vaccino possa funzionare"
					

Il ministro della Salute: "Il rischio che la mutazione sia già arrivata in Italia c'è". Tampone per chi proviene da Uk




					www.ilfattoquotidiano.it


----------



## weltweit (Dec 20, 2020)

Scratch that


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

spitfire said:


> The trailer is dropped at the port by a driver and then driven onboard by one of the funny little tractor units that kick around ports.
> 
> Then unloaded at the other end by a similar method.
> I do not know what proportion of freight this covers but hopefully it can ramp up quickly.



cant find a picture of one of these for the life of me.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)




----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 20, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> Ah of course, thanks all  I still like the idea of sheep being told to find their own way through the tunnel though.



You can't even trust sheep to stand up by themselves


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2020)

Freight is crane lifted isn't it? How do they stack them otherwise?


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

The timing is just , scriptwriters for 2020 need to take a holiday.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

spitfire said:


> cant find a picture of one of these for the life of me.


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


>



thank you.


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Freight is crane lifted isn't it? How do they stack them otherwise?



I’m only talking about Ro Ro freight. 

Container freight will most likely be unaffected although it’s already fucked.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> I never book but during lockdown prebooking should be piss easy as very few people will be travelling.


It wasn't easy booking tickets for my (now cancelled) Cardiff trip. I ended up in a loop of booking a train to be told that I could only travel with a seat reservation and then finding out there were none.


----------



## spitfire (Dec 20, 2020)

spitfire said:


> I’m only talking about Ro Ro freight.
> 
> Container freight will most likely be unaffected although it’s already fucked.



its the humans they don’t want.


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 20, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> You can't even trust sheep to stand up by themselves



The once great engineering marvel of the channel tunnel being blocked by hundreds of confused sheep would be a perfect bookend to 2020 for this nation.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Good summary of what’s going on today with the EU, as they work towards a more unified response.




__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


----------



## Badgers (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, the governments of the UK, and the WHO, were only given the new data/information on Friday.


Was that a Friday in September?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH I think it's possible to hate the government and think they've massively fucked this year up, without thinking that everything they do is always totally the wrong decision.


I think everything they do is a self serving decision. Is that the same?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Was that a Friday in September?



Mate, read the fucking thread! The new data was only presented to ALL FOUR nations of the UK on Friday 18th, hence the panic response from the UK, Scottish & Welsh governments.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 20, 2020)




----------



## Badgers (Dec 20, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Mate, read the fucking thread! The new data was only presented to ALL FOUR nations of the UK on Friday 18th, hence the panic response from the UK, Scottish & Welsh governments.


Don't get shitty with me. 

The thread is not the best source of news. Don't switch between having a sense of humour and not.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 20, 2020)

Gerry1time said:


> The once great engineering marvel of the channel tunnel being blocked by hundreds of confused sheep would be a perfect bookend to 2020 for this nation.


are you working in a secret EU lab creating a sheep variant of COVID for brexit?


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> to be told that I could only travel with a seat reservation and then finding out there were none.



Was never the case though. Nobody checked tickets during lockdown. Let alone checking to see if you had a seat reservation.


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 20, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> are you working in a secret EU lab creating a sheep variant of COVID for brexit?



Nope, too busy invoking article 25 of Magna Carta as a freeman on the land.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 20, 2020)

> The increased infectivity of the variant is illustrated by the fact that, after appearing in Kent on September 20, it was responsible for 28 per cent of infections in London by early November and accounted for 62 per cent in the week ending December 9.







__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 20, 2020)

tweet


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Dec 20, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> View attachment 244487
> 
> tweet


Putting the "real" back into real estate.


----------



## Sprocket. (Dec 20, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


>



Referred to or commonly called  ‘shunts’.


----------



## sleaterkinney (Dec 20, 2020)

I thought countries didn’t have control of their borders.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 20, 2020)

Turkey has now banned flights from the uk too.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 20, 2020)

Glad I never bothered booking flights. Have at least one friend "stuck" here who's meant to be back at work next week. Online so doesn't really matter..


----------



## TopCat (Dec 20, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> one of the silver linings of this sorry year has been seeing a number of estate agents going out of business


And lots of bookies.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 20, 2020)

TopCat said:


> And lots of bookies.


I don't have a problem at all with bookies going out of business.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

sleaterkinney said:


> I thought countries didn’t have control of their borders.



Government should not at all have been ‘caught off guard ‘ by this. What did they think would happen after yesterday’s dramatic announcement & in the context of brexit brinkmanship.


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2020)




----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 20, 2020)




----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> View attachment 244494



To be fair noone in the West took Covid seriously in January last year.


----------



## AverageJoe (Dec 20, 2020)

Just seen on Facebook that an old friend of mine has gone from London today (tier 4) with his family, picked up his mum and driven to Cornwall (tier 1)or Christmas.

What a fucking cunt


----------



## AverageJoe (Dec 20, 2020)

Seriously speechless about it. 

Our near neighbours who's kids are at school with mine went by train from Tier 4 to Birmingham (Tier 3) to watch Aston Villa v West Brom. They'll be back tomorrow. 

I popped into the local M&S to pick up a sandwich for the boy after fishing. The guy on the checkout was really nice and asked us what we were doing for Christmas. 

"Staying at home like everyone else" said I. 
"Oh" he said cheerfully. "At least half the people I've served today have said they aren't changing their plans for Christmas".... 

I checked on a few of my single, elder friends yesterday. They're all going round mates houses.

I really don't think my eyebrows could go any higher. We've got at least another year of this if that's what's happening round me,in Tier 4.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 20, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I don't have a problem at all with bookies going out of business.


I would like 70% to fold, each replaced by a bakers.


----------



## ash (Dec 20, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Just seen on Facebook that an old friend of mine has gone from London today (tier 4) with his family, picked up his mum and driven to Cornwall (tier 1)or Christmas.
> 
> What a fucking cunt


Totally old friends posted a pic on facebook of them in a restaurant in a tier 2 the evening before Surrey (where they live) went into tier 3  -  wrong on so many levels


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

I don't think you can really blame people too much for going 'actually, fuck that I'm going to do what I've planned and spent hundreds / thousands of pounds on' tbh. That's going to be one of the inevitable consequences of cancelling a holiday with 5 days notice.


----------



## AverageJoe (Dec 20, 2020)

ash said:


> Totally old friends posted a pic on facebook of them in a restaurant in a tier 2 the evening before Surrey (where they live) went into tier 3  -  wrong on so many levels



Thats what gets me. 

I've know them for forty plus years (I went to both Primary and Secondary school with him, after that we played in the same football team etc) so I know he's not thick, and he's not incapable of not understanding the new rules. 

He's just chosen not to. 

And there are _so_ many people doing this that those who are Covid weary and of a lesser constitution will see this and go "ah fuck it, if he's doing then we might as well".


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think you can really blame people too much for going 'actually, fuck that I'm going to do what I've planned and spent hundreds / thousands of pounds on' tbh. That's going to be one of the inevitable consequences of cancelling a holiday with 5 days notice.



Last weekend before Christmas is also a traditional time to travel, if only to avoid the rush Christmas Eve (never making that mistake again)


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think you can really blame people too much for going 'actually, fuck that I'm going to do what I've planned and spent hundreds / thousands of pounds on' tbh. That's going to be one of the inevitable consequences of cancelling a holiday with 5 days notice.


I am not, personally, going to criticise anyone for doing what they were going to do beforehand, now that the rules have changed. I don't think "not following the rules" is an ethical issue.

I might of course criticise them for what they were going to do even when it was legal. Nobody should have been going to see the olds and having a big meet-up from all corners no matter what Boris said.

This is where we are now; the rules are random and shit and I don't care about them except as far as I might get arrested.


----------



## AverageJoe (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> I don't think you can really blame people too much for going 'actually, fuck that I'm going to do what I've planned and spent hundreds / thousands of pounds on' tbh. That's going to be one of the inevitable consequences of cancelling a holiday with 5 days notice.



This wasnt planned. "We kidknapped Nana before the border shut and completed Operation Lizard". 

And even if they had planned it, they are both very very well paid execs in London with kids at Private schools. 

It's just fucking arrogance and it wears me down sometimes


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2020)

Hellowhammer! I remember that from 2018 or thereabouts.


----------



## BCBlues (Dec 20, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> Seriously speechless about it.
> 
> Our near neighbours who's kids are at school with mine went by train from Tier 4 to Birmingham (Tier 3) to watch Aston Villa v West Brom. They'll be back tomorrow.
> 
> ...



This is confusing as there were no fans in the Hawthorns tonight.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 20, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> Referred to or commonly called  ‘shunts’.


Watched several of these loading the "Ben my Cree" at Heysham - they worked very quickly. 
(this was for the o/n trip and the cargo was mostly HGV trailers, by the time we had got into Douglas, most of the trailers arriving had already been unloaded and the island's shunters were lining up the return load !)
Unfortunately, Covid is severely f'ing the process up - mainly because of the trailer brakes ...


----------



## AverageJoe (Dec 20, 2020)

BCBlues said:


> This is confusing as there were no fans in the Hawthorns tonight.



I know. We were looking for them on tv. But yesterday he's got pics of him and his boy outside Villa Park.

"Finally back at the home of football. UTV!".

His boy doesn't even like football ffs. Baroness Joe is a nurse and has pretty much gone potty over it, especially as the boys year had to isolate for two weeks and the mum (who's a teaching assistant there) decided that the best way to isolate for two weeks was to take her dog out to shit on our front lawn for two weeks on the way to Pound land and Greggs....


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> I know. We were looking for them on tv. But yesterday he's got pics of him and his boy outside Villa Park.
> 
> "Finally back at the home of football. UTV!".
> 
> His boy doesn't even like football ffs. Baroness Joe is a nurse and has pretty much gone potty over it, especially as the boys year had to isolate for two weeks and the mum (who's a teaching assistant there) decided that the best way to isolate for two weeks was to take her dog out to shit on our front lawn for two weeks on the way to Pound land and Greggs....


you're friends on social media with someone who lets their dog shit on your lawn?


----------



## AverageJoe (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> you're friends on social media with someone who lets their dog shit on your lawn?



They pick it up. I'm pretty chilled.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

editor said:


> View attachment 244494



Well, he's wrong. He should read the NERVTAG minutes. Unless he's going down a conspiracy wormhole.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Well, he's wrong. He should read the NERVTAG minutes. Unless he's going down a conspiracy wormhole.



I think it's too early to say if it's conspiracy territory yet. It's fast moving science and nervtag don't currently have all the answers.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> This is where we are now; the rules are random and shit and I don't care about them except as far as I might get arrested.



And passing the virus on hopefully? They're not 'random' though. Some of them might not make sense to you, or you may not like them, there's inevitable complexities and contradictions in some areas, and they're balanced with things some people think are priorities that you might think aren't, but they not random and shit.

This kind of stuff is really wearing me down on here tbh.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> I think it's too early to say if it's conspiracy territory yet. It's fast moving science and nervtag don't currently have all the answers.



Nobody says they do, in fact their minutes say many things needs more research, but they take info from a number of sources, and one person just dismissing it on Twitter as no concern as they did is just bollocks compared to what NERVTAG have shown.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Well, he's wrong. He should read the NERVTAG minutes. Unless he's going down a conspiracy wormhole.



He probably has but this added delay to the response.

Boris is fundamentally untrustworthy, delaying his response here also delayed the response there.


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> This wasnt planned. "We kidknapped Nana before the border shut and completed Operation Lizard".
> 
> And even if they had planned it, they are both very very well paid execs in London with kids at Private schools.
> 
> It's just fucking arrogance and it wears me down sometimes


I think a lot of people are just going a bit mad right now tbh, and even well paid execs must really miss their mums when they haven't seen them for months on end.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Well, he's wrong. He should read the NERVTAG minutes. Unless he's going down a conspiracy wormhole.



Lets not reduce everything to monolithic absolutes. Its not how science works, all sorts of expert voices will take a cautious approach to the emerging facts. Some may make a mistake by being too dismissive, others by being too accepting of uncertainties, but neither deserve to be written off automatically at the start.

For me the full spectrum of possibilities in regards this new variant are still plausible. Time will tell.

After all, there are reasons why when reading NERVTAG minutes we will see phrases such as 'moderate confidence' in the following sort of context:



> In summary, NERVTAG has moderate confidence that VUI-202012/01 demonstrates a substantial increase in transmissibility compared to other variants.



There are plenty of areas where conspiratorial thinking is overtly unscientific and where science can be used to cast a negative judgement on the utility of thoughts and questions that go in such directions. Questions relating to the strength of evidence and prefering to wait and see how big the implications are in the real world is not part of that category. Not at this stage anyway, when the official conclusions are still tentative for good reason.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 20, 2020)

Supine said:


> I think it's too early to say if it's conspiracy territory yet. It's fast moving science and nervtag don't currently have all the answers.



They have a lot more info than him for a start, not just the RNA sequence.


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 20, 2020)

This is the problem with having such an untrustworthy govt who lie and obfuscate etc every time they open their mouths and who have under reacted every step of the way. 

Regardless of the new variant we were clearly not in a good enough position to ease restrictions for christmas. The new variant has _possibly _increased just how bad an idea it is.  and the government have used it as the full reason that christmas has to be cancelled.

Because they've left it so late there is a larger possibility people will not cancel their plans so the message has to be strong. And because the government is claiming that they were right 2 weeks ago to relax  rules at christmas and right now to cancel christmas the message has to be that all the risk is bound up in new information about the new variant.

So now we have very mixed messages about this variant. One extra scary to persuade us to cancel everything because our disgraced PM wants to save face,  one more measured message with ifs and maybes and potentiallys that might not be enough to make people stay home even though they really should regardless of the new variant or what this ruthlessly incompetent government said 2 weeks ago.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 20, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And passing the virus on hopefully? They're not 'random' though. Some of them might not make sense to you, or you may not like them, and there's inevitable complexities and contradictions in some areas, and they're balanced with things some people think are priorities that tou might think aren't, but they not random and shit.


Sorry, but they are random and shit. The government consistently ignores even their own hand-picked science advice, they act for their own political benefit and their absurdly relentless corruption (twenty two fucking billion pounds) and I now don't give a monkey's what they say any more (except as noted in the context of "can I be done for this").

"Oh you think you could do a better job do you?" Yes and I am being forced to do so by making my own decisions as to best behaviour.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 20, 2020)

So, am I in a tiny minority then ?

I've been watching the cases / case-rate data etc from the .gov dashboard. 
From that I deduced that there was another 'wave' of infections developing.
Therefore, I decided to have my seasonal celebration at home. 
In fact, I'm staying put until we've all had our jabs (next year some time).

Nothing that's been said in the briefings has changed my mind - if anything, it has made me more determined to stay hunkered down.
A decision reinforced by the spike in local cases / case-rates.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 20, 2020)

Seriously the fucking comedy that I should listen to what Matt Fucking Hancock says.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 20, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> So, am I in a tiny minority then ?
> 
> I've been watching the cases / case-rate data etc from the .gov dashboard.
> From that I deduced that there was another 'wave' of infections developing.
> ...


Sounds very sensible to me. I also decided that I wasn't going anywhere based on what I've seen of the stats.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> They have a lot more info than him for a start, not just the RNA sequence.



I'm totally open to it being more transmissible. I just want to see the data. Believing is seeing and all that.


----------



## killer b (Dec 20, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> So, am I in a tiny minority then ?
> 
> I've been watching the cases / case-rate data etc from the .gov dashboard.
> From that I deduced that there was another 'wave' of infections developing.
> ...


I think most of us are doing this tbf. I'm just not into hating on people who've chosen not to do, because yesterday they could.


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> So, am I in a tiny minority then ?
> 
> I've been watching the cases / case-rate data etc from the .gov dashboard.
> From that I deduced that there was another 'wave' of infections developing.
> ...


I'm with you. I've cancelled my (very careful) plans and am now going to be spending Christmas on my own. Things are out of control locally so apart from getting some Christmas food supplies, the only thing I'll be doing is solo walks. 

After nine months of isolation, I'm not looking forward to this much. But, it is what it is so 🤷‍♀️.


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 20, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> So, am I in a tiny minority then ?
> 
> I've been watching the cases / case-rate data etc from the .gov dashboard.
> From that I deduced that there was another 'wave' of infections developing.
> ...



No. I dont think so.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 20, 2020)

Still fucked if I know what to do, tbh.

Live alone, have been isolating since Tuesday, parents live on the other side of Tier 4 London. In theory, for me nothing much has changed since before the tier bump, so I don't know if I'd be needlessly causing sadness for everyone involved by not going.

But... people shouldn't be travelling, and even though I can do it in a bubble, should I?

Gah; hate, hate, hate


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2020)

killer b said:


> I think most of us are doing this tbf. I'm just not into hating on people who've chosen not to do, because yesterday they could.


I get why people may decide not to follow the rules and I don't hate them but tbh they do piss me off. None of this is fun, none of us is happy but we just need to get on with it or things are going to get even worse/last for even longer.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 20, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> So, am I in a tiny minority then ?
> 
> I've been watching the cases / case-rate data etc from the .gov dashboard.
> From that I deduced that there was another 'wave' of infections developing.
> ...



Aside from a brief weekend away in September we've gone nowhere much since this started and hadn't planned to for Christmas at all. Our lives are basically in this small flat right now, she's going to work, I was going to the studio once a week, that was it unless we had specific shopping needs.

I haven't seen family in 12 months, she saw a friend a couple of weekends ago but they just sat in a park a bit chilly. Everything else is online.

That's the model we're sticking to until vaccine is sorted and it's depressing but it's what needs doing. I should probably cut the studio out but it's literally my only escape and keeping me aware the world exists.


----------



## oryx (Dec 20, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> So, am I in a tiny minority then ?
> 
> I've been watching the cases / case-rate data etc from the .gov dashboard.
> From that I deduced that there was another 'wave' of infections developing.
> ...


Haven't been out of London since this shitshow started, and I can count the times I've been out of SE London on two fingers. 

I usually go up north about three times a year to see my sister & family, best mate & other mates up there, & often my brother. I did get a bit sad when my sis & I were WhatsApping yesterday and she said she's really missed my visits, but we're in regular contact so it's not that bad. 

I posted above about deciding not to go out until I have to, but appreciate I'm lucky in that we have a garden and don't have a pressing need to go out.


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 20, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> So now we have very mixed messages about this variant. One extra scary to persuade us to cancel everything because our disgraced PM wants to save face,  one more measured message with ifs and maybes and potentiallys that might not be enough to make people stay home even though they really should regardless of the new variant or what this ruthlessly incompetent government said 2 weeks ago.



Also one that's given our European neighbours excellent political cover to call no deal Brexit now and have it not be their fault. Which largely it isn't, but the way they're rushing to be seen to cut the UK off whilst our Government promises to hold another meeting about things shows once again what an utter fustercluck our Government is.


----------



## BCBlues (Dec 20, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> I know. We were looking for them on tv. But yesterday he's got pics of him and his boy outside Villa Park.
> 
> "Finally back at the home of football. UTV!".
> 
> His boy doesn't even like football ffs. Baroness Joe is a nurse and has pretty much gone potty over it, especially as the boys year had to isolate for two weeks and the mum (who's a teaching assistant there) decided that the best way to isolate for two weeks was to take her dog out to shit on our front lawn for two weeks on the way to Pound land and Greggs....



They probably wanted a trip up to Villa Park tbh and not the actual game at West Brom. As long as they kept to the Covid guidelines then why not.

As for the dog poo I dunno, I'm lost on that one. Close the borders maybe


----------



## Flavour (Dec 20, 2020)

Proper mental this. Well glad I didn't get on that flight to Manchester. On a bus to Paris now


----------



## TopCat (Dec 20, 2020)

Flavour said:


> Proper mental this. Well glad I didn't get on that flight to Manchester. On a bus to Paris now


Get some kip.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Dec 20, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Seriously the fucking comedy that I should listen to what Matt Fucking Hancock says.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Dec 20, 2020)

Flavour said:


> Proper mental this. Well glad I didn't get on that flight to Manchester. On a bus to Paris now


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 20, 2020)

Science | AAAS
					






					www.sciencemag.org
				




Just started reading this


----------



## weltweit (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> ..
> Just started reading this


reading it now also.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Science | AAAS
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Its got the sort of people in it that demonstrate the balanced and cautious approach in this pandemic that I have followed and attempted to copy in my own way.

The best way to avoid reaching the wrong conclusions about any pandemic detail is to reserve judgement, dont reach any conclusions.


----------



## Cid (Dec 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And passing the virus on hopefully? They're not 'random' though. Some of them might not make sense to you, or you may not like them, there's inevitable complexities and contradictions in some areas, and they're balanced with things some people think are priorities that you might think aren't, but they not random and shit.
> 
> This kind of stuff is really wearing me down on here tbh.



Yup. I think what's striking is not that no-one trusts the government, but that people mistrust it in a way that favours themselves. We know that this has been catastrophically mismanaged. Anyone can look at the statistics and see the repeated failures. But I have met very few people who say 'I don't trust the government, I'll err on the side of caution, read up a bit'. It is usually 'I don't trust the government, I'm just going to carry on'. It's kind of totally understandable, and I've done it myself. But it will kill people.


----------



## editor (Dec 21, 2020)

So an update if anyone is interested. After many wasted hours at the airport and conflicting updates, my ex failed to get her flight and the plight of its passengers was featured in an Italian newspaper (Google translated below):



> *Coronavirus variant, the protest of 200 Alitalia passengers left on the ground in London: 'Abandoned without information and assistance'*
> 
> _ From London-Heathrow airport there were also calls to the Farnesina, the Embassy and the Consulate in London but nothing to do. "The line was blocked", say two passengers. Who complain: "No refreshments, no one thought of accommodation. And to think that we had also spent a lot of money to make the swab as requested by Alitalia". Meanwhile, there is no notice on the company's website_
> 
> ...











						Variante Coronavirus, la protesta di 200 passeggeri Alitalia rimasti a terra a Londra: 'Abbandonati senza informazioni e assistenza' - Il Fatto Quotidiano
					

“Siamo stati abbandonati dall’Alitalia e dal nostro Governo. Siamo qui senza un hotel dove dormire, senza assistenza. Non abbiamo informazioni da ore. Aiutateci”. L’appello arriva dall’aeroporto Londra-Heathrow. Sono le 23 quando Antonello Sussarellu e Chiara Botti rispondono al telefono...




					www.ilfattoquotidiano.it


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

Grim 









						UK Flight Bans — Election Maps UK
					






					electionmaps.uk


----------



## Flavour (Dec 21, 2020)

Yeah that's really bad and there'll be hundreds if not thousands of others in similar situations with other cancelled flights. We'll hear more after EU emergency meeting today but I'd expect repatriation of EU citizens stuck in the UK will be an item on the agenda, albeit not top priority. Italy were OK with repatriating citizens stuck abroad in the first lockdown (but nowhere near as good as germany) - I imagine there will be a few special repatriation flights in the coming days but long long lines to try and get on them. And you better actually be a citizen to have any chance! Long term residents of EU countries who do not hold citizenship will be at the back of the queue if they are allowed at all


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

What a cunt


----------



## fishfinger (Dec 21, 2020)

Badgers said:


> What a cunt
> 
> View attachment 244529


I hope it's a one way trip.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Seriously the fucking comedy that I should listen to what Matt Fucking Hancock says.



Nobody is saying listen to Hancock. Listen to SAGE, Independent SAGE, read the minutes of NERVTAG, listen to scientists, epidemiologists, NHS leaders, etc. etc.



FridgeMagnet said:


> Sounds very sensible to me. I also decided that I wasn't going anywhere based on what I've seen of the stats.



And you're saying you only follow the 'random' rules in order to not get arrested, which is clearly dramatic and untrue bollocks.

Assuming you think you're special and everyone else should follow the rules though, rather than just make all their own individual choices based on avoiding being arrested?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

Shapps seems to have forgotten that the UK Govt made a great propaganda splash of showing us the (unmarked) Lorries arriving at Folkestone with the first delivery of the Pfizer vaccine.



They better have got their ducks in a row to ensure that those getting jab1 also get jab 2.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 21, 2020)

Port of Dover is closed, cars get to the roundabout at the entrance to be met with a wall of hi-viz people waving them back around, lots of French cars with nowhere to go


----------



## TopCat (Dec 21, 2020)

Badgers said:


> What a cunt
> 
> View attachment 244529


Who are they?


----------



## TopCat (Dec 21, 2020)

Any reports of plucky Brits heading for their French holiday homes in RIBS?


----------



## andysays (Dec 21, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Who are they?


She's a radio talk show host on LBC or TalkRadio


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Port of Dover is closed, cars get to the roundabout at the entrance to be met with a wall of hi-viz people waving them back around, lots of French cars with nowhere to go


lovely morning for it though.


----------



## baldrick (Dec 21, 2020)

All these poor people stuck over Christmas when everything shuts down anyway. How awful ☹️ What is your ex going to do editor? Hope you are in Paris now Flavour. What's the next leg of your journey?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

Here comes 2021...


----------



## TopCat (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Here comes 2021...
> 
> View attachment 244536


Probably more like WW1, no rationing, let the poor starve (quietly).


----------



## Flavour (Dec 21, 2020)

I'm in Paris now yeah. Think I'll stay here a bit and just chill before deciding when and how to go back to Italy in a few days


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

Fresh food comes through the port, the UK only has about three days of stock of certain items at this time of year. This will affect us all and fairly quickly with shortages of certain fresh food in shops.

I’m regretting reading the news this morning.


----------



## mauvais (Dec 21, 2020)

Flavour said:


> I'm in Paris now yeah. Think I'll stay here a bit and just chill before deciding when and how to go back to Italy in a few days


Where are you staying? Are you familiar with Paris? Worse places to be!


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Where are you staying? Are you familiar with Paris? Worse places to be!



Quite a stiff lockdown in Paris though, bars and restaurants closed, president laid low with the bug, cases surging, that's before they find out they have the UK's mutant strain all over the shop...One of my punters just told me that they are hearing rumours that the lockdown may last until summer


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Fresh food comes through the port, the UK only has about three days of stock of certain items at this time of year. This will affect us all and fairly quickly with shortages of certain fresh food in shops.
> 
> I’m regretting reading the news this morning.



Picked up a few fresh veg this morning from Tesco, was pretty quiet thankfully.

I have some sprouts and kale on the allotment to pick as well if I want green stuff.


----------



## tommers (Dec 21, 2020)

Was


Artaxerxes said:


> Picked up a few fresh veg this morning, was pretty quiet thankfully.
> 
> I have some sprouts and kale on the allotment to pick as well if I want green stuff.


Barbed wire & gun emplacements sorted?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

tommers said:


> Was
> 
> Barbed wire & gun emplacements sorted?



Nothing so uncouth, its landmines so I don't spoil the view.


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Quite a stiff lockdown in Paris though, bars and restaurants closed, president laid low with the bug, cases surging, that's before they find out they have the UK's mutant strain all over the shop...*One of my punters just told me that they are hearing rumours that the lockdown may last until summer *


Here or there..?


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 21, 2020)

I always leave Christmas food shopping (and the rest) until the last minute, only I've done my back in. My partner is going this morning, seems a bit risky to leave it any later.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

I just watched a clip from sky news talking about the cobra meeting.  The gov is now monitoring how much food is left in the shops. I’m trying to remember who said “if the UK gets cut off for longer than a week there will be riots”

Dover 2017 handled 26000000 lorries. 70000 per day. So In just 48hrs there will be a staggering 200000 lorries sitting around the port. Few EU drivers are going to come in as they will be stuck. How the fuck do you unwind it if they do reopen.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 21, 2020)

Sue said:


> Here or there..?



En France


----------



## TopCat (Dec 21, 2020)

Flavour said:


> I'm in Paris now yeah. Think I'll stay here a bit and just chill before deciding when and how to go back to Italy in a few days


I would put on your best Parisian accent.


----------



## mr steev (Dec 21, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> I always leave Christmas food shopping (and the rest) until the last minute, only I've done my back in. My partner is going this morning, seems a bit risky to leave it any later.



I run a surplus food project and if the ammount of stuff we have been collecting from supermarkets is anything to go by, people are not buying no where near as much (unless they are all leaving it until the last minute). We are collecting at least 2 or 3 times as much as usual!!


----------



## BassJunkie (Dec 21, 2020)

I was concerned with the borders being closed and the prospect of no fresh food. Then I heard on the radio, it's alright, Grant Shapps is going to sort it out. So don't worry everyone.


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2020)

BassJunkie said:


> I was concerned with the borders being closed and the prospect of no fresh food. Then I heard on the radio, it's alright, Grant Shapps is going to sort it out. So don't worry everyone.



Thank you, I needed that belly laugh!


----------



## mauvais (Dec 21, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Quite a stiff lockdown in Paris though, bars and restaurants closed, president laid low with the bug, cases surging, that's before the find out they have the UK's mutant strain all over the shop...One of my punters just told me that they are hearing rumours that the lockdown may last until summer


Wouldn't surprise me, the estimated timescale for vaccination is like September for most people. But there's lots to do in Paris without spending any money, the parks and so on, provided they're not all closed off too.


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Wouldn't surprise me, the estimated timescale for vaccination is like September for most people. But there's lots to do in Paris without spending any money, *the parks and so on, provided they're not all closed off too.*


I think they were before because it was all got a bit party time. (The Buttes Chaumont was at least according to a friend who lives next to it.)


----------



## mauvais (Dec 21, 2020)

Yeah they were in OG lockdown but I think that was before we understood a bit more about transmission, the long term nature of it all, etc etc so not sure if it'd be the same now.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

I think fresh food will run low or out certainly for a few days, I can't see how this can be avoided given our total reliance on the Dover-Calais crossing.


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2020)

My man Christian Drosten reported to be '“everything but worried” about the viral mutation at the moment'.

So on that, it does sound like the UK government might have shot itself in the food [ETA: Freudian slip there, I meant "foot") internationally, with the potential over-hyping of this new strain for domestic purposes. (Not to say that case numbers per se aren't utterly horrendous and terrifying  )

I guess more will be revealed in the fullness of time...


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Dec 21, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Turkey has now banned flights from the uk too.


Turkey's voting for Christmas.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2020)

I don't know, I've read different things from different scientists I respect, there doesn't seems to be a consensus at the moment. I'm listening to the twiv episode now (which was recorded on 18th December so might be out of date currently). However they haven't got onto that part of it yet.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> I think fresh food will run low or out certainly for a few days, I can't see how this can be avoided given our total reliance on the Dover-Calais crossing.


Is the UK totally reliant for fresh food on the  Dover-Calais crossing?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

zora said:


> My man Christian Drosten reported to be '“everything but worried” about the viral mutation at the moment'.
> 
> So on that, it does sound like the UK government might have shot itself in the food, internationally, with the potential over-hyping of this new strain for domestic purposes. (Not to say that case numbers per se aren't utterly horrendous and terrifying  )
> 
> I guess more will be revealed in the fullness of time...


Oh, you can guarantee a few Tories will have said that the timing of this new strain is a spot of good luck.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

zora said:


> My man Christian Drosten reported to be '“everything but worried” about the viral mutation at the moment'.
> 
> So on that, it does sound like the UK government might have shot itself in the food, internationally, with the potential over-hyping of this new strain for domestic purposes. (Not to say that case numbers per se aren't utterly horrendous and terrifying  )
> 
> I guess more will be revealed in the fullness of time...



I like this guy, suggests the same


Boris Johnson is now the worst person I can think of in charge right now and needs to resign.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2020)

mauvais said:


> Wouldn't surprise me, the estimated timescale for vaccination is like September for most people. But there's lots to do in Paris without spending any money, the parks and so on, provided they're not all closed off too.



Possibly a bit touristy but I spent a lovely couple of afternoons just wandering round Monmartre - was when cafes were open and people sitting out painting portraits of other people, mind.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Is the UK totally reliant for fresh food on the  Dover-Calais crossing?



Its been worrying but as an island its OK, until a pandemic and brexit at the same time.  

Dominic Raab is a brexiteer 








						Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab admits he 'did not quite understand' UK's reliance on Dover trade route
					

Labour accuses him of "not even understanding the very basics of Brexit", as a row brews over legal advice on the draft deal.




					news.sky.com
				












						Vulnerability of the UK’s food supply chains exposed by COVID-19, study reveals
					

The UK has been left “dangerously dependent” on just two EU countries for its fresh vegetable imports, a new study on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the UK food system has revealed.




					www.york.ac.uk
				




Google and you will see its crazy.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 21, 2020)

I suspect that "new variant" of the 'rona is a lot more widespread than has been detected at the present time.

Will be interesting to see if it is already in Europe or elsewhere.

Current problem will be "panic buying" - delivery / 'click n collect' slots were unavailable last night in several hours of trying to find one. Especially as only a few actually deliver here (Iceland does not, for example, although Morrisons does).


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2020)

But dear god, I am so angry again this morning. Apart from the few dickheads having parties, sooooo many people have reduced their contacts above and beyond for such a long time. I am not in a particularly at risk group, and other than my boyfriend,  I have  only met a couple of friends outside on four occasions in all these months, I didn't start in person therapy appointments again when it was offered, because I didn't think it was safe, all in the hope that I could a) avoid catching the virus and b)contribute to improving the wider picture. (Somewhat selfishly, admittedly, because I always wanted it to get to the point where I could easily see and stay with my non-cohabiting partner again, which was only officially allowed for like three weeks, which is a complete scandal in itself imo).

And all that, and all the similar and more deprivations people have gone through, only to be utterly undermined by this shitting government by letting it spread rampantly through unis and schools, forbidding schools from implementing decent safety concepts (e.g two weeks on/two weeks off), fucking up the tiering and hospitality thing - of course some people are going to meet in groups that are not just their household for indoor dining in December - what the fuck do you expect, you can't expect everyone to be a complete rule-stickler like myself - not getting better face covering compliance in shops and on public transport, be it through education or fines. Can you tell I am fuming....


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Its been worrying but as an island its OK, until a pandemic and brexit at the same time.
> 
> Dominic Raab is a brexiteer
> 
> ...


I understand completely about the importance of the Dover route in a UK food economy  built on the dominance of supermarkets and  last minute supply, the disincentives of the EU for home-grown  farmers/ fruit producers etc  but don't understand why you claim we are totally reliant on it . Significantly yes but not totally.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Dec 21, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Port of Dover is closed, cars get to the roundabout at the entrance to be met with a wall of hi-viz people waving them back around, lots of French cars with nowhere to go



Send the little boats!


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

Whats really frustrating is we can't go and mass protest at the Gov handling of the pandemic.  
I want to get a massive banner with RESIGN on it and unfurl it outside No 10.


The39thStep said:


> I understand completely about the importance of the Dover route in a UK food economy  built on the dominance of supermarkets and  last minute supply, the disincentives of the EU for home-grown  farmers/ fruit producers etc  but don't understand why you claim we are totally reliant on it . Significantly yes but not totally.



You are correct, not totally reliant but heavily reliant.  We make about 60% of what we eat so we do have food.

But Its fresh food we are reliant upon in the winter.   But what will happen if supermarkets start to run out of fresh food, people will panic and strip the shelves bare like last time.  This took weeks to recover from.  I see it happening again. Human nature to worry about not eating.


----------



## muscovyduck (Dec 21, 2020)

For anyone else like me whose just hopped back on this thread, this youtube roundup is quite a good roundup of basic info


----------



## BlanketAddict (Dec 21, 2020)

I have self-isolated, reduced contact with family members and generally only left the house for essentials like work and food. 
And then Covid arrived in March so I just carried on the above 👌


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> But what will happen if supermarkets start to run out of fresh food, people will panic and strip the shelves bare like last time.



You have this the wrong way around.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I don't know, I've read different things from different scientists I respect, there doesn't seems to be a consensus at the moment. I'm listening to the twiv episode now (which was recorded on 18th December so might be out of date currently). However they haven't got onto that part of it yet.


Out of date. They were questioning the degree of transmission whilst at the same time, unbeknownst to them, NERVTAG were meeting and confirming aspects of this (technically, the growth, so fair to question, to a degree).


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2020)

Drosten seems to think it might not be so bad though?


----------



## 2hats (Dec 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Drosten seems to think it might not be so bad though?


Details won't be clear for at least another 2 weeks or so.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> You have this the wrong way around.


How does this have a way around?  Unless its already happened before I got up?  Not been to the shop yet.


----------



## xenon (Dec 21, 2020)

BassJunkie said:


> I was concerned with the borders being closed and the prospect of no fresh food. Then I heard on the radio, it's alright, Grant Shapps is going to sort it out. So don't worry everyone.



Pizza then?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> How does this have a way around?  Unless its already happened before I got up?  Not been to the shop yet.



The shelves will be bare because of panic buying. People don't panic buy when there's nothing left to panic buy.


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2020)

2hats said:


> Details won't be clear for at least another 2 weeks or so.



Yes, I did not mean to misrepresent that. I think he is saying just that, that we don't know yet.


----------



## editor (Dec 21, 2020)

If you just woken up after a year in a coma you'd think Christmas day might be a load of fun


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Whats really frustrating is we can't go and mass protest at the Gov handling of the pandemic.
> I want to get a massive banner with RESIGN on it and unfurl it outside No 10.
> 
> 
> ...



When you say  its fresh food we are reliant upon in the winter and the shelves will be stripped what food are you thinking of, fruit and veg?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Whats really frustrating is we can't go and mass protest at the Gov handling of the pandemic.
> I want to get a massive banner with RESIGN on it and unfurl it outside No 10.


you'd need someone else to help in with a massive banner but as long as you're socially distancing you should be fine - after all protest isn't banned


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Mrs SI just rushed off to Jack's in a whim at 10. Managed to get all our Christmas veg, as she left it was getting silly busy


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> When you say  its fresh food we are reliant upon in the winter and the shelves will be stripped what food are you thinking of, fruit and veg?


Yes, a lot of the fresh veg and 89% of all fruit. 

I am also assuming France will let freight in again, if they go  'Non' in 48hrs time, its pot noodle time.

Here is a good description of where stuff comes from and what to panic buy








						The foods you'll really need to stockpile for a no-deal Brexit
					

The UK imports 40 per cent of its food – up from 25 per cent two decades ago. And there's a real chance of food shortages if a no-deal Brexit happens




					www.wired.co.uk


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Yes, a lot of the fresh veg and 89% of all fruit.  Beef from Ireland supplies about 90% of all beef.  Eggs for cake
> 
> I am also assuming France will let freight in again, if they go  'Non' in 48hrs time, its pot noodle time.
> 
> ...


I wouldn't advise anyone to panic buy tbh especially when there's loads of frozen and tinned food around as back up.


----------



## xenon (Dec 21, 2020)

Shoulda added saurkraute to my Tesco delivery due later...


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2020)

If this strain is more dangerous (which I think we'll know more about in the next 2 weeks) things are going to get very bad very quickly.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2020)

New guidance for people in the extremely clinically vulnerable category (shielding) in Tier 4 coming very soon apparently.


----------



## xenon (Dec 21, 2020)

Although please not the stock piling thing again... , I think I prefer the Brexit reckon journalism to the jaw numbingly dull and lazy reporting from outside supermarkets, asking Dorris and Dave what they've not been able to buy...


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> Yes, a lot of the fresh veg and 89% of all fruit.
> 
> I am also assuming France will let freight in again, if they go  'Non' in 48hrs time, its pot noodle time.
> 
> ...



Jesus Christ. "Advice on what to panic buy".

Turns my stomach. What a time to be alive.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If this strain is more dangerous (which I think we'll know more about in the next 2 weeks) things are going to get very bad very quickly.


It already makes me concerned. I intended to go to a local larger town for my remaining Christmas presents. Last night I decided I didn't relish being among lots of people so I did an Amazon order instead.


----------



## chilango (Dec 21, 2020)

Johnson can't be allowed to slink off without consequence in January.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 21, 2020)

Scarfolk Council issuing new advice  re potential Xmas shortages


----------



## xenon (Dec 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> If this strain is more dangerous (which I think we'll know more about in the next 2 weeks) things are going to get very bad very quickly.




On the hopeful, well less shit side, if it has indeed been in the wild since at least Sep, I think we would have had more evidence by now, were it more leathful.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 21, 2020)

Looming langoustine shortage in France obviously had an impact


----------



## 2hats (Dec 21, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Drosten seems to think it might not be so bad though?


This also from this morning's R4 Today programme virologist Wendy Barclay and epidemiologist Neil Ferguson (listen from 1h35m23s-1h45m50s in):








						Today - 21/12/2020 - BBC Sounds
					

News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				



Explains the analysis connecting the genetic data to the epidemiology and geographical presentation. "There is a very strong correlation between the areas showing fastest growth in cases and this new variant [...] high resolution PCR confirms this."

Also, underlines the timeline involved: that it was brought to the attention of NERVTAG by PHE around 10 Dec when there was sufficient evidence to be assured that we should be concerned about this.

Furthermore that there is a "hint" in the data that this variant may infect schoolchildren slightly more effectively than the previous dominant variant (one shouldn't be entirely surprised about this: consider what routes of transmission have been narrowed down for the virus, then think _selection effect_, cf SA 501.V2). Highlights that we are running out of mitigations in the 'R budget' and additional new steps may have to be considered over the coming weeks.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

2hats said:


> This also from this morning's R4 Today programme virologist Wendy Barclay and epidemiologist Neil Ferguson (listen from 1h35m23s-1h45m50s in):
> 
> 
> 
> ...



There isn't anywhere left to go but UK wide lockdown. Which is what we should have continued doing anyway,


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> There isn't anywhere left to go but UK wide lockdown. Which is what we should have continued doing anyway,



I agree, even the original tier 1 areas are seeing massive increases, Cornwall up 190% in 7 days, Isle of Wight up 300%.


----------



## keybored (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> But what will happen if supermarkets start to run out of fresh food, people will panic and strip the shelves bare like last time. This took weeks to recover from. I see it happening again.


Did you choose your username ironically or something?


----------



## Ax^ (Dec 21, 2020)

So this is just a dry run for Brexit


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

OMG Matt Hancock should be in prison not Health Secretary.

Good commentry on one of the worst interviews I've watched, he's trying to defend the indefensible and comes across as dumb as fuck.


All of these problems lie fully at the feet of the Government, they should step aside to let someone who's got balls, knows how to lead and be decisive take over. 
If they had pursued a zero COVID strategy at the start, we wouldn't be in this mess. 
Total disaster.


----------



## chilango (Dec 21, 2020)

Just received a glossy booklet through the post from Reading Borough Council providing details of how to stay safe during the relaxation of rules over Christmas 

I hope that this doesn't cause confusion.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

2hats said:


> Furthermore that there is a "hint" in the data that this variant may infect schoolchildren slightly more effectively than the previous dominant variant (one shouldn't be entirely surprised about this: consider what routes of transmission have been narrowed down for the virus, then think _selection effect_, cf SA 501.V2). Highlights that we are running out of mitigations in the 'R budget' and additional new steps may have to be considered over the coming weeks.



At this rate they should call the new variant the u-strain. As in 'u-strain if you want to, the Johnsons up for turning'.

Read the pre-print soon, tory priority induced selection pressures led to a set of mutations that target areas of weak policy. 

On a related note, I see that the NERVTAG minutes mention that they are checking to see if the new strain has an impact on the ability of lateral flow tests to detect the virus. If it makes those tests even less reliable than they already are then I'd say this strain has effectively demolished the Johnson approach.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

BBC News just announced that Johnson is holding another press conference this afternoon, no time given.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 21, 2020)

I just heard that on the news and my heart sank. What more shite can he dole out today, I wonder.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> BBC News just announced that Johnson is holding another press conference this afternoon, *no time given*.


They're learning...


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

Espresso said:


> I just heard that on the news and my heart sank. What more shite can he dole out today, I wonder.


Off the top of my head, it might be about Dover and supply delays?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

Espresso said:


> I just heard that on the news and my heart sank. What more shite can he dole out today, I wonder.



I do wonder if more areas will be going up into higher tiers.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> BBC News just announced that Johnson is holding another press conference this afternoon, no time given.


I think Johnson's only option is to use the press conference to commit Seppuku live in front of the nation.


----------



## Ax^ (Dec 21, 2020)

Espresso said:


> I just heard that on the news and my heart sank. What more shite can he dole out today, I wonder.



extending the transition period because of this shit show

could be fun 

postive note for people not to see each other at christmas

to avoid the rows


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 21, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I think Johnson's only option is the use the press conference to commit Seppuku live in front of the nation.



I'd watch that.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I think Johnson's only option is the use the press conference to commit Seppuku live in front of the nation.


Or, at the very least, fuck a pig.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 21, 2020)

Ax^ said:


> extending the transition period because of this shit show
> 
> could be fun
> 
> ...


13:03 - Ministers say no extension so it would be a very quick u-turn


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Or, at the very least, fuck a pig.



Onanism is a sin.


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

Recommend finishing your christmas gift shopping pre-press conference, if that's possible. Just to be on the safe side.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> 13:03 - Ministers say no extension so it would be a very quick u-turn



Which minister? Its not like they've not contradicted each other within 5 minutes before.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> Recommend finishing your christmas gift shopping pre-press conference, if that's possible. Just to be on the safe side.



I don't think they'll lock people in shops.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I do wonder if more areas will be going up into higher tiers.



BBC South East saying just that for parts of Sussex.


----------



## Sprocket. (Dec 21, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I think Johnson's only option is to use the press conference to commit Seppuku live in front of the nation.


He would miss, while spouting some irrelevant historical quote.


----------



## Espresso (Dec 21, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> He would miss, while spouting some irrelevant historical quote.


Alas


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> He would miss, while spouting some irrelevant historical quote.


johnson's historical quotes are his equivalent to delboy's french phrases


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Onanism is a sin.


nothing to do with fucking a pig tho


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

Espresso said:


> Alas



Speaking to the 1922 committee earlier, Johnson said 'Alas slugs, Atlas Shrugged was for mugs'.


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Off the top of my head, it might be about Dover and supply delays?


What would he even say though, sorry about that chaps i didn't see it coming, please do not panic though merry xmas.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> What would he even say though, sorry about that chaps i didn't see it coming, please do not panic though merry xmas.


It wouldn't be the most batshit announcement he's made...


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The poor old island
> 
> View attachment 244394


New colour category on the legend today, and not in good way...  
Poor old Leysdown & Eastchurch.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> BBC South East saying just that for parts of Sussex.



I am not sure they will bugger about further with Christmas at this stage, but certainly the rest of East Sussex should be moved into tier 3, and ideally Brighton & Hove city and West Sussex. 

Even better all non tier 4 areas should move to tier 3 & then tier 4 from Boxing Day.


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> It wouldn't be the most batshit announcement he's made...


He'll never say sorry though, not ever. That would be properly shocking if it happened.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> He'll never say sorry though, not ever. That would be properly shocking if it happened.


Fair, no, he probably wouldn't. But it might be the same kind of wishy-washy "we face challenges, but we will stay resolute. It is essential you don't panic buy, now if you'll excuse me I have to drive my forklift to the Waitrose warehouses".


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I think Johnson's only option is to use the press conference to commit Seppuku live in front of the nation.





Lord Camomile said:


> Or, at the very least, fuck a pig.


The Seppuku I'd watch. The pig, no...


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 21, 2020)

He'll double down on the thumb squeezing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> New colour category on the legend today, and not in good way...
> Poor old Leysdown & Eastchurch.
> 
> View attachment 244597



That new dark purple colour is scary, look at Ashford, they had fairly low numbers coming out of the recent 'lockdown', and it's exploded.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> That new dark purple colour is scary, look at Ashford, they had fairly low numbers coming out of the recent 'lockdown', and it's exploded.
> 
> View attachment 244598


All my fam live in the new colour; worried.


----------



## editor (Dec 21, 2020)

They should just be done with it and shunt the whole fucking country into Tier 4 for a minimum of three weeks and spend the time sorting out vaccine distribution and fixing their buffoon-powered Track and Trace app.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 21, 2020)

editor said:


> They should just be done with it and shunt the whole fucking country into Tier 4 for a minimum of three weeks and spend the time sorting out vaccine distribution and fixing their buffoon-powered Track and Trace app.


Feel very conflicted about this really. My area has been under restrictions since July, the figures have fallen dramatically since the start of the last lockdown, it actually feels quite safe here right now for the first time in a long time. I know that's probably not going to last, given the new variant, but it really looked like we were heading for Tier 2... hard when you have had about three weeks of semi-normality since March to not clutch at straws.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> nothing to do with fucking a pig tho



Afraid it is, de Offal has just shaved a bit.


----------



## hegley (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> New colour category on the legend today, and not in good way...
> Poor old Leysdown & Eastchurch.
> 
> View attachment 244597


Can't help but think that a bit like the Tier system, this colour scheme hasn't really been thought through.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

I am in the depth of the darkest purple. Half the family did walk in tests last week and were negative. I did a mail in as was working and still waiting for results but sure they will be negative. The rates are mind boglingly high though.


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

hegley said:


> Can't help but think that a bit like the Tier system, this colour scheme hasn't really been thought through.


It’s the same mind boggling idiocy all the way through, this and brexit too, massive ‘optimism bias’, like how bad can it get we are British.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2020)

editor said:


> They should just be done with it and shunt the whole fucking country into Tier 4 for a minimum of three weeks and spend the time sorting out vaccine distribution and fixing their buffoon-powered Track and Trace app.



Totally that. Tier 4 for whole of UK until end of January then review. Vaccine roll-out and new strain investigations as quick as possible. Massive support for all people impacted. Bank holiday long weekend for the summer promised.


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2020)

What's the dark purple? Previous purple was 400+..?


----------



## fishfinger (Dec 21, 2020)

Sue said:


> What's the dark purple? Previous purple was 400+..?


800+


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

Sue said:


> What's the dark purple? Previous purple was 400+..?


It's 800/100k +


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2020)

fishfinger said:


> 800+





brogdale said:


> It's 800/100k +


Fucking hell. Hope there's not too many of those.


----------



## editor (Dec 21, 2020)

Behold the genius of Liam


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> It's 800/100k +


Not sure what the next colour step will be. I suppose skull and crossbones motifs.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Not sure what the next colour step will be. I suppose skull and crossbones motifs.


If that becomes necessary it should be an actual photograph of Johnson's bones.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Massive support for all people impacted.


I'm convinced this has been (unsurprisingly, given who we're talking about) one of the key motivators behind people breaking lockdown.

Adequate support, both financial and social, would have meant people bought into it more, and engendered the sense of communal responsibility/sacrifice that's needed in times like these.

Of course, you'd also be battling against decades of "Trust your gut, not the experts! Individual freedom, rah, rah, rah!", but it would have done something...


----------



## Spandex (Dec 21, 2020)

Sue said:


> Fucking hell. Hope there's not too many of those.


South Wales


----------



## belboid (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I agree, even the original tier 1 areas are seeing massive increases, Cornwall up 190% in 7 days, Isle of Wight up 300%.


Almost as if some (London) cunts decided to upsticks and go somewhere nicer for Xmas


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

belboid said:


> Almost as if some (London) cunts decided to upsticks and go somewhere nicer for Xmas


Pouring into the South West, Cotswolds etc. 

Wonder where Cummings is?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Pouring into the South West, Cotswolds etc.
> 
> Wonder where Cummings is?



I assume he's writing his blog in his unpaid for, unplanned cottage next to his mum.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

belboid said:


> Almost as if some (London) cunts decided to upsticks and go somewhere nicer for Xmas



The sample dates for those increases was 9th - 15th Dec., so I doubt they reflect anything to do with Xmas yet.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I assume he's writing his blog in his unpaid for, unplanned cottage next to his mum.


..._doing what any Father or parent would._


----------



## chilango (Dec 21, 2020)

Just received an "urgent email" from University...telling me that the January start of next term goes ahead as planned....


----------



## BCBlues (Dec 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I assume he's writing his blog in his unpaid for, unplanned cottage next to his mum.



And altering his older blogs to make out he super forecasted Covid 19.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> Just received an "urgent email" from University...telling me that the January start of next term goes ahead as planned....



Lol, if I was them I wouldn't bet on that happening quite yet though, lots could change in the next 1-2 weeks.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Lol, if I was them I wouldn't bet on that happening quite yet though, lots could change in the next 1-2 weeks.


Indeed; 2 days is along time with this government.


----------



## magneze (Dec 21, 2020)

Weeks? Hours more like.


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> Just received an "urgent email" from University...telling me that the January start of next term goes ahead as planned....


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> Just received an "urgent email" from University...telling me that the January start of next term goes ahead as planned....



Did you resist the urge to reply with a simple 'lol'.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> Just received an "urgent email" from University...telling me that the January start of next term goes ahead as planned....



possibly written last wednesday and only just gone through five layers of approval?


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Dec 21, 2020)

So, in the absence of being able to visit with the gifts we have for people, I did some flowers for people we we planning to see. Except, they had to cancel about 50% of my orders.

"
As I’m sure you are aware from the TV news over the last few days, importing goods from the continent is proving challenging right now. Many of our florists receive their deliveries of fresh flowers from Europe and, unfortunately, some of them are already struggling to get hold of enough stock to fulfil all of their orders this week.



I am really sorry to have to inform you that the florist who was due to deliver your gift for you has notified us that they have been affected by this problem and, as a result, we are not going to be able to make your delivery for you.

 "

I havn't seen the TV news.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2020)

My sis and I swap tokens for Christmas - she likes National Trust so I went to order and they do tokens by e-mail get sent instantaneously, other places may too?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

I'm suddenly reminded of that bit in _The Day After Tomorrow _when Mexico had to close it's border because of the millions of US refugees flooding from the North.


----------



## spitfire (Dec 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> My sis and I swap tokens for Christmas - she likes National Trust so I went to order and they do tokens by e-mail get sent instantaneously, other places may too?



I bought my parents a "voucher" from here as we won't be in Dublin for Xmas this year.









						Choose Love: Gifts with Heart
					

Virtual gifts with heart. Choose Love is the world's first store that sells real products for refugees. Every purchase goes towards an item or service delivered through our 135+ projects across the world.




					choose.love
				




There is a double up offer on today.

This is the bit where someone tells me they are somehow massively flawed isn't it? I hope not


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2020)

my sis also sends me M&S tokens in the vain hope I'll buy clothes. I've remarked here before but the only things I can ever find on M&S site are port and duck&orange pate


----------



## chilango (Dec 21, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Did you resist the urge to reply with a simple 'lol'.



Sadly not,  remembering in September agreeing to give a f2f lecture in October thinking "yeah, right " only to find myself standing in front of a room of 50 masked Petri dishes a few short weeks later.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I'm suddenly reminded of that bit in _The Day After Tomorrow _when Mexico had to close it's border because of the millions of US refugees flooding from the North.
> 
> View attachment 244615



In about March someone on my street that I'd seen about sometimes saw me and said goodbye as they were being evacuated back to Kuwait (I think, maybe it was the UAE?). Anyway, they knew I worked in the NHS and when they left they came round and gave me their last box of masks and gloves and said sorry about how things were here but they were happy to be going back home.


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I'm suddenly reminded of that bit in _The Day After Tomorrow _when Mexico had to close it's border because of the millions of US refugees flooding from the North.
> 
> View attachment 244615



And Sweden, to add insult to injury.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

*Downing Street briefing is expected to be at 5:00pm. *


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2020)

Is he going to resign?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> *Downing Street briefing is expected to be at 5:00pm. *


So it's scheduled for 4.30?


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Is he going to resign?



If he resigned it would be the ultimate fuck you to the nation to even beat Dave Cameron's. Will look forward to the media coronation of Shunak as the great hope of the nation as was done with BoJo and Tess May.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

S☼I said:


> So it's scheduled for 4.30?


 And will occur at 6.30 like Cummin's effort.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

Fuck


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

Is Disgraced Prime Minister Johnson speaking today or tomorrow?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> *Downing Street briefing is expected to be at 5:00pm. *


Ah


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 21, 2020)

Doesn't go far enough they need to be tested


----------



## MrCurry (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> *Downing Street briefing is expected to be at 5:00pm. *



Anyone know if it will be carried live anywhere on YouTube?


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2020)

belboid said:


> Almost as if some (London) cunts decided to upsticks and go somewhere nicer for Xmas


The timing surely would indicate that it would have been people from North Kent or South Wales going somewhere nicer a week or two ahead of Christmas.

As usual though, innocent Londoners get the blame.


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2020)

MrCurry said:


> Anyone know if it will be carried live anywhere on YouTube?



The Guardian on YouTube usually has it.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

All I want to hear from Bereavement Boris is 

'I Resign'

Anything else is >shrug<


----------



## sleaterkinney (Dec 21, 2020)

I bet Boris says Christmas is back on.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> ...
> As usual though, innocent Londoners get the blame.


No such person exist


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

sleaterkinney said:


> I bet Boris says Christmas is back on.


What time will they sober up?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

Badgers said:


> What time will they sober up?


when they see serried ranks of penguins approaching them


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

Sunray said:


> All I want to hear from Bereavement Boris is
> 
> 'I Resign'
> 
> Anything else is >shrug<


all i want to hear from boris johnson is a hopeless wail of despair as the penguins close in


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

Moderate confidence has apparently changed to high confidence.



> The government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) has upgraded its confidence that the new variant spreads more easily, the group's chair has said.
> 
> Prof Peter Horby told a Science Media Centre briefing: "We now have high confidence that this variant does have a transmission advantage over other virus variants that are currently in the UK."
> 
> ...



From BBC updates page at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55392619


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> all i want to hear from boris johnson is a hopeless wail of despair as the penguins close in


All...?  You lack imagination, Senor.


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2020)

This higher propensity to infect children...how easily can they infer that when children are the only people allowed to have contact anyway..? Genuine question.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 21, 2020)

Ah, getting the cancellation emails for the outdoor events I booked over the hols.  At least it's quite a lot of money back.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

Sue said:


> All...?  You lack imagination, Senor.


i daresay there'll be some blather about how this can't happen to him, that he's not without resources and he'll pay anything to put off the dreadful fate that approaches, that he's the father of a dozen children, give or take, and it would be inhuman deprive his offspring of their pa, that he's really very sorry and so on. but all i want to hear is that final shriek of despair as he recognises the futility of any further attempt to escape his inexorable fate


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> i daresay there'll be some blather about how this can't happen to him, that he's not without resources and he'll pay anything to put off the dreadful fate that approaches, that he's the father of a dozen children, give or take, and it would be inhuman deprive his offspring of their pa, that he's really very sorry and so on. but all i want to hear is that final shriek of despair as he recognises the futility of any further attempt to escape his inexorable fate


I was thinking along classic self-criticism lines...


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Time for a stiff glass of soemthing special.  This is going to be one hell of  a rough ride over the next few days. I imagine BoJo is going to be an absolute disaster in about 1 minute.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Time for a stiff glass of soemthing special.  This is going to be one hell of  a rough ride over the next few days. I imagine BoJo is going to be an absolute disaster in about 1 minute.


Imagine?


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2020)

zora said:


> This higher propensity to infect children...how easily can they infer that when children are the only people allowed to have contact anyway..? Genuine question.



They're not though, loads of adults are mixing in all sorts of ways as shown in the age demographics of infections. Anyway, the data would be worked out with the variables like that in mind. It's one of the things they're not so sure about afaik, should know more in days ahead.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 21, 2020)

So, what do we reckon? Tier 4 for everyone incoming?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, what do we reckon? Tier 4 for everyone incoming?


Tier1 for everyone leaving Westminster


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, what do we reckon? Tier 4 for everyone incoming?


Tier 5 for the dark purple areas?


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, what do we reckon? Tier 4 for everyone incoming?



Would definitely be the right move, but I imagine it might go down like a cup of cold sick in the north-of-London regions that are, finally, in lower tiers. I imagine it might just be him warbling on about there being enough turkeys and sprouts in the warehouses.


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, what do we reckon? Tier 4 for everyone incoming?


I don't think so, but I nipped out and did some final bits of christmas shopping this afternoon just in case. 

It's going to be something about the borders being closed, which really is something that needs a press conference.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

I've read on here Johnson is late to everything on purpose like Trump. What's the reasoning behind it?


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, what do we reckon? Tier 4 for everyone incoming?



If not now, I think very soon, yes. This is very big news though, a overnight (pretty much) realization that the R has jumped up to 0.9, with rates in infection out of control in a number of areas in the country. Also no clarity on the severity and fatality of this new strain yet, but still the infection rate jump is enough to potentially cause more deaths on its own.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2020)

Is he late again?


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 21, 2020)

Is Johnson trying to do some sort of tribute to Trump with his hair? Weird attempted comb over.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Is he late again?


I look forward to him being 'The Late' Prime Minister


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

"The government has been preparing for this sort of event for a long time" = "we knew a self-inflicted catastrophe was coming, please give us a gold star"


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2020)

European experts urge caution over new Covid mutation found in UK
					

Scientists say more data is needed before conclusions can be drawn and that strain has also been detected in EU




					www.theguardian.com
				




Apparently the new virus doesn't appear to have been behaving in exactly the same way everywhere in Europe, although Italian experts are worried


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

fuck me he's so useless.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

Shall we refrain from saying when he lies and see if we can, instead, spot any truthful snippet?


----------



## Sunray (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Time for a stiff glass of soemthing special.  This is going to be one hell of  a rough ride over the next few days. I imagine BoJo is going to be an absolute disaster in about 1 minute.




???

That'll end well.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Watching the news conference. "supply chains are Strong and Robust so Everyone can shop Normally". In other words they are fucked and he is Starting to Panic.


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

alas!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Alas klaxon


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2020)

It's all fine. NO NEED TO PANIC.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> alas!


beat me


----------



## maomao (Dec 21, 2020)

My uni WhatsApp group is full of people who are sticking to their original Christmas plans.  Thought they would be more sensible. At least our covid denier got told to shut up today though, in far politer language than I could have managed.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Alaxon


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 21, 2020)

So, fuck all to report then. Just waffle.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> New colour category on the legend today, and not in good way...



and another new colour needed - Merthyr Tydfil has now gone over 1,200 cases per 100,000 and a few more areas are pretty damn close



source


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Over to Grant Shapps. I suppose by rapidly directing over to a turd he is hoping to shine.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Look at this slimy motherfucker


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 21, 2020)

so
no need to panic buy
bladibladiblabla


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I've read on here Johnson is late to everything on purpose like Trump. What's the reasoning behind it?


they have to get him to stop babbling how much everyone hates him


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

An international effort is beating this virus.

No, it's not, you total fuckwit.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Wow - they have set up a contra-flow and a giant lorry park. Top work by the wonder boy.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

In 1960's Dr Who, this is the bit when they brought on the Brigadier, isn't it?


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

That probably wasn't the most pointless press conference ever, but it certainly came close.


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

3.15 friday afternoon he told the WHO to worry. Thats very specific. Must have been asked that a lot.


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, fuck all to report then. Just waffle.


he said 'patrick, you've not got anything to add at this point...' so I guess there's a second part will Vallance coming up


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Pathetic question


----------



## Cid (Dec 21, 2020)

So basically 'don't panic'.

_yawn_


----------



## MrCurry (Dec 21, 2020)

zora said:


> The Guardian on YouTube usually has it.


Thanks, that’s working


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Much better question


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 21, 2020)

I just want to set him on fire.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

"Take out of The Path of the Vaccine as Many Targets as Possible and I think that is the um.. RIGHT WAY FORWARD."
Total bluster and bollox.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2020)

Is nobody asking "why don't you resign?"


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

the hair is very distracting. its a lot like the hair of a baby who has just been napping.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> the hair is very distracting. its a lot like the hair of a baby who has just been napping.


i find the neck the worst bit, there shouldn't be anything above it, and it always puts me off


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> the hair is very distracting. its a lot like the hair of a baby who has just been napping.


There's a reason for that


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> i find the neck the worst bit, there shouldn't be anything above it, and it always puts me off


There should be a rope around it


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> In 1960's Dr Who, this is the bit when they brought on the Brigadier, isn't it?



At which points the monsters will eat the lateral flow tests the brigadier fires at them, and grow stronger.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> In 1960's Dr Who, this is the bit when they brought on the Brigadier, isn't it?


it's worse than that, they need to bring on a second doctor. and quite possibly a third. at least we know boris johnson isn't 'the master'


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Johnson and Shitts smirking at one another at the question of Brexit


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

cant take any more. If there's anything they have to tell us other than Remain Calm, will read it on here.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Waffling cunt.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Waffling cunt.


Blue Waffle Haired Cunt


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 21, 2020)

The brass necked cunts are actually trying to say things in Dover aren't so bad because... _brexit_? 

Fuck me.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, fuck all to report then. Just waffle.


They obviously think "clear and visible leadership" is simply the leader being visible.

To be fair, that _is_ an improvement on previous behaviour.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

"It's important to be ahead of this virus"

...which this shower of pricks have consistently not been since the start of it


----------



## chilango (Dec 21, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I've read on here Johnson is late to everything on purpose like Trump. What's the reasoning behind it?



To ensure we we're fully aware of his contempt for us?


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Just watching BoJo and wondering whether as a man who prided himself on being a spunk machine he can't even get it up anymore. He looks like a man whose mojo has been ripped out of him and nailed to a cross.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2020)

Why the fuck are we not all going into Tier 4? Surely if it's that badly transmissible we need to not make the same mistake as earlier in the pandemic by introducing measures too late and act now to slow the spread across the whole country? If the whole country that's not in Tier 4 follows the growth of the SE and London they'll be an entirely predictable fucking disaster in the coming few months?! And that's not even with the possible worse fatality/severity option that we're unsure about yet. Surely it's better to be safe and tighten things up now rather than after the horse had bolted?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

chilango said:


> To ensure we we're fully aware of his contempt for us?


no, he always wets himself before public appearances so they have to get him new trousers and calm him down


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

Classic presser of its type.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

#worldbeating


----------



## Mation (Dec 21, 2020)

Pippa. Word.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Just watching BoJo and wondering whether as a man who prided himself on being a spunk machine he can't even get it up anymore. He looks like a man whose mojo has been ripped out of him and nailed to a cross.


when he really looks like that i'll let you know


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 21, 2020)

overpromised and under delivered
nice question


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Which, if true is one of the good bits of news of the day. At least another potential handful of unplanned mini-BoJo's can remain unborn.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Kids out of school for a year? Were they fuck


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

Christmas coronavirus edition of Blankety blank.

Watching Johnson try to manage this pandemic could bring a tear to a glass eye. Its like putting a sloth in charge of BLANK.


----------



## chilango (Dec 21, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I just want to set him on fire.



So other people can choose not to piss on him?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Didn't answer the question


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

"Extremely confident about this country's ability to bounce back" - BASED ON WHAT, YOU BLUSTERING BUFFOON??!


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> Pippa. Word.


Would have been nice to have a follow up from her


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> "Extremely confident about this country's ability to bounce back" - BASED ON WHAT, YOU BLUSTERING BUFFOON??!


Any good news whatsoever during this whole farce has come despite this government, not because of it.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

So he doesn't know when the next review is.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Would have been nice to have a follow up from her


She was shaking her damn head.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

The scientist couldn't have been clearer in his damnation.


----------



## MickiQ (Dec 21, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I've read on here Johnson is late to everything on purpose like Trump. What's the reasoning behind it?


I think he's just a disorganised twat


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

S☼I said:


> She was shaking her damn head.


I would like to be stamping on his head


----------



## Mation (Dec 21, 2020)

So frustrating to hear a good question followed by a second that gives the clown an option to answer that, rather than the challenging one.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 21, 2020)

S☼I said:


> So he doesn't know when the next review is.


Hancock answered that question a couple of days ago - two weeks is required legislative period but will review more frequently as needed.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> So frustrating to hear a good question followed by a second that gives the clown an option to answer that, rather than the challenging one.


God, yes. They keep giving him an out.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 21, 2020)

waste of time :/
I want my 25 minutes back


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2020)

Wait, what, that's it? WTF was the point of that?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> So frustrating to hear a good question followed by a second that gives the clown an option to answer that, rather than the challenging one.


Hush love. Put the kettle on eh? There's a good girl.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> waste of time :/
> I want my 25 minutes back


Was just going to say, think he's unified the country's feeling, namely "why did I just fucking bother?".


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

BoJo heads directly off stage to hit the red wine for another night. Tosser.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 21, 2020)

Well, that pretty much wins the "biggest waste of time this week" award.


----------



## Mation (Dec 21, 2020)

Wat was the point of that briefing, from the clown's perspective?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Mrs SI talking to a nurse friend yesterday...everyone in her hospital got jabbed but there was loads left over that would have been unusable after a while...so they were going into the fucking street and asking people if they wanted one


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

"Let's bring you up to date with what the Prime Minister said..." - aye, good luck with that.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 21, 2020)

Looking forward to more updates on the moveable barrier over the next few months


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I'm suddenly reminded of that bit in _The Day After Tomorrow _when Mexico had to close it's border because of the millions of US refugees flooding from the North.
> 
> View attachment 244615



“World bans British travellers” wasn’t what I expected from this year.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> Wat was the point of that briefing, from the clown's perspective?


Keep us spending but not panic buying


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

So,, don't panic, then?


----------



## agricola (Dec 21, 2020)

My immediate takeaway is what a lying get that man is.


----------



## Lucy Fur (Dec 21, 2020)

I think we all can agree were much the wiser now. In case anyone needs reminding of the levels of cuntitude we are living under.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Dec 21, 2020)

agricola said:


> My immediate takeaway is what a lying get that man is.


Are immediate takeaways allowed under tier 4?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 21, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Well, that pretty much wins the "biggest waste of time this week" award.


Well, Monday isn't even over, so there is hope


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> Wat was the point of that briefing, from the clown's perspective?


Nothing at all


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Nothing at all



I am sure he considers it a great success.


----------



## Mation (Dec 21, 2020)

"Steadily defeated."

In what fucking sense?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

WE GOT THE VACCINE FIRST  

WE GOT AN UPDATE FROM THE WHO BACK IN IN SEPTEMBER 

We are not in the shit


----------



## Supine (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> BoJo heads directly off stage to hit the red wine for another night. Tosser.



Tbf that's also my plan


----------



## NoXion (Dec 21, 2020)

These border closures that are happening; is it just for people or is freight affected too? This item on Twitter would seem to indicate the latter:



			https://twitter.com/i/events/1340828589072084994
		


FFS. I thought that freight and passengers were more segregated than this, but apparently not.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 21, 2020)

NoXion said:


> These border closures that are happening; is it just for people or is freight affected too? This item on Twitter would seem to indicate the latter:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


My (very scant) understanding is freight is affected if it's 'accompanied', i.e. if someone's driving it.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

170 lorries on the M20; yeah right.


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

NoXion said:


> These border closures that are happening; is it just for people or is freight affected too? This item on Twitter would seem to indicate the latter:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It affects 'accompanied freight,' which effectively means stuff that comes over on a lorry with driver, rather than a trailer that's left at one port and picked up at t'other.

e2a - of course freight and passengers aren't that segregated, though: they're using the same ferries.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 21, 2020)

Sue said:


> Wait, what, that's it? WTF was the point of that?



Earlier in the day he’d said he was going to agree with Macron in a few hours to let freight drivers through, hence announcing the press conference, but obviously some issues came up and they couldn’t agree anything in time.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> It affects 'accompanied freight,' which effectively means stuff that comes over on a lorry with driver, rather than a trailer that's left at one port and picked up at t'other.
> 
> e2a - of course freight and passengers aren't that segregated, though: they're using the same ferries.



And, containers being shipped without being on a trailer.


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, containers being shipped without being on a trailer.



Oh indeed, but in the context of the ferries that means a box on a lorry anyway.  Obviously containers are coming into other ports by dedicated container ship and rail through the Channel tunnel as well.  Or at least they should be.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> 170 lorries on the M20; yeah right.


1,700 perhaps


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> 170 lorries on the M20; yeah right.



BBC SE still reporting 500


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> 1,700 perhaps


Johnson is so shit that, when he handed over to Mick's thick cousin, it seemed like a little improvement for a few seconds.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

So tough... 

If only we) as an island new in advance this virus was coming. 

It would have been nice to get a few months warning of this new variant.


----------



## MickiQ (Dec 21, 2020)

Tis on youtube at  if anyone else wants and hasn't yet watched the floppy haired twonk waffle
Pointed question from Pippa Crerar from the Mirror who basically called him out as a wally.
There's a decent article about all this and the fact he's a clown on CNN at Analysis: Boris Johnson has led Britain into an abyss of overlapping crises at the worst possible time


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why the fuck are we not all going into Tier 4? Surely if it's that badly transmissible we need to not make the same mistake as earlier in the pandemic by introducing measures too late and act now to slow the spread across the whole country? If the whole country that's not in Tier 4 follows the growth of the SE and London they'll be an entirely predictable fucking disaster in the coming few months?! And that's not even with the possible worse fatality/severity option that we're unsure about yet. Surely it's better to be safe and tighten things up now rather than after the horse had bolted?



Yeah Whittys attempts to justify this initial tier response to the new strain the other day was very poor.

As best I can tell the response so far is exactly the same sort of response as they were already used to belatedly coming up with in response to specific rates of rise in cases, hospitalisations etc in particular regions. If they had no idea that the new variant even existed, their response would still have needed to be about the same, based on the trajectory of cases and hospitalisations in those regions. And it is also true that this same sort of response has been applied to other areas. Lower tier locations where they are not quite as worried about the current trajectory of the data remain much as they were, so again this is just the same response as I would have expected if this new variant wasnt even on the radar at all.

Even the Christmas specific bits and the emphasis on staying local and avoiding travel do not really involve components that are a unique response to the new variant concerns. Areas that got placed in high tiers in summer or autumn were used to hearing such travel related messages, and although the tone of such messages may be a little different now, thats more to do with u-turning too lax Christmas rules than a proper response to the new strain.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2020)

Just when you've convinced yourself that Johnson has no competition at all for the _Wank Personality of the Year _award...


----------



## Lucy Fur (Dec 21, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Earlier in the day he’d said was going to agree with Macron in a few hours to let freight drivers through, hence announcing the press conference, but obviously some issues came up and they couldn’t agree anything in time.


Macron: you've got enough tests to check all the drivers right?
Johnson: um, ah, well, no, we're world beating but, um, no.
Macron: imbecile.


----------



## philosophical (Dec 21, 2020)

That conference was chite even by their standards.
I think it's safe to assume their numbers gymnastics and obfuscation are not to be trusted.
Especially the reduction of lorries waiting, maybe not on the road, but probably in every abandoned pub car park and empty driveway in the region. Nobody asked, but I assume the consideration for the drivers will be a free bottle of water and maybe a packet of crisps.
The matter of hours thing with Macron is hopeful, but I read it as from all sides as a story about the virus, but also the negotiations, the deadlines, the fish, the brinkmanship (anybody see the look between the two Tory cunts as Peston asked his question?)...and maybe for the Europeans the new variation has arrived as an opportune opportunity to remind the UK that they ought to start thinking seriously about everything. 
Shapps and Johnson had a 'bring it down on top then you bastards, we've got Manston you pricks' stance which I hope was posing, but knowing these Tory wankers they might actually believe that if you wave Manston around then it's ya boo sucks to you foreigners.
On the good side is the knowledge that a decent number of people have started getting the vaccine, we need to know a lot about this in coming weeks.
I was surprised nobody asked about the mothballed Nightingale facilities, but the journalist from the Mirror got under the Prime Ministers skin, and then that bloke who followed up with the overpromise underdeliver stuff pissed Boris off enough for his response to basically say, please love me, I'm doing my best.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

At the stage where Johnson was blathering on about a solitary driver in their cab, I half expected him to claim that they asked the new variant and it said it doesnt like to travel by lorry


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

philosophical said:


> I think it's safe to assume their numbers gymnastics and obfuscation are not to be trusted.



Whatever gives you that idea?!


----------



## nagapie (Dec 21, 2020)

What was Pippa"s question, I don't want to watch?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> At the stage where Johnson was blathering on about a solitary driver in their cab, I half expected him to claim that they asked the new variant and it said it doesnt like to travel by lorry


That driver packed all the goods being shipped too


----------



## belboid (Dec 21, 2020)

nagapie said:


> What was Pippa"s question, I don't want to watch?


from the beeb blog:

Pippa Crerar of the Mirror asks why the whole country isn't in lockdown. She also asks why the PM keeps "over promising and under delivering".

Sir Patrick Vallance says it is the case that the virus will spread more and adds that "measures are going to need to be increased in due course not reduced".

Boris Johnson says keeping the country in perpetual lockdown would have been disastrous.

"We can look forward to a very different world from Easter onwards," he adds.


----------



## agricola (Dec 21, 2020)

nagapie said:


> What was Pippa"s question, I don't want to watch?



According to the PM it was "children are horrible, lets not educate them and seal them away in cupboards for twelve months, does the Prime Minister agree?"

It was actually about him repeatedly overpromising things that weren't then delivered, and whether this is why so many people no longer believe the government.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> At the stage where Johnson was blathering on about a solitary driver in their cab, I half expected him to claim that they asked the new variant and it said it doesnt like to travel by lorry



Communication with the new strain isnt easy, but Porton Down have been working on it.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 21, 2020)

Is that the stench of more corruption?









						Controversial ‘spy tech’ firm Palantir lands £23m NHS data deal
					

Exclusive: UK government sneaks through new COVID data contract, despite legal challenges.




					www.opendemocracy.net


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Earlier in the day he’d said was going to agree with Macron in a few hours to let freight drivers through, hence announcing the press conference, but obviously some issues came up and they couldn’t agree anything in time.


Oh that would explain it.
Wonder how that phonecall went then. Please open your borders, we need the food, let’s just not mention brexit at all..?


----------



## mx wcfc (Dec 21, 2020)

agricola said:


> According to the PM it was "children are horrible, lets not educate them and seal them away in cupboards for twelve months, does the Prime Minister agree?"
> 
> It was actually about him repeatedly overpromising things that weren't then delivered, and whether this is why so many people no longer believe the government.


I thought she let Johnson off the hook a bit, by asking a question to Whitty first - it gave Johnson a chance to come up with an answer.  Or are the press questions notified in advance?


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 21, 2020)

Lucy Fur said:


> I think we all can agree were much the wiser now. In case anyone needs reminding of the levels of cuntitude we are living under.



11 on the 1-10 scale?


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 21, 2020)

Johnson is just the real-life David Brent of politics, in that he tells the public what he thinks we want to hear for the sake of "popularity" rather than being straight with us. This Christmas bubble thing and reneging thereof reminds me of the episode where Brent erroneously promised the staff no one would be made redundant and then used "morale" to justify it to his boss. Jennifer then pointed out it was worse for morale if he lied to his staff. I wish there was someone above Johnson who could nicely explain that to him.


----------



## Lucy Fur (Dec 21, 2020)

With regards to Macron, it's also worth noting that Christmas Eve is the big day here and the traditional meal is seafood. Plus many of those drivers are French. Given Macron is about as popular as a cat turd in the bed at the moment, getting those drivers home is a massive priority for him. Any notion that his motives are Brexit related is bollocks.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> I thought she let Johnson off the hook a bit, by asking a question to Whitty first - it gave Johnson a chance to come up with an answer.  Or are the press questions notified in advance?



Whitty wasnt there today, that was Vallance.


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Just when you've convinced yourself that Johnson has no competition at all for the _Wank Personality of the Year _award...
> 
> View attachment 244639



So expect to be told it doesnt work on the new variant in _checks watch_ 3 days.


----------



## agricola (Dec 21, 2020)

Lucy Fur said:


> With regards to Macron, it's also worth noting that Christmas Eve is the big day here and the traditional meal is seafood. Plus many of those drivers are French. Given Macron is about as popular as a cat turd in the bed at the moment, getting those drivers home is a massive priority for him. Any notion that his motives are Brexit related is bollocks.



It could even be because someone mentioned Jupiter being obscured (as part of the conjunction with Saturn) and he's come up with this to distract attention from it.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

Having finally gotten through the press conference, probably all I learnt is that sections of the media have noticed that the tier-based response to the new strain seems at odds with protecting other regions from the new strain.

Vallance did the usual thing involving all the right noises about being proactive and getting on top of things early, despite that being one variant of action that has rarely been spotted in the UK in this pandemic.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

Just noticed a useful change on the government's dashboard, using the postcode checker it used to give a figure for those admitted to hospital in your region, now it displays the figure for your local NHS Trust.   





__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## davesgcr (Dec 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Oh indeed, but in the context of the ferries that means a box on a lorry anyway.  Obviously containers are coming into other ports by dedicated container ship and rail through the Channel tunnel as well.  Or at least they should be.



Eurotunnel is closed for freight shuttles , - but an enterprising person could "hijack" containers (loads of empties kicking around the UK one gathers) - but there is a minor issue of finding a way to load them.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Oh indeed, but in the context of the ferries that means a box on a lorry anyway.  Obviously containers are coming into other ports by dedicated container ship and *rail through the Channel tunnel as well*.  Or at least they should be.


The thing is that hardly any freight comes through the tunnel by rail. Other than in lorries on the Euroshuttle.

It's such a wasted resource, and you'd think that part of the Brexit contingency plans might have included trying to make better use of it because it clearly has the potential to shift relatively large quantities of stuff quite quickly and safely. But they don't. The container terminal that was built at Willesden in the 90s to deal with freight from the tunnel has been dismantled in the past few years to make space for HS2 materials storage.


----------



## Lucy Fur (Dec 21, 2020)

davesgcr said:


> Eurotunnel is closed for freight shuttles , - but an enterprising person could "hijack" containers (loads of empties kicking around the UK one gathers) - but there is a minor issue of finding a way to load them.


Pop Brixton perhaps ...


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The thing is that hardly any freight comes through the tunnel by rail. Other than in lorries on the Euroshuttle.
> 
> It's such a wasted resource, and you'd think that part of the Brexit contingency plans might have included trying to make better use of it because it clearly has the potential to shift relatively large quantities of stuff quite quickly and safely. But they don't. The container terminal that was built at Willesden in the 90s to deal with freight from the tunnel has been dismantled in the past few years to make space for HS2 materials storage.



Oh I agree that not nearly enough moves through the Chunnel by rail, but the point I was making was it does happen and it's not just about accompanied lorries on the ferries.



davesgcr said:


> Eurotunnel is closed for freight shuttles , - but an enterprising person could "hijack" containers (loads of empties kicking around the UK one gathers) - but there is a minor issue of finding a way to load them.



Hence the 'or should be,' which was also meant to cover the current bottlenecks at Felixstowe and elsewhere and shortage of containers!


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Good to know we are in agreement with the Daily Hiel:


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

On the plus side, nobody is blaming dominic Cummings for every cockup any more. He might have been really helpful to the PM in that way.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just noticed a useful change on the government's dashboard, using the postcode checker it used to give a figure for those admitted to hospital in your region, now it displays the figure for your local NHS Trust.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thats very useful, it means that lots of the graphs I was producing per trust rather sporadically are now obsolete and people can just use the dashboard.

I dont go via the postcode route much myself, so I'll also add that you can go to the healthcare section and then click to change area type to NHS trust and then search/select a particular trust to see figures and graphs admissions, current covid-19 patient levels, patients in mechanical ventilation beds.


Edit - actually the results I get when I make that selection arent right. I'm a bit tired right now but will try to figure out whats wrong and whether anything useful can still be seen this way.

edit again - it does work even though the results are wrong in that screenshot, it was just  blip.


----------



## davesgcr (Dec 21, 2020)

Plenty of good intermodal terminals this side of the Channel , but the problem is finding a suitable loading point on the "other side" 

Channel tunnel freight - that is the quality side - has never , ever prospered , for all sorts of reasons. What little that has survived has been "bulk" stuff. There have been all sorts of false dawns for fruit and veg from Spain to places like Barking - always trumpeted as great possible successes - but the strength of road haulage has always won. Alas.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Oh I agree that not nearly enough moves through the Chunnel by rail, but the point I was making was it does happen and it's not just about accompanied lorries on the ferries.


Yeah... the point is though that actually the reality is, it hardly happens _at all _and much of the infrastructure and assets have been so run down that it would be nearly impossible to utilise it at short notice.

I do believe however that additional container trains are being run to and from many ports at the moment, to help make up for the disruption. Pretty much all of the UK's unaccompanied freight arrives by sea, as far as I understand.


----------



## prunus (Dec 21, 2020)

Sue said:


> Wait, what, that's it? WTF was the point of that?



Well, he’s the prime minister, but other than that I can’t think of anything.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2020)

davesgcr said:


> Plenty of good intermodal terminals this side of the Channel , but the problem is finding a suitable loading point on the "other side"
> 
> Channel tunnel freight - that is the quality side - has never , ever prospered , for all sorts of reasons. What little that has survived has been "bulk" stuff. There have been all sorts of false dawns for fruit and veg from Spain to places like Barking - always trumpeted as great possible successes - but the strength of road haulage has always won. Alas.



As far as I gather, the pool of the locomotives that are needed to haul container trains through the tunnel has been so badly run down by DB that there would be little scope to increase things very much at all in the short term.


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> . Pretty much all of the UK's unaccompanied freight arrives by sea, as far as I understand.



It does, and tbf no matter how well the Chunnel was used that wouldn't change a great deal.  After all, how many container trains would it take to do the work of one of these:







That's before we get to tankers and bulk cargo, of course.


----------



## davesgcr (Dec 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> As far as I gather, the pool of the locomotives that are needed to haul container trains through the tunnel has been so badly run down by DB that there would be little scope to increase things very much at all in the short term.



Not neccessarily -the 92's are horribly underused , derelict even) but the Tunnel locos could pilot them through and enough traction of all sorts this side -  to pilot any hypothetical extra container trains. I would of course recommend class 73's in pairs (not enough 33's around any more) , I sense an Operation Dynamo in my dreams. (Dynamo was the sterling response to Dunkirk)


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2020)

davesgcr said:


> the Tunnel locos could pilot them through


The Euroshuttle ones, you mean?


----------



## davesgcr (Dec 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> The Euroshuttle ones, you mean?



Yes - if needed . As far as the underused Dollands Moor. Remember the Govt continues to fund unused freight paths through the Tunnel. Has done for a long time.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2020)

davesgcr said:


> Yes - if needed .


I've always assumed they are out of the question because they are used for the shuttle trains. But I guess if those stopped running!


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

davesgcr said:


> Not neccessarily -the 92's are horribly underused , derelict even) but the Tunnel locos could pilot them through and enough traction of all sorts this side -  to pilot any hypothetical extra container trains. I would of course recommend class 73's in pairs (not enough 33's around any more) , I sense an Operation Dynamo in my dreams. (Dynamo was the sterling response to Dunkirk)



I would heartily endorse this course of action.


----------



## davesgcr (Dec 21, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I've always assumed they are out of the question because they are used for the shuttle trains. But I guess if those stopped running!



Exactly - not many private cars on those trains at the moment. Bit of prioritisation ......balance of container trains with shuttles. A balance could be struck.


----------



## davesgcr (Dec 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> I would heartily endorse this course of action.



Leaf fall season ended - so even some 37's available now.


----------



## agricola (Dec 21, 2020)

davesgcr said:


> Not neccessarily -the 92's are horribly underused , derelict even) but the Tunnel locos could pilot them through and enough traction of all sorts this side -  to pilot any hypothetical extra container trains. I would of course recommend class 73's in pairs (not enough 33's around any more) , I sense an Operation Dynamo in my dreams. (Dynamo was the sterling response to Dunkirk)



I was on holiday a couple of years ago and saw a Class 66 go through Carcassonne station; no idea where it was going but it looked gainfully employed at the time.


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

davesgcr said:


> Leaf fall season ended - so even some 37's available now.



Better still.  But if we're digging into the traction archives I want 9Fs!

We should take this discussion to the transport forum though, shouldn't we...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

Shelves apparently stripped at the large supermarket near me this evening around 6.

Fun times ahead.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

davesgcr said:


> Plenty of good intermodal terminals this side of the Channel , but the problem is finding a suitable loading point on the "other side"
> 
> Channel tunnel freight - that is the quality side - has never , ever prospered , for all sorts of reasons. What little that has survived has been "bulk" stuff. There have been all sorts of false dawns for fruit and veg from Spain to places like Barking - always trumpeted as great possible successes - but the strength of road haulage has always won. Alas.


The Barking depot is extremely close to massive Tesco and Stobarts logistics centres so it could work.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Shelves apparently stripped at the large supermarket near me this evening around 6.
> 
> Fun times ahead.


Didn't they learn anything from March.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Shelves apparently stripped at the large supermarket near me this evening around 6.
> 
> Fun times ahead.


Here in East London/Essex borders Aldi seem to have unlimited amounts of just about to turn fruit and veg loads of it with 30% discount stickers. Paid 66p for 500g of Brazilian grapes. The clementines they were stacking on the shelves had about a day maximum life left in them. Had to return one bag just before I bought it once I realised it was becoming mush.  Reckon things are getting held up at the ports and then off loaded ASAP. God knows what this means for supplies a bit further afield i.e. Scotland or Wales/Cornwall.


----------



## MickiQ (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Good to know we are in agreement with the Daily Hiel:
> 
> View attachment 244653


I can imagine me telling my grandkids about this when they're older, When the Fail became the voice of reason boys and (hopefully) girls that was when your Granddad realised all hope was lost and that civilisation had fallen.


----------



## smmudge (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Here in East London/Essex borders Aldi seem to have unlimited amounts of just about to turn fruit and veg loads of it with 30% discount stickers. Paid 66p for 500g of Brazilian grapes. The clementines they were stacking on the shelves had about a day maximum life left in them. Had to return one bag just before I bought it once I realised it was becoming mush.



That's fairly standard in our Aldi tbh.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 21, 2020)

Coming to terms with the original covid-19 virus, doing hand washing mask wearing and social distancing, avoiding crowded places, working from home, etc - after a while I felt my actions could just about prevent me getting it. And so far I have indeed avoided it, though it isn't such a great life. 

Now, this new variant with 70% greater transmission, has caused me to question my thinking. It used to be more than 15 minutes within 2m of an infected person, the threshold of the covid-19 app, a lot more people are going to catch this new variant. I wonder which of my assumptions are no longer valid and if it will be possible for me or anyone else to continue avoiding infection?


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Coming to terms with the original covid-19 virus, doing hand washing mask wearing and social distancing, avoiding crowded places, working from home, etc - after a while I felt my actions could just about prevent me getting it. And so far I have indeed avoided it, though it isn't such a great life.
> 
> Now, this new variant with 70% greater transmission, has caused me to question my thinking. It used to be more than 15 minutes within 2m of an infected person, the threshold of the covid-19 app, a lot more people are going to catch this new variant. I wonder which of my assumptions are no longer valid and if it will be possible for me or anyone else to continue avoiding infection?



The 70% greater transmissibility stat is alarming but unproven, so it's too early to start thinking in detail about what it means.  The only sensible rule to work to atm is 'be very fucking careful.'


----------



## davesgcr (Dec 21, 2020)

Be interesting to see if there are riots in the St Albans charter market on Wednesday. Fruit and Veg wise.  

This was supposed to be the final day for the French marketeers , so how do they get back home ? .


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Coming to terms with the original covid-19 virus, doing hand washing mask wearing and social distancing, avoiding crowded places, working from home, etc - after a while I felt my actions could just about prevent me getting it. And so far I have indeed avoided it, though it isn't such a great life.
> 
> Now, this new variant with 70% greater transmission, has caused me to question my thinking. It used to be more than 15 minutes within 2m of an infected person, the threshold of the covid-19 app, a lot more people are going to catch this new variant. I wonder which of my assumptions are no longer valid and if it will be possible for me or anyone else to continue avoiding infection?



I share your concern. Living in the deep purple zone it seems like the original fears about the virus from March are being realised in terms of transmission ability.  I reckon it has followed public transport routes this time round. Look at Basildon, Barking, ect on the C2C line and a few weeks back it almost seemed to be following bus routes in some areas.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> I share your concern. Living in the deep purple zone it seems like the original fears about the virus from March are being realised in terms of transmission ability.  I reckon it has followed public transport routes this time round. Look at Basildon, Barking, ect on the C2C line and a few weeks back it almost seemed to be following bus routes in some areas.


I am thinking about some of the South London pockets around Woolwich heading south in particular. With the old variant if you wore masks you were generally OK. With this one you can not rely on masks when in close proximity. It didn't help when the train frequency was massively reduced in November due to staff shortages and C2C wanting to make some extra cash. People were going ballistic online locally because what had been socially distanced train journeys of 30 minutes or so were becoming really scary events due to trains every 20 minutes instead of 5. It felt mad to be in a socially distanced work place, whether an office or a building site, and then staring at a stranger's armpit all the way home. And there were people on the trains with what sounded like covid coughs which was terrifying. I remember getting onto one carriage and there was one bloke with a massive space around him coughing every minute or so from behind his mask whilst the other passengers had their backs turned. Crazy.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Coming to terms with the original covid-19 virus, doing hand washing mask wearing and social distancing, avoiding crowded places, working from home, etc - after a while I felt my actions could just about prevent me getting it. And so far I have indeed avoided it, though it isn't such a great life.
> 
> Now, this new variant with 70% greater transmission, has caused me to question my thinking. It used to be more than 15 minutes within 2m of an infected person, the threshold of the covid-19 app, a lot more people are going to catch this new variant. I wonder which of my assumptions are no longer valid and if it will be possible for me or anyone else to continue avoiding infection?



Did you have the same thoughts when you considered winter? Its a similar thing really, there are all sorts of variables that affect risk, mutations are part of that picture, not unique in that respect, not a cause for defeatism about personal chances of catching it.

Indeed if the response to this strain is stronger than the winter response would otherwise have been, if it gets people to take things more seriously, if it affects behaviour in a way that reduces the opportunities for the virus to spread, then the new strain (or rather our awareness of it and response to it) could even end up reducing your risk of catching the virus.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Didn't they learn anything from March.



Yes? Get the looting in early


----------



## Mation (Dec 21, 2020)

Went to the supermarket this afternoon (in South London) and it was very normal (for this year), other than that they'd reinstated having a staff member at the door to offer hand sanitizer. They've been excellent, and really conscientious throughout this whole thing. And it felt very reassuring a few weeks ago when they added an extra shelf to their aisles, holding the still boxed/crated stuff that I guess they usually keep out back. It creates the impression that food and essentials aren't in danger of running out, to me at least, and that seems to be borne out by the rest of the shelves remaining full/ not worryingly empty, no long queues and no overstuffed trolleys.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> The 70% greater transmissibility stat is alarming but unproven, so it's too early to start thinking in detail about what it means.  The only sensible rule to work to atm is 'be very fucking careful.'


A lot of people repeating the 70% though, didn't Vallance himself quote it at us today?


----------



## weltweit (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> I share your concern. Living in the deep purple zone it seems like the original fears about the virus from March are being realised in terms of transmission ability.  I reckon it has followed public transport routes this time round. Look at Basildon, Barking, ect on the C2C line and a few weeks back it almost seemed to be following bus routes in some areas.


Yes, transport routes seem very possible as a point of infection.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> The 70% greater transmissibility stat is alarming but unproven, so it's too early to start thinking in detail about what it means.  The only sensible rule to work to atm is 'be very fucking careful.'



Unproven isn't really true. The NERVTAG report on Friday had it down as 'moderate confidence' in that, and today they changed it to 'high confidence', a significant step that have the data to back-up. At this point I'd say while 'not proved' exactly, it's looking very certain to be the case and has now been quoted as fact by a number of scientists, Vallance among them.


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Unproven isn't really true. The NERVTAG report on Friday had it down as 'moderate confidence' in that, and today they changed it to 'high confidence', a significant step that have the data to back-up. At this point I'd say while 'not proved' 100% exactly, it's looking very certainly to be the case.



So probable, but unproven.  Not that it should make any difference in how any of us approaches this...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> Went to the supermarket this afternoon (in South London) and it was very normal (for this year), other than that they'd reinstated having a staff member at the door to offer hand sanitizer. They've been excellent, and really conscientious throughout this whole thing. And it felt very reassuring a few weeks ago when they added an extra shelf to their aisles, holding the still boxed/crated stuff that I guess they usually keep out back. It creates the impression that food and essentials aren't in danger of running out, to me at least, and that seems to be born out by the rest of the shelves remaining full/ not worryingly empty, no long queues and no overstuffed trolleys.



I’m around Essex so probably a few regional differences


----------



## Mation (Dec 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> So probable, but unproven.  Not that it should make any difference in how any of us approaches this...


Never look for 'proven'. Look for evidence that strongly suggests...


----------



## weltweit (Dec 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Did you have the same thoughts when you considered winter? Its a similar thing really, there are all sorts of variables that affect risk, mutations are part of that picture, not unique in that respect, not a cause for defeatism about personal chances of catching it.


tbh I never really take any precautions wrt winter, apart from not allowing myself to get soaking wet and cold, that sort of thing. 



elbows said:


> Indeed if the response to this strain is stronger than the winter response would otherwise have been, if it gets people to take things more seriously, if it affects behaviour in a way that reduces the opportunities for the virus to spread, then the new strain (or rather our awareness of it and response to it) could even end up reducing your risk of catching the virus.


elbows that is an optimistic thought, I suppose it is also possible, but I am also wondering what will the new rules of engagement be? Will it be 5 minutes at 2m with an infected person for example? Or no minutes at all?


----------



## Mation (Dec 21, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I’m around Essex so probably a few regional differences


How so?


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> Never look for 'proven'. Look for evidence that strongly suggests...



Sure.  But also don't make assertions with a confidence the evidence doesn't yet support.  I stress yet...


----------



## weltweit (Dec 21, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> Sure.  But also don't make assertions with a confidence the evidence doesn't yet support.  I stress yet...


It would be interesting to know the evidence UKG sent to WHO about the new variant. Certainly the countries that have now closed borders with the UK believe their action was justified.


----------



## baldrick (Dec 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> Thats very useful, it means that lots of the graphs I was producing per trust rather sporadically are now obsolete and people can just use the dashboard.
> 
> I dont go via the postcode route much myself, so I'll also add that you can go to the healthcare section and then click to change area type to NHS trust and then search/select a particular trust to see figures and graphs admissions, current covid-19 patient levels, patients in mechanical ventilation beds.
> 
> ...


Dunno if this is helpful cupid_stunt and elbows I've been following the Covid dashboard tech guy on Twitter for a while and completely forgot this may have been useful info for Urban! But he goes into a bit of detail earlier in his feed about how the Trust data is compiled

https://twitter.com/Pouriaaa


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> I share your concern. Living in the deep purple zone



Do you get smoke on the water there?


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

This sounds sensible but not instant.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Do you get smoke on the water there?


Oh yes. And fire's in the sky...


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> This sounds sensible but not instant.
> View attachment 244661


Project fuck up mark XI


----------



## Spandex (Dec 21, 2020)

I could've cried with frustration during today's press conference when it became apparent that Johnson was announcing nothing. After Saturday's announcement of the made up that morning, back of fag packet tier 4 I hoped there may be something new announced. 

It was too much to expect him to announce a new national lockdown, which is surely needed as cases rise across the country, with infection rates so high they have to keep finding new colors for their map to show how bad it is. He's determined not to be the first British politician since Cromwell to 'ban Christmas', and the right wing anti-lockdown shitsacks that infest his back benches would never forgive him for it. But some kind of refinement of the hastily cobbled together new tier system. A recognition that tier 2 areas bounding the tier 4 areas have seen cases double or triple in a week. An attempt to stop this overspill from the new strain hotspots engulfing the whole country. Something. Anything. 

But no. He's dealing with the French to sort out trade over closed border, nothing to announce, but it'll all be fine. The restrictions will be kept under non-specific review. Whitty chips in that new restrictions will be needed later. Otherwise, carry on as you are and try not to catch it and die.

And waving the 500,000 vaccinations figure about as a shiny thing to distract us. Sure, it's a Big Number, but that many people half vaccinated in 2 weeks is nowhere near up to speed, even if it is early days.

It's watching him fuck it up yet again that's so fucking enraging. Locking down too late the first time was a deadly mistake. Locking down too late the second time was criminally negligent. Ending the second lockdown too soon was yet another disastrous blunder. And now he's locking down too late a third fucking time. This new more transmitable strain of the virus will have run right across the country by the time Christmas has passed and he grudgingly accepts the need to lock down again. More dead. More hospitals overwhelmed. More lives ruined. And the longer he puts it off the harder it'll be to pull things back to some kind of normality. Yet a-fucking-gain


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2020)

Immigration will be down right now though, that should cheer some of base.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

weltweit said:


> elbows that is an optimistic thought, I suppose it is also possible, but I am also wondering what will the new rules of engagement be? Will it be 5 minutes at 2m with an infected person for example? Or no minutes at all?



I've said all along not to mistake arbitrary rules that are chosen for a multitude of reasons, with how the virus actually behaves or your own risk of catching it in any partiular setting when mixing with people.

Theres not much point me predicting how strongly the government will tighten things in terms of details. I can sometimes predict roughly when they will be forced to do something, and how big a response is required. But since the government repeatedly under reacts and then are later forced to press the brakes harder as a result, a familiar pattern emerges that I think plenty of people understand the rhythm of these days, so they dont need me to see which way the wind blows.

Broadly speaking the response to the new strain is not a different beast from the sort of picture we might have expected in this pandemic winter anyway. If all of its potential implications are revealed to be true and significant, then the results are much the same as if we'd had a winter plan and measures that werent up to the winter burden, and needed to be constantly strengthened as a result.

Whatever difference the new strain makes in practical terms on the ground, in communication terms it has closed a perception gap between the delusional, bizarre version of pandemic winter that some have tried to foster in the buildup to this season, and what was always possibly going to be necessary to keep the hospital levels within operational limits over winter. Numerous u-turns ahead may be blamed on thsi strain, but regardless of whether it is fair or unfair to do so, ie how much difference the strain is actually making to the wave, I suspect some of these u-turns would have happened even without this strain.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2020)

bimble said:


> Immigration will be down right now though, that should cheer some of base.



Can't emigrate either though.


----------



## Thora (Dec 21, 2020)

Are schools actually going to reopen in England on 4th January?  If I have to go back to working and home schooling I feel like I need some time to prepare myself.


----------



## Mation (Dec 21, 2020)

Thora said:


> Are schools actually going to reopen in England on 4th January?  If I have to go back to working and home schooling I feel like I need some time to prepare myself.


The chances of finding that out before about 8 pm on 3 January are probably quite slim.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I agree, even the original tier 1 areas are seeing massive increases, Cornwall up 190% in 7 days, Isle of Wight up 300%.



What a difference a day makes, the map has been updated to the sample date of 16th Dec., Cornwall now up 244% in 7 days, Isle of Wight up 394%.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

A PHE document about the new variant. Havent read it yet, wanted to link to it straight away.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/947048/Technical_Briefing_VOC_SH_NJL2_SH2.pdf


----------



## mx wcfc (Dec 21, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> What a difference a day makes, the map has been updated to the sample date of 16th Dec., Cornwall now up 244% in 7 days, Isle of Wight up 394%.


I follow my little area on the map.  It's always 5 days behind (unless you have a link to a more up to date one?).  The trouble with low numbers, is the percentage increases can be huge, and because it's a 7 day figure it gets more confused.  Today it shows the 16 December figure, 7 cases, up 133% from 4 a week ago.  Worrying, except that yesterday it showed 8 cases, which was an increase on 6 cases.  7 days before that.  Or am I reading the figures wrong?


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Jesus fuck. Next to my area it has hit  1,440.9 per 100K


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

Thora said:


> Are schools actually going to reopen in England on 4th January?  If I have to go back to working and home schooling I feel like I need some time to prepare myself.


they are not.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> I follow my little area on the map.  It's always 5 days behind (unless you have a link to a more up to date one?).  The trouble with low numbers, is the percentage increases can be huge, and because it's a 7 day figure it gets more confused.  Today it shows the 16 December figure, 7 cases, up 133% from 4 a week ago.  Worrying, except that yesterday it showed 8 cases, which was an increase on 6 cases.  7 days before that.  Or am I reading the figures wrong?



I look at the map for county wide data, which is 5 days behind. But, I also use the postcode checker, which gives me the up to date figure for the last 7 days in the Worthing Borough area.

Today that's 160 cases, up 84%, I then divide that by 1.1 as the population is 110k, that gives me the figure of 145 per 100k, we were on under 25 under 3 weeks ago.

Also, it now shows admissions to my local NHS Trust, which was 23 in the last 7 days, up 77%.

All very depressing.


----------



## PD58 (Dec 21, 2020)

Ok, thinking out loud - if possible in text -  the evidence is pointing to significant mutations that are likely to be resulting in a significantly higher transmission rate, but what i am trying to get my head round is why there such a huge increase in transmission - if social distancing is still in place, washing hands is second nature, people are following the rules (masks etc etc) then surely this should not be happening...the only conclusion I can come to is that people are not following the rules or the virus is now significantly more contagious or have I missed something????


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

On a positive note got my negative result back. Since Friday when I took the test I have only been on fleeting visits to the shops so reckon family is fine. This Wednesday my wife has work at garden centre which is expressly allowed to remain open in all tiers.  Having a garden centre open where 1 in 75 have tested positive in the past week for covid is ludicrous.


----------



## Supine (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> On a positive note got my negative result back. Since Friday when I took the test I have only been on fleeting visits to the shops so reckon family is fine. This Wednesday my wife has work at garden centre which is expressly allowed to remain open in all tiers.  Having a garden centre open where 1 in 75 have tested positive in the past week for covid is ludicrous.



It's ludicrous but you showed symptoms and still went shopping?


----------



## xenon (Dec 21, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Ok, thinking out loud - if possible in text -  the evidence is pointing to significant mutations that are likely to be resulting in a significantly higher transmission rate, but what i am trying to get my head round is why there such a huge increase in transmission - if social distancing is still in place, washing hands is second nature, people are following the rules (masks etc etc) then surely this should not be happening...the only conclusion I can come to is that people are not following the rules or the virus is now significantly more contagious or have I missed something????



Because schools, universities  and shops ar open, quite a lot of people need to go out to work.

It's not all about parties....

e2a

Sorry sounded a bit sarcy. And yeah, your thinking is what has caused the researchers to look at e.g. the SE in particular. Why are cases so high when as you say, for the most part, restrictions are being followed.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> A PHE document about the new variant. Havent read it yet, wanted to link to it straight away.
> 
> 
> 
> https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/947048/Technical_Briefing_VOC_SH_NJL2_SH2.pdf


Interesting paper. I was going to moan that "It is our aim to share these isolates with researchers as soon as feasible but it is likely that significant stocks of appropriately quality preparations will not be available until early in January." But then I realised that it is almost January now


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Supine said:


> It's ludicrous but you showed symptoms and still went shopping?


No. They were offering asymptomatic tests in the borough due to the very high rate. Half my family went to a walk in test centre on Thursday. I was working so ordered a home test that I took on Friday when able to work from home.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 21, 2020)

Mation said:


> The chances of finding that out before about 8 pm on 3 January are probably quite slim.


I think you are spot on there sadly. If there's a press conference that weekend you just know what it's going to fucking be though.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

kenny g said:


> No. They were offering asymptomatic tests in the borough due to the very high rate. Half my family went to a walk in test centre on Thursday. I was working so ordered a home test that I took on Friday when able to work from home.


Everyone was encouraged to take tests if they were attending schools or family members of those attending schools. If you had symptoms there was a different process.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> they are not.


I thought primaries were opening as per usual. My secondary is only having year 11 and key worker children in the first week while we learn to give tests😂


----------



## kenny g (Dec 21, 2020)

Supine said:


> It's ludicrous but you showed symptoms and still went shopping?


Covid 19 testing sites | The London Borough Of Havering  explains about a symptomatic testing being available. Guess I am due an apology?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

I got an email from my daughter's (secondary) school at 4pm the day she broke up (Friday). First week back only Year 11 and key workers' kids back that week. I'd genuinely not considered myself a key worker. But I am.

I don't want her to go in. And I don't want to go back to work - I can work from home so surely I should do that?


----------



## Thora (Dec 21, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I thought primaries were opening as per usual. My secondary is only having year 11 and key worker children in the first week while we learn to give tests😂


Boris was very non-committal on schools today    And Scotland have said 18th January earliest and I think are keeping nurseries shut too.


----------



## mx wcfc (Dec 21, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I got an email from my daughter's (secondary) school at 4pm the day she broke up (Friday). First week back only Year 11 and key workers' kids back that week. I'd genuinely not considered myself a key worker. But I am.
> 
> I don't want her to go in. And I don't want to go back to work - I can work from home so surely I should do that?


Tell the school you are not a key worker now and are working from home anyway.  That way, she won't have to go back?


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I thought primaries were opening as per usual. My secondary is only having year 11 and key worker children in the first week while we learn to give tests😂


I'm extremely confident that any plans for schools to open as normal on the 4th January will be abandoned by 4th January. They might do on the Isle of Wight I guess.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 21, 2020)

They better bloody open key worker school or I give up, I've already been at odds all term with my head because he considers children isolating as unpaid childcare!


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> I'm extremely confident that any plans for schools to open as normal on the 4th January will be abandoned by 4th January. They might do on the Isle of Wight I guess.



The number of covid-19 patients in hospital figures certainly dont imply a normal schools picture for January in a number of regions, with other regions currently poised to potentially change trajectory too.

This graph includes figures up to 8am today by the way, even though the last date on the x axis labelling is the 18th.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why the fuck are we not all going into Tier 4? Surely if it's that badly transmissible we need to not make the same mistake as earlier in the pandemic by introducing measures too late and act now to slow the spread across the whole country? If the whole country that's not in Tier 4 follows the growth of the SE and London they'll be an entirely predictable fucking disaster in the coming few months?! And that's not even with the possible worse fatality/severity option that we're unsure about yet. Surely it's better to be safe and tighten things up now rather than after the horse had bolted?


Yep, we're an 800 mile long land mass that's in the main densely populated. The idea that you have different rules in areas with, at that point, different infection rates, makes no medical sense. And given how bad things are very quickly getting, there isn't much venal political logic for it either.


----------



## Mation (Dec 21, 2020)

Edited as I'd missed some posts that have now made sense of my confusion!


----------



## 2hats (Dec 21, 2020)

brogdale said:


> 170 lorries on the M20; yeah right.


----------



## mx wcfc (Dec 21, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why the fuck are we not all going into Tier 4?


Pretty sure we will all be in Tier 4 by January.  Agreed though. 
Sadly we need another lockdown.  Call me a masochist, but this time it needs to be full on. No takeaways, no Amazon deliveries, supermarkets and chemists only open.  And shut the schools/unis. delay term start and run over the summer if things improve.  No building sites, no public transport except for taxis for key workers.  

Full financial support, paid for by a wealth tax and immediate increases in CGT, IHT etc.


----------



## PD58 (Dec 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> Because schools, universities  and shops ar open, quite a lot of people need to go out to work.
> 
> It's not all about parties....
> 
> ...



But do we know it is students uni & school plus workers who are the newly infected and shops should surely be social distancing...although not the case in my local Morrison's today perhaps because i am in Tier 1. Have to say i am not convinced re social distancing from what i have seen lately in my local towns.


----------



## mx wcfc (Dec 21, 2020)

PD58 said:


> But do we know it is students uni & school plus workers who are the newly infected and shops should surely be social distancing...although not the case in my local Morrison's today perhaps because i am in Tier 1. Have to say i am not convinced re social distancing from what i have seen lately in my local towns.


Social distancing has gone to fuck, based on my limited experience of popping into town twice for xmas shopping and going to the supermarket.  At least at Sainsbury's people wear masks.  In town, people wandering around and queuing up for market stalls - no masks,  no social distancing.


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2020)

elbows said:


> The number of covid-19 patients in hospital figures certainly dont imply a normal schools picture for January in a number of regions, with other regions currently poised to potentially change trajectory too.
> 
> This graph includes figures up to 8am today by the way, even though the last date on the x axis labelling is the 18th.
> 
> View attachment 244667


there's very little in that graph that looks compatible with schools opening in two weeks is there?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> they are not.


I suspect you might well be right, but I was astonished that the universities stayed open even after it was clear the virus was flying round the halls of residence (as was predicted on here and, well, by everyone).  I do think things will get so bad that we get another layer of restrictions coming in say 2nd January, but never underestimate the failure of this government to take decisive action at the right moment.


----------



## xenon (Dec 21, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> Pretty sure we will all be in Tier 4 by January.  Agreed though.
> Sadly we need another lockdown.  Call me a masochist, but this time it needs to be full on. No takeaways, no Amazon deliveries, supermarkets and chemists only open.  And shut the schools/unis. delay term start and run over the summer if things improve.  No building sites, no public transport except for taxis for key workers.
> 
> Full financial support, paid for by a wealth tax and immediate increases in CGT, IHT etc.



You said this last time and the same reasons apply. You can't stop online deliveries as it's not all fripperies and tat people buy but essentials, food etc. Many of those peple can't get to the shops and don't have peple to go for them.

Daft idea. Again.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

killer b said:


> there's very little in that graph that looks compatible with schools opening in two weeks is there?



Indeed not, which is why I posted it in reply to your remarks, in agreement with them. Although that doesnt mean I can predict what this government will attempt or not attempt to do in the days ahead, other than more than they've done so far, because as usual they will be forced to.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 21, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> Pretty sure we will all be in Tier 4 by January.  Agreed though.
> Sadly we need another lockdown.  Call me a masochist, but this time it needs to be full on. No takeaways, no Amazon deliveries, supermarkets and chemists only open.  And shut the schools/unis. delay term start and run over the summer if things improve.  No building sites, no public transport except for taxis for key workers.
> 
> Full financial support, paid for by a wealth tax and immediate increases in CGT, IHT etc.


We've needed that since October.


----------



## xenon (Dec 21, 2020)

PD58 said:


> But do we know it is students uni & school plus workers who are the newly infected and shops should surely be social distancing...although not the case in my local Morrison's today perhaps because i am in Tier 1. Have to say i am not convinced re social distancing from what i have seen lately in my local towns.



Rates started going up in the summer once hospitality reopened, then with up more when schools reopened to the majority of kids, students travelled all round the country to live in halls of residence. Factories open, people being pressured to go back to the office. 

Annoying as it is with people barging around shops etc, I don't thaink that's where the bulk of infections are occurring.


----------



## mx wcfc (Dec 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> You said this last time and the same reasons apply. You can't stop online deliveries as it's not all fripperies and tat people buy but essentials, food etc. Many of those peple can't get to the shops and don't have peple to go for them.
> 
> Daft idea. Again.


I'm not suggesting stopping deliveries of food and medicines.  Most of the stuff people buy off the likes of Amazon is tat that people could wait for.  Most of us could last a few weeks without new clothes.  Kids clothes can be bought at supermarkets. A book/cd/dvd can wait.  Cut the vectors, dramatically. Cut the staff having to go into Amazon etc warehouses.


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 21, 2020)

Thora said:


> Boris was very non-committal on schools today



Which likely means that two different sets of people have told him two different things, and he doesn't want to argue with either of them.

It's an utter pattern with the man. It's why Matt Lucas's 'Bake in a tent' skit was on the surface just funny, but at the same time also far, far more true than many people realised at the time*.



* if you want to go deep into the detail, the skit was clearly a take off of his early Sir Bernard Cholmondley character, which reappeared in a sadly much reduced and weaker form in Little Britain, but as an ex Bristol student of around the same time as him, I'm slightly convinced was based on some of his peers at the University at the 90's. #slightspeculationbutveryplausible.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 21, 2020)

People were still buying things online when the rates were falling, so I think we can discount that as a major concern.

As the rates got back down pubs and restaurants reopen, kids went back to school, students went back to uni and vast numbers of people went back to work.

Then - for reasons that are a complete mystery - the rates have skyrocketed again


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2020)

Schools and unis running into the summer? What?


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2020)

xenon said:


> Annoying as it is with people barging around shops etc, I don't thaink that's where the bulk of infections are occurring.



I completely support the closure of non essential shops when trying to control nasty moments in the pandemic. Its a pandemic no-brainer that it always features on their lists of options and is a measure they feel forced to take when things get especially bad. It was entirely unsurprising that it was part of tier 4 restrictions. There arent all that many other options in total and shopping that involves lots of people mixing indoors ticks enough of the warning boxes in this pandemic that it is very sensible to target this side of things.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> I'm not suggesting stopping deliveries of food and medicines.  Most of the stuff people buy off the likes of Amazon is tat that people could wait for.  Most of us could last a few weeks without new clothes.  Kids clothes can be bought at supermarkets. A book/cd/dvd can wait.  Cut the vectors, dramatically. Cut the staff having to go into Amazon etc warehouses.


At one level, yes in terms of staff at amazon having to work. But the rest of this just isn't accurate.  A lot of supermarkets have a very pared down set of items you can get with the deliveries - and people are having to use other online deliveries for pretty standard items.  Fwiw, I don't use amazon at all, 'cos they're cunts.


----------



## xenon (Dec 21, 2020)

mx wcfc said:


> I'm not suggesting stopping deliveries of food and medicines.  Most of the stuff people buy off the likes of Amazon is tat that people could wait for.  Most of us could last a few weeks without new clothes.  Kids clothes can be bought at supermarkets. A book/cd/dvd can wait.  Cut the vectors, dramatically. Cut the staff having to go into Amazon etc warehouses.






mx wcfc said:


> I'm not suggesting stopping deliveries of food and medicines.  Most of the stuff people buy off the likes of Amazon is tat that people could wait for.  Most of us could last a few weeks without new clothes.  Kids clothes can be bought at supermarkets. A book/cd/dvd can wait.  Cut the vectors, dramatically. Cut the staff having to go into Amazon etc warehouses.



So who gets to decide if a kid can go what, 2 weeks, 3, 4 months without shoes. You can't buy a winter coat with the money you got for Christmas cos, er, rules.
Someone can't get a takeaway because even though they can't go into a crowded supermarket, might be ill, without cooking facilities or god forebid, just want to have a bag of chips cos, er rules.
you can ask peple keep their commercial interactions to a minimum but the idea of drawing up lists of what can and can't be sold, to whom, where and when is still daft I'm afraid and will make things much harder than they need to be for many, with no real benefit.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 22, 2020)

Does anyone listen to the head dick any more?   I see him and I get angry, not irrationally but because of endless shit like this




			
				bbc news said:
			
		

> Ministers urged people to avoid panic-buying food as France failed to lift its ban on freight and passengers from the UK on Monday despite a personal appeal from the prime minister, who asked Emmanuel Macron to put aside his “anxiety” over the new strain of Covid-19.



There are reports of panic buying again.  Telling people not to do something does run the risk of idiots doing exactly what you just asked them not to do. 
Closing the ports was decisive action ffs!  The French went 'Holy shit' and closed the ports to give them breathing space to work out the risks.  It may or may not reopen. Looking at the graphs from the SE there is a definite possibility of it staying shut for drivers. 
Boris Johnson appears blinded by decisive action.  Tells the French, 'Don't worry it'll be fine'. 

Is this actually happening?


----------



## kenny g (Dec 22, 2020)

xenon said:


> So who gets to decide if a kid can go what, 2 weeks, 3, 4 months without shoes. You can't buy a winter coat with the money you got for Christmas cos, er, rules.
> Someone can't get a takeaway because even though they can't go into a crowded supermarket, might be ill, without cooking facilities or god forebid, just want to have a bag of chips cos, er rules.
> you can ask peple keep their commercial interactions to a minimum but the idea of drawing up lists of what can and can't be sold, to whom, where and when is still daft I'm afraid and will make things much harder than they need to be for many, with no real benefit.


Agree. Children's clothes are vat free so should be excluded.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 22, 2020)

But then again if one is an adult with an hole in one's shoes or shoe a new pair of footwear, or at the very least a visit to a cobbler, becomes somewhat essential.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

I'm still stuck on the mind boggling stupidity of how come they (our leaders) failed to predict the possibility that after announcing to world on Saturday afternoon that a new out of control strain of the virus is running wild on our island , that there might possibly be a chance of France and others deciding to shut the doors until they can figure out what the hell is going on over here.
How on earth did this not occur to them as a possibility ?
They could have spent 3 seconds thinking about it and at least come up with a _plan_ for testing at the borders to try to mitigate the fears of the neighbouring countries on whom we depend for much of our food.
Its just incredible to me that they didn't realise this might happen, were totally blindsided by it and only belatedly after the doors were slammed shut are now trying to cobble together a plan to get imports to resume.


----------



## Hyperdark (Dec 22, 2020)

A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?

It sort of baffles me a bit as applied to the great majority of people doing so I absolutely do not buy the excuses of lack of cooking facilities or time, I've lived in many bedsits through my yoof and never been in one without at least a couple of rings to cook on and as for the time thing, I notice it takes a fair while for people visiting my local chippie to queue to get in and served which combined with travelling time easily blows the time excuse out the window..so come on, Why do you do it?


----------



## strung out (Dec 22, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?
> 
> It sort of baffles me a bit as applied to the great majority of people doing so I absolutely do not buy the excuses of lack of cooking facilities or time, I've lived in many bedsits through my yoof and never been in one without at least a couple of rings to cook on and as for the time thing, I notice it takes a fair while for people visiting my local chippie to queue to get in and served which combined with travelling time easily blows the time excuse out the window..so come on, Why do you do it?


Because in the unrelenting misery which is this year, the ability to have a tiny bit of joy from getting a takeaway delivered or picking up a burger and chips that somebody else has cooked for you, is worth whatever tiny risk is associated with the drive to/from the restaurant and waiting outside for it to be ready.


----------



## Thora (Dec 22, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?
> 
> It sort of baffles me a bit as applied to the great majority of people doing so I absolutely do not buy the excuses of lack of cooking facilities or time, I've lived in many bedsits through my yoof and never been in one without at least a couple of rings to cook on and as for the time thing, I notice it takes a fair while for people visiting my local chippie to queue to get in and served which combined with travelling time easily blows the time excuse out the window..so come on, Why do you do it?


The risk of getting a takeaway seems pretty low compared to going to work, school or the supermarket


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 22, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?



Have a number of posters here said that they regularly have a take-aways then? Where are you getting this from? Apart from cost, surely having a take-away is far safer than going to a busy supermarket?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Schools and unis running into the summer? What?



It was essential we sent kids back for the three weeks before summer break


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

Some countries (i only know for sure Kenya but there must be more) decided months ago that all students would simply get to re-sit the year, exams that were supposed to be this summer will happen next summer, etc. Has there been any mooting of this idea at all here?


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

I'm imagining many parents will not want to send their children back to university after last term"s shit show trapped them there.


----------



## Supine (Dec 22, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?



Do you have any evidence of increased risk? I'd have thought it is much safer than eating out. What danger is there?


----------



## two sheds (Dec 22, 2020)

Only place I've got a takeaway from was the local chippie a couple of months ago. You phone up to order and pay, then turn up and they hand it to you at the door. Really nicely organized (and the best chips for miles around).


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

I've been really longing for takeaway / delivery food during the lockdowns, as a break in the monotony of my own crap cooking. It isn't possible here (too far from shops, would be cold by the time i got it home or drivers found the house) but wouldn't blame anyone at all for doing it as much as they like.


----------



## Fez909 (Dec 22, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?
> 
> It sort of baffles me a bit as applied to the great majority of people doing so I absolutely do not buy the excuses of lack of cooking facilities or time, I've lived in many bedsits through my yoof and never been in one without at least a couple of rings to cook on and as for the time thing, I notice it takes a fair while for people visiting my local chippie to queue to get in and served which combined with travelling time easily blows the time excuse out the window..so come on, Why do you do it?


I've had loads of takeaways. I've also had a wider range of takeaways than normal. 

Reasons:

I have more money because I'm not spending it on nights out

I want to support local businesses

I love food, and I'm lazy

I don't think there's much risk in getting a takeaway


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I'm imagining many parents will not want to send their children back to university after last term"s shit show trapped them there.



The perception of a 'shit show' comes from a small number of institutions that had bad outbreaks and mishandled them.  For most of the sector last term went a lot more smoothly than it might have done, and for us - at least - student feedback has been pretty positive.  Exactly how next term will work remains to be seen.  We have been told to assume the same 'blended learning' approach as last, and to the best of my knowledge that applies to much of the sector, but obviously the new strain and whatever spike results from mixing over Christmas may well blow that off course.


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 22, 2020)

Fez909 said:


> I've had loads of takeaways. I've also had a wider range of takeaways than normal.



Same here, although I mainly get them delivered.  Not because I think there's a massive risk in walking to the local outlets, but because I'm lazy.  I enjoy cooking - which has been a godsend in lockdown - but sometimes it's nice to have a change.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> The perception of a 'shit show' comes from a small number of institutions that had bad outbreaks and mishandled them.  For most of the sector last term went a lot more smoothly than it might have done, and for us - at least - student feedback has been pretty positive.  Exactly how next term will work remains to be seen.  We have been told to assume the same 'blended learning' approach as last, and to the best of my knowledge that applies to much of the sector, but obviously the new strain and whatever spike results from mixing over Christmas may well blow that off course.


My info is mostly anecdotal but the parents I worked with spoke about their children in halls not being allowed to come home whereas the ones studying locally were not really going in and managing quite well with blended learning.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 22, 2020)

I've had a handful of takeaways from local restaurants and pubs tbh. I'd rather not spend money on doing it regularly but I'd kind of prefer that my area doesn't have even fewer places to go out and eat etc than it did before the lockdown, and that my favourite places don't close down  with one exception I don't think there was much risk involved


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> My info is mostly anecdotal but the parents I worked with spoke about their children in halls not being allowed to come home whereas the ones studying locally were not really going in and managing quite well with blended learning.



The problem is that far too many people are forming opinions based on anecdote, both from word of mouth and - more often, I think - from the news media.  Horrendous outbreaks and angry students trapped in halls by heavy-handed security made good news stories, but didn't reflect the reality for most.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> The problem is that far too many people are forming opinions based on anecdote, both from word of mouth and - more often, I think - from the news media.  Horrendous outbreaks and angry students trapped in halls by heavy-handed security made good news stories, but didn't reflect the reality for most.


It may not be the full truth but there certainly were children cut off from their families, I didn't really hear any heavy handed security stories. But if the reality is enough to deter parents sending them back to halls, remains to be seen.


----------



## killer b (Dec 22, 2020)

I would imagine for most 18 year olds, even the weirdness of current Uni life is likely going to be preferable to staying home, now they're used to being away. Those who were going to go home to stay will already have done so. 

Whether the universities will open in January remains to be seen though...


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 22, 2020)

It shouldn't be about making students happy or giving students of all ages what they need, it should be about what is the safest course of action


----------



## mr steev (Dec 22, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?
> 
> It sort of baffles me a bit as applied to the great majority of people doing so I absolutely do not buy the excuses of lack of cooking facilities or time, I've lived in many bedsits through my yoof and never been in one without at least a couple of rings to cook on and as for the time thing, I notice it takes a fair while for people visiting my local chippie to queue to get in and served which combined with travelling time easily blows the time excuse out the window..so come on, Why do you do it?


I know of 3 mates who have been cookerless over the last couple of weeks. I run a food project and several households are down as having 'limited cooking facilities' it's not that unusual.
And what about people working long shifts?


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> I completely support the closure of non essential shops when trying to control nasty moments in the pandemic. Its a pandemic no-brainer that it always features on their lists of options and is a measure they feel forced to take when things get especially bad. It was entirely unsurprising that it was part of tier 4 restrictions. There arent all that many other options in total and shopping that involves lots of people mixing indoors ticks enough of the warning boxes in this pandemic that it is very sensible to target this side of things.



A shop isn't a controlled environment  the same way that a workplace or school if they're managed properly. You can't bubble people going to a shop or a shopping centre. That seems to me the point, there's very limited infection control.


----------



## chilango (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Some countries (i only know for sure Kenya but there must be more) decided months ago that all students would simply get to re-sit the year, exams that were supposed to be this summer will happen next summer, etc. Has there been any mooting of this idea at all here?



No.

They couldn't do it here, because the entire HE sector would collapse.


*unless of course HE was funded by the State again, but y'know, plague is pferable to plebs getting parity.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 22, 2020)

I want fish & chips now


----------



## kabbes (Dec 22, 2020)

I get a takeaway curry every one to two weeks, but every time I do so I worry a bit about the chefs having spread their breath all over the food.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 22, 2020)

kabbes said:


> I get a takeaway curry every one to two weeks, but every time I do so I worry a bit about the chefs having spread their breath all over the food.



D’ya reckon the Rona could survive a vindaloo?


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> No.
> 
> They couldn't do it here, because the entire HE sector would collapse.
> 
> ...


oh yeah, its that isn't it. Found this ancient plea from the NUS, back in April , asking for exactly this - the option to retake the year with costs met by the state, astonishingly that doesn't seem to have gone anywhere.


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 22, 2020)

killer b said:


> I would imagine for most 18 year olds, even the weirdness of current Uni life is likely going to be preferable to staying home, now they're used to being away. Those who were going to go home to stay will already have done so.



Yes, I think that's largely the case.  There's always a spike in drop-outs and course changes early in the year as people decide that either their programme or uni isn't for them, but surprisingly this year it wasn't much bigger than usual, and I don't get the sense we're looking at a large number of students deciding not to return after Christmas.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

Nothing particularly new, but a damning overview from Professor Costello, nonetheless:



> What’s certain is that the greater the number of people who are infected, the more chance a virus has to evolve...But none of this was inevitable. The recent surge cannot be blamed on a mutant virus alone; in fact, government mismanagement of the pandemic meant that many more people became infected, creating the conditions for mutations to occur.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> D’ya reckon the Rona could survive a vindaloo?


Could on the lid & tray, tbf.


----------



## Bingo (Dec 22, 2020)

This is all we need... Praying that it's not true!









						Coronavirus: Impact of new variant on children investigated
					

Experts urgently assess whether the mutation of coronavirus spreads more easily among the young.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

Think I'd feel more reassured by this if it hadn't come from someone charged with ensuring the market value of the corporation's stock.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 22, 2020)

I've been offered work covid testing in schools in January. £10.50 an hour...


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

1,500 drivers have now slept in their cabs for two night in kent, says this. And they don't know when they'll be able to move. Just


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 22, 2020)

Bingo said:


> This is all we need... Praying that it's not true!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It more than probably is, isn't it. If it's 70% more transmissable in adults it's probably the same for kids.


----------



## klang (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> I'm still stuck on the mind boggling stupidity of how come they (our leaders) failed to predict the possibility that after announcing to world on Saturday afternoon that a new out of control strain of the virus is running wild on our island , that there might possibly be a chance of France and others deciding to shut the doors until they can figure out what the hell is going on over here.
> How on earth did this not occur to them as a possibility ?
> They could have spent 3 seconds thinking about it and at least come up with a _plan_ for testing at the borders to try to mitigate the fears of the neighbouring countries on whom we depend for much of our food.
> Its just incredible to me that they didn't realise this might happen, were totally blindsided by it and only belatedly after the doors were slammed shut are now trying to cobble together a plan to get imports to resume.


A bit of contingency planning wouldn't go amiss, covid or not.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> 1,500 drivers have now slept in their cabs for two night in kent, says this. And they don't know when they'll be able to move. Just


Liars; Johnson told us it was only 170 lorries.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

littleseb said:


> A bit of contingency planning wouldn't go amiss, covid or not.


And then they had the gall to go on tv and try to convince us that this was actually a triumph because look they had a no deal plan and it was to pile up thousands of lorries and that is working.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Liars; Johnson told us it was only 170 lorries.


Being a very clever man, he specifically said there are 170 _on the actual motorway, _i think.  Made no mention of the ones crammed into holding pens off the side of the road.


----------



## Bingo (Dec 22, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Liars; Johnson told us it was only 170 lorries.



So it's definitely full lockdown including schools after Christmas then! For a good few weeks too.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 22, 2020)

Bingo said:


> This is all we need... Praying that it's not true!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've been banging on about the situation with kids and particularly schools for a while now.  I think we're going to need a rapid shift in thinking.

I'm fully aware of confirmation bias and the dangers of correlation but this really does all ring true with the situation that was seemingly happening in schools in the South East in the last couple of weeks of term.  There were loads of reports on this site and every single one of my friends who had children of primary school age had them at home due to outbreaks in their schools.  Every single on of them.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Being a very clever man, he specifically said there are 170 _on the actual motorway, _i think.  Made no mention of the ones crammed into holding pens off the side of the road.


Those 'holding pens' being...er...the inside & outside lanes of the M20.


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 22, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Liars; Johnson told us it was only 170 lorries.



According to our esteemed Home Secretary the number has 'fluctuated.'


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I've been banging on about the situation with kids and particularly schools for a while now.  I think we're going to need a rapid shift in thinking.
> 
> I'm fully aware of confirmation bias and the dangers of correlation but this really does all ring true with the situation that was seemingly happening in schools in the South East in the last couple of weeks of term.  There were loads of reports on this site and every single one of my friends who had children of primary school age had them at home due to outbreaks in their schools.  Every single on of them.



This happened here in North West Wales where we have one of the very lowest rates. My son had to isolate twice, his cousin three times. God knows how it will be when Covid19+ arrives


----------



## belboid (Dec 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I've been offered work covid testing in schools in January. £10.50 an hour...


Where did you find that?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

Roadkill said:


> According to our esteemed Home Secretary the number has 'fluctuated.'


In a sort of doubling every few hours kind of way.


----------



## klang (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> And then they had the gall to go on tv and try to convince us that this was actually a triumph because look they had a no deal plan and it was to pile up thousands of lorries and that is working.


I booked myself in for an audiology appt when I heard that on the radio. Doc said no prob with my hearing though.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I've been offered work covid testing in schools in January. £10.50 an hour...


Have you had Covid or a jab yet?


----------



## Thora (Dec 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I've been offered work covid testing in schools in January. £10.50 an hour...


My local secondary has also started advertising for testers at £10 an hour.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 22, 2020)

Yes. When my house burns down I will consider it a good news day because the fire Brigade turned up.


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 22, 2020)

Do these positions require a DBS check?
Do parents have to consent to their child being swabbed (assuming children aren’t expected to swab themselves)?



Thora said:


> My local secondary has also started advertising for testers at £10 an hour.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 22, 2020)

belboid said:


> Where did you find that?


Guy from agency emailed me. 

I have just had a negative result but they don't know that.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

20Bees said:


> Do these positions require a DBS check?
> Do parents have to consent to their child being swabbed (assuming children aren’t expected to swan themselves)?


I seem to remember hearing on the radio that they were doing away with the need for checks in 'these circs'...so it's bonanza time for paedos.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 22, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?
> 
> It sort of baffles me a bit as applied to the great majority of people doing so I absolutely do not buy the excuses of lack of cooking facilities or time, I've lived in many bedsits through my yoof and never been in one without at least a couple of rings to cook on and as for the time thing, I notice it takes a fair while for people visiting my local chippie to queue to get in and served which combined with travelling time easily blows the time excuse out the window..so come on, Why do you do it?


I’ve been using the takeaway more. Takeaways are treats and we’ve have been needing lots of treats.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 22, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> D’ya reckon the Rona could survive a vindaloo?


I bet their is some bum sore dumb arse who thinks a very hot curry diet will do.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 22, 2020)

20Bees said:


> Do these positions require a DBS check?
> Do parents have to consent to their child being swabbed (assuming children aren’t expected to swab themselves)?


Well if they're using agency workers from educational recruitment, we have already been DBSd.


----------



## Thora (Dec 22, 2020)

I don’t believe they need a dbs as won’t be unsupervised. Parents will have to consent.


----------



## zora (Dec 22, 2020)

Question/thoughts wrt the steep increases in Kent/London and schools. 

Schools have been open with little mitigation against virus spread (despite schools and teachers best efforts, I hasten to add).

It's been known right from the start that school age children and teenagers are more often asymptomatic, lightly symptomatic or differently symptomatic than the Big Three symptoms. 

We currently have got at least two urbanites children tested positive, picked up through testing that would not qualify them for symptomatic testing.

It was highlighted (sorry to bang on about my man Christian Drosten again, but that's were I got the info from) that this could very easily to an outbreak running undetected through a school for a long period (don't quote me on the time- let's say two weeks). 

So when you pick up the first case via a "classically" symptomatic person - parent/student, this could have long been seeded into different year groups via siblings.  Basically by the time you spot it, it's long run out of control like wildfire. Isn't that possibly exactly what happened here? 

And it's suddenly so visible compared to the north of England because cases in the SE were relatively low for a while. And in the north, schools were already running with just a couple of year groups in school because everyone else was isolating (anecdotally heard from urban parent), so cases had a chance to level off or drop off. 

Could that not lead to the exact picture we are seeing without the virus necessarily being more transmissable  per se(among young people or otherwise)? 

Not wedded to this idea, just thinking out loud. 

Also thought it was very interesting what kenny g noted with the spread along commuting routes (could of course be correlation not causation,  but thought it was worth investigating, especially given how little we really know about spread on public transport). 


One of the hugest failures (in an admittedly extremely crowded field), has been imo to define the symptoms for suspected covid so narrowly. Fair enough if there needs to be some gate-keeping for testing, because these can't be scaled up indefinitely, but given that IT HAS BEEN KNOWN SINCE ABOUT APRIL (pardon the caps) how differently this can present, especially in younger people, this has been absolute insanity.

I nearly fell off my chair when irc Hancock said something about we need to learn to distinguish between covid and just a cold sometime in September. Probably because he was worried about people "shirking" school and work. Do we fuck!, I wanted to scream. No, we needed to learn to stay the fuck at home with any sore throat, unusual headache or muscle ache, or gastro symptoms! 

(A fresh and unhappy reminder was at work on Saturday when a colleague told me, just by way of conversation, about her sore throat with a very hoarse voice. And I was like, mate, have you got covid, I think you should go home. It then came to the absurd situation where my manager and I were arguing - she was nice about it, but I was very upset - about company policy which was basically following government policy on the Big Three, surrounded by throngs of Christmas shoppers in the street. Only for the whole thing to be locked down an hour later anyway. AND THAT'S  WHY YOU FUCKING CUNTS! (pardon the caps, again). 
Great, you saved a couple of days sick pay. Well done.

I seem to be angry again.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 22, 2020)

Just rewatched what Grant Shapps said about the lorries yesterday..."There were about 500 lorries on the motorway...I checked before I came here and this is down to 170...174 now, with a few more in a holding pen called TAP but the main message is..."


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 22, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Well if they're using agency workers from educational recruitment, we have already been DBSd.



Of course, but I’m not clear whether the intention is to recruit from a wider pool


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 22, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?
> 
> It sort of baffles me a bit as applied to the great majority of people doing so I absolutely do not buy the excuses of lack of cooking facilities or time, I've lived in many bedsits through my yoof and never been in one without at least a couple of rings to cook on and as for the time thing, I notice it takes a fair while for people visiting my local chippie to queue to get in and served which combined with travelling time easily blows the time excuse out the window..so come on, Why do you do it?


I wouldn't say I have takeaways regularly - maybe once a month max - but my local chippie has a serving hatch so you don't need to actually go in at all. And if you do need to physically go in, you're not there for as  long as you are in Tesco. Anyway, food is food. Chippie fish and chips may be commonly considered a luxury rather than a necessity, but it's still an edible, substantial meal with loads of carbs and protein, and that makes it food. It would be a bit of a slippery slope to decide which foods people do or don't need, because where do you draw the line? What's non essential to you could make someone  else's life so much easier. I think Wales tried that with the shops that were still open (stopping people buying what they deemed non essential items) and it just caused more disruption. A shop is either safe to open or it's not. Policing what people buy once inside isn't going to stop the spread of the virus, all it'll do is screw up the economy even more than it's already been, prolonging the recession and causing even more unemployment, poverty, depression and suicides. And back to takeaways, we all need little pleasures from time to time. In these miserable times, the odd treat is what a lot of us need to break routine.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 22, 2020)

It’s almost as if schools going back was a fucking stupid idea from the very start.


----------



## flypanam (Dec 22, 2020)

S☼I said:


> It shouldn't be about making students happy or giving students of all ages what they need, it should be about what is the safest course of action


True, but many university managers are using the student experience as a trojan horse to impose changes to work practices.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

This has a video of the moveable barrier on the M20 that the government are so very proud of and were telling us about yesterday. 
It is pretty cool, but what a sad thing for engineering minds to be set to work on. 








						Op Brock in place on M20
					

The Operation Brock moveable barrier is in place on the M20.




					www.kentonline.co.uk


----------



## zora (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> It’s almost as if schools going back was a fucking stupid idea from the very start.



Said more succinctly than me.  

But, there have been lots of voices from parents and teachers that really have found this very important. 

What does drive me insane is that not only were schools not supported but actively scuppered and threatened for decent safety concepts. 

I think it was Thora whose school had a great two-week on, two-week off concept as early as re-start of school after summer. Imo the best way to put in immediate breaks into the chain of transmission. And they were told flat out "no".


----------



## Doodler (Dec 22, 2020)

Nothing stimulates panic buying more than a politician telling everyone there's no need to panic buy.


----------



## xenon (Dec 22, 2020)

zora said:


> Said more succinctly than me.
> 
> But, there have been lots of voices from parents and teachers that really have found this very important.
> 
> ...



Unfortunately the govt have made keeping schools open a hill other people have to die on.


----------



## xenon (Dec 22, 2020)

They should open pubs and cafes for classes if more space is needed for distancing.

There's probably practical arguments against that I cba to work thorugh ATM. I should be in the cabinet.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 22, 2020)

xenon said:


> Unfortunately the govt have made keeping schools open a hill other people have to die on.



Johnson is a man who clearly hates spending time around his own children so probably assumes other parents feel the same.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Johnson is a man who clearly hates spending time around his own children so probably assumes other parents feel the same.


He doesn't recognise them. He accepts they're his children but he never remembers what they look like


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Johnson is a man who clearly hates spending time around his own children so probably assumes other parents feel the same.



It’s spending time around other people’s kids he really hates. Much nicer to have a quieter house


----------



## xenon (Dec 22, 2020)

mr steev said:


> I know of 3 mates who have been cookerless over the last couple of weeks. I run a food project and several households are down as having 'limited cooking facilities' it's not that unusual.
> And what about people working long shifts?



I couldn't even be bothered answering HD's assumption laiden and judgey toned post. But yeah, a copule of minutes thought could have answered it for themself.

e2a fucking drafts.


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 22, 2020)

zora said:


> Said more succinctly than me.
> 
> But, there have been lots of voices from parents and teachers that really have found this very important.
> 
> ...


There have also been some absolutely idiotic guidelines. 'Wear your mask in the corridor but not in the classroom'. That's the wrong way round you thick fucks, the evidence says we should be doing the opposite. But yeah, secondary schools in particular should never have gone back.


----------



## killer b (Dec 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> Johnson is a man who clearly hates spending time around his own children so probably assumes other parents feel the same.


let's be honest, it does wear a bit thin after a while.


----------



## xenon (Dec 22, 2020)

mwgdrwg said:


> This happened here in North West Wales where we have one of the very lowest rates. My son had to isolate twice, his cousin three times. God knows how it will be when Covid19+ arrives



Possible it's already there in S Wales. Friends who are both teachers, different schools,  there have had it. Reports of whole yers going home etc. Been like that for a few weeks.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 22, 2020)

20Bees said:


> Do these positions require a DBS check?
> Do parents have to consent to their child being swabbed (assuming children aren’t expected to swab themselves)?


They are constantly supervised. No DBS required.


----------



## PD58 (Dec 22, 2020)

Govt info about the new variant states _'The way to control this virus is the same, whatever the variant. It will not spread if we avoid close contact with others. Wash your hands, wear a mask, keep your distance from others, and reduce your social contacts.' _If this is true, and given the little we know about the new variant re transmission it may well not be, it can only be spreading as these rules/advice/guidance (i am not really sure of their standing) are not been followed. Or am i being much too logical??? No Xmas break for the scientists me thinks...


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 22, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?
> 
> It sort of baffles me a bit as applied to the great majority of people doing so I absolutely do not buy the excuses of lack of cooking facilities or time, I've lived in many bedsits through my yoof and never been in one without at least a couple of rings to cook on and as for the time thing, I notice it takes a fair while for people visiting my local chippie to queue to get in and served which combined with travelling time easily blows the time excuse out the window..so come on, Why do you do it?


Saves on washing up for starters


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 22, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> There have also been some absolutely idiotic guidelines. 'Wear your mask in the corridor but not in the classroom'. That's the wrong way round you thick fucks, the evidence says we should be doing the opposite. But yeah, secondary schools in particular should never have gone back.


That's not to stop transmission, it's to be able to take bubbles out of the educational establishment if anyone in the bubble gets COVID. With a bit of performative prevention in there too


----------



## Supine (Dec 22, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Think I'd feel more reassured by this if it hadn't come from someone charged with ensuring the market value of the corporation's stock.
> 
> View attachment 244691




Tbf in phase 3 trials it was already tested against hundreds if not thousands of covid variants. Should be ok against this one.


----------



## Cid (Dec 22, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Could on the lid & tray, tbf.



They'll still get hot. And I mean you don't generally eat the lid and tray... If you're really worried about these things (and I don't think you should be given current thinking on transmission by touch etc), you can just decant them. Which is the civilized thing to do anyway (there's a hundred page thread in that ).


----------



## souljacker (Dec 22, 2020)

Cid said:


> They'll still get hot. And I mean you don't generally eat the lid and tray... If you're really worried about these things (and I don't think you should be given current thinking on transmission by touch etc), you can just decant them. Which is the civilized thing to do anyway (there's a hundred page thread in that ).



Yeah, we've done this elsewhere but I have been:

Taking in the food
Decanting all food into bowls whilst avoiding touching bowls with takeout boxes
Putting all empty containers back in delivery bag
Taking bag out to the bin
Washing hands throuroughly
Putting all the bowls on the dinner table
Disinfectant spray on kitchen surface where I did all the decanting
Wash hands again
Enjoy!


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

or roughly 600 according to Johnson's 'maths'.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

Won't be long before the figure > capacity of Wembley stadium; beyond that it'll need multiples of UK stadia to illustrate the fatal scale of the Johnson regime's failure.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

That’s such a big number. Number of bereaved people who couldn’t be there, then couldn’t have a hug at the funeral etc it’s just horrible.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> I'm still stuck on the mind boggling stupidity of how come they (our leaders) failed to predict the possibility that after announcing to world on Saturday afternoon that a new out of control strain of the virus is running wild on our island , that there might possibly be a chance of France and others deciding to shut the doors until they can figure out what the hell is going on over here.
> How on earth did this not occur to them as a possibility ?
> They could have spent 3 seconds thinking about it and at least come up with a _plan_ for testing at the borders to try to mitigate the fears of the neighbouring countries on whom we depend for much of our food.
> Its just incredible to me that they didn't realise this might happen, were totally blindsided by it and only belatedly after the doors were slammed shut are now trying to cobble together a plan to get imports to resume.


While I agree that it might have been great if they could have anticipated and done something in reaction to this possibility. I think they had to come clean to the public at the first opportunity because of the radical change to Christmas.


----------



## prunus (Dec 22, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Yeah, we've done this elsewhere but I have been:
> 
> Taking in the food
> Decanting all food into bowls whilst avoiding touching bowls with takeout boxes
> ...



Earlier on before evidence mounted that transmission by fomites was unlikely I used the simple expedient of putting the delivery containers whatever they might be unopened straight in the oven at about 80C for 10 minutes, washing my hands and then carrying on as normal. (And not ordering cold foods). This will happily denature any coronaviruses I believe.

I think I might go back to this protocol until more is known about the new variant. It’s very little effort. Hardest bit is waiting the extra 10 minutes for the delicious delicious food.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Dec 22, 2020)

Christina Pagal on twitter


----------



## PD58 (Dec 22, 2020)

Meanwhile when you really need it, where is track, trace, isolate or is the pace of infection so rapid that on December 27 we are all in full lockdown??


----------



## keybored (Dec 22, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> A quick question for those who continue to regularly use Take away food shops despite the increased risks involved...Why?
> 
> It sort of baffles me a bit as applied to the great majority of people doing so I absolutely do not buy the excuses of lack of cooking facilities or time, I've lived in many bedsits through my yoof and never been in one without at least a couple of rings to cook on and as for the time thing, I notice it takes a fair while for people visiting my local chippie to queue to get in and served which combined with travelling time easily blows the time excuse out the window..so come on, Why do you do it?


I've never eaten so many takeaways in my life as I have this year. I've been working away a lot more and much of the time there are no eat-ins available or restaurants open at the hotels, so I'll pick up a takeaway and bring it back to the hotel. I bring my own plate and cutlery and wash it in the bathroom sink.

Then when I get home my partner says it's unfair that I get to eat so many takeaways, so we often get one at the weekend too.

Never had to queue, not got infected so far.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> While I agree that it might have been great if they could have anticipated and done something in reaction to this possibility. I think they had to come clean to the public at the first opportunity because of the radical change to Christmas.


It would have been possible to do both, to at least have had a clue this might be the reaction from neighbouring countries, to not have been left spluttering to the press the following day about how astonished they were by france's response.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 22, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> View attachment 244722
> 
> Christine Pagal on twitter



And, the real depressing thing about that peak in April, is that happened after we had gone into lockdown.

FFS, they're hinting about more restrictions, stop fucking about, and just announce the whole of England will go into tier 4 on Boxing day.


----------



## magneze (Dec 22, 2020)

Why wait.


----------



## editor (Dec 22, 2020)

Really bleak stuff and there's still twats on my FB insisting that there is no second wave.












						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

crossthebreeze said:


> View attachment 244722
> 
> Christine Pagal on twitter


 So november lockdown worked? The sharpness of the curve just looks like it resumed with the same fierce incline as october.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 22, 2020)

What those graphs tell me is that we should have gone into a full, total, hard as fuck lockdown for a couple of months on September 1st.


----------



## klang (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> It’s almost as if schools was a fucking stupid idea from the very start.


ffy


----------



## chilango (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> What those graphs tell me is that we should have gone into a full, total, hard as fuck lockdown for a couple of months on September 1st.



...or alternatively not done whatever it was that changed the situation.

or at least not all at once.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, the real depressing thing about that peak in April, is that happened after we had gone into lockdown.
> 
> FFS, they're hinting about more restrictions, stop fucking about, and just announce the whole of England will go into tier 4 on Boxing day.


On the plus side no boxing day hunting


----------



## chilango (Dec 22, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> On the plus side no boxing day hunting



wanna bet?


----------



## xenon (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> It would have been possible to do both, to at least have had a clue this might be the reaction from neighbouring countries, to not have been left spluttering to the press the following day about how astonished they were by france's response.



Remember though at least one of them didnt' know what Dover was.


----------



## chilango (Dec 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> wanna bet?



For example...








						Crowds asked to stay away from Boxing Day hunts due to coronavirus
					

Thousands of people gather every year for Boxing Day hunts, as these pictures show from 2016 and 2017, at the Heythrop Hunt in Chipping Norton.




					www.oxfordmail.co.uk
				




When they go ahead we need to spam the fuck out of the internet with the images of these murdering public school bastards getting their jollies whilst us proles are locked down and scared.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Dec 22, 2020)

Also Christina Pagal on twitter:


> Transmission is out of control in tier 2 - particularly tier 2 areas in regions bordering tier 4. We need to act on this _today_ - not boxing day.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> For example...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


On the other hand perhaps hunters should be forced to congregate and socialise


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Meanwhile when you really need it, where is track, trace, isolate or is the pace of infection so rapid that on December 27 we are all in full lockdown??



Test & trace is not thought to be very practical or effective during periods of high incidence of infection.

Its the sort of thing you need to get right in between waves, and then when the data obtained from such systems starts moving in a bad direction authorities have to be prepared to act strongly and early to implement other measures to reduce spread.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> What those graphs tell me is that we should have gone into a full, total, hard as fuck lockdown for a couple of months on September 1st.



They are also a useful lesson for anyone who was confused about why the first lockdown lasted so long and why lockdown relaxation after the first wave was done quite slowly and gradually.


----------



## editor (Dec 22, 2020)

Those poor drivers stuck in lorry parks and motorways. It looks like many won't even get home for Christmas and - as one Polish driver said on the BBC - if he had been told a day before, he never would have come into the UK.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 22, 2020)

editor said:


> Those poor drivers stuck in lorry parks and motorways. It looks like many won't even get home for Christmas and - as one Polish driver said on the BBC - if he had been told a day before, he never would have come into the UK.


Yeah, this is the underlying hum of shit amid a cacophony of shit


----------



## teuchter (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> What those graphs tell me is that we should have gone into a full, total, hard as fuck lockdown for a couple of months on September 1st.


Why Sept 1st, and why 2 months?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

Another negotiation triumph for Johnson.

From yesterday's _the border will be open in the next few hours _to this:


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 22, 2020)

Last week there were 1,318 cases per 100k population in Merthyr Tydfil.

Just what the fuck is going on there?


----------



## 2hats (Dec 22, 2020)




----------



## weltweit (Dec 22, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Another negotiation triumph for Johnson.
> From yesterday's _the border will be open in the next few hours _to this:


It struck me immediately when he said " a few hours" that he was stupidly over promising. I don't know why he does it, it is a simple enough concept to grasp, always better to under promise and over deliver .. than the other way around. In business it is called "managing expectations" .. applies to politics the same.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 22, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Why Sept 1st, and why 2 months?


Because the 1st is when the new school year starts. We’d had a gradual unlock and got the rate down. People had been given a bit of a breather over summer, a chance to get outside/away etc. So, once we’d had that breather we should have locked down again to keep it that way. As for 2 months, that would have got us to November and a chance to then look to December and an opportunity to see if a Xmas relaxation was doable, with enough notice for everyone if it wasn’t.


----------



## Cid (Dec 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Test & trace is not thought to be very practical or effective during periods of high incidence of infection.
> 
> Its the sort of thing you need to get right in between waves, and then when the data obtained from such systems starts moving in a bad direction authorities have to be prepared to act strongly and early to implement other measures to reduce spread.



Yep... even South Korea, which probably used it best in the early pandemic, is currently seeing an essentially uncontrolled rise in cases. Hopefully they sort their shit out and bring in some more comprehensive population level measures, I’m not up to date at the moment... but yeah, it does illustrate the limits in such a heavily urbanised society.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 22, 2020)




----------



## planetgeli (Dec 22, 2020)

mwgdrwg said:


> Last week there were 1,318 cases per 100k population in Merthyr Tydfil.
> 
> Just what the fuck is going on there?



Things are out of control, action wasn't taken quickly enough in a desperate attempt to keep the schools open. In my area a headmistress was threatened with disciplinary action for closing her school - 24 hours before the person who threatened them closed all the schools.

*Carmarthenshire*
Find out more about the restrictions in your area

742 
cases per 100,000 people in the latest week 11 Dec-17 Dec. The average area in Wales had 644.
1,400
cases in the latest week 11 Dec-17 Dec
+457
compared with the previous week
6,269
total cases to 21 Dec
135 
coronavirus-related deaths registered to 4 Dec
*How the case rate has changed in your area*

Daily cases per 100,000 people
Seven-day average

Data for the most recent days may be revised upwards as new test results are received


That's my area. We are as rural as rural can be. During lockdown 1 we were affected very little. Now we're up to almost 800/100,000.


----------



## PD58 (Dec 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Test & trace is not thought to be very practical or effective during periods of high incidence of infection.
> 
> Its the sort of thing you need to get right in between waves, and then when the data obtained from such systems starts moving in a bad direction authorities have to be prepared to act strongly and early to implement other measures to reduce spread.



I suppose my point was, but not clearly expressed, why did TTI not pick up the changes sooner (because like many other things this shambles of a govt has attempted it is woeful), and surely at the end of this peak we still need a system that is far better than anything to date - I get we do not need it now when the  virus horse has bolted...


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Because the 1st is when the new school year starts. We’d had a gradual unlock and got the rate down. People had been given a bit of a breather over summer, a chance to get outside/away etc. So, once we’d had that breather we should have locked down again to keep it that way. As for 2 months, that would have got us to November and a chance to then look to December and an opportunity to see if a Xmas relaxation was doable, with enough notice for everyone if it wasn’t.



What do you think the impact of that would've been on children and young people and their parents working from home?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> What those graphs tell me is that we should have gone into a full, total, hard as fuck lockdown for a couple of months on September 1st.


Which would, roughly, be the date schools and FE colleges went back and about 3 weeks short of the date when students were told to move into start partying in halls. World Beating etc.


----------



## chilango (Dec 22, 2020)

Primary Schools should have, and should continue to, open to all who want to use them.

Ditto Years 7 and 8.

Years 9 to 13 should primarily be online,vwirh a very limited and strictly controlled program of face to face intervention.

University should be remote or postponed a year.

All non-essential (or not providing a social benefit) work should be stopped with a UBI brought in.

All debt should be frozen (or cancelled). No rent due. No mortgage payments due. Eviction to be prohibited.

Johnson et al. offered a choice between The New Hague (in Grytviken) or a glass of whiskey - cheap blended piss only) and a bullet


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 22, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> What do you think the impact of that would've been on children and young people and their parents working from home?


I think it would have been better than more people needlessly dying, and better than this endless cycle of confusing tiers and last minute changes.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> Primary Schools should have, and should continue to, open to all who want to use them.
> 
> Ditto Years 7 and 8.
> 
> ...


This. And all bloody exams cancelled.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


>



But, rather crucially, have added that the ultimate decisions on this (sovereignty ?) rest with member states.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I think it would have been better than more people needlessly dying, and better than this endless cycle of confusing tiers and last minute changes.


Even the top brains of the country, Indie Sage, don't want schools closed. The impact for many children is too dire. You would be piling even more misery on the poor and vulnerable who have already lost the most in this time of covid.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Even the top brains of the country, Indie Sage, don't want schools closed. The impact for many children is too dire. You would be piling even more misery on the poor and vulnerable who have already lost the most in this time of covid.


So, see you all here this time again next year.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 22, 2020)

It's all coulda, woulda, shoulda, but I think the real mistake was not getting the level low enough at the end of the first lockdown.
If the rate had been dropped to the point where test and trace could work then coupled with strict migration controls having schools, and even unis, would pose a limited risk


----------



## Thora (Dec 22, 2020)

I do think we’ve got to the point now where everything, including schools & nurseries, need to close for a hard lockdown for a couple of weeks or a month.
And then probably a blended learning system at least for secondary schools to allow for social distancing measures.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 22, 2020)

Thora said:


> I do think we’ve got to the point now where everything, including schools & nurseries, need to close for a hard lockdown for a couple of weeks or a month.
> And then probably a blended learning system at least for secondary schools to allow for social distancing measures.


I really hope that is what does happen but I'm not sure I trust either the government or heads/VCs/bosses to do the sensible thing


----------



## chilango (Dec 22, 2020)

Opening schools fully was only ever going to be workable if everything was locked down as tight as possible.

But no, everything got opened up all at once.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> It struck me immediately when he said " a few hours" that he was stupidly over promising. I don't know why he does it, it is a simple enough concept to grasp, always better to under promise and over deliver .. than the other way around. In business it is called "managing expectations" .. applies to politics the same.


This is Johnson's defining feature though, always overpromise, every time at every opportunity. Some of it will be baseless optimism to do with the congenital over-confidence of that sort of man but I think mostly its just down to the overwhelming desire to say whatever it is that people want to hear at any given moment.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 22, 2020)

Thora said:


> I do think we’ve got to the point now where everything, including schools & nurseries, need to close for a hard lockdown for a couple of weeks or a month.



I don't think a couple of weeks is going to dent it. I think with the current level of cases we have, around the country, and the new variant, a national lockdown for two months is needed. That way the numbers of cases when we emerge should be a lot lower than at present and it might buy us some time before the next time.    

I don't know if Johnson has the guts to implement such a measure.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is Johnson's defining feature though, always overpromise, every time at every opportunity. Some of it will be baseless optimism to do with the congenital over-confidence of that sort of man but I think mostly its just down to the overwhelming desire to say whatever it is that people want to hear at any given moment.


I agree, someone should have a word with him!


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, see you all here this time again next year.


Not really. We might need a month of hard lockdown now but if everything else was tightened, schools could stay open with lots of the measures Indie Sage have suggested including using test and trace to stay on top of outbreaks. 
It's simply not good enough to say that millions of children should suffer more social deprivation. There are ways to.mitigate risk and have far fewer cases plus open schools.


----------



## souljacker (Dec 22, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Another negotiation triumph for Johnson.
> 
> From yesterday's _the border will be open in the next few hours _to this:
> 
> View attachment 244756



To be fair, what we've got is what we need though. Brits have no need to go to France at the moment unless they are truckers.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Not really. We might need a month of hard lockdown now but if everything else was tightened, schools could stay open with lots of the measures Indie Sage have suggested including using test and trace to stay on top of outbreaks.
> It's simply not good enough to say that millions of children should suffer more social deprivation. There are ways to.mitigate risk and have far fewer cases plus open schools.


Quite clearly Tier 3 measures keep the virus fairly stable with schools open. Or they did do, with the 'classic' version of Covid. But if NERVTAG etc are right about the levels of transmissability of this new virus it will surely be impossible to keep schools fully open. Maybe some kind of part time, blended learning. It all depends on this new variant.


----------



## Thora (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Not really. We might need a month of hard lockdown now but if everything else was tightened, schools could stay open with lots of the measures Indie Sage have suggested including using test and trace to stay on top of outbreaks.
> It's simply not good enough to say that millions of children should suffer more social deprivation. There are ways to.mitigate risk and have far fewer cases plus open schools.


Yes, we do need to get cases down to a level where you can effectively test & trace and we definitely need a better plan for reducing transmission in schools that just "remove the sand pit and crack open a window", but schools should be a priority.
It's just clear you can't have pubs, restaurants, holidays, swimming pools, gyms, cinemas, offices AND schools open.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 22, 2020)

Silver lining - might this see a big pay rise for truckers, who can very easily make a collective demand for it given the extra ballache (brexit related) and risk (covid) of bringing goods into the UK?


----------



## zora (Dec 22, 2020)

I would say this is highly unlikely, given how all other key workers have only had to work ever harder without any rewards.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Even the top brains of the country, Indie Sage, don't want schools closed. The impact for many children is too dire. You would be piling even more misery on the poor and vulnerable who have already lost the most in this time of covid.



The official SAGE advice was for other restrictions to be brought in well before schools reopened, in order to create room in the infection picture, minimising community infection levels so that schools stood a better chance of operating during the pandemic.

If school openings are a priority then other stuff has to be done to compensate. The government tried to do it without that and its blown up in their face.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

PD58 said:


> I suppose my point was, but not clearly expressed, why did TTI not pick up the changes sooner (because like many other things this shambles of a govt has attempted it is woeful), and surely at the end of this peak we still need a system that is far better than anything to date - I get we do not need it now when the  virus horse has bolted...



Genomic surveillance is one of the few things the UK actually shines at compared to most countries.

Even so, its only done on a percentage of total test samples. And there is a big difference between initially spotting a strain with a particular set of mutations, and accumulating enough data to show that strain has spread widely and is starting to dominate in some areas.

I dont have an exact timeline for when the various pieces of that puzzle and alarms started sounding behind the scenes. So I cannot properly judge how slow there were to recognise the potential of this new strain. Lots of countries wouldnt have noticed it at all until it became a very big deal.

Of more use to the mutation picture would have been if decent test & trace was actually used to minimise number of infections in general, reducing the opportunities for mutations to take hold in the first place. Those who have long advocated a total suppression 'zero covid' approach will make this sort of point a lot in the wake of the new variant situation.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> The official SAGE advice was for other restrictions to be brought in well before schools reopened, in order to create room in the infection picture, minimising community infection levels so that schools stood a better chance of operating during the pandemic.
> 
> If school openings are a priority then other stuff has to be done to compensate. The government tried to do it without that and its blown up in their face.


 
Totally.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> schools could stay open with lots of the measures Indie Sage have suggested including using test and trace to stay on top of outbreaks.


That was prior to the dominant variant appearing to gain another 0.4-0.9 in R. Likely the variant has been driven by [extant] selection pressures so one needs to focus on distancing/chain breaking.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

2hats said:


> That was prior to the dominant variant appearing to gain another 0.4-0.9 in R. Likely the variant has been driven by [extant] selection pressures so one needs to focus on distancing/chain breaking.


I understand all of this. As I said above, I realise schools may now need to close for a month along with everything else. But I refute the notion that schools need to be shut longterm when we all know that if other measures are followed, schools can be saved.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I understand all of this. As I said above, I realise schools may now need to close for a month along with everything else. But I refute the notion that schools need to be shut longterm when we all know that if other measures are followed, schools can be saved.


But we don't know that at all with this new variant.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

souljacker said:


> what we've got is what we need though


You'll have to run that one past me...once the French national truckers can return home, and obviously decide not to return...how are we going to import/export?


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> But we don't know that at all with this new variant.


We don't know anything about this new variant so let's not jump to conclusions.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> when we all know that if other measures are followed, schools can be saved.



Its questionable how successful that balancing can be, especially when other variables such as transmissibility change.

I'd be more confident it could be achieved if there was more honesty and acknowledgement of one of the reasons school closures in a pandemic can achieve quite big results - because the work and other routines of adults are massively affected when schools are shut. If authorities are prepared to disrupt many adult working lives via other measures instead, then at least when we are talking about the viability of keeping schools open we will actually be able to concentrate on the part of the picture caused by infections within the educational settings, rather than the knock on effect of school closures on workers being used to strengthen lockdowns more boradly beyond the school walls.


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I think it would have been better than more people needlessly dying, and better than this endless cycle of confusing tiers and last minute changes.



That doesn't really answer my question, which was what do you think the impact would've been? Because it is a weighing up of harm, not its absence.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 22, 2020)

Just been on the tableau public. My little area is at 600+/100,000. My county is 800. The town where my school is....1347.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 22, 2020)

Flavour said:


> Silver lining - might this see a big pay rise for truckers, who can very easily make a collective demand for it given the extra ballache (brexit related) and risk (covid) of bringing goods into the UK?



would like to say yes, but can't see it.

government have already said public sector workers (including those who were getting rounds of applause every thursday as 'heroes') are getting a pay freeze, and quite a few employers out there are already using it all as an excuse to attack pay and conditions on the basis 'we can't afford it' (just don't mention the huge profits or the MPs' pay rises) 

and the millionaire owned media will push the 'fairness means having your pay and conditions attacked because other people have lost their jobs or had their pay and conditions attacked already' bullshit and a lot of people will be stupid enough to go along with it...


----------



## zora (Dec 22, 2020)

I just never understood how so many countries went from closing all schools in lockdown 1 for months on end to "schools must be open to all day face-to-face learning, with no reduction in class sizes or additional breaks"?
Surely at the very least an additional week of half-term, or a whole second in-term break, and breaking up for an additional week before Christmas, would have always needed to be the barest, barest of minimums?
And surely, with some advance notice and parents being supported (ho ho) by their employers or government in wfh/additional time off that would have been hugely less disruptive than the multiple quarantines that many had to endure?


----------



## 2hats (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I refute the notion that schools need to be shut longterm when we all know that if other measures are followed, schools can be saved.


Education needs to be re-organised to institute chains-of-infection breaking with remote learning until the virus is under control with competent TTI, then stratified, bubble limited, in-person learning for younger cohorts, increasingly remote learning as one climbs the age cohorts (university level predominately remote where not highly specialised, practical skills focussed vocational courses and then only that required for necessary portions thereof). The only way to get the virus under control is to isolate.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

2hats said:


> Education needs to be re-organised to institute chains-of-infection breaking with remote learning until the virus is under control with competent TTI, then stratified, bubble limited, in-person learning for younger cohorts, increasingly remote learning as one climbs the age cohorts (university level predominately remote where not highly specialised, practical skills focussed vocational courses and then only that required for necessary portions thereof). The only way to get the virus under control is to isolate.


I agree with this. But just shutting schools for a long period with only remote learning for the vulnerable and the young ones is not a solution. I'm not saying open the schools and all else be damned. But I teach some of the most vulnerable and deprived students in the country and they cannot access remote learning and are struggling in so many different areas.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 22, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> That doesn't really answer my question, which was what do you think the impact would've been? Because it is a weighing up of harm, not its absence.


I think if we’d all stayed at home for 6 months or so solid we wouldn’t be in this mess now, and any negative social impacts would be vastly outweighed by thousands of people not being dead.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I agree with this. But just shutting schools for a long period with only remote learning for the vulnerable and the young ones is not a solution. I'm not saying open the schools and all else be damned. But I teach some of the most vulnerable and deprived students in the country and they cannot access remote learning and are struggling in so many different areas.


If the virus is spreading exponentially and health services are going to be overwhelmed there is just going to be no choice. I'm not sure how this can be dealt with post-Covid, in terms of provision to help those left behind educationally, but that might be what educators will need to focus on.


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I think if we’d all stayed at home for 6 months or so solid we wouldn’t be in this mess now, and any negative social impacts would be vastly outweighed by thousands of people not being dead.



What would the impact have been on the children and young people of being isolated for 6 months solidly? What has the impact been so far do you think?


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> If the virus is spreading exponentially and health services are going to be overwhelmed there is just going to be no choice. I'm not sure how this can be dealt with post-Covid, in terms of provision to help those left behind educationally, but that might be what educators will need to focus on.


I don't think you've read my posts properly. I am not against severe measures to get the case numbers down. But no, it is not simply the job of educators to magically fix the further disenfranchisement of the most vulnerable wrought by covid.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 22, 2020)

2hats said:


> Education needs to be re-organised to institute chains-of-infection breaking with remote learning until the virus is under control with competent TTI, then stratified, bubble limited, in-person learning for younger cohorts, increasingly remote learning as one climbs the age cohorts (university level predominately remote where not highly specialised, practical skills focussed vocational courses and then only that required for necessary portions thereof). The only way to get the virus under control is to isolate.


our education system is already very stratified.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I don't think you've read my posts properly. I am not against severe measures to get the case numbers down. But no, it is not simply the job of educators to magically fix the further disenfranchisement of the most vulnerable wrought by covid.


Not simply the job of. But I would guess they might have good ideas for what policies might be required to achieve this. You seem to believe that we can easily reopen schools once case numbers are down: at the moment we just don't have the evidence for this either way.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 22, 2020)

Ok, so my areas were pretty bad (as posted above). For a laugh, and because he lives near me, and because who doesn't like to click, I clicked on existentialist 's area.

*2,400/100,000.*

Welcome back existentialist . Keep your doors and windows shut and enjoy your wine.

That's the highest I've seen.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> Not simply the job of. But I would guess they might have good ideas for what policies might be required to achieve this. You seem to believe that we can easily reopen schools once case numbers are down: at the moment we just don't have the evidence for this either way.


No. I do not think we can easily reopen schools. Do I think remote learning for older years and unis is easy, do I think the loads of measures that will have to be in place are easy. I work in a school, nothing about covid schooling is easy, it is grim and hard. But it's better than no schooling at all . And saying it's ok if the vulnerable are fucked cause someone will sort it out, that thinking plays right into Tory desires quite frankly.
And I feel ok having the same views as some of the most intelligent scientists in the country.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> No. I do not think we can easily reopen schools. Do I think remote learning for older years and unis is easy, do I think the loads of measures that will have to be in place are easy. I work in a school, nothing about covid schooling is easy, it is grim and hard. But it's better than no schooling at all . And saying it's ok if the vulnerable are fucked cause someone will sort it out, that thinking plays right into Tory desires quite frankly.
> And I feel ok having the same views as some of the most intelligent scientists in the country.


I do actually agree with those scientists, keeping schools open is more important than hospitality or whatever, of course that should be the priority. But we are now (potentially) in a very different situation than when those scientists gave those views. We may not be able to keep this pandemic from going out of control with a normal education system running, if the findings about transmissibility of this new virus is correct. I'm not at all saying 'it's ok if the vulnerable are fucked because someone will sort it out' - I'm saying we will have to demand that kind of extra provision for people in the future, that might be the only option in these dire circumstances.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I do actually agree with those scientists, keeping schools open is more important than hospitality or whatever, of course that should be the priority. But we are now (potentially) in a very different situation than when those scientists gave those views. We may not be able to keep this pandemic from going out of control with a normal education system running, if the findings about transmissibility of this new virus is correct. I'm not at all saying 'it's ok if the vulnerable are fucked because someone will sort it out' - I'm saying we will have to demand that kind of extra provision for people in the future, that might be the only option in these dire circumstances.


But you've not read my posts where I agreed we'll have to close to get the rates down and then have very strict measures in and out if school. So this is pointless as I already agreed with that.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 22, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> What would the impact have been on the children and young people of being isolated for 6 months solidly? What has the impact been so far do you think?


I think it would have been utter shite for them. But probably somewhat less shite than it is for those whose parents or other family members are now dead.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

The world is not exactly laughing at us, theres some pity in there too. 








						World's media ask how it went so wrong for 'Plague Island' Britain
					

Boris Johnson comes under fire as countries suspend travel from UK over new Covid variant




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 22, 2020)

I'm happy to help my students in every possible way bar martyrdom.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 22, 2020)

Might be worth reminding ourselves what Wuhan went through as regards lockdown. 75 days straight. 

COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in Hubei - Wikipedia


----------



## PD58 (Dec 22, 2020)

I said very early in this thread that the pandemic gives us a once in a lifetime opportunity for a total rethink of education. It is not necessarily a disaster for pupils/students to miss X months of education if what they came back to was fundamentally different from what we have now. Of course, if it is still the same tests/expectations/exams/curriculum/structure (lesson/day/term/year) etc etc then it becomes incredibly problematic for all year groups currently in education and for teachers/parents, especially in the state sector. Williamson and the DFE should be using every working minute available to focus on how we can improve the current system from the current 19th century factory model to  create a world leading 21st century system (in which qualifications would be meaningful, there would be no need for private education, and education would be seen to be worthwhile and for life) - and therein lies the problem as we know. All this is probably for another thread but the hopelessness of the clowns running this country means yet again all they see is the immediate, and as we are seeing they have no idea how to tackle that.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 22, 2020)

Coronavirus: At least 14 per cent of infections in Scotland being caused by mutant strain - amid warning of March-style lockdown
					

MORE than one in ten Covid infections in Scotland were being caused by a highly contagious new variant at the start of December.




					www.heraldscotland.com


----------



## existentialist (Dec 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Ok, so my areas were pretty bad (as posted above). For a laugh, and because he lives near me, and because who doesn't like to click, I clicked on existentialist 's area.
> 
> *2,400/100,000.*
> 
> ...


FUCK!  Right, that's it - doors locked, hide the car up the road, and keep all the lights off once I'm back...


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

This is going to look like a stupid question but what's the main reason for the widely different rates in different bits of the uk? Is it likely there was some 'superspreader' event or person where existentialist lives or what?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is going to look like a stupid question but what's the main reason for the widely different rates in different bits of the uk? Is it likely there was some 'superspreader' event or person where existentialist lives or what?



I don't know, I doubt anyone knows. Certainly not any event I've heard about, events have been pretty much shut down for ages.

It's a small population but with a high amount of cases. The small population can't cover it though. There are similar areas in the county population-wise which do not have that amount of cases.

I blame Dylan Thomas.

Edit, they may sound facile but it does account for some movement. He's a tourist attraction. (Thomas, not existentialist).


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2020)

Yep. That unevenness has got to be to do with specific local events though, right? Events not necessarily as in parties but as in maybe 1 person who has a lot of friends and poor hygeine or something?  It can't be that people in that bit of wales just caught the virus more easily last week than they did anywhere else.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

I know all the stuff about the daily figures...but fuck this is getting more and more depressing...


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> Yep. That unevenness has got to be to do with specific local events though, right? Events not necessarily as in parties but as in maybe 1 person who has a lot of friends and poor hygeine or something?  It can't be that people in that bit of wales just caught the virus more easily last week than they did anywhere else.



Not being a scientist, I haven't a sniff. But I know this. The virus works on interaction and people movement. Existentialist's area have shown a threefold increase last week compared to the rolling average over the previous month.

My area has gone the other way. We were really bad. Then we've got a threefold decrease. And I think that's because news of it swept through town, people became aware and changed their behaviour accordingly. Deserted streets etc, even before lockdown. People were scared and stayed at home. Because people were dying and suddenly we knew this for real.

I think it may be the new variant and it's increased transmission. Hit my town 2-3 weeks ago, now it's on existentialist's town. And maybe when they adjust like we did, numbers will fall.

But the numbers here are anything from 8-14 times worse (24 x in existentialist's town) than they were when we had local lockdowns in September.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 22, 2020)

the sikh communities of kent are working on feeding the stranded lorry drivers


----------



## souljacker (Dec 22, 2020)

brogdale said:


> You'll have to run that one past me...once the French national truckers can return home, and obviously decide not to return...how are we going to import/export?



I understood it to mean truckers can come and go subject to testing? Maybe I've got it wrong. We need some sort of group of people to explain it better. Some sort of government maybe. I don't know where we'd get one of those.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is going to look like a stupid question but what's the main reason for the widely different rates in different bits of the uk? Is it likely there was some 'superspreader' event or person where existentialist lives or what?



Those sorts of questions are somewhat related to a point about local data I've been meaning to make a gain recently. I'm going to try to be brief for once.

There is nothing wrong with looking at very local data, but people should not rely on that stuff alone when forming a personal sense of risk. There are several reasons for this, including:

Its usually an out of date picture by the time we see the data. Bad things happen when the government only react to historical pictures without extrapolating forwards in time and imagining how the picture has evolved since, they end up perpetually on the backfoot. Better to err on the side of imagining a worse picture than that shown by recent data.

Its not a pure picture of infections, it also says much about the testing system, access to testing, will to engage with the test system. For example where I live the test centre was temporary, it travelled around to other places and so local testing was only available on certain weeks. A more permanent solution is finally in place I believe, but only very recently did this happen. And certain sorts of outbreaks are more likely to be noticed and to lead to more cases that form part of that cluster being detected. Current test systems should be able to see well beyond the tip of the iceberg, but some big chunk of the iceberg is still not on this radar.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

souljacker said:


> I understood it to mean truckers can come and go subject to testing? Maybe I've got it wrong. We need some sort of group of people to explain it better. Some sort of government maybe. I don't know where we'd get one of those.


Not sure about that coming and going bit, tbh.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 22, 2020)

It's official - everyone on Disgraced Liar Prime Minster Johnson's Plague Island to get a bell to ring...


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

2hats said:


> It's official - everyone on Disgraced Liar Prime Minster Johnson's Plague Island to get a bell to ring...


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

2hats said:


> It's official - everyone on Disgraced Liar Prime Minster Johnson's Plague Island to get a bell to ring...



Real _Bring out yer dead _stuff.


----------



## hitmouse (Dec 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Ok, so my areas were pretty bad (as posted above). For a laugh, and because he lives near me, and because who doesn't like to click, I clicked on existentialist 's area.
> 
> *2,400/100,000.*
> 
> ...


If I'm reading this right, it really doesn't look good for the Newport/Gwent area:


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

A reminder of happier times at "Kent International"


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Ok, so my areas were pretty bad (as posted above). For a laugh, and because he lives near me, and because who doesn't like to click, I clicked on existentialist 's area.
> 
> *2,400/100,000.*
> 
> ...



Where's that then?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 22, 2020)

hitmouse said:


> If I'm reading this right, it really doesn't look good for the Newport/Gwent area:
> View attachment 244795



Yes you are. SE Wales has been hammered for a while now.

Just to be clear, my 'highest I've seen' referred to me looking at mid and west Wales.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Where's that then?



Do you know where Dylan Thomas wrote? There.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Do you know where Dylan Thomas wrote? There.



Llareggub?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Do you know where Dylan Thomas wrote? There.


Milkwood road SE24?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Llareggub?



Where he wrote that, yes.



brogdale said:


> Milkwood road SE24?



Nice boathouse there is there? 

Under that.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Nice boathouse there is there?


Under Milk Wood Road... did Herne Hill inspire Dylan Thomas? - Southwark News


----------



## weepiper (Dec 22, 2020)




----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 22, 2020)




----------



## planetgeli (Dec 22, 2020)

weepiper said:


>




Ni yw'r hyrwyddwyr
Ni yw'r hyrwyddwyr

Yes. It's bad here.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 22, 2020)

I have a horrible feeling that the usual Xmas day news fodder of (tragic) house fires will be eclipsed this year by tales of patients dying in ambulances as they wait outside swamped 'red' hospitals and morgues over-filling. 

Dark, I know...but i fear this will be the reality of living on Johnson's plague island.


----------



## Teaboy (Dec 22, 2020)

I live in London and have just driven past two big superstores.  Both have large car parks and both car parks were basically full.  They even had staff out to help with the parking.  Neither store had any queue outside (remember when that was a thing?) so I can only guess the virus is doing a roaring trade.


----------



## editor (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I think if we’d all stayed at home for 6 months or so solid we wouldn’t be in this mess now, and any negative social impacts would be vastly outweighed by thousands of people not being dead.


I don't think it would have been as simple as that. Many people have far from ideal home situations, and many people are only surviving by visiting food banks. And then there's the mental health aspect which really can't be understated. And, of course, if there were no essential workers getting out, you'd be left with no power, utilities, services or food.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 22, 2020)

I posted these two screengrabs last week, to illustrate the spread in the SE corner, which is frankly staggering - the the sample dates were [top] 8th & 11th Dec.   



Now compare those with the latest map, sample date 17/12/20 - no green areas left, and only three borough/district council areas in West Sussex that are 'light blue', the spread of 'purple' areas, and the new 'dark purple' being introduced, freaks me right out.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I agree with this. But just shutting schools for a long period with only remote learning for the vulnerable and the young ones is not a solution. I'm not saying open the schools and all else be damned. But I teach some of the most vulnerable and deprived students in the country and they cannot access remote learning and are struggling in so many different areas.


Because of the wider shitshow round the government's management of the pandemic, we are close to the point where these things will cease to be a matter of choice.  If things get as bad as it looks, we'll simply _have to_ close all the places where transmission is likely.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is going to look like a stupid question but what's the main reason for the widely different rates in different bits of the uk? Is it likely there was some 'superspreader' event or person where existentialist lives or what?


Sins in previous life?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 22, 2020)

BBC TV News just reporting there's a meeting currently going on with Whitehall officials & government ministers. discussing the current tier areas, and we should expect a further announcement tomorrow. 

FFS, lets hope it's tier 4 everywhere from Boxing Day.


----------



## wayward bob (Dec 22, 2020)

peterkro said:


> If your interested live stream on 21st 22nd 8,45 am, Sun at Newgrange:



o/t but thanks loads for this, was lush


----------



## prunus (Dec 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> BBC TV News just reporting there's a meeting currently going on with Whitehall officials & government ministers. discussing the current tier areas, and we should expect a further announcement tomorrow.
> 
> FFS, lets hope it's tier 4 everywhere from Boxing Day.



From Christmas Eve surely.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 22, 2020)

prunus said:


> From Christmas Eve surely.



I can't see them fucking up Christmas Day anymore, at this late stage.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 22, 2020)

Teaboy said:


> I live in London and have just driven past two big superstores.  Both have large car parks and both car parks were basically full.  They even had staff out to help with the parking.  Neither store had any queue outside (remember when that was a thing?) so I can only guess the virus is doing a roaring trade.


You can't blame government for every specific thing like this, but their lack of direction and clarity creates a vacuum where mad stuff can happen at the very point where we are at a crisis point. Crazy.


----------



## magneze (Dec 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I can't see them fucking up Christmas Day anymore, at this late stage.


It'll be announced on the day by the Queen.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I can't see them fucking up Christmas Day anymore, at this late stage.


I think you're right, but even delaying a couple of days will kill people.


----------



## keybored (Dec 22, 2020)

magneze said:


> It'll be announced on the day by the Queen.


They should let Andrew do it this year, just for that little extra "wtf2020?".


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I think it would have been utter shite for them. But probably somewhat less shite than it is for those whose parents or other family members are now dead.



I think you're overestimating many families capacity to cope and the capacity of services to work remotely to support them  especially in the absence of their extended family and friends, often while these workers are trying and failing to look after their own children.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I can't see them fucking up Christmas Day anymore, at this late stage.



I thought the weekend was to soon but apparently not. If they do more fucking around this won't just punch a hole in the poll ratings it might actually sink them.


----------



## prunus (Dec 22, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I think you're right, but even delaying a couple of days will kill people.



I too fear you are right, but as Wilf says, a couple of days - and particularly this couple of days where massive numbers of people are going to go and interact with people they don’t usually interact with.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 22, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> I think you're overestimating many families capacity to cope and the capacity of services to work remotely to support them  especially in the absence of their extended family and friends, often while these workers are trying and failing to look after their own children.


And what we have now is better?


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> And what we have now is better?



You seem to be suggesting that other people who think differently to you think its all just fine that lots of people ate dying, as though there couldn't possibly be alternatives to how things are and your solution.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I can't see them fucking up Christmas Day anymore, at this late stage.



I expect that whatever they decide, at the very least messages designed to put more people off Christmas mixing will be part of any final pre-Christmas press conferences. They may go further than that too.

Especially if the nudge unit has been upgraded to the shove unit.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 22, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> You seem to be suggesting that other people who think differently to you think its all just fine that lots of people ate dying, as though there couldn't possibly be alternatives to how things are and your solution.


No, I'm saying what we have now is a steaming pile of shit that could have been avoided. Keeping the schools open at all costs was, and still is, a mistake.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

Impossible for me to be sure how much of a mistake it was because the 'at all costs' bit was never stuck to, there were all manner of costs and compromises that the government were uninterested in getting behind.

What happened with the schools in that regard is similar to what happened with other plans developed over the summer such as telling the NHS that it should prioritise the resumption of normal services and plan for winter on the basis of keeping those things going. Those were important priorities that shouldnt get lost in the pandemic, but the government were disinterested in creating a situation where that balancing act was viable, and instead just ended up encouraging institutions to come up with plans that were unrealistic and likely unsustainable.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> Impossible for me to be sure how much of a mistake it was because the 'at all costs' bit was never stuck to


"No matter what the resulting mess" then...


----------



## ddraig (Dec 22, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is going to look like a stupid question but what's the main reason for the widely different rates in different bits of the uk? Is it likely there was some 'superspreader' event or person where existentialist lives or what?


engurlish incomers and tourists!


----------



## xenon (Dec 22, 2020)

Just read something, the headline only TBH, in Nature. That a wide ranging study of 41 countries suggests the 3 things that can stop the spread most are.
1. Stop gatherings over 10 people
2. Close schools.
3. Close universities.

General stay at home added to those measures did not do much to slow spread.





__





						Inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against COVID-19 | Science
					





					science.sciencemag.org
				




I read the headline in Nature but that's the paper.


----------



## keybored (Dec 22, 2020)

ddraig said:


> engurlish incomers and tourists!


Yes, I was gutted to cancel my skiing trip to Merthyr this year. But it seemed the responsible thing to do.


----------



## xenon (Dec 22, 2020)

prunus said:


> From Christmas Eve surely.



Heh, good luck with that...


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

xenon said:


> Just read something, the headline only TBH, in Nature. That a wide ranging study of 41 countries suggests the 3 things that can stop the spread most are.
> 1. Stop gatherings over 10 people
> 2. Close schools.
> 3. Close universities.
> ...



The paper authors freely acknowledge all sorts of uncertainties and difficulties in truly separating the effects of different measures. And they only analysed a period in the initial lockdown months, so freely admit they dont have interesting observations and insight from later periods when some measures were relaxed.  Its still a useful study though. Closing face-to-face businesses is very much on their list of measures that do stuff, although they think much of that result could be obtained by closing certain categories of business that carry the highest risk (hospitality for example).

The paper includes a couple of nice charts that demonstrates how its combinations of measures that can bring the R down by a sufficient amount. Here is one of them:


----------



## PD58 (Dec 22, 2020)

Someone i know who lives in the valleys told me that generally the populace of the area in his words 'did not give a fuck and were carrying on as always' ie pre Covid - no idea whether this is true but Covid fatigue has certainly set in... People are visiting Hereford FFS to go to the pubs
Herefordshire pubs and restaurants demand address proof after hundreds turned away


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> BBC TV News just reporting there's a meeting currently going on with Whitehall officials & government ministers. discussing the current tier areas, and we should expect a further announcement tomorrow.
> 
> FFS, lets hope it's tier 4 everywhere from Boxing Day.



It also makes me nervous when the daily hospital data doesnt get published. As of the time of writing thats the case today, the usual daily file from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity isnt there.

When this sort of thing happens I never know if its because of a data systems issue or human resources issue or whether they will not be publishing this data so much over Christmas or whether they are sitting on it today because it shows something especially bad that they want to formulate a response to before revealing.

It could yet come out today for all I know, but I have my doubts.


----------



## chilango (Dec 22, 2020)

keybored said:


> Yes, I was gutted to cancel my skiing trip to Merthyr this year. But it seemed the responsible thing to do.



Only a short drive from Merthyr...


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

The list of scenarios where lateral flow tests are deemed accurate enough to be used continues to shrink:









						Plans for 30-minute Covid testing in England halted amid accuracy fears
					

Exclusive: government shelves Christmas rollout of lateral flow test centres




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## nagapie (Dec 22, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Because of the wider shitshow round the government's management of the pandemic, we are close to the point where these things will cease to be a matter of choice.  If things get as bad as it looks, we'll simply _have to_ close all the places where transmission is likely.


But I already said they'd need to shut for a period to get the infections down. Please do read all of my posts properly.


----------



## muscovyduck (Dec 22, 2020)

PD58 said:


> Someone i know who lives in the valleys told me that generally the populace of the area in his words 'did not give a fuck and were carrying on as always' ie pre Covid - no idea whether this is true but Covid fatigue has certainly set in... People are visiting Hereford FFS to go to the pubs
> Herefordshire pubs and restaurants demand address proof after hundreds turned away



A story in three parts, part 2:

Police slam visitors to Herefordshire as hundreds turned away from pubs

and part 3

Herefordshire records another surge in coronavirus cases


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 22, 2020)

Wuhan went into lockdown in January.

It started steadily returning to normal in April.

The schools went back in September, one of the last things to do so.

Wuhan is now dancing in the streets, literally.

The argument is _how long._ I don't think 2 weeks does much at all in a pandemic. Look at Wales.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 22, 2020)

nagapie said:


> But I already said they'd need to shut for a period to get the infections down. Please do read all of my posts properly.


Given that I was making a different point, I don't think there's any need for me to up my reading skills.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

elbows said:


> It could yet come out today for all I know, but I have my doubts.



It came out. I havent looked at numbers in hospital yet, but this is the daily Covid-19 admissions/diagnoses. I arranged it so that the areas said to be affected most by the new variant make up the base of the graph.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 22, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> No, I'm saying what we have now is a steaming pile of shit that could have been avoided. Keeping the schools open at all costs was, and still is, a mistake.


We've got some recent real world data on things other than education that affect the spread of the virus.

Throughout the recent floppy lockdown schools, colleges and universities stayed open, while pubs, restaurants and 'non-essential' shops closed, with people politely asked to stay home. 

Here's the state of England on 5th Nov when the 'lockdown' started:

(Sorry Devon and Cornwall, I couldn't fit you on, but cases were low there)

And here's the state of the country on 3rd Dec when the lockdown ended and the new tier system was introduced:

The picture was much improved, with cases falling everywhere except north Kent, where the new strain was barely being held at bay.

So singling out schools is too simplistic a picture. There are lots of activities that drive the spread of the virus of which schools are only one. 

There's been fuck up on fuck up by the government that has lead to the second wave - not having a test and trace system working when numbers were low enough for it to have an effect over the summer, the eat out to spread it about scheme, telling people to go back to work, not putting Univesities online only (which the lecturer I know would've preferred), not having a circuit breaker lockdown when it was recommended to them in September, introducing the 2nd lockdown too late and ending it too soon.

Schools are only a part of the picture and I'm fine with keeping them open a priority. But the government has not made it easy for schools - issuing an ever changing confusion of guidance, not listening to teaching unions' suggestions, not giving the financial support needed to make a success of reopening, threatening legal action when LAs or heads tried to go their own way and do the right thing. Having decided that schools must reopen the government seems to have done everything in its power not to make a success of it.

I have every expectation they'll have to close again in January with the more transmissible strain running rampant and the government determined to make Christmas happen before doing much about it.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2020)

The number of Covid-19 patients in hospital in the London region is now the highest of all regions, having now overtaken the midlands. But I never adjust these figures to show a number per 100,000 population, so I'm just talking about the raw, absolute numbers when I say that.


As always, data is from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## Mation (Dec 22, 2020)

This is all a massive shit show. The arguments about which things should have been done when to prevent the spread or people dying or preserve mental health or mitigate against deprivation or give children something of a normal education or ensure that non-covid patients get the treatment they desperately need to maintain some reasonable quality of life all rely on us thinking that we must be able to, and are entitled to maintaining some sort of normality. That surely there must b some way to keep doing the thing/s that are closest to our priorities. (I'm excluding the 'frivolous' stuff here; not talking about any of the cavalier selfishness.)

But it just isn't possible. All we can do is balance how shit it is across different interests, either evenly or skewed to some degree. Everyone is affected. We can't have any one group protected without massively fucking another. At least, not now that the initial (potential) opportunity to crush the virus was squandered.

There aren't any good options. So how do we get from where we are now to good options? If it's not the fastest way, then it has to be via measures that will hurt more people (of whatever configuration) for longer.

Glad it's not me who has to decide, but I think faster is better. Appalling, but better. Any group gatherings have to stop - work, school, anything, dire as that is. Otherwise this just continues, given where we are now.


----------



## nogojones (Dec 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> Primary Schools should have, and should continue to, open to all who want to use them.
> 
> Ditto Years 7 and 8.
> 
> ...


Are primary school teachers more imune to covid? Why do you want to force them to go to work during a plague when their charges have no conception of social distancing and will cough and splutter all over them?


----------



## chilango (Dec 22, 2020)

nogojones said:


> Are primary school teachers more imune to covid? Why do you want to force them to go to work during a plague when their charges have no conception of social distancing and will cough and splutter all over them?



I don't.

But Primary age kids are probably highest priority for f2f schooling.

At the same time opening any schools needs to done with the Covid rates being squashed through shutting other stuff down hard.


----------



## nogojones (Dec 22, 2020)

chilango said:


> I don't.
> 
> But Primary age kids are probably highest priority for f2f schooling.
> 
> At the same time opening any schools needs to done with the Covid rates being squashed through shutting other stuff down hard.


Sorry, I must have misunderstood this



> Primary Schools should have, and should continue to, open to all who want to use them.


----------



## chilango (Dec 22, 2020)

nogojones said:


> Sorry, I must have misunderstood this



It's part of a longer list.


----------



## nogojones (Dec 22, 2020)

Welsh Labour managing to be even less capable than Boris Johnson









						Wales now has the second worst coronavirus infection rate in the world
					

In the last week, Wales has had more cases relative to its population than any other country except one — the original version of this story said Wales had the very worst rate and we have corrected that




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 22, 2020)

Here in Swansea, one of the worst-affected Welsh areas, there's been virtually no talk at my workplace of shutting down.

I'm Civil Service, and we're rated as 'essential workers' -- like my colleagues, I have a letter to carry saying this for the benefit of the Police or of other authorities.

Plenty of my colleagues work from home, but in my section and similar ones, the paperwork-based nature of our work would make the logistics of supplying/collecting work very difficult.
And supplying data-secure hardware and software, isolated from other PCs/laptops etc. (infected?  ) would also be difficult

But we were sent home for not far off five months in the summer (in my case, Wednesday 18th March to Monday 3rd August inclusive).

What I don't get now, with such outrageous increases in cases in Wales and in the SE,, why there's next-to-*zero* talk or rumour about staying at home from work.

For all but *ultra*-essential workers, planning for this would be a thing though, wouldn't you think?? 

People have all been talking about schools on this thread lately -- but travelling daily to/from work is unsafe enough, surely, for tightening the rules to include shutting work places except where unavoidable.

I'm *honestly not* right now thinking  only  about my selfish interests, because there's a _genuine_ discussion about workplaces to be had here.

*TLDR* : Do any Urbans predict that stricter staying at home from work measures will happen?
Including for those who can't work from home?
I appreciate that this would be far from welcome for many ....


----------



## weltweit (Dec 22, 2020)

William of Walworth our factory stayed open all the way though, socially distanced etc etc but it stayed open. Me I worked from home, because I could, both because of the nature of my work and because I could be trusted to actually work from home rather than just watch TV.


----------



## nogojones (Dec 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> What I don't get now, with such outrageous increases in cases in Wales and in the SE,, why there's next-to-*zero* talk or rumour about staying at home from work.


Because they care more about the productivity of labour than the lives of labour. I think there's also a good bit of incompetence and cowardice thrown into the mix as well, but it's mostly because they don't really give much of a shit


----------



## Numbers (Dec 22, 2020)

two sheds said:


> I want fish & chips now


This is an underrated post.  A 9am call for fish & chips


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 22, 2020)

nogojones said:


> *Because they care more about the productivity of labour that the lives of labour*. I think there's also a good bit of incompetence and cowardice thrown into the mix as well, but it's mostly because they don't really give much of a shit



I know this and I agree with you , but with infection rates in Wales, especially South, increasing so fast and so badly, I was genuinely wondering whether Drakeford would be forced into making stricter changes about workplaces.

It's possible?? that UK-wide Civil Service agencies/departments can only do what London (etc.) does, but I don't actually know, and surely the same conditions apply to London anyway.

TBF, I feel pretty safe in my own workplace -- lots of distancing, screens between desks, one-way systems, universal mask-wearing (which is strictly enforced), ultra-care with cleaning and hygiene, a few other things.
ETA : I forgot to include that the safety regime was negotiated in great detail back in July with our PCS branch, who managed to get a number of details changed for the better  -- NHS Wales, HSE, and the local authority have also done a few inspections and approved.

*But!!*
With the way infections rates are going now (dark purple in Swansea  ) a strong case for sending people home still exists, nevertheless?


----------



## two sheds (Dec 22, 2020)

Numbers said:


> This is an underrated post.  A 9am call for fish & chips


withdrawal symptoms


----------



## weltweit (Dec 22, 2020)

Do you know when they did their 76 odd day lockdown in Wuhan, did they still have non essential workers going to work?


----------



## nogojones (Dec 22, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I know this and I agree with you , but with infection rates in Wales, especially South, increasing so fast and so badly, I was genuinely wondering whether Drakeford would be forced into making stricter changes about workplaces.
> 
> It's possible?? that UK-wide Civil Service agencies/departments can only do what London (etc.) does, but I don't actually know, and surely the same conditions apply to London anyway.
> 
> ...


If I had any say in the matter, you'd be working from home ... and Mark Drayfords head would be on a spike


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 22, 2020)

Arguing for the importance of schools for the well being of children isn't the same as saying they should stay open now. I don't think anyone is saying that are they?

I must say though, i'm dreading it, working from home with the children here and not being able to help my youngest with her learning because I am a keyworker looking after other people's children is very, very hard, as is making calls from my car for confidentiality, or because my daughter is really upset  and making loads of noise because she needs me, because i have yet another meeting/zoom call to make, sometimes to a young person, instead of being with her. Her mental health really suffered and she's still extremely anxious and tearful about it all.


----------



## Thora (Dec 22, 2020)

If they shut the schools I'm going to take time off.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 22, 2020)

Thora said:


> If they shut the schools I'm going to take time off.



So am I. Because I work in a school.


----------



## nogojones (Dec 22, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> So am I. Because I work in a school.


I suspect the head will have another idea for the use of your time


----------



## ash (Dec 22, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> Arguing for the importance of schools for the well being of children isn't the same as saying they should stay open now. I don't think anyone is saying that are they?
> 
> I must say though, i'm dreading it, working from home with the children here and not being able to help my youngest with her learning because I am a keyworker looking after other people's children is very, very hard, as is making calls from my car for confidentiality, or because my daughter is really upset  and making loads of noise because she needs me, because i have yet another meeting/zoom call to make, sometimes to a young person, instead of being with her. Her mental health really suffered and she's still extremely anxious and tearful about it all.


That sounds incredibly stressful is there anyway you can legitimately  take time off or ask for furlough. I’m sure the answer is no but what your describing sounds almost improbable to sustain.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Dec 22, 2020)

nogojones said:


> I suspect the head will have another idea for the use of your time


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 22, 2020)

ash said:


> That sounds incredibly stressful is there anyway you can legitimately  take time off or ask for furlough. I’m sure the answer is no but what your describing sounds almost improbable to sustain.



I think i'll have to ask for a reduction in hours. We had a family bereavement back in March, same week as schools closed, and it was so hard, and I just carried on working. I can't do it again.


----------



## Thora (Dec 22, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> I think i'll have to ask for a reduction in hours. We had a family bereavement back in March, same week as schools closed, and it was so hard, and I just carried on working. I can't do it again.


Mr Thora has also prepped his boss that if the schools shut we can't just carry on like we did in March.  I think employers of parents are going to have to accept that this time.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 22, 2020)

If schools shut i may not have a job as I'm meant to start in January but don't have a contract yet..


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 22, 2020)

Thora said:


> Mr Thora has also prepped his boss that if the schools shut we can't just carry on like we did in March.  I think employers of parents are going to have to accept that this time.



i'm going to have to be very boundaried and assertive I think, as the growing waiting list and doubling of referrals means there's a huge amount of pressure in work atm.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 22, 2020)

France will allow EU citizens to enter from Britain with negative Covid-19 test starting midnight
					

French and other EU citizens will once again be allowed to enter France from Britain beginning at midnight if they have a negative Covid-19 test that is less than 72 hours old, the French prime minis…




					www.france24.com
				




Slight reopening begins


----------



## Cid (Dec 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Do you know when they did their 76 odd day lockdown in Wuhan, did they still have non essential workers going to work?



I think not... I guess it varied, but it was extremely strict.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 22, 2020)

Various papers reporting Tier 4 will be expanded on Boxing day and suggesting full lockdown in new year (either paywalled or shitty right wingers, so I won't link). 100% inevitable I'd have thought and the real issue will be what they do about schools.


----------



## Yossarian (Dec 22, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Do you know when they did their 76 odd day lockdown in Wuhan, did they still have non essential workers going to work?



Not at first - around 40 days in,  the government said "those engaged in making medical supplies and producing daily necessities" could return to work, along with workers in "other industries that impact national or global supply chains," which sounds like it could include many nonessential workers.









						Some in Wuhan told to go back to work as new coronavirus cases subside in China
					

Some vital industries in Wuhan, the Chinese city at the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic, were told they can resume work on Wednesday, a day after President Xi Jinping visited there for the first time since the outbreak began.




					www.reuters.com
				




Seems like a lot more than 10 or 11 months ago that Wuhan was the center of the pandemic and governments around the world were rushing to bring their citizens back from there.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 22, 2020)

Yossarian interesting article thanks. 
I don't really believe the 3k dead though, I think it has to have been more than that.


----------



## Cid (Dec 23, 2020)

For those wondering about schools and lockdown, iirc there were some models published around the start of the November er... mild closure. They gave estimates of how closures of various sectors would affect lockdown timing. Schools were a pretty major factor, but don't necessarily need to be closed long.

Late night thoughts on possible lockdown...

I think what it should come down to is an extended period of phased lockdown measures. It means you're going to have an overall longer lockdown, but that you can minimise disruption to younger children. I - from my armchair (ok, bed) - would look at Spring half-term for a period of complete closure at 2-3 weeks. In the run up to that gradually shut shit down. Aiming to Get R below 1.0. Severely restrict travel between regions. Prepare construction sites for shutdown. Give the estate agents time to work out how to use a computer at home. That kind of thing. Initially on-site university teaching only where needed... Same for 6th form. In the run-up to severe lockdown, phase out remaining senior school education, uni stuff etc. All non-essential work stops - say for two weeks each side of total lockdown... Finally, for 2 week period, complete lockdown... Even key worker kids home where possible (presumably this does happen at half-term anyway), though obviously open some schools essentially as daycare if needed. Emphasis on smallest classrooms possible. Distance where possible. Teachers and anyone still having to work tested daily. Then do the whole thing in reverse.

It would be a logistical nightmare, and there are factors that were an issue in lockdown 1 that would need to be addressed. But it should be viable... Not a great deal more extensive than lockdown 1 after all. And of course you need to have things in place for moving out of it. Better T&T etc, procedures for local closures if needed, accompanied by funding (though I think the nature of the UK means that regional closure is just very hard to do). And I still think the will is there... I think the government has chronically underestimated the will of people to act for social good. It's a question of presenting it properly, and respecting the people you're presenting it to.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 23, 2020)

Cid the disadvantage with a phased lockdown is that transmission can still take place while it is being phased in. The only way we are going to stop this new variant is if we cut social interaction almost completely (exceptions being among households).


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2020)

keybored said:


> Yes, I was gutted to cancel my skiing trip to Merthyr this year. But it seemed the responsible thing to do.


Pint of Brains, apres ski?


----------



## Mation (Dec 23, 2020)

Cid said:


> For those wondering about schools and lockdown, iirc there were some models published around the start of the November er... mild closure. They gave estimates of how closures of various sectors would affect lockdown timing. Schools were a pretty major factor, but don't necessarily need to be closed long.
> 
> Late night thoughts on possible lockdown...
> 
> ...


Like that, but starting from total lockdown.

"Give the estate agents time to work out how to use a computer at home."


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Various papers reporting Tier 4 will be expanded on Boxing day and suggesting full lockdown in new year (either paywalled or shitty right wingers, so I won't link). 100% inevitable I'd have thought and the real issue will be what they do about schools.



Pritti Patel on LBC yesterday said she had no doubts that the schools would open as planned in January. So expect them to be closed until spring half term at least.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 23, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> Arguing for the importance of schools for the well being of children isn't the same as saying they should stay open now. I don't think anyone is saying that are they?
> 
> I must say though, i'm dreading it, working from home with the children here and not being able to help my youngest with her learning because I am a keyworker looking after other people's children is very, very hard, as is making calls from my car for confidentiality, or because my daughter is really upset  and making loads of noise because she needs me, because i have yet another meeting/zoom call to make, sometimes to a young person, instead of being with her. Her mental health really suffered and she's still extremely anxious and tearful about it all.



Around here schools remained open for keyworkers' children, was that not the case where you are?


----------



## Sprocket. (Dec 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Pint of Brains, apres ski?


Felinfoel Cambrian please.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 23, 2020)

Sprocket. said:


> Felinfoel Cambrian please.



Rarity!! 

But it's all about Grey Trees (Aberdare) these days 

</last day of my* Dry (most of) December* talk   >


----------



## kenny g (Dec 23, 2020)

My daughter is in GCSE year and I reckon classes will carry on for her as they have provided home tests to be taken on 2nd jan and returned to collection points for rapid results. My son is year 8 at the same school and they were told not to come in for the last week of term and it looks like he won't be there for the first week either. Hopefully they will be tested by mid January and able to get back by then at least.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Various papers reporting Tier 4 will be expanded on Boxing day


The Prime Minister has had a lengthy phonecall with the virus and says it has agreed not to spread any further until 23:59 on 25/12/20.

#proactiveapproach
#aheadofthecurve


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Dec 23, 2020)

Here, all kids 11 or over have been sent home for education via Microsoft teams.
He may not be microchipping you but he is indoctrinating the kids into a proprietary software environment.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 23, 2020)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> Here, all kids 11 or over have been sent home for education via Microsoft teams.
> He may not be microchipping you but he is indoctrinating the kids into a proprietary software environment.



Microsoft Teams doesn't work, it's Google Classroom I worry about.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 23, 2020)

Bearing in mind schools are still waiting to hear what stuff is actually going to be on the exams and so wouldn't be able to plan online or f2f teaching even if they did know which they were going to have to do.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 23, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> Bearing in mind schools are still waiting to hear what stuff is actually going to be on the exams and so wouldn't be able to plan online or f2f teaching even if they did know which they were going to have to do.


The continuation of exams is madness.


----------



## Cid (Dec 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Cid the disadvantage with a phased lockdown is that transmission can still take place while it is being phased in. The only way we are going to stop this new variant is if we cut social interaction almost completely (exceptions being among households).





Mation said:


> Like that, but starting from total lockdown.
> 
> "Give the estate agents time to work out how to use a computer at home."



We probably do need a lockdown right now, if only to get a handle on what's happening with the new variant... My point was more that if you want to minimise disruption to schools, it helps to bring in other lockdown measures first. That way, when you get to the school closure part, you can maximise its effect. Schools being closed at the moment anyway is certainly something we should be using though.


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Around here schools remained open for keyworkers' children, was that not the case where you are?



Yes, and they did go in some of the time in the final half term last time. but my partner is also vulnerable, and was shielding, so it's a risk. We thought the detrimental effects on their well being were great enough to warrant taking that risk, and because we struggled to work, but that was only the last half term,not the first.

And my youngest was the only one in her class in school, so it was quite upsetting for her, though better than being at home every day.


----------



## PD58 (Dec 23, 2020)

I see the international press has begun calling us 'Plague Island'
World's media ask how it went so wrong for 'Plague Island' Britain


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 23, 2020)

nagapie said:


> The continuation of exams is madness.



It's disgusting. Poor kids.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 23, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> It's disgusting. Poor kids.


I don't even think it's about the Tory ideology of exams, exams are a huge money making business and I'm in no doubt a bunch of rich Tories have the contracts. Imagine what schools could do with that money instead, especially this year.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 23, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Pritti Patel on LBC yesterday said she had no doubts that the schools would open as planned in January. So expect them to be closed until spring half term at least.


How is that clown able to muster ANY credibility?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 23, 2020)

existentialist said:


> How is that clown able to muster ANY credibility?


Clowns of one sort are funny and kind. But she is in the line of clowns typified by pennywise


----------



## maomao (Dec 23, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I don't even think it's about the Tory ideology of exams, exams are a huge money making business and I'm in no doubt a bunch of rich Tories have the contracts. Imagine what schools could do with that money instead, especially this year.


Their whole approach is worse than useless. They've decided that education is a priority which I agree with but instead of saying 'what can we do to prioritise young people and education in these circumstances?' they're just saying 'shut up and go to fucking school!'. That's not prioritising, it's just idiotic bullying.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 23, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I don't even think it's about the Tory ideology of exams, exams are a huge money making business and I'm in no doubt a bunch of rich Tories have the contracts. Imagine what schools could do with that money instead, especially this year.


Exams are also a great way to enforce conformity, and the induction of anxiety is, I am sure, a welcome aspect of the whole business - look how much reliance this government places on "we're gonna GET youse" messaging, eg. around benefits. They love that shit.


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 23, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I don't even think it's about the Tory ideology of exams, exams are a huge money making business and I'm in no doubt a bunch of rich Tories have the contracts. Imagine what schools could do with that money instead, especially this year.



The fallout for CAMHS is going to be immense.


----------



## chilango (Dec 23, 2020)

maomao said:


> Their whole approach is worse than useless. They've decided that education is a priority which I agree with but instead of saying 'what can we do to prioritise young people and education in these circumstances?' they're just saying 'shut up and go to fucking school!'. That's not prioritising, it's just idiotic bullying.



No.

They've decided that people going to work is the priority. Which requires childcare.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

My poor old county...


----------



## nagapie (Dec 23, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Exams are also a great way to enforce conformity, and the induction of anxiety is, I am sure, a welcome aspect of the whole business - look how much reliance this government places on "we're gonna GET youse" messaging, eg. around benefits. They love that shit.


Absolutely. But I think the insistence on them this year in the middle of a global pandemic that is seriously affecting people's lives is profit driven.


----------



## maomao (Dec 23, 2020)

chilango said:


> No.
> 
> They've decided that people going to work is the priority. Which requires childcare.


Well yes, hence the stress on attendance rather than ensuring kids all have the means to study from home which would be genuinely prioritising education.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 23, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well yes, hence the stress on attendance rather than ensuring kids all have the means to study from home which would be genuinely prioritising education.


Also ignoring the fact that school has continued albeit severely disrupted and pretending they've delivered on education during the crisis.


----------



## Doodler (Dec 23, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> Clowns of one sort are funny and kind. But she is in the line of clowns typified by pennywise



Patel doesn't need to put on clown makeup. She just wipes off her human makeup.


----------



## Supine (Dec 23, 2020)

Interesting discussion on the news about giving everybody one dose of vaccine not two to maximise number of people protected.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> Interesting discussion on the news about giving everybody one dose of vaccine not two to maximise number of people protected.



Fucking Blair, who has also spotted an opportunity to get the national ID cards back on the agenda.









						Coronavirus: Vaccinate more people with one dose, urges Tony Blair
					

The ex-PM says the UK could exit Covid restrictions earlier if stocks were not held back for a second jab.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 23, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well yes, hence the stress on attendance rather than ensuring kids all have the means to study from home which would be genuinely prioritising education.



School is also about emotional and social development, not just education, even if our system runs counter to that in so many ways, it is still better for most children to be in school with their peers. All the advice given to government will have emphasised that. 

Some very anxious children managed well at home in the lockdown, our CAMHS was quieter for a while as some of the main stressors were removed, fewer new referrals, there wasn't the crisis that had been anticipated and the 24/7 crisis helplines weren't used much, but that's changed now children are back at school, with new pressures, everything different except the emphasis on testing and exams, and coping with all that after a five month break.


----------



## xenon (Dec 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> Interesting discussion on the news about giving everybody one dose of vaccine not two to maximise number of people protected.



What, of the Pfizer one? SO half protected, if that.


Wouldn't that also accelerate the virus mutations towards evading that vaccine as currently configured? I really don't understand how vaccines and virus mutations interplay TBF.


----------



## LDC (Dec 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> Interesting discussion on the news about giving everybody one dose of vaccine not two to maximise number of people protected.



Blair was on Radio 4 early this morning and after my screaming abuse l heard him say that, which might have something to it, as well as the point that there needs to be more flexibility in who gets the vaccine time and priority wise. I think that might actually be a good idea, anecdotally I've heard of two places locally run out of patients to give it to and have to dump doses or give them out randomly.


----------



## LDC (Dec 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> What, of the Fiser one? SO half protected, if that.
> 
> 
> Wouldn't that also accelerate the virus mutations towards evading that vaccine as currently configured? I really don't understand how vaccines and virus mutations interplay TBF.



I think it needs looking into tbh. It's not that they wouldn't get the second dose (from what I understand) it's that the doses now wouldn't be allocated for the second dose in 28 days time, but would be given out to other people with the hope more doses and vaccines are imminent.

I'm not sure what I think about the vaccine priority list the UK is using, some other countries are doing it differently and I can see the arguments for that.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Dec 23, 2020)

Would it be an idea to immunise regions or zones or groups rather than prioritising certain populations? 

So you saturate, say, a certain town and vaccinate as close to 100% as possible in, say, Worthing where there’s a high proportion of elders but also vaccinate every other possible person in Worthing as well. And then work out from there. Same with neighbouring towns and then they kind of merge together.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Dec 23, 2020)

And also run programmes that target especially vulnerable people as a priority alongside this idea.


----------



## xenon (Dec 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think it needs looking into tbh. It's not that they wouldn't get the second dose (from what I understand) it's that the doses now wouldn't be allocated for the second dose in 28 days time, but would be given out to other people with the hope more doses and vaccines are imminent.
> 
> I'm not sure what I think about the vaccine priority list the UK is using, some other countries are doing it differently and I can see the arguments for that.



Well if it's a supply issue maybe that could make sense. Like giving each person in a starving crowd, one piece of bread if you know more food is coming.

But to me, the virus in a host with a partial level of vaccine derived protection would be an optimum environment to encourage mutations that can evade the immune response.

I spose that applies for the full dose of the vaccine though as sterilisation rather than attenuating symptoms isn't yet known.
/ ignorant reckons.


----------



## Supine (Dec 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> What, of the Pfizer one? SO half protected, if that.



No. First dose gives 91% protection and second dose gives 3-4%.


----------



## magneze (Dec 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> No. First dose gives 91% protection and second dose gives 3-4%.


If that's correct then what's the second dose for? Share price?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 23, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> Would it be an idea to immunise regions or zones or groups rather than prioritising certain populations?
> 
> So you saturate, say, a certain town and vaccinate as close to 100% as possible in, say, Worthing where there’s a high proportion of elders but also vaccinate every other possible person in Worthing as well. And then work out from there. Same with neighbouring towns and then they kind of merge together.



I would be happy with that. 

But, TBF, this town has changed a lot over the last 20+ years, with plenty of young families moving it, there're towns with much, much higher proportions of retired people. Plus, right from the start, we've had low case numbers & deaths compared to most of the country.

If it were done on a local basis, it would seem sensible to focus on areas that have been/are being hit the hardest.


----------



## belboid (Dec 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> No. First dose gives 91% protection and second dose gives 3-4%.


52% according to this - Covid-19: Pfizer vaccine efficacy was 52% after first dose and 95% after second dose, paper shows


----------



## Supine (Dec 23, 2020)

magneze said:


> If that's correct then what's the second dose for? Share price?



Historically second dose is better value for money. That's why the trials were completed that way. You don't know what the results will be until you see them.


----------



## Supine (Dec 23, 2020)

belboid said:


> 52% according to this - Covid-19: Pfizer vaccine efficacy was 52% after first dose and 95% after second dose, paper shows



The professor on the news was explaining that if you take out the first ten days where nobody is protected it changes right up to 91%.


----------



## xenon (Dec 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> No. First dose gives 91% protection and second dose gives 3-4%.



Really? Wow, genuinely. Last I read they reckoned it was much lower than that. A bit of good news.


----------



## xenon (Dec 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I would be happy with that.
> 
> But, TBF, this town has changed a lot over the last 20+ years, with plenty of young families moving it, there're towns with much, much higher proportions of retired people. Plus, right from the start, we've had low case numbers & deaths compared to most of the country.
> 
> If it were done on a local basis, it would seem sensible to focus on areas that have been/are being hit the hardest.



And front line medical staff first I'd say. Since they're likely to be the most exposed.


----------



## belboid (Dec 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> The professor on the news was explaining that if you take out the first ten days where nobody is protected it changes right up to 91%.


must admit, I saw Blair was recommending this route, so I just took it for granted that it would be stupid


----------



## Supine (Dec 23, 2020)

belboid said:


> must admit, I saw Blair was recommending this route, so I just took it for granted that it would be stupid



 

I haven't seen that!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 23, 2020)

belboid said:


> must admit, I saw Blair was recommending this route, so I just took it for granted that it would be stupid



Same here. 

However, from the BBC link that elbows posted above...



> His proposal was backed up by Professor David Salisbury, the man who was in charge of immunisation at the Department of Health until 2013.
> He told Today the numbers are "straightforward".
> "You give one dose you get 91% [protection] you give two doses and you get 95% - you are only gaining 4% for giving the second dose," he said.
> "With current circumstances, I would strongly urge you to use as many first doses as you possibly can for risk groups and only after you have done all of that come back with second doses."
> However, he acknowledged this would be harder to do with the Oxford University vaccine where the efficacy of two doses is 60%.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 23, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> The fallout for CAMHS is going to be immense.


From what I have seen, poor CAMHS was already creaking at the seams a long time ago. I fear that there will be a mental health crisis amongst young people that CAMHS will simply be incapable of scratching the surface of. And in no way do I mean that to imply anything about the competence of the professionals involved - they've been swimming upstream for far too long. It's unforgiveable.


----------



## xenon (Dec 23, 2020)

I said this before but the BBC really should make a proper old school documentary about vaccine development. Loads of talking heads on how vaccines have pretty much kept modern urban civilisation viable, regards more leathful diseases. Not being dramatic.
How safety is core, talk to people who've taken part in trials.
How vaccines developed, genome sequencing, using cloud computing, first RNA vaccine, all that stuff.

It's right in their remit.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Dec 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I would be happy with that.
> 
> But, TBF, this town has changed a lot over the last 20+ years, with plenty of young families moving it, there're towns with much, much higher proportions of retired people. Plus, right from the start, we've had low case numbers & deaths compared to most of the country.
> 
> If it were done on a local basis, it would seem sensible to focus on areas that have been/are being hit the hardest.



Okay, we can work out the details after we’ve agreed a plan.

We need some kind of imaginative approach to this.

Vaccinate everyone arriving at ports and airports who will be here long enough to get the second dose, get their address/ their gp details and ensure the second dose is available for them there. Go to their door or place of work to administer the second dose.

Set up portacabins in school yards and vaccinate all kids, teachers, parents and all first and second degree contacts, work out from there.

Etc


----------



## LDC (Dec 23, 2020)

Yeah I have concerns that the government's inflexibility and top down approach might cause some problems with the vaccine program as it has with some other things throughout the last year.


----------



## SheilaNaGig (Dec 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> I said this before but the BBC really should make a proper old school documentary about vaccine development. Loads of talking heads on how vaccines have pretty much kept modern urban civilisation viable, regards more leathful diseases. Not being dramatic.
> How safety is core, talk to people who've taken part in trials.
> How vaccines developed, genome sequencing, using cloud computing, first RNA vaccine, all that stuff.
> 
> It's right in their remit.




There should have been a concerted coordinated campaign to inform and educate the nation about viruses, illness, health, pandemics and vaccines from day one, via documentaries, radio call in shows, posters and articles in newspapers and magazines. We should all be saturated to the point of boredom with new information delivered on every conceivable platform. Not propganda, just facts.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 23, 2020)

maomao said:


> Well yes, hence the stress on attendance rather than ensuring kids all have the means to study from home which would be genuinely prioritising education.



And of course keeping (most of) the kids in school means teachers don't have the time to plan or implement online teaching properly for when either the whole of year 10 get sent home because Tommy Smith has a cough or schools are closed altogether county/nationwide.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Dec 23, 2020)

Anyone knowledgeable got any views about this? Seems very worrying - doesn't higher viral load suggest the new variant is likely to be more dangerous?


----------



## existentialist (Dec 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> I said this before but the BBC really should make a proper old school documentary about vaccine development. Loads of talking heads on how vaccines have pretty much kept modern urban civilisation viable, regards more leathful diseases. Not being dramatic.
> How safety is core, talk to people who've taken part in trials.
> How vaccines developed, genome sequencing, using cloud computing, first RNA vaccine, all that stuff.
> 
> It's right in their remit.


There's some bloody good stuff on Jim al-Khalili's Life Scientific podcast. That kept me company along most of the M4 last night...


----------



## marshall (Dec 23, 2020)

belboid said:


> must admit, I saw Blair was recommending this route, so I just took it for granted that it would be stupid



To be honest, in all seriousness, I'd rather Blair was in charge at the moment; Johnson is really scaring me atm.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 23, 2020)

Leighsw2 said:


> Anyone knowledgeable got any views about this? Seems very worrying - doesn't higher viral load suggest the new variant is likely to be more dangerous?



No. At this time it's about transmissibility. The work highlights higher viral loads seen in infections with the new variant outside London (ie around Kent, where this variant is suspected to have originated). This could be due to (for example) a faster variant growth rate compared to other lineages or due to concentration in particular age cohorts. Work is on going. The preprint referred to is to be found here.

A picture of consequent disease severity and outcomes, if there is such, won't emerge for a few more weeks.

Note: classical evolutionary pressure tends to drive towards increased transmissibility with a commensurate reduction in lethality.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> We need some kind of imaginative approach to this.



I havent figured out the reason why we need an imaginative approach to this. Or to put it another way, I dont know what problem it is trying to solve.

Vaccination programmes are not an area I have special knowledge about so I dont have much to add. The main threats to the vaccination programme that I would worry about at the moment are supplies of the vaccine, and issues with the logistics of giving it to people. And in that second category, I would very much place the risk to the vaccination programme if hospitals are overwhelmed with covid cases. At the very least such a scenario would force some staff who have been allocated to the vaccination programme to return to other duties instead. In this sense my focus remains on managing this winter wave of cases, do badly with the other things and the vaccination programme will suffer. And even if it doesnt suffer, I dont think the pace of the rollout is going to improve the winter picture much, so frankly it wouldnt be my number 1 priority right now.


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 23, 2020)

existentialist said:


> From what I have seen, poor CAMHS was already creaking at the seams a long time ago. I fear that there will be a mental health crisis amongst young people that CAMHS will simply be incapable of scratching the surface of. And in no way do I mean that to imply anything about the competence of the professionals involved - they've been swimming upstream for far too long. It's unforgiveable.



Yes. I was hesitant to say this at the beginning when there was some evidence of people coping well, families realising that they had their own resources, a sense of collectivity, and an absence of certain pressures, and I fear that the constant highlighting of the youth mental health crisis even pre-covid helps create one by medicalising the difficulties of growing up, being human, and highlights the need for professional help at the expense of something more social. However, there has been a steep rise in referrals lately, and duty has been very busy, not surprising when there's so little space given to help young people think about what's going on, how it is for them, never mind the more obvious pressures and loss of employment, dv, bereavement etc.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 23, 2020)

magneze said:


> If that's correct then what's the second dose for? Share price?


While a level of cynicism is always healthy, the mindset that produces this kind of comment I just find really depressing.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 23, 2020)

I'll just leave this here...


----------



## weltweit (Dec 23, 2020)

Anyone see that Nicola Sturgeon was caught without her facemask indoors chatting to people at a wake. She was challenged about it and issued an apology.


----------



## magneze (Dec 23, 2020)

teuchter said:


> While a level of cynicism is always healthy, the mindset that produces this kind of comment I just find really depressing.


What mindset?


----------



## Mation (Dec 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> The professor on the news was explaining that if you take out the first ten days where nobody is protected it changes right up to 91%.


I don't understand what this means. (Literally; not having a go.)

Anyone got a link that expands on it?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 23, 2020)

*Handcock is holding a press conference at 3 pm.*

Here we go.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 23, 2020)

The whole of England Tier 4 midnight 27th


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

2hats said:


> I'll just leave this here...




I may as well repeat a stupid quote from Heneghan that appeared in August in response to winter planning scenarios.



> Prof Carl Heneghan, from Oxford University, said some of the assumptions made in the model were "implausible" and that the report assumes that "we've learnt nothing from the first wave of this disease".


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 23, 2020)

Why does anyone still take him and Gupta seriously? Listening to him is a huge part of why the government has fucked this up so badly


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Why does anyone still take him and Gupta seriously? Listening to him is a huge part of why the government has fucked this up so badly



I dont think thats why they fucked up so badly at all, he has never been seriously listened to in that respect.

He does provide some sort of expert authority that the anti-lockdown wankers can point to, but they've never gotten their way in this pandemic. It was a slightly different part of the establishment and the crap orthodox approach that made the government response worse than it needed to be. That and some early failues by modellers to understand the nature and lag in the data they were using in Feb and early March. And of course the priorities and decisions of Johnson & Co, which didnt need any influence from Heneghan in order to be shit.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

SheilaNaGig said:


> There should have been a concerted coordinated campaign to inform and educate the nation about viruses, illness, health, pandemics and vaccines from day one, via documentaries, radio call in shows, posters and articles in newspapers and magazines. We should all be saturated to the point of boredom with new information delivered on every conceivable platform. Not propganda, just facts.


Agree very much. A sustained campaign to explain not just what to do for the best bit why it works was needed - so many people still don't get it


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 23, 2020)

Didn't him and Gupta have meetings in downing Street tho?


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Didn't him and Gupta have meetings in downing Street tho?



So that Johnson could tell the idiot backbenchers that he was listening to their side and considering all the facts. We still ended up with a national lockdown after that, and Johnson didnt need Heneghan & co in order to delay and fudge such decisions, he is more than capable of doing that on his own.

Insert joke here about how the 1922 committee is named as such because all the members of the previous committee were wiped out by the 1918 pandemic


----------



## teuchter (Dec 23, 2020)

magneze said:


> What mindset?


I dunno, somehow just the fact that the first possibility that is considered as a reason for something being so, is that it must be malevolent corporate (or other) interests, rather than humans making a decision to do stuff for good reasons, reasons that lots of people have spent immense amounts of time studying and checking and working on. It's kind of always suspecting the worst of people.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

Must be serious if they're letting that awkward freak Handcock speak to the nation


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 23, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Agree very much. A sustained campaign to explain not just what to do for the best bit why it works was needed - so many people still don't get it


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Must be serious if they're letting that awkward freak Handcock speak to the nation


And Dr Jenny Harries, I'd thankfully forgotten all about her


----------



## nagapie (Dec 23, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Must be serious if they're letting that awkward freak Handcock speak to the nation


The others can't be arsed.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 23, 2020)

Not a bloody reprisal of her greatest hits


----------



## Espresso (Dec 23, 2020)

The rest of them will have gone home for Christmas.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

The39thStep said:


>




I already made a 'next scroll please' joke when mentioning that video in the past, but I may as well repeat it!



Despte the lack of audio I think they did a better job of covering the importance of ventilation than the current government have managed.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 23, 2020)




----------



## magneze (Dec 23, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I dunno, somehow just the fact that the first possibility that is considered as a reason for something being so, is that it must be malevolent corporate (or other) interests, rather than humans making a decision to do stuff for good reasons, reasons that lots of people have spent immense amounts of time studying and checking and working on. It's kind of always suspecting the worst of people.


The figures speak for themselves. Having found that in fact 2 doses was not required for 90% efficacy what did they do? Recommended one dose? Halving profits? 

Yeah, my mindset is "depressing". That's the problem here. 🤔


----------



## xenon (Dec 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Anyone see that Nicola Sturgeon was caught without her facemask indoors chatting to people at a wake. She was challenged about it and issued an apology.



Yep. And I couldn't give a shit TBH. Just a fleeting mistake. One I've made myself. Meh.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Not a bloody reprisal of her greatest hits




From this late August bullshit.


----------



## bimble (Dec 23, 2020)

If correct, this looks like a lot of tinkering, to be revised again in no time.


----------



## xenon (Dec 23, 2020)

Mation said:


> I don't understand what this means. (Literally; not having a go.)
> 
> Anyone got a link that expands on it?




I didn't either TBH  Guessed it maybe takes 10 days for the first dose to have any appreciable effect. For enough antibodies to develop.

Link would be good. I'll give that Life Scientific podcast a go.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 23, 2020)

Re the schools discussion - this seems very relevant. New study from the US that shows that opening schools doesn't make a lot of difference when Covid rates are low/medium, but does affect spread when rates are high.


----------



## belboid (Dec 23, 2020)

Supine said:


> The professor on the news was explaining that if you take out the first ten days where nobody is protected it changes right up to 91%.


the woman on the lunchtime news was far less optimistic.  She reckons the second dose significantly increases how long the vaccine would be effective for. It might be okay, but there just isn't the data to support that conclusion as that isn't how the trial was done. And testing it thoroughly now would take longer than giving out two doses.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

Creepy Handcock another cunt who can't get to an appointment on time


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

You're late you broken robot


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

The new strain ate my homework.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

What a load of old shit


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

Why not Tier 4 everywhere? It's screamingly fucking obvious this new strain will be everywhere


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

Bristol back to tier 3.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

"It's vital the sooner we act the better...so from midnight on Boxing Day..."

mate


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

Oh we've got some South Africa strain imports too.


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 23, 2020)

'Better to act sooner'. You dont fucking say.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

Whoa shit. South African strain sounds bad


----------



## maomao (Dec 23, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> Better to act sooner'.


February would have been good.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 23, 2020)

West Sussex into tier 4, thank fuck for that.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

Can't wait for Jenny Harries to tell us all these new strains can't spread in schools


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> West Sussex into tier 4, thank fuck for that.



All of Sussex innit?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 23, 2020)

In about a weeks time not putting everyone into tier 4 immediately is going to look rather fucking stupid.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 23, 2020)

Mr.Bishie said:


> All of Sussex innit?



Yep, the remaining bits of East Sussex, Brighton  & Hove City, plus West Sussex, and neighbouring Hampshire too.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> In about a weeks time not putting everyone into tier 4 immediately is going to look rather fucking stupid.


It'll be out fault


----------



## Spandex (Dec 23, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> In about a weeks time not putting everyone into tier 4 immediately is going to look rather fucking stupid.


Looks fucking stupid now.


----------



## LDC (Dec 23, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Whoa shit. South African strain sounds bad



Yeah he didn't say anything in detail about it did he?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 23, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Looks fucking stupid now.


Well, there is that, yeah


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> In about a weeks time not putting everyone into tier 4 immediately is going to look rather fucking stupid.



Not sure, if might take longer than that. For all the focus on increased Christmas mixing, there is a lot of reduced contact at this time of year too, for example because of school holidays. There may also be more lag in some data over this period. So it might take longer for more bad signs to show up in some regions on top of the bad picture they already have. Maybe, it depends in part on how far behind current reality the picture we are given of these other places is right now.


----------



## bimble (Dec 23, 2020)

what is their reason for not tier 4 whole stupid island? Economic?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah he didn't say anything in detail about it did he?


No, but it's obvious it's shitting people up


----------



## 2hats (Dec 23, 2020)




----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

They dont like acting until the curves get very steep indeed.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Whoa shit. South African strain sounds bad


Don't tell Macron we've got that as well, he'll shut up shop again.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> what is their reason for not tier 4 whole stupid island? Economic?


Because they’re still clinging to the idea that Xmas can be “saved” for some.


----------



## bimble (Dec 23, 2020)

Does this sound correct? If so that’s really bad.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

bimble said:


> Does this sound correct? If so that’s really bad.



The man always makes sense when interviewed on telly, so probs, yes..


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

In other words you teachers unless you're clinically vulnerable tough shit, get to work


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 23, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Because they’re still clinging to the idea that Xmas can be “saved” for some.


Very conscious this is armchair psychology, but I really think that the idea it can be saved for _some_ is one of the most damaging things. If we all felt, ugh, "in it together", with everyone facing the same restrictions and missing out on Christmas, I honestly think we'd see fewer infractions. As it is, people see others having a more 'normal' Christmas and, quite naturally, whatever resolve they might have is weakened and they think "fuck it, I want Christmas too".

What the fuck do I know, though, I don't have a PPE degree from Oxbridge.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Very conscious this is armchair psychology, but I really think that the idea it can be saved for _some_ is one of the most damaging things. If we all felt, ugh, "in it together", with everyone facing the same restrictions and missing out on Christmas, I honestly think we'd see fewer infractions. As it is, people see others having a more 'normal' Christmas and, quite naturally, whatever resolve they might have is weakened and they think "fuck it, I want Christmas too".
> 
> What the fuck do I know, though, I don't have a PPE degree from Oxbridge.


Oxford; it's HSPS for Cantab.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2020)

Complete failure in terms of the question as to why we aren't all going into tier 4 right now. Fucking bullshit lies, complete lack of logic. Just simply ignoring the issue that more restrictions = less interactions = less infections. Fucking murderous scum.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

Pushing hard the message that it's down to people to _do the right thing_


----------



## magneze (Dec 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Very conscious this is armchair psychology, but I really think that the idea it can be saved for _some_ is one of the most damaging things. If we all felt, ugh, "in it together", with everyone facing the same restrictions and missing out on Christmas, I honestly think we'd see fewer infractions. As it is, people see others having a more 'normal' Christmas and, quite naturally, whatever resolve they might have is weakened and they think "fuck it, I want Christmas too".
> 
> What the fuck do I know, though, I don't have a PPE degree from Oxbridge.


Makes sense.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 23, 2020)

Everyone on tier 7 on 11.59pm Christmas Eve then


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 23, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Very conscious this is armchair psychology, but I really think that the idea it can be saved for _some_ is one of the most damaging things. If we all felt, ugh, "in it together", with everyone facing the same restrictions and missing out on Christmas, I honestly think we'd see fewer infractions. As it is, people see others having a more 'normal' Christmas and, quite naturally, whatever resolve they might have is weakened and they think "fuck it, I want Christmas too".
> 
> What the fuck do I know, though, I don't have a PPE degree from Oxbridge.


Ppe no assistance in ordering ppe as we have seen


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

Such a consistent inability to employ joined up thinking, planning etc. All reactive. Doing things months after they should have been done then showing off about it


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Such a consistent inability employ joined up thinking, planning etc. All reactive. Doing things months after they should have been done then showing off about it


Just watching them failing to answer the journos questions, they are doing exactly that. 'We'll wait _till _the new variants spread beyond the South East and _then an only then_ put the restrictions in place. Unbelievable.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 23, 2020)

So, only the Isles of Scilly are in tier 1.


----------



## agricola (Dec 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, only the Isles of Scilly are in tier 1.



... whilst the Silly Isles are all in tier 2-4.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2020)

_Leadership_, lol.  Hancock is an embarrassment even to the wet fart community.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 23, 2020)

"it will be over by xmas"...


----------



## Flavour (Dec 23, 2020)

I can't make sense of this anymore. It's beyond me. This government are both murderously disinterested and staggeringly ill-equipped, mentally, to handle their job


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

In other, parallel universe, news...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 23, 2020)

Today's figures -

New cases - 39,237, Deaths - 744, Patients admitted to hospital - 2,004

Total patients in hospital - 20, 917

* shudders*


----------



## agricola (Dec 23, 2020)

Flavour said:


> I can't make sense of this anymore. It's beyond me. This government are both murderously disinterested and staggeringly ill-equipped, mentally, to handle their job



The annoying thing is that they have many people, in many agencies and private businesses, available to help them, whose job is to plan and prepare for disaster scenarios of all kinds and who have (in most cases) kept their things going in an unprecedented crisis (because of all the preparations, the exercises, and the measures built in over years before to make sure they could keep going).  That the country (and especially the NHS) is still going is to a large part because of those people, and all the work they've been doing long before this ever happened. 

However its really difficult to watch these press conferences, and them speaking in the Commons, and see any evidence that the government has learned anything from those experts or even from their own experience.   I'd honestly think we'd be much better run as a country by Tescos.


----------



## Fez909 (Dec 23, 2020)

e: wrong thread


----------



## LDC (Dec 23, 2020)

We're set to now exceed the highest daily deaths in the first wave soon aren't we looking at the figures?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> We're set to now exceed the highest daily deaths in the first wave soon aren't we looking at the figures?


World beating


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 23, 2020)

agricola said:


> The annoying thing is that they have many people, in many agencies and private businesses, available to help them, whose job is to plan and prepare for disaster scenarios of all kinds and who have (in most cases) kept their things going in an unprecedented crisis (because of all the preparations, the exercises, and the measures built in over years before to make sure they could keep going).  That the country (and especially the NHS) is still going is to a large part because of those people, and all the work they've been doing long before this ever happened.
> 
> However its really difficult to watch these press conferences, and them speaking in the Commons, and see any evidence that the government has learned anything from those experts or even from their own experience.   I'd honestly think we'd be much better run as a country by Tescos.


We'd be much better run as a country by theresa may and that's really shit


----------



## Espresso (Dec 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> We're set to now exceed the highest daily deaths in the first wave soon aren't we looking at the figures?


It'll probably do that on Christmas Day. But they won't tell us, because you know, the plebs all lurve Christmas so much and can't handle the truth.
Data glitch or a lag for hollbobs or somesuch absolute arsewipery.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2020)

Flavour said:


> I can't make sense of this anymore. It's beyond me. This government are both murderously disinterested and staggeringly ill-equipped, mentally, to handle their job


Yep to that. Must admit I've not read any journalism/insights into what the mindset of the key players is at the moment, 'dispatches from the bunker' type stuff. Neo liberalism and 'get brexit done' bullishness where were we came in on this and cost thousands of lives in the first wave. Some mix of the economy and keeping the backbenchers quiet was certainly in play in the last delayed lockdown.  Now: 'we use tiers in a minimal and reactive way is the political strategy. We've got to go through the process of shifting areas round the tiers before having a 3rd lockdown. Getting ahead of the virus would be different, so we aren't doing it'. Inherent in that is getting trapped in their own dishonesty.  I suspect they are still talking to each other about the 'strategy' and going through the gears of the tiers, but with the haunted look you have when pretending you are still in the right as the bodies pile up.


----------



## PD58 (Dec 23, 2020)

"And I know, from the bottom of my heart, that there are brighter skies ahead", says Hancock - absolutely meaningless drivel.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 23, 2020)

PD58 said:


> "And I know, from the bottom of my heart, that there are brighter skies ahead", says Hancock - absolutely meaningless drivel.


We've got a shitty weatherman when we should have someone who inspires confidence


----------



## Espresso (Dec 23, 2020)

Brighter skies ahead. At 4pm in late December. I see.


----------



## agricola (Dec 23, 2020)

PD58 said:


> "And I know, from the bottom of my heart, that there are brighter skies ahead", says Hancock - absolutely meaningless drivel.



that supernova is going to hit Earth on December 28th, then


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2020)

'Do you prefer to get ahead of the virus or follow it?'
- Follow it.

They really are saying that aren't they?


----------



## weltweit (Dec 23, 2020)

Nice story on the BBC:  France rewards front-line immigrant workers with fast-track citizenship 

Seems like a nice idea, I wonder if anyone is thinking about doing that here in the UK?


----------



## Espresso (Dec 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Nice story on the BBC:  France rewards front-line immigrant workers with fast-track citizenship
> 
> Seems like a nice idea, I wonder if anyone is thinking about doing that here in the UK?


Priti Patel would rather eat her own head than do anything so obviously fitting and decent.


----------



## maomao (Dec 23, 2020)

I'm cracking open the Christmas booze a day early. What a shit government and what a shitty Christmas for everyone.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 23, 2020)

Not liking this South African variant. 

Hope Test and Trace have got their act together to track all arrivals from there in the last few weeks and their contacts. 

I assume that is what we expect from T&T no?


----------



## zora (Dec 23, 2020)

I finished my first bottle of port. Gonna have to go on essential booze run.

Anecdotally, (glimpsed from the post piling up on neighbours' doormats), at least 3 out of 5 households in my Tier 4 block of flats have fucked off somewhere else.

Also, just came here to post what weltweit said above.
I am sure everyone who has arrived from SA AND all their close contacts will quarantine thoroughly because Matt Hancock said it on the telly...

Good luck everybody!


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

Jesus.


----------



## zora (Dec 23, 2020)

maomao said:


> I'm cracking open the Christmas booze a day early. What a shit government and what a shitty Christmas for everyone.



Cheers!


----------



## two sheds (Dec 23, 2020)

Espresso said:


> Brighter skies ahead. At 4pm in late December. I see.



tomorrow looks nice


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 23, 2020)

Time to play the Titanic music.

Cheers!


----------



## Badgers (Dec 23, 2020)




----------



## maomao (Dec 23, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Jesus.
> 
> View attachment 244955


That's more than one in forty people before accounting for those who have it and haven't been tested.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> I said this before but the BBC really should make a proper old school documentary about vaccine development. Loads of talking heads on how vaccines have pretty much kept modern urban civilisation viable, regards more leathful diseases. Not being dramatic.
> How safety is core, talk to people who've taken part in trials.
> How vaccines developed, genome sequencing, using cloud computing, first RNA vaccine, all that stuff.
> 
> It's right in their remit.


The trouble is, that in the prevailing media climate, it'd end up being a thing where 3 dinner ladies, a team of management accounts, another of estate agents, and several mums from Huddersfield would all end up competing to make the perfect vaccine while overcoming challenges involving linguini, custard, and coasteering, interspersed with heartwarming stories about how their disabled nieces/nephews inspired them to take part.

Which is pretty much what current Government policy seems to be, now I think about it.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 23, 2020)

2hats said:


> Note: classical evolutionary pressure tends to drive towards increased transmissibility with a commensurate reduction in lethality.


If this one message could be conveyed by a three-phrase soundbite that they could stick on the front of Clown Boris' podium, a good thing would have been done.

Except that it would have as much impact as all the previous three-phrase soundbites that have adorned the podium in question already


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

Badgers said:


>



Appropriate moment to re-post Prof Costello's Guardian piece?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 23, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Appropriate moment to re-post Prof Costello's Guardian piece?
> 
> View attachment 244956


#worldbeating


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

Badgers said:


> #worldbeating


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 23, 2020)

Map of new tier areas.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Map of new tier areas.
> 
> View attachment 244960


Yellow = areas of Tory MPs' second, third, fourth and nth homes, obvs.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 23, 2020)

maomao said:


> That's more than one in forty people before accounting for those who have it and haven't been tested.






brogdale said:


> Jesus.
> 
> View attachment 244955


Where do you get that map? The Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard one just goes up to 18 Dec and shows lower figures.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

kenny g said:


> Where do you get that map? The Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard one just goes up to 18 Dec and shows lower figures.


Here.


----------



## Sue (Dec 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> *To give an idea of how fast things are progressing in my own little area of East London* (seven-day rolling rate up to the date given per 100k taken from Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard)
> 
> 01/12: 189.4
> 08/12: 247
> ...



*23/12: 881*


----------



## kenny g (Dec 23, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Here.



The date range is the same on the .gov.uk site but the figures are different:



Guardian:


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

kenny g said:


> The date range is the same on the .gov.uk site but the figures are different:
> 
> View attachment 244964


Trouble is...soon enough 2500 is going to look like quite good.
We're so fucked.


----------



## Sue (Dec 23, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Trouble is...soon enough 2500 is going to look like quite good.
> We're so fucked.


Yep this is getting worse and worse and very quickly indeed.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

Our news reports are going to pretty soon look like those April ones from Bergamo with folk dying on trollies before getting anywhere near a ventilator.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 23, 2020)

I assume there's some statistical reason why the Guardian per 100,000 figures are different, it's annoying that they aren't consistent in how they present data.


----------



## Cid (Dec 23, 2020)

existentialist said:


> The trouble is, that in the prevailing media climate, it'd end up being a thing where 3 dinner ladies, a team of management accounts, another of estate agents, and several mums from Huddersfield would all end up competing to make the perfect vaccine while overcoming challenges involving linguini, custard, and coasteering, interspersed with heartwarming stories about how their disabled nieces/nephews inspired them to take part.
> 
> Which is pretty much what current Government policy seems to be, now I think about it.



With a half hour in-depth Andrew Wakefield interview. For balance.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 23, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Our news reports are going to pretty soon look like those April ones from Bergamo with folk dying on trollies before getting anywhere near a ventilator.


They have learnt to just keep people at home to die without treatment rather than allow them into hospitals.


----------



## maomao (Dec 23, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I assume there's some statistical reason why the Guardian per 100,000 figures are different, it's annoying that they aren't consistent in how they present data.


One's a rolling average (ONS) and one's the actual last seven days (graun).


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> We're set to now exceed the highest daily deaths in the first wave soon aren't we looking at the figures?



I cant make that claim yet because when going by date of death, daily figures have so far in the second wave maxed out at under half the level of the first wave peak. And there is not a straightforward mapping between how many deaths the number of people in hospital with covid-19 implies, and its probably a fair bit different in the 2nd wave compared to the first wave. I can still say that I expect number of daily deaths to rise in response to numbers of cases and admissions increasing again, but I wouldnt try to guess what levels it will hit.

So far for me the second waves horrible number of deaths is more about how long high rates of death persist rather than quite how high the peak is, and the real picture is obviously a combination of both of these things.

I'm annoyed that media etc arent counting second wave deaths in a way that allows people to get a sense of the second wave compared to the first.

If I count all deaths as being where the actual death happened from September 1st onwards, for the UK using the 'death within 28 days of a positive test' figures I have 41,559 first wave deaths and 27,487 second wave deaths so far. Using ONS 'covid-19 mentioned on death certificate figures' instead, I have 57,641 first wave deaths and 23,658 second wave deaths, but their figures currently only go up to December 11th. I cannot repeat the exercise properly using excess deaths instead, because the excess deaths figures are failing to capture all the second wave covid deaths, presumably because there are less people than normal dying for other reasons, including flu.

It is my intention not to be on here with graphs and figures for at least Christmas eve->Boxing day. So I'm getting this out of my system over the next hour or so and will then break with that side of things for as long as I can get away with.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> *23/12: 881*


and what i cannot figure out is that is rising like this when the only thing left to do is go to sainsburys! we all wear masks, space, face, blah blah. So how when London is like a ghost town, that these numbers are rising so fast.

I am seized by moments of terror, I have to admit - anyone else the same?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 23, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> and what i cannot figure out is that is rising like this when the only thing left to do is go to sainsburys! we all wear masks, space, face, blah blah. So how when London is like a ghost town, that these numbers are rising so fast.
> 
> I am seized by moments of terror, I have to admit - anyone else the same?


The 'burbs are not ghost towns; they're where we're shopping, living and dying.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 23, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The 'burbs are not ghost towns; they're where we're shopping, living and dying.


i guess. One can only imagine what it'd be like if there were no restrictions?


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

And following up on the last post about deaths, here is the UK deaths by date of death graph, with colour-coding showing when those deaths were reported. I havent posted it for a while because there was quite a lengthly plateau/small decrease period and there is a fair amount of lag waiting to see if gaps will remain gaps or will be filled in by later data. I suppose there are now signs of the v-shape that we've already seen with bits of hospital data for that period.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 23, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> i guess. One can only imagine what it'd be like if there were no restrictions?


or if they let a lot of people have a jolly ol family knees up at xmas! madness!


----------



## Sue (Dec 23, 2020)

brogdale said:


> The 'burbs are not ghost towns; they're where we're shopping, living and dying.


Not sure I'd quite call Hackney the 'burbs but... Still loads of people out and about, think the local street market is at least partially open, people are still meeting up (my upstairs neighbours had a load of people round at the weekend... ) and so on.


----------



## zora (Dec 23, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> and what i cannot figure out is that is rising like this when the only thing left to do is go to sainsburys! we all wear masks, space, face, blah blah. So how when London is like a ghost town, that these numbers are rising so fast.
> 
> I am seized by moments of terror, I have to admit - anyone else the same?



Yeah, very much seized by terror.

In terms of the numbers rising for London, we have to consider that it was only put into Tier 3 then 4 a week ago, so the positive tests coming through now will be largely infections acquired under Tier 2. But the situation overall - grimmety grim


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 23, 2020)

The numbers can change rapidly daily, and perhaps this is why we shouldn't take notice of one day's particular figure. 

But, um, just checked mine again. My local town, which was 600 yesterday is 3200 today. Where I work has gone from 1300 to 4000.

Per 100,000 obvs.

But, um, bad round here, has been for a few weeks now.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 23, 2020)

Althogh hospital admissions seem to be at the same level as height of the first peak, deaths per day are currently at around half of it.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

And that same data but in the broader context including the first wave, just via simple screenshot of the official dashboard.

As mentioned previously, Im not too fixated on whether the levels reach the same peak as the first wave, its the area occupied by the graph that counts, and what this wave has lacked in height can easily be made up for with width(time).


----------



## Numbers (Dec 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> Not sure I'd quite call Hackney the 'burbs but... Still loads of people out and about, think the local street market is at least partially open, people are still meeting up (my upstairs neighbours had a load of people round at the weekend... ) and so on.


Where I am in Newham it’s ridiculous how people behave.  Been like it the whole way through too.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> Not sure I'd quite call Hackney the 'burbs but... Still loads of people out and about, think the local street market is at least partially open, people are still meeting up (my upstairs neighbours had a load of people round at the weekend... ) and so on.


i have moved firmly and quickly over the last month or so to the "grass them up camp".


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Althogh hospital admissions seem to be at the same level as height of the first peak, deaths per day are currently at around half of it.



This likely reflects both improved treatments, but also potentially different admissions policies, and also the large number of people who are probably in hospital for other reasons but then tested positive in hospital, either because they were positive before admission or because they subsequently caught it in hospital. Lag between hospitalisations and deaths/death reporting should also be considered to be a factor, but I cant tell how big a one until I see more of what is to come in future with all these stats.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 23, 2020)

my local area is the deep purple ...

80 cases in the week ending 18th December 2020 , with a case rate of 1138.0 (per 100,000) but decreasing ...
[that's down from a peak of 100 cases and aprrox case rate of 1350 ]


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 23, 2020)

zora said:


> Yeah, very much seized by terror.
> 
> In terms of the numbers rising for London, we have to consider that it was only put into Tier 3 then 4 a week ago, so the positive tests coming through now will be largely infections acquired under Tier 2. But the situation overall - grimmety grim



Incubation time is up to two weeks do there is a definite lag


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 23, 2020)

reading the folk on here you get a sense of people who know what they are doing with data, graphs etc.

then there's social media , so yeh

scary


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 23, 2020)

can't the just roll the fucking army out and get everyone vacinnated in a week or something? literally spend the months budget on getting the bloody thing rolled out in a week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 23, 2020)

the above is probably a very thick question, but still it does seem fairly obvious - why can't they just x14 the vacinne roll out effort?


----------



## Espresso (Dec 23, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Althogh hospital admissions seem to be at the same level as height of the first peak, deaths per day are currently at around half of it.



That'll be because of some considerations including but not limited to
1) a lot of deaths* in the first wave were people who were already weak and quite poorly anyway -  the virus gave them a shitty nudge.
2) in the first wave the hospitals didn't know what it was or how to treat it. They have learned an absolutely gobsmackingly huge amount through this whole thing

* No; not all of them, but a very lot.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 23, 2020)

Sue said:


> Not sure I'd quite call Hackney the 'burbs but... Still loads of people out and about, think the local street market is at least partially open, people are still meeting up (my upstairs neighbours had a load of people round at the weekend... ) and so on.


It's a horrible combo of vague shit from the gov and people who won't behave. Sometimes it's very hard to like people very much.


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 23, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> the above is probably a very thick question, but still it does seem fairly obvious - why can't they just x14 the vacinne roll out effort?



The whole world wants them. We have only secured so many and we can't roll them out til we get them. The logistics are very complicated and it's this government.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 23, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> can't the just roll the fucking army out and get everyone vacinnated in a week or something? literally spend the months budget on getting the bloody thing rolled out in a week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



I think supplies of the initial vaccine are not yet sufficient to do that, and the cold chain distribution also isn't there because it has to be kept at -70C.

Assuming the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine is approved (the data is with the UK approvals body at the moment) then, because it can be stored in a normal fridge, they might be able to significantly increase vaccinations.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 23, 2020)

South African Variant


> Anyone who has travelled there in the past fortnight, and anyone they have been in contact with, are being told to quarantine immediately.
> The variant has been causing mounting concern in South Africa, where health minister Zweli Mkhize warned that "young, previously healthy people are now becoming very sick".



UK has two cases of variant linked to South Africa - BBC News


----------



## weltweit (Dec 23, 2020)

An article about variants .. 

Coronavirus variants and mutations: the science explained - BBC News


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

The following map is from an article about the latest tiers but I am posting it to demonstrate what an amazingly shit idea putting Cornwall and the Isle of Wight in tier 1 when the national measures ended was.


From Millions more join tier 4 Covid restrictions in England from Boxing Day


----------



## existentialist (Dec 23, 2020)

xenon said:


> I didn't either TBH  Guessed it maybe takes 10 days for the first dose to have any appreciable effect. For enough antibodies to develop.
> 
> Link would be good. I'll give that Life Scientific podcast a go.


This is the link to the series: BBC Radio 4 - The Life Scientific


----------



## existentialist (Dec 23, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> In about a weeks time not putting everyone into tier 4 immediately is going to look rather fucking stupid.


Hello from Wales


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 23, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> and what i cannot figure out is that is rising like this when the only thing left to do is go to sainsburys! we all wear masks, space, face, blah blah. So how when London is like a ghost town, that these numbers are rising so fast.
> 
> I am seized by moments of terror, I have to admit - anyone else the same?




Yes, my area was moved from tier 2 to 4 today (well, from Boxing Day), we have been on the border of a tier 4 zone since Sunday and the town is suddenly mobbed, Frau Bahn went to the gym today and the staff there were saying how nice it is to see so many new faces, none members, they’ve just piled in from Guildford. So glad we’re going to 4.

But once in four essential shops need to be essential, it was mostly that way in lockdown 1, lockdown 2 all manner of shops declared themselves essential and many more were doing click and collect, none of this is keeping people at home and away from each other, it needs to stop.


Nice to see you back BigMoaner hope you’re keeping well.


----------



## Looby (Dec 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> The following map is from an article about the latest tiers but I am posting it to demonstrate what an amazingly shit idea putting Cornwall and the Isle of Wight in tier 1 when the national measures ended was.
> 
> View attachment 244995
> From Millions more join tier 4 Covid restrictions in England from Boxing Day


Absolute madness, especially when you consider that a lot of people on the IOW travel to Southampton, Portsmouth and surrounding areas daily for work, healthcare, shopping.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 23, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Yes, my area was moved from tier 2 to 4 today (well, from Boxing Day), we have been on the border of a tier 4 zone since Sunday and the town is suddenly mobbed, Frau Bahn went to the gym today and the staff there were saying how nice it is to see so many new faces, none members, they’ve just piled in from Guildford. So glad we’re going to 4.



I replied to you the other day, saying I expected both you & us would be going into tier 4 soon.

Glad you are as pleased as I am that it has happened. 

I've got idiots around here moaning about it, because our numbers are still fairly low, despite the fact they are more than doubling every week, bloody idiots.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 23, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I think supplies of the initial vaccine are not yet sufficient to do that, and the cold chain distribution also isn't there because it has to be kept at -70C.
> 
> Assuming the Oxford/Astra Zeneca vaccine is approved (the data is with the UK approvals body at the moment) then, because it can be stored in a normal fridge, they might be able to significantly increase vaccinations.



They could transport the Pfizer vaccine in Pritti Patel’s heart.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 23, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> The could transport the Pfizer vaccine in Pritti Patel’s heart.


I don't expect she is that big hearted, we are going to need a lot!!


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 23, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> the above is probably a very thick question, but still it does seem fairly obvious - why can't they just x14 the vacinne roll out effort?



Logistics, the one we have now is stored at -70 degrees or something, bloody cold anyway, plus just plain manufacturing and distribution bottlenecks


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 23, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I replied to you the other day, saying I expected both you & us would be going into tier 4 soon.
> 
> Glad you are as pleased as I am that it has happened.
> 
> I've got idiots around here moaning about it, because our numbers are still fairly low, despite the fact they are more than doubling every week, bloody idiots.



Yeah, shame the pubs will close as I love a pub, plus I’ve been getting well in to swimming and that will close too, but small price to pay. We’re having Xmas with just us now, both our mums are in tier 4 areas and we binned them off on Saturday. Seems everyone has a good reason, a valid excuse and so on. This thing is never going to end unless we just lock ourselves away and stop giving it the chance to keep spreading.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 23, 2020)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> The could transport the Pfizer vaccine in Pritti Patel’s heart.



It has to exist to be a viable transport option


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 23, 2020)

elbows said:


> The following map is from an article about the latest tiers but I am posting it to demonstrate what an amazingly shit idea putting Cornwall and the Isle of Wight in tier 1 when the national measures ended was.
> 
> View attachment 244995
> From Millions more join tier 4 Covid restrictions in England from Boxing Day



What are the raw numbers like because an increase from 2 to 8 is 200%?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> I am seized by moments of terror, I have to admit - anyone else the same?


 My worst months were early on due to a family bereavement. Now it's more of a deep depression about the whole thing.  Didn't think the vaccine would be a panacea, but the government's continuing failures and the emergence of the new strains make it look like we'll be in shit street for a long time.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 23, 2020)

Local testing centre is set up to manage (safely) approx 450 tests per day. Have the maximum capacity for 600 per day.

Today over 1000 tests rushed through.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> My worst months were early on due to a family bereavement. Now it's more of a deep depression about the whole thing.  Didn't think the vaccine would be a panacea, but the government's continuing failures and the emergence of the new strains make it look like we'll be in shit street for a long time.



I think we have about 3 months before it feels like we're really emerging from the doldrums, or that's how it'll feel at least. Dealing with short nights and crap weather and isolation is going to be rough. Once spring is here it will be easier to cope. 

Fatigue for everyone has long set in at this point, if there wasn't an increase in mental health issues before there will be. Fatigue is also what's contributing to lockdown violations.

Maybe 6 months until we get 50% vaccinated but things will start to feel easier before then I think.

New strains are standard, the vaccine should work fine against them for foreseeable. Long term it'll be like the flu-jab in identifying which strains are out there each year or so.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 23, 2020)

Went past a couple of local testing centres today, out on an emergency "click and collect" foray. Essential - not seasonal - stuff missed off the food delivery, mainly, so needed a bit of a search.

Both places were a) very soggy as it has pelted down with rain all day and b) almost deserted. ie staff only - especially so at the more local establishment.
Annoying, as some of my team were interested in getting tests, but you had to have symptoms to book and they didn't accept walk-ups.
Doubly annoying as the local case rate was nearly 1450 / 100,000 on approx 100 cases in the last seven days ending c15th December (or thereabouts) 
e2a - that rise started around the 27th November, when local cases were in in single figures ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> What are the raw numbers like because an increase from 2 to 8 is 200%?



I care about the shape, the trajectory, far more than the absolute numbers when it comes to measuring effect of different restrictions and relaxations. Paying too much attention to how low a base level the rises may be starting from is one of the mistakes not to make when setting tiers. 

But here are both for the Isle of Wight from the dashboard. The numbers have since gone higher than the text in the box shows, eg 32 on the 19th.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2020)

I suppose given that I already advised in the past that I wasnt really sure quite how bad the pandemic could get in winter in advance of actually experiencing a winter with this virus, the growing fears about the mutations are simply more unknowns on top of that. Plus the added unkowns about quite how far the government will go, which the variant strains clearly add to. eg it gives them an excuse to ditch previous weak plans and u-turn on various matters, and can affect public attitudes towards the pandemic, so in some senses it could actually help. But if the early analysis is right then these mutations can really make the numbers game much harder to balance, its going to be grim. As for the Welsh and South African strains, I havent read enough on those yet.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I think we have about 3 months before it feels like we're really emerging from the doldrums, or that's how it'll feel at least. Dealing with short nights and crap weather and isolation is going to be rough. Once spring is here it will be easier to cope.
> 
> Fatigue for everyone has long set in at this point, if there wasn't an increase in mental health issues before there will be. Fatigue is also what's contributing to lockdown violations.
> 
> ...


I think it's one of those 'the hope that gets you' scenarios.  When the vaccine was approved, few people thought 'that's it, game over'. But it did add the idea that there was a way out. The real worry now is the vaccines don't work or work as well I suppose.


----------



## Sue (Dec 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I think it's one of those 'the hope that gets you' scenarios.  When the vaccine was approved, few people thought 'that's it, game over'. But it did add the idea that there was a way out. The real worry now is the vaccines don't work or work as well I suppose.


For me, it's more that even if everything goes completely to plan, it's going to take ages for people to be vaccinated so we've at least another what, three/four/more? months of this. 😢


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I think it's one of those 'the hope that gets you' scenarios.  When the vaccine was approved, few people thought 'that's it, game over'. But it did add the idea that there was a way out. The real worry now is the vaccines don't work or work as well I suppose.



If we shoot past spring I'll be pissed, it's what I've focused on all year. I knew this was a marathon not a sprint but it's hard to keep going emotionally and psychologically even if you know on paper it'll take time. Emotions > Logic so that raw experience still leaves you drained.

The government's constant fuck ups are not helping the stress levels, people aren't meant to live under constant strain.


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 23, 2020)

More like 6 or 9.


----------



## Sue (Dec 23, 2020)

quimcunx said:


> More like 6 or 9.


I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that. 😭


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 23, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I think it's one of those 'the hope that gets you' scenarios.
> When the vaccine was approved, few people thought 'that's it, game over'.
> But it did add the idea that there was a way out. *The real worry now is the vaccines don't work or work as well I suppose*.



There's a little bit on this vaccine question, and much more else about the new strain more generally, in today's Guardian piece by Sharon Peacock-- IMO it's pretty good, detailed, and explanatory.




			
				Guardian headline said:
			
		

> *Here's what we know about the new variant of coronavirus *
> *My team at the Genomics UK consortium sequenced the new Sars-CoV-2 variant, but we’ll need more evidence to understand how it might change the pandemic *






			
				Sharon Peacock said:
			
		

> It was always predictable that the genome of Sars-CoV-2 would mutate. After all, that’s what viruses and other micro-organisms do. The Sars-CoV-2 genome accumulates around one or two mutations every month as it circulates. In fact, its rate of change is much lower than those of other viruses that we know about. For example, seasonal influenza mutates at such a rate that a new vaccine has to be introduced each year.
> Even so, over time the virus population will accumulate a fair few mutations in different combinations. The striking feature of the Sars-CoV-2 lineage 1.1.7 that we discovered here at the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium (familiar now from headlines as the “new variant”), is that its genome has a large number of mutations compared with other lineages we’ve picked up in the UK. It has a total of 23, which is what sets it apart.



Also, just a small bit about possible vaccine resistance of the neww strain -- reassuring, I thought :



> There is currently no evidence that lineage 1.1.7 causes more severe disease or that it evades the immune system. *There is also no reason to think that the vaccines being rolled out or under development will be less effective against it.* But what does look increasingly likely is that this lineage is more  transmissible.



I know there's also been other scientists discussing the risk of vaccine resistance already, and in more detail.
Maybe others have relevant links? (I think 2hats posted a link earlier up??) ....... cheers 

What I've seen has been all 'what's known so far' stuff, but I haven't yet seen any piece being really pessimistic about vaccine efficacy declines with the new strain ... 

I said so far!


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 24, 2020)

Embarassingly, I haven't been aware of the recently-started Covid Mutations thread, which contains a lot more detailed science.

Lots of links on that thread to various articles, plenty found by 2hats , and some containing vaccine-resistance information 

Not something I often do, this, but I'm going to cross-post my above post ( #28,880 ) about Sharon Peacock's article onto the Covid Mutations thread as well.

Because it's good and relevant IMO


----------



## Wilf (Dec 24, 2020)

Sue said:


> For me, it's more that even if everything goes completely to plan, it's going to take ages for people to be vaccinated so we've at least another what, three/four/more? months of this. 😢


Yep.  If things do go to plan I suspect it isn't going to be simply a weekly improvement as more people get vaccinated. Awful thing to say, but infection rates and deaths are going to get dramatically worse over the next month. I'd guess that even if they get to the point of rolling out a couple of million vaccines a week, infections will still be higher at the end of January. And when we start getting a significant number vaccinated, social distancing will just about disappear for the young and able bodied.  Back to thinking about feelings though, I think I'll start felling better when it looks like we are 'winning', even if we are still under lockdown at that point.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 24, 2020)

Wilf I did a bit of reading about Wuhan and their lockdown. They didn't have a vaccine and beat it by stopping interactions for 76 days straight. It can be beaten, and with vaccines we have more weapons than they had.


----------



## xenon (Dec 24, 2020)

weltweit said:


> Wilf I did a bit of reading about Wuhan and their lockdown. They didn't have a vaccine and beat it by stopping interactions for 76 days straight. It can be beaten, and with vaccines we have more weapons than they had.



What does that actually mean though, stopping interactions?
No one leaves their home at all?
Or back to what we had in March?


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 24, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yep.  If things do go to plan I suspect it isn't going to be simply a weekly improvement as more people get vaccinated. Awful thing to say, but infection rates and deaths are going to get dramatically worse over the next month. I'd guess that even if they get to the point of rolling out a couple of million vaccines a week, infections will still be higher at the end of January. And when we start getting a significant number vaccinated, social distancing will just about disappear for the young and able bodied.  Back to thinking about feelings though, I think I'll start felling better when it looks like we are 'winning', even if we are still under lockdown at that point.



I wish I had a convincing contradiction to your pessimism about vaccines in particular.

But weak and over-general though this is, it is a fact that 100 million doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine have been pre-ordered in the UK (to be manufactured  in this country mainly, too  ).
Admittedly, it's being projected that 'just' 40 million of that will be available by March -- see next link..

That's still a fucking big number though, which if/when Oxford/AZ is approved by the MHRA, is surely a positive and encouraging thing ......


----------



## weltweit (Dec 24, 2020)

xenon said:


> What does that actually mean though, stopping interactions?
> No one leaves their home at all?
> Or back to what we had in March?


I think they permitted one person per household or block per couple of days out to buy food and medicines, everyone else remained at home. Some time into their lockdown they permitted some work places to reopen I believe. They had security staff on every residential block to ensure no one entered or left without written authorisation. I think public transport was stopped, essential workers like nurses and doctors were ferried to their hospitals by volunteers in private cars.


----------



## scooter (Dec 24, 2020)

I remember a news story from a few weeks ago about previous mass inoculations. It's not an instant thing - can take a while to really take effect - up to a decade.

Covid-19: Will a vaccine give us our old lives back? - BBC News


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 24, 2020)

I read that BBC article (above) a little while ago, and I've just had another look.

There's some good stuff in it, but I'm failing to agree that new Covid vaccine(s) will take 'up to a decade' to 'really take effect'

I'd not argue in any way that all will be fine by Easter (2021  ), but even despite the Tories' incompetence, the more vaccines get distributed and given, and in large numbers (see my previous post), the more there will be a radical effect.

IMO, etc. , but I refuse to interpret all I read about he vaccine *over-*pessimistically, because I genuinely think there's a fair few grounds for positivity/optimism over the coming several months ......


----------



## AverageJoe (Dec 24, 2020)

scooter said:


> I remember a news story from a few weeks ago about previous mass inoculations. It's not an instant thing - can take a while to really take effect - up to a decade.
> 
> Covid-19: Will a vaccine give us our old lives back? - BBC News
> 
> View attachment 245030


Pretty much this. 


If. And thats a big IF, we manage to get to 1 million Covid injections a week, the population of the UK is about 56 million. 

So, to give everyone their first vaccine jab at that level will take over a year. 

We're e not out of this until mid 2022.

I called it a while ago that we'll have a civil war, and some scoffed and told me to calm down. But with the emotions for everyone being on a roller-coaster ("there's a vaccine - yay!, soz you're in Tier 4 - boo) and the increasing aggression between maskers and non maskers, plus the general lack of money people have and the associated increase in a lack fo tolerance.... Well we're just cooking up a perfect storm of hatred amongst ourselves for next year. 

Im battening down the hatches. See you when this is over.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 24, 2020)

are they now saying the vacinne might not work?


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 24, 2020)

AverageJoe : I'm a fair bit less pessimistic than you, particularly about the vaccine.
I'll get back to this, but I hope you're wrong.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 24, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> are they now saying the vacinne might not work?



Source? 

Who's saying this?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 24, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> are they now saying the vacinne might not work?


I just read this that says it should do and that even if it doesn't, the vaccine can be quite easily modified. Sounded a  bit optimistic to me about the speed of that re-engineering, but that's what they are saying.
What do we know about the two new Covid-19 variants in the UK? | World news | The Guardian


----------



## Badgers (Dec 24, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Source?
> 
> Who's saying this?


The WHO are global and not political ish 

ONS too

Also follow the  BMJ for local 

Someone cleverer than me will probably answer better mate.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 24, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I just read this that says it should do and that even if it doesn't, the vaccine can be quite easily modified. Sounded a  bit optimistic to me about the speed of that re-engineering, but that's what they are saying.


RNA vaccines can be re-formulated quickly by re-encoding the target antigen. Then the production process is cell-free and virus-free, highly scalable and relatively low-cost. All help shorten the timeframe (well should do as the technology becomes more mainstream).

For more information, an up to date review of RNA vaccine platforms - DOI:10.3389/fimmu.2020.608460 .


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> RNA vaccines can be re-formulated quickly by re-encoding the target antigen. Then the production process is cell-free and virus-free, highly scalable and relatively low-cost. All help shorten the timeframe (well should do as the technology becomes more mainstream).
> 
> For more information, an up to date review of RNA vaccine platforms - DOI:10.3389/fimmu.2020.608460 .


Isn't science beautiful.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 24, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Source?
> 
> Who's saying this?


No one. It was my own wondering...


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2020)

AverageJoe said:


> I called it a while ago that we'll have a civil war, and some scoffed and told me to calm down. But with the emotions for everyone being on a roller-coaster ("there's a vaccine - yay!, soz you're in Tier 4 - boo) and the increasing aggression between maskers and non maskers, plus the general lack of money people have and the associated increase in a lack fo tolerance.... Well we're just cooking up a perfect storm of hatred amongst ourselves for next year.



Where are the precursors to civil war? There is no point leaping ahead, not when predictions about some things that would surely come first have not come true in this pandemic so far.

Elite splits, breakdown of normal political systems, coups and suchlike are some potential civil war precursors that havent seemed relevant in this pandemic so far, so I will leave those to one side for now.

Which leaves civil unrest as the obvious candidate and sign of things heating up and breaking down. There have been fears and predictions on that front in this pandemic, but I think that after 1 or 2 trips round lockdown cycles without very much of this actually happening, people are more likely to resist making such predictions again until such a time as they actually see accumulating evidence and pressure building in a way that is undeniable. There will be a danger in the air under those conditions that I would expect to be palpable. When hardly anyone focuses on such things, I think its because danger at those levels just isnt there to be felt at that time.

Not this winter at least. I reckon more than enough people were already resigned to what this winter was going to be about. The new variant stuff reinforces that sense. The likely grim data in the weeks ahead will further set the tone.

People have sacrificed much so far but I dont have a sense that their ability to sacrifice much more for a good while yet has reached some kind of limit. Things could still happen that makes a different sort of shit hit the fan that makes a mockery of this post, but I just dont have a sense of that right now. People are fed up, but it takes more than that to really heat things up, and if thats going to happen I'd not expect it in response to this winters measures, I'd expect it if the same sort of cycle of failures shows signs of being on repeat too much in 2021. And even then, if enough people keep buying into the next promise of a silver bullet, the cycle could repeat further without the sort of thing you imagine coming anywhere close to fruition.


----------



## strung out (Dec 24, 2020)

Presumably once we reach a point at which say everyone over 65 and those who are clinically vulnerable have been vaccinated (25% of the population?) pressure will grow to open everything back up again and get back to as normal a life as possible. Sure we'll still have a few (single figure?) deaths from those who fall outside of the vaccinated groups, but I reckon those will be seen as an acceptable cost of returning to normal life. 

That's just speculation rather than prediction or a desired outcome btw.


----------



## Hyperdark (Dec 24, 2020)

Many seem to believe we will vaccinate more than a million people a week all through next year and that we will be out of this by 2022
Thats a fairy tale


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 24, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> Many seem to believe we will vaccinate more than a million people a week all through next year and that we will be out of this by 2022
> Thats a fairy tale



Depends on doses being able and how many they recruit to carry out the vaccinations, my SiS has been accepted for the training programme, as a retired NHS lab scientist, hence she got her first covid jab yesterday.

There was talks of enrolling people from the likes of the military, Red Cross, St John's Ambulance Service, etc.


----------



## bimble (Dec 24, 2020)

I just read something scary about the 'south african strain', saying how young people with no pre-existing conditions seem to be getting very seriously ill, and it made realise that all year I've not yet felt really afraid for my own self, was always about other people (my parents, partner with health issues etc).
Dawned on me finally how unbelievably stressful things must have been all year for people who have been living every day with a real fear of actually dying of this thing.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> I just read something scary about the 'south african strain', saying how young people with no pre-existing conditions seem to be getting very seriously ill, and it made realise that all year I've not yet felt really afraid for my own self, was always about other people (my parents, partner with health issues etc).
> Dawned on me finally how unbelievably stressful things must have been all year for being who have been living every day with a real fear of actually dying of this thing.



I'm afraid I have zero confidence in PHE's contract tracing of people from South Africa who have arrived here in the last two weeks. There should be thousands of staff out there chasing passengers lists and close contacts, and compelling people into mandatory quarantine using the existing powers of the 1984 Public Health Act. Instead we have Hancock issuing a plea in a press conference that probably less than 1% of relevant people watched, and that'll be it. A bit like that first super-spreader from Singapore in February when PHE asked close contacts to isolate without releasing his name or location for data protection reasons.  

It's like nothing can be learnt from Taiwan and South Korea.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 24, 2020)

strung out said:


> Presumably once we reach a point at which say everyone over 65 and those who are clinically vulnerable have been vaccinated (25% of the population?) pressure will grow to open everything back up again and get back to as normal a life as possible. Sure we'll still have a few (single figure?) deaths from those who fall outside of the vaccinated groups, but I reckon those will be seen as an acceptable cost of returning to normal life.
> 
> That's just speculation rather than prediction or a desired outcome btw.


It's worth remembering that there will be deaths in the vaccinated groups too. 95% is pretty impressive but it means that 1 in 20 people who've been vaccinated will not be protected. So you can perhaps divide the death rate by 20 but then multiply it by something that represents less cautious behaviour in general.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 24, 2020)

teuchter said:


> It's worth remembering that there will be deaths in the vaccinated groups too. 95% is pretty impressive but it means that 1 in 20 people who've been vaccinated will not be protected. So you can perhaps divide the death rate by 20 but then multiply it by something that represents less cautious behaviour in general.



IIRC, whilst some receiving the vaccine still got infected, none had it serious enough to need hospital treatment.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 24, 2020)

BigMoaner said:
			
		

> are they now saying the vacinne might not work?






			
				William of Walworth said:
			
		

> Source?
> 
> Who's saying this?





Badgers said:


> The WHO are global and not political ish
> 
> ONS too
> 
> ...



About vaccines specifically, I've read very little (yet!) about them being defeated by new strains, or even just rendered significantly less effective.

I have read some credible articles by actual scientists -- see the Covid Mutations thread for one or two examples -- which say the opposite.

And from just above, both of these links are relevant :




			
				Wilf said:
			
		

> I just read this that says it should do and that even if it doesn't, the vaccine can be quite easily modified. Sounded a  bit optimistic to me about the speed of that re-engineering, but that's what they are saying.
> What do we know about the two new Covid-19 variants in the UK? | World news | The Guardian


 




			
				2hats said:
			
		

> RNA vaccines can be re-formulated quickly by re-encoding the target antigen. Then the production process is cell-free and virus-free, highly scalable and relatively low-cost. All help shorten the timeframe (well should do as the technology becomes more mainstream).
> 
> For more information, an up to date review of RNA vaccine platforms - DOI:10.3389/fimmu.2020.608460



None of this is in any way intended to be complacent or over-optimistic about vaccines though, prone as I sometimes can be re the latter


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 24, 2020)

That article by Ian Sample linked to by Wilf above, is a set of useful-looking Q & A's, including these :




			
				Ian Sample said:
			
		

> *Will vaccines need to be updated?*
> It is unlikely that vaccines will need to be changed immediately. While both new variants contain multiple mutations in the spike protein, most people respond to a vaccine shot by producing a broad range of antibodies that disable the virus by gumming up many different parts of it. So even though some antibodies generated by the vaccine might not work as well against the virus, others are unlikely to be affected. Overall, the vaccine may be slightly less effective, but the impact could be minimal.





> *How quickly can vaccines be changed if required?*
> It depends on the vaccine. So-called mRNA vaccines, such as the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, are based on a strand of genetic material, the mRNA, which can be redesigned in a day or two. The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine also uses genetic code for the spike protein and can be swiftly redesigned. The next steps, such as tests to check for the correct immune response, can take place within weeks before approval and manufacturing.



Mildly reassuring, those


----------



## souljacker (Dec 24, 2020)

Up until recently, I only knew one person who had the virus and he was a colleague of a colleague. In the last few days my best mate, 2 houses in our road, a couple from school and 2 people in my group of mates have tested positive. The South East is getting hit hard in this wave.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 24, 2020)




----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 24, 2020)

2hats said:
			
		

> For more information, an up to date review of RNA vaccine platforms - DOI:10.3389/fimmu.2020.608460



Blimey! That was a *really!!* tough read for a non-scientist -- I only managed to focus on the broader points 

Thanks for posting it though, and from what I managed to grasp , the authors' conclusions are quite encouraging for vaccine-knowledge development 

(ETA : I posted this just before I saw that Twitter thread just above... so in the short term at least, even positive vaccine news can't outweigh all the other shit that's going on   )


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 24, 2020)

My sister's husbands brother (in tier 4) has just gone to stay with his clinically vulnerable parents after spending the weekend in Brighton staying with friends for the weekend  he has just tested positive.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 24, 2020)

PHE confirms LFT effective with new variant, though no figures provided (yet).


----------



## kabbes (Dec 24, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> What are the raw numbers like because an increase from 2 to 8 is 200%?


What, everybody is just letting this go, are they?


----------



## bimble (Dec 24, 2020)

2% of people in London have the virus right now, bbc radio just said. So one in every 50 infectious right now?  Every intensive care bed full with covid patients it said, though i am not sure what region that was.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> What, everybody is just letting this go, are they?


Cornwall increased by 252 cases in last week according to the government website. It is still low (70 odd per 100,000) compared to everywhere else.


----------



## prunus (Dec 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> What, everybody is just letting this go, are they?



<decided it could be taken as unkind, though it wasn’t meant so>


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 24, 2020)

Groan. Now I realise what I missed.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 24, 2020)

existentialist said:


> The trouble is, that in the prevailing media climate, it'd end up being a thing where 3 dinner ladies, a team of management accounts, another of estate agents, and several mums from Huddersfield would all end up competing to make the perfect vaccine while overcoming challenges involving linguini, custard, and coasteering, interspersed with heartwarming stories about how their disabled nieces/nephews inspired them to take part.
> 
> Which is pretty much what current Government policy seems to be, now I think about it.


What's wrong with dinner ladies and mums?


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Dec 24, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Up until recently, I only knew one person who had the virus and he was a colleague of a colleague. In the last few days my best mate, 2 houses in our road, a couple from school and 2 people in my group of mates have tested positive. The South East is getting hit hard in this wave.




Same, until 10 days ago I knew the guy in the office next to mine and one of my customers had had it, and that's it. Oh and my mum's neighbour who died from it, but I didn't know him personally. Now I have one customer in hospital with it and another in bed at home, plus another who's brother has it. And one sister in law has two kids in different years been told to isolate and other sis in law has one. Rampant.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 24, 2020)




----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 24, 2020)

Well, no shit.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 24, 2020)

I popped out at 8 this morning for cards and though it was pretty busy in town it was noticeable how everyone I saw - maybe 50 people - were masked up inside AND outside shops.


----------



## maomao (Dec 24, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I popped out at 8 this morning for cards and though it was pretty busy in town it was noticeable how everyone I saw - maybe 50 people - were masked up inside AND outside shops.


Cold innit. Quite appreciated it keeping my face warm. 

Lidl was dead, and well-stocked but there was a queue at The Range (which can open cause there's a mini Iceland inside).


----------



## andysays (Dec 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> What, everybody is just letting this go, are they?


Standards are slipping, but it's reassuring that at least one person can still spot a howler like this on a fast moving thread


----------



## Badgers (Dec 24, 2020)

Interesting and unsurprisingly grim read.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 24, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Interesting and unsurprisingly grim read.



Is there an echo in here?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 24, 2020)

2hats said:


> Is there an echo in here?


Seems there is. Apologies.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> What, everybody is just letting this go, are they?



I’m sorry for asking for more details, what a cunt I am 

Small numbers can make eye catching percentage increases and our media isn't known for taking calm rational approaches, instead spinning dramatically to increase clicks.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 24, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I popped out at 8 this morning for cards and though it was pretty busy in town it was noticeable how everyone I saw - maybe 50 people - were masked up inside AND outside shops.



wearing a mask at all times outside the house has been the norm (and the law) in Italy for several months now. I'd struggle to believe that people are walking around without masks on in the UK if I hadn't just seen the exact same thing in Amsterdam a few days ago


----------



## Supine (Dec 24, 2020)

2hr 28min journey for my mum to get vaccinated. Two buses, a train and a walk. 

We'll be viewing it as a day out in January


----------



## Boudicca (Dec 24, 2020)

Supine said:


> 2hr 28min journey for my mum to get vaccinated. Two buses, a train and a walk.
> 
> We'll be viewing it as a day out in January


A friend of mine commented that it was a bit like the school run in reverse with lots of middle aged  people hanging around the school gates waiting to collect their aged parents.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 24, 2020)

Still craploads of people here in Sheffield with no mask, or a noseless mask, or a chin mask.


----------



## Cid (Dec 24, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Still craploads of people here in Sheffield with no mask, or a noseless mask, or a chin mask.



It was very busy in the centre a couple of days ago... I only actually went into John Lewis (briefly, it rapidly dawned on me that just browsing crap was quite uncomfortable) and a Chinese supermarket though. Adherence in those was fine, but you'd kind of expect that. Outside loads of groups of people. My nearest Tesco is generally ok, though there are always a few noseless. 

One of the guys I share a workshop with has gone on holiday to Cornwall, which I believe is technically ok, but just pisses me off. I mean not least in that we all have to share space. I might take some time off from there to see how things pan out over the next couple of weeks. Got a bunch of admin and other stuff to sort anyway.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 24, 2020)

snippet of good news amongst all the shite (1545 approx so say 1530 for the press release)...

C&P out of long article on the beeb,
_It comes as a total of 521,594 people have been vaccinated against coronavirus in England over the two weeks since roll-out started, with thousands more across the UK nations. People aged 80 and over received 70% of these doses. _

ref from here ...
Covid: Sharp rises in infection levels in England, says ONS - BBC News


----------



## Spandex (Dec 24, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I’m sorry for asking for more details, what a cunt I am
> 
> Small numbers can make eye catching percentage increases and our media isn't known for taking calm rational approaches, instead spinning dramatically to increase clicks.


I think people were questioning your maths (2 to 8 is a 400% increase) rather than your overall point, which is completely correct. A percentage increase on it's own _is_ meaningless.

Where my partner's parents live there's been a 250% increase in the last week, from 2 to 7 positive cases (93.6/100k). Where my mum lives there's been a 137.2% increase, from 43 to 102 cases (1261.4/100k). My mum's area, with the lower percentage increase, is doing far worse.


----------



## maomao (Dec 24, 2020)

Spandex said:


> I think people were questioning your maths (2 to 8 is a 400% increase)


It's a 300% increase.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 24, 2020)

maomao said:


> It's a 300% increase.


Are you sure?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 24, 2020)

I think the _increase_ is 300% (6), for a total of 400% (8)?

But percentages have never been my strong point


----------



## maomao (Dec 24, 2020)

Spandex said:


> Are you sure?


I'm 300% sure.


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 24, 2020)

Paging kabbes


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 24, 2020)

Numbers go brrr


----------



## iona (Dec 24, 2020)

It's how much _extra_ per hundred (percent). So 100 to 200 is an extra hundred, or a 100% increase, rather than a 200% increase even though you're multiplying by two


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 24, 2020)

2 plus 200% = 6

2 plus 300% = 8

2 plus 400% = 10

HTH


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 24, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Up until recently, I only knew one person who had the virus and he was a colleague of a colleague. In the last few days my best mate, 2 houses in our road, a couple from school and 2 people in my group of mates have tested positive. The South East is getting hit hard in this wave.


It was like that in my area in march/april.   Quite a few down my road had it. I had it. 
 Loads of my students had it or their family did.  Lots colleagues had it.  Then nothing until last few weeks when the same pattern has begun.   Loads of students needed extenuation bc of it. Some of their relatives have died.  Other colleagues and friends getting it


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 24, 2020)

But 8 is 400% of 2, right?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 24, 2020)

Aye, it's 400% of the original amount but it's a 300% increase


----------



## prunus (Dec 24, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> But 8 is 400% of 2, right?



It is yes.
And 2 is 100% of 2.
So to get from 2 to 8 you need to go from 100% to 400% - an increase of 300%.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 24, 2020)

Anyone else get the feeling this is exactly what COBRA meetings are like?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 24, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Anyone else get the feeling this is exactly what COBRA meetings are like?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 24, 2020)

Actually, no, they wouldn't have caught the original error.


----------



## iona (Dec 24, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> But 8 is 400% of 2, right?


100%


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 24, 2020)

I suspect some people have been drinking.

Or, just crap at maths.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I suspect some people have been drinking.
> 
> Or, just crap at maths.



Yes.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 24, 2020)

Got distracted by Brexshitery...have we had today's Covid numbers yet?


----------



## Doodler (Dec 24, 2020)

Work was surprisingly and unwelcomely busy today with lots of customers making what they probably think are their final pre-lockdown purchases. Saw only one out of several hundred customers not wearing a mask. I work in the cash office but can't hide from the public or fellow workers all the time, so regard infection as almost inevitable now.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 24, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Got distracted by Brexshitery...have we had today's Covid numbers yet?



Dread to think


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 24, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Got distracted by Brexshitery...have we had today's Covid numbers yet?



Yep.  

New cases - 39,036, deaths - 574 , patients admitted to hospital - 2,142.

Total patients in hospital - 21, 286 - the peak was on the 12th April at 21,638.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 24, 2020)

Tomorrow we're going to end-up with the most ever covid cases in hospital, what a fucking Christmas present.   

How the fuck is the NHS going to cope over the coming weeks?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Tomorrow we're going to end-up with the most ever covid cases in hospital, what a fucking Christmas present.
> 
> How the fuck is the NHS going to cope over the coming weeks?


badly


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I suspect some people have been drinking.
> 
> Or, just crap at maths.




or both


----------



## kabbes (Dec 24, 2020)

Can I just say that I totally loved the percentages tangent?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Can I just say that I totally loved the percentages tangent?


Yes, 110%


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Can I just say that I totally loved the percentages tangent?



I also meant to defend the utility of talking in terms of percentage rises when discussing epidemics that feature exponential growth, since exponential growth is growth thats proportional to the size. But all I could belatedly muster on the subject is in that sentence.


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep.
> 
> New cases - 39,036, deaths - 574 , patients admitted to hospital - 2,142.
> 
> Total patients in hospital - 21, 286 - the peak was on the 12th April at 21,638.



I think you got the last 2 digits of the 12th April hospital peak the wrong way round, should be 21,683.

If tracking those hospital figures closely I recommend looking at the figure for England separately as well, since on the dashboard the figures for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are often a few days further behind, especially at weekends and this Christmas period is already looking similar. And Northern Irelands more recent past figures already published still change retroactively, so for example if you looked at the UK figure on the dashboard yesterday for 21/12/20 you would have seen 20,917, but today for that same date of 21/12/20 the figure is 20,959, and thats all down to the Northern Ireland figures being increased. This is an ongoing phenomenon, I think the only days I've seen where it doesnt happen are days when no Northern Ireland hospital data is added to the dashboard.

The 21,286 UK figure you have is for 22/12/20 and several further days numbers for English hospitals are available. The first of those was actually a decrease on the day before, but the subsequent one, for 24/12/20 was a rise so that England went from 18,063 on the 22nd to 18,227 today. Englands first wave numbers in hospital peak was 18,974. Which was the same day as UK peak you mentioned, 12th April, which is not surprising as Englands numbers accounted for 87.5% of the UK first wave peak figure.


----------



## bimble (Dec 24, 2020)

Haven’t heard about the nightingale hospitals since they were a triumph back in spring. Are they actually any of them in use?


----------



## strung out (Dec 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> Haven’t heard about the nightingale hospitals since they were a triumph back in spring. Are they actually any of them in use?


The one where I work is mothballed until required. I understand staffing is the issue, as you'd merely be pulling staff from other areas of the NHS.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 24, 2020)

bimble said:


> Haven’t heard about the nightingale hospitals since they were a triumph back in spring. Are they actually any of them in use?



Building the Nightingale Hospitals was very impressive, shame they never thought about how to staff them.


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Building the Nightingale Hospitals was very impressive, shame they never thought about how to staff them.



I think its fair to say that many countries made a show of building such facilities because it was something they could actually do, and was visible.

China had the option of bringing in a lot of staff from elsewhere in the country due to the highly regionalised nature of their outbreak, most other countries knew that staffing was a limited resource. Descriptions vary about what purposes would actually have been found for Nightingales and the equivalents elsewhere, there are quite a few possibilities that would not have resembled hospital care as we know it but would have been preferred by the authorities to some of the even grimmer alternatives. Apparently there are some other fundamental flaws such a lack of proper toilet facilities. But a lot of this detail and the possibilities are things I would rather not dwell on unless we end up with a situation where this stuff ends up in use and we hear all about it.


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2020)

BBC discusses ventilation and opening the windows as if its some strange new angle that a couple of doctors and engineers are promoting from the fringes.









						Coronavirus: Fresh air 'forgotten weapon' in fight
					

Experts are increasingly worried that the virus can accumulate in stuffy rooms.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## zora (Dec 24, 2020)

elbows said:


> BBC discusses ventilation and opening the windows as if its some strange new angle that a couple of doctors and engineers are promoting from the fringes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Oh please don't! (Not you elbows-  "them"...) When I was wondering out loud in June why it fell to me as a humble retail assistant to enquire with my company what thought they had given to ventilation when reopening the shops, given that some virologists had highlighted aerosol transmission over fomite transmission as early as March/April, and been banging on about it ever since...

Eta: Had a small victory in getting a significant part of our mail order operation moved. Small stuffy room that supposedly three people could work in according to the 2 metre rule. I kept saying that while it might technically conform to the rules, I thought that if three people worked in there all day and one of them had covid, the others would likely catch it, too.


----------



## Supine (Dec 24, 2020)

So how many days before Johnson resigns to spend more time on the dinner party speeches circuit? I'm going with Jan 10th.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 24, 2020)

Supine said:


> So how many days before Johnson resigns to spend more time on the dinner party speeches circuit? I'm going with Jan 10th.


Probably a bit daft making long term predictions in the middle of a national emergency, but mine would be the government facing massive criticisms of their handling of the pandemic, let's say around the time of the first inevitable inquiry. At that point, perhaps mid 2022, he says he won't lead them into another election. Daft thought it is making such long terms bets, I'd put a fair few quid on Labour not forming the next administration, even more so against them forming a majority administration.


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 24, 2020)

souljacker said:


> Up until recently, I only knew one person who had the virus and he was a colleague of a colleague. In the last few days my best mate, 2 houses in our road, a couple from school and 2 people in my group of mates have tested positive. The South East is getting hit hard in this wave.



I think I'm in the same town as you and agree. I know of two people at work who have cases in their household, and only 20 people work in the office.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 25, 2020)

Now a covid testing lab has been hit by a covid outbreak.   









						UK's biggest testing lab hit by Covid outbreak among staff
					

The Milton Keynes Lighthouse Laboratory is part of a network of seven facilities across the country set up to significantly increase testing capacity for Covid-19.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## zora (Dec 25, 2020)

elbows said:


> BBC discusses ventilation and opening the windows as if its some strange new angle that a couple of doctors and engineers are promoting from the fringes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I just had to come back to this because I was wondering if I am going mad! Quote from the BBC article (and on googling, loads of other news pages are reporting it as such as well "Dr Fitzgerald points to *recent research* in a restaurant in South Korea which highlighted how far the virus can spread indoors." (my bold)

This is from *24th April! *Now, it's possible that there is indeed another recent study looking at other places and that has just been peer-reviewed and published (the example in my link is in China), but it's not like the preliminary research and publication of other studies hadn't taken place!

The podcast episode in which Mr Drosten talked about the worrying trend of overemphasis of handwashing vs aerosols is from *12th May*! 

Ye gods...


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 25, 2020)

zora said:


> I just had to come back to this because I was wondering if I am going mad! Quote from the BBC article (and on googling, loads of other news pages are reporting it as such as well "Dr Fitzgerald points to *recent research* in a restaurant in South Korea which highlighted how far the virus can spread indoors." (my bold)
> 
> This is from *24th April! *Now, it's possible that there is indeed another recent study looking at other places and that has just been peer-reviewed and published (the example in my link is in China), but it's not like the preliminary research and publication of other studies hadn't taken place!
> 
> ...


No, it's definitely them that are mad. The government has failed to talk about virus spread in unventilated spaces, which I think is deliberate because they wanted to keep pubs and restaurants open. The BBC, as so often, takes its version of reality from the government, so in their world this has not been known about until now. But it's not really just that they're crazy, it's _murderous_ that they have not talked about this properly and ensured that people are educated about it. Some months back I ended up sending round the El Pais article about indoor spread because there was no similar thing from the media in this country. Another great and deadly BBC failure.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 25, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> No, it's definitely them that are mad. The government has failed to talk about virus spread in unventilated spaces, which I think is deliberate because they wanted to keep pubs and restaurants open. The BBC, as so often, takes its version of reality from the government, so in their world this has not been known about until now. But it's not really just that they're crazy, it's _murderous_ that they have not talked about this properly and ensured that people are educated about it. Some months back I ended up sending round the El Pais article about indoor spread because there was no similar thing from the media in this country. Another great and deadly BBC failure.


This has definitely had real world impact in terms of people's knowledge. A few weeks ago there was a furious row on local social media about a popular restaurant. They were doing takeaway (tier 3) but allowing customers to wait inside at tables for orders and understandably got trouble from the council.  Vast majority of commenters just couldn't understand why this was bad - "everyone was spaced out" etc.


----------



## Hyperdark (Dec 25, 2020)

Im constantly taken aback by the numbers of seemingly sentient people I know who confuse obeying Rules with being responsible and safe


----------



## souljacker (Dec 25, 2020)

Elpenor said:


> I think I'm in the same town as you and agree. I know of two people at work who have cases in their household, and only 20 people work in the office.



Reading yeah? 

Probably didn't help that we were in tier 2 on the Wednesday then tier 4 on the Sunday. The shops were heaving with people trying to get last minute presents on the Saturday.


----------



## zora (Dec 25, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> This has definitely had real world impact in terms of people's knowledge. A few weeks ago there was a furious row on local social media about a popular restaurant. They were doing takeaway (tier 3) but allowing customers to wait inside at tables for orders and understandably got trouble from the council.  Vast majority of commenters just couldn't understand why this was bad - "everyone was spaced out" etc.



Also sooooo important as possible mitigation of risk for the Christmas get-togethers. 23rd of December is a bit fucking late to start getting the message out (hidden in an obscure little BBC article).


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 25, 2020)

Any of the people most clues up think 
schools will close in tier 4?


----------



## elbows (Dec 25, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> Any of the people most clues up think
> schools will close in tier 4?



The scene has been partially set for this to happen, but whether it will actually happen straight away is something I find harder to predict because of this governments pandemic track record so far.

An example of the scene being set:









						Schools 'may need to close to control new variant'
					

Variant spreads 56% faster and may need tougher measures to control, a study suggests.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 25, 2020)

How very Christmassy, Jesus tested positive!









						Jesus & Walker test positive for Covid
					

Manchester City striker Gabriel Jesus and defender Kyle Walker - along with two members of staff - test positive for Covid-19.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Dec 25, 2020)

Are they actually releasing any numbers today, or will there be some grim Boxing day roll-over death toll?


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Are they actually releasing any numbers today, or will there be some grim Boxing day roll-over death toll?


Yeh I think it's a rollover Weekend.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 25, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> Yeh I think it's a rollover Weekend.


How benevolent of the state not to trouble us with such things on Jebus day.


----------



## LDC (Dec 25, 2020)

Numbers are released afaik. 32,725 cases, 21,286 in hospital, 570 dead. All up predictably.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Numbers are released afaik. 32,725 cases, 21,286 in hospital, 570 dead. All up predictably.


Thanks for that; the next few weeks are going to be so grim.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 25, 2020)

On a brighter note; "immediate antibodies".


----------



## elbows (Dec 25, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Numbers are released afaik. 32,725 cases, 21,286 in hospital, 570 dead. All up predictably.



As I was boring on about yesterday, hospital and some other data will be a bit stuck over Christmas because some of the four nations have a data holiday. Best to drill down to see individual nations data on the dashboard to see if there are several more days worth for some than others.

In particular that UK hospital number is always a bit behind, and will be especially bad over Christmas because even when the English number is published, other nations arent. Here is some waffle about that from the dashboard.



> *Holiday season 2020 schedule*
> During the holiday period, the COVID-19 Dashboard will be updated every day, but the amount of data being updated will vary. The following information is provided to assist forward planning only and is subject to change.
> 
> UK cases and deaths will be updated every day throughout the holiday period, with the following service changes:
> ...



Today in particular there isnt any new English hospital data either, so nothing to be gained from drilling down right now in the manner I just suggested. UK hospital figures are still only up to the 22nd December rather than anything more recent, and the figures for England only go up to the 24th (and only up to 21st for England admissions).


----------



## LDC (Dec 25, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Thanks for that; the next few weeks are going to be so grim.



Yeah, I think January and February especially so, but I'm less optimistic that things will be more normal from March/April than I was a week ago.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 25, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> Any of the people most clues up think
> schools will close in tier 4?


They'll clearly try and keep schools open, though pretty much all outcomes are in place with these idiots. If schools do close, it will be a be at a point around 2 to 3 weeks later than the optimum time for closing them.


----------



## Bingo (Dec 25, 2020)

They obviously need to shut the secondary schools for six weeks. I think it's probably possible to keep primaries open. Not that I'm holding any hope out for a sensible solution.


----------



## maomao (Dec 25, 2020)

Bingo said:


> They obviously need to shut the secondary schools for six weeks. I think it's probably possible to keep primaries open. Not that I'm holding any hope out for a sensible solution.


My daughter's approx 300 student primary school has had more cases than the 1500 student secondary school where I work so I'm not sure they're any safer. She's on her third isolation order at the moment (though it's not like we were taking her anywhere anyway).


----------



## Cloo (Dec 25, 2020)

Bingo said:


> They obviously need to shut the secondary schools for six weeks. I think it's probably possible to keep primaries open. Not that I'm holding any hope out for a sensible solution.


Yeah, honestly much as I hate having to deal with the consequences, I think it would be smart to shut them and aim to restart after half term, maybe with _something_ sensible around testing set up by then - I had literally already written 'Half term' in quotes in my 2021 diary because I have been so sure for the last few months schools would shut before it. I think better to do it now and maybe be able to restart by March than wait, have to shut a few weeks into term and maybe end up shut until Easter. Which is what they'll probably end up fucking doing


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## BigMoaner (Dec 26, 2020)

Long day dreams today about how life was. Then sadness then fear. My life was so full but this virus came at one of the worst times in my life (the ending of a marriage). I honestly think this will change our psyches forever. If we all get through in one piece,  normal life will seem sacred, ungraspably precious, which it always was, anyway.


----------



## David Clapson (Dec 26, 2020)

New projections from Sage say we may have more deaths in 2021 than 2020 unless vaccinatlon rates are ramped up massively https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covi..._and_severity_of_VOC_202012_01_in_England.pdf  I can't find any articles about it except for a very grim one in the Mail Advisers warn Kent strain of coronavirus could lead to MORE deaths


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## LDC (Dec 26, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> New projections from Sage say we may have more deaths in 2021 than 2020 unless vaccinatlon rates are ramped up massively https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covi..._and_severity_of_VOC_202012_01_in_England.pdf  I can't find any articles about it except for a very grim one in the Mail Advisers warn Kent strain of coronavirus could lead to MORE deaths



It's been posted already here in a few places. It is worth a read but it's not from SAGE, it's from LSHTM.


----------



## LDC (Dec 26, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> Any of the people most clues up think
> schools will close in tier 4?



As has been mentioned the government's language seems to have shifted on this, it's gone from 'never/must stay open' to something like 'we'll see how things go' which I think mean they're thinking they will shut in some areas when/if things get bad.

My prediction is that in Tier 4 they will shut for all but kids of key workers, but probably a bit too late if things progress as is looking likely. If more news comes out and the variants are also more severe and/or infect younger people more than the early strain then I think we'll see some panicked responses and lack of attendance and staffing issues so schools will shut whatever the government says. I also can't see how exams will happen this coming year if the next months are anything like as bad as some of the predictions are suggesting they might be.


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## Hyperdark (Dec 26, 2020)

Im now of the opinion that by next years end more people in the UK will have been infected than will have been Vaccinated


Is this a realistic view?


----------



## elbows (Dec 26, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> Im now of the opinion that by years end more people in the UK will have been infected than will have been Vaccinated
> 
> 
> Is this a realistic view?



Well over 2 million people have tested positive so far and a really huge number of infections have not been picked up by this picture, especially in the first wave.


----------



## elbows (Dec 26, 2020)

Wolves football club are sensible.



> Wolves have blocked their players going to the supermarket in a bid to reduce their risk of contracting coronavirus.











						Wolves block players from supermarkets
					

Wolves have blocked their players from visiting supermarkets in a bid to reduce chances of catching coronavirus.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 26, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> Im now of the opinion that by years end more people in the UK will have been infected than will have been Vaccinated
> 
> 
> Is this a realistic view?



This year as in next week? Not exactly sticking your neck out there.


----------



## Hyperdark (Dec 26, 2020)

Apologies, meant the year to come ...will edit


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## Brainaddict (Dec 26, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> New projections from Sage say we may have more deaths in 2021 than 2020 unless vaccinatlon rates are ramped up massively https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covi..._and_severity_of_VOC_202012_01_in_England.pdf  I can't find any articles about it except for a very grim one in the Mail Advisers warn Kent strain of coronavirus could lead to MORE deaths


Their other option besides vaccination is shutting all schools and universities. If the new variant really is 56% more transmissable it will be interesting to see if the government can bring itself to change course on eductional institutions.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 26, 2020)




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## 2hats (Dec 26, 2020)

COVID related hospital occupancy now likely to have exceeded the April _first wave_ peak and will continue to climb for 2+ weeks to come (was nudging the previous peak in data two days ago).


----------



## purenarcotic (Dec 26, 2020)

2hats said:


>




Was just coming on here to share this. Absolutely awful.


----------



## zora (Dec 27, 2020)

I have been finding the almost complete break of news reporting and debate around this brewing storm for these couple of days over Christmas pretty disconcerting.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 27, 2020)

So when do we think Christmas National Super Spreader Day will hit the figures in terms daily +ve tests? Presume there will then be more family visiting over the next week, regardless of tiers, along with a further boost following NYE.  So, when that gives us a 'peak' peak, who knows.  I should leave the predictions to those who have been doing the science throughout, but my guess is that even if we had a full national lockdown on 2nd January, cases and hospitalisations would continue to rise till mid January at least.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 27, 2020)

zora said:


> I have been finding the almost complete break of news reporting and debate around this brewing storm for these couple of days over Christmas pretty disconcerting.


Yep, it has been disconcerting. We could be within a week of (bits of) the NHS getting overwhelmed. Stories of heart attack ambulances being turned away may well be the thing that gets johnson to extend tier 5 again. As always though, too late.


----------



## strung out (Dec 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> So when do we think Christmas National Super Spreader Day will hit the figures in terms daily +ve tests? Presume there will then be more family visiting over the next week, regardless of tiers, along with a further boost following NYE.  So, when that gives us a 'peak' peak, who knows.  I should leave the predictions to those who have been doing the science throughout, but my guess is that even if we had a full national lockdown on 2nd January, cases and hospitalisations would continue to rise till mid January at least.


Remember that despite Christmas day being an obvious opportunity for the virus being spread, kids aren't in schools, lots of shops are shut and loads of people are off work over Christmas, so don't be surprised to see a drop off in infections over Christmas. Even with the day long amnesty for household mixing, that was only for people not in tier 4, and occurs during a period that should see far fewer opportunities for spreading generally.


----------



## maomao (Dec 27, 2020)

Death rates will seem to be low for a few days because of all the bank holidays but around the middle of the week we're going to get a massive bounce back which while it won't be the whole story will probably put the shit up a lot of people.


----------



## LDC (Dec 27, 2020)

There's also some news due soon that will make a difference one way or the other; the Oxford vaccine getting possible approval, and then whether the new variants are more severe/fatal/infect the young more, and whether the vaccines are effective for them. I think if any of these are bad news we're going to see a shift in response as well.


----------



## zora (Dec 27, 2020)

Can only pray that you are right, strung out (yes, there it is, we are in the "praying" stage of the pandemic!).
You are right that the Christmas period offers a natural reduction in contacts at school and work.
But will it make up for the intensity of the household mixing? Loads of people have been super-cautious and sensible, but equally, loads of people have left London regardless. And while I don't think there is such a thing as the "covid-safe" workplace, at least there are some mitigations in place, whereas indoor time together with friends and family has the pretty much highest risk of transmission now. But maybe, just maybe some of these newly acquired infections will just fizzle out and not be passed on.
Gonna try and hold on to that possibility today.


----------



## Supine (Dec 27, 2020)

Christmas Day with family followed by a naughty NYE party with a few friends followed by a return to work on Jan 4th. Numbers will probably look grim in mid Jan.


----------



## maomao (Dec 27, 2020)

I think the real danger with Christmas is who gets it rather than how many. There will be a lot of retired people in high risk groups who've had very little social contact for nine months spending hours indoors with several people.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 27, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> Long day dreams today about how life was. Then sadness then fear. My life was so full but this virus came at one of the worst times in my life (the ending of a marriage). I honestly think this will change our psyches forever. If we all get through in one piece,  normal life will seem sacred, ungraspably precious, which it always was, anyway.


For about a fortnight.


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## TopCat (Dec 27, 2020)

Loads and loads of cars missing in my road the past couple of days. Really noticable.


----------



## andysays (Dec 27, 2020)

strung out said:


> Remember that despite Christmas day being an obvious opportunity for the virus being spread, kids aren't in schools, lots of shops are shut and loads of people are off work over Christmas, so don't be surprised to see a drop off in infections over Christmas. Even with the day long amnesty for household mixing, that was only for people not in tier 4, and occurs during a period that should see far fewer opportunities for spreading generally.


This is true, but while numbers might be reduced, we're also likely to see people infected by those who they have not been in contact with so much over the past year, including many potentially vulnerable people who have stopped shielding for a few days or otherwise let their guard down "because it's Christmas".

It's really only once those who have caught it over Xmas have returned to post-Xmas activity and had a chance to pass it on to others that we'll begin to get a true picture of the Xmas effect.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 27, 2020)

I still really have to watch myself when I meet people (always outside). I do hardly see anyone which is great - keeping isolated by design sort of thing -  but I tend to relax and so forget when I'm with people. I've not done anything daft yet (cv related anyway) but I'm glad I've not spent time with anyone over christmas since it would have been too easy to let my guard down.


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 27, 2020)

Did a foolish thing yesterday. A dropped shopping off to friend who almost certainly has covid. He also picked up my present from them which I opened etc and only about an hour later did I remember hand washing etc.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 27, 2020)

Yep that's the sort of thing I'd do given half a chance


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 27, 2020)

Today is the last day before we'll need another milk n bread run, unless we are very careful.

Us four spent a wonderful day "at home" with all the trimmings on the 25th (more a belated solstice celebration), yesterday was far too wet, windy and cold to even think about going outside. Today, we've a dusting of something pretending to be snow (more slushy by lunchtime), but dryish and definitely less windy - but I'm still staying in.


----------



## elbows (Dec 27, 2020)

2hats said:


>




What was it?


----------



## zora (Dec 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> What was it?



Relating to this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55454280; a Welsh health board recruiting on social media for help from medical students with experience in proning.  But according to the BBC article, the staffing crisis has since eased.


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## 2hats (Dec 27, 2020)

elbows said:


> What was it?


Presumably the request for help was successful.


----------



## elbows (Dec 27, 2020)

strung out said:


> Remember that despite Christmas day being an obvious opportunity for the virus being spread, kids aren't in schools, lots of shops are shut and loads of people are off work over Christmas, so don't be surprised to see a drop off in infections over Christmas. Even with the day long amnesty for household mixing, that was only for people not in tier 4, and occurs during a period that should see far fewer opportunities for spreading generally.



Indeed. I dont like to predict how that stuff balances out, I need to wait for things like google mobility data for the period. Schools being shut and people being off work will help. Busy shops and supermarkets in periods either side of Christmas are a concern, especially in areas where non-essential retail is still open. And I dont know quite what to expect from Christmas mixing patterns because one of the issues might not be that there has been more mixing, but rather different mixing compared to the rest of the year.

Whatever the Christmas picture, I expect January to be grim beause of the rises in cases etc that we had already sseen in the buildup to Christmas. But I also expect to wait longer than normal to see whats happening due to Christmas gaps in the data.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 27, 2020)




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## Lord Camomile (Dec 27, 2020)

strung out said:


> Even with the day long amnesty for household mixing, that was only for people not in tier 4, and occurs during a period that should see far fewer opportunities for spreading generally.


While possibly not undermining your wider point, sadly I can confirm that people in Tier 4 have been mixing too


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## Badgers (Dec 27, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> While possibly not undermining your wider point, sadly I can confirm that people in Tier 4 have been mixing too


Yup. But they have been MUCH more careful than the other mixers and spreaders in Tier4.


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## Lord Camomile (Dec 27, 2020)

two sheds said:


> myself when I meet people (always outside). I do hardly see anyone which is great - keeping isolated by design sort of thing - but I tend to relax and so forget when I'm with people. I've not done anything daft yet (cv related anyway) but I'm gl





quimcunx said:


> Did a foolish thing yesterday. A dropped shopping off to friend who almost certainly has covid. He also picked up my present from them which I opened etc and only about an hour later did I remember hand washing etc.


This is a lot of the reason I've been staying in my flat quite so much; I'm an idiot, and when I'm around people I do careless things, so if I'm on my own in my flat I just don't have to worry about that.

Can't speak for everyone, but it really is just so easy to even momentarily forget best medical practice as you pass someone in the kitchen, or move closer to consult a colleague's PC monitor. I prefer to just take myself out of the equation completely.


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## Lord Camomile (Dec 27, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Yup. But they have been MUCH more careful than the other mixers and spreaders in Tier4.


Not sure if you thought I was referring to someone in particular, but I was just speaking about my own family and friends. My brother visited my parents, despite living with someone else and working in a primary school, and was sitting next to them maskless on Christmas day, and it's been a similar story with some friends.


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## Badgers (Dec 27, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Not sure if you thought I was referring to someone in particular, but I was just speaking about my own family and friends. My brother visited my parents, despite living with someone else and working in a primary school, and was sitting next to them maskless on Christmas day, and it's been a similar story with some friends.


Nothing aimed at anyone. Just people round this way who are ignoring things and thinking it is okay because their circumstances are more deserving.


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## Numbers (Dec 27, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Nothing aimed at anyone. Just people round this way who are ignoring things and thinking it is okay because their circumstances are more deserving.


I am seething with the actions of some within our immediate family the last few days, absolutely seething  and even had a set-to with Mrs Numbers about it.


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## muscovyduck (Dec 27, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> This is a lot of the reason I've been staying in my flat quite so much; I'm an idiot, and when I'm around people I do careless things, so if I'm on my own in my flat I just don't have to worry about that.
> 
> Can't speak for everyone, but it really is just so easy to even momentarily forget best medical practice as you pass someone in the kitchen, or move closer to consult a colleague's PC monitor. I prefer to just take myself out of the equation completely.


Yep this has been my attitude. A few other things play into it too, eg everyone else is doing careless things too and I can't control that.


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## Miss-Shelf (Dec 27, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> This is a lot of the reason I've been staying in my flat quite so much; I'm an idiot, and when I'm around people I do careless things, so if I'm on my own in my flat I just don't have to worry about that.
> 
> Can't speak for everyone, but it really is just so easy to even momentarily forget best medical practice as you pass someone in the kitchen, or move closer to consult a colleague's PC monitor. I prefer to just take myself out of the equation completely.


Yeah I got covid earlier this year from forgetting momentarily when with a friend in her garden.  We went to the trouble of using the side return gate to avoid coming through the house .  I bought us a separate drink can so no sharing etc. And a bag of  nice food for her . Then we sat outside and chatted and after a while she said oh do want some of the food you brought and a mint tea? Why yes!     So we merrily dipped and doubled dipped and rummaged in shared bags and tore bits of bread off the pide loaf....and me and her lodger both got covid as it turned out she had it and tested positive the next day (tested in  her work) .   I cant believe we were so forgetfully foolish in the moment but we were


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## David Clapson (Dec 27, 2020)

There's still no more coverage of the latest SAGE predictions. I was expecting that 83,000 more deaths in the UK would get a bit more attention.

This is from the first bit of the Mail article: 



> the new variant...is 56 per cent more infectious than its predecessor and 83,000 more could die if people don't get vaccinated faster than they are now.
> This could be could be slashed by 45,000 to just 35,700, however, if immunisation rockets to two million doses per week, which will be six times faster than the current rate of approximately 350,000 per week.





David Clapson said:


> New projections from Sage say we may have more deaths in 2021 than 2020 unless vaccinatlon rates are ramped up massively https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covi..._and_severity_of_VOC_202012_01_in_England.pdf  I can't find any articles about it except for a very grim one in the Mail Advisers warn Kent strain of coronavirus could lead to MORE deaths


----------



## Wilf (Dec 27, 2020)

strung out said:


> Remember that despite Christmas day being an obvious opportunity for the virus being spread, kids aren't in schools, lots of shops are shut and loads of people are off work over Christmas, so don't be surprised to see a drop off in infections over Christmas. Even with the day long amnesty for household mixing, that was only for people not in tier 4, and occurs during a period that should see far fewer opportunities for spreading generally.


Hope so (in terms of the drop). Hard to even guess the maths on this, but maybe 8-10 million family visits on Christmas Day? My thinking is those visits are in the perfect environment for virus spreading. So this will have a greater net effect than the absence of people going to work/school (which would have been in socially distanced environments).  All of that will be added to by the new strains.  Anyway, I think there's a fair chance there will be specific peak a few days after Christmas Day. NYE will also be in play too, regardless of the rules.


----------



## Callie (Dec 27, 2020)

Urgh. My mum who works in a care home in Kent has tested positive. She lives with my nan who is 96. Nan has tested positive too but other than being a bit feverish and having the sniffles nan seems ok. Slightly more worried about my mum. Fuck all I can do to help though.


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## klang (Dec 27, 2020)

all the best to you and yours Callie


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## Wilf (Dec 27, 2020)

Numbers said:


> I am seething with the actions of some within our immediate family the last few days, absolutely seething  and even had a set-to with Mrs Numbers about it.


I went out for a walk on Christmas Day and walked past a semi detached house - maybe 2 living rooms - just at the point the guests were leaving. It was a couple with 2 kids, so I started thinking 'so, there must have been them and maybe a couple in the house, 6 in total'. But no, another 7 people came out, which would have meant 11 guests and at least 2 residents. Fuck me, it might _just _have been legal as we are tier 3, depending on how many families the 11 guests fell into, but it was astonishingly stupid.  I'd say about 6 of them were kids, so very little chance of social distancing.


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 27, 2020)

All this talk about distancing still. I don't think it is worth thinking about if you are indoors in confined spaces, eating and talking together. It would be misunderstanding how the virus spreads to be thinking that stay 1-2m apart would help you in that situation.


----------



## David Clapson (Dec 27, 2020)

I suppose the anti-mask and Covid-conspiracy people must have a higher death rate? Is this Nature's attempt to cull the weak?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I went out for a walk on Christmas Day and walked past a semi detached house - maybe 2 living rooms - just at the point the guests were leaving. It was a couple with 2 kids, so I started thinking 'so, there must have been them and maybe a couple in the house, 6 in total'. But no, another 7 people came out, which would have meant 11 guests and at least 2 residents. Fuck me, it might _just _have been legal as we are tier 3, depending on how many families the 11 guests fell into, but it was astonishingly stupid.  I'd say about 6 of them were kids, so very little chance of social distancing.


... though not as bad as this:
Neymar slammed over 'secret party for 500' in Brazil amid country's huge Covid death toll (msn.com)


----------



## Wilf (Dec 27, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> All this talk about distancing still. I don't think it is worth thinking about if you are indoors in confined spaces, eating and talking together. It would be misunderstanding how the virus spreads to be thinking that stay 1-2m apart would help you in that situation.


I agree, but sitting in a classroom is not as risky as sitting on the sofa with your nan who has been shielding for 6 months.


----------



## muscovyduck (Dec 27, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I suppose the anti-mask and Covid-conspiracy people must have a higher death rate? Is this Nature's attempt to cull the weak?


Anecdotal but looking at everyone I know, the anti-mask / covid conspiracy people tend to be people who are like, business owners, car drivers, greenbelt types (not neccessarily that specific, but you know _the type_), not supermarket workers in shared housing commuting on public transport. Same way pro-austerity ideas tend to be driven by people who aren't going to be affected by cuts.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 27, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> Anecdotal but looking at everyone I know, the anti-mask / covid conspiracy people tend to be people who are like, business owners, car drivers, greenbelt types (not neccessarily that specific, but you know _the type_), not supermarket workers in shared housing commuting on public transport. Same way pro-austerity ideas tend to be driven by people who aren't going to be affected by cuts.



would say they are more easily defined by having personality problems - vain, lacking in empathy, chaotic. that's my view from the sample i see on facebook. "no one is the boss of me" "i see different to all the sheep" kind of mentality.

arseholes, in the main. just needed something traumatic like a pendamic to make it flare up. honestly wouldn't care if this was darwinism in action. in the past, people i disagreed with politically, would rarely wish true bad outcomes to. but this mob, it's different. they are like those who do 70 in 30mph zones at school kicking out time. in the bin for them.


----------



## Cid (Dec 27, 2020)

muscovyduck said:


> Anecdotal but looking at everyone I know, the anti-mask / covid conspiracy people tend to be people who are like, business owners, car drivers, greenbelt types (not neccessarily that specific, but you know _the type_), not supermarket workers in shared housing commuting on public transport. Same way pro-austerity ideas tend to be driven by people who aren't going to be affected by cuts.



Perhaps active anti-mask thinking. But I see maskless shop workers every time I'm in one... Same goes for local chippy etc. And most of the people I share workshop space with don't give a shit... I mean I suppose technically they're business owners, but only in the sense they're self-employed. People working on the building site next door never bother either.

I haven't come across much proper anti-masking mind you, just apathy.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 27, 2020)

one put up a gif of john travalota walking/swaggering. titled it: "me walking through sainsburys without my mask, through all the sheep".

can you actually get more cuntish right now?


----------



## chilango (Dec 27, 2020)

LOTS of people out walking round our way today. I guess flooding has funneled people into a smaller range of places.

Also hearing of quite a lot of "rule bending" going (meeting between different tiers etc. at service stations for example).

All no doubt better than what would have happened for sure.


----------



## Thora (Dec 27, 2020)

Can I just check my understanding of the rules here?  My sister has a new baby, which I believe means we can form a support bubble between our two households.
We live about 30 miles apart and I am in a tier 2 area while she is tier 3.
That's ok though, right?


----------



## killer b (Dec 27, 2020)

Thora said:


> Can I just check my understanding of the rules here?  My sister has a new baby, which I believe means we can form a support bubble between our two households.
> We live about 30 miles apart and I am in a tier 2 area while she is tier 3.
> That's ok though, right?


only if she is a single mother. if she lives with other people, then no.


----------



## Thora (Dec 27, 2020)

killer b said:


> only if she is a single mother. if she lives with other people, then no.


I didn't think the new baby exception was related to being single?


----------



## killer b (Dec 27, 2020)

oh, I missed the newborn exception - I dunno then. Just do what you think best anyway.


----------



## prunus (Dec 27, 2020)

Thora said:


> I didn't think the new baby exception was related to being single?



I think that’s correct - a household with a child under 1 (or who was on 2/12/20) can form a support bubble regardless of the number of other people in that household.


----------



## belboid (Dec 27, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> one put up a gif of john travalota walking/swaggering. titled it: "me walking through sainsburys without my mask, through all the sheep".
> 
> can you actually get more cuntish right now?


but it's not John Travolta, it's Nic Cage


----------



## Thora (Dec 27, 2020)

Thanks, so it looks like there isn't a particular restriction on distance/tiers.  All the info I could fine says it's "best if you're local" but 30 miles isn't a huge distance.


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## iona (Dec 27, 2020)

Thora said:


> Can I just check my understanding of the rules here?  My sister has a new baby, which I believe means we can form a support bubble between our two households.
> We live about 30 miles apart and I am in a tier 2 area while she is tier 3.
> That's ok though, right?


Yes, as long as you're not in a support bubble with anyone else. .gov website just says it's "best" to form bubbles with people who live locally to avoid spreading the virus between areas but visiting your support bubble is given as an example of when it would be ok to travel outside your tier 3 area in the guidance.


----------



## strung out (Dec 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> I went out for a walk on Christmas Day and walked past a semi detached house - maybe 2 living rooms - just at the point the guests were leaving. It was a couple with 2 kids, so I started thinking 'so, there must have been them and maybe a couple in the house, 6 in total'. But no, another 7 people came out, which would have meant 11 guests and at least 2 residents. Fuck me, it might _just _have been legal as we are tier 3, depending on how many families the 11 guests fell into, but it was astonishingly stupid.  I'd say about 6 of them were kids, so very little chance of social distancing.


Best not to think about it. There's every chance they were following the rules if it's a couple of big families, and if that's the case, who can blame people for following the guidance? Given you've no idea what their circumstances were, you'll only end up going to some pretty depressing places if you just assume the worst every time.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 27, 2020)

^ Me, thinking about people 'following the guidance'.

There will be lots of cases where people can't countenance not being with people, mental health is a fiddly and individual bugger. But I can't help feeling a lot of people are doing things simply to avoid feeling even just a bit sad.

Maybe that's uncharitable, or missing the point, I dunno.


----------



## Thora (Dec 27, 2020)

I do find it a bit weird that some have moved from criticising those ignoring the rules, to criticising those following the rules as they should be restricting themselves more than the actual restrictions


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 27, 2020)

Thora said:


> I do find it a bit weird that some have moved from criticising those ignoring the rules, to criticising those following the rules as they should be restricting themselves more than the actual restrictions


For what it's worth, I've always thought we should be restricting ourselves more than (most of) the official restrictions, which have frequently been demonstrated to fall far short of what is actually necessary.


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## Artaxerxes (Dec 27, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> For what it's worth, I've always thought we should be restricting ourselves more than (most of) the official restrictions, which have frequently been demonstrated to fall far short of what is actually necessary.



"Do you need to travel to eat or work?"
"If no, stay at home"

It makes for a simple but effective flow chart


----------



## kabbes (Dec 27, 2020)

The fact that there are many antisocial things that are not actually illegal and people do those antisocial things is why a previous authoritarian government ended up creating the ability to criminalise things that are antisocial but not illegal.  It’s totally appropriate to point out that “I’m going to get as close to the law as possible on everything I can” is not actually a great way to behave.


----------



## Looby (Dec 27, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> For what it's worth, I've always thought we should be restricting ourselves more than (most of) the official restrictions, which have frequently been demonstrated to fall far short of what is actually necessary.


Yeah this. There have been quite a few times when we have restricted ourselves far more than the guidance and our tier dictates.
The only time we’ve sat in a room with other people since March is for two days in Devon during a holiday when a friend and her daughter joined us. We’d both been careful and cases were very low in the area at that time.
Today we went for lunch, we booked a table in a garden only to find they’ve put a tent in the garden so it basically felt like we were indoors.
We were well distanced from other tables and staff wore masks but it wasn’t what we expected.
I didn’t feel particularly comfortable so we ate quickly and left. I probably won’t eat out again for ages now but will check it really is a garden table next time.


----------



## elbows (Dec 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Anyway, I think there's a fair chance there will be specific peak a few days after Christmas Day.



I dont know how much it will stand out in various data because the picture going in was already of massively rising infections and hospitalisations in some regions. And some of the data will probably suffer from less reporting/less testing over certain holiday dates, so I would expect some spikes and instability in the numbers at times during the holiday period. eg an unknown number of people people wont have been tested on Christmas day because it was Christmas day, and some of those will end up getting a test on a different day and will end up in later data.

I wouldnt go as far as to say that the post-christmas spike narrative has gotten on my nerves, but it does befuddle me on the occasions where the anticipation of it emerging in future data almost seems to distract from the very terrible things that have already been shown by data in December, especially the more recent data.

eg look at the number of UK positive cases by specimen date and the number of covid-19 patients in hospitals per english region. There are already Christmas holes in this data, especially for the hospital figures which currently only go up to December 24th, and I'm really not looking forward to seeing what actually happened next with things like the number of London covid-19 hospital patients.




Daily UK Covid-19 deaths have also already hit a 2nd wave high of 505 for 21st December, with more data still likely to come through for that and other dates.


----------



## elbows (Dec 27, 2020)

So with that in mind, when it comes time to look for Christmas related spikes, might have more luck looking to regions where the things were not already shooting up with such intensity that a Christmas virus multiplier may barely stand out.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 27, 2020)

Anecdotally I didn't see a lot of activity in my local area over Christmas - pretty much normal lockdown 2 behaviour, and the regs are just an extension of that really. A few people meeting up in the park in more than six  some grannies going round to houses etc but not a lot.

I've spent many Christmases alone and really this wasn't much different if at all. Everything is shut and it's boring as hell.


----------



## elbows (Dec 27, 2020)

Another ominous indicator for London.

**


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 27, 2020)

Aye, my EMT in training friend has said over Christmas she's been dealing almost exclusively in Covid cases, which hasn't been the case for a while.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 27, 2020)

Also, anecdotally, the road outside our house seemed pretty deserted on the 25th, almost nobody out driving after about 11:30 until 16:30 and then, only a few cars - at least one of which I know is a nurse at the local hospital.

Traffic on Saturday and Sunday has been almost exclusively cars, but not many of them. Normally we get a few waggons per hour trundling past.
[if that goes up to every few minutes, plus lots of cars, we can surmise that the local main East/West route is blocked in at least one direction - it gets absolutely manic if both directions are affected !].

We are keeping to our current plan of "shielding" until we get our jabs. The local area figures appear to have decreased, but only very slightly.


----------



## Mation (Dec 27, 2020)

Brainaddict said:


> All this talk about distancing still. I don't think it is worth thinking about if you are indoors in confined spaces, eating and talking together. It would be misunderstanding how the virus spreads to be thinking that stay 1-2m apart would help you in that situation.


I'd have thought distancing is still important in any situation where droplet transmission could be a significant factor. So even outdoors or in a well-ventilated room, but without masks, being too close to each other, face-to-face, seems (to me; happy to be corrected) to be risky.

If what you meant is that we need to put a shed load more emphasis on ventilation indoors, then I'd completely agree.


Wilf said:


> I agree, but sitting in a classroom is not as risky as sitting on the sofa with your nan who has been shielding for 6 months.


Not as risky how?


----------



## elbows (Dec 27, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> There's still no more coverage of the latest SAGE predictions. I was expecting that 83,000 more deaths in the UK would get a bit more attention.
> 
> This is from the first bit of the Mail article:



Coverage is limited at the moment due to journalists being on holiday. Plus some publications would rather seek out this sort of modelling report at a moment when there is anticipation of a really imminent new government decision and announcement, so we may yet hear more about that particular modelling in future. Also the Daily Mail has an absolutely awful attitude in this pandemic, but their never-ending scrolling pages are well suited to reporting large quantities of graphs and data in their stories, whereas others often want to distill things down into one or two key charts and facts.

Also when this sort of thing is reported the reporting often drives me mad because the reports framing is often as narrow as the modelling scenarios, and I feel the need to expand things out and put the modelling conclusions in a broader context. So I shall do that now with this one:

When they speak of so many tens of thousands more deaths in 2021 unless the vaccination programme is massively ramped up, its because they have only looked at and modelled a few scenarios. In this case their scenarios and modelling are a combination of different sorts of tier restrictions and a few different strengths of January lockdown, coupled with a couple of different amounts of vaccination. Other scenarios exist and are not considered in that paper, but should be considered when discussing the subject. The most obvious examples are around the theme of repeated lockdowns and restrictions, and it is normal not to see enough of such scenarios modelled because they are assumed to be politically unpalatable. But we have already seen in this pandemic that just because they want to avoid repeated lockdowns, doesnt mean they actually will be able to. In this case the modelling people only modelled a January lockdown. If I wanted to achieve a lower level of death than they project, but could not manage to increase vaccinations to the level they suggest is needed, then I would be asking them to model a subsequent lockdown, other measures etc.


----------



## elbows (Dec 27, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Aye, my EMT in training friend has said over Christmas she's been dealing almost exclusively in Covid cases, which hasn't been the case for a while.



And the BBC news website is now leading with more London ambulance stats that put things in perspective:



> *London Ambulance Service (LAS) received as many emergency calls on 26 December as it did at the height of the first wave of Covid-19, the BBC has learned. *
> 
> Nearly 8,000 calls were received, a 40% increase on a typical "busy" day.
> 
> Patient demand was "now arguably greater" than during the first wave, an internal message to all staff said.











						Covid-19: London Ambulance Service receives as many 999 calls as first wave
					

Patient demand is equal "and now arguably greater" than at the first wave's peak, the service says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 27, 2020)

If someone lese hasn't already posted ...

UK vaccination total, 8th to 20th December was 616, 933 "first round" jabs. 
The process is now rolling out to care homes, (initially the 50 - 75 residents sized ones) ...
and jabs will continue over the crimble period.

Figures coming out weekly on the dashboard under healthcare ...

[Here's hoping that the Oxford jab get's the green light soon from the MRHA, as ramping that up will greatly improve the vaccinations rate, as it doesn't need that very cold distribution chain]


----------



## Wilf (Dec 27, 2020)

Mation said:


> Not as risky how?


Suppose I'm thinking about 2 things.  Not suggesting school classrooms are without risk, quite the opposite. However there is an assumption of social distancing. There's a good chance that a lot of Christmas visits have been less well managed and have less cubic metres per person. The other thing is that a fair number of Christmas visits will involve older people who have been de fact shielding up and close with family members who have been keeping away all year.  

My guess is that say a million people mixing in up to 3 family groups on Christmas Day will cause more infections than a million kids going to school for the day. Significantly so. Also, given the oldies involved, Christmas Day infections will have more serious consequences for those infected.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 27, 2020)

strung out said:


> Best not to think about it. There's every chance they were following the rules if it's a couple of big families, and if that's the case, who can blame people for following the guidance? Given you've no idea what their circumstances were, you'll only end up going to some pretty depressing places if you just assume the worst every time.


If it was what it looked to be it was pretty daft, though I've made the same point as you when people have made 'look at those selfish cunts' type posts. Yeah, I agree, this is down to the government's stupidity in announcing the rules and thus expectations back in November. And it's equally down to their cowardice in failing to change their advice even at the point they got the data on the new strains.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 27, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Suppose I'm thinking about 2 things.  Not suggesting school classrooms are without risk, quite the opposite. However there is an assumption of social distancing. There's a good chance that a lot of Christmas visits have been less well managed and have less cubic metres per person. The other thing is that a fair number of Christmas visits will involve older people who have been de fact shielding up and close with family members who have been keeping away all year.
> 
> My guess is that say a million people mixing in up to 3 family groups on Christmas Day will cause more infections than a million kids going to school for the day. Significantly so. Also, given the oldies involved, Christmas Day infections will have more serious consequences for those infected.



I'm hoping that the news of approaching vaccinations will have persuaded quite a few oldies to hold off having / going to big family or even three household gatherings "Why risk it now, when the jabs are so close ?"


----------



## Mation (Dec 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Suppose I'm thinking about 2 things.  Not suggesting school classrooms are without risk, quite the opposite. However there is an assumption of social distancing. There's a good chance that a lot of Christmas visits have been less well managed and have less cubic metres per person. The other thing is that a fair number of Christmas visits will involve older people who have been de fact shielding up and close with family members who have been keeping away all year.
> 
> My guess is that say a million people mixing in up to 3 family groups on Christmas Day will cause more infections than a million kids going to school for the day. Significantly so. Also, given the oldies involved, Christmas Day infections will have more serious consequences for those infected.


I've no idea on that calculation of Christmas mixing vs a school day.

I wouldn't assume that classrooms have more distancing, in the actuality of how people move around, rather than where desks are placed. Or that distancing is the main indoor transmission risk. Or indeed that whether you've spent time around people implies you're less of a risk to or from them. (Not sure whether you were suggesting the latter.)

Plus, not all classrooms contain younger people. And, even if they did, and their infection didn't affect them as badly as it might someone older, who are they potentially passing it on to?

(Started off with 'find some common ground' firmly in mind, but seem to have ended up disagreeing with everything  )


----------



## Wilf (Dec 28, 2020)

Mation said:


> I've no idea on that calculation of Christmas mixing vs a school day.
> 
> I wouldn't assume that classrooms have more distancing, in the actuality of how people move around, rather than where desks are placed. Or that distancing is the main indoor transmission risk. Or indeed that whether you've spent time around people implies you're less of a risk to or from them. (Not sure whether you were suggesting the latter.)
> 
> ...


Can't even remember what I was responding to when this started   but I suspect I was getting into Xmas Day v Schools because 'X v Schools' is a common thing that that gets debated and quantified through this whole thing.  In the end I don't know how much damage was done by allowing 3 families to mix at Christmas, but I'm angry as much as anything for them deciding in advance and being so dominated by political short-termism that they refused to change tack. Fwiw, I thing schools and, most of all, teachers have been ill used throughout, with the Tories using it to batter the unions.  It really is a government with the worst set of instincts possible for managing something like this.


----------



## Hyperdark (Dec 28, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I'm hoping that the news of approaching vaccinations will have persuaded quite a few oldies to hold off having / going to big family or even three household gatherings "Why risk it now, when the jabs are so close ?"



How quickly people forget past performance when told something they want to believe in.
Even if the gov fullfills its stated desire of a million vaccinations a day (a very low probability imo), its going to take a year. 
Handcocks announcements on vaccines arent worth the paper they where written on and if you notice the rapidity that his smirking delivery of a couple of weeks ago has again ftransformed into stern headmaster mode then its reasonable to assume that he knows just how fucked we all are.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 28, 2020)

Gove tells Sky that, as of today, the government intend to go ahead with a staggered return to schools from January 4th:


----------



## maomao (Dec 28, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Gove tells Sky that, as of today, the government intend to go ahead with a staggered return to schools from January 4th:
> 
> View attachment 245769


Wouldn't take that as much of a sign tbh. Part of the reason this government U-turns so often and so conspicuously is the way they stick to their previous course of action until the moment of the policy change. I wouldn't expect them to actually change policy until the day before term starts.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 28, 2020)

Is that really news? I thought that was already well known (?)


----------



## Supine (Dec 28, 2020)

SAGE have proposed schools shouldn't open in January. Obviously the government always follows the science.


----------



## maomao (Dec 28, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Is that really news? I thought that was already well known (?)


There was meant to be a meeting between dfe and the pm on the 23rd to decide what was happening but the incontinent twat was too drunk or something so it was postponed till today. So obviously they're spending the morning announcing that they're very certain about what's happening before they've even discussed it. I'd expect a u turn at some point though hopefully not at the end of January when it's all too late.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 28, 2020)

Hopefully they will do something like staggered days for different year groups and combine it with online learning. I don't quite see why the UK seems so anti online learning. In Turkey the schools switched to it almost overnight.


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## kabbes (Dec 28, 2020)

miss direct said:


> . I don't quite see why the UK seems so anti online learning. In Turkey the schools switched to it almost overnight.


 Because they want the parents back at work


----------



## existentialist (Dec 28, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Because they want the parents back at work


One of the biggest PR fuckups I think they've made is their attempt to try and justify their relentless attitude towards school closures without actually telling the truth about this. I've a feeling that most people would react more positively to "we need the schools open, so you guys can go to work instead of having to be untrained teachers", rather than all this bollocks about how kids can't catch Covid, or whatever...which always reeks slightly of "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" when I hear them trying to peddle it.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 28, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Because they want the parents back at work


I don't really get that when it comes to secondary students. Maybe I grew up in a different age, but do they need two parents to be at home to supervise them doing online lessons? Aren't there still plenty of people working from home? (Yes, obviously some families have different circumstances etc etc)

(I have personal issues with this as I'm supposed to start working in a secondary school in January - since there are no masks required in class or any proper precautions taken, I'd much rather do it online...)


----------



## Thora (Dec 28, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I don't really get that when it comes to secondary students. Maybe I grew up in a different age, but do they need two parents to be at home to supervise them doing online lessons? Aren't there still plenty of people working from home? (Yes, obviously some families have different circumstances etc etc)
> 
> (I have personal issues with this as I'm supposed to start working in a secondary school in January - since there are no masks required in class or any proper precautions taken, I'd much rather do it online...)


Secondary (maybe year 8+) could stay home alone but the problem for a lot of families will be access.  Online learning is hard on a phone or once computer shared between multiple siblings.

I think what has been promised so far is exam years and primary children in to school and secondary children have a delayed start.


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## miss direct (Dec 28, 2020)

I get it... some children will miss out, but I don't see that as something completely impossible to get over with a bit of creativity and forethought from government/schools. Work might be set online but not necessarily require continuous access. Packs could be delivered to children with poor internet access. Obviously not ideal but better than continuing the spread, I would have thought.
In Turkey they make use of state run TV channels. Having said all that, some children there have now missed 10 months of schooling and many of those in villages almost certainly haven't taken part in distance learning. There's really no good solution


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## TopCat (Dec 28, 2020)

I cant find up to date data on hospital bed occupancy.  Any signposts gratefully received etc


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## Thora (Dec 28, 2020)

miss direct said:


> I get it... some children will miss out, but I don't see that as something completely impossible to get over with a bit of creativity and forethought from government/schools. Work might be set online but not necessarily require continuous access. Packs could be delivered to children with poor internet access. Obviously not ideal but better than continuing the spread, I would have thought.
> In Turkey they make use of state run TV channels. Having said all that, some children there have now missed 10 months of schooling and many of those in villages almost certainly haven't taken part in distance learning. There's really no good solution


The govt are not prepared to put any money into education despite stating it’s a priority


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## miss direct (Dec 28, 2020)

Thora said:


> The govt are not prepared to put any money into education despite stating it’s a priority


How much initiative are schools allowed to show? Do they have to follow exact DofE guidelines or is there any flexibility? The job I'm starting is government funded and aimed at helping students catch up. In fact, part of the application was related to supporting students who are self isolating/shielding with online learning. Since I've been teaching online all year, I very much hope the school make the best of me and actually use me for that.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 28, 2020)

And how fucking short sighted is this? Reported in October mind, middle of the pandemic.









						Laptop allocation for England's schools slashed by 80%
					

Headteachers are told they will receive far fewer laptops for distance learning than they were first promised




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## 2hats (Dec 28, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I cant find up to date data on hospital bed occupancy.  Any signposts gratefully received etc


For England the latest public data is from 24 Dec: 18,227 COVID patients in hospital. For the whole UK the latest data was issued for 22 Dec: 21,286.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 28, 2020)

2hats said:


> For England the latest public data is from 24 Dec: 18,227 COVID patients in hospital. For the whole UK the latest data was issued for 22 Dec: 21,286.


Is there a total number of beds data or a %? 
I wondered how many beds were left.


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## 2hats (Dec 28, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Is there a total number of beds data or a %?
> I wondered how many beds were left.


Numbers of COVID patients.


----------



## Thora (Dec 28, 2020)

miss direct said:


> How much initiative are schools allowed to show? Do they have to follow exact DofE guidelines or is there any flexibility? The job I'm starting is government funded and aimed at helping students catch up. In fact, part of the application was related to supporting students who are self isolating/shielding with online learning. Since I've been teaching online all year, I very much hope the school make the best of me and actually use me for that.


Schools are absolutely banned from moving online or operating any kind of rota, and the govt has threatened legal action against schools that have tried.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 28, 2020)

Thora said:


> Schools are absolutely banned from moving online or operating any kind of rota, and the govt has threatened legal action against schools that have tried.


Was that the case when schools closed in Spring? Did students just not have any work to do?


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## Thora (Dec 28, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Was that the case when schools closed in Spring? Did students just not have any work to do?


The govt suspended the curriculum during the first lockdown so it was up to individual schools to work out what they should do.
Schools now have a legal obligation to provide the full curriculum to children at home isolating/due to a class being sent home.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 28, 2020)

two sheds said:


> And how fucking short sighted is this? Reported in October mind, middle of the pandemic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Also the few laptops provided had no software installed at all.


----------



## chilango (Dec 28, 2020)

miss direct said:


> How much initiative are schools allowed to show? Do they have to follow exact DofE guidelines or is there any flexibility? The job I'm starting is government funded and aimed at helping students catch up. In fact, part of the application was related to supporting students who are self isolating/shielding with online learning. Since I've been teaching online all year, I very much hope the school make the best of me and actually use me for that.



Most, but not all, of the State schools I know are terrified at the best of times of breaching regs and spend a huge amount of time generating work that is purely arse covering. During Lockdown I they were like rabbits in headlights. Paralyzed regarding online provision for fear of breaching some safeguarding or GDPR guideline. That stance played nicely with the substantial numbers of teachers who lacked the skills, confidence or kit to use remote tech.

Not all schools were like this though. Private schools, IME, responded with more "agility" and quickly rolled out comprehensive _(sic)_ online provision.

I think more schools will be better prepared during the coming Lockdown III but it will still be very patchy, very inconsistent and hamstrung by bureaucratic inertia.

That's just what I've seen though. The situation may be different in other snapshots.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 28, 2020)

It's such a shame because there is so much that can be done online. I'm a huge advocate now after doing it non stop for months and seeing the possibilities. In Turkey we literally switched overnight - yes, there were some struggles along the way, but everyone is learning together and there are massive amounts of tolerance from everyone involved, for the most part. The UKs obsession with things like safeguarding/paperwork really limits things at times.


----------



## chilango (Dec 28, 2020)

miss direct said:


> It's such a shame because there is so much that can be done online. I'm a huge advocate now after doing it non stop for months and seeing the possibilities. In Turkey we literally switched overnight - yes, there were some struggles along the way, but everyone is learning together and there are massive amounts of tolerance from everyone involved, for the most part. The UKs obsession with things like safeguarding/paperwork really limits things at times.



I've done online teaching, and online learning. prior to Covid. Sometimes it was great, sometimes awful.

The little HE teaching I did last term was better (from my pov) online than in person. But there is no ideal solution, just as there wasn't pre-Covid. Education is such a site of conflicting and antagonistic interests, aims and values that this is inevitable.


----------



## zora (Dec 28, 2020)

Ugh, I keep turning to the news, hoping against hope that anyone is gonna come out with the long-absent strategy at last how to get this under control.
We are all just gonna be left to scrape along under Tier 3/4/5 for the next six months until the effect of the vaccinations takes hold, with the NHS at its absolute breaking point, right? No talk of suppressing the virus under a certain incidence or anything like that, is there?


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 28, 2020)

zora said:


> Ugh, I keep turning to the news, hoping against hope that anyone is gonna come out with the long-absent strategy at last how to get this under control.
> We are all just gonna be left to scrape along under Tier 3/4/5 for the next six months until the effect of the vaccinations takes hold, with the NHS at its absolute breaking point, right? No talk of suppressing the virus under a certain incidence or anything like that, is there?


Exactly my fear.


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 28, 2020)

zora said:


> Ugh, I keep turning to the news, hoping against hope that anyone is gonna come out with the long-absent strategy at last how to get this under control.
> We are all just gonna be left to scrape along under Tier 3/4/5 for the next six months until the effect of the vaccinations takes hold, with the NHS at its absolute breaking point, right? No talk of suppressing the virus under a certain incidence or anything like that, is there?


Yeah, that seems to be the 'plan', such as it is. It's pretty shit. As is the fact that there's no accountability when the press is mostly on the government's side.

I'm thinking that increased vaccination rates will converge with better weather to make for lower hospitalisation rates in spring rather than having to wait for summer. But that will be a dangerous period as well, when the virus will be spreading among younger people still and leaving lots of them with long covid. Because the press has obssessed about deaths (taking their lead from the government) there will probably still be too little focus on long covid and a lot of healthy people will have their health ruined as a result. It's pretty shit knowing this is going to happen and feeling like there's nothing that can be done about it unless the press change their ways. But we all know they'll mostly be triumphalist about the dropping hospitalisation and death rate rather than focusing on the doom and gloom of long covid.


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2020)

zora said:


> Ugh, I keep turning to the news, hoping against hope that anyone is gonna come out with the long-absent strategy at last how to get this under control.
> We are all just gonna be left to scrape along under Tier 3/4/5 for the next six months until the effect of the vaccinations takes hold, with the NHS at its absolute breaking point, right? No talk of suppressing the virus under a certain incidence or anything like that, is there?



What you wrote_ is _the 'strategy'.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 28, 2020)

.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 28, 2020)

Latest lab results (Lighthouse, MK; samples not necessarily all from the surrounding/catchment area) suggest a big jump in positivity rates over the last few days and the _UK SE variant_ dominating (now about 80%).


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 28, 2020)

511.8 cases per 100,000 where I am


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 28, 2020)

chilango said:


> Most, but not all, of the State schools I know are terrified at the best of times of breaching regs and spend a huge amount of time generating work that is purely arse covering. During Lockdown I they were like rabbits in headlights. Paralyzed regarding online provision for fear of breaching some safeguarding or GDPR guideline. That stance played nicely with the substantial numbers of teachers who lacked the skills, confidence or kit to use remote tech.
> 
> Not all schools were like this though. Private schools, IME, responded with more "agility" and quickly rolled out comprehensive _(sic)_ online provision.
> 
> ...


The government here use one of the free terrestrial  state channels during the day for online teaching.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 28, 2020)

Badgers said:


> Also the few laptops provided had no software installed at all.


Cunts. Cynical ones, at that. We are operating like some kind of corrupt, crime-ridden kleptocracy. Isn't it about time someone fell out of an aircraft, or something?


----------



## Badgers (Dec 28, 2020)

Fucking hell


----------



## Badgers (Dec 28, 2020)

existentialist said:


> Cunts. Cynical ones, at that. We are operating like some kind of corrupt, crime-ridden kleptocracy. Isn't it about time someone fell out of an aircraft, or something?


The underfunded school my sister works at had to pay for the software out of their tiny budgets. They are already struggling for basics and my dad is buying a lot of books, stationery and stuff for her classes. 

I fucking hate the fucking Tories so much


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Is there a total number of beds data or a %?
> I wondered how many beds were left.



There is now some data of that type published weekly. I havent tried to analyse it yet, I probably will soon, but its already out of date (latest version goes up to December 22nd).

I dont know how complete it is. Consists of three spreadsheet tabs: Adult General & Acute beds occupied Covid, Adult General & Acute beds occupied non-Covid, Adult General & Acute beds unoccupied. Totals for England, for each English region, and per hospital trust.

Weekly file I mention is at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## two sheds (Dec 28, 2020)

With the new Covid variant everywhere, it's not enough to just wait for the vaccine | Stephen Reicher
					

New UK-wide restrictions are now essential. At Independent Sage, we’ve come up with an emergency plan, says psychology professor Stephen Reicher




					www.theguardian.com
				




Good short summary of what needs to be done by someone from Independent Sage, including stuff that people on here have been banging on about for some time.


----------



## andysays (Dec 28, 2020)

zora said:


> Ugh, I keep turning to the news, hoping against hope that anyone is gonna come out with the long-absent strategy at last how to get this under control.
> We are all just gonna be left to scrape along under Tier 3/4/5 for the next six months until the effect of the vaccinations takes hold, with the NHS at its absolute breaking point, right? No talk of suppressing the virus under a certain incidence or anything like that, is there?


As others have said, that's basically what the strategy has always been.

Protect the economy while claiming it's the NHS we're concerned about, by imposing inadequate and ill thought out "lockdowns" which aren't really anything of the sort, and just hope for some sort of magic bullet.

But the magic bullet of testing was misfired, and I wouldn't be altogether surprised if the vaccination programme is too.


----------



## editor (Dec 28, 2020)

two sheds said:


> With the new Covid variant everywhere, it's not enough to just wait for the vaccine | Stephen Reicher
> 
> 
> New UK-wide restrictions are now essential. At Independent Sage, we’ve come up with an emergency plan, says psychology professor Stephen Reicher
> ...


Yep. All of which should have been done ages ago 



> This takes us to the second point: national control measures are essential. Further restrictions are necessary in two main areas. The first of these is personal travel, especially international travel. This must be monitored and regulated effectively, with advance application for travel to and from the UK, a negative PCR test prior to travel and managed isolation on arrival. The second area is education. Schools should remain closed until buildings are made as safe as possible for pupils and staff. This includes smaller class sizes (achieved through hiring extra teachers and teaching rooms), adequate ventilation and free masks for all pupils.
> 
> Universities should move to online teaching as the default until Easter at least. This will allow students to study from home, avoiding issues arising from travel and crowded campus accommodation. For school, college and university students, there should be universal provision of computers and wifi connections to ensure everyone can study remotely. Schoolchildren without space for home study should be taught along with vulnerable children and children of key workers.
> 
> ...


----------



## zora (Dec 28, 2020)

And none of which will be done, apart from possibly trying to ramp up the vaccination programme.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 28, 2020)

editor said:


> Yep. All of which should have been done ages ago



ta - I should have quoted it in the first place.


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2020)

zora said:


> And none of which will be done, apart from possibly trying to ramp up the vaccination programme.



I feel quite frustrated at the vaccine program so far tbh. A few of us were chatting the other night and we came up with some ideas to get it running locally, they just seem so obvious to us (backgrounds in NHS, planning, logistics) it's quite baffling why they don't seem to be getting done ready for the Oxford vaccine roll-out (assuming we're not all just idiots and are making wild unworkable ideas to each other). I've packed in some part of my work and am chasing links to be involved with the vaccine program from a number of different angles, all of which seem painfully slow and inefficient.


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2020)

elbows said:


> There is now some data of that type published weekly. I havent tried to analyse it yet, I probably will soon, but its already out of date (latest version goes up to December 22nd).
> 
> I dont know how complete it is. Consists of three spreadsheet tabs: Adult General & Acute beds occupied Covid, Adult General & Acute beds occupied non-Covid, Adult General & Acute beds unoccupied. Totals for England, for each English region, and per hospital trust.
> 
> Weekly file I mention is at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity



I've now done a few graphs. The data doesnt go back very far, and the numbers for the whole of England tell a somewhat subtle story.



When looking at the regional data and focussing on the regions we know have had big increases in cases, things are a little clearer. For example we see that it looks like they have been reducing the number of non-Covid patients to free up room for Covid ones. Although some part of that will actually be as a result non-Covid patients catching it in hospital and being reclassified as a result.

For example, this is London:



The South East and East of England looks similar to that. Other regions I looked at so far such as the Midlands are much flatter in all respects.

Caveats include the fact that this data doesnt include certain kinds of patients/beds, for example HDU/ITU beds are not counted in these stats. And in general I would take unoccupied beds stats with a pinch of salt since some of that theoretical capacity may not actually be available in practice.


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2020)

andysays said:


> As others have said, that's basically what the strategy has always been.
> 
> Protect the economy while claiming it's the NHS we're concerned about, by imposing inadequate and ill thought out "lockdowns" which aren't really anything of the sort, and just hope for some sort of magic bullet.
> 
> But the magic bullet of testing was misfired, and I wouldn't be altogether surprised if the vaccination programme is too.



They are concerned about the NHS from an operational viewpoint, which is why its usually possible to predict the next u-turn by looking at hospital data.

Their balancing act is skewed towards the economy but we've already seen that they dont really believe wholeheartedly in a lot of those magic bullets, those things are said for morale and propaganda purposes, and for use in times where they dont want to go further with measures. However, when the hospital data reaches a certain level their balancing act changes and they do impose restrictions that damage the economy, in an attempt to stop the NHS being overwhelmed. Other unsavoury aspects of 'protecting the NHS' also exist, such as managing service demand by changing admission requirements and leaving some people to die at home. And the whole 'discharge people to care homes' thing in the first wave, not sure how much that is happening in the second wave and the media arent going near that subject much these days.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 28, 2020)

zora said:


> Ugh, I keep turning to the news, hoping against hope that anyone is gonna come out with the long-absent strategy at last how to get this under control.
> We are all just gonna be left to scrape along under Tier 3/4/5 for the next six months until the effect of the vaccinations takes hold, with the NHS at its absolute breaking point, right? No talk of suppressing the virus under a certain incidence or anything like that, is there?


Yep, that.  Absolutely no sense of using the resources of government - and communities - to bear down on the virus. Just flopping between 'get to work, tiers, keep the shops open, keep the universities open, we are not listening to scientist's warnings' and 'oh fuck, the NHS could be overwhelmed, we'd better have a semi-lockdown'.  

Their politics are a major part of why this has been a disaster, certainly. But there's just a real failure of 'leadership', an _ongoing _failure.  So many deeply stupid things like keeping the airports open and keeping the universities open, all of which were idiotic individual decisions. But it's the lack of a central drive to create conditions which make it harder for the virus to spread that define the bigger disaster.  As an anarchist, I'm not that big on 'leadership', but fucking hell, that's supposed to be _their _game.  It's about the wider administration but is so much about johnson. It's hard to imagine someone less suited to the job at this moment.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 28, 2020)

Badgers said:


> The underfunded school my sister works at had to pay for the software out of their tiny budgets. They are already struggling for basics and my dad is buying a lot of books, stationery and stuff for her classes.
> 
> I fucking hate the fucking Tories so much


And I just _know_ that Libreoffice (or something else that was free) would just not have been Good Enough - you don't teach your kids to become slaves to the corporatocracy by encouraging them to use libre software...that's pretty much Communism, right there


----------



## Wilf (Dec 28, 2020)

editor said:


> Yep. All of which should have been done ages ago


That's essentially a list of the main headings, pandemic control 101. Can you imagine people having to call for this nearly 12 fucking months into the pandemic?


----------



## existentialist (Dec 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I feel quite frustrated at the vaccine program so far tbh. A few of us were chatting the other night and we came up with some ideas to get it running locally, they just seem so obvious to us (backgrounds in NHS, planning, logistics) it's quite baffling why they don't seem to be getting done ready for the Oxford vaccine roll-out (assuming we're not all just idiots and are making wild unworkable ideas to each other). I've packed in some part of my work and am chasing links to be involved with the vaccine program from a number of different angles, all of which seem painfully slow and inefficient.


I am totally, and utterly, unsurprised to hear this. It has reached the point where, for this Government to do something speedily, efficiently, and without somehow managing to smear themselves with the taint of corruption along the way would be a truly remarkable thing. And almost certainly an illusion.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I feel quite frustrated at the vaccine program so far tbh. A few of us were chatting the other night and we came up with some ideas to get it running locally, they just seem so obvious to us (backgrounds in NHS, planning, logistics) it's quite baffling why they don't seem to be getting done ready for the Oxford vaccine roll-out (assuming we're not all just idiots and are making wild unworkable ideas to each other). I've packed in some part of my work and am chasing links to be involved with the vaccine program from a number of different angles, all of which seem painfully slow and inefficient.



There seems a fair bit of planning going on around here, GP surgeries coming together to provide vaccination centres, and the recruitment of people to give the vaccine, my SiS has been accepted onto the training course for that.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> There seems a fair bit of planning going on around here, GP surgeries coming together to provide vaccination centres, and the recruitment of people to give the vaccine, my SiS has been accepted onto the training course for that.



And that's before the Oxford/Astra/Zeneca vaccine approval from MHRA, surely imminent now, with all the additional supplies of already-ordered Oxford doses.

What I tend to hope is that what LynnDoyleCooper describes about vaccination planning isn't the same everywhere. Although it should be and in a much better way, it's possible? that not everywhere is as bad?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 28, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> And that's before the Oxford/Astra/Zeneca vaccione approval from MHRA, surely imminent now, with all the additional supplies of already-ordered Oxford doses.
> 
> What I tend to hope is that what LynnDoyleCooper describes about vaccination planning isn't the same everywhere. Although it should be and in a much better way, it's possible? that not everywhere is as bad?



Well after the disastrous centralised track & trace system run by private operators, the vaccination programme is being run by the NHS, so I guess it's going to be down to regional/local Trusts, some no doubt will be better than others in organising it.

Luckily we have a very good Trust, so good that it took over running the Brighton Trust when that went into special measures some years ago, and now the government has written off their debts, a full on merger take-over is planned.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 28, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Aye, my EMT in training friend has said over Christmas she's been dealing almost exclusively in Covid cases, which hasn't been the case for a while.


My friend is now picking up extra hours after seeing colleagues post about "barely hanging on".

Speaking of one in particular: "she had small cuts on her face from the constant PPE, and I've never known her to be down but she was at the end of her reserves, she’s just an example, I’ve been seeing the same thing from others too"

And still people think this is exaggerated


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 28, 2020)

Another record of 41,385 new cases reported today.   

Plus 357 more deaths, but that'll be low, because of the weekend lag.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 28, 2020)

Not sure if this is the right place to post this ...

Coronavirus: Hundreds of British skiers flee Swiss Verbier quarantine - BBC News 

a) what the F****ing hell were they doing there in the first place ?
and b) running out of a quarantined area is an exceptionally shitty and selfish thing to do.

When these anti-social wankers get home, they need to be locked up. [for breaking quarantine & travelling when potentially infected]


----------



## Hyperdark (Dec 28, 2020)

*StoneRoad*

I Often look at the aircraft tracking sites and one thing that has been very apparent all the way through this is the large number of Private and charter aircraft swanning back and forth from airports like Farnborough, they havnt stopped all year.
This country is systemicaly corrupt, hard cash can circumvent many restrictions and The CAA are not interested in policing national lockdown regulations, not one little bit.


----------



## Doodler (Dec 28, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Not sure if this is the right place to post this ...
> 
> Coronavirus: Hundreds of British skiers flee Swiss Verbier quarantine - BBC News
> 
> ...



Real sense of deja vu there. In the early days of the pandemic people coming back from skiing trips were notable spreaders.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 28, 2020)

Hyperdark said:


> *StoneRoad*
> 
> I Often look at the aircraft tracking sites and one thing that has been very apparent all the way through this is the large number of Private and charter aircraft swanning back and forth from airports like Farnborough, they havnt stopped all year.
> This country is systemicaly corrupt, hard cash can circumvent many restrictions and The CAA are not interested in policing national lockdown regulations, not one little bit.



Flight and flying has been my number one pet peeve about the government this year. Flights are low but it's not just been a skeleton service and far greater controls and testing needs to have taken place at airports sooner. 

Other countries are doing ok with it, the UK isn't.

Ministers insisting it was fine to take a holiday abroad in June and July? Fuck. Off.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 28, 2020)

I still remember my horror at arriving at Gatwick in June (not a holiday - moving back to the UK as was no longer legally allowed to stay where I was) - I had a mask and a visor. Masks had been compulsory anywhere outside your home in Turkey for months, and I was extremely anxious about flying. 

The only airport worker who had a mask on was the guy cleaning the toilets, and the cow on immigration gave me a filthy look and told me to "remove that paraphernalia".

I was also the only Brit on the plane, judging by the languages/passports/miscommunication going on at immigration. People arriving who didn't even know where they were going - a whole group of Russians "going to London because they were starting a job on a ship" but had no idea where the ship was or how they were getting there. 

This was a few days before compulsory quarantine on arrival started. 

I was so disappointed and frankly, scared, on arrival  What an utter shitshow.


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Real sense of deja vu there. In the early days of the pandemic people coming back from skiing trips were notable spreaders.



Yeah first person I knew of through personal contact was a young and fit workmate of my cousin who got it skiing in February. Ended up in ICU for a bit.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 28, 2020)

It would appear that the NHS is under a lot of pressure:


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 28, 2020)

I was shocked to hear Southampton hospital was getting ready to accept patients from Kent, that's around 70-100 miles away.   

Oh, found a link...



> A consultant at Southampton general hospital said: “Our general intensive care unit footprint is now completely overfull of Covid patients. We have expanded our ICU by 10 extra beds to take ICU patients from both Portsmouth and Kent as they are so hard-pressed. [The situation] is under control so far but unpleasant and scary.”











						Hospitals in England told to free up all possible beds for surging Covid cases
					

NHS England warns entire health service will have to remain on highest alert at least until end of March




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Wilf (Dec 28, 2020)

Doodler said:


> Real sense of deja vu there. In the early days of the pandemic people coming back from skiing trips were notable spreaders.


Yep, first time I heard the word 'superspreader' I think.


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2020)

The figures and the state of the NHS are both looking a bit fucked today, the new variant is really looking like it's taking a hold _and_ making a big difference in rates. And we haven't even the impact from the mixing last week, and schools are going back next week. And there's a lag before we see the hospitalizations and deaths from these numbers.

FFS, this is some predictable horrendous situation isn't it? 

Whole country in Tier 4. All education shut. Ramp up the vaccine program. NOW. FFS.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 28, 2020)

Yeah schools should definitely not reopen.


----------



## gaijingirl (Dec 28, 2020)

Meanwhile...


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The figures and the state of the NHS are both looking a bit fucked today, the new variant is really looking like it's taking a hold _and_ making a big difference in rates. And we haven't even the impact from the mixing last week, and schools are going back next week. And there's a lag before we see the hospitalizations and deaths from these numbers.
> 
> FFS, this is some predictable horrendous situation isn't it?
> 
> Whole country in Tier 4. All education shut. Ramp up the vaccine program. NOW. FFS.



plus get that Oxford vaccine out of limbo ...


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 28, 2020)

gaijingirl said:


> Meanwhile...


another week, ffs
at least those arsehats on the tory backbenches can't vote against increasing very necessary restrictions.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 28, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> another week, ffs
> at least those arsehats on the tory backbenches can't vote against increasing very necessary restrictions.


... but they can call for diverting the vaccine to kids in order to keep the schools open - 17:54 on here:
Coronavirus live news: UK reports record 41,385 new daily cases; UK and South African variants now in Finland | World news | The Guardian


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> plus get that Oxford vaccine out of limbo ...



It needs to very swiftly be organized to be given out in community vaccination centres. Fuck GPs and hospitals, let them give it to patients and staff, this needs to be local venues (community centres, shopping centres, mosques, churches, schools, etc.) with direction and signage for people to get it when out and about.  Finger dip dye to show you've had it. Mobile numbers taken to get automated messages 2 weeks / 1 week / 1 day before / and then on the day of second dose. Massive multi-language advertising campaign. Door-to-door knocking telling people that their local vaccine centre is 100m round the corner and have slots now. Fuck it, reward people with £50 when they have second dose if that helps.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 28, 2020)

There must be loads of people who could learn (or already know) how to give jabs, with appropriate supervision community schemes could really ramp up the jab rate - especially with the Oxford / AstraZeneca one, as that is "domestic 'fridge" temperature storage / distribution ...


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2020)

A monkey could give an IM jab ffs. In the NHS you'll probably have to do a week of online training, wait for your DBS to come back, be GDPR compliant, and then wait for HR to contact you via fax.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 28, 2020)

My fucking cousin who is a doctor was saying last night that if you've had it you don't need to have the vaccine


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> My fucking cousin who is a doctor was saying last night that if you've had it you don't need to have the vaccine


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 28, 2020)

How do you argue against this stuff? Just seems to me that people just believe whatever they want to


----------



## teqniq (Dec 28, 2020)

Sage advice really:









						UK government scientists tell Boris Johnson to close schools in January
					

Concern rises about new strains of coronavirus in the UK.




					www.politico.eu


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> A monkey could give an IM jab ffs. In the NHS you'll probably have to do a week of online training, wait for your DBS to come back, be GDPR compliant, and then wait for HR to contact you via fax.



If it's a choice between a monkey or a soldier I'll choose the monkey to do my jab thanks. Fucking soldier would probably miss my arm completely and vaccinate an Afghan primary school instead.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 28, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Sage advice really:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not surprising TBH, but this is scary...



> At the same SAGE meeting, the committee also expressed increasing alarm about a second new strain of COVID believed to have traveled to the U.K. from South Africa. The scientists told Johnson that *the South African strain is spreading even more quickly than the new strain identified in Britain, and that its mutations raise concerns about immunity.* This has become a major concern among government scientists, a Whitehall official said.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 28, 2020)

Is there any truth to the idea that if you have had it in the last few months you can't transmit it? 2hats elbows LynnDoyleCooper I'm guessing this is bollocks but I'm trying to convince my sister


----------



## teuchter (Dec 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I feel quite frustrated at the vaccine program so far tbh. A few of us were chatting the other night and we came up with some ideas to get it running locally, they just seem so obvious to us (backgrounds in NHS, planning, logistics) it's quite baffling why they don't seem to be getting done ready for the Oxford vaccine roll-out (assuming we're not all just idiots and are making wild unworkable ideas to each other). I've packed in some part of my work and am chasing links to be involved with the vaccine program from a number of different angles, all of which seem painfully slow and inefficient.


A close relative who works in a hospital (scotland, area currently with very low prevalence) had her first dose of vaccine a week or so ago. But she said, a batch just arrived in the hospital and they gave it to whoever happened to be there that morning. There appeared to have been no advance planning that allowed any kind of prioritisation.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> A close relative who works in a hospital (scotland, area currently with very low prevalence) had her first dose of vaccine a week or so ago. But she said, a batch just arrived in the hospital and they gave it to whoever happened to be there that morning. There appeared to have been no advance planning that allowed any kind of prioritisation.


Sweet jaysis


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> A close relative who works in a hospital (scotland, area currently with very low prevalence) had her first dose of vaccine a week or so ago. But she said, a batch just arrived in the hospital and they gave it to whoever happened to be there that morning. There appeared to have been no advance planning that allowed any kind of prioritisation.



Yeah, heard a few stories like that tbh. Place locally was desperately calling anywhere remotely healthcare related to find people that would come and have the jab.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is there any truth to the idea that if you have had it in the last few months you can't transmit it? 2hats elbows LynnDoyleCooper I'm guessing this is bollocks but I'm trying to convince my sister



They don't know afaik. Tbf I don't think that's total mad off the wall stuff like some things but you can't assume any effect until there's proper evidence.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, heard a few stories like that tbh. Place locally was desperately calling anywhere remotely healthcare related to find people that would come and have the jab.



This is not ideal if they need to get the same random people back in one place in three week's time and with the correct amount of vaccine ready to go.


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2020)

The England hospital data that I havent had for some days due to Christmas is now available. I havent done the graphs yet but it didnt look good when I glanced at it. Graphs soon.


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2020)

This is number of Covid-19 patients in hospital by English region. I'm afraid some of the colours used are different compared to previous versions of this graph I posted.

Data goes all the way up to today despite the 24th being the most recent date shown on the x axis labels.


Data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## xenon (Dec 28, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> There must be loads of people who could learn (or already know) how to give jabs, with appropriate supervision community schemes could really ramp up the jab rate - especially with the Oxford / AstraZeneca one, as that is "domestic 'fridge" temperature storage / distribution ...



Assuming they follow heigine procedure.

There's still the waiting for 15 minutes to see if the  patient experiences any negative reactions, however rare and having appropriately trained staff and facilities nearby to deal with them.


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 28, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> There must be loads of people who could learn (or already know) how to give jabs, with appropriate supervision community schemes could really ramp up the jab rate - especially with the Oxford / AstraZeneca one, as that is "domestic 'fridge" temperature storage / distribution ...



Someone on another forum I look at posted this, on the application process to be a vaccinator.

"I’ve got 16 online training courses to do as part of the clinical supervisor application, including “preventing radicalisation”.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> My fucking cousin who is a doctor was saying last night that if you've had it you don't need to have the vaccine


It pains me to say it but GPs as a whole are absolutely fucking clueless about medicine.  They learnt some stuff 20 years ago and have never had to face any proper feedback or be tested since.  But they’re as arrogant as fuck because they are “the expert”, and that lack of testing has never shown them to be otherwise.


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2020)

The regional hospital data I posted previously shows that England has gone past the numbers seen at the peak of the first wave.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is there any truth to the idea that if you have had it in the last few months you can't transmit it? 2hats elbows LynnDoyleCooper I'm guessing this is bollocks but I'm trying to convince my sister



Anyone? Or am I the one who is wrong here lol?


----------



## kabbes (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is there any truth to the idea that if you have had it in the last few months you can't transmit it? 2hats elbows LynnDoyleCooper I'm guessing this is bollocks but I'm trying to convince my sister


The kabbess, who is actually studying contemporary immunology as part of a biomedical degree, says there is no reason at all to assume that.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 28, 2020)

kabbes said:


> The kabbess, who is actually studying contemporary immunology as part of a biomedical degree, says there is no reason at all to assume that.



That's what I thought? Is there an article or something on it? Because it seems to me that people are doing really silly stuff in the belief they're now immune


----------



## teuchter (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That's what I thought? Is there an article or something on it? Because it seems to me that people are doing really silly stuff in the belief they're now immune


Are you asking about immunity or ability to transmit?


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 28, 2020)

teuchter said:


> Are you asking about immunity or ability to transmit?


Ability to transmit.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Is there any truth to the idea that if you have had it in the last few months you can't transmit it? 2hats elbows LynnDoyleCooper I'm guessing this is bollocks but I'm trying to convince my sister


No. It's an area of ongoing research. What little literature there is suggests that naturally acquired immunity might last up to 5-6 months (though this might increase as time ticks by and more data are collected as part of that ongoing longitudinal study), could vary widely, and points to the clear possibility that on reinfection, even if asymptomatic, viral shedding may occur and thus with it there exists the possibility of transmission.

So people should continue to act as if they are both infectious whilst at the same time everyone around them is infectious.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> That's what I thought? Is there an article or something on it? Because it seems to me that people are doing really silly stuff in the belief they're now immune


They may not even have used their adaptive immune system to fight the infection — the innate system could have beaten it before it got to that point.

(ETA: that’s from me, not her.  Just in case it’s bollocks!)


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 28, 2020)

I thought it was bollocks. How to convince her though


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2020)

Finally in terms of me posting hospital data graphs today, daily admissions/diagnoses. Data for these goes up to the 26th December.

The levels seen in the first wave peak have not been reached in terms of admissions, in large part because of the different timing of the second wave in different regions. But rates that have been slower to build but have been sustained at high levels over longer periods of time compared to the first wave obviously involves its own sort of burden on the NHS.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought it was bollocks. How to convince her though


I think it's not 100% bollocks, but based on assumptions that it is not safe to make. That's how to approach it: "You are not being stupid, but I feel we should be more cautious".


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 28, 2020)

Yeah I can see why she thinks that but I just don't wanna take a chance.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought it was bollocks. How to convince her though


The point rather is that there is no evidence thus far to believe it to be the case, and since one can not be sure how long your own naturally acquired immunity might last without regular, extensive testing, and given asymptomatic infection (reinfection too) is real, one couldn't be sure when one might be infectious again, even _if_ there were a period when you were not able to be infectious (or would be less infectious).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 28, 2020)

Sky News reporting that at Queens Hospital in East London all beds are full and patients are being treated in ambulances, that are waiting hours to unload patients.


----------



## MickiQ (Dec 28, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News reporting that at Queens Hospital in East London all beds are full and patients are being treated in ambulances, that are waiting hours to unload patients.


this is not good


----------



## TopCat (Dec 28, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> I thought it was bollocks. How to convince her though


Get a large fresh salmon and wallop her.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 28, 2020)

Various bits here showing the blob of jelly that is government strategy re schools. 
England school reopening in doubt with ministers divided | World news | The Guardian
That lump williamson is mobilising MPs to shout out their support for keeping schools open, whilst sage + 2 studies say schools need to close to avoid the NHS getting overwhelmed (along with full tier 4 lockdown). PM and other senior ministers just doss about, feeling it's always better to put these decisions off for a wee while. 

*Government C19 Strategy in Full*: batsman decides it's better to play his defensive shot only after the ball has hit the wicket, always better to set the alarm clock 20 minutes after the latest time you need to be up, condoms should only be worn after ejaculation...


----------



## TopCat (Dec 28, 2020)

..


----------



## MickiQ (Dec 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Various bits here showing the blob of jelly that is government strategy re schools.
> England school reopening in doubt with ministers divided | World news | The Guardian
> That lump williamson is mobilising MPs to shout out their support for keeping schools open, whilst sage + 2 studies say schools need to close to avoid the NHS getting overwhelmed (along with full tier 4 lockdown). PM and other senior ministers just doss about, feeling it's always better to put these decisions off for a wee while.
> 
> *Government C19 Strategy in Full*: batsman decides it's better to play his defensive shot only after the ball has hit the wicket, always better to set the alarm clock 20 minutes after the latest time you need to be up, condoms should only be worn after ejaculation...


Mrs Q is a teacher and when Gove was Education Secretary she hated him with a passion like the fire of a thousand suns, she reckoned that no-one else could be as bad but she tells me she is reconsidering that point of view


----------



## Wilf (Dec 28, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It needs to very swiftly be organized to be given out in community vaccination centres. Fuck GPs and hospitals, let them give it to patients and staff, this needs to be local venues (community centres, shopping centres, mosques, churches, schools, etc.) with direction and signage for people to get it when out and about.  Finger dip dye to show you've had it. Mobile numbers taken to get automated messages 2 weeks / 1 week / 1 day before / and then on the day of second dose. Massive multi-language advertising campaign. Door-to-door knocking telling people that their local vaccine centre is 100m round the corner and have slots now. Fuck it, reward people with £50 when they have second dose if that helps.


Amen to that. It's also a reminder that so much more health education and support could have been done in communities throughout the pandemic if government could have even conceived of such a thing. Their behavioural nudges have turned out to be a sick joke and real behaviour has had a to be a mixture of common sense, fatigue, boredom and people just getting by. Government haven't communicated anything other than increasingly flat mantras. They haven't got a community strategy because they can't conceive of anything other beyond the fully employed consumer. Every bit of their failure on Covid is a worked out example of what is wrong with neoliberal government. And it's killing us.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 28, 2020)

MickiQ said:


> Mrs Q is a teacher and when Gove was Education Secretary she hated him with a passion like the fire of a thousand suns, she reckoned that no-one else could be as bad but she tells me she is reconsidering that point of view


Yeah, it's easy to get into hyperbole in terms of worst ever politicians, but williamson, fucking hell.  Weak, pointless, lacks shame, fucking awful human being.


----------



## hitmouse (Dec 28, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Yeah, it's easy to get into hyperbole in terms of worst ever politicians, but williamson, fucking hell.  Weak, pointless, lacks shame, fucking awful human being.


Reading this description made me think "that sounds familiar, was Williamson the trains arsehole?" I have now managed to remember that the trains arsehole was in fact Grayling. Who I note is no longer a minister, and so presumably free if the government are looking for someone to put in charge of the vaccination programme?


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 28, 2020)

hitmouse said:


> the trains arsehole was in fact Grayling. Who I note is no longer a minister, and so presumably free if the government are looking for someone to put in charge of the vaccination programme?


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 28, 2020)

What's Hunt up to these days? He got junior doctors to strike iirc.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 28, 2020)




----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 28, 2020)

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich, " has declared a major incident over fears about a shortage in oxygen caused by the demand from Covid-19 patients on its wards."









						Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich declares an internal incident “as a precautionary measure” over oxygen supplies
					

A hospital has declared a major incident over fears about a shortage in oxygen caused by the demand from Covid-19 patients on its wards.




					londonnewsonline.co.uk


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 28, 2020)

Fucks sake. This keeping an eye on the hospitals tactic is going swimmingly.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 28, 2020)

2hats said:


>



I thought young people getting it more was the characteristic of the South African variant not the UK one.


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 28, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I thought young people getting it more was the characteristic of the South African variant not the UK one.


Transmission rates in the youth have been going up for ages. Remember the situation at universities? The chaos in schools?


----------



## Mation (Dec 28, 2020)

weltweit said:


> I thought young people getting it more was the characteristic of the South African variant not the UK one.


That post doesn't mention a variant.


----------



## Cerv (Dec 28, 2020)

wtfftw said:


> What's Hunt up to these days? He got junior doctors to strike iirc.


chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee
i.e. in theory holding the government to account for their running of the NHS
a position he should have been blocked from, due to the conflict of interest when it comes to assessing the affect of decisions made when he was Secretary of State


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 29, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Amen to that. It's also a reminder that so much more health education and support could have been done in communities throughout the pandemic if government could have even conceived of such a thing. Their behavioural nudges have turned out to be a sick joke and real behaviour has had a to be a mixture of common sense, fatigue, boredom and people just getting by. Government haven't communicated anything other than increasingly flat mantras. They haven't got a community strategy because they can't conceive of anything other beyond the fully employed consumer. Every bit of their failure on Covid is a worked out example of what is wrong with neoliberal government. And it's killing us.


Absolutely true, and worth remembering that the LP is no better, it's education policy has not differed from the government's, like them the LP is pushing for face-to-face teaching.

(One fact when my union branch wrote to our local MPs the only response we got was from a (particularly unpleasant) Tory, Labour MPs/councillors could not even be arsed to respond).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2020)

Whilst most of the seven Nightingale hospitals are yet to treat any covid cases, the biggest at the Excel centre in London has been decommissioned - striped bear of beds, ventilators, etc. - as NHS bosses admit they have no way to staff it.   

Personally I always wondered how the hell they could magic up enough staff to man a new 4,000 bed hospital at short notice, and now with so many more NHS staff off sick, it appears the penny has dropped, they can't.


> The sites - built this year to cater for the outbreak of Covid - came at a cost of around £220m and were hailed as the NHS’ saving grace back in April when they opened. However, NHS bosses now say they do not have the manpower to use them - even if they wanted to.
> 
> According to _The Telegraph_, London’s Nightingale - located at the Excel centre - not only had no patients on Monday, but had been stripped altogether, with beds and ventilators missing. Images showed partition boards, which separated beds, stacked up outside while signs directing ambulances were discarded on the floor.
> 
> A contractor who helped supply and set up the hospital told the newspaper it was “disgusting” that it had been dismantled and a colleague, someone who worked at the site two weeks ago, said the facilities inside had been “ripped out”.





> Time and again, though, the issue comes back to staffing. Dr Alison Pittard, the dean of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, warned the media today: “We can build physical capacity, we can get equipment and consumables relatively quickly, but it takes many years to train staff to do the job, and no more so than in critical care.”
> 
> Meanwhile, Dr Nick Scriven, immediate past president of the Society for Acute Medicine, said it “is not ‘just the case’ of using the Nightingale Hospital as there are simply no staff for them to run as they were originally intended”.
> 
> “They could play a role perhaps if used as rehabilitation units for those recovering but, again, where do we find the specialist staff?” he said, adding: “The NHS simply does not have the capacity to spare anyone.”



In other parts of the country they are still hoping to use them if needed, or are using them on a very limited basis for non-covid cases.



> Elsewhere, Birmingham and Sunderland’s Nightingale sites are said to be empty but on standby (ready to open in 72 hours, if needs be), while Manchester’s is open for “non-Covid care”, Harrogate’s is being used as a “specialist diagnostics centre” and Bristol’s deployed for “local NHS services”.











						Nightingale hospitals ‘not being used’ amid surging Covid cases and NHS staff shortages
					

No staff to properly run some of the £220m sites




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 29, 2020)

They were never meant to to be fully-staffed hospitals, just a way to avoid having so many admissions in hospital corridors that there wasn't room to move around. Staff would be very thin on the ground as they are basically waiting room extensions.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2020)

This is a depressing article, explaining how it's so much worst for hospitals this time around, compared to the spring, and it's not just down to slightly more cases in English hospitals so far, with numbers expected to grow.

But, it comes on top of the normal winter surge in demand, far most staff off sick as infection rates soar in the community, plus as treatments have improved, more patients are surviving, thus spending longer in hospital, meaning more beds are needed.

That last reason is one I hadn't considered, but makes perfect sense.



> Speaking while on a shift in between jobs, Will Broughton, from the College of Paramedics, says there is “a significant number of patients with Covid needing hospital admission as well as the normal seasonal demands” they get every winter.





> “We have fewer staff this wave than last, as more people are ill and have been tested for coronavirus and told to quarantine. We have less provision in terms of staff.”





> “It’s really tough but at the same time different to when it started. We know more now, and the treatment package is better so more people are surviving. But this means fewer people dying so we need more beds and we have to do all this with fewer staff. It’s a heroic effort this time, almost more than last time from those that are here. But we are just about hanging in there in terms of being able to help those coming through the front door.”











						'Resilience is running out': NHS workers brace for another Covid surge
					

The clapping has stopped, but health bosses say the strain on staff is even greater than in spring




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## TopCat (Dec 29, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> They were never meant to to be fully-staffed hospitals, just a way to avoid having so many admissions in hospital corridors that there wasn't room to move around. Staff would be very thin on the ground as they are basically waiting room extensions.


They looked like a place to die.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 29, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> They were never meant to to be fully-staffed hospitals, just a way to avoid having so many admissions in hospital corridors that there wasn't room to move around. Staff would be very thin on the ground as they are basically waiting room extensions.


With more than 100,000 NHS vacancies there are no fully staffed hospitals


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> They were never meant to to be fully-staffed hospitals, just a way to avoid having so many admissions in hospital corridors that there wasn't room to move around. Staff would be very thin on the ground as they are basically waiting room extensions.



Not sure where you get that from. as the article says, 'with medics warning there are not enough staff to run the facilities as they were originally intended: mini intensive care units,', hence being equipped with ventilators.

There's a good article on the BMA's site - Inside the Nightingales - which also confirms they were intended to be much more than 'waiting room extensions', and also asking questions about how they would be staffed, even back in May.



> However, for Dr Grier (pictured), building a new hospital from scratch – and *one that could end up dealing with huge amounts of patients in need of the most serious care* – was an opportunity to ensure care and compassion were placed at the very heart of the COVID-19 crisis.





> [If the crisis gets worse] this hospital could be the biggest intensive care facility in Europe if not further afield.


----------



## bimble (Dec 29, 2020)

How was it possible to not realise there were no staff for the nightingales?

I've banned myself from using power tools or climbing ladders, again, absolutely no room for preventable accidents taking up anyone's time is there.


----------



## Supine (Dec 29, 2020)

If things had been worse they would have been used somehow. I'm glad they got them ready and happy they have not been needed yet.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not sure where you get that from.



Some NHS bloke on the radio, I’ll try and find a quote.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> How was it possible to not realise there were no staff for the nightingales?



There was some staff, but never enough, that BMA article mentions that in April, '10 people were on shift during the day, and two at night, with scaled-up plans for shifts of 25 people should demand increase.'


----------



## Badgers (Dec 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Whilst most of the seven Nightingale hospitals are yet to treat any covid cases, the biggest at the Excel centre in London has been decommissioned - striped bear of beds, ventilators, etc. - as NHS bosses admit they have no way to staff it.
> 
> Personally I always wondered how the hell they could magic up enough staff to man a new 4,000 bed hospital at short notice, and now with so many more NHS staff off sick, it appears the penny has dropped, they can't.
> 
> ...


My understanding is that the ExCel hospital 'space' is on hold. Around 10,000sqm with all the equipment stored in it. The owners Adnec (Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre) gifted the space to the UK but obviously the equipment therein (the Tory photoshoot) was paid for by the taxpayer. 

It won't reopen of course but it is technically still there.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> How was it possible to not realise there were no staff for the nightingales?
> 
> I've banned myself from using power tools or climbing ladders, again, absolutely no room for preventable accidents taking up anyone's time is there.



It was publicity and to prove the government "was doing something" and taking Rona seriously.

Sure a bit of cash changed hands to.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 29, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> It was publicity and to prove the government "was doing something" and taking Rona seriously.
> 
> Sure a bit of cash changed hands to.


Cash?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 29, 2020)

TopCat said:


> Cash?



Here is several million pounds Serco, we need a lightbulb.


----------



## Badgers (Dec 29, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> It was publicity and to prove the government "was doing something" and taking Rona seriously.
> 
> Sure a bit of cash changed hands to.


Compared to the open corruption over PPE plus Track and Trace this was nothing (at least the London one) given the venue was free and a lot of the build was done by Army/NHS. Some contractors made a few quid but in the grand scheme of the fraud this is tiny.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 29, 2020)

Supine said:


> If things had been worse they would have been used somehow. I'm glad they got them ready and happy they have not been needed yet.



They have been used. The one here in Exeter is being used. And we're still in a relatively low-covid part of the country, but one with not much at all in the way of hospital capacity.

'Somehow' seems to be exactly what the government's plan for staffing these places was. It was an impossible thing to achieve so it just got kicked down the road. We're now down the road, and dsspite demand for hospital beds the major nightingales remain mothballed.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 29, 2020)

The logical use for them is for the vaccine rollout at this point. Don't most of them have good existing transport links as they are mostly convention centers or near population hubs?


----------



## bimble (Dec 29, 2020)

Quickest way to feel a wave of fury and despair is to look at the replies to the doctors on twitter who are trying to get the message out about what they are dealing with right now. 
How did we end up with so many people willing to accuse nhs doctors of lying / fearmongering, fuck me it’s grim.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

can't help but think, what the fuck are they going to do if the vaccine doesn't take hold for 6-months or a year? can you imagine?


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> Quickest way to feel a wave of fury and despair is to look at the replies to the doctors on twitter who are trying to get the message out about what they are dealing with right now.
> How did we end up with so many people willing to accuse nhs doctors of lying / fearmongering, fuck me it’s grim.


youtube is the worst - it's almost amazing if someone is not a covid denier, no matter what the content of the video. i am hopping it's a case of the lunatic minority screaming the loudest.


----------



## maomao (Dec 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> Quickest way to feel a wave of fury and despair is to look at the replies to the doctors on twitter who are trying to get the message out about what they are dealing with right now.
> How did we end up with so many people willing to accuse nhs doctors of lying / fearmongering, fuck me it’s grim.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 29, 2020)

I dont really know twitter. Any link?


----------



## bimble (Dec 29, 2020)

TopCat said:


> I dont really know twitter. Any link?


Here you go, for instance. It's one of many attempts to get people to stay the fuck home.
Her replies include people saying if you're so busy you wouldn't be here writing stuff on twitter would you, people claiming it's a fake account, people threatening retribution for the hoax, etc etc.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 29, 2020)

I thought part of the idea with the nightingales was that staff could be shipped in from less-affected areas of the country.


----------



## zora (Dec 29, 2020)

Re: Twitter. 2hats posted a link last night, on the previous page of this thread.
I also looked at the replies and somewhat despaired, it's all (not all, actually 50:50 or slightly less loons) "shill" and "sheep".
Like bimble, I woke up with that same question, and wondering how this happened, and in the context of Twitter, if they are some sort of bot or just super spammy trolls or actual... people who are honestly holding these opinions?
But I don't use Twitter either, only heard it can be bit of a cesspit, so don't know how much weight to give to it.


----------



## Supine (Dec 29, 2020)

Twitter is great for access to experts. They always attract stupid comments so best to ignore replies entirely.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

brave fearless "truth seekers". when in actual fact they are the l


zora said:


> Re: Twitter. 2hats posted a link last night, on the previous page of this thread.
> I also looked at the replies and somewhat despaired, it's all (not all, actually 50:50 or slightly less loons) "shill" and "sheep".
> Like bimble, I woke up with that same question, and wondering how this happened, and in the context of Twitter, if they are some sort of bot or just super spammy trolls or actual... people who are honestly holding these opinions?
> But I don't use Twitter either, only heard it can be bit of a cesspit, so don't know how much weight to give to it.


they've been corralled into extreme positions by the algorithm. it's what happens when your news diet is facebook feeds and 'Youtube recommends!'. these brave "truth seekers", heriocially going against the sheep - are the bottom of the barrel in terms of ideological manipulation. Their heros are Doctor Dave from whatsapp and Karen from facebook. 5g, bill gates, deep state, Illuminati - all up for grabs for their thinking.


----------



## Yossarian (Dec 29, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> youtube is the worst - it's almost amazing if someone is not a covid denier, no matter what the content of the video. i am hopping it's a case of the lunatic minority screaming the loudest.



As with newspaper articles, etc. the ratio of views to comments on YouTube videos seems to be between 100 and 1000 to 1, and on the rare occasions I read them, I always hope the comments represent the shittiest 1 or .1 per cent.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

you now have more rancid right wing pundits now taking on the loons cause - farage is skirting iwth it, delligpole, peter hitchens.

there's big big money to be made on youtube content. big money.

(an example of this is the qanon annonymous podcast - a brilliant satirical look at qanon, rips the piss out of them and debunks every little brain dead thing they say. i looked at their patron amounts. they get $*30k a month *just from subscribers. ca ching! this is not a massively popular podcast. probably 50k listeners an episode i would say. they deserve it though, happy for them. a brilliant podcast)


----------



## Doodler (Dec 29, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> youtube is the worst - it's almost amazing if someone is not a covid denier, no matter what the content of the video. i am hopping it's a case of the lunatic minority screaming the loudest.



Quite small numbers of energetic idiots online can give the impression of an advancing Golden Horde.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 29, 2020)

Anyone with a #KBF hashtag in their name is an absolute scumbag. I would try to ignore them though, there's a risk that making them seem bigger than they are can amplify their message even more. And of course supportive people might not want to reply on those threads for fear of getting even more abuse.


----------



## Cerv (Dec 29, 2020)

what's KBF?


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 29, 2020)

'Keep Britain Free' often found yelling 'HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY DIED OF COVID AND NOT WITH COVID' at doctors


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2020)

Cerv said:


> what's KBF?



Keep Britain Free.

ETA - Beaten to it.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 29, 2020)

Basically abusive far right scumbags.


----------



## Cerv (Dec 29, 2020)

sounds like a darker follow up to the Keep Britain Tidy campaign


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Basically abusive far right scumbags.



Not just far right, plenty on the left have disappeared down the rabbit hole, the best known one being Piers Corbyn.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not just far right, plenty on the left have disappeared down the rabbit hole, the best known one being Piers Corbyn.


Massive section of the scented candle "find your true self within" crowd.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Anyone with a #KBF hashtag in their name is an absolute scumbag. I would try to ignore them though, there's a risk that making them seem bigger than they are can amplify their message even more. And of course supportive people might not want to reply on those threads for fear of getting even more abuse.


Ask them how many people have killed by their disregarding the rukes/misinformation


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not just far right, plenty on the left have disappeared down the rabbit hole, the best known one being Piers Corbyn.


Yeah I know.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not just far right, plenty on the left have disappeared down the rabbit hole, the best known one being Piers Corbyn.


I think once down that rabbit hole you cannot really be considered 'on the left'


----------



## kalidarkone (Dec 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> How was it possible to not realise there were no staff for the nightingales?



I know right? 
How could a band 3 hca on 20k a year (me) know this because its FUCKING OBVIOUS....yet the trust chiefs didn't or were too syphophantic to say anything?


----------



## Doodler (Dec 29, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> Massive section of the scented candle "find your true self within" crowd.



There is definitely a cult-like happy clappy angle to it.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

lazythursday said:


> I think once down that rabbit hole you cannot really be considered 'on the left'


Most of them are so unself aware that they wouldn't be able to define the terms political "left" or "right".


----------



## kabbes (Dec 29, 2020)

“Left” and “right” refer to the economic manifestation of politics, and their application to other political areas have created nothing but confusion.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> “Left” and “right” refer to the economic manifestation of politics, and their application to other political areas have created nothing but confusion.


From what I can gather they themselves wouldn't know if they are right wing or left. That's what I mean by lacking awareness or context or general political ideology. All they know is that they are right and the "sheep" are wrong.

Another way to put it is they are a bit thick.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

Doodler said:


> There is definitely a cult-like happy clappy angle to it.


Lots and lots of vacuous, cloying self help motivational quotes superimposed onto mountains or some such such shit.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

I find the worst examples are bordering sociopathic. Kinda like the dull faced arrogant arseholes doing 70 in 30mph zones.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

Dunno what's worse, them disappearing down the conspiracy rabbit hole, or me disappearing down the 'look at these freaks' rabit hole.

Few years time we will be asking mates "what rabit hole are you in? " as a casual conversation starter.


----------



## andysays (Dec 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I thought part of the idea with the nightingales was that staff could be shipped in from less-affected areas of the country.


Trouble with that idea is that there are no "less affected" areas of the country, or at least none that are less affected enough to have any spare staff sitting around waiting for something to do  

And can I make a request that we try to avoid taking up too much of this thread with the cuntish behaviour of covid deniers on Twitter etc. We all know they exist; they even have at least one thread devoted to their shit, but I'd rather not have to wade through it on this one if that's possible.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)

teuchter said:


> I thought part of the idea with the nightingales was that staff could be shipped in from less-affected areas of the country.



Not really, it was widely acknowledged that China had the opportunity to do that with Wuhan, but that the first UK wave was timed too similarly in all regions for it to be a good option here. Opportunities are very limited on that front this time round too, since the places which had very large numbers earlier in the second wave are still at very high levels of Covid-19 patient bed occupation now, as things take hold down South.

They were for show and for use in absolute worst-case scenatios, where they would have been used in a real emergency, non-ideal manner, including death management.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)

redsquirrel said:


> Absolutely true, and worth remembering that the LP is no better, it's education policy has not differed from the government's, like them the LP is pushing for face-to-face teaching.
> 
> (One fact when my union branch wrote to our local MPs the only response we got was from a (particularly unpleasant) Tory, Labour MPs/councillors could not even be arsed to respond).



And the official opposition in partliament in this pandemic are mostly so far just going through the motions, stopping short of seriously demanding anything drastic that would actually make a real difference.

eg:



> The shadow education secretary, Kate Green, said parents would be anxious about reports that government scientific advisers had lobbied for extended school closures.
> 
> “The government is failing to be honest with parents and pupils about the return of schools in January,” Green said, but stopped short of calling for a delay to the restart.











						England school reopening in doubt with ministers divided
					

Education secretary under pressure to rethink plan for millions of pupils to return




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## brogdale (Dec 29, 2020)

The cunts need to be sobered up so that they can take the decision to lockdown that should have been called earlier.   


here


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)

Similar from the BBC, although I laugh bitterly when there is talk of 'early action'. Early would have meant taking tough choices at the end of November/start of December, and somewhat late action should still have needed to happen by around December 12th when there were more than enough doom signs in regional hospital data.









						Covid: UK surge in cases an 'extreme concern'
					

The NHS faces "unprecedented" pressure as the UK reports record numbers for a second day running.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 29, 2020)

kalidarkone said:


> I know right?
> How could a band 3 hca on 20k a year (me) know this because its FUCKING OBVIOUS....yet the trust chiefs didn't or were too syphophantic to say anything?


At a guess, I'd imagine it's like most other organisations: managers are too far removed from the actual day-to-day operations on the ground, don't listen to enough feedback from those who _are _on the ground and so come up with stuff that looks good on paper*.



*and, of course, their definition of "looks good" might be wildly different from "does the job it's supposed to".

<edit: sorry, that's probably pretty obvious and your question may well have been rhetorical anyway, just a bit of a button for me that I've been getting increasingly frustrated with over the years  >


----------



## iona (Dec 29, 2020)

Just had a letter from my housing association saying no one's allowed any visitors again coz support bubbles aren't a thing now we're in tier 4 (actually it just says "as the support bubbles are no longer." which makes more sense than most of their letters tbh but I assume that's what they meant). That's not right is it?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 29, 2020)

iona said:


> Just had a letter from my housing association saying no one's allowed any visitors again coz support bubbles aren't a thing now we're in tier 4 (actually it just says "as the support bubbles are no longer." which makes more sense than most of their letters tbh but I assume that's what they meant). That's not right is it?


They're completely wrong with that. Support bubbles are still allowed, as detailed on the official .gov website.



> You can leave home to visit people in your support bubble, or to provide informal childcare for children aged 13 and under as part of a childcare bubble, to provide care for vulnerable people, to provide emergency assistance, attend a support group (of up to 15 people), or for respite care where that care is being provided to a vulnerable person or a person with a disability, or is a short break in respect of a looked after child.











						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 29, 2020)

iona said:


> Just had a letter from my housing association saying no one's allowed any visitors again coz support bubbles aren't a thing now we're in tier 4 (actually it just says "as the support bubbles are no longer." which makes more sense than most of their letters tbh but I assume that's what they meant). That's not right is it?


In a word: nope.

This details what Tier 4 (last update 22 Dec) is and mentions support bubbles, and this explains what a support bubble is (last update 14 Dec).


----------



## bimble (Dec 29, 2020)

iona said:


> Just had a letter from my housing association saying no one's allowed any visitors again coz support bubbles aren't a thing now we're in tier 4 (actually it just says "as the support bubbles are no longer." which makes more sense than most of their letters tbh but I assume that's what they meant). That's not right is it?


No, it’s not right. 
I don’t know how they define ‘living alone’ though, which is one of the categories that allows a person to be somebody’s bubble.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Similar from the BBC, although I laugh bitterly when there is talk of 'early action'. Early would have meant taking tough choices at the end of November/start of December, and somewhat late action should still have needed to happen by around December 12th when there were more than enough doom signs in regional hospital data.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The government have taken lots of tough choices

It's just they keep getting the decisions wrong


----------



## iona (Dec 29, 2020)

Yeah I thought so. I'm still seeing my bubble (not unnecessary trips but I have to travel there anyway for work and volunteering) and I wouldn'tve not checked even if my memory's too shit to remember it.

It's a supported accommodation scheme so everyone here lives alone, apart from one couple who still have two flats because rules even though one's just sitting empty  and iirc that doesn't count anyway since she's also his carer.


----------



## zora (Dec 29, 2020)

Just watching old Festive Bake-Off episodes on 40d, and in the ad break just now, there was - at fucking last - not only a TV advert for Hands, Face and Space, but - hallelujah - they added "let fresh air in". (Mind you, the window was only opened a titch, when actually I think it's better to have a proper airing diagonally through the house every so often, but you know, babysteps, we are only a year into the pandemic after all...)


----------



## bimble (Dec 29, 2020)

This would support the idea that (intentionally or not) the Nightingales were sort of Potemkin hospitals.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 29, 2020)

Thread by @dgurdasani1 on Thread Reader App
					

Thread by @dgurdasani1: A brief summary of the very precarious situation we are in now, and why we have a very narrow window to act in the UK. If we don't act now, it's likely the...




					threadreaderapp.com


----------



## weepiper (Dec 29, 2020)

This isn't a good trajectory.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> This would support the idea that (intentionally or not) the Nightingales were sort of Potemkin hospitals.



I think you'll find Potemkin villages came with a full complement of villagers


----------



## zora (Dec 29, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Thread by @dgurdasani1 on Thread Reader App
> 
> 
> Thread by @dgurdasani1: A brief summary of the very precarious situation we are in now, and why we have a very narrow window to act in the UK. If we don't act now, it's likely the...
> ...



While I applaud her and Devi Shridhar for putting forward a zero covid and elimination argument, and personally was/am all for it - given that it wasn't attempted when there were the original few hundred cases in the country, or in summer when cases were low - I am not really seeing it...


----------



## Wilf (Dec 29, 2020)

Government must know they are going to have to close schools. They've seen the stats and have access to the best predictions as to where we will be without closure. The only reasonable thing to do would be to announce it now and focus resources on kids who haven't engaged, have multiple problems etc. And bring the teachers on board ffs!

They are not going to do any of that and will presumably only announce closures at the last minute. The other (obvious) thing they need to do is an emergency mobilisation to get the Oxford vaccine out there, be it top down NHS driven or bottom up as mentioned by LynnDoyleCooper .  No sense whatever that those logistics are in place.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)

zora said:


> While I applaud her and Devi Shridhar for putting forward a zero covid and elimination argument, and personally was/am all for it - given that it wasn't attempted when there were the original few hundred cases in the country, or in summer when cases were low - I am not really seeing it...



My current opinion is that the UK and many other countries will only seriously consider a zero covid approach if something goes horribly wrong with vaccines in a way that destroys the ability of vaccines to be seen as a silver bullet in this pandemic.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 29, 2020)

Tbf to Jezza though I have seen loads of people in the local park meeting up in groups of way more than 6. I also didn't know chatting on the doorstep wasn't allowed.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 29, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> The government have taken lots of tough choices
> 
> It's just they keep getting the decisions wrong


One might argue that a lot of the choices they took might have been a lot less tough if they hadn't dithered around for a fortnight trying not to make themselves unpopular. And, arguably, that action might have prevented subsequent tough choices from even having to be made at all. 

And that's before we even start to look at the quality of the tough choices they ended up making


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 29, 2020)

frogwoman said:


>




I think meeting his own brother is the main offence there  

But FFS, aren't there more important  scandals for the media  than yet another anti-Corbyn story?


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 29, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I think meeting his own brother is the main offence there
> 
> But FFS, aren't there more important  scandals for the media  than yet another anti-Corbyn story?



I think it's probably about who he was meeting than what he was doing tbh, and would also explain why he hasn't really said anything about his brother's actions. Although according to the article his brother door stepped him for a publicity stunt so who knows.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 29, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Tbf to Jezza though I have seen loads of people in the local park meeting up in groups of way more than 6. I also didn't know chatting on the doorstep wasn't allowed.



If the story is anything like accurate, it further adds to the notion that Piers Corbyn is an utter fucking cunt.


----------



## Cerv (Dec 29, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I think meeting his own brother is the main offence there
> 
> But FFS, aren't there more important  scandals for the media  than yet another anti-Corbyn story?


Piers recorded the video and put it online as a publicity stunt. It's just shooting fish in a barrel for the media at that point.

should've gone a bit Eastenders, and just slammed the door in his face with a "oh do fuck off"


----------



## andysays (Dec 29, 2020)

Hospitals could use tents to cope with patient surge - doctor


> a senior doctor has said that health staff are considering the idea of setting up tents outside hospitals to triage patients. Emergency medicine consultant Simon Walsh, who is deputy chair of the British Medical Association's UK consultants committee, said such plans were normally reserved for dealing with major incidents such as terror attacks or major industrial disasters.





> But he told the PA news agency that many trusts in London and south-east England were "effectively operating in a major incident mode", with crisis meetings, and staff asked to work on their days off. He added: "They are dealing with queues of ambulances outside many emergency departments, often with patients sat in the ambulances for many hours until they can be offloaded into the department because there simply isn't any space to put them in."



Maybe that will give them an idea for some additional staff...


----------



## Cid (Dec 29, 2020)

Cerv said:


> Piers recorded the video and put it online as a publicity stunt. It's just shooting fish in a barrel for the media at that point.
> 
> should've gone a bit Eastenders, and just slammed the door in his face with a "oh do fuck off"



Yep, they just rock up - apparently uninvited - and chat to him for basically the bare minimum politeness period until he can get rid. Setting up your own brother for publicity, and probably some holiday money from the mail/sun, is about as cuntish as you can get.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 29, 2020)

He shook hands with both of them tho


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2020)

Expect an announcement tomorrow re-schools, when details of this week's tiers review are made. 



> Matt Hancock will announce changes to Covid-19 tiers in the House of Commons tomorrow.
> 
> The Health Secretary will reveal *whether restrictions in local areas are being ramped up or eased* for the final time in 2020.
> 
> ...



Yeah, like any are going to be eased. 



> The Prime Minister is expected to discuss new tier arrangements at a Covid-O meeting later today. At the same meeting, it's thought the PM will discuss plans to keep schools shut for an extra week, over fears the new strain of Covid-19 will spread through pupils.
> 
> According to TES, a new plan approved by ministers will see Year 11 and 13 exam students not return from January 4 as planned. Only vulnerable students and children of key workers will return straight away.
> 
> Covid-19 testing in schools will commence the following week, starting on January 11. And according to the report, all students would be back in school from the week of January 18.











						Matt Hancock to announce new Covid-19 tiers in House of Commons tomorrow
					

The Health Secretary will announce changes to the coronavirus tiers for the final time this year at around 3pm - after MPs vote on Brexit




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

think about it - it would be mental to keep the schools running as normal. it feels like, and i know that means little, that they are beyond the point of return on it. expect another crazy week ahead.


----------



## kalidarkone (Dec 29, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> At a guess, I'd imagine it's like most other organisations: managers are too far removed from the actual day-to-day operations on the ground, don't listen to enough feedback from those who _are _on the ground and so come up with stuff that looks good on paper*.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Me too. The pandemic has made it pretty clear to me that the bosses will just tow the party line. Other then my immediate line manager and staff team no one afaik is fighting for us or for the NHS. 

My line manager has done an amazing job in ensuring that those of us at higher risk have been as protected as can be in the circumstances .....but this needs to be done systemically and not just regarding covid. 

 Covid has highlighted more than ever before the need for sustained financial support and development along with Social care and Education.


----------



## bimble (Dec 29, 2020)

This survey was done a week ago, but it’s interesting. I’d not have guessed such a solid majority would say they’re in support of another national lockdown now.

I think this sort of polling will still be important to government decisions (both wrt compliance levels and political fallout) so maybe it will make it a bit easier for them to announce another (late) national lockdown of some kind.


----------



## muscovyduck (Dec 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> This survey was done a week ago, but it’s interesting. I’d not have guessed such a solid majority would say they’re in support of another national lockdown now.
> View attachment 245998



Honestly I'm so glad to see this. It's easy to forget that by default you're not going to come into contact with many pro-lockdown people because they're... trying not to come in contact with people.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)

Yeah I think people have tended to underestimate the levels of support for lockdown all the way through, but the polls usually make clear that there is significant support for it at times where infection levels are obviously bad.


----------



## maomao (Dec 29, 2020)

Pro lockdown is a harder position to be vocal about. I'm in favour of it but I'm upset about the thought of it and worried about the impact on me and my family. It doesn't make me want to hit up the Daily Mail comments section with loads of pro lockdown propaganda.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2020)

53,135 new cases reported today, FFS.  

414 deaths, that will still be lagging from the long weekend, I hate to think what it will be tomorrow.


----------



## maomao (Dec 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 53,135 new cases reported today, FFS.
> 
> 414 deaths, that will still be lagging from the long weekend, I hate to think what it will be tomorrow.


Depends how many registrars are at work in the three non bank holidays between Christmas and New Year. There are so many bank holidays rolled up together there will be rebound figures well into January.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 53,135 new cases reported today, FFS.
> 
> 414 deaths, that will still be lagging from the long weekend, I hate to think what it will be tomorrow.



Yeah. Positive cases are a bit laggy too. When looking at positive cases by date of specimen, it has now reached nearly 47,000 for specimens dated December 21st! Over 13,000 of which were for the London region.


----------



## Cid (Dec 29, 2020)

elbows said:


> Yeah I think people have tended to underestimate the levels of support for lockdown all the way through, but the polls usually make clear that there is significant support for it at times where infection levels are obviously bad.



It doesn't help that twatter etc tend to amplify marginal views... And then serve as a reference point for shitty/tired journalists.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> Depends how many registrars are at work in the three non bank holidays between Christmas and New Year. There are so many bank holidays rolled up together there will be rebound figures well into January.



Unlike the ONS figures which come out weekly, I dont think the formal death registration process is so much a part of the daily dashboard death figures. The dhasboard itself says 'Data on COVID-19 associated deaths in England are produced by Public Health England (PHE) from multiple sources linked to confirmed case data'.

Originally in the first wave the daily figures were little more than NHS figures for hospital deaths, but these days there are multiple underlying sources for the data and the daily numbers, although subject to fairly variable degrees of lag, are actually doing a much better job at capturing a larger part of the picture this time.

So unlike the ONS figures which come with caveats on occasions where a bank holiday or other registrar holidays have happened during the week in question, I dont expect the daily numbers to have been affected quite so much by registrar holiday closures. But there will still be other reasons to expect the daily stats system to have been impacted a bit by the holiday.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 29, 2020)

maomao said:


> Pro lockdown is a harder position to be vocal about. I'm in favour of it but I'm upset about the thought of it and worried about the impact on me and my family. It doesn't make me want to hit up the Daily Mail comments section with loads of pro lockdown propaganda.



I’m wary of taking it to seriously, there’s definitely an aspect of people saying yeah go for it but happily going around as normal.

Having said that I risked going for milk this morning and for once everyone in the store was masked up and distancing, aside from one employee with the old nose mask allergy. Felt like a step change.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)

Cid said:


> It doesn't help that twatter etc tend to amplify marginal views... And then serve as a reference point for shitty/tired journalists.



I'm pissed off with how traditional tv journalism has gone in this pandemic too. And not just because of the usual laughable ideas about how to comply with the 'be balanced, let both sides air their views' broadcast media regulations.

Unfortunately its been made so much easier for them to find a never-ending supply of pub & gym owners to tell sad stories of lockdown-related business woe, and much harder to get hold of hospital workers to describe the horror. I suspect authorities are partly to blame for this, since they dont want staff speaking out, dont provide much access willingly. And often when they do engage its on some horrible corporate-speak management level where the reporters involved get frustrated with the level of obfuscation involved, especially if the story is actually about a hospital outbreak.

I make this complaint at a point where the pendulum has started swinging in the other direction, away from businesses and towards the healthcare front lines. Partly because its a London story now, which always gains more media traction and is treated as a national issue. But also because the situation calls for more alarming and sombre mood music, and because the hospitality owners are less accessible when their premises are all shuttered.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 29, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> 53,135 new cases reported today, FFS.
> 
> 414 deaths, that will still be lagging from the long weekend, I hate to think what it will be tomorrow.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


>



Fuck.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 29, 2020)

and tomorrow will be fucking brexit day, all day; the cunts.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 29, 2020)

Italy is showing some worrying signs too.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)

Numbers of covid-19 patients in hospital continue the previous trend. London has now swept past the level seen at the peak of the first wave, and its quite easy to imagine the Suouth East and East of England reaching levels twice as high as seen in their first waves. The Midlands has now gone past their first wave peak levels too, although that is currently obscured by South East line on this graph.



As always, data is from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## agricola (Dec 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


>




TBF I'll be amazed if Europe doesn't shut its borders to all travel to and from the UK (with the exception of freight and repatriating EU nationals) at 2301 UK time on the 31st.   The situation here is so serious it would be justified anyway, but what those idiots in Verbier did probably guarantees that they'll do it.


----------



## David Clapson (Dec 29, 2020)

I wonder where all the rich people are? I doubt many have been here over Xmas. The biggest benefit of being rich is insulating yourself from ordinary people's problems.


----------



## Chz (Dec 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> This would support the idea that (intentionally or not) the Nightingales were sort of Potemkin hospitals.



Well also, any hospital that transferred patients to a Nightingale had to transfer staff as well. So there's not a chance any of them were going to do it.


----------



## agricola (Dec 29, 2020)

bimble said:


> This would support the idea that (intentionally or not) the Nightingales were sort of Potemkin hospitals.




as hospitals, yes


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 29, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> I wonder where all the rich people are? I doubt many have been here over Xmas. The biggest benefit of being rich is insulating yourself from ordinary people's problems.



Reckon we can shut the door on em?


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> TBF I'll be amazed if Europe doesn't shut its borders to all travel to and from the UK (with the exception of freight and repatriating EU nationals) at 2301 UK time on the 31st.   The situation here is so serious it would be justified anyway, but what those idiots in Verbier did probably guarantees that they'll do it.


Portugal only admitting Portuguese citizens or those with a residency from the U.K. with a covid test before flight .


----------



## David Clapson (Dec 29, 2020)

Prof Sridhar nails it at 5.35 in this interview with Krish GM. Don't watch if you have access to petrol and matches - you might be so angry that you can't resist the urge to set fire to some Tories.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2020)

Those partying back-packers in Sydney need confining to a barracks, for a minimum of three weeks. With quite a few of them being tested daily (mostly different ones each time), every time someone tests +ve they all get another two weeks added to the quarantine. And don't lift the quarantine until a fortnight after the last person stops having symptoms. And then revoke their visas and handout a lifetime ban,

And the same should apply to those covidiots who scarpered from Verbier. I don't think Reedesdale / Otterburn camps are in use --- either would be suitable, from my point of view. The army can keep them confined, supply some ratpacks and do the testing ...


----------



## ska invita (Dec 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> TBF I'll be amazed if Europe doesn't shut its borders to all travel to and from the UK (with the exception of freight and repatriating EU nationals) at 2301 UK time on the 31st.   The situation here is so serious it would be justified anyway, but what those idiots in Verbier did probably guarantees that they'll do it.


Already the case isnt it?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 29, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Prof Sridhar nails it at 5.35 in this interview with Krish GM. Don't watch if you have access to petrol and matches - you might be so angry that you can't resist the urge to set fire to some Tories.




7:30 where she touched on financial support and hotels for self isolation is something we’ve really worried about here, if either of us alone got it then we’d be unable to self isolate without infecting the other. It’s even worse cos wife goes to work every day on tube, it’s been a massive stress for her considering my health issues.


----------



## Supine (Dec 29, 2020)

Independent SAGE are doing an emergency briefing at 10am tomorrow morning. Live on YouTube.


----------



## zora (Dec 29, 2020)

Supine said:


> Independent SAGE are doing an emergency briefing at 10am tomorrow morning. Live on YouTube.


 
Thank fuck. As I have said before, I have found this Christmas pause of covid reporting most disconcerting. Likewise for my German virology podcast and talk shows. Last programme in middle of December: "See you in three weeks time!" Me:


----------



## agricola (Dec 29, 2020)

ska invita said:


> Already the case isnt it?



Is it?  I thought you could still travel to most places provided there was a negative test.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 29, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> Prof Sridhar nails it at 5.35 in this interview with Krish GM. Don't watch if you have access to petrol and matches - you might be so angry that you can't resist the urge to set fire to some Tories.




Ta for that. I very rarely watch interviews/listen to podcasts because the ratio of information gained versus time spent is usually so low but that whole thing is ❤ , from 14:00 through to the end and from 32:00 to the end is just superb.


----------



## David Clapson (Dec 29, 2020)

She's the kind of leader we need. The only bright spot of the Covid saga is that female leaders have been ruthlessly measured against male ones. The patriarchy is being seen for what it is. We can count the deaths that it causes and the riches which are trousered by the corrupt.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2020)

Some more good news ...

Covid-19: First vaccine patient has her second jab - BBC News


----------



## nagapie (Dec 29, 2020)

Supine said:


> Independent SAGE are doing an emergency briefing at 10am tomorrow morning. Live on YouTube.


I watch most weeks, sometimes I don't have the stomach for it, but was disconcerted when my 11 year old asked me what I was watching and why it had so few views. Was in the 10 000s, which is pretty low for YouTube. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful for their analysis but wish they weren't only preaching to the converted.


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It pains me to say it but GPs as a whole are absolutely fucking clueless about medicine.  They learnt some stuff 20 years ago and have never had to face any proper feedback or be tested since.  But they’re as arrogant as fuck because they are “the expert”, and that lack of testing has never shown them to be otherwise.



I'm sure they have CPD demands just like the rest of us. 

Their 'arrogance' may be something they use to protect themselves in the face of so much uncertainty. Such a complex role, being a GP. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 29, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Those partying back-packers in Sydney need confining to a barracks, for a minimum of three weeks. With quite a few of them being tested daily (mostly different ones each time), every time someone tests +ve they all get another two weeks added to the quarantine. And don't lift the quarantine until a fortnight after the last person stops having symptoms. And then revoke their visas and handout a lifetime ban,
> 
> *And the same should apply to those covidiots who scarpered from Verbier. I don't think Reedesdale / Otterburn camps are in use --- either would be suitable, from my point of view. The army can keep them confined, supply some ratpacks and do the testing ...*



I agree with your general sentiment (  ). Covidiots -- fuck 'em 

But (bolded bit) beware of what you wish for : you've probably heard that old army camps are already being used to "accomodate" asylum seekers in the UK

One near Folkestone, another not far from Tenby, which we visited on a protest (and with food and support and friendship!) in mid-November .

At both camps (according to the detail of reports on festivaldeb's source-sites)  utterly vile, cold, unhygienic and not particularly  Covid-safe conditions are endured  

There'll be other old military camps of similar nature I'm sure.. And the Army, etc., aren't even there.
'Security' is policed by private security firms.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> Is it?  I thought you could still travel to most places provided there was a negative test.


Ah i missed you saying no travel even with a negative test, i didnt read closely enough


----------



## two sheds (Dec 29, 2020)

David Clapson said:


> She's the kind of leader we need. The only bright spot of the Covid saga is that female leaders have been ruthlessly measured against male ones. The patriarchy is being seen for what it is. We can count the deaths that it causes and the riches which are trousered by the corrupt.



Yes - good that she mentioned that as I recall. Also where she'd gone wrong earlier on (not shutting down travel and one other I forget). 

And countries that listened to scientists have done particularly well - iceland and new zealand I know have special circumstances but they could have been fucked too.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> I agree with your general sentiment (  ). Covidiots -- fuck 'em
> 
> But (bolded bit) beware of what you wish for : you've probably heard that old army camps are already being used to "accomodate" asylum seekers in the UK
> 
> ...


As far as I know (and my info Will be out-of-date) Otterburn isn't in bad nick, ie it's not abandoned ...
An alternative could be to wire off a section of Catterick or Albemarle Camp, put campervans at Manston or take over a pontins / butlins camp - you get the idea ! ...


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 29, 2020)

Just read coppers have turned back from the Brecon Beacons people from as far away as Tier 4 London. What kind of utter entitled cunt do you have to be to make that journey at this moment in time? NO excuse, none. Yes I reserve the right to get angry with individual members of the public. Fannies. Fine them and put their fucking picture on the telly


----------



## Supine (Dec 29, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I watch most weeks, sometimes I don't have the stomach for it, but was disconcerted when my 11 year old asked me what I was watching and why it had so few views. Was in the 10 000s, which is pretty low for YouTube. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful for their analysis but wish they weren't only preaching to the converted.



I think they have started to have an influencing role with the media and some politicians. You now regularly see news reports and interviews that are based on the most recent indy sage advice. I agree more people should watch it.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 29, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Just read coppers have turned back from the Brecon Beacons people from as far away as Tier 4 London. What kind of utter entitled cunt do you have to be to make that journey at this moment in time? NO excuse, none. Yes I reserve the right to get angry with individual members of the public. Fannies. Fine them and put their fucking picture on the telly




Fucking hell 









						Covid: Police turn away visitors to Brecon Beacons
					

Wales' alert level four restrictions only allow travel if it is essential.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## agricola (Dec 29, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes - good that she mentioned that as I recall. Also where she'd gone wrong earlier on (not shutting down travel and one other I forget). And countries that listened to scientists have done particularly well - iceland and new zealand I know have special circumstances but they could have been fucked too.



TBF that NZ election was profoundly depressing - not that Ardern won, but that you had 35% of the electorate say "_yes, but socialism!!!!1111one_" irrespective of what had actually happened during her time in office.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 29, 2020)

Superb as lots of snow is  (in normal times, a trip up to Pen-y-Fan would have tempted us as well), , just watch some fucking online footage of the whiteclad slopes!!


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 29, 2020)

Not enough snow there to make a fuss about anyway


----------



## agricola (Dec 29, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> View attachment 246026
> 
> Fucking hell
> 
> ...



they should ask Bala how to handle those folk


----------



## kabbes (Dec 29, 2020)

Red Cat said:


> I'm sure they have CPD demands just like the rest of us.


Oh yes, CPD.  Show you’ve done X hours, regardless of whether you’ve actually learnt anything.

Come on.  Expertise is built via feedback loops.  You see your mistakes in rapid enough cycles so that you do it differently next time and learn from the change.  But GPs have no peer review process, they don’t see the patients that don’t return because they were failed and gave up, they don’t find out if their diagnoses or medication were appropriate — the system seems actually designed to avoid all the things that are needed for proper professional development.



> Their 'arrogance' may be something they use to protect themselves in the face of so much uncertainty. Such a complex role, being a GP. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.


I’m sorry, that doesn’t excuse anything.  I don’t really want to go into the complex and dangerous ways in which the arrogance of GPs have personally failed us, but I’m not minded to just say “oh well, it’s a tough job.” having lived through it.  If their role was replaced by a big data algorithm that directed patients either to appropriate specialists or bog-standard medication, I’m not seeing what would be lost.


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 29, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Oh yes, CPD.  Show you’ve done X hours, regardless of whether you’ve actually learnt anything.
> 
> Come on.  Expertise is built via feedback loops.  You see your mistakes in rapid enough cycles so that you do it differently next time and learn from the change.  But GPs have no peer review process, they don’t see the patients that don’t return because they were failed and gave up, they don’t find out if their diagnoses or medication were appropriate — the system seems actually designed to avoid all the things that are needed for proper professional development.
> 
> I’m sorry, that doesn’t excuse anything.  I don’t really want to go into the complex and dangerous ways in which the arrogance of GPs have personally failed us, but I’m not minded to just say “oh well, it’s a tough job.” having lived through it.  If their role was replaced by a big data algorithm that directed patients either to appropriate specialists or bog-standard medication, I’m not seeing what would be lost.



I didn't say oh well, its a tough job. I'm sure the stress of current circumstances is really pissing people off, but I really don't like it when people put words in my mouth. From what you know of me, does that sound like the kind of thoughtless blase comment I come out with? 

My CPD isn't just ticking boxes, so I won't assume that others CPD is meaningless, despite the potential for that kind of empty compliance. I'm in a group with some GPs who use the group to reflect upon the doctor patient relationship and I don't recognise your picture. My personal experience as a patient is also very different to yours and I haven't encountered that kind of arrogance. Obviously our experience of GPs is very different.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2020)

agricola said:


> they should ask Bala how to handle those folk


I know a few people that live / work in and around that part of Wales (and Bala, specifically) and for quite some years !
Shall we settle for the fact that they don't suffer fools, especially English fools, particularly gladly.


----------



## agricola (Dec 29, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> I know a few people that live / work in and around that part of Wales (and Bala, specifically) and for quite some years !
> Shall we settle for the fact that they don't suffer fools, especially English fools, particularly gladly.



its not for nothing that Welsh youth used to be trained there in marine sabotage, by the secretive URDD organization*

*may not have been a secretive organization involved in marine sabotage


----------



## Wilf (Dec 29, 2020)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> View attachment 246026
> 
> Fucking hell
> 
> ...


I thought at first that was a stock photo you'd inserted for effect, but no.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 29, 2020)

Confiscate their cars that'll teach em  

and before people say how they get back? ... transport them back in cattle trucks


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)

The current situation has reached the point where it is leaking into top level footballs attempts at something of normality again. Recent increase in positive cases within football and some games being postponed is leading to that sense that things could grind to a halt again at any moment. A commentator on one of tonights games even started going on about a pause to the game, and that Thursday nights should be the focus again (ie the clap). 

That sort of stuff was yet another indicator the first time round that the government were behind the curve and that things were about to be forced to change quite dramatically and soon. But there was the extra initial shock value the first time around, so I suppose I should not assume that these indicators will work exactly the same this time. But they might.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Just read coppers have turned back from the Brecon Beacons people from as far away as Tier 4 London. What kind of utter entitled cunt do you have to be to make that journey at this moment in time? NO excuse, none. Yes I reserve the right to get angry with individual members of the public. Fannies. Fine them and put their fucking picture on the telly


we were LITERALLY up in the mountains and this, like, HILLBILLY said we should like literally turn back now?


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2020)




----------



## muscovyduck (Dec 29, 2020)

elbows said:


>



Holy shit, that A&E covers most of south Birmingham right?


----------



## muscovyduck (Dec 29, 2020)

From this article



> The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham has 1,213 beds, 30 theatres and the largest single site critical care unit in Europe, with 100 beds. We employ in excess of 8,200 staff.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 29, 2020)

As I saw one doctor say, "now's a really bad time to get sick"


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 29, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> we were LITERALLY up in the mountains and this, like, HILLBILLY said we should like literally turn back now?



“Officers are engaging and educating, and where necessary will enforce restrictions”.
I don’t think enforcing restrictions should be the last resort. These people have already demonstrated that they are resistant to education.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

20Bees said:


> “Officers are engaging and educating, and where necessary will enforce restrictions”.
> I don’t think enforcing restrictions should be the last resort. These people have already demonstrated that they are resistant to education.


oh man i would sling a £1k fine on them quicker than you can say "soya latte"


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 29, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> oh man i would sling a £1k fine on them quicker than you can say "soya latte"


£1000 fine for thesuperfluous 'like'


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 29, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> £1000 find for the superfluous 'like'


thats' *LITERALLY* HILARIOUS!


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Dec 29, 2020)

NHS could face 'horrendous choices' over who gets coronavirus care

Nothing new here, at least not to anyone who's been reading this thread & is aware of how close the NHS is to being overwhelmed again, but it's a depressing read.


----------



## Cerv (Dec 29, 2020)

BigMoaner said:


> oh man i would sling a £1k fine on them quicker than you can say "soya latte"


I get the idea of trying the nice approach of education and encouragement at first, then sanctions as the last resort. get people onside so they're obeying the rules willingly and it's not a battle. 
but it's December now and this shit has been going on since March. we're so fucking far past the point of just fucking throw the book the fuckers it's unreal.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

two sheds said:


> Yes - good that she mentioned that as I recall. Also where she'd gone wrong earlier on (not shutting down travel and one other I forget).
> 
> And countries that listened to scientists have done particularly well - iceland and new zealand I know have special circumstances but they could have been fucked too.



I think it’s very telling that it’s the most western capitalist countries that are doing so badly compared to expectations.

Turns out the leadership in them was rotten all along, who’d have thought?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

Oxford vaccine approved at last.   

This should be a game changer, not just for the UK, but the world.











						COVID-19: Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to be rolled out from Monday - but Britons warned against behaving with 'wild abandon'
					

Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News it will start to be rolled out from 4 January.




					news.sky.com


----------



## MrSki (Dec 30, 2020)

Just saying on the radio that AstraZeneca are well behind with their production so may take a good while for those 100 million doses to show up.  

Shame there is no vaccine mass production facility in the UK.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Shame there is no vaccine mass production facility in the UK.



They are gearing-up for UK production, from the link above.



> While the vast majority of the 100 million doses of the drug ordered by the UK from AstraZeneca will be made in the UK, giving the Oxford vaccine a considerable advantage over its rivals, the initial rollout will use doses manufactured in Europe.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I think it’s very telling that it’s the most western capitalist countries that are doing so badly compared to expectations.
> 
> Turns out the leadership in them was rotten all along, who’d have thought?



None of the evidence against neoliberalism ever sticks though, no matter how damning or unequivocal. It's only ever proof that we didn't neoliberalism hard enough.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> None of the evidence against neoliberalism ever sticks though, no matter how damning or unequivocal. It's only ever proof that we didn't neoliberalism hard enough.



Our Western lifestyle and work life balance is superior.

[Everyone gets sick rapidly and the government offers minimal support if any]

Superior I tell you.


----------



## MrSki (Dec 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> They are gearing-up for UK production, from the link above.


Gearing up! When will it be ready? 
Turns out they are only single dosing people first but the good news is that no-one on the trail who had the single dose needed hospitalization.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Our Western lifestyle and work life balance is superior.
> 
> [Everyone gets sick rapidly and the government offers minimal support if any]
> 
> Superior I tell you.



One advantage of neoliberalism in a pandemic is that the huge swathes of the population who are compelled to do meaningless work can 'do' it from home just as easily. Trouble is the economy collapses if those people have time to make their own coffee and sandwiches and don't have to buy them from fucking pret.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 30, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Just saying on the radio that AstraZeneca are well behind with their production so may take a good while for those 100 million doses to show up.
> 
> Shame there is no vaccine mass production facility in the UK.



They aren't behind with production, they just slowed it down to match the delayed approval and reduced infection rates in late summer, otherwise they'd have produced millions of doses that expired before they were needed:









						AstraZeneca CEO blames trial delays, not manufacturing, for COVID-19 vaccine delivery shortfall
					

AstraZeneca had an order to supply 100 million doses of the University of Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine to the U.K., including 30 million doses by September. The drugmaker missed that deadline, but according its CEO, it was due to manufacturing consideration after a clinical trial delay.




					www.fiercepharma.com


----------



## Roadkill (Dec 30, 2020)

Some seemingly useful info here for debunking the 'oh it's all just scaremongering' / 'it's just another winter' drivel that's all over social media:



e2a: also this:



Some of the responses are actually alarming...


----------



## MrSki (Dec 30, 2020)

So if there is stock in the UK already why is not being given today to NHS staff & in care homes?

Why wait for 5 days?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

Hancock has confirmed, on BBC News, he will be announcing a further extension to the tier system this afternoon at 3 pm in the commons, wouldn't go into detail ATM.

Commenting on schools, he '*we've tried* to protect education as far as possible', so expect an announcement on that soon too.


----------



## Supine (Dec 30, 2020)

MrSki said:


> So if there is stock in the UK already why is not being given today to NHS staff & in care homes?
> 
> Why wait for 5 days?



Because batches need to get quality released against the product marketing authorisation and the supply chain chain needs to be filled. It's not like anyone will just sit around for no reason.


----------



## MrSki (Dec 30, 2020)

No this government is world beating for taking immediate action.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

Both the Oxford AND the Pfizer vaccines are now licenced for the 2 doses to be given up to 12 weeks apart, because of the high level of protection after the first dose, and to ensure as many people as possible can be vaccinated as quickly as possible.


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Hancock has confirmed, on BBC News, he will be announcing a further extension to the tier system this afternoon at 3 pm in the commons, wouldn't go into detail ATM.
> 
> Commenting on schools, he '*we've tried* to protect education as far as possible', so expect an announcement on that soon too.



Yeah, on Radio 4? Just heard him on that, he made it sound like schools will shut I thought. Thank fuck.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, on Radio 4? Just heard him on that, he made it sound like schools will shut I thought. Thank fuck.



I was watching the TV news, I only caught the end of him on Sky, to switched over to the BBC.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

It's the cost. as will as storage temperature, that makes the Oxford vaccine so important for the developing world.



And, it's worth remembering that although it's not as effective as others, no one getting covid after vaccination developed serious symptoms, and none required hospital treatment.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

Just confirmed, Gavin Williamson will be making a statement to the commons over schools reopening, straight after Handcock does his thing at 3 pm.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 30, 2020)

I'm annoyed by this talk of "a further extention to the tier system" 

National lockdown, and a *real* one, FFS!!!


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 30, 2020)

OTOH, this Oxford/AstraZeneca news make me glad!   

I'm getting new beer delivered later, and I'll be very quickly opening it to toast that news


----------



## kabbes (Dec 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I think it’s very telling that it’s the most western capitalist countries that are doing so badly compared to expectations.
> 
> Turns out the leadership in them was rotten all along, who’d have thought?


It’s really not just about leadership.  It’s about the cultural waters that form the pond that the leadership swim in,


----------



## IC3D (Dec 30, 2020)

kabbes said:


> It’s really not just about leadership.  It’s about the cultural waters that form the pond that the leadership swim in,


It's about more travel, social patterns and work places


----------



## kabbes (Dec 30, 2020)

IC3D said:


> It's about more travel, social patterns and work places


It’s about a lot of things.  The more extreme the individualism of your population’s ideology, however, the less they will react automatically to issues in a collectivised fashion.  When you have a system-level problem that requires collective action, this is a problem.  It’s the underlying assumptions of what life is and how societies work that is what is making western democracies fail at pandemics, not just having rubbish leaders.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 30, 2020)

Yet another Covid disinformation account (since taken down). This seems to be quite possibly a coordinated disinformation campaign, what I don't fully understand is why? Is it just to sow general fear and mistrust or is it for economic reasons or a combination of those and other factors? There are also lots of reports on Twitter of NHS staff getting a lot of abuse both IRL and online. Who the fuck are these disgusting arseholes?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

IC3D said:


> It's about more travel, social patterns and work places



Yes, very much so. 

Hyper-connected society with mass travel from and to work and an expectation that you can cross vast distances at any time via car, often just to get the right cup of coffee.


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2020)

teqniq said:


> Yet another Covid disinformation account (since taken down). This seems to be quite possibly a coordinated disinformation campaign, what I don't fully understand is why? Is it just to sow general fear and mistrust or is it for economic reasons or a combination of those and other factors? There are also lots of reports on Twitter of NHS staff getting a lot of abuse both IRL and online. Who the fuck are these disgusting arseholes?




You said it, some of it _is _a co-ordinated disinformation campaign and for exactly the reasons you stated.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Hancock has confirmed, on BBC News, he will be announcing a further extension to the tier system this afternoon at 3 pm in the commons, wouldn't go into detail ATM.
> 
> Commenting on schools, he '*we've tried* to protect education as far as possible', so expect an announcement on that soon too.



He also said this morning that the only thing limiting the speed of vaccine rollout was the speed with which the companies could produce it. Which I thought was total bollocks.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> You said it, some of it _is _a co-ordinated disinformation campaign and for exactly the reasons you stated.


Yes and with the likes of Sarah Vine in the Fail coming out with complete shite it is no too difficult to see the agenda:









						Sarah Vine Demands More Virus Spread
					

The Coronavirus pandemic shows no sign of obediently packing its bags and moving on: across the UK, a record 53,135 positive test results we...




					zelo-street.blogspot.com


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 30, 2020)

When's Matt "Been caught scrumping" Handcock and Gav "One bar of three working" Williamson on?


----------



## killer b (Dec 30, 2020)

Three


----------



## teqniq (Dec 30, 2020)

I really hope they announce that schools are not going to reopen, this from doctors. Not good:


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

These reports of an increase in younger people ending up in ITUs is very worrying.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 30, 2020)

I hear Tier 4 schools are to remain shut but not otbers


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

*Heads up - Johnson is doing at press conference at 5 pm. *


----------



## Sue (Dec 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> *Heads up - Johnson is doing at press conference at 57:30 pm. *


FTFY


----------



## prunus (Dec 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> These reports of an increase in younger people ending up in ITUs is very worrying.



From all I’ve read re: matched cohort analysis this is ‘just’ the result of more younger people getting it - ie it’s not causing a higher proportion of them to go to ICU than would be expected. Ie not good, obviously, but nothing extra to worry about than we already knew of.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 30, 2020)

Speculation that Manchester to go to Tier4


----------



## Wilf (Dec 30, 2020)

We're actually at a point of opportunity with the Oxford vaccine, where government could make real inroads into the virus: full lockdown, with funding for everyone who needs to isolate, plus massive focus on vaccine rollout.  By Spring we could be in a much better place.  Instead, it will be upward tinkering with the tiers, along with schools and universities going back a bit later. The usual (deadly) bollocks.

In passing, whenever the universities do go back, there won't the same superspreading that there was in September (Manchester, Edinburgh, Leeds etc.). But it will still be a nice little boost for the virus.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

So Handcock at 3, Gav the cunt at 3.30 and the incontinent twat in chief at 5.30?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 30, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Speculation that Manchester to go to Tier4



Whole of Lancashire Tier 4 at midnight.


----------



## kropotkin (Dec 30, 2020)

If so, they should get the equipment ready to connect Andy Burnham to the local grid


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

Hancock has begun.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> So Handcock at 3, Gav the cunt at 3.30 and the incontinent twat in chief at 5.30?



The Christmas period TV schedules get worse every fucking year.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 30, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Whole of Lancashire Tier 4 at midnight.


Yes I think that and the midlands were widely touted but Manchester wasn't .


----------



## Wilf (Dec 30, 2020)

kropotkin said:


> If so, they should get the equipment ready to connect Andy Burnham to the local grid


Yeah, I'll look forward to seeing Burnham in action at some point today - not something I thought I'd ever say a couple of years ago. Needless to say, I'll have no interest in hearing Sir Kier's thoughts on the matter.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

So, around 75% of England in tier 4, and almost all the rest in tier 3.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

Where's the mystical tier 5?

Edited to add, I am not watching. Just listening to the comments from you lot.


----------



## bimble (Dec 30, 2020)

Anecdotal observation from yr correspondent here in tier 4 national trust forest, these last few days it’s been the same level of madly busy here as it was in the early days of the first lockdown, people triple parking, leaving their cars all along the approach roads and all that. I suppose it’s a good thing, means there really isn’t anything for people to do apart from going for a walk.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, around 75% of England in tier 4, and almost all the rest in tier 3.



Avoiding a national lockdown at all costs


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Avoiding a national lockdown at all costs



Avoiding having to have a debate & vote in parliament, and avoiding trouble from the loons on the Tory backbenches.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> The Christmas period TV schedules get worse every fucking year.


Schedule:
The Three Stooges
Three Men Called Moron
The Three Wisde Men


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Schedule:
> The Three Stooges
> Three Men Called Moron
> The Three Wisde Men




Three Cunts and a Brexit


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 30, 2020)

The39thStep said:


> Yes I think that and the midlands were widely touted but Manchester wasn't .



Yep. And Liverpool isn't. It's its own tier 3 oasis.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 30, 2020)

Just seen Jeremy Hunt speaking on a webcam in the commons - agreed with everything he said  . Then the fucking speaker decided to tell him off for not meeting the dress code. FUCK. ME.


----------



## Supine (Dec 30, 2020)

We're moving from T2 to T4. Good, I hope all the tourists piss off home asap


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Just seen J*eremy Hunt speaking on a webcam in the commons - agreed with everything he said * . Then the fucking speaker decided to tell him off for not meeting the dress code. FUCK. ME.



Sentences that you never thought you'd see on Urban.

The speakers a useless fucker, eveb by speakers standards, he's more obsessed with Tradition than anything else.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 30, 2020)

New tiers:









						Formal tiering review update: 30 December 2020
					

More areas move to Tier 4 to limit the spread of the virus as case rates rise across the country.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

Full list of new tier level just published on go.uk.









						Formal tiering review update: 30 December 2020
					

More areas move to Tier 4 to limit the spread of the virus as case rates rise across the country.




					www.gov.uk
				




ETA - beaten to it, by that bastard platinumsage.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 30, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> Yep. And Liverpool isn't. It's its own tier 3 oasis.


Home advantage gone then for both clubs.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 30, 2020)

I'm now in Tier4 from Midnight (24:00 on 30th Dec 2020)

Good. 
That's what is needed.
I'll find a way to cope, & stay within the rules.

Next, get the vaccine rollout underway asap !


----------



## prunus (Dec 30, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Three Cunts and a Brexit



Three Wronguns and 85,000 Funerals.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 30, 2020)

Supine said:


> We're moving from T2 to T4. Good, I hope all the tourists piss off home asap


They won't be allowed to move out of T4


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Dec 30, 2020)

Srsly, this tier nonsense. Lowest rates in the country here in South Cumbria (from the highest in wave one) but we're moving up to tier four. Whatever, I'm off for two weeks and don't expect to leave the house 😐


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

The Isles of Scilly, with a population of 2,224 people, remains in tier 1, and is the only part of England not in tiers 3 or 4.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Lowest rates in the country here in South Cumbria (from the highest in wave one) but we're moving up to tier four.


What are the hospital admission rates like though? Probably using your hospital beds for other areas too.


----------



## The39thStep (Dec 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The Isles of Scilly, with a population of 2,224 people, remains in tier 1, and is the only part of England not in tiers 3 or 4.


Can you jet ski there?


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

Nothing from Williamson? Guardian reporting secondary schools to remain closed with online classes only for students in exam years. Which would mean I'm not working because they don't let me near Y11 or Y13 yet.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The Isles of Scilly, with a population of 2,224 people, remains in tier 1, and is the only part of England not in tiers 3 or 4.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Nothing from Williamson?



The Handcock half hour overrun, Williamson up soon.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

Here's what it looks like...


----------



## brogdale (Dec 30, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> Here's what it looks like...
> 
> View attachment 246136


I'm sure if you look at it long enough...it reads CUNTS.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Nothing from Williamson? Guardian reporting secondary schools to remain closed with online classes only for students in exam years. Which would mean I'm not working because they don't let me near Y11 or Y13 yet.


That makes no sense, why wouldn't you deliver online lessons to the rest?


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

nagapie said:


> That makes no sense, why wouldn't you deliver online lessons to the rest?


Just quoting the Guardian though I'm pretty sure my workplace will try to do online lessons for the rest too.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Just quoting the Guardian though I'm pretty sure my workplace will try to do online lessons for the rest too.


Sounds like the Guardian is confused. That would never be the case. Unless the lower years were going in.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Sounds like the Guardian is confused. That would never be the case. Unless the lower years were going in.


Maybe




			
				Grauniad said:
			
		

> * Secondary school pupils will not return to their classrooms in the week beginning 4 January, with most expected to have an extended holiday. Those taking exams such as A-levels, BTecs and GCSEs will initially have online or remote lessons while schools and colleges carry out mass testing of their students, and return to school from 18 January. *




I would think if it's correct they'll be dropping the requirement to provide online teaching for a week or two rather than telling schools absolutely not to try and teach children.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Maybe
> 
> 
> 
> I would think if it's correct they'll be dropping the requirement to provide online teaching for a week or two rather than telling schools absolutely not to try and teach children.


Oh. No lessons at all just for a week or two? Can't see my school adhering to that.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Maybe
> 
> 
> 
> I would think if it's correct they'll be dropping the requirement to provide online teaching for a week or two rather than telling schools absolutely not to try and teach children.


What about primaries?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

Another bad day on new cases - 50,023. 

Deaths 981, high because it's catching-up on the lag caused by the long weekend.


----------



## Thora (Dec 30, 2020)

nagapie said:


> What about primaries?


Think the rumour is delayed start in tier 4, normal start in tier 3.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

nagapie said:


> What about primaries?


According to the Guardian an extra 2 weeks off in tier 4 areas only (though that's most of the country now). No mention of nurseries yet. My two year old is going nuts at the moment and we intend to send him if we can.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

Thora said:


> Think the rumour is delayed start in tier 4, normal start in tier 3.


Fuck. So no key worker school. What should us workers do?


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2020)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Srsly, this tier nonsense. Lowest rates in the country here in South Cumbria (from the highest in wave one) but we're moving up to tier four. Whatever, I'm off for two weeks and don't expect to leave the house 😐



It's not just done on infection rates. There's a load of factors that the decision is based on. Anyway, it wouldn't have been done unless needed, it's not a punishment.


----------



## Thora (Dec 30, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Fuck. So no key worker school. What should us workers do?


Won't your school be delayed too though?


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

Thora said:


> Won't your school be delayed too though?


I'll be teaching online.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 30, 2020)

It's insanity. It's worse than when we locked down in March. And we haven't locked down. It's a balancing act where if the tightrope walker slips some of the audience dies.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Fuck. So no key worker school. What should us workers do?


Can't see how they can do that though key workers aren't mentioned in the Guardian article. I'm assuming there will be provision for key workers and vulnerable kids whatever unless Gav the prick says different.


----------



## Pingety Pong (Dec 30, 2020)

Weren't there rumours that they might shorten the summer holidays by two weeks - in which case extended xmas holidays with no online lessons would make sense? (I am sure I read this somewhere but to be fair it might well have been in the German news talking about German schools )


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Can't see how they can do that though key workers aren't mentioned in the Guardian article. I'm assuming there will be provision for key workers and vulnerable kids whatever unless Gav the prick says different.


2 weeks 'holiday' doesn't suggest it.


----------



## chilango (Dec 30, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Fuck. So no key worker school. What should us workers do?



To be fair the Government has issued consistent warnings since cases started to rise sharply that schools might not be able to open as normal  and to begin to make arrang....

....oh wait.


----------



## Thora (Dec 30, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I'll be teaching online.


Year 11 & 13?

I think the suggestion is every year other than 11 & 13 just gets too extra weeks holiday.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 30, 2020)

981?


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

chilango said:


> To be fair the Government has issued consistent warnings since cases started to rise sharply that schools might not be able to open as normal  and to begin to make arrang....
> 
> ....oh wait.


Can issue all the warnings they like, I don't have childcare if I have to work.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

Thora said:


> Year 11 & 13?
> 
> I think the suggestion is every year other than 11 & 13 just gets too extra weeks holiday.


Yes.


----------



## chilango (Dec 30, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Can issue all the warnings they like, I don't have childcare if I have to work.



Was bitter sarcasm.

They've obviously spent the last few weeks insisting schools will be open.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

chilango said:


> Was bitter sarcasm.
> 
> They've obviously spent the last few weeks insisting schools will be open.


I know. I'm just in meltdown. Worst possible outcome for me. Was hoping for national lockdown with key worker school, was expecting they'd be arseholes and keep exam years and primaries in school but this is the worst outcome for me - no notice, no provision, 2 weeks stuck in the house while trying to teach online. Fucked quite frankly.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

From the prick's mouth: Primaries only closed in some areas, not all of tier 4, list to be published later. Provision for key workers and vulnerable kids remains.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 30, 2020)

bimble said:


> Anecdotal observation from yr correspondent here in tier 4 national trust forest, these last few days it’s been the same level of madly busy here as it was in the early days of the first lockdown, people triple parking, leaving their cars all along the approach roads and all that. I suppose it’s a good thing, means there really isn’t anything for people to do apart from going for a walk.


Yep, here too.  Hoards of cyclists in particular, who never in a million years all come from the same household.

Our cunting local shop has happily carried on selling them all coffees too, to ensure that they stop to gather all together right in the village centre,


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

Exam years back on 11th. Others back from 18th.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Hoards of cyclists


What, like loads of spare inner tubes and tyres?


----------



## Thora (Dec 30, 2020)

nagapie said:


> I know. I'm just in meltdown. Worst possible outcome for me. Was hoping for national lockdown with key worker school, was expecting they'd be arseholes and keep exam years and primaries in school but this is the worst outcome for me - no notice, no provision, 2 weeks stuck in the house while trying to teach online. Fucked quite frankly.


Only some tier 4 primaries will be shut, but I think he has said key worker school will be available.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

Thora said:


> Only some tier 4 primaries will be shut, but I think he has said key worker school will be available.


I really hope so. I know there are plenty of others in the same situation and many without access to key worker school but I am quite frankly at the end of my tether. Apart from other particular stresses I have on me, I had 6 weeks of isolation between my two kids last term and struggled to do my job with an unsympathetic boss.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

Will the shops finally close 😂


----------



## kabbes (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> What, like loads of spare inner tubes and tyres?


Believe it or not, my autocorrect actually changed that from hoardes.  It just tried to do it again too, and then to hoarded.


----------



## chilango (Dec 30, 2020)

Expect further last minute announcements in a well or two's time


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Believe it or not, my autocorrect actually changed that from hoardes.  It just tried to do it again too, and then to hoarded.


Hordes. No a.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Hordes. No a.


Oh ffs


----------



## weepiper (Dec 30, 2020)

What a fucking useless, half-assed, confusing message on English schools.


----------



## chilango (Dec 30, 2020)

I suspect this "some but not all" tier 4 schools idea is copied from the tiers to avoid taking responsibility for a "national closure".


----------



## chilango (Dec 30, 2020)

Expecting a "come back to campus. f2f teaching is going ahead as planned" email from my Uni any minute...


----------



## nagapie (Dec 30, 2020)

chilango said:


> I suspect this "some but not all" tier 4 schools idea is copied from the tiers to avoid taking responsibility for a "national closure".


I wonder how schools are figuring out if they're some or not. And wondering which Greenwich and Islington are and what their dartboard of Handcock and Williamson's faces looks like.


----------



## bimble (Dec 30, 2020)

kabbes said:


> Yep, here too.  Hoards of cyclists in particular, who never in a million years all come from the same household.
> 
> Our cunting local shop has happily carried on selling them all coffees too, to ensure that they stop to gather all together right in the village centre,


I walked down to the village this morning for first time in ages and the pub was doing pints in plastic cups (and sausage baps) through the window and there was a proper little crowd just standing around in the street chatting in bobble hats and wellies and I have to admit I thought it was nice thing, didn’t feel unsafe, people were in their little groups but just wanting to sort of be around others doing something a bit communal.


----------



## magneze (Dec 30, 2020)

So now we have different levels within tier 4 for schools. Um, what? Incoherent bollocks.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Exam years back on 11th. Others back from 18th.


This is fucking madness.


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2020)

The exam year kid in this house has said Williamson and school can get to fuck.


----------



## Thora (Dec 30, 2020)

So now it's tier 3, tier 4 and 'contingency framework' areas for schools


----------



## teqniq (Dec 30, 2020)

They don't give a shit do they? Meanwhile I imagine Eton etc will remain shut.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

He is such a repulsive turd. Can't watch him on tv without wanting to punch him.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 30, 2020)

bimble said:


> just wanting to sort of be around others doing something a bit communal.


I absolutely get this desire, but the sad truth is it's the exact sort of thing that spreads the virus and makes this all go on for longer.


----------



## Looby (Dec 30, 2020)

His statement was so messy and confused I don’t actually know what he’s announced.
I’m fucking terrified about going back to work so I’m sure teachers are.


----------



## not a trot (Dec 30, 2020)

teqniq said:


> They don't give a shit do they? Meanwhile I imagine* Eton etc will remain shut.*



Shut it for good and turn the buildings into accommodation for the homeless.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 30, 2020)

Clear as mud. Now waiting to hear from college principal as some college students are year 13 i.e. exam year.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 30, 2020)

Sorry, just having a quiet dark humoured chuckle at some SLTs currently tearing their hair out.

What the fuck was that?


----------



## killer b (Dec 30, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I absolutely get this desire, but the sad truth is it's the exact sort of thing that spreads the virus and makes this all go on for longer.


Is it? in the league table of t_he exact sort of thing that spreads the virus and makes this all go on for longer_, hanging out with some people outdoors is pretty low as far as I've been able to tell.


----------



## purenarcotic (Dec 30, 2020)

So my understanding is this: 


primary schools will go back as normal on the 4th. A small number in the areas with the highest cases will not open to all students, except for vulnerable and key worker children
secondary schools will not open on the 4th to children. Instead, planning for mass testing will take place
from the 11th, exam years will start to go in (year 11 and 13)
from the 18th all other children will attend full time as usual, with mass testing taking place
a small number of secondary schools in areas with the highest cases will not open at all, except to vulnerable and key worker children
a whopping 1500 army personnel will be drafted to support schools with mass testing


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 30, 2020)

killer b said:


> Is it? in the league table of t_he exact sort of thing that spreads the virus and makes this all go on for longer_, hanging out with some people outdoors is pretty low as far as I've been able to tell.


Aye, fair, it's not the absolute worst thing, but it's still people meeting up and congregating, which is just providing shitloads of opportunities for mistakes to happen.

Also, it again dissolves the lines between what is and isn't sensible, and so other things start to creep in too. "Oh, well we met up at the pub, so maybe we can do this, and that, and these other things..." and all of a sudden the risk factor rises exponentially.


----------



## chilango (Dec 30, 2020)

So. Schools are opening as normal. Apart from those  that aren't. Some will open a week later for some kids but other kids will go back a week after that. Apart from those that don't. 

Right?


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 30, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> So my understanding is this:
> 
> 
> primary schools will go back as normal on the 4th. A small number in the areas with the highest cases will not open to all students, except for vulnerable and key worker children
> ...


as i understand it


schools had been working with local councils before christmas to ensure pupil safety
these plans were torn up by the government as schools closed for the xmas break
so headteachers and their staff have had fuck all break as they struggle to catch up with the government's diktats
and now the government is fucking it up even more


----------



## Thora (Dec 30, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> So my understanding is this:
> 
> 
> primary schools will go back as normal on the 4th. A small number in the areas with the highest cases will not open to all students, except for vulnerable and key worker children
> ...


Currently... there's still plenty of time before the 4th.


----------



## purenarcotic (Dec 30, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> as i understand it
> 
> 
> schools had been working with local councils before christmas to ensure pupil safety
> ...



Very much this too. Beggars belief, doesn’t it.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 30, 2020)

No change here in Sheffield. Which is a shame, because being in a lower tier than other areas affects peoples' attitude ("oh we're fine, rates are reducing...")


----------



## bimble (Dec 30, 2020)

I’d be going mad right now if I had to navigate this shitshow with school age kids. Just don’t know how people are supposed to deal with it, you can’t just improvise if you’ve got 3 kids all in different years and a teaching job to top it off like my friend down the hill.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

At least JVT is scheduled to be one of the press conference participants today.


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2020)

miss direct said:


> No change here in Sheffield. Which is a shame, because being in a lower tier than other areas affects peoples' attitude ("oh we're fine, rates are reducing...")



Yeah, same here in West Yorkshire, "Oh we're not in Tier 4, it's OK here."


----------



## Mation (Dec 30, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> So my understanding is this:
> 
> 
> primary schools will go back as normal on the 4th. A small number in the areas with the highest cases will not open to all students, except for vulnerable and key worker children
> ...


That's what I understood, but it was so ridiculously waffly...

Anyone got a link yet for the published details?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

Mation said:


> That's what I understood, but it was so ridiculously waffly...
> 
> Anyone got a link yet for the published details?



Its not the 3rd of Jan yet so.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

He's only 3 minutes late. Must be pretty fucking serious.


----------



## killer b (Dec 30, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Aye, fair, it's not the absolute worst thing, but it's still people meeting up and congregating, which is just providing shitloads of opportunities for mistakes to happen.
> 
> Also, it again dissolves the lines between what is and isn't sensible, and so other things start to creep in too. "Oh, well we met up at the pub, so maybe we can do this, and that, and these other things..." and all of a sudden the risk factor rises exponentially.


One of the indie sage documents  a month or so ago recommended there should be organised mass outdoor gatherings over Christmas, which seemed pretty sensible to me. I was out on the park the other day and the pub next to the park had masses of people hanging around drinking mulled wine and beer, and the cafe in the park had a similar crowd round it - tbh it actually felt a bit unsafe to me at points, as the management of the crowds was being left to the pub and cafe, who either were caught unawares or didn't give a fuck. 

If we recognise this kind of activity is inevitable, but also relatively low risk, it seems to me that it would be better to do it in a more organised manner, with wardens, one way routes, etc etc.


----------



## prunus (Dec 30, 2020)

Thora said:


> Currently... there's still plenty of time before the 4th.



Not to mention before the 18th...


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 30, 2020)

I honestly don't understand the point of a one-week delay for _some_ pupils. What's the point, even from their own logic


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

Why are they referring to key workers as critical workers now? Has there been a shift in definition?


----------



## Mation (Dec 30, 2020)

He did initially say no return for the rest of secondary pupils until _at least_ the 18th, didn't he?


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

Todays episode should be titled tunnel vision.


----------



## chilango (Dec 30, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> I honestly don't understand the point of a one-week delay for _some_ pupils. What's the point, even from their own logic



To free up the teaching assistants to run the mass testing program.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 30, 2020)

(There's more, it's a thread)


----------



## chilango (Dec 30, 2020)

weepiper said:


> (There's more, it's a thread)




Are they all London?


----------



## weepiper (Dec 30, 2020)

chilango said:


> Are they all London?


No, looks like some in Essex, Kent, Sussex, Milton Keynes too.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 30, 2020)

weepiper said:


> (There's more, it's a thread)


Weirdly, not Greenwich, who wanted to close down before Christmas.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

Lord Camomile said:


> Weirdly, not Greenwich, who wanted to close down before Christmas.



Because Greenwich kids might become Labour voters?


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

They've managed to solve the 'what to call tier 4 when tier 3 is already very high' problem I see. Tier 4 - Stay at Home


----------



## moochedit (Dec 30, 2020)

Cov has gone up from tier 3 to tier 4. Not sure exactly what practical differences it will make. I think i still have to go into work on Monday.   I guess seeing a mate on NYE is out but i think that was out with tier 3 as well. Glad i got my haircut done yesterday.


----------



## bimble (Dec 30, 2020)

So bleak, all of those lines that show the new variant uptick in every region.


----------



## chilango (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> They've managed to solve the 'what to call tier 4 when tier 3 is already very high' problem I see. Tier 4 - Stay at Home



"Tier 4 - Stay at home (unless you're going to work, school. university, shopping, for a takeaway, fox hunting etc) "

is it's full title.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> They've managed to solve the 'what to call tier 4 when tier 3 is already very high' problem I see. Tier 4 - Stay at Home



Yes I think they came up with that when they first came out with tier 4.

Due to JVT comments I'm changing this episodes title to tunnel vision and the eye of faith.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 30, 2020)

I cannot understand how Mrs SI thinks this shower of fuckwits is pretty much doing as well as they could be expected to


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I cannot understand how Mrs SI thinks this shower of fuckwits is pretty much doing as well as they could be expected to



Well their track record does encourage low expectations.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 30, 2020)

purenarcotic said:


> So my understanding is this:
> 
> 
> primary schools will go back as normal on the 4th. A small number in the areas with the highest cases will not open to all students, except for vulnerable and key worker children
> ...



What's that, 0.08 of a soldier per school? Superb.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 30, 2020)

bimble said:


> So bleak, all of those lines that show the new variant uptick in every region.


Yes, so why not batten down the hatches everywhere?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

S☼I said:


> I cannot understand how Mrs SI thinks this shower of fuckwits is pretty much doing as well as they could be expected to



As already commented on the fact that any of them is able to sign their own name or breathe unaided is always a surprise.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 30, 2020)

chilango said:


> So. Schools are opening as normal. Apart from those  that aren't. Some will open a week later for some kids but other kids will go back a week after that. Apart from those that don't.
> 
> Right?



_Heavy dub vibes_

"Matt Lucas in the area"

His remains the seminal work that will be studied in 20 years time.


----------



## magneze (Dec 30, 2020)

22 out of 32 London boroughs in, effectively, Tier 4.5 then?


----------



## miss direct (Dec 30, 2020)

I bet I get asked to do testing as part of my in school job starting on the 18th. I just have a feeling!


----------



## bimble (Dec 30, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Yes, so why not batten down the hatches everywhere?


I really don’t get it. Seems mad to stick with the tiers even though 70 + % or whatever are now in 4. I feel like people would actually comply more if it was just the same everywhere. I’m not a politician tho so must be missing something.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Well their track record does encourage low expectations.


I can certainly say I don't think they're doing any _worse_ than I've come to expect.


----------



## rutabowa (Dec 30, 2020)

weepiper said:


> (There's more, it's a thread)



here's the original doc https://assets.publishing.service.g...ingency_framework_implementation_guidance.pdf


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 30, 2020)

bimble said:


> I really don’t get it. Seems mad to stick with the tiers even though 70 + % or whatever are now in 4. I feel like people would actually comply more if it was just the same everywhere. I’m not a politician tho so must be missing something.



Someone has decided 'national lockdown' is not a vote winner.

And you aren't chasing votes.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 30, 2020)

bimble said:


> I really don’t get it. Seems mad to stick with the tiers even though 70 + % or whatever are now in 4. I feel like people would actually comply more if it was just the same everywhere. *I’m not a politician tho so must be missing something.*


I think the only thing you may be missing is the entitled self-interest of them and their mates. That and fuck everyone else.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 30, 2020)

Most expensive education money can buy and he literally cannot speak clearly and simply. Seriously, fuck these ghouls with their ehm ehm ehm piffle piffle ehm


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> What's that, 0.08 of a soldier per school? Superb.



Translates to getting them on Zoom for 15 minutes. It's fucking mental.


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Todays episode should be titled tunnel vision.



That was fucking so painful. No light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel has been shortened? WTF.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 30, 2020)

Say _ehm_ one more time I dare you I double dare you motherfucker


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 30, 2020)

Well, my expectations were rock bottom and it’s safe to say they’ve been met.

People who don’t need to die, will. That’s what they’ve just announced. Our government is utter scum.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 30, 2020)

S☼I said:


> Say _ehm_ one more time I dare you I double dare you motherfucker
> 
> View attachment 246157



Alas...


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 30, 2020)

Local figures out now,
so.
In seven days to 25th December, we had 51 new +ve cases and a case rate of 725.5 per 100,000 population.

Still massively high for this area, which managed most of the first wave and the summer with almost never going into double figures ...


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That was fucking so painful. No light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel has been shortened? WTF.


yeh the tunnel's collapsed up ahead and johnson's stamping his foot down on the accelerator


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2020)

Has Johnson had a stroke? He's totally incoherent.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> Local figures out now,
> so.
> In seven days to 25th December, we had 51 new +ve cases and a case rate of 725.5 per 100,000 population.
> 
> Still massively high for this area, which managed most of the first wave and the summer with almost never going into double figures ...



The first wave number of positive cases data is useless for that, testing was not capturing much of the picture and was mostly an indicator of hospital testing. So its not possible to compare first wave positive case numbers with later numbers to judge one waves size to anothers in a particular location. Have to do that via hospital and death data instead.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

Schools are safe it's just the household mixing that takes place in them that's a problem. Wtf?


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

Wild abandon at the bingo halls.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Wild abandon at the bingo halls.



That was the B-side to Rowche Rumble wasn't it?


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> Wild abandon at the bingo halls.


Did he say so?


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

planetgeli said:


> That was the B-side to Rowche Rumble wasn't it?



A big shot's voice in his ears
Worlds of silence in his ears
All the numbers account for years
Checks the cards through eyes of tears


----------



## clicker (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Schools are safe it's just the household mixing that takes place in them that's a problem. Wtf?


I know   .


----------



## Lord Camomile (Dec 30, 2020)

I'll be honest, I stopped watching very early on.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 30, 2020)

NEU not impressed:









						January return to school
					

NEU responds to the Government’s announcement on the return to school in January




					neu.org.uk


----------



## Callum91 (Dec 30, 2020)

His choice of words is pretty astonishing for someone with his level of ''education''. A thousand dead? ''Sad''.


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

clicker said:


> I know   .


He has a point though. Empty schools are much safer.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Did he say so?



No it was JVT using colourful language when setting the scene and paraphrasing a question which lead to him explaining that we dont yet have proof of the vaccines reducing transmission, so everyone vaccinated cant just start galavanting around as they may still be a hazard to others.


----------



## Supine (Dec 30, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Has Johnson had a stroke? He's totally incoherent.



Nah, that's his normal unfortunately


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 30, 2020)

Callum91 said:


> His choice of words is pretty astonishing for someone with his level of ''education''. A thousand dead? ''Sad''.



Eton isn't about education, it's about ensuring that the dull children of the gentry don't _need_ education.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 30, 2020)

elbows said:


> No it was JVT using colourful language when setting the scene and paraphrasing a question which lead to him explaining that we dont yet have proof of the vaccines reducing transmission, so *everyone vaccinated cant just start galavanting around as they may still be a hazard to others*.


What could possibly go wrong?


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

Callum91 said:


> His choice of words is pretty astonishing for someone with his level of ''education''. A thousand dead? ''Sad''.



Its even worse at press conferences where he seeks to demonstrate his education, he starts making references to things from Greek mythology.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

2hats said:


> What could possibly go wrong?



That reminds me that I've been meaning to check the timing of an uptick in activities shown in some google mobility data to see if it coincided with when the period that good vaccine news started getting heavily hyped began.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Dec 30, 2020)

It's okay to find Van Tam annoying isn't it?


----------



## zahir (Dec 30, 2020)

Today's Independent Sage briefing, recorded before the latest government announcements.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's okay to find Van Tam annoying isn't it?



Certainly. I dont worship him, I just find him entertaining in his own way compared to Whitty and Vallance and a bunch of others. And somewhat less likely to overtly brown-nose Johnson or defend Cummings.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2020)

He's certainly one of the best.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

And he was lucky enough not to be involved with press conferences much during the first half of March where the others were digging themselves into a deep hole that then required the worlds largest u-turn to escape from.

If he had been centre-stage during the period where the modellers got the epidemic timing all wrong, then it could easily be him who'd have been talking about us being 4 weeks behind Italy when we were actually 2 weeks behind Italy.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 30, 2020)

_Scholasticus elasticus    _


----------



## Supine (Dec 30, 2020)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's okay to find Van Tam annoying isn't it?



No! He's a national treasure


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2020)

brogdale said:


> View attachment 246161
> 
> _Scholasticus elasticus   _



A good pairing for Johnsons alasticus procrasticus.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 30, 2020)

What are the current odds on the Easter u-turn announcement date?


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 30, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Just seen Jeremy Hunt speaking on a webcam in the commons - agreed with everything he said  . Then the fucking speaker decided to tell him off for not meeting the dress code. FUCK. ME.


Yep sadly he was miles better than any of the shadow cabinet wankers


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 30, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> What are the current odds on the Easter u-turn announcement date?



You're going to have to be more specific. There are nineteen major u-turns scheduled between now and easter.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 30, 2020)

SpookyFrank said:


> You're going to have to be more specific. There are nineteen major u-turns scheduled between now and easter.


my bad, I meant the "Easter is cancelled" u-turn headlines in the newspapers


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 30, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> my bad, I meant the "Easter is cancelled" u-turn headlines in the newspapers



That's cool though. We'll have it in Decemb...no, wait.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 30, 2020)

They're absolutely definitely not introducing a Tier 5. But some Tier 4 areas with the highest rates will have schools closed.

That is a Tier 5 you fucking cocksplatters. Did you think no-one would notice if you called it something else?


----------



## clicker (Dec 30, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> my bad, I meant the "Easter is cancelled" u-turn headlines in the newspapers


We're going to be over run by turkeys at this rate.


----------



## Cid (Dec 30, 2020)

What's the situation with universities?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

Spandex said:


> They're absolutely definitely not introducing a Tier 5. But some Tier 4 areas with the highest rates will have schools closed.
> 
> That is a Tier 5 you fucking cocksplatters. Did you think no-one would notice if you called it something else?




"They've rebadged it!"


----------



## maomao (Dec 30, 2020)

Cid said:


> What's the situation with universities?


Students with a practical element to their course to return and others to study at home for the forseeable.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 30, 2020)

Buckinghamshire declares major incident over Covid cases
					

County follows Essex in calling for extra support amid fears patients could overwhelm health services




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## tim (Dec 30, 2020)

Supine said:


> No! He's a national treasure



His grandad was a National Torturer (but only of Communists and peasants)


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

Cid said:


> What's the situation with universities?




Red X on the door and left to learn via zoom with an expired meal deal for dinner.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 30, 2020)

maomao said:


> Students with a practical element to their course to return and others to study at home for the forseeable.



So I can still go to my placement at (checks notes) a school...


----------



## Sue (Dec 30, 2020)

This is worth a listen. There's a bit quite near the end that'll bring a tear to your eye. 









						BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion, The Covid-19 ward
					

Michael Rosen and the medical staff who cared for him during his battle with coronavirus.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Cloo (Dec 30, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> What are the current odds on the Easter u-turn announcement date?


Oh Christ, what has he promised about Easter?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 30, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Oh Christ, what has he promised about Easter?



We'll all get 350 million quid and a goose that shits gold.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Oh Christ, what has he promised about Easter?



I assume we're basing things on previous experience









						Boris Johnson unveils plan to return England 'to normality' by Christmas
					

PM sets out workplace guidelines and gives local authorities powers to close premises and cancel events




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## tim (Dec 30, 2020)

Cloo said:


> Oh Christ, what has he promised about Easter?



Serco will start resurrecting the Covid dead.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 30, 2020)

Shall we designate tomorrow as Tutt Tutting Night, with stories of mass parties and images of pissed up people hung round each other's necks?  One of those situations where I'll be tutting along myself, but more angry at a government that has got us to this point.


----------



## CH1 (Dec 30, 2020)

Excuse me if this has been discussed before.
I have commonly accessed up to date Covid figures using the Worldometers site - recommended by someone on Facebook.
I appreciate there is a more graphically inclined website at Johns Hopkins University - but WorldoMeters is in some ways more flexible to a spreadsheet user.

I noticed today that - in terms of deaths per million population the UK  is joint twelfth  - with the Czech Republic.
USA follows up behind UK/Czech.

The worse affected countries could be statistical abberations - though second from worst is Belgium, and as a hub of EU trade, railways, civil service etc could be plausible.
As a matter of interest the worst country in the world is San Marino - a principality surrounded by Italy with a population of *3*3,966.

Possibly one requires the guidance of Tim Harford of More or Less to fully understand these stats - but it seems to me that if you look at the Meters spreadsheet the current alleged quick Covid variant is irrelevant. Things are not good at all.

One wonders whether the Quick Covid virus is being used as a marketing tool for mass-inoculation at unprecedented speed.









						Coronavirus Update (Live): 129,471,257 Cases and 2,828,154 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
					

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 30, 2020)

Oh well. The supermarkets in Tier 4 stay open, I finish on the checkout an hour earlier tomorrow evening and I’m sure when I’m home 24 hours from now I’ll think of something to drink a toast to. The government won’t be it.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 31, 2020)

20Bees said:


> Oh well. The supermarkets in Tier 4 stay open, I finish on the checkout an hour earlier tomorrow evening and I’m sure when I’m home 24 hours from now I’ll think of something to drink a toast to. The government won’t be it.



Maybe somewhat better vaccine news today? Look after yourself anyway


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 31, 2020)

William of Walworth said:


> Maybe somewhat better vaccine news today? Look after yourself anyway


YES! This, absolutely.


----------



## Cid (Dec 31, 2020)

CH1 said:


> Excuse me if this has been discussed before.
> I have commonly accessed up to date Covid figures using the Worldometers site - recommended by someone on Facebook.
> I appreciate there is a more graphically inclined website at Johns Hopkins University - but WorldoMeters is in some ways more flexible to a spreadsheet user.
> 
> ...



As I'm sure Tim Harford would tell you, all you're getting from worldometer is basic observational data. It tells you precisely nothing about how that data relates to changing restrictions, and other effects on how people interact.

And tbh yeah, new variant covid as a cover for <x> has been covered. It's conspiracy theory bollocks.


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2020)

CH1 said:


> Possibly one requires the guidance of Tim Harford of More or Less to fully understand these stats - but it seems to me that if you look at the Meters spreadsheet the current alleged quick Covid variant is irrelevant. Things are not good at all.
> 
> One wonders whether the Quick Covid virus is being used as a marketing tool for mass-inoculation at unprecedented speed.



I wouldnt use the current deaths stats to make judgements about the new strain. I would also judge the actual impact of the new strain as an entirely separate issue to how the new strain is used in public communications, as an excuse for other failings etc. For example its not an either or, the government can hide behind aspects of the new strain in an unfair way at the same time as the new strain also genuinely makes things much worse.

I wouldnt call the new strain irrelevant. I would suggest it is part of a mix that I cannot separate through simple data alone, but some arguments in favour of its fingerprints being all over some of the recent alarming rises have become more compelling to me over time. I still reserve full judgement for later.

Whatever the causes, the number of Covid-19 patients in hospital stats continue their alarming trend. There are compelling reasons to want to do mass vaccination in a hurry, although Im not sure how much difference it will actually end up making to this wave, depends on various issues of timing and wave longevity.


----------



## Cid (Dec 31, 2020)

elbows said:


> I wouldnt use the current deaths stats to make judgements about the new strain. I would also judge the actual impact of the new strain as an entirely separate issue to how the new strain is used in public communications, as an excuse for other failings etc. For example its not an either or, the government can hide behind aspects of the new strain in an unfair way at the same time as the new strain also genuinely makes things much worse.
> 
> I wouldnt call the new strain irrelevant. I would suggest it is part of a mix that I cannot separate through simple data alone, but some arguments in favour of its fingerprints being all over some of the recent alarming rises have become more compelling to me over time. I still reserve full judgement for later.
> 
> ...



^ the more patient, nuanced version.


----------



## Mation (Dec 31, 2020)

[I wasn't being very helpful.]


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

So...I've just spent the last week ramming home the message to my older relatives who've had Pfizer 1 that they mustn't lower their guard until after their second jab....and then, out of the blue, we're told jab 2 ain't happening any time soon, even through they've got their appointment card for the session?   

This smacks of absolute desperation and looks well dodgy, tbh:



> Pfizer/BioNTech said that their vaccine was not designed to be used in two shots 12 weeks apart. In a statement, the firms said there was no evidence the first shot continued to work beyond three weeks.
> 
> “Data from the phase 3 study demonstrated that, although partial protection from the vaccine appears to begin as early as 12 days after the first dose, two doses of the vaccine are required to provide the maximum protection against the disease, a vaccine efficacy of 95%. There are no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days,” they said.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> This smacks of absolute desperation and looks well dodgy, tbh:



It seems very logical to me. Doubling the rate of first vaccinations will pretty obviously save more lives than maintaining the dates of the second vaccination.

Sure there's no data on exetdned times for second vaccinations at this stage, but from what we know about vaccinations and the immune system in general, it's a sound move.


----------



## TopCat (Dec 31, 2020)

CH1 said:


> One wonders whether the Quick Covid virus is being used as a marketing tool for mass-inoculation at unprecedented speed.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You really wonder this?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It seems very logical to me. Doubling the rate of first vaccinations will pretty obviously save more lives than maintaining the dates of the second vaccination.
> 
> Sure there's no data on exetdned times for second vaccinations at this stage, but from what we know about vaccinations and the immune system in general, it's a sound move.


Right, I'll tell my confused, anxious elderly relatives who've already booked their cabs to get them to the centre for jab 2 that it's very logical.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Right, I'll tell my confused, anxious elderly relatives who've already booked their cabs to get them to the centre for jab 2 that it's very logical.



It's a pandemic, the correct decisions aren't necessarily those which make life simple and convenient for everyone.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It's a pandemic, the correct decisions aren't necessarily those which make life simple and convenient for everyone.


Understood, but these worried, anxious and confused oldies can still read and understand the news:



> In a statement, the firms said there was no evidence the first shot continued to work beyond three weeks.



In terms of effecting a positive confidence about returning people to some sort of normality, I can't see who benefits from this.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 31, 2020)

Yeah if Pfizer themselves are saying it's not a good idea, or that there is  no evidence if is, then I'd be inclined to listen to them honestly. Doesn't seem to be much sense in cancelling peoples appointments at the last minute either


----------



## zora (Dec 31, 2020)

Tbh I have also been somewhat alarmed at the abandon with which news, politicians and other influential people including Independent Sage have been throwing the narrative of the much more infectious new strain around. 

I was going to ask on the covid mutations thread, but I guess it is of wider interest, where we are at with that.

So just after the news broke before Christmas, high-profile virologists cautioned against extrapolating from epidemiological data to actual properties of the virus. 

Ten days is a long time at the moment in virology, so there might be more evidence now?
Guardian had a piece yesterday on a study in its early stages finding respiratory samples patients with the strain having a high viral load in 35% of cases against 10% with the old strain, which could be a step towards demonstrating the actual higher transmissibility? 

It did occur to me yesterday that if this turns out to be over-hyped and the horrific transmission and hospitalization rates are instead down to the rubbish tiers/schools open without mitigations and failure to trace, isolate and support - it could well give more fuel to the anti-vaxx flames and the turning away from experts in future. Or maybe it won't matter. Who knows anymore.


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Right, I'll tell my confused, anxious elderly relatives who've already booked their cabs to get them to the centre for jab 2 that it's very logical.



If they have the second appointment booked they should be planning to attend unless it is cancelled by NHS. The choice of when to give the second dose is handled at local level and they may not be impacted by the increased flexibility now offered. 

Plus they shouldn't be 'letting their guard down' when vaccinated. It's still unclear whether they will be transmitters after full vaccination.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> If they have the second appointment booked they should be planning to attend unless it is cancelled by NHS. The choice of when to give the second dose is handled at local level and they may not be impacted by the increased flexibility now offered.
> 
> Plus they shouldn't be 'letting their guard down' when vaccinated. It's still unclear whether they will be transmitters after full vaccination.


Hope so, but it's gonna be mighty tricky keeping them calm about this.
wrt the guard keeping; they're 90 pal; they don't go anywhere.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah if Pfizer themselves are saying it's not a good idea, or that there is  no evidence if is, then I'd be inclined to listen to them honestly. Doesn't seem to be much sense in cancelling peoples appointments at the last minute either


Yes; I'm now imagining how all the frantic phone calls are gonna pan out today..._yeah, Mum...don't worry...trust the government, not what the manufacturers say...  _


----------



## prunus (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> So...I've just spent the last week ramming home the message to my older relatives who've had Pfizer 1 that they mustn't lower their guard until after their second jab....and then, out of the blue, we're told jab 2 ain't happening any time soon, even through they've got their appointment card for the session?
> 
> This smacks of absolute desperation and looks well dodgy, tbh:



Some people are still getting their second jabs - I can’t find the actual release just now, but I think it said that people who already had their appt booked should go ahead with it, but going forward people should be scheduled for the 12th week following. I’ll try to find it.

Also just to minimise any confusion arising from the Pfizer statement - absence of evidence of efficacy after 3 weeks is not the same as evidence of absence of efficiency - their experimental design had everyone reinoculated at 3 weeks so they simply don’t know what happens if you don’t.  It is a bit of a leap, though not a massive one, on behalf of PHE to assume partial protection continues; it seems likely that it would.


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Hope so, but it's gonna be mighty tricky keeping them calm about this.
> wrt the guard keeping; they're 90 pal; they don't go anywhere.



I was imagining them going to an OAP rave 

Probably best to tell them they have good immunity already. First shot of the Pfizer vaccine gave about 90% protection after 11 days so they're already pretty safe


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

prunus said:


> Some people are still getting their second jabs - I can’t find the actual release just now, but I think it said that people who already had their appt booked should go ahead with it, but going forward people should be scheduled for the 12th week following. I’ll try to find it.
> 
> Also just to minimise any confusion arising from the Pfizer statement - absence of evidence of efficacy after 3 weeks is not the same as evidence of absence of efficiency - their experimental design had everyone reinoculated at 3 weeks so they simply don’t know what happens if you don’t.  It is a bit of a leap, though not a massive one, on behalf of PHE to assume partial protection continues; it seems likely that it would.


Be interested to see that link if you can find it; cheers.


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Be interested to see that link if you can find it; cheers.



I don't have a link but this question was directly tackled by the mhra in their press conference yesterday. It may be online somewhere but I don't know how to find it.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Be interested to see that link if you can find it; cheers.



Hancock said second-jab appointments up to 4th Jan would remain, only later ones would be rescheduled.









						COVID-19: Second dose of COVID vaccines to be given later after guidelines change
					

The move is to ensure the "greatest number of people" receive the vaccine in the "shortest possible time".




					news.sky.com


----------



## prunus (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Be interested to see that link if you can find it; cheers.



Can’t find the actual document, but found a Guardian article quoting it. I had misremembered, it’s only 2nd appointments up to the 4th that should be kept, going forward they should be rescheduled. I would still attend the appointments unless their actually cancelled though, or at the very least check with the practice. Sorry.



> In his letter Stevens makes clear that:
> 
> 
> Anyone who is due to have their second dose by next Monday can still do so.
> ...





Covid-19 second-stage vaccinations to be delayed across UK


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Yes; I'm now imagining how all the frantic phone calls are gonna pan out today..._yeah, Mum...don't worry...trust the government, not what the manufacturers say... _


I'd suggest that either you or they contact whoever made the 2nd appointment to confirm it's still going ahead, though appreciate this may be difficult, particularly on NYE...

But at a wider level this is just yet another example of the complete fuck up this government is making of everything, creating uncertainty and confusion around every single aspect of this.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> Hancock said second-jab appointments up to 4th Jan would remain, only later ones would be rescheduled.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks.

As I suspected...I'm going to have to tell them to trust the government, then...not the manufacturers   

There'll be only a tiny number of folk who's jab 2 can have been scheduled for before Jan 4; the woman who got the first jab in the country only got her 2nd yesterday, so basically there'll be none of those who've got jab 1 out there in the real world beyond the media circus cohort who'll get jab 2.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2020)

zora said:


> It did occur to me yesterday that if this turns out to be over-hyped and the horrific transmission and hospitalization rates are instead down to the rubbish tiers/schools open without mitigations and failure to trace, isolate and support - it could well give more fuel to the anti-vaxx flames and the turning away from experts in future. Or maybe it won't matter. Who knows anymore.



I am fairly convinced the new strain is a major issue, I've kept an eye on the government's map, as we came out of the last lockdown only three lower tier council areas in north Kent had infection rates over 400 per 100k, coloured purple, and had been increasing even during the lockdown, this being the area where this new strain was first found. Also the reason why the whole of Kent went into lockdown in tier 1 and came out in tier 3. 

Over the following weeks, you could see it spreading across all 11 council areas in Kent, into London, then out of London into Essex etc., and marching over the borders into East Sussex & Surrey - watching the different council areas turning purple as it spread. The pattern of spread into & out of London, I suspect is down to commuters from Kent initially, then other commuters taking it out to other commuter areas.

This pattern of spread does indicate it's down to this new strain, as does the pattern of spread in South Wales, where it was also found more dominant at a early stage.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> As I suspected...I'm going to have to tell them to trust the government, then...not the manufacturers



It's more about trusting the independent 'Joint Committee of Vaccinations and Immunisations' and 'Commission on Human Medicine Expert Working Group', over a profit driven manufacturer.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's more about trusting the independent 'Joint Committee of Vaccinations and Immunisations' and 'Commission on Human Medicine Expert Working Group', over a profit driven manufacturer.


Yep mate; _I _get that.
The problem is explaining all this to anxious, confused 90 year olds.


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Thanks.
> 
> As I suspected...I'm going to have to tell them to trust the government, then...not the manufacturers
> 
> ...


And yet we're simultaneously being told this today


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

andysays said:


> And yet we're simultaneously being told this todayView attachment 246224
> 
> View attachment 246224


Cunts.


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Cunts.


It doesn't specifically say Easter 2021 though...


----------



## zora (Dec 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am fairly convinced the new strain is a major issue, I've kept an eye on the government's map, as we came out of the last lockdown only three lower tier council areas in north Kent had infection rates over 400 per 100k, coloured purple, and had been increasing even during the lockdown, this being the area where this new strain was first found. Also the reason why the whole of Kent went into lockdown in tier 1 and came out in tier 3.
> 
> Over the following weeks, you could see it spreading across all 11 council areas in Kent, into London, then out of London into Essex etc., and marching over the borders into East Sussex & Surrey - watching the different council areas turning purple as it spread. The pattern of spread into & out of London, I suspect is down to commuters from Kent initially, then other commuters taking it out to other commuter areas.
> 
> This pattern of spread does indicate it's down to this new strain, as does the pattern of spread in South Wales, where it was also found more dominant at a early stage.



All true, and certainly makes sense on the surface, but it's exactly the reverse analysis from epidemiological observations that the virologists cautioned against.

That it is spreading, rapidly, out of control, and needs stopping sharpish (and imo with better measures than Tier 3 - 4.5 and hoping for the vaccine to save us), is not under debate.

And I am also absolutely _not_ saying it _cannot_ be the case, just that afaik it is by no means proven, even though it _looks_ really obvious, and that I am worried about the confidence with which it is trotted out.

I think an equally strong case for all mitigation measures could be made on transmission and hospitalisation rates alone without overly relying on the narrative of the new strain which very much still needs to be researched.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 31, 2020)

Mation said:


> That's what I understood, but it was so ridiculously waffly...
> 
> Anyone got a link yet for the published details?


P





brogdale said:


> Right, I'll tell my confused, anxious elderly relatives who've already booked their cabs to get them to the centre for jab 2 that it's very logical.


Whens their second dose due?  Sounds like from 4th jan the 2nd dose will be suspended 

My BIL is due for 2nd dose tomorrow (hospital obs/gynae) so hope he gets it


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 31, 2020)

andysays said:


> And yet we're simultaneously being told this todayView attachment 246224


I'm disappointed in you 

Thought you knew the gov can multitask and tell two lies at once


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

Miss-Shelf said:


> P
> Whens their second dose due?  Sounds like from 4th jan the 2nd dose will be suspended
> 
> My BIL is due for 2nd dose tomorrow (hospital obs/gynae) so hope he gets it


Around dates 12th to 14th January, so all gone now, apparently.

Reckon they're just 'collateral damage' in the war on lockdown.


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

Pickman's model said:


> I'm disappointed in you
> 
> Thought you knew the gov can multitask and tell two lies at once



Oh, I certainly know that

If only they devoted half as much effort to actually dealing with the problem as they do to lieing and siphoning off money to their mates


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 31, 2020)

zora said:


> Tbh I have also been somewhat alarmed at the abandon with which news, politicians and other influential people including Independent Sage have been throwing the narrative of the much more infectious new strain around.
> 
> I was going to ask on the covid mutations thread, but I guess it is of wider interest, where we are at with that.
> 
> ...



I don't think its made up but I do believe the government is using it as an excuse for fucking up and the press are facilitating this


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

First call of the morning..."_that's it, we're inside without seeing you for another 3 months, aren't we?"_

Fuck these useless, lying, psychopathic cunts.


----------



## lazythursday (Dec 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I don't think its made up but I do believe the government is using it as an excuse for fucking up and the press are facilitating this


I would agree with this if there weren't so many independent scientists / health experts extremely worried about the potential consequences of this new variant.


----------



## zora (Dec 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> I don't think its made up but I do believe the government is using it as an excuse for fucking up and the press are facilitating this



I really hope my carefully worded posts trying to explore and asking for more clarity from people who might know more about the new strain, don't read as if I think "it's all made up"!


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 31, 2020)

zora said:


> I really hope my carefully worded posts trying to explore and asking for more clarity from people who might know more about the new strain, don't read as if I think "it's all made up"!



It doesn't no but sometimes we have to read as carefully as others post (hard on phones I think)


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 31, 2020)

zora said:


> I really hope my carefully worded posts trying to explore and asking for more clarity from people who might know more about the new strain, don't read as if I think "it's all made up"!



Just covering my own arse.


----------



## zora (Dec 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> Just covering my own arse.


And I read your disclaimer as not having noticed my disclaimers.  Makes sense, thanks!


----------



## Spandex (Dec 31, 2020)

zora said:


> Tbh I have also been somewhat alarmed at the abandon with which news, politicians and other influential people including Independent Sage have been throwing the narrative of the much more infectious new strain around.
> 
> I was going to ask on the covid mutations thread, but I guess it is of wider interest, where we are at with that.
> 
> ...


I think the new strain is as alarmingly fast spreading as everyone says it is and has changed the situation about what measures are needed to control the spread of Covid.

But it can also be used as a handy answer to any questions about whether lockdown 2 ended too soon or about the wisdom of trying to plough on with Christmas right up until the last minute.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 31, 2020)

If the trials for the vaccines - on which their approval is based - had included groups who were only given one dose, and it could be seen that it provided some protection, even if that were somewhat less protection, then I think it could be quite appropriate to decide to decide to go with a one-dose approach if it meant that overall you could protect a larger number of people in a shorter time.

But as far as I understand, that wasn't included in the trials, so this is using the vaccines in a way that hasn't been tested. Maybe there is enough knowledge about how similar vaccines work, that it's legitimate to be confident that the results will be predictable, but it does seem to me to be wrong in principle. After emphasising to everyone that careful test procedures have been gone through, and no corners have been cut, to then appear to be happy to kind of make it up as you go along - I don't see that it is good for general public confidence. I wouldn't quite say that it's definitely a bad move but I don't feel very comfortable with it.


----------



## zora (Dec 31, 2020)

I got briefly excited about it, seeing as it might get b/f's 75 yr old mum pushed closer to the front of the queue, and thought briefly that the rationale makes some kind of sense, but as far as consistent, clear, confidence-inspiring public health messaging goes...😖


----------



## belboid (Dec 31, 2020)

teuchter said:


> If the trials for the vaccines - on which their approval is based - had included groups who were only given one dose, and it could be seen that it provided some protection, even if that were somewhat less protection, then I think it could be quite appropriate to decide to decide to go with a one-dose approach if it meant that overall you could protect a larger number of people in a shorter time.
> 
> But as far as I understand, that wasn't included in the trials, so this is using the vaccines in a way that hasn't been tested. Maybe there is enough knowledge about how similar vaccines work, that it's legitimate to be confident that the results will be predictable, but it does seem to me to be wrong in principle. After emphasising to everyone that careful test procedures have been gone through, and no corners have been cut, to then appear to be happy to kind of make it up as you go along - I don't see that it is good for general public confidence. I wouldn't quite say that it's definitely a bad move but I don't feel very comfortable with it.


some people were given just the initial dose of the oxford vaccine.  I wasn't meant to get a second one but when they discovered that worked better they offered it to everyone. There was still a limited group who only got one dose,  the Chairman of the JCVI said that the single dose of AZ vaccine is 70% efficacious based on limited unpublished data.  More data will follow.


----------



## prunus (Dec 31, 2020)

belboid said:


> some people were given just the initial dose of the oxford vaccine.  I wasn't meant to get a second one but when they discovered that worked better they offered it to everyone. There was still a limited group who only got one dose,  the Chairman of the JCVI said that *the single dose of AZ vaccine is 70% efficacious based on limited unpublished data*.  More data will follow.



And, and I think this needs to be stressed every time this is talked about, 100% (or as close to as can be determined from the data) efficacious at preventing severe disease/hospitalisation (and therefore death).

Although puncturing my own balloon slightly the numbers of over 65s in the trial wasn’t huge - but even so the 100% holds for those there were.


----------



## emanymton (Dec 31, 2020)

Was in Aldi this morning. Looked to be lots of people stocking up for new years parties. One women was buying 60 bottles of wine. Could be she is just stocking up for the whole year but I doubt it somehow.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2020)

prunus said:


> And, and I think this needs to be stressed every time this is talked about, 100% (or as close to as can be determined from the data) efficacious at preventing severe disease/hospitalisation (and therefore death).
> 
> Although puncturing my own balloon slightly the numbers of over 65s in the trial wasn’t huge - but even so the 100% holds for those there were.



Yep, with the Oxford/AZ vaccine only 2 people ended-up in hospital because of covid after getting the vaccine, but they both tested positive before immunity kicked in, one 2 days after receiving the vaccine and the other at 10 days.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 31, 2020)

belboid said:


> some people were given just the initial dose of the oxford vaccine.  I wasn't meant to get a second one but when they discovered that worked better they offered it to everyone. There was still a limited group who only got one dose,  the Chairman of the JCVI said that the single dose of AZ vaccine is 70% efficacious based on limited unpublished data.  More data will follow.


Does 'limited unpublished' mean it's not data that is of sufficient quality for an approval? For these things I think you have to say whether you've got good quality data or not. Fudging things undermines the whole principle of having a rigorous testing and approvals process.

The main block to the efficacy of vaccines is the level of uptake. The anti-vaxxers shouldn't be provided with opportunities to say that people are being given untested treatments.


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

belboid said:


> some people were given just the initial dose of the oxford vaccine.  I wasn't meant to get a second one but when they discovered that worked better they offered it to everyone. There was still a limited group who only got one dose,  the Chairman of the JCVI said that the single dose of AZ vaccine is 70% efficacious based on limited unpublished data.  More data will follow.


It may be the case that one dose is enough, at least in most cases.

But there's also the issue of public confidence, which it's important to maintain throughout, and which can only be undermined by the government first announcing that there will be two jabs, a few weeks apart, and then deciding, once some people have already had their first jab and been given an appointment for the second, that one is enough for now and the way they're being administered is changing.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

andysays said:


> But there's also the issue of public confidence, which it's important to maintain throughout, and which can only be undermined by the government first announcing that there will be two jabs, a few weeks apart, and then deciding, once some people have already had their first jab and been given an appointment for the second, that one is enough for now and the way they're being administered is changing.



OTOH the government shouldn't avoid introducing a measure which could save hundreds if not thousands of lives simply because it might be a bad look.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

Christ, there's going to be hundreds of thousands of old folks out there this morning with hopes dashed.


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

I don't know how the numbers are working out but if you are given the option which do you choose?

1. Continue with 2nd dose at 3-4wks. 50,000 deaths in Q1
2. Modify 2nd dose regime which is low risk but will add some confusion to the general public. 30,000 deaths in Q1

I'd go with option 2. If it saves a lot of lives it's worth it imho.


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> OTOH the government shouldn't avoid introducing a measure which could save hundreds if not thousands of lives simply because it might be a bad look.


No, it shouldn't.

But if it's genuinely the case that it will significantly save lives, I wish they'd decided earlier that this was the best way of doing it and announced it from the beginning, because doing it this way makes it look as if they're simply doing it so they can make bullshit announcements about "Freedom by Easter"


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

andysays said:


> No, it shouldn't.
> 
> But if it's genuinely the case that it will significantly save lives, I wish they'd decided earlier that this was the best way of doing it and announced it from the beginning, because doing it this way makes it look as if they're simply doing it so they can make bullshit announcements about "Freedom by Easter"



I don't really care what it looks like tbh. Neither do I want the JCVI or anyone else to rush their decision-making.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> I don't know how the numbers are working out but if you are given the option which do you choose?
> 
> 1. Continue with 2nd dose at 3-4wks. 50,000 deaths in Q1
> 2. Modify 2nd dose regime which is low risk but will add some confusion to the general public. 30,000 deaths in Q1
> ...



3. Start doing the vaccinations 2 months ago on the basis of "expedited approval"? Where do you draw the line and how?


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> I don't know how the numbers are working out but if you are given the option which do you choose?
> 
> 1. Continue with 2nd dose at 3-4wks. 50,000 deaths in Q1
> 2. Modify 2nd dose regime which is low risk but will add some confusion to the general public. 30,000 deaths in Q1
> ...


The number of lives saved or lost isn't just dependent on the vaccination programme though, it also depends on what other measures are in place, and with the government's track record on choosing inadequate restrictions and not leaving those for long enough to do the most good, I'm inclined to be very cynical about the reasoning behind this.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> I don't know how the numbers are working out but if you are given the option which do you choose?
> 
> 1. Continue with 2nd dose at 3-4wks. 50,000 deaths in Q1
> 2. Modify 2nd dose regime which is low risk but will add some confusion to the general public. 30,000 deaths in Q1
> ...


Maybe my anger this morning is clouding my understanding, but why exactly do you feel the government is faced with this choice?


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

teuchter said:


> 3. Start doing the vaccinations 2 months ago on the basis of "expedited approval"? Where do you draw the line and how?



You employ a group of world leading experts who can make these decisions without undue government pressure. The MHRA and various specialist advisory groups that includes scientists.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 31, 2020)

This thread by stavvers makes an important point
'How it looks' is pretty important for the uptake of this and a very important part of public confidence


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Maybe my anger this morning is clouding my understanding, but why exactly do you feel the government is faced with this choice?



Because the mhra have opened up the possibility. And Matt Hand Cock has communicated it badly.


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> I don't really care what it looks like tbh. Neither do I want the JCVI or anyone else to rush their decision-making.


As far as I can see, it's precisely because the government has rushed their decision making, or rather the announcing of a decision, that they've now had to do yet another flip flop


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> Because the mhra have opened up the possibility. And Matt Hand Cock has communicated it badly.


Is that what's happened?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 31, 2020)

clicker said:


> We're going to be over run by turkeys at this rate.


 Turkeys for Easter!


tim said:


> Serco will start resurrecting the Covid dead.


We haven't had zombies in 2020, guess they were saving it for next year.


andysays said:


> And yet we're simultaneously being told this todayView attachment 246224


Trump said this months ago and without a vaccine


andysays said:


> It doesn't specifically say Easter 2021 though...


same as Trump, hedging their bets.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

andysays said:


> As far as I can see, it's precisely because the government has rushed their decision making, or rather the announcing of a decision, that they've now had to do yet another flip flop



That's not how I see it. They could have decided to hold off vaccinating anyone until they had enough preliminary data from somewhere and had made a decision on the second dose timing, but I think that would have been a bad idea.


----------



## Sue (Dec 31, 2020)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> We haven't had zombies in 2020, guess they were saving it for next year.


Twelve hours to go...


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

This is spot on:



Very elderly and often frail folks have got their cabs/carers booked for the dates on the appointment cards they were issued with a jab 1.

What sort of cunts think this is an acceptable way to treat these people?


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> This is spot on:
> 
> View attachment 246248
> 
> ...



I agree. It would have been much cleaner if they started this for people having the first dose rather than changing plans for people expecting the 2nd.


----------



## bimble (Dec 31, 2020)

This is awful, you can feel the real despair in it,  a thread where a doctor is pleading with the government to be allowed to show the public images from inside hospitals, to convince the deniers that covid is real and the nhs is not coping.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> I agree. It would have been much cleaner if they started this for people having the first dose rather than changing plans for people expecting the 2nd.



It would have been, but perhaps they didn't have the necessary information to make the decision back then. For every elderly or vulnerbale person worried about a rescheduled appointment, there will be another elderly or vulnerable person getting their first jab sooner.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is awful, you can feel the real despair in it,  a thread where a doctor is pleading with the government to be allowed to show the public images from inside hospitals, to convince the deniers that covid is real and the nhs is not coping.



So many clinicians are at their wits end, aren't they?
Things are spiralling out of control.


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

I'm genuinely confused about the timeline here, so this is what I understand has happened, but maybe someone can correct me if I've got it wrong.


At some point during the development of the vaccine, it was discovered that one jab didn't give full immunity, but two did (or at least near enough to full for us to call it full immunity).
The vaccine was approved for use.
A schedule of priority was announced, on the basis of two jabs being needed.
The vaccination programme was started, with the plan being that people would get the second jab a few weeks after the first.
Tony Blair (and possibly others, though he got the most publicity) made his intervention, with the suggestion that vaccinating more people once would be better than following the original plan (and the makers' recommendations and how the vaccine was intended to be used when it was approved) of giving two vaccinations.
The government have now announced that rather than following the original plan, people who have had the first jab will now have to wait 12 weeks for the second.
Have there been any new medical discoveries about the effectiveness of a single jab, or is this new decision based on no medical changes and therefore on purely administrative and/or political grounds?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It would have been, but perhaps they didn't have the necessary information to make the decision back then. For every elderly or vulnerbale person worried about a rescheduled appointment, there will be another elderly or vulnerable person getting their first jab sooner.


Creating two old folk with no confidence that their single jab will have given them the protection they were told would accrue from the double dosing.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

andysays said:


> I'm genuinely confused about the timeline here, so this is what I understand has happened, but maybe someone can correct me if I've got it wrong.
> 
> 
> At some point during the development of the vaccine, it was discovered that one jab didn't give full immunity, but two did (or at least near enough to full for us to call it full immunity).
> ...


It's political, not clinical/scientific.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Creating two old folk with no confidence that their single jab will have given them the protection they were told would accrue from the double dosing.



What matters is their actual risk of dying or becoming seriously ill, and the medical advice they receive on that matter. That's far more important than the impression they get from reading the news.


----------



## LDC (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Creating two old folk with no confidence that their single jab will have given them the protection they were told would accrue from the double dosing.



That's a bit patronising tbh. Plenty of 'old folk' will be able to understand why this has happened and make their own mind up as to whether it is OK.


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It would have been, but *perhaps* they didn't have the necessary information to make the decision back then. For every elderly or vulnerbale person worried about a rescheduled appointment, there will be another elderly or vulnerable person getting their first jab sooner.


I'd want a bit more than "perhaps" tbh, especially if I was expecting my 2nd jab in the next couple of weeks.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's a bit patronising tbh. Plenty of 'old folk' will be able to understand why this has happened and make their own mind up as to whether it is OK.


Apols if it sounds patronising; I'm just basing my observations on the experience of fielding calls from family members affected. I know that generalising from specifics is always flawed, but I'm so angry about this that I can't see beyond the hurt/confusion and anxiety this botched decision from these useless cunts has caused.


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> It's political, not clinical/scientific.


That's what it looks like, and my fear is that in a couple of weeks it will change again for reasons of political expediency.

(waiting for someone to suggest that if we only give people half the dose, we can make the vaccine go twice as far, for instance...)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2020)

bimble said:


> This is awful, you can feel the real despair in it,  a thread where a doctor is pleading with the government to be allowed to show the public images from inside hospitals, to convince the deniers that covid is real and the nhs is not coping.




The worst part of that thread -



> 1. Like every NHS doctor and nurse on here, I am being constantly abused (I've even, on occasion, been threatened with rape or death) for saying Covid is real, deadly, and overwhelming our hospitals right now.



This makes me so fucking angry.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 31, 2020)

The gov't have buggered it up again, I think we are agreed on that !

In my opinion, they should carry on with the +3 weeks for the second jab with the highest priority cases, using the Pfizer jab. That is, all the healthcare & over 80s. Use up the Pfizer stocks on the most vulnerable & key workers in the next groups down (again two teams, one for each jab)...

Roll out the first Oxford jab to the over70s & vulnerable over 18's, with second jabs as soon as possible after the 3 weeks, as a separate second team.

Then go down the age groups as planned with the first jab and a delayed second jab, again with the second jabs run by a second team.

Thus - you need six teams (& back up admin) and planned bulk jab sites. 
For Pfizer that has to be hospital hubs (cold chain) feeding other sites - you've six hours from dilution to last use at 'fridge temperatures. 
The Oxford jab can get far more widely distributed as it needs only domestic 'fridge storage ...


----------



## LDC (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Apols if it sounds patronising; I'm just basing my observations on the experience of fielding calls from family members affected. I know that generalising from specifics is always flawed, but I'm so angry about this that I can't see beyond the hurt/confusion and anxiety this botched decision from these useless cunts has caused.



I haven't looked into the clinical reasoning and research behind this change, but I think (hope?) it will be there. I accept it might feel harsh on some people, but I expect it's like lots of this stuff; difficult decisions get made that are marginally better for the masses but that are sometimes worse for some individuals.


----------



## LDC (Dec 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The worst part of that thread -
> 
> 
> 
> This makes me so fucking angry.



I made the mistake of looking at her Twitter and some of the comments on it from anti-lockdown/conspiracy people. It really is very, very depressing and anger inducing.


----------



## MrSki (Dec 31, 2020)

Woke up to this on the radio this morning. Maybe they should play it at the press conference so people can hear the real situation. Well worth a listen to the end.


----------



## Sue (Dec 31, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Woke up to this on the radio this morning. Maybe they should play it at the press conference so people can hear the real situation. Well worth a listen to the end.



He was on The Reunion yesterday. Came across as an extremely decent man.








						BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion, The Covid-19 ward
					

Michael Rosen and the medical staff who cared for him during his battle with coronavirus.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Red Cat (Dec 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I haven't looked into the clinical reasoning and research behind this change, but I think (hope?) it will be there. I accept it might feel harsh on some people, but I expect it's like lots of this stuff; difficult decisions get made that are marginally better for the masses but that are sometimes worse for some individuals.



Back in April I saw a lecture on the history of triage and nightingale hospitals used as an example of how you might have introduce care that benefits more people but might be less effective than that in a specialist unit. It sounds similar to this process.

eta triage will always be political because it's about distribution of resources


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I made the mistake of lookng at her Twitter and some of the comments on it from anti-lockdown/conspiracy people. It really is very, very depressing and anger inducing.



I deliberately decided *not* to look at Dr Clarke's Twitter, and I'm very glad I didn't, from what she and others have said about the responses on it 

I wonder whether (for her own health) she could try to shut down her account, at least temporarily? 
But does that mean the conspiraloons have beat her?


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 31, 2020)

StoneRoad said:


> The gov't have buggered it up again, I think we are agreed on that !
> 
> In my opinion, they should carry on with the +3 weeks for the second jab with the highest priority cases, using the Pfizer jab. That is, all the healthcare & over 80s. Use up the Pfizer stocks on the most vulnerable & key workers in the next groups down (again two teams, one for each jab)...
> 
> ...



I like these strategy suggestions 

The more supplies of vaccines (from both Pfizer/BioNtech and especially from  Oxford/AZ) that get made and distributed, the less this crazy, ultra-short-termist 'one jab only' swerve** would IMO become a thing .......

**Not that that's necessary anyway , especially not when you're still at the very elderly/very vulnerable people stage of the vaccination rollout .....

Very much agreeing with reactions from brogdale and most others about this


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 31, 2020)

And with this from the BMA (attachment) !! -- well spotted, brogdale


brogdale said:


> View attachment 246248
> 
> Very elderly and often frail folks have got their cabs/carers booked for the dates on the appointment cards they were issued with a jab 1.
> What sort of cunts think this is an acceptable way to treat these people?


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2020)

zora said:


> Tbh I have also been somewhat alarmed at the abandon with which news, politicians and other influential people including Independent Sage have been throwing the narrative of the much more infectious new strain around.
> 
> I was going to ask on the covid mutations thread, but I guess it is of wider interest, where we are at with that.
> 
> ...



Most knowledge in this pandemic has been extrapolated in ways that arent perfect but have to do in the absence of stronger stuff that takes longer.

In the case of the new variant, their initial stance is formed by things like:

The viral load in new variant samples (takes less cycles to get a positive result in the lab)
The way it came to be the dominant strain in some areas over a certain period of time.
Some previously known theoretical implications of particular mutations.
The bad trajectories of key data in the regions in question, before the national measures even ended.
Probably some institution-specific genomic data that I have no access to (eg genomic surveillance during hospital outbreaks).

In terms of what elements of this I could test myself, apart from keeping an eye on what experts and studies say, I suppose analysis could be performed involving:

Study the rise in infections in places like London before the national measures ended. Very much including age-specific rates. Combine that with data such as the weather, and mobility data, including shop footfalls. Try to establish whether any of these other factors correlate to the rise in cases.

Another way of looking at it is to see what made NERVTAG change their confidence about increased transmission of the new strain from moderate to high.

Here is the initial NERVTAG paper with moderate confidence reached: Box

This is the 2nd paper where their confidence changed to high: Box

The increase to high confidence appears to be down to a bunch of additional modelling exercises of different types, and PHEs analysis where they use the s-gene part of tests coming back negative as a proxy indicator for these being new variant cases. Thats a useful trick to perform since although we have a large genomic sequencing capacity in this country, its still only done on 5-10% of test samples, and it takes time to get the results. Using s-gene dropout stuff is a useful way to estimate new variant levels based on a far higher number of test samples (since several of the major lighthouse labs use s-gene detection as one part of their test analysis, producing lots of data)

Modelling certainly has limits, and one of the most obvious ones is that a limited number of scenarios end up getting modelled. So getting one of those models to match up with real data that was observed is not quit proof of anything, there could be other scenarios that they didnt model which could also provide a good match.

For now I stick to keeping a somewhat open mind but still being prepared to lean quite strongly in a certain direction.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 31, 2020)

MrSki said:


> Woke up to this on the radio this morning. Maybe they should play it at the press conference so people can hear the real situation. Well worth a listen to the end.



I shouldn't have read the comments on that tweet. I now feel physically sick.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> First shot of the Pfizer vaccine gave about 90% protection after 11 days so they're already pretty safe


Do you have a reference for that?


----------



## MrSki (Dec 31, 2020)

This is worrying.


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

2hats said:


> Do you have a reference for that?



Not the one I originally saw but a summary here which is similar


----------



## hash tag (Dec 31, 2020)

Hey people do not go out celebrating tonight, stay home, stay safe says the Standard in one headline.
In the next, come see Patti Smith live tonight at Piccadilly!


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> Not the one I originally saw but a summary here which is similar



The data for severe disease (which is what matters) is on the last page of this: https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577/suppl_file/nejmoa2034577_appendix.pdf


----------



## editor (Dec 31, 2020)

Lambeth MPs quite reasonably asking for urgent clarity on the decision to open schools in Lambeth whilst keeping schools closed in neighbouring boroughs. 

Lambeth MPs look for answers about the ‘inconsistency in the Government’s school closure policy’


----------



## nagapie (Dec 31, 2020)

editor said:


> Lambeth MPs quite reasonably asking for urgent clarity on the decision to open schools in Lambeth whilst keeping schools closed in neighbouring boroughs.
> 
> Lambeth MPs look for answers about the ‘inconsistency in the Government’s school closure policy’


No one understands this at all.


----------



## hash tag (Dec 31, 2020)

Does anyone understand anything?


----------



## nagapie (Dec 31, 2020)

hash tag said:


> Does anyone understand anything?


Some bits are more transparently evil. Maybe trying to kill of some Labour voters, Lambeth a huge Labour voting area.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 31, 2020)

Supine said:


> Not the one I originally saw but a summary here which is similar


Points out that for one dose beyond 21 days we have no solid data. For BNT162b2 the single dose efficacy data are small numbers; confidence intervals are very wide.

Also bear in mind the licensing is only for two doses 'at least' 21 days apart (the MHRA have to follow the science, enough if the politicians feel unencumbered by it) and the manufacturer is emphasising this.

But then vaccine rollout is the phase IV trial anyway.


----------



## killer b (Dec 31, 2020)

2hats said:


> But then vaccine rollout is the phase IV trial anyway.


I guess they just added an extra control group to the trial.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 31, 2020)

killer b said:


> I guess they just added an extra control group to the trial.


surely, that's the anti-vaxxers and quanon freaks bods !


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

2hats said:


> Points out that for one dose beyond 21 days we have no solid data. For BNT132b the single dose efficacy data are small numbers;



There isn't much / any data for more than a few months for any of the vaccines or dosing regimes. As you say, wide scale roll out is where further information is gathered.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

Really pleased to see the pressure mounting on Hancock from the profession to re'think' this decsion about rescheduling 2nd jab appointments for those already booked in.

Also great to see some GPs saying they will ignore the absurd edict.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Really pleased to see the pressure mounting on Hancock from the profession to re'think' this decsion about rescheduling 2nd jab appointments for those already booked in.
> 
> Also great to see some GPs saying they will ignore the absurd edict.


I spoke to my mum's GP reception today - mum has already had the first jab and the lady I spoke to told me they had heard nothing regarding delaying the second jab. Will be phoning them again on Monday anyway.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

teqniq said:


> I spoke to my mum's GP reception today - mum has already had the first jab and the lady I spoke to told me they had heard nothing regarding delaying the second jab. Will be phoning them again on Monday anyway.


There is literally nothing that these cunts can't fuck up.


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> Also great to see some GPs saying they will ignore the absurd edict.



Good stuff. 

Not a problem here as there hasn't been any vaccine rollout yet


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

Doctors pointing out that those oldies etc. that have already had Pfizer jab 1, have consented to the 2 jab process as prescribed by the manufacturer.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Dec 31, 2020)

existentialist said:


> I shouldn't have read the comments on that tweet. I now feel physically sick.


I did too. It's absolutely unbelievable isn't it? You really feel that as a society we've been sliding down a slippery slope of selfish individualism for 40 years to end up in this state. I wonder if COVID had happened in the 1970s how we would have responded as a country? Rather better I suspect.


----------



## prunus (Dec 31, 2020)

Leighsw2 said:


> I did too. It's absolutely unbelievable isn't it? You really feel that as a society we've sliding down a slippery slope of selfish individualism for 40 years to end up in this state. I wonder if COVID had happened in the 1970s how we would have responded as a country? Rather better I suspect.



Its important to remember that these people are very much a minority, given greater range for their minority cuntishness by the indiscriminate broadcasting ability of the internet. I suspect it’s fewer than 1 in 100 people that hold such views even today.

In the pre internet days their views would have likely fizzled out as they found no-one to resonate with amongst their circle - a few would have, and gone on to form tiny crazy groups; a few probably also would have retreated into solo crankhood in their shed or similar.

Nowadays it’s all too easy to find someone to agree with any view one wants to take on the internet somewhere, and by the way human psychology tends to work, reinforce those views. It is a problem. But it’s still a minority. I hope.


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2020)

Leighsw2 said:


> I did too. It's absolutely unbelievable isn't it? You really feel that as a society we've sliding down a slippery slope of selfish individualism for 40 years to end up in this state. I wonder if COVID had happened in the 1970s how we would have responded as a country? Rather better I suspect.



It would have been terrible. Only a few TV channels and no internet. But we may have been able to repurpose milk floats, and the general hospital capacity would have given quite a lot more wiggle room. I'd like to see some stats about what proportion of older people were in care homes then as opposed to these days. Tollerance towards large numbers of older people dying of respiratory disease may actually have been higher then. Pollution is likely an aggravating factor and the pollution/air quality picture back then would have been worse in some ways and better in others. Genomic surveillance, rapid international information sharing and public access to expert voices & analysis would have been much worse. I havent studied obesity levels over time but the presumption would be that we are in worse shape on that front these days, although overall levels of health and diet are improved in some respects. Oh and in terms of weather there were some savage 1970's and 80's winters that wouldnt have helped.


----------



## killer b (Dec 31, 2020)

I remembered this article about the Tory govt response to a previous pandemic, which looks remarkably familiar









						A cavalier Tory leader and a botched pandemic response? It must be 1957 | Andy Beckett
					

Then, as now, a government responsible for a disaster tried to change the narrative. We shouldn’t let history repeat itself, says Guardian columnist Andy Beckett




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Leighsw2 (Dec 31, 2020)

I'm actually thinking how we would have responded as a society and how the state would have performed. The British state in the 1970s still had a strong tradition dating back to the War Administration that emerged (quite quickly) after the fall of France and formation of the Churchill-led coalition in May 1940. There was a 'can-do' spirit (there had to be, the country was facing invasion) and a belief in the power of the state to get things done. This led through in the post-war period to the establishment of the NHS, welfare state, nationalised industries, mass council-house building etc. It is that spirit (of collectivism and a welfare state) that has been withering for the last 40 years of Thatcherism and neo-liberalism that has led to the hollowing-out of the state and the belief that everything has to be outsourced to the likes of Serco and Deloitte in order to get anything done.

The people on that Twitter thread certainly sound like the children of Thatcher - if you don't believe there's any such thing as 'society', how could you ever accept the principle of collective responsibility in a pandemic?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

964 deaths today.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

fucking hell


----------



## LDC (Dec 31, 2020)

Not sure you're on the right lines being so outraged by this dosing change brogdale - I get personally it might be bad for your relatives, but it's not as clearcut as you're making out I think.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 31, 2020)

55,892 cases


----------



## clicker (Dec 31, 2020)

I'd hoped yesterday's were 'catching up' numbers.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not sure you're on the right lines being so outraged by this dosing change brogdale - I get personally it might be bad for your relatives, but it's not as clearcut as you're making out I think.


I'm not really trying to say anything about it, apart from the fact that it's wrong to change this so suddenly for these mostly very old and often frail folk. Clearly the thing to do was honour what had been booked/consented to and then, if there is any clinical merit in what they're up to, start afresh from a certain date in the near future. But not fuck these old folk around like they don't matter.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 31, 2020)

clicker said:


> I'd hoped yesterday's were 'catching up' numbers.


They're all "catching up" numbers...reality catching up with the Clown Prince.


----------



## LDC (Dec 31, 2020)

brogdale said:


> I'm not really trying to say anything about it, apart from the fact that it's wrong to change this so suddenly for these mostly very old and often frail folk. Clearly the thing to do was honour what had been booked/consented to and then, if there is any clinical merit in what they're up to, start afresh from a certain date in the near future. But not fuck these old folk around like they don't matter.



Fair enough. I think maybe I'm just worn out from being angry and frustrated tbh, and maybe the fact that the vaccine is some very rare good news in an otherwise fucking nightmarish mess of a year I'm a bit resistant to being pissed off about any aspect of that atm, and I just want it out there as quickly and as in as many people as possible now, even if that does mean a lower level of protection generally. (Another reason why social distancing and other similar things aren't going away anytime soon.)


----------



## Spandex (Dec 31, 2020)

clicker said:


> I'd hoped yesterday's were 'catching up' numbers.


The death figures are still catching up from Christmas. Here's the chart from the Covid Dashboard by date on death certificate:



Obviously around 500 people dying every day is a fucking catastrophe, but the UK still isn't seeing the numbers dying there were in the spring.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> It seems very logical to me. Doubling the rate of first vaccinations will pretty obviously save more lives than maintaining the dates of the second vaccination.
> 
> Sure there's no data on exetdned times for second vaccinations at this stage, but from what we know about vaccinations and the immune system in general, it's a sound move.


Well, we'll see. I say that because we don't know the impact of vaccinating more people but with longer delay on overall infections. However, the fact hat we don't know that information isn't a very good recommendation for doing it.  I'd rather they pulled all the logistical stops out to maximise vaccinations full stop, rather than this tinkering.

Anyway, I'm several pages behind, so I'm sure this has now been done to death (pun definitely not intended).


----------



## Wilf (Dec 31, 2020)

prunus said:


> Some people are still getting their second jabs - I can’t find the actual release just now, but I think it said that people who already had their appt booked should go ahead with it, but going forward people should be scheduled for the 12th week following. I’ll try to find it.
> 
> Also just to minimise any confusion arising from the Pfizer statement - absence of evidence of efficacy after 3 weeks is not the same as evidence of absence of efficiency - their experimental design had everyone reinoculated at 3 weeks so they simply don’t know what happens if you don’t.  It is a bit of a leap, though not a massive one, on behalf of PHE to assume partial protection continues; it seems likely that it would.


But my (very much) non-expert take on it is that taking leaps and guestimates isn't a great thing to do given the stakes involved.


----------



## teqniq (Dec 31, 2020)

Time for the teaching unions to step up to the plate, but will they?


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2020)

Leighsw2 said:


> I'm actually thinking how we would have responded as a society and how the state would have performed. The British state in the 1970s still had a strong tradition dating back to the War Administration that emerged (quite quickly) after the fall of France and formation of the Churchill-led coalition in May 1940. There was a 'can-do' spirit (there had to be, the country was facing invasion) and a belief in the power of the state to get things done. This led through in the post-war period to the establishment of the NHS, welfare state, nationalised industries, mass council-house building etc. It is that spirit (of collectivism and a welfare state) that has been withering for the last 40 years of Thatcherism and neo-liberalism that has led to the hollowing-out of the state and the belief that everything has to be outsourced to the likes of Serco and Deloitte in order to get anything done.
> 
> The people on that Twitter thread certainly sound like the children of Thatcher - if you don't believe there's any such thing as 'society', how could you ever accept the principle of collective responsibility in a pandemic?



I agree partially but theres a rose-tinted aspect to that picture I suspect.

Missing from that picture was the historic view of 'broken Britain' and the failures and absurdities of authorities and institutions that was already well-established here over many decades. The absurdities and the cynicism they fostered were very well represented in mass entertainment of the time, due to entire generations of writers, directors and actors who had seen institutional absurdities and the ineptitude of the ruling classes via service in the war or national service after the war.

The 'post-war consensus' had also been creaking for a long time before Thatcherism and neo-liberalism moved to take advantage of the situation and strip away various hard-won gains of the past.

Divisions in society were rather obvious back then too. Some genuine redistribution of wealth had been achieved via means such as impressively high taxation of the rich, but in various respects the rot had set in.

Industrial relations is an obvious example. On the one hand the chances of collective action, strikes etc being used to force a halt to normal life if the government refused to do a proper lockdown were higher. But that would depend on where the pandemic and its consequences ended up on workers list of priorities.

But in terms of the spread opportunities for the virus, I do shudder when considering the sheer number of mass-employment businesses, the factories etc that often resembled towns of their own. So much opportunity for massive outbreaks! So many fewer jobs that could have been done from home. Much more manufacturing, a much smaller service sector.

Think about how many small pubs and working mens clubs etc there were back then too, and how often some frequented them. And seasonal influenza vaccines on a massive scale were not normalised back then in the way they are today, although some other forms of vaccination were common. But its not like vaccine scares are a purely modern phenomenon either, eg there was a UK whooping cough vaccine scare which I believe was from the 1970s. Its probably the reason we ended up with the 1979 Vaccine Damage Payments Act.

I will take the somewhat cynical and chaotic modern information, communication & trust picture over an era of limited information distribution and greater deference any day of the week. I dont have too much nostalgia for an age of supposed greater collectivism when much of that collectivism was channeled into a narrow monolith that was easy to misdirect.


----------



## MrSki (Dec 31, 2020)

nagapie said:


> Some bits are more transparently evil. Maybe trying to kill of some Labour voters, Lambeth a huge Labour voting area.


It does seem to be strong Labour areas doesn't it?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 31, 2020)

cupid_stunt said:


> The worst part of that thread -
> 
> 
> 
> This makes me so fucking angry.


Me too. In fact so angry I'd like there to be a reckoning with some of these scumbags at some point. Named and shamed I mean, even if part of me would like to see them get a kicking.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 31, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Me too. In fact so angry I'd like there to be a reckoning with some of these scumbags at some point. Named and shamed I mean, even if part of me would like to see them get a kicking.



They should all sign a disclaimer, if getting ill with COVID, the NHS can tell em to fuck off.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 31, 2020)

Anyway, on the delayed 2nd dose thing, yeah, I agree it's a tough choice thing in terms of levels of protection, essentially a small far away less protection more people thing.  I do think it's far from ideal in terms of people already booked in (to say the least) and not great in terms of overall confidence in the vaccination programme.  Perhaps though, it's also an indication that the government don't see themselves getting anywhere near the level of daily vaccinations needed. Why that is the case should be the focus.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Anyway, on the delayed 2nd dose thing, yeah, I agree it's a tough choice thing in terms of levels of protection, essentially a small far away less protection more people thing.  I do think it's far from ideal in terms of people already booked in (to say the least) and not great in terms of overall confidence in the vaccination programme.  Perhaps though, it's also an indication that the government don't see themselves getting anywhere near the level of daily vaccinations needed. Why that is the case should be the focus.


Exactly; this has the Hancock counting 2 tests on one person as two tests type of bullshit lying written all over it.


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2020)

Yes the very high death numbers for recent days are largely part of a catch-up, but it still seems apparent that the numbers by date of death are going to end up higher for the recent period than they were for the earlier part of the second wave. Its just a question of by how much, which is not easy to determine at this moment.



Using September 1st as an arbitrary date to start counting 2nd wave deaths by this measure, there have been 31,951 UK second wave deaths recorded.

Earlier in the second wave I said that these figures which limits deaths to those within 28 days of a positive test were not being significantly affected by the 28 day limit. However that was only going to be true early in the second wave, and now that there has been a much longer period of time since this wave began, the 28 day limit is having a more significant impact on the figures again, eg:



That latter chart is from https://assets.publishing.service.g...-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_w53.pdf


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Dec 31, 2020)

elbows Take the night off, please! ❤


----------



## CH1 (Dec 31, 2020)

TopCat said:


> You really wonder this?


On second thoughts I'm thinking it's a case of a communicable panic reaction - possibly justified. Time will tell.
The PBS documentary on Spanish Flu today was salutary. Precautionary measures they took exactly the same as now - but didn't work.
The doc was made rwo years back - so the point made on contamination in highly infectious respiratory disease was not Covid hindsight.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 31, 2020)

Let's say someone had picked it up on Christmas Day. On which day would be the latest they would show symptoms? (Ignoring asymptomatic patients for now.)


----------



## muscovyduck (Dec 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Let's say someone had picked it up on Christmas Day. On which day would be the latest they would show symptoms? (Ignoring asymptomatic patients for now.)


I think the reason self isolating was for 2 weeks was because symptoms can take up to two weeks to show. So that brings us to January 8th?

(Edited)


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2020)

Buddy Bradley said:


> elbows Take the night off, please! ❤



Fear not, I work in bursts on this stuff and a break is planned, just getting the various data that came out today out of the way and then I shall have a mini holiday.


----------



## Thora (Dec 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Let's say someone had picked it up on Christmas Day. On which day would be the latest they would show symptoms? (Ignoring asymptomatic patients for now.)


I think it's usually within 10 days, but almost certainly within 14.


----------



## LDC (Dec 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Let's say someone had picked it up on Christmas Day. On which day would be the latest they would show symptoms? (Ignoring asymptomatic patients for now.)



And some suggestions from clinicians that they'd be at their most infectious around today...


----------



## existentialist (Dec 31, 2020)

Wilf said:


> Anyway, on the delayed 2nd dose thing, yeah, I agree it's a tough choice thing in terms of levels of protection, essentially a small far away less protection more people thing.  I do think it's far from ideal in terms of people already booked in (to say the least) and not great in terms of overall confidence in the vaccination programme.  Perhaps though, it's also an indication that the government don't see themselves getting anywhere near the level of daily vaccinations needed. Why that is the case should be the focus.


The main thing that horrifies me about this additional delay to the second dose isn't so much the practicalities as the notion that this government clearly seems to consider it competent to override specific scientific/medical advice. Whether or not it ends up getting away with it...


----------



## prunus (Dec 31, 2020)

miss direct said:


> Let's say someone had picked it up on Christmas Day. On which day would be the latest they would show symptoms? (Ignoring asymptomatic patients for now.)



Something like 98% of people start showing symptoms within 10 days of exposure (data is a little out of date, but it’s not far off still I don’t think), so that’s the 4th Jan. 

I think about 90% of people show within 5 days, ie yesterday, so if they haven’t by now there’s a pretty small and getting smaller chance that they picked it up.


----------



## LDC (Dec 31, 2020)

existentialist said:


> The main thing that horrifies me about this additional delay to the second dose isn't so much the practicalities as the notion that this government clearly seems to consider it competent to override specific scientific/medical advice. Whether or not it ends up getting away with it...



Wasn't just a government decision though was it?


----------



## miss direct (Dec 31, 2020)

prunus said:


> Something like 98% of people start showing symptoms within 10 days of exposure (data is a little out of date, but it’s not far off still I don’t think), so that’s the 4th Jan.
> 
> I think about 90% of people show within 5 days, ie yesterday, so if they haven’t by now there’s a pretty small and getting smaller chance that they picked it up.


Thank you, reassuring.


----------



## rutabowa (Dec 31, 2020)

our school was due to open on the 4th despite being in a very high area, just got a pretty militant anti-government email from the head who is always v professional and in control of things. good for her. They are still opening though, but making Monday an inset day (possibly expecting that there will be further last minute changes from the government, I think)


----------



## weepiper (Dec 31, 2020)

London public health officials telling all London boroughs they should be keeping their primary schools shut.


----------



## MrSki (Dec 31, 2020)

Looks like London hospitals are starting to fall over. 

Dr Julia Grace Patterson is CE of @everydoctor.org.uk who is collecting information from its 26 thousand members & putting it out there to stop individuals having action taken against them for talking to the press.


----------



## kropotkin (Dec 31, 2020)

Spandex said:


> The death figures are still catching up from Christmas. Here's the chart from the Covid Dashboard by date on death certificate:
> 
> View attachment 246289
> 
> Obviously around 500 people dying every day is a fucking catastrophe, but the UK still isn't seeing the numbers dying there were in the spring.


We don't fill out death certificates for several days (in hospitals at least- I suspect the same in the community if not slower)


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 31, 2020)

existentialist said:


> The main thing that horrifies me about this additional delay to the second dose isn't so much the practicalities as the notion that this government clearly seems to consider it competent to override specific scientific/medical advice. Whether or not it ends up getting away with it...



They were accepting the medical advice not going against it

Here‘s a new statement from JCVI on extending the second dose





__





						Short statement - first dose prioritisation.pdf - Box
					





					m.box.com


----------



## andysays (Dec 31, 2020)

platinumsage said:


> They were accepting the medical advice not going against it
> 
> Here‘s a new statement from JCVI on extending the second dose
> 
> ...


Thanks for posting that, it's the first I've seen of it.

I note that it says



> The second dose is still important to provide longer lasting protection and *is expected to be* as or more effective when delivered at an interval of 12 weeks from the first dose



which means to me it hasn't been definitely demonstrated to be the case.

And



> JCVI advises a maximum interval between the first and second doses of 12 weeks for both vaccines



If the maximum is 12 weeks, I'd be aiming to do the second one at eight weeks after the first, to allow for the likelihood of problems when organising something on this scale.


----------



## T & P (Dec 31, 2020)

Apologies if this has been discussed already, I don’t check this thread often and it is a long read.

So it seems I won some kind of government’s Free Covid Test raffle, as I recently got a letter from the NHS telling me I’ve been picked up at random from their database to participate in a mass test exercise, and asked if I wanted to take part. I thought might as well do it, and sure enough today the home kit came through the post.

The thing is, you’re supposed to use it and send it back right away, regardless of whether you have symptoms or not. The test doesn’t check for antibodies either, so it won’t provide any useful statistics to the government there.

Unless I had by amazing coincidence contracted Covid in the last week, the test will of course be negative. As will for the immense majority of the rest of the participants in this exercise, I would wager. It seems a bit of a waste of resources to ask symptom-free people to test themselves for research, no?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 31, 2020)

T & P said:


> Apologies if this has been discussed already, I don’t check this thread often and it is a long read.
> 
> So it seems I won some kind of government’s Free Covid Test raffle, as I recently got a letter from the NHS telling me I’ve been picked up at random from their database to participate in a mass test exercise, and asked if I wanted to take part. I thought might as well do it, and sure enough today the home kit came through the post.
> 
> ...



It will pickup cases that otherwise don't make it into hospital or report themselves and you can get an overview of how many people in the population have it or have had it from the data. Think of it like a polling sample, if X number of people report in then Y number of people of have it we can estimate Z number of people in the country have it.

Was this from the Imperial College London? Wife's had a couple of similar survey letters come through she's ignoring, but she gets to test herself twice a week anyway for work so fuck that.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 31, 2020)

T & P said:


> Apologies if this has been discussed already, I don’t check this thread often and it is a long read.
> 
> So it seems I won some kind of government’s Free Covid Test raffle, as I recently got a letter from the NHS telling me I’ve been picked up at random from their database to participate in a mass test exercise, and asked if I wanted to take part. I thought might as well do it, and sure enough today the home kit came through the post.
> 
> ...


It's for the data. Out of a random sample of x, y people tested positive.


----------



## Supine (Dec 31, 2020)

T & P said:


> Apologies if this has been discussed already, I don’t check this thread often and it is a long read.
> 
> So it seems I won some kind of government’s Free Covid Test raffle, as I recently got a letter from the NHS telling me I’ve been picked up at random from their database to participate in a mass test exercise, and asked if I wanted to take part. I thought might as well do it, and sure enough today the home kit came through the post.
> 
> ...



It's really important to know how many people actually have covid. Which is a different question to how many people think they have covid.


----------



## Cid (Dec 31, 2020)

Yep, not a free covid test, a way of monitoring prevalence at a given time. Very important, participate and do what it says.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Dec 31, 2020)

This is a sobering article.









						I work in intensive care. Our beds are full, and more Covid patients are arriving | Samantha Batt-Rawden
					

Reports that we are quieter than this time last year are simply not true, says Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, an intensive care registrar




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## LDC (Dec 31, 2020)

T & P said:


> Apologies if this has been discussed already, I don’t check this thread often and it is a long read.
> 
> So it seems I won some kind of government’s Free Covid Test raffle, as I recently got a letter from the NHS telling me I’ve been picked up at random from their database to participate in a mass test exercise, and asked if I wanted to take part. I thought might as well do it, and sure enough today the home kit came through the post.
> 
> ...



Do it, these surveys are useful.


----------



## maomao (Dec 31, 2020)

T & P said:


> Unless I had by amazing coincidence contracted Covid in the last week, the test will of course be negative. As will for the immense majority of the rest of the participants in this exercise, I would wager. It seems a bit of a waste of resources to ask symptom-free people to test themselves for research, no?


How would it be an amazing coincidence for you to have Covid? We're in a high growth part of a pandemic and 1-2% of the London population have had it at any one time over the last few weeks.


----------



## Mation (Dec 31, 2020)

T & P said:


> Apologies if this has been discussed already, I don’t check this thread often and it is a long read.
> 
> So it seems I won some kind of government’s Free Covid Test raffle, as I recently got a letter from the NHS telling me I’ve been picked up at random from their database to participate in a mass test exercise, and asked if I wanted to take part. I thought might as well do it, and sure enough today the home kit came through the post.
> 
> ...


Absolutely not a waste of time or resources.

Think of it as answering the question: what proportion of people who wouldn't otherwise have had a test turn out to be positive.

That's an important thing to find out.


----------



## T & P (Dec 31, 2020)

Artaxerxes said:


> It will pickup cases that otherwise don't make it into hospital or report themselves and you can get an overview of how many people in the population have it or have had it from the data. Think of it like a polling sample, if X number of people report in then Y number of people of have it we can estimate Z number of people in the country have it.
> 
> Was this from the Imperial College London? Wife's had a couple of similar survey letters come through she's ignoring, but she gets to test herself twice a week anyway for work so fuck that.


Yes, it was Imperial.


----------



## T & P (Dec 31, 2020)

maomao said:


> How would it be an amazing coincidence for you to have Covid? We're in a high growth part of a pandemic and 1-2% of the London population have had it at any one time over the last few weeks.


Admittedly it seems more likely now, but the initial letter was sent to me before this new super contagious strain had been discovered.

With that in mind, I haven’t contracted Covid in the nine-odd months since it’s been generally around in the UK. If I am supposed to test myself immediately after receiving the kit in the post, surely the odds of me having avoided contracting Covid for nine months straight and getting infected on the very small window of time when the test arrives must be fairly small... Or at least it would have been when this exercise was conceived, before anyone knew about the new strain...


----------



## weltweit (Dec 31, 2020)

I had the random survey covid test thing also. They asked me if I would do it and then sent a home test kit which they then collected. A day or two later they texted to say my test was negative and followed up with an email saying the same.


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2020)

T & P said:


> Admittedly it seems more likely now, but the initial letter was sent to me before this new super contagious strain had been discovered.
> 
> With that in mind, I haven’t contracted Covid in the nine-odd months since it’s been generally around in the UK. If I am supposed to test myself immediately after receiving the kit in the post, surely the odds of me having avoided contracting Covid for nine months straight and getting infected on the very small window of time when the test arrives must be fairly small... Or at least it would have been when this exercise was conceived, before anyone knew about the new strain...



They need to know how low those chances are in practice. And thats not a question that becomes less important to them at times when cases are low. They need to keep an eye on the picture all the time and study the signs of change in one direction or another. The negative results are as important to them as the positives.

They arent trying to find as many cases as possible with this method They do find some, a few out of many. And thats quite enough for their purposes. I do not like it when a country relies only on this sort of disease surveillance to monitor the state of things, but it is an important part of the mix and is useful. It was even more useful when we didnt have a testing system that the public could access, but its still useful even when larger methods of surveillance are available, even if only to confirm things from a slightly different vantage point and to confirm the validity of trends seen via other data sources.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 1, 2021)

Some seriously ill covid patients in London, the east, and south-east are being moved to hospitals hundreds of miles away, such as Bristol & Plymouth.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 1, 2021)

I know Owen Jones isn't that popular on here often for good reason but this is a good piece on Karl Sikora 









						Giving people false hope about the pandemic isn't 'balanced' – it's dangerous | Owen Jones
					

The media should not promote disinformation under the guise of debate, says Guardian columnist Owen Jones




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 1, 2021)

T & P said:


> Admittedly it seems more likely now, but the initial letter was sent to me before this new super contagious strain had been discovered.
> 
> With that in mind, I haven’t contracted Covid in the nine-odd months since it’s been generally around in the UK. If I am supposed to test myself immediately after receiving the kit in the post, surely the odds of me having avoided contracting Covid for nine months straight and getting infected on the very small window of time when the test arrives must be fairly small... Or at least it would have been when this exercise was conceived, before anyone knew about the new strain...



Positive or negative is information.  I don't understand why you seem to be opposing the gathering of information about asymptomatic prevalence during a pandemic?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 1, 2021)

Isle of Sheppey off the hook?


----------



## 2hats (Jan 1, 2021)

Updated LSHTM modelling (not yet peer reviewed) with latest data highlights the increasing spread of VOC 202012/01 (B.1.1.7) from the SE across the country, particularly as December progressed. The growth is consistent with increased transmission of the new variant of >50% over previous variants.






^ Spread of new variant by region.





^ Growth of the new variant indicated by proxy of S dropouts (local authorities arranged from north to south, top to bottom).


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Some seriously ill covid patients in London, the east, and south-east are being moved to hospitals hundreds of miles away, such as Bristol & Plymouth.


I don't know if it would make more sense to move covid or non-covid patients to other areas to release ICU / high dependency beds in the areas with the excessive demand for beds, or find some way of staffing the Nightingales ?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 1, 2021)

2hats said:


> Updated LSHTM modelling (not yet peer reviewed) with latest data highlights the increasing spread of VOC 202012/01 (B.1.1.7) from the SE across the country, particularly as December progressed. The growth is consistent with increased transmission of the new variant of >50% over previous variants.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Kent (& Medway) + Bexley certainly showing up there, but there appear to be some oddly early stuff in that Plymouth line as well?
Am I reading that right?


----------



## magneze (Jan 1, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Isle of Sheppey off the hook?
> 
> View attachment 246452


Maybe everyone can call it the 'Trump Virus' from now on?


----------



## 2hats (Jan 1, 2021)

T & P said:


> Admittedly it seems more likely now, but the initial letter was sent to me before this new super contagious strain had been discovered.
> 
> With that in mind, I haven’t contracted Covid in the nine-odd months since it’s been generally around in the UK. If I am supposed to test myself immediately after receiving the kit in the post, surely the odds of me having avoided contracting Covid for nine months straight and getting infected on the very small window of time when the test arrives must be fairly small... Or at least it would have been when this exercise was conceived, before anyone knew about the new strain...





T & P said:


> Yes, it was Imperial.


If it was from Imperial (actually distributed by Ipsos MORI) then it would be part of the REACT study. This is an important cross-check on the ONS Coronavirus Infection Survey and also provides insight into the duration of naturally acquired immunity. Unlike the National Testing Programme (aka 'Test and Trace') this is a random sample of the population and not a self-selecting sample. As such it helps paint a more realistic picture of infection and immunity levels across the country, so it's important that people don't treat it as a personal test and only bother with it if they think they might be/might have been infected or ignore it (irrespective of their own determination of their seropositivity).


----------



## 2hats (Jan 1, 2021)

brogdale said:


> there appear to be some oddly early stuff in that Plymouth line as well?
> Am I reading that right?


Correct. Could be an early introduction there (cue idle speculation about local activities) but note this analysis is using the proxy of S dropouts with a somewhat arbitrary cut off in time of (approx.) October where, going forward, the dominate contribution to those dropouts was from VOC 202012/01. So _some_ signals to the left could have been from other variants.


----------



## maomao (Jan 1, 2021)

2hats said:


> If it was from Imperial (actually distributed by Ipsos MORI) then it would be part of the REACT study. This is an important cross-check on the ONS Coronavirus Infection Survey and also provides insight into the duration of naturally acquired immunity. Unlike the National Testing Programme (aka 'Test and Trace') this is a random sample of the population and not a self-selecting sample. As such it helps paint a more realistic picture of infection and immunity levels across the country, so it's important that people don't treat it as a personal test and only bother with it if they think they might be/might have been infected or ignore it (irrespective of their own determination of their seropositivity).


Any idea of sample size? Ie. how many tests a day/week they do.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 1, 2021)

maomao said:


> Any idea of sample size? Ie. how many tests a day/week they do.


Typically involves something like 100,000-200,000 randomly chosen people being tested every fortnight or so. Read more here.


----------



## teqniq (Jan 1, 2021)

With the new strain there is a much higher infection/transmission level with kids: close schools.









						Thread by @dgurdasani1 on Thread Reader App
					

Thread by @dgurdasani1: The Imperial report on the new UK B117 strain is out. Very concerning findings, that highlight why we need to act on this *now*. These findings suggest that the situation within the UK...…




					threadreaderapp.com


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 1, 2021)

I think there is a danger of over-playing the transmission rate for the young, the study you link to indicates 1.2X that of the rate in older people, its not the nigh and day difference implied


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 1, 2021)

I don't think underplaying the risk of transmission is a good look at all.

There are enough idiots - like the deniers, anti-maskers & anti-vaxxers - to be assisting the spread of even the mark 1 version, without the greater transmissibility of the new Variants coming into play at all.


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 1, 2021)

Its a comparative study, you can ignore the numbers in studies to suit your 'Look'  if your that way inclined....many do
and who the fuck underplayed it anyway?, cos it seems that was directed at me


----------



## existentialist (Jan 1, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> I think there is a danger of over-playing the transmission rate for the young, the study you link to indicates 1.2X that of the rate in older people, its not the nigh and day difference implied


Take the third or fourth power of each rate, and then see how tiny the difference is.

1.0 * 1.0 * 1.0 * 1.0 = 1
1.2 * 1.2 * 1.2 * 1.2 = 2.07

So, in 4 cycles of infection, an invectivity of 1.2 will double the number infected vs that of 1. Little numbers get big quite fast in exponential rates.


----------



## maomao (Jan 1, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> I think there is a danger of over-playing the transmission rate for the young, the study you link to indicates 1.2X that of the rate in older people, its not the nigh and day difference implied



20% weekly compound interest. That's a massive difference. Look at a list of powers of 5 and powers of 6. How big a difference do you want?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Take the third or fourth power of each rate, and then see how tiny the difference is.
> 
> 1.0 * 1.0 * 1.0 * 1.0 = 1
> 1.2 * 1.2 * 1.2 * 1.2 = 2.07
> ...



BIB - very true, Worthing came out of the last national lockdown on under 25 cases per 100k, four weeks later and we were on over 400 cases per 100k, slightly over doubling every bloody week.  

ETA - with today's figures, we are now on 526 cases per 100k, up from 25 in just over 4 weeks. 

ETA 2 - Just checked the figures for covid cases in our local hospital trust, it was 22 on the day we came out of the last national lockdown, now it's 96, higher than the 80 at the peak in April.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 1, 2021)

This pandemic has achieved, if nothing else, a revelation of the vast gap between some people's perception of their mathematqical/epidemiological understanding and the reality. Not to mention their reluctance to do anything about that gap.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 1, 2021)

53,285 cases and 613 deaths


----------



## LDC (Jan 1, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> I think there is a danger of over-playing the transmission rate for the young, the study you link to indicates 1.2X that of the rate in older people, its not the nigh and day difference implied



FFS Hyperdark you really like to continually illustrate how little you know and how you don't understand this stuff. What's the danger, we're a bit too cautious? As we are fast approaching 100,000 dead, have an out of control infection rate, and a new variant we don't fully understand the implications of yet, maybe being very cautious is sensible?!


----------



## elbows (Jan 1, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> 53,285 cases and 613 deaths



And by test specimen date the figure for 29th December has already gone above 64,000 positive cases!


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> And by test specimen date the figure for 29th December has already gone above 64,000 positive cases!


Out of that 64,000 i guess if we assume ages etc are averaged out, around 500 to 640 will die and 6400 will end up at hospital?


----------



## magneze (Jan 1, 2021)

I'm struggling to understand how we're not heading for a national lockdown let alone the bonkers schools stuff. Proper lockdown, schools closed, furlough scheme, ramp up vaccine roll out. Do this for January and we could be almost through the worst?


----------



## teqniq (Jan 1, 2021)

Statement from the Royal College of GP's wrt to 12 week wait for second dose of vaccine. They appear to be in favour of it. Opinions?

Broadly they seem to be saying it's better to get more people (vulnerable elderly and healthacre professionals being top of the list) some protection asap.





__





						Urgent update on COVID vaccine arrangements
					





					rcgp-news.com


----------



## magneze (Jan 1, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Statement from the Royal College of GP's wrt to 12 week wait for second dose of vaccine. They appear to be in favour of it. Opinions?
> 
> Broadly they seem to be saying it's better to get more people (vulnerable elderly and healthacre professionals being top of the list) some protection asap.
> 
> ...


Seems like the right thing to do. The mistake was cancelling the existing appointments for 2nd doses IMHO.


----------



## LDC (Jan 1, 2021)

magneze said:


> I'm struggling to understand how we're not heading for a national lockdown let alone the bonkers schools stuff. Proper lockdown, schools closed, furlough scheme, ramp up vaccine roll out. Do this for January and we could be almost through the worst?



That's pretty much my view, and seems to be the view of Indie SAGE and many others. Think January is slightly optimistic, but a couple of months and it'd be a huge step forward from where we are now.


----------



## magneze (Jan 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's pretty much my view, and seems to be the view of Indie SAGE and many others. Think January is slightly optimistic, but a couple of months and it'd be a huge step forward from where we are now.


Let's see where we are, but minimum of January. It's a shit month for going out anyway let alone for work.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 1, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Statement from the Royal College of GP's wrt to 12 week wait for second dose of vaccine. They appear to be in favour of it. Opinions?
> 
> Broadly they seem to be saying it's better to get more people (vulnerable elderly and healthacre professionals being top of the list) some protection asap.
> 
> ...


Which is fine and well argued; it's just that I (still) can't understand why they didn't anticipate/appreciate the hurt/confusion/anxiety created by the government's decision not to honour what had already been promised to the relatively small cohort of folk who had already been booked in for their second jab.


----------



## elbows (Jan 1, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Out of that 64,000 i guess if we assume ages etc are averaged out, around 500 to 640 will die and 6400 will end up at hospital?



Maybe, I dont do those sorts of sums so I'm the wrong person to comment on that really. Certainly there have been 2,542,065 positive cases detected and 262,688 hospital admissions/diagnoses so far. But a vast number of positive cases were never formally detected in the first wave so the second wave ratio between cases and hospitalisations is likely to be different to overall ratio when using this dashboard data.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS Hyperdark you really like to continually illustrate how little you know and how you don't understand this stuff. What's the danger, we're a bit too cautious? As we are fast approaching 100,000 dead, have an out of control infection rate, and a new variant we don't fully understand the implications of yet, maybe being very cautious is sensible?!


I refer you to my honourable friend, Mr Dunning Kruger...


----------



## brogdale (Jan 1, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Which is fine and well argued; it's just that I (still) can't understand why they didn't anticipate/appreciate the hurt/confusion/anxiety created by the government's decision not to honour what had already been promised to the relatively small cohort of folk who had already been booked in for their second jab.


I've been fielding more calls today from the very elderly relies who just don't understand what's happened. Most are saying they'll just turn up in the cabs they've booked unless they hear otherwise...and basically I think that's about all they can do tbh.
But putting 90 year olds in this position; fucking shameful for this "government".


----------



## brogdale (Jan 1, 2021)

It's really knocked their confidence as well; some who preparing to start going out into the world again (a bit) now saying just sticking to garden path walks etc.

Well done Hancock; double the number of people in the headline numbers, but few of them confident that they've got safe immunity.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 1, 2021)

Given everyone a whole weekend to prepare  

<edit: sorry, forgot there's a whole thread for this>


----------



## rutabowa (Jan 1, 2021)

rutabowa said:


> our school was due to open on the 4th despite being in a very high area, just got a pretty militant anti-government email from the head who is always v professional and in control of things. good for her. They are still opening though, but making Monday an inset day (*possibly expecting that there will be further last minute changes from the government, I think*)


I see 2021 is the year I develop my psychic powers.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 1, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> Given everyone a whole weekend to prepare
> 
> <edit: sorry, forgot there's a whole thread for this>



world-beating 😭 twats
(how come we proles can see the need for these measures and they have to keep flip-flopping and u-turning their way through the pandemic, and usually too little, too late, so there are more, un-necessary deaths)


----------



## tommers (Jan 1, 2021)

Well we had a zoom call last night that involved somebody who sits in the sage meetings and my 8 yr old daughter was pretty high on shloer and shouting at him for about 5 minutes about why more people hadn't had the vaccine yet "you've got the cure, just give it to people!" . So we'll see if that has any effect, he looked pretty scared.


----------



## maomao (Jan 1, 2021)

I wish they'd close the bloody nurseries then. Not going to be sending my son (as his primary age sister will miss him apart from anything else) but may end up having to pay for it which we wouldn't if they'd close them.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 1, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Statement from the Royal College of GP's wrt to 12 week wait for second dose of vaccine. They appear to be in favour of it. Opinions?
> 
> Broadly they seem to be saying it's better to get more people (vulnerable elderly and healthacre professionals being top of the list) some protection asap.
> 
> ...


The principle is sound. With the virus out of control across the country, making 20 million people 70% immune instead of 10 million people 90% immune* could save thousands of lives.

The question is: how are the government going to fuck it up? The vaccine program is a bold new frontier for the bumbling incompetents in charge to make a mess of things. 

The way they've made the change to how the vaccine will be administered, regardless of whether it's a good move, has already sowed chaos where there needed to be none. The experiences brogdale has had shows the impact on the older people who've been affected, but from the other side there's chaos too. Having arranged thousands of appointments with often confused and vulnerable older people, many of whom don't answer or even have a phone, let alone email, internet or smartphones, NHS staff now have to cancel all those appointments and rearrange them.

Where else can things go wrong? 

It's still early days in the vaccine program and it's nowhere near up to speed yet. That's to be expected with a massive new project, but it took three weeks to vaccinate somewhere over 600k people. They need to be doing double that every week. If it takes too long to get the mass vaccinations going will the advantages of the change materialize?.

There's been reports of supply issues with the vaccine due to demand. Might these supply issues cause problems for everyone getting a second dose and achieving the full effect of the vaccine?

Will the whole project be handed to a Minister's cousin who runs a pet shop for twice the price?

Will the unthinkable happen and the government manage move heaven and earth to deliver an effective mass vaccination program by Easter without cocking it all up?

* all figures for illustrative purposes - not actual figures.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 1, 2021)

COVID-19: Eight-year-old dies with coronavirus as cases exceed 50,000 for fourth day running
					

Nightingale hospitals are being readied for use but the Royal College of Nursing has "real concerns" about a lack of staff.




					news.sky.com
				




8 year old child dies


----------



## weltweit (Jan 1, 2021)

I am trying to find out if government recommendations have changed in response to the UK variant. I expect current recommendations might be inadequate, as evidenced by the fact that it is spreading so rapidly. I can't even find in the .gov advice pages that they are yet recommending companies change their actions. 

Like so many I am now also in Tier 4, that tightens things a bit, but as regards work, there is again if you can work from home you should, apart from that where work is concerned not so much.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 1, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Like so many I am now also in Tier 4, that tightens things a bit, but as regards work, there is again if you can work from home you should, apart from that where work is concerned not so much.



This absence of change to any absence from work recommendations annoys me a lot!


----------



## weltweit (Jan 1, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> This absence of change to any absence from work recommendations annoys me a lot!


Your double absence confuses me slightly  

If you agree recommendations should be updated, I am with you.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 1, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Your double absence confuses me slightly
> 
> If you agree recommendations should be updated, I am with you.




Apologies, what I really meant was " *This absence of change to any recommendations about absence from work  annoys me a lot!* '


----------



## souljacker (Jan 1, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> Given everyone a whole weekend to prepare
> 
> <edit: sorry, forgot there's a whole thread for this>




Why the fuck is it just London? We're only down the road!


----------



## weltweit (Jan 1, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Why the fuck is it just London? We're only down the road!


Indeed, we are also Tier 4, why not here also?


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 2, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> This absence of change to any absence from work recommendations annoys me a lot!



The store where I work has set up serial testing for staff who are contacts that would otherwise be isolating. A negative test before each shift for 7 days means they can stay at work. The aim is to reduce absence, identify asymptomatic positive cases, and provide reassurance, and the target is to conduct 300 tests a week, currently two weeks in they’re doing about 30 a day.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 2, 2021)

20Bees said:


> The store where I work has set up serial testing for staff who are contacts that would otherwise be isolating. A negative test before each shift for 7 days means they can stay at work. The aim is to reduce absence, identify asymptomatic positive cases, and provide reassurance, and the target is to conduct 300 tests a week, currently two weeks in they’re doing about 30 a day.


Sounds positive, have they found any asymptomatic cases yet?


----------



## 2hats (Jan 2, 2021)

Dosing regimen _could_ rapidly become moot. AZD1222 (Oxford/AstraZeneca) with 100 million doses, more portable, easier to handle, vaccination due to start Monday versus 40 million BNT162b2 (Pfizer/BioNTech) doses, more difficult to handle, likely would see AZD1222 come to dominate the vaccination programme quite quickly (though depends on supply, distribution).

Unlike BNT162b2 (Pfizer did test 1 v 2 dose strategies with different intervals and found 2 dose with 21 days optimal), the evidence for much improved efficacy with AZD1222 in waiting 3 months for the second shot already exists and is quite strong. A well designed rollout programme could return to a smaller number of BNT162b2 recipients in far less than 12 weeks (and in the meantime immunogenicity trials for extended intervals could be conducted). Whilst quite a number of vaccines produce a stronger immune response with a lengthy interval between jabs, this (the Pfizer vaccine) is the first time a mRNA platform has been deployed so it would probably be wise to err on the side of caution and keep to the known performance envelope (as per the manufacturer's recommendations) until such time as the extent of that envelope can be better characterised. Also for reasons of public confidence and "following the science" (or be honest and explain that this is something of a gamble based on informed speculation).

However, it is potentially risky to leave a growing section of the population with partial immunity in the face of an uncontrolled, highly transmissible virus with even more infectious variants evolving. Ideally, one needs to be reducing case numbers first before vaccinating.

So, irrespective of dosing strategy - where many more inoculations per unit time are needed - all recipients still need to mask up and socially distance till and beyond their second dose (ie behave as if everyone around them and they themselves are infected and infectious) until the sterilising profile of each vaccine can be determined. Cases need to be brought down and true test, trace and isolate instituted (but this has been said repeatedly).

(I note from the latest mobility data for London that activity is around double that seen in March/Apr and that's with a virus now >1.5x transmissible).


----------



## Badgers (Jan 2, 2021)




----------



## LDC (Jan 2, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> COVID-19: Eight-year-old dies with coronavirus as cases exceed 50,000 for fourth day running
> 
> 
> Nightingale hospitals are being readied for use but the Royal College of Nursing has "real concerns" about a lack of staff.
> ...



Hearing that there's a much higher percentage of people in their 40s and under in ICU (with 20s not being uncommon) with this variant. Not sure if it's true, but if it is I wonder if we're going to get some grim news about that soon. That will change some attitudes I'd have thought?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 2, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Hearing that there's a much higher percentage of people in their 40s and under in ICU (with 20s not being uncommon) with this variant. Not sure if it's true, but if it is I wonder if we're going ot get some grim new re: that soon. That will change some attitudes I'd have thought?



There's been an increasing number of comments from doctors & nurses, interviewed on TV or quoted in the press, that a lot more younger people and children are ending up in hospital this time.   



> Martin Llewelyn, professor of Infectious Diseases and NHS Consultant, pleaded for people not to mingle on New Year's Eve after revealing there was a "staggering" number of coronavirus patients admitted to hospital wards just days after Christmas.
> 
> The President of British Infection Association tweeted: "Back on the wards today. Staggering amount of Covid.
> 
> "Striking difference from last time - large family outbreaks with teenagers/young adults the focus. Multiple family members being admitted.





> It also attracted responses from fellow medics who confirmed his claims.
> 
> One replied: "I've seen lots of family groups admitted. It's been completely heartbreaking at times."
> 
> ...



Daily Mirror link. 



> Laura Duffell, a matron at King’s College Hospital in London, said the new strain of Covid was affecting children and younger adults with no underlying health conditions in increasingly worrying numbers.
> 
> Speaking to The Telegraph, she described “whole wards of children” suffering from Covid. “It’s very different. That’s what makes it so much scarier for us as doctors, nurses and porters and everyone else who is working on the front line.
> 
> “We have children who are coming in. It was minimally affecting children in the first wave... we now have a whole ward of children here and I know that some of my colleagues are in the same position, where they have a whole ward of children with Covid.”



Yahoo News link.

I guess this will bugger up plans of getting back to normal once older people have been vaccinated, which is very worrying.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

These anecdotes of younger healthy people being seriously ill should show up in the stats somewhere if significant. Is there any data for ICU admissions by age?


----------



## maomao (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> These anecdotes of younger healthy people being seriously ill should show up in the stats somewhere if significant. Is there any data for ICU admissions by age?


ONS does hospital admission by age but is two weeks behind. Current latest figures are up to 18th December.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> These anecdotes of younger healthy people being seriously ill should show up in the stats somewhere if significant. Is there any data for ICU admissions by age?



The ONS publishes such data, but that's always a couple of weeks behind, whereas it's only been in the last week that I've noticed an increasing number of medics commenting on the situation.

I see no reason not to trust them on what they are saying about what is happening on the front-line.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> ONS does hospital admission by age but is two weeks behind. Current latest figures are up to 18th December.



Thanks, doesn't look significant from that data but something to keep an eye on:


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The ONS publishes such data, but that's always a couple of weeks behind, whereas it's only been in the last week that I've noticed an increasing number of medics commenting on the situation.
> 
> I see no reason not to trust them on what they are saying about what is happening on the front-line.



I'm not saying I don't trust them, but they're still anecdotes. There could be lots of explanations for what they're seeing, such as younger people being funneled to particular hospitals or whatever.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 2, 2021)

Seems reasonable


----------



## maomao (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Thanks, doesn't look significant from that data but something to keep an eye on:
> 
> View attachment 246589


It will take at least 2-3 weeks for data on new variant to show up on those graphs.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> It will take at least 2-3 weeks for data on new variant to show up on those graphs.



Not really, the new variant was spread quickly during November. The greater the difference in age profile, the sooner it would start showing up.


----------



## andysays (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Not really, the new variant was spread quickly during November. The greater the difference in age profile, the sooner it would start showing up.


From what I've seen, the reports from doctors about much greater numbers of younger people being hospitalised have only happened in the past couple of weeks (there may be a number of reasons for this, not just connected to the new variant).

Do you at least accept that this reported increase won't yet have shown up in the official figures?


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

andysays said:


> From what I've seen, the reports from doctors about much greater numbers of younger people being hospitalised have only happened in the past couple of weeks (there may be a number of reasons for this, not just connected to the new variant).
> 
> Do you at least accept that this reported increase won't yet have shown up in the official figures?



Of course not, the ONS figures are from the 18th of December, why would I expect anything from the last two weeks to show up there?


----------



## andysays (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Of course not, the ONS figures are from the 18th of December, why would I expect anything from the last two weeks to show up there?


So why are you still arguing the toss about it?


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

andysays said:


> So why are you still arguing the toss about it?



FFS I just asked for data to support the anecdotes. I appreciate such data might not be  available yet. Why do you have to try and make everything into an argument?


----------



## andysays (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> FFS I just asked for data to support the anecdotes. I appreciate such data might not be  available yet. Why do you have to try and make everything into an argument?


It looked to me like you were trying to make it into an argument by suggesting that the reports from doctors aren't significant, but I'm glad to hear that this isn't the case.


----------



## prunus (Jan 2, 2021)

FWIW I believe this is the latest matched cohort analysis of NVcovid vs original, published 28th Dec

[edit: apologies, said this was 21st Dec, that was technical briefing 1, this one was 28th]

https://assets.publishing.service.g...cal_Briefing_VOC202012-2_Briefing_2_FINAL.pdf

In summary it says that that the new variant appears to be behaving similarly to the original in clinical outcomes, but is spreading more rapidly in younger age groups (if I’ve read it right).

It is preliminary data of course, and as it says itself clinical outcomes are fluctuating data, as some people not hospitalised at the time of the report may become so later. Hopefully they’ll update with a new report soon (if they haven’t already - anyone?).


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 2, 2021)

New UK COVID-19 vaccine recommendations say 'it is reasonable' for people to mix and match different shots, even though there's not yet evidence that works
					

The British government has authorized its second COVID-19 vaccine, and now suggests people could get one shot of each.




					www.businessinsider.com
				




This seems a bit reckless honestly


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 2, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> New UK COVID-19 vaccine recommendations say 'it is reasonable' for people to mix and match different shots, even though there's not yet evidence that works
> 
> 
> The British government has authorized its second COVID-19 vaccine, and now suggests people could get one shot of each.
> ...


I was reading about the "mix and match" thing earlier and it does seem that it's really just for situations where it simply is not possible to deliver a second dose of the same vaccine.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 2, 2021)

Sorry, haven't been following this thread very well, so this has probably been posted New COVID-19 variant growing rapidly in England | Imperial News | Imperial College London
"The new variant has a transmission advantage of 0.4 to 0.7 in reproduction number compared to the previously observed strain"

That's pretty scary, given the lowest we got r in the summer was 0.7. Seems to me that means the new variant can't be controlled without very strick lockdowns. Surely they'll have to stop most people going to work as well as to schools. As in, it needs to look more like the first lockdown when the streets were empty than the second, when the roads seemed as busy as usual.


----------



## Mation (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Not really, the new variant was spread quickly during November. The greater the difference in age profile, the sooner it would start showing up.


But families were getting together for Christmas, not during November.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 2, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I was reading about the "mix and match" thing earlier and it does seem that it's really just for situations where it simply is not possible to deliver a second dose of the same vaccine.



Thanks, that makes sense.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

Mation said:


> But families were getting together for Christmas, not during November.



We wouldn’t see Christmas infections in hospital yet anyway, so that’s irrelevant as far as the anecdotes of young people in hospitals are concerned.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> We wouldn’t see Christmas infections in hospital yet anyway, so that’s irrelevant as far as the anecdotes of young people in hospitals are concerned.


But it's a useful harbinger, and indicative of what we might expect, even if it doesn't prove anything right now.


----------



## Mation (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> We wouldn’t see Christmas infections in hospital yet anyway, so that’s irrelevant as far as the anecdotes of young people in hospitals are concerned.


Depends on when they started getting together. Two of my housemates went home to their families over a week before.

In any case, we don't yet have the data, as you say.


----------



## purenarcotic (Jan 2, 2021)

People started breaking Covid rules when they saw those with privilege ignore them | Daisy Fancourt
					

Compliance must be seen as the norm, or people will not stick to the restrictions, says Dr Daisy Fancourt, leader of the UK Covid-19 Social Study




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## maomao (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> We wouldn’t see Christmas infections in hospital yet anyway, so that’s irrelevant as far as the anecdotes of young people in hospitals are concerned.


If people were meeting from the 23rd (or earlier, I have classmates who claimed to be back with their families from the 18th) then some infections through family meetings would have been hitting hospitals by now. Though maybe not most of them.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 2, 2021)

I have been idly wondering whether it's plausible that keeping schools open while closing a lot of other stuff might have created selection pressure for a variant that's better at spreading in younger people.


----------



## prunus (Jan 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I have been idly wondering whether it's plausible that keeping schools open while closing a lot of other stuff might have created selection pressure for a variant that's better at spreading in younger people.



Well, assuming doing that creating a higher ratio of intra-youth to intra- or inter-other-age-group infection opportunities, then yes it will have to some extent, by definition. It doesn’t mean that this variant came as a result of that selection pressure though - evolution is not perfectly reactive; many organisms live slightly mal-adapted to their niches, especially when niches change rapidly (eg the anthropocene).


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 2, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I was reading about the "mix and match" thing earlier and it does seem that it's really just for situations where it simply is not possible to deliver a second dose of the same vaccine.




Well, ok, maybe.

But let's see how well this tweet ages. 'Standard plans' having gone so smoothly so far in this pandemic.

Also lots of 'likely' 'when additional info becomes available' etc in that.


----------



## Winot (Jan 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I have been idly wondering whether it's plausible that keeping schools open while closing a lot of other stuff might have created selection pressure for a variant that's better at spreading in younger people.



Saw a scientist on Twitter saying they now think that rise in <19 year-old new variant cases in November might just have been because schools were the only thing open. More work to be done before they know for sure.


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2021)

Platinumsage is correct on this one, I listen to anecdotes but wait for data.

I may have some useful data, I will check later.


----------



## Winot (Jan 2, 2021)

Some observations on the test and trace system from personal experience.

Background - our family (me, Mrs W, daughters W1 (15) and W2 (13)) are taking part in the ONS study. This involves weekly PCR swab testing for 5 weeks then monthly for a year.

On 16 Dec W2 tested positive (we got the results on the 21st) so the family went into isolation. She only had mild cold symptoms - we certainly wouldn't have gone for a test off the back of them. W1 then developed the same cold symptoms so we got her a postal test on the 24th and Mrs W the same so she went for a walk-in test on 27th - both were positive. I stayed symptom free and we all had the ONS weekly test on the 29th which found that W2 was now negative and the rest of us positive.

The testing regime has been pretty efficient and of course we are lucky to be on the ONS study - without that we wouldn't have gone for tests as none of us have had classic Covid symptoms.

The trace bit has been less good; there are two main problems:

1. It is set up on the basis that you are the first to be positive in your household. You are required to give details of people you have been in contact with and they are required to isolate for the relevant period. The problem comes when you have had it and gone through your isolation period and have no further symptoms. The guidance is clear that  you are no longer required to isolate even if someone else in your household tests positive. However if they do, they are required to give your name and details and you then get further texts/emails telling you to self-isolate, which is incorrect.

2. It does not handle children well. I had to deal with the NHS when W1 was positive because she is under 16 (Mrs W did W2). That's all fine. However, I had to give my mobile number, and then received texts telling _me_ to self-isolate rather than her. This is a known bug and I was told to ignore them by the NHS person i.e. they related to her not to me. Not ideal. Worse, when I subsequently tested positive and received another text saying 'you have recently tested positive and need to self-isolate' I assumed it was for her not me (I did get a call later that day which cleared up the confusion).

Finally, I still haven't received the code from the NHS to put into the tracker app to alert people that  I might have come into contact with. I assume this is due to the system being overwhelmed and struggling to cope with numbers rather than the systemic problems above.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Jan 2, 2021)

Slightly puzzled to see a sweet shop and cash converters open when I was in town earlier.  Not sure where they stand in terms of the regs though.


----------



## iona (Jan 2, 2021)

Winot said:


> Background - our family (me, Mrs W, daughters W1 (15) and W2 (13)) are taking part in the ONS study. This involves weekly PCR swab testing for 5 weeks then monthly for a year.


I'm meant to be doing this (antibody tests too) but I've not heard from them in months, other than one test appt in iirc November that no one ever showed up for...


----------



## Winot (Jan 2, 2021)

iona said:


> I'm meant to be doing this (antibody tests too) but I've not heard from them in months, other than one test appt in iirc November that no one ever showed up for...



A friend has had the same experience. They are busier than expected apparently. Hope you get contacted.


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Platinumsage is correct on this one, I listen to anecdotes but wait for data.
> 
> I may have some useful data, I will check later.



I checked and the hospital data I use wont have data for December until January 14th. I also hate the fact they have some very broad age ranges in there, eg 18-64 as a single set of figures


----------



## iona (Jan 2, 2021)

Winot said:


> A friend has had the same experience. They are busier than expected apparently. Hope you get contacted.


I joined the study back in June...


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 2, 2021)

Winot said:


> Finally, I still haven't received the code from the NHS to put into the tracker app to alert people that  I might have come into contact with. I assume this is due to the system being overwhelmed and struggling to cope with numbers rather than the systemic problems above.



of the last two (negative) results I had - the first didn't give me a code, but the second negative, the other day, gave me one to put in the tracker.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 2, 2021)

Compare and contrast, UK vs Korea


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2021)

HSJ analysed some hospital data, enabling them to see which trusts had a high proportion of beds occupied by Covid patients. I posted a graph or two of the same underlying data recently, but didnt drill down to the per-trust level.









						Exclusive: new data reveals the 23 trusts with over a third of beds occupied by covid patients
					

Twenty-three hospital trusts had more than a third of their core bedbase occupied by covid-19 patients on Tuesday, and occupancy is still rising at all but one.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				






			https://www.hsj.co.uk/download?ac=3049148


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 2, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Compare and contrast, UK vs Korea



This is what makes me angry. There is no reason at all why it couldn't be like that here. It's a political choice that has been made. We have the state we're in because a group of incompetent pricks made it so.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> This is what makes me angry. There is no reason at all why it couldn't be like that here. It's a political choice that has been made. We have the state we're in because a group of incompetent pricks made it so.



No European countries have done this though, I think it's about more than just incompetent politicians and comes down to the culture of government itself.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No European countries have done this though, I think it's about more than just incompetent politicians and comes down to the culture of government itself.


Happy to lump them all together tbh. What we have doesn't work.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Happy to lump them all together tbh. What we have doesn't work.



It doesn't work in pandemics, but there might be advantages in other areas e.g. the countries that did well, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, China all have the death penalty. I'm not saying there's a correlation but there might be something in the way a government views its citizens and what it can do to them.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It doesn't work in pandemics, but there might be advantages in other areas e.g. the countries that did well, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, China all have the death penalty. I'm not saying there's a correlation but there might be something in the way a government views its citizens and what it can do to them.



That's not valid. 
USA and Iran also have the death penalty, and Iran is a religious dictatorship - look at the figures, I don't think you could say that they did well against the 'rona.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> That's not valid.
> USA and Iran also have the death penalty, and Iran is a religious dictatorship - look at the figures, I don't think you could say that they did well against the 'rona.



I didn't say there was a correlation between corona response and the death penalty, you have to look more broadly in terms of how the governments which have handled this successfully typically handle disasters, crime etc and the culture of dealing with their citizens.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 2, 2021)

Another record of 57,725 new cases today.   

Reported deaths 445.


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I didn't say there was a correlation between corona response and the death penalty, you have to look more broadly in terms of how the governments which have handled this successfully typically handle disasters, crime etc and the culture of dealing with their citizens.



We can start with slightly subtler differences. We could compare the UK and France. UK had Hancock struggling to keep a straight face when talking about our 'consent based form of policing'. France has a somewhat different culture in this regard, have required papers from people venturing out of their homes during lockdowns, and in preparation for new years eve there was stuff like this in the press:



> Mr Darmanin has written to regional leaders informing them of Thursday's "exceptional" mobilisation of 100,000 police and gendarmes. This would amount to an "affirmation of state authority in every part of the national territory", he said.



Granted they had a dual agenda with that stuff, seeking to deal with other forms of unrest over the period including the burning of cars. But the differences in language and underlying concepts always interests me.

I cannot link to the article where I got that quote from because that part of the story was edited later, as is somewhat typical for the BBC news website. Here is a link to a later version of the story anyway Covid: France mobilises 100,000 police to stop New Year's Eve gatherings


----------



## Cid (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It doesn't work in pandemics, but there might be advantages in other areas e.g. the countries that did well, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, China all have the death penalty. I'm not saying there's a correlation but there might be something in the way a government views its citizens and what it can do to them.



Not sure why you skipped Australia and New Zealand there... Notably lacking in death penalty.

And, of course, the country whose citizens (ok some of them) reckon they've got far and away the most Freedom ever still has the death penalty.


----------



## bimble (Jan 2, 2021)

It’s a massive and really interesting question, the relationship between how efficient Covid-suppression measures are and how ..authoriarian (?) the state in which they’re imposed. It’s probably far too early to make sense of it all yet though but I’m fascinated by the incredible variety of responses by different countries. 
For instance, the Israelis have just now decided to stop forcing arrivals at the airports  (both visitors and residents)  to quarantine for 14 days in state-commandeered hotels with armed guards to put down the occasional attempts to make a run for freedom. That would not fly here, I think.


----------



## grit (Jan 2, 2021)

Spandex said:


> *The principle is sound.* With the virus out of control across the country, making 20 million people 70% immune instead of 10 million people 90% immune* could save thousands of lives.
> 
> The question is: how are the government going to fuck it up? The vaccine program is a bold new frontier for the bumbling incompetents in charge to make a mess of things.



We don’t have to way to properly determine that, Pfizer have publicly pushed back on the idea and the FDA rightly points out that all testing has been done based on the original schedule.


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2021)

I recommend paying attention to this SAGE document from December 23rd. Some of it has already been reflected in press conference rhetoric, but I doubt people will neessarily notice the key bits when its coming out of Johnsons mouth.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948607/s0995-mitigations-to-reduce-transmission-of-the-new-variant.pdf
		




> Previously identified personal, procedural, engineering and societal mitigations to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus all continue to apply to the new variant, but are likely to require a step change in rigour of application given that the new variant is likely to represent a significantly increased transmission risk (high confidence).
> 
> It is essential to reinforce the core principles of a hierarchy of control measures to reduce physical transmission through the environment by all routes – close-range, airborne, and via surfaces, given the risks that transmission of the new variant may be higher for all these routes (medium confidence).





> Primary actions to reduce transmission including: reducing social contacts; effective testing and tracing; robust outbreak identification and control; support to ensure effective isolation and quarantine; and population vaccination remain essential. Population level approaches to further reduce contact between people are likely to be necessary, such as extending Tier 4; changing the operation of schools/ universities; travel restrictions between regions and internationally; and/or introducing a national lockdown (high confidence).
> 
> As a consequence of the uncertainty around the mechanisms for increased transmission, enhanced mitigation measures are likely to be necessary including: reconsidering the 2m rule and requiring that where regular interactions less than 2m are necessary this should include correctly worn face coverings; enhancing ventilation rates to account for possible higher viral loads; and reinforcing the importance of using face coverings, including in settings where they are not currently mandated, such as education, workplaces, and crowded outdoor spaces (medium confidence).





> The importance of reducing the risk of transmission through rigorously applying mitigation measures needs to be communicated to the public in the context of the increased risk of transmission and the season. Communications should focus on alerting the public and organisations that: (a) previous levels of adherence to preventive measures are unlikely to sufficiently reduce transmission of the new variant, especially in winter; and (b) environmental and personal measures can still reduce transmission if applied more rigorously, including within the home environment (high confidence).





> A new, intensive, culturally tailored communication and support strategy should be developed, employing rapid co-design with all sectors in society (high confidence). The strategy should focus on positively encouraging and supporting the additional behaviours required to control a more infectious virus strain, particularly:
> o reducing indoor contacts to the lowest level possible;
> o high adherence to testing and self-isolation if symptomatic or a contact of a case;
> o consistent use of high-quality face-coverings whenever indoor close contact mixing is unavoidable;
> o approaches to enable effective ventilation of enclosed spaces.



In practical terms, this means that in addition to things getting a lot of attention at the moment like school closures, people should be rethinking what steps they are taking personally, and masks use should be extended to a wider range of scenarios regardless of whether this government get round to mandating such things. Also, no more treating ventilation of spaces as a weird afterthought.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

bimble said:


> It’s a massive and really interesting question, the relationship between how efficient Covid-suppression measures are and how ..authoriarian (?) the state in which they’re imposed. It’s probably far too early to make sense of it all yet though but I’m fascinated by the incredible variety of responses by different countries.
> For instance, the Israelis have just now decided to stop forcing arrivals at the airports  (both visitors and residents)  to quarantine for 14 days in state-commandeered hotels with armed guards to put down the occasional attempts to make a run for freedom. That would not fly here, I think.



I don't think it's a simple cause of authoritarianism winning, although a willingness to shut borders, forcibly quarantine people and ignore privacy concerns when implementing track and trace definitely helps. Some governments have had success despite not being authoritarian...Australia and New Zealand are renowned for their fastidious bio-security at their customs and border controls, so shutting the borders and quarantining people was perhaps an easier thing to implement than in say Italy, where police fining people on the street may have been in their culture but wasn't something that made a big difference.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 2, 2021)

Shades of Johnson's freedom loving Brits in all this authoritarian discussion that is a bit uncomfortable. Or "Confucian values'

Seems to make more sense that the state hasn't been hollowed out by decades of outsourcing and quangos and sees itself as having responsibility for it's citizens as part of the contract  between them. China's a Dystopian nightmare sure but the waters are far murkier for other countries in those lists. It also ignores the sheer quantity of trespass laws and CCTV blanketing the UK.


----------



## Cid (Jan 2, 2021)

bimble said:


> It’s a massive and really interesting question, the relationship between how efficient Covid-suppression measures are and how ..authoriarian (?) the state in which they’re imposed. It’s probably far too early to make sense of it all yet though but I’m fascinated by the incredible variety of responses by different countries.
> For instance, the Israelis have just now decided to stop forcing arrivals at the airports  (both visitors and residents)  to quarantine for 14 days in state-commandeered hotels with armed guards to put down the occasional attempts to make a run for freedom. That would not fly here, I think.



I've said this a few times... There is a basically racist element to this, or at least some assumption of cultural superiority/exceptionalism. You can certainly argue that there are some authoritarian elements in SK/Japan... But equally - recently - SK's democracy has proven to have a greater degree of accountability than, e.g, the US system ever could. Stark contrast between jailing a corrupt president, and allowing one to pardon his cronies.


----------



## Cid (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I don't think it's a simple cause of authoritarianism winning, although a willingness to shut borders, forcibly quarantine people and ignore privacy concerns when implementing track and trace definitely helps. Some governments have had success despite not being authoritarian...Australia and New Zealand are renowned for their fastidious bio-security at their customs and border controls, so shutting the borders and quarantining people was perhaps an easier thing to implement than in say Italy, where police fining people on the street may have been in their culture but wasn't something that made a big difference.



Australia and NZ have both strategically used hard lockdowns.


----------



## maomao (Jan 2, 2021)

In China if you test positive they basically put you in prison for two weeks (or until you pass a certain number of tests). It sounds extreme but it works and the consequence  of it working is that they don't have to do it to as many people anymore. People might think the British wouldn't accept it but the New York system is similar. I don't think the main factor in this not happening in the UK has anything to do with respect for freedom or civil liberties. It's just a refusal to take the thing seriously. Which is why we end up in situations like we have this week with givernment headbangers trying to force kids and teachers back to school when it's clearly not safe.


----------



## bimble (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I don't think it's a simple cause of authoritarianism winning, although a willingness to shut borders, forcibly quarantine people and ignore privacy concerns when implementing track and trace definitely helps. Some governments have had success despite not being authoritarian...Australia and New Zealand are renowned for their fastidious bio-security at their customs and border controls, so shutting the borders and quarantining people was perhaps an easier thing to implement than in say Italy, where police fining people on the street may have been in their culture but wasn't something that made a big difference.


Yeah of course it’s not as simple as a single axis, more authoritarianism = stricter / more efficient pandemic response. A hundred other factors will come into it, including pretty hard to define stuff like whether there is a basic level of trust in the government.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 2, 2021)

I seem to remember that the early (i.e. March) narrative of why South Korea (and other Asian countries) have done well with this virus is because they had recent experience with MERS and previous SARS. I'd like to think that, once this is all over, we will establish effective enquiries and working groups that will look at what we did well (shouldn't take long) and what we fucked up (could take years) so that next time (and there will be a next time) we'll be better prepared.


----------



## Cid (Jan 2, 2021)

Japan, of course, actually can't lockdown, precisely because the constitution emphasizes individual freedom.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> I don't think the main factor in this not happening in the UK has anything to do with respect for freedom or civil liberties. It's just a refusal to take the thing seriously. Which is why we end up in situations like we have this week with givernment headbangers trying to force kids and teachers back to school when it's clearly not safe.



It's all very well saying it's due to the politicians in the UK and not the general culture of government, but that doesn't explain why the UK, US, Europe and South America have ended up in the same situation whereas Pacific Rim countries haven't


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> In China if you test positive they basically put you in prison for two weeks (or until you pass a certain number of tests). It sounds extreme but it works and the consequence  of it working is that they don't have to do it to as many people anymore. People might think the British wouldn't accept it but the New York system is similar. I don't think the main factor in this not happening in the UK has anything to do with respect for freedom or civil liberties. It's just a refusal to take the thing seriously. Which is why we end up in situations like we have this week with givernment headbangers trying to force kids and teachers back to school when it's clearly not safe.



Maybe its simplest to suggest the political parties here prioritise staying in power over hard choices towards public welfare. If they enforce to hard it throws up to many questions and angers those they rely onto stay in power.

There's an expectation that flying is normal and a right, not a privilege.

Edit: fuck it there's a lot of factors here so I don't think any one thing is correct but a lot does factor into who's in charge


----------



## bimble (Jan 2, 2021)

Might be something for yet another Covid thread.


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2021)

By the way some of the stuff I didnt quote from that SAGE document involves the subject of how to frame the publics behaviour. They dont want to draw attention to negative behaviour and non-compliance, and they want to encourage people to think positively about what has been achieved in the past and what it is possible achieve in the future.

That sort of approach is one of the main reasons people have usually been wrong when expecting the government to blame periods of viral resurgence on the behaviour of the public. Hancock resorted to blaming public demand for test system pressure in early September, but apart from that even this Tory government have mostly stayed away from the blame game some were expecting.

As for defeatism, I know there have been several occasions here where people have found it hard to spot achievements that happend as a result of previous lcokdowns and massive sacrifices and behavioural changes. In this area I have always been on the same page as SAGE, and if there is one thing that will crush my morale in this pandemic its hearing people think stuff has been pointless. Defeatism is a luxury we dont have in this pandemic, no matter how many times the government and some individuals fuck up. Fatigue is understandable, as is the failure to celebrate achievements that still involved a huge amount of death and suffering. But conceding defeat is not an option either, and in this pandemic everything counts, including very small personal behavioural changes, that stuff adds up, just as failings and non-compliant acts add up in the other direction.


----------



## maomao (Jan 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It's all very well saying it's due to the politicians in the UK and not the general culture of government, but that doesn't explain why the UK, US, Europe and South America have ended up in the same situation whereas Pacific Rim countries haven't


You realise South America, Australia and parts of the US are Pacific Rim right? I think you mean East Asia. 

It doesn't have to be the same reason for all countries. Parts of South America are completely worn out from US interference and the drug wars so there might be very different reasons for what's happened in Peru and what's happened in the UK. The US response has had a lot of problems because of ideas of individual liberty but at the same time success has varied from state to state.


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 2, 2021)

Australia closed down their citizens really tightly and this has sweet f.a to do with their previous fastidiousness with bio-security. It wasn't just closing borders, they put many restrictions of movement down including introducing small radii their citizens were allowed to travel. And they did this when there was relatively little Covid in the country compared to say, well, us.

The worst (suffering) parts of South America have done so because of poverty and underfunding, some of which goes hand in hand with corruption. Brazil, a country not unused to authoritarianism and the odd military coup, has done terribly because their President (an authoritarian) was as good as a Covid denier, a refuser of it's seriousness.

I don't see that much 'culture of government' explanation going on in these countries.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another record of 57,725 new cases today.
> 
> Reported deaths 445.


As it takes a couple of days for the tests to come through, I think there were 73000 positive tests on 29/12/20 

ETA Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard


----------



## Yossarian (Jan 2, 2021)

I think it's probably got a lot more to do with proximity to China/memories of the SARS outbreak than authoritarian governments.

If everybody in Britain had spent a big part of 2003 wearing masks because of a mysterious and deadly new disease from France, COVID would probably have been recognised as a serious threat sooner this time around.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> I think it's probably got a lot more to do with proximity to China/memories of the SARS outbreak than authoritarian governments.
> 
> If everybody in Britain had spent a big part of 2003 wearing masks because of a mysterious and deadly new disease from France, COVID would probably have been recognised as a serious threat sooner this time around.



Canada was hit by SARS but appears to have learnt lessons that haven't all been that useful. Stuff like isolation rooms in hospitals, which are good to have when there are a few patients and the disease has a very high fatality rate, but aren't so useful when you don't close the borders early and people are more blase about catching it.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 2, 2021)

iona said:


> I'm meant to be doing this (antibody tests too) but I've not heard from them in months, other than one test appt in iirc November that no one ever showed up for...



It'd be worth phoning up to chase this.  I'm on the ONS testing scheme too and at times it has seemed a bit chaotic, but tbf when they did miss an appointment and I rang up it was rescheduled for a couple of days later.  I swear I've had at least one more test than I'm supposed to have by now though...


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2021)

MrSki said:


> As it takes a couple of days for the tests to come through, I think there were 73000 positive tests on 29/12/20
> 
> ETA Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard



Yeah, and this is the same specimen date I mentioned yesterday, so the number that is now 74,510 was just over 64,000 before todays data was added to it.

The only reason for me not to completely freak out about that number is that it may represent a big chunk of the demand for tests that was not met on 24th and 25th of December. ie the figures for specimens from 24th and 25th are very low compared to levels seen on other days, and unless all the people that werent tested on those days just give up and dont bother, the catch-up inevitably has to feature in later days data. So its all the figures for the specimen days after the 29th I will be looking at carefully as they emerge.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 2, 2021)

I think that high figure for tests on the 29th is the people who couldn't get done on the 25th ... it looks like it is the first "normal" working day after the 25th, given that was a Friday, so Sat & Sun, with Monday as the boxing day bank holiday ...

maybe I'm reading too much into it ?


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 2, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Sounds positive, have they found any asymptomatic cases yet?



According to the staff intranet just now, the recent serial testing of staff who would otherwise be isolating has identified “some” positive cases so they now suggest all staff are tested, ideally once a week. I expect this notice will be expanded and detail added over the next day or so.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 2, 2021)




----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 2, 2021)

frogwoman said:


>



Christ


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 2, 2021)

frogwoman said:


>



and that's just those tested...yikes, that seems bloody high!


----------



## weltweit (Jan 2, 2021)

We need new guidelines.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 2, 2021)




----------



## grit (Jan 2, 2021)

delaying the second dose looks to potentially be a very bad idea


----------



## weltweit (Jan 2, 2021)

I am hearing anecdotal comments that young people are getting ill from the new variant more than they used to from the original version. And that hospital admittances include many more younger people than before.


----------



## LDC (Jan 2, 2021)

weltweit said:


> I am hearing anecdotal comments that young people are getting ill from the new variant more than they used to from the original version. And that hospital administrations include many more younger people than before.



It's been mentioned and some limited discussion has been had, maybe on this thread...? I think the short version is anecdotes are for sure circulating, but no data yet. I think it's one of the things we should have a clearer idea about in a couple of weeks.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 2, 2021)

There was an interview on 5live where a London hospital employee said there was a whole ward of covid kids. will try & find it.

ETA


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 2, 2021)

i have avoided most of the news other than the big announcements. how fucked are we, in summary? how will things look, do you think, by say march? be interesting to hear some thoughts from those who are following this closely.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 2, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's been mentioned and some limited discussion has been had, maybe on this thread...? I think the short version is anecdotes are for sure circulating, but no data yet. I think it's one of the things we should have a clearer idea about in a couple of weeks.


At the rate the new variant seems to be spreading, a couple of weeks could be a long time.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 2, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> i have avoided most of the news other than the big announcements. how fucked are we, in summary? how will things look, do you think, by say march? be interesting to hear some thoughts from those who are following this closely.


In answer to your two questions - Pretty fucking fucked, and royally fucked.


----------



## LDC (Jan 2, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> i have avoided most of the news other than the big announcements. how fucked are we, in summary? how will things look, do you think, by say march? be interesting to hear some thoughts from those who are following this closely.



How we are in March very much depends on a number of factors, one of which is what the fuck gets done (or doesn't) in the next few weeks. Given how the last year has been though, some variation of very grim, or having just been through very grim, is most likely I'd say.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 2, 2021)

But it'll be fine by Easter


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 2, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> But it'll be fine by Easter



It's like Boris has never watched Eastenders....

"I'm sure this virus will blow over by summer"
"I'm glad lockdowns over let's all get down the Queen Vic for a pint"
"It's gonna be a lovely Christmas"
"Springs on the way!"


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 2, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> In answer to your two questions - Pretty fucking fucked, and royally fucked.


so not totally and utterly shit fucked then?


----------



## grit (Jan 2, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> How we are in March very much depends on a number of factors, one of which is what the fuck gets done (or doesn't) in the next few weeks. Given how the last year has been though, some variation of very grim, or having just been through very grim, is most likely I'd say.



I'm getting the feeling, in Ireland at least, that last March was the dress rehearsal for the next few months.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 2, 2021)

I had some more bad news to post here but it looks like we're all stocked up already.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 2, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I had some more bad news to post here but it looks like we're all stocked up already.



Misery loves company might as well get it out.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 2, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> so not totally and utterly shit fucked then?


imagine ferguson said that in five press conferences time


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2021)

More on the anecdotes of wards full of children:


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 2, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> i have avoided most of the news other than the big announcements. how fucked are we, in summary? how will things look, do you think, by say march? be interesting to hear some thoughts from those who are following this closely.



IF the people in charge started doing the right things immediately, we might be able to break the back of this thing in two months. Two fucking horrible months but still. Let things roll along as they are, continue to squander our only advantage by refusing to read the labels on the vaccines, who knows how bad it could get.


----------



## Winot (Jan 2, 2021)

MrSki said:


> There was an interview on 5live where a London hospital employee said there was a whole ward of covid kids. will try & find it.
> 
> ETA


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 2, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Misery loves company might as well get it out.



Tbh it's just another version of stuff that's already been covered. Also I've lost the link.


----------



## Thora (Jan 2, 2021)

I think I read a doctor on twitter saying that the "ward full of children with covid" is likely to be all covid-positive child patients being cohorted on one ward (which makes sense!) - which is slightly different to lots of children catching covid and being admitted to hospital because of it.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 2, 2021)

Cancer operations face cancellation across London as Covid patients fill hospitals
					

Exclusive: lifesaving surgery to be postponed in capital as cases top 57,000, while other parts of UK brace for effects of Christmas Day mixing




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Wilf (Jan 2, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> IF the people in charge started doing the right things immediately, we might be able to break the back of this thing in two months. Two fucking horrible months but still. Let things roll along as they are, continue to squander our only advantage by refusing to read the labels on the vaccines, who knows how bad it could get.


Yep, the stuff they need to do they need to immediately. It's all obvious stuff and they need to err on the side of caution throughout the different bits of the strategy. It goes without saying that they also need to act to protect people affected by a virtual close down of society and economy (vulnerable kids, gig economy workers, cancer patients etc.). I'm so depressed with the whole thing I'm no longer in the mood to even call them cunts.   It's not so much that they are not doing the right things, not just their vile politics, it's more that they lack the dynamism and mind set to pull this off.  Total lack of leadership and a dim wittedness that even now stops them seeing where this is going.

It's just going to go on and on isn't it?


----------



## existentialist (Jan 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Yep, the stuff they need to do they need to immediately. It's all obvious stuff and they need to err on the side of caution throughout the different bits of the strategy. It goes without saying that they also need to act to protect people affected by a virtual close down of society and economy (vulnerable kids, gig economy workers, cancer patients etc.). I'm so depressed with the whole thing I'm no longer in the mood to even call them cunts.   It's not so much that they are not doing the right things, not just their vile politics, it's more that they lack the dynamism and mind set to pull this off.  Total lack of leadership and a dim wittedness that even now stops them seeing where this is going.
> 
> It's just going to go on and on isn't it?


There has to be a tipping point. I wonder where it will be.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 2, 2021)

existentialist said:


> There has to be a tipping point. I wonder where it will be.



as in tipping that twat johnson off a cliff?

that i could vote for...


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 2, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> It's like Boris has never watched Eastenders....
> 
> "I'm sure this virus will blow over by summer"
> "I'm glad lockdowns over let's all get down the Queen Vic for a pint"
> ...


out of interest, has eastenders incorporated the virus into their scripts?


----------



## ash (Jan 2, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> out of interest, has eastenders incorporated the virus into their scripts?


Only in a minor way Corrie is doing it better with masks and social distancing


----------



## Wilf (Jan 2, 2021)

existentialist said:


> There has to be a tipping point. I wonder where it will be.


I really don't know. They knew they'd fucked up badly back at the time of the first lockdown, leaving it week or more too late, but this time I don't know. We've been at the point for some time where even their own scientists have been telling them they need to close the schools to have a chance of containing things. This time next week we'll no doubt have seen more than isolated crises in specific London hospitals and the daily case numbers will be through the roof. But somehow I don't see them going into genuine lockdown in one single step.  'Being led by the science', lol.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 2, 2021)

anyone know what the position is about job interviews at the moment?

i have one in the diary for late next week - both employer and my home are in tier 4.  

it should have happened before xmas, and i was surprised they were insisting on it being 'in person' then, had to postpone as i was self isolating (test result came back negative but i certainly had some sort of bug)

not quite sure what to say / do if they don't change their mind...


----------



## existentialist (Jan 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I really don't know. They knew they'd fucked up badly back at the time of the first lockdown, leaving it week or more too late, but this time I don't know. We've been at the point for some time where even their own scientists have been telling them they need to close the schools to have a chance of containing things. This time next week we'll no doubt have seen more than isolated crises in specific London hospitals and the daily case numbers will be through the roof. But somehow I don't see them going into genuine lockdown in one single step.  'Being led by the science', lol.


The tipping point will not be anything about what *they* do - because they have proven themselves, repeatedly, to be incapable of learning from experience. The tipping point will come when enough people express, in some unavoidable way, their discontent.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 2, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> and that's just those tested...yikes, that seems bloody high!


They are rates, not absolute numbers. The rates for the population as a whole are likely to be lower, not higher.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jan 2, 2021)

The new strain that's being hyped as coming from the UK. Is it the same as the one Australia is calling the South African strain?









						First Australian case of more infectious COVID-19 strain found in Queensland
					

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D'Ath says there is no risk to the general public from the strain, thought to be more contagious, because protocol had been followed.




					www.brisbanetimes.com.au


----------



## existentialist (Jan 2, 2021)

ice-is-forming said:


> The new strain that's being hyped as coming from the UK. Is it the same as the one Australia is calling the South African strain?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is why Trump's "China virus" sneering was so unhelpful. It doesn't really matter where it originates - you can't use the zero case location as some kind of blame thing.

I guess sequencing will tell whether the two are the same.

I'm reminded that the 1919 "Spanish" 'flu epidemic actually turned out to have originated in Kansas...


----------



## 2hats (Jan 2, 2021)

ice-is-forming said:


> The new strain that's being hyped as coming from the UK. Is it the same as the one Australia is calling the South African strain?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No. Each is a separate, different _variant_.


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> so not totally and utterly shit fucked then?



Well in some respects its similar to the second half of March and early April where there was a lot of nervous waiting around to see just how high the hospitalisation peak would end up being once lockdown measures had enough time to make their impact felt in that regard.

Except this time we have not got that sort of lockdown, and are waiting to see what tier 4 measures and school holidays do to the situation in London, the South East and East. And waiting to see if other regions develop the rapid pace seen in the aforementioned regions. And levels already reached are very bad news, so whatever is still to come will sit horribly on top of that. And we also wait to see whatever the effects of Christmas household mixing are.

Totally fucked is therefore still a possibility that is on the table right now. As for the coming months rather than the coming weeks, the timing of things now has more regional variation and when various modelling exercises have been done in regards to new restrictions, new variant of the virus and the regions, the next really grim, intense period for the North comes later. Data/modelling doesnt always get the timing right and only covers certain scenarios so I wait to see for myself what actually happens. January may end being a good guide for quite how bad things can get and what will happen in the subsequent months, both in terms of the virus spread and our response to it.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 3, 2021)

Christina Pagel not pulling her punches:


----------



## andysays (Jan 3, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> anyone know what the position is about job interviews at the moment?
> 
> i have one in the diary for late next week - both employer and my home are in tier 4.
> 
> ...


As far as I know, there's nothing specific about interviews, it's still "work from home if you can, go to work if you can't".

Is the job you're applying for one which you could do from home? If so they're likely to be set up for online meeting, and I'd tell them you would very much prefer to do a remote interview.


----------



## LDC (Jan 3, 2021)

RCPCH statement on the virus in kids stuff here





__





						RCPCH responds to media reports of increased admissions of children and young people with COVID-19
					

Our President and members respond to media reports of COVID admissions among children.




					www.rcpch.ac.uk
				




Short version: kids are still mostly fine, even with this new variant.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 3, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> RCPCH statement on the virus in kids stuff here
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The adults around them; mostly not.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 3, 2021)

weltweit said:


> At the rate the new variant seems to be spreading, a couple of weeks could be a long time.



Yep, some people seem to struggle that.

In a zoom meeting 3 weeks after coming out of the last national lockdown, I expressed the view we (Worthing) were going into a regional or national lockdown soon, probably on Boxing Day or the first week in January at the latest, because the cases here were doubling each week. I was surprised that over half of the people thought I was over egging things, because our numbers were so low.  

We went from 25 - 50 -100 - 200 - 400+ cases per 100k in just 4 weeks, and ended-up in tier 4, basically a lockdown, on Boxing Day. Our hospital trust went from having 25 cases to 96 in 4 weeks, 20% more than the peak in April.

This was one of those occasion where I wish I had actually been wrong.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 3, 2021)

Here comes our schools announcement, I'm guessing.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jan 3, 2021)

At my wit's end. Latest message from a family member linking to this and obviously, because I'm don't want to discuss it, I've just fallen for the state hype. And the bloke isn't a crank, he's just made enough money to be able to whistleblow in an industry, where no-one else will


----------



## Callie (Jan 3, 2021)

Fuck me I've just (stupidly) read a Twitter thread off of that link where they are questioning a sudden up swing in cases across Scotland. Loads of people chipping in as the why this might be (changes in testing procedure, changes in the testing target, false positives, someone making up numbers, fake this fake that). Not one says "well that might be exactly what you see in a pandemic".

Makes my heart sink.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 3, 2021)

Harry Smiles said:


> At my wit's end. Latest message from a family member linking to this and obviously, because I'm don't want to discuss it, I've just fallen for the state hype. And the bloke isn't a crank, he's just made enough money to be able to whistleblow in an industry, where no-one else will


A one word answer. "Cites?"


----------



## existentialist (Jan 3, 2021)

Callie said:


> Fuck me I've just (stupidly) read a Twitter thread off of that link where they are questioning a sudden up swing in cases across Scotland. Loads of people chipping in as the why this might be (changes in testing procedure, changes in the testing target, false positives, someone making up numbers, fake this fake that). Not one says "well that might be exactly what you see in a pandemic".
> 
> Makes my heart sink.


It's sickening. I poke my nose in occasionally, just to see how the asylum is going, but it is massively dispiriting.


----------



## bimble (Jan 3, 2021)

Not a rhetorical question - any ideas what is it that they/he are waiting to see before bringing in whatever ‘tougher measures’ ?


----------



## LDC (Jan 3, 2021)

Harry Smiles said:


> At my wit's end. Latest message from a family member linking to this and obviously, because I'm don't want to discuss it, I've just fallen for the state hype. And the bloke isn't a crank, he's just made enough money to be able to whistleblow in an industry, where no-one else will



Can we keep conspiracy stuff off this thread please, there's other places for it, and this thread is important for factual stuff and discussion imo.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 3, 2021)

On the Marr interview, amongst digging his heels in over school closures and hinting at more restrictions to come, Johnson said there has been a "stubborn" epidemic in Kent and parts of London due to the new fast-spreading virus variant.



Since when has "Kent and parts of London" included Essex, Buckinghamshire and East Sussex? Does he really not know what's going on and how bad it is in the south east? Is he in denial? Is he playing it down? Or did he just mis-speak?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 3, 2021)

All


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 3, 2021)

My favourite Twitter comment of the morning so far:

“I can’t wait until the tier 3000, not much will change but we’ll live underwater”


----------



## chilango (Jan 3, 2021)

Murdering public school bastards.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jan 3, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Can we keep conspiracy stuff off this thread please, there's other places for it, and this thread is important for factual stuff and discussion imo.


Yeah, see your point. Apologies.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 3, 2021)

Just sharing my news notifications.  It’s what we knew was coming in the New Year, but it’s sobering to see.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 3, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Just sharing my news notifications.  It’s what we knew was coming in the New Year, but it’s sobering to see.
> 
> View attachment 246814



The gov.uk map, which I use now and again to see how much I should be worrying about my parents in the highlands, seems to be missing data for scotland just now.









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 3, 2021)

I like to keep an eye on what Prof Devi has to say:


----------



## chilango (Jan 3, 2021)

I may be being wildly over optimistic here but...if the NEU are successful in the s44 use could it set a precedent for other unionised industries? Could we see a "worker's lockdown"?


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Jan 3, 2021)

chilango said:


> Murdering public school bastards.



Is that a policy you are suggesting?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice


----------



## LDC (Jan 3, 2021)

Harry Smiles said:


> Yeah, see your point. Apologies.



No worries, sorry you're having to deal with that stuff, it is really depressing/infuriating...


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 3, 2021)

chilango said:


> I may be being wildly over optimistic here but...if the NEU are successful in the s44 use could it set a precedent for other unionised industries? Could we see a "worker's lockdown"?


That would be good.  Allied to a workers’ mutual aid push.  We need stronger connections.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 3, 2021)

Sorry for posting screenshots.  If anyone needs to know what’s on them give me a nudge.


----------



## Cerv (Jan 3, 2021)

hash tag said:


> Hey people do not go out celebrating tonight, stay home, stay safe says the Standard in one headline.
> In the next, come see Patti Smith live tonight at Piccadilly!
> 
> View attachment 246271



I'm posting this far too late to stop anyone making the trip down to Piccadilly Circus on Thursday night.
but FWIW this was cancelled. sanity prevailed. you can still view the thing on YouTube but on Weds they announced on advise from the Met it wasn't going to be on the big screen there.
pretty irresponsible of the Standard not to update their headline & article when the organisers announced that the day after.


----------



## LDC (Jan 3, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> That would be good.  Allied to a workers’ mutual aid push.  We need stronger connections.



No safety, no work!


----------



## andysays (Jan 3, 2021)

chilango said:


> I may be being wildly over optimistic here but...if the NEU are successful in the s44 use could it set a precedent for other unionised industries? Could we see a "worker's lockdown"?


Could you remind us what this S44 thing is please


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 3, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No safety, no work!


Absolutely.


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

The Nightingale hospitals should have been opened a week or two ago using agency staff if need be (not necessarily in high risk areas, but maybe filling in so that better trained staff could be moved into critical areas) because there is already crisis in admissions in a lot of areas.

My OH had a massive asthma attack on Wednesday and I had to call an ambulance (please trust me that I do not call an ambulance on a whim, it was an emergency, his inhaler wasn't giving any relief and he was struggling to breathe) - we were EXTREMELY grateful that an ambulance arrived but it was 40 minutes which is a long time when someone is struggling to breathe - then there was no bed for him so he couldn't be admitted (which would be usual for observation overnight in this circumstance), instead he had a nebuliser on a trolley and was sent home with a prescription for oral prednisone (normally when this happens he is admitted and given IV steroids).  Our local hospital was full, they took him to A&E at a different hospital.

There is already massive strain on hospitals, now is the time to open up the Nightingale units and draft in as many people as possible in nursing or auxilliary care roles. They need to stop saying they will do it if it is needed and admit that it is needed.


----------



## Callie (Jan 3, 2021)

Epona said:


> The Nightingale hospitals should have been opened a week or two ago using agency staff if need be (not necessarily in high risk areas, but maybe filling in so that better trained staff could be moved into critical areas) because there is already crisis in admissions in a lot of areas.


I suspect that that resource has already been drained. I don't work on the ward side but in the labs and there are very few qualified experienced staff out there to fill vacancies. I would imagine it's exactly the same for nursing staff and heath care assistants etc


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

Callie said:


> I suspect that that resource has already been drained. I don't work on the ward side but in the labs and there are very few qualified experienced staff out there to fill vacancies. I would imagine it's exactly the same for nursing staff and heath care assistants etc



Aye but my OH was a nurse for 20 years and hasn't been asked to do any shifts.  He probably shouldn't due to being in an at risk group himself, but I don't think everyone who could be recruited has been asked.  I'd go and do auxilliary care or cleaning if I was offered a wage to do so,


----------



## Callie (Jan 3, 2021)

Sorry for the thread derail but has he signed up for NHS professionals/bank? Not 100% sure how well it's run but I think trusts are looking to bank staff first where possible.

Might be worth contacting any trusts he has worked with previously to see if they can have him on their bank?


----------



## Spandex (Jan 3, 2021)

Spandex said:


> On the Marr interview, amongst digging his heels in over school closures and hinting at more restrictions to come, Johnson said there has been a "stubborn" epidemic in Kent and parts of London due to the new fast-spreading virus variant.
> 
> View attachment 246811
> 
> Since when has "Kent and parts of London" included Essex, Buckinghamshire and East Sussex? Does he really not know what's going on and how bad it is in the south east? Is he in denial? Is he playing it down? Or did he just mis-speak?


I was curious why he came out with such an obvious untruth, but the simple reason just hit me: in a feat of backwards logic reminiscent of the Andropov era Soviet authorities, because the schools are only closed in Kent and parts of London, then only Kent and parts of London are badly affected.

Being able to get away with this kind of shit is why he loves to go on the Marr show. Any heavyweight journalist would notice and pull apart his misrepresentations, half-truths, logical twists and outright lies.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 3, 2021)

Callie said:


> *I suspect that that resource has already been drained.* I don't work on the ward side but in the labs and there are very few qualified experienced staff out there to fill vacancies. I would imagine it's exactly the same for nursing staff and heath care assistants etc



It certainly has around here, according to my SiL, who despite retiring in 2019, before returning to the lab last year to help out p/t & finishing again in Dec. 2020, and is now back again, as she volunteered to go on the 'bank staff' list, it's the same across all the hospital, they are bringing in all the bank & agency staff, yet are still struggling.


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

Callie said:


> Sorry for the thread derail but has he signed up for NHS professionals/bank? Not 100% sure how well it's run but I think trusts are looking to bank staff first where possible.
> 
> Might be worth contacting any trusts he has worked with previously to see if they can have him on their bank?


He hasn't signed up for anything because he was carted off in an ambulance 4 times last year due to severe asthma and cannot work in a high risk COVID setting.  Also he was treated like shit as a nurse and never wants to go back.

I would go and do cleaning or low level unqualified stuff in a hospital though.  I have trouble lying at interviews though and would struggle to make out that it was my dream job - but fuck yeah I can do pretty much anything for a living as long as I don't have to take my clothes off.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 3, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No safety, no work!


Those wondering what this refers to: No Safety No Work

It's worth remembering that the Labour Party, the unions, the well meaning players of civil society cannot be relied on to do these things for us. That notion that politics is what you wish people in authority would do for us holds us back. Politics is what we do, and only what we do changes anything for the better.

We in the ACG do a lot with the resources we have. But we can neither mobilise the working class nor do we want to.  It has to mobilise itself. That’s direct action.  We can only agitate, militate, discuss, make ideas and ways of connecting available.  And that’s what we do.  But if the class isn’t ready to run with it, we can only work to help it gain self confidence.  

(*my personal take).


----------



## 2hats (Jan 3, 2021)

Most recent SAGE paper on children, schools and transmission.

The key finding, from an ONS/UoMan analysis, is that children were more likely to be the index case in a home - in other words, introduce the virus in the home setting. Children under 12 are around three times more likely to be such than adults (17+) whilst 12-16 year olds are seven times more likely. In a given household, under-17s are more than twice as likely as any of the adults to infect others in that household.

Additionally, a LSHTM/PHE infection survey found that "there are numbers of staff and students attending school with evidence of current infection" ie staff and students with symptoms/recent contact with infected cases are failing to self-isolate accordingly.

Key points of immediate relevance to the coming week:

"accumulating evidence is consistent with increased transmission occurring amongst school children when schools are open, particularly in children of secondary school age (high confidence)."

 "multiple data sources show a reduction in transmission in children following schools closing for half term, and transmission rates increasing again following the post-half term return to school (medium confidence)."


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 3, 2021)

andysays said:


> Could you remind us what this S44 thing is please


Basically if a workplace is unsafe then a worker can, legally, refuse to work until it is made safe.

Unions are legally prohibited from organising/promoting S44 as.a strategy to withdraw labour, but they can advise members on what S44 states and how they can use it. As I said on the other thread whatever the faults of the NEU (and there are plenty, danny la rouge is absolutely right that it cannot be left to the unions) it is pushing at the (legal) edge of S44 - and good on them. Hopefully other unions will follow suit.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 3, 2021)

2hats said:


> Most recent SAGE paper on children, schools and transmission.
> 
> The key finding, from an ONS/UoMan analysis, is that children were more likely to be the index case in a home - in other words, introduce the virus in the home setting. Children under 12 are around three times more likely to be such than adults (17+) whilst 12-16 year olds are seven times more likely. In a given household, under-17s are more than twice as likely as any of the adults to infect others in that household.
> 
> ...



That matches my local anecdotal evidence - some three/four weeks ago; older kid brought the infection back from local secondary school, rest of the family were infected very quickly (two adults and another sprog). The father was already working from home, so was isolated from colleagues, not sure about his wife. A pattern that has been repeated around the area, but also with adults also spreading via one or more of the local employers. Local testing seems to be picking up many of these cases, not sure how well the isolations are going.

The guy who brought our food delivery late last night said that many people visiting their shop are not fully following the "hands : face : space" guidelines and the staff are now getting infected. We were especially careful at wiping down the items after that nugget of information ...


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 3, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Basically if a workplace is unsafe then a worker can, legally, refuse to work until it is made safe.
> 
> Unions are legally prohibited from organising/promoting S44 as.a strategy to withdraw labour, but they can advise members on what S44 states and how they can use it. As I said on the other thread whatever the faults of the NEU (and there are plenty, danny la rouge is absolutely right that it cannot be left to the unions) it is pushing at the (legal) edge of S44 - and good on them. Hopefully other unions will follow suit.



Q - S44 of which act / CoP, please ?


----------



## magneze (Jan 3, 2021)

Measures "in the coming weeks". So not now, when most effective. Wait until the rest of the country is in the same state as London.

Again, what are they trying to do? It's just unclear.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 3, 2021)

The
Economy


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 3, 2021)

magneze said:


> Measures "in the coming weeks". So not now, when most effective. Wait until the rest of the country is in the same state as London.
> 
> Again, what are they trying to do? It's just unclear.


Economy before plebs, basically.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 3, 2021)

I don't think are glorious leader can actually make life (of plebs) saving decisions - save his friend's income, yes, he can do that ...

Come on, you wanker, look at the science and see what they are advising and get on with it ...

I'm already back effectively shielding, as we wait for our jabs - I can't be the only household that has seen the writing on the wall.


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I don't think are glorious leader can actually make life (of plebs) saving decisions - save his friend's income, yes, he can do that ...
> 
> Come on, you wanker, look at the science and see what they are advising and get on with it ...
> 
> I'm already back effectively shielding, as we wait for our jabs - I can't be the only household that has seen the writing on the wall.



At this point the only thing they can do is come and take are freedom.

Their all wanting to do that after all, it is all about they're own needs.


----------



## maomao (Jan 3, 2021)

It's one of the quietest weeks of the year for the economy generally, add on covid and Brexit and there's not a lot going on out there that can't be done at home. School attendance is going to be even worse than it was last term and if they'd actually deliver all the laptops they promised teachers could get on with educating kids. I just don't get their strategy at all. The healthcare system's about to be crushed. Thousands will die of operable cancers and other illnesses that shouldn't normally be fatal on top of all the Covid deaths. There's no sign that infection rates could come down without action soon. What's their actual strategy? Are they really just crossing their fingers and hoping for the best?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> It's one of the quietest weeks of the year for the economy generally, add on covid and Brexit and there's not a lot going on out there that can't be done at home. School attendance is going to be even worse than it was last term and if they'd actually deliver all the laptops they promised teachers could get on with educating kids. I just don't get their strategy at all. The healthcare system's about to be crushed. Thousands will die of operable cancers and other illnesses that shouldn't normally be fatal on top of all the Covid deaths. There's no sign that infection rates could come down without action soon. What's their actual strategy? *Are they really just crossing their fingers and hoping for the best?*



No, they just don't give a shit.


----------



## maomao (Jan 3, 2021)

Epona said:


> Their


They're. HTH

(only 'cause you did it earlier )


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> They're. HTH
> 
> (only 'cause you did it earlier )


My entire fucking post was satire about grammatical errors, you fool...


----------



## maomao (Jan 3, 2021)

Epona said:


> My entire fucking post was satire about grammatical errors, you fool...


It's not a grammatical error it's a spelling error. HTH


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

So now folks can't even be bothered with arguing with me about real things, they are just piling on for no reason whatsoever besides following the pack?  Because I made a joke?


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> It's one of the quietest weeks of the year for the economy generally, add on covid and Brexit and there's not a lot going on out there that can't be done at home. School attendance is going to be even worse than it was last term and if they'd actually deliver all the laptops they promised teachers could get on with educating kids. I just don't get their strategy at all. The healthcare system's about to be crushed. Thousands will die of operable cancers and other illnesses that shouldn't normally be fatal on top of all the Covid deaths. There's no sign that infection rates could come down without action soon. What's their actual strategy? Are they really just crossing their fingers and hoping for the best?



Some of the latest delays are excused as wanting to wait for data about how much impact tier 4 and school holidays have had on the new variant levels of transmission.

There is real data from that period that will be of interest, but the sensible thing to do when waiting for data and facts is to take strong action, and you can always relax it a bit later if circumstances and analysis allow. A precautionary approach. The very opposite of this governments instincts.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2021)

Liverpools leadership want a new national lockdown, and who can blame them?









						Covid: Liverpool's leaders call for new national lockdown
					

Council leaders say it is "self-evident" the tiers system is not containing the new strain of Covid.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 3, 2021)

Epona said:


> So now folks can't even be bothered with arguing with me about real things, they are just piling on for no reason whatsoever besides following the pack?  Because I made a joke?


I'm taking it all to be light hearted, no pile on


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I'm taking it all to be light hearted, no pile on


Someone who hadn't previously joined in but now makes a post specifically to say they weren't joining in - how exactly is that to be taken other than piling on?


----------



## Jeremiah18.17 (Jan 3, 2021)

What we are seeing in Britain (and America, slightly differently) is what happens when you allow completely amoral and self interested people, supported by sociopathic ideologues with their own messianic agenda, to control and dictate the narrative for an extended period and then seize virtually unchallenged power with most of the media either supine and fearful or fanatically committed to the “project”.

Without opposition that can gain traction or wield any kind of counter-power (due to _decades_ of compromise, infiltration and organisational capture by the same class/type of sociopaths as the current rulers - but with a liberal “left” aesthetic). The ideological erosion wrought by _decades_ of neo-liberalism in the ascendant and worming itself into the headspace and worldview of millions lives on in the difficulty of organising any meaningful large scale resistance, even as the suicidal and hopeless end results of neoliberalism (and its resultant necrotising brain fart of fundamentally dishonest national-populism) manifest as higher and higher piles of corpses and a natural environment teetering on the brink of terminal cascade events.


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

There is a certain level of playground bully bullshit on Urban sometimes - I love it here but sometimes some of you need to take a look at yourselves and consider whether joining in with the popular group to have a go at the shy awkward kid in the corner is really where you want to place your flag.


----------



## Looby (Jan 3, 2021)

Epona said:


> There is a certain level of playground bully bullshit on Urban sometimes - I love it here but sometimes some of you need to take a look at yourselves and consider whether joining in with the popular group to have a go at the shy awkward kid in the corner is really where you want to place your flag.


I really can’t see any pile on and I went back to check. I think you’re really stressed and have had a shitty few days so are probably feeling really sensitive like lots of us are.


----------



## maomao (Jan 3, 2021)

Apologies. I made a joke remark in response to one made on another thread and thought being called a fool entitled me to a second dig. I don't want to actually upset anyone and was just messing about. I am also not in cahoots with anyone and have always been a solo dickhead.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 3, 2021)

2hats said:


> Most recent SAGE paper on children, schools and transmission.
> 
> The key finding, from an ONS/UoMan analysis, is that children were more likely to be the index case in a home - in other words, introduce the virus in the home setting. Children under 12 are around three times more likely to be such than adults (17+) whilst 12-16 year olds are seven times more likely. In a given household, under-17s are more than twice as likely as any of the adults to infect others in that household.
> 
> ...


Well, who'd have thought it!


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

Looby said:


> I really can’t see any pile on and I went back to check. I think you’re really stressed and have had a shitty few days so are probably feeling really sensitive like lots of us are.



Ok so is pulling up a post I made a month ago that at the time received no comments at all and having a go at me about it and a whole bunch of people joining in with that normal?  Or do you acknowledge that I might be justified in feeling a little untoward about that?  If I am allowed an opinion about it - which it seems most people agree I am not allowed to have any opinion or reaction about that whatsoever and I am being unreasonable


----------



## Looby (Jan 3, 2021)

Epona said:


> Ok so is pulling up a post I made a month ago and having a go at me about it and a whole bunch of people joining in with that normal?  Or do you acknowledge that I might be justified in feeling a little untoward about that?  If I am allowed an opinion about it.


I have no idea what you’re talking about, I was looking at posts on this thread. If there’s some cross-thread shit going on then I can’t be expected to know that.


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

Looby said:


> I have no idea what you’re talking about, I was looking at posts on this thread. If there’s some cross-thread shit going on then I can’t be expected to know that.



Yeah you see it seems like I am being unreasonable until it is pointed out that some old shit has been dredged up - sorry you didn't know about that, maybe don't weigh in if you don't have all the info.


----------



## Looby (Jan 3, 2021)

Epona said:


> Yeah you see it seems like I am being unreasonable until it is pointed out that some old shit has been dredged up - sorry you didn't know about that, maybe don't weigh in if you don't have all the info.


I was trying to be reassuring but I won’t again. Thanks for the feedback. 👍


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

Looby said:


> I was trying to be reassuring but I won’t again. Thanks for the feedback. 👍



No worries, you didn't come across as reassuring in the slightest so all is good!


----------



## Wilf (Jan 3, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> I like to keep an eye on what Prof Devi has to say:
> 
> View attachment 246815View attachment 246816


Leadership is a word I keep coming back to. It's not the way I want to look at the world and I'd love to have seen communities and workers in particular industries getting a grip on the pandemic strategy. However we live in a world where that wasn't going to be likely or easy. But as we live in their world, a world where government's have that responsibility, where government is precisely the organising power, _leadership _is the thing they are supposed to be doing.  It's an obvious point to make, but johnson's gang have failed in just about every aspect of the leadership test. No vision, no effective co-ordination, no wartime style marshalling of national resources.  Ideologically unwilling to work with unions, but equally unable to work effectively with the private sector, just a shitty croneyism. And then there's the time lag approach where every decision is made too late, chaotic decision making around schools, failure to test people coming through the airports, appalling messaging, Christmas superspreading, PPE, test and trace, universities giving the virus a helping hand in September, a Tier system that follows the virus rather than getting ahead of it...

EDIT: mercifully short version: they are really shit at doing government.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 3, 2021)

Have been out of the loop 

Has anything actually been said?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Leadership is a word I keep coming back to. It's not the way I want to look at the world and I'd love to have seen communities and workers in particular industries getting a grip on the pandemic strategy. However we live in a world where that wasn't going to be likely or easy. But as we live in their world, a world where government's have that responsibility, where government is precisely the organising power, _leadership _is the thing they are supposed to be doing.  It's an obvious point to make, but johnson's gang have failed in just about every aspect of the leadership test. No vision, no effective co-ordination, no wartime style marshalling of national resources.  Ideologically unwilling to work with unions, but equally unable to work effectively with the private sector, just a shitty croneyism. And then there's the time lag approach where every decision is made too late, chaotic decision making around schools, failure to test people coming through the airports, appalling messaging, Christmas superspreading, PPE, test and trace, universities giving the virus a helping hand in September, a Tier system that follows the virus rather than getting ahead of it...


Terrific post


----------



## maomao (Jan 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some of the latest delays are excused as wanting to wait for data about how much impact tier 4 and school holidays have had on the new variant levels of transmission.
> 
> There is real data from that period that will be of interest, but the sensible thing to do when waiting for data and facts is to take strong action, and you can always relax it a bit later if circumstances and analysis allow. A precautionary approach. The very opposite of this governments instincts.



If he'd gone on tv and said something along the lines of 'we believe the new tier system will be enough to keep infection rates down but we'll be ready to bring in new measures if that's not the case' he might get away with it but he just looks like an idiot after his stuff about 'schools being safe apart from the inevitable household mixing that happens in them' the other day. Doubling down just makes the inevitable u-turn look twice as bad.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 3, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Have been out of the loop
> 
> Has anything actually been said?


No, but we're all joining the NEU in the morning


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Leadership is a word I keep coming back to. It's not the way I want to look at the world and I'd love to have seen communities and workers in particular industries getting a grip on the pandemic strategy. However we live in a world where that wasn't going to be likely or easy. But as we live in their world, a world where government's have that responsibility, where government is precisely the organising power, _leadership _is the thing they are supposed to be doing.  It's an obvious point to make, but johnson's gang have failed in just about every aspect of the leadership test. No vision, no effective co-ordination, no wartime style marshalling of national resources.  Ideologically unwilling to work with unions, but equally unable to work effectively with the private sector, just a shitty croneyism. And then there's the time lag approach where every decision is made too late, chaotic decision making around schools, failure to test people coming through the airports, appalling messaging, Christmas superspreading, PPE, test and trace, universities giving the virus a helping hand in September, a Tier system that follows the virus rather than getting ahead of it...
> 
> EDIT: mercifully short version: they are really shit at doing government.



It's just a game for pricks like Johnson isn't it. Get to be PM and polish the ego but no need to take it too seriously.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jan 3, 2021)

Epona said:


> The Nightingale hospitals should have been opened a week or two ago using agency staff if need be (not necessarily in high risk areas, but maybe filling in so that better trained staff could be moved into critical areas) because there is already crisis in admissions in a lot of areas.
> 
> My OH had a massive asthma attack on Wednesday and I had to call an ambulance (please trust me that I do not call an ambulance on a whim, it was an emergency, his inhaler wasn't giving any relief and he was struggling to breathe) - we were EXTREMELY grateful that an ambulance arrived but it was 40 minutes which is a long time when someone is struggling to breathe - then there was no bed for him so he couldn't be admitted (which would be usual for observation overnight in this circumstance), instead he had a nebuliser on a trolley and was sent home with a prescription for oral prednisone (normally when this happens he is admitted and given IV steroids).  Our local hospital was full, they took him to A&E at a different hospital.
> 
> There is already massive strain on hospitals, now is the time to open up the Nightingale units and draft in as many people as possible in nursing or auxilliary care roles. They need to stop saying they will do it if it is needed and admit that it is needed.



There are no nursing agency staff that don't have as much work as they want, whenever and wherever they want and this has been increasingly the case for the last decade......and there is still not enough registered staff. Added that its specifically ICU trained nurses that are needed.

There are not enough trained / registered staff for the hospitals in the UK.

Its a fucking travesty and I completely agree with your sentiments Epona.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 3, 2021)

Going back to the schools are safe thing for a moment or two. [I think I'm repeating myself, so apologies for that]

Schools are a petri dish, a bit like cruise liners, for all manner of infections. 
OH is a retired teacher, but when they were still working I dreading the first three weeks or so of every term, especially the January re-start.
Almost without fail, within those first few weeks, various coughs and colds, even 'flu-ish type infections would appear and speed their way through various classes and the especially the staff room. One of them got dubbed "start of term lurgy" - a nasty cough and sore throat were the main symptoms.

If that is the case in a "normal" year - wtf happens with the Covid-19 Pandemic virus ? Then add in this "new variant" ?

So glad OH is now retired and away from that risk ...


----------



## LDC (Jan 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> ...he just looks like an idiot after his stuff about 'schools being safe apart from the inevitable household mixing that happens in them' the other day. Doubling down just makes the inevitable u-turn look twice as bad.



That was really bonkers, I had to check he'd actually just said that when I heard it. It's just weird nonsense, it's like saying playing Russian Roulette is safe, except for that one bullet. (or any similar thing).


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> There are no nursing agency staff that don't have as much work as they want, whenever and wherever they want and this has been increasingly the case for the last decade......and there is still not enough registered staff. Added that its specifically ICU trained nurses that are needed.
> 
> There are not enough trained / registered staff for the hospitals in the UK.
> 
> Its a fucking travesty and I completely agree with your sentiments Epona.



OH is still having breathing difficulties - it is fairly low key at the moment, but when he is like this we are constantly just a short trip away from dialling 999.  People die from asthma and it is fairly frightening - even at the best of times when someone is struggling with asthma you are thinking how long would an ambulance take to get here - and normally getting an ambulance and being taken to hospital that way results in the best treatment - people do still die of asthma all the time, but you know most of the time all that can be done has been done.  If the hospitals are overcrowded though, what happens if an ambulance can't come here because of massive queues, what happens if he makes it to hospital and cannot get a bed and appropriate treatment because the health services are overwhelmed?  And this is just the "what if" for one person who doesn't have coronavirus but regularly relies on ambulance and hospital services to save his life?

It's horrific, they should have done more to prevent spread and should be doing all they can now to increase hospital capacity - not just for covid, but for the other "normal" things like severe life-threatening asthma attacks etc.


----------



## maomao (Jan 3, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That was really bonkers, I had to check he'd actually just said that when I heard it. It's just weird nonsense, it's like saying playing Russian Roulette is safe, except for that one bullet. (or any similar thing).


Cigarettes are perfectly safe as long as you don't light them.


----------



## andysays (Jan 3, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Those wondering what this refers to: No Safety No Work
> 
> It's worth remembering that the Labour Party, the unions, the well meaning players of civil society cannot be relied on to do these things for us. That notion that politics is what you wish people in authority would do for us holds us back. Politics is what we do, and only what we do changes anything for the better.
> 
> ...





redsquirrel said:


> Basically if a workplace is unsafe then a worker can, legally, refuse to work until it is made safe.
> 
> Unions are legally prohibited from organising/promoting S44 as.a strategy to withdraw labour, but they can advise members on what S44 states and how they can use it. As I said on the other thread whatever the faults of the NEU (and there are plenty, danny la rouge is absolutely right that it cannot be left to the unions) it is pushing at the (legal) edge of S44 - and good on them. Hopefully other unions will follow suit.


Thanks both. My union actually reminded its members about the fact we don't have to do things which are unsafe at the beginning of all of this, but I didn't realise S44 referred to that.

I'm returning to work tomorrow after having the last week before Xmas off, when things got/were getting a lot more serious again. Will be interesting to see whether any changes to work practices have already been made, or whether we still need to push for them.


----------



## Cid (Jan 3, 2021)

S☼I said:


> The
> Economy






beesonthewhatnow said:


> Economy before plebs, basically.



Of course. Well the UK ecomony must be doing well compared to other similar countries this year then.



*I have actually tried to read up on this, but it's a bit of a pain in the arse given the nature of the economic year, and complexities of comparison (e.g it is brexit year). The UK is doing pretty badly by real GDP though... -9.8%. Better than Spain or Italy. Worse than most countries that did well in public health terms with lockdowns. That said the US economy was at -4.3%, which compares favourably with some places that used extensive lockdowns (e.g NZ at -6.2%, Aus about the same at -4.2%). Though US of course is still more complex as you have to think about individual states etc. France is apparently exactly as shit as us economically. Germany not great at -6%. Difficult to say how those are impacted by cost of measures, both have been pretty rocky throughout, despite early promise in Germany. Sweden comparatively ok at -4.7%. Taiwan: no change, Republic of Korea: -1.9%, Japan: -5.3%, China: +1.9%, Vietnam: +1.6%, HK and singapore not great mind: -7.5% and -6% respectively. 

You could spin a lot of arguments from those admittedly basic statistics. But I think it's very hard to argue that this particular method of protecting the economy was worth the death, uncertainty and general public health outcomes. 

IMF chart - set year to 2020 to view current picture rather than forecasts.


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

Seriously it took 40 minutes to get an ambulance for someone with acute asthma, normally it takes 3 to 10 minutes (sadly I have a lot of experience now when it comes to calling 999)

Our ambulance crews and paramedics are absolutely amazing people, this is not their fault, it is the fault of the government for being too lax and confusing about restrictions and letting coronavirus spread instead of keeping it under control.

Then OH gets to A&E and there is no-one to treat him, this isn't the fault of our wonderful A&E staff, this is the fault of Boris and our government for being completely useless in trying to control this thing - too lax in terms of lockdown and their tier stupidity, too slow in opening the Nightingale units, had all summer to recruit more staff but god knows you can't offer more money to recruit nurses

It is a complete shit show and more people will die than just the folks who get Covid, there is a massive knock-on effect in terms of healthcare provision and frontline A&E services.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jan 3, 2021)

Epona said:


> OH is still having breathing difficulties - it is fairly low key at the moment, but when he is like this we are constantly just a short trip away from dialling 999.  People die from asthma and it is fairly frightening - even at the best of times when someone is struggling with asthma you are thinking how long would an ambulance take to get here - and normally getting an ambulance and being taken to hospital that way results in the best treatment - people do still die of asthma all the time, but you know most of the time all that can be done has been done.  If the hospitals are overcrowded though, what happens if an ambulance can't come here because of massive queues, what happens if he makes it to hospital and cannot get a bed and appropriate treatment because the health services are overwhelmed?  And this is just the "what if" for one person who doesn't have coronavirus but regularly relies on ambulance and hospital services to save his life?
> 
> It's horrific, they should have done more to prevent spread and should be doing all they can now to increase hospital capacity - not just for covid, but for the other "normal" things like severe life-threatening asthma attacks etc.



The closest I have got to the situation you are describing is when mdk1 was little like 2 -3 yrs old and I would hear that distinctive asthma cough in the middle of the night and rush up to the children's, where he would be seen and have a bed straight away. It was terrifying. So I can only imagine what it is like to not be sure or confident that your oh will be treated.


----------



## Epona (Jan 3, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> The closest I have got to the situation you are describing is when mdk1 was little like 2 -3 yrs old and I would hear that distinctive asthma cough in the middle of the night and rush up to the children's, where he would be seen and have a bed straight away. It was terrifying. So I can only imagine what it is like to not be sure or confident that your oh will be treated.



It's horrible, I know not everyone knows or has seen first hand what asthma is like and some may think it's not that serious or just do some deep breathing and it will ease up - but it isn't like that at all - it is absolutely horrific (and I can only imagine it is worse and you feel even more helpless if it is a child affected) - but to see someone struggling to breathe and going grey in the face and then starting to tinge to blue because they aren't able to get enough oxygen into their bloodstream - and they feel panic, if feels like slowly suffocating, and you are trying to keep them as calm as possible waiting for an ambulance and just hoping that they are able to stay conscious until the paramedics arrive with nebulisers and oxygen, and then (most of the time) they will be carted off to hospital - used to be I would go with him but that is not allowed now, so I just say "I love you" as he is being taken away to the ambulance and he nods because he doesn't have enough breath to speak.

Covid isn't the only killer, lack of provision and resources for treating Covid patients has a knock on effect on other people getting timely and adequate treatment too.  Every death, whether it is directly from Covid, or because treatment could not be given in other situations as a knock on effect, is firmly at the government's door.

We can't always predict nature or disease, but we can come up with a response to it - and the fact that the London Ambulance Service and hospitals (and I suspect others around the country too) are under extreme stress right now is a political issue.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 3, 2021)




----------



## two sheds (Jan 3, 2021)

Epona said:


> It's horrible, I know not everyone knows or has seen first hand what asthma is like and some may think it's not that serious or just do some deep breathing and it will ease up - but it isn't like that at all - it is absolutely horrific (and I can only imagine it is worse and you feel even more helpless if it is a child affected) - but to see someone struggling to breathe and going grey in the face and then starting to tinge to blue because they aren't able to get enough oxygen into their bloodstream - and they feel panic, if feels like slowly suffocating, and you are trying to keep them as calm as possible waiting for an ambulance and just hoping that they are able to stay conscious until the paramedics arrive with nebulisers and oxygen, and then (most of the time) they will be carted off to hospital - used to be I would go with him but that is not allowed now, so I just say "I love you" as he is being taken away to the ambulance and he nods because he doesn't hae enough breath to speak.
> 
> Covid isn't the only killer, lack of provision and resources for treating Covid patients has a knock on effect on other people getting timely and adequate treatment too.  Every death, whether it is directly from Covid, or because treatment could not be given in other situations as a knock on effect, is firmly at the government's door.
> 
> We can't always predict nature or disease, but we can come up with a response to it - and the fact that the London Ambulance Service and hospitals (and I suspect others around the country too) are under extreme stress right now is a political issue.



Have noted before but I got asthma really badly when I was 5 or 6. My sis who became a doctor told me last year that she at first never thought asthma was serious unless someone had gone blue


----------



## Wilf (Jan 3, 2021)

Starmer (at 15:41) belatedly taking a clear stance on lockdowns.
Covid live news: Starmer calls for immediate new national restrictions; UK records more than 50,000 new cases again | World news | The Guardian 
Labour are a long way from voicing the pain and anger people are feeling, but that's just about the right tone at least.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Starmer (at 15:41) belatedly taking a clear stance on lockdowns.
> Covid live news: Starmer calls for immediate new national restrictions; UK records more than 50,000 new cases again | World news | The Guardian
> Labour are a long way from voicing the pain and anger people are feeling, but that's just about the right tone at least.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 3, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


>



She'd be on my list of tolerable deaths.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 3, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> She'd be on my list of tolerable deaths.


I would tolerate her death


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 3, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I would tolerate her death


It’s a sacrifice I would be willing to make for the greater good.


----------



## lazythursday (Jan 3, 2021)

Tolerate? What's wrong with celebrate?


----------



## pesh (Jan 3, 2021)

that feeling when you hope a tweet ages well.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 3, 2021)

the sending back of some kids tomorrow is a lethal show of hands. where deaths occur in those regions, people will ask "why the fuck are schools open?" 

i predict a massive u turn in next 24 hours. 

opening schools in low infection areas? it's almsot like they want to get those areas up to the horrendous levels of london!


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 3, 2021)

54,990 new cases?


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 3, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> it's almsot like they want to get those areas up to the horrendous levels of london!


I was going to say in response to something else, earlier, but it feels like a big problem is that thing of people thinking "we only need to take action once there is a problem", and if things seem to be relatively ok then any kind of restrictions seem unnecessary and punitive.

It's like we learned nothing from those Head and Shoulders ads


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 3, 2021)

"oh, there's not a problem in that area"? Fantastic, we will open the schools and make sure they go into next week with double the numbers!


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 3, 2021)

This is incredible. The NEU leadership have got a massive responsibility and mandate now to do the right thing for their members and the communities they work in.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 3, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> This is incredible. The NEU leadership have got a massive responsibility and mandate now to do the right thing for their members and the communities they work in.



It would be nice if that turned out to be a 'moment'.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> It would be nice if that turned out to be a 'moment'.



Its unprecedented in my lifetime. Okay, it’s a zoom call rather than a mass workplace meeting, but this level of membership participation is still stunning. And you are right, it should be the start of things and something to build on


----------



## Wilf (Jan 3, 2021)

Now is just about the perfect moment for the that old fashioned notion of a 'labour movement' to come together and become active. Well organised workers coming together with the gig economy and with communities who are struggling. Some basic demands around safe workplaces and fully funded isolation, along with an unapologetic reaffirmation of _public _services. Couldn't be a better moment to point out that spiv-ocracy that passes for our government is killing us.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 3, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Q - S44 of which act / CoP, please ?


H and S at Work Regulations Act 1974.



andysays said:


> I'm returning to work tomorrow after having the last week before Xmas off, when things got/were getting a lot more serious again. Will be interesting to see whether any changes to work practices have already been made, or whether we still need to push for them.


You are probably already aware of what I'm about to say andysays but I'll just post it for any lurkers.

While section 44 does allow a worker to withdraw their labour for an unsafe workplace, that does not mean that a worker can simply state that a workplace is unsafe and refuse to work, the employer can challenge the claim that the workplace is unsafe (for example in my workplace the employer specifically stated that post their COVID changes they would fight any worker invoking S44). To get to the level where S44 can be invoke can be quite a high barrier, anyone who is thinking of going down this route should talk to their union and/or colleagues first.

Also, as always, the political situation matters even more than the legal, if everyone in a workplace invokes S44 then you are probably in a better situation than only one worker doing so, even if the legal case is better in the latter.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 3, 2021)

I hope my own union (UCU) is watching the schools and thinking about using s44. It's hard to think of anything more stupid than moving people round the country as they go back over the next month. Suspect it may not happen anyway in that we'll see another U turn, but it would good to see the union taking charge of the agenda. Would also strengthen university workers for the battles to come.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Now is just about the perfect moment for the that old fashioned notion of a 'labour movement' to come together and become active. Well organised workers coming together with the gig economy and with communities who are struggling. Some basic demands around safe workplaces and fully funded isolation, along with an unapologetic reaffirmation of _public _services. Couldn't be a better moment to point out that spiv-ocracy that passes for our government is killing us.



Precisely Wilf the NEU, USDAW, backed by the bigger unions and those organising in the gig economy should be demanding urgent negotiations with the Tories around minimum demands such as fully paid sick leave, pay rises to reflect the contribution of key workers, joint union management risk assessment of every workplace, test, track and trace and vaccination programmes for every workplace and funding for communities suffering during the pandemic.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 3, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> This is incredible. The NEU leadership have got a massive responsibility and mandate now to do the right thing for their members and the communities they work in.




The police are sure only 10 people attended


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2021)

I have graphed first and second wave deaths by date of death & within 28 days of a positive test in the regions of England. I have done my usual thing of counting deaths from 1st September onwards as second wave deaths.

Since nobody seems to count the deaths by wave I'm not sure how shocking this graph will be to people.



The one labelled Yorkshire should actually say Yorkshire & The Humber.


----------



## lazythursday (Jan 3, 2021)

Wow. I was under the impression that London was still the hardest hit in terms of deaths given the severity of the early outbreak there, hadn't realised the North West had become so much worse or that so many other regions had pretty much caught up.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I hope my own union (UCU) is watching the schools and thinking about using s44. It's hard to think of anything more stupid than moving people round the country as they go back over the next month. Suspect it may not happen anyway in that we'll see another U turn, but it would good to see the union taking charge of the agenda. Would also strengthen university workers for the battles to come.



You don’t need to wait for your union. We threatened it at work back in the summer when management refused to instruct their private contractors to pay the guards, cleaners etc full paid sick leave. We argued this would induce these workers to come to work thereby putting our lives in danger and that we would be duty bound to advise our members of their rights under s44. The issue was done, dusted and dealt with before the FTO had even got wind of it.

It’s an ‘individual’ and not a ‘collective’ matter as far as the law is concerned, as such union tips need to tread somewhat carefully on this (although perhaps not as carefully as unions have to date).


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jan 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> Apologies. I made a joke remark in response to one made on another thread and thought being called a fool entitled me to a second dig. I don't want to actually upset anyone and was just messing about. I am also not in cahoots with anyone and have always been a solo dickhead.


If 'Solo Dickhead' isn't what your current tagline says I trust you know what's required


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I hope my own union (UCU) is watching the schools and thinking about using s44. It's hard to think of anything more stupid than moving people round the country as they go back over the next month. Suspect it may not happen anyway in that we'll see another U turn, but it would good to see the union taking charge of the agenda. Would also strengthen university workers for the battles to come.


Such a tactic is being discussed on the activists list at the moment. But yes UCU should definitely go as far as the NEU have, regardless of the legal ramifications.

EDIT: At the very minimum UCU should argue that until risk assessments are updated as a result of the worse situation workers can refuse to work on-site.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 3, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> Wow. I was under the impression that London was still the hardest hit in terms of deaths given the severity of the early outbreak there, hadn't realised the North West had become so much worse or that so many other regions had pretty much caught up.


I don't think the graph is adjusted for relative population sizes though.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 3, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Such a tactic is being discussed on the activists list at the moment. But yes UCU should definitely go as far as the NEU have, regardless of the legal ramifications.



Your post earlier about the politics of using s44 is bang on redsquirrel It’s important that trade union stewards thinking of how they can use it digest similar points.

I very much hope the UCU will adopt the tactic. But, as always, we don’t need to wait for ‘the union’ to decide for us. I know that’s not what you are suggesting but what I’ve found in my union (Unite) is even experienced stewards suggesting we need a green light from the union before it could be done or organised


----------



## Wilf (Jan 3, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Precisely Wilf the NEU, USDAW, backed by the bigger unions and those organising in the gig economy should be demanding urgent negotiations with the Tories around minimum demands such as fully paid sick leave, pay rises to reflect the contribution of key workers, joint union management risk assessment of every workplace, test, track and trace and vaccination programmes for every workplace and funding for communities suffering during the pandemic.


Was just talking to my partner about her daughter who works in a supermarket. One of the workers got a ping off the test and trace to say she'd been in contact with someone with the virus in the shop and should isolate. She was told to either delete the app off her phone or not get paid. I'm just so fucking fuming about it but haven't even got her permission to say which supermarket it is, she's so terrified about losing her job.  Stronger union presence, support for whistle blowers and all that needs to be in place to create an environment where people feel they have a chance to even fight for their own health, never mind the rest.


----------



## lazythursday (Jan 3, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I don't think the graph is adjusted for relative population sizes though.


I think doing that would actually increase the size of the bars for the North West and Yorkshire rather than decrease them. I think.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> I have graphed first and second wave deaths by date of death & within 28 days of a positive test in the regions of England. I have done my usual thing of counting deaths from 1st September onwards as second wave deaths.
> 
> Since nobody seems to count the deaths by wave I'm not sure how shocking this graph will be to people.
> 
> ...



You should have a twatter to retweet the work you do on this stuff


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 3, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I very much hope the UCU will adopt the tactic. But, as always, we don’t need to wait for ‘the union’ to decide for us. I know that’s not what you are suggesting but what I’ve found in my union (Unite) is even experienced stewards suggesting we need a green light from the union before it could be done or organised


Absolutely. 
As so often too many unions are taking a servicing approach (i.e. sitting in meetings, individual casework, etc) rather than an organising approach (i.e. organising, educating and agitating workers to take action themselves).


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 3, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I think doing that would actually increase the size of the bars for the North West and Yorkshire rather than decrease them. I think.



London has about 9 million people so if we're going by deaths per million the north west is worst hit (I think, my grasp of numbers and stats is shaky as is well known)


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Was just talking to my partner about her daughter who works in a supermarket. One of the workers got a ping off the test and trace to say she'd been in contact with someone with the virus in the shop and should isolate. She was told to either delete the app off her phone or not get paid. I'm just so fucking fuming about it but haven't even got her permission to say which supermarket it is, she's so terrified about losing her job.  Stronger union presence, support for whistle blowers and all that needs to be in place to create an environment where people feel they have a chance to even fight for their own health, never mind the rest.



Sickening. Fully recognise what you are saying - and see the fear and lack of confidence you are talking about every day.

In terms of the minimum demands I suggested fully paid sick leave is essential in my experience to give workers the confidence to take time off if they are symptomatic. Joint risk assessments force management to take note (and action) of dangers flagged up by the shopfloor. We’ve submitted a motion to our union calling on Unite to train up any worker, from any sector who wants to learn how to do a risk assessment. 

A vaccination programme (and test and trace) for frontline workers should be a demand for the entire movement.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Was just talking to my partner about her daughter who works in a supermarket. One of the workers got a ping off the test and trace to say she'd been in contact with someone with the virus in the shop and should isolate. She was told to either delete the app off her phone or not get paid.


Fucking hell that is appalling.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> You should have a twatter to retweet the work you do on this stuff



I have no intention of having to deal with the sort of replies I would get on there in this pandemic!

Here is a simplified graph where I merged various regions together to simplify the picture and avoid a rainbow of colours.

I've made this one to illustrate how the proportion of deaths have changed over time, especially the second wave with the initial large contribution from the north, and the role the south and east has played in the second wave death level being maintained and now increasing further past the level seen during the earlier high in November.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> I have no intention of having to deal with the sort of replies I would get on there in this pandemic!
> 
> Here is a simplified graph where I merged various regions together to simplify the picture and avoid a rainbow of colours.
> 
> ...


Up to you of course and I certainly wouldn't go anywhere near twitter. Same time, all your hard work would be a really useful resource on a blog, say.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Up to you of course and I certainly wouldn't go anywhere near twitter. Same time, all your hard work would be a really useful resource on a blog, say.



Indeed, it's cracking work and deserves an audience. I can understand the reluctance to make it to public with the showers of arseholes hanging about though.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2021)

I understand the sentiment but I am entirely disinterested, this place is where I share my output and thats the end of it. Its not exactly private on this part of the forum so I consider myself to be communicating publicly, even though people probably need an account to view attachments properly. Let stop talking about me and get back to the pandemic and the disgusting failure to respond appropriately to the second wave at any stage. Theres going to end up being more deaths in the second wave than there was in the first, possibly by a really huge amount depending on what happens next.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> disinterested


Uninterested.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> I understand the sentiment but I am entirely disinterested, this place is where I share my output and thats the end of it. Its not exactly private on this part of the forum so I consider myself to be communicating publicly, even though people probably need an account to view attachments properly. Let stop talking about me and get back to the pandemic and the disgusting failure to respond appropriately to the second wave at any stage. Theres going to end up being more deaths in the second wave than there was in the first, possibly by a really huge amount depending on what happens next.


Oh, stop moaning, 'Boris' has said he'll do something at some point...

At a moment of genuine national crisis, must admit I'd be surprised if johnson is doing much more than routine 8 hour days.  I know it's too easy to go on about his bumbling buffoonery, but I really do get the impression of him sitting in meetings with experts, half interested, still not managing to 'do detail'.  To say the least, he's not a 'forensic' prime minister, but you don't even get the sense of someone 'chairing' the strategy. There's no one driving, even now, just a few panicked heaves at the wheel each time we head for the ditch.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 3, 2021)

27%!


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 3, 2021)

weepiper said:


> 27%!



#worldbeating


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I'd be surprised if johnson is doing much more than routine 8 hour days.


i'd be surprised if he's doing more than 4 hours.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Starmer (at 15:41) belatedly taking a clear stance on lockdowns.
> Covid live news: Starmer calls for immediate new national restrictions; UK records more than 50,000 new cases again | World news | The Guardian
> Labour are a long way from voicing the pain and anger people are feeling, but that's just about the right tone at least.



Always manages to say something that will wind me up even on occasions where they are calling for some things I agree with:









						Keir Starmer calls for immediate lockdown in England as Covid cases soar
					

Labour leader urges prime minister to impose new nationwide restrictions within next 24 hours




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Starmer said he was not calling for all schools to close, explaining that should be the “last resort, not the first resort”. In an apparent reference to tier 3 areas where non-essential shops were still allowed to open, he added: “We can’t have retail open in some places and schools closed.”



Nothing we do at this late stage could be fairly described as a first resort now could it? No need to try to be too clever making a point about retail at the same time either, just close both.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> Always manages to say something that will wind me up even on occasions where they are calling for some things I agree with:
> 
> 
> 
> Nothing we do at this late stage could be fairly described as a first resort now could it? No need to try to be too clever making a point about retail at the same time either, just close both.


i must say sir shit stirrer is a really shitty leader


----------



## weltweit (Jan 3, 2021)

It is hard to think of what timetable Johnson is working to. He always seems to be "thinking" of stronger measures when Joe Public is almost screaming to get it in place and long after Starmer has been calling for them. 

It seems Sturgeon is scheduling a press conference for Monday which could signal stronger measures - yet from Johnson there is just a hint in an interview with Marr.   

Perhaps leaking broad intentions on Marr is Johnson's idea of managing expectations, something he has so far failed spectacularly at. But he has been making overly optimistic statements on vaccines, testing and the like, things that are just not believable.   

And when pressed enough, like for example with schools in the SE, he eventually seems to give in to common sense, but nothing for the rest of the Tier 4 areas. If London is so much worse than them surely here is justification for a Tier 5.  

In the face of the more infectious new variant and increases in hospitalisations, Johnson is hardly being proactive.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 3, 2021)

And here we are


----------



## maomao (Jan 3, 2021)

Is it possible that they're counting on having already vaccinated enough over 80s to keep the death figures a bit more palatable once the surge starts to properly kick in?


----------



## zora (Jan 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> Is it possible that they're counting on having already vaccinated enough over 80s to keep the death figures a bit more palatable once the surge starts to properly kick in?



I kind of fear similar, because while it might look in some way better on paper, I don't really believe this to be the solution.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 3, 2021)

'counting on things'


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> Is it possible that they're counting on having already vaccinated enough over 80s to keep the death figures a bit more palatable once the surge starts to properly kick in?



No I wouldnt expect that to make much difference, although it does of course depend on what period we are taking about.

From a daily situation management aspect its always been about number of hospitalisations rather than number of deaths (unless deaths reached such a level that the death management system couldnt cope). From what I can tell they've already blown it big time when it comes to keeping levels within a certain range that stood some vague chance of being compatible with the winter NHS. But much like the horrible period in the first wave, I doubt they are quite sure exactly what levels will be reached before the tide is turned.

Here are the latest English regional figures I have for the number of Covid-19 patients in hospital beds. Data goes up to 3rd January even though axis labels only go up to 30/12/20.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2021)

And when I say that, its not just a one sided equation, not just a ase of how many deaths will be prevented by vaccination. On that side of the equation there are also factors such as better hospital treatment in the second wave. But on the other side of the equation there are factors such as a decline in quality & availability of healthcare that comes at times of the most intense stress on hospitals etc.

The question of what level of death a government might think they can get away with is also complicated by things like it being very hard to tell quite what level of death is acceptable to the public. I never found any answers to this, although I suspect people may be partially judging daily death rates in the current wave by the standards set in the first wave. I care about both the peak levels reached and the totals reached, which is one of the reasons I keep giving a separate figure for number of deaths in the second wave so far compared to the first. But when it comes to the peak rate of death, as usual I do not have any proper predictions. Especially as the daily amount of death currently increasing and other data such as number of positive ases and hospitalisations indicate that trend will continue.

I suppose acceptable death is not really just about a number, its about the context and peoples perceptions of how avoidable those deaths were. When it comes to blame, I could cast my sights far and wide across all sorts of different parts of the establishment and their chosen experts when it came to slow and inadequate first wave response. The Johnson side of the state has less cover in regards to second wave failings, eg lots of SAGE etc advice from summer onwards that they didnt stick to properly, not so many failures of modelling this time round, less people to blame for timing fuckups. And perhaps a greater sense of heard earned knowledge going to waste. Various other institutions & management failings still on show in the second wave too, still not purely a Johnson & Co special act, but overall less excusable errors and more condemnable ones this time around.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> Is it possible that they're counting on having already vaccinated enough over 80s to keep the death figures a bit more palatable once the surge starts to properly kick in?


That will undoubtedly be high on the list of things they are taking into account, for sure.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2021)

existentialist said:


> That will undoubtedly be high on the list of things they are taking into account, for sure.



Someone tell me what a palatable death rate is then? Or total?

For a start they are not going to manage to have less deaths in the second wave than there were in the first. At least not on paper using some versions of the stats, and probably not with other official versions of the stats either, apart from perhaps excess deaths which is a complicated subject when it comes to winter and us not having the usual flu deaths, offsetting the totals in a way that undercounts the pandemic picture.


----------



## maomao (Jan 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> Someone tell me what a palatable death rate is then? Or total?


I think people pay more attention to the daily rate than the total. They probably think they can get people acting more normally with daily rates in the low (3-4) hundreds because that's what was hapening at the beginning of December.

Problem is, if they do resign themselves to swamping the hospitals, death rates will go up because they're unable to treat those who might have otherwise be saved as well as adding to deaths from other causes. I wasn't trying to justify their behaviour I was seeking to understand it.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jan 3, 2021)

Spandex said:


> On the Marr interview, amongst digging his heels in over school closures and hinting at more restrictions to come, Johnson said there has been a "stubborn" epidemic in Kent and parts of London due to the new fast-spreading virus variant.
> 
> View attachment 246811
> 
> Since when has "Kent and parts of London" included Essex, Buckinghamshire and East Sussex? Does he really not know what's going on and how bad it is in the south east? Is he in denial? Is he playing it down? Or did he just mis-speak?



With todays update (still not current - for eg the Brighton figures shown here are up until the 29th and give a rate of 485, while a couple of, probably incomplete, days forward is already more like 540) -


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jan 3, 2021)

CEO of NHS providers -


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 3, 2021)

Spent the last 90 mins swapping the sideboard in the front room and the table in the garage over. Mrs SI now has a workspace in the front room like from March-July. She's sure she will need it.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> I think people pay more attention to the daily rate than the total. They probably think they can get people acting more normally with daily rates in the low (3-4) hundreds because that's what was hapening at the beginning of December.
> 
> Problem is, if they do resign themselves to swamping the hospitals, death rates will go up because they're unable to treat those who might have otherwise be saved as well as adding to deaths from other causes. I wasn't trying to justify their behaviour I was seeking to understand it.



Dont worry, at no stage did I get the idea you were trying to justify such government behaviour.

I was just pressing quite hard on the question of exactly what constitutes and acceptable level of death, because I know from the past that this is not an easy aspect to get a conversation going about that actually includes much detail. I know this is largely because people wont have a single fixed number in mind, its more about how things feel, in the same way that most people endured the first part of the original wave & lockdown in a similar shocked state, and the shock noticably started to wear off at a certain point. The data not being able to deliver shocking new highs was a part of that, but hardly the only ingredient, there was also the sense we were past the peak and that however bad the hospital situation had got, things were past the point of maximum danger, the threat was slowly diminishing, certain scenarios had been avoided. All those bets are off again now that we find ourselves at this stage again, although I could also have said the same months ago about different regions.

Daily rates by date of death are now above the level seen earlier in this wave, recently they have moved well into the 500's for the UK. But I know that in terms of the daily numbers people pay attention to because thats what the headline news goes with, the daily announced deaths gets more focus. And they are all over the place but I expect the couple in a row that were in the 900's may have caught the casual observers eye, even though they were catchup data days.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 3, 2021)

Fucking hell...


----------



## zora (Jan 3, 2021)

^^^Christ, this is 100% terrifying. Maybe one caveat around Tier 4 working or not working: The sudden introduction of Tier 4 and the whole clusterfuck around the Christmas restrictions and the fact that NYE fell into this period may have invited more rule-breaking than we would otherwise have seen or will see. [Disclaimer: Not that this is any reason to not err massively on the side of caution now in terms of further measures!]
Bit of anecdata  I have posted on one of the covid threads before: At least three out of five households in the block of flats where I live (in Tier 4) weren't here for a full three days over Christmas. And when I got home from the shops on NYE a guy was just being dropped off outside my house, carrying a bottle of something. I was _this_ close to asking "hmmm...do you live here...?", but he wandered off a bit further down the street. 
Makes me sound like a right curtain-twitcher, but I couldn't help observe it, and it's just not what I normally see.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jan 3, 2021)

It's fucking insane - and that with all of that, there is _absolute silence_ from the gov.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 3, 2021)

Badgers said:


> 'counting on things'


They've run out of fingers and toes


----------



## Wilf (Jan 3, 2021)

That millions of kids will be going back to school in a matter of hours is, well, really quite something isn't it? And there's the concept of the decent interval when it comes to humiliating climb downs, so this can't be overturned for what, another 2 weeks?


----------



## AverageJoe (Jan 3, 2021)

zora said:


> ^^^Christ, this is 100% terrifying. Maybe one caveat around Tier 4 working or not working: The sudden introduction of Tier 4 and the whole clusterfuck around the Christmas restrictions and the fact that NYE fell into this period may have invited more rule-breaking than we would otherwise have seen or will see. [Disclaimer: Not that this is any reason to not err massively on the side of caution now in terms of further measures!]
> Bit of anecdata  I have posted on one of the covid threads before: At least three out of five households in the block of flats where I live (in Tier 4) weren't here for a full three days over Christmas. And when I got home from the shops on NYE a guy was just being dropped off outside my house, carrying a bottle of something. I was _this_ close to asking "hmmm...do you live here...?", but he wandered off a bit further down the street.
> Makes me sound like a right curtain-twitcher, but I couldn't help observe it, and it's just not what I normally see.



This. All over Christmas there have been loads of parking spaces in our road. There's never usually any at all. 

Today... All the spaces are full again. 

I've become a curtain twitcher too. When I go out the front for a cigarette at night I automatically think "where are you off to?" when I see someone walking or driving. I don't want to be like that but it's just happening to me. I'm being judgemental. 

And I don't want to be


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 3, 2021)

Fuck sake


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Was just talking to my partner about her daughter who works in a supermarket. One of the workers got a ping off the test and trace to say she'd been in contact with someone with the virus in the shop and should isolate. She was told to either delete the app off her phone or not get paid


Where I work we are advised (I don’t _think_ it’s an instruction!) to disable the app’s contact tracing when on checkouts. Mine is always on and I only very occasionally get a notification of possible Covid exposure. 

Some weeks ago we were told to use the Venue Check-in when entering the staff dining room but that has now been changed so only visitors are to check in, and again, we are advised to disable contact tracing when in there to reduce the possibility of having to isolate.

Hope to find out more about the number of positive staff cases identified by our Serial Testing lab.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

20Bees said:


> Where I work we are advised (I don’t _think_ it’s an instruction!) to disable the app’s contact tracing when on checkouts. Mine is always on and I only very occasionally get a notification of possible Covid exposure.
> 
> Some weeks ago we were told to use the Venue Check-in when entering the staff dining room but that has now been changed so only visitors are to check in, and again, we are advised to disable contact tracing when in there to reduce the possibility of having to isolate.
> 
> Hope to find out more about the number of positive staff cases identified by our Serial Testing lab.


That's shocking, awful for you and colleagues but also a perfect way to reduce the effect of tiers, lockdowns and the rest. I just did a quick search expecting to see more supermarket workers who have been told to disable the app, but didn't find any. However I'm absolutely certain that doesn't mean there aren't any, just that it's the awful state of workers power in this country. Here's a similar story about bank workers though:
Staff at British banks ‘forced to turn off NHS Covid tracing app at work’ (msn.com)

Not sure if you are in USDAW? Even if you are not, might be worth letting them know?

Edit: and some other stories, including _NHS Trusts_:
GlaxoSmithKline tells staff to turn off Covid app at work - BBC News 
Teachers told to disable NHS contact-tracing app, claims union - Personnel Today 
Boots workers told to turn off NHS Track and Trace app by bosses for this reason - Derbyshire Live (derbytelegraph.co.uk) 
Jaguar Land Rover tells staff to turn off NHS contact tracing app while working - Liverpool Echo 
Transport for Wales is telling staff to turn off the NHS' contact tracing app - Wales Online 
PSNI officers told to keep NHS Covid-19 app off work phones - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk 
Why Preston and Blackpool hospital staff told to turn off Covid tracing app when at work - LancsLive 
Police in England have been told not to download the NHS Covid-19 app - here's why | Blackpool Gazette


----------



## TopCat (Jan 4, 2021)

Grimmer.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 4, 2021)

This is mad. 

“I understand people’s anxieties but there is no doubt in my mind that schools are safe and that education is a priority.”


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Dont worry, at no stage did I get the idea you were trying to justify such government behaviour.
> 
> I was just pressing quite hard on the question of exactly what constitutes and acceptable level of death, because I know from the past that this is not an easy aspect to get a conversation going about that actually includes much detail. I know this is largely because people wont have a single fixed number in mind, its more about how things feel, in the same way that most people endured the first part of the original wave & lockdown in a similar shocked state, and the shock noticably started to wear off at a certain point. The data not being able to deliver shocking new highs was a part of that, but hardly the only ingredient, there was also the sense we were past the peak and that however bad the hospital situation had got, things were past the point of maximum danger, the threat was slowly diminishing, certain scenarios had been avoided. All those bets are off again now that we find ourselves at this stage again, although I could also have said the same months ago about different regions.
> 
> Daily rates by date of death are now above the level seen earlier in this wave, recently they have moved well into the 500's for the UK. But I know that in terms of the daily numbers people pay attention to because thats what the headline news goes with, the daily announced deaths gets more focus. And they are all over the place but I expect the couple in a row that were in the 900's may have caught the casual observers eye, even though they were catchup data days.



Here's a view on when we'll reach what will probably be quite a significant milestone for some people:


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 4, 2021)

Giving Priority to 80-90 year olds in care homes is mistaken imo, they dont spread it around the youngsters do and whilst we all know they are at low risk of harm they are the main spreaders and I believe  getting them  vaccinated before care home residents would save many more lives


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Giving Priority to 80-90 year olds in care homes is mistaken imo, they dont spread it around the youngsters do and whilst we all know they are at low risk of harm they are the main spreaders and I believe  getting them  vaccinated before care home residents would save many more lives



So, just let the deaths carry on?


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Giving Priority to 80-90 year olds in care homes is mistaken imo, they dont spread it around the youngsters do and whilst we all know they are at low risk of harm they are the main spreaders and I believe  getting them  vaccinated before care home residents would save many more lives


You need to immunise a very high percentage of the population to affect spread whereas immunising over 80s will save lives immediately.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Giving Priority to 80-90 year olds in care homes is mistaken imo, they dont spread it around the youngsters do and whilst we all know they are at low risk of harm they are the main spreaders and I believe  getting them  vaccinated before care home residents would save many more lives


The care home death toll mostly resulted from the 'seeding' from untested +ive patient transfers out of the NHS. Hancock has made clear that such transfers can continue and without vaccination this would represent manslaughter.


----------



## smmudge (Jan 4, 2021)

Plus the purpose of the vaccine is to stop people getting sick / dying from it, and may make little or no difference to how much people spread it around. So makes that argument a bit pointless.


----------



## teqniq (Jan 4, 2021)

Re: hospitals. Not good:









						Thread by @lewis_goodall on Thread Reader App
					

Thread by @lewis_goodall: Been speaking to several London frontline doctors working in major hospitals. Picture isn’t great. One: “it’s a bit like a warzone. I’d say not far off where we were at in first wave...…




					threadreaderapp.com


----------



## andysays (Jan 4, 2021)

smmudge said:


> Plus the purpose of the vaccine is to stop people getting sick / dying from it, and may make little or no difference to how much people spread it around. So makes that argument a bit pointless.


Does anyone know if there has been any research on whether the vaccine affects transmission, or if any is planned?

It seems like it would be a useful thing to know...


----------



## TopCat (Jan 4, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Re: hospitals. Not good:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


When the beds are all full the death rate from so many conditions will leap.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 4, 2021)

maomao said:


> Is it possible that they're counting on having already vaccinated enough over 80s to keep the death figures a bit more palatable once the surge starts to properly kick in?


Failing to complete the course isn't 'vaccination'.


andysays said:


> Does anyone know if there has been any research on whether the vaccine affects transmission, or if any is planned?


Only the Moderna vaccine (mRNA-1273) has any substantive data (it's in their submission to the FDA); there are hints it may reduce transmission to some degree. It's not clear if this is a 'feature' of mRNA platforms yet.

There are suggestions in some of the Oxford/AZ (AZD1222) trial data that it might provide some degree of sterilising immunity, ie reduce transmission, but the information is patchy and incomplete.

Investigation of sterilising immunity is an ongoing process and was not the primary focus of any vaccine development (it isn't the first focus of a vaccine for any disease; the majority of other vaccines do not provide sterilising immunity). There is some fairly promising data for other vaccine platforms as regards sterilising immunity in animal models but it remains to be seen how this maps to humans.

In the meantime only immunity from disease can be relied upon and accordingly planned for (which is one reason for not inoculating younger cohorts yet).


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 4, 2021)

2hats said:


> Failing to complete the course isn't 'vaccination'.
> 
> Only the Moderna vaccine (mRNA-1273) has any substantive data (it's in their submission to the FDA); there are hints it may reduce transmission to some degree. It's not clear if this is a 'feature' of mRNA platforms yet.
> 
> ...



Out of interest, what would be the approach to assessing the effect of sterilising immunity? Immunity from disease is presumably much easier to assess for as you know who has been vaccinated but for sterilising immunity I guess you'd need to know all of their contacts in turn which as we've seen from other things is very hard to manage. So is it just a case of the roll out reaching sufficient levels that any sterilising effect starts to become obvious or is there a more methodical approach?


----------



## 2hats (Jan 4, 2021)

For specific vaccines, in a controlled study, through sampling - eg regular nasopharyngeal swabs, saliva, sputum from the upper respiratory tracts of all trial participants, plus serological assays. If the vaccines do provide substantive sterilising immunity then you would start to see that in the wider population figures but then there there will be a mix of effects of different vaccines plus some naturally acquired immunity so teasing out the signals and coming to clear conclusions would be difficult.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

Totally without basis in fact but somehow it feels like everyone is now just waiting for the utter fuckwits in charge to lock everything down


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

Something that's gently boiling my piss at the moment...

I'm on a couple of Facebook groups (yeah, I know...) related to my profession, and there is a very clear attitude amongst some regarding face-to-face working.

Therapists are, it has to be said, a little bit prone to doing the whole "saving the world" thing, so there are threads from people saying "I'm working f2f, my clients need me", with various descriptions of how carefully they are "following the guidance".

I felt the need to (gently - some of these people get terribly precious about being disagreed with) point out that the guidance isn't some kind of guarantee of security, and particularly since the emergence of this new variant, it's hard to know exactly what "safe" is. Personally, I took the view that, regardless of 2m distancing, opening a window, and/or wearing masks, there were just too many risk factors for me to consider it safe to work in this way. Yes, there are some clients who, for all kinds of good reasons, don't want to work on the phone or video, and that has to be their choice, but I do find the exceptionalism - "well, *I'm* doing a special and Very Good thing" - rather tiring.

I had this problem when I made the - controversial - decision to close a counselling centre in April. With no precautions, beyond "follow government advice", no risk assessment, no attempt to track and trace, it was clear that we were on a sticky wicket, and it was fortunate that the Welsh Government's advice did actually make it clear that we had to be taking precautions, so I had good grounds on which to make that decision. A decision which quite a few people were utterly blindsided by, with some of them regarding it as tantamount to depriving needy clients of an essential service, regardless of the Covid-19 risks.

Mostly, I find the overwhelming notion that, just so long as everybody does exactly what they've been told to by the Government, everything will be OK really quite worrying. Particularly in a field like this - I know I'm a bit of an outlier, what with being a gobby sod who actively looks for rules to bend - but this supine acceptance of what we've been told to do is depressing, particularly amongst a group of people who are supposed to be capable of thinking creatively and exploring boundaries, not mindlessly adhering to arbitrary rules.

TBF, it's not just Covid - lots of discussions on those groups end up with people having big fits of the vapours because someone disagreed with them, and they're suddenly trying to map the whole thing onto a therapist/client framework and accuse their interlocutors of being "unethical", but I suppose my wide-eyed idealism caused me to expect that, when push finally came to shove, they'd come through.

Just to be clear about it - I'm not particularly on about those who DO take the decision to carry on working face-to-face, so much as the worrying unquestioning acceptance of Government advice, and the pearl-clutching when anyone suggests they poke their heads out of that safe little comfort zone and consider the reality for themselves.

And, I imagine, this is probably true for all kinds of professional groups. It's the kind of mindset that we really ARE going to have to address if we are to get on top of this situation.

On a slightly different tack, I note that the clown Johnson said in his Marr interview on Sunday, when pressed on further restrictions, that he "did not want to speculate". How interesting that he should conflate "speculation" with "tell us what you plan to do next" - I rather suspect that he DOESN'T know what he's going to do next, so that talking about what it might be really is speculation.

And this is the basis on which advice that is being slavishly and unthinkingly followed by people is being developed?

We need a better approach. Less sloganeering, more hard facts. Much simpler and more general rules, and *enforcement*. And for the fluffier end of my chosen line of work to grow a backbone and start thinking about what they're doing - and if they can't do that, they probably shouldn't be in the profession.

Rant over.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Totally without basis in fact but somehow it feels like everyone is now just waiting for the utter fuckwits in charge to lock everything down


It feels to me like that moment last year when the schools were a step ahead of the government.  (Albeit I’m in Scotland where it’s the New Year bank holiday, and our schools had already been told to hold off until the 18th. So my information is being filtered through Urban).

Sturgeon is telling us something at 2pm. But I do get the feeling that something in England is grumbling under, building momentum which Boris may have to ride.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> It feels to me like that moment last year when the schools were a step ahead of the government.  (Albeit I’m in Scotland where it’s the New Year bank holiday, and our schools had already been told to hold off until the 18th. So my information is being filtered through Urban).
> 
> Sturgeon is telling us something at 2pm. But I do get the feeling that something in England is grumbling under, building momentum which Boris may have to ride.


I'm not sure there's much "may" about it. 

Johnston is, once again, on the ropes, having waffled his way out of time to make a decent, timely decision, and again events are going to overtake him. My guess is that, owing to a combination of heads seeing the writing on the wall, teachers either self-isolating, being ill, or simply deciding the risk isn't worth it and voting with their feet, and many parents doing similar, he's got nowhere to go on this.

Although, as ever, the nasty Tory side of this means that the teachers, parents and kids who don't have the social capital, confidence, or bloody-mindedness, or parents who are stuck between working and looking after kids at home - these will, as ever, be the people with the fewest options, in a slightly diluted version of the "every man for himself" mentality this government embodies, fosters, and applauds.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 4, 2021)

from the beeb:


> Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been speaking to BBC Breakfast this morning as most primary schools in England are due to reopen.
> 
> The government is under pressure from unions to keep more schools shut and introduce online learning for a period, to keep coronavirus infection rates down.
> 
> The health secretary says *schools are safe* but adds, talking about closures in London and the South East *"when schools are open we know that spreads the disease more".*


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 4, 2021)

Lockdown 1 was basically the public going into lockdown and the government reacting and trying to control the narrative so they didn't look as pathetic as they were. I remember I was in one of the biggest stations in the UK at peak rush hour BEFORE the government announced anything and the place was empty. (It was terrifying at the time because I'd never seen something like that before). 

This one won't be any different. We've all essentially gone into lockdown of our own accord and eventually the government will shift their narrative to pretend they've introduced one


----------



## zora (Jan 4, 2021)

That NHS director Stephen Powis was on the radio this morning, sounding incredibly mealy-mouthed about everything. Very disappointing. 

Infinitely more confidence-inspiring (in humanity) were two women who were on after him, who spoke of the challenges of home schooling and gave some practical tips as well as emphasising the need to prioritise wellbeing of the family over any academic achievements. 
Like some of the actual frontline healthcare workers who have spoken recently, you could hear the strain of the situation in their voices, and one of them made a very impactful emotional plea to whoever with decision making power who might be listening to please give some certainty to people now.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 4, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> Lockdown 1 was basically the public going into lockdown and the government reacting and trying to control the narrative so they didn't look as pathetic as they were. I remember I was in one of the biggest stations in the UK at peak rush hour BEFORE the government announced anything and the place was empty. (It was terrifying at the time because I'd never seen something like that before).
> 
> This one won't be any different. We've all essentially gone into lockdown of our own accord and eventually the government will shift their narrative to pretend they've introduced one



It's interesting the contrast between this wave and the first with this. Back in March the prospect of parents/teachers/heads/LAs between them effectively closing schools on their own initiative was enough to force an almost immediate u-turn and an immediate closure of all schools. This time round when we're again facing a week of confusion and farce with schools, that's still not enough to budge Johnson. I wonder if the absence of Cummings is a factor here.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 4, 2021)

Has anyone seen any evidence of the Christmas day mixing producing more infections?


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Has anyone seen any evidence of the Christmas day mixing producing more infections?


Just the charts


----------



## Weller (Jan 4, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Has anyone seen any evidence of the Christmas day mixing producing more infections?


 theres some  further up
I dread to think how bad things would be if it had been left as a free for all although didn't stop lots by me breaking restrictions anyway


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 4, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Has anyone seen any evidence of the Christmas day mixing producing more infections?



Think we should start to see the figures from that coming through this week, symptoms usually show between a week and two iirc.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 4, 2021)

Jeremy effing Hunt again showing greater support for teachers than the LP


> Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt says the UK has to recognise that it is has a “very, very virulent new strain” of coronavirus.
> 
> Hunt, chair of the health and social care select committee, called it a “national emergency”, adding that the UK was “going to need to go a lot further and a lot faster and the sooner we take these tough measures the better”.
> 
> ...


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Totally without basis in fact but somehow it feels like everyone is now just waiting for the utter fuckwits in charge to lock everything down


I felt this at work today, there was a samilar feeling to March just before lockdown. Though thankfully without the panic buying. Plus with the Small one's school closing it feels as if momentum towards lockdown is growing.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> It's interesting the contrast between this wave and the first with this. Back in March the prospect of parents/teachers/heads/LAs between them effectively closing schools on their own initiative was enough to force an almost immediate u-turn and an immediate closure of all schools. This time round when we're again facing a week of confusion and farce with schools, that's still not enough to budge Johnson. I wonder if the absence of Cummings is a factor here.



Back in March they tried to sell their shit plan with schools open in a number of press conferences and the response left them in little doubt that they werent going to get away with it. It helped that other countries including those close to ours were shutting schools, and everyone knew it, and kept asking them about this rather large difference in approach. And then the modellers finally realised what stage of the first wave we had actually reached, and what the level of hospitalisations would be like in the coming weeks. These things contributed to the picture in a big way in addition to the stuff you mention.


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 4, 2021)

smmudge said:


> Plus the purpose of the vaccine is to stop people getting sick / dying from it, and may make little or no difference to how much people spread it around. So makes that argument a bit pointless.



This is notyet known either way, im making an assumption it will reduce transmission, you are making the opposite assumption, I hope I'm right.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Has anyone seen any evidence of the Christmas day mixing producing more infections?



It wont necessarily be easy to spot, at least in certain regions, due to the huge increase in cases that were already coming before Christmas. But maybe it will still stick out in some data anyway, not sure. Certainly all the reductions in mixing that happen over Christmas also need to be factored in, e the schools were shut. So it was always going to be a fairly complex picture to unpick.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> This is notyet known either way, im making an assumption it will reduce transmission, you are making the opposite assumption, I hope I'm right.



Decisions of this sort are made on the basis of evidence. Approaches that rely on hope are not sensible, the sensible approach is to proceed on the basis of facts that are more strongly established, and then be prepared to change approach as more data comes in.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 4, 2021)

Johnson's on a roll for spouting nonsense today. First up he says:

_We’ve already got a lot of the country in tier 4, some of it in tier 3. What we’ve been waiting for is to see the impact of the tier 4 measures on the virus. It’s a bit unclear still at the moment.

But I think, if you look at the numbers, there’s no question that we’re going to have to take tougher measures, and we’ll be announcing those in due course._

So it's unclear but there's no question and they're waiting to see but they are going to act. That's clear then 

And they're going to act_ in due course_. My favourite civil service weasel words. It means _we'll do it when we can be arsed, if we can be arsed, and not before. _

Then later he says:

_the risk to teachers is no greater than it is to anyone else_

Which I suppose is technically true, if anyone else was spending 6 hours a day in a room with 30 other people.

Somebody stop him. Fucking shitbag.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

From the BBC live updates page:




			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55527195


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Decisions of this sort are made on the basis of evidence. Approaches that rely on hope are not sensible, the sensible approach is to proceed on the basis of facts that are more strongly established, and then be prepared to change approach as more data comes in.



Null hypothesis


----------



## ska invita (Jan 4, 2021)

Spandex said:


> _the risk to teachers is no greater than it is to anyone else_
> which I suppose is technically true, if anyone else was spending 6 hours a day in a room with 30 other people.


this thread suggests the claim is based on summer figures


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Null hypothesis



I have failed to disprove that nullards are in charge.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

the Nullard hypothesis


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

I note that Hunt includes border closures and a halt to international travel in his list of things we should be doing.



> Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt is calling for schools and borders to close "right away" as he warns the pressures facing hospitals are "off-the -scale worse" than previous winter crises.
> 
> The chairman of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee says, while in previous years, elective care has been cancelled in January to protect emergency care that too is now under severe pressure, with "record trolley waits for the very sickest patients".
> 
> ...



From 13:03 entry on the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55527195


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 4, 2021)




----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

How much will Scotland influence Johnson? Will it be a case of a good opportunity to tag onto that as opposed to being seen to make an unpopular decision by himself?


----------



## weepiper (Jan 4, 2021)




----------



## andysays (Jan 4, 2021)

weepiper said:


>



Sounds sensible, TBH. I only wish the rest of the UK was being put under similar measures.

Is there appropriate financial support for those whose income will be affected?


----------



## killer b (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> How much will Scotland influence Johnson? Will it be a case of a good opportunity to tag onto that as opposed to being seen to make an unpopular decision by himself?


iirc Scotland got in a few hours before England with their lockdown in March too?


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

weepiper said:


>



Who on earth is going to the swings in Scotland in January? It's hardly worth leaving open.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

I was assuming they would announce a Downing Street press conference for this evening, but the silence is deafening.

Maybe he would be more on the ball, if he got it and almost died from it. Oh, hang on a minute.

WTF is wrong with the twat?


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> How much will Scotland influence Johnson? Will it be a case of a good opportunity to tag onto that as opposed to being seen to make an unpopular decision by himself?



Well, the general pattern so far has been that Scotland does something sensible, and Westminster drags its feet, huffs and puffs about doing something different, and then does a _volte face_ and follows Scotland's lead. My punt is that this won't be much different.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was assuming they would announce a Downing Street press conference for this evening, but the silence is deafening.
> 
> Maybe he would be more on the ball, if he got it and almost died from it. Oh, hang on a minute.
> 
> WTF is wrong with the twat?



Maybe his personal weight loss plan involves ending up as a head on a spike.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

Sturgeon is speaking at the moment.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 4, 2021)

*Come *_*on *_*Bojo ...*

do the right thing ! and stop wibbling ...


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

Sturgeon says they have an opportunity to avoid the situation seen in London if they act quickly. Makes a point of saying that delaying to wait for more data is understandable but not the right approach.


----------



## magneze (Jan 4, 2021)

Johnson will keep copying Scotlands homework. Probably what he did at Eton.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

People who are in the shielding group in Scotland should not go to work if they cannot work from home. They will get a letter that can act as a fit note for this purpose.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

Places of worship to close in Scotland, except for broadcasting or funerals.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

No more 'work canteens can use a 1 meter rule instead of 2 meters' in Scotland.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

Scotland are considering the possibility of vaccinating teachers & childcare staff.

Schools are shut till at least the start of February, review in mid Jan about whether Feb is possible.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Maybe his personal weight loss plan involves ending up as a head on a spike.


Well, that's one way in which he could relieve himself of 5 kg of useless lard.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

Can we just please have Sturgeon run the show until this is all over?


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 4, 2021)

I'm going a bit mad!!!!!!! Lol pmsl forced smile on my face


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Can we just please have Sturgeon run the show until this is all over?


The list of people we'd prefer Johnson over is notably short.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

I think you missed a "not" out somewhere there 

grrr misread it


----------



## magneze (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> The list of people we'd prefer Johnson over is notably short.


Trump. Ok, now I'm stuck..


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

magneze said:


> Trump. Ok, now I'm stuck..


I was thinking maaaaaybe Rees-Mogg?


----------



## chilango (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> The list of people we'd prefer Johnson over is notably short.



That Lib Dem leader in the last election? whatsername?


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 4, 2021)

chilango said:


> That Lib Dem leader in the last election? whatsername?





Lord Camomile said:


> The list of people we'd prefer Johnson over is notably short.


Fred West in his prime. But only just


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 4, 2021)

8pm johnson announcement, parliament recalled...


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 4, 2021)

chilango said:


> That Lib Dem leader in the last election? whatsername?


Blandy McThicky.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 4, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> 8pm johnson announcement, parliament recalled...



Perhaps he has a long-standing bet with an old Eton chum that he will always let Sturgeon go first.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> 8pm johnson announcement, parliament recalled...



Hmm, parliament recalled must mean we are going into a national lockdown, because that is subject to a vote in the commons.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 4, 2021)

Personally think Jan is going to be the worst month of it all. A few days in and it's already One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

A paper I had missed from November about one of the subjects I often go on about, sewage/wastewater surveillance.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/940919/S0908_Wastewater_C19_monitoring_SAGE.pdf
		


There have been more trials and proper systems setup since I last looked. The paper contains interesting info about how Wales used a system to help them see what the tourism-related risks were for Wales, with such info feeding into policy.

Liverpool also yielded interesting data. This form of surveillance is, as expected, useful and valid.





> Liverpool – Data from Sandon Docks STW indicates that SARS-CoV-2 concentrations in wastewater track the dynamics of positive case rates in both the magnitude and direction of the disease. Liverpool represents a site with a sharp increase in positive cases from mid- September to late October 2020 (Figure S2, Appendix 7.3)
> Plymouth – A distinct peak in virus load at the STW with no corresponding increase in the existing low positive case number was observed. The source was identified to be an isolated outbreak where positive case data was not included in the reported T&T numbers (Figure S3, Appendix 7.3)
> Small City – Sampling of wastewater upstream of the STW provides potential for greater measurement acuity. Low viral concentrations were identified for five consecutive days, after two weeks of ND (not detected) results at a site receiving wastewater from a multi-occupancy residential building. A positive case was subsequently reported, suggesting that low shedding rates from individuals are identifiable. An order of magnitude increase in wastewater viral concentrations was observed and further tests revealed two positive individuals (Figure S4, Appendix 7.3)
> Scotland - At Orkney STW (population equivalent 7750), virus was detected in the wastewater where less than 10 positive cases had been recorded in test numbers and Public Health Scotland were notified


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Personally think Jan is going to be the worst month of it all. A few days in and it's already One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest


I think January is going to be the worst month _yet_. I wouldn't want to bet on whether it gets still worse afterwards. On the current showing (government policy, etc), I'd say there's scope for it getting much worse.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was assuming they would announce a Downing Street press conference for this evening, but the silence is deafening.
> 
> Maybe he would be more on the ball, if he got it and almost died from it. Oh, hang on a minute.
> 
> WTF is wrong with the twat?


I'd guess he's sat there sulking, doesn't want to make it look like he's being bounced into a decision by Sturgeon again.  A mixture of petulance and trying to maintain shreds of dignity seems to be in play all the time now. For example, he just can't close all primary schools this week, purely on the grounds he's just opened them. How any government health or science adviser can stay in post whilst maintaining their own professional integrity eludes me.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 4, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I think January is going to be the worst month _yet_. I wouldn't want to bet on whether it gets still worse afterwards. On the current showing (government policy, etc), I'd say there's scope for it getting much worse.


Heard the Committee for Brutalising February has been recalled today


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

Once again, ol' Pesto has the inside goss.





Spoiler: Screenshot


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I'd guess he's sat there sulking, doesn't want to make it look like he's being bounced into a decision by Sturgeon again.  A mixture of petulance and trying to maintain shreds of dignity seems to be in play all the time now. For example, he just can't close all primary schools this week, purely on the grounds he's just opened them. How any government health or science adviser can stay in post whilst maintaining their own professional integrity eludes me.


... so, will he close schools? If he just follows Scotland, it's yes, but that makes him look weak and ridiculous, so who knows?


----------



## TopCat (Jan 4, 2021)

magneze said:


> Trump. Ok, now I'm stuck..


Ian Duncan Smith.


----------



## chilango (Jan 4, 2021)

So 3 or 4 days of superspreading in vain.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 4, 2021)

Jimmy Saville is perhaps the only person I can sensibly think of.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Hmm, parliament recalled must mean we are going into a national lockdown, because that is subject to a vote in the commons.


Not recalled till Wednesday.   Don't know what this implies.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 4, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Jimmy Saville is perhaps the only person I can sensibly think of.


Can we not? Please?


----------



## andysays (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> ... so, will he close schools? If he just follows Scotland, it's yes, but that makes him look weak and ridiculous, so who knows?


It's difficult to imagine anything he could do which wouldn't look weak and ridiculous, TBH.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 4, 2021)

chilango said:


> So 3 or 4 days of superspreading in vain.


I don’t wanna spread in vain for you Boris.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Not recalled till Wednesday.   Don't know what this implies.


Weeeeell, everyone's still getting back into the swing of things after the Christmas break, no need to rush.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 4, 2021)




----------



## TopCat (Jan 4, 2021)

Will tier six be army in the streets enforcing lockdown? Or is that tier six plus?


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> ... so, will he close schools? If he just follows Scotland, it's yes, but that makes him look weak and ridiculous, so who knows?


I think if he was genuinely worried about looking weak and ridiculous he might have behaved quite differently over the past couple of years.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

TopCat said:


> Will tier six be army in the streets enforcing lockdown? Or is that tier six plus?


Tier 6 Prime.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

maomao said:


> I think if he was genuinely worried about looking weak and ridiculous he might have behaved quite differently over the past couple of years.


I dunno, that suggests he'd have the first clue how to do otherwise.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> Tier 6 Prime.



Sponsored by Amazon.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

TopCat said:


> Will tier six be army in the streets enforcing lockdown? Or is that tier six plus?


I'm not sure we've got enough army left, TBH, A decade-plus of cheeseparing, on top of previous efforts, means that we're on the bones of our arse. For military, police, medical staff, teachers...it's almost as if austerity has come back to bite them on the arse, or something. They have precious few options, and it is probably only their incompetence that is preventing them from realising that.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Looks to me that around 8k people have died (registered as Covid 28 days) since the last time that Johnson spoke on 19th December and passed up the opportunity to impose the lockdown that was so obviously needed even then.


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> I dunno, that suggests he'd have the first clue how to do otherwise.


In my experience of working for public school boys it's more likely he just doesn't give a shit what normal people think.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> Once again, ol' Pesto has the inside goss.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So, let's just pause here. Since some point early December, we've known about a new strain and that it was already pushing infection rates up, to the point where NHS services were at risk. In the space of 10 fucking days the government have given us:
A) A multigenerational superspreader day, basically a Christmas present for the virus. Also, primary schools opening.
B) Assuming the Peston stuff is accurate, a full national lockdown + closure of all schools. All in response to the same trends that were clear weeks ago.

JUST. WOW.


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Looks to me that around 8k people have died (registered as Covid 28 days) since the last time that Johnson spoke on 19th December and passed up the opportunity to impose the lockdown that was so obviously needed even then.


Most of them will have been infected before the 19th. The true toll of his latest blunders won't be apparent for a while.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Looks to me that around 8k people have died (registered as Covid 28 days) since the last time that Johnson spoke on 19th December and passed up the opportunity to impose the lockdown that was so obviously needed even then.



He was in press conferences on the 21st and 30th December too.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Since some point early December,


That would be September.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> So, let's just pause here. Since some point early December, we've known about a new strain and that it was already pushing infection rates up, to the point where NHS services were at risk. In the space of 10 fucking days the government have given us:
> A) A multigenerational superspreader day, basically a Christmas present for the virus. Also, primary schools opening.
> B) Assuming the Peston stuff is accurate, a full national lockdown + closure of all schools. All in response to the same trends that were clear weeks ago.
> 
> JUST. WOW.



Yeah open schools for one fucking day, just to stir the pot a bit. Genius.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> So, let's just pause here. Since some point early December, we've known about a new strain and that it was already pushing infection rates up, to the point where NHS services were at risk. In the space of 10 fucking days the government have given us:
> A) A multigenerational superspreader day, basically a Christmas present for the virus. Also, primary schools opening.
> B) Assuming the Peston stuff is accurate, a full national lockdown + closure of all schools. All in response to the same trends that were clear weeks ago.
> 
> JUST. WOW.





SpookyFrank said:


> Yeah open schools for one fucking day, just to stir the pot a bit. Genius.


Aside from the virology aspect, they've put so many education professionals and parents through so much fucking stress, and for fucking nothing. It's obscene from so many angles.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 4, 2021)

magneze said:


> Trump. Ok, now I'm stuck..


fucking Gove ? as someone's already said ree-smog, the cunt.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> Aside from the virology aspect, they've put so many education professionals and parents through so much fucking stress, and for fucking nothing. It's obscene from so many angles.


And kids. Those worrying about the effect on the prospects of children through missing exams would do well to ponder on what effect they imagine this unnecessary uncertainty and rapid no-notice change is going to be having on their mental health - and (AGAIN ) we know that children's mental health has been on its uppers since LONG before the pandemic.

These people really do have blood on their hands, and there is plenty more to come, even 10, 20 years down the line at this rate.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yeah open schools for one fucking day, just to stir the pot a bit. Genius.


I'd be surprised if he doesn't come up with some convoluted way of making it look like he hasn't closed the schools after one day.  It's a case of looking at the world through your fingers to see the next horror/absurdity emerge from this administration.  At one level I can't see them closing schools till the end of the week, as the thinnest of arse coverage, but then what else can he be coming out with tonight? If you are right, opening schools and closing them within say 48 hours will be genuinely the most stupid thing they've done (to be clear, it was the opening them in the first place that was the stupid bit).  Anyway, I'm babbling, this is just astonishing stuff.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

existentialist said:


> there is plenty more to come, even 10, 20 years down the line at this rate.


Indeed. I keep thinking of a West Wing quote: "we don't know what the injury count is yet"


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

MrSki said:


> That would be September.



The implications of the new strain arent fully understood now and certainly werent then. Other pandemic indicators were bad in September and should have lead to stronger action than we got, but such decisions wouldnt initially have been new strain related.

In terms of the most recent surge, using hospital data from London, the South East and the East, the penny should have dropped by around 7th-12th December. Regardless of how far they were at that point towards making a link between increased rates and new strain, that was a time for strong action on the basis of levels of infection and hospitalisations.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> A paper I had missed from November about one of the subjects I often go on about, sewage/wastewater surveillance.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's interesting.

I'ld add a bit of a caveat.
Waste water testing is fine as a source for warnings about changes in the prevalaence of the virus ...
But, in the largely rural area I live in, a good proportion of the housing is not connected to mains drainage.
The septic tanks (etc) are the responsibility of the households connected to them (why we pay the waste water precept I have no idea, we get nothing for it !)


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 4, 2021)

My 9 year old was crying this morning saying why doesn't Boris just close the schools? So hard for her to understand why the PM doesn't do the right thing. How does a 9 year old get her head around why the most powerful person in the country doesn't do the right thing? And so hard to have your parents disagreeing with people in charge.


----------



## killer b (Jan 4, 2021)

Red Cat said:


> How does a 9 year old get her head around why the most powerful person in the country doesn't do the right thing? And so hard to have your parents disagreeing with people in charge.


I dunno, I was 9 in 1986 in a household of Labour activists, I don't recall either of these things being particularly difficult to understand or get my head round.


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 4, 2021)

killer b said:


> I dunno, I was 9 in 1986 in a household of Labour activists, I don't recall either of these things being particularly difficult to understand or get my head round.



I'm talking specifically about something that is life threatening rather than more general politics and the school being open and us keeping her off. Obviously she knows we're not tories.


----------



## chilango (Jan 4, 2021)

Red Cat said:


> My 9 year old was crying this morning saying why doesn't Boris just close the schools? So hard for her to understand why the PM doesn't do the right thing. How does a 9 year old get her head around why the most powerful person in the country doesn't do the right thing? And so hard to have your parents disagreeing with people in charge.



My 8 year old was pretty screaming with rage when Johnson "cancelled Christmas" and - completely unprompted from me - through tears of frustration begged for a better Prime Minister.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 4, 2021)

Must find out what my niece is doing with her sprogs, I suspect they'll be schooled at home again, as all the adults in their household will be WFH / shielding again.


----------



## chilango (Jan 4, 2021)

At around the same age I was in a mini-lockdown due to the Moss Side riots, and around the same time saw the police beating the shit out of homeless man in Chorlton precinct. Those memories never left me, and I'm certain were formative in shaping how I viewed the world.


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

My five year old knows that Boris is a piece of shit. It's the only time she's allowed to swear. When I was moaning about Gavin Williamson the other day she asked me if he's a piece of shit too.


----------



## zora (Jan 4, 2021)

It is utterly mindboggling; the confusion and uncertainty, worry and fear sown way beyond what is inevitable with a problem of this magnitude. 
I have suffered mentally and emotionally quite a lot through all this, today I thought for the first time "I feel actively terrorised" by this government.


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 4, 2021)

zora said:


> It is utterly mindboggling; the confusion and uncertainty, worry and fear sown way beyond what is inevitable with a problem of this magnitude.
> I have suffered mentally and emotionally quite a lot through all this, today I thought for the first time "I feel actively terrorised" by this government.



That's how it felt this morning, and watching my youngest cry. I thought you're fucking with her head.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

zora said:


> It is utterly mindboggling; the confusion and uncertainty, worry and fear sown way beyond what is inevitable with a problem of this magnitude.
> I have suffered mentally and emotionally quite a lot through all this, today I thought for the first time "I feel actively terrorised" by this government.


(((zora)))


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

chilango said:


> My 8 year old was pretty screaming with rage when Johnson "cancelled Christmas" and - completely unprompted from me - through tears of frustration begged for a better Prime Minister.


the only good prime minister is...


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> Tier 6 Prime.



Then we get 7 and 8. After that it’s tier X. Then they start naming them after scenic bits of the uk. On which basis the first one will be ‘Tier Great Cockup’.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> I’ve noticed adverts for travel companies starting to pop up on fb, YouTube etc (Ryanair, because of course it would be, also jet2). These are already feeding off ‘vaccine means everything back to normal’.
> 
> My thinking on the situation in general is all over the place at the moment tbh. It seems half the world is aiming for vaccine to mitigate effects, and half the world is aiming for very low rates, with a possibility of elimination with a sterilising vaccine at some later date. I mean how does that match up? Is there just an expectation that the entire Asia/pacific region accept the
> 
> ...



the great covid swindle


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

Keir Starmer has finally woken up, calling for all schools to be closed as part of national restrictions.


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 4, 2021)

maomao said:


> My five year old knows that Boris is a piece of shit. It's the only time she's allowed to swear. When I was moaning about Gavin Williamson the other day she asked me if he's a piece of shit too.



I don't mean to suggest that my children don't have views on Boris Johnson, but when there's something that could kill her father (who is clinically vulnerable) and he doesn't do what he needs to do, it takes on an extra edge.


----------



## ska invita (Jan 4, 2021)

maomao said:


> In my experience of working for public school boys it's more likely he just doesn't give a shit what normal people think.


what normal people think


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> the great covid swindle



How do you reply so fucking quickly? I hadn’t finished that bit of post and just meant to reply to Cam. But obviously board saving thing being what it is... no matter.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 4, 2021)

Do the LibDems have a leader now, since that Nayla Lauren quit?


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

ska invita said:


> what normal people think



Doesn't have 'don't knows' and 'fuck offs' though. It's not like it's actually 46% of the population. I'd move country if it was.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Do the LibDems have a leader now since that Nayla Lauren quit?



Who are these 'LibDems', you speak of?


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

Red Cat said:


> My 9 year old was crying this morning saying why doesn't Boris just close the schools? So hard for her to understand why the PM doesn't do the right thing. How does a 9 year old get her head around why the most powerful person in the country doesn't do the right thing? And so hard to have your parents disagreeing with people in charge.


when i was young i thought that the people in charge must be really clever and know things not revealed to us mere mortals. then as i have grown aulder and i hope wiser i have realised that they are stupider than anyone would believe and while they may have information which isn't revealed to everyone that doesn't enable them to actually make better decisions. a case in point: every time boris johnson (or for that matter theresa may or david cameron) has had to make an important decision he's got it wrong. such shitty decision making wouldn't be the case if the prime minister or his cabinet simply flipped coins for the decisions or consulted the tarot or i ching - in those situations some of the decisions would be good decisions. they're thick as pigshit, every one.


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

ska invita said:


> what normal people think




Britain is fucking weird.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> Then we get 7 and 8. After that it’s tier X. Then they start naming them after scenic bits of the uk. On which basis the first one will be ‘Tier Great Cockup’.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Who are these 'LibDems', you speak of?


the notorious 'golden shower'


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 4, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> the notorious 'golden shower'


Brown thunder more like, lest we forget Mark Oaten


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

Another record for daily reported new cases - 58,784

That's 383,834 in the last 7 days, up 49.8%

New deaths reported - 404.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Brown thunder more like, lest we forget Mark Oaten


yeh - if they had a brown logo


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another record for daily reported new cases - 58, 784


#worldbeating


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 4, 2021)

58?


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Keir Starmer has finally woken up, calling for all schools to be closed as part of national restrictions.


That itself is a shift from yesterday I think. Yesterday's Forensic Sensible-ism was _National Lockdown and, errr, something something about schools._


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> That itself is a shift from yesterday I think. Yesterday's Forensic Sensible-ism was _National Lockdown and, errr, something something about schools._


Just beaten to it by Jeremy Hunt and the Conservative leader of Kent County Council


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> Britain is fucking weird.


Presume there's an element of (finally) getting brexit done in that poll. Well, I hope to fuck it's a not a statement of what we as a country think about their handling of the pandemic. But still, FFS!


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 4, 2021)

How many deaths does it take? - Anarchist Communist Group
					

From the No Safety, No Work website    “How many deaths does it take till we know that too many people have died?”    The rapid rise in both new cases and deaths is not a surprise to most. Yet it seems that the government didn’t think it would happen, or preferred not to accept it because it...




					www.anarchistcommunism.org


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> He was in press conferences on the 21st and 30th December too.


Yep, I was thinking of the last 'major' statement to the public type of event thing.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 4, 2021)

Labour in Wales still defending keeping schools open (from Guardian feed)


> Schools in Wales will begin to reopen this month unless the evidence about the new strain of coronavirus changes, the country’s health minister, *Vaughan Gething,* has said.
> 
> Some schools in Wales are preparing to resume face-to-face learning as early as Wednesday, in line with the government’s current plan to allow them to choose when to reopen ahead of an expected full return by 18 January.
> 
> ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

One week on....



... and the rest of Surrey, Brighton & Hove City, plus all of West Sussex except the rural Chichester district, which is not far behind, have all gone purple - that's 8 different borough/district/city council areas!  

ETA - Plus Crawley turns dark purple.

Cases per 100k in Worthing has gone from under 25 to over 633 in less than 5 weeks.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Yep, I was thinking of the last 'major' statement to the public type of event thing.


one of the areas where this country could learn from some of our european friends is in the field of public speaking.

if johnson was forced to declaim his speeches from a balcony like auld ceaucescu he'd perhaps be better able to gauge the reaction to his pisspoor oratory.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

It's absolutely fucking criminal how slow of thought and deed these ghouls in charge are. They've caused huge amounts of stress to pupils, parents and educators alike for fuck-all when a drunk tapeworm living in the arse of an abyssal viperfish could see weeks ago what should and shouldn't be done. I genuinely despise them for doing this to us.


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jan 4, 2021)

Why 8pm for a tv message ? Why not now, so people can digest whatever shite about face instructions you will be issuing. Give people enough time  to arrange childcare and cover - you pumpkins heeded imbecile


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

not-bono-ever said:


> Why 8pm for a tv message ? Why not now, so people can digest whatever shite about face instructions you will be issuing. Give people enough time  to arrange childcare and cover - you pumpkins heeded imbecile


and you know it will be delivered late


----------



## zora (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> It's absolutely fucking criminal how slow of thought and deed these ghouls in charge are. They've caused huge amounts of stress to pupils, parents and educators alike for fuck-all when a drunk tapeworm living in the arse of an abyssal viperfish could see weeks ago what should and shouldn't be done. I genuinely despise them for doing this to us.



Well said!


----------



## MrSki (Jan 4, 2021)

ska invita said:


> what normal people think



That is because Starmer has been so shite. Not really being opposing much recently & not standing up for the teaching unions is one way to alienate labour voters.


----------



## magneze (Jan 4, 2021)

It's weird. In a way it's worse than Trump. He's just doing nothing. Whereas we have a government who appear to be able to cock everything up, every single time, without fail.


----------



## killer b (Jan 4, 2021)

not-bono-ever said:


> Why 8pm for a tv message ? Why not now, so people can digest whatever shite about face instructions you will be issuing. Give people enough time  to arrange childcare and cover - you pumpkins heeded imbecile


they need to decide what to say first I suppose. this morning they were pushing on.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> That's interesting.
> 
> I'ld add a bit of a caveat.
> Waste water testing is fine as a source for warnings about changes in the prevalaence of the virus ...
> ...


Given the broad brush nature of sewage analysis, it probably lends itself better to larger, more built-up areas where sewage is collected and treated centrally in any case. Rural/less densely populated areas would, I imagine, have less of a need of such an indicator anyway.


----------



## prunus (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:
			
		

> ...a drunk tapeworm living in the arse of an abyssal viperfish could see weeks ago what should and shouldn't be done.



From what I could see on the Andrew Marr show the other day he couldn’t see in fact.


----------



## lazythursday (Jan 4, 2021)

It's just unbearable. Locally we have been under restrictions since June, I think, it's so fucking hard to remember now - and in mid December we actually got well below 200 per 100,000, consistently. Light blue on the map! A sense of things actually not being shit scarey. And here we are, dark blue again, cases rapidly increasing, all just so predictable and infuriating. And under no illusions it is going to get so much worse.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

I'm going to stick my neck out and go

1x _with a heavy heart_
3x _alas_
47x _ehm_
1x obscure mythological reference or Latin phrase
1x _schools are safe_
2x _insinuation it's everyone else's fault_
1x _it's vital we act NOW so from midnight Saturday..._


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I'm going to stick my neck out and go
> 
> 1x _with a heavy heart_
> 3x _alas_
> ...


"great British public"
"we'll beat this by [ludicrous over-promising date]"


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I'm going to stick my neck out and go
> 
> 1x _with a heavy heart_
> 3x _alas_
> ...


he'd cheer the nation if he used the opportunity to commit seppuku


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> one of the areas where this country could learn from some of our european friends is in the field of public speaking.
> 
> if johnson was forced to declaim his speeches from a balcony like auld ceaucescu he'd perhaps be better able to gauge the reaction to his pisspoor oratory.


Be more than content with the eventual ceaucescu outcome for johnson


----------



## mauvais (Jan 4, 2021)

not-bono-ever said:


> Why 8pm for a tv message ? Why not now, so people can digest whatever shite about face instructions you will be issuing. Give people enough time  to arrange childcare and cover - you pumpkins heeded imbecile


It'll be about 21.30 by the time he turns up anyway.


----------



## magneze (Jan 4, 2021)

It'll probably be him getting vaccinated on telly.

"Thanks for your time. Remember schools are safe. Bonus fortuna!"

_shambles off_


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

not-bono-ever said:


> Why 8pm for a tv message ? Why not now, so people can digest whatever shite about face instructions you will be issuing. Give people enough time  to arrange childcare and cover - you pumpkins heeded imbecile



It's the PM addressing the nation, rather than a normal Downing Street press conference, so going for prime time, instead of early evening.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

killer b said:


> they need to decide what to say first I suppose. this morning they were pushing on.


Suspect as much effort goes into smoozing the swivel-eyed death cultist backbenchers and corporate interests as actually devising public-health related solutions.


----------



## Aladdin (Jan 4, 2021)

existentialist said:


> And kids. Those worrying about the effect on the prospects of children through missing exams would do well to ponder on what effect they imagine this unnecessary uncertainty and rapid no-notice change is going to be having on their mental health - and (AGAIN ) we know that children's mental health has been on its uppers since LONG before the pandemic.
> 
> These people really do have blood on their hands, and there is plenty more to come, even 10, 20 years down the line at this rate.




I have an 8 yr old godchild. She cries every night about the virus. She likes school but is so stressed because she thinks if she catches it and gives it to her nana that nana will die.  She loves school. But at the same time she is on edge in school...petrified. 
She liked being homeschooled during the first  lockdown but mostly because she was let read whatever she wanted 🙂


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jan 4, 2021)

> According to the Financial Times (paywall), which says it has been briefed by “several Whitehall officials”, cabinet ministers agreed this afternoon that “primary and secondary schools would probably close until the mid-February half-term break”.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 4, 2021)

So it was well worth saving that decision until after the schools in England had all been open a day, and waiting until 8pm to tell anyone.


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> Once again, ol' Pesto has the inside goss.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




He's wrong mind you. Can't have tier 4 everywhere and a tough national lockdown.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> So it was well worth saving that decision until after the schools in England had all been open a day, and waiting until 8pm to tell anyone.


It really is hard to believe they're not doing this on purpose, sometimes. Obviously it's easier to see what has gone wrong than what didn't, but fucking christ they're just utterly woeful at every damned turn.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> So it was well worth saving that decision until after the schools in England had all been open a day, and waiting until 8pm to tell anyone.


Realise I'm obsessing on the details of a bunch of weirdos rather than the political economy of this whole clusterfuck, but really, how do they spend their time?  Assuming all schools are about to close, what the fuck have ministers been doing in the last few days? Could they not have, y'know, had a chat about it or something?


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

They just don't have a clue. Like Pickman's model said, the last few years of government have really brought home how... unexceptional... the people at the top are. It's so fucking bizarre watching this happen.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Be more than content with the eventual ceaucescu outcome for johnson


hopefully he'll die in grytviken at christmas


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 4, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> So it was well worth saving that decision until after the schools in England had all been open a day, and waiting until 8pm to tell anyone.



I wonder how many virus transmissions there were in schools today ?

[I get the feeling that there might have been a lot of absentees]


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> They just don't have a clue. Like Pickman's model said, the last few years of government have really brought home how... unexceptional... the people at the top are. It's so fucking bizarre watching this happen.


And _unexceptional _is stretching generosity to its very limits.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

'Look, Prime Minister, this thing happens on date X which means you have to make a decision about it by date Y. Yes, have you got it?'
- wibble, gosh, something about Aesop.
'Right okay, but you've got it haven't you? Make a decision by Y in order for the thing to happen on date X? Yes?'
- can I go out and play now?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Be more than content with the eventual ceaucescu outcome for johnson


Saw some random on twatter this morning say that there we were arguing about whether or not secondary schools should be closed along with primary when, really we should be deciding on whether to break into Downing Street through the front or back doors to dispatch those responsible for 90k deaths.


----------



## andysays (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> They just don't have a clue. Like Pickman's model said, the last few years of government have really brought home how... unexceptional... the people at the top are. It's so fucking bizarre watching this happen.


You could even say they are exceptionally unexceptional.

Still waiting to see exactly what Johnson says, but it appears to be yet another case of them attempting to put off the inevitable but being effectively forced to announce a u-turn because practically everyone in the country realises before them that keeping schools open is unsustainable.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> That itself is a shift from yesterday I think. Yesterday's Forensic Sensible-ism was _National Lockdown and, errr, something something about schools._



Yeah yesterday included a load of shit about not wanting to add to the chaos by calling for schools to close. Not convinced that changing approach a day later counts as a chaos-secure approach. And various nods to 'working parents' which can be interpreted in several different ways including shitty economic priorities of the establishment.


----------



## Flavour (Jan 4, 2021)

Well I for one think it was very sensible to keep schools open for a day just to trick that dastardly virus into a false sense of security! And giving the speech just before curfew kicks in (and when the virus famously then comes out to play) another stroke of genius by the big man. Now that wretched swine will really be given a good thumping, I say! A good old fashioned crash-sacking, back like in the old days. He won't know what's hit him!!


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 4, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Saw some random on twatter this morning say that there we were arguing about whether or not secondary schools should be closed along with primary when, really we should be deciding on whether to break into Downing Street through the front or back doors to dispatch those responsible for 90k deaths.


I'm sure I saw something earlier today that suggested certain experts were predicting - unless something like a very strict lockdown happens now - that the UK could see in the region of 100k covid deaths by the end of January. [and that is not counting excess deaths from winter & other illnesses].

But in my opinion, it is not just schools that need to go on-line, it is universities as well.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

Just in terms of policy making, the art of government, just making straight decisions, I struggle to think of a period in British public life where those in charge have fucked up so much. There are different kinds of catastrophes, such as support for the Iraq invasion or 'light touch' regulation of the the stock market that led to the 2007-8 crash, but they were appalling ideological decisions made by broadly competent administrations (at least in terms of their technical ability to govern). This is something quite different, a baseline reactivity to events, inertia and daily clown car fuck ups and reversals. It's way beyond a lack of strategy, something far worse, weak minded venal individuals with very little aptitude for the very thing they are supposed to be doing.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Just when you thought that there was no single tory minister on top of this unfolding public health disaster...



carols on January 4th.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> "great British public"
> "we'll beat this by [ludicrous over-promising date]"



We got Brexit done we get this done

as well


----------



## weltweit (Jan 4, 2021)

Just watching Sturgeon's statement. 

She seems calm and competent, compared to Johnson et al ..


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

Flavour said:


> Well I for one think it was very sensible to keep schools open for a day just to trick that dastardly virus into a false sense of security! And giving the speech just before curfew kicks in (and when the virus famously then comes out to play) another stroke of genius by the big man. Now that wretched swine will really be given a good thumping, I say! A good old fashioned crash-sacking, back like in the old days. He won't know what's hit him!!


Yes, I suspect the virus is knackered after running amok on Christmas Day. Opening the schools is genius, it'll hardly have time to get it's boots on before we're all back home. It'll probably pack it's stuff up and toddle off. WELL DONE BORIS!


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Yes, I suspect the virus is knackered after running amok on Christmas Day. Opening the schools is genius, it'll hardly have time to get it's boots on before we're all back home. It'll probably pack it's stuff up and toddle off. WELL DONE BORIS!


Yeah, but make sure that you call the cunting great cunt by his surname; the cunt.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 4, 2021)

Boris Johnson really is the most worthless piece of shit to lead this country since those worthless pieces of shit who led us into and conducted WWI. His decision-making is arguably worse.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jan 4, 2021)

MrSki said:


> That is because Starmer has been so shite. Not really being opposing much recently & not standing up for the teaching unions is one way to alienate labour voters.


So true!


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Boris Johnson really is the most worthless piece of shit to lead this country since those worthless pieces of shit who led us into and conducted WWI tony blair. His decision-making is arguably worse.


ffy


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Yeah, but make sure that you call the cunting great cunt by his surname; the cunt.


I usually go with 'johnson', but wanted some ironic variety.  _Venal shit_ _stain _is heading up the list of preferred monikers.  It's strange, today I feel an extra layer of contempt for the man.  Any one of them who ends up PM is a self interested shit in my book, but with johnson I think it's that he didn't have a single idea about what he wanted to do as PM. If things had played out differently he could have been the PM _stopping _Brexit being done rather than getting it done. He's a solipsistic skidmark who could hold a dozen contradictory views at once if they benefitted him.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Boris Johnson really is the most worthless piece of shit to lead this country since those worthless pieces of shit who led us into and conducted WWI. His decision-making is arguably worse.


'_In my hand I have a piece of paper, oh, hang on, I've dropped it...'_


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> '_In my hand I have a piece of paper, oh, hang on, I've dropped it...' my last piece of toilet paper._



C4U


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 4, 2021)

Handoncock being torn a new arsehole this morning. What a dithering wreck.



Also, he's only 42? Just a few years older than me and I can barely run a car. Surely they should have got one of the older divs to do his his role.


----------



## Espresso (Jan 4, 2021)

He's in charge of Health, isn't he? The buck stops with him


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 4, 2021)

He's a strong 76% Partridge too


----------



## Sunray (Jan 4, 2021)

Boris needs to go. 
What are the chances of such a clown coming to power at the exact moment we need someone with more than 1/2 a brain?


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 4, 2021)

too





Espresso said:


> He's in charge of Health, isn't he? The buck stops with him


That's what I mean. For the job I meant.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> It really is hard to believe they're not doing this on purpose, sometimes. Obviously it's easier to see what has gone wrong than what didn't, but fucking christ they're just utterly woeful at every damned turn.



Given that Johnston and his chums had the finest education that privilege can buy, you'd like to think that at least one of his staff would be capable of seeing how _inept _this looks. Threaten London councils who close schools with legal action on Monday, order the closure of schools on Wednesday. Appear on national television on Sunday to state schools are perfectly safe, appear on national television 24 hours later and close them. 

You'd also assume that even within the warm bubble within which they live there must be a growing alarm that their incompetence and vapid stupidity is becoming increasingly apparent.

But you'd be wrong. I fully expect Johnston to attempt to pretend that the material conditions at 8.00 tonight are completely different to what they were at 9.00 yesterday morning. I fully expect the political class and journalists not to challenge him on it and I fully expect Starmer and chums to proclaim some great victory.

It'd almost be funny if they weren't killing people as a result.......


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jan 4, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> hopefully he'll die in grytviken at christmas


 

Every day will be Christmas Day for the residents if they see a new dawn


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

I know I had forgotten about them, anyone remember the 'alert levels'? 



> *The UK's coronavirus alert level will be raised from 4 to 5 for the first time*, government sources have said.
> 
> Level 5 or "red" means there is a "material risk of healthcare services being overwhelmed", compared to Level 4 when transmission of the virus is "high or rising exponentially". The COVID-19 alert level refers to the threat of the epidemic and is separate from the tiering system in England.
> 
> ...











						COVID-19: UK coronavirus alert level to be raised as NHS 'could be overwhelmed without more action'
					

The UK's chief medical officers warn there is a "material risk" of the NHS being overwhelmed over the next 21 days.




					news.sky.com


----------



## killer b (Jan 4, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I fully expect Johnston to attempt to pretend that the material conditions at 8.00 tonight are completely different to what they were at 9.00 yesterday morning.


he was still arguing for keeping schools open_ this morning_


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jan 4, 2021)

Piss taking aside, these lot are murderous incompetent fuckers . If they were in any other field of employment, they would be facing criminal charges by now


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Given that Johnston and his chums had the finest education that privilege can buy, you'd like to think that at least one of his staff would be capable of seeing how _inept _this looks. Threaten London councils who close schools with legal action on Monday, order the closure of schools on Wednesday. Appear on national television on Sunday to state schools are perfectly safe, appear on national television 24 hours later and close them.
> 
> You'd also assume that even within the warm bubble within which they live there must be a growing alarm that their incompetence and vapid stupidity is becoming increasingly apparent.
> 
> ...


They won't be worried about what they look like for another three and a half years. Then they'll start claiming Starmer's a communist.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 4, 2021)

That glorious victory over the teaching unions is not looking like a viable strategic outcome at this point.


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

not-bono-ever said:


> Piss taking aside, these lot are murderous incompetent fuckers . If they were in any other field of employment, they would be facing criminal charges by now


Tbf I've seen public schoolboy cokeheads put a private company that had been thriving into administration through sheer hubris and incompetence. Only fucked up a few dozen lives in the process though.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Jan 4, 2021)

not-bono-ever said:


> Piss taking aside, these lot are murderous incompetent fuckers . If they were in any other field of employment, they would be facing criminal charges by now



I very much hope that once the public inquiry into their handling of the pandemic gets underway that Johnson, Hancock, Williamson and their cronies face manslaughter cases


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 4, 2021)

The tier level is going to be based on how many times johnson says 'alas' in the press conference


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

ponder talking his company into letting him work from home during the new lockdown

its going to be shite ya know keeps schools open and most businesses and no legal requirement to stay home

just more ballocks that can be used as a way to Say "well you did not listen to our half arsed advice so its all your fault"

still expecting him to come out with the well we told you to stay away from each other at christmas and you did not so fuck you its your fault


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

If Tier 3 is 'very high' and Tier 4 is 'stay at home' what is tier 5 going to be? 'Fucking stay the fuck at home'? 'STAY AT HOME'?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 4, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I very much hope that once the public inquiry into their handling of the pandemic gets underway that Johnson, Hancock, Williamson and their cronies face manslaughter cases



They'll all be long gone before the results of any inquiry come in. Quite possibly to the point of skipping the country and going to ground.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

ponders how long it will take the police to come out after the announcement going "well fuck that we don't have the funds to fight crime"

Policing the lockdown then outsourced to Hancocks mate from Uni who now works at Serco


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 4, 2021)

maomao said:


> If Tier 3 is 'very high' and Tier 4 is 'stay at home' what is tier 5 going to be? 'Fucking stay the fuck at home'? 'STAY AT HOME'?



Socially distance, even from yourself.

Lucky I'm beside myself already.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

maomao said:


> If Tier 3 is 'very high' and Tier 4 is 'stay at home' what is tier 5 going to be?



'prepare to die'.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I know I had forgotten about them, anyone remember the 'alert levels'?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


they didn't map a very good way


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 4, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> ponders how long it will take the police to come out after the announcement going "well fuck that we don't have the funds to fight crime"
> 
> Policing the lockdown then outsourced to Hancocks mate from Uni who now works at Serco



Serco? More likely they'll hand the national policing contract to a chinese restaurant that once gave Priti Patel an extra plate of dumplings free of charge.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jan 4, 2021)

Christina Pagel says that NHS is facing unprecedented strain - worse than the first wave.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> 'prepare to die'.



tier 5 in action


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

Just published -


*COVID-19 alert level: update from the UK Chief Medical Officers*
A joint statement from the UK Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) recommending that the UK COVID-19 alert level move from level 4 to level 5.

Following advice from the Joint Biosecurity Centre and in the light of the most recent data, the 4 UK Chief Medical Officers and NHS England Medical Director recommend that the UK alert level should move from level 4 to level 5.

Many parts of the health systems in the 4 nations are already under immense pressure. There are currently very high rates of community transmission, with substantial numbers of COVID patients in hospitals and in intensive care.

Cases are rising almost everywhere, in much of the country driven by the new more transmissible variant. We are not confident that the NHS can handle a further sustained rise in cases and without further action there is a material risk of the NHS in several areas being overwhelmed over the next 21 days.

Although the NHS is under immense pressure, significant changes have been made so people can still receive lifesaving treatment. It is absolutely critical that people still come forward for emergency care. If you require non-urgent medical attention, please contact your GP or call NHS 111.









						COVID-19 alert level: update from the UK Chief Medical Officers
					

A joint statement from the UK Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) recommending that the UK COVID-19 alert level move from level 4 to level 5.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## bimble (Jan 4, 2021)

Jeremy hunt quoted in guardian as saying ‘these new tougher measures would only be needed for about 12 weeks’..
That’s 3 months, that’s long, if it’s to be a proper March-like stay at home thing.









						UK to move to highest coronavirus alert level as full lockdowns loom
					

Boris Johnson to make TV announcement on Monday night after pressure to tackle soaring infection rate




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Boris needs to go.
> What are the chances of such a clown coming to power at the exact moment we need someone with more than 1/2 a brain?



Dunno... 80-90%?

Much of the west has totally dropped the ball on this one. Might not just be a problem with whichever scum happens to be floating on top.

*I mean that the there are a lot of systems that need major reevaluation, not that everything below the scum is also shit. Just wanted to keep it pithy.


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

bimble said:


> Jeremy hunt quoted in guardian as saying ‘these new tougher measures would only be needed for about 12 weeks’..
> That’s 3 months, that’s long, if it’s to be a proper March-like stay at home thing.
> 
> 
> ...



Of course Johnson is one of those people who can barely keep his mask over his nose <video in link>.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I'm going to stick my neck out and go
> 
> 1x _with a heavy heart_
> 3x _alas_
> ...






Spoiler: Screenshot


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> Of course Johnson is one of those people who can barely keep his mask over his nose <video in link>.


when the hour comes he'll be one of those people who can barely keep his head on his neck


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Serco? More likely they'll hand the national policing contract to a chinese restaurant that once gave Priti Patel an extra plate of dumplings free of charge.


I don't reckon Patel eats dumplings. She's probably one of those weirdos that only eats exactly-parallel-cut bits of celery with small quantities of a dressing made from the tears of newly-made orphans.


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

bimble said:


> Jeremy hunt quoted in guardian as saying ‘these new tougher measures would only be needed for about 12 weeks’..
> That’s 3 months, that’s long, if it’s to be a proper March-like stay at home thing.
> 
> 
> ...



"it's not just a manufacturing issue... it's also that each batch needs to be quality controlled".

Mate... mate. Now I know you've not really been involved in the real world, but...


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> "it's not just a manufacturing issue... it's also that each batch needs to be quality controlled".
> 
> Mate... mate. Now I know you've not really been involved in the real world, but...


The only thing they seem able to do with any aplomb is making excuses.


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I don't reckon Patel eats dumplings. She's probably one of those weirdos that only eats exactly-parallel-cut bits of celery with small quantities of a dressing made from the tears of newly-made orphans.


I reckon she eats Klingon 'gagh'. With orpan tear dressing naturally.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I know I had forgotten about them, anyone remember the 'alert levels'?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The Joint Biosecurity Centre had not been mentioned much in recent months either. Maybe they forgot they came up with it, perhaps having smoked their way to the centre of a biosecurity joint.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 4, 2021)

existentialist said:


> The only thing they seem able to do with any aplomb is making excuses.


and even that's poor aplomb


----------



## Espresso (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> Spoiler: Screenshot
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 247084



If we all down a shot each time one of those gets said, everyone will be plastered by ten minutes after he starts.
I was going to say ten past eight, but I know better now. It's not like he thinks punctuality applies to him.



Cid said:


> "it's not just a manufacturing issue... it's also that each batch needs to be quality controlled".
> 
> Mate... mate. Now I know you've not really been involved in the real world, but...


I know.   
It's not like Astra Zeneca will ever have had to do routine QC work throughout the production or in order to release any of the products they've ever made before, now izzit? It'll all be new to them, right enough. 

What an absolute shower.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

Wonder why he'll be late tonight, clown car running out of petrol?


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> "it's not just a manufacturing issue... it's also that each batch needs to be quality controlled".
> 
> Mate... mate. Now I know you've not really been involved in the real world, but...



if this was a normal recombinant protein therapy, aside from the rush to get it to market

tis would barely be out of the non human trails, mostly be QC for this sort of stuff takes years


----------



## Spandex (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I know I had forgotten about them, anyone remember the 'alert levels'?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Everyone had forgotten about the Covid Alert Levels. Until the No 10 Strategy Meeting this afternoon. As they tried to figure out how not to look like complete idiots announcing school closures after days of insisting schools won't close. Blank faces and furrowed eyebrows all around. Until a junior advisor staring at the wall, hoping for inspiration, spots a faded, dog eared poster that was stuck up some time in the spring and no-one had looked at since:







"I've got it!" he shouts "Remember the alert levels?"

Blank faces all around.

"Look! We get the CMO to declare Level 5 and say we have no choice but for lockdown to begin"

"Brilliant, get me the CMO right away"...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Wonder why he'll be late tonight, clown car running out of petrol?



PM addresses nation = prime time stuff. 

It's not the usual Downing Street press conference, which trends to be early evening, this is more serious. 

Plus he was having a zoom meeting with the leaders of the other 3 nations at 5 pm.


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> if this was a normal recombinant protein therapy, aside from the rush to get it to market
> 
> tis would barely be out of the non human trails, mostly be QC for this sort of stuff takes years



Yeah I did actually have a brief google afterward, to see that post-manufacture QC is more of a thing with vaccines. Which makes sense... Still. This is the prime minister. You'd think that maybe that should have been considered before all the optimistic guff about timelines etc. Also it is fairly clear he had about as much idea of what he was talking about as I did.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

I'm guessing his first 40 years of his life  were spent with his nanny repeating telling him he had to wear clothes

so how the fuck was  he was elected PM


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 4, 2021)

On a work call, a colleague mentioned that a client of his was seriously ill in hospital - as in "might not make it ill". Just before xmas he went to lunch with his wife and two other couples, under the guise of a "business meeting". One of the other guys had covid, but no symptoms.  All six of them were infected, and god knows how many other people at the restaurant.

Why do people do this?  Always looking for a way around the rules. 'king idiots.  Putting so many other people at risk and burdening the NHS.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

Still, bit of good news:
Scottish MP Margaret Ferrier arrested over alleged Covid rule breach | UK news | The Guardian


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jan 4, 2021)

I have buried one relative and been forced to cancel a holiday because of the virus - it’s a real thing that has a real world impact- why is this so difficult to understand that there is personal responsibility here ?


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 4, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> I'm guessing his first 40 years of his life  were spent with his nanny repeating telling him he had to wear clothes
> 
> so how the fuck was  he was elected PM



Because he's had every advantage that money and class position can obtain for him, because that aphorism about Jacob Rees-Mogg being a stupid person's idea of a clever person could just as well apply to him, and because he's carefully cultivated his public image over many years, aided by the fact that he's not a bad speaker (when sticking to a script) and a passably good writer.  That image has successfully hidden the fact he's amoral, cynical, irresponsible and callous, and it convinced enough forelock-tugging halfwits that he was a better prospect as PM than Jeremy Corbyn to land him in No. 10.   Until now it's also fairly successfully concealed the fact that he's a fucking idiot.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 4, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> On a work call, a colleague mentioned that a client of his was seriously ill in hospital - as in "might not make it ill". Just before xmas he went to lunch with his wife and two other couples, under the guise of a "business meeting". One of the other guys had covid, but no symptoms.  All six of them were infected, and god knows how many other people at the restaurant.
> 
> Why do people do this?  Always looking for a way around the rules. 'king idiots.  Putting so many other people at risk and burdening the NHS.


No doubt that was a really stupid thing to do. I just find it hard to balance individual culpability with gross, criminal failure at the governmental level at the moment.  Largely because I'm pissed I got a mental connection to The Masque of Anarchy, 'he had a face like Castlereagh'.  Not much rhymes with johnson, but we're in the world of mass killers. Harold Shipman's shade must be very jealous.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 4, 2021)

Anyway, Johnson up soon, so eyes down for a full house...


----------



## mack (Jan 4, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> when i was young i thought that the people in charge must be really clever and know things not revealed to us mere mortals.



I dunno why but I read this line with Philomena Cunks' voice!


----------



## Mation (Jan 4, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Wonder why he'll be late tonight, clown car running out of petrol?


Not petrol, but custard.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

not-bono-ever said:


> I have buried one relative and been forced to cancel a holiday because of the virus - it’s a real thing that has a real world impact- why is this so difficult to understand that there is personal responsibility here ?


It's maddening. Well, eye-rollingly ridiculous. _Something something Thatcherism something Cummings something can't blame people_
You know what, ten months into a fucking pandemic I can blame people like the bloke and couples mentioned above, there cannot be an excuse for it. You can't have a pop at Cummings then absolve Joe Schmoe of all i.e. 100% blame.
I'm sorry about your relo and your holiday :-(


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

Anyway, just wonder how shameless Johnson's going to be in his justification


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 4, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Everyone had forgotten about the Covid Alert Levels. Until the No 10 Strategy Meeting this afternoon. As they tried to figure out how not to look like complete idiots announcing school closures after days of insisting schools won't close. Blank faces and furrowed eyebrows all around. Until a junior advisor staring at the wall, hoping for inspiration, spots a faded, dog eared poster that was stuck up some time in the spring and no-one had looked at since:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I’ve not forgotten them and I’m still angry about them fucking around with them in July


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

The BBC is doing the headlines early 'cause Boris is on at 8. They're gonna look stupid when they're filling dead air at ten past.


----------



## Supine (Jan 4, 2021)

I have every confidence that Johnson will make a superb unifying speech that will see the country come together to beat this virus while a professional track and trace system is implemented.
None of that was true.


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

Oh no, they've just said he won't be on for twenty minutes. He's pissed again.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

well he does like to play at being churchill


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Only 2 flags; there're 4 when it's Brexshit


----------



## Espresso (Jan 4, 2021)

Holy shit. He's on time.
We're doooooooooooooooooooooooooomed.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Looking older than his own Father


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Jan 4, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Looking older than his own Father



Must be his dad's mediterranean diet


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Been told to keep hold of his hands.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

Full lockdown from tomorrow, wowsers


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 4, 2021)

Jesus Christ, state of this shit


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

national lockdown, clinially vulnerable to be shielding, all schools remote learning, nurseries to stay open, exams to be cancelled


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jan 4, 2021)

alterations to exams...


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Jan 4, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Been told to keep hold of his hands.



He's got his afters all lined up ready on the desk


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

kids not getting affected by covid might make it spread

no shit you daft cockwomble


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 4, 2021)

The Rashford Clause in there I see


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Full lockdown from tomorrow, wowsers


I'm off testing my eyesight in the morning...like any good parent would...


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 4, 2021)

He has obviously been told not to say alas


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 4, 2021)

9 year old says, Why are we even watching him? He's the worst!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

That's not an answer for why schools opened today you bulb


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

the oxford boris vaccine 
wanker


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jan 4, 2021)

He’s a fucking balloon


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

they didn't make decision sooner because they were doing 'everything in their power' to keep schools open. lying cunts


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> He has obviously been told not to say alas


Alas.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jan 4, 2021)

'parents of children who were in school today may reasonably ask why we didn't take this decision sooner..'


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 4, 2021)

In response to school closures - yeh at last, now i won't be alone!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

How long will lockdown be cunt


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 4, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> 'parents of children who were in school today may reasonably ask why we didn't take this decision sooner..'



Because every day at school counts. For spreading the virus.


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

going on about vaccination now, 4 top priority groups done by end of february


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Hand doing that thing they do...when got to vaccines.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

Promises, promises


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 4, 2021)

No massive jokes today, must be serious.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

Merry new year people 

Boris is going to save us


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Last phase of the struggle...fucksache


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 4, 2021)

He just said to half term


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

Only in passing mentions Feb half term


----------



## Aladdin (Jan 4, 2021)

Looking very likely schools wont reopen next week in Ireland.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jan 4, 2021)

I am furious that this wilfully delayed decisions prevented parents [of school age children] and education professions and some local authorities and unions  from having a mental or emotional rest over the holiday


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 4, 2021)

What's the obsession Johnson and Handcock have with saying "getting jabs into arms"


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> He just said to half term


'start opening' after half term. i reckon mixed delivery from late feb if we're lucky


----------



## flypanam (Jan 4, 2021)

so schools closed until mid feb?


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

do they hold heads at that the point of a gun at the bbc

"forthright message from the PM"


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

Clowns to the left of me!
Jokers to the right!
Here I am stuck in the middle with you.


----------



## killer b (Jan 4, 2021)

flypanam said:


> so schools closed until mid feb?


to start with.


----------



## agricola (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> What's the obsession Johnson and Handcock have with saying "getting jabs into arms"



something something annoying pricks something


----------



## teqniq (Jan 4, 2021)

i am glad you lot can bear to watch the clown and report back here.


----------



## Mation (Jan 4, 2021)

You'll likely never hear me say this about the clown again, but that was actually reasonable, given where we are now.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 4, 2021)

Tilting the odds against covid and towards the british people

Why does he always say this sort of stupid shit?


----------



## T & P (Jan 4, 2021)

flypanam said:


> so schools closed until mid feb?


Sounded like it. Thank fuck, and I know it will be hugely inconvenient to many parents


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

flypanam said:


> so schools closed until mid feb?


minimum

though online delivery will be more organised than it was in March. Even my Y1 daughter's school has told us they expect her to spend 3 hours a day at home learning. Unfortunately my wife will stress herself out trying to make this happen when she is already well ahead on reading and maths.


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

Oh Kieth's on now. Not sure I can deal with this many massive cunts in this short a period of time.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

teqniq said:


> i am glad you lot can bear to watch the clown and report back here.



Unlike the press conference format, these speeches from a desk are mercifully brief.

His voice was a bit hoarse in places today.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 4, 2021)

maomao said:


> Oh Kieth's on now. Not sure I can deal with this many massive cunts in this short a period of time.



Pre-watershed to, I’m writing to Ofcom


----------



## Espresso (Jan 4, 2021)

Mation said:


> You'll likely never hear me say this about the clown again, but that was actually reasonable, given where we are now.


I thought that, too.
That was the most unsettling thing of all. Him actually admitting that we're rightly in the clarts.


----------



## LDC (Jan 4, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Tilting the odds against covid and towards the british people
> 
> Why does he always say this sort of stupid shit?



Fair wind in our sails or something too...


----------



## LDC (Jan 4, 2021)

Pleased though, it's what was needed. Six or so weeks is it, mid-February. Going to be a grim six weeks.


----------



## Supine (Jan 4, 2021)

Alcohol takeaway and delivery sales to be banned until mid Feb


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

Mation said:


> You'll likely never hear me say this about the clown again, but that was actually reasonable, given where we are now.



Problem is it was reasonable given where we were in October.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

Espresso said:


> I thought that, too.
> That was the most unsettling thing of all. Him actually admitting that we're rightly in the clarts.


Hostage video vibe.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)




----------



## LDC (Jan 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> Alcohol takeaway and delivery sales to be banned until mid Feb



I asked him for that to help me with doing dry January.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> Alcohol takeaway and delivery sales to be banned until mid Feb



That’s a standout and while I’m not bothered it’s going to really fucking piss people off


----------



## agricola (Jan 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> Alcohol takeaway and delivery sales to be banned until mid Feb



in compensation, pubs will be allowed to hide nearly-rude pictures of ladies behind packets of pork scratchings, peanuts and other savouries again


----------



## a_chap (Jan 4, 2021)

I'm just nipping out to stock up on toilet rolls....


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Pleased though, it's what was needed. Six or so weeks is it, mid-February. Going to be a grim six weeks.



Yeah, it is a bit of relief. I am lucky <kind of> in that I have no dependents and am... at home with my own company... though. Have to acknowledge that.


----------



## flypanam (Jan 4, 2021)

He didn't mention universities though, did he?


----------



## neonwilderness (Jan 4, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> do they hold heads at that the point of a gun at the bbc
> 
> "forthright message from the PM"


Channel 4 have a behavioural psychologist on now sticking the boot in about the government’s mixed messages 

Also Jeremy Cunt looking very pleased with himself


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Jan 4, 2021)

Didn't even say the word university.  Mealy mouthed, half arsed scarecrow impersonator in an ill fitting suit.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 4, 2021)

C4 has Hunt warbling on now, but before it started they had a kickboxing 49 year old woman who was in intensive care with it, as was her mum, mum never made it and 49 year old’s lungs are wrecked and she had to watch her mum’s funeral on a screen in a hospital room on her own, made me want to cry, then we get a minimum six weeks minimum no school/lockdown, fucks sakes.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fair wind in our sails or something too...



Like a bird he'll watch the wind and listen for the sound
Which says he has the wind he needs to make the sails go round.


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Jan 4, 2021)

flypanam said:


> He didn't mention universities though, did he?



Jinx


----------



## Espresso (Jan 4, 2021)

flypanam said:


> He didn't mention universities though, did he?


He said colleges. I think that to him - Johnson, Balliol College, Oxford - that means the same thing.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 4, 2021)

maomao said:


> Oh Kieth's on now. Not sure I can deal with this many massive cunts in this short a period of time.



massive cunt alert level 4





Supine said:


> Alcohol takeaway and delivery sales to be banned until mid Feb





as in pubs not going off-sales, or is all booze sales in shops banned?



flypanam said:


> He didn't mention universities though, did he?



no, they will only do that the day after the students all get back to university for the new term...


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 4, 2021)

_You might ask why we had schools open today. Well, hands up, gov, we’ve got a total reddie about that_.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

Tory exam fetish needs to go unmet for another year.


----------



## spitfire (Jan 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> Alcohol takeaway and delivery sales to be banned until mid Feb





LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I asked him for that to help me with doing dry January.





Artaxerxes said:


> That’s a standout and while I’m not bothered it’s going to really fucking piss people off



If it's the same rules as before I think that is just for pubs? Offies and supermarkets will probably still be allowed to sell booze, (although it probably wouldn't do me any harm if they stopped...    Also trying for dry January).

Round my way some of the pubs have been absolutely taking the piss with loads of people hanging around outside with "takeaways". I would reluctantly support it but not seen anything from a proper source yet.


----------



## Supine (Jan 4, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> massive cunt alert level 4
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You can still buy booze in shops. Thank fuck. 

Luckily we can all still employ our nannies and cleaners to work in our houses!


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 4, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> no, they will only do that the day after the students all get back to university for the new term...



Graun is reporting that universities stay online except for a small number of what they refer to as 'critical courses' - medical, mainly - which require f2f.



spitfire said:


> If it's the same rules as before I think that is just for pubs? Offies and supermarkets will probably still be allowed to sell booze, (although it probably wouldn't do me any harm if they stopped...    Also trying for dry January).
> 
> Round my way some of the pubs have been absolutely taking the piss with loads of people hanging around outside with "takeaways". I would reluctantly support it but not seen anything from a proper source yet.



Looks like it, yes: shops can still sell booze but pubs can't do takeout.


----------



## maomao (Jan 4, 2021)

Wonder what the justification for keeping nurseries open is. We've just taken our son out anyway.


----------



## Mation (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> Problem is it was reasonable given where we were in October.


Yes. But we can't go back to prevent their undoubted genocide by shambles.

However difficult, miserable, late and totally predictable the need, I'm glad they're actually doing it.


----------



## agricola (Jan 4, 2021)

spitfire said:


> If it's the same rules as before I think that is just for pubs? Offies and supermarkets will probably still be allowed to sell booze, (although it probably wouldn't do me any harm if they stopped...    Also trying for dry January).
> 
> *Round my way some of the pubs have been absolutely taking the piss with loads of people hanging around outside with "takeaways".* I would reluctantly support it but not seen anything from a proper source yet.



That is my experience too, though it should also be said that they've had about 5% of the help they need and so probably (correctly) think they've got no option.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

so panic buying in the morning? or now?


----------



## Espresso (Jan 4, 2021)

I've never had any particular aspirations to be a teacher, even though I have very fond memories of some of mine. But by Jesus, I'm glad I'm not one now.

They've had a dose of shite throughout all of this. Never mind being in classrooms with gaggles of infective vectors, they spent their Christmas holidays figuring out how the fucking hell they were to do all of this mass testing Johnson and Williamson wanted, only to go back in for one single day, then to be told they were remote teaching as from tomorrow. They'd better all get a big fat pay rise at the end of this. Edit - but I bet they won't. 

Kudos to any teachers on here. You're a better man/woman than me.


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> That's not an answer for why schools opened today you bulb



9 yr old said that too. That's not an answer! 

ffs.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

Full details of lockdown published -









						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

so what is the plan in the morning?


----------



## clicker (Jan 4, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> so what is the plan in the morning?


Stay in bed.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

ah sadly classified as a key worker


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 4, 2021)

clicker said:


> Stay in bed.



so long as you are on your own and wearing suitable protective equipment


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Full details of lockdown published -
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Seems to say I can only walk the dog once a day. Not too important but would be nice to know.


----------



## LDC (Jan 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Seems to say I can only walk the dog once a day. Not too important but would be nice to know.



Yeah, back to only out once a day for exercise locally I think.


----------



## Supine (Jan 4, 2021)

maomao said:


> Wonder what the justification for keeping nurseries open is. We've just taken our son out anyway.



Good plan. A friend of mine is suffering very badly at the moment having caught it from his toddler. Schools are safe was always bollocks.


----------



## Numbers (Jan 4, 2021)

S☼I said:


> What's the obsession Johnson and Handcock have with saying "getting jabs into arms"


Might have some options in RyanAir?


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jan 4, 2021)

Red Cat said:


> 9 yr old said that too. That's not an answer!
> 
> ffs.


your 9 year old is a better leader than Johnson [low bar admittedly ]


----------



## ruffneck23 (Jan 4, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> so what is the plan in the morning?


as a broadband engineer il be in and out of every fuckers house as usual , least the roads should be quieter


----------



## spitfire (Jan 4, 2021)

agricola said:


> That is my experience too, though it should also be said that they've had about 5% of the help they need and so probably (correctly) think they've got no option.



I do sympathise, my local has been one of the worst but they attract a younger crowd who think they are invincible and it's tucked away down the arches so they are off the beaten track.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 4, 2021)

Fucking hell.


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Seems to say I can only walk the dog once a day. Not too important but would be nice to know.



In the document it gives a bit more detail on exemptions for animal welfare. Though I think the travelling bit is probably aimed at people going to look after horses etc. 

It's possible they just don't want to over-specify on the specifics of exercising pets. I mean chihuahuas and collies have very different requirements.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 4, 2021)

unless they offer a scheme for childcare or letting parents be at home this is going to


ruffneck23 said:


> as a broadband engineer il be in and out of every fuckers house as usual , least the roads should be quieter



uk lockdown is easer


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 4, 2021)

Schools are safe but _may act as vectors of transmission._

Fuck me the science changed on that this afternoon did it?


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Seems to say I can only walk the dog once a day. Not too important but would be nice to know.



You‘ll have to wait for the legislation which back in March turned out to be different from Johnson’s speech.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 4, 2021)

Not really much to change.  I've hardly left the house apart from cycling and food as there isn't anything to do.  

I just hope the Government doesn't have anyhting more than a 'make it so' hand in the vaccine rollout so adults can do the job.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Jan 4, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> unless they offer a scheme for childcare or letting parents be at home this is going to
> 
> 
> uk lockdown is easer


im cool with it tbh, whilst everyone is locked up at home , il be zooming from place to place being the hero iI always knew I was born to be ,I even have a mask  

Until I cant fix it...


----------



## Raheem (Jan 4, 2021)

Nothing seems to have been said about things closing, even though it's implied. Wouldn't be surprised to see confusion with shops opening tomorrow and there needing to be clarification about whether they can.


----------



## spitfire (Jan 4, 2021)

spitfire said:


> I do sympathise, my local has been one of the worst but they attract a younger crowd who think they are invincible and it's tucked away down the arches so they are off the beaten track.



"hospitality venues such as cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars and social clubs; with the exception of providing food and non-alcoholic drinks for takeaway (until 11pm), click-and-collect and drive-through. All food and drink (including alcohol) can continue to be provided by delivery."

From the govt. doc.

Looks like they are specifically targeting the al fresco pint consumers.


----------



## spitfire (Jan 4, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Nothing seems to have been said about things closing, even though it's implied. Wouldn't be surprised to see confusion with shops opening tomorrow and there needing to be clarification about whether they can.



"non-essential retail, such as clothing and homeware stores, vehicle showrooms (other than for rental), betting shops, tailors, tobacco and vape shops, electronic goods and mobile phone shops, auction houses (except for auctions of livestock or agricultural equipment) and market stalls selling non-essential goods. These venues can continue to be able to operate click-and-collect (where goods are pre-ordered and collected off the premises) and delivery services."


----------



## Chilli.s (Jan 4, 2021)

So bojo has realised that he's going down in history as the cunt who fucked it up worse than trump by doing not enough.


----------



## tommers (Jan 4, 2021)

Doc says exercise once a day.


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Nothing seems to have been said about things closing, even though it's implied. Wouldn't be surprised to see confusion with shops opening tomorrow and there needing to be clarification about whether they can.



I'm pretty sure it's legislation to be voted on on Wednesday, businesses urged to close ASAP. But not required until legislation passed.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

spitfire said:


> All ... drink (including alcohol) can continue to be provided by delivery."



: phew: (I have a delivery coming tomorrow )


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

Again I don't know why they don't use emergency procedures for this. Maybe I'll have some time to dig into that over lockdown.


----------



## Supine (Jan 4, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I just hope the Government doesn't have anyhting more than a 'make it so' hand in the vaccine rollout so adults can do the job.



well the minister responsible is spending his time setting up a ltd company so that doesnt bode well.


----------



## spitfire (Jan 4, 2021)

spitfire said:


> "non-essential retail, such as clothing and homeware stores, vehicle showrooms (other than for rental), betting shops, tailors, tobacco and vape shops, electronic goods and mobile phone shops, auction houses (except for auctions of livestock or agricultural equipment) and market stalls selling non-essential goods. These venues can continue to be able to operate click-and-collect (where goods are pre-ordered and collected off the premises) and delivery services."



Loads more here, looks like they are just treating it all as per Tier 4 regs. (as far as i can tell after a quick scan).









						Coronavirus: how to stay safe and help prevent the spread
					

Find out how to stay safe and help prevent the spread of coronavirus.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 4, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> your 9 year old is a better leader than Johnson [low bar admittedly ]



I've been very impressed with my kids because we don't do lots of shouting about how shit things are because don't want them to think there aren't any grown ups in charge.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 4, 2021)

spitfire said:


> Loads more here, looks like they are just treating it all as per Tier 4 regs. (as far as i can tell after a quick scan).
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Almost certainly copy pasted from other documents. 

Anyone have the text of Boris full speech? I want to wind up the alcoholics in family


----------



## MrSki (Jan 4, 2021)

After reading Johnson described as 'A discarded space hopper in a haystack' I have difficulty getting it out of my mind when I see him.


----------



## T & P (Jan 4, 2021)

Thank fuck he didn’t use the word ‘freedom’ this time during his address, that I noticed anyway. The entire rhetoric by Boris in the past, and sections of the right wing press throughout the pandemic to emphasise ‘loss of freedom’ as one of the most significant consequences of the lockdowns & restrictions pisses the fuck off out of me. 

Frankly I would like to see a far more strictly enforced lockdown, like they do in the Continent. Stop cars on the roads, question people about their reasons for being out and about, fine those clearly flouting the rules.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 4, 2021)

Red Cat said:


> I've been very impressed with my kids because we don't do lots of shouting about how shit things are because don't want them to think there aren't any grown ups in charge.


Mate, it’s better they know now.  I’d hold off telling them about Santa until you have to, though.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 4, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Schools are safe but _may act as vectors of transmission._
> 
> Fuck me the science changed on that this afternoon did it?



It was science's first day back after christmas and it hadn't checked its work email.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Tilting the odds against covid and towards the british people
> 
> Why does he always say this sort of stupid shit?


Populism. Or, to be charitable, he committed _attempted_ populism.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jan 4, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> your 9 year old is a better leader than Johnson [low bar admittedly ]


Red Cat 

Red Kitten for Prime Minister!

I think the other day Johnson was promising "normality by Easter" and much as I'd love to believe that, he's been saying similar ever since this started. Every time he opens his mouth it makes me want to chant "Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!"


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 4, 2021)

T & P said:


> Thank fuck he didn’t use the word ‘freedom’ this time during his address, that I noticed anyway.


There was a reference to “being told what to do by government” and a little grin.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 4, 2021)

Yeah an 8pm till 6am curfew would stop kids hanging out in parks. Plus stop people driving around late at night.


----------



## agricola (Jan 4, 2021)

T & P said:


> Thank fuck he didn’t use the word ‘freedom’ this time during his address, that I noticed anyway. The entire rhetoric by Boris in the past, and sections of the right wing press throughout the pandemic to emphasise ‘loss of freedom’ as one of the most significant consequences of the lockdowns & restrictions pisses the fuck off out of me.
> 
> *Frankly I would like to see a far more strictly enforced lockdown, like they do in the Continent. Stop cars on the roads, question people about their reasons for being out and about, fine those clearly flouting the rules.*



To do that they'd need many more cops, though (and many more employees in other fields that have been cut away meaning that the police have taken over those bits).


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jan 4, 2021)

Listening to Keven Courtney [NEU] talk just now quoting Jacinta Arden saying NZ needed to fast and hard against the virus   but Johnson has gone late and light at every stage

also a 36k increase in membership of NEU in recent weeks!


----------



## Edie (Jan 4, 2021)

Why the fuck does Jeremy Hunt think he can present himself as the defender of the NHS ffs?! Fuck off Hunt you waste of space.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jan 4, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Yeah an 8pm till 6am curfew would stop kids hanging out in parks. Plus stop people driving around late at night.





agricola said:


> To do that they'd need many more cops, though (and many more employees in other fields that have been cut away meaning that the police have taken over those bits).











						Youth organisations in England face wholesale closure
					

Two-thirds of small groups at risk as pandemic leaves 1.5 million young people in critical need of help




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 4, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Mate, it’s better they know now.  I’d hold off telling them about Santa until you have to, though.



Yeh, not doing that yet.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 4, 2021)

Red Cat said:


> Yeh, not doing that yet.


We all need _something_ to hold onto!


----------



## T & P (Jan 4, 2021)

agricola said:


> To do that they'd need many more cops, though (and many more employees in other fields that have been cut away meaning that the police have taken over those bits).


Yes to a degree, but deterrence would still have an effect using even a very small number of patrol cars for the task if they get any exposure in the press.

If the likes of the Daily Mail start printing outraged stories about motorists stopped, questioned and fined by the police because were ten miles away from their home on a supposedly grocery shopping trip when there were plenty supermarkets they could have gone to within a mile of their residence, undoubtedly some people would think twice about making unnecessary trips and trying to pass them off as essential journeys.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 4, 2021)

Am so fucking angry right now, just had a client call asking if he and his two kids can leave the U.K. tonight (no, all flights have gone). They are due to fly to the U.S. tomorrow and are waiting on their PCR results later tonight, two of them have had it recently and failed the test last week. He asked where can one go with no test, I said Mexico is the only place I know that doesn’t require a test. And this man replies,

“OK, if one of us tests positive we’ll go to Cancun instead.”

Knowing that one person is positive he thinks it’s fine to take a 10 hour flight.

Bending rules is one thing, but fuck me, what a cunt.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

Edie said:


> Why the fuck does Jeremy Hunt think he can present himself as the defender of the NHS ffs?! Fuck off Hunt you waste of space.



Im sure he was a terrible health secretary presiding over a terrible agenda.

I have to confess that I think he has found some use as chair of the health and social care select committee. He has occasionally made the right noises with slightly better timing than the government, and I think the time before the first lockdown where he appeared on telly looking like had seen a ghost (including the ghost of policies he oversaw) and wanted to cry was a useful warning indicator for some people.

So there we go, not exactly gushing praise, but I am prepared to acknowledge that he found some use as a fucking beacon.


----------



## a_chap (Jan 4, 2021)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Am so fucking angry right now, just had a client call asking if he and his two kids can leave the U.K. tonight (no, all flights have gone). They are due to fly to the U.S. tomorrow and are waiting on their PCR results later tonight, two of them have had it recently and failed the test last week. He asked where can one go with no test, I said Mexico is the only place I know that doesn’t require a test. And this man replies,
> 
> “OK, if one of us tests positive we’ll go to Cancun instead.”
> 
> ...



Did you tell him he was a cunt and refuse to do business with him?


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Im sure he was a terrible health secretary presiding over a terrible agenda.
> 
> I have to confess that I think he has found some use as chair of the health and social care select committee. He has occasionally made the right noises with slightly better timing than the government, and I think the time before the first lockdown where he appeared on telly looking like had seen a ghost (including the ghost of policies he oversaw) and wanted to cry was a useful warning indicator for some people.
> 
> So there we go, not exactly gushing praise, but I am prepared to acknowledge that he found some use as a fucking beacon.











						What did Hunt do to the NHS – and how has he got away with it?
					

There are two stories about Jeremy Hunt. The nice, sensible guy whose only mistake was upsetting the junior doctors. And then, there’s the real story.




					www.opendemocracy.net
				






wasn't he the cunt who presided over the performance of the NHS being no longer the responsibility of the minister? May have been some other cunt mind.

*doesn't negate your post though


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 4, 2021)

T & P said:


> Frankly I would like to see a far more strictly enforced lockdown, like they do in the Continent. Stop cars on the roads, question people about their reasons for being out and about, fine those clearly flouting the rules.



in the first lockdown, i did get stopped on a main road in berkshire, when i was driving to work,  they took my word for it that i was a key worker and i didn't have to show letter from my employer confirming this.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 4, 2021)

Why can’t they help themselves comparing themselves favourably with other countries? It’s not always a competition ffs


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 4, 2021)

So what is actually different about this versus Tier 4, besides the schools closing? The list of business allowed to be open and the rules about what you can do look exactly the same to me.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> What did Hunt do to the NHS – and how has he got away with it?
> 
> 
> There are two stories about Jeremy Hunt. The nice, sensible guy whose only mistake was upsetting the junior doctors. And then, there’s the real story.
> ...



He was in that role for a long time, I'm sure the list of crimes is long.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> Alcohol takeaway and delivery sales to be banned until mid Feb


Including shops?


----------



## agricola (Jan 4, 2021)

T & P said:


> Yes to a degree, but deterrence would still have an effect using even a very small number of patrol cars for the task if they get any exposure in the press.
> 
> If the likes of the Daily Mail start printing outraged stories about motorists stopped, questioned and fined by the police because were ten miles away from their home on a supposedly grocery shopping trip when there were plenty supermarkets they could have gone to within a mile of their residence, undoubtedly some people would think twice about making unnecessary trips and trying to pass them off as essential journeys.



They have been doing this in places (and with businesses trading illegally as well) for a while - where I grew up they've actually closed the roads leading to popular local walking spots and doing checks on vehicles from England crossing the border.  Its not comprehensive though, and it needs to be to be effective.


----------



## Cid (Jan 4, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Why can’t they help themselves comparing themselves favourably with other countries? It’s not always a competition ffs



Which countries?


----------



## Supine (Jan 4, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Including shops?



no. relax.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Including shops?



No and the delivery bit isnt what the official text says anyway:



> hospitality venues such as cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars and social clubs; with the exception of providing food and non-alcoholic drinks for takeaway (until 11pm), click-and-collect and drive-through. All food and drink (including alcohol) can continue to be provided by delivery.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/949536/NationalLockdownGuidance.pdf


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> Which countries?


The rest of the world and then Europe


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 4, 2021)

a_chap said:


> Did you tell him he was a cunt and refuse to do business with him?



I told him that what he was proposing is highly illegal in quite a harsh tone, as I said, bending rules (you can only travel for work, he’s taking kids to the US) is one thing, but he sensed my incredulity at his suggestion.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> no. relax.


Wouldn’t mind being forced to endure a dry January tbf


----------



## chilango (Jan 4, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> So what is actually different about this versus Tier 4, besides the schools closing? The list of business allowed to be open and the rules about what you can do look exactly the same to me.



Schools being closed removes free childcare so more people will have to wfh.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> He was in that role for a long time, I'm sure the list of crimes is long.



He inherited that job from his aunt. Inherited his seat from her too. The mother of parliamentary democracy.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 4, 2021)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Am so fucking angry right now, just had a client call asking if he and his two kids can leave the U.K. tonight (no, all flights have gone). They are due to fly to the U.S. tomorrow and are waiting on their PCR results later tonight, two of them have had it recently and failed the test last week. He asked where can one go with no test, I said Mexico is the only place I know that doesn’t require a test. And this man replies,
> 
> “OK, if one of us tests positive we’ll go to Cancun instead.”
> 
> ...



tell him he'd probably score high on a psychopathy test. seriously. 

i'm sick of these pro death cunts.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 4, 2021)

BBC said:
			
		

> *At-a-glance : New rules in England* :
> *People cannot leave their homes* except for certain reasons, like the first lockdown last March
> These include *essential medical needs, food shopping, exercise* and *work for those who cannot do so from home*


Welsh rules (introduced 20th December) appear unchanged (specifically in terms of going to work I mean).
The schools rules have changed here, but nothing else that I saw.

Having heard _a big phat zero_ from my (Civil Service) workplace about any changes, I'll continue to assume that I'll be returning to work 'as normal' tomorow -- as I posted a while back, myself and most others on our section are unable to work from home.

I appreciate that the schools question is very important, and I've supported all the sensible Urban comments, plus justified rants, about that.
But the going to work or not question more generally should also still be more of a thing IMO.

Mid March 2020 to early August lockdown : I/many others *were not* at work.
Early January 2021 to whenever lockdown : I/many others *still will be* at work.

Luckily I do work in one of the safer office workplaces.
But the inconsistencies between last year's and this year's lockdowns are outrageous 
(On the colourful map, the latest is that most of South Wales is still in dark purple  ).


----------



## MickiQ (Jan 4, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Including shops?


Apparently they don't want people buying booze from pub doorways and then congregating in the local park which is fair enough, I don't know if it covers alcohol ordered online for delivery from supermarkets or the like of Tax Dodgers Inc, I hope not I have a feeling I am going to need a drink over the next few weeks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

T & P said:


> Frankly I would like to see a far more strictly enforced lockdown, like they do in the Continent. *Stop cars on the roads, question people about their reasons for being out and about, fine those clearly flouting the rules.*



Sussex police were doing that during the first lockdown, I got pulled over coming back from a care visit to mother, they were fine with that.

Random road checks were done on vehicles coming from the north into the town, people from outside the county were forced to turn around & fuck off, or get a fine.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2021)

Edie said:


> Why the fuck does Jeremy Hunt think he can present himself as the defender of the NHS ffs?! Fuck off Hunt you waste of space.



We live in very strange times, when the likes of Hunt & Cummings appear to be heroes compared to the clown & the rest of the circus acts.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Random road checks were done on vehicles coming from the north into the town, people from outside the county were forced to turn around & fuck off, or get a fine.



as i tend to work slightly later than standard office hours to avoid the peaks, traffic was pretty light - not sure if they were stopping everyone, or random, or whether the fact that my car has a Shrewsbury registration number may have influenced them


----------



## xenon (Jan 4, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> Apparently they don't want people buying booze from pub doorways and then congregating in the local park which is fair enough, I don't know if it covers alcohol ordered online for delivery from supermarkets or the like of Tax Dodgers Inc, I hope not I have a feeling I am going to need a drink over the next few weeks.



Does no one read posts. 

It's been quoted about 5 times.

Booze and food can still be delivered. 

...thank fuck.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 4, 2021)

does anyone know if food and booze can still be delivered?


----------



## Raheem (Jan 4, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> does anyone know if food and booze can still be delivered?


Yes, they can.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

xenon said:


> Does no one read posts.
> 
> It's been quoted about 5 times.
> 
> ...



tbh these have probably been quoted from several pages back


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

There are so many elderly, shielders and other vulnerable groups who are relying on some degree of take-aways from pubs etc. it would have been a disaster to stop that & the booze from the supermarkets continues unchanged:


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

which is a lot clearer than the twat announced


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> Again I don't know why they don't use emergency procedures for this. Maybe I'll have some time to dig into that over lockdown.



because the f******ing back-benchers screwed a promise out of them that parliament had to be able to scrutinise & vote on national restrictions. and far too many of those back-benchers are against lockdowns (the stupid idiots).

cue two days of people panic-buying & racing around getting out of dodge (even if the no going to yer second home rule is included - which it is)

I just hope the financial supports are still working for those who need the money - plus they need to reinvoke the anti-eviction and other support provisions ...


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

agricola said:


> To do that they'd need many more cops, though (and many more employees in other fields that have been cut away meaning that the police have taken over those bits).


It has been remarkably effective in Wales. They're used to thin deployment around here, so they know a thing or two about positioning themselves at strategic points, and they're not at all shy about stopping and turning people around. OK, plenty may still get through, but there's a strong PR message about being able to send people back. And then nicking, and fining, them when they get sneaky and try to return.

It doesn't take a great deal of enforcement to send the message, especially when it's the right message (Priti Patel take note).


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 4, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> because the f******ing back-benchers screwed a promise out of them that parliament had to be able to scrutinise & vote on national restrictions. and far too many of those back-benchers are against lockdowns (the stupid idiots).


I was just about to say, this all still needs to be voted through on Wednesday, right?

Any chance it, y'know, isn't?


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> I was just about to say, this all still needs to be voted through on Wednesday, right?
> 
> Any chance it, y'know, isn't?


I don't think the swivel-eyed loons will have time to whip up the necessary frothing outrage. And Mr - oh, Sir - Keir "supine" Starmer isn't going to be about to rock any boats, now, is he?

So, no.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 4, 2021)

ITN news really cheered us all up with Tom Clark saying that the vaccines may not work properly against the mutants and there aren’t enough doses anyway...with Peston piping up to say the economy is fucked and we can’t keep borrowing for ever.

Apart from that...small animal goes skateboarding...


----------



## bendeus (Jan 4, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Welsh rules (introduced 20th December) appear unchanged (specifically in terms of going to work I mean).
> The schools rules have changed here, but nothing else that I saw.
> 
> Having heard _a big phat zero_ from my (Civil Service) workplace about any changes, I'll continue to assume that I'll be returning to work 'as normal' tomorow -- as I posted a while back, myself and most others on our section are unable to work from home.
> ...


Yeah, I'm shocked by this. My trade takes me into people's homes every day. Admittedly enquiries and, as a result, work have dropped off as the situation has grown more serious but this is far from where we were and, imo, where we need to be. I'm getting really uncomfortable with doing it both for my safety and that of others and, bar the jobs I've already committed to, won't be taking further work on. 

You can tell from the high street in my hometown (Llantwit Major) that things are very different from March. Basically it's almost full - pavements, car parking spaces in spite of the closure of non essential shops. In March it was like a ghost town. Needs to become one again.


----------



## T & P (Jan 4, 2021)

Regarding children’s education whilst in lockdown, a colleague at work made (in my layman opinion) a good point today about using one of the many TV channels available to anyone with a TV and the most basic equipment/ aerial (such as BBC4 or any other freely available to all) to broadcast school lessons.

Fair enough that not everyone has computers or even internet access at home, but whereas some people don’t have TV either, the percentage of households that have either or internet access or a TV must be very high. Why not set up a curriculum-compatible daily lessons schedule for those households without internet access?


----------



## xenon (Jan 4, 2021)

A couple of posters have said that is happening in places like Portugal and Turkey.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

I'll swear it used to happen on BBC when I was a wee nipper  

1960s?


----------



## xenon (Jan 4, 2021)

I guess for young kids it’s the concentration as much as having access to equipment. My friend was teaching her five-year-old niece, Over zoom, whilst her mum got on with some other stuff. If she got bored or had enough, she just wandered out of camera view.  The child, that is.


----------



## xenon (Jan 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I'll swear it used to happen on BBC when I was a wee nipper
> 
> 1960s?



they used to have random education stuff on during the 80s as well. it was deadly dull if I recall so I just went back to playing computer games. This was stuff I saw during the holidays or random channel hopping.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

xenon said:


> they used to have random education stuff on during the 80s as well. it was deadly dull if I recall so I just went back to playing computer games. This was stuff I saw during the holidays or random channel hopping.


Get back in front of that tv


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jan 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I'll swear it used to happen on BBC when I was a wee nipper
> 
> 1960s?


Until 1993 on channel 4 and until 2010 on BBC2 (and overnight on BBC2 or cbbc channel until 2015) - also apparently BBC radio had schools programmes during the day until 1993 and overnight until 2018!


----------



## 2hats (Jan 4, 2021)

World beating trailing.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> Until 1993 on channel 4 and until 2010 on BBC2 (and overnight on BBC2 or cbbc channel until 2015) - also apparently BBC radio had schools programmes during the day until 1993 and overnight until 2018!



Like miss direct ? said they're doing that very well in Turkey? It's a fucking sensible thing to do once pointed out.

I remember ListenWithMother only too well from 60 years ago. "🎶 I put out my hand and stopped the bus, stopped the bus, stopped the bus ..  ." :


----------



## tommers (Jan 5, 2021)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize
		


Not tv but BBC programmes for different ages and years.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 5, 2021)

I may well work my way up from Primary thought them  

can't be too sure


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 5, 2021)

2hats said:


> World beating trailing.




10 months into the pandemic.

I'm so so angry about flying during this period I can't process the subject rationally.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 5, 2021)

tommers said:


> https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize
> 
> 
> 
> Not tv but BBC programmes for different ages and years.


Bitesize was a thing when _I_ was doing GCSEs! Wee hours on BBC2, though.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 5, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> Bitesize was a thing when _I_ was doing GCSEs! Wee hours on BBC2, though.



🎶 I put out my hand and stopped the bus, stopped the bus, stopped the bus ..  ." :


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 5, 2021)

Just realised we're having the same conversation about educational programmes on two different threads 


Lord Camomile said:


> Being a non-parent idiot, I don't really understand why they can't do something similar with the curriculum. Get more celebs involved, make it a 'national effort', relieve some of the burden from parents...
> 
> I do understand that each school has their own spin on things, but surely there's enough base material to do _something _with? Hell, even if it's just stuff like maths and the sciences, those aren't gonna change between schools!





Thora said:


> There is - BBC Bitesize and Oak National Academy


----------



## Cid (Jan 5, 2021)

I think the point is that the bbc essentially broadcast educational _materials_. They didn’t broadcast education... that takes feedback and interaction. Certainly for the majority of school age kids.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 5, 2021)

good point well made


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 5, 2021)

Cid said:


> I think the point is that the bbc essentially broadcast educational _materials_. They didn’t broadcast education... that takes feedback and interaction. Certainly for the majority of school age kids.


To be honest, it's something that's come up in staff training at work, too, with many of us saying that web videos aren't enough and we need someone to actually talk to, check/clarify our understanding with.

But aye, it's a fair point, maybe History with Russel Brand isn't such a good idea after all


----------



## ska invita (Jan 5, 2021)

brogdale said:


> ITN news really cheered us all up with Tom Clark saying that the vaccines may not work properly against the mutants and there aren’t enough doses anyway.


This is really worrying me....the Tory approach is keep the hospitals full and wait for the vaccine - if the vaccine fails at this stage...it doesnt bear thinking about
And if the R wont go below 1 even under this current full lockdown (far from improbable) it means huge case numbers and therefore even more mutations, and even more possible ineffectiveness of the vaccines.
The possibility of the max 500k deaths and herd immunity is starting to creep into the realms of possibility here
Not there yet, but based on the last 10 months...


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

ska invita said:


> This is really worrying me....the Tory approach is keep the hospitals full and wait for the vaccine - if the vaccine fails at this stage...it doesnt bear thinking about
> And if the R wont go below 1 even under this current full lockdown (far from improbable) it means huge case numbers and therefore even more mutations, and even more possible ineffectiveness of the vaccines.
> The possibility of the max 500k deaths and herd immunity is starting to creep into the realms of possibility here
> Not there yet, but based on the last 10 months...



Scenarios involving the virus escaping from immune responses tend to mean forgetting about concepts such as herd immunity and a maximum number of deaths too, those concepts lose their basis.

Even without specific fears to focus on in that regard, the whole herd immunity rhetoric never seemed like a good match for reality. We dont expect to achieve long-lasting herd immunity against common cold viruses or influenza viruses, so why should it be any different with this coronavirus? The numbers dont add up either, because enough of the population catching it would involve the number of hospitalisations being many times more than the system could cope with, unless everything is stretched out over a much longer period of time. And when you stretch it out that much, by the time enough of the population have had it, so much time has passed that people who had it earliers immunity has started to wane, or the virus has had enough time to mutate sufficiently to cause problems on that front.

A vaccination programme that was aiming for herd immunity would be an attempt to fiddle with that equation, and get the population immunity levels up to a very large percentage without requiring as much hospitalisation to achieve it. But we arent at a stage of such plans in our vaccination programme, the first priority is to do with protecting chunks of the population rather than attempting to reach herd immunity thresholds. And theres a pretty mainstream expectation that the likes of Whitty dont mind stating publicly that things are more likely to end up as an ongoing seasonal thing, with vaccination programmes to tackle the virus likely to become an ongoing feature. This is not the only possible future, but there are various reasons why many are inclined to find it the most likely one. I dont know, I said since the early days of the pandemic that I was expecting a few twists in the tale at some point, but to be honest so far things have tended to progress in the way that was always seemed most likely. There have been blindspots that ended up being costly but contrary to some excuses most of these were not only possible to ascertain with the benefit of hindsight, some could be seen from a mile off, there havent actually been many genuine surprises in this pandemic.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 5, 2021)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> Welsh rules (introduced 20th December) appear unchanged (specifically in terms of going to work I mean).
> The schools rules have changed here, but nothing else that I saw.
> 
> Having heard _a big phat zero_ from my (Civil Service) workplace about any changes, I'll continue to assume that I'll be returning to work 'as normal' tomorow -- as I posted a while back, myself and most others on our section are unable to work from home.
> ...





bendeus said:


> Yeah, I'm shocked by this. My trade takes me into people's homes every day. Admittedly enquiries and, as a result, work have dropped off as the situation has grown more serious but this is far from where we were and, imo, where we need to be. I'm getting really uncomfortable with doing it both for my safety and that of others and, bar the jobs I've already committed to, won't be taking further work on.
> 
> You can tell from the high street in my hometown (Llantwit Major) that things are very different from March. *Basically it's almost full - pavements, car parking spaces in spite of the closure of non essential shops. In March it was like a ghost town. Needs to become one again*.



That's a bit weird -- over the last few days, pretty much all of (central) Swansea *has* been like a ghost town -- even the big Sainsbury's near us hasn't been too bad.
The roads have been ultra-quiet too 
But the real test here will be over the coming week or two -- people _properly_ going back to work (see my earlier post above!  ).


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Jan 5, 2021)

Right I'm off to see what lockdown retail brings this time #stepawayfromthetoiletrolls


----------



## bimble (Jan 5, 2021)

I'm sorry, not caught up on all the pages since yesterday's tv show but i have a question:

Johnson said that the new lockdown will be in force for 6 weeks (to mid feb) and then - then we'll see? Maybe a return to local tiers? That's the impression he gave.

But Jeremy Hunt yesterday was clearly saying 3 months, so exactly double. I have no clue if this is related to the second dose of vaccines or what. 


My assumption now is that Johnosn was doing his usual mix of lying / wishful thinking, and wanting to avoid saying things people don't want to hear.

So I want to know if it's better to think it will be end of March before something like normal life might resume?
Would like to have an idea and not fall for Johnsons crap.


----------



## klang (Jan 5, 2021)

bimble said:


> I'm sorry, not caught up on all the pages since yesterday's tv show but i have a question:
> 
> Johnson said that the new lockdown will be in force for 6 weeks (to mid feb) and then - then we'll see? Maybe a return to local tiers? That's the impression he gave.
> 
> ...


'something like normal life' by March still sounds very optimistic to me, no matter on what ends Johnson will wing it  as he goes along....


----------



## bimble (Jan 5, 2021)

littleseb said:


> 'something like normal life' by March still sounds very optimistic to me, no matter on what ends Johnson will wing it  as he goes along....


By this I mostly just mean, being allowed to have people sit in my kitchen for a cup of tea.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 5, 2021)

I expect it will end on the 22nd of March so that the lockdown period was less than a year.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Scenarios involving the virus escaping from immune responses tend to mean forgetting about concepts such as herd immunity and a maximum number of deaths too, those concepts lose their basis.
> 
> Even without specific fears to focus on in that regard, the whole herd immunity rhetoric never seemed like a good match for reality. We dont expect to achieve long-lasting herd immunity against common cold viruses or influenza viruses, so why should it be any different with this coronavirus? The numbers dont add up either, because enough of the population catching it would involve the number of hospitalisations being many times more than the system could cope with, unless everything is stretched out over a much longer period of time. And when you stretch it out that much, by the time enough of the population have had it, so much time has passed that people who had it earliers immunity has started to wane, or the virus has had enough time to mutate sufficiently to cause problems on that front.
> 
> A vaccination programme that was aiming for herd immunity would be an attempt to fiddle with that equation, and get the population immunity levels up to a very large percentage without requiring as much hospitalisation to achieve it. But we arent at a stage of such plans in our vaccination programme, the first priority is to do with protecting chunks of the population rather than attempting to reach herd immunity thresholds. And theres a pretty mainstream expectation that the likes of Whitty dont mind stating publicly that things are more likely to end up as an ongoing seasonal thing, with vaccination programmes to tackle the virus likely to become an ongoing feature. This is not the only possible future, but there are various reasons why many are inclined to find it the most likely one. I dont know, I said since the early days of the pandemic that I was expecting a few twists in the tale at some point, but to be honest so far things have tended to progress in the way that was always seemed most likely. There have been blindspots that ended up being costly but contrary to some excuses most of these were not only possible to ascertain with the benefit of hindsight, some could be seen from a mile off, there havent actually been many genuine surprises in this pandemic.



I suspect there will be a very limited number of ways in which this virus will be able to escape vaccines and remain so infectious. I don’t see this being like influenza A because that’s really quite exceptional in the way different strains of it can recombine so easily. 

I don’t think flu comparisons are realistic. I think it’s much more likely that once we have vaccinated against the “easy” mutations of this, then it’s going to become a niche thing that we can move on from. Whether that takes one year or ten years time will tell.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 5, 2021)

bimble said:


> I'm sorry, not caught up on all the pages since yesterday's tv show but i have a question:
> 
> Johnson said that the new lockdown will be in force for 6 weeks (to mid feb) and then - then we'll see? Maybe a return to local tiers? That's the impression he gave.
> 
> ...



This government just can’t help themselves. Over and over again.
To deflect away from the current abject failure, constantly shouting “Look everyone,  shiny new thing in the future”

how about doing the job?  Let’s remind ourselves how shit they have been

Didn’t close the borders for ages, we’re an island.
Didn’t lockdown early.
Didn’t set up COVID  testing for ages, repeatedly lied
Ordered loads of ventilators (30000 at £600 million) without understanding they need skilled operators.
Don’t use any of the eventual lockdowns to get test and trace working, still not working
Ordered “game changing” antibody tests, they didn’t work
Ordered lots of ppe that wasn’t fit for purpose
Said the app would be a “game changer”. It’s not
Said test and trace was world beating. Really?
Opened the country too early.
Spent money on a government scheme that contributed to the second wave
Set up a tiered system that never got the virus under control.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 5, 2021)

I've just been out for my daily exercise, nipping to a local convenience store on the way home, and I'm depressed and worried.  Even at 7am there were plenty of cars on the road and passengers on some of the buses, and now it looks like any other morning out there.   The shop long has abandoned the limits on numbers it had earlier in the year and hasn't reimposed them, and there's no attempt to enforce social distancing.  I went early on the assumption it'd be quiet, and sure enough there was only a handful of other customers, but these included one old twat who stood right behind me at the checkout and then pulled his mask down to speak to the cashier, and another not wearing a mask at all.  Fat chance of their being challenged, since although most staff do wear masks some of the security guards never do.  I've half a mind to email their head office and complain.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 5, 2021)

Loads of mask less shoppers in Old Kent Road Lidl last night. Fucking twats. Security should keep the cunts out.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 5, 2021)

It’s  odd that people are talking about masks, I live in Hackney and it’s decent compliance around here.

I suspect the new variant has made them next to useless now. For indoor spaces, ceiling fans would have been a better solution.


----------



## lefteri (Jan 5, 2021)

Roadkill said:


> I've just been out for my daily exercise, nipping to a local convenience store on the way home, and I'm depressed and worried.  Even at 7am there were plenty of cars on the road and passengers on some of the buses, and now it looks like any other morning out there.   The shop long has abandoned the limits on numbers it had earlier in the year and hasn't reimposed them, and there's no attempt to enforce social distancing.  I went early on the assumption it'd be quiet, and sure enough there was only a handful of other customers, but these included one old twat who stood right behind me at the checkout and then pulled his mask down to speak to the cashier, and another not wearing a mask at all.  Fat chance of their being challenged, since although most staff do wear masks some of the security guards never do.  I've half a mind to email their head office and complain.



the main difference between this and march is the fact that non-essential non-public-facing work is carrying on - i was trying to work out roughly how many people this means are working that probably shouldn’t be, surely in the tens of millions?


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 5, 2021)

Not only is there much less compliance with lockdown measures compared to March, they are also much less stringent in lots of ways, from allowing visitors on maternity wards through public worship, 20 people at funerals, meeting someone else for exercise, dentists and public toilets being open etc etc


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 5, 2021)

The incompetent twats can’t even do a lockdown properly. We are just so, so fucked.


----------



## LDC (Jan 5, 2021)

Gupta on Radio 4 again questioning lockdown. FFS.

Unbelievable, she's talking about lockdowns delaying herd immunity, and saying the new variant isn't really more infectious.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

Worrying level of chatter on MSM about novel spike proteins on the mutated variants (esp. 'South African') potentially 'escaping' the vaccines; makes me think we're being softened up for the biggie bad news.


----------



## ska invita (Jan 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Scenarios involving the virus escaping from immune responses tend to mean forgetting about concepts such as herd immunity and a maximum number of deaths too, those concepts lose their basis.
> 
> Even without specific fears to focus on in that regard, the whole herd immunity rhetoric never seemed like a good match for reality. We dont expect to achieve long-lasting herd immunity against common cold viruses or influenza viruses, so why should it be any different with this coronavirus? The numbers dont add up either, because enough of the population catching it would involve the number of hospitalisations being many times more than the system could cope with, unless everything is stretched out over a much longer period of time. And when you stretch it out that much, by the time enough of the population have had it, so much time has passed that people who had it earliers immunity has started to wane, or the virus has had enough time to mutate sufficiently to cause problems on that front.


...so even worse than my doomsday scenario
And our inept governments bumble on with seemingly no awareness of the abyss that is opening up in front of us
Im livid tbh - this is (potentially) getting next level scary now


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 5, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Worrying level of chatter on MSM about novel spike proteins on the mutated variants (esp. 'South African') potentially 'escaping' the vaccines; makes me think we're being softened up for the biggie bad news.



MSM can fuck off and it's as useful as farts in a jacuzzi.

It can barely report on politics correctly, it's even fucking worse at science.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> MSM can fuck off and it's as useful as farts in a jacuzzi.
> 
> It can barely report on politics correctly, it's even fucking worse at science.


I'd love to agree with that...but the BBC (R4) reporting from South Africa talking about _knowing within a couple of weeks whether or not the current vaccines are any use against the new protein spikes..._left me thinking dark thoughts.
Hope I'm just being overly pessimistic...but...

e2a: and that after ITN News at Ten let Tom Clark express similar concerns...hmmm


----------



## nagapie (Jan 5, 2021)

Maybe if they gave SA some bloody vaccines they could find out. They're in the shit and still not due their supplies before April despite having assisted with trials.


----------



## ska invita (Jan 5, 2021)

brogdale said:


> I'd love to agree with that...but the BBC (R4) reporting from South Africa talking about _knowing within a couple of weeks whether or not the current vaccines are any use against the new protein spikes..._left me thinking dark thoughts.
> Hope I'm just being overly pessimistic...but...


yes me too
my understanding of this will be even weaker than R4 but seems that
the potential is there
as are future mutations
the more cases the more likely future vaccine-defying mutations
and cases are currently vertical
....not really worth talking about it anymore - time to pray and wait and see


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Maybe if they gave SA some bloody vaccines they could find out. They're in the shit and still not due their supplies before April despite having assisted with trials.


Sounded like they'd got 'test supplies' to work on the bloods...


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

Meanwhile...the medics are not at all happy about the unscheduled delay to their (& their elderly patients') Pfizer 2 jabs:





> Dr Julia Patterson, the lead for Everydoctor, said doctors fear that delaying the second dose they need to obtain full immunity could lead to them becoming ill or infecting colleagues or patients.
> 
> Karoline Lamb, 84, said she was “absolutely fuming” that she might not be able to get the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine: “I was so elated when I had the first one. I had no side-effects and I’m booked in for the second one on 21 January, but I’m extremely worried it will be cancelled.”
> 
> Lamb, from Chalfont St Giles in Buckinghamshire, is concerned that the first dose risks “becoming ineffective”. “If I don’t get the second one within three weeks, I’m worried the first dose could do more harm than good. Had I known the government might not let me have the second dose in time, I would not have accepted the first one.”


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 5, 2021)

Meanwhile people are wandering in unchecked from South Africa via Dubai 

For the love of God quarantine arrivals in the empty Heathrow hotels ffs.


----------



## prunus (Jan 5, 2021)

ska invita said:


> yes me too
> my understanding of this will be even weaker than R4 but seems that
> the potential is there
> as are future mutations
> ...



There are certainly at least a couple of things that will emerge from data and/or studies over the next few weeks that will indicate the course of the next phase - not just antigen escape of the new mutant(s), but also whether there's any statistical significance behind the anecdotal reports of either B117 (UK) or 501.v2 (SA) causing severe disease at higher rates in young people than wild type.

(Vaguely-informed) speculation on the former follows:

The 10 501.v2 mutations are all in the parts of the virus that the vaccines target, and largely the natural immume response too (as they are the functional and/or most exposed parts).  This obviously could well cause decreased efficacy of the 'lock-and-key' mechanism the induced antibodies use to target the virus.  One should remember though that the spike protein is the part of the virus that has to 'lock-and-key' to our cells as well, so it doesn't have the freedom to be totally labile - it has to keep enough of its own 'key' shape to be able to infect - hopefully that also retains enough of its 'lock' shape for at least some of the wild-type/vaccine induced antibodies to work - enough to keep the damn thing under control in an infection to a) prevent serious disease and b) give the body's immune system time to make some new keys to fit these new locks.   Bascially the challenge faced by the virus is to change its shape enough so that the antibody proteins can't recognise it, but the cell proteins that give it entry still can.  This is not an easy thing to do.

The production methods for the main vaccine types are very fast and flexible as well - adding in the code to make the new versions of the spike protein should be able to be done very quickly (even a matter of weeks) - certainly long before most people have any chance of getting near a vaccine.   I haven't heard if they're working on the new sequences yet, but I'd be very surprised if they're not doing at least some of the preliminary work already.

Because of the 'lock-and-key' element above it's likely that there's a finite number of mutations the virus can add to its spike protein in an attempt to evade immunity before it breaks it - it may well be that we have a short arms race with the bastard over the next little while, while we learn (substantially) all of its forms (yes, even its final form), and make a cocktail vaccine to cover all of them.  It is unlikely to be able to do the endless polymorphism that flu does for instance.  In the meantime it's reasonable to hope that imperfectly fitting immunity will have some (enough) protective effect on those who receive the vaccine early.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

prunus said:


> There are certainly at least a couple of things that will emerge from data and/or studies over the next few weeks that will indicate the course of the next phase - not just antigen escape of the new mutant(s), but also whether there's any statistical significance behind the anecdotal reports of either B117 (UK) or 501.v2 (SA) causing severe disease at higher rates in young people than wild type.
> 
> (Vaguely-informed) speculation on the former follows:
> 
> ...


Good post; thanks for that.


----------



## ska invita (Jan 5, 2021)

prunus said:


> There are certainly at least a couple of things that will emerge from data and/or studies over the next few weeks that will indicate the course of the next phase - not just antigen escape of the new mutant(s), but also whether there's any statistical significance behind the anecdotal reports of either B117 (UK) or 501.v2 (SA) causing severe disease at higher rates in young people than wild type.
> 
> (Vaguely-informed) speculation on the former follows:
> 
> ...


thanks, that sounds positive


----------



## 2hats (Jan 5, 2021)

Sunray said:


> It’s  odd that people are talking about masks, I live in Hackney and it’s decent compliance around here.
> 
> I suspect the new variant has made them next to useless now.


Only in the sense they are useless because people don't bother to wear them when in close proximity (<10m) to each other.

The physical mechanics of transmission haven't changed, simply the biodynamics at the biochemical level.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 5, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Meanwhile people are wandering in unchecked from South Africa via Dubai
> 
> For the love of God quarantine arrivals in the empty Heathrow hotels ffs.


and charge them for it like australia does


----------



## 2hats (Jan 5, 2021)

prunus said:


> There are certainly at least a couple of things that will emerge from data and/or studies over the next few weeks that will indicate the course of the next phase - not just antigen escape of the new mutant(s), but also whether there's any statistical significance behind the anecdotal reports of either B117 (UK) or 501.v2 (SA) causing severe disease at higher rates in young people than wild type.


Data thus far don't point to B.1.1.7 causing a higher rate of severe disease in younger cohorts.

It _might_ turn out that, whilst B.1.351 _may_ lead to more severe episodes of disease in particular, if not all, cohorts, B.1.1.7 _might_ be more transmissible.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 5, 2021)

Sunray said:


> It’s  odd that people are talking about masks, I live in Hackney and it’s decent compliance around here.


DK whereabouts in hackney you are but in my bit of the borough I'd say it's best described as variable


----------



## TopCat (Jan 5, 2021)

prunus said:


> There are certainly at least a couple of things that will emerge from data and/or studies over the next few weeks that will indicate the course of the next phase - not just antigen escape of the new mutant(s), but also whether there's any statistical significance behind the anecdotal reports of either B117 (UK) or 501.v2 (SA) causing severe disease at higher rates in young people than wild type.
> 
> (Vaguely-informed) speculation on the former follows:
> 
> ...


Top post. My stomach has unknotted somewhat after reading it.


----------



## zora (Jan 5, 2021)

I share people's concern about so much more stuff happening than in March lockdown. 
And would now not be a good time to make face masks in all indoor work environments compulsory, customer-facing or not?
I observed it again in November "lockdown". I had to go to my workplace (whilst on furlough myself) to collect something, and because there were no customers, the colleagues who were working weren't wearing masks. Now, on paper, the place should be covid-safe in terms of distancing, with six people in a place of many, many hundred square meters - but: Out of six, three of them were bunched behind a desk together, looking at something on the same computer screen. Only briefly, I guess, and I don't really blame them, because it seems that it is so utterly human to gravitate towards each other like little magnets. A two meter distance can feel very unnatural and unfriendly and even rude; it is extremely hard to maintain consistently, so that's all the more reasons to have that simple piece of protective equipment!


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 5, 2021)

Masking up / social distancing seems to have been a bit better around here - largely, I think, because it is a small town so peer pressure and the spike in infections before crimble (&NYE) acted as a kick in the arse to some of the waverers. [No change to that narrow pavement that is so problematical].

However, a slight factor in the lack of public PPE/mask wearing might be that the cost now includes VAT - charged at 20% - I bought a bulk supply of masks in the last two / three days before the VAT was re-imposed ...
note : masks should be three layers, not just one cloth layer.

E2A - and a lot of people STILL have no idea of what 2m actually looks like, and are equally bad at estimating 6ft6" separations ...


----------



## Chairman Meow (Jan 5, 2021)

I was just chatting to my mum who is in NI, and very relieved to be back in lockdown as she says people are breaking rules all over the place. She told me that most people in her street had big Xmas gatherings, as was permitted, and now three families have all got Covid, sadly including their grandparents who had been shielding. Thankfully mum is being safe, and staying indoors as much as she can, but what on earth is going to happen if this doesn't work? My idiot step brother is a Covid denier, even though his wife got it! I'm so scared for you guys, I made the mistake of going on mumsnet just now and so many people are trying to find loopholes, or just openly admitting they aren't bothering with rules any more. Fucking Boris Johnson and that prick Cummins, so much blood on their hands!


----------



## Boudicca (Jan 5, 2021)

TopCat said:


> Loads of mask less shoppers in Old Kent Road Lidl last night. Fucking twats. Security should keep the cunts out.





Pickman's model said:


> DK whereabouts in hackney you are but in my bit of the borough I'd say it's best described as variable


Do you think it varies by supermarket?

I started using Lidl & Aldi when I moved house and had both within walking distance to my house.  Since March, I have shopped a lot more at M&S and Waitrose, because we middle class old ladies all wear masks and are respectful of each other.  I also use the 'big Tesco' which has wide aisles and is still policing numbers of people in store and face mask wearing.

My local Lidl is particularly bad, lots of people not wearing masks and long queues at the self service tills.  They have definitely lost my business because of this, but I guess all the supermarkets will be doing well with less eating out.  And obviously limiting the number of people who come in has an effect on sales.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 5, 2021)

My bro had a lidl near his home in central B'ham - according to him, during the first / second lockdowns it was manic in there. Few masks and zero social distancing. He works anti-social shift hours anyway, and those have got worse as his colleagues have to self-isolate etc ... so he was left with that lidl as the only place open within sensible walking distance on more than one occasion [he can't drive].
I must check on him today ...


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 5, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> Do you think it varies by supermarket?
> 
> I started using Lidl & Aldi when I moved house and had both within walking distance to my house.  Since March, I have shopped a lot more at M&S and Waitrose, because we middle class old ladies all wear masks and are respectful of each other.  I also use the 'big Tesco' which has wide aisles and is still policing numbers of people in store and face mask wearing.
> 
> My local Lidl is particularly bad, lots of people not wearing masks and long queues at the self service tills.  They have definitely lost my business because of this, but I guess all the supermarkets will be doing well with less eating out.  And obviously limiting the number of people who come in has an effect on sales.


Perhaps it varies by supermarket. But it's perhaps more noticeable in other shops, eg I've been the only person wearing a mask sometimes particularly in an offie I go to occasionally in dalston


----------



## Sue (Jan 5, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Perhaps it varies by supermarket. But it's perhaps more noticeable in other shops, eg I've been the only person wearing a mask sometimes particularly in an offie I go to occasionally in dalston


Agree with this. I normally buy a lot of groceries in my local Turkish shop but I've given up due to minimal mask wearing and lack of space to distance from other people.


----------



## lazythursday (Jan 5, 2021)

I've ended up only going to Tesco, partly due to slightly better mask compliance and entry system, but mainly due to the wider aisles, it just feels so much safer. The nearest Morrisons has absurdly narrow and high aisles that feels like a complete viral death trap. Supermarkets have behaved really badly through this I think - started well in March and then by the summer they have just washed their hands of any responsibility.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 5, 2021)

I only go in the metro/local sized shops so am usually only in there for 5 mins or so.  During the first lockdown I stopped going in one sainsbury as I always ended up feeling panicked. there is another one the same distance up the hill which was much better. If there was a queue to get in I wouldn't go as that meant they were filled to capacity.  

We get very little info on transmission in workplaces and no one seems to be policing them in any way.


----------



## Smangus (Jan 5, 2021)

We stopped using Lidl in march for the same reasons. Now using Sainsbury's, more expensive but we feel safer. Luckily we can go at 8ish on a Monday morning when there are far fewer people in there too.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 5, 2021)

I see the slugs doing another press conference at 5pm


----------



## Espresso (Jan 5, 2021)

Where I live, Aldi was frightening the one time I went in there, so Sainsbury's has been getting my dosh throughout. The shop I go to opens at 7, so I am there at about one minute past 7. In, round, out and home in twenty minutes. The only people in there at that time are the staff, picking for the deliveries/click and collect. Suits me fine. 

My local corner shop over the road opens from 7am to midnight and they have got a door they can lock with a button on the counter. Once there are two customers in the shop, they lock the door till one wants to go out. Marvellous system. Far better than the corner shop up the road a bit, where any time I pass there seems to be a gang of teenagers lolling about and shouting at mates inside and bobbing in and out without masks. Ghastly. Not been in there for months.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 5, 2021)

Yeah, agree with all these concerns. I’ve got deliveries booked this time.  First one arrived this morning and already a lot missing and/or substituted. But it’s better than the exposure in a big supermarket with the same air circulating.

My local corner shop just across from us is very good for bits and pieces, but you do get trapped by people ignoring the two at a time sign on the door.  Last time I was in, the guy in front of me was having problems with his card.  He was there for ages, no mask, coughing on his hands then touching the card keypad.  I haven’t been in since, not that it was the boys’ fault, but I was totally freaked.


----------



## maomao (Jan 5, 2021)

Lidl and Aldi are terrible. I sent a complaint email to Aldi because they insisted on only opening the toll nearest the door meaning there was no way to access the shop without literally pushing past people in the queue. I got a nonsense answer so haven't been back. Lidl have been little better but they have the best food and rewards scheme so I just mask up and go as quickly as I can.


----------



## Doodler (Jan 5, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I've ended up only going to Tesco, partly due to slightly better mask compliance and entry system, but mainly due to the wider aisles, it just feels so much safer. The nearest Morrisons has absurdly narrow and high aisles that feels like a complete viral death trap. Supermarkets have behaved really badly through this I think - started well in March and then by the summer they have just washed their hands of any responsibility.



The only store I have seen attempt to enforce mask wearing is my nearest branch of Little Waitrose (shit name). They have employed the same security guard throughout the pandemic. He looks tough, says little and has a very upright posture, so maybe he's ex-Army. No one gets in without a mask  He quietly tells everyone to disinfect their hands.

The only way to make such practices common is to have an inspection system backed up with hefty fines as with the sale of age-restricted goods.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 5, 2021)

Wrong thread


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 5, 2021)

Aldi and Lidl were pretty busy and overwhelming even before covid so I can imagine they are just the same now.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 5, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Yeah, agree with all these concerns. I’ve got deliveries booked this time.  First one arrived this morning and already a lot missing and/or substituted. But it’s better than the exposure in a big supermarket with the same air circulating.
> 
> My local corner shop just across from us is very good for bits and pieces, but you do get trapped by people ignoring the two at a time sign on the door.  Last time I was in, the guy in front of me was having problems with his card.  He was there for ages, no mask, coughing on his hands then touching the card keypad.  I haven’t been in since, not that it was the boys’ fault, but I was totally freaked.



Local shop has been delivering basics to me every week for a couple of years. They've expanded that  and now deliver to 20 or 30 houses in the area. The shopkeeper said it's made up somewhat for the loss of business this year. Am surprised more shops aren't doing it really.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I see the slugs doing another press conference at 5pm



The line-up has been confirmed as Johnson, Whitty and Vallance.


----------



## prunus (Jan 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The line-up has been confirmed as Johnson, Whitty and Vallance.



Glastonbury sounds like it's going to be shit this year.


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The line-up has been confirmed as Johnson, Whitty and Vallance.


Maybe the useless fuckers will be doing something about properly testing at airports and shutting down particularly infectious routes (although we're up there with the world leaders for transmission rates)


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The line-up has been confirmed as Johnson, Whitty and Vallance.


Are they gonna resign?


----------



## jakethesnake (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Are they gonna resign?


They fucking ought to


----------



## klang (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Are they gonna resign?


W&V to sacrifice J live on air.


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2021)

Yep.









						170 people prosecuted for not wearing a face mask on London transport
					

So far, since the regulations came into effect about wearing a face covering on public transport, 170 people have been prosecuted in court for non-compliance.



					www.ianvisits.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I see the slugs doing another press conference at 5pm



They're going to reopen the schools for another 25 minutes.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 5, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> Do you think it varies by supermarket?
> 
> I started using Lidl & Aldi when I moved house and had both within walking distance to my house.  Since March, I have shopped a lot more at M&S and Waitrose, because we middle class old ladies all wear masks and are respectful of each other.  I also use the 'big Tesco' which has wide aisles and is still policing numbers of people in store and face mask wearing.
> 
> My local Lidl is particularly bad, lots of people not wearing masks and long queues at the self service tills.  They have definitely lost my business because of this, but I guess all the supermarkets will be doing well with less eating out.  And obviously limiting the number of people who come in has an effect on sales.


I want the quality and value of Lidl and am stubborn about this. I am going once a month, at night (usually after 21:00) and buying up the place. 

Not many people at that time and room to avoid the mask less and potter through all the tat. 

Cab there and back with the windows open and rain pissing in. Cabbie was perfectly fine about the water ingress and my twelve bags of shopping plus booze.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I suspect there will be a very limited number of ways in which this virus will be able to escape vaccines and remain so infectious. I don’t see this being like influenza A because that’s really quite exceptional in the way different strains of it can recombine so easily.
> 
> I don’t think flu comparisons are realistic. I think it’s much more likely that once we have vaccinated against the “easy” mutations of this, then it’s going to become a niche thing that we can move on from. Whether that takes one year or ten years time will tell.



We'll just have to wait and see, I dont have any fixed expectations about this and would not like to have to choose which possibility I consider most likely. I suppose I expect some setbacks, and I am deeply unimpressed with the research done on other coronaviruses in decades past so am somewhat wary of certain aspects of conventional wisdom in this area. I'd certainly rather have gone for a pandemic strategy that minimised the number of infections, and thus mutation opportunities, and some of the possible implications from using convalescent plasma bother me, but I dont generally believe in leaping too far ahead with my thoughts.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 5, 2021)

This press conference tonight. Is this to announce new restrictions?  Asking for a friend.


----------



## what (Jan 5, 2021)

As others have said far to many people out and about. Traffic on my street from 6:30 to 8:30 this morning pretty close to normal. Traffic on Google maps showing lots of amber and red for London at the moment. During first lockdown all of London was green on maps.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 5, 2021)

TopCat said:


> This press conference tonight. Is this to announce new restrictions?  Asking for a friend.


Fuck knows.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

Regarding what I just said, I suppose my biggest problem with the 'it will end up with flu in terms of ongoing vaccination programmes being required' scenario is that such expectations foster a lack of ambition about what can be achieved, and enables a pretty dull and narrow line of orthodox thinking to remain in place. 

My own default thinking on such matters would be along the lines that humans perceive viruses in terms of their implications for humanity, and on that front most of the potential from pandemic viruses stems from the fact they are new to our bodies. And that the passage of time means that gradually this aspect will diminish and the numbers game will change as the virus loses its novelty. eg it could still be killing some people for the rest of my life but I'd hope the burden in terms of number of hospitalisations ultimately ends up being rather different to where we are today.


----------



## LDC (Jan 5, 2021)

Already talking about restrictions likely to go on until March...


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

TopCat said:


> This press conference tonight. Is this to announce new restrictions?  Asking for a friend.



Default assumption is that its just to underline what wa said yesterday and face some questioning about it. With a few new charts showing hospital doom etc. Maybe some new slogans and graphics but I'm not sure to what extent they can be bothered with that anymore.

Its always possible that new specific detail of this lockdown may emerge in such press conferences, but even for this u-turning government it might be unusual for large changes to happen one day after the previous massive u-turn. Not unless they've gotten new data and analysis very recently which revealed another area they have to go further with.

In terms of things that have been mentioned in the press but probably not formally announced yet, I think some travel/border testing regime has been mentioned but not finalised yet, so that will probably get its moment in the spotlight at some point.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 5, 2021)

There will no doubt be some new "news" such as more troops helping with vaccines or whatever thing makes it seem like they're working hard.


----------



## LDC (Jan 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Default assumption is that its just to underline what wa said yesterday and face some questioning about it. With a few new charts showing hospital doom etc. Maybe some new slogans and graphics but I'm not sure to what extent they can be bothered with that anymore.
> 
> Its always possible that new specific detail of this lockdown may emerge in such press conferences, but even for this u-turning government it might be unusual for large changes to happen one day after the previous massive u-turn. Not unless they've gotten new data and analysis very recently which revealed another area they have to go further with.
> 
> In terms of things that have been mentioned in the press but probably not formally announced yet, I think some travel/border testing regime has been mentioned but not finalised yet, so that will probably get its moment in the spotlight at some point.



Yeah, emphasize what was said last night is my guess. But I do think we might also get some news re: fatality, more on infectiousness, and vaccine efficacy for the new variants at some point very soon though.


----------



## Flavour (Jan 5, 2021)

All these shops not enforcing mask regulations need to be named and shamed publically, its complicity in manslaughter on a massive scale. I continue to be flabbergasted at the thought people are going into shops without masks in the UK


----------



## klang (Jan 5, 2021)

Flavour said:


> All these shops not enforcing mask regulations need to be named and shamed publically, its complicity in manslaughter on a massive scale. I continue to be flabbergasted at the thought people are going into shops without masks in the UK


I'd say it's >80% of all the corner shops in the two boroughs I live and work in not actively enforcing. Dunno about chain supermarkets. The one I use doesn't seem to enforce but most shoppers seem to comply.


----------



## Looby (Jan 5, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> Do you think it varies by supermarket?
> 
> I started using Lidl & Aldi when I moved house and had both within walking distance to my house.  Since March, I have shopped a lot more at M&S and Waitrose, because we middle class old ladies all wear masks and are respectful of each other.  I also use the 'big Tesco' which has wide aisles and is still policing numbers of people in store and face mask wearing.
> 
> My local Lidl is particularly bad, lots of people not wearing masks and long queues at the self service tills.  They have definitely lost my business because of this, but I guess all the supermarkets will be doing well with less eating out.  And obviously limiting the number of people who come in has an effect on sales.


I do. Asda has been the worst supermarket for masks and distancing for me. It was horrible last time I went in. 
Tesco the most crowded and Sainsburys has felt the safest.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 5, 2021)

I go to Sainsburys but not till their last hour of trading. More staff than customers & I avoid them too if I can.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I see the slugs doing another press conference at 5pm


Probably announcing the opening of schools tomorrow


----------



## MrSki (Jan 5, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Probably announcing the opening of schools tomorrow


I think it will be about travel restrictions but I would like them to introduce a curfew.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 5, 2021)

I'd like them to stop any old twat strolling in on planes from wherever


----------



## mwgdrwg (Jan 5, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I'd like them to stop any old twat strolling in on planes from wherever



Probably at least a year too late.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 5, 2021)

TopCat said:


> This press conference tonight. Is this to announce new restrictions?  Asking for a friend.



Boris just told us the restrictions last night.  Will take questions from the media today.


----------



## andysays (Jan 5, 2021)

Flavour said:


> All these shops not enforcing mask regulations need to be named and shamed publically, its complicity in manslaughter on a massive scale. I continue to be flabbergasted at the thought people are going into shops without masks in the UK


I understand and share people's concerns about this, but it needs to be remembered that in practice the burden of attempting to "enforce" such regulations falls primarily on poorly paid shop staff who really shouldn't be put in this position. 

But I that supermarket chains should certainly be doing more, including employing extra security staff to focus specifically on this if necessary.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 5, 2021)

I see Sunak is saying the Clown was decisive?  
Just because you say something, doesn't make it true.  
Boris can't make his mind up on anything, so no Sunak he's not decisive, he was just forced into it.


----------



## Flavour (Jan 5, 2021)

andysays said:


> I understand and share people's concerns about this, but it needs to be remembered that in practice the burden of attempting to "enforce" such regulations falls primarily on poorly paid shop staff who really shouldn't be put in this position.
> 
> But I that supermarket chains should certainly be doing more, including employing extra security staff to focus specifically on this if necessary.



Yes, I agree re: the burden falling on staff. That's precisely why they need back up from the government making it the law that people wear masks in enclosed public spaces e.g. shops.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 5, 2021)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Am so fucking angry right now, just had a client call asking if he and his two kids can leave the U.K. tonight (no, all flights have gone). They are due to fly to the U.S. tomorrow and are waiting on their PCR results later tonight, two of them have had it recently and failed the test last week. He asked where can one go with no test, I said Mexico is the only place I know that doesn’t require a test. And this man replies,
> 
> “OK, if one of us tests positive we’ll go to Cancun instead.”
> 
> ...




Update on this, all their tests came back this morning as negative and they left for the US in an almost legit manner. But still, will not be forgetting that in a long while.


----------



## sojourner (Jan 5, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I've ended up only going to Tesco, partly due to slightly better mask compliance and entry system, but mainly due to the wider aisles, it just feels so much safer. The nearest Morrisons has absurdly narrow and high aisles that feels like a complete viral death trap.


Yup, same here. Costing a bomb but better than the alternative.


----------



## sojourner (Jan 5, 2021)

It was my first day back in work yesterday. Found out yet another tenant had been infected. These are all the people who were laughing at me, btw, when I went back in after lockdown1 and was trying to socially distance from them. Oh dear, how sad, never fucking mind, dickheads.

Anyway, have took it upon meself to wfh again. No word from boss, no surprise there, and there's shag all he can say about it. 

Traffic and people numbers just the same round here too.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 5, 2021)

Put the army on supermarket doors to enforce compliance. Something in these rule breakers has made me go all Stalin Prime.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 5, 2021)

"I am a free man of the land. I will not comply"

Clack clack.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 5, 2021)

This time around, we've managed to get into the delivery system. 
We've not wanted to mingle in the shops locally, especially as we have a case rate locally that's been kicking around 1500 per 100,000 in a town and hinterland with less than 5,000 population at the last census. And some vocal & active ant-maskers ...
OH has booked a slot 10 days ahead, but we're still doing the order for tomorrow night. But with four of us, there's still a lot things we need. It's only when you bulk up like this that you realise just how much you eat ... especially milk for coffee and tea !


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 5, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> "I am a free man of the land. I will not comply"
> 
> Clack clack.


I'm joking of course. Sort of.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 5, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> "I am a free man of the land. I will not comply"
> 
> Clack clack.



"Resistance is futile"


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

For some reason I've had much less cause to rant about Nick Triggle in recent months. Mostly because he hasnt been promoting anti-lockdown dullard concepts since the last time he ended up with egg on his face, which was probably September.

Hopefully it will remain that way. This quote suggests it might:



> If lockdown had come earlier, it may well have been shorter.



From Covid: PM acted 'decisively' on England lockdown - Sunak


----------



## nyxx (Jan 5, 2021)

MrSki said:


> I think it will be about travel restrictions but I would like them to introduce a curfew.



how would a curfew help?

I’m pretty nocturnal by nature plus the shops I can get to are all way too busy for my liking until late - after midnight if they’re 24hr.


----------



## bimble (Jan 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Already talking about restrictions likely to go on until March...


I’m assuming end of March, as per Jeremy hunt. Johnson just halved it because he can’t help himself.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 5, 2021)

nyxx said:


> how would a curfew help?


It would help the virus by concentrating patterns of activity.


----------



## maomao (Jan 5, 2021)

I'm assuming the press conference tonight is because they want to excuse/manage the fucking shocking death figure that's going to come out in a couple of hours.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 5, 2021)

nyxx said:


> how would a curfew help?
> 
> I’m pretty nocturnal by nature plus the shops I can get to are all way too busy for my liking until late - after midnight if they’re 24hr.


Keep kids off the street & stop people driving to visit others in the evening. I see groups of teens hanging out in the park like nothing is happening. groups of ten + with no masks. 
I doubt it is their plans but if by a miracle it is, you could always go shopping at 6am.


----------



## maomao (Jan 5, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Keep kids off the street & stop people driving to visit others in the evening. I see groups of teens hanging out in the park like nothing is happening. groups of ten + with no masks.
> I doubt it is their plans but if by a miracle it is, you could always go shopping at 6am.


The police are able to break up such gatherings under current restrictions. They won't start doing it just because there's a curfew.


----------



## nyxx (Jan 5, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Keep kids off the street & stop people driving to visit others in the evening. I see groups of teens hanging out in the park like nothing is happening. groups of ten + with no masks.
> I doubt it is their plans but if by a miracle it is, you could always go shopping at 6am.



I could not go shopping at 6am, fuck off telling me how I could live my life you utter plank.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 5, 2021)

maomao said:


> The police are able to break up such gatherings under current restrictions. They won't start doing it just because there's a curfew.


True but it might stop the gatherings in the first place. If the parents are liable to a fine then they might make sure little Jonny is home by 8.


----------



## nyxx (Jan 5, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Keep kids off the street & stop people driving to visit others in the evening. I see groups of teens hanging out in the park like nothing is happening. groups of ten + with no masks.
> I doubt it is their plans but if by a miracle it is, you could always go shopping at 6am.



Ok, thanks for the clarification, I thought there might be some sensible , epidemiologically relevant reasoning for this curfew idea.


----------



## andysays (Jan 5, 2021)

bimble said:


> I’m assuming end of March, as per Jeremy hunt. Johnson just halved it because he can’t help himself.


TBH, I think anyone predicting how long this will go on, when things might get back to any sort of normality is just pulling dates out of their arse.

It would be far more sensible not to attempt to make that sort of prediction, IMO, and if asked by the media to refuse and explain why the question is unhelpful.


----------



## maomao (Jan 5, 2021)

MrSki said:


> True but it might stop the gatherings in the first place. If the parents are liable to a fine then they might make sure little Jonny is home by 8.


The lockdown might stop such gatherings. It only started yesterday. How many kids in the park have you had time to stalk since then?


----------



## MrSki (Jan 5, 2021)

nyxx said:


> Ok, thanks for the clarification, I thought there might be some sensible , epidemiologically relevant reasoning for this curfew idea.


So closing schools to stop kids mixing but allowing them to mix outside is a good idea?


----------



## xenon (Jan 5, 2021)

MrSki said:


> So closing schools to stop kids mixing but allowing them to mix outside is a good idea?



They're already not allowed to mix. Introducing a curfew or more rules doesn't mean they'll be effectively enforced.

As said, it would also jjust compress the time people are able to go to the shops, exercise, whatever. Stop people working late strolling through the park on the way home or me popping round to the corner shop at 20:30.

And if those kids are hanging around outside in near freezing tempratures, makes you wonder what it's like at home. Forcing them to stay in 24/7 might not be all that good for lots of other reasons.

TBH I've given up giving a fuck what other peple are doing, what all that traffic's about etc. No point. They'll either be fine and carry on, find out one of their nearest and dearest is seriously ill and maybe change their behaviour or perhaps they're out because they really need to be. Nothing I can do about any of that, waste of mental energy anyway.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm assuming the press conference tonight is because they want to excuse/manage the fucking shocking death figure that's going to come out in a couple of hours.



Shocking overall UK hospital figures are due any day now too, because the nations other than England have had long gaps in their data over Christmas and then again over new year, meaning that the last UK figure for number of people in hospitals is currently dated December 28th.

Aside from the usual brief moments of explaining when a days death figures are in part due to weekend catchup, they have tended to be more likely to use the high death numbers to encourage compliance with the restrictions rather than attempt to downplay such numbers. Although they are at their most slippery when it comes to death rates when making international comparisons, which is one of the reasons we may have ended up with 'deaths within 28 days of a positive test' in the first place, they were jealous of other countries in europe looking better on paper for stretches of the summer.


----------



## bimble (Jan 5, 2021)

andysays said:


> TBH, I think anyone predicting how long this will go on, when things might get back to any sort of normality is just pulling dates out of their arse.
> 
> It would be far more sensible not to attempt to make that sort of prediction, IMO, and if asked by the media to refuse and explain why the question is unhelpful.


Well, yeah. I did kind of just mean in my own brain, i'm using 'end of march' (which is what hunt tweeted yesterday as the timeframe for vaccine rollout to have protected the most vulnerable) as a time to look forward to, as if i might be able to invite people round, or go and see my parents etc. Not going to start booking restaurants for 7 or anything but need a date in mind as something to hold onto tbh, and that seems a less stupid focal point than Johnson's middle of feb.


----------



## maomao (Jan 5, 2021)

bimble said:


> Well, yeah. I did kind of just mean in my own brain, i'm using 'end of march' (which is what hunt tweeted yesterday as the timeframe for vaccine rollout to have protected the most vulnerable) as a time to look forward to, as if i might be able to invite people round, or go and see my parents etc. Not going to start booking restaurants for 7 or anything but need a date in mind as something to hold onto tbh, and that seems a less stupid focal point than Johnson's middle of feb.


I'm just looking forward to good enough weather that the kids can play in the garden for an hour or two. Might be a few weeks but at least the Tories can't fuck it up.


----------



## magneze (Jan 5, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm just looking forward to good enough weather that the kids can play in the garden for an hour or two. Might be a few weeks but at least the Tories can't fuck it up.


Don't jinx it, FFS.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 5, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm assuming the press conference tonight is because they want to excuse/manage the fucking shocking death figure that's going to come out in a couple of hours.


This is what is causing tingles of fear in me now.


----------



## nagapie (Jan 5, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm just looking forward to good enough weather that the kids can play in the garden for an hour or two. Might be a few weeks but at least the Tories can't fuck it up.


Be careful, aren't the three witches of the pandemic meeting tonight. I predict thunder, lightning and rain plus a hurly burly.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 5, 2021)

magneze said:


> Don't jinx it, FFS.


I'm sure there's a committee for that


----------



## Cid (Jan 5, 2021)

App has pinged change in alert level to national lockdown on my phone.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 5, 2021)

Oh, FFS, yet another record of reported new cases - 60,916.

Plus 830 new deaths reported.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 5, 2021)

Anecdotal evidence of the police in Edinburgh stopping cars at one of the big retail parks today and questioning people about why they're out and how far they've come, and issuing fines if you can't provide a good answer.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 5, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Anecdotal evidence of the police in Edinburgh stopping cars at one of the big retail parks today and questioning people about why they're out and how far they've come, and issuing fines if you can't provide a good answer.


Good.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 5, 2021)

Cid said:


> App has pinged change in alert level to national lockdown on my phone.


Holy shit I just checked my app... the tier info is about two weeks out of date     

ETA nevermind it just updated... but the fact it waited for me to manually open it and give it a minute to update says it all really


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Anecdotal evidence of the police in Edinburgh stopping cars at one of the big retail parks today and questioning people about why they're out and how far they've come, and issuing fines if you can't provide a good answer.


Surely the shops in the big retail parks are closed?


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh, FFS, yet another record of reported new cases - 60,916.
> 
> Plus 830 new deaths reported.



The UK hospitalisation figures I mentioned earlier still arent there as although they have now added a lot of recent figures for Northern Ireland, they have yet to do so with figures from Scotland and Wales. However I have pieced together most of this missing data using the relevant sources, and believe that the figure for 4th January will end up showing over 30,000 Covid-19 cases in UK hospitals on that date.


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 5, 2021)

Cid said:


> App has pinged change in alert level to national lockdown on my phone.



Mine just pinged and updated...the info that should have been there before Christmas.

Did someone just plug the app control back in?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 5, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm assuming the press conference tonight is because they want to excuse/manage the fucking shocking death figure that's going to come out in a couple of hours.




Number one, baby!

Looks like we're going to overtake Italy for the #5 spot in total deaths tomorrow too.


----------



## LDC (Jan 5, 2021)

Professor Neil Ferguson on the BBC making worrying noises that the SA variant is possibly resistant to the vaccines.


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2021)

The latest grim news. Not even a glimmer of hope. 











						Daily summary | Coronavirus in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## maomao (Jan 5, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> View attachment 247232
> 
> Number one, baby!


Number one in countries that have released data today. It's still morning in the US. 

I was expecting four figures from the bank holiday bounce back so was not as shocked as I could have been.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 5, 2021)

editor said:


> Surely the shops in the big retail parks are closed?


Quite a few places (Argos etc) are open for click and collect and the food/coffee places are allowed to do takeaway.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Professor Neil Ferguson on the BBC making worrying noises that the SA variant is possibly resistant to the vaccines.


These noises are coming thick & fast; we are being softened up.


----------



## LDC (Jan 5, 2021)

brogdale said:


> These noises are coming thick & fast; we are being softened up.



Yeah, I really have worries about that as well, that and the infectiousness and severity....


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

That said, for those that may have missed this morning, prunus posted an excellent explainer on this:

Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 5, 2021)

I thought it was interesting that BBC Breakfast today was going hard on scare stories - family of doctors that took every precaution but still lost their Dad, and interviews with several virologists and epidemic experts talking about how terrible the numbers are.


----------



## hegley (Jan 5, 2021)

editor said:


> Surely the shops in the big retail parks are closed?


Non-essential shops can still offer click-and-collect afaik. Which makes a fucking mockery of the whole point of closing them really.


----------



## andysays (Jan 5, 2021)

bimble said:


> Well, yeah. I did kind of just mean in my own brain, i'm using 'end of march' (which is what hunt tweeted yesterday as the timeframe for vaccine rollout to have protected the most vulnerable) as a time to look forward to, as if i might be able to invite people round, or go and see my parents etc. Not going to start booking restaurants for 7 or anything but need a date in mind as something to hold onto tbh, and that seems a less stupid focal point than Johnson's middle of feb.


In case it wasn't clear, I wasn't criticising you for feeling that way, or even for posing the question. It's understandable that we are all wanting to know when it will all be over and/or when will we be able to do something specific that's important to us.

But it does annoy me when, for instance, the head of PHE was asked by the BBC when we'd all be able to go on foreign holidays again and they attempt to provide an answer rather than explain that's an unrealistic and unhelpful question to be asking at the moment.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 5, 2021)

I went to Tesco earlier, very dead, still had security at the entrance monitoring the situation, but the 'traffic lights' were green, so no queue to get in. Everyone. staff & customers, were wearing masks, but that's always been the case around here.

Went on for a birthday lunch at my brother & SiL's place, support bubble, then home, roads are fairly dead, very few cars about, much more like the first lockdown rather than the second one, which is encouraging.


----------



## andysays (Jan 5, 2021)

Cid said:


> App has pinged change in alert level to national lockdown on my phone.


Yeah, mine did that earlier this afternoon.


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2021)

The shit show begins 





__





						Loading…
					





					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 5, 2021)

Booooooooooooooo.

(Johnson is on)


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I thought it was interesting that BBC Breakfast today was going hard on scare stories - family of doctors that took every precaution but still lost their Dad, and interviews with several virologists and epidemic experts talking about how terrible the numbers are.



There has been no subtlety about the way this sort of messaging has been switched on and off in the media in this pandemic, especially by the state broadcaster. I wish it had been switched on much earlier in this wave, its been a long time coming this time around.

BBC Midlands Today even found some idiot councillor yesterday who even the tories had to disown for taking a stupid pandemic stance and talking shit, and they interviewed him in a suitably hostile manner.

This switch is also why when I was going on the other day about too few hospital media stories, staff interviews etc, and too many business owner interviews, I said that the pendulum was now swinging back in the other direction. In reality the swing was pretty instantaneous once it finally happened.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

Is he pissed or something?


----------



## zora (Jan 5, 2021)

Wow, as some predicted, he is seriously leading with bigging up of the vaccine success, not the hideous case numbers and deaths.!


----------



## Supine (Jan 5, 2021)

Daily jab numbers from next Monday. Good.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 5, 2021)

Surely the South African variant couldn't be immune so quickly? I thought that it wasn't such a big deal to alter the vaccines to make them cover different mutations? Or is this just to cover up the fact there's not enough vaccines?


----------



## spitfire (Jan 5, 2021)

If i heard him right, "the NHS has commited" , not "we have commited".

The weasely shitbag.


----------



## bimble (Jan 5, 2021)

andysays said:


> In case it wasn't clear, I wasn't criticising you for feeling that way, or even for posing the question. It's understandable that we are all wanting to know when it will all be over and/or when will we be able to do something specific that's important to us.
> 
> But it does annoy me when, for instance, the head of PHE was asked by the BBC when we'd all be able to go on foreign holidays again and they attempt to provide an answer rather than explain that's an unrealistic and unhelpful question to be asking at the moment.


I totally agree, and i know you weren’t being cross with me but with the over-promising of the men who got us here in the first place. I’m sure back in march Johnson said it’d be 12 weeks till we had this thing ‘licked’.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 5, 2021)

1 in 50. Fucking hell.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 5, 2021)

1 in 50 have it right now?


----------



## andysays (Jan 5, 2021)

bimble said:


> I totally agree, and i know you weren’t being cross with me but with the over-promising of the men who got us here in the first place. I’m sure back in march Johnson said it’d be 12 weeks till we had this thing ‘licked’.


No wonder he caught it if he went round licking things


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> 1 in 50 have it right now?


Based on ONS sampling, yes


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 5, 2021)

I don’t think of early January as “the worst part of winter” or even “the middle of winter”.


----------



## maomao (Jan 5, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Is he pissed or something?


Sobriety would surely be out of character.


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2021)

Chris Whitty should just do the whole presentation and cut out the flannelling oaf.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

BBC will have to sack that woman...they're not meant to ask actual questions.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 5, 2021)

one thing they have no mentioned in this reports is that and i have check

the offie has been told to close by 20:00


----------



## killer b (Jan 5, 2021)

hegley said:


> Non-essential shops can still offer click-and-collect afaik. Which makes a fucking mockery of the whole point of closing them really.


Isn't the point of closing them to stop people mixing indoors? Seems to me click and collect tackles this reasonably well.


----------



## maomao (Jan 5, 2021)

Became aware of the new variant on the 18th? Lying piece of shit.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Professor Neil Ferguson on the BBC making worrying noises that the SA variant is possibly resistant to the vaccines.


It certainly has a key mutation that reduces neutralising activity in convalescent sera but the vaccine sera studies aren't out yet (see mutations thread).


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

Yeah, yer cunt, I would have done me BBC schoolwork, but my mum couldn't afford the the TV licence.


----------



## editor (Jan 5, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> one thing they have no mentioned in this reports is that and i have check
> 
> the offie has been told to close by 20:00


I don't think that is in the new rules in England. 









						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Looby (Jan 5, 2021)

killer b said:


> Isn't the point of closing them to stop people mixing indoors? Seems to me click and collect tackles this reasonably well.


Depends if you need to go in store. Argos and Dunelm were collect outside but I saw people going into Waterstones last lockdown.
Still mixing and stood around waiting for parcels.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 5, 2021)

it is in north ireland so maybe they got it wrong

but that was the shout from my local shop


----------



## Espresso (Jan 5, 2021)

Peston asking Johnson when it will all be over.   
He might as well be asking how long a piece of string is. What a fart he is.


----------



## hegley (Jan 5, 2021)

killer b said:


> Isn't the point of closing them to stop people mixing indoors? Seems to me click and collect tackles this reasonably well.


I thought it was to generally discourage people from going out at all unless it's absolutely essential?


----------



## Smangus (Jan 5, 2021)

No follow up questions, the coward.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 5, 2021)

Why doesn't he give his condolences to the relatives of 830 people?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

_Yarh,_ _we might be north of that figure, actually_

Thick, posho cunt.


----------



## Espresso (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Why doesn't he give his condolences to the relatives of 830 people?


Because he doesn't care.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 5, 2021)

Fuck me, those figures for today are horrendous and it ain't getting better for a long while yet.
Despite the news on the vaccinations, which appears good, but really, it ought to be better !

Our little local spike is having a re-surge, it seems  (and the 5 to 6 day delay in the mapping is not helping).


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

_schools are safe._

Thick cunt.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 5, 2021)

38 people tested positive in my postcode last week


----------



## vanya (Jan 5, 2021)

Why the Tories are making such a mess of the coronavirus crisis 









						A Sociology of Tory Covid Short-Termism
					

He tried wriggling, he tried avoiding. He even went on national television and urged parents to send their children to school. But at last...




					averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com
				






> He tried wriggling, he try avoiding. He even went on national television and urged parents to send their children to school. But at last, with the weight of public opinion bearing down on him Boris Johnson was forced to announce the new national lockdown. Everyone is to stay at home apart from exercise, essential shopping, or work where it is absolutely necessary they go in. Schools, colleges, and universities are shut, and the government are pulling out all the stops to get the four highest at-risk groups vaccinated so we might return to the broken tiers system following half term in February. Lest we forget the disaster of the new, more infectious Covid variant is a product cooked up by _this government's_ half-arsed approach since the Summer. Their refusal to take matters seriously gave the virus ample opportunity to circulate, mutate, and come back to bite us.
> 
> The timing of the announcement underlines their levity. Take schools, for example. Because Johnson dithered and delayed, just like last time, parents and teachers are left scrambling trying to organise at-home classes, and thanks to the lack of clarity in the Prime Minister's announcement he failed to mention whether schools would stay open, like last March, for children at risk or with key worker parents. It was also an announcement offering zero reassurance to other workers. Will small businesses be supported? How about the millions of self-employed Rishi Sunak _purposely_ let fall through the gaping holes of his safety net? Are the government going to support colleges and universities left out of pocket by its late announcement, or are we carrying on letting entire sectors implode? Even by the standards set by a decade of ruinous Conservative governments, this is utterly, utterly pitiful. No matter where they set the benchmark for awfulness, it can - and does - always get lower.
> 
> ...


----------



## PD58 (Jan 5, 2021)

Am, i stupid, but surely amongst SAGE et al there is a sub group that considers worst case scenarios such as:
1. Virus mutates, is transmitted more quickly, presents a wider set of conditions and vaccines do not work
2. Virus mutates, is transmitted more quickly, presents a wider set of conditions and vaccines do work
etc etc.
and has a strategy, plans in place to deal with each of these...

Listening to Whitty and Valance it seems it is all reaction and no proactivity...
_Prof Chris Whitty says the UK's chief medical officers met yesterday morning and reviewed data, before then advising the country should move to alert level five.
Sir Patrick Vallance adds that the view from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) was that it was "likely" that more measures would be needed due to the increased transmissibility of the new variant._

Frankly they all are giving a good impression of utter incompetence.


----------



## andysays (Jan 5, 2021)

brogdale said:


> _schools are safe._
> 
> Thick cunt.



They're a lot safer now that they're closed to all but children of key workers and those with vulnerabilities, TBF


----------



## bimble (Jan 5, 2021)

Do you regret 3 million kids mixing for one pointless day which will inevitably lead to vastly increased infections & deaths ? He didn’t hear that question at all.


----------



## Ax^ (Jan 5, 2021)

who the fuck came up with this "Get the Jab" slogan

still not see any of the current Tory wanker stand up to get the jab


----------



## rubbershoes (Jan 5, 2021)

Email from the school today 




			
				headteacher said:
			
		

> Last evening Mr Johnson, Prime Minister, informed us that we would move back into a national lockdown and school would be closed to a majority of students.  Although this appeared a shock to the Prime Minister, we had been planning for such an event for some time



I'm pleased that the people educating my children have as low an opinion of him as I do


----------



## xenon (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Surely the South African variant couldn't be immune so quickly? I thought that it wasn't such a big deal to alter the vaccines to make them cover different mutations? Or is this just to cover up the fact there's not enough vaccines?



I think it's called vaccine escape. And they don't know yet whether the SA variant can entirely, partially or not at all evade the vaccine. Also, whether it is more or less severe than the main varients in circulation. *Younger people in hospital may be a result of the greater transmissibility and areas which have still been open.

But from what I can gather, it has quite a few changes in the spike proteins which affects transmisssability. Obviously this is being looked at. The experts seem to think the current RNA vaccines could be tweeked relatively quickly to adapt, weeks, though this may also need to be authorized by regulatory authorities. Depending on how much is changed I spose.

* Just my thoughts, caviets etc. A  greater number of younger people being hospitalised may speak to it's increased transmisability rather than a more severe effect persay. Not a lot else where people mix, has been open apart from schools, and colleges until yesterday. Older age groups may not have school age children or be living with any / many young / younger adults. So of those hospitalised the younger groups are a greater proportion.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

bimble said:


> Do you regret 3 million kids mixing for one pointless day which will inevitably lead to vastly increased infections & deaths ? He didn’t hear that question at all.


He did; it wasn't the question that was the problem.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 5, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> who the fuck came up with this "Get the Jab" slogan
> 
> still not see any of the current Tory wanker stand up to get the jab



Well, they shouldn't be should they. 

Maybe they should roll out someone like Norman Tebbit but they might struggle to find any blood flowing.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Why doesn't he give his condolences to the relatives of 830 people?



Every day, Nicola Sturgeon starts her press conference (which she has been quietly doing more or less every day since March last year) by saying something along the lines of 'I'm very sorry to have to report that (x number of) people have very sadly died in the last 24 hours with Covid, and I would like to offer my deepest condolences to every one of their friends and relatives'. That floppy haired cunt just waltzed straight into his bullshit waffle about vaccines without even pausing to mention them. It was breathtaking.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 5, 2021)

Btw, off topic but how the hell is Tebbit still alive? Only the good die young etc but that's just taking the piss.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 5, 2021)

editor said:


> Surely the shops in the big retail parks are closed?


Dawn of the dead...


----------



## teqniq (Jan 5, 2021)

Apparently Williamson had this data but kept schtum about it. Resigning matter much?











						Exclusive: Teacher Covid rates up to 333% above average
					

Teacher infections far outstripping local rates, figures from three local authorities obtained by the NASUWT reveal




					www.tes.com


----------



## brogdale (Jan 5, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Apparently Williamson had this data but kept schtum about it. Resigning matter much?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



But, but the Prime Minister said that schools are safe.


----------



## Sprocket. (Jan 5, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Every day, Nicola Sturgeon starts her press conference (which she has been quietly doing more or less every day since March last year) by saying something along the lines of 'I'm very sorry to have to report that (x number of) people have very sadly died in the last 24 hours with Covid, and I would like to offer my deepest condolences to every one of their friends and relatives'. That floppy haired cunt just waltzed straight into his bullshit waffle about vaccines without even pausing to mention them. It was breathtaking.



Tories cannot even feign sincerity, so they don’t bother with believable compassion.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

PD58 said:


> Am, i stupid, but surely amongst SAGE et al there is a sub group that considers worst case scenarios such as:
> 1. Virus mutates, is transmitted more quickly, presents a wider set of conditions and vaccines do not work
> 2. Virus mutates, is transmitted more quickly, presents a wider set of conditions and vaccines do work
> etc etc.
> ...



If we werent somewhat proactive about mutations then we wouldnt even have noticed the new variant. We were proactive enough to do various genome surveillance, and for various expert groups to have written about the importance of keeping this situation under close watch wne planning to roll out vaccination programmes.

The question of ascertaining all the facts and taking the right action at the right time is a much broader one that soon falls into territory beset by failure in this pandemic so far. So Im not complacent about this stuff. But there are no easy answers and a failure to do the right thing and be proactive is about far more than spotting the dangers in theory in advance.

Its the same as modelling - one of the reasons it can be so limited is that they model certain scenarios, and what is considered politically acceptable and thus 'practical' impacts on what scenarios are modelled, and what advice ends up being generated as a result.

In terms of the new variant, NERVTAG in December when discussing the UK variant did make this recommendation:



> NERVTAG   recommends   that   ajoint   NERVTAG-SPI-Msubgroup   of   SAGE   is convened  to  provide further advice  on risk  and  riskmitigation  measuresfor VUI-202012/01.



(from the end of Box )

I would expect the scope of such things to have quickly expanded to include the South Africa strain too.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I suspect there will be a very limited number of ways in which this virus will be able to escape vaccines and remain so infectious. I don’t see this being like influenza A because that’s really quite exceptional in the way different strains of it can recombine so easily.
> 
> I don’t think flu comparisons are realistic. I think it’s much more likely that once we have vaccinated against the “easy” mutations of this, then it’s going to become a niche thing that we can move on from. Whether that takes one year or ten years time will tell.



By the way I havent had much time to read about recombination and coronaviruses. I was familiar with the concept from influenza, but my knowledge was basic and has gone rusty. I have seen references to recombination in the current pandemic context though, eg in this late September NERVTAG document about SARS-CoV-2 genetic changes.









						NERVTAG: Is there evidence for genetic change in SARS-CoV-2 and if so, do mutations affect virus phenotype? - 30 September 2020
					

Paper prepared by the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG).




					www.gov.uk
				






> SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus, with a large 30kb positive strand RNA genome. An integral part of the replication mechanism in coronaviruses involves a discontinuous step in the synthesis of viral RNA, with the natural consequence of a high degree of a recombination resulting in the insertion of viral and non-viral sequences into or deletion of viral sequence from the genome. This is one of the major processes by which coronaviruses switch host range or change their pathogenesis/virulence. Recombination with either an unsampled SARS-like virus or human, bat or pangolin host sequence probably gave rise to the furin cleavage site that is found within the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein and may contribute to infectivity and transmissibility. SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV are thought to have had recombination in their evolutionary history (1, 2) and in new outbreaks (3). Deletions in the genome of the porcine coronavirus transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) have given rise to a new virus called porcine respiratory coronavirus (PRCV) (4). Human coronavirus OC43 is thought to have acquired the hemagglutinin esterase (HE) gene from recombination between a progenitor coronavirus and influenza C virus.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 5, 2021)

vanya said:


> Why the Tories are making such a mess of the coronavirus crisis
> 
> 
> 
> ...



A related - if flip - explanation here:


----------



## ash (Jan 5, 2021)

They want to vaccinate as many people a day as possible .... really?  I applied to NHS professionals as a vaccinator today  (I used to be a nurse years ago but am still on the register due to my educational involvement).  On the risk assessment I declared asthma (mild).  I was told to come back when I’d had the 2 vaccinations.  Surely 1) they should vaccinate the vaccinators 2) if not all at least the ones that come up as a risk in the risk assessment.  So they can’t use me to vaccinate the over 80’s  until I (in my 50’s) have had the vaccination - you couldn’t make it up!!!!


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 5, 2021)

Listening to Alyson Pollock on France 24. Has anyone ever come across her before? She said a mixture of sensible and strange stuff


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 5, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Mine just pinged and updated...the info that should have been there before Christmas.
> 
> Did someone just plug the app control back in?



I'd almost forgotten about the app til I read this post.  I've just opened it, and it's not updated at all yet.

I can't help wondering what uptake of the app has been like, and how much good it's actually doing.  It seemed like a very positive development when it came out but now almost seems to have been forgotten.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 5, 2021)

ash said:


> They want to vaccinate as many people a day as possible .... really?  I applied to NHS professionals as a vaccinator today  (I used to be a nurse years ago but am still on the register due to my educational involvement).  On the risk assessment I declared asthma (mild).  I was told to come back when I’d had the 2 vaccinations.  Surely 1) they should vaccinate the vaccinators 2) if not all at least the ones that come up as a risk in the risk assessment.  So they can’t use me to vaccinate the over 80’s  until I (in my 50’s) have had the vaccination - you couldn’t make it up!!!!



I may want to add that to THIS THREAD.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 5, 2021)

ash said:


> They want to vaccinate as many people a day as possible .... really?  I applied to NHS professionals as a vaccinator today  (I used to be a nurse years ago but am still on the register due to my educational involvement).  On the risk assessment I declared asthma (mild).  I was told to come back when I’d had the 2 vaccinations.  Surely 1) they should vaccinate the vaccinators 2) if not all at least the ones that come up as a risk in the risk assessment.  So they can’t use me to vaccinate the over 80’s  until I (in my 50’s) have had the vaccination - you couldn’t make it up!!!!



Also nobody is getting two vaccinations at present, and under 60s not currently working i healthcare are at the back of the queue to even get one.


----------



## iona (Jan 5, 2021)

Working for the vaccination programme would put you in the same priority group as 80+ year olds too


----------



## andysays (Jan 5, 2021)

iona said:


> Working for the vaccination programme would put you in the same priority group as 80+ year olds too


Yeah, surely the very first people to be vaccinated are those doing the vaccinating

Among the very first, anyway


----------



## ash (Jan 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I may want to add that to THIS THREAD.


Done I hadn’t seen that one


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 5, 2021)

TopCat said:


> I want the quality and value of Lidl and am stubborn about this. I am going once a month, at night (usually after 21:00) and buying up the place.
> 
> Not many people at that time and room to avoid the mask less and potter through all the tat.
> 
> Cab there and back with the windows open and rain pissing in. Cabbie was perfectly fine about the water ingress and my twelve bags of shopping plus booze.


You should try ALDI it is very similar in quality and value.
I find that late shopping does help there but not always so in London.


what said:


> As others have said far to many people out and about. Traffic on my street from 6:30 to 8:30 this morning pretty close to normal. Traffic on Google maps showing lots of amber and red for London at the moment. During first lockdown all of London was green on maps.


Just drove into London as am working tomorrow and the traffic was only a tad quieter than normal for this drive.


rubbershoes said:


> Email from the school today
> 
> 
> 
> I'm pleased that the people educating my children have as low an opinion of him as I do


There was a head teacher on radio 4 earlier who found it really hard to find an appropriate answert to the question "do you feel you were supported enough by the education department" 
in the end she went for: "they need to be a lot more flexible at understanding the reality on the ground"


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 5, 2021)

iona said:


> Working for the vaccination programme would put you in the same priority group as 80+ year olds too



You don't see the potential cart/horse problem here? If they won't give you a job until you've had the vaccine and they won't give you a vaccine until you've got the job?


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> 1 in 50 have it right now?



Almost twice that number if the cohort is Premier League footballers and club staff,









						Number of PL positive tests double
					

The Premier League says 40 players and club staff have tested positive for coronavirus over the past week - more than double the previous weekly high.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				




(Roughly 1 in 29)


----------



## PD58 (Jan 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> If we werent somewhat proactive about mutations then we wouldnt even have noticed the new variant. We were proactive enough to do various genome surveillance, and for various expert groups to have written about the importance of keeping this situation under close watch wne planning to roll out vaccination programmes.
> 
> The question of ascertaining all the facts and taking the right action at the right time is a much broader one that soon falls into territory beset by failure in this pandemic so far. So Im not complacent about this stuff. But there are no easy answers and a failure to do the right thing and be proactive is about far more than spotting the dangers in theory in advance.
> 
> ...



I totally get that from the scientific angle and expect that the virus itself is being closely monitored, but what I am talking about are general scenarios ie thinking about the worst possible case scenarios at the impact level (medically, socially, economically, environmentally) and what should be done should they come to pass...this requires much more input than just from the science perspective and is more akin to the modelling you mention. However, I have no confidence at all in the strategic approach (is there even one?) to handling the  scenarios that we have been facing; with each wave the response appears even more knee jerk/last minute and gives me the impression that none of them have really considered the actions required to manage a new highly transmissible variant for which we do not know if the vaccines will work. If they had surely actions would have been taken earlier i.e. as soon as the characteristics of the new variant were known. Or am i missing something?


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 5, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Almost twice that number if the cohort is Premier League footballers and club staff,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


must be something that they are doing to be spreading infection like that, might be a good idea if they stopped it ?   
[note : tongue firmly in cheek, before anyone gets sarky]


----------



## teqniq (Jan 5, 2021)

__





						Finding out about internet access needs
					

How to asses whether your pupils or students need help accessing the internet and resources available to help with access and safeguarding.




					get-help-with-tech.education.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

PD58 said:


> I totally get that from the scientific angle and expect that the virus itself is being closely monitored, but what I am talking about are general scenarios ie thinking about the worst possible case scenarios at the impact level (medically, socially, economically, environmentally) and what should be done should they come to pass...this requires much more input than just from the science perspective and is more akin to the modelling you mention. However, I have no confidence at all in the strategic approach (is there even one?) to handling the  scenarios that we have been facing; with each wave the response appears even more knee jerk/last minute and gives me the impression that none of them have really considered the actions required to manage a new highly transmissible variant for which we do not know if the vaccines will work. If they had surely actions would have been taken earlier i.e. as soon as the characteristics of the new variant were known. Or am i missing something?



I cant do the subject full justice now because I used a simply ridiculous number of words on this sort of thing for several months last year. There were so many different sorts of establishment failure to get my teeth into, and I cannot go over it all again now, its still too soon. So just a few fragments instead:

For the early part of the first wave huge chunks of the establishment were behind reality in terms of number of infections that were actually happening already here, and by the time the penny finally dropped for enough of them they didnt have any wiggle room left and had to act strongly.

In subsequent phases there has been far more time to see things coming, which has also given those who would rather do as little as possible as late as possible, far more wiggle room to be stubborn and far more time to drag their heels.

At this point I have also seen quite enough to suspect that they really do like to do the public messaging/new measures stuff in a series of steps in rapid succession, as if this constant stream of reacting late and ramping things up is the best way to ensure public awareness and compliance of the new mood and the new behaviours required. From the earliest days I started having reasons to go on about that, and even wondered if psychology was being used to get people to take matters into their own hands by creating the perception that government was acting too slowly. However general levels of establishment ineptitude and mistiming have been more than high enough for me not to dream of ruling out simpler explanations involving them repeatedly making the same mistakes rather than it being a cunning plan.

But there are so many other angles to pick on. I could pick on the tory & tory press one, where we may observe the usual sick dance of the variety that may count public attitudes towards the EU and a decent pandemic response as some of its victims.

How many different strains of poison are in the wells of this country? As ever, the pandemic shines a light on the problems and the plights that were already there, it magnifies them, it broadcasts our weaknesses and failings, including the way we educate those who will for some reason be considered leadership material of one sort of another when their time comes. And even when we eventually manage to arrange some of the nations priorities in the right order, opposing forces still exist and try to get in the way.


----------



## Edie (Jan 5, 2021)

Can I ask a question? If 1/50 (or 2%) of the population had covid _last week alone _(I was one of them!)... what percentage of the population must have had it by now do you think?

At this rate, we’ll be mostly immune cos we’ve all bloody had it!


----------



## prunus (Jan 5, 2021)

Edie said:


> Can I ask a question? If 1/50 (or 2%) of the population had covid _last week alone _(I was one of them!)... what percentage of the population must have had it by now do you think?
> 
> At this rate, we’ll be mostly immune cos we’ve all bloody had it!



I’d eyeball it at about 15-20%, probably with some large regional variations.


----------



## Edie (Jan 5, 2021)

prunus said:


> I’d eyeball it at about 15-20%, probably with some large regional variations.


It’s gotta be more than that don’t you think? It’s been near on 10 months since it started.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 5, 2021)

And as frogwoman (as I recall) pointed out last year, Professor Gupta estimated that 50% of the population had already been infected by March and the epidemic could already have been on the way out. Which suggests nobody should take what she says seriously.


----------



## killer b (Jan 5, 2021)

Edie said:


> It’s gotta be more than that don’t you think? It’s been near on 10 months since it started.


Much of that time there's been very low infection rates though - they estimated 6-7% nationally in the first wave, I'd say were looking the same number again (maybe a little more) since, so 15-20 sounds right to me.


----------



## Edie (Jan 5, 2021)

killer b said:


> Much of that time there's been very low infection rates though - they estimated 6-7% nationally in the first wave, I'd say were looking the same number again (maybe a little more) since, so 15-20 sounds right to me.


I’ll go with it then, cos I don’t know any better! 1 in 5 then. I guess that feels _about_ right...


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

prunus said:


> I’d eyeball it at about 15-20%, probably with some large regional variations.



Although the following sort of antibody surveillance probably doesnt capture the full range of those previously infected, it tends to come out with somewhat lower levels but sometimes getting into that sort of range you mention. Theres plenty of lag with these stats too so some of the numbers shown in the following charts will be expected to increase as a result of more recent and future second wave infections. eg London in these figures has yet the reflect this intense period of their second wave yet. Another complicating factor is that they arent sure to what extent people infected early on have seen their levels of these sorts of antibodies fall off, contributing to some of these figures falling over time before going back up as a result of the second wave.




(from the weekly surveillance report https://assets.publishing.service.g...948638/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w53.pdf )

Certainly need to consider those sorts of numbers in terms of population age and health conditions too, because even if some large number of millions have already been infected by now, chances are quite a large proportion of them are younger people, and that people might be surprised at quite how many older and vulnerable people really have shielded effectively from the virus so far, and have avoided catching it. This is also why they shit themselves about the hospital situation, since without even doing the sums properly it seems easy to see how only a fraction of vulnerable people catching this virus can still result in terrible levels of demand on hospitals.

When thinking about this sort of picture I have also been using the sort of stas that have been handily presented in vaccine-related news stories of late to remind myself just how many people there are in various groups.

eg: (from Covid: Can we really jab our way out of lockdown? )


----------



## 2hats (Jan 5, 2021)

Edie said:


> Can I ask a question? If 1/50 (or 2%) of the population had covid _last week alone _(I was one of them!)... what percentage of the population must have had it by now do you think?
> 
> At this rate, we’ll be mostly immune cos we’ve all bloody had it!


Perhaps 10 million. Won't entirely be surprised if the immunity of an increasing number of them starts dropping away around about now.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

On the same question, I have tried adding together all of a certain kind of estimate from the ONS infection survey since it began. Using data from Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey        - Office for National Statistics

Problems include this being slightly out of date and having to wait several more days before the next version is due out, but more importantly the fact that this survey was not up and running properly for some time, so a great big chunk of the first wave is missing. And it started off a bit on the small side, leading to a wider range of uncertainty in their earlier estimates.

Even so, just to give an idea, if I add up all their 'Estimate of the number of people testing positive for COVID-19' figures, covering 27th April to 18th December, I get a little over 7.5 million. And like I said, thats missing the rather large number of cases from before late April that would have happened but that we had no proper way to estimate at the time. In terms of 95% confidence/credible range, they have it as somewhere between 6.7 and 8.5 million in those figures. I believe thats just for England though, it was just a quick exercise so I just picked one set of numbers out of that spreadsheet to provide a single illustration.


----------



## Edie (Jan 5, 2021)

2hats said:


> Perhaps 10 million. Won't entirely be surprised if the immunity of an increasing number of them starts dropping away around about now.


If I’ve had it once and it nearly did for me, I’m going to assume I have some sort of future level of protection. Mainly because I absolutely definitely could never face being that ill again. But also, you have to have some immunity...

How long is the vaccine supposed to deliver immunity for, is that known? I should be getting the vaccine by the end of Feb, although I won’t be pushing to the front as I’ve actually had covid.


----------



## prunus (Jan 5, 2021)

Edie said:


> It’s gotta be more than that don’t you think? It’s been near on 10 months since it started.



I agree it feels like it should be, but after shooting from the hip with that estimate I went to look for some survey data (yeah yeah wrong way round ) and I think 20% is probably a little too high - seems only about 10% had antibodies in Nov, and I don’t think there will have been another 10% since then (though obviously I’m guessing).

We could estimate from deaths involving covid at 91,000, using a 0.8% mortality rate (for want of choosing one) - that would give about 17%, so same ballpark.

I suspect it’s somewhere around there anyway.


----------



## Edie (Jan 5, 2021)

prunus said:


> I agree it feels like it should be, but after shooting from the hip with that estimate I went to look for some survey data (yeah yeah wrong way round ) and I think 20% is probably a little too high - seems only about 10% had antibodies in Nov, and I don’t think there will have been another 10% since then (though obviously I’m guessing).
> 
> We could estimate from deaths involving covid at 91,000, using a 0.8% mortality rate (for want of choosing one) - that would give about 17%, so same ballpark.
> 
> I suspect it’s somewhere around there anyway.


Thanks prunus xx


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> 38 people tested positive in my postcode last week


and that is just those who bothered with a test...


----------



## PD58 (Jan 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> In subsequent phases there has been far more time to see things coming, which has also given those who would rather do as little as possible as late as possible, far more wiggle room to be stubborn and far more time to drag their heels.


Exactly, yet there appears to be no strategic thinking just a managerialist response. How come we have seen no leaks about 'well we have a strategy for x scenario but...'? It beggars belief that such strategies do not exist and when we get to the new normal this lot will still be running (ruining) the country and will probably be re-elected. Fortunately, I have no offspring that will suffer the big pandemic (this is not it) or the worst of climate change because i really fear for our future if this is how we are to respond to forthcoming catastrophes.


----------



## magneze (Jan 5, 2021)

brogdale said:


> But, but the Prime Minister said that schools are safe.


He should resign too.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

PD58 said:


> Exactly, yet there appears to be no strategic thinking just a managerialist response. How come we have seen no leaks about 'well we have a strategy for x scenario but...'? It beggars belief that such strategies do not exist and when we get to the new normal this lot will still be running (ruining) the country and will probably be re-elected. Fortunately, I have no offspring that will suffer the big pandemic (this is not it) or the worst of climate change because i really fear for our future if this is how we are to respond to forthcoming catastrophes.



We had some reasonable worst case winter planning scenarios and in many ways the possible impact of the new variant is similar to what worst-case winter scenarios could have envisaged.  This sort of planning inevitably involves assumptions and a narrow selection of scenarios to model and think about. But they usually have a worst-case one in there to at least occasionally focus minds on planning for situations where capacity stands no chance of keeping up with demand.

Aside from the narrowness of such plans, they also tend to illicit an immature and unhelpful response from sections of the political classes and from sections of the media. It was only a few months ago where the anti-lockdown shithead side of the press were having a field day by picking apart Vallance slides of modelling that showed certain numbers of cases and deaths at various looming stages of the second wave. I forget the exact timing but probably stuff being said in September about how bad things could be by October. Every opportunity was taken to shoot the messengers on that occasion, followed by months of torturous political theatre. And the delays inevitably just means those shitheads, like everyone else, end up having to live with stronger measures for longer. Its a disgusting fiasco that stems from crap patterns of power, decision making, shit values, shit attitudes, and many otherwise competent people who are resigned to their fate as a relatively powerless small cog in a dysfunctional machine. A machines thats also been sold off to varying degrees. All aboard the gravy train.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

brogdale said:


> BBC will have to sack that woman...they're not meant to ask actual questions.



I think the pre-Christmas u-turn, combined with these subsequent aspects like the amazingly shit school closure announcement timing, mean that the pressure release valve is quite far open right now when it comes to the media mirroring peoples sense of frustration and disgruntlement. The BBC is not exempt from this at the moment, though I dont know how long it will last. Its still a fairly safe and controlled form of pressure release at this stage. But keep an eye out for future mutations, or the gradual closing of the valve.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Another complicating factor is that they arent sure to what extent people infected early on have seen their levels of these sorts of antibodies fall off, contributing to some of these figures falling over time before going back up as a result of the second wave.


Quite. Anecdotally am seeing (what are most likely) reinfections of friends ~10 months on (who were infected at the start of this pandemic).


Edie said:


> How long is the vaccine supposed to deliver immunity for, is that known? I should be getting the vaccine by the end of Feb, although I won’t be pushing to the front as I’ve actually had covid.


We won't know it is N months until N months after the first extensive trials.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 5, 2021)

A doctor on here reported on another thread seeing 4 people get reinfected.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 5, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> A doctor on here reported on another thread seeing 4 people get reinfected.


There has been a proper study showing front line health care workers in the north of England who were infected early on   have had 0 (zero) reinfection and 0 asymptomatic infection. There is mounting evidence immunity is long lived as these people were and still are treating COVID patients.

FYI :


----------



## 2hats (Jan 5, 2021)

Sunray said:


> There has been a proper study showing front line health care workers in the north of England who were infected early on   have had 0 (zero) reinfection and 0 asymptomatic infection. There is mounting evidence immunity is long lived as these people were and still are treating COVID patients.


And how long has that study run for thus far..?


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2021)

maomao said:


> Is it possible that they're counting on having already vaccinated enough over 80s to keep the death figures a bit more palatable once the surge starts to properly kick in?



I wasnt happy with the cop-out first part of my previous answer to this post of several days ago:



elbows said:


> No I wouldnt expect that to make much difference, although it does of course depend on what period we are taking about.



I'm mentioning it again now because during todays press conference, I feel Whitty ended up coving some aspects of this point, and it reminded me what a bad job I'd done of it. I dont really want to paraphrase him now as I am tired, but at one stage he explained how the increase in cases will turn into hospitalisations and then eventually deaths, and how we can therefore expect that figure to rise. And in response to a question he did start to go on about how the vaccination priority order will first start to impact deaths, and then later there will be a reduction in the pressure hospitals are under, emphasising that it takes time to get these end results out of the vaccination process. He also endorsed the governments vaccination timetable ambitions, albeit with the usual caveats.

So really I dont want to make it sound like I think vaccination will make no difference to the picture. It should be just a question of time, and much of my hesitancy is because I tend to focus on the near term and that picture looks set to get worse before it gets better. But when it comes to the results of vaccination, even if we fall far short of various targets, in some sense my feelings are of the same sort I had early on. Early in the pandemic I emphasised the difference individuals behaviour will make to individual infections, that we'll never know exactly which of our sensible actions (and inactions, stay at home etc) prevented which deaths, but that we'll be cutting off all sorts of transmission that would otherwise have happened when we do the right thing at the right time in this pandemic, even when the big picture looks bleak and full of death and we may wonder 'whats the point?'. So as well as looking at the big picture regarding vaccinations, I have to remember to think of every individual that is gaining some protection.

Unless I dreamt it, the subject of what levels of death from a disease a society may eventually decide is an acceptable burden also got covered by Whitty today. That was another subject that came up in conversation here in recent days, as was the old 'probable future of this virus as an ongoing winter issue with some things in common with how we cope with flu' type stuff which also came out of his mouth at one point.

I see the 'stay home, protect the NHS, save lives' podium graphic was back today. They didnt bother with that during the November national measures, which is somewhat fitting as those measures fell further short of actual lockdown compared to the latest measures and the first wave lockdown. But now the situation is serious enough that it is back, goodbye for now to hands face space. I went back and checked when 'stay home...' was replaced with the first weakened one that everyone took the piss out of, 'stay alert, control the virus, save lives'. It was earlier than I thought, 11th May!


----------



## Sunray (Jan 5, 2021)

QUOTE="2hats, post: 16899170, member: 23546"]
And how long has that study run for thus far..?
[/QUOTE]

277 days.

nobody who survived Covid-SARS-1 got it twice. That’s 17 years now.

The question to ask is why do we catch something twice? The body has a fantastically complex defence mechanism. If it’s something the body has seen before it can respond to it immediately and you don’t get sick.
If you catch it and get over it, this is often life long immunity, the pathogen has to mutate like the flu to evafe the body’s defences. Vaccines on the other hand may well fade over time. (How advances in immunology provide insight into improving vaccine efficacy)  

This what is being seen in this study. We can hope the vaccine offers decent amount of time before it wears off.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 5, 2021)

Sunray said:


> 277 days.
> 
> nobody who survived Covid-SARS-1 got it twice. That’s 17 years now.


Incorrect.

We are talking about SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19.

The healthcare worker studies (DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2034545, DOI: 10.1016/j.jinf.2020.12.023) have run for 6 months thus far. So the current upper bound is, not unsurprisingly, 6 months.


----------



## keybored (Jan 5, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> He has obviously been told not to say alas


He slipped one out this evening though, the useless fuck.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jan 6, 2021)

Nothing new here, but at least is being reported & hopefully has been learnt from. (was leaked almost a week beforehand)

Leak of November lockdown plan linked to 'surge in new infections'

Mostly in tier 1 & tier 2 areas, where more socialising was possible, mainly age group 20-29, but all age groups up to 60.



> The spike was not observed in tier 3 areas, where a key difference was that hospitality venues could only open if operating as a restaurant. This finding, combined with the atypical surge in infections in young adults, suggests there had been increased socialisation ahead of the lockdown.
> 
> “I believe it probably almost certainly is,” said Hunter. “You can’t say that’s absolute proof, but I think it’s excellent strong supportive evidence.”
> 
> “If that is the case, then … whoever leaked that indirectly would have been responsible for increased cases and, and almost certainly increased deaths.”


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jan 6, 2021)

Reminded me of this guy on why timing is everything -  'its more important to be fast than to be absolutely right'  is roughly what he says


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 6, 2021)

"You need to be coordinated. You need to be coherent"

Weeeeeeell, fuck.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2021)

I had a zoom meeting earlier, there was only 12 of us instead of the more normal 20+, out of those 12 -

1 - one tested positive for covid over Xmas, a fairly bad experience, but not requiring hospital admission. Family all isolated, no one else in the house appears to have got it.
2 - another had to isolate with the family, because the son tested positive, mild case, no one else in the house appears to have got it.
3 - another reported both her parents tested positive a couple of days ago, father has a mild case, mother is more worrying.

All these four cases are in Worthing, during the whole of the last lockdown, I was the only one that knew anyone that had it, that was my niece & her husband, but they are not local, they live up in Kent.

On cases within 7 days/per 100k, in under 5 weeks we have gone from under 25 to over 680, scary stuff.


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 6, 2021)

Surprisingly  good article in the Telegraph on essential workers .Wonderful opportunity for the Labour Party and TUC to highlight and campaign around this group of workers so vital to lockdowns which obviously will be missed or ignored. 
Its behind a paywall but heres a couple of paras cut and pasted.




> Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that there are 10.9 million key workers in Britain, some 33 per cent of the entire workforce. Most work in the food sector, construction or health and social care. Only around 14 per cent are able to work from home, it is estimated.
> Many are low paid, live in overcrowded housing in deprived areas and also work as unpaid carers, putting them at higher risk again. Many key workers are also on zero hours contracts and simply cannot afford to stay in the house for quarantine or self-isolation.
> They will get no statutory sick pay so there are few incentives to keep them at home, despite the fact they are far more likely to spread the virus.
> 
> ...


----------



## Boudicca (Jan 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I had a zoom meeting earlier, there was only 12 of us instead of the more normal 20+, out of those 12 -
> 
> 1 - one tested positive for covid over Xmas, a fairly bad experience, but not requiring hospital admission. Family all isolated, no one else in the house appears to have got it.
> 2 - another had to isolate with the family, because the son tested positive, mild case, no one else in the house appears to have got it.
> ...


Bournemouth is now purple on the map for the first time, 502 today.


----------



## Lurdan (Jan 6, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Surpringly good article in the Telegraph on essential workers .Wonderful opportunity for the Labour Party and TUC to highlight and campaign around this group of workers so vital to lockdowns which obviously will be missed or ignored.
> Its behind a paywall but heres a couple of paras cut and pasted.


Archived version of the article here.
The flaw with lockdown – Britain's 10 million key workers still have to get around 

The ONS data on key workers (from last spring) is here.
Key workers: population and characteristics, 2019 - Office for National Statistics

(Not entirely sure what the point would be of waiting for either the middle-class Labour Party or the TUC to highlight these issues or campaign around them).


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 6, 2021)

From the Guardian live blog

More than a third of hospital beds across Wales are occupied by Covid patients, the Welsh NHS chief executive,* Andrew Goodall, *has said.

Goodall said six hospitals in Wales were at level 4 - the highest level of emergency - and 10 were at level 3. He said:



> The NHS is working very hard to balance winter and emergency pressures, with the demands of looking after increasing numbers of people who are seriously ill with coronavirus.


Goodall said there were almost 2,800 Covid-related patients in Welsh hospitals. This is 4% higher than the same point last week and it represents the highest number on record. He went on:



> *If this trend continues, very soon the number of coronavirus-related patients in hospital will be twice the peak we saw during the first wave in April.*
> More than a third of hospital beds are occupied by Covid-related patients. This varies across Wales and is close to 50% in two health boards. This has a significant impact on their ability to deliver local services.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 6, 2021)

So overall (not 28 days of test) covid deaths now past 92000


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

MrSki said:


> So overall (not 28 days of test) covid deaths now past 92000




I also believe it is plausible that over 600,000 people died from all causes in 2020 in England and Wales. Only other time it exceeded 600,000 (in records going back to 1838) was 1918, although it came very close in 1976.

However it is premature for me to say this and we will probably have to wait some time to have the yearly figure confirmed. And obviously the size and age of the population has changed a lot over that period. But even so.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

The return of clap for carers (this time clap for heroes) leaves me with very mixed feelings because in addition to the reasons to have mixed feelings about it last time, this time I am also sickened by the way the pandemic is treated so differently when it affects regions in the south. Was there nobody worth clapping for when the North was suffering a huge amount of death and hospital strain months ago?









						Lockdown: Clap for Carers to return as Clap for Heroes
					

Founder Annemarie Plas says the initiative will return on Thursday under the new name of Clap for Heroes.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2021)

Can with have a 'Boos for Boris' night?


----------



## kabbes (Jan 6, 2021)

Ah, so we’re back to the ever-useful “hero” narrative.  As per the way it manifested last time, this provides a useful way to avoid feelings of guilt for not providing real-world material support, because heroes are actualised by their suffering for others.


----------



## LDC (Jan 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> The return of clap for carers (this time clap for heroes) leaves me with very mixed feelings because in addition to the reasons to have mixed feelings about it last time, this time I am also sickened by the way the pandemic is treated so differently when it affects regions in the south. Was there nobody worth clapping for when the North was suffering a huge amount of death and hospital strain months ago?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



As an NHS worker let me say I fucking hate it.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 6, 2021)

Part of me wishes I hadn't read the article she links to on a day when I'm half-expecting to hear that a relative has been taken into hospital...


----------



## zora (Jan 6, 2021)

Does anyone have any idea what's going to happen now? Neither case numbers and certainly not hospitalizations having reached anywhere near peak yet, I imagine, and the lockdown still so much looser than March..?
What is the plan, if indeed there is one? Nightingales occasionally being mentioned but the staffing question never answered. 
I am beyond terrified now for myself and friends who might be in need of any kind of hospital care.


----------



## killer b (Jan 6, 2021)

In a few days when everything starts falling over properly, they'll announce harder restrictions is my guess.


----------



## maomao (Jan 6, 2021)

My little boy has to go for blood tests at the hospital tomorrow. He's been repeatedly ill and we've had a hell of a time even getting in touch with doctors. The hospital he's going to is one of the ones pictured on the news with dozens of ambulances queued outside. We're all terrified.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 6, 2021)

I don't see lockdown in London working as this morning I shared an absolutely packed tube with construction workers going to build luxary flats in Vauxhall. How the fuck are they keyworkers. Many not wearing masks. Easily enough to keep covid ticking over for a few weeks.


----------



## andysays (Jan 6, 2021)

zora said:


> Does anyone have any idea what's going to happen now? Neither case numbers and certainly not hospitalizations having reached anywhere near peak yet, I imagine, and the lockdown still so much looser than March..?
> What is the plan, if indeed there is one? Nightingales occasionally being mentioned but the staffing question never answered.
> I am beyond terrified now for myself and friends who might be in need of any kind of hospital care.


I would be utterly unsurprised to learn that there was nothing worthy of the name "plan", tbh.

As far as Nightingale hospitals are concerned, I'm slightly surprised that they haven't transferred some specialist staff to those so that they use them for known covid cases and keep general hospitals as free of covid as possible.

I'm sure there would be some logistical problems with this, but to continue trying to run normal hospital business and covid stuff in the same buildings while these other places are standing empty doesn't make sense to me.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> The return of clap for carers (this time clap for heroes) leaves me with very mixed feelings because in addition to the reasons to have mixed feelings about it last time, this time I am also sickened by the way the pandemic is treated so differently when it affects regions in the south. Was there nobody worth clapping for when the North was suffering a huge amount of death and hospital strain months ago?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm no big fan of it, and even less so if it's now for "heroes" but surely anyone could have started doing it in the North of England, when things were bad there, if they'd wanted to? I don't think anyone needs permission from anyone in any particular part of the country.


----------



## Hellsbells (Jan 6, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I don't see lockdown in London working as this morning I shared an absolutely packed tube with construction workers going to build luxary flats in Vauxhall. How the fuck are they keyworkers. Many not wearing masks. Easily enough to keep covid ticking over for a few weeks.



That is CRAZY. We're about to go into a circuit breaker lockdown in the Isle of Man and pretty much everything is shutting down including all construction work and nurseries as well as schools. We also have to wear masks the whole time we're outside our home


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2021)

Hellsbells said:


> That is CRAZY. We're about to go into a circuit breaker lockdown in the Isle of Man and pretty much everything is shutting down including all construction work and nurseries as well as schools. We also have to wear masks the whole time we're outside our home



How many cases are there on the IoM?

I thought it was all under control there.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'm no big fan of it, and even less so if it's now for "heroes" but surely anyone could have started doing it in the North of England, when things were bad there, if they'd wanted to? I don't think anyone needs permission from anyone in any particular part of the country.



Sure, if it were a purely spontaneous grassroots thing.

Thats not been the case with this though. Its an idea that was copied from elesewhere and then promoted and used via mainstream channels of various sorts.

That fact it is being promoted again now tells me not just stuff about the political geography of the country, but also various ways in which the 'november national measures' were not intended to strongly resemble the original lockdown.

Schools and primary aged children are probably part of the equation, an obvious difference between November and this time/the first time.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 6, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I don't see lockdown in London working as this morning I shared an absolutely packed tube with construction workers going to build luxary flats in Vauxhall. How the fuck are they keyworkers. Many not wearing masks. Easily enough to keep covid ticking over for a few weeks.


Rightly or wrongly construction workers are specifically excluded from lockdown, so them going to work doesn't indicate others are also going to carry on going in. Has anyone been keeping an eye on traffic levels? They barely changed in lockdown 2 and I'm hoping it will be different this time.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 6, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Rightly or wrongly construction workers are specifically excluded from lockdown, so them going to work doesn't indicate others are also going to carry on going in. Has anyone been keeping an eye on traffic levels? They barely changed in lockdown 2 and I'm hoping it will be different this time.



Wrongly, unless they're building hospitals.


----------



## Raheem (Jan 6, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Rightly or wrongly construction workers are specifically excluded from lockdown, so them going to work doesn't indicate others are also going to carry on going in. Has anyone been keeping an eye on traffic levels? They barely changed in lockdown 2 and I'm hoping it will be different this time.


Traffic where I am is definitely way down.


----------



## Hellsbells (Jan 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> How many cases are there on the IoM?
> 
> I thought it was all under control there.


Not under control anymore 
Currently 12 cases (which is quite alot for us) but various people have now tested positive in different busy locations such as a bar on new years eve, so could potentially be loads more cases spreading through the community


----------



## zora (Jan 6, 2021)

Hellsbells said:


> That is CRAZY. We're about to go into a circuit breaker lockdown in the Isle of Man and pretty much everything is shutting down including all construction work and nurseries as well as schools. We also have to wear masks the whole time we're outside our home



So crazy.  And yes please, masks outside the home, at all times. Surely now is the time to do it? If this variant really is believed to be 50+% more transmissible, how can it be okay at current rates to even go for a walk with someone not from your household without a mask. Walking and chatting for an hour may then well be enough. Let alone people working without masks together in indoor environments when it's not customer facing work. 
I also think that a lot of people have gotten used to certain things, like hanging around outside drinking with friends and thinking it's fine, because they haven't got covid from it. But with infection rates this high, the picture completely changes - because of course every activity is covid-safe as long as there is noone involved with actual covid! (I know this is actually not supposed to happen anymore under the new rules, but just trying to illustrate what I think might be a mindset). 
I really fear that even this supposed "hard" lockdown (reported in some continental European media as a "curfew") is too little, too late. Again.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 6, 2021)

I'll take a pic on Friday,.,. Brainaddict if I can bear it again. And you judge if its right or wrong?


----------



## IC3D (Jan 6, 2021)

It's laughable finger wagging at a few kids in the cold having a drink when hundreds are packed onto tube trains still for essential construction


----------



## teuchter (Jan 6, 2021)

My feeling is that traffic here (zone 2 south london) is somewhat quieter than 'normal'.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

zora said:


> Does anyone have any idea what's going to happen now? Neither case numbers and certainly not hospitalizations having reached anywhere near peak yet, I imagine, and the lockdown still so much looser than March..?
> What is the plan, if indeed there is one? Nightingales occasionally being mentioned but the staffing question never answered.
> I am beyond terrified now for myself and friends who might be in need of any kind of hospital care.



Public data doesnt give me much ability to predict the future.

It is possible to see which way the deaths will go in the next few weeks by looking at positive case & hospital admissions data. But beyond that, so far in this pandemic, byt the time data is published there is not very much timing difference between hospital admissions and positive case data, to the extent that it has not been a worthwhile exercise to try to use one to predict the other. So I wont have a better idea of when hospitalisations will peak than anyone else, no matter how hard I study data and past correlations. So I cannot predict hospitalisation peaks before they happen. Number of people in hospital does lag behind number of hospital admissions, so I can use one to come up with expectations about the other. 

The authorities likely have a modest data advantage compared to what & when I can see publicly. They have a significant modelling advantage.

I should start looking at mobility data again, since that can offer clues of various sorts.

In terms of plans, a lot of it will be of the disaster and emergency response sort, and a lot of that stuff is stuff I dont want to go on about constantly unless we actually reach that point. And plenty of public comms related stuff, and probably some moments where they will take the opportunity to tighten up on certain things.

In terms of people having gloomy expectations in terms of how strong lockdown is and how well it will work, I would not want to put people off from examining the large holes and failures there, but I recommend looking at things from several other angles too. Behaviours that are incompatible with halting pandemic spread stick out like a sore thumb, but should not detract from thoughts about all the areas where behaviours have massively changed. Some very large brakes have been slammed on by shuting schools, joining the brakes applied with hospitality & retail got shuttered. And the authorities probably know that in order to bring things back down to a level they can cope with better, they dont need to close every single door in the face of this virus, as long as they close most of the largest doors. If they leave some stuff going in a way that allows infection to carry on spreading within that sector, they may still manage to get their overall numbers to come to where they need them to be, and then later they can zoom in and start to tackle some of these areas. That is not the approach I would have taken, far from it, Im just suggesting that even in acute moments of danger where they have run out of wiggle room to avoid some of the biggest brakes being applied, they can still hope to get away with not engaging every single smaller brake at the same time. And I'd have to anticipate them being that slack, because a regime that wasnt sloppy like that would have been more likely to do the right things long ago to prevent us getting anywhere near this level of doom in the first place.


----------



## andysays (Jan 6, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Rightly or wrongly construction workers are specifically excluded from lockdown, so them going to work doesn't indicate others are also going to carry on going in. Has anyone been keeping an eye on traffic levels? They barely changed in lockdown 2 and I'm hoping it will be different this time.


Lots of people are specifically excluded from lockdown by the instruction that those who can't do their work from home should still go to work.

There's also an interesting difference between the list of "critical workers," whose children can still attend school and those who are still expected to work.

I'm still working, even though my job is definitely not "critical", because the government has essentially made a decision to have only a partial lockdown which doesn't apply equally to everyone.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Jan 6, 2021)

Traffic here isn't as quiet as it was in the  first lockdown and there are more people around but then with more shops and businesses open there is going to be. 

Mind you Thames Valley Police were stopping cars crossing over Maidenhead  Bridge yesterday to ask why they were leaving Maidenhead. The answer "'Cos it' s shit" was not deemed acceptable 









						Police apologise after notices are given to drivers asking 'why are you here today?'
					

Concerns have been raised by residents after they were ‘stopped and challenged’ by police when driving yesterday (Tuesday) for shopping and exercising. Motorists crossing the border between Berkshire and Buckinghamshire as they drove across Maidenhead Bridge in the morning were given lea...




					www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk


----------



## andysays (Jan 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Wrongly, unless they're building hospitals.


We already have more hospitals than there are doctors, nurses and other medical staff for, so there's not even much point building any more of them ATM.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 6, 2021)

two sheds said:


> And as frogwoman (as I recall) pointed out last year, Professor Gupta estimated that 50% of the population had already been infected by March and the epidemic could already have been on the way out. Which suggests nobody should take what she says seriously.



I was just thinking that Gupta and pals had gone strangely quiet in recent months.

I mean really, if you're an academic who is putting yourself forward as a person with important ideas about very important public health issues and those ideas are subsequently proven to be a steaming pile of shit you should really come out and say so. You may have fucked up being a famous scientist but it's not too late to be a famous role model for how to own your mistakes with a modicum of class and dignity.


----------



## mystic pyjamas (Jan 6, 2021)

IC3D said:


> It's laughable finger wagging at a few kids in the cold having a drink when hundreds are packed onto tube trains still for essential construction


Making money for a few at the expense of the many in more ways than one.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 6, 2021)

andysays said:


> We already have more hospitals than there are doctors, nurses and other medical staff for, so there's not even much point building any more of them ATM.



We already have far more luxury flats than homeless yuppies but they keep getting built for some reason.


----------



## Cid (Jan 6, 2021)

Traffic in Sheffield doesn’t seem anything like lockdown 1. I wasn’t around at rush hour mind you... it does seem substantially down, but not as significantly. I notice other stuff too... What counts as essential retail is wider than ld1. Tool/diy stuff is mostly open as normal from what I can tell... this was not the case last time (iirc short period of closure, or closure to public, then most on click and collect). More widely I think it’s less likely that light manufacturing firms will go for full furlough, as some did last time. 

And my local estate agents are continuing to clump together in their office.

Still hopeful, let’s see.


----------



## killer b (Jan 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I was just thinking that Gupta and pals had gone strangely quiet in recent months.


not at all - she was on radio 4 yesterday.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 6, 2021)

killer b said:


> not at all - she was on radio 4 yesterday.



Eating crow and humbly begging the forgiveness of the public?


----------



## Sue (Jan 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> We already have far more luxury flats than homeless yuppies but they keep getting built for some reason.


Get it right, luxury _apartments_.


----------



## killer b (Jan 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Eating crow and humbly begging the forgiveness of the public?


no, quite the opposite.


----------



## sojourner (Jan 6, 2021)

Went the local park for a walk and there were quite a few groups of young mums with school age kids, all walking and playing together. Kinda defeats the object of the schools being shut.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 6, 2021)

killer b said:


> no, quite the opposite.



Well I guess it was just a fool's hope on my part that she'd have the decency to go away.

I've been avoiding BBC coverage wherever possible. They had noted epidemiologist Toby Young on yesterday as well apparently.


----------



## Cid (Jan 6, 2021)

killer b said:


> no, quite the opposite.




Is she at least getting a proper grilling these days?


----------



## teuchter (Jan 6, 2021)

Cid said:


> Is she at least getting a proper grilling these days?


I happened upon that interview yesterday and she seemed to be kind of rambling and not really being challenged on many specifics (except the issue of NHS getting overwhelmed which she got around by saying it wasn't in her area of expertise so didn't want to comment).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2021)

62,322 new cases just reported & 1,041 deaths, highest daily figure since 21st April.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> 62,322 new cases just reported & 1,041 deaths, highest daily figure since 21st April.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 6, 2021)

Just been for a walk, dropping the kids back.

There is absolutely zero sign of a lockdown here. Roads as busy as ever, usual levels of people out and about.


----------



## flypanam (Jan 6, 2021)

andysays said:


> Lots of people are specifically excluded from lockdown by the instruction that those who can't do their work from home should still go to work.
> 
> There's also an interesting difference between the list of "critical workers," whose children can still attend school and those who are still expected to work.
> 
> I'm still working, even though my job is definitely not "critical", because the government has essentially made a decision to have only a partial lockdown which doesn't apply equally to everyone.


same here. I found the traffic on  my way to work about normal for wednesday morning at 7.30.


----------



## xsunnysuex (Jan 6, 2021)

Not sure I see this happening either.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2021)

Just noticed they have updated the 'patients in hospital' figure, on Mon. 4th Jan. it was 30,451.

That's almost 50% more than the highest peak in April, when it was 21,684 on the 12th, about 3 weeks after the first lockdown, so I guess we have at least 3 more weeks of increasing numbers, before the current lockdown impacts on the figures.

How the hell is the NHS going to cope? 









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## andysays (Jan 6, 2021)

sojourner said:


> Went the local park for a walk and there were quite a few groups of young mums with school age kids, all walking and playing together. Kinda defeats the object of the schools being shut.


Maybe not ideal, but better that they're playing together outside than stuck in a classroom together. And hopefully not in contact with as many others as if they were in school.

Young mums and school age kids need to have some contact with other people, just like the rest of us.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 6, 2021)

Why the suffering fuck do we have a weaker lockdown than in March, when the figures are worse?

This is insane.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 6, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Why the suffering fuck do we have a weaker lockdown than in March, when the figures are worse?
> 
> This is insane.


Because tories


----------



## teuchter (Jan 6, 2021)

andysays said:


> Maybe not ideal, but better that they're playing together outside than stuck in a classroom together. And hopefully not in contact with as many others as if they were in school.
> 
> Young mums and school age kids need to have some contact with other people, *just like the rest of us*.



Aren't we all supposed to be foregoing contact at the moment?


----------



## LDC (Jan 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just noticed they have updated the 'patients in hospital' figure, on Mon. 4th Jan. it was 30,451.
> 
> That's almost 50% more than the highest peak in April, when it was 21,684 on the 12th, about 3 weeks after the first lockdown, so I guess we have at least 3 more weeks of increasing numbers, before the current lockdown impacts on the figures.
> 
> ...



Yeah, someone clever yesterday (infectious diseases modeller or something) said we had about 4-5 weeks before noticeable falls in deaths.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just noticed they have updated the 'patients in hospital' figure, on Mon. 4th Jan. it was 30,451.
> 
> That's almost 50% more than the highest peak in April, when it was 21,684 on the 12th, about 3 weeks after the first lockdown, so I guess we have at least 3 more weeks of increasing numbers, before the current lockdown impacts on the figures.
> 
> ...



I cant put a time on how long things will keep going up, since various measures came in over a fair period of time, and the school holidays should also have helped in some ways, at the same time as other aspects of Christmas made things worse.

I certainly have room left for hope that it will be less than 3 weeks till the numbers stop going up, without that hope having to rely only on a lack of realism.


----------



## 8ball (Jan 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, someone clever yesterday (infectious diseases modeller or something) said we had about 4-5 weeks before noticeable falls in deaths.



Clever people have been regularly wrong about the progress of this disease, but I hope a fall is coming.


----------



## andysays (Jan 6, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Aren't we all supposed to be foregoing contact at the moment?


We're certainly all being asked to reduce contact, but not to give up all contact altogether.

I already said it wasn't ideal, and it would be better if gathering in groups could be minimised, but I'm not going to criticise young mums for allowing their kids to talk to or play with their friends if they happen to meet them while out for a walk in the park.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 6, 2021)

xsunnysuex said:


> Not sure I see this happening either.
> 
> View attachment 247395


----------



## teuchter (Jan 6, 2021)

andysays said:


> We're certainly all being asked to reduce contact, but not to give up all contact altogether.
> 
> I already said it wasn't ideal, and it would be better if gathering in groups could be minimised, but I'm not going to criticise young mums for allowing their kids to talk to or play with their friends if they happen to meet them while out for a walk in the park.


We're supposed to meeting a maximum of one other person outside, and not sitting around with them.

If there's a group of parents & kids all interacting together, then they are totally ignoring that rule, aren't they? Or is there a special exemption for kids?

Edit - in fact, you're not actually supposed to meet anyone socially. It's a maximum of one other person, for exercise, and you're supposed to stay 2m apart.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> I cant put a time on how long things will keep going up, since various measures came in over a fair period of time, and the school holidays should also have helped in some ways, at the same time as other aspects of Christmas made things worse.
> 
> I certainly have room left for hope that it will be less than 3 weeks till the numbers stop going up, without that hope having to rely only on a lack of realism.



I should have been clearer that Im talking about positive case and hospital figures with that, deaths will lag further behind those figures, and also suffer from longer delays in reporting.


----------



## andysays (Jan 6, 2021)

teuchter said:


> We're supposed to meeting a maximum of one other person outside, and not sitting around with them.
> 
> If there's a group of parents & kids all interacting together, then they are totally ignoring that rule, aren't they? Or is there a special exemption for kids?
> 
> ...


Maybe you should print out some copies of that and hand them out to anyone you see not complying


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just noticed they have updated the 'patients in hospital' figure, on Mon. 4th Jan. it was 30,451.
> 
> That's almost 50% more than the highest peak in April, when it was 21,684 on the 12th, about 3 weeks after the first lockdown, so I guess we have at least 3 more weeks of increasing numbers, before the current lockdown impacts on the figures.
> 
> ...



And in the 2 subsequent days where the full UK figure isnt available (due to data being further behind for Wales and Northern Ireland), Englands hospital figures went up by over a thousand and Scotlands by over a hundred.

Here are the latest graphs I have for number of Covid-19 patients in hospital.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 6, 2021)

So they appear to be trying to flatten the curve against the Y axis...


----------



## existentialist (Jan 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> The return of clap for carers (this time clap for heroes) leaves me with very mixed feelings because in addition to the reasons to have mixed feelings about it last time, this time I am also sickened by the way the pandemic is treated so differently when it affects regions in the south. Was there nobody worth clapping for when the North was suffering a huge amount of death and hospital strain months ago?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm not doing it. It's a sop.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 6, 2021)

xsunnysuex said:


> Not sure I see this happening either.
> 
> View attachment 247395



Anyone unable to remember the phrase 'I'm going for a walk' is in deep shit then.


----------



## teqniq (Jan 6, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm not doing it. It's a sop.


i never did it in the first place. it made me feel uncomfortable and would do so even more so this time. The staff need pay rises first and foremost and the NHS needs adequate funding. Only then would I feel some measure of happiness.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 6, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm not doing it. It's a sop.



If there's any chance of coppers thinking that they're included then I'm even more out than I was last time round.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 6, 2021)

teqniq said:


> i never did it in the first place. it made me feel uncomfortable and would do so even more so this time. The staff need pay rises first and foremost and the NHS needs adequate funding. Only then would I feel some measure of happiness.



I think you've quoted the wrong post there! 

Completely agree, though.   Clapping is an empty gesture, especially when you're clapping along with Boris fucking Johnson and a bunch of Tory scumbags who'd like to privatise the whole thing anyway.


----------



## teqniq (Jan 6, 2021)

Roadkill Thanks, fixed.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 6, 2021)

andysays said:


> Maybe you should print out some copies of that and hand them out to anyone you see not complying


What's your point?


----------



## Duncan2 (Jan 6, 2021)

As has been said earlier it would be useful to have an idea of how many people are still being expected to go into work by employers at present over and above the ten million or so who constitute the cohort of key-workers.My employer continues with distribution of fashion on-line and,as previously, has issued the employees with a letter of explanation for the police.In line with andysays' post above the letter states that we 'should' go to work as our work is not of the type that can be done from home.Judging by traffic locally this morning just before seven very high numbers of warehouse workers indeed are carrying on as normal.One wonders what it would take to prompt a change of heart/rethink?


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jan 6, 2021)

Just a quick question, if anyone knows. Any advice yet, re. the new, more contagious coronavirus variant, regarding the safety of public places, such as shops, transport etc? Is existing guidance (2m spacing plus face masks) still effective? I'm very fortunate indeed that I work from home and live alone, but I guess that leaves shops as my biggest risk factor. How safe are they and what's the best advice re. risk minimisation?


----------



## Sunray (Jan 6, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Just been for a walk, dropping the kids back.
> 
> There is absolutely zero sign of a lockdown here. Roads as busy as ever, usual levels of people out and about.



East London is really quiet, went for my cycle Hackney to Brixton and back, there is traffic but its at very low levels compared to normal. 
Will go again when the replacement overshoes arrive.  Got way too cold yesterday.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 6, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Just a quick question, if anyone knows. Any advice yet, re. the new, more contagious coronavirus variant, regarding the safety of public places, such as shops, transport etc? Is existing guidance (2m spacing plus face masks) still effective? I'm very fortunate indeed that I work from home and live alone, but I guess that leaves shops as my biggest risk factor. How safe are they and what's the best advice re. risk minimisation?



Whats happened with the new variant, its made those spaces even more of a risk, being more contagious.  Its not really done anything else.
If your worried go when its really quiet or order online.


----------



## maomao (Jan 6, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Just a quick question, if anyone knows. Any advice yet, re. the new, more contagious coronavirus variant, regarding the safety of public places, such as shops, transport etc? Is existing guidance (2m spacing plus face masks) still effective? I'm very fortunate indeed that I work from home and live alone, but I guess that leaves shops as my biggest risk factor. How safe are they and what's the best advice re. risk minimisation?


It's the chemistry of what happens once it's in your body that has changed so the original mask and distancing rules should be as effective as they were before.


----------



## zora (Jan 6, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Just a quick question, if anyone knows. Any advice yet, re. the new, more contagious coronavirus variant, regarding the safety of public places, such as shops, transport etc? Is existing guidance (2m spacing plus face masks) still effective? I'm very fortunate indeed that I work from home and live alone, but I guess that leaves shops as my biggest risk factor. How safe are they and what's the best advice re. risk minimisation?




Yes, distance (especially if adhering to 2m) and with mask should still be effective. If you want to be extra cautious while shopping (sorry, I am going to sound as if I am on commission, having mentioned these across three threads now; might be another German slant where their use is being advocated much more, and especially for older people), you could get yourself some actual FFP2 masks.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 6, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Just a quick question, if anyone knows. Any advice yet, re. the new, more contagious coronavirus variant, regarding the safety of public places, such as shops, transport etc? Is existing guidance (2m spacing plus face masks) still effective? I'm very fortunate indeed that I work from home and live alone, but I guess that leaves shops as my biggest risk factor. How safe are they and what's the best advice re. risk minimisation?


Go when the shops are quietest, I find Tuesday mornings round 8-9 good


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

16 voted in parliament against the measures, apparently.


----------



## ska invita (Jan 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> 16 voted in parliament against the measures, apparently.


i wonder if two of those were the ones who sent letters of no confidence to the 1922 committee?


----------



## andysays (Jan 6, 2021)

Duncan2 said:


> As has been said earlier it would be useful to have an idea of how many people are still being expected to go into work by employers at present over and above the ten million or so who constitute the cohort of key-workers.My employer continues with distribution of fashion on-line and,as previously, has issued the employees with a letter of explanation for the police.In line with andysays' post above the letter states that we 'should' go to work as our work is not of the type that can be done from home.Judging by traffic locally this morning just before seven very high numbers of warehouse workers indeed are carrying on as normal.One wonders what it would take to prompt a change of heart/rethink?


I was issued with a "key worker" letter back in March, stating that as a housing grounds maintenance worker, my role was essential to enable people to get their daily exercise on green spaces on estates (funnily enough, we've been expected to carry out our work pretty much as normal, including all the stuff which is in no way necessary for that specific reason). 

In the early days, I was anticipating the possibility of being transferred or redeployed to other genuinely critical stuff, like waste collection, if staff sickness made that necessary, but it seems like that was never really part of the plan.

I've carried the letter around in the bag I use for work since, though I've never been asked to produce it, or even had anyone ask me what I was doing (wearing a council uniform and driving a council vehicle, it's pretty obvious, TBH).

Earlier today, we were emailed a revised version of the key worker letter intended for use if we had a child who needed to continue at school, my guess is that someone had asked for it, and it was made available for the rest of us in case we needed it too.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

ska invita said:


> i wonder if two of those were the ones who sent letters of no confidence to the 1922 committee?



I dont know but it sounds like an opportunity to repeat my joke about the 1922 committee being named as such because the previous committee were wiped out by the 1918 pandemic.

I'm sure its all the usual suspects who voted against, such as Ian Paisley:

_



			I have consistently voted against these restrictions because I will not be dragged behind the banner-wavers that take us into this cul-de-sac that we have been marched into...I don’t actually believe the secretary of state (for health) does have certainty that can be relied upon in terms of this virus ... When this lockdown drags on through February and into March, and it still hasn’t worked, what’s the Government going to do for its encore, what’s next?
		
Click to expand...


31m ago 18:52_


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 6, 2021)

Why is that guy on channel 4 going on about mental health? Why on earth is he in the fucking Tory party then?


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Why is that guy on channel 4 going on about mental health? Why on earth is he in the fucking Tory party then?



Because his nanny wasnt a socialist?

Anyway it was a somewhat shrunken bunch of the usual suspects who voted against today:

*Conservative: 12*

Graham Brady, MP for Altrincham and Sale West
Philip Davies, MP for Shipley
Richard Drax, MP for south Dorset
Karl McCartney, MP for Lincoln
Stephen McPartland, MP for Stevenage
Esther McVey, MP for Tatton
Anne Marie Morris, MP for Newton Abbot
Andrew Rosindell, MP for Romford
Desmond Swayne, MP for New Forest West
Robert Syms, MP for Poole
Charles Walker, MP for Broxbourne
David Warburton, MP for Somerton and Frome

*DUP:4*

Sammy Wilson, MP for east Antrim
Paul Girvan, MP for south Antrim
Carla Lockhart, MP for Upper Bann
Ian Paisley, MP for north Antrim

                            35m ago    19:55


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2021)

Just the usual massive fuckwits.


----------



## sojourner (Jan 6, 2021)

andysays said:


> Maybe not ideal, but better that they're playing together outside than stuck in a classroom together. And hopefully not in contact with as many others as if they were in school.
> 
> Young mums and school age kids need to have some contact with other people, just like the rest of us.


I do know all that


----------



## TopCat (Jan 6, 2021)

maomao said:


> My little boy has to go for blood tests at the hospital tomorrow. He's been repeatedly ill and we've had a hell of a time even getting in touch with doctors. The hospital he's going to is one of the ones pictured on the news with dozens of ambulances queued outside. We're all terrified.


Oh mate


----------



## ska invita (Jan 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I was just thinking that Gupta and pals had gone strangely quiet in recent months.


yesterday:


LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Gupta on Radio 4 again questioning lockdown. FFS.
> 
> Unbelievable, she's talking about lockdowns delaying herd immunity, and saying the new variant isn't really more infectious.



Thank the lord for the BBC to give her a platform


----------



## Looby (Jan 6, 2021)

My MP again. FFS!


----------



## kabbes (Jan 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I was just thinking that Gupta and pals had gone strangely quiet in recent months.
> 
> I mean really, if you're an academic who is putting yourself forward as a person with important ideas about very important public health issues and those ideas are subsequently proven to be a steaming pile of shit you should really come out and say so. You may have fucked up being a famous scientist but it's not too late to be a famous role model for how to own your mistakes with a modicum of class and dignity.


I remember reading a study once that had tracked the predictions of economists against their popularity of being booked for TV.  It found a complete inverse correlation — the worse the economist was at prediction, the more often they appeared on telly.  Boring, middle-of-the-road realistic analysis didn’t attract viewership.  Extreme statements, left-field predictions and prophesies either of doom or riches bring in the punters, no matter whether or not they pan out as true.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 6, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I remember reading a study once that has tracked the predictions of economists against their popularity of being booked for TV.  It found a complete inverse correlation — the worse the economist was at prediction, the more often they appeared on telly.  Boring, middle-of-the-road realistic analysis didn’t attract viewership.  Extreme statements, left-field predictions and prophesies either of doom or riches bring in the punters, no matter whether or not they pan out as true.



Economic forecasting is basically just staring at chicken entrails though tbf.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Economic forecasting is basically just staring at chicken entrails though tbf.


Or just boringly taking the last few years and using that as basically the most likely thing to carry on happening.  Nobody’s going to subscribe to THAT newsletter though...


----------



## maomao (Jan 6, 2021)

Trump's on now. Told them to go home. Pussy.

Sorry. I'm a twat


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2021)

maomao said:


> Trump's on now. Told them to go home. Pussy.



Wrong thread!


----------



## maomao (Jan 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Wrong thread!


:S


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2021)

maomao said:


> :S



Wrong letter.


----------



## LDC (Jan 6, 2021)

maomao said:


> Trump's on now. Told them to go home. Pussy.
> 
> Sorry. I'm a twat



TBH both are all so bonkers it's easy to get them all mixed up.


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 6, 2021)

maomao said:


> My little boy has to go for blood tests at the hospital tomorrow. He's been repeatedly ill and we've had a hell of a time even getting in touch with doctors. The hospital he's going to is one of the ones pictured on the news with dozens of ambulances queued outside. We're all terrified.



Sorry to hear that, I hope everything will be ok.


----------



## Dogsauce (Jan 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just the usual massive fuckwits.



Where‘s Chope? Did he retire at the last election or something?


----------



## Dogsauce (Jan 6, 2021)

Has there been any age profile given for the recent deaths? I heard an anecdote from a hospital worker that they were seeing more people in their 60s getting bumped off by it this time around. Is that backed by any numbers?
(apologies if this had already been covered, I’m miles behind on this thread and can’t be arsed going through tens of pages!)


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 6, 2021)

It would be nice to read some tributes about people who died in the last week. Well not nice but you know. Just kinda feeling like the numbers are too big to understand.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Has there been any age profile given for the recent deaths? I heard an anecdote from a hospital worker that they were seeing more people in their 60s getting bumped off by it this time around. Is that backed by any numbers?
> (apologies if this had already been covered, I’m miles behind on this thread and can’t be arsed going through tens of pages!)



How recent?

This time around up till a week or two ago no, the data I've seen is similar to the first wave, perhaps even a very slightly smaller proportion in that age group this time. Thats just going by ONS deaths data though, I'd also need to look at hospitalisation data to get a fuller picture and when it comes to age-related detail being publicly shared, there is extra lag. The ONS data I've looked at covers deaths registered up to 25th December, for example.

That doesnt mean individual anecdotes are wrong, just that its not hard for them to end up not being reflective of the overall picture. For example if there are more people in those age groups catching it in the area that hospital serves this time round, compared to the first wave, then someone working there may well notice the difference. Or more of those people may have stayed at home and died of it at home in the first wave than this time around. And whatever other scenarios there are that I havent tried to come up with. Plus as I was just hinting at, if it was a much more recent phenomenon then it might not show up in the data I can see yet.


----------



## teqniq (Jan 6, 2021)

Fuck.









						Exclusive: London will be overwhelmed by covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS England briefing
					

London's hospitals are less than two weeks from being overwhelmed by covid even under the 'best' case scenario, according to an official briefing given to the capital's most senior doctors this afternoon.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## Dogsauce (Jan 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> How recent?
> 
> This time around up till a week or two ago no, the data I've seen is similar to the first wave, perhaps even a very slightly smaller proportion in that age group this time. Thats just going by ONS deaths data though, I'd also need to look at hospitalisation data to get a fuller picture and when it comes to age-related detail being publicly shared, there is extra lag. The ONS data I've looked at covers deaths registered up to 25th December, for example.
> 
> That doesnt mean individual anecdotes are wrong, just that its not hard for them to end up not being reflective of the overall picture. For example if there are more people in those age groups catching it in the area that hospital serves this time round, compared to the first wave, then someone working there may well notice the difference. Or more of those people may have stayed at home and died of it at home in the first wave than this time around. And whatever other scenarios there are that I havent tried to come up with. Plus as I was just hinting at, if it was a much more recent phenomenon then it might not show up in the data I can see yet.



Thanks, it’s just something that was commented on a lot earlier in the pandemic, but we seem to have less coverage (and less individual stories) now, perhaps because the media has ‘already done that’.

The other thing that could be skewing it a bit younger is that in the first wave they threw care homes under the bus, which would typically have an older age profile than wider society. These will hopefully be better protected now, so not going to be as big a component of the infected population/deaths.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 7, 2021)

What's being done to protect rough sleepers? I just read that they're not reviving the accommodation programme


----------



## Raheem (Jan 7, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Economic forecasting is basically just staring at chicken entrails though tbf.


Think you should ask for your course fees back.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 7, 2021)

Posted on the QT thread but worth reposting here.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 7, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Rightly or wrongly construction workers are specifically excluded from lockdown, so them going to work doesn't indicate others are also going to carry on going in. Has anyone been keeping an eye on traffic levels? They barely changed in lockdown 2 and I'm hoping it will be different this time.


anectdotal: traffic to and from work seemed lighter today, then again I was a little bit (10/15 minutes) earlier than usual so it could just be this.


frogwoman said:


> What's being done to protect rough sleepers? I just read that they're not reviving the accommodation programme


Fuck all! 
it's a lot easier to stay warm and socially distanced now than it was then (1st draft of my tory MP acceptance speech or whatever it's called)


----------



## zora (Jan 7, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Posted on the QT thread but worth reposting here.




I guess that partly answers my question from yesterday about what's going to happen.
Police cars are now delivering critically ill people to the hospital for lack of ambulances.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 7, 2021)

Amidst all the foreign news yesterday, the UK Parliament's very own conspiraloon fringe outed itself very clearly in the Commons division (193) on Lockdown III. Some corkers in the 16 nut jobs:


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 7, 2021)

Covid kills half of Sussex care home's residents over Christmas
					

Exclusive: ‘We’re sitting ducks,’ says Edendale Lodge boss, as fears rise of variant breaching homes’ defences




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 7, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Covid kills half of Sussex care home's residents over Christmas
> 
> 
> Exclusive: ‘We’re sitting ducks,’ says Edendale Lodge boss, as fears rise of variant breaching homes’ defences
> ...



Sadly, with infection so high in the community, it's bound to get into care homes. 

In my zoom meeting yesterday, there was a care home owner, she only has 14 residents and had kept covid free, but she's worried now because the husband of one of the carers tested positive on Tuesday, so she's keeping her fingers crossed it hasn't got into the home.


----------



## zora (Jan 7, 2021)

Ended up watching the entire Question Time linked to a couple of posts above. 
Was wondering if they would give any airtime to the question if the lockdown should not be stricter.
It came - surprisingly to me - in the form of the CEO of Pure Gyms who was asking if not too many retailers are open. So I wonder if that position is going to gain any traction, alongside the issue of so many more children attending school.
Wrt businesses operating, I actually don't think necessarily that the risk is so much that of the general public coming in contact in passing, but the risk of workplace transmission itself. 
Case in point: I am on furlough from my retail workplace, but a skeleton staff are carrying on with the mail order business. Just heard that a colleague (one of the mask-dodgers, of course) has tested positive- and came in to work while awaiting test results. Three colleagues now quarantining as a result.


----------



## maomao (Jan 7, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Amidst all the foreign news yesterday, the UK Parliament's very own conspiraloon fringe outed itself very clearly in the Commons division (193) on Lockdown III. Some corkers in the 16 nut jobs:
> 
> View attachment 247526


To be fair  Rosindell can't tell left from right so I think his votes are pretty much random.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sadly, with infection so high in the community, it's bound to get into care homes.
> 
> In my zoom meeting yesterday, there was a care home owner, she only has 14 residents and had kept covid free, but she's worried now because the husband of one of the carers tested positive on Tuesday, so she's keeping her fingers crossed it hasn't got into the home.


My sister is responsible for sheltered and nursing home accommodation in Sussex.

She paid full pay for sickness and all overtime with no agency staff but it's in all the homes now.

The residents of one of the sheltered places were all playing cards with each other and loads are ill.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jan 7, 2021)

My dad (93) had covid over Xmas, I was worried that he may be preemptively telling me he was on the mend last week, but we've just been facetiming and he seems back to his usual self - alebiet a slight cough still and a bit fatiqued- but about to go for a ride round the block on his bike and considering trimming a tree in the garden.

His Oxygen levels went down to 85 according to his oximeter, and he refused to call an ambulance believing that he'd probably die in hospital if he went. He's not a hospitalphobe, he makes very good use of the nhs when he needs to. So I'm not sure what that was about, probably something to do with not taking up a bed when others may need it more...

So he says that he got himself into a routine of very deep breathing and chest opening exercises, as well as standing up once every hour and sleeping on his front. Probably saved his own life tbh.

It's scared him because he had been very careful, but my sister who's  a teacher,  brought it home  even though she's been extremely careful too. We spoke about him having some immunity now, even though he has to wait a few weeks for his vaccination because of having had it. But he says he's very nervous about being around anyone now.

The man's immortal.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 7, 2021)

zora said:


> Ended up watching the entire Question Time linked to a couple of posts above.
> Was wondering if they would give any airtime to the question if the lockdown should not be stricter.
> It came - surprisingly to me - in the form of the CEO of Pure Gyms who was asking if not too many retailers are open. So I wonder if that position is going to gain any traction, alongside the issue of so many more children attending school.
> Wrt businesses operating, I actually don't think necessarily that the risk is so much that of the general public coming in contact in passing, but the risk of workplace transmission itself.
> Case in point: I am on furlough from my retail workplace, but a skeleton staff are carrying on with the mail order business. Just heard that a colleague (one of the mask-dodgers, of course) has tested positive- and came in to work while awaiting test results. Three colleagues now quarantining as a result.



Shame the management don't furlough mask dodgers first.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 7, 2021)

zora said:


> Ended up watching the entire Question Time linked to a couple of posts above.
> Was wondering if they would give any airtime to the question if the lockdown should not be stricter.
> It came - surprisingly to me - in the form of the CEO of Pure Gyms who was asking if not too many retailers are open. So I wonder if that position is going to gain any traction, alongside the issue of so many more children attending school.
> Wrt businesses operating, I actually don't think necessarily that the risk is so much that of the general public coming in contact in passing, but the risk of workplace transmission itself.
> Case in point: I am on furlough from my retail workplace, but a skeleton staff are carrying on with the mail order business. Just heard that a colleague (one of the mask-dodgers, of course) has tested positive- and came in to work while awaiting test results. Three colleagues now quarantining as a result.


Has he been fired? I’d get fired for gross misconduct if I’d have come in while waiting on results


----------



## hegley (Jan 7, 2021)

zora said:


> Ended up watching the entire Question Time linked to a couple of posts above.
> Was wondering if they would give any airtime to the question if the lockdown should not be stricter.
> It came - surprisingly to me - in the form of the CEO of Pure Gyms who was asking if not too many retailers are open. So I wonder if that position is going to gain any traction, alongside the issue of so many more children attending school.
> Wrt businesses operating, I actually don't think necessarily that the risk is so much that of the general public coming in contact in passing, but the risk of workplace transmission itself.
> Case in point: I am on furlough from my retail workplace, but a skeleton staff are carrying on with the mail order business. Just heard that a colleague (one of the mask-dodgers, of course) has tested positive- and came in to work while awaiting test results. Three colleagues now quarantining as a result.



I just think this sort of thing is nutty - an email from this morning - essential service? Even with it being via private appt it's still staff/customers going to and fro - so much unnecessary moving around.


----------



## Ms T (Jan 7, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Has he been fired? I’d get fired for gross misconduct if I’d have come in while waiting on results


I think it's actually illegal to go to work while waiting for test results now.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 7, 2021)

Ms T said:


> I think it's actually illegal to go to work while waiting for test results now.


I should think so, it’s deliberately endangering other people, with potential loss of life


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sadly, with infection so high in the community, it's bound to get into care homes.
> 
> In my zoom meeting yesterday, there was a care home owner, she only has 14 residents and had kept covid free, but she's worried now because the husband of one of the carers tested positive on Tuesday, so she's keeping her fingers crossed it hasn't got into the home.



Yes and when the media dont talk about it much, perceptions inevitably change as to how much of an issue it is this time round.

I'm guilty of not mentioning it much, I think I made one attempt to demonstrate that the picture was not all rosy some months back, via NHS hospital stats on number of daily admissions/diagnoses where the patient in question lives in a care home. Below is the latest version of that data, but smoothed out using 7 day averages. And I doubt that this particular data comes close to capturing the full picture, but its better than nothing. Also I dont have equivalent data for the first wave, so I cannot compare the current situation to the first wave using this particular data.


Made with data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

I've started to process some ONS data that shows weekly Covid-19 deaths by location. Care home is one of the locations so this data should add to the picture. I should have some charts ready later today.


----------



## hegley (Jan 7, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Covid kills half of Sussex care home's residents over Christmas
> 
> 
> Exclusive: ‘We’re sitting ducks,’ says Edendale Lodge boss, as fears rise of variant breaching homes’ defences
> ...





cupid_stunt said:


> Sadly, with infection so high in the community, it's bound to get into care homes.
> 
> In my zoom meeting yesterday, there was a care home owner, she only has 14 residents and had kept covid free, but she's worried now because the husband of one of the carers tested positive on Tuesday, so she's keeping her fingers crossed it hasn't got into the home.


My mum's in a care home in Eastbourne   . They have had two (asymptomatic) cases in mid-December and managed to isolate them quite effectively but feels like only a matter of time before it happens again.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 7, 2021)

hegley said:


> My mum's in a care home in Eastbourne   . They have had two (asymptomatic) cases in mid-December and managed to isolate them quite effectively but feels like only a matter of time before it happens again.


I feel fortunate that while my parents are elderly neither are in a care home. You must feel a bit helpless and with little control over what happens. I hope they get the vaccine out there asap.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 7, 2021)

hegley said:


> My mum's in a care home in Eastbourne   . They have had two (asymptomatic) cases in mid-December and managed to isolate them quite effectively but feels like only a matter of time before it happens again.



Hopefully they will get vaccinated before anymore are infected. Certainly the one I know in Worthing has already had the jab for all staff, and the residents are getting it today.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

Here are the care home weekly Covid-19 deaths I mentioned. Its using ONS data so is only for England & Wales. And it doesnt cover the most recent period of increased deaths properly yet.

And this is not an attempt to capture the full picture either, since this data goes by where the place of death was, so care home residents that are admitted to hospital and pass away there arent part of the care home part of these numbers. This data could therefore end up showing changes to admissions and discharges picture, its not a complete guide to how well care homes are doing this time.

I am showing it first in the context of deaths at other locations, and on its own. 


Data from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional        - Office for National Statistics


----------



## teuchter (Jan 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes and when the media dont talk about it much, perceptions inevitably change as to how much of an issue it is this time round.
> 
> I'm guilty of not mentioning it much, I think I made one attempt to demonstrate that the picture was not all rosy some months back, via NHS hospital stats on number of daily admissions/diagnoses where the patient in question lives in a care home. Below is the latest version of that data, but smoothed out using 7 day averages. And I doubt that this particular data comes close to capturing the full picture, but its better than nothing. Also I dont have equivalent data for the first wave, so I cannot compare the current situation to the first wave using this particular data.
> 
> ...


It's quite striking that East of England appears to follow a different path to everywhere else.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

Finally in regards to both care homes and stuff that came up yesterday about whether people in their 60s were dying more this time, here is a snapshot of the proportions of each age group in the death figures of a single week (week ending December 25th 2020). The very large wedges are the 90+, 85-89, 80-84 and 75-79 groups, with 65-69 being the orange wedge. This picture varies a little each week, but not by much.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's quite striking that East of England appears to follow a different path to everywhere else.



Yes, Im sure there will be various outbreak stories behind those numbers, but I dont have time to look closely. Also I am not sure how good that particular NHS data is, for example there could be quite a lot of variation in how well different hospital trusts are managing to record admissions from care homes.

Also as I often point out with admission stats, they include people who were in hospital for other reasons and then caught Covid-19 in hospital. And those who went in for other reasons but had also picked up Covid before admission.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> What's being done to protect rough sleepers? I just read that they're not reviving the accommodation programme



I'm thinking that some councils have maintained stuff in this regard, so it will be a postcode lottery. Or maybe even that layer of things has gone away, I will try to check later.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

More depressing readong, includes stats for the 'its just like flu' idiots. And indeed the 'just shield the vulnerable' and 'just come to terms with this level of death' idiots.



> There are now 26,500 Covid patients in hospital, meaning nearly a third of all people in hospital have the virus.
> 
> In London, half of all patients being treated in hospital have Covid.





> There are now more than 3,000 new admissions a day on average, three times the normal winter rate for all respiratory conditions.











						Covid: Half of patients at some hospitals have virus
					

More than half the patients at some hospitals have the virus, forcing other care to be cut back.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Some of their numbers are a little out of date. Admissions for England were up to 3587 on 4th Jan, and the subsequent days figure for number of Covid-19 patients in hospital in England had risen again from 26,467 to 27,727.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 7, 2021)

Series of graphs worth a look at. 

* *


----------



## Doodler (Jan 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's quite striking that East of England appears to follow a different path to everywhere else.



Maybe south Essex accounts for some of the variance. It's densely populated and notably high infection rates were being reported recently for Thurrock, looking like a new variant launchpad.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

A bit more care home related data from the weekly surveillance report that came out today.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/950424/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w1_FINAL.PDF


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 7, 2021)

Doodler said:


> Maybe south Essex accounts for some of the variance. It's densely populated and notably high infection rates were being reported recently for Thurrock.



I think that's true, but case numbers a bit further north are now heading upwards rapidly. The screenshot below is from the gov.uk dashboard and shows daily cases for Norfolk.  Suffolk looks much the same.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 7, 2021)

Reported new cases have dipped today to 52,618, but deaths are up again to 1,162.  

ETA - patients in hospital, on 5th Jan., was 30, 370, the peak in April was 'just' 21,648.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jan 7, 2021)

Patients ‘rejecting Pfizer jab to wait for ‘English’ vaccine’ 

 Urgh!


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

Also regarding care homes, the discharge policy contributed to the horror the first time around.

Now the HSJ has an article about health bosses feeling the need to to discharge lots of people to care homes again now, but facing issues doing so:









						Exclusive: Treasury ‘the barrier’ as full hospitals desperate to discharge patients to social care
					

The government is being pressed to urgently pay care homes to take on thousands of patients from hospitals, many of which are on course to be overwhelmed by covid-19 patients.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				






> Hospitals, particularly in London and the surrounding areas, are seeing very high and rapidly growing numbers of covid-19 admissions, and are running out of options to free up beds. Multiple senior NHS leaders said they need to discharge more patients to care homes, but that this had become increasingly difficult.
> 
> Beds in many care homes are lying empty, but many care providers are refusing to accept residents where there is a risk of introducing covid-19 and fear of repeating the disaster of the spring in the sector.
> 
> ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 7, 2021)

Oh, I didn't know there was a press conference today, the clown is up & coming soon.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 7, 2021)

Rutita1 said:


> Patients ‘rejecting Pfizer jab to wait for ‘English’ vaccine’
> 
> Urgh!



Considering the narrow time window for getting that pfizer jab into someone's arm, this kind of fuckery could well mean that a dose goes to waste. I get that people, even complete fucking idiots, are entitled to make decisions about their medical care but when someone is potentially costing someone else a life-saving treatment and for the most idiotic reason imaginable...well it's lucky I'm not a doctor anyway. If I was then these particular patients might find themselves victims of a clerical error that removed them from the priority list altogether.

I only hope this is a very rare occurence.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh, I didn't know there was a press conference today, the clown is up & coming soon.



They should really do them very often again now we are back in 'lockdown' but last time I heard they were still figuring out what approach to take with that side of things this time. I know that the lockdown has apparently scuppered their previous briefings plan, which were to start the new general number 10 stuff with Allegra Stratton next Monday. But that format is compatible neither with the needs of journalists to socially distance, or the mood and 'trusted experts' stuff required in the middle of a nasty pandemic wave.


----------



## Cerv (Jan 7, 2021)

Rutita1 said:


> Patients ‘rejecting Pfizer jab to wait for ‘English’ vaccine’
> 
> Urgh!


christ, put anyone declining the vaccine to the bottom of the list


----------



## Espresso (Jan 7, 2021)

I think he's got a new speechwriter. "You want to know" and "You need to hear"; not his usual style at all.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 7, 2021)

_battle-preparation techniques_


----------



## LDC (Jan 7, 2021)

Espresso said:


> I think he's got a new speechwriter. "You want to know" and "You need to hear"; not his usual style at all.



Yeah, I think he's sounding slightly differently too. I think he's been a bit bailed out by having the vaccine 'plan' to push as a get out of the fucking mess we're in option.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

Espresso said:


> I think he's got a new speechwriter. "You want to know" and "You need to hear"; not his usual style at all.



I've heard that sort of thing from him a little bit before on a few occasions but it was more pronounced today.

Tosser rizla lab was new though.


----------



## miss direct (Jan 7, 2021)

The way he says vaccine annoys me. The stress is in the wrong place.


----------



## LDC (Jan 7, 2021)

Fucking hell, the equivalent of 20 full acute hospitals with new corononavirus patients since Xmas Day!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 7, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Fucking hell, the equivalent of 20 full acute hospitals with new corononavirus patients since Xmas Day!


Thank god they they had a total lockdown over Christmas oh wait


----------



## teuchter (Jan 7, 2021)

Rutita1 said:


> Patients ‘rejecting Pfizer jab to wait for ‘English’ vaccine’
> 
> Urgh!



The other one should be presented as "the vaccine designed by 'experts' in Remoaner hotspot Oxford"


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

And now a message from the army. Operational excellency, agile plans, arms not shelves. I've been around the world killing people and I've never seen this many spreadsheets before. Efforts have been the equivalent to setting up a chain of sex shops in less than 3 months, and we can take pride in this quest despite attempts by the invisible enemy to cut off lubricants on the supply side.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jan 7, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Just a quick question, if anyone knows. Any advice yet, re. the new, more contagious coronavirus variant, regarding the safety of public places, such as shops, transport etc? Is existing guidance (2m spacing plus face masks) still effective? I'm very fortunate indeed that I work from home and live alone, but I guess that leaves shops as my biggest risk factor. How safe are they and what's the best advice re. risk minimisation?


Just a follow-on from this - as I posted in the Brixton coronavirus thread earlier, I was infuriated this afternoon to be in Sainsburys Brixton Hill and see them letting in maskless teenagers with no challenge whatsoever from the burly security guard on the door. No wonder our country is fucked when companies like Sainsburys (taking their lead from the Government) refuse to take any responsibility for doing even the most basic things - like enforce mask wearing - that might make things slightly less risky for their customers and staff. As before, people are simply left to take their chances. Oh, and the traffic on Brixton Hill didn't suggest the 'lockdown' was having any effect whatsoever. There's really no 'plan B' or fallback position should the vaccine programme screw-up is there? Which, judging from everything else that's happened so far in this country since last March, you would absolutely expect!


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 7, 2021)

I wish they'd stop saying "Schools are safe" they clearly aren't fucking safe if the kids have been mostly sent home to prevent virus spread.


----------



## Espresso (Jan 7, 2021)

Oh good, Hancock is doing Monday's press conference. That means he will reply to every question with "That is a very important question" while he tries to figure out how best not to actually answer it.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

Johnson lied today by claiming that the vast bulk of the country went into tier 4 on the 19th December.

These areas went into tier 4 when it was announced:

Kent, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Surrey (excluding Waverley), Gosport, Havant, Portsmouth, Rother and Hastings;
London (all 32 boroughs and the City of London); and
the East of England (Bedford, Central Bedford, Milton Keynes, Luton, Peterborough, Hertfordshire, Essex excluding Colchester, Uttlesford and Tendring).


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Johnson lied today



He spoke. Yes.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> He spoke. Yes.



Specific lies are worth pointing out, and they usually try to lie in a vaguer way than he managed with that particular claim.

Simon Stevens was on form today. Especially regarding conspiracy idiots photographing empty corridors.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jan 7, 2021)

hegley said:


> I just think this sort of thing is nutty - an email from this morning - essential service? Even with it being via private appt it's still staff/customers going to and fro - so much unnecessary moving around.
> View attachment 247540


My wine seller is doing door to door deliveries (nothing face to face) - in the circumstances, I think it is an essential service!


----------



## LDC (Jan 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Specific lies are worth pointing out, and they usually try to lie in a vaguer way than he managed with that particular claim.
> 
> Simon Stevens was on form today. Especially regarding conspiracy idiots photographing empty corridors.



Yeah, he was visibly angry.


----------



## Espresso (Jan 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Johnson lied today by claiming that the vast bulk of the country went into tier 4 on the 19th December.
> 
> These areas went into tier 4 when it was announced:
> 
> ...



No one can be surprised that Johnson thinks that England begins and ends with London. 
All the rest of us don't count. Here be dragons.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2021)

Espresso said:


> No one can be surprised that Johnson thinks that England begins and ends with London.
> All the rest of us don't count. Here be dragons.



Yes thats one of the reasons I singled out this lie.

Perhaps he was refering to the part of the country where the apples dont fall far from the cunt tree. Perhaps he will shortly announce tier 5 restrictions for the historic cunty of kunt and immediate surrounds.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 7, 2021)

Scotland is apparently well over halfway through giving all care home residents and staff their first dose of the vaccine and NHS Borders has just tweeted this


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 7, 2021)

I'm going to the dentist next week to discuss getting a tooth out and I'm actually really looking forward to it.


----------



## hegley (Jan 7, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Scotland is apparently well over halfway through giving all care home residents and staff their first dose of the vaccine and NHS Borders has just tweeted this



Delays for second ones though - friend who is a GP in West Lothian had first one before Xmas has just been told his second one is postponed because of supply issues.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 7, 2021)

Don't know if anyone saw this, but it's getting a bit scary.









						Dire warning that London hospitals could be overwhelmed by Covid
					

Senior doctors told that sheer numbers falling ill with Covid could leave capital without beds for thousands




					www.theguardian.com
				




Might be obvious to some,  but if you live in London: Do not get sick, of anything.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 7, 2021)

Cerv said:


> christ, put anyone declining the vaccine to the bottom of the list


Trouble is, that leaves someone out there able to catch it and pass it on. Or equally, someone who might end up filling an NHS bed.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 7, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Don't know if anyone saw this, but it's getting a bit scary.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


honest to god i barely know a single person who either a)hasnt had it/got it b)knows at least someone else who has had it/got it.

EVERYONE i speak to the virus has touched in their family or wider circle in ol london town


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 7, 2021)

my dad" we are getting the virus on saturday" 

"you mean the vacinne dad?"

"yes, sorry son, the vacinne."

"mums getting her virus too".

he's getting old.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 7, 2021)

well he's nearly right


----------



## Sue (Jan 7, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Don't know if anyone saw this, but it's getting a bit scary.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've been getting texts from my GP for the last couple of weeks saying the local hospital is under pressure and to call 111/contact your GP if you can and only call 999/go to A&E if it's a real emergency.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 7, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Don't know if anyone saw this, but it's getting a bit scary.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah this was posted earlier i think








						Exclusive: London will be overwhelmed by covid in a fortnight says leaked NHS England briefing
					

London's hospitals are less than two weeks from being overwhelmed by covid even under the 'best' case scenario, according to an official briefing given to the capital's most senior doctors this afternoon.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				




Terrifying.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 7, 2021)

Given the population of India, it was predictable this might happen.  








						India bars Serum Institute of India from exporting AstraZeneca vaccine
					

The vaccine was granted emergency authorization by the Indian regulator on Sunday, but on the condition that Serum Institute doesn't export the shots to ensure that vulnerable populations in India are protected, Adar Poonawalla, the company's CEO, said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.




					economictimes.indiatimes.com
				




Not great news if you were expecting some vaccines. They already made 50 million doses of the Oxford vaccine, truly Indian scale.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 7, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Yeah this was posted earlier i think
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Christ


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2021)

Also 









						Ambulance waiting times in parts of England 'off the scale'
					

Data leaked to BBC News shows a rise in the number of hours before patients are offloaded.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Data leaked to BBC News shows ambulance waiting times at hospitals in the South East rose by 36% in December compared to the same month in 2019.
> 
> People are also having to wait longer for ambulances to arrive when called.





> A paramedic working in London told BBC News he had encountered patients left waiting up to 12 hours for an ambulance in the last week.
> 
> One patient in London with a broken leg had to wait outside at night for six hours before an ambulance arrived to collect him, he said.
> 
> ...





> The figures also show that at one point on Monday this week more than 700 patients were left waiting for an ambulance to arrive in London when none was available.
> 
> On Tuesday, a patient with what is classed as a Category One emergency, meaning their condition was life threatening, waited more than 70 minutes for an ambulance.
> 
> Callouts for such seriously unwell patients should take seven minutes on average.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 8, 2021)

I'm guessing that any military medical capability is drawn from the NHS anyway, so there wouldn't be any point roping them in to provide additional ambulance/paramedic cover?


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 8, 2021)

WAs thinking today about silicon valley - the bozos and Zuckerburgs, google, twitter, youtube, uber, etc. You know, the ones who make 12 grand a second or whatever it is. You could get all of them in one room and they could all agree to say put 50% of their profits into a hardship for fund for a month or something. That could easily be arranged if the monopolizing bastards all agreed together, cancelling out any "competitive" arguments. 

but what have they done, exactly? nothing. how can you generate that much money and see 10s of ks of people die in your country and do absolutely nothing?


----------



## Chilli.s (Jan 8, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm guessing that any military medical capability is drawn from the NHS anyway, so there wouldn't be any point roping them in to provide additional ambulance/paramedic cover?



Or another decision made far too late?

Having visible troops on the street to be avoided at all cost, like never apologising, one of those strategies of successful management.


----------



## Cerv (Jan 8, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Trouble is, that leaves someone out there able to catch it and pass it on. Or equally, someone who might end up filling an NHS bed.


if everyone else is bumped up the list in turn it's all a wash (I hope).
across the population the same number of people in the target groups get the vaccine, just in a different order. so there's the same number of people unvaccinated and out there to catch or spread at any time.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

Looks like good news to my inexpert eye:


----------



## 2hats (Jan 8, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Looks like good news to my inexpert eye:
> 
> View attachment 247715


Post #146 for details.


----------



## agricola (Jan 8, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm guessing that any military medical capability is drawn from the NHS anyway, so there wouldn't be any point roping them in to provide additional ambulance/paramedic cover?



the LFB have been helping out LAS for a while


----------



## Cid (Jan 8, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm guessing that any military medical capability is drawn from the NHS anyway, so there wouldn't be any point roping them in to provide additional ambulance/paramedic cover?



I don't think so... I mean presumably there is some crossover, especially once you're on to more specialist roles, or in a domestic context. But the training and operational requirements would be very different for deployed medical staff. E.g BBC report of Army assisting by providing ambulance drivers in Wales:









						Covid: Army begins assisting Welsh Ambulance Service
					

It is "extraordinary" to call on the Army, but Welsh medics have "never known a period like now".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I'll leave the final words to Maj Dan 'Captain Obvious' Cornwell:



> "That may involve operations in the UK... and actually that's where we feel most at home."


----------



## TopCat (Jan 8, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm guessing that any military medical capability is drawn from the NHS anyway, so there wouldn't be any point roping them in to provide additional ambulance/paramedic cover?


Nah I remember the army scabbing on the ambulance crews in the early 90''s.They have crews and vehicles.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 8, 2021)

Boris Johnson is bringing in the army just to show he is doing something when the reality of what he is doing is to deflect from the truly shocking job the numnut has done. 
It has to be said, killing many people in the process.


----------



## magneze (Jan 8, 2021)

Sadiq Khan declares Covid emergency in London
					

Mayor announces ‘major incident’ as city’s hospitals struggle with patient numbers




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2021)

I expect the following story to grow as its only just been published and is a bit of a placeholder at the moment, pending more words being added:



> *A "major incident" has been declared by the mayor of London as Covid-19 cases continue to spread across the capital.*
> It comes as the coronavirus infection rate in London has exceeded 1,000 per 100,000 people.
> Major incidents have previously been called for the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 and the terror attacks at Westminster Bridge and London Bridge.
> Sadiq Khan said: "The situation in London is now critical with the spread of the virus out of control."
> ...











						Covid-19: 'Major incident' declared by London Mayor Sadiq Khan
					

The mayor says in some parts of London 1 in 20 people has Covid-19, as he declares a "major incident".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




edit - I was a little slow, same theme as the Guardian article.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 8, 2021)

Some good news on the homeless & evictions front.



> Extra support to house rough sleepers across all councils in England
> Ban on bailiff enforced evictions extended
> Confirmation of court support for landlords and renters and launch of mediation pilot











						Extra covid protections for rough sleepers and renters  
					

Extra support to house rough sleepers and ban on bailiff enforced evictions extended.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2021)

I am hoping to see the first tentative signs of an improvement to the rates within the next 5 days or so, but maybe not in every region at that point. And it is still well possible that I will be wrong about that, but for whatever reasons this seems to be my expectation when I look at the data these days.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

1325   

FFS


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 8, 2021)

brogdale said:


> 1325
> 
> FFS



That's deaths ^, and breaks the daily record of 1,166 set on 21st April.  

Also a whopping 68,053 new cases, breaking the 62,322 record on the 6th Jan.  

Fucking hell, we're seriously in the shit.


----------



## Numbers (Jan 8, 2021)

It’s so fuckin scary.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 8, 2021)

We seem to have hit a 7-day rolling average of 815 deaths a day, getting near the peak of 943 hit on 14th April, I can sadly see us overtaking that very soon.


----------



## LDC (Jan 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's deaths ^, and breaks the daily record of 1,166 set on 21st April.
> 
> Also a whopping 68,053 new cases, breaking the 62,322 record on the 6th Jan.
> 
> Fucking hell, we're seriously in the shit.



Actually felt physically sick when I saw those numbers. Fucking hell.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 8, 2021)

We haven’t even seen the Xmas/NYE spike yet.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 8, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> We haven’t even seen the Xmas/NYE spike yet.



We're seeing the end of Christmas and the start of NY at the moment.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 8, 2021)

The deaths numbers mentioned above are only by reporting date, so are distorted as usual.

As far as actual deaths per day, we don't know yet. The rate would have had to have increased very rapidly over the past few days to get us close to the April peak (maybe it has). This is "Deaths within 28 days of positive test by date of death"


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> We're seeing the end of Christmas and the start of NY at the moment.


Not in deaths, they tend to lag around 28 days after infection.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 8, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> We haven’t even seen the Xmas/NYE spike yet.


It's awful. More and more people I know have got it. It just feels like its closing in.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 8, 2021)

could it get to a point where literally _everyone _gets it? i.e. 1 in 30 this week, 1 in 15 two weeks later, etc etc?


----------



## zora (Jan 8, 2021)

I'm at the Samuel L. Jackson-"Say Vaccination one more time"-stage of the pandemic. Yes, I am also looking forward to a vaccination (ever optimistic, have just submitted my details for possible vaccine trial of another vaccine), but how is x numbers of vaccination in SIX WEEKS TIME helping with infections rates like this and hospitals out of space, staff and oxygen???


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 8, 2021)

i guess impossible iwth social distancing


----------



## LDC (Jan 8, 2021)

Think we're seeing the Xmas infections but not the deaths?


----------



## weltweit (Jan 8, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> could it get to a point where literally _everyone _gets it? i.e. 1 in 30 this week, 1 in 15 two weeks later, etc etc?


Could be, but I think in reality some people are properly isolating and therefore just aren't going to be in the vicinity of infected people. 

I think people interacting with the earlier levels of precautions might well get it, variant B.1.1.7 being up to 70% more transmissible could well still infect you if you are 2m apart not wearing face coverings etc etc ..


----------



## TopCat (Jan 8, 2021)

Anyone got any vallies?


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 8, 2021)

zora said:


> I'm at the Samuel L. Jackson-"Say Vaccination one more time"-stage of the pandemic. Yes, I am also looking forward to a vaccination (ever optimistic, have just submitted my details for possible vaccine trial of another vaccine), but how is x numbers of vaccination in SIX WEEKS TIME helping with infections rates like this and hospitals out of space, staff and oxygen???


Yeah. It's too late. I had hoped they were doing it by hospital figures/predictions. Apparently not. It feels like there's no one in charge.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Yeah. It's too late. I had hoped they were doing it by hospital figures/predictions. Apparently not. It feels like there's no one in charge.


Pretty much.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 8, 2021)

zora said:


> I'm at the Samuel L. Jackson-"Say Vaccination one more time"-stage of the pandemic. Yes, I am also looking forward to a vaccination (ever optimistic, have just submitted my details for possible vaccine trial of another vaccine), but how is x numbers of vaccination in SIX WEEKS TIME helping with infections rates like this and hospitals out of space, staff and oxygen???



Apart from shutting down every business and telling people to stay at home permanently, not sure what there is left we can do?

Boris Johnson is entirely to blame for this.  Constant delays when locking down hard and early was really the only option.


----------



## LDC (Jan 8, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Pretty much.
> 
> View attachment 247783



Did you hear him on Radio 4 recently, I think yesterday or day before? He was totally fucking useless.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Did you hear him on Radio 4 recently, I think yesterday or day before? He was totally fucking useless.


He always is; the fact that Johnson appointed him to the role tells us exactly how much he cares.


----------



## LDC (Jan 8, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Apart from shutting down every business and telling people to stay at home permanently, not sure what there is left we can do?
> 
> Boris Johnson is entirely to blame for this.  Constant delays when locking down hard and early was really the only option.



Two week very strict lockdown on top of what we have. No leaving the house for anything except essential work, medical appointments, and one person for food as infrequently as possible.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Apart from shutting down every business and telling people to stay at home permanently, not sure what there is left we can do?
> 
> Boris Johnson is entirely to blame for this.  Constant delays when locking down hard and early was really the only option.


Businesses can be revived; dead folks can't.


----------



## Sue (Jan 8, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> We're seeing the end of Christmas and the start of NY at the moment.


On R4 this morning, an ICU consultant reckoned Christmas cases hadn't hit yet. 😢


----------



## Sunray (Jan 8, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Businesses can be revived; dead folks can't.



We have a Tory government, doesn't give a shit.  

Like I said, elsewhere, esp if you live in London right now.  Do not get sick.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

Sunray said:


> We have a Tory government, doesn't give a shit.


Indeed.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

Sue said:


> On R4 this morning, an ICU consultant reckoned Christmas cases hadn't hit yet. 😢


2 weeks tomorrow, so should start to really feel the festive surge from now on.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 8, 2021)

brogdale said:


> 2 weeks tomorrow, so should start to really feel the festive surge from now on.


do you mean show up in the figures or show up in people reporting to hospital?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> do you mean show up in the figures or show up in people reporting to hospital?


Rough, ball park figure = hospitalisation after 2 weeks & death (if occurs) after 4 weeks from infection.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 8, 2021)

Sue said:


> On R4 this morning, an ICU consultant reckoned Christmas cases hadn't hit yet. 😢



Christ


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 8, 2021)

79,833 deaths in total


----------



## Sue (Jan 8, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Christ


Yep. I wonder if that's why they've called this emergency status thing or whatever it is now as this is imminent.


----------



## Deej1992 (Jan 8, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> 79,833 deaths in total


Shocking. Johnson really does have blood on his hands.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> 79,833 deaths in total


According to the government's own time limited criteria. The reality is, of course, far worse.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 8, 2021)

Deej1992 said:


> Shocking. Johnson really does have blood on his hands.


yes, and also those who don't give a fuck about the rules - for which there are many. go to sainsburys now and you'll see them.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 8, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> yes, and also those who don't give a fuck about the rules - for which there are many. go to sainsburys now and you'll see them.



Yup.  I went to the small Sainsbury's near mine at 6am today, in the hope I'd be the only customer in there since so many people either wear masks below noses or not at all and they're never challenged.  It was quiet, thankfully, but even so there was some twat with his mask round his chin. 

Frankly I think everyone exempt from masks should be issued with some sort of badge or lanyard, and it should be made illegal for a shop to allow entry or to serve anyone trying to come in without either that or a mask covering both mouth and nose, which must stay in place at all times whilst inside.  Pull down your mask and you get chucked out and banned - no excuses, no exceptions.  Same should apply to all public transport and other enclosed public spaces.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 8, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> could it get to a point where literally _everyone _gets it? i.e. 1 in 30 this week, 1 in 15 two weeks later, etc etc?



It cannot grow exponentially forever because as more people are infected, the virus starts to run out of new people to infect. This is not an outcome we should work towards however.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 8, 2021)

Remember when 1000 cases a day was terrifying. Jesus those figures today


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 8, 2021)

Looking at those figures reported today is making me feel very vulnerable / terrified.

Had to make a trip outside this morning and deliberately drove the long way around, to avoid the "town" centre. 
If our local figures don't start dropping, I'm going to be wearing a mask all the time I'm outside my household bubble.

How hard is the _*Hands : Face : Space + fresh air*_ things to remember ? for pete's sake.


----------



## Mation (Jan 8, 2021)

brogdale said:


> 1325
> 
> FFS


That's a full on punch in the guts.

In the past, looking at 1918+ flu deaths, I've thought it was unimaginably awful and that covid, as appalling as it is, won't come close. I'm starting to wonder.


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Not in deaths, they tend to lag around 28 days after infection.



Whatever the actual gaps between different stages of infection, illness, hospitalisations and death are in reality, they certainly arent that long in the data we get. 

Peaks in admissions, numbers in hospital and deaths were quite close together in the first wave, eg within about a week of each other. We didnt have much of a testing system back then so its probably not wise for me to compare the gap between positive cases and the other measures from that time. But in the earlier part of this second wave, there wasnt really much gap between positive cases reported and hospital admissions. But there are also differences in how quickly these different numbers are collated and reported publicly, so I probably cant say exactly which measure will give us the initial indication. Probably either positive cases reported or daily admissions. Or perhaps the likes of the data from the ZOE covid tracking app.


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2021)

Mation said:


> That's a full on punch in the guts.
> 
> In the past, looking at 1918+ flu deaths, I've thought it was unimaginably awful and that covid, as appalling as it is, won't come close. I'm starting to wonder.



In terms of the total number of people who died of all causes in 2020, that year will resemble 1918 in some ways, at a minimum it will stick out in a huge way compared to the years around it just like 1918 did, but the actual total may also be quite similar. But obviously we have a population of a different size and with a different age profile to the one of 1918.


----------



## Numbers (Jan 8, 2021)

TopCat said:


> It's awful. More and more people I know have got it. It just feels like its closing in.


Same, currently in our world my sister and her husband, my sister in law, my 2 best mates, 2 close colleagues and 2 of my neighbours are positive, my sister had it the worst but is thankfully recovering well, the others have had different degrees of illness.  Fuckin so scary tho.


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The deaths numbers mentioned above are only by reporting date, so are distorted as usual.
> 
> As far as actual deaths per day, we don't know yet. The rate would have had to have increased very rapidly over the past few days to get us close to the April peak (maybe it has). This is "Deaths within 28 days of positive test by date of death"



It probably hasnt reached first wave peak levels yet, more a question of whether it will in the coming week or so. Its clearly heading in that direction but may yet fall short in terms of maximum peak values. I wouldnt like to say either way, especially as some healthcare systems are now well into the danger zone where we would expect more people to be avoiding treatment, longer waits for treatment, stretched staffing levels etc, which in theory cause higher levels of death.

I also need to remember to take an occasional look at the measures of death that do not have the 28 day limit. The UK dashboard does include the alternative 'deaths within 60 days' measure as well in more places these days, but I tend to jump straight to using ONS death certificate deaths, and that data has a lot of additional lag so isnt really suitable for monitoring the unfolding situation day by day.

Here is the most recent version of my colour-coded graph, showing where the high reported levels of death in recent days fit into things by actual date of death. Uses the deaths within 28 days of a positive test measure.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2021)

The psychopathic tories have brought us to the point of complete collapse.


----------



## Mation (Jan 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> In terms of the total number of people who died of all causes in 2020, that year will resemble 1918 in some ways, at a minimum it will stick out in a huge way compared to the years around it just like 1918 did, but the actual total may also be quite similar. But obviously we have a population of a different size and with a different age profile to the one of 1918.


I'm wondering about it proportionally. Actual numbers grim as fuck for both periods.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 8, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> It cannot grow exponentially forever because as more people are infected, the virus starts to run out of new people to infect. This is not an outcome we should work towards however.



Remember when that was the government plan?

Based on the figures might still be


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 8, 2021)

Laura Spinney's book says that Spanish Flu had an 0.28 to 0.4% *population* fatality rate in Britain. In countries like India it was more like 5% or higher 

Wouldn't surprise me if Covid matches the lower figure  in New Jersey it's already 0.22% of the entire population who have died from Covid.


----------



## LDC (Jan 8, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Laura Spinney's book says that Spanish Flu had an 0.28 to 0.4% *population* fatality rate in Britain. In countries like India it was more like 5% or higher
> 
> Wouldn't surprise me if Covid matches the lower figure  in New Jersey it's already 0.22% of the entire population who have died from Covid.



0.28% of UK population is 196,000 by my shit maths? Considering we're fast approaching 100,000 it's not entirely unrealistic we _might_ get to 196,000.


----------



## LDC (Jan 8, 2021)

BBC covering ECMO patients at the moment. Absolutely grim as fuck.

I really struggle to think of the people who still go on about this not being real or being over-hyped. I'm not sure I'd be able to control my anger if someone came out with that stuff to my face.


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2021)

brogdale said:


> 2 weeks tomorrow, so should start to really feel the festive surge from now on.



I have the same stance I took before Christmas, in that I dont know how much that will actually end up showing up clearly in the data.

Partly because the trajectory was already so bad in some regions well before Christmas day. Partly because of the countering effect of more restrictions having come in, and of schools being off on holiday. And because the mood music changed before Christmas and put the shits up lots of people, presumably resulting in further behavioural changes (in the same way mobility etc changed big time a full week before the shit government actually ordered the original lockdown).

Also Christmas holidays can affect data reporting, testing system etc, in ways that could show up in the data more strongly than a real change in infection rates on a particular day might. In this case the cases by reporting date data didnt seem to have big holes in it over the Christmas period, quite the opposite, and its actually the cases by specimen data that has some interesting post-Christmas spikes that may have reflected delays to certain groups of people seeking tests at Christmas.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 8, 2021)

This makes for grim reading.



> The daily Covid reported UK death toll has hit a record high and is not expected to ease for at least a month, with the government preparing to ramp up “stay at home” warnings amid concerns over compliance. Deaths recorded within 30 days of a positive Covid test reached 1,325 on Friday. With new cases continuing to rise – also to a new record of 68,053 – government insiders are privately warning it could be mid-February before the death rate has peaked and declines significantly, as vaccinations reach more of those people most at risk.
> 
> One member of the government’s Sage advisory group told the Guardian: “Even if we vaccinated all over-80s today we would not see a change in the death rates for five weeks or so, and it will not impact on hospitalisation for a long time afterwards (when the over-60s have been vaccinated). It is impossible to overemphasise the seriousness of the current situation. We are in a much worse position than we were in March.”





> If public compliance with new national lockdown rules is not strong enough, government experts fear death rates may plateau rather than dropping sharply as they did after last year’s lockdown. It could mean strict measures remaining in place for longer. A Department of Health source said: “Compliance is the big thing, and it’s important that people realise it’s not just egregious raves or parties – it’s individual, small acts that add up to a big impact.”
> 
> Boris Johnson announced the new shutdown in a broadcast message on Monday evening, closing schools to most pupils just a day after they had reopened following the Christmas break.
> 
> But Downing Street fears the message has not hit home with a public weary of being trapped in their homes. A source said: “Anecdotally, and looking at some of the data, there are concerns that this is being treated like the November lockdown, rather than the March lockdown.”











						Chris Whitty to front warning ads as UK Covid deaths hit new daily peak
					

Chief medical officer to urge public to ‘act like you got it’ after 1,325 people recorded dead




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 8, 2021)

Not sure I agree. People very scared round here, about 40% masked up even outside


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2021)

Its another reason I need to study recent mobility data.

I suppose since certain aspects of the second wave went in slow motion compared to the first, I expect reductions to be slower once we reach that stage too.

If the government want people to slam the brakes on harder then in addition to advert campaigns it will require things like terrible daily news stories and headline figures. But the government need to consider other things like shuttering a wider range of jobs, reducing the numbers attending school (they are much higher this time apparently), and should also consider introducing some measures that are unexpected and have some shock value. Daily press conferences were also part of setting the scene and keeping people in a particular state of mind the first time.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 8, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Not sure I agree. People very scared round here, about 40% masked up even outside



I assume you're disagreeing about compliance, because clearly the first part of that article is true, new cases are still going up, and with lag that means both hospitalisations & deaths will go up, as sure as night follows day.

But when it comes to compliance, it would appear that you, like me, live in an area where this is being treated seriously, not that that has helped us to stop cases going from 25 per 100k to about 720 in a little over 5 weeks here. But, clearly from other urb's posts, compliance remains at best 'mixed' in other places.

The article I linked demonstrates use on public transport in London is far higher than lockdown 1, as is the numbers attending school*.

* ETA, as elbows has just mentioned in his post above mine.


----------



## editor (Jan 8, 2021)

FUCKING HELL! On in 20!

Sadiq Khan has likened London’s hospitals to “theatres of war” as he warned that as many as one in 20 people have coronavirus in the capital’s infection hotspots. 









						1 in 20 Londoners have Covid in parts of the capital, mayor warns
					

Sadiq Khan has likened London’s hospitals to “theatres of war” as he warned that as many as one in 20 people have coronavirus in the capital’s infection hospots.




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## 8ball (Jan 8, 2021)

editor said:


> FUCKING HELL! On in 20!
> 
> Sadiq Khan has likened London’s hospitals to “theatres of war” as he warned that as many as one in 20 people have coronavirus in the capital’s infection hotspots.
> 
> ...



1 in 20 _right now._

Yeah, that's pretty frightening.


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> I suppose since certain aspects of the second wave went in slow motion compared to the first, I expect reductions to be slower once we reach that stage too.



Also some of what I described there as slow motion was in fact because of greater regional variation. And thats another reason Id expect overall figures to decrease painfully slowly at times, since things may still be going up in some areas whilst falling in others. We already saw that affect the numbers during the 'november measures' dip.

Speaking of which, I normally stick the following graph in the worldwide thread, but I'll put it here this time because the UK figure is so bad these days and because the graph shows the complicated nature of the second wave (and inadequate response to it) compared to the first.

Number of Covid-19 patients in hospital:


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 8, 2021)

(the ft let me read an article via FB, but wouldn't let me post it here)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 8, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> The FT has been sending articles to my FB.  This is interesting to see the Tories already pointing fingers at each other.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Can you copy & paste the article here? Only that link is behind a paywall.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Can you copy & paste the article here? Only that link is behind a paywall.


yeah, sorry - see my edit above.  FB link let me see it.  Lets see if I can


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 8, 2021)

Tories pointing the finger......from the FT

There needs to be a reckoning after this



Spoiler: FT article



Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here.
Subscribe to read | Financial Times

Author Robert Shrimsley

Viruses do not respect ideology. You cannot persuade a pandemic to seek a middle way. And yet when judgment into the UK’s coronavirus response is finally passed it will be hard to escape the conclusion that excessive attention to Tory dogma has cost both lives and livelihoods. The story of Britain’s crisis has been one of delaying the inevitable until it is unavoidable, a vicious cycle of slow response followed by sharp correction which lasts longer for starting later. This pattern reached a peak on Monday in a juddering reverse which saw a full lockdown. Schools were told to close on the day they reopened, hours after Prime Minister Boris Johnson suggested such a response was not necessary. Allies point to new data, but much of the information was already in plain sight. The UK has been unlucky in the arrival of a more transmissible variant but, in the words of one member of the government’s scientific group for emergencies, “you make your own bad luck”. Scientific advisers are clear that letting an RNA virus expand into the community at the end of 2020 increased the chance of being hit by a virulent mutation. There are no easy choices; each policy is ruinous for someone. Mr Johnson was not wrong to try to contain the virus while keeping schools open, though this depended on disastrously over-optimistic assessments of contact tracing and then mass testing capacity. The mistake was failing to act swiftly when it became clear this strategy was not working. Yet, there has been one other significant factor. Mr Johnson’s decisions have been overly deferential to and fearful of libertarian conservatives and their media outriders. A vocal core of MPs and pundits driven by ideology or contrarianism have argued for fewer restrictions, disputed data and denounced a sinister health establishment. They disdained face masks and argued, with varying degrees of honesty, that higher deaths among the old and infirm are a price worth paying to keep society open. Even after figures showed 1 in 50 have the virus, the Lockdown Sceptics website on Wednesday had a section headed “Where’s the pandemic?” which declared “cases are just positive tests”. That the sceptics knew Mr Johnson’s own instincts were against severe restrictions made no difference. While some Tory MPs were questioning certain measures or government failures, others rubbished the scientific advice, made him sweat over every vote and talked up leadership challenges. They were fortified by increasingly hysterical pundits in the Tory press. These hardline ideologists have inhibited an already indecisive premier. Finally there are signs of a reckoning with reality. Tory sceptics, meeting as the Covid Recovery Group, are now focused on the speed of the vaccination campaign and a more justified assault on the failings of education secretary Gavin Williamson. But the damage has been done. The UK’s death rate and economic prospects are among the worst in Europe. For most of this crisis these backbench MPs and pundits have had a champion to cheer at the top of cabinet. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, played a key role in fighting for fewer restrictions and challenging scientific advice at decisive moments. Mr Sunak should not be lumped in with the other agitators. He has never denied the seriousness of the pandemic. It was important that someone speaks for public finances and the economy. But his words have been seized on by rightwing MPs who used his status to increase pressure on Mr Johnson. It is also hard not to conclude that he has been at the wrong end of some big calls, not because he spoke for the economy but because he reached the wrong verdict on how best to serve it. At the height of Tory dissatisfaction with Mr Johnson, when MPs were talking up Mr Sunak as an imminent successor, the chancellor talked the prime minister out of a mid-September circuit breaker. One adviser, who pushed for urgent action then, observes “too much airtime” was given to contrarians whose arguments were not supported by data. Between early September and early October, the number of reported daily cases rose from 1,200 to 12,000, necessitating the stricter and more long lasting restrictions that have proved more costly to business. In fairness to the chancellor, his stance might have been more justified had the contact tracing worked better, or mass testing been widely available. But he was aware of the problems. An honest desire to save the hospitality sector has probably made things worse. An excessive focus on the price of furlough and other support led to decisions which probably increased the ultimate cost. Latest coronavirus news Follow FT's live coverage and analysis of the global pandemic and the rapidly evolving economic crisis here. Fighting restrictions has extended the misery. Around the world the economies which are coping best are those which best controlled the epidemic. There is no reason to question Mr Sunak’s motives but his status as an “oven ready” successor spooked the prime minister and made him nervous of facing down sceptics in his party, even though voters support his stance. His insecurity and the ferocious assaults by erstwhile allies led him to pay too much heed to his right flank over his health secretary or advisers. None of this absolves Mr Johnson. It is his job to make the tough calls. But when this crisis is past, the UK would do well to take a hard look at those rightwing pundits and MPs who spent 2020 pressuring him out of decisive action, and to ask if these are people whose views we should still heed in the future.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Can you copy & paste the article here? Only that link is behind a paywall.



Google the headline to get the article, why ft article


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 8, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. *Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. *



Cheers.  

Probably better to edit your post, and put the article in spoiler tags, so search engines don't see it, and the FT doesn't come after urban over copyright.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Cheers.
> 
> Probably better to edit your post, and put the article in spoiler tags, so search engines don't see it, and the FT doesn't come after urban over copyright.


always wondered how to do spoilers...... can you help?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 8, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> always wondered how to do spoilers...... can you help?



Here. mate...


----------



## 8ball (Jan 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Here. mate...
> 
> View attachment 247814



I'm such a derp - I always just type in the code.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 8, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> Tories pointing the finger......from the FT
> 
> There needs to be a reckoning after this
> 
> ...



So they failed to understand that a stitch in time saves nine. And then that nine stitches would save eighty-one.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 8, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> BBC covering ECMO patients at the moment. Absolutely grim as fuck.
> 
> I really struggle to think of the people who still go on about this not being real or being over-hyped. I'm not sure I'd be able to control my anger if someone came out with that stuff to my face.


I am glad they are talking about it. The Chinese sent lots of ECMO units to Wuhan early on and I was wondering why they hadn't been mentioned here.


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> So they failed to understand that a stitch in time saves nine. And then that nine stitches would save eighty-one.



They've no excuse for failing to understand it. And the professed to have got it after the first time, they made the right noises, they just werent sincere.

Initial first wave response was a more collective establishment failure and the government did have partial scientific cover for their poor timing and actions. That excuse does not apply from August onwards, at the very latest, when they clearly diverged from what SAGE told them was necessary by failing to 'make room' in the infection picture to allow schools to reopen safely. Further failures to do what SAGE and others were telling them was necessary were obvious in September (failure to do a timely circuit breaker) and then again later with the way they handled tiers, the nature of the November lockdown, and the failure to act upon data showing a worrying picture in the south even whilst the November measures were still in effect.

The list of people who have attempted to influence the public and the political decision making in ways that are dangerous to public health in this pandemic is quite long. I would consider it correct to call these people out and cast some blame their way. I spent a lot of time and energy on a few of those people in the past and dont find myself with much left to give on this front at the moment. I also believe that Johnson was more than capable of committing many of these grotesque mistakes without such influences. I would attach maximum culpability to all concerned, I dont want the blame spread too thinly just because there is so much ground for it to cover.


----------



## Cid (Jan 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Can you copy & paste the article here? Only that link is behind a paywall.



This didn't come up as paywalled for me btw... Or at least it did when I followed the direct link. But when you put 'Rightwing sceptics helped deepen the UK’s Covid crisis' into google and go via that it isn't. Possibly I haven't used up my allotted FT free articles, but iirc their covid coverage is free.

Reason: mx wcfc your formatting made my eyes bleed. I mean thanks for the effort though


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 8, 2021)

Cid said:


> mx wcfc[/USER] your formatting made my eyes bleed. I mean thanks for the effort though


I am well known for abject failure when it comes to copying stuff from other sites.  Sorry.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 8, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> I am well known for abject failure when it comes to copying stuff from other sites.  Sorry.


It is just TLDR I find. 

When I am browsing I often have the radio or TV on, it is hard to maintain concentration to read a large piece, in fact if I want to I have to mute my other inputs. 

And any lack in paragraphs has the same effect, faced with a wall of text I usually just browse on by.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 8, 2021)

weltweit said:


> It is just TLDR I find.
> 
> When I am browsing I often have the radio or TV on, it is hard to maintain concentration to read a large piece, in fact if I want to I have to mute my other inputs.
> 
> And any lack in paragraphs has the same effect, faced with a wall of text I usually just browse on by.


Which is why I tried to link to the article for those who did want to read it.  I only scanned it, tbh.  I'm still puzzled why the firewalled FT is (still) giving me access to articles (actually via twitter) which just confirm that that I hate capitalism.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This makes for grim reading.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


it's terrifying. the only thing i can do really is distract myself.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 8, 2021)

weltweit said:


> It is just TLDR I find.
> 
> When I am browsing I often have the radio or TV on, it is hard to maintain concentration to read a large piece, in fact if I want to I have to mute my other inputs.
> 
> And any lack in paragraphs has the same effect, faced with a wall of text I usually just browse on by.


what does TLDR mean?


----------



## weltweit (Jan 8, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> what does TLDR mean?


Too Long Didn't Read


----------



## kropotkin (Jan 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's deaths ^, and breaks the daily record of 1,166 set on 21st April.
> 
> Also a whopping 68,053 new cases, breaking the 62,322 record on the 6th Jan.
> 
> Fucking hell, we're seriously in the shit.


I'm working this weekend and I took part in a high level meeting earlier about what we can expect with general managers / senior clinicians from Ed and us in acute medicine. We are fucked. Surging levels of demand, currently 20 admitted in Ed waiting for beds, predictions of ~70 per day needing admission on sat and Sun with only ~20/day being discharged. We are going to close to minors (as in things not bad enough for majors in Ed- not life/death - as is the other local Trust), as the crowding in Ed will mean we are unable to cohort covid+ patients together. 

It's going to be brutal.


----------



## mauvais (Jan 8, 2021)

FT stories are usually free to read when you arrive there directly from the Google results; not so when linking from anywhere else.

I'm not sure an FT op-ed really counts as Tories pointing the finger, although as teuchter would say, something about hills.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 8, 2021)

Thoughts are with you kropotkin, & your patients.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 8, 2021)

'its just flu'


----------



## weltweit (Jan 9, 2021)

New travel restrictions announced, individuals arriving in the UK will need to show a negative coronavirus test taken less than 72 hours before their arrival.


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2021)

Interesting to see these things being mentioned at this moment:









						Coronavirus: How safe are takeaways and supermarket deliveries?
					

If coronavirus can be transferred on to surfaces, what are the risks of buying food?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Jan 9, 2021)

Supermarket was rammed when I left at 5pm today. Mum, Dad and all the kids having a day out at the shops after work.

Other people are just disease-bags to me at this point.


----------



## 8ball (Jan 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This makes for grim reading.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



On the other hand, it's a good reason to call in sick next week.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 9, 2021)

Still so little being said about how many of these people are travelling for work because fewer businesses are shutting down this time. No policing of businesses or workplaces. Employers dont get any warnings in the briefings. It's all aimed at individuals.


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 9, 2021)

The act like you got it line is a waste of time, the hardline spreaders almost by definition dont care about others anyway and would only self isolate if they were forcibly locked up or too ill to go out


----------



## zora (Jan 9, 2021)

The 10+ people I know who have had covid over the past month, seem all to have  contracted it in school as teachers or students or in work in health and social care (through either direct patient/client contact or colleagues), and then through household transmission via these index cases. 
Plus the one idiot at my work - god knows where he picked it up, I'd imagine through some reckless behaviour.

I guess that's quite a good reflection of the overall situation - we have the >10% "unreachables", then schools and health and social care. 
Aren't these the areas where efforts in reducing transmission should be directed, rather than at those of us have been furloughed or wfh for a year and wondering how to best protect ourselves in the supermarket? 

If the unreachables will be convinced by Chris Whitty fronted adverts - I doubt it.
Schools, as has been discussed, have been totally fucked over and are still not being adequately supported, but instead hindered in their efforts to keep key worker classes small. Also imo face coverings should be worn now by all ages, say 6 years onwards, in the classroom.
Better PPE (FFP2 masks) for all health and social care workers and teachers.
Massive tightening of working outside the home, none of this managers randomly deciding their staff "need" some office time, or all these shops can stay open. And/or at the very, very, very minimum, indoor mask wearing by all people on the premises at all times and clear guidance on ventilation.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 9, 2021)

brogdale said:


> 2 weeks tomorrow, so should start to really feel the festive surge from now on.


NHS staff bracing for the Xmas day infection surge.


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 9, 2021)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Supermarket was rammed when I left at 5pm today. Mum, Dad and all the kids having a day out at the shops after work.
> 
> Other people are just disease-bags to me at this point.


The one I work in was relatively quiet yesterday evening but I expect this morning to be busy with families and couples. We know which of our regular customers need support when shopping but anyone can claim to be unable to go round the store alone. I’m sure most of them could have one wait in the car.

We still count customers in and out, and offer a disposable mask to anyone who has forgotten theirs. Compliance is excellent.

The roads are as busy as normal. Where on earth are they all going??


----------



## Sunray (Jan 9, 2021)

brogdale said:


> NHS staff bracing for the Xmas day infection surge.
> 
> View attachment 247863



This is the fault of Boris Johnson, the November lockdown should have stayed. Fuck Xmas
I want him to go to jail to set an example that there are consequences. This is a dereliction of his duty to protect the British people


----------



## zora (Jan 9, 2021)

Sunray said:


> This is the fault of Boris Johnson, the November lockdown should have stayed. Fuck Xmas
> I want him to go to jail to set an example that there are consequences. This is a dereliction of his duty to protect the British people



I know. The insanity is breathtaking. Even now, in this most dire and horrific of situations, they are going "shrug, let's wait for a while and see if this much lighter lockdown than March will work".

Unfortunately, I see little appetite for holding anyone to account. The narrative of "all countries are in this position, plus we got unlucky with this new variant" seems all too well established.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 9, 2021)

20Bees said:


> The roads are as busy as normal. Where on earth are they all going??



Work. For businesses without a storefront, closing is entirely optional. I believe this and not individual non-compliance was the main reason locldown 1.0 took so long to have any effect, and why infections took a long time to fall.

It's not even on the agenda, closing things like non-essential building sites. Must feel like a right kick in the teeth if your pub or shop has had to close 3 times now and property developers, who in many cases are helping put pubs and shops out of business by driving up rents, haven't even blinked.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 9, 2021)

Sunray said:


> This is the fault of Boris Johnson, the November lockdown should have stayed. Fuck Xmas
> I want him to go to jail to set an example that there are consequences. This is a dereliction of his duty to protect the British people


X for Xmas disastrous decision


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Still so little being said about how many of these people are travelling for work because fewer businesses are shutting down this time. No policing of businesses or workplaces. Employers dont get any warnings in the briefings. It's all aimed at individuals.



There's still some businesses trading, that should be closed, Sussex police issued fines to a gym and a pub in Eastbourne a few days ago.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 9, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Work. For businesses without a storefront, closing is entirely optional. I believe this and not individual non-compliance was the main reason locldown 1.0 took so long to have any effect, and why infections took a long time to fall.
> 
> It's not even on the agenda, closing things like non-essential building sites. Must feel like a right kick in the teeth if your pub or shop has had to close 3 times now and property developers, who in many cases are helping put pubs and shops out of business by driving up rents, haven't even blinked.


They didn't close in lockdown 1 either did they?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 9, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> They didn't close in lockdown 1 either did they?



No. I don't recall any point where it was 'if your staff can't work from home and you're not an essential service you must close'. All that stuff we all ordered online came from warehouses full of staff.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 9, 2021)

Good coverage of cuntitude here from CWS...


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 9, 2021)

As one door closes another door opens


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 9, 2021)

We have a test centre for staff at work and the suggestion now is that all asymptomatic staff take a weekly test. I look after my 4 year old grandson once a week, he is at nursery the other four days. I’ve wondered how much of a risk I am to him, but as I have a mask and a screen separating me from the customers, I think he is more likely to bring infection back with him. Should I be tested the day before I look after him, or a few days later?


----------



## zora (Jan 9, 2021)

Wow, this is err... riveting:

Chris Whitty ad

I am sure we will see covid rates plummeting...


----------



## TopCat (Jan 9, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> As one door closes another door opens
> 
> View attachment 247878


Utter cunts


----------



## TopCat (Jan 9, 2021)

zora said:


> Wow, this is err... riveting:
> 
> Chris Whitty ad
> 
> I am sure we will see covid rates plummeting...


You would not want him to tuck you into bed.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 9, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> As one door closes another door opens
> 
> View attachment 247878



Bad news for the Telegraph though, because nobody under the age of 80 buys it.


----------



## Sue (Jan 9, 2021)

zora said:


> Wow, this is err... riveting:
> 
> Chris Whitty ad
> 
> I am sure we will see covid rates plummeting...


Yes, I can't help feel that despite his undoubted medical/scientific expertise, he's not the right person to be fronting this. I mean charisma and all that can be overrated but...


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 9, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Bad news for the Telegraph though, because nobody under the age of 80 buys it.



Thanks. A well meaning acquaintance bought me a subscription for the Telegraph as a xmas present . Food section's good.


----------



## Sue (Jan 9, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Thanks. A well meaning acquaintance bought me a subscription for the Telegraph as a xmas present . Food section's good.


People used to claim to buy it for the sport.. 🤷‍♀️


----------



## andysays (Jan 9, 2021)

Covid-19: 'Act like you've got the virus', government urges


> People in England are being told to act like they have got Covid as part of a government advertising campaign aimed at tackling the rise in infections. Boris Johnson said the public should "stay at home" and not get complacent.



Maybe if the advice had suggested from the beginning that everyone should act like they had the virus instead of insisting that so many aspects of life should go on as normal we might not be where we are now.

It's a bit fucking rich for Johnson to say that people shouldn't get complacent given his government's actions over the past ten months...


----------



## jakethesnake (Jan 9, 2021)

.


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> People used to claim to buy it for the sport.. 🤷‍♀️


Sports section is quite good actually, its had its ups and downs. I've always read it off and on tbh along with The Times, Guardian, Independent , The Mirror and occasionally the FT. I think you can read between the lines whatever the political leaning is, I avoid or at least I'm adverse to certain journalists whatever the paper they write for and the Telegraph does throw up some interesting stuff. The trouble is these days, especially with the covid restrictions is that online is the main source for news rather than print and  aside from the Guardian. Mirror  and bits of the Independent most stuff is beyond a firewall  online hence the endless links to the bloody Guardian  on here.  Used to buy a paper to read in the pub or at home at the weekends in the UK but English papers are few and far between here and are about a fiver.


----------



## Boudicca (Jan 9, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Sports section is quite good actually, its had its ups and downs. I've always read it off and on tbh along with The Times, Guardian, Independent , The Mirror and occasionally the FT. I think you can read between the lines whatever the political leaning is, I avoid or at least I'm adverse to certain journalists whatever the paper they write for and the Telegraph does throw up some interesting stuff. The trouble is these days, especially with the covid restrictions is that online is the main source for news rather than print and  aside from the Guardian. Mirror  and bits of the Independent most stuff is beyond a firewall  online hence the endless links to the bloody Guardian  on here.  Used to buy a paper to read in the pub or at home at the weekends in the UK but English papers are few and far between here and are about a fiver.


Not sure whether you can access it from Portugal but i have just signed up to a free two month trial with readly.com, a huge selection of newspapers & magazines to read online for £7.99 a month.  It's not as good as paper in terms of holding your attention, but better than random internet searches.  Lots of craft & special interest magazines on there too, which makes it good value.  And you don't have to confine your reading of Hello magazine to the doctor's surgery...


----------



## Chz (Jan 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Cheers.
> 
> Probably better to edit your post, and put the article in spoiler tags, so search engines don't see it, and the FT doesn't come after urban over copyright.


Google still indexes hidden content. It has a lower weight, but it's there. It's not "hidden" from a search engine spider - you can quite plainly see it in the source.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 9, 2021)

Chz said:


> Google still indexes hidden content. It has a lower weight, but it's there. It's not "hidden" from a search engine spider - you can quite plainly see it in the source.


Just like torygraph content


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2021)

Now angling counts as exercise  









						Covid-19: Praise as angling given lockdown go-ahead
					

Thousands more people have taken up fishing during the pandemic, figures show.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 9, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Now angling counts as exercise
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Bloodsports and lockdown apparently go well together


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Work. For businesses without a storefront, closing is entirely optional. I believe this and not individual non-compliance was the main reason locldown 1.0 took so long to have any effect, and why infections took a long time to fall.



The effects of lockdown 1 were fast and very strong. If people think it was slow to have an effect then they have the wrong idea in mind about how quickly things can turn around even with strong measures. Indeed the turnaround was so soon after the original lockdown was called that some of the anti-lockdown idiots who refuse to learn anything in this pandemic were tempted to believe that the peak in infections was a co-incidence that was not down to lockdown. In fact it seems that one of the reasons the peak 'came early' relative to the first lockdown was that peoples behaviour changed massively a week before formal lockdown was implemented, so the gap between mass behavioural changes and the peak was more like 3 weeks than 2.

So in terms of time taken to turn things around, turning the hideous climb into a peak and then decline, I didnt have a problem with lockdown 1. There were still big issues, ie the lockdown should have happened much earlier, and the holes in it did mean that the inevitably long stage of getting infections right nown to a low level did take ages. Although that was in part down to the fact that hospital discharges in the buildup to the peak ignited a wave of care home infections, and outbreaks within hospitals were something that they only started getting a handle on and mopping up later (eg my local hospital had a big outbreak in June and after they stamped on it the figures here changed dramatically for a number of months before the autumn resurgence). Lockdown 1 was only a failure in terms of coming too late to prevent a huge chunk of the first wave, and then again much later where the holes in that lockdown left specific segments of society still exposed to the virus in the summer, quickly leading to local measures being deemed necessary in some places. These are bad failures, but they arent the same as the lockdown being too weak to get things moving in the right direction.

Things like google mobility data will enable me to make some comparisons between lockdown 1 and subsequent measures, including the current lockdown. From what I've seen of them so far, the November national measures did show up clearly in the data but it was nowhere near as strong as lockdown 1, which is exactly what we'd expect to see with schools open etc. The current lockdown is only just showing up in the data, but unlike the Christmas period, it looks like the amount of activity in workplace locations is now too high again, not close enough to levels seen in the original lockdown. And thats consistent with reports about too many kids still attending school right now. Also much like the buildup to lockdown 1, there was a large grocery/pharmacy spike which we'd expect to be unhelpful to the infection picture. I'm afraid I left the parks data off of this graph. These numbers are for the UK as a whole.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 9, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Now angling counts as exercise



Welcome news. Not only for the exercise I do get when I go fishing, but for my mental health. So shove that face palm up your arse.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> The effects of lockdown 1 were fast and very strong. If people think it was slow to have an effect then they have the wrong idea in mind about how quickly things can turn around even with strong measures. Indeed the turnaround was so soon after the original lockdown was called that some of the anti-lockdown idiots who refuse to learn anything in this pandemic were tempted to believe that the peak in infections was a co-incidence that was not down to lockdown. In fact it seems that one of the reasons the peak 'came early' relative to the first lockdown was that peoples behaviour changed massively a week before formal lockdown was implemented, so the gap between mass behavioural changes and the peak was more like 3 weeks than 2.
> 
> So in terms of time taken to turn things around, turning the hideous climb into a peak and then decline, I didnt have a problem with lockdown 1. There were still big issues, ie the lockdown should have happened much earlier, and the holes in it did mean that the inevitably long stage of getting infections right nown to a low level did take ages. Although that was in part down to the fact that hospital discharges in the buildup to the peak ignited a wave of care home infections, and outbreaks within hospitals were something that they only started getting a handle on and mopping up later (eg my local hospital had a big outbreak in June and after they stamped on it the figures here changed dramatically for a number of months before the autumn resurgence). Lockdown 1 was only a failure in terms of coming too late to prevent a huge chunk of the first wave, and then again much later where the holes in that lockdown left specific segments of society still exposed to the virus in the summer, quickly leading to local measures being deemed necessary in some places. These are bad failures, but they arent the same as the lockdown being too weak to get things moving in the right direction.
> 
> ...



Driving has fallen further than November but nowhere near April levels:


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Welcome news. Not only for the exercise I do get when I go fishing, but for my mental health. So shove that face palm up your arse.



If they want to make an exemption for it they should have put that into the legislation explicitly. Asserting that it's exercise makes it easy for anyone else to assert in court that their landscape painting or wrist exercises are suitable reasons to drive off into the countryside.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Things like google mobility data will enable me to make some comparisons between lockdown 1 and subsequent measures, including the current lockdown. From what I've seen of them so far, the November national measures did show up clearly in the data but it was nowhere near as strong as lockdown 1, which is exactly what we'd expect to see with schools open etc. The current lockdown is only just showing up in the data, but unlike the Christmas period, it looks like the amount of activity in workplace locations is now too high again, not close enough to levels seen in the original lockdown.


Similar periods of reduced activity and relative levels can also be seen in the Apple mobility trends data.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> If they want to make an exemption for it they should have put that into the legislation explicitly. Asserting that's it's exercise makes it easy for anyone else to assert in court that their landscape painting or* wrist exercises are suitable reasons to drive off into the countryside.*



Solo dogging?


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Solo dogging?


I was thinking more of a Forest wank


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Driving has fallen further than November but nowhere near April levels:



Cheers for the additional data.

As with the Google data I used, levels seen in March and April were really quite impressive. A similar thing in November would have been good to see, but of course such levels were neither aimed for nor achieved. And as for the current situation, still early in that period from a data point of view but things dont look that promising, and I wont be surprised if the government end up feeling the need to close more workplaces.


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2021)

Sunray said:


> This is the fault of Boris Johnson, the November lockdown should have stayed. Fuck Xmas
> I want him to go to jail to set an example that there are consequences. This is a dereliction of his duty to protect the British people



The November national measures were inappropriately weak and the government knew it. Apparently they are alarmed that swathes of the public have been treating the current lockdown the same as the November measures, weak, and are now scrambling around trying to strengthen things. A disaster entirely of their own making.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jan 9, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> If they want to make an exemption for it they should have put that into the legislation explicitly. Asserting that it's exercise makes it easy for anyone else to assert in court that their landscape painting or wrist exercises are suitable reasons to drive off into the countryside.



For what it's worth, they have said still stay within your local area, don't meet up etc. Letting people sit alone by a riverbank (or even with their kids) isn't a hill I'd (etc).


----------



## Raheem (Jan 9, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> I was thinking more of a Forest wank


Is that the porn version?

_Life is like a box of tissues._


----------



## andysays (Jan 9, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Welcome news. Not only for the exercise I do get when I go fishing, but for my mental health. So shove that face palm up your arse.


I thought when I read his post that platinumsage was making a rod for his own back.

He should now be cast out immediately...


----------



## Doodler (Jan 9, 2021)

Glad to see that my local shop selling bum phones, grinders, mini-bongs and vaping gear is still providing its essential goods to the public.


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2021)

brogdale said:


> NHS staff bracing for the Xmas day infection surge.
> 
> View attachment 247863



These sort of timing expectations seem sensible on paper, but I dont think the first wave and lockdown actually demonstrated quite such long lag between things as that, so I cannot take all these claims as being certainties.

By this I mean that various things are indeed baked in based on behaviour and mixing and infections that have already happened. But this doesnt always show up neatly in the ways people expect when comparing different forms of data. From what I've seen in data so far, the really safe assumption about whats baked in involves deaths. When infection rates and hospitalisation rates rise, we know that means more deaths later. But some other tempting assumptions based on whats baked in arent guaranteed to unfold that way. eg I didnt see very much lag between positive cases being reported and hospitalisations, or at least nowhere near as much lag as tends to get mentioned by Dr Varney there. Some of this is a feature of the data and how long it takes for people to get tested, get results and for results to be published.

There is still every reason to be worried about the current situation, since even if number of hospital admissions stops rising dramatically, it will still be at levels that are way too high for the system to easily cope with, especially on top of the number of people already in hospital up to this point. And the West Midlands has seen an alarming trajectory when it comes to positive cases in recent times. But we may not be at exactly the stage that the sort of words Varney used might suggest, I tend to think these narratives easily end up lagging behind reality, and such dire warnings would have been more timely if they had happened weeks earlier.

One of my concerns right now is that data from some regions will start to show some tentative good signs, but things could then deteriorate further after some initial improvement, for example because too many people have gone back to work after Christmas holidays ended, too many kids in school now, undoing some of the effect seen as a result of school holidays.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jan 9, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Thanks. A well meaning acquaintance bought me a subscription for the Telegraph as a xmas present . Food section's good.


Best crosswords too according to my mum (⁷⁵)


----------



## Mation (Jan 9, 2021)

20Bees said:


> We have a test centre for staff at work and the suggestion now is that all asymptomatic staff take a weekly test. I look after my 4 year old grandson once a week, he is at nursery the other four days. I’ve wondered how much of a risk I am to him, but as I have a mask and a screen separating me from the customers, I think he is more likely to bring infection back with him. Should I be tested the day before I look after him, or a few days later?


I'd go for 2 or 3 days before, if possible. How quickly will you get the results?


----------



## MrSki (Jan 9, 2021)

Apologies if this has been posted before.


----------



## Cid (Jan 9, 2021)

I’d go for after - risk to children is tiny compared to risk to coworkers. Though it’s probably somewhat academic given a week’s timescale. Depends how quickly it shows up on tests, which I really don’t know.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 9, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Apologies if this has been posted before.



Actually, I don't think I've seen that particular version of the data before.
It does tend to support my feeling that the peak around here at the begining of December was driven by the "new variant", although county-wide data does tend to obscure the detail at the small, local area I'm interested in examining.


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Actually, I don't think I've seen that particular version of the data before.
> It does tend to support my feeling that the peak around here at the begining of December was driven by the "new variant", although county-wide data does tend to obscure the detail at the small, local area I'm interested in examining.



Where is 'around here'?

Attempts to zoom in to a very local level, and to come up with a tidy story about the cause of increases, are usually a futile exercise. There are almost always numerous factors at work, some of which show up in data reasonably distinctly and some which are much harder to ascertain. Its a combination of factors, in just the same way that there are absolutely no rises which I attribute to the new variant on its own, Its always a combination of the virus and human behaviour and mixing patterns, regardless of what mutations are present.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 9, 2021)

This explains why London is so fucked. (bottom graphic)


----------



## 2hats (Jan 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Attempts to zoom in to a very local level, and to come up with a tidy story about the cause of increases, are usually a futile exercise. There are almost always numerous factors at work, some of which show up in data reasonably distinctly and some which are much harder to ascertain. Its a combination of factors, in just the same way that there are absolutely no rises which I attribute to the new variant on its own, Its always a combination of the virus and human behaviour and mixing patterns, regardless of what mutations are present.


Also not least because for quite a number of datapoints=cases where they get tested, where they became infected and where they live can be quite geographically disparate at such a scale.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 9, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Bloodsports and lockdown apparently go well together


Angling not a blood sport.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 9, 2021)

TopCat said:


> Angling not a blood sport.



Care to bite a hook?


----------



## TopCat (Jan 9, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Care to bite a hook?


I catch fish and kill them and eat them. Not a blood sport.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 9, 2021)

TopCat said:


> I catch fish and kill them and eat them. Not a blood sport.



Thats fine, even if not ideal, plenty of others have to catch and release.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 9, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Thats fine, even if not ideal, plenty of others have to catch and release.


I could avoid the kill bit and eat them alive?


----------



## klang (Jan 9, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Actually, I don't think I've seen that particular version of the data before.
> It does tend to support my feeling that the peak around here at the begining of December was driven by the "new variant", although county-wide data does tend to obscure the detail at the small, local area I'm interested in examining.


what do the colours mean? what's 1.00 (dark purple)?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2021)

The Queen and Phil the Greek have received their covid jabs.

So, their movements are now being tracked over the 5G network, to ensure they don't break the covid restrictions.


----------



## Sue (Jan 9, 2021)

littleseb said:


> what do the colours mean? what's 1.00 (dark purple)?


Assuming 1000:100k (that's what's used elsewhere anyway).

ETA Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard

Although looking at that again, I don't think it is that so 🤷‍♀️ .


----------



## klang (Jan 9, 2021)

thought so. thanks.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 9, 2021)

Surprisingly rude and disrespectful of the RF?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Surprisingly rude and disrespectful of the RF?
> 
> View attachment 247950



How is it disrespectful?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> How is it disrespectful?


RF as virus...but if it has to be explained, it ain't funny...obvs.


----------



## prunus (Jan 9, 2021)

littleseb said:


> what do the colours mean? what's 1.00 (dark purple)?



Isn’t it proportion penetration of the new variant? Ie 1.00 means 100% of cases are b117.


----------



## andysays (Jan 9, 2021)

I think this video from Owen Jones may have been linked to already, but if you haven't watched it, it gives a summary of how, through inaction and prioritising business interests over people's lives, the government have caused the unnecessary deaths of many thousands of covid victims in Britain


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 9, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Surprisingly rude and disrespectful of the RF?
> 
> View attachment 247950


Sadly not


----------



## ddraig (Jan 9, 2021)

utter utter scum chancers trying to jump vaccination queue 








						Coronavirus: Company's apology after £5,000 vaccine offer
					

The property investment firm is accused of trying to "jump the queue".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				



But of course  


> The company, based in London, has apologised, saying its "good intentions" were "misinterpreted".


----------



## brogdale (Jan 9, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Sadly not


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2021)

Figures are down a bit today, 59,937 new cases reported, and 1,035 new deaths, which is a big increase on last Saturday's 445, but that was suppressed because of the new year bank holiday on the Friday, causing a lag in reporting.

It does, however, take the 7-day average daily deaths from 815 yesterday to 899 or 900 today, very near the peak of 943 on 14th April.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 9, 2021)

"Lockdown"



This car park was empty in March.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 9, 2021)

The absolute state of these dangerous clowns...


----------



## 2hats (Jan 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> As with the Google data I used, levels seen in March and April were really quite impressive. A similar thing in November would have been good to see, but of course such levels were neither aimed for nor achieved. And as for the current situation, still early in that period from a data point of view but things dont look that promising, and I wont be surprised if the government end up feeling the need to close more workplaces.


Citymapper data likewise.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 9, 2021)

more than 1000 dead again today


----------



## 2hats (Jan 9, 2021)

littleseb said:


> what do the colours mean? what's 1.00 (dark purple)?





Sue said:


> Assuming 1000:100k (that's what's used elsewhere anyway).
> 
> ETA Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
> 
> Although looking at that again, I don't think it is that so 🤷‍♀️ .


It is fraction of positive tests with the S protein assay dropout which is a proxy for the B.1.1.7 variant (SGTF=S-gene target failures). In other words, what fraction of infected people in that area, who have been tested, appear to be infected with the new variant.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 9, 2021)

and they wonder why people call them scum...


----------



## Mation (Jan 9, 2021)

brogdale said:


> and they wonder why people call them scum...
> 
> View attachment 247975
> 
> View attachment 247976


Tbh, I think it's a good thing they've been vaccinated and have said so.

They're in the first priority age bracket, and there's a chance it might encourage some reluctant people to get vaccinated. At this point I'm in favour of anything innocuous that helps that along, even from them.


----------



## editor (Jan 9, 2021)

Look at these morons 









						Handful of anti-lockdown protesters march through Brixton, Sat 9th Jan 2021
					

Earlier today, a handful of anti-lockdown protesters made their way through Brixton town centre after an anticipated rally in Windrush Square failed to gain traction.



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## brogdale (Jan 9, 2021)

Mation said:


> Tbh, I think it's a good thing they've been vaccinated and have said so.
> 
> They're in the first priority age bracket, and there's a chance it might encourage some reluctant people to get vaccinated. At this point I'm in favour of anything innocuous that helps that along, even from them.


As may be, but today certainly doesn't look like a good day, let alone a great one; fucking psychopath


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2021)

Definitely best for them to have got vaccinated in the middle of the over 80s group vaccinations. Too early and it would lead to talk of favoritism which might have led to similar unwarranted accusations against others. Too late and it might have encouraged others to try and move down the queue for altruistic reasons which would have disrupted the rollout.


----------



## Mation (Jan 9, 2021)

brogdale said:


> As may be, but today certainly doesn't look like a good day, let alone a great one; fucking psychopath


There isn't going to be a good day any time soon enough. Everyone who can get vaccinated, without queue-jumping, should, asap.


----------



## Mation (Jan 9, 2021)

brogdale said:


> As may be, but today certainly doesn't look like a good day, let alone a great one; fucking psychopath


Only just got what you meant re a good day/great day.

Yep. Agreed.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2021)

editor said:


> Look at these morons
> 
> 
> 
> ...



At least it's only a 'handful' of twats.


----------



## agricola (Jan 9, 2021)

Mation said:


> Tbh, I think it's a good thing they've been vaccinated and have said so.
> 
> They're in the first priority age bracket, and there's a chance it might encourage some reluctant people to get vaccinated. At this point I'm in favour of anything innocuous that helps that along, even from them.



That they got it weeks after Murdoch did is frankly disgusting.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 9, 2021)

brogdale said:


> The absolute state of these dangerous clowns...
> 
> View attachment 247968


Mad cunts.


----------



## Mation (Jan 9, 2021)

agricola said:


> That they got it weeks after Murdoch did is frankly disgusting.


Other way round?


----------



## killer b (Jan 9, 2021)

agricola said:


> That they got it weeks after Murdoch did is frankly disgusting.


who cares? all three should be rendered down for glue.


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 9, 2021)

Mation said:


> I'd go for 2 or 3 days before, if possible. How quickly will you get the results?





Cid said:


> I’d go for after - risk to children is tiny compared to risk to coworkers. Though it’s probably somewhat academic given a week’s timescale. Depends how quickly it shows up on tests, which I really don’t know.


Thank you. The ‘Rapid Testing‘ facility at work uses lateral flow tests, with the result available within an hour. Initially intended for staff expecting to isolate after being identified as a contact of someone testing positive - they could be tested before their shift for seven consecutive days and as long as the results were negative, they could work that day. Now they recommend all staff take a weekly test for peace of mind (and, of course, to pick up asymptomatic positives). They have targets but testing is entirely optional.

My grandson is with his father on Saturday and mother on Sunday, with me on Tuesday, nursery the other days. Mother working from home, father an FE teacher. I can be tested on Monday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Over a week perhaps it makes little difference but if there is an optimum time to be tested after contact with the little one, it makes sense to book a slot accordingly.


----------



## Cid (Jan 9, 2021)

20Bees said:


> Thank you. The ‘Rapid Testing‘ facility at work uses lateral flow tests, with the result available within an hour. Initially intended for staff expecting to isolate after being identified as a contact of someone testing positive - they could be tested before their shift for seven consecutive days and as long as the results were negative, they could work that day. Now they recommend all staff take a weekly test for peace of mind (and, of course, to pick up asymptomatic positives). They have targets but testing is entirely optional.
> 
> My grandson is with his father on Saturday and mother on Sunday, with me on Tuesday, nursery the other days. Mother working from home, father an FE teacher. I can be tested on Monday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Over a week perhaps it makes little difference but if there is an optimum time to be tested after contact with the little one, it makes sense to book a slot accordingly.



I meant more in the sense I don't know how long it takes before infection with covid is detectable via a test. Afaik it isn't detectable during the incubation period... So the timing probably doesn't matter that much. Though by that logic scratch my previous suggestion and test 4-5 days post-childcare. Also lateral flow shouldn't give too much confidence iirc. If it tells you you have covid, you almost certainly have. But I think it's only something like 50:50 as to whether it picks it up... Fine for community testing, but not great otherwise.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Figures are down a bit today, 59,937 new cases reported, and 1,035 new deaths, which is a big increase on last Saturday's 445, but that was suppressed because of the new year bank holiday on the Friday, causing a lag in reporting.
> 
> It does, however, take the *7-day average daily deaths from 815 yesterday to 899 or 900 today, very near the peak of 943 on 14th April.*


No. They are not the daily deaths. They are the daily reported deaths. Again.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 9, 2021)

brogdale said:


> The absolute state of these dangerous clowns...
> 
> View attachment 247968


I thought places of worship had been closed?
Not that I don't expect a whole bunch of some of the more extreme faithfull to ignore this.


editor said:


> Look at these morons
> 
> 
> 
> ...


no face I know in there which is good.
12 arrested outside the sainsbury in Clapham


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2021)

teuchter said:


> No. They are not the daily deaths. They are the daily reported deaths. Again.



I said 'reported' in the first paragraph, do I seriously have to keep reposting that throughout a post for the hard of understanding?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 9, 2021)

Still relevant (it's got a petition for an enquiry attached to)


----------



## teuchter (Jan 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I said 'reported' in the first paragraph, do I seriously have to keep reposting that throughout a post for the hard of understanding?


I believe that many people will have read your post and come away with the understanding that it's been established that nearly as many people died in the past week as did in the worst week of the first wave.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I believe that many people will have read your post and come away with the understanding that it's been established that nearly as many people died in the past week as did in the worst week of the first wave.



On the daily reported cases, they have.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> On the daily reported cases, they have.


That makes no sense.


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2021)

Take your pick from the menu of things we could do better:









						Covid: UK reports more than 80,000 deaths
					

Another 1,035 people have died, taking the total since the start of the pandemic to 80,868.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Prof Robert West, a participant in the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), which advises the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said the current rules were "still allowing a lot of activity which is spreading the virus".
> He said the new variant of Covid was around 50% more infectious compared to the virus that infected people last March.
> "That means that if we were to achieve the same result as we got in March we would have to have a stricter lockdown, and it (the current regime) is not stricter," he added.
> The professor of health psychology at University College London also told the BBC more children were going to school, compared to during the first lockdown.
> ...





> Prof Susan Michie, who is also a member of Sage, said the spread of the new, more infectious variant meant current restrictions were "too lax".
> "When you look at the data, it shows that almost 90% of people are overwhelmingly adhering to the rules - despite the fact that we're also seeing more people out and about," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
> She said, in comparison to the first lockdown in spring 2020, more people were allowed to go out to work and children's nurseries were open, making public transport busier.
> The number of people travelling by public transport in London has decreased since the latest national lockdown began, with tube journeys now at 18% of the pre-pandemic demand and bus journeys at 30%, according to figures from Transport for London.
> However, during the first lockdown passenger numbers fell below 10% at some points.





> Prof Kevin Fenton, London regional director for Public Health England, said there were "things we could do better" to reduce the number of infections, including greater compliance with mask wearing and social distancing when shopping and using public transport.
> Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that the UK's statutory sick pay system was "not fit for purpose for a pandemic" and more effective measures to encourage people to isolate were needed.





> Government sources say there is also likely to be more focus from police on enforcing rather than explaining rules.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 9, 2021)

I'm feeling pessimistic about this year again. Having been 'Oh well, Jan and Feb will be shit but next summer will be at least as open as last summer' I'm not sure about the second bit. There could be more restrictions on travel, we and the US will be considered plague pits and there will be quarantine going anywhere. I was fine not going abroad lasy year, but I'd really got my hopes up to go to my parents' place in Slovakia, seeing as my parents and brother managed it last year, and now I'm not sure it will happen. I think they may be more cautious about reopening things in spring, but even if they do, they may find out they shouldn't have, especially with the new strain. And we'll end up doing our daughter's delayed batmitzvah on Zoom anyway after all that.

Guess I'm just praying that they manage enough vaccinations in the next 8 weeks that it starts to make a noticeable difference in the spring, but I'm not confident.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 9, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I thought places of worship had been closed?


Not in this lockdown, no.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 9, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Not in this lockdown, no.


I cannot imagine why - though I suspect ours is not alone in having closed down voluntarily, I think Sadiq Kahn is considering or actually going to ask London places of worship to do the same.

gsv's nephew's bar mitzvah next weekend - all going to be on Zoom, but they planned for that.


----------



## zora (Jan 9, 2021)

Christmas lockdown breaking neighbour below me is coughing their guts out.  NOT a relaxing sound for me. Wondering about virus through floorboards or fireplace creep.  But that's just paranoia, right?


----------



## Cloo (Jan 9, 2021)

Probably, I image you'll be fine.


----------



## Cid (Jan 9, 2021)

zora said:


> Christmas lockdown breaking neighbour below me is coughing their guts out.  NOT a relaxing sound for me. Wondering about virus through floorboards or fireplace creep.  But that's just paranoia, right?



It would worry me... Though I think fireplaces generally don't have airflow between them (think of the smoke). Floor shouldn't be a problem - many layers. Might be worth getting some decent masks if you have any shared spaces you need to move through.


----------



## nagapie (Jan 9, 2021)

zora , you will not catch covid from a neighbour unless you share communal living spaces. Please don't worry.


----------



## prunus (Jan 9, 2021)

zora said:


> Christmas lockdown breaking neighbour below me is coughing their guts out.  NOT a relaxing sound for me. Wondering about virus through floorboards or fireplace creep.  But that's just paranoia, right?



No that won’t happen - even though your floorboards may have gaps in, their ceiling will be plasterboarded and plastered, and painted - completely sealed. Fireplace flues are not connected otherwise gasses etc would come through.


----------



## zora (Jan 9, 2021)

Thanks all, I have tried to reassure myself on and off over the last few days with similar thoughts, it's just that the sound of the cough sends such a chill through my bones!
Feels good to have it confirmed by people who know (especially about the fireplace).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 10, 2021)

teuchter said:


> That makes no sense.



I've no idea why you think it doesn't make sense, when I comparing the average daily reported deaths from the peak in the first wave to the current situation.


These are the most up to date figures available, and the ones most people focus on, as they are the ones wildly reported in the media. 

Sure they are not the actual date of death, but as we know from the excellent charts that elbows produces, it can take weeks for deaths reported today, to be allocated to the actual date of death. Even the ONS figures on date of deaths where covid is mentioned on the death certificate, which they publish with a 2 week lag, are marked as only 'provisional' at the time they are published. 

The daily reported new deaths follow a very similar wave pattern as the graph showing the actual date of death, a comparison of the two* are on the government's dashboard. *Both being deaths within 28 days of being tested, whereas, as we know there were a sizeable number of extra covid deaths, where it's mentioned on death certificates, in the first wave that were only picked-up by the ONS figures, because of the lack of testing at the time.

In view of the record numbers in hospital, and despite better treatments, it is sadly clear the average daily reported deaths will be overtaking those in the first wave in the next few days. And, as we have not seen the massive recent increase in people testing positive, up almost 50% since the end of December, reflected in deaths yet, the number is likely to continue to increase, and even overtake the higher first wave total deaths reported in the ONS data, i.e. all cases where covid is mentioned on the death certificate, in the coming weeks.   

Other factors also come into play, which are going to make the coming weeks grim, including us going into a milder lockdown later than in the first wave, hospitals being overwhelmed, massive numbers of doctors, nurses and carers being of off sick and/or isolating, and the increasing infection rate in care homes.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 10, 2021)

zora said:


> Christmas lockdown breaking neighbour below me is coughing their guts out.  NOT a relaxing sound for me. Wondering about virus through floorboards or fireplace creep.  But that's just paranoia, right?


Dettol made their name and fortune around similar fears.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 10, 2021)

There is now over 46,000 hospital staff off sick with covid, and GP surgeries are also being hit hard too, the combination will not only mean the NHS will struggle with patient care, but it's likely to impact on the vaccination roll-out plans too.   



> In a letter to its members, the chair of the British Medical Association, Chaand Nagpaul, revealed the huge number of staff struck down with the virus. “There are over 46,000 hospital staff off sick with Covid-19,” he wrote, “heaping additional pressure on an already overstretched workforce struggling to manage even current critical care demand.”
> 
> Stressing the need for doctors and other health workers to be vaccinated as soon as possible, Dr Nagpaul added: “It is only if the NHS workforce is kept fit and well that we will be able to meet the unprecedented surge in demand that the coming weeks and months will bring as well as delivering the vaccine programme that remains our only hope to end this dreadful pandemic.”





> Across the country hospitals, GP surgeries and care homes are reporting abnormally high staff absence levels. In Kent, one of the hardest hit areas of south-east England, about 25% of clinical and administrative staff are believed to be absent. John Allingham, medical director of the local medical committee, which represents GPs in the county, said in some practices as many as half of staff were absent, which was having an impact on vaccinations.
> 
> Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said even if all staff were in work there were not enough people to hit the target of two million jabs a week. “There are enough right now to deliver the limited supplies that we’ve got,” he said. “But we certainly haven’t got enough staff to deliver a much larger programme in two or three weeks’ time, while at the same time as continuing to deliver the flu vaccination programme and delivering normal business in general practice as well.”











						Doctors raise alarm as Covid strikes down NHS workforce
					

Health service in crisis with 46,000 ill, warns BMA chief as calls grow for tough new lockdown steps




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## brogdale (Jan 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There is now over 46,000 hospital staff off sick with covid, and GP surgeries are also being hit hard too, the combination will not only mean the NHS will struggle with patient care, but it's likely to impact on the vaccination roll-out plans too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Making the decision not to put NHS staff @ No. 1 in the vaccine 'hierarchy' look as shit as every other governmental 'decision' regarding Covid.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 10, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Making the decision not to put NHS staff @ No. 1 in the vaccine 'hierarchy' look as shit as every other governmental 'decision' regarding Covid.


You'd have thought it would be obvious that vaccinating healthcare staff would be a force multiplier


----------



## brogdale (Jan 10, 2021)

existentialist said:


> You'd have thought it would be obvious that vaccinating healthcare staff would be a force multiplier


You'd have thought...


----------



## TopCat (Jan 10, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Making the decision not to put NHS staff @ No. 1 in the vaccine 'hierarchy' look as shit as every other governmental 'decision' regarding Covid.


My NHS nurse partner has had gazillion of weird pings on her phone. I asked and each ping is another shift that needs covering. Fucking thing is like a bad 80's video game.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 10, 2021)

It's a tough choice, with infections raising in care homes, and amongst staff too.



> Care providers in the UK are reporting staff absence rates of up to 50 per cent, amid concern of “mounting pressure” across the social care sector as the third coronavirus wave continues to intensify.
> 
> The National Care Forum (NCF), which represents more than 130 organisations, called on the government to take “heed of this early warning signal” and provide additional resources for care services that have become increasingly stretched over winter.
> 
> In a survey conducted last week, the NCF found that some providers were missing between 11 and 50 per cent of their workforce. Absences were driven by a combination of Covid-19 infections, instructions to self-isolate, shielding and childcare responsibilities.





> The NCF’s findings come as new data from Public Health England showed that coronavirus outbreaks more than doubled in a fortnight over the new year period.
> 
> There were 503 reports of outbreaks in English care homes in the week up to 3 January – up from 236 two weeks prior, an increase of more than 113 per cent.
> ---
> Despite the growing prevalence of Covid-19 in the social care sector, which was devastated during the first peak of the pandemic, only one in 10 care home residents and 14 per cent of staff have been vaccinated so far, according to the latest figures.











						Care sector hit by staff absence rates up to 50% as third Covid wave intensifies
					

‘If people cannot be supported to leave hospital, whether that is by moving into a care home or having care at home, then the whole system will fail,’ warns National Care Forum




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## TopCat (Jan 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's a tough choice, with infections raising in care homes, and amongst staff too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Restrictions on agency staff use are both safeguarding the residents and leaving them without sufficient care.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 10, 2021)

Utter shitshow.


----------



## Supine (Jan 10, 2021)

Sunday feel good post


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 10, 2021)

My friend's got her first vaccination tomorrow


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 10, 2021)

It's somewhat hard to google, but there has to be a drink called a Vaccine Shot, right? Served up in one of those fake syringes? Was trying to think of ways my friend could celebrate tomorrow.


----------



## Chairman Meow (Jan 10, 2021)

My cousin got her first shot yesterday. She is just getting over covid, but she works in healthcare, so she is very happy to get jabbed! On the downside, she told me one of our uncles has said he won't get the vaccine as he doesn't want Bill Gates microchip tracking him. He always was a fuckwit, but my cousin was not impressed at all.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I've no idea why you think it doesn't make sense, when I comparing the average daily reported deaths from the peak in the first wave to the current situation.
> 
> View attachment 248103
> These are the most up to date figures available, and the ones most people focus on, as they are the ones wildly reported in the media.


But they aren't the most up to date figures available! It's exactly the same data used to produce the date-of-death figures, but with the numbers shifted around to dates that are a less accurate measure of what's actually happening.

The fact is that we don't know how many people have died in the past few days. Producing these rolling average numbers doesn't magically create more information.

The fact that it's what's widely used in the press isn't an argument for it being the best measure. The press like using the 'deaths reported today' number because it's often large and good for headlines and appears to be up-to-date information.

In this past week in particular we know that the deaths reported are going to be heavily influenced by the catch-up on Christmas and New year reporting.


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## Maltin (Jan 10, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The press like using the 'deaths reported today' number because it's often large and good for headlines and appears to be up-to-date information.
> 
> In this past week in particular we know that the deaths reported are going to be heavily influenced by the catch-up on Christmas and New year reporting.


I don’t think this first part is fair. The press report it because it’s the most immediate data available that they are provided with and it’s a good indicator. As far as I’m aware, the daily figure is reported every day, regardless of size. 

As has been said before, yes, if you were interested in knowing how many people died on a certain day or had a morbid fascination in which day had the most deaths, the figure reported every day is not the one to use. So although it does not help with the accuracy of that data, what we do know is that there are a lot of deaths occurring currently and although there is a lag, all the current numbers (not just deaths) suggest that the number of deaths are likely at or near to the numbers seen during the peak of the first wave. In 3 months time you can come back and tell us whether the final figures bore this out or not.


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## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

I see what the next tightening of restrictions will look like is starting to take shape:


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## kalidarkone (Jan 10, 2021)

Chairman Meow said:


> My cousin got her first shot yesterday. She is just getting over covid, but she works in healthcare, so she is very happy to get jabbed! On the downside, she told me one of our uncles has said he won't get the vaccine as he doesn't want Bill Gates microchip tracking him. He always was a fuckwit, but my cousin was not impressed at all.


There is a band 6 nurse at work who not only won't have the vaccine but refuses to carry out 2x  weekly lateral flow testing......but is perfectly happy to go to a non essential shop that remains open......a shop I have avoided on purpose because it is impossible to socially distance in there. 

He should at least be doing the lateral flow testing....it should be a requirement in order to be employed by the trust imo.


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## agricola (Jan 10, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> There is a band 6 nurse at work who not only won't have the vaccine but refuses to carry out 2x  weekly lateral flow testing......but is perfectly happy to go to a non essential shop that remains open......a shop I have avoided on purpose because it is impossible to socially distance in there.
> 
> He should at least be doing the lateral flow testing....it should be a requirement in order to be employed by the trust imo.



Absolutely - do they have any role treating patients?


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## Chilli.s (Jan 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The Queen and Phil the Greek have received their covid jabs.
> 
> So, their movements are now being tracked over the 5G network, to ensure they don't break the covid restrictions.


Luckily their support bubble includes loads of paid servants. Essential work.


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## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> I see what the next tightening of restrictions will look like is starting to take shape:



Ending supoort bubbles? That’ll go down well...


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## teuchter (Jan 10, 2021)

Maltin said:


> I don’t think this first part is fair. The press report it because it’s the most immediate data available that they are provided with and it’s a good indicator. As far as I’m aware, the daily figure is reported every day, regardless of size.
> 
> As has been said before, yes, if you were interested in knowing how many people died on a certain day or had a morbid fascination in which day had the most deaths, the figure reported every day is not the one to use. So although it does not help with the accuracy of that data, what we do know is that there are a lot of deaths occurring currently and although there is a lag, all the current numbers (not just deaths) suggest that the number of deaths are likely at or near to the numbers seen during the peak of the first wave. In 3 months time you can come back and tell us whether the final figures bore this out or not.


Each day we are supplied with some new information: a bunch of numbers of deaths each attributed to the day they occurred. In terms of presenting that information to people, there is a choice - you can present the full information available, or you can deliberately throw away part of that information (the days on which the deaths occurred). Why would you choose to do the latter, if your aim was to convey as much information as possible about the current situation? Because each time someone simply passes on "number of deaths reported today" they are choosing to throw away that information.

That information is useful in trying to get an idea of one of the most important things in terms of deciding how to respond to the situation - the direction of travel - at what rate are cases increasing or decreasing. If you only have a "morbid fascination" for large numbers of deaths, or a number of deaths with no interest in what the direction of travel is, then you can use the daily reported, or averaged daily reported numbers.

The information is actually fairly well presented on the gov.uk site - not quite as good as elbows' multicoloured versions, but it indicates (in blue) the date up to which data is probably near-enough complete, and (in grey) the dates for which it's incomplete, AKA we don't yet know.


This graph is easily screenshotted, or linked to. It's the best information we have, as far as deaths are concerned.

What is the reason to choose a method of presenting this data in a way that actually removes information from it, and furthermore, presents the information in a way that is liable to lead people who don't fully understand what it represents, to come to false conclusions? If you're reading this and wondering if I'm keen to present information that makes things look less bad rather than more bad - no, I'm not, I'm keen to present information in the most accurate and honest way possible. There will also be moments when people can use the "deaths by date reported" approach to present graphs or comparisons that make it appear that rates are falling when they actually aren't.


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## kalidarkone (Jan 10, 2021)

agricola said:


> Absolutely - do they have any role treating patients?


Yep.
But there are loads of fuckwits at work....it reflects the general population which reflects the cabinet....so yes there is definitely a proportion of clinical staff that are not taking responsibility or thinking long term.


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## teuchter (Jan 10, 2021)

Here's the deaths by date of reporting (first), and by date of death (second).





The first graph very much gives the impression that we are into a very rapidly rising trajectory. We might well be, but based only on looking at deaths data, on the second graph I have marked plausible best and worst case scenarios. It's a much more accurate picture of what we do and don't know.

Of course we can make guesses about which of those trajectories is more likely, using all sorts of other stuff like test positivity and hospital admissions. But that should be made on the basis of bringing that context into the picture, rather than pretending that the "daily reported deaths" numbers tell us something which they don't.


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## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Ending supoort bubbles? That’ll go down well...


I'd support closing building sites first, but if support bubbles have been identified as a significant source of infections then they can go too if necessary


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## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> I'd support closing building sites first, but if support bubbles have been identified as a significant source of infections then they can go too if necessary


Absolutely, but the impact on various isolated people would be huge


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

I do wonder what their thinking is on that... Is high household transmission still showing in the data? surely far too soon to see that... I tend to leap to the assumption that they're thinking 'bloody proles using support bubbles as an excuse for mixing'.


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## Sue (Jan 10, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Ending supoort bubbles? That’ll go down well...


Yep. All the people I know that are in one, it's about supporting an elderly/disabled relative or friend. Surely there'd still need to be provision for that?


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## platinumsage (Jan 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> I do wonder what their thinking is on that... Is high household transmission still showing in the data? surely far too soon to see that... I tend to leap to the assumption that they're thinking 'bloody proles using support bubbles as an excuse for mixing'.



No, these are random things thrown at Hancock by a journo that he didn’t comment on.


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## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> I do wonder what their thinking is on that... Is high household transmission still showing in the data? surely far too soon to see that... I tend to leap to the assumption that they're thinking 'bloody proles using support bubbles as an excuse for mixing'.


well tbh, I could be in a support bubble if I chose, but I'm not bothering 'cause when I try and map out the infection risks in either direction with anyone who's available, there's too many created. I'm certain this will be true for the vast majority of support bubbles too.


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## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No, these are random things thrown at Hancock by a journo that he didn’t comment on.


ah fair enough.


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## Sue (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> well tbh, I could be in a support bubble if I chose, but I'm not bothering 'cause when I try and map out the infection risks in either direction with anyone who's available, there's too many created. I'm certain this will be true for the vast majority of support bubbles too.


I could be too as I live on my own. But I'm not as it doesn't seem the right thing to do. As I said above though, the people I know that are in one, it's because of caring responsibilities.


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

Jesus do I have to watch 20 minutes of Hancock-Marr to see the actual context?


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## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

Sue said:


> I could be too as I live on my own. But I'm not as it doesn't seem the right thing to do. As I said above though, the people I know that are in one, it's because of caring responsibilities.


I think caring responsibilities are different to support bubbles - don't they have a different exemption?


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

Ah, it's at about 32:15 on this morning's Marr show... Yeah, he just avoids it. So, as you were.


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## Sue (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> I think caring responsibilities are different to support bubbles - don't they have a different exemption?


I've completely lost track tbh.


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

And a mild 'fuck you' to Crerar. No point in writing leading shit like that.


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

Also I still can't get over how Hancock always looks like he's doing interviews in his shitter while crimping one out.


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## LDC (Jan 10, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Absolutely, but the impact on various isolated people would be huge




But if you're not supposed to be leaving home it makes sense, otherwise the advice is contradictory.


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## LDC (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> I think caring responsibilities are different to support bubbles - don't they have a different exemption?



Yeah, exactly that. You'd still be able to do care responsibilities, but support bubbles are not the same thing. Although I do get some people might see an overlap/grey area.


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## frogwoman (Jan 10, 2021)

What about stuff like  non  essential construction? And increased support for people isolating etc?


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## Lord Camomile (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> well tbh, I could be in a support bubble if I chose, but I'm not bothering 'cause when I try and map out the infection risks in either direction with anyone who's available, there's too many created. I'm certain this will be true for the vast majority of support bubbles too.





Sue said:


> I could be too as I live on my own. But I'm not as it doesn't seem the right thing to do. As I said above though, the people I know that are in one, it's because of caring responsibilities.


Likewise, figure it's for those who need it but personally I don't need it enough to justify the risk. Always been a bit of a solitary homebod, anyway.

But imagine for those who _do_ need it it's a crucial part of getting through all this


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

Support bubble registry might work... Just a self-assessed agreement between two parties (with incapacity exceptions). The exact structure doesn't even matter hugely, simply the extra step and acknowledgement would likely cut a large amount of fiddling around the edges. If that is a concern. Which I'm not sure it is.


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## frogwoman (Jan 10, 2021)

I think maybe not getting rid but it could do with a bit more clarity around the rules, I find the support bubble thing confusing so I haven't really bothered with it and I think there's a lot of confusion about what they actually are so a lot of people eg are seeing friends as part of a support bubble when they're both couples.


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## LDC (Jan 10, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I think maybe not getting rid but a bit more clarity around the rules, I find the support bubble thing confusing so I haven't really bothered with it and I think there's a lot of confusion about what they actually are.



I expect what we'll see is a short period of very strict restrictions on top of what we have now, and the suspension of support bubbles will be part of that?

Why's the support bubble thing confusing btw?


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

I suspect the actual solution is, as it has always been, dumping in a couple of short periods of very hard lockdown... 2 weeks now in a kind of LD1+... iirc we closed construction and most housing stuff at that time, so do that again. Restrict the definition of essential retail. Spot checks on roads. etc etc. Then potentially period of that late in lockdown.


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I think maybe not getting rid but it could do with a bit more clarity around the rules, I find the support bubble thing confusing so I haven't really bothered with it and I think there's a lot of confusion about what they actually are so a lot of people eg are seeing friends as part of a support bubble when they're both couples.



A support bubble registry would work well for that I think... Though of course you do always get gaps around the edges with regards to access to technology etc.


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## frogwoman (Jan 10, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I expect what we'll see is a short period of very strict restrictions on top of what we have now, and the suspension of support bubbles will be part of that?
> 
> Why's the support bubble thing confusing btw?


Well for example I don't know if the 'going for walks outside your household' also includes a support bubble and some of the stuff on the website is really confusing and seems to contradict itself. I know that a single person can be in a bubble of any size but I know people who are part of a couple who are in a bubble with another couple,  but nobody else, and seemed to think that was fine.


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## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

Lord Camomile said:


> Likewise, figure it's for those who need it but personally I don't need it enough to justify the risk. Always been a bit of a solitary homebod, anyway.
> 
> But imagine for those who _do_ need it it's a crucial part of getting through all this


Oh, it's not that I don't need it tbh. Apart from a few weeks in the summer and a week over christmas I haven't been in a room with another adult for longer than a couple of minutes in almost a year and tbh it's really starting to bite. Still. Not going to risk it right now.


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## LDC (Jan 10, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Well for example I don't know if the 'going for walks outside your household' also includes a support bubble and some of the stuff on the website is really confusing and seems to contradict itself. I know that a single person can be in a bubble of any size but I know people who are part of a couple who are in a bubble with another couple,  but nobody else, and seemed to think that was fine.



Yeah, I think it gets used by quite a few people to convince themselves they're following the rules. Best one I've come across is lots of people from different households hanging out together drinking saying they're a bubble for the few hours they're out together. The actual rule is reasonably simple though I think.


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Well for example I don't know if the 'going for walks outside your household' also includes a support bubble and some of the stuff on the website is really confusing and seems to contradict itself. I know that a single person can be in a bubble of any size but I know people who are part of a couple who are in a bubble with another couple,  but nobody else, and seemed to think that was fine.



I mean it's pretty clear that a support bubble is a one person household + support. That bit at least should be easy.

I do think people are er... a bit too easily confused... when it comes to rules that affect their personal ability to do shit. The problem is that you can't really just tell them not to. Because you already have, and they haven't. You need to build in structures that reinforce the behaviours you want to promote. Could be registry. Could be a mass mail-out, or a poster campaign. It can't be done via the news.


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## Thora (Jan 10, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I expect what we'll see is a short period of very strict restrictions on top of what we have now, and the suspension of support bubbles will be part of that?
> 
> Why's the support bubble thing confusing btw?


The support bubble thing has got a bit confusing maybe as they expanded it.  And there were support bubbles, childcare bubbles and then Christmas bubbles.  People don’t necessarily get that you can’t socialise with your childcare bubble.  I’m in a support bubble with my sister so that means we can socialise in a group of 10.


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## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sure they are not the actual date of death, but as we know from the excellent charts that elbows produces, it can take weeks for deaths reported today, to be allocated to the actual date of death. Even the ONS figures on date of deaths where covid is mentioned on the death certificate, which they publish with a 2 week lag, are marked as only 'provisional' at the time they are published.



I'm not ready to properly join in this bit of conversation yet, but I just wanted to cmment on this bit for now.

It does not take weeks for deaths reported today to be allocated an actual date of death. Those deaths are not reported at all to start with (ie on the same day the deaths happened), they dont show up in either number, and when they are reported there is also a date of death provided at the very same time.

So for example all the deaths that will be reported in today number will end up on both graphs straight away. The difference is only that all the ones reported today will end up in todays entry on one graph, but spread across various dates in the other graph. But they are the same deaths, added to the data at the same time.

The only exception (apart from when there is a data/system malfunction) is that there are very small fluctuations that can happen later. Presumably some of the dates for specific deaths get tweaked later, so for example on some past days the numbers for particular dates may go up or down by a couple, presumably because some cases already reported have their date of death changed slightly later. Since the numbers involved are very small, there is barely any point me even mentioning this except I am a nerd.

As for the ONS data involving Covid-19 on the death certificate, if it were not for the additional lag in reporting these numbers, they are the only numbers I would rely on for tracking this side of the pandemic. The caveats about such data being provisional are pretty standard stuff when it comes to ONS death reporting data, in the same way that during normal non-pandemic times, it takes forever for the ONS to report final numbers for deaths registered on a particular week, month and year. eg Im not even sure there is a real, final number for 2019 yet, although I havent checked that for a while. In any case, later corrections to these figures matter more to people who need to know a precise number for a particular day and to have the number declared to be officially final. Later revisions are not usually large enough to make a difference to trends people saw in earlier, provisional versions of ONS data. So its just the long delay in collating and publishing such info that stops ONS data being ideal for pandemic tracking day by day.

Probably later I will have something to say about what the current numbers show and whether it really matters which daily number people use to track these trends.


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

I forget the exact rules myself (I don't really need one as I can still work)... But I do remember 1 person household, I do remember only where needed. That element is simple... anything beyond that you're probably rules lawyering.


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## Lord Camomile (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> Oh, it's not that I don't need it tbh. Apart from a few weeks in the summer and a week over christmas I haven't been in a room with another adult for longer than a couple of minutes in almost a year and tbh it's really starting to bite. Still. Not going to risk it right now.


Ach, that really sucks, but fair play on making the sacrifice anyway.


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## Thora (Jan 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> I mean it's pretty clear that a support bubble is a one person household + support. That bit at least should be easy.


Or one adult + a disabled adult
Or two adults + a baby under one
Or two adults + a disabled child under 5


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

Thora said:


> The support bubble thing has got a bit confusing maybe as they expanded it.  And there were support bubbles, childcare bubbles and then Christmas bubbles.  People don’t necessarily get that you can’t socialise with your childcare bubble.  I’m in a support bubble with my sister so that means we can socialise in a group of 10.



Support bubble: A single person household may have support from another household.
Childcare bubble: One household allowed to provide childcare for another. Limited to childcare, should not be social.


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## Orang Utan (Jan 10, 2021)

I didn’t realise people were still doing support bubbles. This must be why I’m still seeing a lot of people in the street. Aren’t we supposed to stay in unless we go to the shops or get some exercise?


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## Thora (Jan 10, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I didn’t realise people were still doing support bubbles. This must be why I’m still seeing a lot of people in the street. Aren’t we supposed to stay in unless we go to the shops or get some exercise?


You can go out with your household or support bubble though, or exercise with 1 other person from another household.


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## LDC (Jan 10, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I didn’t realise people were still doing support bubbles. This must be why I’m still seeing a lot of people in the street. Aren’t we supposed to stay in unless we go to the shops or get some exercise?



That's why getting rid of them with any tighter restrictions makes sense tbh.


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## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> I do wonder what their thinking is on that... Is high household transmission still showing in the data? surely far too soon to see that... I tend to leap to the assumption that they're thinking 'bloody proles using support bubbles as an excuse for mixing'.



It might be that they are intending to use a much heavier policing approach, and that bubble excuses are what the police often faced when previously 'advising people' of the rules.


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

Thora said:


> Or one adult + a disabled adult
> Or two adults + a baby under one
> Or two adults + a disabled child under 5



Yes but these are exceptions you're going to specifically look up if you're in that kind of situation. The basic rule is not that hard to grasp.


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## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> Support bubble: A single person household may have support from another household.
> Childcare bubble: One household allowed to provide childcare for another. Limited to childcare, should not be social.


there are additional bubbles available for families with newborn or disabled children too. But I don't think they really add that much confusion as there generally isn't any ambiguity whether your family includes one of these.


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## Sue (Jan 10, 2021)

Thora said:


> The support bubble thing has got a bit confusing maybe as they expanded it.  And there were support bubbles, childcare bubbles and then Christmas bubbles.  People don’t necessarily get that you can’t socialise with your childcare bubble.  I’m in a support bubble with my sister so that means we can socialise in a group of 10.


I think there have been so many changes and different rules in different places, that many people have completely lost track (I know I have but then I'm basically staying at home and not seeing anyone so...). Some people are swinging the lead but I'm not sure how you deal with that tbh.


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## Boudicca (Jan 10, 2021)

Both my lodgers have been staying over at their boyfriends' every weekend. In theory, one could be a support bubble, but not both.


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

Sue said:


> I think there have been so many changes and different rules in different places, that many people have completely lost track (I know I have but then I'm basically staying at home and not seeing anyone so...). Some people are swinging the lead but I'm not sure how you deal with that tbh.



Yeah... I can understand why people are 'confused' (they're not, they just can't be arsed to check). The solution is always better communication. Whether that means a specific registry, offences for false support bubbles, information campaigns etc.


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## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

I see Starmers schools flip-flopping did not escape the attention of Marr:



> Labour's Sir Kier Starmer has accused the prime minster of being "slow into every decision" around coronavirus restrictions.
> 
> But Andrew Marr also challenged him over the closure of primary schools: "On Sunday (last week) you said specifically you didn't want to close schools. The following morning, your education spokeswoman Kate Green said schools should be the very last place to close - so you did not give a different message from the prime minister."
> 
> Starmer says: "I didn't want schools to close I'm not going to shy away from that, because of the impact that has on vulnerable children."





> Marr replies that on the particular decision to close primary schools "you were just as slow and just as indecisive as the prime minister".



(from the 10:49 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55605009 )


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## lazythursday (Jan 10, 2021)

I think support bubbles have been abused (and admit have been guilty of it myself). Ended up feeling torn between two single friends both with mental health needs and agreeing a bubble with both of them (with both of their consent). That then got very difficult when further rules started being broken without getting the consent of everyone in the bubble. No it's not ok to meet someone off Grindr without asking everyone even if they have claimed to self isolate in advance. No it's not ok to go and have dinner round your ex's. No it's not ok to suddenly bring another 'safe' single friend into this ever expanding porous bubble. I'd love it to be scrapped or tightened up as it would make it a lot easier to completely pop the bubble without interpersonal grief.


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## Thora (Jan 10, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> Both my lodgers have been staying over at their boyfriends' every weekend. In theory, one could be a support bubble, but not both.
> 
> T


A friend of mine is in this situation - she lives alone but was in a support bubble with a friend who has a lodger, but now the lodger has a boyfriend so lodger says he is her support bubble... My friend isn’t sure if lodger’s boyfriend lives with anyone else so does that mean she can no longer be in this support bubble?

Or family A has a baby so form a support bubble with family B, and family B are in a childcare bubble with family C, and family C are in a support bubble with person D who lives alone... so they think why not just all socialise as one big bubble since all connected anyway?


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## Lord Camomile (Jan 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> The solution is always better communication.


I know it's all been said and dragged over before, but the other day I did find myself once again thinking just how utterly ludicrous the government's piss-poor communication throughout all this is.

We have smart, talented people who know how to communicate science effectively, but instead we've got this utterly garbled mess. I guess that's in part reflective of the garbled mess that is the government's ever-changing strategies and policies, only so much you can do to turn something that doesn't make sense into something that does, but still, I feel confident in also saying it _is_ for a lack of trying (and ability).


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

Thora said:


> A friend of mine is in this situation - she lives alone but was in a support bubble with a friend who has a lodger, but now the lodger has a boyfriend so lodger says he is her support bubble... My friend isn’t sure if lodger’s boyfriend lives with anyone else so does that mean she can no longer be in this support bubble?
> 
> Or family A has a baby so form a support bubble with family B, and family B are in a childcare bubble with family C, and family C are in a support bubble with person D who lives alone... so they think why not just all socialise as one big bubble since all connected anyway?



Afaik a lodger makes a household more than one person, but yes it is stupid that that isn't more clear.

The latter example is more simple: Childcare bubbles are explicitly not for socialising.


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

A lot of this _is_ rules lawyering... The principle that should always be returned to is minimising contact. Support bubbles are if you _need_ support. Childcare bubbles are strictly for childcare. There are always going to be difficult exceptions and edge cases... But understanding that part should lead to erring on the side of more conservative interpretations... Whereas often the opposite is true.


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## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

There is some twisted comflation of things going on here that require some careful unpicking:









						Plan for the future now or Covid will last for years, UK scientists warn
					

Experts condemn UK’s ‘short-term’ response and urge ministers to rethink their approach




					www.theguardian.com
				






> This view was backed by Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University. “This epidemic would have unfolded very differently and in a much happier way if we had accepted, back in February, that we were in this for the long term,” he said. “However, the view that it was a short-term problem prevailed.
> 
> “It was thought we could completely suppress the virus, and that is why we are in the mess that we are in now.”
> 
> The idea that the virus could be eradicated was a costly mistake, said Martin Hibberd of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “We have to understand Covid-19 is going to become endemic. The virus will not disappear. We are not going to eradicate it. Even if every human on Earth was vaccinated, we would still be at risk of it coming back.”



I dont think Im in the right mood to carefully unpick it right now so I'll just say that the likes of Whitty have consistently spoken of their expectations that it would become endemic. They even used that stuff, and the threat of future waves, to justify their original shitty 'act late and weak and just press the curve down a bit otherwise it will bounce back later just when we dont want it to, in winter'. And the government paid lip service to the idea of suppression, but nobody seriously thought they were pursuing a zero covid approach at any stage. So I find the idea that we are in the current mess because they thought they could totally suppress the virus to be a sick joke.

There are aspects of the article which I wouldnt be so damning of, and the need for a long term approach and for people to have realistic expectations about the future is important. But there are some untested preconcieved ideas and some disgusting distortions in whats being said by some of those people. Whichever side these people are on, there are signs of the usual problem with narrow, orthodox thinking and a lack of genuine ambition.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 10, 2021)

Not sure if it’s against the rules but I am doing my sister’s recycling for her as the binmen haven’t come in ages and we have massive recycling bins in our block. Won’t be going inside, just picking the bags up and sticking them in the car. Will just wave at my sister and kids at the door.
Can’t really see the harm in it?


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> I see what the next tightening of restrictions will look like is starting to take shape:




I'd say more important is the govt putting more restrictions on companies and workers and supporting their restrictions with test and trace and decent sick pay etc.


----------



## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> I'd say more important is the govt putting more restrictions on companies and workers and supporting their restrictions with test and trace and decent sick pay etc.


sure that would be great, but let's be realistic. we've seen what these guys are prepared to do.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 10, 2021)

I think some places round here are kind of taking the piss with the definition of essential retail too tbh which must be a real kick in the teeth for shops that have followed the rules and lost a lot of business as a result.


----------



## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> There is some twisted comflation of things going on here that require some careful unpicking:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, that is a weird article... But hard to unpick a bunch of selected quotes.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 10, 2021)

I think that the fact the rules are constantly changing really doesn't help either. Everyone is basically using their own judgement.


----------



## Sue (Jan 10, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I think some places round here are kind of taking the piss with the definition of essential retail too tbh which must be a real kick in the teeth for shops that have followed the rules and lost a lot of business as a result.


Yeah, saw a clothes shop open that had displays of Haribo in the window. I wondered if they were trying to get round things by pretending they were selling food or some other absolute bollocks. (They've big windows so you can see in and couldn't see in passing how else they could be open as apart from that, it looked like their usual stock.)


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> sure that would be great, but let's be realistic. we've seen what these guys are prepared to do.



It should still be said though! And keep being said!


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 10, 2021)




----------



## nagapie (Jan 10, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Not sure if it’s against the rules but I am doing my sister’s recycling for her as the binmen haven’t come in ages and we have massive recycling bins in our block. Won’t be going inside, just picking the bags up and sticking them in the car. Will just wave at my sister and kids at the door.
> Can’t really see the harm in it?


Technically you and your dad could be in a support bubble with your sister cause she's a single mum. Unless she has another support bubble.
I don't think bins are a problem.


----------



## magneze (Jan 10, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I think some places round here are kind of taking the piss with the definition of essential retail too tbh which must be a real kick in the teeth for shops that have followed the rules and lost a lot of business as a result.


Somehow Argos is open around here. 🤔


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> Yeah, that is a weird article... But hard to unpick a bunch of selected quotes.



The quotes make more sense when pre-pandemic orthodox wisdom is taken into account, and when the history of certain people that were quoted is taken into account.

I cant do the full subject justice right now, but in terms of orthodox approach and lack of ambition, such things are also present in the very first posts I made about this pandemic. When I spoke about how if the new virus could transmit very effectively between people, humanity would not stop it or even really try to. It is a source of regret that I've spend much of the pandemic commentating on what was happening and what might happen next, instead of what should happen next. I attempted to compensate for this later by picking at various aspects of the orthodox approach, but my ideas were still limited.

As for specific people that were quoted, Woolhouse is the obvious one to pick on. Pandemic cunt. May occasionally come out with something sensible I agree with, but for sure an example of how much horror a particular narrow view can impose. He saw lockdown as something that caused more harm than good, eg in this quote from August:



> “Lockdown was a panic measure and I believe history will say trying to control Covid-19 through lockdown was a monumental mistake on a global scale, the cure was worse than the disease.
> “I never want to see national lockdown again. It was always a temporary measure that simply delayed the stage of the epidemic we see now. It was never going to change anything fundamentally, however low we drove down the number of cases, and now we know more about the virus and how to track it we should not be in this position again.
> “We absolutely should never return to a position where children cannot play or go to school.
> “I believe the harm lockdown is doing to our education, health care access, and broader aspects of our economy and society will turn out to be at least as great as the harm done by Covid-19.”







__





						Lockdown was a “monumental mistake on a global scale”, claims UK scientist – TheLiberal.ie – Our News, Your Views
					

One of the UK government’s top scientific advisers on infectious diseases has said that the Covid-19…




					theliberal.ie
				




That sort of thing alone is enough for me to view him as a dangerous shithead in this pandemic. And the shitty nature of his stance is made worse when exploring what he actually did on a personal level compared to the approach he would have the rest of us take. This article is from last April:



> A Scottish Government coronavirus adviser ignored Nicola Sturgeon’s advice and stayed at his island holiday home hours before lockdown restrictions were put in place.
> 
> Professor Mark Woolhouse, 60, has angered residents on Lismore by temporarily moving to the tiny Hebridean island with his family from Edinburgh.











						Scottish Govt coronavirus advisor slammed for moving to island holiday home
					

Professor Mark Woolhouse, who sits on Nicola Sturgeon's Covid-19 taskforce, has angered residents on a tiny Hebridean island.




					www.dailyrecord.co.uk


----------



## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Not sure if it’s against the rules but I am doing my sister’s recycling for her as the binmen haven’t come in ages and we have massive recycling bins in our block. Won’t be going inside, just picking the bags up and sticking them in the car. Will just wave at my sister and kids at the door.
> Can’t really see the harm in it?



This is the sort of practical exception (I don't think it even is an exception really) that really is going to be fine... It's something that needs to be done, and doesn't actually result in any contact. Well, wash hands.

Again, what it is critical to avoid is any unnecessary indoor contact. The added layers of caution and uncertainty mean that outdoor social contact is also limited...


----------



## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> The quotes make more sense when pre-pandemic orthodox wisdom is taken into account, and when the history of certain people that were quoted is taken into account.
> 
> I cant do the full subject justice right now, but in terms of orthodox approach and lack of ambition, such things are also present in the very first posts I made about this pandemic. When I spoke about how if the new virus could transmit very effectively between people, humanity would not stop it or even really try to. It is a source of regret that I've spend much of the pandemic commentating on what was happening and what might happen next, instead of what should happen next. I attempted to compensate for this later by picking at various aspects of the orthodox approach, but my ideas were still limited.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I haven't kept on top of the various personalities like you have... It is fucking frustrating that the media is still reporting this shit, in this way.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 10, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> I'd say more important is the govt putting more restrictions on companies and workers and supporting their restrictions with test and trace and decent sick pay etc.



Also housing unhoused people reducing the risk to them and to outreach workers.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> Yeah, I haven't kept on top of the various personalities like you have... It is fucking frustrating that the media is still reporting this shit, in this way.



I havent managed this properly either, I have a very small list of the same few 'expert' names that came up enough in the first wave for me to form an opinion.  I may feel the need to document some of them in more detail at some point, and I will be interested to see what the eventual public inquiry makes of this side of things.

Meanwhile I dont know quite how many times I will feel the need to go on about how I dont believe in putting all my future faith in single silver bullets, but it always makes me feel better when I hear the following sort of thing expressed:



> Dr Deepti Gurdasani, an epidemiologist from Queen Mary University, said although vaccines were “critical”, even once the top four priority groups are vaccinated there will still be many more vulnerable groups who will not have received a vaccine by mid-February.
> 
> “It’s really worrying this rhetoric that vaccines are this end point that will allow us to open up society when the majority of people will not be protected from infection,” she told the BBC.
> 
> ...



From 13:29 entry of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55605009


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 10, 2021)

"Dr Deepti Gurdasani, an epidemiologist from Queen Mary University, said although vaccines were “critical”, even once the top four priority groups are vaccinated there will still be many more vulnerable groups who will not have received a vaccine by mid-February." 

Its getting a little bit frustrating to hear statements being made that relate to England only, re-stated as if its a UK wide position, Wales for instance has published no estimate on timing.
May I ask that when stating England specific stuff that the poster notes this, its bad enough the BBC doing it


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

I'll keep it in mind but I wouldnt change anything about that particular post as a result, since the exact timing is hardly central to her point, and I'd apply the point to most countries.


----------



## bimble (Jan 10, 2021)

I’m really behind on the thread sorry. Just saw someone saying that Matt Hancock ‘refused to rule out’ ending support bubbles amongst other ideas for tightening the lockdown.
 This is really scary for me, without my bubble I think I’d quickly get a lot more er..eccentric.
So my question is Is this just scaremongering or are they seriously considering ending bubbles does anyone know?


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

bimble said:


> I’m really behind on the thread sorry. Just saw someone saying that Matt Hancock ‘refused to rule out’ ending support bubbles amongst other ideas for tightening the lockdown.
> This is really scary for me, without my bubble I think I’d quickly get a lot more er..eccentric.
> So my question is Is this just scaremongering or are they seriously considering ending bubbles does anyone know?



Well they have deliberately signalled in recent days a desire to wield a big stick more this time. How much of that will remain simply a threat of the stick, and if they actually use the stick where they will end up sticking it, remains to be seen.

I suppose I expect them to do some thing intended to shock people into feeling different about the current lockdown at some point in the coming days. I dont know what.


----------



## andysays (Jan 10, 2021)

bimble said:


> I’m really behind on the thread sorry. Just saw someone saying that Matt Hancock ‘refused to rule out’ ending support bubbles amongst other ideas for tightening the lockdown.
> This is really scary for me, without my bubble I think I’d quickly get a lot more er..eccentric.
> So my question is Is this just scaremongering or are they seriously considering ending bubbles does anyone know?


He was replying to a question about the possibility of ending support bubbles rather than volunteering the idea that this is something which might happen.

There are all sorts of things which might hypothetically be done, and it's probably sensible that none are simply ruled out at this stage, but nothing he said should be taken as meaning this is an option the government are actively considering ATM


----------



## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

bimble said:


> I’m really behind on the thread sorry. Just saw someone saying that Matt Hancock ‘refused to rule out’ ending support bubbles amongst other ideas for tightening the lockdown.
> This is really scary for me, without my bubble I think I’d quickly get a lot more er..eccentric.
> So my question is Is this just scaremongering or are they seriously considering ending bubbles does anyone know?



It’s wrong. It was part of a long interview with Marr... marr asked whether a bunch of measures were on the table, Hancock just said he didn’t want to speculate or something. There were no firm refusals to rule out or anything, and marr didn’t follow up afaik.

They may still do it of course, they are tories. I just don’t think you can read much into it on that basis.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 10, 2021)

bimble said:


> I’m really behind on the thread sorry. Just saw someone saying that Matt Hancock ‘refused to rule out’ ending support bubbles amongst other ideas for tightening the lockdown.
> This is really scary for me, without my bubble I think I’d quickly get a lot more er..eccentric.
> So my question is Is this just scaremongering or are they seriously considering ending bubbles does anyone know?



No, the journalist fired a lot of random things that could be tightened at him, and he didn't comment.


----------



## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

It’s about 32 minutes into this morning’s marr show.


----------



## bimble (Jan 10, 2021)

Thank you! Am tentatively reassured.


----------



## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

I would just add that Marr is one of those people with a lot of access... he probably has some basis for asking about those suggestions. But impossible to say more than that.


----------



## sparkybird (Jan 10, 2021)

existentialist said:


> You'd have thought it would be obvious that vaccinating healthcare staff would be a force multiplier


Even Mexico's AMLO decided it was best to start with health care workers. What is wrong with this govt?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 10, 2021)

In-laws came round to drop pressies off for my son who is 17 today. They were on the doorstep for fifteen minutes and in that time next door had visitors who went inside, other side of them had someone go in, two different groups of kids went past (four girls on foot and three boys on bikes) and kids from two other neighborhood houses were playing with a ball in a front garden. 

Anecdotal yes but it doesn't feel in any way different to the summer


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jan 10, 2021)

magneze said:


> Somehow Argos is open around here. 🤔


Argos sell reasonably priced oxymeters often available quicker than amazon will ship from China so I'm glad they are open


----------



## teqniq (Jan 10, 2021)




----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 10, 2021)

Driving around today (to collect a parcel from the works that arrived a couple of days ago) the damp, cold & dismal is at least stopping people wandering about - just worried that they are inside in under-ventilated spaces, instead !


----------



## LDC (Jan 10, 2021)

bimble said:


> Thank you! Am tentatively reassured.



I think an ending of support bubbles is entirely possible in the short near future. I do think people need to be prepared for a short period (2 weeks maybe) of much tighter restrictions that involve _actually _not leaving home for anything except critical work, food and medical appointments, and maybe one session of exercise a day from your house alone or with one other household member. It's fucking grim, but we're in a _very _bad way.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I do think people need to be prepared for a short period (2 weeks maybe) of much tighter restrictions that involve _actually _not leaving home for anything except critical work, food and medical appointments, and maybe one session of exercise a day from your house alone or with one other household member. It's fucking grim, but we're in a _very _bad way.



Although tempting, I'm not sure I would agree with anything stronger being added that only lasts 2 weeks at this stage, because of the risk stemming from the extent to which behaviours may bounce back once that period ended. Especially since apparently some of the stuff thats worrying the establishment and making them think of going further is how slowly the wave may decline once past the peak.


----------



## andysays (Jan 10, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think an ending of support bubbles is entirely possible in the short near future. I do think people need to be prepared for a short period (2 weeks maybe) of much tighter restrictions that involve _actually _not leaving home for anything except critical work, food and medical appointments, and maybe one session of exercise a day from your house alone or with one other household member. It's fucking grim, but we're in a _very _bad way.


Yeah I think, on the level of individual preparedness, practical and mental health-wise, it's worth being aware that something along these lines is at least a possibility, whether or not it actually happens.


----------



## bimble (Jan 10, 2021)

Yes, I get that it may happen, and if it does I’ll manage. If they also remove the ability to walk (exercise) outdoors with one other person I’d probably really struggle though, and I’m not by any means the most vulnerable, mental health wise, I just live in an isolated place and have felt it more this time around, how much I need to see a friendly face in real life every few days, not on a screen.


----------



## editor (Jan 10, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yes, I get that it may happen, and if it does I’ll manage. If they also remove the ability to walk (exercise) outdoors with one other person I’d probably really struggle though, and I’m not by any means the most vulnerable, mental health wise, I just live in an isolated place and have felt it more this time around, how much I need to see a friendly face in real life every few days, not on a screen.


I feel your pain. I haven't had a face to face chat with anyone for what seems like a very long time indeed.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> Although tempting, I'm not sure I would agree with anything stronger being added that only lasts 2 weeks at this stage, because of the risk stemming from the extent to which behaviours may bounce back once that period ended. Especially since apparently some of the stuff thats worrying the establishment and making them think of going further is how slowly the wave may decline once past the peak.



Exceptions to my thinking on that would be if the measures involved were not expected to involve a rapid behavioural bounce back afterwards, eg if they shocked people in a manner that lasted a good while. Or measures that are done not to control the number of infections, but are just designed to reduce other pressures on health service and vital infrastructure during the very peak, not that I have many ideas about what such measures could be at this stage.


----------



## Mation (Jan 10, 2021)

sparkybird said:


> What is wrong with this govt?


How much time do you have? It may take a while to list...


----------



## chilango (Jan 10, 2021)

We can talk endlessly about how to interpret the vague rules we've been given but as long as people have to go out to work it isn't going to make a blind bit of difference.


----------



## Sue (Jan 10, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think an ending of support bubbles is entirely possible in the short near future. I do think people need to be prepared for a short period (2 weeks maybe) of much tighter restrictions that involve _actually _*not leaving home for anything except critical work, food and medical appointments, and maybe one session of exercise a day from your house alone or with one other household member. *It's fucking grim, but we're in a _very _bad way.


I'm not sure what other people have been doing, but this pretty much sums up my 2020. I mean what else is there to do..?


----------



## Thora (Jan 10, 2021)

Sue said:


> I'm not sure what other people have been doing, but this pretty much sums up my 2020. I mean what else is there to do..?


Even during this lockdown you can leave your house for non-critical work or to go shopping at B&M.  In the three or four weeks before this lockdown I went shopping, to the cinema, nail salon, pub, restaurant, took kids to swimming lessons, toddler music class.
The actual legal restrictions haven’t been very restrictive.


----------



## chilango (Jan 10, 2021)

I picked up a Costa drive-through and then went to a garden centre to look at sheds today.

I really shouldn't be able to.


----------



## Sue (Jan 10, 2021)

Thora said:


> Even during this lockdown you can leave your house for non-critical work or to go shopping at B&M.  In the three or four weeks before this lockdown I went shopping, to the cinema, nail salon, pub, restaurant, took kids to swimming lessons, toddler music class.
> The actual legal restrictions haven’t been very restrictive.


I now feel like I've been doing this all wrong.


----------



## panpete (Jan 10, 2021)

I need a haircut. It's short so I daren't tamper with it myself.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 10, 2021)

Only one person in our household had been going out for shopping etc. Normally that would be my OH, but sometimes I went and a few times our friends would go, especially in the low cases period in the summer. Plus the rare visits to the workshop, usually for meeting that could not be conducted over email or the phone.
Since the local spike in cases started (mid-November) even those trips have been greatly reduced. Once it seemed likely that those cases were involving the new variant, we've gone onto food deliveries and other trips are just not happening.
I'm the youngest (somewhat short of my 65th) and everyone else is much closer to 70 than 65 ... and our friends are becoming increasingly worried  - almost paranoid - over the risks of infection & death. Make it clear, Yes, I'm worried too and following the precautions / rules as well as I can, but not to the extent my bezza is displaying ...


----------



## andysays (Jan 10, 2021)

Sue said:


> I now feel like I've been doing this all wrong.


TBH, I think you're probably doing it right.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jan 10, 2021)

chilango said:


> We can talk endlessly about how to interpret the vague rules we've been given but as long as people have to go out to work it isn't going to make a blind bit of difference.



This, very much - plus with some schools having 30-50% attendance there comes a point where any gains made by closing them are cancelled out - and it still puts ridiculous pressure on teachers.

And for sure, the communities with most key worker parents, or parents who can't work from home but are in non-essential jobs, are the ones most likely to be in crowded housing, multi-generational households, dependant on public transport...


----------



## PursuedByBears (Jan 10, 2021)

Sue said:


> I'm not sure what other people have been doing, but this pretty much sums up my 2020. I mean what else is there to do..?


Exactly, I've been doing this since march, wtf are people doing?


----------



## Flavour (Jan 10, 2021)

Obligatory face masks outside and everywhere besides your own home would be a start, as many European countries have mandated.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 10, 2021)

Sue said:


> I now feel like I've been doing this all wrong.


never mind, we're all making it up as we go along


----------



## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

Flavour said:


> Obligatory face masks outside and everywhere besides your own home would be a start, as many European countries have mandated.



I mean it helps with visible compliance. I've seen it more and more where I am (student area in Sheffield)... Beyond that though it's unlikely to make any real difference to infection rates. Possibly make it compulsory for anyone out in groups...

But it means nothing without what has been needed throughout: clear messaging, effective campaigns, comprehensive measures around work etc, financial support and a leadership that at least has the appearance of taking things seriously.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

chilango said:


> We can talk endlessly about how to interpret the vague rules we've been given but as long as people have to go out to work it isn't going to make a blind bit of difference.





Ms Ordinary said:


> This, very much - plus with some schools having 30-50% attendance there comes a point where any gains made by closing them are cancelled out - and it still puts ridiculous pressure on teachers.





Cid said:


> But it means nothing without what has been needed throughout: clear messaging, effective campaigns, comprehensive measures around work etc, financial support and a leadership that at least has the appearance of taking things seriously.



I guess its time for my usual rant about how everything counts, no matter how much the government etc mess things up, other behaviour still matters, because every infection matters, and every infection avoided by behavioural changes matters.

There is a huge list of government failings that it is quite correct for people to go on about, I certainly do. But please dont frame things as pointless unless government does x. Not pointless, quite often not good enough but still not pointless. Falling well short of whats required is still better than not even bothering at all.

As for schools, 30-50% attendance is not good but is still much better than 90-100% attendance. But yes I do very much agree with pointing out all the people who are disadvantaged and forced to put themselves at risk in this pandemic, and thats certainly an area where government failings have been very visible.


----------



## chilango (Jan 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> I guess its time for my usual rant about how everything counts, no matter how much the government etc mess things up, other behaviour still matters, because every infection matters, and every infection avoided by behavioural changes matters.
> 
> There is a huge list of government failings that it is quite correct for people to go on about, I certainly do. But please dont frame things as pointless unless government does x. Not pointless, quite often not good enough but still not pointless. Falling well short of whats required is still better than not even bothering at all.
> 
> As for schools, 30-50% attendance is not good but is still much better than 90-100% attendance. But yes I do very much agree with pointing out all the people who are disadvantaged and forced to put themselves at risk in this pandemic, and thats certainly an area where government failings have been very visible.



I disagree.

Half-assed measures provide cover that "something is being done".


----------



## magneze (Jan 10, 2021)

I don't think the government have any cover. The current state of things has lost any last vestiges.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

chilango said:


> I disagree.
> 
> Half-assed measures provide cover that "something is being done".



I don think the death rate really enables that cover to be effective though.

The political aspect is dreadful and people should not fall into traps on that front. But I'm not going stop commenting when people describe the behaviours people need to take in the pandemic as being pointless, no matter how much else is done wrong, it just isnt true.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 10, 2021)

Sue said:


> I'm not sure what other people have been doing, but this pretty much sums up my 2020. I mean what else is there to do..?


This is basically me as well. I did go out to a couple of galleries and for a couple of photo walks when the numbers were way down but otherwise it's at least 23 out of 24 hours a day stuck in a flat smaller than many hotel rooms I've been in, not speaking to a human being apart from to say "no I don't need a bag ta" for weeks. New so-called lockdown makes no difference to this really.

I could have gone out but I didn't because I didn't think it was worth the risk and you know what, I don't mind saying that I frequently feel like a fucking mug for it.

At least I've not got covid.


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 10, 2021)

Neighbours’ daughter and son-in-law arrived for Sunday lunch, with 5 yr old and baby, they live 30 miles away

ETS details removed


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 10, 2021)

20Bees said:


> Neighbours’ daughter and son-in-law arrived for Sunday lunch, with 5 yr old and baby, they live 30 miles away. Stayed at least 4 hours and the whole family went for a nice walk.  Neighbours are in their 70s, he has diabetes and has had a heart bypass.
> Their daughter has a dazzling career, very bright woman. Son in law works for the police, not uniformed, something in IT. And they thought it was a good idea.



With people doing stuff like that, there's no bloody hope in containing things.


----------



## Thora (Jan 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> With people doing stuff like that, there's no bloody hope in containing things.


Sounds like it’s probably within the rules though if they have a young baby.
Most people do comply with the rules, whatever they are.  I don’t think it’s useful to blame individuals for forming support bubbles or putting their kids in school or whatever if that is what the government says they can do.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> With people doing stuff like that, there's no bloody hope in containing things.


And the thing is...every one of them will have their own convincing reason why it was OK for _them_ to do it.

We seem to have lost any sense of collective purpose - rather than "what sacrifices do I have to make to achieve my contribution to helping us collectively overcome this virus?", it's more "how can I game these rules to excuse myself doing the thing I want to do?".

It is depressing, although I am sure many, many more cases of the former are going on quietly, behind closed doors, which we don't get to hear about...so perhaps we can be somewhat optimistic. It's always the way that the planks are the ones who garner disproportionate attention.


----------



## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

Thora said:


> Sounds like it’s probably within the rules though if they have a young baby.
> Most people do comply with the rules, whatever they are.  I don’t think it’s useful to blame individuals for forming support bubbles or putting their kids in school or whatever if that is what the government says they can do.


this you bunch of curtain twitching weirdos.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

An interesting attempt to model how many people have really had it so far:









						One in five in England have had Covid, modelling suggests
					

Analysis shows 12.4 million people infected since start of pandemic, against 2.4 million detected by test and trace




					www.theguardian.com
				




Contains local estimates such as:



> The model suggests that two in five people have been infected in six London and south-eastern local authorities: Barking and Dagenham, Newham, Thurrock, Redbridge, Havering and Tower Hamlets.
> 
> The London boroughs of Barking and Dagenham and Newham are each estimated to have had well over 100,000 coronavirus infections each, around 54.2% and 49% of their populations respectively.





> According to the model, four north-western local authorities, which were hit harder at the start of the pandemic’s second wave, were among the 10 worst-hit local authorities: Liverpool with 38.8% infected, Manchester 38.6%, Rochdale 38% and Salford 37.8%.



And there is a big table with a search feature.


----------



## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> I don think the death rate really enables that cover to be effective though.
> 
> The political aspect is dreadful and people should not fall into traps on that front. But I'm not going stop commenting when people describe the behaviours people need to take in the pandemic as being pointless, no matter how much else is done wrong, it just isnt true.



The thing I was specifically replying to is Flavour 's post that mask wearing should be compulsory outside. Given what we know, and assuming adherence to other rules, that is unlikely to have an effect on infection rates... And it isn't without its downsides. I wear a mask outside most of the time. I also wear glasses. It is deeply annoying, and not particularly safe this time of year - my eyesight isn't that bad, and I'm fairly young, so whatever... But it's not a zero cost thing. And if you start imposing measures like that while people continue to work visibly, while you fail to enforce measures like group mixing outdoors etc, you run the risk of measures seeming arbitrary. Something that I think has been a problem throughout, and that is a substantial part of why people continue to question things like household mixing in domestic settings - which is genuinely likely to be one of the most important factors in infection rates. 

So yes, every measure helps to a degree. But most come with some costs... and if those are not properly balanced, something that on a purely statistical level may provide a marginal gain, may in fact be a disadvantage when it meets the real world.


----------



## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

I mean, bearing in mind I've yet to find a shop that actually enforces _indoor_ mask wearing...


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## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> The thing I was specifically replying to is Flavour 's post that mask wearing should be compulsory outside. Given what we know, and assuming adherence to other rules, that is unlikely to have an effect on infection rates



I do not share that assessment whatsoever, and the list of scenarios where I would have made masks compulsory long ago is a long list.


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## 20Bees (Jan 10, 2021)

Removed, posted twice


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## Elpenor (Jan 10, 2021)

I think support bubble is mostly interpreted as "seeing my friends" from what I can see.


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## teuchter (Jan 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> An interesting attempt to model how many people have really had it so far:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Do you know if the number of people who've already had it, is fed into models of future spread? If 20 or 30% of a population have immunity - that must be large enough to have some sort of effect.
Until now I'd understood that it was assumed to be much lower - in single figures.


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## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

Here's the support bubble criteria to check against for future curtain-twitching - point 3 is relevant here. 

You can form a support bubble with another household of any size if:

you live by yourself – even if carers visit you to provide support
you are the only adult in your household who does not need continuous care as a result of a disability
your household includes a child who is under the age of one or was under that age on 2 December 2020
your household includes a child with a disability who requires continuous care and is under the age of 5, or was under that age on 2 December 2020
you are aged 16 or 17 living with others of the same age and without any adults
you are a single adult living with one or more children who are under the age of 18 or were under that age on 12 June 2020


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## Cid (Jan 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> I do not share that assessment whatsoever, and the list of scenarios where I would have made masks compulsory long ago is a long list.



I mean maybe the science has moved on and, as I said, making it compulsory for meeting people outdoors seems pretty logical. But that wasn't really my point.

e2a: to be absolutely clear, I don't actually have a problem with a mask-wearing edict. The problem is context.


----------



## zora (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> this you bunch of curtain twitching weirdos.



I had admittedly forgotten about the "child under 1 year bubble" when I reacted to that particular post. As most of the time though, my astonishment/ire was directed less at the individuals involved than at government policy. Or in this case the absence to at least appeal to people, if not legislating against support bubbles (which are providing, as the name suggests, important support - leaving aside for a moment the fact that they sort of seem by their very design to enable and encourage the most risky contacts, namely indoor-intergenerational), to really think about how necessary each individual visit is at this crucial time.

The epithet "curtain-twitching weirdo" for people noticing this kind of stuff in the current climate of extreme anxiety about the overwhelm of the health service and against the backdrop of longterm isolation, in many cases having been deprived of close contact with a single human being they actually deeply care about, and the absence of any government strategy that would seem to make this possible again this side of June, seems a little harsh.


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## 20Bees (Jan 10, 2021)

I had also forgotten the ‘child under one’ permission, but does that mean both parents and the baby’s older sibling can travel together to socialise indoors with the grandparents, who have underlying health conditions but are not in need of care?


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## Thora (Jan 10, 2021)

20Bees said:


> I had also forgotten the ‘child under one’ permission, but does that mean both parents and the baby’s older sibling can travel together to socialise indoors with the grandparents, who have underlying health conditions but are not in need of care?


Yes.  It means the two families are one bubble.


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## two sheds (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> Here's the support bubble criteria to check against for future curtain-twitching - point 3 is relevant here.
> 
> You can form a support bubble with another household of any size if:
> 
> ...


I live by myself and have a couple of neighbours who occasionally go for a well-distanced dog walk with. I sort of view them as my support bubble (they pick up stuff for me)  but what implications does that have for them? Would it restrict their activities or who they could have to visit? They have kids/grandkids and I wouldn't want this to place restrictions on them - although they're vulnerable too and don't actually meet their kids/grandkids.


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## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

20Bees said:


> I had also forgotten the ‘child under one’ permission, but does that mean both parents and the baby’s older sibling can travel together to socialise indoors with the grandparents, who have underlying health conditions but are not in need of care?


if they've formed a support bubble with them, yes it does.


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## killer b (Jan 10, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I live by myself and have a couple of neighbours who occasionally go for a well-distanced dog walk with. I sort of view them as my support bubble (they pick up stuff for me)  but what implications does that have for them? Would it restrict their activities or who they could have to visit? They have kids/grandkids and I wouldn't want this to place restrictions on them - although they're vulnerable too and don't actually meet their kids/grandkids.


if you aren't spending any time indoors with them then it doesn't affect their ability to form a support bubble elsewhere, no.


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## 2hats (Jan 10, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Do you know if the number of people who've already had it, is fed into models of future spread?


Yes.


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## 20Bees (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> if they've formed a support bubble with them, yes it does.


Thank you for clearing that up. I adore my neighbours and wouldn’t say anything anyway, but I was surprised to see the visitors!


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## two sheds (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> if you aren't spending any time indoors with them then it doesn't affect their ability to form a support bubble elsewhere, no.


ta - that makes me feel a lot more comfortable


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 10, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> I think support bubble is mostly interpreted as "seeing my friends" from what I can see.


Pretty much. Nobody checks anyway so y'know.


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## Cloo (Jan 10, 2021)

I am still concerned, but not at all surprised, that we have seen no information campaign to explain that you can't just straight go back to relating normally with people once they've had their vaccination. I am, I like to think, an intelligent person and I know we can't just do that but couldn't explain to someone else exactly why. There must be loads of people out there who think 'Oh grandma can't get COVID now, surely we can see each other like normal'. If this messaging isn't done now you're going to get more non-compliance as people go see grandma like normal, then find out they weren't supposed to and will be 'Why not? No one ever told me that!'


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## 20Bees (Jan 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> this you bunch of curtain twitching weirdos.


Ha ha I can’t even see their house from mine, I was outside with the breakdown patrol who was fixing my car on the drive - but I think I’d have heard the joyous shrieking of the 5 year old!


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## Looby (Jan 10, 2021)

20Bees said:


> I had also forgotten the ‘child under one’ permission, but does that mean both parents and the baby’s older sibling can travel together to socialise indoors with the grandparents, who have underlying health conditions but are not in need of care?


They can and I guess have decided it’s ok that they do. It seems risky but they’re making that choice.
I don’t think it’s something I’d do but who knows. We see my MIL through the window every 2 weeks when we drop off her shopping. We could have bubbled with her but she’s ECV and shielding and I go out to work so it seems like madness to do it.


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## miss direct (Jan 10, 2021)

Don't forget that there are lots of people who have had the virus now. My next door neighbours (a couple) have both had covid, and I expect they believe they are immune for a few months.


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## Looby (Jan 10, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I am still concerned, but not at all surprised, that we have seen no information campaign to explain that you can't just straight go back to relating normally with people once they've had their vaccination. I am, I like to think, an intelligent person and I know we can't just do that but couldn't explain to someone else exactly why. There must be loads of people out there who think 'Oh grandma can't get COVID now, surely we can see each other like normal'. If this messaging isn't done now you're going to get more non-compliance as people go see grandma like normal, then find out they weren't supposed to and will be 'Why not? No one ever told me that!'


They’ve talked about it on the news a lot but not everyone will see it I guess. I wonder if it’s in the jab info you get given.


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## two sheds (Jan 10, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Don't forget that there are lots of people who have had the virus now. My next door neighbours (a couple) have both had covid, and I expect they believe they are immune for a few months.



I presume that (for example) if they go and hug someone who's infectious but asymptomatic and then hug someone else they could still pass it on?


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## Cloo (Jan 10, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I presume that (for example) if they go and hug someone who's infectious but asymptomatic and then hug someone else they could still pass it on?


I think there's an issue that they know/think (don't know which) that you will still be able to get it, albeit mildly/asymptomatically and pass on once vaccinated - so granny may be OK, but in theory you can catch it off granny and then pass it on to others, and while most people are still unvaccinated, that's a problem. Something like that.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Until now I'd understood that it was assumed to be much lower - in single figures.



Things like seroprevalence studies from blood donors that feature in the weekly surveillance report and that I occasionally post about, does feature some ranges which may have given you that impression. But there are a lot of caveats with that, including:

This sort of surveillance probably underestimates the total infection picture for a few reasons that I cant explain properly right now.
Confidence interval bars should be noted.
Its a very laggy measure, so much of the 2nd waves impact is missing from the current seroprevalence data. Although a chunk of the North Wests second wave does seem to show up in a really obvious way.
There are variations by age and location. And plenty of these numbers have waned over time, so for example if you look at recent surveillance reports, the figures shown more recently for London do not reflect the peak seroprevalence range they came up with after the first wave.

I havent tried to compare the sort of blood donor data shown below with values that model came up with for different locations to see if the overall themes are similar. But should certainly keep in mind that this sort of seroprevalence stuff is not trying to capture cumulative infections, but rather that picture at moments in time. The modelling exercise obviously does provide totals to date. Also since this seroprevalence data is from blood donors, it risks having various blindspots and I tend to treat it as a partial view.


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...4/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w1_FINAL.PDF


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## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I am still concerned, but not at all surprised, that we have seen no information campaign to explain that you can't just straight go back to relating normally with people once they've had their vaccination. I am, I like to think, an intelligent person and I know we can't just do that but couldn't explain to someone else exactly why. There must be loads of people out there who think 'Oh grandma can't get COVID now, surely we can see each other like normal'. If this messaging isn't done now you're going to get more non-compliance as people go see grandma like normal, then find out they weren't supposed to and will be 'Why not? No one ever told me that!'



Here is a SAGE Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours paper from 17th December which was made public on 8th January:









						SPI-B: Possible impact of the COVID-19 vaccination programme on adherence to rules and guidance about personal protective behaviours aimed at preventing spread of the virus, 17 December 2020
					

Paper prepared by the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B).




					www.gov.uk
				






> Given the very large cost to health, wellbeing and the economy of a reduction in adherence, we recommend preparing for, and taking action to mitigate any decline in adherence related to vaccine roll-out. This should include:
> a. A culturally tailored communication strategy targeted and stratified by different sectors in society to ensure that people fully understand why it is vital to continue to adhere to protective behaviours, whether or not they have been vaccinated. Use both vaccination appointments as opportunities to communicate the importance of continuing protective behaviours. Ensure that people realise that vaccination, however effective, leaves some risk, and ensure that communications promoting vaccination do not unintentionally undermine communications promoting adherence to protective behaviours.
> b. Add monitoring of vaccine status and vaccine-related beliefs and behaviours to existing monitoring of adherence to Covid-19 rules and guidance.
> c. Develop a system of rapid alerts to allow timely intervention if adherence starts to fall.


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## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

Here is another recently made available document that evaluates the Liverpool mass testing. Warning: contains hideous amounts of shitty jargon.









						Liverpool Covid-SMART Pilot: evaluation, 10 December 2020
					

Paper prepared by academics on Liverpool’s pilot of community testing to improve COVID-19 resilience and recovery.




					www.gov.uk
				




Theres quite a lot of stuff in it of interest regarding what sorts of sections of society are less likely to engage with the system. 

At one point the following horrific classifications are compared to uptake of testing by location:



Argh my brain.

Also contains detail of interest to me in regards sewage surveillance:


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## sparkybird (Jan 10, 2021)

Mation said:


> How much time do you have? It may take a while to list...


Fill your boots .. It's not like I'm going anywhere.


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## Buddy Bradley (Jan 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> I mean, bearing in mind I've yet to find a shop that actually enforces _indoor_ mask wearing...


It's diametrically opposed to their own interests to turn paying customers away.


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## elbows (Jan 10, 2021)

I always have to pay extra attention to SAGE papers that are released a very long time after they were originally produced. I'm still wading through ones that were only just released on January 8th.

This first one is from May 2020!





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				




Back in May the modelling part of SAGE were only happy to sign off on the Alert Levels that were being proposed if it had been demonstrated that the test & trace system was working properly.



> SPI-M-O broadly support the approach outlined in the document if sufficient and proven effective contract tracing (CT) has been in operation for three to four weeks prior to being used to trigger changes in alert level. The document from the JBC is not clear on how data from contact tracing will be used. We assume that “confirmed infections” will be swab-positive cases who arise as index cases for contact tracing.


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## teuchter (Jan 10, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> It's diametrically opposed to their own interests to turn paying customers away.


It's not necessarily - some customers will favour shops that have better risk reduction measures in place.


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## Cloo (Jan 10, 2021)

> A culturally tailored communication strategy targeted and stratified by different sectors in society to ensure that people fully understand why it is vital to continue to adhere to protective behaviours, whether or not they have been vaccinated


 Yeah,  it'll need tailoring all right... I was just thinking today that it'll be a good while before I'll consider going to my gym as most of the demographic there is exactly the least cautious one!


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## purenarcotic (Jan 10, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I am still concerned, but not at all surprised, that we have seen no information campaign to explain that you can't just straight go back to relating normally with people once they've had their vaccination. I am, I like to think, an intelligent person and I know we can't just do that but couldn't explain to someone else exactly why. There must be loads of people out there who think 'Oh grandma can't get COVID now, surely we can see each other like normal'. If this messaging isn't done now you're going to get more non-compliance as people go see grandma like normal, then find out they weren't supposed to and will be 'Why not? No one ever told me that!'



It is because we don’t know if the vaccine stops you from spreading it yet. So you could give grandma a hug and pass it onto her and she could give it to Betty who is not vaccinated yet and Betty could die. Grandma could also still get COVID, but she shouldn’t end up in hospital or become seriously unwell with it.


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## wtfftw (Jan 10, 2021)

What's the deal with afterwards then? There'll be an enquiry and no one is beheaded and then the Conservatives are voted in again?


What sort of accountability is there for this total shitshow?


----------



## Sunray (Jan 10, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> What's the deal with afterwards then? There'll be an enquiry and no one is beheaded and then the Conservatives are voted in again?
> 
> 
> What sort of accountability is there for this total shitshow?



This Is where the world is going now. At some point we need to draw a line in the sand, somewhere behind us. Take a stand and make sure every one knows there are real consequences to fucking things up at this scale.


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## Sunray (Jan 11, 2021)

I’ve got the google widget for popular searches on my Home Screen  

One that just caught my eye “when will the pubs reopen”


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## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

I expect remaining papers I look at that were only recently released will


teuchter said:


> Do you know if the number of people who've already had it, is fed into models of future spread? If 20 or 30% of a population have immunity - that must be large enough to have some sort of effect.
> Until now I'd understood that it was assumed to be much lower - in single figures.



I found something else for you that very much relates to your question.

Its from a short paper 'prepared by academics' that was discussed at the SAGE meeting of October 29th.









						Potential trajectories for COVID-19 in the next 6 months, 29 October 2020
					

Paper prepared by academics and considered by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).




					www.gov.uk
				






> As the additional control measures announced recently take effect, we hope that R may be pulled down further - perhaps to 1.1 or lower. With R at such low levels, even limited accumulation of population immunity will start reducing the average susceptibility of the population, slowing transmission. When R is 1.1, only 9% of the remaining susceptible (i.e. not previously infected) population need to be infected for R to fall to 1, solely as a result of the natural dynamics of the epidemic. At this point, in some sense, population immunity has caused the epidemic to plateau. However, this is very different from a classic “herd-immunity” scenario, where an epidemic has run through a population with limited impact of control measures:





> -  The decline in infection rates seen after cases plateau will be slow, driven by gradual accumulation of population immunity - potentially leading to a long, relatively flat plateau of relatively high incidence unless measures are further intensified to drive incidence down.
> -  There will be very limited room to relax interventions, since the absolute level of population immunity reached will likely still be low. In the example where interventions cause R to be reduced to 1.1 and population immunity then gradually reduces R to 1, changes in effective contacts will be responsible for over 90% of control and immunity for less than 10%. Relaxing measures will therefore easily cause R to exceed 1 once more.
> -  This relaxation following peaking of infection rates could be due to spontaneous behaviour change or government-induced. In either case it could result in a prolonged period of high incidence, with associated pressures on health services and deaths.


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

I also found something that was going on about how modelling tends to make some assumptions about how there will be a large overlap between the people most exposed (via work and contact patterns etc) in the first wave and those exposed for the same reasons in subsequent waves. But then I lost it because I was trying to read too many different SAGE documents in a short space of time and overloaded my brain.


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> What's the deal with afterwards then? There'll be an enquiry and no one is beheaded and then the Conservatives are voted in again?
> 
> 
> What sort of accountability is there for this total shitshow?



All sorts of assumptions can be made on that front that follow the same old hideous patterns. I think I will wait to see how bad this winter wave gets and what levels of anger are reached as a result before thinking about the possibilities.

I've been reviewing all the modelling of various sorts of action and inaction that the modelling bit of SAGE did in September and October. There is plenty there to give me further damning evidence of government failure, and indeed what sorts of peak levels may await us now. None of that modelling etc takes account of what we've seen in December, but there are parallels to other scenarios they modelled earlier, as they grappled with scenarios stemming from government failing to take strong action in September or October. I will discuss this in detail in the coming days, but I'll stick the bulk of it in the nerdy thread that I've been neglecting for ages, and just stick some highlights in this UK thread when the time comes.


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## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

The BBC does its latest bit for belatedly covering the gravity of the situation, by showing us video inside a temporary morgue in Surrey. But since the orthodox approach to various matters of death in this country does not involve actually showing us bodies or full bodybags, we get a statement about that and then some other aspects laid on extra thick.









						The emergency mortuary helping with rising Covid deaths
					

"Numbers are increasing not decreasing" - inside an emergency body storage facility in Surrey.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## keithy (Jan 11, 2021)

The way some of you dismiss support bubbles is very short sighted. I was in a support bubble before they were even introduced, on advice of my doctor and mental health support. 

Do we really want to push individuals over the edge at a time where the nhs is drowning? And while businesses are still allowed to make their staff go into work unnecessarily? How fucked up is that?  If you live with other people you maybe don't understand the isolation of living alone. 

I personally will not be long for this world if I have to face months of being completely isolated again. What's the point in that life? No thanks.


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## Miss-Shelf (Jan 11, 2021)

keithy said:


> If you live with other people you maybe don't understand the isolation of living alone.


Thank you for putting into words how I feel
I keep typing out long answers and deleting them because I get incensed that people who are in contented households are seeming to make judgements about their morally ability to 'keep to the rules' 
It is really hard to be alone for some of us


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## Miss-Shelf (Jan 11, 2021)

keithy said:


> The way some of you dismiss support bubbles is very short sighted. I was in a support bubble before they were even introduced, on advice of my doctor and mental health support.
> 
> Do we really want to push individuals over the edge at a time where the nhs is drowning? And while businesses are still allowed to make their staff go into work unnecessarily? How fucked up is that?  If you live with other people you maybe don't understand the isolation of living alone.
> 
> I personally will not be long for this world if I have to face months of being completely isolated again. What's the point in that life? No thanks.


I'm sorry to hear you've had some tough moments keithy


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## Miss-Shelf (Jan 11, 2021)

I also notice that the people I know who bend the rules slightly or even a lot are either in living situations that have already compromised them [eg flatmates are not keeping rules,   complex arrangements around children] or are key workers who've been in risky workplaces all along 

I really understand that for [some] people who've been at a lot of risk of getting covid at work it doesn't make that much sense to be scrupulous in their personal life - it's quite a lot of mental manoeuvring


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## Looby (Jan 11, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I also notice that the people I know who bend the rules slightly or even a lot are either in living situations that have already compromised them [eg flatmates are not keeping rules,   complex arrangements around children] or are key workers who've been in risky workplaces all along
> 
> I really understand that for [some] people who've been at a lot of risk of getting covid at work it doesn't make that much sense to be scrupulous in their personal life - it's quite a lot of mental manoeuvring


I do think that’s true and people have made that argument to me but on the other hand, lots of people are taking more precautions because of other potential exposure and because of their personal risk assessments. 

I have to go inside homes in my job with the exception of 4 days in September when I stayed in a rented house and for a couple of weeks when I stayed with a friend because I didn’t have a bathroomI haven’t sat and had a drink or a chat in another person’s house since March.
I’ve sat in gardens and stood on doorsteps and popped in to have a week with a mask on.

Now friends who have been doing this when it was allowed think I’m being excessively cautious but they don’t get that my risk exposure is different to theirs and I’m just trying to manage it where I can.
But I do have a partner at home which makes a huge difference.


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## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

I don’t have any problem whatsoever with people who are seeing others in their support bubble.  It never even crosses my mind to have a problem with that.  I’m far too busy having problems with the vast amounts of run-of-the-mill selfish behaviour I see — amongst those who have a charmed, privileged existence anyway, which has apparently brought with it a sense of entitlement that they can carry on doing whatever the fuck they want.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 11, 2021)

I think it would be a very unwise move to get rid of support bubbles - there is probably a whole wellspring of latent mental health stuff that is being kept manageable by people being able to access someone else. And, as someone who is living on his own, I can see how important that could be.

But I think something a bit more definite needs to be put in place - this idea that "I can be in this support bubble today, but that one tomorrow" is nowhere near the spirit of the regulations, and absolutely increases the risk of cross-infection. I think that if someone is going to nominate a support bubble, there should be some way of documenting that and either enforcing, or strongly encouraging people, to stick to that bubble...and be very clear about what that means in terms of their contacts elsewhere.

I suspect it's a bit like mask exemptions - there will be plenty of people who have genuine reasons for needing not to wear masks (or needing a support bubble), but quite a lot more who are just taking the piss.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 11, 2021)

It's pretty hard to enforce or deter people from meeting each other in private or outdoors - the police certainly aren't going to investigate whether someone is in a support bubble or not, so it always relies on a sufficient proportion of the population choosing to comply.

Mask wearing, larger group gatherings, business closures, long distance travel etc are all much easier to enforce.


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## brogdale (Jan 11, 2021)

The Police certainly aren't going to investigate the very largest mass gatherings of people outside and sharing air space inside at the mega vaccination centres.


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 11, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I also notice that the people I know who bend the rules slightly or even a lot are either in living situations that have already compromised them [eg flatmates are not keeping rules,   complex arrangements around children] or are key workers who've been in risky workplaces all along
> 
> I really understand that for [some] people who've been at a lot of risk of getting covid at work it doesn't make that much sense to be scrupulous in their personal life - it's quite a lot of mental manoeuvring



Because I work in a potentially covid-risky place, that feels like all the more reason to avoid social contact the rest of the time tbh.


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## existentialist (Jan 11, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It's pretty hard to enforce or deter people from meeting each other in private or outdoors - the police certainly aren't going to investigate whether someone is in a support bubble or not, so it always relies on a sufficient proportion of the population choosing to comply.
> 
> Mask wearing, larger group gatherings, business closures, long distance travel etc are all much easier to enforce.


I do wonder, though, whether something (perhaps along the lines of the French _attestation_) where someone fills in a form which says "X is my support bubble" might, along with some clear statements on the form, emphasise to people that this is a Thing, not just a bit of a get-out clause.

Sure, you're never going to be able to lock it down tight without some seriously oppressive State interference, which might be hard to justify, but we could do a lot more - at least, with a Government that also appeared to respect the rules  - to make it abundantly clear what support bubbles are for, and how they work.


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## brogdale (Jan 11, 2021)

As per...#WorldBeating...


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## miss direct (Jan 11, 2021)

People like me, who are lodgers, aren't entitled to a support bubble, because of not living alone. Not sure how a landlady who I barely see counts as not living alone. I dont want to complain about things being unfair, but not sure why an entire family who has a child under one gets to make a bubble when I don't. Means an extremely lonely existence during the winter.


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## Mation (Jan 11, 2021)

Three of my housemates currently have a 'support bubble' with their partners. Two go off to their partner's place, but one has moved theirs in to the house for half the week. They did this last week. I'm not happy.


----------



## LDC (Jan 11, 2021)

keithy said:


> The way some of you dismiss support bubbles is very short sighted. I was in a support bubble before they were even introduced, on advice of my doctor and mental health support.
> 
> Do we really want to push individuals over the edge at a time where the nhs is drowning? And while businesses are still allowed to make their staff go into work unnecessarily? How fucked up is that?  If you live with other people you maybe don't understand the isolation of living alone.
> 
> I personally will not be long for this world if I have to face months of being completely isolated again. What's the point in that life? No thanks.



Not sure anyone has 'dismissed' them. I think for me things are so bad now, and are likely to get worse in the coming weeks, that we need a short much tighter period of lockdown to help bring numbers down, and as part of that I think a 'stay at home except for absolute essentials and emergencies' emphasis isn't compatible with any support bubbles as _nobody _should be leaving home. And nobody has said that needs to go on for months either.

I totally get that's brutal, but that's where we are now, and I just don't see any other way to try and limit even more deaths.


----------



## rekil (Jan 11, 2021)

IT on Varadkar's flood of emails of support when he told the boffins to go fuck themselves.









						‘It needed to be said’ – public praise for Varadkar's criticism of Nphet
					

Emails show support for Tánaiste’s stand on RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live




					www.irishtimes.com
				






> Newly disclosed emails from the public show the vast majority of people who felt compelled to write to the Tánaiste about his remarks backed him after a television appearance that showed, for the first time, very public division between the Government and its public health advisers.
> 
> Some *55* people who wrote to Mr Varadkar supported his condemnation of Nphet for making its sudden proposal that Level 5 restrictions be imposed to suppress the spread of coronavirus.






Spoiler: wha happen


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jan 11, 2021)

]





Looby said:


> But I do have a partner at home which makes a huge difference.


That's the point


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not sure anyone has 'dismissed' them. I think for me things are so bad now, and are likely to get worse in the coming weeks, that we need a short much tighter period of lockdown to help bring numbers down, and as part of that I think a 'stay at home except for absolute essentials and emergencies' emphasis isn't compatible with any support bubbles as _nobody _should be leaving home. And nobody has said that needs to go on for months either.
> 
> I totally get that's brutal, but that's where we are now, and I just don't see any other way to try and limit even more deaths.


That answer is dismissive of support bubbles. Just fyi.


----------



## LDC (Jan 11, 2021)

"Dismissive: feeling or showing that something is unworthy of consideration."

No, I've considered them, think they're generally very important, but in the current situation other things should take priority for a short period of time.

FYI


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 11, 2021)




----------



## andysays (Jan 11, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> That answer is dismissive of support bubbles. Just fyi.


No it isn't. 

But it does recognize that, however important support bubbles are (and literally no one here has argued that they aren't important) they also come with a potential cost, just like many other exemptions from the restrictions, and that while those costs are bearable at the moment, if things get significantly worse then some of those costs/exemptions, possibly even including support bubbles, may have to be suspended for a while.

Personally I'd stop all nonessential work before I suspended support bubbles,  but I'm not making the decisions.


----------



## LDC (Jan 11, 2021)

Personally I think everything needs to stop for a few weeks, including anything but critical work, essential shops, and medical/care work.

I also admit to be very jaded and fucked off with the attitudes and behaviour of people I know and see with this stuff so am probably far too harsh generally now.

Someone (I mentioned in the personal consequences thread) considered it _absolutely essential _he went and got his brother from a Tier 4 area that was in lockdown. This person then proved to have been infected, so then brought the infection into the house that ended up with my friend there (NHS worker who'd just got over covid) having to isolate for ten days _again_, a doctor who had contact having to do likewise, as well as him and his brother basically ignoring isolation even when displaying symptoms and getting a positive test and wandering around doing what they considered as essential for them. As one example.

And yeah, complex reasons and other people/the government/etc to blame for sure. But yes, my tolerance is unfortunately burnt and very low now.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 11, 2021)

chilango said:


> We can talk endlessly about how to interpret the vague rules we've been given but as long as people have to go out to work it isn't going to make a blind bit of difference.


Yeah this. Just after Xmas there was an interview on C4 News where the interviewer was desperately trying to get the talking head (either a member of SAGE or indie SAGE) to say that public non-compliance was the problem. Thankfully that suggestion was shot down, with the talking head putting the blame for any non-compliance on (1) the mixed messaging and (2) the lack of proper support for people. That's were we need to be organising.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Personally I think everything needs to stop for a few weeks, including anything but critical work, essential shops, and medical/care work.


finally at work they've ceased all none essential projects. People faffing about with "on I want a new office built". Cue dozens of contractors, building managers, etc all getting together. Just stop, for gods sake, whilst we see through the darkest months of it all.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

There's non-compliance that's due to a lack of proper support and there's non-compliance that's due to rubbish messaging and there's also non-compliance that's nothing to do with either of those things. All of them have an effect.


----------



## xenon (Jan 11, 2021)

I've not used a support bubble lately. The last time I've been in someone else's house was Christmas day and before that, back in the summer. I would be OK myself without this for a few weeks but of course many others would struggle. However, if that were banned along with as mentioned on the news, possibility of meeting one other person outside for exercise, That would really bite and frankly, not sure I'd stick to it. A fortnight sure, indephanetly, no.

My personal factor, as I've probably said before, apols. But as I use a long cane to get around and live in an urban area, walking on my own isn't something I do for exercise or to relax. Whilst in normal times, I go out and meet people at the pub or whatever but whilst I actually like walking, the switchoffidness chance to clear your mind I don't get through walking by myself, due to the concentration needed. (I meet a friend and get a guide going for a walk.) And that's what I need, well and the vitemine D and human contact obv.

I know it's difficult for everyone in different ways but as just heard this exercise meeting thing mentioned on radio.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 11, 2021)

Spot the people that don't need a support bubble. The point of support bubbles is that they are essential for physical or mental health.


----------



## LDC (Jan 11, 2021)

What's really sad and terrible is we've got to this position when we're all a bit fraught for a variety of reasons (myself included), and we're jumping around being angry and upset with each other, which while understandable, isn't really very helpful and lets plenty of more culpable people off the hook.


----------



## LDC (Jan 11, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Spot the people that don't need a support bubble. The point of support bubbles is that they are essential for physical or mental health.



Way to go making (incorrect) assumptions about all our circumstances from a few posts!


----------



## Looby (Jan 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not sure anyone has 'dismissed' them. I think for me things are so bad now, and are likely to get worse in the coming weeks, that we need a short much tighter period of lockdown to help bring numbers down, and as part of that I think a 'stay at home except for absolute essentials and emergencies' emphasis isn't compatible with any support bubbles as _nobody _should be leaving home. And nobody has said that needs to go on for months either.
> 
> I totally get that's brutal, but that's where we are now, and I just don't see any other way to try and limit even more deaths.


I think there has to be some room to manage this whilst not cutting vulnerable and lonely people off from any support. So in the examples above of people living alone and desperately needing that human interaction for their mental health and well-being, it would feel cruel to stop that or turn them into rule breakers.

But then it gets sticky doesn’t it. I don’t necessarily think that a family need to bubble with another family because they have a baby but they might be really struggling with PND.
I dunno, in theory I agree that some bubbles might be an unnecessary risk but I don’t know who gets to decide who has that support and who doesn’t.


----------



## Looby (Jan 11, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> ]
> That's the point


I know, which is why I made that clear.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Way to go making (incorrect) assumptions about all our circumstances from a few posts!


It's entirely fair to assume that people saying support bubbles could be dispensed with are people who don't actually need them.


----------



## LDC (Jan 11, 2021)

Looby said:


> I think there has to be some room to manage this whilst not cutting vulnerable and lonely people off from any support. So in the examples above of people living alone and desperately needing that human interaction for their mental health and well-being, it would feel cruel to stop that or turn them into rule breakers.
> 
> But then it gets sticky doesn’t it. I don’t necessarily think that a family need to bubble with another family because they have a baby but they might be really struggling with PND.
> I dunno, in theory I agree that some bubbles might be an unnecessary risk but I don’t know who gets to decide who has that support and who doesn’t.



Yeah, I think it needed to be much clearer and probably more regulated from the start tbh and then it could have stayed in throughout, it's much too vague (like lots of the rules and guidance) and this has caused confusion and conscious bending of the rules.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not sure anyone has 'dismissed' them. I think for me things are so bad now, and are likely to get worse in the coming weeks, that we need a short much tighter period of lockdown to help bring numbers down, and as part of that I think a 'stay at home except for absolute essentials and emergencies' emphasis isn't compatible with any support bubbles as _nobody _should be leaving home. And nobody has said that needs to go on for months either.
> 
> I totally get that's brutal, but that's where we are now, and I just don't see any other way to try and limit even more deaths.


If the incompetent in charge actually closed non essential business for a start then support bubbles probably could stay.


----------



## nagapie (Jan 11, 2021)

There are SO many other things that can and should stop before you have to do away with support bubbles.
People who abuse support bubbles will probably continue to see people even if support bubbles are banned as they're not following the rules.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 11, 2021)

I would really have struggled without human contact up to about 15 years ago when I hit 50 and lost the desire to go out every few days to meet people. Even so, early last year I got a phone call from someone in the NHS (possibly one of the volunteers) who phoned me out of the blue to check how I was. Was really nice feeling - shame that's not been carried on.


----------



## LDC (Jan 11, 2021)

nagapie said:


> There are SO many other things that can and should stop before you have to do away with support bubbles.
> People who abuse support bubbles will probably continue to see people even if support bubbles are banned as they're not following the rules.



I don't think anyone on here has suggested stopping support bubbles as a isolated measure to take, if they have I missed it.

It was being discussed as part of a stricter stay at home measure where pretty much everything is stopped. If the modelling showed allowing meeting up with one other person outside your household was doable then fine, but currently it seems like the only thing we can do is an immediate stricter short lockdown to get through the next few weeks.

Anyway, that's me off talking about support bubbles, it's all a bit deckchair re-arranging on the Titanic.


----------



## chilango (Jan 11, 2021)

I saw Aldi doing click and collect yesterday which I'd never noticed before and wondered whether this was a precursor to click and collect becoming mandatory at larger shops...


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 11, 2021)

chilango said:


> I saw Aldi doing click and collect yesterday which I'd never noticed before and wondered whether this was a precursor to click and collect becoming mandatory at larger shops...


It's not all of them though, some also do Deliveroo home deliveries.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not sure anyone has 'dismissed' them. I think for me things are so bad now, and are likely to get worse in the coming weeks, that we need a short much tighter period of lockdown to help bring numbers down, and as part of that I think a 'stay at home except for absolute essentials and emergencies' emphasis isn't compatible with any support bubbles as _nobody _should be leaving home. And nobody has said that needs to go on for months either.
> 
> I totally get that's brutal, but that's where we are now, and I just don't see any other way to try and limit even more deaths.


I think saying 'no support bubbles' is attractive for the government as it's easy for them. They just have to say it and it's done - no bureaucracy, no economic impact, just people who rely on them to get by losing their support.

There's a whole world of business going on that could be done without for a few weeks, but that would mean the government taking the unpopular step of introducing a legal duty to consider whether their work is essential and stop doing it if it's not. That'd be no messier than sorting out what is an essential support bubble and what is just an excuse for friends to hang out. Building sites could be paused for a few weeks. There's no reason for the aromatherapy shop down the road to be open. Are florists really garden centres? Are coffee shops really essential?

Again, it's the government putting business before people. They can put financial support packages in place, suspend some legal deadlines for a few weeks, if they want to reduce the amount of work related contact going on. But no, that's too hard. The isolated and vulnerable will have to suffer because theyre an easy target. It's not like businesses aren't stretching the rules as much as old Mary seeing both her son and her next door neighbor.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 11, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> It's entirely fair to assume that people saying support bubbles could be dispensed with are people who don't actually need them.


It might be _fair _to assume that, but it would be a mistake.


----------



## Flavour (Jan 11, 2021)

Nobody is enforcing any of this stuff anyway which is why people flout the rules so massively. Urban is a bubble where people are pretty conscientious and stuff but come on who the fuck cares what the government say if nobody checks what you actually do? People don't give a shit unless there's the real threat of consequences.


----------



## chilango (Jan 11, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> It's not all of them though, some also do Deliveroo home deliveries.



Yeah, just saw it in passing and started idly wondering.


----------



## LDC (Jan 11, 2021)

This kind of thing is what's going on, _limiting oxygen supplies_.









						Southend hospital’s oxygen supply reaches ‘critical situation’
					

PM says oxygen supplies low in some places and vaccine rollout is ‘race against time’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 11, 2021)

I don't think the gov have said support bubbles should go either.   

But the idea that people who are vulnerable (be it suicidal, care needs that aren't enough for documented stuff) should be thrown on the pile of stuff that can be sacrificed (even at the bottom of the list with everything else first). Come on. Who are we? It's one extra person glomming on to another household. If there was space for them to move in under one roof we wouldn't even be discussing it.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I do wonder, though, whether something (perhaps along the lines of the French _attestation_) where someone fills in a form which says "X is my support bubble" might, along with some clear statements on the form, emphasise to people that this is a Thing, not just a bit of a get-out clause.
> 
> Sure, you're never going to be able to lock it down tight without some seriously oppressive State interference, which might be hard to justify, but we could do a lot more - at least, with a Government that also appeared to respect the rules  - to make it abundantly clear what support bubbles are for, and how they work.



Yeah I suggested something like that upthread... Could even link an app/QR code printout. Problem is the Tories would outsource it to Serco and you'd end up with a massive data breach. 

This is what I keep coming back to through this. The process of crisis management in this country, and much of the west, is fundamentally and clearly broken. It is profoundly disturbing. We're almost a year in... Arguably already a year in. But fuck all has changed... If anything communication etc has actually got worse. 

I agree with Lynn that a short, sharp period is needed. But it will be done badly, and coming out of it will be mismanaged. It's such a shit situation.


----------



## xenon (Jan 11, 2021)

Flavour said:


> Nobody is enforcing any of this stuff anyway which is why people flout the rules so massively. Urban is a bubble where people are pretty conscientious and stuff but come on who the fuck cares what the government say if nobody checks what you actually do? People don't give a shit unless there's the real threat of consequences.



This mostly isn't true either. It's estimated around 90% of peple are sticking to the restrictions. The raves and parties are a rarity. Large sections of the media are creaming themselves reporting on one hand, the rule flouters and on the others, ridiculous police over reaction and inaccurate enforcement.

I'm not playing.


----------



## keithy (Jan 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not sure anyone has 'dismissed' them. I think for me things are so bad now, and are likely to get worse in the coming weeks, that we need a short much tighter period of lockdown to help bring numbers down, and as part of that I think a 'stay at home except for absolute essentials and emergencies' emphasis isn't compatible with any support bubbles as _nobody _should be leaving home. And nobody has said that needs to go on for months either.
> 
> I totally get that's brutal, but that's where we are now, and I just don't see any other way to try and limit even more deaths.



This attitude IS dismissive though. 

You forget that support bubbles were brought in for a reason. I am very lucky to have support of my gp, intensive therapy, and calls from a mental health support service sometimes 3 a week to check I'm alive. Even with all of that support I was going under. The direct result of putting me back in that position is I die at home and nobody realises or finds my body for weeks. Or I end up in A & E, using resources.

Me and my support bubble do not socialise with anyone or make any trips other than for essentials, and thats rare as usually we use click and collect or delivery. 

Meanwhile businesses are able to play fast and loose with who should be allowed to work from home. I am currently job hunting and am shocked at the amount of jobs now office based rather than remote. What's shocking is there seem to be less remote jobs now than before Xmas. 

Support bubbles are really important, and it is fair to want tighter control but to remove them and willingly push people over the edge, and causing personal injury and death on a large scale would be absolutely criminal at this point. Also would not be enforceable as you would have people like me forced to break the rules, and for me that would involve bubbling with a new person closer to home so my usual bubble couldn't be picked up for driving. That would increase the risk profile as that person would need to use public transport. 

My point is that I'm not unusual. Just because the government is shit at communicating and enforcing measures doesn't mean they should be thrown out completely, and at some point you have to consider what you want to be left with when/ if this is all over.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 11, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> I don't think the gov have said support bubbles should go either.
> 
> But the idea that people who are vulnerable (be it suicidal, care needs that aren't enough for documented stuff) should be thrown on the pile of stuff that can be sacrificed (even at the bottom of the list with everything else first). Come on. Who are we? It's one extra person glomming on to another household. If there was space for them to move in under one roof we wouldn't even be discussing it.


I really don't think ANYONE here is making a case for eliminating them. But there is DEFINITELY a case for not giving people the idea that they can just fuck around with exemptions like support bubbles to "game" the regulations. And the definitions a lot of people seem to be using for having a support bubble do seem to be remarkably elastic, sometimes, and not a little self-serving.


----------



## killer b (Jan 11, 2021)

xenon said:


> This mostly isn't true either. It's estimated around 90% of peple are sticking to the restrictions. The raves and parties are a rarity. Large sections of the media are creaming themselves reporting on one hand, the rule flouters and on the others, ridiculous police over reaction and inaccurate enforcement.
> 
> I'm not playing.


yeah, this BMJ article is a worthwhile read









						Pandemic fatigue? How adherence to covid-19 regulations has been misrepresented and why it matters - The BMJ
					

As England and Scotland start another period of lockdown, we all have to come to terms with following stricter covid-19 restrictions, most likely for a relatively long period of time. [...]More...




					blogs.bmj.com


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 11, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I really don't think ANYONE here is making a case for eliminating them. But there is DEFINITELY a case for not giving people the idea that they can just fuck around with exemptions like support bubbles to "game" the regulations. And the definitions a lot of people seem to be using for having a support bubble do seem to be remarkably elastic, sometimes, and not a little self-serving.


See the people I know who aren't sticking properly to restrictions aren't bothering to pretend a flexible support bubble or whatever. At most they're claiming not to understand.

I'm getting whiffs of benefit fraud tbh.


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

Also Whitty earlier:



> Asked about why professional football is allowed to continue, Prof Whitty says it is a balancing act between "trying to limit the amount of contact while outside of structured environments, whilst trying to keep some semblance of life as we know it".
> 
> And he adds: "*If we keep on looking for someone else's problem as to why this is not going to get better, then we are missing the point. *
> 
> "We all have to say what is in our own lives to do to minimise the impact on the NHS."



From 7:58 entry at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55614993/page/2

But then he also went on about how important it was for nurseries to remain open so people could go to work.


----------



## keithy (Jan 11, 2021)

They're Tories, I think we can fully expect them to continue to put business above people. I just wish as a society we could rise above that and it not be a race to the bottom.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> yeah, this BMJ article is a worthwhile read
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The data cited for compliance in that article is from April. And the question posed is 'following lockdown rules completely, or nearly all the time'. Also assumes full understanding of rules, and honest reporting (though presumably there is some weighting).

And assumes measures are sufficient. Google mobility data suggests workplaces are down 50% from the baseline. With a huge public sector, construction sector etc that is probably 95% legit. But sufficient?


----------



## zora (Jan 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What's really sad and terrible is we've got to this position when we're all a bit fraught for a variety of reasons (myself included), and we're jumping around being angry and upset with each other



This is the thought that's been with me all morning. Everyone is so burnt out from the difficulties in their lives and the lack of contact (or in some cases indeed excess of contact, being scooped up with their families for such a long time) and being unable to fully self-regulate or co-regulate according to their individual needs for such a long time, that empathy is lowered.

It seems to me like suddenly since this dire turn of events in December/January, all the unmet needs that people have been gamely trying to compensate for over the past year are coming to a head in an almighty collective internal scream.


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

keithy said:


> They're Tories, I think we can fully expect them to continue to put business above people. I just wish as a society we could rise above that and it not be a race to the bottom.



Lets puncture the Westminster bubble instead.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What's really sad and terrible is we've got to this position when we're all a bit fraught for a variety of reasons (myself included), and we're jumping around being angry and upset with each other, which while understandable, isn't really very helpful and lets plenty of more culpable people off the hook.



Yep, you're all wonderful really and this place has been great throughout.


----------



## killer b (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> The data cited for compliance in that article is from April. And the question posed is 'following lockdown rules completely, or nearly all the time'. Also assumes full understanding of rules, and honest reporting (though presumably there is some weighting).
> 
> And assumes measures are sufficient. Google mobility data suggests workplaces are down 50% from the baseline. With a huge public sector, construction sector etc that is probably 95% legit. But sufficient?


There's other sources for November further down the article showing high compliance with that lockdown. I don't think they're arguing that the measures are sufficient (and I'm certainly not), only that there is wide compliance with what measures there are (self isolation excepted, for reasons gone into ad infinitum) and blaming non-compliance for continuing spread of infections is a mistake.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 11, 2021)

Flavour said:


> Obligatory face masks outside and everywhere besides your own home would be a start, as many European countries have mandated.



While I think this is unnecessary in terms of preventing spread I do think it would help in ensuring people wear masks when going into places where the spread is occurring. Most people who come into the shop where I work wear a mask now but there's still enough of a noticeable minority who don't. It's just arrogance at this point in proceedings.

I understand people forget at times and you can tell because they put their t shirt over their mouths and are in and out quickly, but to have that extra weight and extra support from government in actually being able to enforce it would be helpful. I'll be interested to hear what's announced tonight regarding supermarkets.


----------



## 5t3IIa (Jan 11, 2021)

Is there a press conference or address scheduled  for today?


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> yeah, this BMJ article is a worthwhile read
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Stephen Reicher was the bloke on C4 News I was taking about upthread.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> Yeah I suggested something like that upthread... Could even link an app/QR code printout. Problem is the Tories would outsource it to Serco and you'd end up with a massive data breach.
> 
> This is what I keep coming back to through this. The process of crisis management in this country, and much of the west, is fundamentally and clearly broken. It is profoundly disturbing. We're almost a year in... Arguably already a year in. But fuck all has changed... If anything communication etc has actually got worse.
> 
> I agree with Lynn that a short, sharp period is needed. But it will be done badly, and coming out of it will be mismanaged. It's such a shit situation.



I would disagree with the communication, Hackney Council recently gave us a guidelines leaflet.  

Didn't get that in any of the other lockdowns.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 11, 2021)

5t3IIa said:


> Is there a press conference or address scheduled  for today?



One at 5 today I think.


----------



## Looby (Jan 11, 2021)

Matt Hancock is leading. 😞


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

One particular angle on how we got here.

Via SAGE modelling group consensus statements:

September 9th: https://assets.publishing.service.g...SAGE56_200909_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf



> The current situation is in line with the latest reasonable worst-case scenario (RWCS), where incidence doubled once in August and once in the first two weeks of September, *before re-imposed measures halt this growth*. Under this scenario, there is an average incidence of approximately 11,900 infections per day for the second week of September in England. SPI-M-O’s estimated incidence range for England at present is 2,300 to 12,500 new infections per day, in line with estimates from ONS and REACT surveillance studies.



September 23rd: https://assets.publishing.service.g...SAGE59_200923_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf



> The epidemic is close to breaching the agreed Reasonable Worst Case Scenario on which NHS, DHSC and HMG contingency plans are based. As outlined by COVID-S, *planning has followed a strategy under which action is taken in mid-September to halt epidemic growth*. Unless the measures announced on 22nd September reduce R back below 1, it is likely that infection incidence and hospital admissions will exceed the planning levels.





> Long-term management of the epidemic will be a balancing act between direct and indirect effects on health caused by COVID-19 and the economic and health disbenefits caused by intervention measures. There is great potential to use of data and modelling to inform the choice of policy measures that would meet the Government’s long-term strategic objectives. Such calculations would be complicated by uncertainty around if or when a highly effective vaccine or treatment will become available, but those difficulties are not insurmountable. SPI-M-O welcomes the clarity brought by stating the top strategic objectives are to protect the NHS and keep schools open. *Further detail on specific objectives would allow advice to be issued on how policy objectives could be expected to achieve them*.



October 21st: https://assets.publishing.service.g.../950631/S0821_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf



> The number of infections, hospital admissions and deaths are exceeding those in the reasonable worst case planning scenario that is based on COVID-S’s winter planning strategy. *This scenario assumed that decisive action would be taken in mid- September to halt an increase in transmission.*



So the government totally failed to stick to the response the reasonable worst case planning for winter used. The modellers modelled various things at these stages, including various versions of a circuit breaker, and then once that opportunity was completely missed, measures in early November that continued for 6 weeks. And then finally measures in November for 4 weeks. The output of such modelling also enables me to see the curves they came up with both with and without such measures, and with a different range of R values. I will present these later.


----------



## killer b (Jan 11, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Stephen Reicher was the bloke on C4 News I was taking about upthread.


he's been a regular source of good sense throughout the pandemic tbh.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> There's other sources for November further down the article showing high compliance with that lockdown. I don't think they're arguing that the measures are sufficient (and I'm certainly not), only that there is wide compliance with what measures there are (self isolation excepted, for reasons gone into ad infinitum) and blaming non-compliance for continuing spread of infections is a mistake.



Thing is, if I asked anyone I know whether they were complying with measures most of the time, they'd say yes. But I also can't actually think of anyone I know who does... also if you have a look at the UCL study linked, complete compliance is significantly lower than majority compliance (around 50% in November). Majority compliance is 5-7 on a 7 point scale, complete is 7.

Still, I've read that article before and basically agree with everything it has to say.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I would disagree with the communication, Hackney Council recently gave us a guidelines leaflet.
> 
> Didn't get that in any of the other lockdowns.



That's not good communication. It's baseline communication from one council.

Nothing from my local council, central Sheffield.


----------



## Jay Park (Jan 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What's really sad and terrible is we've got to this position when we're all a bit fraught for a variety of reasons (myself included), and we're jumping around being angry and upset with each other, which while understandable, isn't really very helpful and lets plenty of more culpable people off the hook.



and when in recent history hasn't that happened? Only it's exacerbated by certain, or current, circumstances


----------



## Jay Park (Jan 11, 2021)

'Culpable people'

you mean Britain's ruling elite of 1000 years?


----------



## Sue (Jan 11, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I would disagree with the communication, Hackney Council recently gave us a guidelines leaflet.
> 
> Didn't get that in any of the other lockdowns.


But then I live in Hackney too and have had nothing from the council at all. (The rolling rate in my ward is currently 1145 so it's not like it's because my ward has low numbers or whatever 🤷‍♀️ )


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

Follow-up to my previous post about failure to stick to the plan in autumn.

September modelling focussing on half-term circuit breakers, where the dashed lines are the no circuit breaker scenario and the others use various different growth rate values in the scenario of a circuit breaker: https://assets.publishing.service.g...tial__lockdown_for_2_weeks_over_Half-Term.pdf



Other scenarios were modelled, including two circuit breakers, which I've stuck inside spoiler tags.



Spoiler







October modelling. I'm only showing the England graphs because otherwise my post will be way too long (well it already is too long but never mind).

From https://assets.publishing.service.g.../950631/S0821_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf



> Medium term projections and R=0.6 scenario [.....] Orange shows the trajectory based on current trends and does not include the effect of future policy changes or past ones that have not yet been reflected in data. Blue shows a scenario in which a very stringent intervention is introduced on 26th October and maintained for the duration of the scenario. Both trajectories show interquartile ranges of model combinations. The dashed line reflects the current reasonable worst case scenario.




Late October evolution of the above modelling: https://assets.publishing.service.g...SAGE64_201028_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf





Early November version, where length of measures is 4 weeks instead of 6, and where a number of different R values are modelled.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/935132/spi-m-o-consensus-statement-covid-19-sage-66-051120-s0864.pdf


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

Anyway I stuck that stuff in this main thread to draw attention to it, but I've also put it in the nerdy thread so if people want to discuss details of it, thats probably the better place.            #44         

I drew attention to it now because it demonstrates what could have happened if the government had acted quickly and strongly last year. Obviously the resurgence down south and new variant issues were not on the radar when this modelling was done, but it still provides interesting indicators of what sort of size and duration of peak was expected under a number of different growth rate scenarios, if no measures were taken.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> I drew attention to it now because it demonstrates what could have happened if the government had acted quickly and strongly last year. Obviously the resurgence down south and new variant issues were not on the radar when this modelling was done


The new variant issues may never have materialised (well, have been an occasional import only issue) if they had acted quickly, strongly from the start (wouldn't even have been an import issue if everyone had acted quickly, strongly from the start).


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 11, 2021)

Looby said:


> Matt Hancock is leading. 😞


1st of the Daily Hoorray we have a world beating vaccination program on the go briefings.


----------



## miss direct (Jan 11, 2021)

Anyone over 70 getting the vaccine yet? Or is it still over 80s?


----------



## Pingety Pong (Jan 11, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Anyone over 70 getting the vaccine yet? Or is it still over 80s?


My MiL is getting hers this week and she only just turned 70. She has high blood pressure though as well.


----------



## killer b (Jan 11, 2021)

I think it probably varies wildly by area tbh - my 94 year old gran hasn't had her jab yet (we're in Lancashire) - I think they're still on the care homes here...


----------



## og ogilby (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> I think it probably varies wildly by area tbh - my 94 year old gran hasn't had her jab yet (we're in Lancashire) - I think they're still on the care homes here...


My 83 yo mum had hers last Thursday and my 72 yo auntie with no health issues had hers done on Saturday in Leyland.


----------



## killer b (Jan 11, 2021)

og ogilby said:


> My 83 yo mum had hers last Thursday and my 72 yo auntie with no health issues had hers done on Saturday in Leyland.


motherfuckers, what about my gran??


----------



## og ogilby (Jan 11, 2021)

Pingety Pong said:


> My MiL is getting hers this week and she only just turned 70. She has high blood pressure though as well.


Not sure the high blood pressure would put her up the list.


----------



## og ogilby (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> motherfuckers, what about my gran??


Yeah, that isn't good. I'm surprised they haven't done every 90+ person already.


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 11, 2021)

Anyone else think the 2 girls going for a walk story was a set up?


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> motherfuckers, what about my gran??



Is your gran in Wales by any chance?, I know 11 people over 70 , 3 over 80 and 1 who is 102....none of them has even had a fucking letter yet


----------



## killer b (Jan 11, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Anyone else think the 2 girls going for a walk story was a set up?


you're on the wrong thread - this is the one you're looking for Coronavirus Conspiracy Corner


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 11, 2021)

Pingety Pong said:


> My MiL is getting hers this week and she only just turned 70. She has high blood pressure though as well.



I think killer b is right and it varies a lot from place to place.  My mum is in her 70s with high blood pressure and hasn't heard a thing yet.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 11, 2021)

Neighbour (over 80) just had his in Cornwall. I had thought we're fairly slow rolling out down here.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Anyone else think the 2 girls going for a walk story was a set up?


----------



## Boudicca (Jan 11, 2021)

My 80+ parents on the Essex coast haven't heard anything yet either.


----------



## killer b (Jan 11, 2021)

A majority of the country - but especially Tory voters - agree it's your next door neighbour's fault btw


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 11, 2021)




----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> A majority of the country - but especially Tory voters - agree it's your next door neighbour's fault btw




The fuck is wrong with this place?


----------



## gaijingirl (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> A majority of the country - but especially Tory voters - agree it's your next door neighbour's fault btw




wtf???!!!


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

It depends what question is asked.

A somewhat different impression emerges when looking at some polls from earlier in January.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 11, 2021)

Is yougov the one where you self-select to do it online?


----------



## killer b (Jan 11, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> Is yougov the one where you self-select to do it online?


this is all pollsters now, more or less.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 11, 2021)

For those interested, the Hancock half hour is up & coming.

ETA - Sky says he's been held up.


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

From the bottom of an article that was going on about other stuff:



> Meanwhile, the Test and Trace scheme in England has revised one of its definitions of a "close contact" - the people who need to be reached if they have been near to someone who has tested positive for Covid.
> 
> The definition now refers to a close contact as anyone who has been within two metres of someone for more than 15 minutes, whether in a single period or cumulatively over the course of one day.
> Previously the definition was just a single period of at least 15 minutes.











						Covid: UK at 'worst point' of pandemic, says Hancock
					

Health Secretary Matt Hancock says 2.3 million people in the UK have now had a Covid-19 vaccine dose.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> From the bottom of an article that was going on about other stuff:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't even know why my reaction to this is "oh my god" but, oh my god


----------



## chilango (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> A majority of the country - but especially Tory voters - agree it's your next door neighbour's fault btw




Yep.

I certainly encounter this.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 11, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> I don't even know why my reaction to this is "oh my god" but, oh my god


It's just all tinkering around the edges innit. Or maybe it's cuz instead of coming up with a new rule they have instead basically rearranged the words of an old rule, again, confusing everyone in the process      it's exhausting


----------



## killer b (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> The fuck is wrong with this place?


I guess people's everyday experience of lockdown involves witnessing multiple infractions (or perceived infractions, as no-one is actually totally on top of what the restrictions are or what exemptions there are) - the strategic failures of government are less in your face than your neighbour welcoming round their grown up children, or the three people you walked past in the supermarket with their noses out of their masks.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 11, 2021)

That daily average...


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> A majority of the country - but especially Tory voters - agree it's your next door neighbour's fault btw



I was going to say that anyone surprised by this needs to get out more.

But maybe getting out more is not currently the best advice.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 11, 2021)

Just seen Twat Handcock thanking the feckless Sc*m 'journalist' for their support


----------



## andysays (Jan 11, 2021)

Coronavirus: Morrisons to ban shoppers who refuse to wear face masks



> Morrisons will bar customers who refuse to wear face coverings from its shops amid rising coronavirus infections. From Monday, shoppers who refuse to wear face masks offered by staff will not be allowed inside, unless they are medically exempt. The announcement comes amid concerns that social distancing measures are not being adhered to in supermarkets.



Wonder if other supermarkets will follow this example...


----------



## Badgers (Jan 11, 2021)

andysays said:


> Coronavirus: Morrisons to ban shoppers who refuse to wear face masks
> 
> 
> 
> Wonder if other supermarkets will follow this example...


Hopefully. They usually do.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 11, 2021)

Oh thank god.  A mere year into the fucking pandemic a supermarket decides it's going to make the rules actual rules rather than some piss poor hint


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

I am titling todays press conference 'I was born yesterday under a wandering vaccination centre'.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations
					

Our vaccination dataset uses the most recent official numbers from governments and health ministries worldwide. Population estimates for per-capita metrics are based on the United Nations World Population Prospects. Income groups are based on the World Bank classification. A full list of our...




					ourworldindata.org


----------



## andysays (Jan 11, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Oh thank god.  A mere year into the fucking pandemic a supermarket decides it's going to make the rules actual rules rather than some piss poor hint


The Covid Code is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules...


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> A majority of the country - but especially Tory voters - agree it's your next door neighbour's fault btw



That would be a better poll if allowed 'both' as an option, and perhaps an even better one if it allowed people to place the blame on a slider between government and individuals. But still, it is a rather horrifying look into how committed many Tory voters are to placing all blame on individuals.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 11, 2021)

So the day after the news was full of those two women getting nicked for driving 5 miles to go for a walk...









						Coronavirus: Boris Johnson criticised over bike ride seven miles from home
					

Boris Johnson was spotted at the Olympic Park on Sunday, despite government advice to "stay local".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## miss direct (Jan 11, 2021)

Sorry, I don't get it - as a cyclist, am I not allowed to go for a bike ride on my own?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 11, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Sorry, I don't get it - as a cyclist, am I not allowed to go for a bike ride on my own?


If there's a rule about how far you're allowed to be from home during your exercise, it should be consistently applied.

I appreciate cyclists will usually travel much further than walkers, but they should still rein in their much longer outings during lockdown, IMO.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> If there's a rule about how far you're allowed to be from home during your exercise, it should be consistently applied.
> 
> I appreciate cyclists will usually travel much further than walkers, but they should still rein in their much longer outings during lockdown, IMO.


There isn't a rule though. Just "local area" which is completely open to interpretation.

If we're going to start enforcing this rule let's start with car drivers.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Sorry, I don't get it - as a cyclist, am I not allowed to go for a bike ride on my own?



You are allowed to, it's fine.

Basically if you're going out for exercise, are on your own and not driving/taking public transport to where you exercise it's probably ok.


----------



## Espresso (Jan 11, 2021)

I think the issue is that if you are driving to a place, _then_ going for a walk or a bike ride; you shouldn't have driven there. Your walk or your cycle should have begun from when you left your own front door.  
But it's like everything else - no actual rules just a vague idea that you should be sensible and apply your common sense. Which has not a spectacular success.


----------



## andysays (Jan 11, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> If there's a rule about how far you're allowed to be from home during your exercise, it should be consistently applied.
> 
> I appreciate cyclists will usually travel much further than walkers, but they should still rein in their much longer outings during lockdown, IMO.


That's the problem though, there isn't a clear and coherent rule, as Hancock's comments confirm



> Health Secretary Matt Hancock was asked at Monday's Downing Street press conference whether travelling seven miles for a cycle ride was within the rules.
> Mr Hancock said: "It is ok to go if you went for a long walk and ended up seven miles from home, that is OK, but you should stay local.
> "It is ok to go for a long walk or a cycle ride or to exercise but stay local."


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

andysays said:


> Coronavirus: Morrisons to ban shoppers who refuse to wear face masks
> 
> 
> 
> Wonder if other supermarkets will follow this example...



Hancock was keen to highlight Morrisons in todays press conference.

He is also not very subtle about using the new variant as an excuse for everything, continuing the trend first seen when he brought the new strain to public attention on December 14th.


----------



## Espresso (Jan 11, 2021)

See today, he didn't tell us how many deaths had been recorded in the most recent 24 hour period. He said that the average for the last seven days was 926.
Is this the new thing, not giving us the daily figure?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> View attachment 248371
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Pretty sure there aren't 1.43 million people in Iceland...

E2a: ah, that's 1.43 vaccinated per 100 people. So it might actually be true that the UK has vaccinated more people overall than the rest of Europe. Although if the question is, 'how many have had the correct dose of a vaccine in the UK' then the answer seems to be 'just Boris Johnson's dad'


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

Espresso said:


> See today, he didn't tell us how many deaths had been recorded in the most recent 24 hour period. He said that the average for the last seven days was 926.
> Is this the new thing, not giving us the daily figure?



It depends when the daily figure came out. Today it had not come out by the time the press conference began.


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 11, 2021)

andysays said:


> Coronavirus: Morrisons to ban shoppers who refuse to wear face masks
> 
> 
> 
> Wonder if other supermarkets will follow this example...



They certainly should.  Most people atm are being pretty good about masks round here, but pretty much every time I go in the small Sainsbury's near me - thankfully the only fully enclosed shop I need to regularly - there's at least one person in there either maskless or with it below their nose, and they're never challenged.  I did remark to the bloke packing my bag that the woman who'd just gone out - who'd come and stood right next to me and then looked at me as if I was weird when I took a step away - ought to have had a mask on, and he said, 'I agree, but we're not allowed to stop them.'  FFS.


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Pretty sure there aren't 1.43 million people in Iceland...



Yeah this is what happens when posters chop the description off their charts!

Here it is with useful info intact.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Pretty sure there aren't 1.43 million people in Iceland...



Yes you're right. I looked at the wrong chart.


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

And the chart that actually deals in millions of people (well, doses) is this one:


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

I knew France was having problems, but fuck.


----------



## magneze (Jan 11, 2021)

2.3m now. If we could not be shit at this one thing, that'd be grand.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 11, 2021)

andysays said:


> The Covid Code is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules...



Mask wearing in shops is law, not rules or guidelines.


----------



## prunus (Jan 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Mask wearing in shops is law, not rules or guidelines.



For customers and also, since September, staff (except for staff in banks and lawyers’ offices)


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> I knew France was having problems, but fuck.



Vaccines are widely available in France from 9-11am on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and 3.30-4.15pm on Thursdays. Unless it's a month with a bank holiday in it. _Service non compris_.


----------



## Sue (Jan 11, 2021)

Roadkill said:


> They certainly should.  Most people atm are being pretty good about masks round here, but pretty much every time I go in the small Sainsbury's near me - thankfully the only fully enclosed shop I need to regularly - there's at least one person in there either maskless or with it below their nose, and they're never challenged.  I did remark to the bloke packing my bag that the woman who'd just gone out - who'd come and stood right next to me and then looked at me as if I was weird when I took a step away - ought to have had a mask on, and he said, 'I agree, but we're not allowed to stop them.'  FFS.


In Boots yesterday, there was a security guard who challenged a maskless guy. Who said he had a mask in his bag so the security guard let him in. AFAIK, they don't actually work if they're in your bag.


----------



## BCBlues (Jan 11, 2021)

Pensioners 'walk the plank' to reach city's new vaccine centre Pensioners 'walk the plank' to reach city's new vaccine centre

Literally Walk the Plank.
I know it's not the main entrance but it's not a good look is it, and they've had enough time to prepare at Millennium Point.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

BCBlues said:


> Pensioners 'walk the plank' to reach city's new vaccine centre Pensioners 'walk the plank' to reach city's new vaccine centre
> 
> Literally Walk the Plank.
> I know it's not the main entrance but it's not a good look is it, and they've had enough time to prepare at Millennium Point.


It seems to continue the theme of "use a telephoto lens to make it look worse than it is" which has been so popular during this pandemic.









						Google Maps
					

Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.




					goo.gl


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It seems to continue the theme of "use a telephoto lens to make it look worse than it is" which has been so popular during this pandemic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



 

Honestly, do we not have enough stuff be legitimately upset about without just making shit up?


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

When Hancock said 'dont blow it now' my response was 'You already blew it in September and then compounded the error by blowing it again in October, November and December!' Obviously there were errors before and after those months too, but looking at the most striking features of political failure to deal with the second wave, I think September-December involved decisions that were even worse than most people realised at the time. The modelling and talk of what September measures were baked into the reasonable worst case winter scenario that government departments & institutions used when planning for this period means that all the failure to do circuit breakers, other national measures at various points was even worse than it looked to us at the time. I already knew that they blew their 'following the science' excuse/cover in August and September and left themselves exposed, but the papers I was on about earlier make this lack of cover even more complete. Its no wonder they have subsequently made so much use of the new variant to excuse their failings. I'm sure I'll come  back to this point plenty, especially once I can see how the peak in this new variant era ends up comparing to some of the scenarios they modelled months ago, before the new variant was on the radar.

The way the media are covering things now is also months late. There is still always something to play for in future in terms of getting infection levels down, but it does drive me mad that we get the serious focus and sombre stuff only during the period we are told we are into the worst weeks of the pandemic so far. Couldnt we have gone quite a bit earlier with that stuff, when there was more scope to make the peak less high?


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> But they aren't the most up to date figures available! It's exactly the same data used to produce the date-of-death figures, but with the numbers shifted around to dates that are a less accurate measure of what's actually happening.
> 
> The fact is that we don't know how many people have died in the past few days. Producing these rolling average numbers doesn't magically create more information.
> 
> ...



I didnt have the headspace to reply to some aspects of this the other day, but there was a point I should have made at the time.

Unfortunately as far as I remember when I looked into this at one stage during the first wave, using rolling averages of the 'daily deaths by reporting date' was a pretty reasonable indicator of where the 'daily deaths by date of death' figure for the period would eventually end up. Not exact, but in the same realm.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 11, 2021)

Did I hear correctly that bubbles are now off the table?


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 11, 2021)

BCBlues said:


> Pensioners 'walk the plank' to reach city's new vaccine centre Pensioners 'walk the plank' to reach city's new vaccine centre
> 
> Literally Walk the Plank.
> I know it's not the main entrance but it's not a good look is it, and they've had enough time to prepare at Millennium Point.


More canals than Venice


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> I didnt have the headspace to reply to some aspects of this the other day, but there was a point I should have made at the time.
> 
> Unfortunately as far as I remember when I looked into this at one stage during the first wave, using rolling averages of the 'daily deaths by reporting date' was a pretty reasonable indicator of where the 'daily deaths by date of death' figure for the period would eventually end up. Not exact, but in the same realm.



Exactly, the curves were very similiar in the first wave, and I see no reason why that'll not be the case this time, especially when you look at the patterns of new cases & hospital admissions, which gives an early indication of deaths to come.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 11, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Did I hear correctly that bubbles are now off the table?


Yes


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It seems to continue the theme of "use a telephoto lens to make it look worse than it is" which has been so popular during this pandemic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've been there, its not that bad and Street View confirms it.

Honestly the media in this fucking country is a joke.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 11, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Did I hear correctly that bubbles are now off the table?





Orang Utan said:


> Yes



According to Hancock during the Downing Street press conference today.

So, expect that to totally change in the next few days.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 11, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> I've been there, its not that bad and Street View confirms it.
> 
> Honestly the media in this fucking country is a joke.


It reads like the cops posted the photo first? Not that "media doesn't fact-check police" is any better than the photo-lens trick... in fact they're typically two sides of the same coin


----------



## magneze (Jan 11, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Did I hear correctly that bubbles are now off the table?


The opposite. It was bad reporting.


----------



## magneze (Jan 11, 2021)

Oh I see. Cancelling bubbles is off the table. Yes.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 11, 2021)

Its also not a canal, its a decorative ditch.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> I didnt have the headspace to reply to some aspects of this the other day, but there was a point I should have made at the time.
> 
> Unfortunately as far as I remember when I looked into this at one stage during the first wave, using rolling averages of the 'daily deaths by reporting date' was a pretty reasonable indicator of where the 'daily deaths by date of death' figure for the period would eventually end up. Not exact, but in the same realm.


Isn't that largely because of the shape of the curve in the first wave, which saw a fairly even and steady increase. The curve for the 2nd wave has been much less tidy to far.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 11, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Its also not a canal, its a decorative ditch.



I am sure some Tory MP will see it as a chance to buy a duck-house, and claim it on expenses.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Isn't that largely because of the shape of the curve in the first wave, which saw a fairly even and steady increase. The curve for the 2nd wave has been much less tidy to far.



We have been seeing a 'fairly even and steady increase' in the last 7 days or so, much like that in the first wave.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 11, 2021)

I am wondering what we are aiming at before things can be eased off.

R-level threshold falling below certain point?
Getting to a point where enough vulnerable people are immunised that, even if loads of people are infected we will have 80% fewer (or whatever) people in hospital with fewer concomitant deaths? 

Because there's going to have to be (I hope) a point before everyone is immunised where you say things can ease a bit - or will we all only be allowed to meet outdoors all this year?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 11, 2021)

We had a discussion on this thread, about a week ago, regarding ever increasing number of doctors saying they were seeing more younger patients being admitted to hospital, but no official data to confirm that at the time, is it available now?

Tonight I've watched BBC, Sky & C-4 news, all reporting from different hospitals, with doctors saying they are seeing a lot more patients in their 30's & 40's compared to the first wave.

Then there's this...



> *A quarter of coronavirus admissions to hospital are people under the age of 55, the head of NHS England has said.*
> 
> Sir Simon Stevens told MPs on Monday the virus was spreading out of control across much of the country, with worrying consequences for hospitals. “In London perhaps one in 30 people has the coronavirus, in parts of London it may be twice that number. In Merseyside in just the last week there has been a further 50% increase in the number of Covid hospitalisations,” he said.
> 
> ...











						Quarter of Covid hospital admissions in England aged under 55
					

NHS boss Sir Simon Stevens reveals figure as he tells MPs the virus is spreading out of control




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There isn't a rule though. Just "local area" which is completely open to interpretation.
> 
> If we're going to start enforcing this rule let's start with car drivers.


I’m afraid that this is not an either/or.  My village is still full of people on a weekend that are driving to the village to then go mountain biking.  (Which is fucking stupid anyway given how many of them then get injured and just how much you do not want to need a hospital right now, but that’s a whole other layer of selfishness.). The bikers ARE the ones driving to then take their exercise.  Oh yeah, and they doing it in groups of 3, 4, 5, 6 too and then getting a coffee afterwards and hanging around in the village centre to drink it.  All activities that are normal for normal times but all totally illegal for them to be doing at the present


----------



## campanula (Jan 11, 2021)

I handed in an irate letter to my local Tesco after having to wait behind some shouty maskless fuckwit. I  told them that I would be doing my shopping in Waitrose from now on, where no-one is allowed in without a mask and mandatory hand cleaning. Also claimed several of my neighbours had complained of the same (although this bit was a lie). I imagine if they thought their bottom-line was going to be more impacted by vanishing shoppers, they might take protecting their staff a bit more seriously too.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

campanula said:


> I handed in an irate letter to my local Tesco after having to wait behind some shouty maskless fuckwit. I  told them that I would be doing my shopping in Waitrose from now on, where no-one is allowed in without a mask and mandatory hand cleaning. Also claimed several of my neighbours had complained of the same (although this bit was a lie). I imagine if they thought their bottom-line was going to be more impacted by vanishing shoppers, they might take protecting their staff a bit more seriously too.



Yeah, I'm tempted to switch to Morrison's from my nearby Tesco. But means a drive, which I'd rather not do given the context.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 11, 2021)

miss direct said:


> People like me, who are lodgers, aren't entitled to a support bubble, because of not living alone. Not sure how a landlady who I barely see counts as not living alone. I dont want to complain about things being unfair, but not sure why an entire family who has a child under one gets to make a bubble when I don't. Means an extremely lonely existence during the winter.


Coming back to this...there is always an arbitrariness when laws and rules are drawn up, and there will always be people caught in "technicalities" like yours. To play devil's advocate, I suppose the fact that you are sharing a home with someone does present a slightly increased risk of cross-infection, which wouldn't be there if you were living absolutely alone (even though I acknowledge that you don't get the benefits that accrue from living _with _someone). But that has to be balanced against the practical implications - you are, to all intents and purposes, living on your own and could reasonably need some kind of emotional support.

I don't know the answer. If there was any feeling that we could say "look, these are the risks - and these are the things you have to do to mitigate them. Do all of the things that you can, but we recognise that there might be situations where...etc.". But we missed that opportunity - if it was ever a goer in the first place - when the government so comprehensively botched every step they took, and serially undermined the notion of a co-operative, collaborative response to the virus.

I think, in your shoes, I'd be aiming to minimise contact with the landlady as far as possible (and, presumably, you have some idea of the level of risk she might present in any case), and make cautious emotional support bubble arrangements with whoever, on the basis that they, too, are going to be very careful about their own exposure to risk.

The thing about all this stuff - which I think Chris Whitty was trying to say - is that it's cumulative. If you're wearing a mask, doing the handwashing/sanitising thing, minimising unnecessary contact, all of those things add up. But (as Christ Whitty did not say) there will inevitably be times when we need to compromise our biosecurity in order to achieve certain things - earn a living, buy necessities, have some kind of social interaction - and if we're taking as many precautions as we can in other areas, perhaps we can afford to trade a little of that off against getting all our needs met, including emotionally.

But that requires a degree of honesty with ourselves. I am sure that exists across a significant proportion of the population - I don't know if it's significant enough, and there's always room for improvement, but if those of us who are able to make the necessary choices do so, all we can hope for is that we bring enough of the rest with us in due course.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’m afraid that this is not an either/or.  My village is still full of people on a weekend that are driving to the village to then go mountain biking.  (Which is fucking stupid anyway given how many of them then get injured and just how much you do not want to need a hospital right now, but that’s a whole other layer of selfishness.). The bikers ARE the ones driving to then take their exercise.  Oh yeah, and they doing it in groups of 3, 4, 5, 6 too and then getting a coffee afterwards and hanging around in the village centre to drink it.  All activities that are normal for normal times but all totally illegal for them to be doing at the present



The obvious bottleneck there is still the car though.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> The obvious bottleneck there is still the car though.


What do you mean by bottleneck?

the obvious _problem_ is the entitled fucks who think that the rules don’t apply to them and it’s still okay to arrange with their mates to drive somewhere and pursue a dangerous sport for the day.


----------



## campanula (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> Yeah, I'm tempted to switch to Morrison's from my nearby Tesco. But means a drive, which I'd rather not do given the context.


 O for sure I am not actually going to just shop at Waitrose (apart from chicken) but I am good with Tesco thinking I am.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> What do you mean by bottleneck.
> 
> the obvious _problem_ is the entitled fucks who think that the rules don’t apply to them and it’s still okay to arrange with their mates to drive somewhere and pursue a dangerous sport for the day.



You don't stop the biker, who could be anyone, you stop the car with a bunch of bikes on the back. It doesn't really affect teuchter's point. It's also a fuck of a lot easier to stop cars and check driver details.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> You don't stop the biker, who could be anyone, you stop the car with a bunch of bikes on the back. It doesn't really affect teuchter's point. It's also a fuck of a lot easier to stop cars and check driver details.


Or you go out with a hammer and bag of nails and start banging them into the tyres of parked cars with bike racks hanging off the back.  Don’t think this isn’t tempting.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Or you go out with a hammer and bag of nails and start banging them into the tyres of parked cars with bike racks hanging off the back.  Don’t think this isn’t tempting.


Caltrops.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Or you go out with a hammer and bag of nails and start banging them into the tyres of parked cars with bike racks hanging off the back.  Don’t think this isn’t tempting.



The amount of bikers you get they must be really good trails. Think I might have to pop down, once regulations ease up of course.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jan 11, 2021)

If its exercise from your front door, or exercise within 2 or 5 miles, or don't do dangerous exercise - they need to put this in law or at actual written least guidance.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> If its exercise from your front door, or exercise within 2 or 5 miles, or don't do dangerous exercise - they need to put this in law or at actual written least guidance.



Yeah it is totally baffling why they can't make these things clear. It is not that hard.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> The amount of bikers you get they must be really good trails. Think I might have to pop down, once regulations ease up of course.


Yes, come and join them in making illegal trails on the SSSI, thus threatening vulnerable wildlife.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> If its exercise from your front door, or exercise within 2 or 5 miles, or don't do dangerous exercise - they need to put this in law or at actual written least guidance.


The guidance is clear enough that you should stay in your local area and that this means within your village or town if applicable.


----------



## agricola (Jan 11, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> If its exercise from your front door, or exercise within 2 or 5 miles, or don't do dangerous exercise - they need to put this in law or at actual written least guidance.



They'll never do that, it would just result in their sort getting tickets / pinched.   It would be like making going to your country retreat illegal (which it 100% should be, given the level of healthcare in some parts of the country).


----------



## kebabking (Jan 11, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> If its exercise from your front door, or exercise within 2 or 5 miles, or don't do dangerous exercise - they need to put this in law or at actual written least guidance.



I'll be stunned if, when all the epidemiology is done, people even taking the piss while exercising - or going somewhere to exercise - are determined to have contributed more than the tiniest sliver of transmission to this gangfuck.

The big transmission nodes will be supermarkets, households, workplaces, schools, hospitals and old people's homes, and none of this driving 10 miles to go for a walk or sitting on a park bench for 5 minutes will go within a thousand miles of the effects of any of the above.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Yes, come and join them in making illegal trails on the SSSI, thus threatening vulnerable wildlife.



You're lucky  

Regularly get motor bikes and worse 4x4s in the SSSI valley near me. Weekend before last five or six 4x4s drove down there for a bit of a jolly.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Or you go out with a hammer and bag of nails and start banging them into the tyres of parked cars with bike racks hanging off the back.  Don’t think this isn’t tempting.


I'd not stop you from doing that. Can you do it to the cars of dog walkers too?


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 11, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Anyone over 70 getting the vaccine yet? Or is it still over 80s?


both my parents have - my mum 75, dad 78 - mum clinc vulnerable. When they called her, she asked if my dad could get his done too, they agreed.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'd not stop you from doing that. Can you do it to the cars of dog walkers too?


With pleasure...

(It’s a bit more obvious what’s going on when the car has a bike rack on the back though)


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

two sheds said:


> You're lucky
> 
> Regularly get motor bikes and worse 4x4s in the SSSI valley near me. Weekend before last five or six 4x4s drove down there for a bit of a jolly.


Oh yes, we get those too.  But not during this lockdown so far — they’ve backed off for now.


----------



## chilango (Jan 11, 2021)

Hark at all the poshos with SSSIs in their back yards. We've got the skips round the back of Nandos and the forecourt of the BP garage


----------



## two sheds (Jan 11, 2021)

Was walking in the valley year before last and there was a council van with a couple of people in it so I wandered over to say hello as you would cos it was a weekend, and I saw they were actually two police sat in there. I asked how come and they said they were after the motor cyclists who would scarper if they saw a police car but wouldn't if they saw a council van.

:sneaky: but


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

kebabking said:


> I'll be stunned if, when all the epidemiology is done, people even taking the piss while exercising - or going somewhere to exercise - are determined to have contributed more than the tiniest sliver of transmission to this gangfuck.
> 
> The big transmission nodes will be supermarkets, households, workplaces, schools, hospitals and old people's homes, and none of this driving 10 miles to go for a walk or sitting on a park bench for 5 minutes will go within a thousand miles of the effects of any of the above.


This may or may not be right (although when four 40-something men all get out of a single BMW X5 to unpack their bikes, it’s not exactly a great sign that they are successfully socially distancing).  But it’s not the point.  If the law has been set up to prevent something, somebody thought that preventing it was important.  People picking and choosing which elements of the lockdown they want to obey is a problem, because once you start down that route, which is to say who should be doing what?

This is what the law says:



> If you do leave home for a permitted reason, you should always stay local - unless it is necessary to go further, for example to go to work. Stay local means stay in the village, town, or part of the city where you live.







__





						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## two sheds (Jan 11, 2021)

chilango said:


> Hark at all the poshos with SSSIs in their back yards. We've got the skips round the back of Nandos and the forecourt of the BP garage


well it's covered with poisonous heavy metals which means fuck-all grows there except gorse and heather and mosses and there are rare mosses which is why it's an SSSI


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## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

I'm sorry for opening the SSSI can of worms, probably not the right thread...


----------



## kebabking (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> This may or may not be right (although when four 40-something men all get out of a single BMW X5 to unpack their bikes, it’s not exactly a great sign that they are successfully socially distancing).  But it’s not the point.  If the law has been set up to prevent something, somebody thought that preventing it was important.  People picking and choosing which elements of the lockdown they want to obey is a problem, because once you start down that route, which is to say who should be doing what?
> 
> This is what the law says:
> 
> ...



To be pendantic, that's _guidance, _not law. The guidance has changed has changed (slightly) in the last few days, but the law hasn't.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> This may or may not be right (although when four 40-something men all get out of a single BMW X5 to unpack their bikes, it’s not exactly a great sign that they are successfully socially distancing).  But it’s not the point.  If the law has been set up to prevent something, somebody thought that preventing it was important.  People picking and choosing which elements of the lockdown they want to obey is a problem, because once you start down that route, which is to say who should be doing what?
> 
> This is what the law says:
> 
> ...



It's not actually all that clear because it says



> You should minimise time spent outside your home, but you can leave your home to exercise. This should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your *local area*.





> You can exercise in a public outdoor place:





> Public outdoor places include:
> 
> parks, beaches, countryside accessible to the public, forests



and then it says




> Travel





> You must not leave your home unless you have a reasonable excuse (for example, for work or education purposes). If you need to travel you should stay *local – meaning avoiding travelling outside of your village, town or the part of a city where you live*



and then


> The list of reasons you can leave your home and *area* include, but are not limited to:





> outdoor exercise. This should be done locally wherever possible, but you can travel a short distance *within your area* to do so if necessary (for example, to access an open space)



So, you shouldn't travel outside of your local area to exercise, but you can leave your area if it's for outside exercise, but if you do that you should only travel within your area.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 11, 2021)

I think we can _just about_ get away with walking on Hampstead Heath from home. Daaahling.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 11, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I think we can _just about_ get away with walking on Hampstead Heath from home. Daaahling.


I walked up to Kenwood and back the other day, so from hackney to Camden via Islington and haringey

And I see no problem with it, I didn't go into anyone's home or have a picnic or whatnot, just a simple long walk


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's not actually all that clear because it says
> 
> and then it says
> 
> ...


I don’t think that’s in any way ambiguous.  You have to stay within your area for exercise.  There’s nothing in that guidance that says otherwise.

There are a list of reasons you can leave your home or area.  Exercise is a reason that you can leave your home, but it is made clear that this does not include leaving your area.

Also, in response to kebabking — I think guidance has the force of law when it says “you must...” If my memory serves, the word “guidance” is a bit misleading in that regard.  It’s an adjunct to the legislation that tells law makers how they should interpret it in practice.


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Or you go out with a hammer and bag of nails and start banging them into the tyres of parked cars with bike racks hanging off the back.  Don’t think this isn’t tempting.



Driving somewhere to ride a bike is like using a crane to put up a ladder.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I don’t think that’s in any way ambiguous.  You have to stay within your area for exercise.  There’s nothing in that guidance that says otherwise.


Yes there is. It includes outdoor exercise in the list of "reasons you can leave your home and area".


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## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Yes there is. It includes outdoor exercise in the list of "reasons you can leave your home and area".


Yes, because it is a reason you can leave your home, so belongs in that list.  Then they explicitly point out that you can’t, however, use it as a reason to leave your area.

Do you honestly think you could use that phrasing as an argument that it isn’t clear that you have to stay within your area when exercising?  Given that it specifically says you have to stay within your area when exercising.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 11, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Driving somewhere to ride a bike is like using a crane to put up a ladder.


is that not the standard way?


----------



## Mation (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Yes, because it is a reason you can leave your home, so belongs in that list.  Then they explicitly point out that you can’t, however, use it as a reason to leave your area.
> 
> Do you honestly think you could use that phrasing as an argument that it isn’t clear that you have to stay within your area when exercising?  Given that it specifically says you have to stay within your area when exercising.


They conflate the two. It would be clearer to state the reasons you can leave your local area separately to the reasons you can leave your home so long as you remain within your local area.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

It's _a bit_ poorly worded, but the difficulty with interpretation comes when you start hopping between sections and looking for inconsistencies. It should be better though, undoubtedly. 

This one is weird:



> Personal training can continue one-on-one unless everyone is within the same household or support bubble.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

Mation said:


> They conflate the two. It would be clearer to state the reasons you can leave your local area separately to the reasons you can leave your home so long as you remain withing your local area.


Is still crystal clear that you can’t leave your area when exercising.  They were so keen to make this clear that even within that very list we are talking about, they spelled it out AGAIN that you have to stay within your area, so that any doubt would be avoided.  Trying to play games of sophistry around the fact that the list is headed “home and area” will get short shrift if anybody attempts to use it as a defence.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Yes, because it is a reason you can leave your home, so belongs in that list.  Then they explicitly point out that you can’t, however, use it as a reason to leave your area.
> 
> Do you honestly think you could use that phrasing as an argument that it isn’t clear that you have to stay within your area when exercising?  Given that it specifically says you have to stay within your area when exercising.


It says



> This should be done locally wherever possible, but you can travel a short distance within your area to do so if necessary



so, do it locally (= local area?) but ok to travel within your "area".

Suggests that "locally" and "area" are different things, and that "local" is a subset of "area".

The only thing the document actually tries to define is "local".

Elsewhere in the document it says you shouldn't travel outside of your "local area".

It's certainly a good way to confuse things. How about sticking to one term, such as "local area", and defining clearly what that means?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Yes, because it is a reason you can leave your home, so belongs in that list.  Then they explicitly point out that you can’t, however, use it as a reason to leave your area.
> 
> Do you honestly think you could use that phrasing as an argument that it isn’t clear that you have to stay within your area when exercising?  Given that it specifically says you have to stay within your area when exercising.


How many miles radius is one’s ‘area’ or ‘local’ ?


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

By the way - the one bit where something is defined, says that you should not leave your village (if you live in a village).

Are people in the countryside, living in villages and complaining about people showing up from elsewehere, sticking strictly within the bounds of their "village" when going for walks?

Generally the definition of a village is a grouping of buildings. So they can leave their house and go any direction where there are other houses reasonably close together, but not further than that. Not into the open countryside, because that would definitely be outside of the village. Even though another bit of the rules says that the open countryside is somewhere you can go to exercise.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 11, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> How many miles radius is one’s ‘area’ or ‘local’ ?


It’s clear that it means within your town or village.  It’s ambiguous, however, what “part of your city” means.  It definitely doesn’t involve leaving your city, though.




teuchter said:


> It says
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I certainly agree that they should use consistent terms, but (incredibly to me) lawmakers deliberately use a range of language to give themselves wiggle room in interpretation.  In this case, however, they have spelled out that exercise has to be within your local area (and this is defined).  They then say again it has to be local but that you can travel WITHIN this area if you need to (which is a weird thing to say but in context and given their further wording in the same paragraph, I interpret as meaning you can drive to the local park if you need to).


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

The problem with drafting rules of any kind is that there is a balance between detail and readability. If you fully define everything you end up with... Well you end up with legislation, and you really don't want people to have to wade through that. 

If you start setting out the exact rules for every type of village, every type of urban community, you end up with far too much information.


----------



## Mation (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Is still crystal clear that you can’t leave your area when exercising.  They were so keen to make this clear that even within that very list we are talking about, they spelled it out AGAIN that you have to stay within your area, so that any doubt would be avoided.  Trying to play games of sophistry around the fact that the list is headed “home and area” will get short shrift if anybody attempts to use it as a defence.


It's crystal clear to you.

But given that not everyone else thinks it's as clear, what's better? To have a text, the clarity of which you have to explain, or just have something that everyone can understand straight away?

What's your intended outcome? Understanding, or people understanding in the way you think they should be able to?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 11, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> is that not the standard way?



In the suburbs it probably is.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 11, 2021)

I sometimes work on my council’s switchboard and last week had a call from a man in his 80s who lived 7 miles from the nearest big park. He and his wife usually drive there to get their exercise and he was worried he would be breaking the law and was asking us if he should tell the cops. I couldn’t really advise him as it’s not my job, but I said that I imagine it’s ok, and to check the Government website. Still not sure whether I was right, so I imagine he was just as confused


----------



## killer b (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> It's _a bit_ poorly worded, but the difficulty with interpretation comes when you start hopping between sections and looking for inconsistencies. It should be better though, undoubtedly.
> 
> This one is weird:


it means you can personally train more than one person if all the people you're training, and you, live in the same household.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 11, 2021)

The trouble with any hastily drawn up legislation is that it needs test cases in the courts before its impact becomes precedent. Often needs rejigging.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I certainly agree that they should use consistent terms, but (incredibly to me) lawmakers deliberately use a range of language to give themselves wiggle room in interpretation.  In this case, however, they have spelled out that exercise has to be within your local area (and this is defined).  They then say again it has to be local but that you can travel WITHIN this area if you need to (which is a weird thing to say but in context and given their further wording in the same paragraph, I interpret as meaning you can drive to the local park if you need to).



I don't think you'd end up with this type of inconsistency in well drafted legislation... there is a degree of latitude in statutory interpretation, but it is generally governed by specific sets of rules. It's not usually advisable to draft legislation with too much ambiguity, because the way the legal system works here relies heavily on wording over principle... But you can show that your intent wasn't to limit something e.g by saying 'including but not limited to'. Conversely if the drafter means to have a flexible rule, but forgets the 'not limited to bit', you might find the interpretation ends up more strict than is intended. I'd never expect to see something as loose as this in well-drafted legislation (which this is not, of course). You would certainly have a subsection defining area, local etc.

But this is not legislation, it's guidance and just about works. Could be better though.


----------



## keithy (Jan 11, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I sometimes work on my council’s switchboard and last week had a call from a man in his 80s who lived 7 miles from the nearest big park. He and his wife usually drive there to get their exercise and he was worried he would be breaking the law and was asking us if he should tell the cops. I couldn’t really advise him as it’s not my job, but I said that I imagine it’s ok, and to check the Government website. Still not sure whether I was right, so I imagine he was just as confused



According to the guidance he would be ok if that is his nearest open space. 7 miles from any open space sounds a bit much tho, knowing where you are based?


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 11, 2021)

I think that in March 2020 the Welsh rules were a 5 miles radius of your home as their "local" definition.
Which would have been a problem for some people living out on the Lleyn Peninsula, as some farms are more than that distance from the nearest shops ...


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 11, 2021)

keithy said:


> According to the guidance he would be ok if that is his nearest open space. 7 miles from any open space sounds a bit much tho, knowing where you are based?


They live outside of the city though


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> The problem with drafting rules of any kind is that there is a balance between detail and readability. If you fully define everything you end up with... Well you end up with legislation, and you really don't want people to have to wade through that.
> 
> If you start setting out the exact rules for every type of village, every type of urban community, you end up with far too much information.



It would be quite straightforward to say something like, you can:
- walk any distance from your front door
Or
- cycle up to ten miles from your front door
Or
- drive to your nearest park or open countryside and then stay within 3 miles of your car.
Or if you don't have a car
- use public transport to get to your nearest public transport accessible park or open countryside then stay within 3 miles.
The end.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

killer b said:


> it means you can personally train more than one person if all the people you're training, and you, live in the same household.



Yeah, that is the interpretation on the face of it, but it doesn't actually make much sense. The case of a personal trainer living in a household and training multiple members of it is er... probably not that common. Perhaps limited to professional athletes, and physical rehab centers. Either way the wording is terrible.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 11, 2021)

I tell you what's too far - the lengths people will go to justify and excuse or even ignore people taking the fucking piss at a time where getting one over on The Man can lead to people dying.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 11, 2021)

People should be asking "what's the most privation I can stand" rather than "How much can I get away with"


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It would be quite straightforward to say something like, you can:
> - walk any distance from your front door
> Or
> - cycle up to ten miles from your front door
> ...



Yes, but in that interpretation do you want people walking between areas in London for example? What is local varies depending on location. But absolutely, there are ways to make it clearer, I'm just saying that once you start being pedantic about it, the pedantry can go all the way down. This is why lawyers exist.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

S☼I said:


> People should be asking "what's the most privation I can stand" rather than "How much can I get away with"



I don't think anyone here is trying to avoid restrictions... Just an evening of picking apart why things are worded as they are.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> Yes, but in that interpretation do you want people walking between areas in London for example?


I'd say that they are rules that are less ambiguous than the existing ones but which wouldn't result in more people walking between areas in London. I think they would significantly reduce the number of people moving between areas, because the majority of people travelling more than a couple of miles at present will be doing so by car or public transport.


----------



## clicker (Jan 11, 2021)

If it'd been a simple, 'daily exercise can take place within a mile of your home', everyone would be clear. 

I can't see a problem with that, as a short term measure now. Saves faffing.


----------



## Cid (Jan 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'd say that they are rules that are less ambiguous than the existing ones but which wouldn't result in more people walking between areas in London. I think they would significantly reduce the number of people moving between areas, because the majority of people travelling more than a couple of miles at present will be doing so by car or public transport.



Yeah, honestly it's not that hard and something along the lines of what you were saying would be fine, with a bit of tweaking. I think whoever wrote it has fallen into the old trap of overthinking something, then losing track of the broader picture.

Also generally a good way of doing stuff like this (which has been used to an extent) is use wider guidelines, then provide links to more detailed documents for people who might be an edge case, or have to advise on that. Not sure why they haven't done that.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2021)

clicker said:


> If it'd been a simple, 'daily exercise can take place within a mile of your home', everyone would be clear.
> 
> I can't see a problem with that, as a short term measure now. Saves faffing.


Yes, but leaves room for a great inequality in what people have access to. Something that I was going on about during the first lockdown when what you had access to was dramatically different depending on whether you had a car or not, as a result of there being no distance limits, but limits on what transport you could use.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 11, 2021)

Cid said:


> I don't think anyone here is trying to avoid restrictions... Just an evening of picking apart why things are worded as they are.



i'm not sure anyone here is, but it's fairly clear there are people out there who are taking the approach of trying to stretch the restrictions as far as possible / trying to find every possible loophole / generally taking the piss...


----------



## xenon (Jan 11, 2021)

All this desire for further clarity is pointless IMO. The principle is to minimise contacts with other households. SO go for exercise wherever, but don't gather in groups. The slippery slope argument, I know, but more legal exactitude would have to define, somewhat rediculousley .

How far to go for exercise
What counts as exercise.
Whether you're allowed to sit or stand otherwise rest, and for how long
Can you drink refreshments if you're exercising, water is OK but coffee / beer is not.
how big a drink,
Can you buy a sandwich from a nearby shop and eat it outside.
Perhaps as long as you're not sitting too long with anyone else, unless they're in your household but you shouldn't sit outside in a public space with someone outside your household eating a sandwich on a bench unless you've met that person for the purposes of exercise...

A group of people sat around clearly having a picnic being challenged by the Police, (advised to disburse as soon as, not tazered,) .makes sense but some old bloke worrying about whether he can drive to the park with his misses for a strol, is pointless and asking for the law to define it will not stop people doing the former.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jan 12, 2021)

Yeah so from my flat my girlfriend (support bubble) and me walk to the park (i live in the inner city but have lots of green space nearby).  She can't walk much more than that, but she likes to take photos of wildlife, so she finds somewhere to sit or lean or walk slowly while I have a longer walk or a bit of a run, we meet back and walk home.

From her flat, we tried walking to the park near her, it was far too far for her, and no other green or pleasant walking near to her (she lives on a very busy road).  So next day in the car, and no parking available near the park or the nearby beaches and all looked too busy (and by this time we were on the one-way system put in to enable extra bikes and walking during covid) - the next beach not accessible - by this time I wanted to go home, but she decided to turn off to the nature reserve.  We had a nice little walk - 4 miles from her flat, but passed less people than we would have done on her street.

Yes edge case (both of us have mental and physical health issues), yes maybe some of the busy street, parks and beach near her is people coming from elsewhere so if rules were stricter or more enforced her street and nearby park would be clearer, but if not against clear guidance, I can't see how we're creating extra deaths or taking the piss by doing either of those things (though at the same time the anxious bit of my head worries it is).


----------



## Sue (Jan 12, 2021)

clicker said:


> If it'd been a simple, 'daily exercise can take place within a mile of your home', everyone would be clear.
> 
> I can't see a problem with that, as a short term measure now. Saves faffing.


TBF, a mile is not very far. I'll happily walk three or four miles somewhere and the same back. I'm on my own, keep away from others and am not taking public transport so really can't see the harm in it.


----------



## editor (Jan 12, 2021)

clicker said:


> If it'd been a simple, 'daily exercise can take place within a mile of your home', everyone would be clear.
> 
> I can't see a problem with that, as a short term measure now. Saves faffing.


A mile is far too restrictive and some people live nowhere near parks or pleasant open spaces. It would seem hugely unfair to restrict them to walking around horrible areas just because they can't afford to live in attractive areas with plentiful green space.


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Isn't that largely because of the shape of the curve in the first wave, which saw a fairly even and steady increase. The curve for the 2nd wave has been much less tidy to far.



No I wouldnt say that. The period of adjustment required to make the daily reported averages align well with what the actual number of deaths per day eventually settles at isnt very large. Especially not compared to the lengths of time we are talking about when describing the complex shape of this second wave.

If anything has made the link between the two numbers weaker in recent weeks, its been because of the Christmas and New Year holiday period. There were more reporting days that ended up equivalent to what we see at weekends, and also some of the four nations had even long gaps where they reported no deaths at all over non-working holiday periods. So the rolling average of deaths by date of reporting couldnt manage to be smoothed out as well as usual, and probably involves some trajectories that were too flat and then had to get steeper than normal for a little bit to compensate. ie normally a 7 day average is enough to smooth out weekend underreporting, but it was insufficient to deal with longer periods of underreporting. Deaths by date of death would have had the same issue of missing data for longer over Christmas, but with the advantage that when this data finally arrived, it was assigned to the right dates so now looks right when I graph it, as opposed to the blue line which has had to overcompensate later.

I do not routinely do my own comparisons of these two forms of data but since it came up I had a quick go, just crudely overlaying one graph on top of another and then moving one left or right a bit to compensate for timing differences. I was surprised how well things fitted apart from the period which I attempted to decribe in the previous paragraph, where we can see the blue line ends up sagging below the red one for a time.

The red line is deaths by actual date of death, so it falls off a cliff at the end because most data for those dates hasnt been reported yet. I am not saying that for sure those numbers will reach the exact level the blue line reached, a little over 900, at that stage, especially because the blue line was very steep due to playing catchup after getting behind. But the final number of deaths on those days certainly will have headed in that direction, further than is currently shown. I suppose this means I can also say that due to holiday delayed data the point you made has more validity to it in regards the recent numbers that started this bit of conversation the other day, than is normally the case. I suppose now I've done this I will revisit this comparison again a few times to see how things developed.


----------



## clicker (Jan 12, 2021)

Sue said:


> TBF, a mile is not very far. I'll happily walk three or four miles somewhere and the same back. I'm on my own, keep away from others and am not taking public transport so really can't see the harm in it.


Yes, any specific distance wouldn't suit everybody. I was just thinking of it as a reducing transmission possibility.
But it ends up as one of those GCSE maths questions....
If Billy walked 4 miles away from his house, then 4 miles back, would he pass more people than if he walked 8 miles in a circle?
Who knows?
Like I said it'd be a short term measure. They did it in Greece in summer, in Athens...but it probably wouldn't work here.


----------



## clicker (Jan 12, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Yes, but leaves room for a great inequality in what people have access to. Something that I was going on about during the first lockdown when what you had access to was dramatically different depending on whether you had a car or not, as a result of there being no distance limits, but limits on what transport you could use.


I meant maybe for a couple of weeks to get us out of the hole we're in.  But may make no difference anyway.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 12, 2021)

killer b said:


> A majority of the country - but especially Tory voters - agree it's your next door neighbour's fault btw




I think discussions like the one about dissection of the rules we're having here are a large reason why people think like this. 

In my experience, especially now, most people wear a mask when they come into where I work and socially distance. However, there are still a noticeable minority of people who think the rules don't apply to them. Further to that there's an alarming number of fuckwits who can't even wear their mask properly when they do have one on. It's like they haven't realised in their decades of existence on this planet that their nose is also an air way, an air way that a respiratory virus can enter and leave your body through. 

I do place the majority of blame on the government for its garbled messaging but the rules, at their core, are pretty simple. Stay the fuck away from people unless it's essential to go near them and wear a piece of cloth over your mouth and nose when you do. Far too many people can't seem to grasp this, still, 9 months into a pandemic, so I do put a good chunk of blame on to the general public too but mostly it lies with the government. The cunts will probably win the next election too and we'll do that merry dance again of trying to 'understand' why so many people voted for them yet again.


----------



## editor (Jan 12, 2021)

clicker said:


> I meant maybe for a couple of weeks to get us out of the hole we're in.  But may make no difference anyway.


I think walking in a street (with  mask, if needed) or in a park (ditto) on your own is _very_ low risk compared to the essential benefits its gives to people. 

As an aside, in Italy my ex got fined £400 yesterday for momentarily taking off her mask outdoors in a rural area. Now that's fucking hardcore.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 12, 2021)

It was weird to see the press going crazy for a 7 mile bike ride.  
It did make me question my route, as its not only in Hackney. Hackney wouldn't be much of a cycle.    Brixton and back is the daily jaunt of mine.  Its cold, so I'm on a mission to 'get it done', head down there and back.  I've been doing this ride since April.   I could change and go in a more boring loop, but the weather is grim, I really want to autopilot. I know all the pot holes and such like.  It goes quick when you've done it tons of times.
I'd go as far as to say cycling solo is about as safe as exercise gets.  I don't interact with anyone, I'm in the road. Pedestrians zip past.  

London is starting to get really dead too. Been winding down over the last week.


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2021)

Sunray said:


> It was weird to see the press going crazy for a 7 mile bike ride.



Detail I saw was that the bike ride was not 7 miles in length, he was driven 7 miles to then ride his bike.


----------



## clicker (Jan 12, 2021)

editor said:


> I think walking in a street (with  mask, if needed) or in a park (ditto) on your own is _very_ low risk compared to the essential benefits its gives to people.
> 
> As an aside, in Italy my ex got fined £400 yesterday for momentarily taking off her mask outdoors in a rural area. Now that's fucking hardcore.


Agreed, I didn't say either presented a risk. Just suggesting a way 'local' could be defined for a couple of weeks. They have been pushing the keep it local message even more so today it seemed, if there is any benefit whatsoever in doing that, I'm ok with that.
£400  . Is that right across Italy now...masks on outdoors at all times.
I can see the benefits in clear messages, we'd be in a different place had we been given any.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> Detail I saw was that the bike ride was not 7 miles in length, he was driven 7 miles to then ride his bike.



* looks *


----------



## andysays (Jan 12, 2021)

editor said:


> I think walking in a street (with  mask, if needed) or in a park (ditto) on your own is _very_ low risk compared to the essential benefits its gives to people.
> 
> As an aside, in Italy my ex got fined £400 yesterday for momentarily taking off her mask outdoors in a rural area. Now that's fucking hardcore.



Glad to hear your ex got back to Italy.

There's some interesting stuff buried near the bottom of this BBC story

Covid-19: Rule-breakers 'increasingly likely' to be fined - Cressida Dick


> But behavioural scientist Professor Stephen Reicher said evidence suggested 80-90% of people were by and large obeying the rules - except when it came to self-isolation where compliance was lower. "The problem isn't people breaking the rules," said Mr Reicher, who sits on a committee of behavioural scientists that advises the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.





> "In many cases it's either the rules aren't clear enough, or the rules are too soft, or else people don't have the support to do what they're asked to do." Speaking on BBC Newsnight's programme, he said one reason the virus was still spreading was because many people were still going to work. "We are defining all sorts of jobs as essential that aren't," he said.


He appears to be echoing many of the criticisms which have been posted here - maybe he reads Urban


----------



## killer b (Jan 12, 2021)

andysays said:


> He appears to be echoing many of the criticisms which have been posted here - maybe he reads Urban


It's more that we read Reicher tbh


----------



## mauvais (Jan 12, 2021)

Covid: Women fined for going for a walk receive police apology
					

Derbyshire Police apologises to two women fined £200 for driving five miles for a countryside walk.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Derbyshire Police (of drone fame) fined two women for driving five minutes to go for a walk. Had to then rescind it because of new guidance.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 12, 2021)

Sunray said:


> It was weird to see the press going crazy for a 7 mile bike ride.
> It did make me question my route, as its not only in Hackney. Hackney wouldn't be much of a cycle.    Brixton and back is the daily jaunt of mine.  Its cold, so I'm on a mission to 'get it done', head down there and back.  I've been doing this ride since April.   I could change and go in a more boring loop, but the weather is grim, I really want to autopilot. I know all the pot holes and such like.  It goes quick when you've done it tons of times.
> I'd go as far as to say cycling solo is about as safe as exercise gets.  I don't interact with anyone, I'm in the road. Pedestrians zip past.
> 
> London is starting to get really dead too. Been winding down over the last week.



He might have been driven there apparently but yeah it's not a big deal, except the cops are fucking about with ordinary people doing similar.


----------



## kebabking (Jan 12, 2021)

Interesting thread - hopefully, my internet's skills are shite - effectively getting your knickers in a twist about transmission in an outdoor environment is howling at the moon, and usually done as a smokescreen to detract attention from far more risky stuff.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 12, 2021)

It's not the UK but the numbers in Ireland are way off the scale. 

Anecdotally we have a friend who went to say goodbye to her Mum (who subsequently died of covid) who is trying and failing to self isolate. Endless fucking visitors from the Priest to every fucker in the village. 

All the families got together at Christmas she reports. Now a third of the village are Ill. 

People still are more focused on gossiping about how many bottles of wines she buys rather than wearing masks. 
.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 12, 2021)

'Reckless' Christmas easing of rules blamed for Ireland Covid surge
					

Country has world’s highest rate of infection with critics blaming socialising over festive period




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 12, 2021)

Police in England say they won't enforce masks in supermarkets
					

Senior officers reject Matt Hancock’s support for greater role in overseeing Covid rules




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## TopCat (Jan 12, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Police in England say they won't enforce masks in supermarkets
> 
> 
> Senior officers reject Matt Hancock’s support for greater role in overseeing Covid rules
> ...


Who are the fucking police accountable to?


----------



## kabbes (Jan 12, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Interesting thread - hopefully, my internet's skills are shite - effectively getting your knickers in a twist about transmission in an outdoor environment is howling at the moon, and usually done as a smokescreen to detract attention from far more risky stuff.



It misses some of the key points, though, as to why we want to stop people travelling places for recreation, even if that recreation itself is outdoors.  Firstly, they have to get there.  I’m seeing groups of people turning up in the same vehicle, and whilst a large proportion of these may share households, it’s palpably obvious many do not.  And they don’t get their petrol through the ether either.  Secondly, people having a nice day out tend, in my observation, not to just do their thing and go home.  At a weekend, when all the cyclists drive up, they then besiege the local shop.  They want coffee and sausage rolls and cake and pasties.  But they are not adequately distancing — the tiny shop is not designed to deal with that many people in any kind of safety.  And many aren’t wearing masks because many people don’t wear masks (particularly the kind of people who are willing to ignore other rules).  Thirdly, the unexpected happens.  They aren’t in their usual environment and they’re like children breathlessly telling each other about the dangerous slidey tracks they’ve just been down.  This heavily increases the risk that they will end up needing an ambulance or even just that they will need assistance having hurt themselves.

Now, you can say that all of this is secondary to the notion of exercise and that it is technically possible for people to individually drive somewhere, have a sober piece of exercise and then drive home again.  But to say this would be to completely misunderstand the behaviour of people on a day out.  If you want to prevent the problem behaviours, it’s much more effective and policeable  to simply tell people that it’s just not the time to be driving for a nice day out in the country.


----------



## bimble (Jan 12, 2021)

Apologies if it’s already been posted but I thought this was really good, on the seductive folly of blaming individuals / lockdown fatigue.








						Pandemic fatigue? How adherence to covid-19 regulations has been misrepresented and why it matters - The BMJ
					

As England and Scotland start another period of lockdown, we all have to come to terms with following stricter covid-19 restrictions, most likely for a relatively long period of time. [...]More...




					blogs.bmj.com


----------



## killer b (Jan 12, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I think discussions like the one about dissection of the rules we're having here are a large reason why people think like this.
> 
> In my experience, especially now, most people wear a mask when they come into where I work and socially distance. However, there are still a noticeable minority of people who think the rules don't apply to them. Further to that there's an alarming number of fuckwits who can't even wear their mask properly when they do have one on. It's like they haven't realised in their decades of existence on this planet that their nose is also an air way, an air way that a respiratory virus can enter and leave your body through.
> 
> I do place the majority of blame on the government for its garbled messaging but the rules, at their core, are pretty simple. Stay the fuck away from people unless it's essential to go near them and wear a piece of cloth over your mouth and nose when you do. Far too many people can't seem to grasp this, still, 9 months into a pandemic, so I do put a good chunk of blame on to the general public too but mostly it lies with the government. The cunts will probably win the next election too and we'll do that merry dance again of trying to 'understand' why so many people voted for them yet again.


The - unsubtle I thought - point of the post you were replying to was that a focus on the petty infractions of our neighbours leads to an impression that those infractions are a bigger problem than they are, which then leads to people telling YouGov surveys that they hold the public more responsible for rising infections than the government.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 12, 2021)

kabbes said:


> If you want to prevent the problem behaviours, it’s much more effective and policeable  to simply tell people that it’s just not the time to be driving for a nice day out in the country.


Exactly this. For any given number of people travelling somewhere, some % of those will get in an accident, or break down, or experience some other event that brings them into much closer contact with many more people than they intended or expected to when they set out. Nobody thinks it will happen to them, until it does.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 12, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Police in England say they won't enforce masks in supermarkets
> 
> 
> Senior officers reject Matt Hancock’s support for greater role in overseeing Covid rules
> ...



That's hardly surprising, they don't have the resources. Supermarkets should do the enforcing, they are private property and entitled to refuse entry, and it's not like they can't afford to employ extra security, and with the pubs & clubs closed, there's plenty of trained door-safe staff available.

From the link, and demonstrating how slack enforcement has been here -



> Police are being quicker to issue fines to those they believe will not comply with the rules but are wedded to an approach of trying to encourage people. *Police in England and Wales have issued around 30,000 penalty notices, while counterparts in France have issued over 1 million. *


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 12, 2021)

They should fine the supermarkets, as is the case with underage booze and tobacco sales.


----------



## Doodler (Jan 12, 2021)

Sainsburys and Morrisons to use security guards to enforce mask-wearing in their stores:









						Sainsbury's joins Morrisons in enforcing mask rule for customers
					

Supermarkets crack down on people shopping in groups to prevent Covid infections




					www.theguardian.com
				




The British Retail Consortium are quoted as saying the police should be doing this, i.e. our members don't want to spend any money enforcing the rules. But hopefully other chains will soon follow the example of Sainsbury's and Morrisons.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 12, 2021)

I'm happy to have an excuse not to drive anywhere personally.


----------



## killer b (Jan 12, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> They should fine the supermarkets, as is the case with underage booze and tobacco sales.


yeah, it shouldn't really need police involvement unless the customer gets violent - it should simply be a condition of being able to remain open. Close supermarkets that don't enforce.


----------



## Doodler (Jan 12, 2021)

You don't hear much about the Nudge Unit these days (nudge nudge). Perhaps a review of their amazing Bene Gesserit-like psychology skills is due.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 12, 2021)

Doodler said:


> You don't hear much about the Nudge Unit these days (nudge nudge).



If you did, they wouldn't be doing their jobs very well.


----------



## Doodler (Jan 12, 2021)

.


----------



## andysays (Jan 12, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> If you did, they wouldn't be doing their jobs very well.


The first rule of Nudge Unit ..


----------



## Sunray (Jan 12, 2021)

kabbes said:


> It misses some of the key points, though, as to why we want to stop people travelling places for recreation, even if that recreation itself is outdoors.  Firstly, they have to get there.  I’m seeing groups of people turning up in the same vehicle, and whilst a large proportion of these may share households, it’s palpably obvious many do not.  And they don’t get their petrol through the ether either.  Secondly, people having a nice day out tend, in my observation, not to just do their thing and go home.  At a weekend, when all the cyclists drive up, they then besiege the local shop.  They want coffee and sausage rolls and cake and pasties.  But they are not adequately distancing — the tiny shop is not designed to deal with that many people in any kind of safety.  And many aren’t wearing masks because many people don’t wear masks (particularly the kind of people who are willing to ignore other rules).  Thirdly, the unexpected happens.  They aren’t in their usual environment and they’re like children breathlessly telling each other about the dangerous slidey tracks they’ve just been down.  This heavily increases the risk that they will end up needing an ambulance or even just that they will need assistance having hurt themselves.
> 
> Now, you can say that all of this is secondary to the notion of exercise and that it is technically possible for people to individually drive somewhere, have a sober piece of exercise and then drive home again.  But to say this would be to completely misunderstand the behaviour of people on a day out.  If you want to prevent the probehaviours, it’s much more effective and policeable  to simply tell people that it’s just not the time to be driving for a nice day out in the country.



Say what you want about the wording and ambiguity of the rules but it’s clear on this, it’s not allowed we all know it.

Community policing only works because we all know right and wrong and only a small minority are crims. If everyone breaks a law, is not a law that can be policed.   Is there are enough police to ensure rule breaking carries a serious risk of getting caught? This would definitely deter a lot of people.

The police are conspicuous by their absence. I’m guessing the Tories don’t want to set the dogs on their supporters.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 12, 2021)

killer b said:


> The - unsubtle I thought - point of the post you were replying to was that a focus on the petty infractions of our neighbours leads to an impression that those infractions are a bigger problem than they are, which then leads to people telling YouGov surveys that they hold the public more responsible for rising infections than the government.



Not wearing a mask in a little corner shop seems petty to you but to me who works in one it's pretty frightening. When I see someone not wearing a mask I'm not thinking 'oh it's not their fault for not following the rules it's the government's fault for not being clear' instead I'm thinking 'put a fucking mask on you selfish cunt.'


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 12, 2021)

You work in a corner shop iirc


----------



## killer b (Jan 12, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Not wearing a mask in a little corner shop seems petty to you but to me who works in one it's pretty frightening. When I see someone not wearing a mask I'm not thinking 'oh it's not their fault for not following the rules it's the government's fault for not being clear' instead I'm thinking 'put a fucking mask on you selfish cunt.'


Sure, I think that too in the actual moment - which happens fairly regularly, as if 90% of people are compliant that means on average one in every 10 people you encounter aren't. And it's true - although I'm not sure if it's selfishness exactly, selfishness suggests they gain something by not wearing a mask while the opposite is true - stupidity or pig-headed denialism perhaps? But they're still a small minority of people and I think we should try to keep it in context.

I know it's probably just blowing off steam for most people, but I genuinely think the cumulative effect of these constant complaints about infractions we see and experience out and about is pretty corrosive, as has been demonstrated by that yougov poll.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 12, 2021)

bimble said:


> Apologies if it’s already been posted but I thought this was really good, on the seductive folly of blaming individuals / lockdown fatigue.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This is a good piece. I know most people do follow the rules, wear masks and the like and, despite seeing people not doing it,I still blame government for the mess we're in. 

I do sometimes feel there's a patronising narrative though, not just about covid but other things too, that says some sections of the public are more just victims of circumstance and that they do certain things solely down to their economic circumstances and not because they're selfish, ignorant fuckwits. Whereas in reality it can be both those things. I hate the term covidiot but there's this sort of wet Liberal narrative that says 'ooh we mustn't use that term' and how we should all be kind. I'm fine with being kind but not to people who repeatedly ignore what's going on around them and carry on like normal. 

I just don't think it's helpful to blame the government for everything and ignore the personal and social responsibility that we all have as well.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 12, 2021)

killer b said:


> yeah, it shouldn't really need police involvement unless the customer gets violent - it should simply be a condition of being able to remain open. Close supermarkets that don't enforce.



Its fucking concerning its 10 months in and shops are still only just saying they are enforcing this though.

I can see it being reasonable for police to piss around near massive stores if not the smaller Tesco Locals and corner shops as well.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 12, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> You work in a corner shop iirc



Yeah I do. Thankfully it's quieter this time round and I've been less frightened than I was before but I am feeling a bit edgy again. I suspect it's colouring my viewpoint somewhat!


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 12, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Its fucking concerning its 10 months in and shops are still only just saying they are enforcing this though.
> 
> I can see it being reasonable for police to piss around near massive stores if not the smaller Tesco Locals and corner shops as well.



I wish the government turned round and said they'd fine the shops themselves for not enforcing it. That way it means I can unambiguously refuse to serve people. There is too much open for interpretation and this is really where the government is at fault.

I won't serve anyone underage and everyone's on board with that, even the person trying to buy the booze. With masks though there's always the risk of getting into an argument or worse so my approach to enforcement is mixed at best.


----------



## Doodler (Jan 12, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Yeah I do. Thankfully it's quiter this time round and I've been less frightened than I was before but I am feeling a bit edgy again. I suspect it's colouring my viewpoint somewhat!



I work in retail and share similar feelings to yourself. Bad behaviour from some people was predictable and the government should have anticipated this. The management of the road system is based on knowledge of people's abilities and behaviour and it works pretty well. The same hasnt happened with the pandemic.

Time and again I'm struck by how poorly the government have communicated basic information about masks, enclosed spaces etc. I returned to work yesterday after having Covid, and spoke with several workmates about it. Not one of them had heard of the possible benefits of taking Vitamin D. This isn't difficult to convey - failure to do so by the government is a dereliction of duty.


----------



## flypanam (Jan 12, 2021)

TopCat said:


> It's not the UK but the numbers in Ireland are way off the scale.
> 
> Anecdotally we have a friend who went to say goodbye to her Mum (who subsequently died of covid) who is trying and failing to self isolate. Endless fucking visitors from the Priest to every fucker in the village.
> 
> ...


The number of people living in the UK and flying home for xmas via belfast to evade the quarantine and the mandatory Covid test after 5 days was incredible. My mam said that RTE was filming beslfast international and nearly every fucker was being picked up by a southern reg car. We were meant to go home but in the end my auld pair asked us not to. 

The funeral and wake stuff is a hard one to get in order, they are such a big part of community life especially in small towns and villages. There would be an element of social shame if people didn't pay their respects, which at the moment communities should forego the tradition but collective memory is a hard thing to break.


----------



## xenon (Jan 12, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Its fucking concerning its 10 months in and shops are still only just saying they are enforcing this though.
> 
> I can see it being reasonable for police to piss around near massive stores if not the smaller Tesco Locals and corner shops as well.



My nearest supermarket  actually has a police post in the store anyway.


----------



## Elpenor (Jan 12, 2021)

Starting to think that compliance is one of those irregular verbs?

I comply with the rules completely.
You have people over for Sunday lunch but shouldn’t.
He had a New Year’s Eve party and behaved irresponsibly.


----------



## xenon (Jan 12, 2021)

Doodler said:


> I work in retail and share similar feelings to yourself. Bad behaviour from some people was predictable and the government should have anticipated this. The management of the road system is based on knowledge of people's abilities and behaviour and it works pretty well. The same hasnt happened with the pandemic.
> 
> Time and again I'm struck by how poorly the government have communicated basic information about masks, enclosed spaces etc. I returned to work yesterday after having Covid, and spoke with several workmates about it. Not one of them had heard of the possible benefits of taking Vitamin D. This isn't difficult to convey - failure to do so by the government is a dereliction of duty.



I think the science on that isn't 100% yet. Also and I could be wrong TBF, but it's possible to over dose on vitemine D, so without specifying who should take how much, a generalised message of get more of this, might risk that too. But ventilation should have been given much more prominence in messaging.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 12, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Starting to think that compliance is one of those irregular verbs?
> 
> I comply with the rules completely.
> You have people over for Sunday lunch but shouldn’t.
> He had a New Year’s Eve party and behaved irresponsibly.



Its why I've been wary of reading to much into these polls saying "oh yeah I agree the government should lock people down"



xenon said:


> I think the science on that isn't 100% yet. Also and I could be wrong TBF, but it's possible to over dose on vitemine D, so without specifying who should take how much, a generalised message of get more of this, might risk that too. But ventilation should have been given much more prominence in messaging.



Its a nice to have and boosts the immune system slightly.

This reminds me though, I've still not had the free Vitamin D the government said I could have before Christmas.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 12, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Its why I've been wary of reading to much into these polls saying "oh yeah I agree the government should lock people down"



I think it's usually interpreted as 'the government should lock OTHER people down' tbh. It's those other people, they're the problem.

I make myself notice the people who behave themselves and act considerately. There are a lot of them. Even though most of them are at home, they still make up the vast majority of those who are out and about. Round here at least. Glad I'm not in London.


----------



## Doodler (Jan 12, 2021)

xenon said:


> I think the science on that isn't 100% yet. Also and I could be wrong TBF, but it's possible to over dose on vitemine D, so without specifying who should take how much, a generalised message of get more of this, might risk that too. But ventilation should have been given much more prominence in messaging.



If Dominic Cummings owned a Vitamin D pill factory we'd hear a lot more about its benefits.

This is a very recent summary of what's known about Vitamin D and Covid. In short: there is a lot of at least circumstantial evidence in favour of taking Vitamin D during the pandemic, and seeing as it's so cheap to make, why not encourage its use?









						Does vitamin D combat Covid?
					

It’s cheap, widely available and might help us fend off the virus. So should we all be dosing up on the sunshine nutrient?




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 12, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I think it's usually interpreted as 'the government should lock OTHER people down' tbh. It's those other people, they're the problem.
> 
> I make myself notice the people who behave themselves and act considerately. There are a lot of them. Even though most of them are at home, they still make up the vast majority of those who are out and about. Round here at least. Glad I'm not in London.



Strangely I kind of miss being somewhere built up during this, there is fuck all around here to do at the best of times and while I love the forest its a) to crowded to enjoy fully right now b) wet and muddy as fuck. Probably not having problems right now but if we come out of lockdown and its still not best to take a train somewhere it would be nice to have somewhere to walk to and a destination to go to.


----------



## andysays (Jan 12, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I think it's usually interpreted as 'the government should lock OTHER people down' tbh. It's those other people, they're the problem.
> 
> I make myself notice the people who behave themselves and act considerately. There are a lot of them. Even though most of them are at home, they still make up the vast majority of those who are out and about. Round here at least. Glad I'm not in London.


Just for your information, most people in London behave considerately as well, at least in my experience.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 12, 2021)

Anecdotally I think people are actually noticeably better with masks in shops now than before the start of lockdown 3 (and friends of mine have agreed). The few who aren't seem particularly egregious now, but I'm trying not to let that skew my perception.


----------



## Chairman Meow (Jan 12, 2021)

My mum in NI told me most of her neighbours had large family xmas days, Her and my stepdad were planning to spend it with my stepbrother, but he came down with symptoms the day before, thankfully he was negative. Three families that she knows of in the street have all came down with it. Her neighbour had his mum and dad over, they are in their 80s and were shielding since March.  The old man was taken to hospital a few days ago, they were told to say their goodbyes at the ambulance. He died yesterday, the son is devastated.  Its sad, but what on earth were they thinking?


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 12, 2021)

andysays said:


> Just for your information, most people in London behave considerately as well, at least in my experience.


Yes.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 12, 2021)

Summary of deaths during 2020 from the ONS, note figures are for only England & Wales. 



> Last year was the deadliest in a century, with almost as many fatalities documented in absolute terms in England and Wales in 2020 as at the height of the flu pandemic in 1918.
> 
> More than 608,000 deaths were recorded, with 81,653 attributable to coronavirus, last year according to new figures released by the Office for National Statistics.
> 
> ...


----------



## Supine (Jan 12, 2021)

Working away from home in the Midlands at the moment. Things are feeling very bad. Face to face meetings are banned. 26 cases here of which 7 were asymptomatic (or pre maybe). Lost three engineers to it, replaced one and the replacement has now tested positive. It is becoming VERY difficult to manufacture pharma products now. I'm going home early tomorrow - fuck this. 

In a service station this morning I was the only person out of seven wearing a mask.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 12, 2021)

I think the role of misinformation is also a big factor in noncompliance. If people are constantly reading covid denial in and around the main narrative, then there is an assumption that they will fall naturally along with the "main" narrative and follow the rules. I have seen very boring local parents' facebook groups spiral into rabid Covid truth wars, with, honestly, the deniers being the largest voice (surely, hopefully, the case of the loud and vocal minority). The seeds of doubt spread - "If so many people are saying this is bullshit, do I really have to go back to the car to get the mask I forgot?"


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 12, 2021)

killer b said:


> The - unsubtle I thought - point of the post you were replying to was that a focus on the petty infractions of our neighbours leads to an impression that those infractions are a bigger problem than they are, which then leads to people telling YouGov surveys that they hold the public more responsible for rising infections than the government.


Yes, fair point.


----------



## kebabking (Jan 12, 2021)

I think that compliance - or, perhaps more importantly, safety - is pretty good out here in the sticks.

Of the 100 or do houses in our village - and I've lived here a while, I know which cars belong here - I'd say less than a handful had visitors on Xmas day or other days. Family/friends visit, but it's conversations had on the drive. Social distancing in the local town is good, in fact the one incident of non-social distancing/mask wearing stands out so much that it's a huge outlier.

We do get used as an access point for the countryside, but apart from the odd bit of _parking like a cunt _it's not overly problematic. mountain bikers and their vans are the real nuisance, but while they do come in groups, they tend not to be traveling together. From a parking perspective it would be better if they did...


----------



## ska invita (Jan 12, 2021)

Are case numbers coming down for real? Or is it just a stat gathering blip?


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jan 12, 2021)

A friend just texted me these recommendations from psychologists for anyone struggling to cope - apologies, can't find a link. Hope it's helpful. Mods, feel free to move if it's not the right thread.


1) Isolate yourself from news about the virus. (Everything going we need to know, we already know).

2) Don't look out for death toll. It's not a cricket match to know the latest score. Avoid that.

3) Don't look for additional information on the internet, it would weaken your mental state.

4) Avoid sending fatalistic messages. Some people don't have the same mental strength as you (Instead of helping, you could activate pathologies such as depression).

5) If possible, listen to music at home at a pleasant volume. Look for board games to entertain children, tell stories and future plans.

6) Maintain discipline in the home by washing your hands, putting up a sign or alarm for everyone in the house.

7) Your positive mood will help protect your immune system, while negative thoughts have been shown to depress your immune system and make it weak against viruses.

8) Most importantly, firmly believe that this shall also pass and we will be safe!

#Health


Stay positive. Stay safe.


----------



## LDC (Jan 12, 2021)

Chairman Meow said:


> My mum in NI told me most of her neighbours had large family xmas days, Her and my stepdad were planning to spend it with my stepbrother, but he came down with symptoms the day before, thankfully he was negative. Three families that she knows of in the street have all came down with it. Her neighbour had his mum and dad over, they are in their 80s and were shielding since March.  The old man was taken to hospital a few days ago, they were told to say their goodbyes at the ambulance. He died yesterday, the son is devastated.  Its sad, but what on earth were they thinking?



One of the things that I haven't see addressed at all is the guilt and trauma that some people might have from having bent/broken the rules and ended up with dead relatives or friends as a direct result of it.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jan 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> One of the things that I haven't see addressed at all is the guilt and trauma that some people might have from having bent/broken the rules and ended up with dead relatives or friends as a direct result of it.


They're probably the same people who will dismiss their relative or friend's death as nothing to do with Covid, though...


----------



## LDC (Jan 12, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> They're probably the same people who will dismiss their relative or friend's death as nothing to do with Covid, though...



I suspect some will as coping mechanism maybe, as the reality will be too horrible to deal with. Dunno, any of the head doctors on here have thoughts.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 12, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> They're probably the same people who will dismiss their relative or friend's death as nothing to do with Covid, though...



Or "they had another condition so they were going to die soon anyway" is another good one I'm sure some will use 

Once it's done it's done  but the other question is whether it changes their behaviour.


----------



## kebabking (Jan 12, 2021)

(again, hopefully...)

The barrister Adam Wenger has complied a table of the 65 bits of Covid related legislation - and amendments to that legislation.

There's nothing like clear, consistant communication of easily understandable concepts. And this is....


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> One of the things that I haven't see addressed at all is the guilt and trauma that some people might have from having bent/broken the rules and ended up with dead relatives or friends as a direct result of it.



I think some of those who believe that this is Bill Gates doing, or is part of the "Great Reset", or that it is a government plot to enforce communistic tyranny, will find themselves in interesting contemplative spaces when, two years on from now, *if *things are back to normal, they will look back and see themselves as one of those who willfully broke the rules. In the absence of any of their fears having coming true, that must be a weird space to be in, especially if people reflect back on this period similar to how grandparents looked back on the "war effort."


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 12, 2021)

I work in a public library and we’ve been told we have to let maskless people in. I intend to disobey this instruction to protect myself and my colleagues and my family. If my employer won’t take steps to protect us, we have to take action ourselves. Luckily no one has challenged us on the issue yet. People are staying away this lockdown, thankfully


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 12, 2021)

Noticed a lot less people out and about this time than in November.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 12, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> I think some of those who believe that this is Bill Gates doing, or is part of the "Great Reset", or that it is a government plot to enforce communistic tyranny, will find themselves in interesting contemplative spaces when, two years on from now, *if *things are back to normal, they will look back and see themselves as one of those who willfully broke the rules. In the absence of any of their fears having coming true, that must be a weird space to be in, especially if people reflect back on this period similar to how grandparents looked back on the "war effort."


They'll probably be boasting about how they beat up anyone not wearing a mask


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 12, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> They'll probably be boasting about how they beat up anyone not wearing a mask


the re-framing will be interesting, that's for sure.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 12, 2021)

Just received a covid test in the post. It says that you have to post it in a priority post box. It seems a bit mad that you actually have to walk there? The post box is in front of a parade of shops where there are often loads of people. The previous test I took for the Zoe study you arranged a courier.


----------



## Doodler (Jan 12, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I work in a public library and we’ve been told we have to let maskless people in. I intend to disobey this instruction to protect myself and my colleagues and my family. If my employer won’t take steps to protect us, we have to take action ourselves. Luckily no one has challenged us on the issue yet. People are staying away this lockdown, thankfully



Good for you and good luck.


----------



## Cid (Jan 12, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I work in a public library and we’ve been told we have to let maskless people in. I intend to disobey this instruction to protect myself and my colleagues and my family. If my employer won’t take steps to protect us, we have to take action ourselves. Luckily no one has challenged us on the issue yet. People are staying away this lockdown, thankfully



Your employer has er... not been great... through this.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I suspect some will as coping mechanism maybe, as the reality will be too horrible to deal with. Dunno, any of the head doctors on here have thoughts.


I think that, absent a very obvious (and I mean IN YER FACE OBVIOUS) cause/effect link, many people will rationalise such a death in any way they can that absolves them of responsibility. That's wired-in - our psyches are very good at giving us soft landings when terrible things happen - and it takes a degree of self-awareness and emotional responsibility to see past the denial and recognise what actually happened.

But then people with a degree of self-awareness and emotional responsibility are fairly likely not to have made the dangerous choice in the first place.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 12, 2021)

I am living with three other older adults - and I'm in my mid 60s - one of whom is almost paranoid about the risks of serious illness / death if we get covid.

We are able to get deliveries (and parcel collections) this time, in the first lockdown we couldn't get into the delivery slots as new customers ... 

Therefore, we are staying in the house and garden. The only outside exercise is taking turns to walk the dog out for a change of scenery, late afternoon. 
[there's only one neighbouring house, and we don't even see the couple that live there !]

I have been doing 99.9% of my work as WFH, either email or by phone. I last had a "site" meeting in September - everyone masked, socially distanced and outside !


----------



## rutabowa (Jan 12, 2021)

my friend from the punk scene (where there are LOADS of dumb old guys who reckon it's all a conspiracy theory) just posted this, he works in one of the big supermarkets, i think it is an absolutely wonderful way to get the message accross and that he should be put in charge of covid messaging:

" So at work when all this Covid started we had a handful of people who caught it, but this new variant is spreading through our store like wild fire, we have got 7 manages off with it, and of course staff, there are giving normal members of staff managers jobs to keep the place running, NOW THIS IS THE BEST BIT , since march all ive heard from my manager is IM NOT WEARING A MASK, ITS BULLSHIT CANT MAKE ME WEAR ONE - I DONT CARE ABOUT LOCK DOWN RULES, IM GONNA BREAK THEM AND VISIT MY 91 YEAR OLD FATHER, moaned at the restaurant he booked because they cancelled his family Christmas meal because numbers of infections had risen, was saying members of staff who had phoned in sick due to Covid was liars and just wanted time of work over the Christmas period, WAIT FOR IT - YOU ALL KNOW WHATS COMING -  Boxing Day he collapses at home and cannot breath, his wife calls for a ambulance , he refuses to go to hospital, he spends over a hour in the ambulance being give oxygen. anyway he came back to work a coupe of nights ago, he should still be at home resting he looks ill and scared/in shock, now the fucking joke is , he`s running round telling everyone to put a mask on , don't stand so close to each other, what a fucking hypocrite. he spent 10 months giving it all the billy big balls now he walking round shitting himself like the grim reapers up his arse.  my mums best friend died at the weekend because if it, some one in her hospital ward gave it to her, took less than 2 weeks to finish her off. its been nearly a year shame it takes all this just to get someone to put a fucking mask on there face and to wash there hands. i know you can still catch it if you play the by the rules, but at least we trying. anyway rant over, back to posting pics of 80`s toys. peace out 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 "

(I also agree in general that we the people shouldn't be turning on each other and should focussing any anger on the government btw though)


----------



## andysays (Jan 12, 2021)

Priti Patel leading today's press conference, so expect more news about police are about to get tough on people taking the wrong sort of exercise or drinking coffee in a public place...


----------



## TopCat (Jan 12, 2021)

andysays said:


> Priti Patel leading today's press conference, so expect more news about police are about to get tough on people taking the wrong sort of exercise or drinking coffee in a public place...


Really? What time is this? I need to make popcorn.


----------



## Deej1992 (Jan 12, 2021)

Should make for some fireworks that.


----------



## kebabking (Jan 12, 2021)

TopCat said:


> Really? What time is this? I need to make popcorn.



I'm assuming 5pm.

She'll make an absolute bollocks of it. This, I accept, is not exactly a 'well stone the crows' level prediction...

I expect lots of hot air, and completely ignoring that the _law _bares little relationship to the (revised)  guidance, let alone whatever fuckwitted drivel passes her lips....


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 12, 2021)

andysays said:


> Priti Patel leading today's press conference, so expect more news about police are about to get tough on people taking the wrong sort of exercise or drinking coffee in a public place...



I remember her last one, telling us shop lifting was down.

Yeah, most the bloody shops were closed, you twat.


----------



## rutabowa (Jan 12, 2021)

andysays said:


> Priti Patel leading today's press conference, so expect more news about police are about to get tough on people taking the wrong sort of exercise or drinking coffee in a public place...


ffs. get my mate above on, would be far more effective genuinely. they shouldn't have any divisive political figures delivering important messages, it should be actual human beings.


----------



## Sue (Jan 12, 2021)

I don't know how you lot can do it to yourselves. Good that someone does though as means the rest of us can just look on here instead  .

ETA Just to clarify, watch Patel, Johnson etc.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 12, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Just received a covid test in the post. It says that you have to post it in a priority post box. It seems a bit mad that you actually have to walk there? The post box is in front of a parade of shops where there are often loads of people. The previous test I took for the Zoe study you arranged a courier.



You should be able to get a courier to collect. It was definitely available to me when I took my last test (which was recommended to me to take by Zoe but was ordered through the gov site).


----------



## TopCat (Jan 12, 2021)

Well the BBC have confirmed Priti this afternoon but no confirmation of the time yet.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 12, 2021)

Sue said:


> I don't know how you lot can do it to yourselves. Good that someone does though as means the rest of us can just look on here instead  .
> 
> ETA Just to clarify, watch Patel, Johnson etc.



Masochism.


----------



## bimble (Jan 12, 2021)

I’m not going to sit through Patel, her weird fixed smile gives me bad dreams. If she announces deportation for sitting on a park bench I’ll read it here.


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Are case numbers coming down for real? Or is it just a stat gathering blip?



I believe there are signs of falls in some regions. I started to pick up on this last week but the signals were a bit too weak for me to say much beyond some vague waffle about how I hoped to see tentative signs of an improvement in the coming days.

We should probably expect that the likes of the regional data from the ZOE Covid app to show indications of this first, which should also be supported by postiive case data on the official dashboard. I believe I heard that ZOEs recent estimates for R in London was now below 1, or at least within a range that includes a lower end value of less than 1. But I havent looked for myself. Anyone here looked into this?

Mostly I wait for hospital data to show signs of this stuff before going on about it with more certainty. And we are not quite there yet with that data, but I hope that a time comes this week where I can post graphs that start to tell that story. Only once that shows up really clearly will I start to comment on regional variations in the picture, which might be significant, especially to start with.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 12, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Are case numbers coming down for real? Or is it just a stat gathering blip?


Carl Baker, a statistician in the House of Commons library, has produced this map showing weekly change up to 6th Jan:







As you can see, some areas (especially in the south east) saw falls that week while other areas (Merseyside, West Midlands, parts of Lancs, Isle of Whight) saw massive rises.


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Summary of deaths during 2020 from the ONS, note figures are for only England & Wales.



Bad stuff, I knew that sort of number was coming based on what data showed a few weeks ago at that stage, so made a post about how it would be over 600,000, but still had to wait for the final bits of data. I dont actually know where the Guardian got 608,000 from since the ONS themselves say:



> Using the most up-to-date data we have available, the number of deaths up to 1 January 2021 was 614,096


 (from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics )

That would push the figure above the 1918 level. But perhaps the Guardian have compensated for the fact that the first weeks data for 2020 was for week ending 3rd Jan 2020, so included some days from the end of 2019. I dont know. Its quite possible I missed something else where this is explained. Either way, a final number for the year usually takes a very long time indeed to be published, but it should end up hugely different from these early provision figures.

ONS also have trouble trying to do death modelling estimates by date of occurrence and excess deaths (rather than total deaths) for the last week of 2020 because it was a 53 week year and they dont have a 53rd week for most of the last 5 years figures that they use to come up with a baseline average above which counts as excess. 

If I use the 614,096 figure then this is what the historical deaths picture looks like for England and Wales. I used an estimate based on weekly numbers for the 2019 figure too. And none of this stuff is adjusted for population size and age, just raw numbers. So I'll quote a tiny bit of population size context from that Guardian piece:



> The death toll is second in absolute terms to the record set in 1918, when 611,861 people died at the peak of the flu pandemic in England and Wales. However, the mortality rate was higher in 1918, when approximately 38.4 million people lived in England and Wales, compared with 59.4 million today.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 12, 2021)

TopCat said:


> Well the BBC have confirmed Priti this afternoon but no confirmation of the time yet.


Eighteen past twelvetynumber


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Jan 12, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> I think some of those who believe that this is Bill Gates doing, or is part of the "Great Reset", or that it is a government plot to enforce communistic tyranny, will find themselves in interesting contemplative spaces when, two years on from now, *if *things are back to normal, they will look back and see themselves as one of those who willfully broke the rules. In the absence of any of their fears having coming true, that must be a weird space to be in, especially if people reflect back on this period similar to how grandparents looked back on the "war effort."


I have an acquaintance who was totally convinced a few years back that Planet X was going to appear and destroy all life on Earth (part of the Mayan calendar mumbo jumbo). Totally unphased when it didn't happen. I'm sure many of the current  crop of deniers will quickly find someone else to blame when things turn out differently to their expectations. 5G caused it, for example. By the way, Gates starts with the letter G and if you add 1 to the number of letters in Bill you get 5. See what I mean?


----------



## andysays (Jan 12, 2021)

bimble said:


> I’m not going to sit through Patel, her weird fixed smile gives me bad dreams. If she announces *deportation for sitting on a park bench* I’ll read it here.


Have they leaked this already?


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 12, 2021)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> By the way, Gates starts with the letter G and if you add 1 to the number of letters in Bill you get 5. See what I mean?


----------



## miss direct (Jan 12, 2021)

Can they deport me back to Turkey please? I sat on a bench for a whole hour today, reading a book.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 12, 2021)

We desperately need some entertainment after having Whitty in his own advert of hell unleashed.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 12, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Can they deport me back to Turkey please? I sat on a bench for a whole hour today, reading a book.



Careful now.


----------



## Smangus (Jan 12, 2021)

TopCat said:


> We desperately need some entertainment after having Whitty in his own advert of hell unleashed.



Agreed, but Patel and her rigor mortis isn't it.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 12, 2021)

Priti Patel on the mic for this evening's government Covidisco.

* dancefloor empties *


----------



## Sue (Jan 12, 2021)

Has the briefing or whatever happen Anything of any import to report?


----------



## TopCat (Jan 12, 2021)

Has she been on already?


----------



## LDC (Jan 12, 2021)

She tripped over on the way to the lectern, and is now suggesting capital punishment for those that break lockdown unless you have an income of over £185,000 a year.


----------



## Numbers (Jan 12, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Can they deport me back to Turkey please? I sat on a bench for a whole hour today, reading a book.


May I ask.  Do/would you consider moving back?  It’s not been easy for you for such a big move.


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 12, 2021)

Following online. But giving her a number to read out straight off was risking it a bit no?


----------



## Numbers (Jan 12, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Following online. But giving her a number to read out straight off was risking it a bit no?


My missus said ‘good, get the numbers out of the way early’.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 12, 2021)

1243 new deaths reported today, up from 830 last Tuesday. 

The 7-day average of reported daily deaths was 676 last Tue., it went up to 926 yesterday, this takes it to 984 or 985, that's a total 45.6% increase in the last 7 days.


----------



## LDC (Jan 12, 2021)

I mean I'm one of the first to moan about people breaking rules, but fucking hell, a year into this pandemic, 1,200+ dead today, the whole country in a fucking mess, some grim weeks ahead, and what they're going on about is some people having raves and some not wearing masks on trains. What a fucking joke.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 12, 2021)

Has she said how sorry she is to 1243 families?


----------



## kebabking (Jan 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> She tripped over on the way to the lectern, and is now suggesting capital punishment for those that break lockdown unless you have an income of over £185,000 a year.



Sensible policies for a happier Britain.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 12, 2021)

Well she didn't answer the first question.


----------



## LDC (Jan 12, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Has she said how sorry she is to 1243 families?



She's actually painful to watch. I can't think of the phrase or term to describe it, but she strings together words and short phrases that individually make sense, but all together are just nonsense.

"In terms of that, thank you, the priority groups, reducing the numbers of people, the JVCI have a good plan, and I support police officers." WTF?


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 12, 2021)

Well the BBC are reporting Hewitt as saying

"We will not linger on encouragement for those not following the rules".

What?


----------



## Spandex (Jan 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I mean I'm one of the first to moan about people breaking rules, but fucking hell, a year into this pandemic, 1,200+ dead today, the whole country in a fucking mess, some grim weeks ahead, and what they're going on about is some people having raves and some not wearing masks on trains. What a fucking joke.


That's because this is all caused by rule breaking individuals. It's nothing to do with the government's ill judged decision to save Christmas or totally failing to control the spread of the new strain. Oh no. It's because some kids had a rave, some shithead refused to wear a mask and because Doris popped round Mary's house.


----------



## Sue (Jan 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> She's actually painful to watch. I can't think of the phrase or term to describe it, but she strings together words and short phrases that individually make sense, but all together are just nonsense.
> 
> "In terms of that, thank you, the priority groups, reducing the numbers of people, the JVCI have a good plan, and I support police officers." WTF?


Is it like Boardroom Bingo and she's just stringing together the management-speak phrases she drew out the hat...?   Thank fuck this isn't about anything important. Oh.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 12, 2021)

It's going to get worst, as of Sun. 10th, there was 35,075 covid patients in hospital, the peak in the first wave was 'just' 21,648, that's an increase of over 60%.


----------



## LDC (Jan 12, 2021)

How the actual suffering fuck is she Home Secretary?


----------



## Supine (Jan 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> She's actually painful to watch. I can't think of the phrase or term to describe it, but she strings together words and short phrases that individually make sense, but all together are just nonsense.



Word Salad. Truly painful to watch.


----------



## Cid (Jan 12, 2021)

Questions aren't exactly brilliant.


----------



## circleline (Jan 12, 2021)

Supermarkets, in my (eye of the storm) area at least, appear to have abandoned the strict one-way system that was in place for lock-down no.1.  Seems regressive and smacks of Covid-fatigue..


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jan 12, 2021)

circleline said:


> Supermarkets, in my (eye of the storm) area at least, appear to have abandoned the strict one-way system that was in place for lock-down no.1.  Seems regressive and smacks of Covid-fatigue..


I notice also that even though they have markers indicating you should stand there until the person in front of you has moved, there's no way they're six feet apart. Probably not possible? I don't know. But yeah, social distancing at all times isn't as easy as it sounds. I like Spandex 's point above. The UK is a very tiny island, and a very densely populated island at that, so I think the virus would spread fast even if everyone was technically "obeying", which from my own observation most people seem to. But just like with benefit cuts, it's so much easier for the gov to scapegoat the little guy than it is to look at their own cack-handed, inconsistent advice.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 12, 2021)

Social distancing in supermarkets is fantasy stuff as far as I can see. Most people try their best but it's really only possible to a limited degree. Better to accept that and control for things like masks, numbers allowed in etc than messing around with markers and distancing reminders.


----------



## Raheem (Jan 12, 2021)

circleline said:


> Supermarkets, in my (eye of the storm) area at least, appear to have abandoned the strict one-way system that was in place for lock-down no.1.  Seems regressive and smacks of Covid-fatigue..


Could be, or it could be something that has been assessed as not having a significant benefit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 12, 2021)

She made a big thing about 45,000 fines having been issued, shame none of the media pointed out that in France over a million have been issued.

Tough on enforcement, my arse.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 12, 2021)

Anything Priti Patel says I should do immediately makes me want to do the opposite.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 12, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Social distancing in supermarkets is fantasy stuff as far as I can see. Most people try their best but it's really only possible to a limited degree. Better to accept that and control for things like masks, numbers allowed in etc than messing around with markers and distancing reminders.


It could be made much better though quite easily - strict limits on numbers inside, based on the square footage. Then one way systems, distance markers on the floor. But, most importantly of all - one adult per household only. Stop the fucking family outings, the “oh, isn’t it a surprise I’ve bumped into you here” bullshit that supermarket workers up and down the country are reporting.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 12, 2021)

Well done sky news shifting focus to workplaces and public transport from easy targets.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 12, 2021)

is she _pissed?_


----------



## circleline (Jan 12, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> It could be made much better though quite easily - strict limits on numbers inside, based on the square footage. Then one way systems, distance markers on the floor. But, most importantly of all - one adult per household only. Stop the fucking family outings, the “oh, isn’t it a surprise I’ve bumped into you here” bullshit that supermarket workers up and down the country are reporting.




And yeah, the fucking family outings..


----------



## existentialist (Jan 12, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> is she _pissed?_


Drunk as a lord, on her own overweening self-regard.


----------



## kebabking (Jan 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> She made a big thing about 45,000 fines having been issued, shame none of the media pointed out that in France over a million have been issued.
> 
> Tough on enforcement, my arse.



A much better argument than 'are the rules being enforced?', is 'are the rules appropriate?'

Personally, from where I sit, the rules are broadly being adhered to by most people most of the time - but I would question whether the rules are appropriate: the Early Years Unit at my wife's school is open for all pupils by order of the DfE, I can go and view houses, there's no distinction between work that's essential and work that isn't, the supermarket I just visited had no one way system.


----------



## maomao (Jan 12, 2021)

Arlene Foster was just on BBC news and seemed vaguely human. I think it was because Patel had just been on .


----------



## Grace Johnson (Jan 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> She made a big thing about 45,000 fines having been issued, shame none of the media pointed out that in France over a million have been issued.
> 
> Tough on enforcement, my arse.



So you're half as likely to get a fine than you are to die from it then. Aye Priti. Top policy that mate. Ffs


----------



## bimble (Jan 12, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Anything Priti Patel says I should do immediately makes me want to do the opposite.


This is probably part of the problem, when it comes to non compliance, I mean if you / we / so many of us hate (& deeply distrust) the people whose job it is to tell us the rules that's just really not going to help is it.


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> 1243 new deaths reported today, up from 830 last Tuesday.
> 
> The 7-day average of reported daily deaths was 676 last Tue., it went up to 926 yesterday, this takes it to 984 or 985, that's a total 45.6% increase in the last 7 days.



We are also at the moment where if I use September 1st onwards as the second wave, deaths by date of death within 28 days of a positive test will reach a higher number for the second wave than the first.  With so much of the second wave deaths yet yet come, I dread to think how this comparison will look later. London, the West Midlands and the East of England are the only regions whose pubished data does not yet show their deaths since first of September as more than those before.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 12, 2021)

Just watching BBC South Today, remember when we came out of lockdown in December and the Isle of Wight, with 31 cases per 100k population, was put in tier 1?

Well, cases are now over 1100 per 100k, the hospital is at breaking point, and the military are on standby to airlift covid patients to the mainland.


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just watching BBC South Today, remember when we came out of lockdown in December and the Isle of Wight, with 31 cases per 100k population, was put in tier 1?
> 
> Well, cases are now over 1100 per 100k, the hospital is at breaking point, and the military are on standby to airlift covid patients to the mainland.



Yes and I remember some conversation here where there was some quibbling about going on about percentage increases without the context of low numbers, and I believe the Isle of Wight was the example used. I've mostly retired from droning on about exponential growth but it seems some still hadnt got their heads round that stuff. As for the government tier decisions, I recall being unimpressed at the time and making some sweeping statements about how there were no areas I would have placed in lower tiers at that time.

Meanwhile from the tentative signs department, daily hospital admissions/diagnoses in England by region using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## andysays (Jan 12, 2021)

Three more supermarkets join Morrisons and Sainsburys
Tesco, Asda and Waitrose ban shoppers without face masks

At least some of them are also saying they won't admit groups of shoppers.

And I also read that John Lewis are suspending Click and Collect, which seems sensible.

I'm starting to wonder if this will be another example of the government being effectively forced into tightening restrictions by the actions of others, in this case supermarkets and other large retailers.


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2021)

andysays said:


> I'm starting to wonder if this will be another example of the government being effectively forced into tightening restrictions by the actions of others, in this case supermarkets and other large retailers.



I see it as another example of entities deciding to do stuff they should have been doing for ages, only once we have reached the peak of the horror and they feel the need to act in a way that aligns with the current mood music. I'll never say that stuff is too late to achieve anything, because compliance after the peak matters to how quickly numbers are driven down, but I'm pained terribly at the moment by all the responses that could have achieved so much more if they came in September, October, November or December.

In some cases other factors may end up causing changes at this point, eg this is a stage where in various regions the level of staff absences has reached a moment where some stuff gets scaled back as a result.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes and I remember some conversation here where there was some quibbling about going on about percentage increases without the context of low numbers, and I believe the Isle of Wight was the example used.



I banged on about people moaning that Worthing was placed in tier 2 with just 25 cases/100k, when the IoW on 31 got put into tier 1, it was like banging my head against the wall, explaining our little urban borough was surrounded by rural district council areas with far higher rates, and those people come into Worthing for work, shopping & leisure, so we couldn't be compared to the IoW. 

Then, I was also banging by head against the wall, when I pointed out in a zoom meeting that cases were doubling every week, and got push back from  people saying 'yeah, but from low numbers'.   

And what happened in just 4 weeks? 25 > 50 > 100 > 200 > 400, it's slowed a bit recently, but we're still on 730. Still, strangely, better off than the IoW.


----------



## Mation (Jan 12, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> A friend just texted me these recommendations from psychologists for anyone struggling to cope - apologies, can't find a link. Hope it's helpful. Mods, feel free to move if it's not the right thread.
> 
> 
> 1) Isolate yourself from news about the virus. (Everything going we need to know, we already know).
> ...


1) Today a workmate in his 60s asked what he should do re coming to work if his wife gets covid. It was genuinely news to him that he should self-isolate and get a test. But, granted, he's not struggling to cope. He's almost totally oblivious. /anecdata

6) What?

7) 

8)     (Though I did read it as meaning a causal link. If it in fact meant 'things will get better' then I'd reduce the number of hmms to one.)



frogwoman said:


> Noticed a lot less people out and about this time than in November.


Cycled in to work today and there were massive traffic jams.



existentialist said:


> I think that, absent a very obvious (and I mean IN YER FACE OBVIOUS) cause/effect link, many people will rationalise such a death in any way they can that absolves them of responsibility. That's wired-in - our psyches are very good at giving us soft landings when terrible things happen - and it takes a degree of self-awareness and emotional responsibility to see past the denial and recognise what actually happened.
> 
> But then people with a degree of self-awareness and emotional responsibility are fairly likely not to have made the dangerous choice in the first place.


The workmate who came in before Christmas talking about how ill he felt but that it wasn't covid and who then tested positive having (likely) infected others, is now claiming that he was totally asymptomatic. (Others were infected, but, tbf, it's not 100% clear what the chain of transmission was.)

Lies. I heard him describing how ill he felt and the nature of it. But perhaps he has to believe that he was asymptomatic, given that he potentially infected someone with compromised health and whose also compromised family are currently very ill.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 12, 2021)

Estimates from the Zoe project graphed up to today.











						Latest Daily UK COVID-19 Data: Vaccines, Cases, Trends | ZOE
					

COVID infection & vaccination rates in the UK today, based on public data and reports from millions of users of the ZOE Health Study app




					covid.joinzoe.com


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2021)

Yes that is consistent with other data, and their daily new infections data should show a more advanced stage of things than that, since that one above is for number of people with symptoms which introduces quite a bit of lag and smoothing into the picture it shows, very much inclding making falls take longer to show up distinctly.

I'll probably continue to use hospital data the demonstrate the situation in the days ahead, as trajectory changes are starting to show up there and it will also cover the regional variations.

I'm glad that the post-Christmas period seems to resemble my expectations in regards not expecting to see a distinct spike that lots of people were expecting to see a while after Christmas, because I assumed there would be many factors working in the opposite direction over Christmas, such as people being on holiday from schools, workplaces etc. Not to mention various restrictions and change in atmosphere that happened at various stages of December. Not that we are necessarily totally out of the woods on that yet, if infection chains of transmission have been sparked by Christmas and then really get going in some sections of society over time, or if there are big differences between regions.

Next on my list of concerns is whether a bounce-back to higher activity levels once Christmas holidays were over will have a bad affect on trajectory in the next period, or whether various measures, change of mood etc are enough to keep things going down. And then of course its a question of how rapidly levels will come down, whether we get stuck with very high levels for quite a while. And whether all regions manage to follow the same trend.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 12, 2021)

circleline said:


> Supermarkets, in my (eye of the storm) area at least, appear to have abandoned the strict one-way system that was in place for lock-down no.1.  Seems regressive and smacks of Covid-fatigue..



It collapsed months ago, but it's ok we've got a green light on the door


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 12, 2021)

One of the most galling aspect of this pandemic is how tub thumping politicised and nationalistic it's been.




Not just from the Tories, though they've certainly done much more than most, and not just from the UK.


----------



## BristolEcho (Jan 12, 2021)

Mation said:


> 1) Today a workmate in his 60s asked what he should do re coming to work if his wife gets covid. It was genuinely news to him that he should self-isolate and get a test. But, granted, he's not struggling to cope. He's almost totally oblivious. /anecdata
> 
> 6) What?
> 
> ...



I suspect it's not from psychologists. Shared with good intentions though.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 12, 2021)

Mation said:


> anecdata


I have not heard this word before, but I like it, I like it a lot.

I intend to use it in my own conversations.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 12, 2021)

I watched Priti in full. I liked the way she read out lots of long numbers at the beginning.


----------



## Supine (Jan 12, 2021)

TopCat said:


> I watched Priti in full. I liked the way she read out lots of long numbers at the beginning.



Supporting your fellow brexiteers


----------



## miss direct (Jan 12, 2021)

Numbers said:


> May I ask.  Do/would you consider moving back?  It’s not been easy for you for such a big move.


It's a possibility. Sort of depends on what happens between now and the summer. I'd struggle with the curfews though.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes and I remember some conversation here where there was some quibbling about going on about percentage increases without the context of low numbers, and I believe the Isle of Wight was the example used. I've mostly retired from droning on about exponential growth but it seems some still hadnt got their heads round that stuff. As for the government tier decisions, I recall being unimpressed at the time and making some sweeping statements about how there were no areas I would have placed in lower tiers at that time.
> 
> Meanwhile from the tentative signs department, daily hospital admissions/diagnoses in England by region using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity
> 
> View attachment 248576



Fingers crossed this is a lasting trend.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 12, 2021)

Supine said:


> Supporting your fellow brexiteers


I have never knowingly kissed a tory.


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Fingers crossed this is a lasting trend.



Hopefully. It helps that multiple different sorts of data are showing the same thing. 

Nick Triggle of the BBC has noticed the trend but via number of positive cases rather than the hospital data and ZOE app estimates that we've talked about here so far.

His stuff is lower down the page of a BBC article:









						Covid: Play your part in fight against virus, says Patel
					

The home secretary says she will back police to enforce virus rules, as another 1,243 die in the UK.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> There is a big focus on adherence to lockdown rules. But what has almost gone unnoticed is the fact that cases may have actually started falling.
> 
> There has now been two consecutive days where newly diagnosed cases have hovered around the 46,000 mark. Up to the weekend, the average was close to 60,000.



However he parrots the usual conventional wisdom about data timing which I looked into months ago in preparation for this wave, and determined not to be anything like as true as it sounds like it should be:



> Hospital cases are still rising - patients being admitted at the moment are the ones who were infected a week or so ago - but it does at least offer a glimmer of hope.



In reality I have always found the timing gap between positive case data and hospital data to be much smaller than that. In part because the positive cases that show up in todays figure were also infected some time ago. 

It also depends what hospital data you use. Changing trends do start to show up reasonably quickly in the 'number of covid-19 patients in hospital' figure, but not as sharply as in the hospital admissions/diagnoses daily numbers. However the daily admissions figures do take a day or so longer to publish.

So I am not surprised to be seeing the same sorts of signs in these different sorts of data at roughly the same time. We are well into a period where these signs have been visible for some days, which is why I mentioned tentative signs in the first place days ago. Now with each day that passes there is slightly more confidence that the trend seen is real rather than a data blip etc, it starts to show up more clearly on graphs, it becomes easier to talk about it without feeling like I've gone out on a limb or too soon. 

However it obviously doesnt suddenly change the horrible situation hospitals are in, so I do find it a bit of a struggle at moments like this when I want to share good news signs of peaks, but where there is much still to be coped with in the weeks and months ahead.

Triggle also draws attention to the uneven nature of the picture by region:



> The drop has largely been driven by falls in new cases in London, the south east and east of England.
> 
> In some regions, cases are still going up. The north west of England is causing particular concern.



The article he links to in that sentence is about Liverpool where things sound very bad again.









						Covid-19: Liverpool facing 'tsunami' of virus infections
					

The steep rise in coronavirus cases prompts calls to set up a mass vaccination hub in the city.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I banged on about people moaning that Worthing was placed in tier 2 with just 25 cases/100k, when the IoW on 31 got put into tier 1, it was like banging my head against the wall, explaining our little urban borough was surrounded by rural district council areas with far higher rates, and those people come into Worthing for work, shopping & leisure, so we couldn't be compared to the IoW.
> 
> Then, I was also banging by head against the wall, when I pointed out in a zoom meeting that cases were doubling every week, and got push back from  people saying 'yeah, but from low numbers'.
> 
> And what happened in just 4 weeks? 25 > 50 > 100 > 200 > 400, it's slowed a bit recently, but we're still on 730. Still, strangely, better off than the IoW.


There were tales of people from Southampton and Portsmouth hopping on a ferry over to the Island to go drinking in the pubs.  That and people "going home for xmas" is the root cause I think.
Plus a lot of Islanders work on the mainland, and there's clearly a lot of food etc deliveries. 
Once the new variant got onto the Island, there was no stopping it, as people there were too relaxed, having escaped serious infection levels up to then.
Clear case against the tier system.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

That Liverpool piece I just linked to also contains complaints about tier tourists.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

We are very much into the period of hospital pressure where I fret about discharge policies:









						Hospital patients to be sent to hotels to free up beds for critical Covid patients
					

Exclusive: emergency measures will let hospitals in England discharge thousands of patients early




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Thousands of hospital patients are to be discharged early to hotels or their own homes to free up beds for Covid-19 sufferers needing life-or-death care, the Guardian has learned.
> 
> Hospital chiefs in England intend to start discharging patients early on a scale never seen before, as an emergency measure to create “extra emergency contingency capacity” and stop parts of the NHS collapsing, senior sources said.
> 
> Documents seen by the Guardian also revealed that the NHS is asking care homes to start accepting Covid patients directly from hospitals and without a recent negative test, as long as they have been in isolation for 14 days and have shown no new symptoms.





> The policy had been to send Covid patients to designated “hot” care homes where infection spread could be limited and to prevent a repeat of last spring’s epidemic in care homes, which was partly fuelled by hospital discharges. But a target to set up 500 such homes has been missed, leaving only 2,533 beds available.
> 
> An NHS document sent to some care providers says: “We are now advising that for some within this group, it will be appropriate for them to move directly to a care home from hospital … because we now know they do not pose an infection risk to other residents in a care home.”


----------



## Mation (Jan 13, 2021)

Been thinking about why it might be that some people seem persistently unable to grasp the situation or think the rules don't apply to them.

We've had a few people at work now who have come in with symptoms, despite repeated, clear instructions not to come in if not feeling well. It's one of the few ways my employer is good. Feeling unwell? Don't come in. Get a test.

But still people come in, saying things like: oh, it's fine, it's more like a cold; it's definitely not covid; don't worry, I wouldn't put anyone at risk.

They're not coming in saying fuck you, I don't care if I spread it. They seem genuinely to think they know it's ok, as they don't have covid. And then they test positive.

So I'm thinking that we are all (most of us?) used to knowing ourselves and our bodies reasonably well. If we feel the onset of a cold we can judge roughly how bad it might be and what we're still capable of. Flu might be harder, but at the start we might know we can cope with what we have to do today, before we're laid up, and that although it might get really rough, we've been through it before or seen it before, and it'll be fine. A deep, ingrained sense of knowing how it will go, both for us, and that there aren't going to be any dire consequences for others as a result of how we behave around our own infection.

But this is a new disease. Like anything else, we compare what's happening to what we already know. Oh, this feels like a cold; I'm just a bit run down; I'm just feeling a bit achy; it's only a snotty nose. But, as none of us has had this before (or more than a couple of times, for some, now), we don't have any way of recognising that what we're feeling is down to a new disease. Not a different type of flu, but something that affects the body in ways that flu doesn't. And not helped by its description as a primarily respiratory disease (for the understandable reason that it can severely affect breathing, albeit not by flu-like mechanism).

So perhaps what people aren't getting is that we need to follow the rules, e.g. not to come in to work with flu-like symptoms, precisely because, while we are experienced at judging how ill we are with flu and some other coronaviruses, we can't possibly know that we're right about ourselves with this one. Because it's new. Our deeply ingrained prior knowledge is useless in this instance. It might not be in future. We might learn this one. But right now, we have to ignore what we think we know, and follow blanket rules instead, which is hard.

There is no excusing the government, and this isn't about irresponsible individuals. But perhaps we're fighting something much more hardwired and need to address that too? Not just follow the rules to stop the spread, but why using our own judgement in this very particular case is letting us all down.


----------



## Mation (Jan 13, 2021)

tl; dr: 

We keep fucking up with rule compliance because our deeply ingrained sense of infection and its consequences don't fit a totally new disease.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> We are very much into the period of hospital pressure where I fret about discharge policies:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is a repeat of the insane policies carried out in spring 2020 that led to the deaths of 20,000 older people.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 13, 2021)

Also because official line is still cough fever and loss of taste and smell.  That's not how it starts for many/most people.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 13, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Also because official line is still cough fever and loss of taste and smell.  That's not how it starts for many/most people.


Really? I haven’t heard any different?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 13, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Really? I haven’t heard any different?



Seems to start with fatigue in most cases, and shortness of breath/laboured breathing but no cough.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 13, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Really? I haven’t heard any different?



My bad, not 'most'. 1/5 have headache fatigue and other symptoms.  





Also reading on here iirc quite a few people have been a bit surprised to test positive with their symptoms.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 13, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Really? I haven’t heard any different?


I had a headache, fatigue, sore throat and gastric upset. 4th or 5th day was slightly raised temp and very minor cough. Loss of most of my sense of smell was later than that.

And at that time it was test within 5 days of symptom onset and also shortage.


----------



## LDC (Jan 13, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Seems to start with fatigue in most cases, and shortness of breath/laboured breathing but no cough.



The reasoning I've been given for fatigue not being counted as a primary symptom for testing is that it's hugely subjective and not a reliable indicator due to that 'human factor' being taken into account.


----------



## Looby (Jan 13, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Really? I haven’t heard any different?


From posts I’ve seen here and speaking to friends, it seems to often start with cold symptoms, headaches, sore throats. Often people don’t seem to get the cough until a few days in. If you have cold symptoms then a mild fever is generally easy to explain away. We can do all sorts of mental gymnastics if we need to. Which partly explains how a friend’s partner was still convinced he just had a head cold and it was a false positive. The full explanation is that he’s a fucking stupid and selfish conspiraloon but that’s another conversation.


----------



## LDC (Jan 13, 2021)

An NHS Trust here has made it clear nobody is to come into work with any symptoms of anything cold or flu-like at all now.


----------



## Mattym (Jan 13, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Also because official line is still cough fever and loss of taste and smell.  That's not how it starts for many/most people.



It's been widely reported that it can present itself differently in younger people and I just find it crazy/negligent (not schools themselves) that around schools you will see posters all over with only those '3 symptoms'.


----------



## Supine (Jan 13, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> An NHS Trust here has made it clear nobody is to come into work with any symptoms of anything cold or flu-like at all now.



Same where I'm working. Any bug and you must be WFH or off ill.


----------



## LDC (Jan 13, 2021)

The news yesterday and today has brought up two inconsistencies that are infuriating.

First, the whole everyone 'act like you have the virus'. What, self isolate? Or go to work if you have to, go outside for essentials, etc.? Which the fuck is it, because you can't do both. It's a soundbite that just doesn't make sense.

Secondly, the meeting up with one other person for outdoor exercise. Then Hancock was on the radio this morning going on about how it shouldn't be used for socializing. What? Clearly meeting up with one other person for a walk is partly socializing. What does he think we're doing, having a silent walking competition or something? Just make it clear, either you can exercise on your own or only with one of your household, or you can meet up with one other person for exercise and chatting, but be honest and clear what that is, don't try and pretend it's not partly socializing.

Not massive issues in the scale of things, but surely the simple messaging should be clear a year into this?


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 13, 2021)

Blood-based IgG/IgM lateral flow kits now available offering 98% accuracy.

The government has ordered 2 million, they need to be administered by someone with suitable clinical training:





__





						COVID-19 Coronavirus Rapid Antibody Test Cassette
					

SureScreen's COVID-19 antibody rapid test identifies the body's response to coronavirus after the onset of infection, and gives a qualitative yes/no...




					www.surescreen.com


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 13, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The reasoning I've been given for fatigue not being counted as a primary symptom for testing is that it's hugely subjective and not a reliable indicator due to that 'human factor' being taken into account.


Aye, I’ve been tired recently to the point of stopping my bike several times on the way home (not shortness of breath though) but that’s cos I’m not sleeping as I hurt my back slipping on the ice. I guess that doesn’t warrant a stay at home.


----------



## Sue (Jan 13, 2021)

I heard this too, LynnDoyleCooper, and thought exactly the same. Putting the cock into Hancock right enough.


----------



## Sue (Jan 13, 2021)

Mation said:


> tl; dr:
> 
> We keep fucking up with rule compliance because our deeply ingrained sense of infection and its consequences don't fit a totally new disease.


I also think so many companies have insisted for such a long time that you come in to work unless you're very ill (and at pain of  disciplinary action if your absence rate is 'too' high), that people don't really believe/trust what their employers are saying now. And I can't say I blame them.

And couple that with some people not getting paid unless they work and 🤷‍♀️.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 13, 2021)

My nurse partner gets her first vaccine shot today. I am very pleased for her. 

Will be so happy when parents get theirs.


----------



## Thora (Jan 13, 2021)

Mattym said:


> It's been widely reported that it can present itself differently in younger people and I just find it crazy/negligent (not schools themselves) that around schools you will see posters all over with only those '3 symptoms'.


Yes, I’m still getting daily emails from the council (about my childcare setting) instructing me *not* to exclude children with runny noses, sore throats or headaches unless they _also _have a cough or temperature


----------



## existentialist (Jan 13, 2021)

Sue said:


> I also think so many companies have insisted for such a long time that you come in to work unless you're very ill (and at pain of  disciplinary action if your absence rate is 'too' high), that people don't really believe/trust what their employers are saying now. And I can't say I blame them.
> 
> And couple that with some people not getting paid unless they work and 🤷‍♀️.


The downside of presenteeism - another price we pay for our exploitative work culture.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 13, 2021)

Yeah. Anyone with shares in lemsip should pop them over to Dettol.


----------



## Looby (Jan 13, 2021)

My friend is near but not in the UK and works in a school. They’ve been told they won’t be informed if they’re a close contact at work, won’t be able to isolate and if they do they won’t be paid. Basically the message is that if they get it it’s their fault. They’re only allowed to be off if they have a positive test, not for symptoms.
Fucking hell.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 13, 2021)

Looks like they'll be some decisions this week about the elections scheduled for May; Khan's term continues?


----------



## zora (Jan 13, 2021)

A colleague called me yesterday. He went to an asymptomatic testing centre in the local park, to do his bit as he said, not thinking in the slightest that he might be infected. Test was positive to his huge surprise, and has just been confirmed as positive by the follow-up pcr test!
He has been, like me, back on furlough since before Christmas, lives alone, goes for a bike ride once a day, has the occasional chat with neighbours across the garden fence. 
First case I have heard of first-hand where the source of the infection is a complete mystery.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 13, 2021)

Mation said:


> tl; dr:
> 
> We keep fucking up with rule compliance because our deeply ingrained sense of infection and its consequences don't fit a totally new disease.


I think I'm the opposite and the moment I feel slightly off in any way I suspect I've got Covid


----------



## teuchter (Jan 13, 2021)

zora said:


> A colleague called me yesterday. He went to an asymptomatic testing centre in the local park, to do his bit as he said, not thinking in the slightest that he might be infected. Test was positive to his huge surprise, and has just been confirmed as positive by the follow-up pcr test!
> He has been, like me, back on furlough since before Christmas, lives alone, goes for a bike ride once a day, has the occasional chat with neighbours across the garden fence.
> First case I have heard of first-hand where the source of the infection is a complete mystery.


Presumably he goes to the supermarket etc?


----------



## klang (Jan 13, 2021)

the loons gonna love that - Khan the unelected dictator 


brogdale said:


> Looks like they'll be some decisions this week about the elections scheduled for May; Khan's term continues?
> 
> View attachment 248636


----------



## bimble (Jan 13, 2021)

Radio earlier today was playing recordings showing how of the government spokespeople always say that by mid february they expect to have_ offered_ the vaccine to .... number of people, never saying the target is to have given the vaccine to them just offer it. So presumably it could be that by mid feb a large number of letters will have been posted, offering people an appointment for their first dose in April or something. Targets met.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 13, 2021)

bimble said:


> Radio earlier today was playing recordings showing how of the government spokespeople always say that by mid february they expect to have_ offered_ the vaccine to .... number of people, never saying the target is to have given the vaccine to them just offer it. So presumably it could be that by mid feb a large number of letters will have been posted, offering people an appointment for their first dose in April or something. Targets met.



'The vaccine' in singular, I note. 'The vaccine' consists of two doses...


----------



## zora (Jan 13, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Presumably he goes to the supermarket etc?



Yes, I imagine so. But all other cases I have personally known had prolonged exposure in settings such as schools, health-care, other workplaces, pubs and restaurants while those were open, or their own home once a family member had caught it. Despite often being concerned about transmission risk when I was working in retail myself, and avoiding supermarkets myself as much as possible to be on the safer side, I had actually considered the risk of a completely random transmission in the shop or during daily exercise  or a short outdoor chat very low.


----------



## Sue (Jan 13, 2021)

bimble said:


> Radio earlier today was playing recordings showing how of the government spokespeople always say that by mid february they expect to have_ offered_ the vaccine to .... number of people, never saying the target is to have given the vaccine to them just offer it. So presumably it could be that by mid feb a large number of letters will have been posted, offering people an appointment for their first dose in April or something. Targets met.


That was on More or Less I think (which is always worth a listen).









						BBC Radio 4 - More or Less, How effective is one dose of the vaccine?
					

Is the first dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine 52% or 90% effective?




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 13, 2021)

bimble said:


> Radio earlier today was playing recordings showing how of the government spokespeople always say that by mid february they expect to have_ offered_ the vaccine to .... number of people, never saying the target is to have given the vaccine to them just offer it. So presumably it could be that by mid feb a large number of letters will have been posted, offering people an appointment for their first dose in April or something. Targets met.



Hancock was questioned on this earlier on Sky News, he said 'offered' AND 'given' to those taking up the offer.

So, probably isn't true.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 13, 2021)

zora said:


> Yes, I imagine so. But all other cases I have personally known had prolonged exposure in settings such as schools, health-care, other workplaces, pubs and restaurants while those were open, or their own home once a family member had caught it. Despite often being concerned about transmission risk when I was working in retail myself, and avoiding supermarkets myself as much as possible to be on the safer side, I had actually considered the risk of a completely random transmission in the shop or during daily exercise  or a short outdoor chat very low.


Risk can be very low, and yet a small number of people will still be unlucky.

But yes on an anecdotal basis, everyone I know who's had it, have some kind of easily identifiable risk situation like where they work, or having school age kids, etc.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 13, 2021)

Sue said:


> That was on More or Less I think (which is always worth a listen).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


More or Less also complained about the reporting of the very high number of "daily deaths" at the weekend and the false claim that we had exceeded or were about to exceed the number at the peak of the first wave. Like I did


----------



## LDC (Jan 13, 2021)

Sue said:


> I heard this too, LynnDoyleCooper, and thought exactly the same. Putting the cock into Hancock right enough.



It's the punishment we get for listening to Radio 4 Sue


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 13, 2021)

zora said:


> Yes, I imagine so. But all other cases I have personally known had prolonged exposure in settings such as schools, health-care, other workplaces, pubs and restaurants while those were open, or their own home once a family member had caught it. Despite often being concerned about transmission risk when I was working in retail myself, and avoiding supermarkets myself as much as possible to be on the safer side, I had actually considered the risk of a completely random transmission in the shop or during daily exercise  or a short outdoor chat very low.


A friend of mine who has it has only been to the shops, he hasn’t been that unwell as he’s been told that the viral load can’t have been that high because of his limited exposure


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 13, 2021)

Manchester Evening News has had some great analysis of the logistical problems facing the city fighting covid and then prints this shite today


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 13, 2021)

Mation said:


> Not just follow the rules to stop the spread, but why using our own judgement in this very particular case is letting us all down.


i reckon fractured trust w/everyone - political class, neighbours, selves, historical precident (fostered by years of public policy) means we're in huge part entirely fucking lost with who/what to trust and thereby pinned immobile - at some point we may as well "trust" what suits/serves our interests and stop taking in new information? (may just be me 🤷)


----------



## zora (Jan 13, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> A friend of mine who has it has only been to the shops, he hasn’t been that unwell as he’s been told that the viral load can’t have been that high because of his limited exposure



My colleague has also got practically no symptoms, on day 4 after positive test. He sounded a bit snivelly/bunged up but he is prone to that anyway.
Afaik the whole area of how the initial exposure amount of the virus relates to strength of symptoms or severity of illness is very much still under investigation, but interesting anecdotal observations nonetheless.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 13, 2021)

zora said:


> My colleague has also got practically no symptoms, on day 4 after positive test. He sounded a bit snivelly/bunged up but he is prone to that anyway.
> Afaik the whole area of how the initial exposure amount of the virus relates to strength of symptoms or severity of illness is very much still under investigation, but interesting anecdotal observations nonetheless.


I've seen it mentioned quite a few times in assorted sciency things that reduced exposure and viral load should mean reduced severity of illness, but not read any actual figures. I find the idea quite reassuring as at least it makes the situation seem a bit less entirely random - instead of just being able to reduce your chance of getting it at all, you can also take steps to make it better if you do get it.

Anecdotally all the people I know who have got it noticeably around lockdowns have had obvious situations too (kids, a busy unmasked barbers) but that isn't many people tbh.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 13, 2021)

The COVID app is still saying "don't bother getting tested unless you have fever/cough/loss of smell or taste" btw, but I wouldn't expect that to be up to date


----------



## 2hats (Jan 13, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I've seen it mentioned quite a few times in assorted sciency things that reduced exposure and viral load should mean reduced severity of illness, but not read any actual figures. I find the idea quite reassuring as at least it makes the situation seem a bit less entirely random - instead of just being able to reduce your chance of getting it at all, you can also take steps to make it better if you do get it.


It's not at all clear yet. It could well depend on a combination of viral load, degrees of where deposition is ie in the upper or in the deep lower respiratory tract (droplet versus fine aerosol), plus pre-existing medical conditions, plus immunological state.


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 13, 2021)

COVID-19: Isles of Scilly report first positive cases for several months
					

Officials admitted the outbreak would "cause concern" and "shock" and urged people to follow safety rules to keep infections down.




					news.sky.com


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 13, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> The COVID app is still saying "don't bother getting tested unless you have fever/cough/loss of smell or taste" btw, but I wouldn't expect that to be up to date


That's what they ask if you try and book a test.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 13, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> That's what they ask if you try and book a test.


Yeah, I saw it was on the nhs site too. Get a free NHS test to check if you have coronavirus


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 13, 2021)

NT


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## TopCat (Jan 13, 2021)

NS on the telly now banning outdoor drinking throughout Scotland. Introduction on Saturday.


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## crossthebreeze (Jan 13, 2021)

In Scotland - tighter restrictions on takeaways, click and collect, and drinking alcohol outside in Scotland - and more pressure on businesses to get people working from home.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 13, 2021)

TopCat said:


> NS on the telly now banning outdoor drinking throughout Scotland. Introduction on Saturday.




Only a limited number of shops to be allowed to do click and collect + takeaways to not allow folk inside, must serve through a doorway or hatch.





Let's see if we can work out Johnson's next move...





"What Scotland done"


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 13, 2021)

I've just had an email from the ONS covid survey with another £25 voucher.  Presumably this is for my last test, but I swear I've been paid for more tests than I've had.  Oh well, I'm not complaining: you can cash them in for book tokens so the ONS can pay for my new purchases!


----------



## TopCat (Jan 13, 2021)

All Scottish takeaways have to serve from a hatch or an open door..

Edit. Late news.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 13, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> In Scotland - tighter restrictions on takeaways, click and collect, and drinking alcohol outside in Scotland - and more pressure on businesses to get people working from home.



Presumably she isn't in a position to unilaterally instruct and fund more furlough etc?


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

Mation said:


> So I'm thinking that we are all (most of us?) used to knowing ourselves and our bodies reasonably well. If we feel the onset of a cold we can judge roughly how bad it might be and what we're still capable of. Flu might be harder, but at the start we might know we can cope with what we have to do today, before we're laid up, and that although it might get really rough, we've been through it before or seen it before, and it'll be fine. A deep, ingrained sense of knowing how it will go, both for us, and that there aren't going to be any dire consequences for others as a result of how we behave around our own infection.
> 
> But this is a new disease. Like anything else, we compare what's happening to what we already know. Oh, this feels like a cold; I'm just a bit run down; I'm just feeling a bit achy; it's only a snotty nose. But, as none of us has had this before (or more than a couple of times, for some, now), we don't have any way of recognising that what we're feeling is down to a new disease. Not a different type of flu, but something that affects the body in ways that flu doesn't. And not helped by its description as a primarily respiratory disease (for the understandable reason that it can severely affect breathing, albeit not by flu-like mechanism).



Its an entirely inappropriate response for existing diseases such as influenza too. When people ignore what could be flu and carry on with their lives, it contributes to epidemics that kill tends of thousands of people in a country like ours every so many years.

So you are focussing on very important stuff, but I would go further. The mistakes now are based on things we always get wrong, and have been encouraged to get wrong in normal times, the default response to flu is as inappropriate as the dangerous responses to Covid-19.

This is also deep in territory where the establishment, the mainstream, have disgusting double-standards and most people know it. This was demonstrated when a doctor in another country (possibly Australia or New Zealand, I forget), early in the pandemic, caused outrage when it turns out they had been at work treating patients for days despite having symptoms. There was a lot of outrage and empty statements about how we all know that healthcare professionals and others should not go to work when sick, which people would have found to be some kind of sick joke. Because we know that there is always pressure to say the right things but actually the pressure is to do the wrong things. Claims that the system and ethics/values always encouraged people in that situation to stay off work do not ring true to those who have been in that situation in normal times, the pressure has always been in the direction of going to work.

I hope, just like I did at the start of the pandemic, that at least all the focus on wide range of symptoms, disease severity and the large number of asymptomatic cases will at least shatter the common misconceptions about flu that haunt us every season, eg when people think it 'isnt proper flu' unless you are bedridden. Flu is just like Covid-19 in that symptoms actually cross the full spectrum, from none to critical illness and death. So 'man flu' assumptions are fit only for the bin.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> 'man flu' assumptions are fit only for the bin.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

two sheds said:


>



I do not comprehend the basis for this reaction.

Our brains and the way we learn and process risk is not well suited to the realities of large numbers of different conditions presenting very similar symptoms. Its much easier for us to get our heads round things when there is consistency and uniqueness involved. If a disease has novel and consistent symptoms then its easy to jump to conclusions without making huge errors. We are not actually afforded that luxury so often, especially not with respiratory illnesses.


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## two sheds (Jan 13, 2021)

I've had man flu: runny nose, slight chill, bit of a wheeze, feel somewhat achey  it's HORRIFIC I tell you  










sorry


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I've had man flu: runny nose, slight chill, bit of a wheeze, feel somewhat achey  it's HORRIFIC I tell you
> 
> sorry



But what I'm saying is the very opposite of claiming that man flu wasnt actually real flu.

This stuff can also be filed under 'reasons why we should have a proper, routine mass diagnostics setup in this country'. Dont assume, dont guess, have things ruled in or out properly via testing. Something this country was not keen on or setup to do when this pandemic arrived, but that has probably since changed forever, especially given we now have infrastructure to do it at scale.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 13, 2021)

existentialist said:


> The downside of presenteeism - another price we pay for our exploitative work culture.


Actually, I got to thinking about this. While we are busily (and righteously) ripping this clown cabinet a new one for their in-the-moment cockups throughout the pandemic, the really bad shit is happening because of decisions taken long ago, and kept in place even now.

*Accommodation* - how many people here (just for example) are living in situations where they're stuck with housemates, landlords, or lodgers because housing policy over the last 30+ years has been all about restricting the supply of housing, particularly to those at the lower end of the income scale? How much easier would it have been to control in-home infections, if the shortage of housing had not created a situation where people are living, essentially purely for cost reasons, in what are effectively mixed households?

*Employment* - a culture of presenteeism has suited the Government (and particularly those huge businesses who are so generous with their funding to the Tories) very nicely up until now. OK, we've had a few rumblings during the nastier 'flu seasons about people coming in and infecting colleagues, but much of it has been against a kind of acceptance that struggling in to work with obvious symptoms was the Right Thing To Do. Plenty of employers might _say_ "oh, if you have 'flu, don't come in" but it's often within workplaces where sick pay has been pared to the bone, or subject to the iniquitious Bradford Scale, complete with intrusive and punitive return-to-work interviews and an _a priori_ assumption that anyone taking time off sick must be swinging the lead.

On top of that, we have the progressive loosening of employment protections that has led to the gig economy and zero-hours contracts, leading to a situation where a vast swathe of the more important tasks being done are being done by people with absolutely no employment security (or sick pay) at all. People like those in the care sector, and - yes - delivery drivers, etc. Which leads on to...

*Benefits* - OK, so nobody on Urban is going to be shocked by the idea that our current benefits system is utterly predicated on the assumption that anyone claiming benefits is doing so because they're a workshy scrounger just out to exploit the State, so they can sit at home watching their flat screen TV while necking tins of Scrumpy Jack. Which wasn't ever true in the vast majority of cases, but is even less true as people that the Government would presumably have lauded as good hard-working citizens find themselves in a position where they, too, are needing to claim benefits. OK, there was a grudging uplift in the rate of UC being paid, and by all accounts the application process suddenly became a lot less aggressively nasty. I'd like to think the latter is down to the Government having a realisation that, if they ended up treating some of these new claimants - people with arguably more social capital, less beaten down by the system, and more likely to articulate their outrage at the way it works - the same, they'd have some serious pushback on their hands...although I suspect it was probably more by accident than design, when the system became so overwhelmed that they didn't have time to put the claimants through the usual shit mill.

*Education* - I have watched, from varying distances, as our education system has clunked further and further towards a box-ticking exercise whereby the most important thing is exam results. Less academic subjects have been progressively (about the only time I'll use _that_ word in connection with this Government ) stripped away, along with the staff to teach them. There has been a race to the bottom which has resulted in capable, experienced teachers being put at a disadvantage as they compete for jobs with cheaper NQTs when they apply for jobs at cash-strapped schools, and (nice cheap) LSAs taking on more and more of the teacher's role. The educational house of cards has had every possible "non-essential" card pulled out, to the point that it totters in the slightest breeze.

*Health* - any sensible government would, when faced with successive "winter challenges" to the NHS, rather than insist that we're doing a brilliant job, have addressed the issue. But they couldn't, because their whole philosophy is predicated on cutting everything to the bone. It has apparently been preferable to see the NHS, and the people within it, brought to the brink of collapse in the hope that we'll get through on a wing and a prayer.

Coupled with that has been the, frankly, abusive nature of the relationship between the government and NHS staff. Nurses have long had their vocations taken advantage of - everybody knows that a nurse isn't going to walk off a ward if there isn't any cover, handing NHS managers and the Government the perfect bit of plausible deniability that enables them to on the one hand forbid employees from working beyond their shift times (H&S, anyone), while at the same time tacitly allowing it to continue. Then they decided they'd pull a similar stunt on junior doctors. And remember, all of this is against a background whereby fewer people have been applying for (expensive) medical training, we've been scouring the world to steal nurses and other grades - many of whom, thanks to Brexit, have now buggered off home - and we're facing a continual and worsening staffing shortfall with, apparently, no motivation or intention on the part of Government to do a damn thing about improving that situation.

So now we're left with a health service that, faced with a pandemic, and the inevitable consequences on staff, is in a perfect storm, where demand is stratospheric at exactly the same time as its staff are collapsing from burnout, PTSD, and Covid infections (I don't think I need to retread the whole sorry PPE debâcle again here).


All this didn't happen yesterday, or even during the current Tory government...it's been going on for years, and what I think we are seeing now is a real-world example of what happens when you cheesepare all of your social provisions to the bone (bit of a mixed metaphor there!).

If one good thing can come of Covid, it's the realisation that we just can't carry on like this. Systems need spare capacity, and resilience, as do the people within them. Operating them on skeleton staffing and resources, where both are stretched thin just to operate in normal circumstances, must surely be obviously futile and dangerous to anyone prepared to look.

But will anything change? Absent some kind of dramatic action, I bet it doesn't.


----------



## LDC (Jan 13, 2021)

Yeah, the idea that you can look at 'health' in isolation without addressing all the other stuff is just hugely problematic.


----------



## Mation (Jan 13, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> i reckon fractured trust w/everyone - political class, neighbours, selves, historical precident (fostered by years of public policy) means we're in huge part entirely fucking lost with who/what to trust and thereby pinned immobile - at some point we may as well "trust" what suits/serves our interests and stop taking in new information? (may just be me 🤷)





elbows said:


> Its an entirely inappropriate response for existing diseases such as influenza too. When people ignore what could be flu and carry on with their lives, it contributes to epidemics that kill tends of thousands of people in a country like ours every so many years.
> 
> So you are focussing on very important stuff, but I would go further. The mistakes now are based on things we always get wrong, and have been encouraged to get wrong in normal times, the default response to flu is as inappropriate as the dangerous responses to Covid-19.
> 
> ...


Yes to both of you, and others who have suggested other really valid reasons around toxic work culture and lack of support for people in precarious positions.

I don't mean to suggest that not being able to trust our learned confidence in our own judgement about our bodies is the only factor. I was trying to say that it might be an additional, potentially important factor that also needs to be addressed, but hasn't been.

'Reckless' and inappropriate behaviour, and the external factors that contribute to that are not new, and are part of some current conversation. Trusting external opinion and advice seems to be a very relevant problem. And a common response to not knowing who else to trust is to revert to trusting yourself and your own interpretation. But I'm not sure it's being thought about or discussed or communicated that that the reasons why, in this case, trusting your own knowledge about your body aren't going to work.

I'd very tentatively suggest that perhaps one of the reasons why (see how tentative?) we always get this wrong is that we have only focussed on central communications and failings, and on individual response to acting in favour of personal and communal benefit, whilst missing out on considering how important our intrinsic default response of trusting our own personal knowledge and senses is to how we respond to a failure of trust in leadership.

There's always been information about what to do and why. There hasn't been information (that I know of) about why our fallback trust in ourselves about a new disease isn't helpful. I'm suggesting this as an extra tool in the armoury.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 13, 2021)

There seems to be a lot of stuff about covid that people are just saying based on other diseases. Like 'you've had it once you can't get it again' which is more based on something like measles behaves rather than the cold viruses that covid is related to.


----------



## Mation (Jan 13, 2021)

^ That (my post, not froggy's) sounds like I'm suggesting really negative comms.

More 'stranger danger' (where the stranger is the new disease), than 'this is why you're wrong'!

e2a whose post I was referring to.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 13, 2021)

[


Sue said:


> I also think so many companies have insisted for such a long time that you come in to work unless you're very ill (and at pain of  disciplinary action if your absence rate is 'too' high), that people don't really believe/trust what their employers are saying now. And I can't say I blame them.
> 
> And couple that with some people not getting paid unless they work and 🤷‍♀️.


Heroes going the extra mile 

It has always fucked me off. Stay home. I don't want your flu, cold or deadly virus ffs


----------



## zora (Jan 13, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Actually, I got to thinking about this. While we are busily (and righteously) ripping this clown cabinet a new one for their in-the-moment cockups throughout the pandemic, the really bad shit is happening because of decisions taken long ago, and kept in place even now.
> 
> *Accommodation* - how many people here (just for example) are living in situations where they're stuck with housemates, landlords, or lodgers because housing policy over the last 30+ years has been all about restricting the supply of housing, particularly to those at the lower end of the income scale? How much easier would it have been to control in-home infections, if the shortage of housing had not created a situation where people are living, essentially purely for cost reasons, in what are effectively mixed households?
> 
> ...



I need one of those standing ovation gifs! Yes, yes and thrice yes to all of that.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 13, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Actually, I got to thinking about this. While we are busily (and righteously) ripping this clown cabinet a new one for their in-the-moment cockups throughout the pandemic, the really bad shit is happening because of decisions taken long ago, and kept in place even now.
> 
> *Accommodation* - how many people here (just for example) are living in situations where they're stuck with housemates, landlords, or lodgers because housing policy over the last 30+ years has been all about restricting the supply of housing, particularly to those at the lower end of the income scale? How much easier would it have been to control in-home infections, if the shortage of housing had not created a situation where people are living, essentially purely for cost reasons, in what are effectively mixed households?
> 
> ...


Yep, all of that.

But if there was a general election tomorrow the tories would still have a comfortable majority


----------



## existentialist (Jan 13, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Yep, all of that.
> 
> But if there was a general election tomorrow the tories would still have a comfortable majority


I fucking know  Turkeys voting for Christmas, every time...


----------



## existentialist (Jan 13, 2021)

zora said:


> I need one of those standing ovation gifs! Yes, yes and thrice yes to all of that.


I quite like this one in these situations 






(although I note that they are seated )


----------



## two sheds (Jan 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> But what I'm saying is the very opposite of claiming that man flu wasnt actually real flu.
> 
> This stuff can also be filed under 'reasons why we should have a proper, routine mass diagnostics setup in this country'. Dont assume, dont guess, have things ruled in or out properly via testing. Something this country was not keen on or setup to do when this pandemic arrived, but that has probably since changed forever, especially given we now have infrastructure to do it at scale.



Ah ok I let you off then


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

The tentative signs of improvement are now being mentioned by the likes of Hancock and Johnson.

A BBC Realick Check piece in response to that contains the usual statements that I disagree with:



> At Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris Johnson said “the lockdown measures we had in place, combined with tier four measures, are starting to show some signs of effect.”
> 
> Looking at cases of Covid-19 in England, the average for the week ending 1 January was almost 55,000 cases.
> 
> ...



( 13:56 entry of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-55643842 )

Specifically what they say about hospital admissions simply isnt true, at least not in terms of the timing of things in data made public. There wasnt a couple of week gap between positive case data dropping and hospital admission data dropping in the first wave, and there isnt this time around either. I hope to demonstrate this again today when the latest hospital data comes out. Using rolling averages does introduce more lag to the picture so they might not be wrong when talking about seven day averages of hospital admissions, but its certainly wrong when looking at each days figures in raw form.

I would agree with their note of caustion about how declines are not guaranteed to continue, the trajectory could change again. But I wouldnt use the wording they chose to use in regards that either, since I do not consider the previous drops that came before a sustained rise to have only lasted 'a couple of days'.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

Here is a graph I should use to make that point. Data is England only. And I have fiddled with the scales of the different sorts of numbers so that they all end up the same sort of size on this graph, so one doesnt dwarf the others.

There is no lag that requires careful consideration between the picture shown by published positive cases data and that shown by hospital admissions. At least not this time, when unlike the first wave we actually have a proper testing system for detecting large numbers of positive cases in the community. There is the expected lag between those measures and deaths by date of reporting.

The only thing I'm not allowing for in this chart is that daily hospital admissions numbers are generally published 2 days later, so perhaps it would be fairer if I moved the blue line two days to the right. But I've tested that and it really doesnt make much difference so I havent bothered on this occasion. And I would rather not have used a 7 day average for deaths because that introduces its own lag compared to raw daily figures, but those figures just jump around too much to put on the graph in raw form without it turning into a big mess of spikes that distract from the picture I'm trying to show.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> The tentative signs of improvement are now being mentioned by the likes of Hancock and Johnson.
> 
> A BBC Realick Check piece in response to that contains the usual statements that I disagree with:
> 
> ...


As well as all of that, the tentative signs of improvement don't seem to take account of the regional picture. 

I've mainly been looking at new cases data for this thought, which is 6 days old before the regional data comes out, but from that it looks like any signs of improvement are mainly in the south east and east (where the new strain hit first) and things are (or were) deteriorating in other areas (Merseyside, the Bournemouth area and some others stand out).

It looks to me like the new strain has spread like a wave across England from (south) east to west, and while its beginning to show signs of having peaked where it hit first (including the most populous area of the country,  London), it's still hitting other areas now and could go on to hit other areas yet.

Have you got any data to support or disprove this theory?


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

Spandex said:


> As well as all of that, the tentative signs of improvement don't seem to take account of the regional picture.
> 
> I've mainly been looking at new cases data for this thought, which is 6 days old before the regional data comes out, but from that it looks like any signs of improvement are mainly in the south east and east (where the new strain hit first) and things are (or were) deteriorating in other areas (Merseyside, the Bournemouth area and some others stand out).
> 
> ...



Considerable regional variations are expected at this time, yes. I will find some documents relating to this in a bit. Regional variation was mentioned by thr BBCs Nick Triggle when discussing the tentative signs, including Liverpool as an example of where things have gotten bad again. I'm expecting to increasingly focus on the regional pictures over the net period, once I have a bit more data.

As for the new variant stuff, I am retaining an open mind about that aspect for now, and there may well be clues about its role as a result of what actually ends up happening in different regions now and in the coming weeks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 13, 2021)

Good news - new cases reported today are 'only' 47,525.

Bad news - new deaths reported today sets a new record of 1,564. taking the 7-day average to over 1,060 per day.


----------



## LDC (Jan 13, 2021)

Yeah, just saw that figure for deaths. Grim. Maybe new cases are going down more consistently though...? <fingers crossed>

And looks like there's been mutterings about exercise restrictions. I mean seriously? They really think that's a significant area of infection? More than work or all the other shit going on like that?!


----------



## Supine (Jan 13, 2021)

Looks like a downward trend has started. Fingers crossed.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

I know we were talking about mobility data the other day so here is a take on that from the BBC:









						Lockdown: Are people breaking Covid rules?
					

The government is urging us to stay at home during the lockdown but are we?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Good news - new cases reported today are 'only' 47,525.
> 
> Bad news - new deaths reported today sets a new record of 1,564. taking the 7-day average to over 1,060 per day.



By date of death here is how things are looking, with the usual colour-coding to relate the data to date of reporting.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> I know we were talking about mobility data the other day so here is a take on that from the BBC:
> 
> 
> 
> ...









That does conform with the "more people are out and about because more workplaces are open" theory.

ETA: parks in lockdown two seems weird


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 13, 2021)

Where are the guardian getting the 100,000 figure from? Is this the 28 days thing or the number of deaths with Covid on the death certificate?


----------



## LDC (Jan 13, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Where are the guardian getting the 100,000 figure from? Is this the 28 days thing or the number of deaths with Covid on the death certificate?



The later I think. The dead within 28 days of +tive test wasn't quite as close to 100,000 recently.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 13, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Where are the guardian getting the 100,000 figure from? Is this the 28 days thing or the number of deaths with Covid on the death certificate?


 
ONS figures, i.e. with Covid on the death certificate, which was on 89,243, back on 1st, Jan - Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Where are the guardian getting the 100,000 figure from? Is this the 28 days thing or the number of deaths with Covid on the death certificate?



They've probably taken the ONS (+NRS & NISRA for Northern Ireland and Scotland) figures, and then added the daily dashboard figures for the period that the ONS data does not yet cover.

I'll check later.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 13, 2021)

Interesting that this lockdown work travel has been reduced by much more than lockdown 2, I guess because more stuff is closed.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 13, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> That does conform with the "more people are out and about because more workplaces are open" theory.
> 
> ETA: parks in lockdown two seems weird



Is it compared to the same period the year before?  People going to parks instead of pubs because it's still warm enough?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 13, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Interesting that this lockdown work travel has been reduced by much more than lockdown 2, I guess because more stuff is closed.


I mean that was barely a lockdown tbh. I'm a bit baffled by why everyone seems to have gone to the park though.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 13, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Is it compared to the same period the year before?  People going to parks instead of pubs because it's still warm enough?


I mean it wasn't too bad in November but it still isn't classic park weather. Perhaps people _would_ be more in the park now if it wasn't horrible out.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I mean that was barely a lockdown tbh. I'm a bit baffled by why everyone seems to have gone to the park though.



Dont bogart that virus my friend,
Pass it over to me.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 13, 2021)

so more people have died of the virus than were killed by air raids in the second world war (c.61,000 The Bombing of Britain 1940-1945 - Centre for the Study of War, State and Society - University of Exeter)

within weeks twice as many people will have been killed by the virus than died from enemy action in the uk in air raids, v1 attacks and v2 attacks between 1940 and 1945

fucking mental


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 13, 2021)

Supine said:


> Looks like a downward trend has started. Fingers crossed.
> 
> View attachment 248715


fingers crossed is all we get from his government


----------



## miss direct (Jan 13, 2021)

The numbers are horrifying, and it's sad that we just seem numb to it


----------



## Cid (Jan 13, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> That does conform with the "more people are out and about because more workplaces are open" theory.
> 
> ETA: parks in lockdown two seems weird



Yeah. That is odd.

The workplace figures I think mean there are ~5.4m more people out and about than ld1.

I am shit at maths though.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 13, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> so more people have died of the virus than were killed by air raids in the second world war (c.61,000 The Bombing of Britain 1940-1945 - Centre for the Study of War, State and Society - University of Exeter)
> 
> within weeks twice as many people will have been killed by the virus than died from enemy action in the uk in air raids, v1 attacks and v2 attacks between 1940 and 1945
> 
> fucking mental


And the murderous cunts are still ahead in the polls...


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 13, 2021)

brogdale said:


> And the murderous cunts are still ahead in the polls...
> 
> View attachment 248723


how long before the penguins are fed?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 13, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> how long before the penguins are fed?


too long, whatever the timeframe involved.


----------



## killer b (Jan 13, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I mean it wasn't too bad in November but it still isn't classic park weather. Perhaps people _would_ be more in the park now if it wasn't horrible out.


The parks were really busy in November - I passed through Haigh Park in Wigan on a longer walk one Sunday towards the end of the month and it was absolutely packed, summer numbers.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 13, 2021)

killer b said:


> The parks were really busy in November - I passed through Haigh Park in Wigan on a longer walk one Sunday towards the end of the month and it was absolutely packed, summer numbers.


there were lots of people in victoria park in london on the weekend


----------



## Mation (Jan 13, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I mean that was barely a lockdown tbh. I'm a bit baffled by why everyone seems to have gone to the park though.


The baseline figures for Jan 2020 park-going may have been very low? Also as someone said it was mild in November and, iirc, you could meet up to 6 people in the park.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 13, 2021)

Scotland's Covid lockdown tightened with click and collect and takeaway curbs



> New statutory guidance will tell employers they are now required to help their staff work from home, and restrictions on builders or plumbers working on non-essential tasks in homes will be enforced in law.



might be coming to england then. probably have more impact than restrictions on exercise which i doubt is a huge source of transmission.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 13, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Scotland's Covid lockdown tightened with click and collect and takeaway curbs
> 
> might be coming to england then.


fun fun fun


----------



## brogdale (Jan 13, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> there were lots of people in victoria park in london on the weekend


IMO, the only safe way to navigate the parks now is to go full-on dogshit mode and stride across the wet grass avoiding the paths.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 13, 2021)

brogdale said:


> IMO, the only safe way to navigate the parks now is to go full-on dogshit mode and stride across the wet grass avoiding the paths.


fortunately the runners' trails were already devoid of dogshit thanks to the prompt action of a morning's worth of other people running

so i enjoyed my stroll without having to stare at my feet the whole time


----------



## Roadkill (Jan 13, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Scotland's Covid lockdown tightened with click and collect and takeaway curbs
> 
> 
> 
> might be coming to england then. probably have more impact than restrictions on exercise which i doubt is a huge source of transmission.



It should tbh.  Some of the takeaways round here are taking the piss.  They've all got signs up mandating a maximum number in the shop at any one time and that masks must be worn, but don't make any attempt at all to enforce them.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 13, 2021)

I know I'm going to sound like a grumpy old git, (again!), but the 3+ abreast, coffee-swilling, phone distracted path fillers have put me off the parks for some while now. Why can't folk just show a little forethought and common courtesy by moving to one side go the park path?

Rant over.


----------



## Supine (Jan 13, 2021)

Delays kill


----------



## brogdale (Jan 13, 2021)

Supine said:


> Delays kill



Blood on their hands.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 13, 2021)

Supine said:


> Delays kill




Probably worse once you factor in that one day of school.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 13, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> so more people have died of the virus than were killed by air raids in the second world war (c.61,000 The Bombing of Britain 1940-1945 - Centre for the Study of War, State and Society - University of Exeter)
> 
> within weeks twice as many people will have been killed by the virus than died from enemy action in the uk in air raids, v1 attacks and v2 attacks between 1940 and 1945
> 
> fucking mental


But no property damage so all is ok.


----------



## magneze (Jan 13, 2021)

Supine said:


> Delays kill



That chart should be presented at the next daily press conf.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Where are the guardian getting the 100,000 figure from? Is this the 28 days thing or the number of deaths with Covid on the death certificate?



I checked and it was what I thought it would be earlier. Although the dates and numbers they mention arent quite what I find when I look for ONS etc data, but it doesnt really make much difference to the sort of total that emerges.



> There have been 93,418 coronavirus deaths recorded by statistical agencies, based on those with Covid on the death certificate, from the beginning of the pandemic up to 10 January, and a further 7,742 deaths since according to figures published by the government based on deaths within 28 days of a positive test for the virus.











						UK coronavirus deaths pass 100,000 after 1,564 reported in one day
					

Experts condemn ‘phenomenal failure of policy and practice’ in handling of pandemic




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 13, 2021)

TopCat said:


> But no property damage so all is ok.



If the pandemic destroyed 2 million houses that would certainly be worse.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 13, 2021)

TopCat said:


> But no property damage so all is ok.


Which brings to mind


----------



## Badgers (Jan 13, 2021)

Not specifically virus related but fuck me

Private company ‘removes free access’ to hospital bedside TVs as pandemic surges



> Hospedia, the company that provides bedside TV units to more than 130 NHS sites, has recommenced steep charges for its service. According to hospital staff, access to the service had been free of charge since the pandemic began – but the company has now removed free access ‘without warning’.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2021)

BBC finally on the case regarding the call for better masks in hospital settings:









						Call for better coronavirus masks for all medical staff
					

Doctors leaders' want staff to be given the type of high-quality masks usually only worn in intensive care.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> A few hospitals have decided to break with official guidance.
> 
> It's understood that hospitals in Cambridge, Plymouth and Exeter have decided to equip staff with FFP3 masks if they face patients diagnosed with Covid or suspected of having it.



That issue has always been high on my list of pandemic disgraces in this country. I remember when they first downgraded the advice, it was all about supply realities rather than what was actually appropriate.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 13, 2021)

I'm torn on takeaway food etc because people do genuinely need access to that sort of thing (myself included) but having worked in catering and also being able to compare periods of my life where I exclusively ate out/takeaways vs periods where I only cooked at home I know it's a fucking germ fest at the best of times. Another one of those situations that's been years in the making, shit work conditions, general decline of quality in good/services as capitalism hollows everything out etc etc


----------



## Numbers (Jan 13, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Blood on their hands.


Just wash it off every day singing happy birthday.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 13, 2021)

Great thread but it's a long one. It tallies up with a lot of the anecdotes here that the main problem is people still not isolating enough or for long enough with symptoms even if generally good at complying otherwise (it's just very visible when people aren't). It also emphasizes this isn't actually that locked down.


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 13, 2021)

I wonder if Hugh Pym on the BBC News knows his expression has the same uncontrollable smirk as the Prime Minister!  He does try to sound sincere, I think.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 13, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> I'm torn on takeaway food etc because people do genuinely need access to that sort of thing (myself included) but having worked in catering and also being able to compare periods of my life where I exclusively ate out/takeaways vs periods where I only cooked at home I know it's a fucking germ fest at the best of times. Another one of those situations that's been years in the making, shit work conditions, general decline of quality in good/services as capitalism hollows everything out etc etc


It is a tricky one.  We've had, I think, three takeaways since March.  "Normally" we might have had two or three a month.  We just decided, without even discussing it, that takeaways would just add another possible vector for the virus, so we should cut right back.  I could kill a Dominos American Hot.  Or a curry from the Gurkha's Inn.  Tbf, the last time we got a curry in, we ordered loads and it lasted us three dinners.


----------



## Cid (Jan 13, 2021)

As I understand it - which is not well - the situation with takeaways and coronavirus isn't really the same as other nasty shit. Food poisoning usually happens via different vectors... The big ones are contamination at some point in the production process (I mean including farms, parasites etc), combined with poor preparation. Salmonella, campylobacter, E-coli, rice badgers etc are able to survive and reproduce in the human gut, where they produce the toxins that fuck you up. The notable viral route is the notorious norovirus... But it is specifically adapted for faecal-oral transmission.

Covid, by contrast favours respiratory droplets... Um... I don't want to be too firm on that, because fomite (surface) transmission was discussed a fair bit early in the crisis, but that _seems_ to be by far the dominant vector according to more recent stuff. And since it's what the WHO, and CDC in the US say... I feel reasonably confident. It has been found in faecal matter (obviously, given faecal surveys are a thing), but from what I read it really does favour the respiratory route. And hopefully food is not getting into your respiratory tract, got bigger problems if that happens.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 13, 2021)

But the people working in the takeaways will be passing it to each other.


----------



## Cid (Jan 13, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> But the people working in the takeaways will be passing it to each other.



Yeah there is a fair case for closing them. But the actions of a few concerned urbanites are probably not making any difference... Just have a look at any delivery app around 7pm.


----------



## Supine (Jan 13, 2021)

I feel confident eating food made by others. There might be small risk from formite transmission on containers but the act of cooking is designed to kill nasties before you eat the food.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 13, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> But the people working in the takeaways will be passing it to each other.


And the people sitting in there waiting for their orders.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 13, 2021)

Supine said:


> I feel confident eating food made by others. There might be small risk from formite transmission on containers but the act of cooking is designed to kill nasties before you eat the food.



As someone on here said - probably a good idea to put it in the oven for 10 minutes.


----------



## Supine (Jan 13, 2021)

two sheds said:


> As someone on here said - probably a good idea to put it in the oven for 10 minutes.



I only eat takeaways sitting by myself in hotel rooms so not an option. I can't wait to have a takeaway at home with friends and family.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 14, 2021)

This popped up on my twitter.

Someone remind me how many kids he has.



(it appeared on my twitter.  It may be bollocks, but I expect it isn't)


----------



## BristolEcho (Jan 14, 2021)

Cid said:


> As I understand it - which is not well - the situation with takeaways and coronavirus isn't really the same as other nasty shit. Food poisoning usually happens via different vectors... The big ones are contamination at some point in the production process (I mean including farms, parasites etc), combined with poor preparation. Salmonella, campylobacter, E-coli, rice badgers etc are able to survive and reproduce in the human gut, where they produce the toxins that fuck you up. The notable viral route is the notorious norovirus... But it is specifically adapted for faecal-oral transmission.
> 
> Covid, by contrast favours respiratory droplets... Um... I don't want to be too firm on that, because fomite (surface) transmission was discussed a fair bit early in the crisis, but that _seems_ to be by far the dominant vector according to more recent stuff. And since it's what the WHO, and CDC in the US say... I feel reasonably confident. It has been found in faecal matter (obviously, given faecal surveys are a thing), but from what I read it really does favour the respiratory route. And hopefully food is not getting into your respiratory tract, got bigger problems if that happens.



So I googled rice badgers because WTF and it led me straight to the urban thread.....


----------



## fishfinger (Jan 14, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> This popped up on my twitter.
> 
> Someone remind me how many kids he has.
> 
> ...


This is on his own site:

Global Population Control - Boris Johnson


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 14, 2021)

fishfinger said:


> This is on his own site:
> 
> Global Population Control - Boris Johnson


Where's the faceslap emoji when you need it?  It's far too late, and I'm far too pissed, to read all of that, but for someone who clearly wasn't taught at Eton how to use a fucking condom, he's got a nerve telling the rest of the world to stop breeding.

One rule for them, ...........


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Jan 14, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> Someone remind me how many kids he has.



Is that even public knowledge? I remember reading an article about Vladimir Putin some years ago which stated it wasn't known whether he was married or had kids, and my thinking that was unusual. But here we are.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 14, 2021)

Cid said:


> As I understand it - which is not well - the situation with takeaways and coronavirus isn't really the same as other nasty shit. Food poisoning usually happens via different vectors... The big ones are contamination at some point in the production process (I mean including farms, parasites etc), combined with poor preparation. Salmonella, campylobacter, E-coli, rice badgers etc are able to survive and reproduce in the human gut, where they produce the toxins that fuck you up. The notable viral route is the notorious norovirus... But it is specifically adapted for faecal-oral transmission.
> 
> Covid, by contrast favours respiratory droplets... Um... I don't want to be too firm on that, because fomite (surface) transmission was discussed a fair bit early in the crisis, but that _seems_ to be by far the dominant vector according to more recent stuff. And since it's what the WHO, and CDC in the US say... I feel reasonably confident. It has been found in faecal matter (obviously, given faecal surveys are a thing), but from what I read it really does favour the respiratory route. And hopefully food is not getting into your respiratory tract, got bigger problems if that happens.


if you are worried about a2m transmisssion you should change take away supplier...


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Jan 14, 2021)

My boss spent y'day setting up the barricades/queuing system outside the store that we had seven months ago, while I replaced all the signage. One-way system shit has arrived, but (non-Wales) we're to store it safely until further notice. Starmer's "Don't scoff, you'll be voting for this next week" barb this avo all but confirmed a Bozo press conference tmoz announcing these requirements.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 14, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> This popped up on my twitter.
> 
> Someone remind me how many kids he has.
> 
> ...


At least 9


----------



## David Clapson (Jan 14, 2021)

Some (quite) good news...though with many caveats:









						Recovering from Covid gives similar level of protection to vaccine
					

PHE found immunity from earlier infection provided 83% protection against reinfection for at least 20 weeks




					www.theguardian.com
				







> People who recover from coronavirus have a similar level of protection against future infection as those who receive a Covid vaccine – at least for the first five months, research suggests.
> 
> A Public Health England (PHE) study of more than 20,000 healthcare workers found that immunity acquired from an earlier Covid infection provided 83% protection against reinfection for at least 20 weeks.
> 
> ...


----------



## Cloo (Jan 14, 2021)

Sky reporting on Twitter that compliance with rules generally very high in UK.  Except for isolating when you have a positive test.    



Anecdotally I have heard a few instances of employers asking people to come in even when + , so I wonder how much they accounts for and if we need more penalties for employers doing that.


----------



## magneze (Jan 14, 2021)

Just caught an interview on R4 with a business owner saying that hospitality should open to vaccinated people. Completely missing the staff out of the equation.


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Sky reporting on Twitter that compliance with rules generally very high in UK.  Except for isolating when you have a positive test.
> 
> 
> 
> Anecdotally I have heard a few instances of employers asking people to come in even when + , so I wonder how much they accounts for and if we need more penalties for employers doing that.



sick pay is the big problem, not evil bosses.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Sky reporting on Twitter that compliance with rules generally very high in UK.  Except for isolating when you have a positive test.
> 
> 
> 
> Anecdotally I have heard a few instances of employers asking people to come in even when + , so I wonder how much they accounts for and if we need more penalties for employers doing that.



One of the big things that areas with successful self isolation practices seem to do is provide consistent physical, social, and financial support to people. This is what you get here:









						Help and support while you're staying at home because of coronavirus (COVID-19)
					

Find out about the help and support you can get if you need to stay at home (self-isolate) because of coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.nhs.uk
				




Maybe a volunteer can help you with stuff, and if you don't get sick pay maybe you can get £500 if test and trace told you to self isolate.


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

Sick pay is a long term problem which probably couldn't be fixed quickly, so really the government just needs to pay the wages of everyone who needs to isolate for their isolation period. It would pay dividends by ending the pandemic quicker, and allowing them to stop paying furlough earlier, so it's a no-brainer as far as I can see.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 14, 2021)

After they had symptoms, not after a positive test. If the testing was better it would help with that.

It is true that there's been less emphasis on this than other stuff though isn't it. Harder to get a photo for tutting at perhaps.


----------



## ska invita (Jan 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Anecdotally I have heard a few instances of employers asking people to come in even when + , so I wonder how much they accounts for and if we need more penalties for employers doing that.


I can barely stands for 2 minutes at the mo, not sure how is physically possible got to go anywhere, let alone work


----------



## Cloo (Jan 14, 2021)

ska invita said:


> I can barely stands for 2 minutes at the mo, not sure how is physically possible got to go anywhere, let alone work


Well I guess I these cases it's people with mild/asymptomatic illness. Hope you feel better soon. 

Yes, sick pay definitely a problem, and job insecurity/ lack of rights.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> sick pay is the big problem, not evil bosses.



Both are an issue.


----------



## andysays (Jan 14, 2021)

magneze said:


> Just caught an interview on R4 with a business owner saying that hospitality should open to vaccinated people. Completely missing the staff out of the equation.


This contrasts nicely with all the owners of hospitality business who were previously upset about having to close because they claimed to be concerned about the wellbeing of their staff. 

It's almost like they'll come out with any old nonsense as an excuse for why they shouldn't be closed


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Both are an issue.


I'm unconvinced bosses pressurising covid+ employees to come into work is that much of a thing tbh. Certainly not enough of a thing to impact on the self isolation figures reported above. Employees with no sick pay needing to put dinner on the table is much more significant.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 14, 2021)

Where we're at; piling up the dead in aircraft hangers.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> I'm unconvinced bosses pressurising covid+ employees to come into work is that much of a thing tbh. Certainly not enough of a thing to impact on the self isolation figures reported above. Employees with no sick pay needing to put dinner on the table is much more significant.


It's hypothetical, because all my work is online, but I do wonder what I would have done in a situation where I'd have been forced to self-isolate and not work. I don't think I would have ignored the self-isolation advice, but I would be in a pretty desperate situation without income for 2 weeks. And £500 wouldn't touch the sides, really. So I can well understand how someone told to self-isolate might make the decision that their immediate survival was a more pressing need than the risk of infecting others.


----------



## magneze (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> sick pay is the big problem, not evil bosses.


Although this seems to indicate that the latter might be a factor: Furlough refused to 71% of UK working mothers while schools shut - survey


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

magneze said:


> Although this seems to indicate that the latter might be a factor: Furlough refused to 71% of UK working mothers while schools shut - survey


The headline is pretty misleading there - it's based on a self-selected survey that was sent out as part of a campaign, and they don't seem to have published the full results. While even one working mother being refused furlough is a disgrace, you've got to wonder how many people who've been dealt with fairly and are happy with the way they've been treated by their employer would have the time or inclination to respond to a survey that's explicitly being carried out to put pressure on the government about Covid working conditions. I'm guessing not many.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 14, 2021)

existentialist said:


> It's hypothetical, because all my work is online, but I do wonder what I would have done in a situation where I'd have been forced to self-isolate and not work. I don't think I would have ignored the self-isolation advice, but I would be in a pretty desperate situation without income for 2 weeks. And £500 wouldn't touch the sides, really. So I can well understand how someone told to self-isolate might make the decision that their immediate survival was a more pressing need than the risk of infecting others.



I think this touches on the difference between symptoms and a positive test as well. It's one thing to put yourself through this if you know you have Covid but would you (meaning a general you here not necessarily you personally) do it for a bit of a cough? Or a slight temperature? It's a big ask especially as it could happen again a week later.


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 14, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I mean that was barely a lockdown tbh. I'm a bit baffled by why everyone seems to have gone to the park though.


parks have been relatively rammed here since march. fuck all else to do or to go. everyone now has a dog or runs. i used to to get out in the day, during normal work hours, avoiding the school let out, for space & quiet, but there's a much heavier and more even footfall now. and i don't blame or begrudge anyone but it's a marked change (for the worse from my perspective).


----------



## kebabking (Jan 14, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Where we're at; piling up the dead in aircraft hangers.
> 
> View attachment 248811



You'll have noted from my various comments that I'm not _entirely _convinced that the Govt have done everything perfectly and timeously, and with exquisite communication skills, but in Feb/March PHE/NHS were talking about a potential death toll (all excess deaths) of 500k to 800k deaths in 9 months, and we were doing the staff work for mass graves outside every city in the land - like area, earth moving equipment, biohazard routines etc... 

I'm not going to sit here and defend the handling of this by a bunch of skiplickers, but the truth is that industrial scale death was always on the cards during this pandemic, and the fact that we've not had to dig mass graves (so far) has been little short of a miracle.


----------



## LDC (Jan 14, 2021)

kebabking said:


> You'll have noted from my various comments that I'm not _entirely _convinced that the Govt have done everything perfectly and timeously, and with exquisite communication skills, but in Feb/March PHE/NHS were talking about a potential death toll (all excess deaths) of 500k to 800k deaths in 9 months, and we were doing the staff work for mass graves outside every city in the land - like area, earth moving equipment, biohazard routines etc...
> 
> I'm not going to sit here and defend the handling of this by a bunch of skiplickers, but the truth is that industrial scale death was always on the cards during this pandemic, and the fact that we've not had to dig mass graves (so far) has been little short of a miracle.



Yeah, one of my early 'oh fuck' moments in the pandemic was chatting to a friend in the local council who was scoping out mass grave sites for the city.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 14, 2021)

I have a sense that the first mass burial is going to be a pretty major "oh, fuck" moment for a lot of people.

And yet, and yet...the fools still infest FB and Twitter with their insistence that the whole thing is a hoax. Even knowing what I know about minds and thinking, I struggle to get my head around the cognitive dissonance and denial that must be operating in these people.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 14, 2021)

kebabking said:


> You'll have noted from my various comments that I'm not _entirely _convinced that the Govt have done everything perfectly and timeously, and with exquisite communication skills, but in Feb/March PHE/NHS were talking about a potential death toll (all excess deaths) of 500k to 800k deaths in 9 months, and we were doing the staff work for mass graves outside every city in the land - like area, earth moving equipment, biohazard routines etc...
> 
> I'm not going to sit here and defend the handling of this by a bunch of skiplickers, but the truth is that industrial scale death was always on the cards during this pandemic, and the fact that we've not had to dig mass graves (so far) has been little short of a miracle.


"...industrial scale death was always on the cards during this pandemic..." if the governmental 'strategy' was to treat the virus like a seasonal flu, rather than something to eliminate.


----------



## Sue (Jan 14, 2021)

Is this shit even legal? (And of course it's Pimlico Plumbers.)









						Pimlico Plumbers to introduce 'no jab, no job' work contracts
					

Move comes amid concerns about Covid ‘anti-vaxxers’ but may have legal implications




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 14, 2021)




----------



## LDC (Jan 14, 2021)

Sue said:


> Is this shit even legal? (And of course it's Pimlico Plumbers.)
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've wondered about the complexities of it becoming a prerequisite for any health and social care job. I think it'd be very tricky changing contracts and insisting on it for current workers, but maybe easier for new contracts and employees...?


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 14, 2021)

I've developed a fever yesterday and my child was at nursery. I'm not sure how I'd get her home if I was single.
As it is Chemistry left work early and got her - and he'd had a lateral flow test (negative) that morning.


----------



## Numbers (Jan 14, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


>



I walked up the High St (Chemist trip) y/day and apart from bookies and barbers everything else is open, streets are busy, buses busy, road was chocca with cars.  It never felt like lockdown from the off but it’s almost as normal.


----------



## andysays (Jan 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I've wondered about the complexities of it becoming a prerequisite for any health and social care job. I think it'd be very tricky changing contracts and insisting on it for current workers, but maybe easier for new contracts and employees...?


Depends on the existing contract, assuming they even have proper contracts and aren't regarded as self employed  

On a practical level, it's going to be many months before vaccines are made available to those not either older or with medical conditions. 

I don't imagine Pimlico Plumbers are going to refuse to take on any work in the meantime


----------



## Looby (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> I'm unconvinced bosses pressurising covid+ employees to come into work is that much of a thing tbh. Certainly not enough of a thing to impact on the self isolation figures reported above. Employees with no sick pay needing to put dinner on the table is much more significant.


I think it’s a huge thing in some sectors, particularly with casual work. I’ve heard stories of supermarkets and other employers telling people they have to come in and ordering people not to use the app so they can’t be picked up as a close contact. There’s also my friend whose care colleagues were telling her to ignore her partner’s positive Covid test.
It might not be a company policy at fault but individual managers and workplaces seem content to break the law. 

There’s so much pressure to be in and working before you get to whether they’ll be paid or not.


----------



## og ogilby (Jan 14, 2021)

Sue said:


> Is this shit even legal? (And of course it's Pimlico Plumbers.)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


My mate's a plumber, he's really pissed off at his customers who, he says, mostly don't wear masks when he's working in their houses as they seem to take the attitude that it's their house and so their rules.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jan 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Sky reporting on Twitter that compliance with rules generally very high in UK.  Except for isolating when you have a positive test.
> 
> 
> 
> Anecdotally I have heard a few instances of employers asking people to come in even when + , so I wonder how much they accounts for and if we need more penalties for employers doing that.




So younger people are self-isolating better than older people (60+). So it's not just too little sick pay (though I agree this needs sorting). So various types of extra support might be needed also. Would be interesting to know if more of those that fail to self-isolate are leaving the house (ie for shopping or dog walking [ETA and work of course]) or being visited (ie family members doing care visits).


----------



## IC3D (Jan 14, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


>



Currently enduring this shit and my belief in this ending soon is 0%


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 14, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Currently enduring this shit and my belief in this ending soon is 0%


Ever the optimist


----------



## Sue (Jan 14, 2021)

andysays said:


> Depends on the existing contract, assuming they even have proper contracts and aren't regarded as self employed
> 
> On a practical level, it's going to be many months before vaccines are made available to those not either older or with medical conditions.
> 
> I don't imagine Pimlico Plumbers are going to refuse to take on any work in the meantime


There was a case recently, wasn't there, about whether they were self-employed or employees? Can't remember what the outcome was but IIRC it was about them trying to weasel out of paying sick and holiday pay etc. The usual nonsense really.


----------



## andysays (Jan 14, 2021)

Sue said:


> There was a case recently, wasn't there, about whether they were self-employed or employees? Can't remember what the outcome was but IIRC it was about them trying to weasel out of paying sick and holiday pay etc. The usual nonsense really.


I don't specifically remember that but it wouldn't surprise me.

As you say, the usual nonsense


----------



## Cid (Jan 14, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> I've developed a fever yesterday and my child was at nursery. I'm not sure how I'd get her home if I was single.
> As it is Chemistry left work early and got her - and he'd had a lateral flow test (negative) that morning.



Lateral flow tests are kind of crap. I mean they're useful, but they shouldn't really tell an individual anything. If they say you're positive, 99% you are. But a negative result doesn't really tell you anything. I get the impression their use needs a major review.









						Covid-19: government must urgently rethink lateral flow test roll out - The BMJ
					

Plans to widen roll out risk serious harm No one questions the need for evidence based approaches to covid 19 treatments and vaccines. Why then is this principle ignored for [...]More...




					blogs.bmj.com
				




(which is to say chemistry should isolate until you have pcr result. And also obviously best wishes etc)


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 14, 2021)

Cid said:


> Lateral flow tests are kind of crap. I mean they're useful, but they shouldn't really tell an individual anything. If they say you're positive, 99% you are. But a negative result doesn't really tell you anything. I get the impression their use needs a major review.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This only applies to that specific Innova lateral flow test.

The government bought 2 million of these lateral flow tests last week which are 98% accurate (although they require a blood sample taken by a clinician, they will be useful in many settings as they give a result in 10 minutes).


----------



## IC3D (Jan 14, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Ever the optimist


Apparently share the same rosy outlook as tube drivers. Guess we can't see the light at the end of the tunnel


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> I'm unconvinced bosses pressurising covid+ employees to come into work is that much of a thing tbh. Certainly not enough of a thing to impact on the self isolation figures reported above. Employees with no sick pay needing to put dinner on the table is much more significant.



Nah, we have a culture of penalising workers who are genuinely sick, whether thats with bosses tutting at them and penalising them or the slavish devotion to the HR algorithm saying they are swinging the leg.


----------



## Cid (Jan 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> This only applies to that specific Innova lateral flow test.
> 
> The government bought 2 million of these lateral flow tests last week which are 98% accurate (although they require a blood sample taken by a clinician, they will be useful in many settings as they give a result in 10 minutes).



Perhaps, but it's probably not relevant to wtfftw 's case. And there doesn't seem to be a lot of info on it at present.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 14, 2021)

Cid said:


> Lateral flow tests are kind of crap. I mean they're useful, but they shouldn't really tell an individual anything. If they say you're positive, 99% you are. But a negative result doesn't really tell you anything. I get the impression their use needs a major review.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yup. I pointed him at that.   

We are household isolating. It's not quite 4 months since we were last ill and not the same so I'm hopeful.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 14, 2021)

Cid said:


> Perhaps, but it's probably not relevant to wtfftw 's case.



There's no perhaps about it - your assertion that lateral flow tests are crap is plainly wrong. You don't even know which test was taken in wtfftw's case - there are three approved tests in addition to the Innova one.


----------



## Sue (Jan 14, 2021)

andysays said:


> I don't specifically remember that but it wouldn't surprise me.
> 
> As you say, the usual nonsense



'A heating engineer who won a claim against Pimlico Plumbers at the supreme court, establishing he was a worker and not self-employed, has lost his bid to claim £74,000 in holiday pay as a result.

An employment tribunal in Croydon ruled on Wednesday that Gary Smith, from Kent, who worked at the firm for six years until 2011, had not filed his holiday pay claim quickly enough.'

---snip---

'Charlie Mullins, the chief executive of Pimlico Plumbers, said: “While the supreme court deemed him to be a ‘worker’ and entitled to associated rights, the tables have been turned and common sense prevailed in the actual employment tribunal and Mr Smith has been told that he wasn’t entitled to a penny.”

He said the ruling “sends a message to those who have taken advantage of this case to peddle their poisonous bile about my company”.

The company said it was considering reclaiming its tribunal costs from Smith.'











						Gig economy: worker loses Pimlico Plumbers holiday pay claim
					

Man who won earlier workers’ rights case against firm is not entitled to £74,000, court rules




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## 2hats (Jan 14, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Some (quite) good news...though with many caveats:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That article is referencing interim results of the SIREN study.

The key take away items from that study (thus far) are:

Naturally acquired immunity appears to provide _up to_ 83% protection against reinfection (ie is not universal).
Naturally acquired immunity appears to last for _at least_ 5 months (*).
Persons with naturally acquired immunity still carry high levels of virus and could continue to transmit the virus to others. This is currently being investigated further.
This study was conducted prior to the emergence of VOC 202012/01 and further work is underway to determine the impact that may have, if any, on these results and conclusions.
So (particularly in light of point 3) all persons previously infected, like all the vaccinated, still need to practice social distancing and mask up, as if they are infected and those around them are all infectious.

* Other studies have determined that _some_ degree of naturally acquired immunity can last for _some_ people for _up to_ 8 months.

e2a: preprint with details can be found here.


----------



## Cid (Jan 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> There's no perhaps about it - your assertion that lateral flow tests are crap is plainly wrong. You don't even know which test was taken in wtfftw's case - there are three approved tests in addition to the Innova one.



Fuck me, do you want people to do a full break down of the current and prospective test regime in every post? Only to conclude with ‘it’s probably safest to assume it’s the innova one and wait for pcr’?

The criticism in the BMJ is on the current roll out of lateral flow testing. That’s what is relevant.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 14, 2021)

Also from Sky I found these stats interesting:



In particular that there's a fairly similar degree of following the rules (pretty good in general) on meeting indoors or outdoors. I would have thought a lot more people would be prepared to meet people outside than inside, but the numbers are very similar. Suggests maybe still a poor understanding of aerosol risk? I'll admit, we have done meeting our parents in their gardens recently (accessible from street) as this seems low risk - we stay more like 4m apart and TBH it's so fucking cold 10-20 mins is the max we can all cope with anyway. But we haven't been inside anyone's house or had anyone in ours socially since some time in September.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 14, 2021)

og ogilby said:


> My mate's a plumber, he's really pissed off at his customers who, he says, mostly don't wear masks when he's working in their houses as they seem to take the attitude that it's their house and so their rules.




Whereas my boiler engineer turned up early with no mask. I shut him in the kitchen while I went elsewhere but he came out twice and didnt shut the door afterwards.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Also from Sky I found these stats interesting:
> 
> 
> 
> In particular that there's a fairly similar degree of following the rules (pretty good in general) on meeting indoors or outdoors. I would have thought a lot more people would be prepared to meet people outside than inside, but the numbers are very similar. Suggests maybe still a poor understanding of aerosol risk? I'll admit, we have done meeting our parents in their gardens recently (accessible from street) as this seems low risk - we stay more like 4m apart and TBH it's so fucking cold 10-20 mins is the max we can all cope with anyway. But we haven't been inside anyone's house or had anyone in ours socially since some time in September.




I don't think it means that similar numbers of people are doing indoor and outdoor meetings. It means that similar numbers of people are following the rules (for each scenario) in each case. So there might be 10 people doing outdoor meetings and 2 people doing indoor meetings, and in each case, most of the people are following the rules that apply to the type of meeting they are doing.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 14, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Whereas my boiler engineer turned up early with no mask. I shut him in the kitchen while I went elsewhere but he came out twice and didnt shut the door afterwards.



Only time I've had someone round was the chimney sweep. I asked him to put a mask on because I'm classed as vulnerable and he said 'well only makes sense if we both do' and I agreed and we both masked up happily  

Next time I'll mask up first and ask whether he could too.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 14, 2021)

Since I live alone and only go out to get food, I don't pay attention to government bullshit, and now I find that even if the sun came out and I could get off my arse and onto my bike, I wouldn't technically be allowed to cycle 10 or 20 miles on the local railway path 
And apparently I should only walk 1 mile around the park once a week ?

This may motivate me to become a dangerous lawbreaker and get fit in the process ...


----------



## Cloo (Jan 14, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I don't think it means that similar numbers of people are doing indoor and outdoor meetings. It means that similar numbers of people are following the rules (for each scenario) in each case. So there might be 10 people doing outdoor meetings and 2 people doing indoor meetings, and in each case, most of the people are following the rules that apply to the type of meeting they are doing.


This is why I'm not a statistician


----------



## zora (Jan 14, 2021)

So another friend, partner and child have just got covid, brought home from nursery by the toddler. Another friend on our group chat said she'd been hearing today on several other groups of people testing positive, where nursery has been the only obvious outside world contact. 
I am sure it will be a great relief for the affected families and staff that there is " 'very little' virus risk in nurseries" (article from last week).








						Covid-19: 'Very little' virus risk at nurseries, says vaccine minister
					

The vaccine minister defends the decision to keep nurseries open, as unions call for a shutdown.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 14, 2021)

zora said:


> So another friend, partner and child have just got covid, brought home from nursery by the toddler. Another friend on our group chat said she'd been hearing today on several other groups of people testing positive, where nursery has been the only obvious outside world contact.
> I am sure it will be a great relief for the affected families and staff that there is " 'very little' virus risk in nurseries" (article from last week).
> 
> 
> ...




I think sometimes people put blame where they want it to be


----------



## LDC (Jan 14, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Since I live alone and only go out to get food, I don't pay attention to government bullshit, and now I find that even if the sun came out and I could get off my arse and onto my bike, I wouldn't technically be allowed to cycle 10 or 20 miles on the local railway path
> And apparently I should only walk 1 mile around the park once a week ?
> 
> This may motivate me to become a dangerous lawbreaker and get fit in the process ...



Where are you getting the 1 mile once a week from gentlegreen ?


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Where are you getting the 1 mile once a week from gentlegreen ?


well it's "stay in your area" once a week - and that would  be a short bike ride ...
To be fair, if the paths are crawling with furloughed office macho men, I will probably give it a miss in any case ...


----------



## LDC (Jan 14, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> well it's "stay in your area" once a week - and that would  be a short bike ride ...
> To be fair, if the paths are crawling with furloughed office macho men, I will probably give it a miss in any case ...



I've not seen anything that says once a week, where did you get that from? Nor the only walking a mile you also mentioned.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 14, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> I think sometimes people put blame where they want it to be



Do you think nurseries are magically different from schools as a vector to spread the virus between households?


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I've not seen anything that says once a week, where did you get that from? Nor the only walking a mile you also mentioned.


OK so perhaps it's a walk through the park once a day ...

"exercise with your household (or support bubble) or one other person, this should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area. "

But me doing regular 20 mile rides is out of the question


----------



## maomao (Jan 14, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> But me doing regular 20 mile rides is out of the question


Do laps of the block.


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> OK so perhaps it's a walk through the park once a day ...
> 
> "exercise with your household (or support bubble) or one other person, this should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area. "
> 
> But me doing regular 20 mile rides is out of the question


You can do as many daily 20 mile bike rides as you like, literally no-one is going to stop you or care.  Or would you prefer the rules were laxer or more complicated?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 14, 2021)

You can do your 20 mile rides but if that once in a blue moon accident or breakdown occurs you better be sure you know how to minimise contact because you’ve just potentially exposed the ambulance crew or breakdown or cabbies or even yourself without needing to.


You can have fun, just do it sensibly and nearer home than usual


----------



## miss direct (Jan 14, 2021)

Also be careful of crossing county lines. I live quite near the border with Derbyshire - although I go into the Peak District, I stay on the South Yorkshire side. That was the understanding during the tier system and makes sense to continue it.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 14, 2021)

I try to stay away from Kingswood / South Glos in any case, but I have to brave the dragons to get out anywhere interesting - on the other hand the cycle path is crawling with thieves and vagabonds ...

Worried that they might run out of greens, I just braved the supermarket and it was more crowded at the tills than I like (Tesco)
On the tannoy they were saying "face coverings are not mandatory" ... then  something I couldn't make out .. finishing with "please treat others with respect."

Thankfully people were all masked and respectful ...


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 14, 2021)

Tbh this stuff (like the stuff about the women driving to the reservoir) looks like after the fact justification for saying people shouldn't travel rather than the reason for the rules (or possibly they're not even the rules, who knows). Yeah you could hurt yourself going out for a bike ride. You could hurt yourself staying at home though couldn't you. Is there any actual evidence of the relative risk here?


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 14, 2021)

yes I'd forgotten the injury / ambulance thing ...


----------



## hitmouse (Jan 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its an entirely inappropriate response for existing diseases such as influenza too. When people ignore what could be flu and carry on with their lives, it contributes to epidemics that kill tends of thousands of people in a country like ours every so many years.
> 
> So you are focussing on very important stuff, but I would go further. The mistakes now are based on things we always get wrong, and have been encouraged to get wrong in normal times, the default response to flu is as inappropriate as the dangerous responses to Covid-19.
> 
> ...


Just catching up with this now, but god, remember how back in the before times how many fucking adverts there were for cold and flu medication that were basically pitched at the level of "Got the flu? Will you stay home like A FUCKING WIMP? Or will you BUY OUR PRODUCT and GO TO WORK and SPREAD YOUR GERMS AROUND like a REAL MAN?" Can't remember that many specific offenders off the top of my head, but here's one:





The brand said the TV advert “demonstrates how people can defy their colds with Beechams by their side, tapping into the British attitude of ‘keep going’”.


----------



## bimble (Jan 14, 2021)

Don’t know which thread to put this in but looking for simple advice: I seem to have a reduced (not totally lost but significantly weaker than usual) sense of smell. Fairly certain am not imagining it, have just gone around and sniffed vinegar toilet cleaner etc all very faint. Might have started yesterday was definitely fine day before.
Apart from lethargy and lack of apetite which tbh not very unusual and could just be ennui that’s it. 
ive not been keeping up so I don’t know:
1) is reduced smell a thing or is it just totally gone that’s the symptom?
2) Should I try to get a test?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> Don’t know which thread to put this in but looking for simple advice: I seem to have a reduced (not totally lost but significantly weaker than usual) sense of smell. Fairly certain am not imagining it, have just gone around and sniffed vinegar toilet cleaner etc all very faint. Might have started yesterday was definitely fine day before.
> Apart from lethargy and lack of apetite which tbh not very unusual and could just be ennui that’s it.
> ive not been keeping up so I don’t know:
> 1) is reduced smell a thing or is it just totally gone that’s the symptom?
> 2) Should I try to get a test?


yes and yes


----------



## Smangus (Jan 14, 2021)

Get a test , it will help your peace of mind if negative and you can isolate get treatment etc if positive. Best wishes, hope you are ok.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 14, 2021)

Get a test. Hope you are ok.


----------



## bimble (Jan 14, 2021)

Test booked for early tomorrow, in bloody Milton Keynes that will be fun.


----------



## bimble (Jan 14, 2021)

Booking site doesn’t mention how soon to expect your results after your test. Is there an answer to that question?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 14, 2021)

WTF is wrong with Steve Baker & Co., how can they not get the fact that NHS is at breaking point, and deaths continue to raise?   



> Boris Johnson has been warned by lockdown-sceptic Tory backbenchers that he will face a leadership challenge if he does not “set out a clear plan for when our full freedoms will be restored”.
> 
> Former Brexit minister Steve Baker said to a group of Tory backbenchers that “it’s inevitable the Prime Minister’s leadership will be on the table” if the country faces an indefinite lockdown.
> 
> ...





> “I am sorry to have to say this again and as bluntly as this – it is imperative you equip the chief whip today with your opinion that debate will become about the PM’s leadership if the government does not set out a clear plan for when our full freedoms will be restored, with a guarantee that this strategy will not be used again next winter,” Baker said.
> 
> “Government has adopted a strategy devoid of any commitment to liberty without any clarification about when our most basic freedoms will be restored and with no guarantee that they will never be taken away again.”











						Tory backbenchers warn Boris Johnson to drop lockdown soon or face leadership challenge
					

Boris Johnson has been warned by lockdown-sceptic Tory backbenchers that he will face a leadership challenge if he does not "set out a clear plan for when




					www.cityam.com


----------



## Mattym (Jan 14, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Also be careful of crossing county lines. I live quite near the border with Derbyshire - although I go into the Peak District, I stay on the South Yorkshire side. That was the understanding during the tier system and makes sense to continue it.



Yes, one of my fave you tubers does a lot of wild camping which often straddles the border & he was making a big fuss of not crossing over the border into the dark side.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> WTF is wrong with Steve Baker & Co.


They are loons, untroubled by evidence, facts and critical, rational analysis.


----------



## Doodler (Jan 14, 2021)

Sue said:


> Putting the cock into Hancock right enough.



The act of _irrumatio_ would at least silence him temporarily.


----------



## andysays (Jan 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> Booking site doesn’t mention how soon to expect your results after your test. Is there an answer to that question?


Depends on the type of test.

If it's a lateral flow test, you get them very quickly (I got mine within half an hour).

But there's a different test (PCR test?) for people who actually have symptoms, which takes longer to process but is also more accurate.


----------



## Cid (Jan 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> WTF is wrong with Steve Baker & Co., how can they not get the fact that NHS is at breaking point, and deaths continue to raise?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



What do they think they're going to do? I mean the lockdown vote was 16 against wasn't it? 42 in November (just off skimming google)?

Labour _might_ be amenable to a vonc (though probably not), but they would be fucking stupid to do it off the back of those shits.


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2021)

Spandex said:


> As well as all of that, the tentative signs of improvement don't seem to take account of the regional picture.
> 
> I've mainly been looking at new cases data for this thought, which is 6 days old before the regional data comes out, but from that it looks like any signs of improvement are mainly in the south east and east (where the new strain hit first) and things are (or were) deteriorating in other areas (Merseyside, the Bournemouth area and some others stand out).
> 
> ...



When I first replied to this I mentioned that there were some documents which would shed a bit of light on expected regional differences to come. It took me a while to find out which document I was thinking of. Turns out it was an early analysis of the new strain, and they had modelled a few different scenarios based on different tier measures, schools closed or not, amount of vaccines given. Some of their assumptions are now out of date, and if the modelling was done again it would look a bit different as there is more data to feed into it. Also the periods of measures they modelled are not the same as what we actually ended up with. So there is probably rather limited value in looking at it again now, since what will actually happen in the different regions is not going to match what they came up with via modelling a few scenarios back then. But it does provide an example of how much timescales could vary in different regions, which is no surprise given the variations we saw over summer and autumn.

The charts I was thinking of are on pages 11 & 12 of this document, but like I said they wont be a good fit for whats actually happening, so should just be treated as examples that may help understand the sort of dynamics and influences at work. https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covi..._and_severity_of_VOC_202012_01_in_England.pdf

As for taking a proper regional look at what is actually happening now, I'm waiting for data that is hopefully out tomorrow, although it is possible I will have something to say/show later if todays regional hospital data is especially interesting.


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2021)

The UK dashboard currently says 'Due to an issue with the processing of deaths data, the update for 14 January 2021 is delayed.'. Which always makes me nervous, even though this sort of delay is sometimes purely technical rather than being an ominous sign.


----------



## OneStrike (Jan 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> Booking site doesn’t mention how soon to expect your results after your test. Is there an answer to that question?


With my test yesterday (albeit in nearby Kettering) they said as I handed it in they will take up to 3 days, but he said in a friendly way it will be next day. Sure enough, it took 16 hours (got the all clear). This was a drive through place, took less than 20minutes and was quite impressive tbh.


----------



## zora (Jan 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> WTF is wrong with Steve Baker & Co., how can they not get the fact that NHS is at breaking point, and deaths continue to raise?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Tbf I would also quite like to see some sort of plan other than "lock down and vaccinate and hope for the best", but I imagine this is where my and Steve Baker's similarities end...


----------



## Cloo (Jan 14, 2021)

I'm getting the increasing feeling that this year is overall not going to be a great deal different from last year, albeit hospital figures, fingers crossed will be better in the autumn/winter wave. Can't see there will be much reason to allow many more people to meet up etc and it'll just be 'rule of six' at best and everything will still have to tighten up for winter.


----------



## xenon (Jan 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> Don’t know which thread to put this in but looking for simple advice: I seem to have a reduced (not totally lost but significantly weaker than usual) sense of smell. Fairly certain am not imagining it, have just gone around and sniffed vinegar toilet cleaner etc all very faint. Might have started yesterday was definitely fine day before.
> Apart from lethargy and lack of apetite which tbh not very unusual and could just be ennui that’s it.
> ive not been keeping up so I don’t know:
> 1) is reduced smell a thing or is it just totally gone that’s the symptom?
> 2) Should I try to get a test?



This isn't much help sorry but I know it's at least possible to get tests in some areas, just as a precaution. I've got family in kent, so admititdly a high case area, they've had a couple of tests now. (negative thankfully) not because of symptoms but because they're available and being encouraged to in that area AFAIK. 

If it were me, i'd probably give it a day or 2 and see if further symptoms develop but self isolate for a few days too.


----------



## xenon (Jan 14, 2021)

Now I read the rest of the replies and see how wrong I am...


----------



## xenon (Jan 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> Test booked for early tomorrow, in bloody Milton Keynes that will be fun.



Good luck. (not just cos enduring Milton Keynes, obv.)


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 14, 2021)

I saw a meme on twitter with a quote purporting to be from the head of vaccinations at PHE saying that those under 40 wouldn't be offered the vaccine and it was ok to let the virus circulate because Covid 'doesn't do much damage' with that age group. This is bollocks isnt it? Or at least seriously out of context?


----------



## xenon (Jan 14, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I saw a meme on twitter with a quote purporting to be from the head of vaccinations at PHE saying that those under 40 wouldn't be offered the vaccine and it was ok to let the virus circulate because Covid 'doesn't do much damage' with that age group. This is bollocks isnt it? Or at least seriously out of context?




Memes are shite.

They've said they want to vaccinate the whole adult population by the Autumn.


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

this clip froggy? looks like she's just talking hypothetically about a specific scenario rather than saying they won't offer it to under 40s


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> this clip froggy? looks like she's just talking hypothetically about a specific scenario rather than saying they won't offer it to under 40s



Yep though it was in a written form when I saw it


----------



## two sheds (Jan 14, 2021)

If that's released by anyone related to the Great Barrington Declaration I wouldn't trust it to speak my weight.


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

two sheds said:


> If that's released by anyone related to the Great Barrington Declaration I wouldn't trust it to speak my weight.


it's a clip from the parliament science and technology committee, the GBD dicks just think it supports their thesis (it doesn't)


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2021)

The Great Cullington Declaration on vaccines:


----------



## panpete (Jan 14, 2021)

Like Flu Jabs I wonder if new vaccines will be needed in time due to mutations?


----------



## panpete (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> this clip froggy? looks like she's just talking hypothetically about a specific scenario rather than saying they won't offer it to under 40s



Bit skeptical about that considering all ages are affected.


----------



## xenon (Jan 14, 2021)

It doesn't make any sense, given that mutations are more likely to arise more quickly, when you have a great number of infections. So even in an optimistic scenario where everyone under 40 is left unvaccinated, catches it but is basically fine aafter a couple of weeks, they can still pass it on to people who for legit reasons, can't have the vaccine, or those who's immunity is wearing off.

I mean it's a fucking stupid idea isn't it? I must be missing something.


----------



## xenon (Jan 14, 2021)

panpete said:


> Like Flu Jabs I wonder if new vaccines will be needed in time due to mutations?



Quite probably but not in the near future, according to current thinking.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 14, 2021)

New cases reported today 48,682, which indicates a continued downward trend.  

Still no news on death figures.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 14, 2021)

That's why I thought it must have been taken out of context.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 14, 2021)

Oh look, 200 people "confused by the government's message because Cummings/neoliberalism/nosuchthingsasresponsiblity"









						Crazy video shows huge snowball fight happening on Woodhouse Moor in Leeds
					

A huge snowball fight took place on Woodhouse Moor in Leeds this afternoon.




					www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 14, 2021)

usual caveat yes the gov are twats but so are these, I CANNOT find any excuse. Expect there'll be one along in a moment


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jan 14, 2021)

"It was outside"..?


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2021)

Although the daily hospital admissions/diagnoses figures are no longer a straightforward story of continually rising numbers, the picture is still very messy and very far from being a sustained drop in all regions. And the Midlands has caught up with London in terms of raw numbers (not adjusted for regional population size). This data goes up to 12th January and is from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


When smoothed out using 7 day averages it looks like this:



And this is how the total number of Covid-19 patients in hospital looks per region of England. This data goes up to this morning, 14th Jan so covers a more recent period than the admissions data.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 14, 2021)

Some places it still seems to be increasing


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 14, 2021)

xenon said:


> It doesn't make any sense, given that mutations are more likely to arise more quickly, when you have a great number of infections. So even in an optimistic scenario where everyone under 40 is left unvaccinated, catches it but is basically fine aafter a couple of weeks, they can still pass it on to people who for legit reasons, can't have the vaccine, or those who's immunity is wearing off.
> 
> I mean it's a fucking stupid idea isn't it? I must be missing something.


the video says "young" but no age is mentioned, so I guess someone  in Great Barrington who is 39&9/10th decided old was over 40


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Some places it still seems to be increasing



Yes so far its following the assumptions that the South East, London and the East of England would see the trajetory changes first, and things would keep getting worse in other regions. There are also no guarantees that those Southern regions will continue to improve, or that any sustained decreases there happen quickly enough.

I thought it was important to talk about tentative signs for about a week now, but I dont want to give an inappropriately comforting picture of what that means.

Even stuff I was going on about at length just the other day about how there has been no notable lag between whats shown in the daily version of hospital admission and case data is not guaranteed to remain true at every stage. I would especially expect some of these things to diverge if we end up with situations where levels of disease are changing in different ways in different age groups over a particular period, ie if the wave rages on for people more likely to be hospitalised, and in care homes, at a time when overall cases are falling because less vulnerable age groups who make up a big chunk of the positive case numbers happen to be at a later, downward stage of the curve.

But certainly when it comes to positive cases, the latest weekly surveillance report confirms what we've already seen in various other bits of data recently, things have a fallen a bit.









						National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports
					

National influenza and COVID-19 report, monitoring COVID-19 activity, seasonal flu and other seasonal respiratory illnesses.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## existentialist (Jan 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> WTF is wrong with Steve Baker & Co., how can they not get the fact that NHS is at breaking point, and deaths continue to raise?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's almost as if Brexit wasn't enough deliberate self-harm for them


----------



## MrSki (Jan 14, 2021)

existentialist said:


> It's almost as if Brexit wasn't enough deliberate self-harm for them


Probably want to blame Brexit problems on Covid.


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2021)

They are incompatible with basic reality and react badly to being reminded of this fact every day by the intrusion of reality. And if there is one thing you get in a pandemic, its reality intruding in a manner that no amount of humbug can mask.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> This only applies to that specific Innova lateral flow test.


Many of the same problems apply to all lateral flow devices, particularly their sensitivity at any given time in the infection and, highly relevant here, transmission windows. Quantitative tests would have to be performed almost daily to determine where one is in each window.


platinumsage said:


> The government bought 2 million of these lateral flow tests last week which are 98% accurate (although they require a blood sample taken by a clinician, they will be useful in many settings as they give a result in 10 minutes).


That's an antibody test, not an antigen test, so of no use as the basis for making decisions upon as regards your ongoing interaction with other people (travel, work, school, etc) and the potential consequences of that for others whilst you are potentially infectious. The government has approved two other LFD antigen tests (non-quantitative), but again single use methodology suffers the same limitations.


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

S☼I said:


> usual caveat yes the gov are twats but so are these, I CANNOT find any excuse. Expect there'll be one along in a moment


why are you trying to start a fight?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> why are you trying to start a fight?


I'm not. Unlike those laden with snowballs


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

no snow in grimsby so you thought you'd come and throw some shade on the thread instead hmm?


----------



## teuchter (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> why are you trying to start a fight?


It's just not the done thing around here is it.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> no snow in grimsby so you thought you'd come and throw some shade on the thread instead hmm?


Sorry if you took it personally.
I'm just staggered by those scenes, I just don't get it.


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

it's just dickheads.


----------



## philosophical (Jan 14, 2021)

Today I got a letter from Imperial College/ipsos MORI/_NHS _asking me to take part in a COVID-19 in-home antibody testing research study.
You're supposed to prick the tip of your finger to get a blood spot for testing, the results are apparently known within 10-25 minutes but they want me to be aware that the antibody test is not 100% accurate at an individual level.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 14, 2021)

And it is outside and not prolonged contact.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 14, 2021)

philosophical said:


> Today I got a letter from Imperial College/ipsos MORI/_NHS _asking me to take part in a COVID-19 in-home antibody testing research study.
> You're supposed to prick the tip of your finger to get a blood spot for testing, the results are apparently known within 10-25 minutes but they want me to be aware that the antibody test is not 100% accurate at an individual level.


I'd be interested in this.


----------



## PursuedByBears (Jan 14, 2021)

I did one of those imperial college tests in November, it was very easy and I got the (negative) results back three days later.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 14, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Sorry if you took it personally.
> I'm just staggered by those scenes, I just don't get it.


Why? It was a very snowy day today, which is quite rare, and a snowball fight is a great way to let off steam, especially if you’ve been cooped up indoors for ages or if you’ve been unable to get to work.


----------



## philosophical (Jan 14, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I'd be interested in this.


It says you have to do it and were randomly selected from info provided by your GP. You're not allowed to pass the test on to somebody.
If you go to the Imperial College site and look for antibody test I imagine there will be further information.


----------



## Edie (Jan 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> it's just dickheads.


It’s just kids. They’re all teenagers or very early 20s. Who cares? They’re outside, having a laugh, little risk. The hill was full of parents and kids sledging today. You cannot keep an entire nation in their homes indefinitely. We are social animals. The young especially will get bored and go out looking for some excitement eventually. It’s absolutely inevitable.


----------



## killer b (Jan 14, 2021)

Edie said:


> It’s just kids. They’re all teenagers or very early 20s. Who cares? They’re outside, having a laugh, little risk. The hill was full of parents and kids sledging today. You cannot keep an entire nation in their homes indefinitely. We are social animals. The young especially will get bored and go out looking for some excitement eventually. It’s absolutely inevitable.


I'd not watched the video tbf, didn't see the point.


----------



## ddraig (Jan 14, 2021)

Had an actual letter through the door, from council and NHS Wales saying how serious it is, what we should be doing and a vaccination timetable


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 14, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> And it is outside and not prolonged contact.


Until you slip over and end up in A&E alongside hundreds of coughing Covid patients. It's not just about what you're doing right now, it's everything that can happen before and after.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 14, 2021)

Went into a town centre today (imagine a similar sort of place to the centre of Salisbury, Lowestoft or Walsall). Place was almost as quiet as lockdown one. Was a bit taken aback, I assumed it would be rammed based on what things have been like for months up to ten days or so ago and what I've been seeing online about the UK in general. Some places are open that weren't open in lockdown one but a lot of places that had been open then were closed now. Frustratingly the places open are skewed towards being more useless than last time, eg more takeaway coffee and less banking. Barely any shoppers/customers, mainly people trying to run errands like go the post office. People working non-essential retail/catering in some guise outnumbered everyone else. Supermarket was near empty too.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 14, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Until you slip over and end up in A&E alongside hundreds of coughing Covid patients. It's not just about what you're doing right now, it's everything that can happen before and after.


Young people are invincible and don't think that way


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 14, 2021)

I think I'm going to put this forum on ignore for a while. It's making me frustrated and sad. And a bit cross.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 14, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I think I'm going to put this forum on ignore for a while. It's making me frustrated and sad. And a bit cross.


Chil mate. It's a stressy time. X


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 14, 2021)

ddraig said:


> Had an actual letter through the door, from council and NHS Wales saying how serious it is, what we should be doing and a vaccination timetable



If that's going to everyone in Wales, I expect we'll also get our copies any time now -- looking forward to seeing it.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 14, 2021)

At one (large) sub-section of my Civil Service workplace, they're right now introducing lateral flow tests for all employees in that section -- twice a week for each person is the aim.
ETA : Just rechecked the message from our Chief Exec about this programme, and as I thought, the company that makes the tests isn't specified!

It would seem the plan is to expand the testing regime for everyone in all our sections over the next two or three weeks.

So reading some earlier posts about the unreliability of some lateral flow tests was concerning 

But would multiple tests over several weeks for each person, offer better cover?

Besides that question, my natural suspicion of my employer's reluctance to send people home who can't work from home** does make me go  at the above plan, to some extent at least!

**(see many earlier posts from me about this, many pages back  )


----------



## Supine (Jan 14, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> At one (large) sub-section of my Civil Service workplace, they're right now introducing lateral flow tests for all employees in that section -- twice a week for each person is the aim.
> 
> It would seem the plan is to expand this for everyone in all our sections over the next two or three weeks.
> 
> ...



The inaccuracies reported aren't an issue as long as you know how they are being used.

They accurately tell you who is positive. They are not as good telling you who is negative. 

Because of this they should be used to weed out positive people to make everyone else safe. They should not be used to make people believe they are negative. It's just a way of filtering out the infectious.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> The inaccuracies reported aren't an issue as long as you know how they are being used.
> 
> They accurately tell you who is positive. They are not as good telling you who is negative.
> 
> Because of this they should be used to weed out positive people to make everyone else safe. They should not be used to make people believe they are negative. It's just a way of filtering out the infectious.



Cheers 

On reflection, and TBF, the announcement I referred to in my ETA above did actually state that identifying positive cases was the general aim .....  




			
				Our Uberboss said:
			
		

> ... brief update on the lateral flow testing that we are piloting with Contact Centre staff. As you know, we have worked hard to be part of this testing pilot which is being run by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in conjunction with Public Health England. *The pilot is designed to detect the virus in asymptomatic people, i.e. those who do not experience or show any symptoms but who could still be infectious and pass the virus on to others*.
> 
> The pilot launched on Friday when 228 staff were tested with every result returned as negative. *Of course, a negative test result does not mean that you can ignore the lockdown restrictions in place both in the workplace and in the community and you must still be scrupulously careful and follow all restrictions*.


It's just that before re-reading this workplace message just now, some of the earlier posts up above about false negatives with lateral flow tests was starting to concern me ...... thanks for applying better context though


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

Its a way to find some more positives, it wont find all of them, far from it. Better than nothing, if used appropriately. Worse than nothing if used as an excuse to reduce other measures, eg no wonder some care homes and local authorities got cold feet about relying too heavily on lateral flow tests in order to let people make care home visits. Can still be used carefully as one component of that system, but easy to go too far.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

I cannot for example imagine a situation where I would approve of lateral flow tests as an alternative to working from home, for those who can actually work from home.


----------



## clicker (Jan 15, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Cheers
> 
> On reflection, and TBF, the announcement I referred to in my ETA above did actually state that identifying positive cases was the general aim .....
> 
> ...


Yes, so still act as though you could have it...social distancing etc. But the tests will weed out some people who actually have it. So less people should get it. But a negative test isn't conclusive you haven't got it. It's better than nothing, should pick up some asymptomatics.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 15, 2021)

clicker said:


> Yes, so still act as though you could have it...social distancing etc. But the tests will weed out some people who actually have it. So less people should get it. But a negative test isn't conclusive you haven't got it. It's better than nothing, should pick up some asymptomatics.



Recent posts in this thread did get me thinking more, yes, and I'm a lot clearer about the lateral flow test thing now.

And you can bet your life that I'm being more careful than ever about distancing, at the moment


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> I cannot for example imagine a situation where I would approve of lateral flow tests as an alternative to working from home, for those who can actually work from home.



*Completely* agree. 
As I've posted before (  ), some of us at our place *can't* work from home because of the nature of much of the paper-based work, and the logistics of supplying/collecting work and data-secure laptops/printers to our houses.

But the chances of the rules either in Wales or England of sending (even) us Civil Servants home on the 'Special Leave' that we had March to early August, seem to me to be zero -- I've heard *nothing* along these lines, even as the Covid infection news was getting steadily more shocking 

Hence my suspicion about them introducing this lateral flow test regime as a substitute   -- not that I'll object to being tested, but!


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 15, 2021)

I had the first of my tests at work this evening, using the Innova lateral flow test as part of the employer’s rollout of a testing scheme for all staff. Easy enough, and they seem to have a good setup. All tests are voluntary and they suggest staff take one each week, more (or less) often if they prefer. Negative result, as expected, text arrived after 30 mins.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 15, 2021)

1248 deaths yesterday then  

Due to work and other shite I am just catching up with the news. New cases seem down but up in some places? Naturally I am interested in the areas family are and they are up/down/level.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 15, 2021)

1248.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 15, 2021)

Bit bleak out today.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 15, 2021)




----------



## Pingety Pong (Jan 15, 2021)

Cases are rising quite sharply in Manchester


----------



## Numbers (Jan 15, 2021)

TopCat said:


> Bit bleak out today.


Y/day felt bleaker to me, really miserable day.
At least it’s Friday and even tho we have fuck all planned it still gives that Friday feeling.


----------



## ash (Jan 15, 2021)

Looking better here


----------



## teuchter (Jan 15, 2021)

In a scenario where lots or most people are vaccinated - but it turns out that they can still carry and pass on the infection - will we need a new type of test for "carriers"? Or is that picked up in some way in the current tests?


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 15, 2021)

teuchter said:


> In a scenario where lots or most people are vaccinated - but it turns out that they can still carry and pass on the infection - will we need a new type of test for "carriers"? Or is that picked up in some way in the current tests?


So you're positing a situation in which the vaccinations are successful but some people have it but are still asymptomatic?


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 15, 2021)

ddraig said:


> Had an actual letter through the door, from council and NHS Wales saying how serious it is, what we should be doing and a *vaccination* timetable


how are they doing on this? cos it looks like a fucking shambles from what little i've seen/read...


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 15, 2021)

teuchter said:


> In a scenario where lots or most people are vaccinated - but it turns out that they can still carry and pass on the infection - will we need a new type of test for "carriers"? Or is that picked up in some way in the current tests?


We're properly stuffed if that is a persistent issue because of all the immuno-compromised who can't be vaccinated  ...


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 15, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> how are they doing on this? cos it looks like a fucking shambles from what little i've seen/read...



In Wales specifically do you mean, or just more generally?


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 15, 2021)

in wales specifically.

eta: i've seen reports of shortages with GPs, there was an outbreak of corona at the main vaccine place here before xmas (poss not safe working conditions, obvs that needs fixed), and my mum's heard nothing despite being fairly high up the list.


----------



## bimble (Jan 15, 2021)

In excrutiatingly mundane personal news, the drive through test Center in Milton Keynes in light drizzle this morning was ugly, efficient, and totally devoid of anything else to say about it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 15, 2021)

Infection rates certainly seem to be dropping across most of the country, the R number in London is now estimated at 0.60, and 0.9 nationally. 



> According to analysis of data by the MRC biostatistics unit at Cambridge University, the number of infections in England overall is declining. Infections are still on the rise in the south-west and the north-east but appear to have plateaued in the East and West Midlands and are falling in regions including London and the south-east.
> 
> The R number for London, indicating the average number of people to whom an infected person passes the virus, is estimated by the team to be around 0.6.
> 
> “This is further confirmed by a number of other metrics that look as if they are peaking,” he added referring to data from sources such as the Covid symptom study, led by King’s College London, which suggests the R number across the UK is now 0.9, with cases slowly beginning to fall in England and Wales. Friston said modelling of real-time parameters also suggested the R number was now below 1.











						Covid infection numbers levelling off in parts of England
					

Data suggests tide of cases may be starting to turn, say experts, stressing need to stay vigilant




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## miss direct (Jan 15, 2021)

wrong thread!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 15, 2021)

I would be very impressed if they hit the target a month early.



> The UK is "confident" it can offer the first dose of the Covid vaccine to all 32million vulnerable people by mid to late March, government sources say.
> 
> Officially the NHS is aiming to inoculate over-50s, shielders and NHS and care home staff by the end of April.
> 
> ...





> And AstraZeneca told MPs it expected to reach 2million doses a week of its jab alone by mid-February, on top of the Pfizer jab.











						All over-50s could have Covid vaccine by end of March as UK sources 'confident'
					

32million people have been promised their first dose by the end of April - but Whitehall sources are claiming it's possible the target will be met a month early




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## ddraig (Jan 15, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> how are they doing on this? cos it looks like a fucking shambles from what little i've seen/read...


Will post a pic of the "schedule" in a bit


----------



## andysays (Jan 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> In excrutiatingly mundane personal news, the drive through test Center in Milton Keynes in light drizzle this morning was ugly, efficient, and totally devoid of anything else to say about it.


When do you expect your result?


----------



## souljacker (Jan 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> In excrutiatingly mundane personal news, the drive through test Center in Milton Keynes in light drizzle this morning was ugly, efficient, and totally devoid of anything else to say about it.



I've had three tests, 2 of which were postal but my drive through was at Swindon's football stadium and it was amazingly bleak. Even for Swindon.


----------



## bimble (Jan 15, 2021)

andysays said:


> When do you expect your result?


She said within 48 hours.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Infection rates certainly seem to be dropping across most of the country, the R number in London is now estimated at 0.60, and 0.9 nationally.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



If the stuff about the "new variant" upping the R number substantially is/was right, and London is really at 0.6, that seems like a fairly remarkable turnaround.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 15, 2021)

teuchter said:


> If the stuff about the "new variant" upping the R number substantially is/was right, and London is really at 0.6, that seems like a fairly remarkable turnaround.



Open the pubs!


----------



## nagapie (Jan 15, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Open the pubs!


I shouldn't laugh, they probably will!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 15, 2021)

Can nobody tell the Tories about this please?


----------



## andysays (Jan 15, 2021)

Don't get too excited, there are now suggestions that the Brazil variant may already be here (BBC website)


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 15, 2021)

ddraig said:


> Will post a pic of the "schedule" in a bit


oh we're good, we have one, i was wondering more about what they're doing than what they're saying atm


----------



## ddraig (Jan 15, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> oh we're good, we have one, i was wondering more about what they're doing than what they're saying atm


ah gotcha! I dunno (no other knowledge), depends if you believe what they claim


----------



## 2hats (Jan 15, 2021)

andysays said:


> Don't get too excited, there are now suggestions that the Brazil variant may already be here (BBC website)


There are two variants (of concern, as it were) associated with Brazil (P1 and B.1.1.248) and it has not been clarified which one it is yet.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 15, 2021)

andysays said:


> Don't get too excited, there are now suggestions that the Brazil variant may already be here (BBC website)


Carnival !!


----------



## klang (Jan 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> In excrutiatingly mundane personal news, the drive through test Center in Milton Keynes in light drizzle this morning was ugly, efficient, and totally devoid of anything else to say about it.


'drive through', 'test centre' and 'milton keynes'.  what a trio


----------



## Chilli.s (Jan 15, 2021)

Just been out, seemed very busy or road and pavement, got my urgent supplies and fucked off home sharpish.


----------



## bimble (Jan 15, 2021)

If I’d administered that test myself (was given the choice) there’s no way I’d have held that thing that far up my nostril for the full length of time required, until eyes watered and it was really hard not to swear. Maybe I’m just a wuss but wonder if there are the same rates of positive results for self-administered tests as for the ones done by professionals?


----------



## weltweit (Jan 15, 2021)

andysays said:


> Don't get too excited, there are now suggestions that the Brazil variant may already be here (BBC website)





2hats said:


> There are two variants (of concern, as it were) associated with Brazil (P1 and B.1.1.248) and it has not been clarified which one it is yet.


Hopefully our T&T effort will be all over these UK findings before they spread!? Whichever one they are.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 15, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Hopefully our T&T effort will be all over these UK findings before they spread!? Whichever one they are.


Genomic sequencing is not part of fail-to-Test&Trace.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 15, 2021)

2hats said:


> Genomic sequencing is not part of fail-to-Test&Trace.


All the same, I hope there is a lot of T&T being done around these Brazilian cases.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 15, 2021)

2hats said:


> Genomic sequencing is not part of fail-to-Test&Trace.


But we are doing more genomic testing than other countries ?
Hospital patients ?


----------



## LDC (Jan 15, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> But we are doing more genomic testing than other countries ?
> Hospital patients ?



It's a different system and process entirely. Genomic sequencing is done from all sorts of samples, but it has nothing to do with the T&T systems.

And yes, UK doing more sequencing than anywhere else.


----------



## 20Bees (Jan 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> If I’d administered that test myself (was given the choice) there’s no way I’d have held that thing that far up my nostril for the full length of time required, until eyes watered and it was really hard not to swear. Maybe I’m just a wuss but wonder if there are the same rates of positive results for self-administered tests as for the ones done by professionals?


At work we have to do it ourselves. Seated at a table with a mirror, advised to use the light on my phone to illuminate my throat (“Do you know where your tonsils are?”), keep the swab to the side to reduce the gag reflex, sweep it around for 10 seconds and repeat in a nostril. Black bucket on the floor if you need it...

I did the 10 second tonsil sweep in three goes, managed better with the nostril, but I wasn’t at all sure it was adequate. The staff volunteer who was acting lab technician said the result would be Void or Inconclusive if I hadn’t done it adequately, and a scratchy sore throat for the next hour or so would be a normal reaction to having scraped skin cells off the tonsil - it was just that, scratchy, and passed quickly.  If I had the choice for someone else to do it, I would prefer that.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's a different system and process entirely. Genomic sequencing is done from all sorts of samples, but it has nothing to do with the T&T systems.
> 
> And yes, UK doing more sequencing than anywhere else.


T&T is PCR ?
But samples are not good enough for sequencing ?


----------



## LDC (Jan 15, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> T&T is PCR ?
> But samples are not good enough for sequencing ?



Looks like you're getting mixed up, maybe my post was ambiguous. Samples are taken from a variety of sources, then they get sequenced by a different system.









						How do we collect and sequence SARS-CoV-2 samples? | COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium
					






					www.cogconsortium.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Looks like you're getting mixed up, maybe my post was ambiguous. Samples are taken from a variety of sources, then they get sequenced by a different system.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


so a sample of positives with low CT values ?


----------



## Badgers (Jan 15, 2021)

Is their a vaccine themed party political broadcast today?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 15, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Is their a vaccine themed party political broadcast today?



Yep, 5 pm.









						Boris Johnson to hold Downing Street press conference at 5pm today
					

He will be joined by the Chief Scientific Advisor and Chief Medical Officer




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 15, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I've had three tests, 2 of which were postal but my drive through was at Swindon's football stadium and it was amazingly bleak. Even for Swindon.


/me adds Swindon and Milton Keynes to the UK tourism schedule for 2022


souljacker said:


> Open the pubs!


Don't be so shy: 
mass orgies in the streets says I


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

teuchter said:


> If the stuff about the "new variant" upping the R number substantially is/was right, and London is really at 0.6, that seems like a fairly remarkable turnaround.



The new variant has been robbed of the scotch eggs and schools it needed to secure world domination.

But in all seriousness, there should be ONS new variant data later today that will probably cause my position on UK variant issues to evolve.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> will probably cause my position on UK variant issues to evolve.


Your position may have mutated in a matter of hours  

Two weeks ago reports were saying

*



			The new variant of Covid-19 is "hugely" more transmissible than the virus's previous version, a study has found.
		
Click to expand...

*


> It concludes the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.
> The UK's latest R number has been estimated at between 1.1 and 1.3. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.



I was never really clear about whether the 0.4-0.7 was in proportion to the underlying number or if you were supposed to just add that on regardless of the starting rate... but if you were to take that as meaning that the R number, at that time, would have been say 1.3-0.4 or 1.3-0.7 =0.6 to 0.9 had the new variant not been involved - then applying the same proportionate reduction to 0.6 would leave you with 0.3 or 0.4. In other words... without the variant, the current lockdown measures could have produced an R number in that sort of range. But I don't remember anything as low as that being reported during/after the first lockdown.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 15, 2021)

If there are signs a corner has been turned in terms of infections, it looks like lockdowns actually work. Who'd have thought it eh? Must be a revelation to boris johnson.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

Wilf said:


> If there are signs a corner has been turned in terms of infections, it looks like lockdowns actually work. Who'd have thought it eh? Must be a revelation to boris johnson.



There were one or two people round here that preferred to believe that the shape of the curve seen in the first wave was not due to lockdown. They preferred to believe that the peaks they saw were the same as what would happen without a lockdown. ie that the virus had run out of the quantity of susceptible individuals required to sustain growth, and that this had happened because of immunity within the population rather than massive behavioural changes & lockdown having placed very many individuals who were susceptible out of reach of the virus at that time. In reality immunity is still a factor in the lockdown scenario, the results obtained are a mixture of decreasing susceptible population and lockdown/behavioural changes, rather than being one or the other.

Those people were idiots. I humoured a few of their ideas in late spring and early summer because I did not have 100% conclusive proof, which could only be obtained by seeing if there was a resurgence of the virus once measures were relaxed. We know what happened next, and thats probably why we dont hear very much from those idiots these days.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Your position may have mutated in a matter of hours



My position has limited room to mutate since I treated their initial impression with much caution and a degree of skepticism in the first place. And that already got more complicated for me when I saw more recent regional graphs. But those graphs were poised at a delicate stage last time that data was published, so I am waiting for this weeks data before starting to firm up some of my ideas, or at least get a conversation going about what seems to be happening.

edited to add - the following post has the previous version of the graphs, initially presented earlier than normal via press conference slides but normally published as part of ONS infection survey which comes out of Fridays.

           #138


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 15, 2021)

The SAGE estimate of the R rate seems less optimistic than the one previously posted (which was from the MRC biostatistics unit at Cambridge).









						The R value and growth rate
					

The latest reproduction number (R) and growth rate of coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

SAGE output on such matters tends to be based on combining the results from a bunch of different modelling groups. I would expect the Cambridge results to be part of that mix, but that either other modelling groups results have higher values which pushed the averaged consensus value up, or alternatively some results we get may be based on more recent data and model runs than the official SAGE estimate.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

The unpleasant trajectory and levels being reached are quite apparent in the 'deaths within 28 days of a positive test, by date of death' UK figures. Over 900 for the 11th Jan as of last night late arriving data. I will post graph again later when todays data is available.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

> Speaking at the Welsh Government's Covid briefing on Friday, Mr Drakeford said the Test, Trace, Protect scheme had shown there was "no doubt at all" transmission was taking place in supermarkets.











						Covid: Wales' new shop rules 'follow evidence of spread'
					

First Minister Mark Drakeford says there is "no doubt at all" Covid-19 is spreading in shops.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Covid: Wales' new shop rules 'follow evidence of spread'
> 
> 
> First Minister Mark Drakeford says there is "no doubt at all" Covid-19 is spreading in shops.
> ...


There's a simple answer to that risk of spreading in shops.
Insist that only essential shops are open, and are enforcing "no mask, no entry" & 'strict limited numbers / spacing inside' rules and allow click n collect for those who can't comply for medical reasons.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 15, 2021)

Just spotted this on the BBC.

Covid: Intensive care patients transferred from London to Newcastle - BBC News 

Whilst I applaud the co-operation, the covid factor is worrying.
Would it be better to move non-covid patients to free up beds ?


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 15, 2021)

depends who needs and who has the equipment, not just beds.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 15, 2021)

As quimcunx says it depends on needs & equipment available.

I lost my cousin Sue to covid last week, she was already on oxygen, took a turn for the worst, the Kent hospital she was in had no ventilator free, so was looking to transfer her, sadly she passed away before that was possible.  

*ETA -

PLEASE DON'T QUOTE THIS POST *- as much as I appreciate the condolences replies, I don't want them to further clutter the thread, thanks.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> As quimcunx says it depends on needs & equipment available.
> 
> I lost my cousin Sue to covid last week, she was already on oxygen, took a turn for the worst, the Kent hospital she was in had no ventilator free, so was looking to transfer her, sadly she passed away before that was possible.


Sorry to hear that, my condolences.   

Awful, awful thing to happen and so much more difficult for families and loved ones in the current circumstances.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> <snip>
> I lost my cousin Sue to covid last week, she was already on oxygen, took a turn for the worst, the Kent hospital she was in had no ventilator free, so was looking to transfer her, sadly she passed away before that was possible.



Sorry to read that, my condolences.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 15, 2021)

Today's reported figures:

New cases - 55,761, that's the highest this week & around 7-10k more than the daily figures since Monday.

New deaths - 1,280, that's actually down by 45 compared to last Friday.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

And now the figure for the 11th Jan that I mentioned going over 900 earlier, is only just below 1000, on 998.

UK Deaths by date of death within 28 days of a positive test:


----------



## ska invita (Jan 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> If I’d administered that test myself (was given the choice) there’s no way I’d have held that thing that far up my nostril for the full length of time required, until eyes watered and it was really hard not to swear. Maybe I’m just a wuss but wonder if there are the same rates of positive results for self-administered tests as for the ones done by professionals?


yeah mine came back inconclusive, but i blatantly didnt do it properly   im certain ive got IT though


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 15, 2021)

Is there any statistics available on what professions are most affected?



From sweden - published november last year.  Taxi drivers and similar. Takeaway workers and similar, bus and tram drivers, translators, linguists and similar, restaurant workers, other service workers (supermarkets etc).


----------



## weepiper (Jan 15, 2021)

Only taken him ten months to get around to this.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 15, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Only taken him ten months to get around to this.



while i was waiting for the tweet to load i wondered what he'd done. maybe resigned. as it is it was rather a disappointment


----------



## xenon (Jan 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> As quimcunx says it depends on needs & equipment available.
> 
> I lost my cousin Sue to covid last week, she was already on oxygen, took a turn for the worst, the Kent hospital she was in had no ventilator free, so was looking to transfer her, sadly she passed away before that was possible.



sorry to read this CS.  condolences to you. Hope you are doing ok in the circumstances.


----------



## Mation (Jan 15, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> So you're positing a situation in which the vaccinations are successful but some people have it but are still asymptomatic?


As I understand it, vaccination will be successful at preventing people from becoming ill, or mean they become less ill than they would have. Afaik, we don't yet know how well able the vaccinated might be to pass the virus on to others. I would assume they can. (Apologies if I misread you.)


----------



## Badgers (Jan 15, 2021)

Mation said:


> As I understand it, vaccination will be successful at preventing people from becoming ill, or mean they become less ill than they would have. Afaik, we don't yet know how well able the vaccinated might be to pass the virus on to others. (Apologies if I misread you.)


My understanding is that vaccinated people can transmit the virus as non vaccinated?


----------



## Mation (Jan 15, 2021)

[posting cockup]


----------



## Badgers (Jan 15, 2021)

Badgers said:


> My understanding is that vaccinated people can transmit the virus as non vaccinated?


----------



## editor (Jan 15, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Only taken him ten months to get around to this.


Fucking useless piece of shit that he is. How many people have died or suffered because of his attempts to prioritise the economy over health.


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 15, 2021)

Badgers  Last I heard that hasnt been established, but seems likely to me


----------



## maomao (Jan 15, 2021)

If that were true (and I'm not sure that it's true it makes no difference to transmission at all) then firstly, everyone's going to have to vaccinate every eight months or whatever and secondly, there'll be such a large amount of the virus in circulation for such a long time that all these very unlikely mutations we're told not to worry about will eventually happen.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 15, 2021)

Badgers said:


> My understanding is that vaccinated people can transmit the virus as non vaccinated?



No, they don't know.

Afaiui there's a very good chance it will provide at least some degree of protection from transmission. The experts have to be cautious though and the cautious approach is to assume no protection until some can be shown.


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 15, 2021)

I'm trying my best to stay mostly calm, but I'm getting pretty pissed off with both Drakeford's spineless utterings (he's allready saying more about how restrictions migh be eased off and lying about supplies being the bottleneck) and also the way things are not happening at a local level, I've yet to hear of anyone in the priority groups that  I know personally getting even a letter let alone the vaccine and my local surgery still has a big banner on its frontpage saying they dont know anything about vaccine delivery
I've not even had that letter supposdedly explaining shit yet...........FFS, Rural Wales is being thrown to the dogs


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 15, 2021)




----------



## Chilli.s (Jan 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> As quimcunx says it depends on needs & equipment available.
> 
> I lost my cousin Sue to covid last week, she was already on oxygen, took a turn for the worst, the Kent hospital she was in had no ventilator free, so was looking to transfer her, sadly she passed away before that was possible.


Sad to read this, condolences to you.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Your position may have mutated in a matter of hours



The release has been cancelled!









						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK: 15 January 2021
					

Estimates for England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. This survey is being delivered in partnership with University of Oxford, University of Manchester, Public Health England, and Wellcome Trust.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> The release has been cancelled!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


_trans_.: it's far fucking worse than we thought and we are working every hour god sends to find a way to soften the blow


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 15, 2021)

contrast and compare.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> _trans_.: it's far fucking worse than we thought and we are working every hour god sends to find a way to soften the blow



No.

If there does turn out to be anything awkward in the data that should have been published, I might expect it to relate to the new variant levels per region.

But it may well be a lab issue and without knowing the detail of the delays there I cant say more.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> The release has been cancelled!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Is this different info to the stuff at Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard ? Because that was released at 4pm as usual.

edit: and shows a marked decrease in case rates.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Is this different info to the stuff at Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard ? Because that was released at 4pm as usual.
> 
> edit: and shows a marked decrease in case rates.



Yes its different stuff, this is the weekly estimates that are based on random sampling & testing of households.

And last time that report came out they had added a section on the proportion of cases in each region that likely involved the new variant. And thats the bit I was especially looking forward to seeing this week.

This is last weeks version: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics

Some of the regional new variant graphs were starting to show interesting things so I am bound to be suspicious that I cannot see what happened next yet.


----------



## cyril_smear (Jan 15, 2021)

only a year too late.


----------



## Cid (Jan 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> The release has been cancelled!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Guess they got to the end of the spreadsheet again.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 15, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> No, they don't know.
> 
> Afaiui there's a very good chance it will provide at least some degree of protection from transmission. The experts have to be cautious though and the cautious approach is to assume no protection until some can be shown.



Yes - that's kind of my understanding. My question was about how the level of transmission can be measured - will it be inferred from overall numbers and patterns - or will routine testing be able to identify people who have not "got" covid but are carrying the virus to some extent. Or will there have to be a new kind of test to find this out.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 15, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Yes - that's kind of my understanding. My question was about how the level of transmission can be measured - will it be inferred from overall numbers and patterns - or will routine testing be able to identify people who have not "got" covid but are carrying the virus to some extent. Or will there have to be a new kind of test to find this out.


yes


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

Also need to know more about 'delays to laboratory testing' to make sure that this situation has not caused positive cases in the daily dashboard figures to be artificially low for some recent period.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

Daily Covid-19 hospital admissions/diagnoses for England. Smoothed using 7 day averages, and also spiky versions without that averaging. I will do the other UK nations in a bit. 

Data is as usual from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## David Clapson (Jan 15, 2021)

What's the likelihood of a new variant which needs a whole new vaccine to be developed? We might still be in crisis next Christmas.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 15, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> What's the likelihood of a new variant which needs a whole new vaccine to be developed? We might still be in crisis next Christmas.


IIRC, Pfizer (at least, I think it was them) have already said that "tweaking" the vaccine to protect against new variants would be less difficult than what has already been achieved in creating one from scratch.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 15, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> What's the likelihood of a new variant which needs a whole new vaccine to be developed? We might still be in crisis next Christmas.


They mentioned that possibility as a justification for tightening airways in today's press conference.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

Covid-19 daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for the rest of the UK to go with the England charts I posted earlier. Data is from the official UK dashboard since my NHS data source is only for England. Includes raw data versions and versions smoothed using 7 day averages.

Caveats include the fact that Northern Ireland changes its figures retrospectively, so the drop at the end should be disregarded in the same way we disregard the ever-present drop at the end of 'deaths reported by date of death' figures. And Wales includes suspected cases in their figures so their data is not directly comparable. And since some of these nations figures often end up on the dashboard a day or two behind Englands, the overall UK figure lags behind slightly in time period covered compared to some of the other figures.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

And finally, admissions covering the entire pandemic data available so far, so the size of admissions at the moment can be compared to the first wave.

Different regions and nations charts use very different scales, so dont use these to compare the size of admissions in different places with each other, just the shape and trends over time.


----------



## Doodler (Jan 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I lost my cousin Sue to covid last week, she was already on oxygen, took a turn for the worst, the Kent hospital she was in had no ventilator free, so was looking to transfer her, sadly she passed away before that was possible.



Very sorry to hear of your loss.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> ..
> I lost my cousin Sue to covid last week, she was already on oxygen, took a turn for the worst, the Kent hospital she was in had no ventilator free, so was looking to transfer her, sadly she passed away before that was possible.


cupid_stunt so sorry to see this, when we are listening to the press conferences or looking at elbow's graphs, the numbers are almost meaningless but when it is someone we are related to or someone you are related to it brings it home, this is a shitty disease. So sorry for you and your family.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

If there was no knowledge or focus on the new variant, the simple story that its most tempting to attach to those graphs is one of along the lines of...

Action taken to prevent second wave taken far too late, especially for certain regions and nations. Then the brakes finally applied but not in a long enough or strong enough manner. And then when brakes released, in many areas the charts then continue from where they left off before the brakes were applied in November.

Its a disgrace regardless of how much the new variant has or has not had an impact on this picture.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

weltweit said:


> cupid_stunt so sorry to see this, when we are listening to the press conferences or looking at elbow's graphs, the numbers are almost meaningless but when it is someone we are related to or someone you are related to it brings it home, this is a shitty disease. So sorry for you and your family.



Yes I was very sorry to hear about this news. I am also sorry that I most often shy away from commenting on the personal trajedies that people here have endured during this pandemic. I'm not good at expressing myself about that in text on messagebaords. I'm not much better in real life, I usually have a go and then fret that I have put my foot in it with the way I worded something.

Data probably is a strangely cold and detached view of things for many people. For me it speaks vividly and is directly connected to my feelings about the human, individual toll of pandemics etc. It is no substitute for real human stories, but these two ways of looking at things are somehow connected in my mind in a way that means I never feel like I am staring at cold charts, I feel like I am somehow staring at the full horror. In some other sense data is part of how I cope with the pandemic. Perhaps there are many situations where I have come to terms with not having control, but then I at least want to be able to observe what is actually happening in some way, and hope to achieve at least a realistic sense of the magnitude of whats happening.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 15, 2021)

Looking at the shape of those graphs for admissions (thanks elbows ) - To my eyes, the climb before and after the November restrictions [not-quite-a-lockdown] is at a very similar angle. If anything, the post November climb is steeper in some areas.
I agree, that period in November really was a case of "too little, too late" and wasn't applied for anything like long enough. And then we had to save christmas / new year ... and now we've got several new variants impacting the situation.

Obviously, we'll have to wait and see when the current "stay at home" rules and the vaccinations start to bite into the cases, admissions and death rates.
Hopefully, they will already be starting to have affects ...

E2A - My personal opinion is that the decision-making has been too swayed by concerns for the economic factors and not enough by the science & public health considerations.
Exemplified by the fact that Nicola Sturgeon always starts by voicing her condolences to the grieving families/friends of those most recently reported as having died. And by some 16 MPs having voted against the most recent "stay at home" order ...


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Looking at the shape of those graphs for admissions (thanks elbows ) - To my eyes, the climb before and after the November restrictions [not-quite-a-lockdown] is at a very similar angle. If anything, the post November climb is steeper in some areas.
> I agree, that period in November really was a case of "too little, too late" and wasn't applied for anything like long enough. And then we had to save christmas / new year ... and now we've got several new variants impacting the situation.



The incredibly steep trajectory see in some regions after the first week in December is a main reason they searched for an explanation and found one with the new variant. Especially because the timing of that and when they saw rises in other data such as cases, indicated that the rise in infections began whilst the November measures were still in effect, so it wasnt being driven only by the shitty tiers they came up with once the November measures came to an end.

I'm pretty sure that modelling would not have predicted such an immediate and steep climb in rates in regions like London, the South Easy and the East of England, after the brakes were taken off. So whatever they thought they were playing at was probably thwarted by that. Its possible they thought that the November measures had bought them a December in which they could carry on with their original Christmas plans. And then things would get real bad in January and they would do a lockdown then, once the 'business' and politics of Christmas were over.

In my mind there are several properties of the new variant that could be responsible in theory, and also a number of other potential explanations.

For example in regards the new variant, modelling was done to see if the increases seen fitted best with increased transmissibility, or an increased ability ot defeat immune systems that had been primed by past infection with an earlier strain of the pandemic virus. The model involving increased transmissibility seemed to fit best, and they had some other evidence to do with viral load and testing of new variant samples. I wouldnt call it a solid conclusion, its the possibility they considered most likely. If their thoughts on this have evolved significantly since, I havent found out about it yet, although I believe there was a somewhat lower estimate of increased transmissibility doing the rounds recently which I didnt have time to look at. And I didnt get the regional new variant data I was expecting today.

In terms of other explanations beyond the new variant or the obvious effects of releasing the brakes too soon, I've got a few thoughts but I havent really found any expert stuff to backup where my thoughts were going. So its just a collection of possibilities I have deduced but that I dont consider ripe enough to go on about much yet.

But for example, we have the topic came up here recently of what role the number of susceptible people in a population has on epidemic waves and the modelling. And I found some quote about what difference an increase in people whove now had the disease can have on the R rate, especially once R is around one. They were looking at how this picture improves over time as more people get infected, influencing R in a downwards direction. And there was also stuff about a lot of the people whose occupations etc meant they were most at risk of infection in the first wave were the same people exposed most in the second wave, and the role that existing immunity the second time around could play in robbing the virus of so much 'front line fuel' in subsequent waves. I wondered what happens when we apply these same principals in reverse, to selected sub-populations in certain scenarios.

Lets say for example you have a population that were not so much in the front lines for the first wave, because their movements and the institutional setting of interest where they mix were limited by the original lockdown. But then when dealing with the second wave, you dont lock them down when taking a national response in November. Are they not a population that then becomes a large, relatively fresh new target for the virus? The virus spreads through human networks, and here is a network that was largely disabled the first time but is in full flow this time (well, in November and December, not now). Would it be reasonable to place schools in that category? Hmmmmm. Im not an epidemiologist so I dont know if I joined the right dots on that one.



> Obviously, we'll have to wait and see when the current "stay at home" rules and the vaccinations start to bite into the cases, admissions and death rates.
> Hopefully, they will already be starting to have affects ...



Combination of factors that happened a while ago would be expected to influence the picture we currently see, which includes something with hospital admissions that I dont quite want to call a plateau yet, but is certainly a trajectory change.

Its a combination of tier changes, tier 4 coming in, tier 4 expanding, and then schools and workplaces being closed for Christmas holidays, and then finally the current lockdown. Versus the chains of infection that were already in motion, and whatever risky stuff some people did over Christmas, and then whatever the bad effects are from how many people are still working and doing other things during this lockdown. And stuff linked to weather and behaviours and the extent to which full hospitals are increasing transmission, the extent to which the virus is getting into care homes etc.

I wont be surprised if the picture via data remains as messy as my attempts to describe the factors involved for a while. And we know the deaths numbers will keep going up for longer than the hospital data. It sort of does my head in that at the same stage like this last week where I have been able to make comments about tentative good signs, there is not currently a clear end in sight in terms of reporting ever worse death data.


----------



## Supine (Jan 15, 2021)

Really good point made by Pagelmeister in the Indy sage presentation today. Vaccinating the older population will help the death figures but really won't impact #'s in ICU's / admissions for some time.

The age breakdown of the population and their representation in terms of cases, admissions and deaths shown in this graph.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

I know the Telegraphs own correction has already been discussed on the thread about him, but I feel the need to add BBC coverage of it to this pandemic thread.









						Toby Young: Telegraph coronavirus column 'significantly misleading'
					

The Daily Telegraph must publish a correction over Covid claims, press regulator Ipso rules.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The July 2020 article claimed the common cold could provide "natural immunity" to Covid-19 and London was "probably approaching herd immunity".





> The Telegraph referred to surveys listed in an article on Young's own Lockdown Sceptics website in its defence, but the Ipso committee judged these did not accurately reflect "how herd immunity is reached and whether it exists in London".





> "While some of the things I wrote in that article would be contested by some scientists, they would be confirmed by others... Have we achieved herd immunity in London? I think that's an open question and the 'case' data is unreliable because of the well-documented shortcomings of the PCR test.



An open question, not  Unless his version of herd immunity involved thousands of people still being hospitalised, in which case what bloody use would that be anyway? What a fuckwit.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> I know the Telegraphs own correction has already been discussed on the thread about him, but I feel the need to add BBC coverage of it to this pandemic thread.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


fify


----------



## MickiQ (Jan 15, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Only taken him ten months to get around to this.



So we should brace ourselves for the inevitable interviews from people forced to cut short their trips and banging on about how unfair it all this.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 15, 2021)

Supine said:


> Really good point made by Pagelmeister in the Indy sage presentation today. Vaccinating the older population will help the death figures but really won't impact #'s in ICU's / admissions for some time.
> 
> The age breakdown of the population and their representation in terms of cases, admissions and deaths shown in this graph.
> 
> View attachment 249217


That's rather discouraging,   in terms of vaccination being able to impact figures I had assumed much more of the hospital/ICU intake would be 70+ - is this because older people are more likely to die from symptoms aren't as severe, eg they never get to hospital before they die?


----------



## Maltin (Jan 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> And now the figure for the 11th Jan that I mentioned going over 900 earlier, is only just below 1000, on 998.
> 
> UK Deaths by date of death within 28 days of a positive test:
> 
> View attachment 249139


Am I reading the first chart on the Government's website correctly that the 3 previous highest number of deaths per day (based on date of death and the revised 28 day limit) were 998 (9 April), 999 (7 April) and 1,072 (8 April)? If so, the 11th looks like it will be at least the second highest so far in the UK. 

Deaths | Coronavirus in the UK (data.gov.uk)


----------



## 2hats (Jan 15, 2021)

Cloo said:


> That's rather discouraging,   in terms of vaccination being able to impact figures I had assumed much more of the hospital/ICU intake would be 70+ - is this because older people are more likely to die from symptoms aren't as severe, eg they never get to hospital before they die?


Less likely to survive ICU.


----------



## Supine (Jan 15, 2021)

Cloo said:


> That's rather discouraging,   in terms of vaccination being able to impact figures I had assumed much more of the hospital/ICU intake would be 70+ - is this because older people are more likely to die from symptoms aren't as severe, eg they never get to hospital before they die?



She said it was because old frail people are not always put into ICU because it's too damaging to the body or something like that.


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## William of Walworth (Jan 15, 2021)

Post #32,010 by elbows , bottom of previous page : I wish I  could both understand all the stats and charts, *and* analyse them, as well as that.

Biggest respect


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## Cloo (Jan 15, 2021)

2hats said:


> Less likely to survive ICU.


Yeah, figured it might be something about that.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> And finally, admissions covering the entire pandemic data available so far, so the size of admissions at the moment can be compared to the first wave.
> 
> Different regions and nations charts use very different scales, so dont use these to compare the size of admissions in different places with each other, just the shape and trends over time.
> 
> View attachment 249208


Scotland and Wales have managed to keep their 2nd wave admissions lower than 1st wave so far...but none of the English regions have.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2021)

Maltin said:


> Am I reading the first chart on the Government's website correctly that the 3 previous highest number of deaths per day (based on date of death and the revised 28 day limit) were 998 (9 April), 999 (7 April) and 1,072 (8 April)? If so, the 11th looks like it will be at least the second highest so far in the UK.
> 
> Deaths | Coronavirus in the UK (data.gov.uk)



Yes that sounds right.

Even worse than the grim detail of whatever peak level we reach this time, is the fact that there have already been over 4000 more deaths since September 1st than there were before September 1st (by this particular 28 days of positive test measure, other measures especially ONS/death certificate will have larger first wave totals). And a lot of the deaths will happen after the peak, on the downward curve. So the overall total and the comparison between waves will feature really horrible numbers.


----------



## elbows (Jan 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Scotland and Wales have managed to keep their 2nd wave admissions lower than 1st wave so far...but none of the English regions have.



When it comes to admission figures I would pay attention both to the peak levels reached but also how high the levels are over time. ie the total area occupied by Scotlands admissions curve in the second wave hardly compares favourably to the totals over time in the first wave. Plus admissions can be influenced by other limits to the admissions system, limits to how many people can actually be admitted in one day, or changes to admissions policies to try to manage demand. Wales figures are also complicated by the inclusion of suspected cases that are not included in data from other regions. And there are the other usual complications including these figures including hospital diagnoses that stemmed from people catching it in hospital or coming into hospital for another reason but having happened to have caught covid before admission.


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## 2hats (Jan 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> Don't get too excited, there are now suggestions that the Brazil variant may already be here (BBC website)


Seven cases recorded thus far, but it is the P.2 "Brazilian" variant and not the P.1.


----------



## bimble (Jan 16, 2021)

Advice please! I received a negative test result, that was really impressively quick.
But sense of smell is worse not better (can only smell things if i basically touch them with my nose and even then its distorted like bad translation).
Apart from that just mild body aches, no cough don't think any fever.
I want to know if it could be a false negative - can't find any reliable source for how likely that is. ("between 2 and 30%"??)
Is it possible i tested too early, test was well within 24 hours of first noticing the malfunctioning nose.
Otherwise I'm totally stumped what could be causing this and a bit scared tbh. I think anyway I'd be best not to see anyone or go to the shops for at least a day or two.


----------



## ska invita (Jan 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Advice please! I received a negative test result, that was really impressively quick.
> But sense of smell is worse not better (can only smell things if i basically touch them with my nose and even then its distorted like bad translation).
> Apart from that just mild body aches, no cough don't think any fever.
> I want to know if it could be a false negative - can't find any reliable source for how likely that is. ("between 2 and 30%"??)
> ...


IMO
yes it sounds very much like you have some of the classic symptoms, you should act as if you are positive
yes it could be because it was too early into it -problem is depending on your condition, doing it later is when its harder to make it to get a test!
good luck with it all


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## Supine (Jan 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Advice please! I received a negative test result, that was really impressively quick.
> But sense of smell is worse not better (can only smell things if i basically touch them with my nose and even then its distorted like bad translation).
> Apart from that just mild body aches, no cough don't think any fever.
> I want to know if it could be a false negative - can't find any reliable source for how likely that is. ("between 2 and 30%"??)
> ...



You need to stay home. You have classic symptoms but luckily so far it sounds like a mild illness.


----------



## Looby (Jan 16, 2021)

I’d isolate for the ten days based on those symptoms, get a second test if you can. Obviously it could be a total coincidence but it’s not worth the risk.


----------



## bimble (Jan 16, 2021)

Thanks people, yes am going to try to get another test in a couple of days and just sit tight ask friend to drop me some food.


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## Hyperdark (Jan 16, 2021)

Did I imagine talk of dishing out free Vit D to people a month or so ago?.....


----------



## maomao (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Did I imagine talk of dishing out free Vit D to people a month or so ago?.....


Only for those at high risk:









						Free vitamin D supplements for people at high risk from coronavirus
					

Free daily vitamin D supplements if you're on the shielded patients list because you're at high risk from coronavirus (COVID-19) - service closed on 21 February 2021.




					www.nhs.uk


----------



## andysays (Jan 16, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> So we should brace ourselves for the inevitable interviews from people forced to cut short their trips and banging on about how unfair it all this.


Will this do for now?

Covid: 'Urgent' aviation support plea over travel curbs


> The UK's aviation sector "urgently" needs more government support if it is to survive another long period of travel curbs, industry groups say.





> From Monday, all travel corridors to the UK will be closed to prevent the arrival of any new variants of Covid. Airport operators said the move was understandable, but warned that it would deepen the crisis for the sector.


----------



## LDC (Jan 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Advice please! I received a negative test result, that was really impressively quick.
> But sense of smell is worse not better (can only smell things if i basically touch them with my nose and even then its distorted like bad translation).
> Apart from that just mild body aches, no cough don't think any fever.
> I want to know if it could be a false negative - can't find any reliable source for how likely that is. ("between 2 and 30%"??)
> ...



I work in acute medicine (too thick and too lazy to be a doctor, so don't credit me with that level), and my thought processes (_it's not advice_) in your position would be:

You've had a negative test, so are allowed to go back to normal.
It could be a false negative, but it's much, much more likely to have been a genuine negative.
I'd have a think about what I'd been doing the last 10 days and make a judgement if catching it was even likely.
Loss or change of sense of smell isn't rare, it happens with a few things, colds for example. Lost or changed sense of smell
The brain does play very convincing tricks on us with things like this, especially if anxiety is a factor, and especially with vague things like mild body aches.
If isolating isn't really hard then maybe I'd do that anyway to be safe, and maybe get another test if things are the same or have worsened in a few days.
I'd try and calm down and not worry and as much as possible not think about it.

Hope you feel better soon.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Did I imagine talk of dishing out free Vit D to people a month or so ago?.....



I'm high risk and applied for some a month or so ago but haven't heard anything. Unless I imagined it too


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 16, 2021)

Oh Good Grief


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 16, 2021)

There might be a better thread for this but anyway. Popped up in my Facebook feed. https://gb.c19proventstudy.com/?utm...gn=23846221664120534&atid=PROUKENMF0001948#!/
*What is the PROVENT Study?*
The PROVENT Study will research a combination of 2 investigational monoclonal antibodies for the prevention of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). The study is looking at how well the investigational antibodies work and how safe they are.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 16, 2021)

The florist across the street from us (which has always previously been only a florist, and which constantly reduces the pavement space for social distancing with big displays) which should very definitely be closed under current Scottish Government regulations, even for click and collect, has opened today with a couple of trays of carrots and potatoes outside, in a very cynical attempt to claim essential business status to justify opening. Mr W is busy writing to our MSP about it.


----------



## LDC (Jan 16, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> There might be a better thread for this but anyway. Popped up in my Facebook feed. https://gb.c19proventstudy.com/?utm...gn=23846221664120534&atid=PROUKENMF0001948#!/
> *What is the PROVENT Study?*
> The PROVENT Study will research a combination of 2 investigational monoclonal antibodies for the prevention of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). The study is looking at how well the investigational antibodies work and how safe they are.



There's a whole thread on treatments and possible treatments.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 16, 2021)

Wasn't sure if I should put this here, or in the "pissed off" thread ...

COVID Recovery Group - Wikipedia

lists the 'committee' - but they & their supporters are all a bunch of murdering (tory) twunts ...


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 16, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Wasn't sure if I should put this here, or in the "pissed off" thread ...
> 
> COVID Recovery Group - Wikipedia
> 
> lists the 'committee' - but they & their supporters are all a bunch of murdering (tory) twunts ...



Misleading name for a bunch of 'libertarian' Covid-denialists 

Tury tossers!


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 16, 2021)

Piece in the Guardian which relates to conversation on this thread about lack of support for self-isolators and consequent lack of enthusiasm to risk it:









						Low-paid shun Covid tests because the cost of self-isolating is too high
					

Gig economy and patchy compensation could help coronavirus spread in some parts of England




					www.theguardian.com
				




some quotes



> According to the CIPD, the association of HR professionals, when people on low incomes do self-isolate, they find it difficult to access the NHS Test and Trace support payment scheme. Freedom of information releases from 34 local authorities show that only a third of claims were granted.





> Middlesbrough council said local testing data showed low take-up of PCR swab tests in the most deprived wards in the city, but higher levels of positive tests... In Liverpool, more than half of people in affluent areas in the south of the city were being tested during the lateral flow testing pilot scheme, but take-up in deprived areas in the north of the city was far lower.





> Jason Strelitz, director of public health for Newham, said his team first began to notice the problem when they tried to set up a pilot study testing asymptomatic people in high-risk occupations. “We looked at retail and drivers, and we couldn’t get people to engage,” he said. “It was quite clear that people didn’t want to get tested because they didn’t want to have to deal with the consequences of a positive test.
> 
> “The decision to self-isolate is a very limited, narrow, private benefit. You’ve got it or you’ve been identified as a close contact. It’s not about your health; it’s about reducing transmission to the community. And I think if we’re going to ask you to do that, we need to recognise that that sits very differently with people depending on their work conditions.”
> 
> ...


----------



## Numbers (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Oh Good Grief


Would be a much better post if there was an explanation of the content.


----------



## andysays (Jan 16, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Piece in the Guardian which relates to conversation on this thread about lack of support for self-isolators and consequent lack of enthusiasm to risk it:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


As I've posted before, my employer has recently offered us asymptomatic testing, so I went with one of my colleagues last Tuesday.

We were planning to go regularly every week, but they've now realised that if they test positive and have to isolate, so will the rest of their household, some of whom won't get paid, so they've decided not to get tested any more.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Oh Good Grief



Hyperdark What are your thoughts?


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Oh Good Grief


and your opinion / explanation of this is ?


----------



## andysays (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Oh Good Grief


----------



## weepiper (Jan 16, 2021)

Covid in Scotland: Mass vaccination of health and care staff begins
					

The exercise marks the beginning of the rollout of the Covid vaccine to front-line care staff.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Jan 16, 2021)

Setting aside all other factors, the fact that the fieldwork leading to this headline figure dates back to November must be one concern.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 16, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Piece in the Guardian which relates to conversation on this thread about lack of support for self-isolators and consequent lack of enthusiasm to risk it:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Head of public health in Newham quoted there is my brother in law. As you may imagine, he hasn't had much of a break in the last 9 months.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 16, 2021)

Some regional actions on the vaccine take-up disparity fears (just a couple of links I found ...)

a)   Clinics urge South Asian community to take up vaccine - BBC News 

b)  Covid-19: Breaking down Asian vaccine myths in Lancashire - BBC News


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 16, 2021)

Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk


What a bunch of spineless gits in here, the people mentioned in the survey are idiots OK and all you can do is bait me (I know what you are trying to do, its obvious and im not that fucking stupid)
Oh and Numbers its a link...but then you knew that


----------



## brogdale (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk
> 
> 
> What a bunch of spineless gits in here, the people mentioned in the survey are idiots OK and all you can do is bait me (I know what you are trying to do, its obvious and im not that fucking stupid)
> Oh and Numbers its a link...but then you knew that


Don't think you're long for this place, tbh.


----------



## LDC (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk
> 
> 
> What a bunch of spineless gits in here, the people mentioned in the survey are idiots OK and all you can do is bait me (I know what you are trying to do, its obvious and im not that fucking stupid)
> Oh and Numbers its a link...but then you knew that



Just try and post something coherent and ideally interesting and/or useful, and not just links or slightly random sentences, and then people might be a bit more receptive.


----------



## andysays (Jan 16, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just try and post something coherent and ideally interesting and/or useful, and not just links or slightly random sentences, and then people might be a bit more receptive.


I'm starting to get the feeling that if they posted what they really think, people here still wouldn't be terribly receptive...


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk
> 
> 
> What a bunch of spineless gits in here, the people mentioned in the survey are idiots OK and all you can do is bait me (I know what you are trying to do, its obvious and im not that fucking stupid)
> Oh and Numbers its a link...but then you knew that


Why are the people mentioned in the survey idiots?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk
> 
> 
> What a bunch of spineless gits in here, the people mentioned in the survey are idiots OK and all you can do is bait me (I know what you are trying to do, its obvious and im not that fucking stupid)
> Oh and Numbers its a link...but then you knew that



Yes, it was a link, without you adding any content or context, which is not only bloody impolite, but also against the rules. 



> *4, Content-free posts are not permitted.* Posts containing nothing more than links to websites or video files are not permitted. Please explain the nature and relevance of the linked content as a courtesy to users. Do not post up large amounts of cut and paste text. Make things easier for others by summarising the article and including a link to the unabridged version.
> Users who make a stream of posts with no meaningful content and/or continually post up off topic material in inappropriate threads/forums will be
> 
> 
> ...



And, judging by the pervious posts I've spotted from you, yes, you are 'fucking stupid'.

HTH


----------



## elbows (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk
> 
> 
> What a bunch of spineless gits in here, the people mentioned in the survey are idiots OK and all you can do is bait me (I know what you are trying to do, its obvious and im not that fucking stupid)
> Oh and Numbers its a link...but then you knew that



When people, either through their own experiences or through learning about history, or more likely some combination of both, end up with many good reasons to mistrust authorities and fear the institutional racism that plagues them, dont be surprised if that leaks into other areas of life. Faith in things will not be restored by labelling people idiots out of your own ignorance.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 16, 2021)

Today's reported figures -

New cases down to 41,346, which is good news.

Deaths 1,295, up from 1,035 last Saturday, taking the 7-average to 1,103 a day.


----------



## Looby (Jan 16, 2021)

We’ve had a card through from the council warning us about rising cases and hospital admissions here. We’re way above the national average now. 
I’m glad they sent them. I think we’ve been able to be quite complacent here and weren’t hit too badly in the first wave but it’s really not good now. 😞


----------



## weltweit (Jan 16, 2021)

Looby said:


> We’ve had a card through from the council warning us about rising cases and hospital admissions here. We’re way above the national average now.
> I’m glad they sent them. I think we’ve been able to be quite complacent here and weren’t hit too badly in the first wave but it’s really not good now. 😞


Did they at least recommend some action?


----------



## Looby (Jan 16, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Did they at least recommend some action?


Reminder of the existing guidance, stay at home as much as possible etc


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 16, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Did they at least recommend some action?


What sort action are you looking for ?


----------



## weltweit (Jan 16, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> What sort action are you looking for ?


perhaps more than existing recommendations, because the new variant is more than was being considered when the present guidelines were produced?


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 16, 2021)

Low-paid shun Covid tests because the cost of self-isolating is too high
					

Gig economy and patchy compensation could help coronavirus spread in some parts of England




					www.theguardian.com
				




Very worrying


----------



## Cid (Jan 16, 2021)

Fuck me, local Tesco Express... 5 people maskless. Out of about 12. Including 1 staff member. And two of the fuckers even put masks on (their chins) just to queue (after casually browsing for 5 minutes or so).


----------



## brogdale (Jan 16, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Low-paid shun Covid tests because the cost of self-isolating is too high
> 
> 
> Gig economy and patchy compensation could help coronavirus spread in some parts of England
> ...


Many of these folk will already have had such poor, stressful and fraught experiences of engaging with the tory benefits system it will undermine any belief that they'll be dealt with fairly, compassionately or swiftly if asked to self-isolate. Unfortunately, we are all reaping as the sociopathic, consolidator state has sown.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 16, 2021)

It was mentioned in an Owen Jones piece the other day, but despite the number of people pulled for taking coffee on a walk or whatever, there has been no enforcement action on company COVID safety breaches at all.



> Analysis by the _Observer_ shows that no enforcement notices have been served on companies by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors for Covid safety breaches since the country went into the latest lockdown, despite being contacted 2,945 times about workplace safety issues between 6 and 14 January. Overall, just 0.1% of the nearly 97,000 Covid safety cases dealt with by the agency during the pandemic appear to have resulted in an improvement or prohibition safety notice, with not a single company prosecuted for Covid-related breaches of safety laws.











						Firms accused of putting workers’ lives at risk by bending lockdown trading rules
					

As workplace infections soar, an Observer study reveals no company has been punished this year for breaching Covid safety laws




					www.theguardian.com
				




Plenty of examples of shit evil bosses in the article.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 16, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It was mentioned in an Owen Jones piece the other day, but despite the number of people pulled for taking coffee on a walk or whatever, there has been no enforcement action on company COVID safety breaches at all.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, been trying to publicly shame Powerleague about repeated safety breaches on their Croydon facility but they appear to think that it's the OB's responsibility to secure their premises.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 16, 2021)

maomao said:


> Only for those at high risk:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No sign of it yet, filled it out week before Christmas.

I think I'm up to three letters telling me to shield within the last month by now.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 16, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> No sign of it yet, filled it out week before Christmas.
> 
> I think I'm up to three letters telling me to shield within the last month by now.


Yes they come thick and fast for my mate who lives on a boat and gets his mail here.
He's getting a vaccine on Wednesday though so must had had a text message about this.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 16, 2021)

It's hard to imagine all those depots and warehouses are 'covid safe' when online shopping must be at an all time high but deliveries are still fairly timely. Amazon still offers its next day prime service.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 16, 2021)

Artaxerxes :
The Vit D tablets that we've started buying/taking quite recently were sold out of two stores today (our local Swansea mini-chain, and Superdrug).

I'm sure demand has been growing, but I suspect knowledge of the reputed benefits of Vitsmin D may have been spreading.
This quite-convincing article in last weeks Observer, despite the fact that a Brexiter Tory MP features prominently in it (  ) was what led me to think 'does sound good, and what harm can Vit D do'?

I remain quite cautious, but festivaldeb is much more enthusiastic -- and she's generally a dodgy-remedy-opponent too.

Despite (or because!) of the fact that we visit Glastonbury town often in normal times!


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk
> 
> 
> What a bunch of spineless gits in here, the people mentioned in the survey are idiots OK and all you can do is bait me (I know what you are trying to do, its obvious and im not that fucking stupid)
> Oh and Numbers its a link...but then you knew that


People are spineless for asking you to share an opinion about the article you posted?   

You aren't being baited you twit you are being exposed...by your own pathetic ego.

Did you even read the article?  Do you even understand why people are reluctant to be vaccinated? I'm not sure you do.

Keep posting though.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 16, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Artaxerxes :
> The Vit D tablets that we've started buying/taking quite recently were sold out of two stores today (our local Swansea mini-chain, and Superdrug).
> 
> I'm sure demand has been growing, but I suspect knowledge of the reputed benefits of Vitsmin D may have been spreading.
> ...



I've been taking them even before Rona, off and on, but free is free so put a claim in.

Really anyone living in the UK should be taking them in winter anyway I think.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 16, 2021)

I need to start taking mine again - we have jelly ones for the kids that we had to remind them to only have to 2 a day they're supposed to. I read a report saying when it comes to lowering COVID risk research found that don't have much effect for men but do for women and I don't think they're sure why there is this difference... can't find the report now.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 16, 2021)

Vit D is very cheap to buy yourself btw. I got 90 x 10 microgram tabs (the recommended daily) for about three quid.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 16, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk
> 
> 
> What a bunch of spineless gits in here, the people mentioned in the survey are idiots OK and all you can do is bait me (I know what you are trying to do, its obvious and im not that fucking stupid)
> Oh and Numbers its a link...but then you knew that


So, you've read this bit, had a good think about this bit and rejected it, yes?


> Historical issues of unethical healthcare research, and structural and institutional racism and discrimination, are key reasons for lower levels of trust in the vaccination programme, a report from Sage said.


Maybe you need to get on to Sage and point out the mistakes they've made. Or, alternatively, maybe you just need to fuck off.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 16, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Vit D is very cheap to buy yourself btw. I got 90 x 10 microgram tabs (the recommended daily) for about three quid.



 True -- that's the same cost as our low-cost** 'Valupak' tubs 

**(and for now sold-out)


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 16, 2021)

I’ve been taking Vit D for a year or two and after being diagnosed with an insufficiency and felt better quite quickly - didn’t get ill as much and had fewer musculoskeletal problems. Mind you, my back and shoulder are still fucked but that’s cos of what I’ve been doing to them and cos I’m rubbish at doing the supporting work of developing the muscles needed to support them


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> So, you've read this bit, had a good think about this bit and rejected it, yes?
> 
> Maybe you need to get on to Sage and point out the mistakes they've made. Or, alternatively, maybe you just need to fuck off.


Indeed, look up the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and Henrietta Lacks and then think on about why ethnic minorities might be distrustful of authorities wielding hypodermic syringes


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I’ve been taking Vit D for a year or two and after being diagnosed with an insufficiency and felt better quite quickly - didn’t get ill as much and had fewer musculoskeletal problems. Mind you, my back and shoulder are still fucked but that’s cos of what I’ve been doing to them and cos I’m rubbish at doing the supporting work of developing the muscles needed to support them


Do be careful though. Don’t overdo it. My sister has some terrible health issues from taking too much of it.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 16, 2021)

I've finally started with supplements (mainly for Vits B & D) but I still have quite a tan from the summer ...


----------



## xenon (Jan 17, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Do be careful though. Don’t overdo it. My sister has some terrible health issues from taking too much of it.



this is what has put me off trying it. I mean it seems pretty reasonable that I would be lacking vitamin di. I am pale, don’t stay outside much even in regular times.

but I already take a multivitamin and assumed surely it would include the RDA of vitamin di


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 17, 2021)

There is a huge gap between recommended/sensible dose and too much with vit D - just don't completely bomb the stuff. I'm taking one a day of the 10 mikes and one extra if I feel like I may be coming down with something (probably that is just placebo tbh but it makes me feel better). You have to go ten times that regularly before it's harmful. Some of the pills on Amazon do have a huge dose though.

eta: this is the NHS page on vit D - Vitamins and minerals - Vitamin D


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 17, 2021)

xenon said:


> this is what has put me off trying it. I mean it seems pretty reasonable that I would be lacking vitamin di. I am pale, don’t stay outside much even in regular times.
> 
> but I already take a multivitamin and assumed surely it would include the RDA of vitamin di


That’s fine then. You’re taking enough


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 17, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There is a huge gap between recommended/sensible dose and too much with vit D - just don't completely bomb the stuff. I'm taking one a day of the 10 mikes and one extra if I feel like I may be coming down with something (probably that is just placebo tbh but it makes me feel better). You have to go ten times that regularly before it's harmful. Some of the pills on Amazon do have a huge dose though.
> 
> eta: this is the NHS page on vit D - Vitamins and minerals - Vitamin D


Aye, but if you do take too much, it’s is _really _harmful. Just take the RDA and you’ll be fine. If you do have an insufficiency or a deficiency, your GP will prescribe you a higher dose but you will only be expected to take it for three months or so.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 17, 2021)

I was taking a multivitamin which gave RDA of a whole pile of vitamins. 

Only gave 50% RDA of Vitamin A though because more can cause problems. 

Went out of stock so I stopped, meant to find more but didn't get round to it.


----------



## xenon (Jan 17, 2021)

The one I’ve got has extra iron. I forget why I thought I needed extra iron at the time. Actually this was about a year ago when I wasn’t sure I would be able to get supermarket deliveries. It’s a big box.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 17, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Aye, but if you do take too much, it’s is _really _harmful. Just take the RDA and you’ll be fine. If you do have an insufficiency or a deficiency, your GP will prescribe you a higher dose but you will only be expected to take it for three months or so.


Yeah definitely be careful - the top results on Amazon are high strength pills which you really don't want.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jan 17, 2021)

This is on the wrong thread, but it's about the possible vitamin D connection. In Brisbane a week ago they went into a rapid 3 day hard lock down, because someone who worked at a quarantine hotel had a positive test for the UK varient. They'd been in the community for six days..in crowded shopping centres and on crowded buses and trains, before it was diagnosed. But only her partner has been detected as catching it from her.  A week later Brisbane is out of lockdown and just continuing to wear masks for another week. Brisbane has a population of 2.5 million


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 17, 2021)

What’s the relevance with Vit D though? Envying Oz’s numbers!


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jan 17, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> What’s the relevance with Vit D though? Envying Oz’s numbers!



Well Qld is the Sunshine state so everyone is  probably at peak Vitamin D.


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 17, 2021)

The levels of Vit D intake  needed to cause Toxicity are huge, even the 4000 Iu tabs seem safe

How Much Vitamin D is Too Much? The Surprising Truth


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 17, 2021)

...............


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 17, 2021)

...........................................


----------



## Hyperdark (Jan 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> When people, either through their own experiences or through learning about history, or more likely some combination of both, end up with many good reasons to mistrust authorities and fear the institutional racism that plagues them, dont be surprised if that leaks into other areas of life. Faith in things will not be restored by labelling people idiots out of your own ignorance.



I linked to a study, if your racial bias wont allow you to accept any information that includes differences between certain racial groups then that is a your problem, they exist, its factual and is not in my mind  a great excuse for you or anyone else to engage in  playground name calling


----------



## kabbes (Jan 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> Really good point made by Pagelmeister in the Indy sage presentation today. Vaccinating the older population will help the death figures but really won't impact #'s in ICU's / admissions for some time.
> 
> The age breakdown of the population and their representation in terms of cases, admissions and deaths shown in this graph.


Depends what you mean by "the older population", surely?  That graph indicates that if you can immunise the 65+ category, hospital admissions would reduce by two-thirds and ICU admissions by about 43%-ish.  That's all very significant.

If the "older population" means 75+, however, the impact on ICU admissions will obviously be much smaller.


----------



## BlanketAddict (Jan 17, 2021)

I've been taking Vit D and Zinc tablets for a while now. I _feel_ better but who knows with these things, a lot of it could be mental positivity. 

Was also encouraged to read that us redheads can generate our own Vit D!
As I tell my friends, we're humans 2.0, just don't leave us out in the sun ☀️ 😡


----------



## zora (Jan 17, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Depends what you mean by "the older population", surely?  That graph indicates that if you can immunise the 65+ category, hospital admissions would reduce by two-thirds and ICU admissions by about 43%-ish.  That's all very significant.
> 
> If the "older population" means 75+, however, the impact on ICU admissions will obviously be much smaller.



Of course there will be some impact. But iirc the point in the Independent Sage meeting was made in the context of what this means for the wider epidemiological situation.
We have to consider that hospitals' ICU capacity has been hugely expanded at the expense of other services, level of patient care and staff wellbeing, so to keep even half of current ICU admisssions coming into ICU (and, as I understand, in that age group often staying for a long time) is way too many.
Also I think it was meant to illustrate that we cannot afford to have this number go up at all. So while we should see a big drop in deaths once the 70/75+ groups are vaccinated, it's not like restrictions can be readily released then, because these stats show that if the virus was once more left to rip through the age group 45-64, ICU admissions would be way too high to be sustainable.


----------



## Uncle Fester (Jan 17, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There is a huge gap between recommended/sensible dose and too much with vit D - just don't completely bomb the stuff. I'm taking one a day of the 10 mikes and one extra if I feel like I may be coming down with something (probably that is just placebo tbh but it makes me feel better). You have to go ten times that regularly before it's harmful. Some of the pills on Amazon do have a huge dose though.
> 
> eta: this is the NHS page on vit D - Vitamins and minerals - Vitamin D



Found another interesting NHS link - research is ongoing:




__





						Vitamin D and B12 Levels – a Clue to Severity of Respiratory COVID-19 [COVID-19]
					






					www.hra.nhs.uk
				





> Epidemiological research has identified vitamin D as a risk factor for more severe COVID-19. Very early clinical studies show an association between low vitamin D levels and more severe disease and death from the virus. For vitamin B12, early computer modelling and laboratory-based research indicate that vitamin B12 may bind to at least one of the viral proteins and thereby slow down viral replication.



I guess B12 deficiency is probably more of a problem for a veggie/vegan diet (i'm veggie).
Been taking "Prime 50" multivitamins for a few weeks now - they contain 20ug of 'D', so just one every other day.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 17, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> I linked to a study, if your racial bias wont allow you to accept any information that includes differences between certain racial groups then that is a your problem, they exist, its factual and is not in my mind  a great excuse for you or anyone else to engage in  playground name calling


When did this cunt pop up?


----------



## maomao (Jan 17, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> I linked to a study, if your racial bias wont allow you to accept any information that includes differences between certain racial groups then that is a your problem, they exist, its factual and is not in my mind  a great excuse for you or anyone else to engage in  playground name calling


This is the main UK coronavirus thread. There are probably better threads, or indeed websites, for your cheap race baiting.


----------



## maomao (Jan 17, 2021)

maomao said:


> I doubt that. There was very little done except hand washing in March. There's a few more tools to fight it now and doctors will have had nearly a year's experience treating it. And the pubs and trains won't be so busy if only because half the country's skint. There could well be a second wave, but I can't see the UK death figure hitting four figures a day again without something going very wrong.


This post hasn't aged well.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 17, 2021)

maomao said:


> This post hasn't aged well.



You gave yourself the 'unless something goes very wrong' get out clause though, a clause which Johnson and pals have gleefully invoked.


----------



## maomao (Jan 17, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> You gave yourself the 'unless something goes very wrong' get out clause though, a clause which Johnson and pals have gleefully invoked.


He was in charge in August though and we all knew what an incompetent cunt he was then.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 17, 2021)

TopCat said:


> When did this cunt pop up?



Ages ago. I've had him on my mental ignore list but he's now been promoted to the actual ignore list.


----------



## zora (Jan 17, 2021)

maomao said:


> He was in charge in August though and we all knew what an incompetent cunt he was then.



Same here, I remember my boyfriend asking me about winter, and I confidently said "no, it won't get as bad again as in spring, because there is much better testing in place, and even if it does threaten to spiral out of control again, the brakes would be slammed on much sooner." I was quickly disabused of that notion - a couple of weeks later I watched aghast as universities started up again in the face of rising numbers...


----------



## editor (Jan 17, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/16/covid-vaccine-black-people-unlikely-covid-jab-uk
> 
> 
> What a bunch of spineless gits in here, the people mentioned in the survey are idiots OK and all you can do is bait me (I know what you are trying to do, its obvious and im not that fucking stupid)
> Oh and Numbers its a link...but then you knew that


User banned off thread: disruption/personal attacks.


----------



## mr steev (Jan 17, 2021)

Uncle Fester said:


> I guess B12 deficiency is probably more of a problem for a veggie/vegan diet (i'm veggie).



B12 is generally not an issue with being vegetarian as there is plenty in diary products. If you have a vegan diet you have to be a bit more careful. 🙂


----------



## Cloo (Jan 17, 2021)

zora said:


> Same here, I remember my boyfriend asking me about winter, and I confidently said "no, it won't get as bad again as in spring, because there is much better testing in place, and even if it does threaten to spiral out of control again, the brakes would be slammed on much sooner." I was quickly disabused of that notion - a couple of weeks later I watched aghast as universities started up again in the face of rising numbers...


It feels to me like we will have to go through one winter with people vaccinated (eg, end of this year) so we can be sure it makes things manageable before we anyone can talk about business as usual really returning. I was optimistic that this summer would be as 'free' as last summer, but then that was preceeded with no kids in school. I'd really like them to be back after Easter, but then I worry whether we ought to. I also hoped to go to my parents' place in Slovakia this summer, seeing as it was possible last summer, but I guess everywhere may be insisting on quarantine, certainly from plague-pit UK - unless places introduce testing and isolation until result  though wouldn't surprise me if Slovakia did do something that, they're quite organised that way. But clearly we're not going to get majority of people vaccinated until second half of year, and that's if things go right.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 17, 2021)

TopCat said:


> When did this cunt pop up?


It seems like a longer time than it actually is.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 17, 2021)

Another Hancock cock-up. 



> Matt Hancock cancelled contracts with private hospitals that would have given the NHS 8,000 extra beds.
> 
> The Health Secretary’s astonishing blunder is revealed today as the NHS struggles with the second wave of coronavirus.
> 
> ...











						Desperate medics lose 8,000 hospital beds after Matt Hancock's NHS blunder
					

EXCLUSIVE: An under-the-cosh NHS is now facing a new nightmare as a deal for 8,000 private beds has lapsed in an astonishing blunder by Health Secretary Matt Hancock




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jan 17, 2021)

Hyperdark said:


> I linked to a study, if your racial bias wont allow you to accept any information that includes differences between certain racial groups then that is a your problem, they exist, its factual and is not in my mind  a great excuse for you or anyone else to engage in  playground name calling


What might those differences be? Where do they come from, how do they manifest and in what way have the influenced the behaviours in the link you posted?

Edit: didn't see thread ban


----------



## andysays (Jan 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another Hancock cock-up.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So while the general government policy has been to throw contracts and money at mates who then turn out not to be able to deliver, poor old Matt is now getting it in the neck for failing to renew contracts which might, despite reservations about the existence of private hospital beds in the first place, actually have helped ease the pressure on the NHS.


----------



## elbows (Jan 17, 2021)

I do hope the shitheads feel the heat:









						Media’s libertarian Covid sceptics under fire from senior Tory
					

Journalists who downplay virus ‘have a hell of a lot to answer for’, says party vice-chair Neil O’Brien




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Neil O’Brien, the MP for Harborough, accuses prominent Tory-supporting journalists of making things up and repeatedly peddling claims that have been disproved.
> 
> His increasingly heated disagreements with right-wing figures including Toby Young, Allison Pearson and Julia Hartley-Brewer has been building on Twitter over recent days. It mirrors splits among Tory MPs who are themselves deeply divided over how serious the virus is and the need for draconian lockdowns.





> But writing in the Observer O’Brien goes further, calling the group “the guilty men (and women) of the media” who must themselves be held to account for putting people at risk.
> 
> He adds: “The truth is, the Covid sceptics aren’t really sceptics at all. They engage in motivated reasoning; make stuff up, and double down on claims that have been disproved. They’re powerful figures in the media, not used to being questioned. But the truth is, they have a hell of lot to answer for.”





> O’Brien says that from the beginning of the pandemic these media figures underplayed the dangers of Covid-19, then wrongly predicted that the virus was disappearing and by late last summerthen denied there would be a major second wave.
> 
> Recently, O’Brien writes, they have shifted their arguments again. Now, “with the new variant exploding, and TV news showing ambulances queuing outside hospitals and wards full of people gasping for breath, the story had to change again. Yes, people were now dying. But not in unusual numbers.
> 
> “On 4 January this year Julia Hartley-Brewer reassured us: ‘The virus kills. It just isn’t causing excess deaths anymore.’ This was rather difficult to square with the Office for National Statistics saying there were excess deaths, and that 2020 had seen the largest increase in deaths in a single year in England and Wales since 1940.”



And the article they are quoting from:

I’d love to ignore ‘covid sceptics’ and their tall tales. But they make a splash and have no shame | Neil O'Brien


----------



## editor (Jan 17, 2021)

There's a raging Tory-denying Tory posting up all sorts of disinformation on a recent Buzz article. If anyone would like to correct his claims I'd be much obliged:








						Opinion – Covid-19, and how it has exposed the rotten core of UK government
					

Although Brixton Buzz mainly deals with local issues, we’re all being affected by the ongoing pandemic, with matters made considerably worse by the government’s incompetent and bumbling…



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## Wilf (Jan 17, 2021)

I don't deny the logistical challenges of delivering the jab... and there's also that within a few weeks they'll have to start delivering the 2nd jab to the first groups of vaccinated people, but _September!!_
All adults in UK to be offered Covid vaccine by September, says Raab | World news | The Guardian
In the piece, raab is talking about 32 million getting the vaccine by 'early Spring' (end of March?). Given that they are talking about adults only, my maths has that at:

66 million - UK population
minus age group 18 and under (12 m) = 54 m to be vaccinated in total
32 m already done by 'early Spring'
*= 22 m to be vaccinated say April to September (5 or 6 months)*

That seems pretty slow for a number of reasons. Firstly, there will be more vaccines available and newly approved vaccines. Also, the mass vaccination centres will be up and running. Then there's that the vaccinations in that Summer phase will be mass age group appointments (rather than more complicated logistics of care home residents, people with vulnerabilities at the moment).  Maybe they are not wanting to offer hostages to fortune, but fecking September!

Have I embarrassed myself and got the maths wrong?


----------



## maomao (Jan 17, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I don't deny the logistical challenges of delivering the jab... and there's also that within a few weeks they'll have to start delivering the 2nd jab to the first groups of vaccinated people, but _September!!_
> All adults in UK to be offered Covid vaccine by September, says Raab | World news | The Guardian
> In the piece, raab is talking about 32 million getting the vaccine by 'early Spring' (end of March?). Given that they are talking about adults only, my maths has that at:
> 
> ...


Also if it only offers eight months immunity, as has been suggested a couple of times, they'll have to start again straight away.


----------



## elbows (Jan 17, 2021)

Wilf said:


> That seems pretty slow for a number of reasons. Firstly, there will be more vaccines available and newly approved vaccines.



Its one thing to say that in general terms, but the actual schedule for quantities of vaccine that will actually be available over time is unknown to me and is considered sensitive. As demonstrated by the recent incident with Scotland where they published detailed supply schedule info and then took it down because the UK government said it contained commercially sensitive info.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 17, 2021)

maomao said:


> Also if it only offers eight months immunity, as has been suggested a couple of times, they'll have to start again straight away.



From my understanding 8 months has only been mentioned, because that's the longest period since the first people on the trials received it, no one knows how long immunity will last ATM.


----------



## elbows (Jan 17, 2021)

By the way I notice that in the most recent press conference Johnson made a very deliberate point of going on about people catching it by touching things. First he mentioned this in the context of supermarkets, and then again later in response to a question about workplaces.


----------



## LDC (Jan 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> By the way I notice that in the most recent press conference Johnson made a very deliberate point of going on about people catching it by touching things. First he mentioned this in the context of supermarkets, and then again later in response to a question about workplaces.



Yeah I noticed that too, I wonder if that's anything to do with the new variant and the way it transmits...? More robust little viruses outside the body? (That's my best medical speak btw.)


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 17, 2021)

I suspect he was just blathering on the fly while trying to figure out what to say next.


----------



## maomao (Jan 17, 2021)

That's the problem with Johnson. Anything he says could be carefully scripted by health authorities or it could just be him blathering to fill time.


----------



## elbows (Jan 17, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah I noticed that too, I wonder if that's anything to do with the new variant and the way it transmits...? More robust little viruses outside the body? (That's my best medical speak btw.)



Maybe there is something in this January 14th SAGE document about reducing within-household and between-household transmission in light of the new variant:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/952799/s1020-Reducing-within-between-household-transmission.pdf
		


I do not have time to read that document properly right now.I'm just speculating based on the date and the sort of thing Johnson is probably briefed on.



platinumsage said:


> I suspect he was just blathering on the fly while trying to figure out what to say next.



I believe the first reference was in the initial scripted part, otherwise I might not have bothered to mentioned it. But I cannot face going back to check.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> I believe the first reference was in the initial scripted part, otherwise I might not have bothered to mentioned it. But I cannot face going back to check.



I just had a look and yes, it was scripted, but it was in the context of first explaining Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives, and then explaining Hands, Face, Space. In that context it would have been strange if he hadn't mentioned why people should wash their hands.


----------



## elbows (Jan 17, 2021)

If anyone wonders why I go on about hospital transmission a lot in this pandemic, I covered some recently publisehd detail on the nerdy thread:            #59          

It is quite a factor, not a minor curiosity I'm afraid. And it was always expected to be. The response from the establishment has been deeply inadequate at every stage, it drives me nuts.


----------



## elbows (Jan 17, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I just had a look and yes, it was scripted, but it was in the context of first explaining Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives, and then explaining Hands, Face, Space. In that context it would have been strange if he hadn't mentioned why people should wash their hands.



Sure. At a minimum I interpreted it as a combination of reinforcing that existing message, but in combination with an emphasis on supermarket spread. I believe that the Welsh government were making quite a lot of noise about clear evidence of supermarket transmission that same day.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 17, 2021)

editor said:


> There's a raging Tory-denying Tory posting up all sorts of disinformation on a recent Buzz article. If anyone would like to correct his claims I'd be much obliged:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Christ alive, what a tedious cunt.
I know we have our own pedantic contrarians in here, but fuck me, he's a grade A one.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 17, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I don't deny the logistical challenges of delivering the jab... and there's also that within a few weeks they'll have to start delivering the 2nd jab to the first groups of vaccinated people, but _September!!_
> All adults in UK to be offered Covid vaccine by September, says Raab | World news | The Guardian


That worries me, because I would have said September sounded like a realistic date rather than the nonsense ones they've been throwing out previously, but now the Tories have said it so it won't happen


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 17, 2021)

Daily reported figures-

New cases down to 38,598, last Sunday it was 54.940.   

New deaths 671, low because of ye olde weekend lag, but up from 563 last Sunday, adding 15.4 extra per day to the average 7-day figure, taking it up from 1,104 yesterday to 1,119.


----------



## elbows (Jan 17, 2021)

And the deaths by date of death is showing over 1000 for two consecutive dates, even with the 28 day testing limit on that version of the data.

Normally I would wait till the figures start catching up on Tuesday, at which point I would reset my colour-coded graph, but given the levels reached I will share todays one despite my messy use of colours.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 17, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Christ alive, what a tedious cunt.
> I know we have our own pedantic contrarians in here, but fuck me, he's a grade A one.


Kind of interesting that he started out by complaining that the post was a tedious one written by a know-nothing, and has then proceeded, with consistent tediousness, to demonstrate the shallowness of his own knowledge...


----------



## elbows (Jan 17, 2021)

> *Concerns have been raised about employees forced to go into workplaces that are not Covid-compliant during lockdown.*
> Between 6 and 14 January, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) received 2,945 complaints about safety issues.
> The head of the UK's unions called for ministers to crack down on employers "who break Covid safety rules".



Finally a bit more focus on this side of things. Too little, too late, and only just bubbling up in the press now that we find ourselves in an emergency situation. Some of these violations should be made an example of.









						Coronavirus: Concerns over bosses breaking Covid safety rules
					

The Health and Safety Executive says it received 2,945 complaints about workplaces in one week.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 17, 2021)

my local council sends a weekly news update e-mail round.

they are recruiting covid lateral flow test centre staff on a 12 month contract


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 17, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> my local council sends a weekly news update e-mail round.
> 
> they are recruiting covid lateral flow test centre staff on a 12 month contract



Good. Nice to see forward planning instead of heads in sand.


----------



## LDC (Jan 17, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> my local council sends a weekly news update e-mail round.
> 
> they are recruiting covid lateral flow test centre staff on a 12 month contract



Yeah, someone I now got a position on a covid crisis planning team kinda thing in November, and the job lasts until April 2022.


----------



## David Clapson (Jan 18, 2021)

A new report says the number of deaths is higher than we thought. One in 8 of those who are hospitalised and recover end up dying within months because the virus gives them organ damage or diabetes. I can't find the original report, only the Telegraph seems to know about it. The Mail has done a story based on the Telegraph's piece.

The Telegraph's coverage:



> Almost a third of recovered Covid patients will end up back in hospital within five months and one in eight will die, alarming new figures have shown.
> 
> Research by Leicester University and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found there is a devastating long-term toll on survivors of severe coronavirus, with many people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic liver and kidney conditions.
> 
> ...











						Almost a third of recovered Covid patients return to hospital in five months and one in eight die
					

Research has found a devastating long-term toll on survivors, with people developing heart problems, diabetes and chronic conditions




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				




Also in the Mail:









						Covid UK: One-in-eight 'recovered' Covid patients DIE within 140 days
					

Research by Leicester University found that out of 47,780 people discharged from hospital in the first wave, 29.4 per cent returned to hospital within 140 days.




					www.dailymail.co.uk


----------



## Indeliblelink (Jan 18, 2021)

Mixed news about the vaccine.


> Dr Ravi Gupta - early data from his latest research into the new more transmissible *“English variant”* is* showing the mutations did NOT effect the efficacy of the vaccines.*
> 
> He’s also been looking at antibody responses to the vaccines and found a mixed picture in the* over 80’s*.
> In* just under half of cases they showed a suboptimal antibody response*
> ...


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 18, 2021)

Bbc coverage of new "mass" hubs
and areas working further down the priority groups (ie into the over 70s) as some places have jabbed 90% of their over 80s.
[and Brazil have just started jabs "today" ...]

Covid-19: Vaccination rollout begins for over-70s in England - BBC News
and
Covid vaccine: When will you be eligible? - BBC News

hubs -  Covid: 10 new mass vaccination centres to open in England - BBC News
[that is now 17 hubs up & running ... will be interesting to see today's jabs totals later]


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 18, 2021)

It was always going to be like that. If a GP has booked all their 80+ in for appointments, they will merrily start doing their 70s. They’re not going to twiddle their thumbs until all the other centres have caught up. Since everywhere has a different age demographic etc there will always be ”unfairness” in some lower down the list getting it ahead of those above them.


----------



## elbows (Jan 18, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jan 18, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> A new report says the number of deaths is higher than we thought. One in 8 of those who are hospitalised and recover end up dying within months because the virus gives them organ damage or diabetes. I can't find the original report, only the Telegraph seems to know about it. The Mail has done a story based on the Telegraph's piece.
> 
> The Telegraph's coverage:
> 
> ...



This is the study:





__





						Epidemiology of post-COVID syndrome following hospitalisation with coronavirus: a retrospective cohort study
					

Objectives The epidemiology of post-COVID syndrome (PCS) is currently undefined. We quantified rates of organ-specific impairment following recovery from COVID-19 hospitalisation compared with those in a matched control group, and how the rate ratio (RR) varies by age, sex, and ethnicity...




					www.medrxiv.org


----------



## Sunray (Jan 18, 2021)

Makes a lot of sense.  Steve Bruce the NUFC manager was saying how it's taken some of their players out of the game and they don't know when they are coming back.  If it can do that to elite athletes if you weren't very well before you got sick.  Surviving covid might not be the end of the struggle and you may still lose.


----------



## David Clapson (Jan 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> This is the study:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So how many do we add to the total deaths number?


----------



## bimble (Jan 18, 2021)

Anecdotally, since the increased talk about staying local’ for your exercise outings, it’s much much quieter here in ‘my’ national trust forest. Really significantly fewer cars and people than at the start of the month or any previous lockdown period. I don’t think it’s the weather. kabbes is it quieter in your corner too?


----------



## elbows (Jan 18, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> So how many do we add to the total deaths number?



Not easy, the sort of thing that we will get estimates of in future years, probably along with estimates as to how life expectancy has decreased as a result of the pandemic.

Total deaths from all causes and excess deaths are one way to attempt to capture the picture. But initial phases of recession, and lockdowns, are expected to result in less deaths from non-Covid causes than normal. And there seem to have been negligible flu deaths this winter so far. So comparing excess deaths to other years or total deaths to other years is not expected to fully capture the picture.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 18, 2021)

Tracing seems to have been entirely forgotten in the uk even though it will presumably be super important for some time yet. Is any resource being put into it at all? Has it occurred to anyone with responsibility to, you know, tie in vaccination with better tracing efforts?


----------



## elbows (Jan 18, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Tracing seems to have been entirely forgotten in the uk even though it will presumably be super important for some time yet. Is any resource being put into it at all? Has it occurred to anyone with responsibility to, you know, tie in vaccination with better tracing efforts?



Contact tracing systems arent a big part of the solution during really high peaks, lockdowns etc. Even good ones, which ours wasnt, become akin to just pissing into a fire. Its when things start to decline below a certain level that tackling the pandemic by such means becomes more vital. So I would expect to hear more about this side of things again later.


----------



## maomao (Jan 18, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Tracing seems to have been entirely forgotten in the uk even though it will presumably be super important for some time yet. Is any resource being put into it at all? Has it occurred to anyone with responsibility to, you know, tie in vaccination with better tracing efforts?


Contact tracing doesn't really work at the peaks of epidemics. It's more for the bits in between where you're trying to reduce it as low a level as possible.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

The absolute state of this, a Tory minister saying wtf is happening with the post-code lottery for vaccinations; shitshow.


----------



## Thora (Jan 18, 2021)

My GP has apparently vaccinated all the over 80s on their books so is starting on the 70s.
Not sure what the alternative would be?  Wait for everyone else to catch up?  Start bussing in 80 somethings from surrounding areas


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

Thora said:


> My GP has apparently vaccinated all the over 80s on their books so is starting on the 70s.
> Not sure what the alternative would be?  Wait for everyone else to catch up?  Start bussing in 80 somethings from surrounding areas


I suppose the alternative would have been a consistent, coherent and equitable roll-out across the whole country based upon delivery through primary health-care and community health, but the tories' ideologically driven 'reforms' to PHC meant that no consistent, nationwide delivery could be effected.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> The absolute state of this, a Tory minister saying wtf is happening with the post-code lottery for vaccinations; shitshow.
> 
> View attachment 249838


tc of course a tory with a background in chemistry. does that remind you of anyone?


----------



## Thora (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> I suppose the alternative would have been a consistent, coherent and equitable roll-out across the whole country based upon delivery through primary health-care and community health, but the tories' ideologically driven 'reforms' to PHC meant that no consistent, nationwide delivery could be effected.


I think having vaccinations done through GP makes sense though - they already have mass vaccination experience doing flu jabs.


----------



## LDC (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> I suppose the alternative would have been a consistent, coherent and equitable roll-out across the whole country based upon delivery through primary health-care and community health, but the tories' ideologically driven 'reforms' to PHC meant that no consistent, nationwide delivery could be effected.



It's never going to work like that on a national level. There's too many variables like population density, travel to clinic time, etc. People are being invited for vaccination pre-emptively in areas near to finishing one of the categories so there's reduced waiting time between that and the next cohort. The alternative would be send letters out once all the previous cohort was done, which would see a delay.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> tc of course a tory with a background in chemistry. does that remind you of anyone?


Here, doing science with stolen milk...


----------



## David Clapson (Jan 18, 2021)

Why aren't all the pharmacies giving vaccinations? Is it so the Tories can give juicy contracts to their mates?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's never going to work like that on a national level. There's too many variables like population density, travel to clinic time, etc. People are being invited for vaccination pre-emptively in areas near to finishing one of the categories so there's reduced waiting time between that and the next cohort. The alternative would be send letters out once all the previous cohort was done, which would see a delay.


Same variable apply to flu vaccines, though? Surely, the existing PHC infrastructure should have been the first port of call?


----------



## LDC (Jan 18, 2021)

Thora said:


> I think having vaccinations done through GP makes sense though - they already have mass vaccination experience doing flu jabs.



They are being partly done through GPs, but GPs are also massively swamped with other stuff, so it's also good that mass vaccination centres and pharmacies are being used. I'm all for community bases for some areas, but it does seem to be working well as it is for the moment.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 18, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Why aren't all the pharmacies giving vaccinations? Is it so the Tories can give juicy contracts to their mates?


they wouldn't have any mates if they had no juicy contracts to hand out


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They are being partly done through GPs, but GPs are also massively swamped with other stuff, so it's also good that mass vaccination centres and pharmacies are being used. I'm all for community bases for some areas, but it does seem to be working well as it is for the moment.


Not working with any consistency, though.
I have elderly relatives who've had both Pfizers, one Pfizer and some who've not even heard at all from their GPs (?). very distressing and anxiety inducing for 90 year olds to feel that they've been overlooked when they hear about the 70+ getting theirs.

It's a bit of a shitshow; who'd have thought that the Tories would fuck this up as well?


----------



## prunus (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> It's a bit of a shitshow; who'd have thought that the Tories would fuck this up as well?



I did have an inkling...


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Not working with any consistency, though.
> I have elderly relatives who've had both Pfizers, one Pfizer and some who've not even heard at all from their GPs (?). very distressing and anxiety inducing for 90 year olds to feel that they've been overlooked when they hear about the 70+ getting theirs.
> 
> It's a bit of a shitshow; who'd have thought that the Tories would fuck this up as well?



If there was a system that meant every last 80+ year old would have it before they started 70+ year olds, whilst at the same time mainting the overall vaccination rate, I'm sure people would be arguing for it.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 18, 2021)

maomao said:


> Contact tracing doesn't really work at the peaks of epidemics. It's more for the bits in between where you're trying to reduce it as low a level as possible.


Well exactly,  I mean in terms of it would be good to hear rather than 'vaccination will solve everything', 'we are strengthening the tracking and tracing system so that we can work our way out of lockdown' . It sounded like they had got to much better contact rates once they started taking it a household at a time rather than calling one household multiple times,  so maybe they could do more good this year.


----------



## LDC (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Not working with any consistency, though.
> I have elderly relatives who've had both Pfizers, one Pfizer and some who've not even heard at all from their GPs (?). very distressing and anxiety inducing for 90 year olds to feel that they've been overlooked when they hear about the 70+ getting theirs.
> 
> It's a bit of a shitshow; who'd have thought that the Tories would fuck this up as well?



How is someone not hearing from their GP anything to do with the Tories though? I have no idea why some people haven't heard, but there's all sorts of reasons why that might be case. Has someone chased it up with their GP for them?

Some GPs have also gone against advice and given second doses when they have been told not to which has caused confusion, and although that was a bit of a quick change it was down to the advice from the regulators, and that came at the last minute after consultations and discussions.

Hoping for consistency is wrong headed. Speed is the thing by which it should be judged, and it'll move at different rates in different areas for a mix of reasons. And it will get better as time goes on.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> If there was a system that meant every last 80+ year old would have it before they started 70+ year olds, whilst at the same time mainting the overall vaccination rate, I'm sure people would be arguing for it.


Kind of demonstrates that there's not a coherent, planned and fair distribution of vaccine across the country.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 18, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Well exactly,  I mean in terms of it would be good to hear rather than 'vaccination will solve everything', 'we are strengthening the tracking and tracing system so that we can work our way out of lockdown' . It sounded like they had got to much better contact rates once they started taking it a household at a time rather than calling one household multiple times,  so maybe they could do more good this year.



They didn't do that with me and my Mrs. We both got calls and were both 'legally responsible' to ensure our kids isolated but with different end dates. It wasn't joined up at all even though we had both given the same details.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Kind of demonstrates that there's not a coherent, planned and fair distribution of vaccine across the country.



It demonstrates nothing of the sort, simply that you don't appear to understand the logistics of it.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> How is someone not hearing from their GP anything to do with the Tories though? I have no idea why some people haven't heard, but there's all sorts of reasons why that might be case. Has someone chased it up with their GP for them?
> 
> Some GPs have also gone against advice and given second doses when they have been told not to which has caused confusion, and although that was a bit of a quick change it was down to the advice from the regulators, and that came at the last minute after consultations and discussions.
> 
> Hoping for consistency is wrong headed. Speed is the thing by which it should be judged, and it'll move at different rates in different areas for a mix of reasons. And it will get better as time goes on.


Nah, that's bollox.
Some GPs decided to go ahead with second Pfizers that had been booked before Hancock's arbitrary January 4th change of heart for the very good reason that it was completely fucking unreasonable to fuck around the oldest/most vulnerable cohort and confuse them any more than necessary. The government fucked that up from the get go.

Consistency is an obvious goal of having a National health service in the first place.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It demonstrates nothing of the sort, simply that you don't appear to understand the logistics of it.


I'll try and learn all about that then...so that I can explain to why 90 year old rellies why they've heard fuck all about their vaccines.


----------



## LDC (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> I'll try and learn all about that then...so that I can explain to why 90 year old rellies why they've heard fuck all about their vaccines.



Why doesn't someone contact their GP? Might be as simple as they haven't got the right updated contact details for them.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> I'll try and learn all about that then...so that I can explain to why 90 year old rellies why they've heard fuck all about their vaccines.



Yes you do that, because the government have clearly stated they don't expect to complete that age group until mid-February, so if your relatives haven't picked this up and are anxious, someone should explain it to them.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Yes you do that, because the government have clearly stated they don't expect to complete that age group until mid-February, so if your relatives haven't picked this up and are anxious, someone should explain it to them.


Yeah, the stupid old fuckers.


----------



## LDC (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Nah, that's bollox.
> Some GPs decided to go ahead with second Pfizers that had been booked before Hancock's arbitrary January 4th change of heart for the very good reason that it was completely fucking unreasonable to fuck around the oldest/most vulnerable cohort and confuse them any more than necessary. The government fucked that up from the get go.
> 
> Consistency is an obvious goal of having a National health service in the first place.



It wasn't an arbitrary date change and it wasn't a random decision, it was a decision taken to protect as many people as possible as quickly as possible with the vaccination program. As for consistency... once one area has done all their category 1, should they wait for the rest of the country to catch up so they can all start category 2 together? Or is speed more important than consistency?

There's so many good criticisms of the Tories and their handling of the pandemic, I think you've a bit lost sight and sense with the stuff you're saying here tbh. It reads like you're upset and angry about some relatives and are extrapolating this to some wider vaccine issue which isn't correct imo.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 18, 2021)

The UK is miles ahead of the rest of Europe on vaccinations. For once it seems not to be completely screwing things up. It's an emergency; it seems right to aim for speed over consistency, if that allows more people to be vaccinated more quickly. Those in the most vulnerable groups also benefit from people in less vulnerable groups being vaccinated.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It reads like you're upset and angry about some relatives and are extrapolating this to some wider vaccine issue which isn't correct imo.


On reflection, you may well be right about that.  

But, the Therese Coffey intervention demonstrates that I'm not alone in thinking that the execution and messaging around the delivery has fallen short of reassuring many oldies.


----------



## LDC (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> On reflection, you may well be right about that.
> 
> But, the Therese Coffey intervention demonstrates that I'm not alone in thinking that the execution and messaging around the delivery has fallen short of reassuring many oldies.



Sorry if I was harsh, I know it's a really tough time. I'd phone that GP and hassle them a bit, they can (like us all) be a bit useless sometimes.


----------



## Boudicca (Jan 18, 2021)

At the moment, I think it's more about certain GPs or NHS regions being very quick off the mark.  For instance, my doctors surgery got together with other local surgeries and the doctors all gave up their weekend to vaccinate as many as they could.  

I'd hope that some of the regions which are behind will catch up once some of the big vaccination centres start working.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 18, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They are being partly done through GPs, but GPs are also massively swamped with other stuff, so it's also good that mass vaccination centres and pharmacies are being used. I'm all for community bases for some areas, but it does seem to be working well as it is for the moment.


Plus, of course, the Pfizer vaccine can't really be delivered via GP surgeries, as they don't have the cryogenic storage it needs...


----------



## LDC (Jan 18, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Plus, of course, the Pfizer vaccine can't really be delivered via GP surgeries, as they don't have the cryogenic storage it needs...



Have you met some of those older GPs though? I think some of them have been in cryogenic storage themselves.


----------



## Maltin (Jan 18, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Plus, of course, the Pfizer vaccine can't really be delivered via GP surgeries, as they don't have the cryogenic storage it needs...


my parents’ GP surgery in a rural area has the Pfizer vaccine, which surprised me when they told me they had that one. Hopefully they follow the recommended 3 week interval rather than wait for 12 weeks for the second jab.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 18, 2021)

#1

UK now has highest Covid death rate in the world 

#worldbeating


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 18, 2021)

It's bound to vary a bit in different areas, remember GPs are private contractors and will operate at different speeds for various reasons.

Also depends if you are near a mass vaccination centre yet, these are still being rolled out as supplies of vaccine increases.

Plus they are still training the newly recruited vaccinators, my SiL is only getting her stabbing training today, over in Brighton. 

The roll-out seems to be going very well to me, thanks to the NHS being in overall control, and assisted by army logistics experts.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The roll-out seems to be going very well to me, thanks to the NHS being in overall control


Imagine how good it would be if they were properly funded


----------



## elbows (Jan 18, 2021)

Drakeford put his foot in it.



> Mark Drakeford said one of the reasons more of the supply had not been used at once was to prevent "vaccinators standing around with nothing to do".











						Covid vaccine: Health minister denies jabs being held back
					

Earlier the first minister said he did not want vaccinators "standing around with nothing to do".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 2hats (Jan 18, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The UK is miles ahead of the rest of Europe on vaccinations doses.


FTFY.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 18, 2021)

2hats said:


> FTFY.



Even further ahead of Europe on that count:


----------



## a_chap (Jan 18, 2021)

Badgers said:


> #1
> 
> UK now has highest Covid death rate in the world
> 
> #worldbeating




Not according to *worldometers.info*


----------



## Wilf (Jan 18, 2021)

teuchter said:


> View attachment 249853
> 
> The UK is miles ahead of the rest of Europe on vaccinations. For once it seems not to be completely screwing things up. It's an emergency; it seems right to aim for speed over consistency, if that allows more people to be vaccinated more quickly. Those in the most vulnerable groups also benefit from people in less vulnerable groups being vaccinated.


I suspect there are going to be phases in this, with regard to comparisons (talking generally as opposed to the official phases of the vaccination programme). Firstly, we are reasonably ahead of other countries as you say in terms of the initial push to get the most vulnerable vaccinated. Then there will be the mass roll out of the different age groups. Then it will be a case of comparing which countries do best with regard to the hesitant, those not on GP lists, those who are suspicious of public authorities etc. Ultimately, I suspect more equal societies and those with a stronger sense of community will do better with that final phase.  That's the point where the UK might start to lose it's advantage.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Plus, of course, the Pfizer vaccine can't really be delivered via GP surgeries, as they don't have the cryogenic storage it needs...


Happened in Kent.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 18, 2021)

5pm today - Hancock Half hour, with special guests - NHS Test and Trace chief medical adviser Susan Hopkins, and NHS England’s medical director Stephen Powis.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Happened in Kent.


Ah. OK. Well, speaking personally, I know that none of the surgeries in this corner of Wales have such facilities.


----------



## Boudicca (Jan 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Happened in Kent.


Yes, the GP surgery I mentioned up thread must have been using Pfizer as it was before the Oxford one was available.  They have a chemists on site, so maybe they had somewhere to store it there?  O rmaybe it came across from the hospital in batches.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> Yes, the GP surgery I mentioned up thread must have been using Pfizer as it was before the Oxford one was available.  They have a chemists on site, so maybe they had somewhere to store it there?  O rmaybe it came across from the hospital in batches.


The latter, I think.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 18, 2021)

Today's daily figures -

37,535 new cases, down from last Monday 46,169. 

599 new deaths, a low figure due to the weekend lag, but up 70 compared to last Monday 529, taking the 7-day average to 1,128 a day.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 18, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Firstly, we are reasonably ahead of other countries as you say in terms of the initial push to get the most vulnerable vaccinated.



Might be a bit of an understatement. In the context of Europe we are more than twice as far as the next closest, and more than 5 times as far as the EU average.



Wilf said:


> Then it will be a case of comparing which countries do best with regard to the hesitant, those not on GP lists, those who are suspicious of public authorities etc. Ultimately, I suspect more equal societies and those with a stronger sense of community will do better with that final phase.  That's the point where the UK might start to lose it's advantage.



It'll be interesting to see how it pans out in the end for sure. In the interests of quoting you in a few months time, which countries do you predict will show better results due to having "more equal societies and a stronger sense of community"?


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> 5pm today - Hancock Half hour, with special guests - NHS Test and Trace chief medical adviser Susan Hopkins, and NHS England’s medical director Stephen Powis.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> Anecdotally, since the increased talk about staying local’ for your exercise outings, it’s much much quieter here in ‘my’ national trust forest. Really significantly fewer cars and people than at the start of the month or any previous lockdown period. I don’t think it’s the weather. kabbes is it quieter in your corner too?


Yes, definitely.  On nicer days at the weekend, there are still a number of people but probably 10% of what I’d otherwise expect.  On drizzly week days, there’s virtually nobody.


----------



## Espresso (Jan 18, 2021)

You'd think at this stage that the journalists would have written down a selection of questions, so that they don't ask something that has been specifically covered not five minutes before.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 18, 2021)

I didn't listen to much of it, but to my eye it has shades of hydroxychloroquine etc ...


----------



## teuchter (Jan 18, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Yes, definitely.  On nicer days at the weekend, there are still a number of people but probably 10% of what I’d otherwise expect.  On drizzly week days, there’s virtually nobody.


bimble and kabbes I hope you are sticking to the guidelines too, and not venturing outside the bounds of your villages. So no walking out into the fields or forests or anything like that.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 18, 2021)

teuchter said:


> bimble and kabbes I hope you are sticking to the guidelines too, and not venturing outside the bounds of your villages. So no walking out into the fields or forests or anything like that.


Yes, well done.  Aren't you a clever boy.

You know that this is not how legislation or guidance is read, don't you?  Have you ever sat in a High Court or Court of Appeal action and listened to how judges actually interpret this stuff for real?  They don't take kindly to peoples' attempts to logic-chop their way out of the intent and spirit of either legislation or guidance.


----------



## bimble (Jan 18, 2021)

I don’t live in a village but in the actual forest, so that’s fine. Only leave the bounds of the forest for food, when I run out of songbirds & squirrels.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 18, 2021)

teuchter said:


> bimble and kabbes I hope you are sticking to the guidelines too, and not venturing outside the bounds of your villages. So no walking out into the fields or forests or anything like that.



I'm staying in my hundred, which allows me to exercise locally but in places where the number of pedestrians I encounter is considerbly less than if I was to restrict myself to my parish.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 18, 2021)

teuchter said:


> bimble and kabbes I hope you are sticking to the guidelines too, and not venturing outside the bounds of your villages. So no walking out into the fields or forests or anything like that.



You tit.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 18, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Even further ahead of Europe on that count:
> 
> View attachment 249863


It will be interesting to see how that plays out beyond 4 weeks (hence).


----------



## Cloo (Jan 18, 2021)

I've been reflecting on  how we've come to this horrible pass because,  for all their wittering on about 'sacrifice' & 'blitz spirit',  the UK government just didn't believe we could or would make any sacrifices for one another. They underestimated us.

 They didn't go into lockdown quickly because they didn't think we'd bear it, that we'd just want our bread and circuses.  They didn't mandate masks because they thought we wouldn't want to go to even the slightest trouble on behalf of other people,  and so on. So we're going to end up having to bear it for longer than much of the rest of the world because they assumed we were as selfish and self serving as, well,  they are.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 18, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I've been reflecting on  how we've come to this horrible pass because,  for all their wittering on about 'sacrifice' & 'blitz spirit',  the UK government just didn't believe we could or would make any sacrifices for one another. They underestimated us.
> 
> They didn't go into lockdown quickly because they didn't think we'd bear it, that we'd just want our bread and circuses.  They didn't mandate masks because they thought we wouldn't want to go to even the slightest trouble on behalf of other people,  and so on. So we're going to end up having to bear it for longer than much of the rest of the world because they assumed we were as selfish and self serving as, well,  they are.


the government have killed more people than died in air raids and v1 and v2 attacks from 1940 to 1945. so let us hear less about blitz spirit from them.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Jan 18, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I've been reflecting on  how we've come to this horrible pass because,  for all their wittering on about 'sacrifice' & 'blitz spirit',  the UK government just didn't believe we could or would make any sacrifices for one another. They underestimated us.
> 
> They didn't go into lockdown quickly because they didn't think we'd bear it, that we'd just want our bread and circuses.  They didn't mandate masks because they thought we wouldn't want to go to even the slightest trouble on behalf of other people,  and so on. So we're going to end up having to bear it for longer than much of the rest of the world because they assumed we were as selfish and self serving as, well,  they are.



Oh absolutely! I made these posts on the world wide thread a while ago now. I think the uk government have completely underestimated their population. 

_The Australian government is as inept, corrupt and right wing as the uk government. But even so there's a subtle cultural contrast that's made for a different lockdown narrative

Obviously there's huge differences in covid transmission due to the space and weather we have here, but still, when and where a hard lockdown's necessary our experience of essential services, lockdown rules, and the consequences for breaking them has been much tighter than the UK

I'm wondering if this is because the government have more confidence in applying stricter rules, because they know and trust from our regular large disasters, that the population have the resilience and necessary solidarity to follow them

What are the differences that gives a government the ability and confidence to actually make harder rules, so that the outcomes aren't purely based on geography or timing. Perhaps some of the confidence comes from knowing that they have the geography to enforce them

Perhaps it's also something to do with the population always being drilled to be disaster ready. It's a way of life

Geography doesn't explain the differences in things like what is considered an essential service, or maybe it does as in regional and remote areas services are already reduced . I also think that the Aus gov had increased confidence to close more services / businesses because they have the experience of seeing a large amount of people managing without during times of disasters, and more importantly perhaps not blaming the government because of the overall acceptance of environmental/natural disasters. There is a demonstrated compliance and consideration for others by the population

Really I'm just wondering about why Boris Johnson ditthers so much I suppose_


----------



## Wilf (Jan 18, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Might be a bit of an understatement. In the context of Europe we are more than twice as far as the next closest, and more than 5 times as far as the EU average.
> 
> 
> 
> It'll be interesting to see how it pans out in the end for sure. In the interests of quoting you in a few months time, which countries do you predict will show better results due to having "more equal societies and a stronger sense of community"?


On the first point, we might be several orders of magnitude better than other European countries, but are only at 6/100. We have clearly had a better/quicker start than some, which will probably achieve a significant advantage as the programme rolls out. I'm just making the point that at the moment we are comparing very small numbers.

'In terms of quoting me'... I'm not talking about something that will necessarily be visible in overall figures. But some societies will be better than others at getting the vaccine to everyone - societies where not as many have dived off electoral registers, where everyone has a doctor, where there are strong community health programmes etc.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 18, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I've been reflecting on  how we've come to this horrible pass because,  for all their wittering on about 'sacrifice' & 'blitz spirit',  the UK government just didn't believe we could or would make any sacrifices for one another. They underestimated us.
> 
> They didn't go into lockdown quickly because they didn't think we'd bear it, that we'd just want our bread and circuses.  They didn't mandate masks because they thought we wouldn't want to go to even the slightest trouble on behalf of other people,  and so on. So we're going to end up having to bear it for longer than much of the rest of the world because they assumed we were as selfish and self serving as, well,  they are.



They thought we all think like them.


----------



## elbows (Jan 18, 2021)

I dont think its that simple, I think that was largely a crap excuse for inaction. They were bowing down to perceived political and economic self-interest. 

Others enabled this with various justifications. Ask Whitty for a start, since he was still making reference to the dangers of acting too soon in the middle of December!


----------



## elbows (Jan 18, 2021)

Plus the approach and timing they have gone for actually requires a greater and longer burden on the public.

Late lockdowns have to be longer and stronger, although I hesitate to emphasise the stronger bit too much since a nice early preventative lockdown also needs to be strong in order for such an approach to really keep a lid on things.

By doing things late every time and entirely avoiding opportunities to do all sorts of sensible things earlier, the government actually has to place more faith in the public adhering to restrictions when those restrictions are finally imposed. Otherwise the healthcare system would be overwhelmed to an even more significant degree than we've seen in either wave so far. And that has very serious political and economic implications, which is why even this shit government does eventually impose pretty serious stuff, even they cannot afford to let things go out of control beyond a certain level, and they require the public to play their part in slamming the brakes on at those times.

What they have deliberately avoided testing is a different sort of public response. eg how the public would have responded if the government had listened to the advice about imposing some restictions in other areas before schools reopened, to compensate. Or if they had stuck to the scenario that was apparently baked into the reasonable worst case winter planning, where it was assumed that measures would be taken in September in response to a rise in infections. They never gave us the chance to demonstrate that we were ready to do the right thing at the right time. They preferred to wait until a long time past the point where people realised action was needed, and to have the public demanding they act rather than the other way around.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 18, 2021)

Concerning proper ultra-cold storage for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, briefly discussed a bit earlier :




			
				brogdale said:
			
		

> Happened in Kent.





existentialist said:


> Ah. OK. Well, speaking personally, I know that none of the surgeries in this corner of Wales have such facilities.



What wuld be very useful IMO,  would be to know to what extent those surgeries who are unable to freeze the Pfizer/BioNT vaccine as required, are being supplied with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine instead?

Latter vaccine was scarcely mentioned *at all* in today's BBC Wales story about Wales' (currently) under-par vaccination pace.



But this *WAS* mentioned :




			
				BBC Wales said:
			
		

> In a statement, a government spokesman said: "The Pfizer vaccine comes in large packs, which cannot be split *and must be stored at ultra-low temperatures - at -70C. There are only two centres in Wales where we can keep them at this temperature*.
> "Once removed from storage, the vaccine lasts five days. Every dose wasted is a vaccine which cannot be given to someone in Wales.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 18, 2021)

That bbc wales quote is slightly inaccurate.

The bulk supplies in transit can keep for up to 30 days if the dry ice coolant is replaced, which needs doing at least every five days. 
Technically, that's for an "unopened" transit case of bulk vaccines.
[this has been illustrated several times times in the "cold chain" graphic on the BBC News website.]
But, personally, I don't see any reason why one tray can't come out of the transit case , & more dry ice added ...


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 18, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Concerning proper ultra-cold storage for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, briefly discussed a bit earlier :
> 
> 
> 
> ...


from previous info
975/5=199
vaccinations needing to be administered per day within the time window after leaving the deep cold storage
there was also something about the amount of times it could be moved (5 IIRC) from manufacture
all way back when it first got approved and tinted via my less than stellar memory


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 19, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> from previous info
> 975/5=199
> vaccinations needing to be administered per day within the time window after leaving the deep cold storage
> there was also something about the amount of times it could be moved (5 IIRC) from manufacture
> all way back when it first got approved and tinted via my less than stellar memory



Interesting detail, the logistical issues to do with storing the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have been written about in a good few places.

But personally, I'm much more interested in how/whether more supplies of Oxford/Astra/Zeneca are getting distruibuted to places where they can't store the Pfizer/BioNTech one.

Not just in Wales, but everywhere where -70C storage is lacking! ???


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 19, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Interesting detail, the logistical issues to do with storing the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have been written about in a good few places.
> 
> But personally, I'm much more interested in how/whether more supplies of Oxford/Astra/Zeneca are getting distruibuted to places where they can't store the Pfizer/BioNTech one.
> 
> Not just in Wales, but everywhere where -70C storage is lacking! ???


according to this article it is being manufactured in north wales (wrexham), no idea on how the logistics work though.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 19, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> according to this article it is being manufactured in north wales (wrexham), no idea on how the logistics work though.



Yes, that Wrexham factory (CP Pharmaceuticals/Wockhardt) is for the vital "fill and finish" part of the process, that article reminds me.

It did make me wonder at one point whether Wales would get slightly preferential distribution of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, but there's no logic to that thought at all , and I've heard nothing to that effect anyway .....


----------



## xenon (Jan 19, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Yes, that Wrexham factory (CP Pharmaceuticals/Wockhardt) is for the vital "fill and finish" part of the process, that article reminds me.
> 
> It did make me wonder at one point whether Wales would get slightly preferential distribution of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, but there's no logic to that thought at all , and I've heard nothing to that effect anyway .....



it’s an Indian owned company, that one in Wrexham apparently. So yeah you think if anyone had first go on it, India.
Complex supply chains look bad because, why doesn’t someone take hold of this all sorted. In other context it would be talked about as robust modular survivability.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

Some much needed focus on employers again. Becoming quite the theme very recently.









						'My boss made me come to work and I caught Covid'
					

Despite the risks, people say they are being asked to work on site when they could do it from home.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jan 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some much needed focus on employers again. Becoming quite the theme very recently.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I needed to make a care related visit today and went on the overground to Dalston.  Coming back about 5 30pm I was part of the home going commute.   So many people on there obviously work in construction of some sort - is that essential at this time?


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some much needed focus on employers again. Becoming quite the theme very recently.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I dont watch much of the government briefings but from what I have seen johnson says if you can wfh you should, addressing the worker, not if your staff can wfh you must not have them attend the workplace.


----------



## keithy (Jan 19, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I needed to make a care related visit today and went on the overground to Dalston.  Coming back about 5 30pm I was part of the home going commute.   So many people on there obviously work in construction of some sort - is that essential at this time?



It's apparently essential to the economy which relies on property. 

This lockdownis a joke. Barely any of the jobs I'm seeing advertised are remote, roles that should be.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 19, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> I dont watch much of the government briefings but from what I have seen johnson says if you can wfh you should, addressing the worker, not if your staff can wfh you must not have them attend the workplace.


Also, the law has moved away from using “shall” (i.e. the future tense of “should”) because it is ambiguous.  Documents and legislation are now supposed to be drafted using the word “must” if it is compulsory (or otherwise to be clear it is a recommendation).  So this is the highest level of the legislature failing to obey the rules for drafting legislation.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 19, 2021)

#WorldBeating


----------



## extra dry (Jan 19, 2021)

Covid misinformation takes its toll on British doctors, teachers (nbcnews.com) 

view from America...kettle and all that


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> #WorldBeating
> 
> View attachment 249990
> 
> View attachment 249991



I read that in the Jeremy Clarkson voice


----------



## MrSki (Jan 19, 2021)

So happy to bang on about comparisons when it comes to the vaccine not so happy when talking about death rates. Brandon Lewis having difficulty bullshitting out of this one.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 19, 2021)

MrSki said:


> So happy to bang on about comparisons when it comes to the vaccine not so happy when talking about death rates. Brandon Lewis having difficulty bullshitting out of this one.



thick lying cunt.


----------



## Chilli.s (Jan 19, 2021)

Every country in the world is dealing with the same virus, so you certainly can make comparisons and it is entirely reasonable to do that. Usual bluster and denial of failure.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> #WorldBeating
> 
> View attachment 249990
> 
> View attachment 249991



NO !

Not according to Worldometers .

Coronavirus Update (Live): 96,086,625 Cases and 2,051,579 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer (worldometers.info)
That is San Marino. followed by Belgium ...

The UK is currently 8th by deaths per million population. (and the usa is 12th)

[this had already been de-bunked]

Whatever the actual relative positions, the tally is still dreadful.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 19, 2021)

Isn't it new deaths per capita in the last week rather than overall?


----------



## Fruitloop (Jan 19, 2021)

yep


----------



## killer b (Jan 19, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> NO !
> 
> Not according to Worldometers .
> 
> ...


Worst death rate right now, not over the course of the pandemic.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 19, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Isn't it new deaths per capita in the last week rather than overall?



Yep, the headline of 'UK now has the highest covid death rate in the world' is somewhat misleading.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 19, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> NO !
> 
> Not according to Worldometers .
> 
> ...


YES !


----------



## killer b (Jan 19, 2021)

(I'm not sure if it means very much though - we're at or near the peak of our current wave, which isn't happening in unison with any other country's wave. A different country will be number 1 next week)


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> Worst death rate right now, not over the course of the pandemic.



To be expected due to the spread of the Kent variant in December.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, the headline of 'UK now has the highest covid death rate in the world' is somewhat misleading.


tbf, they could have said _in the Universe_


----------



## Spandex (Jan 19, 2021)

MrSki said:


> So happy to bang on about comparisons when it comes to the vaccine not so happy when talking about death rates. Brandon Lewis having difficulty bullshitting out of this one.



Answers you'd never hear, part 17,436:

"Well Piers, of course there's a number of factors that have lead to the UK having the higest death rate in the world over the last week. Firstly there's the new strain of the virus, which spread across the country unchecked. 

But it's important for the government, of which I'm a part, to recognise where things could have been done better. We didn't get test and trace working last summer when numbers were low enough for it to have made a difference. We opened too many things too quickly in August and September. The Universities shouldn't have reopened when they did. We didn't attempt the circuit breaker lockdown in September when numbers were rising and SAGE told us to. We put off the second lockdown until too late and ended it too soon. The tier system was a total failure at controlling the spread of the virus, but because we wanted to reopen the shops in the run up to Christmas we tried it a second time, even though it had already failed. We were determined to allow people to enjoy Christmas with their families even when all the evidence suggested this would lead to a huge increase in the spread of the virus. We introduced the third lockdown too late. 

But we also have to recognise that not only the government I serve has, but also previous Labour governments, have created a situation with poor quality overcrowded housing, precarious work situations for millions and structural inequality that has all undermined attempts to control the spread of the virus. 

But of course, Piers, all that is in the past now and the vaccine roll out is going fantastically.  Have I mentioned that over 4 million people have been vaccinated so far and the situation will be much better in the spring?"


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> To be expected due to the spread of the Kent variant in December.



To be expected due to failure to use circuit breaker, then weak national measures in November, then a laughable tier system at the start of December.

The new variant is in my thoughts, mostly because its now been two weeks since we had any data on the regional spread. The latest resport that should have contained such data was cancelled last Friday, and I am currently unaware of when this data might emerge.


----------



## LDC (Jan 19, 2021)

_BMJ_ article on the strategy of elimination of Covid....









						Elimination could be the optimal response strategy for covid-19 and other emerging pandemic diseases
					

Michael Baker and colleagues argue that aiming for elimination of community transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could offer important advantages over a suppression or mitigation strategy with ongoing transmission  The covid-19 pandemic might be remembered for the astonishingly rapid development...




					www.bmj.com


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 19, 2021)

What's bugging me atm about the vaccine-as-saviour narrative is that the proper thing to do is wait until a very high percentange of the population has the vaccine before opening up, and even when most people have the vaccine they should test, trace, quarantine as much as possible until the virus is (almost) eliminated. They will do neither of these things because they're a pack of careless cunts, and the press will let them get away with it. And so a lot of people will continue getting sick, many of them with long term conditions.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 19, 2021)

Dumbfuck Gideon doesn't even know that he would have still had to self-isolate under current rules.    

Another grade A cunt...


----------



## two sheds (Jan 19, 2021)

"leading the response to the pandemic" 🤣


----------



## teuchter (Jan 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> (I'm not sure if it means very much though - we're at or near the peak of our current wave, which isn't happening in unison with any other country's wave. A different country will be number 1 next week)


If we are nearly at the peak of this wave, and hopefully we are, then it will not be as bad a one as various Eastern European countries saw about two months ago. 



However... compared to other western European countries, including the other "bad" ones, we are now doing substantially worse. 

It's quite notable that comparing to Italy, Spain and France, with whom we'd previously been sharing vaguely similar trajectories, we've now gone in a quite different direction. UK was doing a bit better in the early stages of the second wave, then two or three weeks ago we lost control. So did Ireland but their numbers not yet as bad.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

Care homes have come up recently and I threw various data around. Now we can add a worsening death picture to that:



> In amongst those figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today comes data showing deaths of care home residents in England involving Covid-19 have almost doubled in a fortnight.
> 
> There were 1,260 deaths involving the virus in care homes notified to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in the week ending 15 January, a 45% rise from the 864 deaths notified during the previous week.
> 
> ...



Above is from BBC live updates page 11:48 entry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55715793

And here are some regional figures from a new weekly set of data: Care home resident deaths registered in England and Wales, provisional        - Office for National Statistics

Figures wont align perfectly with CQC figures mentioned above due to differences in reporting periods, date of deaths vs date of reporting etc.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Care homes have come up recently and I threw various data around. Now we can add a worsening death picture to that:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Guardian running with one individual case:


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's quite notable that comparing to Italy, Spain and France, with whom we'd previously been sharing vaguely similar trajectories, we've now gone in a quite different direction. UK was doing a bit better in the early stages of the second wave, then two or three weeks ago we lost control. So did Ireland but their numbers not yet as bad.



Control is possible, and possible to lose, at an earlier stage than deaths. Control was lost in late November and early December in regions to the south and east that have driven our deaths to more than double those seen in the November plateau.

Spain will get worsse again, as alarming rises in hospitalisations are showing up in their data again recently. This should be very evident next time I publish my graph of Covid-19 patients in hospital in a few countries. I just have to wait for todays data, and will likely put that graph on the worldwide thread when its ready.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some much needed focus on employers again. Becoming quite the theme very recently.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


_
Between 6 and 14 January, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) received 3,934 complaints relating to coronavirus and took enforcement action in 81 cases.

 _

What's that, 2% of cases? And I wonder how much of that 'enforcement action' amounts to a strongly worded letter asking companies not to needlessly risk the life of their employees quite so overtly in future.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> _Between 6 and 14 January, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) received 3,934 complaints relating to coronavirus and took enforcement action in 81 cases.
> 
> _
> 
> What's that, 2% of cases? And I wonder how much of that 'enforcement action' amounts to a strongly worded letter asking companies not to needlessly risk the life of their employees quite so overtly in future.



Lets see if any momentum builds as a result of this new-found desire to actually talk about the issues in the media.

Although the timing of this does mean it gets added to my disgusting pile of issues that are apparently only worth dwelling on when we are at the very peak of the horror.



> Earlier, we reported on the story of Jane - an administrator who says she caught Covid after her boss made her come into the office.
> 
> Since then, readers have been sharing their experiences of having to come into the workplace during lockdown.
> 
> ...





> 'Glorified flu'
> 
> Primrose, who is in her 60s, works in a parcel distribution facility.
> 
> ...



From BBC live updates page at 12:13 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55715793


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

On a related note, I found this rather depressing in all sorts of ways when I read it yesterday:









						Store staff pay final respects to colleague
					

Ex-Marine John Deacy, 81, died with Covid-19 just two weeks after his last shift at the supermarket.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Staff gathered outside a supermarket to pay their respects to a colleague who died with coronavirus.
> 
> John Deacy, 81, worked the Christmas Eve shift at the Tesco Extra store in Gabalfa, Cardiff, died just two weeks later.
> 
> Friends and colleagues clapped as the funeral procession went by the store.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Control is possible, and possible to lose, at an earlier stage than deaths. COntrol was lost in late November and early December in regions to the south and east


Yes, point taken.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 19, 2021)

Packed like sardines again on way to make rich richer


----------



## teuchter (Jan 19, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Packed like sardines again on way to make rich richer


At least two chin masks in action there too.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Dumbfuck Gideon doesn't even know that he would have still had to self-isolate under current rules.
> 
> Another grade A cunt...



And that's a bit of brain leakage. What he really thinks, but can't say, is that all important people - ministers, CEOs, him - should be at the front of the vaccine queue.


----------



## zora (Jan 19, 2021)

Schools could reopen sooner in some parts of England, medical chief says
					

Concerns raised about fairness of assessment if areas such as London go back quicker




					www.theguardian.com
				




Oh great, because the regional thing went so well last time. If infection levels are low - quick, let them get up again by having more ongoing mass gatherings! I appreciate the extreme strain on teachers, parents and children by having schools closed - but can't the fuckers (the politicians, that is) implement some of the recommendations at last that would actually at least slow down transmission via schools- larger spaces, smaller groups, factoring in a couple of planned additional breaks en route to the summer?


----------



## teuchter (Jan 19, 2021)

How do you implement larger spaces and smaller groups in schools without building new schools and employing more staff?


----------



## editor (Jan 19, 2021)

FFS:

*Test And Trace Paying Nearly A Million Pounds A Day To Consultants Deloitte*




> Boris Johnson’s test and trace system is paying nearly a million pounds every day to private consultancy firm Deloitte, government officials have revealed.
> 
> 
> David Williams, the department of health and social care’s (DHSC) second permanent secretary, told MPs that 900 of the private firm’s consultants were currently being used at a pay rate of £1,000 a day. That would mean £900,000 per day on one firm alone.
> ...











						Test And Trace Paying Nearly £1m A Day To Private Consultants
					

Government officials reveal new figure, as they plan to spend £15bn in just three months on more testing.




					www.huffingtonpost.co.uk


----------



## nagapie (Jan 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> How do you implement larger spaces and smaller groups in schools without building new schools and employing more staff?


You give extra funding to utiilise community spaces and buy in extra staff. For example there is a church hall around the corner from my school that we used to use for exams when we were under construction. Teaching agencies are full of staff waiting to be employed in schools. Just need funding and extra staff to organise, oversee and facilitate.


----------



## miss direct (Jan 19, 2021)

You stagger lesson times, lunch times and stagger days of attendance. And make people wear masks, not this stupid policy of only in corridors.


----------



## zora (Jan 19, 2021)

nagapie and miss direct have taken the words out of my mouth. All of that. They have had A YEAR.


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 19, 2021)

world beating statistics today again 









						Covid: UK records new daily high of 1,610 deaths
					

The total number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test during the pandemic is now above 90,000.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## nagapie (Jan 19, 2021)

zora said:


> nagapie and miss direct have taken the words out of my mouth. All of that. They have had A YEAR.


And now children have nearly had a year out of school, if we're also counting the shambles that was the autumn term and was plagued by isolations and large groups being sent home in my area.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 19, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> world beating statistics today again
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's up 367 on last Tuesday, increasing the 7-day daily average from 1,129 yesterday to 1,181 today.  

Good to see the downward trend in new cases continues, today's figure is 33,355, but it's going to be a while before that translates into a reduction of deaths, grim.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 19, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> world beating statistics today again
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And 1,507 in England alone; fucksake


----------



## killer b (Jan 19, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Teaching agencies are full of staff waiting to be employed in schools.


is this the case if all the schools need loads of extra staff though? Don't disagree there's stuff that can be done, but I don't think there's enough agency staff available to expand schools massively


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 19, 2021)

can anyone point me to where i've seen a graph with the devolved UK nations case/death rates compared? wales was a green line. have trawled my history unsuccessfully.

eta: i think it's somewhere on Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard but i'm only seeing blocky charts i can't read, there was defo one with a line for each country that i could...


----------



## teuchter (Jan 19, 2021)

I thought we had a shortage of teachers, not a surplus looking for jobs.


----------



## Deej1992 (Jan 19, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> world beating statistics today again
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Awful stats again.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 19, 2021)

Scottish lockdown continues until mid February at the earliest. Quite happy with this personally.









						Scotland's coronavirus lockdown extended until at least mid-February
					

The decision means that millions of people living on the mainland will be forced to stay at home for around another four weeks.




					inews.co.uk


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 19, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Scottish lockdown continues until mid February at the earliest. Quite happy with this personally.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


i think this will last into march and quite possibly until easter


----------



## weepiper (Jan 19, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> i think this will last into march and quite possibly until easter


I'm certainly not anticipating the kids being back at school before Easter.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 19, 2021)

weepiper said:


> I'm certainly not anticipating the kids being back at school before Easter.


yeh reckon i'll be wfh at least till then


----------



## zora (Jan 19, 2021)

nagapie said:


> And now children have nearly had a year out of school, if we're also counting the shambles that was the autumn term and was plagued by isolations and large groups being sent home in my area.



Very much so. Worst of all possible scenarios.



killer b said:


> is this the case if all the schools need loads of extra staff though? Don't disagree there's stuff that can be done, but I don't think there's enough agency staff available to expand schools massively



I was wondering about that, too (having zero insight into this myself). But especially if it's about younger kids who need fewer specialist subject teachers and more exploration and a place where they can be looked after and develop in the company of their peers with some kind of educational activities, - surely there must be huge numbers of people who are qualified to work in some kind of capacity with children and who are not doing so atm? But maybe by that point we are so far in the realm of what's not going to happen and the debate of what school and education should or could actually be for, that it's sort of moot.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's up 367 on last Tuesday, increasing the 7-day daily average from 1,129 yesterday to 1,181 today.
> 
> Good to see the downward trend in new cases continues, today's figure is 33,355, but it's going to be a while before that translates into a reduction of deaths, grim.


Not sure when the Christmas period deaths are supposed to hit? Maybe in another week or 10 days? Will presumably be a further bulge on whatever shape the deaths graph is at at that point.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 19, 2021)

Deej1992 said:


> Awful stats again.


I was reflecting the other day with Mrs B on our recollection of how we were remembering back in the summer how shocked we were at the dark days of Wave 1 when the daily death toll crept over into 4 figures for a number of days.

This is such a fucking disaster and I'm annoyed with myself for suffering from 'boiling frog' style news fatigue at these numbers. There should be so much anger out there.


----------



## killer b (Jan 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> I'm annoyed with myself for suffering from 'boiling frog' style news fatigue at these numbers.


you seem pretty consistently pissed off at the numbers tbf


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Not sure when the Christmas period deaths are supposed to hit? Maybe in another week or 10 days? Will presumably be a further bulge on whatever shape the deaths graph is at at that point.



You must have missed my long and winding posts talking about the various reasons I didnt neessarily expect to see a Christmas death spike at all.

Without repeating in full, reasons included the fact that the bad increases with deadly implications were being seen continually well before Christmas anyway, and the vastly reduced forms of contact that would happen over Christmas as a result of people being on holiday from schools and workplaces. And that this mixture of Christmas-specific things combined with changing regional pictures over a broader period of time in terms of both infection levels and response measures/behavioural changes would be more likely to result in the usual steep but somewhat steady ascent and peak, rather than anything with obvious fingerprints of Christmas all over it.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> you seem pretty consistently pissed off at the numbers tbf


Thanks, I'm glad to hear that, tbh.


----------



## killer b (Jan 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Thanks, I'm glad to hear that, tbh.


I'm not sure it's doing you any good though.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> I'm not sure it's doing you any good though.


I'm genuinely concerned at the danger of becoming accustomed to these appalling figures. It reminds me a little of being a kid and watching the news when stories about Northern Ireland came on and just, kind of, zoning out.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 19, 2021)

I'm going to put my money on the peak in deaths having already occurred, somewhere around the 14th of January. It'll take a few days to see whether or not that's me being over-optimistic. Sadly it probably is over-optimistic to hope that it'll stay below the first wave peak. It looks like it's going to end up about the same.

In any case, of course it's the area under the curve that really matters and there's no question it's going to be worse than the first one.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

Oh and Wilf regarding your Christmas question, the folowing article may be of interest. For once I am not going to pick at any details in it that I might not fully agree with.









						Did we see a Christmas coronavirus spike?
					

Christmas gatherings were cut back but was there still an impact on Covid cases?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Sue (Jan 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> I'm genuinely concerned at the danger of becoming accustomed to these appalling figures. It reminds me a little of being a kid and watching the news when stories about Northern Ireland came on and just, kind of, zoning out.


Yeah, I was saying on the London Unlockening thread that when they brought in the 800+ purple colour, I thought it was shocking. Then my local area very quickly went purple and has been 1000ish since before Christmas (and nearly 1300 at one point). Today, we're down to just below 800 and it feels like things are much better (a friend messaged me to say as much). Maybe they are but it's still a shocking number (and no doubt the local hospital is still under immense pressure). I too fear we're becoming acclimatised to it.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> You must have missed my long and winding posts talking about the various reasons I didnt neessarily epect to see a Christmas death spike at all.
> 
> Without repeating in full, reasons included the fact that the bad increases with deadly implications were being seen continually well before Christmas anyway, and the vastly reduced forms of contact that would happen over Christmas as a result of people being on holiday from schools and workplaces. And that this mixture of Christmas-specific things combined with changing regional pictures over a broader period of time in terms of both infection levels and response measures/behavioural changes would be more likely to result in the usual steep but somewhat steady ascent and peak, rather than anything with obvious fingerprints of Christmas all over it.


Yeah, didn't see your post, but that's what I was thinking with my talk of a 'bulge within a trend'.  From memory, the period since November has taken us through the dance of the several tiers, Breathe On Your Relatives Day, 'lockdown', all within an upward trend and new variants. Then there's back to work and back on the buses and trains from about Jan 4 onwards. Maybe even statisticians of the future won't be able to point a biro at a point on the graph and shout 'aha, there it is' with any confidence.  Having said that, there will be some fairly easy graphs to draw in terms of 'if the government had acted then rather than then'. 

One thing I'm interested in is the reckoning and wondering what role the graphs and the evidence will play in terms of discussing the blood that is on johnson et al's hands. There are going to be long weeks and months ahead with this and we may never revert back to normal. However there's no sense this is turning into a government threatening disaster for the tories. What's missing is a bigger politics that shouts back about the inequalities of Covid and puts the stats and evidence into a narrative (or perhaps just a politics).  Without that politics - and we are without that politics - people will just be relieved to living life again. Lots of isolated bereavements, lots of lives affected, but nothing quite coming together as a focused howl of rage.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> I'm genuinely concerned at the danger of becoming accustomed to these appalling figures. It reminds me a little of being a kid and watching the news when stories about Northern Ireland came on and just, kind of, zoning out.


Agree. One aspect of the deaths is that they feel rather anonymous now.  Lots of people have lost relatives and people have been very ill themselves, but at a societal level the bereaved haven't become a 'thing' to challenge government or even get into our consciousness each day. It felt very real to me when my Mum died in a care home in May, but I'll admit the daily figures have 'receded' for me since. Don't get me wrong, I'm still fucking angry, but you experience the figures in the abstract rather than as 'people'.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Agree. One aspect of the deaths is that they feel rather anonymous now.  Lots of people have lost relatives and people have been very ill themselves, but at a societal level the bereaved haven't become a 'thing' to challenge government or even get into our consciousness each day. It felt very real to me when my Mum died in a care home in May, but I'll admit the daily figures have 'receded' for me since. Don't get me wrong, I'm still fucking angry, but you experience the figures in the abstract rather than as 'people'.


we're at the level of everyone in selby being killed. by the end of the month this might have changed to the level of lincoln


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 19, 2021)

People doing way too much figure watching. It’s not really that useful, is it?
It’s just another way to make yourself feel bad.
Don’t torture yourself


----------



## Wilf (Jan 19, 2021)

Discussing this kind of stuff, the government's failures... the next thing I clicked on was this:
Ministers set to halt plans for daily Covid tests in English schools | Education | The Guardian 

Well done matt, well done boris, well done nadhim.  The fucking stress these cunts have caused education workers.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'm going to put my money on the peak in deaths having already occurred, somewhere around the 14th of January. It'll take a few days to see whether or not that's me being over-optimistic. Sadly it probably is over-optimistic to hope that it'll stay below the first wave peak. It looks like it's going to end up about the same.
> 
> In any case, of course it's the area under the curve that really matters and there's no question it's going to be worse than the first one.



I have stuck a similar (albeit not colour-coded) graph of the first wave peak (by the same measure, deaths within 28 days of a positive test) next to my usual colour-coded one to aid with comparisons. Although as you say, its too early to tell, so I'm not making any claims that the levels now reached in the deaths by date of death are covering the very peak period we will ultimately see with the benefit of hindsight.

The only sense I have that the peak this time might not be as high as last time stems from the terrible underreporting the first time due to lack of testing, and indeed a failure to look around properly for cases and deaths in the period before we started actually noticing and recording the deaths. But thats a complex subject best discussed on the nerdy thread next time I share a different sort of graph. Which was going to be today, but I have run out of energy so it may well have to wait till tomorrow.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> *I'm going to put my money on the peak in deaths having already occurred, somewhere around the 14th of January.* It'll take a few days to see whether or not that's me being over-optimistic. Sadly it probably is over-optimistic to hope that it'll stay below the first wave peak. It looks like it's going to end up about the same.
> 
> In any case, of course it's the area under the curve that really matters and there's no question it's going to be worse than the first one.



Why on earth would you think that?

It's already been pointed out on a number of occasions that the 7 day average of reported deaths tends to be a early sign of what the 7 day average of deaths by actual date will look like, the curves tends to be very similiar, and the former continues to go up. 

I have no idea why this hasn't sunk in, perhaps you are just in denial, because that would involve accepting you were wrong.

So, let's take hospital admissions as a gauge instead, deaths after admission tends to average around the 2 week mark, admissions on the 1st Jan. were 3,359 and peaked almost 2 weeks later on 12th Jan. at 4,550, over 35% more, and continued to be up on 1st Jan. every day since, or at least up to the latest date available, 15th Jan. 

Why do you think these increased hospital admissions will not result in higher deaths over the next week or two?


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> One thing I'm interested in is the reckoning and wondering what role the graphs and the evidence will play in terms of discussing the blood that is on johnson et al's hands. There are going to be long weeks and months ahead with this and we may never revert back to normal. However there's no sense this is turning into a government threatening disaster for the tories. What's missing is a bigger politics that shouts back about the inequalities of Covid and puts the stats and evidence into a narrative (or perhaps just a politics).  Without that politics - and we are without that politics - people will just be relieved to living life again. Lots of isolated bereavements, lots of lives affected, but nothing quite coming together as a focused howl of rage.



In a sane world they would be fucked because in the first wave there were a range of establishment failures, especially early on, so the blame can be spread around a fair bit. But in the second wave it sounds like the government diverged from the key winter planning assumptions, as indicated by the following sorts of comments from official SAGE documents. The media etc should already be able to hang the government with this, but they dont, and I am left feeling like I exist in some strange parallel universe.



> The epidemic is close to breaching the agreed Reasonable Worst Case Scenario on which NHS, DHSC and HMG contingency plans are based. As outlined by COVID-S, planning has followed a strategy under which action is taken in mid-September to halt epidemic growth. Unless the measures announced on 22nd September reduce R back below 1, it is likely that infection incidence and hospital admissions will exceed the planning levels.



Thats from a September 23rd SAGE document: https://assets.publishing.service.g...SAGE59_200923_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf

I originally mentioned this on the nerdy thread along with some other carefully selected SAGE quotes.            #45


----------



## nagapie (Jan 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> is this the case if all the schools need loads of extra staff though? Don't disagree there's stuff that can be done, but I don't think there's enough agency staff available to expand schools massively


I don't know the exact figures, no, but could make a start.


----------



## nagapie (Jan 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I thought we had a shortage of teachers, not a surplus looking for jobs.


I don't think there are shortages across the board, for example no shortages in Devon and Cornwall and mega shortages across the rest of the country in science and maths. 
But as someone else pointed out, there are also support staff agencies, teachers not in the profession, must be tons of artists from all disciplines out if work - lots of pools to draw from to bring some form of education and socialisation together.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> People doing way too much figure watching. It’s not really that useful, is it?
> It’s just another way to make yourself feel bad.
> Don’t torture yourself



Of course it's useful, because it gives us an indication of the direction of travel, and therefore when we will be over the peak, then how fast the figures start dropping, therefore when restrictions may start being lifted.

Strikes me as one of the most important elements for a discussion thread concerning covid in the UK, and it's actually starting to look positive - new cases continues to drop, patients in hospital are therefore starting to the level out & should start dropping, and after the lag so should the deaths.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jan 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Yeah, didn't see your post, but that's what I was thinking with my talk of a 'bulge within a trend'.  From memory, the period since November has taken us through the dance of the several tiers, Breathe On Your Relatives Day, 'lockdown', all within an upward trend and new variants. Then there's back to work and back on the buses and trains from about Jan 4 onwards. Maybe even statisticians of the future won't be able to point a biro at a point on the graph and shout 'aha, there it is' with any confidence.  Having said that, there will be some fairly easy graphs to draw in terms of 'if the government had acted then rather than then'.
> 
> One thing I'm interested in is the reckoning and wondering what role the graphs and the evidence will play in terms of discussing the blood that is on johnson et al's hands. There are going to be long weeks and months ahead with this and we may never revert back to normal. However there's no sense this is turning into a government threatening disaster for the tories. What's missing is a bigger politics that shouts back about the inequalities of Covid and puts the stats and evidence into a narrative (or perhaps just a politics).  Without that politics - and we are without that politics - people will just be relieved to living life again. Lots of isolated bereavements, lots of lives affected, but nothing quite coming together as a focused howl of rage.


This sounds very much like what happened after the 1918 flu pandemic - people just wanted to forget and live again. And the 1920s and '30s belonged to the Tories.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 19, 2021)

editor said:


> FFS:
> 
> *Test And Trace Paying Nearly A Million Pounds A Day To Consultants Deloitte*
> 
> ...



And none of these 900 consultants, all of whom are apparently hyper-geniuses since they each warrant the pay of 10 ordinary mortals, pointed out that you can't use excel for a database with millions of entries?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Of course it's useful, because it gives us an indication of the direction of travel, and therefore when we will be over the peak, then how fast the figures start dropping, therefore when restrictions may start being lifted.
> 
> Strikes me as one of the most important elements for a discussion thread concerning covid in the UK, and it's actually starting to look positive - new cases continues to drop, patients in hospital are therefore starting to the level out & should start dropping, and after the lag so should the deaths.


It’s not changing our behaviour though, just making us worry loads more. A lot of people are speculating with not enough knowledge. Don’t think that’s helpful either


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s not changing our behaviour though, just making us worry loads more. A lot of people are speculating with not enough knowledge. Don’t think that’s helpful either



People vary in what helps them at times like these. I wont be changing my approach.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s not changing our behaviour though, just making us worry loads more. A lot of people are speculating with not enough knowledge. Don’t think that’s helpful either


no one ever has full information during events like this, like wars, like any sort of crisis.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s not changing our behaviour though, just making us worry loads more. A lot of people are speculating with not enough knowledge. Don’t think that’s helpful either



I'm not sure what the alternative is. Just ignore it? Go on what Boris Johnson says?


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> no one ever has full information during events like this, like wars, like any sort of crisis.



I'm particularly bad when I suddenly dont have access to a view of the pandemic I'd been used to getting from a very particular angle via specific, regular data.

So for example my state of mind declined when, during the first wave, there was a period where they stopped publishing hospital data at a really crucial moment, and for quite some time. And right now I can feel my brain melting as a result of the 'new variant by region' data I was expecting to see last Friday not coming out due to the broader ONS infection survey report being delayed for 'lab test delays/further quality assurance required' reasons.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 19, 2021)

I can't believe we have over 3 years before we might even be able to get rid of these useless, murderous bastards and the fact that there's not much sign people are even willing to vote them out when it comes to it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> It’s not changing our behaviour though, just making us worry loads more. A lot of people are speculating with not enough knowledge. Don’t think that’s helpful either



Why would anyone 'worry loads more' when cases are going down, hospital admissions are dropping from the peak on the 12th Jan., total patients in hospital are stabilizing as result, which will mean deaths will start going down fairly soon?


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I can't believe we have over 3 years before we might even be able to get rid of these useless, murderous bastards and the fact that there's not much sign people are even willing to vote them out when it comes to it.



I suppose given the damning info that is already available in SAGE etc documents, let alone whatever details are still private, it would not shock me if the tories go for another election before a pandemic public inquiry comes along.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 19, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I can't believe we have over 3 years before we might even be able to get rid of these useless, murderous bastards and the fact that there's not much sign people are even willing to vote them out when it comes to it.


only if you think they'll be ejected by electoral means.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jan 19, 2021)

nagapie said:


> You give extra funding to utiilise community spaces and buy in extra staff. For example there is a church hall around the corner from my school that we used to use for exams when we were under construction. Teaching agencies are full of staff waiting to be employed in schools. Just need funding and extra staff to organise, oversee and facilitate.


universities have a lot of classrooms that are going under or not used right now


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> I suppose given the damning info that is already available in SAGE etc documents, let alone whatever details are still private, it would not shock me if the tories go for another election before a pandemic public inquiry comes along.



Like any good inquiry its going to take a decade or more and half the people in charge will have "forgotten" the details by the time it shows up.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why on earth would you think that?
> 
> It's already been pointed out on a number of occasions that the 7 day average of reported deaths tends to be a early sign of what the 7 day average of deaths by actual date will look like, the curves tends to be very similiar, and the former continues to go up.
> 
> ...



Looking at the first wave - deaths peaked on the 8th April, about a week after admissions peaked on the 1st April.
The first hump of the second wave - deaths peaked 18th Nov, admissions 11th Nov.
So about a week between them. 
Second wave first hump peak cases reported - 9th Nov. So only 9 days ahead of peak deaths
We don't really know if/when admissions have peaked for this current wave. Looks to me they might just have reached some sort of plateau around the 6th Jan but that might change with further info.
Meanwhile peak cases reported was around 29th Dec.

It's not a matter of the things you have "pointed out to me" not having "sunk in". I disagree with the reliance on the 7 day average.

Not all deaths occur in hospital.

A peak in deaths around the 14th Jan is, as I said, optimistic, but I don't feel it's implausible given the info we have right now. That could all change tomorrow.

Let's see what happens.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 19, 2021)

I'm a bit saddened by how many people I speak to think everything is going to be fine by about Easter because of the vaccine  - 'Oh hospital admissions will be right down, we'll be able to meet up again'.... what with evidence suggesting 1st vaccination alone might not do much (perhaps especially for the oldies) I can't see widespread normal indoor gathering being a thing any time soon.  I hate to be a sourpuss but I think there's a lack of understanding of how cautious we need to continue to be for some time and why.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Looking at the first wave - deaths peaked on the 8th April, about a week after admissions peaked on the 1st April.
> The first hump of the second wave - deaths peaked 18th Nov, admissions 11th Nov.
> So about a week between them.
> Second wave first hump peak cases reported - 9th Nov. So only 9 days ahead of peak deaths
> ...



Agree about approximate timing gaps seen previously between peak admissions and peak deaths.

Disagree with choice of 6th Jan for admissions this time. Plateaus do complicate the timing but in that circumstance I certainly wouldnt just choose the earliest peak date when the daily admissions figure was actually higher for Jan 12th. So for all I know the day with most deaths could turn out to be today, January 19th.

I suppose my main concern is not the precice date or amount, but the number of days that a figure of over 1000 could occur. It wont be surprising if the peak isnt as brief as last time, and then the totals really start to mount.



> Not all deaths occur in hospital.



Thats certainly one of the reasons I dont want to make the full set of assumptions about peak level and timing. Not with so much grim care home data at the moment, and this is data which mostly comes in much later so I dont feel like I have a view of that in the most recent period at all yet.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 20, 2021)

Newbury racecourse is stopping its vaccinations there for a day so they can do horseracing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 20, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Newbury racecourse is stopping its vaccinations there for a day so they can do horseracing.



The NHS must have been happy with such an arrangement when they settled on using that site, there must still be some sort of benefit in using the racecourse rather than another site, such as the leisure centre.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jan 20, 2021)

wasn't sure where to post this - can delete and move if there's a better suggestion


----------



## elbows (Jan 20, 2021)

I wont be surprised if there are stories soon of Pfizer deliveries not matching the original schedule. Beause there were stories like this one some days ago, which were notable for the ridiculous way they simply failed to mention UK supply and just went on about certain EU countries, even though I believe our Pfizer vaccines come from the same Belgian manufacturing facility.









						Coronavirus: EU anger over delayed Pfizer vaccine deliveries
					

Many EU countries are receiving significantly fewer doses due to a change in manufacturing processes.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> I wont be surprised if there are stories soon of Pfizer deliveries not matching the original schedule. Beause there were stories like this one some days ago, which were notable for *the ridiculous way they simply failed to mention UK supply and just went on about certain EU countries*, even though I believe our Pfizer vaccines come from the same Belgian manufacturing facility.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They do mention the UK later in the article.



> The company said its production upgrades would also have a "short-term impact" on the delivery of vaccines to the UK.


----------



## Supine (Jan 20, 2021)

Short sighted to complain about delays as they will allow a massive increase in production output by scaling up equipment. Which you obviously can't do if the line is running!


----------



## elbows (Jan 20, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I'm a bit saddened by how many people I speak to think everything is going to be fine by about Easter because of the vaccine  - 'Oh hospital admissions will be right down, we'll be able to meet up again'.... what with evidence suggesting 1st vaccination alone might not do much (perhaps especially for the oldies) I can't see widespread normal indoor gathering being a thing any time soon.  I hate to be a sourpuss but I think there's a lack of understanding of how cautious we need to continue to be for some time and why.



Viewing vaccines as a silver bullet is asking for all sorts of trouble.

Maybe humanity will get away with it, or maybe 'escape mutant' will become the phrase of 2021.

The moral aspect is also starting to do my head in, and the lack of discussion of it. If I, as as 45 year old with no known health risk factors apart from a smoking history and being a bit overweight, end up being offered the vaccine before those in the high risk groups in other countries, I might have to refuse on principal.


----------



## tony.c (Jan 20, 2021)

Nine Met police officers fined £200 for eating in cafe.








						Lockdown: Police officers fined £200 for cafe meeting
					

Nine Met Police officers who broke lockdown rules have been asked to "reflect on their choices".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## MickiQ (Jan 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The NHS must have been happy with such an arrangement when they settled on using that site, there must still be some sort of benefit in using the racecourse rather than another site, such as the leisure centre.


Not totally unreasonable you can give vaccinations at the leisure centre but you can't race horses there.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 20, 2021)

Supine said:


> Short sighted to complain about delays as they will allow a massive increase in production output by scaling up equipment. Which you obviously can't do if the line is running!


unless you add a second line?


----------



## Supine (Jan 20, 2021)

two sheds said:


> unless you add a second line?



They already have 5. Adding new lines takes months or normally years. Upgrading existing is almost certainly the most efficient way to quickly ramp production.


----------



## kebabking (Jan 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Viewing vaccines as a silver bullet is asking for all sorts of trouble.
> 
> Maybe humanity will get away with it, or maybe 'escape mutant' will become the phrase of 2021.
> 
> The moral aspect is also starting to do my head in, and the lack of discussion of it. If I, as as 45 year old with no known health risk factors apart from a smoking history and being a bit overweight, end up being offered the vaccine before those in the high risk groups in other countries, I might have to refuse on principal.



Admirable perhaps, but pretty vacuous.

You turning down the jab with your name on it isn't going to see that jab put on a plane and flown to Albania or whatever, it's simply going to go in the arm of a 43yo, living half a mile from you, who's a bit less overweight and who smoked for a shorter time before giving up.


----------



## elbows (Jan 20, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Admirable perhaps, but pretty vacuous.
> 
> You turning down the jab with your name on it isn't going to see that jab put on a plane and flown to Albania or whatever, it's simply going to go in the arm of a 43yo, living half a mile from you, who's a bit less overweight and who smoked for a shorter time before giving up.



The sentiment is not designed to make a direct difference, its just one way to frame a particular aspect of vaccine global morality issues from a personal perspective.


----------



## Supine (Jan 20, 2021)

two sheds said:


> unless you add a second line?



Just to add the current bottleneck may not even be in the production line. It could even be in something like the factory cold store capacity. No idea tbh as the company press release didn't specify what the upgrade is for.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 20, 2021)

We can expect another week or two of high deaths rates, before they start dropping, which makes sense as the peak in new cases was only around 10 days ago.



> Daily deaths from coronavirus will continue to rise towards the end of the month, scientists have warned after the UK recorded the highest toll so far in the pandemic.
> 
> People who caught the virus in early January will be admitted to hospital approximately this week, and deaths from those cases will lead to further “record-breaking” days before peaking, warned Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton, echoing remarks from Sage member Professor Andrew Hayward.











						Boris Johnson holds press conference
					

Follow for the latest updates




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jan 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> We can expect another week or two of high deaths rates, before they start dropping, which makes sense as the peak in new cases was only around 10 days ago.



By test specimen date it was more like 20 days ago, but the overall ffigure doesnt capture the detail in terms of vulnerability and age, so I prefer to use hospital admissions rather than positive case numbers as a guide.

This is their previous article about what Andrew Hayward said. But I think they botched the text so its better to listen to the audio (in a video that isnt really a video) instead.









						Daily UK coronavirus deaths will not fall for weeks yet, Sage professor says
					

‘We have one of the worst coronavirus problems in the world,' Andrew Hayward laments




					www.independent.co.uk
				




I say they botched it because of this quote:



> told the BBC he thinks the death rate will lessen partly due to the fact infections are falling more slowly among vulnerable older people than among younger people.



I think they missed something equivalent to 'take time to' or 'take weeks to' before the word lessen.


----------



## elbows (Jan 20, 2021)

Meanwhile in Wales:



> *Questions should be raised over whether Senedd members who drank alcohol on Welsh Parliament premises during a pub alcohol ban can stand for re-election, an ex-standards official said. *
> Conservatives Paul Davies, Darren Millar and Labour's Alun Davies have apologised after they were seen drinking together in early December.
> But a fourth member, Nick Ramsay, has denied being a part of the group.
> Senedd authorities said they were investigating an "incident".
> Tory Senedd leader Mr Davies, Mr Millar and Alun Davies deny breaking rules.











						Senedd alcohol row: PM 'expects above and beyond' on Covid
					

Downing Street comments come after senior Welsh Tories others seen drinking on Senedd premises.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Espresso (Jan 20, 2021)

Politicians apologise. Politicians say they haven't broken the rule.

I am sure that if a normal person thought they'd not broken a rule, they'd see no need to apologise. 
Why are politicians so slithery?


----------



## elbows (Jan 20, 2021)

The inevitable consequence of MHRA not approving of the use of lateral flow tests to check close contacts in schools is emerging:









						Rollout of daily testing of close contacts paused in English schools
					

More work is needed to understand its benefits in schools in England given the new variant, health officials say.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




However I note that the BBC say nothing of the MHRA stuff and instead just refer to 'some scientists'.

edit - I will stick this in the schools thread too.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 20, 2021)

Ah, that £350 million for 'the NHS'...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 20, 2021)

I thought they were leaving it to the NHS to run the vaccination programme, the lying bastards.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 20, 2021)

Fucking stinks.


----------



## LDC (Jan 20, 2021)

Fucking hell, today's death figures.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 20, 2021)

Today's reported figures.

New cases - 38,905.

New deaths - 1,820, up from 1,564 last Wednesday, adding almost 37 to the 7 day average figure, taking it from 1,181 a day yesterday to 1,218 today.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 20, 2021)

1820????


----------



## LDC (Jan 20, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> 1820????



Yup. I don't know why, but I'm much more shocked by this than the high recent ones. Fucking catastrophic.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 20, 2021)

Yep, keep thinking of Vallance's 20,000 comment.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 20, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> 1820????


Fucking hell.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 20, 2021)

That's really grim.


----------



## LDC (Jan 20, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Yep, keep thinking of Vallance's 20,000 comment.



20,000 a fortnight.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 20, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Yep, keep thinking of Vallance's 20,000 comment.



Remind me?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 20, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Remind me?


Back in March last year when speaking to a select committee:


----------



## TopCat (Jan 20, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Remind me?


We would be doing well with a final death count of 20,000. It was shocking at the time.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 20, 2021)

On a side note, in a zoom meeting this morning, the funeral director confirmed they were very busy, and shocked to be dealing with a lot of otherwise healthy people in their late 50's & 60's compared to the spring, and the solicitor dealing with probate cases said the same.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 20, 2021)

The funeral directors down the road is open now well into the evenings.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 20, 2021)

Guess this is the deaths catching up with infections, remember everyone starting to be optimistic infections were staring to reverse and this is the other side of that.

Christ what a grim winter this is and I wish my healthcare bods would get a move on with my vaccination (Epping Forest is anyone knows whose dealing with that, lot of old farts around here so suspect it’ll be a while)


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 20, 2021)

Yesterday was a record - and that's a 13% increase on the record.

That's a lot.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 20, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Yesterday was a record - and that's a 13% increase on the record.
> 
> That's a lot.


It's getting hard to picture. How many Jonestown massacres is 1820?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 20, 2021)

TopCat said:


> It's getting hard to picture. How many Jonestown massacres is 1820?


2


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 20, 2021)

Just noticed they've updated the figures on covid patients in hospital, as of Mon 18th, it's now 39,068, the spring peak was 21,648 on 12th April.

And, now 3,947 on ventilation, the spring peak was 3,301.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 20, 2021)

What's the UK deathcount now then?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 20, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> What's the UK deathcount now then?



Deaths within 28 days of positive test - 93,290 (total today)
Deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate - 101,880 (just to 8th Jan.)









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Jan 20, 2021)

Hideous.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 20, 2021)

Fucking atrocious. I remember earlier on thinking in football stadium sizes. We've filled Wembley and then some.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 20, 2021)

Grim.









						This is what it's like to be an intensive care unit nurse right now
					

Sometimes we come in to find a bed empty, and I don’t know if it’s because we’ve succeeded or we’ve failed




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## TopCat (Jan 20, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> 2


Ta. That "helps" me picture the toll.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 20, 2021)

On top of today's horrendous figures this could be more bad news with the 3 month between doses for the vaccine.



Apologies if posted previously.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Deaths with COVID-19 on the death certificate - 101,880 (just to 8th Jan.)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Roughly the population of Worcester for those struggling to visualise


----------



## MrSki (Jan 20, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> Roughly the population of Worcester for those struggling to visualise


The crowd at Live Aid.


----------



## Deej1992 (Jan 20, 2021)

Another horrific day for deaths and I suspect they will hit the 2k mark soon.

Progress again with the cases and hopefully we’ll see the deaths peak soon and come down along with hospital admissions.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 20, 2021)

MrSki said:


> On top of today's horrendous figures this could be more bad news with the 3 month between doses for the vaccine.
> 
> 
> 
> Apologies if posted previously.




I think people are studying it in detail and it's not as clear cut as it may appear. 
What I think the vaccination program is trying to achieve, certainly at the start is to stop the death and maiming in hospitals. If after the vaccination, nobody ends up in hospital, its efficacy is 100% in those terms. We can worry about the medical efficacy and tweak these vaccines later.

e2a: Dr John Cambell, talking about Israel


----------



## teqniq (Jan 20, 2021)

What the fuck is this bullshit? It smacks of a decsion made to make the goevenment look good in terms of the amount of people vaccinated:









						Vaccinators could lose their licences for giving second doses prematurely
					

‘There is a complete refusal at the highest levels to grant permission for second doses before 12 weeks’




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Mation (Jan 20, 2021)

teqniq said:


> What the fuck is this bullshit? It smacks of a decsion made to make the goevenment look good in terms of the amount of people vaccinated:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


How might going ahead without permission play out?


----------



## existentialist (Jan 20, 2021)

teqniq said:


> What the fuck is this bullshit? It smacks of a decsion made to make the goevenment look good in terms of the amount of people vaccinated:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This smacks of a government which still believes it can influence reality via its edicts.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 20, 2021)

teqniq said:


> What the fuck is this bullshit? It smacks of a decsion made to make the goevenment look good in terms of the amount of people vaccinated:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The decision was made by JCVI so as to save more lives, I don’t see why hospitals should be able to ignore that. Maybe JCVI will change their position as more evidence become available, or maybe they will affirm the current approach. It‘s surely obvious however that such a decision should be made at a national level.

edit: As to the government doing it to look good - they will look good by the total number of doses administered, the number of full vaccine courses administered, and the number of lives saved by vaccination. I don’t see them looking good through the statistic of first doses administered, so the idea that JCVI are doing it this way for PR is kinda weird.


----------



## circleline (Jan 20, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Christ what a grim winter this is and I wish my healthcare bods would get a move on with my vaccination (Epping Forest is anyone knows whose dealing with that, lot of old farts around here so suspect it’ll be a while)



My sister reckons you can log in and see when you're next in queue for vaccination.  She's somewhere millions away..


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 20, 2021)

circleline said:


> My sister reckons you can log in and see when you're next in queue for vaccination.  She's somewhere millions away..



Theres an unofficial site that guesses your number somewhere about.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 20, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Theres an unofficial site that guesses your number somewhere about.



And it's not fully (or in some cases at all!) reliable, either.

As I remember from testing that site during a  previous discussion on some other thread.


----------



## circleline (Jan 20, 2021)

Oh, I see.  Sister's a bit of a hypochondriac anyway, so didn't really take much notice..


----------



## Sunray (Jan 20, 2021)

This is tough watching
Chaos in hospitals.


----------



## Dogsauce (Jan 21, 2021)

Mation said:


> How might going ahead without permission play out?



could be a practice that has some spare at the end of the day and administers a second dose to someone rather than put it in the bin?

There have been informal things like this happening anyway, someone at the gf’s work got a jab because a relative was a GP and they had some spare at the end of a day that they’d otherwise have to throw out so gave her a call to pop in.

Some people aren’t turning up for appointments so they occasionally have surplus, my GP was asking healthcare workers who could pop in at short notice to give them their details so they could have a jab if someone didn’t turn up. Good policy really, shouldn’t be wasting this stuff.


----------



## Mation (Jan 21, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> could be a practice that has some spare at the end of the day and administers a second dose to someone rather than put it in the bin?
> 
> There have been informal things like this happening anyway, someone at the gf’s work got a jab because a relative was a GP and they had some spare at the end of a day that they’d otherwise have to throw out so gave her a call to pop in.
> 
> Some people aren’t turning up for appointments so they occasionally have surplus, my GP was asking healthcare workers who could pop in at short notice to give them their details so they could have a jab if someone didn’t turn up. Good policy really, shouldn’t be wasting this stuff.


Surplus absolutely shouldn't go to waste. I'm not sure that's outside the rules though, is it?

I meant more what would it look like if practices just booked people in for dose 2 three weeks after the first one. What does having their licence revoked mean? And how many revoked licences before the whole programme falls apart and they have to be unrevoked?

(Fantasising, basically  )


----------



## Wilf (Jan 21, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Theres an unofficial site that guesses your number somewhere about.


I think this looks reasonable in terms of broad dates and groups:
Covid: When will I get the vaccine? - BBC News 
I'm 60, so in the 2nd phase of vaccinations, though with about 2/3 of the group numerically ahead of me priority wise. Think that adds up to me being about the middle of March, though it wouldn't  surprise me if it takes a bit longer to vaccinate the 7.9m vulnerable people in that phase.


----------



## elbows (Jan 21, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> _trans_.: it's far fucking worse than we thought and we are working every hour god sends to find a way to soften the blow



The ONS infection survey is still not available. But I just saw this news item about an interim report from a somewhat similar study, REACT-1.









						Covid: Infections 'must be brought down' to help NHS
					

Researchers warn that unless something changes, hospitals will continue facing significant pressure.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




The actual paper is here, and I include a quote of some detail that was missing from the BBC article.





__





						Spiral: REACT-1 round 8 interim report: SARS-CoV-2 prevalence during the initial stages of the third national lockdown in England
					






					spiral.imperial.ac.uk
				






> In the initial period of the third national lockdown in England, we did not observe a continued decline in the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2, as was seen in the routine surveillance data for a similar period [8]. Rather, we observed a slight initial decline followed by a plateau or possible increase, but with a weighted average prevalence substantially lower than that reported for end December and beginning of January by the Office for National Statistics Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey [5]. It is therefore possible that prevalence may have dropped substantially just prior to the start of REACT-1 round 8a.





> The Facebook data presented here indicate a sharp drop in mobility in the last two weeks of 2020 followed by a return to intermediate levels during the first week of 2021. A relationship between mobility data and transmissibility was documented during spring 2020 [12,13], and we might expect the two still to be correlated: higher transmission from increased activity starting on Monday 5th January 2021 may only just be feeding into routine surveillance data. We therefore might expect to see a plateau or slight increase in routine surveillance data in subsequent days.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 21, 2021)

This leads into the thought, vaccinating younger people might be an idea, it would slow transmission.


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 21, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Yes, that Wrexham factory (CP Pharmaceuticals/Wockhardt) is for the vital "fill and finish" part of the process, that article reminds me.t


now possibly at risk from flooding 



> *Emergency work to save vaccines*
> The leader of Wrexham council, Mark Pritchard, said some emergency work had been carried out on the Wrexham Industrial Estate to make sure the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine made there was not damaged..
> He told BBC Radio Wales: “We had an incident at Wrexham Industrial Estate, the Oxford vaccination is produced there and the warehouse where it is stored, obviously I can’t tell you where it is, but we had to work in partnership to make sure we didn’t lose the vaccinations in the floods.”











						Live weather updates as two severe flood warnings remain in Wales
					

Two severe flood warnings, 12 flood warnings and 22 flood alerts are in place across Wales




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## Sunray (Jan 21, 2021)




----------



## brogdale (Jan 21, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Not working with any consistency, though.
> I have elderly relatives who've had both Pfizers, one Pfizer and some who've not even heard at all from their GPs (?). very distressing and anxiety inducing for 90 year olds to feel that they've been overlooked when they hear about the 70+ getting theirs.
> 
> It's a bit of a shitshow; who'd have thought that the Tories would fuck this up as well?


The patchy/inconsistent nature of the vaccine roll-out is getting a bit more MSM traction this morning:





More stories on the radio this morning about the anxiety being caused to those 80+ who've not yet heard at all about their jab.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 21, 2021)

I can understand prioritising first doses but surely none of it should go to waste?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 21, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I think this looks reasonable in terms of broad dates and groups:
> Covid: When will I get the vaccine? - BBC News
> I'm 60, so in the 2nd phase of vaccinations, though with about 2/3 of the group numerically ahead of me priority wise. Think that adds up to me being about the middle of March, though it wouldn't  surprise me if it takes a bit longer to vaccinate the 7.9m vulnerable people in that phase.



Broadly I’m expecting end of Feb I think, I’m in category 6, clinically vulnerable under 60, but I’m seeing several people in the same category get the first dose this last week or two which makes me bit impatient.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 21, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I can understand prioritising first doses but surely none of it should go to waste?


The messaging around this (especially given that we're initially talking about v. old cohorts) has been far from helpful. Irrespective of the 'logic' of the roll-out and utilisation of the vaccines, clearly there's many old folks out there that don't know what's happening and feel forgotten. It didn't have to be like that.


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 21, 2021)

my mum's due the first slice of vaccines promised by mid-feb (over 75) but preparing myself for them missing that.

overall progress in wales is hardly inspiring and we're a high population area with significant numbers of essential workers that need reaching first.

and now additional weather-related logistical issues.

her and similarly aged mates across the country/world are all one-upping/commiserating over vaccine status. the bingo of our times


----------



## Threshers_Flail (Jan 21, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> my mum's due the first slice of vaccines promised by mid-feb (over 75) but preparing myself for them missing that.
> 
> overall progress in wales is hardly inspiring and we're a high population area with significant numbers of essential workers that need reaching first.
> 
> ...



Where are you based if you don't mind me asking? My gramps is 81 and hasn't heard a thing yet, he lives in Newport.


----------



## rubbershoes (Jan 21, 2021)

Mation said:


> Surplus absolutely shouldn't go to waste. I'm not sure that's outside the rules though, is it?
> 
> I meant more what would it look like if practices just booked people in for dose 2 three weeks after the first one. What does having their licence revoked mean? And how many revoked licences before the whole programme falls apart and they have to be unrevoked?
> 
> (Fantasising, basically  )



My GP mate is doing vaccinations at his surgery. When they have leftovers at the end of the day, they call any other medics they know. 

Medics are a priority group in the vaccination programme so soon the surgery will probably run out of spare medic friends who haven't had one yet. I don't know who they'll call then?


----------



## Cloo (Jan 21, 2021)

It all feels like 2 steps forwards, one step back. OK, we got the vaccine - but we've also got the new variant. So I can't see that we're going to be allowed any more social mixing this summer - I guess they'll try opening schools for summer term, but that might well go horribly wrong. And by the time enough people are vaccinated to start making a difference, we'll be back in winter/autumn and will probably have to tighten up restrictions, or at least still not see one another indoors because we still won't be sure how effective the vaccine will be 'in the wild'

So I can't see much at the moment what can be different this year from last, in fact possible we'll be more restricted as going abroad might be off because everywhere may insist on quarantine this year, especially from the UK.

The only thing that might make any difference it seems, is if they can conclude that the vaccine does prevent or significantly lower the capability to infect others, but I gather that is very complicated so assume they might need a good long time before they can be sure of that.


----------



## andysays (Jan 21, 2021)

Although on one level it clearly makes sense to ensure that any "spare" vaccinations are made rather than wasted, giving them out on an ad hoc way may potentially cause issues when it comes to doing the second part a few months later.


----------



## elbows (Jan 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> The ONS infection survey is still not available. But I just saw this news item about an interim report from a somewhat similar study, REACT-1.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Analysis has been added to the BBC article since I first read it:



> The findings of the study are seemingly at odds with recent figures from NHS Test and Trace, which has been reporting recent decreases in daily infections and has prompted some experts to suggest that we might be beginning our journey out of the woods.
> 
> The researchers behind the study say the test and trace figures may be reflecting an initial drop in infections just after Christmas, which is only now being registered on the official figures.
> 
> ...





> But if this trend continues, say the scientists, the numbers admitted to hospital with severe Covid illness, will not fall in the short term, as some had hoped.
> 
> This is one set of figures over a short number of days so there might be a more optimistic picture when the study reports its full set of results in a week's time. But there is no getting away from the fact that ministers will be disappointed not to have seen a fall at this stage.
> 
> Unless things change, even tougher measures will have to be considered.



On the one hand what the study seems to show is consistent with my 'bounce back' concerns of recent weeks, that people going back to work etc in January, and lockdown not being strong enough, could mean that after an initial drop, rates get stuck at a very high level.

On the other hand, whats seen in the study seems to be at odds with what the ZOE Covid app data has shown, which so far seems to have been more like a continual fall. But I've never really explored what distinct limitations there may be to ZOE methodology.


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 21, 2021)

Threshers_Flail said:


> Where are you based if you don't mind me asking? My gramps is 81 and hasn't heard a thing yet, he lives in Newport.


cardiff


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Analysis has been added to the BBC article since I first read it:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The abstract says they were using figures only up to 3rd December for their comparisons, so I'm not sure they can conclude anything useful about January compared to T&T figures.


----------



## elbows (Jan 21, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The abstract says they were using figures only up to 3rd December for their comparisons, so I'm not sure they can conclude anything useful about January compared to T&T figures.




Yes I am keeping as open a mind on this as I can manage right now. Limitations in question are the reason I included this qute from the preprint earlier:



> In the initial period of the third national lockdown in England, we did not observe a continued decline in the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2, as was seen in the routine surveillance data for a similar period [8]. Rather, we observed a slight initial decline followed by a plateau or possible increase, but with a weighted average prevalence substantially lower than that reported for end December and beginning of January by the Office for National Statistics Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey [5]. It is therefore possible that prevalence may have dropped substantially just prior to the start of REACT-1 round 8a.



In terms of incomplete reporting on this story, the fact that is mostly missing but that is tempting to include is that the weekly ONS infection survey did not come out on schedule last Friday. Thats a similar sort of study but doesnt have the gaps that REACT-1 does. The failure of it to come out on time should have been a bigger story than it has been. When Pickmans Model suggested that they may be withholding it because it shows bad things, I initially rejected that view. But thats because I probably made a mistake with my view of what period that ONS study would cover, I wasnt expecting to see any signs of infections getting stuck at a certain levels until the subsequent report to the missing one in question, but I think I got my sense of data timing wrong! Although since last time I checked that ONS report still wasnt out so I;m unsure, and tomorrow the next version is due anyway!


----------



## elbows (Jan 21, 2021)

I still havent seen the ONS data in question but it sounds like Johnson has made reference to both, although with the way he says these things leaves room for the possibility he has misspoken. But probably more likely he is setting the scene for what the data will reveal.

It continues to drive me nuts that we live in a country where important pandemic data being late or being withheld is not treated as a suspicious sign by our press.



> “What we’re seeing in the ONS data, in the REACT survey, we’re seeing the contagiousness of the new variant that we saw arrive just before Christmas. There’s no doubt it does spread very fast indeed.”







__





						UK PM Johnson says to early to say when national lockdown will end | Reuters
					

It is too early to say when the national COVID lockdown in England will end, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday, adding that persistently high infection levels demonstrated how infectious a new variant was.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## teuchter (Jan 21, 2021)

Here are the graphs that are in the REACT (pre-print) report

I am somewhat out of my depth here really but here is a representation of their findings, which shows the gap throughout December where they do not have results.



I think that essentially the pink shaded area means "line probably passes somewhere through here"? So for that latest period, the line could be quite plausibly pointing either up or down.

When you look at the tested cases graph though it looks like this



So surely knowing that, it's then more plausible that the line is not in fact rising, throughout that latest chunk of data they have?

Later they also have this graph, where I guess they've done something mathematical to fit a line that fills in the gaps




But is that using some kind of mathematical function that doesn't know anything about data that's available from elsewhere?


It does seem that this has been reported in a very uncritical way in the BBC news item.


----------



## elbows (Jan 21, 2021)

Well we will find out more tomorrow, because the ONS page for their infection survey that failed to report on schedule last Friday now says:



> We plan to publish all of the most recent data as part of the next scheduled publications on Friday 22 January 2021.







__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey laboratory delays - updated - Office for National Statistics
					





					www.ons.gov.uk
				




I suppose I am expecting 'a mixed bag'.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Well we will find out more tomorrow, because the ONS page for their infection survey that failed to report on schedule last Friday now says:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Does the ONS survey pull on different test data than that shown on the regular gov.uk page?


----------



## elbows (Jan 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Does the ONS survey pull on different test data than that shown on the regular gov.uk page?



Yes, its the survey, household sampling type approach that has been discussed here many times, that some people on u75 participate in. Still based on actual tests, but will for example be expected to pick up asymptomatic cases because its not reliant on people having symptoms that make them seek out a test.

One of its strengths compared to the normal testing system is that it shouldnt be badly affected by changes in peoples behaviour in terms of seeking tests. And such behaviours would have been expected to change during school holidays, lockdowns etc. So there is a risk that the drop seen in the standard daily figures is not capturing the full picture, and survey-based forms of routine testing of selected households should do a better job of capturing the full picture in a more consistent way over time.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 21, 2021)

Downing Street press briefing at 5pm today, hosted by Patel with Martin Hewitt, Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and Dr Vin Diwakar, NHS England regional medical director for London.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street press briefing at 5pm today, hosted by Patel with Martin Hewitt, Chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and Dr Vin Diwakar, NHS England regional medical director for London.


Do you think she's eagerly volunteering for every opportunity to get in front of that podium, secure in her unfounded belief that she's absolutely storming it and doing a great job?

It'd be even funnier if it turns out that she's actually the only member of Cabinet who wants to do it...


----------



## prunus (Jan 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Do you think she's eagerly volunteering for every opportunity to get in front of that podium, secure in her unfounded belief that she's absolutely storming it and doing a great job?
> 
> It'd be even funnier if it turns out that she's actually the only member of Cabinet who wants to do it...



It's a lectern...


----------



## existentialist (Jan 21, 2021)

prunus said:


> It's a lectern...


Yeah, yeah, but there'd have to be some kind of podium in order for her to be visible above the lectern!


----------



## Espresso (Jan 21, 2021)

She does have a little box to stand on, I noticed that the last time she was on the middle mic.


----------



## elbows (Jan 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Do you think she's eagerly volunteering for every opportunity to get in front of that podium, secure in her unfounded belief that she's absolutely storming it and doing a great job?
> 
> It'd be even funnier if it turns out that she's actually the only member of Cabinet who wants to do it...



Well it was clear in the first wave and first lockdown that they really hated having to do them every day (even though its the right thing to do in terms of creating a certain mood and flow of info when the public are enduring exceptional circumstances), and that a large number of ministers were nonentities when it came to this sort of performance.

Johnson clearly doesnt want to do more than 1 a week unless its a big week where new lockdowns etc get announced, or the latest oven ready u-turn. And there are plenty of weeks where he tries to get away with doing none at all if he can help it.

Patel is probably featuring more at the moment because the government decided to put some emphasis on enforcement of existing measures this time around, although the substance on this front is still almost non-existent.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> View attachment 250347
> 
> But is that using some kind of mathematical function that doesn't know anything about data that's available from elsewhere?


You yourself posted the answer to your question immediately above it.

It's a spline fit indicating the range of possibilities that are smoothly consistent with all the available data without overfitting.


----------



## maomao (Jan 21, 2021)

prunus said:


> It's a lectern...











						A Podium Is the Same Thing as a Lectern
					

We'd say it from a podium if we had to




					www.merriam-webster.com


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 21, 2021)

Never see a scantily clad lectern dancer though do you?


----------



## prunus (Jan 21, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Never see a scantily clad lectern dancer though do you?



Wait til 5pm...


----------



## zora (Jan 21, 2021)

Quick Drosten update on the UK variant: After being sceptical of the estimates of increased transmissability based on the initial incidental epidemiological data, he now sees an increased transmissability of 25-35% as confirmed. [Late edit, as I have just revisited some of this: The point was not to give an exact figure, or to say the increase is less than previously thought, but to say that increased transmissability is now confirmed, rather than assumed.]
This is still based on epidemiological research, but from a specifically designed study, rather than incidental data. What makes the variant more transmissable is still unknown. Higher viral load apparently has not been confirmed. He expects some more conclusive laboratory results in the next couple of weeks. [This is all to the best of my understanding.]


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 21, 2021)

Today's daily figures -

New cases - 37,892.

New deaths - 1,290, not as scary as the last two days, which were catching-up on the weekend lag, but still slightly up on last Thursday's 1,248, adding another 6 to the 7-day average, from 1,217 yesterday to 1,223 today.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 21, 2021)

From next week, people attending parties & other gatherings of over 15 people will face fines of £800 each, up from the current £200.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 21, 2021)

No mention by the copper of the 9 filth that were having breakfast in a cafe the other week. Nine police officers fined £200 each after having breakfast together in cafe


----------



## brogdale (Jan 21, 2021)

Well, at least we now know who is to blame for the 100k dead...it's those pesky kids and their drugs parties...nothing to do with the capitalists' workplaces or their incompetent government.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 21, 2021)

So the general gist of tonights press conf is we are all cunts and its our fault.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 21, 2021)

Worst covid news briefing yet?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 21, 2021)

Oh...FFS, as soon as she's off script...fucking mince.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 21, 2021)

souljacker said:


> So the general gist of tonights press conf is we are all cunts and its our fault.


----------



## LDC (Jan 21, 2021)

She's just unwatchable.


----------



## LDC (Jan 21, 2021)

FFS, house parties WITH MIXING DECKS, yeah, that's why we've had 100,000 dead.


----------



## Petcha (Jan 21, 2021)

She's comically shit. God I hate her. I really do. Even if she wasn't Home Secretary and I met her at a house party (of fewer than 14 people), I'd make a beeline for the other side of the room.

Odious? I think think that fits?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS, house parties WITH MIXING DECKS, yeah, that's why we've had 100,000 dead.



Those care homes man, nothing but old boys whacked off tits on ketamine and dancing to acid trance while the woman, oh man, what goers


----------



## fishfinger (Jan 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS, house parties WITH MIXING DECKS, yeah, that's why we've had 100,000 dead.


They must be socially distanced decks!


----------



## brogdale (Jan 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> She's just unwatchable.


I watched; she's only capable of reading a script written for her and repeating the one line she can memorise.


----------



## elbows (Jan 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's daily figures -
> 
> New cases - 37,892.
> 
> New deaths - 1,290, not as scary as the last two days, which were catching-up on the weekend lag, but still slightly up on last Thursday's 1,248, adding another 6 to the 7-day average, from 1,217 yesterday to 1,223 today.



A prolonged period with over 1000 deaths a day by date of death.


----------



## Petcha (Jan 21, 2021)

brogdale said:


> I watched; she's only capable of reading a script written for her and repeating the one line she can memorise.



People who attend house parties are 'morally reprehensible'. Yes, true. But how about jumped little bullies who abuse their junior underlings? hmm?


----------



## Supine (Jan 21, 2021)

UK vaccine supplies almost got flooded out yesterday   









						Emergency workers save Wockhardt fill-finish plant—and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses inside—from rising floodwaters
					

Limited supplies, spotty logistics and now a deluge. | Limited supplies, spotty logistics and now a deluge. After contending with plenty of other problems, the  U.K.’s coronavirus vaccine rollout faced yet another threat Wednesday night when floodwaters surrounded a Wockhardt plant under...




					www.fiercepharma.com


----------



## brogdale (Jan 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> A prolonged period with over 1000 deaths a day by date of death.
> 
> View attachment 250379


10 days @ 1k+


----------



## ddraig (Jan 21, 2021)

I got a letter asking if available to work elections early May


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 21, 2021)

ddraig said:


> I got a letter asking if available to work elections early May



I'll be very surprised if they take place in May, more likely they'll be put off until the summer at the earliest.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 21, 2021)

ddraig said:


> I got a letter asking if available to work elections early May


Don't count on the income; can't see how they can take place tbh.


----------



## ddraig (Jan 21, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Don't count on the income; can't see how they can take place tbh.


Yup, agreed


----------



## LDC (Jan 21, 2021)

Petcha said:


> People who attend house parties are 'morally reprehensible'. Yes, true. But how about jumped little bullies who abuse their junior underlings? hmm?



I mean breaking the rules by having a party and putting people at risk is shit. But ffs, it doesn't need or deserve a daily briefing to the whole country. Fucking joke.


----------



## Petcha (Jan 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I mean breaking the rules by having a party and putting people at risk is shit. But ffs, it doesn't need or deserve a daily briefing to the whole country. Fucking joke.



Does anyone know where the money goes to out of interest? To the NHS?


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 21, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Does anyone know where the money goes to out of interest? To the NHS?


No, not specifically, but probably straight into the general income pot at the treasury.


----------



## Petcha (Jan 21, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> No, not specifically, but probably straight into the general income pot at the treasury.



From a purely PR perspective it might be nice if they said it was going to the NHS directly.


----------



## maomao (Jan 21, 2021)

Petcha said:


> From a purely PR perspective it might be nice if they said it was going to the NHS directly.


That would either be a lie or cost more to administrate than it raised.


----------



## Petcha (Jan 21, 2021)

maomao said:


> That would either be a lie or cost more to administrate than it raised.



Well. We're apparently currently saving £350m a week for the NHS post Brexit, so the govt has a fairly flexible attitude when it comes to this kind of thing.


----------



## ddraig (Jan 21, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Well. We're apparently currently saving £350m a week for the NHS post Brexit, so the govt has a fairly flexible attitude when it comes to this kind of thing.


And £ millions from not having to pay the pensions of those who have died from covid


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 21, 2021)

Is anyone watching the interview with Labour's Shadow Home Secretary on C4 news - fuck he's crap, if you were trying to create a stereotype of a politician this is the prick that you'd create. 

"Would you close nurseries"
"we've already said that the government needs to look at that".

To paraphrase Nanni Moretti "just say something with a policy"


----------



## Sue (Jan 21, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Is anyone watching the interview with *Labour's Shadow Home Secretary* on C4 news - fuck he's crap, if you were trying to create a stereotype of a politician this is the prick that you'd create.
> 
> "Would you close nurseries"
> "we've already said that the government needs to look at that".
> ...


Does anyone even know who that is? I have no idea... (And is that why redsquirrel gave their role rather than their name..?)


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 21, 2021)

Sue said:


> Does anyone even know who that is? I have no idea... (And is that why redsquirrel gave their role rather than their name..?)


You mean you are not familiar with the heavyweight that is Nick Thomas-Symonds, shame on you Sue.


----------



## Sue (Jan 21, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> You mean you are not familiar with the heavyweight that is Nick Thomas-Symonds, shame on you Sue.


I just looked it up. I've never even heard of the guy. Was pleased to see he studied PPE at Oxford though as they're really under-represented in Parliament. And an Owen Smith-ite for good measure .


----------



## xenon (Jan 21, 2021)

Sue said:


> Does anyone even know who that is? I have no idea... (And is that why redsquirrel gave their role rather than their name..?)



 i’m glad you asked  that because I was thinking who is it. I doknow their name, don’t I. Surely I’ve heard them before.


----------



## mauvais (Jan 21, 2021)

Ministers consider paying £500 to everyone with Covid in England
					

Exclusive: universal payment is ‘preferred position’ of DHSC in effort to help people self-isolate




					www.theguardian.com
				




A bit of an incentive to stay at home if you get Covid.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 21, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Well, at least we now know who is to blame for the 100k dead...it's those pesky kids and their drugs parties...nothing to do with the capitalists' workplaces or their incompetent government.


someone from SPI-B on BBC news now saying he is waiting for the data from the governement that show him those large pockets of non compliance the fines are for...
and a lot more along those lines, and the lack of support for people in financially vulnerable positions


----------



## weepiper (Jan 21, 2021)

Edinburgh university is not having face to face teaching for the whole of this academic year









						No Edinburgh University undergrads in the capital until at least September after extension to online learning announced
					

Edinburgh University has announced that all undergraduate learning will remain online until April 2, 2021, when the academic year concludes.




					www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com


----------



## Cloo (Jan 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FFS, house parties WITH MIXING DECKS, yeah, that's why we've had 100,000 dead.


Yes, it seems to be there's more of a problem with employers demanding people come in when told to isolate or even after a positive test. But can't fine them, they're prosperity makers!


----------



## Edie (Jan 21, 2021)

Went for my vaccine today. Had to wait 28 days post covid. It was quite moving. There was a whole team: from greeter, consent forms, then down to the big hall subdivided by screens, guided to correct station, vaccine, then got given a piece of paper with time I could leave, sat and waited in another subdivided seat. Staffed by the all so familiar cast of NHS employees.

I thought what an amazing achievement, a national effort; of science, the NHS, and Government.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 21, 2021)

Maybe less of the latter, mind. Could have gone so much better without this uncaring lot


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 21, 2021)

Edie said:


> Went for my vaccine today. Had to wait 28 days post covid. It was quite moving. There was a whole team: from greeter, consent forms, then down to the big hall subdivided by screens, guided to correct station, vaccine, then got given a piece of paper with time I could leave, sat and waited in another subdivided seat. Staffed by the all so familiar cast of NHS employees.
> 
> I thought what an amazing achievement, a national effort; of science, the NHS, and Government.


My mother volunteered to do admin, "stewarding" etc at the GP centre down here. She was there the first day.  She was horrified at how long it took and how badly organised it was and walked away.

Anyway, she  went for her vaccination today, at the same place - everything went like clockwork - said she was in and out in 10 mins (yes, I know, 15min observation period).

all of which just shows - no-one has dealt with anything like this before.  No one knew how to do it. The first few days were always going to be a mess, but once everyone had figured it out, it's now going really well.

Thanks, as ever, to the scientists, health workers, volunteers and logistics people.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 21, 2021)

Concerning the South Wales-wide famous Shadow Home Secretary ...




			
				Sue said:
			
		

> Does anyone even know who that is? I have no idea... (And is that why @redsquirrel gave their role rather than their name..?)





redsquirrel said:


> You mean you are not familiar with the heavyweight that is Nick Thomas-Symonds, shame on you Sue.



I could have won a (Zoom) pub-quiz prize for knowing this man's name 

That doesn't help me feel better about anything though ....


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 21, 2021)

Edie said:


> Went for my vaccine today. Had to wait 28 days post covid. It was quite moving. There was a whole team: from greeter, consent forms, then down to the big hall subdivided by screens, guided to correct station, vaccine, then got given a piece of paper with time I could leave, sat and waited in another subdivided seat. Staffed by the all so familiar cast of NHS employees.
> 
> *I thought what an amazing achievement, a national effort; of science, the NHS, and Government.*



Fair play to the NHS as you say  

But if 'The Government'/Matt Hancock were fully in charge, you can bet your life that the vaccination programmes would be going as badly as the Track-and-Trace Serco-malarkey


----------



## mx wcfc (Jan 21, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Fair play to the NHS as you say
> 
> But if 'The Government'/Matt Hancock were fully in charge, you can bet your life that the vaccination prgrammes would be going as badly as the Track-and-Trace Serco-malarkey


Wasn't there a daily briefing when they rolled out an Army logistics officer?   It was sort of "look, it's OK, we haven't outsourced this to Hermes, the Army are doing the logistics".  If they have got something right at last, Thank fuck.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 21, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> Wasn't there a daily briefing when they rolled out an Army logistics officer?   It was sort of "look, it's OK, we haven't outsourced this to Hermes, the Army are doing the logistics".  If they have got something right at last, Thank fuck.


If the army had taken charge and got something right Johnson would be a bullet-riddled corpse on whitehall


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 21, 2021)

More people have died of the virus than there are soldiers in the army


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

If I remember properly, press conference questions from Laura Kuenssberg at some stage of the first lockdown were one of the reasons I ranted about the media getting lockdown fatigue well before the public did.

Well, here we go again:









						Covid: Politicians reluctant to hint at lockdown end date
					

As each day passes, pressure grows on the government to extend the emergency coronavirus support.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *When? That is what so many of us want to know. When will this start to be over? When will the blanket lockdown lift? When will restrictions start to unroll? *
> It's a question right now that politicians just won't give the answer to.



Oh piss off. When, oh when will the fucking stupid questions end? I asked my arse and it would not give an answer fit to print.

Elsewhere in the article there are some vaguely intreguing teases about how the tories are realising that economic life support is something that they will be stuck with delivering for probably a long time to come.

But there is also a typical lingering misinterpretation of something Johnson said back in the first wave when the first lockdown was finally upon us.



> Boris Johnson promising back in March that we could "turn the tide" in 12 weeks now feels like it was a fantasy promise from another universe.



In fact his turn the tide comments were supposed to provide some indication to the masses of the sort of length of time that was likely to pass before the government would start really pushing a reopening agenda. ie it was the closest they were going to get to telling everyone how long they thought the first lockdown might last. As it turned out their ambitions to reopen some stuff at that point was thwarted, and some other aspects of relaxing/reopening got dragged out some extra weeks, but in other respects the 12 week comments were a reasonable rough guide.

It is fair to say that Johnsons 12 weeks stuff was misleading if people didnt pick up on its primary purpose, especially if they thought that the pandemic would be dealt with in one big initial wave. And plenty of the rhetoric before, during and after the first lockdown was designed to give the impression that subsequent lockdowns were not the plan or the most likely future, whilst quite deliberately refusing to ruling them out if necessary. But the thing about language involving waves and tides is that it does rather have the concept of things repeating on a cycle baked in!


----------



## Wilf (Jan 22, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Edinburgh university is not having face to face teaching for the whole of this academic year
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sensible thing to do. The managerial wankers at my place go on about having a 'nimble approach', so they can 'pivot' towards classroom teaching and back to online depending on government announcements. All of which means there has to be some kind of audit of modules to see that what is being proposed each time meets 'quality thresholds' or, increasingly, idiotic promises made last Summer about on campus teaching. Massive amounts of pissing about and major stresses for staff and students.  It's been obvious since the late Summer that there was never a cat in hells chance of there being anything like a normal teaching year. Universities, individually and collectively, should have made it clear to government and applicants that they were going to be online all year.


----------



## zora (Jan 22, 2021)

Another thing that came out of the Drosten podcast yesterday was that the voices calling for a zero/very low covid strategy are currently getting more serious airtime in Germany. 
Mind you, Devi Shridhar and others here have also increasingly featured in the news recently, it seems to me. 
Just spotted on Twitter that Christina Pagel co-signed a letter in the Lancet that promotes that strategy as European wide-effort.


			https://t.co/coICAEfZJj?amp=1
		






__





						Contain COVID-19
					





					containcovid-pan.eu
				




An ambitious 10 new cases per day per 1 million (!) as the goal.

It is really pretty shit that there are already murmurings from Johnson about restrictions not being significantly lifted before summer, yet without the political will to actually use these six months (plus, god only knows what's going to happen after that) of the current pretty severe shutdown and restrictions to radically bring numbers down. 

I can't really see it in Germany and indeed not as a continental Europe-wide thing either, though certainly in Germany the emergence of the UK variant and its implications seems to have focussed minds a bit...


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 22, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Sensible thing to do. The managerial wankers at my place go on about having a 'nimble approach', so they can 'pivot' towards classroom teaching and back to online depending on government announcements. All of which means there has to be some kind of audit of modules to see that what is being proposed each time meets 'quality thresholds' or, increasingly, idiotic promises made last Summer about on campus teaching. Massive amounts of pissing about and major stresses for staff and students.  It's been obvious since the late Summer that there was never a cat in hells chance of there being anything like a normal teaching year. Universities, individually and collectively, should have made it clear to government and applicants that they were going to be online all year.


Snap, wankers at ours have obviously been reading the same book.


----------



## bimble (Jan 22, 2021)

This is just terrible. Thread, containing letter signed by hundreds of the refugees / prisoners being held in impossible conditions, zero chance of socially distancing whilst the virus sweeps through the camp. Priti didn’t  mention this side project of hers on the tv I presume.












						Home Office resists calls to shut down Napier Barracks despite COVID outbreak
					

There have been calls to shut down the Folkestone facility due to an "entirely predictable" coronavirus crisis




					www.kentlive.news


----------



## TopCat (Jan 22, 2021)

bimble said:


> This is just terrible. Thread, containing letter signed by hundreds of the refugees / prisoners being held in impossible conditions, zero chance of socially distancing whilst the virus sweeps through the camp. Priti didn’t  mention this side project of hers on the tv I presume.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Poor people.


----------



## Edie (Jan 22, 2021)

Union stops firefighters from helping in covid effort: Union stopped firefighters helping with Covid effort, say inspectors 

Stopped from helping at covid vaccination centres, from assisting with track & trace, and from helping deliver food to people shielding.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> Union stops firefighters from helping in covid effort: Union stopped firefighters helping with Covid effort, say inspectors
> 
> Stopped from helping at covid vaccination centres, from assisting with track & trace, and from helping deliver food to people shielding.


The inspectors are whinging about having to stick to negotiated agreements. Plus making disgraceful attacks on the fire fighters. 

I will always side with the FBU over issues like this.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> Union stops firefighters from helping in covid effort: Union stopped firefighters helping with Covid effort, say inspectors
> 
> Stopped from helping at covid vaccination centres, from assisting with track & trace, and from helping deliver food to people shielding.



Those pesky unions. If only they could live up to the high standards set by her majesty's inspectorate of constabulary.


----------



## Edie (Jan 22, 2021)

TopCat said:


> The inspectors are whinging about having to stick to negotiated agreements. Plus making disgraceful attacks on the fire fighters.
> 
> I will always side with the FBU over issues like this.


At a time of national crisis, to stick to negotiated agreements and refuse to help is a disgrace. We’ve been busting a fucking gut in the NHS.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> At a time of national crisis, to stick to negotiated agreements and refuse to help is a disgrace. We’ve been busting a fucking gut in the NHS.



At a time of national crisis, it's redundant to keep saying 'in a time of crisis'. It's also a fucking insult to accuse firefighters of 'refusing to help'.

This is the same shit tories were throwing at the teaching unions a fortnight ago. It was bullshit then and it's bullshit now.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 22, 2021)

As long as all fires can be delayed until after the pandemic it makes total sense to redeploy the firefighters to other tasks.


----------



## killer b (Jan 22, 2021)

I think 'making sure there's enough firemen so your house doesn't burn completely to the ground before the nearest team can get to it' isn't quite the same thing as 'refusing to help in a national emergency'


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> Union stops firefighters from helping in covid effort: Union stopped firefighters helping with Covid effort, say inspectors
> 
> Stopped from helping at covid vaccination centres, from assisting with track & trace, and from helping deliver food to people shielding.


Yeah, they (the inspectors) can fuck right off with that.

It’s the teachers fault. It’s the firefighters fault. It’s our fault. Etc etc.

Anyone’s fault but the fucking scumbag tory government themselves.

Get to fuck.


----------



## maomao (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> At a time of national crisis, to stick to negotiated agreements and refuse to help is a disgrace. We’ve been busting a fucking gut in the NHS.


Using a time of national crisis as an excuse to repeatedly attack unions for political gain is the disgrace.


----------



## mauvais (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> At a time of national crisis, to stick to negotiated agreements and refuse to help is a disgrace. We’ve been busting a fucking gut in the NHS.


They will do this to you in some form before very long, if by some unlikely chance it's not already happening.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 22, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> As long as all fires can be delayed until after the pandemic it makes total sense to redeploy the firefighters to other tasks.



And there is a crippling national shortage of people sat around with not enough to do.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> At a time of national crisis, to stick to negotiated agreements and refuse to help is a disgrace. We’ve been busting a fucking gut in the NHS.


Classic race to the bottom


----------



## eoin_k (Jan 22, 2021)

Meanwhile, the party in government has discreetly amended legislation to allow for an NHS sell off Edie.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 22, 2021)

Johnson doing press conference at 5pm. Anyone like to speculate what shite he will spout?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 22, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Johnson doing press conference at 5pm. Anyone like to speculate what shite he will spout?


 
He's going to admit he's totally fucked it up and quit with immediate effect.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 22, 2021)

Or something about vigilance and people drinking coffee in the park.


----------



## tommers (Jan 22, 2021)

It'll be tightening stuff up. Like Scotland did last week.


----------



## nagapie (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> At a time of national crisis, to stick to negotiated agreements and refuse to help is a disgrace. We’ve been busting a fucking gut in the NHS.


Jesus, surely you don't actually believe that interpretation?


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 22, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Johnson doing press conference at 5pm. Anyone like to speculate what shite he will spout?


At the end of it we won’t know either, so speculation is all we’ve got.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> At a time of national crisis, to stick to negotiated agreements and refuse to help is a disgrace. We’ve been busting a fucking gut in the NHS.


If more unions had taken the line of the FBU then workers would be in a much better situation than they are now.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> Union stops firefighters from helping in covid effort: Union stopped firefighters helping with Covid effort, say inspectors
> 
> Stopped from helping at covid vaccination centres, from assisting with track & trace, and from helping deliver food to people shielding.


I know which version I believe.









						FBU responds to “political and biased” HMICFRS report
					

Inspectorate doing bidding of government and fire chiefs to attack firefighters, FBU says.




					www.fbu.org.uk


----------



## killer b (Jan 22, 2021)

That's a terrible article for the guardian to write btw, and a timely reminder that they aren't on our side.


----------



## LDC (Jan 22, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> At the end of it we won’t know either, so speculation is all we’ve got.



Can you imagine the conversations between him and Priti Patel? It'd be some kind of sense vortex.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 22, 2021)

tommers said:


> It'll be tightening stuff up. Like Scotland did last week.


No outdoor drinking! Hatches only service for dirty chicken! All sausage will be flat!


----------



## TopCat (Jan 22, 2021)

killer b said:


> That's a terrible article for the guardian to write btw, and a timely reminder that they aren't on our side.


They hate and fear the working class.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 22, 2021)

TopCat said:


> All sausage will be flat!


The rest of the world will catch up eventually.


----------



## mystic pyjamas (Jan 22, 2021)

I suspect the clown will tell us how generous he is giving people a £500 incentive bonus for keeping in line with the covid isolation rules.
He usually only takes the podium/lecturn ? when he has some meat to throw to the masses.
Bread and circuses.


----------



## maomao (Jan 22, 2021)

I'm not saying it's a bad idea but if I was 20 again and they were giving away 500 nicker to anyone who got Covid I'd be doing my best to get it.


----------



## emanymton (Jan 22, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm not saying it's a bad idea but if I was 20 again and they were giving away 500 nicker to anyone who got Covid I'd be doing my best to get it.


Also people are not just worried about losing income while they isolate they are also worried about losing their job or not getting work after they isolate, or just generally being pressured to keep working. I don't think giving people £500 will make much difference.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 22, 2021)

I'd suggest lots of spread is before the positive test result.


----------



## LDC (Jan 22, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> I'd suggest lots of spread is before the positive test result.




Yeah, anecdotally a load of people seem confused about the bit between having symptoms and before you get a positive test, and think it's OK until that happens to do whatever. The local school has had a problem with kids coming in while waiting test results.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 22, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Also people are not just worried about losing income while they isolate they are also worried about losing their job or not getting work after they isolate, or just generally being pressured to keep working. I don't think giving people £500 will make much difference.



Agreed. They're trying to fix a leaking reservoir by pissing in it. 

What else is there to do though? Even if they got it through their nasty little skulls that running down secure employment has been a disaster for both working people and the economy, it would take years to even start making meaningful changes. And of course all their ideology, all their thinking, all their financial backing is pulling in exactly the opposite direction.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Johnson doing press conference at 5pm. Anyone like to speculate what shite he will spout?



I'll wait for the ONS infection survey to come out before having a guess at todays press conference themes.


----------



## emanymton (Jan 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, anecdotally a load of people seem confused about the bit between having symptoms and before you get a positive test, and think it's OK until that happens to do whatever. The local school has had a problem with kids coming in while waiting test results.


Seriously? When I had a cold and had to get tested I still only went out to go to the test centre even though I was 90% sure it was just a cold.


----------



## emanymton (Jan 22, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Agreed. They're trying to fix a leaking reservoir by pissing in it.
> 
> What else is there to do though? Even if they got it through their nasty little skulls that running down secure employment has been a disaster for both people and the economy, it would take years to even start making meaningful changes. And of course all their ideology, all their thinking, all their financial backing is pulling in exactly the opposite direction.


I don't think it will happen anyway. Remember in the summer when we were all meant to get £500 and we ended up with eat out to help out.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 22, 2021)

The 500 quid is as close as we’ll get to UBI under this shower of cunts so it’s fine even if it doesn’t  fix anything


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 22, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Johnson doing press conference at 5pm. Anyone like to speculate what shite he will spout?



R isn't coming down quickly enough because of the new variant
Everyone must keep to the rules so we don't have to introduce new restrictions (new restrictions will be announced on Monday)
Vaccine rollout success, 2 million in the last week, sunlit uplands etc


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

emanymton said:


> I don't think it will happen anyway. Remember in the summer when we were all meant to get £500 and we ended up with eat out to help out.



Yeah there is this stuff around in the news this morning, after all the newspaper front pages covering the £500 idea:



> *Government sources have firmly downplayed the idea of a universal £500 Covid payment for people in England required to self-isolate.*
> It is among the suggestions in a leaked document from the Department of Health.
> There are fears the current financial support is not working because low paid workers cannot afford to self-isolate.
> But a senior government source cast doubt on the idea, saying it had been drawn up by officials and had not been considered by the prime minister.











						Covid-19: No plans for universal £500 self-isolation payment, No 10 says
					

A £500 payment is already available for those on low incomes who cannot work from home, No 10 says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## emanymton (Jan 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yeah there is this stuff around in the news this morning, after all the newspaper front pages covering the £500 idea:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is in the Guardian article from yesterday. 


A second option is paying the lump sum to those who test positive and cannot work from home, costing up to £244m a week. The third option is paying those earning less than £26,495 a year or on means-tested benefits, at a cost of £122m a week. The fourth proposal is keeping the current system but “significantly” expanding the discretionary funding to councils.

I'll be surprised if we even get option 3.








						Ministers consider paying £500 to everyone with Covid in England
					

Exclusive: universal payment is ‘preferred position’ of DHSC in effort to help people self-isolate




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> I know which version I believe.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Also the earlier part of the story of whats happened there is important:









						Fire service bosses pull out of Covid-19 agreement
					

Fire chiefs and employers attempting to water down vital covid-19 safety measures Fire Brigades Union says firefighters and public being put at risk and calls for talks to resume TUC says by turning their backs on agreement, fire




					www.fbu.org.uk
				




Its a complete disgrace that a sensible system of testing was reneged on. I believe that on a local level there are examples of both sides coming to terms, mostly by maintaining the testing system.



> Some fire services have reached agreements with local branches of the union instead so that they can volunteer for the vaccination effort.
> Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service said it had begun testing its staff twice a week and those giving vaccinations had also received them first.











						Covid: Fire Brigades Union safety demands 'unworkable', says report
					

A report criticises the union after it told its members not to volunteer due to safety concerns.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




As for that headline, a lot of sensible measures that should have been the bare minimum standard in this pandemic were considered unworkable by the establishment. In plenty of cases this is down to their overriding and narrowly considered priority of maintaining staff numbers by eroding the principal of self-isolation. With positive tests seen as an inconvenience that can be overcome by not doing routine testing. Disgusting.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Also the earlier part of the story of whats happened there is important:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I deeply hate the fucking Guardian.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

Various news articles about the ONS infection survey are appearing but to start with I'll just pluck a few quotes and graphs out of the report.

I dont think the falls are good enough and they give clues about what level of death we may get stuck with for ages. But I'm also aware that things like ZOE show a more impressive decline in some areas so as usual I'll be left waiting for subsequent weeks reports before forming firmer conclusions.






						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

Percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) in private residential households in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, including regional and age breakdowns.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				






> In England, the percentage of people testing positive for the coronavirus (COVID-19) remained high but decreased slightly in the week ending 16 January 2021; we estimate that 1,023,700 people (95% credible interval: 978,900 to 1,070,000) within the community population in England had COVID-19, equating to around 1 in 55 people (95% credible interval: 1 in 55 to 1 in 50).
> During the week ending 16 January 2021, London had the highest percentage of people testing positive; we estimate that 2.89% of people in London had COVID-19 (95% credible interval: 2.68% to 3.11%), equating to around 1 in 35 people (95% credible interval: 1 in 35 to 1 in 30).







I am especially unimpressed by the South East not declining much. I'm starting to graph deaths by region and last time I looked the South East was contributing massively to that, with peak levels similar to those seen in the London region int he first wave. But my graphs on that arent ready to share yet.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 22, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> I deeply hate the fucking Guardian.



I deeply hate that Guardian _article _-- agreed, it was shit.

I'm glad you posted the FBU article though -- superb and clear explanations.


----------



## killer b (Jan 22, 2021)

the guardian defender has logged on


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

Provisional graph to go with my comment in previous post about levels of death in the South East (pink line on this graph) resembling levels seen by this measure at the peak of the first wave in London. Covid-19 deaths per English region, by date of death where a positive test happened within 28 days of the death. Smoothed by using 7 day averages. The most recent data is woefully incomplete so I chopped that part off the graph altogether. And some of the more recent figures that are still visible in the graph are subject to possible further increases in future, so any recent decreases should not be treated as resembling the actual reality yet.


----------



## mauvais (Jan 22, 2021)

#notallgraunarticles


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 22, 2021)

Speaking of Graun articles have we had this yet: Foreign NHS workers could be denied Covid vaccine in England

Absolutely gross if true (yet again), not to mention fucking stupid given the transmission risks involved (again yet again).


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 22, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm not saying it's a bad idea but if I was 20 again and they were giving away 500 nicker to anyone who got Covid I'd be doing my best to get it.



A lot of people are in a position where they've no work either way and 500 quid would mean the difference between survival and ruin. At the very least there would be people getting their covid-positive mate to send off a test with their name on it.

And who could really blame them? 500 quid is half what some Deloitte *c*ons*u*lta*nt* pulls down in a single day 'working' on a project which has failed so spectacularly that a whole-number percentage of the population is currently infected with covid and a huge chunk of them are wondering how they're going to pay rent and feed their kids.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 22, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Speaking of Graun articles have we had this yet: Foreign NHS workers could be denied Covid vaccine in England
> 
> Absolutely gross if true (yet again), not to mention fucking stupid given the transmission risks involved (again yet again).



Reading the entire article it sounds like an admin fuckup in one hospital, in violation of NHS and Government policy and guidance. Probably worth reporting on but the headline is a massive stretch.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 22, 2021)

Peston saying Johnson's 5pm press conference today will mention the new strain possibly being slightly more lethal (x1.3):


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

The first 22 mins of this weeks indie SAGE video should be helpful for anyone who is confused by some detail regarding differences between the rate of drop of cases we've seen in daily testing data, compared to less impressive decreases seen in some ONS infection survey, REACT-1 interim round 8 reporting etc. They use percentage positivity data to show another side of the daily testing regime, and how that actually lines up reasonably well by whats been shown in the latest ONS study.

As well as various data in regards to how strong lockdown is this time. And an update on hospital admissions etc.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 22, 2021)

Today's reported figures:

New cases - 40,261, back over 40k & highest so far this week, but not by a lot.

News deaths - 1,401, up by 121 from last Friday's 1,280. This adds around 17 to the 7-day average daily figure, taking it from 1,224 yesterday to 1,231 today.   

A record 409,855 first dose of vaccine given yesterday.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Peston saying Johnson's 5pm press conference today will mention the new strain possibly being slightly more lethal (x1.3):




Shall I use this to get my hopes up that they might think of tightening this lockdown, which appears to be too loose to bring the numbers down sharply enough for my liking? Maybe, but the track record of this government squandering such opportunities is too hideous for me to suddenly find much faith. But I'll go as far as maybe.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

My usual colour-coded graph of UK deaths by date of death, within 28 days of a positive test. I badly need to take a few days off from doing this graph as its getting to me, but since Sunday and Mondays figures will be low for the usual weekend reporting reasons, I will simply take that opportunity to not do it for a few days. Whether I bother to do one tomorrow depends on whether tomorrows data changes our impression of it starting to look like a plateau etc.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 22, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm not saying it's a bad idea but if I was 20 again and they were giving away 500 nicker to anyone who got Covid I'd be doing my best to get it.


Just get a test and swab a positive mate.


----------



## Edie (Jan 22, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> I deeply hate the fucking Guardian.


what do you read out of interest? I 50:50 guardian and bbcnews.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 22, 2021)

Anyone with any direct experience (giving/receiving) of the vaccine able to respond to this sort of stuff being seen on SM?

Have to say I'd have expected there was some sort of leaflet for the oldies getting jabbed.


----------



## maomao (Jan 22, 2021)

TopCat said:


> Just get a test and swab a positive mate.


Nah. Catch covid, test positive and spend a couple of days charging twenty quid a swab.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 22, 2021)

Here we go its Boris time.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 22, 2021)

New variant more deadly.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 22, 2021)

Kent variant could be associated with higher deaths.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 22, 2021)

1401 deaths


----------



## LDC (Jan 22, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Anyone with any direct experience (giving/receiving) of the vaccine able to respond to this sort of stuff being seen on SM?
> 
> Have to say I'd have expected there was some sort of leaflet for the oldies getting jabbed.
> 
> View attachment 250550



That's a bit hard to believe tbh. Had mine, and I know a few people who've had theirs (all of us at different places) and we've all had that kind of stuff explained to us. I'm also about to start giving them at a GP hub and we have lots of info (paper and to tell) for people. Also not sure that's anything to do with the government, it'd be a local failure by the people giving the vaccine. It could happen though... tired HCP, run out of leaflets, end of the day, etc etc.

Best discuss this on vaccine thread though.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 22, 2021)

TopCat said:


> New variant more deadly.


Tory backbenchers: _open the pubs!_


----------



## brogdale (Jan 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's a bit hard to believe tbh. Had mine, and I know a few people who've had theirs (all of us at different places) and we've all had that kind of stuff explained to us. I'm also about to start giving them at a GP hub and we have lots of info (paper and to tell) for people. Also not sure that's anything to do wityh the government, it'd be a local failure by the people giving the vaccine. It could happen though... tired HCP, run out of leaflets, end of the day, etc etc.
> 
> Best discuss this on vaccine thread though.


That's relatively reassuring; thanks.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's a bit hard to believe tbh. Had mine, and I know a few people who've had theirs (all of us at different places) and we've all had that kind of stuff explained to us. I'm also about to start giving them at a GP hub and we have lots of info (paper and to tell) for people. Also not sure that's anything to do with the government, it'd be a local failure by the people giving the vaccine. It could happen though... tired HCP, run out of leaflets, end of the day, etc etc.
> 
> Best discuss this on vaccine thread though.


I had it today and have posted on the vaccine thread brogdale . Happy to answer about it. Tag me.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 22, 2021)

Edie said:


> what do you read out of interest? I 50:50 guardian and bbcnews.


I don’t subscribe to a particular newspaper.  I just read my newsfeeds (Apple News and Feedly) in the knowledge that news corporations all have an agenda.  The trick is to make allowances for that.


----------



## LDC (Jan 22, 2021)

Vallance on new UK variant:

30-70% more transmissible.
No difference in terms of age distribution.
Some evidence of increased mortality.
Increased evidence vaccines work on new variants.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Vallance on new variant:
> 
> 30-70% more transmissible.
> No difference in terms of age distribution.
> ...


Last bit = only good news today...but, if true, that's really good news.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 22, 2021)

Good question Tracy


----------



## LDC (Jan 22, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Last bit = only good news today...but, if true, that's really good news.



Except the concern over SA and Brazil variants with the vaccine.


----------



## LDC (Jan 22, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Good question Tracy



And good answer by Whitty, the vaccine schedule makes sense.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Except the concern over SA and Brazil variants with the vaccine.


Yep...any   ---->  with cunty covid.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And good answer by Whitty, the vaccine schedule makes sense.


But without numbers.


----------



## Numbers (Jan 22, 2021)




----------



## LDC (Jan 22, 2021)

Fuck though, bad news.


----------



## Cid (Jan 22, 2021)

SA and Brazil thing is very not good, obviously depending on how it plays out... But yeah. 

Increasingly tempted by a move eastward, though fuck knows where or how.


----------



## LDC (Jan 22, 2021)

The media are so shit with their questions. I'm half expecting one about Xmas 2021 to come up in a minute....


----------



## MrSki (Jan 22, 2021)

Or why has the UK the worst current death rate in the world.

ETA to ask Johnson how many of the 100 000 plus deaths he thinks are because of his shite response.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 22, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Or why has the UK the worst current death rate in the world.



Well there are so many different factors with so many different countries that it's just not possible to compare them. All we can really say with certainty is that we have the best vaccine performance in the world and world beating treatment.


----------



## zora (Jan 22, 2021)

Ugh, yes, I understand not wanting to set a particular date for coming out of lockdown into stone - but some kind of cornerstones of what sort of incidence is the goal, what sort of a strategy how then to keep it controlled...anything..? Ah, thought not.


----------



## LDC (Jan 22, 2021)

zora said:


> Ugh, yes, I understand not wanting to set a particular date for coming out of lockdown into stone - but some kind of cornerstones of what sort of incidence is the goal, what sort of a strategy how then to keep it controlled...anything..? Ah, thought not.



TBH I think we're nowhere near in a position to start thinking about that in any more details than we have already.

E2A: Plan seems to be lockdown, vaccinate the fuck out of the country, and then see how we go.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The media are so shit with their questions. I'm half expecting one about Xmas 2021 to come up in a minute....



There are always some shit questions but I thought that a bunch of the questions today were the right ones to ask and made things suitably awkward for Johnson, Whitty and Vallance.

I also thought this press conference was illuminating in the way that the bad news about the increased risk of death fromt he new variant rubbed awkwardly against the fact that Johnson had nothing new to say, no new measures to announce, and would try to get through this perio with little more than the ongoing vaccination campaign and the new mantra that we dont want more rules and laws, we want better enforcement of the existing one. With that largely being a blatant attempt to completely dodge the question of too many people going to work in this lockdown.

If this sort of line of questioning continues in future, the government must be pressed on work issues, and related matters such as the numbrr of children still attending school, nurseries still being open etc. Back in the first lockdown the daily nature of the briefings gave a certain rhythm and flow to this side of things, but I dont have the same sense of continuity this time so I dont know what pressures may mount as a result of todays press conference being a display of weakness and unwillingness to go further or even sterongly hint at going further in future.


----------



## elbows (Jan 22, 2021)

brogdale said:


> But without numbers.



Yes the usual tricks, stay away from the percentages that are unhelpful to the government stance. Whitty and Vallance both did this today, with Vallance trying to mutate a question into one of which was the biggest risk, just so he could say that the thing they decided to do with vaccine dose scheduling wasnt the biggest risk.

Whitty is right to say that medicine etc is all about balance of risks. The problem is we get those balancing acts wrong a lot, and this pandemic offered a more intense glimpse of this phenomenon many times already, and those that make those decisions have reasons to fear certain angles of scrutiny.

Plus Whitty would no doubt use the same sort of risk balancing stuff when going on about 'the dangers of acting too early', and I will never in a million years give him a free pass on that stuff despite the obvious logic involved. But I dont think I need to properly repeat my rant about those who hide behind the dangers of going too early again now, given we are in the midst of dealing yet again with the dangers of going much too late.

Another awkward portion of todays press conference was near the end when Johnson was describing why we shouldnt relax measures too quickly. He was describing all sorts of dangerous bounce-backs that we have seen in the past, and how keen he is to avoid them, despite the most recent obvious example being what happened after the weak and short November lockdown was replaced by shit tiers that were so obviously shit that even Labour had the sense not to vote for them in parliament.

Anyway I do hope it isnt just me that thought the awkward juxtaposition of more deadly variant with fuck all new measures was quite the sight to behold, propelling todays press conference in to my list of pandemic press conferences to make note of and refer to in future.

Tune in next week when they decide that in order that the public judge the governments pandemic performance more fairly over time, current rate of daily deaths is to be divided by 1.3 in order to remove the impact of the new variant that isnt their fault. Never mind that one of Vallances answers which was defending the vaccine dose strategy relied on mentioning the fact that allowing really high levels of prevalence of the virus increases the risk of mutants.


----------



## zora (Jan 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH I think we're nowhere near in a position to start thinking about that in any more details than we have already.



On the contrary, I think that should be at the forefront of any considerations: Where do we (does the country) want to/need to get to?, and then how do we get there?
It's the question of the missing strategy again. Of course, case numbers are insanely high right now and we are nowhere near actually releasing anything - but not thinking about it and communicating some kind of road map, especially now that there is actual grudging acknowledment by Johnson that vaccinating the top priority groups does not equal immediate unlockening?
There has been this creep from "back to normal in summer/Christmas/spring" to "well, looks like it's going to take another whole year". And while the former was of course always insanely overoptimistic and nonsense, I do think that the dawning realisation of how careful any loosening of restrictions will need to be for months and months to come, does require a rethink of the whole "strategy".

I don't see any details other than wait and see, and the vaccination goals? I suppose some of this "wait and see" will actually yield some valuable data on effect of vaccination on transmission etc., which might inform future steps.

Sigh. I guess, ultimately, I would just like to see a near-zero covid strategy. I keep getting my hopes up to the contrary of all evidence, and keep ending up frustrated.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 22, 2021)

I had a conf call with some people out in Cupertino today who were telling me all about the Californian variant. We had a laugh about the US feeling left out without a variant of it's own.

But, it's out there New California Variant May Be Driving Virus Surge There, Study Suggests


----------



## brogdale (Jan 22, 2021)

kinnel...


----------



## Elpenor (Jan 22, 2021)

How many of those are essential journeys?


----------



## LDC (Jan 22, 2021)

brogdale said:


> kinnel...




WTF? Is that people leaving or arriving?


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> WTF? Is that people leaving or arriving?


Arriving, that's Border Control.


----------



## Cerv (Jan 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> WTF? Is that people leaving or arriving?


looks like arrivals

they must be releasing people off planes regardless of the backlog there rather than keeping them sat waiting on the tarmac


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 22, 2021)

Just had a look out of curiosity at arrivals at Manchester and Faro airports and there's very few flights.


----------



## Mation (Jan 22, 2021)

brogdale said:


> kinnel...



Not one of Groove Armada's better gigs.


----------



## retribution (Jan 22, 2021)

zora said:


> Ugh, yes, I understand not wanting to set a particular date for coming out of lockdown into stone - but some kind of cornerstones of what sort of incidence is the goal, what sort of a strategy how then to keep it controlled...anything..? Ah, thought not.



I've got to say that when we were in a strict and long lockdown in Melbourne from July, releasing a roadmap that described the conditions we would need to satisfy to reopen at different levels was a huge help. At first it was a shock given the targets that needed to be met, and how far away it seemed. But then it sort of gave everyone something to aim for, a reason to follow the rules in order to reduce the numbers. 
The conditions were all numbers-based rather than date-based, which avoided the"will we be able to do [x] at half-term/Christmas/Easter etc." thing that seems to be happening in the UK. Mind you, we were pursuing a completely different strategy (i.e. elimination) to the UK.


----------



## editor (Jan 22, 2021)

Industrial facepalm implementation needed: 









						Mass vaccination centre closing on Saturday - to allow horse racing to take place
					

SOMERSET’S only mass Covid-19 vaccination centre is closing this weekend - to allow for HORSE RACING to go ahead.




					www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 22, 2021)

editor said:


> Industrial facepalm implementation needed:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Oh for fuck's sake.


----------



## magneze (Jan 22, 2021)

The sport of kings. They're vaccinated so off you fuck plebs.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 22, 2021)

editor said:


> Industrial facepalm implementation needed:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



similar at newbury one day this week


----------



## Elpenor (Jan 22, 2021)

editor said:


> Industrial facepalm implementation needed:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Same as Newbury this week.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 22, 2021)

Matt Hancock’s constituency is Newmarket and he’s received ££££s in donations from the horse racing industry in the past. Naked corruption


----------



## MrSki (Jan 22, 2021)

Dido hiding is chair of the Jockey Club.


----------



## Raheem (Jan 22, 2021)

Yes, pretty much every racecourse in the country seems to be a vaccination centre. I can see why, given how they're always so centrally located, good for public transport and closely connected to the local Tory party.


----------



## Supine (Jan 22, 2021)

If I was running the country and a friend offered me a free racecourse for 24 out of 28 days next month for vaccinations i'd say yes.


----------



## AverageJoe (Jan 23, 2021)

The racecourse will have TV obligations to fulfill to get money that it especially needs as it can't have people in.


----------



## Raheem (Jan 23, 2021)

Supine said:


> If I was running the country and a friend offered me a free racecourse for 24 out of 28 days next month for vaccinations i'd say yes.


Free? I haven't checked, but that seems unlikely.

(Would undermine the whole point, surely?)


----------



## Looby (Jan 23, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Anyone with any direct experience (giving/receiving) of the vaccine able to respond to this sort of stuff being seen on SM?
> 
> Have to say I'd have expected there was some sort of leaflet for the oldies getting jabbed.
> 
> View attachment 250550


I was given a leaflet. I’ll check it in the morning but I’m fairly sure it just talked about the vaccine itself and side effects. 
I wasn’t given any advice about when I would have protection and they couldn’t give me a second Jab appt, apparently I’ll get an invite to book for 10-12 weeks time. 
I got the info when I went to book in but I was called straight away so there was no time to read it.


----------



## Supine (Jan 23, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Free? I haven't checked, but that seems unlikely.



Not sure tbh. Still seems like a good location.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 23, 2021)

editor said:


> Industrial facepalm implementation needed:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I can't see the problem here.



> “From the outset of our discussions with the racecourse, we knew that scheduled race meetings would continue to take place every 10 days to two weeks during the winter months.
> 
> "We have factored that into our planning, including scheduling of vaccination appointments and management of the venue for vaccinations.”
> 
> An NHS spokesman said that, as the impact of race days had been factored into the planning process, the numbers of vaccinations would not fall as a result of the closure.



Having lived in Taunton, I can see the advantages of using the racecourse compared to any other venue available locally, even if the vaccination centre has to close on the occasional day.


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 23, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Arriving, that's Border Control.


lets not forget that just before christmas the rules in the UK were that those whose profession was of a certain type didnt need to be tested in order to travel without any testing requirements. Such as "working on an advertising film production crew" or being a business wanker.
Those professional types travelling to and from the UK are almost certainly to blame for the spread of the "British variant"
Funnily, when the PM was blathering on yesterday about it being more worse x 10 cos it's English "ENGERLAND!!!" a story was released here that said, there is no evidence of this at all. Smitter den britiske variant mindre, end vi troede? SSI-læge forklarer nye beregninger

You are being consistantly lied to. Recognise.


----------



## purenarcotic (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> lets not forget that just before christmas the rules in the UK were that those whose profession was of a certain type didnt need to be tested in order to travel without any testing requirements. Such as "working on an advertising film production crew" or being a business wanker.
> Those professional types travelling to and from the UK are almost certainly to blame for the spread of the "British variant"
> Funnily, when the PM was blathering on yesterday about it being more worse x 10 cos it's English "ENGERLAND!!!" a story was released here that said, there is no evidence of this at all. Smitter den britiske variant mindre, end vi troede? SSI-læge forklarer nye beregninger
> 
> You are being consistantly lied to. Recognise.




I can’t really believe I am making a defence for this shower of shite, but firstly they said ‘we think it is potentially between 30 to 70%’ more infective, so I don’t know where the 74% in that article comes from and they haven’t said it for definite. The scientists in that article then say ‘well actually it could be 20 - 50% more infectious, we need more data’ so I don’t get the point.

Of course we’re being lied to, about all sorts of things, but I dunno what you’re trying to prove with that article and the info given yesterday.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> lets not forget that just before christmas the rules in the UK were that those whose profession was of a certain type didnt need to be tested in order to travel without any testing requirements. Such as "working on an advertising film production crew" or being a business wanker.
> Those professional types travelling to and from the UK are almost certainly to blame for the spread of the "British variant"
> Funnily, when the PM was blathering on yesterday about it being more worse x 10 cos it's English "ENGERLAND!!!" a story was released here that said, there is no evidence of this at all. Smitter den britiske variant mindre, end vi troede? SSI-læge forklarer nye beregninger
> 
> You are being consistantly lied to. Recognise.



We were told during yesterday's press conference that it's been 30 & 70% contagious, so not that far out compared to the 20 & 50% mentioned in that article, especially as it goes on to say, ' *it's a little lower than what we've heard from the UK. We just have to take it with caution, because these numbers are not set in stone. They may well change as we get more data*'.


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 23, 2021)

Yeah maybe Im biased. Cos I am external to that shite, and therefore maybe a bit more objective but those cunts and every fucking idiot that voted for them are still having an effect on my life. And they are being deliberately disingenius. They have no evidence, but are still willing to spread FUD. Fine people for doing people things (not if they are business wankers though cos thats ok, they dont need to get tested). Classist wankers.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> And they are being deliberately disingenius. They have no evidence, but are still willing to spread FUD.



No evidence about what? There's so much conspiracy shite around that "you're being lied to" isn't going to cut it.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 23, 2021)

It's a bit of a pisser/pfizer to get the vaccine after a year of terrible worry only to read conflicting but gloomy reports on its effectiveness.


----------



## purenarcotic (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> Yeah maybe Im biased. Cos I am external to that shite, and therefore maybe a bit more objective but those cunts and every fucking idiot that voted for them are still having an effect on my life. And they are being deliberately disingenius. They have no evidence, but are still willing to spread FUD. Fine people for doing people things (not if they are business wankers though cos thats ok, they dont need to get tested). Classist wankers.



Obviously they’re lying and being disingenuous about huge amounts, but I don’t think your article backs up the idea that we are being lied to about whether this particular strain is more contagious or not. It very much seems to be. 

I’m sorry your life is affected by it in Denmark, try living in the UK under these wankers full time.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 23, 2021)

I do agree that they wanted the blame for cancelling christmas to be all about the variant and not about schools and their insistence on keeping them open and generally resisting stricter measures before christmas.

Btw this is how google translated that article


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> Yeah maybe Im biased. Cos I am external to that shite, and therefore maybe a bit more objective but those cunts and every fucking idiot that voted for them are still having an effect on my life. And they are being deliberately disingenius. They have no evidence, but are still willing to spread FUD. Fine people for doing people things (not if they are business wankers though cos thats ok, they dont need to get tested). Classist wankers.



You're barking up the wrong tree with this, there's the evidence out there, it's not made up 'by the Tories'.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

TopCat said:


> It's a bit of a pisser/pfizer to get the vaccine after a year of terrible worry only to read conflicting but gloomy reports on its effectiveness.



The evidence is OK for it. Especially when people continue to follow measures.


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 23, 2021)

Yeah it’s not a beautiful language. Google does it’s best. Learning it was a task.
It’s not proper naughty though. They need more evidence of that. It’s probably naughty to stand up with manipulated statistics and use those as a reason for the current situation rather than the real reason which was to keep UK plc running. 
which is what Britain is to these truth twisters. A fucking company. 
failure at the beginning of the pandemic sets the scene now.
It doesn’t effect my life per se. other than their behavior now towards Europe may affect my application to stay when it is reviewed in august. And Roger Dawltry is a prick


----------



## TopCat (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The evidence is OK for it. Especially when people continue to follow measures.


I want to hug my mum.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

TopCat said:


> I want to hug my mum.



Yeah it's rubbish, but the vaccine was never going to make that sensible whatever the % of protection was.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jan 23, 2021)

Edie said:


> At a time of national crisis, to stick to negotiated agreements and refuse to help is a disgrace. We’ve been busting a fucking gut in the NHS.


My mate's a fireman and says they've been busting a gut too, but because they're so low on numbers, if even a couple of people are off sick, there's a real danger they wouldn't be able to respond to calls to contain fires.


----------



## bimble (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah it's rubbish, but the vaccine was never going to make that sensible whatever the % of protection was.


Do you have an idea what would have to happen in order for hugging of mums to become once again a sensible thing to do? 
(I’m struggling a lot with the lack of any pointers on the beginning of the end of all this, not any kind of date just an outline of what an acceptable level of risk would actually look like).


----------



## TopCat (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah it's rubbish, but the vaccine was never going to make that sensible whatever the % of protection was.


What, say we both get a second jab it's still no hugs? I know this I just miss her and my kids etc...

I have a letter from Hattmancock saying even when I have been vaccinated (done now) to continue to shield until further notice.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> Do you have an idea what would have to happen in order for hugging of mums to become once again a sensible thing to do?



I'd just follow the guidance as to when that's sensible; which I guess means we're going to need some combination of a massive drop in infection incidence, large % of people vaccinated, etc. Not anytime soon I think.

Personal decisions over risk might not follow that exactly of course.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

TopCat said:


> What, say we both get a second jab it's still no hugs? I know this I just miss her and my kids etc...
> 
> I have a letter from Hattmancock saying even when I have been vaccinated (done now) to continue to shield until further notice.



Yeah, current guidance is vaccination makes no difference to what anyone does with the other measures I'm afraid.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 23, 2021)

Despite being wobbly on my feet today I feel rather pugnacious over this today. Fucks sake.


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 23, 2021)

I concur. Although not wobbly,  Im gonna stop reading British news. Its not relevant to me and I am grateful I don't hav to live it day to day. You have my sympathy. Apologies if i upset anyone. I will blame it on seeing a story about Priti Patel and her boner for making things illegal. It just spiralled from there. 

Fuck UK plc.


----------



## teqniq (Jan 23, 2021)

teqniq said:


> What the fuck is this bullshit? It smacks of a decsion made to make the goevenment look good in terms of the amount of people vaccinated:
> 
> 
> 
> ...












						British Medical Association says 12-week Pfizer vaccine dose gap is ‘difficult to justify’
					

The British Medical Association (BMA) has called on England’s Chief Medical Officer to reduce the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccination, stating that it is "difficult to justify"




					inews.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 23, 2021)

teqniq said:


> British Medical Association says 12-week Pfizer vaccine dose gap is ‘difficult to justify’
> 
> 
> The British Medical Association (BMA) has called on England’s Chief Medical Officer to reduce the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccination, stating that it is "difficult to justify"
> ...




Doesn't even make sense in terms of boosting the total numbers, because obviously banning people from giving the jabs will reduce the total number of jabs. It's demented, spiteful bullshit.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Doesn't even make sense in terms of boosting the total numbers, because obviously banning people from giving the jabs will reduce the total number of jabs. It's demented, spiteful bullshit.



No, it's really not. It's very clear why it's done. It's to get more people vaccinated and so give protection to more of the vulnerable groups. The only alternative is to give a smaller number of people more protection, and in the current situation the decision has been made that is not as effective in protecting more people. That might change, but currently it does make clinical sense.

And of course the BMA are going to argue that, that's their job, to represent the best interests of doctors, not to argue for the best clinical option for the population as a whole. You can't have GP surgeries making their own decisions over this, or the whole thing will be chaotic and unfair and will cause massive rows. People are already moaning about the different speeds areas are vaccinating, can you imagine if the surgery down the road started giving second jabs against advice when some people haven't had their first?


----------



## Mation (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> lets not forget that just before christmas the rules in the UK were that those whose profession was of a certain type didnt need to be tested in order to travel without any testing requirements. Such as "working on an advertising film production crew" or being a business wanker.
> Those professional types travelling to and from the UK are almost certainly to blame for the spread of the "British variant"
> Funnily, when the PM was blathering on yesterday about it being more worse x 10 cos it's English "ENGERLAND!!!" a story was released here that said, there is no evidence of this at all. Smitter den britiske variant mindre, end vi troede? SSI-læge forklarer nye beregninger
> 
> You are being consistantly lied to. Recognise.



I don't know if it's an artefact of the translation, but that article is using infectivity interchangeably with contagiousness, it seems, when the two don't refer to the same thing.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, it's really not. It's very clear why it's done. It's to get more people vaccinated and so give protection to more of the vulnerable groups. The only alternative is to give a smaller number of people more protection, and in the current situation the decision has been made that is not as effective in protecting more people. That might change, but currently it does make clinical sense.
> 
> And of course the BMA are going to argue that, that's their job, to represent the best interests of doctors, not to argue for the best clinical option for the population as a whole. You can't have GP surgeries making their own decisions over this, or the whole thing will be chaotic and unfair and will cause massive rows. People are already moaning about the different speeds areas are vaccinating, can you imagine if the surgery down the road started giving second jabs against advice when some people haven't had their first?



But the article mentions doctors being investigated for giving a handful of second jabs when the alternative was letting them go to waste. That has nothing to do with public health strategy.

E2a: and any doctor giving second doses is just following the evidence-based protocol for the vaccine. That is what doctors are supposed to do. They should not have to defer to political decisions that require them to go against the principles of evidence-based practice.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 23, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> But the article mentions doctors being investigated for giving a handful of second jabs when the alternative was letting them go to waste. That has nothing to do with public health strategy.



No it doesn’t, it mentions doctors being investigated for giving second doses. The bit about doses going to waste was a rumour. Even if true it should be investigated because there’s no reason with proper planning that leftover Pfizer doses can’t be administered to people who haven’t had their first dose yet.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 23, 2021)

teqniq said:


> British Medical Association says 12-week Pfizer vaccine dose gap is ‘difficult to justify’
> 
> 
> The British Medical Association (BMA) has called on England’s Chief Medical Officer to reduce the gap between the first and second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccination, stating that it is "difficult to justify"
> ...



What the government are doing with the vaccines is trying to reduce the number of people dying in the current wave of the virus as far as possible.

What the government aren't doing is trying to make as many people as possible as immune as possible during the current wave of the virus. 

They haven't been completely transparent about this. All the talk of the vaccine as saviour isn't going to happen until the second doses are done, which under the current plan isn't going to start happening until the spring. That's probably why talk of things being better by the spring is morphing into talk of things being better in the summer.

From the vaccine manufacturers, the WHO and the BMA's point of view the vaccines are to give people immunity to Covid. This is what has been tested for and what will make the big difference in being able to reopen society. The government have come up with another plan and aren't using the vaccine as intended at the moment. That's where the criticism of their plan is coming from. They've calculated that by giving twice as many people a partial dose, they'll save thousands of lives in the short term. Their calculation is that delaying the second dose won't make a difference to its effectiveness. That's a reasonable assumption, but not backed by scientific evidence. It's a bit of a roll of the dice. Hopefully it'll work, otherwise the UK will be fucked for a long time to come.

The other problem, besides whether the vaccine will be as effective with the second dose delayed to the limit of its known effectiveness, is ensuring people get their second dose as soon as possible around the 12 week mark. One potential problem is supply - will the government be able to secure all those second doses after giving the confirmed supply out as first doses? The other is knowing exactly who is due their second dose when. With the rush to vaccinate people - people being given a jab when they take their parents, doctors calling round as they've got some spare, the pizza delivery driver being given a shot when he turns up with food for the vaccination staff - will the record keeping be accurate enough to know when people are due their second dose?

Wanting to save lives isn't a bad objective, but the government's plan does build risks into the program that could come back to bite us all. Fingers crossed all round?


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 23, 2021)

But its not being run from the perspective of saving lives. It’s been engineered from the perspective of making them look good. on that front it seems to be failing. Agree?


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> E2a: and any doctor giving second doses is just following the evidence-based protocol for the vaccine. That is what doctors are supposed to do. They should not have to defer to political decisions that require them to go against the principles of evidence-based practice.



No, that's not true. And it's not a political decision, it is a JCVI recommendation based on the evidence for mass population protection not individual protection.

Giving people second doses at a shorter interval means a longer delay for some vulnerable people getting any protection.


----------



## killer b (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> But its not being run from the perspective of saving lives. It’s been engineered from the perspective of making them look good. on that front it seems to be failing. Agree?


What does this mean


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 23, 2021)

Spandex said:


> That's a reasonable assumption, but not backed by scientific evidence. It's a bit of a roll of the dice. Hopefully it'll work, otherwise the UK will be fucked for a long time to come.



I wouldn't say it's not backed by scientific evidence, there's plenty of evidence about vaccines and the immune system that provides a sound basis on which to enact this policy. Sure there haven't been specific clinical trials on this specific dose regimen yet, but then that's to be expected given the timelines. We didn't do specific trials on 90+ year olds either, or on people in care homes, that doesn't mean it's not the right decision to vaccinate those people.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Their calculation is that delaying the second dose won't make a difference to its effectiveness. That's a reasonable assumption, but not backed by scientific evidence.



Not strictly true, there is some data to back the decision up. But yes, it is a calculated gamble, one I think the evidence shows is the right one currently.


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 23, 2021)

fucking around with the time between vaccines. Claiming that Brexit is the reason that the vaccine was available first anywhere in the world because they threw out that ghastly EU. Its all self serving media manipulation and the long game is they will attempt to look like saviours. 

I dont know why they just dont go the whole hog and make Corona illegal.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

I do think some people are getting a bit mixed up with their understandable lack of trust and fair anger at the government not letting them see _anything_ that happens as the right decision tbh.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> But its not being run from the perspective of saving lives. It’s been engineered from the perspective of making them look good. on that front it seems to be failing. Agree?



As I said earlier, how does administering single doses make them look good? That is a conspiracy theory that makes no sense. If they had used the original dose interval they could have looked just as good on the metric of total doses adminstered.


----------



## prunus (Jan 23, 2021)

Spandex said:


> What the government are doing with the vaccines is trying to reduce the number of people dying in the current wave of the virus as far as possible.
> 
> What the government aren't doing is trying to make as many people as possible as immune as possible during the current wave of the virus.
> 
> ...



Actually what I think the government is doing is trying to reduce the number of people who become sick enough to have to be in hospital at the same time, as far as possible.  This should and most probably is coincident with reducing the number of deaths - as presumably if  you're not ill enough to have to be hospitalised you're not ill enough to die (but see below) - but the actual aim, the utility function to be maximised, is (I suspect) concurrent hospitalisations.   The give as many people at least some protection approach should acheive this (the very simple rule of thumb that I think has been explicitly stated by at least some people is that if the protection given by 1 dose >= 1/2 the protection given by 2 doses then the 1 dose approach reduces incidence).

Some thoughts (just my own): there are some assumptions in this of course - one is that reduction in incidence by vaccine is directly proportional 1:1 to reduction in hospitalisations (if for instance the people who were going to get it severely anyway are less protection by the vaccine, by the common factor that their immune response to this pathogen is weak for some reason, then you wouldn't see that same proportional reduction in hospitalisations as cases); another that partial protection doesn't have the effect of lengthening the course of severe disease in hospitalised patients, eg by making them able to fight it more effectively with partial protection you might have people who would have died in 3 weeks now taking 6 weeks to die - or even (and this is where the hospitalisations/deaths aims diverge) someone who would have died in 3 weeks now surviving, but taking 6 weeks to do so.  The latter in particular would be problematical, but it may not be any more problematical with one dose than 2.  

I assume and hope that these things are all being thought about, assessed and where possible tested with the data by people more clued up than me in coming up with the current plan.


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 23, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> As I said earlier, how does administering single doses make them look good? That is a conspiracy theory that makes no sense. If they had used the original dose interval they could have looked just as good on the metric of total doses adminstered.


Cos then, they get to be top of the tables. "We have vaccinated more people than anyone in the world."


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

I think you're a bit on the wrong path with this Boris Sprinkler - you read like you're (understandably) fuming, and what you're saying is not making any reasoned points.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> Cos then, they get to be top of the tables. "We have vaccinated more people than anyone in the world."



That's more because the UK was before the EU in approving vaccines, and getting started, the EU still hasn't approved the Oxford vaccine, and now they will be facing delays on supply of it, when they get around to approving it, due on 29th Jan.



> AstraZeneca will cut deliveries of the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine to the European Union by 60% in the first quarter of the year, according to Reuters news agency.
> 
> The company was expected to deliver around 80 million doses to the 27 EU countries by the end of March, an EU official told the agency.
> 
> ...











						COVID-19: AstraZeneca to 'cut COVID-19 vaccine delivery to EU by 60%'
					

The EU regulator is due to decide on approval of AstraZeneca's vaccine on 29 January, with a deal to purchase at least 300m doses.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 23, 2021)




----------



## zahir (Jan 23, 2021)

Doctors call for shorter gap between Pfizer Covid vaccine doses in UK
					

British Medical Council warns current 12-week wait could reduce effectiveness of the jab




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

Yes, some people disagree, it's not a right or wrong decision and there's arguments both ways. It's a decision that's been taken after weighing up the evidence and extrapolating from other data and knowledge, and hopefully it's the correct choice to protect more people.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

I bet half the people now arguing it's wrong would be arguing the other way and we needed to protect more people with longer gaps if the government had stuck rigidly to the shorter gap between doses tbh.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, it's really not. It's very clear why it's done. It's to get more people vaccinated and so give protection to more of the vulnerable groups. The only alternative is to give a smaller number of people more protection, and in the current situation the decision has been made that is not as effective in protecting more people. That might change, but currently it does make clinical sense.
> 
> And of course the BMA are going to argue that, that's their job, to represent the best interests of doctors, not to argue for the best clinical option for the population as a whole. You can't have GP surgeries making their own decisions over this, or the whole thing will be chaotic and unfair and will cause massive rows. People are already moaning about the different speeds areas are vaccinating, can you imagine if the surgery down the road started giving second jabs against advice when some people haven't had their first?



I dont understand your point about whats in doctors best interests at all. 

I agree with the BMAs concerns such as:



> "The absence of any international support for the UK's approach is a cause of deep concern and risks undermining public and the profession's trust in the vaccination programme," the letter said.



And I also note WHOs recommendations, whats the excuse for ignoring these?





__





						Interim recommendations for use of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, BNT162b2, under Emergency Use Listing
					

Publicaciones de la Organización Mundial de la Salud




					www.who.int
				






> WHO acknowledges that a number of countries face exceptional circumstances of vaccine supply constraints combined with a high disease burden. Some countries have therefore considered delaying the administration of the second dose to allow for a higher initial coverage. This is based on the observation that efficacy has been shown to start from day 12 after the first dose and reached about 89% between days 14 and 21, at the time when the second dose was given. No data on longer term efficacy for a single dose of the mRNA vaccine BNT162b2 currently exist, as the trial participants received 2 doses with an interval between doses in the trial ranging from 19 to 42 days. Of note, neutralizing antibody responses are modest after the first dose and increase substantially after the second dose.





> Countries experiencing exceptional epidemiological circumstances may consider delaying for a short period the administration of the second dose as a pragmatic approach to maximizing the number of individuals benefiting from a first dose while vaccine supply continues to increase. WHO’s recommendation at present is that the interval between doses may be extended up to 42 days (6 weeks), on the basis of currently available clinical trial data. Should additional data become available on longer intervals between doses, revision of this recommendation will be considered. Countries should ensure that any such programme adjustments to dose intervals do not affect the likelihood of receiving the second dose.


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 23, 2021)

Greater Manchester  Police taking no prisoners here 









						Estate slapped with dispersal order after police discover 'outdoor party' plans
					

Officers have warned residents not to ignore coronavirus rules.




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## teqniq (Jan 23, 2021)

Vaccintating already seems somewhat patchy. My mum has had both the Pfizer vaccines within the two week period as recommended by the manufacturer (she lives in Hampshire which has done better than other areas in terms of vaccinations) meanwhile in Israel:









						Covid-19: Reports from Israel suggest one dose of Pfizer vaccine could be less effective than expected
					

Concerns have been raised over how much protection a single dose of the Pfizer BioNTech covid-19 vaccine provides, following reports from Israel that it is much lower than expected.  Israel, which, like the UK, is currently in its third national lockdown, has so far vaccinated more than 75% of...




					www.bmj.com
				




Which does not bode well for delaying the second jab for 12 weeks.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I bet half the people now arguing it's wrong would be arguing the other way and we needed to protect more people with longer gaps if the government had stuck rigidly to the shorter gap between doses tbh.



What a pathetic smear.

Whats the point in doing trials of how well specific vaccines work if we are just going to ignore the findings and come up with our own plan that is not backed by evidence?


----------



## maomao (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> Cos then, they get to be top of the tables. "We have vaccinated more people than anyone in the world."


They'll call whatever they do 'world beating' because they're fundamentally dishonest about everything but I think the vaccine plan has pretty major scientific support.


----------



## Mation (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I bet half the people now arguing it's wrong would be arguing the other way and we needed to protect more people with longer gaps if the government had stuck rigidly to the shorter gap between doses tbh.


I doubt it, given that the argument for the shorter gap is that that's what was tested and what we have evidence for.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> And I also note WHOs recommendations, whats the excuse for ignoring these?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Again, the WHO are citing the absence of clinical trial data, but this is not an absence of evidence. As I said, there weren’t clinical trials on 90+ year olds, or people who were extremely clinically vulnerable, but a decision was taken to vaccinate these groups on the evidence available, including how other vaccines are tolerated by these groups.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

These disgusting attempts to distort scientific principals have been noted.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

My own stance remains that maybe they will get away with their chosen approach without serious consequences, maybe they wont. What is completely and utterly understandable to me is the unease and concern about this stuff. There are valid scientific reasons for concern. And so you wont find me smearing that stance in a pathetic attempt to side with the UK establishment by default on this one.


----------



## Flavour (Jan 23, 2021)

Funny how covid has turned some anarchists into defenders of the government innit


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> These disgusting attempts to distort scientific principals have been noted.



It's not distorting scientific principles at all - it's using scientific understanding to mitigate the lack of specific clinical trial data to deliver the best outcomes for patients. Clinicians do it every day: https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/patient-guide/leaflets/files/12048Punlicensed.pdf


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

Yeah, thinking that on balance it's currently a reasonable recommendation by the JCVI etc. _definitely _runs counter to being an anarchist.


----------



## Yossarian (Jan 23, 2021)

It definitely takes world-beating levels of arrogance for the leaders whose strategy led to the highest death rate in the world and the spawning of a new COVID variant to decide to ignore scientific advice and press ahead with their own untested plan.


----------



## killer b (Jan 23, 2021)

Flavour said:


> Funny how covid has turned some anarchists into defenders of the government innit


don't be silly


----------



## Supine (Jan 23, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> It definitely takes world-beating levels of arrogance for the leaders whose strategy led to the highest death rate in the world and the spawning of a new COVID variant to decide to ignore scientific advice and press ahead with their own untested plan.



Own untested plan? It was scientific advice that made the plan...


----------



## BlanketAddict (Jan 23, 2021)

What a kerfuffle.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> It definitely takes world-beating levels of arrogance for the leaders whose strategy led to the highest death rate in the world and the spawning of a new COVID variant to decide to ignore scientific advice and press ahead with their own untested plan.



It was a decision taken on scientific advice. Anyway this is a pointless discussion now, I'm out.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 23, 2021)

Registered HCPs would be in dodgy ground giving these shots in a way they are not licenced to be given surely.
Do those that have had sign a waiver?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 23, 2021)

We rightly rounded on the government when they ignored the scientific advice from SAGE about locking down earlier, yet some are now rounding on them for accepting the scientific advice from JCVI.

But, well, this is urban.


----------



## killer b (Jan 23, 2021)

It's reasonable to have concerns about the government's approach to vaccination timings, just like it's reasonable to conclude that on the balance, considering where we are, it's a reasonable approach to take. Chill out guys.


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It was a decision taken on scientific advice. Anyway this is a pointless discussion now, I'm out.


Why is it a pointless discussion now?


----------



## editor (Jan 23, 2021)

BMJ opinion piece:









						Revisiting the UK’s strategy for delaying the second dose of the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine  - The BMJ
					

Neutralising antibody immunity likely to fall with delayed dose, say these authors There is ongoing debate about the UK government’s decision to delay the second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine [...]More...




					blogs.bmj.com


----------



## maomao (Jan 23, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> We rightly rounded on the government when they ignored the scientific advice from SAGE about locking down earlier, yet some are now rounding on them for accepting the scientific advice from JCVI.
> 
> But, well, this is urban.


It's possible that both those decisions, to follow one piece of advice and ignore another, were taken for similar political reasons ie. prioritising days at work over an overall long term strategy. The whole vaccine thing gives me the willies since I found out it's not a sterilising vaccine. This is going to go on for decades.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> We rightly rounded on the government when they ignored the scientific advice from SAGE about locking down earlier, yet some are now rounding on them for accepting the scientific advice from JCVI.
> 
> But, well, this is urban.



Judge each decision on its own merit. Study the detail. Try not to throw away the nuances. Be prepared not to reach a firm conclusion either way if in doubt.

SAGE, NERVTAG etc made mistakes at the start of the pandemic that means they must share blame in my mind for first lockdown timing catastrophe. Does that mean I shouldnt bother looking at all the detail they have discussed since? Or that I cannot side with or against them when it comes to a particular issue? Of course not.

Good science doesnt have to rely on pathetic appeals to believe in the wisdom of authorities. In much the same way that your tedious bleating at times about 'all four UK nations are in agreement' was in no way evidence that the government were doing the right thing at the right time.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jan 23, 2021)

Just remember the only reason the government is now having to make this choice is because of their absolute incompetence that got us to this point. If the vaccines work and get us out of this mess it is entirely in spite of, not due to, this government. They should be hanging form lampposts.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

editor said:


> BMJ opinion piece:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



There is some great detail in there and I would echo their concerns.

I should really transcribe the bit from yesterdays press conference where Vallance danced around a question that was put to him about whether the vaccine dose scheduling policy increases the risk of escape mutants. Coming soon.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Why is it a pointless discussion now?



Pointless for me. I've read and discussed lots about this decision with a fair few people in health, and I've got a position that I'm unlikely to change unless new info comes up, and I've haven't seen that here so far.

But mostly I just can't be arsed on a Saturday when I planned to spend a day bottling cider and chopping wood tbh.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Just remember the only reason the government is now having to make this choice is because of their absolute incompetence that got us to this point. If the vaccines work and get us out of this mess it is entirely in spite of, not due to, this government. They should be hanging form lampposts.



My misgivings about this vaccine rollout stage of the pandemic in the UK began largely as a result of the giddy rush happening against a backdrop of grotesque levels of viral prevalence.

I could be more relaxed about things like the 2nd dose schedule and other decisions being made if we were doing this stuff during a lull, after the virus had been pushed down to relatively low levels within the population before engaging in vaccination. 

This does not mean I would have delayed vaccine rollout until after the current wave was dealt with. But the situation we are doing it under has raised certain stakes, and escape mutants are on my mind.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Pointless for me. I've read and discussed lots about this decision with a fair few people in health, and I've got a position that I'm unlikely to change unless new info comes up, and I've haven't seen that here so far.
> 
> But mostly I just can't be arsed on a Saturday when I planned to spend a day bottling cider and chopping wood tbh.



Some lazy smears against people with a different stance to yours was on your Saturday agenda though, you could be arsed with that.


----------



## LDC (Jan 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some lazy smears against people with a different stance to yours was on your Saturday agenda though, you could be arsed with that.



Against such well thought through gems as people not being anarchists for 'agreeing with the government' or it being as simple as 'against the evidence' I allowed myself a few smears back.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 23, 2021)

.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Judge each decision on its own merit. Study the detail. Try not to throw away the nuances. Be prepared not to reach a firm conclusion either way if in doubt.
> 
> SAGE, NERVTAG etc made mistakes at the start of the pandemic that means they must share blame in my mind for first lockdown timing catastrophe. Does that mean I shouldnt bother looking at all the detail they have discussed since? Or that I cannot side with or against them when it comes to a particular issue? Of course not.
> 
> Good science doesnt have to rely on pathetic appeals to believe in the wisdom of authorities. *In much the same way that your tedious bleating at times about 'all four UK nations are in agreement' was in no way evidence that the government were doing the right thing at the right time.*



I haven't 'bleated on' about all 4 nations being in agreement, I've pointed it out on a couple of times, because it is rare, generally speaking the 4 nations have travelled in different directions, at different speeds, which is why when they do actually agree, I think it is both noteworthy and brings some creditability to a policy that the fuckwits in charge at Westminster have presented us with.

Yes, there's clearly concerns over the time delay with the second dose of the Biontech Pfizer vaccine, not so with the Oxford/AZ one, but the JCVI has made a decision based on the unique mess the UK is in, thanks to the endless-up fuck-ups from Westminster. It's not ideal, but there're perfect logical reasons behind the thinking. I've discussed this with my SiL, who in turn has discussed with her colleagues, and they are of the view that whilst it's a bit of a gamble, the odds are well in favour of it being the right thing to do under the circumstances.

And, seems as I've been accused of 'bleating', I may as well point out that this is one of those rare occasions where the chief medical officers of all 4 nations have agreed.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

The reason I refer to your four nations in agreement tactic is that I have always seen it as nothing more than a dullard appeal to believe in the wisdom of authorities not based on the merits of their stance, but on the notion of consensus between authorities. Authorities which have demonstrated their limitations many times in this pandemic already. Authorities which often have complex relationships with each other and where publicly giving the impression of being on the same page is part of the landscape that doesnt necessarily reflect the real situation behind the scenes at all.

If the dose timing stuff its a gamble then its worth discussing without some trying to make it sound like a no-brainer that is unworthy of discussion and worthy of cheap smears.

Anyway here is my transcription of the bit from the 22nd January press conference that I mentioned earlier.

Tim Ross, Bloomberg:

Question to you, Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty. SAGE minutes from a meeting on January 7th say that theres an unquantifiable but likely small probability of the delayed second dose generating a vaccine-resistant mutation. In layman's terms, does that mean that the decision to delay the second dose actually risks making the virus itself more dangerous, and if so what are you doing about that?

Vallance:

The most risky thing in terms of new mutations is to have very high prevalence. The more the virus is replicating and transmitting between people, the likely, the more the chance that it will get a mutation and alter. And thats whats happening around the world and thats why were seeing the same mutations pop up everywhere. So these mutations have not come about because of vaccine pressure or anything else, they seem to be mutations that the virus accumulates naturally during replication as it wants to get more efficient at transmitting. And so I think thats the biggest risk. Theres always some risk if you start to have partial immunity but theres also a benefit which is that partial immunity can also stop the infection quicker, and so I think that was a statement from the immunologists and an appropriately cautious one but I dont think its the biggest risk.

Whitty:

All of medicine is about balance of risk. And it is important we consider the risks on both sides and we dont try and, you know, just only look at the positive sides in a course of action, we look at both sides, thats what SAGE was doing, thats what we try to do in all the decisions we've taken. Our overall view was the balance of risk was firmly in favour, at this stage of the epidemic in the UK, of having many more people vaccinated, but that does mean the delay. But I think most people would agree that the risk that was identified, that particular risk, was a relatively much smaller risk than the risk of not having people vaccinated, which essentially was the alternative.


----------



## xenon (Jan 23, 2021)

Boris Sprinkler said:


>





But it's not like it's just the government on one side and the entire medical scientific establishment on the other. There's a balance that needs a political decision. Partial protection for as many as possible or greater protection for fewer. The pressure on the NHS, makes this a time critical issue hence the gamble of partial protection.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Against such well thought through gems as people not being anarchists for 'agreeing with the government' or it being as simple as 'against the evidence' I allowed myself a few smears back.



It was this one that got me going, probably because I'm not a fan of the insinuation that so many would be basing their stance on what position was opposite to that taken by this government.



LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I bet half the people now arguing it's wrong would be arguing the other way and we needed to protect more people with longer gaps if the government had stuck rigidly to the shorter gap between doses tbh.



There was a phase during the first wave where I kept finding myself saying the same sorts of things that Whitty, Hancock etc then came out with, and it was a weird feeling. But since I'm interested in the reality, I couldnt let it put me off just for the sake of not being on the same page as tories etc. Not that this was much of a burden in my case due to the many occasions where I was very much not in agreement with them since the earliest days of sleepwalking into disaster.

Anyway I would like to apologise to anyone I have been rude to recently. I am finding this wave very difficult, because of how much more avoidable at least the bulk of it should have been, and how long this fact has been obvious for in contrast to how low on the news agenda this avoidable disgusting failure aspect is right now. And I'm finding this vaccination phase very difficult too, because of the way it has coincided with the second wave and stupidly high levels of viral prevalence. And because of the way the government use it to draw focus away from other things that should be done. And because some of the decisions about dose timing worry me greatly. And because I am concerned that so much hope and faith has been placed in the vaccination approach as a silver bullet, and what that will do to peoples state of mind if it goes wrong. And I'm annoyed with myself that althought I have mentioned some of these things a number of times, I dont seem to have been capable of discussing it in the way I'd like.

I am tortured by the possibility that the ability of various vaccines to keep the eldest and most vulnerable people safe from this virus will turn out to be quite a long way away from what people are expecting and hoping for. I've said before that I really wanted to start being wrong more in this pandemic, and this area is probably the largest example of this to date. I'm really hoping to see great results eventually, but that alone is not enough to quieten my unease that we may be setting ourselves up for a fall.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2021)

And it bother me the way some of what I've just said has parallels with some obvious film plot twists. Ones where the audience would have little trouble seeing the stupid blunders of authority and humanity coming a mile off, and indeed would be relied upon to see them coming in order for the plot device to work as intended and take people along for the ride as entertainment. But this pandemic isnt entertainment, and so these potential parallels make me feel like banging my head against a brick wall.


----------



## Tropi (Jan 23, 2021)

Tory scum being Tory scum. Does anybody really think that Boris government care if people die or not? Specially old folks?








						Covid: Gap between Pfizer vaccine doses should be halved, say doctors
					

Delaying second Pfizer doses to give more people their first is "difficult to justify", says BMA.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 23, 2021)

Tropi said:


> Tory scum being Tory scum. Does anybody really think that Boris government care if people die or not? Specially old folks?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



FFS, this under been under discussion over the last 2 or 3 pages.


----------



## Smangus (Jan 23, 2021)

Took my mum (she's 76)  to be vaccinated today pretty painless and efficient took 20 mins. Have to say that I feel relived she has it now even if it is only the 1st dose. I rang her last night and she said she was going to go by bus (2 each way) to get it  and I told her in no uncertain terms ! was going to drive her there. Anyway done , small but consistent queue of 5/6 peeps at the center.


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 23, 2021)

xenon said:


> There's a balance that needs a political decision. Partial protection for as many as possible or greater protection for fewer. The pressure on the NHS, makes this a time critical issue hence the gamble of partial protection.



Not a call that can be made without knowing how much 'partial protection' we're getting from all these single doses, or how long it lasts. It is entirely possible that all the protection provided by a first dose is gone within 12 weeks, so that the second dose is effectively just another first dose and we end up in a loop of throwing good vaccines after bad. Too many risks have been taken in handling this pandemic already. None have paid off. This is not the time to take more risks.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 23, 2021)

This is all a bit of derail that could be taken to the vaccine logistics thread so I'll leave it there anyway.


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## teuchter (Jan 23, 2021)

This is not a logistics question; it's a public health question.


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## xenon (Jan 23, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Not a call that can be made without knowing how much 'partial protection' we're getting from all these single doses, or how long it lasts. It is entirely possible that all the protection provided by a first dose is gone within 12 weeks, so that the second dose is effectively just another first dose and we end up in a loop of throwing good vaccines after bad. Too many risks have been taken in handling this pandemic already. None have paid off. This is not the time to take more risks.



Well I'm not exactly comfortable about this but presumably there is some scientific basis to this. I forget the percentage as different numbers seem to be being thrown around. I think those who'd had second jab appointments already arranged, should have received them, rather than being messed about though. I do know one guy who's had both shots now. He's 82 and had the first a week or so before Christmas.


----------



## andysays (Jan 23, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Not a call that can be made without knowing how much 'partial protection' we're getting from all these single doses, or how long it lasts. It is entirely possible that all the protection provided by a first dose is gone within 12 weeks, so that the second dose is effectively just another first dose and we end up in a loop of throwing good vaccines after bad. Too many risks have been taken in handling this pandemic already. None have paid off. This is not the time to take more risks.


I'm not the first to mention this here, but I think a significant part of why the government have been inclined to take this risk is that the situation is potentially so bad that the NHS really is in danger of being completely overwhelmed, and so there is arguably a need to use the vaccine not as a long term measure, ie following the original plan of doing the two jabs in more or less quick succession, but as a short term one, giving as many people as possible one jab simply to (hopefully) reduce the numbers needing treatment over the next few winter months, even at the risk that the longer term effects are lost and we effectively have to start all over again.

But of course the reason the current situation is so bad is because the government have made all the wrong decisions for all the wrong reasons over the past year...


----------



## andysays (Jan 23, 2021)

And here, in case it's needed, is another example of just how bad things currently are

Covid: Number of patients on ventilators passes 4,000 for first time


----------



## Flavour (Jan 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Against such well thought through gems as people not being anarchists for 'agreeing with the government' or it being as simple as 'against the evidence' I allowed myself a few smears back.



my comment came after yours, which elbows has called a "lazy smear", so don't use it as an excuse.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 23, 2021)

I have a lot of opinions here but it really is important to remember that everyone else is just as fucked up about it all as you are - as we all are. It's really not worth getting into a fight. Nobody here is your hardcore ideological enemy.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 23, 2021)

This is just appalling. The same oppressive pressure to return to work that the sweatshops of Bradford employ.









						Grant Shapps faces fury over mass Covid outbreak at DVLA
					

Minister under fire for ‘shameful’ virus spread as staff told to work on with more than 500 cases at agency in Swansea




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 23, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Just remember the only reason the government is now having to make this choice is because of their absolute incompetence that got us to this point. If the vaccines work and get us out of this mess it is entirely in spite of, not due to, this government. They should be hanging form lampposts.


I'm not sure modern lampposts would be up to it

Looking on the bright side: WHO *will* get new info on a delayed vaccination schedule in about 3 months time


----------



## Wilf (Jan 23, 2021)

I wonder, given the aim of protecting the NHS by protecting the most vulnerable, whether there was a case for giving those groups the vaccine with the 3/4 week gap?  Get those groups done with the highest level of protection and then if you need to start going for the longer gap between doses, start doing that for say the 60 year olds and younger? Obviously, I don't _know _whether that is better, but it would be interesting to see the maths on which strategy is modelled to save more lives.

Suppose what I'm getting at is the government seem to have said we'll do the longer gap vaccinations and then applied that for all groups in the originally announced age groups from 85% down to 18.  Given the virus is less deadly for the middle aged and young, there might have been a case in letting those groups wait till the most vulnerable got the optimum doses.

Edit: I'm a wee bit pissed but trying to say there's an inflexibility in the government's strategy.  There's an obvious balance going on between mass coverage and optimum dosage periods. They may be right and who the fuck am I to say, but I'm just getting a sense that what we've got is a result of previous failures. If the NHS wasn't so close to being overwhelmed we'd almost certainly be on the 3-4 week gap.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 23, 2021)

existentialist said:


> This is just appalling. The same oppressive pressure to return to work that the sweatshops of Bradford employ.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Friends locally  have told me a fair bit about this.
The majority of the  serious outbreaks were at their call centre as I understand it 

*ETA* : PCS take on it -- Serwotka is pretty pissed off about it


----------



## Wilf (Jan 23, 2021)

existentialist said:


> This is just appalling. The same oppressive pressure to return to work that the sweatshops of Bradford employ.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Corporate fucking manslaughter.


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 23, 2021)

MSM just catching on that workplaces might be a bit of a vector?


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 23, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I'm not sure modern lampposts would be up to it



since in some places, they won't allow bus stops to be attached to lamp posts in case this causes structural failure, i doubt very much that a standard lamp post would be able to cope with the prime minister


----------



## two sheds (Jan 23, 2021)

They do however often have 5G transmitters


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## xenon (Jan 23, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> MSM just catching on that workplaces might be a bit of a vector?



I expect they'll find some instances of parties, or people sitting on a park bench drinking tea, to be able to get back on message soon.


----------



## Mation (Jan 24, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> MSM just catching on that workplaces might be a bit of a vector?


MSM?


----------



## TopCat (Jan 24, 2021)

Grant Shapps faces fury over mass Covid outbreak at DVLA
					

Minister under fire for ‘shameful’ virus spread as staff told to work on with more than 500 cases at agency in Swansea




					www.theguardian.com
				




William of Walworth 
Any personal view mate? Hope you and Debs are safe and well. X


----------



## Numbers (Jan 24, 2021)

Mation said:


> MSM?


MainStream Media

I think


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Jan 24, 2021)

Numbers said:


> MainStream Media
> 
> I think


Yeah, that's my understanding of it.  MSM also has other meanings though.


----------



## Looby (Jan 24, 2021)

I just saw the latest tv advert that I think people were talking about yesterday, the look them in the eyes thing.
I feel really torn about this because I generally can’t stand attempts to manipulate us in that way. It would really piss me off but there are still people who doubt this stuff but aren’t fully lost to conspiracy theories and MSM paranoia.
I just think/hope maybe it’ll reach people like my friend who isn’t too far down the rabbit hole but is making shitty decisions. She’s being influenced by her idiot, conspiraloon boyfriend and isn’t a bad person. But, she still made the decision to go out with the idiot boyfriend when he had Covid and she was isolating too.

Actually I think the £500 being discussed would convince her more but there we go.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 24, 2021)

Looby said:


> I just saw the latest tv advert that I think people were talking about yesterday, the look them in the eyes thing.
> I feel really torn about this because I generally can’t stand attempts to manipulate us in that way. It would really piss me off but there are still people who doubt this stuff but aren’t fully lost to conspiracy theories and MSM paranoia.
> I just think/hope maybe it’ll reach people like my friend who isn’t too far down the rabbit hole but is making shitty decisions. She’s being influenced by her idiot, conspiraloon boyfriend and isn’t a bad person. But, she still made the decision to go out with the idiot boyfriend when he had Covid and she was isolating too.
> 
> Actually I think the £500 being discussed would convince her more but there we go.


Will it stop you going out today?


----------



## Looby (Jan 24, 2021)

TopCat said:


> Will it stop you going out today?


I haven’t been going out much at all outside of work. As little as possible. 
Unfortunately my job means that I have to visit people every day and it frightens me.
My post was specifically about people who break isolation when they’ve been a contact or even have Covid. I guess I’d hope it might reach someone like my friend. I’m probably wrong but this week I’m angry and frightened.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 24, 2021)

Can people stop searching for 
“Will pubs reopen?”

still on trending


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 24, 2021)

existentialist said:


> This is just appalling. The same oppressive pressure to return to work that the sweatshops of Bradford employ.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've been ranting that the government hasn't been fining employers for forcing people into work when they could work from home. As so often with this government the truth is much worse. They are one of those employers. When there is software that can facilitate remote working I don't know how any call centre can justify being open.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 24, 2021)

As it's illegal to go to work if it's not reasonably possible to do that work from home I'm surprised I haven't heard about any court cases yet, or anything from relevant unions for people who can work from home e.g. PCS or Prospect. Looking at their websites they seem to have no answer to the question "I can work from home but my employer is requiring me to break the law and work on site, how should I word my refusal?"


----------



## existentialist (Jan 24, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I've been ranting that the government hasn't been fining employers for forcing people into work when they could work from home. As so often with this government the truth is much worse. They are one of those employers. When there is software that can facilitate remote working I don't know how any call centre can justify being open.


AIUI, the DVLA's systems are antediluvian, and not capable of supporting remote working. More chronic underinvestment?


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 24, 2021)

The clue is in the name of the party running stuff I would have thought.


----------



## Tropi (Jan 24, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> FFS, this under been under discussion over the last 2 or 3 pages.


So what? If you don't wanna ready it just don't. I don't spend all my time here checking every single thread.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 24, 2021)

existentialist said:


> AIUI, the DVLA's systems are antediluvian, and not capable of supporting remote working. More chronic underinvestment?


Thirty years of under investment


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 24, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Can people stop searching for
> “Will pubs reopen?”
> 
> still on trending



They will certainly not be reopening anytime soon.



> The British government has quietly extended coronavirus lockdown laws to give local councils in England the power to close pubs, restaurants, shops and public spaces until July 17, the Telegraph reported on Saturday.



Not that that means they will definitely be closed until July. 









						UK extends councils' lockdown powers until July 17, Telegraph says
					

The British government has quietly extended coronavirus lockdown laws to give local councils in England the power to close pubs, restaurants, shops and public spaces until July 17, the Telegraph reported on Saturday. https://bit.ly/3p8zwwC




					www.reuters.com


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2021)

I know that last time I moaned about a EU vaccine delays story not mentioning whether the same applied to the UK, someone pointed out that the UK was actually mentioned in the article.

Well, it happened again, this time with the AstraZeneca vaccine, and this time I dont see the UK mentioned. This article is from yesterday:









						Covid: Italian PM brands vaccine delay 'unacceptable'
					

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has warned he will take legal action against Pfizer and AstraZeneca.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Anyway I mention this now because I note that on the Andrew Marr show today, when interviewing Hancock, Marr said that 2 million AstraZeneca doses were expected by about now, but that this has been delayed till mid-February. I havent found any articles about this yet, any ideas?


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2021)

Just to add to that, I never normally watch the Marr show but I was tipped off about that detail by the 9:47 entry on the BBC live updates page. And then I had to find that part of the programme for myself since they totally botched the write-up and left out the mid-February detail that Marr suggested.



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55785362
		




> Andrew Marr says the UK has been told it is getting two million doses of the AstraZeneca by about now and asks what's gone wrong and why it's been delayed.
> 
> "This is a complicated manufacturing process," replies Matt Hancock. He says it's coming from the manufacturers as quickly as possible, and then the NHS is "getting it into people's arms as quickly as possible".



In terms of the background, ie what was expected before this delay, when I search for 2 million doses I see plenty of stories from earlier in January where two different things are described - getting 2 million doses in total by some stage in January, and getting 2 million doses of that vaccine every week at some stage in January.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 24, 2021)

I note that single-dose vaccine isn't as effective as two doses.  But we knew this.
I'm optimistic about this information



			
				Israeli health minister said:
			
		

> _At the same time there are some encouraging signs of less severe diseases, less people hospitalised after the first dose. At this stage its very difficult to say, its not a clinical trial yet ... We sincerely hope we will have better information soon._



Though to be fair mass dosing should really be a phase 4 trial, answering the question "Does it really work as expected"


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 24, 2021)

Some good news on the dose front is that the Janssen / Johnson & Johnson vaccine is close to approval, and it only requires one dose.


----------



## xenon (Jan 24, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Some good news on the dose front is that the Janssen / Johnson & Johnson vaccine is close to approval, and it only requires one dose.



Not sure if was that one, name doesn't ring a bell but another one has just shown very good signs. It's still at the animal testing stage. However, it can be easily stored, seems to require a lower dose.



Let me find the story, that'd probably help.








						Good news from Pirbright on second COVID vaccine
					

Early animal studies by The Pirbright Institute and Oxford have yielded promising results for new potential COVID-19 vaccine.




					www.vettimes.co.uk
				




Edited. Obviously a different one,  this is still a long way from human testing and approval.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 24, 2021)

Incredibly British American Tobacco (BAT) has a vaccine. 
Grown from tobacco plants.




__





						British American Tobacco - BAT working on potential COVID-19 vaccine through US bio-tech subsidiary
					

BAT’s US bio-tech subsidiary, Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP), is developing a potential vaccine for COVID-19 and is now in pre-clinical testing. If testing goes well, BAT is hopeful that, with the right



					www.bat.com


----------



## Supine (Jan 24, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Incredibly British American Tobacco (BAT) has a vaccine.
> Grown from tobacco plants.
> 
> 
> ...



And you only need twenty a day


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> I know that last time I moaned about a EU vaccine delays story not mentioning whether the same applied to the UK, someone pointed out that the UK was actually mentioned in the article.



Some cunt who got banned from this thread decided to contact me about this, claiming that I often make statements about the UK that only fairly apply to England. I\ve got shit all interest in having a conversation with them but it did remind me that there were a number of related subjects I'd been meaning to mention here.

There are all manner of details in the UK nations other than England that I've had reason to praise at times. Scotlands public health & political leadership communication is often much better than Englands, eg Sturgeoun is suited to that task in the same way Johnson is completely unsuited to it. Scotland and Wales have often made better noises about travel and border restrictions. Scotland, Wales and Northern Irelands sense of timing with new measures can be better than England/the UK governments, but sadly these differences are often still too marginal for my liking. And praise I would give Wales for having a circuit breaker was cancelled out by the way they utterly botched the exit from circuit breaker. And sometimes the timing in these countries is only better because they have even less wiggle room due to limited resources.

None of the UK nations looks good on paper when it comes to things like preventing there being more death in the second wave than there was in the first. In other key ways the failures are the same across all the four nations. But I cannot judge the administrations in isolation because they are not independent nations. There are distinct limits to what actions they can take and their overall approach because they are bound to the UK and the overall UK strategy to a great extent.

The implications of that pain me greatly, because in many ways the nations other than England are of the same sort of relatively small size to countries that we've seen pursue relatively successful strategies during the pandemic. The sort where, even if not going so far as to attempt a zero-covid type strategy, a lot of emphasis was on keeping viral prevalence down to very low levels, and being quite strong about travel and border restrictions. Making different choices about economic sacrifices and balances than the UK government has done.

I suppose its not even just a question of how shit the UK government is in this pandemic, or the physical realities of geography, borders and cross-border links across society and the economy. Its also about the complicated resources picture. Take for example a small, genuinely independent country with limited resources. When considering a pandemic response, the balance of risk equations include  things like nature of economy, international supply ties, population demographics, ratio of hospital beds & intensive care beds to population size, etc. When presented with this pandemic, such factors can lead to some very clear decisions, eg very limited health system wiggle room to cope with a huge wave, so take the pain in a different way by doing more to keep levels of population infection as low as possible at every point. But I suspect the equation is more complicated when it comes to the likes of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. They may share the lack of wiggle room with other small countries, but there is always that sense that some broader UK resources are available to them if deemed absolutely necessary. And this binds them to some aspects of 'large nation pandemic planning', which I tend to think is often hideously misguided for the large nations, let alone when applied to smaller ones.

This graph shows deaths within 28 days of a positive test, by date of death, split into deaths before September 2020 in blue, and those since in red. No region or nation of the UK manages to look good by this measure  There are caveats, not least that by this measure a lot of first wave deaths were missed. I will attempt to work around such limitations in some future chart, but I dont have the right data to do that properly yet.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jan 24, 2021)

I am continually surprised that there have not been more deaths in London.


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I am continually surprised that there have not been more deaths in London.



So many possibilities. I wont try to talk about them all now.

But Google Mobility data may hold some clues.

Greater London:

Greater Manchester:


West Midlands:


All are from pdfs available at https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/
Should drill down into the more local data which is available from the same reports but which I cannot reasonably post here due to sheer quantity of it.

In any case that stuff would certainly give me reasons to consider the nature of jobs and the economy in different places. If more jobs in a location are more feasible to do from home, or more workplaces are closed there because of a higher proportion of hospitality & tourism jobs, these things can make a difference.

Other possible explanations include level of attention given to the place by the authorities, culture and competency of those authorities, hospital infection control & other resources, care home setup (eg lots in the capital or are people shunted elsewhere a lot, and size of the care homes), whether staff in some front line health & care roles got earlier testing in London, and I'm sure many more.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> So many possibilities. I wont try to talk about them all now.
> 
> But Google Mobility data may hold some clues.
> 
> ...



"But London" does tend to ignore just how many commuters come into London on a daily basis, virtually the entire South East is distorted by having a huge chunk of its population travel into it during normal times. 







Imagine how many of those people are now wfh.


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 24, 2021)

I'm in the west midlands and the roads are busy, it's nothing like first lockdown.


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2021)




----------



## purenarcotic (Jan 24, 2021)

Red Cat said:


> I'm in the west midlands and the roads are busy, it's nothing like first lockdown.



We’ve thought that too. A lot busier in town, busier roads. During lockdown one if I got the bus home from work it was a six minute journey (as opposed to the 15 / 20 minutes it usually works with cars on the road etc) and if I was walking, I could have walked down the middle of normally busy roads perfectly safely.


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2021)




----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 24, 2021)

TopCat said:


> Grant Shapps faces fury over mass Covid outbreak at DVLA
> 
> 
> Minister under fire for ‘shameful’ virus spread as staff told to work on with more than 500 cases at agency in Swansea
> ...


We are both well, thankfully


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 24, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> We’ve thought that too. A lot busier in town, busier roads. During lockdown one if I got the bus home from work it was a six minute journey (as opposed to the 15 / 20 minutes it usually works with cars on the road etc) and if I was walking, I could have walked down the middle of normally busy roads perfectly safely.



Yeh, it seems more or less normal on the roads (though i don't travel at peak times). I was in town the other day to go to the children's hospital, it was quiet but not dead quiet; i can't compare to last lockdown as I didn't go in at all.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 24, 2021)

I'm convinced that levels of traffic busy-ness in towns must vary a lot between different places.

In Swansea, Wales' second largest city, traffic's been pretty low at all times of the day in my observation, compared to normal times.

And with all shops closed bar supermarkets**, offies, chemists and the Post Office, there've also been vastly fewer people walking about the city centre.

**And neither Lidls nor Sainsbury's were stupid-busy, either. Both now with stricter controls over numbers going in, as well.

Given that in normal times shopping has got to be Swansea's favourite pastime  even beyond pub-going, plenty of people here must be feeling very deprived of theor addiction ...... 

By contrast, there were lots of people dog-walking and just walking, also cycling,  along the seafront yesterday (the weather was beautifully sunny, albeit freezing!  )

But in the nearby carparks, the few cars that were there had been flyered under the windscreen wipers by the South Wales Police, warning people that you're not meant to drive to go for a walk!

You're meant to start and finish your walk (or bike-ride) at home, with no motoring included.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 24, 2021)

610 deaths, which I'm guessing is up from last Sunday? But 'only' 30,000 cases which is better I guess.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 24, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> 610 deaths, which I'm guessing is up from last Sunday? But 'only' 30,000 cases which is better I guess.



I was just coming to post the figures, the deaths are actually down 61 from last Sunday, when 671 were reported, first time that has happened in weeks.  

But, of course, it's only one day, so doesn't mean much on its own.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 24, 2021)

I'm a bit confused - are we allowed to hug loved ones who are not in our households?


----------



## LDC (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I'm a bit confused - are we allowed to hug loved ones who are not in our households?



No. It's been one of the the main rules for nearly a year. You're supposed to socially distance from anyone not in your household/bubble.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I'm a bit confused - are we allowed to hug loved ones who are not in our households?


Sorry, OU, the answer is still no, you can't hug.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 24, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No. It's been one of the the main rules for nearly a year. You're supposed to socially distance from anyone not in your household/bubble.


but ok in our bubbles? I've been seeing my nieces and nephew and hug them, though they are from two separate households


----------



## Sue (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> but ok in our bubbles? I've been seeing my nieces and nephew and hug them, though they are from two separate households


How many bubbles are you in?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 24, 2021)

Sue said:


> How many bubbles are you in?


2 I guess - my brother's and my sister's


----------



## Sue (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> 2 I guess - my brother's and my sister's


Can you be in two? Haven't really been following it tbh.


----------



## maomao (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> 2 I guess - my brother's and my sister's


Are they childcare bubbles?


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was just coming to post the figures, the deaths are actually down 61 from last Sunday, when 671 were reported, first time that has happened in weeks.
> 
> But, of course, it's only one day, so doesn't mean much on its own.



Yes I wouldnt put too much weight on a weekend figure but a modest decrease would be consistent with what we've seen in other data including hospital data, and the way the rolling average of daily reported cases has lost much of its upwards momentum recently.


----------



## Thora (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> but ok in our bubbles? I've been seeing my nieces and nephew and hug them, though they are from two separate households


If they’re not in your household or bubble then you shouldn’t be going within 2m of them by the rules.
If you’re in a childcare bubble then I think it’s accepted that small children will need personal care though.  But I don’t think you can be in a childcare bubble with two households, it’s supposed to be exclusive.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 24, 2021)

Sue said:


> Can you be in two? Haven't really been following it tbh.


Me neither


----------



## Thora (Jan 24, 2021)

Sue said:


> Can you be in two? Haven't really been following it tbh.


You could have 1 support bubble and 1 childcare bubble, but in a childcare bubble adults can’t socialise.


----------



## Sue (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Me neither


I haven't been following it because I haven't had to though...


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 24, 2021)

maomao said:


> Are they childcare bubbles?


No, not seeing them as often as we normally do but hugged my sister's kids at Xmas - impossible not to. And had a walk with my brother's eldest last week and hugged her goodbye. Didn't think much of it at the time, but have been reading of some people here not having any physical contact with anyone for ages.


----------



## editor (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> 2 I guess - my brother's and my sister's


You're only supposed to be in one.



> In* England, *nobody can meet anyone from outside their household or support bubble indoors.
> People can exercise with one other person in an outdoor public place, such as a park, but cannot meet up with anyone else just to socialise. You should only leave your home once a day, and should not travel out of your local area.
> You are also only allowed to meet up outdoors to exercise with one other person in most areas in* Scotland* (the mainland and the isles of Skye, Bute, Arran and Gigha), which are currently under enhanced level four restrictions.
> Children under 12 do not count towards households or numbers when meeting outside in Scotland, and nor do they need to maintain physical distance from others.











						Covid: What are the social distancing rules?
					

Scotland and Wales are relaxing some of their restrictions around gatherings and mixing with others.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## maomao (Jan 24, 2021)

My neighbours have another bubble but have been occasionally minding my daughter out of necessity. We havent been inside their house though (except briefly in summer to disconnect their washing machine for them).  We have no other bubbles though.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 24, 2021)

maomao said:


> My neighbours have another bubble but have been occasionally minding my daughter out of necessity. We havent been inside their house though (except briefly in summer to disconnect their washing machine for them).  We have no other bubbles though.


we haven't been in anyone's houses apart from on Xmas day when they were all over at our place


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 24, 2021)

editor said:


> You're only supposed to be in one.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Gonna pretend I'm in Scotland!


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes I wouldnt put too much weight on a weekend figure but a modest decrease would be consistent with what we've seen in other data including hospital data, and the way the rolling average of daily reported cases has lost much of its upwards momentum recently.



And that doesnt mean that I expect to see no further rise in certain death numbers at all. Its still too early to make that claim. Nor can I claim to know exactly what the peak levels will eventually turn out to be by date of death.

The weekend catchup figures that will come out on Tuesday and Wednesday could still be especially bad, for example. Or they might not be appreciably higher than the previous weeks. We are at leasst at the stage where I wouldnt want to predict either way, as opposed to always assuming the numbers will still climb.

It is also possible that certain forms of data may end up with aspects of the weather affecting them at times. Just to give one example, snow has affected some midlands test centres today.


----------



## prunus (Jan 24, 2021)

The use of the ‘bubble’ terminology is just another example of the literally lethally shit communications from the government - it’s used to cover several different scenarios with different internal rules (support bubbles, which are basically extended households, with no internal restrictions (though limited to one per household); childcare bubbles, where a child under 14 can be looked after by another household, but the adults in the 2 households cannot mix (NB both households can only have 1 childcare bubble - ie no-one else is allowed to look after the child, and the looking-after family cannot have a childcare bubble with anyone else), school year bubbles, in which mixing is not allowed, but is presumed to happen for the purposes of isolation - these ones apply only the the kids, and not the their families).

Support bubbles require at least one household to be a single adult, or a couple with a baby under 1 (or is it 2?) (plus some other exceptions such as disabled child under 5). Childcare bubbles only allow the children under 14 to move freely between the bubbles, effectively it’s only them are are in the bubbles. School year bubbles only operate in school, they don’t give license for the kids to socialise outside school 

Note also that you cannot overlap childcare and support bubbles - so that eg if you are looking after under 14s from your childcare bubble you cannot also meet with members of  your support bubble at the same time.

 It’s no fucking wonder people are confused about the rules.  Makes me furious.


----------



## prunus (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Me neither



Um, I know these are very difficult times for us all, but ‘I haven’t really been following [the rules that are put in place to try to keep us all safe]’ isn’t a very good moral position.  As I’ve just written, a large part of the fault is with the communication, but all the communication in the world isn’t going to help if people aren’t really paying any attention.  Perhaps please try to follow?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 24, 2021)

prunus said:


> Um, I know these are very difficult times for us all, but ‘I haven’t really been following [the rules that are put in place to try to keep us all safe]’ isn’t a very good moral position.  As I’ve just written, a large part of the fault is with the communication, but all the communication in the world isn’t going to help if people aren’t really paying any attention.  Perhaps please try to follow?


I can’t really follow it. My attention lapses at the best of times but even more during this crisis.


----------



## bimble (Jan 24, 2021)

Police car here in the forest yesterday parked halfway down the main entrance road doing (I think) very visible surveillance of who is going for a walk with whom and how local they are. Not seen that before. Unless it was to deter the doggers.


----------



## iona (Jan 24, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Some good news on the dose front is that the Janssen / Johnson & Johnson vaccine is close to approval, and it only requires one dose.


Does it? I'm on the Janssen trial (ENSEMBLE 2) and it's two injections around two months apart.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 24, 2021)

iona said:


> Does it? I'm on the Janssen trial (ENSEMBLE 2) and it's two injections around two months apart.



There's a separate trial from the main one which uses two doses.


----------



## purenarcotic (Jan 24, 2021)

Technically, you should be choosing between your brother or your sister. And seeing as you live with your dad, you should only be doing that if one of your siblings is a single parent, as it is single adult households who can bubble with another household of any size.

We were fucking about with the bubbles; we had one with mate who lives on her own and another with another mate who lives on her own. But then one of them was seeing her mum too and another had a housemate move in and things got worse so we stopped. Initially, it felt absurd that I could go to work and my OH could go to school and could be exposed to loads of risk but we couldn’t have someone to sit on the other side of the living room, but then I also think that there are so many of us going ‘it’s just one person, what’s the harm’ and that then becomes an issue. It’s hard though, no judgement like.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 24, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Some good news on the dose front is that the Janssen / Johnson & Johnson vaccine is close to approval, and it only requires one dose.



Can't see that catching on, it's got too silly of a name. Were Johansson and Ivanovic not interested in collaborating on it as well?


----------



## nagapie (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> No, not seeing them as often as we normally do but hugged my sister's kids at Xmas - impossible not to. And had a walk with my brother's eldest last week and hugged her goodbye. Didn't think much of it at the time, but have been reading of some people here not having any physical contact with anyone for ages.


Only the Tories would hold you up as an example of the public spreading the disease. You're not the cause of the increase in cases, 20 million people going to work however, lack of furlough, no money to isolate etc.


----------



## Sue (Jan 24, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I can’t really follow it. My attention lapses at the best of times but even more during this crisis.


I know it's hard Orang Utan, but is it clearer now from the stuff above from prunus and Thora?


----------



## Thora (Jan 24, 2021)

Maybe they should drop the multiple bubble thing and just allow any two households to join exclusively - whether it’s for childcare, to provide physical/emotional support, single parent households, families with only children so the children can socialise. Or just for socialising.


----------



## LDC (Jan 24, 2021)

Thora said:


> Maybe they should drop the multiple bubble thing and just allow any two households to join exclusively - whether it’s for childcare, to provide physical/emotional support, single parent households, families with only children so the children can socialise. Or just for socialising.



I think the issue is size of some households, potentially you could have two households each of 10 or so people joining up.

And then as well as that being difficult to manage in public spaces, if any of them are slack elsewhere you potentially have a massive pool of infected people.


----------



## BristolEcho (Jan 24, 2021)

My mum and dad are in about 40 bubbles I think.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 24, 2021)

I thought you can go for a walk with someone outside your bubble as long as you stay 2m apart?


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 24, 2021)

I've been for a walk with my neighbour in the last week. I had the impression that was allowed?


----------



## prunus (Jan 24, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I thought you can go for a walk with someone outside your bubble as long as you stay 2m apart?



Yes, one person from each household only. But only if you’re local to each other, and (farcically) only for exercise, not to socialise. Whatever the fuck differentiation we are supposed to make of that.


----------



## Thora (Jan 24, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think the issue is size of some households, potentially you could have two households each of 10 or so people joining up.
> 
> And then as well as that being difficult to manage in public spaces, if any of them are slack elsewhere you potentially have a massive pool of infected people.


That's true, but then now you have people in multiple bubbles, some legitimate and some not eg two families with babies in a bubble, plus each has a different childcare bubble, the childcare bubbles can have other support bubbles and then people will push things by having a "exercise friend" bubble or everyone in a shared house having additional bubbles plus boyfriends/girlfriends etc etc


----------



## purenarcotic (Jan 24, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I thought you can go for a walk with someone outside your bubble as long as you stay 2m apart?



Yes, it is at the moment.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 24, 2021)

It's only my opinion but the Kent/Essez mutation lol. I think is spread by construction workers coming into London. I'm frontline NHS and my colleagues coming in from these places tell me about packed trains I get the tube with the inner London forrin lot. There is no way this is safe, I'm fed  up with pointing the finger at petty curtain twitching bulshit about other people. The fucking trains are rammed at 6:30 bur WFH journos don't see it.


----------



## TopCat (Jan 24, 2021)

Sue said:


> How many bubbles are you in?


He is having a bubble.


----------



## LDC (Jan 24, 2021)

Thora said:


> That's true, but then now you have people in multiple bubbles, some legitimate and some not eg two families with babies in a bubble, plus each has a different childcare bubble, the childcare bubbles can have other support bubbles and then people will push things by having a "exercise friend" bubble or everyone in a shared house having additional bubbles plus boyfriends/girlfriends etc etc



Yeah, it is a fucking mess, some small bit of which was unavoidable in a pandemic, the vast majority of it created through the government's actions/inactions. Not sure how to fix it now with that kind of situation tbh. Everyone to stay in for a month and start again?!


----------



## HalloweenJack (Jan 24, 2021)

Self- employed, out of work for a year,cos the Entertainment Business is basically closed.
Offered a job abroad, 2 days on a film set.

Im halfway through quarantine here, and am regularly PCR tested to find on my return, I won’t be able to go home, to my one person flat, but I may be escorted to a hotel for 14 days, at a cost which destroys what earnings I will make.

I have observed the rules since day one, and intended to self- isolate on return., but this ruling, if it comes to pass is predicated on the assumption I will disobey, and is fining me before an assumed crime.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 24, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Only the Tories would hold you up as an example of the public spreading the disease. You're not the cause of the increase in cases, 20 million people going to work however, lack of furlough, no money to isolate etc.


Latest conservative party announcement:
orang utan must die!
Slowly
on the public square
bring your own rotting sprouts (not brussels pretty please)


prunus said:


> Yes, one person from each household only. But only if you’re local to each other, and (farcically) only for exercise, not to socialise. Whatever the fuck differentiation we are supposed to make of that.


Don't talk while running


IC3D said:


> It's only my opinion but the Kent/Essez mutation lol. I think is spread by construction workers coming into London. I'm frontline NHS and my colleagues coming in from these places tell me about packed trains I get the tube with the inner London forrin lot. There is no way this is safe, I'm fed  up with pointing the finger at petty curtain twitching bulshit about other people. The fucking trains are rammed at 6:30 bur WFH journos don't see it.


nah, it's whatshername from next door spreading it, don't you see?


HalloweenJack said:


> Self- employed, out of work for a year,cos the Entertainment Business is basically closed.
> Offered a job abroad, 2 days on a film set.
> 
> Im halfway through quarantine here, and am regularly PCR tested to find on my return, I won’t be able to go home, to my one person flat, but I may be escorted to a hotel for 14 days, at a cost which destroys what earnings I will make.
> ...


Need to check but I think my mates who went back to australia didn't have to pay for their quarantine as their trip had been booked before the "pay for your quarantine" was introduced there.

caveat: I'm a bit pissed, hope I haven't offended anyone, not having the best of time just like many other.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 25, 2021)




----------



## Badgers (Jan 25, 2021)

> Boris Johnson is facing increasing pressure from cabinet ministers and scientists to require all new arrivals, including British citizens, to quarantine at their own expense in government-supervised hotels. “Anyone who slips through could be a new mutant strain, hence the need for blanket measures,”











						Monday briefing: New Covid could 'slip through' without quarantine
					

Fourteen-day hotel stay urged for all arrivals to UK … Debenhams reduced to a website … English and Scots world’s wobbliest drunks




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 25, 2021)

Making people quarantine at hotels is logical, but will 14 days be enough for the South African variant, because this news from down under is worrying.



> Australia has suspended a travel bubble with New Zealand - after NZ's first Covid case in months was confirmed to be the South African variant. *The infected patient had served 14 days in quarantine and tested negative twice before developing symptoms later.* Travellers coming from New Zealand to Australia in the next 72 hours will now have to go through hotel quarantine. Health Minister Greg Hunt said the suspension was done out of an "abundance of caution".











						Covid-19: MPs call for school reopening plan, and will France have a third lockdown?
					

Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Monday morning.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Making people quarantine at hotels is logical, but will 14 days be enough for the South African variant, because this news from down under is worrying.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yep, was musing on that possibility of a longer infection to symptoms showing period after reading the news last night.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 25, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Yep, was musing on that possibility of a longer infection to symptoms showing period after reading the news last night.


It'll make good, accurate testing even more important than ever (so good luck with that, UK ). And there's a public message that HAS to be got out there to convey the notion that you don't have to be symptomatic to be infectious. And lose the "look into their eyes" guilt-tripping, because that's not going to work: it needs to be a positive, constructive message that doesn't just "nudge", but informs as well.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Making people quarantine at hotels is logical, but will 14 days be enough for the South African variant, because this news from down under is worrying.


The incubation period is a positively skewed distribution with a long tail. Up to 38 days has previously been noted in the literature (DOI: 10.1017/ice.2020.221).


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 25, 2021)

2hats said:


> The incubation period is a positively skewed distribution with a long tail. Up to 38 days has previously been noted in the literature (DOI: 10.1017/ice.2020.221).


thanks for this I wasn't aware of it. 
So it's not 28 days later anymore but the sequel then...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 25, 2021)

> On Sunday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock suggested the full reopening of schools before Easter was a “hope” rather than an expectation, as he warned that the *easing of lockdown restrictions was a “long, long, long way” off.*





> It comes as* the Prime Minister suggested rules could start to ease next month*. He told reporters this morning [Monday] that the Government would be “looking at the potential of relaxing some measures” before mid-February.



More clear messaging from the muppets.   









						Schools reopening row as lockdown ‘could start easing next month’ - LIVE
					

England’s school children have become the “forgotten victims” of the coronavirus pandemic, Tory MPs have warned as Boris Johnson faces mounting pressure to get kids back into the classroom after the February half-term.




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jan 25, 2021)

Thats the usual stupid dance with cunts who are demanding dates, timetables, roadmaps etc. Some of the cunts reporting on the dance are themselves part of this dance. He has nothing solid to offer them because its not about dates, and so we get those vague and likely misleading statements instead. It reminds me of the first lockdown where they indicated it would last months but then had to go on about how often they would review things. On that occasion the relaxation came even later than Johnson etc originally wanted, so I dont think the 'when, when when?' shitheads gained anything other than eroding peoples proper sense of timing, encouraging lockdown fatigue, encouraging journalists to stick to a dullard script with an impossibly narrow field of view.

A BBC article on the matter says:



> BBC chief political correspondent Adam Fleming said there was frustration in government that the debate had become about dates, rather than medical data, and ministers feared that any potential timetable would be overtaken by the virus.



from Covid: Schools will be told of reopening plans 'as soon as we can'

I would suggest that on this occasion it isnt just the data about levels of infection, hospitalisation and death that will dictate the timing. Its also the vaccination schedule, so any 'potential timetable' can be thrown off not just by the virus, but by any vaccine supply delays etc.


----------



## LDC (Jan 25, 2021)

It's less about clear messaging and more about the ongoing split bubbling along within the Tory party on this again.

The CRG etc. are clearly using the schools/children thing as a weak point to leverage getting things (the economy) 'back to normal' as soon as they can. Absolute pricks, when the fuck have they ever been bothered about disadvantaged children in the previous years?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 25, 2021)

Looks like the anti-vaxxer twats are losing the argument in Europe, with big increases in those prepared to be vaccinated. 



> Brits are the most likely in the world to take up the offer of a coronavirus vaccine, according to new data. The data by YouGov showed the increase in willingness to be vaccinated in the UK was in line with a growing trend in Europe where people are becoming more "pro-vaccine".
> 
> Latest figures showed 81% of Brits would have the vaccine. Other countries with a big willingness included Denmark, where 80% would take up the offer of a vaccine, Spain with a 71% willingness, and Norway where 70% would have it.
> 
> The biggest increase has been in Sweden where a survey in mid-November showed only 45% would be willing to be vaccinated. This figure has now increased to 66% who would take the vaccine or have already had it.











						Britain now 'most pro-vaccine country in world' as people get their Covid jabs
					

The data by YouGov showed the increase in willingness to be vaccinated in the UK was in line with a growing trend in Europe where people are becoming more 'pro-vaccine'




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 25, 2021)

Have the Asian countries there got vaccine rollout programmes on the go? My (pretty speculative) guess is that a lot of the resistance to a theoretical vaccine will ebb away when people are presented with one in reality, and see loads of people around them getting vaccinated with no issues.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 25, 2021)

Yes,the obsession with dates is ridiculous.  Asking 'what will have to happen before we can do X?' makes much more sense.  _Then _maybe you can ask 'when might that be realistically?' although there's probably no really good answer to that


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 25, 2021)

All very convenient for the Tories who have been mandated to ensure that from now on they under-promise so they can over-deliver.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 25, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's less about clear messaging and more about the ongoing split bubbling along within the Tory party on this again.
> 
> The CRG etc. are clearly using the schools/children thing as a weak point to leverage getting things (the economy) 'back to normal' as soon as they can. Absolute pricks, when the fuck have they ever been bothered about disadvantaged children in the previous years?


It's a bitter irony that we're now enduring the mayhem of Brexit to appease the swivel-eyed tendency in the Tory Party, and, having got their way on that, the ERG seems to have morphed via the change of a single letter in their name, into the CRG, where they're fighting exactly the same libertarian-at-any-cost battle around Covid - so, while Brexit "only" kicked us in the financial and employment nuts, now they'd have us put our lives on the line for their implausible dreams. 

It seems particularly shit that a party's internal rifts should be inflicted most directly on the people least able - unlike many of those egging it on - to cope with the consequences.


----------



## elbows (Jan 25, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's less about clear messaging and more about the ongoing split bubbling along within the Tory party on this again.
> 
> The CRG etc. are clearly using the schools/children thing as a weak point to leverage getting things (the economy) 'back to normal' as soon as they can. Absolute pricks, when the fuck have they ever been bothered about disadvantaged children in the previous years?



Nothing good will come from the enlarged rectum group mutating into the colossal rectum group. Unless it all blows up in their face.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 25, 2021)

Is there no end to their stupidity ?

Mixed messaging causes people to think that their personal actions don't matter so much, hence the spreading from people who don't isolate, or wear masks etc when they should, nay, MUST, to combat the more virulent strains.

Was BoJo just trying to indicate that there was hope for light at the end of the tunnel ? because people will latch onto "relaxation of rules after mid/end February" and ignore that all-important "potential"  - to assume he meant by the end of February.


----------



## Petcha (Jan 25, 2021)

Prolly already been posted, but this morning's idiot. She actually stormed off


----------



## elbows (Jan 25, 2021)

Some of the shits probably have an interest in their own narrow framing of the pandemic in order to distract from things like:


----------



## Spandex (Jan 25, 2021)

It's interesting looking at the ONS data on Covid deaths by occupation (here).

You'd expect nursing and care workers to be badly hit, and they have been:

Nursing & Midwifery - 79.1 deaths per 100k
Caring Personal Services - 91.0 deaths per 100k

For comparison, Business & Finance Professionals are on 15.4 deaths per 100k

However, nursing & care aren't the hardest hit occupations.

Food Preparation & Hospitality Trades - 115.7 deaths per 100k

So much for pubs being safe. Makes the Eat Out to Spread It About scheme look less of a misjudgment and more like manslaughter by Rishi Sunak. That's just the workers, Managers & Proprietors in Hospitality & Leisure Services are also badly hit at 72.0 per 100k.

Keeping the building sites open has put Elementary Construction Operatives at 82.1 deaths per 100k.

But hardest hit is Elementary Process Plant Occupations at 143.2 deaths per 100k. Also badly hit are the related Plant & Machinary Operatives on 82.3 deaths per 100k. Seems there's an overlooked story in manufacturing


----------



## editor (Jan 25, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Food Preparation & Hospitality Trades - 115.7 deaths per 100k
> 
> So much for pubs being safe.


I think you'd need to break the figures down a bit more before arriving at that conclusion.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 25, 2021)

editor said:


> I think you'd need to break the figures down a bit more before arriving at that conclusion.


Fair comment, but that's as broken down as the figures go.

What do you think might account for the huge death toll in food preparation & hospitality? Are you suggesting the figure for kitchen staff might actually be much higher and bought down by a low number of bar staff catching Covid?


----------



## editor (Jan 25, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Fair comment, but that's as broken down as the figures go.
> 
> What do you think might account for the huge death toll in food preparation & hospitality? Are you suggesting the figure for kitchen staff might actually be much higher and bought down by a low number of bar staff catching Covid?


I've no idea but I don't think it's wise to heap a ton of blame on the pub trade without any stats to back it up.

Unless there's some clarity as to what jobs are being included, it's quite difficult to arrive at any firm conclusions, but I would imagine - for example - the bigger food prep industries to be a grimmer affair.

Anecdotally, I don't know any bar staff who caught the virus while pubs were open  - and I have a lot of friends in that industry -  but clearly there is some risk associated with any public facing businesses.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 25, 2021)

Do these numbers tell us about the risk associated with being in a job where you are expected to go to work instead of WFH, or do they tell us the risk inherent in doing that job?

Two different things.


----------



## prunus (Jan 25, 2021)

Spandex said:


> It's interesting looking at the ONS data on Covid deaths by occupation (here).
> 
> You'd expect nursing and care workers to be badly hit, and they have been:
> 
> ...



I'm not sure you're reading the tables quite right - the figures you are quoting are for men only - for instance the rate for nurses for women is 24.5 per 100k.  As they're all (your numbers) for men the relative magnitudes are still comparable IU guess, but they're not the whole picture.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 25, 2021)

prunus said:


> I'm not sure you're reading the tables quite right - the figures you are quoting are for men only - for instance the rate for nurses for women is 24.5 per 100k.  As they're all (your numbers) for men the relative magnitudes are still comparable IU guess, but they're not the whole picture.


You're right. I fucked that up  Everybody ignore me 

Still think it highlights an issue in manufacturing that hasn't really been talked about.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 25, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Prolly already been posted, but this morning's idiot. She actually stormed off



I'm not always a fan of the shouty interruption style of interviewing - and morgan is a twat of course - but sometimes it works perfectly.  James O'Brien on farage was the best I can remember of this genre. Destroying someone with the logic of the words they just used 3 seconds ago.   Much less shouty, but the New Zealander *who interviewed trump was in the same ball park.

Edit: Aussie, Jonathan Swann. Couldn't remember his name so I search 'trump interview graphs'


----------



## Wilf (Jan 25, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Is there no end to their stupidity ?
> 
> Mixed messaging causes people to think that their personal actions don't matter so much, hence the spreading from people who don't isolate, or wear masks etc when they should, nay, MUST, to combat the more virulent strains.
> 
> Was BoJo just trying to indicate that there was hope for light at the end of the tunnel ? because people will latch onto "relaxation of rules after mid/end February" and ignore that all-important "potential"  - to assume he meant by the end of February.


The PM's messaging:


----------



## weltweit (Jan 25, 2021)

Spandex said:


> ..
> But hardest hit is Elementary Process Plant Occupations at 143.2 deaths per 100k. Also badly hit are the related Plant & Machinary Operatives on 82.3 deaths per 100k. Seems there's an overlooked story in manufacturing



what is "Elementary Process Plant Occupations"?


----------



## Wilf (Jan 25, 2021)

editor said:


> I've no idea but I don't think it's wise to heap a ton of blame on the pub trade without any stats to back it up.
> 
> Unless there's some clarity as to what jobs are being included, it's quite difficult to arrive at any firm conclusions, but I would imagine - for example - the bigger food prep industries to be a grimmer affair.
> 
> Anecdotally, I don't know any bar staff who caught the virus while pubs were open  - and I have a lot of friends in that industry -  but clearly there is some risk associated with any public facing businesses.


The blame is on the government for not providing fully funded self isolation or providing funds to keep the hospitality sector in a fully funded lockdown (along with eat out to help out, which was a piece of public health vandalism).  However, it is still the case that those occupations are seeing the most risk/exposure/death.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 25, 2021)

weltweit said:


> what is "Elementary Process Plant Occupations"?


Elementary Process Plant Occupations

Note: I fucked up the figures above - that's the numbers for males only.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 25, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Elementary Process Plant Occupations
> ..


Sounds suitably grim :/


----------



## teuchter (Jan 25, 2021)

Todays reported deaths are lower than last monday's, which is encouraging.


----------



## Supine (Jan 25, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Elementary Process Plant Occupations
> 
> Note: I fucked up the figures above - that's the numbers for males only.



so basically all of the products you have delivered by Amazon, or get from supermarket shelves, are made by these people.


----------



## andysays (Jan 25, 2021)

Here's the BBC's reporting of the ONS figures

Covid: Teachers 'not at higher risk' of death

These are the parts I found most interesting


> The ONS looked at death rates from coronavirus in England and Wales between 9 March and 28 December 2020. It found 31 in every 100,000 working-age men and 17 in every 100,000 working-age women had died of Covid-19. This equated to just under 8,000 deaths among 20-64-year-olds.





> But care workers, security guards and people working in certain manufacturing roles died at more than three times the rate of their peers. Two-thirds of deaths were among men.





> As well as being more likely to be male, working-age people who died of Covid last year had other things in common: they were much more likely to work in jobs where they were either regularly exposed to known Covid cases or working in close proximity with other people more generally.


This isn't surprising, but it does suggest that working in close proximity with other people is inevitably risky, even if other mitigation measures are taken.



> Many of the highest-risk jobs were also relatively low paid and may be more likely to be casual or insecure, without sick pay, including hospitality, care work and taxi driving.


And this isn't in the least surprising either, but it's certainly worth emphasising. Workers in low status jobs like these are at greater risk of dying as a result of coronavirus than than those in higher status professions such as teaching, despite the fact that more concern appears to have been expressed here and elsewhere about the risks to teachers.


----------



## Espresso (Jan 25, 2021)

I see Hancock is addressing us at 5pm today. Let joy be unconfined. 
More "incredibly important"s incoming.


----------



## Petcha (Jan 25, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I'm not always a fan of the shouty interruption style of interviewing - and morgan is a twat of course - but sometimes it works perfectly.  James O'Brien on farage was the best I can remember of this genre. Destroying someone with the logic of the words they just used 3 seconds ago.   Much less shouty, but the New Zealander *who interviewed trump was in the same ball park.
> 
> Edit: Aussie, Jonathan Swann. Couldn't remember his name so I search 'trump interview graphs'



There was a New Zealander interviewer who decimated one of their version of the Tories last year, maybe you were thinking of her. It's painful.


----------



## editor (Jan 25, 2021)

Hancock is so fucking punchable.


----------



## editor (Jan 25, 2021)

592 deaths today.


----------



## LDC (Jan 25, 2021)

Media starting to go on about lifting lockdown _again_. FFS, have they learnt nothing.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 25, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Media starting to go on about lifting lockdown _again_. FFS, have they learnt nothing.


Nope.

But that, too, is a product of a vacillatory and inconsistent message from the government, from the start. Not that they wouldn't be maundering on about it anyway, but had the tone been set right in the first place, a serving prime minister would be able to tell them to get in line and shut the fuck up, and be fairly certain of having public opinion behind him. As it is, the media know they can sell papers by mimicking people's frustration, and hang the consequences.


----------



## teqniq (Jan 25, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Media starting to go on about lifting lockdown _again_. FFS, have they learnt nothing.


It's all about keeping the wheels of capital turning, and the media are largely a willing accomplice.


----------



## LDC (Jan 25, 2021)

Yeah, I know, rhetorical question. Cunts though, what a question when we have more people in ICU than ever before. Not to mention asking that instead of a question about holding the government to account for all the numerous horrendous fuck-ups they've made.


----------



## Petcha (Jan 25, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Media starting to go on about lifting lockdown _again_. FFS, have they learnt nothing.



TBF, it was Boris who started that by claiming we could be coming out of in February. Why the fuck does he keep giving people false hope like this.


----------



## AmateurAgitator (Jan 25, 2021)

Don't know if this has been posted yet, or discussed on here, and I know it's Piers Morgan -  but he has of late been doing a better job of holding government ministers to account than Starmer and co :



Capitalism is failing big time


----------



## maomao (Jan 25, 2021)

Count Cuckula said:


> he has of late been doing a better job of holding government ministers to account than Starmer:


My left nut has done a better job of holding government to account than Kieth.


----------



## elbows (Jan 25, 2021)

Petcha said:


> TBF, it was Boris who started that by claiming we could be coming out of in February. Why the fuck does he keep giving people false hope like this.



A large quantity of Johnsons ridiculous boosterish timing comments in this pandemic have been in response to questions from his own MPs and from journalists. It was journalists who started the Christmas bullshit a very long time before Christmas.

Political journalists are used to facile games. They are part of that dance.


----------



## elbows (Jan 25, 2021)

And I didnt even watch the press conference today, but I had the misfortune to scroll through some live news updates page and saw "BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg asks how and when lockdown can start to be eased."

These people are culpable for the somewhat misleadingly labelled 'lockdown fatigue'. The public inquiry will require a module on the media, one that goes far beyond the Toby Youngs of this world.


----------



## Petcha (Jan 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> And I didnt even watch the press conference today, but I had the misfortune to scroll through some live news updates page and saw "BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg asks how and when lockdown can start to be eased."
> 
> These people are culpable for the somewhat misleadingly labelled 'lockdown fatigue'. The public inquiry will require a module on the media, one that goes far beyond the Toby Youngs of this world.



Speaking personally, I'm not blaming the media for lockdown fatigue. I've barely spoken a word to another human being in weeks. My employer is now offering free psychotherapy and the therapist is so overloaded I can't get an appointment. i'm fatigued beyond belief. I'm not blaming Kuenssberg for that. I'm blaming the most incompetent 'leader' we have ever had. Who has the blood of thousands on his hands. Even Priti fucking Patel said we should have closed the borders almost a year ago.

Johnson's a cunt, but he's not an idiot and if you believe his suggestions that we would be easing lockdown in February weren't heavily trailed to the press then, well. The media's questions weren't coming out of thin air.


----------



## xenon (Jan 25, 2021)

He is actually an idiot though. Makes tactical blunders all the time.


----------



## teqniq (Jan 25, 2021)

No shit Sherlock:

Workers With Covid Too 'Scared’ To Get Tested Over Fear Of Losing Wages, Dido Harding Says



> People with Covid are too “scared” to come forward for a test because of a lack of government cash support, the head of Test and Trace has said.
> Baroness Dido Harding told a CBI webinar that the most recent figures showed that less than 60% of people who tested positive followed advice to quarantine at home once contacted.
> But the Tory peer said the problem of people not taking the test was even more of an issue...



Turd in Sunak's court:



> Harding said that it was up to chancellor Rishi Sunak to resolve the cash help problem, adding that the rollout of rapid testing in workplaces to help pick up asymptomatic cases early would help too.
> 
> Her remarks came days after No.10 ruled out proposals from the Department of Health and Social Care to pay everyone a flat-rate payment of £500 each if they were forced to quarantine at home....


----------



## bimble (Jan 25, 2021)

Asking how and when lockdown can be eased seems completely reasonable to me tbh. Not a date obviously but what the markers are, like ‘once infections are down to ... and also once we have vaccinated ...  then we will return to a tiered system which will work as follows’. Of course  people want to ask about the roadmap out of this, even if we’ve given up on expectating halfway coherent or honest answers.


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> Asking how and when lockdown can be eased seems completely reasonable to me tbh. Not a date obviously but what the markers are, like ‘once infections are down to ... and also once we have vaccinated ...  then we will return to a tiered system which will work as follows’. Of course  people want to ask about the roadmap out of this, even if we’ve given up on expectating halfway coherent or honest answers.



Ten year plans never work


----------



## xenon (Jan 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> Asking how and when lockdown can be eased seems completely reasonable to me tbh. Not a date obviously but what the markers are, like ‘once infections are down to ... and also once we have vaccinated ...  then we will return to a tiered system which will work as follows’. Of course  people want to ask about the roadmap out of this, even if we’ve given up on expectating halfway coherent or honest answers.



The questions aren't framed like that though are they? I mean, I dunno, I've stopped following these as closely but they seem to be of the type.
Should people book summer holidays.
Will schools reopen before Easter.

Rather than what would have to happen for XYZ to be possible.


----------



## bimble (Jan 25, 2021)

There must be a piece of paper somewhere with the answers scrawled on it though (open schools when infections are down to blah per week for instance) , right?
Or not, are they just blundering along from day to day like me.


----------



## xenon (Jan 25, 2021)

Oh I do agree, that would be the sensible way to give people some idea of how the fuck we're getting out of this. Australia has taken that approach.


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> There must be a piece of paper somewhere with the answers scrawled on it though (open schools when infections are down to blah per week for instance) , right?
> Or not, are they just blundering along from day to day like me.



B.

They've spent the whole pandemic being reactive instead of proactive. They even boast about it. "We react quickly..." No. Too late. 

Blundering is far too kind to them.


----------



## MickiQ (Jan 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> Or not, are they just blundering along from day to day like me.


Yes


----------



## elbows (Jan 25, 2021)

Well when it comes to me moaning about the 'when, when, when' shit, maybe I would find it slightly easier to take if they at least waited till we were some way past the peak of daily reported deaths.

One of the official measures of death, that undercounts but that all the press use, will go over 100,000 either with tomorrows figures or the day afters.

When, when, when will there be less than a thousand Covid-19 deaths per day by date of death in the UK? They could ask that first.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> Asking how and when lockdown can be eased seems completely reasonable to me tbh. Not a date obviously but what the markers are, like ‘once infections are down to ... and also once we have vaccinated ...  then we will return to a tiered system which will work as follows’. Of course  people want to ask about the roadmap out of this, even if we’ve given up on expectating halfway coherent or honest answers.


Although this all has to be bearing in mind what curveball might be thrown,  so it's all 'providing there's no other nasty surprises... '


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 25, 2021)

bliddy fuckwits, trying to run things.
they need to listen to, and follow, the advice from SAGE, indiesage, NervTAG etc etc
and not the whinging about the economy ...


----------



## editor (Jan 25, 2021)

Such fucking incompetence from this shitty, blustering buffoon-led government


----------



## brogdale (Jan 26, 2021)

editor said:


> Such fucking incompetence from this shitty, blustering buffoon-led government
> 
> View attachment 251393


innit?


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 26, 2021)

brogdale said:


> innit?
> 
> 
> View attachment 251469


And, IMO, a lot of those could have been avoided, IF those shitty ar5eh0les had properly followed the science, set an example, and not been slaves to their monetary / fiscal imperatives. Murdering ba5tard5. All their wavering, u-turns and indecision just causes excessive confusion ...


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 26, 2021)

I wish there was some significant group within politics and the media who, whenever the subject of 'when should we open up?' or 'should we have a date or target now?' is raised, would instead steer the conversation around to the need to have testing, tracing and quarantining working when the lockdown lifts. It feels like the entire nation is in a conspiracy to ignore what the WHO has been saying since early last summer: lockdown is what you do when you fail to control the virus. The correct way to control the virus is testing, tracing and quarantining, and we will still need to do it when more people have the vaccine if we want to prevent unnecessary death and disability. Honestly why are they all in this conspiracy to be so fucking shit? There's some high level bullshit groupthink going on when you can't for a moment consider that the advice of the global promoter of public health might be right.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 26, 2021)

I'd like to see some kind of conversation about the fact schools are closed but building sites are still open. 

Obviously there are loads of conversations about that, but if you only watch the BBC news you'd have no idea. 

As for testing and tracing, it's not a topic the government wants to talk about. And it's not a topic they're being pressed on, despite the fact it's both a black hole of for public funds and a total, unmitigated failure.


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Jan 26, 2021)

__





						Wilko attacks keyworker heroes by cutting sick pay
					

GMB has informed Wilko that if these draconian measures go ahead, they face a ballot for industrial action




					www.gmb.org.uk
				




It's not a handful of people having raves is it? Its the poorest (minimum wage key workers) been forced to work now the owners of the means of production have got rid of that pesky EU influence. Watch out for more of this. And accompanying finger pointing stories in the mainstream media.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 26, 2021)

Some views of the UK from across the pond, presented only because they (a) give an idea of the attitudes currently within the US; and (b) offer a perspective not affected by UK government messaging and news reporting.  They come from an analysis within the US side of our company:

Firstly, they currently project 180,000 UK deaths.  I’d take the precise number with a pinch of salt because many of their predictions for all regions have ended up needing to be increased or decreased over the last year.  But it’s a measure one way or their other, and it’s one that implies the UK has further to go than most other regions.

Secondly, they say they’ve yet to see convincing empirical evidence that the UK strain has genuinely increased case rates compared with other regions.  They think that R-numbers elsewhere are similar for similar levels of restrictions.  So whilst we may have a common-sense narrative here that treats the new strain’s effect as a given, that story is not necessarily believed elsewhere in the world.


----------



## elbows (Jan 26, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Secondly, they say they’ve yet to see convincing empirical evidence that the UK strain has genuinely increased case rates compared with other regions.  They think that R-numbers elsewhere are similar for similar levels of restrictions.  So whilst we may have a common-sense narrative here that treats the new strain’s effect as a given, that story is not necessarily believed elsewhere in the world.



A new strain on our governments credibility. But to be more serious, nothing much has changed with my position on this yet, in that I have not reached even a tentative conclusion either way. For example if I had seen all the charts but without any knowledge of a new variant, I would just have thought it showed a botched response including the November national measures being too weak and short, and what came after them being a complete joke.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 26, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> As for testing and tracing, it's not a topic the government wants to talk about. And it's not a topic they're being pressed on, despite the fact it's both a black hole of for public funds and a total, unmitigated failure.


It's driving me up the wall. Labour should be talking about the corruption and failure in contact tracing every goddamn day but the haircut is too keen on keeping the right wing press onside. It's infuriating. Both parties are also avoiding the conversation because they know that for quarantining to work you have to both fund and enforce it. They're keen on neither, the former because Tory cunts, the latter due to some hokey notion of 'freedom' that leads to us all being imprisoned by the virus.

Edit to add - Think about it: a state that literally will not let you change the colour of your window frames without an application that costs hundreds and takes weeks to process (and might be refused)*, is saying that enforcing ten days of quarantine on a few thousand people (if you start from a low point after lockdown) in order to save tens of thousands of lives is too much of an infringement on individual liberty. It's like they're pretending suddenly that the state doesn't impinge on us massively in a million different ways already. Apparently _this_ measure, of all measures, would be just taking it too far. Even though not taking the measure results in us all being told to stay home for months. The stupidity of the arguments is mind-boggling.

*I use this trivial example just because it's one where an enforcement officer might actually show up at your door. When apparently that happening for quarantine would be like some authoritarian state.


----------



## elbows (Jan 26, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> It feels like the entire nation is in a conspiracy to ignore what the WHO has been saying since early last summer: lockdown is what you do when you fail to control the virus. The correct way to control the virus is testing, tracing and quarantining, and we will still need to do it when more people have the vaccine if we want to prevent unnecessary death and disability.



Thats not the whole picture either though. A country with a very good, timely test & trace system will sometimes still discover a picture, via that system, of a serious outbreak that requires lockdown etc to control. And we've seen that happen in many of the countries that were lauded for their test & trace & other aspects of their response such as border controls. We need and excellent test & trace system but we need it to come with reasonable expectations about what it does and doesnt mean for other measures.


----------



## elbows (Jan 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> A new strain on our governments credibility. But to be more serious, nothing much has changed with my position on this yet, in that I have not reached even a tentative conclusion either way. For example if I had seen all the charts but without any knowledge of a new variant, I would just have thought it showed a botched response including the November national measures being too weak and short, and what came after them being a complete joke.



When checking another subject on the worldwide thread I ame across a WHO quote from over a week ago that fits in here.









						New Coronavirus Variants Could Cause More Reinfections, Require Updated Vaccines
					

Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.When the number of COVID-19 cases began to rise again in Manaus, Brazil, in December 2020, Nuno Faria...




					pulitzercenter.org
				






> In a press conference today, WHO’s Mike Ryan cautioned that changes in human behavior are still the major driving force for the resurgence. “It’s too easy to just lay the blame on the variants and say it’s the virus that did it,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s also what we didn’t do that did it.”


----------



## smokedout (Jan 26, 2021)

xenon said:


> Oh I do agree, that would be the sensible way to give people some idea of how the fuck we're getting out of this. Australia has taken that approach.



Not just that, it makes it a collective project rather than a top down edict to be endured/got round until they say otherwise.  Stay indoors and we might let you to go to the pub at Easter is very different to if we can get cases down to x then maybe we can open up this again but if it goes back up over that again we'll have to lock it down.  The first is opaque and feels dictatorial, the second gives an incentive to pro-actively and collectively try and reduce infections.


----------



## LDC (Jan 26, 2021)

smokedout said:


> Not just that, it makes it a collective project rather than a top down edict to be endured/got round until they say otherwise.  Stay indoors and we might let you to go to the pub at Easter is very different to if we can get cases down to x then maybe we can open up this again but if it goes back up over that again we'll have to lock it down.  The first is opaque and feels dictatorial, the second gives an incentive to pro-actively and collectively try and reduce infections.



I appreciate the reasons people give for wanting clear guidelines about exciting or loosening restrictions, but I find it really hard to imagine a way of doing them that isn't massively over-complicated and confusing in the situation we're in now, and then it also creates the predictable, "You said this, but..." when the situation changes. (With a much lower incidence of infection then I can see it working much better.)

Would you give infection rates as an indicator? In all age groups? Regionally or nationally? Or hospitalisations, or deaths? Or some mix of them and vaccination rates? Or something else? It's just a massive topic, and with people saying messaging is important and needs to be clear I can't see how this would do anything but create more confusion and anger when something changes (another variant for example) which means the route out has to change anyway.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 26, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I appreciate the reasons people give for wanting clear guidelines about exciting or loosening restrictions, but I find it really hard to imagine a way of doing them that isn't massively over-complicated and confusing in the situation we're in now, and then it also creates the predictable, "You said this, but..." when the situation changes. (With a much lower incidence of infection then I can see it working much better.)
> 
> Would you give infection rates as an indicator? In all age groups? Regionally or nationally? Or hospitalisations, or deaths? Or some mix of them and vaccination rates? Or something else? It's just a massive topic, and with people saying messaging is important and needs to be clear I can't see how this would do anything but create more confusion and anger when something changes (another variant for example) which means the route out has to change anyway.


All true, but a well-run organisation with an entire year to do it would by now have identified their key metrics, trigger points, risk tolerances and decision and escalation criteria.  The communication of these would no doubt need to be done with caution but I don’t even get the impression that the government have anything in the first place to communicate.


----------



## elbows (Jan 26, 2021)

kabbes said:


> All true, but a well-run organisation with an entire year to do it would by now have identified their key metrics, trigger points, risk tolerances and decision and escalation criteria.  The communication of these would no doubt need to be done with caution but I don’t even get the impression that the government have anything in the first place to communicate.



SAGE etc have talked of trigger points since the earliest days. eg levels of intensive care admissions that should be used to trigger a new phase of the response. Some are probably still referenced behind the scenes, but the government clearly doesnt like being bound by consistent triggers, they reserve the right to completely ignore all that stuff (eg what happened in September) and I dont even think they like the idea of the public being equipped with tools that enable them to predict government decisions and action.

I did manage to identify one indicator, but it wasnt a trigger point, it was Nick Triggle. As in when we are at stages where the BBCs Nick Triggle talks shit about the future and makes it sound like measures would be an overreaction or that modelling is overly gloomy, then we may assume that strong measures are needed but that deadly cunts within government are trying to resist. This was a reliable indicator in March and September, but hasnt been a factor since then as even Triggle could not avoid the gravity of the situation that followed. I would not rule out a further repeat of this phenomenon in future if thats where we find ourselves.


----------



## Dogsauce (Jan 26, 2021)

brogdale said:


> innit?
> 
> 
> View attachment 251469



Covid: UK virus deaths exceed 100,000 since pandemic began

The last paragraph of that article (which discusses the impact in different countries) is spectacularly disingenuous. Check this out:




> With deaths rising since then in many countries and vaccination programmes only getting up and running, there is still a long way to go before we will know who has had the toughest second wave.




“Who had the toughest second wave”. Fuck me. Like none of it was our fault, we just got hit hard with this thing. Other countries just had it easier than us. Nothing at all to do with being run by devil-may-care misanthropes.


----------



## elbows (Jan 26, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Covid: UK virus deaths exceed 100,000 since pandemic began
> 
> The last paragraph of that article (which discusses the impact in different countries) is spectacularly disingenuous. Check this out:



Plus this disgusting claim:



> And some countries that missed the first wave entirely - such as Poland (shown above) or Germany - have seen significant spikes in deaths in recent months.



Germany is having a much worse time in the second wave, with many tens of thousands of deaths. But they didnt 'miss the first wave entirely', they had over 9000 deaths in the first wave. When looking at excess death figures only it may be possible to make that claim, but all that really means is that the first wave Covid19 deaths were at a level that could be completely offset by a reduction in non-Covid deaths at that time.


----------



## elbows (Jan 26, 2021)

Regarding trigger points etc, the governemnt will still come out with language that involves such concepts, but they wont share the precise detail that would enable us to judge.

The following is about school standards minister Nick Gibb, as covered in the 13:57 entry of the BBC live updates page.



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55808412
		




> He says there are "clear criteria" on the course of the pandemic that must be met before schools can reopen.
> 
> These include the number of people being admitted to hospital, death and vaccination rates and meeting the challenge of new variants.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Jan 26, 2021)

Johnson press conference at 5pm.


----------



## prunus (Jan 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> Johnson press conference at 5pm.



Let joy be unconfined.


----------



## smokedout (Jan 26, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I appreciate the reasons people give for wanting clear guidelines about exciting or loosening restrictions, but I find it really hard to imagine a way of doing them that isn't massively over-complicated and confusing in the situation we're in now, and then it also creates the predictable, "You said this, but..." when the situation changes. (With a much lower incidence of infection then I can see it working much better.)
> 
> Would you give infection rates as an indicator? In all age groups? Regionally or nationally? Or hospitalisations, or deaths? Or some mix of them and vaccination rates? Or something else? It's just a massive topic, and with people saying messaging is important and needs to be clear I can't see how this would do anything but create more confusion and anger when something changes (another variant for example) which means the route out has to change anyway.



It's probably too late to change tone now, but I don't think it would be beyond people to understand that if, for example, we can get the number of people in hospital down to whatever then we can start to open up, but if cases go up again then we have to close down.  That gives a clear incentive, it seems pretty simple to me and there doesn't then need to be constant changes of course. If a new variant comes along but hospital numbers don't go up then that's all good, if they do we have to lockdown again.  It's driven by the data, which everyone has access to rather than at the moment where it seems driven by this weird tension between the desperation to open up for economic reasons followed by sheer panic when it goes wrong.

An open ended lockdown doesn't really offer any hope and I think that impacts on compliance.  People are always going to ask when can this be over and at the moment there is a sense that's based on the whims of politicians not how we are collectively behaving.  Give people the data, set actual targets, ideally localised, and then there's something to work towards.  I think people would be much more motivated if local agencies at all levels including unions etc worked together to say okay let's get this town down to near zero Covid (whatever that is that's deemed safe) then we can all go to the pub but we still have to try and be careful so it doesn't start going back up again.  I think that would be preferable to endless doom punctuated by reckless top down decisions made by politicians wanting to be popular that almost immediately have to be reversed and cost countless lives.


----------



## LDC (Jan 26, 2021)

smokedout said:


> It's probably too late to change tone now, but I don't think it would be beyond people to understand that if, for example, we can get the number of people in hospital down to whatever then we can start to open up, but if cases go up again then we have to close down.  That gives a clear incentive, it seems pretty simple to me and there doesn't then need to be constant changes of course. If a new variant comes along but hospital numbers don't go up then that's all good, if they do we have to lockdown again.  It's driven by the data, which everyone has access to rather than at the moment where it seems driven by this weird tension between the desperation to open up for economic reasons followed by sheer panic when it goes wrong.
> 
> An open ended lockdown doesn't really offer any hope and I think that impacts on compliance.  People are always going to ask when can this be over and at the moment there is a sense that's based on the whims of politicians not how we are collectively behaving.  Give people the data, set actual targets, ideally localised, and then there's something to work towards.  I think people would be much more motivated if local agencies at all levels including unions etc worked together to say okay let's get this town down to near zero Covid (whatever that is that's deemed safe) then we can all go to the pub but we still have to try and be careful so it doesn't start going back up again.  I think that would be preferable to endless doom punctuated by reckless top down decisions made by politicians wanting to be popular that almost immediately have to be reversed and cost countless lives.
> 
> it's inevitable that people will want to know when it ends, and I don't think there's anyway of getting away from those questions.



Yeah I agree, although I think it's such a fucking mess now I find it hard to unpick what is best done short of a very strict lockdown, vaccine the fuck out of the country, and then see how we go... We need to be mentally prepared for another year or so of this I think.


----------



## Bingo (Jan 26, 2021)

editor said:


> Such fucking incompetence from this shitty, blustering buffoon-led government
> 
> View attachment 251393


It suits them to have a death toll like this, why is it incompetence?


----------



## smokedout (Jan 26, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> We need to be mentally prepared for another year or so of this I think.



Yeah I think you're right.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> Johnson press conference at 5pm.



I guess he'll be announcing the new plans for people coming into the UK.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 26, 2021)

smokedout said:


> It's probably too late to change tone now, but I don't think it would be beyond people to understand that if, for example, we can get the number of people in hospital down to whatever then we can start to open up, but if cases go up again then we have to close down.  That gives a clear incentive, it seems pretty simple to me and there doesn't then need to be constant changes of course. If a new variant comes along but hospital numbers don't go up then that's all good, if they do we have to lockdown again.  It's driven by the data, which everyone has access to rather than at the moment where it seems driven by this weird tension between the desperation to open up for economic reasons followed by sheer panic when it goes wrong.
> 
> An open ended lockdown doesn't really offer any hope and I think that impacts on compliance.  People are always going to ask when can this be over and at the moment there is a sense that's based on the whims of politicians not how we are collectively behaving.  Give people the data, set actual targets, ideally localised, and then there's something to work towards.  I think people would be much more motivated if local agencies at all levels including unions etc worked together to say okay let's get this town down to near zero Covid (whatever that is that's deemed safe) then we can all go to the pub but we still have to try and be careful so it doesn't start going back up again.  I think that would be preferable to endless doom punctuated by reckless top down decisions made by politicians wanting to be popular that almost immediately have to be reversed and cost countless lives.


 I just wrote and deleted something about the underlined (not so much about targets and coming out of lockdown, but more generally).  There's always a feel that the government are having a one way conversation with us as individuals/consumers/work units. If we could rewind to last May, what an opportunity there was to mobilise all kinds of aspects of community or 'civil society' (hate that term).  I never feel 'part of' the response as things stand and the whole thing rolls on, exacerbating existing inequalities and isolation.  Government couldn't even convince of putting part of the strategy in the hands of communities, but to be honest, neither have 'we'.  Wouldn't have been easy to generate the links and actions needed for a new community response, but it might have been the start of a new politics.


----------



## LDC (Jan 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I just wrote and deleted something about the underlined (not so much about targets and coming out of lockdown, but more generally).  There's always a feel that the government are having a one way conversation with us as individuals/consumers/work units. If we could rewind to last May, what an opportunity there was to mobilise all kinds of aspects of community or 'civil society' (hate that term).  I never feel 'part of' the response as things stand and the whole thing rolls on, exacerbating existing inequalities and isolation.  Government couldn't even convince of putting part of the strategy in the hands of communities, but to be honest, neither have 'we'.  Wouldn't have been easy to generate the links and actions needed for a new community response, but it might have been the start of a new politics.



I'd just add 'workplace and workplace response' to that, but yeah, totally agree.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I guess he'll be announcing the new plans for people coming into the UK.



That's a Shapps job surely? You can usually tell whats coming by who's doing the Press Conf. Patel for having a go at people, Hancock for bragging about vax and the NHS, Rishi for furlough extensions and Sharma for something or other that I can't remember. Boris usually means a U-turn.


----------



## BCBlues (Jan 26, 2021)

souljacker said:


> That's a Shapps job surely? You can usually tell whats coming by who's doing the Press Conf. Patel for having a go at people, Hancock for bragging about vax and the NHS, Rishi for furlough extensions and Sharma for something or other that I can't remember. Boris usually means a U-turn.



Hes playing it safe tonight with Chris Witty and his slides, and Simon Stevens.
I hope someone asks him about Theresa Coffee's assumption that its fat old people to blame.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 26, 2021)

This brutal story has really upset me today. She's so young.








						'I miss everything about her' -  Edinburgh trainee nurse and single mum dies from Covid-19
					

The tragic passing of the healthcare worker has left two young children to “walk the world alone”




					www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com


----------



## Wilf (Jan 26, 2021)

weepiper said:


> This brutal story has really upset me today. She's so young.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's just so so awful, you feel a physical reaction reading that story. Hard to imagine how those kids must be feeling and what their future holds.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported figures -
> 
> New cases down again - 20,089
> 
> New deaths - 1,631, slightly up on last Tuesday, by 21.


----------



## LDC (Jan 26, 2021)

Spiegelhalter on the BBC reporting that our actual death figures are more like 120,000 in reality, and that we passed 100,000 by about the 7th January.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 26, 2021)

Definitely feels like this 'obese and aging population' narrative is being used more and more. This twat on the bbc right now is talking about it and I've read it in a couple of other places recently.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 26, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Spiegelhalter on the BBC reporting that our actual death figures are more like 120,000 in reality, and that we passed 100,000 by about the 7th January.



120,000 is twice the number of people killed by enemy action in the uk in the second world war - from air raids and the like.


----------



## Supine (Jan 26, 2021)

Took the walk in test at 16:59 today. Place was empty. Results back already - negative


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 26, 2021)

There's a lot more to blame than just obesity and old age, add in the poverty and population density in some areas, and how linked up everywhere is ... and that's before you start on the (poor) decisions made by this government directly to do with the pandemic plus all the ones made by previous administrations that cut the guts out of the NHS & other public services and killed the sense of community spirit [no such thing as society].
I could go on ...
I've now read this bbc piece on the subject ...
100,000 Covid deaths: Why the UK's death toll is so bad - BBC News


----------



## elbows (Jan 26, 2021)

Todays 100,000 death milestone press conference is a disgusting spectacle.

Johnson pledged to remember the dead and the frontline workers, wow what a pledge. Shame he didnt prevent a lot of them dying in the first place.

Some journalists asked the right sort of questions for this moment.

Whitty was asked whether he regretted things like not trying harder to get government to do the right things in September. He simply hid behind the new variant in a blatant and appalling manner. He went on about balance. In the past, months ago when Vallance was trying to improve the publics impression of his own lockdown stance, something came out about how he said Whitty shouted at him on one occasion when Vallance was pressing for lockdown etc. I think I know where Whittys sense of balance and indeed sense of duty comes from. I dont agree with all of it and I expect that on some occasions he was part of the problem. And even if he wasnt, he is far too keen to provide cover for Johnson etc, and some of his press conference comments in recent months have come across as brown-nosing.


----------



## andysays (Jan 26, 2021)

Supine said:


> Took the walk in test at 16:59 today. Place was empty. Results back already - negative


I did my third walk in test today, and the place has been almost empty every time.

While I understand the reasons some people might not want to get tested, I still find it a little concerning that there appears to be such a low take-up


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 26, 2021)

I didn't know you could get a walk in test tbh. I think a lot of people probably still think you need to jump through hoops to get one.


----------



## thismoment (Jan 26, 2021)

I only found out about my local one from Urban. I haven’t received any info about it, although the council has previously sent out letters about the lockdowns


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 26, 2021)

Unless something has changed in the past couple of weeks; locally, we still have to book & to have some symptoms. 
Despite the site / team seemingly to be the polar opposite of busy over the past four weeks, according to the reports from people passing.


----------



## chilango (Jan 26, 2021)

Is there a governmental equivalent to corporate manslaughter?


----------



## Raheem (Jan 26, 2021)

Corporate man's laughter.


----------



## elbows (Jan 26, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I didn't know you could get a walk in test tbh. I think a lot of people probably still think you need to jump through hoops to get one.



A lot of the local 'dont need symptoms' test facilities were stuff they were going on about setting up in a previous phase and were hoping to use as an alternative to actually doing the right thing and locking down. Events got ahead of them on that but meanwhile the centres have popped up in various places.

This is the sort of local messaging we get about that here.


----------



## Supine (Jan 26, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Unless something has changed in the past couple of weeks; locally, we still have to book & to have some symptoms.
> Despite the site / team seemingly to be the polar opposite of busy over the past four weeks, according to the reports from people passing.



it's worth doing a bit of research. The place i went to still has a website saying symptoms only but it is out of date. I only knew because my job directed me there.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 26, 2021)

chilango said:


> Is there a governmental equivalent to corporate manslaughter?


I've wondered similarly and had a quick look at the legislation (wiki). In short, government departments are included, but none have been convicted so far.
The definition of the offence looks like exactly what is going on in common sense terms but equally, the sort of thing that would never ever become a prosecution:



> An indictable offence[8] is committed if the way in which an organisation's activities are managed or organised:[9]
> 
> 
> Causes a person's death; and
> ...





Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 - Wikipedia


----------



## chilango (Jan 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I've wondered similarly and had a quick look at the legislation (wiki). In short, government departments are included, but none have been convicted so far.
> The definition of the offence looks like exactly what is going on in common sense terms but equally, the sort of thing that would never ever become a prosecution:
> 
> 
> ...



Who would have the authority to bring such a case?

I'm guessing a Peter Tatchell citizen's arrest wouldn't cut it.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> A lot of the local 'dont need symptoms' test facilities were stuff they were going on about setting up in a previous phase and were hoping to use as an alternative to actually doing the right thing and locking down. Events got ahead of them on that but meanwhile the centres have popped up in various places.
> 
> This is the sort of local messaging we get about that here.



There's one near me that was advertised (as in if you happened to see something on social media) as being available for those with no symptoms (and I think you are supposed to book but I haven't tried).
There's another one that I only know exists because I happened to walk past it at the weekend (and I don't know if it's for symptoms/no symptoms/book/walk-in).
And also walked past another centre a bit further away, at the weekend.

All of them have been deserted when I pass - no queues, no sign of much going on. And no real information outside about what they are, what you can use them for, how to book, what website to look at, etc.


----------



## Supine (Jan 26, 2021)

Google Maps shows results for Covid Testing centres in the uk


----------



## teuchter (Jan 26, 2021)

Supine said:


> Google Maps shows results for Covid Testing centres in the uk


Just tried that for my local area - it shows the "walk-through" ones, which it seems are the ones you need a booking for, and are for if you have symptoms. It doesn't show either of the no-symptom test places nearby.


----------



## Supine (Jan 26, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Just tried that for my local area - it shows the "walk-through" ones, which it seems are the ones you need a booking for, and are for if you have symptoms. It doesn't show either of the no-symptom test places nearby.



Mine was a walkthrough and like i said their website was out of date. Ask if they do asymptomatic, the answer might be yes.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 26, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Spiegelhalter on the BBC reporting that our actual death figures are more like 120,000 in reality, and that we passed 100,000 by about the 7th January.




Far past even 120 I suspect









						One in eight 'recovered' Covid patients 'die within 140 days'
					

A third of people were back in hospital within five months of first being diagnosed.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 26, 2021)

Supine said:


> Mine was a walkthrough and like i said their website was out of date. Ask if they do asymptomatic, the answer might be yes.


I might get one of my team to go and give them a shout tomorrow (it's all of 400m away) to try and find out.

tbh I have such a good gag reflex I don't want anything stuck down my throat - Dr had trouble with using a tongue depressor during a medical a couple of years ago ! I wonder if I can get one of the saliva tests instead ?


----------



## Mation (Jan 26, 2021)

andysays said:


> I did my third walk in test today, and the place has been almost empty every time.
> 
> While I understand the reasons some people might not want to get tested, I still find it a little concerning that there appears to be such a low take-up


How many test centres are there, relatively locally? Are more people able to get tests at work?


----------



## Mation (Jan 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> A lot of the local 'dont need symptoms' test facilities were stuff they were going on about setting up in a previous phase and were hoping to use as an alternative to actually doing the right thing and locking down. Events got ahead of them on that but meanwhile the centres have popped up in various places.
> 
> This is the sort of local messaging we get about that here.



Do they not want people to come? Who chose those colours? That's really, genuinely, hard to look at. 

If so for me, then for others, too.

Why is everything always so rubbish?


----------



## smokedout (Jan 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I just wrote and deleted something about the underlined (not so much about targets and coming out of lockdown, but more generally).  There's always a feel that the government are having a one way conversation with us as individuals/consumers/work units. If we could rewind to last May, what an opportunity there was to mobilise all kinds of aspects of community or 'civil society' (hate that term).  I never feel 'part of' the response as things stand and the whole thing rolls on, exacerbating existing inequalities and isolation.  Government couldn't even convince of putting part of the strategy in the hands of communities, but to be honest, neither have 'we'.  Wouldn't have been easy to generate the links and actions needed for a new community response, but it might have been the start of a new politics.



Yeah wouldn't it be great if unions, community organisations, key workers, tenant groups, NHS staff etc were all having local zoom meetings discussing how to challenge workplaces that are dangerous and taking the piss, working out who needs help and how to get it to them, discussing ways to make shops/transport/resources safer and even how we can try and wring some quality of life out of this situation.  I think a bottom up response could have worked, would have been better in terms of keeping infection under control and created a lasting legacy.  Which is not to undermine some of the great work that the mutual aid groups have done, just that we weren't organised enough or ambitious enough or perhaps even connected and confident enough pre-pandemic to have the initiative to take it to the next level at the speed that was required.  I think a lot of us, myself included, were a bit like rabbits staring at the headlights when this all kicked off.

Oh well, there'll always be another pandemic I guess.  Maybe next time.


----------



## Cid (Jan 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I've wondered similarly and had a quick look at the legislation (wiki). In short, government departments are included, but none have been convicted so far.
> The definition of the offence looks like exactly what is going on in common sense terms but equally, the sort of thing that would never ever become a prosecution:
> 
> 
> ...



Corporate manslaughter within a government department would be more like a fatal accident at work caused by something grossly negligent. I.e it's within a specific area of operation... The key bit is that 'duty of care' element. These only apply in limited circumstances, employer-employee is one of those, and a government department is an employer. That duty of care then has to be breached, and it has to be a _gross_ breach, i.e well below the standard of a normal relationship of that type, in the circumstances. And every word there is important 'in the circumstances' is going to be different in a national emergency.

A government doesn't have a duty of care in that sense... It has responsibilities, and actions in office can be challenged via judicial review. I am far too rusty on that to know how it might apply... I assume if it were a possibility, Jolyon Maughan QC, tiger of the EU, would have brought some kind of action by now. 

The real problem is that our constitution is set up (or has evolved) in a way that is meant to give government a great degree of latitude in how it operates, assuming consent of parliament. In itself, that isn't necessarily a bad thing (e.g see how stagnant areas of US policy can get), but in the current context of an utterly cowed opposition and a lickspittle press, is showing its flaws. The theory behind it is pretty clear; if a government is incompetent, parliament should kick them out. It just doesn't always work... It's an interesting subject I think. There are many features of government that work in theory, and yet are fucked on contact with the real world. Lessons there. 

Anyway, bit too much a tangent for this thread... And too much of a tangent on the specifics too, do not be tempted by the rabbit-hole of judicial review, it leads to caves.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 26, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Far past even 120 I suspect
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Perhaps one contributory factor.


----------



## Dogsauce (Jan 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported figures -
> 
> New cases down again - 20,089
> 
> New deaths - 1,631, slightly up on last Tuesday, by 21.



It‘s hard to get my head round how horrible this is day after day at the moment. 1600 coffins stacked up, 1600 families in bits.

None of it needed to happen on this scale, it’s been a choice. Malignant cunts with the ear of the government pushing ‘we’ve got to keep the economy going’, yet with every extra month this thing is dragged out by weak action and enforcement their precious economy goes further down the toilet. Stupid fucks.


----------



## elbows (Jan 26, 2021)

Various things are trending on twitter including Eat Out To Help Out.


----------



## andysays (Jan 27, 2021)

Mation said:


> How many test centres are there, relatively locally? Are more people able to get tests at work?



I was informed about it through work (I work for Hackney Council), but the test centre I've been to is open to the public.

I'm aware of two test centres in Hackney doing asymptomatic testing, as well as a number doing symptomatic tests.

I think they're run by local health authorities (in this case City and Hackney) so provision may be variable depending where you are.

I would suggest that the best place to find out about testing in your (anyone's) local area is to look on your local council website.


----------



## Mation (Jan 27, 2021)

andysays said:


> I was informed about it through work (I work for Hackney Council), but the test centre I've been to is open to the public.
> 
> I'm aware of two test centres in Hackney doing asymptomatic testing, as well as a number doing symptomatic tests.
> 
> ...


I get tested weekly via work, but good advice generally. I was just trying to think of additional reasons why test centres might be looking empty


----------



## andysays (Jan 27, 2021)

Just followed my own advice and looked at the Haringey (where I live) website.

The info isn't that easy to find, but apparently there are two, soon to be three, rapid test centres in Haringey. It gives their addresses and opening hours, and seems to suggest booking isn't necessary.

There's also a link to a map showing all the test sites in London.


----------



## bimble (Jan 27, 2021)

Just watched a clip of Johnson's performative grief yesterday and found new reserves of disgust for the man. With a thin gloss of attempted gravitas all he had to offer was an attempt to deny of any kind of responsibility or failure at all. "We have done everything we could to keep deaths to minimum" is an obvious lie and an insult to everyones intelligence. More of the same we have come to expect from him but in this context just painful.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 27, 2021)

I aim to avoid that clip


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 27, 2021)

AstraZeneca has confirmed there's no way they are going to divert vaccine supplies manufactured in the UK, and intended for use in the UK, to the EU, pointing out that it was developed by Oxford University and backed by the UK government from the start, on the understanding UK manufactured supplies would be supplied to the UK in line with the contract, before any would be exported. 

A month after the UK invested, AZ reached an agreement with a group known as the 'Inclusive Vaccine Alliance' (Germany, Holland, France and Italy) based on the UK agreement, but the EU stepped in and insisted they could not formalise the deal, and took over negotiations resulting in another 2 months of talks, meaning the EU signed a deal 3 months after the UK. Plus the UK was the first to approve its use, whereas the EU still hasn't, although is expected to soon. 

This gave AZ an extra three months to sort out manufacturing and supply problems associated with the UK contract, so the EU will have to wait until they have done the same at their Belgium site, the main base for supplying the EU, and where the problem is. Another manufacture in Germany is now going to produce the AZ vaccine too, which is good news for the EU, but it'll take time to get it up and running.   

On this basis, Pascal Soriot, the head of AZ, also said he believes the target of 15 million people vaccinated with their first dose by mid-Feb. will be hit, and that all 50's could have their first dose by the end of March, whilst backing the decision to wait up to 12 weeks between doses. 



> Analysis by Airfinity, a UK-based analytics company working for the life sciences industry, suggests the UK will have achieved effective “herd immunity” by vaccinating 75% of the adult population by 14 July while the EU will have to wait until 21 October based on supply deals and the latest delays.



If we get there by mid-July, that will be amazing, as IIRC the government target is by the end of Sept. 









						Head of AstraZeneca rejects calls for UK vaccine to be diverted to EU
					

Chief executive of pharmaceutical giant says the firm will honour UK’s earlier contract despite EU anger over shortfall




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Badgers (Jan 27, 2021)




----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 27, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just watched a clip of Johnson's performative grief yesterday and found new reserves of disgust for the man. With a thin gloss of attempted gravitas all he had to offer was an attempt to deny of any kind of responsibility or failure at all. "We have done everything we could to keep deaths to minimum" is an obvious lie and an insult to everyones intelligence. More of the same we have come to expect from him but in this context just painful.


The change of tone from the BBC this morning was quite dramatic - lots of interviews with people saying how much was avoidable and due to poor decisions by the government, which is not something they've ever really countenanced as a narrative before.









						Covid-19: 'Poor decisions' to blame for UK death toll, scientists say
					

A "legacy of poor decisions" in 2020 and before the pandemic led to 100,000 deaths, scientists say.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 27, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> The change of tone from the BBC this morning was quite dramatic - lots of interviews with people saying how much was avoidable and due to poor decisions by the government, which is not something they've ever really countenanced as a narrative before.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I noticed that too, I saw the housing secretary Jenrick interviews on both the BBC & Sky, they both were uncomfortable for him, although Sky went after him a lot harder than the BBC did.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 27, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> The change of tone from the BBC this morning was quite dramatic


Started yesterday with the question from LK
Jenrick got a harder time on GMB but was thanked for facing the music today when it should have been Hancock.


----------



## magneze (Jan 27, 2021)

The latest air travel policy is another poor decision. "We did everything we could". No you didn't and you still aren't.


----------



## Numbers (Jan 27, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Started yesterday with the question from LK
> He got a harder time on GMB but was thanked for facing the music today when it should have been Hancock.


I thought Morgan would have been tougher.

The tribute to some of those who have died by Morgan and Susanna was very touching, very sad.


----------



## Flavour (Jan 27, 2021)

It's almost as if breaking the six-figure barrier has tripped some sort of switch and now there's no avoiding a discussion of just how badly the UK has handled the pandemic from the very beginning. But 10,000 deaths would also have been too many. I find it all very cynical.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 27, 2021)

Numbers said:


> I thought Morgan would have been tougher.
> 
> The tribute to some of those who have died by Morgan and Susanna was very touching, very sad.


Yeah if anything Susanna Reid was tougher.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 27, 2021)

Flavour said:


> It's almost as if breaking the six-figure barrier has tripped some sort of switch and now there's no avoiding a discussion of just how badly the UK has handled the pandemic from the very beginning. But 10,000 deaths would also have been too many. I find it all very cynical.


I wonder how much of the population are suddenly surprised to discover just how badly the UK has been doing.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 27, 2021)

Flavour said:


> It's almost as if breaking the six-figure barrier has tripped some sort of switch and now there's no avoiding a discussion of just how badly the UK has handled the pandemic from the very beginning. But 10,000 deaths would also have been too many. I find it all very cynical.


Yeah 98000 deaths & lets focus on vaccine rollout but hit the 100K & the media can let rip with their library clips they have had on ice waiting for this landmark. Starting to ask awkward questions that are almost a year too late.


----------



## andysays (Jan 27, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Yeah 98000 deaths & lets focus on vaccine rollout but hit the 100K & the media can let rip with their library clips they have had on ice waiting for this landmark. Starting to ask awkward questions that are almost a year too late.


To some extent the media have been complicit in the mishandling up to now because of the supine way they (in general, there have been a few exceptions) have behaved.

Not that that removes any of the blame from the government.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 27, 2021)

I'm a great believer in giving leeway to people for doing the best they could with the information they had available to them at the time. But the Tories did not do the best they could with the information they had available at the time. They crossed their fingers and hoped it would go away,


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

I liked what the person from the bereaved families group was saying about 100,000 deaths not being a milestone but a tombstone.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 27, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Yeah 98000 deaths & lets focus on vaccine rollout but hit the 100K & the media can let rip with their library clips they have had on ice waiting for this landmark. Starting to ask awkward questions that are almost a year too late.



Very much so. I've lost count of the number of times I've said over the past year 'thousands of people are dead and yet we're just 🤷‍♂️.'  Also the repeated utterings of 'ooh it's completely unprecedented' as if pandemics have never happened before and the worst one is the one that talks about hindsight being a wonderful thing, despite the fact there were numerous voices virtually screaming at the government to lock down now. Do you remember when Johnson went on TV and just said 'wash your hands and don't go on a cruise if you're over 70' I knew then it would be a really big fuck up.

And remember this bloke? He was on media everywhere for about a week before disappearing pretty sharpish for forcefully pointing out what was coming.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

I remember being yelled at on fb in early March for 'thinking I know better than the scientists'.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jan 27, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just watched a clip of Johnson's performative grief yesterday and found new reserves of disgust for the man. With a thin gloss of attempted gravitas all he had to offer was an attempt to deny of any kind of responsibility or failure at all. "We have done everything we could to keep deaths to minimum" is an obvious lie and an insult to everyones intelligence. More of the same we have come to expect from him but in this context just painful.


#BorisBullshitter


----------



## zora (Jan 27, 2021)

It's all so nuts. And it's not exactly like it's been party time in the UK for the past year and that's why we are where we are now.
To have such a high level of restrictions to so much of social and economic activity for such long periods of time, (including parts of the country being practically in lockdown for the whole year), and to have such high compliance and support from the public for this, and to spend so much on test and trace, and after all this instead of ending up with near zero covid, to end up with 100000 deaths and rapidly counting and god knows how many cases of long covid and other health conditions exacerbated by delayed treatment, and covid still rife...it really takes some doing.


----------



## Flavour (Jan 27, 2021)

zora said:


> It's all so nuts. And it's not exactly like it's been party time in the UK for the past year and that's why we are where we are now.
> To have such a high level of restrictions to so much of social and economic activity for such long periods of time, (including parts of the country being practically in lockdown for the whole year), and to have such high compliance and support from the public for this, and to spend so much on test and trace, and after all this instead of ending up with near zero covid, to end up with 100000 deaths and rapidly counting and god knows how many cases of long covid and other health conditions exacerbated by delayed treatment, and covid still rife...it really takes some doing.



Yeah but Christmas


----------



## chilango (Jan 27, 2021)

Cynical me has massive fucking klaxons blaring right now.

It's been rumoured for some time now that Johnson planned to quit in January (for "health reasons").

Is the groundwork being laid for him to turn this craven act into one of noble self-sacrifice?

Would fit the narrative of individual responsibility that has surrounded the Covid response here perfectly.


----------



## magneze (Jan 27, 2021)

The government should quit. Pretty much every ministry is complicit in their own way.


----------



## magneze (Jan 27, 2021)

If they don't quit over this then what DO they quit over?


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

Wouldn't surprise me tbh.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

Lock him up.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

To be honest if he did resign that would be the best thing he ever did.


----------



## chilango (Jan 27, 2021)

I don't want the murdering public school bastard slinking off to a comfortable retirement. I want him in the dock, on trial, for the deaths he's caused.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 27, 2021)

I think it's the first time I've ever seen him say "sorry" about anything.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 27, 2021)

EvErYtHiNg We CoUlD


----------



## two sheds (Jan 27, 2021)

chilango said:


> I don't want the murdering public school bastard slinking off to a comfortable retirement. I want him in the dock, on trial, for the deaths he's caused.


manslaughtering bastard should also be a term really


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

chilango said:


> I don't want the murdering public school bastard slinking off to a comfortable retirement. I want him in the dock, on trial, for the deaths he's caused.



Has any PM ever been sent to prison? We don't really have 'impeachment' or similar here do we.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 27, 2021)

What will happen is there will be a very expensive enquiry that will conclude 'Oh well,  it was all very difficult they probably could have done better but we can't blame anyone in particular' 🙄😡


----------



## existentialist (Jan 27, 2021)

magneze said:


> If they don't quit over this then what DO they quit over?


Nothing, but nothing.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 27, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> To be honest if he did resign that would be the best thing he ever did.


But then we have the "Pence" trolley problem. Johnson goes...and who takes over? It could end up being one of those Brexiteering swivel-eyed loons who are now burbling on about "herd immunity" and "the economy". Appalling as the prospect is, there really are people who could be even worse for us than Johnson...


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jan 27, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Has any PM ever been sent to prison? We don't really have 'impeachment' or similar here do we.


I assume the Queen or whoever's his boss can take some kind of action against him in really extreme circumstances but it would probably have to be something blatantly illegal, not just immoral. More's the pity.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 27, 2021)

Cloo said:


> What will happen is there will be a very expensive enquiry that will conclude 'Oh well,  it was all very difficult they probably could have done better but we can't blame anyone in particular' 🙄😡



It'll take at least 3 inquries and maybe a decade but that'll be the conclusion.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

Does the uk have impeachment or anything similar?


----------



## DotCommunist (Jan 27, 2021)

the only one who ever faced consequences was Spencer Perceval


----------



## Cid (Jan 27, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Does the uk have impeachment or anything similar?



We don’t need it... ministers have no special immunity, and a vote of no confidence is a lower bar to clear than impeachment. We could probably do with a procedure for removing MPs, but that’s kind of separate.

Problem is that mismanagement isn’t a crime as such. Elements of it can be of course, but it isn’t in and of itself. And this is an elected parliament whose behaviour honestly isn’t really inconsistent with the basis they were elected on - free markets etc. I dunno, it will be interesting to see how this plays out in an inquiry... but I doubt we’ll see much justice.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

'Boris Johnson has been taken to Wormwood Scrubs to begin his twelve year sentence. We ask, is it now time for penal reform?' by Robert Peston and Nick Triggle lol


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

But aspects of it could be? The corruption etc?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 27, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Does the uk have impeachment or anything similar?



Peerages I think


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 27, 2021)

chilango said:


> Cynical me has massive fucking klaxons blaring right now.
> 
> It's been rumoured for some time now that Johnson planned to quit in January (for "health reasons").
> 
> ...


I can well imagine Johnson is sick of the job by now but I'm thinking the rest of the Tory party will want to keep him in a few months longer until some of the other bad effects of Brexit have kicked in. Then they can ritually sacrifice him for botching the pandemic and Brexit and tell the public they've turned over a new leaf. We'll see I guess.


----------



## Cid (Jan 27, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> But aspects of it could be? The corruption etc?



Yeah I do wonder about that... might read up sometime, but it will be nebulous.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

I'd love to read Peston's take on Johnson's trial and incarceration tbh.


----------



## Flavour (Jan 27, 2021)

Well I for one think its very telling that Boris has apologised before corbyn. Heartless shit that he is


----------



## LDC (Jan 27, 2021)

Yeah, I think Johnson will be gone within the year.


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just watched a clip of Johnson's performative grief yesterday and found new reserves of disgust for the man. With a thin gloss of attempted gravitas all he had to offer was an attempt to deny of any kind of responsibility or failure at all. "We have done everything we could to keep deaths to minimum" is an obvious lie and an insult to everyones intelligence. More of the same we have come to expect from him but in this context just painful.



Most of the newspaper front pages went right along with Johnsons performance, amplifying the disgusting spectacle that was yesterdays press conference.



Buddy Bradley said:


> The change of tone from the BBC this morning was quite dramatic - lots of interviews with people saying how much was avoidable and due to poor decisions by the government, which is not something they've ever really countenanced as a narrative before.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think we've been here before, at some stage of the first wave. I forget exactly which moments, perhaps once we'd gone past 20,000 deaths (due to Vallances stupid comments about 20,000 deaths being a good result), and then again when the Cummings thing exploded.

Whether it persists is key. If it doesnt then its probably just a part of managing things in a 'democracy', a pressure relief valve, a safe and controlled release of anger. Likewise I see the archbishop of Canterbury is asking us to reflect and pray, so that we may answer the prayers of those who hope the status quo isnt rocked too much, and that we may all come to terms with things in a pious and thoroughly non-transformative manner.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 27, 2021)

fuck me.

Rather than ask people to reflect, how about strongly suggesting that they follow - very strictly, or even exceed - all the guidance and rules meant to stop the spread of this plague. Including lining up for your jab.


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> fuck me.
> 
> Rather than ask people to reflect, how about strongly suggesting that they follow - very strictly, or even exceed - all the guidance and rules meant to stop the spread of this plague. Including lining up for your jab.



They make all those noises too, I was just picking on the bits I considered worth picking on given the context of my post.

Likewise they as usual make noises about inequality, but they do not have a straightforward relationship with such matters and the concepts and forces that enable such inequalities to persist and grow.









						Archbishops mark ‘terrible milestone’ of pandemic with a call to prayer
					

The total number of Covid-related deaths in the UK has exceeded 100,000




					www.churchtimes.co.uk
				






> During this pandemic, we encourage everyone to do all they can to live within the guidelines and constraints given by government following the advice of the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser. We show our commitment, care and love for one another by ensuring we do everything we can to stop the virus spreading.


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 27, 2021)

I enjoyed this sort article, thought it made some interesting points  but what do others think? (its in two parts)




> Why has Britain fared so poorly with Covid-19? Although blaming this or that minister or official offers an easy answer, the deeper causes lie in the transformation of the British state.
> Britain inherited from World War II a “command and control” state; a state that could govern. Whitehall was well-practised in strategic planning, good at the rapid and efficient mobilisation of resources and people, and it regularly took authoritative, direct action to meet society’s needs.
> Back then, the state could deliver what democratically elected politicians asked of it – to build the NHS, for instance – because it retained the powers, people and resources to do so.
> Today, after 40 years of reform, the “command and control” state has been replaced by a “regulatory state”. Decision-making has shifted from parliament to an archipelago of some 400 “arms-length” quangos, employing more than 278,000 people and costing £205 billion per year. Moreover, the state’s assets – its capacity to execute policy on its own accord – have been outsourced or rationalised.
> ...


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 27, 2021)

> Criticism of contracts awarded to “cronies” and itinerant middlemen, while justified, is a distraction from the bigger picture. The more disturbing conclusion is that the British state is so lacking in basic vision and leadership, its bureaucratic institutions are so divorced from meaningful delivery capacities that it cannot even provide security to its own citizens.
> This is not a product of one government’s incompetence. It reflects deep-seated changes in the way state power is conceived and organised – by political parties of left and right, not just in Britain but in many other “advanced” economies. A system built around dispersing responsibility, accountability and control is, unsurprisingly, irresponsible, unaccountable, and not in control of its fate.
> While Britain’s experience has been mirrored across the West, it stands in stark contrast to countries that have retained aspects of the post-war “command and control” state, including Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, and even developing countries like Vietnam. These states have not simply outsourced decision-making and delivery to quangos and private firms. They have retained and built their own public health capacity, centrally and locally, while exerting power over vital businesses, instead of becoming dependent upon them.
> 
> ...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 27, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> I enjoyed this sort article, thought it made some interesting points  but what do others think? (its in two parts)



I enjoyed Rafael Bears article on why the Tories are flumoxed.









						Covid is teaching the Tories basic social democracy – but they won't learn | Rafael Behr
					

They can see that Britain’s shocking inequality needs addressing, but the solutions go against their true instincts, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr




					www.theguardian.com
				






> There is an ancient Indian parable about a group of blind men encountering a huge animal for the first time. Each man grasps a different part of the creature. One thinks he is dealing with something hard and pointed, like a spear. Another thinks it is a vast leathery wall. A third presumes it is a serpentine coil. They each get part of the picture, but none can conceive of the whole elephant.
> 
> Thus does the Conservative party prod and grope at the problem of inequality.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> I enjoyed this sort article, thought it made some interesting points  but what do others think? (its in two parts)



It makes a lot of valid points but its not the whole story in regards government failings. There were plenty of things that could have been done with better timing by the government and the neoliberal structures as they existed at the time. This is easy to prove because a whole bunch of those things were done, just late. eg some key ones in March were 1-2 weeks late, but they did happen. You dont need to reform the whole system in order to impose a lockdown with better timing.

The thing about how they could only do 5 tests a week is misleading too and the lack of attention to detail on that point makes me wonder where else the article has been sloppy. It was not that PHE could only do five tests a week, it was that they only had the contact tracing capacity to trace the contacts of five positive cases per week (using the assumption that those 5 cases would require 800 contacts to be reached and made to isolate). At the time they spoke about how they could maybe increase that capacity to handle 50 cases per week (with 8000 contacts being isolated as a result).

It is certainly true that many different aspects of the establishment set us up for the initial fails over many preceding years. The general pandemic plans were indeed a disgrace, and are one of the reasons I was able to predict a lot of the crap positions the government took in the first months. And all sorts of aspects of orthodox establishment thinking, eg medical & NHS, were in tune with the same very limited ambitions of pandemic management.

There is also quite a list of excuses which I consider invalid and relatively easy to disprove. These include 'how much we have learnt about the virus with the benefit of hindsight', plenty of which can be demolished by looking at what experts and interested laypeople could figure out in the first weeks and months compared to what dull and doomed stances officialdom took at the time. Another frequent claim is that the existing pandemic plan was only inadequate because it was designed for influenza and this virus is so different. In fact I dont think its very hard to demonstrate that the pandemic plan would also have been deeply inappropriate if it was used to deal with a really bad flu pandemic.


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> It makes a lot of valid points but its not the whole story in regards government failings. There were plenty of things that could have been done with better timing by the government and the neoliberal structures as they existed at the time. This is easy to prove because a whole bunch of those things were done, just late. eg some key ones in March were 1-2 weeks late, but they did happen. You dont need to reform the whole system in order to impose a lockdown with better timing.
> 
> The thing about how they could only do 5 tests a week is misleading too and the lack of attention to detail on that point makes me wonder where else the article has been sloppy. It was not that PHE could only do five tests a week, it was that they only had the contact tracing capacity to trace the contacts of five positive cases per week (using the assumption that those 5 cases would require 800 contacts to be reached and made to isolate). At the time they spoke about how they could maybe increase that capacity to handle 50 cases per week (with 8000 contacts being isolated as a result).
> 
> ...



Obviously the author is making a point about the impact  of how the state has evolved on its handling of Covid  rather than focussing on what decisions the government could have made, his background is politics  rather than  epidemiology. Can you say a little more about the  the existing pandemic plan and Cygnus?  Found it amusing that the  Global Health Security Index  ( god knows who or what they are )  published this table in November 2019


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 27, 2021)

Johnson appears to be sporting a stylized vagina badge on his lapel..?


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 27, 2021)

Jesus








						Covid: Wrexham vaccine production resumes after suspect package
					

The Army sends a bomb disposal unit to a site where the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is produced.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

DotCommunist said:


> the only one who ever faced consequences was Spencer Perceval


There's a second time for everything


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jan 27, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Jesus
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wrexham? It bloody destroys 'em!


----------



## Numbers (Jan 27, 2021)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Johnson appears to be sporting a stylized vagina badge on his lapel..?


He is such a cunt.  PMQs was embarrassing.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 27, 2021)

There's no chance of anyone connected with these fuckers ever spending time inside is there? Let alone trial by Zoom


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 27, 2021)




----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


>





This:



Is fairly disingenuous, We have the 2nd busiest international airport in the world and of the only busier one, Dubai, the vast majority of passengers are in transit rather than that city being the final destination. China (if you exclude Hong Kong) doesn't have a single airport in the top 20 of international airports. And Gatwick is the 13th busiest.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 27, 2021)

That's a worrying development. [ Covid: Wrexham vaccine plant evacuated over suspicious package - BBC News ]

Personally, I don't like the idea of having all our vaccine doses in one basket.
Maybe - as it is going to be a loooong battle to control Cv-19 - the UK should consider building another couple of plants for processing & *bottling.
and not on a bliddy floodplain, either !
[*what do you call putting the stuff in the vials, is it still bottling ? ]


----------



## BCBlues (Jan 27, 2021)

*Sturgeon suggests Johnson's planned visit to Scotland could undermine support for travel restrictions*
*Nicola Sturgeon* also queried whether Boris Johnson’s planned visit from London to Scotland tomorrow was genuinely “essential”, suggesting his trip makes it harder to convince other people to stick to travel restrictions.

She said at her daily briefing that she was “not ecstatic” about Boris Johnson visiting. She explained:

(From the Guardian)

Can it be arranged so that the Police in Scotland publicly shame him with an on the spot fine and send him back


----------



## Wilf (Jan 27, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Has any PM ever been sent to prison? We don't really have 'impeachment' or similar here do we.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 27, 2021)

Cid said:


> We don’t need it... ministers have no special immunity, and a vote of no confidence is a lower bar to clear than impeachment. We could probably do with a procedure for removing MPs, but that’s kind of separate.
> 
> Problem is that mismanagement isn’t a crime as such. Elements of it can be of course, but it isn’t in and of itself. And this is an elected parliament whose behaviour honestly isn’t really inconsistent with the basis they were elected on - free markets etc. I dunno, it will be interesting to see how this plays out in an inquiry... but I doubt we’ll see much justice.


TBF to our politicians, a lot of the decisions they make do fall into a very grey area between the politics and the practicalities, and maybe the last thing we would want was a government that was so petrified of being held to account with hindsight that they never made any decisions at all. OTOH, a lot of what this government has done wrong was obviously wrong within a short period of it being done (eg Eat Out To Infect Everybody). Listening to that Led By Donkeys clip, there were a lot of people saying "NO, DO IT NOW" even at the time, who were ignored. There's something about where the balance between political and practical is struck, and it seems to me that the practical has been all but discounted, and only then reluctantly taken into account under pressure, and after the fact. Which, somehow, ought to be able to be held up to account, and isn't.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 27, 2021)

DotCommunist said:


> the only one who ever faced consequences was Spencer Perceval


Curses!


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 27, 2021)

Britain is regularly ranked in the top bar of GDP, development, healthcare and god knows what else. So for people to turn around and say "but we can't compare to New Zealand, or any of these other places with lower deaths, different circumstances" is fucking bollocks.

We're supposedly a rich well developed country with a respect for the rule of law and a supposedly good healthcare system. Instead we've spent 12 months working out that may you should close airports and trying to prevent the NHS collapsing by hiding indoors away from each other and 100k people have still FUCKING DIED.

Fuck this, I am fucking livid today. I am fucking fuming 



Bahnhof Strasse said:


> This:
> View attachment 251637
> 
> 
> Is fairly disingenuous, We have the 2nd busiest international airport in the world and of the only busier one, Dubai, the vast majority of passengers are in transit rather than that city being the final destination. China (if you exclude Hong Kong) doesn't have a single airport in the top 20 of international airports. And Gatwick is the 13th busiest.



China has almost 2 billion people in it. We have 70 million.  I don't for a second believe they've had as few deaths as they've reported but its a fucking fact we shouldn't be getting past 100'000.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> China has almost 2 billion people in it. We have 70 million.  I don't for a second believe they've had as few deaths as they've reported but its a fucking fact we shouldn't be getting past 100'000.




Oh totally, China claims to have fewer than 5000 deaths, they are just outright liars though. The UK's numbers are far too fucking high, not closing the borders in March was insane, especially as Heathrow is the biggest international arrivals airport in the world and Gatwick is not far behind. Failure after failure by Johnson and his shit-show of a government has led to this  awful number and it is time they were held to account for their failures.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 27, 2021)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Oh totally, China claims to have fewer than 5000 deaths, they are just outright liars though. The UK's numbers are far too fucking high, not closing the borders in March was insane, especially as Heathrow is the biggest international arrivals airport in the world and Gatwick is not far behind. Failure after failure by Johnson and his shit-show of a government has led to this  awful number and it is time they were held to account for their failures.



I work in an area with a heavy footfall of Chinese tourists, the number of masks present on them crept up exponentially through November to December before the tourists actually vanished in January.


----------



## LDC (Jan 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


>




On the radio this morning they were talking about obesity and how it was a factor, and the presenter suggested that lowering the limits for gastric band surgery might help. I mean, wtaf. If that's the solution that you can suggest as a first port of call then have a fucking word with yourself. Nothing about equality or poverty or decades of pursuing a way of ordering society that made this happen, no, GIVE THE FATTIES AND NOT SO FATTIES SURGERY. Unbelievable.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 27, 2021)

To make meaningful comparisons with other countries - surely you have to look at what measures they took and how early. Is there a correlation between this and their current death toll?

That seems to get less attention than all the discussion about airports and obesity.

For those interested in finding people to blame, it also would focus on the factors that each country did have control over, rather than those which couldn't be altered at the outset of the pandemic. And removes to some extent the "hindsight" thing from the argument.


----------



## chilango (Jan 27, 2021)

Wilf said:


>



Is that a picture of Rees Mogg shooting Johnson?


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> To make meaningful comparisons with other countries - surely you have to look at what measures they took and how early. Is there a correlation between this and their current death toll?
> 
> That seems to get less attention than all the discussion about airports and obesity.
> 
> For those interested in finding people to blame, it also would focus on the factors that each country did have control over, rather than those which couldn't be altered at the outset of the pandemic. And removes to some extent the "hindsight" thing from the argument.


being as our government's early plan was to let everyone catch it so the survivors would have herd immunity it's no great surprise what we've got is a worldbeating load of graves


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 27, 2021)

chilango said:


> Is that a picture of Rees Mogg shooting Johnson?


that's john bellingham killing spencer perceval in the house of commons with a pistol (image drawn by miss scarlett)


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> To make meaningful comparisons with other countries - surely you have to look at what measures they took and how early. Is there a correlation between this and their current death toll?
> 
> That seems to get less attention than all the discussion about airports and obesity.
> 
> For those interested in finding people to blame, it also would focus on the factors that each country did have control over, rather than those which couldn't be altered at the outset of the pandemic. And removes to some extent the "hindsight" thing from the argument.


This is true enough, and there has been a fair bit of levelling out in the second wave across Europe, including for places like Czechia, which had previously received  praise for what it was perceived to have done right to avoid the first wave. We're not at all in control of a lot of this. 

That said, near the top of many of the charts are three of the most abject r/w populist-led countries whose leaders didn't take Covid seriously until it was too late, if at all - UK, US and Brazil. Before digging into the details, that doesn't feel like a coincidence. Meanwhile, the levelling out effect of the second wave in Europe also suggests a collective failure across many countries.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 27, 2021)

Messaging.


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We're not at all in control of a lot of this.



Deciding to see it that way is in itself a political decision. Countries that relaxed restrictions too much over the summer were effectively giving up on a raft of control measures in a way that made a second wave inevitable. They ceded control in a manner that is in no way proof that control was impossible, quite the opposite. Clinging to theories about population immunity levels was one way some people justified that, and it wasnt surprising that such a stance did not stand the test of time.

For example your own political persuasion has hardly made you a champion of attempting to control the virus by dranonian measures, even when such measures have been repeatedly demonstrated to work.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Deciding to see it that way is in itself a political decision.


I think that's a fair point. But you can't just will reality either. So clearly mistakes were made here with the easing off. Probably the biggest mistake throughout being the failure to control movement, travel exemptions for rich businesspeople, etc. And once you've failed at that one thing, lots of other measures become rather futile exercises.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 27, 2021)

The39thStep said:


>


It was a good read and, for me, nicely applied what a neo-liberal state regulatory state means in practice. That diffused regulatory function is an ongoing nightmare in most sectors, but was a concentrated disaster in terms of the last 12 months/Covid. It almost made me nostalgic for social democracy (_Anarchists For War Socialism_  ). The other thing is, this all has a bearing on whether there will be a reckoning. At one level, even if every word of that article found its way into the inevitable Covid Inquiry the Tories will, essentially, shrug their shoulders and ignore it - they have the numbers in Parliament. That's another aspect of the old politics that has disappeared, politicians don't take responsibility for their actions, however deadly.  But more than that, the very diffusion of regulation that is part of the problem allows them to deflect the blame ('no one individual... lessons learned... officials should have... co-ordination issues... communication needs to be... partner agencies... hold a review').


----------



## Wilf (Jan 27, 2021)

chilango said:


> Is that a picture of Rees Mogg shooting Johnson?


I think it's the Child Support Agency finally taking a tough line with him.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 27, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Messaging.
> 
> View attachment 251641


tory scum speak with forked tongue


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think that's a fair point. But you can't just will reality either. So clearly mistakes were made here with the easing off. Probably the biggest mistake throughout being the failure to control movement, travel exemptions for rich businesspeople, etc. And once you've failed at that one thing, lots of other measures become rather futile exercises.



Political will does shape reality though.

i wont go through every mistake now, and happily for both of us I hope to avoid arguing with you with the same tone I have used at times in the past. So I'll just tackle a few of the issues by way of an imaginary scenario where I was in charge of the nations pandemic response.

It would have been a real struggle to get the establishment and everyone fully on board with my expectations and what needed to be done early on. My window of opportunity would have opened once Italy actually noticed that Covid-19 deaths were occurring there. It would have been pretty easy to lockdown in March one week earlier than we actually did. With a bit of effort and the right framing it would have been possible to lockdown 2 weeks earlier than we actually did, and to have brought in some other, less than full lockdown measures some days earlier still.

The summer would have been challenging for me, especially as earlier lockdown would have been expected to reduce the amount of death seen, and as a consequence of that probably also peoples sense of quite how bad this pandemic virus was. There were economic and morale reasons why I'd have had to go against some of my instincts and allow more relaxation of measures than I was happy with. It would have been a bit easier to justify if the test & trace system was in better shape at the time, although as you know I've warned that such systems can only carry the burden if leaders pay proper attention to the data that comes out of that system and are prepared to use such data to slam the brakes on quickly if required. I suspect the way I would have tackled the summer relaation measures would have involved a clearly stated bargain with people, including people who had more optimistic views and hopes pinned on levels of population immunity already acquired etc. The bargain would have been in the form of 'ok we will relax all this stuff now, but only on the basis that if warning signs emerge that infection levels are increasing again, we act strongly to nip that resurgence in the bud'. The government even used language that wasnt so very different to that really, but they were not sincere about it.

Large sections of the press in this country would have been a major issue for me. Part of the pre-pandemic poisonous landscape, part of the political dance in this country. The hurdles they imposed are not insurmountable, and this is another area where if the public messaging is done right all the way along, there is goodwill and trust that can be used to overcome the loud press message from shitheads. And it is possible to demonstrate to people that trying to avoid strong measures for the sake of avoiding the 'indirect pandemic deaths (from lonliness, recessions etc) is a false economy, that we end up with longer lockdowns when we dont act early enough, etc. So I would not surrender any of that territory to the rabid press without a fight.

As for futile exercises, I suppose there are some, but most of the time even the worst failings in some areas do not completely negate stuff that can still be done. Better border control etc would indeed have made a difference, especially if it enabled our feeble initial testing system to cope with demand. Without them, we had to slam the brakes on harder in other ways when the time came. One possible reason why Germany did relatively well the first time and not well the second time is that their test & trace system gave them a better view and degree of control over early virus case imports. So when they locked down at roughly the same time in calendar terms as other countries in Europe, they were actually locking down earlier than many others relative to the size and stage of epidemic wave reached at the time. Things didnt work out for them in the same way with wave 2.

Incentivising the self-isolation system is another obvious area that could have been a real difference-maker, especially if a different approach had been taken about who should still be going to work, and how seriously infection control in workplaces should be taken (ie not the joke that is the covid-secure fig leaf). Much is doable on this front even now, and even with the crap political landscape in this country. Political will is the main missing ingredient. Other missing ingredients include people within the establishment treating the notion of opposition in a way that goes beyond political games and parliamentary opposition thats more about posturing than actually trying to stop deadly policies. And indeed people in important pandemic advisory positions resigning on matters of principal at key moments.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 27, 2021)

Shutting takeaways banning fags and booze would save the NHS a fortune with or without covid


----------



## wayward bob (Jan 27, 2021)

bomb disposal robots at the vaccine place in wrexham? 









						Wrexham vaccine plant evacuated after receiving 'suspicious package'
					

A bomb disposal unit was in attendance




					www.walesonline.co.uk
				




eta: oops, sorry, didn't read back far enough!


----------



## Supine (Jan 27, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> That's a worrying development. [ Covid: Wrexham vaccine plant evacuated over suspicious package - BBC News ]
> 
> Personally, I don't like the idea of having all our vaccine doses in one basket.
> Maybe - as it is going to be a loooong battle to control Cv-19 - the UK should consider building another couple of plants for processing & *bottling.
> ...



its called fill/finish

security a bit twitchy today where I've been working.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 27, 2021)

wayward bob said:


> bomb disposal robots at the vaccine place in wrexham?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This dispute with the EU over vaccine supplies is getting out of control.


----------



## Supine (Jan 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This dispute with the EU over vaccine supplies is getting out of control.





or hardcore antivaxers!


----------



## MrSki (Jan 27, 2021)

Figures up on yesterday. 
25308 + cases
1725 deaths.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 27, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Figures up on yesterday.
> 25k + cases
> 1740 deaths.



Single day figures don't mean a lot, but 25,308 new cases is a big improvement on last Wednesday's 38,905.

And, deaths down 95 compared to last Wed.

So, both are bringing the 7-day average figures down, which is good news.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Single day figures don't mean a lot, but 25,308 new cases is a big improvement on last Wednesday's 38,905.
> 
> And, deaths down 95 compared to last Wed.
> 
> So, both are bringing the 7-day average figures down, which is good news.


Where we are; 1725 daily deaths is "good news".
What a shitshow.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 27, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Where we are; 1725 daily deaths is "good news".
> What a shitshow.



Yep it's shit, but Tue & Wed figures are always high, catching-up on the weekend lag on reporting, reflected in the Sun & Mon figures.

We're down to a 7-day average of around 1,227 a day from a high of 1,248 four days ago, so early signs that we may be over the worst, but there's a very long way to go yet.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 27, 2021)

Blimey, we have the joy of another press conference from Johnson at 5 pm.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jan 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Blimey, we have the joy of another press conference from Johnson at 5 pm.


Ah, that gobshite's never off the air! Actually, Father Jack would probably do a better job as PM by far...


----------



## stdP (Jan 27, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Ah, that gobshite's never off the air! Actually, Father Jack would probably do a better job as PM by far...



You let BORIS do a PANDEMIC?!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 27, 2021)

Why is he talking about re-opening schools on the 8th March at this stage?

Oh, and a roadmap in place on the 22nd Feb., for when different restrictions will be lifted.


----------



## LDC (Jan 27, 2021)

He's under massive pressure from some within his party, and also others, who want a planned route out of the lockdown.


----------



## miss direct (Jan 27, 2021)

I suppose that'll be shops opening. May as well be.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why is he talking about re-opening schools on the 8th March at this stage?
> 
> Oh, and a roadmap in place on the 22nd Feb., for when different restrictions will be lifted.



Because he didn't like talking about the 100k dead yesterday. This is a classic case of controlling the narrative. Criminal.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 27, 2021)

Carl Dinnan (sp?) is just asking the obvious question: 'you've just said schools are vectors of transmission - but you've previously described them as safe places'.
Indeed. You fucking idiot.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jan 27, 2021)

In Tesco today, I was at the newspaper stand and saw him on the front of the Mirror with his head bowed "in sorrow for the dead". I had a mad urge to yell Alan Partridge style "What a bloody hypocrite!"


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 27, 2021)

Wilf said:


> It was a good read and, for me, nicely applied what a neo-liberal state regulatory state means in practice. That diffused regulatory function is an ongoing nightmare in most sectors, but was a concentrated disaster in terms of the last 12 months/Covid. It almost made me nostalgic for social democracy (_Anarchists For War Socialism_  ). The other thing is, this all has a bearing on whether there will be a reckoning. At one level, even if every word of that article found its way into the inevitable Covid Inquiry the Tories will, essentially, shrug their shoulders and ignore it - they have the numbers in Parliament. That's another aspect of the old politics that has disappeared, politicians don't take responsibility for their actions, however deadly.  But more than that, the very diffusion of regulation that is part of the problem allows them to deflect the blame ('no one individual... lessons learned... officials should have... co-ordination issues... communication needs to be... partner agencies... hold a review').


Unbelievably the article was in the Telegraph and the author is part of the Spiked  network . I was surprised. However it’s one of the best articles I’ve seen showing how chaotic , disjointed , arms length, pass the buck yet self affirming the system is .


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2021)

I enjoyed the bit where Jim reeled off a list of Johnsons pandemic failings including not sacking Cummings, late first lockdown, ignoring autumn measures recommendations etc. As expected Johnsons response was not worth repeating, except that he had the nerve to hind behind the currently hideous pressures on the country and the NHS as reasons why official resources should not be dedicated to finding out what went wrong right now. Now isnt the time to learn lessons you know, lets wait till the pandemic is safely behind us before daring to do anything better. Pathetic.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 27, 2021)

Just like yesterday I regret having watched this buffoon


----------



## Wilf (Jan 27, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Just like yesterday I regret having watched this buffoon


Yep.


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2021)

Well as I said the other day Johnson prefers to do zero or one press conference a week, and its only special occasions where we get two in a week out of him these days. So I certainly hope I dont have to sit through that again till next week.

I dont thnk Johnson was offering a fair sense of history today when he described how they were mostly able to stick to the relaxation timetable they unveiled for the first lockdown. If I remember correctly there were some things that they ended up reopening only a week or so later than originally hoped, but his original ambitions for timing of schools reopening for all and people going back to work were completely trashed back then.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> I enjoyed the bit where Jim reeled off a list of Johnsons pandemic failings including not sacking Cummings, late first lockdown, ignoring autumn measures recommendations etc. As expected Johnsons response was not worth repeating, except that he had the nerve to hind behind the currently hideous pressures on the country and the NHS as reasons why official resources should not be dedicated to finding out what went wrong right now. Now isnt the time to learn lessons you know, lets wait till the pandemic is safely behind us before daring to do anything better. Pathetic.


I think he feels safe brushing those questions off in the absence of any sustained campaigns in the country over his failures and excess deaths. It's something he can handle with a few phrases and insincere body language, doesn't have to engage with any kind of sustained political or social pressure. 

1984: How does it feel to be the mother of 1,000 dead? (Crass)

2021: How does it feel to be the father of 100,000 dead?

Latest Opinion Poll: Tory lead of 5%

 Fucking despair.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 27, 2021)

Today Johnson says now is not the time to reflect on why UK's death toll so high.

On 15th July last year, when the first wave had passed and 'only' 22 UK deaths were reported, Johnson was saying now is not the time for inquiry into UK handling of pandemic.

So when is the fucking time you fucking shitbag? Afraid of what people might turn up if they look into your performance? If the media are desperate to get him to put dates on things, get him to put a date on that.


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 27, 2021)

Hospital incursions by Covid deniers putting lives at risk, say health leaders
					

Healthcare and police chiefs also say online activity is channelling hatred against NHS staff




					www.theguardian.com
				




Jesus Christ.




> In the footage, a man behind the camera remonstrates with a consultant, who tells him that a patient will die if his oxygen tube is removed. When asked about what treatment is being given, the consultant explains that the patient has coronavirus pneumonia affecting both of lungs and is being treated with steroids and antibiotics.
> 
> The man behind the camera says that patient should be brought home and the treatment replaced with vitamin C, vitamin D and zinc, but is told by the consultant: “None of those are proven treatments for coronavirus.”


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jan 27, 2021)

Fun fact for all those Government apologists who have suddenly become intensely interested in income and health inequalities, obesity, population density and age - Britain now has a higher death rate from Covid than the United States. A country without a universal health care system, with massive income inequalities and until recently led by an orange-coloured former reality TV star who thought you could treat Covid with disinfectant.

Meanwhile in Vietnam - a country with a GDP per head that's half of Bulgaria's - 35 people have died so far in this pandemic.

What a time to be alive!


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jan 27, 2021)

No doubt the BBC's line that emerged last night in the face of 100,000 dead - blame it on poor, fat people - will inevitably result in tabloid columns: 'we could have been like New Zealand if it wasn't for those fat bastards eating sausage rolls out of Greggs....'


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 27, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Carl Dinnan (sp?) is just asking the obvious question: 'you've just said schools are vectors of transmission - but you've previously described them as safe places'.
> Indeed. You fucking idiot.



He said it the same fucking day he shut then down and we got lockdown 3.0


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jan 27, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Shutting takeaways banning fags and booze would save the NHS a fortune with or without covid


See, I told you that sausage rolls would come into this sooner or later.


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2021)

Current situation in regards number of people in hospital with Covid-19.



And admissions/diagnoses for England, smoothed via 7 day averages and unsmoothed versions. A bit large so I'm putting it behind spoiler tags. I dont have admission figures for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in graph form right now, I'm a bit behind with some of my data.


Spoiler


----------



## editor (Jan 27, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Shutting takeaways banning fags and booze would save the NHS a fortune with or without covid


Because prohibition worked wonders last time.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 27, 2021)

> If the United Kingdom had adopted South Korean-style controls in response to the coronavirus pandemic, it would have saved about 65,000 lives through October 2020 and averted its worst economic decline in more than three centuries, according to a new study that modeled the countries’ coronavirus policies.








						A rapid, decisive response to COVID-19 doesn’t just save lives. It helps the economy recover faster.
					






					academictimes.com


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jan 27, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> A rapid, decisive response to COVID-19 doesn’t just save lives. It helps the economy recover faster.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Good article. What's the betting it'll be totally ignored by MSM, partic. BBC and print media?


----------



## Cid (Jan 27, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> A rapid, decisive response to COVID-19 doesn’t just save lives. It helps the economy recover faster.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Be interesting to see the actual paper once published... It's a drum I've been banging for bloody ages (the economy thing). It's hard to get a grasp of though, I mean it was quite easy to see that various European countries have done terribly in economic terms (especially UK and France)... But comparing them with other economies is very difficult unless you have a decent idea of economic trends pre-covid. And of course the UK was heading for tough economic times anyway with brexit.

e2a: and yeah, article is interesting.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 27, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Just like yesterday I regret having watched this buffoon



Don't think I've made it all the way through a single one of his press conferences since this whole thing started. Not that I've tried very often. Everything he says is either complete bullshit or something everyone else figured out weeks ago.


----------



## Cid (Jan 27, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Today Johnson says now is not the time to reflect on why UK's death toll so high.



Did he actually say that? The utterly reprehensible cunt.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 27, 2021)

Cid said:


> Did he actually say that? The utterly reprehensible cunt.


I would really like to have a few words in his shell-like ...


----------



## Spandex (Jan 27, 2021)

Cid said:


> Did he actually say that? The utterly reprehensible cunt.


Yeah, in today's PMQs. The utterly reprehensible cunt.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 27, 2021)

Wilf said:


> 1984: How does it feel to be the mother of 1,000 dead? (Crass)
> 
> 2021: How does it feel to be the father of 100,000 dead?
> 
> ...



So do I! 

Easy to blame Starmer/ the LP, and yes they've been largely useless (  ).

Even easier to blame the Tory Press 

But it's about time some of those _actual bloody voters_ who pick Tory in opinion polls (and in actual ones!  ), took some bloody responsibility (agency?) for their own choices too ..... </for another thread this, really, but still!!!!  >


----------



## IC3D (Jan 27, 2021)

editor said:


> Because prohibition worked wonders last time.


It works in Saudi Arabia, just need to insentivise people to be more healthy


----------



## teuchter (Jan 27, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> A rapid, decisive response to COVID-19 doesn’t just save lives. It helps the economy recover faster.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So, UK was not authoritarian enough in its response?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> So, UK was not authoritarian enough in its response?


that is one way to look at it
I like to think of it as:
too little too late


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 28, 2021)

teuchter said:


> So, UK was not authoritarian enough in its response?


Woe is me, my government is forcing us to not die from a horrible disease.


----------



## Badgers (Jan 28, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jan 28, 2021)

Swayne under fire, finally:









						Coronavirus: Tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne refuses to apologise over Covid claims
					

Sir Desmond Swayne has been accused of spreading "dangerous misinformation" about coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Last time I heard him mentioned it was people taking the piss out of him on twitter because apparently at some point he claimed that 17,000 people die every day in the UK normally from all causes. The real figure is somewhere in the region of 10 times lower than that, and even 17,000 deaths in a single week would be considered a disaster. And we have seen levels of weekly death for England & Wales alone that exceed that during the worst weeks of pandemic waves.


----------



## elbows (Jan 28, 2021)

Sexist stay at home advert withdrawn:









						Coronavirus: Government withdraws 'sexist' Stay Home advert
					

An "infographic" urging people to remain indoors during lockdown showed only women doing chores.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (Jan 28, 2021)

they've still got the same ad writers from WWII


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> Sexist stay at home advert withdrawn:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That is lazy as fuck illustration and definitely produced by a tory donor's mediocre nephew.


----------



## elbows (Jan 28, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> That is lazy as fuck illustration and definitely produced by a tory donor's mediocre nephew.



I thought the illustration on the left showed Rees-Mogg reclining in parliament but then I realised those were someone elses legs on the couch.


----------



## Sue (Jan 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> Sexist stay at home advert withdrawn:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


We really need a   reaction emoji.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 28, 2021)

Does show how it all works though. Ad agency exec goes in and pitches for the work stressing their expertise, gets the work based on their expertise, comes back gives the illustration to office junior guaranteeing huge markup.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 28, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Does show how it all works though. Ad agency exec goes in and pitches for the work stressing their expertise, gets the work based on their expertise, comes back gives the illustration to office junior guaranteeing huge markup.


It does really open our eyes to how the world works doesn't it. Until now I'd assumed that the exec who pitches to the client is the one who does the illustration! But I bet they can't even use photoshop!


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 28, 2021)

two sheds said:


> they've still got the same ad writers from WWII


while we have higher casualty numbers than they did in ww2. boris johnson has killed nearly twice as many people in the uk as adolf hitler managed. (official stats; other measures indicate bj killed more than twice as many as ah managed, and ah had more than five years)


----------



## two sheds (Jan 28, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It does really open our eyes to how the world works doesn't it. Until now I'd assumed that the exec who pitches to the client is the one who does the illustration! But I bet they can't even use photoshop!



Doesn't it just. And I'd assumed that the account exec who pitches to the client and makes all the promises is the one who makes sure there's somebody competent doing the illustration!! But you've enlightened me that they don't even check that the illustrator can use photoshop!!


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 28, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It does really open our eyes to how the world works doesn't it. Until now I'd assumed that the exec who pitches to the client is the one who does the illustration! But I bet they can't even use photoshop!


You might actually be bang on here, based on how the gov have been acting there is a big possibility they might have accepted a pitch from an illustrator direct or some small agency. I just don't think a large ad or design agency would let work like this through for a project of this importance. Not cuz it's sexist but because it's just not the callibre of work you'd expect. A design for a government in a pandemic is a really big deal, no reputable agency is letting anything but the best through.  This doesn't look like "it was good but the clients watered it down" either. I'm not even saying it's shit, it's good, but not good enough for something like this.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 28, 2021)

Mind you ad agency account execs often aren't the most socially enlightened of souls they may well not have noticed.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 28, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> You might actually be bang on here, based on how the gov have been acting there is a big possibility they might have accepted a pitch from an illustrator direct or some small agency. I just don't think a large ad or design agency would let work like this through for a project of this importance. Not cuz it's sexist but because it's just not the callibre of work you'd expect. A design for a government in a pandemic is a really big deal, no reputable agency is letting anything but the best through.  This doesn't look like "it was good but the clients watered it down" either. I'm not even saying it's shit, it's good, but not good enough for something like this.


Yes... I did actually have a bit of a look on twitter etc to see if anyone had found who in fact produced the illustration. I agree with what you say. It would be interesting to know what the process was. It looks a bit like it was a facebook-specific advert. I wouldn't be totally surprised to find out it had been done by someone on the internet in India for £50.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 28, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Doesn't it just. And I'd assumed that the account exec who pitches to the client and makes all the promises is the one who makes sure there's somebody competent doing the illustration!! But you've enlightened me that they don't even check that the illustrator can use photoshop!!


The point is that is doesn't "show" us anything without knowing the process that produced the illustration, because there are many different routes that might have been taken.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 28, 2021)

The point is I've seen advertising agencies work and that's the general way they do things. It might be someone on the internet in India doing it although that doesn't seem to be the general procedure:



> Total approved expenditure on marketing for the year to March 2019 was £300m. Government departments are required to select agencies from two specific rosters of agencies who are approved for assignments. The latest rosters, published in 2017 and valid until 2021, include around 27 separate agencies for major "campaign solutions" worth £100k or more and a further 66 for smaller campaigns.







__





						UK HM Gov Communication Service advertising & marketing assignments at Adbrands.net
					

The UK Government's public service and other marketing is now overseen by the Government Communication Service, a successor to the long-established Central Office of Information, or COI.




					www.adbrands.net


----------



## two sheds (Jan 28, 2021)

Of course the agency may have farmed it out to someone on the internet in India.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 28, 2021)

I really don't think a proper graphic designer was involved which suggests an advertising agency hasn't been involved.  The background looks really familiar, does anyone recognise it? Was the illustration definitely produced for this and not nabbed from something else?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jan 28, 2021)

It looks to me like a generic set of illustrated components (man, woman, child, house, furniture, etc.) that can then be combined in multiple different ways to create different narratives. (We have the same sort of illustration library at work.) So it could have been an agency, but equally it could have been some civil servant office tasked with doing it.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 28, 2021)

A proper agency, and indeed most graphic designers, would be all over this kind of thing. Checking the content of illustrations for things like ethnic diversity, gender stereotypes and so on is standard, because anyone in that business knows what can happen if it blows up on twitter or whatever. Usually when this kind of thing happens, it's because the illustration has been done by someone who is not used to having to think about all that. I often spot these kinds of blunders in illustrations or graphics that have been done by people who mostly do, say, technical drawings or produce diagrams for scientific stuff or whatever. That, or they are very junior and their work hasn't been checked.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 28, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I often spot these kinds of blunders in illustrations or graphics that have been done by people who mostly do, say, technical drawings or produce diagrams for scientific stuff or whatever.


Or recent grads


----------



## strung out (Jan 28, 2021)

We've got a poster who works in Tory PR, so maybe they could shine a light on how something like this is arrived at.


----------



## philosophical (Jan 28, 2021)

Just done the Imperial College/NHS/mori home fingerprick blood test for antibody research.
Lots of online questions answered.
The test indicated negative.
Said to not be 100% accurate, suspect in my case it was though as I have been pretty careful for the last year.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 28, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> while we have higher casualty numbers than they did in ww2. boris johnson has killed nearly twice as many people in the uk as adolf hitler managed. (official stats; other measures indicate bj killed more than twice as many as ah managed, and ah had more than five years)



Might have been different if we'd kept out borders open to any member of the SS who fancied a holiday though.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jan 28, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Might have been different if we'd kept out borders open to any member of the SS who fancied a holiday though.


I understand many German officers enjoyed a sojourn on the channel islands


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 28, 2021)

Today's reported figures.

New cases 28,600, that brings the average down 29.4% in the last 7 days.

New deaths 1,239, down 54 on last Thursday's figure, overall down 0.2% in the last 7 days.


----------



## muscovyduck (Jan 28, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> It looks to me like a generic set of illustrated components (man, woman, child, house, furniture, etc.) that can then be combined in multiple different ways to create different narratives. (We have the same sort of illustration library at work.) So it could have been an agency, but equally it could have been some civil servant office tasked with doing it.


I did wonder this, a lot of artists and designers who landed in general marketing jobs seem to have found an outlet in producing questionable coronavirus graphics.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jan 28, 2021)

In relation to all the 'now is not the time' stuff, latest from the Good Law Project -





> Correspondence with Government has revealed they expect to spend a staggering £1 million defending our judicial review of their decisions to award contracts criticised by the NAO. This is a sum unprecedented in our lawyers’ experience of judicial review proceedings. We can’t but wonder whether they are trying to scare us off – using the bottomless public purse to avoid accountability to the public.
> 
> Government also says, remarkably, that finding out whether they acted lawfully in channelling hundreds of millions or billions to their VIP associates, is not in the public interest.
> We had until recently been working on the understanding that we had raised enough money for our challenges to Government’s awards of hundreds of millions of pounds of PPE contracts to Pestfix, Ayanda, and Clandeboye.
> ...


----------



## Cid (Jan 28, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> In relation to all the 'now is not the time' stuff, latest from the Good Law Project -



Ah, there you go Wilf frogwoman , Jolyon was on the judicial review all along. Though it sounds like a bit of a clusterfuck. Perhaps potential for other cases, this ones seems specific to mask procurement.


----------



## elbows (Jan 28, 2021)

I think last time I heard about saliva tests was some months ago when things didnt sound promising and a Salford trial was scaled back.

But now its back in the news:









						Covid-19: No-swab saliva test finds symptomless cases
					

Studies show the no-swab saliva test is accurate, and experts say it may be more convenient for users.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




With this being the summary of the evaluation:









						Rapid evaluation of Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ LamPORE assay
					






					www.gov.uk
				




The spit test trial I did from the comfort of my own home over the summer involved exactly the same looking spit collection vessel as the one in the photo in the BBC article. But I never did really work out what trial it was that I was actually part of, in that I never found the study details online and media articles about spit tests always referred to a bunch of other trials in specific settings and geographical locations. I must have another look for clues about that one day, would have been nice to see some data & analysis of whatever study it was that I was actually in.

Its certainly very convenient and comfortable compared to the swab test (which I also had to do at the same time as part of the trial). But since the government has a track record of hyping alternative tests and trying to use some of them inappropriately, I will tend to reserve judgement until more real world data emerges.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> I think last time I heard about saliva tests was some months ago when things didnt sound promising and a Salford trial was scaled back.
> 
> But now its back in the news:
> 
> ...


Another recent study.


----------



## elbows (Jan 28, 2021)

Cheers for that.

Given the amount of focus people here have had on the UK vaccination programme, and that various people were saying how keen they were to see daily data on this a while before it was actually made available on the dashboard, I'm slightly surprised that it is falling to me to draw attention to the decreased rates this week.



From Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 28, 2021)

There were also statements - described by the bbc - that the North West, North East & Yorkshire would have their supplies reduced "next week" to allow other areas to "catch up" - if that had actually happened, then the actual rate should not have diminished in the way that histogram shows ...

But, apparently, this reduced rate is still keeping to the 15million by 15th February target. [I smell a small rodent]

Personally, I would rather they allowed each area to catch up with the "leaders" by the application of greater efforts such as education leading to a lower proportion of refusniks, or opening more centers for longer in the "slower" areas, not by the appearance of restricting jabs in the "faster" areas.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 28, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Personally, I would rather they allowed each area to catch up with the "leaders" by the application of greater efforts such as education leading to a lower proportion of refusniks, or opening more centers for longer in the "slower" areas, not by the appearance of restricting jabs in the "faster" areas.



It's not about 'restricting jabs in the "faster" areas', it's about making the distribution of limited doses available more equal, here in Worthing we are behind areas in the north, GP's have been screaming out for more doses, they are all geared-up and doing the best they can, but they are nowhere near running at capacity, because they haven't been getting the doses required.

I posted this last week on the vaccine logistics thread...



cupid_stunt said:


> It's a bit complex, the NE had one of the first national mass vaccination sites open last week in Newcastle, whereas here in Sussex we have to wait for the one at the Brighton Centre to open on Monday, that's not the fault of anyone locally, these are part of the national roll-out effort. Clearly where these sites are already open, you would expect those areas to be well ahead in vaccinations compared to areas waiting on having one to open.
> 
> In addition, GPs around here have resources in place, but they have simply not been getting enough vaccine supplies, whilst at the same time we have a very high percentage of over 80s compared to many areas, so it would seem there's been some initial targeting problems with certain areas not getting enough supplies compared to other areas. They are certainly not sitting on a stock of unused vaccines, if they were, they wouldn't need more supplies that had initially be planned to go elsewhere.
> 
> There're limited supplies of vaccines, and clearly they need to be targeted better to ensure the most vulnerable groups get their jabs first before moving onto the next groups, it's about balancing things out and being fair to everyone.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 28, 2021)

Oh, thinking about the situation somewhat more deeply cupid_stunt - I quite agree that it is more a question of uneven vaccine supplies. 

this is how the bbc reported it
Covid: North West vaccines to be cut by a third in February - BBC News 
and
Covid vaccine: 'Confusing' information on regional supplies - BBC News 

There are some very mixed messages in those two items ...
and I appreciate how badly it could look at first glance.
It seems logistics issues are larger than acceptable with restricted amounts of vaccine available.

This supply issue will continue to be a major problem for months to come, nationally and internationally.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 28, 2021)

There's some confusion about how the vaccine has been allotted in various areas, i.e. per GP surgery without consideration of the numbers of people that different surgeries serve, and without consideration of the age demographics, etc.

Only to be expected TBH, considering it's a massive roll-out in a very short period of time.

Around here people seemed to accept that, until some regional rags in the north started moaning about having their allocation of doses being diverted, and suggesting that was because other places were not as organised as them, it became a national story, then it became an issue down here, with GPs saying WTF?


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 28, 2021)

I must be a little nosy with what's going on locally & in Newcastle ...

I've some info from other places as well.


----------



## HAL9000 (Jan 28, 2021)

Covid-19: Novavax vaccine shows 89% efficacy in UK trials
					

The vaccine is the first to show in trials that it is effective against the UK variant of the virus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




unlike the other vaccines it doesn't use the human body to make the spike protein.    I think this one involves injecting the protein directly into the body.














						Will a Small, Long-Shot U.S. Company End up Producing the Best Coronavirus Vaccine?
					

Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.GAITHERSBURG, MARYLAND—Eighteen months ago, a small vaccinemaker here called Novavax faced an...




					pulitzercenter.org
				






> Patel’s boss, Smith, next enlisted Ward to verify the protein’s structure and stability with electron microscopy. Other tests showed the Novavax spike is stable for many weeks at 2°C to 8°C—a key advantage over the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, which need to be stored at –20°C and –70°C, respectively, and once thawed, last only days in the refrigerator.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 28, 2021)

HAL9000 said:


> unlike the other vaccines it doesn't use the human body to make the spike protien.    I think this one involves injecting the protien directly into the body.


Unlike the mRNA and viral vector vaccines. Quite a number of the other vaccine candidates inject the spike protein or analogues thereof in part or whole or inactivated virus.


----------



## The39thStep (Jan 28, 2021)

who is furloughed ?


----------



## Badgers (Jan 29, 2021)




----------



## Badgers (Jan 29, 2021)

Hopefully he did not take any/many with him. 









						‘Covid denier’ dies from the virus alone day after testing positive
					

The family of a “Covid denier” said they begged him to wear facemask before he died alone in his flat from the virus that has claimed over 100,000 Brits.




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jan 29, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> who is furloughed ?
> 
> View attachment 251865



Is it worth mentioning that some (no idea how many) people will be both furloughed and going in to work - this is perfectly legal under current rules.

I am furloughed one day a week, and in the office for 4...

(I think the stated aim of the furlough scheme was both to support businesses keeping people at home - this was the case with me in lockdown 1 - and to support businesses suffering losses due to economic downturn - ie ever since, presumably)


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 29, 2021)

HAL9000 said:


> Covid-19: Novavax vaccine shows 89% efficacy in UK trials
> 
> 
> The vaccine is the first to show in trials that it is effective against the UK variant of the virus.
> ...



I've got to do an omline class on vaccination today and I'm gonna steal that image for it, thanks


----------



## LDC (Jan 29, 2021)

Badgers said:


>




Cwmbran, say no more.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 29, 2021)

The coastal West Sussex area got off lightly in the first wave, but has been hit hard this time, our local hospital trust has reported 184 deaths so far this month, compared with 165 in the nine months prior.  

* Although thinking about it, they don't mention how many were locals, and how many were transferred from Kent, but it's still a shocking figure.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 29, 2021)

Ms Ordinary said:


> Is it worth mentioning that some (no idea how many) people will be both furloughed and going in to work - this is perfectly legal under current rules.
> 
> I am furloughed one day a week, and in the office for 4...
> 
> (I think the stated aim of the furlough scheme was both to support businesses keeping people at home - this was the case with me in lockdown 1 - and to support businesses suffering losses due to economic downturn - ie ever since, presumably)



Which day are you furloughed -- is it you or your employers who choose which day? 
A bit off-topic this question , but I'm interested in which day people prefer to lose ....

(It's Fridays that are out of the contract for this four-dayer -- but that long pre-dates Covid).


----------



## MrSki (Jan 29, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Which day are you furloughed -- is it you or your employers who choose which day?
> A bit off-topic this question , but I'm interested in which day people prefer to lose ....
> 
> (It's Fridays that are out of the contract for this four-dayer -- but that long pre-dates Covid).


When I did a four day week I chose Wednesdays so that I only had to do two days in a row.


----------



## Elpenor (Jan 29, 2021)

My friend is furloughed two days a week and he typically chooses Monday and Friday but changes them around depending on his workload.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 29, 2021)

MrSki said:


> When I did a four day week I chose Wednesdays so that I only had to do two days in a row.



Yes, I know a couple of others who do that where I work and it makes sense for some people -- breaks up the week.

But I've always been an 'extend-the-weekend' man by preference


----------



## MrSki (Jan 29, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Yes, I know a couple of others who do that where I work and it makes sense fo some people -- breaks up the week.
> 
> But I've always been an 'extend-the-weekend' man by preference


Where I worked was flexible & I could phone on Monday morning & take that off if needed.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jan 29, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Which day are you furloughed -- is it you or your employers who choose which day?
> A bit off-topic this question , but I'm interested in which day people prefer to lose ....
> 
> (It's Fridays that are out of the contract for this four-dayer -- but that long pre-dates Covid).



We're a small team (4 people) & able to run it how we want, so we just divvied it up to keep a balanced number of us in every day, & tried to give everyone a fair number of Mondays & Fridays off.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 29, 2021)

We are basically on Furlough when we don't have anything booked for the day. Which is annoying because pre-covid I would often have days like that. I would usually catch up with admin or prep for certs on those days but with furlough, I can't help feeling that my company uses it as a chance to not have to pay us when we have a free day.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jan 29, 2021)

souljacker said:


> We are basically on Furlough when we don't have anything booked for the day. Which is annoying because pre-covid I would often have days like that. I would usually catch up with admin or prep for certs on those days but with furlough, I can't help feeling that my company uses it as a chance to not have to pay us when we have a free day.



This - mine has furloughed anyone who's not a director, I assume to maximise the amount of govt support, while minimising the damage to people's salaries. But there's never time to catch up.


----------



## ddraig (Jan 29, 2021)

Wales lockdown extended for another 3 weeks, if numbers continue to fall then youngest children will be able to go back to school
Allowed to exercise outside with 1 person from another household

e2a - you can also dissolve a bubble, wait10 days and reform another bubble


----------



## elbows (Jan 29, 2021)

I see the BBC marked the anniversary of what they laughably call the first UK Covid case with a tedious article. Perhaps people might find some of the small details interesting. I am moaning about it mostly because it was not the UKs first case, it was just the first case we actually detected, because for ages we were only looking for potential cases that had the most obviously risky recent travel history.









						Coronavirus: How the UK dealt with its first Covid case
					

A year ago, the UK was yet to record a Covid case. Then a family rang NHS 111 from a hotel in York.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




What I consider to be a complete and utter joke that partly explains how we ended up being repeatedly behind the curve in a deadly way is this:



> Dr Lillie, one of the specialists from Hull, and a principal investigator for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine trial, adds: "I do not think anyone could have guessed that night, when we had the first couple of cases, that it was going to be like this - you would have to have had a crystal ball.



I didnt have a crystal ball, I dont have special training, I dont have insider knowledge or connections, or a habit of being lucky with guesses, or a history of predicting pandemic doom prematurely and inappropriately. None of those things were necessary in order to quickly get a sense of what was likely to come, and what was likely already here. And I was hardly alone, I did not conclude these things in isolation, many figured it out in reasonably good time. And yet we still have to listen to the people who should have known better talking shit about crystal balls and hindsight.


----------



## smmudge (Jan 29, 2021)

souljacker said:


> We are basically on Furlough when we don't have anything booked for the day. Which is annoying because pre-covid I would often have days like that. I would usually catch up with admin or prep for certs on those days but with furlough, I can't help feeling that my company uses it as a chance to not have to pay us when we have a free day.



Yep that's exactly what my wife's company are doing. It would be normal not to have a job booked in here or there, but now they furlough her for the day. When she started at the company a few months ago, they actually claimed furlough for her whole training period even though she was on site assisting (she didn't need to train per se as she was doing the same job she's done before, but companies still need to have a sign-off process). 

Last night she did a night shift, now today they're trying to say she's furloughed again, even though it should be a rest day from last night! Very cheeky.


----------



## souljacker (Jan 29, 2021)

smmudge said:


> Yep that's exactly what my wife's company are doing. It would be normal not to have a job booked in here or there, but now they furlough her for the day. When she started at the company a few months ago, they actually claimed furlough for her whole training period even though she was on site assisting (she didn't need to train per se as she was doing the same job she's done before, but companies still need to have a sign-off process).
> 
> Last night she did a night shift, now today they're trying to say she's furloughed again, even though it should be a rest day from last night! Very cheeky.



That sounds like they are defrauding the HMRC rather than what they are doing to me! Did she get paid for the training or did she get a furlough wage?

To be fair, I'm not going to bitch too much about what my company is doing. When there is plenty of work on, they can afford to pay me to do nothing once in a while. But while the work is a bit slow and they don't have lots of money coming in, its sort of fair enough to claim from the gov.

I also can't really complain about what I'm getting paid. I'm barely spending any money at the moment so when I actually get paid a full month like I did today, I can clear debts and afford a few treats. Others are struggling hard so, like I say, I'm not complaining.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Jan 29, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> The police are sure only 10 people attended


And four of those were undercover


----------



## smmudge (Jan 29, 2021)

souljacker said:


> That sounds like they are defrauding the HMRC rather than what they are doing to me!



Well actually yes. During "training" they topped up her wage to 100%. But they aren't now, so she's told them to stick any future night shift they may want her to do (which she contractually doesn't have to) up their arse. And possibly she has whistleblown to hrmc now


----------



## Wilf (Jan 29, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Hopefully he did not take any/many with him.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You get a kind of twin track emotional response to stories like this. He was someone spreading, literally, deadly advice and undermining public health messages. It's an 'ironic death'. But then it's a fucking grim way to go.     In similar vein, I heard a local news story yesterday about care home staff in the north east refusing the vaccine (I think it was 11% in Stockton). This was particularly younger workers and even higher for those carers going into client's homes.  The story was in part about people getting their messages from social rather than 'official' media.  Putting themselves and others at risk, but also 'victims' of conspiracy shite?  

Not really sure where that logic takes you, a core of ideological conspiracists and anti-vaxxers, then a wider group of 'victims' spreading their shite?  Not sure I like that logic as it has large groups as ideological 'dupes'.  Maybe it's more about day to day life in neo-liberal Britain and the place it leaves people.  Anyway... not really stuff for this thread or even a direct response to what you posted...


----------



## emanymton (Jan 29, 2021)

Wilf said:


> You get a kind of twin track emotional response to stories like this. He was someone spreading, literally, deadly advice and undermining public health messages. It's an 'ironic death'. But then it's a fucking grim way to go.     In similar vein, I heard a local news story yesterday about care home staff in the north east refusing the vaccine (I think it was 11% in Stockton). This was particularly younger workers and even higher for those carers going into client's homes.  The story was in part about people getting their messages from social rather than 'official' media.  Putting themselves and others at risk, but also 'victims' of conspiracy shite?
> 
> Not really sure where that logic takes you, a core of ideological conspiracists and anti-vaxxers, then a wider group of 'victims' spreading their shite?  Not sure I like that logic as it has large groups as ideological 'dupes'.  Maybe it's more about day to day life in neo-liberal Britain and the place it leaves people.  Anyway... not really stuff for this thread or even a direct response to what you posted...


My uncle works in a care home, apparently only about half the staff had the vaccine when offered. 

I thought that nothing much could surprise me but with this and the Qanon crap I am genuinely shocked at just how many people will believe utter bullshit on this scale. 

What really gets to me is politics seems to be shifting from anything approaching a left/ right conflict. To one between people with a grasp on reality against those that don't.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 29, 2021)

emanymton said:


> My uncle works in a care home, apparently only about half the staff had the vaccine when offered.
> 
> I thought that nothing much could surprise me but with this and the Qanon crap I am genuinely shocked at just how many people will believe utter bullshit on this scale.
> 
> What really gets to me is politics seems to be shifting from anything approaching a left/ right conflict. To one between people with a grasp on reality against those that don't.


The irony is, some of this is going to play out very much down the lines of left-right/class politics.  I don't see care homes being quite at the point of suspending/sacking staff who refuse the vaccine as they'll be short staffed. But that point can't be far off.


----------



## emanymton (Jan 29, 2021)

Wilf said:


> The irony is, some of this is going to play out very much down the lines of left-right/class politics.  I don't see care homes being quite at the point of suspending/sacking staff who refuse the vaccine as they'll be short staffed. But that point can't be far off.


And I have no idea where to stand on that.


----------



## elbows (Jan 29, 2021)

emanymton said:


> My uncle works in a care home, apparently only about half the staff had the vaccine when offered.
> 
> I thought that nothing much could surprise me but with this and the Qanon crap I am genuinely shocked at just how many people will believe utter bullshit on this scale.
> 
> What really gets to me is politics seems to be shifting from anything approaching a left/ right conflict. To one between people with a grasp on reality against those that don't.



Much can be learnt from the history. I know people will be shocked at uptake figures that are lower than they had expected, but I think a lot of that is due to a lack of familiarity with the subject in non-pandemic times. And even a bad pandemic does not suddenly blow all the usual factors away from the picture overnight.

An obvious example to look into is the struggles that have been had in increasing the proportion of NHS workers who get the flu jab every year. Uptake was often very poor and its taken some concerted campaigns to get the figures up by an appreciable amount.

I dont have a collection of links to the best web articles that cover this history. So I will just offer one for now, a 2018 story about why the majority of NHS staff dont get the flu vaccine.









						Why do the majority of NHS staff not get the flu vaccine?
					

Less than half of healthcare workers in Scotland are taking up the offer of a flu jab. Why?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




It includes themes we will hear about again now, such as this in regards the flu vaccine at that time:



> Earlier this week, Sir Bruce Keogh, national medical director of NHS England, called for a "serious debate" over whether NHS staff should be forced to have the vaccination.



This old flu article also contains a couple of things which make me groan given some of what we've heard, and who we've heard it from in this pandemic.

For a start its got quotes from fucking Carl Heneghan in it, a name I have sadly become all too familiar with in this pandemic. Dont get me wrong, I dont always disagree with everything he says in this pandemic, but I do consider him to be a narrow, rigid fucker and thats can be a dangerous thing when you have a voice during a bad pandemic.

And then there is this quote, which I would like to draw to the attention of anyone who has ever been tempted to fall for the 'oh there was so much we didnt expect from this pandemic coronavirus, that we have now learnt about with the benefit of hindsight, such as the role of asymptomatic cases in transmission'.



> England's top doctor said flu was a "double whammy" for the NHS, increasing the number of patients and putting staff out of action.
> 
> He said a third of people with the virus do not know they are carrying it so staff may not be aware they are putting patients, colleagues and their own families at risk.
> 
> In 2011, the then chief medical officer in England, Dame Sally Davies, criticised those who did not get the jab, describing them as "selfish".


----------



## souljacker (Jan 29, 2021)

smmudge said:


> Well actually yes. During "training" they topped up her wage to 100%. But they aren't now, so she's told them to stick any future night shift they may want her to do (which she contractually doesn't have to) up their arse. And possibly she has whistleblown to hrmc now



I think her company may be in for a rude awakening when this is over. HMRC are going to be told to look into a lot of companies and self employed people's claims and I know of quite a few who are bending the rules to blag extra money. Once this is over and the govt realise how skint they are, they will be instructing the tax man to look at everything. And anyone who has had dealings with the tax man in the past knows that you never get away with it. It might take a while, but that letter always comes eventually.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 29, 2021)

They have finally updated the daily reported death figures, it's 1,245 today, following the trend of the last few days it's down on the same day last week, but this time by a far bigger number, down 156 against last Friday's 1401. 

That brings the 7-day average down to 1,199, from a high of 1,248 just 6 days ago, on the 23rd Jan.


----------



## Yossarian (Jan 29, 2021)

On course for a shocking 33,000 deaths in January - as a proportion of the population, Britain has suffered as many COVID deaths every 8 hours in January as New Zealand has during the entire pandemic.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 29, 2021)

However a small change in trend of deaths isn't the same as having hardly any cases, bumping along the bottom.


----------



## Mation (Jan 29, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> On course for a shocking 33,000 deaths in January - as a proportion of the population, Britain has suffered as many COVID deaths every 8 hours in January as New Zealand has during the entire pandemic.


world-beating


----------



## editor (Jan 29, 2021)

I didn't realise Spain was so bad:



And although that downward direction is encouraging, let's not forget: 



Fuck Boris Johnson and fuck Tory scum.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 29, 2021)

Overall it seems to me that not much can change in the UK restriction-wise this year compared to last - too much chance of miscalculation being disastrous, and I think even this government might actually be realising that's the case. It feels like we'll have to get through next winter with it being significantly better than this one before they can even start thinking about any 'normality'.


----------



## Mation (Jan 30, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Overall it seems to me that not much can change in the UK restriction-wise this year compared to last - too much chance of miscalculation being disastrous, and I think even this government might actually be realising that's the case. It feels like we'll have to get through next winter with it being significantly better than this one before they can even start thinking about any 'normality'.


Yup. I still think it will be 2023 before we're back to something that by then will feel like it's what normal used to be. Assuming no random curve balls.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jan 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> I see the BBC marked the anniversary of what they laughably call the first UK Covid case with a tedious article. Perhaps people might find some of the small details interesting. I am moaning about it mostly because it was not the UKs first case, it was just the first case we actually detected, because for ages we were only looking for potential cases that had the most obviously risky recent travel history.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I can't "like" this enough. Before it was even known to have hit the UK there should have been a COBRA meeting, flights stopped etc. Even after the virus was known for sure to be here, there were people going to and from risky areas; iirc school trips to North Italy were still going ahead


----------



## elbows (Jan 30, 2021)

Mation said:


> Yup. I still think it will be 2023 before we're back to something that by then will feel like it's what normal used to be. Assuming no random curve balls.



It depends what people are thinking of when they say normality.

I expect that if vaccine-related data shows them what they want to see, they will push hard to ease all sorts of restrictions as much as they can, as quickly as they can get away with. Some things wont go back to normal in a hurry, eg the lieks of Van Tam have in the past gone on about how they dont forsee a day when everyone can suddenly throw away their masks. But when it comes to the big restrictions, if the government think they can push things without seeing insane surges in hospitalisations, they will get rid of as many of the big restrictions as they can.

One of the big complications when envisaging that possibility is down to the various mutations, strains and international travel concerns. And various other details about quite how well the various vaccines do at different aspects of managing the virus. So I dont have an exact prediction. But since the government has on more than one ccasion pushed its luck in ways that turned out to be rather deadly, I cannot predict anything that relies on them really having learnt all those lessons and changed their priorities.

I dont have a well formed sense of how well the vaccines will do at protecting the very eldest and most vulnerable cases. Even a relatively small percentage of people in that category being left exposed to serious illness can add up to some numbers that hospitals etc would struggle with, if we had 100% normal behaviour and the vaccines were asked to carry the full burden alone. By this I mean that it only seems to have required a small fraction of the country to catch the disease in order to generate a level of hospitalisations that we struggle to cope with. If 90% of people werent catching it because they were hiding from it and reducing their personal risk, then if those peoples behaviours all went back to 'normal' then a vaccine that reduced the burden by 90% would still be inviting a similar high number of hospitalisations. I dont really expect the reality to turn out quite that bluntly, this is just a very simplified and crude example that may help understand how good the vaccine needs to be to compensate for a return to complete normality.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 30, 2021)

If the virus is not dealt with and is left to infect some populations then there will continue to be variants of interest and some of them might escape our immunity so ongoing vaccination may be required. 

The virus won't continue to produce variants if it has been beaten back in all populations so as not to have an infected base within which to develop variants. Hence it is important to distribute current vaccines worldwide because we won't be safe here until everyone is safe.


----------



## elbows (Jan 30, 2021)

weltweit said:


> If the virus is not dealt with and is left to infect some populations then there will continue to be variants of interest and some of them might escape our immunity so ongoing vaccination may be required.
> 
> The virus won't continue to produce variants if it has been beaten back in all populations so as not to have an infected base within which to develop variants. Hence it is important to distribute current vaccines worldwide because we won't be safe here until everyone is safe.



The Whittys and Vallances of this world will still tell us in press conferences that they expect the virus to be with us for all times in a way that will require ongoing management via vaccinations.

This is a conventional view that exists for good reasons, its not a completely crazy view. But it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that keeps them on orthodox tracks that have been in place long before this pandemic and which this pandemic has not really changed, no matter how much lip servie they pay to how much we have learnt.

I'e always had mixed feelings about this stance because its an assumption that is born out of reason and history. But also of narrow rigidity, and it gets in the way of any reasonable zero covid agenda being sought. And it will take more than the typical, expected setbacks with certain vaccines at certain moments in time, to really shift this aspect of orthodox thinking in this country. Zero Covid is a difficult thing with big implications and long timescales and its still probably completely unthinkable to our establishment and many others. I think the entire approach being undertaken in many countries will have to completely blow up in their face before this would really begin to doubt this orthodox stuff. And I dont know how many times they would have to fail at their preferred approach before zero covid would actually start to look more reasonable and achievable to them than their conventional approach is. Probably lots.


----------



## elbows (Jan 30, 2021)

Plus even countries that have taken an approach that looks like zero covid, have mostly done it as a temporary thing to buy time for the conventional vaccine-based approach to become possible. Because without a vaccine exit strategy the zero covid approach becomes a perpetual burden unless every single corner of the globe eradicates Covid. And I doubt any leaders would bet on that, which is understandable but again unfortunately ends up turning into a lack of ambition.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 30, 2021)

Vaccines are not the only way to zero covid, as Wuhan has proven, and New Zealand, etc .. 

If we want travel to return to any sort of normal, zero covid has to be a serious option.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 30, 2021)

I find it hard to see why any country would attempt zero Covid (in the long term) without knowing that every other country was doing it. Which seems highly unlikely.

New Zealand hasn't proven anything that's useful in the long term for an interconnected world.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 30, 2021)

Might not be able to achieve 100% but surely it’s worth having it as a goal.
I was thinking, where are all these people contacting the virus. It’s it at work?

Didn’t the country spend £22 billion on test and trace,  which has turned out to be financial gift to serco,  and nothing more.  Has there been any benefit?  What are they doing? Instead of doing nothing, they could be working this out so we could do something about the main ways people are getting sick.


----------



## nyxx (Jan 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Might not be able to achieve 100% but surely it’s worth having it as a goal.
> I was thinking, where are all these people contacting the virus. It’s it at work?
> 
> Didn’t the country spend £22 billion on test and trace,  which has turned out to be financial gift to serco,  and nothing more.  Has there been any benefit?  What are they doing? Instead of doing nothing, they could be working this out so we could do something about the main ways people are getting sick.



If they proved that people were mostly getting infected at work, they might have to do something about it though.


----------



## kenny g (Jan 30, 2021)

Unfortunately the conspirascum are spreading their tentacles further day by day. Deaths result.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 30, 2021)

Badgers said:


>




So the police are cracking down on streak easies then?... 

Yeah I know just hand me my coat...


----------



## brogdale (Jan 30, 2021)

Not really news to those paying attention, but fucking hell...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 30, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Not really news to those paying attention, but fucking hell...
> 
> View attachment 252026



Boris is very sorry though so it's fine


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 30, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Boris is very sorry though so it's fine


Next he will be so very sorry


----------



## brogdale (Jan 30, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Next he will be so very sorry


_Alas..._


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 30, 2021)

Like revolution. a zero covid


emanymton said:


> My uncle works in a care home, apparently only about half the staff had the vaccine when offered.
> 
> I thought that nothing much could surprise me but with this and the Qanon crap I am genuinely shocked at just how many people will believe utter bullshit on this scale.
> 
> What really gets to me is politics seems to be shifting from anything approaching a left/ right conflict. To one between people with a grasp on reality against those that don't.



I'm NHS and the trust has started running info/support groups to try and counter the propaganda, I'm guessing take up has been lower than expected.


----------



## andysays (Jan 30, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Vaccines are not the only way to zero covid, as Wuhan has proven, and New Zealand, etc ..
> 
> If we want travel to return to any sort of normal, zero covid has to be a serious option.





teuchter said:


> I find it hard to see why any country would attempt zero Covid (in the long term) without knowing that every other country was doing it. Which seems highly unlikely.
> 
> New Zealand hasn't proven anything that's useful in the long term for an interconnected world.


I think that one of the medium term consequences of Covid will be that international travel *won't* return to the level we have recently come to view as normal and the world *won't* be so interconnected, at least in terms of people and goods moving around so much, for some time to come.

And that could potentially be a good thing, in various non-Covid related ways.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 30, 2021)

Looks like they have got the idiot that sent the suspicious package to covid production site.



> A man has been charged over a suspicious package that was sent to a COVID vaccine production plant in North Wales.
> 
> The item arrived on Wednesday at the plant in Wrexham where the AstraZeneca vaccine is put into vials.
> 
> The plant was partially evacuated and work was interrupted for several hours while bomb disposal units were called in.





> Anthony Collins, 53, from Chatham Hill in Chatham in Kent has been charged with dispatching an article by post with the intention of inducing the belief it is likely to explode or ignite.
> 
> He is expected to appear at Medway Magistrates' Court today.











						Man charged after suspicious package sent to vaccine plant
					

A man has been charged over a suspicious package that was sent to a COVID vaccine production plant in North Wales.  The plant was partially evacuated and work was interrupted for several hours while bomb disposal units were called in.  At the time, a statement from North Wales Police said a team...




					uk.news.yahoo.com


----------



## existentialist (Jan 30, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> So the police are cracking down on streak easies then?...
> 
> Yeah I know just hand me my coat...


That was quite good, but here's your coat anyway...


----------



## existentialist (Jan 30, 2021)

brogdale said:


> _Alas..._


He'll probably do it in Latin - "eheu"

Or Ancient Greek - " φεῦ" (which he probably WILL use, because it sounds like "phew", the twat)


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 30, 2021)

Badgers said:


>




I have a good story from Spain. 

A friend of my S-I-L who lives out there got bust for cutting hair under lockdown. While there, the police hunted around and found some cannabis and my S-I-L's friend also got done for dealing.

My S-I-L's response?

"It's outrageous. I've known her 9 years. I had no idea she was a hairdresser."


----------



## brogdale (Jan 30, 2021)

existentialist said:


> He'll probably do it in Latin - "eheu"
> 
> Or Ancient Greek - " φεῦ" (which he probably WILL use, because it sounds like "phew", the twat)


Yeah; I'll stick with the proto-Germanic..._cunt._


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looks like they have got the idiot that sent the suspicious package to *covid production site*.


----------



## elbows (Jan 30, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> I can't "like" this enough. Before it was even known to have hit the UK there should have been a COBRA meeting, flights stopped etc. Even after the virus was known for sure to be here, there were people going to and from risky areas; iirc school trips to North Italy were still going ahead



Thanks. Sadly the failure to properly consider such a response went well beyond the UK. I remember how depressing it was early on when I had to tell people that rather than recommend travel restrictions and border closures, the WHO would go on about the importance of keeping suhc things open, and indeed that is the stance they took early on. Including press releases going on about the WHOs important work with the World Tourism board. Neoliberalism baked into global institutions.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 30, 2021)

I've been wondering who in the Government managed to get all these vaccines. I was gritting my teeth thinking I'd actually have to praise a member of this barely functioning circus that call themselves leaders?

I discover its none of them, is anyone surprised?
See what happens when someone with a fully functioning brain and real expertise in the field does the job. She did it voluntarily too.

Well done Kate Bingham


----------



## Sunray (Jan 30, 2021)

The politics of the EU are crazy, I think it's all grandstanding.  They aren't going to gain anything from the actions they are taking, they just need to show they are doing something. 
If the EU were to take all the vaccines from the UK into the EU at current manufacturing speed, it'd take them many years to vaccinate 50% of the population of the EU.   Once they get what is a trickle, how are they going to divvy them up?  Surely its Spain then France?

I don't think this is going to go well whatever they do.  448 Million people who want to go back to normal.


----------



## hash tag (Jan 30, 2021)

Is there anyone so stoopid as an overpaid, prima Donna footballer 
BBC News - Covid-19: Joelinton an idiot for sharing haircut photo, barber says








						Covid-19: Joelinton an idiot for sharing haircut photo, barber says
					

Newcastle United star Joelinton shared a picture of himself with barber Tom Baxter on Friday.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Badgers (Jan 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I don't think this is going to go well whatever they do. 448 Million people who want to go back to normal.


How big a footfall of tourist/visiting is EU-GB? 

Regardless of blame and sabre rattling. Both sides want business and travel up and running regardless of public safety  if the EU and our own beshitted government want to do more travel then it could drag this on a long long time. 

EU behind on vaccination 
UK opening lockdowns too early 
All trying to restart travel due to pressure from industry 

#thiswillgowell


----------



## editor (Jan 30, 2021)

Powerful and tragic. Fuck the fucking Tories for causing so many unnecessary deaths.  And fuck the fucking loons too.





> As a photojournalist who has covered war and humanitarian crises for 20 years, I am familiar with this kind of compartmentalizing. And I recognize the trauma I see in frontline workers, battling to maintain life and dignity in a situation of mounting horror. Though the vaccine — which has reached over seven million people in Britain — is a light at the end of the tunnel, the darkness of what the country has experienced must not be forgotten. For frontline workers and all Britons, these pictures stand as testaments to their trauma and their perseverance.











						Opinion | ‘It’s Still Getting Worse.’ Inside Britain’s Vicious Second Wave.
					

One hundred thousand people dead. A new, more contagious variant. The toll is close to unbearable.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## weltweit (Jan 30, 2021)

Rather than making headlines about their less than ideal vaccine deal, I think the EU should be negotiating the urgent foundation of more vaccine production plants on EU soil.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 30, 2021)

Whoever let this get through the proofreading should be looking for a new job.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Might not be able to achieve 100% but surely it’s worth having it as a goal.


The concept of "zero covid" doesn't really work if you don't achieve 100%. If you don't achieve 100% it's not zero covid.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 30, 2021)

andysays said:


> I think that one of the medium term consequences of Covid will be that international travel *won't* return to the level we have recently come to view as normal and the world *won't* be so interconnected, at least in terms of people and goods moving around so much, for some time to come.
> 
> And that could potentially be a good thing, in various non-Covid related ways.


Even if it returned to only 10% of its previous rate, it's still plenty of opportunity for infection to get into a "zero covid" country. Unless you can get people to accept 2 week quarantines as the norm. And you won't.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 30, 2021)

Another 1,200 deaths reported today, again down on the same day last week by a decent 148, taking the 7-day average down to 1,178, from the peak of 1,248 last Saturday, a drop of 5.7%.

Baby steps, but at least it's moving in the right direction.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another 1,200 deaths reported today, again down on the same day last week by a decent 148, taking the 7-day average down to 1,178, from the peak of 1,248 last Saturday, a drop of 5.7%.
> 
> Baby steps, but at least it's moving in the right direction.


There is a lag between infections and deaths.  I was looking for how long this was and I came across this paper Data animation shows time lag between COVID-19 cases and deaths

They say it's 2-8 weeks, we are at the beginning of the fall in cases from two weeks ago.  I really hope this flows through into the next two weeks.

They created a somewhat hard to read visualisation showing the lag. Too busy imo.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 30, 2021)

State of public transport in the UK...


----------



## Cloo (Jan 30, 2021)

It seems to have been pretty pacy in North London, with both our sets of parents (Over 70s) having had their first, and 93-year-old step-grandma both, as she got her first very early. Maybe other boroughs not keeping pace as much. I honestly didn't expect my parents to have got theirs by now.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 30, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> State of public transport in the UK...



Yup.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 30, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> State of public transport in the UK...




I call bullshit on that, it maybe the case in respect of the 'mass vaccination centres', which are only a small part of the vaccine roll-out, GP surgeries are the major players in providing vaccination centres, no one is going to be a 30 minute drive from those sites.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I call bullshit on that, it maybe the case in respect of the 'mass vaccination centres', which are only a small part of the vaccine roll-out, GP surgeries are the major players in providing vaccination centres, no one is going to be a 30 minute drive from those sites.


unless you live riiiight out in t'sticks !
(some of us do, y'know)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 30, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> unless you live riiiight out in t'sticks !
> (some of us do, y'know)



So, you live a 30 minute drive from your GP?


----------



## Supine (Jan 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, you live a 30 minute drive from your GP?



Almost everyone in the lakes lives more than thirty minutes from the official vaccination centres.


----------



## Raheem (Jan 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I call bullshit on that, it maybe the case in respect of the 'mass vaccination centres', which are only a small part of the vaccine roll-out, GP surgeries are the major players in providing vaccination centres, no one is going to be a 30 minute drive from those sites.


I think the way it is being done varies quite a bit, and people are not necessarily being given a choice of locations. Your GP's surgery might be doing vaccinations, but that doesn't mean that's where you'll be told to go. Think it's probably plausible that some people are not turning up because three buses in terrible weather when you're pushing 80 seems too much hassle.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 30, 2021)

Supine said:


> Almost everyone in the lakes lives more than thirty minutes from the official vaccination centres.



What do you mean by 'official vaccination centres'?

GP surgeries are providing the bulk of the vaccination programme, and they are not operating unofficially.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> What do you mean by 'official vaccination centres'?
> 
> GP surgeries are providing the bulk of the vaccination programme, and they are not operating unofficially.



are / will all GP surgeries, though?

mum-tat lives towards the grove park edge of lewisham borough, she had to go to a GP practice at the new cross end of the borough, so that was two buses, and she must have passed a few other GP surgeries (including the one she goes to) on the way.

scale that up to larger rural area and i can well believe it...


----------



## xenon (Jan 30, 2021)

My aunt and uncle just had their jab today. They were originally scheduled to have it tomorrow at a department store in another town in the county. Their GP phoned and said they could go there today instead. Which was obviously the better option. My uncle drives but it would have meant waiting around outside queuing.


----------



## Supine (Jan 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> What do you mean by 'official vaccination centres'?
> 
> GP surgeries are providing the bulk of the vaccination programme, and they are not operating unofficially.



Vaccination centres are run by primary care networks which are big groups on NHS catchment areas. There is some local vaccinations using AZ but the big centres are miles away because that is where the hospital is with the big cold freezer for Pfizer stocks.


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## StoneRoad (Jan 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, you live a 30 minute drive from your GP?



No, actually, I don't.
I can get there in less than five minutes and the paramedic can get out here in less than that !

But I do know people who do.
[both oop 'ere in't frozen norf, and in parts of North & West Wales, there are some very isolated farms and hamlets, and in weather like we've been having lately, that half an hour is a woeful underestimate, and neither are there buses]


----------



## Thora (Jan 30, 2021)

Not all GPs are doing the vaccinations though.  I live in a fairly rural area and my nan, despite having a GP in her village and living 5 miles from my town that _is_ doing vaccinations, had to go to another town 20 miles away (30+ minute drive/longer by bus) for hers.


----------



## killer b (Jan 30, 2021)

Everyone I know who's had a jab so far has not been able to get it done at their GPs - it's always been at least a 20 minute / 1 or 2 bus trip from where they live.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 30, 2021)

and not all of us have cars  I don't like to ask neighbours to drive me round - one set already picks up my prescriptions - I didn't mind asking another neighbour because he's already caught it a while ago so there's less danger for him giving me a lift.

Eta and not all that keen on catching multiple buses or a taxi late in the day.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 30, 2021)

andysays said:


> I think that one of the medium term consequences of Covid will be that international travel *won't* return to the level we have recently come to view as normal and the world *won't* be so interconnected, at least in terms of people and goods moving around so much, for some time to come.
> 
> And that could potentially be a good thing, in various non-Covid related ways.


bit shit for people with family and friends overseas though. my mum won't have seen her brother in about 2-3 years by the time this is over.


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## strung out (Jan 30, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> bit shit for people with family and friends overseas though. my mum won't have seen her brother in about 2-3 years by the time this is over.


My in laws were stuck in Penang from January until September before coming back to the UK. They normally spend four months of the year out there anyway, but we told them they should have stayed and lived a relatively normal life. Might have meant not seeing them for a long time though


----------



## Mation (Jan 31, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> State of public transport in the UK...



Loved because thank fuck someone is doing this analysis and drawing attention to it.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> Everyone I know who's had a jab so far has not been able to get it done at their GPs - it's always been at least a 20 minute / 1 or 2 bus trip from where they live.



Around here the GPs are doing it through their Primary Care Networks (a PCN is an alliance of usually three GP surgeries). They typically hire a suitable venue, as most surgeries are too small, and the nearest suitable venue may not be particularly close to their surgeries.


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## Sunray (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> Everyone I know who's had a jab so far has not been able to get it done at their GPs - it's always been at least a 20 minute / 1 or 2 bus trip from where they live.



Probably due to the use of the Pfizer vaccine needing to be stored at -70c. Special freezer needed.


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Probably due to the use of the Pfizer vaccine needing to be stored at -70c. Special freezer needed.


I'm not moaning fwiw - it's fine. But the idea from some that most people will be seen by their GP doesn't seem to be true, here at least.


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## sparkybird (Jan 31, 2021)

andysays said:


> I think that one of the medium term consequences of Covid will be that international travel *won't* return to the level we have recently come to view as normal and the world *won't* be so interconnected, at least in terms of people and goods moving around so much, for some time to come.
> 
> And that could potentially be a good thing, in various non-Covid related ways.


I have friends in India, Mexico and Guatemala who's livelihoods absolutely depend on tourism. Some can try and adapt, but not all are able. These countries, and others, where there is little or no support for people with no work are being hit with a double whammy. 
I'm supporting them as much as I can, but am scared for their futures.


----------



## andysays (Jan 31, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> bit shit for people with family and friends overseas though. my mum won't have seen her brother in about 2-3 years by the time this is over.


That's what I mean by the level we have recently come to view as normal.

My grandfather, born in 1900, was one of about a dozen siblings, half of whom emigrated to parts of what was then still the British Empire. At that point in history they could realistically expect never to see each other again.

It's only relatively recently that (some) people have been able to hop on a plane and visit friends and relations on the other side of the world whenever they fancy it, though I agree that doesn't make it any easier if that situation suddenly changes.

Anyway, this is probably a derail from the main subject of the thread...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> are / will all GP surgeries, though?
> 
> mum-tat lives towards the grove park edge of lewisham borough, she had to go to a GP practice at the new cross end of the borough, so that was two buses, and she must have passed a few other GP surgeries (including the one she goes to) on the way.
> 
> scale that up to larger rural area and i can well believe it...



It depends on the area, in built-up areas several GP surgeries are coming together to provide hubs, here we have about a dozen GP surgeries in town that have joined forces to set-up three hubs in the bigger health centres, in addition to the hospital hub. In nearby villages many GP surgeries are operating on their own, it's easy since the AZ vaccine was approved, because there isn't the storage issues. 

I've just checked, there's currently over 1,400 sites, with more being added - the list is updated weekly, including more pharmacies as and when enough doses are available to justify it.  Over 97% of the population in England are currently within 10 miles of a vaccine service, leaving out children, that's a bit over 1 million. 

So, the 5.5 million being over an hour away on public transport must out of date. 






						Coronavirus » Vaccination sites
					






					www.england.nhs.uk


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> No, actually, I don't.
> I can get there in less than five minutes and the paramedic can get out here in less than that !
> 
> But I do know people who do.
> [both oop 'ere in't frozen norf, and in parts of North & West Wales, there are some very isolated farms and hamlets, and in weather like we've been having lately, that half an hour is a woeful underestimate, and neither are there buses]



I am sure there's additional problems in Wales & Scotland, but that tweet was making claims just about England, and that's what I was responding to.


----------



## purenarcotic (Jan 31, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It depends on the area, in built-up areas several GP surgeries are coming together to provide hubs, here we have about a dozen GP surgeries in town that have joined forces to set-up three hubs in the bigger health centres, in addition to the hospital hub. In nearby villages many GP surgeries are operating on their own, it's easy since the AZ vaccine was approved, because there isn't the storage issues.
> 
> I've just checked, there's currently over 1,400 sites, with more being added - the list is updated weekly, including more pharmacies as and when enough doses are available to justify it.  Over 97% of the population in England are currently within 10 miles of a vaccine service, leaving out children, that's a bit over 1 million.
> 
> ...



Ten miles is a long bus journey away. Buses always take considerably longer than cars. From my house to work is 2.2 miles; with regular stopping for people to get on / off, the bus takes over 15 minutes. In a car it’s half that journey time (this all assumes no traffic at all). The messaging has been clear to avoid public transport if you can, and people are scared and many have barely left their house for a year. Not easy to suddenly navigate public transport and a busy vaccination hub after that.

When I got my vaccine offer, it was at hospital sites. My nearest was a 10 minute uphill walk to the bus stop, followed by a 15 minute wait for said bus, a 20 minute bus journey and then a ten minute walk through the hospital site to the vaccination building. That’s fine for me, I’m young etc, but if you’re 75 and have been shielding, it’s not necessarily ‘no big deal’. A taxi is a viable alternative but only if you have the money.

I don’t think it’s easy at all, because of the storage thing with Pfizer etc, but there will be people missed out because of where they locate the hubs. As more vaccines get approved though I hope it becomes easier as we will have more that can be stored normally.


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## LDC (Jan 31, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Around here the GPs are doing it through their Primary Care Networks (a PCN is an alliance of usually three GP surgeries). They typically hire a suitable venue, as most surgeries are too small, and the nearest suitable venue may not be particularly close to their surgeries.



Yeah, was about to say the same. GPs giving the vaccine isn't the same as every GP surgery doing it, the one here is doing it in a suitable venue in conjunction with a bunch of other surgeries, and it's a 25 min walk for me a fats walker, or probably 3 buses or a £8 taxi ride if you don't drive.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 31, 2021)

I'm lucky in Bristol.
If my GP half a mile away doesn't vaccinate my cohort, I see I already can walk two miles to a Superdrug and no longer have to risk triple-chaining my bike up at the football stadium 4 miles away.


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## teuchter (Jan 31, 2021)

When GPs or PCNs or whatever are choosing venues, I wonder to what extent public transport accessibility is used in their criteria.

When the "drive through" testing centres were announced it certainly didn't feel like there was a lot of thought being given to those without cars.

And accessibility doesn't just mean seeing if there's a bus stop nearby. I'd venture that the ideal system would ask people whether they had access to a car, and have some centres designated specifically for those who don't. You would probably try to have them right in town centres where public transport is already focussed, because for many people it'll be quicker and easier to get to a location like that than it would be to get to one that might be closer to them as the crow flies but more awkward in terms of connections.


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## Looby (Jan 31, 2021)

My MIL was offered a vaccination at a hub 10 miles away. She’s left the house once since March and was really anxious about going. 
it would have taken her at least an hour on public transport and walking. She didn’t want to turn it down and have to wait longer to go to her surgery. Luckily there was someone to take her. 
Others won’t have had a lift so now shielding people are out and about on public transport whilst our rates are really high. 
I get that health and social care workers can travel to the hubs and I did, but not my 75 year old MIL. 

My GP practice are doing vaccinations in a marquee in the car park. As it’s been miserable weather all week it can’t have been much fun queuing up! They’re doing them for the whole surgery group so around here that could mean at least a 30 min bus journey and we’re not slightly rural.


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## platinumsage (Jan 31, 2021)

The biggest local taxi company here is offering free trips to and from vaccination centres for those who need door to door or financial support, funded by a grant from the local council’s COVID Fighting Fund.


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## frogwoman (Jan 31, 2021)

andysays said:


> That's what I mean by the level we have recently come to view as normal.
> 
> My grandfather, born in 1900, was one of about a dozen siblings, half of whom emigrated to parts of what was then still the British Empire. At that point in history they could realistically expect never to see each other again.
> 
> ...





There's a difference between 'hopping on a plane whenever you fancy it' and 'never seeing someone again'.

Not sure the early 1900s is really a state of affairs we want to return to regarding attitudes and ease of international travel either.


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## Artaxerxes (Jan 31, 2021)

teuchter said:


> When GPs or PCNs or whatever are choosing venues, I wonder to what extent public transport accessibility is used in their criteria.
> 
> When the "drive through" testing centres were announced it certainly didn't feel like there was a lot of thought being given to those without cars.
> 
> And accessibility doesn't just mean seeing if there's a bus stop nearby. I'd venture that the ideal system would ask people whether they had access to a car, and have some centres designated specifically for those who don't. You would probably try to have them right in town centres where public transport is already focussed, because for many people it'll be quicker and easier to get to a location like that than it would be to get to one that might be closer to them as the crow flies but more awkward in terms of connections.



This is why I was keen to see the nightingales used as vaccine hubs, they are frequently in highly urbanised accessible areas.


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## Supine (Jan 31, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The biggest local taxi company here is offering free trips to and from vaccination centres for those who need door to door or financial support, funded by a grant from the local council’s COVID Fighting Fund.



Cabs For Jabs!


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 31, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> Ten miles is a long bus journey away. Buses always take considerably longer than cars. From my house to work is 2.2 miles; with regular stopping for people to get on / off, the bus takes over 15 minutes. In a car it’s half that journey time (this all assumes no traffic at all). The messaging has been clear to avoid public transport if you can, and people are scared and many have barely left their house for a year. Not easy to suddenly navigate public transport and a busy vaccination hub after that.
> 
> When I got my vaccine offer, it was at hospital sites. My nearest was a 10 minute uphill walk to the bus stop, followed by a 15 minute wait for said bus, a 20 minute bus journey and then a ten minute walk through the hospital site to the vaccination building. That’s fine for me, I’m young etc, but if you’re 75 and have been shielding, it’s not necessarily ‘no big deal’. A taxi is a viable alternative but only if you have the money.
> 
> I don’t think it’s easy at all, because of the storage thing with Pfizer etc, but there will be people missed out because of where they locate the hubs. As more vaccines get approved though I hope it becomes easier as we will have more that can be stored normally.



The vaccine hub here, which to my knowledge is the only one in Devon or Cornwall, is out past the motorway in a place I think it's actually physically impossible to walk to from the city even if you are up to a four, five mile round trip. It's a great place to get to in a car but not on a bus. There are large venues in the city with good road access which would also be accessible by bus or on foot, all standing empty of course. Mrs Frank volunteered to help out there but when we found out where it was we realised it just wasn't possible as she doesn't drive and multiple daily trips on multiple buses is a hard no.


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## Sue (Jan 31, 2021)

teuchter said:


> When GPs or PCNs or whatever are choosing venues, I wonder to what extent public transport accessibility is used in their criteria.
> 
> When the "drive through" testing centres were announced it certainly didn't feel like there was a lot of thought being given to those without cars.
> 
> And accessibility doesn't just mean seeing if there's a bus stop nearby. I'd venture that the ideal system would ask people whether they had access to a car, and have some centres designated specifically for those who don't. You would probably try to have them right in town centres where public transport is already focussed, because for many people it'll be quicker and easier to get to a location like that than it would be to get to one that might be closer to them as the crow flies but more awkward in terms of connections.


Tbf, the test centres round here (Hackney) are very accessible to non-drivers. But then I saw figures saying 70% of people in the borough don't have a car, so they have to be really. 

(There are three near me which are 15/20/25ish mins walk away in different directions. All are on main bus routes/near stations and shops.)


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 31, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> The vaccine hub here, which to my knowledge is the only one in Devon or Cornwall, is out past the motorway in a place I think it's actually physically impossible to walk to from the city even if you are up to a four, five mile round trip. It's a great place to get to in a car but not on a bus. There are large venues in the city with good road access which would also be accessible by bus or on foot, all standing empty of course. Mrs Frank volunteered to help out there but when we found out where it was we realised it just wasn't possible as she doesn't drive and multiple daily trips on multiple buses is a hard no.



My parents have booked theirs for this week. They're in Lincolnshire and the vaccination centre is at the county showground which is miles outside Lincoln in the middle of nowhere. They have a car so no problem for them but I've no idea how they think it will work for anyone who doesn't drive. There aren't any buses.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 31, 2021)

What is wrong with this fucking country.




Question with a shorter response, what is right?


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 31, 2021)

So rather than people voting for the blue party that is going to shit on voters they should vote for the red/yellow/green party that is going to shit on workers?


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 31, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> So rather than people voting for the blue party that is going to shit on voters they should vote for the red/yellow/green party that is going to shit on workers?


I think the point is that the covid incompetence factor isn't having the dominating effect it probably should ...


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 31, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> What is wrong with this fucking country.


Capitalism.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 31, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I think the point is that the covid incompetence factor isn't having the dominating effect it probably should ...


Why? By not directing voters to parties with the same policies, and no real evidence of any more 'competence'?

Wales, or even Scotland, are hardly doing much better than England. My Labour council was pushing for us to drop tiers, for things to open up. The Labour council next door is attacking workers.

EDIT: And 'competent' local Labour MPs demanding that schools, colleges and universities teach students on site.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> My parents have booked theirs for this week. They're in Lincolnshire and the vaccination centre is at the county showground which is miles outside Lincoln in the middle of nowhere. They have a car so no problem for them but I've no idea how they think it will work for anyone who doesn't drive. There aren't any buses.



The NHS national booking service may invite people to a mass vaccination centre first, if it's inconvenient the advice is then to wait until you hear from your GP for a more convenient location.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 31, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Why, by not directing voters to parties with the same policies, and no real evidence of any more 'competence'?


Well yes... and with Tory damage so entrenched I doubt anyone seriously believes some  wunderkind of the left - even if they magically appeared from somewhere - could make a difference soon enough ...


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 31, 2021)

So people should vote for a party that is actively attacking them and acting against their interests because it currently is not in power.
You're really selling this strategy.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 31, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I think the point is that the covid incompetence factor isn't having the dominating effect it probably should ...


A few days ago Boris visited Scotland, breaking lockdown restrictions on travel. He had a number of photo opportunities and was filmed asking such vital questions as “oh, so you put them there do you?”

He claimed this was an important fact finding mission he could not have done by phone, zoom or email.

Sir Keir, rather than question the validity of these claims, agreed.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 31, 2021)

Twitter link containing a clip of Sir Keir backing Boris’ lockdown busting photo op excursion.


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## prunus (Jan 31, 2021)

Supine said:


> Cabs For Jabs!



Taxis for vaccies


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## editor (Jan 31, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Twitter link containing a clip of Sir Keir backing Boris’ lockdown busting photo op excursion.



He's such a fucking useless waste of space.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 31, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The biggest local taxi company here is offering free trips to and from vaccination centres for those who need door to door or financial support, funded by a grant from the local council’s COVID Fighting Fund.


That's certainly better than nothing. Is it means tested or can anyone request to use it?


----------



## purenarcotic (Jan 31, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The NHS national booking service may invite people to a mass vaccination centre first, if it's inconvenient the advice is then to wait until you hear from your GP for a more convenient location.



But bear in mind that the Government have said (if I remember right) their stats around vaccines are on those who have been offered, not actual take up (although I’m sure someone is looking at that too), so this has the potential to skew the figures and make it look like more have been vaccinated than in reality. I don’t want things being opened up on that basis.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> But bear in mind that the Government have said (if I remember right) their stats around vaccines are on those who have been offered, not actual take up (although I’m sure someone is looking at that too), so this has the potential to skew the figures and make it look like more have been vaccinated than in reality. I don’t want things being opened up on that basis.



No, the figures on the dashboard are people actually vaccinated, it lists both people that have received one dose (almost 8.5m), and those that have received two (almost 0.5m).









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## maomao (Jan 31, 2021)

I think the speed of the vaccine rollout and the confrontation with the EU is working in the Tories' favour. That and the only opposition being a useless cunt who doesn't seem to do much in the way of opposing.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 31, 2021)

teuchter said:


> That's certainly better than nothing. Is it means tested or can anyone request to use it?



It's says it's for people who need help or can't afford it, but there aren't any checks.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 31, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Twitter link containing a clip of Sir Keir backing Boris’ lockdown busting photo op excursion.


Over the summer my union branch wrote to all the local MPs asking for their support against us having to teach in person. The only one that even bothered to _respond _was the odious Tory prick.

If you cannot even be arsed writing a bloody email to workers don't expect them to vote for you.


----------



## Sue (Jan 31, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> A few days ago Boris visited Scotland, breaking lockdown restrictions on travel. He had a number of photo opportunities and was filmed asking such vital questions as “oh, so you put them there do you?”
> 
> He claimed this was an important fact finding mission he could not have done by phone, zoom or email.
> 
> Sir Keir, rather than question the validity of these claims, agreed.


I mentioned this to a couple of friends last night. They both follow the news to a reasonable degree but were completely  unaware of this. 

Now I follow Scottish news more than they do (and obviously talk to family who're there etc) but it did make me wonder about the reporting of this. (I can't really remember how much this was reported on or who by, just thought it strange they hadn't heard about it was all.)


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

I think it's a bit silly after five years of telling the 'Labour would be 20 points ahead with a different leader' crew that the party's stubborn poll numbers were down to more than just poor leadership, to immediately switch to saying it's down to poor leadership.


----------



## maomao (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> I think it's a bit silly after five years of telling the 'Labour would be 20 points ahead with a different leader' crew that the party's stubborn poll numbers were down to more than just poor leadership, to immediately switch to saying it's down to poor leadership.


It's not the whole story but he has been singularly useless.


----------



## maomao (Jan 31, 2021)

Sue said:


> I mentioned this to a couple of friends last night. They both follow the news to a reasonable degree but were completely  unaware of this.
> 
> Now I follow Scottish news more than they do (and obviously talk to family who're there etc) but it did make me wonder about the reporting of this. (I can't really remember how much this was reported on or who by, just thought it strange they hadn't heard about it was all.)


My mum was well aware of it but I think she gets most of her news off lefty-bubble Facebook these days.


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## Sue (Jan 31, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Over the summer my union branch wrote to all the local MPs asking for their support against us having to teach in person. The only one that even bothered to _respond _was the odious Tory prick.
> 
> If you cannot even be arsed writing a bloody email to workers don't expect them to vote for you.


It's part of the 'they'll vote for me/Labour whatever as they've nowhere else to go' thing. 

Even if not articulated, that thinking runs deep. Obviously massively stupid and arrogant and short sighted but there we are.


----------



## Sue (Jan 31, 2021)

maomao said:


> My mum was well aware of it but I think she gets most of her news off lefty-bubble Facebook these days.


IIRC, your mum's Scottish/lives in Scotland? If so, she would be...


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

maomao said:


> It's not the whole story but he has been singularly useless.


What we're seeing from Starmer is part of a strategy, not uselessness. It's not clear to me what the strategy is, or whether it's working, but that's what it is.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 31, 2021)

Sue said:


> It's part of the 'they'll vote for me/Labour whatever as they've nowhere else to go' thing.
> 
> Even if not articulated, that thinking runs deep. Obviously massively stupid and arrogant and short sighted but there we are.


Absolutely. _We're the LP of course we are supporting workers! How? Well we are the LP!_


----------



## maomao (Jan 31, 2021)

Sue said:


> IIRC, your mum's Scottish/lives in Scotland? If so, she would be...


Yes she does, Edinburgh, that's why I brought her up. For some reason I assumed you meant Scottish friends.


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## maomao (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> What we're seeing from Starmer is part of a strategy, not uselessness. It's not clear to me what the strategy is, or whether it's working, but that's what it is.


His strategy is partly defined by what he's willing to do though. He's not pretending to be a Tory so he can sneak some communism in you know.


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

I do know. I'm not a fan. But we shouldn't mistake our dislike for his politics for a lack of competence on his part.


----------



## maomao (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> I do know. I'm not a fan. But we shouldn't mistake our dislike for his politics for a lack of competence on his part.


I'll wait until I've seen some competence before I decide against a lack of it cheers.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> I think it's a bit silly after five years of telling the 'Labour would be 20 points ahead with a different leader' crew that the party's stubborn poll numbers were down to more than just poor leadership, to immediately switch to saying it's down to poor leadership.


My point in bringing him up was to point out that Tory “incompetence” is not a matter of individual personal “failings”.  Much as Johnson’s personality lends itself to that narrative, the reasons for late action, for leaving borders open to “business people”, for Eat Out To Help Out, the tour of Scottish Covid hotspots, and so on are not about personal failings, but about a system-viewpoint and system-function of structures and organisations.  One which the Labour Party shares. Usefully signified by Sir Keir’s title. As helpful a mnemonic as ever existed.


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'll wait until I've seen some competence


how are you going to assess this?


----------



## maomao (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> how are you going to assess this?


Personal criteria that may change at any time.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 31, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> What is wrong with this fucking country.



Probably the most incompetent government in all our lifetimes cause 100,000 deaths because of its shit handling of a pandemic and they get a lead in the polls? I mean we can dance around that all we like, the same way we do every time the varying shades of cunts get elected, but I think we all know the reasons why they keep winning and it isn't just down to there being bad alternatives. The recent time there was even a whiff of a better alternative it got completely shat on.

This government contains people now at the highest levels of state who have said out loud that workers in Britain are among the most lazy and feckless in the world and they still get voted in by those same workers? Riiigght.

Or as Danny said, Capitalism is what's wrong with this country.


----------



## maomao (Jan 31, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> This government contains people now at the highest levels of state who have said out loud that workers in Britain are among the most lazy and feckless in the world and they still get voted in by those same workers? Riiigght.


I doubt many Tory voters see themselves as lazy and feckless tbh.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 31, 2021)

maomao said:


> I doubt many Tory voters see themselves as lazy and feckless tbh.



Of course they don't it's those other people who are feckless and lazy. Not me though, I'm a hard working taxpayer or whatever other bollocks slogan you wanna regurgitate from recent history.


----------



## elbows (Jan 31, 2021)

The guy who left Wuhan on a repatriation flight with a rather over the top mask compared to his relatives, that enabled us to find some amusement at a bad moment, is back in a BBC article:









						UK's first Covid evacuees: 'I wish I'd stayed in Wuhan and missed flight'
					

Twelve months ago, 83 Britons fled Wuhan, the Covid-19 epicentre, but some wish they had never left.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Cid (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> how are you going to assess this?



How are you going to assess this ever-obscured strategy?

We can only work off the actions and words available to us. This year has been one of astonishing change, of deep crisis in rights, in labour, in culture. And yet Starmer's Labour has been largely inactive. There is no strategy that justifies that.


----------



## elbows (Jan 31, 2021)

Sunray said:


> There is a lag between infections and deaths.  I was looking for how long this was and I came across this paper Data animation shows time lag between COVID-19 cases and deaths
> 
> They say it's 2-8 weeks, we are at the beginning of the fall in cases from two weeks ago.  I really hope this flows through into the next two weeks.
> 
> They created a somewhat hard to read visualisation showing the lag. Too busy imo.



Positive test numbers have been falling for a long time. Daily hospital admissions have come down. Mechanical ventilation numbers also seem to have peaked, and this measure tends to track along with number of deaths pretty well. This and other data points to the peak in deaths in this wave already having happened, but since there are delays between deaths and reporting of deaths, it takes a while for this to show up. I would hope that when the data comes in, the number of deaths per day will be shown to have dropped in the last week or so of January.

In terms of watching the data nervously, my main concern right now is how large the drop in admissions and deaths will be. Admissions for example are well down from the peak, but are still at very high levels. Not high enough to maintain the number of people with Covid-19 in hospital, thankfully those are falling too, but still very high. And I hope people are able to recalibrate their sense of what counts as bad numbers, since even terribly high numbers are rather dwarfed by the peak we had.

I dont have UK admissions/diagnoses figures to hand right now but here is the English Covid-19 hospital admissions/diagnoses using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity



In the second wave the tracking between patients in mechanical ventilator beds and deaths within 28 days of a positive test has been quite strong, although I dont necessarily expect that to continue during the downwards phase of things. In the following graph I multiplied the deaths by 3 to demonstrate how closely these two things have been tracking. The red line showing deaths by actually date of death is incomplete because of the time it takes for this data to come in, so thats why that line plummets in a manner that does not reflect how and when the deaths will actually fall, we just have to wait to see what the final numbers for the peak turn out to be.


----------



## Mation (Jan 31, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> So people should vote for a party that is actively attacking them and acting against their interests because it currently is not in power.
> You're really selling this strategy.


I read it as how come the voting intention percentages are so high for _any _of the parties, rather than surprise at blue being ahead of very slightly reddish blue.


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 31, 2021)

Has there been any UK data on people being infected after the first dose?


----------



## BigMoaner (Jan 31, 2021)

I know there's the isreal findings


----------



## Bingo (Jan 31, 2021)

Sick of the Tory incompetence narrative. They know exactly what they're doing.


----------



## Supine (Jan 31, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Has there been any UK data on people being infected after the first dose?



Should start getting results over the next few weeks. There will be some, but hopefully not many.


----------



## LDC (Jan 31, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Has there been any UK data on people being infected after the first dose?



There's also going to be people that caught it just before having their dose of course, or shortly after before it gives them any protection.


----------



## Cid (Jan 31, 2021)

Bingo said:


> Sick of the Tory incompetence narrative. They know exactly what they're doing.



I'm not sure they do tbh... I mean what have they gained from the approach they've taken?


----------



## MrSki (Jan 31, 2021)

Cid said:


> I'm not sure they do tbh... I mean what have they gained from the approach they've taken?


Large savings on state pensions & caring costs.


----------



## maomao (Jan 31, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Large savings on state pensions & caring costs.


Economy has been fucked way beyond any possible benefit from that.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 31, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> There's also going to be people that caught it just before having their dose of course, or shortly after before it gives them any protection.


Yep. At one level, given that millions of people have and will be getting the vaccine, we have the basis for working out all kinds of things (which ones work best, for which age groups; which lead to the least onward transmission; length of protection; protection from first dose only and the rest). But by definition it will be a while before those effects are known. I'm not even sure what kind of research/analysis is in place to do those assessments, though I'm sure it is (even with the clowns we have in power).  Currently, it's a case of get as many vaccines out there, but all the questions about vaccine performance will be crucial as to what happens after that (from say September on).  All this stuff about vaccine performance and maybe the need to modify vaccines will be international issues of course.

Edit: I see more knowledgeable people than me are discussing this on the vaccines thread. 
 People who know stuff.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 31, 2021)

For all their shitness the idea that the Tories actively want to kill people off is proper tinfoil hat stuff.


----------



## MrSki (Jan 31, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> For all their shitness the idea that the Tories actively want to kill people off is proper tinfoil hat stuff.


Well they were certainly into 'herd immunity' in the early stages knowing this could lead to half a million deaths & only changed their mind with the outcry from home & abroad.


----------



## Bingo (Jan 31, 2021)

Cid said:


> I'm not sure they do tbh... I mean what have they gained from the approach they've taken?



Tens of billions of pounds worth of no bid contracts for a start.


----------



## Bingo (Jan 31, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> For all their shitness the idea that the Tories actively want to kill people off is proper tinfoil hat stuff.


They clearly benefit the worse the situation becomes. I don't think disaster capitalism is a conspiracy theory really, do you?

It's no different to invading Iraq for oil really is it?

The old-fashioned Tories wouldn't go this far, the new ones.... Well.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 31, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Well they were certainly into 'herd immunity' in the early stages knowing this could lead to half a million deaths & only changed their mind with the outcry from home & abroad.


Fwiw, I don't believe that those phrases that emerged early on added up to an active belief that so many deaths would be 'acceptable'. However, when authoritative histories are written, I suspect we'll see that some truly crazy ideas were flying round government in those days.  For a brief moment, the Cummings-esque sociopaths were in charge of the asylum, now we've gone back to common or garden neoliberal incompetents running the place.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 31, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> For all their shitness the idea that the Tories actively want to kill people off is proper tinfoil hat stuff.



Tell that to the relatives of the disabled and poor killed over the last decade.

Dare you to.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 31, 2021)

Bingo said:


> They clearly benefit the worse the situation becomes. I don't think disaster capitalism is a conspiracy theory really, do you?
> 
> The old-fashioned Tories wouldn't go this far, the new ones.... Well.


They do things that cost lives, tens of thousands of lives this last year, but mass murder isn't the goal. It's an effect.


----------



## Bingo (Jan 31, 2021)

Wilf said:


> They do things that cost lives, tens of thousands of lives this last year, but mass murder isn't the goal. It's an effect.



Definitely, money is the goal... Lots of it!


----------



## Wilf (Jan 31, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Tell that to the relatives of the disabled and poor killed over the last decade.
> 
> Dare you to.


If you are saying that things like disability benefit reassessments have been done by a government that doesn't care about the casualties, I'm with you. I'd say that's murderous. However the intention isn't to kill. It's to save money and keep us in line, accumulation and reproduction. Maybe we are just on semantics here, but actual death isn't a direct goal of policy.


----------



## Bingo (Jan 31, 2021)

Wilf said:


> If you are saying that things like disability benefit reassessments have been done by a government that doesn't care about the casualties, I'm with you. I'd say that's murderous. However the intention isn't to kill. It's to save money and keep us in line, accumulation and reproduction. Maybe we are just on semantics here, but actual death isn't a direct goal of policy.


Nobody said it was.


----------



## xenon (Jan 31, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Large savings on state pensions & caring costs.



I think the lengthy stays in hospital, ICUs, shutting down parts of the econoy furlough etc might just wipe out any such perceived savings on that score...


----------



## MrSki (Jan 31, 2021)

xenon said:


> I think the lengthy stays in hospital, ICUs, shutting down parts of the econoy furlough etc might just wipe out any such perceived savings on that score...


Agreed the cost has been massive but a few have made shed loads of cash out of it.

ETA the costs will be met by the taxpayer not the few who have been awarded dodgy contracts.


----------



## Bingo (Jan 31, 2021)

I think the current shower aren't as interested in the economy so much any more... Compared to  personal get rich quick schemes anyway!


----------



## mojo pixy (Jan 31, 2021)

Bingo said:


> Sick of the Tory incompetence narrative. They know exactly what they're doing.





Wilf said:


> They do things that cost lives, tens of thousands of lives this last year, but mass murder isn't the goal. It's an effect.



IMO both true. The aim of the game is wealth & ideally also continuing power for them, their pals and their children. The deaths are collateral damage, about which they evidently & clearly do not care. The only thing saving them from huge popular anger IMO is their _incompetence _narrative. _We did our best it was so shitty for us boo hoo_ and it might even win them the next election so it's not to be underestimated as a strategy.


----------



## Smangus (Jan 31, 2021)

Whatever their motives/reasons their incompetency has led to many many more of these instances taking place than might otherwise have been the case, I should say as a warning it's a harrowing read. 


I'm an NHS consultant anaesthetist. I see the terror in my Covid patients' eyes


----------



## Wilf (Jan 31, 2021)

Bingo said:


> Nobody said it was.


Well, however we put it, I suspect we agree as to the murderous impact of this government - in the pandemic, austerity and elsewhere.


----------



## ska invita (Jan 31, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Fwiw, I don't believe that those phrases that emerged early on added up to an active belief that so many deaths would be 'acceptable'.


This was widely reported








						Dominic Cummings: Protect the economy and if some pensioners die, 'too bad'
					

PRIOR to the UK Government changing tactic to combat the coronavirus, Dominic Cummings allegedly told a private event that pensioners dying as a…




					www.thenational.scot


----------



## magneze (Jan 31, 2021)

600k vaccinated yesterday


----------



## Wilf (Jan 31, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Whatever their motives/reasons their incompetency has led to many many more of these instances taking place than might otherwise have been the case, I should say as a warning it's a harrowing read.
> 
> 
> I'm an NHS consultant anaesthetist. I see the terror in my Covid patients' eyes


Fuck, even prepared for it, that had me in tears within a few sentences. One of the most harrowing things I've ever read.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 31, 2021)

ska invita said:


> This was widely reported
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I did mention there was a moment when the Cummings sociopaths were in charge and that was it.  Slightly different to the half a million deaths point I was originally referring to (though I might have my timescales wrong on what was said and when).  Anyway, 'the many ways that neo-liberals kill us' is probably for another thread.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 31, 2021)

Bingo said:


> Sick of the Tory incompetence narrative. They know exactly what they're doing.


I think it's more that they don't care what they don't do.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 31, 2021)

I know it's not the right thread, but after all the above I had to post this good news story about vaccinations in Newcastle:

Why is Newcastle so good at Covid-19 vaccinations? | Vaccines and immunisation | The Guardian


----------



## Cid (Jan 31, 2021)

ska invita said:


> This was widely reported
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sure, but this is really characteristic of the problems the tories have had throughout. At that early stage there was still the idea that the vulnerable could be isolated, while the rest of the population developed herd immunity... So the problem here was a total failure to appreciate the consequences that that (in)action would have. 

There is one thing they have tried to stick to; free market ideology, with a substantial twist of corruption. 

I just don't really like this idea of a coldly calculating party with a coherent plan... I don't think there's any evidence for that; last minute decisions, panicked U-turns etc. Certainly not meeting their objectives of protecting the economy. They are adhering to a specific economic philosophy (and not even doing that well), and having to backpedal as soon as the consequences of that meet reality.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2021)

Captain Sir Tom Moore has been taken into hospital with covid. 



> Captain Tom became a national hero and raised more than £33 million for NHS charities during the height of the first coronavirus wave in the spring when he set himself a walking challenge.
> 
> He had originally set out to raise £1,000 by talking 100 laps of his garden before his 100th birthday on April 30.
> 
> But his sterling efforts inspired a lock-downed nation looking for good news among the increasingly bleak headlines, and donations and well-wishes soon flooded in.











						Supporters send Captain Tom best wishes as 100-year-old in hospital with Covid | ITV News
					

Captain Sir Tom Moore is in hospital after testing positive for coronavirus, his daughter has said. | ITV National News




					www.itv.com


----------



## Hollis (Jan 31, 2021)

Pretty damning article in the Telegraph today about how lockdown could last for yonks.. based on modelling from University of Warwick..

Exclusive: Social distancing may have to remain in place all year


----------



## Petcha (Jan 31, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Captain Sir Tom Moore has been taken into hospital with covid.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well. He has been havin a good time of it in the Carribean for the last few months with his family. No social distancing to be seen. Not sure why we should disparage the dickheads in Dubai while celebrating this guy.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 31, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Well. He has been havin a good time of it in the Carribean for the last few months with his family. No social distancing to be seen. Not sure why we should disparage the dickheads in Dubai while celebrating this guy.



Months? He flew out mid December for a family holiday, which was perfectly within the Covid rules, you callous twat.


----------



## Petcha (Jan 31, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Months? He flew out mid December for a family holiday, which was perfectly within the Covid rules, you callous twat.



Rich fuckers skiing in Switzerland and holidaying in Dubai at the same time are being savaged in the media. They were also perfectly in the Covid rules.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Well. He has been havin a good time of it in the Carribean for the last few months with his family. No social distancing to be seen. Not sure why we should disparage the dickheads in Dubai while celebrating this guy.



Why do you want to show yourself up as an arsehole?


----------



## Petcha (Jan 31, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Why do you want to show yourself up as an arsehole?



For pointing out something which wasn't actually reported in the link you posted? That he was Xmas-ing in Barbados? With huge groups of people? And then flew back into the UK?

If he was a Love Island star would you be as sympathetic?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 31, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Rich fuckers skiing in Switzerland and holidaying in Dubai at the same time are being savaged in the media. They were also perfectly in the Covid rules.



Give over


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2021)

Petcha said:


> For pointing out something which wasn't actually reported in the link you posted? That he was Xmas-ing in Barbados? With huge groups of people? And then flew back into the UK?
> 
> If he was a Love Island star would you be as sympathetic?



I've just seen you post on the lockdown 3 thread that you spunked out £30 to have a mobile barber come into your home, who had clearly been floating in & out of dozens of other houses, I'll certainly not be sympathetic if you end-up getting covid, because you deserve it, you twat,


----------



## 2hats (Jan 31, 2021)

Hollis said:


> Pretty damning article in the Telegraph today about how lockdown could last for yonks.. based on modelling from University of Warwick..


Vaccine induced reduction in transmission is never going to better vaccine induced reduction in disease, so given the latter apparently varies ~50% to 95% (at the very best) for the current portfolio of vaccines, and in the real world is often found to be less than controlled trials indicate...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jan 31, 2021)

Hollis said:


> Pretty damning article in the Telegraph today about how lockdown could last for yonks.. based on modelling from University of Warwick..
> 
> Exclusive: Social distancing may have to remain in place all year
> 
> View attachment 252233



Most likely to be the first one I think. Because we're getting some any people half vaccinated.


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

Its OK to be critical of celebrities taking holidays right now tbf.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jan 31, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> State of public transport in the UK...




No - stae of public transport in _England_. Gonna be a _lot_ worse in rural parts of Scotland, Wales and potentially NI.


----------



## strung out (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> Its OK to be critical of celebrities taking holidays right now tbf.


I agree. Petcha is a knob, but seriously, what the fuck were people thinking jetting off round the world for a holiday in the middle of December? Utterly moronic behaviour, and I can't be the only one raising an eyebrow at him getting ill weeks after his jaunt.


----------



## LDC (Jan 31, 2021)

Hollis said:


> Pretty damning article in the Telegraph today about how lockdown could last for yonks.. based on modelling from University of Warwick..
> 
> Exclusive: Social distancing may have to remain in place all year
> 
> View attachment 252233



Shit that's grim reading. Those models have been the one the government been going by mostly as well, so likely to play a part in their decisions.

E2A: never looked at comments in _The Telegraph_ before, fucking hell, proper bonkers!


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

strung out said:


> I agree. Petcha is a knob, but seriously, what the fuck were people thinking jetting off round the world for a holiday in the middle of December? Utterly moronic behaviour, and I can't be the only one raising an eyebrow at him getting ill weeks after his jaunt.


I've found cupid_stunt 's next door neighbour


----------



## agricola (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> I've found cupid_stunt 's next door neighbour




was it_ Knowing Me, Knowing You?  _If so that song could be read one way as being about impending death.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 31, 2021)

I think the appropriate response would be to stop the abba and put on Space Oddity instead.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 31, 2021)

strung out said:


> I agree. Petcha is a knob, but seriously, what the fuck were people thinking jetting off round the world for a holiday in the middle of December? Utterly moronic behaviour, and I can't be the only one raising an eyebrow at him getting ill weeks after his jaunt.



Yeah, it was a bit daft, but legal at the time, so I can't blame him & his family for taking up the offer of free flights from BA to Barbados. The fact that he became ill weeks after returning, would indicate he didn't pick it up on that holiday, but in his care home after returning. 

The whole accidental hero thing is very weird, especially getting knighted for it, because he didn't raise £33m for the NHS, people on the internet did following the media coverage, but at the end of the day, rightly or wrongly, he became a beacon of positive news, and came across as a man firmly still attached to reality, unlike celebs fucking off on expensive holidays since the new lockdown came in.

So, I have respect for him.

Unlike Petcha who's so vain his doesn't think lockdown applies to him. 

* Yeah, let's bring a potential super-spreading mobile barber into my home, because my hair is looking a bit wild in zoom meetings. Seriously, WTF?


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

I have a 95 year old grandmother who I share caring responsibilities for and I can tell you right now we'd have told BA to piss off if they'd offered us free flights to take her away in December. It's fucking mad.


----------



## Thora (Jan 31, 2021)

I can’t begrudge a 100 year old wanting to go on holiday, at that point I think you should do whatever you want.  If Covid doesn’t get him something else will, probably before the pandemic is over.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 31, 2021)

It was on his bucket list to visit. His choice. Fuck me, two wars & 100 years old!


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

So what? As has been hammered home repeatedly throughout the pandemic, the risk you run isn't just to yourself, its to everyone else you could pass the virus on to. The bed in the hospital you take up, the risk to medics and care staff. Fuck his bucket list.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> So what? As has been hammered home repeatedly throughout the pandemic, the risk you run isn't just to yourself, its to everyone else you could pass the virus on to. The bed in the hospital you take up, the risk to medics and care staff. Fuck his bucket list.



Fuck me, bet he’d wished he’d died in the trench during 1939 what with you Petcha driving home the bayonet.

Anyway, not the thread for this nitpicking shite.


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Fuck me, bet he’d wished he’d died in the trench during 1939 what with you Petcha driving home the bayonet.


Jesus christ you actually typed this out?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 31, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> It was on his bucket list to visit. His choice. Fuck me, two wars & 100 years old!



He's had 100 fucking years to tick off his bucket list. Either his list is too long or his time management skills are for shit.


----------



## frogwoman (Jan 31, 2021)

I didn't even know you were allowed to go on holiday in December.  I can't get too worked up about it but it is a bit mad. Bit surprised that BA were offered flights at that time. Could he not have postponed it or something?


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

I'm not worked up about it, just a bit baffled by the weird flag-fucking demands we respect his bucket list or whatever cause he fought in the war and is dead old.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> Jesus christ you actually typed this out?



It was hardly a serious response was it? Fuck me  It’s the sneery, snitching & grassing aspect of this pandemic that gets my goat. Petcha started this fucking crap, & this ain’t the thread for it.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 31, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> He's had 100 fucking years to tick off his bucket list. Either his list is too long or his time management skills are for shit.



Don’t you start, or I’ll set Sas on ya.


----------



## killer b (Jan 31, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> It was hardly a serious response was it? Fuck me  It’s the sneery, snitching & grassing aspect of this pandemic that gets my goat. Petcha started this fucking crap, & this ain’t the thread for it.


I'll play Abba as loud as I like thanks.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> I'm not worked up about it, just a bit baffled by the weird flag-fucking demands we respect his bucket list or whatever cause he fought in the war and is dead old.



You’re clearly worked up about it. Have a nice cup of shut-the-fuck-up.


----------



## Yossarian (Jan 31, 2021)

Thora said:


> I can’t begrudge a 100 year old wanting to go on holiday, at that point I think you should do whatever you want.  If Covid doesn’t get him something else will, probably before the pandemic is over.



Ashes to ashes, buck to bucket.
Captain Tom just said "Fuck it."


----------



## Mation (Jan 31, 2021)

Gotta get my kicks where I can. The last page of this thread is   

Sorry  ish


----------



## Dystopiary (Jan 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> I've found cupid_stunt 's next door neighbour




The fact that the guy felt the need to post this reply: 

 

" I [.....] think it’s desperately sad that he and countless others are suffering, or have died due to Covid" 

shit like that on top of Tories, the poorest being shat on, more cuts, world-beating coronavirus figuresanti-immigration bs etc etc, make me really not wanna live in this country any more.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 31, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> The fact that the guy felt the need to post this reply:



he's now locked his tweeter account...


----------



## Red Cat (Jan 31, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Whatever their motives/reasons their incompetency has led to many many more of these instances taking place than might otherwise have been the case, I should say as a warning it's a harrowing read.
> 
> 
> I'm an NHS consultant anaesthetist. I see the terror in my Covid patients' eyes



That is really harrowing.

One of my workmates has been on a ventilator, I'm not sure if they've come off it yet.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 1, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Fuck me, bet he’d wished he’d died in the trench during 1939 what with you Petcha driving home the bayonet.
> 
> Anyway, not the thread for this nitpicking shite.


It's not remotely _nitpicking _- it really is hard to imagine getting anything as wrong as coming out with that. Anybody choosing a holiday with flights in December was taking a stupid risk. War hero, good egg, social media influencer, fuck, the virus doesn't distinguish. It just likes reproducing itself.  And this can be the result:

I'm an NHS consultant anaesthetist. I see the terror in my Covid patients' eyes | Coronavirus | The Guardian


----------



## strung out (Feb 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yeah, it was a bit daft, but legal at the time, so I can't blame him & his family for taking up the offer of free flights from BA to Barbados. The fact that he became ill weeks after returning, would indicate he didn't pick it up on that holiday, but in his care home after returning


I don't think it's about whether it was legal or not. I've broken the law a few times, e.g. gone out for exercise more than once a day, dropped non vital things like Christmas cards through friend's letterboxes, but on each occasion I made an informed decision about what was safe and sensible. Of all the things to do, taking your entire family abroad on a PR trip for British Airways in the middle of the second wave of a global pandemic is utterly moronic and irresponsible.

For what it's worth, he doesn't live in a care home, he lives with his daughter and grandchildren, who went off to Barbados with him, so presumably him or one of his family caught it during or very shortly after the trip.

I don't particularly blame him though, rather his family who sniffed a freebie and some more publicity.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 1, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> he's now locked his tweeter account...


Fucking hell social media 

I'd be tempted to say to the neighbours next time I saw them go out "100,000 dead and you're going to the shops "


----------



## David Clapson (Feb 1, 2021)

So people are refusing intubators now.









						UK Covid-19 patients dying needlessly due to unfounded fears about ventilators
					

Some critically ill people are refusing intubation, wrongly associating it with higher risk of death, say doctors




					www.theguardian.com
				




We're just lemmings going over the cliff. Nature wants rid of us.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 1, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> So people are refusing intubators now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Dunno really. Certainly if there's some misconception out there that's driving this trend, that's very problematic. But the fear of intubation has within it a fear of losing control, not waking up and all kinds of _logical _fears. If I caught Covid, it would be one of my darkest fears, to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I hope I would be intubated if I ever got that bad, it would be logical, but not every concern people have that might lead to them rejecting the logical is itself _illogical_.


----------



## TopCat (Feb 1, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> For all their shitness the idea that the Tories actively want to kill people off is proper tinfoil hat stuff.


Yeah its bonkers Bruno.


----------



## TopCat (Feb 1, 2021)

Is the new variant, being more transmissable and more deadly, not going to skew predictions of deaths?


----------



## David Clapson (Feb 1, 2021)

Yes, it's like fear of surgery. But this is people turning down the one thing that can save them, because they've got distorted stats. Where do they get the stats from?


----------



## kabbes (Feb 1, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Yes, it's like fear of surgery. But this is people turning down the one thing that can save them, because they've got distorted stats. Where do they get the stats from?


You think that people make decisions because of _statistics_?


----------



## bimble (Feb 1, 2021)

interesting chart in here, showing causes of excess deaths in uk since early summer last year.


His thread also contains this - on the possibility that the majority of excess deaths in care homes in the UK during the 1st wave were likely due to undiagnosed covid, which would add something like 10,000 to our death toll. Excess death toll in care homes from Covid-19 ‘hugely underestimated’


----------



## Bingo (Feb 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> interesting chart in here, showing causes of excess deaths in uk since early summer last year.
> 
> 
> His thread also contains this - on the possibility that the majority of excess deaths in care homes in the UK during the 1st wave were likely due to undiagnosed covid, which would add something like 10,000 to our death toll. Excess death toll in care homes from Covid-19 ‘hugely underestimated’




No way, I went to school with this guy 🤓 He was always good at maths, I guess now he's the Covid stats guy!


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Feb 1, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Whatever their motives/reasons their incompetency has led to many many more of these instances taking place than might otherwise have been the case, I should say as a warning it's a harrowing read.
> 
> 
> I'm an NHS consultant anaesthetist. I see the terror in my Covid patients' eyes



That was fucking horrific to read. I'm between the ages of the two people mentioned in that and I'm in the same physical condition. I work in a corner shop and that actually makes me just want to fuck it all off and get furloughed. Can I still get furloughed if I haven't been before?


----------



## klang (Feb 1, 2021)

Bingo said:


> No way, I went to school with this guy


Did you say 'Bye' to him after your exams?


----------



## TopCat (Feb 1, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> That was fucking horrific to read. I'm between the ages of the two people mentioned in that and I'm in the same physical condition. I work in a corner shop and that actually makes me just want to fuck it all off and get furloughed. Can I still get furloughed if I haven't been before?


I ain't reading that. Should I still stay at home?


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Feb 1, 2021)

TopCat said:


> I ain't reading that. Should I still stay at home?



Yes, until 2025.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 1, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> So people are refusing intubators now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think it's rather more that we appear to want rid of Nature.


----------



## Brainaddict (Feb 1, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> For all their shitness the idea that the Tories actively want to kill people off is proper tinfoil hat stuff.


I sort of agree. But there's 'actively want to', and then there's 'not really so bothered about people dying'. And it's hard to be sure how the latter has influenced the Tories. Exhibit A: Boris Johnson: Global overpopulation is the real issue


----------



## TopCat (Feb 1, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Yes, until 2025.


Best get some beans in then.


----------



## zora (Feb 1, 2021)

kabbes said:


> You think that people make decisions because of _statistics_?



Tbf that was very much how the article framed it. It made a direct link between a change in the stats, and people misunderstanding the reasons for that, and a recent development of increasing numbers of people refusing ventilation. 

What Wilf said went also through my head while reading it, and an almost 50/50 chance of not waking up anymore from ventilation is of course terrifying. 

The doctor quoted in the article (an ICU consultant) made the point though that patients who are being offered ventilation will be close to 100% likely to die without it. She attributed the increasing refusal directly to people's fear that the ventilator itself (rather than the severity of their illness) would make them more likely to die which she thought was in turn based on misunderstanding the facts. 

So whilst the emotional component will of course be an important factor in the decision-making process, that emotional component will also be influenced by the perception of risk which can be influenced by an alarming (mis)representation of stats.


----------



## keithy (Feb 1, 2021)

You know that having mobile hair dressers and cleaners etc in your home is legal, right?



cupid_stunt said:


> Yeah, it was a bit daft, but legal at the time, so I can't blame him & his family for taking up the offer of free flights from BA to Barbados.
> 
> (Snip)
> 
> ...


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 1, 2021)

keithy said:


> You know that having mobile hair dressers and cleaners etc in your home is legal, right?



Mobile hairdressers aren't allowed: What Does Lockdown 3.0 Mean For Hairdressers?

(The first link that came up was the Torygraph so I've gone with Grazia daily instead).


----------



## keithy (Feb 1, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Mobile hairdressers aren't allowed: What Does Lockdown 3.0 Mean For Hairdressers?
> 
> (The first link that came up was the Torygraph so I've gone with Grazia daily instead).



Hmm ok. This is a problem isn't it, previously they were aligned with cleaners but the details of the rules change so much it is hard to keep track!


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 1, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> My parents have booked theirs for this week. They're in Lincolnshire and the vaccination centre is at the county showground which is miles outside Lincoln in the middle of nowhere. They have a car so no problem for them but I've no idea how they think it will work for anyone who doesn't drive. There aren't any buses.



My Dad's been giving lifts to vaccine appointments for the local old timers who can't drive. Great unless he, or any of them, have the covid. But getting a lift with a known person is probably the least worst option. Unlike a cabbie my dad's not driving around with other randoms sat in his car the rest of the time. Also a cab ride, with the kind of distance involved and in that part of the world, would cost a fortune. And there's maybe only one cab driver in a five mile radius anyway.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 1, 2021)

keithy said:


> Hmm ok. This is a problem isn't it, previously they were aligned with cleaners but the details of the rules change so much it is hard to keep track!



Cleaners don't need to be up in your personal space for long periods of time. Hairderssers do, unless they have very long scissors.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 1, 2021)

Michael O'Leary blabbing on about european beach holidays this summer

And on radio 4:


> Dr Mike Tildesley, an infectious disease expert who advises the government, says the UK's lockdown measures could begin to be eased in March if the pace of vaccinations stays high, and if jabs are shown to prevent transmission, not just severe infection.


----------



## Thora (Feb 1, 2021)

keithy said:


> Hmm ok. This is a problem isn't it, previously they were aligned with cleaners but the details of the rules change so much it is hard to keep track!


Pretty sure mobile hairdressers have always been banned during lockdowns.  Cleaners and nannies were allowed.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 1, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Michael O'Leary blabbing on about european beach holidays this summer
> 
> And on radio 4:


If by some miracle all of the vaccines worked as planned and prevented onward transmission, there's a chance that might be true (though it certainly wouldn't be from March as the 18-50 year olds won't have been vaccinated by then).  All of that is of course unlikely to be true. But even more its the stupidity of _saying it _as it adds to the chorus of 'open the economy' coming from mad tory MPs. As you say,


----------



## LDC (Feb 1, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Michael O'Leary blabbing on about european beach holidays this summer
> 
> And on radio 4:



In a close run and difficult competition he has always managed to be very near the front for first against the wall.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Feb 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> In a close run and difficult competition he has always managed to be very near the front for first against the wall.



What a fuckwit! Spain have said they're unlikely to let people in on any sort of scale until they have vaccinated most of their population which, according to the minister announcing it, won't be until autumn.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 1, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Cleaners don't need to be up in your personal space for long periods of time. Hairderssers do, unless they have very long scissors.


Clearly what we need is remote controlled hairdressing robots. Send one round, the hairdresser operates it in VR over the internet. What could possibly go wrong?


----------



## two sheds (Feb 1, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Clearly what we need is remote controlled hairdressing robots. Send one round, the hairdresser operates it in VR over the internet. What could possibly go wrong?


a pudding bowl as we used to call them


----------



## Boudicca (Feb 1, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> My Dad's been giving lifts to vaccine appointments for the local old timers who can't drive. Great unless he, or any of them, have the covid. But getting a lift with a known person is probably the least worst option. Unlike a cabbie my dad's not driving around with other randoms sat in his car the rest of the time. Also a cab ride, with the kind of distance involved and in that part of the world, would cost a fortune. And there's maybe only one cab driver in a five mile radius anyway.


How has this been organised SpookyFrank ?

I'd be happy to mask up, fumingate my car and drive an  elderly person to a vaccine centre, but the Red Cross won't allow me to carry someone in my car and I guess the risk is too high for charities to get involved.  If I tried to organise this kind of thing, I'd get completely drowned in heath & safety stuff.

One lady I have been shopping for managed to struggle to the GP in a taxi with a sympathetic driver, another has cancelled her appointment as she is too ill at the moment.  It's not just about transport, it needs someone to turn up with an umbrella, a fold up chair and a hot water bottle.  The pictures of 80 year olds queuing in the rain are upsetting.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 1, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> How has this been organised SpookyFrank ?



It hasn't been. It's just a tiny village where everyone knows everyone else and my dad, a retired social worker who worked with elderly folk for decades, does a lot of this sort of stuff off his own back.


----------



## brogdale (Feb 1, 2021)

They've lost it again.    



...here comes wave 3.


----------



## LDC (Feb 1, 2021)

brogdale said:


> They've lost it again.
> 
> View attachment 252312
> 
> ...here comes wave 3.



Yeah, I'm worried about that. Why do they not lockdown those areas under  a very strict regime and do household testing door-to-door? A few weeks of that and might have a chance of getting on top of it.


----------



## purenarcotic (Feb 1, 2021)

brogdale said:


> They've lost it again.
> 
> View attachment 252312
> 
> ...here comes wave 3.



I can’t bear this. I am so fed up.


----------



## brogdale (Feb 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I'm worried about that. Why do they not lockdown those areas under  a very strict regime and do household testing door-to-door? A few weeks of that and might have a chance of getting on top of it.


I now know why the Kent hospital treating my 90YO FiL, who became Covid +ive whilst in there, discharged out so quickly to clear the bed.


----------



## LDC (Feb 1, 2021)

It's also much, much better for patients of that age to be discharged asap though (assuming medically fit for it), as every day in a hospital bed is detrimental for their long term health and mobility. There's even an equation in a study or something somewhere.


----------



## elbows (Feb 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I'm worried about that. Why do they not lockdown those areas under  a very strict regime and do household testing door-to-door? A few weeks of that and might have a chance of getting on top of it.



There will be some moves in that direction but they will be more about being seen to be doing something, and discovering the extent to which this strain is already present, than actually containing this strain.

In some regards this reminds me of the situation a year ago, where some were reassured about the governments noises about cases we were tracking down. But this was tip of the iceberg stuff, and the authorities knew it, there was no prospect of stopping things with their methods.

They should really try with these new strain cases anyway, but people will understand better how unlikely this is to be enough, when they discover more about the timing of the cases that are in the news today. I dont have a full picture of the timing yet but I would expect some of the detected cases to be from quite some time ago, and I have found this on the Guardians updates page which tends to confirm my suspicion:

1h ago 13:25



> The person who tested positive for the South African strain was actually tested in December, the council said. This suggests that it was spreading within the community some weeks ago. (It can take a while for the new variant to be identified because, although test results can be turned around within 24 hours, the genomic sequencing which determines which variant of the virus has been found is more complicated and takes longer.)





> Ealing council is asking residents living and working in parts of Hanwell and West Ealing to get a Covid-19 test, whether they have symptoms or not, after a local resident tested positive for the South African strain of the virus.
> 
> The individual is understood to have been tested for the virus at the end of December despite not having travelled to South Africa or been in contact with anyone else who had. The person, who is not being identified, is being praised for following all public health guidance and self-isolating. They have now made a full recovery.


----------



## brogdale (Feb 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's also much, much better for patients of that age to be discharged asap though (assuming medically fit for it), as every day in a hospital bed is detrimental for their long term health and mobility. There's even an equation in a study or something somewhere.


Yeah, good point...but he was discharged within 48 hrs of testing +ive and returned to a home exposing his wife (my MiL 88 YO) and the myriad of paras, care workers, assessments teams etc. that are required.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 1, 2021)

Hollis said:


> Pretty damning article in the Telegraph today about  a great
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Feb 1, 2021)

Fergus knows better than to listen too closely to lip service paid to containment, he seems to understand the purpose of the surge in testing for those areas.


----------



## nagapie (Feb 1, 2021)

brogdale said:


> They've lost it again.
> 
> View attachment 252312
> 
> ...here comes wave 3.


Covid knows no borders, you can't just leave the developing world to wait for their vaccines while making us safe.


----------



## smmudge (Feb 1, 2021)

smmudge said:


> Yep that's exactly what my wife's company are doing. It would be normal not to have a job booked in here or there, but now they furlough her for the day. When she started at the company a few months ago, they actually claimed furlough for her whole training period even though she was on site assisting (she didn't need to train per se as she was doing the same job she's done before, but companies still need to have a sign-off process).
> 
> Last night she did a night shift, now today they're trying to say she's furloughed again, even though it should be a rest day from last night! Very cheeky.



On top of this my wife's company have just told her they claim furlough for bank holiday and annual leave!!! (But top up to 100%, how generous).


----------



## Raheem (Feb 1, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Covid knows no borders, you can't just leave the developing world to wait for their vaccines while making us safe.


Travel restrictions. And we can get Ed Sheeran to do a charity song. "Hurry Up Africa" or something.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 1, 2021)

Amid the impressive overall vaccine rollout figures, care homes still a mess, amid a lot of vaccine hesitancy.  

As a libertarian communist type, the 2nd word has come to the fore for me in the pandemic.  I'm not up for coercion on the vaccine refuseniks, certainly, but the idea of unvaccinated carers working in homes/people's houses ain't great.  Vaccine hesitancy draws on our unwillingness to trust governments, but also a swirling inability to trust anything/anybody. In part that comes back to the need to build vaccine messages (and the wider strategy) into real functioning communities.  Got to be about persuasion but, crucially, from people you trust.

Half of care home staff at UK's largest provider have not had Covid vaccine | Society | The Guardian


----------



## Looby (Feb 1, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Travel restrictions. And we can get Ed Sheeran to do a charity song. "Hurry Up Africa" or something.


I hear he’s having a break and we absolutely must not encourage him to come back any sooner than he has to.


----------



## editor (Feb 1, 2021)

Sigh...



> *Covid social distancing rules on the Isle of Man have been scrapped by the government following a 25-day lockdown.*
> Restrictions were lifted at 00:01 GMT after the island recorded 20 days without an unexplained community case.
> Healthcare services have returned to normal, all schools have reopened, and all shops and pubs have been allowed to welcome customers again.











						Covid-19: Isle of Man ends second lockdown
					

The island scraps all social distancing measures after 20 days without an unexplained case.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Feb 1, 2021)

editor said:


> Sigh...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Right, I'll crank up the jet ski...


----------



## Espresso (Feb 1, 2021)

I see we're getting another talking to this afternoon. Hancock today, apparently.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 1, 2021)

Daily reported figure are out.

18,607 new cases.

406 new deaths, that's down 186 on last Monday, bringing the 7-day average down to 1,147, from the 1,248 on the 23rd Jan.

Total first dose vaccinations now on just under 9.3 million.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Daily reported figure are out.
> 
> 18,607 new cases.
> 
> ...


Needless to say I'm delighted the vaccine programme is going well. Politically though, when we get to the point where the vaccine is really damping the figures down, the tories will be milking it for all it's worth. Despite their massive failure in every other aspect of the pandemic, they'll be trumpeting a hard slog, British ingenuity, the vaccination programme and getting the economy open. And with a current tory lead in the polls, fuck knows where that will take us. They almost certainly will open things up late Spring or early Summer, though cases and deaths will remain stubbornly high. 

All of that assumes the South African variant or a further strain don't escape the vaccines, but we are certainly in for some triumphalism over vaccine delivery.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 1, 2021)

4-week comparison of the SE corner, is looking good.



Those three small areas of purple (Eastbourne, East Sussex + Crawley, West Sussex + Rushmoor, Hampshire) are on between 400 & 416.5 cases, so probably will show up as dark blue tomorrow, when the map is updated to the 28/1/21.

Worthing, highlighted on the south coast, is now down to 245 from a high of 720, still can't believe that happened when we were on only 25 at the start of Dec.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 1, 2021)

editor said:


> Sigh...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They do have the advantage of being a real island, with policies & contact tracing that work, plus enforced punishments for those breaking quarantine ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 1, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> They do have the advantage of being a real island, with policies & contact tracing that work, plus enforced punishments for those breaking quarantine ...



Aye, 2 or 3 months in prison for breaking quarantine.


----------



## elbows (Feb 1, 2021)

Hollis said:


> Pretty damning article in the Telegraph today about how lockdown could last for yonks.. based on modelling from University of Warwick..
> 
> Exclusive: Social distancing may have to remain in place all year
> 
> View attachment 252233



The modelling done in that paper is also of great interest to anyone that wondered what would happen if all measures were scrapped and all behaviours went back to normal. The authors of the paper point out that these are extreme worst case scenarios that are thought to be incompatible with reality because when deaths rise peoples behaviours, and government decisions, inevitably change.

This for example is what they model as happening if all measures ended in April. Huge numbers well beyond anything we've seen so far.




			https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.27.20248896v2.full.pdf


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Aye, 2 or 3 months in prison for breaking quarantine.



Even in the first lockdown, the Manx government were definitely not messing about with their requirements around quarantine - the few imported cases seen recently were thoroughly contact traced etc.

Unlike in the UK, business travel was not facilitated, even by government officials - someone I know was planning a meeting on the mainland in late July, but would have had to take unpaid leave for minimum of two weeks, and test -ve, on their return home. Meeting was held by email !


----------



## 2hats (Feb 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> The modelling done in that paper is also of great interest to anyone that wondered what would happen if all measures were scrapped and all behaviours went back to normal.


The choice of modelled transmission blocking steps is quite illuminating.


----------



## brogdale (Feb 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> 4-week comparison of the SE corner, is looking good.
> 
> View attachment 252337View attachment 252338
> 
> ...


Let's hope that the S.African community spread can be checked otherwise, in 4 weeks time, the map might not look so promising.


----------



## editor (Feb 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Aye, 2 or 3 months in prison for breaking quarantine.


Could be worse 








						Inside UK's best little prison - where you're jailed for stealing rice krispies
					

Isle of Man's nick is known as the Jurby Hilton and you can serve time for hitting your mum on the head with a rolled up copy of Hello!




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 1, 2021)

i see the government's buying new vaccines









						UK Covid: Hancock says 'we need to come down hard' on South African variant after 105 cases identified - as it happened
					

Latest updates: UK records 18,607 further cases and 406 deaths; 9.2 million people have now had at least one vaccine dose




					www.theguardian.com
				



i suppose they'll go to carefully selected individuals


----------



## brogdale (Feb 1, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> i see the government's buying new vaccines
> View attachment 252345
> 
> 
> ...


_It could be you!_


----------



## 2hats (Feb 1, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> i see the government's buying new vaccines
> View attachment 252345
> 
> 
> ...


Phase I/II trials are still underway.


----------



## Spandex (Feb 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> 4-week comparison of the SE corner, is looking good.
> 
> View attachment 252337View attachment 252338
> 
> ...


It is really good that case rates are falling, but "looking good" is a relative value.

Kent has been on the tightest level of the various restrictions in place since the second lockdown started on 5th November, when the map looked like this:



We've got a way to go yet


----------



## David Clapson (Feb 1, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Right, I'll crank up the jet ski...


My confidence in the IoM government was dented when the road safety officer, who lives on the TT race course, backed his tipper truck on to the course while the racers were flying past. He'd forgotten the race was on.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 1, 2021)

Spandex said:


> It is really good that case rates are falling, but "looking good" is a relative value.
> 
> Kent has been on the tightest level of the various restrictions in place since the second lockdown started on 5th November, when the map looked like this:
> 
> ...


let's see what happens when we get the third wave


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 1, 2021)

Espresso said:


> I see we're getting another talking to this afternoon. Hancock today, apparently.



Hancocks Half Arsed


----------



## Spandex (Feb 1, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> let's see what happens when we get the third wave


----------



## Red Cat (Feb 1, 2021)

Colleague is off ventilator after 3 weeks. Apparently doing well, is stable. I don't really know what that means though.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 1, 2021)

Espresso said:


> I see we're getting another talking to this afternoon. Hancock today, apparently.


He was only operating on a middling 80% Partridge, not his usual 97%+.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 1, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> let's see what happens when we get the third wave


If it weren't for my kids etc, if we get fifth sixth wave deep, I'd probably throw myself out of the car on the M1 thinking fuck this bullshit, Ive had enough.


----------



## maomao (Feb 1, 2021)

Red Cat said:


> Colleague is off ventilator after 3 weeks. Apparently doing well, is stable. I don't really know what that means though.


Stable means vital signs within normal levels.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 1, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> If it weren't for my kids etc, if we get fifth sixth wave deep, I'd probably throw myself out of the car on the M1 thinking fuck this bullshit, Ive had enough.


by the fifth or sixth wave the motorways will be jammed with people fleeing cities so the worst that would happen to you are some nasty abrasions from hitting the concrete


----------



## two sheds (Feb 1, 2021)

.


----------



## Red Cat (Feb 1, 2021)

maomao said:


> Stable means vital signs within normal levels.



Yes, sorry I expressed myself poorly. I guess I mean I don't know what that means in terms of prognosis, whether she might get more poorly again, with infection or other illness, but she is communicating and has had contact with family. I didn't work as closely with her as others but its a huge relief and I'm not dreading opening work emails anymore, especially on a Monday (although I'm sure any more serious news would've been through teams not email).


----------



## lazythursday (Feb 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> The modelling done in that paper is also of great interest to anyone that wondered what would happen if all measures were scrapped and all behaviours went back to normal. The authors of the paper point out that these are extreme worst case scenarios that are thought to be incompatible with reality because when deaths rise peoples behaviours, and government decisions, inevitably change.
> 
> This for example is what they model as happening if all measures ended in April. Huge numbers well beyond anything we've seen so far.
> 
> ...


Quite a difficult paper to understand, but I guess the gist of it is 1) don't expect anything more than the most minor relaxations until summer at least and 2) if the government proposes any significant reopening before summer we are just going to see this horrorshow drag on even longer. 

I wish the government would be clearer about these kinds of expectations. I'd rather know that nothing much is going to change till June, and allow myself to psychologically adjust to that and plan accordingly. This current situation is difficult and can feel unendurable but I think it's better faced up to rather than keep thinking in the back of your mind that the worst of the lockdown might be over in a few weeks.


----------



## bimble (Feb 1, 2021)

The randomised testing in 8 postcodes to look for the South Africa variant, 8 postcodes dotted around various parts of the south east, does it make sense? I don’t follow it,  I mean if it’s already in 8 postcodes what can this really achieve?


----------



## klang (Feb 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> I don’t follow it,


don't worry about it, I'm sure it will follow you.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> The randomised testing in 8 postcodes to look for the South Africa variant, 8 postcodes dotted around various parts of the south east, does it make sense? I don’t follow it,  I mean if it’s already in 8 postcodes what can this really achieve?


I think that those postcodes have already had cases with the SA variant, what the "door-to-door tests" are meant to find out is whether there are more cases lurking in the community.


----------



## bimble (Feb 1, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I think that those postcodes have already had cases with the SA variant, what the "door-to-door tests" are meant to find out is whether there are more cases lurking in the community.


Yes, and then what though? And what about the postcodes just next door etc.


----------



## elbows (Feb 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> The randomised testing in 8 postcodes to look for the South Africa variant, 8 postcodes dotted around various parts of the south east, does it make sense? I don’t follow it,  I mean if it’s already in 8 postcodes what can this really achieve?



Not sure I have much to add compared to my initial reactions earlier today. They want to be seen to be doing something, and Hancock wants to talk tough without actually acting tough.

The population testing they plan for these areas is probably just so they can get a better sense of how widespread this variant is in those locations. If there are plenty of cases they will try to deduce other things from this data. They might also want to use people with this strain in some studies for all I know.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yes, and then what though? And what about the postcodes just next door etc.


i think the 8 postcodes is just sampling


----------



## Badgers (Feb 1, 2021)

A readable Thread by @EmmaLK Says If you want to read about coping in more  - UnrollThread.com
					

A readable Tweet Thread is waiting for you @EmmaLK Says If you want to read about coping in more detail, here is the sign up form for my newsletter. In this 1st one I'm going to be talking about extreme environments in more detail and what we can learn from them that can help us survive...




					unrollthread.com


----------



## bimble (Feb 1, 2021)

When people all over the UK go for covid tests, are a random sampling of the swabs from those who test positive routinely checked for whether they are variants or does that not happen ?


----------



## LDC (Feb 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> When people all over the UK go for covid tests, are a random sampling of the swabs from those who test positive routinely checked for whether they are variants or does that not happen ?



A % sample of all tests done are genome sequenced.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 1, 2021)

Old Woking friend had a knock on his door today. 









						Covid testing continues in Woking after SA variant found - recap
					

Residents within the selected parts of Goldsworth Park, St Johns and Knaphill are being given tests




					www.getsurrey.co.uk


----------



## Roadkill (Feb 1, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I wish the government would be clearer about these kinds of expectations. I'd rather know that nothing much is going to change till June, and allow myself to psychologically adjust to that and plan accordingly. This current situation is difficult and can feel unendurable but I think it's better faced up to rather than keep thinking in the back of your mind that the worst of the lockdown might be over in a few weeks.



This has been the government's approach all along, though, hasn't it - bollocks optimism from that lying oversexed haystack in No. 10, decisions either not taken or taken too late, inconsistent and confusing regulations issued at short notice, and a complete refusal to take responsibility for anything, least of all thousands dead who needn't have been.  Oh, and billions of pounds worth of corruption.  The whole bastard lot of them should be in prison.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 1, 2021)

Roadkill said:


> This has been the government's approach all along, though, hasn't it - bollocks optimism from that lying oversexed haystack in No. 10, decisions either not taken or taken too late, inconsistent and confusing regulations issued at short notice, and a complete refusal to take responsibility for anything, least of all thousands dead who needn't have been.  Oh, and billions of pounds worth of corruption.  The whole bastard lot of them should be in prison.


the haystack was quoted as being "hopeful for summer holidays" earlier on on the BBC news site


----------



## Roadkill (Feb 1, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> the haystack was quoted as being "hopeful for summer holidays" earlier on on the BBC news site



Exactly.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 1, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> the haystack was quoted as being "hopeful for summer holidays" earlier on on the BBC news site


bliddy idiot [again / as usual]


----------



## elbows (Feb 1, 2021)

Double plus independent.


----------



## BristolEcho (Feb 1, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> the haystack was quoted as being "hopeful for summer holidays" earlier on on the BBC news site



This has become the new Christmas it's massively pissing me off to be honest.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 1, 2021)

BristolEcho said:


> This has become the new Christmas it's massively pissing me off to be honest.



Amazing how keen everyone who was over eager for brexit is to leave the UK as soon as possible.

Just unfortunate it's not permanently


----------



## Wilf (Feb 1, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Amazing how keen everyone who was over eager for brexit is to leave the UK as soon as possible.
> 
> Just unfortunate it's not permanently


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 1, 2021)

Wilf said:


>



Boris fucking off abroad would make me very happy.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 1, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Boris fucking off abroad would make me very happy.


Ah, fair enough. Thought you were wanting to rerun the brexit wars.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 1, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Ah, fair enough. Thought you were wanting to rerun the brexit wars.



Nah, those are still going on in the UK pol bit, here I just rant at MPs in charge of mass murder and neglect. That was a bit close to it mind.


----------



## nyxx (Feb 1, 2021)

My dad used to be a volunteer for a taxi type service for people to get to medical appointments (rural area), not sure how he signed up for it or even what it was called. He needed full dbs for it. I was thinking that sort of scheme would be really good for this vaccination programme. 



Boudicca said:


> How has this been organised SpookyFrank ?
> 
> I'd be happy to mask up, fumingate my car and drive an  elderly person to a vaccine centre, but the Red Cross won't allow me to carry someone in my car and I guess the risk is too high for charities to get involved.  If I tried to organise this kind of thing, I'd get completely drowned in heath & safety stuff.
> 
> One lady I have been shopping for managed to struggle to the GP in a taxi with a sympathetic driver, another has cancelled her appointment as she is too ill at the moment.  It's not just about transport, it needs someone to turn up with an umbrella, a fold up chair and a hot water bottle.  The pictures of 80 year olds queuing in the rain are upsetting.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 1, 2021)

nyxx said:


> My dad used to be a volunteer for a taxi type service for people to get to medical appointments (rural area), not sure how he signed up for it or even what it was called. He needed full dbs for it. I was thinking that sort of scheme would be really good for this vaccination programme.


Yes, I guess anything official/charity organised would involved full dbs checks by the organisation.


----------



## andysays (Feb 2, 2021)

I notice this morning that the list of areas where this new SA variant has been detected includes one very near me.


> Tottenham Hale in the N17 area of north London



I'm fairly sure that wasn't part of the list yesterday...


----------



## maomao (Feb 2, 2021)

andysays said:


> I notice this morning that the list of areas where this new SA variant has been detected includes one very near me.
> 
> 
> I'm fairly sure that wasn't part of the list yesterday...


Haringey was definitely one of the three London boroughs in the list yesterday but don't think it was that specific.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 2, 2021)

Old mate in Woking had a knock at the door yesterday and was told his family all needed to do tests for the SA strain.


----------



## andysays (Feb 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> Haringey was definitely one of the three London boroughs in the list yesterday but don't think it was that specific.


OK, I would have thought I would have noticed that, what with living here, but perhaps I missed it.

I will be getting my regular test later in the week anyway...


----------



## Badgers (Feb 2, 2021)

Has the mandatory hotel quarantine started yet?


----------



## Mation (Feb 2, 2021)

andysays said:


> OK, I would have thought I would have noticed that, what with living here, but perhaps I missed it.
> 
> I will be getting my regular test later in the week anyway...


I also saw it on the list yesterday, but only saw the list quite late in the day.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 2, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Has the mandatory hotel quarantine started yet?



Delayed until 15 Feb apparently


----------



## Badgers (Feb 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Delayed until 15 Feb apparently


Sigh  

Probably to allow the Tories to buy shares in hotel chains or something.


----------



## Mation (Feb 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Delayed until 15 Feb apparently


_We'll be bringing in this emergency measure in a few weeks' time._

FFS


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 2, 2021)

In good news the government is allegedly hoping to vaccinate every adult by the end of May.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 2, 2021)

It's firm decisive action like this that's really done us proud in the last year


----------



## Badgers (Feb 2, 2021)

Mation said:


> _We'll be bringing in this emergency measure in a few weeks' time._
> 
> FFS











						Sage warned No 10 over South African Covid variant weeks ago
					

Government scientists had warned that only mandatory hotel quarantine for all travellers would prevent new coronavirus strains from arriving in the country before it emerged that the South African variant was spreading in Britain. Boris Johnson announced limited hotel quarantine measures last...




					www.thetimes.co.uk


----------



## MrSki (Feb 2, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Sage warned No 10 over South African Covid variant weeks ago
> 
> 
> Government scientists had warned that only mandatory hotel quarantine for all travellers would prevent new coronavirus strains from arriving in the country before it emerged that the South African variant was spreading in Britain. Boris Johnson announced limited hotel quarantine measures last...
> ...


----------



## Boudicca (Feb 2, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Yes, I guess anything official/charity organised would involved full dbs checks by the organisation.


I was dbs checked when I started volunteering for the Red Cross, but I am not allowed to take people in my car because of the Covid risk. 

If it was going to be organised, it would have to be on an informal basis.  Round here, a shout out on Facebook would find volunteer drivers, but I don't think you would get to the people in real need of the service, because a lot of them are not using the internet.


----------



## souljacker (Feb 2, 2021)

I just don't understand why the reluctance to close our borders properly. Hardly any country out there is letting us in anyway so who are these oh so important people that need to be flying in and out of the UK all the time? Is it just Boris' dad trying to flog his house in Greece that we are waiting for? Or is he waiting until Alok Sharma comes back from his little trip to Africa?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 2, 2021)

This was on the local news earlier, I assume other counties are/will be doing to same, they plan to vaccinate 200 people a day, and adding more buses if required.  
.



> The mobile vaccination unit, currently stationed outside the Apple Tree Centre temple in Crawley, opened its doors to patients on 28 January - managing to vaccinate more than 100 people on the first day.
> 
> Provided by the region's transport provider Metrobus, the bus will travel around the area over the next month making it easier for vulnerable patients to access vaccination - and providing a smaller, friendlier setting.
> 
> As part of the novel initiative GPs have worked with local community partners, including religious leaders, to ensure uptake among all groups in the locality, including black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities, is healthy.











						GPs use bus as mobile COVID-19 vaccine clinic to boost uptake
					

GPs in West Sussex are using a converted bus as a mobile vaccination clinic to try to boost uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in vulnerable patients in the area.




					www.gponline.com


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 2, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> I was dbs checked when I started volunteering for the Red Cross, but I am not allowed to take people in my car because of the Covid risk.
> 
> If it was going to be organised, it would have to be on an informal basis.  Round here, a shout out on Facebook would find volunteer drivers, but I don't think you would get to the people in real need of the service, because a lot of them are not using the internet.


My ex got her prescription picked up by using NHS Volunteers when self isolating last week.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 2, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I just don't understand why the reluctance to close our borders properly. Hardly any country out there is letting us in anyway so who are these oh so important people that need to be flying in and out of the UK all the time? Is it just Boris' dad trying to flog his house in Greece that we are waiting for? Or is he waiting until Alok Sharma comes back from his little trip to Africa?





> Quarantining all arrivals into the UK from all countries would be “unfeasible” and “not necessarily effective”, the universities minister, Michelle Donelan, says.


from the beeb live feed. 
Because: we can't stop these people coming here to spend their money, pretty please.
Apparently Sturgeon is thinking of doing this.


----------



## souljacker (Feb 2, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> from the beeb live feed.
> Because: we can't stop these people coming here to spend their money, pretty please.
> Apparently Sturgeon is thinking of doing this.



I wonder if it's significant that the quote is from the universities minister. Is it returning overseas students that we want coming in? The work I've done in uni's over the last few years has made it pretty clear that it's Chinese students that are keeping the UK Uni sector afloat.


----------



## quimcunx (Feb 2, 2021)

andysays said:


> I notice this morning that the list of areas where this new SA variant has been detected includes one very near me.
> 
> 
> I'm fairly sure that wasn't part of the list yesterday...



I saw it on the news last night. It was the only postcode I knew.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 2, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I wonder if it's significant that the quote is from the universities minister. Is it returning overseas students that we want coming in? The work I've done in uni's over the last few years has made it pretty clear that it's Chinese students that are keeping the UK Uni sector afloat.


That's possibly the thinking behind it, I can't see them returning for a while now though, especially with face to face mostly not happening for the foreseeable.


----------



## Boudicca (Feb 2, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> My ex got her prescription picked up by using NHS Volunteers when self isolating last week.


Yes, I can do that too, but there's a difference between using your car to get stuff and putting a person into a confined space with you.


----------



## miss direct (Feb 2, 2021)

The delay in a proper quarantine system is utterly pathetic. Last year I paid three times the usual price to travel back from Turkey, via bloody Belarus and got breathed on a bunch of covid ignoring idiots, because I was in fear of the quarantine measures being introduced (and had nowhere to do it). That was in MAY last year. Having said that, Turkey had, and has reintroduced quarantine (state operated and free), and it doesn't seem to have significantly helped reduce the spread.


----------



## MrSki (Feb 2, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> from the beeb live feed.
> Because: we can't stop these people coming here to spend their money, pretty please.
> Apparently Sturgeon is thinking of doing this.


It is getting the balance right between public health & the risk to the economy.   

Johnson January 13th.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 2, 2021)

If handchuck & the haystack actually want to stop community spread of that SA variant (& any other new variant) by people being told (not asked) to stay home, then they need to say exactly where the d**** thing has been found. tbh, I'm quite sure that it is already in the community, probably spread by people who've been to SA (or in contact with others who have been there) ...

for example - my local area had a steep spike in infections in November, suspected [by us locals wot do some studying of statistics] to have been the Kent variant, but as far as I know, that has not been confirmed. But the suspicion prompted this household, and others, to confine themselves to their own homes.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> In good news the government is allegedly hoping to vaccinate every adult by the end of May.


"Allegedly hoping" seems suitably nebulous. Everyone 18 and older to receive two doses by the end of May? Good luck with that.


----------



## Cid (Feb 2, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I wonder if it's significant that the quote is from the universities minister. Is it returning overseas students that we want coming in? The work I've done in uni's over the last few years has made it pretty clear that it's Chinese students that are keeping the UK Uni sector afloat.



It's not even particularly good logic if that was the case... the decision to spend 1-3 years studying in the UK isn't going to be _that_ affected by quarantine (I mean current students have to spend 2 weeks in quarantine going back). I suppose it might affect those doing short language course, but honestly that vs 'travel to a virus-ridden hell hole with unpredictable lockdowns, new strains circulating and no real guarantee of face to face teaching' is er... Yeah... I don't think quarantine is the major component there.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> In good news the government is allegedly hoping to vaccinate every adult by the end of May.


That is good news, though the original deadline of September was ridiculous. From what I remember, they aimed to get the top 7 groups done by the end of March, who together added up to more than half of the adult population. It was always going to be well before September.


----------



## Fruitloop (Feb 2, 2021)

DId anyone watch the latest Indie Sage? Some fairly worrying although not entirely suprising data on long Covid, particularly in young people. 1 in 8 primary age children and 1 in 7 secondary age with a positive test still have symptoms at 5 weeks according to ONS.


----------



## LDC (Feb 2, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> DId anyone watch the latest Indie Sage? Some fairly worrying although not entirely suprising data on long Covid, particularly in young people. 1 in 8 primary age children and 1 in 7 secondary age with a positive test still have symptoms at 5 weeks according to ONS.



Long covid isn't a very helpful term without significant additional info tbh, there's a variety of symptoms and they can last a variety of time. And 5 weeks is a very short time scale for discussing any long term impact of being infected.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> "Allegedly hoping" seems suitably nebulous. Everyone 18 and older to receive two doses by the end of May? Good luck with that.



One dose, which provides protection until the second dose. I don't become vaccinated for tetanus only after completing a series of 10-year boosters.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> That is good news, though the original deadline of September was ridiculous. From what I remember, they aimed to get the top 7 groups done by the end of March, who together added up to more than half of the adult population. It was always going to be well before September.


isn't september for having had the required two doses rather than half?


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 2, 2021)

I'm following the vaccination stats with considerable interest (histogram nicked orf the beeb)...

The recent daily average - despite some low days - seems to be close to or even exceeding the 15 million by 15th February target.




Covid - UK; daily vax first dose [29Jan2021] par StoneRoad2013, on ipernity

I'm hopeful that the higher number days will become even more frequent. There'll be several factors at play here - supply of vaccine, suitable places to be hubs and the availability of arms to be jabbed ...


----------



## Fruitloop (Feb 2, 2021)

It's true that long Covid is a mixed bag, in that in people with a severe acute infection there are a bunch of persistent symptoms that you would expect to see given the nature of the initial infection. But there is also the possibility of both occult multi-organ damage even in mild or asymptomatic infections, and of a persistent immune disregulation arising from mild Covid infections. There is almost no data at all on persistent symptoms in young people, but I find it quite concerning that what little information there is suggests at least some persistence beyond what you would expect from the acute infection. In the meantime schools will be re-opened as parents are assured that it is very unlikely that any significant number of children will come to harm, when to my mind there is insufficient evidence that this is actually the case.

At least two of the experts on there expressed concerns particularly about neurological injury, is it wise to dismiss that possibility out of hand?


----------



## 2hats (Feb 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> One dose, which provides protection until the second dose. I don't become vaccinated for tetanus only after completing a series of 10-year boosters.


Not vaccinated then.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> Not vaccinated then.



No, I disagree with your assertion that someone who has only had one dose hasn't been vaccinated. That's not the correct terminology. They haven't completed the vaccination course but they certainly have been vaccinated. See Hep A for example.


----------



## LDC (Feb 2, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> It's true that long Covid is a mixed bag, in that in people with a severe acute infection there are a bunch of persistent symptoms that you would expect to see given the nature of the initial infection. But there is also the possibility of both occult multi-organ damage even in mild or asymptomatic infections, and of a persistent immune disregulation arising from mild Covid infections. There is almost no data at all on persistent symptoms in young people, but I find it quite concerning that what little information there is suggests at least some persistence beyond what you would expect from the acute infection. In the meantime schools will be re-opened as parents are assured that it is very unlikely that any significant number of children will come to harm, when to my mind there is insufficient evidence that this is actually the case.
> 
> At least two of the experts on there expressed concerns particularly about neurological injury, is it wise to dismiss that possibility out of hand?



I'm totally not dismissing it out of hand, I just think it's worth being very wary and careful of the way it sometimes gets talked about as if it's a singular thing that is very common. There's a danger with that with the fear and expectation it then can become a self-fulfilling diagnosis in some people. I think having some symptoms for 5 weeks post-infection is very different to having long term organ damage months later, and giving them both the same label is very unhelpful, and potentially damaging for some people.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> "Allegedly hoping" seems suitably nebulous. Everyone 18 and older to receive two doses by the end of May? Good luck with that.


Why do you say that, out of interest?  Don't get me wrong, if there's anything to fail at, this government will manage to do it. But I'd have thought the vaccination programme should get successively faster/easier in that there will be more centres than a month ago and also because moving down the age groups allows mass delivery (get a text, book it, turn up - very different to arranging to go into care homes, getting the 80 year olds into surgeries etc.).

Against that, it looks like a lot of care home staff and residents are yet to be vaccinated. Might well be that they deliver on the end of May, having run through the adult population, but with patchy coverage and hesitancy in all groups?  Good for ministerial boasting, but not ideal for, ahem, herd immunity.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> One dose, which provides protection until the second dose. I don't become vaccinated for tetanus only after completing a series of 10-year boosters.


Being an active gardener, I've had 'several' tetanus jabs.
The last time - about 8 years ago - I stuck something in me as a gardening accident, the hospital said I had had enough tet jabs to last me a couple of decades at least, so I didn't need another, they just cleaned and dressed the wound - and advised me to be more careful in future ...


----------



## Wilf (Feb 2, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> isn't september for having had the required two doses rather than half?


Dunno, perhaps I should read up on it rather than sounding off.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 2, 2021)

Funny how NHS being in charge of vaccinations seems to have been so successful. 

Surprising that it wasn't turned over to Serco after their low-cost but stellar track&trace performance. We'd have had everyone vaccinated twice by now.


----------



## Sue (Feb 2, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Funny how NHS being in charge of vaccinations seems to have been so successful.
> 
> Surprising that it wasn't turned over to Serco after their low-cost but stellar track&trace performance. We'd have had everyone vaccinated twice by now.


Who knew that getting people to do the jobs they've loads of experience in would be a good way of doing things..?  









						UK missed coronavirus contact tracing opportunity, experts say
					

Thousands of council workers could have been deployed by the government but were not asked




					www.theguardian.com
				




ETA That article's from the start of April last year.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Why do you say that, out of interest?


Everyone 18 and older in the UK will most definitely not receive two doses by the end of May. From the current rate of progress alone, but also not least because for reasons of policy, medical history, production, political, distribution, vaccine hesitancy, anti-vax.


----------



## wayward bob (Feb 2, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> ... the fear and expectation it then can become a self-fulfilling diagnosis in some people.


are you that dude who wrote a blog for the ?bmj that he'd cured himself with a positive mental attitude?


----------



## Supine (Feb 2, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> DId anyone watch the latest Indie Sage? Some fairly worrying although not entirely suprising data on long Covid, particularly in young people. 1 in 8 primary age children and 1 in 7 secondary age with a positive test still have symptoms at 5 weeks according to ONS.



it was a good but depressing discussion. Brain covid and unknown affects after years - unknown potential issue!


----------



## Wilf (Feb 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> Everyone 18 and older in the UK will most definitely will not receive two doses by the end of May. From the current rate of progress alone, but also not least because for reasons of policy, medical history, production, political, distribution, vaccine hesitancy, anti-vax.


Yeah, I get the refuseniks, health issues and the rest, but I was thinking they'll be going with a more minimal 'vaccine offered' and 'first dose delivered'. If that's what they mean, another 17 weeks or so at 2-3 million vaccinations a week gets you close.

Suppose what I meant was that September was a remarkably conservative deadline. However, I suspect you will be right, if the definition is '2 doses to all those who are realistically going to have the vaccine', we will be looking well into the Summer. And of course, like painting the Forth Bridge...


----------



## 2hats (Feb 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No, I disagree with your assertion that someone who has only had one dose hasn't been vaccinated. That's not the correct terminology. They haven't completed the vaccination course but they certainly have been vaccinated. See Hep A for example.


Hep A vaccines are licensed for single dose. (Currently available) UK COVID-19 vaccines are not.

Current (BNT162b2 Israel) evidence points to little immune response until day 14 after first dose. There is no longitudinal immune profile data and that's why the second dose is necessary (possible exceptions: naturally acquired immunity - see here though technically there the prime is the "second dose" and the research underlines the utility of a second dose for the seronegative).


----------



## zahir (Feb 2, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> DId anyone watch the latest Indie Sage? Some fairly worrying although not entirely suprising data on long Covid, particularly in young people. 1 in 8 primary age children and 1 in 7 secondary age with a positive test still have symptoms at 5 weeks according to ONS.




This is worth watching as well: Long Covid


----------



## Wilf (Feb 2, 2021)

Anyway regardless of whether they do deliver vaccines to all adults by the end of May, that kind of noise from government is part of the 'get schools open, book your Summer hols, open the shops' narrative. And a dangerous narrative at that, particularly as they may well have lost control of the newest variants. Not closing the ports and airports to anything other than genuine emergencies, along with a lack of testing for people arriving in the UK is rapidly rising up the league table of worst government fuck ups.


----------



## pinkmonkey (Feb 2, 2021)

I live in N17 and I'm about to go get tested to do  with the South African strain - they're doing door-to-door but we're not land lubbers. Have barely been out but did come within coughing distance of unmasked idiots in retail a couple of times recently.


----------



## Fruitloop (Feb 2, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm totally not dismissing it out of hand, I just think it's worth being very wary and careful of the way it sometimes gets talked about as if it's a singular thing that is very common. There's a danger with that with the fear and expectation it then can become a self-fulfilling diagnosis in some people. I think having some symptoms for 5 weeks post-infection is very different to having long term organ damage months later, and giving them both the same label is very unhelpful, and potentially damaging for some people.



It's not a majority, that's for sure, but there's growing evidence that it's a substantial minority. In a survey of 200 people with persistent symptoms, where only 18% had been in hospital (referred to in the latest indie sage), 33% had lung damage on a scan, with lesser but significant figures for heart and kidney damage. So whilst I take your point that you risk alarming a number of people who are experiencing a fairly normal period of convalescence, there's a significant number of people who may well require some kind of medical intervention in the medium term at least. But perhaps more importantly than that, there are huge ramifications for policy that should be urgently taken into account, that are currently being ignored.


----------



## elbows (Feb 2, 2021)

More clues about the spread of the South African variant.

15m ago 13:32



> Hancock summarising the door-to-door testing efforts taking place to counter the South African variants.
> 
> And he announces that 11 cases of the variant have been discovered in Bristol, and 32 in Liverpool. He says the same approach is now being applied in these areas.


----------



## wayward bob (Feb 2, 2021)

yeah i thought i heard him say bristol but couldn't find anything written on it. will they get the same testing does anyone know? (redundant, soz, link says yes)


----------



## two sheds (Feb 2, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> It's not a majority, that's for sure, but there's growing evidence that it's a substantial minority. In a survey of 200 people with persistent symptoms, where only 18% had been in hospital (referred to in the latest indie sage), 33% had lung damage on a scan, with lesser but significant figures for heart and kidney damage. So whilst I take your point that you risk alarming a number of people who are experiencing a fairly normal period of convalescence, there's a significant number of people who may well require some kind of medical intervention in the medium term at least. But perhaps more importantly than that, there are huge ramifications for policy that should be urgently taken into account, that are currently being ignored.



I did see one specialist say that the lung damage cleared up afterwards though. Sorry can't remember where I saw it.


----------



## Fruitloop (Feb 2, 2021)

There are some encouraging signs that lung damage improves, although whether that means it goes away I'm not sure. That still leaves neurological, cardiac and kidney damage though.


----------



## Cid (Feb 2, 2021)

What is lung damage like with normal respiratory diseases? Flu etc?

I mean I know I’ve had shit that has had lingering effects for weeks after the initial infection... being wary of trivialising stuff as was the case with the old ‘it’s just like flu’ of course.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 2, 2021)

I had a scan the year before last that showed an anomaly at the bottom of one lung which could have been mucus (asthma related) or could have been cancer I was told. The specialist got me to have another scan which I did in March or April. I was hoping it wouldn't have spread but it actually cleared up completely so was definitely mucus.  I'm wondering whether that might be something like.

(I also have very strange white spots showing up on scans throughout my lungs which are apparently from when I had chicken pox when I was a kid but they're also benign. A bit irrelevant to present discussion though)

Don't want to trivialize any of the coronavirus effects though. We'll presumably know more given time.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 2, 2021)

Cid said:


> What is lung damage like with normal respiratory diseases? Flu etc?
> 
> I mean I know I’ve had shit that has had lingering effects for weeks after the initial infection... being wary of trivialising stuff as was the case with the old ‘it’s just like flu’ of course.



Not that bad, Covid can leave proper nasty scarring on the lungs.











						Post-COVID lungs worse than the worst smokers' lungs, surgeon says
					

Texas trauma surgeon Dr. Brittany Bankhead-Kendall says that means even survivors could have long-term post-COVID problems.




					www.cbsnews.com


----------



## maomao (Feb 2, 2021)

So are we now pursuing a zero _South African_ covid policy? Because it threatens the eggs-in-one-basket vaccine policy?


----------



## weepiper (Feb 2, 2021)

Early years school possibly going back in Scotland from the 22nd of February, and a big expansion of the regular testing which is already done for NHS face to face staff to include school staff and senior high school students:


----------



## emanymton (Feb 2, 2021)

Not sure where best to put this. 

But there are some utter scum in the World.

Just had this email, not showing the actual sent from address of course.

I like that they try and get your details even if you don't want the vaccine.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 2, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Not sure where best to put this.
> 
> But there are some utter scum in the World.
> 
> ...


I've had a few of these too.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 2, 2021)

We're in for a long haul. Covid is the new flu and there will be a modified jab each year.
Govt ordering vaccine for 3 years at least now.


----------



## editor (Feb 2, 2021)

More bad news 









						Alcohol deaths hit record high during Covid pandemic
					

The figures for England and Wales cover the first nine months of 2020.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 2, 2021)

Today's reported figures -

New cases - 16,840, the lowest since early Dec.

Patients in hospital have dropped to 35,466, as of Sun 31/1.

1st dose vaccinations - 9,646,715

New deaths -  1,449 down 182 on last Tuesday's 1,631, bringing the 7-day average down to 1,122, a drop of 9.7% in a week.

Long way to go, but at least we've seen the deaths declining for about a week or so.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 2, 2021)

editor said:


> More bad news
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No great surprise, sadly. I don't suppose the services that would normally support those with alcohol problems have been able to do much either.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 2, 2021)

editor said:


> More bad news
> 
> 
> 
> ...


6 bottles a day, I thought I was getting bad smashing one bottle of wine.
Ive noticed it getting worse and am quiting gradually. Can get handy 500ml bottles of Malbec which help.


----------



## Numbers (Feb 2, 2021)

Captain Tom has died.


----------



## Looby (Feb 2, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> No great surprise, sadly. I don't suppose the services that would normally support those with alcohol problems have been able to do much either.


Mostly phone and online support. 
Some are being seen face to face for drug/alcohol testing but mostly not I think. 
Counselling and stuff online seems to be working for many adults but it’s hard to get a clear sense of how someone is doing without seeing them.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 2, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Captain Tom has died.


RIP to him.

More cynically, expect some excruciating Tom related shite from johnson to deflect attention from his own disasters.


----------



## brogdale (Feb 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> RIP to him.
> 
> More cynically, expect some excruciating Tom related shite from johnson to deflect attention from his own disasters.


Yeah, if tory twatter is anything to go by...wall-to-wall distraction/exploitation/reflected glory harvesting etc....but sad news all the same.
Farewell comrade Tom.


----------



## elbows (Feb 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> New deaths -  1,449 down 182 on last Tuesday's 1,631, bringing the 7-day average down to 1,122, a drop of 9.7% in a week.
> 
> Long way to go, but at least we've seen the deaths declining for about a week or so.



Yes data increasingly points towards deaths by date of death having peaked on January 19th, with over 1300 Covid-19 deaths recorded for that day so far.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 2, 2021)




----------



## 2hats (Feb 2, 2021)

As previously stated, this will happen - none of the vaccines have 100% efficacy in respect of symptomatic disease, even after two doses.

The question is: how many end up in hospital with severe episodes?


----------



## kabbes (Feb 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes data increasingly points towards deaths by date of death having peaked on January 19th, with over 1300 Covid-19 deaths recorded for that day so far.
> 
> View attachment 252507


Isn’t this pretty much what teuchter  predicted at the time to which cupid_stunt reacted negatively?  Or  is my memory faulty?


----------



## kabbes (Feb 2, 2021)

... no, I just checked.  The prediction was indeed made on 19 Jan but it was that the peak had been seen around the 14 Jan.  Still, not too far off.

I did remember the reaction though...




cupid_stunt said:


> Why on earth would you think that?
> 
> It's already been pointed out on a number of occasions that the 7 day average of reported deaths tends to be a early sign of what the 7 day average of deaths by actual date will look like, the curves tends to be very similiar, and the former continues to go up.
> 
> I have no idea why this hasn't sunk in, perhaps you are just in denial, because that would involve accepting you were wrong.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 2, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Isn’t this pretty much what teuchter  predicted at the time to which cupid_stunt reacted negatively?  Or  is my memory faulty?



Your memory is faulty, he put his money on the 14th, I thought that was both weird & somewhat morbid, and simply questioned why he picked that date & why not a week or two later, he then changed his prediction to the 19th, almost a week later to where he had placed his bet.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Your memory is faulty, he put his money on the 14th, I thought that was both weird & somewhat morbid, and simply questioned why he picked that date & why not a week or two later, he then changed his prediction to the 19th, almost a week later to where he had placed his bet.


Rubbish! I did not change my prediction. I said, on the 19th, that I was putting my money on the peak already having passed at that stage. At the same time, I guessed the peak might have been somewhere around the 14th. So I was pretty much right to say on the 19th that we had already passed the peak, and I was 4 or 5 days out in my rough guess of the 14th.

I think the peak of the "average" line is still on the 18th. I was going to leave it for another week or two before finalising any claims though.


----------



## elbows (Feb 2, 2021)

The intresting bit as far as I'm concerned is not who predicted it, its the logic behind these things.

So in this case the interesting bit was the timing of peak in deaths relative to peak in hospital admissions, since admissions happen first and that data is also more timely since we get the hospital admissions data quite some time before we get accurate death figures. I'm pretty sure authorities look at these different measures to get a sense of what the death picture will look like in advance of having the deaths data, so its not surprising that some of us want to perform the same sort of exercise at times.

So as discussed at the time, I didnt agree with the guess of January 14th because I thought there was a hospital admissions peak on January 12th in data already available to us. And that therefore a date such as the day we were having that conversation, January 19th, was a better guesstimate for peak deaths, since as teuchter observed there seems to be about a weeks gap between these two sorts of peaks. If teuchter had spotted the peak day of January 12th clearly in the hospital admissions data, they might very well have guessed January 19th as the peak for deaths in the first place, since the underlying logic of timing seemed sound enough.



teuchter said:


> Looking at the first wave - deaths peaked on the 8th April, about a week after admissions peaked on the 1st April.
> The first hump of the second wave - deaths peaked 18th Nov, admissions 11th Nov.
> So about a week between them.
> Second wave first hump peak cases reported - 9th Nov. So only 9 days ahead of peak deaths
> We don't really know if/when admissions have peaked for this current wave. Looks to me they might just have reached some sort of plateau around the 6th Jan but that might change with further info.





elbows said:


> Agree about approximate timing gaps seen previously between peak admissions and peak deaths.
> 
> Disagree with choice of 6th Jan for admissions this time. Plateaus do complicate the timing but in that circumstance I certainly wouldnt just choose the earliest peak date when the daily admissions figure was actually higher for Jan 12th. So for all I know the day with most deaths could turn out to be today, January 19th.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 2, 2021)

In other words elbows got it just about spot on 

Some context to my estimation was that this was around the time I was arguing with people about primarily using the "deaths by day reported" data because I was trying to say that we should be paying more attention to the "actual date of death" numbers. At around that time, the line for the former number was on quite a steep slope upwards and it, in itself, gave little indication that we were probably approaching a peak. In particular at that point of time I felt that it was further distorted by a catch-up in reported numbers after the new year period. So, a lot of people seemed to be reporting these ever escalating numbers with excessive gloom ignoring the context of other things like the plateau in admissions and the already visible decline in positive test results. 

So I was somewhat inclined to give an "optimistic" estimate as a bit of a provocation. elbows made a calmer assessment (also based on a much better understanding of all the numbers than I have) and came up with a better guess.

Seemed also around that point to be quite a few people almost _wanting _to see the dramatic supposed "Christmas" spike play out with a horrendous further jump in numbers because of the pointing-the-finger opportunities it would afford. But no such clearly discernable spike happened - for reasons that have already been discussed.

In a few weeks from now I'll be looking back at the death certificate numbers to see where the peak ends up appearing on those.


----------



## elbows (Feb 3, 2021)

I wouldnt claim people wanted to see a Christmas spike, only that lots of people were expecting one. The whole reason I kept saying that I expected the opposite was because I knew it would probably sound counter-intuitive to people that paid more attention to the headline Christmas fears than the other aspects of Christmas such as school and workplace holidays which would actually reduce infections overall. There will still have been Christmas-related Covid-19 tragedies but these will have to be told in individual terms, they dont stand out distinctly in the overall data.


----------



## elbows (Feb 3, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Some context to my estimation was that this was around the time I was arguing with people about primarily using the "deaths by day reported" data because I was trying to say that we should be paying more attention to the "actual date of death" numbers. At around that time, the line for the former number was on quite a steep slope upwards and it, in itself, gave little indication that we were probably approaching a peak. In particular at that point of time I felt that it was further distorted by a catch-up in reported numbers after the new year period.



I should pick on these comments a little using part of a graph, but its too late for that tonight and I should probably take some time off imminently to recharge my drained pandemic emotions. So I'll just have to do it with words alone for now. The trajectory of the averages wasnt quite as steep as it had been by the 19th, and thats exactly the sort of weak but present signal we might expect from that data - the peaks in daily reported deaths arent too easy to spot until right upon them, but we can still make tentative assumptions using changes in trajectory steepness, especially when combined with other forms of case and hospital data as you mention. Also although there was a Christmas-holiday delayed reporting distortion in the figures, this was compendated for reasonably quickly and most of the extremely steep trajectory then seen in the daily reported numbers turned out to be an accurate reflection of how steeply the deaths by date of death were rising in the period before the peak 



> In a few weeks from now I'll be looking back at the death certificate numbers to see where the peak ends up appearing on those.



The 19th is covered in this weeks data that came out on Tuesday, although it is quite near the end of the period covered by that release so I expect those numbers to grow a little more in next Tuesdays release. At the moment they still have a slightly higher number of 1273 for the 16th January, with the 19th on 1267, but once next Tuesdays version is published I only expect relatively small changes in future releases after that, so you probably only need to wait one week rather than two.


----------



## elbows (Feb 3, 2021)

Emotional recharge isnt my only motivation for taking a break either, I am also boring myself rather a lot these days with the things I am ending up saying about the pandemic right now. Even I have limits for how much I can repeat myself without it getting to me. I find myself longing to have gone beyond peak smart arse and that perhaps that entire side of me might be allowed to diminish down to low levels forever more. Problem is I'm not sure what else is left of me if that aspect is removed, probably not a lot!

Also I'm not really looking for personal responses to this post, lets stick to talking about the pandemic, just wanted to explain why I might not be joining in that much for a bit.


----------



## Humberto (Feb 3, 2021)

You've took a lot on mate, it's gloomy times. Your're much appreciated.


----------



## MrSki (Feb 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> Emotional recharge isnt my only motivation for taking a break either, I am also boring myself rather a lot these days with the things I am ending up saying about the pandemic right now. Even I have limits for how much I can repeat myself without it getting to me. I find myself longing to have gone beyond peak smart arse and that perhaps that entire side of me might be allowed to diminish down to low levels forever more. Problem is I'm not sure what else is left of me if that aspect is removed, probably not a lot!
> 
> Also I'm not really looking for personal responses to this post, lets stick to talking about the pandemic, just wanted to explain why I might not be joining in that much for a bit.


Sorry I know you don't want it to be about you but this thread would be shite without your input. You have been a proper star on here & thank you. Take a bit of time off & try to re-charge those batteries. 
Take care mate & thanks for all you have contributed.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 3, 2021)

Seeing lots of these type of stories on Twotter


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 3, 2021)

I reckon PHE have performed even worse than the government during this. At least the government can claim they were making political decisions, but PHE should have known their shit from the get go, yet seem to have got everything wrong since the start of last year. Too many years focusing on sugar taxes instead of disease outbreaks, when health prevention should always have been part of the NHS.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 3, 2021)

I'm hoping that if things are looking good at the end of this month, the gov _doesn't _decide that we should start coming out of lockdown but actually gives the message that if we hold on for one month more before starting to do so, we can have a lot more people vaccinated and infection levels even lower and be in a much better position for the rest of the year. But they probably won't do that.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 3, 2021)

Good news hopefully









						Covid-19: Study showing Oxford vaccine slows virus spread 'superb' - Hancock
					

As results show the Oxford jab may cut transmission, the health secretary says it offers a "way out".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## andysays (Feb 3, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Good news hopefully
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't quite understand this story. 

It seems to be based on the finding that those vaccinated firstly haven't developed covid themselves, and secondly haven't developed the antibodies which would suggest they could potentially infect others.

But given that most of those already vaccinated will still be shielding, they will only have had a very limited opportunity to come into contact with an already infected person.


----------



## TopCat (Feb 3, 2021)

I get my second jab in an hours time.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 3, 2021)

> Ministers must level with Britons that summer holidays abroad may not be possible unless other countries make better progress on vaccination, senior MPs have warned.
> 
> Downing Street now believes there is little prospect of mass international tourism this summer, though insiders said they were hopeful about staycations in Britain. “Internally the view is that UK holidays may be possible depending on the circumstances but going abroad is very unlikely,” a government source said







__





						Be honest about summer holidays abroad, MPs warn No 10 | Coronavirus | The Guardian
					

Downing Street believes there is little prospect of mass international tourism




					amp.theguardian.com
				




Not surprising but not cheering


----------



## TopCat (Feb 3, 2021)

TopCat said:


> I get my second jab in an hours time.


All done, all good.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 3, 2021)

Badgers said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Everything to deflect from their own fuck ups. 
You can't go on holiday cos Johnny foreigner doesn't have a world beating vaccination program. Cunts.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 3, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Everything to deflect from their own fuck ups.
> You can't go on holiday cos Johnny foreigner doesn't have a world beating vaccination program. Cunts.


Who needs to go abroad when you can swim in _British_ waters alongside happy _British_ fish?


----------



## Supine (Feb 3, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Who needs to go abroad when you can swim in _British_ waters alongside happy _British_ fish?



tbf the British coast is massively underrated


----------



## Boudicca (Feb 3, 2021)

I quite fancy Israel this year...


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 3, 2021)

Supine said:


> tbf the British coast is massively underrated


Its summer climate, less so.


----------



## maomao (Feb 3, 2021)

Am I alone in finding the lack of opportunities for foreign summer holidays one of the smallest tragedies of this whole thing?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 3, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Its summer climate, less so.



Thanks to climate change the days of risking sitting in a damp caravan in Wales should be minimal now.



maomao said:


> Am I alone in finding the lack of opportunities for foreign summer holidays one of the smallest tragedies of this whole thing?



Its a nice to have, the determination for people to go abroad otherwise summer would be RUINED RUINED! was fucking weird last year and absolutely fucking appalling during a global pandemic.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 3, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> I quite fancy Israel this year...


It's fucking roasting in summer though!


----------



## elbows (Feb 3, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Everything to deflect from their own fuck ups.
> You can't go on holiday cos Johnny foreigner doesn't have a world beating vaccination program. Cunts.



And our vaccination programme is world-beating because Hancock watched Contagion 









						Covid: Contagion film shows lessons around vaccine supply - Hancock
					

The 2011 Hollywood movie looks at what would happen in the event of a virus spreading around the world.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Feb 3, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Everything to deflect from their own fuck ups.
> You can't go on holiday cos Johnny foreigner doesn't have a world beating vaccination program. Cunts.


They're so fucking predictable and transparent...


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 3, 2021)

elbows

please take care of you - your greatly appreciated input to this tread has really helped my understanding of the pandemic at the national scale as my focus has been far more into developments in my local area.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> And our vaccination programme is world-beating because Hancock watched Contagion
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Article also states he ordered 400 million doses, um, sure someone will explain this but it looks like panic buying/hoarding no wonder Europeans are throwing shade atm.


----------



## prunus (Feb 3, 2021)

Today MPs observed slightly over half a millisecond of silence for each person killed by Covid in th UK.  So that's alright then.


----------



## teqniq (Feb 3, 2021)

Dido Harding was appearing before a commons select committee today and she said this:



Just WTF


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 3, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported figures -
> 
> New cases - 16,840, the lowest since early Dec.
> 
> ...


appreciate your daily briefings cupid!


----------



## Mation (Feb 3, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Dido Harding was appearing before a commons select commitee today and she said this:
> 
> 
> 
> Just WTF



Completely true, if "publicly" and "still plunder the country" are missing from that transcript.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 3, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Dido Harding was appearing before a commons select commitee today and she said this:
> 
> 
> 
> Just WTF





"I do not know how viruses work" says leading person in charge of pandemic response.


----------



## TopCat (Feb 3, 2021)

TopCat said:


> All done, all good.


Ha! My nurse partner says I and the hospital fucked up possibly. She said it’s three weeks between jabs not two and they probably thought I was due the first. Did I tell them I had had the first? No.


----------



## TopCat (Feb 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> And our vaccination programme is world-beating because Hancock watched Contagion
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Was that the movie when Gwenneth Paltrow died in the first ten mins? If so it was fab, really uplifting.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 3, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Dido Harding was appearing before a commons select commitee today and she said this:
> 
> 
> 
> Just WTF




We were warned. This should be no surprise.

When TalkTalk suffered a cyber attack in 2015 she was asked if her customer's data was encrypted. Her reply? 

"The awful truth is I don't know"

Which led to Marketing Magazine running an article under the headline

"Dido Harding's utter ignorance is a lesson to us all".

Nothing has changed. This is what you get from a PPE degree at Magdalen College, Oxford.


----------



## souljacker (Feb 3, 2021)

I didn't get why we were having a Boris Propaganda show this evening but it seems we've passed 10 million vaccinations so I suspect he wants the glory for that. Unless he's actually going to witter on for an hour so he can do his clapping thing at 6. I won't be as it clashes with House of Games on bbc2.


----------



## TopCat (Feb 3, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I didn't get why we were having a Boris Propaganda show this evening but it seems we've passed 10 million vaccinations so I suspect he wants the glory for that. Unless he's actually going to witter on for an hour so he can do his clapping thing at 6. I won't be as it clashes with House of Games on bbc2.


It’s a rare success in the last year. Any politician would want to focus on that.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 3, 2021)

Today's reported daily figures.

First dose vaccinations just over 10m people now.   

New cases, another 'fairly low' figure, at 19,202, down 25.1% in 7 days. 

New deaths - 1,322 down a decent 403 on last Wednesday's 1,725, a drop of 13.4% in 7 days, the 7 day average daily deaths is now down to 1,090 from the peak of 1,248 on 23rd Jan.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 3, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> the 7 day average daily deaths is now down to 1,090 from the peak of 1,248 on 23rd Jan.


20th Jan.


----------



## souljacker (Feb 3, 2021)

We seem to be getting quite close to the sort of case rates that we were seeing in November. The last time Reading had the figures we are seeing now, we were in Tier 2.


----------



## Supine (Feb 3, 2021)

Covid and brexit stupidity combined in one tweet


----------



## TopCat (Feb 3, 2021)

It’s encouraging.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 3, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported daily figures.
> 
> First dose vaccinations just over 10m people now.
> 
> ...


ah - that's deaths by date reported as opposed to deaths by date of death, which latter peaked on 18 january









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 3, 2021)

Supine said:


> Covid and brexit stupidity combined in one tweet
> 
> View attachment 252623


Oh for fucks sake


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 3, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Oh for fucks sake


----------



## 2hats (Feb 3, 2021)

2hats said:


> Everyone 18 and older in the UK will most definitely not receive two doses by the end of May. From the current rate of progress alone, but also not least because for reasons of policy, medical history, production, political, distribution, vaccine hesitancy, anti-vax.


I see Whitty was gently starting to hint at the reality of this in today's press conference (just over 28 minutes in). Aside from supply issues mentioned that they will have to start administering the second dose in March and this will also slow the [currently realised] rate of progress, of course.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 3, 2021)

I'm not expecting it until latter half year - especially over summer months, priority can and should be ensuring 2nd doses for the most vulnerable.


----------



## TopCat (Feb 3, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Article also states he ordered 400 million doses, um, sure someone will explain this but it looks like panic buying/hoarding no wonder Europeans are throwing shade atm.


The extra is contingency and the Covax programme no?


----------



## Sunray (Feb 3, 2021)

I was very encouraged by this, 









						One Pfizer/BioNTech jab gives '90% immunity' from Covid after 21 days
					

New analysis runs counter to earlier study which suggested one dose may not give adequate protection




					www.theguardian.com
				




Make me chuckle a bit, it shows you need to educate people to not go crazy the instant they get a vaccine.  It appears the Pfizer vaccine has 0% efficacy for 2 weeks and slowly rises to 90% after 21 days.  
The UK governments all on black appears to have landed on black. We can hope this run of luck extends to all the vaccines. Might be able to *safely* unwind a little from the COVID-19 pandemic before summers end.


----------



## Dystopiary (Feb 3, 2021)

Work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has said she is opposed to making one-off £500 or £1,000 universal credit payments in April in lieu of retaining the £20-a-week Covid top-up, warning that it could disincentivise claimants from taking a job. 

One-off UK Covid benefit may stop people working, says minister

[Tory MP Nigel] Mills suggested that if a £1,000 payment was on offer in April, universal credit claimants would not be “rushing out to take a job or increase their hours”. Coffey agreed. 

😡

Was gonna start a new thread in UK politics, but thought this might be a more appropriate place, Hope that's ok.


----------



## zora (Feb 3, 2021)

Hold the front page, guys, there is this novel respiratory virus and coughing patients might put healthcare staff at risk of contracting it without proper PPE...








						Covid coughing study suggests NHS staff at far greater risk than thought
					

Health service urged to rethink safety for frontline staff and provide better PPE and ventilation




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 4, 2021)

zora said:


> Hold the front page, guys, there is this novel respiratory virus and coughing patients might put healthcare staff at risk from contracting it without proper PPE...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



There might just be some new _details_ there in that study though -- Linda Geddes has been quite good on some science stories.

" ... than previously thought" in the first paragraph suggests no-one thinks 'coughing is bad!'  is any kind of brand new thing.

Maybe the word *Exclusive!* suggesterd otherwise maybe, but still ....


----------



## zora (Feb 4, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> There might just be some new _details_ there in that study though -- Linda Geddes has been quite good on some science stories.
> 
> " ... than previously thought" in the first paragraph suggests no-one thinks 'coughing is bad!'  is any kind of brand new thing.
> 
> Maybe the word *Exclusive!* suggesterd otherwise maybe, but still ....



Yes, the study as such is not unwelcome, nor is the reporting on it. My facepalm is for the fact that it's now a year into the pandemic, and PPE for health care workers has not been upgraded after the _downgrading_ that happened last year due to the worldwide shortages.
I think there was some movement towards it at the end of last year, but from what I understand it's not consistently made available to staff even now. 
This should have happened, imo, immediately in June or whenever production capacity would have allowed.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 4, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> Work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, has said she is opposed to making one-off £500 or £1,000 universal credit payments in April in lieu of retaining the £20-a-week Covid top-up, warning that it could disincentivise claimants from taking a job.
> 
> One-off UK Covid benefit may stop people working, says minister
> 
> ...


After Dunked In Shit, and the execrable McVey, Therese Coffey was very much in the shadow of two of the greats of Tory callous heartlessness. That she has been able to transcend that and stand in her own right as yet another mouth-breathing, dogma-following, paragon of casually unconcerned brutality surely marks her out for greatness in the new dim AND evil tory party.


----------



## elbows (Feb 4, 2021)

This shit has started again, and again Sunaks name is evoked by the anti-lockdown press.

If only a fraction of whats been reported about his pandemic attitude is actually true, I would still hold him culpable for much of what happened with the failed response to the second wave. 











						Rishi Sunak concerned scientists are 'moving goalposts' on Covid lockdown
					

Chancellor believes justification for restrictions has changed, say allies, as pressure grows to let Britain reopen




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Feb 4, 2021)

Maybe he wants a new mutation named after him. The Sunak strain of the virus.


----------



## Supine (Feb 4, 2021)

I am liking this symptomatic testing lark. Heading home feels better with a negative result (i know about the accuracy stuff).

Less than five minutes in and out. Result tested and messaged in 18 mins.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 4, 2021)

I was a tad reassured to have the infrared temperature test before going into vaccination. Presume it's not hugely accurate but at least checks for fever and gives instantaneous result.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Maybe he wants a new mutation named after him. The Sunak strain of the virus.



Sunak is merely one minor strain of an already well known viral species.


----------



## prunus (Feb 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> This shit has started again, and again Sunaks name is evoked by the anti-lockdown press.
> 
> If only a fraction of whats been reported about his pandemic attitude is actually true, I would still hold him culpable for much of what happened with the failed response to the second wave.
> 
> ...



The “fat lady sings” comment - that this “needs to be the last time we do this ... we can’t lock down again” is just moronic. Whether we lock down again or not isn’t some kind of whim or fancy, it will driven by whatever the reality is, whether you like it or not. Fuckwit.


----------



## TopCat (Feb 4, 2021)

prunus said:


> The “fat lady sings” comment - that this “needs to be the last time we do this ... we can’t lock down again” is just moronic. Whether we lock down again or not isn’t some kind of whim or fancy, it will driven by whatever the reality is, whether you like it or not. Fuckwit.


It seems he is saying enough is enough and that now (and from now on) protecting wealth should be the priority.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 4, 2021)

prunus said:


> The “fat lady sings” comment - that this “needs to be the last time we do this ... we can’t lock down again” is just moronic. Whether we lock down again or not isn’t some kind of whim or fancy, it will driven by whatever the reality is, whether you like it or not. Fuckwit.



This is the maddest thing about the Tory's handling of the whole thing IMO. Their downright refusal to learn anything.


----------



## Chairman Meow (Feb 4, 2021)

As a contrast to the 'fat lady sings' comment, Brett Sutton who is the Victoria's Chief Medical Officer, stated yesterday that he wouldn't hesitate to go back into lockdown should it be required (after a security guard in one of the Australian Open hotels tested positive). In fact he said he would lockdown the state ten times if he had to. When they put Vic into lockdown before, they peaked at 700 cases a day and they got it down to zero. Different approach, different results.

'We’ll do it again. We will do it again. If we have to do it 10 times over, we can do it. We’ve got the tools. Really importantly, we’ve learned the tough lessons and we’ve provided those tough lessons to the rest of Australia. We’ve learned from our counterparts.

Every time there’s a challenge that one of our interstate counterparts faces, we learn from it. And vice versa. And I think Australia’s in a good position. No one wants to have gone through the tragic circumstances that Victoria has, but you cannot have that occur and not embed those lessons to make sure that you’re in the very best position going forward.'



"


----------



## kalidarkone (Feb 4, 2021)

zora said:


> Hold the front page, guys, there is this novel respiratory virus and coughing patients might put healthcare staff at risk of contracting it without proper PPE...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No shit sherlock  Not aimed at you zora xxx

Also the same goes for the patients being put at risk by the staff.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 4, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> No shit sherlock  Not aimed at you zora xxx
> 
> Also the same goes for the patients being put at risk by the government and managers not providing proper PPE for the staff.



cfu (which is what I'm sure you meant)


----------



## kalidarkone (Feb 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> cfu (which is what I'm sure you meant)


I meant what I said.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 4, 2021)

ah ok apols


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> ah ok apols


that shows a nice spirit


----------



## two sheds (Feb 4, 2021)

Reluctant to ask further particularly after Pickman's nice comment, but can you say why kalidarkone ? (Also ok if you don't want to). 

I'm a great believer in W. Edwards Deming, and if it's widespread poor practice (for example) I'd say that's a management problem too for not spotting/correcting it.


----------



## kalidarkone (Feb 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Reluctant to ask further particularly after Pickman's nice comment, but can you say why kalidarkone ? (Also ok if you don't want to).
> 
> I'm a great believer in W. Edwards Deming, and if it's widespread poor practice (for example) I'd say that's a management problem too for not spotting/correcting it.


Staff= All staff. That includes management, trust CEO, domestics, housekeepers, hca's nurses, porters etc.

I agree with your view, however I wasn't fond of you telling me what I meant and changing it. Instead you could of expanded without interfering with my post.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 4, 2021)

Yep that's fair, apols again.


----------



## kalidarkone (Feb 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Yep that's fair, apols again.


Thanks x


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 4, 2021)

Today's reported figures...

First dose vaccination, just under 10.5m.  

New cases - 20,634

New deaths - 915, which is down 324 on last Thursday's 1,239. That brings the 7-day average down to 1,018 a day, a drop of 16.6% in the last week.


----------



## elbows (Feb 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> This shit has started again, and again Sunaks name is evoked by the anti-lockdown press.
> 
> If only a fraction of whats been reported about his pandemic attitude is actually true, I would still hold him culpable for much of what happened with the failed response to the second wave.
> 
> ...



Some follow-up to this, including comments from a covid recovery group tory wanker. I'd say more if I were not trying to take a break (a break for me means posting much less about the pandemic rather than nothing at all, and my batteries already feel somewhat recharged, but will aim to post nothing at all over the weekend at least).









						Covid: Don't ease lockdown restrictions too soon - Starmer
					

The Labour leader urges the PM not to repeat "the mistakes of last time," amid Tory calls for easing.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 4, 2021)

Don't know if this has been posted up before but I found this both shocking and fascinating


----------



## elbows (Feb 4, 2021)

Link to source please.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 4, 2021)

Not that surprising.
They've been a little naughty with their Y axis range though.


----------



## killer b (Feb 4, 2021)

looks like it's the research detailed here 









						Five charts that reveal how remote working could change the UK
					

A new economic model of how remote working is developing reveals some interesting results.




					theconversation.com


----------



## souljacker (Feb 4, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Don't know if this has been posted up before but I found this both shocking and fascinating
> 
> View attachment 252807



I'm not even remotely surprised by this.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Feb 4, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Don't know if this has been posted up before but I found this both shocking and fascinating
> 
> View attachment 252807


Why shocking? Seems pretty obvious that your employment = income level = place you can afford to live, and the lowest paid jobs are manual labour that can't be performed from home. A few surgeons won't affect the overall trend line.


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Link to source please.


There's some intersting discussion on the economic ramifications of this on re- location of expenditure from City centres to suburbs as well








						Five charts that reveal how remote working could change the UK
					

A new economic model of how remote working is developing reveals some interesting results.




					t.co


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 4, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Why shocking? Seems pretty obvious that your employment = income level = place you can afford to live, and the lowest paid jobs are manual labour that can't be performed from home. A few surgeons won't affect the overall trend line.


Shocking as in the most deprived areas already suffer from huge health inequality  , large numbers having to go to work in those areas face a   higher level of risk from covid and present in their neighbourhoods a higher risk of infecting others.


----------



## Espresso (Feb 4, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Shocking as in the most deprived areas already suffer from huge health inequality  , large numbers having to go to work in those areas face a   higher level of risk from covid and present in their neighbourhoods a higher risk of infecting others.


I would say that in the most deprived areas the reason why there are no people working from home is because they're unemployed.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 4, 2021)

Espresso said:


> I would say that in the most deprived areas the reason why there are no people working from home is because they're unemployed.


or used to work in the gig economy / hospitality / transport / construction or similar things that can't be done by WFH


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 4, 2021)

Espresso said:


> I would say that in the most deprived areas the reason why there are no people working from home is because they're unemployed.


The reason or a reason?


----------



## Espresso (Feb 4, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> The reason or a reason?


I would say that in the most deprived areas, it will be the reason and in less deprived areas, it will be a reason.


----------



## kabbes (Feb 4, 2021)

I’m a little surprised that even in the very most deprived areas, apparently about 25% of people can work from home.  I would have guessed that the spread would have been greater than 25% to 50% by relative deprivation.


----------



## Supine (Feb 4, 2021)

Vaccination role out data by age


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 4, 2021)

Espresso said:


> I would say that in the most deprived areas, it will be the reason and in less deprived areas, it will be a reason.


Most people of working age do work even the most  in deprived areas.


----------



## elbows (Feb 4, 2021)

Whatever happens next, at least the anti-lockdown rush to reopen everything scum are not going to have the floor to themselves at this stage this time around.

Screenshot and then a link to the first tweet in the thread - this guy is the CEO of NHS Providers and the BBC picked up on these tweets and reported them on their live updates page.


----------



## elbows (Feb 4, 2021)

Oh and that 26,000 figure is for England, and the next days number of 25,334 has been published via a document at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## elbows (Feb 4, 2021)

Faster than a speeding sloth.









						Covid: UK hotel quarantine to start on 15 February
					

UK residents returning from coronavirus hotspots abroad will have to pay to stay in a hotel for 10 nights.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 4, 2021)

#world-beating

[twunts,cockwombles etc etc importing and exporting variants without a care in the world, or so it would seem !]


----------



## philosophical (Feb 4, 2021)

I must be missing the bit where Australia is surrounded by water that is in fact land.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 4, 2021)

is he on ketamine?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 4, 2021)

Cyberpunk Captain Tom remake in progress.


----------



## Mation (Feb 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Maybe he wants a new mutation named after him. The Sunak strain of the virus.


He's a Tory cunt, but it's also possible that there's an element of blaming the dodgy thing on the brown one, just in case.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 5, 2021)

Mation said:


> He's a Tory cunt, but it's also possible that there's an element of blaming the dodgy thing on the brown one, just in case.



Which elements exactly are pinning Sunak's supposed enthusiasm for ending lockdown on him because of his race?


----------



## Mation (Feb 5, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Which elements exactly are pinning Sunak's supposed enthusiasm for ending lockdown on him because of his race?


His opinion is unlikely to be unique amongst Tories. But racism exists and is acted upon. Easy to shift focus of a commonplace Tory ministerial opinion onto the alarmingly popular brown one. None of which says that these opinions are not also his.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 5, 2021)

Mation said:


> His opinion is unlikely to be unique amongst Tories. But racism exists and is acted upon. Easy to shift focus of a commonplace Tory ministerial opinion onto the alarmingly popular brown one. None of which says that these opinions are not also his.



Occam's razor says the focus is on him because he's the Chancellor, the most senior minister to hold these views and the clear favorite for the PM's job, but go off I guess.


----------



## Mation (Feb 5, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Occam's razor says the focus is on him because he's the Chancellor, the most senior minister to hold these views and the clear favorite for the PM's job, but go off I guess.


Occam's razor might well say that if racism wasn't quite so embedded in the establishment and Tory press. I imagine it's a combination of all of it, (i.e. including that he's the chancellor etc).


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 5, 2021)

Mation said:


> Occam's razor might well say that if racism wasn't quite so embedded in the establishment and Tory press. I imagine it's a combination of all of it, (i.e. including that he's the chancellor etc).



Thatcher was a woman, you need more than that.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 5, 2021)

Sunak can both be a cunt and be the focus of louder attacks due to his race.

I don't think that's what's particularly happening here because of the way the media sucked him off over the last year (remember superman Rishi?) And the docile nature of the media throughout this pandemic


----------



## Mation (Feb 5, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Thatcher was a woman, you need more than that.


I'm beginning to suspect that you don't really understand how prejudice can be enacted.


----------



## Mation (Feb 5, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Sunak can both be a cunt and be the focus of louder attacks due to his race.
> 
> I don't think that's what's particularly happening here because of the way the media sucked him off over the last year (remember superman Rishi?) And the docile nature of the media throughout this pandemic


The media has a long-standing habit of sucking people off and then ditching them. I don't think we can expect pure motives at any stage with any of it.


----------



## wtfftw (Feb 5, 2021)

You don't need more than that. Just keep your eyes and mind open to it.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 5, 2021)

In the absence of any suggestion a white Chancellor's views would be treated any differently in this situation, I think it's actually quite weird to bring it up tbh. You're suggesting Sunak's views should be lent less weight in comparison to similar views held by more junior cabinet minsters.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 5, 2021)




----------



## Mation (Feb 5, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> In the absence of any suggestion a white Chancellor's views would be treated any differently in this situation, I think it's actually quite weird to bring it up tbh. You're suggesting Sunak's views should be lent less weight in comparison to similar views held by more junior cabinet minsters.


No.

Only that we should be mindful not to get sucked into a Tory subplot. The buck stops with Bojo the Clown, as that's the job he has taken. But they're all as bad as each other.


----------



## TopCat (Feb 5, 2021)

So we add right said Fred to the cunts list then?


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 5, 2021)

Yuck at the friendly, weary tone of him. You know, it's so hard for me to travel what with my rebellious lock down views. Poor me.

Go fuck yourself. I hope you don't kill anyone on the way!

10 months of being terrified I am going to pass this virus on to my folks and kill them and Einsteins like this getting praise on twitter for "marching to their own drum". I would love it if these fucks were publicly humiliated somehow.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 5, 2021)

So many celebs have proved themselves absolute cunts this year it’s hard to keep track.


----------



## wtfftw (Feb 5, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> So many celebs have proved themselves absolute cunts this year it’s hard to keep track.


But at least now we know jedward are a force for good.


----------



## maomao (Feb 5, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> So many celebs have proved themselves absolute cunts this year it’s hard to keep track.



I keep celebs on a provisional cunt list till they do something nice. Easier that way round.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 5, 2021)

BA took them down. The last one was still on my screen. Not sure if they made it to 2/2.


----------



## killer b (Feb 5, 2021)

Mation said:


> No.
> 
> Only that we should be mindful not to get sucked into a Tory subplot. The buck stops with Bojo the Clown, as that's the job he has taken. But they're all as bad as each other.


you know lots of the tory press reporting on his views on ending lockdown early think he's right don't you?


----------



## Mation (Feb 5, 2021)

killer b said:


> you know lots of the tory press reporting on his views on ending lockdown early think he's right don't you?


Yes.

You know that it's possible to agree with something but be aware that it might go tits up and want to set up someone else for the blame, don't you?


----------



## andysays (Feb 5, 2021)

Mation said:


> He's a Tory cunt, but it's also possible that there's an element of blaming the dodgy thing on the brown one, just in case.


That's certainly a thing, in general, but in this case I don't see anyone seeking to blame Sunak. 

It's his supporters who are apparently the source of the story and he's arguing for something (easing of lockdown restrictions) which many Tories are actively and vocally in favour of.


----------



## Mation (Feb 5, 2021)

andysays said:


> That's certainly a thing, in general, but in this case I don't see anyone seeking to blame Sunak.
> 
> It's his supporters who are apparently the source of the story and he's arguing for something (easing of lockdown restrictions) which many Tories are actively and vocally in favour of.


I think I made the point that many Tories are actively in favour.


----------



## killer b (Feb 5, 2021)

Mation said:


> Yes.
> 
> You know that it's possible to agree with something but be aware that it might go tits up and want to set up someone else for the blame, don't you?


I think this is a bit tortuous. The chancellor of the exchequer is in favour of an early ending to lockdown, so less powerful supporters of an early lockdown are seizing upon that as it gives their campaign greater momentum and credibility. They are all racists too, but if there's any racist calculation of who will be blamed if everything goes wrong, it's waaaaay down the list of considerations. They don't think it will go wrong.


----------



## Mation (Feb 5, 2021)

killer b said:


> I think this is a bit tortuous. The chancellor of the exchequer is in favour of an early ending to lockdown, so less powerful supporters of an early lockdown are seizing upon that as it gives their campaign greater momentum and credibility. They are all racists too, but if there's any racist calculation of who will be blamed if everything goes wrong, it's waaaaay down the list of considerations. They don't think it will go wrong.


I think it's more that their priorities aren't so much about whether (they think) it will go wrong, but what opportunities will be present if they go down their favoured path.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 5, 2021)




----------



## Badgers (Feb 5, 2021)

I have been invited to the count

Not. Going.


----------



## Chz (Feb 5, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> So many celebs have proved themselves absolute cunts this year it’s hard to keep track.


It's generally best to assume any celeb (Grade A through Z) is a cunt unless proven otherwise. You always hear about the nice ones, _because it's not normal_!!


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 5, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I have been invited to the count
> 
> Not. Going.


It'll be a superspreader event


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 5, 2021)

Chz said:


> It's generally best to assume any celeb (Grade A through Z) is a cunt unless proven otherwise. You always hear about the nice ones, _because it's not normal_!!


there's rumours been flying around this part of south london for years, depending on who you know and who you have connections with, that Jools Holland is _not_ a cunt. he does a lot of local charity work that goes under the radar and apparently is not a tax dodge. Again, I reiterate that it is just a rumor, incredibly speculative and it of course goes without saying that he probably is a cunt.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 5, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I have been invited to the count
> 
> Not. Going.



I decided on having a postal vote for this next year or three ...


----------



## elbows (Feb 5, 2021)

I saw a headline on the BBC news site. It said 'Covid: Five reasons to be (cautiously) hopeful'. I thought the chances were that Nick Triggle wrote it, and when I clicked on it I was not wrong. I havent even read it all properly yet because I've been too busy chuckling to myself about the word cautiously being chucked in the headline. By Triggle pandemic standards that word of caution counts as progress.









						Covid: Five reasons to be (cautiously) hopeful
					

The past few months have been incredibly tough. But are the darkest days behind us?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## belboid (Feb 5, 2021)

BMJ Exec editor calls the governments response ‘social murder’









						Covid-19: Social murder, they wrote—elected, unaccountable, and unrepentant
					

After two million deaths, we must have redress for mishandling the pandemic  Murder is an emotive word. In law, it requires premeditation. Death must be deemed to be unlawful. How could “murder” apply to failures of a pandemic response? Perhaps it can’t, and never will, but it is worth...




					www.bmj.com


----------



## elbows (Feb 5, 2021)

Warning: this article also contains quotes by deadly cunt sir Brady, probably in the name of balanced reporting bullshit. At least they bothered to mention his track record.









						Covid-19: Avoid 'setting dates' for lifting lockdown, scientist warns
					

Leaders should not be "driven by a calendar", says a scientist advising the government.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Sir Graham - who has previously opposed lockdown rules - told the BBC the argument for going into a third national lockdown was to stop the risk of the NHS being overwhelmed.
> "The NHS has actually coped spectacularly well," he said. "Now that that threat is receding, we ought to be - and indeed we are, and the government says we are - looking to open up."
> Other politicians are urging a cautious approach to lifting lockdown.
> Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt told the Guardian that new coronavirus cases should be driven down to a manageable level of 1,000 a day, as they are in South Korea.
> "The Koreans and the Taiwanese have kept their economy open," he told the newspaper. "All their restaurants are open, because they've kept case transmission low, and we just need to do what it takes to get to that point.


----------



## elbows (Feb 5, 2021)

belboid said:


> BMJ Exec editor calls the governments response ‘social murder’
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Good stuff.



> The media might help here, remembering their duty to speak truth to power, to hold elected officials accountable. And yet much of the media is complicit too, trapped in ideological silos that see the pandemic through a lens of political tribalism, worried about telling pandemic truths to their readers and viewers, owners, and political friends. In fact, truth has become dispensable as politicians and their allies are allowed to lie, mislead, and repaint history, with barely a hint of a challenge from journalists and broadcasters. Anybody who dares to speak truth to power is unpatriotic, disloyal, or a “hardliner.”
> 
> Ministers in the UK, for example, interact with the media through sanitised interviews, stage managed press conferences, off-the-record briefings to favoured correspondents, and, when the going gets tough, by simply refusing to appear. It is this environment that has allowed covid denial to flourish, for unaccountability to prevail, and for the great lies of “world beating” pandemic responses to be spun. “The most important lessons from this pandemic,” argue Bollycky and Kickbusch, “are less about the coronavirus itself but what it has revealed about the political systems that have responded to it.


----------



## killer b (Feb 5, 2021)

It's a great piece, but a shame it falls short of calling for armed insurrection. The final paragraphs are a bit of a anticlimax as a result.


----------



## elbows (Feb 5, 2021)

killer b said:


> It's a great piece, but a shame it falls short of calling for armed insurrection. The final paragraphs are a bit of a anticlimax as a result.



Ah well, the bits about the medias duty also comes across as a bit naive but we may as well hold them accountable to the standards they pretend to have.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 5, 2021)

Keeping the rate down to or below 1,000 cases a day ? - the UK last saw those rates between June and August 2020. 

My impression was that the rates were only that low because there had been a strict lockdown for the preceding three months and insufficient testing to determine the true number of infections (& that's also ignoring symptomless cases) and that's without the more transmissible variants that have now developed.
Almost as soon as the unlockening began, and people returned from holidays abroad we started seeing cases increase, and "eat out to help out" only IMO really succeeded in spreading yet more cases ...

I'm hoping that the vaccinations currently will help contain the seriousness of infections as well as actually reduce the number of deaths, but I am still expecting to be wearing masks etc for some time to come - and for everyone to need a second vaccination by late autumn.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Warning: this article also contains quotes by deadly cunt sir Brady, probably in the name of balanced reporting bullshit. At least they bothered to mention his track record.


He was on R4 Today this morning, calling for lockdown release, stating "we also know know that the vaccines are going to benefit in terms of transmission".

Except there is no evidence of any reduction in transmission (full sterilising immunity) yet.


----------



## Cid (Feb 5, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Keeping the rate down to or below 1,000 cases a day ? - the UK last saw those rates between June and August 2020.
> 
> My impression was that the rates were only that low because there had been a strict lockdown for the preceding three months and insufficient testing to determine the true number of infections (& that's also ignoring symptomless cases) and that's without the more transmissible variants that have now developed.
> Almost as soon as the unlockening began, and people returned from holidays abroad we started seeing cases increase, and "eat out to help out" only IMO really succeeded in spreading yet more cases ...
> ...



I believe there were significant improvements in testing throughout May. In any case the true number of infections is reflected in the death rate, and in hospitalizations. There undoubtedly was a sustained period of 2-3 months in the summer that saw low transmission rates... In spite of increased social stuff etc. _Why_ is another matter entirely, but it did happen. There doesn't even seem to be a particularly strong link to 'eat out to help out', which only operated in August (of course there may be stuff like it maintaining a pool of infection etc, I just mean there's no major change in that period). Hospitalizations only really start to rise early-mid September...


----------



## zahir (Feb 5, 2021)

Cid said:


> There undoubtedly was a sustained period of 2-3 months in the summer that saw low transmission rates... In spite of increased social stuff etc. _Why_ is another matter entirely, but it did happen. There doesn't even seem to be a particularly strong link to 'eat out to help out', which only operated in August (of course there may be stuff like it maintaining a pool of infection etc, I just mean there's no major change in that period). Hospitalizations only really start to rise early-mid September...



Schools going back?


----------



## Cid (Feb 5, 2021)

zahir said:


> Schools going back?



It's a tricky one, which is why I avoided it in that post... I think it can be a bit easy to fixate on obvious causes. I mean 'eat out to help out' is a good example of that - daft policy, but no major increase in cases. I remember at that time there was also 'back to the office' encouragement, and - as the weather changed - presumably a lot more mixing indoors. But yeah, if you asked me what I thought it would be some combination of those, plus the kick of universities in late sept. It's just something that can only really be unpicked with considerably more detailed analysis of movement data, where transmission occurred etc.


----------



## elbows (Feb 5, 2021)

There has already been detailed analysis of eat out to help out which suggested a significant role in increasing cases, so I dont know where your claim about no major increase in cases comes from. People here (not me initially) certainly noticed the increase in cases in daily published data during the latter part of August, and by the start of September the testing system was under incredible strain, which itself was a giant warning of what was to come.

I dont think there was any great mystery about why case numbers were relatively low over summer - things take time to bounce back. So the effects of a long lockdown took some time to reverse, and the unlocking happened gradually. The resurgence likely followed a very similar dynamic to what we would have observed at the start of the very first wave if we had proper surveillance of those first wave beginnings at the time, which we did not. It takes time for multiple generations of infection to occur involving the exponential growth that eventually causes quite small numbers to become very large ones. And since we never went back to 100% normality over summer, the resurgence resembled things resembled happening in slow motion for ages, until a point came where that was no longer the case and the numbers involved were large again.

We can apply the same sort of logic to the threat of a third wave. If we completely relaxed now, when infection levels are still high, then the time required for things to bounce back would be short. But if we wait until the numbers have been pushed down to pretty low levels, it will take longer before another resurgence would get back to high levels again.

Chuck some seasonal factors into the mix, whether schools etc are open, and the idea that once community cases go beyond a certain threshold the chances of shielding non-Covid hospital patients, care home residents and older people in society from the virus rapidly diminish.


----------



## elbows (Feb 5, 2021)

I picked the wrong time to try to take a break, but I will still try over the weekend and the start of next week at least. I am trying to resist wading through the SAGE minutes myself at the moment.



> Newly-released minutes from a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) on 21 January, conclude that only a "complete, pre-emptive closure of borders or the mandatory quarantine of all visitors upon arrival in designated facilities, irrespective of testing history, can get close to fully preventing the importation of cases or new variants".
> Responding to media reports earlier this week about Sage's views, No 10 said the committee put forward policy options rather than recommendations and it believed its discussions would show that existing measures, including pre-departure testing were "effective in mitigating risks".



Thats from:

Covid-19: No contracts awarded yet for hotel quarantine plan


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> There has already been detailed analysis of eat out to help out which suggested a significant role in increasing cases, so I dont know where your claim about no major increase in cases comes from.



Perhaps from the unpublished analysis touted by the Treasury press office last week and uncritically covered by the media:

 The Treasury’s attempt to repair Eat Out to Help Out's reputation is dubious


----------



## Cid (Feb 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> There has already been detailed analysis of eat out to help out which suggested a significant role in increasing cases, so I dont know where your claim about no major increase in cases comes from. People here (not me initially) certainly noticed the increase in cases in daily published data during the latter part of August, and by the start of September the testing system was under incredible strain, which itself was a giant warning of what was to come.
> 
> I dont think there was any great mystery about why case numbers were relatively low over summer - things take time to bounce back. So the effects of a long lockdown took some time to reverse, and the unlocking happened gradually. The resurgence likely followed a very similar dynamic to what we would have observed at the start of the very first wave if we had proper surveillance of those first wave beginnings at the time, which we did not. It takes time for multiple generations of infection to occur involving the exponential growth that eventually causes quite small numbers to become very large ones. And since we never went back to 100% normality over summer, the resurgence resembled things resembled happening in slow motion for ages, until a point came where that was no longer the case and the numbers involved were large again.
> 
> ...



I probably shouldn't have mentioned 'eat out to help out'... I was just looking at hospitalization stats.


----------



## elbows (Feb 5, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Perhaps from the unpublished analysis touted by the Treasury press office last week and uncritically covered by the media:
> 
> The Treasury’s attempt to repair Eat Out to Help Out's reputation is dubious



Cheers, I had missed that attempt at reputation management.


----------



## elbows (Feb 5, 2021)

Cid said:


> I probably shouldn't have mentioned 'eat out to help out'... I was just looking at hospitalization stats.



Given how much attention 'local lockdowns' such as Leicesters, and some other reports about how the virus was never driven down to low levels in some communities in lockdown 1 (eg some sections of society in the North West) received at the time, I was a bit disappointed that there wasnt more focus on how even in those areas, hospitalisation figures fell to quite low levels over summer and didnt bounce back until the viral resurgence happened more widely and infection levels went through the roof.


----------



## andysays (Feb 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> I picked the wrong time to try to take a break...





Take care of yourself


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 5, 2021)

Today's reported figures...

First dose vaccinations now 10,971,047.   

New cases - 19,114, overall a drop of 26.5% in the last week. 

New deaths - 1,014, which is down 231 on last Friday's 1,245. That brings the 7-day average down to 984 a day, below 1,000 at last, and a drop of 17.8% in the last week.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported figures...
> 
> First dose vaccinations now 10,971,047.
> 
> ...


There's something weird going on with the ventilation figures.
C&P direct from the dashboard ...


04-02-20216,84703-02-20213,62802-02-20213,63801-02-20213,72631-01-20213,68730-01-20213,806

I really hope that's a typo for today's total


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 5, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> There's something weird going on with the ventilation figures.
> C&P direct from the dashboard ...
> 
> 
> ...



Currently says on there:



> 05 February 2021
> Due to an issue with the processing of healthcare data for England, the most  recent figures are incorrect. We are working to fix the issue and will publish  corrected figures as soon as possible.



So I guess that's one of the figures affected. No need to panic!


----------



## elbows (Feb 5, 2021)

I dread to think of what sorts of manual data processing tasks are still required to get all data shown by the dashboard updated every day, or how fragile any automated processing is.

Some weeks ago when they came to add the weekly ONS etc Covid-19 death certificate deaths to the dashboard, they accidentally added figures for all deaths from all causes for that week instead! At least they corrected that particular mistake.

Anyway I believe they fixed the healthcare data and the UK mechanical ventilation figure now shows 3,572.

When looking for the very latest healthcare figures I often have to bypass overall UK figures and look at individual nations instead, because the dashboard is usually an additional day behind for Scotland, Wales and Northern Irelands figures, and some of Northern Irelands health figures get changed retroactively (eg their figures for number of Covid-19 patients in hospital tend to get added to further as the days go by, similar to how data accumulates over time for the deaths by date of death figures). Some figures from the individual nations can sometimes be a day or two late to show up on the UK dashboard compared to when they are available from other official sources, or in the case of England, available on the dashboard if you look at figures for that nation instead of UK figures. For example that UK figure of 3,572 includes Englands figure for that day of 3,275, but I can already see that the day after thats figure for England is 3,217, either by looking at England on the dashboard, or by clicking the 'by nation' option on the UK bits of the dashboard, or by looking at the daily spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 5, 2021)

does hotter weather kill covid?





cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported figures...
> 
> First dose vaccinations now 10,971,047.
> 
> ...


Cheers for update


----------



## elbows (Feb 5, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> does hotter weather kill covid?



The simple answer is that it probably has some effect, but we saw in countries such as the USA that any seasonal advantage gained in summer was not enough to prevent plenty of infections and deaths at that stage of this pandemic, if you dont carry on with other measures and come out of lockdown based only on a calendar and political stupidity rather than epidemiological data.

I would generally expect behavioural, environmental and health factors that vary with the seasons to have an impact on respiratory viruses and their ability to thrive and cause the most severe strain on hospitals etc. Just avoid thinking about it in a binary way. I tend to think of it in the same way that no single measure was enough to protect us from the pandemic, we had to use combinations of measures to get the R below 1. So my default assumption is that the seasons may have an impact on R, some seasons may give us more wiggle room and some seasons make things worse. The first summer with the virus was not enough to thwart the virus on its own, it did not push R down enough on its own. And if we think in terms of tipping points, the relative effects in our favour in seasons such as summer may be more likely to tip us over into the 'doing quite well' zone more in future once other factors relating to immunity etc are more in our favour than they were when the virus was new to every body and there were no vaccines.

And certainly dont think only of heat, human behaviour is probably quite a factor, and perhaps human health seasonal variations (vitamin D etc), but also perhaps number of hours of daylight since UV light is a threat to the virus when its outside a host, and I assume hours of sunlight affects our bodies too, beyond the usual vitamin D focus.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 5, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> does hotter weather kill covid?
> Cheers for update



I don't know if its like the common cold which incubates better at lower temperatures, but hot weather has the effect of increasing ventilation, ensuring people go outside to mingle and generally boosts the immune system via sun exposure and exercise. This should assist lowering transmission but not kill it.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 5, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> does hotter weather kill covid?


It's more complex than that.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> I am trying to resist wading through the SAGE minutes myself at the moment.


Couple of interesting points:


> 30. CO-CIN data indicate that there are differences in the age and sex distribution of people being hospitalised in the second wave when compared to the first, including an indication of an increase in hospitalisations of younger women.
> 31. The underlying reasons for this are unknown. There is no evidence yet that this is due to new variant. ONS is doing further analysis of CO-CIN data, though difficulty in obtaining unified data on occupation makes any analysis relating to this challenging.


I noticed that in the government briefing slide this other day (standing out from the expected COVID and age pyramid M:F asymmetries):

Younger males less likely to seek medical help and/or a reflection of exposure by job/workplace type and/or childcare duties and the inequalities thereof?


----------



## Sunray (Feb 5, 2021)

I am done with the concept of 'Covid secure' which cannot ever be true when a virus whose size is measured in nanometers.

Read it as 'Covid stupid' now.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 5, 2021)

I was surprised by the news of the Sputnik V  vaccine.   When Putin authorised and took it after phase 2 trials, the world went "Those crazy Russians again". 
But if the Russian data is to be believed (hmmm Winter Olympics) its got 91% efficacy.  This is great, the more of these vaccines that work the quicker the world will put this behind us.
Its two different vaccines.  

I didn't realise, a second dose of a different vaccine might be the better booster shot.

Talk on Sputnik V


----------



## Badgers (Feb 6, 2021)

Pint of cordial and a Scotch egg in April lads?


----------



## MBV (Feb 6, 2021)

I think that has the potential to go wrong with people either pre drinking or taking hip flasks in.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 6, 2021)

Re-opening pubs with no _option_ for alcohol has always seemed fairly pointless to me.

Personally/selfishly , I'd rather wait until May or June for proper pints! 

But I suppose there might be a case for a soft and safe earlier stage maybe??

Presumably this would be limited numbers, table service only, etc., as before.

And no doubt Wales and Scotland and NI would do things somewhat differently anyway.


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 6, 2021)

dfm said:


> I think that has the potential to go wrong with people either pre drinking or taking hip flasks in.


Cant be trusted eh?


----------



## Badgers (Feb 6, 2021)

Any chance this is more about removing financial support from the hospitality industry?


----------



## editor (Feb 6, 2021)

dfm said:


> I think that has the potential to go wrong with people either pre drinking or taking hip flasks in.


Or just go for drugs. It'll be like the birth of rave all over again! 

I can see how reopening some community pubs may be a real boon to those living on their own but I'm not sure how it would work with pubs firmly associated with full on partying/boozing


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 6, 2021)

Absurd idea which probably never actually got serious consideration but makes a good headline. I can imagine people necking takeaway pints on the pavement and then going back in to sit down.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 6, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Any chance this is more about removing financial support from the hospitality industry?



The above Telegraph text was a bit too small for me to read easily -- how do you reach that possibility?
Not saying you're wrong, just wondering.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 6, 2021)

This government is dumb as fuck. Oh look something is happening, don't know why, but we can open up hurrah! 
What is the point of opening up a public enclosed space if there isn't anything to do other than spread covid-19?  

It appears the pandemic preparedness book was written in crayon.


----------



## Looby (Feb 6, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> The above Telegraph text was a bit too small for me to read easily -- how do you reach that possibility?
> Not saying you're wrong, just wondering.


Because they could remove support if the venue is open even if it can’t fully trade or even break even.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 6, 2021)

I’m deffo staying away from them the day the pubs reopen. It’ll be carnage, worse than an NYE


----------



## xenon (Feb 6, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m deffo staying away from them the day the pubs reopen. It’ll be carnage, worse than an NYE



They said that last summer, and it wasn’t. Well not everywhere.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 6, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> The above Telegraph text was a bit too small for me to read easily -- how do you reach that possibility?
> Not saying you're wrong, just wondering.


Because they are Tories


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 6, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m deffo staying away from them the day the pubs reopen. It’ll be carnage, worse than an NYE



Even I might wait a couple of days!  



xenon said:


> They said that last summer, and it wasn’t. *Well not everywhere*.



Absolutely, avoiding the city centres would be the wisest move.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 6, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Because they are Tories





I think Looby 's answer was more helpful though, tbf! 

It wouldn't have taken me too long to work the support-removal thing out anyway , just wanted your take on it. Now got it!


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 6, 2021)

xenon said:


> They said that last summer, and it wasn’t. Well not everywhere.


Last summer it had only been a few months and they didn’t open properly anyway


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 6, 2021)

Just my own thinking based on nothing other than paranoid intuition, but do people predict that we will for a long long time living under some sort of restriction because of the threat of new varients, or will it operate like the flu, I. E vaccinate the old, upgrade vax each year?

I ask because I can easily speculate (stress on speculate, based on nowt) that we get a hold of it this summer, lock downs etc almost cease and then bang, new varients and we're back to square one?


----------



## Cloo (Feb 6, 2021)

We do seem to have an awfully long way to go before we can get down to c1000 new cases a day that makes things 'manageable' to consider reopening - still at 19,000 a day, as I understand it


----------



## Supine (Feb 6, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Just my own thinking based on nothing other than paranoid intuition, but do people predict that we will for a long long time living under some sort of restriction because of the threat of new varients, or will it operate like the flu, I. E vaccinate the old, upgrade vax each year?
> 
> I ask because I can easily speculate (stress on speculate, based on nowt) that we get a hold of it this summer, lock downs etc almost cease and then bang, new varients and we're back to square one?



I'm sure the vaccine suppliers will be happy to produce annual supplies 

Could be topups every 2-3 years if mutation rates stay lower than flu.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 6, 2021)

Supine said:


> I'm sure the vaccine suppliers will be happy to produce annual supplies
> 
> Could be topups every 2-3 years if mutation rates stay lower than flu.


It feels like the light at the 3nd of the tunnel is growing brighter these last few days.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 6, 2021)

Feels like I've run a marathon without having left my flat.


----------



## Supine (Feb 6, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Feels like I've run a marathon without having left my flat.



My speciality is the couch to fridge relay


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 6, 2021)

Supine said:


> My speciality is the couch to fridge relay


My meditation technique has been YouTube to urban and back again.


----------



## xenon (Feb 6, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Last summer it had only been a few months and they didn’t open properly anyway




How do you mean, cos it was table service only? i'd imagined that is how they would open again for a while at least, anyway.

I did / do miss standing at the bar in my local though. Much prefer standing up to drink.


----------



## xenon (Feb 6, 2021)

Anyway caught a bit on radio about this pressure to reopone ASAP again. Much as I still miss the pub, cinema... Any where to go basically, it would be criminal to open up whilst cases and hospitalisation numbers are still this high.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 6, 2021)

xenon said:


> How do you mean, cos it was table service only? i'd imagined that is how they would open again for a while at least, anyway.
> 
> I did / do miss standing at the bar in my local though. Much prefer standing up to drink.


aye, and the social distancing


----------



## Cid (Feb 6, 2021)

Cloo said:


> We do seem to have an awfully long way to go before we can get down to c1000 new cases a day that makes things 'manageable' to consider reopening - still at 19,000 a day, as I understand it



Yes, but the peak less than a month ago was nearly 60,000. Of course it will depend on the extent to which that curve starts to flatten out, but direction of travel is positive.

Talk of slackening lockdown now seems very premature... We're still not at the levels achieved in November (at least not by the base infection rates). Course it will depend on government thinking as regards vaccine effectiveness etc.


----------



## elbows (Feb 6, 2021)

Cid said:


> Yes, but the peak less than a month ago was nearly 60,000. Of course it will depend on the extent to which that curve starts to flatten out, but direction of travel is positive.
> 
> Talk of slackening lockdown now seems very premature... We're still not at the levels achieved in November (at least not by the base infection rates). Course it will depend on government thinking as regards vaccine effectiveness etc.



Yeah, I wont deliver my own verdict about whether various relaxations from April onwards are a terrible idea, an OK idea or how likely the government are to get away with them, until quite a bit closer to the time. My opinion will be based on things like vaccine data, and whether the downwards trajectory continues at rapid pace or whether things get stuck at a certain level. And we are absolutely going to have to recalibrate our sense of what counts as a bad level of infection, since even before the insanely high climb to a peak began rapidly at the start of December, levels were stupidly high by previous standards. But now look rather low compared to how high the peak was. But they arent rather low, so I am quite glad there was some talk of 1000 infections per day to try to help reset the sense of what good looks like, what a reasonable target looks like, getting back to thinking about the sort of levels of infection that were considered a bad sign that needed dealing with last summer.

I doubt even the anti-lockdown shitheads expect any relaxation right now. They have probably started their incessant pressure about this now because they think they can dare to spout their shit now we are past the peak of this wave, and because they think the sooner they start the sooner they will get their way, and because Johnson is due to provide some tentative unlocking timetable/targets in the middle of February.

Schools will be the first thing to discuss, and I suppose I was surprised there wasnt more talk here of things Scotland and Wales announced in this regard in recent days, and I did no better since I didnt get a chance look into what was announced properly at all yet. I'm not even completely sure which UK nations announced stuff, I just saw some headlines in recent days.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 6, 2021)

Of course, Sun, Mail and co are all shouting about PUBS OPEN SOON, HOLIDAYS ABROAD on front pages today


----------



## elbows (Feb 6, 2021)

The shite at the end of the tunnel.


----------



## editor (Feb 6, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m deffo staying away from them the day the pubs reopen. It’ll be carnage, worse than an NYE


Despite my fears, it was actually fine in my (second)  local.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 6, 2021)

My niece (25) has just tested positive. Couple of interesting things about this are that; she was vaccinated 14 days ago, she lives with a vulnerable person and swears she's been careful, and she was pretty ill last April and convinced she had it then (but was not tested). Lives in Hackney.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 6, 2021)

xenon said:


> Anyway caught a bit on radio about this pressure to reopone ASAP again. Much as I still miss the pub, cinema... Any where to go basically, it would be criminal to open up whilst cases and hospitalisation numbers are still this high.



Spot the problem


----------



## LDC (Feb 6, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> My niece (25) has just tested positive. Couple of interesting things about this are that; she was vaccinated 14 days ago, she lives with a vulnerable person and swears she's been careful, and she was pretty ill last April and convinced she had it then (but was not tested). Lives in Hackney.



Entirely possible to have been vaccinated 14 days ago and have caught it, I think iirc correctly infection rates actually go up in the immediate post-vaccination days (5-7 or something) that's tentatively been put down to people relaxing with restrictions. What day post-vaccination did she start with symptoms? Very unlikely she had it in April though if she's got it now. I know loads of people that swear they had it but when questioned in detail it clearly could have been a few other things.


----------



## andysays (Feb 6, 2021)

My step sister in law also caught it after being vaccinated. She's a frontline doctor.

I'm not sure of the exact timings, because conversation mainly focused on the fact she was thankfully recovering.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Entirely possible to have been vaccinated 14 days ago and have caught it, I think iirc correctly infection rates actually go up in the immediate post-vaccination days (5-7 or something) that's tentatively been put down to people relaxing with restrictions. What day post-vaccination did she start with symptoms? Very unlikely she had it in April though if she's got it now. I know loads of people that swear they had it but when questioned in detail it clearly could have been a few other things.



No I agree with you, the number of people (on here alone) who were certain they'd had it by March 31st was...unlikely. And I know about the research you mention as well, people being a bit vaccine cavalier. With my niece I find it interesting purely because I do know her quite well and do trust her when she says she's been careful (she is a sensible soul). It does seem to suggest it's ridiculously easy to catch. I don't know when her symptoms started.


----------



## LDC (Feb 6, 2021)

Even with high protection some people are going to catch it, and it is also going to be very hard for some people to keep sticking to the restrictions post-vaccination. I was surprised how relieved I felt to get my jab, and I can totally see how tempting it would be to slacken off if there were people you wanted to spend time with or things you really wanted to do.

(Wrote before saw your post above planetgeli )


----------



## Sunray (Feb 6, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> My niece (25) has just tested positive. Couple of interesting things about this are that; she was vaccinated 14 days ago, she lives with a vulnerable person and swears she's been careful, and she was pretty ill last April and convinced she had it then (but was not tested). Lives in Hackney.



Very unlikely to get it twice.  

As the people in Israel have discovered, vaccinations aren't instant protection.  








						A single dose of the Pfizer vaccine provides “very high” protection from Covid-19 after 21 days - About Manchester
					

A single dose of the Pfizer vaccine provides “very high” protection from Covid-19 after 21 days – without a ‘top up’ dose in the recommended time frame, according to a new study from the University of East Anglia. Researchers looked at data from Israel, where the vaccine has been rolled out...




					aboutmanchester.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Feb 6, 2021)

Pubs in Scotland (and perhaps Wales?) were open and not serving booze at various points in autumn, how did it work out there? I'd be fine with it tbf. But then, I'd be fine with that permanently so I guess I'm not the best person to ask...


----------



## prunus (Feb 6, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Very unlikely to get it twice.



The SA variant (one of them anyway) seems able to reinfect without any lack of efficiency - in the Novavax(?) trial in SA people in the control group who had had confirmed infections before caught it at the same rate as people in that group who hadn’t (about 4%) - it is presumed that it was the new variant (inc E484K substitution I believe) as it was the prevalent strain at the time of the trial.

It’s still rare here though at the moment so unlikely to be that yet. But you can catch it twice.


----------



## elbows (Feb 6, 2021)

i dont agree with some of the opinions here about how unlikely it was for people to have caught it by the end of last March, or how unlikely people are to catch it twice by this stage. Yes there will be some false impressions in some peoples minds about whether they had it back then, but I cannot rule individual cases in or out of that and a really large number of people had caught it by then.


----------



## elbows (Feb 6, 2021)

And I suspect the reinfection picture is complicated, and I certainly dont feel like I have an accurate sense of that stuff yet. Especially not for people that may be repeatedly exposed to lots of high viral loads from different strains, such as healthcare workers in certain roles.

Meanwhile I see the BBC has taken another look at PPE and some of the disgraceful decisions that were made on this front last year.









						Covid PPE: How healthcare workers came to feel 'expendable'
					

Almost a year in to the pandemic, concerns remain over personal protective equipment.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I'm running late with starting my break but am still planning to have one.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Even with high protection some people are going to catch it


Even at three weeks post second dose and beyond the data thus far point to up to one-third of people still getting infected. Just not so severe, less hospitalisations, no clearly directly attributable COVID deaths so far, as far as I know.


prunus said:


> It’s still rare here though at the moment so unlikely to be that yet. But you can catch it twice.


It's becoming more common with E484K variants, particularly where accompanied by various deletions in the nucleocapsid.


----------



## Mation (Feb 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> And I suspect the reinfection picture is complicated, and I certainly dont feel like I have an accurate sense of that stuff yet. Especially not for people that may be repeatedly exposed to lots of high viral loads from different strains, such as healthcare workers in certain roles.
> 
> Meanwhile I see the BBC has taken another look at PPE and some of the disgraceful decisions that were made on this front last year.
> 
> ...


Stop planning when to have it and just start it right now. There won't be a good lull in which you can feel that it's ok to take a break; not for months. You need a break (by your own analysis). Take it. We'll muddle on in the meantime, and be very happy when you return, refreshed


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 6, 2021)

Today's reported figures...

First dose vaccinations now 11,465,210

New cases - 18,262, overall a drop of 25.1% in the last week.

New deaths - 828, which is down 372 on last Saturday's 1,200, that brings the 7-day average down to 932 a day, a drop of 20.9% in the last week.


----------



## elbows (Feb 6, 2021)

Sounds like the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 has died with Covid.









						NHS: Government plans to reverse Cameron-era reforms
					

The plans, revealed in a leaked document, would reverse changes made under David Cameron.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Instead of a system that requires competitive tendering for contracts - sometimes involving private companies, the NHS and local authorities will be left to run services and told to collaborate with each other, says the draft White Paper, designed to set out proposed legislation.
> 
> There will also be more focus on GPs, hospitals and social care services working together to improve patient care.
> 
> The paper stresses that the Covid pandemic "demonstrated plainly that this broader approach to health and care is not only desirable, but essential".


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Feb 6, 2021)

Not quite sure why there were two sheep at this party, and why they were described as 'surprised'.  









						Police break up illegal drinking den with ten people and two 'surprised' sheep
					

"The obvious line is that the wool wasn't pulled over our eyes," said Sgt Gary Hennighan




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Feb 6, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Not quite sure why there were two sheep at this party, and why they were described as 'surprised'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They didnt know they'd be baaaaarred due to the pandemic. In their case ignorance is an excuse, especially when lead astray by woolbreakers.


----------



## lazythursday (Feb 6, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Not quite sure why there were two sheep at this party, and why they were described as 'surprised'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Substitute lapdancers? Bacup is an, ummm, interesting place.


----------



## Supine (Feb 6, 2021)

Sheep are ok. They already have herd immunity.


----------



## MBV (Feb 6, 2021)

Would have worked better with cows


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Feb 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> They didnt know they'd be baaaaarred due to the pandemic. In their case ignorance is an excuse, especially when lead astray by woolbreakers.


They don't call Lancashire folk woollybacks for nowt I suppose...


----------



## belboid (Feb 6, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> They don't call Lancashire folk woollybacks for nowt I suppose...


hmm, not really 'lancastrians' just the nearby small town dwellers. A renowned term for wirralites


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Feb 6, 2021)

belboid said:


> hmm, not really 'lancastrians' just the nearby small town dwellers. A renowned term for wirralites


Mebbe - I'm not from that neck of the woods.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 6, 2021)

Supine said:


> Sheep are ok. They already have herd immunity.


That's where the government have gone wrong. They should have aimed for flock immunity.


----------



## elbows (Feb 6, 2021)

The phrase 'died with Covid' is really doing my head in, have the BBC adopted rules where thats the phrase they have to default to or something?









						Estrella Catalan: Hospital nurse dies with Covid-19
					

Estrella Catalan, who was described as "wonderful, caring", died on Friday evening.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> A "wonderful, caring" nurse has died with Covid-19 in the hospital she had worked at for nearly two decades.











						Li Wenliang: 'Wuhan whistleblower' remembered one year on
					

Chinese social media remember Dr Li Wenliang, who raised the alarm about Covid-19 and died with it.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Tributes have been paid on social media in China commemorating a doctor who raised the alarm about the country's coronavirus outbreak, one year after he died with Covid-19.





> Since then, more than 105 million people have been infected with coronavirus and 2.3 million have died with Covid-19 worldwide.


----------



## panpete (Feb 6, 2021)

Gagging orders on NHS whistleblowers to be banned
					

‘Making someone choose between the job they love and speaking the truth...is an injustice’




					www.google.co.uk


----------



## Mation (Feb 6, 2021)

Supine said:


> Sheep are ok. They already have herd immunity.


Yes, but what did they think it was? National Lambpoon's Lockdown Vacation?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> Sounds like the Health and Social Care Act of 2012 has died with Covid.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh whatever replaces it will be worse. I am 100% sure of that. The chances of the Tories dumping a system that enriches private contractors from the public purse is zero. What else is the point of the Tories?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 6, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Oh whatever replaces it will be worse. I am 100% sure of that. The chances of the Tories dumping a system that enriches private contractors from the public purse is zero. What else is the point of the Tories?



Watch for supply line and sub contractor changes, especially cleaning and food.


----------



## panpete (Feb 6, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Watch for supply line and sub contractor changes, especially cleaning and food.


I'm thin enough, no weight loss diet for me.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Feb 6, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Oh whatever replaces it will be worse. I am 100% sure of that. The chances of the Tories dumping a system that enriches private contractors from the public purse is zero. What else is the point of the Tories?


I agree - the cunts will always try to fleece and privatise the system.


----------



## elbows (Feb 6, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Oh whatever replaces it will be worse. I am 100% sure of that. The chances of the Tories dumping a system that enriches private contractors from the public purse is zero. What else is the point of the Tories?



I am very far from 100% sure of that. In fact I'm pretty sure some aspects will be significantly better than what was done in 2012. Plenty of time to find out, and I do expect there to be some dodgy aspects in there, but I will wait and see what they actually end up doing. I dont blame people for just expecting more shit, but I think thats partly because there hasnt been the sort of reality check that this pandemic offered for a very long time.

Part of the reason I take this stance is that there are aspects of health and social care which, if the system fails, has broader economic consequences. Even without the pandemic, this would eventually have come to a head. This sort of things and some of the politics about the publics views on the NHS mean that there are limits even for tories. And I feel this is an era where globalisation, free trade, free market shit, low tax etc may have reached its limits on some fronts, and people may end up being reminded that other forms of toryism also exist.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> I am very far from 100% sure of that. In fact I'm pretty sure some aspects will be significantly better than what was done in 2012. Plenty of time to find out, and I do expect there to be some dodgy aspects in there, but I will wait and see what they actually end up doing. I dont blame people for just expecting more shit, but I think thats partly because there hasnt been the sort of reality check that this pandemic offered for a very long time.
> 
> Part of the reason I take this stance is that there are aspects of health and social care which, if the system fails, has broader economic consequences. Even without the pandemic, this would eventually have come to a head. This sort of things and some of the politics about the publics views on the NHS mean that there are limits even for tories. And I feel this is an era where globalisation, free trade, free market shit, low tax etc may have reached its limits on some fronts, and people may end up being reminded that other forms of toryism also exist.


Not to get into an argument because there's nothing more pointless at this stage, but they've shown no sign of caring about "economic consequences" as they are generally understood - their entire covid policy thrust has been _disastrous_ in terms of the general economic health of the country, and yet they carry on. And the previous health policy had _already_ come to a head. Even before the pandemic, primary care was broken, the NHS was increasingly breaking down. But as long as there's a hint of it still operating they continue to pretend it's fine and if attention is drawn to specific parts, it gets ignored or it means it needs "reform" - something that continues now. As long as they can carry on spinning and winning elections, I see no sign of them stopping, and I don't think they have the insight or intelligence to see that that can't last forever, or that they care (how will it affect them?). That's my reasoning really.

Anyway I guess we'll see.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Feb 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> The phrase 'died with Covid' is really doing my head in, have the BBC adopted rules where thats the phrase they have to default to or something?


Do you actually die _from_ Covid, though, or is it like AIDS and just opens the door to dying from a bunch of other stuff like pneumonia? Maybe they're trying to be technically correct at the expense of clarity, I don't know.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 6, 2021)

I wonder if there are a few people in government who as a result of the pandemic have had to actually get stuck in to doing stuff 'for real' with the NHS, that is they've had to actually navigate the kinds of systems that have been created, in order to make stuff happen, in a much more direct way than normal. I can see how that might inform what kinds of changes are made. The popular idea on here that the Tories are just interested in making money for their mates always strikes me as simplistic and quite stupid. I think they are driven by ideologies of efficiency and market forces and so on which they in most cases genuinely believe make things run 'better'. Well, if what you want is an efficient health service that doesn't waste money, and then you are thrown in the deep end and get to see that the systems which your ideology has created actually aren't efficient and actually do waste money, then maybe you'll be inclined to come at things from a rather different angle. 
I also think it's nonsense that they don't care about disastrous economic consequences. Maybe, make misguided decisions, as a result of all sorts of things, that have disastrous economic consequences, but that's a different thing.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 6, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Well, if what you want is an efficient health service that doesn't waste money, and then you are thrown in the deep end and get to see that the systems which your ideology has created actually aren't efficient and actually do waste money, then maybe you'll be inclined to come at things from a rather different angle.


lol wut


----------



## Humberto (Feb 6, 2021)

misguided


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> I am very far from 100% sure of that. In fact I'm pretty sure some aspects will be significantly better than what was done in 2012. Plenty of time to find out, and I do expect there to be some dodgy aspects in there, but I will wait and see what they actually end up doing. I dont blame people for just expecting more shit, but I think thats partly because there hasnt been the sort of reality check that this pandemic offered for a very long time.
> 
> Part of the reason I take this stance is that there are aspects of health and social care which, if the system fails, has broader economic consequences. Even without the pandemic, this would eventually have come to a head. This sort of things and some of the politics about the publics views on the NHS mean that there are limits even for tories. And I feel this is an era where globalisation, free trade, free market shit, low tax etc may have reached its limits on some fronts, and people may end up being reminded that other forms of toryism also exist.



There is an element of uncertainty about it, its clear from multiple factors that the elites are running scared; of Covid, of the fact people are waking up inequality, I certainly think they will try and make some concessions towards evening things out but I'm not entirely sure the Conservatives have the imagination to plan or create a better world out of this. So many of them are ideologically blinkered into doing things as they always do. Look at Sunaks efforts to maintain the economy as business as usual throughout all this. Look at the various councils pathological fear of bike lanes.

Covid offers the chance to address some deep issues as a country but again and again it has been wasted and used as a way to press the prevailing ideology rather than do something new or repair damage. With the rapid promotion of "getting away on holiday for summer" its clear thats the way certainly the baseline Tories are going to go. Same with Brexit, the legacy of which is now going to inevitably tied in with Covid, I fear structurally the Tories are too fond of centralisation and the habits of maintaining that centralisation within Westminster are to deep for them to change, combine that reluctance to allow disparate parts of the UK to make their own decisions with a marked reluctance to actually lead or regulate.


----------



## Cid (Feb 6, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I also think it's nonsense that they don't care about disastrous economic consequences. Maybe, make misguided decisions, as a result of all sorts of things, that have disastrous economic consequences, but that's a different thing.



Er... Yeah, of course they want good economic performance. They are Tories. Thing is, it's generally a bit easier to blame external factors than admit that your entire philosophy is fundamentally flawed.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 6, 2021)

Cid said:


> Er... Yeah, of course they want good economic performance. They are Tories. Thing is, it's generally a bit easier to blame external factors than admit that your entire philosophy is fundamentally flawed.


I don't believe that I have suggested it's likely they are going to 'admit' that their entire philosophy is fundamentally flawed.
Nor would it be necessary for them to do this, in order to come up with some changes to the way the health service operates that many people would agree were improvements.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 6, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> So many of them are ideologically blinkered into doing things as they always do. Look at Sunaks efforts to maintain the economy as business as usual throughout all this. *Look at the various councils pathological fear of bike lanes.*


And yet... many of us have been pretty surprised by how strongly this was pushed by central govt. Not only strongly pushed but supported by some completely sensible guidance documents containing loads of good stuff based on what people traditionally on the other side from 'the tories' have been saying for ages.

Of course, they might go back on it all in the next couple of years - we'll see.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 6, 2021)

teuchter said:


> And yet... many of us have been pretty surprised by how strongly this was pushed by central govt. Not only strongly pushed but supported by some completely sensible guidance documents containing loads of good stuff based on what people traditionally on the other side from 'the tories' have been saying for ages.
> 
> *Of course, they might go back on it all in the next couple of years - we'll see.*



They are going back on it now as much as they can. They are meeting stubborn resistance. They are also gutting train funding. In regards to doing what people have been asking for years this is part of the problem, government in general does that, it waits 10-20 years then does what it should have done sooner.

We do have to see where this falls out but I'm not confident about the future. This is the very peak of a massive shock to the system and I've no trust or faith in the people in charge.


----------



## Humberto (Feb 6, 2021)

I thought they cut public spending by half, whilst doubling national debt? Whilst making lots of money for themselves? You are fishing.


----------



## Humberto (Feb 6, 2021)

teuchter said:


> And yet... many of us have been pretty surprised by how strongly this was pushed by central govt. Not only strongly pushed but supported by some completely sensible guidance documents containing loads of good stuff based on what people traditionally on the other side from 'the tories' have been saying for ages.
> 
> Of course, they might go back on it all in the next couple of years - we'll see.



I thought they cut public spending by half, whilst doubling national debt? Whilst making lots of money for themselves? You are fishing.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 7, 2021)

Humberto said:


> I thought they cut public spending by half, whilst doubling national debt? Whilst making lots of money for themselves? You are fishing.


I was talking about bicycle lanes. Not sure what you are on about.


----------



## Humberto (Feb 7, 2021)

.


----------



## Humberto (Feb 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I was talking about bicycle lanes. Not sure what you are on about.



Were you fuck. you brought the NHS and Tory 'misguidedness' into it.


----------



## Humberto (Feb 7, 2021)

Let me get this then: He was talking about bicycle lanes and is 'not sure what I'm on about':?

Anyone having that? I'm not. _Continuing to say things_ only gets you so far. _He_ brought up Tory ideological forgiveness and give them a pass on the NHS.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Feb 7, 2021)

Cid said:


> Er... Yeah, of course they want good economic performance. They are Tories.



do they?

most tory governments seem quite content with lengthy recessions with occasional boomlets just before the election.  there's a lot of money to be made out of recessions so long as you've already got plenty of money...


----------



## teuchter (Feb 7, 2021)

Humberto said:


> Let me get this then: He was talking about bicycle lanes and is 'not sure what I'm on about':?
> 
> Anyone having that? I'm not. _Continuing to say things_ only gets you so far. _He_ brought up Tory ideological forgiveness and give them a pass on the NHS.


What's "ideological forgiveness"?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 7, 2021)

This sums up a lot if the persistent issues, not just with cycling but literally everything else 'we have a vision to do X, money is spunked about and nothing ever gets built with an actual plan so some bits if the UK get a decent bike lane,others get a white line in the gutter and still noone cycles. We have a vision to cut emmisions, money gets spunked and we're still pumping out carbon and car fumes, no actual joined up plan exists"











						Beware ministers bearing targets
					

The Transport Secretary says the government “want half of all journeys in towns and cities to be cycled or walked by 2030.” But targets are useless if you don’t have a plan to mak…




					waronthemotorist.wordpress.com


----------



## teuchter (Feb 7, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> This sums up a lot if the persistent issues, not just with cycling but literally everything else 'we have a vision to do X, money is spunked about and nothing ever gets built with an actual plan so some bits if the UK get a decent bike lane,others get a white line in the gutter and still noone cycles. We have a vision to cut emmisions, money gets spunked and we're still pumping out carbon and car fumes, no actual joined up plan exists"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I've had that blog bookmarked for years but had thought it was dead, so good to see some new posts.
I agree with what is said there.
Nonetheless, I do think that some bits of transport stuff announced during the pandemic were surprising. I've followed it in some detail and I'm quite aware of all the pushback, but there are a few things that might just stick, and they wouldn't have happened without the legislation the current government has done, or at least they have happened a few years earlier than they might have otherwise.
This is not to say I think their wider transport policy overall is any good - it's not, it's rubbish. I don't think we're going to emerge from the pandemic with fundamentally positive changes, my optimism is limited to some slight shifts in what the acceptable norm is, in a very small number of places.


----------



## Humberto (Feb 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> What's "ideological forgiveness"?



I thought you were on a wind up. Seems I misread.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported figures...
> 
> First dose vaccinations now 11,465,210
> 
> ...



Another good day -

First dose vaccinations now just over 12m

New cases - 15,845, overall a drop of 24.3% in the last week.

New deaths - 373, which is down 214 on last Sunday's 587, that brings the 7-day average down to 901 a day, a drop of 23.3% in the last week.


----------



## souljacker (Feb 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another good day -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 12m
> 
> ...



You know what's coming next...


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 7, 2021)

souljacker said:


> You know what's coming next...


Boris Johnson to commit seppuku while addressing the nation?


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another good day -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 12m
> 
> ...


Think we're more in the another less bad day 

We need rather more than fewer deaths, fewer hospitalisations and fewer people testing positive to make it actually good


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 7, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Think we're more in the another less bad day
> 
> We need rather more than fewer deaths, fewer hospitalisations and fewer people testing positive to make it actually good



Like the massive success of the vaccine roll-out programme?


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Like the massive success of the vaccine roll-out programme?


once again the government's taken a great chance on people's health with the decision to offer the second injection long after a) the time the manufacturer said should happen and b) the government had said would be the case


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 7, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> once again the government's taken a great chance on people's health with the decision to offer the second injection long after a) the time the manufacturer said should happen and b) the government had said would be the case



The scientists recommended the 12 week gap between doses, the WHO has now congratulated the UK scientists on this move, because all the evidence backs them up on this.

It's a bit silly to rightly attack the government for not following advice from SAGE, and then attacking them for actually following the advice on vaccination.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The scientists recommended the 12 week gap between doses, the WHO has now congratulated the UK scientists on this move, because all the evidence backs them up on this.


Actually, a significant number of virologists are concerned about this, not least because this is akin to the method that they are using in the lab to encourage viral mutation in order that they can better investigate potential, as yet unknown, escape variants.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The scientists recommended the 12 week gap between doses, the WHO has now congratulated the UK scientists on this move, because all the evidence backs them up on this.
> 
> It's a bit silly to rightly attack the government for not following advice from SAGE, and then attacking them for actually following the advice on vaccination.


I don't think I have attacked the government for not following the advice from sage

Not recently at any rate. Note to self: must attack govt more for not following sage advice


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 7, 2021)

2hats said:


> Actually, a significant number of virologists are concerned about this, not least because this is akin to the method that they are using in the lab to encourage viral mutation in order that they can better investigate potential, as yet unknown, escape variants.


The govt very much at fault I believe for creating the UK variant in the first place with its poor decisions so they've form for this sort of thing


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 7, 2021)

2hats said:


> Actually, a significant number of virologists are concerned about this, not least because this is akin to the method that they are using in the lab to encourage viral mutation in order that they can better investigate potential, as yet unknown, escape variants.



A small minority. It's not really a concern of most scientists tbh. 

Apart from flu which is kinda special at recombining, viruses have a very hard time evading vaccines. Look at measles which mutates like mofo but doesn't have much luck with it.


----------



## kabbes (Feb 7, 2021)

2hats said:


> Actually, a significant number of virologists are concerned about this, not least because this is akin to the method that they are using in the lab to encourage viral mutation in order that they can better investigate potential, as yet unknown, escape variants.


What happens to pathogens when exposed to something in vitro can be wildly different than what happens to them when similarly exposed in vivo, though


----------



## andysays (Feb 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The scientists recommended the 12 week gap between doses, the WHO has now congratulated the UK scientists on this move, because all the evidence backs them up on this.
> 
> It's a bit silly to rightly attack the government for not following advice from SAGE, and then attacking them for actually following the advice on vaccination.


The last I read, the advice from the WHO hadn't changed and, from memory, was still suggesting six weeks as a maximum.

Do you have a source for this new position?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 7, 2021)

andysays said:


> The last I read, the advice from the WHO hadn't changed and, from memory, was still suggesting six weeks as a maximum.
> 
> Do you have a source for this new position?



Interview on Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday show.


----------



## andysays (Feb 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Interview on Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday show.


Thanks, I can't see anything about it on the BBC website.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 7, 2021)

andysays said:


> The last I read, the advice from the WHO hadn't changed and, from memory, was still suggesting six weeks as a maximum.
> 
> Do you have a source for this new position?



Oh, and so did the head of the Oxford vaccine development programme, on the Marr show this morning.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> A small minority. It's not really a concern of most scientists tbh.


I'm sure it's not the concern of "most scientists", which is why I said virologists.


> Apart from flu which is kinda special at recombining, viruses have a very hard time evading vaccines. Look at measles which mutates like mofo but doesn't have much luck with it.


Influenza is a much better choice for comparison than measles. That's because the measles virus receptor binding site is fragile so has limited degrees of mutagenic freedom (DOI: 10.1101/2020.10.22.351189); most of those mutations are non-advantageous (though more recently wild types have begun to demonstrate a degree of escape from vaccine mediated neutralising sera - DOI: 10.1002/1096-9071(200009)62:1%3C91::AID-JMV14%3E3.0.CO;2-B & DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jir106).

SARS-CoV-2 has so far only explored a fraction of its mutagenic space, and that, in the wild, in a relatively short time. Besides RBD mutations, the spike has an unusually high degree of conformational plasticity and that even contributes to antibody evasion through concealment of key epitopes in the NTD, where the virus has been playing with a lot of deletions. Now we are seeing co-infections, sooner or later we are probably also going to start seeing recombination events as well.


kabbes said:


> What happens to pathogens when exposed to something in vitro can be wildly different than what happens to them when similarly exposed in vivo, though


Absolutely, but that unfortunately cuts both ways (eg vaccine sera variant efficacy studies).


----------



## Brainaddict (Feb 8, 2021)

Feeling pretty fucked off that they didn't bother to shut the border with South Africa in a timely way. It now looks like if it takes hold as a dominant variant then the vaccination program will be worth much less than we thought. They're still fucking up in ways that anyone with common sense would be able to avoid and it makes me wish death on them.









						Oxford Covid vaccine has 10% efficacy against South African variant, study suggests
					

Small-scale trial of vaccine shows it offers very little protection against mild to moderate infection




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 8, 2021)

2hats said:


> I'm sure it's not the concern of "most scientists", which is why I said virologists.



most virologists then



> SARS-CoV-2 has so far only explored a fraction of its mutagenic space, and that, in the wild, in a relatively short time. Besides RBD mutations, the spike has an unusually high degree of conformational plasticity and that even contributes to antibody evasion through concealment of key epitopes in the NTD, where the virus has been playing with a lot of deletions. Now we are seeing co-infections, sooner or later we are probably also going to start seeing recombination events as well.



There's plenty about the spike protein that is highly conserved across species, and it's plasticity is as expected given it's mechanism as a fusion protein. The idea that it's going to suddenly start evading the current vaccines such that these vaccines cease to be effective at preventing serious disease and death is a big stretch. 



> Absolutely, but that unfortunately cuts both ways (eg vaccine sera variant efficacy studies).



Here it still applies, as vaccine sera studies don't tell us about the T-cell response which is likely to be polyclonal to a variety of spike protein epitopes outside the RBD and thus not comprised by the mutations under discussion.

I think the fact that both the media and many virologists unused to the public understanding of science have in their public pronouncements focused on standard vaccine effectiveness as measured in phase III trials using "disease", rather than "severe disease and death" has lead to fear and vaccine hesitancy in some quarters which could prove highly damaging. 

There's no indication whatsoever that current vaccines will not have a considerably beneficial affect against the so-called South Africa strain.

Sure we need to update vaccines as time goes on, but the idea we should withhold current vaccines for lack of efficacy against current variants, or that we shouldn't extend the gap between doses due to concern about mutations are mistakes that are 100% likely to result in many deaths.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 8, 2021)

The UK govt are the covidiots of Europe. Hoarding a vaccine that may very soon be useless.


----------



## andysays (Feb 8, 2021)

According to the BBC, the Irish government has said anyone crossing the border from NI will be fined.

Garda carrying out random vehicle checks...


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Interview on Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday show.



There is nothing in that interview with Dr David Nabarro that says the WHO have changed their position. Yes he made a lot of positive noises about the bravery of British scientists, and how we are learning as we go along, but he also spoke of how the committee that deals with such things will look into it. And he acknowledged the 'so far' aspect.

He spoke of plenty of other things too, like the subject of sharing vaccines with the world.

His remarks are consistent with someone whose career involved international civil service, being nominated by the UK government to become WHO Director General some years ago (unsuccessfully), etc. His comments early in the pandemic were a mixed bag too, given both the correct emphasis on test & trace but also comments that were easily construed as being against national lockdowns. His stance was actually more complicated than that, but certainly demonstrated the limitations of putting too much faith in the words of one person in the pandemic, no matter their position and knowledge.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

My advice remains:

Dont listen to anyone who has to resort to appeals to believe in the wisdom of arbitrary authorities.

Dont treat vaccinations as a silver bullet if you want to stay safe from the possibility of crushing disappointment arriving at some point. 

Dont make reassuring claims about mutations and strains that may not stand the test of time. Especially do not do this just because you are worried about the negative implications of people losing faith in vaccines, since no matter how valid such concerns about public attitudes may be, such aspects cannot overrule the fundamental scientific truths that will emerge. And if you've destroyed your own credibility by talking shit at this stage, nobody will listen to you later, you end up being part of the problem not the solution, just another peddler of false reassurances that will contribute to the loss of faith if such a stance is found wanting later.

Dont listen to people who try to pretend that science is all about counting how many scientists hold a particular view.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

And absolutely dont treat phrases like 'there is currently no evidence' as being a guide as to where our understanding of a matter will eventually end up.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

And by all means pay attention to what sort of detail is involved in the reassurances that authorities are prepared to give. Carefully chosen language, what they are not saying, deflection, reframing etc.









						Covid: Scientists developing vaccine boosters to tackle variants
					

An early study suggests the AstraZeneca vaccine may be less effective against the South African variant.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

If anyone out there is still wondering whether my emphasis on hospital acquired Covid infections has been over the top and excessive throughout this pandemic, this article contains some figures which I believe demonstrate the huge scale of the issue:









						Hospitals defy coronavirus rules to protect staff as 35,000 patients infected on wards
					

Exclusive: Hospital supplying higher grade masks to staff amid concerns about exposure




					www.independent.co.uk
				






> An analysis of the latest NHS data by _The Independent_ shows more than 35,000 patients were likely to have been infected with coronavirus while already in hospital between 1 August and 31 January.
> 
> NHS England has estimated as many as 20 per cent of infections could be due to spread within hospitals. Outbreaks at some hospitals have seen whole teams of doctors or nurses affected, in some cases leading to wards having to be closed.
> 
> _The Independent_ has learnt several hospitals are now supplying higher grade masks to staff working in general wards, despite Public Health England saying only surgical masks are needed. Research this week suggested staff exposed to coughing were at greatest risk of infection from the virus.



Theres quite a bit more detail in the full article, including things certain trusts have done such as give out better masks and using Covid marshals on wards.

The solution to these things is a mix of the correct infection control protocols and staff protection, but also if you want to avoid this stuff you absolutely have to keep the level of infections in the broader community down below a certain level. Because there are tipping points, beyond which hospital outbreaks become rather inevitable.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 8, 2021)

'there is currently no evidence'


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

Since their figures broadly match my interpretation of that hospital data, here is a graph of those hospital-acquired cases per day since August 1st. This is for England only. Total for this period so far = 36,414.


Comes from interpretation of data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## 2hats (Feb 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The idea that it's going to suddenly start evading the current vaccines such that these vaccines cease to be effective at preventing serious disease and death is a big stretch.


Hence the repeated mention of degrees of escape from both natural immunity and vaccine efficacy (of some given type).


> Here it still applies, as vaccine sera studies don't tell us about the T-cell response which is likely to be polyclonal to a variety of spike protein epitopes outside the RBD and thus not comprised by the mutations under discussion.


T-cell response appears to play a major part in asymptomatic/mild cases, whereas increasing antibody expression appears to be a feature of increasingly severe cases (DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.01.007, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.08.017, DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.108728). The escape concern isn't just focussed on the RBD but in deletions in the NTD as well, wherein the plasticity could also potentially hinder epitope recognition.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

IC3D said:


> The UK govt are the covidiots of Europe. Hoarding a vaccine that may very soon be useless.



I wouldnt lean too strongly towards it being completely useless at this stage. I try to keep my expectations somewhere in the middle, although even since the earliest trial data that particular vaccine didnt look like it would end up as the very best one, even without pesky new strains. It does have some practical advantages so I shall be sad if its effectiveness is much diminished.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> There is nothing in that interview with Dr David Nabarro that says the WHO have changed their position. Yes he made a lot of positive noises about the bravery of British scientists, and how we are learning as we go along, but he also spoke of how the committee that deals with such things will look into it. And he acknowledged the 'so far' aspect.



It wasn't me that posted the WHO have changed their position/advice, that was someone else misquoting what I had posted, which in my haste to respond with a source I didn't correct them on, I had originally posted, 'the WHO [as in their Special Envoy on Covid-19, Dr David Nabarro] has now congratulated the UK scientists on this move [to delay the second dose]'.

Professor Sarah Gilbert, who heads up the Oxford vaccine team, on the Marr show also explained that their research shows it is best to wait 12 weeks between the 2 doses of the Oxford/AZ vaccine, as it'll give better protection than having the second dose after only 4 weeks. She was also asked about the pfizer vaccine, and expressed the view that she didn't see any reason for concern about the 12 week gap between doses, because immunity doesn't suddenly 'drop off a cliff edge'. 

Research based on the Israeli roll-out indicates the pfizer vaccine provides up to 90% effectiveness by day 21 after the first dose, and there's no reason to think that would suddenly drop off thereafter.

So, it comes back to if you want to protect say 10 million people to a level of 90% or only 5 million to a level of 95% in the 8 weeks difference between the second dose being given 4 or 12 weeks after the first.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

I didnt like the 12 weeks decision because it wasnt based on data, wasnt bassed on the way things were done in trials, and also because escape mutants are very much a focus of attention these days. As data comes in that demonstrates effectiveness with longer gaps, I can at least relax more about one side of that picture. The strains and mutations side of things is more complicated and will give me reasons to fret for probably a long time to come.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

As for this:



cupid_stunt said:


> It's a bit silly to rightly attack the government for not following advice from SAGE, and then attacking them for actually following the advice on vaccination.



What a load of shit. Dont pick a side and blindly follow them as if they get everything right or can even be said to represent 'a side', look at the detail and all the factors that go into the balance of decisions for crying out loud.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It wasn't me that posted the WHO have changed their position/advice, that was someone else misquoting what I had posted, which in my haste to respond with a source I didn't correct them on, I had originally posted, 'the WHO [as in their Special Envoy on Covid-19, Dr David Nabarro] has now congratulated the UK scientists on this move [to delay the second dose]'.


Some people are getting confused.

It is the [US] CDC who are advising that the dosing interval for mRNA vaccines should be no more than 6 weeks (where the manufacturers' dosing intervals can not be met).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> *I didnt like the 12 weeks decision because it wasnt based on data,* wasnt bassed on the way things were done in trials, and also because escape mutants are very much a focus of attention these days. As data comes in that demonstrates effectiveness with longer gaps, I can at least relax more about one side of that picture.



BIB - it is in respect of the Oxford/AZ vaccine, have you not watched the interview with Professor Sarah Gilbert on the Marr show yesterday?

* it's just over 30 minutes in.

Also explained in this good interview with Kate Bingham.



> " What the Oxford data has shown is that by extending the time between two doses, they can improve the immunogenicity. And remember, they got data to show for it because they, like J&J, were planning to do a single dose regime, but it was when they have had two doses arm and when they looked at the two doses arm, they then realized that they got much better immunogenicity after the second dose. So they went back to that the trialist and said, "Would they come back please, for a second dose?"”
> 
> “Because many of the trials had started in April. By the time they had a second dose, many of them had got to 12 weeks. So the AZ data has a spectrum of data of people who had their second dose after four weeks all the way up to those up to 12 weeks. And what they have been able to show is that the immunogenicity goes up with an extended time between doses. So it is correct that there is data to justify and extended period between doses for the AZ vaccine. I think it's the right public health response, which is to show that you try and vaccinate as many people as possible, as soon as possible. Better to protect everybody a bit rather than to vaccinate fewer people to give them an extra 10 percent protection. I think it is the right public health response. If I was making that decision, I would have made the same decision”.











						Kate Bingham: Why UK strategy on Covid vaccines has been a great success
					

An exclusive interview by "Die Welt" and "La Repubblica" to the former Chair of the UK Government's Vaccine Taskforce: what Boris Johns…




					www.repubblica.it


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 8, 2021)

2hats said:


> Some people are getting confused.
> 
> It is the [US] CDC who are advising that the dosing interval for mRNA vaccines should be no more than 6 weeks (where the manufacturers' dosing intervals can not be met).



The WHO's advice is currently the same too.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

And I'm sorry if I am going to end up being rude again at the moment. I'm afraid its inevitable if people are intending to mark the anniversaries of various authorities fucking up their initial response to the pandemic by refusing to learn all the lessons about when to place trust in various compartments of the establishment. Or at least the limitations of that approach.

Also my break is cancelled. It turns out it was just a looming migraine that made me feel exhaused, and that migraine came last Friday and now I am filled with energy once more.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> What a load of shit. Dont pick a side and blindly follow them as if they get everything right or can even be said to represent 'a side', look at the detail and all the factors that go into the balance of decisions for crying out loud.



I am not blindly following a side, and I am looking at the details of the balance of decisions, including long conversations with my SiL, who is a scientist, and has been discussing the delay between the 2 doses over recent weeks with colleagues, and based on what I am hearing, and the fucked-up situation the UK is in, on balance the 12 week gap is the right decision.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am not blindly following a side, and I am looking at the details of the balance of decisions, including long conversations with my SiL, who is a scientist, and has been discussing the delay between the 2 doses over recent weeks with colleagues, and based on what I am hearing, and the fucked-up situation the UK is in, on balance the 12 week gap is the right decision.



Then dont tell people its stupid to agree with SAGE about one thing and disagree with them about something else. Because, detail.

Look, I've got a bee in my bonnet today in part because Nabarro used the word bravery in that interview. How it was a brave decision by UK scientists. Bravery is a complex thing that can also mean recklessness, arrogance and unnecessary risk. Which word is the best fit is usually decided with the benefit of hindsight. And the worlds of public health and medicine must often deal with these themes. Its complex and can be ugly since often the person making the decision is risking, or being brave about the possibility of losing, their reputation. Whilst for others the conseqneces are more a matter of life and death.

Its tricky stuff. I moan at Whitty when he goes on about all of medicine being a balance of risk, not because he is wrong about that, but because of which way the balance tends to be tilted in this country, and also because he was usually bringing it up in order to make some excuses for grotesque failures. Beyond that I do have sympathy with the very tricky balancing of decisions. Its not like there are often easy options, eg if I tried to make such decisions in a risk-averse way, this would introcude other risks of its own, the risk is unavoidable.

If I remove my venom then I suppose all I really want is for people to say stuff that is consistent with looking at the detail each time, as you have mentioned, rather than default to trust in the substance based on the authority of the person coming out with it. We know there are slippery aspects to these issues and the way they are discussed, especially by those 'in a position of responsibility', and there are usually more questions than answers, and so much that remains unknown. I look forward to more data over time, as ever.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another good day -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 12m
> 
> ...



Well, the news continues to get better, from a fucking shit situation, we continue to move in the right direction, but still some way to go yet. 

First dose vaccinations now just under 12.3m

New cases - 14,401, overall a drop of 25.3% in the last week.

New deaths - 333, which is down 73 on last Monday's 406, that brings the 7-day average down to around 891 a day, a drop of 22.4% in the last week.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 8, 2021)

Just a reminder, press conference at 5pm today with Hancock joined by Jonathan Van-Tam and Dr Kinni Kanani, the Medical Director of Primary Care for NHS England.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The WHO's advice is currently the same too.


Not quite.

The WHO recommendation (8 Jan) for BNT162b2 is 21–28 days between the doses, though the "interval between doses may be extended up to 42 days (6 weeks), on the basis of currently available clinical trial data" in "*exceptional* epidemiological *circumstances*".

The WHO recommendation (26 Jan) for mRNA-1273 is 28 days between the doses, though in "*exceptional circumstances* ... the interval between doses may be extended to 42 days."

The CDC advice (21 Jan) on both (US regulatory approved) mRNA vaccine dose intervals is simply on the basis of "_if it is not feasible_ to adhere to the recommended interval".


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, the news continues to get better, from a fucking shit situation, we continue to move in the right direction, but still some way to go yet.
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just under 12.3m
> 
> ...


perhaps 'the situation continues to improve' - the news is still bloody awful.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just a reminder, press conference at 5pm today with Hancock joined by Jonathan Van-Tam and Dr Kinni Kanani, the Medical Director of Primary Care for NHS England.



Judging by the following smirk that briefly crossed his face, it was not lost on Hancock that it being 2 months to the day since the first patient was vaccinated means its 2 months since Hancocks 'crying' performance that actually looked more like an attempt to hide laughter behind a fake cry.

I always watch out for these things since the time he could not surpress a smile when talking about the polices usual, consent-based approach in a pandemic press conference long ago.


----------



## agricola (Feb 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> I didnt like the 12 weeks decision because it wasnt based on data, wasnt bassed on the way things were done in trials, and also because escape mutants are very much a focus of attention these days. As data comes in that demonstrates effectiveness with longer gaps, I can at least relax more about one side of that picture. The strains and mutations side of things is more complicated and will give me reasons to fret for probably a long time to come.



Indeed.  The way that was apparently decided - in effect a massive u-turn whilst we were three weeks into the vaccination rollout - was emphatically not how it should be done.  As a precedent its appalling.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2021)

agricola said:


> Indeed.  The way that was apparently decided - in effect a massive u-turn whilst we were three weeks into the vaccination rollout - was emphatically not how it should be done.  As a precedent its appalling.



It resembled a gamble that they only felt the need to take because they failed to keep numbers down enough in the wave and were faced with extreme pressures of all sorts as a result. Under those conditions I do understand the rationale behind the gamble, but it goes without saying that doing the right things in August, September, October, November and December would have been a much better approach with reduced risks of various sorts.

JVT was the right man for the job tonight, in terms of how to frame the vaccine-South Africa variant scary headlines in a way that was somewhat reassuring, didnt lead to people making the wrong choices in the short-term, but that did not completely insult my intelligence when it came to the medium and long term picture.

One of the reasons I find his words easier to tollerate is that he tends to make clear when something is well supported by evidence, and when it is just a hunch of his. Some reading between the lines, joining of dots and filling in the gaps is still required, but the way he does it almost invites that approach rather than being too suspiciously guarded and dismissive of uncomfortable questions.

So for example today he spoke of various things he still expected that vaccine to be good for, and of how he didnt expect the South African strain to become dominant in the UK in the next few months. But rather than get bogged down in too many unknowns or blunder into too many possibly unsustainable positions, he acknowledged the idea of booster vaccines targeting such strains in the autumn. It seemed like a fairly reasonable attempt to get people not to change their approach to getting vaccinated at the moment, without making too many claims about the longer future that may be unsafe or lead to incorrect expectations.

Quite how far to go with filling in the blanks is debatable, since there are many unknowns and I dont claim to have a crystal ball. He said they dont think the South African strain has a transmission advantage over the current dominant UK strain. A full discussion on such themes would then need to involve the topic of vaccine-related selection advantage, eg whether in  future when the strains of virus keep bumping into vaccinated people, whether a strain that vaccines works less well against will then have an advantage that will cause it to become the dominant strain.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 8, 2021)

More on T-cell responses to the South African strain:


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 8, 2021)

IC3D said:


> The UK govt are the covidiots of Europe. Hoarding a vaccine that may very soon be useless.



It's very unlikely to be useless. Nor are they hoarding it. Other than that, spot on.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 8, 2021)

IC3D said:


> The UK govt are the covidiots of Europe. Hoarding a vaccine that may very soon be useless.





SpookyFrank said:


> It's very unlikely to be useless. Nor are they hoarding it. Other than that, spot on.



It's not often I agree with Frank, but he's spot on here, we're certainly not hoarding vaccines, every dose delivered is going into arms as quick as the NHS can do it.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 9, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> More on T-cell responses to the South African strain:



Note that those aren't responses to human vaccine sera but are based off animal models.

However, better T-cell, rather than antibody response wouldn't be inconsistent with their human trials data and the mild episodes (big pinch of salt: small numbers, wide confidence intervals).

One possible explanation for AZD1222 antibody response seemingly lagging all the other leading vaccines (aside from, here, sub-optimal dosing regime and, more generally, homologous boosting), in particular relative to J&Js Janssen single dose (human adenovirus viral vector) vaccine, is that it hasn't made use of prefusion stabilisation (used not only by Ad26.COV2.S, but also at least by BNT162b2, mRNA-1273 and NVX-CoV2373).

All the above _might_ also suggest that AZD1222 could be somewhat less effective at transmission reduction than the other vaccines.


----------



## editor (Feb 9, 2021)

Listen to these fucking cunts:


> NHS Has Been 'Nothing Special' In Covid Pandemic, Right-Wing Think Tank Claims
> 
> The NHS’s performance during the Covid pandemic has been “nothing special” and the public have “no reason to be grateful” for its existence, a free-market think tank has claimed.












						NHS Has Been 'Nothing Special' In Pandemic, Right-Wing Think Tank Says
					

Institute for Economic Affairs report says it's a "myth" that the health service performed well




					www.huffingtonpost.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

Free market think tanks are going out of fashion, so I suppose I would expect increasingly shrill tones from such entities going forwards. 

I'd rather listen to the head of the CBI these days! eg this from earlier in Feb:



> Invoking the work of the 1945 Labour government to reboot Britain’s economy from the devastation of the second world war, and contrasting it with the response to the 2008 financial crisis, he said the government, businesses and trade unions needed to work together on a fightback plan.
> 
> “I believe we must, and we will, come together to forge a better decade. More 1945 than 2008,” he said.











						UK should respond to economic crisis with 1945-style reboot, says CBI chief
					

Covid, climate change and Brexit demand consensus on ‘a fairer, greener, economy’ says Tony Danker




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

I really do expect to have numerous opportunities to piss myself with laughter as those free market shitheads lose all the momentum - its been happening for years already and the very least they deserve is to feel what its like when 'There Is No Alternative' is aligned against their agenda instead of in favour of their shit.

TINA turned on them. TINA Turner!


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 9, 2021)

Lock them up!


----------



## Wilf (Feb 9, 2021)

Belatedly - Shocked, I am - they are getting the quarantine and fines in place, but haven't quite managed to close the airports or formally restrict them to emergency flights only?  Just about 3 or 4 days ago johnson was going through the 'it's a balance... we, can't shut them... capitalism', wasn't he?


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 9, 2021)

editor said:


> Listen to these fucking cunts:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


i'd rather not, they haven't anything of substance to add


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 9, 2021)

word is that when dominic cummings saw the daily mail declaring
he crapped his pants


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Feb 9, 2021)

Are the DM trying to sneak in some sneering at travellers with that headline, or am I just too suspicious.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Belatedly - Shocked, I am - they are getting the quarantine and fines in place, but haven't quite managed to close the airports or formally restrict them to emergency flights only?  Just about 3 or 4 days ago johnson was going through the 'it's a balance... we, can't shut them... capitalism', wasn't he?



They havent even included all countries, jsut the ones on the red list. Scotland goes a little further, but wants the UK to go further still:



> Scots arriving via England from "red list" countries will be required to complete their mandatory hotel quarantine there before returning home north of the border.
> 
> Scottish Transport Secretary Michael Matheson said he would continue to press the UK government to adopt a "more comprehensive approach and require all arrivals to go into quarantine hotels".
> 
> ...





> But in Scotland, all international arrivals - not just those from red list countries - will be required to go into hotel quarantine.
> 
> The Scottish government is also limiting overseas training for elite athletes to only sportsmen and women and coaches preparing for the Olympics and Paralympics.
> 
> Matheson insisted the "stronger approach" Scotland was taking to international quarantine was "necessary and proportionate".



Thats from 15:19 of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-55992464


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, the news continues to get better, from a fucking shit situation, we continue to move in the right direction, but still some way to go yet.
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just under 12.3m
> 
> ...



Today's reported figures -

First dose vaccinations now 12,646,486

New cases - 12,364, overall a drop of 26.6% in the last week.

New deaths - 1,052, which is down 397 on last Tuesday's 1,449, that brings the 7-day average down to around 835 a day, a drop of 25.7% in the last week.


----------



## souljacker (Feb 9, 2021)

Two days in a row with no deaths in Reading. I know that can change due to reporting lags but it's a very good sign.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 9, 2021)

Well, all of the numbers currently available seem to show a quite distinct peak in deaths around the 19th Jan, with quite a sharp change from rising rapidly to falling rapidly. The downwards trajectory at the moment appears to be steeper than the one following the 1st wave peak.

The peak comes just about exactly 2 weeks after 'lockdown 3' was implemented. Can we take this as a signal that not only has this lockdown worked, but that those saying it isn't 'hard' enough are probably wrong?


----------



## Wilf (Feb 9, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Well, all of the numbers currently available seem to show a quite distinct peak in deaths around the 19th Jan, with quite a sharp change from rising rapidly to falling rapidly. The downwards trajectory at the moment appears to be steeper than the one following the 1st wave peak.
> 
> The peak comes just about exactly 2 weeks after 'lockdown 3' was implemented. Can we take this as a signal that not only has this lockdown worked, but that those saying it isn't 'hard' enough are probably wrong?


 Well, we can take it that lockdowns work and that, more lockdown works better than less.  Beyond that though, it's about which activities have the most risk attached to them, as to what you should control.  But, once you get past a level where a functioning test and trace system would contain the pandemic, it really is about lockdowns.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Can we take this as a signal that not only has this lockdown worked, but that those saying it isn't 'hard' enough are probably wrong?



Some fears of mine including the deaths plateauing at the very highest levels for a very long time have certainly been avoided, which is excellent.

But in regards whether the lockdown was hard enough or not, I will judge that in part on whether the number of deaths keep falling all the way to negligible levels, or whether it gets stuck at a certain level at some point.

If we reset our feeling about what counts as a high level of infection, as we should given quite how large the peak was and how that affects perceptions once things have fallen back down the other side then there is still a very long way to go indeed. And I will go nuts if we get a repeat of the feeble test & trace etc summer phase last year, where some areas were stuck with a situation where infections in the community persisted and local lockdowns involved plenty of pain without as much gain as was required. I do expect them to do better with that stuff this time, but its too early for me to go on about opportunities taken and opportunities squandered until infection levels fall to a level that unlock various responses (eg test & trace stands a much better chance when there are far fewer daily infections to deal with). The prospect of the vast majority of samples being able to be tested to determine their genomics was music to my ears when JVT mentioned it the other day, but again this relies on total number of positive cases being lower than it has been in recent months.


----------



## agricola (Feb 9, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Belatedly - Shocked, I am - they are getting the quarantine and fines in place, but haven't quite managed to close the airports or formally restrict them to emergency flights only?  Just about 3 or 4 days ago johnson was going through the 'it's a balance... we, can't shut them... capitalism', wasn't he?



Indeed, and of course they won't be doing that.  Patel's idea of fitting people with a tag for the duration of the quarantine would have been better than this is.


----------



## agricola (Feb 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some fears of mine including the deaths plateauing at the very highest levels for a very long time have certainly been avoided, which is excellent.
> 
> But in regards whether the lockdown was hard enough or not, I will judge that in part on whether the number of deaths keep falling all the way to negligible levels, or whether it gets stuck at a certain level at some point.
> 
> If we reset our feeling about what counts as a high level of infection, as we should given quite how large the peak was and how that affects perceptions once things have fallen back down the other side then there is still a very long way to go indeed. And I will go nuts if we get a repeat of the feeble test & trace etc summer phase last year, where some areas were stuck with a situation where infections in the community persisted and local lockdowns involved plenty of pain without as much gain as was required. *I do expect them to do better with that stuff this time*, but its too early for me to go on about opportunities taken and opportunities squandered until infection levels fall to a level that unlock various responses (eg test & trace stands a much better chance when there are far fewer daily infections to deal with). The prospect of the vast majority of samples being able to be tested to determine their genomics was music to my ears when JVT mentioned it the other day, but again this relies on total number of positive cases being lower than it has been in recent months.



Sadly, I don't.  There is no indication they've learnt the slightest thing from that failure, or even identified what a failure it was.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The downwards trajectory at the moment appears to be steeper than the one following the 1st wave peak.



When looking at that sort of thing its a good idea to drill down to the regional level. I dont have the right graphs handy right now but there was plenty of regional variation the first time that I'm sure contributed to the nature of the downwards trajectory. From memory the fall in things like hospital admission rates after the first wave peak was very steep in the London region, but quite a different shape for large parts of the deline in the North West, for example.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 9, 2021)

As to whether the weekly numbers are something to celebrate, they obviously are and aren't at the same time (better that it's going down - obviously and genuinely - but not in the sense of ongoing human misery). But to me, anything that remains in the realms of thousands of new infections and hundreds of deaths remains suited to blunt instrument solutions - lockdowns + focused testing to chase after new strains.  There has to be a downward step-change, if that's a real phrase, before the whole problem suits itself to specific solutions, local solutions and the rest. Vaccinations will hopefully move us towards that kind of scenario. Problem will be tory loons pushing a reopening on the _promise of _vaccinations, whilst we are still in the thousands of cases/hundreds of death phrase.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

agricola said:


> Sadly, I don't.  There is no indication they've learnt the slightest thing from that failure, or even identified what a failure it was.



Well I'm not going to get too carried away, for example in the press conference the other day it was still very clear that they are not thinking about zero Covid approaches at all. 

But it will be hard for them to make as poor a job of test & trace as they did the first time. It has slowly improved in some ways, and I will judge it afresh once we are at a stage where such things become better able to carry more of the burden.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Feb 9, 2021)

editor said:


> Listen to these fucking cunts:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Interesting how they point at the much better Covid experience of the Asian countries and then draw all the wrong conclusions ('it's because of their free market economies and private health care systems'). Also interesting how they don't cite the excellent performance of the Communist regimes in China and Vietnam!


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> When looking at that sort of thing its a good idea to drill down to the regional level. I dont have the right graphs handy right now but there was plenty of regional variation the first time that I'm sure contributed to the nature of the downwards trajectory. From memory the fall in things like hospital admission rates after the first wave peak was very steep in the London region, but quite a different shape for large parts of the deline in the North West, for example.



Also in the first wave there was the terrible wave of care home deaths that was slightly later than the broader community peak, in part due to the way things took a bit of time to filter from NHS discharge policy to care home outbreaks and deaths. We have not avoided care home outbreaks and deaths this time, but the scale and timing of the problem this time is likely a bit different.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

Wilf said:


> As to whether the weekly numbers are something to celebrate, they obviously are and aren't at the same time (better that it's going down - obviously and genuinely - but not in the sense of ongoing human misery). But to me, anything that remains in the realms of thousands of new infections and hundreds of deaths remains suited to blunt instrument solutions - lockdowns + focused testing to chase after new strains.  There has to be a downward step-change, if that's a real phrase, before the whole problem suits itself to specific solutions, local solutions and the rest. Vaccinations will hopefully move us towards that kind of scenario. Problem will be tory loons pushing a reopening on the _promise of _vaccinations, whilst we are still in the thousands of cases/hundreds of death phrase.



I will probably allow myself to cheer in some limited way once the number of daily hospital admissions/diagnoses is way lower than it was during the first 'pre new variant talk' phase of the second wave (November). I can still cheer the steep downwards trajectory, but there is a long way to go. Currently its at a level of about half what was seen during the January peak, real progress, I want to see more.


Made using data from the UK dashboard.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

Oh yes and I do of course hope to see vaccines having their impact on all these sorts of figures, changing the game compared to the first time. Not that it will necessarily be easy to distinctly identify all the different factors at work.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

The shape and trajectory of various data in the first wave is also likely distorted by a lack of testing, and a failure to admit as many people who really would have needed hospital care the first time around.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 9, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Interesting how they point at the much better Covid experience of the Asian countries and then draw all the wrong conclusions (*'it's because of their free market economies and private health care systems'*). Also interesting how they don't cite the excellent performance of the Communist regimes in China and Vietnam!


They don't draw that conclusion though. They say:


> The claim of this paper is not that best performers did well because they have low public spending levels, that they did well because they have open economies, or that they did well because they have non-NHS-type healthcare systems. The claim of this paper is that an effective pandemic response is compatible with a variety of public spending levels, a variety of trade regimes, and a variety of healthcare systems.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 9, 2021)

So have we decided how much protection the AZ vaccine affords against the South African variant (particularly, but others too)?


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2021)

two sheds said:


> So have we decided how much protection the AZ vaccine affords against the South African variant (particularly, but others too)?



Its early days, I would say the various studies so far mean we can just consider some things in a tentative way.

I dont think the authorities expect it to be amazing against that strain because otherwise the likes of JVT would probably not have publicly raised the idea of autumn boosters, and he deliberately sidestepped getting bogged down in quite how well it would work by instead focussing on a point about how the South African variant is not likely to dominate in the UK in the coming months. And the vaccine developers wouldnt have felt the need to go on so loudly about their work to quickly adapt the vaccine to new strains if they thought that to be a minor issue at this stage.


----------



## editor (Feb 9, 2021)

South African variant found in Lambeth









						Lambeth residents urged to get tested after South African Covid-19 strain found
					

Lambeth Council is asking residents living and working in the borough’s Knight’s Hill ward, which includes parts of West Norwood and some streets in Streatham, to get a Covid-19 test, whether they …



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## Cid (Feb 9, 2021)

Red list countries are;



Angola
Argentina
Bolivia
Botswana
Brazil
Burundi
Cape Verde
Chile
Colombia
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Ecuador
Eswatini
French Guiana
Guyana
Lesotho
Malawi
Mauritius
Mozambique
Namibia
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Portugal (including Madeira and the Azores)
Rwanda
Seychelles
South Africa
Suriname
Tanzania
United Arab Emirates (UAE)
Uruguay
Venezuela
Zambia
Zimbabwe
It's an er... interesting... list. I think mostly related to potential for new variant strains?


----------



## Petcha (Feb 9, 2021)

I know this will be controversial. But I'm just watching a C4 report about Asian areas in the UK being higher risk and suffering much higher rates of infection. I moved into a largely Asian community in East London a month or so ago. Virtually nobody wears masks. I feel really weird when I go into shops/takeaway places, like some kind of prude as i strap mine on. Not many people are observing much in the way of social distancing either. I really like it here in general but I think maybe the elephant in the room is that, for whatever reason, a lot of people here  are just completely ignoring Govt advice which is hugely contributing to the problem in their community.


----------



## Supine (Feb 9, 2021)

I doubt Portugal can stay on the red list without Spain for long. Covid isn't going to recognise that border.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 9, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I know this will be controversial. But I'm just watching a C4 report about Asian areas in the UK being higher risk and suffering much higher rates of infection. I moved into a largely Asian community in East London a month or so ago. Virtually nobody wears masks. I feel really weird when I go into shops/takeaway places, like some kind of prude as i strap mine on. Not many people are observing much in the way of social distancing either. I really like it here in general but I think maybe the elephant in the room is that, for whatever reason, a lot of people here  are just completely ignoring Govt advice which is hugely contributing to the problem in their community.


My bro says there is a very similar situation in the area of Birmingham where he lives.
Such things as unmasked, multi-generational groups crowding together in local shops.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 9, 2021)

When British travellers return from abroad, they have to pay £1,750 to quarantine, but when Dominic Cummings broke quarantine, he got a £50,000 council tax bill written off


----------



## LDC (Feb 9, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> My bro says there is a very similar situation in the area of Birmingham where he lives.
> Such things as unmasked, multi-generational groups crowding together in local shops.



Same in the area I live in, mostly Pakistani and Indian background ethnically/nationally, although a wider mix than solely that. Noticeably much lower mask wearing and social distancing. I think it's more complex than just ignoring Government advice though (although sure some of that is going on), there's a communication/language problem, as well as access to information, and where people get their news, which from my experience is largely not the UK national broadcasters.


----------



## Petcha (Feb 9, 2021)

Badgers said:


> When British travellers return from abroad, they have to pay £1,750 to quarantine, but when Dominic Cummings broke quarantine, he got a £50,000 council tax bill written off



He also got a massive pay rise. The cunt. I assume he also got quite a nice severance package.


----------



## MrSki (Feb 9, 2021)

Supine said:


> I doubt Portugal can stay on the red list without Spain for long. Covid isn't going to recognise that border.


Portugal is on the list because a lot of flights from Brazil land there & is a transit point for further travel to the rest of Europe.


----------



## Cid (Feb 9, 2021)

Supine said:


> I doubt Portugal can stay on the red list without Spain for long. Covid isn't going to recognise that border.





MrSki said:


> Portugal is on the list because a lot of flights from Brazil land there & is a transit point for further travel to the rest of Europe.



Yeah I was wondering if it was something more specific than them just having a bad outbreak (which seems to have a better trajectory than Spain) at the moment.


----------



## Petcha (Feb 9, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Same in the area I live in, mostly Pakistani and Indian background ethnically/nationally, although a wider mix than solely that. Noticeably much lower mask wearing and social distancing. I think it's more complex than just ignoring Government advice though (although sure some of that is going on), there's a communication/language problem, as well as access to information, and where people get their news, which from my experience is largely not the UK national broadcasters.



It's really sad. I've noticed a lot of the local women in particular don't speak much English, which doesn't help. Although ironically they're often better protected than their husbands as they're wearing face coverings.

I've not seen any signs up in Urdu or other languages. Just English. Which doesn't really help.


----------



## Cid (Feb 9, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Same in the area I live in, mostly Pakistani and Indian background ethnically/nationally, although a wider mix than solely that. Noticeably much lower mask wearing and social distancing. I think it's more complex than just ignoring Government advice though (although sure some of that is going on), there's a communication/language problem, as well as access to information, and where people get their news, which from my experience is largely not the UK national broadcasters.



This was raised after the first lockdown wasn't it? e.g this from Brunel.


----------



## LDC (Feb 9, 2021)

Petcha said:


> It's really sad. I've noticed a lot of the local women in particular don't speak much English, which doesn't help. Although ironically they're often better protected than their husbands as they're wearing face coverings.
> 
> I've not seen any signs up in Urdu or other languages. Just English. Which doesn't really help.



Yeah, the local council here has been totally neglectful for communicating about the pandemic with non-native English speakers in this area. Would have thought it would be reasonably easy for some multi-lingual notices/adverts and some door-to-door leaflets.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 9, 2021)

Is it plausible that language barriers are a significant factor? Is the idea that people aren't aware there's a pandemic going on, or aren't aware of broadly what the rules are supposed to be? Isn't it more about cultural stuff to do with trusting authority, health advice and so on. Not sure if that can be sorted with multilingual leaflets.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 9, 2021)

I suspect that it is a combination of at least four factors -
difficulties with different languages, 
significant cultural differences,
as well as the distrust of authority in general 
and not just with respect to ignoring advice about health matters.


----------



## smmudge (Feb 9, 2021)

Cid said:


> Red list countries are;
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Something interesting going on in the southern hemisphere then 🤔


----------



## frogwoman (Feb 9, 2021)

Why isn't the USA on that list?


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 9, 2021)

editor said:


> South African variant found in Lambeth
> 
> 
> 
> ...


yikes me and my folks are in there.


----------



## mr steev (Feb 9, 2021)

Petcha said:


> It's really sad. I've noticed a lot of the local women in particular don't speak much English, which doesn't help. Although ironically they're often better protected than their husbands as they're wearing face coverings.
> 
> I've not seen any signs up in Urdu or other languages. Just English. Which doesn't really help.



Anecdotally, that doesn't seem to be an issue here. There's plenty of mask wearing by the Indian & Pakistani communities, particularly amongst the elderly. My local Asian supermarket were giving out free masks well before it was mandated to wear them. I get a weekly LF test before I go into work at the mosque around the corner where there is signage in other languages and there always seems to be some Eastern Europeans on the desk helping with language difficulties. 
I guess it depends on what you're council are like. I've just noticed ours have translated all the info into 15 different languages on their website too (although I guess this is standard?)


----------



## Cid (Feb 9, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Why isn't the USA on that list?



I think the list is based on prevalence of new variants. It does, at first glance, look flat out racist of course, and they are Tories... But - other than our very own variant - the Brazil and SA ones do seem to be the most concerning. So countries with direct ties, or with high detected rates of those variants are the obvious ones to place on that kind of list. If you're going to make your list of restricted travel areas as small as possible.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 9, 2021)

editor said:


> South African variant found in Lambeth
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Has been in London for some time and is more widespread than surge testing areas.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> I think the list is based on prevalence of new variants. It does, at first glance, look flat out racist of course, and they are Tories... But - other than our very own variant - the Brazil and SA ones do seem to be the most concerning. So countries with direct ties, or with high detected rates of those variants are the obvious ones to place on that kind of list. If you're going to make your list of restricted travel areas as small as possible.



The problem is that we do far more sequencing of homegrown strains than other countries do, despite us also doing much sequencing for other countries.

This means that just because fewer concerning strains have been found overseas than here, doesn't mean they don't exist.

If we're not going to close the borders completely we should should probably operate with a whitelist of countries with low prevalence and adequate sequencing programs.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 10, 2021)

A little while ago on a radio news bulletin, some ***** from the travel industry was whinging that the Quarantine requirement was going to kill off any potential for resurgence in the travel sector. He seemed to prefer slightly more testing.

Now, unless my geography knowledge has evaporated, or continental drift has had a rapid shuffle, South Africa is a long way away, effectively on the other side of the world.
So, how has that SA variant got here, except through travel (by air) ?

Note also, the cases in the tennis players that flew to Australia last month ...


----------



## nagapie (Feb 10, 2021)

That's such a stupid respone. What travel industry? That boat has sailed, there is no travel industry currently, and his best chance of getting that back is eliminating the virus as quickly as possible - hence quarantine.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 10, 2021)

When the history of this is written and the inquiries completed, not closing the airports to anything other than minimal/emergency traffic will be up in the top 3 or 4 catastrophic mistakes our government has made.  Ditto not testing arrivals.


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 10, 2021)

Wilf said:


> When the history of this is written and the inquiries completed, not closing the airports to anything other than minimal/emergency traffic will be up in the top 3 or 4 catastrophic mistakes our government has made.  Ditto not testing arrivals.


I dont think many european countrues did though.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 10, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> I dont think many european countrues did though.



There fucking idiots to.

Just a robust quarantine and test system is important even if you don't shut the fuckers down


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 10, 2021)

Cid said:


> I think the list is based on prevalence of new variants. It does, at first glance, look flat out racist of course, and they are Tories... But - other than our very own variant - the Brazil and SA ones do seem to be the most concerning. So countries with direct ties, or with high detected rates of those variants are the obvious ones to place on that kind of list. If you're going to make your list of restricted travel areas as small as possible.


Its flimsy evidence re new variants though, Portugal for example is riddled with the UK variant with  litterally a handful of cases with the Brazil variant. Obviously this might change but at the time it was added to the red list it didnt have any detected cases of the Brazil one.  I can see why Porugal is on a list though as its surge ( thankfully retreating now) has been massive .


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 10, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> There fucking idiots to.
> 
> Just a robust quarantine and test system is important even if you don't shut the fuckers down



I agree with the latter sentiment. In the future I'd also back covid passports, funnily enough I think BA is trailling them even though the UK government is against them.

I'm not certain but wasnt the early SAGE advice not to shut down airports?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 10, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> I agree with the latter sentiment. In the future I'd also back covid passports, funnily enough I think BA is trailling them even though the UK government is against them.
> 
> I'm not certain but wasnt the early SAGE advice not to shut down airports?



Fuck knows but I've been railing against air travel since March


----------



## Cid (Feb 10, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The problem is that we do far more sequencing of homegrown strains than other countries do, despite us also doing much sequencing for other countries.
> 
> This means that just because fewer concerning strains have been found overseas than here, doesn't mean they don't exist.
> 
> If we're not going to close the borders completely we should should probably operate with a whitelist of countries with low prevalence and adequate sequencing programs.






The39thStep said:


> Its flimsy evidence re new variants though, Portugal for example is riddled with the UK variant with  litterally a handful of cases with the Brazil variant. Obviously this might change but at the time it was added to the red list it didnt have any detected cases of the Brazil one.  I can see why Porugal is on a list though as its surge ( thankfully retreating now) has been massive .



To be clear I am absolutely not saying the policy is ‘good’, just that that appears to be the rationale. It is, as with many things in this, probably the narrowest interpretation of advice they could get away with and still keep a veneer of ‘following the science’. Though checking up even sage were saying reactive rather than total travel bans were pointless.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 10, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> I agree with the latter sentiment. In the future I'd also back covid passports, funnily enough I think BA is trailling them even though the UK government is against them.
> 
> I'm not certain but wasnt the early SAGE advice not to shut down airports?


 Don't know, tbh, but if you ask the question 'what are the best ways to ensure the spread of the virus and open us up to potential new strains', keeping airports open is pretty high up the list.  I'd have thought by the late Summer, as cases were rising again, the government should have put plans in place to reduce air traffic to an absolute minimum.  Essentially, closing the airports, but with whatever level of flights needed to be left in place for emergency travel. Plus testing and quarantine of course. It's astonishing that they are only just getting there now, even allowing for the shitlumps we have in power.  There is a genuine balance with this as with any other bit of the pandemic management, but yet again, they've acted too late and killed people as a result.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 10, 2021)

And after allowing it for so long suddenly discovering it's important so wildly overcompensating by threatening 10 years in pokey for people who break the rules.


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 10, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Don't know, tbh, but if you ask the question 'what are the best ways to ensure the spread of the virus and open us up to potential new strains', keeping airports open is pretty high up the list.  I'd have thought by the late Summer, as cases were rising again, the government should have put plans in place to reduce air traffic to an absolute minimum.  Essentially, closing the airports, but with whatever level of flights needed to be left in place for emergency travel. Plus testing and quarantine of course. It's astonishing that they are only just getting there now, even allowing for the shitlumps we have in power.  There is a genuine balance with this as with any other bit of the pandemic management, but yet again, they've acted too late and killed people as a result.


I agree with you whole heartedly on travel restrictions. The point I'm trying to make is that if we had an inquiry it would be pointed out that our peers in Europe also failed to do that. Hinsidght a is a great thing and undoubtedly reducing flights to emergency ones may be first port of call in surges/waves of pandemics.


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 10, 2021)

two sheds said:


> And after allowing it for so long suddenly discovering it's important so wildly overcompensating by threatening 10 years in pokey for people who break the rules.


 when not one workplace has been fined for unsafe covid working practices


----------



## Wilf (Feb 10, 2021)

I think there's been a failure to use the protective principle throughout (the willingness to take decisions that are sensible measures to protect us from risk, even ahead of definitive evidence). Wearing masks in public fits into that category certainly.  I'll make the not entirely outrageous suggestion that a lot of this was about not disrupting capital in the short term.  The outcome has of course been to fuck everyone in the long term.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 10, 2021)

two sheds said:


> And after allowing it for so long suddenly discovering it's important so wildly overcompensating by threatening 10 years in pokey for people who break the rules.



That's just cackhanded signalling really isn't it. Does anyone think there will actually be any sentences anywhere near ten years given out? I doubt it. It's just trying to shout about how they're being tough now.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 10, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> That's just cackhanded signalling really isn't it. Does anyone think there will actually be any sentences anywhere near ten years given out? I doubt it. It's just trying to shout about how they're being tough now.


boris johnson visits Scotland...


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Feb 10, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> when not one workplace has been fined for unsafe covid working practices



It irritates me so much, that they haven't made asymptomatic testing compulsory, or even advisable, for workplaces that are staying open - 'safely' or otherwise - during lockdown.

Just the usual 'please wfh if you can'  & 'stay at home' whilst ignoring all the people who can't.


----------



## andysays (Feb 10, 2021)

Ms Ordinary said:


> It irritates me so much, that they haven't made asymptomatic testing compulsory, or even advisable, for workplaces that are staying open - 'safely' or otherwise - during lockdown.
> 
> Just the usual 'please wfh if you can'  & 'stay at home' whilst ignoring all the people who can't.



Asymptomatic testing has been more widely made available (although it's far from perfect anyway), but realistically it can't be made compulsory - there are various reasons why some people are reluctant to be tested and it's not something you can force on people.

But there is certainly more than can be done to enforce safer working conditions and it's telling that there appears to be no inspection of workplaces and no serious investigation carried out even in the case of high levels of workplace infection.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported figures -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now 12,646,486
> 
> ...




Today's reported figures -

First dose vaccinations now just over 13m

New cases - 13,013, overall a drop of 27.7% in the last week.

New deaths - 1,001, which is down 321 on last Wednesday's 1,322, that brings the 7-day average down to around 787 a day, a drop of 25.9% in the last week.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 10, 2021)

It appears that there's no longer a consistent increase in vaccinations per day - in other words it seems to be running at a steady rate rather than accelerating in output.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 10, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It appears that there's no longer a consistent increase in vaccinations per day - in other words it seems to be running at a steady rate rather than accelerating in output.



Hard to tell, not every nation are reporting figures daily, and the weather will have had some impact over the last few days, certainly a load of new jab centres opened this week, so hopefully numbers will start increasing again.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 10, 2021)

Johnson is to lead the Downing Street press conference today at 5pm, with Vallance.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 10, 2021)

I think restrictions in supply mean they will just about hit the 15 Feb target for vaccinating over 70s, or overshoot by a day or two. I wouldn't expect the 7-day rolling average to increase much more until March when supply should begin to increase.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 10, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It appears that there's no longer a consistent increase in vaccinations per day - in other words it seems to be running at a steady rate rather than accelerating in output.


I imagine the figures for first vaccinations may still be on an upward trend as we move into the straight age groups (larger numbers, mainly car owners, using electronic booking). But then the need for the second dose will probably serve to slow the rate when get to the 11/12 week point. 

Are all of the venues for vaccination up and running now, do your know?


----------



## IC3D (Feb 10, 2021)

My Romanian freind has said they are going to except vaccine passports from UK just coming back will be a hit
With vaccine uptake amoungst black British around 2% atm we would be looking at a divided society if they want vaccine passports here


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> My Romanian freind has said they are going to except vaccine passports from UK just coming back will be a hit
> With vaccine uptake amoungst black British around 2% atm we would be looking at a divided society if they want vaccine passports here


Not sure how VP would work with varying vaccines having differing protection against the range of variants. My total protection in the uk today may be meaningless in France next week


----------



## IC3D (Feb 10, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Not sure how VP would work with varying vaccines having differing protection against the range of variants. My total protection in the uk today may be meaningless in France next week


Every country is making up its own rules arnt they. I imagine many countries have nothing in place. Moldova are using less sick covid patients to care for the worse ones as PPE is so lacking


----------



## LDC (Feb 10, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Not sure how VP would work with varying vaccines having differing protection against the range of variants. My total protection in the uk today may be meaningless in France next week



They'd just have a list of approved vaccines I'd imagine. I think we are now highly likely to see some proof of vaccination needed for some international travel. The UK government can decide whatever it wants about them, but if another country demands proof for entry that'll be what visitors have to go with. I don't think we'll see that kind of thing for anything within the UK still though.


----------



## elbows (Feb 10, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It appears that there's no longer a consistent increase in vaccinations per day - in other words it seems to be running at a steady rate rather than accelerating in output.



What data is that based on anyway? I ask because I dont really recognise that description of past or current trends, although the following from the UK dashboard is admittedly by report date rather than vaccination date.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Feb 10, 2021)

andysays said:


> Asymptomatic testing has been more widely made available (although it's far from perfect anyway), but realistically it can't be made compulsory - there are various reasons why some people are reluctant to be tested and it's not something you can force on people.
> 
> But there is certainly more than can be done to enforce safer working conditions and it's telling that there appears to be no inspection of workplaces and no serious investigation carried out even in the case of high levels of workplace infection.



You are right, of course, that forcing compulsory testing on people who are just trying to live (not travel, not take unnecessary risks beyond needing to earn a living) would be wrong.

I guess I'd at least like to see a message to employers that they should encourage & support asymptomatic testing (and self-isolation if that resulted) if they are also requiring people to come in to work for them.

I'd hazard a guess that take-up of asymptomatic testing is relatively amongst people who are already wfh, but low amongst anyone who can't afford* to take ten days off work if they get a positive result. (*afford - not just financially, but in terms of ongoing employment.)

But I do take comfort from it being pointed out (can't recall who by) that enough workplaces have closed, to make this lockdown relatively successful - & likewise, I guess 'enough' people in each area are getting asymptomatic testing to flag up general increases.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> What data is that based on anyway? I ask because I dont really recognise that description of past or current trends, although the following from the UK dashboard is admittedly by report date rather than vaccination date.
> 
> View attachment 253669


I suppose I would be looking at the 7-day average line on that graph. But it could well be that the next three day's numbers change that.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 10, 2021)

There appears to be a weekly cycle in the vaccination numbers, with the "Sunday" total a low and a peak on "Saturday" (assuming the reports are for the day before the report is made.

The weekly average is running at around 2.5 million ...

I'm of the opinion that weather and vaccine supplies permitting the UK's NHS will achieve their 15 million first jabs by 15th February target.
Whether that total is 100% of the top four cohorts, or includes a few people from lower groups is largely unimportant.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 10, 2021)

Good to see the WHO has come out in support of the Oxford vaccine for the over 65's, and has now confirmed a gap of between 8 & 12 weeks between doses is best.



> *The scientific advisers also said giving two doses eight-12 weeks apart increased the vaccine's effectiveness and provided greater protection.*
> 
> Initially, the WHO had recommended a gap of up to six weeks between doses, only in exceptional circumstances.











						Covid: WHO backs Oxford vaccine 'even if variants present'
					

Its use in people over 65 as well as in countries where variants are circulating is recommended.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## andysays (Feb 10, 2021)

Ms Ordinary said:


> You are right, of course, that forcing compulsory testing on people who are just trying to live (not travel, not take unnecessary risks beyond needing to earn a living) would be wrong.
> 
> I guess I'd at least like to see a message to employers that they should encourage & support asymptomatic testing (and self-isolation if that resulted) if they are also requiring people to come in to work for them.
> 
> ...


Agreed. 

I'd just add *paid* self isolation to what you written.

My employer has been pretty good about sending home on full pay clinical vulnerable people who need to shield and can't work from home, encouraging people to get tested, and paying those who need to isolate as a result, but all that only applies to actual members of staff, not those working through an employment agency, which is still a significant number.


----------



## andysays (Feb 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Good to see the WHO has come out in support of the Oxford vaccine for the over 65's, and has now confirmed a gap of 8 & 12 weeks between doses is best.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Was just about to post that.

Unfortunately, the UK government seem to want to push things beyond "a gap of 8 to 12 weeks", to something like "at least 12 weeks, and probably significantly longer in many cases"


----------



## Cloo (Feb 10, 2021)

Well, according to BBC, my local area's infection levels are almost down the the national average per 100,000.  Which is something I suppose.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 10, 2021)

andysays said:


> Was just about to post that.
> 
> Unfortunately, the UK government seem to want to push things beyond "a gap of 8 to 12 weeks", to something like "at least 12 weeks, and probably significantly longer in many cases"



Do they? 

I've not seen anything about pushing it beyond 12 weeks, certainly the few people I know that got their first jab at the end of Dec., have their second appointments confirmed for early March.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 10, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Some regional actions on the vaccine take-up disparity fears (just a couple of links I found ...)
> 
> a)   Clinics urge South Asian community to take up vaccine - BBC News
> 
> b)  Covid-19: Breaking down Asian vaccine myths in Lancashire - BBC News


My understanding is that counter terrorism is investigating right wing misinformation.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 10, 2021)

andysays said:


> Was just about to post that.
> 
> Unfortunately, the UK government seem to want to push things beyond "a gap of 8 to 12 weeks", to something like "at least 12 weeks, and probably significantly longer in many cases"




The problem with serial gamblers is they never quite know when to stop.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 10, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> The problem with serial gamblers is they never quite know when to stop.


The problem is not that they don't know when to stop but that they continue starting. It's the first bet that starts the whole sorry mess again.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 10, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> The problem is not that they don't know when to stop but that they continue starting. It's the first bet that starts the whole sorry mess again.



Man 1066 has such a lot to answer for.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 10, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Man 1066 has such a lot to answer for.


Man 1066 hasn't been seen since he absconded


----------



## Badgers (Feb 10, 2021)




----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 10, 2021)

Badgers said:


>



I've been telling everyone fibs today about coming back from Portugal but no one seemed to give a fig

So it's not really about lying either


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 10, 2021)

Badgers said:


>




That's all well & good, but Botswana isn't testing much, and besides it's not about number cases per se, it's about the potentially more dangerous variants, which is clearly the 'South African' one in their case.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's all well & good, but Botswana isn't testing much, and besides it's not about number cases per se, it's about the potentially more dangerous variants, which is clearly the 'South African' one in their case.



I've got a bridge I can sell you.


----------



## Spandex (Feb 10, 2021)

Badgers said:


>



I just checked Botswana's figures. They only report figures every three to five days. The current 7 day average is 316 new cases per day, but on the days they don't report the reported cases are obviously zero.


----------



## maomao (Feb 10, 2021)

Spandex said:


> I just checked Botswana's figures. They only report figures every three to five days. The current 7 day average is 316 new cases per day, but on the days they don't report the reported cases are obviously zero.


And UK population is 29 times the size of theirs so that's equivalent to over 9,000 cases a day per capita.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 10, 2021)

maomao said:


> And UK population is 29 times the size of theirs so that's equivalent to over 9,000 cases a day per capita.



And, they are not testing anywhere near the levels of the UK & US, and if you're not looking, you're not finding.


----------



## editor (Feb 10, 2021)




----------



## Wilf (Feb 11, 2021)

editor said:


>



Might have worked better if the pair of them had actually had the vaccine on screen.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 11, 2021)

World beating!!!!!


> The Covid variant first found in Kent is set to become the world's dominant strain, the head of the UK's genetic surveillance programme has predicted.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 11, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> World beating!!!!!





> The Covid variant first found in Kent is set to become the world's dominant strain, the head of the UK's genetic surveillance programme has predicted.



At least vaccines seem to work just as effectively  (?)  against _that_ variant, as opposed to against the South African variant </clutches straws ....  >


----------



## andysays (Feb 11, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> At least vaccines seem to work just as effectively  (?)  against _that_ variant, as opposed to against the South African variant </clutches straws ....  >


As I understand it, it hasn't been proved that existing vaccines don't work with the SA variant (which isn't of course the same as proving that they do).

The WHO is still advising use of existing vaccines, even if the SA variant is a likely to be a factor.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 11, 2021)

Covid: Prisoners like 'caged animals' in lockdown jails



> Inspectors also highlighted the issue of "doubling up", where two prisoners share a cell designed for one.
> In lockdown, prisoners have to eat their meals in cells that sometimes have unscreened or uncovered toilets.
> "You can hate someone for no reason, can't you? Being in the cell with them every day," said one prisoner, who shared.


Which from experience is definitely true.


----------



## editor (Feb 11, 2021)

Anyone know anything about this lot? Medic Cities – UK Online Medical Market Place | PCR Testing

I was sent a release saying about their amazeballs testing abilities but it was light on detail.


----------



## LDC (Feb 11, 2021)

editor said:


> Anyone know anything about this lot? Medic Cities – UK Online Medical Market Place | PCR Testing
> 
> I was sent a release saying about their amazeballs testing abilities but it was light on detail.



They lost me at 'we need to re-open today' vibe. Just a money grabbing private company pretending to be doing it for the common good.


----------



## Supine (Feb 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They lost me at 'we need to re-open today' vibe. Just a money grabbing private company pretending to be doing it for the common good.



The only question is... Which Tory MP owns them.


----------



## xenon (Feb 11, 2021)

maomao said:


> And UK population is 29 times the size of theirs so that's equivalent to over 9,000 cases a day per capita.



sounds about right. Judging by my Zimbabwean mate, who I spoke to the other day. he lives over here but he’s obviously in touch with friends and family. Things are bad there too. Lots of people work in South Africa and went home for Christmas, Family gatherins. Virus everywhere. Hospital s literally full. sick people having to be left at home.


----------



## editor (Feb 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They lost me at 'we need to re-open today' vibe. Just a money grabbing private company pretending to be doing it for the common good.


Yep. The 'visionary entrepreneur' London Mayor candidate Farah London has done some sort of deal to endorse them. T... A... C.. K... Y


----------



## Supine (Feb 11, 2021)

Supine said:


> The only question is... Which Tory MP owns them.



From a look on companies House website medicities was setup in Jan and the guy also owns an urban planning and landscaping business. Make of that what you will.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported figures -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 13m
> 
> ...



Today's reported figures -

First dose vaccinations now just over 13.5m

New cases - 13,494 from over 760k tests yesterday, overall a drop of 28.6% in the last week.

New deaths - 678, which is down 237 on last Thursday's 915, that brings the 7-day average down to around 754 a day, a drop of 25.9% in the last week.


----------



## BCBlues (Feb 11, 2021)

Supine said:


> From a look on companies House website medicities was setup in Jan and the guy also owns an urban planning and landscaping business. Make of that what you will.



Expect to see Trumps lawyers doing their next briefing on the car park there


----------



## editor (Feb 11, 2021)

It's been posted before but this site is always good for interactive stats 











						COVID-19 Data Explorer
					

Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems




					ourworldindata.org


----------



## LDC (Feb 12, 2021)

The quarantine hotel stuff seems to be another half-arsed project. No daily testing for staff, not the higher quality PPE for staff, people allowed out for smoking and fresh air (reasonable, but has been identified as a route for transmission in Australia), and security staff not exclusively working at the hotels (shift there, shift at supermarket, etc.)

Someone involved in the quarantine hotels in Australia was interviewed on Radio 4 this morning and he was slightly incredulous the UK was doing it this way.

Also the figure I've heard is 21,000 people entering the UK every day. Like wtaf are they coming back from, can't all be essential work abroad?


----------



## Cerv (Feb 12, 2021)

how much would it really cost to buy a bulk order of vapes and tell them no fag breaks?


----------



## ska invita (Feb 12, 2021)

Here comes Herd Immunity as Open Government Policy





__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com
				




 UK scientists call for debate on allowing ‘big wave of infection’ Advisers to government warn of national discussion after most vulnerable are vaccinated Scientists say the UK needs to have a national discussion on whether a wave of infection should be allowed to take place once all the over 50s have been vaccinated

 UK scientific advisers have questioned whether a “big wave of infection” should be allowed to flow through the country’s population once the most vulnerable groups in society have been vaccinated against coronavirus, in comments which may reopen the contentious debate around herd immunity. With prime minister Boris Johnson preparing to set out the road map for lifting England’s Covid-19 lockdown on February 22, the scientists have warned a national discussion will soon be needed on the level of risk people are prepared to accept from the virus in the future. 

“There will be a massive debate about whether we should allow a big wave of infection once we’ve vaccinated all the over 50s,” one influential member of the government’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M) told the FT. “Are we going to aim for low prevalence or accept high prevalence for a period?” “It boils down to what we, as a society, are prepared to accept,” added Mike Tildesley, an academic at the University of Warwick and also a member of SPI-M. 

“We see waves of seasonal influenza and we don’t lockdown every winter, we accept a level of risk. “It’s possible you could run hot in terms of cases, and low in terms of number of hospitalisations and deaths,” he added, noting that having a high R number — which indicates the rate of transmission of the virus — would not necessarily be a bad thing if hospitalisations are low. 

The scientists’ comments come as the Covid Recovery Group of 50-plus Tory MPs who are sceptical of lockdowns urge Johnson to set out a road map for exiting the restrictions soon, with some forecasting a “battle royal” between Conservative MPs and the government. Recommended Anjana Ahuja Vaccines have been oversold as the pandemic exit strategy Steve Baker, vice-chair of the CRG, accused some scientists of “failing to recognise their power to spread despair and despondency”.

 He added: “Some seem to be floating untested hypotheses in the media. Doing so is not science. It is the death of science. Perhaps worse, it brings scientists squarely into the political domain, something we would I am sure all like to avoid.” Mark Harper, chair of the group, urged the government to stick to its schedule to reopen the economy. 

He said: “It’s crucial we don’t backslide on this, not least because the government has said it wants to give schools two weeks notice before they open, and — as the PM said — it is the ‘settled will’ of most MPs that pupils should be back in school on 8 March.” Prof Tildesley cautioned however that if only 10 per cent of the population are left unprotected by the vaccine — in an optimistic scenario — that still leaves millions of people exposed to severe outcomes, including a protracted form of the illness, known as Long-Covid. 

The scientific advisers noted that another important factor in the debate is whether the UK should ship vaccine supplies to other countries struggling to inoculate their most vulnerable populations, once all over 50s have received a jab. “If we start vaccinating the young, at that point we will be depriving other people,” said one member of SPI-M. “Global equity is going to become a bigger issue,” added Graham Medley, professor of infectious disease modelling and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). “All public health experts would like vaccination to be used to improve global health rather than focus on individual countries.” 

---


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 12, 2021)

I tend to respect the majority of FT articles that I get to see, but that one above is a complete mess, absolutely riddled with inconsistencies!

And as for this from Mike Tildesley, Universityof Warwick**, talking about after all over-50s have been vaccinated :

[**so what are *his* credentials, then?  ]




			
				Financial Times said:
			
		

> “We see waves of seasonal influenza and we don’t lockdown every winter, we accept a level of risk. “It’s possible you could run hot in terms of cases, and low in terms of number of hospitalisations and deaths,” he added, noting that having a high R number — which indicates the rate of transmission of the virus — would not necessarily be a bad thing if hospitalisations are low.



You what, you what, you what???  

And as for those CRG Tories......  x 10,000


----------



## souljacker (Feb 12, 2021)

ska invita said:


> with some forecasting a “battle royal” between Conservative MPs and the government.



I'd support this. A fight to the death. Last man standing wins a chicken dinner. A couple of tories are ex-SAS so it would be an interesting fight. Johnson would probably be out early thankfully but Patel could be a contender because she'd be the most evil person out there. I reckon she could be in the final 10 due to being incredibly devious.


----------



## ska invita (Feb 12, 2021)

As someone currently under 50 years old and out of action with medium-long-covid i do think it could have a much bigger effect than the flu analogy 

Also if allowed to spread that just means more mutations, more mutations means vaccines won't work, and there's a chance (what odds i don't know) the whole thing could unravel fast.

Seems like a big fight coming up


----------



## existentialist (Feb 12, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I'd support this. A fight to the death. Last man standing wins a chicken dinner. A couple of tories are ex-SAS so it would be an interesting fight. Johnson would probably be out early thankfully but Patel could be a contender because she'd be the most evil person out there. I reckon she could be in the final 10 due to being incredibly devious.


She'd just go round puncturing insteps with a spiky heel, and pinching people in painful places to shit them up first.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 12, 2021)

ska invita said:


> As someone currently under 50 years old and out of action with medium-long-covid i do think it could have a much bigger effect than the flu analogy
> 
> Also if allowed to spread that just means more mutations, more mutations means vaccines won't work, and there's a chance (what odds i don't know) the whole thing could unravel fast.
> 
> Seems like a big fight coming up



In terms of scientific validity, that's not worthy of the name of a 'fight' at all is it? 

These Tories are crazy ...


----------



## muscovyduck (Feb 12, 2021)

I think a lot of us knew something like this was coming. I know I was but I was trying not to think about it. Ugh


----------



## Supine (Feb 12, 2021)




----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 12, 2021)

existentialist said:


> She'd just go round puncturing insteps with a spiky heel, and pinching people in painful places to shit them up first.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 12, 2021)

FFS !
Someone needs to puncture the CRG's herd immunity balloon. 
Load of Tory covidiots.
[I was going to call the CRG a load of wankers, but that assumes that they could do something and bring it to a successful conclusion]


----------



## chilango (Feb 12, 2021)

I don't know if this has been posted yet but a BMJ editorial us calling the Government response "social murder".









						Covid-19: Social murder, they wrote—elected, unaccountable, and unrepentant
					

After two million deaths, we must have redress for mishandling the pandemic  Murder is an emotive word. In law, it requires premeditation. Death must be deemed to be unlawful. How could “murder” apply to failures of a pandemic response? Perhaps it can’t, and never will, but it is worth...




					www.bmj.com


----------



## LDC (Feb 12, 2021)

chilango said:


> I don't know if this has been posted yet but a BMJ editorial us calling the Government response "social murder".
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It was covered on the BBC news last few days that 6 out of every 10 deaths from covid were people with disabilities. Shocking statistic.









						Covid: Disabled people account for six in 10 deaths in England last year - ONS
					

New data suggests disabled people account for nearly 60% of coronavirus deaths in England last year.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Feb 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It was covered on the BBC news last few days that 6 out of every 10 deaths from covid were people with disabilities. Shocking statistic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That would fit right in with the views of quite a lot of the tory party.


----------



## elbows (Feb 12, 2021)

ska invita said:


> The scientific advisers noted that another important factor in the debate is whether the UK should ship vaccine supplies to other countries struggling to inoculate their most vulnerable populations, once all over 50s have received a jab. “If we start vaccinating the young, at that point we will be depriving other people,” said one member of SPI-M. “Global equity is going to become a bigger issue,” added Graham Medley, professor of infectious disease modelling and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). “All public health experts would like vaccination to be used to improve global health rather than focus on individual countries.”



In the last month or so I have discovered that I am much less inclined to discuss pandemic detail here unless I see a proper debate about this bit.


----------



## elbows (Feb 12, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Seems like a big fight coming up



The shit heap that is the rebranded Brexit party would also like to make political capital out of this.









						Nigel Farage's anti-lockdown party: Future force or busted flush?
					

Nigel Farage is hoping lockdown sceptics will rally behind Reform UK - successor to the Brexit Party.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Feb 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> The shit heap that is the rebranded Brexit party would also like to make political capital out of this.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Doesn't seem like a great long term plan to base a party on something that will (hopefully) be a non-issue in a year or so.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Doesn't seem like a great long term plan to base a party on something that will (hopefully) be a non-issue in a year or so.


But that fits his modus operandi very well - whip up ignorant fervour about something, then make capital (politically or otherwise) on the back of it.


----------



## killer b (Feb 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Doesn't seem like a great long term plan to base a party on something that will (hopefully) be a non-issue in a year or so.


It's leveraging a current issue rather than any long term strategy. Easy to shift to taking a more general libertarian / free speech angle post-pandemic, and hopefully take a lot of the lockdown sceptic types with you.


----------



## LDC (Feb 12, 2021)

Yeah to both the above, just momentarily thought he might have some worked out political strategy rather than a continual desperate attempt to grasp attention and stir up shit.


----------



## elbows (Feb 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Doesn't seem like a great long term plan to base a party on something that will (hopefully) be a non-issue in a year or so.



Well I'm not predicting massive success since I agree with this bit of a Goodwin quote in that article:



> Anti-lockdown opinion is not strong enough in this country for an anti-lockdown party. The vast majority of us agree with the lockdowns.


----------



## killer b (Feb 12, 2021)

His aim is to convert this political constituency that's been brought into view by the pandemic into an electoral force - whether that's possible remains to be seen, but I don't think you can really look at the last couple of decades of British politics and imagine Farage as a man who's long term aims haven't been achieved. Maybe it's because he got lucky rather than because he's a master strategist, but either way I wouldn't underestimate him.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 12, 2021)

killer b said:


> His aim is to convert this political constituency that's been brought into view by the pandemic into an electoral force - whether that's possible remains to be seen, but I don't think you can really look at the last couple of decades of British politics and imagine Farage as a man who's long term aims haven't been achieved. Maybe it's because he got lucky rather than because he's a master strategist, but either way I wouldn't underestimate him.



Yeah I agree with that.

I don't know if there's a new political constituency though is there? I think with UKIP they managed to appeal to some working class voters in neglected areas but also a lot of rather better off but furious nonetheless voters in the home counties and similar areas. My guess here is that this is more the second group just with something slightly newer to rage at.


----------



## killer b (Feb 12, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Yeah I agree with that.
> 
> I don't know if there's a new political constituency though is there? I think with UKIP they managed to appeal to some working class voters in neglected areas but also a lot of rather better off but furious nonetheless voters in the home counties and similar areas. My guess here is that this is more the second group just with something slightly newer to rage at.


My finger in the air has a shitload of working class people - especially self employed, or small business owners / sole traders - are deep into the lockdown scepticism. At least partly because they've not been able to make a living for a year.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 12, 2021)

killer b said:


> working class people - especially self employed, or small business owners / sole traders



I can hear the rumble of the politics forum big beasts heading this way now.   

You might be right - it is definitely finger in the air stuff. I'm thinking the sort of person who would actually identify with it enough to engage with Farage, so a level above just being sceptical, is more furious of Dorking than disillusioned red wall voter but it's pretty speculative.


----------



## Brainaddict (Feb 12, 2021)

I can imagine farage's party swivelling to general culture war shit once the lockdown is over, battling bravely against the forces of wokeness. What an enormous turd he is, and what a sad indictment of British culture that there are so many people who've been prepared to take him seriously over the years.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 12, 2021)

It all poses the question of 'where's Labour', or even more so, where's the left?  The populist right is much better placed to have some kind of post-pandemic dialogue with parts of the working class than Labour are.


----------



## Spandex (Feb 12, 2021)

Wilf said:


> It all poses the question of 'where's Labour',


Busy purging the left.



Wilf said:


> even more so, where's the left?


The Labour left are busy being purged.

The conspriracist left is busy on Facebook moaning about masks, lockdown and vaccines.

The rest of the left are busy asking each other _where now for the left?_

Meanwhile, the working class are busy working to keep the middle class happy while they're in lockdown.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported figures -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 13.5m
> 
> ...



Today's reported figures -

First dose vaccinations now just over 14m

New cases - 15,144, overall a drop of 26.3% in the last week.

New deaths - 758, which is down 283 on last Friday's 1041, that brings the 7-day average down to around 714 a day, a drop of 27.1% in the last week.

Long way to go still, but everything is moving in the right direction.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 12, 2021)

Something that's confusing me a little about the stats: 

They're reporting today that the R number is below 1 for the first time since July. As I understand it R>1, numbers go up, R<1, numbers go down. However numbers seem to have been falling for the last few weeks, so I'm curious as to how that aligns with R only now being below 1? Just a lag in different numbers being used for calculations? The confidence interval? Or my simple understanding above isn't right?


----------



## elbows (Feb 12, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Something that's confusing me a little about the stats:
> 
> They're reporting today that the R number is below 1 for the first time since July. As I understand it R>1, numbers go up, R<1, numbers go down. However numbers seem to have been falling for the last few weeks, so I'm curious as to how that aligns with R only now being below 1? Just a lag in different numbers being used for calculations? The confidence interval? Or my simple understanding above isn't right?



Combination of the nature of their estimates involving ranges, and certain surveillance methods being rather laggy, and a deliberate degree of caution about how and when the peak and what came next has been reported. For example many of todays headlines about cases falling are based on the ONS infection survey, which was even more laggy than I had expected it would be at detecting consistent falls in the level of community infections once we were past the peak. If we rely on the number of positive tests via the standard testing system, cases have been falling for a month, but I dont think the ONS study was confident about that till a week ago.

The BBC have a graphic which probably shows the R range stuff quite well.


From Covid: Virus cases are going down across the UK


----------



## editor (Feb 12, 2021)

A break of sunlight in the gloom



> The reproduction number, or R value, of coronavirus has fallen below one for the first time since July and is estimated to be between 0.7 and 0.9 across the UK.
> 
> In a sign that lockdown restrictions may be having an impact and the epidemic is shrinking, scientists advising the government gave their most optimistic outlook for the R number since cases fell last summer.
> 
> The estimates for R and the growth rate are provided by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage). The growth rate, which estimates how quickly the number of infections is changing day by day, is between -5% and -2% for the UK as a whole.













						Coronavirus R number falls below 1 in UK for first time since July
					

Reproduction number estimated to be between 0.7 and 0.9, suggesting epidemic is shrinking




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Feb 12, 2021)

The other thing I'd say is that I dont find their R estimates to be a very impressive guide as to quite how bad people should have expected things to get. Especially if people look at those numbers without considering the existing level of infection at that stage.

For example the R estimates in that BBC graph for December and January dont look as scary as the September ones. But the September-October rates lead to deaths in the 400-500 per day range in November->mid December. The later rise lead to well over 1000 deaths per day for a large chunk of January. Presumably this is not because their R estimates were total shit, but rather because the impact of R depends on a combination of R and the levels of infection already present - the later part of the wave was growing from an already high starting point, so we had a very nasty peak indeed.


----------



## elbows (Feb 12, 2021)

Daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for England are back to the same sort of level that things peaked at during the November 'not a very impressive lockdown because schools etc are open' measures. I will make happier noises if they come down a lot more in future.


Using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## LDC (Feb 12, 2021)

Just chatted to the 17 year old here, two of her friends from school have flown to Pakistan today! Both in their last year at sixth form and over 18, and it's half term week coming up, so they flew out for a break! WTF, is that even allowed? Isn't it illegal to leave the country atm?

And the new rules come in on Monday, she thinks they won't have a clue about that and all the testing and quarantining they have to do. (I would doubt it was true but she showed me their social media of them on an empty plane!) And what the actual fuck were the parents thinking?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 12, 2021)

editor said:


> A break of sunlight in the gloom
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Since July. Shit. And no lockdown until _November_. I was watching this all happen in real time and I still don't believe it happened


----------



## Supine (Feb 13, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Feb 13, 2021)

Covid: We could live with virus 'like we do flu' by end of year, says Hancock
					

But scientists warn against treating coronavirus like the flu, with mutations getting "more dangerous".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Mr Hancock's comments suggest he is ruling out a "zero Covid" strategy, aimed at eliminating the virus entirely from the UK.



No shit Sherlock. I suppose there have been a couple of times during the pandemic where some small aspects of the rhetoric could have given some people a little room to believe that zero covid was an approach the government might take, but there was never anything of substance, just some superficial lip-service to some of the ideas behind such an approach. As such I highly doubt that it would be easy to find anyone who really believed the government would go down that route. My opinion remains that only a catastrophic failure of their chosen approach would lead to a rethink, and although there may be some setbacks in future it is still hard to imagine the destruction of conventional wisdom about how pandemics end. I wont spend years driving myself nuts about it so long as we do reach a point where the stakes are not so high. Our entire attitude towards pandemics is based on the burden they inflict, if all the parameters are changed then I will move with the reality. I'm not wedded to one pure, ideal approach, and the time when that could have done the most good is probably well in the past now. Should the reality go in a different direction, ie should the exit strategy fail, then I would be quite willing to nail myself to a zero covid mast, but this doesnt currently sound like the most likely outcome.


----------



## teqniq (Feb 13, 2021)

Apologies if already posted, quite something when the BMJ publishes something like this:









						Covid-19: Social murder, they wrote—elected, unaccountable, and unrepentant
					

After two million deaths, we must have redress for mishandling the pandemic  Murder is an emotive word. In law, it requires premeditation. Death must be deemed to be unlawful. How could “murder” apply to failures of a pandemic response? Perhaps it can’t, and never will, but it is worth...




					www.bmj.com


----------



## teuchter (Feb 13, 2021)

Only the third time I think.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 13, 2021)

*Ending the lockdown*
Clearly, we can't go on in lockdown indefinitely.
When do we start unlocking the country?  What are the statistics you want to see to open up the country again?

Boris Johnson is announcing the Governments strategy on the 22nd.    Given his incompetence, I was really nervous about anything he does, but given the numbers.  Maybe something in April? 

Thoughts?


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 13, 2021)

Probably somewhere near the end of this year


----------



## souljacker (Feb 13, 2021)

Sunray said:


> *Ending the lockdown*
> Clearly, we can't go on in lockdown indefinitely.
> When do we start unlocking the country?  What are the statistics you want to see to open up the country again?
> 
> ...



There is a story doing the rounds that suggested schools back in early March, shops reopen in mid march, pubs on 2nd April. Sounds a bit quick if you ask me. We aren't going to know the effects of opening schools that quickly.


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2021)

souljacker said:


> ....pubs on 2nd April


Selfishly I'd be all over that as it means I can have a non shit birthday this year, but I'd be really amazed if pubs are back open by then - and if they are I'll imagine it'll be an all-seater, table service, bubble-tastic 'bistro' experience.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 13, 2021)

Sunray said:
			
		

> *Ending the lockdown*
> Clearly, we can't go on in lockdown indefinitely.
> When do we start unlocking the country?  What are the statistics you want to see to open up the country again?
> 
> ...



Surely somewhat later than then?



Orang Utan said:


> Probably somewhere *near the end of this year*



Surely somewhat earlier than then?

I'd take an evens bet on somewhere inbetween those two!


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 13, 2021)

souljacker said:
			
		

> ....pubs on 2nd April





editor said:


> Selfishly I'd be all over that as it means I can have a non shit birthday this year, but I'd be really amazed if pubs are back open by then - and if they are I'll imagine it'll be an all-seater, table service, bubble-tastic 'bistro' experience.



I agree that 2nd April looks like almost an impossibility. but even if they re-open in May or June, those restrictions will still be there.

(One of my friends in the trade predicts early May Bank Holiday weekend or nearby to then).

At least the weather's likely to be nice enough for outside pubbing by May or June


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 13, 2021)

Mixed feelings about this tbh.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 13, 2021)

The topography of the Teddington area has changed a bit since I was last there.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 13, 2021)

WTF: New ‘do not resuscitate’ orders imposed on Covid-19 patients with learning difficulties


----------



## baldrick (Feb 13, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> My bro says there is a very similar situation in the area of Birmingham where he lives.
> Such things as unmasked, multi-generational groups crowding together in local shops.


I live in Handsworth and almost everyone I see in the shops has a mask on, and a good proportion of people walking on the street. I think we ought to be a bit more discerning when we talk about this stuff tbh.


----------



## teqniq (Feb 13, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> WTF: New ‘do not resuscitate’ orders imposed on Covid-19 patients with learning difficulties


Eugenics, anyone?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported figures -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 14m
> 
> ...



Things continue to move in the right direction, today's reported figures -

First dose vaccinations now just over 14.5m

New cases - 13,308, overall a drop of 27.3% in the last week.

New deaths - 621, which is down 207 on last Saturday's 828, that brings the 7-day average down to around 689 a day, a drop of 26.1% in the last week.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Things continue to move in the right direction, today's reported figures -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 14.5m
> 
> ...


Don't worry, Johnson will yet prove worldbeating in his own inimitable style


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Things continue to move in the right direction, today's reported figures -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 14.5m
> 
> ...


With the numbers dropping as they are, it's going to be interesting to see what the government do next to fuck things up. I'm sure Hancock and Johnson are working hard to come up with something that'll get those numbers rising again.


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> With the numbers dropping as they are, it's going to be interesting to see what the government do next to fuck things up. I'm sure Hancock and Johnson are working hard to come up with something that'll get those numbers rising again.


I'm sure they'll devise ways to unsquash the sombrero soon.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 13, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> With the numbers dropping as they are, it's going to be interesting to see what the government do next to fuck things up. I'm sure Hancock and Johnson are working hard to come up with something that'll get those numbers rising again.


Well that's easy, they'll just lift lockdown too early again and expect that vaccination is going to make up for it.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 13, 2021)

editor said:


> Selfishly I'd be all over that as it means I can have a non shit birthday this year, but I'd be really amazed if pubs are back open by then - and if they are I'll imagine it'll be an all-seater, table service, bubble-tastic 'bistro' experience.



I think it depends on how the hospitals are faring.  Admissions are still happening but given fewer people are getting sick, the numbers will be going down. Places like the Royal London will be in a position to stop using operating theatres as ICU, every floor as COVID wards and staff can start having breaks. 

This is the point we can have the 'Can we stand outside a pub with a few friends?' conversation.


----------



## baldrick (Feb 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> In the last month or so I have discovered that I am much less inclined to discuss pandemic detail here unless I see a proper debate about this bit.


I was saying that the other day. We can't talk about the pandemic ending in this country without it becoming under control everywhere else too otherwise it's just going to be a cycle of lockdowns, mutations, reinfections. Isn't it?


----------



## editor (Feb 13, 2021)

Sunray said:


> This is the point we can have the 'Can we stand outside a pub with a few friends?' conversation.


I dream of such things.

My ex girlfriend is in Sardinia and there they can move up or down a tier on a weekly basis. The current one means that bars are open till 6pm but there's a curfew at 10pm. A limited number of people can meet each other and visit each other's homes. But if you stray outside the rules you'll get an insta-slapdown, guaranteed (e.g. she had her mask off for a few moments in public when they were at a higher tier and was hit with a €400 fine).

Harsh, but I'd take that right now.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 13, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Well that's easy, they'll just lift lockdown too early again and expect that vaccination is going to make up for it.


I think most government departments will be working in cohesion to ensure that a full and world beating third wave is in affect by August.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 13, 2021)

Surely the vacinne is going to really start to show in say may, June. Surely? 

Surely? Gulp.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 13, 2021)

Honestly it's like we are all in prison. Freedom is hardly the option of popping to fucking sainsburys it? Whrn all a human being can do is go for a day out at Lidl it might as well be prison.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 13, 2021)

baldrick said:


> I live in Handsworth and almost everyone I see in the shops has a mask on, and a good proportion of people walking on the street. I think we ought to be a bit more discerning when we talk about this stuff tbh.


I checked with my bro just a few days ago, the situation he described has continued to occur throughout the past year - that is, almost no change to their normal behaviour.  Yes, there are some masks / gloves in view, but nothing like universally worn in the shops and he is still seeing multi-generational family groups in those same shops.


----------



## baldrick (Feb 13, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I checked with my bro just a few days ago, the situation he described has continued to occur throughout the past year - that is, almost no change to their normal behaviour.  Yes, there are some masks / gloves in view, but nothing like universally worn in the shops and he is still seeing multi-generational family groups in those same shops.


Where does he live though?


----------



## Sunray (Feb 13, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Surely the vacinne is going to really start to show in say may, June. Surely?
> 
> Surely? Gulp.



I'm unsure we will notice the current groups as most of the people eligible for vaccines so far were all at home in fear of their lives.  My Mum was.  If you don't leave the house you're not going to catch anything.  My mum and her friends will notice as they can now see each other again. Can't easily count people not getting sick so will not effect the numbers in any meaningful way.

The 16-65 vulnerable group is the one I think we will notice having a measurable effect.


----------



## Supine (Feb 13, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Surely the vacinne is going to really start to show in say may, June. Surely?
> 
> Surely? Gulp.



Not for the majority of those who are spreading the disease. The younger key workers. People who probably won't be vaccinated until later in the year.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 13, 2021)

baldrick said:


> Where does he live though?


Somewhere fairly inner city, the area is quite densely populated.


----------



## baldrick (Feb 13, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Somewhere fairly inner city, the area is quite densely populated.


I do get quite defensive about people saying stuff like this. 'Inner city' covers a massive area. I live in the inner city but I wouldn't say what I see here is representative of other inner city areas, because I don't know. It all contributes to the sense that the problem is these other people, who aren't like us.


----------



## Mation (Feb 13, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Honestly it's like we are all in prison.


Pretty sure people in prison would strongly disagree with you.

But we are unusually restricted, for sure.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 13, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Honestly it's like we are all in prison. Freedom is hardly the option of popping to fucking sainsburys it? Whrn all a human being can do is go for a day out at Lidl it might as well be prison.


agreeing with the post above and I did post a link to an article about the prisonners current situation: 
mostly 22.5 hours locked in a cell since this started.
Some of them doubled up in a single cell.
We still have the option of going for a walk around the block/to the park if we need/want to, they don't.
And loads of staff having to go in isolation exarcerbating the problems.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 13, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> agreeing with the post above and I did post a link to an article about the prisonners current situation:
> mostly 22.5 hours locked in a cell since this started.
> Some of them doubled up in a single cell.
> We still have the option of going for a walk around the block/to the park if we need/want to, they don't.
> And loads of staff having to go in isolation exarcerbating the problems.


yes, i know. fair point. just feeling trapped mentally. of course it is not the same.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 13, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> yes, i know. fair point. just feeling trapped mentally. of course it is not the same.


Fully understand and didn'tmean to have a go
Look after yourself.


----------



## ice-is-forming (Feb 14, 2021)

Not for resuscitation!   

_People with learning disabilities have been given do not resuscitate orders during the second wave of the pandemic, in spite of widespread condemnation of the practice last year and an urgent investigation by the care watchdog_

_NHS figures released last week show that in the five weeks since the third lockdown began, Covid-19 accounted for 65% of deaths of people with learning disabilities. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the rate for the general population was 39%, although the two statistics are drawn from different measurements_









						Fury at ‘do not resuscitate’ notices given to Covid patients with learning disabilities
					

Vulnerable people have encountered ‘shocking discrimination’ during pandemic, says Mencap charity




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Badgers (Feb 14, 2021)

__





						Fury at ‘do not resuscitate’ notices given to Covid patients with learning disabilities | Coronavirus | The Guardian
					

Vulnerable people have encountered ‘shocking discrimination’ during pandemic, says Mencap charity




					amp.theguardian.com
				






> People with learning disabilities have been given do not resuscitate orders during the second wave of the pandemic, in spite of widespread condemnation of the practice last year and an urgent investigation by the care watchdog.
> 
> Mencap said it had received reports in January from people with learning disabilities that they had been told they would not be resuscitated if they were taken ill with Covid-19.


----------



## teqniq (Feb 14, 2021)

Why am i not surprised?









						'High-value' business travellers to be exempt from quarantine in England
					

From Saturday some performing arts professionals, TV staff and elite sportspersons will also be exempt




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 14, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Why am i not surprised?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Because you first heard about this back in December when the article was written?


----------



## elbows (Feb 14, 2021)

baldrick said:


> I was saying that the other day. We can't talk about the pandemic ending in this country without it becoming under control everywhere else too otherwise it's just going to be a cycle of lockdowns, mutations, reinfections. Isn't it?



My initial concern on the international front involves the protection of those who are vulnerable to death from this pandemic.

But yes, in terms of controlling things it would be better if the virus can be tackled well everywhere.

However, even if things are still a mess globally, there are ways the vaccine-based approach can utterly change the nature fo the game even when there is stuff with consequences happening on the mutations front. If they get the surveillance and the timing of vaccine updates and boosters right, then it is well possible the UK will be able to pursue the sort of approach that was always the instinct of the public health and political establishment. If they can keep the parameters within their comfort zone then they wont feel the need to respond to the pandemic in the ways we've had to accept over the last year, it will be far more like their version of business as usual. Business as usual still means some people left vulnerable to dying from this disease, but a big chunk of their sense of 'balance' is a crude numbers game and they wont care about 'manageable' levels of hospitalisation and death, not unless its still high enough to dampen economic confidence/activity significantly.


----------



## elbows (Feb 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> Not for the majority of those who are spreading the disease. The younger key workers. People who probably won't be vaccinated until later in the year.



This is where levels of natural immunity start to come into the equation again. We know that the total herd immunity approach was attractive to them but the numbers did not come anywhere close to adding up, cannot pursue that policy in totality without hospital demand exceeding capacity many times over. But that doesnt stop a lesser version of the same phenomenon from being part of the mix. ie the idea that a fair percentage of those whose occupation or other circumstances means they've been on the front lines of exposure in the pandemic waves experiecned so far. From the viruses point of view there are likely many less susceptible candidates in that population than there were at the start, and even if this is not enough to make enough of a difference to push things below key tipping points, it still contributes to some degree. eg it would change the modelling of what could happen next.

Recently I have heard about, but not properly looked into, the idea that cases, hsopitalisation etc are falling faster than the authorities had hoped/expected. I am pleased about that but am always waiting to make sure it continues at impressive pace rather than the decline starting to slow or levels getting stuck at some still high rate.

Assuming such rates continue to fall substantially, then the next thing I will want to see is what happens once schools have been reopened for a while. Because it does seem possible to me that spread in schools, involving settings that were mostly shut in the first lockdown but not in the November national measures period, and thus 'fresh' populations exposed, may have contributed significantly to the explosion in cases then seen in December, even though the new variant aspect alone got most of the attention. This could even explain why cases are now falling more rapidly than expected, if school spread was responsible for a part of what was instead attributed to the new variant in general.

Anyway, point is that I dont feel like I can form an opinion on when the right time for other stuff to reopen should be until we have lived with the schools reopen for a bit. And I dont have an opinion of what will happen with infections when schools are open, things could go wrong but it is also reasonable to anticipate that the virus has lost a vast amount of momentum due to a combination of factors, and that even if more things go wrong in future, it would still take quite a long time for the virus to start to regain momentum.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 14, 2021)

It does feel like quite a few things point towards schools being a significant factor in spread.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Because you first heard about this back in December when the article was written?


Incidentally, I had wondered how they are going to get round the quarantine rules for full football teams arriving in the UK. For example, Real Sociedad play Man United at Old Trafford on the 25th Feb (and for that matter United go out to Spain for the first leg and return, this week I think). Probably class such things as 'flying bubbles' or some such and the risk will be relatively small.  But it certainly doesn't add to any feeling of us all being in it together.

Edit: I might add I'm happier to see football matches taking place, at least domestically, as there is something positive watching football in lockdown. The idea that entrepreneurs _need _to attend meetings in person is bullshit and just about as socially useful as social media influencers getting 2 weeks in the sun.


----------



## xenon (Feb 14, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It does feel like quite a few things point towards schools being a significant factor in spread.



Who'd have thunk that members of multiple households mixing and sharing in door spaces for several hours a day presented an optimum environment for air borne viruses to spread.


----------



## elbows (Feb 14, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It does feel like quite a few things point towards schools being a significant factor in spread.



I need to go on about tipping points in that and other contexts too. Spread in setting such as schools and healthcare facilities is of course related to the overall levels of infection present in the community, seeding infections, and the number of susceptible people who mix in those settings. We should probably expect post-wave natural immunity and vaccinations to impact on these things and increase the chances that tipping points are much harder to reach in future. The exact extent of the wiggle room bought is of course yet to be determined, but despite my cautious outlook I will not be at all surprised if this is a game-changing year that we dont have to wait all that long to see for ourselves. And then it will be a question of vigilance to ensure we dont sleepwalk into another disaster if the virus adapts to escape all the immunity it is facing.


----------



## elbows (Feb 14, 2021)

Its return of the orthodoxy vs rise of the escape mutants, basically. The orthodox approach has now got to demonstrate why it got to be the longstanding orthodox approach in the first place. Genomic surveillance at scale increases the chances it will succeed, but only if those with power heed all findings that stem from such data and act appropriately. Although they may have wiggle room to get away with acting inappropriately at times too.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 14, 2021)

Presumably it will be of some interest to watch what happens in Italy and Spain in the next few months, compared to the UK? Because their populations have also experienced a high level of exposure to the virus, but they will not have a vaccination effect kicking in until somewhat later. And that might tell us a bit about how much our rapidly dropping rates (if that continues) have to do with vaccination, 'natural' immunity or both. I realise there'll be a whole load of confounding factors that will mean nothing is entirely clear.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 14, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Incidentally, I had wondered how they are going to get round the quarantine rules for full football teams arriving in the UK. For example, Real Sociedad play Man United at Old Trafford on the 25th Feb (and for that matter United go out to Spain for the first leg and return, this week I think). Probably class such things as 'flying bubbles' or some such and the risk will be relatively small.  But it certainly doesn't add to any feeling of us all being in it together.
> 
> Edit: I might add I'm happier to see football matches taking place, at least domestically, as there is something positive watching football in lockdown. The idea that entrepreneurs _need _to attend meetings in person is bullshit and just about as socially useful as social media influencers getting 2 weeks in the sun.


Apparently, United play in Turnin as a neutral venue against Real this week, but the point still stands.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 14, 2021)

Rumours on Twitter that gov wants to go for full school re-opening on 8 March (no idea what they're based on); much as I'd love kids at school, it seems to me that the absolute most that might be advisable would be primary schools open.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Rumours on Twitter that gov wants to go for full school re-opening on 8 March (*no idea what they're based on*); much as I'd love kids at school, it seems to me that the absolute most that might be advisable would be primary schools open.



BIB - newspaper reports this morning.


----------



## LDC (Feb 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Rumours on Twitter that gov wants to go for full school re-opening on 8 March (no idea what they're based on); much as I'd love kids at school, it seems to me that the absolute most that might be advisable would be primary schools open.



Yeah, I think they'll go for full opening on the 8th tbh.


----------



## magneze (Feb 14, 2021)

U turn on the 9th then.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 14, 2021)

The rumours in the press have generally been right on these things haven't they. Presumably because the government consistently and deliberately leaks them. So if that's what's coming out I think it probably is what they're planning at the moment at least.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 14, 2021)

I see - looks from papers more like the plan is primaries, and then secondaries a bit later, but really, who knows?

Not impressed they're still talking dates, they haven't learned a fucking thing about not doing things for the sake of raising morale, but I guess I always knew they'd stick to simplistic and risky rather than delayed gratification for a better long-term outlook.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Things continue to move in the right direction, today's reported figures -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 14.5m
> 
> ...



Today's update - 

First dose vaccinations now just over 15m   

New cases - 10,972, overall a drop of 28.1% in the last week. 

New deaths - 258, which is down 115 on last Sunday's 373, that brings the 7-day average down to around 672 a day, a drop of 25.1% in the last week.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 14, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> The rumours in the press have generally been right on these things haven't they.



Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not, sometimes it's leaks of what is going to happen, often it's leaks of various suggestions put forward, but not yet decided on.

Often it's the papers taking a guess, and hoping for the best.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Not impressed they're still talking dates, they haven't learned a fucking thing about not doing things for the sake of raising morale, but I guess I always knew they'd stick to simplistic and risky rather than delayed gratification for a better long-term outlook.



The only date mentioned by the government, so far, is the 8th March for some form of schools reopening, everything else is just noise created by the media to generate stories. 

Johnson is not due to to set out the 'roadmap' until a week on Monday, a week is a long time when it comes to covid, so....


----------



## Badgers (Feb 14, 2021)

Home | PeoplesCovidInquiry
					

We’re holding our People’s Covid Inquiry now because we don’t think it’s too soon to start learning lessons about this crisis.   People are still dying from COVID-19. We believe 100,000 deaths were avoidable. We all deserve to know how and why this happened.  Learn lessons, save lives.




					www.peoplescovidinquiry.com
				






> People's Covid Inquiry Statement
> With more that 100,000 deaths from Covid-19 we believe the public deserves to know how and why this has happened. The death toll will continue to rise for many months until vaccination starts to have an effect. In the meantime, learning the right lessons is urgent if lives are to be saved. Our ‘People’s Covid Inquiry’ will examine what has happened and how well the NHS was prepared.
> 
> We will invite oral, written and video testimony from NHS staff, other frontline workers and members of the public as well as hear expert evidence. There will be a series of online Zoom meetings where a panel will interrogate the evidence presented in these testimonies.
> ...


----------



## elbows (Feb 14, 2021)

I'd never heard of Patrick Dardis before but I hate him already.



> Young & Co's Patrick Dardis accused the government of a "lack of respect" for the sector and of basing the decision to close pubs on "unproven" science - a claim which experts dispute.











						Deliveroo: Run Eat Out to Help Out again, says takeaway giant
					

The takeaway firm and 300 restaurant groups say it would boost the sector when restrictions ease.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Chilli.s (Feb 14, 2021)

Could call it "New variant eat out"


----------



## Badgers (Feb 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'd never heard of Patrick Dardis before but I hate him already.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Opening up school's is important, although should not be rushed. Another 'eat out to help out' is just utter nonsense. Fucking fuckwits


----------



## souljacker (Feb 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The only date mentioned by the government, so far, is the 8th March for some form of schools reopening, everything else is just noise created by the media to generate stories.
> 
> Johnson is not due to to set out the 'roadmap' until a week on Monday, a week is a long time when it comes to covid, so....



Johnson is taking the press conference tomorrow and some rumours are suggesting he will confirm schools returning on the 8th. I have a feeling he will state that that is the plan and will confirm it on the 22nd. Also rumours that we will also be allowed to go and meet someone in the park from the 8th which is great news as I'd really like to see some mates for a park beer sesh.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 14, 2021)

I think meeting in the park is and should be totally fair game soon, it's really not high risk, but honestly don't think full school return should be before Easter, though I appreciate it many parents have it much harder than us, but at least do it gradually so it's easier to change tack if you need to.


----------



## frogwoman (Feb 14, 2021)

I thought you could already meet someone for exercise?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'd never heard of Patrick Dardis before but I hate him already.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Deliveroo are fucking parasites in basically every aspect of their business, and their positioning of themselves as "saviours of restaurants" (along with all the other parasites, to be fair - "other parasites are available") makes me want to punch the nearest object.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 14, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I thought you could already meet someone for exercise?


Yes, but I think the suggestion is now you could sit down with them (distanced) and maybe even have a takeaway coffee, so it's purely socialising, not exercise. I think the idea at the moment is you should be moving around and not just sitting together.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 14, 2021)

All a bit academic seeing as loads of people seem to have decided to resume outdoors socialising now anyway.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 14, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Also rumours that we will also be allowed to go and meet someone in the park from the 8th which is great news as I'd really like to see some mates for a park beer sesh.






			
				frogwoman said:
			
		

> I thought you could already meet someone for exercise?



Raising a can or bottle exercise??? 

And in the *PARK????*


----------



## xenon (Feb 14, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I thought you could already meet someone for exercise?



you can. You’re not supposed to stop and have a drink or whatever but honestly who gives a fuck. A few overzealous and ignorant of the law coppers aside.


----------



## elbows (Feb 14, 2021)

Chilli.s said:


> Could call it "New variant eat out"



Fill yer plate to help the virus mutate.

Eat pies to help spike find a new disguise.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 14, 2021)

Well I guess all sorts of rumours will circulate between now and Monday week and if they're suggest incompetence and wild overoptimism, they're probably true.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 15, 2021)

Wtf? 





__





						Covid: HSE refuses to close workplaces that are putting employees at risk | Coronavirus | The Guardian
					

Labour minister calls for urgent review of government watchdog’s decision despite almost 3,500 coronavirus outbreaks at work




					amp.theguardian.com


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 15, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Wtf?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Look over there - those people in that park have a cup of coffee!


----------



## teqniq (Feb 15, 2021)

What?









						Covid-19: Schools not a 'major source' of transmission
					

A Public Health Agency presentation says school transmission "tends to be small scale".



					www.bbc.com


----------



## Chz (Feb 15, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Deliveroo are fucking parasites in basically every aspect of their business, and their positioning of themselves as "saviours of restaurants" (along with all the other parasites, to be fair - "other parasites are available") makes me want to punch the nearest object.


I've only got the one anecdote to add, but a local place I order from told me they're considerably less horrible to work with than Just Eat or Uber Eats.

I'm sure they're all awful, but you've gotta work with what you've got.


----------



## Cid (Feb 15, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Wtf?
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> Employment minister Mims Davies last week said Covid had been classified as “significant” rather than “serious”, as it “best supports inspectors in making sensible, proportionate regulatory decisions”. She added that effects of Covid were “non-permanent or reversible, non-progressive and any disability is temporary” for the working population as a whole.



Just... how can you even? What?


----------



## Sunray (Feb 15, 2021)

teqniq said:


> What?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah? A complete contradiction on the basic guidelines we’ve all been following for a year.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 15, 2021)

Pauline Latham MP, a member of the Covid Recovery Group, has just been interviewed by Adam Boulton on Sky News, it started of as a reasonable discussion, but you could hear Boulton getting increasingly frustrated with her banging on about setting dates for re-opening, then he lost it a bit, 'setting dates is frankly thick, a stupid thing to do.'


----------



## teqniq (Feb 15, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Yeah? A complete contradiction on the basic guidelines we’ve all been following for a year.


Also contradicts this, from June 2020:









						Coronavirus: Fully reopening schools 'could cause second wave'
					

Scientists are concerned the test-and-trace system is not effective enough to prevent this.



					www.bbc.com
				




It is, of course because the government wants to reopen schools on 8th March


----------



## elbows (Feb 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Pauline Latham MP, a member of the Covid Recovery Group, has just been interviewed by Adam Boulton on Sky News, it started of as a reasonable discussion, but you could hear Boulton getting increasingly frustrated with her banging on about setting dates for re-opening, then he lost it a bit, 'setting dates is frankly thick, a stupid thing to do.'



Yeah I'm seeing more signs that lessons have been learnt by some of those whose instincts were to be too sympathetic towards the anti-lockdown idiots last time. The resurgence and second wave taught them something about listening too much to idiots.

eg:



> Another senior Tory backbencher, Robert Halfon, said the PM needed to "provide some kind of optimism to the public" over lockdown easing, but warned against people relaxing too soon.
> 
> The chair of the Education Select Committee told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour: "I understand where [the Covid Recovery Group] are coming from and my heart has a lot of sympathy.
> 
> "I just don't want a repetition of what went on last year where we thought we were over the worst and then we're suddenly back in tiers of lockdown."



From Coronavirus: Plan to exit lockdown 'cautious but irreversible', says Boris Johnson


----------



## Brainaddict (Feb 15, 2021)

Cid said:


> Just... how can you even? What?


Ah, the famously reversible death.  And that's before you even get to long covid, from which some people may not recover.

I don't know who the fuck this nonentity Mims Davies is but I can only wish a bad case of long covid on them.


----------



## editor (Feb 15, 2021)

He's off again.










						Wetherspoons calls for pubs to reopen 'to save jobs'
					

The chairman of the chain is calling for pubs to reopen at the same time as non-essential shops.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Feb 15, 2021)

Johnson is a fuckwit for using the word irreversible.









						Coronavirus: Plan to exit lockdown 'cautious but irreversible', says Boris Johnson
					

Boris Johnson says the government will set out its plans on 22 February, which could include target dates.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Its meaningless anyway, if the circumstances demanded further restrictions then that is what they would eventually have to do again. And as we've already seen, they can always blame such scenarios on new variants of the virus.

Politically the tories have probably gotten away with their pandemic mismanagement so long as the overall vaccine-based approach does not fail. People will be overjoyed to gradually return to normality. Only if that gets scuppered will patience with Johnson & Co stand a chance of running out. And much as I would like to see culpable tories held to account, I would rather the pandemic exit strategy succeeds.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 15, 2021)

I've said it before, and no doubt I'll say it again ...

The CRG are worshiping their money greed above all else and by doing so, are saying a big "fuck you" to all those who have suffered with Covid-19, both personally / directly but also those friends and families that have lost loved ones to a terrible death, and the medical professionals that have had to watch those deaths ...
The economy will recover, however long that takes, but medical science has not found a method to reverse those c120,000+ deaths in the UK or the almost 2 and a half million deaths world-wide (and those awful totals are probably well under the true figures).

And the next time they stand for re-election, they'll probably be returned to Parliament ... from party loyalty and a woefully short memory ...


----------



## teqniq (Feb 15, 2021)

'Irreversible' lol. How many U-turns have they done so far?.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 15, 2021)

Good to see calls for the totally failed Serco test and trace to be cancelled in favour of a system that does the job.

What are the people in T&T doing? I don’t think I’ve seen any effect of their work?


----------



## Wilf (Feb 15, 2021)

What is it with that prick johnson, can't stop touching people. Elbow bumps are low risk, I'm sure, but ffs, leave alone!


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 15, 2021)

Wilf said:


> What is it with that prick johnson, can't stop touching people. Elbow bumps are low risk, I'm sure, but ffs, leave alone!



Not to mention all that travelling ...

Really, was it essential that he went to Scotland and Teesside in the past few weeks ?

[ I have two, no three, trips I need to make in connection with projects my little company has underway - plus one of them has to be rebuilt on site - but I'm being forced to wait and to not make those journeys because travelling the length and breadth of the country is not a good idea.
Actually, I'm waiting until three or four weeks after my second vaccination ... not that I've had the first one, yet.]


----------



## Wilf (Feb 15, 2021)

... rant continues: johnson's own personal conduct has been astonishing at times throughout the pandemic. Right through from an early speech saying 'we won't be biffed off course by corona virus' type stuff; bragging about shaking hands in a hospital; various downing street superspreader events; his non-essential visit to Scotland and the seeming skin to skin fetish he has when he encounters a member of the public. Silly cunt.


----------



## killer b (Feb 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Politically the tories have probably gotten away with their pandemic mismanagement so long as the overall vaccine-based approach does not fail. People will be overjoyed to gradually return to normality.


Agree with this - incredible really, but there it is.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 15, 2021)

Yep, amid the carnage that's been done, there will be a point when the economy opens up, companies start hiring again and collective relief will be the dominant emotion.  A kind of doublethink of knowing about the murderous mismanagement that the tories have practised throughout, whilst 'looking to the future'. I feel astonished that I can make this prediction, but I can see the tories getting 10% opinion poll leads in June/JUly.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 15, 2021)

It'll have functioned as a pretty handy cover-over of the Brexit mess too.


----------



## killer b (Feb 15, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Yep, amid the carnage that's been done, there will be a point when the economy opens up, companies start hiring again and collective relief will be the dominant emotion.  A kind of doublethink of knowing about the murderous mismanagement that the tories have practised throughout, whilst 'looking to the future'. I feel astonished that I can make this prediction, but I can see the tories getting 10% opinion poll leads in June/JUly.


I don't think I can see that kind of lead - seems to me that outside of moments of national crisis the more-or-less level pegging is baked in for the foreseeable though.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 15, 2021)

killer b said:


> I don't think I can see that kind of lead - seems to me that outside of moments of national crisis the more-or-less level pegging is baked in for the foreseeable though.


Well, we'll see I suppose. Maybe 10% is pushing it, but they've averaged something like a 3% lead throughout 2021. I can see a temporary boost to that in the middle of the year if things go as planned with regard to vaccines and back to school.  After that, perhaps back to smaller tory leads, who knows?

Question is really whether Labour can find something to say, something akin to the way they shaped the idea of postwar reconstruction as they came in to the 1945 election. Short answer: No.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 15, 2021)

Tory press will get behind them again, will be unpatriotic to talk down the government and economy.


----------



## killer b (Feb 15, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Well, we'll see I suppose. Maybe 10% is pushing it, but they've averaged something like a 3% lead throughout 2021. I can see a temporary boost to that in the middle of the year if things go as planned with regard to vaccines and back to school.  After that, perhaps back to smaller tory leads, who knows?
> 
> Question is really whether Labour can find something to say, something akin to the way they shaped the idea of postwar reconstruction as they came in to the 1945 election. Short answer: No.


As it happens I was reading this piece from last year about Starmer's head of policy, which should give some insight into current policy directions. I'm not particularly encouraged.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 15, 2021)

killer b said:


> As it happens I was reading this piece from last year about Starmer's head of policy, which should give some insight into current policy directions. I'm not particularly encouraged.


Ta for the link. I'm always a bit wary when people detect a 'new' working class. Even more so if they remain 'new' and not part of the 'the' working class. And even more wary if the author then thinks that 'values' are the way forward. We've had versions of 'values' from Kinnock onwards.

I've just been reading this by Evans and Tilley.  They manage to ship the new occupations off entirely, to become the 'new middle class':
The new class war: Excluding the working class in 21st-century Britain | IPPR


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 15m
> 
> ...



Today's update -

First dose vaccinations now 15.3m

New cases - 9,765, overall a drop of 29% in the last week.

New deaths - 230, which is down 103 on last Monday's 333, that brings the 7-day average down to around 656 a day, a drop of 26.2% in the last week.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now 15.3m
> 
> ...


That's all positive, of course, but you can just imagine the tory recovery group and the daily mail crunching those numbers and coming up with the answer: OPEN THE SHOPS!


----------



## elbows (Feb 15, 2021)

In the press conference I see Johnson has used 'irreversible' again, but in the context of wanting the progress to be irreversible.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 15, 2021)

The CRG can go f**uuu*k itself, as can any of the anti-vaxx & anti-lockdown brigades.

The current case & death rates are nowhere near low enough, even with the tremendous efforts being made with vaccinations, to have reduced the pressures on the NHS back to manageable levels.

Much as I want to get back to something approaching normality, I know that I can't, not yet.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 15, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> The CRG can go f**uuu*k itself, as can any of the anti-vaxx & anti-lockdown brigades.
> 
> The current case & death rates are nowhere near low enough, even with the tremendous efforts being made with vaccinations, to have reduced the pressures on the NHS back to manageable levels.
> 
> Much as I want to get back to something approaching normality, I know that I can't, not yet.


... and to all the people going 'look, look, the cases are really low, open everything up'... _wonder why that is then?_


----------



## editor (Feb 15, 2021)

So Wales is far enough down the line that the 60-65 age group is being vaccinated now.


----------



## teqniq (Feb 15, 2021)

I had my first jab two weekends ago, but it was organised by out HR department (support worker).


----------



## elbows (Feb 15, 2021)

Wilf said:


> ... and to all the people going 'look, look, the cases are really low, open everything up'... _wonder why that is then?_



Anyone saying that so far also has the wrong sense of what level of infection would count as 'really low'.

Meanwhile todays press conference was titled 'how do you say Tocilizumab?'.


----------



## editor (Feb 15, 2021)

Here's how we're doing compared to other countries 



That immense drop from France is impressive. We're about the same level as Italy now. 









						COVID-19 Data Explorer
					

Research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems




					ourworldindata.org


----------



## editor (Feb 15, 2021)

Let's hope people never forget how useless this government has been


----------



## killer b (Feb 15, 2021)

editor said:


> Let's hope people never forget how useless this government has been


it's already forgotten


----------



## editor (Feb 15, 2021)

killer b said:


> it's already forgotten


Sadly true, thanks in no part to that fucking useless clown Starmer.


----------



## maomao (Feb 15, 2021)

killer b said:


> it's already forgotten


That's not true. It was never acknowledged in the first place.


----------



## killer b (Feb 15, 2021)

Some polling here - actually is hasn't been forgotten, but it has been forgiven it seems. The figures suggest it's widely recognised the pandemic had been handled disastrously, but Johnson's still the man to get us to the other side. 









						Strong approval for government's vaccine programme as Johnson preferred to lead pandemic response
					

Almost nine in ten (86%) think the Government is doing  a good job obtaining vaccines for Britain, including 84% of Labour voters.




					www.ipsos.com


----------



## ska invita (Feb 15, 2021)

If mutations close the vaccine escape route then the let off may not be as kind as it is now.

Still opportunities for them to fuck it all up further


----------



## elbows (Feb 15, 2021)

editor said:


> That immense drop from France is impressive. We're about the same level as Italy now.



It doesnt look genuine, it looks like an artifact of testing/data.

That same site allows a different interval to be selected so I can see the numbers per day rather than 8 day averages. Zooming in on a recent period, it looks like the low number for France has been driven by three days in a row of abnormally low numbers, as opposed to isolated low numbers every so many days that we are more used to seeing in their data. Beyond this exercise I have not looked into it.


----------



## killer b (Feb 15, 2021)

ska invita said:


> If mutations close the vaccine escape route then the let off may not be as kind as it is now.
> 
> Still opportunities for them to fuck it all up further


I'm not sure new mutations would hit the government ratings tbh - the kent variant meant the christmas fuck up - and everything since - has been much easier on them than it could have been IMO. They fairly successfully argued that it was an unexpected twist that they couldn't possibly have expected to happen (it wasn't, but that doesn't matter).

On the talking politics podcast this week there was some reference to some focus group piece in The Times where consensus was that while it's gone really badly, they didn't think anyone else could have done better - it's not a view that's borne out very well by the facts, but again - that's never really been an issue in the past.


----------



## ska invita (Feb 15, 2021)

killer b said:


> while it's gone really badly, they didn't think anyone else could have done better


totally. but i also think patience is running out, and there is a limit to that attitude. My point is its not inconceivable that Covid could still run rampant again in a new mutation and we go round again, lockdown and everything. "They're doing their best" , "they couldn't know about mutations" may hold now, but might not next time, if there is another next time that is.


----------



## agricola (Feb 15, 2021)

editor said:


> So Wales is far enough down the line that the 60-65 age group is being vaccinated now.



my mum and dad (both in their early seventies) have both had their first jab, and my godmother has had her second (the vaccination centre had some left over and rang around local NHS facilities telling them to get people to come down if they'd had the first the requisite amount of time ago)


----------



## agricola (Feb 15, 2021)

killer b said:


> Some polling here - actually is hasn't been forgotten, but it has been forgiven it seems. The figures suggest it's widely recognised the pandemic had been handled disastrously, but Johnson's still the man to get us to the other side.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



TBF given how that whole issue has been reported in the media, why is anyone surprised?


----------



## Petcha (Feb 15, 2021)

how does this quarantine thing work if you cant afford 1750 quid? in my younger days i'd often go backpacking in far flung places and fly back home with approximately, oh £5 in my pocket.

how do they manage that then?


----------



## killer b (Feb 15, 2021)

agricola said:


> TBF given how that whole issue has been reported in the media, why is anyone surprised?


I don't think it's really a media thing tbh. more to do with how a population reacts en masse to an existential threat, as discussed loads last spring when the tories were pushing 50% on the polls.


----------



## LDC (Feb 15, 2021)

Petcha said:


> how does this quarantine thing work if you cant afford 1750 quid? in my younger days i'd often go backpacking in far flung places and fly back home with approximately, oh £5 in my pocket.
> 
> how do they manage that then?



It's not from everywhere, only countries on the red list. And funnily enough there aren't that many people from the UK backpacking around the world atm, so it's not really an issue I'd expect.


----------



## prunus (Feb 15, 2021)

Petcha said:


> how does this quarantine thing work if you cant afford 1750 quid? in my younger days i'd often go backpacking in far flung places and fly back home with approximately, oh £5 in my pocket.
> 
> how do they manage that then?



You don’t get to fly back home then. Afaiui you have to have your quarantine hotel booked and paid for before you’re allowed to travel.


----------



## Petcha (Feb 15, 2021)

prunus said:


> You don’t get to fly back home then. Afaiui you have to have your quarantine hotel booked and paid for before you’re allowed to travel.



I saw some people on the news arriving at Heathrow who looked pretty confused by the news they'd be shelling out for 10 days stay in a shitty business motel next to the airport. Once again, this is probably just due to total lack of joined up communication on the Govt's part.

Lynn, there are plenty of backpackers still stranded abroad btw.


----------



## miss direct (Feb 15, 2021)

Wonder what happens if you're getting deported back to the UK.


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 15, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I saw some people on the news arriving at Heathrow who looked pretty confused by the news they'd be shelling out for 10 days stay in a shitty business motel next to the airport. Once again, this is probably just due to total lack of joined up communication on the Govt's part.
> 
> Lynn, there are plenty of backpackers still stranded abroad btw.


The guidance is that you have to book the hotel in advance before you fly, book the two covid tests , fill in the locator form and have proof of a negative test not more than 72 hours before you fly


----------



## Petcha (Feb 15, 2021)

What's stopping you flying from a red country to a non-red country and then just connecting straight through to the UK?


----------



## magneze (Feb 15, 2021)

Nothing at all. The system is completely foolproof foolish.


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 15, 2021)

Petcha said:


> What's stopping you flying from a red country to a non-red country and then just connecting straight through to the UK?


Nothing in itself you have to declare if you’ve been in a red country in the previous 10 days .If you have then it’s the hotel . Obviously some might want to take a risk but if they are found out it’s either a fine or custodial sentence .  That’s what the 10 years in jail thing was brought into deter.


----------



## Boudicca (Feb 15, 2021)

The £1,700 you have to pay for the Heathrow hotel might be better spent on 10 days somewhere sunny en route.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 15, 2021)

So Johnson seems to be making more of the right noises these days,  but one is still not inspired with any confidence that he and his chums won't rush to do all the wrong things


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 15, 2021)

editor said:


> He's off again.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



When the time is not-Tory right, I'd be in full-on agreement with all pubs** reopening   -- except his! 

(**in combination with a*ll* Tim Martin's pubs being shut down indefinitely, obvs!  )


----------



## oli_1_uk (Feb 16, 2021)

Cloo said:


> So Johnson seems to be making more of the right noises these days,  but one is still not inspired with any confidence that he and his chums won't rush to do all the wrong things


I think the government are telling us what we want to hear with the easing of lockdown soon but I think for many of us we are seeing what the scientists say as well, as they are gonna tell us what we need to hear no matter the disappointment. I just hope they keep the level of jabs up as I can see this easing off after lockdown.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 16, 2021)

On the tories poll ratings there's an apparent contradiction between most people you talk to saying it's been a fuck up and the scumbags still being ahead in the polls.  In reality though there's just the tories and their management along with a general feeling of things are shit but there's no alternative.  It's not just that Labour haven't featured in the covid debate - they haven't - it's that they haven't featured at all.  Labour have said just about nothing at all since the height of theresa may's brexit problems and even then the thing they were saying was simply 'look at the chaos'.  They had some absurd hedged formulation about brexit and 2nd votes, which was blown away by johnson having something to say in 2019. Since then Labour have nothing to say about anything. In fact they've ceased to be a body who people expect to have anything to say full stop.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 16, 2021)

It's difficult though. When Corbyn was in there were questions "why isn't Labour talking about this?". Well they were but they just weren't being reported. 

I'm sure the same is true now. They're talking about it, but the Sun and Mail and Express and Telegraph and Times and Sunday * just aren't reporting it because they have their own agenda.


----------



## flypanam (Feb 16, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Nothing in itself you have to declare if you’ve been in a red country in the previous 10 days .If you have then it’s the hotel . Obviously some might want to take a risk but if they are found out it’s either a fine or custodial sentence .  That’s what the 10 years in jail thing was brought into deter.


Fly to Dublin, get a flight from there to England. The Irish media has been up in arms about the amount of british travellers doing this.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 16, 2021)

Cloo said:


> So Johnson seems to be making more of the right noises these days,  but one is still not inspired with any confidence that he and his chums won't rush to do all the wrong things



Johnson can say different things at this point the papers will a) give him a pass and b) encourage everyone to do the wrong thing while c) the general public who vote conservative will continue doing what they like 

He's laughing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 16, 2021)

oli_1_uk said:


> I think the government are telling us what we want to hear with the easing of lockdown soon but I think for many of us we are seeing what the scientists say as well, as they are gonna tell us what we need to hear no matter the disappointment.* I just hope they keep the level of jabs up as I can see this easing off after lockdown.*



BIB - I doubt there will be any easing off, they are still rolling out vaccination centres to cope with the increasing supply of vaccines, the Moderna vaccine supplies are due to start arriving in March, and both supplies of the Pfizer & Oxford/AZ ones are increasing too.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 16, 2021)

flypanam said:


> Fly to Dublin, get a flight from there to England. The Irish media has been up in arms about the amount of british travellers doing this.


Surely Ireland could make this redundant by instigating a similar quarantine system.


----------



## andysays (Feb 16, 2021)

flypanam said:


> Fly to Dublin, get a flight from there to England. The Irish media has been up in arms about the amount of british travellers doing this.


Haven't the Irish government put any restrictions on who can enter and from where then?


----------



## Cid (Feb 16, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I saw some people on the news arriving at Heathrow who looked pretty confused by the news they'd be shelling out for 10 days stay in a shitty business motel next to the airport. Once again, this is probably just due to total lack of joined up communication on the Govt's part.
> 
> Lynn, there are plenty of backpackers still stranded abroad btw.



At this point, a year in, I can't say I have much sympathy for people who have been travelling and aren't keeping on top of changes to regulations.


----------



## xenon (Feb 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> BIB - I doubt there will be any easing off, they are still rolling out vaccination centres to cope with the increasing supply of vaccines, the Moderna vaccine supplies are due to start arriving in March, and both supplies of the Pfizer & Oxford/AZ ones are increasing too.



I'd forgotten that one had been approved too.

How's the J&J one doing on that path, anyone know?
Well don't know about the UK but speculation for some time in March by the US FDA.








						Johnson & Johnson’s Vaccine Updates: When Will The Shot Be Available For Use?
					

Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine is one of the most closely watched shots against the novel coronavirus, given that it is backed by one of the world’s largest pharma companies and is expected to require only a single dose. Here’s a quick rundown of the expected timeline for the vaccine’s...




					www.forbes.com


----------



## flypanam (Feb 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> Haven't the Irish government put any restrictions on who can enter and from where then?


They have. There is a list of countries from which travel is discouraged. I think the issue is with people transferring to connecting flights.


----------



## oli_1_uk (Feb 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> BIB - I doubt there will be any easing off, they are still rolling out vaccination centres to cope with the increasing supply of vaccines, the Moderna vaccine supplies are due to start arriving in March, and both supplies of the Pfizer & Oxford/AZ ones are increasing too.


That does sound promising


----------



## elbows (Feb 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> BIB - I doubt there will be any easing off, they are still rolling out vaccination centres to cope with the increasing supply of vaccines, the Moderna vaccine supplies are due to start arriving in March, and both supplies of the Pfizer & Oxford/AZ ones are increasing too.



I believe its been indicated that we should expect the rate of 1st doses to struggle to maintain its pace at some point because 2nd doses will start to become a larger part of the mix. Also I recall moaning about the way some BBC etc articles about 'Pfizer shortages for Europe' simply omitted to mention whether this widespread manufacturing issue would affect UK supplies for a time. But then somewhat recently Scotland said it would, and I believe I even saw a recent BBC article that mentioned in passing that Pfizer supplies to England would be affected too.

I am impressed with the number of doses given so far, and the above detail is not supposed to be a gloomy message about our future prospects. I'm just acknowledging that I'm expecting a few bumps in the road in the next phase, but I still expect overall progress to keep on building, just with somewhat affected rates at times.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 16, 2021)

two sheds said:


> It's difficult though. When Corbyn was in there were questions "why isn't Labour talking about this?". Well they were but they just weren't being reported.
> 
> I'm sure the same is true now. They're talking about it, but the Sun and Mail and Express and Telegraph and Times and Sunday * just aren't reporting it because they have their own agenda.


Fair enough, though there should be a lesson for sensible Keith in there. Repudiating Corbyn hasn't worked in terms of getting the press on its side. This isn't a moment like the mid 90s when the right wing press were ready to switch to team B.


----------



## elbows (Feb 16, 2021)

I do understand why they havent gone for the zero covid approach but when Nick Triggle writes an article explaining and justifying the approach, some groaning is inevitable.









						Covid: Why goal is to live with the virus - not fight it
					

Ministers want to turn Covid-19 into a manageable illness like flu. Why? And is this possible?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> It maybe a tantalising prospect, but one that many believe is out of reach or would require such sustained restrictions that the economic and social costs would be huge. "Zero Covid is not compatible with the individual rights and freedoms that characterise post-war democracies," says Prof Francois Balloux, director of University College London's Genetics Institute.



I didnt realise that New Zealand doesnt count as a post-war democracy. And I see no comparison of the costs of a zero covid approach with short, sharp lockdowns, and the long lockdowns we had to endure as a result of our strategy.



> But no country which has seen the virus spread in the way it has in the UK has actually managed to then suppress it to the point of elimination.



How many of them have even tried?

Also I note that the article points out the mutation dangers of building population immunity at a time when levels of the virus are high, but the dots arent joined, and there isnt really any mention of the idea of 'low covid' rather than zero covid, in order to reduce such risks.

As usual I will not be driving myself crazy about this issue because there has never been any reason to think they would try this approach, the limits to their ambition are clear and the race towards business as usual is on via mass vaccination. And I dont really want things to fail in a way that would bring this issue back to the table. 

Anyway he then goes on about the same sort of thing as Whitty did the other day, the de-risking ov Covid. Very much part of the business as usual approach, I do understand where this comes from and it was always the most likely end game as far as establishment thinking in this country goes. His description covers the amount of flu death our society doesnt seem to care much about, and also includes clues about a new element of inequality that may make itself felt as a result of the business as usual approach.



> It suggests we can get to the point - in the word's of England's chief medical adviser Prof Chris Whitty - where we "de-risk" Covid.
> 
> That does not mean no-one will die. Prof Whitty has talked about getting to a "tolerable" level of death. And certainly many expect next winter will be challenging with particular concern the most deprived communities will be hit hardest amid fears vaccination uptake has been lowest in these areas.





> But it is easy to forget that flu can also kill on quite a scale. Back in 2017-18, more than 20,000 people died from it.
> 
> It was a harsh, cold winter and deaths from other causes such as heart disease and dementia rose too, pushing excess winter deaths close to 50,000. Society barely blinked.
> 
> "We have lived alongside viruses for millennia", says Prof Robert Dingwall, a member of the government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Group. "We will do the same with Covid."



Its one thing to live with them. Its quite another to keep voting for them!


----------



## teuchter (Feb 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> I didnt realise that New Zealand doesnt count as a post-war democracy. And I see no comparison of the costs of a zero covid approach with short, sharp lockdowns, and the long lockdowns we had to endure as a result of our strategy.



I don't think NZ has decided it's going for zero covid in the long term though has it? It's only a temporary approach.


----------



## elbows (Feb 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I don't think NZ has decided it's going for zero covid in the long term though has it? It's only a temporary approach.



Yes I've gone on about that before. Its a mixed approach that involves vaccination, with some important detail to be determined. This doesnt change the fact they took a very different approach during the acute phase of the pandemic, and the article is uninterested in discussing a blended approach. But as I already acknowledged its too late to attempt that here unless the current plan fails and leave them little choice, which I hardly consider to be the most likely outcome.

Why am I even bothering to discuss the article now given that I currently think zero covid is a lost cause politically? Probably because we've only been treated to such articles now that we are safely past the point where our approach  offered little but death and u-turns. They didnt want a proper debate about this stuff when there were more compelling reasons to go for zero covid, when vaccines were not in sight. I am allowed to shake my head in disgust about that. The love of a rigged game is alive and well.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 16, 2021)

Poor lass 



> We did 12 days in a five-bedroom house over Christmas when we were in quarantine and that was pretty horrific.











						'Hotel quarantine rules will cost us thousands' - BBC News
					

Travellers planning their return to the UK say the rules are confusing and sometimes "bizarre".




					www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org


----------



## andysays (Feb 16, 2021)

Breaking news on the BBC that a further 1.7 million people will be told to stay home and shield.

Implications for vaccine prioritization as well...


----------



## editor (Feb 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> Breaking news on the BBC that a further 1.7 million people will be told to stay home and shield.
> 
> Implications for vaccine prioritization as well...


More: 



> *There is to be a large expansion of the number of people being asked to shield in England, the government has announced.*
> An extra 1.7 million people are expected to be added to the 2.3 million already on the list.
> For some it will also mean they are now prioritised for vaccination.
> This comes after a new model was developed that takes into account extra factors rather than just someone's health.
> This calculation includes things like ethnicity, deprivation and weight to work out a person's risk of becoming seriously ill if they were to catch Covid.











						Covid: Extra 1.7m vulnerable added to shielding list
					

The move brings the total to 4m in England and means vaccinations will be prioritised more quickly.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## andysays (Feb 16, 2021)

Thanks for posting the link editor


----------



## Wilf (Feb 16, 2021)

editor said:


> More:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wonder what that adds up to in terms of practical steps?  Ethnicity is likely to be recorded on GP records (?), though obesity will be only if people have had discussions with their doc. Depravation - using post codes?  Basically, who puts this list together if it does become a vaccine priority list?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 16, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Poor lass
> 
> 
> 
> ...



My flat is literally 12x18 foot.

It’s just about double prison cell size but it doesn’t feel like it sometimes.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Feb 16, 2021)

I hope the twats who had to be rescued are satisfied with themselves.  









						Mountain rescuer who fell helping lockdown breakers may never walk again
					

Chris Lewis sustained spinal injuries when called out to help people camping in Lake District in breach of lockdown




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Sunray (Feb 16, 2021)

I don't see how the Gov can be in any doubt the effectiveness of these lockdowns is due to everyone staying at home v the effect of vaccines?

We've had three lockdowns, each one hitting the numbers, two of the lockdowns there was no vaccine?  The people who have been vaccinated have been shielding at home so they wouldn't help much with any statistics apart from deaths in those groups and they take weeks to filter through.

All I can think of that's left, it's either stopped being as easily transmitted or everyone who was going to from work, got it and generally recovered.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 16, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I don't see how the Gov can be in any doubt the effectiveness of these lockdowns is due to everyone staying at home v the effect of vaccines?
> 
> We've had three lockdowns, each one hitting the numbers, two of the lockdowns there was no vaccine?  The people who have been vaccinated have been shielding at home so they wouldn't help much with any statistics apart from deaths in those groups and they take weeks to filter through.
> 
> All I can think of that's left, it's either stopped being as easily transmitted or everyone who was going to from work, got it and generally recovered.



I don’t think anyone near government has claimed that the effectiveness of this lockdown has been due to the vaccine.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 16, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I don’t think anyone near government has claimed that the effectiveness of this lockdown has been due to the vaccine.


'Near' government is very different from IN government


----------



## LDC (Feb 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Wonder what that adds up to in terms of practical steps?  Ethnicity is likely to be recorded on GP records (?), though obesity will be only if people have had discussions with their doc. Depravation - using post codes?  Basically, who puts this list together if it does become a vaccine priority list?



Not sure I've seen ethnicity on medical records tbh, but I have seen BMI and/or weight mentioned on loads. Unsure about whether discussion would need to have happened for that, although I suspect for most people it would have come up in the course of discussing the medical issue they were seeing the GP about.


----------



## elbows (Feb 16, 2021)

I havent seen any claims that vaccination made lockdown work so I dont know whats being referred to at all.

The closest I could get to that sort of thing is that its pretty clear this government feels the need to find a light at the end of the tunnel to hype up when they are forced to lockdown. In the first wave lockdown they relied on spurious shit about tests being available from Boots and what wonderful options could be unlocked by alternative forms of mass testing. At least the second time around they could use vaccines as the light at the end of the tunnel, something with far more substance with far more potential to really change the game. If I stretch this idea a little then it is possible to imagine someone in government coming out with 'vaccine light at the end of the tunnel gave people the resolve needed to ensure this lockdown, reducing lockdown fatigue'.

In terms of claims about what difference vaccines are making, we are still at the very beginning of that in the UK. Claims will tend to be data-based and really quite specific, especially in this early period where data will start to show things to a limited extent in the weeks ahead. If all goes well then our data should be used to make the same sort of claims we have seen from Israel. This is probably the first example I've seen for the UK, expect much more of this sort of thing:









						Covid vaccine impact revealed in over-80s blood tests
					

More people in this age group in England now have detectable antibodies that can fight the virus.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Feb 16, 2021)

More on why I never really stop going on about hospital spread. It also reminds me of a time during the first wave where the likes of Whitty and Vallance would talk about how R is expected to be different in different settings, but resisted questions about what they thought R might be in hospitals at that time......









						Spread of coronavirus within hospitals prolonged first wave fuelling a fifth of admissions
					

The R-rate for Covid-19 in hospitals could have been as high as 14, a new report reveals




					www.independent.co.uk
				






> The scale of coronavirus spread within hospitals was so severe last year it may have prolonged the first wave and contributed to around 20 per cent of admissions, a new report has found.





> The numbers depend on where researchers draw the line on infections picked up in hospital. Patients who tested positive 15 days after admission would account for around 7,900 infections, 9 per cent of all hospital cases in the first wave.
> 
> But if the definition is expanded to those testing positive eight or more days after being admitted, the numbers rise to 14,635, or 16 per cent of total hospital cases.
> 
> With the least conservative definition, including all positives where patients have been discharged from hospital within the previous 14 days, then the numbers reach 36,000, or 41 per cent of hospital cases.





> The report continues: “Nosocomial infections, and onward community cases due to them, may lead to a substantial number of subsequent Covid-19 admissions, representing [approximately] 20 per cent of admissions in the tail of the first wave when community prevalence was considerably lower than for most of this wave.”
> 
> It adds that in total, the contribution of nosocomial infections, and the onward transmission resulting from them, may have accounted for 31.4 per cent of overall hospital infections, and suggests that “in the last quarter of the first wave the impact of nosocomial transmission may have been to prolong the epidemic potentially by several weeks.”





> The report’s authors calculate that the R-rate could have been as high as 14 in hospitals, and suggest that without the increased use of infection prevention measures and protective equipment by staff, the first wave of the pandemic would have been longer.



An R of 14!!!!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now 15.3m
> 
> ...



Today's update -

First dose vaccinations now just under 15.6m

New cases - 10,625, overall a drop of 27.8% in the last week.

New deaths - 799, which is down 253 on last Tuesday's 1,052, that brings the 7-day average down to around 621 a day, a drop of 25.6% in the last week.


----------



## elbows (Feb 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just under 15.6m
> 
> ...



I havent posted my colour-coded graph for a while because there seemed less point in the current phase, and also because during a downwards trajectory it is even harder for us to separate out the genuine decreases from the most recent figures being artificially low due to delays in the reporting of deaths. But I shall share it today anyway, and probably tomorrow too, and then I wont do it again unless there is a change in trend such as the decline slowing notably.


----------



## elbows (Feb 16, 2021)

Since international travel and new variant issues are likely to be a subject of interest for a long time, I am going to selectively quote from a document that the Department for Transport and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office paper that SAGE considered on 21st January.

I have deliberately chosen to focus on one set of details that I hope will enable people that are still tempted to fall for false reassurances to avoid doing so. I will explain myself further if necessary but for now I'll assume the quotes speak for themselves. But basically Im talking about not confusing things that are actually done for surveillance purposes with measures that are genuine attempts to halt the spread of new variants. File under 'the horse has already bolted by the time we notice'.






						DfT and FCDO: International importation, border and travel measures, 21 January 2021
					

Paper presented by the Department for Transport (DfT) and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).




					www.gov.uk
				






> By the time a case of a new variant is detected for the second time through sequencing approaches, there will already be a significant number of infections in the community. Not everyone infected with SARS-CoV-2 is tested, not all positive tests are sequenced, and delays occur at each stage.
> Assuming a local R of 1.5 for the B.1.351 variant first detected in South Africa, the first imported infection was estimated to have occurred between 7.6 and 10 days before the second case was reported in the UK (which was before the variant was reported by South Africa). (Pearson)
> At the time the second case of this variant was reported in the UK, there were already an estimated 78 (17, 230) people infected with this variant in the UK. (Pearson)
> The UK has a high level of international connectivity. This makes it more likely that at the time a new variant of concern is detected anywhere in the world, there will already be cases in the UK. This risk of this will be higher for countries with high volumes of direct international travel.


----------



## Cid (Feb 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> I havent posted my colour-coded graph for a while because there seemed less point in the current phase, and also because during a downwards trajectory it is even harder for us to separate out the genuine decreases from the most recent figures being artificially low due to delays in the reporting of deaths. But I shall share it today anyway, and probably tomorrow too, and then I wont do it again unless there is a change in trend such as the decline slowing notably.
> 
> View attachment 254695



Good to see that the pattern is holding for now anyway, thanks for the work you put in on these.


----------



## i_hate_beckham (Feb 16, 2021)

My friend passed away sadly over the weekend from Covid-19 aged 31. Went into hospital with an unrelated health condition, caught it while there and was too weak to recover. Really brought home how serious this situation is. My wife and I had it at the start and weren't worried but this now seems surreal. Apparently if I update my GP that I have a BMI of just over 40 I can get a jab in the next round or 2 of jabs.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 16, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not sure I've seen ethnicity on medical records tbh, but I have seen BMI and/or weight mentioned on loads. Unsure about whether discussion would need to have happened for that, although I suspect for most people it would have come up in the course of discussing the medical issue they were seeing the GP about.


Yeah, I'm sure you're right, I'm probably confusing the monitoring type forms you fill in when you register with a practice (which will be anonymised) with individual records.   Overall though, I'm wondering which lists/sources of information government are using when they send out these letters:



> Medical records have been searched to identify high risk patients and they are now being sent letters by the NHS informing of them of their new status, which means they are entitled to statutory sick pay, prioritisation for online shopping slots and help collecting medicines.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 16, 2021)

i_hate_beckham said:


> My friend passed away sadly over the weekend from Covid-19 aged 31. Went into hospital with an unrelated health condition, caught it while there and was too weak to recover. Really brought home how serious this situation is. My wife and I had it at the start and weren't worried but this now seems surreal. Apparently if I update my GP that I have a BMI of just over 40 I can get a jab in the next round or 2 of jabs.


Sorry to hear about your friend. My condolences.


----------



## Sue (Feb 16, 2021)

God, i_hate_beckham, that's terrible. You must all be in shock. x


----------



## LDC (Feb 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Yeah, I'm sure you're right, I'm probably confusing the monitoring type forms you fill in when you register with a practice (which will be anonymised) with individual records.   Overall though, I'm wondering which lists/sources of information government are using when they send out these letters:



Medical records are a total mess tbh. Different bits of the NHS use different systems, and there's no central system/register at all. That, the fact some patient's have opted out of record sharing, and then the NHS IT systems are like something from the mid-90s doesn't make for efficiency at all.

My brother was totally missed from the first shielding letters (kidney transplant) due to his hospital and GP records not linking up at all.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 16, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Medical records are a total mess tbh. Different bits of the NHS use different systems, and there's no central system/register at all. That, the fact some patient's have opted out of record sharing, and then the NHS IT systems are like something from the mid-90s doesn't make for efficiency at all.
> 
> My brother was totally missed from the first shielding letters (kidney transplant) due to his hospital and GP records not linking up at all.


So, there's a chance any extended shielding list or priority list for vaccines will involve GPs or others diverting time going through their records patient by patient (or not much better than that)?


----------



## agricola (Feb 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Wonder what that adds up to in terms of practical steps?  Ethnicity is likely to be recorded on GP records (?), though obesity will be only if people have had discussions with their doc. Depravation - using post codes?  Basically, who puts this list together if it does become a vaccine priority list?



hopefully it includes proper financial support - the groups included in this are going to be much more likely to need it


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 16, 2021)

Email today from government saying shield until end of March.


----------



## LDC (Feb 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> So, there's a chance any extended shielding list or priority list for vaccines will involve GPs or others diverting time going through their records patient by patient (or not much better than that)?



From what I have heard GPs will be able to search their database records for various categories (age/illness/etc.) so it's not too time consuming, but accuracy will depends on how good their records are (obviously). It also depends on the info flow from other places in the system. When I worked at a hospital (small department) we at one point had a backlog of over 2000 letters to GPs about patients and their attendance at the department, some of which would have been about new diagnoses and treatments given.


----------



## The39thStep (Feb 16, 2021)

Petcha said:


> What's stopping you flying from a red country to a non-red country and then just connecting straight through to the UK?











						Covid: Four fined in Birmingham over red-list travel
					

The air passengers did not declare they had been in a country deemed a high Covid risk, police say.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## Badgers (Feb 17, 2021)

*Elite* sport 









						This is when Cheltenham Festival takes place in 2021 - and how to watch the coverage on TV
					

The 2020 festival received some criticism after allowing spectators to attend at the start of the Covid outbreak, despite concerns over the spread of the virus




					www.yorkshirepost.co.uk


----------



## Cloo (Feb 17, 2021)

I'm sorry i_hate_beckham  - what a shock.

Waiting to hear about our neighbour over the road, last we heard a few days ago he was gradually being brought back to consciousness, he's been in hospital for 3 weeks, 1 on heavy ventilation and coma, and since then slightly lighter sedation.

BTW, very interesting account of Covid from this Spectator writer: 'Then the roof fell in': My Covid fight | The Spectator

He basically didn't feel very ill or have many symptoms, so didn't think it could be COVID, then suddenly deteriorated and had to take himself to hospital.


----------



## flypanam (Feb 17, 2021)

Ed Rooksby passed away the other day, I wouldn't say he was well known but did contribute to Jacobin, PTO, and other such organs and podcasts. He wrote a moving blog detailing his struggle with long covid it really is worth a read, tbh I found it really moving.








						ed rooksby
					

ideas are also material forces




					edrooksby.wordpress.com


----------



## elbows (Feb 17, 2021)

Ha ha, even Nick Triggle comes out with this these days:



> So why the caution? While most believe Covid will become seasonal, a bounce-back in the summer is not being ruled out.
> 
> And even if rates rebound only a little, there are still large numbers of vulnerable people. Nearly half of hospitalisations have been in the under-70s.
> 
> ...











						Covid: Boris Johnson to focus on 'data, not dates' for lockdown easing
					

The lifting of England's restrictions must be "cautious and prudent", Boris Johnson says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just under 15.6m
> 
> ...



Everything continues to head in the right direction.   

Today's update -

First dose vaccinations now just under 16m

New cases - 12,718, overall a drop of 24.1% in the last week.

New deaths - 738, which is down 263 on last Wednesday's 1,001, that brings the 7-day average down to around 585 a day, a drop of 26% in the last week.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 17, 2021)

I've just had a look at the map, linked from the daily update page on the gov't'd covid dashboard.
I zoomed into the MSOA scale and went for a bit of a nationwide tour.
The number of areas with "suppressed" data is growing steadily, and overall, the case rates shown has dropped significantly. There are very few purple areas to be seen, compared to even a month ago ...


----------



## teuchter (Feb 17, 2021)

Wales seems to be powering ahead with its 2nd doses











						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 17, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I've just had a look at the map, linked from the daily update page on the gov't'd covid dashboard.
> I zoomed into the MSOA scale and went for a bit of a nationwide tour.
> The number of areas with "suppressed" data is growing steadily, and overall, the case rates shown has dropped significantly. There are very few purple areas to be seen, compared to even a month ago ...



I've never understood why that map is 5-days behind, but, yeah, it's good to see so much green in the SE now, look at the different between the 1st Jan. and 12th Feb.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 17, 2021)

gsv saw our neighbour's wife just now - things are going in the right direction but it's still looking like a few weeks in intensive care and maybe months before he can go home. I did fear that if he pulled through it would be a long road to recovery for him, as he was not in great health beforehand. Apparently he did come very close to death.


----------



## elbows (Feb 17, 2021)

I'm mostly only posting this graph today because I said I would. Wont post it again unless things get stuck at a certain level.


----------



## teqniq (Feb 17, 2021)

This popped up on my Twitter feed quote tweeted by someone else. I looked at the replies, they are variations on 'what a lovely photo' 'well done' etc all in support of the clown (I gave up scrolling down after a bit). Jesus H Christ.


----------



## Thora (Feb 17, 2021)

Bizarre on the part of the nursery as the rules are strictly no visitors unless absolutely necessary - eg educational psychologists that have to visit in person.  Even parents aren't allowed in.


----------



## Elpenor (Feb 17, 2021)

I counted that there were 21 consecutive days on Elbows bar chart with over 1000 deaths. Grim.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 18, 2021)




----------



## andysays (Feb 18, 2021)

Badgers said:


>



It was always likely that if they tried to leave the maximum suggested interval as standard that delays somewhere in the system would mean that some would go over.

Not wanting to be "I told you so", but I'm sure I mentioned that weeks ago.

Maybe the just in time approach to logistics doesn't work so well when it's something as important and time critical as public health.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 18, 2021)

Good thread


----------



## Badgers (Feb 18, 2021)

I thought this was pretty well known? 





__





						Air systems in some UK quarantine hotels 'risk spreading Covid'  | Transport policy | The Guardian
					

Expert says some hotels’ ventilation systems provide inadequate airflow or could spread virus




					amp.theguardian.com


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 18, 2021)

That was an excellent thread from Mr Hopson just above, but (anyone?) how much influence will the Chief Executive Officer of NHS Providers (aka Chris Hopson!) get to have, over what the Government ends up deciding??


----------



## Badgers (Feb 18, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> That was an excellent thread from Mr Hopson just above, but (anyone?) how much influence will the Chief Executive Officer of NHS Providers (aka Chris Hopson!) get to have, over what the Government ends up deciding??


None at all. The government are selling the NHS to capitalism via the back door.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 18, 2021)

The point about more long-stay patients due to better treatment is interesting - our neighbour being one. I suspect had he caught it in the first peak last year he would been among those who didn't survive.


----------



## purenarcotic (Feb 18, 2021)

I think the really interesting bit will be treatments that keep people out of ICU, and out of hospital entirely. I hope the trials using the brown inhaler drug continue to prove successful because it feels like a total game changer to me if it continues to show it’s very effective. Easy to administer and very cheap (double bonus). It feels to me like things we can do essentially on a prophylactic basis is better overall than reactively once someone is very poorly.


----------



## teqniq (Feb 18, 2021)

also



fucking madness to reopen schools as soon as they are saying imo.


----------



## Supine (Feb 18, 2021)

teqniq said:


> fucking madness to reopen schools as soo as they are saying imo.



And the scientists say R will increase to between 1.2 and 1.5 depending on how many schools are opened. We will see if they follow the science.


----------



## elbows (Feb 18, 2021)

The stuff about infection levels in younger people is probably referring to the REACT study.



> The report found falls in infections across all age groups, with 18 to 24-year-olds and five to 12-year-olds currently having the highest virus levels - although still below 1%.
> 
> It estimates the over-65s have the lowest levels of virus at 0.3%.
> 
> ...











						Strong decline in coronavirus across England since January, React study shows
					

Study finds infections fell by two-thirds - and more in London - but warns virus levels remain high.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 2hats (Feb 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> The stuff about infection levels in younger people is probably referring to the REACT study.











						Coronavirus infections have fallen substantially in England – REACT study | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

The number of people infected with the coronavirus in England has dropped by over two-thirds since January.




					www.imperial.ac.uk
				



Round 9 preprint here.


----------



## elbows (Feb 18, 2021)

2hats said:


> Coronavirus infections have fallen substantially in England – REACT study | Imperial News | Imperial College London
> 
> 
> The number of people infected with the coronavirus in England has dropped by over two-thirds since January.
> ...



I note the word partly.



> During December 2020, prevalence of infection increased substantially and led to the highest-to-then levels of hospital admissions due to COVID-19, with southern regions more affected than those in the north.
> 
> The sudden increase in infections and admissions was partly attributed to a novel variant first detected in the county of Kent in the South East


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Everything continues to head in the right direction.
> 
> Today's update -
> 
> ...



Today's update -

First dose vaccinations now just over 16.4m - second doses are now going up, from around 5k a day last week, to 12.4k on Tuesday & 15k yesterday.

New cases - 12,057, overall a drop of 20.3% in the last week - that percentage drop is decreasing a little.

New deaths - 454, which is down 224 on last Thursday's 678, that brings the 7-day average down to around 551 a day, a drop of 26.9% in the last week - *that's the lowest average we have had this year.  *


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 18, 2021)




----------



## Sunray (Feb 18, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


>




Some of the comments are


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 18, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


>



He'll end up doubled up and hating his cell mate quick enough :/


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## BigMoaner (Feb 18, 2021)

Man hands himself in as he'd rather be in jail than spend any longer with people at home during lockdown
					

The suspect said he wanted to go prison to get some "peace and quiet" from those he shares his home with.




					news.sky.com


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## FridgeMagnet (Feb 18, 2021)

Apparently some bloke handed himself in to the cops because he said he'd rather be in prison than with the people he was locked down with.


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## BCBlues (Feb 18, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Apparently some bloke handed himself in to the cops because he said he'd rather be in prison than with the people he was locked down with.



Yeah, I saw that somewhere. I'll post the link when I find it


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## BigMoaner (Feb 18, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Apparently some bloke handed himself in to the cops because he said he'd rather be in prison than with the people he was locked down with.


this one? Man hands himself in as he'd rather be in jail than spend any longer with people at home during lockdown


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## emanymton (Feb 18, 2021)

Another lighter Covid story. 









						'6.2cm-tall man' offered priority Covid vaccine after NHS blunder
					

Liam Thorp, whose real height is 6ft 2in, was recorded as having a BMI of 28,000




					www.theguardian.com


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## BigMoaner (Feb 18, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Another lighter Covid story.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


he's a biiiiig little lad.


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## NoXion (Feb 18, 2021)

I'm imagining some guy with a BMI of 28,000 having the appearance of a kind of gigantic man-pancake. A mancake, if you will.


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## zahir (Feb 18, 2021)

I thought this thread was interesting on media coverage here.


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## zora (Feb 18, 2021)

zahir said:


> I thought this thread was interesting on media coverage here.




Thank you for that link. Very worthwhile read, both for the detailed but succinct discussion of elimination and/or immunisation strategies, as well as for the example of media bias against the elimination route.


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## two sheds (Feb 18, 2021)

Yes - likelihood of mutations swings it for me, is going to be bloody impossible if (when) these keep happening.


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## teuchter (Feb 19, 2021)

She's advocating border quarantine indefinitely, right?


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## editor (Feb 19, 2021)

What worries me is that after nearly a year of a truly calamitous handling of the crisis, the government are going to get off the hook and milk the recent impressive performances on testing and vaccines:


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## hypernormalized (Feb 19, 2021)

zahir said:


> I thought this thread was interesting on media coverage here.




I've had a bit of a look at Deepti's twitter feed.

I think she means well, but is misunderstanding how the media works. There are obviously a load of blatantly false claims out there, like "schools don't spread coronavirus". Last year we had the good old "masks definitely don't work, don't wear them" stuff for a decent period. Obviously total and utter bollocks.

The media for the most part aren't performing a rigorous scientific analysis; the most charitable analysis of what they're doing is trying to get as much traffic as possible to keep the lights on. They're not playing the same game.

On 'zero covid'; the main issue I have with this is that the models don't seem to incorporate human behaviour. In that sense, they're only partially 'evidence based'. It's a bit like a Physics problem - 'given an infinite frictionless plane...'.

If you suspend democracy, close everything for half a year, block the borders NZ-style, and have perfect enforcement of household mixing etc, then provided we don't have some sort of animal reservoir or magic going on, eventually cases go to zero.

In the real world, I'm getting messages every day from old friends I haven't been in contact with for years, and almost everyone is ready to snap, turn off the news, and just start acting as if there is no virus. It's been almost 100 days since it was last legal for me to have a friend over for a cup of tea. The idea of lockdowns continuing for another six months or social distancing until 2022 is.. well, it might exist on paper, but in practice I'd be willing to bet significant amounts of money that compliance is going to fall apart before the Summer.

In that case then, it's only going to happen if vaccines and acquired immunity take R low enough during the better seasons that we see really low case numbers.

The more likely situations in my eyes are either high case numbers but low illness (if vaccines work for long enough), or an absolute bloodbath and potentially self-enforced isolation (if they don't).


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## Sunray (Feb 19, 2021)

I find this interesting








						How the beach 'super-spreader' myth may have hampered UK Covid reaction
					

News that no outbreaks were linked to beach trips highlights important message about outdoor transmission, says expert




					www.theguardian.com
				




It gives the government some wiggle room, allowing outdoor things like camping and hanging about in the park while still clamping down on indoor activity, which the author suggests is where all the infections occur.  This would lift the mood of the country, keep the population onside while also keeping a lid on the R value.


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## BigMoaner (Feb 19, 2021)

COVID-19: New study reveals how effective Pfizer's vaccine is after the first dose
					

Around 7,000 healthcare employees from Sheba Medical Centre, the country's largest hospital, took part in the study.




					news.sky.com


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## SpookyFrank (Feb 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> She's advocating border quarantine indefinitely, right?



No. Indefinite restrictions is what we have now.


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## platinumsage (Feb 19, 2021)

Did anyone ever propose zero flu? A zero COVID policy makes sense when the prospects of death and severe disease are so great, but with a largely vaccinated population pushing those rates right down even when new variants are considered,  it seems disproportionate compared to anything we've ever done previously to tackle death and disease, and I don't see it gaining public support at all - Melbourne just did a lockdown because of one quarantine hotel worker catching it and passing it on to others. I couldn't imagine Londoners tolerating that after the vaccination program was complete and the vaccine had been shown to prevent severe disease and death caused by that variant.


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## Sunray (Feb 19, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> I've had a bit of a look at Deepti's twitter feed.
> 
> I think she means well, but is misunderstanding how the media works. There are obviously a load of blatantly false claims out there, like "schools don't spread coronavirus". Last year we had the good old "masks definitely don't work, don't wear them" stuff for a decent period. Obviously total and utter bollocks.
> 
> ...



The issue isn't and hasn't ever really been about deaths and illness.  The issue is about having a functioning health system. Which I'd go as far as saying was overwhelmed last month. Do you want to be able to have your child's broken arm taken care of, or when you crash your car you get patched up in hospital so you're not maimed for life from treatable issues?

When people say 'fuck it all' and do what they want. They are saying 'fuck you' to the workers who might save their life if their stupidity causes them to get really sick.  

Plus, even if you go 'I'm doing shit I don't care' what are you going to do exact;y?  
Stay in Tescos for an extra half an hour? Knock yourself out.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 19, 2021)

Sunray said:


> The issue isn't and hasn't ever really been about deaths and illness.  The issue is about having a functioning health system. Which I'd go as far as saying was overwhelmed last month. Do you want to be able to have your child's broken arm taken care of, or when you crash your car you get patched up in hospital so you're not maimed for life from treatable issues?
> 
> When people say 'fuck it all' and do what they want. They are saying 'fuck you' to the workers who might save their life if their stupidity causes them to get really sick.
> 
> ...



I'm happy to be your scapegoat, but we can have a more useful discussion if you address the points in my post. Ranting isn't going to solve anything.

As I've said, I think that one possible "timeline" here is that we end up with absolute carnage as people slowly snap mentally. I hope it doesn't happen, and I think the vaccines make it highly improbable, but it's not within my control.


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## Sunray (Feb 19, 2021)

Wasn't ranting thanks.



hypernormalized said:


> I'm happy to be your scapegoat, but we can have a more useful discussion if you address the points in my post. Ranting isn't going to solve anything.
> 
> As I've said, I think that one possible "timeline" here is that we end up* with absolute carnage* as people slowly snap mentally. I hope it doesn't happen, and I think the vaccines make it highly improbable, but it's not within my control.



You're saying something doom is going to happen without saying what that something is?  What are you and your mates going to do, break into pubs so you can go to the pub?

Me and my friends aren't snapping mentally and have started planning two camping festival party events for mid to late summer. Gonna be fun.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 19, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Wasn't ranting thanks.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well, you seem to direct a load of anger at me, and what specifically I'm going to do, as if I have some sort of godlike powers over the world.

I'm just talking about potential outcomes and why I don't think 'zero covid' is viable.

It's just a possibility, there are other ones. Like the vaccines working perfectly, or actual herd immunity, or enforcement really ramping up with prison sentences etc. I'm not an oracle, I just don't think the current situation is sustainable.

That includes within hospitals, the staff (doing God's work by the way) must be running on fumes at this point. If this went on for years then eventually surely there ends up being a load of attrition as people just fall out of the job due to stress/trauma. I don't think it will, though.

I'm glad you and your friends are alright, festivals in the summer sound ace. Personally I have no chance of making it that far, but I salute you for your mental fortitude.


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## LDC (Feb 19, 2021)

My position is that 'zero covid' would have been desirable and possible if pursued from very early on in the pandemic. If it's tried now we'll have had the worst of all worlds; ongoing lockdowns for over a year but also with a massive death toll, and then now we'd also need a very strict lockdown to try and get to zero covid. 

I tend to agree that it wouldn't be tolerated, either by people or business. It'd also be a complete, and probably untenable, about-face for the medical establishment and government as they've not given it any serious public consideration so far.


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## zora (Feb 19, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> On 'zero covid'; the main issue I have with this is that the models don't seem to incorporate human behaviour. In that sense, they're only partially 'evidence based'. It's a bit like a Physics problem - 'given an infinite frictionless plane...'.
> 
> If you suspend democracy, close everything for half a year, block the borders NZ-style, and have perfect enforcement of household mixing etc, then provided we don't have some sort of animal reservoir or magic going on, eventually cases go to zero.



What I find frustrating about this line of argument is that democracy _has_ been suspended to a large degree, almost everything _was and continues to be _closed for over half a year (if you add up the lockdowns, let alone the fact that even outside of lockdowns restrictions were sky high), restrictions on household mixing have been much stronger for longer than in even comparable European countries (afaiu) and compliance by the general population excellent, there has now been recognition that there may need to be some kind of border quarantine...

So by rights the UK should have been able to achieve near-zero covid three times over. It's just because restrictions have always come too late, been loosened too soon, isolation poorly overseen and not supported etc that we have ended up as what _I_ see as the worst of all worlds and what we could end up slogging along in for another year.

And even now it could still be done - quoting from memory, I think Deepti Gurdasani estimates that we would need another 2-3 months of really tight restrictions for much greater freedom, relative plannability and lessening the chance of dangerous virus mutations after that. I _do _think that with political will and supported by the media it would be entirely possible to sell it to the public. Like with lockdown measures etc before, the appetite of the public for a strong containment or even elimination strategy has been imo completely underestimated or ignored by the government.

I guess it's similar to some other entrenched political positions - but I just cannot wrap my head around why not everyone can see this, including the likes of Tim Martin. Because to me, clearly Weatherspoons would stand a much better chance to be packed again safely, sooner, than dicking around for another however many months with half-arsed "beer garden, two households, compulsory Scotch egg-consumption" measures.

Just had another look at the Twitter thread, and she is indeed talking about extending current measures for about 2-3 months to get to <10 in 100000 cases (which I think comes under near-zero covid in much of the European debate, it's still quite different from the NZ model I think, and in fact I have question marks how well it could even work at that level - obviously it would need huge improvements in test and trace and supported isolation, as well as a willingness to go "hard and early" on measures again if things did threaten to go out of control again).

Quite the opposite of social distancing being extended for longer under a near zero covid strategy, I think social distancing measures and limits on gatherings and in-person teaching etc will need to stay in place for much longer under the current 'vaccination + half-baked measures' strategy.

On a personal level, I get it that people are ready to snap and take things into their own hands. I am also thinking about when and how I will be meeting with my non-cohabiting partner again (both living with other people), and that I might 'be forced' to do it outside of the regulations. But this is precisely because there is no plan. If I could be reasonably certain that I can in two or even four months time, I could hang in there. But at this rate, I can easily see a scenario in which schools re-open, shops are open, pub beer gardens and mini-camping festivals are allowed rule-of-six-styley, but it's still not allowed to stay over at another person's house. That's what's driving me crackers.

I agree that it is very unlikely to actually happen, but not imo because it's not an entirely viable strategy. Quick aside on Germany once again, and I guess an argument against my own position: A near-zero covid approach has received a lot of attention there recently. There are several very high profile, very well respected virologists and epidemologists who are getting a lot of airtime in talkshows and newspapers and even have got some support from business circles who understand that anything else is a false dichotomy - but it is still not getting any serious traction as the thing that's actually going to happen as far as I can see.


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## teuchter (Feb 19, 2021)

zora said:


> And even now it could still be done - quoting from memory, I think Deepti Gurdasani estimates that we would need another 2-3 months of really tight restrictions for much greater freedom, relative plannability and lessening the chance of dangerous virus mutations after that. I _do _think that with political will and supported by the media it would be entirely possible to sell it to the public. Like with lockdown measures etc before, the appetite of the public for a strong containment or even elimination strategy has been imo completely underestimated or ignored by the government.



But this is all ignoring the major issue of borders! Whatever timescale zero covid could be achieved within, it would then rely on quarantine for anyone entering the UK. Not just on a temporary basis - it would be until the rest of the world also achieved zero covid. Maybe there could be agreements with specific countries, where you had both opted for this approach. But essentially zero Covid only works if the whole world does it, or if the UK effectively lives with something like closed borders.

And that's not just an issue for people's personal freedoms to travel - it's a logistical issue too, getting freight in and out. Everyone keeps saying the UK's an island but it's not really - effectively we have several road links to the continent and at present we rely on those functioning, and functioning with accompanied freight. We are not comparable to somewhere like NZ at all.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 19, 2021)

zora said:


> What I find frustrating about this line of argument is that democracy _has_ been suspended to a large degree, almost everything _was and continues to be _closed for over half a year (if you add up the lockdowns, let alone the fact that even outside of lockdowns restrictions were sky high), restrictions on household mixing have been much stronger for longer than in even comparable European countries (afaiu) and compliance by the general population excellent, there has now been recognition that there may need to be some kind of border quarantine...
> 
> So by rights the UK should have been able to achieve near-zero covid three times over. It's just because restrictions have always come too late, been loosened too soon, isolation poorly overseen and not supported etc that we have ended up as what _I_ see as the worst of all worlds and what we could end up slogging along in for another year.
> 
> ...



I think you're describing a potentially tractable "if we could go back in time" state, but now, 300 days in, after being told the vaccines were the key, I just can't see it I'm afraid, though I'm perfectly willing to concede that I'm just more fragile than most.

I'm about a month or two away from turning off the news, putting my laptop in a cupboard, and going all in on collecting fines. Living like this just isn't worth it for me; society's approval becomes irrelevant when you don't feel part of it any more.


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## lazythursday (Feb 19, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> In the real world, I'm getting messages every day from old friends I haven't been in contact with for years, and almost everyone is ready to snap, turn off the news, and just start acting as if there is no virus. It's been almost 100 days since it was last legal for me to have a friend over for a cup of tea. The idea of lockdowns continuing for another six months or social distancing until 2022 is.. well, it might exist on paper, but in practice I'd be willing to bet significant amounts of money that compliance is going to fall apart before the Summer.


I feel your pain, and to be honest I've had weeks feeling like this and then moved back into some sort of acceptance... but you do realise that for many parts of the country it hasn't been legal to have a friend over for a cup of tea since July? Closer to 250 days than 100. And we've got through it, somehow.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 19, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I feel your pain, and to be honest I've had weeks feeling like this and then moved back into some sort of acceptance... but you do realise that for many parts of the country it hasn't been legal to have a friend over for a cup of tea since July? Closer to 250 days than 100. And we've got through it, somehow.



Thank you.

Unfortunately, thinking about what other people are able to tolerate doesn't really help me. If I were under Chinese rule I wouldn't have survived to be the age I am now either. I'm not wired that way, I'd have either been dragged off to a camp or topped myself by now. So it goes.

I'm glad you're surviving.


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## lazythursday (Feb 19, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Doesn't really help me. If I were under Chinese rule I wouldn't have survived to be the age I am now either. I'm not wired that way, I'd have either been dragged off to a camp or topped myself by now. So it goes.
> 
> I'm glad you're surviving.


I do agree with you that compliance will increasingly be an issue as the cases fall. It is just inevitable, and yes I don't think the zero Covid people really think that through. For example, I haven't seen my best mate since last July and once cases have gone below about 50 per 100,000 I will be sorely tempted to persuade him to come over for the night just in case that is the only chance all year because there's another surge on the way. And I am being far more of a stickler for the rules than many people I know.


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## zora (Feb 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> But this is all ignoring the major issue of borders! Whatever timescale zero covid could be achieved within, it would then rely on quarantine for anyone entering the UK. Not just on a temporary basis - it would be until the rest of the world also achieved zero covid. Maybe there could be agreements with specific countries, where you had both opted for this approach. But essentially zero Covid only works if the whole world does it, or if the UK effectively lives with something like closed borders.
> 
> And that's not just an issue for people's personal freedoms to travel - it's a logistical issue too, getting freight in and out. Everyone keeps saying the UK's an island but it's not really - effectively we have several road links to the continent and at present we rely on those functioning, and functioning with accompanied freight. We are not comparable to somewhere like NZ at all.



I was actually just pondering this while making my porridge, based on your remark from last night about border quarantine.

I haven't really got an answer to that - maybe in a way a reflection on how little this approach has been discussed in any seriousness and for its longer term implications.

I guess one could say it's a strange counter argument to make exactly at the moment when the UK is starting to be (semi)serious about actually implementing border quarantine! We may well be in a situation where there is border quarantine for half the world's countries for the next 1-2 (x?) number of years because of concerns about mutations and their effect on vaccices, in which case - why not go for near zero covid here in the meantime?

But yeah it'd be interesting to hear more about what Australia an NZ's longer term plans are in that respect and also how that might have developed over time. Maybe when they started all this, they had hoped that the rest of the world would also go for elimination and ultimately eradication - idk! However, it would be clearly crazy to say that because of where the majority of the rest of the world is at now, they shouldn't have followed their strategy.

Don't know if the freight issue really is one? Freight seems to have continued around the globe more or less regardless of each countries covid-status and strategy?

But not wanting to downplay it either. In fact this issue often seems to be the point where the discussion in Germany fizzles out as well. It's always the argument "but we are in the middle of Europe, many borders, people crossing borders for work..." then the zero-covid side says "yes, we would need a Europe-wide strategy".. and there it all goes tumbleweed...
Yet again, when push does come to shove, borders get closed after all. Curious situation in Germany/Austria right now, where borders have been closed (or restricted, with negative test needing to be shown, something like that) with Austria because of the situation in Tyrol, and of course Austria is pissed off, but Austria have internally restricted travel with Tyrol itself...

Clearly a not uncomplex issue.


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## teuchter (Feb 19, 2021)

zora said:


> Don't know if the freight issue really is one? Freight seems to have continued around the globe more or less regardless of each countries covid-status and strategy?



The point here - which it seems to me, some people don't appreciate - is that although we don't have a land border with the continent, we move loads of stuff between the UK and the continent on individual lorries, either through the channel tunnel, or on the many short-haul ferry services that exist. In effect we have multiple land borders with significant numbers of drivers crossing them every day.

There is also a proportion of freight that arrives un-accompanied - that is, in shipping containers that are pulled off a ship at a port and then put on a lorry (or train).

But the big difference in NZ or Australia is that all of their freight arrives un-accompanied (as far as I am aware) because they just aren't close enough to anywhere for it to make any sense to pay a lorry driver to sit on a long-haul ship crossing along with their cargo.

It would be quite possible for the UK to change its entire setup (I'd be massively in favour of that anyway if it reduced the number of long distance individual-lorry journeys) so we didn't rely on drivers crossing the border with their consignments but it would need quite a lot of changes to infrastructure, logistics, supply chains and so on, and it's not something that you can change overnight. It would certainly be interesting to see an analysis of how quickly it could be changed though.

Freight has continued around the globe yes - not entirely without disruption - but only in the context of nearly everywhere being under various restrictions (except places which don't receive unaccompanied freight anyway). Maybe someone will come back at me with counter-examples of east-asian countries though?

But I think this is all a bit of a side issue, compared to that of telling people that effectively they can't travel abroad any more (possibly for many years) without time consuming, expensive and disruptive quarantine procedures. I can't see that being accepted, unless we find ourselves in a position where it has been demonstrated that we are unable to control things via vaccination and are having to rely on periodic lockdowns in the long term. And by "control" I mean reduce deaths and serious illness to levels that are non-zero, and probably higher than many posting here would be happy with.


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## elbows (Feb 19, 2021)

Previously the only scenario in which I've considered zero covid being taken seriously by the UK establishment is if the vaccination programme backfires and fails in some way. A scenario I dont intend to look at more deeply unless there are signs that we and ending up down that route.

But I suppose there is another scenario, one where vaccinations and other stuff pushes the number of infections here, and in other key countries, down to such low levels that eradication starts to sound viable. Again I doubt I will go on about that much unless we find ourselves approaching such a scenario, but I may as well throw it out there.


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## Badgers (Feb 19, 2021)

I read that the Track & Trace is being scaled down  best time to reopen the school's and plan those holiday's


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## elbows (Feb 19, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I read that the Track & Trace is being scaled down  best time to reopen the school's and plan those holiday's



Whats the detail? If they are scaling down the national, centralised system in favour of the local ones then my attitude will be quite different compared to them scaling down the entire effort at every level.


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## Badgers (Feb 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Whats the detail? If they are scaling down the national, centralised system in favour of the local ones then my attitude will be quite different compared to them scaling down the entire effort at every level.


Will find a link. I think they are cutting staff rather than changing the set up sadly. 

One of my staff worked for Serco on this. Applied on line, never heard anything back until a laptop, headset and a few pages of 'training' he worked on it for three months and only got sent two people to contact. One was the wrong number, the other never answered. #worldbeating


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## Badgers (Feb 19, 2021)

COVID-19: 'Large number' of contact tracers to be sacked - as PM prepares to announce loosening of lockdown
					

The exact number of contact tracers who are losing their job is unknown.




					news.sky.com


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## two sheds (Feb 19, 2021)

At some point you'd imagine the hotel quarantine will be built in as part of the holiday/travel if companies can try to provide socially distanced entertainment - don't know if that would be possible with cruise ships but you'd think someone would try.


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## two sheds (Feb 19, 2021)

How the beach 'super-spreader' myth may have hampered UK Covid reaction
					

News that no outbreaks were linked to beach trips highlights important message about outdoor transmission, says expert




					www.theguardian.com


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## Badgers (Feb 19, 2021)

two sheds said:


> At some point you'd imagine the hotel quarantine will be built in as part of the holiday/travel if companies can try to provide socially distanced entertainment - don't know if that would be possible with cruise ships but you'd think someone would try.


Cruise ships are fucked. They will force restarting of the industry but were shit with diseases before Covid-19. 

As for the travel sector. They will have to use the 'approved' hotels which are mostly Tory donor's so doubt there is much left after G4S have taken their massive slice of the action.


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## two sheds (Feb 19, 2021)

Whole cruise ships had to be isolated when they found cases of covid - but they won't do the same for hotels, not sure what the difference should be. But take your point about tory donors and cash left over.


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## elbows (Feb 19, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Will find a link. I think they are cutting staff rather than changing the set up sadly.
> 
> One of my staff worked for Serco on this. Applied on line, never heard anything back until a laptop, headset and a few pages of 'training' he worked on it for three months and only got sent two people to contact. One was the wrong number, the other never answered. #worldbeating



Thanks for the detail. I'll have to reserve judgement because the stories only deal with that one aspect, they dont indicate what else may be changing. Because if the local stuff is prioritised instead then its different staff involved so only hearing about the Serco side of things doesnt really give me any clues about that.


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## elbows (Feb 19, 2021)

two sheds said:


> At some point you'd imagine the hotel quarantine will be built in as part of the holiday/travel if companies can try to provide socially distanced entertainment - don't know if that would be possible with cruise ships but you'd think someone would try.



No, I doubt it. It would quickly make a mockery of quarantine. And judging by stuff last year, where every new country added to the quarantine list resulted in people rushing home as if their life depended on it, the length of holiday/amount of time people get off work is a critical factor. People planning a week or twos holiday do not have additional weeks available to quarantine, and I doubt much window dressing exists that would make quarantine appealing.


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## two sheds (Feb 19, 2021)

Pah. They're advertising cruises on tv still. They just have to make quarentine into a benefit. 

Covid Cruises. Five star food brought to your cabin. Widescreen tv with your favourite films wall to wall. View the exotic harbours of Europe through your porthole window ... 

No imagination you people


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## platinumsage (Feb 19, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Cruise ships are fucked. They will force restarting of the industry but were shit with diseases before Covid-19.



My experience in 2019 was that they were quite impressive. There were guards who wouldn't let any fucker into the buffet queue without being doused in hand sanitiser. Most passengers thought it a novelty, although they are no doubt much more familiar with such procedures now.


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## Ms Ordinary (Feb 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> No, I doubt it. It would quickly make a mockery of quarantine. And judging by stuff last year, where every new country added to the quarantine list resulted in people rushing home as if their life depended on it, the length of holiday/amount of time people get off work is a critical factor. People planning a week or twos holiday do not have additional weeks available to quarantine, and I doubt much window dressing exists that would make quarantine appealing.



People able to wfh would be able to do so from a quarantine hotel, just as they were able to wfh whilst isolating after their holidays last year.

(Though I also don't think it will happen, as I do think & hope quarantine & the cost of it, is intended to dissuade people from unnecessary international travel - as you say, it would make a mockery of that.)


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## elbows (Feb 19, 2021)

Ah yes I forgot to even mention the deterrent aspect of many of the measures, thanks for bringing that up.


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## Ms Ordinary (Feb 19, 2021)

Jo Whiley has been drawing attention to carers - herself included - being offered vaccines before the people they care for, and before learning disabled people in care homes (who are often vulnerable due to additional health conditions).

Jo Whiley offered Covid jab before sister in care home who later tested positive



> According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, 60% of people who died with Covid-19 in England up to November last year had a disability. For people who had a medically diagnosed learning disability, the risk of death was 3.7 times greater for both men and women than for people who did not.



(Following a covid outbreak at her residential home, her sister Frances is now in hospital)


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 16.4m - second doses are now going up, from around 5k a day last week, to 12.4k on Tuesday & 15k yesterday.
> 
> ...



Today's update -

First dose vaccinations now just under 16.9m - second doses are now just under 590k.

New cases - 12,027, overall a drop of 20.3% in the last week.

New deaths - 533, which is down 225 on last Friday's 758, that brings the 7-day average down to around 519 a day, a drop of 27.7% in the last week, *again* *that's the lowest average we have had this year. * .

ETA - and, patients in hospital have finally dropped below last April's peak, latest figure is 19,392, on Wed 17/2.


----------



## Smangus (Feb 19, 2021)

Meanwhile back at the ranch

Whitty at odds with Johnson over 'big bang' reopening of schools in England


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 19, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Thank you.
> 
> Unfortunately, thinking about what other people are able to tolerate doesn't really help me. If I were under Chinese rule I wouldn't have survived to be the age I am now either. I'm not wired that way, I'd have either been dragged off to a camp or topped myself by now. So it goes.
> 
> I'm glad you're surviving.


If you were under Chinese rule you would be able to go out clubbing right now if you wanted.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 19, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> If you were under Chinese rule you would be able to go out clubbing right now if you wanted.



Well, no, because I'd have killed myself or been carted away when my flat door was welded shut. Or before then for expressing the Chinese equivalent of "Boris is a cunt".

I'm sure society would tick on without me though, and the majority of people would celebrate my death. I'm happy I don't exist in that timeline, though I can see the tide is turning here in the UK.

The only thing keeping me going at the moment is the fact that our most draconian rules like "you're not allowed to have a picnic outside", "you're not allowed to walk at the beach", "you can't have a single friend over for a chat" aren't actually enforced, they're physically possible to do.

If they were; if we actually lived in the panopticon some seem to want; I would not be alive. It feels bizarre to write this online and know that people treat it as just words on a screen or some bollocks veiled threat, but it's a real thing, I'm hanging on by a thread here. I cling on to the anger in order to get out of bed in the morning and feed myself.


----------



## elbows (Feb 19, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Meanwhile back at the ranch
> 
> Whitty at odds with Johnson over 'big bang' reopening of schools in England





> Ministers and senior policymakers, including permanent secretaries, have attempted to convince Whitty that he needs to make a public statement of support for the policy to reassure parents and teachers about safety, it is understood. But so far he has not provided an endorsement to be included in the media materials to be distributed ahead of Monday’s announcement, sources said.
> 
> Instead Whitty has offered support described as “lukewarm” and is expected to say it is down to politicians to make the final call on the timing of school reopenings.
> 
> An education source said they believed the row could be resolved, adding: “No 10 will come up with a formulation of words that Whitty can live with.”



Well it probably isnt the first time this has happened!



> A No 10 source said Sage advice on the roadmap would be published “after the event”.



How long after is the question.

Meanwhile the roadmap announcements timing may not turn out the be the best. Looking at daily reported positive cases and some ZOE report, it seems the period of impressively fast decline in positive cases may well have ended for now.









						Rapid drop in cases slows down
					

According to the ZOE COVID Symptom Study UK Infection Survey figures, there are currently 14,064 daily new symptomatic cases of COVID in the UK on average, based on swab tests data from up to five days ago.




					covid.joinzoe.com
				






> Although daily new cases have fallen steadily for 6 consecutive weeks in the UK, in the last few days the rate of decrease has plateaued. This is mainly true in places like Scotland, Wales and the Midlands compared to London and the East. It’s unclear why this is happening, although people relaxing their guard after vaccination or altering behaviour in the cold weather are possible.


----------



## weltweit (Feb 19, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Meanwhile back at the ranch
> 
> Whitty at odds with Johnson over 'big bang' reopening of schools in England


I would tend to side with Whitty.. I want the virus down to low levels, T&T levels, before opening begins.


----------



## miss direct (Feb 19, 2021)

I'm bloody furious at the idea of being in school in two weeks surrounded by 1000+ others who don't distance or wear masks properly, if at all. Gives me a good reason to quit my job though!


----------



## Cid (Feb 19, 2021)

Have we had this yet? High court rules that Hancock unlawfully failed to publish contracts relating to PPE procurement within 30 days. I imagine appeals will follow, and not sure whether there are implications beyond principle, and I suppose influence on any future inquiry.









						Matt Hancock acted unlawfully by failing to publish Covid contracts
					

High court judge rules failure to publish details of contracts within 30 days was transparency breach




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 20, 2021)

Alcohol, and lots   , may well be helping me say this, but bring me more of those excellent zora posts please!  

She knows her shit


----------



## Badgers (Feb 20, 2021)

Hertfordshire news but I assume there is similar around the UK 

The lateral flow testing centres have been extended till the end of June. Guessing that is to support the easing of lockdown (and give the government another way to put blame on the public) and reopening of schools.

Also they have set up a couple of 'Covid Coaches' which will do testing in the villages etc. Apparently there will also be Vaccination Vans (buses) for the same areas.

Really hope there is a megaphone on top of these buses playing a Vengaboys cover 

*THE COVID COACH IS COMING LA LA LA LA *


----------



## kabbes (Feb 20, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Well, no, because I'd have killed myself or been carted away when my flat door was welded shut. Or before then for expressing the Chinese equivalent of "Boris is a cunt".
> 
> I'm sure society would tick on without me though, and the majority of people would celebrate my death. I'm happy I don't exist in that timeline, though I can see the tide is turning here in the UK.
> 
> ...


If you were under Chinese rule, you would be a completely different person in the first place.  You can't just take everything you are now and transplant it to a Chinese context without assuming anything about you is different.  To this end, using Foucault's concept of "the panopticon" whilst simulataneously ignoring everything Foucault (and those after him) had to say about the implications of a panopticon for the formation of the self just makes you look like a pseud.

This is not just some point of pedantry.  The point is that you are formed within the context of the society that forms you and this is a dynamic, ongoing process.  In turn, this means that what we collectively do to protect or harm the vulnerable today will affect how we all react to the vulnerable tomorrow.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 20, 2021)

kabbes said:


> If you were under Chinese rule, you would be a completely different person in the first place.  You can't just take everything you are now and transplant it to a Chinese context without assuming anything about you is different.  To this end, using Foucault's concept of "the panopticon" whilst simulataneously ignoring everything Foucault (and those after him) had to say about the implications of a panopticon for the formation of the self just makes you look like a pseud.
> 
> This is not just some point of pedantry.  The point is that you are formed within the context of the society that forms you and this is a dynamic, ongoing process.  In turn, this means that what we collectively do to protect or harm the vulnerable today will affect how we all react to the vulnerable tomorrow.



That's a really good point, actually, and one I made in the "Would you fight in WW1" thread on here - basically, I don't know, because I'd be a completely different person if I were born in the late 1800s.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 20, 2021)

Office staff at UK Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency ballot for strike after 535 COVID-19 infections and death of worker 



> Workers are balloting for strike action at the UK’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)—a government agency under the Department of Transport. Over 2,000 are being forced to physically attend their workplace at the DVLA offices in Swansea, south Wales, with an astonishing 535 members of the workforce (over 25 percent of those in the office) catching coronavirus during the last year.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 20, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Hertfordshire news but I assume there is similar around the UK
> 
> The lateral flow testing centres have been extended till the end of June. Guessing that is to support the easing of lockdown (and give the government another way to put blame on the public) and reopening of schools.
> 
> ...



West Sussex has had a vaccine bus on the road for a few weeks now, touring the villages, and our first 'mass' vaccination centre opened this week in Chichester, which I'll probably opt for, rather than Brighton, if I get an offer from the national programme before I get an invite to my local GP hub.

Although, it would be a lot easier if my SiL just brought a dose home for me, after finishing one of her jabbing sessions over at Chichester.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 20, 2021)

Any background or insight on this?


----------



## maomao (Feb 20, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Any background or insight on this?



How would they even know? Pretty sure they aren't checking occupation. Sounds like a muddled story or a tall tale to me.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 20, 2021)

maomao said:


> How would they even know? Pretty sure they aren't checking occupation. Sounds like a muddled story or a tall tale to me.


That was my guess too. Hard to know with this government


----------



## Badgers (Feb 20, 2021)

SisterBadgers husband works on the railways. He came out of isolation on Thursday and has just been put back in isolation again after two days work. 

This coupled with SisterBadgers (teacher) having to isolate 4/5 times already is testing for them.

Hopefully reopening school's and lifting lockdown will cheer everyone up though eh?


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 20, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Any background or insight on this?




Sounds like a load of arse to me, I'm fairly sure my GP doesn't know what I do for work.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 20, 2021)

Message from SisterBadgers. 

Martha is 9 years old 



> Martha had a rant and a cry yesterday about Boris  Johnson and I said she should ring you. She said she couldn't as she was too angry about everything.


----------



## LDC (Feb 20, 2021)

Sounds like total bullshit to me, and people shouldn't be spreading rumours like that. Nobody gets asked their occupation. We have 3 minute slots for each patient, only just enough time to check ID and get through the essential medical questions.


----------



## Supine (Feb 20, 2021)

Follow the science...









						Whitty at odds with Johnson over 'big bang' reopening of schools in England
					

Chief medical officer is said to be ‘very unhappy’ with plans for all children to go back to class on 8 March




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Badgers (Feb 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sounds like total bullshit to me, and people shouldn't be spreading rumours like that. Nobody gets asked their occupation. We have 3 minute slots for each patient, only just enough time to check ID and get through the essential medical questions.


Sounds like bullshit to me too. However with this government it would not surprise me if it was true.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 20, 2021)

Well if there's any truth in it it will be all over the press in no time, it's not like something like that can be kept secret is it. Doesn't ring true to me though, what would be the point?


----------



## Badgers (Feb 20, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Well if there's any truth in it it will be all over the press in no time, it's not like something like that can be kept secret is it. Doesn't ring true to me though, what would be the point?


Which press?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 20, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Which press?



Well most of them. It might not be main headline news but they're following the vaccine programme closely and putting out plenty of news aren't they. It's not like it wouldn't get coverage - that would be a bit conspiracyish tbh.


----------



## purenarcotic (Feb 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sounds like total bullshit to me, and people shouldn't be spreading rumours like that. Nobody gets asked their occupation. We have 3 minute slots for each patient, only just enough time to check ID and get through the essential medical questions.



I did tbf, as did all of my colleagues who have had it. I had to show my work ID, others showed their payslip to show proof they work where they work. That’s the only reason I got one, because of working in the social care sector. I wasn’t invited for a jab though, we booked directly through a link and only at certain hospital ‘hub’ sites. Dunno whether that makes a difference or not.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 20, 2021)

Far as I know carers or Co habiters (she has another job) don't automatically qualify.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 20, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> I did tbf, as did all of my colleagues who have had it. I had to show my work ID, others showed their payslip to show proof they work where they work. That’s the only reason I got one, because of working in the social care sector. I wasn’t invited for a jab though, we booked directly through a link and only at certain hospital ‘hub’ sites. Dunno whether that makes a difference or not.


This would be to make sure you are not just a random joe off the street chancing it at a facility vaccinating workers who qualify, I had to prove I wasn't one when getting my jab at the hospital where I work.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 20, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Well most of them. It might not be main headline news but they're following the vaccine programme closely and putting out plenty of news aren't they. It's not like it wouldn't get coverage - that would be a bit conspiracyish tbh.


I thought they were all focused on Megan?


----------



## prunus (Feb 20, 2021)

It looks like a misunderstanding (or more than one) on the part of the non-vaccinated person and/or their friend reporting. This thread of replies to the original tweet seems to show what might have happened: some teachers and or/social care workers were using a link not meant for them (told to do so by their schools) and this has been tightened up on. This person might qualify by virtue of being a carer, in which case they should get an invitation via their GP.   there is no ‘disqualification’ by virtue of being a teacher. Of course.


----------



## LDC (Feb 20, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Sounds like bullshit to me too. However with this government it would not surprise me if it was true.



If there's any truth to it it'll be a fuck-up/misunderstanding by the GP surgery or the people involved somehow I'd think.


----------



## LDC (Feb 20, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> I did tbf, as did all of my colleagues who have had it. I had to show my work ID, others showed their payslip to show proof they work where they work. That’s the only reason I got one, because of working in the social care sector. I wasn’t invited for a jab though, we booked directly through a link and only at certain hospital ‘hub’ sites. Dunno whether that makes a difference or not.



Yeah, it does. There's a difference between being invited by your GP due to age category/underlying health reasons or getting a vaccine because of your work through your work. The later is happening at vaccine hubs and being asked for your place of work is normal there to stop people walking in and chancing it and to track who is vaccinated in what part of the workforce. But we're talking about GP vaccinations here, and the difference is causing some confusion across the board as people are not always totally sure who's asked them in for one and why.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 20, 2021)

prunus said:


> It looks like a misunderstanding (or more than one) on the part of the non-vaccinated person and/or their friend reporting. This thread of replies to the original tweet seems to show what might have happened: some teachers and or/social care workers were using a link not meant for them (told to do so by their schools) and this has been tightened up on. This person might qualify by virtue of being a carer, in which case they should get an invitation via their GP.   there is no ‘disqualification’ by virtue of being a teacher. Of course.



Cheers prunus 

It sounded dodgy to me too but this government and workings could not surprise me.


----------



## alex_ (Feb 20, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Sounds like a load of arse to me, I'm fairly sure my GP doesn't know what I do for work.



yes, it’s clearly a load of bollocks

330k people were vaccinated yesterday - probably 400k today - for this to be true 1% of the population news to keep secret that there were asked if they were a teacher or not.

How on earth could you keep this secret ?

further to this - schools being closed is a big issue for the brexit-retard ex-erg Tory mps, a policy which risked slowing down school reopenings - why would they do it ?

Alex


----------



## miss direct (Feb 20, 2021)

Does anyone know my legal position if I refuse to go into school without strict measures and/or vaccination?


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Feb 20, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Does anyone know my legal position if I refuse to go into school without strict measures and/or vaccination?



This from TUC has a bit more. Probably worth seeing what your union is advising for the more specific circumstances


----------



## miss direct (Feb 20, 2021)

I'm not in a union. I only started the job last month and it's a short contract.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Feb 20, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I'm not in a union. I only started the job last month and it's a short contract.



depends how short a contract, i guess, but you can usually join a union even if you're on a fixed term contract


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just under 16.9m - second doses are now just under 590k.
> 
> ...



Today's update -

First dose vaccinations now just under 17.25m - second doses are now just under 605k.

New cases - 10,406, overall a drop of 19.2% in the last week - that percentage figure has been dropping for a few days now.   

New deaths - 445, which is down 176 on last Saturday's 621, that brings the 7-day average down to around 494 a day, a drop of 28.2% in the last week, *IF that figure drops by another 25% in the coming week, it will be the lowest since early Nov. *


----------



## elbows (Feb 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> New cases - 10,406, overall a drop of 19.2% in the last week - that percentage figure has been dropping for a few days now.



Or to put it another way (by date of reporting not date of specimen):



This carries on from the subject I raised the other day when quoting from ZOE Covid.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 20, 2021)

Looks like monday at work is gonna be like 4th January all over again, with everyone tearing their hair out wondering what the fuck is going to happen. 

Johnson's announcement is due at 3:30pm. Which, and I'm sure this applies to many other schools, is right in the middle of our staff meeting


----------



## elbows (Feb 20, 2021)

There is some jumping the gun going on with articles marking a year since stupid events took place, but never mind.









						‘If you wanted to design a virus dispersion hub, you could do worse’: the Cheltenham Festival, one year on
					

It was one of the last major sporting events before Britain went into lockdown in March 2020. Racegoers recall a tense week and its aftermath




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## LDC (Feb 20, 2021)

prunus said:


> It looks like a misunderstanding (or more than one) on the part of the non-vaccinated person and/or their friend reporting. This thread of replies to the original tweet seems to show what might have happened: some teachers and or/social care workers were using a link not meant for them (told to do so by their schools) and this has been tightened up on. This person might qualify by virtue of being a carer, in which case they should get an invitation via their GP.   there is no ‘disqualification’ by virtue of being a teacher. Of course.




Just heard this has happened locally as well, a well-meaning head teacher sent a link out to their staff saying book a vaccine slot which a load then did, and they turned up at a vaccine hub but were turned away as it was a link only meant for NHS staff. Can see why it's confusing though.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 20, 2021)

I actually heard similar today too, via a teacher friend, although it was presented as the teachers were (knowingly) booking slots not strictly intended for them but that the system wasn't able to know this.


----------



## kebabking (Feb 20, 2021)

This stuff was in the media about three weeks ago - a link getting shared on twitter/Facebook/WhatsApp - I had no idea Times Radio was so far ahead of the other outlets....

They even interviewed someone who had been done in error.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 20, 2021)

I saw there is some information coming out from Israel, not published yet, the Pfizer vaccine reduces transmission and stop you from getting covid-19.  This is the last unanswered question. The fewer people getting Covid-19 the less chance of mutations arising.








						Israeli Study Suggests Pfizer Vaccine Reduces Covid-19 Transmission
					

The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine can reduce the transmission of Covid-19, said a study published by Israel’s largest coronavirus testing lab on Monday. While vaccinated individuals may still test positive for the virus, they have smaller amounts of it in the body, the study published by the MyHerita




					www.wsj.com
				




There were a lot of people out walking and cycling today it being so warm.

Easter feels like a long time away to go outdoors with friends.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 20, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I saw there is some information coming out from Israel, not published yet, the Pfizer vaccine stops transmission and stop you from getting covid-19.  This is the last unanswered question. The fewer people getting Covid-19 the less chance of mutations arising.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It does not say that it stops transmission.


----------



## Mation (Feb 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sounds like total bullshit to me, and people shouldn't be spreading rumours like that. Nobody gets asked their occupation. We have 3 minute slots for each patient, only just enough time to check ID and get through the essential medical questions.


No one should get asked their occupation. But remember that bias and prejudices exist in individuals, and that sometimes comes out where it shouldn't, according to the official procedure.

Not saying that's the case here, as I have no idea. However, much of the discrimination people face can often be explained away by genuinely nice people looking at what official procedures should be, and not considering that their colleague, who is perfectly lovely to them, might behave differently to other people.

A flag, not an accusation.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It does not say that it stops transmission.


 Fixed.


----------



## elbows (Feb 20, 2021)

Dear oh dear.









						Leon boss warns longer lockdown 'will cost lives'
					

John Vincent says extending lockdowns, even by a number of weeks, "matters hugely".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Extending lockdowns even by a matter of weeks will "cost lives", the co-founder of fast-food chain Leon has said.
> 
> John Vincent said businesses were "at the heart of a functioning and healthy society" and were losing money that should be going to their employees and the government through taxes.



Oh my...



> He said there had been a "pantomime of scientists against business" during the pandemic - "as if there isn't one giant shared agenda" - and the latter were "positioned as the uncompassionate ones".



If you dont want to be labelled as uncompassionate then a first step would be to get a bloody clue about controlling epidemics and pandemics. Keep coming out with stuff that focusses only on economic damage and self-interest, and trying to dismiss inconvenient scientific and public health truths to justify that, puts you on the side of the pandemic shitheads. There is no way round that, and even when scientists and politicians try to balance economics with public health, there is still no way round that.



> But the length of lockdowns "matters hugely", he said, adding that the government had not produced a "holistic cost-benefit analysis".
> 
> "Therefore, how can we be making this decision about the impacts on the young today and for their futures? How can we make (decisions about) the impacts of the huge economic destruction which is costing lives? When we lose our economy we lose lives," he said.
> 
> "How can we be saying, glibly, 'it doesn't matter if lockdown carries on for a few weeks or months longer than necessary' without the analysis? I wouldn't launch a chicken wrap without analysis."



Be careful what you wish for, maybe the government can analyse your business and figure out if more lives are being saved by denying people your fast food.

There are real points to be made on this side of the balancing equation, but when cunts make them like this I dont think its going to help their cause, other public health aspects more directly related to the virus will always trump this shit unless the number of cases falls below a fairly low threshold. If the virus had a different degree of transmissibility, a different level of deadliness, a different ability to hospitalise people, then the balance would more easily go down the usual route of pandering to business shitheads who take a rigged game for granted. Can't rig the game during the acute phases of a bad pandemic, no matter how loudly they shriek. Opportunities to do so once more will return eventually, its only a matter of time, but in the meantime the powerful of business street clearly want to throw their weight around to force a reckless timescale.


----------



## elbows (Feb 20, 2021)

I already groaned some days ago about how we cannot trust Johnson to throw words like 'irreversible' around responsibly, although a somewhat sensible interpretation of this sentiment was eventually on display. Anyway I noticed there was another quote in that same article which gets into that territory:



> Prof Dame Angela McLean, deputy chief scientific adviser, told the Commons Science and Technology Committee earlier this week that each step of easing measures should be "irrevocable", adding "that means we have to be extremely careful before we add another unlocking".
> 
> "We want to understand the impact on each step before taking the next steps," she said, adding that this would require a "large gap" after children go back to school.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 20, 2021)

The recent media releases regarding the plan being "you'll be allowed to sit down outside in a month" or whatever has I think become the final straw for a lot of people, my phone is lighting up with dinner / house parties in the coming weeks.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 20, 2021)

Not for me - I'm waiting for my vaccination(s) to have built up enough immunity, and even then, I'm going to be excessively careful for months to come.


----------



## Supine (Feb 20, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> my phone is lighting up with dinner / house parties in the coming weeks.



I think that's probably a lie, but if not your friends are cunts.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 20, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Not for me - I'm waiting for my vaccination(s) to have built up enough immunity, and even then, I'm going to be excessively careful for months to come.


All the best!


----------



## elbows (Feb 20, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> The recent media releases regarding the plan being "you'll be allowed to sit down outside in a month" or whatever has I think become the final straw for a lot of people, my phone is lighting up with dinner / house parties in the coming weeks.



We've been around the block in terms of predictions about civil unrest, non-compliance etc a number of times before. And we've heard last-straw drivel from pathetic little threats to public health such as your sort before. I expect there is less appetite to jump so readily towards such predictions since they failed to come true the first few times. Which is not to say I exclude such possibilities from being possible in future, but I certainly wouldnt use you as a quality barometer of such sentiments building in the broader population.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> We've been around the block in terms of predictions about civil unrest, non-compliance etc a number of times before. And we've heard last-straw drivel from pathetic little threats to public health such as your sort before. I expect there is less appetite to jump so readily towards such predictions since they failed to come true the first few times. Which is not to say I exclude such possibilities in future, but I certainly wouldnt use you as a quality barometer of such sentiments.


Fair enough, just reporting what I'm seeing.


----------



## stdP (Feb 20, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Hopefully reopening school's and lifting lockdown will cheer everyone up though eh?



The government's been following the data, so teachers, support staff, children and everyone else mixing socially have all been vaccinated already (a month ago in fact, to allow immune response time to work) and re-opening the schools is perfectly safe - transmission of all variants is at effectively zero.

Right? Right?!

Certain ziplines would look pretty sweet wrapped around the neck of certain gelatinous cunts right now.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 20, 2021)

stdP said:


> The government's been following the data, so teachers, support staff, children and everyone else mixing socially have all been vaccinated already (a month ago in fact, to allow immune response time to work) and re-opening the schools is perfectly safe - transmission of all variants is at effectively zero.
> 
> Right? Right?!
> 
> Certain ziplines would look pretty sweet wrapped around the neck of certain gelatinous cunts right now.



I don't think it's clear that vaccinating teachers would result in a better outcome overall than vaccinating groups with a higher risk of severe outcomes.

It'd be better for teachers, sure.

It seems to me like one of those things where theoretically it's better (make pensioners isolate so that teachers are safer in school), but in practice maybe it ends up being a wash (for all of the reasons that have been given for not just letting the virus rip - the elderly can't or won't be isolated to that degree).

I do think that teachers (and anyone working in a high contact role) should be vaccinated ahead of the general population though.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 20, 2021)

I’m very sick of trade bodies and CEO’s of companies telling the government what to do. Even sicker of having a spineless government that seems to listen 

Three lockdowns and 115000 dead clearly tells us, all of them are wrong.
They need to shut the fuck up.


----------



## editor (Feb 20, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> The recent media releases regarding the plan being "you'll be allowed to sit down outside in a month" or whatever has I think become the final straw for a lot of people, my phone is lighting up with dinner / house parties in the coming weeks.


Brockwell park was so busy today with people enjoying beers with friends it looked pretty much like a big pub beer garden in places.


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## MJ100 (Feb 20, 2021)

Sorry, the last straw today, Elbows. I've been following this thread for a year now because you and other posters such as LynnDoyleCooper have given very informative replies to various questions, plenty of useful data etc. But lately I can't help but notice you're on the insult bus all the time. Just stop it. Please.

Calling someone a "pathetic little threat to public health" because they commented about something being the "last straw" for many people is just offensive and ignorant in equal measure. It shows that you really, really don't understand (or perhaps don't care about) the toll these lockdowns are taking on millions of people. Despite what you seem to think, Covid is NOT the only issue facing this country. I'm sure you know that really, but again, it's not showing through. I know that studying the epidemic is your area of expertise but the fact remains that there are innumerable other issues that lockdowns raise.

Whether or not that will cause more harm than good in the long run remains to be seen. I personally think that lockdowns will do more harm than good, certainly on a global scale, but of course I hope it isn't the case and I'm perfectly willing, in five or ten years, to stand corrected. But all you need to do is look at UN reports of x million kids entering food insecurity, or 200 million (I think?) people entering extreme poverty as a direct result of lockdowns to start having doubts. It's reasonable to have doubts, especially if you, your family or your friends are being impacted severely by the effects of lockdowns. Jumping directly to call someone a cunt because they have doubts about the cost-benefit analysis (which, incidentally, the fast food guy who I'd never heard of before is quite right about, since we the public have not seen any such thing from government) is just childish and stupid, and frankly from what I've seen of your level-headed analysis earlier in the pandemic, I'd expect better from you. I understand that you hate the government, which is reasonable, and you're no fan of big business, which is also reasonable, but when you start hurling insults around left right and centre, calling anyone who opposes or simply believes in the downsides of lockdown a "pandemic cunt" or a "lockdown shithead" then you start losing respect fast.

Standing by for the inevitable flaming and/or banning, but I had to make my point. I hope you can tone down the insulting of random posters and random members of the public and just stick to your useful and informative updates and data analysis.


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## ddraig (Feb 20, 2021)




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## Mr.Bishie (Feb 20, 2021)

Awesome?


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## weepiper (Feb 20, 2021)

"joined 25 minutes ago"


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## kabbes (Feb 20, 2021)

If we’re worried about the well being of children, there are ways of ensuring they have sufficient food that don’t involve increasing the spread of coronavirus once again just so that a fast food joint can make a tonne of profit out of a shit capitalist merry-go-round


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## stdP (Feb 20, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> But all you need to do is look at UN reports of x million kids entering food insecurity, or 200 million (I think?) people entering extreme poverty as a direct result of lockdowns to start having doubts.



I'm only coming at this from a UK perspective of course but I'm with kabbes on this one; it seems like a false equivalency to me. Ending the lockdown isn't miraculously going to get said kids out of food insecurity and there's many ways of feeding people outside of them going to school. So I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

Even if by some miracle we could end all lockdowns tomorrow, it's going to take months for people to regain the confidence to start going out and spending money again, and that's only if they're in a position to afford it (and hundreds of thousands in the UK definitely aren't).


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## MJ100 (Feb 20, 2021)

stdP said:


> I'm only coming at this from a UK perspective of course but I'm with kabbes on this one; it seems like a false equivalency to me. Ending the lockdown isn't miraculously going to get said kids out of food insecurity and there's many ways of feeding people outside of them going to school. So I'm not really sure what you're getting at.
> 
> Even if by some miracle we could end all lockdowns tomorrow, it's going to take months for people to regain the confidence to start going out and spending money again, and that's only if they're in a position to afford it (and hundreds of thousands in the UK definitely aren't).



The point seems pretty clear to me. Those people are in poverty because of lockdowns. Yes, this is more applicable to places like Africa and Asia than to the UK, but as I  mentioned in that point, it's on a global scale that I'm not at all convinced lockdowns will save more than they cost, in lives, health, money or anything else. I hope I'm wrong, as I said before, but only time will tell.


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## MJ100 (Feb 20, 2021)

weepiper said:


> "joined 25 minutes ago"



As I said, I've been looking at this thread for a year because it gave good information. I felt I had to register to make my point about all the insults flying around. Not sure why you felt the need to quote that.


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## Orang Utan (Feb 20, 2021)

Think of it as a stare out contest. Just don't blink


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## editor (Feb 20, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Standing by for the inevitable flaming and/or banning, but I had to make my point. I hope you can tone down the insulting of random posters and random members of the public and just stick to your useful and informative updates and data analysis.


FYI: You're not going to get banned for politely disagreeing with someone, but you may find people will robustly counter your claims.


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## stdP (Feb 20, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Those people are in poverty because of lockdowns.



Surely the people are in poverty because of the pandemic, and not the lockdowns themselves...? Even if no government in the world had enforced a lockdown, because of the correspondingly appalling death toll wouldn't people still be afraid to venture outside and work/shop/socialise as per usual?

Again, I can only speak from what I've seen of the UK government (and to a much lesser degree, the west as a whole); some governments have tried to cushion the inevitable blow to the public better than others, but I don't see how the blow could have been avoided entirely by either avoiding or prematurely ending lockdowns.


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## teuchter (Feb 20, 2021)

It's like how the fire brigade is always going around destroying people's homes, spraying water about and bashing the doors in. We need to stop it.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 20, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Sorry, the last straw today, Elbows. I've been following this thread for a year now because you and other posters such as LynnDoyleCooper have given very informative replies to various questions, plenty of useful data etc. But lately I can't help but notice you're on the insult bus all the time. Just stop it. Please.
> 
> Calling someone a "pathetic little threat to public health" because they commented about something being the "last straw" for many people is just offensive and ignorant in equal measure. It shows that you really, really don't understand (or perhaps don't care about) the toll these lockdowns are taking on millions of people. Despite what you seem to think, Covid is NOT the only issue facing this country. I'm sure you know that really, but again, it's not showing through. I know that studying the epidemic is your area of expertise but the fact remains that there are innumerable other issues that lockdowns raise.
> 
> ...



People are under a lot of stress and are lashing out. I've been there too, on here and elsewhere.

Insults don't change the fact that my friends and family have been declining in compliance as time goes on, this year especially (and in particular due to vaccination; my neighbours two jabs in are back in Feb 2020).

I'll be glad to pass on the information to my grandmother that someone on the internet thinks she's a "threat to public health" for wanting to cuddle her grandson after a year of isolation, it'll get a good laugh out of her.

To be honest, the more people on the internet and telly waffle on calling me a cunt for living my life, the more interest I have in getting off the internet and getting out in the real world. Can't imagine why.


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## Smangus (Feb 20, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> The point seems pretty clear to me. Those people are in poverty because of lockdowns. Yes, this is more applicable to places like Africa and Asia than to the UK, but as I  mentioned in that point, it's on a global scale that I'm not at all convinced lockdowns will save more than they cost, in lives, health, money or anything else. I hope I'm wrong, as I said before, but only time will tell.



Plenty of people in food poverty before the pandemic in this country, see the rise in use of foodbanks for one. Lockdown has only exposed the cracks in our society even further, cracks widened deliberately by the party in power witht the systematic reduction in safety nets over the years.

When businesses stop avoiding tax ,pay their share, stop bitching about minimum wages, costs and "burdans" then I'll take your point. The majority of covid relief money has been thrown at businesses, not individuals. They are still hoping to get thier massive 20 quid a week after March.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's like how the fire brigade is always going around destroying people's homes, spraying water about and bashing the doors in. We need to stop it.



Personally I've flooded my house as a pre-emptive measure. Can't burn moist wood. If we all do the same, we can reduce the load on the fire service.


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## teuchter (Feb 21, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Personally I've flooded my house as a pre-emptive measure. Can't burn moist wood. If we all do the same, we can reduce the load on the fire service.


You could just have invested in a smoke alarm instead.

But the lockdowns in the UK haven't been used as preemptive measures. They have been used as firefighting measures after things have got out of hand.

The situation we now have is an argument about whether the firefighters should leave the scene before or after the fire has been put out.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Sorry, the last straw today, Elbows. I've been following this thread for a year now because you and other posters such as LynnDoyleCooper have given very informative replies to various questions, plenty of useful data etc. But lately I can't help but notice you're on the insult bus all the time. Just stop it. Please.



Insults are part of the package people get from me, and this has always been the case. I can do bloody reasonable too, but I do find that when I do too much of that and not enough expression of anger or ridicule in regards some peoples stances, the reasonable starts to lose its reason, too much room is given to exactly the sort of bullshit I am here to counter. Because cutting away some layers of bullshit where I can is very much what causes me to commentate on things like pandemics, nuclear reactors melting and certain revolutions with quite a lot of intensity.

Some but not all of my insults are designed to make people think. If what they think is that I am an arse then so be it. Very few of my insults have been directed at peoples behaviour in this pandemic, there are all sorts of judgements and perceptions about peoples behaviour which I have tried to stay clear of. The big exception is when people come out with bullshit to justify their stance. I will attack the bullshit without apology, and perhaps at times I hit the wrong target in which case, if I notice, I will apologise.

Todays insult was not based on that single post, it was based on the posters recent history. People that brag about they and their associates breaking public health guidelines are not a pure representation of all the feelings of lockdown fatigue that people have. They are a related but somewhat distinct phenomenon, and their words often seem designed to provoke, especially on a forum like this one where there is quite a high degree of consensus about what attitude to take in this pandemic so far. There are various special and sentitive moments, often where the announcements and politics of the matter are heating up, where the occasional grubby freak seems to come out of the woodwork on this forum, taking stances that they absolutely know are going to go down badly here. And their posts also go down badly because they are often judged in isolation due to a lack of them being part of the community of this forum in any broader, non-pandemic sense.

Not that I expect things to remain like that forever. The game will change, since in addition to the genuine fatigue that many feel (including me), the equations in regard level of hospitalisations should change, which will change how far government ends up having to go. Theres a whole bunch of reason Johnson and the government are using words like irreversible and irrevocable this time. If they fuck up the exit strategy or something goes terrible wrong with the vaccine-based approach, and we end up needing another lockdown etc in future, then concerns will grow about whether the public will put up with it again. How many of them actually put up with it will depend on more detail about the threat we face at the time. The first lockdown was backed by the massive shock the pandemic was to everyone. The government made noises about never doing it again after the first time but I doubt they were sincere, since they knew the chances of an autumn/winter wave were high. This time they are banking on a gradual return to something resembling business as usual via vaccinations. And some setbacks can be tolerated under normal conditions so long as the numbers game is changed so that hospitalisation levels dont go off the charts. I know how many flu deaths society tolerates, and I will move with the times, I wont be ranting and taking an unwavering stance on how this virus should be surpressed if we get to a point where things remain within bounds that society and healthcare systems are used to coping with.

I'd ask to be judged on my stance last summer for a start. I wasnt entirely comfortable with pubs reopening when they did, but I recognised the economic and morale aspects and so was prepared to begrudingly go along with it, on the condition that such steps were reversed if the situation deteriorated. And on the occasions later where I started throwing insults about 'pandemic pub wankers', its because the situation had deteriorated but some were resisting the idea of closing the pubs again. I tried to make it clear that I was referring to people who felt the need to deny obvious epidemiological reality in order to justify a 'keep the pubs open' stance at a time where the situation called for strong measures to mitigate the second wave. Not people who were simply sad and feeling like they would struggle with the pubs closed, but people who were trying to invent their own reality to justify keeping them open.

People that cant stand lockdown should have even more interest in doing everything they can to ensure the success of careful relaxation of lockdown, everything they can to make it the last lockdown. Its February, its only just a few days over a month since we hit the peak of deaths in the second wave. The wave timing compared to the seasons is better than it was in 2020, we will be able to start to do a few things in spring so long as there arent any setbacks.There is lots of good vaccine news. I know people who find the strength to carry on a bit longer this time, and to be ok with the easing being slow, because they do sense light at the end of the tunnel now and dont want to see that light blotted out via premature missteps. Do not implode the tunnel when people are still travelling down it. Do not make the tunnel too short and run the risk of popping out in the middle of nazi virus guards rather than the safety of the forest well beyond the barbed wire.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> People are under a lot of stress and are lashing out. I've been there too, on here and elsewhere.
> 
> Insults don't change the fact that my friends and family have been declining in compliance as time goes on, this year especially (and in particular due to vaccination; my neighbours two jabs in are back in Feb 2020).
> 
> ...



And yet here you find yourself at this time. Why have these conversations here now, if you've reached the point where the voices on the internet are part of the problem? If spouting your manifesto of a free man and his Covid insecure gran makes you feel better able to cope with what you've had to go through then by all means, carry on with the dulls script of Indiana Moans and the Last Charade.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)




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## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

That isnt a prediction, by the way, I hope that the vaccination-based return to business as usual goes mostly according to plan but I cannot entirely exclude other possibilities. I might take a similar stance on mutation vaccine escape risk to my stance of last June, where I said I was taking a holiday from immediately worrying about a 2nd wave, and advised others to try to take a mental break during the summer. An approach that mostly worked for a few months, except for things like Leicester ending up with a local lockdown that didnt seem to achieve sufficient results. I hope we dont see anything like that again, but I suppose there is some chance that there is something vaguely reminiscent of that situation if the number of cases continue to show signs that we might get stuck with rates that are relatively low compared to the peak, but relatively high in the grand scheme of things. 

Things will get messy if the relaxation plan, which they've said will be data driven not date driven (partially true, partially very much not true), has to deal with unwelcome data at all the wrong moments. So I'll judge Mondays announcements on the day, and then again whenever there are data revelations of interest to the plan. And as I probably already said the other day, there are some signs that the timing might be awkward. The falls have been impressive, as have the number of vaccines given. But the falls in case numbers might have stopped being impressive at just the moment the government would like to be confident and optimistic. This should become a bit clearer over the next week or two, just in time for the rumoured return to school. If the data news isnt good then that could become an especially awkward moment, if March 8th rumours are true.


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## Raheem (Feb 21, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Meanwhile back at the ranch
> 
> Whitty at odds with Johnson over 'big bang' reopening of schools in England


It's a negotiating tactic, innit? Pretend to want something unrealistic so when you get what you wanted all along the loons will say you at least tried and the wets will say you at least compromised.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

Raheem said:


> It's a negotiating tactic, innit? Pretend to want something unrealistic so when you get what you wanted all along the loons will say you at least tried and the wets will say you at least compromised.



We were told that Camerons negotiating tactic was to hold his piss in for too long to add a sense of urgency to the situation. If he'd still been in charge in this pandemic then I dont know how the lockdown timing might have varied. But unlike Johnson I suppose Cameron would have ended up hospitalised not for Covid, but for a bladder infection.


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## editor (Feb 21, 2021)

I've always been behind the science and have done my best to follow the guidance but - fucking hell - I haven't worked for nearly a whole year, I've barely met anyone in months and I'm starting to seriously fray around the edges to the point where I'll probably take a minor risk sooner or later (like visiting a couple of friends in their house while trying to keep my distance).

I'm pretty sure there's people far worse off than me too, but this government can't keep playing catch up with their half cocked strategies. So if that means schools don't open for another month or two - or we go into a two week/month mega-actual-lockdown - I'd rather that than prolong the agony of a never ending lockdown and constantly fading hope.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

Theres nothing worse than feeling trapped with no end in sight. But vaccines are supposed to bring fresh hope to make up for the hope that drained away due to government bungling of the situation at many moments. Even with a bunch of theoretical risks related to mutations, the picture is still changed, there are reasons to be more hopeful now than there were before we had a decent sense of vaccination timescales.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> And yet here you find yourself at this time. Why have these conversations here now, if you've reached the point where the voices on the internet are part of the problem? If spouting your manifesto of a free man and his Covid insecure gran makes you feel better able to cope with what you've had to go through then by all means, carry on with the dulls script of Indiana Moans and the Last Charade.



But someone is wrong on the Internet!

Is there ever a reason for a good old flamewar? 

I'll pass on "covid insecure" as well, we can try and work out what that means. My strain's bigger than your strain?


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## MJ100 (Feb 21, 2021)

editor said:


> FYI: You're not going to get banned for politely disagreeing with someone, but you may find people will robustly counter your claims.



Good, that's how it should be! Fair's fair and given the strength of feeling on this board I'd expect nothing less anyway. It's definitely an emotive subject.


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## MJ100 (Feb 21, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Plenty of people in food poverty before the pandemic in this country, see the rise in use of foodbanks for one. Lockdown has only exposed the cracks in our society even further, cracks widened deliberately by the party in power witht the systematic reduction in safety nets over the years.
> 
> When businesses stop avoiding tax ,pay their share, stop bitching about minimum wages, costs and "burdans" then I'll take your point. The majority of covid relief money has been thrown at businesses, not individuals. They are still hoping to get thier massive 20 quid a week after March.



Absolutely there was food poverty in the UK before, but the UN report (or whoever it was; UNICEF perhaps, I don't remember but it's easily found online I'm sure) was takling worldwide. Admittedly that part is probably more applicable to the other worldwide thread, but that's why I specified "in a global sense." It's easy to say that lockdowns are the definitive one and only option when you're more capable, as a nation, of affording the astronomical monetary burden than others. There's a reason Pakistan, India, much of Africa etc, eased their lockdowns early. The interesting part (especially India as mentioned on the worldwide thread) is why they aren't knee deep in bodies, which some vehemently pro-lockdown folk insist would be the only outcome of a premature easing.


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## MJ100 (Feb 21, 2021)

stdP said:


> Surely the people are in poverty because of the pandemic, and not the lockdowns themselves...? Even if no government in the world had enforced a lockdown, because of the correspondingly appalling death toll wouldn't people still be afraid to venture outside and work/shop/socialise as per usual?
> 
> Again, I can only speak from what I've seen of the UK government (and to a much lesser degree, the west as a whole); some governments have tried to cushion the inevitable blow to the public better than others, but I don't see how the blow could have been avoided entirely by either avoiding or prematurely ending lockdowns.




From what I remember, the article which I think was on the BBC said that the UN report implied or explicitly stated that they were in poverty as a direct result of lockdowns, for example India's migratory workers, anyone in the tourism sector in places like Bali, those kinds of people and places. You can put the blame on the pandemic to some extent, of course, but governments still took the action to close everything down for months on end, so I'd say the blame lies with them. 

Interestingly in places that haven't locked down, or had a very half-hearted or short lockdown, the death tolls have not skyrocketed to the moon like some feared. Look at India, Pakistan, Brazil, Florida and certain other US states, Belarus, Japan, Sweden and others for examples of that. Obviously there are huge differences between demographics, climate, accurate recording of deaths, general health etc, as well as what measures they DID instigate and for how long, but nowhere is ovverun with dead. Here in the UK we've been under varying forms of restrictions for just shy of a year, and we still have one of the worst death tolls in the world.


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## MJ100 (Feb 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Insults are part of the package people get from me, and this has always been the case.



I've noticed! Like I said that's fine in general. There are people and institutions out there who deserve the insults, for sure. I certainly agree that the government are mostly useless and the majority of them are a complete shower, for example. I guess it's just the whole ethos of "anyone who disagrees with strict, long lockdowns wants to kill people" that annoys me. It's nonsense, but I can see the reasons behind someone thinking like that. Equally though, the reverse could apply. "Anyone who wants lockdowns wants to kill people, just different people, through suicide, poverty etc." Nothing is that black and white and like you said, there are moments when people come out of the woodwork for whatever reason. I guess it's just that we've had a year of everything about this pandemic dividing people, even people who would have got along perfectly well before, even families in some cases. 

I hadn't noticed a recent history in regards to the person you insulted in this particular case, so thanks for the explanation. I just saw "person says their friends have had enough=insult from Elbows" and felt that was a step too far. Like I said initially, I definitely appreciate the work you've put in since I came across this forum a year ago to give so much useful data (right back from when there was that fake news picture of military trucks "getting ready to seal off London"). It's been consistently informative, regardless of the extent to which one might agree or disagree with your views on specific aspects of the pandemic response. Guess I just take exception to the generalisations around people who want to ease lockdown sooner than others might like. It's not confined to this site, that's for sure. There's a lot that could be said about such things and to be honest I have been shocked throughout (and a little perturbed, in some ways) about just how supportive the public seem to be of the measures taken. I just can't help but think that history will show us that we went too far in our response (in terms of many aspects and many problems it has caused and will continue to cause). Time will tell and I hope I'm wrong. I hope lockdowns really were the best option available, but I won't be convinced for many years to come, I suspect.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> From what I remember, the article which I think was on the BBC said that the UN report implied or explicitly stated that they were in poverty as a direct result of lockdowns, for example India's migratory workers, anyone in the tourism sector in places like Bali, those kinds of people and places. You can put the blame on the pandemic to some extent, of course, but governments still took the action to close everything down for months on end, so I'd say the blame lies with them.
> 
> Interestingly in places that haven't locked down, or had a very half-hearted or short lockdown, the death tolls have not skyrocketed to the moon like some feared. Look at India, Pakistan, Brazil, Florida and certain other US states, Belarus, Japan, Sweden and others for examples of that. Obviously there are huge differences between demographics, climate, accurate recording of deaths, general health etc, as well as what measures they DID instigate and for how long, but nowhere is ovverun with dead. Here in the UK we've been under varying forms of restrictions for just shy of a year, and we still have one of the worst death tolls in the world.



The worst case predictions in the "frictionless plane model" of completely removing all restrictions are obviously unrealistic because lots of people are modifying their behaviour. You're not going to end up with (e.g.) 1% of the population dying, because loads of individuals are choosing to reduce their interactions well in excess of the current (very strict) guidelines. I have relatives that genuinely haven't left the house for months at a time, and then only to drive to an empty area and go for a walk.

However, if, say, you incorporate the risk of a mutation that escapes existing immunity and also raises the IFR to 10%, then forcing people to avoid catching the virus makes more sense because there's a tail risk that blows up your model.

If the risk of that were deemed to be sufficient enough, then it might make sense to enact draconian restrictions.


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## MJ100 (Feb 21, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> If the risk of that were deemed to be sufficient enough, then it might make sense to enact draconian restrictions.



I certainly think the first lockdown was justified, from a panic sense if nothing else. Nobody really knew what it would be like or exactly how bad it would be. I think they left it too long to reopen, though, which might well have helped push the second peak back into winter and thus make it worse. The scientists said all along that was something they would try to avoid if possible, and then...just did nothing to avoid it, thus making this current lockdown inevitable, and that again is fair enough because the NHS was coming under severe strain. I think as a general rule I'd say that I would agree with lockdowns without any immediate caveats IF AND ONLY IF the government can afford to, and does, adequately compensate those whose lives they are ruining. The stricter the lockdown, the more compensation they should be paying out. but when you get into the realms of the local council in my town this week taping off all the benches in the town square "because covid" (when people have been able to sit on them all year, apart from last March-April when they were again taped off I seem to recall), it just loses a lot of credibility because there's no actual logic to some of the restrictions that are in place. That's the issue many people have with it. Banning mass gatherings= makes sense. Telling granny she has to hobble along home and can't sit for a five minute rest "because covid" even though she's been vaccinated is just petty and pointless.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I certainly think the first lockdown was justified, from a panic sense if nothing else. Nobody really knew what it would be like or exactly how bad it would be. I think they left it too long to reopen, though, which might well have helped push the second peak back into winter and thus make it worse. The scientists said all along that was something they would try to avoid if possible, and then...just did nothing to avoid it, thus making this current lockdown inevitable, and that again is fair enough because the NHS was coming under severe strain. I think as a general rule I'd say that I would agree with lockdowns without any immediate caveats IF AND ONLY IF the government can afford to, and does, adequately compensate those whose lives they are ruining. The stricter the lockdown, the more compensation they should be paying out. but when you get into the realms of the local council in my town this week taping off all the benches in the town square "because covid" (when people have been able to sit on them all year, apart from last March-April when they were again taped off I seem to recall), it just loses a lot of credibility because there's no actual logic to some of the restrictions that are in place. That's the issue many people have with it. Banning mass gatherings= makes sense. Telling granny she has to hobble along home and can't sit for a five minute rest "because covid" even though she's been vaccinated is just petty and pointless.



Absolutely agree with that.

I respect the utility and impact of a lot of the restrictions we've been living under for almost a year now, even if I choose not to comply with them in their totality (other people might call this 'bending' the rules - let's call a spade a spade).

When it comes to stuff like "it's illegal to visit one person in their home" or the comical "you can be outside, but don't sit down", though, I'm proudly contemptuous, and frankly suspicious of the aims of people advocating such.

Other countries aren't going this far and have similar outcomes. Not just the Floridas of the world, as far as I'm aware most of mainland Europe haven't banned people from meeting in small groups.

I'd be interested to learn whether any other countries in the world have made it illegal to visit a single individual in their home for 100 days and counting. That's in London, I think in some parts of the country we're talking half a year at this point.


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## Sunray (Feb 21, 2021)

Israel are going all in with post vaccination opening up. They are issuing issuing an electronic card to people after the second dose for places like gyms  









						Israel eases restrictions following vaccine success
					

Shops, libraries and museums are now open to the public, following easing of Covid rules.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## andysays (Feb 21, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> The point seems pretty clear to me. Those people are in poverty because of lockdowns. Yes, this is more applicable to places like Africa and Asia than to the UK, but as I  mentioned in that point, it's on a global scale that I'm not at all convinced lockdowns will save more than they cost, in lives, health, money or anything else. I hope I'm wrong, as I said before, but only time will tell.


Ultimately, people are in poverty because of the capitalist system which persists throughout the world, and because the responses to the covid epidemic (including ill thought out lockdowns with insufficient real support offered) have all focused on maintaining and propping up that capitalist system, rather than truly protecting people's health and wider well being.


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## existentialist (Feb 21, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Sorry, the last straw today, Elbows. I've been following this thread for a year now because you and other posters such as LynnDoyleCooper have given very informative replies to various questions, plenty of useful data etc. But lately I can't help but notice you're on the insult bus all the time. Just stop it. Please.
> 
> Calling someone a "pathetic little threat to public health" because they commented about something being the "last straw" for many people is just offensive and ignorant in equal measure. It shows that you really, really don't understand (or perhaps don't care about) the toll these lockdowns are taking on millions of people. Despite what you seem to think, Covid is NOT the only issue facing this country. I'm sure you know that really, but again, it's not showing through. I know that studying the epidemic is your area of expertise but the fact remains that there are innumerable other issues that lockdowns raise.
> 
> ...


 Welcome, surprisingly well-informed new poster.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

andysays said:


> Ultimately, people are in poverty because of the capitalist system which persists throughout the world, and because the responses to the covid epidemic (including ill thought out lockdowns with insufficient real support offered) have all focused on maintaining and propping up that capitalist system, rather than truly protecting people's health and wider well being.



Agree with this.

The most ridiculous part of the current situation has been the failure to cancel or drastically reduce rents.

It would have been of immense use to tenants, kept businesses afloat, encouraged knowledge-based companies to retain their offices, and had a ton of other benefits besides. We've legally forced people to stop trading, yet the rent must go on.

Not that this is surprising, land prices seem to be the #1 concern of every UK government since I was born.

Everything else seems to be a sticking plaster, tailored towards ensuring that very few seriously question that constant flow of funds. Banning labour whilst keeping rents is a brazen wealth grab.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> And yet here you find yourself at this time. Why have these conversations here now, if you've reached the point where the voices on the internet are part of the problem? If spouting your manifesto of a free man and his Covid insecure gran makes you feel better able to cope with what you've had to go through then by all means, carry on with the dulls script of Indiana Moans and the Last Charade.


Yes. I was also going to point out that leaving Urban is a lot simpler than setting up an account, choosing a specific avatar , learning how to use the boards, etc. If it's really that bad.

Although, in my experience, those who roll up and swiftly start grinding axes have usually turned out to have carefully selected the axe before they even started. Our mutual friend, of course, might be the honourable exception.


----------



## og ogilby (Feb 21, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Not for me - I'm waiting for my vaccination(s) to have built up enough immunity, and even then, I'm going to be excessively careful for months to come.


I've been very careful throughout but two weeks after my first jab I went to the supermarket and forgot to sanitise my hands when I got back in the car. Usually I would be thinking about my hands while walking back to the car, but yesterday it slipped my mind until I'd driven off. Have I let my guard slip? I don't want to relax but maybe that low level fear has begun to ebb and my concentration isn't what it was.

The two other people in my bubble have also been vaccinated so my close contacts are all "safe".


----------



## Sue (Feb 21, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Sorry, the last straw today, Elbows. I've been following this thread for a year now because you and other posters such as LynnDoyleCooper have given very informative replies to various questions, plenty of useful data etc. But lately I can't help but notice you're on the insult bus all the time. Just stop it. Please.
> 
> Calling someone a "pathetic little threat to public health" because they commented about something being the "last straw" for many people is just offensive and ignorant in equal measure. It shows that you really, really don't understand (or perhaps don't care about) the toll these lockdowns are taking on millions of people. Despite what you seem to think, Covid is NOT the only issue facing this country. I'm sure you know that really, but again, it's not showing through. I know that studying the epidemic is your area of expertise but the fact remains that there are innumerable other issues that lockdowns raise.
> 
> ...


I think a lot of this ^ is nonsense but whatever. Turning up and teling people how they should act and what they should and shouldn't say though? Makes you look a right tosser tbh.


----------



## andysays (Feb 21, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Agree with this.
> 
> The most ridiculous part of the current situation has been the failure to cancel or drastically reduce rents.
> 
> ...



"Land prices", you say.

Can anyone else remember who used to bang on about land prices in the past? It escapes me for the moment...


----------



## Sunray (Feb 21, 2021)

og ogilby said:


> I've been very careful throughout but two weeks after my first jab I went to the supermarket and forgot to sanitise my hands when I got back in the car. Usually I would be thinking about my hands while walking back to the car, but yesterday it slipped my mind until I'd driven off. Have I let my guard slip? I don't want to relax but maybe that low level fear has begun to ebb and my concentration isn't what it was.
> 
> The two other people in my bubble have also been vaccinated so my close contacts are all "safe".



Not too much to worry about.
I don't think I've seen any compelling evidence put forward which says people are catching covid-19 from surfaces.  
It's technically possible if someone highly infectious coughed onto your bacon packet, after you put it into the fridge you ate some olives that are sitting in the fridge and then licked your fingers. Very much a case of  "We're not sure, wash your hands just in case."









						Chance of catching Covid from surfaces 'very small' scientists claim | ITV News
					

The chance of catching coronavirus from doorknobs and light switches may be less than previously thought, scientists have suggested. | ITV National News




					www.itv.com


----------



## lazythursday (Feb 21, 2021)

I do wish that sometimes the anti-lockdown people would, rather than just highlighting the downsides of lockdown, actually put forward an alternative approach that would avoid NHS overload. It's an interesting point that disaster hasn't always happened in countries / states with lesss severe restrictions, but we clearly don't understand why yet - it would be a big gamble to say the least to assume a similar pattern everywhere in societies with different densities / climates etc. I suspect though that people change their behaviour to such an extent when the virus reaches a certain point in a community that it is basically a voluntary lockdown anyway - but without any of the associated government support and so even more unfair than the situation in this country where many people are forced to work while others get furloughed or work from home.  i


----------



## two sheds (Feb 21, 2021)

Space suits for everyone of course. We'll all be able to wander freely with our own oxygen supply, shops and work and cinemas and theatres and pubs will open safely again. Plus of course the huge boost to the manufacturing economy and the possibility of massive export market when they catch on


----------



## agricola (Feb 21, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I do wish that sometimes the anti-lockdown people would, rather than just highlighting the downsides of lockdown, actually put forward an alternative approach that would avoid NHS overload. It's an interesting point that disaster hasn't always happened in countries / states with lesss severe restrictions, but we clearly don't understand why yet - it would be a big gamble to say the least to assume a similar pattern everywhere in societies with different densities / climates etc. I suspect though that people change their behaviour to such an extent when the virus reaches a certain point in a community that it is basically a voluntary lockdown anyway - but without any of the associated government support and so even more unfair than the situation in this country where many people are forced to work while others get furloughed or work from home.  i



So do I, but of course they can't - the only alternative approach that would genuinely prevent future lockdowns (from this or anything else) is to have a properly funded, properly staffed public health system that can rapidly detect and contain outbreaks.  

There is, of course, no money in that so they cannot propose it; it would remind people of how the state often provides better, cheaper, more socially vital services.  Lets not forget that many of the right's anti-lockdown crowd want to see the fire brigades replaced by some form of insurance system.


----------



## lazythursday (Feb 21, 2021)

agricola said:


> So do I, but of course they can't - the only alternative approach that would genuinely prevent future lockdowns (from this or anything else) is to have a properly funded, properly staffed public health system that can rapidly detect and contain outbreaks.
> 
> There is, of course, no money in that so they cannot propose it; it would remind people of how the state often provides better, cheaper, more socially vital services.  Lets not forget that many of the right's anti-lockdown crowd want to see the fire brigades replaced by some form of insurance system.


Agree, but I meant posters on here, who perhaps believe they are not coming at this from a right-perspective, even if they have swallowed many of the same talking points.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 21, 2021)

og ogilby said:


> I've been very careful throughout but two weeks after my first jab I went to the supermarket and forgot to sanitise my hands when I got back in the car. Usually I would be thinking about my hands while walking back to the car, but yesterday it slipped my mind until I'd driven off. Have I let my guard slip? I don't want to relax but maybe that low level fear has begun to ebb and my concentration isn't what it was.
> 
> The two other people in my bubble have also been vaccinated so my close contacts are all "safe".



All four adults in my household have now had their first jabs (I was the last) but we are still being exceptionally careful, and will be for some time to come ! whatever BJ says for his roadmap.


----------



## xenon (Feb 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Welcome, surprisingly well-informed new poster.



You know it's possible to read threads without registering right?

Sorry, the suspicion of which your post was most recent example, is just silly.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I do wish that sometimes the anti-lockdown people would, rather than just highlighting the downsides of lockdown, actually put forward an alternative approach that would avoid NHS overload. It's an interesting point that disaster hasn't always happened in countries / states with lesss severe restrictions, but we clearly don't understand why yet - it would be a big gamble to say the least to assume a similar pattern everywhere in societies with different densities / climates etc. I suspect though that people change their behaviour to such an extent when the virus reaches a certain point in a community that it is basically a voluntary lockdown anyway - but without any of the associated government support and so even more unfair than the situation in this country where many people are forced to work while others get furloughed or work from home.  i



We're mostly just solving for different problems I think. And probably strawmanning each other quite a bit.

You see limiting load on the NHS as being the most important thing there is, which I agree with in the short to medium term. We can argue over the details of how to accomplish that, whether we need full house arrest or just limiting larger gatherings or something in-between, but ultimately this is a response that is buying us time, not a sustainable solution. I'd say that describes all of last year and the first months of this year.

I think that where we diverge is that long term I don't support it. After vaccinations, if the NHS is still overwhelmed, that's just how the world works now, it becomes your turn to come up with a plan that doesn't result in us being permanently reduced to digital beings.

What's the point of being able to get a broken leg treated if the only way I can see my mum is through a screen? Social distancing forever doesn't make sense to me.

But as I say above, I don't think that anyone is suggesting social distancing forever, neither am I suggesting we should just allow raves to start up again. Those are both strawman positions. The reality is somewhere in the middle.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 21, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Space suits for everyone of course.


You jest, but...









						From PPE to Spacesuits — FAIR-SPACE
					

To better understand and share the challenges of spacesuit and human robot interaction in space and on Earth, Stephanie Pau from the Hamlyn Centre (part of Institute of Global Health, Imperial College London) curated and hosted a unique online series From PPE to Spacesuits as part of the FAIR-SPACE




					www.fairspacehub.org


----------



## two sheds (Feb 21, 2021)

2hats said:


> You jest, but...


----------



## zora (Feb 21, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I do wish that sometimes the anti-lockdown people would, rather than just highlighting the downsides of lockdown, actually put forward an alternative approach that would avoid NHS overload.



This is very true, and it's also often overlooked that the proponents of lockdown (for want of a better expression) don't tend to advocate for lockdown as "the" measure, but always also ask for improvements to other pieces of the puzzle that could well and easily be achieved with some political will and some money (and quite possibly a lot less money than is currently being spent). 

Examples being: advocating for supporting people to be able to isolate properly when tested positive (at the very least not having to go outside the home or possibly better still to support people in crowded housing to isolate away from their family). Or, quite the opposite from wanting to put more burden on individuals to keep to an ever stricter lockdown, advocating for better oversight of workplace measures, more WFH and short-term pausing of non-essential work and production. Or, better recognition and information on covid symptoms outside of the big three cough, fever and loss of smell, such as headaches, sore throat, nausea and fatigue. 
All of which could aid in reducing transmission more quickly during lockdown periods and keeping rates down, and all issues which have been highlighted for months and months.

Another point on the NHS: I think I saw it linked to elsewhere on the boards, Rachel Clarke, the palliative care doctor who has been a rare prominent voice reporting from the "frontline", spoke at the Independent Sage meeting last Friday. She made a very powerful point. Not only about the terrible and traumatic conditions for staff AND patients in hospital currently, but about the ability of staff to care for patients with the whole range of health needs now and in the short- and medium-term future (see for example the massive backlog of operations). 

That point has imo not had anywhere near enough recognition. Very rarely do you hear it talked about that the NHS "not being overwhelmed" has actually meant vastly expanding ICU capacity at the expense of other care, and indeed quadrupling the case load of ICU personnel. Rather than looking at how many current critical care beds are occupied with covid patients as an isolated measure, surely the question that needs to be asked is "how many covid patients can there be in hospital at all so that all other healthcare can be provided, and with a humane workload for NHS staff".

I think this is so crucial and also a point that the public could get behind, and one that could possibly bridge the potential rift in the discussion around this tricky period when a lot of older and more vulnerable people have been vaccinated. It won't be any good for the people now protected from severe cases of covid either, if cases in the under 50s should be so high that still most healthcare resources have to go towards treating covid cases, rather than other less life-threatening, but potentially still life-shortening or limiting conditions.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 21, 2021)

xenon said:


> You know it's possible to read threads without registering right?
> 
> Sorry, the suspicion of which your post was most recent example, is just silly.


I know that it's possible to read Urban without registering, and that there might be nothing suspicious about the extent of their knowledge, it still rings a few dubious bells when two turn up, almost simultaneously. Not to mention the business of berating posters for their style of posting, so soon after arriving. 

Time will tell. It usually does.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

zora said:


> This is very true, and it's also often overlooked that the proponents of lockdown (for want of a better expression) don't tend to advocate for lockdown as "the" measure, but always also ask for improvements to other pieces of the puzzle that could well and easily be achieved with some political will and some money (and quite possibly a lot less money than is currently being spent).
> 
> Examples being: advocating for supporting people to be able to isolate properly when tested positive (at the very least not having to go outside the home or possibly better still to support people in crowded housing to isolate away from their family). Or, quite the opposite from wanting to put more burden on individuals to keep to an ever stricter lockdown, advocating for better oversight of workplace measures, more WFH and short-term pausing of non-essential work and production. Or, better recognition and information on covid symptoms outside of the big three cough, fever and loss of smell, such as headaches, sore throat, nausea and fatigue.
> All of which could aid in reducing transmission more quickly during lockdown periods and keeping rates down, and all issues which have been highlighted for months and months.
> ...



I think it's mostly out of a sense of not having their argument taken seriously.

Obviously we should expand support to those who need to isolate. We don't even need to limit it to testing, if you want to stay inside, here's the funding for it, no questions asked. I personally think that even means testing it would be absurd - it's not the state's role to decide who's "vulnerable" based on some arbitrary measures. If your partner is vulnerable, and you are 100% healthy but live alone, then you should be able to isolate in order that you can support each other.

I don't think the debate is really about that though (aside from a few trolls and hard-line right wing nutjobs), it's about the restrictions.

I think everyone agrees that the Government aren't doing enough on the support side, that's what they do, they're Tories innit.


----------



## strung out (Feb 21, 2021)

xenon said:


> You know it's possible to read threads without registering right?
> 
> Sorry, the suspicion of which your post was most recent example, is just silly.


I agree. I'm all for outing new posters who are obviously a specific returning or banned poster, but comments like existentialist's are just a bit shitty and not very welcoming, especially on a publically accessible thread like this, which is clearly of interest to people outside of the Urban bubble.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 21, 2021)

I chose my comment very carefully.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

strung out said:


> I agree. I'm all for outing new posters who are obviously a specific returning or banned poster, but comments like existentialist's are just a bit shitty and not very welcoming, especially on a publically accessible thread like this, which is clearly of interest to people outside of the Urban bubble.



I can't really tell what most of this waffle is about - is there a suggestion that I'm a previously banned member returning? The owner of these boards I think can probably clear that up?

I joined because I'm a local resident and recently found out about this place. I find it interesting because the majority opinion here is quite different to that in my social circle, and I'd rather not spend all of my time in an echochamber. Something I prefer about oldschool forums as opposed to the algorithmic nonsense that just surrounds you with people who are copies of yourself.

I should definitely take more time to post in other sections though, point taken.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I chose my comment very carefully.


aye, you just like to throw your weight about as a self-appointed gatekeeper


----------



## strung out (Feb 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I chose my comment very carefully.


Says a lot.


----------



## Cid (Feb 21, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> We're mostly just solving for different problems I think. And probably strawmanning each other quite a bit.
> 
> You see limiting load on the NHS as being the most important thing there is, which I agree with in the short to medium term. We can argue over the details of how to accomplish that, whether we need full house arrest or just limiting larger gatherings or something in-between, but ultimately this is a response that is buying us time, not a sustainable solution. I'd say that describes all of last year and the first months of this year.
> 
> ...



You can't just argue that excessive load on the healthcare system is an acceptable trade-off. It quite clearly isn't remotely sustainable... Even leaving aside the whole people dying/long term health issues thing. We have examples of how to return to normal; hard lockdown followed by comprehensive test and trace, quarantine for travel. 

Of course long-term we have to look to vaccines, even if we could eliminate it here, that obviously isn't going to happen globally. And I'm pretty sure we all hope that the current effort to do that works out... But _if_ your scenario of continuing high load on the NHS continued post-vaccine, then we'd have to go back to stricter measures.


----------



## zora (Feb 21, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> I don't think the debate is really about that though, it's about the restrictions.



Maybe we are talking at cross purposes; tbh I don't really understand what point you are making, i.e. how you envisage things could or should be, in terms of balancing lesser restrictions/covid spread/healthcare. [ETA I think you just expanded a bit on your post higher up, unless I didn't read it properly before].
I don't think the "if the NHS is still overwhelmed, so be it" argument really holds, and people would probably have got quite a lot to say about it if they were left in the street with their broken legs- but it seems that you are sketching a bit of an extreme position out of frustration. 

I do share that frustration, and I agree that things should never have been allowed to get to the point (multiple times over), where there have to be such strict limits on household mixing for such a long time; it's obscene and it does feel brutal. 
And all the thoughts that I have posted upthread are precisely born out of my wish to make it possible, at the soonest opportunity and _sustainably, _for people to meet with at least a small number of loved ones, relatively safely. 
I don't know if that's what you are saying, but if you feel that there could have possibly been a different approach, putting the possibility of at least a small amount of social interactions front and centre of any measures, for example offsetting against even stricter workplace controls, again I would agree. (But I might be putting words in your mouth here?)


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

zora said:


> Maybe we are talking at cross purposes; tbh I don't really understand what point you are making, i.e. how you envisage things could or should be, in terms of balancing lesser restrictions/covid spread/healthcare. [ETA I think you just expanded a bit on your post higher up, unless I didn't read it properly before].
> I don't think the "if the NHS is still overwhelmed, so be it" argument really holds, and people would probably have got quite a lot to say about it if they were left in the street with their broken legs- but it seems that you are sketching a bit of an extreme position out of frustration.
> 
> I do share that frustration, and I agree that things should never have been allowed to get to the point (multiple times over), where there have to be such strict limits on household mixing for such a long time; it's obscene and it does feel brutal.
> ...



Sorry, yeah, I did edit it to add more details, I'll try to avoid hitting the post button prematurely in the future.

I think part of the issue is that we're discussing "the people" as some sort of homogeneous blob.

It's perfectly possible that (numbers pulled out of my bum, don't pay too much heed) 80% of people would disagree with my stance, and 20% agree with it.

The question then is what do we do with that 20%?

At the moment we seem to be handling it by having restrictions that are ignorable - e.g. yes, it's illegal to do X and Y, but the punishment is pretty small, and the enforcement nonexistent.

Thankfully, even with defection, we can still bring R below 1 at the moment so it's a bit of a moot point.

But if those numbers start to increase slightly, what's the plan? Locking people up is probably too expensive to be sustainable as well?

On your latter point;

Personally I don't feel that banning people sitting outside on park benches, or meeting up one on one inside, is such a significant driver of infection that it's worth restricting it at all. I don't buy "we need to do X and Y so that we can" type argumentation on this; I think we could just make it legal because people are doing it anyway.

I think that once this sort of thing became normalized, it killed off a lot of the "blitz spirit" and pushed people who were on the fence into just tuning out. I am seeing a lot of people converting to this "sod it all" mindset, which is really awful, and something we desperately need to address. "I don't know what the rules are any more" isn't just a meme, it has actual consequences.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> "I don't know what the rules are any more" isn't just a meme, it has actual consequences.



That complaint reached its peak during the phases before the current lockdown, and hasnt been heard much since. One of the largest differences with this lockdown in contrast to what came before is that previously they had an approach that involved changing the rules all the time, bringing in lockdown measures in phases etc. This time has been a total change on that front, they seem to have very deliberately chosen not to keep changing things during this one, as reflected by the number of press conferences this time where there were no rule changes to announce. Any changes that have happened have largely been restricted to the international travel front, most notably the hotel quarantine thing.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> That complaint reached its peak during the phases before the current lockdown, and hasnt been heard much since. One of the largest differences with this lockdown in contrast to what came before is that previously they had an approach that involved changing the rules all the time, bringing in lockdown measures in phases etc. This time has been a total change on that front, they seem to have very deliberately chosen not to keep changing things during this one, as reflected by the number of press conferences this time where there were no rule changes to announce. Any changes that have happened have largely been restricted to the international travel front, most notably the hotel quarantine thing.



Agree with the latter, though not the former. I still hear it a lot, though less than during the tier madness.

That doesn't mean it's not just tongue in cheek, though. In my experience it's used synonymously with "just testing my eyesight" or "bending the rules... in a very specific and limited way".


----------



## xenon (Feb 21, 2021)

I would actually quite like a space suit. Should I admit that, it’s a bit cosplay innit.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 21, 2021)

strung out said:


> Says a lot.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

xenon said:


> I would actually quite like a space suit. Should I admit that, it’s a bit cosplay innit.



Add in an airlock at your front door and I think you've solved corona.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

zora said:


> I don't think the "if the NHS is still overwhelmed, so be it" argument really holds, and people would probably have got quite a lot to say about it if they were left in the street with their broken legs- but it seems that you are sketching a bit of an extreme position out of frustration.



Yeah it doesnt work, its not an option. Because a certain level of healthcare is part of the foundations of this sort of society and economy. If that is allowed to collapse perpetually then the whole game changes. Including regimes shitting themselves that they've lost their authority and are open to being overthrown. And even without that, the whole 'economic confidence' equation still gets mangled. Societies could actually adapt to very changed circumstances on this front, but it would take many years and it would involve more disruption, systemic collapse and altered politics than anything these lockdowns have brought.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I certainly think the first lockdown was justified, from a panic sense if nothing else. Nobody really knew what it would be like or exactly how bad it would be. I think they left it too long to reopen, though, which might well have helped push the second peak back into winter and thus make it worse. The scientists said all along that was something they would try to avoid if possible, and then...just did nothing to avoid it, thus making this current lockdown inevitable, and that again is fair enough because the NHS was coming under severe strain.



Actually what happened the first time is that the establishments preferred approach was to get the bulk of infections out of the way in the first wave in order to reduce the chance of subsequent waves including winter waves. The approach that came to be known for the herd immunity aspect. Which they used to justify not closing schools. Featuring much talk of 'pushing down on the peak' to spread the wave out over a longer period of time, keeping peak levels within a range that hospitals etc could cope with. 

That approach was dead by mid March. Beause the public and the media werent buying it. And because although scientists do not know exactly what will happen, they have data and models that give them a pretty good guide. And the numbers didnt add up at all. This virus causes too many people to require hospitalisation in this country, and pushing down on the peak whilst still letting the wave run its course just didnt add up at all, the peak could not be pushed down low enough to hit the target range. One the government were presented with such figures, they had to change approach. Once they had changed approach, talk of not having a second wave  became dishonest on several levels, because you still end up with a very large susceptible population. The only reason this wont just carry on repeating is that vaccines have come along to change the susceptibility picture, number of hospitalisations etc.

Once the first wave was done, those that had various problems with the lockdown policy were tempted to believe that the first wave peaked for non-lockdown reasons. The lockdown was late, so they argued that the peak was actually the natural peak that would have happened anyway without lockdown. A position that largely relies on a very different understanding about remaining levels of population susceptibility, compared to what scientific authorities believed. I had to keep a very slightly open mind about that because I did not have 100% proof that they were wrong. The resurgence in many countries offered proof, and the stance I have just described died on its arse.

I have not attempted to do proper calculations, but it seems quite apparent that even with lots of the most vulnerable people shielding themselves in various ways, a fraction of the population getting infected with this virus was still enough to push the NHS to its limits. Whether thats 10%, 15%, 20% or 25% of the population getting infected being enough to hit this limit I havent estimated properly, but its likely somewhere in that range, and so drastic measures were necessary. And would be necessary again in future if we didnt have vaccines to change the equation.

Questions aout why countries differ in their hospitalisation and mortality toll are very interesting and important, but are difficult to unpick due to so many potential factors being involved. Population age and levels of obesity are a reasonable starting point, but I expect there are other important factors too. Whatever the reasons, answers wont come or unlock interesting alternative options during the acute phase of the pandemic. And I cannot agree with some of the earlier claims about how various countries were not overrun with deaths. What counts as overrun? There were plenty of places where levels of death were so high they placed a strain on the death management systems, and even in (late) lockdown UK during the first wave, there were twice as many people dying as normal at the very peak. If we had locked down with better timing then we wouldnt have reached such heights, but that would have encouraged anti-lockdown fools to claim that the threat had been grossly exaggerated.


----------



## lazythursday (Feb 21, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> I think that where we diverge is that long term I don't support it. After vaccinations, if the NHS is still overwhelmed, that's just how the world works now, it becomes your turn to come up with a plan that doesn't result in us being permanently reduced to digital beings.
> 
> What's the point of being able to get a broken leg treated if the only way I can see my mum is through a screen? Social distancing forever doesn't make sense to me.


OK - I'll give you a plan, it's not a good one but I think it is the only alternative in the situation you outline - a failure of vaccinations to prevent NHS overload and a societal refusal to carry on with social distancing. And basically, it is that everyone over 70 or with severely life limiting preconditions does not get any treatment for Covid19. Strict triage to keep them at home to sink or swim. Age reduces further if hospitals really fill up. Thousands of people dying at home with no care. 

In this situation I reckon your mum might only want to see you through a screen anyway.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just under 17.25m - second doses are now just under 605k.
> 
> ...


Today's update -

First dose vaccinations now just under 17.6m - second doses are now just over 615k.

New cases - 9.834, overall a drop of 16.2% in the last week - we were seeing drops of around 25%, so it's worrying to see that drop going down. 

New deaths - 215, which is down 43 on last Sunday's 258, that brings the 7-day average down to around 488 a day, a drop of 27.4% in the last week.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 21, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> OK - I'll give you a plan, it's not a good one but I think it is the only alternative in the situation you outline - a failure of vaccinations to prevent NHS overload and a societal refusal to carry on with social distancing. And basically, it is that everyone over 70 or with severely life limiting preconditions does not get any treatment for Covid19. Strict triage to keep them at home to sink or swim. Age reduces further if hospitals really fill up. Thousands of people dying at home with no care.
> 
> In this situation I reckon your mum might only want to see you through a screen anyway.



Fuck off, and then fuck off with horse you rode in on, and then fuck off some more ...


----------



## miss direct (Feb 21, 2021)

Of course the announcement is on a Monday late afternoon. Figures are always artificially lower on Mondays, which helps push the narrative of "getting back to normal."


----------



## lazythursday (Feb 21, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Fuck off, and then fuck off with horse you rode in on, and then fuck off some more ...


Hey, I don't want to see it - it's just the logical conclusion of the anti-lockdown arguments.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just under 17.6m - second doses are now just over 615k.
> 
> ...



I don't usually check the positivity rate (no of cases / no of tests, and the x100 for the %)
The odd day I checked in the week was about 2 - 2.5 % - I don't recall exactly which day or the actual % - however, today's is under 2% [1.755 rounded slightly] In the past I think that figure's been up in the 5 or 6 % if not more.


I agree, that drop off is a little concerning, with people like the CRG baying for "hospitality" and so on to open.
I'm hoping that vaccinations will kick in to bring it down further.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 21, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Of course the announcement is on a Monday late afternoon. Figures are always artificially lower on Mondays, which helps push the narrative of "getting back to normal."



He's chosen Monday to announce it in the Commons, because it's the first day that Parliament is back after the recent recess.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 21, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> Hey, I don't want to see it - it's just the logical conclusion of the anti-lockdown arguments.


Then please, make that part clearer.

I've close friends in that age group, and I'm not _that_ far away myself. [witness as I've had a jab !]


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

The 'Hancocks former pub landlord' story still has legs it seems...









						Coronavirus: Medical regulator investigates £30m Covid contract firm
					

Hinpack, which makes test tubes, is run by the former landlord of a pub near Matt Hancock's old home.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> OK - I'll give you a plan, it's not a good one but I think it is the only alternative in the situation you outline - a failure of vaccinations to prevent NHS overload and a societal refusal to carry on with social distancing. And basically, it is that everyone over 70 or with severely life limiting preconditions does not get any treatment for Covid19. Strict triage to keep them at home to sink or swim. Age reduces further if hospitals really fill up. Thousands of people dying at home with no care.
> 
> In this situation I reckon your mum might only want to see you through a screen anyway.



Your latter situation is what you suggest we do forever anyway, is it not?

This seems strictly better than saying that anyone of any age should just live their life through a screen.

Socially distancing forever is obviously worse than triage, I agree that this is a possible outcome and don't understand how anyone could think otherwise.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> He's chosen Monday to announce it in the Commons, because it's the first day that Parliament is back after the recent recess.



And even this crappy government dont tend to rely on single days figures.

Plus I would urge people to spend a little time on the dashboard clicking on the cases section drilled down to the 'local authority' level. It is now possible to find quite a lot of locations where the decline in case numbers has stopped recently, with levels currently plateauing at somewhat similar levels to those that were seen during the November measures dip. Places I clicked on to establish this include Manchester, Leeds, Coventry, Leicester, Sheffield, Nuneaton & Bedworth, Belfast, Oxford. But there are also places which are still showing a clear downwards trend, and its still a bit early for me to state this point very strongly.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Your latter situation is what you suggest we do forever anyway, is it not?
> 
> This seems strictly better than saying that anyone of any age should just live their life through a screen.
> 
> Socially distancing forever is obviously worse than triage, I agree that this is a possible outcome and don't understand how anyone could think otherwise.



Forever is a largely pointless concept in this discussion.

If the vaccination approach failed then they will either try to fix it with new vaccines, or they would eventually be forced into another approach, such as zero covid. And I dont believe in trying to get deep into those possibilities unless it actually looked like we were going to end up in that situation.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> OK - I'll give you a plan, it's not a good one but I think it is the only alternative in the situation you outline - a failure of vaccinations to prevent NHS overload and a societal refusal to carry on with social distancing. And basically, it is that everyone over 70 or with severely life limiting preconditions does not get any treatment for Covid19. Strict triage to keep them at home to sink or swim. Age reduces further if hospitals really fill up. Thousands of people dying at home with no care.
> 
> In this situation I reckon your mum might only want to see you through a screen anyway.



I dont think the numbers even add up with that approach either.

This chart is made using data for England only, from the monthly age data spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Note for example the yellow line for the 18-54 age group.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Forever is a largely pointless concept in this discussion.
> 
> If the vaccination approach failed then they will either try to fix it with new vaccines, or they would eventually be forced into another approach, such as zero covid. And I dont believe in trying to get deep into those possibilities unless it actually looked like we were going to end up in that situation.



I agree, just exploring the hypothetical.

I don't really see the sense in planning for the situation in which vaccinations fail permanently, it feels like prepping to me. Positives: you've survived the apocalypse. Negatives: you're in a dark room plugged into a wall eating beans forever. No thanks.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont think the numbers even add up with that approach either.
> 
> This chart is made using data for England only, from the monthly age data spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity
> 
> ...



I believe it's covered by the "age reduces further" in lazythursday's comment, no? The yellow line is biased towards the higher end of the age group. You end up triaging down to 60, 50, 40, ...

Horrible state to be in, regardless of how you slice it.


----------



## miss direct (Feb 21, 2021)

I'm not saying they're making their decisions based on the day of the week, but for certain people/media outlets (let's say those who call for an end to all restrictions every time there's a slightly lower number in cases/reported deaths), ie my head of department, making the announcement about sending children back to school on a Monday, just after daily figures are out, will solidify in their minds that everything is fine and covid is on its way out. 

I mean people who don't pay much attention to the numbers usually but will tomorrow because they will be watching the announcement (parents, anyone who works in a school). Ok, maybe I just mean my boss, who has been pressuring me to come into work since January even though there's been no reason why I couldn't work from home.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> I believe it's covered by the "age reduces further" in lazythursday's comment, no? The yellow line is biased towards the higher end of the age group. You end up triaging down to 60, 50, 40, ...
> 
> Horrible state to be in, regardless of how you slice it.



I suppose my point is that if going for such an approach, you'd have to start with the bar set lower than 70 at the start. And good luck if expecting to see people carrying on normal levels of economic activity in such circumstances.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> I suppose my point is that if going for such an approach, you'd have to start with the bar set lower than 70 at the start. And good luck if expecting to see people carrying on normal levels of economic activity in such circumstances.



Agree. For what it's worth, I'm not interested in the economic argument for ending lockdown, it's the social angle I care about.

In the (as we've discussed, silly pie-in-the-sky) not-conquerable scenario where we just fight a forever-war against coronavirus at high levels, I'd happily have the triage age set significantly below mine if it meant the generations after me got to enjoy at least some semblance of the life I've had.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I'm not saying they're making their decisions based on the day of the week, but for certain people/media outlets (let's say those who call for an end to all restrictions every time there's a slightly lower number in cases/reported deaths), ie my head of department, making the announcement about sending children back to school on a Monday, just after daily figures are out, will solidify in their minds that everything is fine and covid is on its way out.
> 
> I mean people who don't pay much attention to the numbers usually but will tomorrow because they will be watching the announcement (parents, anyone who works in a school). Ok, maybe I just mean my boss, who has been pressuring me to come into work since January even though there's been no reason why I couldn't work from home.



Those making arguments that run contrary to obvious reality will indeed seize on anything they can, or ignore data that does not help their cause. But they will do that whatever, I dont think it has any bearing on the governments announcement timing.

The media pay more attention to 7 day rolling averages than single daily numbers And a lot of headlines are generated by weekly data that comes out on Tuesdays (death certificate deaths), Thursdays (weekly surveillance report) and Fridays (weekly ONS infection survey).And those are all rather laggy so there are certainly periods where some of these different measures give different impressions to eachother, which could cause public confusion.

In terms of the optimal time for the government to announce stuff with the best possible optimal good news data backdrop, I think they already went past that point and should have done the announcements at least a week ago if that was their top priority. This is quite well illustrated by this graph from ZOE:


I'd say the government have been relying on both impressive falls and impressive vaccine stats in order to deliver optimistic messages recently. The impressive falls are over for now, but they still have vaccinations to shout about. And I think the 'rush the reopening' brigade will take a similar approach.


----------



## editor (Feb 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I know that it's possible to read Urban without registering, and that there might be nothing suspicious about the extent of their knowledge, it still rings a few dubious bells when two turn up, almost simultaneously. Not to mention the business of berating posters for their style of posting, so soon after arriving.
> 
> Time will tell. It usually does.


For the record: if it's one new poster simultaneously  posting up under two names, they'd be unlikely to evade being caught out by the software
And as a belt'n'braces approach, whenever an 'interesting' new poster rocks up, I'll invariably manually check a few more details, but by default we give them the benefit of the doubt every time

Not perfect of course, but better than making a potentially innocent new poster feel uncomfortable as soon as they arrive!


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

It does look a bit like case numbers could start to go up again in some areas in the couple of weeks between the announcement and any relaxations kicking in, which will be a very awkward situation for all concerned. Its currently hard to tell, things could go back to reducing, or plateau, or go up in some regions.

Here for example are the latest ZOE regional R estimates:


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Feb 21, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I'm not in a union. I only started the job last month and it's a short contract.


Neu is strong on teacher support right now .  Might be worth asking for a temporary reduced fee membership given your orecarity of contract 
NEU membership rates{brand}&gclid=Cj0KCQiApsiBBhCKARIsAN8o_4ivDJ9YEF78bJazYrWgb0piF5k2R44yL6eT1QsZHjzXQOCQ34vRw_IaAurJEALw_wcB


----------



## Badgers (Feb 21, 2021)




----------



## Miss-Shelf (Feb 21, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> Neu is strong on teacher support right now .  Might be worth asking for a temporary reduced fee membership given your orecarity of contract
> NEU membership rates{brand}&gclid=Cj0KCQiApsiBBhCKARIsAN8o_4ivDJ9YEF78bJazYrWgb0piF5k2R44yL6eT1QsZHjzXQOCQ34vRw_IaAurJEALw_wcB


It's only a £ 1 for student and NQT membership !


----------



## MBV (Feb 21, 2021)

Badgers /all  - reckon this is a testing the waters leak?


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

dfm said:


> Badgers /all  - reckon this is a testing the waters leak?



Golf/Tennis is weirdly specific.

Official rules wise, the only thing I really care about at this point is the end of social distancing.

If I have to play the game where we pretend our hands are forced, I'd rather everything be closed for longer and then we actually open them properly, the main purpose of a pub with masks and plastic barriers is to serve as corona meme fodder.


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## FridgeMagnet (Feb 21, 2021)

dfm said:


> Badgers /all  - reckon this is a testing the waters leak?


If it's in the Times, certainly, it's a deliberate leak by the Tories IMO. (Also very likely to be regardless of outlet.)


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 21, 2021)

Badgers said:


>



Fuck me I wouldn't ask them for directions to the post office let alone out of a pandemic

This roadmap sounds like it's not worth the paper it's scribbled on


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## frogwoman (Feb 21, 2021)

Golf and tennis before non essential shops?


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

Its a bit late to be testing the waters, it probably part of the actual plan.

Golf and Tennis did not make me raise an eyebrow, they are outdoor activities that dont involve large teams, I would expect such thing to feature sooner rather than later.


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 21, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Golf and tennis before non essential shops?



Outdoors & no close contact, minimum risk.


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## Pickman's model (Feb 21, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Golf and tennis before non essential shops?


Yes that's surely the wrong way round


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## Cid (Feb 21, 2021)

They do make total sense, it's just a slightly odd thing to lead with.


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## Pickman's model (Feb 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Outdoors & no close contact, minimum risk.


Yeh but what are you supposed to do to get your golf and tennis supplies?


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 21, 2021)

Cid said:


> They do make total sense, it's just a slightly odd thing to lead with.


This is the government. Of course it's odd


----------



## Cid (Feb 21, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> This is the government. Of course it's odd



I'm just surprised it wasn't golf, tennis and shooting things. Probably just because it's not the season.


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 21, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Yeh but what are you supposed to do to get your golf and tennis supplies?



Just play with your own balls.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Yeh but what are you supposed to do to get your golf and tennis supplies?



If you're not ordering everything from Amazon, you're literally killing grandma the middle-aged.


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## Pickman's model (Feb 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just play with your own balls.


Doesn't help with necessaries like golf clubs or tennis racquets


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## kebabking (Feb 21, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Golf and tennis before non essential shops?



Think about the mechanics of either - I don't play them - and ask yourself about the chances of transmission.

Closing stuff that has little impact on transmission rates firstly serves no purpose, and secondly undermines compliance in the stuff that matters.


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 21, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Doesn't help with necessaries like golf clubs or tennis racquets



Funny enough, most people that play golf or tennis have their own clubs & racquets.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Funny enough, most people that play golf or tennis have their own clubs & racquets.


But those who want to play and don't want to make bezos richer are a bit fucked ATM.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

I'm more interesting in what thresholds they set for proceeding with the various steps. In terms of case numbers etc. And whether the dreaded local/regional approach is involved.


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## Cid (Feb 21, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> But those who want to play and don't want to make bezos richer are a bit fucked ATM.



Other online sporting outlets are available.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

Sarcasm aside, I've been buying most stuff I need from Gumtree or similar trade sites. Then again I try to do that anyway, second hand = better for the environment.

Not sure how 'covid-secure' that is compared to being in a shop. Better to be on someone's doorstep, worse in terms of travel, I reckon, usually have to go further for the same thing.


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## Pickman's model (Feb 21, 2021)

Cid said:


> Other online sporting outlets are available.


They are. But if you want to visit a shop to swing a club or racquet, to go and get some advice from someone who can help you on person you're a bit fucked ATM


----------



## nyxx (Feb 21, 2021)

Shooting things was never restricted. 



Cid said:


> I'm just surprised it wasn't golf, tennis and shooting things. Probably just because it's not the season.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 21, 2021)

Sue said:


> I think a lot of this ^ is nonsense but whatever. Turning up and teling people how they should act and what they should and shouldn't say though? Makes you look a right tosser tbh.



You are of course entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to mine as well. Calling people a tosser tends to make you look like a tosser too though! What exactly do you think is nonsense?


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 21, 2021)

andysays said:


> Ultimately, people are in poverty because of the capitalist system which persists throughout the world, and because the responses to the covid epidemic (including ill thought out lockdowns with insufficient real support offered) have all focused on maintaining and propping up that capitalist system, rather than truly protecting people's health and wider well being.




This is a whole other debate and one that I'd have to disagree with you on, though I know that seems to be the prevailing attitude on here for many. What alternative is there to the capitalist system that would offer a genuine, new, fresh approach that could somehow magically protect people's well being in a whole different way, though? I'd imagine changing the entire world to some alternative economic and social system would cause far, far more widespread upheaval, poverty and death than Covid has.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> This is a whole other debate and one that I'd have to disagree with you on, though I know that seems to be the prevailing attitude on here for many. What alternative is there to the capitalist system that would offer a genuine, new, fresh approach that could somehow magically protect people's well being in a whole different way, though? I'd imagine changing the entire world to some alternative economic and social system would cause far, far more widespread upheaval, poverty and death than Covid has.



The entire system doesn't need to be changed in order for us to build decent policy, though.

As I posted above - basically all of the support in lockdown has been focused on propping up landowners and ensuring that big business makes it through. Basically, maintaining the system for the top end elite (0.01% or less) whilst failing to ask them to even contribute.

The working classes are told 'suck it up, die so i don't have to go outside' because they have no power. The labouring middle classes are pacified with furlough and WFH and various trinkets so that they passively accept destructive economic policy, temporarily comfortable whilst their negotiation power dwindles. The entrepreneurial middle classes (the competition, and a smaller group than the labourers) are ground into dust so that the winners can buy everything up in the ashes.

The uppers are just lolling about, their jobs and living conditions essentially exempting them from the vast majority of the rules anyway.

In normal times, progressive policies are less important (though still important) because you don't see ten or twenty years of impacts compressed into one. We didn't need to make everywhere besides Tesco and Amazon illegal in order to beat the virus, and even if we did, we could have easily ensured that landlords shared the pain equally.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 21, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> Hey, I don't want to see it - it's just the logical conclusion of the anti-lockdown arguments.



And if the vaccines don't work and the alternative is social distancing, masks, everything closed forever- would you be happy with 50% unemployment and mass poverty hitherto considered impossible in a western nation because nobody has any income, to say nothing of the collapse of the NHS anyway because there is no tax revenue to fund it any longer? Because that's the logical conclusion of the pro-lockdown arguments. There has to be some kind of middle ground. I think that's what everyone here wants, no matter if your slant is more pro- or anti-lockdown. At some point we have to accept a certain level of deaths from Covid, vaccines or otherwise, just as we have to accept a certain level of restrictions at some points if the health system is going to be overrun. Nobody is seriously claiming they want to just "let it rip," to use the hackneyed phrase.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> And if the vaccines don't work and the alternative is social distancing, masks, everything closed forever- would you be happy with 50% unemployment and mass poverty hitherto considered impossible in a western nation because nobody has any income, to say nothing of the collapse of the NHS anyway because there is no tax revenue to fund it any longer? Because that's the logical conclusion of the pro-lockdown arguments.



No, that is in no way, shape or form the logical conclusion of the pro-lockdown arguments. Governments only do lockdowns that are considered viable, so trying to make pro-lockdown stances seem absurd by stretching things off to some ridiculous timescale that is never going to happen is bullshit. We are only a little over a year into a nasty pandemic, and those who are ready to start throwing around the concept of forever at this stage have shit agendas in my view, there is no call for such framing at this stage, we are a long way away from any of these catastrophic endpoints. 

Or to put it another way, we are a long way off scenarios where we have to consider pandering to scum who want us to change out attitude to the sorts of levels of death seen so far. Those levels of death also go hand in hand with unmanageable levels of hospitalisation, ie not an option.

When people like me envisage that a point will come where society learns to live with the level of death from this virus, its because we envisage the level of death being quite different to that seen in the first waves. The numbers will change, and when they fall into a range where hospitalisations can be managed and the amount of death is similar or lower than that seen during bad flu seasons, then the game has changed and the measures society will have to take to cope with the virus will be different, much less dramatic than what we've had to live with in recent times.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 21, 2021)

So, see you all for lockdown 4 in approx 2 months time.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

And it very much sounds like we will see the first signs of this change in tomorrows roadmap. Earlier I was talking about how it will be an awkward moment if case numbers continue to get stuck at current levels, or go up a bit again. Well, it seems like the government are going to cope with this by not judging things based on case numbers alone, but rather a vaguer concept of whether infection rates are expected to risk a surge in hospital admissions.









						Covid-19: Boris Johnson to unveil 'cautious' plan to lift England's lockdown
					

All schools are expected to reopen on 8 March, with some outdoor socialising allowed from 29 March.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The four conditions that must be met at each phase of lockdown easing are:
> 
> The coronavirus vaccine programme continues to go to plan
> Evidence shows vaccines are sufficiently reducing the number of people dying with the virus or needing hospital treatment
> ...



I have partially mixed feelings about this but it does have some merits and it does feature the changing circumstances that vaccines are expected to bring. And one of the reasons I would expect to be fairly criticised by people who think I represent some sort of 'too pro-lockdown' stance that is doing more harm than good, would be if I stuck too rigidly to the equations used in pre-vaccine times. I'm not going to do that, I'm going to move with the times. I will voice concerns about things that could go wrong, but I am not going to go red in the face demanding that authorities take an extreme approach to viral suppression, when we now have the vaccination weapon available. I will be nervous about mutation risks, but I wont demand that everyone stays at the highest level of restrictions just to satisfy my every concern.

In some ways I am fine with the basic principal of using those as the four conditions. My concerns will be more along the lines of how this government treat such calculations in practice, we already know they cannot be trusted to do the right things at the right time. But so long as the vaccines do all we hope they will, we stand a better chance of not needing to worry too much about this, we should get to a stage where if even the government are somewhat slippery with these calculations, the consequences are at least less deadly, and less likely to require another full lockdown to correct later.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2021)

Or to put it another way, I suppose I am entirely unsurprised that the vaccine era means the government will simply keep gradually easing restrictions unless they actually end up faced with a situation where hospitalisation rates are climbing in a way that they had expected vaccines to prevent.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> And it very much sounds like we will see the first signs of this change in tomorrows roadmap. Earlier I was talking about how it will be an awkward moment if case numbers continue to get stuck at current levels, or go up a bit again. Well, it seems like the government are going to cope with this by not judging things based on case numbers alone, but rather a vaguer concept of whether infection rates are expected to risk a surge in hospital admissions.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Since you seem clued up on this, I'll ask; do you have any information on the effect of immunity on the rate of mutation of the virus?

Consider - the natural R number of coronavirus is sufficiently high that even if vaccines cut transmission by 75%, in a fully immunised population, the existing strains could still spread to reach 100% of the population because R0 is bigger than 4. It'd be super slow, and it would result in very limited direct illness, but it could still happen in a Feb 2020-esque world.

This seems to imply to me that there's still a large mutation risk even once everyone is immunised. But am I right in thinking that the opportunity for the virus to mutate in an immunised individual is probably many orders of magnitude lower because it's killed off before it replicates much?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> And it very much sounds like we will see the first signs of this change in tomorrows roadmap. Earlier I was talking about how it will be an awkward moment if case numbers continue to get stuck at current levels, or go up a bit again. Well, it seems like the government are going to cope with this by not judging things based on case numbers alone, but rather a vaguer concept of whether infection rates are expected to risk a surge in hospital admissions.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Witnessing the bun fight between pro and anti lockdown camps at the moment has me having to take action to avoid some people for my own sanity. Some of the anti lockdown end it now types are quite vehment and dismissive of any concerns raised.

Your post pretty sums up my feelings in the matter, I'm scared and cautious while not advocating full lockdown forever.

I'm probably going to spend tomorrow and tonight examining my mental health, I'm sure this year's not done it any good and I think what I and many people have is a siege mentality going on. Very careful, very scared and somewhat traumatised by the last year and isolation. Not to mention scarred by the inaction of the government and wilful fuckery of the press.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 21, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Witnessing the bun fight between pro and anti lockdown camps at the moment has me having to take action to avoid some people for my own sanity. Some of the anti lockdown end it now types are quite vehment and dismissive of any concerns raised.
> 
> ...
> 
> I'm probably going to spend tomorrow and tonight examining my mental health, I'm sure this year's not done it any good and I think what I and many people have is a siege mentality going on. Very careful, very scared and somewhat traumatised by the last year and isolation. Not to mention scarred by the inaction of the government and wilful fuckery of the press.



Best of luck. We don't fully share the same opinions, but I feel very much the same about the 'siege mentality'. It's really really difficult to approach a subject charitably when it's literally life or death.

This is just a horrendously difficult time for everyone, the media really have a lot to answer for. They've consistently been putting out articles that are almost carefully crafted to push buttons regardless of where you sit on the fence.

As I posted earlier, before I took some time out of work, I was really close to just exploding entirely. I feel a lot better now, and talking through things helps, but equally I can literally see a single word and just flip my shit.

Prior to this year I was zen to the point of borderline nihilism.

It's fucked. Hang in there. One way or another, the only way is through.


----------



## MrSki (Feb 22, 2021)

Looking at this graphic it does seem to suggest kids should wear masks in the classroom along with anyone gathering indoors.


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## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Looking at this graphic it does seem to suggest kids should wear masks in the classroom along with anyone gathering indoors.




Right, masks in one place and not another make no sense. They either work or they don't. It's not like there's a special school variant of coronavirus.

I think the argument for kids wearing masks or not is more along the lines of whether it affects their education/socialization, rather than pure viral spread? I don't really have an opinion either way to be honest.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 22, 2021)

I don't understand that first statement at all: 

“In situations when windows and doors are closed for a longer period of time a large reduction in the inhaled dose of particles containing virus RNA is achieved and therefore the risk of aerosol infection is likely to be lowered”

it seems to directly contradict the second


----------



## MrSki (Feb 22, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> I don't really have an opinion either way to be honest.


Well shut the fuck up then.


----------



## MrSki (Feb 22, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I don't understand that first statement at all:
> 
> “In situations when windows and doors are closed for a longer period of time a large reduction in the inhaled dose of particles containing virus RNA is achieved and therefore the risk of aerosol infection is likely to be lowered”
> 
> it seems to directly contradict the second


I expect they meant when open. It is the only thing that makes sense.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 22, 2021)

Ah no I think they mean with the HEPA filter reading back.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> No, that is in no way, shape or form the logical conclusion of the pro-lockdown arguments.



That rather depends how long they go on for, doesn't it?

I was responding to a previous poster who was talking about "the logical conclusion of anti-lockdown arguments" being "thousands dying at home with no care." Maybe if you literally did nothing at all to contain Covid, but that's not what most people who think lockdown should be ended soonish actually call for, is it? If you read my post I said that we all, surely want a middle ground. Maybe some posters here don't but most of us certainly do. We understand that some restrictions are needed, but we also understand that lockdowns do horrendous harm. To pretend otherwise is deeply disingenuous and it doesn't help either side of the argument to do so. Nor does saying that anyone who wants the lockdown to end is a murderer or wants to kill granny or any of that other rhetoric nonsense that floats around all too easily.

The other posters were talking about a theoretical world (hopefully) where the vaccines don't work- in that kind of scenario, which was what my post was responding to, then what I said absolutely IS the logical conclusion of a continued lockdown that never ends or goes on for year after year. Businesses cannot stay afloat with no income, people cannot remain solvent or feed their families with no income, public services cannot survive without tax revenue. Money does not grow on trees, regardless of what Rishi might want us to believe. The longer these restrictions go on for, the more damage they will do. That is not bullshit, that is a fact, like it or not.

Like I said, that was a theoretical world they were talking about. Nobody is saying we have to accept levels of death beyond those of the peak, because hopefully we'll never find ourselves in a situation like that with this pandemic thanks to workable vaccines. It's just a thought exercise for now. Let's hope it remains that way.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> The entire system doesn't need to be changed in order for us to build decent policy, though.



The uppers just carry on as normal- twas ever thus! Regardless of what economic and social system you operate under, that is one of the universal truisms of mankind. The common folk toil through the muck and the fancy pants types drink wine and smoke cigars. It's the case in capitalism, in communism, feudalism, absolute monarchies. See Kim Jong Un and his wife out at the opera the other day with no masks or distancing or any other measure, while the peasants labour in the fields. That's not a capitalist problem, it's a human one.

One of the different approaches that could have been taken was to close the borders early and then provide support for targeted industries like travel, aviation etc. Much cheaper, but obviously we missed the boat on that one. Having failed that, they still need to do the same thing because from the roadmap outline, there will be countless businesses that simply will not survive months more of closure with the current levels of support. The trouble with opening sectors up is that you get the usual arguments about "life is more important than business," "businesses can be rebuilt," etc. That's true, of course, but it also forgets that life IS business for thousands upon thousands of owners and proprietors. We're throwing them to the wolves to protect the NHS, which from a societal standpoint might well be the right thing to do, but that means nothing if you're one of the ones affected. Then there's all the petty restrictions. Stuff like opening pubs but not allowing beer sales (or allowing a substantial Scotch egg)- what's the point? It's idiocy. Might as well open the brothels but not allow sex, or open the shops but not allow anyone to buy anything. Pointless and just designed so they can say, "Sorry, you're allowed to open. Nothing we can do about it." If you're going to crush the economy and shut everything down for a year, you need to provide proper support for that entire year. If you're going to allow a business to open, you need to allow it to open properly and fully.


----------



## Mation (Feb 22, 2021)

Anyone else feel like abandoning thread?


----------



## andysays (Feb 22, 2021)

Mation said:


> Anyone else feel like abandoning thread?


Selective use of the ignore function helps, IMO


----------



## existentialist (Feb 22, 2021)

Mation said:


> Anyone else feel like abandoning thread?


Yes. The noise to content ratio is starting to make it hard going.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 22, 2021)

Could have done with a lockdown debate thread or whatever, but they all got merged into this single behemoth which makes it hard to follow discussion of particular aspects.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 22, 2021)

All of it has been tl;dr

Feel free to post essays but understand few read them.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Yes. The noise to content ratio is starting to make it hard going.


The noise is the content as Marshall McLuhan would say


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

Sunray said:


> All of it has been tl;dr
> 
> Feel free to post essays but understand few read them.


For few read no one


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 22, 2021)

Sunray said:


> All of it has been tl;dr
> 
> Feel free to post essays but understand few read them.



Depends who posts them. I wouldn't say I've read all of elbows' epic covid posts cover to cover but all those I have read have been worth reading.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 22, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I don't understand that first statement at all:
> 
> “In situations when windows and doors are closed for a longer period of time a large reduction in the inhaled dose of particles containing virus RNA is achieved and therefore the risk of aerosol infection is likely to be lowered”
> 
> it seems to directly contradict the second



It's because it's not the start of the thread. The whole thing is about particular air filters so that's what he's referring to there - click through and it's a lot clearer.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 22, 2021)

Yep - you're right, I did and it is - he's talking about with HEPA filter which is interesting. As they say though we still need ventilation.


----------



## brogdale (Feb 22, 2021)

Interesting/reassuring evidence of vaccine efficacy from Scotland. Kind of ties in with what I've seen in the elderly members of my family; 3 of the 4 late 80 year olds have contracted Covid since Pfizer 1, but none of them have developed anything beyond gastro/flu like symptoms.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Could have done with a lockdown debate thread or whatever, but they all got merged into this single behemoth which makes it hard to follow discussion of particular aspects.


I don't recall any threads being merged with this one, but seeing as there is an entire forum dedicated to Covid I'm really not sure what your point is.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> I don't recall any threads being merged with this one, but seeing as there is an entire forum dedicated to Covid I'm really not sure what your point is.



It was back in the day: Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

It would be nice if people used the forum more rather than putting everything in this thread but I guess it would be tedious to enforce.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It was back in the day: Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
> 
> It would be nice if people used the forum more rather than putting everything in this thread but I guess it would be tedious to enforce.


To be fair, I don't recall many complaints at the time and you've had nearly a whole year to make another thread to add to the existing 355 covid threads if you think it was important enough!

We also already have a lot of lockdown related threads (around 35):









						Search results for query: lockdown
					






					www.urban75.net


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

It sort of feels like the press were given so much detail about the plan recently that there isnt much anticipation left for what will be announced today?

I suppose I'll pay attention anyway. The timetable sounds like Johnson in the commons around 3.30pm and then a press conference at 7.30pm.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> It sort of feels like the press were given so much detail about the plan recently that there isnt much anticipation left for what will be announced today?
> 
> I suppose I'll pay attention anyway. The timetable sounds like Johnson in the commons around 3.30pm and then a press conference at 7.30pm.



Sky News is saying 3.30pm & 7.00pm.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News is saying 3.30pm & 7.00pm.



Cheers, I got carried away and included too many .30's.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Cheers, I got carried away and included too many .30's.


I thought it was a subtle ruse to deplatform the lying haystack


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 22, 2021)

Sounds to me that beyond the news about the schools which everyone knew the only information will be lifting some restrictions which many people aren't really abiding by anyway.  I dunno about other areas but round my way the parks and benches are full of people meeting up and hanging around.  There are large groups of kids of all ages playing in the parks and parents meeting up with each other as there kids play together.

I make no comment on whether its bad or good but as with so many times with this virus it seems Government rules are playing catch up with people's behaviour.  It seems to happen both going in and coming out of lockdowns.


----------



## wtfftw (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Cheers, I got carried away and included too many .30's.


He probably won't be on time anyway.


----------



## chilango (Feb 22, 2021)

I'm torn.

I think opening up now is too early and carries the risk of prolonging the crisis.

OTOH on a personal level I'm really up for easing up now.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

I can do this indefinitely


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

Some more good news on hospital numbers in England.



> Hospital admissions in England of patients with Covid-19 are down nearly three-quarters from their second-wave peak, latest figures show.
> 
> A total of 1,068 admissions were reported for February 19, NHS England said.
> 
> ...





> Separate figures from NHS England show the number of hospital patients in England with Covid-19 has now fallen 59% from the second-wave peak.
> 
> The number stood at 14,142 as of 8am on February 21, down from a record 34,336 on January 18.
> 
> ...











						Covid hospital admissions in England drop 74 per cent
					

Hospital admissions are one of a number of factors that will determine the speed of easing lockdown




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## Sue (Feb 22, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I can do this indefinitely


I can't. My life has massively, massively narrowed and that makes me feel trapped and quite down. Fuck's sake, I need some_ fun_ in my life.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I can do this indefinitely


good for you


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

Sue said:


> I can't. My life has massively, massively narrowed and that makes me feel trapped and quite down. Fuck's sake, I need some_ fun_ in my life.


put the win in stoke newington

but watch out for the itch in shoreditch


----------



## Sue (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> put the win in stoke newington


I'm currently putting the dull in Dalston. (Here all week.)

ETA And the hacked off in Hackney.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> good for you


I spoke too soon. Just thought of summat that I really could do with right now


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

Sue said:


> I'm currently putting the dull in Dalston. (Here all week.)
> 
> ETA And the hacked off in Hackney.




have you had a fish dinner from the chippie on matthias road recently?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 22, 2021)

I’m unashamed to say I’ve quite enjoyed the last year, in spite of everything. The enforced slowdown, less pressure to socialise, the glimpse of what cities can be like with no cars, rediscovering a love of simple things like a walk in the park, etc etc

I’m ready for things to open again. But not at the risk of more needless deaths. Yet again, our government is going down the wrong path.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 22, 2021)

None of the "easing" stuff proposed would make a personal difference to me, but at least the only thing that might make things worse (so far anyway) is the schools opening. As Teaboy says there's not much real difference between the open air meetup proposals and what already happens now, which is already very low risk.

My immediate response is to say the schools will be a disaster, mostly because every time this govt relaxes measures it turns out to be too soon, badly done, or otherwise wrong. It's getting quite hard to separate that inductive reasoning from actually thinking about the pros and cons. Maybe I'm better off just not thinking about it at all because there is fuck all I can do anyway.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I’m unashamed to say I’ve quite enjoyed the last year, in spite of everything. The enforced slowdown, less pressure to socialise, the glimpse of what cities can be like with no cars, rediscovering a love of simple things like a walk in the park, etc etc
> 
> I’m ready for things to open again. But not at the risk of more needless deaths. Yet again, our government is going down the wrong path.


it's a pity they can't be the canary in the coalmine

also the government will always go down the wrong path, they are unable to to do anything else.


----------



## Sue (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> have you had a fish dinner from the chippie on matthias road recently?


I've never actually been to that chippy (I kind of forget it's there) and it wouldn't involve fish but yes, the general principle is maybe a cheering thing.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 22, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> My immediate response is to say the schools will be a disaster, mostly because every time this govt relaxes measures it turns out to be too soon, badly done, or otherwise wrong. It's getting quite hard to separate that inductive reasoning from actually thinking about the pros and cons. Maybe I'm better off just not thinking about it at all because there is fuck all I can do anyway.



That's exactly the conclusion I cam to at the end of last year.  I put this sub-forum on ignore not because of anyone here but I knew it was all going to shit and it would stay shit and there was nothing I could do about it apart from just go about my own business in a low risk way.  It actually worked quite well and I'm only beginning to lift my head now because there was supposed to be some sort of roadmap but it doesn't sound like it will be anything detailed.

Oh well.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

Sue said:


> I've never actually been to that chippy (I kind of forget it's there) and it wouldn't involve fish but yes, the general principle is maybe a cheering thing.


they do very good chips


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

It really is quite something to behold, no matter what is revealed tonight a lot of people are going to be very upset.

I can't think of anything else so divisive.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> It really is quite something to behold, no matter what is revealed tonight a lot of people are going to be very upset.
> 
> I can't think of anything else so divisive.



Tonight?

It's being announced in the Commons in about an hour.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> It really is quite something to behold, no matter what is revealed tonight a lot of people are going to be very upset.
> 
> I can't think of anything else so divisive.



And yet all throughout this pandemic this pandemic forum has not been terribly divisive compared to other issues that have been discussed around these parts over the years.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> And yet all throughout this pandemic this pandemic forum has not been terribly divisive compared to other issues that have been discussed around these parts over the years.



And, likewise amongst the general public, where support remains very high for restrictions to be lifted very slowly, to ensure we don't end-up in such a bloody mess again.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, likewise amongst the general public, where support remains very high for restrictions to be lifted very slowly, to ensure we don't end-up in such a bloody mess again.


Yes. So really not divisive at all. Except, perhaps, to that minority of the population who, for whatever reason, are keen to throw caution to the wind and thus need to manufacture some sort of division in order to claim some legitimacy for their position.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, likewise amongst the general public, where support remains very high for restrictions to be lifted very slowly, to ensure we don't end-up in such a bloody mess again.



Yeah, its not exactly Brexit-like is it? Political parties can only dream of that level of support.

This pandemic, as expected, did nothing for my faith in systems and power, the establishment and orthodox approaches. But it did a lot of good for my faith in humanity and the ability of people to make informed, rational judgements.


----------



## wtfftw (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Tonight?
> 
> It's being announced in the Commons in about an hour.


I thought the entire nation was going to tune in at 7pm. It's like the queen's speech.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 22, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> It really is quite something to behold, no matter what is revealed tonight a lot of people are going to be very upset.
> 
> I can't think of anything else so divisive.



Did you miss Brexit?


----------



## nagapie (Feb 22, 2021)

Unless they're planning on improving track, trace and support, my kids will just be back on the isolation merry go round, which will finish me off. Schools being back last time was a lie in many ways as they just ignored how disruptive it was.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 22, 2021)

None of it bothers me that much apart from the schools. Opening now just for a few weeks when the cases/deaths are falling seems mad. Rushing the kids back for 2/3 weeks before their easter holidays is madness and cause problems. 

Hopefully the vaccinations will ease the impact but it is too soon.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Tonight?


make it magnificent


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> It really is quite something to behold, no matter what is revealed tonight a lot of people are going to be very upset.
> 
> I can't think of anything else so divisive.


jacket potatoes: cheese first or beans?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

People wanting restrictions lifted early appear to be a fairly small minority according to the latest Savanta ComRes survey. 



> Boris Johnson has failed to win voters’ trust that he can take England safely out of the coronavirus lockdown, according to a new poll.
> 
> The Savanta ComRes survey for _The Independent_ found that fewer than a quarter (24 per cent) of people in England trust the prime minister “completely” or “a lot” to lift restrictions in a safe way, against 31 per cent who said they do not trust him to do so.
> 
> And the poll showed voters across the UK want Mr Johnson to act cautiously in his roadmap for the return to normality, due to be set out on Monday.





> But just 26 per cent of those questioned agreed that children should go back to school in early March, as the PM has suggested. *A further 26 per cent said he should wait until after the Easter holidays and 38 per cent later. *
> 
> And there was little appetite for any other relaxations of restrictions in the coming weeks, with* just 15 per cent saying that the “rule of six” should be restored in March*, to allow social gatherings of up to six people outdoors.
> 
> *Only 17 per cent backed the return of hairdressers, barbers and beauty salons, 16 per cent non-essential shops and 12 per cent pubs, cafes and restaurants next month.*





> Just 7 per cent across the UK said they wanted to get rid of social distancing rules and masks in indoor public spaces in March, 7 per cent in April and 16 per cent by the summer.
> 
> By contrast, 25 per cent said they were willing for social distancing and 24 per cent mask-wearing to remain in place until the end of 2021. Some 26 per cent said both practices should continue into 2022.











						Voters do not trust Boris Johnson to take country out of lockdown safely, poll finds
					

Exclusive: Survey for The Independent finds Britons cautious about return to normal life




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

Badgers said:


> None of it bothers me that much apart from the schools. Opening now just for a few weeks when the cases/deaths are falling seems mad. Rushing the kids back for 2/3 weeks before their easter holidays is madness and cause problems.
> 
> Hopefully the vaccinations will ease the impact but it is too soon.


i think johnson misheard the queen when she said she didn't want him bringing her problems but solutions


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> People wanting restrictions lifted early appear to be a fairly small minority according to the latest Savanta ComRes survey.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


most people want them lifted at the right time


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> jacket potatoes: cheese first or beans?



Marmite reduces the chances of hospitalisation, discuss.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 22, 2021)

Unless it is to carry on with the current pattern for a while longer, at least until people are vaccinated & have developed the required immunity, anything else the haystack announces is relaxing too soon.

From experience, secondary schools are too much of a petri-dish / super-spreader ...


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Did you miss Brexit?



Honestly - at the time I thought that either way it'd have relatively minimal impact.

Turns out I was right, but not for the right reasons... lol


----------



## chilango (Feb 22, 2021)

Sue said:


> I'm currently putting the dull in Dalston. (Here all week.)
> 
> ETA And the hacked off in Hackney.



Pah.

I've been putting the reading in, er, Reading.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

chilango said:


> Pah.
> 
> I've been putting the reading in, er, Reading.



Eat the rich they wrote, but here I find myself in Nuneaton.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 22, 2021)

It was me who went to Scunthorpe.


----------



## Sue (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Eat the rich they wrote, but here I find myself in Nuneaton.


Or with Nuneaton? Or only a Nuneaton?


----------



## Sue (Feb 22, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> It was me who went to Scunthorpe.


Putting the scunnered in Scunthorpe?









						Scunnered definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary
					

Scunnered definition: annoyed , discontented , or bored | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples




					www.collinsdictionary.com


----------



## pesh (Feb 22, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I’m unashamed to say I’ve quite enjoyed the last year, in spite of everything. The enforced slowdown, less pressure to socialise, the glimpse of what cities can be like with no cars, rediscovering a love of simple things like a walk in the park, etc etc


i fucking haven't. what you're describing already existed, its called Sunday.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 22, 2021)

Sorry, what's the point of this press conference again?









						Covid: Boris Johnson unveils lockdown exit plan: schools and social contact first
					

PM to unveil proposals for England on Monday, with shops and restaurants facing longer wait




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> jacket potatoes: cheese first or beans?



cheese? in this economy?


----------



## xenon (Feb 22, 2021)

if being able to meet more than one person outside and not just for exercise  is allowed soon, that will actually be good for me. I had some nice drinks in parks with friends last year.

I have already met one other person outside and stopped for a drink a couple of times this year.


----------



## lazythursday (Feb 22, 2021)

yeah the main thing I want to see is small outside gatherings, it will make life a lot pleasanter. But suspect this won't happen yet, and schools going back will have such a large impact on the slowdown of the figures we'll be waiting ages.


----------



## xenon (Feb 22, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Unless it is to carry on with the current pattern for a while longer, at least until people are vaccinated & have developed the required immunity, anything else the haystack announces is relaxing too soon.
> 
> From experience, secondary schools are too much of a petri-dish / super-spreader ...



I take your point but as it's unlikely everyone will be vaccinated by the end of summer, it's not tenable. I mean, this going on until the end of September. Barring some kind of disaster of course.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

xenon said:


> I take your point but as it's unlikely everyone will be vaccinated by the end of summer, it's not tenable. I mean, this going on until the end of September. Barring some kind of disaster of course.



Nope, they announced over the weekend that every adult will be offered the first dose, and have it by the end of July, bringing that target forward by 2 months.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Nope, they announced over the weekend that every adult will be offered the first dose by early July, and have it by the end of July, bringing that target forward by 2 months.



And the children?


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

The last thing I want to do is meet one person outside... Three’s company innit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> And the children?



The vaccines are not yet licenced for children.


----------



## lazythursday (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Nope, they announced over the weekend that every adult will be offered the first dose, and have it by the end of July, bringing that target forward by 2 months.


that is only first dose though - going to be a few months later before everyone is fully vaccinated. Though it is increasingly looking like the first dose is pretty effective.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The vaccines are not yet licenced for children.



Whether they're licensed or not is besides the point - they won't be protected.

Kind of brings us back around to the argument of when we've vaccinated enough.

There is no need to wait until 20 and 30 year olds are fully vaccinated to restart life. Not that they'll be waiting anyway, you only need to go out into the park or stand about outside some student halls to know that.


----------



## miss direct (Feb 22, 2021)

Two of my housemates have had the vaccine now. One is a mental health nurse so that makes sense. The other installs broadband. Says he had to get it for work. He's young and healthy. I'm glad for him, but am really wondering what is going on when people with health conditions working in schools aren't eligible but he somehow is.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

I dont think the authorities every really diverged away from their initial instincts and equations of letting natural immunity build up in younger groups. The broader version of that was scuppered because in other age groups the level of hospitalisation was incompatible with plans to let most people catch it. But since they now expect vaccines to carry a lot of the load in that area, its no surprise that they are back to even more thinly disguised aims of achieving immunity by infection means in the younger groups.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 22, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Two of my housemates have had the vaccine now. One is a mental health nurse so that makes sense. The other installs broadband. Says he had to get it for work. He's young and healthy. I'm glad for him, but am really wondering what is going on when people with health conditions working in schools aren't eligible but he somehow is.



I've heard a few similar stories.  I tend not to dwell on the reasons why some younger people are seemingly getting queue jumps.  There are quite a few legitimate reasons I can think of and I tend to think at least it hasn't gone to waste.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

In honour of todays roadmap, Johnson has styled his hair today in tribute to the spaghetti junction.


----------



## LDC (Feb 22, 2021)

Interesting first few lines by Johnson, explicitly rules out 'zero covid'.


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Two of my housemates have had the vaccine now. One is a mental health nurse so that makes sense. The other installs broadband. Says he had to get it for work. He's young and healthy. I'm glad for him, but am really wondering what is going on when people with health conditions working in schools aren't eligible but he somehow is.



Sounds a bit odd to me. Afaik health and social care are the only fields where vaccines are currently offered. It may be an unmentioned health issue, or there are always odd administrative things that happen.

Fwiw I absolutely think schools going back should be contingent on vaccinating staff.


----------



## LDC (Feb 22, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Two of my housemates have had the vaccine now. One is a mental health nurse so that makes sense. The other installs broadband. Says he had to get it for work. He's young and healthy. I'm glad for him, but am really wondering what is going on when people with health conditions working in schools aren't eligible but he somehow is.



TBH I woudn't always be so sure about what people say as to why they had it. There's a fair level of confusion going on where some people think think they're having it because of their work, whereas actually they got called by their GP due to an underlying health condition, or they had it semi-randomly as a left over dose.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I’m unashamed to say I’ve quite enjoyed the last year, in spite of everything. The enforced slowdown, less pressure to socialise, the glimpse of what cities can be like with no cars, rediscovering a love of simple things like a walk in the park, etc etc
> 
> I’m ready for things to open again. But not at the risk of more needless deaths. Yet again, our government is going down the wrong path.


Aye, it’s allowed me some thinking time too, an opportunity to get my life back on track


----------



## LDC (Feb 22, 2021)

Exactly, some people also don't want to announce private health issues, so they're saying it was 'cos of work'.


----------



## miss direct (Feb 22, 2021)

Well maybe. 

I just had to turn Boris off when I heard him saying "safely back to school" and all the twits going hear hear. Let them go in themselves.


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

What the fuck is the point in the whole ‘irreversible’ shit?


----------



## LDC (Feb 22, 2021)

Long haul still to come, 4 months until indoor mixing allowed at any significant level.


----------



## LDC (Feb 22, 2021)

Cid said:


> What the fuck is the point in the whole ‘irreversible’ shit?



I'm thinking that's a trade he's made with the anti-lockdown people in his party. He's given it to them as a promise/compromise to shut them up about the slow pace he's following.


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm thinking that's a trade he's made with the anti-lockdown people in his party. He's given it to them as a promise/compromise to shut them up about the slow pace he's following.



Yeah, I suppose I know why it is... it just seems a daft thing to do. Also I suppose pandering to hospitality bosses who want consistency on opening.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 22, 2021)

I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to punch a group of people in the face quite so much.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

Cid said:


> Yeah, I suppose I know why it is... it just seems a daft thing to do. Also I suppose pandering to hospitality bosses who want consistency on opening.



It's pointless anyway because we don't trust him. 
Better to encourage people who intend to follow the rules to continue to do so.


----------



## smmudge (Feb 22, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> There is no need to wait until 20 and 30 year olds are fully vaccinated to restart life. Not that they'll be waiting anyway, you only need to go out into the park or stand about outside some student halls to know that.



Yeah and how many 20 and 30 year olds do you see just staying at home and not going out?! I don't see any! Well I see one who I live with, and I'm in my 30s, but I don't see any others! Must all be out.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 22, 2021)

I'm more than a little surprised they think things like nightclubs and large scale events can happen by mid-June.  That sounds a bit optimistic to me.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

smmudge said:


> Yeah and how many 20 and 30 year olds do you see just staying at home and not going out?! I don't see any! Well I see one who I live with, and I'm in my 30s, but I don't see any others! Must all be out.



Strawman.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 22, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I'm more than a little surprised they think things like nightclubs and large scale events can happen by mid-June.  That sounds a bit optimistic to me.


It’s utterly fucking mental.


----------



## frogwoman (Feb 22, 2021)

Lol how many 30 year olds are in student halls? Let alone going clubbing all the time if they are


----------



## Supine (Feb 22, 2021)

We are going to be governed by data not dates

Here are the exact dates we will do things...


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> It’s utterly fucking mental.



And almost certainly bollocks.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Interesting first few lines by Johnson, explicitly rules out 'zero covid'.



I've rewritten part of his statement.

Today we are on a one-way smart motorway to freedom. There will be deaths on the lane that was formerly the hard shoulder, but we will carry on driving. We are redefining safety so that such deaths do not count against it, and with that in mind I am confident that everyone can return to school safely. The only exception will be my fellow MPs for whom there is no prospect of learning from the schooling they've received at the hands of this pandemic virus.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

Supine said:


> We are going to be governed by data not dates
> 
> Here are the exact dates we will do things...



They are not exact dates, they are only a guideline, subject to constant reviews of the data.

Anyway, the roadmap is here -









						Lockdown: Boris Johnson unveils plan to end England restrictions by 21 June
					

Shops, hairdressers, gyms and outdoor hospitality could reopen on 12 April, Boris Johnson says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## souljacker (Feb 22, 2021)

It all sounds bonkers and dangerous but I can't help having a smile on my face for the first time since March 2020. I'm actually going to be able to see some mates. I can go round my mums and have a glass of wine in the garden. I might even get to a festival this summer. W00t!!


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Whether they're licensed or not is besides the point - they won't be protected.
> 
> Kind of brings us back around to the argument of when we've vaccinated enough.
> 
> There is no need to wait until 20 and 30 year olds are fully vaccinated to restart life. Not that they'll be waiting anyway, you only need to go out into the park or stand about outside some student halls to know that.


Then there’s all the 40, 50, 60 and 70 years olds breaking the rules too. Don’t just blame it on the young, Abe


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Then there’s all the 40, 50, 60 and 70 years olds breaking the rules too. Don’t just blame it on the young, Abe



You'll find no blame here! The only party I hold responsible for the current state of our country is the Government.


----------



## LDC (Feb 22, 2021)

I've been very cautious, and generally have been very pro-restrictions and lockdowns over the last year, but I think this pace and order feels about right to me tbh. It's still months away for any significant indoor mixing, and there's the caveat that for things to change on those dates they have to fulfill the criteria mentioned.

On schools opening I'm not sure, I don't have a kid and I'm not a teacher so feels a bit not my area, but I can see both sides, and I do know plenty of parents that are desperate for schools to open now (not that I think that should dictate what happens) for some very good reasons.

There's lots in the last year that I've found very easy with lockdown, but even I'm feeling ready for some easing now, the chance to meet up with people and have some more social contact, even though that comes with slightly more risk. And I can see in work (healthcare) that the people I come across are more mentally frayed and more (non-covid) unwell in the last month or so due to the complex and compounded issues the last year has caused, so it does feel with the newer data and vaccine roll-out people want and need some things to change.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I've been very cautious, and generally have been very pro-restrictions and lockdowns over the last year, but I think this pace and order feels about right to me tbh. It's still months away for any significant indoor mixing, and there's the caveat that for things to change on those dates they have to fulfill the criteria mentioned.



I totally agree, subject to the data & backed by the vaccine roll-out, it seems a reasonable timeline guide.



> On schools opening I'm not sure, I don't have a kid and I'm not a teacher so feels a bit not my area, but I can see both sides, and I do know plenty of parents that are desperate for schools to open now (not that I think that should dictate what happens) for some very good reasons.



I see secondary school pupils will be required to wear face coverings in classrooms this time around.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I've been very cautious, and generally have been very pro-restrictions and lockdowns over the last year, but I think this pace and order feels about right to me tbh. It's still months away for any significant indoor mixing, and there's the caveat that for things to change on those dates they have to fulfill the criteria mentioned.
> 
> On schools opening I'm not sure, I don't have a kid and I'm not a teacher so feels a bit not my area, but I can see both sides, and I do know plenty of parents that are desperate for schools to open now (not that I think that should dictate what happens) for some very good reasons.


I think some parents will be at breaking point by now depending on circumstances. 
My brother and SIL are going a bit spare with their nonstop chatty 7 year old and 2 year old active escapologist adventurer. 
I saw a customer in the street with her young son who has autism and she looked totally done in. She was saying she couldn’t wait for the schools to reopen.


----------



## kebabking (Feb 22, 2021)

Amid all the rather niche shit about people dying and economic collapse, to my utter disgust I find that the holiday I'd booked for April won't happen - the restrictions on such things end (no earlier, and quite possibly later than) halfway through the booking.

Balls.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I've been very cautious, and generally have been very pro-restrictions and lockdowns over the last year, but I think this pace and order feels about right to me tbh. It's still months away for any significant indoor mixing, and there's the caveat that for things to change on those dates they have to fulfill the criteria mentioned.
> 
> On schools opening I'm not sure, I don't have a kid and I'm not a teacher so feels a bit not my area, but I can see both sides, and I do know plenty of parents that are desperate for schools to open now (not that I think that should dictate what happens) for some very good reasons.
> 
> There's lots in the last year that I've found very easy with lockdown, but even I'm feeling ready for some easing now, the chance to meet up with people and have some more social contact. And I can see in work (healthcare) that the people I come across are more mentally frayed and more (non-covid) unwell in the last month or so due to the complex issues the last year has caused, so it does feel with the newer data and vaccine roll-out people want and need some things to change.



Yes. I'll never be able to promise everyone that the relaxation is irreversible because of the unknowns on the mutation and vaccine failure front. But that also means it would be stupid for me to demand no unlocking until I am more certain about those things, because that time may well never come. Nor can I demand that authorities and individuals never push their luck. By at least including gaps between phases for data accumulation and analysis, there is a chance that luck can be pushed slowly enough that we can learn from it without multiplying the risks too much, that we wont push luck straight over a cliff.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Starmer still goes on about solving the problem of school disruption due to high levels of teachers self-isolation by vaccinating teachers. But that is not the only key that would be necessary to unlock such possibilities, the rules would also need to be changed so that people with particular vaccination histories no longer need to follow the self-isolation rules. Or different changes to the self-isolation rules that would have the same effect. And I've not noticed Starmer acknowledging that bit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just under 17.6m - second doses are now just over 615k.
> 
> ...



Today's update -

First dose vaccinations now just over 17.7m - second doses are now just over 625k - that's a very low increase on yesterday. 

New cases - 10,641, overall a drop of 11.1% in the last week - that's another very low percentage drop, compared to the 25%+ we were seeing. 

New deaths - 178, which is down 52 on last Monday's 230, that brings the 7-day average down to around 481 a day, a drop of 26.9% in the last week.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's update -
> 
> First dose vaccinations now just over 17.7m - second doses are now just over 625k - that's a very low increase on yesterday.
> 
> ...


is it now? what do you believe it means?


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> New cases - 10,641, overall a drop of 11.1% in the last week - that's another very low percentage drop, compared to the 25%+ we were seeing.



As I've been saying recently, I'm not sure its fair to even talk about it as dropping any more.

Listening to the rhetoric of recent days, do not be surprised if cases increase from the current level. But that government, after allowing for the lag between different measures, will actually turn this into a celebration of how the ratio of hospitalisations and deaths to cases is changing, and how some of those are still going down while cases rise. Unless of course something else goes wrong and that isnt what ends up being seen.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> As I've been saying recently, I'm not sure its fair to even talk about it as dropping any more.
> 
> Listening to the rhetoric of recent days, do not be surprised if cases increase from the current level. But that government, after allowing for the lag between different measures, will actually turn this into a celebration of how the ratio of hospitalisations and deaths to cases is changing, and how some of those are still going down while cases rise. Unless Until of course something else goes wrong and that isnt what ends up being seen.


c4u


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

Here's the updates:

Step two will happen no earlier than 12 April


Non-essential retail, hairdressers, nail salons, libraries and museums open
Outdoor hospitality in pubs and restaurants allowed with households or rule-of-six
Most outdoor settings reopen such as zoos and theme parks
Gyms and indoor swimming pools open

Self catering holiday accommodation and camp sites reopen
Funerals continue with up to 30 people
Weddings with up to 15 people.

Step three will happen no earlier than 17 May


Outdoors most social contact rules lifted, up to limit of 30 people
Mixing indoors allowed for two households, but rule-of-six for indoor hospitality and elsewhere
Cinemas, soft play centres, rest of accommodation sector, hotels, indoor exercise classes return
Performances and sporting events resume - larger performances with venues 1,000+ or half full will be allowed indoors and outdoors 4,000 capacity or half full (whichever lowest)
In very largest outdoor seated venues such as football stadiums up to 10,000 people allowed to attend (or 1/4 full whichever is lowest)
Up to 30 people can attend weddings, receptions, funerals, wakes.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 22, 2021)

beginning of the end? i hope so.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

Step one

On 8 March


all students return to schools and colleges, and school clubs can resume
Secondary school students will be required to wear masks in class as well as communal areas
People can meet one other person outside for recreation, not just exercise
Care home residents allowed one regular named visitor
Stay at home order remains in place.
29 March


Outdoor gatherings of up to six people or two households allowed, including meeting in private gardens

Outdoor sports facilities such as tennis and basketball courts and outdoor swimming pools allowed to reopen; organised outdoor sports can resume
Stay at home order ends but people encouraged to stay local wherever they can
Work from home wherever possible
No overseas travel.


----------



## prunus (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Starmer still goes on about solving the problem of school disruption due to high levels of teachers self-isolation by vaccinating teachers. But that is not the only key that would be necessary to unlock such possibilities, the rules would also need to be changed so that people with particular vaccination histories no longer need to follow the self-isolation rules. Or different changes to the self-isolation rules that would have the same effect. And I've not noticed Starmer acknowledging that bit.



He has a point - without changing the isolation rules - if teachers were vaccinated they would (it seems from all the evidence) be less likely to catch it, and thus exhibit symptoms and/or test positive and have to isolate.

The next logical step (on this particular road) would be to vaccinate the people that school staff live with, to minimise the chance that they’d have to isolate second hand (again without changing the rules).


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

I also don't see any particular problems with timing... seems reasonably cautious in general. I don't particularly like the whole dates thing though, and as mentioned 'irreversible' is just stupid. 

The one thing that leaves me pretty uncomfortable is schools... It's difficult to know exactly how that could be managed, given that it is kind of important to get kids back in. But I suspect the absolute minimum will be done. I know that Korea, for example, staggered attendance to keep overall numbers down. And a wider vaccine programme in teaching staff would make sense... I would feel a lot more comfortable if back to school was left until after easter holidays I think. We're just now vaccinating those of us who are younger, but with moderate risk factors after all; were I a teacher I'd be going back just under 3 weeks since first dose.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

Step four, from no earlier than 21 June:


All legal limits on social contact removed with ambition to reopen final closed sectors of the economy such as nightclubs
Hope to lift restrictions on large events and performances
Hope to remove all limits on weddings and other "life events"
Oh man, I can't wait for this day.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> Step four, from no earlier than 21 June:
> 
> 
> All legal limits on social contact removed with ambition to reopen final closed sectors of the economy such as nightclubs
> ...


Feels like fantasy! 

Just freedom. The freedom to go anywhere with anyone!


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

prunus said:


> He has a point - without changing the isolation rules - if teachers were vaccinated they would (it seems from all the evidence) be less likely to catch it, and thus exhibit symptoms and/or test positive and have to isolate.
> 
> The next logical step (on this particular road) would be to vaccinate the people that school staff live with, to minimise the chance that they’d have to isolate second hand (again without changing the rules).



True, although its still incompatible with the schools reopening timing that Starmer is keen to support. There wont have been enough time to properly build post-vaccination immunity before schools reopen.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 22, 2021)

I just can't see step 4 happening in that time frame.  I just can't.  I don't know how we go from it not being safe to sit inside a restaurant and then 5 weeks later packed out live venues and thousands gathering for festivals etc.

All this before hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of adults will still not have had their first jab.  Oh well, fingers cross as ever.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I just can't see step 4 happening in that time frame.  I just can't?



Why not? The numbers game that caused this government to bring in strong restrictions contrary to its instincts and perceived economic interests is all about number of people hospitalised. If those equations are fundamentally changed by vaccines then the things proposed seem well possible within the proposed timescales.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 22, 2021)

The only move in this that sounded quite smart is not opening outdoor attractions until basically end of Easter hols, thus avoiding a massive rush to them during the break. Also, changing it to 'rule of 6 or 2 households', just allowing a family of 4 to meet a family of 4 would be a huge help, and there'd be a chance I could go up to see my sister and family for a walk in the Chilterns, where they moved in September. I got there just before walls closed in at end of October, but haven't see her since.

21st date is 5 days from daughter's postponed bat mitzvah. I'm not believing it for a minute, but even if they did scrap restrictions by or near then I think the most we'd do would be get immediate family together (21 people) in one of our parents' gardens, which is out fall back flexible plan if there's any allowance for it. We're fortunate to have parents with big gardens!


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Why not? The numbers game that caused this government to bring in strong restrictions contrary to its instincts and perceived economic interests is all about number of people hospitalised. If those equations are fundamentally changed by vaccines then the things proposed seem well possible within the proposed timescales.



Well clearly they think its possible.  There have been an awful lot of stories about how some forms of defence such as social distancing will be with us for a good while yet. The stage 4 stuff is where social distancing is largely impossible and on a scale which could have a dramatic impact.  Seems to me by allowing these things to go ahead they are basically saying there will be no need for social distancing anymore.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 22, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> None of the "easing" stuff proposed would make a personal difference to me, but at least the only thing that might make things worse (so far anyway) is the schools opening. As Teaboy says there's not much real difference between the open air meetup proposals and what already happens now, which is already very low risk.
> 
> My immediate response is to say the schools will be a disaster, mostly because every time this govt relaxes measures it turns out to be too soon, badly done, or otherwise wrong. It's getting quite hard to separate that inductive reasoning from actually thinking about the pros and cons. Maybe I'm better off just not thinking about it at all because there is fuck all I can do anyway.


Within a month we'll be in a situation where everyone who accepts the jab aged 50 or more will have a reasonable degree of protection whilst most of those under 50 won't. Of course the under 18s won't have any protection as they won't have the vaccine.  I don't neglect the problem of kids being off school so long, but leaving it another fortnight or so might have allowed more under 50s to get some protection before the inevitable increase in virus circulation caused by the schools return.


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

You have to remember we are actually getting meaningful data on vaccines in real populations... E.g from Israel, so it's not just crossed fingers and a sense of manifest destiny any more.

<e2a: not in response to Wilf - as above I think it's not great to rush the school opening for the sake of 3 weeks>

To clarify more broadly I'd like it if our timetable were more based on complete vaccination in key groups, and first dose vaccination in the majority of adults.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 22, 2021)

It sounds like the govt are only commited to vaccinating those who are vulnarable, which is about now and letting things run after that. Which is the only realistic plan. 0 covid was never on the cards as its endemic around the world.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 22, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I just can't see step 4 happening in that time frame.  I just can't.  I don't know how we go from it not being safe to sit inside a restaurant and then 5 weeks later packed out live venues and thousands gathering for festivals etc.
> 
> All this before hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of adults will still not have had their first jab.  Oh well, fingers cross as ever.



In theory everyone should have had first jabs by June with most having second as well.



BigMoaner said:


> Feels like fantasy!
> 
> Just freedom. The freedom to go anywhere with anyone!



In all honesty it's fucking terrifying me. 

This is what I meant by siege mentality, it's literally got me sweating with anxiety at the prospect.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

I actually cried at the prospect of this fucking lockdown being over and being able to go out and work again (assuming the bars I work at will reopen).


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

IC3D said:


> It sounds like the govt are only commited to vaccinating those who are vulnarable, which is about now and letting things run after that. Which is the only realistic plan. 0 covid was never on the cards as its endemic around the world.



Afaik the plan is to vaccinate all adults by the end of July, so no that's not the only realistic plan. Because it's not the plan.


----------



## LDC (Feb 22, 2021)

IC3D said:


> It sounds like the govt are only commited to vaccinating those who are vulnarable, which is about now and letting things run after that. Which is the only realistic plan. 0 covid was never on the cards as its endemic around the world.



No, they've said all adults will be offered a vaccine by 31st July.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

we'll still be fucking about with this cycle of lockdown & release for many months to come because the government are so fucking shit.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

Cid said:


> Afaik the plan is to vaccinate all adults by the end of July, so no that's not the only realistic plan. Because it's not the plan.


the plan i think you'll find is to offer the vaccine to all adults by the end of july, which is a rather different thing.


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> the plan i think you'll find is to offer the vaccine to all adults by the end of july, which is a rather different thing.



True enough, but I don't particularly feel the need to over-specify each post. Though in this case it may be more relevant as vaccine hesitancy tends to be higher in some of the communities that we know are more vulnerable. If that becomes a factor... Hmm. Yeah, not a nice one to think about.


----------



## LDC (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> I actually cried at the prospect of this fucking lockdown being over and being able to go out and work again (assuming the bars I work at will reopen).



Can we have a "We (mostly) survived the 2019-2021 pandemic U75 party!" late in the summer?!


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 22, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> In theory everyone should have had first jabs by June with most having second as well.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


the whole thing, even the prospect of it ending, is incredibly scary. i can't dwell on the pandemic for long before i get all twitcy. a year of running from it mentally.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 22, 2021)

Cid said:


> Afaik the plan is to vaccinate all adults by the end of July, so no that's not the only realistic plan. Because it's not the plan.


I'm saying realistic as I expect a significant shortfall of take up. Hence no 0 covid


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I'm saying realistic as I expect a significant shortfall of take up. Hence no 0 covid



You said 'only commited to vaccinating those who are vulnarable, which is about now and letting things run after that', that just doesn't seem to be the case. And yes, 0 covid has never been part of their strategy... But it doesn't appear to be just recklessly open everything up as soon as vulnerable people are vaccinated either.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Can we have a "We (mostly) survived the 2019-2021 pandemic U75 party!" late in the summer?!


I want to party so fucking hard that I'm not going to remember the months spent locked inside! But yes, I'd really be up for helping sort out a party.

I think urban75 really came into its own during this crisis. Imagine if all we'd had was loon-packed Facebook for online social interactions?

*shudder

(edited to make sense!)


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 22, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I'm saying realistic as I expect a significant shortfall of take up. Hence no 0 covid



Zero Covid can't happen unless you shut the country entirely for 2 months or more then refuse entry.

We'd starve.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Feb 22, 2021)

Enjoy the summer. There's zero fucking plan to contain coronavirus and we'll be in the same shit-boat by Autumn.


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

Though fuck me the vaccine hesitancy figures are bit worrying.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 22, 2021)

mwgdrwg said:


> Enjoy the summer. There's zero fucking plan to contain coronavirus and we'll be in the same shit-boat by Autumn.



There clearly is a plan but its almost 100% reliant on the effectiveness of vaccines and getting daily deaths down to a trickle.  If the vaccines do not work as well as hoped they'll know about it long before the middle of summer.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

Cid said:


> Though fuck me the vaccine hesitancy figures are bit worrying.


yeh that's the difference between every adult being vaccinated and every adult being offered the vaccine. i don't think the gulf between the two is a minor issue.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 22, 2021)

Cid said:


> You said 'only commited to vaccinating those who are vulnarable, which is about now and letting things run after that', that just doesn't seem to be the case. And yes, 0 covid has never been part of their strategy... But it doesn't appear to be just recklessly open everything up as soon as vulnerable people are vaccinated either.


That is what I meant really, I wasnt that clear


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

IC3D said:


> That is what I meant really, I wasnt that clear





Pickman's model said:


> yeh that's the difference between every adult being vaccinated and every adult being offered the vaccine. i don't think the gulf between the two is a minor issue.



Well I suppose we're all broadly on the same page. As you were.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> yeh that's the difference between every adult being vaccinated and every adult being offered the vaccine. i don't think the gulf between the two is a minor issue.


Presumably what this will mean is that by the summer we'll start to get news stories about the high proportion of vaccine sceptics that are now dying from Covid - that might increase uptake.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> I want to party so fucking hard that I'm not going to remember the months spent locked inside! But yes, I'd really be up for helping sort out a party.


I know an engineer that’ll volunteer his services for free


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 22, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Amid all the rather niche shit about people dying and economic collapse, to my utter disgust I find that the holiday I'd booked for April won't happen - the restrictions on such things end (no earlier, and quite possibly later than) halfway through the booking.
> 
> Balls.


I missed the date for holidays what is it?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 22, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I know an engineer that’ll volunteer his services for free


I'll fight you for it


----------



## kebabking (Feb 22, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I missed the date for holidays what is it?



Monday 12th Apr - but that is self- holiday lets, with just one household.

Wank, wank, wanketty wank..


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

I posted this on my FB feed after wading through a deluge of doomy posts from self-professed lockdown experts insisting that everything is going to go wrong:

"Can all you Covid doom merchants just fucking zip it for a day? No one knows if the lockdown easing plan is going to work or stay on schedule, but how about you let people enjoy a few moments of happiness hoping it will? "


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 22, 2021)

Happiness is over-rated
/me goes back into the goth cupboard


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> I posted this on my FB feed after wading through a deluge of doomy posts from self-professed lockdown experts insisting that everything is going to go wrong:
> 
> "Can all you Covid doom merchants just fucking zip it for a day? No one knows if the lockdown easing plan is going to work or stay on schedule, but how about you let people enjoy a few moments of happiness hoping it will? "


given the frequency with which the government has issued decisions guaranteed to make things worse it is a brave man or woman who would presume to think they won't fuck it up again


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Happiness is over-rated
> /me goes back into the goth cupboard


a couple of days ago i received my latest volume of essays from the society for the study of nineteenth-century ireland, entitled happiness in nineteenth-century ireland. having enjoyed the essays therein, i think that happiness is somewhat under-rated, under-considered, and left to moulder on the fringes of society.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> given the frequency with which the government has issued decisions guaranteed to make things worse it is a brave man or woman who would presume to think they won't fuck it up again


On the other hand, the flip side of what I was saying earlier about maybe not trying to work out how it might go wrong because I can't do anything about it, is that it doesn't matter if one is optimistic either. I mean I wouldn't go booking any flights or anything but why not have a little fantasy?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> I posted this on my FB feed after wading through a deluge of doomy posts from self-professed lockdown experts insisting that everything is going to go wrong:
> 
> "Can all you Covid doom merchants just fucking zip it for a day? No one knows if the lockdown easing plan is going to work or stay on schedule, but how about you let people enjoy a few moments of happiness hoping it will? "



Given we’re all going through trauma and the governments killed close to 200k people paranoia and terror is somewhat justified. 

We have a vaccine and it’s great but this is built on the backs of a year that has scarred and scared many of us to the bone.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> given the frequency with which the government has issued decisions guaranteed to make things worse it is a brave man or woman who would presume to think they won't fuck it up again


Oh, so you're going to respond by joining in with the doom? Thanks.



Artaxerxes said:


> Given we’re all going through trauma and the governments killed close to 200k people paranoia and terror is somewhat justified.
> 
> We have a vaccine and it’s great but this is built on the backs of a year that has scarred and scared many of us to the bone.


So not even a few moments of happiness and optimism for those who desperately need it then?


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> On the other hand, the flip side of what I was saying earlier about maybe not trying to work out how it might go wrong because I can't do anything about it, is that it doesn't matter if one is optimistic either. I mean I wouldn't go booking any flights or anything but why not have a little fantasy?


a little fantasy you say. but this isn't a little fantasy - that's like getting a spot of extra speed out of the enterprise. but this is the sort of fantasy that would have scotty rending his hair and wailing that you canna change the laws of physics, cap'n.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> On the other hand, the flip side of what I was saying earlier about maybe not trying to work out how it might go wrong because I can't do anything about it, is that it doesn't matter if one is optimistic either. I mean I wouldn't go booking any flights or anything but why not have a little fantasy?


I imagine there's a lot of people who desperately need a bit of optimism in their lives right now for the sake of their mental health.

Myself included.


----------



## LDC (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> Oh, so you're going to respond by joining in with the doom? Thanks.
> 
> So not even a few moments of happiness and optimism for those who desperately need it then?



FWIW, I've been pretty doom laden the last year, and I feel some level of optimistic now for the next months.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> we'll still be fucking about with this cycle of lockdown & release for many months to come because the government are so fucking shit.



On Marr yesterday John Edmunds was clear that once the schools are re-opened the R number will increase. It will be back above 1 rapidly. The theory, of course, is that the vaccine programme will mean that those statistically most likely to end up in hospital don’t as they’ve been jabbed. This means less pressure on the NHS.

The two unknowns in the theory are the extent of the ‘South African’ variant and also if there are, as there normally are, further mutations of the virus once the infection rate starts to increase again.

I think Pickmans is right that whilst the Tories might insist that this is the last lockdown, the reality is that it simply too early to say with any certainty. The plan to deal with outbreaks in a swift and targeted manner feels and sounds like the last time they claimed that they could do that. In addition to that I think the timescales remain, for politically expedient reasons, too ambitious. Plus I’d argue that the NHS needs a breather.

I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not convinced that we are going to be ‘substantively back to normal’ for a while to come...


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> Oh, so you're going to respond by joining in with the doom? Thanks.


what i'd like to see is an end to this pandemic. as soon as possible. i would love to believe the vaccination programme will work. i am heartily sick of stopping in and the wariness involved in going shopping. but it's asking a lot, going beyond the bounds of credulity, to expect this administration to take us there. not when they've fucked things up on an industrial, indeed worldbeating, style for a year now. not when everything they touch turns to shit. i'd love to say otherwise, i really would. but when the government's on target to equal if not exceed the spanish flu death toll i can't muster the faith required to believe they've a snowball's chance in hell of pulling this off.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> I imagine there's a lot of people who desperately need a bit of optimism in their lives right now for the sake of their mental health.
> 
> Myself included.



I get that I really do. My dad is 82 and sat in his own all day, every day. It’s starting to get to him (and he’s as robust as it gets) and it’s getting to all of us for that reason. Like you, like everyone, we all want some optimism. But this ‘the last lockdown’ stuff is really a hostage to fortune and I’m not convinced backed up the evidence. The timescales feel off to me at a number of turns and points and we don’t want a repeat of last year where everyone could see another lockdown was needed but Johnston held out against it for purely tactical reasons and now he’s decided that this is the last lockdown likely to be even more reticent to change course if it’s blindingly obvious that the plan isn’t working.


----------



## magneze (Feb 22, 2021)

The plan seems ok. All pupils on 8th March seems a bit optimistic but otherwise it's all reasonable.

It appears to hinge on the assumption that any new variants are (a) handled by the vaccine or (b) squished by track & trace.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FWIW, I've been pretty doom laden the last year, and I feel some level of optimistic now for the next months.



I have a case of gradually creeping vaccine optimism, with caveats that I can turn the volume down on at moments like this.

And mental health reasons were the primary reason I tried to encourage people to take a break from fretting about the future for a time last summer.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 22, 2021)

As mentioned upthread, I think Israel will provide a clearer picture of how/whether this will work.  If we've got a largely vaccinated adult population by some point mid-Summer, what will be the nature of the beast?  Large amounts of the virus circulating and significant numbers getting it (particularly if the Oxford vaccine has 60% efficacy), but much smaller numbers with symptoms and even smaller numbers getting hospitalised/dying?  A fairly open society living with Covid, what would that look like?  Something like living in a (rarely fatal) flu period... _for the foreseeable future_?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 22, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I'll fight you for it


FOH/MONS


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

magneze said:


> It appears to hinge on the assumption that any new variants are (a) handled by the vaccine or (b) squished by track & trace.



Yeah that was the only bit where the spectre of local restrictions raised their head again in todays statement, along with withs like contain and suppress. Those are words they dont usually live up to, but I take the wait and see approach.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Feb 22, 2021)

magneze said:


> The plan seems ok. All pupils on 8th March seems a bit optimistic but otherwise it's all reasonable.
> 
> It appears to hinge on the assumption that any new variants are (a) handled by the vaccine or (b) squished by track & trace.



Crowds back at football/clubs reopening on the planned timescale seems very optimistic to me. Surely you need to vaccinate everyone attending first?


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Wilf said:


> A fairly open society living with Covid, what would that look like?  Something like living in a (rarely fatal) flu period... _for the foreseeable future_?



For clues about that we can consider how much collective memory there is of the large number of people dying of flu over the period many celebrated as being 'the new millennium'. If you work in healthcare then maybe you remember it, but for most people my graphs of that period were treated with much surprise. I suppose I'll fish those out again at some point to illustrate this point, but not now.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Crowds back at football/clubs reopening on tbf planned timescale seems very optimistic to me. Surely you need to vaccinate everyone attending first?



Why? They arent aiming for zero hospitalisations and deaths, just levels well within coping limits. Significant wiggle room unless there is mutant doom.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Why? They arent aiming for zero hospitalisations and deaths, just levels well within coping limits. Significant wiggle room unless there is mutant doom.



See above. The ‘coping limits’ issue is one the two concerns I’ve got with the timetable. Go too fast and the NHS will get overwhelmed and back to lockdown we go. Far better to phase this in over a longer period so people are living under gradually easing restrictions and the NHS gets some breathing space


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> See above. The ‘coping limits’ issue is one the two concerns I’ve got with the timetable. Go too fast and the NHS will get overwhelmed and back to lockdown we go. Far better to phase this in over a longer period so people are living under gradually easing restrictions and the NHS gets some breathing space


if not the 112,000 doctor and nurse vacancies filled


----------



## maomao (Feb 22, 2021)

If the vaccine does reduce transmission enough as well as preventing illness it mostly seems reasonable to me. 'Last lockdown ever' is a stupid thing to say even if it could be because the government have shown themselves singularly lacking in foresight over the last year and a bit but then we knew they were thick bastards. And if it works it's not just them that got lucky it's us.


----------



## LDC (Feb 22, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> See above. The ‘coping limits’ issue is one the two concerns I’ve got with the timetable. Go too fast and the NHS will get overwhelmed and back to lockdown we go. Far better to phase this in over a longer period so people are living under gradually easing restrictions and the NHS gets some breathing space



The timetable for easing is pretty slow, with long enough gaps between changes to enable data to show what difference each bit of easing made. That and the vaccine roll-out, and we'll have the summer as well, makes me feel OK about the coming months. Not OK as it'll be back to normal, but OK as in death and hospitalisations rates will be low, and the impact on the NHS won't be unmanageable. Think about last summer, plus we've got the vaccine program. I'm cautiously optimistic.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The timetable for easing is pretty slow, with breaks between changes to enable data to show what difference each bit of easing made. That and the vaccine roll-out, and we'll have the summer as well, makes me feel OK about the coming months. Not OK as it'll be back to normal, but OK as in death and hospitalisations rates will be low, and the impact on the NHS won't be unmanageable. Think about last summer, plus we've got the vaccine program. I'm cautiously optimistic.


you have an unusual amount of confidence that the government will stick by what they say even though they have much form of saying one thing and then doing another, of chopping and changing once everyone has organised themselves around what they've said.


----------



## weltweit (Feb 22, 2021)

maomao said:


> If the vaccine does reduce transmission enough as well as preventing illness it mostly seems reasonable to me. 'Last lockdown ever' is a stupid thing to say even if it could be because the government have shown themselves singularly lacking in foresight over the last year and a bit but then we knew they were thick bastards. And if it works it's not just them that got lucky it's us.


I agree, I think Johnson is making a political and tactical mistake calling these relaxations "irreversible", there are a number of events that could require future lockdowns and he isn't in control of them.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

it's really strange they're saying unis can go back on 8 march but libraries aren't allowed to open before 12 april.

seems to me there'll likely be a rise in the rate and number of infections from the three weeks between schools returning and the start of the easter holiday.


----------



## teqniq (Feb 22, 2021)

Even though I want lockdown over this scenario seems quite likely:









						COVID-19: 'Large wave' of infections if restrictions were eased too fast and some measures will be needed beyond 2021, scientists warn
					

Sir Patrick Vallance says there would be a risk of "flying blind" if all lockdown restrictions were lifted at once.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Sue (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> a little fantasy you say. but this isn't a little fantasy - that's like getting a spot of extra speed out of the enterprise. but this is the sort of fantasy that would have scotty rending his hair and wailing that you canna change the laws of physics, cap'n.


...and then we discover we're fresh out of dilithium crystals.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Even though I want lockdown over this scenario seems quite likely:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


But no one is proposing that "all lockdown restrictions  [should be]  lifted at once."


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> But no one is proposing that "all lockdown restrictions were lifted at once."



Indeed the comments from Vallance and McLean are compatible with the governments approach, which is why they can say those things whilst remaining in their posts.

But I assume teqniq is talking more about the latter part of the article, the modelling and 52,000 fatalities by June 2022. I am reserving judgement about that at this time. Depending on how that level of death was spread out, it might still fall within a range the government thing is tolerable.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Indeed the comments from Vallance and McLean are compatible with the governments approach, which is why they can say those things whilst remaining in their posts.
> 
> But I assume teqniq is talking more about the latter part of the article, the modelling and 52,000 fatalities by June 2022. I am reserving judgement about that at this time. Depending on how that level of death was spread out, it might still fall within a range the government thing is tolerable.


the government think any level of deaths is tolerable if it doesn't see them bumped out of office.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Not too long to wait now for the 'Whitty talks about balance' show.


----------



## flypanam (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> it's really strange they're saying unis can go back on 8 march but libraries aren't allowed to open before 12 april.
> 
> seems to me there'll likely be a rise in the rate and number of infections from the three weeks between schools returning and the start of the easter holiday.


is that not public libraries? The gov guidance says they expect uni libraries to offer services from the 8th, well that’s how I read it.


----------



## strung out (Feb 22, 2021)

flypanam said:


> is that not public libraries? The gov guidance says they expect uni libraries to offer services from the 8th, well that’s how I read it.


The library I work in is already open. Hasn't been closed since last year.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> So not even a few moments of happiness and optimism for those who desperately need it then?



Be happy, just be aware that others are going to take a lot of time to adjust and telling them to calm down and be happy isn't going to make them calm down and be happy.

If they are getting on your tits and saying "we're all doomed" then the best approach is to ignore them not treat them like twats.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 22, 2021)

weltweit said:


> I agree, I think Johnson is making a political and tactical mistake calling these relaxations "irreversible", there are a number of events that could require future lockdowns and he isn't in control of them.



Its just an aspiration though isn't it?  Of course they are reversible but he is just using it as a _one last push_ type argument to try and keep compliance as high as possible whilst placating those who think we should be going much quicker.  I don't think getting hung up on word is particularly useful, especially when it comes from a man who's word is worthless.


----------



## flypanam (Feb 22, 2021)

strung out said:


> The library I work in is already open. Hasn't been closed since last year.


I’m in a small specialist HEI, we closed. At the beginning of the year. However our library is tiny and the senior mgmt team want us to open it to allow for more socialising as space is a premium.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 22, 2021)

Just hope someone thinks of the landlords. 

((((((landlords))))) 








						London landlords sound alarm over impacts from the pandemic on capital
					

Central London faces a potentially “devastating and existential threat” from the impacts of the pandemic, landlords warned on Monday as Rishi Sunak’s budget nears.




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## tommers (Feb 22, 2021)

I'm so tired of thinking about it.


----------



## nagapie (Feb 22, 2021)

So we're going back to September and we'll be back to Dec soon but it'll be ok because people will be not so sick as to need hospital. But we'll still have to isolate without any supports or we won't have to isolate? Because things will be fucked if we're all getting it and then having to constantly isolate, life will continue to be severely disrupted.


----------



## frogwoman (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> But no one is proposing that "all lockdown restrictions  [should be]  lifted at once."



It's saying no restrictions will remain after 21st of June? Which seems optimistic


----------



## Sue (Feb 22, 2021)

strung out said:


> The library I work in is already open. Hasn't been closed since last year.


I'm now having library guilt. I took my books back just before lockdown #1 but managed to forget one. It's now nearly a year overdue.  Saying that, I've not had any reminder emails or whatever so... 🤷‍♀️


----------



## miss direct (Feb 22, 2021)

21st June will be crazy!!


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

The next boradcast message on the official youtube feed has already gone to 19.02 then briefly 19.05 and now 19.10.


----------



## weltweit (Feb 22, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Its just an aspiration though isn't it?  Of course they are reversible but he is just using it as a _one last push_ type argument to try and keep compliance as high as possible whilst placating those who think we should be going much quicker.  I don't think getting hung up on word is particularly useful, especially when it comes from a man who's word is worthless.


Where it comes to communicating with the public words are all a politician has and given that he had a lot of other words at his disposal I just don't think it wise to say these are irreversible steps when they aren't. 

He could even have said "what I hope will be irreversible steps" and that would have been fine ..


----------



## flypanam (Feb 22, 2021)

Sue said:


> I'm now having library guilt. I took my books back just before lockdown #1 but managed to forget one*. It's now nearly a year overdue.  Saying that, I've not had any reminder emails or whatever so.. . 🤷‍♀️


Automatic extensions. Email your library and let them know. We don’t charge fines anymore. I’ll be surprised if anyone is.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

All the dates apart from the first ones are tentative and if one of the earlier steps is delayed then the later ones will also be delayed.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Feb 22, 2021)




----------



## wtfftw (Feb 22, 2021)

Sue said:


> I'm now having library guilt. I took my books back just before lockdown #1 but managed to forget one. It's now nearly a year overdue.  Saying that, I've not had any reminder emails or whatever so... 🤷‍♀️


I took a bunch of kids books out just before lockdown #1. I'm very hopeful that there's no fine on kids books


----------



## miss direct (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> I want to party so fucking hard that I'm not going to remember the months spent locked inside! But yes, I'd really be up for helping sort out a party.
> 
> I think urban75 really came into its own during this crisis. Imagine if all we'd had was loon-packed Facebook for online social interactions?
> 
> ...


Yes, i have never used this site so much. Its helped me feel less alone. Id be well up for a party in the summer. Urban festival!!!


----------



## Leighsw2 (Feb 22, 2021)

IC3D said:


> It sounds like the govt are only commited to vaccinating those who are vulnarable, which is about now and letting things run after that. Which is the only realistic plan. 0 covid was never on the cards as its endemic around the world.


This may come as a surprise to the people in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand!


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> Here's the updates:
> 
> Step two will happen no earlier than 12 April
> 
> ...





strung out said:


> The library I work in is already open. Hasn't been closed since last year.


Mine too - no browsing though


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> I took a bunch of kids books out just before lockdown #1. I'm very hopeful that there's no fine on kids books


almost certainly not - my LA doesn't even do them at all now


----------



## IC3D (Feb 22, 2021)

Doing regular lat flow tests in schools is good, that's what is offered for a lot of NHS staff, though I doubt there's time to set up before easter.
I'd feel safe at an outdoor venue tbh with lat flows and temperature checks before entry. Why not even if my mates put it on.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

"the crocus of hope"...


----------



## Leighsw2 (Feb 22, 2021)

magneze said:


> The plan seems ok. All pupils on 8th March seems a bit optimistic but otherwise it's all reasonable.
> 
> It appears to hinge on the assumption that any new variants are (a) handled by the vaccine or (b) squished by track & trace.


Indeed. What could possibly go wrong?


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> It's saying no restrictions will remain after 21st of June? Which seems optimistic


No, it only gives the earliest dates that restrictions could be lifted. Only Step One has a definite date.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

flypanam said:


> is that not public libraries? The gov guidance says they expect uni libraries to offer services from the 8th, well that’s how I read it.


Yeh that's what I thought but it still makes no sense to me


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> "the crocus of hope"...


The roses of reality


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 22, 2021)

weltweit said:


> He could even have said "what I hope will be irreversible steps" and that would have been fine ..



And he has indeed just backtracked to exactly this.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 22, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> The roses of reality



The daffodils of doom.

Always thought his language was a bit flowery.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> And he has indeed just backtracked to exactly this.



He hasn't, it's been clear all the time that the hope is the unlocking will be irreversible, but there's no guarantees, this has been the messaging from the latter part of last week.  

Just like the dates are only guidelines, and not guaranteed.


----------



## agricola (Feb 22, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> This may come as a surprise to the people in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand!



this is the thing - if they do what they appear to want to (according to Whitty's answer where he expected the virus to do the heavy lifting), then UK travellers being in quarantine is going to be a thing for years to come


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

agricola said:


> this is the thing - if they do what they appear to want to (according to Whitty's answer where he expected the virus to do the heavy lifting), then UK travellers being in quarantine is going to be a thing for years to come



I think you meant to say vaccine.

Its easily done with these v words. I seem to recall at one press conference Johnson mentioned how the virus needed to be stored at minus 70 in a fridge


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

They indicated that the schools reopening is an experiment they are prepared to risk because of the easter holiday coming after a few weeks.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> "the crocus of hope"...



When he started coughing I wondered if he was going to croak live on air to give us another reason to be confident about the future.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> They indicated that the schools reopening is an experiment they are prepared to risk because of the easter holiday coming after a few weeks.



Indeed, which is an interesting position, not sure it's right, but time will tell.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Whitty covered the same 'changed game, changed raio of cases to hospitalisations and deaths' stuff that I've already gone on about, although due to the nature of the question he was asked, he made clear this applies to R too. So the days where the public health and scientific advice rhetoric features 'we must keep R below 1' are indeed over, for now.


----------



## IC3D (Feb 22, 2021)

He subtly referred to care home staff having having mandatory vaccines there I thought. Not NHS? Unions?


----------



## IC3D (Feb 22, 2021)

The Carnations of Damnation


----------



## Sunray (Feb 22, 2021)

I see this as the Government >finally< omg, finally.... listening to their own advisers and not their lunatic backbenchers. Those bunch of morons would open it all now, literally from tomorrow. This can't go wrong for Boris Johnson, I think another lockdown and he would be forced out. This plan works for me.

Vaccinations do work, I just had mine, and they are progressing along nicely. Going to get my second in 12 weeks time.  What's the point of having a vaccine if it did nothing?  Strong evidence vaccinations are also cutting transmission too. And mixing outside isn't much of a risk, we already knew this before covid-19.   

We can all see the calendar,  April 12 is still seven long... long locked in weeks away and that's just the beginning of the end.


----------



## teqniq (Feb 22, 2021)

Already at well over 100,000 signatures:









						Petition: Keep schools closed until May
					

Please don’t send students back until we know we have had the priority groups vaccinated such as the elderly, the extremely clinically vulnerable, and those with underlying health conditions.




					petition.parliament.uk


----------



## Cloo (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> They indicated that the schools reopening is an experiment they are prepared to risk because of the easter holiday coming after a few weeks.


I did wonder about this - but I don't see why you wouldn't leave being in school for another 3 weeks, and thus be back 5 weeks later in likely much better conditions, other than, obviously the great difficulty for many parents.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 22, 2021)

This is one reason for the push








						One vaccine dose gives high protection from severe Covid, evidence shows
					

First real data from mass vaccinations programmes in England and Scotland is promising




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Elpenor (Feb 22, 2021)

Not sure where to put this really but my mate, 39, type 1 diabetic, has been invited to get his first jab tomorrow!


----------



## Sunray (Feb 22, 2021)

They are clearly now well into the 16-65 with a condition bracket, all ages in the vaccination centre this evening.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I did wonder about this - but I don't see why you wouldn't leave being in school for another 3 weeks, and thus be back 5 weeks later in likely much better conditions, other than, obviously the great difficulty for many parents.



Because they dont want to u-turn overtly and like the option of trying a part of a term and then having a school holiday to help cool anything down that may have been heating up in terms of large number of infections.

And because despite all the rhetoric about 'data not dates', the plan is still absed on various target dates they would like to hit. And since they promised schools would be the first things to start up again, if they delay that initial phase longer then everything else gets shifted further out. And thats partly because they know that doing too many other things at the same time as reopening schools will make it harder to judge the effect that repoening schools has in isolation, so they dont want to merge too many different relaxations into the initial phase.


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

agricola said:


> this is the thing - if they do what they appear to want to (according to Whitty's answer where he expected the virus to do the heavy lifting), then UK travellers being in quarantine is going to be a thing for years to come



I don't think so... Assuming the vaccine is effective, those countries will vaccinate and open back up cautiously. There was never going to be a global zero covid after all, and they are well aware that restricting entry to a handful of safe countries long-term isn't really viable.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Not sure where to put this really but my mate, 39, type 1 diabetic, has been invited to get his first jab tomorrow!





Sunray said:


> They are clearly now well into the 16-65 with a condition bracket, all ages in the vaccination centre this evening.



Yes my 44 year old brother with type 1 diabetes (since childhood) had his first vaccine a little over a week ago.


----------



## Weller (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> "the crocus of hope"...


Hes now got Chauncey Gardiner 
Chance the gardener from Being There writing his political scripts
true to the movie 
I was waiting for " As long as the roots are not severed, all is well.and all will be well in the garden " to answer a question about the economy


----------



## magneze (Feb 22, 2021)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Crowds back at football/clubs reopening on the planned timescale seems very optimistic to me. Surely you need to vaccinate everyone attending first?


I suppose the logic is that a combination of where we are in terms of infections, vaccine reducing transmission and being outside will be OK.


----------



## magneze (Feb 22, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Indeed. What could possibly go wrong?


a, b or a and b. But probably z.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 22, 2021)

Since they are following the advice rather than just making it up as they go,  l see the government has published the advice they have got in a wimpy mewing attempt to face down the 60 lunatic anti lockdown backbench MPs. Those twisted fucks are demanding 60-100k people die.  What the fuck?

Here is the model of what is going to happen when we open up








						Demand from Tory MPs to scrap Covid rules 'could bring huge death toll'
					

Ending restrictions by May would lead to higher hospital occupancy in England than that seen in January, modelling finds




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Supine (Feb 22, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Since they are following the advice rather than just making it up as they go,  l see the government has published the advice they have got in a wimpy mewing attempt to face down the 60 lunatic anti lockdown backbench MPs. Those twisted fucks are demanding 60-100k people die.  What the fuck?
> 
> Here is the model of what is going to happen when we open up
> 
> ...



I hate to defend the government but that model is for a scenario that isn't happening. Just hypothetical.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 22, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Since they are following the advice rather than just making it up as they go,  l see the government has published the advice they have got in a wimpy mewing attempt to face down the 60 lunatic anti lockdown backbench MPs. Those twisted fucks are demanding 60-100k people die.  What the fuck?
> 
> Here is the model of what is going to happen when we open up
> 
> ...



By the time restrictions end, _if_ they end and this isn't yet more "just a few more weeks/months!" guff, ~900,000 people will have spent a decent amount of the final year of their lives under restrictions. So there is that.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 22, 2021)

Supine said:


> I hate to defend the government but that model is for a scenario that isn't happening. Just hypothetical.



Its a model, but these can be fairly accurate and will have been refined over time.  Its the model the governments 4 stage plan is based upon.
Chaos is hard to predict accurately.   Take long-range weather forecasts as an example.  While they are often vague, they are fairly accurate within the parameters of vague.


----------



## Supine (Feb 22, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Its the model the governments 4 stage plan is based upon.



It's a model the article specifically says the plan isn't based on. 

I'm not saying numbers won't go up, they almost certainly will. But that article isnt directly modelling the actual gov plan.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 22, 2021)

miss direct said:


> 21st June will be crazy!!




Might as well reinstate *Glastonbury*, , if everything's _really_ going to be back to normal on 21st June!        

In reality-grasping mode,    , is the more likely and realistic reaction amongst the Festography profession .....


----------



## Cloo (Feb 22, 2021)

I wonder where return to workplace fits in in this - is that suggested to be after 21 June I wonder? or just leaving it to individual workplaces - I wonder whether some may say people can come in once vaccinated or something.

It seems to me that March and April are riskiest months, in which case for the most part I'd say they are doing the right thing. If cases can be still low at the start of May, on the evidence of last year they're not likely to explode over summer, but I appreciate we can't rely on the evidence of last year.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

I'm just skimming the document to see if there were any details that didnt leap out at me during the announcements.



> In England, travel abroad for holidays will still not be permitted and, from 8 March, outbound travellers will be legally obliged to provide their reason for travel on the Declaration to Travel form.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/963491/COVID-19_Response_-_Spring_2021.pdf


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yeah, its not exactly Brexit-like is it? Political parties can only dream of that level of support.
> 
> This pandemic, as expected, did nothing for my faith in systems and power, the establishment and orthodox approaches. But it did a lot of good for my faith in humanity and the ability of people to make informed, rational judgements.



Really? My faith in humanity has been damaged by this whole thing. Panic buying, vaccine diplomacy, selectively enforcing Covid rules for granny sitting on a bench but not for e.g. BLM protests or mass seaside gatherings, the willingness of people to snitch on their neighbours for going out twice a day for exercise, some of the police overreach to individual cases (the two women walking in the woods, drones over the Peaks etc), the willingness of people to accept restrictions (not just sensible ones, but the stupid petty ones too like the Scotch egg farrago) while not knowing if/when they will be repealed, people posing as old ladies to jump the vaccine queue, people peddling deliberate disinformation about vaccines...it's not great, is it?


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 22, 2021)

I'm a big fan of lockdowns ceasing ,, but also I'm a big supporter of very cautious scientists advising delay and gradual-ness 

*AKA -- Common Sense Rocks**!! *

**As might (with max-vaccs   ), pubs, parties and small, cautious, ,outdoor gigs and festivals by September or so! 

Do what those fucking loon-Tory CRG types want though, and we'll be back to January by August!


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Really? My faith in humanity has been damaged by this whole thing. Panic buying, vaccine diplomacy, selectively enforcing Covid rules for granny sitting on a bench but not for e.g. BLM protests or mass seaside gatherings, the willingness of people to snitch on their neighbours for going out twice a day for exercise, some of the police overreach to individual cases (the two women walking in the woods, drones over the Peaks etc), the willingness of people to accept restrictions (not just sensible ones, but the stupid petty ones too like the Scotch egg farrago) while not knowing if/when they will be repealed, people posing as old ladies to jump the vaccine queue, people peddling deliberate disinformation about vaccines...it's not great, is it?


you're just focussing on some petty things tbh. what you got against BLM protests? The one I went to was socially distanced


----------



## Cerv (Feb 22, 2021)

Sue said:


> I'm now having library guilt. I took my books back just before lockdown #1 but managed to forget one. It's now nearly a year overdue.  Saying that, I've not had any reminder emails or whatever so... 🤷‍♀️


I've a couple of travel guides from something I'd planned for last March which are now a year overdue on the original dates. council keeps extending of course. 
at least I don't have to feel guilty that someone else might have wanted to take them out in the mean time when they were running click & collect.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Really? My faith in humanity has been damaged by this whole thing. Panic buying, vaccine diplomacy, selectively enforcing Covid rules for granny sitting on a bench but not for e.g. BLM protests or mass seaside gatherings, the willingness of people to snitch on their neighbours for going out twice a day for exercise, some of the police overreach to individual cases (the two women walking in the woods, drones over the Peaks etc), the willingness of people to accept restrictions (not just sensible ones, but the stupid petty ones too like the Scotch egg farrago) while not knowing if/when they will be repealed, people posing as old ladies to jump the vaccine queue, people peddling deliberate disinformation about vaccines...it's not great, is it?


One could be tempted to jump to conclusions about your favoured news outlets.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I wonder where return to workplace fits in in this - is that suggested to be after 21 June I wonder? or just leaving it to individual workplaces - I wonder whether some may say people can come in once vaccinated or something.



Advice to work from home is certainly listed as part of the first three phases. How that will change for the 4th (June) phase, is addressed in the section about the 4 reviews they will conduct. This quote is from the document I mentioned in my previous post:



> Social distancing is difficult and damaging for businesses and, as a result, it is important to return to as near to normal as quickly as possible. Ahead of Step 4, as more is understood about the impact of vaccines on transmission and a far greater proportion of the population has been vaccinated, the Government will complete a review of social distancing measures and other long-term measures that have been put in place to limit transmission. The results of the review will help inform decisions on the timing and circumstances under which rules on 1m+, face masks and other measures may be lifted. The review will also inform guidance on working from home - people should continue to work from home where they can until this review is complete.



And obviously the previous phases involve various sorts of businesses reopening so a lot of people who were not working either at home or in workplace settings will also end up back in the workplace before we get to stage 4.



> It seems to me that March and April are riskiest months, in which case for the most part I'd say they are doing the right thing. If cases can be still low at the start of May, on the evidence of last year they're not likely to explode over summer, but I appreciate we can't rely on the evidence of last year.



Yes a lot of last years evidence will reflect the different timing of wave then. If last years wave had been earlier, and so ended earlier then lockdown easing would also have ended up being earlier. Following on from that we might then have expected the resurgence of the virus to also have started earlier. But thats an oversimplification too because timing of other things like the normal education holidays would still have been the same, and we'd have had more time to see what the resurgence would have looked like without various student components. And in terms of hospitalisation and deaths there seem to be certain tipping points, below which the level of hospitalisations and death doesnt really heat up so quickly.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Really? My faith in humanity has been damaged by this whole thing. Panic buying, vaccine diplomacy, selectively enforcing Covid rules for granny sitting on a bench but not for e.g. BLM protests or mass seaside gatherings, the willingness of people to snitch on their neighbours for going out twice a day for exercise, some of the police overreach to individual cases (the two women walking in the woods, drones over the Peaks etc), the willingness of people to accept restrictions (not just sensible ones, but the stupid petty ones too like the Scotch egg farrago) while not knowing if/when they will be repealed, people posing as old ladies to jump the vaccine queue, people peddling deliberate disinformation about vaccines...it's not great, is it?



We asked whether people believed your attempts to introduce yourself by posing as a fan of my pandemic output apart from the insults. Given that the majority of what you seem to stand for in this pandemic is the opposite of my view and my emphasis.


My survey also says fuck off, I wont be responding to you again so dont bother talking to me.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

teuchter said:


> One could be tempted to jump to conclusions about your favoured news outlets.



Why, and what conclusions? FYI I watch the BBC, Sky, and CNN since it's the only US source of news we get on telly here in the UK.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> My survey also says fuck off, I wont be responding to you again so dont bother talking to me.




Well thanks for confirming what I thought you were really like. No need to be so rude and arrogant, is there? Just because you personally didn't have your faith in humanity shaken but can't accept that others have? What exactly is your problem with what I've been saying, hm? I've said nothing offensive, nothing crazy. Read my other posts before you insult me for no reason. Wanker.

I don't expect a reply but I did expect (or hope for) better from you. Guess it's just another reason to lose a little more faith in humanity. I'll still find your data useful, even if nothing else.


----------



## xenon (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Really? My faith in humanity has been damaged by this whole thing. Panic buying, vaccine diplomacy, selectively enforcing Covid rules for granny sitting on a bench but not for e.g. BLM protests or mass seaside gatherings, the willingness of people to snitch on their neighbours for going out twice a day for exercise, some of the police overreach to individual cases (the two women walking in the woods, drones over the Peaks etc), the willingness of people to accept restrictions (not just sensible ones, but the stupid petty ones too like the Scotch egg farrago) while not knowing if/when they will be repealed, people posing as old ladies to jump the vaccine queue, people peddling deliberate disinformation about vaccines...it's not great, is it?


You gotta stop reading the Daily mail.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

Edited because I can't seem to delete a duplicate message


----------



## Smangus (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Why, and what conclusions? FYI I watch the BBC, Sky, and CNN since it's the only US source of news we get on telly here in the UK.



Do you work for Amazon deliveries by any chance?


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> you're just focussing on some petty things tbh. what you got against BLM protests? The one I went to was socially distanced



There are a lot of petty things that people have focused on regarding anti-lockdown stuff, too. I didn't say I had anything against BLM protests, but it's interesting that you'd pick that out when I also mentioned beach gatherings. The protest you went to may have been socially distanced but from what I understand, mass gatherings for protesting are currently banned, aren't they? That has to apply to BLM, Extinction Rebellion, etc, as well as the anti-lockdown and anti-vax protests (which were treated with fairly tough measures, lots of fines etc), or any other group that might organise something. Were the organisers of the BLM protests fined in the same way that Piers Corbyn was, for instance?


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> There are a lot of petty things that people have focused on regarding anti-lockdown stuff, too. I didn't say I had anything against BLM protests, but it's interesting that you'd pick that out when I also mentioned beach gatherings. The protest you went to may have been socially distanced but from what I understand, mass gatherings for protesting are currently banned, aren't they? That has to apply to BLM, Extinction Rebellion, etc, as well as the anti-lockdown and anti-vax protests (which were treated with fairly tough measures, lots of fines etc), or any other group that might organise something. Were the organisers of the BLM protests fined in the same way that Piers Corbyn was, for instance?


No - the anti-lockdown protests were much later and the people were peddling dangerous misinformation and refusing to wear masks and socially distance


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 22, 2021)

Tell you what, it’ll be fucking hillarious now if the Queen dies on June 20th.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Do you work for Amazon deliveries by any chance?



No, unemployed thanks to lockdowns, so that probably explains some of my dislike of them.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Well thanks for confirming what I thought you were really like. No need to be so rude and arrogant, is there? Just because you personally didn't have your faith in humanity shaken but can't accept that others have? What exactly is your problem with what I've been saying, hm? I've said nothing offensive, nothing crazy. Read my other posts before you insult me for no reason. Wanker.
> 
> No I don't expect a reply but I did hope for better from you. Guess it's another reason to lose a little more faith in humanity.


who are you replying to?


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> No - the anti-lockdown protests were much later and the people were peddling dangerous misinformation and refusing to wear masks and socially distance



Well if the BLM protests happened when it was legal to protest, then fair enough. I just thought the law was changed way back to make it illegal at the moment. Also I'm not sure peddling dangerous misinformation is grounds for stopping a protest happening in the first place, is it?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 22, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Tell you what, it’ll be fucking hillarious now if the Queen dies on June 20th.



BANK HOLIDAY YES.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 22, 2021)

Honestly we should all get a weeks Bank Holidays anyway after this shit.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> who are you replying to?



That was quoting Elbows' post after he told me to fuck off for apparently disagreeing with his stance (even though the moderator yesterday said disagreeing with someone was no reason to make a new poster feel unwelcome).


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 22, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> *BANK HOLIDAY YES.*



 

But I have my *own* favourite planned date for the demise of Her Maj. ..... how about several weeks ahead of the last weekend of June 2022 ....  

Any extra *BH* would be at the same weekend as the *Royal Funeral Pyre*, as I understand it


----------



## teuchter (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Were the organisers of the BLM protests fined in the same way that Piers Corbyn was, for instance?


Please fill us in on the "way that Piers Corbyn was fined".


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> That was quoting Elbows' post after he told me to fuck off for apparently disagreeing with his stance (even though the moderator yesterday said disagreeing with someone was no reason to make a new poster feel unwelcome).


we also have a low tolerance of smallmindedness


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Well if the BLM protests happened when it was legal to protest, then fair enough. I just thought the law was changed way back to make it illegal at the moment. Also I'm not sure peddling dangerous misinformation is grounds for stopping a protest happening in the first place, is it?


it is if they're also deliberately spreading their pox about


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

I guess not everyone saw the early bit of the pandemic where I was warned that I was coming across as pompous. Which gave me the chance to explain my priorities in terms of my pandemic commentary, and how little of a shit I gave about how I came across, an answer that itself probably took my pomposity to new peaks. If I want to be loved its for being useful at certain points, not for being lovable.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Please fill us in on the "way that Piers Corbyn was fined".



What do you mean? He was fined £10,000 for organising an anti-vax protest, wasn't he? Actually several times from what I recall.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> There are a lot of petty things that people have focused on regarding anti-lockdown stuff, too. I didn't say I had anything against BLM protests, but it's interesting that you'd pick that out when I also mentioned beach gatherings. The protest you went to may have been socially distanced but from what I understand, mass gatherings for protesting are currently banned, aren't they? That has to apply to BLM, Extinction Rebellion, etc, as well as the anti-lockdown and anti-vax protests (which were treated with fairly tough measures, lots of fines etc), or any other group that might organise something. Were the organisers of the BLM protests fined in the same way that Piers Corbyn was, for instance?


You've got your timeline a bit confused.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> we also have a low tolerance of smallmindedness



Not sure what you mean by that. Just because someone disagrees with the length of lockdowns, or the speed of reopening, or any other individual aspect of something, doesn't make them small minded. If you read some of my other posts you'll see that I agreed that the lockdowns were necessary but that they needed to be properly supported, etc. Is that not what most people here also think? A difference of opinion does not make one small minded. In fact it's the willingness to consider those other opinions that broadens the mind, surely?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 22, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> BANK HOLIDAY YES.


Except everything will be forced to close


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 22, 2021)

editor said:


> You've got your timeline a bit confused.



Well as I said in another reply to Orang Utan, if the timeline is off and BLM protests were legal at the time then that's fair enough. I can't remember when the government changed the law to make protesting illegal.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 22, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Except everything will be forced to close



Not so necessarily so as for Covid-lockdowns though, surely?


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Not sure what you mean by that. Just because someone disagrees with the length of lockdowns, or the speed of reopening, or any other individual aspect of something, doesn't make them small minded. If you read some of my other posts you'll see that I agreed that the lockdowns were necessary but that they needed to be properly supported, etc. Is that not what most people here also think? A difference of opinion does not make one small minded. In fact it's the willingness to consider those other opinions that broadens the mind, surely?


Is this just a long winded way of saying fuck the grandparents, we should have opened up months ago?


----------



## Cid (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Well as I said in another reply to Orang Utan, if the timeline is off and BLM protests were legal at the time then that's fair enough. I can't remember when the government changed the law to make protesting illegal.




Protests were covered by an exemption, but the organisers had to take all reasonable steps to prevent covid transmission. Something anti-lockdown protests were a bit less likely to do.


----------



## Smangus (Feb 22, 2021)

Lockdowns are a consequence of the woefully inept gvt handling of this pandemic  From track and trace, ppe procurement to consistent messaging. All completely fucked up to the point where we have no choice but to do so to try and reduce transmission rates.


----------



## elbows (Feb 22, 2021)

Some lockdowns and a range of non-pharmaceutical interventions are also necessary at times, even when governments manage to get loads of stuff right. With things all done right they can be fewer and shorter, but for example a year ago I couldnt have come anywhere close to promising that I had a plan that would avoid one form or another of lockdown.


----------



## editor (Feb 22, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Well as I said in another reply to Orang Utan, if the timeline is off and BLM protests were legal at the time then that's fair enough. I can't remember when the government changed the law to make protesting illegal.


Might be an idea to check your facts first before posting up obvious misinformation.

There's been some very well informed debate on this thread so perhaps you might understand why people take umbrage at some new poster rocking up and talking bollocks.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 23, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Is this just a long winded way of saying fuck the grandparents, we should have opened up months ago?



Obviously not if you actually read what you just quoted...


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 23, 2021)

editor said:


> Might be an idea to check your facts first before posting up obvious misinformation.
> 
> There's been some very well informed debate on this thread so perhaps you might understand why people take umbrage at some new poster rocking up and talking bollocks.



It's not "obvious misinformation." It's what I remembered being the case. Memories can be wrong and I corrected myself and said that it was fair enough if there was an exemption or no ban in place. Not talking bollocks, just a mistake I guess, given that there was a lot of debate at the time about if protests would spread the virus, if they should be allowed, etc.


----------



## AverageJoe (Feb 23, 2021)

Maybe we should cut MJ100 a little slack?

There are very few of us on here that know everything about the pandemic and the the history of commenting about it on these boards.

We're all worn out, worn down and MJ just seems to want to vent and understand like most of us.

If they get it wrong sometimes it's no biggy. We all do.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 23, 2021)

AverageJoe said:


> Maybe we should cut MJ100 a little slack?



Thanks! I guess people think I'm Trump or Mark Harper in disguise because they have their own prejudices. That's fine, I expected exactly that tbh. It's why I've never bothered registering before and just read posts. I have no interest in the rest of the site because this is the issue affecting everyone's lives right now and it's the only forum here I look at, so idk about any infighting or the histories of individual posters. Guess that makes me (and whoever the other new guy is/was that people were having a go at) outsiders to the community, and outsiders are "dangerous" in some way. I've seen it happen to other people on other sites before many times, unfortunately.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 23, 2021)

Though I'm absolutely against the legislation, I'm pretty sceptical of "granny fined for sitting on bench" style articles in the main simply because it seems to be "news" (i.e. incredibly rare) and probably motivated by other factors. Giving it the billy big bollocks act to an officer, something like that.

I've been up and down the country, having people over, not wearing a mask unless forced, etc etc and no-one's really batted an eyelid, but then I'm not really an arse about it. I just go about my everyday life

I fully expect at some point I'll end up paying a speeding ticket - if you play the game, sometimes you lose. It's a low-ish fine for a reason - the powers that be consider it a crime on par with doing 24 in a 20.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 23, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> outsiders are "dangerous" in some way.



Oh, no, I'm actually dangerous, simply by existing. If you stand near me in an enclosed space, and I happen to have coronavirus at that specific time, then there's some nonzero chance that I pass it on to you and some nonzero chance you might die.


----------



## elbows (Feb 23, 2021)

A free chip on the shoulder for every grubby pandemic reader.


----------



## elbows (Feb 23, 2021)

Rather unsurprisingly the front page of the fucking Daily Mail asks:



Well we certainly arent waiting for the Daily Mail to show some basic understanding and human decency, since nobody would dare attach a date to such an implausible eventuality.


----------



## elbows (Feb 23, 2021)

If we produce any further unpleasant new variants in this country, can we arrange to first identify them at the Daily Mail HQ so that there is a fair chance the variant becomes known as the Daily Mail strain?


----------



## elbows (Feb 23, 2021)

Symptoms of the Daily Mail strain are thought to include constipation and communication via the wrong orifice. And blood hatred levels that peak around breakfast. If you are suffering from these symptoms, dont call 111, calling a talk radio show phone-in would be more appropriate.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 23, 2021)

.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 23, 2021)

.


----------



## kebabking (Feb 23, 2021)

Easter holiday cancelled and refunded, spring half-term and summer holidays booked.

Dorset for half-term, Northumberland for the summer, with a couple of days in York on the way up.

I'll start booking some camping trips later...


----------



## bimble (Feb 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm just skimming the document to see if there were any details that didnt leap out at me during the announcements.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That document you've linked to is very big.

Do you know where there might be more info on the bit you picked out ? (How holidays abroad are not allowed & your reason for travel must be filled in on some form before departing anywhere).

I would love to see my parents again, either me going there or them coming here, so a pointer to the info on what exactly the rules are would be great. It looks like the definition of holiday would include visiting parents.


----------



## Petcha (Feb 23, 2021)

Anyone else watching Hancock on GMB?

Halfway through his plea for the country to thank his team for all their hard work during this a box pops up on the zoom call saying 'software update required'


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> That document you've linked to is very big.
> 
> Do you know where there might be more info on the bit you picked out ? (How holidays abroad are not allowed & your reason for travel must be filled in on some form before departing anywhere).
> 
> I would love to see my parents again, either me going there or them coming here, so a pointer to the info on what exactly the rules are would be great. It looks like the definition of holiday would include visiting parents.



Apart from no overseas travel, except for very limited reasons, until 17th May at the earliest, nothing more has been said beyond the fact that they are setting up a task force to look into how the sector can be re-opened, but I guess that will depend on how other countries are getting on top of covid, and what new variants are floating around.


----------



## Smangus (Feb 23, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Thanks! I guess people think I'm Trump or Mark Harper in disguise because they have their own prejudices. That's fine, I expected exactly that tbh. It's why I've never bothered registering before and just read posts. I have no interest in the rest of the site because this is the issue affecting everyone's lives right now and it's the only forum here I look at, so idk about any infighting or the histories of individual posters. Guess that makes me (and whoever the other new guy is/was that people were having a go at) outsiders to the community, and outsiders are "dangerous" in some way. I've seen it happen to other people on other sites before many times, unfortunately.



One of the features of this site is robust debate, people are asked to justify or get get called out on their posts when others think they need to be.  This is true of long established posters as well as new ones, so don't feel you are being singled out. There is also a long history of new posters turning up and trolling the site under various guises so that's why some are treated with a degree of circumspect.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 23, 2021)

I'm looking forward to camping again.  My VW has done < 1000 miles in 18 months.  Last time it was used properly was Boomtown 2019


----------



## prunus (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> ...
> 
> I've been up and down the country, having people over, not wearing a mask unless forced, etc etc and no-one's really batted an eyelid, but then I'm not really an arse about it. I just go about my everyday life
> 
> ...



Have you really been doing this?  During lockdown?  If so, do you not see what incredibly selfish and thoughtless behaviour this is?

People all over the country are struggling, really struggling, with the privations required to keep control this thing, it's really hard, and we're all doing our damnedest nevertheless, because it's for the common good; and you are swanning about doing what you want because, well, you want to, and fuck everyone else.   Your behaviour is making it worse for everyone else, making their suffering longer and deeper, even leaving aside the suffering you could cause by being part of a chain of transmission that leads to deaths and debilitations down the line, and you're choosing to do this because you want to go about your everyday life.  Do you think everyone else doesn't want to?  Why do you think they are not?  It is because they are thinking of others, of society, of common good, and not just of themselves.

You say you're not being an arse about it, but I think if you look at your behaviour you'll see it's the behaviour of someone a lot worse than an arse - it's the behaviour of an unpleasant sociopathic self-centred narcissist.

e2a: hopefully you're not actually doing this, and you're just trolling here; still quite peculiar behaviour, but a lot more understandably human - we've all got a lot of anger, and sometimes it seems to make it feel better by making other people angry too.  It's generally not great for anyone in the long run, but is of a different quality to the behaviour you're claiming.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 23, 2021)

Smangus said:


> One of the features of this site is robust debate, people are asked to justify or get get called out on their posts when others think they need to be.  This is true of long established posters as well as new ones, so don't feel you are being singled out. There is also a long history of new posters turning up and trolling the site under various guises so that's why some are treated with a degree of circumspect.


It's a long time since I last read the FAQ, but ISTR that it has some good pointers on general board etiquette. It may not specifically mention barrelling up and calling everyone out for doing it wrong, but it's surely a reasonable implicit expectation?


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Though I'm absolutely against the legislation, I'm pretty sceptical of "granny fined for sitting on bench" style articles in the main simply because it seems to be "news" (i.e. incredibly rare) and probably motivated by other factors. Giving it the billy big bollocks act to an officer, something like that.
> 
> I've been up and down the country, having people over, not wearing a mask unless forced, etc etc and no-one's really batted an eyelid, but then I'm not really an arse about it. I just go about my everyday life
> 
> I fully expect at some point I'll end up paying a speeding ticket - if you play the game, sometimes you lose. It's a low-ish fine for a reason - the powers that be consider it a crime on par with doing 24 in a 20.


You absolutely have been an arse about it. A selfish arse


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 23, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> You absolutely have been an arse about it. A selfish arse


It won't age well either. "grandad, what did you do in covid?" 

"just done what I liked"


----------



## frogwoman (Feb 23, 2021)

> Have you really been doing this? During lockdown?



Doubt it tbh.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 23, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> It won't age well either. "grandad, what did you do in covid?"
> 
> "just done what I liked"



Nah it’ll be like aristos and BUF members after  WW2; “I stood up and supported our boys and survived the blitz I did, you’ve no idea of the hardships I endured with nothing more than a substantial property empire to my name and a hundred employees”


----------



## frogwoman (Feb 23, 2021)

If this person really was doing these things they would just do them rather than writing on here


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 23, 2021)

Early snap poll from yougov suggests the public is largely behind the road map, very few thinks it's moving too slowly.











						Snap poll: English people tend to back pace of lockdown lifting | YouGov
					

There is also strong backing for the step one timeline




					yougov.co.uk


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 23, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Early snap poll from yougov suggests the public is largely behind the road map, very few thinks it's moving too slowly.
> 
> View attachment 255738
> 
> ...


Everyone hopes it will work and then the government will fuck it up


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 23, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> You absolutely have been an arse about it. A selfish arse



Zzz. Me giving up 1.5-2% of my life and >10% of my youth for the sake of a virus that has a 1% IFR.

You call it selfish, I think society at large has acted in a negative manner overall.

A few months made sense, this is madness.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Zzz. Me giving up 1.5-2% of my life and >10% of my youth for the sake of a virus that has a 1% IFR.
> 
> You call it selfish, I think society at large has acted in a negative manner overall.



"no one is the boss of me" diet sociopathic/full-fat sociopathic facebook groups that way _______________________


----------



## andysays (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Zzz. Me giving up 1.5-2% of my life and >10% of my youth for the sake of a virus that has a 1% IFR.


Getting a bit melodramatic here, aren't we...


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Zzz. Me giving up 1.5-2% of my life and >10% of my youth for the sake of a virus that has a 1% IFR.
> 
> You call it selfish, I think society at large has acted in a negative manner overall.
> 
> A few months made sense, this is madness.


maybe it's not about you?


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 23, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> maybe it's not about you?


No, it's about all of us. Not me.

I'm bored of posting here now, good luck in your echochamber.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 23, 2021)

anyway, i am contextualising this in the field of trauma...whether we think we are or not, i think we have all been bent out of shape by this. hyper included. he's probably letting off steam.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> I've been up and down the country, having people over, not wearing a mask unless forced, etc etc and no-one's really batted an eyelid, but then I'm not really an arse about it. I just go about my everyday life


Why have you not been wearing a mask? Do you not believe they reduce the transmission?


----------



## existentialist (Feb 23, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> If this person really was doing these things they would just do them rather than writing on here


I wonder what the desired aim of that would be...


----------



## Petcha (Feb 23, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Why have you not been wearing a mask? Do you not believe they reduce the transmission?



It's worth remembering that less than a year ago the official WHO advice was not to wear masks as they actually increased the risk of getting the virus.

That seems fucking crazy now but everyone seems to have forgotten about that. Countries like Vietnam, New Zealand and Korea completely ignored that advice and made them compulsory. Whoever was behind the WHO advice is hopefully not still in the job.


----------



## hypernormalized (Feb 23, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Why have you not been wearing a mask? Do you not believe they reduce the transmission?



Because the logical thing for you to do if you're concerned about the virus is to stay indoors.


----------



## Cid (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> No, it's about all of us. Not me.
> 
> I'm bored of posting here now, good luck in your echochamber.



Thanks, bye.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> No, it's about all of us. Not me.
> 
> I'm bored of posting here now, good luck in your echochamber.


ah, echochamber. a word with worthy usages.

but i will follow _*global scientific consensus*, _rather than what hyper says on urban, thanks.

have i read all the science, of course i fucking didn't.

but i couldn't hedge my bets. had to make a choice.

you've played your cards, i played mine, echo chamber or not.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Zzz. Me giving up 1.5-2% of my life and >10% of my youth for the sake of a virus that has a 1% IFR.
> 
> You call it selfish, I think society at large has acted in a negative manner overall.
> 
> A few months made sense, this is madness.


Keep digging.

ETA: oh, he threw his spade in the hole, and flounced.


----------



## Cid (Feb 23, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> ah, echochamber. a word with worthy usages.
> 
> but i will follow _*western scientific consensus*, _rather than what hyper says on urban, thanks.



I think, especially in the context of this pandemic, the 'western' bit is kind of redundant these days.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 23, 2021)

Cid said:


> I think, especially in the context of this pandemic, the 'western' bit is kind of redundant these days.


yes, very true. very very true. not even sure why it came out so naturally. years of colonial brainwashing!


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 23, 2021)

edited


----------



## Petcha (Feb 23, 2021)

Hancock getting mighty shitty that we all aren't more grateful for his team's handling of the pandemic. It's astonishing. Echoes of Comical Ali.


----------



## zahir (Feb 23, 2021)

Thread on the roadmap from Christina Pagel.


----------



## Petcha (Feb 23, 2021)

Just prior to the Hancock interview btw, was Ben Stokes, the cricketer. Hancock mentioned he was a massive fan and they cut back to Stokes who made a face and walked away from the computer. Hancock's face


----------



## zahir (Feb 23, 2021)

Deepti Gurdasani on the roadmap.


----------



## Cid (Feb 23, 2021)

zahir said:


> Thread on the roadmap from Christina Pagel.




Yep, think that sums it up well.


----------



## BigMoaner (Feb 23, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Hancock getting mighty shitty that we all aren't more grateful for his team's handling of the pandemic. It's astonishing. Echoes of Comical Ali.



Piers is a Massive Cunt, but it's pretty good when he gets stuck in.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 23, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Nah it’ll be like aristos and BUF members after  WW2; “I stood up and supported our boys and survived the blitz I did, you’ve no idea of the hardships I endured with nothing more than a substantial property empire to my name and a hundred employees”


“It was hard without the servants, but we made do”


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Zzz. Me giving up 1.5-2% of my life and >10% of my youth for the sake of a virus that has a 1% IFR.
> 
> You call it selfish, I think society at large has acted in a negative manner overall.
> 
> A few months made sense, this is madness.


I hope you get it bad


hypernormalized said:


> Because the logical thing for you to do if you're concerned about the virus is to stay indoors.


If not quite the practical thing, some of us have to go to work, fool


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Zzz. Me giving up 1.5-2% of my life and >10% of my youth for the sake of a virus that has a 1% IFR.
> 
> You call it selfish, I think society at large has acted in a negative manner overall.
> 
> A few months made sense, this is madness.


Go fuck yourself you stupid cunt.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 23, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Go fuck yourself you stupid cunt.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 23, 2021)

I'd suggest ignoring them instead of giving them the response they want.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 23, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Really? My faith in humanity has been damaged by this whole thing. Panic buying, vaccine diplomacy, selectively enforcing Covid rules for granny sitting on a bench but not for e.g. BLM protests or mass seaside gatherings, the willingness of people to snitch on their neighbours for going out twice a day for exercise, some of the police overreach to individual cases (the two women walking in the woods, drones over the Peaks etc), the willingness of people to accept restrictions (not just sensible ones, but the stupid petty ones too like the Scotch egg farrago) while not knowing if/when they will be repealed, people posing as old ladies to jump the vaccine queue, people peddling deliberate disinformation about vaccines...it's not great, is it?


Wherever you get your news from positive stuff is mostly one item at the end, reporting on general compliance is nowhere near as interesting as reporting on rule-breaking because "Oh! Shock! Horror!" sells paper much better


bimble said:


> That document you've linked to is very big.
> 
> Do you know where there might be more info on the bit you picked out ? (How holidays abroad are not allowed & your reason for travel must be filled in on some form before departing anywhere).
> 
> I would love to see my parents again, either me going there or them coming here, so a pointer to the info on what exactly the rules are would be great. It looks like the definition of holiday would include visiting parents.


use the search function.
Starts at page 38 section 125
No earlier than 17th of May, but dependent on the April 12th report.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 23, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


>


You’re Cupid, he’s stupid


----------



## existentialist (Feb 23, 2021)

So, our "surprisingly well-informed poster" turned out to have an agenda, and decided to flounce rather than engage...after all that lurking . I think they knew exactly what they were doing.

Still, I'm glad they changed their avatar - having another poster on the boards with the same one as me was slightly confusing...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 23, 2021)

That's such a massive increase, fucking hell.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'd suggest ignoring them instead of giving them the response they want.



Yes, you're all wasting time that could be spent responding to one of teuchter's windup threads instead.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (Feb 23, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Easter holiday cancelled and refunded, spring half-term and summer holidays booked.
> 
> Dorset for half-term, Northumberland for the summer, with a couple of days in York on the way up.
> 
> I'll start booking some camping trips later...



We've also booked Northumberland for June. We were supposed to be going last year but had to cancel - twice. Hoping for third time lucky. As much as I love landlocked Birmingham the chance to see the sea and walk the coast sounds like paradise at the minute.


----------



## Chilli.s (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> I'm bored of posting here now, good luck in your echochamber.


Fuck off you selfish cunt


----------



## two sheds (Feb 23, 2021)

Bloody hell: Not a single case of flu detected by Public Health England in 2021

I can confirm this, I've not had a single case of flu either. 

But that presumably bumps up the number of covid related deaths when looking at excess death figures.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Feb 23, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> If this person really was doing these things they would just do them rather than writing on here



Very much this.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure hypernormalized is a big enough cunt to go around without a mask like a dirty little ratlicker, not giving a fuck about the lives of others that they're putting at risk.

But they're far too pathetic to actually do it, far too afraid of being confronted by people rightly wanting to know why he thinks it's OK to put their lives at risk.

So instead they try and make up for these personal failings by acting hard on the internet.

A cunt, a coward and a liar basically.


----------



## editor (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> No, it's about all of us. Not me.
> 
> I'm bored of posting here now, good luck in your echochamber.


GOODBYE GOODBYE GOODBYE GOODBYE GOODBYE  GOODBYE


----------



## teuchter (Feb 23, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Yes, you're all wasting time that could be spent responding to one of teuchter's windup threads instead.


That's not unique to this situation though.


----------



## editor (Feb 23, 2021)

Things are definitely looking hopeful but I hope no one forgets how the government fucked it up for so long.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalised said:
			
		

> good luck in your echochamber.



Our clique remains as monothought as ever ....


----------



## stdP (Feb 23, 2021)

hypernormalized said:


> Zzz. Me giving up 1.5-2% of my life and >10% of my youth for the sake of a virus that has a 1% IFR.
> 
> You call it selfish, I think society at large has acted in a negative manner overall.
> 
> A few months made sense, this is madness.



"Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make!"


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 23, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Our clique remains as monothought as ever ....



He had a point though. You should listen to other viewpoints without instantly ridiculing them. Ridicule them after careful thought if you like, but don't dismiss them out of hand. An echo chamber does nobody any favours.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 23, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> He had a point though. You should listen to other viewpoints without instantly ridiculing them. Ridicule them after careful thought if you like, but don't dismiss them out of hand. An echo chamber does nobody any favours.


They'd already been exhausted by the time you popped in


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 23, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> He had a point though. You should listen to other viewpoints without instantly ridiculing them. Ridicule them after careful thought if you like, but don't dismiss them out of hand. An echo chamber does nobody any favours.



Urban isn't an "echo-chamber" though, and never has been. 

Over the years, I've found that those who think it is, are overwhelmingly a ..... _certain type_ of poster 

(Off now -- it's getting late and I don't want to derail any further   )


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 23, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Urban isn't an "echo-chamber" though, and never has been.
> 
> Over the years, I've found that those who think it is, are overwhelmingly a ..... _certain type_ of poster
> 
> (Off now -- it's getting late and I don't want to derail any further   )



I wouldn't know about the site as a whloe- like I said before I only look at this one topic!


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 23, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> He had a point though.


Nah.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 23, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> He had a point though. You should listen to other viewpoints without instantly ridiculing them. Ridicule them after careful thought if you like, but don't dismiss them out of hand. An echo chamber does nobody any favours.


Of all the things that Urban is, one thing it is not is an echo chamber. That is just a cheap attempt to write off many opposing views as a clique, when all they really have in common is their disagreement with your views.


----------



## Smangus (Feb 24, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I wouldn't know about the site as a whloe- like I said before I only look at this one topic!



Time to get out of your echo chamber and explore the site a bit.


----------



## kabbes (Feb 24, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> He had a point though. You should listen to other viewpoints without instantly ridiculing them. Ridicule them after careful thought if you like, but don't dismiss them out of hand. An echo chamber does nobody any favours.


His point is that he doesn’t care how many people he kills, he doesn’t want to wear an itchy mask.


----------



## souljacker (Feb 24, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I wouldn't know about the site as a whloe- like I said before I only look at this one topic!



You're probably not the best placed to get what this site is all about if you only look at one thread. We are a lot more than one thread, especially if you consider this one didn't exist a year ago.


----------



## maomao (Feb 24, 2021)

souljacker said:


> You're probably not the best placed to get what this site is all about if you only look at one thread. We are a lot more than one thread, especially if you consider this one didn't exist a year ago.


That's a bit like insisting someone listen to the Cardiacs entire discography just because they liked 'Is This The Life' though.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 24, 2021)

maomao said:


> That's a bit like insisting someone listen to the Cardiacs entire discography just because they liked 'Is This The Life' though.


Well, TBF, it'd be more like insisting someone listen to the Cardiacs entire discography just because they said they *hated* 'Is This The Life'...


----------



## souljacker (Feb 24, 2021)

maomao said:


> That's a bit like insisting someone listen to the Cardiacs entire discography just because they liked 'Is This The Life' though.



Maybe if they just listened to the chorus.


----------



## klang (Feb 24, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Of all the things that Urban is, one thing it is not is an echo chamber. That is just a cheap attempt to write off many opposing views as a clique, when all they really have in common is their disagreement with your views.


I agree.


----------



## klang (Feb 24, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Urban isn't an "echo-chamber" though, and never has been.


this is worth repeating.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 24, 2021)

Yes I agree with that too.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Feb 24, 2021)

Absolutely, anyone that thinks otherwise really isn’t going to fit in round here.


----------



## prunus (Feb 24, 2021)

You can say that again.


----------



## nyxx (Feb 24, 2021)

editor said:


> I posted this on my FB feed after wading through a deluge of doomy posts from self-professed lockdown experts insisting that everything is going to go wrong:
> 
> "Can all you Covid doom merchants just fucking zip it for a day? No one knows if the lockdown easing plan is going to work or stay on schedule, but how about you let people enjoy a few moments of happiness hoping it will? "


You’ve no right to tell other people how and when to express their thoughts and feelings on this. 

If what I feel as a response to the announcement is fear and sadness at the likely consequences of that announcement, I’m as entitled to share those feelings as anyone else is. 

All the people celebrating the announcements does compound the anxiety and dread for those of us who see it as populist driven madness which will result of more mass death and continuing the cycle of lockdowns due to failure to control the virus. 

If that turns out to be wrong, I’ll be very very very happy. But this is what it looks like to me right now and I’ve as much right and responsibility as the next person to be open about it.


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2021)

nyxx said:


> You’ve no right to tell other people how and when to express their thoughts and feelings on this.


I've every right to express a personal opinion, thanks very much. Strange though that you seem to think that _you_ have a right to tell me how I can express my thoughts and feelings on this.


----------



## nyxx (Feb 24, 2021)

editor said:


> I've every right to express a personal opinion, thanks very much. Strange though that you seem to think that _you_ have a right to tell me how I can express my thoughts and feelings on this.



You weren’t just “expressing an opinion” though, you were delivering an imperative to those who had a different response to you to keep it to themselves.


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2021)

nyxx said:


> You weren’t just “expressing an opinion” though, you were delivering an imperative to those who had a different response to you to keep it to themselves.


Yes. I was _delivering an imperative_ with all the massive authority that comes with a Facebook post.  Please give me a 'few moments of happiness' I demanded. Two days ago.


----------



## nyxx (Feb 24, 2021)

So your opinion is that everyone who disagreed with you should shut the fuck up....and this is your response.... 

Wow. 



editor said:


> I've every right to express a personal opinion, thanks very much. Strange though that you seem to think that _you_ have a right to tell me how I can express my thoughts and feelings on this.


----------



## nyxx (Feb 24, 2021)

editor said:


> Yes. I was _delivering an imperative_ with all the massive authority that comes with a Facebook post.  Please give me a 'few moments of happiness' I demanded. Two days ago.



Oh, my apologies for not catching up on this thread on a daily basis. 

Fwiw I’ve been out for the count with flu for 2 days. Is that acceptable? Are there exceptions to this invisible rule over when one can respond to posts on this thread by?


----------



## editor (Feb 24, 2021)

Over 60s can book their Covid-19 appointments now! 









						Over 60s can book their NHS Covid-19 vaccination appointments online NOW!
					

If you’re over 60 and still waiting to get a date for your Covid-19 vaccination jabs, the good news is that you can go online now and immediately book appointments for your two doses.



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## Wilf (Feb 24, 2021)

editor said:


> Over 60s can book their Covid-19 appointments now!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Cheers for that, I've just booked it for Monday (though my brain's immediately gone into 'should I have waited a bit to get that one rather than that one' mode   +  ). I'm aware this is a logistical nightmare, but I'm also surprised they've opened it to over 60s so quickly.  Regional variations aside, they can't have got all of the 65+ and vulnerable 18-64 year olds done yet?


----------



## zora (Feb 24, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Cheers for that, I've just booked it for Monday (though my brain's immediately gone into 'should I have waited a bit to get that one rather than that one' mode   +  ). I'm aware this is a logistical nightmare, but I'm also surprised they've opened it to over 60s so quickly.  Regional variations aside, they can't have got all of the 65+ and vulnerable 18-64 year olds done yet?



I imagine the main priority is that no availabe vaccine doses and vaccination slots go unused, and if someone in a slightly higher category gets their jab a few days later is neither here nor there. (That's assuming that if someone from a higher priority group tries to book, they will be given priority for an asap slot)?

The vaccines are both good, no need to worry too much about which one I don't think, especially given that it's not a lifetime thing, and we will likely be needing and getting top-ups/different ones next year or whenever.


----------



## Chilli.s (Feb 24, 2021)

A friend has had to go to europe for work, had to have a negative test certificate within 72 hours of their flight and then quarantine on arrival for 2 weeks and another test. A letter saying that they are working has to be carried and shown and forms filled in with accommodation addresses, follow up phone calls to check compliance. One of their colleagues has spat out their dummy and fled back to the UK, no test required and no other restrictions on arrival. What a shitshow.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 24, 2021)

zora said:


> I imagine the main priority is that no availabe vaccine doses and vaccination slots go unused, and if someone in a slightly higher category gets their jab a few days later is neither here nor there. (That's assuming that if someone from a higher priority group tries to book, they will be given priority for an asap slot)?
> 
> The vaccines are both good, no need to worry too much about which one I don't think, especially given that it's not a lifetime thing, and we will likely be needing and getting top-ups/different ones next year or whenever.


TBH, I just clicked into the nearest vax site and clicked on the first date (this Monday).  Every day from Monday looked to be 'clickable' so it didn't look like it was a random bit of oversupply. I was just surprised to see that over 60s could get slots so soon after they started on over 65s and  vulnerable 18-64s.  Maybe each region has a degree of flexibility about how they process things to get the maximum number through?


----------



## nyxx (Feb 24, 2021)

I know a couple of vulnerble 18-64 year olds who haven't got an appointment yet, but they might not be too far off. 

I did hear about over 70's & 18-64 vulnerable ppl in a rural area who hadn't been offered it yet and there wasn't going to be any more doses supplied until March. It's possible that situation has been resolved since I last heard anything, not sure.

I think it's varying by region a heck of a lot.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 24, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Of all the things that Urban is, one thing it is not is an echo chamber. That is just a cheap attempt to write off many opposing views as a clique, when all they really have in common is their disagreement with your views.



Maybe read some of my posts where you'll find out that I actually agree with plenty of views held here. Just because I don't agree with every single one of them doesn't mean I'm making any attempt to write them off. Would be nice if you could do the same in return, no? Otherwise if you only listen to views that coincide with yours, then yes, you are in an echo chamber, whether you believe it or not.


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 24, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Time to get out of your echo chamber and explore the site a bit.



So Urban is not an echo chamber, but by reading this thread, where I disagree with some of the views but agree with others, I'm in an echo chamber? Uh...ok then?


----------



## Raheem (Feb 24, 2021)

How can Urban be an echo chamber when everyone here agrees it isn't?


----------



## two sheds (Feb 24, 2021)

I'm not sure I agree it isn't


----------



## Raheem (Feb 24, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I'm not sure I agree it isn't


Missing comma, I presume.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 24, 2021)

ellipsis


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 24, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I'm not sure I agree it isn't



Why are you not echoingly subscribing to the monothought clique about this, then?


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 24, 2021)

Wilf said:


> TBH, I just clicked into the nearest vax site and clicked on the first date (this Monday).  Every day from Monday looked to be 'clickable' so it didn't look like it was a random bit of oversupply. I was just surprised to see that over 60s could get slots so soon after they started on over 65s and  vulnerable 18-64s.  *Maybe each region has a degree of flexibility about how they process things to get the maximum number through?*



I wish that was more evident here in Wales ..... here, from what I'm picking up,  things are progressing more slowly ....  
</tries very hard to suppress impatience  >

I'm in category 6 ('vulnerable 18-64s'), and my phone remains stubbornly silent ........


----------



## Smangus (Feb 24, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> So Urban is not an echo chamber, but by reading this thread, where I disagree with some of the views but agree with others, I'm in an echo chamber? Uh...ok then?



Looks like you completely  miss the point.


----------



## Raheem (Feb 24, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm in category 6 ('vulnerable 18-64s'), and my phone remains stubbornly silent ........


My mum's category 5, and she had hers a few days ago.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 24, 2021)

Raheem said:


> My mum's category 5, and she had hers a few days ago.



Is she in Wales?

Good on her anyway


----------



## Raheem (Feb 24, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Is she in Wales?
> 
> Good on her anyway


Yes, she's in Wales. I know sometimes I post pointless things, but give me some credit!


----------



## MJ100 (Feb 24, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Looks like you completely  miss the point.



If you say so.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 24, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Yes, she's in Wales. I know sometimes I post pointless things, but give me some credit!



I do get that, and your mum living in Wales was exactly the logical conclusion from what you posted .... but I didn't _know_, which is why I wanted to ask.

It's great that she got the appointment anyway


----------



## zahir (Feb 24, 2021)

Assessing the risks of a policy of living with the virus.





__





						Collective Action to Personal Responsibility: The Big COVID Leap of Faith the Government Wants Us All to Make – Byline Times
					

Adam Hamdy considers how the public is to realistically assess its own risk from the Coronavirus and ‘live with it’




					bylinetimes.com


----------



## Wilf (Feb 25, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm in category 6 ('vulnerable 18-64s'), and my phone remains stubbornly silent ........


Does the link Ed posted not work for Wales William? I appreciate that might be the case, it's just that it didn't say 'NHS England' or similar on the link.  Anyway, hope you get sorted soon.


----------



## Numbers (Feb 25, 2021)

Raheem said:


> My mum's category 5, and she had hers a few days ago.


I’m category 9 and got a text to book on Tuesday, so did my wife.


----------



## emanymton (Feb 25, 2021)

Is lockdown wearing off in Greater Manchester?
					

The latest data shows Greater Manchester's rate remains much higher than England's



					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk
				




Anyone got any thoughts on why this is happening?

Most of the reason given in the article would probably apply to large parts of London as well.


----------



## kebabking (Feb 25, 2021)

Mrs K gets her jab today - 42...


----------



## redsquirrel (Feb 25, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Is lockdown wearing off in Greater Manchester?
> 
> 
> The latest data shows Greater Manchester's rate remains much higher than England's
> ...


I suspect that Manchester is an example of a good number of northern cities. The imposition and removal of lockdowns remains focused on London and the SE, rates here never got as low in the summer as they did in London, combine that with more people having to go out to work then you have the current situation.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 25, 2021)

Nurses' uniforms should be professionally cleaned as COVID-19 survives for 3 days, finds study
					

Coronaviruses can survive on clothing and transmit to other surfaces for up to 72 hours, scientists have warned.



					nursingnotes.co.uk
				






> The results showed that polyester poses the highest risk for transmission of the virus, with the infectious virus still present after three days that could transfer to other surfaces.
> 
> On 100% cotton, the virus lasted for 24 hours, while on polycotton, the virus only survived for six hours.



Interesting. Nurses obviously have a lot more exposure to the virus than the public of course. Just gives another insight into transmission.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 25, 2021)

Thread on PPE in care homes


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 25, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> I suspect that Manchester is an example of a good number of northern cities. The imposition and removal of lockdowns remains focused on London and the SE, rates here never got as low in the summer as they did in London, combine that with more people having to go out to work then you have the current situation.



Conversely here in Devon many areas have got within touching distance of zero covid. Another few weeks of lockdown, combined with a shoot-on-sight tourist welcoming strategy, could have the fucking thing purged altogether.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 25, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Conversely here in Devon many areas have got within touching distance of zero covid. Another few weeks of lockdown, combined with a shoot-on-sight tourist welcoming strategy, could have the fucking thing purged altogether.


I hear that there is a new plague coming to Devon


----------



## Supine (Feb 25, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Another few weeks of lockdown, combined with a shoot-on-sight tourist welcoming strategy, could have the fucking thing purged altogether.



Think I'll try to introduce that here


----------



## emanymton (Feb 25, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> I suspect that Manchester is an example of a good number of northern cities. The imposition and removal of lockdowns remains focused on London and the SE, rates here never got as low in the summer as they did in London, combine that with more people having to go out to work then you have the current situation.


The first part is clearly true. 

But it is the second is basically the same as the claims made in the article that I am unsure about, I would think similar factors are at work in London? One of the issues raised in the article is overcrowded housing. Yeah not an issue in London at all.

The only thing I can think of is that London is much more mixed?


----------



## redsquirrel (Feb 25, 2021)

emanymton said:


> But it is the second is basically the same as the claims made in the article that I am unsure about, I would think similar factors are at work in London?


I cannot find it now but I saw some decent evidence that mobility/% of people not working from home was higher in the north than London.

EDIT: This is from April 2020 so bit out of date but London has a much higher proportion of people working from home than anywhere else


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 25, 2021)

London is a very mixed picture itself though due to its size.  There are boroughs were there are rates notably lower than the country average but walk a few miles and you'll be in a borough with rates much much higher than the country average.  If you average it out across the city things probably give a misleading impression.

It doesn't take a data scientist to spot the trends around the country and how those trends are replicated again and again...


----------



## Steel Icarus (Feb 25, 2021)

Not sure democracy isn't already fucked, but decent article by Little Owen Jones

If the UK government isn't held to account for its Covid failures, our democracy may not recover | Owen Jones


----------



## andysays (Feb 25, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> I cannot find it now but I saw some decent evidence that mobility/% of people not working from home was higher in the north than London.
> 
> EDIT: This is from April 2020 so bit out of date but London has a much higher proportion of people working from home than anywhere else


That appears to say that the % of people in employment doing some home working in London is 57.2, whereas in the North West (which I assume includes Manchester) it's 49.4. 

There are clearly significant differences between parts of each region, but on the face of it, it doesn't seem like a huge difference, not enough on its own to explain significant differences in the rate of infection falling compared to the average for England


----------



## emanymton (Feb 25, 2021)

andysays said:


> That appears to say that the % of people in employment doing some home working in London is 57.2, whereas in the North West (which I assume includes Manchester) it's 49.4.
> 
> There are clearly significant differences between parts of each region, but on the face of it, it doesn't seem like a huge difference, not enough on its own to explain significant differences in the rate of infection falling compared to the average for England


Also is that people who live in London or work there? 

Could me more of furlough I guess?


----------



## emanymton (Feb 25, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Could me more of furlough I guess?



Figures from July would suggest not much if attack all proportally.









						Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme statistics: July 2020
					






					www.gov.uk
				




Region/Country	Employments furloughed
London	1,291,600
South East	1,216,600
North West	974,500
East	830,800
West Midlands	820,200
South West	771,400
Yorkshire And The Humber	711,700
East Midlands	654,600
North East	329,500
Northern Ireland	240,200
Scotland	736,500
Wales	378,400
Unknown	417,700


----------



## andysays (Feb 25, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Also is that people who live in London or work there?
> 
> Could me more of furlough I guess?


It's residents of London, not those who normally work there.

I agree that furlough levels are another factor, and it's not clear to me whether/how those people are included in the figures there.

But just to be clear, the original story you posted is saying that infection levels are remaining high in Greater Manchester compared to the average in England, not in comparison to London and/or the South East.

Yorkshire & Humber and West Midlands both have significantly lower levels of home working than the North West, but apparently their infection levels are falling faster than Manchester.


----------



## lazythursday (Feb 25, 2021)

Well this part of Yorkshire & Humber is not dropping any more - we have had rates around 180 per 100,000 for around a month now. It feels like this is the minimum floor with this level of restrictions / support for some reason.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 25, 2021)

Today's figures -

Vaccinations - 1st dose almost 18.7m & 2nd dose over 700k - after a few days of very low numbers, they seem to have bounced back somewhat, with around 480k jabs yesterday.

New cases - 9,985, down -15.7% in the last week, bringing the 7-day average down to under 10,200, a figure we haven't seen since early Oct.   

New deaths - 323, down -30.4% in the last week, bringing the 7-day average down to around 383, a figure we haven't seen since early Nov. 

Patients in hospital - 16,059 on Tue 23rd, down from over 39,000 at the peak in Jan.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 25, 2021)

My "local" area has been back at the data suppressed as "less than 2 cases" level for a couple of weeks now, I'm pleased to say.

Looking at the "rates" map on the .gov dashboard, the number of areas showing white for similar reasons has continued to increase - despite one or two back-sliders.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 25, 2021)

It's quite noticeable looking at the dashboard graphs that the "cases" numbers are now definitely starting to level off, but the "deaths" numbers look as if they are continuing on an almost straight line plummet.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 25, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's quite noticeable looking at the dashboard graphs that the "cases" numbers are now definitely starting to level off, but the "deaths" numbers look as if they are continuing on an almost straight line plummet.



Yes the case rate has seemingly levelled to a degree which kind of gets you wondering whether it is reaching a level that this type of lockdown (and compliance) can achieve at this time of year.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 25, 2021)

No link but...


----------



## souljacker (Feb 25, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's quite noticeable looking at the dashboard graphs that the "cases" numbers are now definitely starting to level off, but the "deaths" numbers look as if they are continuing on an almost straight line plummet.



They are always two weeks behind so will probably level off at around err.... 8th March


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 25, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Yes the case rate has seemingly levelled to a degree which kind of gets you wondering whether it is reaching a level that this type of lockdown (and compliance) can achieve at this time of year.



I think I would be inclined to agree with that conclusion. 
The current lockdown rules are, maybe, not strong enough to push cases down much further or do so very quickly.

What might happen next, apart from any seasonal drop in the case rate, is that when the vaccination rollout reaches into large swathes of the under 60 age group - provided the jabs do affect transmission - we should see a further reduction in cases.
Unfortunately, IMO, that could well be off-set by the greater mixing that having schools back (and other unlockening measures) actually results in some increase in cases.

The drop in the death rates is, I think, becoming due to the higher proportions of the vaccinated in the older, more vulnerable groups of the population.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 25, 2021)

Badgers said:


> No link but...




Yes but many, huge amounts even , will absolutely, definitely, no doubt about it be quarantining at home.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 25, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Yes but many, huge amounts even , will absolutely, definitely, no doubt about it be quarantining at home.


I wish the UK would take the Manx attitude to this ... and sling the non-compliant into the slammer.
(and their version of TT&I seems to work !)


----------



## teuchter (Feb 25, 2021)

souljacker said:


> They are always two weeks behind so will probably level off at around err.... 8th March


If the straight-ish deaths line continues on that trajectory then it is only about two weeks away from hitting zero.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 25, 2021)

teuchter said:


> If the straight-ish deaths line continues on that trajectory then it is only about two weeks away from hitting zero.



So Mark Harper had it right all along?  Typical Johnson, far too cautious and sensible.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 25, 2021)

teuchter said:


> If the straight-ish deaths line continues on that trajectory then it is only about two weeks away from hitting zero.


There is a little bit of a shallowing in the curve, but this drop in deaths can't be quick enough for me. There's been far too many already.

End of March, maybe, should see that rate down to nearly zero. 
Unfortunately, I think there'll still be a few deaths most days this year.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 25, 2021)

I think it'll be the hospitalisations numbers that I'll be increasingly watching from now on. Especially if the deaths really do get down into low numbers.


----------



## souljacker (Feb 25, 2021)

teuchter said:


> If the straight-ish deaths line continues on that trajectory then it is only about two weeks away from hitting zero.



August-September 2020 we were getting around 10 deaths a day. I'm sure I remember Scotland having a period of 0 deaths a day for a bit.


----------



## editor (Feb 25, 2021)

Here's how we're looking compared to some of Europe


----------



## danny la rouge (Feb 25, 2021)

souljacker said:


> August-September 2020 we were getting around 10 deaths a day. I'm sure I remember Scotland having a period of 0 deaths a day for a bit.


Indeed.


----------



## 20Bees (Feb 25, 2021)

editor said:


> Over 60s can book their Covid-19 appointments now!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I meant to thank you yesterday for this.

I’m group 7, 4 months short of my 65th birthday, and the Omni calculator estimates first dose around 29 March. Using the NHS link I booked it for next Wednesday, 3 March, and the second dose on 23 May. I’m in a village south of Cambridge and the nearest vaccination centre is Superdrug, in the city centre, which is pretty handy.

Today I received a letter from the NHS inviting me to do exactly this (book a slot online) and colleagues in the same age group also got their letters today.


----------



## editor (Feb 25, 2021)

20Bees said:


> I meant to thank you yesterday for this.
> 
> I’m group 7, 4 months short of my 65th birthday, and the Omni calculator estimates first dose around 29 March. Using the NHS link I booked it for next Wednesday, 3 March, and the second dose on 23 May. I’m in a village south of Cambridge and the nearest vaccination centre is Superdrug, in the city centre, which is pretty handy.
> 
> Today I received a letter from the NHS inviting me to do exactly this (book a slot online) and colleagues in the same age group also got their letters today.


I don't think info was widely available but I'm glad it's been useful.

I can see from my stats that around 7,000 people looked at that article with over 2,000 going directly to he NHS booking site, so I think I've definitely helped some people today!


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 25, 2021)

editor said:


> Here's how we're looking compared to some of Europe
> 
> View attachment 256155




That graph looks amazingly positive for almost all countries featured, very much including UK!  

But how much do we know yet about the reasons?

Are the improved figures vaccination-related? (  *x 10,000* if so  ) or lockdown-related, or both? 

I'd love to know more about the reasons


----------



## Wilf (Feb 26, 2021)

editor said:


> I don't think info was widely available but I'm glad it's been useful.
> 
> I can see from my stats that around 7,000 people looked at that article with over 2,000 going directly to he NHS booking site, so I think I've definitely helped some people today!


You did indeed, inc. me. 

One thing that struck me when I booked was that I could have gone to venues as far away as Leeds, which is 50-55 miles away (and there may have been venues even further, I didn't scroll very far and just took the nearest - Darlington). I'm sure that kind of flexibility is a good thing in circumstances where there may be surplus vaccine in places and is a good idea to just get more people done. Same time it's one of the old health inequalities in that those with access to transport and a 1/3 of a tank of petrol can get better outcomes.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2021)

If people won't listen to medical advice about the importance of getting vaccinated, SURELY  they'll listen to the Showaddywaddy singer?









						Covid: Showaddywaddy singer describes 'brutal' Covid experience
					

Dave Bartram appeals for people to "think of others" and have the vaccination.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Weller (Feb 26, 2021)

editor said:


> If people won't listen to medical advice about the importance of getting vaccinated, SURELY  they'll listen to the Showaddywaddy singer?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



A missed opportunity to not break into his biggest hit

3 steps to heaven
The formula for heaven's very simple
don't  follow the rules and you will see
Step 1 don't wear a mask
Step 2 don't sanitize your hands
Step 3 miss your vaccination

Im not a  a fan but Ill still go when I'm called  

She did some truly unforgivable things


> *Dave Bartram: ‘Margaret Thatcher probably saved Showaddywaddy’*
> Former lead singer Dave Bartram on buying flash cars, investing in property on Madeira and why 1970s taxation nearly broke up the band


----------



## Badgers (Feb 26, 2021)




----------



## Mr.Bishie (Feb 26, 2021)

World fucking beating!


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 26, 2021)

(Earlier exchange from further up this thread) :




			
				William of Walworth said:
			
		

> I'm in category 6 ('vulnerable 18-64s'), and my phone remains stubbornly silent .......





Wilf said:


> Does the link Ed posted not work for Wales William? I appreciate that might be the case, it's just that it didn't say 'NHS England' or similar on the link.  Anyway, hope you get sorted soon.



I'd like to see that link again, I can't seem to find it now ... 

(Apologies for derail and re-derail, this should be in one of the vaccination threads really  )


----------



## Wilf (Feb 26, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> (Earlier exchange from further up this thread) :
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's this one William. Not sure if you are 60 yet but it's worth trying it even if not:
Over 60s can book their NHS Covid-19 vaccination appointments online NOW! – Brixton Buzz


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 26, 2021)

They are sticking to age groups, to keep things simple, for the second part of the vaccine roll-out.



> It had been hoped ministers would put teachers at the front of the queue in the second phase - once all over-50s and at-risk groups had been offered a first dose.
> 
> But it's now understood the government will obey advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) - which today said jabs should go by age instead.
> 
> In a TV press conference, the JCVI announced there should be three priority groups in Phase 2 of the vaccine rollout - people aged 40 to 49, aged 30 to 39 and aged 18 to 29.





> He added switching to an occupation-based programme would be "untested and untried" and risked slowing down the rollout while "the queue is moving swiftly".
> 
> The expert said: "Speed is important. Getting vaccines into arms as quickly as possible is the fastest and best way to maximise benefit to the population."
> 
> ...











						New Covid vaccine priority list unveiled for rest of UK as teachers miss out
					

The JCVI vaccine authority has announced the order in which healthy adults under 50 should get the jab - with 40-49s first, then 30-39s, then 18-29s last




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Feb 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They are sticking to age groups, to keep things simple, for the second part of the vaccine roll-out.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's almost as if they are setting out to make the education system as fucked up as they can.


----------



## teuchter (Feb 26, 2021)

Why not just have the age bands, and then allow people to get in earlier by "self-certifying" that they are teachers. There'd be a number of people who would queue jump by lying, of course, but I think most people would want to be honest, and the overall benefit would be greater.


----------



## tommers (Feb 26, 2021)

or they could just go to a school and jab everybody.  Maybe tell them first.


----------



## lazythursday (Feb 26, 2021)

Interesting article in the MEN on the fact rates are much higher in the north again than the south - A north-south divide in Covid rates is opening up again - so what's the plan

Suggests that areas with higher rates should be prioritised for vaccine supply.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 26, 2021)

tommers said:


> or they could just go to a school and jab everybody.  Maybe tell them first.


Yes I don't see how including teachers could conceivably "slow things down"  are teachers particularly sluggish when moving in queues?


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 26, 2021)

People with eg learning difficulties (or other issues) who live in sheltered housing are being invited by 'house' (to which GPs are writing, not the individual) and there must be thousands more units of them than there are schools.

Slow things down my arse.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 26, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> People with eg learning difficulties (or other issues) who live in sheltered housing are being invited by 'house' (to which GPs are writing, not the individual) and there must be thousands more units of them than there are schools.
> 
> Slow things down my arse.



I doubt the number of long-stay nursing and residential care facilities for people with learning disabilities comes anywhere near the 32,770 schools in the UK.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 26, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I doubt the number of long-stay nursing and residential care facilities for people with learning disabilities comes anywhere near the 32,770 schools in the UK.





> The review estimates that at the end of 2015, *there* were approximately 651,500 *accommodation*-based *supported housing* units2 in *Great Britain*, the majority of which (85 per cent) are in *England*, with nine per cent in Scotland and six per cent in Wales,


----------



## Cid (Feb 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They are sticking to age groups, to keep things simple, for the second part of the vaccine roll-out.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, perfectly understandable, I mean it's not as if they've had a year to prepare for an occupation based vaccine rollout.


----------



## andysays (Feb 26, 2021)

Cid said:


> Yeah, perfectly understandable, I mean it's not as if they've had a year to prepare for an occupation based vaccine rollout.


While I can understand people in some occupations, including teachers, thinking they should be vaccinated as priority, the advice from the JVCI remains the same.

I have yet to see any attempt to model what would happen if teachers or others were prioritised over those who are currently ahead of them in the queue.


----------



## Cid (Feb 26, 2021)

andysays said:


> While I can understand people in some occupations, including teachers, thinking they should be vaccinated as priority, the advice from the JVCI remains the same.
> 
> I have yet to see any attempt to model what would happen if teachers or others were prioritised over those who are currently ahead of them in the queue.



We know that sending schools back is a calculated risk, with a modelled effect on R0. Teachers will essentially be forced back to work in that environment, and while some of those in at risk categories will be covered by the existing protocol, not all will. Afaik vaccines for groups that are categorised as at-risk are ongoing, and potentially will be into April... If I were a teacher I'd be going back to work 14 days after receiving my first dose.

I also suspect there is a bit of deferment of risk going on, e.g this is from a now withdrawn document on the rollout from December (my bold):



> Vaccination of those at increased risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 due to their occupation could also be a priority in the next phase. This could include:
> 
> 
> first responders
> ...


----------



## maomao (Feb 26, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> The review estimates that at the end of 2015, there were approximately 651,500 accommodation-based supported housing units2 in Great Britain, the majority of which (85 per cent) are in England, with nine per cent in Scotland and six per cent in Wales,


A unit is one house or flat though isn't it?


----------



## andysays (Feb 26, 2021)

Cid said:


> We know that sending schools back is a calculated risk, with a modelled effect on R0. Teachers will essentially be forced back to work in that environment, and while some of those in at risk categories will be covered by the existing protocol, not all will. Afaik vaccines for groups that are categorised as at-risk are ongoing, and potentially will be into April... If I were a teacher I'd be going back to work 14 days after receiving my first dose.
> 
> I also suspect there is a bit of deferment of risk going on, e.g this is from a now withdrawn document on the rollout from December (my bold):


That bit in bold is interesting, thanks.

Just to be clear, I think the return to school is being rushed, and I think any teachers in at risk groups should certainly be fully vaccinated before they are asked to return, but I would still like to see some modelling of the consequences of all teachers being vaccinated as high priority before agreeing it's a good idea.


----------



## Wilf (Feb 26, 2021)

andysays said:


> While I can understand people in some occupations, including teachers, thinking they should be vaccinated as priority, the advice from the JVCI remains the same.
> 
> I have yet to see any attempt to model what would happen if teachers or others were prioritised over those who are currently ahead of them in the queue.


I can't see an argument for putting teachers ahead of supermarket workers or bus drivers, certainly, though whether there should be priority for occupational groups per se... probably/perhaps/don't know.  If it was logistically do-able, I'd certainly support the idea that all groups under pressure to work should get priority _within _age groups. No reason that I (as 60 year old, working from home) should be of equal priority as a 60 year old shop worker, for example.  But on the schools, if teachers don't get vaccine priority, that should itself have been an argument for keeping them closed a bit longer. Another 2 weeks or so would get a high percentage of 50+ teachers vaccinated on grounds of age alone.


----------



## miss direct (Feb 26, 2021)

Because supermarket workers have screens and don't spend a long time in contact with the same person. Same goes for bus drivers.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 26, 2021)

maomao said:


> A unit is one house or flat though isn't it?



Yes. What's your point maomao? (Not criticizing, trying to understand what you are getting at). Many of these units have full or part-time staff (and all will have staff of some sort overseeing them). It is these staff who are being written to by GPs to bring in the residents. I don't see how this is any less difficult than writing to schools and getting teachers in to be jabbed.


----------



## maomao (Feb 26, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Yes. What's your point @maomao? (Not criticizing, trying to understand what you are getting at).


Just that the comparison of numbers was a bit apples and oranges. Most sheltered housing facilities contain multiple units.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 26, 2021)

maomao said:


> Just that the comparison of numbers was a bit apples and oranges. Most sheltered housing facilities contain multiple units.



OK, thanks. I think the numbers are broadly comparable. Roughly a million school staff in 34,000 schools isn't so different to 600,000 housing units being overseen by tens of thousands (probably more) of supported housing staff.


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## mr steev (Feb 26, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> OK, thanks. I think the numbers are broadly comparable. Roughly a million school staff in 34,000 schools isn't so different to 600,000 housing units being overseen by tens of thousands (probably more) of supported housing staff.



I don't think it's just sheltered accomodation. One of my volunteers at work has learning disabillities (not severe, and lives with his mum). He's in his late 20s and having his jab today


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## Wilf (Feb 26, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Because supermarket workers have screens and don't spend a long time in contact with the same person. Same goes for bus drivers.


Not sure I want to go too far down this road and I don't neglect the shit teachers have had from the government or some heads, but it isn't just about screens.  Workers stacking shelves will be close to lots of people as an example. Also, supermarkets have had bosses telling staff to turn the tracking app off, are less likely to have sick pay and all sorts of other shit that has had them coming into work when symptomatic or otherwise vulnerable.


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## two sheds (Feb 26, 2021)

Yes it's not just the workers (important enough) but the number of people they're in contact with - vaccinate them and it eases the pressure on everyone else.


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## ddraig (Feb 26, 2021)

bit  at this!
My dad who is almost 70 got their first jab this morning








						Covid: Over-40s next in line for vaccine, NHS Wales' head says
					

Teachers and police officers lobbied to be prioritised but will get it in line with their age-group.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## Supine (Feb 26, 2021)

There was a question on Indy SAGE about the chance of a 4th wave. Answer was a categorical yes due to the government's lack of strategy and over reliance on the vaccine which won't have been given to enough people. FFS Boris.


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## Wilf (Feb 26, 2021)

No unsafe workplaces should be a central demand and, well, just common decency.


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## Cid (Feb 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Not sure I want to go too far down this road and I don't neglect the shit teachers have had from the government or some heads, but it isn't just about screens.  Workers stacking shelves will be close to lots of people as an example. Also, supermarkets have had bosses telling staff to turn the tracking app off, are less likely to have sick pay and all sorts of other shit that has had them coming into work when symptomatic or otherwise vulnerable.



Yes but it’s not usually protracted exposure to an infectious person though... also there are many schools with crap ventilation, just to bump that risk up a bit more. Don’t get me wrong by the way, many other workers have been fucked over by the way this has been handled... it’s just that we’re currently looking at sending back somewhere in the region of a million people at once, in a situation where the increase to r0 is thought to be greater than 0.1 (iirc around 0.2).


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 26, 2021)

ddraig said:


> bit  at this!
> My dad who is almost 70 got their first jab this morning
> 
> 
> ...



Over 40s will be next in line AFTER the over 70s, over 60s & over 50s.

HTH.


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## Wilf (Feb 26, 2021)

Supine said:


> There was a question on Indy SAGE about the chance of a 4th wave. Answer was a categorical yes due to the government's lack of strategy and over reliance on the vaccine which won't have been given to enough people. FFS Boris.


Yep. Haven't seen the Indy Sage, but that sounds right.  By the time the economy is 'open' again, even though the rate of vaccination is presently very good, it won't be enough, not even taking the refuseniks into account. 21% of the population are under 18 so won't get it at all and a further 29% are 18-39, so are unlikely to have had both jabs by the Summer.


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## FridgeMagnet (Feb 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Over 40s will be next in line AFTER the over 70s, over 60s & over 50s.
> 
> HTH.


That must win some sort of bad headline award.


----------



## Cid (Feb 26, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> That must win some sort of bad headline award.



‘Workers must wait - vaccine by age group confirmed’
‘Join the queue! Wait until your age group, teachers told’
‘Back of the line! We’ll all get jabbed by age’

Any media outlets, I am happy to work for a 6 figure salary.


----------



## editor (Feb 26, 2021)

Here's Mc C from the Shamen. A little over the top perhaps but happily not the usual loon shit we've been hearing from popstars, 



> Let me add if people don’t want to get the vaccine, that is indeed their choice & that freedom of choice should always be respected.
> 
> In the same way those who chose to be safe & get vaccinated should also have our choices respected. Surely we can all agree that all freedom of choice should be respected right?
> 
> ...


----------



## ddraig (Feb 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Over 40s will be next in line AFTER the over 70s, over 60s & over 50s.
> 
> HTH.


You're on ignore so don't waste your time quoting or replying to me
We were put on mutual ignore or advised to a while ago, you should stick to it


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 26, 2021)

ddraig said:


> You're on ignore so don't waste your time quoting or replying to me
> We were put on mutual ignore or advised to a while ago, you should stick to it



That was fucking ages ago & for a limited period, that has long since expired. 

Which begs the question, if you have me on ignore, or think we're still on mutual ignore, why are you reading my posts & replying to them?


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's figures -
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose almost 18.7m & 2nd dose over 700k - after a few days of very low numbers, they seem to have bounced back somewhat, with around 480k jabs yesterday.
> 
> ...



The good news continues, with todays' figures. 

Vaccinations - 1st dose almost 19.18m & 2nd dose 736k, over 520k jabs yesterday.   

New cases - 8,523, down -16.8% in the last week, bringing the 7-day average down to under 9,690. We were seeing drops of around -25%, then it dropped almost as low as -10%, so good to see new cases dropping faster again. 

New deaths - 345, down -31.3% in the last week, and down 188 on last Friday's 533, bringing the 7-day average down to around 356.


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## existentialist (Feb 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That was fucking ages ago & for a limited period, that has long since expired.
> 
> Which begs the question, if you have me on ignore, or think we're still on mutual ignore, why are you reading my posts & replying to them?


Shouldn't bother, if I were you. For a vegan, that one is a past master at the maturing of beef on extremely long timescales. He reminds me periodically not to reply to him because he has me on Ignore, too. So he won't see this message


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## Wilf (Feb 26, 2021)

editor said:


> Here's Mc C from the Shamen. A little over the top perhaps but happily not the usual loon shit we've been hearing from popstars,


I agree with the sentiment, but how far to go? For example, how far to go with the stuff below when it comes to people not a GP list, homeless and the rest? And the under 18s will be allowed on public transport, cinemas and the rest.  I agree that refusing the vaccine on anything other than genuine medical grounds is antisocial and there will have to be some kind of passport only events (perhaps flights). But going beyond that is problematic.



> If you are to not get vaccinated then respecting my choice to stay safe should also be respected, which means those not vaccinated shouldn’t be allowed on planes, tube, any public transport, pubs, bars, clubs, theatres, cinemas, stadiums or any other place of public gathering unless that can show a negative Covid test with results received within 48 hours


----------



## ddraig (Feb 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That was fucking ages ago & for a limited period, that has long since expired.
> 
> Which begs the question, if you have me on ignore, or think we're still on mutual ignore, why are you reading my posts & replying to them?


Try not to derail this thread eh! Doubt you've changed so still on ignore
I saw FM's post so looked and then replied to you to stop you wasting your time, I don't read (and thus don't reply to) your posts
This is my last post about this


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I agree with the sentiment, but how far to go? For example, how far to go with the stuff below when it comes to people not a GP list, homeless and the rest? And the under 18s will be allowed on public transport, cinemas and the rest.  I agree that refusing the vaccine on anything other than genuine medical grounds is antisocial and there will have to be some kind of passport only events (perhaps flights). But going beyond that is problematic.



Under 18s would clearly be exempt on genuine medical grounds, due to the fact the vaccines are not licensed, yet, for the under 18s.


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## Wilf (Feb 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Under 18s would clearly be exempt on genuine medical grounds, due to the fact the vaccines are not licensed, yet, for the under 18s.


Well, yes, that's what I mean i.e. it becomes problematic to exclude vaccine refuseniks from the tube, say, when large numbers of other people who are unvaccinated would be allowed on. The other thing is of course logistics and checking vaccination status. Doable when buying tickets and going to gigs perhaps, but not on the tube.


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Well, yes, that's what I mean i.e. it becomes problematic to exclude vaccine refuseniks from the tube, say, when large numbers of other people who are unvaccinated would,  be allowed on. The other thing is of course logistics and checking vaccination status. Doable when buying tickets and going to gigs perhaps, but not on the tube.



Personally, I'll be very surprised if it happened, but if they found some way of making 'vaccine passports' workable on the likes of the tube, I assume 'vaccine exempt passports' would be part of such a system.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Feb 26, 2021)

Ms Ordinary said:


> Jo Whiley has been drawing attention to carers - herself included - being offered vaccines before the people they care for, and before learning disabled people in care homes (who are often vulnerable due to additional health conditions).
> 
> Jo Whiley offered Covid jab before sister in care home who later tested positive
> 
> ...




Update: (because people still sadfacing the post above)
Jo Whiley's sister Frances is out of hospital, and anyone on the GP Learning Disabilty is now to be offered the vaccine as a priority.


----------



## elbows (Feb 26, 2021)

Supine said:


> There was a question on Indy SAGE about the chance of a 4th wave. Answer was a categorical yes due to the government's lack of strategy and over reliance on the vaccine which won't have been given to enough people. FFS Boris.



Yes, my creeping vaccine optimism and regard for peoples morale still does not come anywhere close to claiming that we've seen the end of waves.

The chosen approach features the usual blunt tools, fuck the poor, dates not data, reckless shit. I expect I will say more when Ive had time to look at the modelling in detail, but I suspect things will end up being not a question of whether there are further waves, but about how high the levels of hospitalisation and deaths are in those waves.

Certainly if very large numbers of people go back to behaving like they did before the pandemic, then the benefits of vaccination will be used up countering that. eg if 75% of people were shielded from the virus by limiting contacts before, and they then take a vaccine that offers 75% protection but go back to normal levels of contact with people, then the situation could still end up being similar. In practice its probably a good deal more complicated than that, especially if the transmission picture is radically altered by vaccines. All the same, I still think asking vaccines to carry all the weight is asking for trouble. And then we end up with the question of what counts as a tollerable level of hospitalisation and death to people. I expect such equations have changed for some people due to fatigue, but there is a fair chance of this blowing up in peoples faces at some point, and even if the bullet is dodged on the practical front I expect it wont be dodged morally.


----------



## Teaboy (Feb 26, 2021)

Fairly impassioned from Van Tam there at the press conference.  Hugely frustrating that numbers are going up in some areas.  I do wonder how much control they would be able to exhibit if there is another wave which requires some sort of Lockdown.


----------



## brogdale (Feb 26, 2021)

It's all about the messaging...


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## elbows (Feb 26, 2021)

Those signs have been there for a week or more, they are only just getting round to talking about it now.


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## Sunray (Feb 26, 2021)

I don't think anyone is too bothered if someone gets sick and recovers. No national lockdowns when there is a cold or flu going around.  
I think its an inevitability case rates will go up if we unlock.  Time to worry if people end up in hospitals.
There are 30000 healthcare workers who have been tested every two weeks after the vaccine to see how well it's performing under scientific conditions. Data is looking very positive.
Dr John Cambell with all the facts.

Viruses can mutate to milder variants too. It's not always bad, or we would be living out resident evil for real life.  This is how the 1917 flu pandemic ended, it just became something people could survive more easily.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 26, 2021)

Despite my jab, I'm not going to alter my behaviour in the near future.

Ditto after the second jab, whenever I get to that point.

Outside my home, I shall be masked up and socially distancing for a long time to come.


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## Teaboy (Feb 26, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I don't think anyone is too bothered if someone gets sick and recovers. No national lockdowns when there is a cold or flu going around.
> I think its an inevitability case rates will go up if we unlock.  Time to worry if people end up in hospitals.



Sure, its just bothersome that it is happening now in the midst of a national lockdown.  As was evident in December there is a critical mass out there who have thrown the towel in to one degree or another.


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## Sunray (Feb 26, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Sure, its just bothersome that it is happening now in the midst of a national lockdown.  As was evident in December there is a critical mass out there who have thrown the towel in to one degree or another.



I think the vast majority are still being good and the ones that aren't. don't generally die.   There will always be dumbasses.  Just as long as they are in the 95 percentile we're ok.
One dose of either vaccine has been shown, after 21 days, to have high levels of protection from you going into hospital and/or dying.  The second dose isn't going to add much, it will probably stop it from dropping off too quickly.  A massive 80-90%! Compare this to the flu vaccine in 2018-2019 which was just 15%, or 10.1% in over 65's.  We all still dutifully take it.

Looking at the stats, there are 20 Million people under 29 in the UK so once we hit 40 million vaccinated.....


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## Pickman's model (Feb 26, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I think the vast majority are still being good and the ones that aren't. don't generally die.   There will always be dumbasses.  Just as long as they are in the 95 percentile we're ok.
> One dose of either vaccine has been shown, after 21 days, to have high levels of protection from you going into hospital and/or dying.  The second dose isn't going to add much, it will probably stop it from dropping off too quickly.  A massive 80-90%! Compare this to the flu vaccine in 2018-2019 which was just 15%, or 10.1% in over 65's.  We all still dutifully take it.
> 
> Looking at the stats, there are 20 Million people under 29 in the UK so once we hit 40 million vaccinated.....


And let's hope a new variant which resists the vaccine doesn't emerge in the meantime.


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## elbows (Feb 26, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I don't think anyone is too bothered if someone gets sick and recovers. No national lockdowns when there is a cold or flu going around.
> I think its an inevitability case rates will go up if we unlock.  Time to worry if people end up in hospitals.
> There are 30000 healthcare workers who have been tested every two weeks after the vaccine to see how well it's performing under scientific conditions. Data is looking very positive.
> Dr John Cambell with all the facts.
> ...



I think part of the problem with that perception is that people may not really understand quite how much weight the vaccine is being asked to carry, because they dont understand what level of death we would have faced if there was no lockdowns to carry much of the weight of the waves. The weight that the vaccines will have to carry in future to enable the chosen strategy to deliver a 'business as usual'.

I'm only just starting to read the various February modelling papers that SAGE looked at. I'm nto ready to get into all the detail. But there is one particular detail in the first one I read which might help people understand how much weight vaccines will have to carry.

Under one scenario they looked at which involves the current vaccination programme and the various bits of lockdown being released at very different times, they came up with the figures for peak number of deaths per day in the subsequent wave. A complete relaxation of measures in February would be expected to lead to a peak where there were 12,000 deaths per day! A March relaxing of all measures would give a peak of 7,400 deaths per day. April relaxing gives a 4,100 deaths per day peak, and a June release of all measures would still lead to a death peak in the region of 2,500 per day. So even if waiting till June before abandoning other measures, there is still about twice as much death as there was at the peak levels of daily death we ended up with in late lockdown-controlled waves.

Those scenarios are not aligned with actual policy and they've had to make loads of assumptions about the vaccine which will be refined over time. So I'm not mentioning these numbers as any sort of prediction, just to try and give people a sense of quite how much death is still possible under conditions where the vaccine has been given to millions but becomes the only thing protecting us, with other measures and behaviours removed.

Numbers I mentioned are from https://assets.publishing.service.g...963360/S1077_Vaccination_and_NPIs_Warwick.pdf but thats only one small part of that paper and there are many other papers I havent even looked at yet.


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## weltweit (Feb 26, 2021)

I feel a sorry for teachers. Logic says being in confined spaces with lots of children or young adults who could be carrying Covid-19 will mean that teachers are likely to catch the bug.

However it seems the gov logic is that because teachers don't make up a large contingent of the people that are hospitalised and dying, they don't qualify for a priority.


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## Sunray (Feb 26, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> And let's hope a new variant which resists the vaccine doesn't emerge in the meantime.



Viruses don't resist vaccines, they aren't antibiotics, vaccines don't cure you. You cure yourself with a previous hint of how by a vaccine. 

I'm not too worried about varients, there is a limit to how far it can go with its spike protein, too far and while it might evade vaccines it stops being able to enter cells too. 

Plus, the mRNA vaccine, 50 years in the making, delivered in the nick of time, can be altered to match given the genomic sequence of any mutations in as little as a week.  The issue isn't changing the vaccine, the issue would be regulations and manufacturing. I don't think it would have to go through all the trials as the 1st one did. Pfizer could have a new variant vaccination booster in the Autumn.


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## StoneRoad (Feb 26, 2021)

Even after the short holidays (Easter & Crimble) the effect of school kids mixing is, usually, a rash of coughs, sore throats etc. and tghat's without adding in 'flu ...
The petri-dish affect that my OH always expected after anything longer than the half-term weekends.
I can't see the return to school having any other result than a spike in cases.
To me, not vaccinating academic and support staff before the students and secondary schools go back is madness.


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## Sunray (Feb 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> Those scenarios are not aligned with actual policy and they've had to make loads of assumptions about the vaccine which will be refined over time. So I'm not mentioning these numbers as any sort of prediction, just to try and give people a sense of quite how much death is still possible under conditions where the vaccine has been given to millions but becomes the *only thing protecting us,* with other measures and behaviours removed.
> 
> Numbers I mentioned are from https://assets.publishing.service.g...963360/S1077_Vaccination_and_NPIs_Warwick.pdf but thats only one small part of that paper and there are many other papers I havent even looked at yet.



By saying 'the only thing'  you seem to suggest it's like a sword of Damocles.  But 'the only thing' preventing us from getting polio, measles etc is a vaccine.  Its a fairly solid thing to base policy on.  We don't vaccinate for smallpox since 1980, we eradicated it.  This is a disease that historians estimate killed 25% of the Roman empire, in 6 months.

We can't go on sitting in the house for years at a time.  You can float predictions and stats and point to probabilities, but I said at the start of this pandemic it will always end up about risk.  What are we willing to accept?
Vaccines lower the risk to a level I think I am comfortable with.

I also think there are some treatments that are going to become approved when you catch covid which will alter outcomes,  like the treatment for AIDS has transformed the illness.


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## SpookyFrank (Feb 26, 2021)

Sunray said:


> We can't go on sitting in the house for years at a time.



Like people in New Zealand are right now you mean?

Oh wait...


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## Sunray (Feb 26, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Even after the short holidays (Easter & Crimble) the effect of school kids mixing is, usually, a rash of coughs, sore throats etc. and tghat's without adding in 'flu ...
> The petri-dish affect that my OH always expected after anything longer than the half-term weekends.
> I can't see the return to school having any other result than a spike in cases.
> To me, not vaccinating academic and support staff before the students and secondary schools go back is madness.



First week of each term at Uni started to really get on my nerves.  They should have a quarantine week before term.

I think people have missed the switch from 'catching it' to 'not dying from it'.  The cases are going to go up, yes.  
Will the hospitalizations? Depends on how many teachers are left who haven't caught it and recovered?  It's pretty transmissible, they work with kids indoors in poorly ventilated rooms.


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## existentialist (Feb 26, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Viruses don't resist vaccines, they aren't antibiotics, vaccines don't cure you. You cure yourself with a previous hint of how by a vaccine.


Are you familiar with the concept of "vaccine escape"? Exactly the same mechanism that produces antibiotic resistance can operate with viruses and vaccines, too.


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## elbows (Feb 26, 2021)

Sunray said:


> By saying 'the only thing'  you seem to suggest it's like a sword of Damocles.  But 'the only thing' preventing us from getting polio, measles etc is a vaccine.  Its a fairly solid thing to base policy on.  We don't vaccinate for smallpox since 1980, we eradicated it.  This is a disease that historians estimate killed 25% of the Roman empire, in 6 months.
> 
> We can't go on sitting in the house for years at a time.  You can float predictions and stats and point to probabilities, but I said at the start of this pandemic it will always end up about risk.  What are we willing to accept?
> Vaccines lower the risk to a level I think I am comfortable with.
> ...



I'm trying to explain that risk, because you seem to be at risk of painting a picture that is far away from the scenarios we likely face for the rest of 2021.

I'm trying to find the right balance as indicated by many of my posts in the last week. I cant cover the whole subject in single posts and individual posts of mine are not going to provide the full balance, the posts need to be taken together to find the balance.

I have completed my skim of the modelling documents and SAGE minutes from February that have been released so far. People absolutely need to be aware of how much weight the vaccines are going to need to carry, and how much behavioural changes are still required even under optimistic scenarios, otherwise people will end up with lockdown again and crushed hope. I want hope that is sustainable, not doomed. And I'll strongly resist being shot for spreading that message.

I would describe the modelling from February as having a significant degree of uncertainty in it, in many cases relating to detail about quite how well the vaccine will work in a number of different ways. Pretty much all of the scenarios they have modelled show future levels of hospitalisation and death that are beyond what people thing of as tolerable, if the vaccines are asked to carry all the burden alone, and everything else is abandoned realtively quickly. But when the relaxation happens much more slowly, and if people are still behaving in ways that dont involve the same amount of contact mixing as was happening before the pandemic, then the numbers that come out of the model begin to resemble a tolerable range of hospitalisation and death.

I certainly dont rule out the possibility that vaccines may perform better in several key areas than the assumptions that were used for this modelling. In which case we end up with added wiggle room, which is good. It would be nice to experience a subsequent wave that does not feature such scary numbers. But I have no intention of misleading people about this stuff, too much vaccine optimism and unrealistic timescales easily have the potential to unleash a wave as bad or worse than those seen previously.


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## Mation (Feb 26, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I wish the UK would take the Manx attitude to this ... and sling the non-compliant into the slammer.
> (and their version of TT&I seems to work !)


If you mean this literally, I would ask: have you been inside?


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## Pickman's model (Feb 26, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Viruses don't resist vaccines, they aren't antibiotics, vaccines don't cure you. You cure yourself with a previous hint of how by a vaccine.
> 
> I'm not too worried about varients, there is a limit to how far it can go with its spike protein, too far and while it might evade vaccines it stops being able to enter cells too.
> 
> Plus, the mRNA vaccine, 50 years in the making, delivered in the nick of time, can be altered to match given the genomic sequence of any mutations in as little as a week.  The issue isn't changing the vaccine, the issue would be regulations and manufacturing. I don't think it would have to go through all the trials as the 1st one did. Pfizer could have a new variant vaccination booster in the Autumn.



 if it's so easy to amend a vaccine, to make it work fine, why do they guess every year with the flu?


----------



## elbows (Feb 26, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> if it's so easy to amend a vaccine, to make it work fine, why do they guess every year with the flu?



The have to guesstimate northern hemisphere influenza vaccine strains in February in order to allow time for manufacturing for the next autumn/winter. For the southern hemisphere they make the decisions in September.


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## Sunray (Feb 26, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> if it's so easy to amend a vaccine, to make it work fine, why do they guess every year with the flu?



It's not been easy to amend a vaccine until the advent of mRNA vaccines.  A solid explanation of mRNA vaccines
It's not a guess for the flu, they use data from the southern hemisphere. There are hundreds of flu viruses. This is why they are still struggling to identify something they all share to teach the body to fight them all.  They have been working on this for a long time.


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## elbows (Feb 26, 2021)

One way to consider what I've been trying to explain would be to look at the following chart from the SAGE modelling groups 17th February paper. Its an interesting chart in its own right, but in terms of my comments about how much weight vaccination is being asked to carry, there is another way of thinking about these percentages of population protected and still left vulnerable. Comapre them to the sorts of protection people gained by cutting off human contacts and staying at home. Not that I have such percentages handy right now, but a lot of older adults changed their behaviour a lot. Away from the obvious horror stories about hospital and care home spread, that was often beyond residents control, there were lots of vulnerable older people that were independent and were very careful in the pandemic so far. If their behaviour changes a lot post-vaccination, this will be an area where the vaccine has its work cut out in coming up with equivalent levels of protection.

In other words if 70-80% of people were protected from the virus by the lockdown and behavioural changes in the first waves, and the vaccine and natural immunity end up confering a similar level of protection, then if behaviours go back to normal then we might epect a similar strain on hospitals and a similar level of death. Just vague back of the envelope calculations which in reality would have plenty of caveats, but the broad concept remains. And what we saw in the first waves was not, I would suggest, a tolerable level of hospitalisation and death.






__





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					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk


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## elbows (Feb 26, 2021)

Sunray said:


> It's not been easy to amend a vaccine until the advent of mRNA vaccines.  A solid explanation of mRNA vaccines
> It's not a guess for the flu, they use data from the southern hemisphere. There are hundreds of flu viruses. This is why they are still struggling to identify something they all share to teach the body to fight them all.  They have been working on this for a long time.



They try to take flu activity seen around the globe into account but the February northern hemisphere decisions come quite a long time before the southern hemispheres flu season.


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## lazythursday (Feb 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> One way to consider what I've been trying to explain would be to look at the following chart from the SAGE modelling groups 17th February paper. Its an interesting chart in its own right, but in terms of my comments about how much weight vaccination is being asked to carry, there is another way of thinking about these percentages of population protected and still left vulnerable. Comapre them to the sorts of protection people gained by cutting off human contacts and staying at home. Not that I have such percentages handy right now, but a lot of older adults changed their behaviour a lot. Away from the obvious horror stories about hospital and care home spread, that was often beyond residents control, there were lots of vulnerable older people that were independent and were very careful in the pandemic so far. If their behaviour changes a lot post-vaccination, this will be an area where the vaccine has its work cut out in coming up with equivalent levels of protection.
> 
> View attachment 256316
> 
> ...


Ok, so if I understand this correctly, even after a pretty comprehensive vaccine rollout about a quarter of people remain unprotected? And an uncontrolled spread of covid even in just a quarter of the population is still likely to cause a pretty horrendous amount of death, yes? (as we've never really seen uncontrolled spread except in early March)

However, if the vaccines work pretty well for most people there is going to be so much less incentive to maintain social distancing - especially if that is perceived as just being about protecting those who refuse the vaccine...


----------



## Sunray (Feb 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> They try to take flu activity seen around the globe into account but the February northern hemisphere decisions come quite a long time before the southern hemispheres flu season.



Why predict the future when the past is a fact?  It's an imperfect science.


----------



## elbows (Feb 26, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> Ok, so if I understand this correctly, even after a pretty comprehensive vaccine rollout about a quarter of people remain unprotected? And an uncontrolled spread of covid even in just a quarter of the population is still likely to cause a pretty horrendous amount of death, yes? (as we've never really seen uncontrolled spread except in early March)
> 
> However, if the vaccines work pretty well for most people there is going to be so much less incentive to maintain social distancing - especially if that is perceived as just being about protecting those who refuse the vaccine...



Yes thats what I'm getting at. Just chuck in a load of unknowns about seasonality, the extent to which behaviours will go back to normal, whether the government get a clue about aspects like test, trace & isolate, etc.

I spent much of the initial vaccine rollout phase feeling a bit sick about the giddy nature of much of the coverage and attitudes. It seems there are some lessons people arent going to learn unless the media bother to tell them, and unless we actually get to see the consequences unfold.

Just one example, ehre is a chart from some early Feb Uni of Warwick modelling paper that was part of SAGE discussions. I'm sort of expecting that despite knowing that vaccines arent 100% effective for everyone, people might still be surprised at what proportion of hospitalised cases were vaccinated in the following modelling results. Cautious assumptions are where they've been much more cautious than in their ventral assumptions about what effects to expect from the vaccines in practice. My point doesnt really rely on this more gloomy scenario being the one closer to reality, since the proportion of those hospitalised is what I'm getting at with this example, and that proportion is still large in the central assumption modelling.




			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/963444/S1118_Roadmaps_for_relaxation_of_NPIs__Warwick.pdf


----------



## elbows (Feb 26, 2021)

What will be nice is if real world vaccine data shows better performance in key areas than they modelled for, in which case I'd then want to see the same modelling exercises repeated with the new parameters for the vaccines abilities. Whether I'll actually get to see that depends not just on the vaccines actually working better than hoped, but on whether a situation arises again where SAGE are asked to do such modelling again, and the results then being published in a timely manner.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 26, 2021)

Big changes at the V&A, partly blamed on the Rona of course. 



> The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London will  undergo a radical restructuring across its curatorial and research departments  in order to reduce costs by at least £10m by 2023 in the wake of the   coronavirus crisis. It will also cut around 140 posts out of its complement of  980.











						V&A to say goodbye to departments by material—woodwork, metalwork etc—and 20% of its curators
					

Museum's director Tristram Hunt says that government help has not been enough to cover all costs incurred by pandemic and admits “curators will be more stretched”




					www.theartnewspaper.com
				




Back office curators and the inevitable front of house staff losses.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Feb 26, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> if it's so easy to amend a vaccine, to make it work fine, why do they guess every year with the flu?



Different type of vaccine altogether. The pfizer one is just some RNA in a bag. Changing the RNA to match changes in the vaccine is (in theory) a pretty trivial task.


----------



## Pickman's model (Feb 26, 2021)

Sunray said:


> It's not been easy to amend a vaccine until the advent of mRNA vaccines.  A solid explanation of mRNA vaccines
> It's not a guess for the flu, they use data from the southern hemisphere. There are hundreds of flu viruses. This is why they are still struggling to identify something they all share to teach the body to fight them all.  They have been working on this for a long time.


Yeh it is a guess, an educated guess but still a guess. Flu Vaccine Selections Suggest This Year’s Shot May Be Off the Mark


----------



## blameless77 (Feb 26, 2021)

Cid said:


> I also don't see any particular problems with timing... seems reasonably cautious in general. I don't particularly like the whole dates thing though, and as mentioned 'irreversible' is just stupid.
> 
> The one thing that leaves me pretty uncomfortable is schools... It's difficult to know exactly how that could be managed, given that it is kind of important to get kids back in. But I suspect the absolute minimum will be done. I know that Korea, for example, staggered attendance to keep overall numbers down. And a wider vaccine programme in teaching staff would make sense... I would feel a lot more comfortable if back to school was left until after easter holidays I think. We're just now vaccinating those of us who are younger, but with moderate risk factors after all; were I a teacher I'd be going back just under 3 weeks since first dose.



i guess they are trying to reduce that risk with testing?


----------



## blameless77 (Feb 27, 2021)

magneze said:


> The plan seems ok. All pupils on 8th March seems a bit optimistic but otherwise it's all reasonable.
> 
> It appears to hinge on the assumption that any new variants are (a) handled by the vaccine or (b) squished by track & trace.


Schools can stagger return and students have to be tested (negative) according to the letter we got today?


----------



## Sunray (Feb 27, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Yeh it is a guess, an educated guess but still a guess. Flu Vaccine Selections Suggest This Year’s Shot May Be Off the Mark


I just looked at the stats published by the government. 
Nobody got flu this season.  So no way to know.  Maybe we should have a yearly lockdown for flu. Much more effective than the flu vaccine.


----------



## purenarcotic (Feb 27, 2021)

blameless77 said:


> Schools can stagger return and students have to be tested (negative) according to the letter we got today?



But the shitter is that when the kids test at home, that’s not enforceable, it’s voluntary. So kids could well be going into school positive and nobody would know. I don’t see why they didn’t just say kids back from after Easter. Another few weeks to get another couple of million vaccinated and cases further down. Would have made a much better difference I think.


----------



## redsquirrel (Feb 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Big changes at the V&A, partly blamed on the Rona of course.
> 
> Back office curators and the inevitable front of house staff losses.


Done under the management of that nice former-Labour MP (and presumably still member) Hunt. But hey vote Labour!.


----------



## Cid (Feb 27, 2021)

blameless77 said:


> Schools can stagger return and students have to be tested (negative) according to the letter we got today?



As I understand it lateral flow testing has major flaws, especially as applied to recalcitrant teenagers... staggered return is good... But seems to be for only 2 weeks? 

Iirc schools are projected to bring R well into the low 1.x range (I think I've read 1.1-1.5), so there is that as a quantifiable risk. Though I'm not sure which measures that takes into account.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Big changes at the V&A, partly blamed on the Rona of course.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's grim news 
That article by Anna Somers-Cox (formerly at the V&A , many more years even before I was!) seems pretty good. 

But I intend to chat with ex-colleagues to see their take on it -- I have a good friend still working there, and others I know who are still there.  For now! 

Not really sure what general staff opinions were about Hunt since he was appointed, it'll be interesting to find out.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 27, 2021)

PS to the above, here's an early Guardian version about prospective redundancies, but this story, from September, does quote PCS :



> The redundancy proposal is for 103 roles in retail and visitor experience to be cut, which is 85 full-time equivalents. More, as yet unquantified, job losses will follow in phases involving “staff at all levels across every department”.
> 
> The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said : “Management’s decision to immediately enter a consultation for compulsory redundancy for front-of-house workers, while running a voluntary-only redundancy scheme for all other departments, is a direct attack on the most diverse and some of the lowest-paid workers at the museum.





> “It is a disgrace that the V&A has chosen not to use the government job support scheme when jobs across the museum, even with reduced visitor numbers, are sustainable.
> 
> “PCS will not accept the museum’s current approach and call for an immediate end to compulsory redundancies and to engage constructively with PCS, Prospect, and FDA unions.”



And here's yesterday's update :



> One insider expressed dismay that the curatorial division may have to make 20% cuts. They said: “We’re expecting curatorial redundancies to be announced in the next few days. The conservators are already being restructured. Conservation departments are in negotiation. The museum has already done a scheme for applications for voluntary redundancy and retirement.
> 
> “The selection of those people was made *by three individuals who don’t have any curatorial or conservation experience, the head of human resources, the financial director and the chief operating officer*.”


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 27, 2021)

That situation at the V&A stinks to high heaven in the state of denmark ...

I know the "science museum" had a similar bash the staff restructuring a few years ago, equally suspect and smelly ...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 27, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> That situation at the V&A stinks to high heaven in the state of denmark ...
> 
> I know the "science museum" had a similar bash the staff restructuring a few years ago, equally suspect and smelly ...



Tates done it as well.

Waiting on the British Museum to get in on it but I know that management structure holds itself somewhat at arms length from South Ken museums even if it does maintain links with them


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 27, 2021)

One million Covid vaccine doses administered in Wales
					

Public Health Wales says more than 38% of adult population have received first dose




					www.theguardian.com
				




Representing 38% of the adult population, ahead of the 28% vaccinated in England. (First dose figures, obviously)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The good news continues, with todays' figures.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose almost 19.18m & 2nd dose 736k, over 520k jabs yesterday.
> 
> ...



More cracking news on figures today.   

Vaccinations - 1st dose over 19.68m & 2nd dose almost 770k, almost 538k jabs yesterday.

New cases - 7,434, down -17.5% in the last week, bringing the 7-day average down to under 9,263.  

New deaths - 290, down -32.3% in the last week, and down 155 on last Saturday's 445, bringing the 7-day average down to around 335.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 27, 2021)

Those figures are very promising ...

People (in general) just need to hold their nerve and not drop their guard for that little bit longer.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 27, 2021)

Cid said:


> As I understand it lateral flow testing has major flaws, especially as applied to recalcitrant teenagers... staggered return is good... But seems to be for only 2 weeks?
> 
> Iirc schools are projected to bring R well into the low 1.x range (I think I've read 1.1-1.5), so there is that as a quantifiable risk. Though I'm not sure which measures that takes into account.


Remember when.....
Scientists: Pubs or schools?
Boris Johnson: Let's confuse the public so much nobody knows the rules and do both, it'll be fine.

At least there is a big gap between them this time.

I also wonder who in school hasn't had it already?  1st day at school, either a massive wave or nothing.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 27, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Those figures are very promising ...
> 
> People (in general) just need to hold their nerve and not drop their guard for that little bit longer.



oh, buggarrrrr.

just having typed those optimistic words, thinking that my local area was still white (ie 0-2 cases) as it has been for a couple of weeks or so ...
decided to check.

bugggarrrrrr. 
My local patch, and some of the surrounding area are having a few new cases (backdated - to the 7 days before 22nd February)

So, obv some burrkkkks can't follow the rules until we've all had our jabs.


----------



## souljacker (Feb 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> More cracking news on figures today.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose over 19.68m & 2nd dose almost 770k, almost 538k jabs yesterday.
> 
> ...



It's really looking very good. Reading only had one death last week. We are basically back to where we were in July 2020.


----------



## editor (Feb 27, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> People (in general) just need to hold their nerve and not drop their guard for that little bit longer.


That wasn't the scene in the park in Brixton today...


----------



## Supine (Feb 27, 2021)

editor said:


> That wasn't the scene in the park in Brixton today...



I'm hoping this year we can accept it's safe to be outside with other people. Ventilation at 100%


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Feb 27, 2021)

editor said:


> That wasn't the scene in the park in Brixton today...



Nor Brighton seafront this afternoon. Popped out for a walk, really busy! Most from out of town. Lockdown was well & truly over.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 27, 2021)

editor said:


> That wasn't the scene in the park in Brixton today...



Outdoors is essentially safe, we knew this before COVID-19









						How the beach 'super-spreader' myth may have hampered UK Covid reaction
					

News that no outbreaks were linked to beach trips highlights important message about outdoor transmission, says expert




					www.theguardian.com
				




We can calm down with the horror reaction of people in parks and on beaches.  I think understanding this is how we safely get through the next 6 months without going crazy.

The issue will be how they got there if they used public transport or not, this is where the risk is.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 27, 2021)

Lot of cars parked at various places along the middle section of Hadrian's Wall today.

All the groups of walkers that I could see, did seem to be very well spaced apart.
And it was a very nice day ...


----------



## Boudicca (Feb 27, 2021)

Bournemouth beach was busy, lots of families building sandcastles, but no obvious social distancing rule breakers.

Except for the packs of teenagers who really don't care.  I don't suppose I would either if I was 15, but there is an element of bravado about it, it's like they huddle together and breathe on each other on purpose.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 27, 2021)

Looking through camping chatter, some talk of campsites opening but with no shared facilities.  
I hope they can as I have a loo in my van.  So can go camping with a friend or two.  It's not clear if this will happen from the 12th of April, but it would be a nice option for me.


----------



## MrSki (Feb 27, 2021)

Went to the park today to read a book in the lovely sunshine. Bagged the best bench in the park for sunshine & peace. within the first hour an old lady asked to share the end of my 5ft bench & got the hump when I said no I am social distancing. Followed by two others. There were empty benches just not in the sun. 
What the fuck is wrong with people. You might have been jabbed but I haven't. Get up earlier if you want the best seat in the park. There was a time when a tinny & a fag put people off wanting anything to do with you now a bit of sunshine seems to embolden them. I will stop showering to make me more antisocial. I can't believe I was actually asked let alone how upset people seemed to be when I told them to do one.


----------



## Smangus (Feb 27, 2021)

puke on the other end of the bench ?


----------



## two sheds (Feb 27, 2021)

I was thinking that German people take a towel.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 27, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Went to the park today to read a book in the lovely sunshine. Bagged the best bench in the park for sunshine & peace. within the first hour an old lady asked to share the end of my 5ft bench & got the hump when I said no I am social distancing. Followed by two others. There were empty benches just not in the sun.
> What the fuck is wrong with people. You might have been jabbed but I haven't. Get up earlier if you want the best seat in the park. There was a time when a tinny & a fag put people off wanting anything to do with you now a bit of sunshine seems to embolden them. I will stop showering to make me more antisocial. I can't believe I was actually asked let alone how upset people seemed to be when I told them to do one.



Ignoring the fact that you shouldn't even be sitting on a park bench reading a book under the current lockdown rules, the fact that infection outdoors is a very low risk, and that a 5ft bench almost reaches the 2m social distancing guidelines, you come across as somewhat mean to those poor old ladies


----------



## weltweit (Feb 27, 2021)

Yea MrSki you old meanie!!


----------



## MrSki (Feb 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Ignoring the fact that you shouldn't even be sitting on a park bench reading a book under the current lockdown rules, the fact that infection outdoors is a very low risk, and that a 5ft bench almost reaches the 2m social distancing guidelines, you come across as somewhat mean to those poor old ladies


When I sit on a 5ft bench I take up at least a foot. If someone sat at the other end then It would be about three foot in between. Plus I don't want any fucker sitting near me.   Plus old ladies smell of piss.


----------



## Mation (Feb 27, 2021)

MrSki said:


> When I sit on a 5ft bench I take up at least a foot. If someone sat at the other end then It would be about three foot in between. Plus I don't want any fucker sitting near me.   Plus old ladies smell of piss.


I was going to come out in some support of you with a potentially helpful suggestion, but then I read your old ladies smell of piss addendum.

You probably needed to add some sort of emoji if  you were making a joke that doesn't reflect your true feeling.


----------



## MrSki (Feb 27, 2021)

Mation said:


> I was going to come out in some support of you with a potentially helpful suggestion, but then I read your old ladies smell of piss addendum.
> 
> You probably needed to add some sort of emoji if  you were making a joke that doesn't reflect your true feeling.






They were of a similar age to my mum who certainly does not smell of piss.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 27, 2021)

Mation said:


> I was going to come out in some support of you with a potentially helpful suggestion, *but then I read your old ladies smell of piss addendum*.



Obviously, any honourable Urban needs to stand up for the *rights* of old ladies stinking of piss, gents too! 

And wherever they want to as we!!  

Fucking hell, piss stink has happened, by me and for me , at festivals, even when I *wasn't* all that old! 

No ageism on Urban


----------



## MrSki (Feb 27, 2021)

MrSki said:


> They were of a similar age to my mum who certainly does not smell of piss.


The point being I don't want to be close enough to know if they smell of piss or not. Stay away from me please.


----------



## Cerv (Feb 27, 2021)

can you smell the pissy old ladies through your surgical mask anyway?


----------



## Mation (Feb 27, 2021)

MrSki said:


> They were of a similar age to my mum who certainly does not smell of piss.


Put your bag or your coat at the other end of the bench. People will assume you're with someone who is peeing in the bushes.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Feb 27, 2021)

Cerv said:


> can you smell the pissy old ladies through your surgical mask anyway?


Whatever floats your boat.


----------



## Smangus (Feb 27, 2021)

Better still , lie on the bench stinking of piss and puke, job done all round I reckon .


----------



## prunus (Feb 27, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Went to the park today to read a book in the lovely sunshine. Bagged the best bench in the park for sunshine & peace. within the first hour an old lady asked to share the end of my 5ft bench & got the hump when I said no I am social distancing. Followed by two others. There were empty benches just not in the sun.
> What the fuck is wrong with people. You might have been jabbed but I haven't. Get up earlier if you want the best seat in the park. There was a time when a tinny & a fag put people off wanting anything to do with you now a bit of sunshine seems to embolden them. I will stop showering to make me more antisocial. I can't believe I was actually asked let alone how upset people seemed to be when I told them to do one.



Sit in the middle of the bench?   I think sitting at one end is implicitly inviting someone to sit at the other end, so I’m slightly surprised (and heartened) to hear people actually asked.


----------



## MrSki (Feb 27, 2021)

prunus said:


> Sit in the middle of the bench?   I think sitting at one end is implicitly inviting someone to sit at the other end, so I’m slightly surprised (and heartened) to hear people actually asked.


I like to sit at the end with the bin so I can stub me fags & toss my cans in. I did move across after the first assault but it didn't seem to matter. The sunny bench was the goal.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 28, 2021)




----------



## kabbes (Feb 28, 2021)

I would imagine that a lot of people that initially declined vaccination invitations didn’t do so out of an ideological opposition to vaccines.  There were probably practical or personal impediments.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes thats what I'm getting at. Just chuck in a load of unknowns about seasonality, the extent to which behaviours will go back to normal, whether the government get a clue about aspects like test, trace & isolate, etc.
> 
> I spent much of the initial vaccine rollout phase feeling a bit sick about the giddy nature of much of the coverage and attitudes. It seems there are some lessons people arent going to learn unless the media bother to tell them, and unless we actually get to see the consequences unfold.
> 
> ...



What's R with no social distancing etc? 3 to 6 perhaps? Probably the lower end if measures are retained in hospital and care settings. Add in 85% of the adult population being vaccinated, I'm struggling to see that modelled summer surge taking off anywhere near that steeply.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I would imagine that a lot of people that initially declined vaccination invitations didn’t do so out of an ideological opposition to vaccines.  There were probably practical or personal impediments.


I understand that a lot of people are concerned about fertility issues. No data on this and likely no risk, it is however an emotive issue.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I would imagine that a lot of people that initially declined vaccination invitations didn’t do so out of an ideological opposition to vaccines.  There were probably practical or personal impediments.





Badgers said:


> I understand that a lot of people are concerned about fertility issues. No data on this and likely no risk, it is however an emotive issue.



Those reasons, and no doubt some just being concerned over the speed they were developed, and if they are safe, but now knowing many millions have been jabbed, and they are not dropping dead all over the place, those concerns are reduced.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 28, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> What's R with no social distancing etc? 3 to 6 perhaps? Probably the lower end if measures are retained in hospital and care settings. Add in 85% of the adult population being vaccinated, I'm struggling to see that modelled summer surge taking off anywhere near that steeply.



I would agree.

There was no summer surge last summer and we pretty much opened up and encouraged people to all dine indoors too.


----------



## xsunnysuex (Feb 28, 2021)

You can book your vaccine appointment online now if your over 60.
Just booked mine for Tuesday.  👍


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 28, 2021)

xsunnysuex said:


> You can book your vaccine appointment online now if your over 60.
> Just booked mine for Tuesday.  👍



Weird, the website still says 'aged 64 or above'. 









						Book or manage a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination
					

Use this service to book a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination or manage your appointments.




					www.nhs.uk


----------



## Petcha (Feb 28, 2021)

I got mine on Friday and have been quite unwell since. Vomiting, not being able to keep down any food. Not sure if it's connected or maybe i just coincidentally got a virus or something.


----------



## Petcha (Feb 28, 2021)

Dishy Rishi is currently on Marr. God I wish he was PM and not the fucking idiot we have in no 10. He seems competent.


----------



## Supine (Feb 28, 2021)

Just looking at hotel prices in the summer. Not cheap! I guess everyone is booking to go somewhere.


----------



## rubbershoes (Feb 28, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I understand that a lot of people are concerned about fertility issues. No data on this and likely no risk, it is however an emotive issue.



Unlikely to be an issue for the age groups that have been offered it so far 

Medics, carers etc may be younger of course


----------



## xsunnysuex (Feb 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Weird, the website still says 'aged 64 or above'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes it does. But if you go through it, it changes to 60. The website hasn't updated yet.


----------



## xsunnysuex (Feb 28, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I got mine on Friday and have been quite unwell since. Vomiting, not being able to keep down any food. Not sure if it's connected or maybe i just coincidentally got a virus or something.


My nephew has been really sick too. He's had covid, and says he felt worse with the vaccine than catching the disease.


----------



## platinumsage (Feb 28, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I understand that a lot of people are concerned about fertility issues. No data on this and likely no risk, it is however an emotive issue.



There's plenty of data from all the other vaccines, none of which affect fertility, and there's no conceivable biological mechanism whereby these vaccines could affect fertility.

So while it's true that there hasn't been a specific trial to determine whether these coronavirus vaccines affect fertility, there's also no reason to conduct one.

This fertility thing comes from an anti-vaxer conspiracy troll who posted some made up crap about it binding to the placenta.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 28, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> There's plenty of data from all the other vaccines, none of which affect fertility, and there's no conceivable biological mechanism whereby these vaccines could affect fertility.
> 
> So while it's true that there hasn't been a specific trial to determine whether these coronavirus vaccines affect fertility, there's also no reason to conduct one.
> 
> This fertility things comes from an anti-vaxer conspiracy troll who posted some made up crap about it binding to the placenta.



It's partly a legacy of the unfortunate incidents with previous vaccines or experimental treatments such as thalidomide. Combined with that cunts autism research.

One of the most common issues with research is it also tended (still does?) to focus on straight white males aged 20-40 rathee than women of children and it frequently still does (remember oversized PPE issues from may?)


----------



## kabbes (Feb 28, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> One of the most common issues with research is it also tended (still does?) to focus on straight white males aged 20-40 rathee than women of children and it frequently still does (remember oversized PPE issues from may?)


 This is true and a difficult problem to fix (well, not the straight white part, but the males aged 20-40 part).  At least in phase 1 and 2 trials, you want to be cautious, which means not giving your potentially dangerous thing to vulnerable people, and that means giving it to the youth (who are, entirely coincidentally, also the age group more willing to put their bodies at risk for money).  But you don’t want to give it to a woman aged 20-40 because she might be pregnant, and that would mess up your data be potentially dangerous to the unborn baby.


----------



## elbows (Feb 28, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Dishy Rishi is currently on Marr. God I wish he was PM and not the fucking idiot we have in no 10. He seems competent.



Oh did you miss the bits of the pandemic where his attitude towards economic recovery, reopening speed and then resistance to locking down again contributed to the making the second wave so large and deadly?


----------



## elbows (Feb 28, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Those figures are very promising ...
> 
> People (in general) just need to hold their nerve and not drop their guard for that little bit longer.



Even a while after a second dose of vaccine I do not recommend that people totally drop their guard. Vaccines will change the risk equation, they will not remove all risk, but it seems society is doomed to learn this lesson the hard way.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 28, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Dishy Rishi is currently on Marr. God I wish he was PM and not the fucking idiot we have in no 10. He seems competent.



Eat out to fucking kill the fuckers.


----------



## elbows (Feb 28, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> What's R with no social distancing etc? 3 to 6 perhaps? Probably the lower end if measures are retained in hospital and care settings. Add in 85% of the adult population being vaccinated, I'm struggling to see that modelled summer surge taking off anywhere near that steeply.



I would certainly expect that weaknesses in the model include not knowing how to model the hospital<->community infection feedback loops that were likely a significant part of the dynamics in the first 2 waves. When I want to be optimistic about the future, I assume such feedback loops were a big part of the picture before, and that things wont be the same in future on that front.

I also doubt that various details about exactly how bad the new variant made things are fully understood at this point.

The various modelling that was done includes scenarios where behaviours/contacts are still running at 25% less than pre-pandemic levels, and scenarios where things have gone back to normal. And scanerios where a number of other variables are set to different rates. Plenty of unknowns, so I wouldnt take the modelling as an exact prediction. They also talk about seasonal unknowns and how those could affect the timing of the resurgence.

In my mind the full spectrum of possibilities are still in play, things could go much better than that modelling suggests, but I dont see anything surprising about their findings either. It only took a fraction of the population being infected to create the steep waves we saw so far, and even great vaccines with successful rollouts could easily still allow a similar fraction of the population to remain vulnerable to hospitalisation and death. When trying to be more optimistic, I would hope that the transmission dynamics are more significantly affected by the vaccination programme than the modelling implies, making it harder for the virus to reach the vulnerable segment of the population. Could easily go the other way though if people in age groups that were very careful in the pandemic so far do not behave like that at all in future.


----------



## weltweit (Feb 28, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I understand that a lot of people are concerned about fertility issues. No data on this and likely no risk, it is however an emotive issue.





cupid_stunt said:


> Those reasons, and no doubt some just being concerned over the speed they were developed, and if they are safe, but now knowing many millions have been jabbed, and they are not dropping dead all over the place, those concerns are reduced.


Hi cupid_stunt, I don't think fertility issues would definitely have emerged yet.


----------



## andysays (Feb 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> This is true and a difficult problem to fix (well, not the straight white part, but the males aged 20-40 part).  At least in phase 1 and 2 trials, you want to be cautious, which means not giving your potentially dangerous thing to vulnerable people, and that means giving it to the youth (who are, entirely coincidentally, also the age group more willing to put their bodies at risk for money).  But you don’t want to give it to a woman aged 20-40 because she might be pregnant, and that would mess up your data be potentially dangerous to the unborn baby.


When the vaccines were originally approved,  the approval didn't include pregnant women, because it hadn't been tested on pregnant women. I don't know if this has since changed.

This may, perhaps, be a contributing factor in concerns about it affecting fertility, even if such concerns aren't entirely logical.


----------



## kabbes (Feb 28, 2021)

andysays said:


> When the vaccines were originally approved,  the approval didn't include pregnant women, because it hadn't been tested on pregnant women. I don't know if this has since changed.
> 
> This may, perhaps, be a contributing factor in concerns about it affecting fertility, even if such concerns aren't entirely logical.


Given that it hasn't even yet been tested on children, you can understand somebody wanting to be cautious about the effect it might have on their unborn baby.  Not that this has anything to do with fertility, of course.


----------



## Aladdin (Feb 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> Even a while after a second dose of vaccine I do not recommend that people totally drop their guard. Vaccines will change the risk equation, they will not remove all risk, but it seems society is doomed to learn this lesson the hard way.



Yep. Been saying that to people here...but many think once they get a vaccine that everything will return to normal. Indeed the signs are that people are already returning to normal ...which is not ok. 
A pub owner in Dublin during the past week just decided to open. So did a hairdresser.  Despite being warned she reopened a second day. 
The numbers of cars on the road yesterday was crazy. 

It's frightening.  Because only a small % here have been vaccinated. Mostly frontline health care and over 85s. 
We are very far from safe yet


----------



## Sunray (Feb 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Given that it hasn't even yet been tested on children, you can understand somebody wanting to be cautious about the effect it might have on their unborn baby.  Not that this has anything to do with fertility, of course.



Pfizer is and has been tested on children.








						This 12-year-old is happy to be testing a Covid-19 vaccine
					

Pfizer's experimental coronavirus vaccine has been tested in its youngest group of volunteers yet -- 12-year-olds.




					edition.cnn.com
				




AstraZeneca they are about to start








						Covid: Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine to be tested on children
					

A trial will assess whether the vaccine produces a strong immune response in six to 17-year-olds.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Sunray (Feb 28, 2021)

Sugar Kane said:


> Yep. Been saying that to people here...but many think once they get a vaccine that everything will return to normal. Indeed the signs are that people are already returning to normal ...which is not ok.
> A pub owner in Dublin during the past week just decided to open. So did a hairdresser.  Despite being warned she reopened a second day.
> *The numbers of cars on the road yesterday was crazy.*
> 
> ...



Why is this bad? I don't think you're going to catch covid-19 in your own car on your own. Possibly why there is so much traffic.


----------



## Aladdin (Feb 28, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Why is this bad? I don't think you're going to catch covid-19 in your own car on your own. Possibly why there is so much traffic.



Well...because they were going places.  
Apparently loads were headed to the seaside.  Road blocks were up outside seaside spots and people were turned away.


----------



## andysays (Feb 28, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Why is this bad? I don't think you're going to catch covid-19 in your own car on your own. Possibly why there is so much traffic.


I would imagine that many or even most of those in their cars are on their way somewhere to do something which may involve contact with others and potential transmissions. 

Very few of them are likely to be just going out for a drive as a way of passing the time.


----------



## Sunray (Feb 28, 2021)

Sugar Kane said:


> Well...because they were going places.
> Apparently loads were headed to the seaside.  Road blocks were up outside seaside spots and people were turned away.



This is also OK, refer you to the article I posted about how there has been no spreading event on beaches or generally outdoors anywhere in the world.  Going by car and keeping away from people, which is what you'd do anyway there is pretty much no risk and should be allowed.


----------



## Orang Utan (Feb 28, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Why is this bad? I don't think you're going to catch covid-19 in your own car on your own. Possibly why there is so much traffic.


People are still supposed to be staying in their homes unless it’s essential


----------



## Sunray (Feb 28, 2021)

You can go for a walk on the beach as a household as long as you live near the beach.


----------



## purenarcotic (Feb 28, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Hi cupid_stunt, I don't think fertility issues would definitely have emerged yet.



The royal college of gynaecologists and obstetricians have released a statement confirming concerns about fertility are an unfounded myth.


----------



## weltweit (Feb 28, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> The royal college of gynaecologists and obstetricians have released a statement confirming concerns about fertility are an unfounded myth.


I was just commenting on what I imagine people suspicious of fertility issues might be thinking.  

I don't think there are any fertility issues, and I have already had the jab.


----------



## purenarcotic (Feb 28, 2021)

weltweit said:


> I was just commenting on what I imagine people suspicious of fertility issues might be thinking.
> 
> I don't think there are any fertility issues, and I have already had the jab.



Sure, but a two second google would help people to find out the answer. If you are talking to someone with those concerns, you could now share that info.


----------



## weltweit (Feb 28, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> Sure, but a two second google would help people to find out the answer.





purenarcotic said:


> If you are talking to someone with those concerns, you could now share that info.


I am not. Badgers raised the issue, cupid_stunt commented on it, I commented on that.


----------



## kabbes (Feb 28, 2021)

Village rammed full of tourists again today.  I’m no longer concerned that it is a primary infection risk, but I do think it shows contempt for those sticking to what is still the law.


----------



## LDC (Feb 28, 2021)

Yeah lockdown looks collapsed where I am. Busy out, local venue having events, mask wearing in shops down noticeably.

And also we're having local surge testing due to variant in the area. Chatted to the council people doing the door-to-door testing who said there was a very low take-up. TBH they weren't that clear with what was going on and giving advice on navigating the testing process and why it was being done.

Also noticed a bunch of 'The White Rose' conspiracy/anti-lockdown stickers around the area on the way to work today. Not had a look but the name doesn't require a massive stretch of the imagination to think of the types who might be behind them.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Village rammed full of tourists again today.  I’m no longer concerned that it is a primary infection risk, but I do think it shows contempt for those sticking to what is still the law.



I drove three miles this morning to see some different scenery. Like this.



As you can see I live in the middle of nowhere. Saw nobody on the whole journey except the farmer of those sheep (the lambs are 7 days old). Farmer asked us if we were local. I thought that was a fair enough question, even in these circumstances.


----------



## Aladdin (Feb 28, 2021)

Sunray said:


> This is also OK, refer you to the article I posted about how there has been no spreading event on beaches or generally outdoors anywhere in the world.  Going by car and keeping away from people, which is what you'd do anyway there is pretty much no risk and should be allowed.




Well over here there is a 5km lockdown. 
So as most people where I am currently living are 100km from a beach they would be clearly breaking the restrictions and lockdown by going off to the seaside


----------



## LDC (Feb 28, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> I drove three miles this morning to see some different scenery. Like this.
> 
> View attachment 256605
> 
> As you can see I live in the middle of nowhere. Saw nobody on the whole journey except the farmer of those sheep (the lambs are 7 days old). Farmer asked us if we were local. I thought that was a fair enough question, even in these circumstances.



I want to live somewhere like that!


----------



## kabbes (Feb 28, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> I drove three miles this morning to see some different scenery. Like this.
> 
> View attachment 256605
> 
> As you can see I live in the middle of nowhere. Saw nobody on the whole journey except the farmer of those sheep (the lambs are 7 days old). Farmer asked us if we were local. I thought that was a fair enough question, even in these circumstances.


There a whole different problem with being the only feasible scenery to visit within 20 miles for a catchment area of a million people that have been cooped up in urban and suburban areas for six months.


----------



## planetgeli (Feb 28, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I want to live somewhere like that!



To be fair it looks like that from my house but it was a different kind of 'that', different hills, different sheep. It's the furthest my partner has been in over 6 months. It is beautiful around here, and that's specifically why we moved here after 20 years in London (me) and nearly 50 years (her).

Wales eh?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> More cracking news on figures today.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose over 19.68m & 2nd dose almost 770k, almost 538k jabs yesterday.
> 
> ...



Another great days on figures, let's hope it doesn't go tits up when the schools re-open.

Vaccinations - 1st dose just over 20m  & 2nd dose almost 800k.

New cases - 6,035, down -21.2% in the last week, bringing the 7-day average down to around 8,703.

New deaths - 144, down -33.5% in the last week, and down 70 on last Sunday's 215, bringing the 7-day average down to around 324.


----------



## Badgers (Feb 28, 2021)

Good news on the overall figures. 

Less pleasing to see reports of protests, parties, packed parks and beaches across the UK and Ireland.


----------



## elbows (Feb 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another great days on figures, let's hope it doesn't go tits up when the schools re-open.



Its already going wrong in terms of cases and rates of decline/increse in about a fifth of local authority areas, as underlined by the Friday Hancock & Van-Tam press conference. Van-Tam started going on about not turning it into a football game where the team in the lead relax at 3-0 and then it turns into a 3-4 game.


----------



## elbows (Feb 28, 2021)

And that press conference makes it quite clear that Johnson was talking out of his arse in the Monday press conference when he tried to cling to the picture being similar across the entire country.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Feb 28, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> I drove three miles this morning to see some different scenery. Like this.
> 
> View attachment 256605
> 
> As you can see I live in the middle of nowhere. Saw nobody on the whole journey except the farmer of those sheep (the lambs are 7 days old). Farmer asked us if we were local. I thought that was a fair enough question, even in these circumstances.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 28, 2021)

I live on a cycle route - loads of cyclists, walkers, horse riders going past today (and last couple of weeks). I quite like it, they're all really considerate, everyone says hello and gives a smile as we go past, seems no risk.


----------



## killer b (Feb 28, 2021)

I went to the countryside_ and _the beach this afternoon, it was very nice.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 28, 2021)

I don't think the case rates are down far enough, nor has the vaccine rollout got enough arms jabbed yet, to consider secondary schools & students going back in little more than a week. TBH, even Easter could be a touch too early.

All this talk of opening up and how well the vaccine rollout is going is encouraging what I consider to be pretty reckless behaviour.
People milling around in very close proximity, even outdoors is worrying.
(my measure is that if you can see and smell someone's exhaled smoke you are too close --- think about it)


----------



## souljacker (Feb 28, 2021)

The people round my way are still being very sensible. Masks still in use, people being sensible in areas where lots are congregating. There are a lot of small groups of people chatting but they are all keeping 2 metres apart. I know that's illegal but no-one is really taking the piss. It's no surprise that the sunny weather has got more people out and about and no surprise that if they see a mate, they are going to have a chat for a bit. I really think we need to stop all this tutting at others because it really doesn't help.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its already going wrong in terms of cases and rates of decline/increse in about a fifth of local authority areas, as underlined by the Friday Hancock & Van-Tam press conference. Van-Tam started going on about not turning it into a football game where the team in the lead relax at 3-0 and then it turns into a 3-4 game.



It would be interesting to know what the figures are for all those 50 areas, because I know Worthing was one of them, but as a lower tier local authority area, increases can actually be very small number of cases, and little more than a bit of a blip that corrects itself fairly quickly.

Worthing borough has a population of around 110k, so cases per 100k are fairly close to the actual case totals. We went from 25 per 100k as we came out of the Nov lockdown to 720 in just 5 weeks, almost doubling every week, so I was concerned five days ago when we were seeing a 65% increase in the 7-day average!

But, that took us from 70 to 115, so 'only' 45 extra cases in one week, if that level of increase continued I would be worried, but it's leveling out, seeing that 65% increase drop to about 35% in just the last 5 days, and that increase could well start being a decrease in the next few days, in which case it's nothing more than a little blip on the road to recovery.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 28, 2021)

kabbes said:
			
		

> I would imagine that a lot of people that initially declined vaccination invitations didn’t do so out of an ideological opposition to vaccines. There were probably practical or personal impediments.





Badgers said:


> I understand that a lot of people are concerned about fertility issues. No data on this and likely no risk, it is however an emotive issue.



Good, detailed, medical-professionals and scientists dominated article about vaccine/fertility worries, in today's Observer




			
				Observer headline said:
			
		

> *Covid vaccine does not affect fertility but misinformation persists *
> *Scientists emphasise safety but younger women still hesitant *






			
				Harriet Sherwood said:
			
		

> Concern about fertility is one of the major drivers of vaccine hesitancy, despite explicit reassurances from doctors and scientists. The suggestion that Covid vaccinations could affect fertility was “nonsense”, Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, said on ITV’s _Good Morning Britain_ last week. There was “no evidence at all that there are any issues in relation to planning a family or fertility,” he added.



And a few more quotes in the article from representatives of professional bodies such as The Royal College of Midwives.


----------



## William of Walworth (Feb 28, 2021)

But to what extent does conspiranoia (  ) influence 'vaccine hesitancy' here?? 

That factor is scarcely mentioned in the above article, but my *hugely* strong anti-CT hostility, combined with mine and festivaldeb's lack of any actual knowledge about parenthood and fertility  , still leaves me instinctively suspicious about the conspiracy relevance, if any, to all this .... but have I got that wrong??? 

The more-informed can help out here -- Urban's good for that!


----------



## elbows (Feb 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It would be interesting to know what the figures are for all those 50 areas, because I know Worthing was one of them, but as a lower tier local authority area, increases can actually be very small number of cases, and little more than a bit of a blip that corrects itself fairly quickly.
> 
> Worthing borough has a population of around 110k, so cases per 100k are fairly close to the actual case totals. We went from 25 per 100k as we came out of the Nov lockdown to 720 in just 5 weeks, almost doubling every week, so I was concerned five days ago when we were seeing a 65% increase in the 7-day average!
> 
> But, that took us from 70 to 115, so 'only' 45 extra cases in one week, if that level of increase continued I would be worried, but it's leveling out, seeing that 65% increase drop to about 35% in just the last 5 days, and that increase could well start being a decrease in the next few days, in which case it's nothing more than a little blip on the road to recovery.



I'm not zooming in much at this stage. The important thing is that signs have been there in the data for some time, and after a period where the government didnt draw attention to this and carried on describing the situation in glowing 'rapid decline' terms, they have now felt the need to draw attention to it.

If certain things happen next then maybe it will still be possible, in hindsight, to describe it as a blip, but I wont use that term at this stage since things like ZOE covid are still currently estimating R as being above 1 in a number of regions.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Feb 28, 2021)

Like kabbes said a couple of pages ago people not following what actual rules are actually in place is basically a fuck you to people who are following them. I reserve the right to think badly of selfish people who think they're exempt, especially when it's obvious that people not adhering to rules has caused more infections and deaths than if they'd done what they were asked.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 1, 2021)

Hordes of teenagers roaming the city all weekend. I've got enough covid risk at work already thanks


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm not zooming in much at this stage. The important thing is that signs have been there in the data for some time, and after a period where the government didnt draw attention to this and carried on describing the situation in glowing 'rapid decline' terms, they have now felt the need to draw attention to it.
> 
> If certain things happen next then maybe it will still be possible, in hindsight, to describe it as a blip, but I wont use that term at this stage since things like ZOE covid are still currently estimating R as being above 1 in a number of regions.



Yeah, if R is above 1 in whole regions that is worrying. If whole regions, cities or counties are seeing increases, that's clearly a problem, as total case numbers as going to be high, but at district or borough council levels, not so much, and far easier for local authorities to get on top of. 

I'll try to find a list of those 50 areas & zoom in on them over the next few days, and hopefully they are just blips. Even if they are, or mostly are, just blips, it's still good to highlight them as part of the government messaging in attempting to get people to keep to the rules.

It's reassuring to see cases dropping at around the -20%/per week mark again, yesterday's figure of just over 6,000 new cases, down from just under 10,000 the pervious Sunday, is clearly good news, and I guess is starting to reflect the vaccine roll-out in addition to current restrictions. 

Whilst there's still scoop for further hard times ahead, I am staying cautiously optimistic for now, for the benefit of my own mental health.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's reassuring to see cases dropping at around the -20%/per week mark again, yesterday's figure of just over 6,000 new cases, down from just under 10,000 the pervious Sunday, is clearly good news, and I guess is starting to reflect the vaccine roll-out in addition to current restrictions.
> 
> Whilst there's still scoop for further hard times ahead, I am staying cautiously optimistic for now, for the benefit of my own mental health.


INumbers of cases and deaths are falling across the UK which is the aim with national lockdown and vaccination.

Have to say that in my area (Hertfordshire) people have really relaxed. Not that there are parties and raves all over the place, just noticed a few things over the weekend.

Loads more cars on the roads

A lot of people visiting houses. These might be bubbles or something else perfectly fine under the rules. I am not compiling data on this  but it is very noticeable.

Went to the soopermarket on Saturday and having a smoke outside I watched people going it. Most had masked but virtually nobody sanitised hands going in or out. Back in previous lockdowns most people were. Also the soopermarket had someone on the door but that has stopped now.

Read in the news that some parties and raves have been shut down. Also that some tourist spots/beaches have shut their carparks due to a lot of people 'visiting'. Should not be denying people 'fresh air and nice places' for exercise, but travelling distances for 'exercise' under lockdown is a bit shitty.

Am very positive about the falling rates but I do think there is an element of people who think them and their families 'deserve it', but if we all think like that we will fucked again. This is especially bad with schools reopening in a week.

#GetintheSea  or don't go to the sea


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 1, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Hordes of teenagers roaming the city all weekend. I've got enough covid risk at work already thanks



I live in a high student population area and there was fucking loads of 'em dicking about on those voi scooters that have cropped up everywhere. I think they're a great idea but loads of people sharing them without wipe downs in between during a pandemic? Not so much.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 1, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I live in a high student population area and there was fucking loads of 'em dicking about on those voi scooters that have cropped up everywhere. I think they're a great idea but loads of people sharing them without wipe downs in between during a pandemic? Not so much.



To be fair several thousand students had been kicked out of their halls over the weekend due to a 1000kg ww2 bomb found next to the campus.


----------



## LDC (Mar 1, 2021)

Anyone seen any news reports of what the fuck these people who arrived back from Brasil and tested positive just before the quarantine measures were brought in were doing over there? Had they been stranded there for ages, or been on holiday, or what?


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anyone seen any news reports of what the fuck these people who arrived back from Brasil and tested positive just before the quarantine measures were brought in were doing over there? Had they been stranded there for ages, or been on holiday, or what?



BBC interviewed a few and they mostly seemed to be bored of this whole covid thing and just fancied a holiday.


----------



## pogofish (Mar 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anyone seen any news reports of what the fuck these people who arrived back from Brasil and tested positive just before the quarantine measures were brought in were doing over there? Had they been stranded there for ages, or been on holiday, or what?



For the Aberdeen ones, I'm worried that it could be some of ours - We have a longstanding training contract with the Brazilian government and regular movements of people to and fro.

There are also quite a number of South Americans active in the oil biz just now, although anecdotally, Mexican is the main nationality.


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

I dont know what sort of voice NHS Providers had before this pandemic, but they seem to be demonstrating an interesting one of late.









						Covid-19: Critical care beds shortage prompts calls for review
					

The UK has 7.3 critical care beds per 100,000 people, compared to Germany's 33.8 and the US's 34.3.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *The NHS's "insufficient" critical care capacity has been laid bare by the pandemic, with the UK having one of the lowest number of beds per head in Europe, NHS Providers has said.*
> 
> The group, which represents trusts in England, is calling for a review of the health service's capacity.
> 
> The UK has 7.3 critical care beds per 100,000 people, compared to Germany's 33.8 and the US's 34.3, analysis found.





> "The UK is towards the bottom of the European League table for critical care beds per head of population," NHS Providers said.
> 
> The group added that the UK had comparatively fewer critical care beds than France, Italy, Australia and Spain.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Whilst there's still scoop for further hard times ahead, I am staying cautiously optimistic for now, for the benefit of my own mental health.



When it comes to mental health and pandemic morale, when I go on about case numbers its probably important to remember a new scene that both I and the establishment drew attention to in February. The expectation is that vaccination will change the ratio of cases to hospitalisations and deaths. I brought it up in order to try to put my comments about cases into the current context, because various things are all about numbers games and the equations should have changed a bit already. It seems plausible that the likes of Whitty brought it up because they were already seeing/expected to see some case data going in the wrong direction and they wanted to frame that for the press and public ahead of time. And because the chosen government strategy appears to have quite a bit of tolerance of pretty high viral prevalence rates in it. Its not just a question of not going for 'zero covid'. but quite how far away from that goal the chosen strategy is, and the risks involved. And how they try to frame a risk picture that is changing on several fronts, some good (vaccination), some bad (the flaws in their approach), in their case downplaying the latter whenever possible.

I've forgotten exactly what choice of words Hancock made when he brought this up again at the last press conference. Might have been something like 'death rate has been decoupled from case rate'. Which isnt what I'd say, there is still a link, its just the ratios should alter. Plus even at stages without the vaccination programme it seems like there are tipping points, below which the hospitalisationa nd death picture does not expand horrifically in a particular location, and above which things rapidly spiral out of control. Some of that tipping point might just be about human perception (not noticing or taking things seriously until things reach a certain magnitude) but there are quite possibly real phenomenon at work too, such as hospital<->community infection feedback loops really amplifying things once number of cases crosses a certain threshold.


----------



## Petcha (Mar 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh did you miss the bits of the pandemic where his attitude towards economic recovery, reopening speed and then resistance to locking down again contributed to the making the second wave so large and deadly?



I'm comparing him to the current idiot. And for that matter the rest of the fucking cabinet. I know it's a low bar. But at least he can string a sentence together about the pandemic without making hilarious gags and throwing in random pretentious words.


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I'm comparing him to the current idiot. And for that matter the rest of the fucking cabinet. I know it's a low bar. But at least he can string a sentence together about the pandemic without making hilarious gags and throwing in random pretentious words.



Impressive and credible public speaking, with the right substance and tone, is an important quality in this pandemic.

But priorities, understanding how to cope with this virus, learning from past failure are also critical.

Sunak coming across as a smooth operator may tick one of those boxes in your eyes, but everything we've been told about his attitude to the virus fundamentals and the timing and nature of our response tends to place him below Johnson. I would not bet even one shiny pound that if Sunak tried to cash one of his sense of reality cheques in this pandemic, it would bounce. Bounce real high, like the waves of death his priorities create.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Impressive and credible public speaking, with the right substance and tone, is an important quality in this pandemic.
> 
> But priorities, understanding how to cope with this virus, learning from past failure are also critical.
> 
> Sunak coming across as a smooth operator may tick one of those boxes in your eyes, but everything we've been told about his attitude to the virus fundamentals and the timing and nature of our response tends to place him below Johnson. I would not bet even one shiny pound that if Sunak tried to cash one of his sense of reality cheques in this pandemic, it would bounce. Bounce real high, like the waves of death his priorities create.


sunak's been built up as something he isn't, and reality will intrude sooner or later


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Mar 1, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> To be fair several thousand students had been kicked out of their halls over the weekend due to a 1000kg ww2 bomb found next to the campus.



In one city. I'm not in that city.


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> sunak's been built up as something he isn't, and reality will intrude sooner or later



In theory they could rely on compartmentalisation of roles to shield his reputation from pandemic failures. ie 'he was the chancellor, he was supposed to argue the case from the perspective of the economy' type shit. The flaw in this is the various details about countries that took the right action at the right time ending up with more economic joy in the pandemic, compared t those who resisted doing the right and necessary things for far too long every time.

Pitfalls that may await him include the public inquiry into the pandemic. And the possibility that some of his personal investment portfolio might end up shining a cynical light on his priorities. And on the politics front, what happens with tax in the years to come.

Apart from the usual ways some might be impressed by politicians that can apparently muster the ability to dress themselves in a smart way and have learnt how to talk in a manner that appeals to some, I expect his popularity is also built on those who were happy enough with financial support they received in the pandemic.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> In theory they could rely on compartmentalisation of roles to shield his reputation from pandemic failures. ie 'he was the chancellor, he was supposed to argue the case from the perspective of the economy' type shit. The flaw in this is the various details about countries that took the right action at the right time ending up with more economic joy in the pandemic, compared t those who resisted doing the right and necessary things for far too long every time.
> 
> Pitfalls that may await him include the public inquiry into the pandemic. And the possibility that some of his personal investment portfolio might end up shining a cynical light on his priorities. And on the politics front, what happens with tax in the years to come.
> 
> Apart from the usual ways some might be impressed by politicians that can apparently muster the ability to dress themselves in a smart way and have learnt how to talk in a manner that appeals to some, I expect his popularity is also built on those who were happy enough with financial support they received in the pandemic.


people like him while he's throwing money at them. but as soon as he stops, as soon as the tide recedes and we see the wreckage of the economy, i suspect his dubious charms will no longer seem so alluring


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yeah, if R is above 1 in whole regions that is worrying. If whole regions, cities or counties are seeing increases, that's clearly a problem, as total case numbers as going to be high, but at district or borough council levels, not so much, and far easier for local authorities to get on top of.



In my previous reply I forgot to mention R. In the press conferences where the whole reframing of the death implications of cases rising was being discussed, one of the journalists questions asked about R and answers given indicate that yes, R is also part of the change in what they are asking us to think when we hear about data that would previously have been seen as very bad news.

Given their approach its inevitable that they need to encourage such thinking, because I'm sure  saw some February SAGE papers where it was stated in a matter of fact way that although they dont know exactly what reopening schools will do, it could easily lead to Rs of 1.5 or 1.6. I will try to find it to quote properly from later, since my vague recollection could turn out to be a misrepresentation.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 1, 2021)

I can foresee a situation where deaths drop right away and are seen as "decoupled" from case numbers. And combined with vulnerable groups having been vaccinated there will be wide perception that "putting others at risk" is no longer part of the equation. There will be a lot of people who then decide it's just a personal risk thing, and alter their behaviour substantially either because they've already had it or just aren't worried about getting it. And then we'll see prevalence shoot right back up - unless it turns out that the partial vaccination so far carried out can keep any kind of lid on things.


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

A huge chunk of the mainstream commentary on this pandemic and our governments handling of it has been shit. Certain moments of gogglebox were one of the few exceptions, when they were presented with Johnson talking shit last year.

So here is a recent Jonathan Pie rant which helps me to cope.


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

Meanwhile at the border:









						Heathrow Airport seven-hour queues 'inhumane', say passengers
					

Travellers complain of having to queue for up to seven hours because of new Covid measures at border control.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## maomao (Mar 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Meanwhile at the border:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You'd think the security guard in that first photo would be telling him to put his mask over his fucking nose rather than just calmly taking his temperature.

I keep telling people 'it's meant to go over your fucking nose' and getting away with it but I'll get punched one of these days.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 1, 2021)

maomao said:


> but I'll get punched one of these days.



On the nose most likely.

But your whole post is bang on the nose.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another great days on figures, let's hope it doesn't go tits up when the schools re-open.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose just over 20m  & 2nd dose almost 800k.
> 
> ...



More great news with today's figures. 

Vaccinations - 1st dose just over 20.275m & 2nd dose over 815k.

New cases - 5,455, down -28.7% in the last week, and down almost half by a whopping 5,186 on last Monday's 10,641, bringing the 7-day average down to around 7,979, a figure we haven't seen since last Sept.  

New deaths - 104, down -34.7% in the last week, and down 74 on last Monday's 178, bringing the 7-day average down to around 313.


----------



## miss direct (Mar 1, 2021)

20 million, wow, that is really great! 1/4 of the population, almost!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Mar 1, 2021)

miss direct said:


> 20 million, wow, that is really great! 1/4 of the population, almost!


It's closer to 1/3, just over 30%


----------



## LDC (Mar 1, 2021)

This missing person with the variant from Brasil, I'm a bit confused...

They came into the country and were tested on 12 or 13 Feb, and them only being looked for now is due to the delay in gene sequencing being done I'm assuming? But those dates are 16 days ago, isn't it clearly a case of being too late really?

Hearing them talk about this is just deja vu to January 2020 when they were promising not to worry about this new virus we were hearing about.


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This missing person with the variant from Brasil, I'm a bit confused...
> 
> They came into the country and were tested on 12 or 13 Feb, and them only being looked for now is due to the delay in gene sequencing being done I'm assuming? But those dates are 16 days ago, isn't it clearly a case of being too late really?
> 
> Hearing them talk about this is just deja vu to January 2020 when they were promising not to worry about this new virus we were hearing about.



This has always been a concern, and the delays in genomic results being available used to be even longer. Nor are we expecting to pick up more than a fraction of the total cases with these variants. The 'missing case' is useful for raising awareness, but even if all detected cases were swiftly identified and dealt with, there would still be a similar dynamic to that which was in play early in the pandemic - these things are surveillance exercises to build a picture, they are not genuine attempts to fully contain the spread of variants. And the standard government line about out world-beating levels of genomic surveillance dont change that.

I am forcing myself to tune in to the press conference today to see how they spin this stuff.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 1, 2021)

miss direct said:


> 20 million, wow, that is really great! 1/4 of the population, almost!





S☼I said:


> It's closer to 1/3, just over 30%



Under 18s are not to be vaccinated, yet, so the target is about 50 million adults, so about 40% have had their first dose so far.

Here in Worthing, in my patch it's 31%, in wards with a lot of care homes & retirement bungalows it's as high as 48%, just down the road in my mother's 'retirement village' it's over 58%, and those figures were from almost a week ago, so will be higher now, absolutely bloody amazing.


----------



## LDC (Mar 1, 2021)

Keep talking about the vaccine Hancock, less time for awkward questions about the Brazil variant the government's fucked up with.


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Keep talking about the vaccine Hancock, less time for awkward questions about the Brazil variant the government's fucked up with.



It was even worse when he was finally asked about that (late to setup hotel quarantine system), slippery answers of the predictable kind.


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

Spot the problem:

Brag about how we test a high proportion of cases for new variants comapred to other countries that dont have much capacity to do that.

Answer a question about people in other countries like Germany where some Brazil variant cases have been found, that arent on the red list, by going on about what a low proportion of cases in those countries have been shown to be that variant of concern.


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> In my previous reply I forgot to mention R. In the press conferences where the whole reframing of the death implications of cases rising was being discussed, one of the journalists questions asked about R and answers given indicate that yes, R is also part of the change in what they are asking us to think when we hear about data that would previously have been seen as very bad news.
> 
> Given their approach its inevitable that they need to encourage such thinking, because I'm sure  saw some February SAGE papers where it was stated in a matter of fact way that although they dont know exactly what reopening schools will do, it could easily lead to Rs of 1.5 or 1.6. I will try to find it to quote properly from later, since my vague recollection could turn out to be a misrepresentation.



I still havent looked that up but I'll give Susan Hopkins a bonus point for mentioning in the press conference that they expect R to rise as a result of schools reopening. But as per the other point I've made, she followed that with more language that leaves little doubt that they hope/expect to see hospitalisations not increasing in the way they would previously have seen under those circumstances, ie the expected change in ratio of cases to hospitalisations as a result of the vaccination programme.


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

This is a summary of the PHE good vaccine news that was the focus of much of todays press conference. I havent read it or the pre-print that it links to yet, I think I will save that for another day.









						New data show vaccines reduce severe COVID-19 in older adults
					

New data show both Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines significantly reduce severe COVID-19 in older adults.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## editor (Mar 1, 2021)

Encouraging









						Covid vaccines cut risk of serious illness by 80% in over-80s
					

The UK will soon be in a "very different world", government scientists promise after the success of the jabs.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 2hats (Mar 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> This is a summary of the PHE good vaccine news that was the focus of much of todays press conference. I havent read it or the pre-print that it links to yet, I think I will save that for another day.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wide CIs and plenty of sources of bias   (they've also missed out the supplemental information that they refer to).


----------



## elbows (Mar 1, 2021)

2hats said:


> Wide CIs and plenty of sources of bias   (they've also missed out the supplemental information that they refer to).



Maybe the BBC are drawing attention to that by using a shifty image of Hancock next to their headline story.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 1, 2021)

Disturbingly large number of nhs staff seem to be keen on the old anti-vax wagon


Artaxerxes said:


> Big changes at the V&A, partly blamed on the Rona of course.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sounds more and more brutal


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 1, 2021)

Fair Museum Jobs said:
			
		

> *The National Art Library to be closed for at least another 12 months*



Kinnell!!!!  

I worked there for marginally under twenty years. We rarely closed!


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> I would not bet even one shiny pound that if Sunak tried to cash one of his sense of reality cheques in this pandemic, it would bounce. Bounce real high, like the waves of death his priorities create.



You know those priorities are the priorities that his office of state is actually responsible for, right? I for one am glad that at least someone is paying some kind of vague attention to what comes after. Someone has to, or else we truly are screwed. It's not his job to balance the priorities, that's down to Boris. Sunak is paid to talk about the economy. Whether he's saying or doing the right things is a different matter however.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> This missing person with the variant from Brasil, I'm a bit confused...
> 
> They came into the country and were tested on 12 or 13 Feb, and them only being looked for now is due to the delay in gene sequencing being done I'm assuming? But those dates are 16 days ago, isn't it clearly a case of being too late really?



I think the Swissair flight that Dr. Hopkins mentioned was on January 29th if I recall, so even earlier still for that particular one. Luckily the three people involved with that particular flight seemed to have quarantined properly at least. Given that they said they are able to sequence about one third of all confirmed cases now- was it just luck that they tested those people, or did they find out they had been in Brazil first and thus specifically target them? Anybody know? Might have missed that in the news conference.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> You know those priorities are the priorities that his office of state is actually responsible for, right? I for one am glad that at least someone is paying some kind of vague attention to what comes after. Someone has to, or else we truly are screwed. It's not his job to balance the priorities, that's down to Boris. Sunak is paid to talk about the economy. Whether he's saying or doing the right things is a different matter however.


Nice effort, but no cigar.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 2, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> You know those priorities are the priorities that his office of state is actually responsible for, right? I for one am glad that at least someone is paying some kind of vague attention to what comes after. Someone has to, or else we truly are screwed. It's not his job to balance the priorities, that's down to Boris. Sunak is paid to talk about the economy. Whether he's saying or doing the right things is a different matter however.


Lol


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 2, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Nice effort, but no cigar.



Eh? So you think the Chancellor of the Exchequer should NOT care about the economy, given that that's his entire job? That's a very interesting, and strange, outlook you have, I must say. Must be nice to live in a world where nobody has to worry about how to pay the bills.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 2, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Eh? So you think the Chancellor of the Exchequer should NOT care about the economy, given that that's his entire job? That's a very interesting, and strange, outlook you have, I must say. Must be nice to live in a world where nobody has to worry about how to pay the bills.


Are you seriously saying that ideology is irrelevant to the chancellor of the exchequer?  There is just one objective best option?


----------



## existentialist (Mar 2, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Eh? So you think the Chancellor of the Exchequer should NOT care about the economy, given that that's his entire job? That's a very interesting, and strange, outlook you have, I must say. Must be nice to live in a world where nobody has to worry about how to pay the bills.


I didn't say that, did I?


----------



## Cid (Mar 2, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Whether he's saying or doing the right things is a different matter however.



Hint: UK suffers biggest drop in economic output in 300 years


----------



## Spandex (Mar 2, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Eh? So you think the Chancellor of the Exchequer should NOT care about the economy, given that that's his entire job? That's a very interesting, and strange, outlook you have, I must say. Must be nice to live in a world where nobody has to worry about how to pay the bills.


Rishi Sunak isn't just a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He's an investment banking, hedge funding, Thatcherite think tanking, muliti-millionaire, Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 2, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Rishi Sunak isn't just a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He's an investment banking, hedge funding, Thatcherite think tanking, muliti-millionaire, Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer.


And that's why I'm not really looking forward to the upcoming budget.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 2, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Given that they said they are able to sequence about one third of all confirmed cases now- was it just luck that they tested those people, or did they find out they had been in Brazil first and thus specifically target them?


Sequencing right now is running at 25% of all (recorded) cases. At the time of the appearance of these particular cases it was just under 20%; the rate is going up because positive test numbers have been dropping. So one wouldn't be surprised if there are another 20+ cases out there (though of course, recorded cases < actual cases).


----------



## teuchter (Mar 2, 2021)

The Zoe project map (right) continues to not really match the gov.uk one (left) all that convincingly. I know that they aren't representing the same point in time (gov.uk is about a week ago, Zoe is roughly now, but even so).




eg look at East Anglia vs Cornwall, or Argyll vs Glasgow surrounds.


----------



## IC3D (Mar 2, 2021)

That dark blob on Gt Yarmouth would go infest Norfolk on the govt one. Diff level. Just zoom in moar


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 2, 2021)

Areas and density scales being different would also mess up comparisons.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 2, 2021)

It's true that changing the division size has an effect (although in my first screenshots, they match for Scotland).
Here's the south of england with same division sizes. It's still the case that gov.uk reckons rural devon/cornwall generaly worse than rural E anglia, and zoe reckons the opposite.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 2, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Rishi Sunak isn't just a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He's an investment banking, hedge funding, Thatcherite think tanking, muliti-millionaire, Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer.


I think that this is maybe why our new friend is so keen to leap to his defence


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 2, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Rishi Sunak isn't just a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He's an investment banking, hedge funding, Thatcherite think tanking, muliti-millionaire, Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer.




Yes


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 2, 2021)

I've now lost patience with this "missing" case of the Brazilian variant.

There has been enough publicity and still they've not come forward although it is now narrowed down to 1 out of 379 households.

I understand the problem was because the home test kit documentation was incomplete. That and their non-appearance makes me think that they would not have isolated or quarantined voluntarily ...

So, one could assume that they've been spreading 'rona for the past couple of weeks (or more) ...


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 2, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I've now lost patience with this "missing" case of the Brazilian variant.
> 
> There has been enough publicity and still they've not come forward although it is now narrowed down to 1 out of 379 households.
> 
> ...



I'd brace yourself for many more similar stories in the coming weeks and months.


----------



## Cerv (Mar 2, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I've now lost patience with this "missing" case of the Brazilian variant.
> 
> There has been enough publicity and still they've not come forward although it is now narrowed down to 1 out of 379 households.
> 
> ...


unless perhaps they've not come forward as currently hospitalised or dead


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> More great news with today's figures.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose just over 20.275m & 2nd dose over 815k.
> 
> ...



This just keeps getting better, with percentage reductions in both new cases & deaths growing.   

Vaccinations - 1st dose just over 20.478 m & 2nd dose over 8445k.

New cases - 6,391, down -29.4% in the last week, and down over 2k on last Tuesday's 8,489, bringing the 7-day average down to around 7,680.

New deaths - 343, down -36% in the last week, and down 205 on last Tuesday's 548, bringing the 7-day average down to around 285.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 2, 2021)

The percentage reductions in cases aren't really growing, they are visibly levelling off with perhaps a slight downwards tip in the past few days if we are optimistic. The Zoe graph shows a very clear levelling-off. And hospital admissions are also levelling off. The good news is really centred on the death rates.


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The percentage reductions in cases aren't really growing, they are visibly levelling off with perhaps a slight downwards tip in the past few days if we are optimistic. The Zoe graph shows a very clear levelling-off. And hospital admissions are also levelling off. The good news is really centred on the death rates.



Picture has become too mixed for me to fully persist with the 'things have levelled off' stuff I've been going on about for a couple of weeks. The next weeks worth of ZOE data will be interesting because some of the areas that levelled off for a good while in their data might be going down again, but its way premature for me to say that with any confidence.

As for hospital admissions, if you are looking at UK admission figures on the government dashboard then you are probably being misled. They are missing a lot of recent Scottish admissions data so the latest UK figure currently showing there is for February 20th! I will post the England hospital admissions by region graph later.


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2021)

Oops there was a mistake in my last post, latest UK admissions figure is actually for Feb 23rd.


----------



## Cid (Mar 2, 2021)

On a purely anecdotal level, Sheffield seems to be getting busier.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This just keeps getting better, with percentage reductions in both new cases & deaths growing.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose just over 20.478 m & 2nd dose over 8445k.
> 
> ...


I'm not just being negative for the sake of it or because I detest how this government have allowed the number of deaths to reach 140,000, this just doesn't feel like a great place to be at. So much better than a few weeks ago but still, 2000 or so dying each week is horrific. Statistically, I'm not sure when the vaccination of all over 50s will hit the death rate, but that point seems to me the place where we can judge where things are up to.  Realise there are lots of factors in play, but the reductions so far seen seem to be broadly the consequences of lockdown.  Everything since the late January death peak is welcome, but it's been a case of slowly undoing the damage done late Autumn.  Glass half... broken.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 2, 2021)

Note the reaction to a small spike in cases on the Isle of Man.

3 weeks lockdown from 00:01 on Wednesday, announced a couple of hours ago (ie approx 15:00 as it is now 17:24). This is their Third such "snap" circuit-breaker, imposed as there is an unidentified transmission route (after allowing for the cases leading back to the Steam Packet employee).

Covid-19: Isle of Man in 'circuit-breaker' lockdown after spike in cases - BBC News


----------



## weltweit (Mar 2, 2021)

Here is hoping they manage to find this person infected by the Brazilian variant and trace their movements. 

I don't quite understand the logic of taking a test without adding the method by which you could be told the result. 

Does anyone know what kind of test it was, how and where administered etc ..? Perhaps that would illuminate.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 2, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Here is hoping they manage to find this person infected by the Brazilian variant and trace their movements.
> 
> I don't quite understand the logic of taking a test without adding the method by which you could be told the result.
> 
> Does anyone know what kind of test it was, how and where administered etc ..? Perhaps that would illuminate.


According to the beeb, it was a home test kit ...


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2021)

Hospital Covid-19 admissions/diagnoses for England that I said I would post earlier.

The first two are smoothed using 7 day averages for clarity, but I've included thr raw ones too in case the averaged ones mask any interesting detail.


Made using data from the daily spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

The dashboard uses the same data these days, but tends to be a day behind, and even longer if only looking at UK total figures rather than drilling down to individual nations and regions.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 2, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> According to the beeb, it was a home test kit ...


Even stranger then that the individual didn't identify themselves on the form. AFAICT you have to request a home test, or opt into the national monitoring one so there would have been no oppression for them to be rebelling against. 

Perhaps that will help the search, if they have narrowed it down to a smallish number of houses as I believe they have perhaps there is a record of which of those were sent home testing kits to narrow it further.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Hospital Covid-19 admissions/diagnoses for England that I said I would post earlier.
> 
> The first two are smoothed using 7 day averages for clarity, but I've included thr raw ones too in case the averaged ones mask any interesting detail.
> 
> ...



Unless I'm missing something that doesn't look particularly like levelling off to me.  Sure those are still really high numbers but that was always going to be the case given the height it got to.  Of course we'd all like to see a much sharper decline but given the stage we're at I'm just happy that the numbers are going in the right direction the way they are.


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Unless I'm missing something that doesn't look particularly like levelling off to me.  Sure those are still really high numbers but that was always going to be the case given the height it got to.  Of course we'd all like to see a much sharper decline but given the stage we're at I'm just happy that the numbers are going in the right direction the way they are.



I didnt post those charts to show anything negative and I specifically responded to an earlier post about hospitalisations levelling off by saying that they werent, and that the overall UK figures on the dashboard that gave that impression are out of date.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> I didnt post those charts to show anything negative and I specifically responded to an earlier post about hospitalisations levelling off by saying that they werent, and that the overall UK figures on the dashboard that gave that impression are out of date.



Yes, badly worded on my part.  It was more aimed at the posts above yours.


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2021)

Its partly my fault anyway, I forgot that I had not explicitly said they werent levelling off earlier, just that the UK dashboard figures were misleading. I was supposed to make that point more clearly when I posted the charts later, but I forgot and just let the charts do the talking.


----------



## elbows (Mar 2, 2021)

Oh bollocks.









						Hospital struggling to access enough rapid Covid-19 testing kits
					

The issue at the George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton was revealed in a report to the board




					www.coventrytelegraph.net
				






> Patients admitted into the 'Eliot as an emergency are given a Covid-19 test to ensure that they do not bring the virus into the wards.
> 
> If they do test positive, then they can be treated on dedicated Covid wards.
> 
> But Mr Burley explains that supplies are not matching the demand.





> "The national position on Covid testing has generally improved, there are now very few stories about access to testing as both Pillar 1 (NHS) and Pillar 2 (independent sector) has increased daily capacity which now consistently exceeds demand," he said.
> 
> "Within the hospital though we are still experiencing poor access to rapid testing due to consumables supply issues.
> 
> ...



I say oh bollocks because I do not consider the following solution to be in any way acceptable.



> "To help to address this, A&E departments were recently advised that they could use lateral flow tests to identify possible positive cases. As lateral flow is a less sensitive test, these then have to be confirmed by the more reliable Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test," the report continues.


----------



## Hellsbells (Mar 2, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Note the reaction to a small spike in cases on the Isle of Man.
> 
> 3 weeks lockdown from 00:01 on Wednesday, announced a couple of hours ago (ie approx 15:00 as it is now 17:24). This is their Third such "snap" circuit-breaker, imposed as there is an unidentified transmission route (after allowing for the cases leading back to the Steam Packet employee).
> 
> Covid-19: Isle of Man in 'circuit-breaker' lockdown after spike in cases - BBC News


It's an absolute government shambles here.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 2, 2021)

Hellsbells said:


> It's an absolute government shambles here.


Tomorrow, I'll try and speak to my contact in Douglas, and have a natter as to what the XXXX has been going on (or not, as the case may be).
What do you reckon ?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 2, 2021)

Hellsbells said:


> It's an absolute government shambles here.



Not compared to the UK!


----------



## Hellsbells (Mar 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not compared to the UK!


That's what I thought until now. The UKs moving forward, we're moving backwards


----------



## Badgers (Mar 2, 2021)

Brits would get £150-a-head vouchers to spend in shops under Covid recovery idea
					

Kids would also get £75 under the £9bn Budget idea that's been sent to Rishi Sunak - but it's thought there is zero chance of the Chancellor actually introducing it any time soon




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Cloo (Mar 2, 2021)

So my office is now going to open for two weeks from 29th March if people want to come in and pick stuff up from their desks, then after that will have limited opening for people who really want to come in - they're clear there's no compulsion, but they do know there are a few people who have genuine difficulty WFH full-time. I'll probably stick at home for the foreseeable as going in only introduces childcare issues and my other half's working situation is variable. Will also want to see what my team want to do - I don't want to go in if it's just be, but if, say everyone else wants to be in one day (and we're allowed to), then I'd probably join them. I'm still not massively sure what the point is in that we'll basically be glued to our desk so 'teamworking' and 'collaborating' still won't be possible in a greatly more meaningful sense than on screen as we can't do meetings or training all together in one room.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 2, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I think that this is maybe why our new friend is so keen to leap to his defence



And why you are so keen to attack him, presumably. Nothing to do with reality, just politics? 

If you look at what I actually wrote, I was pointing out that he has to think about the economy BUT that whether he was doing the right things was a different matter. But hey, why not assume I'm a hedge fund manager? I wish!


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 2, 2021)

Cid said:


> Hint: UK suffers biggest drop in economic output in 300 years



Yes, my point exactly. Although, as people on here will be surely keen to point out, part of that was down to Boris (not Sunak) choosing to lock down late, having longer lockdowns as a result, etc. It's not all down to Sunak, though of course he can easily take the blame if BoJo wants to divest himself of a potential future rival (or cover up Brexit failures). At no point did I say I necessarily supported what Sunak has been doing, just pointing out that it's his job to do so. That doesn't mean he necessarily does his job well. Doesn't mean he does it badly either, of course. Time will tell, but for pretty much every success he has had a failure (3 million self employed would testify to that, for instance).


----------



## existentialist (Mar 2, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> And why you are so keen to attack him, presumably. Nothing to do with reality, just politics?
> 
> If you look at what I actually wrote, I was pointing out that he has to think about the economy BUT that whether he was doing the right things was a different matter. But hey, why not assume I'm a hedge fund manager? I wish!


This is going nowhere.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 2, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Brits would get £150-a-head vouchers to spend in shops under Covid recovery idea
> 
> 
> Kids would also get £75 under the £9bn Budget idea that's been sent to Rishi Sunak - but it's thought there is zero chance of the Chancellor actually introducing it any time soon
> ...



If I spend the vouchers can I return the goods in the next 30 seconds and keep the cash for something useful?


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 2, 2021)

existentialist said:


> This is going nowhere.



Oh well. Guess we've both wasted a few seconds of our lives we'll never get back.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 3, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> And why you are so keen to attack him, presumably. Nothing to do with reality, just politics?
> 
> If you look at what I actually wrote, I was pointing out that he has to think about the economy BUT that whether he was doing the right things was a different matter. But hey, why not assume I'm a hedge fund manager? I wish!


Nobody thinks you're a hedge fund manager. We just think you're a cunt.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 3, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> If I spend the vouchers can I return the goods in the next 30 seconds and keep the cash for something useful?


Yes


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 3, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Yes, my point exactly. Although, as people on here will be surely keen to point out, part of that was down to Boris (not Sunak) choosing to lock down late, having longer lockdowns as a result, etc. It's not all down to Sunak, though of course he can easily take the blame if BoJo wants to divest himself of a potential future rival (or cover up Brexit failures). At no point did I say I necessarily supported what Sunak has been doing, just pointing out that it's his job to do so. That doesn't mean he necessarily does his job well. Doesn't mean he does it badly either, of course. Time will tell, but for pretty much every success he has had a failure (3 million self employed would testify to that, for instance).


Eat out to help out.

Also, according to this Johnson was ready to lock down back in September (you know, when we should have done) your hero dishy Rishi threw his rich boy toys out of the pram 48 hours in September when ministers and scientists split over Covid lockdown

And the idea that it's a balancing act between the economy and public health is bollocks. Fail to prioritise public health in a pandemic and the economy is fucked, worse than restrictions and the right time will fuck it, as Sunak and Johnson's reckless actions have proven.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 3, 2021)

Girls  





__





						Girls doing more housework in Covid lockdown than boys | Gender | The Guardian
					

Young women are becoming trapped in traditional roles at home and neglecting education, finds charity




					amp.theguardian.com


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 3, 2021)

'Headline is worse than article's content' shocker!


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 3, 2021)

So, I see we are now at £400 billion spending on Covid relief.









						Rishi Sunak flags tax rises in budget as total Covid spending tops £400bn
					

Tax increases required for businesses and workers to repair public finances, says chancellor




					www.theguardian.com
				




As a reminder, that is still only 80% of the first (and not only) cheque written, a cheque that was immediately written, to bail out the banking crisis of 2008.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 3, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> So, I see we are now at £400 billion spending on Covid relief.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Apples and oranges. The eventual cost of the bank bailout was way less than this.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 3, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Apples and oranges. The eventual cost of the bank bailout was way less than this.



Not necessarily different.  The eventual cost of this bailout will be less in the long term.  Once companies go bust they do not suddenly reappear,.  If all the companies that would have gone to the wall were allowed to go to the wall, lost tax revenue would dwarf £400b.

This is a sound investment in the future.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 3, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Apples and oranges. The eventual cost of the bank bailout was way less than this.



Yes. One was a guarantee freely given to bail out an economic system that had caused it's own ills through greed, to organizations deemed 'too big to fail',  while being dressed up as economic and social costs to society, and that exposed the UK govt to over a trillion pound of debt, while the other is a payment given to support people who through no fault of their own have been exposed to economic hardship via a virus.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 3, 2021)

I'm not sure why we are comparing the numbers then, when they apply to different things.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 3, 2021)

Because it's all government money.

Because one was freely given to cover incompetence and greed yet barely caused a ripple in the national psyche over what was 'affordable'.

Because the other, given to protect people's economic and social wellbeing, through something they had no control over, is producing a theme of 'we can't afford this'. I'm sick of hearing this.

Capitalism affords what it wants to afford.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 3, 2021)

Is there no scores on the doors this evening?  I've been looking around and can't find any.  I like looking at numbers going down and especially since this week might be our last chance for a while to see new cases declining...


----------



## elbows (Mar 3, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Is there no scores on the doors this evening?  I've been looking around and can't find any.  I like looking at numbers going down and especially since this week might be our last chance for a while to see new cases declining...



Due to a case processing issue the dashboard wasnt updated till 7.15pm which probably upset the usual rhythm of reporting those figures elsewhere.





__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 3, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Is there no scores on the doors this evening?  I've been looking around and can't find any.  I like looking at numbers going down and especially since this week might be our last chance for a while to see new cases declining...



They have been late with today's figures, all good news -

Vaccinations - 1st dose just over 20.7m, 2nd dose just under 900k.

New cases - 6,385, down -31.6% in a week.

New deaths - 315, down -33.8% in a week.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 3, 2021)

On a personal note, Worthing was one of those 50 local authority areas that were highlighted as seeing an increase in cases, the 7-day average started going up about 2 weeks ago, reaching a peak of +63% about a week ago.

Whilst scary, I assumed it was just a bit of a blip, and have been pleased to see the figure drop slowly, down to +22% yesterday, and a bloody brilliant -8.5% today.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 3, 2021)

SpineyNorman said:


> Nobody thinks you're a hedge fund manager. We just think you're a cunt.



Not sure I've ever interacted with you, but the feeling is very mutual I can assure you.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 3, 2021)

SpineyNorman said:


> Eat out to help out.
> 
> Also, according to this Johnson was ready to lock down back in September (you know, when we should have done) your hero dishy Rishi threw his rich boy toys out of the pram 48 hours in September when ministers and scientists split over Covid lockdown
> 
> And the idea that it's a balancing act between the economy and public health is bollocks. Fail to prioritise public health in a pandemic and the economy is fucked, worse than restrictions and the right time will fuck it, as Sunak and Johnson's reckless actions have proven.



Why do you think he's "my hero?" I know you seem to enjoy putting words into people's mouths on here, but maybe read the other things I've posted first before you assume I think he's necessarily doing a good job. I already posted about how for every success he has had a failure. The one I mentioned was the self-employed mess, but eat out to help out may well qualify (though according to Sunak, he has other evidence that says it was hardly responsible for any infections, so I guess it depends who you believe). 

It may not be a balancing act between "the economy" and "public health" in direct terms, but more about short v. long term. If you do too much to prioritise short-term public health, then you will absolutely wreck the economy, which will lead to long term suffering that is even greater than if you had taken less stringent measures in the first place. You do know that poverty is the leading cause of ill health and premature death worldwide, don't you?

I certainly HOPE we have not done that, but I fear that it is entirely possible that we might have. Even if we haven't, then many countries around the world, notably those that are hugely dependent on tourism or do not have the financial reserves and borrowing clout that we do, absolutely have. To suggest that you can simply ignore all the long term effects on economies because "public health" trumps everything is to fundamentally misunderstand what "public health" actually entails.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 3, 2021)

So you’d rather be dead than poor. OK


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 3, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> So you’d rather be dead than poor. OK



Guess there's no getting through to some people. As long as Orang Utan lives through this, who cares how many might have to die and suffer in the future as a result of the policies to keep you safe today, right? If global lockdowns saved a million lives but will cost an extra ten million over the coming years, is that a price you're happy to pay?

There's every chance that won't be the case, and it's entirely possible that we HAVE saved more lives than we will lose from the after effects, but the fact that nobody here seems to even vaguely deign to consider that it MIGHT be the other way around is infuriating. Guess only time will tell.


----------



## eoin_k (Mar 3, 2021)

Well, it looks like Britain is world-beating, or at least top of the OECD heap, in terms of both excess deaths and economic impact, so maybe it doesn't have to be a trade-off and you can fuck up on both at the same time.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 4, 2021)

eoin_k said:


> Well, it looks like Britain is world-beating, or at least top of the OECD heap, in terms of both excess deaths and economic impact, so maybe it doesn't have to be a trade-off and you can fuck up on both at the same time.



Exactly.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 4, 2021)

Here is an interesting piece with Pfizer regarding new varients





__





						Science | AAAS
					






					www.sciencemag.org
				




Also very encouraged to hear we could vaccinate 4m people a week, everybody by June as the Moderna vaccine is due to arrive soon.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 4, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Why do you think he's "my hero?" I know you seem to enjoy putting words into people's mouths on here, but maybe read the other things I've posted first before you assume I think he's necessarily doing a good job. I already posted about how for every success he has had a failure. The one I mentioned was the self-employed mess, but eat out to help out may well qualify (though according to Sunak, he has other evidence that says it was hardly responsible for any infections, so I guess it depends who you believe).
> 
> It may not be a balancing act between "the economy" and "public health" in direct terms, but more about short v. long term. If you do too much to prioritise short-term public health, then you will absolutely wreck the economy, which will lead to long term suffering that is even greater than if you had taken less stringent measures in the first place. You do know that poverty is the leading cause of ill health and premature death worldwide, don't you?
> 
> I certainly HOPE we have not done that, but I fear that it is entirely possible that we might have. Even if we haven't, then many countries around the world, notably those that are hugely dependent on tourism or do not have the financial reserves and borrowing clout that we do, absolutely have. To suggest that you can simply ignore all the long term effects on economies because "public health" trumps everything is to fundamentally misunderstand what "public health" actually entails.


Bollocks. What you've said only makes sense if lockdown was a pro-active action aimed at saving lives. 

That's a position that can only be sustained if you've not really been paying attention. 

In the UK it has been a last minute act of desperation to avoid the health service getting overwhelmed. If that happens the impact on the economy (both short and especially long term, as a large proportion of the younger people who would have just needed oxygen die, people die of relatively trivial non covid causes etc) s worse than that of a lockdown by several orders of magnitude. 

Basically you're talking shit.

He is your hero too isn't he?


----------



## existentialist (Mar 4, 2021)

SpineyNorman said:


> Bollocks. What you've said only makes sense if lockdown was a pro-active action aimed at saving lives.
> 
> That's a position that can only be sustained if you've not really been paying attention.
> 
> ...


Big signed poster on the wall, membership of the Rishi Squirrels, I'd say it's an open-and-shut case.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 4, 2021)

Also the only serious study I've seen showed that eat out to help did cause outbreaks and increases in cases but fuck getting into that with this boring clown.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Mar 4, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Hi cupid_stunt, I don't think fertility issues would definitely have emerged yet.


Indeed. Neither have any issues where the vaccine makes your ears fall off. No reason to suspect these side effects are any more likely than others that have not emerged yet.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 4, 2021)

I don't think we can completely rule out its potential to turn us into monkeys at this early stage either. 

Which for me is an additional reason to get it as soon as possible.


----------



## LDC (Mar 4, 2021)

Anyone seen any recent news on this person infected with the P.1 Brasil variant who couldn't be found in the SE? It was all over the news they'd narrowed it down to a few hundred households, so surely door-to-door must have found them now...?


----------



## Cid (Mar 4, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Guess there's no getting through to some people. As long as Orang Utan lives through this, who cares how many might have to die and suffer in the future as a result of the policies to keep you safe today, right? If global lockdowns saved a million lives but will cost an extra ten million over the coming years, is that a price you're happy to pay?
> 
> There's every chance that won't be the case, and it's entirely possible that we HAVE saved more lives than we will lose from the after effects, but the fact that nobody here seems to even vaguely deign to consider that it MIGHT be the other way around is infuriating. Guess only time will tell.



But we have disrupted people's lives more than many other nations, _and_ our economic performance has been woeful.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 4, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anyone seen any recent news on this person infected with the P.1 Brasil variant who couldn't be found in the SE? It was all over the news they'd narrowed it down to a few hundred households, so surely door-to-door must have found them now...?


I haven't seen any updates on this yet. Hope they find the person though.


----------



## LDC (Mar 4, 2021)

weltweit said:


> I haven't seen any updates on this yet. Hope they find the person though.



Yeah, be bit weird if they haven't. A handful of small teams doing door-to-door of the possibles could have sorted it in 24 hours surely?


----------



## elbows (Mar 4, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, be bit weird if they haven't. A handful of small teams doing door-to-door of the possibles could have sorted it in 24 hours surely?



Thats assuming 100% successful contact & cooperation, which isnt a safe assumption. Also we dont know how much delay there will be between the reality of the investigation and us finding out about progress. Especially if there are additional validation steps required to confirm they've found the right person.

I dont worry about this missing case any more than the others we will have missed by not picking them up via genomic surveillance in the first place, either because they were never tested at all or their test wasnt one of the ones given the genomic analysis.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 4, 2021)

Serco doing the tracing?


----------



## 2hats (Mar 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont worry about this missing case any more than the others we will have missed by not picking them up via genomic surveillance in the first place, either because they were never tested at all or their test wasnt one of the ones given the genomic analysis.


Arguably those deserve at least four times as much attention. Also, bear in mind that recent data from France indicate P.1 & B.1.351 together comprise >=30% of cases in some areas.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Serco doing the tracing?


----------



## souljacker (Mar 4, 2021)

I don't know if people are aware of this but you can go and collect packs of lateral flow self test kits from your local testing centre at the moment. It supposed to be for parents of school kids but they don't check or ask you to sing anything or prove who you are. They had loads at the test centre in Central Reading and I could have taken as many as I wanted. Got 2x 7 packs.









						[Withdrawn] Households and bubbles of pupils, students and staff of schools, nurseries and colleges: get rapid lateral flow tests
					

Find out who is eligible for twice-weekly testing and how to get tested if you do not have symptoms of coronavirus (COVID-19). This guidance is for people without symptoms.




					www.gov.uk
				




I had a brief chat with the guy at the centre too. He told me that they are barely getting anyone in asking for tests at the moment which is a good sign.


----------



## Thora (Mar 4, 2021)

Nowhere to collect tests anywhere near me but I have just ordered some to be delivered.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 4, 2021)

Everything continues to go well, fingers crossed for the next couple weeks, with the schools going back on Monday.

Vaccinations - 1st dose just over 20.982m & 2nd dose over 963.8k.

New cases - 6,573, down -34.4% in the last week, and down a massive 3,412 on last Thursday's 9,985, bringing the 7-day average down to around 6,686 - a figure we've not seen since last Sept.!  

New deaths - 242, down -33.6% in the last week, and down 81 on last Thursday's 323, bringing the 7-day average down to around 255 - a figure we've not seen since last October!


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Everything continues to go well, fingers crossed for the next couple weeks, with the schools going back on Monday.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose just over 20.982m & 2nd dose over 9635k.



You've missed a decimal point out on the 2nd dose.

It's a small point. But a point.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 4, 2021)

Good to see Worthing is now showing a drop of -23.5% in the last 7-days, having become a hotspot a couple of weeks ago, peaking at a +63% increase.

Bearing in mind the borough's population is only 110k, and cases are measured per 100k, so only a few dozen cases can result in a large percentage increase.

We had a blip like this last Aug. or Sept., thanks to three young lads coming back from holiday & not self isolating, but instead going out on the town & to a house party, each picked-up a £1,000 fine.   

Turns out it was a similiar situation this time, with most of those extra cases over that 2 weeks being traced back to a fucking house party.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Good to see Worthing is now showing a drop of -23.5% in the last 7-days, having become a hotspot a couple of weeks ago, peaking at a +63% increase.
> 
> Bearing in mind the borough's *population is only 110k,* and cases are measured per 100k, so only a few dozen cases can result in a large percentage increase.
> 
> ...



Isn't that 100,000 people over 80?  Bodies on the street if it runs rampant there.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 4, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Isn't that 100,000 people over 80?  Bodies on the street if it runs rampant there.



Fuck off.   

Worthing has a far younger population nowadays, because of a influx of younger people, compared to 20-25 years ago, we're nowhere near on a par with the likes of Eastbourne & Bexhill. 

That's not saying we're not surrounded by retirement villages in both Adur & Arun district council areas, but they are not in Worthing borough.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 4, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I don't know if people are aware of this but you can go and collect packs of lateral flow self test kits from your local testing centre at the moment. It supposed to be for parents of school kids but they don't check or ask you to sing anything or prove who you are. They had loads at the test centre in Central Reading and I could have taken as many as I wanted. Got 2x 7 packs.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



We have a place like that just across the way.  They are specifically saying NHS and care workers plus parents of school children.  Doesn't seem very busy, but then again the main drive through test area we have didn't seem very busy until December.


----------



## elbows (Mar 4, 2021)

I'm sure the 1% pay rise proposal from the department of health for nurses will be discussed in other threads, but I felt like putting it here too given how much pandemic burden fell on their shoulders and what an extra slap in the face this seems like as a result.

I'm not anticipating booing on the doorsteps as a protest version of the clap in response to this, but I would recommend it.









						Nurses' union anger over 'pitiful' 1% NHS pay rise
					

The government will face a public backlash if it does not pay staff more, the RCN union warns.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 4, 2021)

That's so low it's an insult.

Especially when you consider the efforts expended in the past year.

How much did the HoC vote themselves ?


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 4, 2021)

SpineyNorman said:


> Bollocks. What you've said only makes sense if lockdown was a pro-active action aimed at saving lives.
> 
> That's a position that can only be sustained if you've not really been paying attention.
> 
> ...



It's not bollocks at all and no, I'm not talking shit. Just because you can't seem to even vaguely consider the possibility doesn't mean it might not happen. Unlike you I'm perfectly willing to accept that lockdowns may well have saved more lives than they will ultimately cost. I'm also perfectly willing to consider the opposite. The fact that lockdowns can't be sustained, as you just said there, is exactly my point, and the longer they go on the more long term damage they will do. But never mind. You're a "boring clown" too, I guess, or whatever you called me in your other post. And please, why not keep ignoring other posts where I said I AGREED with lockdowns being necessary to stop the health service being overwhelmed? Makes you look so intelligent.

And no, he's not my hero, for the third time.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 5, 2021)

The over 80's appear to be poorly educated on how vaccines work.  Like in Israel, a lot of them are getting the vaccine and then doing whatever they like.

 Can I remind all 80 yo, that the average age of death for COVID-19 is 81 and you need to wait at least a month before you venture outside?


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 5, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> It's not bollocks at all and no, I'm not talking shit. Just because you can't seem to even vaguely consider the possibility doesn't mean it might not happen. Unlike you I'm perfectly willing to accept that lockdowns may well have saved more lives than they will ultimately cost. I'm also perfectly willing to consider the opposite. The fact that lockdowns can't be sustained, as you just said there, is exactly my point, and the longer they go on the more long term damage they will do. But never mind. You're a "boring clown" too, I guess, or whatever you called me in your other post. And please, why not keep ignoring other posts where I said I AGREED with lockdowns being necessary to stop the health service being overwhelmed? Makes you look so intelligent.
> 
> And no, he's not my hero, for the third time.


You're an idiot. It's pointless even attempting to get through to you.  

Go back to your rishi sunak shrine and never darken these boards again.


----------



## Cid (Mar 5, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> It's not bollocks at all and no, I'm not talking shit. Just because you can't seem to even vaguely consider the possibility doesn't mean it might not happen. Unlike you I'm perfectly willing to accept that lockdowns may well have saved more lives than they will ultimately cost. I'm also perfectly willing to consider the opposite. The fact that lockdowns can't be sustained, as you just said there, is exactly my point, and the longer they go on the more long term damage they will do. But never mind. You're a "boring clown" too, I guess, or whatever you called me in your other post. And please, why not keep ignoring other posts where I said I AGREED with lockdowns being necessary to stop the health service being overwhelmed? Makes you look so intelligent.
> 
> And no, he's not my hero, for the third time.



What’s your point though? (Other than responding to spiney). We’ve had to have these rolling lockdowns because of a particular approach that wanted the economy to be determined by market forces as much as possible. They aren’t a product of a pro-lockdown approach, they’re a consequence of an economic philosophy that avoids government intervention until it’s too late.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Mar 5, 2021)

What's happened about this Brazil variant then and the hunt for the missing positive case? Last I heard they'd narrowed it down to 379  people. Seems to have gone mysteriously quiet


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 5, 2021)

skyscraper101 said:


> What's happened about this Brazil variant then and the hunt for the missing positive case? Last I heard they'd narrowed it down to 379  people. Seems to have gone mysteriously quiet



I assume they found out which boy from Brazil it was and are giving him a cabinet seat


----------



## LDC (Mar 5, 2021)

skyscraper101 said:


> What's happened about this Brazil variant then and the hunt for the missing positive case? Last I heard they'd narrowed it down to 379  people. Seems to have gone mysteriously quiet



Yeah, I asked the same the last few days. Not heard anything.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I asked the same the last few days. Not heard anything.


Assuming the individual hasn't come forward perhaps they are testing and sequencing the full 379 households?


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 5, 2021)

Have to say both of these are very Wales.

*Covid fines for women getting hair dyed in beach car park

Covid: Ghost-hunters stopped in Mumbles due to rule break*









						Covid fines for women getting hair dyed in beach car park
					

South Wales Police hands out 370 fines for Covid breaches after people flock to beauty spots.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				












						Covid: Ghost-hunters stopped in Mumbles due to rule break
					

Four people were stopped and fined for driving to "ghost hunt and view castles".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 5, 2021)

Who the fuck are these shitheads?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Who the fuck are these shitheads?



I had an encounter on Twitter last night with a Kiwi who said he was more concerned about kids wearing masks than the potentially disastrous tsunami NZ had been warned about. Tried to put him straight but he was saying stuff about kids need twice as much oxygen and that C19 only killed a certain %, so I insulted him and blocked him


----------



## thismoment (Mar 5, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I don't know if people are aware of this but you can go and collect packs of lateral flow self test kits from your local testing centre at the moment. It supposed to be for parents of school kids but they don't check or ask you to sing anything or prove who you are. They had loads at the test centre in Central Reading and I could have taken as many as I wanted. Got 2x 7 packs.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you.didn’t know about this. Going to get some


----------



## miss direct (Mar 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Who the fuck are these shitheads?



Never people who work in schools,that's for sure. I'm so glad I won't be there on Monday.


----------



## Cid (Mar 5, 2021)

Since we were on Rishi Sunak, have some light relief:


----------



## weltweit (Mar 5, 2021)

BBC News is saying that the authorities have found the person with the P1 Brazilian Covid-19 infection and they are tracing all their contacts, or may have already traced all their contacts.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 5, 2021)

weltweit said:


> BBC News is saying that the authorities have found the person with the P1 Brazilian Covid-19 infection and they are tracing all their contacts, or may have already traced all their contacts.


That was a close shave!


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 5, 2021)

The dashboard says there will be a delay in publishing today's data.


----------



## kalidarkone (Mar 5, 2021)

Thora said:


> Nowhere to collect tests anywhere near me but I have just ordered some to be delivered.


How did you do that?


----------



## Thora (Mar 5, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> How did you do that?








						Order coronavirus (COVID-19) rapid lateral flow tests
					

How to order coronavirus (COVID-19) rapid lateral flow home test kits.




					www.gov.uk
				



They arrived this morning


----------



## Mattym (Mar 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Who the fuck are these shitheads?




It's the rather unfortunately named...
No Mask Sin Class- dread to think what they get up to.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 5, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> The dashboard says there will be a delay in publishing today's data.



Someone’s locked the excel spreadsheet again


----------



## LDC (Mar 5, 2021)

Briefing covering the process to find the missing person with the P.1 variant.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 5, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> The dashboard says there will be a delay in publishing today's data.



That often happens, last time was just on Wed., when it got updated about 7.15pm


----------



## weltweit (Mar 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Briefing covering the process to find the missing person with the P.1 variant.


Apparently they were in Croydon.


----------



## LDC (Mar 5, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Apparently they were in Croydon.



Poor fuckers, covid _and_ living in Croydon.


----------



## Espresso (Mar 5, 2021)

The Isle of Man is shutting all its schools again, because of a surge in cases.


----------



## Hellsbells (Mar 5, 2021)

Espresso said:


> The Isle of Man is shutting all its schools again, because of a surge in cases.


The Isle of man is in a mess☹️ Schools to key workers also shut


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 5, 2021)

SpineyNorman said:


> You're an idiot. It's pointless even attempting to get through to you.
> 
> Go back to your rishi sunak shrine and never darken these boards again.



I certainly shan't be talking to you again, so have no fear on that. You just don't seem to care about the possible alternatives. Too set in your ways to even acknowledge the possibility. Very sad to see. Idiot.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 5, 2021)

Hellsbells said:


> The Isle of man is in a mess☹ Schools to key workers also shut



Hopefully, this lockdown will bring things back under control.
But today's figures made me wince.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 5, 2021)

Cid said:


> What’s your point though? (Other than responding to spiney). We’ve had to have these rolling lockdowns because of a particular approach that wanted the economy to be determined by market forces as much as possible. They aren’t a product of a pro-lockdown approach, they’re a consequence of an economic philosophy that avoids government intervention until it’s too late.



My point is simply to consider the possibility that lockdowns might, conceivably, cause more damage than they prevent. Like I said to spiney, I'm perfectly willing to keep an open mind that lockdowns may well have saved more lives and prevented more damage than they cause (through poverty, unemployment, and the like), but equally that the opposite might be true, something he seems to be incapable of even considering for a single second. That's all I'm suggesting people do- keep an open mind. I've never said lockdowns weren't necessary and I've never said we should never have had any.

I also don't think you can just wildly blame capitalism or a particular economic philosophy for the failings- after all, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and a few of the other relative success stories share that same philosophy and they have performed pretty well. Equally some countries that favoured strong, early intervention and tough early lockdowns still had big failures and spikes in cases and deaths later- Peru, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Israel. All I'm saying is consider the possibility that lockdowns as a whole, on a global level (not just here in the UK), might cause more long term death, suffering and poverty than they prevent. Equally, they might not, and I certainly hope that will be the case. Only time and a proper cost-benefit analysis will show the reality in the future.


----------



## David Clapson (Mar 5, 2021)

It gets worse. From the Guardian at 6 pm today, up to a million people may need many years of care for long Covid. Apparently 800 or 900 thousand people have had Covid so far, and 10% may get long Covid. 



> Senior doctors are braced for up to a million people needing treatment for long Covid after the pandemic, putting huge extra pressure on an already overstretched NHS, the Guardian can reveal.
> 
> Long Covid is a significant problem affecting huge numbers of patients that will confront the NHS for many years to come, one of the service’s expert advisers on the fast-emerging condition said.
> 
> ...


----------



## SpineyNorman (Mar 5, 2021)

Don't know about anyone else but I've been bored into submission


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 5, 2021)

SpineyNorman said:


> Don't know about anyone else but I've been bored into submission



Spiney ! Taking the piss right there from this new member


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Everything continues to go well, fingers crossed for the next couple weeks, with the schools going back on Monday.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose just over 20.982m & 2nd dose over 963.8k.
> 
> ...



Yesterday's figures were late, but worth waiting for. 

Vaccinations - 1st dose just under 21.36m & 2nd dose over 1m. Should be interesting to see the increase in daily jabs over the coming few weeks, as vaccine supply increases. 

New cases - 5,947, down -34.8% in the last week, and down 2,576 on last Friday's 8,523, bringing the 7-day average down to 6,317. A whopping 992,812 tests were reported, although that figure includes the rapid lateral flow tests, but still bloody impressive. 

New deaths - 236, down -32.9% in the last week, and down 110 on last Friday's 346, bringing the 7-day average down to 240.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 6, 2021)

Slow handclap to mark opposition to the 1% NHS pay rise.









						Public urged to join slow handclap protest against 1% NHS pay rise
					

Unison calls for show of solidarity with health staff over ‘derisory’ offer at 8pm next Thursday




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## tommers (Mar 6, 2021)

That should sort it.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 6, 2021)

tommers said:


> That should sort it.


Could get interesting if the slow clappers are out at the same time as the fast ones. 

I wonder if ANYTHING can make a difference where these slimy Tory bastards are concerned...?


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 6, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Could get interesting if the slow clappers are out at the same time as the fast ones.
> 
> I wonder if ANYTHING can make a difference where these slimy Tory bastards are concerned...?



As for your second point - only the public loss of their "private" and "party" funding, 'cos mammon is their motive, the greedy objects
perhaps a serious outcry of objections, and a well-orchestrated media campaign leading to loss of seats in HoC ...


----------



## LDC (Mar 6, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> My point is simply to consider the possibility that lockdowns might, conceivably, cause more damage than they prevent. Like I said to spiney, I'm perfectly willing to keep an open mind that lockdowns may well have saved more lives and prevented more damage than they cause (through poverty, unemployment, and the like), but equally that the opposite might be true, something he seems to be incapable of even considering for a single second. That's all I'm suggesting people do- keep an open mind. I've never said lockdowns weren't necessary and I've never said we should never have had any.



I'm _very _willing to consider that, but given the modelling of the likely death toll if there had been no lockdown, and the absence of evidence that the lockdowns have caused anywhere near the deaths and damage of that scenario (even extrapolating wildly into the future) it's quite an easy thing to dismiss as currently not a concern, and given the types of people continually going on about it it's reasonable to be skeptical of the motives of someone that repeatedly raises it. If evidence comes up to the contrary then I'd be very willing to change my position.


----------



## Cid (Mar 6, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> My point is simply to consider the possibility that lockdowns might, conceivably, cause more damage than they prevent. Like I said to spiney, I'm perfectly willing to keep an open mind that lockdowns may well have saved more lives and prevented more damage than they cause (through poverty, unemployment, and the like), but equally that the opposite might be true, something he seems to be incapable of even considering for a single second. That's all I'm suggesting people do- keep an open mind. I've never said lockdowns weren't necessary and I've never said we should never have had any.



Again, when we went into lockdown, there was no choice. You cannot have a functioning society when the health service is in collapse. Even leaving aside the astronomical death rate.



> I also don't think you can just wildly blame capitalism or a particular economic philosophy for the failings- after all, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and a few of the other relative success stories share that same philosophy and they have performed pretty well. Equally some countries that favoured strong, early intervention and tough early lockdowns still had big failures and spikes in cases and deaths later- Peru, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Israel. All I'm saying is consider the possibility that lockdowns as a whole, on a global level (not just here in the UK), might cause more long term death, suffering and poverty than they prevent. Equally, they might not, and I certainly hope that will be the case. Only time and a proper cost-benefit analysis will show the reality in the future.



I'm not wildly blaming anything... An emphasis on free-market ideology is a specific thing within capitalism. And it has a specific presentation here (and in much of Europe); it is combined with a sense of national superiority, with high levels of inequality after years of austerity, with cronyism. In contrast the East Asian/Asia Pacific countries - despite often sharing those problems - seem to have had something of a wake-up call related to the SARS pandemic. Their pandemic modelling changed... It became clear that major public health interventions would be the only strategy to prevent the extreme long-term economic and social distress eventually experienced by much of the rest of the world.

In those countries lockdowns were used strategically, they were used to bring levels down before the implementation of strategies that become viable with lower levels of disease - test and trace, regional lockdown etc. Many of them still had to learn difficult lessons; South Korea has had periodic outbreaks, Australia has had to turn to severe local lockdowns, Japan has had difficulties related to nationalism, and related to constitutional limits on the extent of lockdowns. But it has been _nothing_ like its been here... I have friends in SK, NZ, Australia and China. Their quality of life has been far, far better than ours has. And their economies - generally - have performed better.

To sum up... We had no choice but to implement lockdowns. A failure to capitalise on any gains, and a desire to reopen as quickly as possible, with arbitrary targets and schedules, caused us to have to repeat that and use other restrictions. Lockdown is not one thing, it is a tool that can be used in different ways. That was how we used it. If, in the final analysis, it does cause more death, mental health problems etc, then we have to have that in mind.


----------



## hash tag (Mar 6, 2021)

If you need a sarnie, you need a sarnie. Forget public transport









						Covid: Helicopter flew from Salford to Preston for sandwich
					

A councillor says a pilot's 40-mile trip to get a sandwich is a "flagrant abuse" of lockdown rules.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## T & P (Mar 6, 2021)

Could any aviation buffs in here care to guesstimate the fuel cost of an 80-mile round trip on that chopper? It must be a really good fucking sandwich...


----------



## existentialist (Mar 6, 2021)

T & P said:


> Could any aviation buffs in here care to guesstimate the fuel cost of an 80-mile round trip on that chopper? It must be a really good fucking sandwich...


I don't imagine he was paying for the fuel, so from his point of view, the cost is nil.


----------



## T & P (Mar 6, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I don't imagine he was paying for the fuel, so from his point of view, the cost is nil.


Really? Even if it's not his own helicopter and he's just a pilot on someone/ some company's payroll, you would imagine that one couldn't just take an aircraft for an unauthorised stroll like if it was a company van you've used to give your aunt a lift to Ikea of a Sunday afternoon.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 6, 2021)

Bit of an idiot admitting he went for a sandwich though. "I saw this Facebook post where someone was hanging off the side of a cliff and I went to rescue them - the Facebook post has disappeared now though.

I got the sandwich to give to them build up their strength."


----------



## Smangus (Mar 6, 2021)

Got a letter asking if I would take part in the React Covid 19 survey today, duly registered and now await my test! 

_Feels important_


----------



## Cloo (Mar 6, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> It gets worse. From the Guardian at 6 pm today, up to a million people may need many years of care for long Covid. Apparently 800 or 900 thousand people have had Covid so far, and 10% may get long Covid.


My mum spoke to her ME doctor recently who told her 'Long COVID isn't "like" ME, it _is _ME'


----------



## David Clapson (Mar 6, 2021)

There are 250,000+ people in the UK with ME. They get next to no help from the NHS. Add a million to that number and you get a sort of parallel society of people in limbo. What will become of them? Year after year in poverty, in fear of the DWP, who will always be threatening to cut off their benefits.


----------



## LDC (Mar 6, 2021)

Given that ME/CFS is a umbrella diagosis made on the absence of any findings from any tests that means another cause for the symptoms can be found, and for many people with long covid actual damage (hopefully some or all of which will get better) can be shown to have occurred through a variety of tests I'm not sure that's at all true or useful tbh.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yesterday's figures were late, but worth waiting for.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose just under 21.36m & 2nd dose over 1m. Should be interesting to see the increase in daily jabs over the coming few weeks, as vaccine supply increases.
> 
> ...



Yet another cracking day on the figures.   

Vaccinations - 1st dose just under 21.8m & 2nd dose under 1.1m. 

New cases - 6,040, down -34% in the last week, and down 1,394 on last Saturday's 7,434, bringing the 7-day average down to 6,118. 

New deaths - 158, down -34.1% in the last week, and down 132 on last Saturday's 290, bringing the 7-day average down to 221.


----------



## magneze (Mar 6, 2021)

Large areas of London now appear as "suppressed" in the map too. 👍


----------



## Badgers (Mar 6, 2021)

Went into town ealier to get a few essentials and it was fucking heaving with cars and pedestrians.  
Busiest I have seen it all this year  big queues outside shops like Wilko, M&S, Poundland and similar places.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 6, 2021)

What a difference in the SE -


----------



## what (Mar 6, 2021)

Anyone over 56 can now go on the NHS website and book themselves in for a jab.


----------



## thismoment (Mar 6, 2021)

.


----------



## thismoment (Mar 6, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Went into town ealier to get a few essentials and it was fucking heaving with cars and pedestrians.
> Busiest I have seen it all this year  big queues outside shops like Wilko, M&S, Poundland and similar places.


It would so interesting to know what percentage of these people are preparing for school next week, either for their children or if they work in a school and those gallivanting for different reasons


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 6, 2021)

I wonder how many kids will be kept off school for a few days ...

To me, the petri-dish factor of the usual new term at school makes me wonder if staggered returns would have been more manageable.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 6, 2021)

thismoment said:


> It would so interesting to know what percentage of these people are preparing for school next week, either for their children or if they work in a school and those gallivanting for different reasons


Good to know they are in busy shops/queues before sending their kids into schools eh? 

This should not have been an issue for the parents in the first place. It is just pouring petrol on a fire.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 6, 2021)

Local figures have gone down to less than three cases (in the week up to 1st March 2021) so our bit of the map is white again.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm _very _willing to consider that, but given the modelling of the likely death toll if there had been no lockdown, and the absence of evidence that the lockdowns have caused anywhere near the deaths and damage of that scenario (even extrapolating wildly into the future) it's quite an easy thing to dismiss as currently not a concern, and given the types of people continually going on about it it's reasonable to be skeptical of the motives of someone that repeatedly raises it. If evidence comes up to the contrary then I'd be very willing to change my position.



The evidence won't come in for years, though. That's part of the problem and I guess that's why some people are reluctant to consider the possibility, which is understandable. Kudos to you for being willing to consider it though. Given that plenty of places have opened up to differing extents or had limited lockdowns (Sweden, Pakistan, Florida, Japan, etc) and not seen anywhere near the predicated death tolls from certain models, I'd also say it's not as simple as "more lockdowns=always better." It will be interesting to see in the future if anyone actually does a proper study of the whole thing and the differences that have sprung up between different places.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 6, 2021)

Cid said:


> Again, when we went into lockdown, there was no choice.
> 
> I'm not wildly blaming anything... An emphasis on free-market ideology is a specific thing within capitalism. And it has a specific presentation here (and in much of Europe)




Fair points and again as I've said before, I agree that we had little option but to implement the lockdown in the first place and then at Christmas/early January. I'd also definitely agree with you that the reason some of the East Asian countries have done far better is because they had experience with SARS that we didn't here in the west. As to free market ideology, of course it has its drawbacks, and evidently one of those may well be dealing rapidly with a pandemic, though it's certainly not as simple as that and you can't blame a free market ideology for all the failures at various points across the world in responding to this. 

There are a lot more complexities to why different countries have succeeded or failed in certain aspects of the health or economic response (state of healthcare funding and provision, who was in charge, centralised v. localised responses, if border closures were practical, funding or lack of it for furlough-type schemes, pre-existing state of public health, number of ICU beds, reliance of the economy on certain sectors such as tourism, etc), but you're right that certain ideologies can definitely influence things. I'd say that perhaps the initial reluctance from those countries was not necessarily entirely down to their economic ideology, but from a viewpoint of shutting down the entire country being something completely untested before for any other disease. Various countries have shown there are ways of controlling the virus without a total lockdown (either strong test and trace like South Korea, closing borders like New Zealand, or very strong local quarantine measures like China)- unfortunately here in the UK we didn't bother to pursue any of those avenues until it was too late, leaving lockdown as the only alternative. On that we can certainly agree.


----------



## Supine (Mar 6, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> The evidence won't come in for years, though. That's part of the problem and I guess that's why some people are reluctant to consider the possibility, which is understandable. Kudos to you for being willing to consider it though. Given that plenty of places have opened up to differing extents or had limited lockdowns (Sweden, Pakistan, Florida, Japan, etc) and not seen anywhere near the predicated death tolls from certain models, I'd also say it's not as simple as "more lockdowns=always better." It will be interesting to see in the future if anyone actually does a proper study of the whole thing and the differences that have sprung up between different places.



Lockdowns work. Play it smart and you don't need them.


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 7, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Given that ME/CFS is a umbrella diagosis made on the absence of any findings from any tests that means another cause for the symptoms can be found, and for many people with long covid actual damage (hopefully some or all of which will get better) can be shown to have occurred through a variety of tests I'm not sure that's at all true or useful tbh.


There are likely different types of Long Covid so I think it's likely one of the subsets of Long Covid will turn out to be pretty much the same as ME/CFS. But that has its own variants too, so where the overlap comes we won't know until a lot more research is done. I'm pretty annoyed that the UK government has so far announced peanuts for research on this. The US, thankfully, has announced an enormous amount of money for long covid research, which I'm pretty sure will include ME/CFS research to see where they overlap. It's good, but of course research takes 5-10 years to feed through into medical practice so the right time to have put shitloads of money of into post-viral conditions would have been 10 years ago, or preferably fifty years ago when they first realised it was a big problem. Anyway, better late than never I guess.

US funding: $1.1bn US health agency will invest $1 billion to investigate 'long COVID'
UK funding: £18.5m


----------



## Sunray (Mar 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yet another cracking day on the figures.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose just under 21.8m & 2nd dose under 1.1m.
> 
> ...



Excellent.

Wondering, is there a stat showing hospitalisation?   This statistic rising that pushes out the dates of the lockdown easing. Very much getting sick, you deal with it.  Going to hospital or worse, we all have to deal with it.

One to watch from tomorrow.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 7, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Wondering, is there a stat showing hospitalisation?   This statistic rising that pushes out the dates of the lockdown easing. Very much getting sick, you deal with it.  Going to hospital or worse, we all have to deal with it.



The government dashboard only seems to update hospital data once a week, the last date was 2/3/21, patients admitted were around 800 a day for that week, down from the Jan. peak of over 4,000, and back to where we were early Oct.

Patients in hospital down to under 11k, from the peak of almost 40k in Jan., 1,542 on ventilation, compared to the peak of over 4,000.


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The government dashboard only seems to update hospital data once a week, the last date was 2/3/21, patients admitted were around 800 a day for that week, down from the Jan. peak of over 4,000, and back to where we were early Oct.



They update the individual nations data more often than that, but sometimes get behind compared to what is available on individual nations NHS data sources. So the overall UK figure can get quite badly backlogged, but even on the main dashboard the individual nations are not as far behind if you drill down. I'm bored of saying this.

The following is daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for England using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## Sunray (Mar 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The government dashboard only seems to update hospital data once a week, the last date was 2/3/21, patients admitted were around* 800 a day* for that week, down from the Jan. peak of over 4,000, and back to where we were early Oct.
> 
> Patients in hospital down to under 11k, from the peak of almost 40k in Jan., 1,542 on ventilation, compared to the peak of over 4,000.



In a lockdown, still quite a lot of people going to hospital! I wonder where those 800 people are catching it?


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2021)

Well I've always doubted that the following data, which shows hospital admissions/diagnoses for England where the person is listed as living in a care home, is a complete guide to the care home side of hospitalisations, but here it is anyway. Same data source as my previous post.


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2021)

Likewise the following for England, using same data source, is likely failing to capture anything like all of the cases where the person caught it in hospital. But its some guide to the trends on that side of things at least.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 7, 2021)

Sunray said:


> In a lockdown, still quite a lot of people going to hospital! I wonder where those 800 people are catching it?



In their homes mostly, as has always been the case.


----------



## Supine (Mar 7, 2021)

So what are we thinking, another week of drops before the numbers start going up again?


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2021)

Supine said:


> So what are we thinking, another week of drops before the numbers start going up again?



I dont have a prediction. For a number of reasons including:

Things like ZOE already showed a worrying period where numbers flattened off or had a modest rise, with their R estimates above 1 in a number of regions. But that didnt last and things looked better again within a few weeks.

Attitudes towards getting tested may have changed in the vaccination era, and may change again with schools back.

Also the lateral flow tests seem to be part of the main dashboard daily 'number of tests conducted' figures these days, and more of such schemes are coming into effect with businesses and schools participating. So the headline figures we will see in the coming weeks reflect not just changes in the amount of infections, but also in the way we detect and measure such things.



Certainly the authorities have prepared expectations by saying that R will go up quite a bit with schools open, but I intend to resist jumping the gun.


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2021)

With that last graph in mind, one prediction I will make is the government bragging about conducting more than a million tests a day, assuming that moment comes (the last figure on that previous graph was 992,812).

They dont make it that easy to see how many of those tests were lateral flow ones rather than PCR ones, but if I drill down to England only rather than the UK, there is a graph:


----------



## 2hats (Mar 7, 2021)

Supine said:


> So what are we thinking, another week of drops before the numbers start going up again?


Already rising in some areas ("the study has picked up a suggestion that infections are rising again in London, the South East and the Midlands"), and no prizes for guessing which age cohorts the highest prevalences have most recently been seen in.








						Fall in coronavirus infections has slowed in England – REACT study | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

Coronavirus infections continue to fall in England but no longer at the sharp rate seen in early February, according to new data from REACT.




					www.imperial.ac.uk


----------



## purenarcotic (Mar 7, 2021)

It’s always seemed clear to me that they are expecting rises, potentially quite big ones. What it’s felt to me is that they are banking on vaccinations preventing the hospitals from being overwhelmed again and preventing big rises in deaths as those most likely to fall into those are protected. So essentially they don’t care if people get it, as long as they don’t require intervention.


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> It’s always seemed clear to me that they are expecting rises, potentially quite big ones. What it’s felt to me is that they are banking on vaccinations preventing the hospitals from being overwhelmed again and preventing big rises in deaths as those most likely to fall into those are protected. So essentially they don’t care if people get it, as long as they don’t require intervention.



Indeed, and they quite deliberately framed things in that way in some press conferences a few weeks back. All the stuff about shitting ourselves when R is above 1 is gone from the way they seek to frame things going forwards. There are still limits as to how far this can be pushed though, but I dont know if we will come anywhere close to reaching them.


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2021)

2hats said:


> Already rising in some areas ("the study has picked up a suggestion that infections are rising again in London, the South East and the Midlands"), and no prizes for guessing which age cohorts the highest prevalences have most recently been seen in.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Although I think its worth noting that the picture shown by that study is likely covering the same time period where ZOE picked up these changes and I went on about them a bit. Things have moved on again since then, and there is currently no straightforward national or regional trends story that I am confident to tell. Other than things not dropping at the impressive rates seen for a good while after the peak.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Although I think its worth noting that the picture shown by that study is likely covering the same time period where ZOE picked up these changes and I went on about them a bit.


Round 9a was sampled 4-12 February, round 9b sampled 13-23 February.


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2021)

2hats said:


> Round 9a was sampled 4-12 February, round 9b sampled 13-23 February.



Yeah thats a match then, since I recall it was around Feb 19th that I commented on ZOE showing some tentative worrying signs, and their stuff doesnt have as much lag as most other surveillance methods. Things have since gone back to dropping in their analysis, albeit not at impressive rates.


----------



## elbows (Mar 7, 2021)

I cant be posting all of their per-region analysis but hopefully these two will provide suitable illustration for the points we've been discussing.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 7, 2021)

Just as these things go up exponentially, the reverse is also true, so will have diminishing reductions as fewer people get sick fewer people can get infected.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yet another cracking day on the figures.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose just under 21.8m & 2nd dose under 1.1m.
> 
> ...



They have finally updated figures for today.

Vaccinations - 1st dose 22,213,112  & 2nd dose 1,122,402.

New cases - 5,177, down -31.3% in the last week, and down 858 on last Sunday's 6,034, bringing the 7-day average down to 5,995.

New deaths - 82, down -34.8% in the last week, and down 62 on last Sunday's 144, bringing the 7-day average down to 211.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 8, 2021)

No deaths reported in Wales today! 
Know it's usually less on a Monday but still great to see a 0


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 8, 2021)

Heads up, there's a  *Downing Street Covid press conference at 4pm today.









						Boris Johnson to give Downing Street Covid press conference at 4pm today
					

The Prime Minister is expected to talk about the return of schools though he could also be asked about explosive allegations from Meghan Markle




					www.mirror.co.uk
				



*


----------



## BCBlues (Mar 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Heads up, there's a  *Downing Street Covid press conference at 4pm today.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Any chance he'll be explaining the disgraceful hypocrisy surrounding the NHS pay offer?


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 8, 2021)

BCBlues said:


> Any chance he'll be explaining the disgraceful hypocrisy surrounding the NHS pay offer?



No, the Harry & Megan stuff is far more important.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They have finally updated figures for today.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose 22,213,112  & 2nd dose 1,122,402.
> 
> ...



Today - (usual low numbers, due to the weekend)

Vaccinations - 1st dose 22,377,255  & 2nd dose 1,142,643.

New cases - 4,712, down -26.2% in the last week, and down 743 on last Monday's 5,455, bringing the 7-day average down to 5,889.

New deaths - 65, down -34.5% in the last week, and down 39 on last Monday's 104, bringing the 7-day average down to 206.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today - (usual low numbers, due to the weekend)
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose 22,377,255  & 2nd dose 1,142,643.
> 
> ...



I know its a Monday and I know 65 is still a lot of people but just to see that number down to double digits is such a pleasing thing.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 8, 2021)

Zero deaths in Wales.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 8, 2021)

65 is still too many, but that decrease is very welcome. As is the increasing number of "white" areas on the dashboard map when zoomed into the MSOA levels.

I shall be watching the cases (numbers, rates and areas) with some detailed attention for the rest of the month.

I am wanting to arrange for some work to be done "on site" involving a long travel distance and possibly two weeks staying in the local hotel ...


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 8, 2021)

let's hope the blanks stay blank in three weeks.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 9, 2021)

> PM asked again on road map. Vaccine programme's acceleration is "fantastic and very successful" "but don't forget there is a big budget of risk involved in re-opening schools"



I missed (avoided the cunt liar) yesterday but if accurate that seems a bit of an admission. Taking a 'big budget of risk' at this time seems madness 

Totally understand the need to get schools open ASAP for all kids and parents sanity. However we are really getting past the worst and hanging on a few more weeks till after Easter would have really made the final downturn stick harder.

Will be a couple of weeks or a month till we know the impact and hopefully the 'roadmap' will not be impacted.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 9, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I missed (avoided the cunt liar) yesterday but if accurate that seems a bit of an admission. Taking a 'big budget of risk' at this time seems madness
> 
> Totally understand the need to get schools open ASAP for all kids and parents sanity. However we are really getting past the worst and hanging a few more weeks till after Easter would have really made the final downturn stick harder.
> 
> Will be a couple of weeks or a month till we know the impact and hopefully the 'roadmap' will not be impacted.



I think he's talking to the factions in his own party that have been agitating to speed up the process of unlocking, also to his mates and financial backers in the business world.  Its like when a few weeks ago he kept using the word irreversible which raised quite a few eyebrows here but the messaging wasn't directed at us.

The _big budget of risk_ message is for anti-lockdown or at least faster unlockening people and the _schools are safe, children are safe and teachers are no more at risk than any other profession _message is for the rest of us.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 9, 2021)

This is useful for some:. 

Schools and colleges testing: Order coronavirus (COVID-19) rapid lateral flow home test kits 



> Use this service to order free rapid lateral flow test kits to be sent to your home in England.
> 
> You can order kits to test your household, childcare bubble or support bubble if at least one member:
> 
> ...


----------



## Badgers (Mar 9, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I think he's talking to the factions in his own party that have been agitating to speed up the process of unlocking, also to his mates and financial backers in the business world.  Its like when a few weeks ago he kept using the word irreversible which raised quite a few eyebrows here but the messaging wasn't directed at us.
> 
> The _big budget of risk_ message is for anti-lockdown or at least faster unlockening people and the _schools are safe, children are safe and teachers are no more at risk than any other profession _message is for the rest of us.


I kinda got that, but he should be speaking to the public not his 'factions' who are only interested in themselves and their chums business interests.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I kinda got that, but he should be speaking to the public not his 'factions' who are only interested in themselves and their chums business interests.



I also think there's an element of the 'big budget of risk' aimed at the public intended to get people to stick to the rules for a little longer, whilst also not shitting-up parents. 

Not that I want to defend the twat, but it's a difficult balancing act, isn't?


----------



## Badgers (Mar 9, 2021)

The £37bn 'track and trace' system has crashed 'due to the school's reopening' 

Here is the backup:


----------



## existentialist (Mar 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I also think there's an element of the 'big budget of risk' aimed at the public intended to get people to stick to the rules for a little longer, whilst also not shitting-up parents.
> 
> Not that I want to defend the twat, but it's a difficult balancing act, isn't?


It is a difficult balancing act, yes. And no less so thanks to the farrago of errors that has been his response over the last 12 months.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I also think there's an element of the 'big budget of risk' aimed at the public intended to get people to stick to the rules for a little longer, whilst also not shitting-up parents.
> 
> Not that I want to defend the twat, but it's a difficult balancing act, isn't?


They fucked it up and are trying to bail themselves out.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2021)

This is good news, let's hope it turns out the Oxford/AZ one works as well against these variants.



> The Pfizer vaccine is able to neutralise the highly contagious Brazilian P.1 variant, a study has found.
> 
> Blood from people who had received the Pfizer/BioNTech jab was effective against a version of the virus engineered to carry the same mutations as P.1, according to research published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
> 
> ...











						EU and UK clash over 'vaccine export ban' as post-Brexit tensions deepen
					

Downing Street has accused EU chief Charles Michel of spreading falsehoods after he claimed the UK imposed an "outright ban" on coronavirus vaccine exports.




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Mar 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is good news, let's hope it turns out the Oxford/AZ one works as well against these variants.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's very welcome news. I'm just really concerned that every bit of encouraging vaccine news is liable to be taken - by government and some individuals - as licence to be reckless, potentially negating much of the advantage that the vaccines offer.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 9, 2021)

Badgers said:


> The £37bn 'track and trace' system has crashed 'due to the school's reopening'
> 
> Here is the backup:
> 
> View attachment 257959


I'm shocked

I didn't think they had a backup


----------



## killer b (Mar 9, 2021)

absolutely savage piece in The Times today



			https://archive.vn/icVku


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2021)

killer b said:


> absolutely savage piece in The Times today
> 
> 
> 
> https://archive.vn/icVku



There's nothing it that, that I hadn't read before, but it was good to see all the bits brought together in one article, thanks for posting it.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 9, 2021)

killer b said:


> absolutely savage piece in The Times today
> 
> 
> 
> https://archive.vn/icVku



Yes it is.  A decent timeline into the decision making and the motivations behind it.


----------



## ddraig (Mar 9, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Zero deaths in Wales.


4 posts above


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 9, 2021)

killer b said:


> absolutely savage piece in The Times today
> 
> 
> 
> https://archive.vn/icVku




I hadn't seen that before.
'kin'ell !!!
I knew that the situation had been mishandled, with extreme levels of mis-management.
But that piece puts the situation under some very strong lighting, which shows up the faults most starkly.
My reading of that makes me wish BJ, Sunnak and several others could be charged with the equivalent of corporate manslaughter by government cock-up.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 9, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I hadn't seen that before.
> 'kin'ell !!!
> I knew that the situation had been mishandled, with extreme levels of mis-management.
> But that piece puts the situation under some very strong lighting, which shows up the faults most starkly.
> My reading of that makes me wish BJ, Sunnak and several others could be charged with the equivalent of corporate manslaughter by government cock-up.


They fucking should be. One of the most piss-boiling aspects about this whole thing is the complete and total lack of any kind of accountability.


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2021)

I do not want to spend much time in the coming months going on about future risks and expectations. So I'm hoping that this post, where I quote a bunch of stuff WHitty said to a committee, via the BBC live updates page, will be the last time for a while that I dwell on this stuff.



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56330945
		




> Prof Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, tells the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee that all the modelling shows there will be another surge of the virus despite the vaccination programme.
> 
> He says while the vaccines are very good, they are not 100% effective, meaning that some people will remain vulnerable and could still die.
> 
> "What we are going to see is as things open up, what all the modelling suggests is that at some point we will get another surge of the virus and whether that happens, we hope it doesn't happen soon, it might for example happen later in the summer as we open up or if there is a seasonal effect it might happen later in autumn or in the winter, there will be a further surge and that will find the people who have either not been vaccinated or where the vaccine has not worked and some of them will end up in hospital and some of them will sadly go on to die," he says. "That is the reality of where we are."





> "Things can go bad very quickly," England's chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty warns the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee.
> 
> "A lot of people may think it's all over but I would encourage them to look at continental Europe right now," he says.
> 
> ...





> Asked about whether it is possible to shorten the gaps between the stages of unlocking in the government's lockdown roadmap Prof Chris Whitty says it is unlikely.
> 
> "It is highly doubtful that we are going to be in a position where we say the data looks so fantastically better please take more risks here," England's chief medical officer says.
> 
> ...



I have often been critical of the way Whitty has dodged questions about government failures by going on about balance, but I do recognise that there is some legitimate territory for the question of balance to be explored.



> Answering questions from MPs this morning, and asked about how the government should balancing risks during the pandemic Prof Chris Whitty says "there are going to be deaths from this" and it is not worth considering a zero deaths scenario in policy-making.
> 
> He compares coronavirus to flu, saying there have been very few deaths this year due to Covid measures. But he says it is a decision for society via government to determine what is an acceptable level of deaths. Lockdown measures like those at the moment are not normally taken for influenza - but people die from it every year.
> 
> Whitty says it is a "difficult calculation" as there are also health risks from lockdowns so there are "risks and benefits on both sides of the equation".



edit - oh I see they turned it into an article: Covid-19: Don't think pandemic is over, Whitty warns


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2021)

From the 'protect the NHS, die at home' medical care rationing department:



> The study, in BMJ Health and Care Informatics, used 50 simulated cases to compare online checkers used during the pandemic from four countries - UK, US, Japan and Singapore.
> 
> It found the symptom checkers used by the UK and US were half as likely to advise people to consult a doctor as the systems used in Japan and Singapore.
> 
> ...











						Covid online symptom checker 'may delay treatment'
					

A study suggests the NHS online Covid service tells some seriously-ill people to stay at home.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2021)

On this day a year ago we were treated to one of the terrible press conferences where their doomed strategy was laid out. A strategy that was dead by the following weekend.

I spent too long ranting about this period in the months that followed to do a full review a year later, but I will do brief ones on key days.

Paraphrased quotes from the March 9th 2020 press conference, where the podiums were close together and the press were present in the flesh, included:

"push the peak into summer"

"not just what you do, but when you do it"

"fatigue risk if we go too early"

"dont do things with no sound medical reason, or counterproductive things"

"mass gatherings dont make much difference"

"increase slowly but then really quite fast, have to catch it before the upswing begins"

"act too early, no effect, eg self-isolation with sniffles is too early. Thats why we look different to other countries, different stages or different characteristics"

"regarding other countries measures: be in no doubt we are considering all of them in due time, they may become necessary, but timing is crucial"

"do stuff based on where we are with the epidemic, not reaction mode"

"cannot suppress it completely, shouldnt try to or it will pop up again later in the year when the NHS is vulnerable in winter"


----------



## existentialist (Mar 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> On this day a year ago we were treated to one of the terrible press conferences where their doomed strategy was laid out. A strategy that was dead by the following weekend.
> 
> I spent too long ranting about this period in the months that followed to do a full review a year later, but I will do brief ones on key days.
> 
> ...


I did wonder if an "on this day in 2020" Covid thread might be a useful addition...


----------



## elbows (Mar 9, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I did wonder if an "on this day in 2020" Covid thread might be a useful addition...



I thought about it but there are only going to be a couple of further occasions which I will mark in this way, and I'm trying to minimise the amount of time I spend on this. So I decided against it otherwise I will feel the temptation to make it comprehensive and I just dont have it in me to do that.


----------



## souljacker (Mar 9, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I did wonder if an "on this day in 2020" Covid thread might be a useful addition...



There is a twitter feed I follow called @YearCovid that tweets last years news that does this. Todays tweet was:


----------



## weepiper (Mar 9, 2021)

Some minor but personally significant (it means group cycling is back) lockdown easing announced for Scotland today.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today - (usual low numbers, due to the weekend)
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose 22,377,255  & 2nd dose 1,142,643.
> 
> ...



Today, good to see the 7-day average for deaths finally drop below 200.   

Vaccinations - 1st dose 22,592,528 & 2nd dose 1,181,431.

New cases - 5,766, down -24.5% in the last week, and down 625 on last Tuesday's 6.391, bringing the 7-day average down to 5,800.

New deaths - 231, down -33.2% in the last week, and down 112 on last Tuesday's 343, bringing the 7-day average down to 190.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 9, 2021)

Is it me or we not really seeing that massive glut of vaccinations yet that was being touted for March?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Is it me or we not really seeing that massive glut of vaccinations yet that was being touted for March?



They said 'during March', reported data is only up to the 8th, my SiL has been told to expect available jabbing shifts at her vaccination centre to start increasing from about now, and be doubled before the month ends.


----------



## LDC (Mar 9, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Is it me or we not really seeing that massive glut of vaccinations yet that was being touted for March?



It's coming, supplies of AZ are good, and more Pfizer is coming soon.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Mar 9, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's coming, supplies of AZ are good, and more Pfizer is coming soon.



Wasn't the Moderna one slated for March as well? Haven't heard much about that recently but presumably they will be available at some point.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 9, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Wasn't the Moderna one slated for March as well? Haven't heard much about that recently but presumably they will be available at some point.



All the reports I've seen about the Moderna one, mentions 'in the spring', which could be from March, but equally could be April or even May.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 9, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Wasn't the Moderna one slated for March as well? Haven't heard much about that recently but presumably they will be available at some point.



I was looking for delivery dates but couldn't find any.  I believe they have redacted when they are being delivered for what I can only assume is security reasons.

The last time dates were available we were expecting the Moderna at the beginning of April. Was it 15 Million we ordered? Those are super expensive too $38 each.  Maybe the delivery has been brought forward? Number and dates are all shrouded in mystery now.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 9, 2021)

aaaaargh  









						Vitamin D supplements may offer no Covid benefits, data suggests
					

Two studies fail to find evidence to support claims supplements protect against coronavirus




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Mar 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today, good to see the 7-day average for deaths finally drop below 200.
> ...


the "terrible" daily death figure SAGE was worried about back in september  ☹


two sheds said:


> aaaaargh
> 
> 
> 
> ...


they still have other positive effects though


----------



## Sunray (Mar 9, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> the "terrible" daily death figure SAGE was worried about back in september  ☹
> they still have other positive effects though



Multiple sclerosis is more prevalent the further north you live?  If you live in more tropical areas, where you get more sun, you are less likely to get MS.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 10, 2021)

The three local Lateral Flow testing centres have had one single person turn up to be tested today. They only opened at 8am but as a guide they were testing approx 2000 people per day a month ago. The largest football period had been 8-9am 

Hopefully that means the virus is over 🤔


----------



## Mation (Mar 10, 2021)

two sheds said:


> aaaaargh
> 
> 
> 
> ...


'Analyses were restricted to people of European descent wherever possible.' That's the database mining study. I didn't look at the other one.

They do this so not have confounding factors such as different effects for people with darker skin compared to lighter skin. But I do wish they wouldn't have these headlines that imply the study applies to everyone.

There's no evidence that vitamin D helps with covid outcomes in white people, and we don't know at all about people of colour, as no one has studied it. (I don't think.)


----------



## kabbes (Mar 10, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Multiple sclerosis is more prevalent the further north you live?  If you live in more tropical areas, where you get more sun, you are less likely to get MS.
> 
> View attachment 258064


A piece of correlation that in itself means little.  For example, northern countries are richer and more likely to be able to diagnose MS.  There are good reasons to think that vitamin D intake is related to MS prevalence but a context-free correlation study is not it.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 10, 2021)

Should point out that vitamin D has long been known to play a significant role in T cell activity, which in turn has bearing on outcomes of moderate to severe COVID-19.
DOI: 10.1038/ni.1851.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 10, 2021)

Some odd choices in the banding of numbers in that MS chart too.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 10, 2021)

I'm operating on the premise that 25 micrograms of D3 isn't going to do me any harm, so if there is a potential benefit, I might as well go for it. Same basis on which I'll have the vaccine.


----------



## Doodler (Mar 10, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm operating on the premise that 25 micrograms of D3 isn't going to do me any harm, so if there is a potential benefit, I might as well go for it. Same basis on which I'll have the vaccine.



Yes, if you hadn't been taking any supplements and then became badly ill with Covid you might be kicking yourself for lack of foresight.


----------



## Mation (Mar 10, 2021)

2hats said:


> Should point out that vitamin D has long been known to play a significant role in T cell activity, which in turn has bearing on outcomes of moderate to severe COVID-19.
> DOI: 10.1038/ni.1851.


Yes, I should have said no evidence found in that specific study.


----------



## Supine (Mar 10, 2021)

I'm working on the assumption that a lack of evidence doesn't indicate a lack of affect. 

What is known is vit D helps the immune response and people in northern climates don't get enough sun. So I've been taking it for the last year


----------



## two sheds (Mar 10, 2021)

And as has been said you need high doses to cause damage: 









						Vitamin D: Side effects and risks
					

Vitamin D has many important functions. The body produces it after exposure to sunlight, but in winter months or areas with less sunshine, many people choose to take supplements. Taking too much vitamin D can lead to negative side effects, including brittle bones and dehydration. Learn more here.




					www.medicalnewstoday.com
				




But they can cause problems for some medical conditions.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 10, 2021)

Below are the only areas currently seeing increases in cases, based on the government dashboard figures & up to 5th March.

Thankfully they are all fairly low numbers, and could just be a blip, like we had in Worthing a 2-3 weeks ago, that had us increasing 63% at point, which soon dropped off and is down -57% in the last 7 days, and we are now back below the national average again.


----------



## zahir (Mar 10, 2021)




----------



## crossthebreeze (Mar 10, 2021)

Badgers said:


> The three local Lateral Flow testing centres have had one single person turn up to be tested today. They only opened at 8am but as a guide they were testing approx 2000 people per day a month ago. The largest football period had been 8-9am
> 
> Hopefully that means the virus is over 🤔


Well household/bubble members of kids/ workers in schools and colleges can pick up or be sent lateral flow tests for home, a much greater number of larger workplaces have them now, so numbers at actual testing centres might be down even if more people are testing. Are they for keyworkers and other people who can't work from home or for the wider community?

I've been using a keyworker (actually open to anyone who can't work from home) testing centre, and it's generally incredibly quiet except 8-9am when there's a queue mostly of men in high viz. They've only been open to non-council employees for a few weeks, and from conversations I've had with colleagues, neighbours,and friends on facebook - none of whom are covid deniers or anything - take-up must be quite low.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 10, 2021)

I haven't seen the gazebo / transit (minibus) that comprised our local "testing centre" for some (three ?) weeks.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 10, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I haven't seen the gazebo / transit (minibus) that comprised our local "testing centre" for some (three ?) weeks.



Splits its time between this and being a fish & chips van?


----------



## crossthebreeze (Mar 10, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I haven't seen the gazebo / transit (minibus) that comprised our local "testing centre" for some (three ?) weeks.


If it's asymptomatic testing, there's now several strands - community testing set up by nhs and army to target outbreaks in specific areas for specific periods, but now also "keyworker" testing organised by local councils is being rolled out, workplaces of more than 50 employees can apply for tests, care homes of any size also get them, then school and college students and staff and their households and support bubbles can order or pick up some for home. So hopefully it was the former and it disappearing means numbers have gone down in your area? Your council website should have info about the other testing strands.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 10, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> workplaces of more than 50 employees can apply for tests



It's no longer restricted to more than 50 employees, all workplaces can apply, as of this week.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 10, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> If it's asymptomatic testing, there's now several strands - community testing set up by nhs and army to target outbreaks in specific areas for specific periods, but now also "keyworker" testing organised by local councils is being rolled out, workplaces of more than 50 employees can apply for tests, care homes of any size also get them, then school and college students and staff and their households and support bubbles can order or pick up some for home. So hopefully it was the former and it disappearing means numbers have gone down in your area? Your council website should have info about the other testing strands.



It arrived when we were having a surge of infections late October / November 2020.
Currently, we are back to "0-2 cases" after a short "blip" a couple of weeks ago.
Hopefully. it will stay that way, despite the schools going back ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today, good to see the 7-day average for deaths finally drop below 200.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose 22,592,528 & 2nd dose 1,181,431.
> 
> ...



Today, decreases in new cases are slowing down again, but decreases in deaths are still looking good. 

Vaccinations - 1st dose 22,809,829 & 2nd dose 1,254,353.

New cases - 5,926, down -20.1% in the last week, and down 625 on last Wednesday's 6,385, bringing the 7-day average down to 5,733.

New deaths - 190, down -35.4% in the last week, and down 125 on last Wednesday's 315, bringing the 7-day average down to 172.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Mar 10, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> It arrived when we were having a surge of infections late October / November 2020.
> Currently, we are back to "0-2 cases" after a short "blip" a couple of weeks ago.
> Hopefully. it will stay that way, despite the schools going back ...


Fantastic news!


----------



## souljacker (Mar 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today, decreases in new cases are slowing down again, but decreases in deaths are still looking good.



Possibly not surprising when you look at the amount of tests being done (presumably on school kids and families/carers etc). Almost 1.5 million tests yesterday according to the graph.


----------



## mr steev (Mar 10, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> If it's asymptomatic testing, there's now several strands - community testing set up by nhs and army to target outbreaks in specific areas for specific periods, but now also "keyworker" testing organised by local councils is being rolled out, workplaces of more than 50 employees can apply for tests, care homes of any size also get them, then school and college students and staff and their households and support bubbles can order or pick up some for home. So hopefully it was the former and it disappearing means numbers have gone down in your area? Your council website should have info about the other testing strands.



I think it depends on your area. Round here there are lots of walk in testing centers for people without symptoms, with no appointment needed, a few drive throughs, which you need to make an appointment, but don't need to be refered. Then a few that are for people with symptoms. There's nothing different for key workers (all my NHS friends have home tests). My daughter got tested at school on Monday. Apparently they've turned the gym into a massive testing center for all staff and pupils and there has been no mention  of home tests so presumably they are doing them all on site


----------



## brogdale (Mar 10, 2021)

My old Mum had her Pfizer 2 today and rung me to ask if there's a time period before she reaches 'full immunity' or whether she can just go down the shops tomorrow>
Anyone know?


----------



## belboid (Mar 10, 2021)

12 days (assuming you believe the neoliberal consolidator state, of course )


----------



## Supine (Mar 10, 2021)

brogdale said:


> My old Mum had her Pfizer 2 today and rung me to ask if there's a time period before she reaches 'full immunity' or whether she can just go down the shops tomorrow>
> Anyone know?



A few weeks still. And remind her vaccines are effective but 'full immunity' is not 100% so she still needs to follow the rules.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 10, 2021)

brogdale said:


> My old Mum had her Pfizer 2 today and rung me to ask if there's a time period before she reaches 'full immunity' or whether she can just go down the shops tomorrow>
> Anyone know?


Yes there is a time period. Said time period will vary widely from person to person (prior medical history, immune system function, age, etc). But 'full' immunity for a given person could be relatively low immunity. You wouldn't know without either a full serological investigation or exposing yourself in a DIY challenge study (not to be recommended). Either way I would give my immune system at least 3 weeks to respond (assuming it responds at all).


----------



## two sheds (Mar 10, 2021)

And still worth wearing a mask and taking normal precautions (hand-washing when back for example) I'd have thought?


----------



## 2hats (Mar 10, 2021)

All NPIs should be maintained for the time being.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 10, 2021)

Just got an invite for a vaccination, I'm 52 and in sunny SE London if anyone is interested as to where they are up to.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Mar 10, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Just got an invite for a vaccination, I'm 52 and in sunny SE London if anyone is interested as to where they are up to.


My 55-year-old housemate just had his first jab last week (we're in Tottenham), so they seem to be working their way through the population quite fast.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Is it me or we not really seeing that massive glut of vaccinations yet that was being touted for March?











						UK has up to 10 million extra Covid jabs, as surge in supply means NHS can ramp up second doses
					

Wales's First Minister said a 'dip' in vaccination numbers has now come to an end with greater supplies available across Britain




					inews.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> UK has up to 10 million extra Covid jabs, as surge in supply means NHS can ramp up second doses
> 
> 
> Wales's First Minister said a 'dip' in vaccination numbers has now come to an end with greater supplies available across Britain
> ...



This fits in with what my SiL has been told, which is their vaccination centre will be doubling the available shifts over the coming days. They recruited & trained a lot of jabbers that have mostly only been doing 2 or 3 shifts a week since that centre opened about 4 weeks ago.


----------



## danny la rouge (Mar 11, 2021)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today, decreases in new cases are slowing down again, but decreases in deaths are still looking good.
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose 22,809,829 & 2nd dose 1,254,353.
> 
> ...



Not great news today -

Vaccinations - 1st dose 23,053,716  & 2nd dose 1,351,515 - total jabs yesterday was only around 341k, just 244k extra first doses, but 97k 2nd doses is the highest daily figure so far. The promise is that we should start seeing big increases over the coming days, so fingers crossed.  

New cases - 6,753, that's actually up 181 on last Thursday's 6,572, meaning new cases down only -13.8.1% in the last week. However the number of tests reported is a record high of 1,554,080, well up on the almost 993k last Thursday, so just 181 extra new cases sounds very positive TBH. It's just going to be a waiting game to see how it goes now the schools have returned, again fingers cross.

New deaths - 181, down -35.9% in the last week, and down 61 on last Thursday's 242, bringing the 7-day average down to 163.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not great news today -
> 
> Vaccinations - 1st dose 23,053,716  & 2nd dose 1,351,515 - total jabs yesterday was only around 341k, just 244k extra first doses, but 97k 2nd doses is the highest daily figure so far. The promise is that we should start seeing big increases over the coming days, so fingers crossed.
> 
> ...



Are the raid tests being performed in schools etc right now included in this or just PCR ones?


----------



## maomao (Mar 11, 2021)

I have a box of home tests that I'm supposed to give myself weekly as I work in a school. Would it not have been cheaper just to vaccinate teachers? 🤷


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 11, 2021)

maomao said:


> I have a box of home tests that I'm supposed to give myself weekly as I work in a school. Would it not have been cheaper just to vaccinate teachers? 🤷



I think those tests were brought in mammoth amounts before their reliability was fully understood.  Basically the government has shit loads of them lying around and they are looking for uses for them.  The money has already been spent.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 11, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Are the raid tests being performed in schools etc right now included in this or just PCR ones?



They must be counting the lateral flow tests. No way that number would jump so quickly otherwise. I'd have thought.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2021)

Yes it includes lateral flow tests. See this post from me on Sunday and the one I posted after it:            #35,122


----------



## LDC (Mar 11, 2021)

maomao said:


> I have a box of home tests that I'm supposed to give myself weekly as I work in a school. Would it not have been cheaper just to vaccinate teachers? 🤷



It's not an either/or though, even if vaccinated testing would still be worthwhile.


----------



## maomao (Mar 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's not an either/or though, even if vaccinated testing would still be worthwhile.


We were told not to use them within a certain amount of weeks (I forget) of vaccination so there is a bit either/or. Though if they'd bought them already...


----------



## teuchter (Mar 11, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I think those tests were brought in mammoth amounts before their reliability was fully understood.  Basically the government has shit loads of them lying around and they are looking for uses for them.  The money has already been spent.


Seems like the sort of thing that could be offered to other countries?


----------



## LDC (Mar 11, 2021)

maomao said:


> We were told not to use them within a certain amount of weeks (I forget) of vaccination so there is a bit either/or. Though if they'd bought them already...



Funnily enough that came up today at work, whether being vaccinated might mess with lateral flow test results, but the answer was the opposite; test as normal.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 11, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Are the raid tests being performed in schools etc right now included in this or just PCR ones?


The dashboard says that lateral flow tests are included.
By the recent - in last few days - rapid jump, I would say that's the result of testing ref schools.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 11, 2021)

As elbows said above, yes the lateral flow tests are now included in the total figure, hence that figure hitting over 1.5m yesterday, over double the capacity for daily PCR tests, and I can't see how we will be able to work out what percentage of new cases over the coming weeks is down to increased testing.

Some local private school here, for pupils up to 8 years old, re-opened on Monday, 2 kids tested positive that day, now it & the associated nursey has closed, because a total of 15 children and 13 staff have now tested positive, without the lateral flow tests that may have not shown up so quickly.

Local councils are on the case for contact tracing, so hopefully they can put a lid on that outbreak.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 11, 2021)

2hats said:


> Sequencing right now is running at 25% of all (recorded) cases. At the time of the appearance of these particular cases it was just under 20%; the rate is going up because positive test numbers have been dropping. So one wouldn't be surprised if there are another 20+ cases out there (though of course, recorded cases < actual cases).


Quelle surprise.








						Covid: Four more cases of Brazil variant found in England
					

Three cases of the P.1 variant are in South Gloucestershire and the fourth is in Bradford, West Yorkshire.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## iona (Mar 11, 2021)

maomao said:


> I have a box of home tests that I'm supposed to give myself weekly as I work in a school.


I have to do twice weekly tests and I'm only at college one morning a week


----------



## hash tag (Mar 11, 2021)

Mrs tag and I have a soft spot for the Cartoon Museum and were concerned for its future, then we learn this ‘Ray of light’ Cartoon Museum employee, 39, dies with Covid

Rip Alison


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> As elbows said above, yes the lateral flow tests are now included in the total figure, hence that figure hitting over 1.5m yesterday, over double the capacity for daily PCR tests, and I can't see how we will be able to work out what percentage of new cases over the coming weeks is down to increased testing.



There are a few things we can do. We can pay attention to the weekly surveillance reports where all sorts of data is presented in terms of percentage positives, a form of data which helps compensate for variations in amount of testing. We can pay attention to ZOE Covid data. We can pay attention to the population survey forms of testing which provides a delayed but useful sense of the picture which is not goig to be buffeted around by changes to test availability and peoples willingness to get tested etc etc. 

And there are also some things people interested in the daily dashboard data can do. The inclusion of lateral flow tests only applies to England. Drill down to England in the dashboard and additional forms of data are available. Including results by type of test for England, although aspects of this are currently confusing to me in terms of how they change the data from unconfirmed to confirmed. I've only just looked at this particular section so I havent given it much thought yet, but for example this is the sort of data and explanation available:


----------



## Sunray (Mar 11, 2021)

16 weeks and it will be everyone over 18. Most of the at-risk groups will have had at least one before the end of April, just 8 weeks....

8 Weeks.....


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 11, 2021)

Sunray said:


> 16 weeks and it will be everyone over 18. Most of the at-risk groups will have had at least one before the end of April, just 8 weeks....
> 
> 8 Weeks.....


You'll miss it when it's gone


----------



## purenarcotic (Mar 11, 2021)

maomao said:


> I have a box of home tests that I'm supposed to give myself weekly as I work in a school. Would it not have been cheaper just to vaccinate teachers? 🤷



We don’t yet fully know whether the vaccine prevents transmission. It seems to prevent it a bit, but not totally. So yes, you should have been vaccinated but you should test too.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> There are a few things we can do. We can pay attention to the weekly surveillance reports where all sorts of data is presented in terms of percentage positives, a form of data which helps compensate for variations in amount of testing.



Just one example of a useful chart in the weekly surveillance report:


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...968513/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w10.pdf


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> Just one example of a useful chart in the weekly surveillance report:
> 
> View attachment 258333
> From https://assets.publishing.service.g...968513/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w10.pdf


It would be a better chart with a different choice if colours


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> It would be a better chart with a different choice if colours



A lot of their charts are ugly and hard to discerne detail from. If we end up at a point where a clearer view of the data is required because a situation is developing, I will try to make my own out of their underlying data.


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2021)

Please note that I am not a parent and I dont have lawyer friends.









						'Pointy-elbow' parents emailing teachers to boost exam grades
					

Head teachers warn of pushy parents lobbying for higher GCSE and A-level grades in cancelled exams.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Richard Sheriff, president of the ASCL heads' union, warned of parents with "pointy elbows and lawyer friends".
> 
> He suggested it was particularly schools in affluent areas where parents would try to sway teachers.
> 
> ...


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> Please note that I am not a parent and I dont have lawyer friends.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Both those things can, with some effort on your part, be remedied


----------



## elbows (Mar 11, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Both those things can, with some effort on your part, be remedied



Both seem incompatible with the pointy nature of my elbows, or at least the direction I seem to have pointed them in for as long as I can remember. It is unlikely I will be helping the birthrate to recover from this pandemic.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 12, 2021)

I see there have been some blood clotting events with the AstraZeneca vaccine. 30 in 5 million doses. Most of Europe has stopped using it. 
What’s strange, there have been over 1100 deaths after using the Pfizer vaccine, Europe correctly did nothing. Not sure why such a knee jerk reaction on the AZ vaccine. Are they determined to devalue it?


----------



## kabbes (Mar 12, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I see there have been some blood clotting events with the AstraZeneca vaccine. 30 in 5 million doses. Most of Europe has stopped using it.
> What’s strange, there have been over 1100 deaths after using the Pfizer vaccine, Europe correctly did nothing. Not sure why such a knee jerk reaction on the AZ vaccine. Are they determined to devalue it?


I wonder what the control rate of blood clots would be.  5 in 30 million sounds, if anything, like fewer than I might expect.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 12, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I wonder what the control rate of blood clots would be.  5 in 30 million sounds, if anything, like fewer than I might expect.


Much lower. Annual incidence rate is typically 1 per 1000. The reported AZD1222 thromboembolic event rate is 22 in 3 million vaccinees. The key is that a significant number of them are associated with one particular batch.


----------



## maomao (Mar 12, 2021)

Blood clotting story is being reported round the world though. My FiL rang my wife from China to check which vaccine she'd had (yes it was AZ).


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 12, 2021)

But *22 people in 3 million* Oxford/AZ vaccines!!! FFS!!!  

One or two have probably been run over by a bus the same day after being vaccinated with it .... so let's make sure to *BAN!* it for bus-danger ....


----------



## Sir Belchalot (Mar 12, 2021)

Seeing as not many Europeans are keen on getting the AZ one anyway, they might be suspending use of it as a way of reassuring people that it's o.k. to use after they've investigated the blood clotting.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 12, 2021)

This has all the hallmarks of the beginning of a classic deviancy amplification spiral, only applied to something medical rather than behaviour.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 12, 2021)

Sir Belchalot said:


> Seeing as not many Europeans are keen on getting the AZ one anyway, they might be suspending use of it as a way of reassuring people that it's o.k. to use after they've investigated the blood clotting.



Which might? be sensible vigilance just on its own, if it wasn't also for all the associated distortions in the media ....


----------



## Numbers (Mar 12, 2021)

Probably a stupid question, but in the unlikely event of clotting how long it would it take to be an issue for a person?


----------



## xenon (Mar 12, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I wonder what the control rate of blood clots would be.  5 in 30 million sounds, if anything, like fewer than I might expect.




IT may well be. He said 30 in 5 million.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 12, 2021)

Note to self, don't eat my usual 1.5 kilos of cruciferous veggies the week before my next shot


----------



## Cid (Mar 12, 2021)

From what I can see a whole 3 European(ish) countries have stopped using it (Denmark, Norway, Iceland), while Italy, Austria, Estonia, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Latvia have stopped the specific batch. The EMA is saying it’s fine to keep using it.

So not exactly ‘most of Europe’.


----------



## LDC (Mar 12, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Probably a stupid question, but in the unlikely event of clotting how long it would it take to be an issue for a person?



You mean since having the jab? No idea, would have to look at the people that have had the VTE issues with this batch and work it out. Personally I expect it'll be either dismissed as incidental.

Some views here expert reaction to reports that Denmark has paused vaccination with the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine as a precaution after some reports of blood clots | Science Media Centre


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 12, 2021)

Cid said:


> From what I can see a whole 3 European(ish) countries have stopped using it (Denmark, Norway, Iceland), while Italy, Austria, Estonia, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Latvia have stopped the specific batch. The EMA is saying it’s fine to keep using it.
> 
> So not exactly ‘most of Europe’.



I'd missed the 'bloodclotting' story _compeletely_ before getting on here.
So you highlight well the disadvantages of just getting the news from Urban**  .... and not checking the links either  

(**as well as just from the BBC or The Guardian  ).


----------



## Mation (Mar 12, 2021)

maomao said:


> I have a box of home tests that I'm supposed to give myself weekly as I work in a school. Would it not have been cheaper just to vaccinate teachers? 🤷


Lateral flow or PCR?


----------



## maomao (Mar 12, 2021)

Mation said:


> Lateral flow or PCR?


Dunno. The ones that come with a little bottle and a test card that you have to do yourself. Haven't done one yet.


----------



## nagapie (Mar 12, 2021)

Mation said:


> Lateral flow or PCR?


Schools have been given lateral flow.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 12, 2021)

kabbes said:


> This has all the hallmarks of the beginning of a classic deviancy amplification spiral, only applied to something medical rather than behaviour.



That's an obscure concept , rings very true though.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Mar 12, 2021)

It seems there have been 9 deaths in a care home in Exmouth, 4 weeks *after* the residents had the vaccine. I know that is not the full 12 weeks that they now reckon gives very high immunity, but it would seem to ram home the message that you still need to be very careful even if you've had the vaccine recently.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 12, 2021)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> I know that is not the full 12 weeks that they now reckon gives very high immunity


From where do people get these strange, mangled ideas?


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 12, 2021)

Smangus said:


> That's an obscure concept , rings very true though.



It really isn't obscure. Stan Cohen wrote one of the most famous sociological books ever about it.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 12, 2021)

Interesting study ...

Covid vaccine lowers cases in Scotland's healthcare worker families - BBC News 

To me, that means reduced transmission.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 12, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Interesting study ...
> 
> Covid vaccine lowers cases in Scotland's healthcare worker families - BBC News
> 
> To me, that means reduced transmission.


The preprint discusses this. Perhaps around 30 to 60% reduction in transmission risk (but as ever, there are lots of sources of confounders, biases). It's a not unreasonable figure and consistent with that that has been fed into pandemic models, going forward, accounting for vaccination rollout.


----------



## Smangus (Mar 12, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> It really isn't obscure. Stan Cohen wrote one of the most famous sociological books ever about it.



Well it's obscure to me, as is that Stan fella, never heard of him or his book.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 12, 2021)

Our local rag's website publishes a list of the percentage of the adult population that have received at least one jab, on a per ward basis, which is interesting & reassuring.

The lowest figures are around 40%, which is roughly on a par with the national average, but raising to a whopping 60% in wards that have a lot of care homes and/or retirement bungalows.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 12, 2021)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> It seems there have been 9 deaths in a care home in Exmouth, 4 weeks *after* the residents had the vaccine. I know that is not the full 12 weeks that they now reckon gives very high immunity, but it would seem to ram home the message that you still need to be very careful even if you've had the vaccine recently.



This is why we all need to get vaccinated.


----------



## CH1 (Mar 12, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Well it's obscure to me, as is that Stan fella, never heard of him or his book.


He gets cited in Wkikpedia at least Moral panic


----------



## Cloo (Mar 12, 2021)

So it looks to me like planned 'unlocking' for 29th will happen at this rate as it seems like not really enough time for anything to change unless some really alarming figures emerge. Anyone's guess past that time, though.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 12, 2021)

Cloo said:


> So it looks to me like planned 'unlocking' for 29th will happen at this rate as it seems like not really enough time for anything to change unless some really alarming figures emerge. Anyone's guess past that time, though.



But it was never really an unlocking was it?  I mean the stay at home order is removed but its nothing really beyond confirming what loads of people have been doing anyway.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 12, 2021)

Well, some outdoor attractions are opening.  I've noticed this cos it'll be the Easter break and I'm keen to do something which isn't walking around Barnet.


----------



## Wilf (Mar 12, 2021)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> It seems there have been 9 deaths in a care home in Exmouth, 4 weeks *after* the residents had the vaccine. I know that is not the full 12 weeks that they now reckon gives very high immunity, but it would seem to ram home the message that you still need to be very careful even if you've had the vaccine recently.


You don't get much detail from this story, but am I right in assuming you don't get the vaccine if you are already showing symptoms of the virus?  If that's the case, it would mean they probably got the virus after being vaccinated,_ but not long after_.  So, with all those ifs and buts, probably a case of getting the virus in the period before anything like full immunity had built up (or whatever level of immunity one jab does give you).  Awful for the residents, the families and the staff, but not a particular worry with regard to the vaccine.
Covid-19: Nine deaths at Exmouth care home - BBC News


----------



## Wilf (Mar 12, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Well, some outdoor attractions are opening.  I've noticed this cos it'll be the Easter break and I'm keen to do something which isn't walking around Barnet.


Yep. Last Summer was so much better in the sense of being able to drive to places to go for different walks. Being fairly high risk I wasn't actually going into places, but the variety was good.  Since then I've walked through just about every street, beck and park within walking distance.  I might work my way up to pub gardens when I've had my second jab, but a bit of walking variety will do till then.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 12, 2021)

I see RV's can go camping so I might see if I can do work and camp for a few days in a field.


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2021)

Wilf said:


> You don't get much detail from this story, but am I right in assuming you don't get the vaccine if you are already showing symptoms of the virus?  If that's the case, it would mean they probably got the virus after being vaccinated,_ but not long after_.  So, with all those ifs and buts, probably a case of getting the virus in the period before anything like full immunity had built up (or whatever level of immunity one jab does give you).  Awful for the residents, the families and the staff, but not a particular worry with regard to the vaccine.
> Covid-19: Nine deaths at Exmouth care home - BBC News



Some people who get vaccinated will still die. I dont know why some people are having trouble building that concept into their understanding of events.


----------



## elbows (Mar 12, 2021)

On this date a year ago was the 2nd disaster of a press conference of that crucial week, where people were realising what stage we were at and how much our behaviour would have to change, but the government were still trying to stick to plan a and still had the timing all wrong. A very partial recap of that press conference a year ago:

They said that we have moved beyond the contain phase, and are now in the (unfortunately named) delay phase.

They revealed that they wouldnt bother trying to test everyone in this new phase. Instead, people with a new, persistent cough and/or a temperature should stay at home for 7 days.

It was possible to sense a slight shift in some areas, eg having previously said mass gatherings were fine and not a big deal in terms of spreading the virus, they started using the same tack that the Scottish government had come out with - mass gatherings put a strain on public services in other ways, so maybe they'd have to think about halting them from that perspective.

Vallance tried to show a slideshow about pressing down on the curve but his remote control didnt work (part of the background story of how we later ended up with 'next slide please').

Vallance also said we were 4 weeks behind Italy, which enhanced my sense of how much they were fucking it all up. He also started going on about building immunity in the population, a theme he continued the next day and lead to government denials the following weekend that this was part of their approach.

In terms of getting the timing all wrong, they were also still claiming that the peak could be 10-14 weeks away, or that it could be even further away than that. The peak in deaths actually came 4 weeks later.

In terms of giving people clues about how long measures might need to last for, they were still going on about the downsides of closing schools and why they didnt want to do it, but did reveal that for school closures to be effective, they would have to last 13-16 weeks.

Johnson said that many more families would lose loved ones.

They didnt get an easy time off journalists because by then countries quite close to home had started shutting schools, Italy had locked down, unease was growing everywhere, football was about to grind to a halt etc.

It was a Thursday, and although they tried again on Friday to sell the plan, this was the last press conference before they had to dump plan a. It was the last press conference where quite this degree of error about the pandemic wave timing was on vivid display, although even then they only backed away slowly from such timing details, in order not to make it so obvious how wrong they had got it.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 12, 2021)

A bunch of clowns caught in the headlights, frozen, realising they actually had to do a real job but had no experience of doing any job to any level.

120,000 dead.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some people who get vaccinated will still die. I dont know why some people are having trouble building that concept into their understanding of events.



Israel has this post-vaccination event as 0.0003%, so possible but not often.


----------



## prunus (Mar 12, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Israel has this post-vaccination event as 0.0003%, so possible but not often.



3 per million inoculated post first dose deaths? That’s very good - have you a link to those data please? I’d like to see that.

How translatable that frequency is to the story at hand is related to that infection frequency of course - one assumes that not all the post first dose inoculants would have even been exposed - whereas it looks likely that a lot of this care home’s residents were (possibly even all?)


----------



## MrSki (Mar 13, 2021)

Can anyone in the know advise. I have my covid jab at 7pm tonight but had vomiting overnight. Should I still attend if I feel better or cancel & wait for another test?


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 13, 2021)

Let me look at my paperwork ...

No relevant information.

Suggest you ring either your GP or 119, and ask.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Can anyone in the know advise. I have my covid jab at 7pm tonight but had vomiting overnight. Should I still attend if I feel better or cancel & wait for another test?


Temperature?


----------



## MrSki (Mar 13, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Temperature?


37.2 so not high. Will try the 119. Thanks both.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 13, 2021)

Have you got a number to ring if it was a paper invite - also lets them know if you're not able to attend.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2021)

MrSki said:


> 37.2 so not high. Will try the 119. Thanks both.


If your temp ok I reckon you'll be fine


----------



## MrSki (Mar 13, 2021)

Well doctors is just today. 119 don't give medical advice & 111 tell you to call 119 about covid so I think I will just go & let then know before I get too far in.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 13, 2021)

.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 13, 2021)

MrSki - do you still feel ill, or overtired ?
And have you eaten this morning ...

My gut feeling is that if your answers are no, no and yes - and you still feel OK mid-afternoon then you are probably OK to go for the jab.
But I would ask 119, and they may suggest you re-book.


----------



## maomao (Mar 13, 2021)

Do you often vomit? Do you also have loose bowels or any other symptoms? Could it be alcohol or stress related? If not call 119 to be sure.


----------



## ska invita (Mar 13, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Well doctors is just today. 119 don't give medical advice & 111 tell you to call 119 about covid so I think I will just go & let then know before I get too far in.


are you sure ? Ive had three 111 Covid calls, they ask lots of questions and then i got put through to a doctor - in all three calls
??


----------



## LDC (Mar 13, 2021)

We had someone turn up for their vaccine this week with classic covid symptoms (new persistent cough) and looked surprised when we were pissed off and suggested they go away and get tested. A year into it and still not a clue ffs.

MrSki I'd call 111 and get a callback from clinical if it's something you're concerned about anyway, or call the place you're due to have it for advice, or if it was one incidence and you now feel OK tell the staff as soon as you arrive and ideally before you go in and start the process. If you have other stuff going on though (temp, feeling rough, etc.) then don't go please, you might be next to someone in a queue who's very vulnerable.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 13, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> We had someone turn up for their vaccine this week with classic covid symptoms (new persistent cough) and looked surprised when we were pissed off and suggested they go away and get tested. A year into it and still not a clue ffs.
> 
> MrSki I'd call 111 and get a callback from clinical if it's something you're concerned about anyway, or call the place you're due to have it for advice, or if it was one incidence and you now feel OK tell the staff as soon as you arrive and ideally before you go in and start the process. If you have other stuff going on though (temp, feeling rough, etc.) then don't go please, you might be next to someone in a queue who's very vulnerable.


I have called 111 & am getting a call back.  Thanks


----------



## LDC (Mar 13, 2021)

Hope you feel OK and get the jab later.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 13, 2021)

Mother sent me some John Lewis vouchers because there is no store near her  just went for a rare trip to Waitrose and the queue was epic. At least 70-80 people waiting to go in. Busiest I have seen any Supermarket since this whole shit started. 

Good to see the shop managing footfall I guess.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 13, 2021)

My sis sends me M&S vouchers in the vain hope I will become less shabby. I've never mentioned to her how nice their port and duck&orange pate is, but the point of my post is that you can buy stuff online with the vouchers, might also with John Lewis.


----------



## MBV (Mar 13, 2021)

Back when it started last year I frequently had to queue to get into Sainsburys but for some reason this doesn't happen now.


----------



## Espresso (Mar 13, 2021)

dfm said:


> Back when it started last year I frequently had to queue to get into Sainsburys but for some reason this doesn't happen now.


I've  noticed that, too. And I am glad of it. I reckon it comes down to a few things
1. There were limited delivery slots then, so if you couldn't get a delivery, you had to go to the shop. They seriously ramped up the deliveries and click and collect throughout. I reckon I see a Tesco, Morrison, Asda, Sainsbury or Iceland delivery van on my road at least once a day. At the very least. And people are using Deliveroo for groceries now, too. 
2. The supermarkets had shorter hours back at the beginning. They're back to normal hours now.
3. Some other thing I've not thought about.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Mar 13, 2021)

dfm said:


> Back when it started last year I frequently had to queue to get into Sainsburys but for some reason this doesn't happen now.





Espresso said:


> 3. Some other thing I've not thought about.



I think 3 was mainly shortages / fear of shortages / panic buying leading to more shortages

I've got in to the habit of food shopping fairly late evening when it's relatively quiet, and (when i was doing the self isolation thing) signed up for a milk round delivery that can do bread and basics as well

And while I'm not really 'stockpiling' I'm tending to have slightly a higher 'minimum stock level' at home for things

Having said that, some of the shops were more active in limiting numbers they would allow in when it all started.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 13, 2021)

Both my supermarkets have green / red entry systems.
70 yards apart, I use whichever doesn't have a queue when I get back from my walk around the park.

I got my timing wrong so had to shop on a Saturday ..
One unhealthy looking old duffer in Tesco this morning maskless - perhaps he'd had one jab and felt safe, perhaps it was "political" ...
I probably have some immunity now, so I turned my masked face away and kept my thoughts to myself.
I'm still having to buy "organic" bread flour in the deli.


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2021)

I'm glad I decided to only do a very minimal version of 'on this day in pandemic history'.

I have to do an entry today because a year ago it was Friday 13th March, a Friday 13th I shall never forget. It was the day I first became aware of the BBCs Nick Triggle, because he came out with the following shit which did not survive a full day in the article it was embedded in, and that I rarely stopped ranting about since. On the day in question I probably said something like 'fuck this times a million'.



> 'Keep calm and carry on'
> 
> The worst health crisis in a generation. Lives will be lost. All this is true. But what got missed in the government's coronavirus message - understandably, given the scale of the challenge - is that we should also get on with our lives.
> 
> ...



Facepalm of the century nominee for sure.

I consider that day to have been the last time the original rhetoric and plan survived, and it also featured Vallances infamous herd immunity shit:



> Sir Patrick Vallance, England’s chief scientific adviser, has defended the government’s approach to tackling the coronavirus, saying it could have the benefit of creating “herd immunity” across the population.



That quote is from Coronavirus: science chief defends UK plan from criticism


----------



## elbows (Mar 13, 2021)

Some government stuff that I havent bothered to bring up from a year ago is covered by this recent Guardian article. Part of me really hates articles like this, where politics is reduced to a soap opera, but people might still find it interesting. Apparently the penny only started to drop that infections were quite widespread and close to the governments home when Dorries tested positive earlier in this week in history.









						'No 10 was a plague pit': how Covid brought Westminster to its knees
					

Insiders tell of a Whitehall in panic mode and reveal virus spread far more widely than was acknowledged




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 13, 2021)

It "may" have brought Westminster to its' knees, pity it didn't cut a few of them off at the knees ...

If one or two of the politicos had actually succumbed fatally to the 'rona in those early days, we might have seen some proper attention to the science a lot earlier, and other lives might have been saved.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 13, 2021)

Johnson for example


----------



## existentialist (Mar 13, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> It "may" have brought Westminster to its' knees, pity it didn't cut a few of them off at the knees ...
> 
> If one or two of the politicos had actually succumbed fatally to the 'rona in those early days, we might have seen some proper attention to the science a lot earlier, and other lives might have been saved.


Nice to think they might have been replaced by better politicos, too, but that's probably reaching a bit high.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 13, 2021)

tubs of lard would have done


----------



## BassJunkie (Mar 13, 2021)

dfm said:


> Back when it started last year I frequently had to queue to get into Sainsburys but for some reason this doesn't happen now.


I had the same experience. Imagine my surprise when I showed up today to find a queue and I didn't have a book to read even. The queue moved fast though  

Last year I reread The Grapes Of Wrath, not least in those queues. Irony, yes.


----------



## a_chap (Mar 13, 2021)

Badgers said:


> ... just went for a rare trip to Waitrose and the queue was epic. At least 70-80 people waiting to go in. Busiest I have seen any Supermarket since this whole shit started.
> 
> Good to see the shop managing footfall I guess.



Our local Waitrose was just the same this evening. Mothers' Day tomorrow, innit.

The store had been stripped bare of flowers.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 13, 2021)

a_chap said:


> Our local Waitrose was just the same this evening. Mothers' Day tomorrow, innit.
> 
> The store had been stripped bare of flowers.



It was post-peak-busy at my Sainsbury's late this afternoon, but I did wonder  why so many people were going out with flowers and wine! 

(Today, I'd have only needed to _imagine_ buying such things for my late mum!  )


----------



## Cloo (Mar 13, 2021)

Have just about started to book things for the future - a visit to Go Ape at Easter, which I'm guessing will happen/ My daughter wanted to see this Van Gogh thing where you go into a big space with the pictures projected all around you, so I logged on a few hours into when bookings opened (for late October onwards) and it was sold out to December, so I've booked evening tickets for mid Dec, though I am not optimistic things won't have to take a step back by then. I don't think it's necessarily a bad idea for things to be pretty open this summer, but it was idiotic of Johnson (though who'd expect anything more?) to say there would be no going backwards later.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Mar 13, 2021)

today marks one year since the first 'coronavirus response action plan' meeting at work 

(yes, someone wasn't taking it entirely seriously.  and no it wasn't me who came up with that)


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 13, 2021)

I share your dislike of BoJo the clown and most of his cabinet (mostly for Brexit idiocy), but if he had died, what exactly do you think would have happened? Do you really think things would have been any better than they are now if the non-entity Raab was in charge? Seriously?

Also, sadly, as bad as some of them are, I'm not sure there actually are any 'better politicos' in parliament at the moment, on either side of the aisle, in any party or in either chamber. Certainly couldn't name any, and that is a damning indictment of modern British politics.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 13, 2021)

tub of lard


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I share your dislike of BoJo the clown and most of his cabinet (mostly for Brexit idiocy), but if he had died, what exactly do you think would have happened? Do you really think things would have been any better than they are now if the non-entity Raab was in charge? Seriously?
> 
> Also, sadly, as bad as some of them are, I'm not sure there actually are any 'better politicos' in parliament at the moment, on either side of the aisle, in any party or in either chamber. Certainly couldn't name any, and that is a damning indictment of modern British politics.





two sheds said:


> tub of lard


Innit, a jizz-filled rotting pig’s head would have done better than the blundering haystack


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 13, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Innit, a jizz-filled rotting pig’s head



Dave's friend?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 13, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I share your dislike of BoJo the clown and most of his cabinet (mostly for Brexit idiocy), but if he had died, what exactly do you think would have happened? Do you really think things would have been any better than they are now if the non-entity Raab was in charge? Seriously?
> 
> Also, sadly, as bad as some of them are, I'm not sure there actually are any 'better politicos' in parliament at the moment, on either side of the aisle, in any party or in either chamber. Certainly couldn't name any, and that is a damning indictment of modern British politics.



Boris forever replacement is or is says by those who know better than me to be Michael Gove. What he lacks in demagogue ability he makes up for in being quite a lot smarter and slippery than Boris.

Likely he loses a few gammon votes but he probably runs the plague mildly better and passes more than a few long term_ fuck you Leftie_ laws that are a bit cleverer than _Boris fuck the flag like you want to_ laws.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 14, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Dave's friend?


A badge for you for noting the reference


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 14, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Boris forever replacement is or is says by those who know better than me to be Michael Gove. What he lacks in demagogue ability he makes up for in being quite a lot smarter and slippery than Boris.
> 
> Likely he loses a few gammon votes but he probably runs the plague mildly better and passes more than a few long term_ fuck you Leftie_ laws that are a bit cleverer than _Boris fuck the flag like you want to_ laws.



Looks like either Gove or Sunak are the likely replacements. Gove is, as you say, slippery, which is why he has been deathly silent the whole way through this and remains probably one of a tiny number ministers not to make some kind of virus-related faux pas (unless I've missed something!) so far, which could put him in good stead. If Boris had died in hospital last year, though, Raab would have taken over, as he did temporarily, so what would have happened after that (leadership election or just keep Raab in post?) is anyone's guess.


----------



## elbows (Mar 14, 2021)

Gove isnt pandemic gaffe free.



> He's the minister who told the nation it's "good manners" to cover your face in a shop.
> 
> But Michael Gove couldn't quite bring himself to do so when he nipped into a sandwich shop today.
> 
> The Cabinet Office minister was spotted mask-free in a Westminster branch of Pret a Manger, 48 hours after urging Brits to cover up.











						Mask-free Michael Gove spotted days after saying it's 'good manners' to cover up
					

The Cabinet Office minister urged Brits to cover their faces in shops - but couldn't quite bring himself to do so when he nipped in for a sandwich




					www.mirror.co.uk
				




And:


----------



## Wilf (Mar 14, 2021)

I suppose now that Piers Morgan has left the field, Gogglebox is the official Opposition Party.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 14, 2021)

Had forgotten that Gove gaffe- although to be fair to him masks were not yet mandatory when he went for his sarnie, so it's not quite up there with Sunak's three million missing self employed or Cuomo's 12,000 care home dead. Just makes him look like a bit of a twat (which, to be fair, he is) after telling people it was good manners. At least he bothered tucking his shirt in though, which is more than can be said for BoJo.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Mar 15, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> But at least now we know jedward are a force for good.


Still banging it out the park


----------



## Sunray (Mar 15, 2021)

This will be interesting, it will show if outdoor events are as safe as people expect them to be. Stadiums could just keep the bars closed. 








						No social distancing at FA Cup final as government test reopening plan
					

Increased crowds will be allowed to watch May’s FA Cup final and the World Snooker Championship as the government test a plan to fully reopen venues.




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 15, 2021)

There is some appetite in the press to skewer Johnson to mark the upcoming anniversary of the first lockdown. And no shortage of people behind the scenes willing to drop the deadly shit in it.

This one focuses somewhat on 2nd wave errors. I think this sort of thing would have more teeth if the press in this country widely reported on the second wave by giving a total for 2nd wave deaths rather than mostly only ever mentioning overall totals of various sorts. I will cover the various totals for 2nd wave deaths later this week.









						Ministers frustrated with PM's 'mistakes' ahead of Covid second wave
					

Senior figures tell the BBC Boris Johnson should have been tougher in the autumn to prevent more deaths.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




If the BBC want to understand more about various political influences at work in the shockingly shit September decisions, perhaps they could ask their own Nick Triggle why he was busy trying to undermine the modelling projections back then.

I dont think this is the first article recently that has started mentioning how they've learnt it was a meeting on March 14th last year which made clear to government the extent to which their expectations about the scale and timing of the situation were all wrong. But I will cover this subject when I do my next 'on this date in history' post tomorrow, as I'll be covering what happened since my previous Friday 13th date in history recap then. The meeting of the 14th as described is certainly consistent with the pieces of the puzzle we already knew.


----------



## elbows (Mar 16, 2021)

My mood is too low (because of            #20          )  to post what I had intended to today.

This will have to do instead.









						Covid: The inside story of the government's battle against the virus
					

Twenty of Downing Street's most senior politicians, officials and former officials take you "into the room" where essential Covid decisions were being made.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The prime minister was even heard to say: "The best thing would be to ignore it." And he repeatedly warned, several sources tell me, that an overreaction could do more harm than good.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 16, 2021)

Wonder if I can be arsed making a placard or something for the window calling Boris a cunt.









						Covid-19: UK national day of reflection to be held on 23 March
					

Politicians back a charity's plan to commemorate a year since the first national restrictions began.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 17, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Wonder if I can be arsed making a placard or something for the window calling Boris a cunt.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Not sure I would be able to restrain my language sufficiently - and I would be preaching to the converted around here ...


----------



## Cloo (Mar 17, 2021)

Covid: NHS warns of 'significant reduction' in vaccines
					

Local health organisations in England have been told to expect a reduced vaccine supply in April.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Bollocks. I guess that means my and husband's vaccinations are put back a month or so then


----------



## zora (Mar 17, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Covid: NHS warns of 'significant reduction' in vaccines
> 
> 
> Local health organisations in England have been told to expect a reduced vaccine supply in April.
> ...



Ah shite. Just got so excited. Looks like booking has opened for 50+ today, and bf just booked his slots today. So still pleased about that, but really hoped it might be my turn in a couple of weeks, too!


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 17, 2021)

So teachers in their 30's should now be getting a vaccine just as the summer holidays start


----------



## spitfire (Mar 17, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Covid: NHS warns of 'significant reduction' in vaccines
> 
> 
> Local health organisations in England have been told to expect a reduced vaccine supply in April.
> ...



Ah bollox. Same here.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 17, 2021)

> Covid: NHS warns of 'significant reduction' in vaccines
> 
> 
> Local health organisations in England have been told to expect a reduced vaccine supply in April.
> ...



So complex it's as opaque as it's possible to be. Vials, ingredients, complex processes.  At least it's still 2 million a week, a lot more than nothing.
I was thinking the Moderna vaccine is due to be delivered in April, wonder what happened to that. 17 million doses.  Wondering about the J&J vaccine too. It's available in the states.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Mar 17, 2021)

Maybe it's already running out? I went for my vaccination on Monday, only to see a handwritten notice in the window saying they were cancelled and to re-book. Upon enquiry I was told the supply hadn't been delivered that day. I've re-booked for Saturday - at a different location - let's see what happens!


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 17, 2021)

What happened to the 'significant uptick' in supply in the second half of March they were promising, then?


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 17, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Covid: NHS warns of 'significant reduction' in vaccines
> 
> 
> Local health organisations in England have been told to expect a reduced vaccine supply in April.
> ...


From that story's 'Analysis' by the (often correctly criticised) Nick Triggle :




			
				Nick Triggle said:
			
		

> What we do know is that for the next two weeks there is "bumper" supply thanks to a large shipment of AstraZeneca from India to supplement UK stocks.
> It could mean more than four million doses a week being given.
> *That was always going to drop in April to under three million.
> The latest news suggests it could perhaps go down below two million* which, given significant numbers of second doses need to be given from next month, would mean the rollout to the under-50s would be slower than some had started to hope.



 

But how reliably established are those numbers?

And how easily might they be rectified?

Watch that space carefully, I'd suggest ... there could possibly? be an element of 'worst case scenario' spin included there. Maybe .......


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 17, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> What happened to the 'significant uptick' in supply in the second half of March they were promising, then?



Still happening,,according to the BBC story -- it seems to be April that's being highlighted as the main concern .....


----------



## Supine (Mar 18, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Still happening,,according to the BBC story -- it seems to be April that's being highlighted as the main concern .....



It's a non story imo. Supplies will go up and down as batches are released and shipped. One week is a good news story and one week is a disaster story. I've not heard anything about serious issues in the supply chain so almost certainly just natural variation as batches arrive and get used.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 18, 2021)

Being a suspicious personage ...

I'm now wondering if the story about "potential shortages" - especially since Pfizer had a shortfall in February whilst they re-arranged their place at Puurs to actually make more - is intended to make people more eager to get a jab "in case they miss out" ?
and to counteract the publicity given to the European pauses (ref blood clots) - are those nations just stockpiling dozes ?

Or am I just over-thinking the matter ?


----------



## existentialist (Mar 18, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Being a suspicious personage ...
> 
> I'm now wondering if the story about "potential shortages" - especially since Pfizer had a shortfall in February whilst they re-arranged their place at Puurs to actually make more - is intended to make people more eager to get a jab "in case they miss out" ?
> and to counteract the publicity given to the European pauses (ref blood clots) - are those nations just stockpiling dozes ?
> ...


It suggests a level of cunning that this government has hitherto conspicuously failed to display...


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Mar 18, 2021)

Deliberately undermining what is so far their one unambiguous success story would seem an odd approach tbh.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 18, 2021)

I doubt this will come of any surprise to anyone here, up to 27,000 extra deaths.   



> Delaying the winter lockdown caused up to 27,000 extra deaths in England, the Resolution Foundation thinktank has claimed as it accused the government of a “huge mistake” which should be central to any public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic.
> 
> In an assessment of policy over the last year, it said delaying the start of the latest lockdown until January, despite evidence of fast-rising cases before Christmas, led to around a fifth of all fatalities caused by the virus. It said these could have been avoided if restrictions were put in place quickly enough to prevent the death rate rising from early December.
> 
> While it praised the vaccination programme – delivering jabs three times faster than Europe – and financial support for firms and workers which has included £6,700 for every household on average, it said mistakes on lockdowns were repeated “three tragic times”. It added that allowing extra deaths did not limit economic impacts, but rather increased them, because it only precipitated longer and more onerous lockdowns.











						Delaying England's winter lockdown 'caused up to 27,000 extra Covid deaths'
					

Thinktank says government’s decision was a ‘huge mistake’ and should be central to any pandemic inquiry




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 18, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Being a suspicious personage ...
> 
> I'm now wondering if the story about "potential shortages" - especially since Pfizer had a shortfall in February whilst they re-arranged their place at Puurs to actually make more - is intended to make people more eager to get a jab "in case they miss out" ?
> and to counteract the publicity given to the European pauses (ref blood clots) - are those nations just stockpiling dozes ?
> ...



It seems due to a delay in AZ vaccine coming from India.


----------



## LDC (Mar 18, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Being a suspicious personage ...
> 
> I'm now wondering if the story about "potential shortages" - especially since Pfizer had a shortfall in February whilst they re-arranged their place at Puurs to actually make more - is intended to make people more eager to get a jab "in case they miss out" ?
> and to counteract the publicity given to the European pauses (ref blood clots) - are those nations just stockpiling dozes ?
> ...



Over-thinking and conspiratorial.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 18, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Over-thinking and conspiratorial.


I didn't say I believed my own words ...

I don't think that anyway, as existentialist says, it would be an unlikely level of cunning for this government !


----------



## IC3D (Mar 18, 2021)

Perfectly plausible StoneRoad that some people with a background in marketing said it would drive uptake and make the Tory party look good overall, let's see if a story appears with the RAF flying it over next week .


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 18, 2021)

Just announced on Sky News, there's going to be an extra Downing Street press briefing today, they assume at 5pm, with Johnson.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just announced on Sky News, there's going to be an extra Downing Street press briefing today, they assume at 5pm, with Johnson.



Possibly just an attempt to get some control of the vaccine narrative which is drifting away from them?  Seems to be what politicians actually bother about rather than any new and useful information.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 18, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Possibly just an attempt to get some control of the vaccine narrative which is drifting away from them?  Seems to be what politicians actually bother about rather than any new and useful information.



I suspect that will be the case, there doesn't seem much else to cover at the moment, beyond reassuring people over the Oxford/AZ vaccine, and explaining the shortfall of doses from India and its impact on the roll-out.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 18, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Being a suspicious personage ...
> 
> I'm now wondering if the story about "potential shortages" - especially since Pfizer had a shortfall in February whilst they re-arranged their place at Puurs to actually make more - is intended to make people more eager to get a jab "in case they miss out" ?
> and to counteract the publicity given to the European pauses (ref blood clots) - are those nations just stockpiling dozes ?
> ...



If any legitimate public health professional was anywhere near the messaging on this they wouldn't stand for that kind of truth-twisting. There's enough bullshit around vaccines as it is without the good guys deliberately stirring in a bit more.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2021)

Supine said:


> It's a non story imo. Supplies will go up and down as batches are released and shipped. One week is a good news story and one week is a disaster story. I've not heard anything about serious issues in the supply chain so almost certainly just natural variation as batches arrive and get used.



That description is a poor fit with what has happened. A 5 million dose shortfall from India is not trivial and deserves the attention it is getting at the moment. Not that I am at all pleased that the UK was supposed to be getting 10 million doses from India at this stage, I'm sure some people will find ways to justify that but I never will.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I doubt this will come of any surprise to anyone here, up to 27,000 extra deaths.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That number is far lower than I would have said, even taking into account that they are talking about England rather than the UK as a whole.

A big part of the reason for this is that their analysis is focussing on December onwards, when we know that bad mistakes were made for months before then, such as failure to do an early circuit breaker and failure to make the November lockdown strong enough. And they arent counting deaths that were at or below the level of daily death already reached at that point, which was not an inconsiderable amount.

The number would also be easier to judge and put in context if the media talked about number of deaths in the second wave rather than just the overall running total. I will just have to disclose such figures myself:

Between 1st September 2020 and 5th March 2021, latest available data shows there were 77,217 covid-19 death certificate deaths in England! For the UK as a whole the number is 89,863. No wonder they dont draw attention to this.

Not all of those deaths were preventable with better and more timely action. But I'm not going to be able to buy into the idea that 50,000 of them were not preventable in England.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Mar 18, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Possibly just an attempt to get some control of the vaccine narrative which is drifting away from them?  Seems to be what politicians actually bother about rather than any new and useful information.



Yeah I'd have thought so. If it's not that it will be in the news in the next hour or so anyway.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> That description is a poor fit with what has happened. A 5 million dose shortfall from India is not trivial and deserves the attention it is getting at the moment. Not that I am at all pleased that the UK was supposed to be getting 10 million doses from India at this stage, I'm sure some people will find ways to justify that but I never will.



Who's doing that then?  Anyone here?


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2021)

If I mean here then I'll say so, and will address specific posts.

So far I'd generalise by suggesting the most common response from people is to not know quite what to say about this, or to look the other way, or to try to lump it in with general evil big pharma stuff.

I'm not going to go nuts at people for not knowing what to say, or for having a conflicted feelings over certain aspects, especially right now.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 18, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Who's doing that then?  Anyone here?



In a normal year, India produces more than 1/2 of the world's supply of vaccines and tonnes of other medications, we buy a lot from them.  So I don't see why ordering from them is an issue.  India is an amazingly strange place and I recommend everyone go stay there for a while. 

I'm fairly certain the UK will be charged a decent price for them.  Other poorer countries might get a better deal or even free. India never ceases to amaze me as a country.

eta: 








						How a surge of Covid cases in India hit the UK's vaccine supply
					

Serum Institute of India, world’s biggest vaccine producer, asked by Delhi to keep more doses in country




					www.theguardian.com
				




They will have no hesitation restricting supply for their own needs, with 1.2 billion people you can't really blame them.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2021)

Its not that hard, its a question of priorities of supply. There is no way anyone will convince me that vaccines from that India production facility should have been prioritised for the UK. That production facility is a major source of supply for things like COVAX. The UK is keeping domestically produced vaccine for itself, which is one thing, taking it from India at this stage is a disgrace.

Fergus Walsh expressed it in the form of surprise, I express it as disgust.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2021)

Plus I can jsut read the press release from last June to see what the India production was supposed to be about.





__





						AstraZeneca takes next steps towards broad and equitable access  to Oxford University’s potential COVID-19 vaccine
					






					www.astrazeneca.com
				






> AstraZeneca has taken the next steps in its commitment to broad and equitable global access to the University of Oxford’s potential COVID-19 vaccine, AZD1222, following landmark agreements with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, and the Serum Institute of India (SII).
> 
> The Company today reached a $750m agreement with CEPI and Gavi to support the manufacturing, procurement and distribution of 300 million doses of the potential vaccine, with delivery starting by the end of the year. In addition, AstraZeneca reached a licensing agreement with SII to supply one billion doses for low-and-middle-income countries, with a commitment to provide 400 million before the end of 2020.





> Adar Poonawalla, Chief Executive Officer, SII, said: “Serum Institute of India is delighted to partner with AstraZeneca in bringing this vaccine to India as well as low-and-middle-income countries. Over the past 50 years SII has built significant capability in vaccine manufacturing and supply globally. We will work closely with AstraZeneca to ensure fair and equitable distribution of the vaccine in these countries.”


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2021)

The Johnson press conference has begun.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2021)

Plenty of todays press conference questions from the press were hideous and grubby.

In part because in certain spheres of journalism and politics, 'vaccine nationalism' is a term reserved for other governments threatening or doing things which may affect UK supply. Whereas the disgusting UK first approach taken by this country is enshrined in a magic bubble, it doesnt count, and it is left to gobby people like me to moan about it.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 18, 2021)

Trust this shower to make the one "success story" in the pandemic turn out to be more of the same ...
And the electorate will lap it up.


----------



## Supine (Mar 18, 2021)

Don't forget some countries will play the long game. Give the UK some vaccines now and get the reward later. After the UK is vaccinated our factories will be churning out vaccines for other countries. Payback could be huge. 

Obviously it's AZ doing this not our glorious government. But who knows how power influences these things.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2021)

Supine said:


> Obviously it's AZ doing this not our glorious government.



Depends which bit you mean, I expect you are referring to production but many of the issues about who is getting the supply are government-related. Plus when it comes to the AZ vaccine, their chief kept going on about how the deal with Oxford means it was also a deal with the government.

There was some room in my brain to cope with the 'UK first approach' when it came to doses manufactured in the UK. I cannot muster the same feelings when it comes to production from India, given everything that had previously been said about what that capacity was for.

Certainly Indias 'vaccine diplomacy' is already in evidence. When it comes to UK vaccine diplomacy, the approach is 'fine words' and future commitments during this initial 'UK first' phase, whilst grabbing as many doses as possible for ourselves as quickly as possible. Then later once the government has satisfied its vaccination programme needs, we will move on to forms of vaccine diplomacy that actually involve giving the vaccine to others.

As a person under 50 with no established health conditions, it was quite a long time ago that I expressed my unease at the prospect of being vaccinated well before huge numbers of at risk people around the world. It is probably not surprising that discovering we were getting doses from India at this stage tiipped me far past the point of unease.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its not that hard, its a question of priorities of supply. There is no way anyone will convince me that vaccines from that India production facility should have been prioritised for the UK. That production facility is a major source of supply for things like COVAX. The UK is keeping domestically produced vaccine for itself, which is one thing, *taking it from India* at this stage is a disgrace.
> 
> Fergus Walsh expressed it in the form of surprise, I express it as disgust.




Sorry but your talking shit now.  We've not got the SAS to raid their vaccine store. Nor is India some backward third world country that makes vaccines for poor countries. 
They make medicines for everyone who wants to buy them, they are very good at it. 

Quite a few people on these boards would testify to the enduring quality of their ketamine back in the day.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 18, 2021)

You can't with one hand say 'we need everyone vaccinated ASAP' and then decry it when we buy from other nations to do so. If we don't get the supply we need to vaccinate people here, then more people here will die. No government of any stripe can actively say that to the public. 'Having killed a hundred thousand of you, we're going to let some more of you die so people somewhere else can live.' Wanting enough vaccines to inoculate your whole population is not vaccine nationalism, that's just fucking common sense, surely? You can't say it's vaccine nationalism when the UK does it, but that it would be totally fine for India or the EU to withhold supplies for their own people. Frankly if a UK government did not have a UK-first approach, then they shouldn't be the UK government. Their first duty is to their own citizens, it's as simple as that.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2021)

Just because I have different ideas to you about how vaccines should be equitably distributed at this stage, and what the priorities for global health should be, doesnt mean I'm taking shit.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Who's doing that then?  Anyone here?



It is now quite clear that this does apply to some people here, yes.


----------



## nagapie (Mar 19, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> You can't with one hand say 'we need everyone vaccinated ASAP' and then decry it when we buy from other nations to do so. If we don't get the supply we need to vaccinate people here, then more people here will die. No government of any stripe can actively say that to the public. 'Having killed a hundred thousand of you, we're going to let some more of you die so people somewhere else can live.' Wanting enough vaccines to inoculate your whole population is not vaccine nationalism, that's just fucking common sense, surely? You can't say it's vaccine nationalism when the UK does it, but that it would be totally fine for India or the EU to withhold supplies for their own people. Frankly if a UK government did not have a UK-first approach, then they shouldn't be the UK government. Their first duty is to their own citizens, it's as simple as that.


The UK has bought much more than they need, leaving less for others. Remember the selfish panic buyers they loved to decry, that's our government. 
They have actively pushed policies that allow companies to make profit before making vaccines more affordable for developing nations.
They have used vaccines as political leverage to try and detract from why we, one of the richest countries in the world, have one of the highest death rates instead of looking at global need.
They have as always ignored the science, Covid knows no borders and mutates.
They have used developing countries like South Africa for developing their vaccinations under the guise of giving them access and then totally fucked them over by not sharing.
None of this takes into account all the inequality that the UK perpetuates globally which results in extreme poverty across the globe.
You are a fuckwit.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Just because I have different ideas to you about how vaccines should be equitably distributed at this stage, and what the priorities for global health should be, doesnt mean I'm taking shit.



Not sure anyone said you were talking shit, just that it's hypocritical to say it's fine for India to want to vaccinate its own population before it sells abroad, but it's strangely not ok for the UK to want the same thing. The Indian government presumably approved the sale. They could have chosen to hoard those vaccines for their own population, but they didn't, so it's hardly obscene to expect them to fulfill the contractual obligations they have signed up to, is it?


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 19, 2021)

nagapie said:


> The UK has bought much more than they need, leaving less for others. Remember the selfish panic buyers they loved to decry, that's our government.
> They have actively pushed policies that allow companies to make profit before making vaccines more affordable for developing nations.
> They have used vaccines as political leverage to try and detract from why we, one of the richest countries in the world, have one of the highest death rates instead of looking at global need.
> They have as always ignored the science, Covid knows no borders and mutates.
> ...



We haven't bought more than we need, we've ORDERED more than we need. The majority of that hasn't even been manufactured yet, plus some of our purchases will be distributed to Commonwealth nations.

Oxford-AZ are distributing the vaccine at cost, so they're hardly making a profit before making it more affordable for developing nations.

We are the third largest donator to COVAX, I believe, after the USA and Germany.

The EU has used vaccines as political leverage too. So has the USA. So have China and Russia. Going to have a go at them too, or is it only bad when the UK does it?

Most of the AZ vaccine, which is what I assume you're referring to, isn't even made in the UK anyway, so it has nothing to do with the UK 'not sharing.'

This has nothing whatsoever to do with 'all the inequality that the UK perpetuates,' whatever that is. You just hate the Tories, and that's fine, but just say so. Don't try to preach from some high horse about how terrible the whole country apparently is. You're a fucking idiot if you think the UK is in any way special or different in any of what you just spouted.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 19, 2021)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 19, 2021)

nagapie said:


> The UK has bought much more than they need, leaving less for others.


That is simply not true.

It is true we ordered more doses than we need, like many other countries, because we needed to back several different vaccines, as we didn't know which would work. It was to back rapid development, to speed up trails, to increase production availability, and to allow some companies to start manufacturing even before approval.

If rich countries had not invested on the scale they did, we could still be months away from having any vaccines, or at the very least, there would be a fraction of the number of doses available now compared to what actually is available or coming soon. 

And, it's not less for others, any we don't require will be made available to poorer countries, there's no point keeping any we don't need.

Plus the Oxford/AZ vaccine is being provided at cost to the world, at something like £3 a pop, compared to Pfizer at £15, and Moderna at £28.


----------



## tommers (Mar 19, 2021)

Badgers said:


>




Where does the "3rd wave imminent" come from? Is he thinking that having that group not vaccinated fucks up the plan? We're at about 40% of the population or something now aren't we? 

Ensuring that the most vulnerable are properly immunised is the right thing to do isn't it? I'm (just) under 50 and I would rather be vaccinated than not but if I have to wait then OK, no worries.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 19, 2021)

tommers said:


> We're at about 40% of the population or something now aren't we?



Almost 50% now, there's about 54m over 18s in the UK, first doses have hit more than 25.7m.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 19, 2021)

tommers said:


> Where does the "3rd wave imminent" come from? Is he thinking that having that group not vaccinated fucks up the plan? We're at about 40% of the population or something now aren't we?
> 
> Ensuring that the most vulnerable are properly immunised is the right thing to do isn't it? I'm (just) under 50 and I would rather be vaccinated than not but if I have to wait then OK, no worries.



I guess he is suggesting that a return to normal life when infection rates are still high and large numbers of the population are still unvaccinated will lead to a third wave of infections.  There are some who hope that won't matter as long as death rates remain low enough (take your pick on what that actually means).  Others think that is nothing more than wishful thinking and letting a deadly virus rip through the population is as foolish now as it was this time a year ago.


----------



## maomao (Mar 19, 2021)

tommers said:


> Where does the "3rd wave imminent" come from? Is he thinking that having that group not vaccinated fucks up the plan? We're at about 40% of the population or something now aren't we?
> 
> Ensuring that the most vulnerable are properly immunised is the right thing to do isn't it? I'm (just) under 50 and I would rather be vaccinated than not but if I have to wait then OK, no worries.


Same here. I'd rather my mum, who has a significant risk of death, got her second dose than I got my first one.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 19, 2021)

The covid-19 vaccine manufacturing is being exported to the 4 corners of the world.  Mexico and Argentina are doing south and central America. I see Spain and Italy are setting up for the J&J vaccine etc.
When it all comes on stream, which can take a bit of time, the vaccine thing will become a thing of the past.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 19, 2021)

Sunray said:


> The covid-19 vaccine manufacturing is being exported to the 4 corners of the world.  Mexico and Argentina are doing south and central America. I see Spain and Italy are setting up for the J&J vaccine etc.
> When it all comes on stream, which can take a bit of time, the vaccine thing will become a thing of the past.



The AZ one is going to be manufactured in at least India, Brazil, Argentina and Thailand. South Africa will be coming online with the Johnson & Johnson one. I am sure there must be several other countries involved, they are just the ones I can remember.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 19, 2021)

tommers said:


> Where does the "3rd wave imminent" come from? Is he thinking that having that group not vaccinated fucks up the plan? We're at about 40% of the population or something now aren't we?


It is a bit scaremongering but it does come with some data from the Robert Koch institute. Doubt (hope) we will see a third wave as bad as January here in the UK but Europe is in a really bad state with more national lock downs kicking in. 

The Europe situation is different due to vaccine pace and also the UK variant  I read earlier we have 8 or 10 (will find the Gov.uk link) and more news about the recent variant being a lot more transmissible via kids. 

The vaccination combined with lockdown has got this _*almost*_ under control. Still think reopening schools was too soon.. My sister is a teacher at one school and she has two girls at two further schools. All three schools have now had news cases and years sent home to quarantine.


----------



## miss direct (Mar 19, 2021)

8 or 10 variants?


----------



## Badgers (Mar 19, 2021)

Dr Duncan Robertson (@Dr_D_Robertson)


			https://twitter.com/Dr_D_Robertson?s=03
		


Policy & Strategy Analytics academic at Loughborough University; Fellow, St Catherine's College, Oxford. Focusing on COVID-19 modelling and analysis.


----------



## nagapie (Mar 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That is simply not true.
> 
> It is true we ordered more doses than we need, like many other countries, because we needed to back several different vaccines, as we didn't know which would work. It was to back rapid development, to speed up trails, to increase production availability, and to allow some companies to start manufacturing even before approval.
> 
> ...


I've already pointed out to you in the past that the tokenistic offers to developing countrie are woefully inadequate. For example in South Africa there is currently a slow roll out to health workers only. The prediction is that at this rate, the entire population will be vaccinated in 18 years. Excuse that.


----------



## nagapie (Mar 19, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> We haven't bought more than we need, we've ORDERED more than we need. The majority of that hasn't even been manufactured yet, plus some of our purchases will be distributed to Commonwealth nations.
> 
> Oxford-AZ are distributing the vaccine at cost, so they're hardly making a profit before making it more affordable for developing nations.
> 
> ...


What I find most endearing about you is how you defend a race to the bottom. It's ok for the Uk to be shit because others are.

Covax is woefully inadequate, see my other post to the other person defending vaccine inequality.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 19, 2021)

nagapie said:


> I've already pointed out to you in the past that the tokenistic offers to developing countrie are woefully inadequate. For example in South Africa there is currently a slow roll out to health workers only. The prediction is that at this rate, the entire population will be vaccinated in 18 years. Excuse that.



I doubt that prediction is right, considering South Africa will be manufacturing the J&J vaccine.


----------



## nagapie (Mar 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I doubt that prediction is right, considering South Africa will be manufacturing the J&J vaccine.


This is the J and J vaccination, they don't have anything else.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 19, 2021)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 259324
> 
> 
> Dr Duncan Robertson (@Dr_D_Robertson)
> ...




I'd need some help/explanation if I wanted to understand that! 

For instance, there don't seem to be any notes about which of those variants are more serious compared to others  .... </  x 1,000  >

ETA : Some of that Doctor's tweets are pretty good, but they don't  provide much help (for non-scientists anyway!) with understanding the above table!


----------



## Sunray (Mar 19, 2021)

Badgers said:


> It is a bit scaremongering but it does come with some data from the Robert Koch institute. Doubt (hope) we will see a third wave as bad as January here in the UK but Europe is in a really bad state with more national lock downs kicking in.
> 
> The Europe situation is different due to vaccine pace and also the UK variant  I read earlier we have 8 or 10 (will find the Gov.uk link) and more news about the recent variant being a lot more transmissible via kids.
> 
> The vaccination combined with lockdown has got this _*almost*_ under control. Still think reopening schools was too soon.. My sister is a teacher at one school and she has two girls at two further schools. *All three schools have now had news cases and years sent home to quarantine.*



Kinda inevitable after they reopened schools. I see the number of cases has levelled out but the number of people in hospital is still on a steep decline.  It takes up to 2 weeks for sickness to get so bad you need to go to a&e and we are on day 11. This is the trend we are all awaiting.

I'm assuming the school children aren't going to hospital or even know they are sick.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 19, 2021)

nagapie said:


> This is the J and J vaccination, they don't have anything else.



Sure about that?








						Cape Town company to manufacture Covid-19 vaccine
					

Biopharmaceutical company Biovac will collaborate with US-based ImmunityBio to manufacture a second-generation Covid-19 vaccine.




					www.sowetanlive.co.za
				




are you talking about 18 years for the whole of Africa or just South Africa? Because the J&J,  its 300 million doses for a population of 60 million.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 19, 2021)

With the mass lateral flow testing of school kids being included in the figures I'm somewhat surprised the new daily rate numbers have only levelled rather than gone up appreciably.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 19, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> With the mass lateral flow testing of school kids being included in the figures I'm somewhat surprised the new daily rate numbers have only levelled rather than gone up appreciably.



Same here, at the peak we were testing around 600k a day, they are now reporting around 1.5m tests a day, so with such a massive increase in testing, it's surprising that new cases haven't started going up by a fair bit.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 19, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> With the mass lateral flow testing of school kids being included in the figures I'm somewhat surprised the new daily rate numbers have only levelled rather than gone up appreciably.



But we probably need two or three more weeks or so (?),to get the full picture for post-schools-opening infection rates??

(Very much questions not statements there, btw -- as I said above, I'm no scientist!  )


----------



## nagapie (Mar 19, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Sure about that?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, I'm very sure. This is about things that may happen in the future, not what is happening on the ground now. I am talking about SA only. For whatever reason, the J and J vaccinations are not out and about. While I'm sure that the vaccination program will speed up eventually (they were told they'd receive international vaccines in April, many months after us) this gives you a sense of how little is actually available right now.


----------



## tommers (Mar 19, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> But we probably need two or three more weeks or so (?),to get the full picture for post-schools-opening infection rates??
> 
> (Very much questions not statements there, btw -- as I said above, I'm no scientist!  )


they've been in for two weeks already.

I guess by Easter we'll see better.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 19, 2021)

tommers said:


> Where does the "3rd wave imminent" come from?


This was made clear in the Warwick modelling preprint back in January (DOI: 10.1101/2020.12.27.20248896), which formed the basis of the paper published yesterday.

Additionally, as alluded to a couple of weeks ago...








						South African variant of Covid cannot be kept out of UK for ever, Neil Ferguson warns
					

Senior scientific adviser says some countries are seeing a ‘significant fraction’ of cases with the variant




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## tommers (Mar 19, 2021)

tommers said:


> Ensuring that the most vulnerable are properly immunised is the right thing to do isn't it? I'm (just) under 50 and I would rather be vaccinated than not but if I have to wait then OK, no worries.



Just got the email asking me to book an appointment.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 19, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> But we probably need two or three more weeks or so (?),to get the full picture for post-schools-opening infection rates??
> 
> (Very much questions not statements there, btw -- as I said above, I'm no scientist!  )



Yes I think I was commenting more on getting a truer picture rather than the impact of schools being back.  Its the whole more you test the more you find and I had assumed that mass testing of kids would have unearthed quite a few asymptomatic cases.

Of course that may have happened and been offset against the fall in the general populace but that doesn't appear to have been the case.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 19, 2021)

Covid: UK death rate 'no longer Europe's worst' by winter
					

Six other countries were worse affected during the second wave of the pandemic, according to ONS figures.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Take that Slovenia. We weren't the shittest because it was a race to the end of the year, nuh. I always feel good when I know we aren't as crap as Bulgaria.


----------



## tommers (Mar 19, 2021)

2hats said:


> This was made clear in the Warwick modelling preprint back in January (DOI: 10.1101/2020.12.27.20248896), which formed the basis of the paper published yesterday.
> 
> Additionally, as alluded to a couple of weeks ago...
> 
> ...



Hasn't Israel reported something like 97% reduction in symptomatic cases? Citing Israel data, Pfizer says vaccine 97% effective against symptomatic COVID

Appreciate that doesn't really affect variants.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 19, 2021)

tommers said:


> Hasn't Israel reported something like 97% reduction in symptomatic cases? Citing Israel data, Pfizer says vaccine 97% effective against symptomatic COVID


Pfizer claims that for vaccinees (at 2 weeks after second dose) which isn't the same as saying "97% reduction in symptomatic cases". That's also in the presence of degrees of on-going NPIs and predominately one variant that the vaccines available there are pretty effective against (in respect of efficacy to [a]symptomatic infection). Interesting to note that for the most recent sequencing data (sadly lags the most industrious sequencers a couple of weeks for some reason), after B.1.1.7, B.1.351 is the next fastest growing variant there...

e2a: There is likely also an association effect at work too skewing that particular metric - most vaccinated, particularly in older cohorts, predominately associate with other vaccinated (their partners, carers).


----------



## two sheds (Mar 19, 2021)

Which is B.1.1.7 again? B.1.351 is South Affrican variant. I can never remember the B numbers.


----------



## 2hats (Mar 19, 2021)

#torymutantvirus "UK/Kent" variant.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 19, 2021)

ta, I thought it might be but could only see 'UK' variant from overseas reports.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Same here, at the peak we were testing around 600k a day, they are now reporting around 1.5m tests a day, so with such a massive increase in testing, it's surprising that new cases haven't started going up by a fair bit.



Well I guess it takes time for viral momentum to build. And the first thing to expect is not a big rise in cases, its an end to the decline in cases.

Very similar expected dynamics are a big part of why I was advising people last June not to spend that side of summer waiting for the next wave to show itself imminently. It took quite some time for the virus to build momentum then, and then further time for modest increases to more obviously resemble explosive increases.

If we take what happened with University students, infection rates in some of those settings exploded so quickly that I think we were looking at a scenario where the virus had already gained much momentum in that age group before they went back. And start of term social events and shared accommodation etc gave the virus the opportunity to multiply from that base that had already been built over time.

Likewise although there had been problems at schools for some time last autumn, it still took quite a long time, including November national measures that left schools open, before some cruel explosive tipping point having been reached became really obvious to people.

I'm not complacent about the current situation though, and if I take the following sort of graph from the weekly surveillance report, we can see pretty clearly what stage we reached recently. Various factors should be different to last time we we are that stage. There are a whole bunch of reasons why the virus might struggle to regain momentum quickly, and a few ways it might manage to.


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...212/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w11_v2.pdf


----------



## teuchter (Mar 19, 2021)

That graph appears to show the 10-19 age group rising again already.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Mar 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> That graph appears to show the 10-19 age group rising again already.


Hardly surprising when they're all doing multiple tests per week in school now.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> That graph appears to show the 10-19 age group rising again already.



One difficulty I have when presenting such graphs is that there are many more in the document, and I cannot begin to cover them all.

For example there are a large number of graphs in the supplimentary document which cover age groups in schools etc from a variety of angles. Here is just one. Further demonstrates that in terms of this weekly format of data, its still a bit early to be judging much.




			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/970784/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W11.pdf


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Covid: UK death rate 'no longer Europe's worst' by winter
> 
> 
> Six other countries were worse affected during the second wave of the pandemic, according to ONS figures.
> ...



I think this was earlier presented with a different headline, before they decided to spin a positive aspect.

Many of the details are grim regardless of headline:



> The UK had among the highest excess mortality rates for people aged under 65 years; by 18 December it had the second highest cumulative excess mortality rate for this age group, behind Bulgaria.
> For those aged under 65 years, the UK had the second highest peak in weekly excess mortality rates across the year, at 62.7% above the five-year average during week ending 24 April, second to Bulgaria at 108.5% during week ending 27 November.





> The highest peak in weekly excess mortality (relative age-standardised mortality rates (rASMRs)) in the autumn was in Bulgaria, at 112.3% (week ending 27 November), but this was the second-highest peak in the year overall, behind Spain at 142.9% in week ending 3 April; the UK's highest peak was 101.5% (week ending 17 April)





> "While the UK may no longer have one of the highest levels of cumulative excess mortality in Europe, it does persist to have some of the highest cumulative excess mortality rates for those aged under 65 years. Only Bulgaria had a higher cumulative excess mortality rate for this age group by the end of 2020, with the UK and its constituent countries having excess mortality levels well above most other European countries.
> 
> This has been a pattern observed throughout 2020 since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March showing that the impact of the pandemic in the UK has not exclusively affected those at the oldest ages. We are working to better understand the reasons behind this trend."
> 
> Dr Annie Campbell, Health Analysis and Life Events, Office for National Statistics







__





						Comparisons of all-cause mortality between European countries and regions - Office for National Statistics
					

Mortality patterns of selected European countries and regions, week ending 3 January 2020 (Week 1) to week ending 1 January 2021 (Week 53).



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




In regards to the "the UK's highest peak was 101.5%" bit, this is consistent with my comments earlier in the pandemic that at the peak of our first wave, twice as many people as normal were dying.


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> I think this was earlier presented with a different headline, before they decided to spin a positive aspect.
> 
> Many of the details are grim regardless of headline:
> 
> ...



I put it here because I'd just heard it presented on the radio news as a very positive thing and got a bit irate at the reporting. 

I think the article I've picked from the website is actually more damning than the report I heard, which was sickeningly "we're not so bad after all eh, eh, eh"


----------



## Sunray (Mar 19, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Yes, I'm very sure. This is about things that may happen in the future, not what is happening on the ground now. I am talking about SA only. For whatever reason, the J and J vaccinations are not out and about. While I'm sure that the vaccination program will speed up eventually (they were told they'd receive international vaccines in April, many months after us) this gives you a sense of how little is actually available right now.



We are far in advance of the curve because the AZ vaccine was developed and tested in the UK.  To test a vaccine at an even modest scale, you need to make it 1st.  So we already had the manufacturing set up and ready to go. I seem to remember they were having some manufacturing issues in early November, long before it was approved.  Clearly, this came with a large financial risk because it's all wasted if it didn't work.  A risk times all the manufacturing plants across the world if they had got in early, sensibly they waited for the data to show it was working.

Now it works, manufacturing is being set up all over but it takes quite a while to make even once they start, it's not an instant process.  This is why I was saying all the bluster about vaccines and vaccine nationalism will go away when all these plants come on stream in their respective locations. 

Nothing is instant, however much we want and need it to be.  Look at the PPE and stuff that was really needed and how everyone was talking about it at the beginning of the pandemic.  Those dumb homemade ventilators!   Ventilators were expensive for a reason.

All forgotten a year later as manufacturing has stepped in and made lots more.  Good quality masks hanging off Tescos shelves 3 for a fiver.  This will be true of vaccinations, just not in Tescos.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 19, 2021)

Sunray said:


> We are far in advance of the curve because the AZ vaccine was developed and tested in the UK.  To test a vaccine at an even modest scale, you need to make it 1st.  So we already had the manufacturing set up and ready to go. I seem to remember they were having some manufacturing issues in early November, long before it was approved.  Clearly, this came with a large financial risk because it's all wasted if it didn't work.  A risk times all the manufacturing plants across the world if they had got in early, sensibly they waited for the data to show it was working.
> 
> Now it works, manufacturing is being set up all over but it takes quite a while to make even once they start, it's not an instant process.  This is why I was saying all the bluster about vaccines and vaccine nationalism will go away when all these plants come on stream in their respective locations.
> 
> ...


ventilators up to £25k apparently

think the vaccination is more than a fiver a pop tho


----------



## Sunray (Mar 19, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> ventilators up to £25k apparently
> 
> think the vaccination is more than a fiver a pop tho



AZ for Belgium was e1.78








						A politician tweeted a list showing how much the EU has agreed to pay for the leading vaccines, confirming rumors of Moderna's sky-high price
					

At the top end, the EU agrees to pay Moderna $22.06 per dose while paying $2.18 per dose for AstraZeneca's.




					www.businessinsider.com
				




But the Gov is giving £12 to GP's per patient I hear so hard to quantify.


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 19, 2021)

nagapie said:


> What I find most endearing about you is how you defend a race to the bottom. It's ok for the Uk to be shit because others are.
> 
> Covax is woefully inadequate, see my other post to the other person defending vaccine inequality.




I'm not defending a race to the bottom at all. I'm just pointing out that, if everyone else is racing to the bottom and we don't, then people here will die who don't need to. You might be ok with letting British citizens die needlessly, but I'm not, and nor should the government be, especially now they actually have a chance to save lives after they contributed to so many dying already. 

Covax may be woefully inadequate or it may not be, but it's still better to be part of it than to not be. Also as I said, we have purchased and distributed, and will continue to distribute, vaccines to Commonwealth countries separately from Covax. Gibraltar for instance, has already become the first national entity in the world to vaccinate its entire adult population, thanks to supplies paid for, purchased by, and sent from the UK. Maybe you think they should have had to go through the fucked up mess of EU procurement but I bet they're pretty glad they didn't.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 19, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Maybe you think they [Gibraltar] should have had to go through the fucked up mess of EU procurement but I bet they're pretty glad they didn't.






			
				Wikipedia said:
			
		

> *Gibraltar* is not *part* of the UK, but contrary to all other British Overseas Territories was a *part of the European Union* like the UK. It participated in the Brexit referendum and it ceased, by default, to be a *part of the EU* upon the UK's withdrawal



Wiki link : "Effect of Brexit on Gibraltar"

Just saying ....  ... and not saying that you were assertimg to the contrary, but that part of your post was not clear.

ETA, just remembered : And Gibraltar voted 94% (or so) remain in the EU-Ref ....


----------



## Sunray (Mar 20, 2021)

Ahh, thoses ventilators....

Who fancies being hooked up to this when you're really sick...





Anyone......?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 20, 2021)

I've not been paying that much attention to the stats this last week, because they all seemed to be going in the right direction, so just looking at the dashboard & worldometers for the 7-day averages, I see there's a lot of positives this week.

New cases yesterday were 4,802, down -8.7% in the last week, bringing the 7-day average down to 5,343 - a figure not seen since the end of Sept.  

And, that's despite a massive increase in the number of tests being reported, up from around 600k at the peak to around 1.5m a day now, due to lateral flow tests being used so much.

Deaths reported yesterday were 101, down -36.8% in the last week, bringing the 7-day average down to 98 - a figure not seen since the first half of Oct. 

Patients in hospital, reported 17th March, 6,544 down from the peak of 38,400, patients admitted in the 7-days to the 15th March - 3,535, down 23.2% in the week. 

All time record for jabs yesterday at 660,276 (1st dose 528,260 + ,2nd dose 132,016), meaning over 2m have had their 2nd dose, and a total of 26,263,732 have received at least one dose, just short of 50% of all adults*, that magic figure should be easily hit over the weekend. 

* UK estimated population 67,886,000 - 21.3% under 18s = 53,426,282.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 20, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Ahh, thoses ventilators....
> 
> Who fancies being hooked up to this when you're really sick...
> 
> ...




If it works I'll take it. 

If you've built a better one I'm sure we'd all love to see it.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 20, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I'm not defending a race to the bottom at all. I'm just pointing out that, if everyone else is racing to the bottom and we don't, then people here will die who don't need to.



[Chef's kiss]


----------



## MJ100 (Mar 20, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Wiki link : "Effect of Brexit on Gibraltar"
> 
> Just saying ....  ... and not saying that you were assertimg to the contrary, but that part of your post was not clear.



No you're quite right, I just meant that if the UK was not providing Gibraltar with help, then the EU scheme would be the next logical port of call for them to turn to. Maybe the EU would have got them supplied quicker- probably not though!


----------



## Sunray (Mar 21, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> If it works I'll take it.
> 
> If you've built a better one I'm sure we'd all love to see it.



No, but get the right people on the job and this happened.  Four day to create a device that got approval and saved lives, people didn't need to go onto ventilators.








						Mercedes-AMG F1 team develops new CPAP for COVID-19 patients
					

The Formula One team worked with University College London to develop the machine, which is now ready for trial and could keep patients off ventilators.




					www.cnet.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> No, but get the right people on the job and this happened.  Four day to create a device that got approval and saved lives, people didn't need to go onto ventilators.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The right people? The machine you derided was built by a professor of medicine. Meanwhile Mercedes and their petrol-guzzling _düschbaggenwagens_ contribute in no small degree to air pollution and resultant breathing problems, which disproportionately affect children.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 21, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> The right people? The machine you derided was built by a professor of medicine. Meanwhile Mercedes and their petrol-guzzling _düschbaggenwagens_ contribute in no small degree to air pollution and resultant breathing problems, which disproportionately affect children.



People with real skills in manufacturing and production with the tools and machines to back it up. A professor of medicine doesn't have those skills.  They open-sourced the design so anyone could make it. 
They made a load of them immediately.

It saved lives as it has been used across the world, not just for people with COVID but the health care workers too.


----------



## NoXion (Mar 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Ahh, thoses ventilators....
> 
> Who fancies being hooked up to this when you're really sick...
> 
> ...




Give the choice between no breathing assistance when I need it to continue living, and that device, then hook me up please. What a really silly question that is.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 21, 2021)

Poor dogs and cats 









						Vets warn of new Covid variant’s possible link to heart problems in pets
					

Specialist hospital stresses: ‘We have strong suspicion of transmission from human to pet, not vice versa’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## existentialist (Mar 21, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Poor dogs and cats
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Phew. Rabbits not mentioned . Not that I'm in very much danger of giving them Covid, given the lack of opportunities to get infected myself...


----------



## Sunray (Mar 21, 2021)

NoXion said:


> Give the choice between no breathing assistance when I need it to continue living, and that device, then hook me up please. What a really silly question that is.



That device would kill you by popping your lungs.
Ventilators are not simple devices and you want to be hooked up to a real one. 80 years of development.   I refer you to
Ventilator (esp the bit on it being life-critical)

This stems from another one of the current Governments many total fuck ups.  They ordered 10000 ventilators from Dyson who make washing machines and hoovers and nothing to offer anyone.
The UK's manufacturers of approved ventilators, didn't get any orders? WTF!


----------



## NoXion (Mar 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> That device would kill you by popping your lungs.
> Ventilators are not simple devices and you want to be hooked up to a real one. 80 years of development.   I refer you to
> Ventilator (esp the bit on it being life-critical)



I assume that the doctors and engineers involved in its development know what they are doing, unlike someone whose experience of designing and building ventilation machines appears to come solely from reading Wikipedia articles.



> This stems from another one of the current Governments many total fuck ups.  They ordered 10000 ventilators from Dyson who make washing machines and hoovers and nothing to offer anyone.
> The UK's manufacturers of approved ventilators, didn't get any orders? WTF!



I agree that the UK government fucked up the procurement of ventilators, but that's no excuse to start slagging off an effort that has literally nothing to do with that. You do know that Vanderbilt University is in the US, right?


----------



## Sunray (Mar 21, 2021)

NoXion said:


> I assume that the doctors and engineers involved in its development know what they are doing, unlike someone whose experience of designing and building ventilation machines appears to come solely from reading Wikipedia articles.
> 
> 
> 
> I agree that the UK government fucked up the procurement of ventilators, but that's no excuse to start slagging off an effort that has literally nothing to do with that. You do know that Vanderbilt University is in the US, right?



I'm ok at designing and building things, enough to know that manufacturing thing like this, quickly, is very hard.  This is why the Mercedes UCL collaboration amazes me.  But Mercedes have a tool shop like no other. I would love the chance to use that setup. OMG. The precision CNC machines for making boxes in a flash.



People seemed to lose their mind over this.  It was clearly dumb doing what they were doing. Why are they doing what they were doing?  Ventilators are an eighty year old technology.  Go to any manufacture and ask them to make you some and they will.   The world can make a million of them pretty easily.  

It seemed to get forgotten you can't come up with a million fully trained people to operate them at the same time.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2021)

I dont think the authorities forgot, they just didnt let the staffing realities get in the way of the propaganda of being seen to be doing something. Same as with making a big show of getting nightingales setup. Not the difference-maker they were made out to be, although they may have had some lesser utility, but more than zero, in certain scenarios.

I still believe that 'save the NHS, die at home' demand management was one of the ways they coped with the first wave. An overlooked subject that nonetheless did feature in one of the personal stories touched on by a Guardian article from earlier in March:



> Olufemi Akinnola, an otherwise fit 60-year-old care worker from Leamington Spa, died with Covid-19 on his sofa last April. He had been told by the NHS 111 service that staying at home was his best bet. Now his son, Lobby Akinnola, 30, wants a public inquiry to examine, among other things, the quality of advice given to people like his dad.
> 
> “When the first wave came to an end, lots of people said how well we did and that the Nightingale hospitals were not even used,” Akinnola said. “That is difficult to hear because my dad died at home. It felt like he was being treated like it was quite a bad flu … Lack of caution and unfounded confidence was a theme of the pandemic response and has been very costly.”











						'Somebody has to answer for this': voices from the frontline on why we need a Covid inquiry
					

Medics, care workers and grieving relatives outline their anger, heartbreak and the urgent questions they want answered




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Mar 22, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Phew. Rabbits not mentioned . Not that I'm in very much danger of giving them Covid, given the lack of opportunities to get infected myself...


Don't worry if rabbits are affected as I'm sure the virus will be killed with thorough cooking.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 22, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Don't worry if rabbits are affected as I'm sure the virus will be killed with thorough cooking.


Fuck off


----------



## LDC (Mar 22, 2021)

All the talk of overseas holidays is doing my head in. I get why (economic, jobs, and people just wanting a break) but it just clearly looks like a terrible idea currently.

Why the fuck don't the government make some more pro-active plans? They could say no overseas holidays but tie it into a 'help the UK economy and holiday here' thing or something. Could be a really good chance to talk about the amazing places we have here in the UK, advertise some of them, and get people to visit. Maybe add an extra bank holiday for people to see them, and do some summer scheme for kids that run alongside it, I dunno, like a free Go-Ape session or free ticket to something like that. If they were ambitious they could have sorted out a week long outward bound program for 13-16 year olds all summer or something. Just feels like there's zero imagination or impetus for things like that.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> All the talk of overseas holidays is doing my head in. I get why (economic, jobs, and people just wanting a break) but it just clearly looks like a terrible idea currently.
> 
> Why the fuck don't the government make some more pro-active plans? They could say no overseas holidays but tie it into a 'help the UK economy and holiday here' thing or something. Could be a really good chance to talk about the amazing places we have here in the UK, advertise some of them, and get people to visit. Maybe add an extra bank holiday for people to see them, and do some summer scheme for kids that run alongside it, I dunno, like a free Go-Ape session or free ticket to something like that. If they were ambitious they could have sorted out a week long outward bound program for 13-16 year olds all summer or something. Just feels like there's zero imagination or impetus for things like that.


Have you tried booking a U.K. holiday recently?  I don’t think they need the help.  Stuff is filling up almost as soon as it becomes available.


----------



## LDC (Mar 22, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Have you tried booking a U.K. holiday recently?  I don’t think they need the help.  Stuff is filling up almost as soon as it becomes available.



No, yeah fair enough, maybe that's the case. I guess they're trying to dodge making unpopular announcements around overseas travel.


----------



## tommers (Mar 22, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, yeah fair enough, maybe that's the case. I guess they're trying to dodge making unpopular announcements around overseas travel.


They're basically saying it isn't possible on breakfast this morning.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 22, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Have you tried booking a U.K. holiday recently?  I don’t think they need the help.  Stuff is filling up almost as soon as it becomes available.



Tell me about it !

I'm having to book a couple of week long / different holiday lets, plus a hotel visit between them, in order for me, OH and a couple of my employees to work at a site about 300 miles from here ...


----------



## Sunray (Mar 22, 2021)

Due to everyone going to Spain or somewhere warm and Sunny since forever, the UK doesn’t  have the capacity anymore. 
Cornwall last year, three bed Airbnb were £500 a night.

Camping is your only guaranteed option.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 22, 2021)

Regardless of your views the one thing that most people can agree on (cranks and selfish wankers aside) is that closing your borders early and saving your internal economy would have been the better choice.  Obviously that was never considered a viable option but with the travel ban in place now it would be a bloody odd thing to just to say fuck it lets allow foreign holidays this summer.

I won't say it won't happen because of the erratic decision making thus far by the government but it really shouldn't.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 22, 2021)

I see Johnson has been chatting about the inevitablebility of the third wave hitting the UK.  Nothing particularly unusual in that but he seems to be linking it to the situation on the continent.

There are going to be some interesting weeks and months ahead.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 22, 2021)

Blimey, new deaths reported today are 'just' 17.   

I know Monday's figures are always low, as they are reporting on Sunday & subject to the weekend lag, but that's still down by 47 compared to last Monday's 64, bringing the 7-day average down to 84. 

New cases 5,342, down 4.7% in the last week, despite a record breaking 1,893,830 tests being reported.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I see Johnson has been chatting about the inevitablebility of the third wave hitting the UK.  Nothing particularly unusual in that but he seems to be linking it to the situation on the continent.
> 
> There are going to be some interesting weeks and months ahead.



BBC 'analysis' by Iain Watson covers most of the bases that spring to mind:



> The prospect of a third coronavirus wave won't engulf anyone with joy. So why did Boris Johnson highlight this danger today?
> 
> Privately and publicly ministers are making it clear that they don't want to delay the dates in England's roadmap out of lockdown.
> 
> ...





> He may also be trying to persuade vaccinated people with itchy feet that booking spring or summer holidays would still be premature.
> 
> He is preparing us, too, for the strong possibility that cases could rise in the coming weeks - not just because of "incoming" risks, but because rules here are being slowly relaxed.
> 
> But by stressing the shared threat from the coronavirus - i.e. the sooner the EU population is vaccinated, the less chance of importing a third wave - his comments could be also be clearing the way for more UK/EU vaccine co-operation, and the dousing down of an inflammatory row with Brussels.











						Coronavirus: Third wave will 'wash up on our shores', warns Johnson
					

Boris Johnson says the UK will "feel effects" of growing case numbers in Europe amid a row over vaccines.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## planetgeli (Mar 22, 2021)

It is 'incoming'. 

We are going to 'import it'.

It will 'wash up on our shores'. Like the fucking Normans.

Can you see a pattern here in the language? Nothing to do with us. Bloody Johnny Foreigner.


----------



## miss direct (Mar 22, 2021)

A lot of other countries (ok, then, Turkey) have been blaming Brits and "the UK variant" for their own issues...


----------



## Sunray (Mar 22, 2021)

miss direct said:


> A lot of other countries (ok, then, Turkey) have been blaming Brits and "the UK variant" for their own issues...



Just find Dave in Kent who coughed it up and deport him.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Blimey, new deaths reported today are 'just' 17.
> 
> I know Monday's figures are always low, as they are reporting on Sunday & subject to the weekend lag, but that's still down by 47 compared to last Monday's 64, bringing the 7-day average down to 84.
> 
> New cases 5,342, down 4.7% in the last week, despite a record breaking 1,893,830 tests being reported.



Amazing news.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 22, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> It is 'incoming'.
> 
> We are going to 'import it'.
> 
> ...


Well I sincerely hope we're not letting anyone in without a test and/or quarantine if that's the case.   But I presume we are


----------



## NoXion (Mar 22, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> It is 'incoming'.
> 
> We are going to 'import it'.
> 
> ...



And yet ironically they will categorically refuse to shut the borders temporarily, because for all the nativist rhetoric they like employing in order to keep the votes of the gullible, they are transnational capitalists at heart who value the profits of the transportation industry over human lives.


----------



## miss direct (Mar 22, 2021)

It's not just about "foreigners" but also incoming Brits.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 22, 2021)

From BBC news:



> One of his ministers, Lord Bethell, also warned the UK might put "all our European neighbours" on the red list of countries, where arrivals are either banned or put in quarantine hotels.



Or we could, y'know, do that now, rather than waiting for 6 weeks?!


----------



## weltweit (Mar 22, 2021)

Sunray said:


> ..
> The UK's manufacturers of approved ventilators, didn't get any orders? WTF!


Penlon, a UK manufacturer of ventilators did get the order from the UK Ventilator Challenge group.
Emergency Ventilators - Penlon
They had to increase weekly production something like 10 times to meet the demand.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 23, 2021)

Crazy to think it's been a year since we first got locked down.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 23, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Crazy to think it's been a year since we first got locked down.



And here we are, still in lock down, & rumblings of a third wave! Fuck sake.


----------



## weepiper (Mar 23, 2021)

My youngest son had his second lockdown birthday yesterday. I'm counting it because schools were already closed here and we were already wearing face masks at work and not letting customers in the shop etc.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 23, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> And here we are, still in lock down, & rumblings of a third wave! Fuck sake.



Its fine because any future third waves are The Europeans Fault this time.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 23, 2021)




----------



## what (Mar 23, 2021)

Badgers said:


>



Schools went back about 8th March. Some schools were testing in the week before that. So are we going back to open the schools and watch the rates rise?


----------



## maomao (Mar 23, 2021)

weepiper said:


> My youngest son had his second lockdown birthday yesterday. I'm counting it because schools were already closed here and we were already wearing face masks at work and not letting customers in the shop etc.


My daughter cornered me the other day to point out she'll have missed two birthday parties because of coronavirus and to let me know she's expecting a proper party for her seventh. I now feel guilty that a year ago 'not having to do a party for twenty five-year-olds' was pretty high on our 'lockdown pros' list.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 23, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> And here we are, still in lock down, & rumblings of a third wave! Fuck sake.


I must be missing something with all this talk of a third wave. Surely there is only a risk of that if we ease up on the current restrictions? So just keep them in place?


----------



## Badgers (Mar 23, 2021)

emanymton said:


> I must be missing something with all this talk of a third wave. Surely there is only a risk of that if we ease up on the current restrictions? So just keep them in place?


But the economy...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 23, 2021)

emanymton said:


> I must be missing something with all this talk of a third wave. Surely there is only a risk of that if we ease up on the current restrictions? So just keep them in place?



I'll be surprised if they hold up easing current restrictions, based on the current figures and the way things are going ATM, of course, that could still go tits up.

The one exception looks to be in regards to international travel, with talk of the current ban on overseas holidays being extended from 17th May to at least the end of June, with new £5,000 fines introduced for any chancers. It looks possible much of Europe, maybe all, could end-up on the 'red list' meaning any UK residents returning having to go into hotel quarantine .



> *A £5,000 fine for anyone in England trying to travel abroad without good reason is due to come into force next week as part of new coronavirus laws.*
> 
> The penalty is included in legislation that will be voted on by MPs on Thursday.
> 
> ...











						Covid: £5,000 fine for people going on holiday abroad
					

It is due to come into force in England next week as some other lockdown restrictions are eased.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Mar 23, 2021)

maomao said:


> My daughter cornered me the other day to point out she'll have missed two birthday parties because of coronavirus and to let me know she's expecting a proper party for her seventh. I now feel guilty that a year ago 'not having to do a party for twenty five-year-olds' was pretty high on our 'lockdown pros' list.


You couldn't have known what the context would be a year on! Never judge yourself with the benefit of hindsight...and next time you're confronted with the prospect of a birthday party for 20 kids, I suspect you will do it with some measure of joy and gratitude. Be kind to yourself.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 23, 2021)

Looks like we are heading towards compulsory vaccination for care workers.



> Care home workers could be legally required to have coronavirus vaccines under proposals being looked at by the Government.
> 
> Health Secretary Matt Hancock confirmed that the idea was being looked at but stressed that no final decisions have been made.
> 
> A leaked paper submitted to the “Covid O” sub-committee of Cabinet suggested Mr Johnson and Mr Hancock had agreed to the proposal.











						Vaccine jabs could be made compulsory for care home staff to protect residents
					

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Health Secretary Matt Hancock are said to be in support of changing the law in a move which aims to protect vulnerable residents




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## maomao (Mar 23, 2021)

existentialist said:


> next time you're confronted with the prospect of a birthday party for 20 kids, I suspect you will do it with some measure of joy and gratitude.


The fuck I will


----------



## andysays (Mar 23, 2021)

Happy birthday to Master weepiper and Miss maomao, and to any other Urban kids celebrating their second lockdown birthday.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 23, 2021)

So anniversary of first lockdown today. 

Just a thousand or so dead this time last year. 

A milestone.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 23, 2021)

weepiper said:


> My youngest son had his second lockdown birthday yesterday. I'm counting it because schools were already closed here and we were already wearing face masks at work and not letting customers in the shop etc.


Same for me, I'll be having my 2nd lockdown b/day this weekend.  I've said it before but last year was my 50th and the only positive was I saved an absolute fortune by not being able to have it.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 23, 2021)




----------



## Teaboy (Mar 23, 2021)

In it together.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 23, 2021)

It doesn't actually say that you can go on holiday to a 2nd home.
I don't see that it's really any more of a loophole than the general allowance for travelling for work purposes.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 23, 2021)

weltweit said:


> So anniversary of first lockdown today.
> 
> Just a thousand or so dead this time last year.
> 
> A milestone.


On the road to where?


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 23, 2021)

Apparently, someone, who was supposed to be self-isolating on the Isle of Man, went out to "top-up" their mobile and do some shopping, is now spending 4 weeks in Jurby nick.

Covid Isle of Man: Four weeks in jail for man who ignored Covid rules - BBC News


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Mar 23, 2021)

what said:


> Schools went back about 8th March. Some schools were testing in the week before that. So are we going back to open the schools and watch the rates rise?


We would expect positive tests for kids to have gone up just because they're testing kids a lot more now. I also don't know if those figures factor in false positives, of which there will have been a significant number as they've doubled the number of rapid tests being done and these do return some false positives. So at least some of that rise among kids is an artefact of the testing regime. 

I'm intrigued by the diagonal green area to the right of that table. How well does that correlate with first dose of vaccine take up? At first glance it looks like it might correlate quite closely, which would be rather brilliant news.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 23, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Apparently, someone, who was supposed to be self-isolating on the Isle of Man, went out to "top-up" their mobile and do some shopping, is now spending 4 weeks in Jurby nick.
> 
> Covid Isle of Man: Four weeks in jail for man who ignored Covid rules - BBC News



He's very lucky, some on the IoM have been jailed for 2 to 3 months for the same offence.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 23, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Penlon, a UK manufacturer of ventilators did get the order from the UK Ventilator Challenge group.
> Emergency Ventilators - Penlon
> They had to increase weekly production something like 10 times to meet the demand.



That's good, I read at least twice that they were ignored, one of those quite recently.

I can imagine they didn't scrap their existing designs in favour of one they knocked up with lego and a balloon on their kitchen table.


----------



## weltweit (Mar 23, 2021)

Sunray said:


> That's good, I read at least twice that they were ignored, one of those quite recently.


I think initially the individuals involved in the Ventilator challenge were perhaps seduced by the more glamorous names of UK manufacturing but they came to realise that ventilators are quite carefully approved medical kit which meant an existing design had big advantages. 

That said, my understanding is that Penlon needed assistance to get throughput up to the required levels. 



Sunray said:


> I can imagine they didn't scrap their existing designs in favour of one they knocked up with lego and a balloon on their kitchen table.


There were quite a few consortia trying to establish and pushing new designs, I think the approvals process proved to be too high a bar for these newly designed ventilators. That and the actual UK demand proved less great than had been anticipated.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We would expect positive tests for kids to have gone up just because they're testing kids a lot more now. I also don't know if those figures factor in false positives, of which there will have been a significant number as they've doubled the number of rapid tests being done and these do return some false positives. So at least some of that rise among kids is an artefact of the testing regime.



When drilling down to England in the UK dashboard it is possible to see how many lateral flow tests were conducted. Its been at a high rate for some time so I dont expect a sudden difference in results to only show up right now as a consequence of this.



I usually have more to say about age-based data when the weekly surveillance report omes out, which is on Thursdays (and covers England rather than whole of UK). Unfortunately it does tend to lag behind the daily data, but it does include all manner of charts relating to education age groups, and tends to stick to lab-based tests rather than lateral flow ones. Most of these charts are in the supplimentary document, eg here is the one from last week. https://assets.publishing.service.g...-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W11.pdf

I believe I already posted this graph from it the other day:


----------



## ddraig (Mar 23, 2021)

0 deaths two days in a row in Wales and cases decreasing!


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2021)

SInce I reflect most days on the pandemic, I dont have anything special to say on this anniversary.

Except to say that by date of death, there have been 149,114 UK deaths where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate from the start up till 12th March 2021. And 91,294 of those were from the 1st September 2020 onwards.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2021)

And if someone asked me what the largest possible number I could come up with based on data is, so that some sense of possible range could be considered, in the context of how much undercounting there may have been, it would be something like this:

Use excess deaths for the first wave, something like 65,365.

Use positive test deaths for the 2nd wave, but with Englands 28-day limit replaced by a 60 day limit instead. Something like 96,576.

Total 161,941.


----------



## Supine (Mar 23, 2021)

ddraig said:


> 0 deaths two days in a row in Wales and cases decreasing!



Time to let the economy rip!!! Get spending people.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 23, 2021)

Nicked off the BeeB

Covid lockdown: Seven enduring claims fact-checked - BBC News 

I find it surprising that some of these still have currency ...


----------



## brogdale (Mar 23, 2021)

Fucking hell...


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 23, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Fucking hell...



Would look better as a defendant line-up.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 23, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Would look better as a defendant line-up.


Leading to the Milanese trapeze



Spoiler: graphic image


----------



## maomao (Mar 23, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Fucking hell...



Not even a minute's silence but a minute one.


----------



## editor (Mar 23, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Leading to the Milanese trapeze
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Please don't post up graphic images, but if you absolutely must, use spoiler code please.


----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 23, 2021)

Your PM seems to think it is all over now judging by his comments on yeh telly. It’s being sold as a victory already


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 23, 2021)

not-bono-ever said:


> Your PM seems to think it is all over now judging by his comments on yeh telly. It’s being sold as a victory already



It was only yesterday he was telling us the third wave is already on its way from Europe.  Its almost like he's not worth listening to.


----------



## smmudge (Mar 23, 2021)

See the government are really pushing the "we didn't think people could spread it asymptomatically" story as an excuse for fucking things up this time last year. Bojo just said it now, and Handcock this morning on ITV. Er really, the idea that people can carry and transmit a virus without showing symptoms was only discovered in the past year was it?


----------



## not-bono-ever (Mar 23, 2021)

Talking about memorials and a year if struggles. Ffs, how out of line us this shit whilst it’s still ongoing. They are moving to close the discussion down and sell it as a new dawn


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2021)

smmudge said:


> See the government are really pushing the "we didn't think people could spread it asymptomatically" story as an excuse for fucking things up this time last year. Bojo just said it now, and Handcock this morning on ITV. Er really, the idea that people can carry and transmit a virus without showing symptoms was only discovered in the past year was it?



Yeah there has always been a lot of bullshit claims about what we only came to understand with the benefit of hindsight, and the extent and role of asymptomatic cases are way, way up there on that list.

Here are some carefully selected quotes from people on this very forum which were all said in January 2020!



> What we seem to have here is a long incubation period, many asymptomatic or mild cases, and relatively easy transmission. That's a triple whammy of bad news for any containment efforts.





> I've just read that an asymptomatic child has been found carrying the virus. If it's possible for someone to carry the disease and transmit it, without knowing, it's much harder to contain the virus.





> For example, some MERS studies gave ranges of 12.5%-25% for asymptomatic cases.





> It'll probably come to you before you get to it; it seems that there are increasing numbers of asymptomatic cases and quite possibly will just end up circulating in the general population like flu, the common cold, etc





> I'm glad we at least reached the point some years ago of understanding the probably(sic) scale of asymptomatic flu infections. I dont know as much has been done about the implications of this yet, partly because a bunch of the implications make certain pro-active containment measures seem a good deal less purposeful. So I wont be surprised if that rabbit hole is under-explored in general, it can be demoralising. Some would rather fight the tip of the iceberg that is actually visible, and let that bit form the overwhelming majority of their perceptions of disease.



And here is some of my commentary from March 11th 2020 which demonstrates government bullshit and grotesque failure was still present on the asymptomatic front back then:



> Hancock sticking to the idea that asymptomatic transmission isnt a big thing, so no problem with MPs cramming into the voting lobbies, as long as they dont come into parliament if they have symptoms.



They were right to mention lack of data (lack of testing etc) in todays press conference, but thats also used as a crap excuse since things said on this forum also provide evidence that it was actually possible to get some sense of where the UKs wave was at compared to Italy etc a number of crucial weeks before the authorities and experts in the UK actually managed to. It was not just a lack of data, it was also a terrible failure to interpret the data we did have properly for quite some time.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2021)

Oh and when it comes to pre-Covid-19-pandemic understanding of asymptomatic cases of flu, in September 2019 on a flu jab thread I drew attention to the following:



> A 2014 story about a Flu Watch study which led to the statistic that 77% of people infected were either symptom-free of their symptoms were too mild to have been identified in the weekly questioning:
> 
> Three-quarters of people with flu have no symptoms



Evidence of that study may well still exist elsewhere on the internet, I havent looked, but when attempting to visit the story I linked to at the time, these days we are presented with this instead:


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2021)

The subject of a permanent pandemic memorial came up in todays press conference but sadly Johnson did not suggest that his own head on a stick could form the centerpiece of it.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> The subject of a permanent pandemic memorial came up in todays press conference but sadly Johnson did not suggest that his own head on a stick could form the centerpiece of it.


No indeed, the penguins are particularly looking forward to eating his eyes


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 23, 2021)

not-bono-ever said:


> Your PM seems to think it is all over now judging by his comments on yeh telly. It’s being sold as a victory already


Sadly he hasn't had his ceaucescu moment


----------



## two sheds (Mar 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> The subject of a permanent pandemic memorial came up in todays press conference but sadly Johnson did not suggest that his own head on a stick could form the centerpiece of it.


If we all club together he'll get ten years in pokey if he pulls it down


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 23, 2021)

Is anyone going out to be a Boris beacon at 8?


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 23, 2021)

two sheds said:


> If we all club together he'll get ten years in pokey if he pulls it down


Just take a few of us with clubs to achieve a more satisfying result


----------



## maomao (Mar 23, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Is anyone else going out to be a Boris beacon at 8?


A what? What are they fucking clapping now?


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 23, 2021)

maomao said:


> A what? What are they fucking clapping now?


Johnson was on about people go out at eight with candles or torches or whatnot to do on a smaller scale what Speer did at Nuremberg


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 23, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Johnson was on about people go out at eight with candles or torches or whatnot to do on a smaller scale what Speer did at Nuremberg


Thanks for reminding me, now where's my bloody candles?


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 23, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Thanks for reminding me, now where's my bloody candles?


Never mind that, where's the wicker man with Johnson in?


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 23, 2021)

Blowing a houlie up here in Northumberland, I'm not standing outside tonight, so I've put blue lights on in the upstairs window.

Far, far too many people have died.
Although my family has escaped largely untouched (grabs some wood) ...
Very sadly, a number of friends - or their family members - have died from this foul disease.

e2a - lighting candles seems inadequate to express my feelings about these losses.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 23, 2021)

Just had a look outside, everyone has put their bins out, no sign of any candles.


----------



## MickiQ (Mar 23, 2021)

I've been outside with about half the population that live in our close of 17 houses. We stood around with some candles for a bit chatting and came indoors. The woman from further down whose grandson moved in during the first lockdown after he fell out big time with his stepdad asked where Youngest was and her grandson was asking about her. Not sure I wanted to tell her, Youngest moved in with her sister  9 months ago, If he's still wondering where she is after that long sounds a bit stalkerish to me. Must make sure to give him the evil eye next time I see him.


----------



## William of Walworth (Mar 24, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just had a look outside, everyone has put their bins out, no sign of any candles.



Same here -- no sign of anything to mark any occasion , just the bins, etc. are out.

Bin (non-recyclables in black bags), and plastic recycling, every other Tuesday for us.
Next Tues we'll be back to paper/cardboard and tins/bottles.

Food recycling every week .....

ETA : Tuesdays are so exciting ....


----------



## existentialist (Mar 24, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just had a look outside, everyone has put their bins out, no sign of any candles.


It's a metaphor. The bins, I mean.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 24, 2021)

Question if I may as I can't find a complete answer anywhere.

If you receive your first dose of the vaccine, then test positive for Covid (say 10 weeks later) and are shortly thereafter due your 2nd dose, from what I read you need to wait 28 days if you test positive before you can have the 2nd one - what happens if this 28 day period then brings you outside the 12 weeks?


----------



## Supine (Mar 24, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Question if I may as I can't find a complete answer anywhere.
> 
> If you receive your first dose of the vaccine, then test positive for Covid (say 10 weeks later) and are shortly thereafter due your 2nd dose, from what I read you need to wait 28 days if you test positive before you can have the 2nd one - what happens if this 28 day period then brings you outside the 12 weeks?



You doctor will probably arrange it for a bit later. Shouldn't be a problem. Having one Jab and then having covid you will probably have a good immune response to it before getting the second dose.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 24, 2021)

Supine said:


> You doctor will probably arrange it for a bit later. Shouldn't be a problem. Having one Jab and then having covid you will probably have a good immune response to it before getting the second dose.


Thanks Supine, it's not me who has tested positive, it was a question asked of my missus y/day as part of an FAQ she helped put together.
We've both searched and can't find an exact answer.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 24, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Question if I may as I can't find a complete answer anywhere.
> 
> If you receive your first dose of the vaccine, then test positive for Covid (say 10 weeks later) and are shortly thereafter due your 2nd dose, from what I read you need to wait 28 days if you test positive before you can have the 2nd one - what happens if this 28 day period then brings you outside the 12 weeks?


Plane takes off


----------



## LDC (Mar 24, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Question if I may as I can't find a complete answer anywhere.
> 
> If you receive your first dose of the vaccine, then test positive for Covid (say 10 weeks later) and are shortly thereafter due your 2nd dose, from what I read you need to wait 28 days if you test positive before you can have the 2nd one - what happens if this 28 day period then brings you outside the 12 weeks?



What's been said, they'd likely just wait until the 28 days had elapsed, although could be a judgement call from the clinical lead of the vaccine place at the time. Don't think there's much bother either way though tbh.


----------



## little_legs (Mar 24, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Fucking hell...




People dying at the hands of the government and its representatives is an 'instragrammable content' on both sides of the Parliament. Here is Stella Creasy grabbing the insta opportunity at the vigil for a woman who was murdered by a police officer.





and this is what she did when she was challenged:







Good times on the fash island.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 24, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Fucking hell...



every time i hear about helen whately i wonder if she's kin to wilbur whateley of dunwich


----------



## brogdale (Mar 24, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> every time i hear about helen whately i wonder if she's kin to wilbur whateley of dunwich


Her original family surname, before taking her husband's surname, was Lightwood; a portmanteau of _Lightweight _and _Deadwood._


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2021)

The deeply unimpressive Harries has been promoted to head the entity that is to replace PHE when it comes to pandemics.


----------



## elbows (Mar 24, 2021)




----------



## MrSki (Mar 24, 2021)

She should be in the dock with her early advice. A Government spokesperson if ever there was one.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 24, 2021)

IMO, Johnson et al (including cummings) should be done for the equivalent of corporate manslaughter.
Or perhaps pre-meditated murder should be the charge, as their lack of timely decisions and leadership led directly to so many un-neccessary deaths, and not just from 'rona.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 25, 2021)

In an odd symmetry, the seven day average of deaths today is probably going to be pretty much exactly the same as it was exactly one year ago.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 25, 2021)

Cases rise.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Cases rise.
> 
> View attachment 260252



Last Thursday 6,303 new cases were reported, so an increase of 94 on a single day, not much there to worry about ATM, it's still down -3.3% in the last 7 days. 

But, seeing deaths decrease another 31 compared to last Thursday, almost a third, down -34.6% in the last 7 days, is good news.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Last Thursday 6,303 new cases were reported, so an increase of 94 on a single day, not much there to worry about ATM.
> 
> But, seeing deaths decrease another 31 compared to last Thursday, almost a third, is good news.


Cases appear to have been stuck at 5k - 6k for a while now...I suppose the rise is unsurprising as we start to see the impact of the full return to schools.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Cases appear to have been stuck at 5k - 6k for a while now...I suppose the rise is unsurprising as we start to see the impact of the full return to schools.



That, and the massive increase in testing, especially in schools, I am surprised cases haven't increased week-on-week yet.*

* See edit to my last post, still down on the 7-day average.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 25, 2021)

Cases have certainly been creeping back up locally as to be expected though.  I guess we were all told this was going to happen.  

The ever decreasing death rate is very welcome news.


----------



## souljacker (Mar 25, 2021)

By my back of a beer mat calculations, the cases have been level for long enough now to have transferred into hospital admissions. But they are still decreasing. Maybe that pesky killer vaccine rollout is actually working? According to anti-vaxxers, people should be dropping dead from 5g activated illnesses by now as well so someone isn't telling the truth.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 25, 2021)

There are a few places, some of them quite surprising, that seem unable to shake off the 'rona.

Part of Cramlington, Northumberland and Holyhead (Nth Wales) are two that come easily to mind as I check on them quite often [for reasons].


----------



## Sunray (Mar 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Last Thursday 6,303 new cases were reported, so an increase of 94 on a single day, not much there to worry about ATM, it's still down -3.3% in the last 7 days.
> 
> But, seeing *deaths decrease another 31 compared to last Thursday, almost a third, down -34.6% in the last 7 days, is good news*.



I can only attribute this to vaccinating the people most at risk. 
This does take a while to feed through but we are approaching 5 months from the 1st vaccination.   I saw my local chemist was doing vaccinations the other day.  They are everywhere.

Hospital admissions are the one stats I thought would rise after schools went back, but it gives credence to last October when they said it was schools or pubs and the dumbass Gov went with both.


----------



## souljacker (Mar 25, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> There are a few places, some of them quite surprising, that seem unable to shake off the 'rona.
> 
> Part of Cramlington, Northumberland and Holyhead (Nth Wales) are two that come easily to mind as I check on them quite often [for reasons].



Yorkshire as well.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2021)

Yep, we're seeing those regional differences again, with the Midlands & North not seeing the same decreases as in the south.   



* Latest map data 20/3/21 - light green under 50 cases per 100k, dark green 50-99, light blue 100-199.









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## weepiper (Mar 25, 2021)

Scotland is down to 2.4% test positivity today (2.9% over a 7 day average) and we've now vaccinated just more than half of the adult population \o/









						Scotland Coronavirus Tracker
					

Current and historical data of the Coronavirus outbreak in Scotland. Includes breakdowns by region, maps, charts, and more!




					www.travellingtabby.com


----------



## kabbes (Mar 25, 2021)

What’s the false positive rate of the test and how much above that are we on a daily basis?  And, I guess, what’s the false negative too?


----------



## teuchter (Mar 25, 2021)

The ZOE graph at the moment, in theory not affected by things like testing rates as it's based on self-reported symptoms.


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 25, 2021)

souljacker said:


> By my back of a beer mat calculations, the cases have been level for long enough now to have transferred into hospital admissions. But they are still decreasing. Maybe that pesky killer vaccine rollout is actually working? According to anti-vaxxers, people should be dropping dead from 5g activated illnesses by now as well so someone isn't telling the truth.



news circulating that a percentage of those vacinnated have turned into 5G masts. not covered in the msm, of course.


----------



## prunus (Mar 25, 2021)

kabbes said:


> What’s the false positive rate of the test and how much above that are we on a daily basis?  And, I guess, what’s the false negative too?



The false positive rate on the PCR test is tiny, at most something of the order of 0.1% and likely significantly lower.

I believe the lateral flow test is more like 0.3%.

False negatives are much more common, something like 25% for the lateral flow tests (though they claim 5% for high viral load individuals); can’t recall what it is for pcr, but I remember it’s higher than one might think - 15% or something.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The ZOE graph at the moment, in theory not affected by things like testing rates as it's based on self-reported symptoms.



Also note their current regional R estimates. Although it should be said that there was a period a while ago where some of these also went above 1, but that time it did not last. I think these change every day and fluctuation isnt unusual due to the way they calculate them.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2021)

souljacker said:


> By my back of a beer mat calculations, the cases have been level for long enough now to have transferred into hospital admissions. But they are still decreasing. Maybe that pesky killer vaccine rollout is actually working? According to anti-vaxxers, people should be dropping dead from 5g activated illnesses by now as well so someone isn't telling the truth.



Daily hospital admissions/diagnoses have been pretty stagnant for about 5 days of the most recent data for England. But this has also happened before, earlier in March, and then they resumed a downwards trend, so at this particular stage they dont offer me any certainty about what will happen next.


Using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## kabbes (Mar 25, 2021)

prunus said:


> The false positive rate on the PCR test is tiny, at most something of the order of 0.1% and likely significantly lower.
> 
> I believe the lateral flow test is more like 0.3%.
> 
> False negatives are much more common, something like 25% for the lateral flow tests (though they claim 5% for high viral load individuals); can’t recall what it is for pcr, but I remember it’s higher than one might think - 15% or something.


If memory serves, they’re doing something like 1.5m tests a day?  So if nobody has the disease at all, that’s about 1500 to 4500 positive results right there.  So that’s our baseline “zero”.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2021)

People learnt the hard way long ago not to be reassured at all by claims that increase in cases is due to increase in testing.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> People learnt the hard way long ago not to be reassured at all by claims that increase in cases is due to increase in testing.


Of course.  That’s a different issue though.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2021)

As I've mentioned before we can see things like percentage positivity rates, and lab-tested data in the weekly surveillance report. And since its Thursday, a new version of that report came out today.

As usual, too many charts for me to do justice to the whole thing by placing them all here, but here are a few.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...973174/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w12.pdf
Probably I will have to post a few more shortly in order to cover the main stuff I'd seek to highlight right now.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2021)

Number of incidents in this sort of data does not provide a full picture of cases in these settings, but its something, and we can see school incidents rising but impressive decrease in care home outbreaks, and hospital outbreaks also much reduced.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2021)

10-19 year olds of note:


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2021)

Last few, dealing with different education year groups:



Those are from the supplimentary document rather than the main surveillance report.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/973176/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W12.pdf


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2021)

Oh one more from the main report. Hopefully the rise in 65-74 year old intensive care admissions is just a blip, but I am never sure until more time passes and data arrives.


----------



## prunus (Mar 25, 2021)

kabbes said:


> If memory serves, they’re doing something like 1.5m tests a day?  So if nobody has the disease at all, that’s about 1500 to 4500 positive results right there.  So that’s our baseline “zero”.



It depends on the mix of tests of course, and the 0.1% for pcr tests is an upper limit (based on positive results in low prevalence surveys), it is very likely significantly lower, possibly something like tenfold (based on comparisons between symptomatic and asymptotic positive result distributions in different prevalence scenarios).

The lateral flow tests are a likely confounder though with their lower specificity; in short, who knows?


----------



## Combustible (Mar 25, 2021)

Isn't the main cause of false positives in PCR tests thought to be from cross contamination, in which case the false positive rate should also drop off with the infection rate.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2021)

Nick Triggle continues to be apparently reformed compared to some of the terrible, dangerous rubbish he came out with in the past, notably his terrible judgement at the start of the first and second waves has given way to stuff which I am far less likely to take a shit on. Indeed I'm more likely to post some of his articles because they contain useful information, like the following one that just popped up, rather than post them so I can rant about the contents and the misframing. Even manages to include thoughts from Mark Woolhouse that dont wind me up for once.









						Covid: What might a third wave look like?
					

Restrictions are easing, but with parts of Europe seeing rising infections, should the UK be worried?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2021)

Interesting link here, you can check the percentage of over 50s that have had their first jab in your area, big differences from around 66% to 96%.









						Number of over 50s vaccinated in each local authority in England
					

Where does your local area rank?




					www.inyourarea.co.uk


----------



## emanymton (Mar 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Interesting link here, you can check the percentage of over 50s that have had their first jab in your area, big differences from around 66% to 96%.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


All I get is a shit load of pop up spam


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2021)

emanymton said:


> All I get is a shit load of pop up spam



I don't.   

Oh, hang on, are you not using a adblocker? I always assume everyone does.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 26, 2021)

Bristol and South Glos seem to have it pretty well sorted


----------



## Boudicca (Mar 26, 2021)

So what's going on in London then?  Anecdotally (well urbanites in Brixton) the under 50s are now getting called up, but only 78.7% of over 50s in Lambeth have had the vaccine versus 90.5% in my current area.  The gap is too big for it to be distribution issues.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> So what's going on in London then?  Anecdotally (well urbanites in Brixton) the under 50s are now getting called up, but only 78.7% of over 50s in Lambeth have had the vaccine versus 90.5% in my current area.  The gap is too big for it to be distribution issues.



And, Camden is only on about 66%!

I guess resistance from certain communities, in particular the BAME community has been highlighted as less likely to get vaccinated.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 26, 2021)

26.7% in my area


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2021)

Numbers said:


> 26.7% in my area



where's that?


----------



## Espresso (Mar 26, 2021)

Bloody hellfire - 91.8% for Blackpool. Well done to all of the people involved in that. 
Excellent.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 26, 2021)

My titchy area (probably less than 10,000 people) has only managed 53.2% - well done for that, but still a looooong way to go.

[a very dispersed and tending towards elderly population, low proportion of BAME - a lot of poor farmland, on the edge of a coalfield, very little other industry, a lot of people commuting to larger settlements and some fragmentary service industries]


e2a - tbh, that figure and % seems low.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Interesting link here, you can check the percentage of over 50s that have had their first jab in your area, big differences from around 66% to 96%.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I really need someone to check some numbers from that site compared to the raw NHS data available. Because I cannot get them to match up at all, but have only tried a few MSOA areas in my town.

Use that website to search for your MSOA by postcode, take note of the number it says, and the name of the MSOA.

Download the spreadsheet COVID-19 weekly announced vaccinations 25 March 2021 from the following site: Statistics » COVID-19 Vaccinations

Open the spreadsheet, go to the MSOA tab, search for the name of the MSOA you are going to check.
Ignore the number in the under 50 column. Add all the other numbers together. Compare with what the website says. Miles off?

Its possible to check percentages too, using the ONS or NIMS population estimates tab on the spreadsheet and then scrolling across to the MSOA section, but have to be careful not to include a bunch of columns when totting up population size. And then you'll have to calculate the percentages yourself. And I dont think there is any need to go this far if cant even get the numbers of people vaccinated to match.

The website claims the data covers up to March 21st, which is a proper match for the time period included in the NHS spreadsheet version of the data, so I have no idea whats causing this issue, if it even is an issue for areas other than mine. But for now I would not assume the website is accurate, not unless someone checks and reports a good match rather than my experience. Or spots a glaring error in my methodology.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2021)

Oh and the reason I was checking for myself is that the website you linked to said the percentage in my area was only 46.2% !!!!!


----------



## Supine (Mar 26, 2021)

In Indy sage just now there was a graph on vaccine hesitancy. I think it showed a race breakdown as white 8%, Asian/mixed 17% and black 44%. If so a lot of work to do in areas with high bame populations.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh and the reason I was checking for myself is that the website you linked to said the percentage in my area was only 46.2% !!!!!



I don't understand where that figure comes from, nor the 53.2% or 26.7% mentioned above, I've done a 'Ctrl+F' for those figures and none of them show up on the page I am being served. 🤷‍♂️


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Mar 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I don't understand where that figure comes from, nor the 53.2% or 26.7% mentioned above, I've done a 'Ctrl+F' for those figures and none of them show up on the page I am being served. 🤷‍♂️



If you put your postcode in the bar there it clicks through to more local stats - however it looks like it's stats for % population given first dose rather than % of over 50s which is what's on the first page. 

So a bit confusing tbh, it's interesting but not what you'd call user friendly.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I don't.
> 
> Oh, hang on, are you not using a adblocker? I always assume everyone does.


Not so easy on a mobile


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 26, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> If you put your postcode in the bar there it clicks through to more local stats - however it looks like it's stats for % population given first dose rather than % of over 50s which is what's on the first page.
> 
> So a bit confusing tbh, it's interesting but not what you'd call user friendly.



Oh, I see, some people are doing it wrong.   

The list on the page linked, is the percentage of people over 50 that have received their first jab by local authority area, as per link title.

If you put in your postcode, you are going down to ward level, which as you say is a % of the whole population, or maybe those over 16 or 18, but certainly not over 50s nor by local authority area.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh, I see, some people are doing it wrong.



I was using the search by postcode box, and I disagree with the characterisation 'people are doing it wrong', since you described the page with the words 'in your area' and that by postcode box was prominently displayed before the list further down the article. Its a dreadful website and regardless of this confusion between two different sorts of data, their MSOA numbers still dont match up with the NHS data I was cross-checking with, even when I allow for the original confusion by including under 50's. I will now check whether the numbers you actually meant for us to look at match up.


----------



## Looby (Mar 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh, I see, some people are doing it wrong.


You really enjoy telling people too, don’t you?


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 26, 2021)

Looby said:


> You really enjoy telling people too, don’t you?


it is his role here


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2021)

OK I've checked the numbers they listed in the main article and they do match up with the spreadsheet data I have.

However I would take the percentages they show with a big pinch of salt, because they've used ONS population estimates to calculate them, rather than the additional population data provided in the spreadsheet which comes from the national immunisation management system. This can make a fair difference, eg for my area they have 88.8% on that website, but using NIMS population estimates rather than ONS ones, I get a percentage more like 83.8%.

Its a shame the site doesnt do MSOA level of detail in this regard properly, because drilling down to that level of locality is likely to give people a better sense of how things are going for them locally. Quite a lot of important detail and clues are lost if we stick only to larger local authority areas, masking much detail when it comes to BAME populations, poverty etc, but local knowledge is required to get a sense of this.

Likely I will mess around with the raw spreadsheet data in the coming days and will be in a position to share MSOA-level data with people who are interested. But since there appear to be 6,791 MSOAs listed for England, I will probably have to take requests. For example if someone requests Lambeth, there are 35 MSOAs in that area that I can calculate the details for.


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2021)

Following on from yesterdays conversation, the ONS study, which is based on population sampling and so shouldnt be influenced by test-regime related changes over time, also found an uptick in 11-16 year olds.









						Slight Covid uptick in older school children in England
					

Latest figures from the ONS hint at an increase in years 7 to 11 in schools in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2021)

Two care home ataff arrested on suspicion of wilful neglect! This after 9 deaths at that home since February 25th, all of which are believed to be related to a Covid-19 outbreak.









						Covid-19: Two staff held over Sidmouth care home deaths
					

A 57-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man who work at the home are arrested on suspicion of neglect.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Mar 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> Two care home ataff arrested on suspicion of wilful neglect! This after 9 deaths at that home since February 25th, all of which are believed to be related to a Covid-19 outbreak.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, heard that on R4, assume they must have broken isolation or something?


----------



## elbows (Mar 26, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, heard that on R4, assume they must have broken isolation or something?



I started thinking about it and decided there is probably quite a long list of things people might have done/failed to do that could fall foul of the authorities, that may fit with what little we know about this case, but then I decided that I didnt really want to speculate.


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 26, 2021)

late night shopping. COVID-19: Non-essential shops able to stay open until 10pm when restrictions ease, says government


----------



## BCBlues (Mar 27, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> late night shopping. COVID-19: Non-essential shops able to stay open until 10pm when restrictions ease, says government



Shoplifters of the world unite


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Mar 27, 2021)

Easily saw more people without masks - with or without lanyards - at work today than I've seen since they were a public health requirement - it wasn't even close. I don't follow Facebook or Whatsapp (??) etc, but I'll assume some local researcher has been educating the masses.


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 27, 2021)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Easily saw more people without masks - with or without lanyards - at work today than I've seen since they were a public health requirement - it wasn't even close. I don't follow Facebook or Whatsapp (??) etc, but I'll assume some local researcher has been educating the masses.


That's probably andrew on facebook. He has a Phd in Virulogy, gained over 4 months at the University of Youtube.


----------



## miss direct (Mar 27, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> late night shopping. COVID-19: Non-essential shops able to stay open until 10pm when restrictions ease, says government


I've always found it ridiculous how early everything closes here in the UK. Want to get a coffee after 5? Tough, go to Wetherspoons. Need sanitary towels? Have to schlep to the big supermarket. In Turkey things stay open as long as there's a demand and it's much more convenient. Provides more work for the staff as well. 

Willing to bet that nothing in Sheffield will stay open late though. Not many shops left in the city centre anyway.


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 27, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I've always found it ridiculous how early everything closes here in the UK. Want to get a coffee after 5? Tough, go to Wetherspoons. Need sanitary towels? Have to schlep to the big supermarket. In Turkey things stay open as long as there's a demand and it's much more convenient. Provides more work for the staff as well.
> 
> Willing to bet that nothing in Sheffield will stay open late though. Not many shops left in the city centre anyway.


bit shit for the workers too, though many will appreciate the extra hours. but yes, quite like the idea.


----------



## miss direct (Mar 27, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> bit shit for the workers too, though many will appreciate the extra hours. but yes, quite like the idea.


Depends on the workers really. I'd hope that nobody would be forced into taking unsuitable hours.


----------



## Looby (Mar 27, 2021)

Retail work is long hours and shitty already. I’m sure students and people who want flexibility might not mind working til 10pm but lots won’t want to and might be forced. Shops in most of the retail parks are open until 7 or 8. That’s plenty late enough.


----------



## Looby (Mar 27, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Depends on the workers really. I'd hope that nobody would be forced into taking unsuitable hours.


They will be though. Or not given enough hours if they don’t take those.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 27, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Depends on the workers really. I'd hope that nobody would be forced into taking unsuitable hours.


Tough shout. 

Lot of event and hospitality staff used to working unsociable hours in need of work. No doubt employers will carry on driving down rights 

I work unsociable hours at the moment and hate but I am WFH


----------



## Sue (Mar 27, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I've always found it ridiculous how early everything closes here in the UK. Want to get a coffee after 5? Tough, go to Wetherspoons. Need sanitary towels? Have to schlep to the big supermarket. In Turkey things stay open as long as there's a demand and it's much more convenient. Provides more work for the staff as well.
> 
> Willing to bet that nothing in Sheffield will stay open late though. Not many shops left in the city centre anyway.


Depends where you live. Where I am, there are loads of local shops that are open till midnight and some even later. (The one two mins from my flat is open till 11pm, one five mins away is open till 12 or 1, the one a minute away from that is open till 2 I think. Another maybe 15 mins away is open all night I think.)


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Mar 27, 2021)

Nine Bob Note said:


> Easily saw more people without masks - with or without lanyards - at work today than I've seen since they were a public health requirement - it wasn't even close. I don't follow Facebook or Whatsapp (??) etc, but I'll assume some local researcher has been educating the masses.



No-one has ever worn masks or limited close contact within my workplace - when the office fully opened, it was around the end of last summer when schools were opening, & most people had school-age kids so (I think) thats why we ended up adopting more or less the same rules as were in schools. 
Effectively treating the office like one big leaky bubble of about 10-12 people (plus half a dozen project managers making sporadic visits to the office, but spending the rest of the time out on various construction sites).

They did put a stop to unnecessary visitors though, limiting it to deliveries & essential only. And none of the (rare) essential visitors have ever been dissuaded from wearing a mask if they chose to.

Sales reps continued to turn up unannounced, all the way through, wearing masks but taking them off the moment they came inside... we put a complete stop to that after Christmas, but its been relaxed in the last week or so, and no one minds enough to complain. Rightly or wrongly, people look like they feel like its getting back to normal.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 27, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I've always found it ridiculous how early everything closes here in the UK. Want to get a coffee after 5? Tough, go to Wetherspoons. Need sanitary towels? Have to schlep to the big supermarket. In Turkey things stay open as long as there's a demand and it's much more convenient. Provides more work for the staff as well.
> 
> Willing to bet that nothing in Sheffield will stay open late though. Not many shops left in the city centre anyway.



I forget what it’s like in the rest of the UK.  I always thought the same when I lived there.  Even in small towns in say Spain or Greece, all shop are open till much later.

Hackney there are lots of shops open after 5 but if you want to buy a dress or a pair of shoes at 7pm, it’s tomorrow or the weekend or drive to the lakeside.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 27, 2021)

To be fair Spain has always opened around the heat and the many many holidays/festivals  I lived down near Estepona and nothing was open before 10am, even the cafes


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 27, 2021)

True re Spain and Greece. Waltzing round super drug in Thornton heath at 9.30pm hasn't the same ring


----------



## miss direct (Mar 27, 2021)

Unsociable hours is a debatable term really. Nobody's socialising anyway at the moment. I would much rather work in the evenings than the mornings, personally. And as the clocks are changing tonight, it'll be light till around 8. I don't care about shopping but being able to get a coffee or snack from somewhere that isn't Tesco would be nice.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 27, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Unsociable hours is a debatable term really. Nobody's socialising anyway at the moment. I would much rather work in the evenings than the mornings, personally. And as the clocks are changing tonight, it'll be light till around 8. I don't care about shopping but being able to get a coffee or snack from somewhere that isn't Tesco would be nice.


I do get that. 

My team (16 until this week) are a mix of ages doing a mix of hours/days. Those under 30 have all resigned over the last few weeks. They want their social lives and I can't blame them.


----------



## Looby (Mar 27, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Unsociable hours is a debatable term really. Nobody's socialising anyway at the moment. I would much rather work in the evenings than the mornings, personally. And as the clocks are changing tonight, it'll be light till around 8. I don't care about shopping but being able to get a coffee or snack from somewhere that isn't Tesco would be nice.


It’s fine if it’s genuinely a preference but usually it isn’t. My friends in retail were the ones missing out of family Boxing Day, going home early because they always had to work weekends and never having the same days off as their partners/friends. Same when I did care work.
They all hated it and until they got to supervisor/manager they had zero choice in their hours.


----------



## Badgers (Mar 27, 2021)

Looby said:


> Same when I did care work.
> They all hated it and until they got to supervisor/manager they had zero choice in their hours


I still have no choice in my hours and limited choice on annual leave.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 27, 2021)

Looby said:


> It’s fine if it’s genuinely a preference but usually it isn’t. My friends in retail were the ones missing out of family Boxing Day, going home early because they always had to work weekends and never having the same days off as their partners/friends. Same when I did care work.
> They all hated it and until they got to supervisor/manager they had zero choice in their hours.



When they became supervisors/managers did they increase flexibility for those working under them?


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 27, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> When they became supervisors/managers did they increase flexibility for those working under them?



Whilst I'm sympathetic to the point you are making, they don't actually have the power to do that either I suspect. I remember a mate of main trying to make the point that no one should want/become a manager, which is fine in theory, but often that's the only way to make any money in low paid jobs and to have a half decent working time. Even then it's still shit.


----------



## Looby (Mar 27, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> When they became supervisors/managers did they increase flexibility for those working under them?


What BristolEcho said. The flexibility they had was limited, it just meant that supervisors could shift around their own rotas a little bit if needed. They weren’t picking their hours. It’s shit in retail for everyone including seniors who generally have to be there to open and close.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 27, 2021)

BristolEcho said:


> Whilst I'm sympathetic to the point you are making, they don't actually have the power to do that either I suspect. I remember a mate of main trying to make the point that no one should want/become a manager, which is fine in theory, but often that's the only way to make any money in low paid jobs and to have a half decent working time. Even then it's still shit.



Yes it was more of a rhetorical question than a dig at anyone. I have friends in these low-level management roles and it's basically just a small bribe to act as a bulwark between the ordinary workers and the people who are actually in charge, who themselves probably outsource all the decision making to consultants anyway.


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 27, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yes it was more of a rhetorical question than a dig at anyone. I have friends in these low-level management roles and it's basically just a small bribe to act as a bulwark between the ordinary workers and the people who are actually in charge, who themselves probably outsource all the decision making to consultants anyway.



Yep true. I've had some horrendous scum as middle managers, but also had some decent ones. I wouldn't like that job at all to be honest. I have very limited sympathy.


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 27, 2021)

Upgraded to moderate sympathy depending on the person who takes on the role.


----------



## MBV (Mar 27, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I do get that.
> 
> My team (16 until this week) are a mix of ages doing a mix of hours/days. Those under 30 have all resigned over the last few weeks. They want their social lives and I can't blame them.



Do they all have new jobs to go to? Seems a strange thing to do with rising unemployment.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Mar 27, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Unsociable hours is a debatable term really. Nobody's socialising anyway at the moment. I would much rather work in the evenings than the mornings, personally. And as the clocks are changing tonight, it'll be light till around 8. I don't care about shopping but being able to get a coffee or snack from somewhere that isn't Tesco would be nice.


I guess it's different outside of London, but can get coffee till fairly late in Brixton/Stockwell (many portuguese cafe/bars catering for this)


----------



## kabbes (Mar 27, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> it's basically just a small bribe to act as a bulwark between the ordinary workers and the people who are actually in charge


Technically I now report directly to the CEO and I’m _still_ waiting to find myself in a position where I get to make any meaningful decision about the terms, conditions or pay of the staff that “report” into me.


> who themselves probably outsource all the decision making to consultants anyway.


Nope, the company avoids consultants like the plague.

The truth is that whatever the reporting structure says, the reality is that it is beholden to the US-based group, and the decisions are really held there, way above even the regional CEOs’ heads, in the hands of genuine billionaires.  Power over the conditions of workers in large groups is ridiculously concentrated.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Mar 27, 2021)

A low-level management role in any large organisation basically means you are tasked with enforcing policy decided by the aristocracy, with no influence on it beyond tiny implementation details, and the vaguest promise that you might be able to join that aristocracy one day via some fluffily-specified "management track". It's particularly bad in retail and hospitality though IME, where you are literally a quid or so more per hour than the people you're told to bully, and have completely zero chance of going any further.


----------



## kabbes (Mar 27, 2021)

Indeed.  The one thing I do have now, I suppose, is an ability to just look the other way and not care what people are “getting up to” on the grounds that they are grown ups that can really make their own decisions


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 27, 2021)

Looby said:


> Retail work is long hours and shitty already. I’m sure students and people who want flexibility might not mind working til 10pm but lots won’t want to and might be forced. Shops in most of the retail parks are open until 7 or 8. That’s plenty late enough.



The actually useful shops near me shut at like half four, maybe half five at latest.

Instead it's off to tesco express which is a fucking rip off and price gouges compared to larger stores


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2021)

I've gone on about the following in the context of the vaccine phase of things in the UK before, but it was a little while ago now and I tend to use too many words so here is a simple version from the BBC live updates page today:



> Dr Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (SPI-M), says the number of hospital admissions will be key to England staying on track with lockdown easing.
> 
> "As we unlock we will see, potentially, cases rising," Dr Tildesley told Times Radio on Sunday.
> 
> "But if we don't see hospital admissions rising then, hopefully, we can be confident we can keep the relaxation campaign on schedule."



Thats the 12:33 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56554227


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2021)

I dont think Sir Richard Sykes has been on my radar before, but he is now and I dont think much of his analysis.



> But the chairman of the scientific body the Royal Institution, Sir Richard Sykes, said the UK has "gone from being cavalier to crippling caution" when it comes to handling Covid.
> 
> "If we are not now well-prepared to put up with anything that's thrown at us, then it's God help all of us because that's the best we can do at this point in time," he told BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House programme.











						Covid: Another lockdown 'last thing in world' that government wants
					

The lockdown easing plan is on track, says a government minister - but dates could be delayed.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Maybe he said other things on the programme that would help me understand his position, but whats quoted there is useless dribble to me. Better to be temporarily weighed down by caution than have to face scenarios later where in practice 'well prepared' and 'put up with' means more lockdowns etc.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 28, 2021)

Just been looking at the dashboard, and spotted over 30m have now had their first jab, that's just over 56% of adults, and up over 3m in the last week, 2nd doses are now on 3.5m, up almost 1.5m in a week. 

* UK estimated population 67,886,000 - 21.3% under 18s = 53,426,282. 

Despite the increase in new cases amongst the under 18s, that elbows has pointed out, overall new cases are holding steady, down -1.7% in the last 7-days.

Deaths reported today 'only' 19, down -31.7% in the last week, bringing the 7-day average down to 63, the last time it was that low was on the 10th Oct.

Patients in hospital, reported 24th March, 4,560 down by almost 2k in a week, and from the peak of 38,400, patients admitted in the 7-days to the 24th March - 2,607, down -20.8% in a week.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 28, 2021)

it feels to me that the next 6 weeks or so are pretty fragile - if we can get through them OK in terms of hospitalisations and deaths then we're probably good for summer. I find it hard to believe we won't have to restrict things at least somewhat during winter though.

We evilly broke the rules a day early to have a lunchtime passover seder meal in our in-laws' garden today, but it was nice, if slightly chilly but at least dry (they have both had their first vaccine 8 weeks or so ago).

Going for a walk tomorrow in St Albans with a classmate of son's and his mum, so taking advantage of feeling Ok about travelling a bit further afield (though only about 40 mins) and being able to meet another household. And also nice weather as well, hurrah.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 29, 2021)

What the fuck is going on?


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2021)

A new vaccine priority group:









						Households of adults with weak immune systems to be vaccinated
					

The aim is to reduce the risk of infection to those who may not respond well to a vaccine.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Mar 29, 2021)

MrSki said:


> What the fuck is going on?



Darwin Awards Annual Outing?

FFS!


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2021)

I suppose I will watch the Johnson, Whitty, Vallance briefing at 5pm, in part because it offers an opportunity to see the new briefing room they spent a load of money on.


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 29, 2021)

MrSki said:


> What the fuck is going on?


I peeled another sticker off of a covid safety sign at the park entrance earlier - something about "the great reset" - are these people mad, bad, sad or as thick as shit ?


----------



## Wilf (Mar 29, 2021)

MrSki said:


> What the fuck is going on?



Not just NHS workers, supermarket workers who get stressed out by this kind of cuntery.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> I suppose I will watch the Johnson, Whitty, Vallance briefing at 5pm, in part because it offers an opportunity to see the new briefing room they spent a load of money on.



Giant fucking flags.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> A new vaccine priority group:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Why only over 16s though?
Or is this because no vaccines are yet approved for under 16s?


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Or is this because no vaccines are yet approved for under 16s?



Yes.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2021)

Johnson made a joke about British Rail sandwiches. The ghost of Terry Wogan did not appear to make a joke about the BBC canteen.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 29, 2021)

UK signs deal for 60million doses of Covid vaccine - bottled in Barnard Castle
					

Boris Johnson announced a deal had been struck with GlaxoSmithKline to bottle the new jab at a facility in the north east




					www.mirror.co.uk
				




I hope all the staff have had their eyes tested.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2021)

Increasingly awful press questions in todays briefing, which is no surprise since we know from the first unlocking that they are prone to express lockdown fatigue before other groups. Beth Rigbys questions especially shit given her own failure to comply with the rules in the past.

Vallance and Whitty have started the task of explaining the limitations of vaccination, although since the slide used involved estimated hospitalisations in only certain age groups, and only with the current level of infections, I am not giving them very high marks for effort at this stage.


----------



## MrSki (Mar 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> because it offers an opportunity to see the new briefing room they spent a load of money on.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Mar 29, 2021)

Just watching this Panorama undercover special from a testing lab - world beating!


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2021)

In this summary of a main theme or two from todays caution press conference, analysis by the BBCs Nick Triggle provides me with a quote with which I can probably close the Nick Triggle file for now.









						Covid: Strength of defence against new wave unclear, says PM
					

Boris Johnson urges "caution" despite the Covid vaccine rollout and easing of rules in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The lower estimates of modelling done for the government suggests there could be 30,000 deaths by summer 2022.
> 
> That would be in line with a bad flu winter. But it could also be much, much worse.
> 
> *If there is one thing we have learnt, nothing can be taken for granted with Covid.*



Actually there were a bunch of things that could be taken for granted with Covid, the problem was you have to pick the right things, and those things were not aligned with things Triggle seemed to believe until his beliefs evolved and he got a clue some time after September 2020. It appears he got there in the end. I wont go on about him again unless he regresses.


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 29, 2021)

MrSki said:


> What the fuck is going on?



So pleased with themselves.


----------



## Dystopiary (Mar 30, 2021)

MrSki said:


> What the fuck is going on?



Came from here:
selfish wankers


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 30, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> Came from here:
> selfish wankers


If and when we escape this fully (June?) and the papers go nuts they should lead with "we done it!" as per the usual shit and then on page two "despite You" and list all the fucking covid denier organisers and grifters. I'm not into public shaming but these cunts (as well as the government) have shown disregard to the safety of others largely from the start.


----------



## 20Bees (Mar 30, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> So pleased with themselves.


Reading through the a Twitter feed, a protest group organised the maskless shopping event on Saturday at Tesco, Chelmsford. The maskless shoppers that were spoken to by store managers and police apparently claimed to be exempt.

The video is awful, the poor employee replenishing stock on the shelves is masked and the crowd would certainly be intimidating. The store where I work (not Tesco!) employs external uniformed security and fortunately we have pretty much 100% compliance with masks. And we have restricted the numbers in store for the whole of the past year.


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 30, 2021)

FTSE 100 firms share latest London office plans following WFH year
					

A number of FTSE 100 companies have told the Evening Standard that flexible working plans are being looked at for post-pandemic




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Mar 30, 2021)

Passed 150,000 dead according to ONS now.


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Mar 30, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Passed 150,000 dead according to ONS now.



20k would be a "good" result, remember...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 30, 2021)

British Museum hit hardest by 2020 lockdown among UK’s big museums
					

Major UK institutions lost 78% of their visitors due to the pandemic last year, our research reveals



					www.theartnewspaper.com


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 30, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Passed 150,000 dead according to ONS now.



We're almost certainly closer to 200k than 150 based on just missing so many at the start and excess deaths.


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> We're almost certainly closer to 200k than 150 based on just missing so many at the start and excess deaths.



I cannot make that claim. When I experimented with different sorts of data a week ago it was not hard to get over 160,000, but not by much. The actual number could be higher still, but I cannot say it is closer to 200,000 than 150,000. It might be, but I lack evidence. Partly because excess deaths cannot capture the full picture either, because there were long periods where less people than normal were dying from other causes.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 30, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> We're almost certainly closer to 200k than 150 based on just missing so many at the start and excess deaths.



No we are not.

The 150k figure is for deaths with covid listed on the death certificate, around 125k are deaths with positive tests, excess deaths are around that figure.



> When you add up those excess deaths from both the first and second wave and subtract the below-average deaths numbers inbetween, you get a grand total of just over 123,000 across the UK as a whole.
> 
> It is a depressing number, and by some yardsticks it underplays the impact of *COVID-19*, since there are other statistics, based on the number of deaths where the virus was mentioned on the certificate, which now put the total just short of 150,000.
> 
> ...











						COVID-19: How does the UK's death total really compare with other countries?
					

As the second wave, in "excess death" terms, ends,  Sky's Ed Conway looks at how we have fared against others during the pandemic




					news.sky.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2021)

Just because, as per my previous post, I dont have evidence to make a fairly safe claim that there have been more than 175,000 covid-related UK deaths so far, does not mean that I think it really unlikely we've had that many. If someone asked me how confident I was that we've had less than 175,000 Covid-19 related deaths in the UK, my answer would have to be 'not confident at all'. I am reasonably confident there have been more than 160,000. I just cannot be at all sure quite how many more than that there have been.


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 30, 2021)

.


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 30, 2021)

.


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/03/29/qanon-new-age-spirituality/



I cant read beyond the initial few words because of a paywall, but I'd say this isnt the thread for it, and there is actually nothing unsurprising about Qanon shit having some new age roots. Its hardly a new revelation.


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2021)

The last time I mentioned daily hospital admissions/diagnoses on this thread it was to point out that the figures for England had been around the same level for quite a number of days. I am pleased to say that this stopped being the case and they have dropped again since, so I thought I better mention it.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 30, 2021)

The fucking state of this:



Media willingly misunderstanding how viruses work a year into a fucking pandemic. No, Boris Johnson should not 'heed calls' to reopen earlier, because 7 weeks is plenty of time to lose everything we've gained. The point of fucking viruses is that until they're completely gone or everyone's immune they are not under control and can surge again. Grrrr.


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2021)

Cloo said:


> The fucking state of this:
> 
> Media willingly misunderstanding how viruses work a year into a fucking pandemic. No, Boris Johnson should not 'heed calls' to reopen earlier, because 7 weeks is plenty of time to lose everything we've gained. The point of fucking viruses is that until they're completely gone or everyone's immune they are not under control and can surge again. Grrrr.



They arent even capable of being original, they used the exact same headline one day in February, which I had a go at back then. The difference is that on that occasion they underlined the word are:

           #34,603


----------



## NoXion (Mar 30, 2021)

Cloo said:


> The fucking state of this:
> 
> View attachment 260978
> 
> Media willingly misunderstanding how viruses work a year into a fucking pandemic. No, Boris Johnson should not 'heed calls' to reopen earlier, because 7 weeks is plenty of time to lose everything we've gained. The point of fucking viruses is that until they're completely gone or everyone's immune they are not under control and can surge again. Grrrr.



Grrr. They should be forced to print this on the front page instead, along with an explanation:


----------



## Badgers (Mar 31, 2021)

Likely we will see a lot of alarmist headlines over the next few weeks but it is a bit disappointing to see that. Not surprising given the weather and lockdown fatigue but still not a great sign.


----------



## killer b (Mar 31, 2021)

ah, we're back in the 'gaze in horror at this photo of a crowded park/beach' phase again. things are looking up!


----------



## existentialist (Mar 31, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Likely we will see a lot of alarmist headlines over the next few weeks but it is a bit disappointing to see that. Not surprising given the weather and lockdown fatigue but still not a great sign.



I think it's inevitable.

I've been pretty cautious with this whole thing throughout, and have taken a pretty science-led (well, @elbowsl led ) approach to it all...but I am going quietly spare, and as the weather improves, the pull to get out and meet people is becoming irresistible. Not that I'm likely to go full denier or anything, but I think we've done well to ensure the level of compliance we've managed for so long.

I can't see that compliance, generally, continuing for all that much longer.

If you leave a bowl of sweets on the sideboard, and tell everyone not to eat them, you can't exactly be surprised if they start to disappear...


----------



## Badgers (Mar 31, 2021)

Like I said it is not surprising. 

When I saw the sunshine yesterday was grabbing the camping chairs and shorts out the wardrobe. Personally I am not 'desperate' for large gatherings but fully understand people do. Few beers in the sun and most of us let our guards down.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 31, 2021)

I am very disturbed by that, WTF were they thinking, look at the rubbish left behind.


----------



## Teaboy (Mar 31, 2021)

The age demographics say it all really with that shit in the park.  The teens and young adults are pissed off.  They want to see their friends, they want to party and have fun. Its must be really shit for them having all these life limiting restrictions in place for something that is little to no risk to you.  I can see why this sort of thing happens and will continue to happen this summer.

I get that it must be really crap for them but yeah its not a great spectacle and combine that with leaving the parks looking like landfill (which happened a lot last Summer as well) there probably are going to have to be some local restrictions around drinking in public places etc.


----------



## emanymton (Mar 31, 2021)

killer b said:


> ah, we're back in the 'gaze in horror at this photo of a crowded park/beach' phase again. things are looking up!


Next it will be all the people going to beach or for a walk in the park complaining about all the people going to the beach or taking a walk in the park.


----------



## editor (Mar 31, 2021)

20Bees said:


> Reading through the a Twitter feed, a protest group organised the maskless shopping event on Saturday at Tesco, Chelmsford. The maskless shoppers that were spoken to by store managers and police apparently claimed to be exempt.
> 
> The video is awful, the poor employee replenishing stock on the shelves is masked and the crowd would certainly be intimidating. The store where I work (not Tesco!) employs external uniformed security and fortunately we have pretty much 100% compliance with masks. And we have restricted the numbers in store for the whole of the past year.


Be a different story if it was my shop. Fucking selfish, stupid idiots. How much effort is it to stick on a fucking mask for 10 mins when you shop?




killer b said:


> ah, we're back in the 'gaze in horror at this photo of a crowded park/beach' phase again. things are looking up!


I think we've moved on a bit as science has progressed. Outdoors has been seen to be pretty safe unless you're all packed in together, whereas packing into a supermarket without masks is clearly stupid.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 31, 2021)

editor said:


> Outdoors has been seen to be pretty safe unless you're all packed in together


Good job nobody was doing anything like that in parks up and down the country yesterday and there’s not a hot and sunny bank holiday weekend coming up... oh.


----------



## editor (Mar 31, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Good job nobody was doing anything like that in parks up and down the country yesterday and there’s not a hot and sunny bank holiday weekend coming up... oh.


I'm not sure what your point is. Two households are now allowed to gather outside so you'll be seeing a lot more of that.  I'll probably be joining some people too.


----------



## maomao (Mar 31, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Good job nobody was doing anything like that in parks up and down the country yesterday and there’s not a hot and sunny bank holiday weekend coming up... oh.


Weather for the bank holiday weekend looks shit to be honest


----------



## teuchter (Mar 31, 2021)

My strategy from now on is just to accept that people are going to gather in large groups outside, and cases are going to go up again especially in younger age groups. I will simply avoid going anywhere crowded until I've had my vaccination, although I'll take some measured risks using trains and so on. I don't think much transmission will take place while groups are sitting in parks; it'll happen when they get drunk, it gets cold, and they decide to all go back to someone's house.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Mar 31, 2021)

editor said:


> I'm not sure what your point is. Two households are now allowed to gather outside so you'll be seeing a lot more of that.  I'll probably be joining some people too.


My point is that considerably more than 2 households are going to meet up, as evidenced by yesterday.


----------



## editor (Mar 31, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> My point is that considerably more than 2 households are going to meet up, as evidenced by yesterday.


I don't think mass, packed-in gatherings are going to be that common - I was in Brockwell Park yesterday and there was plenty of smallish groups of people sat on the grass, but nothing that was taking the piss. I expect some people will go back to smallish house parties afterwards and I imagine that's precisely what you and I would do if were 20 years old now.


----------



## Sunray (Mar 31, 2021)

We will see what happens over the next 5 weeks, 17 May is the next date to see how it's going.  If those crazy scenes had any effect.  I suspect not.
Hospital admissions need to stay on their downward trend, nice to see most people are being discharged.

UK Campsites are making me laugh. Pretty much all there is for a holiday.  Current guidance from the 12th April is no holiday lets with shared facilities.  Loads of campsites are going 'surely this doesn't mean toilets!'.  The Gov has been opaque at times, but 'shared facilities' is pretty clear and would include toilets.  So unless they give everyone their own portaloo, possible, you will have to bring your own until the 17th May.


----------



## Cloo (Mar 31, 2021)

maomao said:


> Weather for the bank holiday weekend looks shit to be honest


This is possibly as well - or maybe not as people will end up indoors together.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 31, 2021)

Sunray said:


> We will see what happens over the next 5 weeks, 17 May is the next date to see how it's going.  If those crazy scenes had any effect.  I suspect not.
> Hospital admissions need to stay on their downward trend, nice to see most people are being discharged.
> 
> UK Campsites are making me laugh. Pretty much all there is for a holiday.  Current guidance from the 12th April is no holiday lets with shared facilities.  Loads of campsites are going 'surely this doesn't mean toilets!'.  The Gov has been opaque at times, but 'shared facilities' is pretty clear and would include toilets.  So unless they give everyone their own portaloo, possible, you will have to bring your own until the 17th May.


A local (ish) campsite is saying "self-contained units only" - they have to have their own toilet and washing facilities. No tents, no "vans" (ie, Transits with a bed in)


----------



## Boudicca (Mar 31, 2021)

existentialist said:


> A local (ish) campsite is saying "self-contained units only" - they have to have their own toilet and washing facilities. No tents, no "vans" (ie, Transits with a bed in)


I think different campsites are interpreting the rules differently.  A lot of campervanners bought portable toilets & toilet tents last year. The debate is whether a toilet tent counts or does it have to be 'onboard'.  Also whether campsites should be dictating how you wash your body/what's wrong with a sink and flannel.

So some campsites are happy if you bring your own toilet and others are being more fussy.


----------



## existentialist (Mar 31, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> I think different campsites are interpreting the rules differently.  A lot of campervanners bought portable toilets & toilet tents last year. The debate is whether a toilet tent counts or does it have to be 'onboard'.  Also whether campsites should be dictating how you wash your body/what's wrong with a sink and flannel.
> 
> So some campsites are happy if you bring your own toilet and others are being more fussy.


Pencarnan (the site I mentioned) won't allow toilet tents. I think they've interpreted the rules pretty strictly. And this is Wales, where they may be subtly different anyway.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 31, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Good job nobody was doing anything like that in parks up and down the country yesterday and there’s not a hot and sunny bank holiday weekend coming up... oh.



Thankfully not!


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 31, 2021)

editor said:


> I think we've moved on a bit as science has progressed. Outdoors has been seen to be pretty safe



Thats really not stopped the media, the twitterscape or indeed anyone vocal complaining about it.


----------



## Boudicca (Mar 31, 2021)

A comment on our local news FB page referred to the 'Staycation Apocalyse' coming our way.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 31, 2021)

How long does the nose swab take to get results? Friend has just had one done this afternoon at the hospital and is assuming he's ok because they've not told him it's positive. I see that it normally takes 5-7 days for results though.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 31, 2021)

two sheds said:


> How long does the nose swab take to get results? Friend has just had one done this afternoon at the hospital and is assuming he's ok because they've not told him it's positive. I see that it normally takes 5-7 days for results though.



Not sure where you got 5-7 days from, most are turned around in 24-48 hours.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 31, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not sure where you got 5-7 days from, most are turned around in 24-48 hours.


Not within a couple of hours though even at a hospital? He's not actually got any of the symptoms but I'm seeing him tomorrow


----------



## maomao (Mar 31, 2021)

two sheds said:


> How long does the nose swab take to get results? Friend has just had one done this afternoon at the hospital and is assuming he's ok because they've not told him it's positive. I see that it normally takes 5-7 days for results though.


Whenever we've had them done in hospitals this year (particularly my son who's probably had 10-15) the results have taken 2-4 hours.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 31, 2021)

Reassuring, ta


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 31, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Not within a couple of hours though even at a hospital? He's not actually got any of the symptoms but I'm seeing him tomorrow



A couple of hours would be pushing it, my SiL that used to head up the labs in our local hospitals before retiring, but went back to help last year, said they were turning them around in 4 - 12 hours, partly down to which of the three hospital sites in the trust carried out the test, as only a lab at one site was processing them. 

Some trusts don't even have their own lab(s) processing tests, so they take longer.


----------



## zahir (Mar 31, 2021)

Panorama - Undercover: Inside the Covid Testing Lab
					

Panorama goes undercover inside a lab analysing Covid-19 tests.




					www.bbc.co.uk
				





> Panorama goes undercover inside a lab analysing thousands of Covid-19 tests per day. Secretly filmed footage reveals a failing service with shoddy practices, where staff complain they are under pressure to meet targets despite the lab often running well below capacity.
> 
> The programme discovers there have been three outbreaks of coronavirus among staff and that social distancing is poorly maintained. Test samples sometimes arrive poorly packaged and labelled, with equipment frequently malfunctioning, leading to contamination of results. The programme also discovers that tests, including some intended to find new variants of coronavirus, have been wrongly discarded or lost.


----------



## blameless77 (Apr 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> A couple of hours would be pushing it, my SiL that used to head up the labs in our local hospitals before retiring, but went back to help last year, said they were turning them around in 4 - 12 hours, partly down to which of the three hospital sites in the trust carried out the test, as only a lab at one site was processing them.
> 
> Some trusts don't even have their own lab(s) processing tests, so they take longer.



Mobile lamp - lab in a van - is speeding that up.


----------



## MrSki (Apr 1, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

In some settings lateral flow positive tests may then be checked by doing a PCR test, but it sounds like this is now going to become broader policy, in part so they can do genomic analysis:









						PCR testing to be used in England to confirm positive results from rapid tests
					

The move comes as part of efforts to quickly detect new and emerging ‘variants of concern’




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

This sort of thing is one of the reasons I expressed some concern about the giddy nature of the vaccine rollout/ media coverage and messaging about it.









						One in 25 Covid hospitalisations in UK since December have received vaccine
					

Data suggests people may ‘wrongly assume they are immune’ shortly after first jab




					www.independent.co.uk
				






> Data submitted by the Covid-10 Clinical Information Network (CO-CIN) showed there were 1,802 recorded cases of vaccinated patients admitted to hospital with the virus in the UK as of 5 March - equivalent to 4.2 per cent of all Covid-related hospitalisations since 8 December, when the UK’s vaccination programme began.
> 
> The report found that the median time between vaccination and onset of Covid symptoms for these patients was five days. Immunity after a first vaccine jab for all the available vaccines develops around three to four weeks after the dose.





> The CO-CIN report also noted: “Elderly and vulnerable people who had been shielding may have inadvertently been exposed and infected either through the end-to-end process of vaccination, or shortly after vaccination through behavioural changes where they wrongly assume they are immune.”



Also note the last possibility mentioned in this bit:



> They may also have been infected shortly before getting vaccinated, during the vaccine appointment, or that the jab triggered Covid symptoms in people who had been infected but were asymptomatic.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 1, 2021)

> They may also have been infected shortly before getting vaccinated, *during the vaccine appointment*, or that the jab triggered Covid symptoms in people who had been infected but were asymptomatic.



They are doing vaccinations at my local pharmacy but I'm a bit dubious about the setup.

If you are just a pharmacy customer, then they are allowing two customers in the shop at a time. So you wait outside. But then when you go in, it's you, maybe another pharmacy customer, plus two (or maybe three) people waiting to get their vaccination. Everyone is probably 2m apart but they are all in the same internal space with unknown ventilation. I don't really understand their thinking. The people waiting to be vaccinated are likely the ones to be most at risk... so why do they not wait outside until it's time for their vaccination? They've obviously decided it's feasible for people to wait outside because that's what they are asking regular customers to do.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 1, 2021)

I was astonished to learn that people are generally not verbally told that they must wait four weeks for the vaccine to be effective. They are given a leaflet but the natural home for all leaflets is the bin and I can't believe this isn't understood. Do they think people read instruction manuals too ffs? Seems to me that verbal explanation - both of the four weeks until it works and that vaccinated people can get infected and spread it - should be part of the vaccination process, however boring it would be for those doing it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 1, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> *I was astonished to learn that people are generally not verbally told that they must wait four weeks for the vaccine to be effective. *They are given a leaflet but the natural home for all leaflets is the bin and I can't believe this isn't understood. Do they think people read instruction manuals too ffs? Seems to me that verbal explanation - both of the four weeks until it works and that vaccinated people can get infected and spread it - should be part of the vaccination process, however boring it would be for those doing it.



I was told that verbally at my GP surgery, and my SiL who's checking people's details before their jab, at an NHS vaccination centre, says it's part of what they discuss before sending them over to a jabbing station.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 1, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I was astonished to learn that people are generally not verbally told that they must wait four weeks for the vaccine to be effective. They are given a leaflet but the natural home for all leaflets is the bin and I can't believe this isn't understood. Do they think people read instruction manuals too ffs? Seems to me that verbal explanation - both of the four weeks until it works and that vaccinated people can get infected and spread it - should be part of the vaccination process, however boring it would be for those doing it.


Is it four weeks after the first or the second? Not sure what we’re supposed to do with that information anyway


----------



## LDC (Apr 1, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I was astonished to learn that people are generally not verbally told that they must wait four weeks for the vaccine to be effective. They are given a leaflet but the natural home for all leaflets is the bin and I can't believe this isn't understood. Do they think people read instruction manuals too ffs? Seems to me that verbal explanation - both of the four weeks until it works and that vaccinated people can get infected and spread it - should be part of the vaccination process, however boring it would be for those doing it.



I tell people after the jab before I explain possible side effects etc., but was never told to tbh. I agree it does seem slightly bonkers, but it's hard as retention of info by patients with something like this is very, very low, so a leaflet is the way round that, but aIso agree people rarely read them.


----------



## LDC (Apr 1, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Is it four weeks after the first or the second? Not sure what we’re supposed to do with that information anyway



It builds up after the first over about 2-4 weeks, the second dose boosts it up and prolongs it further.

Not really supposed to do anything, for me it's a reminder to them that they're not invincible when they step out of the vaccine place and that they should continue to follow the guidelines etc.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I tell people after the jab before I explain possible side effects etc., but was never told to tbh. I agree it does seem slightly bonkers, but it's hard as retention of info by patients with something like this is very, very low, so a leaflet is the way round that, but aIso agree people rarely read them.



Especially when you consider 48% of people don't even know what the main covid symptoms are, according to a survey out today, over a bloody year into the pandemic.  





__





						Loading…
					





					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I tell people after the jab before I explain possible side effects etc., but was never told to tbh. I agree it does seem slightly bonkers, but it's hard as retention of info by patients with something like this is very, very low, so a leaflet is the way round that, but aIso agree people rarely read them.


If some planning went in to the protocol you could probably come up with something like asking people to repeat certain information back to you.  It seems like a really important thing to get right in the current context so I'm a bit surprised it's just been giving people a leaflet and hoping.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 1, 2021)

You'd think that after a year of global pandemic that has massively disrupted everything and affected everyone in what they are and aren't able to do... and after that, there's a vaccine which means that your chances of getting ill from Covid go from fairly high to fairly low... you'd think that maybe people would take an interest in something as basic as "how long after being given the injection can I assume my protection has increased substantially". You'd think that might be one thing where you could assume some level of retention of information?


----------



## LDC (Apr 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Especially when you consider 48% of people don't even know what the main covid symptoms are, according to a survey out today, over a bloody year into the pandemic.



I know, it really does test my faith in humanity sometimes. I _regularly_ come across people ignoring symptoms, not getting tested, not isolating etc. through work. For sure some are for reasons like concern over work or finances etc., but a depressingly huge number with no justifiable reason.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 1, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Is it four weeks after the first or the second? Not sure what we’re supposed to do with that information anyway


Four weeks after the first that you have reasonable immunity. As I understand it the booster shot is as much about long term immunity as increasing the percentage a little. 

Of course in theory people's behaviour shouldn't change just because they think they're protected by the vaccine, but we know that's not realistic. Better to make sure that if they are going to change their behaviour they wait four weeks to do it rather than the next day.


----------



## LDC (Apr 1, 2021)

Yeah I've had my second dose now, and I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't change my behaviour at all. The rules are changing anyway, but if they weren't I think I could see myself bending them now, whereas I haven't before.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 1, 2021)

I have a friend who works in med coms and its a well known phenomena that people often don't take in or comprehend what they are being told by healthcare professionals. Maybe its a white coat syndrome maybe its because people don't want to think about their health maybe we're having to confront mortality or an unwelcome change in our lives.  We're on auto-pilot in these situations and we'll nod and agree with the doctor or nurse but we're just not taking it in.

I think its one of the main reasons for poor compliance with medication routines (yes I'm aware there are other reasons) which is a very common thing.

Millions and millions are spent on communications to try and assist the patient but often it just falls back to patient literature.  All the information is out there but it seems to be a human thing, well certainly a British thing that the info just isn't processed well.  Health literacy and all that.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 1, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Of course in theory people's behaviour shouldn't change just because they think they're protected by the vaccine,


For those in vulnerable groups, who might have been restricting their behaviour more than most for the past year (and possibly restricting their activity beyond what the guidelines say) then I think it would be absolutely fair enough for them to change their behaviour. For example if they were deciding to meet someone in a low-vulnerability group, then waiting an extra two weeks might make a crucial difference.


----------



## Thora (Apr 1, 2021)

I never remember any verbal instructions GPs give me.  Luckily it’s usually on the medication.
I would read a short leaflet/info sheet though.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

This is the report that lead to the story:





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				




They are recommending repeating the exercise every month, because they also want to track vaccine failure in different age groups:



> While the majority of “vaccine failures defined as Difference in symptom onset and vaccination >= 14 days” occur in people age >80yr (highlighted in yellow in table 1) it must be remembered that at the time of analysis this group also made up the majority of people vaccinated.







> We have recognised that some vaccinated patients were admitted for non-COVID-19 reasons and were asymptomatic but later identified as PCR positive. Of the 1,802 vaccinated patients admitted to hospital, 1,560 tested PCR positive (87% of vaccinated admissions). Of these patients 342 were asymptomatic (22% of PCR positive vaccinated admissions). Of these asymptomatic patients 164 (48% of asymptomatic PCR positive vaccinated admissions) were admitted within 7 days of vaccination, indicating infection before immunity had opportunity to develop.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

I felt like including one more chart.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 1, 2021)

Looking at the dashboard, a couple of milestones have been hit:

- Patients in hospital have dropped just below 4,000, down from that peak of over 38,000, admissions being down -23.5% in the last week.

- Deaths have dropped below an average of 50, now 46 a day, you have to go back to 1st Oct. to beat that, they are down -38.5% in the last week.

Also interesting, and somewhat surprising considering the schools re-opened a few weeks a go, but new cases are down -16.7% in the last week.


----------



## zahir (Apr 1, 2021)

e2a:


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Especially when you consider 48% of people don't even know what the main covid symptoms are, according to a survey out today, over a bloody year into the pandemic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This news really doesn’t surprise me, or help change my view that a significant percentage of people out there are absolute fucking idiots.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I tell people after the jab before I explain possible side effects etc., but was never told to tbh. I agree it does seem slightly bonkers, but it's hard as retention of info by patients with something like this is very, very low, so a leaflet is the way round that, but aIso agree people rarely read them.


I've just come back from having mine (AstraZeneca, since you ask), and no mention of precautions was made. All the focus was on side-effects. And checking I didn't have any kind of egg allergy. And a bit of banter about blood clots, or the lack thereof.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> And checking I didn't have any kind of egg allergy.



I've not heard of that being asked, it's not like it contains any egg proteins.  🤷‍♂️


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

Hospitality industry bodies moaning that the latest attempt to reopen the sector in a less risky manner than was managed previously is just not on.

I understand why from a financial perspective they want business to boom, but at this stage I hardly need to say what I think about this. Much better to err on the side of caution, especially to start with, and to have a system which might actually be compatible with genuine attempts to track & trace, find the source of outbreaks etc. And yes, maybe dampen demand and give the public cues that they shouldnt relax their guard too much in these settings, that the pandemic is not over yet.









						Every customer must sign in when pubs reopen
					

New rules to help venues reopen outdoors safely this month have sparked anger from industry groups.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## IC3D (Apr 1, 2021)

The shared pens you use to sign into pubs last time just seemed wrong headed.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

Sadly I'm sure the implementation this time will leave plenty to be desired too.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I've just come back from having mine (AstraZeneca, since you ask), and no mention of precautions was made. All the focus was on side-effects. And checking I didn't have any kind of egg allergy. And a bit of banter about blood clots, or the lack thereof.


Egg allergy is what I've been asked for flu jabs.


----------



## planetgeli (Apr 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I've just come back from having mine (AstraZeneca, since you ask), and no mention of precautions was made. All the focus was on side-effects. And checking I didn't have any kind of egg allergy. And a bit of banter about blood clots, or the lack thereof.



Nice one. Change your vote before you collapse.   









						Have you had the vaccine WITH POLL
					

I don’t think I’ll be getting my first dose until mid year at least because roll out has been incredibly slow in Australia.




					www.urban75.net


----------



## Sunray (Apr 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah I've had my second dose now, and I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't change my behaviour at all. The rules are changing anyway, but if they weren't I think I could see myself bending them now, whereas I haven't before.



I think we undersell vaccines.  I know they aren't perfect. But they have removed smallpox and polio from the world.  It has been estimated Smallpox killed 25% of the Roman empire in 4 months.  We have been confined to our houses for less than 1%. Imagine a 25% death rate.  (It's actually more like 30% Smallpox)  Smallpox is scary Why Romans Grew Nostalgic for the Deadly Plague of 165 A.D.

50% of the UK population is estimated to have antibodies to Covid-19 through a vaccine or catching it.  I think behaviour will naturally change.

I'm hopeful for a nice warm summer, if we all hang out outdoors it will really help drive the infection rate down.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> You'd think that after a year of global pandemic that has massively disrupted everything and affected everyone in what they are and aren't able to do... and after that, there's a vaccine which means that your chances of getting ill from Covid go from fairly high to fairly low... you'd think that maybe people would take an interest in something as basic as "how long after being given the injection can I assume my protection has increased substantially". You'd think that might be one thing where you could assume some level of retention of information?


People are astonishingly passive when it comes to decisions about their own health. If the risk isn't staring them in the face, many people aren't interested in making the conceptual effort to acknowledge an invisible risk. So, in their minds, vaccine = safe, simple as.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 1, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Nice one. Change your vote before you collapse.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 1, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> This news really doesn’t surprise me, or help change my view that a significant percentage of people out there are absolute fucking idiots.


48% is everyone to the left of the intelligence bell curve, tbf.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> People are astonishingly passive when it comes to decisions about their own health. If the risk isn't staring them in the face, many people aren't interested in making the conceptual effort to acknowledge an invisible risk. So, in their minds, vaccine = safe, simple as.


I myself am having trouble imagining Covid as a reality as it hasn’t happened to me. It’s difficult to be wary of dangers when they’re not immediately apparent.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Hospitality industry bodies moaning that the latest attempt to reopen the sector in a less risky manner than was managed previously is just not on.
> 
> I understand why from a financial perspective they want business to boom, but at this stage I hardly need to say what I think about this. Much better to err on the side of caution, especially to start with, and to have a system which might actually be compatible with genuine attempts to track & trace, find the source of outbreaks etc. And yes, maybe dampen demand and give the public cues that they shouldnt relax their guard too much in these settings, that the pandemic is not over yet.
> 
> ...



Fucking daft. Contact tracing has been abandoned in all but name anyway.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I think we undersell vaccines.  I know they aren't perfect. But they have removed smallpox and polio from the world.  It has been estimated Smallpox killed 25% of the Roman empire in 4 months.  We have been confined to our houses for less than 1%. Imagine a 25% death rate.  (It's actually more like 30% Smallpox)  Smallpox is scary Why Romans Grew Nostalgic for the Deadly Plague of 165 A.D.
> 
> 50% of the UK population is estimated to have antibodies to Covid-19 through a vaccine or catching it.  I think behaviour will naturally change.
> 
> I'm hopeful for a nice warm summer, if we all hang out outdoors it will really help drive the infection rate down.



I dont think we undersell vaccines, I think the authorities are somewhat careful not to make claims until they have the data to back those claims up. This has been especially notable when it comes to them not wanting to make claims about reductions in transmission until they started to get more data on that side of things. And we are now into the stage where good data news on the transmission front starts to emerge, improving expectations.

I've seen several modelling exercises looking at lockdown relaxation over time in combination with the UK vaccination programme, and under plenty of the scenarios the picture later this year still wasnt pretty, still involved further deaths in the tens of thousands over time via another wave. These exercises had limitations and were based on various assumptions about vaccine effectiveness which are now a bit out of date. So I dont have a narrow range of expectations for the future, I have a wide range all the way from 'next wave will barely resemble a sizeable wave at all' to another considerable peak of deaths and hospitalisations. It will take time before I can narrow my expectations in a particular direction on that. Government seems to have a simialr attitude, hence the relatively cautious approach to unlocking in phases.

I do have an additional reason to consider relatively pleasant pandemic future possibilities as a result of vaccination, because of the substantial role I think hospital-acquired infections have in amplifying a wave, and if vaccines radically change the hospital infection potential then things that were terrible tipping points in previous waves may not kick off in the same way in future, even under conditions where community infection levels are not well under control.

In terms of public attitudes towards vaccines, the binary nature of a lot of the thinking bothers me. This wont matter quite so much if the data keeps on yielding better and better figures, because faulty ideas about being totally protected will not be as far away from the truth as they might be if the original, lower percentages for these sorts of things had been closer to the reality.

If last summer was any guide then I dont think people are that well equipped to judge how quickly a subsequent wave can take to emerge and reach very problematic levels either. Which is not surprising, the government often dont speak much about this and there are a lot of variables that can affect things. A simple starting point that I use to get some sense of this sort of thing is how low the level of infections has gotten by the time measures are relaxed. Things have fallen a lot since the January peak so if things start to climb again they are doing so from a lower starting point than was the case, for example, when things went wrong at the end of November/start of December after a period of restrictions was eased, but then of course that situation was also affected by the Kent variant, schools not having been shut in November etc.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Fucking daft. Contact tracing has been abandoned in all but name anyway.



I dont agree at all. I know how that impression of contact tracing has emerged and been reinforced, especially in recent months, but I dont agree. Especially not on the local level where there is still quite a bit of interest in the detection and management of specific outbreaks in specific settings.

There will be a point where I would go easier on the brakes applied to hospitality, but it would not be for some time yet. I want the opposite of 'eat out to help out' for quite some months yet, I want people to be discouraged, I want signals to be sent that the risk has not gone, the pandemic has not gone.

Plus I want the possibility to remain to collect better data that may answer questions about evidence that people in denial about the role of hospitality in viral spread come out with. Hopefully we wont end up in a situation where this argument and demands for evidence comes back again, but if we do I do not want the authorities to have missed more opportunities to gather such data in the meantime.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> They are doing vaccinations at my local pharmacy but I'm a bit dubious about the setup.
> 
> If you are just a pharmacy customer, then they are allowing two customers in the shop at a time. So you wait outside. But then when you go in, it's you, maybe another pharmacy customer, plus two (or maybe three) people waiting to get their vaccination. Everyone is probably 2m apart but they are all in the same internal space with unknown ventilation. I don't really understand their thinking. The people waiting to be vaccinated are likely the ones to be most at risk... so why do they not wait outside until it's time for their vaccination? They've obviously decided it's feasible for people to wait outside because that's what they are asking regular customers to do.



I shall be cautious about the setup and consider my options when the time comes that I am offered a vaccine. Because going for one will be the riskiest thing I've done since mid March 2020, because of how effectively I've been able to keep myself away from people and places since then. I'd really like number of cases to keep going down in the meantime, since I'll be going for a vaccine at the same time as lots of other people in age groups generally more likely to be infected via their day to day lives all the way along this pandemic.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 1, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Fucking daft. Contact tracing has been abandoned in all but name anyway.



No it hasn't, now cases are back down to 'manageable levels', even the national contact tracing system is reaching much higher levels of contacts, the fact that local authorities are now more involved is an added bonus, certainly our local councils have been brilliant in tracing the occasional local outbreak, and nipping it in the bud.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> People are astonishingly passive when it comes to decisions about their own health. If the risk isn't staring them in the face, many people aren't interested in making the conceptual effort to acknowledge an invisible risk. So, in their minds, vaccine = safe, simple as.


It's hard to see Covid as an invisible risk when half the economy is shut down, everyone's wearing facemasks and it's constantly being discussed. I mean someone might have decided it's not a risk to them, because of their age or because they don't directly know anyone who's been seriously ill, but in that case there'd be no reason for them to change their behaviour much on account of having been vaccinated anyway. If someone changes their behaviour immediately after their jab, it suggests they did feel a risk prior to it.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 1, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> 48% is everyone to the left of the intelligence bell curve, tbf.


There is no intelligence bell curve.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's hard to see Covid as an invisible risk when half the economy is shut down, everyone's wearing facemasks and it's constantly being discussed. I mean someone might have decided it's not a risk to them, because of their age or because they don't directly know anyone who's been seriously ill, but in that case there'd be no reason for them to change their behaviour much on account of having been vaccinated anyway. If someone changes their behaviour immediately after their jab, it suggests they did feel a risk prior to it.



On a related note, I wasnt very happy to see the Queen without a mask on and the Sun being all happy about it on their front page. Because of the message it sends.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> No it hasn't, now cases are back down to 'manageable levels', even the national contact tracing system is reaching much higher levels of contacts, the fact that local authorities are now more involved is an added bonus, certainly our local councils have been brilliant in tracing the occasional local outbreak, and nipping it in the bud.


This is in addition to the national Track & Trace though? Cos the national initiative wasn’t fit for purpose, so councils had to take the matter into their own hands.
I work in a public place and we have a QR code for people to scan in when they visit. I only know of one customer who has used it.
Most people don’t even have the app


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> No it hasn't, now cases are back down to 'manageable levels', even the national contact tracing system is reaching much higher levels of contacts, the fact that local authorities are now more involved is an added bonus, certainly our local councils have been brilliant in tracing the occasional local outbreak, and nipping it in the bud.



To be fair to those with a negative view of this side of things, its easy to look at stats and analysis of that system and the marginal use it has been in controlling the pandemic, and become defeatist about it. I will still usually make a loud noise against such defeatism, its not a reason to do less, its a reason to do it more, do it better.

Especially in an era where they are trying to keep an eye on variants of concern. There will continue to be plenty of large holes in UK surveillance of such variants, due for example to people not engaging with the test system at all, and other stuff we have heard about recently. But we still have to try. And I dont imagine people being too chuffed if the day comes when they detect a case with a new variant who went down the pub at some point, but with no record of who else frequented that establishment at the same time. That could still happen with the new guidance, but at least there will be a chance of finding most of the contacts sometimes with this guidance in place.


----------



## MrSki (Apr 1, 2021)




----------



## Supine (Apr 1, 2021)

kabbes said:


> There is no intelligence bell curve.



why?


----------



## two sheds (Apr 1, 2021)

Supine said:


> why?


Yes I wondered that, but then I thought: how do you define intelligence?


----------



## kabbes (Apr 1, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Yes I wondered that, but then I thought: how do you define intelligence?


This, plus there’s no reason in any case to think that any of what _does_ get measured should follow a Normal distribution. Even the infamous IQ test is only a Normal distribution because the makers pre-determined that’s what it should be and created the scores accordingly. It’s not data-driven, it’s Normal by design.

In fact, since the variation gets removed from anything within a species that offers a genuine evolutionary advantage, if there _were_ a genuine measurable underlying “intelligence”, the last thing we’d expect from it would be a bell curve. Variation following bell curves only exist for things that really don’t matter to survival. If you think about it, there’s no real variation in most things about us, like number of fingers or number of bones or teeth*. Only relatively irrelevant things like height (within a narrow range).

*barring accidents and outliers, of course


----------



## Sunray (Apr 2, 2021)

Sorry,  lol not sorry









						Police charge crowd gathered in Brussels park for fake concert
					

Thousands break Covid rules to attend event announced on social media as April Fool’s Day prank




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## kalidarkone (Apr 2, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah I've had my second dose now, and I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't change my behaviour at all. The rules are changing anyway, but if they weren't I think I could see myself bending them now, whereas I haven't before.


Same. I'm a lot more relaxed since having both my jabs and have been off work since February,  so at much less risk then previously - for me this means I have been on a bus and a train and am going to a protest tomorrow.


----------



## Cloo (Apr 2, 2021)

Cases in my borough risen by 35 (cases, not %) in  last week - I imagine school testing probably accounts for that. Still low overall though.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Apr 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's hard to see Covid as an invisible risk when half the economy is shut down, everyone's wearing facemasks and it's constantly being discussed. I mean someone might have decided it's not a risk to them, because of their age or because they don't directly know anyone who's been seriously ill, but in that case there'd be no reason for them to change their behaviour much on account of having been vaccinated anyway. If someone changes their behaviour immediately after their jab, it suggests they did feel a risk prior to it.



Exactly - the cautious people will carry on being cautious (also probably going to read the small print) even when everything opens up again.

The (varying degrees of less cautious) will carry on being less cautious, increasingly so as more things open.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Apr 2, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> This is in addition to the national Track & Trace though? Cos the national initiative wasn’t fit for purpose, so councils had to take the matter into their own hands.
> I work in a public place and we have a QR code for people to scan in when they visit. I only know of one customer who has used it.
> Most people don’t even have the app



I went to quite a few places last summer where entry was conditional on scanning the QR code as you came in - a couple were semi-outdoor gigs, but one was 'just' a coffee bar.

But there were loads more places not requiring it, true.

People at work who come in by train, say they are standing room only again at peak times (partly because number of carriages has been reduced).
Would be interesting if people had to scan in before getting on the train...?

Don't know how I would feel about that - unexpectedly crowded trains were the only thing that made me nervous last summer, because of (unlike tube or bus) being unable to get off if you wanted.

(And some of that nervousness wasn't actual fear of covid-risk as such, but to do with being trapped in a carriage with people anti-social and/or drunk enough not to be wearing masks, which isn't quite the same thing)


----------



## kabbes (Apr 2, 2021)

Such a joy to have lockdown over.

I’ll give up on the idea of buying my loaf of bread then


----------



## belboid (Apr 2, 2021)

Oh no, there are people in your village! Queuing politely, what absolute scum.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 2, 2021)

belboid said:


> Oh no, there are people in your village! Queuing politely, what absolute scum.


Did I insult any of the people there?  God, you can be a prat.


----------



## belboid (Apr 2, 2021)

Stop fucking complaining then, unless you want to sound like massive nimby again.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 2, 2021)

this is the only shop without driving 15 minutes.  I now can’t get my bread without queuing for 30 minutes because of lots of people wanting to buy coffees.  I can complain about that if I want, you bellend.  It doesn’t have to be a complaint about any of the individuals there getting their previous coffee.  Yes, it’s not the harshest reality in the world, but it’s still an irritation that didn’t exist during lockdown.


----------



## belboid (Apr 2, 2021)

You can complain about anything you like. And I can complain and about you complaining. This is how life works.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 2, 2021)

belboid said:


> You can complain about anything you like. And I can complain and about you complaining. This is how life works.


Fine, crack on with your meandering around the board being antagonistic towards absolutely everyone, then.  Heaven forbid anybody have anything non life threatening to complain about, the mighty belboid will be there to insult them for it.


----------



## SpineyNorman (Apr 2, 2021)

Id like to register a complaint about you complaining about him complaining about you complaining about him complaining. I am told this is also within the rules.


----------



## belboid (Apr 2, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Fine, crack on with your meandering around the board being antagonistic towards absolutely everyone, then.  Heaven forbid anybody have anything non life threatening to complain about, the mighty belboid will be there to insult them for it.


Glad you're not making too big a deal of this, or someone might think you were overcompensating


----------



## kabbes (Apr 2, 2021)

belboid said:


> Glad you're not making too big a deal of this, or someone might think you were overcompensating


You have no idea what is going on in my life.  You have no idea what shit I was dealing with this morning that made this irritation the final straw, but at least it was a safe thing I could blow off a bit of steam about.  The fact is, you just see me as a cartoon character that you can be a prick to when you see the opportunity.  Well enjoy it, along with your cod-psy reading of the situation too.  Nice one, you win.  I’ll keep it all internal in the future. Go back to some tried and true methods instead. Congratulations on your victory, you hero.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Apr 2, 2021)

kabbes said:


> this is the only shop without driving 15 minutes.  I now can’t get my bread without queuing for 30 minutes because of lots of people wanting to buy coffees.  I can complain about that if I want, you bellend.  It doesn’t have to be a complaint about any of the individuals there getting their previous coffee.  Yes, it’s not the harshest reality in the world, but it’s still an irritation that didn’t exist during lockdown.



Tbf if this was my dad, in his little village, he would be absolutely fucking delighted at the excuse to stand in a queue & natter to strangers for half an hour.

(I am more of an impatient type, & there are plenty of people I'd hate to be trapped in a queue with, so it would irritate me a bit too)


----------



## editor (Apr 2, 2021)

kabbes said:


> this is the only shop without driving 15 minutes.  I now can’t get my bread without queuing for 30 minutes because of lots of people wanting to buy coffees.  I can complain about that if I want, you bellend.  It doesn’t have to be a complaint about any of the individuals there getting their previous coffee.  Yes, it’s not the harshest reality in the world, but it’s still an irritation that didn’t exist during lockdown.


Those shops you use probably wouldn't be there if it wasn't for those people using them.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 2, 2021)

editor said:


> Those shops you use probably wouldn't be there if it wasn't for those people using them.


That’s a moot point, actually.  Would you like me to run through the economics of it and the nature of the flow of trade over the last 12 months?

Either way, though, I’d have hoped that the subsequent posts would rather revealed this this is not exactly the point.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 2, 2021)

Local shop now delivers veg and goodies, shopkeeper said about 2/3 of his trade is now in deliveries. A bit more time consuming for him but they've been scrupulous about safety over the last year and it's balanced out the drop off in shop trade.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 2, 2021)

I kindly and specially already provided a thread for people to have this argument on









						Rural areas and plague tourists
					

There are many rural areas of the UK which have not really suffered high levels of Covid, compared to the national average. Of course, it's understandable that if you lived in one of those areas, you would want to keep it that way. And when there are surges of infection its quite right that...




					www.urban75.net


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I kindly and specially already provided a thread for people to have this argument on
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fair point 

But sometimes, for some reason or other, I can't avoid thinking that there's a lot to be said for living in or near larger towns and cities!


----------



## BlanketAddict (Apr 4, 2021)

Covid passport trials to begin imminently, variety of events, small and large involved.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 4, 2021)

MrSki said:


>











						Jenny Harries has got Covid consistently wrong – she should not be rewarded - CapX
					

Jenny Harries, England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, is reportedly in line to head up a new UK-wide agency tasked with overseeing public health and battling pandemics. The National Institute for Health Protection is taking over responsibility for pandemics from the much-maligned Public Health...




					capx.co


----------



## Cloo (Apr 4, 2021)

Papers are all saying there's a push for everyone to do lateral flow tests twice a week, which is better than nothing but still not convinced its level of accuracy is enough to actually prevent outbreaks?


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 4, 2021)

What does lateral flow mean?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 4, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> What does lateral flow mean?



I had to check Wiki myself .....

Where I work, we've been on weekly lateral flow tests for over a month.

My negative-result rate = 100%!


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 5, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> I had to check Wiki myself .....
> 
> Where I work, we've been on weekly lateral flow tests for over a month.
> 
> My negative-result rate = 100%!


I can't believe that I work with a bunch of gasping coughers every day face to face without ever being tested


----------



## Supine (Apr 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I can't believe that I work with a bunch of gasping coughers every day face to face without ever being tested



so get tested!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I can't believe that I work with a bunch of gasping coughers every day face to face without ever being tested



There's something wrong with your employer then, free tests have been available to all employers for about a month, prior to that they were only available to those employing more than 50.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Papers are all saying there's a push for everyone to do lateral flow tests twice a week, which is better than nothing but still not convinced its level of accuracy is enough to actually prevent outbreaks?



All staff and kids at my school have home testing kits they're supposed to use twice a week.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Papers are all saying there's a push for everyone to do lateral flow tests twice a week, which is better than nothing but still not convinced its level of accuracy is enough to actually prevent outbreaks?



Yes, it does look like Johnson will be announcing that plan in the press conference today. 



> Boris Johnson is to unveil a plan for routine, universal Covid-19 tests as a means to ease England out of lockdown, as the government faced a renewed backlash over the idea of app-based “passports” to permit people entry into crowded places and events.
> 
> Six months after Johnson unveiled plans for “Operation Moonshot”, a £100bn mass testing scheme that never delivered on its stated aim of preventing another lockdown, all people in England will be offered two Covid tests a week from Friday.
> 
> The prime minister is to announce the rollout of the lateral flow tests at a press conference on Monday afternoon, at which he will also outline a programme of trial events for mass gatherings, as well as proposals for potentially restarting foreign travel. - LINK



And, this study, involving over a quarter of a million people, does show they are fairly accurate in picking up cases that could lead to onward transmission of covid.



> Research led by the University of Oxford and Public Health England (PHE) found lateral flow tests are ‘sufficiently sensitive’ to detect the ‘majority’ of cases that lead to onward transmission of Covid-19.
> 
> The team’s modelling found that the ‘most sensitive’ lateral flow test of four kits tested would identify 91% of Covid cases, whereas the ‘least sensitive’ detected 84% of people with the virus.
> 
> The accuracy and reliability of the tests has been called into question in recent months, after a mass community testing pilot in Liverpool revealed the tests had missed 60% of positive cases.





> But while the authors of the Oxford research acknowledged that the role of lateral flow tests has been controversial, they concluded that the tests can detect most people ‘who would otherwise go on to infect someone else’.
> 
> This is because the same people who are detected best by lateral flow kits – those with high viral loads – are also the most infectious, the study found.
> 
> ‘This is the first time this has been confirmed in a large-scale study and explains part of why some people pass Covid-19 on and others do not. Overall, only six in 100 contacts of infected cases went on to get infected themselves,’ the researchers said.





			https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/coronavirus/lateral-flow-rapid-covid-tests-pick-up-90-of-cases-study-finds/


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 5, 2021)

I have managed to go an entire year without a single test and I'd like to stay that way.

It's not like I'm intending on going anywhere.


----------



## NoXion (Apr 5, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> I have managed to go an entire year without a single test and I'd like to stay that way.



Why? Getting tested for Covid isn't any kind of moral failing or accusation of impropriety. It's just a medical diagnostic. You might feel that you have no cause to be tested, but sometimes it is necessary to test folks who aren't displaying symptoms, because sometimes asymptomatic cases are a thing that need to be ruled out.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 5, 2021)

NoXion said:


> Why? Getting tested for Covid isn't any kind of moral failing or accusation of impropriety. It's just a medical diagnostic. You might feel that you have no cause to be tested, but sometimes it is necessary to test folks who aren't displaying symptoms, because sometimes asymptomatic cases are a thing that need to be ruled out.



I don't want to shove shit up my nose? Like it looks actively unpleasant and I'd rather not.

And like I say I've been shielding so I've gone nowhere


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2021)

BlanketAddict said:


> Covid passport trials to begin imminently, variety of events, small and large involved.



Another cash black hole for some bunch of private sector spivs no doubt.


----------



## NoXion (Apr 5, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> I don't want to shove shit up my nose? Like it looks actively unpleasant and I'd rather not.



It'll only be up there for a few seconds, don't be a big bubble-blowin' baby.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 5, 2021)

NoXion said:


> It'll only be up there for a few seconds, don't be a big bubble-blowin' baby.



Nah.


----------



## NoXion (Apr 5, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Nah.



Do you skip dental appointments too? Those are far worse than any swab up your nose.


----------



## andysays (Apr 5, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> I don't want to shove shit up my nose? Like it looks actively unpleasant and I'd rather not.
> 
> And like I say I've been shielding so I've gone nowhere


It is slightly unpleasant, though not too bad, IME.

And the tests are aimed primarily at those who can't work from home and so are more likely to catch and pass on the virus than those who are mostly not going out.

If you're still mostly staying at home even now that shielding is officially over, there's little point in getting tested regularly.


----------



## CNT36 (Apr 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes, it does look like Johnson will be announcing that plan in the press conference today.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They're very accurate for that. This could have been a game changer pre-vaccines. Late as ever. The biggest challenge is the lack of support for those required to self isolate and people not using the tests. There should be some education about being over confident in the case of a (potentially false) negative result.The tests are adequate for the task at hand. The more often they are used the better. IF everyone used the tests twice a week and acted appropriately then it would have a real impact. 
Accuracy at finding infectious cases as you mention is the key. There have been studies in the US showing that sensitivity rates for the virus down to around 50% will still allow infectious cases to be detected. Non infectious cases will make up the vast majority of false negatives. Infectious false negatives are rare and most would not have received a better test and have gone undetected anyway. It could also contribute to monitoring virus levels allowing appropriate (and hopefully early and less restrictive) to be put in place when needed. I'd be interested in how they would combine it with more sensitive and specific tests such as PCR and samples for phylogenetics and detection of variants one of the few things this country has done well.


----------



## mr steev (Apr 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's something wrong with your employer then, free tests have been available to all employers for about a month, prior to that they were only available to those employing more than 50.



Me and my team have been working all the way through lockdown and have only been offered 1 PCR test last summer. We've applied for workbased testing, but apparently we can't get any as we don't have space where we can set up a designated testing area... yet my daughter gets sent home with the same kits


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2021)

mr steev said:


> Me and my team have been working all the way through lockdown and have only been offered 1 PCR test last summer. We've applied for workbased testing, but apparently we can't get any as we don't have space where we can set up a designated testing area... yet my daughter gets sent home with the same kits



That changed, so you could get tested at a local pharmacy, and IIRC it then changed again, so you could do it at home.


----------



## IC3D (Apr 5, 2021)

Should be able to do a lat flow at you desk if you can take your mask off for 30 seconds, which is worthit if you go straight home after a +ve result


----------



## mr steev (Apr 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That changed, so you could get tested at a local pharmacy, and IIRC it then changed again, so you could do it at home.



We've not been able to get any home testing - We've all had to use a local testing center the day before we go into work


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## kalidarkone (Apr 5, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Should be able to do a lat flow at you desk if you can take your mask off for 30 seconds, which is worthit if you go straight home after a +ve result


Much better to do it at home BEFORE going into work.
I've been doing weekly LFT. Everyone at work got given a kit with 12 weeks worth of tests and an instruction booklet.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Apr 5, 2021)

mr steev said:


> We've not been able to get any home testing - We've all had to use a local testing center the day before we go into work


Yes, I've been having to go to a testing centre 2 x week.  Apparently home testing for everyone in England from next week though   COVID-19: Rapid, twice-weekly coronavirus tests to be offered to everyone in England - including home delivery | Politics News | Sky News


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## IC3D (Apr 5, 2021)

Same kalidarkone don't know why he has to do it at work seems off message


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## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2021)

mr steev said:


> We've not been able to get any home testing - We've all had to use a local testing center the day before we go into work



Home test kits for employers to order were announced a while back, although it looks like they are only just becoming available from tomorrow, so will be somewhat over taken by home tests for all starting soon after.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Apr 5, 2021)

mr steev said:


> Me and my team have been working all the way through lockdown and have only been offered 1 PCR test last summer. We've applied for workbased testing, but apparently we can't get any as we don't have space where we can set up a designated testing area... yet my daughter gets sent home with the same kits


Register to order free rapid lateral flow coronavirus tests for your employees - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 



> "You can order free rapid lateral flow tests to test your employees twice a week in the workplace.
> If you have 10 or more employees, from early April you’ll be able to order tests for your employees to collect from their workplace and use at home twice a week. You can do this if you cannot provide testing in the workplace.
> You must register by 11:59pm on 12 April 2021. If your business is closed or you cannot provide tests now, you should still register so you can order tests in the future."


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## Steel Icarus (Apr 5, 2021)

There are literally thousands of lateral flow tests at college. Students can walk into either of the two libraries and pick up as many as they like.


----------



## mr steev (Apr 5, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> Register to order free rapid lateral flow coronavirus tests for your employees - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)



Yeah, that's new though - only a couple of weeks ago they were still saying we couldn't get tests for workers as we had nowhere to test at work and they weren't issuing home tests... glad it's happening now, but as far as myself and my staff, we really could have done with them months and months ago. Instead some of my workers had to take unnecessary bus journeys to get tested the day before as the testing centers round here don't open until 10am


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## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2021)

S☼I said:


> There are literally thousands of lateral flow tests at college. Students can walk into either of the two libraries and pick up as many as they like.



On fag packet maths our school has given out about 20,000 of them in the last fortnight.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 5, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> On fag packet maths our school has given out about 20,000 of them in the last fortnight.


I expect the kids have worked out how to smoke them...


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## SpookyFrank (Apr 5, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I expect the kids have worked out how to smoke them...



You're supposed to submit two test results a week to the school. I haven't looked into it but I reckon not that many kids are bothering. Plenty of the staff aren't. We are in an area with almost zero cases thought tbf.


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## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Papers are all saying there's a push for everyone to do lateral flow tests twice a week, which is better than nothing but still not convinced its level of accuracy is enough to actually prevent outbreaks?



If this side of things was asked to carry too much weight then I would be making a lot of noise about setting ourselves up for failure again.

As part of the current mix, in the vaccination era of this pandemic, its still hard for me to get too excited about it, it may end up playing a rather marginal role. Its not surprising that its happening though, Hancock first painted this sort of picture of mass testing about a year ago and they spent a lot of money on such tests already, so they were bound to use them for something in a big way.

I think the biggest problem, which some have already touched on, is the broader issues of who has not been engaging with the test/trace/isolate system all the way along, the pandemic divide and all the factors that contribute to it. And I would sort of expect levels of engagement to diminish further when we arent in the middle of a nasty wave, when we are in the vaccination era, when a lot of people have a sense of moving on from the acute pandemic phases. Some communities will remain vulnerable to quite large outbreaks, a sort of revisit of what happened in Leicester etc last year, and we'll be quite reliant on progress elsewhere having a notable impact more broadly. Lets hope this works out better than other forms of 'trickle down' theories we've been treated to in the past.


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## Thora (Apr 5, 2021)

If you live with or care for a school or nursery aged child you can order home tests.  I’ve only been doing one a week rather than two though and haven’t bothered submitting my results anywhere.


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## CNT36 (Apr 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> If this side of things was asked to carry too much weight then I would be making a lot of noise about setting ourselves up for failure again.
> 
> As part of the current mix, in the vaccination era of this pandemic, its still hard for me to get too excited about it, it may end up playing a rather marginal role. Its not surprising that its happening though, Hancock first painted this sort of picture of mass testing about a year ago and they spent a lot of money on such tests already, so they were bound to use them for something in a big way.
> 
> I think the biggest problem, which some have already touched on, is the broader issues of who has not been engaging with the test/trace/isolate system all the way along, the pandemic divide and all the factors that contribute to it. And I would sort of expect levels of engagement to diminish further when we arent in the middle of a nasty wave, when we are in the vaccination era, when a lot of people have a sense of moving on from the acute pandemic phases. Some communities will remain vulnerable to quite large outbreaks, a sort of revisit of what happened in Leicester etc last year, and we'll be quite reliant on progress elsewhere having a notable impact more broadly. Lets hope this works out better than other forms of 'trickle down' theories we've been treated to in the past.


It's not a perfect system but a commitment to provide enough tests for twice a week could still have an impact especially. This could be very important in limiting spread the next time the shit hits the fan especially in the case of vaccine escape (presuming the test still works/can be adapted quickly).


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## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

CNT36 said:


> It's not a perfect system but a commitment to provide enough tests for twice a week could still have an impact especially. This could be very important in limiting spread the next time the shit hits the fan especially in the case of vaccine escape (presuming the test still works/can be adapted quickly).



I'd still do it, so I dont think its 100% useless. But given the entire test & trace system is now considered to have had a very marginal impact during the first waves, I dont really expect it to be a big difference maker. I'd do it anyway because every life counts and even if it only makes a marginal difference in the grand scheme of things, some individuals who would otherwise have been exposed will be spared, just like has hapened so far when people have done the right thing in this pandemic.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

Todays press conference appears to be a waste of time unless you want to hear Johnson making a joke in his opening remarks about cautiously and irreversibly lifting a pint to his lips.


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## CNT36 (Apr 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'd still do it, so I dont think its 100% useless. But given the entire test & trace system is now considered to have had a very marginal impact during the first waves, I dont really expect it to be a big difference maker. I'd do it anyway because every life counts and even if it only makes a marginal difference in the grand scheme of things, some individuals who would otherwise have been exposed will be spared, just like has hapened so far when people have done the right thing in this pandemic.


It is a totally different system and strategy. If done properly, widely used and appropriate action taken it could make much more than a marginal difference. Big ifs though.


----------



## souljacker (Apr 5, 2021)

Thora said:


> If you live with or care for a school or nursery aged child you can order home tests.  I’ve only been doing one a week rather than two though and haven’t bothered submitting my results anywhere.



Or pick them up from your local test centre.


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## cupid_stunt (Apr 5, 2021)

Not much in that press conference, besides we are on schedule to the road to de-mask us.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not much in that press conference, besides we are on schedule to the road to de-mask us.



The media wont be happy, they had been briefed that we'd hear something about travel traffic lights and a bit of other futuristic detail. That did not happen, the closest they came to it was mentioning that some working group documents were published on the website. And repeatedly telling journalists that they had nothing much to say about vaccine/immunity passports

Here is how the BBC were selling the press conference before it happened:



> Sketching out in some detail - but far from every detail - the practicalities around how we may lead our lives a little further down the line when there has been further reopening of the economy and society. So we'll hear plans for a traffic light system to classify countries as red, amber or green. Yes, we'll hear what the stipulations around each colour code will be, but no we won't hear which countries are which colour. It is too soon to do that, given that foreign travel, save for a few exceptions, remains banned until 17 May at the earliest.



(thats from the 16:50 entry of their live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56637289 )


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

CNT36 said:


> It is a totally different system and strategy. If done properly, widely used and appropriate action taken it could make much more than a marginal difference. Big ifs though.



No its quite strongly related, its an extension of some of the earlier principals. Its at least a sign that they take asymptomatic stuff very seriously these days (they have settled on a third of cases being asymptomatic), and are probably still trying to compensate for how badly they botched that side of the picture in the early stages. Vallance today made a reference to the ongoing need for modified ttitudes towards going to work when sick, and I hope thats one thing that lasts beyond this pandemic. But its also an example of an area where lots of people didnt actually change much even in the most acute phases of this pandemic, where the same old pressures and faulty decisions remain in regards when you should go to work if feeling a bit dodgy.

Certainly I expect it to make a more useful difference in segments of society and in scenarios where people are on board with the concept and continue to take things seriously. When I sound pessimistic about how much its likely to achieve its because of the huge gaps in such sentiments even at the height of dangerous waves. And now it seems that even within groups that would have taken things seriously and engaged with the system during the first two waves, I can sense the vaccination era affecting their perception about risk and what is necessary and proportionate going forwards.

On a very much related note Beth Rigbys press conference querstions have been awful shit since she returned from her punishment. She is a good example of people getting ahead of the game and framing the future in a crap way. Which is a shame as some of her questions were really quite good at some other key moments of the pandemic. Never mind, at least she mentioned Chile which tipped me off that I need to look into what has happened there.


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> The media wont be happy



Maybe I should have said 'the media will feel the need to lie about it'

BBC live updates page says:



> There were lots of announcements in today's Downing Street briefing



No there werent. And what was announced was thankfully already obvious - that there isnt anything bad in the data that would cause them to deviate from the previously announced roadmap & its timetable.


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## Supine (Apr 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> that there isnt anything bad in the data that would cause them to deviate from the previously announced roadmap & its timetable.



Not sure about that. Some of the recently released sage modelling shows circumstances in which >200k people die between now and June 22. It also shows that the last lockdown step will significantly increase r so relies on the assumption that vaccination rates remain high and they are shown to be efficient in real world usage.


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## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

Supine said:


> Not sure about that. Some of the recently released sage modelling shows circumstances in which >200k people die between now and June 22. It also shows that the last lockdown step will significantly increase r so relies on the assumption that vaccination rates remain high and they are shown to be efficient in real world usage.



Thats not what Im taking about though. I'm talking about the ongoing surveillance data they use to judge the impact of each stage of unlocking and their timetable. Things like the number of infections, number of hospitalisations etc.

I havent read the SAGE papers that were released today yet. I read previous versions, written when the universities etc in question were analysing a number of different unlocking scenarios rather than the exact one the government eventually went with. Those earlier ones also had a range of projections that, under certain scenarios, involved a lot of additional deaths. The only reason I didnt go on about that more was the mood and mental health of people here at the time. I made sure to let people know that I was uncomfortable with putting all the pandemic weight on vaccinations shoulders alone, uncomfortable with binary thinking, uncomfortable with certain perceptions. But I'm trying to pick and chose my moments so that my words arent just a continual negative drain. And I have a very wide range of expectations for what happens in the next chapters.

Anyway thanks very much for the tipoff that further SAGE papers on this theme are available now. I usually cannot do full justice to them with just a few quotes and graphs, but I will probably try anyway. And I need to look into Chile.


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## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

OK I've had time to read one of the newly published papers, the Warwick uni one.









						University of Warwick: Road Map Scenarios and Sensitivity, 29 March 2021
					

Paper prepared by University of Warwick on Step 2 of the roadmap.




					www.gov.uk
				




There is quite a bit more detail on certain matters than the previous versions of this exercise, but luckily for me the waves etc shown are broadly in line with the earlier stuff I saw quite a while back. So I dont think there is anything in there which really alters my perception of what might happen next, in terms of timing or scale.

But I dont really know how familiar people were with the earlier modelling, and these documents are packed full of too many different scenarios and details for me to seriously attempt to summarise them properly. So I'll just draw attention to a few things. When they only consider steps 1 and 2 of the unlocking, they anticipate a modest wave that they would expect to be fairly rapidly dampened by vaccine-derived immunity. When they include steps 3 and 4 of the reopening, a much larger wave appears in their modelling results. This should only be a surprise to those who expect too much from vaccines, and its also consistent with what stages of unlocking would cause me to fret and complain after the first wave. Expect a repeat performance from me on that this time around, just with additional caveats since they arent entirely sure what levels of vaccine effectivenesss or what levels o seasonal effect to include in their modelling. Also of note is that on several occasions in the document they make reference to the possibility that levels of immunity in the population may have reached wave-suppressing levels by October or November. 

There are a number of charts in the document that I would use when trying to prevent binary thinking about vaccination levels of protection, both for individuals and the wider population infection wave consequences. Restricting myself to just one, I shall choose this one. Again it is based on certain assumptions about relaxation of measures, seasonality and vaccine effectiveness. So its not supposed to be an exact prediction. It still offers some guide, and could also help in regards faulty perceptions about age and risk.


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## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

And this is how much difference their modelling shows when they feed different vaccine effectiveness parameters in.

The first graph is for a scenario where only the first 2 steps of relaxation of measures happens.

There are a bunch of other graphs which show what happens to their modelling if they assume different amounts of seasonality, vaccination rollout speed, transmission, levels of non-pharmaceutical interventions & R. Too many to put here.



Also I should point out that these sorts of studies have no way to know what will happen with waning immunity, escape mutant variants etc, so they usually just stick a paragraph or two about those sorts of things in their analysis, as a warning about future unknowns. I've certainly been keen to warn about the potential of mutations to be a spoiler, and I'm taking this opportunity to mention it again now. But I'll drive myself and everyone else mad if I never let the subject rest, and its not like I have a confident prediction about this.


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## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

My brain got tired so I havent had the opportunity to read the other papers, will do so another day. But they should show somewhat similar things so I hope to avoid feeling the need to quite from them or post some of their charts.

I have skimmed through the SAGE modelling groups summary paper about these studies. A lot of it is covering the detail and going on about the lage number of unknowns that can easily end up shifting the picture a bit. SO I wont repeat all those those. Instead just a few quotes.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/975909/S1182_SPI-M-O_Summary_of_modelling_of_easing_roadmap_step_2_restrictions.pdf
		




> Any resurgence in hospital admissions and deaths following Step 2 of the Roadmap alone is highly unlikely to put unsustainable pressure on the NHS.





> It is highly likely that there will be a further resurgence in hospitalisations and deaths after the later steps of the Roadmap. The scale, shape, and timing of any resurgence remain highly uncertain; in most scenarios modelled, any peak is smaller than the wave seen in January 2021, however, scenarios with little transmission reduction after Step 4 or with pessimistic but plausible vaccine efficacy assumptions can result in resurgences in hospitalisations of a similar scale to January 2021.





> Maintaining baseline measures to reduce transmission once restrictions are lifted is almost certain to save many lives and minimise the threat to hospital capacity.





> Even accounting for some seasonal variation in transmission, the peak could occur in either summer or late summer/autumn. It is possible that seasonality could delay or flatten the resurgence but is highly unlikely to prevent it altogether



I would hope that sort of thing isnt too surprising to people, and that they have already moderated their hopes and expectations somewhat. And there is still the potential for vaccine effectiveness to end up greater than the levels used by the modelling up to this point, as more data comes in.

In terms of bad news that was new to me, although we've seen news in recent times about some unexpected delays to vaccine supply, I dont think I'd heard of the vaccine rollout scale for planning purposes having been adjusted downwards to quite this extent before. The following quote is from the section on key changes compared to last time they did a paper about this stuff in mid February. And this planning scenario could change again in future, and I dont know what other scenarios they have apart from the central one. In any case, even if the media end up mostly ignoring the detail in these modelling scenarios, I might expect them to pick up on this bit:



> The central rollout scenario provided by the Cabinet Office is considerably slower, at an average of 2.7m doses per week in England until the end of July (2m thereafter), compared to 3.2m per week in the previous iteration (3.9m thereafter).


----------



## elbows (Apr 5, 2021)

Can also tell that the likes of SAGE are a bit nervous about what sorts of levels of prevalence government may be prepared to tollerate if they think the levels o hospitalisation and death wont resemble previous waves.



> The vaccination programme means that high numbers of infections will not lead to as high a number of hospitalisations and deaths as it would previously have done. However, there will be other health impacts, including post-Covid syndromes (‘Long Covid’). The overall prevalence and impact of these syndromes is not well understood, and nor is the potential role in vaccination in preventing them. This needs to be considered when assessing the impact of different levels of prevalence.



From their March 31st minutes. https://assets.publishing.service.g...nt_data/file/975908/S1179_SAGE_85_minutes.pdf


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## William of Walworth (Apr 5, 2021)

elbowa said:
			
		

> In terms of bad news that was new to me, although we've seen news in recent times about some unexpected delays to vaccine supply, I dont think I'd heard of the vaccine rollout scale for planning purposes having been adjusted downwards to quite this extent before. The following quote is from the section on key changes compared to last time they did a paper about this stuff in mid February. And this planning scenario could change again in future, and I dont know what other scenarios they have apart from the central one. In any case, even if the media end up mostly ignoring the detail in these modelling scenarios, I might expect them to pick up on this bit :
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Interesting (and somewhat downheartening  ) stuff there. I've taken it on board.

But reading the above just now reminded me of a vaccines article by Robin McKie (Observer Science Editor) from Easter Sunday that I got round to reading today -- mostly focussing on a greater quantity of vaccines, and maybe new types of vaccine**, potentially becoming available this year.
(And I do fully appreciate that that plenty of those should be shared with other countries!!  )

**For instance this one, which I wasn't aware of :




			
				Robin McKie said:
			
		

> The second vaccine likely to be ready for use in the UK by the end of the year is expected to be manufactured by France-based Valneva at its new manufacturing facility in West Lothian, Scotland. The vaccine contains inactivated Covid-19 particles that stimulate the body’s immune system into manufacturing antibodies that swarm round invading viruses and block their actions. The vaccine is still undergoing clinical trials. However, if approved, it is likely be rolled out around the country by the end of the year. *The UK has ordered 100m doses*.



Not yet approved, obviously. But could be good!

None of this contradicts the warnings about loosenings of restrictiions risking a greater adverse effect than the positive effects of more vaccines 

But. I just thought that article was worth adding here for a little more context, though.


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Apr 6, 2021)

What is with the disparity between amounts allowed to gather for weddings (15) and funerals (30)? Will this not lead to a situation where people are getting killed in order to have better parties?


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## SpookyFrank (Apr 6, 2021)

I really don't like the idea of restrictions being removed completely while significant numbers of adults have still not been vaccinated.


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## Steel Icarus (Apr 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I really don't like the idea of restrictions being removed completely while significant numbers of adults have still not been vaccinated.


It's crazy. It's like perpetually being offered a tenner into your bank account but instead choosing from a selection of chocolates, some of which are explosive.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 6, 2021)

Of course people are putting all their hopes onto the vaccine(s). Nobody cares about the detail you go into elbows and that's in no way a criticism of you, it's just the gov aren't going to say it and the public don't want to hear it


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## Teaboy (Apr 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I really don't like the idea of restrictions being removed completely while significant numbers of adults have still not been vaccinated.



Yeah.  Each stage of the re-opening process certainly comes with risks but that last _...and everything else _stage in June still appears to be very wishful / foolhardy thinking.  I suppose you could see a way to it if the virus was suppressed to a very very low level nationally and the borders were beefed up as best they could be.  Instead we have more dancing on a pin head about internal covid passports and allowing international travel.

The last 12 months have shown us that every time the government gets into this sort territory of a competition between telling people what they want to heave versus the right thing to do they've always chosen the bed shitting option.  I am not confident.

Add into this the vaccination programme being a bit slower than once hoped and real concerns over take-up in the younger population.  Hmmmm.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 6, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah.  Each stage of the re-opening process certainly comes with risks but that last _...and everything else _stage in June still appears to be very wishful / foolhardy thinking.  I suppose you could see a way to it if the virus was suppressed to a very very low level nationally and the borders were beefed up as best they could be.  Instead we have more dancing on a pin head about internal covid passports and allowing international travel.
> 
> The last 12 months have shown us that every time the government gets into this sort territory of a competition between telling people what they want to heave versus the right thing to do they've always chosen the bed shitting option.  I am not confident.



I agree with the above. 
The fact that like others,  we've both made some later-summer plans  doesn't in any way contradict your concerns, in fact I share them mainly.

However, on this bit .....



> *Add into this the vaccination programme being a bit slower than once hoped*



I think that the slowdown will be temporary. See the article by Robin McKie that I quoted in post #35,782 above, which looks generally *much* more hopeful as time goes on,  for the programme speeding up again 



> and real concerns over take-up in the younger population.  Hmmmm.



A big worry that, though, yes. Somehow the public messaging has got to improve. 

There wase some quite good (?) recent messaging specificaly aimed at the vaccine-hesitant among older BAME people, including putting vaccination centres in particular community centres, religious hubs, etc.

So surely (completely different!) youngers-targetted messaging could go out on that there young persons' social media, etc.? 

One aim for vaccination messaging should perhaps be to separate the genuinely hesitant and 'can't be arsed' types -- i.e. persuadable --from out-and-out conspiraloons (who are all ages anyway, but include a fair few youth, I've read?  ).

The latter are probably unreachable


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## elbows (Apr 6, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Of course people are putting all their hopes onto the vaccine(s). Nobody cares about the detail you go into elbows and that's in no way a criticism of you, it's just the gov aren't going to say it and the public don't want to hear it



If I thought there was a huge potential audience for the detail I sometimes offer then maybe I would have tried to find a bigger stage during the pandemic. Some people do care about some of the detail, some of the time, which is why I favour messageboards, I can go on about detail related to things other people bring up (in this case Supine).

But sure, even I move with the times a bit, my output these days is a fraction of what it once was. And sometimes I post the detail to give people a sense of timing so that they have a better idea about when they can look the other way for a bit, based on stuff like when the modelling suggests another wave may emerge.

The government do say many of these things, just with less detail. For example the substance of the analysis Supine mentioned that I then dove into, and the date it was looked at by SAGE, explain why Whitty started going on about how the vaccine wall of protection was leaky in the March 29th press conference. Its also why we've ended up with the unlocking roadmap and timetable we have, and why Johnson etc arent just giving the likes of the Daily Mail what they want, why they arent promising 100% normality by summer, why the spectre of a third wave is occasionally raised.

Quite a lot of the modelling scenarios/outputs involve a third wave that is modest enough compared to the first two that the government will hope to ride them out, perhaps with some application of the brakes for a time but still moving towards the finish line, and they will be happy with the bits of analysis that suggest the big wave risk will be thwarted by levels of population immunity considered achievable before the end of 2021. If/when that time comes then my pandemic output will plummet and the sense of the acute pandemic phases being at an end will become a better fit with reality. A third wave below a certain size will fit with the governments attempts to move on to a 'learning to live with Covid' phase. The giant unknown is in regards virus variants that could escape much of the protection offered by vaccination, which have the potential to return us to scenarios with very large waves and no end in sight. Its a real risk but I dont go on about it every week, to an extent it would be pissing in the wind unless it becomes clear which way that stuff is going.


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## Cloo (Apr 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I really don't like the idea of restrictions being removed completely while significant numbers of adults have still not been vaccinated.


It does seem fucking stupid, and I hope they will backpedal on this one.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 7, 2021)

Covid: Moderna vaccine UK rollout begins in Wales
					

The vaccine is the third to be used in the UK, with England's rollout due "in the next few days".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




First Moderna vaccines given.


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## Johnny Doe (Apr 7, 2021)

SpineyNorman said:


> Id like to register a complaint about you complaining about him complaining about you complaining about him complaining. I am told this is also within the rules.


Post reported


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## elbows (Apr 7, 2021)

I havent done a very thorough job of looking into Chile yet after it came up in the press conference on Monday. I've just read articles like this one, where the importance of lockdown timing and not coming out of lockdown at the wrong time to get infection levels low, uncertainty about how well some vaccines work, and problems with peoples perception of personal pandemic risk in the vaccination phase get a look in.









						Israel and Chile both led on Covid jabs, so why is one back in lockdown?
					

Contrasting national outcomes highlight how easily UK could blow its chances




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## mx wcfc (Apr 7, 2021)

I don't know whether anyone else obsessively pours over this website, but I do.









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




I've been watching my own area, which has been going up and down, but is pretty good now.  The outbreak at a village primary school turned one patch dark blue, but appears to have subsided, and it's all good again here.  

More importantly, looking at today's map, in the closest zoom, there is not one red patch anywhere in the UK that I can see (red being a rolling rate of 400 cases or more per 100,000 population).  That's excellent news I think.  

Regionally speaking the previous "worst bit of the south", Portland Bill (cos of the prisons there?) is now fewer than 6 cases across the two areas.  

Nationally, at a medium zoom level, there are more yellow bits appearing everywhere and only a couple of blue bits.  

Long may this downward trajectory continue.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 7, 2021)

God no, avoid that shit altogether and just get on with things. Why make yourself anxious?


----------



## mx wcfc (Apr 7, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> God no, avoid that shit altogether and just get on with things. Why make yourself anxious?


I don't get anxious about it, just aware of the risk levels locally, and "uplifted" a bit by the falling rates.  It is helpful.  Mrs mx visits her very elderly parents every week in London -  does their shopping and stuff.  I've been able to show her that map and say "look at this - do their shopping here, where it's light green, and not in Hayes where it's dark blue".   Risk management, that's all.  

But yes, I have been over obsessing about it, a bit.


----------



## strung out (Apr 7, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> God no, avoid that shit altogether and just get on with things. Why make yourself anxious?


Yeah, same here. I love data and numbers, but unless you have some kind of professional or special interest in this kind of stuff then it just strikes me as boring and anxiety inducing. 

I switched off from all the numbers etc after the first month.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 7, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> I don't get anxious about it, just aware of the risk levels locally, and "uplifted" a bit by the falling rates.  It is helpful.  Mrs mx visits her very elderly parents every week in London -  does their shopping and stuff.  I've been able to show her that map and say "look at this - do their shopping here, where it's light green, and not in Hayes where it's dark blue".   Risk management, that's all.
> 
> But yes, I have been over obsessing about it, a bit.


It’s not risk management. Go to the shops, wear a mask and all be well.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 8, 2021)

strung out said:


> Yeah, same here. I love data and numbers, but unless you have some kind of professional or special interest in this kind of stuff then it just strikes me as boring and anxiety inducing.



I keep a close eye on it, because local case numbers have a big impact on my work & income, as it does for a lot of self-employed people I know, e.g. as case numbers rocket, trades that work indoors not only see new enquiries dropping off the scale, but also have people putting off jobs that were booked in, as they don't want strangers in their homes. 

When cases drop, people's confidence soon returns, and we start getting busy again, I've just had my best 3 weeks since the start of this shit.


----------



## Boudicca (Apr 8, 2021)

Yes, I like data and check the map every few days.  I understand if people want to shut themselves off from looking at the numbers, but then don't spout some nonsense you've heard from a friend of your hairdresser.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> I havent done a very thorough job of looking into Chile yet after it came up in the press conference on Monday. I've just read articles like this one, where the importance of lockdown timing and not coming out of lockdown at the wrong time to get infection levels low, uncertainty about how well some vaccines work, and problems with peoples perception of personal pandemic risk in the vaccination phase get a look in.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



A lot of warnings from (very recent) history there.  Its hard to see how this government won't lead us straight down the same path as Chile.  The border issue being the most obvious fuck up on the horizon but no doubt there will plenty more.


----------



## tommers (Apr 8, 2021)

Isn't it just numbers? I read that article and Chile may be "leading Latin America" but they hadn't actually vaccinated a large proportion of their population, there was a pretty big difference.

Israel has given two shots to over 50%, Chile one shot to 30%. And borders have been open for five months so that will have been a lot less then.

But then this article puts the proportion loads higher, so who knows Chile imposes lockdowns to fight new Covid wave despite vaccination success


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 8, 2021)

tommers said:


> Isn't it just numbers?



Not necessarily.  There is the timing of reopening and the extent of how much was reopened.  There is the situation regarding borders and international travel.  Also there is Chilli's use of two different vaccines and the questions that arise from that.

Of the differing approach both countries have taken I'd say the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against Johnson taking the Israeli approach.


----------



## elbows (Apr 8, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Not necessarily.  There is the timing of reopening and the extent of how much was reopened.  There is the situation regarding borders and international travel.  Also there is Chilli's use of two different vaccines and the questions that arise from that.
> 
> Of the differing approach both countries have taken I'd say the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against Johnson taking the Israeli approach.



Well I'd say the main Chile vaccination question is not really about the fact they are using more than once vaccine, but rather how effective one of those vaccines is in particular against severe disease and transmission.

As some articles point out, the differences in timing and extent of lockdown etc measures which push infection numbers to a low level mean that even in Israel, we havent really seen how much pandemic weight the vaccines can carry on their own. The UK may end up being the one to really demonstrate how much weight vaccines can carry on their own.

The Johnson timetable is somewhat cautious, at least in the first few phases of unlocking. And its at least clear that this time around we are buying something with that time - increased protection via more vaccination. But ideally we'd also see that time being used to push infections down to a much lower level than the actual unlocking detail and public attitudes are likely to afford us. Maybe levels will still go down to the extent I want to see, but again we'll be relying on vaccination to get us there rather than by other means. Certainly since the peak passed I'd describe most of the numbers as impressive, I dont think I could have hoped for greater falls in all the key numbers than we have seen.

Anyway as the modelling discussed the other day shows, it is reasonable to expect a third wave but there is a huge range of possibilities as to what size it will be. If could look like a bump that people hardly consider to count as a third wave, or it could yet resemble the waves we've already endured. I dont have a prediction, neither extreme or anywhere in between would be surprising. The main thing that could surprise me would be if the timing was much earlier than the modelling implies, since I am currently expecting there to be a period where I'm not anxiously expecting a wave to emerge any day now. Like my stance last June where I kept going on about the time it takes for viral resurgence to really get going, where I'm not gripped by a sense of imminent doom.


----------



## BigMoaner (Apr 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> Well I'd say the main Chile vaccination question is not really about the fact they are using more than once vaccine, but rather how effective one of those vaccines is in particular against severe disease and transmission.
> 
> As some articles point out, the differences in timing and extent of lockdown etc measures which push infection numbers to a low level mean that even in Israel, we havent really seen how much pandemic weight the vaccines can carry on their own. The UK may end up being the one to really demonstrate how much weight vaccines can carry on their own.
> 
> ...


i was thinking today how catastrophic a long third wave would be. of course that goes without saying. but if someone told me i have to lockdown for another 3 or 4 months after june say, i honestly don't know if i have enough in the tank to do it. and i consider myself osmeone who has coped reasonably well.


----------



## elbows (Apr 8, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> i was thinking today how catastrophic a long third wave would be. of course that goes without saying. but if someone told me i have to lockdown for another 3 or 4 months after june say, i honestly don't know if i have enough in the tank to do it. and i consider myself osmeone who has coped reasonably well.



The lockdown decision equations have probably evolved substantially. eg consider these sorts of factors:

We saw how slowly and incompletely they decided to tackle the 2nd wave, especially for its initial months where numbers were increasing in slow motion compared to the visible part of the first wave. Really explosive growth in daily hospitalisations was required before they would blink and u-turn, and even then they delayed as much as they could.

The politics and public perceptions of risk have further evolved since the previous waves. This is a complex subject which can push things in either direction, eg if you expect less public complaince with the basic rules, lower personal perceptions of risk,  then stronger application of the brakes in other areas may be required. But they also hesitate to impose restrictions that they think huge numbers of people will ignore, they dont want to open cans of worms where the public call their bluff on compliance to a much greater extent than seen previously.

Large prior waves of infection and mass vaccination have moved the population immunity picture onwards. This moves certain calculations closer to their original pre-mid-March 2020 hopes of pursuing a herd immunity approach than they were before. This will tempt them to push on and to be slower on the brakes, although there are still limits. All the modelling that shows waves has the level of remaining population susceptibility at its heart, and that variable has changed over time, now more than ever via vaccination programmes and how big the first 2 waves were.

They have done some work setting this scene by changing rhetoric, eg downplaying R and overall infection rates, and more talk of learning to live with Covid. And making clear that they expect some level of death to be ongoing.

They will hope that seasonal factors and things like schools being closed for summer holidays will take some of the strain that would have otherwise needed to be handled via more direct application of the brakes.

In conclusion I cannot promise no more lockdowns, timetable delays or u-turns. Because of the complexities of the stuff I just mentioned, but also because of unknowns in terms of mutants with the ability to escape vaccine-induced protection. But I can say that their equations have evolved, they've got more wiggle room, and they've demonstrated in the 2nd wave what they will use that wiggle room to avoid doing for as long as possible. And with theoretical light at the end of the tunnel, the temptation to stretch such inaction even further will be high. What I cannot judge yet is whether that sense of the end game being in sight will cause them to be more cautious and pro-active at any point. They did seem to take account of it when coming up with the fairly slow relaxation timetable. Perhaps in future, for example, fairly short circuit-breakers that they previously resisted may seem more appealing under certain scenarios this time around, if they think there is a bump they can almost manage looming, and just want to take the edge off it so that it falls within manageable limits.


----------



## elbows (Apr 8, 2021)

Also ever since we ended up in the vaccination era I've covered my back by going on about the risks of asking the vaccines to carry all of the pandemic burden, and how possible scenarios exist where the public will get an ugly lesson on this. But I do not consider it to be completely inevitable that this will happen, far from it. So I'm not a doom-monger about a third wave. But nor am I complacent. Personally I am in 'recharge mental batteries' mode right now, similar to last June & July, and I will carry on getting deeper into that mode until/unless a time comes where the data means I have to ready myself for another wave of note. I've gone on about these details in recent days because they came up in conversation here, but also so that I can get them out of my system now and then chill for an unknown length of time.


----------



## souljacker (Apr 8, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> I don't get anxious about it, just aware of the risk levels locally, and "uplifted" a bit by the falling rates.  It is helpful.  Mrs mx visits her very elderly parents every week in London -  does their shopping and stuff.  I've been able to show her that map and say "look at this - do their shopping here, where it's light green, and not in Hayes where it's dark blue".   Risk management, that's all.
> 
> But yes, I have been over obsessing about it, a bit.



I don't obsess about it but I do check them every day. I'm looking for hope to be honest. Hope that this will one day all be over. 

It's also nice to look at local figures, especially as Reading has now gone over a month without a death, which is nice.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 9, 2021)

Derek Draper (husband of Kate Garraway) home after a year in hospital.
Long recovery road ahead for him no doubt but it must be great for them that he is finally well enough to go home.

Kate Garraway's husband returns home after a year-long battle with Covid-19 - BBC News


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 9, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Derek Draper (husband of Kate Garraway) home after a year in hospital.
> Long recovery road ahead for him no doubt but it must be great for them that he is finally well enough to go home.
> 
> Kate Garraway's husband returns home after a year-long battle with Covid-19 - BBC News



That article is actually a really sad read -- I'd heard how severely Derek Draper had been ill, but I had no idea of the details until now -- shocking!


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 9, 2021)

Aye, Covid really kicked the shit out of him. What an ordeal


----------



## Numbers (Apr 9, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> That article is actually a really sad read -- I'd heard how severely Derek Draper had been ill, but I had no idea of the details until now -- shocking!


The documentary 'Finding Derek' Kate made is pretty powerful, and very very sad.


----------



## souljacker (Apr 9, 2021)

I really don't get this thing about going on holiday. I understand that people want to get away and I feel sorry for people who have family abroad but ffs, we aren't out of this yet and people are stressing about if they can have two weeks in a country that is possibly mid way through a third wave. People need some perspective! We can't get our haircut or go and buy clothes yet!


----------



## emanymton (Apr 9, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I really don't get this thing about going on holiday. I understand that people want to get away and I feel sorry for people who have family abroad but ffs, we aren't out of this yet and people are stressing about if they can have two weeks in a country that is possibly mid way through a third wave. People need some perspective! We can't get our haircut or go and buy clothes yet!


The holiday obsession is so weird. I'm just looking forward to be being able to go out and sit in a cafe and have a drink and a bit of food.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 9, 2021)

This time next week the official (what's recorded on Worldometer) death total will probably hit 3 million


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 9, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I really don't get this thing about going on holiday. I understand that people want to get away and I feel sorry for people who have family abroad but ffs, we aren't out of this yet and people are stressing about if they can have two weeks in a country that is possibly mid way through a third wave. People need some perspective! We can't get our haircut or go and buy clothes yet!


There are people going to raves in Tanzania ffs!


----------



## andysays (Apr 9, 2021)

souljacker said:


> I really don't get this thing about going on holiday. I understand that people want to get away and I feel sorry for people who have family abroad but ffs, we aren't out of this yet and people are stressing about if they can have two weeks in a country that is possibly mid way through a third wave. People need some perspective! We can't get our haircut or go and buy clothes yet!


I'm tempted to suggest the focus on foreign holidays is being driven more by economic interests than the genuine concerns of most people.

It's not as if there's no precedent for that where coverage of this pandemic is concerned...


----------



## smmudge (Apr 9, 2021)

Yeah it's not the public obsessed with it, so much as the CEOs who own the airlines, airports and package holiday companies.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 9, 2021)

andysays said:


> I'm tempted to suggest the focus on foreign holidays is being driven more by economic interests than the genuine concerns of most people.
> 
> It's not as if there's no precedent for that where coverage of this pandemic is concerned...



Absolutely.  When easyjet are whinging about the two tests being too expensive and shouldn't be needed for green list countries its very transparent. 

Also on this traffic light system how dumb is that?  Any country that is considered green by its nature won't be green for very long and by the time anyone notices it'll be too late.  I've read suggestions that they would give prior warning that a country is about to change status on the traffic light system...  Its like the last 12 months haven't happened and Johnson is Sisyphus.


----------



## andysays (Apr 9, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Absolutely.  When easyjet are whinging about the two tests being too expensive and shouldn't be needed for green list countries its very transparent.
> 
> Also on this traffic light system how dumb is that?  Any country that is considered green by its nature won't be green for very long and by the time anyone notices it'll be too late.  I've read suggestions that they would give prior warning that a country is about to change status on the traffic light system...  Its like the last 12 months haven't happened and Johnson is Sisyphus.


Nice classical reference


----------



## maomao (Apr 9, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Johnson is Sisyphus.


Hope he doesn't cheat death a second time.


----------



## elbows (Apr 9, 2021)

Fun fact: If you google Boris Johnson Sisyphus, this is one of the results:


----------



## Badgers (Apr 12, 2021)




----------



## Raheem (Apr 12, 2021)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 262863


Hmmm. It's a photo and it's of a shop.


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Hmmm. It's a photo and it's of a shop.


And there appear to be a load of photoshopped tents in front of the shop...


----------



## Badgers (Apr 12, 2021)

andysays said:


> And there appear to be a load of photoshopped tents in front of the shop...


----------



## DJWrongspeed (Apr 12, 2021)

Pubs with gardens can now reopen..........it's snowing outside...
❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄❄


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 12, 2021)

Badgers said:


>




There are some fucking weird people around.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 12, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> There are some fucking weird people around.


Some weird definition of "large" in play, too


----------



## maomao (Apr 12, 2021)

Didn't even realise shops were opening today. I'll stay away from town then.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 12, 2021)

maomao said:


> Didn't even realise shops were opening today. I'll stay away from town then.


Pubs, gyms too


----------



## Numbers (Apr 12, 2021)

maomao said:


> Didn't even realise shops were opening today. I'll stay away from town then.


I'd say the 2 Spoons pubs on South St will be rammed today, if not already.


----------



## miss direct (Apr 12, 2021)

Will town be carnage today and tonight?


----------



## Badgers (Apr 12, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Will town be carnage today and tonight?


Yup


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 12, 2021)

Badgers said:


>



There will be blood


----------



## miss direct (Apr 12, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Yup


I finish early today (early being 7). Might go into town just for a walk and to observe goings on.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 12, 2021)

Numbers said:


> I'd say the 2 Spoons pubs on South St will be rammed today, if not already.



Well only the gardens tbf. I reckon the weather will put a bit of a dampener on a lot of that too.


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 12, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Well only the gardens tbf. I reckon the weather will put a bit of a dampener on a lot of that too.


Get a double brandy and you'll be nice and warm


----------



## miss direct (Apr 12, 2021)

The pubs I've seen all have shelters/cover things, so even if it rains I don't see why that would stop people.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 12, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Get a double brandy and you'll be nice and warm



Might as well go for a triple if you're in the 'spoons.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 12, 2021)

TBH I think we all know the pattern by now don't we. Mostly it will be fine and people will behave themselves but there'll definitely be tutting opportunities for those who like to indulge.


----------



## Thora (Apr 12, 2021)

Are people really going to be desperate to go and sit outside a pub on a wet/cold Monday night?
The weekend will be busy, especially if the weather improves, but I can't see tonight being a big one.


----------



## miss direct (Apr 12, 2021)

I think some people are a little desperate to just not be at home and to see friends, yes. In recent weeks, I've noticed people drinking on the steps of pubs around here who would normally be inside.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 12, 2021)

The Primark thing is so baffling.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 12, 2021)

Thora said:


> Are people really going to be desperate to go and sit outside a pub on a wet/cold Monday night?
> The weekend will be busy, especially if the weather improves, but I can't see tonight being a big one.



Probably, yes.

Look at this lot queueing outside The Oak Inn in Coventry at midnight.







Surely the beer garden isn't big enough for all of them?


----------



## teuchter (Apr 12, 2021)

UK has now been taken over by a number of countries (mostly eastern Europe) on total death rate. And it looks like Italy as well.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 12, 2021)

Good to see we're back to its going to be carnage and its all pubs fault.  The last 12 months have just flown past.   

Lets face it.  Its bitterly cold out at the moment and particularly during evenings.  Its outdoors only and everyone has to be seated.  After a couple of days of potential silliness it'll settle back down to them being mostly empty till it gets warmer.


----------



## Numbers (Apr 12, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Well only the gardens tbf. I reckon the weather will put a bit of a dampener on a lot of that too.


The 2 I mentioned are on the High St in Romford and have outside seating out the front (not sure about the back as never been in either).  In normal times they’re busy every day so I could just imagine how they’d be today.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 12, 2021)

There is a far more interesting story of what is happening today instead of a few people sat outside a pub as opposed to in their garden or in a park.

To my mind its the return of mass mingling indoors is far more interesting whether that be at non-essential shops, gyms, hairdressers etc.  I think it will be interesting from a perspective of how we all react, will we be rushing back to clothes shops or will we be more cautious.  How will teh numbers be effected?  The return of schools surprised me in some respects and hopefully we can weather this as well.

Hospitality indoors is another 5 weeks away and as we know anything can happen in that time.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 12, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> There is a far more interesting story of what is happening today instead of a few people sat outside a pub as opposed to in their garden or in a park.
> 
> To my mind its the return of mass mingling indoors is far more interesting whether that be at non-essential shops, gyms, hairdressers etc.  I think it will be interesting from a perspective of how we all react, will we be rushing back to clothes shops or will we be more cautious.  How will teh numbers be effected?  The return of schools surprised me in some respects and hopefully we can weather this as well.
> 
> Hospitality indoors is another 5 weeks away and as we know anything can happen in that time.



I'm leaning towards giving it until May before I return to mingling. I'd like to get my second vaccine first before I return to regularly leaving for indoors or taking the tube.


----------



## og ogilby (Apr 12, 2021)

miss direct said:


> The pubs I've seen all have shelters/cover things, so even if it rains I don't see why that would stop people.


Problem with that today is that it's freezing in the shade but quite pleasant if you're in the sun.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 12, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> There is a far more interesting story of what is happening today instead of a few people sat outside a pub as opposed to in their garden or in a park.
> 
> To my mind its the return of mass mingling indoors is far more interesting whether that be at non-essential shops, gyms, hairdressers etc.  I think it will be interesting from a perspective of how we all react, will we be rushing back to clothes shops or will we be more cautious.  How will teh numbers be effected?  The return of schools surprised me in some respects and hopefully we can weather this as well.
> 
> Hospitality indoors is another 5 weeks away and as we know anything can happen in that time.



I think the schools reopening has surprised a lot people, who were expecting cases to take off again, yet the average cases have dropped by 3,253 per day, from 5,878 to 2,625, since the 8th March.

I think with fairly low levels of infection ATM, plus the numbers vaccinated, we could be lucky and get away with the changes today, it's the next two stages that could possibly be more of a problem, but only time will tell.

Personally I'll not be rushing to any non-essential shops nor the barbers anytime soon, but that's mainly because I don't need to. I will be meeting some friends for outdoor drinks, when it gets a bit warmer, because the risks are so low, but I certainly will not be joining a queue like that lot in  Coventry.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 12, 2021)

og ogilby said:


> Problem with that today is that it's freezing in the shade but quite pleasant if you're in the sun.



A few people upthread have just been saying it's raining where they are, which surprises me -- utterly dry and sunny here in Wales, with no signs of any rain in the forecast for well over a week. 

Not much signs of any warmth though, with very chilly nights.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 12, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> A few people upthread have just been saying it's raining where they are, which surprises me -- utterly dry and sunny here in Wales, with no signs of any rain in the forecast for well over a week.



Forget the rain - it's been snowing in London this morning!


----------



## xenon (Apr 12, 2021)

Thora said:


> Are people really going to be desperate to go and sit outside a pub on a wet/cold Monday night?
> The weekend will be busy, especially if the weather improves, but I can't see tonight being a big one.




Walked past my local on Saturday. The landlord and another member of staff were outside doing some work.

They're not having a booking system, just turn up and if there's space order a drink on the app. My mate's gonna have a look after work and text if it's not crowded.

Certainly not desperate but I'd rather go when it might be quieter and I'm curious to see how it's gonna work this time.


----------



## Raheem (Apr 12, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Forget the rain - it's been snowing in London this morning!


It's been snowing up here for a few days. Night before last we had a proper blanket of snow. Still, if there have been a few flakes falling on London, expect that will finally knock Phil off the news top spot.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I think with fairly low levels of infection ATM, plus the numbers vaccinated, we could be lucky and get away with the changes today, it's the next two stages that could possibly be more of a problem, but only time will tell.



I agree about the next two stages.    Indoor hospitality does feel like a much bigger step then today as well as the return of larger events both indoors and outdoors.  But that is all a long way off and we'll just have to wait and see what happens over the next few weeks.


----------



## miss direct (Apr 12, 2021)

Wonderful clear blue sky and sunny here in Sheffield.


----------



## maomao (Apr 12, 2021)

I got snowed on on the way to the doctors this morning which was mildly annoying. Yesterday was glorious though. We had family round and managed four hours in the garden. Only 8 degrees on the thermometer but lots of direct warmth from the sun.


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> Todays press conference appears to be a waste of time unless you want to hear Johnson making a joke in his opening remarks about cautiously and irreversibly lifting a pint to his lips.



Prince Philips corpse stole his pint!



> The PM had planned to have a celebratory pint to mark the measures easing, but that has been postponed following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh on Friday.











						Covid lockdown eases: Celebrations as pub gardens and shops reopen
					

Shoppers have been rushing back to the High Street, where queues were seen outside some retailers.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> The Primark thing is so baffling.


It's not that baffling.

In my admittedly limited experience of Primark clothes, many of them start to fall apart after a couple of washes, so anything bought there last time they were open will now need replacing.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 12, 2021)

andysays said:


> It's not that baffling.
> 
> In my (2nd hand) experience of Primark clothes, many of them start to fall apart after a couple of washes, so anything bought there last time they were open will now need replacing.


But of all the shops, it’s not exciting enough to queue overnight just to get some threadbare undercrackers


----------



## existentialist (Apr 12, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> But of all the shops, it’s not exciting enough to queue overnight just to get some threadbare undercrackers


Some people may be more easily excited about Primark than you 

These people deserve our compassion.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 12, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> But of all the shops, it’s not exciting enough to queue overnight just to get some threadbare undercrackers



I think its one of the few that doesn't have an on-line offering so if you're a fan you need to get to the shop. 

Shopping as a form of entertainment isn't my thing but its clearly a big thing for a lot of people and they would have missed it a lot.  A lot of people are sick to the back teeth of lockdowns and restrictions and just want a semblance of normality.  Whatever makes you happy I guess (strictly within the rules and regulations where you live of course).


----------



## purenarcotic (Apr 12, 2021)

It’s cheap and people are skint.


----------



## IC3D (Apr 12, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> But of all the shops, it’s not exciting enough to queue overnight just to get some threadbare undercrackers


“- Francine: What are they doing? Why do they come here?
- Stephen: Some kind of instinct. Memory of what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.”


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 12, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> It’s cheap and people are skint.


But surely they can wait a few days at least. Queuing overnight in the cold is just crazy


----------



## teuchter (Apr 12, 2021)

Wanting to go to Primark is not as weird as wanting to go to a pub, sit outside in the cold, and drink a quantity of liquid that costs about 5 times as much as it would from a shop, and will make you feel ill the next day.


----------



## andysays (Apr 12, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> But surely they can wait a few days at least. Queuing overnight in the cold is just crazy


I'm not convinced that many were queuing overnight in the cold.

That earlier picture with tents was definitely photoshopped


----------



## bimble (Apr 12, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> But surely they can wait a few days at least. Queuing overnight in the cold is just crazy


Not if you need cheap kids clothes cos you haven't been able to get any for months and months because you don't have credit cards / paypal and need to use cash. Anyway thats what i like to think when i see those pics, else people are just weird.


----------



## bimble (Apr 12, 2021)

I'm booked in to sit freezing my arse off in a pub garden on Friday, and tbh I think i'd rather go to primark.


----------



## Espresso (Apr 12, 2021)

Just back from a reconnaissance stroll around town, for the purposes of this thread. These are my observations
1. Lots and lots of people sitting outside in the sunshine at pubs and cafes.
2. Lots of outside tables with "Reserved for Name at whatever time" notices on them. 
3. Lots of people queueing at bus and tram stops, presumably going home as they all seemed to have big M&S, Primark and Next bags.
4. All hairdressers shops full.  
5. All babershops full inside with queues outside
6. Massive queues outside all of the charity shops

Today would probably be a very good day to go to Sainsburys. There will be no sod in.


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> There is a far more interesting story of what is happening today instead of a few people sat outside a pub as opposed to in their garden or in a park.
> 
> To my mind its the return of mass mingling indoors is far more interesting whether that be at non-essential shops, gyms, hairdressers etc.  I think it will be interesting from a perspective of how we all react, will we be rushing back to clothes shops or will we be more cautious.  How will teh numbers be effected?  The return of schools surprised me in some respects and hopefully we can weather this as well.
> 
> Hospitality indoors is another 5 weeks away and as we know anything can happen in that time.



Regarding schools, I know we discussed in the past the possibility that the effects of rhinovirus on the immune system may confer some temporary protection for some against Covid-19.

The previous time schools reopened the rhinovirus rates shot up quickly, and I speculated that perhaps that helped delay the Covid-19 impact. Maybe the same thing is happening this time, although I expect there are also other reasons we havent seen a quick and obvious resurgence of Covid-19 yet. In any case, rhinovirus has certainly been on the increase in school age groups again, as we can see via the following chart from the weekly surveillance report. https://assets.publishing.service.g...977003/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w14.pdf


----------



## Cloo (Apr 12, 2021)

They've just announced restarting rollout of vaccine for over 40s in England so hopefully siblings and I will get ours in next month.  My parents have just got their second, after my dad spotted an email invite the other week saying they'd be available today.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 12, 2021)

Espresso said:


> Just back from a reconnaissance stroll around town, for the purposes of this thread. These are my observations
> 1. Lots and lots of people sitting outside in the sunshine at pubs and cafes.
> 2. Lots of outside tables with "Reserved for Name at whatever time" notices on them.
> 3. Lots of people queueing at bus and tram stops, presumably going home as they all seemed to have big M&S, Primark and Next bags.
> ...



Yes, I've just done the same and also agree it seemed very busy out there.  Less so the pubs that had a few people sat around eating but the cafe's with outdoor seating were very busy and in general there just seemed to be a lot more people out and than previous Mondays.  

We don't have many clothes shops here but there were the queues  outside charity shops and hairdressers etc.

It was really uplifting to see life returning to the town because its been a demoralising and depressing place to walk through at times.  Though I suddenly remembered the slight stress from last year of seeing small crowds everywhere and deciding the hassle of getting a coffee or a sandwich is just not worth it.


----------



## strung out (Apr 12, 2021)

Espresso said:


> Just back from a reconnaissance stroll around town, for the purposes of this thread. These are my observations
> 1. Lots and lots of people sitting outside in the sunshine at pubs and cafes.
> 2. Lots of outside tables with "Reserved for Name at whatever time" notices on them.
> 3. Lots of people queueing at bus and tram stops, presumably going home as they all seemed to have big M&S, Primark and Next bags.
> ...


Just back from Sainsburys. Very busy sadly.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> Regarding schools, I know we discussed in the past the possibility that the effects of rhinovirus on the immune system may confer some temporary protection for some against Covid-19.
> 
> The previous time schools reopened the rhinovirus rates shot up quickly, and I speculated that perhaps that helped delay the Covid-19 impact. Maybe the same thing is happening this time, although I expect there are also other reasons we havent seen a quick and obvious resurgence of Covid-19 yet. In any case, rhinovirus has certainly been on the increase in school age groups again, as we can see via the following chart from the weekly surveillance report. https://assets.publishing.service.g...977003/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w14.pdf
> 
> View attachment 262908



This may be a dumb question but how are they tracking colds in kids?  Where does the data come from? Is this something they are picking up in the covid testing / surveillance?


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> This may be a dumb question but how are they tracking colds in kids?  Where does the data come from? Is this something they are picking up in the covid testing / surveillance?



Routine surveillance thats been in place for more than a decade. It has quite a lot in common with the sort of sentinel surveillance systems we were reliant on early in this pandemic, before a genuine mass testing system was developed. So basically using a fairly small sample size, not trying to count every case, but still getting enough data to observe trends.









						(PDF) A new laboratory-based surveillance system (Respiratory DataMart System) for influenza and other respiratory viruses in England: Results and experience from 2009 to 2012
					

PDF | During the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, a new laboratory-based virological sentinel surveillance system, the Respiratory DataMart System... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate




					www.researchgate.net
				






> During the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, a new laboratory-based virological sentinel surveillance system, the Respiratory DataMart System (RDMS), was established in a network of 14 Health Protection Agency (now Public Health England (PHE)) and National Health Service (NHS) laboratories in England. Laboratory results (both positive and negative) were systematically collected from all routinely tested clinical respiratory samples for a range of respiratory viruses including influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rhinovirus, parainfluenza virus, adenovirus and human metapneumovirus (hMPV).


----------



## xenon (Apr 12, 2021)

Had to go out earlier. Bristol suburb, weather is fine. There were quite a few people around. Including sat at tables outside bars. Mostly older / retired folk from what I could tell at one pub but that's the regular clientell for that one anyway. Was nice and made me feel like stopping for a pint.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 12, 2021)

One of Brixton's newest gentrification restaurants has quite a big outdoor terrace and it was completely full about an hour ago, on a rather "fresh" Monday lunchtime. Queues outside the phone shops but M&S same as it has been for the past few months. The market just the same as it has been for the past few months (ie not very different from normal). Guy with anti-vaccine song still outside the tube. Traffic in general rather quiet I thought.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 12, 2021)

Bloody busy in Worthing, more like a Saturday morning.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 12, 2021)

Thora said:


> Are people really going to be desperate to go and sit outside a pub on a wet/cold Monday night?


Based on people being so desperate to sit in a cold beer garden that they actually went to pubs that opened at midnight last night, I'd say yes. Really cannot see the attraction in going to sit in a freezing bus shelter while dozens of strangers breathe all over you, just for the privilege of paying far too much for a beer.


----------



## mx wcfc (Apr 12, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Wanting to go to Primark is not as weird as wanting to go to a pub, sit outside in the cold, and drink a quantity of liquid that costs about 5 times as much as it would from a shop, and will make you feel ill the next day.


Well, I went to the pub this afternoon.  It was fine - I went suitably dressed, had to take my coat off when the sun came put.

If that's "weird" in your view, so be it.  For me the "quality" of sitting in a pub garden, supping real ale (in this case, brewed at the pub) beats the fuck out of drinking cheaper supermarket beer at home.

Some people like pubs more than others, and appreciate well brewed local real ale.  

The place was full, fwiw.  

It was wonderful.


----------



## MrSki (Apr 12, 2021)

I went to the library  then popped in Sainsbury's & stopped off in the park to sit in the sun & start a book. 10 minutes later there were snow flurries. Can't see the point of the pub. Might as well get some decent bottled beer/cider & have a socially distant drink in the park.


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 12, 2021)

MrSki said:


> I went to the library  then popped in Sainsbury's & stopped off in the park to sit in the sun & start a book. 10 minutes later there were snow flurries. Can't see the point of the pub. Might as well get some decent bottled beer/cider & have a socially distant drink in the park.


yeh you could have something like 4 x as much alcohol in the park than you'd get for your fiver in the pub


----------



## teuchter (Apr 12, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> Well, I went to the pub this afternoon.  It was fine - I went suitably dressed, had to take my coat off when the sun came put.
> 
> If that's "weird" in your view, so be it.  For me the "quality" of sitting in a pub garden, supping real ale (in this case, brewed at the pub) beats the fuck out of drinking cheaper supermarket beer at home.
> 
> ...


You've no idea what a great day I've had browsing my local Primark though.


----------



## MrSki (Apr 12, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> yeh you could have something like 4 x as much alcohol in the park than you'd get for your fiver in the pub


Well if you have to sit outside it seems better value. Some of the park punters even bring their own fold up chairs.


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 12, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Well if you have to sit outside it seems better value. Some of the park punters even bring their own fold up chairs.


and blankets no doubt


----------



## MrSki (Apr 12, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> and blankets no doubt


Yes I have seen a few peeps with blankets.


----------



## tommers (Apr 12, 2021)

It was a lovely day today and I saw people sitting in the beer garden with their pints and I was well jel.  One day this week, when we don't have the dog with us we are going to go and do that.


----------



## zora (Apr 12, 2021)

Shop I work in was almost as busy as a normal "quiet" Monday, certainly people are returning with much greater confidence than after lockdown 1. 

It was fun walking home, seeing all the busy hairdressers that I am sure are usually closed at this time, and seeing how the pubs en route had managed to create more outdoor seating. 

Local that already has a decent garden has added a load more benches on the pavement and was full to pretty much the last seat with people enjoying themselves. Put a big smile on my face.


----------



## Mation (Apr 12, 2021)

I went out to a big, busy shopping centre today, more for the ride than the shopping, granted, but I did also want to go to the shop (Debenhams one-day-only closing sale), and was prepared not to go in or stay if it was a potential plague pit.

I went wearing my FFP3 mask, armed with a 2-metre glare. It was fine. Well. There wasn't anything I wanted to buy, as it turned out. If there had been, not sure I'd have wanted to be in the queue for the till, as it was really bunched up. But walking round the shop was fine.

More people without masks than I've noticed in the last couple of months at supermarkets, but most people were wearing them, and properly, too.

Loads of people sitting to eat their lunch outside, mostly away from wherever they'd got their food it seemed. Really distinct groups, so it seemed that distancing outdoors is still go, at least where there is room to do so.

The most wtf thing I saw was a parent who'd stepped outside an outdoor children's play area to vape. He had one of the ones that produce gargantuan clouds. I don't really get why, now, anyone would want everyone within a 10-metre radius to know explicitly that they're breathing your exhalations. I vape, so a bit of hypocrisy here, perhaps. But I do try to send it away from people, if I do it around others.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 12, 2021)

Mation said:


> The most wtf thing I saw was a parent who'd stepped outside an outdoor children's play area to vape. He had one of the ones that produce gargantuan clouds. I don't really get why, now, anyone would want everyone within a 10-metre radius to know explicitly that they're breathing your exhalations. I vape, so a bit of hypocrisy here, perhaps. But I do try to send it away from people, if I do it around others.



I never understood the big vape pens, the little discrete ones sure but those big gusty blasts of steam? No.


----------



## Looby (Apr 12, 2021)

I drove through town today and it really wasn’t that busy. I popped to Dunelm on my way home from my MIL because there was no queue. The busiest places seemed to be barbers. There were queues outside of every one I saw. 
I do have a yearning for an IKEA trip but I’m not doing that yet. I’ll be in a beer garden when the weather is nice because sitting out in the weather won’t be fun.


----------



## MrSki (Apr 12, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> I never understood the big vape pens, the little discrete ones sure but those big gusty blasts of steam? No.


Have you never smoked a bong?


----------



## existentialist (Apr 12, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Have you never smoked a bong?


"Don't tell him, Pike"


----------



## Elpenor (Apr 12, 2021)

I went to IKEA today in Exeter - it was fairly quiet; slightly unpleasant to wear a scratchy mask for an hour but a fairly relaxed visit and I got a bunch of stuff I needed.


----------



## spitfire (Apr 12, 2021)

Reinstated post as all sorted out now.

I didn't realise bookings were live for people over 45. Just had a very strange 5 minutes on Twitter where a TV historian and his mate helped me get booked up.

Anyway, cool story bro but in case anyone else here is still under 50 here's the link.









						Book or manage a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination
					

Use this service to book a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination or manage your appointments.




					www.nhs.uk


----------



## Badgers (Apr 12, 2021)

How is the app going?


----------



## MrSki (Apr 12, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> I went to IKEA today in Exeter - it was fairly quiet; slightly unpleasant to wear a scratchy mask for an hour but a fairly relaxed visit and I got a bunch of stuff I needed.


Is the John Lewis open in Exeter is is it one that has been shut down?


----------



## souljacker (Apr 12, 2021)

spitfire said:


> I didn't realise bookings were live for people in their 40's. Just had a very strange 5 minutes on Twitter where a TV historian and his mate helped me get booked up.
> 
> Anyway, cool story bro but in case anyone else here is still under 50 here's the link.
> 
> ...



I've just booked mine! Thanks for this.


----------



## Elpenor (Apr 12, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Is the John Lewis open in Exeter is is it one that has been shut down?



I have no idea; I’ve been here 6 weeks and haven’t yet visited the town centre


----------



## emanymton (Apr 12, 2021)

For those of


spitfire said:


> I didn't realise bookings were live for people in their 40's. Just had a very strange 5 minutes on Twitter where a TV historian and his mate helped me get booked up.
> 
> Anyway, cool story bro but in case anyone else here is still under 50 here's the link.
> 
> ...


It's not. Just tried I and I am not eligible.


----------



## BigMoaner (Apr 12, 2021)

Went up the west end just out of curiousity. Was buzzing but not heaving. Felt very weird to see so many faces. Sat and had a coffee, came home.


----------



## spitfire (Apr 12, 2021)

emanymton said:


> For those of
> 
> It's not. Just tried I and I am not eligible.



That's odd, I booked in and it looks like souljacker did as well as the 2 other people I've just been talking to (we're all 49, I don't know how old souljacker is). 

Wonder what the difference is? I have no underlying conditions and just had to provide NHS number and DOB.


----------



## souljacker (Apr 12, 2021)

spitfire said:


> That's odd, I booked in and it looks like souljacker did as well as the 2 other people I've just been talking to (we're all 49, I don't know how old souljacker is).



48 and looking great


----------



## emanymton (Apr 12, 2021)

spitfire said:


> That's odd, I booked in and it looks like souljacker did as well as the 2 other people I've just been talking to (we're all 49, I don't know how old souljacker is).
> 
> Wonder what the difference is? I have no underlying conditions and just had to provide NHS number and DOB.


I'm 42, maybe it is something like 45+?


----------



## spitfire (Apr 12, 2021)

emanymton said:


> I'm 42, maybe it is something like 45+?



That may well be it I guess. Might be a health professional along in a minute to confirm or deny.


----------



## Maltin (Apr 12, 2021)

spitfire said:


> That's odd, I booked in and it looks like souljacker did as well as the 2 other people I've just been talking to (we're all 49, I don't know how old souljacker is).
> 
> Wonder what the difference is? I have no underlying conditions and just had to provide NHS number and DOB.


That page is meant to be for over 50s. if you click the back button on the link it says who is meant to be eligible to use the form


----------



## souljacker (Apr 12, 2021)

Maltin said:


> That page is meant to be for over 50s. if you click the back button on the link it says who is meant to be eligible to use the form



It asks for your dob though?


----------



## spitfire (Apr 12, 2021)

Maltin said:


> That page is meant to be for over 50s. if you click the back button on the link it says who is meant to be eligible to use the form



Ah bollox. Have I done a bad?


----------



## Maltin (Apr 12, 2021)

souljacker said:


> It asks for your dob though?


It’s not just over 50s. Says these are eligible to fill in that form.


You can only use this service if any of the following apply:


you are aged 50 or over
you are at high risk from coronavirus(clinically extremely vulnerable)
you have a condition that puts you at higher risk (clinically vulnerable)
you have a learning disability
you get a Carer's Allowance, get support following an assessment by your local authority or your GP record shows you are a carer


----------



## emanymton (Apr 12, 2021)

spitfire said:


> Ah bollox. Have I done a bad?


Since it didn't let me book I'd say not. Either there is something in your medical history to make you eligible or the age has been dropped but the previous page not updated to reflect it.


----------



## souljacker (Apr 12, 2021)

BBC is reporting that all the over 50s have been offered a jab so maybe the criteria has changed this evening?









						Covid vaccine: All over-50s and high risk groups offered first dose
					

Ministers meet a target of inviting the top nine priority groups to receive the vaccine by 15 April.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## spitfire (Apr 12, 2021)

OK, I'm going to sleep on this, I'm not booked in for a week so won't be bed jumping anyone tomorrow. I'll delete my previous post.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 12, 2021)

For the record I've just booked both jabs despite what the site says. I'm not 50 yet.

Was a but awkward cos if you can't book the second it won't let you book either, so you may need to change time or date or even location of your second. Mine are at different places, six weeks apart.

Worth a try, eh.

ETA got the heads-up from a hospital worker. It's over 45s


----------



## Wilf (Apr 12, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Based on people being so desperate to sit in a cold beer garden that they actually went to pubs that opened at midnight last night, I'd say yes. Really cannot see the attraction in going to sit in a freezing bus shelter while dozens of strangers breathe all over you, just for the privilege of paying far too much for a beer.


Yeah, me too.  I'm not on the 'official' shielding list but have been working from home due to health issues that covid could make more serious. I got a temporary psychological feeling I might emerge into the world a bit after my first jab. However if I went in a pub garden now, I suspect I'd have nagging thoughts along the lines of 'did they wash that glass'. Not quite the recipe for a relaxing drink, particularly as there's the rigmarole of booking a table etc.  

It's hard to know when that feeling of being able to socialise or shop normally will kick in, if ever. When it comes to the flu, there's a psychological scenario where you know it can be serious, but short of seeing someone coughing and sweating, you don't change your behaviour at all.  Going to be a while before we get to that with Covid.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 12, 2021)

Shops open, pub exteriors and cafe pavements not, here in Wales. 
Given that Swansea is the second biggest Welsh city, I was idly wondering how mad it might become.
'Idly' because I'm no shopoholic at all -- the reverse! 

So we also did the 'walking into town to see what it's like' thing this afternoon.

Very far from busy overall. 
Queue outside Primarks, but not all that long. No other queues.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 12, 2021)

I'll be ultra-selective about which pubs I go to when the exteriors of them open in Wales (Monday 26th April onwards).

There's not a lot of pubs anyway in or near Swansea that have outdoor areas.
There'll be a maximum of two (three at a stretch) that combine having enough outdoor space with *having good quality beer*. 

The latter is the main (only?) reason why being able to go to a pub will mildly rock my world**.
I'm with mx wcfc on the attraction of pub-drinking.
I do get why some Urbans can't understand why people have been doing it in such chilly conditions today , but pubs aren't _only_ about alcohol -- the socialising thing has got to be just as important for many.
(The opening at midnight stuff does seem out-and-out insane though, admittedly!!  )

**Plus it should be warmer towards the end of April!!


----------



## spitfire (Apr 13, 2021)

Word is out. Lots of people booking in, C list celebs tweeting about it. Still some confusion as to whether we’re allowed or not.


----------



## Maltin (Apr 13, 2021)

spitfire said:


> Word is out. Lots of people booking in, C list celebs tweeting about it. Still some confusion as to whether we’re allowed or not.
> 
> View attachment 263039


The front page is updated to over 45s now


----------



## spitfire (Apr 13, 2021)

Maltin said:


> The front page is updated to over 45s now



Sweet. So I’m in the clear. Was just doing it before it was cool.  Story of my life.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 13, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> pubs aren't _only_ about alcohol -- the socialising thing has got to be just as important for many.


That's partly the point, though - you shouldn't be going to the pub to socialise with a bunch of people from outside your household/bubble really. Even though it is "outdoors" (and a lot of the types of outdoor seating being shown on the news clips barely qualify, IMO) if you're sitting around a pub table, all facing each other, speaking loudly to be heard over everyone else doing the same thing, laughing and happy, there's going to be a not-insignificant amount of Covid getting sprayed all over you.


----------



## Badgers (Apr 13, 2021)

Might be a bit scaremongering? 









						Brazil variant ripping through the young 'can't be stopped from reaching UK'
					

Coronavirus cases among young people have risen six-fold since the P1 strain, which is believed to be a highly infectious mutation of the virus, emerged in Brazil




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Apr 13, 2021)

Heard bod on radio being asked if we should be concerned that, just as we're 'opening up', a cluster of the more vaccine resistant mutant should emerge?

Answer sounded less than convincing; said that as more folk were out and about, more would go in for surge testing; (also the justification for no door-to-door testing in the area affected).


----------



## existentialist (Apr 13, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Might be a bit scaremongering?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Given how useless the UK has proven itself to be around travellers coming to the UK, that's probably a very realistic prediction...


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 13, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> That's partly the point, though - you shouldn't be going to the pub to socialise with a bunch of people from outside your household/bubble really. Even though it is "outdoors" (and a lot of the types of outdoor seating being shown on the news clips barely qualify, IMO) if you're sitting around a pub table, all facing each other, speaking loudly to be heard over everyone else doing the same thing, laughing and happy, there's going to be a not-insignificant amount of Covid getting sprayed all over you.



Is it any safer doing it in someone's garden or in a park?  Its just that you seem to be suggesting that there should be no mixing of households at all?


----------



## Badgers (Apr 13, 2021)

'Outside Space'


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Answer sounded less than convincing; said that as more folk were out and about, more would go in for surge testing; (also the justification for no door-to-door testing in the area affected).



Even during periods with tougher restrictions I would never claim we had a system that could hope to genuinely contain variant strains. The surge testing etc is more of a slow things down a bit and survey the situation type exercise than an effort in genuine containment.

As such we are reliant on a combination of that system and plenty of luck and various characteristics of the new strains themselves. A variant that has a big advantage would be expected to thrive, as happened with the Kent variant. In a vaccination era that relies more on immunity to do the protection than other measures, any mutations which can bypass immunity are going to have a big advantage.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 13, 2021)

Its always seemed rather paradoxical to me that they can talk about containing variants imported from other countries and opening up international travel in the same conversation.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 13, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Its always seemed rather paradoxical to me that they can talk about containing variants imported from other countries and opening up international travel in the same conversation.


You think cognitive dissonance is not a feature of this lot?


----------



## PursuedByBears (Apr 13, 2021)

spitfire said:


> Word is out. Lots of people booking in, C list celebs tweeting about it. Still some confusion as to whether we’re allowed or not.
> 
> View attachment 263039


Impossible to book in my area as there are no 2nd dose slots available


----------



## existentialist (Apr 13, 2021)

S☼I said:


> You think cognitive dissonance is not a feature of this lot?


Cognitive dissonance presupposes the existence of cognition. I am becoming increasingly unsure much of that exists in the Cabinet...


----------



## zahir (Apr 13, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Might be a bit scaremongering?
> 
> 
> 
> ...





It's probably realistic (read the thread).


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 13, 2021)

S☼I said:


> You think cognitive dissonance is not a feature of this lot?



  Well, yes.  There is that.


----------



## spitfire (Apr 13, 2021)

PursuedByBears said:


> Impossible to book in my area as there are no 2nd dose slots available



I had that problem as well so had to change 1st dose location. I'm guessing you tried that but worth putting it out there anyway. I'm in London so have a fair bit of choice, I appreciate not everyone has that luxury. I spoke to a woman on twitter who had the same problem but she was on the IoW so not a lot of options.

eta: I think Gen X crashed the website as well a couple of times so the word is well and truly out.


----------



## PursuedByBears (Apr 13, 2021)

spitfire said:


> I had that problem as well so had to change 1st dose location. I'm guessing you tried that but worth putting it out there anyway. I'm in London so have a fair bit of choice, I appreciate not everyone has that luxury. I spoke to a woman on twitter who had the same problem but she was on the IoW so not a lot of options.
> 
> eta: I think Gen X crashed the website as well a couple of times so the word is well and truly out.


Yes I was trying to book in Morecambe as that's 3.5 miles away and I can get there on my bike. I've managed to book two doses in Ingleton in N Yorks  instead which is 16 miles away.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 13, 2021)

zahir said:


> It's probably realistic (read the thread).




I can't read that thread, not sure why.

Is there any data out there to suggest the p1 variant is more deadly in younger ages than other variants.  I get that being more transmissive (is that a word?) is a very bad thing in itself but being more deadly in younger people would be very very bad.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 13, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I can't read that thread, not sure why.
> 
> Is there any data out there to suggest the p1 variant is more deadly in younger ages than other variants.  I get that being more transmissive (is that a word?) is a very bad thing in itself but being more deadly in younger people would be very very bad.


According to that thread, mortality rate in 18-45 group is trebled (I think).


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 13, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Is it any safer doing it in someone's garden or in a park?  Its just that you seem to be suggesting that there should be no mixing of households at all?


I'm suggesting that risk is not a binary, and the more you pile riskier behaviours on top of each other - a semi-enclosed space, packed with people that you don't know, all shouting directly into each others' faces, lots of hand-to-face contact, sharing packets of crisps - the sillier a choice it seems just for the sake of being able to have a drink. 

Gardens and parks would seem much safer - more spread out, fewer people, quieter, and also cheaper.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 13, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I'm suggesting that risk is not a binary, and the more you pile riskier behaviours on top of each other - a semi-enclosed space, packed with people that you don't know, all shouting directly into each others' faces, lots of hand-to-face contact, sharing packets of crisps - the sillier a choice it seems just for the sake of being able to have a drink.
> 
> Gardens and parks would seem much safer - more spread out, fewer people, quieter, and also cheaper.



Yes, I think that's certainly right from a personal risk perspective.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 13, 2021)

spitfire said:


> Reinstated post as all sorted out now.
> 
> I didn't realise bookings were live for people over 45. Just had a very strange 5 minutes on Twitter where a TV historian and his mate helped me get booked up.
> 
> ...



Does this work for second vaccinations?


----------



## spitfire (Apr 13, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Does this work for second vaccinations?



It let me book my second one at the beginning of July but no idea if it works for people who have already had their first.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Apr 13, 2021)

It wouldn't let me book just one.


----------



## xenon (Apr 13, 2021)

xenon said:


> Walked past my local on Saturday. The landlord and another member of staff were outside doing some work.
> 
> They're not having a booking system, just turn up and if there's space order a drink on the app. My mate's gonna have a look after work and text if it's not crowded.
> 
> Certainly not desperate but I'd rather go when it might be quieter and I'm curious to see how it's gonna work this time.



I didn't go. It's not a big pub, no garden, people queueing to basically drink  at a table in the street. And it wasn't warm. So fuck that.


----------



## spitfire (Apr 13, 2021)

S☼I said:


> It wouldn't let me book just one.



Same. Should have said "made me" not "let me".


----------



## magneze (Apr 13, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Does this work for second vaccinations?


Yes, if you've had a first one, go to "manage my appointments" and you can book your second.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 13, 2021)

Booked! 

I was getting antsy, first was 7th Feb and I've heard nothing since.


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I can't read that thread, not sure why.
> 
> Is there any data out there to suggest the p1 variant is more deadly in younger ages than other variants.  I get that being more transmissive (is that a word?) is a very bad thing in itself but being more deadly in younger people would be very very bad.



BBC are starting to cover that aspect a bit more these days:



> Concern is growing in Brazil about the rising number of young people who are critically ill in hospital with Covid-19.
> 
> Research suggests more than half of patients being treated in intensive care last month were under 40.
> 
> The BBC's Mark Lowen visited Latin America's largest cemetery, a makeshift hospital and a vaccine hub to find out why the handling of the pandemic in Brazil has become a public health disaster.











						Covid: Younger Brazilians fall ill as cases explode
					

Research suggests more than half of patients being treated in intensive care last month were under 40.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I havent looked at the science of that strain much yet, partly because I usually get frustrated by a lack of data. But I will spend a bit more time on it in the weeks ahead, now that things seem a little clearer.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 13, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Booked!
> 
> I was getting antsy, first was 7th Feb and I've heard nothing since.


Ooh can you do this?


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2021)

I should also say that when looking at Brazil, have to take into account that death rates go up when healthcare systems reach a state of collapse, and thats how their system has been described recently. Also when demand outstrips supply, intensive care rationing may skew figures, in that younger people are less likely to be denied intensive care, and this can be quite a large phenomenon when the overall number of cases is massive.

However I am not suggesting that these factors explain the picture there completely, it is reasonable to think that the strain in question affects the young more than other strains and this is a major cause for concern.


----------



## elbows (Apr 13, 2021)

The 11:38 entry on the BBC live updates page features Johnson saying the sorts of things people might be more used to me saying than Johnson saying.



> Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned of the consequences of lifting lockdown, telling reporters: "As we unlock, the result will inevitably be that we will see more infection, sadly we will see more hospitalisation and deaths, and people have just got to understand that."
> 
> He also says it is "very important" for people to understand that the reduction in infections, hospitalisations and deaths "has not been achieved by the vaccination programme".
> 
> ...







__





						Loading…
					





					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 13, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Ooh can you do this?



Read the page


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 13, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Read the page


I’ve had the first and should be having mine in a couple of weeks, so dunno whether I should book or wait til summoned


----------



## prunus (Apr 13, 2021)

zahir said:


> It's probably realistic (read the thread).




It’s worth remembering that for all the headlines about 4,200 deaths in a day, worst it’s ever been in Brazil, that death rate is (per capita) about the same as it was here in the UK at the beginning of the year.


----------



## prunus (Apr 13, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I’ve had the first and should be having mine in a couple of weeks, so dunno whether I should book or wait til summoned



I think you can only book through the nhs booking system if your first was done through that system - if you took up an appt from an invitation from your gp or local gp network you have to wait until you get your second invitation.  But have a go and see?


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 13, 2021)

prunus said:


> It’s worth remembering that for all the headlines about 4,200 deaths in a day, worst it’s ever been in Brazil, that death rate is (per capita) about the same as it was here in the UK at the beginning of the year.



Of course and that's why what is happening in Brazil is important because none of us want to go back to that*.


*Well most of us, some do like Mark Harper and that twat Fox etc.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 13, 2021)

prunus said:


> It’s worth remembering that for all the headlines about 4,200 deaths in a day, worst it’s ever been in Brazil, that death rate is (per capita) about the same as it was here in the UK at the beginning of the year.


In fact, a bit lower.
This is averaged over the whole country of course, in both cases. So ignores the fact that there could be localised outbreaks in Brazil that might be worse than any of the UK's localised outbreaks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 13, 2021)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 263056
> 
> 'Outside Space'



They need 50% of the sides open, I guess that's just not included in that particular photo.


----------



## magneze (Apr 13, 2021)

prunus said:


> I think you can only book through the nhs booking system if your first was done through that system - if you took up an appt from an invitation from your gp or local gp network you have to wait until you get your second invitation.  But have a go and see?


No, that's wrong. I had an appointment from my GP and was able to book 2nd vaccination on the website.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 13, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> That's partly the point, though - you shouldn't be going to the pub to socialise with a bunch of people from outside your household/bubble really.



You can, the rules changed on the 29th March, "outdoor gatherings (including in private gardens) of either 6 people (the Rule of 6) or 2 households will also be allowed, making it easier for friends and families to meet outside."





__





						COVID-19 Response - Spring 2021 (Summary)
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## zahir (Apr 13, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I can't read that thread, not sure why.
> 
> Is there any data out there to suggest the p1 variant is more deadly in younger ages than other variants.  I get that being more transmissive (is that a word?) is a very bad thing in itself but being more deadly in younger people would be very very bad.





teuchter said:


> According to that thread, mortality rate in 18-45 group is trebled (I think).



I suppose a part of the increase in mortality could be due to hospitals being overwhelmed by the number of cases.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 13, 2021)

Actually, why is the Brazil v UK comparison important / relevant?

Surely its just enough to know the situation in Brazil is very bad and would appear to be caused by a strain which spreads rapidly and is seemingly more virulent amongst younger age groups than other strains?


----------



## prunus (Apr 13, 2021)

magneze said:


> No, that's wrong. I had an appointment from my GP and was able to book 2nd vaccination on the website.



Ah ok, thanks for the correction. Did you choose book or manage your appointments to book the second one do you remember?


----------



## magneze (Apr 13, 2021)

prunus said:


> Ah ok, thanks for the correction. Did you choose book or manage your appointments to book the second one do you remember?


The second one: "manage your appointments". It already knew I'd had the first and gave me a small range of dates and locations for the second. I'm booked with a local pharmacy.

If my GP contacts me before for a 2nd jab then I'll cancel the appointment but it looks like it's all connected together so I'm not really expecting that to happen.


----------



## bimble (Apr 13, 2021)

I don't know where to put this but have a question:
If I have an antibody test which comes up positive, as in it thinks i have had covid in the past, would that mean i have some degree of immunity against both catching and spreading the virus that's comparable (i don't mean the same i mean can i find information allowing a comparison) to the effect of having a first dose of vaccine?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> You can, the rules changed on the 29th March, "outdoor gatherings (including in private gardens) of either 6 people (the Rule of 6) or 2 households will also be allowed, making it easier for friends and families to meet outside."


I was expressing an opinion, not quoting the legal guidelines.


----------



## Supine (Apr 13, 2021)

bimble said:


> I don't know where to put this but have a question:
> If I have an antibody test which comes up positive, as in it thinks i have had covid in the past, would that mean i have some degree of immunity against both catching and spreading the virus that's comparable (i don't mean the same i mean can i find information allowing a comparison) to the effect of having a first dose of vaccine?



It has not been studied enough yet. It helps but no comparisons can be made. I believe it is reasonably well established that getting vaccinated, even if you have antibodies, helps your immune system in dealing with further infections.


----------



## MJ100 (Apr 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> The 11:38 entry on the BBC live updates page features Johnson saying the sorts of things people might be more used to me saying than Johnson saying.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



But the speed of the reduction in deaths especially is down to the vaccine. That's seen clearly in the rates dropping faster in older age groups, i.e. those which have been vaccinated (unless that has changed recently?). The blond buffoon's own fucking slides showed that, guess he's already forgotten what his scientists presented us with a few weeks ago. Why is he trying to play down the success of his own vaccine rollout, the one thing he seems to have got right in the last year?


----------



## Leighsw2 (Apr 13, 2021)

So, as I prepare to take my place in the queue for PCR testing in Lambeth, what do we know about the AZ vaccine and the South African variant? I ask as on Monday I had my first vaguely 'normal' day since March 2020 - three weeks and two days after my vaccination, I went out for a walk and did a bit of casual shopping (got some bits and bobs from Morleys and popped into Boots and Sainsbury's). Then the next day I find out there's a cluster of South African variant in Lambeth and we all have to get tested. Just when I thought the day of liberation had arrived, are we back to square one? Do I close the door of my flat and never venture out again? What to do? Help!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 14, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> But the speed of the reduction in deaths especially is down to the vaccine. That's seen clearly in the rates dropping faster in older age groups, i.e. those which have been vaccinated (unless that has changed recently?). The blond buffoon's own fucking slides showed that, guess he's already forgotten what his scientists presented us with a few weeks ago. Why is he trying to play down the success of his own vaccine rollout, the one thing he seems to have got right in the last year?



I think two things are in play, firstly, the message is mainly directed at younger people who are more likely going to mix in larger groups, and return to workplaces earlier.

Secondly, concerns over variants, such as the South African and Brazilian ones, and their impact on how effective the vaccines are, in Brazil there're rising number of young people who are critically ill in hospital with Covid-19.


----------



## Badgers (Apr 14, 2021)

Good thread this from a good source.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 14, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> So, as I prepare to take my place in the queue for PCR testing in Lambeth, what do we know about the AZ vaccine and the South African variant? I ask as on Monday I had my first vaguely 'normal' day since March 2020 - three weeks and two days after my vaccination, I went out for a walk and did a bit of casual shopping (got some bits and bobs from Morleys and popped into Boots and Sainsbury's). Then the next day I find out there's a cluster of South African variant in Lambeth and we all have to get tested. Just when I thought the day of liberation had arrived, are we back to square one? Do I close the door of my flat and never venture out again? What to do? Help!



What we do know is that reducing restrictions while there is still significant community transmission and the people responsible for most transmission events have yet to be vacccinated is a great way to increase the chances of antigenic escape.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 14, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Good thread this from a good source.



Not nice to read that we are creating perfect conditions for mutating but it rings true. In particular the dangers while we can't vaccinate kids and young people. I've given up talking about a zero covid strategy to people though. Everyone has bought into the idea you can vaccinate and open up, to the point that I find myself going along with it and have to catch myself. I am happy to move about a bit more now, though on the basis of lower transmission rather than the vaccine. But I'm not under the illusion it will necessarily stay this way. We might get lucky and get no nasty mutations. But it will be luck, because the government strategy appears not to be thinking about it at all.


----------



## maomao (Apr 14, 2021)

The vaccine lasts for eight months right? So do we have to start the vaccination cycle again in September? For ever? Or do they round it off to a year and we lose 20-30,000 people in the last few months every year? I'm happy the death rate is down but I don't get the long term plan.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 14, 2021)

maomao said:


> The vaccine lasts for eight months right? So do we have to start the vaccination cycle again in September? For ever? Or do they round it off to a year and we lose 20-30,000 people in the last few months every year? I'm happy the death rate is down but I don't get the long term plan.



No one knows how long the vaccines last, they haven't been around long enough to know.


----------



## LDC (Apr 14, 2021)

maomao said:


> The vaccine lasts for eight months right? So do we have to start the vaccination cycle again in September? For ever? Or do they round it off to a year and we lose 20-30,000 people in the last few months every year? I'm happy the death rate is down but I don't get the long term plan.



Yeah, on a solely pragmatic level I'm going to try and have the conversation about what the PCN (a number of GP surgeries grouped together) I am volunteering giving vaccinations for have as a long term work plan. They're relying on volunteers and people that work for them doing extra days, and they're just managing to hold it together and get it all done, but I think they'll be a drop off in volunteers soon, and no let up in numbers of people needing vaccine doses, plus come the autumn the flu vaccine round will start, and likely booster cv doses. Plus all their usual work of course, and maybe cv related backlogs. It's a bit hard to see how it'll be possible tbh.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 14, 2021)

maomao said:


> The vaccine lasts for eight months right? So do we have to start the vaccination cycle again in September? For ever? Or do they round it off to a year and we lose 20-30,000 people in the last few months every year? I'm happy the death rate is down but I don't get the long term plan.



Yes AFAIUI cupid_stunt is right - they know they last at least 8 months because they haven't tested beyond that due to them not having existed any longer. So the science can't show anything beyond that. That doesn't mean that's the limit though. 

I think the language around this can be a little unhelpful to be honest - similarly with effects on transmission. They don't know the effects on transmission from the vaccines so the scientifically correct thing is not to assume any. Which I get, but a lot of people hear as 'there aren't any' which I think is unlikely to be true.


----------



## andysays (Apr 14, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Not nice to read that we are creating perfect conditions for mutating but it rings true. In particular the dangers while we can't vaccinate kids and young people. I've given up talking about a zero covid strategy to people though. Everyone has bought into the idea you can vaccinate and open up, to the point that I find myself going along with it and have to catch myself. I am happy to move about a bit more now, though on the basis of lower transmission rather than the vaccine. But I'm not under the illusion it will necessarily stay this way. We might get lucky and get no nasty mutations. But it will be luck, because the government strategy appears not to be thinking about it at all.


We *can* vaccinate children (once vaccines have been approved) and younger people, but obviously we haven't got to that point yet.

Providing the vaccines work long term, and a new variant which vaccines don't work on doesn't emerge, we should reach a point where most people are vaccinated and life can return to something like normal.

We're not there yet though, and there are still some questions to be answered about the longer term.


----------



## Badgers (Apr 14, 2021)

maomao said:


> The vaccine lasts for eight months right? So do we have to start the vaccination cycle again in September? For ever? Or do they round it off to a year and we lose 20-30,000 people in the last few months every year? I'm happy the death rate is down but I don't get the long term plan.


Just a heads up on this. 

The ongoing vaccination contract has been outsourced from the NHS on a 6 year contract.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 14, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Just a heads up on this.
> 
> The ongoing vaccination contract has been outsourced from the NHS on a 6 year contract.



Of course it has


----------



## Badgers (Apr 14, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Of course it has


Sadly the company I work for (needs must) and have been offered a job on this. Understand they are recruiting for 2800 staff to book appointments.


----------



## Border Reiver (Apr 14, 2021)

maomao said:


> The vaccine lasts for eight months right? So do we have to start the vaccination cycle again in September? For ever? Or do they round it off to a year and we lose 20-30,000 people in the last few months every year? I'm happy the death rate is down but I don't get the long term plan.


At least eight months. We do not know how long as not enough time has passed. It is likely to have a longer effect but like influenza vaccines will probably need an annual update as new variants emerge.


----------



## Border Reiver (Apr 14, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Of course it has


Possibly in England but here in Scotland it seems to be NHS in house.


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I think two things are in play, firstly, the message is mainly directed at younger people who are more likely going to mix in larger groups, and return to workplaces earlier.
> 
> Secondly, concerns over variants, such as the South African and Brazilian ones, and their impact on how effective the vaccines are, in Brazil there're rising number of young people who are critically ill in hospital with Covid-19.



Thirdly that people dont seem all that clued up about the likely impact of the fact the vaccines dont ofer 100% protection to all, the wave modelling discussed the other week, etc.

And also that some people still have weird attitudes in regards how much lockdowns have achieved.

The Johnson quote in question is certainly an example which isnt about Johnson blurting out whatever pops into his head, its exatly the sort of thing that I expect to match up with some SAGE etc discussions from recent times, once such papers are published and I've had time to notice and read them.

His claim was oversimplified in that vaccination is thought to have some impact on various data curves. So if it had been me making the point, I would have said that the overall shape of the epidemic curve has been set by the virus and our behavioural response to it including lockdown. And that vaccination has likely provided some additional modification to the shape in recent months, its made the decline phase more impressive, but it didnt drive the overall shape. If all goes well then the balance will shift and at some point I would make a different claim that gives vaccination a bigger slice of credit.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 14, 2021)

maomao said:


> ...the long term plan.



The last long term plan in this country petered out in about 1948.


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2021)

andysays said:


> Providing the vaccines work long term, and a new variant which vaccines don't work on doesn't emerge, we should reach a point where most people are vaccinated and life can return to something like normal.



I dont think that ideal scenario is really what the authorities expect, hence them going on for a long time already about variants and booster shots and the ongoing nature of things.

Not that experts & authorities have all the answers, and the level of genomic mutation surveillance for this pandemic virus offers a more detailed view than humanity is used to seeing. There are a range of default assumptions that remain to either be reinforced or obliterated by what happens in subsequent chapters, so I dont like to make concrete predictions.

All the same, it is reasonable to expect immunity to wane over time, and for some mutations, including some that are already out there in various countries, to have an impact on vaccine effectiveness. So some of the best case scenarios almost resemble a miracle to me, although I wont go so far as to totally rule them out.

Assuming there is some trouble with vaccine escape mutants ahead, causing the pandemic to drag on, a slightly different set of hopes could still emerge round the corner. For example there might be a somewhat limited number of key mutations that make the biggest differences to this viruses relationship with humans, their immune systems and vaccines. So we might have to struggle on for longer than people are hoping, with some sizeable setbacks, but still eventually reach a point where the key bases are covered. Even then, when there is talk about 'learning to live with the virus' this also includes some expectation that this includes learning to to let some die with the virus. A lesson the UK establishment doesnt need because they've been somewhat comfortable with that from the start, and for them its more a question of finding a level where the numbers add up both in terms of practical impact on the NHS etc, and what level of death is politically acceptable for the long term.

I dont rule out a much happier and quicker end to matters, but I dont put much faith in that outcome unless its actually demonstrated for real over a reasonably long period of time.


----------



## pogofish (Apr 14, 2021)

Signs that I’m too used to all this:

I was half way through that cigarette before I realised. I stiil had the face mask on!


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> More insults.
> 
> I’ll see you all back here on the 13th of October and we’ll see if we are at 50,000 cases and on track for 200 deaths a day.
> 
> ...


October 13 this year?


----------



## glitch hiker (Apr 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> No one knows how long the vaccines last, they haven't been around long enough to know.


I guess we'll only know if/when cases rise again.

Which, if the bus into town earlier was indicative, won't be long. Seriously, how do people not understand how masks workafter a year of this?

Saying that probably makes me sound like an arse, but there are people wearing it around their chin, pulling it down constantly, to eat food and chat. It's all so surreal


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 14, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> I guess we'll only know if/when cases rise again.
> 
> Which, if the bus into town earlier was indicative, won't be long. Seriously, how do people not understand how masks workafter a year of this?


Did they have them over their eyes?


----------



## glitch hiker (Apr 14, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Did they have them over their eyes?


No, they had them around their chins leaving their mouths and noses (and eyes) completely clear.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 14, 2021)

It pisses me off when I see people wearing masks below their nose.

I took a mate to a serious hospital appointment yesterday, and I couldn't believe it when we went into to see the consultant, and he was wearing his mask below his nose, FFS a hospital consultant.  

I had to hold back saying anything, which was very hard, as it was not my appointment, I was only there as my mate's 'emotional support animal'.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It pisses me off when I see people wearing masks below their nose.
> 
> I took a mate to a serious hospital appointment yesterday, and I couldn't believe it when we went into to see the consultant, and he was wearing his mask below his nose, FFS a hospital consultant.
> 
> I had to hold back saying anything, which was very hard, as it was not my appointment, I was only there as my mate's 'emotional support animal'.



I don't use them but those common disposable masks always seem to be slipping down below the nose.  Anyone wearing them (and who gives a shit) seems to be fighting an endless losing battle to keep their nose covered.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 14, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I don't use them but those common disposable masks always seem to be slipping down below the nose.  Anyone wearing them (and who gives a shit) seems to be fighting an endless losing battle to keep their nose covered.



You mean this sort?


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 14, 2021)

Yeah.  Constantly being readjusted or just hanging below the nose.


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 14, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah.  Constantly being readjusted or just hanging below the nose.


I don’t know how people manage them for whole days. Hard on the ears. The best ones have straps that go round your head instead


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 14, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah.  Constantly being readjusted or just hanging below the nose.



Well, that's weird, because they come with a flexible plastic strip embedded in them, so you can mould them around your nose.  Wearing cloth masks I found would result in my glasses steaming up, wearing these prevent that problem, because they give a snug fit around the nose. 

They have been used by hospital staff & dentists for years, long before covid, I've never seen anyone constantly adjusting them.  🤷‍♂️


----------



## MJ100 (Apr 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I think two things are in play, firstly, the message is mainly directed at younger people who are more likely going to mix in larger groups, and return to workplaces earlier.
> 
> Secondly, concerns over variants, such as the South African and Brazilian ones, and their impact on how effective the vaccines are, in Brazil there're rising number of young people who are critically ill in hospital with Covid-19.



That's all true and yes, lockdowns obviously brought cases down, but the point is that it sounds like he's saying 'Vaccines hardly change anything.' He's then directing that at younger people, who are the most likely to be vaccine hesitant anyway. It's his choice of words and phrasing that is pissing a lot of people off from what I've seen because it could cause increased hesitancy if people think the vaccines hardly make any difference ("No point me being vaccinated if lockdowns did everything"). He should be promoting their benefits at every turn, not seemingly undermining their effectiveness and only mentioning them in passing.


----------



## miss direct (Apr 14, 2021)

What was the highest ever number of cases per day in the UK?


----------



## xenon (Apr 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It pisses me off when I see people wearing masks below their nose.
> 
> I took a mate to a serious hospital appointment yesterday, and I couldn't believe it when we went into to see the consultant, and he was wearing his mask below his nose, FFS a hospital consultant.
> 
> I had to hold back saying anything, which was very hard, as it was not my appointment, I was only there as my mate's 'emotional support animal'.



when my dad was in hospital last year, at least one member of staff came in without wearing a mask. My uncle was there and pointed it out to the staff nurse. There were loads of visitors coming into the hospital without masks as well.


----------



## xenon (Apr 14, 2021)

miss direct said:


> What was the highest ever number of cases per day in the UK?



i remember 60,000. I think that was in January. May have got higher.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 14, 2021)

miss direct said:


> What was the highest ever number of cases per day in the UK?



We hit an average of just under 60k a day at the start of Jan.









						United Kingdom COVID - Coronavirus Statistics - Worldometer
					

United Kingdom Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## ricbake (Apr 14, 2021)

miss direct said:


> What was the highest ever number of cases per day in the UK?


Did it get higher than 60,916 on the 5th January?


----------



## ricbake (Apr 14, 2021)

CSSEGISandData/COVID-19 

8th January 68,053


----------



## maomao (Apr 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I took a mate to a serious hospital appointment yesterday, and I couldn't believe it when we went into to see the consultant, and he was wearing his mask below his nose, FFS a hospital consultant.


I reminded one of my son's consultants that masks are meant to cover noses too back in January. We were in a very busy hospital with hundreds of covid patients in it and he knew he was in the wrong though.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 14, 2021)

maomao said:


> I reminded one of my son's consultants that masks are meant to cover noses too back in January. We were in a very busy hospital with hundreds of covid patients in it and he knew he was in the wrong though.



Good for you, but it's a bit different doing it in front of your son, than in front of a 67 year-old, who's basically well stressed out & breaking down, and didn't need anything else stressing him out.


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2021)

ricbake said:


> CSSEGISandData/COVID-19
> 
> 8th January 68,053



And by test specimen date using the UK dashboard data, there were 81,531 samples from the 29th December which came back positive.

Test system scaled up much better in the second wave but still wouldnt expect the numbers to come close to the actual number of infections they would have calculated by using broader population infection surveys. Plus given things like the amount of excess deaths at the peak of the first wave, its quite possible the total number of infections at the peak of the first wave was higher than the second. But there is no way to be sure due to the feeble testing capacity during the first wave.


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2021)

IC3D said:


> He subtly referred to care home staff having having mandatory vaccines there I thought. Not NHS? Unions?



That agenda has emerged as far as England goes:









						Covid jab could be required for England care home staff
					

Nearly half of all older adult care homes do not meet recommended vaccine thresholds, the government says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Mation (Apr 15, 2021)

spitfire said:


> Anyway, cool story bro but in case anyone else here is still under 50 here's the link.


I think it's just you


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 15, 2021)

Mation said:


> I think it's just you



I'm not 40 yet but I've been 50 since I was in my teens


----------



## 5t3IIa (Apr 15, 2021)

spitfire said:


> Reinstated post as all sorted out now.
> 
> I didn't realise bookings were live for people over 45. Just had a very strange 5 minutes on Twitter where a TV historian and his mate helped me get booked up.
> 
> ...


Thanks for this. I did click this link a few days ago and chose a place and time....then got to the 2nd vax booking part and it said "We cannot find a slot for your 2nd appointment" with only the option to 'change access needs', which send me back to the previous option, which obvs isn't actually an option. So I just tried again just now and it said I missed an appointment but could book again! It's a bit crap to not have any kind of acknowledgment of a successful booking whatsoever  Not your fault, of course, but pfft. It looks like a missed an appointment I didn't know I had and am indavertantly a shit patient, which isn't very fair.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 15, 2021)

5t3IIa said:


> Thanks for this. I did click this link a few days ago and chose a place and time....then got to the 2nd vax booking part and it said "We cannot find a slot for your 2nd appointment" with only the option to 'change access needs', which send me back to the previous option, which obvs isn't actually an option. So I just tried again just now and it said I missed an appointment but could book again! It's a bit crap to not have any kind of acknowledgment of a successful booking whatsoever  Not your fault, of course, but pfft. It looks like a missed an appointment I didn't know I had and am indavertantly a shit patient, which isn't very fair.



I had nowt but problems with that site, when trying to book my first jab, it thought I had already had one, but didn't know which vaccine as it wasn't on my vaccination record, and I couldn't get any further. So, I phoned them 3 times, and each time I was promised call backs, that never happened.   

The following week I got an invite from the GP & an appointment a couple of days later & second one in June, so instead of driving to one of the NHS centres in Brighton or Chichester, it was a short walk down to the surgery, so all worked out well in the end. 

After I booked with the GP, I thought I would check out the website to so if the issue had been resolved, and it told me I had missed my first appointment, just checked again and now it says I've missed my second appointment, bloody hopeless.  

Across the coastal strip of West Sussex, there's one booking number for all the GP surgeries & hubs, and I know a couple of people that called them as soon as their age group became eligible, but before getting the GP's invite, and got appointments within 2 days. Certainly here, the GPs seem to be racing ahead in competition with the NHS direct system, there's a lot of money for them to make if they get to people first, as they are getting £12.58 per jab. 

So, if you're still having problems, it may be worth checking your GP's website, and see if they have a dedicated booking line, or even just ring the surgery if you can't book with the NHS direct, and you may be lucky.


----------



## 5t3IIa (Apr 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I had nowt but problems with that site, when trying to book my first jab, it thought I had already had one, but didn't know which vaccine as it wasn't on my vaccination record, and I couldn't get any further. So, I phoned them 3 times, and each time I was promised call backs, that never happened.
> 
> The following week I got an invite from the GP & an appointment a couple of days later & second one in June, so instead of driving to one of the NHS centres in Brighton or Chichester, it was a short walk down to the surgery, so all worked out well in the end.
> 
> ...


Well, I got as far as place, date and time for the 1st jab when I tried just now so I'll rock up to that appointment as see how I get on  It seems to figure that it _is _booked now?  On balance, I could easily have waited for a GP invite but I thought I'd been proactive at something...as all I've been able to be is reactive and obedident for so long.


----------



## PursuedByBears (Apr 15, 2021)

I don't think you have a confirmed booking until you get to the page with a booking reference number, which it says you need to show when you go for the jab.


----------



## magneze (Apr 15, 2021)

Pretty sure you should get a confirmation email too.


----------



## BassJunkie (Apr 15, 2021)

I booked on Monday (I think). And gave them my email and phone number for confirmation. They didn't confirm by either method until about an hour before the jab (on Wednesday).


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Apr 15, 2021)

magneze said:


> Pretty sure you should get a confirmation email too.


when I booked one for my friend this morning it asked if confirmation was wanted. Confirmation was swiftly received.


----------



## Mation (Apr 15, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> when I booked one for my friend this morning it asked if confirmation was wanted. Confirmation was swiftly received.


That's a fucking stupid question though, unless you haven't given any means by which they could confirm.

Why wouldn't confirmation be automatic??


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Apr 15, 2021)

Mation said:


> That's a fucking stupid question though, unless you haven't given any means by which they could confirm.
> 
> Why wouldn't confirmation be automatic??


I thought it was weird too, but it did ask and then gave you the option to enter mobile number and email.
Maybe some sort of failsafe reminder for people who don't screenshot their confirmation pages?


----------



## spitfire (Apr 15, 2021)

I haven't received a confirmation email yet. I did take a screenshot though because of all the uncertainty when it wasn't clear if we were eligible or not. I'm booked in for Tuesday so will report back if I get the same as BassJunkie.

And it is a stupid question, just confirm it FFS.


----------



## Sunray (Apr 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> .....
> 
> Across the coastal strip of West Sussex, there's one booking number for all the GP surgeries & hubs, and I know a couple of people that called them as soon as their age group became eligible, but before getting the GP's invite, and got appointments within 2 days. Certainly here, the GPs seem to be racing ahead in competition with the NHS direct system, there's a lot of money for them to make if they get to people first, *as they are getting £12.58 per jab.*
> 
> So, if you're still having problems, it may be worth checking your GP's website, and see if they have a dedicated booking line, or even just ring the surgery if you can't book with the NHS direct, and you may be lucky.



I think this is the reason they go more smoothly. I got a text from my GP and it was all done in a few days.

Actually now I think of it my next one is soon, I'm still up for the AZ vaccine. I see 2nd doses are now the majority but the 12-week thing was a success.  I read the other day that people who like me already had COVID-19 + a vaccine are super immune even after the 1st dose but should still have the second. Something about the t-cells.  What we know about Covid reinfection, immunity and vaccines

Are they going to mix up the vaccines I wonder?  I'm up for a Moderna one.  I read ages ago this can be therapeutic.


----------



## Sunray (Apr 16, 2021)

The current quarantine process:  
My friend recently got back from Finland (she's has a Finish passport) and had to self-quarantine.  This was last week.

On a positive note given the shambles of past performance, I was truly amazed to learn she got called >3 times a day< to ask where she was and they checked the GPS on the app.  So self-quarantine isn't quite the free for all you might think.  Called so often she got to know the people who called her.  I was impressed.

This didn't last long.  Her experience shows it's still a disaster.  You are supposed to take a covid test on day 2 and at day 8.  You have to pay lots for them, turned out it was essentially a government-backed scam. None arrived for anyone.  It was a genuine testing place but nobody bothered to check if they could cope with the numbers.  So none of those tests got sent, everyone is getting refunds and we have to hope that 10 days was enough time....  

Oh and Heathrow is a super spreader as the queues take hours and no social distancing, all indoors.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 16, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Are they going to mix up the vaccines I wonder?  I'm up for a Moderna one.  I read ages ago this can be therapeutic.



There's no plan to do so ATM, but there is a study under way looking into mixing the AZ & Pfizer ones, which is being extended to include the Moderna or Novavax ones too. 









						'Mix and match' UK Covid vaccine trial expanded
					

Using different shots for the first and second doses might give better protection, say experts.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 16, 2021)

Quite correct IMO that mixing vaccines has not generally been happening.

(I thought I'd read that there might? have been odd exceptions in rare circumstances? but that BBC story doesn't mention it  )

It's good that there's a study going on to see whether mixing is safe/possible, but I tend to think that the default position should be to stick to the same vaccine for the second.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 16, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Quite correct IMO that mixing vaccines has not generally been happening.
> 
> (I thought I'd read that there might? have been odd exceptions in rare circumstances? but that BBC story doesn't mention it  )
> 
> It's good that there's a study going on to see whether mixing is safe/possible, but I tend to think that the default position should be to stick to the same vaccine for the second.



I think it was approved for use where there was no alternative - ie the second dose of the same vaccine wasn't available. I haven't heard that that's been the case anywhere yet though.


----------



## prunus (Apr 16, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Quite correct IMO that mixing vaccines has not generally been happening.
> 
> (I thought I'd read that there might? have been odd exceptions in rare circumstances? but that BBC story doesn't mention it  )
> 
> It's good that there's a study going on to see whether mixing is safe/possible, but I tend to think that the default position should be to stick to the same vaccine for the second.



Why?   It could well be the case (and my lightly-educated guess is that it will turn out to be the case) that using a different vaccine for the booster gives superior protection - this is one of the things being tested, not just safety and possibility.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 16, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> (I thought I'd read that there might? have been odd exceptions in rare circumstances? but that BBC story doesn't mention it  )



I remember it was under consideration if the EU blocked supplies from Pfizer to the UK, resulting in second doses not being available & therefore being replaced with a AZ jab, but it never came to anything.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 16, 2021)

prunus said:


> Why?   It could well be the case (and my lightly-educated guess is that it will turn out to be the case) that *using a different vaccine for the booster gives superior protection* - this is one of the things being tested, not just safety and possibility.



Yep, that's my understanding too.


----------



## Supine (Apr 16, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Quite correct IMO that mixing vaccines has not generally been happening.
> 
> (I thought I'd read that there might? have been odd exceptions in rare circumstances? but that BBC story doesn't mention it  )



Your memory serves you well 

There was a little story about this. It was regulated that second dose can be different in exceptional circumstances. Like if nobody knows what the first jab was, or supplies of the first jab product run out.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 16, 2021)

prunus said:


> Why?   It could well be the case (and my lightly-educated guess is that it will turn out to be the case) that using a different vaccine for the booster gives superior protection - this is one of the things being tested, not just safety and possibility.



I think Will is saying that the default position should be stuck to until proven otherwise that mixing and matching provides better protection.  Which is the sound position to take.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 16, 2021)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> Quite correct IMO that mixing vaccines has not generally been happening.
> 
> (I thought I'd read that there might? have been odd exceptions in rare circumstances? but that BBC story doesn't mention it  )
> 
> It's good that there's a study going on to see whether mixing is safe/possible, but I tend to think that the default position should be to stick to the same vaccine for the second.





prunus said:


> Why?   It could well be the case (and my lightly-educated guess is that it will turn out to be the case) that using a different vaccine for the booster gives superior protection - this is one of the things being tested, not just safety and possibility.



As I said though, in no way am I not in favour of this vaccine-mix trial.

I was just taking a  cautious approach in my not-very-science-savvy mind (  ), and saying that my instinct (*UNLESS* sound trials prove that mixing is as safe or better), would be to stick to the same-vaccine approach.

As Teaboy summarised well


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Apr 16, 2021)

Sunray said:


> The current quarantine process:
> My friend recently got back from Finland (she's has a Finish passport) and had to self-quarantine.  This was last week.
> 
> On a positive note given the shambles of past performance, I was truly amazed to learn she got called >3 times a day< to ask where she was and they checked the GPS on the app.  So self-quarantine isn't quite the free for all you might think.  Called so often she got to know the people who called her.  I was impressed.
> ...



I occasionally get emails from a company called Testing For All because I did an antibody test trial with them.
No idea if the £99 they quote is more or less than your friend paid - or how efficient they are, or even if they're a different company than the government backed one you quote, but anyway...



> Our *Arrivals Test Package is now available for £99* and can be used to fulfil the mandatory testing requirements upon arrival in the UK.
> 
> Our test package includes:
> 
> ...


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 16, 2021)

This from the ZOE app email seems a bit premature, no? 





> Some more good news! Daily new cases of COVID-19 continue to decline in the UK according to our most recent data. Tim discusses what this means in his latest video, and suggests we’re now close to reaching herd immunity, thanks to the success of the vaccination programme.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 16, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> This from the ZOE app email seems a bit premature, no?



Euurgh, I thought we'd all given up on that statement / concept.  Fauci was saying the other day that its just an elusive concept.


----------



## glitch hiker (Apr 16, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> This from the ZOE app email seems a bit premature, no?


How can he know? Isn't the ZOE sample size really small? I think it's great work what they're doing but the sample size always bugged me.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Euurgh, I thought we'd all given up on that statement / concept.  Fauci was saying the other day that its just an elusive concept.



No it cannot be completely abandoned, only certain versions of it, its at the heart of all the modelling exercises. Certain versions of it can be given up on but some of its principals remain important aspects of mass public health epidemiology. 

If you abandon the vaccine-based population immunity angles then I dont see where the light at the end of the tunnel is possibly supposed to come from. Traditional epidemic modelling has 'level of population susceptibility' at the very heart of the modelling, and that sort of thing is the reason why even without lockdowns etc, we still see waves that end.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

I'll look at what the ZOE bloke said later. Certainly the modelling in March suggested that reaching population immunity, even with the vaccine rollout on track, wasnt something they expected till September-October.

And new variants can scupper those calculations if they evade either natural or vaccine-acquired immunity that has built up.


----------



## magneze (Apr 16, 2021)

Seems a bit premature. Didn't a Brazil think they'd achieved herd immunity as over 70% had antibodies? Didn't seem to help.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

magneze said:


> Seems a bit premature. Didn't a Brazil think they'd achieved herd immunity as over 70% had antibodies? Didn't seem to help.



Well one region of Brazil. But yes, thats looking like an example of a variant evading previous immunity and destroying their hopes and expectations.


----------



## magneze (Apr 16, 2021)

I mean "achieved" is probably the wrong word. "Let the virus rip through the population, kill tens of thousands and accidentally endup with herd immunity." Is more accurate


----------



## editor (Apr 16, 2021)

Interesting piece



> Everything we know about how people in the UK behave in the pandemic should demonstrate that these characterisations of young people’s behaviour are misguided. A survey from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released this month found that compliance among young people was high, while an ONS survey from March found that more than 40 per cent of over-80s had broken lockdown rules after getting their first jab. A recent survey from YouGov also showed that a majority of young people believed they would likely continue to follow the rules as restrictions began to ease – a trend consistent across every single age group, rather than showing under 30s were taking a lax approach.
> 
> This, coupled with the science and stats around outdoor transmission, should mean that these pictures of people drinking outdoors show nothing to fear. So why do they still cause alarm?
> 
> ...







__





						Why do pictures of busy outdoor pubs still trigger panic about Covid-19?
					

We know that outdoor transmission is essentially non-existent, so why are images of people distancing in beer gardens met with sneering online?




					www.newstatesman.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> How can he know? Isn't the ZOE sample size really small? I think it's great work what they're doing but the sample size always bugged me.



Its been large enough to provide useful results, although I wouldnt like to use it as my only source of info, and the sample size is too small to avoid background noise in some areas such as Northern Ireland.

I got round to watching the video, which reinforced my opinion that I am not a huge fan of the way he describes things. For example he goes on about how rates of infection were already dropping before lockdown, which rather ignores the previous steps on the way to full lockdown, such as the imposition of tier 3 restrictions in London etc, and the earlier imposition of such things in some parts of the North.

But I'd also acknowledge that I sometimes paint too simple a picture myself. Perhaps the sensible approach is to assume that the realities are likely to be somewhere in between the sorts of things he is keen to say, and the sorts of things I and the more cautious modellers will come out with.

And what we all have in common is that it isnt possible to describe with any great certainty what will happen with mutants that can escape immunity, its impossible to properly build such unknowns into our detailed expectations of the future. So for example if something bad happens on that front that changes the game, he will start singing a different tune and will be able to do so without totally contradicting his current optimism and stance.

I'd like to think I have still been able to talk about good news when it is clearly visible in the data, and plenty of whats happened in 2021 in this country so far has been impressive. Its just I cannot help but still be weighed down by various forms of caution, I wont be able to leap ahead to the ultimate end-game good news until its clearly happened and demonstrated an ability to be sustained.


----------



## andysays (Apr 16, 2021)

prunus said:


> Why?   It could well be the case (and my lightly-educated guess is that it will turn out to be the case) that using a different vaccine for the booster gives superior protection - this is one of the things being tested, not just safety and possibility.


Can anyone explain (ideally in fairly simple terms) why using a combination of two different vaccines would be more effective than two doses of the same one?


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

editor said:


> Interesting piece
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Its not too bad, I suppose its not a million miles away from my stance. I would not have used the words 'effectively non-existent' when describing outdoors transmission, thats going just a little too far. Levels of compliance amongst young people is also quite a bit more complicated than described there, although I'm not going to try to explain that more today. Certainly the article would have benefitted from more of a look into what did sustain the virus over summer and all the factors behind the resurgence. I'm not convinced that lessons in regard how long it takes a resurgence to really build back to high levels takes are visible in that article, and its important to consider that properly when looking at what happened last summer. I'm certainly glad they made mention of indoor settings and misleading ideas about safety measures in such settings, although I dont really agree that we we taught to 'not think twice about friends sat around at a dinner party', as demonstrated by what happened when high-profile people were caught ignoring such rules.

Beyond these picky details yeah, some of whats said in that article does explain why I've tried hard not to go mad at such outdoor imagery or predict immediate doom and new waves within a few weeks.


----------



## Supine (Apr 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> Can anyone explain (ideally in fairly simple terms) why using a combination of two different vaccines would be more effective than two doses of the same one?



if you’re giving your body a lesson in how to identify covid you can give it the exact same lecture twice, or you get a second lecturer to teach the second class. Both systems result in your body learning the lesson.


----------



## stdP (Apr 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> Can anyone explain (ideally in fairly simple terms) why using a combination of two different vaccines would be more effective than two doses of the same one?



If you're using a weakened version of a virus to deliver a vaccine to your cells, and it works, then on the next your next dose your cells might fight off some of the vaccine before it gets to do its thing. Mixing two vaccines that have different delivery methods ("vectors") means your first shot likely won't prevent the second (different) shot from working with full efficacy.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> Can anyone explain (ideally in fairly simple terms) why using a combination of two different vaccines would be more effective than two doses of the same one?



I'm not in a position to have a proper stab at answering that but for now I'll just say the immune system is complex and not fully understood, and there are signs that some vaccines work better at generating antibodies and others seem to work better at immune responses on a cellular level, eg t-cells which are a different part of the immune system.

Beyond that stuff I'd say the studies also have a different motive - they think that the ongoing nature of vaccination programmes and the logistics of supply mean that its quite likely that people will end up having different vaccines over time. And they want to make sure that doesnt cause problems. This aspect is referred to several times in this sort of news story:









						'Mix and match' UK Covid vaccine trial expanded
					

Using different shots for the first and second doses might give better protection, say experts.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Prof Jeremy Brown, a member of the UK's Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation, which advises on vaccines, said in coming years people will eventually "have to" have a mix of Covid-19 jabs.
> 
> He told the BBC: "It's practically going to have to be that way because, once you've completed a course of, say, the Moderna or Pfizer or the AstraZeneca, with two doses - in the future, it's going to be quite difficult to guarantee you get the same type of vaccine again."


----------



## andysays (Apr 16, 2021)

Thanks x3


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

One last comment from me on ZOE videos before I take a break.

I dont think I can properly describe exactly what makes me nervous about some of their stances some of the time. But I am certainly not impressed that they did a youtube video on April 8th which was titled "Third wave in summer unlikely as cases plummet" but then the video itself only makes vague reference to that and offers no real detailed explanation.

I do wish that university modelling of third wave potential was repeatedly performed and published, because otherwise I end up looking back at stuff that gets published around the time of lockdown/lockdown easing decisions, with big gaps in between. At some point I will go back and look at the late March modelling to see if they had made assumptions about expected rates in April which have already become wide of the mark.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> I do wish that university modelling of third wave potential was repeatedly performed and published, because otherwise I end up looking back at stuff that gets published around the time of lockdown/lockdown easing decisions, with big gaps in between. At some point I will go back and look at the late March modelling to see if they had made assumptions about expected rates in April which have already become wide of the mark.


Certainly it would be interesting to see how reality has turned out compared to modelling last month and also earlier in the year.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Certainly it would be interesting to see how reality has turned out compared to modelling last month and also earlier in the year.



Its hard to talk about properly though and the window of opportunities to compare modelling to reality dont last very long. Mostly because the modelling is more about looking at multiple scenarios rather than trying to forecast what will happen under the real conditions we actually end up facing. And there are so many variables that I struggle to describe the modelling here in a way that really does justice to all the details.

I suppose the reason I'm not too impressed with some of the language from ZOE is that the March modelling scenarios lead to a range of third wave sizes but as best I can tell these outcomes arent really affected much by how low we manage to push the infection rates at the stage we are at right now. But I suppose that there is a way to connect these in a way that does have implications for any third wave. eg If low numbers seen at the moment provide a guide that vaccine effectiveness is turning out to be on the more impressive end of estimates, then some of the less deadly scenarios become more likely (assuming such scenarios were driven by feeding better vaccination impact into the models.). I probably need to wait till the period where rises in hospitalisations and deaths show up in the models, and then I could take a failure to see such rises as a promising sign.

Never mind, I suppose that I dont consider it likely that any impressive good news at this stage would really leave me in a position where I would start making promises to people about now seeing another wave. At best I'd just be talking about the next wave being on the smaller side. Or the timing being different, eg later if seasonal factors and school summer holidays have quite a large impact.

As usual there are too many graphs for me to do them all justice so here is just one I plucked from a different Universities modelling exercise compared to those I've posted before. I'm only posting such things again now to illustrate why I find ZOE third wave claims to be ill-advised. The numbers in boxes at moments in time reflect the lockdown easing stages, so the first graph only includes the first 2 steps of unlocking happening, and the second sees all the unlocking stages continue as planned.


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...nterim_roadmap_assessment_prior_to_Step_2.pdf


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 16, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Euurgh, I thought we'd all given up on that statement / concept.  Fauci was saying the other day that its just an elusive concept.



It's particularly unhelpful when you've got anti-lockdown gobshites like Laurence Fox declaring that we've already achieved 'herd immunity' on the basis of zero evidence and zero pertinent scientific understanding. 

How we can have herd immunity and rising levels of community transmission at the same time only the gods know.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2021)

Not hugely relevant now but Gupta of the Great Barrington Declaration guff came with the idea there was herd immunity in summer of last year..









						‘Herd Immunity’ approach backed by Oxford professor labelled as ‘fallacy’ – The Oxford Student
					

Professor Sunetra Gupta of the Zoology department has had her proposal of herd immunity as a solution to the Covid-19 pandemic criticised by other leading scientists and student groups. Gupta co-wrote the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ alongside Harvard’s Professor Martin Kulldorff and Stanford...




					www.oxfordstudent.com


----------



## teuchter (Apr 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its hard to talk about properly though and the window of opportunities to compare modelling to reality dont last very long. Mostly because the modelling is more about looking at multiple scenarios rather than trying to forecast what will happen under the real conditions we actually end up facing. And there are so many variables that I struggle to describe the modelling here in a way that really does justice to all the details.
> 
> I suppose the reason I'm not too impressed with some of the language from ZOE is that the March modelling scenarios lead to a range of third wave sizes but as best I can tell these outcomes arent really affected much by how low we manage to push the infection rates at the stage we are at right now. But I suppose that there is a way to connect these in a way that does have implications for any third wave. eg If low numbers seen at the moment provide a guide that vaccine effectiveness is turning out to be on the more impressive end of estimates, then some of the less deadly scenarios become more likely (assuming such scenarios were driven by feeding better vaccination impact into the models.). I probably need to wait till the period where rises in hospitalisations and deaths show up in the models, and then I could take a failure to see such rises as a promising sign.
> 
> ...


I guess what I'd take from that is that they don't forecast anything noticeable to happen until shortly after step 3 (which I think is the mid-May one). And that timing is not really affected by whether or not step 3 is actually taken.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 16, 2021)

There seems to me to be an over-sensitivity about the term "herd immunity". Or maybe it has simply taken on a different meaning from what it had two years ago?

Is it not the case that the whole point of a vaccination programme, ideally, is to obtain a level of herd immunity? It doesn't necessarily imply something that is achieved by allowing a disease to spread freely through the population.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There seems to me to be an over-sensitivity about the term "herd immunity". Or maybe it has simply taken on a different meaning from what it had two years ago?
> 
> Is it not the case that the whole point of a vaccination programme, ideally, is to obtain a level of herd immunity? It doesn't necessarily imply something that is achieved by allowing a disease to spread freely through the population.


Yes that's what I thought the correct definition was.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There seems to me to be an over-sensitivity about the term "herd immunity". Or maybe it has simply taken on a different meaning from what it had two years ago?
> 
> Is it not the case that the whole point of a vaccination programme, ideally, is to obtain a level of herd immunity? It doesn't necessarily imply something that is achieved by allowing a disease to spread freely through the population.



Id break this response down into several different pieces. I think I already talked about this earlier this week. There is stuff your last point alludes to, eg the stuff that relates to this governments botched initial calculations where they thought they would just let the virus rip through the population to achieve such levels. And then there are the realities including the modelling, where levels of population susceptibility are at the very heart of such calculations, why natural course of epidemics and pandemics still features waves that end even without lockdowns and vaccines, etc.

A lot of that stuff I only bring up now with the hope we can put some of it to one side, and focus on reasons to complain about people declaring that herd immunity thresholds have been reached before they actually have. Or even making such claims when they 'might be true' but cannot be fully proven with data yet. As usual I recommend the cautious approach. Claims on that front should be treated with some suspicion, and the suspicion should be multiplied when the person coming out with it has a clear agenda (eg anti-lockdown).


----------



## andysays (Apr 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There seems to me to be an over-sensitivity about the term "herd immunity". Or maybe it has simply taken on a different meaning from what it had two years ago?
> 
> Is it not the case that the whole point of a vaccination programme, ideally, is to obtain a level of herd immunity? It doesn't necessarily imply something that is achieved by allowing a disease to spread freely through the population.


So at the moment we have a partial level of herd immunity. We won't have the full effective level (at least) until everyone has had (or at a pinch been offered) both vaccinations.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 16, 2021)

I think the phrase has morphed into something else because of the perception (whether that was ever their actual approach or not) it was government policy at the start to just let it rip and who was left would immune for evermore.

Its a problem because its clearly an important concept but its become so associated with bad policy that the mere mention of it got the "urrrghh" response from me.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> So at the moment we have a partial level of hard immunity. We won't have the full effective level (at least) until everyone has had (or at a pinch been offered) both vaccinations.



It temds to be thought of in terms of thresholds, above which the impact of far fewer members of the population being susceptible causes the virus numbers fall into decline as there are not enough remaining growth opportunities. The thresholds are often quite high, but dont need to be close to 100%.

eg:





__





						Herd Immunity: Understanding COVID-19
					





					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
				






> If the fraction of susceptible individuals in a population is too few, then the pathogen cannot successfully spread, and its prevalence will decline. The point at which the proportion of susceptible individuals falls below the threshold needed for transmission is known as the herd immunity threshold (Anderson and May, 1985). Above this level of immunity, herd immunity begins to take effect, and susceptible individuals benefit from indirect protection from infection.



Susceptible, infectious and recovered stuff that the paper goes into more detail about are at the heart of most of the modelling we've ever discussed.

With or without lockdowns the shapes are similar, just the timing and scale of them varies. Since with lockdowns etc, we are changing the number of susceptibles in the population by hiding a chunk of the population away from danger, rather than them genuinely not being susceptible due to immunity etc.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 16, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I think the phrase has morphed into something else because of the perception (whether that was ever their actual approach or not) it was government policy at the start to just let it rip and who was left would immune for evermore.
> 
> Its a problem because its clearly an important concept but its become so associated with bad policy that the mere mention of it got the "urrrghh" response from me.


Prior to this past year, it's a term that I only really thought of in basically positive terms and which usually came up in arguments with anti-vaxxers. But as you say things may have changed.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Prior to this past year, it's a term that I only really thought of in basically positive terms and which usually came up in arguments with anti-vaxxers. But as you say things may have changed.



It was inevitable that it would end up with bad connotations because despite their later claims, there was a brief period in March 2020 where the likes of Vallance tried to justify and explain the original plan on the basis that herd immunity via natural infection would eventually be achieved. It blew up in their face straight away, not least because their numbers didnt add up, and that taint will take time to diminish. In the contect of vaccinations it should not have the same negative connotations, it is a key concept and dymanic that is required for the light at the end of the tunnel to function.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

And by far the biggest problems with it now are that it is inevitably oversimplified, eg overall population pictures may hide the less pleasant outcomes for communities which are left exposed by virtue of not reaching the same low levels of susceptibility as achieved elsewhere and overall. Plus the potential of variants that can escape natural and vaccine-based immunity spoiling the simple picture. And even without mutations, the unknowns about how long both natural and vaccine-acquired immune responses last.


----------



## Mation (Apr 16, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> This from the ZOE app email seems a bit premature, no?


I really don't like the tone of any of their email updates. It's all woohoo look at this great social media community, follow us for more tidbits and opinion, type stuff.

Not really what I want from something that needs to be and seem reliable.


----------



## elbows (Apr 16, 2021)

If anyone is still confused about why Johnson has said some of the things he has recently, they probably looked at whats happening in Chile and decided to try to cover their own backs a bit more. I am not claiming thats whats happened in Chile is sure to happen here too, but given the boasting I'm not surprised they are now delivering very mixed messages about the impact of vaccinations and the future.



> The frustration and confusion many Chileans are feeling over the renewed lockdown is due partly to the fact that just two months ago, President Sebastián Piñera was boasting about Chile having one of the fastest vaccination rollouts in the world.











						Chile sees Covid surge despite vaccination success
					

The country's vaccination rollout is one of the fastest in the world, so why are Covid cases surging?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> If anyone is still confused about why Johnson has said some of the things he has recently, they probably looked at whats happening in Chile and decided to try to cover their own backs a bit more. I am not claiming thats whats happened in Chile is sure to happen here too, but given the boasting I'm not surprised they are now delivering very mixed messages about the impact of vaccinations and the future.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Its a very sad tale and frustrating because it seems like it could have been avoidable.  A lot of variables at play clearly but I don't think many other countries will be rushing to buy that Chinese vaccine unless they have no choice.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 17, 2021)

This so-called "double mutate Indian variant", which has already surfaced in the UK, seems to be causing concern, it's still designated as a “variant under investigation”, but looks like it could be upgraded to a "variant of concern" pretty soon. 



> It is designated a “variant under investigation” but is worrying researchers as it contains two mutations that it is thought may help the virus to evade the body’s immune responses. There are also concerns the variant might be more infectious than early forms of Covid-19.
> 
> Dr Simon Clarke, an associate professor of cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said that while there was yet to be proof to support such worries, there was anecdotal evidence from India.
> 
> “I think it’s fair to say that this is a candidate for becoming a variant of concern pretty soon,” he said.











						India Covid variant found in UK specimens taken in February
					

Researchers worry that ‘variant under investigation’ contains mutations that could help it evade immune response




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 17, 2021)

I was reading about this new Indian variant as well. Not too much is known yet I don't think? 

We can only crioss fingers and hope that this variant doesn't prove to be a highly infectious/fast-spreading type (experience in India suggests otherwise though?)

And please, let it not prove resistant to vaccines!  

What this expert said in the above article sounds sensible anyway :




			
				Prof Christina Pagel said:
			
		

> I’m not sure we’ll get that proof until potentially it is too late to stop it spreading in the UK, unless we start trying to contain it right now as we are for the [South Africa] variant


----------



## Badgers (Apr 17, 2021)

The situation in India is really grim. Same for a lot of countries and the pessimist in me things a spike here (rather than a 'third wave' hopefully) feels inevitable. 

These variants come in as things are opening up here and schools are back. 

Hopefully the vaccination programme stays on track and these variants are covered.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 17, 2021)

How can there not be a third wave? We've got surge testing because of the South African variant in Lambeth, Wandsorth and Hayes in the same week as end-of-lockdown maskless crowds all rammed in together.  People under 45 haven't been vaccinated. The Indian variant is just getting started in the UK and may well spread dramatically. 


In other news, the great Devi Sridhar explains everything. A 43 min podcast with horrible sound quality. Thankfully there's a transcription: It's Okay to Overreact: Devi Sridhar Shares COVID's Humbling Lesson


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Apr 18, 2021)

Popped into town yesterday - it was packed, with loads of people sat outside pubs, and shops full as if there isn't a pandemic.  Doesn't bode well.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 18, 2021)

As long as people are outside it's fine, or at least not fucking dreadful


----------



## andysays (Apr 18, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Popped into town yesterday - it was packed, with loads of people sat outside pubs, and shops full as if there isn't a pandemic.  Doesn't bode well.


It's the first Saturday the shops have been open for, what, three and a half months? It's hardly surprising they're busy, but I would hope it will tail off a bit in the coming weeks.

And as long as most people continue to observe social distancing and wear masks, it shouldn't lead to an upsurge.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Apr 18, 2021)

andysays said:


> It's the first Saturday the shops have been open for, what, three and a half months? It's hardly surprising they're busy, but I would hope it will tail off a bit in the coming weeks.
> 
> And as long as most people continue to observe social distancing and wear masks, it shouldn't lead to an upsurge.


Sadly it didn't look like anyone was - to be fair it would have been difficult given the number of people out.  I got my stuff then headed home as soon as I could.


----------



## Badgers (Apr 18, 2021)




----------



## Badgers (Apr 18, 2021)

Is India not on the 'Red List' yet? 

Anything to do with the Disgraced Prime Minister planning a 'political jolly'?


----------



## sparkybird (Apr 18, 2021)

Sunray said:


> The current quarantine process:
> My friend recently got back from Finland (she's has a Finish passport) and had to self-quarantine.  This was last week.
> 
> On a positive note given the shambles of past performance, I was truly amazed to learn she got called >3 times a day< to ask where she was and they checked the GPS on the app.  So self-quarantine isn't quite the free for all you might think.  Called so often she got to know the people who called her.  I was impressed.
> ...


Sunray I've got a friend arriving from Mexico (hopefully!) in 3 weeks - the list of potential 2 and 8 day test providers is huge! How on earth do you make a decision? Are you able to let me know which one your Finnish friend used, so I can at least avoid that one?? Many thanks


----------



## Badgers (Apr 18, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Is India not on the 'Red List' yet?
> 
> Anything to do with the Disgraced Prime Minister planning a 'political jolly'?


----------



## andysays (Apr 18, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Sadly it didn't look like anyone was - to be fair it would have been difficult given the number of people out.  I got my stuff then headed home as soon as I could.


Not wearing masks?

I went for a post lockdown haircut yesterday - everyone was wearing masks at the barber's, except when actually having their haircut.


----------



## MrSki (Apr 18, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Is India not on the 'Red List' yet?
> 
> Anything to do with the Disgraced Prime Minister planning a 'political jolly'?


I bet he has already selected his outfits from his dressing up box.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 18, 2021)

Badgers said:


>




Shades of him heading to the Covid ward and shaking hands with everyone again.


----------



## Badgers (Apr 18, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Shades of him heading to the Covid ward and shaking hands with everyone again.


Hope he dies


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Apr 18, 2021)

andysays said:


> Not wearing masks?
> 
> I went for a post lockdown haircut yesterday - everyone was wearing masks at the barber's, except when actually having their haircut.


Relatively few mask wearers about (although more inside shops).  I felt a bit out of place wearing mine.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Apr 18, 2021)

Badgers said:


>



Hopefully he'll catch a nasty mutant strain and die properly this time.


----------



## editor (Apr 18, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Popped into town yesterday - it was packed, with loads of people sat outside pubs, and shops full as if there isn't a pandemic.  Doesn't bode well.


The risks are very low if you're outside









						What are the Covid risks when I'm out and about?
					

The BBC’s David Shukman on how to navigate lockdown easing while keeping yourself and others safe.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Apr 18, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> In other news, the great Devi Sridhar explains everything. A 43 min podcast with horrible sound quality. Thankfully there's a transcription: It's Okay to Overreact: Devi Sridhar Shares COVID's Humbling Lesson



I think Sturgeon is aware of some of the points made by Devi Sridhar there.



> She says Scotland had "almost eliminated the strains that were circulating" ahead of the current lockdown "but probably opened up international travel too quickly".



Thats from the 10:15 entry of the BBC live updates page, covering an interview Sturgeon did with Sophy Ridge of Sky. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56791144

The quote isnt well worded when it comes to the 'ahead of the current lockdown' bit. The strains in question probably refers to a first wave strain that seemed, according to some research, to have reached a dead end in Scotland in late spring/early summer last year. Scotland would also have needed to do more in regards travel from the other UK nations in order to have any hope of maintaining a good situation. The Scottish government did use rhetoric about aiming for total suppression of the virus back then, but the actual policy was not really in alignment with that aspiration.


----------



## elbows (Apr 18, 2021)

Oh and there is this paper from last month, where they used some positive cases genomic analysis, combined with some contact tracing data to judge what impact travel had, and what impact travel restrictions, self isolation etc can have. Its not supposed to be a complete picture, its a fraction of the true picture of that time.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				





> The majority of importations of SARS-CoV-2 in England over Summer 2020 were from coastal European countries. The highest number of cases and onward contacts were from Greece, which was largely exempt from self-isolation requirements (bar some islands in September at the end of the study period). Systematic monitoring of imported SARS-CoV-2 cases would help refine implementation of travel restrictions. Finally, along with multiple studies, this study highlights the use of genomics to monitor and track importations of SARS-CoV-2 mutations of interest; this will be of particular use as the repertoire of clinically relevant SARS-CoV-2 variants expand over time and globally.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Apr 18, 2021)

Badgers said:


>



I've not binned any of the disposable masks I've used yet - they're sat in a bag waiting for me to make a decision what to do with them.  I forlornly hold out the hope they'll be somehow recyclable one day, but they'll probably end up in the bin.


----------



## bimble (Apr 18, 2021)

Text message from lambeth council at noon today, asking everyone over age 11 in both lambeth & wandswoth to get a PCR test 'due to new cases of the variant 1st found in south africa'.
They're going to check the samples for the variant.

This is the link if you live or work there:








						How to get a test
					

Friday 30 April was the last day that you could drop off home PCR kits or take an enhanced test in-person even if you had no symptoms  If you did not return a home PCR kit to one of our drop-off points, you should return it by post, following the instructions available inside the test kit.  If...




					beta.lambeth.gov.uk


----------



## Sunray (Apr 18, 2021)

sparkybird said:


> Sunray I've got a friend arriving from Mexico (hopefully!) in 3 weeks - the list of potential 2 and 8 day test providers is huge! How on earth do you make a decision? Are you able to let me know which one your Finnish friend used, so I can at least avoid that one?? Many thanks



I'll ask her.


----------



## tim (Apr 18, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> Hopefully he'll catch a nasty mutant strain and die properly this time.


Are you channeling Michael Gove?


----------



## Badgers (Apr 19, 2021)

Our Disgraced Prime Minister Johnson has cancelled his jolly to India


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 19, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Our Disgraced Prime Minister Johnson has cancelled his jolly to India



I came here to posted that.   

India to be added to the 'red list' in 5...4...3.......


----------



## Badgers (Apr 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I came here to posted that.
> 
> India to be added to the 'red list' in 5...4...3.......


Should have been 5...4...3....... Weeks ago


----------



## Orang Utan (Apr 19, 2021)

My council has repurposed its mobile library vans as mobile vaccination outlets and visiting areas all around the city, especially those with high vaccine-hesitancy. Fair play


----------



## two sheds (Apr 19, 2021)

thus giving you something to read in your 15 minutes after the jab


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 19, 2021)

two sheds said:


> thus giving you something to read in your 15 minutes after the jab



It’s just Maeve Binchy


----------



## two sheds (Apr 19, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> It’s just Maeve Binchy



Hadn't heard of her but she sounds lovely: 



> *Maeve* *Binchy* tells wonderful stories. They show that, whilst times change, people often remain the same: they fall in love, sometimes unsuitably; they have hopes and dreams; they have deep, long-standing friendships, and some that fall apart. *Maeve* *Binchy's* work includes wonderfully nostalgic pieces and also sharp - often witty - writing ...


----------



## Cloo (Apr 19, 2021)

Plague detectors have been round with PCR tests for our street on their sweep for SA variant in the area,  so gsv and I have done ours - they'll pick up later today.  Quite impressed by handling - they have a mobile unit by Tesco as well so they can get a sample of people who might not live in the postcode, but use the high street.


----------



## Espresso (Apr 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I came here to posted that.
> 
> India to be added to the 'red list' in 5...4...3.......


Yup. That's just been announced


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> India to be added to the 'red list' in 5...4...3.......


Attacks on Indians for spreading the virus in 5...4...3.......


----------



## elbows (Apr 19, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> How can there not be a third wave? We've got surge testing because of the South African variant in Lambeth, Wandsorth and Hayes in the same week as end-of-lockdown maskless crowds all rammed in together.  People under 45 haven't been vaccinated. The Indian variant is just getting started in the UK and may well spread dramatically.
> 
> 
> In other news, the great Devi Sridhar explains everything. A 43 min podcast with horrible sound quality. Thankfully there's a transcription: It's Okay to Overreact: Devi Sridhar Shares COVID's Humbling Lesson



Devi has annoyed Julia Hartley-Brewer.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 19, 2021)

There's a whole section on Julia Cunty-Bollocks on this site -

Covid FAQ - Julia Hartley-Brewer


> In late October, Hartley-Brewer claimed there were no excess deaths occurring. In September, she wrote that "a second wave is highly unlikely," and that there was "no evidence of a second wave". She has generally argued that the risks of Covid are lower than commonly assumed. She claimed in October 2020 that there are "no excess deaths" and in January 2021 that Covid "isn’t causing excess deaths anymore."


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 19, 2021)

Dissing Devi should really be a criminal offence. Indirectly it's bound to lead to more infections, more long term disability and more deaths. Minimum sentence 10 years.


----------



## elbows (Apr 19, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Dissing Devi should really be a criminal offence. Indirectly it's bound to lead to more infections, more long term disability and more deaths. Minimum sentence 10 years.



I have occasionally wondered what sort of hospitalisation and death rate a virus would need to cause in order for nations to start crushing people with loud, ignorant voices that represent a threat to public health.

Hartley-Brewer should fear a variant being named in her honour. "Fallout from the Hartley-Brewer variant of 2022 had a chilling effect on press freedoms. It was later discovered that several prominent Tories had shares in the gallows businesses which boomed once measures to tackle this variant were introduced"


----------



## elbows (Apr 19, 2021)

Although I'm also aware that the wording of legislation to support that would likely be broad enough that people like me, who make loud noises about various pandemic details and inadequate establishment response, could also be swept up in it.


----------



## andysays (Apr 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Devi has annoyed Julia Hartley-Brewer.



Better a Devi than a divie...

(phone attempted to autocorrect that to 'divine', which I'm sure JHB would love)


----------



## glitch hiker (Apr 20, 2021)

andysays said:


> Better a Devi than a divie...
> 
> (phone attempted to autocorrect that to 'divine', which I'm sure JHB would love)


This is how the world ends: trained objective experts respectfully informing a bewildered weary public attacked by ignorant influencers with the backing of corporate social media


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2021)

> Of the decision to put India on the UK's red list, Prof Walport told BBC Breakfast: "These decisions are almost inevitably taken a bit too late in truth, but what's absolutely clear is that this variant is more transmissible in India."
> 
> He said he believed it was becoming the "dominant variant" in India, while there were also concerns it could be more effective at escaping a natural or vaccine-induced immune response, "so there's good reasons for wanting to keep it out of the country if at all possible".
> 
> He said that "buying time" against new variants was "really important" in order to get the population vaccinated and to get booster vaccines ready.











						Covid-19: India red list add 'may be too late', Prof Mark Walport says
					

There are "good reasons" for keeping the new variant out of the UK, scientist Prof Mark Walport says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Hints of what I always say there, at best these are observe and delay attempts, not attempts at full containment.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2021)

The suicide rate didnt go up in the first lockdown according to research.

I supose I'm not surprised since there was some fear and focus on this at the time but then terrible data did not emerge, implying it didnt happen as feared.









						Covid-19: Suicide rate 'did not rise during first lockdown'
					

More people were seeking mental health support, but data shows no increase in suicides in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> The suicide rate didnt go up in the first lockdown according to research.
> 
> I supose I'm not surprised since there was some fear and focus on this at the time but then terrible data did not emerge, implying it didnt happen as feared.
> 
> ...



I was about to post that, pisses on the anti-lockdown loons, but then they will not believe it anyway.  🤷‍♂️


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 20, 2021)

I think we'll need more time to pass before we get a more complete picture of the impact of covid and lockdowns on the mental health of the nation.  Personally I'd expect these things to start manifesting themselves more when we are properly coming out the otherside from all this.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 20, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I think we'll need more time to pass before we get a more complete picture of the impact of covid and lockdowns on the mental health of the nation.  Personally I'd expect these things to start manifesting themselves more when we are properly coming out the otherside from all this.



Same.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> The suicide rate didnt go up in the first lockdown according to research.
> 
> I supose I'm not surprised since there was some fear and focus on this at the time but then terrible data did not emerge, implying it didnt happen as feared.
> 
> ...


I'm struggling to remember my references, but I do recall reading something about people's experiences during the Blitz, and quite a lot of the emotional fallout emerged once the immediate danger was over, and people struggled to return to a normal life having experienced often quite traumatic events.

The degree of trauma from Covid is likely to generally a lot less than having aircraft dropping bombs on your house, but there will undoubtedly be significant levels of distress amongst quite a few people. Just as we all start breathing a sigh of relief, it's worth remembering that - psychologically and emotionally - the country is not going to be out of the woods for some time yet.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 20, 2021)

My impression is that a lot of people have found the lockdown we've just come out of rather harder than the first one.


----------



## souljacker (Apr 20, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm struggling to remember my references, but I do recall reading something about people's experiences during the Blitz, and quite a lot of the emotional fallout emerged once the immediate danger was over, and people struggled to return to a normal life having experienced often quite traumatic events.
> 
> The degree of trauma from Covid is likely to generally a lot less than having aircraft dropping bombs on your house, but there will undoubtedly be significant levels of distress amongst quite a few people. Just as we all start breathing a sigh of relief, it's worth remembering that - psychologically and emotionally - the country is not going to be out of the woods for some time yet.



I found that whilst on furlough during the initial wave, I coped quite well. Nothing to spend money on anyway and the weather was ok so it was a bit like an extended holiday. 2nd wave was a lot tougher which wasn't helped by actually getting Covid.

However, I'm now back at work full time and I've found it far more of a struggle. I'm tired and stressed and don't want to get out of bed in the mornings. I feel like the madness of the last year has properly hit me and it's quite hard to cope. I totally agree that once this is all over, others will struggle returning to normal life, however that looks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> My impression is that a lot of people have found the lockdown we've just come out of rather harder than the first one.



Fucking hell, I agree with teuchter for once.

'Nurse, nurse, where's my meds?'


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 20, 2021)

Yeah, I remember conversations with my partner at the end of last summer saying we'd feel far more prepared and comfortable with the idea of lockdown if it were to happen again.  We were wrong.  The last few months have been grim.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Apr 20, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah, I remember conversations with my partner at the end of last summer saying we'd feel far more prepared and comfortable with the idea of lockdown if it were to happen again.  We were wrong.  The last few months have been grim.



I said from the start that this would drag on for a while and it'd be at least this Spring until things went back to normal, coped with the first lockdown fine but the second one hit me fucking hard about mid-January. Still feeling very unmotivated and tired all the time, just worn down. I can't even watch TV or films much any more.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 20, 2021)

Yup. Jan and Feb can be a bit of a struggle even in normal times.


----------



## glitch hiker (Apr 20, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I think we'll need more time to pass before we get a more complete picture of the impact of covid and lockdowns on the mental health of the nation.  Personally I'd expect these things to start manifesting themselves more when we are properly coming out the otherside from all this.


I think they are going to be manifesting now. I know I'm feeling the stress and I'm lucky it hasn't directly affected me, Covid that is. Yet hereabouts I see what could be some side effects: increased litter and some relatively minor vandalism. Bored kids perhaps made worse by circumstances.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 20, 2021)

Johnson just held a briefing.  Not much of note apart from talking about an autumn vaccine booster and desire for anti-viral drugs (oral tablet sort) available by the autumn. The plan being they could be taken at home following a positive test.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 20, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> I think they are going to be manifesting now. I know I'm feeling the stress and I'm lucky it hasn't directly affected me, Covid that is. Yet hereabouts I see what could be some side effects: increased litter and some relatively minor vandalism. Bored kids perhaps made worse by circumstances.


That is, I think, the tweeting of small birds compared to what I suspect we've got coming.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2021)

It doesnt sound like Philip Scofield is coping very well with the current stage.









						Phillip Schofield slams Covid scaremongers in heated row with Matthew Wright
					

The presenter did not hold back.




					metro.co.uk
				




I'm not happy with that attitude but I can see where it comes from. I've certainly found myself going on about variants more than I was hoping to at this stage. I'm still hoping to give it a rest for a bit. And in contrast to some earlier stages of the pandemic, there isnt much that I would consider truly inevitable at this stage. There are a number of scenarios that wont surprise me if they happen, but I dont think they are a complete given.


----------



## Sunray (Apr 20, 2021)

Oh look Boris Johnson promises a cure in the future. 

Let's take a look at the history books to see how such a statement can play out
Richard Nixon in 1971 declared war on cancer 
The world is still holding it's breath on this one.

How about antivirals?  40 years after HIV,  see how extensive the list of antiviral drugs we have made, mainly to treat (not cure) HIV.  




__





						List of antiviral drugs - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



So Boris Johnson is some superhero virologist heading up a crack shadowy team in Pfizer who are going to suprise release a totally safe pill for everyone to take in 5 months.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Apr 20, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Oh look Boris Johnson promises a cure in the future.
> 
> Let's take a look at the history books to see how such a statement can play out
> Richard Nixon in 1971 declared war on cancer
> ...


It can't possibly fail. It's a collaboration with Trump.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 20, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Oh look Boris Johnson promises a cure in the future.
> 
> Let's take a look at the history books to see how such a statement can play out
> Richard Nixon in 1971 declared war on cancer
> ...


This is just "moonshot" all over again, isn't it? And look how well that went...


----------



## LDC (Apr 20, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Oh look Boris Johnson promises a cure in the future.
> 
> Let's take a look at the history books to see how such a statement can play out
> Richard Nixon in 1971 declared war on cancer
> ...



Anti-virals for HIV are actually excellent though, both for pre-exposure to prevent infection and also prevent progression of the disease in infected.









						Second patient cured of HIV, say doctors
					

Adam Castillejo, the "London Patient", is free of the virus more than 30 months after stopping treatment.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## Sunray (Apr 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anti-virals for HIV are actually excellent though, both for pre-exposure to prevent infection and also prevent progression of the disease in infected.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I wasn't saying they are bad, did they take months to develop?


----------



## LDC (Apr 20, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I wasn't saying they are bad, did they take months to develop?



I wasn't sure what you were saying tbh, but no, they took years, but with far less resources put into them. I haven't read anything about the likelihood of anti-viral meds for this, be interested to see something that explains what's happening.


----------



## elbows (Apr 20, 2021)

Yeah I havent looked at whether there is something that could indicate actual substance behind the claims. Seems more likely to be a part of the ongoing setting of the scene in regards 'learning to live with Covid' that they are fixated on for pretty obvious reasons.

Last time there was a pandemic the UK shamelessly threw a load of tamiflu anti-viral meds around. The authorities did not cover themselves in glory on that occasion because they claimed to be using it as a prophylactic even though I dont believe there was evidence of it working against swine flu in that way. It was being seen to be doing something, and making use of stockpiles they had acquired, so people were quite skeptical about it.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Oh look Boris Johnson promises a cure in the future.
> 
> Let's take a look at the history books to see how such a statement can play out
> Richard Nixon in 1971 declared war on cancer
> ...



As with everything Johnson says I find it's best not to get to hung up on it.  His word is worthless and he's often playing to a different audience.  All he was saying yesterday is that they will be approaching anti-virals in the same way as vaccines.  Relevant persons will go out there and assess which ones currently being worked on look the most viable and then fund them accordingly.

All he was saying was that they will continue to support and fund science in the fight against covid which is what we would expect any government to do.  There was no real need to say it except for...



elbows said:


> Yeah I havent looked at whether there is something that could indicate actual substance behind the claims. Seems more likely to be a part of the ongoing setting of the scene in regards 'learning to live with Covid' that they are fixated on for pretty obvious reasons.



...this.   The announcement was wrapped up in a statement about living with the virus.  He's setting a scene of life in the future.

Just a general musing on this but I wonder whether the anti-vax movement would be so vociferous with anti-virals?  Will taking a pill after a positive test be less of an issue than an injection when _there is nothing wrong with you_?  🤷‍♂️


----------



## Cloo (Apr 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> My impression is that a lot of people have found the lockdown we've just come out of rather harder than the first one.


Not surprising I guess.

First time round we thought this was probably the worst of it and the longest we'd have to do.
It was going into what turned out to be a gloriously dry and warm spring and summer
We were all so thrown by the WTF of sudden home working, home schooling no restaurants, shops etc that we were kind of kept going on the nervous energy from that,

Lockdown 2:

We were heading into midwinter
More people may have lost jobs
After optimism of maybe getting Christmas, and maybe it all being over by Easter, we had new variants and associated worries of how long it would all be
No Christmas

I found this one harder in some ways (weather/darkness, 'coronacoaster' of good news/bad news), but easier in others, such as schools having got their act together, certainly primary school, so there was much less onus on me with home learning, vaccines rollout being surprising success.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2021)

Yeah winter made it harder. And the numbing effects of the initial pandemic shock were long gone by then. And for me and probably some others, there was the spectacle of having months of build-up where the second wave unfolded in slow-motion compared to how things were perceived the first time round. Its really was no fun to have to witness the Johnson government ignoring pleas for circuit breakers, and for the horrible feeling of inevitability to hang around for months before bursting into full fruition.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 22, 2021)

Interesting conversation with neighbour this morning, he's in an NHS trial for combining coronavirus and flu vaccinations. 

He had coronavirus jab in one arm and either flu or placebo in the other (logical, see whether either causes reaction), vaccination given behind his back so didn't see which was which. In three weeks will be reversed.


----------



## Badgers (Apr 22, 2021)

Went to Luton today for a work site visit and was pretty shocked 









						Looking for answers as Luton tops the national table for Covid-19 case rates
					

Town is one of the few areas in the country to be getting its waste water tested




					www.lutontoday.co.uk
				












						Luton has the second lowest take-up of covid jabs among care home staff | ITV News
					

Only 60 per cent of care home workers in Luton have been vaccinated while Suffolk has the highest number at 85 per cent.




					www.itv.com
				




Luton has 3 Lateral Flow testing centres, a home test kit collection centre and a mobile testing bus already in place. 

I was down there in 'the Mall' as they are setting up a home testing kit collection point in the Mall to catch the footfall. This will be in the centre of the Mall next to their information point which is approximately the busiest part. 

As an estimate only around 60% of people were wearing masks. Of the 60% who wore masks around half did not have them over their noses FFS 

Spent some time with the manager there and security. They were stopping maskless people asking them to put one on and offering free masks to anyone. About half said they were exempt  and half just ignored or abused the staff  

The security guards and staff I spoke were really demoralised. They said they have been threatened and had people yelling they will sue for disabled discrimination. Maybe some were exempt but no fucking way it was more than a small percentage. 

One 'exempt' exchange I witnessed:

Security: Please can you put on a mask 
Punter: Don't have a go at me, I have asthma
Security: Hope you have your inhaler on you 
Punter: I don't use one and that is not your business
Security: Sigh 

Luton is and has always been a melting pot. It is a 'deprived' area plus has a huge mix of races and religions which no doubt is a big, if not the main factor. Not sure why I am sharing this but it put my moaning about the odd maskless person in a supermarket into perspective.


----------



## Elpenor (Apr 22, 2021)

There are clearly going to be pockets of the country where “herd immunity” will not be achieved, and these may well overlap with the areas which had the highest covid rates in the winter


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 22, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Punter: Don't have a go at me, I have asthma


"You'd better go home then, there's a deadly respiratory disease going about, haven't you heard?"


----------



## Sunray (Apr 22, 2021)

I always thought the anti-vax thing was a new internet social media driven err "ideology?", hmm dunno what to call it. Dumb certainly.

I discovered it's as old as vaccinations.   This list of lies is from the 19th century.  Smallpox killed 1 in 3.  



So feared a disease, (rightly so) archaeologists always find small 'charms' attempting to ward it off.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 22, 2021)

Sunray : what's the source, date, etc.,  of that text?? 
</ex-librarian  >


----------



## kabbes (Apr 23, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I always thought the anti-vax thing was a new internet social media driven err "ideology?", hmm dunno what to call it. Dumb certainly.
> 
> I discovered it's as old as vaccinations.   This list of lies is from the 19th century.  Smallpox killed 1 in 3.
> 
> ...


Yeah, and it's generally been the attempt to mandate vaccination that has driven the big protests and movements, even way back in the 1850s/1860s when the first mandatory vaccination laws came into effect.


----------



## Elpenor (Apr 23, 2021)

According to another forum I use 43 / 44 year olds can now book their jabs via the NHS website.


----------



## kabbes (Apr 23, 2021)

It’s true for 44 year olds — just did it. 43s need to be care workers though.


----------



## emanymton (Apr 23, 2021)

I'm 42 and had a text yesterday inviting me to book my first jab. So I guess some local areas might be a bit ahead.


----------



## Fruitloop (Apr 23, 2021)

Indian colleague of mine said a friend of his arrived a few days ago from India, now has a high fever and is isolating in an apartment, but had taken a taxi etc to get there. Meanwhile I can hardly get down the road for the swarms of six-form college students maskless and inches away from each other, who seem to have thrown all caution to the wind.

I can see another lockdown coming in a month or so.


----------



## maomao (Apr 23, 2021)

I'm 46 and have the letter talking me to but haven't got round to it yet. Barely had time to sleep lately let alone go for a bloody injection.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 23, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Indian colleague of mine said a friend of his arrived a few days ago from India, now has a high fever and is isolating in an apartment, but had taken a taxi etc to get there. Meanwhile I can hardly get down the road for the swarms of six-form college students maskless and inches away from each other, who seem to have thrown all caution to the wind.
> 
> I can see another lockdown coming in a month or so.



But its always been like that with the kids?  They never had any caution in the first place to throw to the wind or otherwise.   Its understandable and I have no doubt all of us would have been the same if it were us.  Sure it's shit but it is what it is.


----------



## Fruitloop (Apr 23, 2021)

I think it's got worse. I've been observing them pretty much daily for the last year, and it's definitely a new level of DGAF


----------



## Fruitloop (Apr 23, 2021)

Which given that we're importing a new variant that seems to affect young people much worse makes me quite concerned


----------



## glitch hiker (Apr 23, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> I think it's got worse. I've been observing them pretty much daily for the last year, and it's definitely a new level of DGAF


Been like that consistently throughout. With some pretty minor (admittedly) vandalism and littering. I don't want to go all "get off my lawn" or sound like Grandpa ffs, but I do find that behaviour somewhat intimidating. Always have. It's a shame because there are also a lot of kids (late teens at an absolute guess) who work at the local shop, and have done so throughout all credit to them.


----------



## glitch hiker (Apr 23, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Indian colleague of mine said a friend of his arrived a few days ago from India, now has a high fever and is isolating in an apartment, but had taken a taxi etc to get there. Meanwhile I can hardly get down the road for the swarms of six-form college students maskless and inches away from each other, who seem to have thrown all caution to the wind.
> 
> I can see another lockdown coming in a month or so.


The SAGE prediction was the end of Summer, back when people start moving indoors once again. I have no idea (which is what makes commenting such fun), but given the virus is going to be present in some form to some degree, seems unavoidable. We'll probably have a false sense of security conditioned into us over the Summer, along with the government exhorting everyone back to capitalist normality. Currently cases seem to be hovering between 2-3k a day. Deaths are, thankfully, right down. But covid ain't going away


----------



## xenon (Apr 23, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> According to another forum I use 43 / 44 year olds can now book their jabs via the NHS website.



Not according to the actual NHS website.

You can only use this service if any of the following apply:


you were aged 45 or over on or before 30 March 2021
you are at high risk from COVID-19 (clinically extremely vulnerable)
you have a condition that puts you at higher risk (clinically vulnerable)
you have a learning disability
you are an eligible frontline health or social care worker
you get a Carer's Allowance, get support following an assessment by your local authority or your GP record shows you are a carer









						Book or manage a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination
					

Use this service to book a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination or manage your appointments.




					www.nhs.uk


----------



## Elpenor (Apr 23, 2021)

I think the point is the website AIUI accepts the younger ages before the front page is updated and the news is publicised


----------



## xenon (Apr 23, 2021)

I was going to book my first one now. But am a week or 2 too young.

Which is sort of nice I spose but just want to get on with it now...


----------



## xenon (Apr 23, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> I think the point is the website AIUI accepts the younger ages before the front page is updated and the news is publicised



Not here anyway. I just tried. No appointments available and may not be until after april.

I'm 45.

I did however, tic the access needs box for braille info. I'd prefer just an email but have heard they hand out printed cards with the vaccine info on, which not much good to me. I can find generic info like that online of course. But maybe that was the difference. May try again next week.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 23, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> The SAGE prediction was the end of Summer, back when people start moving indoors once again. I have no idea (which is what makes commenting such fun), but given the virus is going to be present in some form to some degree, seems unavoidable. We'll probably have a false sense of security conditioned into us over the Summer, along with the government exhorting everyone back to capitalist normality. Currently cases seem to be hovering between 2-3k a day. Deaths are, thankfully, right down. But covid ain't going away



I haven't read those SAGE predictions and I should do I suppose, but I take it that they take fully into account how widespread vaccinations will have been in the UK, by the end of summer?

So even if vaccinated people still spread the virus (and how much is _confidently_ known yet about that?) should at least mean that significantly fewer people might go into hospital, and lower death rates. What with so many of the elderly (most vulnerable) having been jabbed, just to give an example.

And no,  I'm *not* saying "Rely on the vaccine and everything will be fine tra la!", just urging caution against ultra-pessimism  at this stage.

Continue to be careful;, but don't assume the worst, in short. I'm guessing just as much as you, but still.


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2021)

They are modelling exercises by various universities that SAGE then looked at. Yes they take into account the vaccine rollout timetable they were given. There are a range of unknowns in regards quite how well vaccines work so they had to do multiple model run with a variety of assumptions. There are also unknowns about human behaviour during the period in question. And some unknowns in terms of seasonal effects. I've posted graphs from some of these before, I'm not going to do it again at the moment.


----------



## glitch hiker (Apr 23, 2021)

existentialist said:


> That is, I think, the tweeting of small birds compared to what I suspect we've got coming.


Entirely possible. I don't cope very well with change, being neuro diverse, so getting into lockdown was difficult (though the last lockdown was much worse because of the time of year), and now so is getting out. I guess we will only really know when it hits us, but the seeds have been sown. None of this is helped by having to deal with the DWP of course, which I mention because fuck the DWP


----------



## glitch hiker (Apr 23, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> I haven't read those SAGE predictions and I should do I suppose, but I take it that they take fully into account how widespread vaccinations will have been in the UK, by the end of summer?
> 
> So even if vaccinated people still spread the virus (and how much is _confidently_ known yet about that?) should at least mean that significantly fewer people might go into hospital, and lower death rates. What with so many of the elderly (most vulnerable) having been jabbed, just to give an example.
> 
> ...


I don't know if they account for the vaccinations but I imagine they have....you'd hope! I guess it could be about variants and reduced efficacy vs reduced death toll. I mean to say that the government's approach is more about harm mitigation, easing the burden on the NHS, than actually achieving zero covid. So lots of pressure on the NHS because people get hospitalised but, having been vaccinated, are less likely to die.

They say we'll be ok for now, with the opening of shops, but (iirc) the full opening, as planned, could very well be problematic. Needless to say it's all predictive and as scientists they couch their predictions in moderate cautious language. 
Removing all lockdown restrictions by summer ‘could lead to another 130,000 deaths’ (paywall unfortunately).








						Government scientists warn of third Covid wave when lockdown ends
					

Latest London news, business, sport, showbiz and entertainment from the London Evening Standard.




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## Sunray (Apr 23, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Sunray : what's the source, date, etc.,  of that text??
> </ex-librarian  >











						COVID-19 anti-vaxxers use the same arguments from 135 years ago
					

The history of anti-vaccination theories can help us understand how such claims capture a popular following. The same misinformation used against 19th century smallpox vaccine is still in use today.




					ca.news.yahoo.com


----------



## Thaw (Apr 23, 2021)

xenon said:


> I was going to book my first one now. But am a week or 2 too young.
> 
> Which is sort of nice I spose but just want to get on with it now...



I'm <45 and just booked mine this morning after getting a text invite via my GP. Not sure why but its in Lambeth which has had lower than average takeup so I suppose they just have spares


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2021)

'A beacon of hope: the UK vaccine story' which was in the news a few months ago for being expensive glossy propaganda that they then didnt show, has finally been shown on youtube today. I'm not watching it, here is an earlier story about it instead.









						Glitzy No 10 film about UK’s vaccination programme attacked as ‘expensive propaganda’
					

‘The government must come clean about how much taxpayers’ money was spent making this ‘documentary’’




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> 'A beacon of hope: the UK vaccine story' which was in the news a few months ago for being expensive glossy propaganda that they then didnt show, has finally been shown on youtube today. I'm not watching it, here is an earlier story about it instead.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It appears to be 41 minutes long.


----------



## Cloo (Apr 23, 2021)

xenon said:


> I was going to book my first one now. But am a week or 2 too young.
> 
> Which is sort of nice I spose but just want to get on with it now...


I feel like that - although a couple of years in my case. I keep getting excited when I get a SMS (which is not all that often) as it might the vaccination booking!

Honestly I am so tired of both 'People are soooo awful and selfish' and 'People are so over the top flapping about COVID'. I think some people are at those extremes, and the vast majority of people are just doing the best they can, which is generally well enough, with the info available.

gsv messaged friends en masse last night about Zoom component of our daughter's bat mitzvah at the end of June (we are currently on course have a small synagogue service and garden party gathering, but doing a Zoom for family abroad plus back up in worst case scenario of anything going tits up in next 8 weeks, which less face it, it could) and one friend went off on one which she always does. She's not a denialist of COVID existing but she thinks everything's an overreaction and was all 'I can't believe they'll still be restricting the congregation numbers, people will stop coming'. TBH, I think more people would stop coming if they did go by Boris Johnson's magic freedom day, which comes the beginning of that week (if it happens). I wouldn't be comfortable if we suddenly had a full house of people, lovely as that will be some day. But bear in mind, I'll have only had 1 vaccine dose by then, my husband will have had his 2nd less than 3 weeks before and I'm not sure anyone under 35 will have had 1st does by then. Steady as she goes, eh?


----------



## elbows (Apr 23, 2021)

An absolute disgraec that its taken this long for SAGE to take this small step towards better mask recommendations:



> Growing evidence of the risks of airborne transmission has led the government to emphasise the importance of ventilation - with the words "fresh air" now added to the public messaging.
> 
> And now a technical document released by Sage concludes that healthcare workers may need higher standards of respiratory protective equipment (RPE).
> 
> ...











						Covid: Science advisers call for better PPE for healthcare workers
					

Doctors say it's a "crack of light" after more than a year of campaigning for improved equipment.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Sunray (Apr 25, 2021)

Dunno if anyone remembers my post about the U.K. gov not buying U.K. ventilators. I saw this on YouTube the other day.  The company offered the ventilators to the Government and were turned down. 6 weeks later they came back and said yes yes we need them. All sold sorry.  Nothing new really.
What did catch my eye is the woman on the call was asking why on earth they bought Chinese ones at $50000 when the U.K. ones cost $10-15. She’s now seeing a lot of these littered in U.K. hospitals with broken stickers on them.  


she could be anyone but this could be easily verified.
This sort of corruption need to stop.


----------



## bimble (Apr 26, 2021)

Just had a look to see what the indian papers are doing and. . 








						India's super-rich beat deadline, land in UK in private jets | India News - Times of India
					

India News: India's super-rich paid tens of thousands of pounds to get to Britain by private jets ahead of the Covid-hit country being added to the UK's travel re




					timesofindia.indiatimes.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 26, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> I think it's got worse. I've been observing them pretty much daily for the last year, and it's definitely a new level of DGAF



The college kids are the worst I think. The main road in to the city centre here is unpassable for all the hordes of maskless youths loitering around on the pavements all day, right outside the college buildings. I don't envy them the task but the college seems to have done fuck all about it.


----------



## Gerry1time (Apr 26, 2021)

A minor point, but looks like the NHS site is now saying people over 44 (or 44 by 1st July) can book their jabs - Book a coronavirus vaccination


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 26, 2021)

Gerry1time said:


> A minor point, but looks like the NHS site is now saying people over 44 (or 44 by 1st July) can book their jabs - Book a coronavirus vaccination



Yep, looks like things are speeding up again, as they said it would after April.



> The over-30s are expected to be invited for their Covid jabs in the next fortnight after vaccinations roll out to the over-40s this week.
> 
> Half a million 44-year-olds will be told by text they can sign up from today, with the move to those aged 40 to 43 set out later in the week.











						Covid vaccinations set to be rolled out for over-30s 'within two weeks'
					

The announcement increases the chances of younger people qualifying for vaccine passports that could allow them to travel abroad this summer




					www.chroniclelive.co.uk


----------



## Zapp Brannigan (Apr 26, 2021)

I'm 41 - local surgery contacted me last wednesday, on Friday got stabbed with AZ.


----------



## Elpenor (Apr 26, 2021)

Keeping my fingers crossed for 35-39 year olds.


----------



## Cloo (Apr 26, 2021)

Barring no nasty surprises in the next fortnight, it looks to me like May 17th lockdown easing will go ahead as planned in England. The question is, will Johnson hold his nerve with Magic Day of Freedom? It still seems manifestly unwise to me - I did wonder if they might step back and try to preserve some limits on indoor/outdoor numbers, but then it occurs to me they may be thinking along the lines that any allowances beyond the minimal will be so hard to police (ie if you said 'OK, 50 people can meet outside and a dozen indoors') that it would probably be a free-for-all anyway. Which is not necessarily a great way of running things.

I'm hoping to get my jab in next 2-3 weeks (I'm 43), but nothing yet.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 26, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I'm hoping to get my jab in next 2-3 weeks (I'm 43), but nothing yet.



You should hear this week, see my post  just above.


----------



## miss direct (Apr 26, 2021)

38 here. Hoping to hear soon and hoping having registered with a GP is enough.


----------



## Gerry1time (Apr 26, 2021)

miss direct said:


> 38 here. Hoping to hear soon and hoping having registered with a GP is enough.



I keep refreshing the NHS page, like I'm buying a Glastonbury ticket. Only for the sort of late 80's / early 90's Glastonbury where you might end up getting stabbed.


----------



## Elpenor (Apr 26, 2021)

Someone on another forum I use has posted this re England:

“England booking age has just dropped again. Front page says 44 but it looks like 1977/1978 are being loaded.”


----------



## glitch hiker (Apr 26, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Barring no nasty surprises in the next fortnight, it looks to me like May 17th lockdown easing will go ahead as planned in England. The question is, will Johnson hold his nerve with Magic Day of Freedom? It still seems manifestly unwise to me - I did wonder if they might step back and try to preserve some limits on indoor/outdoor numbers, but then it occurs to me they may be thinking along the lines that any allowances beyond the minimal will be so hard to police (ie if you said 'OK, 50 people can meet outside and a dozen indoors') that it would probably be a free-for-all anyway. Which is not necessarily a great way of running things.
> 
> I'm hoping to get my jab in next 2-3 weeks (I'm 43), but nothing yet.


I think the concern is that, after we unlock fully (June), that's when the cases will spike again, probably when tht weather turns and folk go back indoors. Obviously vaccines are the key factor here, but we don't know how long the protection lasts


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 26, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Someone on another forum I use has posted this re England:
> 
> “England booking age has just dropped again. Front page says 44 but it looks like 1977/1978 are being loaded.”



Can confirm - I'm 42 and have just booked for next Monday! 

Thanks!


----------



## Gerry1time (Apr 26, 2021)

Anyone know what I'm missing here? I'm 41, I've tried to enter my details and it says I'm not eligible. Someone locally to us who is 42 has booked today, has it just dropped to 42 and not to 40+ yet?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 26, 2021)

Gerry1time said:


> Anyone know what I'm missing here? I'm 41, I've tried to enter my details and it says I'm not eligible. Someone locally to us who is 42 has booked today, has it just dropped to 42 and not to 40+ yet?



I think it probably is as simple as that tbh.

Wait your turn, young 'un.


----------



## Elpenor (Apr 26, 2021)

Yeah I’d agree. The only thing it might be worth doing is trying a different browser in case you’re loading a cached version?


----------



## Gerry1time (Apr 26, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I think it probably is as simple as that tbh.
> 
> Wait your turn, young 'un.



Honestly, I'm being oppressed! Or something. 

Seriously though, I'm only narked as my very healthy good lady (same age) got her jab weeks ago completely unexpectedly due to what amounts to a clerical error, whilst I'm in a far higher risk category. I suspect I'm actually clinically vulnerable, but the GP surgery is operating purely off spreadsheet calculations of previous data, which is why my good lady got told to get hers and I'm getting told to go away. Still only a week or so more to wait hopefully...


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Apr 26, 2021)

miss direct said:


> 38 here. Hoping to hear soon and hoping having registered with a GP is enough.


I just got a text message from a GP I temporarily registered with to book my second jab, so you should be good.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 27, 2021)

Those over 42 can now book a jab, website updated this morning.


----------



## editor (Apr 27, 2021)

Pretty hard to keep the tears back here once you start reading the messages left by families:

























						In photos: the moving sight of the Covid Memorial Wall on the south bank of the River Thames in Lambeth
					

A wall stretching nearly a kilometre long by the River Thames has become  a memorial for all the lives lost to Covid-19 in the UK.



					www.brixtonbuzz.com


----------



## magneze (Apr 27, 2021)

"Let the bodies pile high"


----------



## Cloo (Apr 27, 2021)

Just booked my 1st & 2nd as they've opened 42+ today, 1st one Friday PM. Writing off Saturday potentially, but that's OK!


----------



## emanymton (Apr 27, 2021)

I'm 42 and had my first jab today following a text last Wed. This was being done locally. Also had a text today saying I can book at a national level. 

When I asked about my second jab today they said they cannot book them in yet as they have to wait for the batches to come in. So I think that means they are never sure how many they will get and when a batch comes in they just go down the list, which is why I was a little ahead with getting mine.


----------



## Cloo (Apr 27, 2021)

Short drive away rather than walking distance like my husband's was. He's trying to book his second but can't find his card for his first and is sure he gave it to me for safekeeping because he can't find his arse if he's not shown where it is, but it's not in the Place I Put Things That Need to be Kept Hold of, and I don't remember him giving it to me.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 27, 2021)

I put mine in my wallet and left it there. 

Not that this information will help you


----------



## Cloo (Apr 27, 2021)

Panic over, it was in the Drawer of Things,  just got squished up to the side!


----------



## crossthebreeze (Apr 27, 2021)

I got the nhs vaccine invite text this morning (I'm 42) - but only centres offered were one 8 miles away with an arse of a journey in public transport, and then 50-60 miles away in Hawes and Berwick upon Tweed! I know I'm 15 minutes walk from two different centres, with another on a direct bus route, so leaving it for now to see if they become available.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 27, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> I got the nhs vaccine invite text this morning (I'm 42) - but only centres offered were one 8 miles away with an arse of a journey in public transport, and then 50-60 miles away in Hawes and Berwick upon Tweed! I know I'm 15 minutes walk from two different centres, with another on a direct bus route, so leaving it for now to see if they become available.



Yeah, I have a friend who lives in Oxford who only got offered Heathrow or Stoke Mandeville hospital, both miles away.  Might just be glitches because of so many people trying to book at the same time.

Living in London I got offered about 10 within a 5 mile radius.  At last an advantage to living in London during this pandemic!


----------



## Espresso (Apr 27, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> I got the nhs vaccine invite text this morning (I'm 42) - but only centres offered were one 8 miles away with an arse of a journey in public transport, and then 50-60 miles away in Hawes and Berwick upon Tweed! I know I'm 15 minutes walk from two different centres, with another on a direct bus route, so leaving it for now to see if they become available.


You do right. 
When my folks got the message to book, the only places were miles away/awkward to get to. Same for me. In both cases, a few days wait meant a much closer venue.


----------



## Cloo (Apr 27, 2021)

gsv's booked his second at a little vacc centre in a shopfront on the high street. I do wonder if they stick up the biggest ones when the slots open up, as the one I'm going to is in a sports stadium and had lots of appointments. Will be interested to see if I get AZ or Moderna - I get the impression most new rollout is the latter?


----------



## StoneRoad (Apr 27, 2021)

OH booked for second Pfizer on Thursday (got a text whilst we were working away last week !).

Bezza and their OH have just come back from getting their second jabs at the local GP's - with like 15 minutes notice.
Their jabber said 2 to 3 weeks to achieve c95% protection.

Nothing (yet) for me ...


----------



## dessiato (Apr 28, 2021)

BBC News - Miami school bars vaccinated teachers from seeing students








						Miami school bars vaccinated teachers from seeing students
					

The fee-paying Miami school told staff vaccinated teachers might "transmit something" to students.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




There's some absolutely thick people in the world, these shouldn't be allowed near kids.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 28, 2021)

How do these idiots manage to walk and breathe at the same time?


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 28, 2021)

dessiato said:


> BBC News - Miami school bars vaccinated teachers from seeing students
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Or near anyone else 

The above should have been posted in the conspiraloons thread! 

To use a non-US word, *bonkers!!!*


----------



## BigMoaner (Apr 28, 2021)

dessiato said:


> BBC News - Miami school bars vaccinated teachers from seeing students
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Honest to god my 9 year old seems to have a better grasp of reality.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 28, 2021)

dessiato said:


> BBC News - Miami school bars vaccinated teachers from seeing students
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Given that it's a private, fee-paying school, one can only hope that sufficient parents vote with their feet, and the whole thing collapses around their ears.

But then, this is the USA...


----------



## SpineyNorman (Apr 28, 2021)

Nah they've found a niche. Conspiracy obsessed wealthy hippies will send their kids there from all over.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 28, 2021)

SpineyNorman said:


> Nah they've found a niche. Conspiracy obsessed wealthy hippies will send their kids there from all over.


Well, and while acknowledging that they will pose a risk to society at large, I can't but help feeling that there's a little bit of Darwin going on here...

It's just a shame that it's adults making dangerous decisions on behalf of children who are not in a place to insulate themselves from the consequences of those decisions


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2021)

A brief and incomplete review of the failure to circuit-break and lockdown at the right time last autumn, given the conversations we had at the time and that we have had some conversations here about Sunaks fair share of the blame, him being used as a scapegoat etc. And that Johnsons let the bodies pile up comments have reignited press interest in this stuff.

It is no surprise that an image we were fed of post-hospitalisation Johnson having seen the light and being suitably cautious was a load of bullshit.

I was wrong about how much influence the 'great Barrington declaration' anti-lockdown shitheads had at a crucial moment. I should also have made much more of the fact that at a crucial moment, Whitty & Vallance did their own press conference warning of what was likely to come. Having got that wrong, I was still able to salvage something because the idea that governments are still forced to act eventually, based mostly on hospital admission levels rather than amount of death, held true, and it wasnt exactly shocking that the UK government pushed this as far as they could until eventually having to u-turn again and lockdown.

Sunak no longer has to stand alone in the blame zone, but it appears he is quite happy to even now defend the stance he and Johnson took, so he can retain a suitable proportion of the blame.









						Boris Johnson was at odds with advisers as he battled to keep England open
					

Fresh picture is emerging of government infighting as Covid-19 cases ticked upwards in the autumn




					www.theguardian.com
				












						Rishi Sunak defends delay in England’s autumn lockdown
					

Comments come as No 10 refuses to deny PM said he would rather ‘let the virus rip’ than impose strict curbs




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2021)

I fucking despair of this sort of learn nothing from the pandemic, no joined up thinking, 'health' reporting.









						Back to the office? Science reveals best desks to nab
					

Where you sit in an open-plan office can determine how content and productive you feel, researchers find.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Window desks and more intimate, grouped desk layouts got a big thumbs-up.



More intimacy in the office, yeah thats really what we need to encourage in this virus era


----------



## Sunray (Apr 28, 2021)

Here is some interesting information about the EU targetting the AZ vaccine for political purposes.  All the issues they went crazy over, insanely rare issue of blood clotting.  This has somewhat tarnished the very cheap and very effective AZ vaccine.

Did you know in Israel,  62 people in Israel and 14 people in the U.S. military got myocarditis mainly post the second shot of the Pfizer vaccine?   I think 2 in their early twenties in Israel died because of it.
Remember there were, what 6 people with clotting and loads of EU countries paused using AZ.  Fair enough got to check these things.









						Are Rare Cases Of Myocarditis Linked To Pfizer, Moderna Covid-19 Vaccines?
					

There are now reports of 62 people in Israel and 14 people in the U.S. military being diagnosed with myocarditis after receiving Covid-19 mRNA vaccines.




					www.forbes.com
				




Nothing is risk-free, probably be ok even if you did get it.  What is puzzling, for that age group, the risk is 1/20000 so definitely not ultra-rare, or even rare.    Give these statistics and numbers you'd think the EU would be pausing the rollout of this vaccine just to check.  1/20000 really does seem like it's worth a good look.
No, instead the EU had just put in a gigantic order for more Pfizer.

Definitely a whiff of bs about the hysteria around the AZ vaccine. It costs 2 or 3 euros.  So needs to be made and distributed as widely as possible.

Dr John Cambell with all the facts on this and India


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2021)

I see they are researching ways to evolve a business-friendly variant of the virus at this time  It will be called the startup variant of no concern, since they hope to pass the burden of mask-wearing onto the virus itself.









						Liverpool hosts 'pioneering' mask-free business conference
					

Liverpool hosts the UK's first "normal" business conference since Covid, with no obligatory social distancing.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> I see they are researching ways to evolve a business-friendly variant of the virus at this time  It will be called the startup variant of no concern, since they hope to pass the burden of mask-wearing onto the virus itself.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This is just one of many trail events, including at football matches, theatres & nightclubs, being carried out over several weeks. 



> Other pilot events being monitored in the government's research programme are the World Snooker Championships, held in Sheffield on 17 April, and the Brit Awards in London on 11 May.
> 
> The data gathered will be used to determine how festivals, gigs, conferences and sporting events can take place again with large audiences.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Apr 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> I see they are researching ways to evolve a business-friendly variant of the virus at this time  It will be called the startup variant of no concern, since they hope to pass the burden of mask-wearing onto the virus itself.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Have a heart mate, without conferences what will men have to pretend to be at while visiting their mistresses?


----------



## bimble (Apr 29, 2021)

This should probably go in lonely post thread and not here but i am feeling frightened, of the virus, and what's next, for the first time in over a year now. It's because of people sending me anecdotal news from India this past few days. 
The way that the papers here seem to be all about who paid for some wallpaper and everyone's just looking forward to going in the pub gives me a deep sense of foreboding.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 29, 2021)

On a positive note, let's look at the score board...


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Apr 29, 2021)

bimble said:


> This should probably go in lonely post thread and not here but i am feeling frightened, of the virus, and what's next, for the first time in over a year now. It's because of people sending me anecdotal news from India this past few days.
> The way that the papers here seem to be all about who paid for some wallpaper and everyone's just looking forward to going in the pub gives me a deep sense of foreboding.


You’re not alone in this.


----------



## 5t3IIa (Apr 29, 2021)

My council area (Kirklees) "is facing a desperate Covid infection battle after the latest official figures see it ranking number one out of 149 upper tier local authorities."









						Kirklees tops Covid infection chart as 'emergency meeting' called
					

Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman calls for emergency meeting of senior council officials to take place tomorrow




					www.examinerlive.co.uk
				




I am not sure what 'upper tier local authorities' are?


----------



## emanymton (Apr 29, 2021)

bimble said:


> This should probably go in lonely post thread and not here but i am feeling frightened, of the virus, and what's next, for the first time in over a year now. It's because of people sending me anecdotal news from India this past few days.
> The way that the papers here seem to be all about who paid for some wallpaper and everyone's just looking forward to going in the pub gives me a deep sense of foreboding.


I had to work in the office yesterday for the first time in weeks. Normally I only got out and about early in the morning so was amazed at how much busier it was than a few weeks ago. The buses in particular where pretty packed. On the bus home for the first time in over a year people had to make room to let people sit next to them and there was a group of 6 or 7 having to stand in a clump together. Mostly collage students who seemed to be everywhere with little in the way of social distancing going on. All of which has nothing to do with the reduced buses services of course.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 29, 2021)

bimble said:


> This should probably go in lonely post thread and not here but i am feeling frightened, of the virus, and what's next, for the first time in over a year now. It's because of people sending me anecdotal news from India this past few days.
> The way that the papers here seem to be all about who paid for some wallpaper and everyone's just looking forward to going in the pub gives me a deep sense of foreboding.



There's a lot to be concerned about but living your life in fear and worry is to be avoided wherever possible.  There is so much out of our control so I find it best to concern myself with things that are in our control. What we do, how we interact with friends and families etc.  A strategy of concentrating on things that I can affect has seen me through this far.

Besides its the things we can't see, the stuff that goes on behind closed doors that have always been where the real spread has happened.  In large parts of the South East hospitality was closed from the start of November through to the April gardens only opening, many of it is still closed.  In London we had a brief 2 week opening in December with very strict restrictions.  The virus didn't give a shit about that and had a whale of a time down here at the end of 2020 and the first couple of months of 2021.

As I say, its best not to get too preoccupied about other people because it is what it is.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 29, 2021)

5t3IIa said:


> I am not sure what 'upper tier local authorities' are?



That's normally county or unitary [single tier] councils, second tier is borough or district councils under a county council.


----------



## 5t3IIa (Apr 29, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That's normally county or unitary [single tier] councils, second tier is borough or district councils under a county council.


Thank you but...does it mean that Kirklees is #1 for c19 infections out of all county/unitary councils in the UK? England?

Wikipedia says there are 30 upper tier authorities and 332 prinicpal councils. Why does that statement not be clearer about what it means  Are we worst in the country or what? Soz, I know this isn't your fault  but it's fucking annoying.

The BBC says this:

Kirklees had 70  cases per 100,000 people in the latest week                17 Apr-23 Apr. 
The average area in England had 19*.


Great


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 29, 2021)

5t3IIa said:


> Thank you but...does it mean that Kirklees is #1 for c19 infections out of all county/unitary councils in the UK? England?
> 
> Wikipedia says there are 30 upper tier authorities and 332 prinicpal councils. Why does that statement not be clearer about what it means  Are we worst in the country or what? Soz, I know this isn't your fault  but it's fucking annoying.
> 
> ...


Yeah, it can be confusing, and I don't know how things are structured up your way. 

It's simple here - West Sussex County Council is upper tier, Worthing Borough Council is lower/second tier, you need to move back. 

But those figures are not great at all  , we are back to below 10 cases per 100k in Worthing, around 14 at county level.


----------



## 5t3IIa (Apr 29, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> you need to move back.


Don't tempt me! 



cupid_stunt said:


> But those figures are not great at all  , we are back to below 10 cases per 100k in Worthing, around 14 at county level.



Thanks for helping to clarify, unlike an actual newspaper  Self-important dicks obfuscating for no reason


----------



## teuchter (Apr 29, 2021)

According to the gov.uk map









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




Selby has a higher rate than Kirklees


----------



## emanymton (Apr 29, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> On a positive note, let's look at the score board...
> 
> View attachment 265469


Another positive of this is that considering the number of people still to be offered a vaccine it shows that the number of anti-vax nutters is really quite small.


----------



## lazythursday (Apr 29, 2021)

emanymton said:


> I had to work in the office yesterday for the first time in weeks. Normally I only got out and about early in the morning so was amazed at how much busier it was than a few weeks ago. The buses in particular where pretty packed. On the bus home for the first time in over a year people had to make room to let people sit next to them and there was a group of 6 or 7 having to stand in a clump together. Mostly collage students who seemed to be everywhere with little in the way of social distancing going on. All of which has nothing to do with the reduced buses services of course.


The transport service reductions are maddening. I am going away to the Lakes for a week, was supposed to be going this afternoon and then realised I've left it too late because some of the train services have been reduced to one every two hours. Now am going to have to travel tomorrow when it's bound to be busier because of being a bank holiday weekend. People (like me) are going to rush to take advantage of this current low level of Covid to have a bit of normality, why can't they ramp up provision to ensure everything isn't rammed? Starting to dread going tbh.


----------



## editor (Apr 29, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> On a positive note, let's look at the score board...
> 
> View attachment 265469


Go Wales!


----------



## 5t3IIa (Apr 29, 2021)

teuchter said:


> According to the gov.uk map
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you. I couldn't find that map earlier, as I forgot what it was called and got annoyed  Selby is a dictrict council and Kirklees is a metropolitan borough! So that's why we are #1 in that sense, I suppose. Shit news for Selby


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 29, 2021)

More good news on the vaccines.



> An estimated 91.5% of people aged 45 and over in England have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
> 
> Regional estimates range from 83.6% for London to 93.2% for the South West.
> 
> The figures, from NHS England, are for first doses of the vaccine up to 25 April.



That's likely to increase too.


----------



## Supine (Apr 29, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> The transport service reductions are maddening. I am going away to the Lakes for a week, was supposed to be going this afternoon and then realised I've left it too late because some of the train services have been reduced to one every two hours. Now am going to have to travel tomorrow when it's bound to be busier because of being a bank holiday weekend. People (like me) are going to rush to take advantage of this current low level of Covid to have a bit of normality, why can't they ramp up provision to ensure everything isn't rammed? Starting to dread going tbh.



I’ve been regularly doing the London Lakes train route. It’s been great for the last year - fingers crossed it’s alright for you


----------



## teuchter (Apr 29, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> The transport service reductions are maddening. I am going away to the Lakes for a week, was supposed to be going this afternoon and then realised I've left it too late because some of the train services have been reduced to one every two hours. Now am going to have to travel tomorrow when it's bound to be busier because of being a bank holiday weekend. People (like me) are going to rush to take advantage of this current low level of Covid to have a bit of normality, why can't they ramp up provision to ensure everything isn't rammed? Starting to dread going tbh.


I think many services will start be restored over the next couple of weeks. Summer timetable starts mid may.


----------



## lazythursday (Apr 29, 2021)

Supine said:


> I’ve been regularly doing the London Lakes train route. It’s been great for the last year - fingers crossed it’s alright for you


I'm only doing the Preston - Penrith bit of the west coast - which is usually not too bad even in normal times - but bank holidays can be a different matter. It's the first part of my train journey, which is the Blackpool train that is worrying me far more as it's a crappy little local service that can be painfully crowded at holiday times. 


teuchter said:


> think many services will start be restored over the next couple of weeks. Summer timetable starts mid may.


That's really good to know - have itchy feet now and determined to go a few places before doom descends again. I am just assuming that some new super strain will show up by August, I think it's easier psychologically to plan for the worst.


----------



## Sunray (Apr 29, 2021)

Hmmm









						Rapid spread of India Covid variant in UK is ‘worrying’, say scientists
					

Cases of variant B1617 reach 400, but Public Health England says there is no evidence of a threat to vaccines




					www.theguardian.com
				




e2a:  There is some evidence that the AZ vaccine which is the vaccine that has been used in India is protecting against getting really sick or worse against variants that are causing the tragic scenes we are seeing.
Hopefully, the US will send all 60m doses they have to India.


----------



## Sunray (Apr 30, 2021)

The USA is really leaning heavily on their vaccination program. The CDC is now issuing some interesting guidelines on what you can do post vaccination. This might be to assist uptake, I think it might.

The U.K. is going to be behind the USA doing this so it’s worth keeping an eye on how this goes. Here is a nice graphic on how they see life going forward.



			https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/pdfs/324153_choosingSaferActivities11.pdf
		


still lots of  mask wearing


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2021)

All over 40's can now book a jab via the NHS site.


----------



## BigMoaner (Apr 30, 2021)

I hope new habits are not kept up. 









						Amazon triples profits as pandemic shifts habits - BBC News
					

The tech giant may be entering a "golden age" as the pandemic boosts its range of businesses.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Elpenor (Apr 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> All over 40's can now book a jab via the NHS site.



Was coming here to post that. Now waiting on over 39s!


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 30, 2021)

It's finally starting to feel like the news is finally not just about Covid all the time - got to about the 4th or 5th story before there was anything virus-related this morning.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2021)

> The first nightclub event in the UK for over a year is set to take place in Liverpool tonight (Friday, April 30).
> 
> Liverpool nightclub Circus is hosting the two-day The First Dance event, which will welcome 6,000 clubbers to the city's Bramley-Moore Dock warehouse. The event will not require any social distancing or face coverings, as it is hoped it will pave the way for more clubs to open across the country. Ticket holders will have to take a lateral flow test 24 hours before the event and produce a negative result to gain entry.
> 
> The event is part of the national Events Research Programme (ERP), which will provide data on how events for a range of audiences could be permitted to safely reopen as part of the roadmap out of lockdown.



Well, that's the biggest indoor experimental event I've seen reported so far, I am not sure I would be confident enough to go to a nightclub until at least three weeks after my second jab and probably not until all adults have been offered the jab, but I hope it passes off OK.









						Six thousand people to attend nightclub event tonight with no masks
					

Ticket holders have had to take a lateral flow test 24 hours before the event




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## maomao (Apr 30, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> It's finally starting to feel like the news is finally not just about Covid all the time - got to about the 4th or 5th story before there was anything virus-related this morning.


You don't take the Times of India then. 

Given estimates of the proportion of deaths being reported properly in India, worldwide we are probably at the peak of the pandemic right now.


----------



## Petcha (Apr 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, that's the biggest indoor experimental event I've seen reported so far, I am not sure I would be confident enough to go to a nightclub until at least three weeks after my second jab and probably not until all adults have been offered the jab, but I hope it passes off OK.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No alcohol i presume. The local dealers must be rubbing their hands...

a 2pm-11pm rave, fuck that sounds good.


----------



## andysays (Apr 30, 2021)

maomao said:


> You don't take the Times of India then.
> 
> Given estimates of the proportion of deaths being reported properly in India, worldwide we are probably at the peak of the pandemic right now.


This is the UK Covid thread though, so while the news from India is concerning, I don't think Buddy Bradley's comment was unreasonable.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is just one of many trail events, including at football matches, theatres & nightclubs, being carried out over several weeks.



re trials of big event, Telegraph are leading with this today:

Social distancing for large events can be scrapped from June 21, Boris Johnson will be told next week after initial results from a pilot scheme found no spike in Covid cases among attendees.
An interim report into the reopening trials will advise the Prime Minister that crowds can return safely and without distancing provided that measures such as staggering entries and good ventilation are in place.
Government scientists have been monitoring the impact of letting fans back into an FA Cup semi-final, Carabao Cup final and World Snooker Championship. Conclusions from the early data are contained in the report and a covering note to be given to ministers next week, details of which _The Telegraph_ has learned.

....yes its the Telegraph, but sounds like thats what will happen


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2021)

Petcha said:


> No alcohol i presume. The local dealers must be rubbing their hands...
> 
> a 2pm-11pm rave, fuck that sounds good.



There's no special alcohol rules apparently, and yes it does sound great.



> The event will be built from scratch, as it always is for Circus, with “one huge stage, amazing sound, amazing lights, enormous separate bar area, multiple tents with toilets outside, places to eat and drink outside”.
> 
> ... will see people gather en masse with no social distancing, no face masks and no special alcohol rules.








						3,000 maskless clubbers to pack dancefloor in UK's first mass event for 14 months
					

DJ Yousef, the man in charge of the club night, says there will be no social distancing, face masks or Covid passports




					inews.co.uk


----------



## ska invita (Apr 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's no special alcohol rules apparently, and yes it does sound great.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


have to have a lateral flow test a day before hand... quite interested how this will proven on the door -...and what is the cost to a punter...anyone know?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2021)

ska invita said:


> *have to have a lateral flow test a day before hand... quite interested how this will proven on the door* -...and what is the cost to a punter...anyone know?



BIB - that puzzled me too. You also have to agree to another test after the event, assuming that's also a lateral flow test, there will be no cost, as everyone can order them free of charge in England anyway.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Apr 30, 2021)

maomao said:


> You don't take the Times of India then.
> 
> Given estimates of the proportion of deaths being reported properly in India, worldwide we are probably at the peak of the pandemic right now.


Yeah - the BBC seemed to spend a couple of days really focusing on India, and then just dropped it completely. The Indian guy in my team was saying that when he speaks to friends back home, literally everyone has at least one family member that is sick.


----------



## ska invita (Apr 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> BIB - that puzzled me too. You also have to agree to another test after the event, assuming that's also a lateral flow test, there'll will be no cost, as everyone can order them free on charge in England anyway.


doing the test is one thing, but i presume you have to have it authorised that you've done it and its negative...and maybe theres a cost there?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2021)

ska invita said:


> doing the test is one thing, but i presume you have to have it authorised that you've done it and its negative...and maybe theres a cost there?



No idea, but as these are experiments, I would be surprised if there was any cost involved.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2021)

There's just been a report on BBC News about this nightclub test event, apparently all the big doors along the side of the warehouse will be left open, and sensors will monitor the Co2 at various points inside, so they can monitor the ventilation affect.

Not sure how helpful that will be for normal nightclubs opening.  🤷‍♂️


----------



## Cid (Apr 30, 2021)

ska invita said:


> doing the test is one thing, but i presume you have to have it authorised that you've done it and its negative...and maybe theres a cost there?



The kits comes with test strips that allow you to do everything at home.






						COVID-19 rapid lateral flow test kit instructions: throat and nose test
					

How to do a rapid throat and nose test for COVID-19 and report the results. Rapid tests show the result on a device that comes with the test.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Cid (Apr 30, 2021)

Given you can (and are supposed to) report rapid flow test results to the NHS via a QR code, I wonder whether they're working on integrating that into getting into indoor events.


----------



## souljacker (Apr 30, 2021)

Cid said:


> The kits comes with test strips that allow you to do everything at home.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's up to you to tell the NHS the result though. You could easily lie. You'd be a massive dick but you could do it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2021)

This is a heart breaking report, this guy has been in hospital for over a year, an horrific reminder that it's not just the deaths that matter.   



> One of the UK’s longest-suffering coronavirus patients is still vomiting daily after continuing to battle the deadly disease.
> 
> Jason Kelk, 49, has been in hospital since April 1 last year after contracting Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic.
> 
> He was bed-bound for almost a year before he took his first tentative steps along the ward in February, and has since improved hugely. But despite this he is still receiving intensive treatment and his family say his lungs and kidneys have been ‘destroyed’.











						One of UK's longest Covid patients 'vomiting every day' after lungs 'destroyed'
					

Jason Kelk, 49, has been in hospital since April 1 last year.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Supine (Apr 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not sure how helpful that will be for normal nightclubs opening.  🤷‍♂️



Good for festivals


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 30, 2021)

I know it's not the UK, but this Arundhati Roy piece is a must read Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe: ‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> I know it's not the UK, but this Arundhati Roy piece is a must read Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe: ‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’



It was posted on the worldwide thread the other day, it's a long & hard read.


----------



## Cid (Apr 30, 2021)

souljacker said:


> It's up to you to tell the NHS the result though. You could easily lie. You'd be a massive dick but you could do it.



Oh yeah, it's totally open to manipulation, even ignoring the flaws of lateral flow testing.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's just been a report on BBC News about this nightclub test event, apparently all the big doors along the side of the warehouse will be left open, and sensors will monitor the Co2 at various points inside, so they can monitor the ventilation affect.
> 
> Not sure how helpful that will be for normal nightclubs opening.  🤷‍♂️



Well it's about building up a base of knowledge about what effects the air circulation, it's not just a case of 'this is how a nightclub works now.' They'll take data from all the test events and apply it to various future scenarios, and there are likely to be a lot more studies coming up.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> The USA is really leaning heavily on their vaccination program. The CDC is now issuing some interesting guidelines on what you can do post vaccination. This might be to assist uptake, I think it might.
> 
> The U.K. is going to be behind the USA doing this so it’s worth keeping an eye on how this goes. Here is a nice graphic on how they see life going forward.
> 
> ...





ska invita said:


> re trials of big event, Telegraph are leading with this today:
> Social distancing for large events can be scrapped from June 21, Boris Johnson will be told next week after initial results from a pilot scheme found no spike in Covid cases among attendees.
> An interim report into the reopening trials will advise the Prime Minister that crowds can return safely and without distancing provided that measures such as staggering entries and good ventilation are in place.
> Government scientists have been monitoring the impact of letting fans back into an FA Cup semi-final, Carabao Cup final and World Snooker Championship. Conclusions from the early data are contained in the report and a covering note to be given to ministers next week, details of which _The Telegraph_ has learned.
> ....yes its the Telegraph, but sounds like thats what will happen



Quite a contrast in the US, with what's being suggested in that Telegraph article for the UK!


----------



## Sunray (Apr 30, 2021)

I like these stats, from the Zoe tracker.

Chances of getting an  infection in the next 24 hours

Not vaccinated, 1 in 45,000
One vaccine, 12 days later, 1 in 100,000
Two vaccines, 1 in 150,000
No vaccine is perfect,  you can still get covid post-vaccine, but the chances of getting very sick, going to the hospital or dying is vanishingly small.

Based on these stats I can imagine these trial events will be all fine.  You could have 1000 unvaccinated people indoors and 0.02 people might get sick.  Going to a sweaty club is always a risk you mght get something anyway. 
A festival with just outdoor stages is going to be fairly safe.


----------



## elbows (Apr 30, 2021)

The picture is changing but we are still quite a long way away from a situation where I would be comfortable to use language like 'vanishingly small'.

Trials may very well be successful when they involve a combination of some people having been vaccinated, some testing, some measures to maintain fresh air, and low prevalence of the virus in the community. People should celebrate successes on that front, and modify their own sense of risk, but should very much keep in mind the prevalence bit. Hopefully we wont have further periods of high prevalence in future, so this point will be obsolete, but if we do then people need to understand that the picture of risk and what we can safely get away with can change again in future.

I'll drive myself crazy if I make this point too many times in the months ahead, so I intend to further reduce the number of times I post about the pandemic during this phase.


----------



## Cid (Apr 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I like these stats, from the Zoe tracker.
> 
> Chances of getting an  infection in the next 24 hours
> 
> ...



This doesn't really represent how disease spread works. This was one of the early lessons in the pandemic; coronaviruses can spread in clusters, super-spreader events. 

Not to say that these trials are a terrible idea... It's probably a reasonable way of probing into how that plays out given a somewhat changed level of population immunity. I personally haven't kept up to date enough to know exactly which lessons are sticking in the main SAGE advice, but things seem somewhat more sensible than they were at various points last year. But you certainly can't extrapolate from Zoe's population level statistics, a snapshot of an entire country still using social distancing methods, to a crowded nightclub. Which is why they're being cautious.


----------



## elbows (Apr 30, 2021)

Oh and when it comes to hopes for the future, since I've always gone on about the role of transmission in hospitals, I very much hope that big changes on that front lead to permanent gains that change the pandemic numbers game for the better. Its just I have to wait quite a long time to be sure.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I like these stats, from the Zoe tracker.
> 
> Chances of getting an  infection in the next 24 hours
> 
> ...


These stats tell us nothing about the relative risks of different behaviours/actions at an individual level.


----------



## Combustible (Apr 30, 2021)

souljacker said:


> You'd be a massive dick but you could do it.



Thank God that the pandemic has shown that there are none of them about.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 30, 2021)

I wonder how many Brexit voters are still alive? Things could have been so different.


----------



## Sunray (Apr 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> These stats tell us nothing about the relative risks of different behaviours/actions at an individual level.



No, they are just the general risk of catching it the next 24 hours.
From the modelling team behind the zoe covid thing.








						Low COVID rates force rethink of surveillance study data
					

According to the ZOE COVID Study figures, there are currently 1,046 new symptomatic cases of COVID in the UK on average, based on swab test data from up to five days ago




					covid.joinzoe.com


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 30, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> I wonder how many Brexit voters are still alive? Things could have been so different.


Got to admire a remainers  view that If only the virus could be somehow manipulated to kill those who voted for Brexit that it would be a force for good.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> No, they are just the general risk of catching it the next 24 hours.
> From the modelling team behind the zoe covid thing.
> 
> 
> ...


Yes, but they are of no use to inform anyone's decisions about how they should behave. 
For example, if I decide to start going to a gym twice a week, and I have not had any jabs, am I three times more likely to get covid than someone who's had two doses? Some people might look at these numbers and think the answer is yes, but it almost certainly isn't.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 30, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Got to admire a remainers  view that If only the virus could be somehow manipulated to kill those who voted for Brexit that it would be a force for good.


It's mostly killed the elderly. And Brexit voters were older than Remainers, as you may remember.


----------



## two sheds (Apr 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Yes, but they are of no use to inform anyone's decisions about how they should behave.
> For example, if I decide to start going to a gym twice a week, and I have not had any jabs, am I three times more likely to get covid than someone who's had two doses? Some people might look at these numbers and think the answer is yes, but it almost certainly isn't.



true but they're good for people to decide in general whether to have no vaccinations, one or two.


----------



## The39thStep (Apr 30, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> It's mostly killed the elderly. And Brexit voters were older than Remainers, as you may remember.


Look at the voting intention in the polls , covid has had no impact on voting patterns .


----------



## teuchter (Apr 30, 2021)

two sheds said:


> true but they're good for people to decide in general whether to have no vaccinations, one or two.


Not really, if anything they make the benefits look much smaller than they really are.


----------



## Cid (Apr 30, 2021)

two sheds said:


> true but they're good for people to decide in general whether to have no vaccinations, one or two.



Er… no they really aren’t. Not how vaccination strategy works. And there should be no decision to have ‘one vaccine’.


----------



## David Clapson (Apr 30, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Look at the voting intention in the polls , covid has had no impact on voting patterns .


I'm not talking about voting intentions, I'm talking about the vote which has already happened.


----------



## Teaboy (Apr 30, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> I'm not talking about voting intentions, I'm talking about the vote which has already happened.



In terms of the winning margin 150k odd people are not going to make any difference.  In any case as we saw at the last general election most people in Britain think the result of a vote should be respected.  Well, maybe not in Scotland but the rest of Britain...


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 30, 2021)

This thread definitely needs more Brexit chat.


----------



## Sunray (Apr 30, 2021)

I made no implications on those stats, other than I quite liked the pivot.

Most people can't understand all those graphs and number nonsense.  Just give it to them like a bookie and people can make up their own mind to go to the pub.

45000-1 you might die 

or


----------



## cupid_stunt (Apr 30, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> This thread definitely needs more Brexit chat.



Agreed.

Can we please keep fucking Brexit off this thread?


----------



## Cid (Apr 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I made no implications on those stats, other than I quite liked the pivot.
> 
> Most people can't understand all those graphs and number nonsense.  Just give it to them like a bookie and people can make up their own mind to go to the pub.
> 
> ...



It's not about whether you're looking at graphs or Zoe numbers. It's that those figures don't tell you anything about the risk of spread in a particular situation. They are generalised to a population level. They include people who live in Cumbria (rolling rate of 11.0), and people who live in Selby (rolling rate of 257.2). People in Cumbria, significantly less than 1 in 45000 chance, people in Selby, significantly greater (over-simplified, but hey).

And what that is capturing is the situation as it stands. Or as it stands with whatever lag Zoe has on data, but ignore that for now. So it applies to a situation where indoor socialising is still heavily restricted. As soon as you change that, the risk factor also changes at a population level. But it will also change based on individual choice. Someone going to the pub every day in Cumbria might be more at risk than someone shielding in Selby.

That's why you have a one off event in Liverpool. You can say Liverpool currently has a disease prevalence of X. We'll allow the event to happen, and see what effect it has. Then we can say that similar places, also with a disease prevalence of X, and given a similar event, have a decent chance of behaving in the same way. If it goes ok, you might want to run a few more tests, in areas with slightly different levels of prevalence and using different conditions. We've already had some test cases (snooker etc), so we already have some data points. Every new test case builds on these, and feeds into the risk calculations for each opening stage.

The 1 in 45000 cannot be used to work out your personal risk of catching covid. It's kind of daft that they publish it tbh, because people are bound to use it like this.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Apr 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Just give it to them like a bookie and people can make up their own mind to go to the pub.


lol nobody understands odds - that's why bookies exist


----------



## Cid (Apr 30, 2021)

More info on the Events Research Programme here:





__





						Information on the Events Research Programme
					

Information for attendees and those hosting the Event Research Programme (ERP) pilot events.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Sunray (Apr 30, 2021)

Cid said:


> The 1 in 45000 cannot be used to work out your personal risk of catching covid. It's kind of daft that they publish in tbh, because people are bound to use it like this.



Kind of hard to find unless you know where to look. 

The good news is that of the 1 million tests done per day, only 2000 people are testing positive, still out there, but it's now being called endemic rather than a pandemic.  In the UK at least.


----------



## elbows (May 1, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Kind of hard to find unless you know where to look.
> 
> The good news is that of the 1 million tests done per day, only 2000 people are testing positive, still out there, but it's now being called endemic rather than a pandemic.  In the UK at least.



Dr Sarah Walker spoke to the media the other week about it moving from a pandemic to endemic in the UK, but that use of language made some other experts rather nervous, its too soon to strongly make that claim. And Dr Walker herself tried to balance what she said by going on about how it being endemic means its here to stay, not being able to predict the future, and also "Look at India... how quickly and badly it can go again."

Personally there is no way I would talk about the end of the pandemic yet, no matter how good UK numbers look, they need to stay that way for ages before I can reach that destination. I could speak about current levels of infection here being at 'endemic levels' but thats not the same thing as saying its not a pandemic anymore.

Its also perfectly fine to talk about how in general pandemics usually end and things tend to become endemic, with occasional epidemics. But I'm not really a big fan of everything Walker said in April, or at least the impression given by particular soundbites, I think some of it was ill-advised.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (May 1, 2021)

souljacker said:


> It's up to you to tell the NHS the result though. You could easily lie. You'd be a massive dick but you could do it.



i have picked up a few things on anti-social media from twats talking about faking test results and / or vaccination certificates for going to events this year

what the fuck is the matter with some people?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 1, 2021)

We passed another milestone yesterday with the average daily deaths dropping to 19, not seen since the 3rd week of Sept., and down from 45 at the start of April.

It seems we got away with the last stage of unlocking on 12th April, with new cases down -10.7% in the last week, patients admitted to hospital down -17%, patients in hospital below 1,500, and deaths down -18.5%.

People vaccinated up to and including 29 April 2021
First dose: 34,216,087
Second dose: 14,532,875

So, all good news, and we are very likely to see the next stage happening on the 17th May, which is a lot more risky, because of indoor mixing again, we just need to hope the level of vaccination will help keep things under some control.

Here's the link to 'the road to de-mask us' -




__





						COVID-19 Response - Spring 2021 (Summary)
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## Badgers (May 1, 2021)

Roll up, roll up, get ya free test kits


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 2, 2021)

Looks like two possible policy changes could be coming, an end to self isolation for contacts, replaced by daily lateral flow tests, which could be a good idea considering reports of how few people do actually self-isolate, whereas if they get an positive test may be more will.



> Ministers have also taken steps towards ending the 10-day isolation rule for the contacts of Covid-infected people by authorising a new trial that replaces mandatory quarantine with daily tests.
> 
> Up to 40,000 participants identified as contacts will be given daily lateral flow tests then – as long as their result is negative and they display no symptoms – allowed to go about their lives as before.



And, jabs for secondary school pupils, which doesn't come as surprise, and seems logical.



> Secondary school pupils will reportedly be offered Covid-19 vaccinations from September under plans being developed by the NHS.
> 
> Health service officials are compiling planning documents which include a measure to offer a single dose of the Pfizer jab to children aged 12 and older when the new school year starts, according to _The Sunday Times_.
> 
> ...











						Double-jabbed ‘half as likely’ to suffer long Covid symptoms - follow live
					

Latest developments as they happen




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 2, 2021)

More on the likely reduction in infection rates from the vaccination programme, overall conclusion is that if 6 got infected from an unvaccinated person, only 1 would from someone who had had a single jab, so that should improve further after people have their second dose.



> There are two ways that getting vaccinated can slow the spread of the virus. First, it can help prevent you getting infected. Second, even if you are unlucky and catch the virus, it may reduce the risk of passing it on. It is crucial to understand how big these benefits are.
> 
> Two huge new studies have taken advantage of the successful UK vaccine rollout. An Oxford-ONS analysis of more than 370,000 survey participants found infections were reduced by 65% after a single dose. For protection against the virus, one dose was similar to having had a prior infection. There was no major difference between the two available vaccines.
> 
> Most important, the studies showed that if you are infected after vaccination, it tends to be much milder, both in terms of self-reported symptoms and viral load.





> If vaccinated people develop a weaker infection, then they might be less likely to pass on the virus.
> 
> This seems to be the case. Public Health England studied more than 500,000 households in England and estimated that unvaccinated cases infected around 10% of people in their households. But that rate was nearly halved, to around 6%, if the original case had been vaccinated, with a similar reduction from either the Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines.
> 
> Put these two studies together and it means that, for every six people that unvaccinated people infect, only one would have been infected had they had the jab.











						Will Covid-19 vaccines reduce virus transmission? | David Spiegelhalter & Anthony Masters
					

Vaccinated people can still get infected, but they are less likely to pass it on




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## pogofish (May 2, 2021)

Is anyone else finding it odd seeing small groups of people in full-on going out gear going about in the middle of the day..?

Esp as a pub lunch in an outdoor setup is still the best they can look forward to.

Also, some/many of the “outdoor“ structures allowed for pubs here are so solid and well enclosed that I really wonder why they didn’t just let them in?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 2, 2021)

pogofish said:


> Also, some/many of the “outdoor“ structures allowed for pubs here are so solid and well enclosed that I really wonder why they didn’t just let them in?



They have been checking pub & restaurant structures around here, ensuring at least 50% of the sides are open to fresh air, they have stopped at least 2 or 3 from opening.


----------



## tommers (May 2, 2021)

pogofish said:


> Is anyone else finding it odd seeing small groups of people in full-on going out gear going about in the middle of the day..?



Not really. Good luck to them.


----------



## pogofish (May 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They have been checking pub & restaurant structures around here, ensuring at least 50% of the sides are open to fresh air, they have stopped at least 2 or 3 from opening.



I would have thought something similar might have been applied here, esp as these are essentially unventilated spaces (think festival marquees) - similarly the “easily dismantled“ part of the guidance is widely ignored. You would need a full crew and a small crane to get these things put away at night!


----------



## pogofish (May 2, 2021)

tommers said:


> Not really. Good luck to them.



Either way, it looks a bit sad/desperate - esp as some outfits don’t do well in daylight and the sort of cold it’s been here these last couple of weeks.


----------



## andysays (May 2, 2021)

pogofish said:


> I would have thought something similar might have been applied here, esp as these are essentially unventilated spaces (think festival marquees) - similarly the “easily dismantled“ part of the guidance is widely ignored. You would need a full crew and a small crane to get these things down at night!


Are the rules relating to this in Scotland broadly the same as in England or are there significant differences?


----------



## platinumsage (May 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They have been checking pub & restaurant structures around here, ensuring at least 50% of the sides are open to fresh air, they have stopped at least 2 or 3 from opening.



Same criteria as the smoking ban, so should be understood by everyone involved.


----------



## elbows (May 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looks like two possible policy changes could be coming, an end to self isolation for contacts, replaced by daily lateral flow tests, which could be a good idea considering reports of how few people do actually self-isolate, whereas if they get an positive test may be more will.



They have a bunch of motives for this change, including public & private sector staffing levels being heavily affected by self-isolation of contacts. They are also bothered by the amount of school days that people can still end up missing under the current rules.

I'm not surprised they are going to do a big trial of this, since recently some SAGE documents about a smaller trial of this were published:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/976324/S1146_SPI-M-O_Daily_contact_testing.pdf
		


KCL and Bristol: Engagement with daily testing instead of quarantine following possible exposure to SARS-CoV-2, 11 March 2021 (dated March but was only publicly published on SAGE site on April 30th).

There are quite a lot of factors and details that will affect whether this system is better or worse for controlling infections that the current one, and I expect some of these factors to change further as peoples perceptions of the pandemic evolve further due to less cases and more vaccinated people. And I think the lower prevalence rate at the moment means that these trials, and indeed many other sorts of trials and attempts to estimate the effects of things, will not really be capable of accurately determining the impact of policies across the full range of scenarios. ie I expect all manner of trials to have positive results that show risks to be low enough to go ahead with the changes, but I will not make the mistake of assuming such finding will still hold true in the event of us ending up in another situation where prevalence of the virus is high. On that basis, I think my position is that they should go ahead with much of this stuff, as long as they do not make the mistake of resisting further changes in the other direction in future, should the situation deteriorate. I do not want to hear future bullshit about how studies conducted at the current time, with the current low prevalence rate, are solid proof of stuff that will hold true in all circumstances. But in the meantime sure, its inevitable that there will be heavy relaxations on many fronts and I'm not going to stand in the way of that or make myself unwell by being obsessively negative about it.

But just to illustrate my point about how all manner of studies will have to place more caveats and an additional degree of uncertainty into their conclusions as a result of being conducting at a time of decreased prevalence, here is an example from a recent report in the series of reports monitoring hospitalisation after vaccination:



> Important caveat. The risk of exposure has reduced since early January so the progressively lower number of PCR positive symptomatic cases admitted to hospital after vaccination is likely to under-represent a signal of vaccine failure.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/982499/S1208_CO-CIN_report_on_impact_of_vaccination_Apr_21.pdf


----------



## pogofish (May 2, 2021)

andysays said:


> Are the rules relating to this in Scotland broadly the same as in England or are there significant differences?



Very similar from what I understand - although maybe more of the detail has been left to local authorities to implement as they see fit.

And I don’t think I’ve seen one that allows smoking yet - even those that do meet the50% criteria


----------



## elbows (May 2, 2021)

They were hoping to use sewage surveillance to help determine the extent to which vaccination reduces transmission. However because of everything else that was changing at the same time as the vaccine rollout, they werent able to reach tidy conclusions using the wastewater method:



> Wastewater-based predictions are consistent with the decline in cases starting in early January. However, it was not possible to identify the extent to which ChAdOx1 and BNT162b2 prevents onwards transmission of SARS-CoV-2 given the available data because there are three confounding factors that are considered in more depth in the Discussion. Briefly, the vaccination programme was rolled out at the same time as the proportion of cases associated with the B.1.1.7 variant increased, improved laboratory methods for wastewater samples were adopted, and NPIs were updated (Figure 1 (b)). Furthermore, it is currently not known whether and to what extent vaccination affects faecal RNA shedding.



(where NPIs = non-pharmaceutical interventions, ie lockdown etc).



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/979870/S1192_Current_environmental_monitoring_cannot_constrainthe_effectof_vaccines_onSARS-CoV-2_transmission_Report_for_SAGE.pdf
		


And here is an interesting paper where they did a wastewater study of Bristol to see if this form of surveillance can help monitor the situation with mutations and variants of concerns.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/979864/S1193_Wastewater_Monitoring_of_SARS-CoV-2_Variants_in_England_Demonstration_Case_Study_for_Bristol__Dec_2020-March_2021_.pdf
		




> Overall, this case study demonstrated WBE is an effective tool for detecting VOCs, VUIs and mutations of interest within a population (Bristol and South Gloucestershire.).
> The tool provides timely, non-invasive, and unbiased community-level insights at lower budget and resource expense compared with mass clinical testing.
> When this approach is used continuously - across time and space - it has the potential to identify outbreaks and clusters of known VOCs and VUIs and elucidate their transmission and spread across England.
> It can also aid in targeting resourcing intensive clinical testing; and assessing the success of containment and the continuing effectiveness of NPIs.



There were some limitations discussed elsewhere in the paper, such as not always being able to get enough quality genomic info from samples from certain locations. But they also included a more general bit about how this stuff has been use more widely so far without much public attention:



> Beyond the detailed Bristol use-case, EMHP are actively contributing to the national VOC/VUI response across England and have provided insight across several cities and regions to date. Noteworthy examples include the detection of all 13 signature SNPs of the B.1.351 lineage (VOC- 20DEC-02) from a sewer network site in Nottingham on the 19th March (Fig. 4), as well as the temporal detection of five signature SNPs of the P.2 lineage (VUI-21JAN-01) at a sewer network site in Manchester (Fig. 4). In both cases the majority of signature SNPs of the B.1.1.7 lineage (VOC-DEC20- 01) were also observed (Fig. 4), highlighting simultaneous detection of multiple VOC/VUIs from one sample. EMHP are working with local response teams to link virus detection in WW with clinical findings and to aid in monitoring the spread and containment of these localised VOC/VUI outbreaks.



There is even a map which shows how they are further able to analyse stuff by local area using sewage surveillance.


----------



## andysays (May 2, 2021)

pogofish said:


> Very similar from what I understand - although *maybe more of the detail has been left to local authorities to implement as they see fit*.
> 
> And I don’t think I’ve seen one that allows smoking yet - even those that do meet the50% criteria



Possibly that's where the discrepancies have come from then


----------



## elbows (May 2, 2021)

I'm hoping to take a rather long rest from going on abou things like the dangers of expecting vaccination to do all the heavy lifting on its own in this pandemic. But since something similar is being covered on the BBC live updates page, I may as well take the opportunity to state it again for hopefully the last time for a long time.



> A government adviser has warned the public not to rely solely on the vaccine as a means of bringing an end to the pandemic.
> 
> Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, described the vaccine as "one of the tools in our toolbox".
> 
> ...



Thats from the 11:20 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-56961920

I suppose what I expect is that message will continue to be largely overlooked, and eventually a time will come where it goes wrong and people will be forced to learn that lesson the hard way, or not and we get away with it. Either way Im sick of going on about it.


----------



## frogwoman (May 2, 2021)

I hope that nightclub thing goes ok but I have a feeling it won't end well especially because I'm guessing most people attending aren't young enough to have had the vaccine.


----------



## weepiper (May 2, 2021)

Just ordered a pack of lateral flow tests to have at home because there's been several times recently where I have had enough doubt that I may have been exposed through my work to want to do a test, but not had any symptoms or enough certainty to self isolate. Now I'll just do a test a couple of times a week to be on the safe side.


----------



## elbows (May 2, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I hope that nightclub thing goes ok but I have a feeling it won't end well especially because I'm guessing most people attending aren't young enough to have had the vaccine.



I would imagine plenty of events where low prevalence and tests combine allows enough wiggle room for them to get away with it at this stage.

I do not believe the lateral flow tests are good enough to cope with situations where there are a large number of infections in the community before the event. But I try to tailor my concerns to match the levels of infection in the community, so my current stance is very similar to the stance I took last June, when I advised people not to spend too much time sitting around waiting for another wave imminently. If circumstances force my stance to change again in future then I expect the deteriorating situation to be obvious in many ways to many people, but now is not that time.

Obviously I would be happier if I could be more concrete about my sense of the future, because unlike last time (the time between the first and second waves) I have much less sense of how inevitable another wave is. And even that first time I didnt want to develop too firm a sense of the future, I prefer to wait and see. I also dont know to quite what extent things like vaccination & improved infection control in institutions including hospitals and care homes will make to various feedback loops of infection between those settings and the wider community. It could be that such things were quite a large amplifier of broader community infections, and if vaccines permanently change that landscape then all bets are off in terms of what level of pandemic potential I think is still there, lurking.

I'm repeating myself quite a lot about this these days. I hope not to do so so much in May and June.


----------



## Sunray (May 2, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I hope that nightclub thing goes ok but I have a feeling it won't end well especially because I'm guessing most people attending aren't young enough to have had the vaccine.



I think this was the point. At that age unless you have a dodgy immune system, nothing much is going to happen. If you have a dodgy immune system your not going to a sweaty club. I think it’s more about community transmission. There is going to be some push back on vaccinations for the under 30’s. 

Lateral flow tests while imperfect work quite well if your asymptomatic with high viral load.  They are also very cheap compared to PCR tests, so you can do loads.   If you test positive you can get a pcr test.


----------



## Sunray (May 2, 2021)

I like it that we’re are in such odd times,  a headline stating we can hug again is a headline.









						People in England urged to be patient amid reports hugging may soon be allowed
					

Vaccine rollout and reduction in cases means family and friends could could be allowed to hug in a fortnight




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## BigMoaner (May 2, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I like it that we’re are in such odd times,  a headline stating we can hug again is a headline.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Weirder still that i wouldn't have found it weird if reading it. Had to be pointed out by your good self. It has been a totally fucking bizarre time.


----------



## BristolEcho (May 3, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I think this was the point. At that age unless you have a dodgy immune system, nothing much is going to happen. If you have a dodgy immune system your not going to a sweaty club. I think it’s more about community transmission. There is going to be some push back on vaccinations for the under 30’s.
> 
> Lateral flow tests while imperfect work quite well if your asymptomatic with high viral load.  They are also very cheap compared to PCR tests, so you can do loads.   If you test positive you can get a pcr test.



Do you mean if you have a dodgy immune system you won't go to clubs at the moment? Or in general? Not sure either is true.

Also as long covid is showing unfortunately young people are not invulnerable. 

Fingers crossed things go okay. I can't wait to get back into a club, but the pictures of a rammed venue didn't seem that appealing though I would have felt that before covid tbf.


----------



## Sunray (May 3, 2021)

BristolEcho said:


> Do you mean if you have a dodgy immune system you won't go to clubs at the moment? Or in general? Not sure either is true.
> 
> Also as long covid is showing unfortunately young people are not invulnerable.
> 
> Fingers crossed things go okay. I can't wait to get back into a club, but the pictures of a rammed venue didn't seem that appealing though I would have felt that before covid tbf.



Hey, it’s a personal risk,  if you know you are immunocompromised and you go to a squat rave in an abandoned warehouse with no toilets. There might be consequences.  I always reminded of the healthy guy in trainspotting.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 3, 2021)

Sunray said:


> There is going to be some push back on vaccinations for the under 30’s.



I fear you could be right.

OTHO reports coming out from both India & Brazil are suggesting more than 50% of hospital admissions are now the under 40s*, thanks to their new variants, and early studies are suggesting the vaccines will be efficient in preventing severe illness from these variants, so hopefully that message will be pushed.

* And, this doesn't appear to be down to older people having the jabs, as both countries are well behind the UK on vaccination.


----------



## elbows (May 3, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I fear you could be right.
> 
> OTHO reports coming out from both India & Brazil are suggesting more than 50% of hospital admissions are now the under 40s*, thanks to their new variants, and early studies are suggesting the vaccines will be efficient in preventing severe illness from these variants, so hopefully that message will be pushed.
> 
> * And, this doesn't appear to be down to older people having the jabs, as both countries are well behind the UK on vaccination.



Oh am I going to have to keep going on about this?

Firstly please provide links to articles about this so I now which stories people are referring to.

Secondly a small percentage of a very large number can still add up to a large number, and this certainly applies to younger people being hospitalised. There is the sense that all the way through this pandemic people seem to have been tempted to underestimate how many younger people require hospital treatment, creating a larger gap between their perceptions and the possible reality on the ground when they finally hear shocking stories about younger people in hospital in large numbers.

Then there are issues relating to hospitals under strain and that when supply cannot meet demand across the age ranges, younger people may be more likely to manage to get admitted than older people.

Perceptions, jobs and behaviours also means younger people have perhaps been less able to hide from the virus much, including at key moments of explosive growth.

And then we have various reasons why the media would seek to focus on this aspect. See for example this CNN article about the Kent variant maybe affecting the young more in the USA. More young people are getting hospitalized as a 'stickier,' more infectious coronavirus strain becomes dominant

None of this means I dont believe any of these variants are having a notable effect on the young, It just means I am having a lot of trouble evaluating the extent to which this is actually the case. So if I moan at people casually mentioning this stuff, I'm not really meaning to moan at them, I'm moaning about a lack of quality info I can actually use to develop some kind of well-grounded opinion on this.


----------



## platinumsage (May 3, 2021)

It's the verified nurse talking about wards full of children again.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh am I going to have to keep going on about this?
> 
> Firstly please provide links to articles about this so I now which stories people are referring to.



Already done, probably on the worldwide thread.


----------



## Badgers (May 3, 2021)

Not solely a Covid-19 issue this but still a problem. Closing roads (midday onwards or similar?) would give more space to businesses but stealing pavements is shitty behaviour. While I have sympathy for hospitality businesses trying to reopen and re-employ people the planning is the usual fucking mess.


----------



## teuchter (May 3, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Not solely a Covid-19 issue this but still a problem. Closing roads (midday onwards or similar?) would give more space to businesses but stealing pavements is shitty behaviour. While I have sympathy for hospitality businesses trying to reopen and re-employ people the planning is the usual fucking mess.



Yup, I've seen quite a few examples of this around the place.


----------



## Badgers (May 3, 2021)

Working with a woman from India at the moment. She is a doctor and her husband is a brain surgeon. They moved to the UK at the start of March 2020  and have seen nothing but their home and Luton  poor fuckers.

Her mother died in India just before the situation there went mental and after the funeral was worried she could not get back to the UK. Due to her residency status she was able to fly back. Obviously has to quarantine for ten days which is not ideal but of course she wanted to be home to her husband. 

She flew back on a half full BA flight with 100% mask wearing and (the all Indian passengers) was served Indian food. Said it was as safe as possible with testing and space. 

Now is in a quarantine hotel costing £200 per night so £2000. 

In a small room and alcohol is not allowed. She does not drink much but worth mentioning. 

Allowed 'outside' fresh air' time twice a day (24 hours) for 10 minute's only accompanied by a security guard. 

She asked if it would be possible to have some Indian food instead of the pizza/pasta/burger options on the bar menu but was told that she could order that for delivery as they can't provide that. P

The staff are hardly answering any calls (she needed some sanitary products) and when they did it took over 12 hours to arrange and she was charged a 'premium' price for said products to be left outside her door. 

When she 'booked up' this she was told that transport back to the airport was part of the package. Has since been told that she has to arrange her own transport/taxi. 

I am all for restrictions on international travel but this is a bad way to treat people for £200 a night. We left travel open for a long time and shared our variant around the world. We are still allowing the rich to fly anywhere they want (even Farage the cunt) and Disgraced Prime Minister Johnson was a cunt hair away from flying over to India himself for his money train. 

This is just profit from misery isn't it...

Cunts


----------



## existentialist (May 3, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Working with a woman from India at the moment. She is a doctor and her husband is a brain surgeon. They moved to the UK at the start of March 2020  and have seen nothing but their home and Luton  poor fuckers.
> 
> Her mother died in India just before the situation there went mental and after the funeral was worried she could not get back to the UK. Due to her residency status she was able to fly back. Obviously has to quarantine for ten days which is not ideal but of course she wanted to be home to her husband.
> 
> ...


This is what happens when an asset-stripping mentality finds itself in charge of a situation where people have no choices. They can't help but go straight for the maximum exploitation option 

These people really, really do need to find themselves looking between their feet to admire the glories of a streetlamp light fitting...


----------



## elbows (May 3, 2021)

I remember being very unhappy with Manchesters night time economy adviser last year when they were resisting local lockdown at a crucial moment. Some of the Burnham arguments at the time about funding lockdown properly were fair enough, but they went beyond that into dangerous, shitty priorities and pandemic ignorance. Now I see they popped up as being involved in this case, which I'm glad they lost.



> Hospitality bosses have lost a legal challenge for a faster reopening for indoor dining in England.
> 
> The High Court ruled in favour of the government after a case was brought by Punch Taverns founder Hugh Osmond, and Sacha Lord, the night-time economy adviser for Greater Manchester.











						Hospitality bosses lose court battle over indoor opening
					

The High Court has ruled in favour of the government in a battle over indoor reopening dates in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 4, 2021)

Oh dear they resorted to bad comedy. Makes me glad we didnt have to endure covid relief.


----------



## Humberto (May 4, 2021)

I wouldn't watch a video by Elton John.  I mean why?


----------



## Humberto (May 4, 2021)

DIDGENOW


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 4, 2021)

elbows, I was out & only briefly scrolling on the phone yesterday, now I am on the laptop I've found the article I linked to a few days ago concerning more under 40's being admitted to hospital in Brazil & India.

There's been loads of reports with comments from specific medics or hospital managers, but this one grabbed my attention, because it quotes data from a study by the Brazilian Intensive Medicine Association, amongst others, and data collected by Covid19India.org. 

It does ask the questions if it could be down to more younger people being accepted for the limited beds available, as their chances of survival is higher, and/or just a reflection of vast numbers. However, they also found deaths amongst those aged 20-39 had increased by 2.7 times compared to the first wave, whereas the general population that increase was only 1.15 times higher. 

It concludes that although there's no hard facts confirming it's down to the new variants, rather than other factors, such as young people being out & about more, they certainly may have a part to play, which should be of public concern.  



> Data show that 48 per cent of Covid-19 positive patients in Mumbai between January and March were below the age of 40, and 65 per cent of newly hospitalised patients in Delhi are under the age of 45, according to the Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal.





> A recent study from the Brazilian Intensive Medicine Association showed that patients aged under 40 now make up the majority of those hospitalised in the country's ICUs. Furthermore, a third of all individuals in Covid-19 intensive care beds in March had no prior health conditions, up from 25 per cent in February.





> It found that deaths among people aged 20-39 were 2.7 times higher in the second wave than in the first. In the general population they were only 1.15 times higher. “If [health system] overload was the reason for the increase in the case fatality rate, it would be reasonable to expect that the increase would be similar for different ages and genders,” André Ricardo, epidemiologist at the Leopoldo Mandic School of Medicine in São Paulo, and one of the study’s authors, told the BMJ.





> “These preliminary findings suggest significant increases in CFR in young and middle-aged adults after identification of a novel SARS-CoV-2 strain circulating in Brazil, and this should raise public health alarms, including the need for more aggressive local and regional public health interventions and faster vaccination,” the authors concluded.











						Mystery shrouds growth in Covid cases in young people
					

Younger people seem to be harder hit by recent Covid-19 waves around the world. But is it due to sheer numbers or new variants?




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 4, 2021)

Just to add to the above post, there's further information published in the BMJ.



> Growing evidence shows that young people are not only more likely to get infected with P.1 but also to die from it, some experts have warned. The Brazilian Association of Intensive Care Medicine said that the number of 18-45 year olds requiring intensive care for covid-19 in February to March this year was three times greater than in September to November 2020,5 and coronavirus related deaths in that age group have almost doubled.
> 
> Maragareth Portela, a senior researcher at Fiocruz, said that Brazil’s saturated hospitals could partly explain the higher mortality rates, as patients were less likely to survive if beds and equipment were short and staff were overwhelmed. Yet the increase is higher in regions where P.1 is more prevalent, suggesting that it is not only more transmissible but also more lethal. “It is very likely that the P.1 variant is more severe among young adults,” said Portela.











						Covid-19: Brazil’s spiralling crisis is increasingly affecting young people
					

Brazil continues to break records for all the wrong reasons as it faces its deadliest episode of the pandemic yet, amid an escalating political crisis.  More than 3780 covid-19 deaths were recorded on 30 March, six days after the country recorded its 300 000th life lost to the illness. At least...




					www.bmj.com
				




And, from the Fiocruz website -



> The data presented in the *Bulletin* show that, when comparing Epidemiological Week 1 of 2021 and 10 (March 7 to 13), there was an absolute increase in cases of 316.88%. However, when analyzing the age groups of 30 to 39 years, 40 to 49 years and 50 to 59 years, the researchers observed an increase in cases of, respectively, 565.08%, 626% and 525.93% - which suggests a shift to younger age groups.
> 
> For deaths, however, this relationship is less expressive: the increase, for this same period, was 223.10%. The range of 30 to 39 years old had an increase of 352.62%. There was an increase of 419.23% for the 40 to 49 age group and 317.08% for the 50 to 59 age group.











						Observatório Covid-19 Fiocruz alerta para rejuvenescimento da pandemia no Brasil
					

Ao analisar as faixas etárias de 30 a 39, de 40 a 49, e de 50 a 59 anos entre a Semana Epidemiológica 1 de 2021 e a 10 (7 a 13/3), os pesquisadores observaram aumento de casos de 565,08%, 626% e 525,93% – o que sugere um deslocamento da pandemia




					agencia.fiocruz.br


----------



## Teaboy (May 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> I remember being very unhappy with Manchesters night time economy adviser last year when they were resisting local lockdown at a crucial moment. Some of the Burnham arguments at the time about funding lockdown properly were fair enough, but they went beyond that into dangerous, shitty priorities and pandemic ignorance. Now I see they popped up as being involved in this case, which I'm glad they lost.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I do have a lot of sympathy for the hospitality industry but this was daft.  I certainly doubt the motivations of the head punch taverns and doubt he understands or gives a shit about the science.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 4, 2021)

elbows said:
			
		

> Hospitality bosses lose court battle over indoor opening
> 
> 
> The High Court has ruled in favour of the government in a battle over indoor reopening dates in England.
> ...





Teaboy said:


> I do have a lot of sympathy for the hospitality industry but this was daft.  *I certainly doubt the motivations of the head punch taverns and doubt he understands or gives a shit about the science*.



I agree.

*Punch Taverns* : Up there with the very worst and most manager-exploiting 'pub-cos' in the UK 
*Enterprise Inns* : Also shitty in very similar ways 
*Wetherspoons* : Equally dreadful, but different


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> *Wetherspoons* : Equally dreadful, but different


The worst of a shit bunch


----------



## William of Walworth (May 4, 2021)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> *Wetherspoons* : Equally dreadful, but different





Badgers said:


> The worst of a shit bunch



People in the trade that I know (eg my brewer mate the weekend just gone), will argue that Punch and Enterprise are easily as bad, and in some specific instances worse -- there's a legitimate (but quite technical and beer-supply related) discussion to be had there.

But yes, Wetherspoons achieve top shite rankings by their size as much as lots of other things!


----------



## William of Walworth (May 4, 2021)

<edited -- double post>


----------



## existentialist (May 4, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> People in the trade that I know (eg my brewer mate the weekend just gone), will argue that Punch and Enterprise are easily as bad, and in some specific instances worse -- there's a legitimate (but quite technical and beer-supply related) discussion to be had there.
> 
> But yes, Wetherspoons achieve top shite rankings by their size as much as lots of other things!


Let's face it - this isn't about individual pubcos being aberrant. It's baked into the system, and there is essentially no other way for them to operate in that market without being exploitative arses. Which is not to excuse them, but we should remember that the whole pubco framework was set up specifically to enable enormous companies to do a little end run around competition and monopolies legislation.


----------



## elbows (May 4, 2021)

Thanks for taking the time to find more detailed info cupid_stunt

Lots of what is said there seems reasonable. And consistent with a general impression about various strains packing a bigger punch. I think the 'Kent variant' showed certain signs of that too, but its a question of to exactly what extent, and as I always say I dont think everyone had the right impression about how badly some younger people could be affected by the original strains in the first place.

I suppose from a narrower UK perspective, the realities of those variants on that front must also be combined with whether these other variants have enough of a transmission advantage over the Kent strain that they could become the dominant strain here one day. And whether they are better at escaping natural or vaccine-based immunity. Only time will tell on that.


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Working with a woman from India at the moment. She is a doctor and her husband is a brain surgeon. They moved to the UK at the start of March 2020  and have seen nothing but their home and Luton  poor fuckers.
> 
> Her mother died in India just before the situation there went mental and after the funeral was worried she could not get back to the UK. Due to her residency status she was able to fly back. Obviously has to quarantine for ten days which is not ideal but of course she wanted to be home to her husband.
> 
> ...





This ^ was her whole lunch today. 

No outside time allowed today as the security guard was not available.


----------



## BigMoaner (May 4, 2021)

Threat of devastating third Covid wave has fallen, says Prof Neil Ferguson
					

The threat of a devastating third Covid-19 wave hitting Britain in the autumn has fallen, a top scientist said on Tuesday.




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 4, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Not solely a Covid-19 issue this but still a problem. Closing roads (midday onwards or similar?) would give more space to businesses but stealing pavements is shitty behaviour. While I have sympathy for hospitality businesses trying to reopen and re-employ people the planning is the usual fucking mess.




Going to be quite blunt and say I fucking hate pavement dining. It's annoying enough navigating crowds and traffic as it is without people spilling all over the road.

It's never just a couple of chairs either, it's fucking benches, pavement heaters, bloody great wooden barricades or flowerbeds.

If it's still here after Covid I'm just going to stay away as much as possible.


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 266344
> 
> This ^ was her whole lunch today.
> 
> No outside time allowed today as the security guard was not available.


She has just called me in tears. They have tested her in India, in the UK and every day at the prison hotel. She just by 'the failed track and trace' got told that someone on the plane tested positive and as a result has been told she will be there for another ten days and needs to pay more 

I have told her to keep a detailed diary, take photos and prepare it for the press. Also told her to contact the Indian Embassy and read up on legal action.


----------



## LDC (May 4, 2021)

Badgers said:


> She has just called me in tears. They have tested her in India, in the UK and every day at the prison hotel. She just by 'the failed track and trace' got told that someone on the plane tested positive and as a result has been told she will be there for another ten days and needs to pay more
> 
> I have told her to keep a detailed diary, take photos and prepare it for the press. Also told her to contact the Indian Embassy and read up on legal action.



That situation and the one you mentioned above sound really fucked up. How long has she been in the quarantine hotel already? I thought that the window for needing to self isolate after a positive contact was very short, like being in contact with them 48 hours prior to them testing positive?


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That situation and the one you mentioned above sound really fucked up. How long has she been in the quarantine hotel already? I thought that the window for needing to self isolate after a positive contact was very short, like being in contact with them 48 hours prior to them testing positive?


She has been quarantined on her own for 4 days. Negative tests at both airports and at the hotel. Has not seen another person apart from a distanced security card in PPE four times. 

They have said another £800 and 4 more days of this shit. I have done some reading and I am sure she (if testing negative) can't be kept there. 

She said there is virtually no staff at the hotel. The phone is almost never answered and they have told all the 'prisoner' guests that if they leave their room it is a £10k fine.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 4, 2021)

What the fuck is that food she's meant to live on? 

Poor woman.


----------



## elbows (May 4, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> Threat of devastating third Covid wave has fallen, says Prof Neil Ferguson
> 
> 
> The threat of a devastating third Covid-19 wave hitting Britain in the autumn has fallen, a top scientist said on Tuesday.
> ...



Good, I wanted to see updated modelling on third wave prospects but that article will do for now. I suppose I am more optimistic than I was months ago, although I will still have to describe it as cautious optimism.


----------



## planetgeli (May 4, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Working with a woman from India at the moment. She is a doctor and her husband is a brain surgeon. They moved to the UK at the start of March 2020  and have seen nothing but their home and Luton  poor fuckers.
> 
> Her mother died in India just before the situation there went mental and after the funeral was worried she could not get back to the UK. Due to her residency status she was able to fly back. Obviously has to quarantine for ten days which is not ideal but of course she wanted to be home to her husband.
> 
> ...



On the transport thing alone, that was definitely announced as part of the deal (that the payment would include this).


----------



## elbows (May 4, 2021)

Badgers said:


> She has been quarantined on her own for 4 days. Negative tests at both airports and at the hotel. Has not seen another person apart from a distanced security card in PPE four times.
> 
> They have said another £800 and 4 more days of this shit. I have done some reading and I am sure she (if testing negative) can't be kept there.
> 
> She said there is virtually no staff at the hotel. The phone is almost never answered and they have told all the 'prisoner' guests that if they leave their room it is a £10k fine.



I'm not familiar with the ramifications of the 'plane contact tested positive' bit but without that complication its not testing positive on the 'day 8' test that normally allows release.


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

Am fucking fuming. She is not one of my staff as such but is new to the UK and I have been giving support. 

She is a trained doctor ffs  married to a brain surgeon and a lovely person. She knew she had to pay but did not know she would be treated like this.


----------



## elbows (May 4, 2021)

Unfortunately it was partly designed to be a deterrent so not surprising that various aspects suck, and they publicised how much it sucked. Its the long extension as a result of someone on the plane testing positive bit that I struggle to find any info about online though, I cant tell if those are really the rules. 

If it were me I'd be tempted to email the address mentioned on one of the official government pages, ostensibly its there for a different purpose but maybe it could still be used in this instance:



> If you’re intending to travel to the UK in the next 7 days and facing a set of circumstances that are not covered by this guidance, please email your enquiry to dhsctesttrace.customerfeedbackteam@nhs.net.



(from How to quarantine when you arrive in England )


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Unfortunately it was partly designed to be a deterrent so not surprising that various aspects suck, and they publicised how much it sucked. Its the long extension as a result of someone on the plane testing positive bit that I struggle to find any info about online though, I cant tell if those are really the rules.
> 
> If it were me I'd be tempted to email the address mentioned on one of the official government pages, ostensibly its there for a different purpose but maybe it could still be used in this instance:
> 
> ...


I do get that. Just this is disaster capitalism at it's worst. I have got in touch with her (Labour) MP and passed her contact details on. 

Will pass that email on too.


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

Leaving the airports open for a year during the highest death rates... 

Now we have testing in place, only one death in the UK yesterday, this cashing in is hard to take. She is a tough lass, would be happy with decent food and a short bit of fresh air twice a day for £200 a day no less. She knew what she was signing up for. 

The Indian 'variant' is the Kent variant isn't it?


----------



## elbows (May 4, 2021)

Badgers said:


> The Indian 'variant' is the Kent variant isn't it?



No.


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> No.


Ah


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

It is beside the point in this case


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 4, 2021)

Badgers said:


> The Indian 'variant' is the Kent variant isn't it?



The Indian one is a double mutant variant.


----------



## elbows (May 4, 2021)

Yeh its only on point in so much as thats why India ended up on the red list of countries in the first place.

There are actually 3 different Indian variant versions that are being tracked in the UK and elsewhere these days. All three now show up on the weekly list of numbers I've been posting on the Covid Mutations thread.            #285        

I am in favour of the hotel quarantine system but not the way they've implemented it, the standard of food and the cost.

So although I have much sympathy with the other aspects you raise, I'm mostly trying to stick to the bit about her stay being extended as a result of the positive case on the plane. I dont really understand the underlying justification for this, the rationale, since the initial standard 10 day quarantine period and the need to take 2 negative tests should really cover the infection timescales if exposed to someone in the other country or on the journey. In my mind it would only be being exposed to a positive contact during the quarantine period that could justify extending the time period (or testing positive yourself during that period).


----------



## crossthebreeze (May 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Unfortunately it was partly designed to be a deterrent so not surprising that various aspects suck, and they publicised how much it sucked. Its the long extension as a result of someone on the plane testing positive bit that I struggle to find any info about online though, I cant tell if those are really the rules.
> 
> If it were me I'd be tempted to email the address mentioned on one of the official government pages, ostensibly its there for a different purpose but maybe it could still be used in this instance:
> 
> ...


the rules about being a contact of the person testing positive are on this  Booking and staying in a quarantine hotel when you arrive in England - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) That page also says travel to hotel should be included in package, and hotels should be able to accomadate dietary requirements.


----------



## bimble (May 4, 2021)

bloody hell Badgers . What hotel is it, is it a chain that the gov has given this contract to? I would like to see the financials of this, where her £200 a night goes.


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

bimble said:


> bloody hell Badgers . What hotel is it, is it a chain that the gov has given this contract to? I would like to see the financials of this, where her £200 a night goes.


Yup... 

Tory shareholder perhaps?


----------



## elbows (May 4, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> the rules about being a contact of the person testing positive are on this  Booking and staying in a quarantine hotel when you arrive in England - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) That page also says travel to hotel should be included in package, and hotels should be able to accomadate dietary requirements.



Thanks. It only seems to cover contacts you have been with during the quarantine period ("If you’re in quarantine with people you have travelled with"), so I cant bring myself to apply what it says to someone on the plane testing positive, that you arent sharing quarantine space with.


----------



## belboid (May 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Thanks. It only seems to cover contacts you have been with during the quarantine period ("If you’re in quarantine with people you have travelled with"), so I cant bring myself to apply what it says to someone on the plane testing positive, that you arent sharing quarantine space with.


A mate who has just been returned from Burma got a text saying someone on his flight had tested positive, but it didn't make any difference to the length of his stay, still got out as promised after eight days. He was told everyone on any flight in was likely to get such a text.  It was one of three he had, all requiring some other bod to ring him up and ensure he was where he said he was meant to be.  Tis completely cocked up.


----------



## Sunray (May 4, 2021)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 266344
> 
> This ^ was her whole lunch today.
> 
> No outside time allowed today as the security guard was not available.



How shit is that! I'm assuming the hotel they are in doesn't have the kitchen open. Or whoever has booked the rooms isn't buying anything from the hotel. 
No hotel kitchen near any airport would serve that. It would come on a plate.


----------



## Badgers (May 4, 2021)

Sunray said:


> How shit is that! I'm assuming the hotel they are in doesn't have the kitchen open. Or whoever has booked the rooms isn't buying anything from the hotel.
> No hotel kitchen near any airport would serve that. It would come on a plate.


It is like the 'free school meals' contracted out by the Tories. Costing £1 and billing the taxpayers £20.


----------



## Supine (May 4, 2021)

Sunray said:


> No hotel kitchen near any airport would serve that. It would come on a plate.



Hotels have spent a lot of the last year serving food in takeaway packaging. Expensive hotels and cheap ones!


----------



## Cid (May 4, 2021)

I mean it's quarantine. Disposable packaging seems pretty logical.

Not that that's a particularly important aspect of the situation.


----------



## Sunray (May 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> Hotels have spent a lot of the last year serving food in takeaway packaging. Expensive hotels and cheap ones!



If I ordered room service from the hotel I was staying at and it was £200 a night, I really don't think I'm going overboard, even in a pandemic, expecting the food to come on a plate?  
Costco sell really nice disposable plates, knives and forks.


----------



## Sunray (May 4, 2021)

Cid said:


> I mean it's quarantine. *Disposable packaging seems pretty logical.*
> 
> Not that that's a particularly important aspect of the situation.



It kinda does, but is there any real evidence you can get COVID from food or washing up? Not sure.  
Something caught my eye about flushing toilets might be a vector in some quarantine hotels depending on how they are plumbed.


----------



## existentialist (May 4, 2021)

Sunray said:


> It kinda does, but is there any real evidence you can get COVID from food or washing up? Not sure.
> Something caught my eye about flushing toilets might be a vector in some quarantine hotels depending on how they are plumbed.


I suspect that it's more that it meant a lucrative contract for prepackaged food supplies was thus available to a sufficiently generous Party donor. People who plate up food and wash up the crockery aren't, generally, reliable supporters of the Conservative party.


----------



## Supine (May 4, 2021)

Sunray said:


> If I ordered room service from the hotel I was staying at and it was £200 a night, I really don't think I'm going overboard, even in a pandemic, expecting the food to come on a plate?



You would have flipped out when you discovered no room cleaning


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 5, 2021)

The Times, now picked-up by other outlets, are reporting that all over 50s will be offered a booster jab this Autumn, perhaps at the same time as a flu jab, one in each arm.



> Everyone aged over 50 in the UK will be offered a third Covid-19 vaccination in the autumn in an attempt to eradicate the threat from the infection entirely by Christmas, it has been reported.
> 
> Trials of two options are under way, supervised by Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, the newspaper said - adding that the booster regimen could be enough to undercut the threat from both new and existing variants of the virus.
> 
> The first reportedly involves vaccines specifically modified to tackle new variants, while the second is for a third shot of one of the three versions already in use: Pfizer-BioNTech , Oxford-AstraZeneca or Moderna.





> It is thought the jab could be offered to the public alongside the flu vaccine at the same time, with patients given each immunisation in opposite arms.
> 
> An unnamed government minister told the paper: “We will have a lot to say about the booster programme soon. It’s looking really positive so far.
> 
> “We think that the level of protection in the population to any variant will be so high that, by Christmas, Covid-19 should have just faded into the background like any other illness in circulation.”











						Government to offer over 50s ‘third booster jab over autumn’
					

‘By Christmas Covid-19 should have just faded into the background like any other illness in circulation’, senior minister reportedly says




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Badgers (May 5, 2021)

__





						Rapid spread of India Covid variant in UK is ‘worrying’, say scientists | Coronavirus | The Guardian
					

Cases of variant B1617 reach 400, but Public Health England says there is no evidence of a threat to vaccines




					amp.theguardian.com
				






> Coronavirus variants first detected in India risk becoming the UK’s second most dominant within weeks, experts have warned after total cases rose to 400.
> 
> Public Health England (PHE) said on Thursday that there was “no evidence of widespread community transmission or that these variants cause more severe disease or render the vaccines currently deployed any less effective”.
> 
> But other scientists said it was worrying that the UK’s detected cases appear to be increasing rapidly despite England still being under social-distancing restrictions. India was placed on England’s travel “red list” from 23 April, restricting arrivals to citizens and residents who must quarantine in a hotel.


----------



## Badgers (May 5, 2021)




----------



## cupid_stunt (May 5, 2021)

Badgers said:


>




Apparently two confirmed cases amongst the Indian delegates.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 6, 2021)

Funky new look to how the vaccine data is displayed on the covid dashboard's front page.



Still not seeing much of an increase in first doses, that was promised for May, but the rest of those figures are looking bloody good.


----------



## teuchter (May 6, 2021)

I find this graph quite handy to see how vaccination doses are progressing, as it shows 1st & 2nd doses together.


----------



## Badgers (May 6, 2021)

Reading more 'clusters' of the Indian variant are cropping up. Midwest, Midlands and London (48 cases) mostly but 7 now confirmed cases in Northern Ireland. 

Hope this is not a major problem


----------



## Sunray (May 6, 2021)

500,000 vaccines a day is decent.  

Was wondering about deliveries of any of the other vaccines yet, saw this 








						What Covid vaccines does the UK have and which are in the works?
					

As Valneva recruits volunteers for final stage trials of its vaccine, here is the current state of play in Britain




					www.theguardian.com
				




Interesting to see that the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine is going to be offered to the under 30's to avoid the clotting issue.


----------



## Sunray (May 6, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Reading more 'clusters' of the Indian variant are cropping up. Midwest, Midlands and London (48 cases) mostly but 7 now confirmed cases in Northern Ireland.
> 
> Hope this is not a major problem











						New concerns as Indian Covid variant clusters found across England
					

Exclusive: Leaked emails show Public Health England assessment of ongoing risk from B16172 variant is ‘high’




					www.theguardian.com
				







			
				The Guardian said:
			
		

> The documents reveal 15 cases of B16172 were found in one London care home where residents had their second doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in the week prior to the outbreak. Four of the cases were hospitalised with *non-severe illness, and there were no death*s.



This is worrying, I'm not the only one worried.  AZ is still preventing getting very sick and dying, but not prevent getting it again.  
Going to open up in two weeks time.  

Why didn't we close the borders to India?


----------



## johnwesley (May 6, 2021)

Covid-19: Wilsthorpe School shut after more than 100 test positive.








						Covid-19: Wilsthorpe School shut after more than 100 test positive
					

After initially closing for two days, the school will remain shut until after the weekend.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Badgers (May 6, 2021)




----------



## elbows (May 7, 2021)

Yeah and the weekly variant figures also failed to come out as normal on Thursday. I went to the page earlier and at the top it says:



> Due to a processing issue, Public Health England’s weekly variant data will not be updated today (Thursday 6 May). The data will be available as soon as possible tomorrow (Friday 7 May). We apologise for the delay.







__





						Variants: distribution of cases data, 20 May 2021
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## platinumsage (May 7, 2021)

Sunray said:


> New concerns as Indian Covid variant clusters found across England
> 
> 
> Exclusive: Leaked emails show Public Health England assessment of ongoing risk from B16172 variant is ‘high’
> ...



It's not worrying at all. It's fantastic news that the AZ vaccine prevented care home residents from getting seriously ill or dying from the B.1.617.2 Indian variant.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It's not worrying at all. It's fantastic news that the AZ vaccine prevented care home residents from getting seriously ill or dying from the B.1.617.2 Indian variant.



And, they got it just one week after their second doses of the Oxford/AZ, so still hadn't benefitted from the full strength of their 5G upgrade.


----------



## Teaboy (May 7, 2021)

The traffic light system for travel from abroad is being announced today.  Covid travel rules: 'Green list' countries to be revealed

It seems to me that its simply window dressing.  The perception of doing something when you're not doing anything.  Throughout this pandemic the UK government hasn't given two shits about importation of the virus whatever the variant and only does something when they get embarrassed into it by which time it's far too late.

The green and amber status are essentially worthless.  Anywhere green won't stay that way for long and as for amber realistically how many people actually self-quarantine on arrival back?  15% maybe?  20% at a push?


----------



## elbows (May 7, 2021)

In my book they sort of give a shit about it but at the start a lot of the establishment experts also got things badly wrong on that front. ie back to my old rants about the failures of the orthodoxy when this pandemic came along. And later, despite learning something from the past failures, the government are still economically and ideologically allergic to some of the things you'd need to do to really handle imported variants properly.

eg these failures are in part down to the 'international hub' role that this country ended up with as a result of historical things like the remnants of the empire and various aspects of commerce, banking, globalisation, neoliberalism and increased reliance on service industries.


----------



## souljacker (May 7, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> The traffic light system for travel from abroad is being announced today.  Covid travel rules: 'Green list' countries to be revealed
> 
> It seems to me that its simply window dressing.  The perception of doing something when you're not doing anything.



You telling me you don't fancy two weeks all inclusive in the Falklands?


----------



## crossthebreeze (May 7, 2021)

Sunny South Georgia is on the green travel list


----------



## planetgeli (May 7, 2021)

Tristan da Cunha here I come.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (May 7, 2021)

Having Corsican ancestry it will have to be St Helena for me this summer.


----------



## The39thStep (May 7, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> The traffic light system for travel from abroad is being announced today.  Covid travel rules: 'Green list' countries to be revealed
> 
> It seems to me that its simply window dressing.  The perception of doing something when you're not doing anything.  Throughout this pandemic the UK government hasn't given two shits about importation of the virus whatever the variant and only does something when they get embarrassed into it by which time it's far too late.
> 
> The green and amber status are essentially worthless.  Anywhere green won't stay that way for long and as for amber realistically how many people actually self-quarantine on arrival back?  15% maybe?  20% at a push?


Cost of the covid tests are eye watering


----------



## elbows (May 7, 2021)

I've just been talking about the following sort of data in the mutations thread, but I feeel the need to put this bit here as well.


----------



## teuchter (May 7, 2021)

I've still not seen anything about the results of the "surge testing" that was done in Lambeth and elsewhere a few weeks back.


----------



## Badgers (May 7, 2021)

Was working at the Luton Lateral Flow test centre today. Had the first (4) positive tests for a week which was an Indian family  also we had to refuse entry to several people with symptoms for the first time in a while. Might have just been one of those days  

More concerning is that the South African variant has now been found in Luton. Waiting to hear more on that.


----------



## Sunray (May 7, 2021)

I think the mRNA vaccines will become the defacto way to make a vaccine in the next decade.  The manufacturers of these vaccines don't need the virus to make the vaccine. They just need genomic sequencing.
Moderna is already ready to make booster shots. Moderna announces vaccine booster will likely combat COVID-19 variants

How mRNA vaccines were developed.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 7, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Having Corsican ancestry it will have to be St Helena for me this summer.



Vive l'emperur


----------



## Badgers (May 7, 2021)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 266344
> 
> This ^ was her whole lunch today.
> 
> No outside time allowed today as the security guard was not available.


Update on Indian colleague in (prison) quarantine hotel. 

Her telly is broken and they refuse to fix it due to the situation. She asked to change rooms but that was refused. 

The Indian man in the room next to her attempted suicide last night


----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 7, 2021)

I’d be off. Fuck that shit.


----------



## Badgers (May 7, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> I’d be off. Fuck that shit.


£10k fine


----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 7, 2021)

Badgers said:


> £10k fine



Present the evidence in court, & fuck em.


----------



## Badgers (May 7, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Present the evidence in court, & fuck em.


I have told her to document, photograph and record everything she can. Then get onto her MP and the press. Have arranged for her to be picked up from the hotel by a friend and taken home. 

Grubby business this


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 7, 2021)

Badgers said:


> I have told her to document, photograph and record everything she can. Then get onto her MP and the press. Have arranged for her to be picked up from the hotel by a friend and taken home.
> 
> Grubby business this


The Guardian were looking for people with experience of quarantine hotels a day or two ago - I bet they'd jump on this stuff.


----------



## Badgers (May 7, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> The Guardian were looking for people with experience of quarantine hotels a day or two ago - I bet they'd jump on this stuff.


Nice. Got a link or anyone know anyone?


----------



## Orang Utan (May 7, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Nice. Got a link or anyone know anyone?











						Share your experiences of hotel quarantine in England
					

We would like to hear from people who have arrived in England from high-risk countries and have quarantined in government-designated accommodation




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Badgers (May 7, 2021)

Nice one


----------



## two sheds (May 7, 2021)

worth keeping a diary? any backing evidence if possible although difficult

eta: what you lot said ^^^ photos are good


----------



## Badgers (May 7, 2021)

two sheds said:


> worth keeping a diary? any backing evidence if possible although difficult
> 
> eta: what you lot said ^^^ photos are good


Told her to document dates, times and what happens. Also photos of the food/poor conditions etc. 

I will help her with it all. She is very scared and unhappy.


----------



## two sheds (May 7, 2021)

but  at scared and unhappy - disgusting that they're taking advantage like this. Private Eye might also be interested?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 7, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Share your experiences of hotel quarantine in England
> 
> 
> We would like to hear from people who have arrived in England from high-risk countries and have quarantined in government-designated accommodation
> ...


That's the one, cheers, was looking for it but I couldn't find it.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 7, 2021)

Also the journo might be able to help with at least links to advice as to what to do.


----------



## rubbershoes (May 8, 2021)

More good news 

The super rich will not have to pay additional taxes to help the balance the nation's books. 

What a fucking surprise


----------



## editor (May 8, 2021)

> *The travel industry has expressed disappointment that so few countries are *on the UK government's green list for travel,* describing the announcement as "overly cautious".*
> 
> The traffic light system means travel abroad from 17 May will not be illegal.
> The 12 green list countries, which include Portugal, Gibraltar and Israel, will not require people to quarantine on return to England.
> Firms said leaving the US off the list would risk the UK "falling behind".


I like the sound of 'overly cautious' myself. This government could have used more of that in the past. 









						Covid: Travel firms reject 'overly cautious' green list
					

The UK will be "left behind" if other countries open up travel more quickly, the industry says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## tommers (May 8, 2021)

The UK will be "left behind" if other countries open up travel more quickly. 

What the fuck does that even mean?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (May 8, 2021)

tommers said:


> The UK will be "left behind" if other countries open up travel more quickly.
> 
> What the fuck does that even mean?


It means some rich people might not “earn” quite so much money.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (May 8, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> The traffic light system for travel from abroad is being announced today.  Covid travel rules: 'Green list' countries to be revealed
> 
> It seems to me that its simply window dressing.  The perception of doing something when you're not doing anything.  Throughout this pandemic the UK government hasn't given two shits about importation of the virus whatever the variant and only does something when they get embarrassed into it by which time it's far too late.
> 
> The green and amber status are essentially worthless.  Anywhere green won't stay that way for long and as for amber realistically how many people actually self-quarantine on arrival back?  15% maybe?  20% at a push?


self quarantine should get at the least a phone call or 2 in the 10 days of quarantine or at best,  a door knock

My friend from Germany came back to UK in April and quarantined with me.  No contact was made at all.  She complied with the quarantine bc shes quite a rule following person but there was nothing to make her keep to it


----------



## Miss-Shelf (May 8, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Update on Indian colleague in (prison) quarantine hotel.
> 
> Her telly is broken and they refuse to fix it due to the situation. She asked to change rooms but that was refused.
> 
> The Indian man in the room next to her attempted suicide last night


I feel for your colleague so much:  has it gone to the press yet?


----------



## two sheds (May 8, 2021)

tommers said:


> The UK will be "left behind" if other countries open up travel more quickly.
> 
> What the fuck does that even mean?


Our infection and death rates will fall behind theirs, something said travel companies clearly don't give a shit about.


----------



## Badgers (May 8, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I feel for your colleague so much:  has it gone to the press yet?


Not yet. She wants to get it over with and log all the shitness. Then she will sort all the diary, photos and recordings with some help and we will plan the attack.


----------



## elbows (May 8, 2021)

I look at the election results and I remember the handful of anti-lockdown idiots we've seen on this forum during this pandemic, people who imagined things reaching the point of civil war etc. Must be quite the reality check for them, except I doubt they would recognise reality if it walked up to them and forced them to wear a mask.


----------



## Sunray (May 8, 2021)

This is possibly the weirdest way to spend COVID-19 relief money









						Japanese town spends Covid funds on 13-metre squid statue – video
					

The town of Noto is facing criticism after spending 25m (£164,000) on the 13-metre-long marine creature statue




					www.theguardian.com
				




Not even very good for the money.


----------



## MJ100 (May 8, 2021)

The travel list is pretty pathetic. Most of the places on it can only be reached by military transport plane anyway (South Georgia, anyone? Literally 30 people live there). Is there any good epidemiological reason why, say, the USA or China are not on the green list? Vietnam, Thailand, any of the other Asian countries that have dealt pretty well with things? What's so special about Singapore that it manages to sneak in there? Why not the UAE, have they not inoculated more per thousand than we have? Regardless of whether or not they would actually be accepting tourists (after all, Australia and NZ aren't), there are other places that could definitely be on the green list without any undue danger.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 8, 2021)

Why can’t they just have no international tourist flights until it’s all calmed down? Not having a summer holiday is not a big deal


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 8, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Why can’t they just have no international tourist flights until it’s all calmed down? Not having a summer holiday is not a big deal



Still absolutely fucking fuming cabinet members were planning holidays in June last year.


----------



## editor (May 8, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Why not the UAE


Always happy to see no flights to the UAE. And I'm delighted the government is - for once, finally  - not bowing to the self interested demands of the aviation industry.


----------



## weltweit (May 8, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Why can’t they just have no international tourist flights until it’s all calmed down? Not having a summer holiday is not a big deal


I tend to agree ..


----------



## MJ100 (May 8, 2021)

editor said:


> Always happy to see no flights to the UAE.



Your personal feelings about a middle eastern nation aside, I was asking about an epidemiological reason why the UAE is not on the green list (among many other places that could be). The government have sold the aviation industry down the river this past year, given them far less support than some other areas of the economy, absolutely zero ability to plan for the future, no certainty whatsoever, changing rules on quarantine and shifting countries from red to amber to green at a moment's notice, and keeping them closed or at limited capacity for longer than any other sector except nightclubs. It's been pretty disgraceful the way many governments have treated aviation and tourism tbh, given how many livelihoods it supports around the world. It's not limited to here in the UK but we certainly haven't been 'bowing to the self-interested demands' of anyone in the aviation sector.

If you're not going to open up flights, then you HAVE to give more financial support. Where is Shapps with his bottomless pocketbook on loan from Rishi when it comes to aviation? He said he'd given, I think, seven billion pounds of support, which might sound like a lot but it really isn't.


----------



## editor (May 8, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Your personal feelings about a middle eastern nation are irrelevant


Their human rights record may not be of interest to you but it is to me. 


MJ100 said:


> The government have sold the aviation industry down the river this past year, given them far less support than some other areas of the economy, absolutely zero ability to plan for the future, no certainty whatsoever, changing rules on quarantine and shifting countries from red to amber to green at a moment's notice, and keeping them closed or at limited capacity for longer than any other sector except nightclubs. It's been pretty disgraceful the way many governments have treated aviation and tourism tbh, given how many livelihoods it supports around the world. It's not limited to here in the UK but we certainly haven't been 'bowing to the self-interested demands' of anyone in the aviation sector.


We're in the middle of a fucking pandemic, with a virus that is mutating daily. Holidays in the sun can wait a bit longer.


----------



## miss direct (May 9, 2021)

I agree but please keep in mind that it's not just about holidays for many people. There are families separated and people in the middle of international moves caught up in this.


----------



## MJ100 (May 9, 2021)

editor said:


> Holidays in the sun can wait a bit longer.



miss direct is absolutely right, anyone who thinks this is just about holidays in the sun is just being deliberately obtuse. It's about way more than that, and yes we're in a fucking pandemic, does that mean we have to lose all sense of human decency in the process of trying to deal with it?

Again, I'll repeat it. If you're going to continue to ban flights, which is totally fine if there's justification for it, then you HAVE to give more support to the industry or it won't fucking be there at the end of all this shit. Nor will some people if they're kept from their homes and families much longer.


----------



## elbows (May 9, 2021)

It probably wont be there as we've known it once the climate change/energy realities bite over the next decade anyway.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 9, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I agree but please keep in mind that it's not just about holidays for many people. There are families separated and people in the middle of international moves caught up in this.


That’s why I was careful to say tourists/holidays


----------



## editor (May 9, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I agree but please keep in mind that it's not just about holidays for many people. There are families separated and people in the middle of international moves caught up in this.


Of course there are, but the safety of everyone HAS to come first. Far better to wait a a few more weeks than make the same fuck-ups of the past.


----------



## editor (May 9, 2021)

When things get back to normal-ish, I really hope we follow France's lead here:



> *French lawmakers have moved to ban short-haul internal flights where train alternatives exist, in a bid to reduce carbon emissions.*
> Over the weekend, lawmakers voted in favour of a bill to end routes where the same journey could be made by train in under two-and-a-half hours.











						France moves to ban short-haul domestic flights
					

MPs vote to stop flights where the journey could be made by train in under 2.5 hours.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




And this too: 



> In the UK, 70% of flights are made by a wealthy 15% of the population, with 57% not flying abroad at all.
> There are calls for a frequent flyer levy - a tax that increases the more you fly each year.











						A few frequent flyers 'dominate air travel'
					

Those who fly more should be taxed more, and air miles incentives should be banned, campaigners say.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## MJ100 (May 9, 2021)

editor said:


> When things get back to normal-ish, I really hope we follow France's lead here



We won't, because the same people who oppose air travel also tend to oppose HS2 and other alternatives like widening roads, more motorways etc. That's the problem with the green lobby, they rarely offer any actual answers that can work for many of the problems we face. Our domestic flight situation is also rather different from France as we have no well-developed, truly national, truly high-speed rail network to offer that alternative, and many of our internal flights are to and from islands (Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Hebrides etc) that have no other connection except a ferry, which can easily be even more polluting (to say nothing of the cruise industry and maritime transport). Many of those internal flights went with the collapse of FlyBe anyway. Plus, entire towns rely on our airports for a massive amount of their employment. The worst examples seem to be Crawley and Luton.









						The Sussex town hit hardest by COVID-19 and the effect on Gatwick Airport
					

Coronavirus has crippled employment rates and job losses at Gatwick have had a major impact on many other businesses




					www.sussexlive.co.uk
				




Aviation is a cheap and easy target for anyone who is green, unfortunately, even though there are many worse polluters out there. 

This is why it needs support, both to help it survive and to help drive the innovation that can keep it competitive in a green world. New fuels and the like. It's certainly possible. Look at how much quieter and more fuel efficient aircraft of today are than the great lumbering behemoths of the 60s. The difference is night and day, even for the same models of aircraft (Boeing 737 MAX compared to the old 737-200 for example). Then there's the social mobility argument that if you make air travel more expensive you just eliminate it as an option for anyone who isn't already rich, which is something everyone should be opposing. How much more of the population would lose the ability to go abroad, go on a nice family holiday, maybe to ever see their family again, if you price it out of their reach? Why would anyone want to go back to the 1950s when only movie stars and millionaires left the country for any reason other than to go and fight in a war?


----------



## Sue (May 9, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Our domestic flight situation is also rather different from France as we have no well-developed, truly national, truly high-speed rail network to offer that alternative, and *many of our internal flights are to and from islands (Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Hebrides etc) *that have no other connection except a ferry, which can easily be even more polluting (to say nothing of the cruise industry and maritime transport).



Really? I find that a very surprising assertion. I'd be interested in seeing some numbers for that as I'd imagine they account for a smallish percentage of the total.


----------



## existentialist (May 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> Really? I find that a very surprising assertion. I'd be interested in seeing some numbers for that as I'd imagine they account for a smallish percentage of the total.


Nah, I reckon he's pulling his conclusions out of his arse. The sound of axe grinding has been strong with this one from the beginning...


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (May 9, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> alternatives like widening roads, more motorways etc.


Kinda stopped reading at this point as it shows you’re fucking clueless.


----------



## xenon (May 9, 2021)

TBF on the odd occasion when I go to Scotland, I fly. Cos I don't want to sit on a train for 7 frigging hours and it's been cheaper.

Perhaps a limit on how many flights you can take per year, with a significant sur charge for any more. The rich already do most of the flying anyway.


----------



## editor (May 9, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> We won't, because the same people who oppose air travel also tend to oppose HS2 and other alternatives like widening roads, more motorways etc.


Do they really?  All of them?


----------



## editor (May 9, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Nah, I reckon he's pulling his conclusions out of his arse.


Me too. Can you back up those figures now please  MJ100?


----------



## Sue (May 9, 2021)

xenon said:


> TBF on the odd occasion when I go to Scotland, I fly. Cos I don't want to sit on a train for 7 frigging hours and it's been cheaper.
> 
> Perhaps a limit on how many flights you can take per year, with a significant sur charge for any more. The rich already do most of the flying anyway.


I don't, I take the train. From London to Edinburgh/Glasgow at least, there's probably not a great deal of time saving (if any) once you've done all the to and from airport and checking in faffing.


----------



## editor (May 9, 2021)

xenon said:


> TBF on the odd occasion when I go to Scotland, I fly. Cos I don't want to sit on a train for 7 frigging hours and it's been cheaper.
> 
> Perhaps a limit on how many flights you can take per year, with a significant sur charge for any more. The rich already do most of the flying anyway.


I'm not sure what route you take, but factoring in the faff of airports, and travelling back into the major cities can reduce the time difference considerably.

London to Edinburgh by train can be as nippy as 4 hours and 16 minutes, and that's without all the stress of airports. But, ultimately, there has to be a trade off made between hyper convenience and the environment, and if that means some people are going to have to factor in a couple more hours for long distance travel by rail in the UK, I'm all for it. 

And this needs to be incentivised by reduced rail fares and the price of flights reflecting their full environmental impact (pollution, fuel use, noise etc).


----------



## two sheds (May 9, 2021)

I always took train from Cornwall to Scotland when I went. I like train journeys - take a good book and some music, sorted. As pointed out unless where you want to go is near an airport you normally have to schedule getting a train anyway. I'm really pleased I don't fly any more, never enjoyed it with the herding through airports, takeoff/landing, waiting for bags, not my favourite use of time.


----------



## StoneRoad (May 9, 2021)

Newcastle to London or Newcastle to Bristol (ish) have been my usual long distance routes, although I use a car usually these days for most trips.
Only the former had any "by air" alternative and that was way less convenient in terms of the faffing about factor (checking-in, bags etc). In the end counting the "door to door" time Rail was more cost-effective - and I could "work" on the train, which was almost impossible on the small stuff used for internal flights at the time.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 9, 2021)

editor said:


> When things get back to normal-ish, I really hope we follow France's lead here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's fine, its not like our Green party are going balls to the wall to stop massive train infrastructure to support stopping flights.



Oh shit.


----------



## MJ100 (May 9, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Kinda stopped reading at this point as it shows you’re fucking clueless.



Why? What's clueless about that, hm? What other alternatives are there apart from trains, cars, buses (which use those same roads), and apparently hurling insults? Elon Musk's hyperloop?


----------



## MJ100 (May 9, 2021)

editor said:


> Do they really?  All of them?



I didn't say all, I said they 'tend to.' Can you find me a green group that opposes HS2 but supports more road traffic?


----------



## MJ100 (May 9, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Nah, I reckon he's pulling his conclusions out of his arse. The sound of axe grinding has been strong with this one from the beginning...



God forbid I have on opinion on aviation that differs from the axe you are grinding against it...


----------



## editor (May 9, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I didn't say all, I said they 'tend to.' Can you find me a green group that opposes HS2 but supports more road traffic?


Why would any sane person support more road traffic?


----------



## two sheds (May 9, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I didn't say all, I said they 'tend to.' Can you find me a green group that opposes HS2 but supports more road traffic?


the only alternative to HS2 is more road traffic? Not using the huge amount of money that HS2 costs (ignoring the destruction to countryside) to invest in the rest of the rail network?


----------



## MJ100 (May 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> Really? I find that a very surprising assertion. I'd be interested in seeing some numbers for that as I'd imagine they account for a smallish percentage of the total.



Why des that surprise you? I thought it was pretty obvious that we had numerous flights to islands. We have flights to Jersey, Guernsey, the Scilly Isles, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Lerwick, Benbecula, Sumburgh, Kirkwall, Stornoway, Barra, etc. Many of those flights are also vital for freight, mail, etc. Can't find any stats on the number of flights but the overall number of domestic flights has been steadily falling over the last decade, from 612,000 in 2009 to 484,000 in 2019. There's some more stuff here.

Aviation statistics: data tables (AVI) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)


----------



## MJ100 (May 9, 2021)

editor said:


> Why would any sane person support more road traffic?



They wouldn't, that's the point.


----------



## maomao (May 9, 2021)

xenon said:


> TBF on the odd occasion when I go to Scotland, I fly. Cos I don't want to sit on a train for 7 frigging hours and it's been cheaper.


Where are you going in Scotland that takes seven hours by train _and_ is quicker by plane? London to Edinburgh is as quick as four hours and almost always under 5. We once got very cheap tickets on the slowest train possible and that was only six hours.


----------



## editor (May 9, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> They wouldn't, that's the point.


No idea where you're going with this strawman stuff but it'd dragging this thread way off topic.


----------



## MJ100 (May 9, 2021)

two sheds said:


> the only alternative to HS2 is more road traffic? Not using the huge amount of money that HS2 costs (ignoring the destruction to countryside) to invest in the rest of the rail network?



I didn't say it was the only alternative, did I? To be fair to the Green Party, they do seem to support more investment in the rest of the rail network, which is something I can certainly agree with them on. I'm not sure they want to open new lines, though, so anywhere not currently served by one is pretty fucked under their policy.


----------



## MJ100 (May 9, 2021)

maomao said:


> Where are you going in Scotland that takes seven hours by train _and_ is quicker by plane? London to Edinburgh is as quick as four hours and almost always under 5. We once got very cheap tickets on the slowest train possible and that was only six hours.



I don't know about xenon but I went to Aberdeen from Sheffield by train once, and it took seven hours each way.


----------



## Sue (May 9, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Why des that surprise you? I thought it was pretty obvious that we had numerous flights to islands. We have flights to Jersey, Guernsey, the Scilly Isles, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Lerwick, Benbecula, Sumburgh, Kirkwall, Stornoway, Barra, etc. Many of those flights are also vital for freight, mail, etc. Can't find any stats on the number of flights but the overall number of domestic flights has been steadily falling over the last decade, from 612,000 in 2009 to 484,000 in 2019. There's some more stuff here.
> 
> Aviation statistics: data tables (AVI) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)


It does surprise me because the number of people going to these places must be very small compared to the number of people flying from London to Edinburgh or Glasgow, for example. Which is why I'm asking for figures. Also interesting you're now throwing Northern Ireland into the mix. And certainly between Scotland and NI and the Scottish mainland to the Western Isles, freight is mainly transported by ferry.


----------



## MJ100 (May 9, 2021)

editor said:


> No idea where you're going with this strawman stuff but it'd dragging this thread way off topic.



It's not strawman stuff at all. Just pointing out that the greens who oppose flying also oppose many (though not quite all) of the alternatives such as road travel and HS2. But you're right, way off topic, so that's enough arguing about transport.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 9, 2021)

two sheds said:


> the only alternative to HS2 is more road traffic? Not using the huge amount of money that HS2 costs (ignoring the destruction to countryside) to invest in the rest of the rail network?



HS2 supports the rest of the train network by removing high speed trains from the network to free up slower lines.

Its been marketed and sorted out completely fucking wrong and as always started and aimed at serving London first so inevitably when the protests do shut it down and theres no funding for T'Northern half, we'll be left with half a line serving only London and the cycle will continue.



MJ100 said:


> It's not strawman stuff at all. Just pointing out that the greens who oppose flying also oppose many (though not quite all) of the alternatives such as road travel and HS2. But you're right, way off topic, so that's enough arguing about transport.



It gets funnier when you see the Green Party official twitter supporting Eurostar and the French initiative then the next tweet is another "Fuck HS2" tweet


----------



## two sheds (May 9, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I didn't say it was the only alternative, did I?



The alternatives you gave were: 



MJ100 said:


> Can you find me a green group that opposes HS2 but supports more road traffic?



I quoted it to show that the alternatives you gave were specious.


----------



## two sheds (May 9, 2021)

Talked to a neighbour (1/2 mile away but there aren't many of us) that I've not spoken to for a while. He (and wife) aren't getting vaccine because he's got a really good immune system, works out in the open in all weathers. He's generally healthy I have to say, but his son isn't - has fairly bad asthma and is 16, has had one (possibly two) shots. I generally get on well with him although we view each others' political opinions with suspicion. His wife works in a shop so comes across a lot of people. 

I just nodded because I don't want to come across as preachy, will keep distance when we do meet, not really sure how else to deal with it.


----------



## existentialist (May 10, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> God forbid I have on opinion on aviation that differs from the axe you are grinding against it...


Did I say anything about anything, beyond commenting on your interminable agenda-led yammering? No, I didn't. And thus you demonstrate - again - your complete inability to see the wood for the trees. Well done


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2021)

maomao said:


> Where are you going in Scotland that takes seven hours by train _and_ is quicker by plane? London to Edinburgh is as quick as four hours and almost always under 5. We once got very cheap tickets on the slowest train possible and that was only six hours.



Not every journey starts within a 15 minute tube journey of KGX.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2021)

One week to go until the next stage of unlocking, groups of up to 30 will be able to meet outdoors, 2 households or 6 people will be able to meet indoors, changes to social distancing guidelines between friends and family, including hugging. 

Plus, subject to 'covid secure guidelines', pubs & restaurants will reopen indoors, together with cinemas, theatres, children’s play areas, the rest of the accommodation sector, some larger performances and sporting events in indoor & outdoor venues will be allowed subject to limits on capacity.

Full details in the Downing Street press conference today at 5 pm, with Johnson. 

We've got away with the unlocking so far, with cases, hospital admissions and deaths continuing to fall, but this is a much larger relaxation of restrictions, hopefully thanks to the vaccination programme* will can get away with it. 

* Around 70% of adults will have had their first jab and over 35% both jabs by next Monday. 

For me, it does seem to be the right time for this to be happening, it's been a long & hard lockdown, we can't stay in lockdown forever, we need to be able to start getting back to normal life, the only fear I have is of new variants, but I am cautiously optimistic for now. 

How do others feel?


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Not every journey starts within a 15 minute tube journey of KGX.


That's what I mean. Anywhere not near a train station is likely to be even further from an airport.


----------



## existentialist (May 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> One week to go until the next stage of unlocking, groups of up to 30 will be able to meet outdoors, 2 households or 6 people will be able to meet indoors, changes to social distancing guidelines between friends and family, including hugging.
> 
> Plus, subject to 'covid secure guidelines', pubs & restaurants will reopen indoors, together with cinemas, theatres, children’s play areas, the rest of the accommodation sector, some larger performances and sporting events in indoor & outdoor venues will be allowed subject to limits on capacity.
> 
> ...


Cautious. The facts seem promising, but it's hard to get away from the other facts - that the Government's response so far has been consistently poor, so it's hard not to wonder how they might screw it up again.


----------



## quimcunx (May 10, 2021)

maomao said:


> That's what I mean. Anywhere not near a train station is likely to be even further from an airport.



Most train stations aren't kgx and not everyone lives in london or is travelling to Edinburgh.


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> One week to go until the next stage of unlocking, groups of up to 30 will be able to meet outdoors, 2 households or 6 people will be able to meet indoors, changes to social distancing guidelines between friends and family, including hugging.
> 
> Plus, subject to 'covid secure guidelines', pubs & restaurants will reopen indoors, together with cinemas, theatres, children’s play areas, the rest of the accommodation sector, some larger performances and sporting events in indoor & outdoor venues will be allowed subject to limits on capacity.
> 
> ...



Mixed, but generally cautiously optimistic.

Cases are low enough, and combining that with the vaccination rates, and the reality that people are already relaxing anyway due to those things and general weariness of the whole thing, I think loosening restrictions is right to go ahead with now. 

I am also slightly cautious that people think it's all over, don't quite understand the risks even if vaccinated, and also the possibilities of new variants fucking things up later this year.

(On the risks/vaccinated thing; I was in a shop yesterday and someone queued up right behind me talking loudly on his phone with no mask on. I politely asked them to move away and they started being arsey saying they'd had the vaccine and it's fine now. Anecdote, but I've increasingly come across that view.)


----------



## Sue (May 10, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Most train stations aren't kgx and not everyone lives in london or is travelling to Edinburgh.


Yeah, though tbf when I go home, there's a train station in the town. The nearest airports are 80 miles away, one with no direct train connection to my home town (there is a bus but at weekends only or there's one that takes over three hours) and the other is two hours on the train once you've got from the airport to the city centre. So flying is a complete non-starter anyway.

I've a friend in London from Wick and he flies to Inverness as it'd take a very very long time just by train. (I'm not even sure how far up the trains even go.)


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 10, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Cautious. The facts seem promising, but it's hard to get away from the other facts - that the Government's response so far has been consistently poor, so it's hard not to wonder how they might screw it up again.



I think it's pretty obvious how they'd screw things up again tbh. The same as last time, dragging their feet far too long when it's obvious things are getting out of hand. You'd think after fucking things up like that twice already they'd have learnt but Johnson is busy digging the same hole again with the 'irreversible' stuff isn't he so I think if it did come to that then they clearly would make the same mistake again, the twats.

For all that though I do think it's the right time to start relaxing the restrictions. If the vaccinations are to take the strain that needs to be tested at some point. Fingers crossed its enough.


----------



## miss direct (May 10, 2021)

As someone who's yet to recieve a vaccination im still cautious. I havent been careful for 15 months only to get covid now. Ill be avoiding indoor venues for quite a while.


----------



## Teaboy (May 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> For me, it does seem to be the right time for this to be happening, it's been a long & hard lockdown, we can't stay in lockdown forever, we need to be able to start getting back to normal life, the only fear I have is of new variants, but I am cautiously optimistic for now.
> 
> How do others feel?



Agree with this.  Extreme times call for extreme measures but those measures can only be justified for so long.  We have to start moving on from this but at the same time being aware that things can get out of hand quickly.  

It seems self-evident to me that we will get another wave of infections, the clusters they have found in schools being a good example as is the now very well established Indian variant.  Hopefully a wave of infections does not mean a wave of death and serious illness. Sooner or later we are going to have to find out how good these vaccines are.


----------



## xenon (May 10, 2021)

maomao said:


> Where are you going in Scotland that takes seven hours by train _and_ is quicker by plane? London to Edinburgh is as quick as four hours and almost always under 5. We once got very cheap tickets on the slowest train possible and that was only six hours.



I just checked to remind myself. 6.5 hours. Bristol Temple Meads to Edinburgh. Longer for Inverness. The 2 places I've flown to before.
Fuck sitting on a train for that long if you don't have to. 

Temple Meads station is a 15 minute walk away. I can get a bus to the air port from the stop 5 minutes away. Bus takes about 25 minutes.

Also on a plane, you're not sat near a stinking bog. (the only time I did take the train that was the case. Oh and a bus replacement service between Edinburgh and Newcastle. .)


Anyway probably enough of a diversion, but it's not like I'm anti train. Not being a driver, that'd be daft.


----------



## xenon (May 10, 2021)

Anyway re lock down lifting significantly next week. Yep, cautious but looking forward to it. I get my first jab this morning. 

The weather's too shit to sit outside pubs. I had a couple pints at my local last night, then got bored. Most unlike me pre pandemic.

Will avoid any where crowded. Not because I'm especially concerned about getting Covid though partly obviously, Just realised / remembered I never liked crowded loud places anyway gigs aside. But I noticed going in some last summer, which was loud and seemed busy, it was making me quietly furious. (I left.) Lock down, the last year ,  has done something to my tolerance.

I don't reckon there'll be a big party type vibe TBH. In fact, a lot of what was shit before will still be there for lots of people and there'll be this sort of NYE depressing is this it vibe.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2021)

miss direct said:


> As someone who's yet to recieve a vaccination im still cautious. I havent been careful for 15 months only to get covid now. Ill be avoiding indoor venues for quite a while.



Sensible, I'll not be rushing to indoor venues for now, and not until 2 or 3 weeks after my second jab, so around mid-June onwards.

I think it's right for this stage of unlocking, but I am happy for others to take part in this human experiment, with me as an observer.


----------



## miss direct (May 10, 2021)

I think I may begin to feel left out soon. There are already plans for various things, and comments of "we're all/we'll all be vaccinated", until I pipe up and point out that I'm not....


----------



## souljacker (May 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> How do others feel?



Bring it on! I'm going out next Monday to get smashed with all my mates.


----------



## Espresso (May 10, 2021)

I am anxious about the idea of going anywhere. That's probably due to me not having been anywhere at all since the start of this. I would presume that people who have worked throughout are used to being out and about and among people. I still find myself getting itchy when I'm watching telly and there are crowds of people in an audience or on a plane or in a market or whatever what was normal before.  
Strikes me that the people who will be most keen to go out and mix are the ones most likely to have not been vaccinated. I think that's a bit scary. It's not like all the pubs and clubs and restaurants are going to be full of pensioners.


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I think I may begin to feel left out soon. There are already plans for various things, and comments of "we're all/we'll all be vaccinated", until I pipe up and point out that I'm not....



Is age the reason?


----------



## BCBlues (May 10, 2021)

General consensus here seems to be happy but cautious, I'm in that group.

I wont be rushing back to pubs events etc just yet but it's a relief knowing that they are open. Shopping will be more manageable too now as you can stop off at a pub or cafe for a break/wee.

Everytime I watch the news from India Nepal etc it's a strong reminder of how swiftly this virus can cause massive devastation.


----------



## miss direct (May 10, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Is age the reason?


Mainly, but all sorts of people who are younger than me seem to have also had their vaccines for various reasons. 

I'm not hugely sociable or into big group events so not a massive problem for me at the moment, but there is a sort of divide between those who've been vaccinated and those who haven't (among the cautious)


----------



## LDC (May 10, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Mainly, but all sorts of people who are younger than me seem to have also had their vaccines for various reasons.
> 
> I'm not hugely sociable or into big group events so not a massive problem for me at the moment, but there is a sort of divide between those who've been vaccinated and those who haven't (among the cautious)



Should be able to book it soon though, the age ranges are getting down really quickly. It's on over 40s now.









						Book or manage a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination
					

Use this service to book a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination or manage your appointments.




					www.nhs.uk


----------



## miss direct (May 10, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Should be able to book it soon though, the age ranges are getting down really quickly. It's on over 40s now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, I've been checking every day. I want to go and see my Mum but as my age group should be up next, or the one after next, I'm holding off.


----------



## StoneRoad (May 10, 2021)

I am cautiously optimistic that the vaccination rollout is working well enough that unlocking can proceed. But I would be more cautious / gradual that what seems to be on the cards.

But, I don't think that the case rate is low enough for the wide extensions being planned, it is still just above 2,000 cases / day (ignoring the weekend figures as they've always been a bit lower than in the week). 
Also, there are some areas with spikes or persistently higher rates than the national rate [maybe a case for local restrictions ?].

Worryingly, the incidence of variants - like the Indian one - is still going to be a problem, now and in the near future. And, potentially, vaccine refusal will make that worse.

Anecdotally, in the past couple of months, I have been told about several more local cases of household infections where the vector had been the school aged kids or university students.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> But, I don't think that the case rate is low enough for the wide extensions being planned, it is still just above 2,000 cases / day (ignoring the weekend figures as they've always been a bit lower than in the week).



Case numbers are around what we had in late May, which were probably a lot higher, as we didn't have mass testing*, so I am comfortable with the case rate. 

* We were averaging under 100k tests a day back in May, around 1m a day now.


----------



## Teaboy (May 10, 2021)

It seems to me that case numbers have effectively levelled anyway so there is no guarantee that extending lockdown would decrease them.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 10, 2021)

I think the case rate is likely to go up though isn't it - the fact that it hasn't already is a really positive sign but I wouldn't expect it to stick. 

The question is going to be what happens to hospitalisations and deaths when it does. If they stay low because of the vaccines then the lockdown lifting will be counted as a success. I don't have a problem with that in principle but I think a lot of people are likely to struggle with it.


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2021)

When the Kent variant was getting going, they used s-gene dropout as a proxy indicator of the new variant, since this was quicker than waiting for proper genomic analysis results to come back. That strain then became dominant, and these days they are able to do the same thing in reverse to get clues about other variants gaining traction. London is now seeing increases proportion of cases that dont have s-gene dropout, suggesting other variants are on the rise there.

Lack of quality information about what impact these other variants have on protection from vaccines means I am unable to properly consider the implications of this.


----------



## Sunray (May 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> One week to go until the next stage of unlocking, groups of up to 30 will be able to meet outdoors, 2 households or 6 people will be able to meet indoors, changes to social distancing guidelines between friends and family, including hugging.
> 
> Plus, subject to 'covid secure guidelines', pubs & restaurants will reopen indoors, together with cinemas, theatres, children’s play areas, the rest of the accommodation sector, some larger performances and sporting events in indoor & outdoor venues will be allowed subject to limits on capacity.
> 
> ...



Observing that many have already been hanging out indoors already, doing their best but once smashed outdoors and really cold at 1am everyone ends up indoors.  Nothing much has happened.
Aa good a time as any really.  The infection rate will go up, it's inevitable.  The hospital admission rate rising sharply is the one to worry about.

This is the blue touch paper moment of the UK pandemic.


----------



## StoneRoad (May 10, 2021)

I had a member of staff who had vaccine denying attributes (now including an outright refusal to get stabbed). Wore a mask only when that was insisted upon.
Had being the operative term as he chucked in his part-time job this morning. Pity, as he was a good worker but his "other" job was, I think, at a care facility.

I got the blame ! as I told the workshop manager, that I wasn't happy with the idea of someone working unmasked - in very close proximity - to other staff, unless both parties were vaccinated - even then, I would prefer masks to  continue to be worn until the protection against transmission is settled. (the project workspace has just changed from physically separate areas to a shared space).

We do get visitors and we have no idea of their covid/vaccination status, so we do the masking up etc.

Might be an over-reaction with the situation as it is now, but a couple of people have other contacts in their life that can't be vaccinated, or will probably have a lower protection level because their immune system has a reduced response to the vaccine.


----------



## Badgers (May 10, 2021)

Fun story from the testing centre (PlagueShed) today.. 

Last week two Indian chaps came in and tried to blag their swab tests. Just pretending to swab by waving the swab near their mouth/nose. We put our foot down and they did it properly. They told the staff that they needed a negative for work 

Tested positive 

One of the cunts came back 5 days later (the staff have been bollocked) wanting another test and THEY DID IT  which has tested positive again


----------



## editor (May 10, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Fun story from the testing centre (PlagueShed) today..
> 
> Last week two Indian chaps came in and tried to blag their swab tests. Just pretending to swab by waving the swab near their mouth/nose. We put our foot down and they did it properly. They told the staff that they needed a negative for work
> 
> ...


Should be a criminal offence in my book. The selfish wankers.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2021)

Face coverings for kids in schools to be lifted from next Monday, despite many teachers having not had the jab.


----------



## purenarcotic (May 10, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Mixed, but generally cautiously optimistic.
> 
> Cases are low enough, and combining that with the vaccination rates, and the reality that people are already relaxing anyway due to those things and general weariness of the whole thing, I think loosening restrictions is right to go ahead with now.
> 
> ...



To be fair to people, that is what the messaging has been all the way through, that vaccines would be our route out, so I can understand why people feel they can be less cautious now and feel protected. Because the messaging has implied that. Even today, hug but don’t hug but hug but think about who you hug.. as usual it’s a bit messy and confusing.


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> To be fair to people, that is what the messaging has been all the way through, that vaccines would be our route out, so I can understand why people feel they can be less cautious now and feel protected. Because the messaging has implied that. Even today, hug but don’t hug but hug but think about who you hug.. as usual it’s a bit messy and confusing.



Todays press conference certainly hinted that the 'use your own common sense and reason' that they are applying to hugging now is quite likely the approach the government will go for with lots of the other restrictions and rules they would like to formally ditch in June.

They do tend to make sure they go on about the percentages of protection that vaccines appear to offer. Some of those figures have improved over time, and there is also the combination of effects to consider. eg if 85%-90% of people who catch it and would have previously died if not vaccinated are saved from death, we also have to add in how much less likely they are to catch it if transmission and prevalence of the virus remains vastly reduced as a result of the vaccination campaign.

I've gone on a lot about the risks of asking the vaccines to do all the heavy pandemic lifting, but I dont really expect this point to come alive at this stage. When it comes to people, the media and politicians coming up with more vivid, stark and blunt stories and explanations of what this means in practice, I just dont expect much now beyond the dull percentages. Rather I would expect this stuff to gain emphasis only if we actually end up in a situation where the situation is clearly deteriorating and heading back towards deadly tipping points.


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2021)

If you like hearing journalists ask stupid questions about who Johnson will hug first, then this was the press conference for you. Imagine being a PM with Johnsons reputation leading you to be asked asked questions about who you'll shake hands with first, with the question featuring a dig that you were probably one of the last people to stop shaking hands earlier in the pandemic.

Aside from that shit, todays press conference did feature a fair bit of talk about the India variant B.1.617.2, with Whitty sarcastically calling it snappily named. It wasnt news to me that they think this variant is at least as transmissible as the Kent variant, and quite possibly more transmissible than that version of the virus, but I dont now quite how much attention everyone else has been paying to that sort of detail recently.


----------



## Sunray (May 10, 2021)

I'd like the Cinema to open too, but they didn't close due to the 2nd wave, closed due to having no movies to show.  I still think this will be the case for a while yet.


cupid_stunt said:


> Face coverings for kids in schools to be lifted from next Monday, despite many teachers having not had the jab.



Surely every single teacher has had COVID-19 by now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Surely every single teacher has had COVID-19 by now.



I doubt it, plenty are under 40, the current cut-off age for jabs.


----------



## Sunray (May 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I doubt it, plenty are under 40, the current cut-off age for jabs.



No, not the vaccine, COVID-19, _cough_ _cough_ _cough_
I can't see how they could have escaped.  Indoors with 30+ children daily.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 10, 2021)

Sunray said:


> No, not the vaccine, COVID-19, _cough_ _cough_ _cough_
> I can't see how they could have escaped.  Indoors with 30+ children daily.



Sorry, I misread your post.


----------



## nagapie (May 10, 2021)

editor said:


> Should be a criminal offence in my book. The selfish wankers.


Or maybe the gov that doesn't support people to isolate should be held to account.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I'd like the Cinema to open too, but they didn't close due to the 2nd wave, closed due to having no movies to show.  I still think this will be the case for a while yet.
> 
> 
> Surely every single teacher has had COVID-19 by now.


The cinemas are opening next week and they’re showing plenty, though not all are new releases


----------



## Sunray (May 10, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> The cinemas are opening next week and they’re showing plenty, though not all are nee releases



I look forward to getting something from my membership of the Picturehouse.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I look forward to getting something from my membership of the Picturehouse.


They’re selling tickets already


----------



## editor (May 10, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Or maybe the gov that doesn't support people to isolate should be held to account.


I'd like _both_ the government to offer more support generally and for dangerous liars like these to be criminally charged. They could have infected their fellow workers, and also all their friends and families and so on.,


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2021)

You have to watch out for unintended consequences with that sort of thing, like people avoiding the testing system altogether (which has likely already been something of an issue during this pandemic so far).


----------



## elbows (May 10, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Surely every single teacher has had COVID-19 by now.



I wouldnt have thought so. All the horror we've seen so far has been caused by a fraction of the population being infected, and although I'd tend to assume higher percentages for people in certain jobs, 'every single person' in a particular role having been infected already doesnt usually come into my thinking.


----------



## BillRiver (May 10, 2021)

editor said:


> I'd like _both_ the government to offer more support generally and for dangerous liars like these to be criminally charged. They could have infected their fellow workers, and also all their friends and families and so on.,



If they're not paid sick leave they and their families could be in a bad situation.


----------



## miss direct (May 10, 2021)

People won't wear masks in the cinema once the lights are down, will they? How well ventilated is a cinema?
(I'd quite like to go, but seems unwise with an air borne virus around..)


----------



## BillRiver (May 10, 2021)

miss direct said:


> People won't wear masks in the cinema once the lights are down, will they? How well ventilated is a cinema?
> (I'd quite like to go, but seems unwise with an air borne virus around..)



I went to the Castle Cinema in Homerton three times last autumn.

You had to take your seat as soon as you arrived, after a temp check and some hand sanitising,  no hanging about the bar/lobby.

Households were seated 2m apart.

Everybody wore masks throughout.

It was ventilated as normal (as per pre covid).


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2021)

Sunray said:


> No, not the vaccine, COVID-19, _cough_ _cough_ _cough_
> I can't see how they could have escaped.  Indoors with 30+ children daily.


I work in a school with very strict covid hygiene in an area which was very badly hit at the beginning of the year and there have only been two cases since March.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 10, 2021)

miss direct said:


> People won't wear masks in the cinema once the lights are down, will they? How well ventilated is a cinema?
> (I'd quite like to go, but seems unwise with an air borne virus around..)


They did when I went between lockdowns last year


----------



## miss direct (May 10, 2021)

I think it must vary a lot depending on area. Here it seems a massive struggle for most people to wear a mask at all, never mind covering both nose and mouth with it. I just can't imagine the general population of this area keeping their masks on throughout a film. I'll not bother just yet unless I can somehow get to an outdoor cinema event.


----------



## nagapie (May 10, 2021)

maomao said:


> I work in a school with very strict covid hygiene in an area which was very badly hit at the beginning of the year and there have only been two cases since March.


I bet there's been way more.


----------



## maomao (May 10, 2021)

nagapie said:


> I bet there's been way more.


Possibly more but I don't reckon way more. They've been pushing testing of kids and staff. Strict on bubbles, ventilation, masks and distancing. No bugs going round the school; I haven't coughed in weeks.


----------



## nagapie (May 10, 2021)

maomao said:


> Possibly more but I don't reckon way more. They've been pushing testing of kids and staff. Strict on bubbles, ventilation, masks and distancing. No bugs going round the school; I haven't coughed in weeks.


I was thinking more of last March and Dec, London was rampant. And it was also hard to get tests for some of that.


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## maomao (May 10, 2021)

nagapie said:


> I was thinking more of last March and Dec, London was rampant. And it was also hard to get tests for some of that.


I can only comment since this March really. A lot better than where I was last year which paid restrictions lip service and got hammered in December.


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## nagapie (May 10, 2021)

maomao said:


> I can only comment since this March really. A lot better than where I was last year which paid restrictions lip service and got hammered in December.


It's not the same situation. I doubt even strict rules could have prevented what went down before. This March still had the benefit of a strict lockdown and the start of the vaccine program.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 10, 2021)

I'm nervous about removing masks from kids thus soon. Why not leave it til the end of the school year then there are six weeks off?


----------



## MJ100 (May 10, 2021)

existentialist said:


> interminable agenda-led yammering



Sigh. Maybe you think everyone has to have "an agenda," but that's not the case. Interesting that you think like that though.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 10, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Sigh. Maybe you think everyone has to have "an agenda," but that's not the case. Interesting that you think like that though.




There's always the *easier* option of you _not _giving Urbans the impression (justified-looking!), that you do have an agenda, mind! 

Give that a try!   You never know, you might like it


----------



## BigMoaner (May 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> One week to go until the next stage of unlocking, groups of up to 30 will be able to meet outdoors, 2 households or 6 people will be able to meet indoors, changes to social distancing guidelines between friends and family, including hugging.
> 
> Plus, subject to 'covid secure guidelines', pubs & restaurants will reopen indoors, together with cinemas, theatres, children’s play areas, the rest of the accommodation sector, some larger performances and sporting events in indoor & outdoor venues will be allowed subject to limits on capacity.
> 
> ...


Cautious but optimistic. Every cell in my body has had enough of lockdowns. Can you IMAGINE we get to say August and we go back to square one. It truly doesn't bare thinking about. Due to personal reasons and covid, my life has been shot through with uncertainty and I'm just looking forward to (foolishly) feeling like I'm on solid ground again.


----------



## BigMoaner (May 11, 2021)

Talk about a national turning point. Jesus. Not sure there has been a bigger one in my life time. Certainly not one that has the power to affect all the people all the time.


----------



## editor (May 11, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> If they're not paid sick leave they and their families could be in a bad situation.


Or they could just be a bunch of chancers who are more than happy to potentially seriously endanger the health and lives of everyone around them. There is simply _no excuse_ for trying to cheat a test so that you can go into work and infect your fellow workers and their families.


----------



## nyxx (May 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> One week to go until the next stage of unlocking, groups of up to 30 will be able to meet outdoors, 2 households or 6 people will be able to meet indoors, changes to social distancing guidelines between friends and family, including hugging.
> 
> Plus, subject to 'covid secure guidelines', pubs & restaurants will reopen indoors, together with cinemas, theatres, children’s play areas, the rest of the accommodation sector, some larger performances and sporting events in indoor & outdoor venues will be allowed subject to limits on capacity.
> 
> ...



Apprehensive


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## Badgers (May 11, 2021)

editor said:


> Or they could just be a bunch of chancers who are more than happy to potentially seriously endanger the health and lives of everyone around them. There is simply _no excuse_ for trying to cheat a test so that you can go into work and infect your fellow workers and their families.


Also putting me and my staff at risk  

I made them sanitise the entire building despite it being very Covid-19 secure. 

Personally I would have reported them but the official line is that track and trace are responsible. Usually we have a tight ship and anyone who has symptoms is given self test kits and turned away. 

We are now moving more toward distribution of home test kits. It is staggering how little knowledge and/or misinformation is out there  but getting people testing to protect their families with the upcoming lockdown easing is vital. 

Last Saturday I gave out 1,180 self test kits in Luton Mall. There are 7 tests in a kit so 8,260 tests made available. Also dropped kits into all retail businesses in the town with instructions for the managers to 'protect their staff, customers and businesses' with regular testing. 

Meeting people in the Mall is an eye opener. Managed to dispel a lot of 'myths' and convince people to get vaccinated. It is a fairly informal approach but seems to work. Next stage is to get testing kits distributed to hostels and food banks as marginalised people are (as expected) less likely to have time for testing. 
L
We have funding from central government. Whilst there is no magic money tree  it does seem that this project will run past it's initial remit (end of June) and we hope will be rolled out to other areas with low vaccination uptake. 

There has been very little 'denier' interaction so far. One of my favourites was Saturday... 

Me: Good morning sir, would you like some home test kits for Covid-19? 

Cunt: A lot of my friends are nurses and have told me that these tests are carcinogenic and the virus is made up. 

Me: That is incorrect sir and you should be wary of fake news from friends. Listen to NHS advice. 

Cunt: The NHS are in on this fraud and... 

Me: I will stop you there sir. We deal in science not fantasy so if you want to protect yourself... 

Cunt: No, this is carcinogenic.. 

Me: BEGONE AND STOP WASTING MY TIME!

Cunt: But there is... 

Me: *LEAVE* NOW SIR! 

_Cunt runs away_


----------



## brogdale (May 11, 2021)

ONS data on deaths in care homes released today:

Deaths involving COVID-19 in the care sector, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics

Looking like around 29k excess deaths (compared to 5 year mean) with 42k mentioning Covid.


----------



## Teaboy (May 11, 2021)

And covid passports are go.









						NHS app ready to become vaccine passport next week
					

People will be able to use the app for travel - but only if they have received two vaccine doses.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Inside the NHS app, not the covid NHS app the other NHS app.  I don't think this is all that bigger deal really as I don't think it'll be used internally but might be of some use for foreign travel though not likely to replace the need for multiple tests and other countries may not accept it anyway.  More like a digital record than any real attempt at a passport.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 12, 2021)

For the first time in ages there was a 3% increase in the weekly figure of new cases reported on Monday, yesterday that was a 12% increase, which is a bit worrying.


----------



## bimble (May 12, 2021)

not good:








						Indian Covid variant calls in question 17 May reopening in UK, say experts
					

Highly transmissible B.1.617.2 is now second most common variant and is spreading in north-west England




					www.theguardian.com
				




I think i'm ok with the uncertainty and with counting no chickens for the foreseeable, but you know our PM totally did say that thing about piles of bodies being better than having another lockdown, and he'd feel that way even more now presumably.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 12, 2021)

I think another lockdown will be disastrous all round. In fact people won't do it. I'm worried it's going to get ugly again down the line with everything open, schools maskless, distancing removed, etc


----------



## bimble (May 12, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I think another lockdown will be disastrous all round. In fact people won't do it. I'm worried it's going to get ugly again down the line with everything open, schools maskless, distancing removed, etc


I feel the same way. But then i thought that last time and was wrong, people did do it.
It will be different now though, with a tiny bit of luck, because of the vaccinations.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 12, 2021)

People have been saying 'other people won't do it' since last March. They have though on the whole haven't they. I don't see any reason most won't again if it comes to it.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 12, 2021)

I'm not as pessimistic as last time (although still with some concerns) about the need for a full-on January-style and lengthy lockdown.
(I suppose I tend towards being less nervous by general temperament).

And  (gut-reaction here) it seems counterintuitive to me, that with so many people getting vaccinated, that this wouldn't at least reduce the spread of the Indian or other variants  .... booter jabs in the Autumn promised too .....

I admit I'm only guessing mind-you -- like most other people!


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 12, 2021)

Sure, I'm not predicting anything, I'm just trying to articulate my worries about the speed of unlockening. Badly, obviously!


----------



## platinumsage (May 12, 2021)

The spread of variants needn't be concerning if it's asymptomatic spread in vaccinated individuals for example. It's hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths that matter. Unlike before, these measures no longer follow the case counts in anything like the same way.


----------



## Teaboy (May 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> For the first time in ages there was a 3% increase in the weekly figure of new cases reported on Monday, yesterday that was a 12% increase, which is a bit worrying.



We were expecting this no?  In fact I think many of use kind of expected it after the schools went back and its only filtered through quite slowly after further measures have been relaxed.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 12, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> We were expecting this no?  In fact I think many of use kind of expected it after the schools went back and its only filtered through quite slowly after further measures have been relaxed.



It was expected, but didn't happen, until the last couple of days, when it went from a decline of -3% to an increase of +12%, that's a sizeable change in just 2 days, the next few days are worth watching, so see if it's a blip, if it stabilises or is seriously taking off again.

It seems largely down to the Indian variant taking off, specifically in the north, which is concerning as there's some early data from India suggesting it's hitting the under 40s more, much like studies coming out from Brazil regarding their variant, and, of course, the under 40s haven't been offered the jab yet.

The government will put up with cases going up, if they don't result in increased hospitalisations, not that that is helpful to people catching it and ending-up with long covid.

I am certainly not at the pessimistic stage, and remain cautiously optimistic, but it's is something to watch, as I am sure the scientists are.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It was expected, but didn't happen, until the last couple of days, when it went from a decline of -3% to an increase of +12%, that's a sizeable change in just 2 days, the next few days are worth watching, so see if it's a blip, if it stabilises or is seriously taking off again.



I'm not a huge fan of the week on week percentage changes, at least not when we are at a stage where overall numbers have been so low for a good while.

I dont mean its totally useless but it certainly has its limits, and I hope thats clear via these daily UK figures (by report date not specimen date) since the start of April. Especially when the recent bank holiday is considered.



I probably will start keeping an eye on the figures per region from now on.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

Although based on the following graph I'd say its probably time to zoom in closer than regions. Someone mentioned Bolton earlier and this is what their cases by specimen date graph looks like on the official dashboard at the moment. Its the only one I've looked at so far.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The spread of variants needn't be concerning if it's asymptomatic spread in vaccinated individuals for example. It's hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths that matter. Unlike before, these measures no longer follow the case counts in anything like the same way.



Well there are various different sorts of concerns. Hospitalisations etc are what would force government to change approach eventually, but concerns about particular variants need to extend well beyond the hospital picture. Likewise asymptomatic cases are good news in some ways (disease severity and treatment burden), but bring concerns of their own in terms of detection and spread.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

I see we finally have a date for the public inquiry. I dont know how much I'll be up for commentating on it when it happens, since I spent too long discussing failings at the time. I can already hear the future me groaning about how much is excused as only being obvious with the benefit of hindsight, when actually much of it was quite obvious at the time.









						Covid: Lessons to be learned from spring 2022 public inquiry - PM
					

The state will be "under the microscope", Boris Johnson says, as Labour urges an earlier start date.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## two sheds (May 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> I see we finally have a date for the public inquiry. I dont know how much I'll be up for commentating on it when it happens, since I spent too long discussing failings at the time. I can already here the future me groaning about how much is excused as only being obvious with the benefit of hindsight, when actually much of it was quite obvious at the time.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So timed to come out just after the next general election? Or an Independent Inquiry headed by that nice Mr. Gove?


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

I dont have those sorts of predictions at this stage, except that such things are usually chaired by a safe pair of hands that will keep things compatible with the establishment, but wont be so obviously linked to the regime that the likes of Gove would be a candidate. A minimum fig leaf of credibility is usually part of the mix, and Gove etc wont have that.


----------



## two sheds (May 12, 2021)

Yes fair play. Someone who Johnson privately owes money to and might not get it back then.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

Some judge we've never previously heard of who had an impressive record of service in excusing state massacres and taking their responsibilities to neoliberalism seriously may be the expected candidate.

Conclusions and recommendations will then be processed into a form compatible with whatever health and care reforms the government want. Or if the conclusions are stubbornly incompatible, it can go down the memory hole like Leveson.


----------



## two sheds (May 12, 2021)

All documents and witnesses exhaustively studied with thorough analysis that can only be published after the next election (or, as you say, not at all).


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 12, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> We were expecting this no?  In fact I think many of use kind of expected it after the schools went back and its only filtered through quite slowly after further measures have been relaxed.


As cupid stunt says, it's almost certainly due to the Indian variant popping up now, not really anything to do with the tightness of measures. 

My concern is not so much to do with internal measures as with processes to stop the import of new variants. Seems to me the govt has not fully learned the lesson from last year. It's the nature of surges that we only find out about them a while after they have started, so I would guess that the new clusters of Indian variant entered the country before the latest restrictions were put in place. There's a lesson there, I think. All non-essential travel should be discouraged for this year, imo, including all foreign holidays. We can survive for a year without lying on a Portuguese beach. That way, we are then able to all live pretty normally and openly at home. That's the lesson of Taiwan, South Korea, New Zealand, etc.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some judge we've never previously heard of who had an impressive record of service in excusing state massacres and taking their responsibilities to neoliberalism seriously may be the expected candidate.
> 
> Conclusions and recommendations will then be processed into a form compatible with whatever health and care reforms the government want. Or if the conclusions are stubbornly incompatible, it can go down the memory hole like Leveson.



"Everything that went wrong was due to these scientists and everything that went right was due to the cabinet and Mr Johnson personally, please see our supporting evidence documents 01 - 9999 and please ignore all those massive black lines that are entirely to protect legitimate and normal business and personal data"


I've just saved the government absolutely billions and years, please send me enough for a housing deposit.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> As cupid stunt says, it's almost certainly due to the Indian variant popping up now, not really anything to do with the tightness of measures.



I wouldnt make that claim. Its more likely a combination of both. Relatively low prevalence levels also make it trickier to determine the variant picture, since when we hear about high percentage of cases being a particular variant, its often low underlying numbers at work. And when we get lower numbers, then individual cluster outbreaks can really shift the needle in a rather pronounced way, one school, workplace or social gathering outbreak can quickly make up the bulk of the increase seen in a particular place.



> My concern is not so much to do with internal measures as with processes to stop the import of new variants. Seems to me the govt has not fully learned the lesson from last year. It's the nature of surges that we only find out about them a while after they have started, so I would guess that the new clusters of Indian variant entered the country before the latest restrictions were put in place. There's a lesson there, I think. All non-essential travel should be discouraged for this year, imo, including all foreign holidays. We can survive for a year without lying on a Portuguese beach. That way, we are then able to all live pretty normally and openly at home. That's the lesson of Taiwan, South Korea, New Zealand, etc.



Also need to consider the lessons for all of us in terms of the horse already having bolted. Indian variants already spreading in some communities, no further imports required.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> Relatively low prevalence levels also make it trickier to determine the variant picture, since when we hear about high percentage of cases being a particular variant, its often low underlying numbers at work.



Just one example. The website with genomic data that the recent Guardian article linked to with the parameters set to look at the India variant B.1.617.2. I've also set it to zoom in on South Northamptonshire because that area shows 76.9% of genome sequenced cases for that area in the April 24th figures were of that variant! But the underlying number of cases involved appears to be 5.





__





						COVID-19 Genomic Surveillance – Wellcome Sanger Institute
					

The Wellcome Sanger Institute's COVID–19 Genomic Surveillance Initiative, part of the COVID–19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium




					covid19.sanger.ac.uk


----------



## Teaboy (May 12, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> As cupid stunt says, it's almost certainly due to the Indian variant popping up now, not really anything to do with the tightness of measures.



_Almost certainly..._

After everything that we've all been through over the last year and more I find it astonishing anyone is still using language like this.  You're guessing just as much as I am.


----------



## Elpenor (May 12, 2021)

38/39 year olds can now book vaccine on NHS website


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 12, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> _Almost certainly..._
> 
> After everything that we've all been through over the last year and more I find it astonishing anyone is still using language like this.  You're guessing just as much as I am.


I'm looking at the numbers. Your post also contained a bunch of assumptions about the effects of various measures and their tightening/loosening. I accept that it is perhaps a combination of the new variants being allowed in and the change in measures, but that's all - mostly because, looking at the numbers, I'm generally pessimistic about the effectiveness of most of the things we've been doing to slow the spread. It matters because we need to know the right things to fixate on. The lesson of the last year is that places that have done well are generally those that controlled their borders. We're still not doing that correctly, imo, when making that comparison.


----------



## David Clapson (May 12, 2021)

The Spectator thinks that Johnson hopes to benefit from the public inquiry which he's announced.  Could be quite a battle, with expert witnesses on hand. I wonder where Johnson will find scientists to say he did the right thing? 



> The Prime Minister has confirmed a ‘full, proper public inquiry’ into the government's handling of the Covid-19 crisis, which will be held in spring next year. This is highly significant, because a ‘full, proper public inquiry’ means one led by a judge and with witnesses represented by lawyers. Although the PM has repeatedly said there would be an inquiry, he had never before indicated when it would start and had never suggested whether it would be a ‘full, proper public inquiry’ or a less formal and less time-consuming ‘independent’ one.
> 
> According to a source, the Prime Minister has decided to confirm the timing of the inquiry so that he is seen to be taking the initiative, rather than reacting to potentially damaging disclosures due to be made by his estranged former chief aide Dominic Cummings, who is giving evidence to MPs on the health and science committees on 26 May. He will tell MPs that the Prime Minister was too slow to lock down in March and rejected his insistence that there should be a second lock down in September. Cummings believes this slowness to restrict our freedoms led to significant increases in the death toll. However, the Prime Minister is understood to be confident that voters understand his reluctance to lock down and that they will give him credit for the success of the vaccine programme.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> I wonder where Johnson will find scientists to say he did the right thing?



Its clear from that quote that he isnt expecting that. He's expecting to rely on a mixture of the reasons why lockdown was unthinkable to his sort, and vaccine-based joy that matters came to an end.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

He can also rely on the fact that his groteque failings will be joined by the failings seen across a far broader cross-section of the establishment. Dodgy orthodox thinking about the correct pandemic response extended to plenty of people who should have known better. One example would be that some of the modelling, or more precisely the modellers appreciation of the nature and lag involved in the data they were using, was shockingly poor during a crucial early period. So the terrible timing was not only Johnsons fault, there were other failures which messed up the first wave response timing. The second wave response timing can be blamed more comprehensively on Johnson & friends though, no matter how much they hide behind the Kent variant. Another example would be the number of people involved in public health that indulged in hideously wishful thinking about the number of asymptomatic cases and their potential role in transmission. Failure to control things at borders can also be blamed on quite a wide range of entities, including the WHO.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

The Bolton situation is in the news:









						Covid: Bolton Indian variant surge leaves hospitality nervous
					

Pub and cafe owners in Bolton are apprehensive about reopening amid a rise in the Indian variant.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

Last June I went on about what looked to me like an outbreak at my local hospital, which authorities tried to be vague about using weasel words and appeals for the community to prevent infections in the wider community even though it seemed obvious to me that it was a hospital outbreak. Later I speculated that infection control had been much improved as a result of this outbreak.

Now I see they are prepared to be more honest about it:



> Dr Catherine Free, medical director, admitted that lessons had been learned from last June.
> 
> The hospital was forced to take action on four wards as it battled an increase in cases, which resulted in 29 deaths in just one month.
> 
> She said that the learning from the June outbreak has helped the hospital tighten up its infection prevention and now it forms part of the everyday work.



(from an article about a recent rise in A&E numbers: Hundreds surge to A&E as staff face busiest day in 12 months )


----------



## Sunray (May 12, 2021)

Definite worry about that variant, there its some evidence the AZ is protecting Indians from getting more than mild symptoms.

750 under 25's in the Bolton area.  I suppose as long as nothing bad happens to them it's ok......

It's not going away.


----------



## blameless77 (May 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> I see we finally have a date for the public inquiry. I dont know how much I'll be up for commentating on it when it happens, since I spent too long discussing failings at the time. I can already hear the future me groaning about how much is excused as only being obvious with the benefit of hindsight, when actually much of it was quite obvious at the time.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



At least you documented it and it's on record. You've definitely had an impact on my understanding of where we are at and what's needed to fix it - to the extent that I wouldn't be engaged in my current work if you hadn't convinced me it was important. They should include your posts as evidence!


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 12, 2021)

The whole thing about masks for the first couple of months.

Crazy.


----------



## Dystopiary (May 12, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> The whole thing about masks for the first couple of months.
> 
> Crazy.


Yep, and has probably contributed to some of the conspiracy bs going about.


----------



## pogofish (May 12, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I'm nervous about removing masks from kids thus soon. Why not leave it til the end of the school year then there are six weeks off?



Yup - The skinny from work about the Moray outbreak is that it is very heavily connected with the three academies (and secondarily the food processing/manufacturing sites in the area) but the Scottish government is doing its best to hang it on the two RAF/Army bases instead.


----------



## elbows (May 12, 2021)

I dont know as I've got it in me to properly read all the updated modelling and SAGE minutes from earlier in May that became available a few days ago. Partly because if I just zoom in on a few specific bits then I feel like I'm doing a disservice to the whole picture.

But from what I've seen so far the modelling, as suggested recently, does indeed feature an improved outlook due to more impressive data about vaccines role in reducing transmission.

However I do note that other bits which mention variants, and relative lack of consideration of variants in most of this modelling, includes wording which suggests that even if a variant does not feature substantial escape from immunity, a property of being highly transmissible relative to the Kent B.1.1.7 variant would also be enough to generate concerns about a large wave.



> A variant which either substantially escapes immunity or is highly transmissible (more so than B.1.1.7) could lead to a very significant wave of infection, potentially larger than that seen in January 2021 if there were no interventions. Given the uncertainty around the properties of any such variant this modelling is based on some illustrative scenarios only. The central scenarios modelled do not include any impact from new variants. Reducing the number of variant infections should be a priority for policy.
> 
> Maintaining control of transmission of any such variants will be more difficult when there are fewer measures in place. The extinction probability of a cluster depends heavily on the size of the cluster when it is identified, and the number of clusters will increase with the rate of importation. It would therefore be worthwhile to target resources at early detection of clusters of variants, particularly as potential importations increase. The principles of responding quickly, taking strong measures, and doing so over a wider geography than where the issue has been identified should apply.



That quote is from the meeting minutes ( https://assets.publishing.service.g...e/984501/S1235_Eighty-eighth_SAGE_meeting.pdf ) but similar things are said in some of the other documents from this period:









						SAGE meetings, May 2021
					

Minutes and papers from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) meetings held in May 2021.




					www.gov.uk
				




How optimistic they are about the future also relies to a degree on hopes that behaviours dont return to normal too quickly once everything is formally unlocked.


----------



## Badgers (May 13, 2021)




----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2021)

There's growing concerns that this India variant is more transmissible than the Kent one, some reports suggesting up to 60% more transmissible, as case numbers mount in the north & London.



> Evidence is growing that a troubling “India variant” of the coronavirus is more transmissible than the type first detected in Kent that fuelled the UK’s second wave of infections and spread around the world. Scientists have warned the sharp rise in cases of the “India variant” could jeopardise the country’s roadmap out of lockdown.
> 
> Imperial College London’s latest React study found based on swab tests that between 15 April and 3 May in England coronavirus case rates halved compared with March, but the variant of concern known as B.1.617.2 found in India could be spreading faster, at least in London, than the “Kent variant”, known as B.1.1.7. It is thought the government’s Sage committee will hold an emergency meeting on the issue today.











						Thursday briefing: ‘Indian variant’ could threaten roadmap
					

Sharp rise in cases worries scientists … Israel-Gaza conflict intensifies … and Tesla unplugs from Bitcoin




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2021)

The statement from Imperial seems less concerned about the variant than that Guardian article implies.









						Coronavirus infections have fallen to 1 in 1000 in England - REACT study | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

The number of people infected with the coronavirus in England has fallen by half since the end of March.




					www.imperial.ac.uk
				






> For this latest study, 127,408 people across the country took swab tests at home. 115 were positive, giving a weighted infection prevalence of 0.1%. Weighting is when researchers make adjustments in their calculations to ensure that the sample is representative of the wider population.
> 
> Of the positive samples, a number have been analysed by genetic sequencing and 26 could be successfully identified. Of those, 24 (92.3%) were the Kent (B.1.1.7) variant and two (7.7%) were the Indian variant of concern (B.1.617.2). Both of the latter were detected in London, in people who did not report international travel within the two weeks prior to testing, suggesting community transmission.
> 
> Professor Steven Riley, Professor of Infectious Disease Dynamics at Imperial, said: “The fact that our study detected the Indian variant among a small number of samples could be cause for concern. At the moment it’s unclear whether this variant is more transmissible than B.1.1.7 but this is a risk, so it will be important to closely monitor infections and hospitalisations in areas where this virus is present so that public health responses can be implemented if needed.”


----------



## Badgers (May 13, 2021)

Badgers said:


> She has been quarantined on her own for 4 days. Negative tests at both airports and at the hotel. Has not seen another person apart from a distanced security card in PPE four times.
> 
> They have said another £800 and 4 more days of this shit. I have done some reading and I am sure she (if testing negative) can't be kept there.
> 
> She said there is virtually no staff at the hotel. The phone is almost never answered and they have told all the 'prisoner' guests that if they leave their room it is a £10k fine.


She is free and back to work 😍


----------



## Badgers (May 13, 2021)

Badgers said:


> She is free and back to work 😍


In less positive news all the money she has saved (working as a Covid-19 tester) has been spent on the hotel jail. That was going to pay for her to become a doctor in the UK and work for the NHS


----------



## Boudicca (May 13, 2021)

Badgers said:


> In less positive news all the money she has saved (working as a Covid-19 tester) has been spent on the hotel jail. That was going to pay for her to become a doctor in the UK and work for the NHS


Did she get out in the 10 days or did they make her do the extra ones?


----------



## Boudicca (May 13, 2021)

.


----------



## Cid (May 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> The Bolton situation is in the news:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Totally off topic, but journalism and referring to women by their ages. I mean the BBC is a load of old shite contentwise, but you’d think they could manage not to use ‘the x year old said’.


----------



## Badgers (May 13, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> Did she get out in the 10 days or did they make her do the extra ones?


She got out in ten thankfully. She has been speaking to a doctor about her panic attacks


----------



## two sheds (May 13, 2021)

If she wants to take the fuckers to small claims court I'm sure we could have a whip round for court fees. Unless things have changed you're not liable for the other side's court costs.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The statement from Imperial seems less concerned about the variant than that Guardian article implies.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, I noticed that, but whilst the Guardian piece quoted the REACT study, which sampled up to 3rd May, I think the concern expressed is more to do with what has happened since, the COG-UK (Genomics Consortium) figures come out on Thursdays, and last week they showed cases of the Indian variant had more than doubled in a week, hence Public Health England upgrading it to a 'variant of concern' last Friday.

Plus there's reports saying the COG-UK figures today will show cases could have tripled, which is suggested as the reason for spikes in areas like Bolton, hence SAGE having an urgent meeting today, to discuss the latest figures, and the Guardian reporting it as 'evidence is growing', even Johnson has said it's 'of increasing concern'.



> The consortium of scientists tracking new variants, COG-UK, has identified a total of 1723 cases of B1617.2, and while some of these will be duplicates, if the figure is confirmed by Public Health England in its weekly update this would be more than three times last week’s number of 520.
> 
> B1617.2 was designated as a variant of concern a week ago, and two weeks ago there were 202 cases. Scientists believe the variant could be more transmissible than the Kent variant, but that it will also not be resistant to vaccines.











						Scientists fear possible delay to 21 June lockdown end as India variant cases 'triple in one week'
					

A Sage member says it is 'possible' the final lifting of lockdown could be delayed beyond 21 June due to the threat of the highly transmissible variant




					inews.co.uk


----------



## Badgers (May 13, 2021)

two sheds said:


> If she wants to take the fuckers to small claims court I'm sure we could have a whip round for court fees. Unless things have changed you're not liable for the other side's court costs.


Nice idea. She might find that a bit awkward but am speaking to her later about things. She is working with me today (is a trooper) and will see what to do.


----------



## glitch hiker (May 13, 2021)

Cases seem to remain around the 2k mark daily and have been so for a couple of months now. Unless I'm in error that is still higher than the best points of last summer. The roadmap seems sacrosanct still, but the new variant from India seems to be of great enough concern to the scienticians that some believe we ought pause. Of course Boris won't. But, while the vaccine is possibly the mitigating factor here, I do think we will see a rise as a result. How can we not? Can we vaccinate enough people quickly enough?


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's growing concerns that this India variant is more transmissible than the Kent one, some reports suggesting up to 60% more transmissible, as case numbers mount in the north & London.



If increase in transmission is anywhere near that, and if early May modelling assumptions are broadly correct, then that will be a catastrophe if unlocking proceeds as currently envisaged.

Because the modelling papers from SAGE I was on about last night do include a bit of work the University of Watrwick did to illustrate what sort of effect rises in transmissibility would be expected to have on a third wave. These should not be read as predictions, but I am certainly using them as a rough guide. These graphs in particular involve a scenario where the current vaccines dont have any reduced protective effect against the new variant, and they just change the transmission parameters fed into the modelling. The increases in transmission they've used dont go up to 60%, only 50%, but can still offer us clues.

If we did not proceed with the next unlocking step that is due in just a few days then the daily hospital admissions stay within manageable limits:



If we proceed with the May unlocking but not the June unlocking then things look grim, with potential for peaks higher than those seen in previous waves:



If we proceed with all the roadmap steps then its obviously expected to be even worse:



As usual these demonstrations do not include any new restrictions brought in at any point to try to cope.

Those are from page 31 of https://assets.publishing.service.g...p_Scenarios_and_Sensitivity_Steps_3_and_4.pdf


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Cases seem to remain around the 2k mark daily and have been so for a couple of months now. Unless I'm in error that is still higher than the best points of last summer. The roadmap seems sacrosanct still, but the new variant from India seems to be of great enough concern to the scienticians that some believe we ought pause. Of course Boris won't. But, while the vaccine is possibly the mitigating factor here, I do think we will see a rise as a result. How can we not? Can we vaccinate enough people quickly enough?



Cases at the start of April were around 4,500 daily, down to about 2,000 a week ago, so they have been dropping, until the release of figures this week, the 7-day average is now up by 13.4% on the pervious week. It's hard to compare now to last summer, for example in June we were only doing around 80k tests a day, we are doing more than 10 times that now.

SAGE is holding an emergency meeting today to discuss the Indian variant and Johnson is not ruling anything out.



> *Johnson refused to rule out using local lockdowns to deal with possible surges of the Indian variant of coronavirus. Asked about concerns over the Indian variant circulating in the UK, Johnson said:*
> "It is a variant of concern, we are anxious about it ...
> At the moment there is a very wide range of scientific opinion about what could happen.
> We want to make sure we take all the prudential, cautious steps now that we could take, so there are meetings going on today to consider exactly what we need to do. There is a range of things we could do, we are ruling nothing out."





> *Asked if local lockdowns were possible, Johnson replied:*
> "There are a range of things we could do, we want to make sure we grip it.
> Obviously there’s surge testing, there’s surge tracing.
> If we have to do other things, then of course the public would want us to rule nothing out. We have always been clear we would be led by the data.
> At the moment, I can see nothing that dissuades me from thinking we will be able to go ahead on Monday and indeed on 21 June, everywhere, but there may be things we have to do locally and we will not hesitate to do them if that is the advice we get."











						UK Covid news: Johnson refuses to rule out using local lockdowns to deal with possible surges of Indian variant
					

Latest updates: Boris Johnson has suggested the government is considering a range of measures to deal with the variant first discovered in India




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

"seen nothing that dissuades him' is a concept that has to take into account what a shithead he is.

See my previous post a few mins age for the University of Warwick modelling, which he will surely have been shown. Mostly just leaves the question of whether transmission of this variant is really going to be as high compared to the current dominant strain as recent reports suggest it might be.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

It would certainly be nice if they could deal with it via preventing seeding, effectively stopping onwards transmission from clusters, or effecively imposing local restrictions in a way that prevents further spread. However to believe that such possibilities would be effective would require me to hear of some great new way they were acting to achieve such things. Because we've seen what an ineffective job they've done of that in the past, with less transmissible strains, so I dont know what reasons I'd have to believe they'd succeed in that way this time. Their efforts on these fronts are not a complete waste of time, but the best they've managed in the past has been to slow things down rather than genuinely contain them.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> "seen nothing that dissuades him' is a concept that has to take into account what a shithead he is.


True, but SAGE hasn't reported on today's meeting yet, we all know how quick he can 'U-turn' when confronted with terrifying new data & advice, as demonstrated at Christmas, and after schools returned for a day in January.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> It would certainly be nice if they could deal with it via preventing seeding, effectively stopping onwards transmission from clusters, or effecively imposing local restrictions in a way that prevents further spread. However to believe that such possibilities would be effective would require me to hear of some great new way they were acting to achieve such things. Because we've seen what an ineffective job they've done of that in the past, with less transmissible strains, so I dont know what reasons I'd have to believe they'd succeed in that way this time. Their efforts on these fronts are not a complete waste of time, but the best they've managed in the past has been to slow things down rather than genuinely contain them.



Indeed.

I see Andy Burnham is calling for a surge vaccination roll-out for anyone over 16 in areas of Great Manchester, which sounds like a good idea to me.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> True, but SAGE hasn't reported on today's meeting yet, we all know how quick he can 'U-turn' when confronted with terrifying new data & advice, as demonstrated at Christmas, and after schools returned for a day in January.



His u-turn record so far has tended to rely not just on terrifying future predictions, but also upon those being combined with waiting till the situation on the ground was already at crisis levels. Thats certainly how I'd describe his second wave/kent variant response. I suppose in the first wave he did act before the crisis on the ground was in total and obvious effect, but that time round we had the experience of countries like Italy to act as a guide. Will he be willing to use whats happened in India as a similar guide? I have my doubts, especially given how much political capital he has invested in the 'irreversible' lockdown exit.

I hope to be wrong but I dont have too many reasons to expect anything other than the usual 'act too late' approach.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Indeed.
> 
> I see Andy Burnham is calling for a surge vaccination roll-out for anyone over 16 in areas of Great Manchester, which sounds like a good idea to me.



I'd need to see this scenario modelled, it might help but I'm not sure if it will be enough to be the difference maker people might expect. Plus it would inevitably come at the expense of some other people somewhere not getting vaccinated on schedule. And they better be bloody sure their infection control procedures at vaccination centres are up to scratch, otherwise unintended consequences could include accelerating the spread of the variant amongst the younger age groups.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

I see the front page of the i today included "Easing of lockdown measures next week will go ahead as planned but children living in affected areas could be told to continue wearing facemasks in schools".

Sticking just to the latter part of that sentence, its the same old shit mistake where clamping down on particular areas whilst relaxing things elsewhere just invites all the relaxed areas to become every bit as bad as the current areas of concern. There is no way they should be removing the school mask mandate anywhere right now, not unless the increased transmissibility of the India variant in question is shown to be a false alarm, or they somehow effectively stop this version of the virus from becoming widespread. Probably too late for the latter already, but I await the latest numbers.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 13, 2021)

This is all fast moving, surge vaccination is going ahead.



> *People aged 18 and over in parts of Lancashire are to be offered Covid vaccines due to concerns about levels of the Indian variant of the virus.*
> The jabs are to be offered to people in and around Blackburn and Darwen.
> Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council said the measure will begin next week and go hand-in-hand with a programme of surge testing in the area.
> 
> ...











						Covid: Blackburn over-18s to get vaccine amid Indian variant spike
					

The change will be introduced in the Blackburn area following concerns about a rise in infections.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## teuchter (May 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> If increase in transmission is anywhere near that, and if early May modelling assumptions are broadly correct, then that will be a catastrophe if unlocking proceeds as currently envisaged.
> 
> Because the modelling papers from SAGE I was on about last night do include a bit of work the University of Watrwick did to illustrate what sort of effect rises in transmissibility would be expected to have on a third wave. These should not be read as predictions, but I am certainly using them as a rough guide. These graphs in particular involve a scenario where the current vaccines dont have any reduced protective effect against the new variant, and they just change the transmission parameters fed into the modelling. The increases in transmission they've used dont go up to 60%, only 50%, but can still offer us clues.
> 
> ...


Doesn't this all depend quite a lot on what the % more transmissable actually refers to, and whether it takes into account the extent to which the vaccine affects transmissibility?


----------



## Supine (May 13, 2021)

Looks like B1617.2 is taking off all over


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Doesn't this all depend quite a lot on what the % more transmissable actually refers to, and whether it takes into account the extent to which the vaccine affects transmissibility?



I suggest you read the relevant documents yourself, I struggle to do everything full justice when I try to condense things. As far as I can tell much of that stuff is factored into their modelling already, although of course reality can diverge from the figures and assumptions they've fed into their models. I think one of the differences between that early May modelling and the previous model runs is that they actually had some figures about vaccines impact on transmission that they could include in their modelling scenarios.


----------



## platinumsage (May 13, 2021)

Supine said:


> Looks like B1617.2 is taking off all over
> 
> View attachment 268024



Those graphs show it's taking over, not taking off.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

Supine said:


> Looks like B1617.2 is taking off all over
> 
> View attachment 268024



Its a shame their data still only goes up to April 24th, I wonder how often that institute will update the publicly available data. Not that it would be wise to bet against the subsequent data being a reasonable fit for what they have projected there.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

Nobody who has listened to me droning on from time to time about how measures the UK often dressses up as being attempts at containment are really more about surveillance, not sincere attempts at containment, should be surprised by this bit from a BBC story about Johnsons variant concerns:









						Covid: Boris Johnson 'anxious' about Indian variant
					

Asked about the possibility of surge vaccinations, a No 10 spokesman says nothing is being ruled out.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> But sources told the BBC that surge testing in areas where the variant has been found "isn't working".
> 
> The current strategy was identifying cases but not stopping the spread, they told the BBC.
> 
> The sources added that cases of the variant were being seen in many places with no links to travel and case numbers have been "grossly underestimated".


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

Although just to be clear, its still important to do what we can, even when stuff falls far short of full containment. Surveillance is important and when people do the right thing some individuals that would otherwise have been infected are spared.

So the usual sort of thing I say that enables me to be furious about poorly timed and weak responses, without being defeatist about whether there is any point bothering with all the smaller things.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is all fast moving, surge vaccination is going ahead.



It now transpires thats not the case.

Quote from an updated version of Covid: Boris Johnson 'anxious' about Indian variant



> Extra clinics will open in Blackburn and Darwen in Lancashire from next week to offer the vaccine to those who are eligible under national guidelines.
> 
> It was earlier reported that additional doses had been given to these areas in order to open up jab appointments to all over-18s - but the council now says that is not the case.



The updated article also includes this from Dingwall (who sits on NERVTAG):



> Prof Robert Dingwall, a scientist on the government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said it seemed people who have been vaccinated "have only a very low risk of infection" from the Indian variant - and infection was "likely to be mild".
> 
> He said it "seems to be slightly more transmissible" than the UK and South African variants and could become the dominant variant in the UK.
> 
> ...



Panic is pointless. Being too laid back about this sort of thing, and not paying attention to what modelling indicates, is also stupid as far as I'm concerned. These are after all variants of concern for a reason, they arent called 'variants of Dingwall says everything will be fine'.

Personally, since knowledge and number of detected cases lags behind reality, and modelling is imperfect, I use modelling to give me clues about what sort of situations might develop, what sort of potential the pandemic still has, what sort of weight different parts of our response may need to carry. I do not take the modelling to be a prediction of exactly what will happen, or when. It offers clues. Other factors could prevent such scenarios from unfolding. But I wont be complacent about it until the acute phases of the pandemic are clearly over, and we arent there yet no matter how much positive vaccine news there is.

Meanwhile my local news is full of talk about how this variant has been found in my local ward, with a suggestion that surge testing looms for my part of Nuneaton or perhaps the wider area. Given that the cases they are on about were likely from a while back due to the time it takes to get genome sequencing of samples done, I must keep in mind a fairly wide range of possibilities in terms of how widespread the Indian variant is here by now.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

By the way, Dingwall is a sociologist with a pretty bloody poor track record in this pandemic.

I cant be arsed to document the full history but these bits from his wikipedia entry will hopefully be enough to get the idea:



> In early May 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dingwall was interviewed by a journalist at the _Daily Telegraph_ over the Government's coronavirus warnings. He opined that:[4]
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> On 18 July, Dingwall criticised another SAGE report, which forecasted 120,000 deaths from COVID-19 in wintertime 2020–21. In his estimation "was based on flawed mathematics" and created an "environment of fear".



It would be better for everyone if his opinion on this variant of concern turns out to be more valid than his previous shit, but I wouldnt bet on it, and he is exactly the sort of 'expert' who I hope gets roasted by the public inquiry.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

This is also an opportunity for me to say how deeply unhappy I am that the media happily amplify the message of these people shamelessly repeating their errors of judgement despite many tens of thousands of deaths already demonstrating the error of their ways. Shameless fucks.

I mean I expect it from the likes of the Telegraph who have a pretty clear anti-lockdown agenda. But when the BBC etc quote these people they should at a minimum make some reference to the shitty track record of the person in question.

We have learnt that as far as anti-lockdown fuckwits of concern go, there appears to be no magic quantity of waves or level of death that can modify their stance. The rest of society has to do the heavy lifting in this regard and give these pandemic gimps the cold shoulder. Oops sorry for adding this bit to the post after a few people had already liked it.


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2021)

And its also an opportunity for me to say that NERVTAG failures of judgement and timely response are one of the things I look forward to learning more about via the public inquiry. I did read all their papers from early in the pandemic, in part because not too much else such as SAGE stuff was available at the time, and it wasnt the worst shit I've ever read but it was also not very impressive. It was typical orthodox mainstream shit with the sort of failings anyone familiar with previous pandemic responses and reviews of them would have been expecting to see in the early months of this pandemic. Exactly the sort of shit that allowed me to be a fairly effective smartarse in the early months. I havent paid much attention since so I cant say how impressive they were once the first wave gave them a giant reality check, and once certain orthodox positions turned to dust. I doubt it is much fun sitting on such a body if you have a sensible view of pandemics and the necessary response, when others in the group have the sort of opinions Dingwall has expressed. The good can easily be cancelled out when it comes to reaching a consensus view and reporting upwards.


----------



## Cloo (May 13, 2021)

I see they're talking about ending mask mandate on 21 June... I do wonder if that's a good way for them to create a low-hanging fruit response if things get ropey so they can look like they are being 'cautious' without shutting things down: 'Sorry,  we're going to keep masks to be in the safe side' is easier to say than 'Sorry, you're going to have to cancel all those summer parties'


----------



## 2hats (May 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its a shame their data still only goes up to April 24th


From PHE VOC Technical Briefing 11 released today:





S-gene TaqPath positive result a proxy for non-B.1.1.7 variants, likely dominated by B.1.617.2.


----------



## muscovyduck (May 14, 2021)

Badgers just caught up on the last 20 pages of thread now, really sorry to hear about what your friend has gone through. I think there's some sort of human rights type of law about 'outside time' so that day it was missed might be an angle to secure compensation beyond the typical breach of contract stuff?


----------



## Badgers (May 14, 2021)

Analysis: Late and leaky. How the UK failed to impose an effective quarantine system
					

A week after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson laid out a triumphant road map for the country's exit from lockdown, off the back of its successful Covid-19 vaccination drive, major flaws have been exposed in the UK's efforts to prevent the spread of new coronavirus variants in the country.




					amp.cnn.com
				






> Critics who warned that the government's failure to clamp down on indirect flights from high-risk countries like Brazil would make it easier for variants to spread in the UK have been vindicated.
> 
> "It demonstrates the slowness of the government to close off even the major routes, but also the unwillingness to confront the fact that the virus doesn't travel by direct flights," opposition Labour party leader Keir Starmer told a virtual meeting on Monday, according to PA Media.


----------



## purenarcotic (May 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> Nobody who has listened to me droning on from time to time about how measures the UK often dressses up as being attempts at containment are really more about surveillance, not sincere attempts at containment, should be surprised by this bit from a BBC story about Johnsons variant concerns:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I’m not surprised surge testing isn’t doing much. My work was contacted to say that someone in the vicinity of the office had tested positive for the SA variant a month before, so they were surge testing. Anyone who had been into the office the previous 30 days had to be tested. That’s an appalling time delay and frankly it felt pointless to me; by the time we’ve been notified there were several weeks we could have been spreading it about.


----------



## Badgers (May 14, 2021)

Badgers said:


> In less positive news all the money she has saved (working as a Covid-19 tester) has been spent on the hotel jail. That was going to pay for her to become a doctor in the UK and work for the NHS


Other update...

She was held at Heathrow Airport for 8 hours with no access to food, drink or a toilet. Apparently one older lady fainted and two others soiled themselves but were given little or no help. 

She then got transported by (a packed) coach to Croydon for the Covid-19 jail time. Despite the the £200 a night fee and the promise of transport after release this was withheld  she was supposed to be released at midday but due to 'staff shortages' it was delayed till 4pm. I had arranged for someone to collect her (C19 tested first) and luckily they were patient enough to wait for 4 hours. 

Hostile environment eh?


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## Supine (May 14, 2021)

Good data for vaccines impact and the India variant


----------



## LDC (May 14, 2021)

Burnham on the news lots today re: Indian variant in the NW making it clear he's against any local lockdowns or restrictions. Not a word about 'unless funded properly' or anything similar.


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## lazythursday (May 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Burnham on the news lots today re: Indian variant in the NW making it clear he's against any local lockdowns or restrictions. Not a word about 'unless funded properly' or anything similar.


I'm really not quite sure what to think about this. On the one hand it seems potentially irresponsible, but local lockdowns in the format we've seen in the past just don't work and create an enormous sense of unfairness. I think he's probably strategically right to be resolutely against them at this stage, it will help get concessions down the line if there does end up being no alternative.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Burnham wins plaudits in this pandemic but I've made it clear that I think his pandemic position has often been dangerous shit, and so he is very much on my shit list in this pandemic.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> Good data for vaccines impact and the India variant



In the non-vaccination era we also saw rises in younger age groups first, so I avoid putting two and two together for now.


----------



## LDC (May 14, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I'm really not quite sure what to think about this. On the one hand it seems potentially irresponsible, but local lockdowns in the format we've seen in the past just don't work and create an enormous sense of unfairness. I think he's probably strategically right to be resolutely against them at this stage, it will help get concessions down the line if there does end up being no alternative.



Yeah, and if he'd talked about that then fair enough on some level. But I saw him on a few different reports just saying he's against them with no qualification about better funding/not working as well as national ones. What he said is going to feed into any 'no more lockdowns' dynamic unless he's very careful.


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Some of this BBC article chimes pretty well with things I've drawn attention to recently, including the Warwick modelling and the awful lag between testing and genomic analysis results.









						Indian variant: Second jabs could be brought forward to tackle rise
					

Local restrictions have also not been ruled out in areas worst affected by the Indian variant.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, and if he'd talked about that then fair enough on some level. But I saw him on a few different reports just saying he's against them with no qualification about better funding/not working as well as national ones. What he said is going to feed into any 'no more lockdowns' dynamic unless he's very careful.



He wasnt careful last time so I expect nothing else this time. He is a disgrace to public health.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

I suppose I should be grateful that he is one of the only high profile figures who somehow managed to make disgusting priorities and a dangerous misunderstanding of the required public health measures look like a reasonable, champion of the people, stance. I hope there is a local government module in the public inquiry that will expose his folly, but I have my doubts.


----------



## LDC (May 14, 2021)

The Manchester 'nightime Tsar' (or whatever stupid title he has) was very bad as well, and Burnham was very keen to share a platform with him who just seemed to verge on the outright anti-lockdown side of things from my readings.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some of this BBC article chimes pretty well with things I've drawn attention to recently, including the Warwick modelling and the awful lag between testing and genomic analysis results.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



As we're talking abiout Burnham, it's worth a mention of this from that story :




			
				BBC said:
			
		

> Greater Manchester's Labour Mayor Andy Burnham told BBC Breakfast local lockdowns "can't be the answer" and urged ministers to deliver more vaccines to areas where case rates are highest.



Aside from Burnham's other, more publicised shite (  ),, does that specific point aboout targetting more vaccines have any merit I wonder? 

I'm inclined to think 'not a bad iidea' myself, given how (over  )-stockpiled the UK Government is with vaccines.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 14, 2021)

It seems to my non-expert eye that the surge vaccination has to be worth trying at least, because there isn't really much potential risk there from what I can see. What's the worst case outcome? Some slightly younger people get vaccinated in those areas at the expense of some mid-30s people being marginally later elsewhere. When the aim is maximum vaccination and you're not talking about the exceptionally vulnerable then that doesn't seem a big problem.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> As we're talking abiout Burnham, it's worth a mention of this from that story :
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They dont release detailed supply info but the presumption is that the UK has not been overburdened with actual stock of vaccines at any point so far - all the headlines about how many gazillion doses we have are about how many we have ordered, not how many are actually on hand right now.

This was demonstrated quite vividly by the fact that the failure of a shipment of AZ vaccines from India to arrive in the county on schedule caused them to have to rework the rollout timing for most of April.

As for whether accelerating the vaccine rollout in very specific, targetted ways makes sense, its a mixed picture. Since supply for all is not available, it inevitably comes at the expense of the timing of others being vacinated.

And more broadly I would add this stuff to a long list of responses to outbreaks of concern throughout the pandemic which have some merits, but which are not expected to actually make the sort of crucial difference that would  truly fix the situation.

Right now I would say I have various unknowns and doubts about quite how bad the implications of the India strain spreading and showing signs of becoming the dominant strain are. But I can easily go as far as to say that the  slow, feeble response to the situation strongly mirrors the sort of massive fuckups we've seen repeatedly so far in this pandemic. Being seen to be doing something, but half-arsing things in a manner that pretty much ensures failure. Too many things that need to be done are still resisted and considered unthinkable. And the timing almost guarantees failure, because there is too much lag in our surveillance - the picture the numbers are giving us is weeks out of date by the time we hear about it, so highly localised containment repeatedly ends up resembling a 'horse already bolted' situation.


----------



## Supine (May 14, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm inclined to think 'not a bad iidea' myself, given how (over  )-stockpiled the UK Government is with vaccines.



The gov isn’t over-stocked with vaccines, it has over ordered. Diverting vaccines here will slow down their rollout somewhere else.


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## lazythursday (May 14, 2021)

I really think it is untenable to expect northern urban areas to endure a repeat of last year - months of grinding covid restrictions while the rest of the country gets back to normal and looks the other way. I think Burnham is dead right to argue that. What the alternative is I'm not so sure but the surge vaccination idea is at least worth trying.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> The gov isn’t over-stocked with vaccines, it has over ordered. Diverting vaccines here will slow down their rollout somewhere else.



Yes, my bad  -- apologies, because I kind of knew that already really 

I was (correctly) corrected by elbows about that 'overstocked' nonsense of mine , in his excellent post.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The Manchester 'nightime Tsar' (or whatever stupid title he has) was very bad as well, and Burnham was very keen to share a platform with him who just seemed to verge on the outright anti-lockdown side of things from my readings.



Yes I ranted about Sacha Lord again recently because he was associated with some fucking 'lets accelerate the opening of hospitality' court case that the judge wasnt impressed by.

In a sensible world the idiotic things these people came out with when the second wave was taking hold should be enough to disqualify their comments now, in response to the Indian variant, from being taken seriously. But thats not how it seems to work so I have had plenty to rant about this week. I doubt I will persist for that long, this battle may drag on for quite some time and I will get burnt out by it.

There is a greater chance they wont be 100% wrong this time, as current state of vaccinations is better than nothing, but there is still a fair chance that people will end up learning the hard way what the limitations of that progress are. I think I've been boring on about the risks of people getting the wrong idea about the universality of vaccine protection, and how much pandemic weight vaccinations can reasonably be expected to carry, almost since the first doses were going into arms. I was hoping a practical demonstration of these limits could be avoided. Maybe it still will. I wouldnt bet on it from what I've heard this week.


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I really think it is untenable to expect northern urban areas to endure a repeat of last year - months of grinding covid restrictions while the rest of the country gets back to normal and looks the other way. I think Burnham is dead right to argue that. What the alternative is I'm not so sure but the surge vaccination idea is at least worth trying.



Its something of a red herring in several ways:

Burnham is a local leader so he tunes his message to fighting the spectre of local lockdowns, but the logic and stance he uses are mostly the same as anti-national lockdown rhetoric. If he was a national leader then he would either have to craft a totally different stance, or be anti-lockdown full stop, under which circumstances the virus would eventually have eaten his stance.

And then there is the reality of this new variant and how it will spread. Our picture is out of date and I would expect that actually the India variant is already a national problem, its just a question of how long it takes for data to prove that to all concerned. And if prevalence levels stay below a certain level then the required national response may remain less obvious. Leaving variants aside, the expectation for this phase of the pandemic is that the varying nature of communities, jobs, housing, poverty and levels of vaccine uptake in different places will create a messy picture where some places avoid big problems and others suffer. Dull papers have been written about this, which I will link to later once I've had time to find one. This sort of picture should ring a bell, we've been here before. And with that prior learning in mind we have to consider that that picture doesnt always stay true, there are thresholds beyond which things more obviously become a widespread, national problem once more. This should be familiar, and its important to take note of it at this stage because we've seen things dressed up as local problems with local measures before, only for them to repeatedly be behind the curve, too little, too late - the sort of situation where the real story is not about the places that are under new restrictions, but all the places that arent, and how they repidly catch up with the hotspots as a result.


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

To put it another way in regards Burnham, his pandemic instincts and priorities are worryingly similar to Johnsons, except Burnham has the added luxury of not needing to make the sort of emergency response national decisions that made Johnson the pandemic king of u-turns. This is demonstrated by Burnhams ability to have taken such idiotic stances before without suffering the sort of pandemic reputational damage that have been inflicted on Johnson in waves.

When Johnson has dragged his heels, modelling exerceises have sometimes been performed which demonstrated how many more deaths stemmed from lockdowns being introduced late rather than with more optimal timing. Burnham has avoided similar analysis but theres no reason in my book why he should - I consider him partly to blame for a portion of second wave deaths in the Greater Manchester area.


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## lazythursday (May 14, 2021)

He's made a few statements I've disagreed with (particularly on pubs - he seems to have poor grasp of the science on covid transmission) - but fundamentally last year he was trying to get the resources to make that Greater Manchester lockdown work (and of course failed, but appeared like a hero for trying). As someone who has now been under some form of restrictions for ten months and absolutely dreading a repeat of last year I'm glad he's making the case that you just can't do half arsed local lockdowns any more.


----------



## Badgers (May 14, 2021)

Press conference incoming


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 14, 2021)

Blah blah 'caution' blah blah 'vigilence' blah 'not our fault if things fuck up' blah.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> He's made a few statements I've disagreed with (particularly on pubs - he seems to have poor grasp of the science on covid transmission) - but fundamentally last year he was trying to get the resources to make that Greater Manchester lockdown work (and of course failed, but appeared like a hero for trying). As someone who has now been under some form of restrictions for ten months and absolutely dreading a repeat of last year I'm glad he's making the case that you just can't do half arsed local lockdowns any more.



Yes despite my ranting I do understand your position on that. I was in favour of most of the stuff being done at the national level when the resurgence came at the end of last summer/early autumn, because the regional approach was just inviting everywhere to become just as bad, and because the national authorities could half-arse the support side of things even more when they werent imposing restrictions on the whole country. And also because of the effect on morale of the people in the affected areas, the destruction of powerful illusions about us 'all being in this together', etc. Pointlessly playing for time in a manner that benefited nobody in the end, pain for little gain. Everyone taking the pain early and in a more intense but shorter manner would probably have been better than the shit we actually got.

Unfortunately the sum of what Burnham said at the time left me thoroughly unconvinced that he was just seeking the right support and wanted to make a decent local lockdown work. He said far too much that tried to downplay how bad things were and what the potential for a second wave was. If I'd been a director of public health serving under him at the time I would have resigned on principal. He appears incapable of getting his head around epidemic dynamics, and plenty of what he said encouraged non-compliance and unacceptable delays to restrictions when they were needed most.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Blah blah 'caution' blah blah 'vigilence' blah 'not our fault if things fuck up' blah.



Yeah I expect the usual mix of some reasonable bits and a load of bollocks, and more playing for time. I suppose I dont rule out a new u-turn, which would also offer clues about how bad they think things are, but its reasonable to think that even if they eventually reach that point, it wont be today. We've not been very proactive in this pandemic, and the vaccine programme will tempt Johnson & co to push their luck even further this time.

I'll commentate on the press conference this evening but if its just the usual stuff then my commentary will be mercifully brief.

Amazingly shit timing again given we are currently in a phase where these sorts of graphics appear on the BBC website. A pandemic of awkward juxtapositions.


I'm not really convinced that you need to wear a mask if you dont have a nose or mouth.


----------



## bimble (May 14, 2021)

that is one of the saddest public info graphics i have ever seen.

The information just doesn't exist to answer these below questions  that the NHS wants answering about the indian variant is that right?








						UK Covid: second vaccine doses accelerated as Indian variant threatens easing – as it happened
					

Prime minister announces acceleration of vaccination programme as Indian variant threatens June lockdown easing




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## danny la rouge (May 14, 2021)

The sodding City of sodding Glasgow will doffing remain in sodding Level sodding 3 of sodding coronavirus restrictions, for one sodding more sodding week and until sodding Monday 24th of sodding May.

This sodding means no sodding travel sodding in and sodding out of sodding Glasgow is sodding  allowed for the next sodding week, unless sodding travel is sodding necessary.


----------



## weepiper (May 14, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> The sodding City of sodding Glasgow will doffing remain in sodding Level sodding 3 of sodding coronavirus restrictions, for one sodding more sodding week and until sodding Monday 24th of sodding May.
> 
> This sodding means no sodding travel sodding in and sodding out of sodding Glasgow is sodding  allowed for the next sodding week, unless sodding travel is sodding necessary.


Just read this. Half an hour after we got home from spending the day in Glasgow


----------



## danny la rouge (May 14, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Just read this. Half an hour after we got home from spending the day in Glasgow


You be fine I’m sure.


----------



## Threshers_Flail (May 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The Manchester 'nightime Tsar' (or whatever stupid title he has) was very bad as well, and Burnham was very keen to share a platform with him who just seemed to verge on the outright anti-lockdown side of things from my readings.



Sacha Lord, an absolute cunt. He owns The Warehouse Project so is obvs dead keen on us going to plague raves so he can make his £££.


----------



## xenon (May 14, 2021)

Press conference is at 5:30 by the way.


----------



## LDC (May 14, 2021)

Oh shitting hell, it's all shifted very quickly again. I feel a bit less optimistic than I did even a few days ago.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> The information just doesn't exist to answer these below questions  that the NHS wants answering about the indian variant is that right?



Modelling isnt a totally reliable guide but its the sort of guide those services are used to having to rely on. I already went on about Warwick Uni modelling of scenarios with a new variant with various increases in transmissibility, so an updated version of that using a transmission estimate for the India strain will offer some clues. Modelling per region can also be done to give some sense of which areas may face pressure first. Various unknowns including some timing unknowns will still exist in this picture, but as a rough guide its much better than nothing.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

I dont usually consider it to be a good sign when the start time of the press conference keeps slipping. But I dont mean that I see it as a sign of impending strong and timely action.


----------



## brogdale (May 14, 2021)

No deviation from May 'roadmap', but "I must level with you" about June.

Hmmm


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

I don't get the accelerating of second doses. That comes after new evidence that both Pfizer and az benefit from the 12 week delay. They judge that this is better than accelerating first doses? I'd like to see the workings and assumptions behind that.


----------



## brogdale (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't get the accelerating of second doses. That comes after new evidence that both Pfizer and az benefit from the 12 week delay. They judge that this is better than accelerating first doses? I'd like to see the workings and assumptions behind that.


Yeah, kind of undermines the previous story that 1 dose was fine and dandy with a 12 week gap.


----------



## Teaboy (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't get the accelerating of second doses. That comes after new evidence that both Pfizer and az benefit from the 12 week delay. They judge that this is better than accelerating first doses? I'd like to see the workings and assumptions behind that.



It doesn't strike me as very difficult to work out.  It will be the same line of thinking that led them to the long delay between 1st and 2nd does initially.  Something they were heavily criticized for.


----------



## Sue (May 14, 2021)

brogdale said:


> No deviation from May 'roadmap', but "I must level with you" about June.
> 
> Hmmm


If it helps any, my company sent out a mail yesterday saying we have to be back in the office on 21/06. So far, their timing has been impeccable --they send out an email like that and piss everyone off. Next thing, we're back in lockdown and they have to row back. Based on this, I can confidently predict things will not be back to normal on 21/06.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

Cases in places like Bolton are surging specifically in the non-vaccinated population. That's kind of encouraging as it suggests the vaccine may be effective against the Indian variant, but it also follows previous patterns that new spread starts among those who move around the most, ie the young. Naively, I would have thought that getting first doses into people asap would be the priority now to slow the spread. As I said, I'd like to see the workings.


----------



## LDC (May 14, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Yeah, kind of undermines the previous story that 1 dose was fine and dandy with a 12 week gap.



My understanding is that the 12 week gap is good for immunity, but this new shortening of the gap is down to trying to reduce transmission of the new variant as fully vaccinated people have been shown to lessen that.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> It doesn't strike me as very difficult to work out.  It will be the same line of thinking that led them to the long delay between 1st and 2nd does initially.  Something they were heavily criticized for.


The worries I read at the time were that the efficacy of the first jab would start wearing off before the second jab could 'lock in' the immunity. Those fears now appear not to have been well founded. They seem to have lucked into more or less the optimal time gap. That's where I'm confused.


----------



## brogdale (May 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My understanding is that the 12 week gap is good for immunity, but this new shortening of the gap is down to trying to reduce transmission of the new variant as fully vaccinated people have been shown to lessen that.


I'd like to believe that; trouble is I think that the big-pharma timeframe might be governed as much by $ as 'science' and the state timeframe as much by 'politics' as 'science',


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My understanding is that the 12 week gap is good for immunity, but this new shortening of the gap is down to trying to reduce transmission of the new variant as fully vaccinated people have been shown to lessen that.


Fair enough. That makes sense, I guess.

They still seem very slow in responding to me. Insistence on centralised decision-making causes delays. If they allow surge vaccinating in Bolton from today, that means they've wasted three days completely unnecessarily, cos it was requested on Tuesday.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

brogdale said:


> I'd like to believe that; trouble is I think that the big-pharma timeframe might be governed as much by $ as 'science' and the state timeframe as much by 'politics' as 'science',


The thing I'm concerned about is that they seem to have made a plan and to be reluctant to adjust it. I'm still puzzled as to how they calculated that teachers aren't a priority group when they went back to work on 8 March, while refusing to prioritise prison inmates and staff was borderline criminal imo, and nothing to do with any science. What arguments were being made _against_ surge vaccination over the last three days?

And of course, we can't know much of this cos SAGE is not transparent.


----------



## bimble (May 14, 2021)

Anyone feel like reading something really depressing?

"*Assuming the vaccines hold up, *more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible."









						India variant could lead to serious third wave of Covid in UK
					

Analysis: If B.1.617.2 proves highly transmissible, hospitalisations could peak again, models show




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## LDC (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Fair enough. That makes sense, I guess.
> 
> They still seem very slow in responding to me. Insistence on centralised decision-making causes delays. If they allow surge vaccinating in Bolton from today, that means they've wasted three days completely unnecessarily, cos it was requested on Tuesday.


 
JCVI against surge vaccinating on balance apparently. Modelling shows it's less effective overall than the current program.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> Anyone feel like reading something really depressing?
> 
> "*Assuming the vaccines hold up, *more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible."
> 
> ...


The article makes a good point that surge vaccinating now could backfire as it's essentially _too late_ in places like Bolton. I'm still concerned by the dithering, though. They need to be able to respond quickly.

Of course the fuck up was allowing it in in the first place. It's clearly entered the country several separate times.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> JCVI against surge vaccinating on balance apparently. Modelling shows it's less effective overall than the current program.



And some of Johnsons wording in the press conference implied that fiddling around with the vaccination programme timing may be more useful if this variants transmissibility is only increased a bit, but that we are in deep shit that will require non-vaccine based measures if the increase in transmissibility is on the high end of things.

A lot of the substance of the press conference has already been covered by the conversations we've been having all week on this thread. So I'll just point out a few things:

The classic UK error in this pandemic was still present in some of Johnsons logic - claiming that we will act quickly once clear and unambiguous data is available means that we will not actually end up acting quickly, because data tends to be slow to come in and somewhat vague for quite some time.

In this new laissez-faire era of pandemic control measures, the measures are more like advice, more of the burden is now left to individual judgement rather than not reopening pubs etc. When Johnson was going on about this, he was keen to emphasise how important this is in areas where lots of new variant cases have already been discovered. But Whitty was pretty keen to point out how widespread the seeding of this variant has been already, and how the likes of Bolton are far from the only areas affected. Given the lag to our surveillance, my advice is that people all across the nation should think carefully before deciding to visit a pub indoors, etc etc. Reassurances that the numbers in your area arent as bad as the places that grab the headlines have been shown to be false reassurances in the past, and people should keep those lessons in mind.

I dont know how much more I will have to say on this variant in the coming days because my expectations are very strongly connected to how transmissible this new variant turns out to be. Although the authorities say they do not have an answer to that vital question yet, I suspect that they suspect its on the high side, or else they would have been tempted not to draw so much attention to the gloomier scenarios at all at this particular moment.


----------



## Sunray (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't get the accelerating of second doses. That comes after new evidence that both Pfizer and az benefit from the 12 week delay. They judge that this is better than accelerating first doses? I'd like to see the workings and assumptions behind that.



This is taken from real world data, Pfizer second does up to 99% effective against death but still gathering data.  Takes time to know.







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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

They've also taken a shit on some of the logic they explained in previous months, when setting out why they were leaving such a large gap between relaxation steps, and only changing a limited number of things per phase. Back then I'm pretty sure that either Vallance or Whitty went on about how it would be hard to judge certain things if too many variables were changed simultaneously.

Well, given we are now trying to determine the extent to which the new variant is more transmissible, isnt stuff like imminently allowing people to hug, meet indoors including in pubs etc, going to complicate the analysis?


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> Anyone feel like reading something really depressing?
> 
> "*Assuming the vaccines hold up, *more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible."
> 
> ...



I already depressed the thread in this manner earlier this week by finding that modelling and going on about it.

           #36,556          
           #36,570


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The thing I'm concerned about is that they seem to have made a plan and to be reluctant to adjust it. I'm still puzzled as to how they calculated that teachers aren't a priority group when they went back to work on 8 March, while refusing to prioritise prison inmates and staff was borderline criminal imo, and nothing to do with any science. What arguments were being made _against_ surge vaccination over the last three days?
> 
> And of course, we can't know much of this cos SAGE is not transparent.



The delays in publication of SAGE papers have come down by a lot as the pandemic has gone on, so I was recently able to see updated modelling from early May much sooner than I otherwise would have expected to earlier in the pandemic.

I'd say there is always some scientific rationale behind their vaccination programme decisions, but there are quite a lot of different ones to choose from, all manner of balancing acts that we may or may not feel they have done properly. And I have severely overdone my pandemic detail waffling this week so I'm sorry that I cannot add some pertinent detail to this response.

Certainly it would be a mistake to think of JCVI as some wholly independent entity, so I dont consider them to be any more pure or less compromised by various practicalities and balancing acts than the other parts of the decision making system on this.


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## Artaxerxes (May 14, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> The sodding City of sodding Glasgow will doffing remain in sodding Level sodding 3 of sodding coronavirus restrictions, for one sodding more sodding week and until sodding Monday 24th of sodding May.
> 
> This sodding means no sodding travel sodding in and sodding out of sodding Glasgow is sodding  allowed for the next sodding week, unless sodding travel is sodding necessary.



"Glasgow will remain in Quarantine until the immigrants are deported."


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## beesonthewhatnow (May 14, 2021)

So, yet again we’re going to unlock stuff and then regret it. Brilliant.


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## bimble (May 14, 2021)

i missed those posts elbows but tbh it just feels like some data to back up the grim sense of foreboding i've had since last month (when i was getting news from people in india).


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Speaking of more timely availability of SAGE papers, the summary minutes of yesterdays meeting are already available!

And they include this:



> It is therefore highly likely that this variant is more transmissible than B.1.1.7 (high confidence), and it is a realistic possibility that it is as much as 50% more transmissible. There are also plausible biological reasons as to why some of the mutations present could make this variant more transmissible.





> If this variant were to have a 40-50% transmission advantage nationally compared to B.1.1.7, sensitivity analyses in the modelling of the roadmap in England (SAGE 88) indicate that it is likely that progressing with step 3 alone (with no other local, regional, or national changes to measures) would lead to a substantial resurgence of hospitalisations (similar to, or larger than, previous peaks). Progressing with both steps 3 and 4 at the earliest dates could lead to a much larger peak. Smaller transmission advantage would lead to smaller peaks.







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I am of the opinion that we should not be proceeding with the May relaxations, but of course the government decided otherwise.


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Johnson was trying to make it sound like our surveillance was nice and timely these days, but one of the slides Whitty went through shows otherwise. 

Whitty mentioned the exponential growth shown, but as we can see the figures for the week starting May 3rd are hugely incomplete, and there is a bit of text next to the graph that goes on about variant cases can be identified many weeks after the sample date.



from https://assets.publishing.service.g...s_Conference_Slides_for_broadcast_updated.pdf


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Also from yesterdays SAGE meeting document:



> Early indications are that there is some antigenic distance between B.1.617.2 and wild-type virus, and that this distance is greater than that for B.1.1.7, but less than for B.1.351, and similar to that for B.1.617.1 (low confidence). This means that there may be some reduction in protection given by vaccines or by naturally acquired immunity from past infection, though data on this are still mixed.
> 
> Any such reduction is likely to affect protection against infection more than protection against severe disease or death. If protection against infection were reduced it could contribute to a transmission advantage over B.1.1.7. PHE has linked data on vaccinations and variants and is monitoring for any signals of an impact on vaccine efficacy.




There are other documents from yesterday that I have not had time to read yet. Scroll down a bit on the following page to see them. SAGE meetings, May 2021


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## baldrick (May 14, 2021)

Oh for fucks sake.

It's not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.


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## platinumsage (May 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> Anyone feel like reading something really depressing?
> 
> "*Assuming the vaccines hold up, *more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible."
> 
> ...



The Warwick modelling assumes vaccines are only 80% effective at preventing deaths and hospitalisations after one dose and 90% after two doses. This is nonsensical given what we know, and if figures even slightly closer to reality are used the 6000 hospitalisations a day quickly drops away.


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## miss direct (May 14, 2021)

Why are we banging on about hugging when so many are still unvaccinated?


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## Sunray (May 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The Warwick modelling assumes vaccines are only 80% effective at preventing deaths and hospitalisations after one dose and 90% after two doses. This is nonsensical given what we know, and if figures even slightly closer to reality are used the 6000 hospitalisations a day quickly drops away.



The problem with that thinking is we don't yet know if there is any reduction in the effectiveness of the vaccines on the Indian variant.
What if it's less than 80%? Vaccines aren't perfect.



			
				BBC news said:
			
		

> The WHO said it appeared to have a higher rate of transmission and that there was preliminary evidence suggesting some vaccines may be less effective against it.


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## bimble (May 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The Warwick modelling assumes vaccines are only 80% effective at preventing deaths and hospitalisations after one dose and 90% after two doses. This is nonsensical given what we know, and if figures even slightly closer to reality are used the 6000 hospitalisations a day quickly drops away.


Why are they doing it so wrong then? (I don't know 'what we know')


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## Cloo (May 14, 2021)

Exactly baldrick 

[Selfish post alert] Fuck. My daughter's bat mitzvah at the end of June is gonna get cancelled again, isn't it? What's worse, they'll probably dither about and it'll be a week or two before.

Just as well we've arranged a zoom celebration earlier in the week, cos it might be all we get.


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## platinumsage (May 14, 2021)

Sunray said:


> The problem with that thinking is we don't yet know if there is any reduction in the effectiveness of the vaccines on the Indian variant.
> What if it's less than 80%? Vaccines aren't perfect.



There's no evidence that any variant, including those first identified in South Africa and Brazil, is able to evade vaccines such that they only give 90% protection against deaths.


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## baldrick (May 14, 2021)

Sorry to hear that Cloo

It's not selfish at all. It's an important event, one of those that you really want to make a good celebration of and you've planned carefully (probably more than once) and now it might not happen as you've planned....again.

Everyone wants to do the right thing but at the same time there's a real urge for some semblance of normality and _FUN - _it's been so long I'm not sure I know how to do fun any more!


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## beesonthewhatnow (May 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> I am of the opinion that we should not be proceeding with the May relaxations


Of course we shouldn’t. It’s depressingly inevitable that things are about to fuck up again.


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## platinumsage (May 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> Why are they doing it so wrong then? (I don't know 'what we know')



I have no idea, they use some very early data from Israel, almost as if they did this model back in February and didn't bother to update their assumptions before publication with data from the UK mass rollout.


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## Pickman's model (May 14, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Of course we shouldn’t. It’s depressingly inevitable that things are about to fuck up again.


Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory


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## bimble (May 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> There's no evidence that any variant, including those first identified in South Africa and Brazil, is able to evade vaccines such that they only give 90% protection against deaths.


I don't understand what you're saying (which is not your fault) - do you mean the vaccine will make deaths more than 10 x less likely, whatever the variant, so that if everyone in UK had both shots of a vaccine then even if case numbers surge with the new variant, we'd still have only up to a max 10% of the deaths seen previously?
If thats what you're saying i'm still stuck on why you're so sure and they're so worried.


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## Cloo (May 14, 2021)

Clearly government is counting on vaccines managing hospitalisation and hoping that the 'worst case scenario' is not going ahead with 21 June changes as they seem to be laying groundwork for this evening. 

Our BM arrangements are based around 30 people celebrating outdoors, with the possibility of more if things are relaxed and I don't mind if we just have the 30 people, but I'll be gutted if we don't even get that, and it sounds like anyone with any sense is predicting serious issues within a few weeks which could and preclude it (and should if things are that bad)


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## bimble (May 14, 2021)

Cloo don't count me in the sensible fact based doom-mongers, I have no idea am just worried and a bit of a pessimist. Hope she gets to have her bat mitzvah.


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Clearly government is counting on vaccines managing hospitalisation and hoping that the 'worst case scenario' is not going ahead with 21 June changes as they seem to be laying groundwork for this evening.
> 
> Our BM arrangements are based around 30 people celebrating outdoors, with the possibility of more if things are relaxed and I don't mind if we just have the 30 people, but I'll be gutted if we don't even get that, and it sounds like anyone with any sense is predicting serious issues within a few weeks which could and preclude it (and should if things are that bad)



It depends what you mean by serious issues within a few weeks. The modelling doesnt show a wave that causes health service problems till quite a bit later than that, eg July. What we might get within a few weeks is better data on quite how much of a transmission advantage this strain has, and we may have signs of it taking off in more places by then.


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The Warwick modelling assumes vaccines are only 80% effective at preventing deaths and hospitalisations after one dose and 90% after two doses. This is nonsensical given what we know, and if figures even slightly closer to reality are used the 6000 hospitalisations a day quickly drops away.



I'm not a fan of your stance on these matters this week, very far from it.

Meanwhile I've been looking through the SAGE modelling groups paper from yesterday, Interesting bits include:



> SPI-M-O is therefore confident that B.1.617.2 has a significant growth advantage over the UK’s currently dominant strain, B.1.1.7. The difference in growth rates between B.1.617.2 and B.1.1.7 is consistent with the former having a transmission advantage of more than 50%; this is based on observed growth that has already happened and it is unclear whether this same growth advantage would apply to sustained wider community transmission regionally or nationally. Resolving this question of the applicability of this growth advantage to the wider population will be difficult while the number of cases are small and relatively focussed.





> Considering this, it is a realistic possibility that this scale of B.1.617.2 growth could lead to a very large increase in transmission. At this point in the vaccine roll out, there are still too few adults vaccinated to prevent a significant resurgence that ultimately could put unsustainable pressure on the NHS, without non-pharmaceutical interventions.





> SPI-M-O would become more confident in this assessment of increased transmissibility advantage if any of these four possible situations were to arise. Any of these could happen extremely quickly, potentially even within days:
> 
> Any emerging evidence of vaccine escape, such as more S-gene positive cases than expected in vaccinated people.
> More rapid increase in hospitalisations in areas with high or rising S-gene positivity compared to elsewhere, or higher than expected levels of B.1.617.2 cases in hospital.
> ...



(S-gene positive stuff is used as a rough guide to cases being this variant or certain other non-Kent variants, without having to wait for ages to get the proper genomic sequencing done)



> SPI-M-O considered the implications of different characteristics of variants of concern in modelling to support Roadmap Step 3 decision making4. Both Warwick and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) performed sensitivity analyses for a variant of concern that was more transmissible than B.1.1.7, but without escape from immunity, in their modelling. If Step 3 alone were taken with a variant circulating in the population that is more than 40% more transmissible than B.1.1.7 with no increase in severity, a further resurgence in hospitalisations similar in size or larger than those seen in spring 2020 and January 2021 is likely (Figure 2, top right plot). If Steps 3 and 4 are taken (Figure 2, bottom plot) with such a variant, peaks could be double that seen in January 2021 if no interventions were taken.





> Until more data accumulates it will be difficult for SPI-M-O to give a confident plausible range for the transmissibility of B.1.617.2 in the wider population beyond that is it more transmissible than B.1.1.7 and that 50% more transmissible cannot be ruled out. Whilst there are clear observations that B.1.617.2 is currently spreading very fast in some places, numbers are still low and SPI-M-O cannot yet tell if that pattern will pertain across the whole population.



There is also a page or two on the details and merits of surge vaccination. I wont try to quote it all but here is an interesting bit:



> There is an inherent lag between vaccination and the establishment of protection of the vaccinated individual, and B.1.617.2 has the potential to spread very rapidly out of areas where it is currently present. It will take some time before surge vaccination starts to break chains of transmission, and thus the variant could spread beyond the targeted area. For that reason, for surge vaccination to be successful it would need to be:
> 
> Started as soon as possible, while the absolute number of cases B.1.617.2 remains relatively low
> Targeted at a wider geographical area than that where the variant is prevalent
> Combined with short term non-pharmaceutical interventions covering the area in question, to allow for the surge vaccination to have time to take effect.







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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Oh and theres another paragraph from that document which alludes to a detail of concern which I have put in bold:



> There is currently insufficient evidence to indicate that any of the variants recently detected in India cause more severe disease or render the vaccines currently deployed any less effective3. It is also too early to comment on the impact of B.1.617.2 on hospital admissions or deaths; *reported COVID-19 hospitalisations in Bolton are concerning*. Only accumulating more data on B.1.617.2 will provide this much needed clarity. If there were a time series of the total number of hospitalised B.1.617.2 cases according to their vaccination status, SPI-M-O would be much better placed to assess the threat that the variant poses.


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## Sunray (May 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> There's no evidence that any variant, including those first identified in South Africa and Brazil, is able to evade vaccines such that they only give 90% protection against deaths.






			
				https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/56801288 said:
			
		

> The WHO said it appeared to have a higher rate of transmission and that there was preliminary evidence suggesting some vaccines may be less effective against it.



I'm worried due to the timing. 

If this was 3-4 weeks ago, It'd be ok.  Everyone should just stay outdoors.


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## platinumsage (May 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh and theres another paragraph from that document which alludes to a detail of concern which I have put in bold:



They have better data here:  https://www.boltonft.nhs.uk/2020/09/increase-in-covid-patients-at-royal-bolton-hospital/


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## platinumsage (May 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm not a fan of your stance on these matters this week, very far from it.



Nice little jibe there.

I remember you weren't a fan of my support for JCVI lengthening the time between Pfizer jabs either. The baseless and widespread opprobrium that attracted here was one of the reasons I tried to ignore this forum for a while. I should try harder.


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## mhwfc1 (May 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> They have better data here:  https://www.boltonft.nhs.uk/2020/09/increase-in-covid-patients-at-royal-bolton-hospital/


 I’m assuming from the 2020/09 in the URL that the article was published in September 2020, clicking on news and views from the article and it doesn’t appear suggests it’s not a recent report too


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## Miss-Shelf (May 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> Anyone feel like reading something really depressing?
> 
> "*Assuming the vaccines hold up, *more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible."
> 
> ...


fr 





> That is if we do nothing. If step three easing of restrictions in England on Monday is cancelled, the third wave will be far more modest, reaching 300 hospitalisations per day, even if the virus spreads 50% more easily than the Kent version. Holding off on step four on 21 June may be less effective: under that scenario a variant little more than 40% more transmissible could trigger more daily hospitalisations than seen in either UK waves so far.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> There's no evidence that any variant, including those first identified in South Africa and Brazil, is able to evade vaccines such that they only give 90% protection against deaths.


There is very sadly evidence that the South African variant may be almost entirely resistant to the AZ vaccine. I'm sure the study's been posted here already, but here it is again.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214?query=featured_home

Those results - 23/719 vs 19/750 - are consistent with a coin toss, ie no protection at all. 

It may be that the vaccine prevents some or all serious covid from the SA variant, but we don't know that, and I see no reason to assume it in absence of evidence. The vaccine in the study wasn't given after 12 weeks, so maybe that will help us. And the age cohort means it has little to say about deaths from covid. But all the same, those are not good results.


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## Artaxerxes (May 14, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Why are we banging on about hugging when so many are still unvaccinated?



Anyone hugs me they'll lose an arm.


----------



## Sue (May 14, 2021)

They're doing surge testing in two very specific (and a couple of miles apart) areas of Hackney (discussed on the Hackney thread). It's interesting because the most recent figures show it's suppressed in one area and very low in the other. The testing's because they've found the SA and Indian strains -- does that mean they're expecting the number of cases/infections to rise rapidly..?


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Nice little jibe there.
> 
> I remember you weren't a fan of my support for JCVI lengthening the time between Pfizer jabs either. The baseless and widespread opprobrium that attracted here was one of the reasons I tried to ignore this forum for a while. I should try harder.



Well I dont know what figures you think the modellers should have used for vaccine protection from severe disease and death, but it is that detail which make me very much at odds with what you are saying recently. As for our history, I will take a look back and see where else I feel you fell well short of pandemic reality.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

Sue said:


> They're doing surge testing in two very specific (and a couple of miles apart) areas of Hackney (discussed on the Hackney thread). It's interesting because the most recent figures show it's suppressed in one area and very low in the other. The testing's because they've found the SA and Indian strains -- does that mean they're expecting the number of cases/infections to rise rapidly..?


Not necessarily. There was surge testing in South London a few weeks ago in response to a cluster of SA variant. iirc they found about 40 cases relating to one person bringing it in (from a so-called 'green' country). Cases in those areas did not subsequently rise rapidly. The idea is that the surge testing helps to stop a rapid rise! 

I think this is a pattern we're going to have to get used to living with, even in the best-case scenario.


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Sue said:


> They're doing surge testing in two very specific (and a couple of miles apart) areas of Hackney (discussed on the Hackney thread). It's interesting because the most recent figures show it's suppressed in one area and very low in the other. The testing's because they've found the SA and Indian strains -- does that mean they're expecting the number of cases/infections to rise rapidly..?



I havent seen all the numbers but other analysis implies there is quite a wide area of concern.



> The spatial risk surface is estimated by comparing the smoothed intensity of cases (variants of concern) and controls (PCR +ve, non-variants of concern) across a defined geographical area to produce an intensity (or risk) ratio. If the ratio is ~1, this suggests that the risk of infection is unrelated to spatial location. Evidence of spatial variation in risk occurs where the intensities differ. Ratio values >1 indicate an increased risk and values <1 indicate lower risk. Figure 9 highlights areas of significantly increased risk identified for VOC-21APR-02.




From https://assets.publishing.service.g...Concern_VOC_Technical_Briefing_11_England.pdf


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## glitch hiker (May 14, 2021)

Can't really wrap my head around this. 

Concerned that step 4 of the roadmap might not go ahead

So go ahead with steap 3 anyway and do nothing?


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## mx wcfc (May 14, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Can't really wrap my head around this.
> 
> Concerned that step 4 of the roadmap might not go ahead
> 
> So go ahead with steap 3 anyway and do nothing?


Insane, isn't it? But based on Johnson's record so far, hardly surprising.  

Not even localised lockdowns.


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Can't really wrap my head around this.
> 
> Concerned that step 4 of the roadmap might not go ahead
> 
> So go ahead with steap 3 anyway and do nothing?



Well I'll put it this way. A sensible government that was actually acting with an abundance of caution would have pressed the pause button now or a number of days ago, at least for a few weeks whilst some of the detail becomes clearer. Especially given some bits of what SAGE etc have told them this month. But we dont have that sort of government.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Nice little jibe there.
> 
> I remember you weren't a fan of my support for JCVI lengthening the time between Pfizer jabs either. The baseless and widespread opprobrium that attracted here was one of the reasons I tried to ignore this forum for a while. I should try harder.



OK as per my previous post I did go back and look at some of the history but both of us have posted a lot of useful thoughts during this pandemic so this task became too large.

Its much easier for me to apologise for my attitude towards you at times. But it is to be expected that we wont agree on everything, that our stance on particular matters, particular details, particular data and tentative estimates will vary. We dont need to agree on everything. I should spend less time being rude and more time trying to explore the detail behind our differences of opinion. It appears likely that we have been at loggerheads more in the vaccination era than in the prior phases of the pandemic, so maybe there is a fundamental difference in our view of how much burden vaccines should be expected to be able to carry in the pandemic. And/or differences about what sort of data and estimates should be used, and how much uncertainty to factor into that picture?

What sort of figures do you think they should have used in the modelling? And do you have the same criticisms of the London School of Hygience and Tropical Medicines modelling of early May? They have quite a lot of detail about the vaccine-related assumptions they've used through the document and especially in the final part of the document.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/984546/S1230_LSHTM_Interim_roadmap_assessment_prior_to_steps_3_and_4.pdf
		


More broadly, I wonder if you could explain your overall feelings at this stage as to the risk from this variant and how seriously we should be taking it. Because I got the impression this week that we are on very different pages when it comes to this, and I'm afraid this is just the sorts of high stakes area where I am prone to lose my cool with people. And maybe I have misinterpreted your stance. Cheers.

I'll end with a fun fact, when I was doing some searching I found this post from you from March 24th 2020 in a thread about 'What you gonna do when the all clear comes'...

#5        


> I fear there won't be an all clear, but a "it's not so bad right now so you can do a few more things but be really careful" until there's a vaccine when it will be "this should 95% protect you, we think, unless the virus mutates a bit, so keep being very careful".


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## Supine (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Those results - 23/719 vs 19/750 - are consistent with a coin toss, ie no protection at all.
> 
> It may be that the vaccine prevents some or all serious covid from the SA variant, but we don't know that, and I see no reason to assume it in absence of evidence.



You quote the study as the final conclusion regarding its affect on mild covid but then say there is no evidence for serious covid. The study showed 100% protection against serious illness did it not?

SA has been circulating in the uk for a while. If AZ offered no protection against it why isn’t that showing up in the numbers?


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## glitch hiker (May 14, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> Insane, isn't it? But based on Johnson's record so far, hardly surprising.
> 
> Not even localised lockdowns.


I'm starting to get Covideja Vu

Here we go again.

EDIT: So this is good then









						Indian Covid-19 variant found in 44 countries, Britain has most cases: WHO
					

WHO has said that the Indian variant of Covid-19 behind the acceleration of India's explosive outbreak has been found in 44 other countries all over the world.




					www.indiatoday.in


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## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> You quote the study as the final conclusion regarding its affect on mild covid but then say there is no evidence for serious covid. The study showed 100% protection against serious illness did it not?



It had a median age of 31. Its participants were young, healthy people. Serious covid was probably not to be expected in that cohort anyway. The study isn't inconsistent with protection against serious covid, but it also doesn't provide any real support for it.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

I am reading my local news since I am in a part of this town where they've detected the variant, and they have applied for funding to do surge testing here, including door to door stuff.

I really hope that its just the local newspaper that have mangled some of whats been said by the Warwickshire director of public health about this. If not, then I dont think much of some of the detail they've come out with at all, its at odds with the range of possibilities we've been told at the national level, and includes at least one statement that is simply wrong to claim at this stage ("it does not cause as much serious disease").



> Dr Shade Agboola explained: "It started in a family, then contract tracing kicked in and we identified additional cases, and then more or less it multiplied."
> 
> When asked if she is concerned about a spike in more cases, she said: "We are not expecting to see a rise like we have with Covid in the past, mainly because of the vaccination programme is going so well.
> 
> ...











						Surge testing for 18,000 households after Indian variant outbreak
					

It will start door to door next week




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## MJ100 (May 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh and theres another paragraph from that document which alludes to a detail of concern which I have put in bold:



Hospitalisations in Bolton are concerning, according to that link, yet either the BBC or Sky had a report from there and their reporter said there was no evidence of a spike in hospitalisations from the Indian variant, just a few admissions reported. So which is it? Or is there more information that was not reported on the news, such as that the hospitalisations were of fully-vaccinated people, for example?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> SA has been circulating in the uk for a while. If AZ offered no protection against it why isn’t that showing up in the numbers?


As for this bit, you make the assumption that the vaccine has been responsible for numbers falling. But Portugal has followed a very, very similar path to the UK this year with far fewer vaccinations. We had a massive wave, which has since subsided. That's what waves of infection do. How long might it take the SA variant to take hold after such a wave and cause another one? Quite possibly many months if it hasn't been seeded that many times. 

I'll say it again. The real fuck up as I see it has been complacency about border control. That lesson still isn't being learned.


----------



## Supine (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It had a median age of 31. Its participants were young, healthy people. Serious covid was probably not to be expected in that cohort anyway. The study isn't inconsistent with protection against serious covid, but it also doesn't provide any real support for it.



so what are you trying to conclude from one study with not much data in young people? You can’t conclude AZ is useless against it as far as I know.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> so what are you trying to conclude from one study with not much data in young people? You can’t conclude AZ is useless against it as far as I know.


I didn't conclude that AZ is useless against it. Read my post again more carefully. But those are very bad results whichever way you cut it and ought to undermine high levels of confidence in it such that it would stop 90 per cent of deaths from the SA variant, which is the idea I was responding to.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> As for this bit, you make the assumption that the vaccine has been responsible for numbers falling. But Portugal has followed a very, very similar path to the UK this year with far fewer vaccinations. We had a massive wave, which has since subsided. That's what waves of infection do. How long might it take the SA variant to take hold after such a wave and cause another one? Quite possibly many months if it hasn't been seeded that many times.
> 
> I'll say it again. The real fuck up as I see it has been complacency about border control. That lesson still isn't being learned.



Well waves do that when the virus has trouble coming into contact with enough susceptible individuals to maintain its growth. Many factors influence that, including people with immunity due to natural infection, due to vaccines, due to behavioural changes, lockdowns, infection control procedures, people reducing their number of contacts. Have you come to terms with the relevance of some of those factors since we last argued a lot about whether there was any point to lockdowns, restrictions, masks?


----------



## MJ100 (May 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My understanding is that the 12 week gap is good for immunity, but this new shortening of the gap is down to trying to reduce transmission of the new variant as fully vaccinated people have been shown to lessen that.



But as was pointed out by Whitty in the press conference, the rise in cases in Bolton etc are happening NOW. Vaccinating everyone there will still not prevent a further rise in cases because the vaccines take a few weeks to work, so nor will bringing forward the second jabs, surely, as well as potentially reducing the effectiveness of the second jab?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> Well waves do that when the virus has trouble coming into contact with enough susceptible individuals to maintain its growth. Many factors influence that, including people with immunity due to natural infection, due to vaccines, due to behavioural changes, lockdowns, infection control procedures, people reducing their number of contacts. Have you come to terms with the relevance of some of those factors since we last argued a lot about whether there was any point to lockdowns, restrictions, masks?


I don't want an argument with you about that. Again, I was responding to a very specific idea, one that gave credit to the vaccines for the fall in numbers. I very much hope that the vaccines have been a big factor, but you cannot just ignore the fact that Portugal's wave has been almost identical to the UK's this year with a very, very different vaccine roll-out.


----------



## StoneRoad (May 14, 2021)

I expect BJ & Co to behave as before - too little, too late - and whilst the vaccines will help, they can only do so when the jabs are in arms.
With this Indian variant - it will have been around for a while, but now seems to be a bigger risk - so i think that the "Road Map" Steps 3 & 4 should be postponed until the vaccine rate is much higher.
In the meantime, I have had my two Oxfords, but I'm still taking other measures ...


----------



## Supine (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I didn't conclude that AZ is useless against it. Read my post again more carefully.



Oh FFS - you posted “There is very sadly evidence that the South African variant may be almost entirely resistant to the AZ vaccine.”

I was trying to understand why you said that. I have better to do than talk silly bollox with you on a Friday night. Last post from me on this subject.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> Oh FFS - you posted “There is very sadly evidence that the South African variant may be almost entirely resistant to the AZ vaccine.”
> 
> I was trying to understand why you said that. I have better to do than talk silly bollox with you on a Friday night. Last post from me on this subject.


Why did I say that? Because that study produced results that are consistent with it, that's why.

Note what I said: ' there is *evidence* that the vaccine *may* be almost entirely resistant'. You then translated that into me *trying to conclude* that AZ is useless. I also went on to say that, despite these bad results, the vaccine may still prevent serious cases and death. So who is misrepresenting whom here? 

One of the study's limitations is that it has little to say either way about serious covid and death. I stated that. But as a preliminary result, it's very bad.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't want an argument with you about that. Again, I was responding to a very specific idea, one that gave credit to the vaccines for the fall in numbers. I very much hope that the vaccines have been a big factor, but you cannot just ignore the fact that Portugal's wave has been almost identical to the UK's this year with a very, very different vaccine roll-out.



I'll take that as a no then, and move away from that area. Its a shame though because I cannot take any conclusions you form by comparing waves in different countries very seriously given that you have a long track record of preferring to attribute declines to factors not involving human behaviour, number of contacts people are having with each other etc.

As far as studies looking into the effects of vaccines go, they do tend to make my brain hurt when it comes to some of the detail. I expect that in many cases their methodologies are not bad, although not without limitations that the authors tend to acknowledge. Those limits may include the period covered often including a marked decrease in viral prevalence overall, which limits the scope of really being able to test things to the fullest extent possible via 'the proof of the pudding being in the eating'. In other words in order for me to form solid and long-lasting conclusions about the protection offered, I require the vaccines to prove that they will prevent sizeable waves from occurring over a sustained period of time. And even then, unknowns about variants and how long immunity lasts before waning mean that I will struggle to find really solid ground to rest on for prolonged periods of time.

In the meantime, that does not mean I utterly reject reports that show very high percentages, the likes of which are probably what infomed platinumsages stance on the modelling which I took issue with. I'm just a bit cautious of taking the very highest numbers shown as being the gospel, and feeling them into modelling exercises. I tend to hold the view that central modelling scenarios should use more conservative numbers, although I would of course be happy to see further exercises that explore a broader range of different numbers so we can explore a wider landscape of possibilities.

Here is an example of a Pfizer study from Israel that seems quite recent and came up with very high numbers:









						Covid-19: Two doses of Pfizer vaccine are “highly effective” against infection, hospital admission, and death, study finds
					

Two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech covid-19 vaccine provide more than 95% protection against infection, hospital admission, and death, including among older people, a peer reviewed study from Israel has found.  A single dose of the Pfizer vaccine was associated with 58% protection against...




					www.bmj.com
				






> Seven days after a second dose, the Pfizer vaccine provided everyone aged over 16 with 95.3% protection (95% confidence interval 94.9 to 95.7) against infection, 97.2% (96.8 to 97.5) protection against hospital admission overall, 97.5% (97.1 to 97.8) protection against severe and critical hospital admission, and 96.7% protection (96.0 to 97.3) against death. By 14 days after the second dose, protections for everyone over 16 increased to 96.5% (96.3 to 96.8) against infection, 98.0% (97.7 to 98.3) against hospital admission overall, 98.4% (98.1 to 98.6) against severe and critical hospital admission, and 98.1% (97.6 to 98.5) against death.
> 
> People over 85 had 94.1% (91.9 to 95.7) protection against infection, 96.9% (95.5 to 97.9) against hospital admission, and 97% (94.9 to 98.3) against death seven days after their second dose. Those aged 16-44 had 96.1% (95.7 to 96.5) protection against infection, 98.1% (97.3 to 98.7) against hospital admission, and 100% against death.



When it comes to variants of concern, apart from the Kent variant, I am even more cautious due to a lack of data or lack of enough time and/or quantity of variant infections with which to draw solid enough conclusions. In terms of this particular India variant my expectations are almost completely blank, and it sounds like authorities here will have to find out the hard way in the coming weeks. If it takes a very long time to deduce things via real world hospital data then I'll take that as potentially being a very good sign, as opposed to bad news on that front which may be expected to arrive far more quickly via the sorts of means I quoted documents about earlier. Although another reason why it might take far longer than ideal to find out would be if the sorts of data the modelling groups have said they needed is not able to be provided reasonably quickly. Until then we may just go round in circles a lot and it would be entirely wrong of me to speak with any certainty.

An example of what I am on about in terms of the sort of data/analysis the SAGE modelling group say they need:



> There is currently insufficient evidence to indicate that any of the variants recently detected in India cause more severe disease or render the vaccines currently deployed any less effective. It is also too early to comment on the impact of B.1.617.2 on hospital admissions or deaths; reported COVID-19 hospitalisations in Bolton are concerning. Only accumulating more data on B.1.617.2 will provide this much needed clarity. If there were a time series of the total number of hospitalised B.1.617.2 cases according to their vaccination status, SPI-M-O would be much better placed to assess the threat that the variant poses.



(from https://assets.publishing.service.g.../986709/S1237_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf )

We are certainly in a period where people need to take care not to interpret "no evidnece to suggest" type statements as offering proof that something is not the case. And so as I am alert to this, I am also interested in whether I should read anything into the different use of language at the start of that paragraph, "insufficient evidence" as opposed to the more frequently seen "no evidence".


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'll take that as a no then, and move away from that area. Its a shame though because I cannot take any conclusions you form by comparing waves in different countries very seriously given that you have a long track record of preferring to attribute declines to factors not involving human behaviour, number of contacts people are having with each other etc.


You should take that as what I said, no more, no less. The rest of this paragraph is an example of why I said it, frankly.

It was a response to a very particular point. I'm well aware of the very encouraging signs that the vaccine has been reducing infection in vaccinated cohorts. But at the same time, the idea I was responding to was 'why hasn't the SA variant taken off here if the AZ vaccine is ineffective'. Counterexamples from places with much lower vaccination levels that also haven't seen a surge in the SA variant are very relevant when trying to work out if the lack of a surge of SA variant is evidence that the AZ vaccine is working against it.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> You should take that as what I said, no more, no less. The rest of this paragraph is an example of why I said it, frankly.



You get entirely what you deserve when it comes to that. You've expressed the view on this forum that masks didnt do much, that lockdowns didnt do much, and you've never acknowledged a change of heart. I was dearly hoping on numerous occasions that youd seen the light but youve given no indication that this is the case, and so I do not apologise for holding you in contempt during this pandemic. Why wouldnt I? A bloody disgrace, inexcusable ignorance and irrationality. In some other areas of pandemic discussion I found you reasonable, which is probably why I am infuriated by your ignorance on the lockdown etc front. If you'd like to claim that my hostility has robbed you of the opportunity to improve your reputation amongst your peers here, by virtue of me failing to give you sufficient room to save face, then tough shit.


----------



## elbows (May 14, 2021)

Or in other words, bloody liberals with shit ideas about personal freedom have led to many thousands of avoidable deaths in this pandemic. So I'm not about to treat them with respect they do not deserve in this pandemic.


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## elbows (May 14, 2021)

And yes even when I dont say it, I am always somewhat sorry about the nature of some of my outbursts. I have found this week to be highly distressing, on top of much distress about the scenes from India in recent times. I will try to chill out in the coming days, sorry.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 15, 2021)

mhwfc1 said:


> I’m assuming from the 2020/09 in the URL that the article was published in September 2020, clicking on news and views from the article and it doesn’t appear suggests it’s not a recent report too



Yes, it's from 15/09/20, to be specific -



			https://www.boltonft.nhs.uk/category/news/page/14/


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## Mation (May 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> You get entirely what you deserve when it comes to that. You've expressed the view on this forum that masks didnt do much, that lockdowns didnt do much, and you've never acknowledged a change of heart. I was dearly hoping on numerous occasions that youd seen the light but youve given no indication that this is the case, and so I do not apologise for holding you in contempt during this pandemic. Why wouldnt I? A bloody disgrace, inexcusable ignorance and irrationality. In some other areas of pandemic discussion I found you reasonable, which is probably why I am infuriated by your ignorance on the lockdown etc front. If you'd like to claim that my hostility has robbed you of the opportunity to improve your reputation amongst your peers here, by virtue of me failing to give you sufficient room to save face, then tough shit.


JFC, could you be any more pompous?

You do post loads of really valuable information, but does it have to come with all of your tedious opining?


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## sheothebudworths (May 15, 2021)

Dp.


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## Ax^ (May 15, 2021)

Mation said:


> JFC, could you be any more pompous?
> 
> You do post loads of really valuable information, but does it have to come with all of your tedious opining?



little harsh to one of the main poster reporting this stuff for the best part of a year


----------



## Mation (May 15, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> little harsh to one of the main poster reporting this stuff for the best part of a year


I've lost my patience with it (the way it's done). As I said, loads of valuable info, but FFS.


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## Ax^ (May 15, 2021)

fair enough can understand the frustration last years been a shit show

and wanting to get out of it


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## elbows (May 15, 2021)

Its part of the package, its not optional, it is my nature. I warned people at the start that coming across as pompous was not on my list of things I gave a shit about, and was not going to prevent me from saying what I felt needed to be said during this pandemic. I'm pretty sure the post I made about that at the time was in itself quite pompous. 

I do have a plan for dealing with this side of my personality in the long term, but it involves permanently retiring from being a smartarse. Thats not going to happen whilst the pandemic is still in effect, but I am giving serious consideration to retiring that side of myself once the pandemic is done. In the meantime I can understand various frustrations and unpleasant feelings towards me and/or some of what I come out with. Believe it or not I share only a fraction of my frustration with the opinions of others, imagine what the whole of that scene is like in my mind!


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## elbows (May 15, 2021)

Possibly one contributor to my current distress is the sheer quantity of unknowns with the current situation. I do not need anything approaching complete certainty to cope with the pandemic and its detail, but it seems there are limits to just how much uncertainty I can cope with without being rudely flung some distance from my comfort zone.

In the past when we have been faced with bad news and government dragging its heels, there has been a pretty strong sense of inevitability about what horrors were soon to unfold. The current concerns about the variant may all be valid and we will go down that well trodden path, but other possibilities also exist as far as I can tell. It would be going too far to suggest that it could yet turn out to be a false alarm in every sense, but certain fears may not come to pass. And it really does my head in that various sorts of lag to our data & surveillance means our appreciation of situations tends to to reflect the picture weeks ago rather than the current reality outside our doorsteps. In my case I might be feeling this extra strongly because this variant has been detected in my neighbourhood and surge testing looms for my local ward. I'd feel better if I had some idea of how much these local infections have spread since some cases here were discovered to be the new variant, especially as it is likely that it took quite some time for those original cases to have their genomes sequenced. And of course next time we get to see a new version of this picture, it will probably be out of date too.

Anyway I will put some extra effort into trying harder not to have a go at the opinions of others at the moment, especially whilst I am in my current frame of mind. Sorry for the disruption and ill-feeling.


----------



## oryx (May 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Possibly one contributor to my current distress is the sheer quantity of unknowns with the current situation. I do not need anything approaching complete certainty to cope with the pandemic and its detail, but it seems there are limits to just how much uncertainty I can cope with without being rudely flung some distance from my comfort zone.
> 
> In the past when we have been faced with bad news and government dragging its heels, there has been a pretty strong sense of inevitability about what horrors were soon to unfold. The current concerns about the variant may all be valid and we will go down that well trodden path, but other possibilities also exist as far as I can tell. It would be going too far to suggest that it could yet turn out to be a false alarm in every sense, but certain fears may not come to pass. And it really does my head in that various sorts of lag to our data & surveillance means our appreciation of situations tends to to reflect the picture weeks ago rather than the current reality outside our doorsteps. In my case I might be feeling this extra strongly because this variant has been detected in my neighbourhood and surge testing looms for my local ward. I'd feel better if I had some idea of how much these local infections have spread since some cases here were discovered to be the new variant, especially as it is likely that it took quite some time for those original cases to have their genomes sequenced. And of course next time we get to see a new version of this picture, it will probably be out of date too.
> 
> Anyway I will put some extra effort into trying harder not to have a go at the opinions of others at the moment, especially whilst I am in my current frame of mind. Sorry for the disruption and ill-feeling.


Never really worked out what exactly you do (epidemiologist? virologist? statistician?) but you always seem to be the one on Urban who knows what they're talking about WRT the pandemic, and your posts are much appreciated.


----------



## elbows (May 15, 2021)

Thanks. I'm just a computer nerd with too much time on my hands who was able to apply amateur knowledge of previous pandemics and less than ideal establishment responses to them to the current pandemic. As such I am reliant on all the accrued knowledge and opinion of people who actual study and work in the relevant disciplines, and other interested laypeople who pay attention and communicate details and their thoughts. And things like analysis of previous failings and awareness of the blind-spots that aspects of orthodox thinking and establishment priorities tend to encourage. I have enjoyed being useful to other peoples understanding from time to time but have very much not enjoyed the pandemic and the experiences we've had to go through as a result. I was really hoping that what I learnt about pandemics 15 years or so ago would not become so relevant in our lifetimes, but I suppose I wouldnt have bothered in the first place if I didnt think there was a fair chance of such matters becoming one of the stories of this century. I'm not a big fan of some of my interactions with people though, I easily overheat and it all goes wrong. It is a shame I cant do the useful bits without the shit, but then again I suspect that some of my analysis wouldnt have materialised if I didnt have an awkward relationship with certain aspects of the human condition and the limitations of our species/the way we are currently ordered.


----------



## bimble (May 15, 2021)

Quite interesting, & encouraging i think: 
Basically looks like vaccination may not stop infections but does stop people getting seriously ill, which is the only thing that really matters isnt it.








						The Seychelles is 60% vaccinated, but still infections are rising. That's not as bad as it sounds
					

On face value, the fact the Seychelles, with such high vaccination coverage, is still facing an outbreak calls into question whether countries can inoculate themselves out of the pandemic.




					edition.cnn.com


----------



## maomao (May 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> Quite interesting, & encouraging i think:
> Basically looks like vaccination may not stop infections but does stop people getting seriously ill, which is the only thing that really matters isnt it.
> 
> 
> ...


Unless having that big pool of virus always there provides more opportunities to mutate. Or do a flu style recombination with SARS or MERS.


----------



## Elpenor (May 15, 2021)

nhs.uk are now permitting the over-50’s to rebook their 2nd Covid vaccination up to 4 weeks earlier. If this applies, the original 2nd vaccination must first be cancelled before rebooking to the earlier date.


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## frogwoman (May 15, 2021)

I haven't been offered the vaccine yet so am a bit anxious about everything reopening tbh.


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## glitch hiker (May 15, 2021)

I follow the daily updates that some academic hero posts daily (and has done throughout!) on r/CoronavirusUK (reddit). It's pretty comprehensive.


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## Cloo (May 15, 2021)

It does look, especially with the 'push to 2nd vaccinate the over 50s', that the gov is really going for keeping things at Monday 17th rules for longer if it has to, cope with infections rising but hope hospitalisation/death rates stay manageable. Keeping going but keeping those things in tolerable bounds is not a deplorable aim IMO and one we have to accept at some point, but it does seem it's a bit soon and a bit experimental and finger-crossing to go with that approach this year.


----------



## NoXion (May 15, 2021)

Cloo said:


> It does look, especially with the 'push to 2nd vaccinate the over 50s', that the gov is really going for keeping things at Monday 17th rules for longer if it has to, cope with infections rising but hope hospitalisation/death rates stay manageable. Keeping going but keeping those things in tolerable bounds is not a deplorable aim IMO and one we have to accept at some point, but it does seem it's a bit soon and a bit experimental and finger-crossing to go with that approach this year.



I suspect the problem is that their definition of what are "tolerable bounds" is rather different to mine.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> Quite interesting, & encouraging i think:
> Basically looks like vaccination may not stop infections but does stop people getting seriously ill, which is the only thing that really matters isnt it.
> 
> 
> ...



I've always assumed by serious illness, they mean not ending up in a ICU, and that appears the case here, as the quote is 'almost none of the critical and severe cases requiring intensive care had been vaccinated', so you can still end-up in hospital putting a strain on the NHS.

Plus, of course, even mild cases can end-up with 'long covid', although hopefully the vaccines will reduce or prevent it in those unlucky to still get mild cases, to me that's a pretty severe illness.


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## bimble (May 15, 2021)

true.


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## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2021)

I watched the press briefing, and as usual the messaging seemed confused, saying they are concerned, but haven't seen a substantial increase in hospital admissions, leaving some people wondering why the concern.

If they had used Bolton as an example, and said that 'there was 11 admissions in the last week, which although isn't a big number, it represents a 57% increase on the pervious week, which is concerning, and could become a problem if that increase continues to grow', I think people would have a better understanding.


----------



## LDC (May 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I watched the press briefing, and as usual the messaging seemed confused, saying they are concerned, but haven't seen a substantial increase in hospital admissions, leaving some people wondering why the concern.
> 
> If they had used Bolton as an example, and said that 'there was 11 admissions in the last week, which although isn't a big number, it represents a 57% increase on the pervious week, which is concerning, and could become a problem if that increase continues to grow', I think people would have a better understanding.



Johnson has a speaking style that doesn't lend itself to clarity and detail, he tries for the 'big picture' sub-par fight them on the beaches kinda thing, hoping the bluster and inspiration will overcome the lack of exact information. Whitty is better though, but I agree it wasn't exactly clear from what they said, but the language used was very good at giving away what they're concerned about 'behind the scenes' as it were (especially if you look at detailed data and have followed this whole thing closely) but that's less easy to pick up on. IME most people think it's all over now and it's a one way street to normality...


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## Riklet (May 15, 2021)

I think they're crazy to open things up more than they are now, what with the numbers 15-20 times higher in some areas than others, the second highest confirmed number of Indian cases in the world (wonder why), under 40s not vaccinated yet and the numbers going up again for the past week.

Compare this to cautious and sensible approaches taken by countries like NZ and Australia. Fuck all the people who want a summer holiday abroad frankly.


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## wemakeyousoundb (May 15, 2021)

So if I've understood the last few pages correctly it is SNAFU and there is a handbrake turn up ahead of us.


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## Petcha (May 15, 2021)

Riklet said:


> I think they're crazy to open things up more than they are now, what with the numbers 15-20 times higher in some areas than others, the second highest confirmed number of Indian cases in the world (wonder why), under 40s not vaccinated yet and the numbers going up again for the past week.
> 
> Compare this to cautious and sensible approaches taken by countries like NZ and Australia. Fuck all the people who want a summer holiday abroad frankly.



Yep. I have friends in Australia and NZ who think this is bonkers. Well they think the whole approach from our govt has been nuts from the very start. Thankfully the UK has deigned to put those countries on our 'green list' so we can escape down there. But, oh. There's a small issue there.... there's not a snowball's chance in hell they're opening their borders to the likes of us anytime soon.


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## wemakeyousoundb (May 15, 2021)

This means that they _are_ allowing holidays abroad as promised, it's not their fault that those countries won't let you in...


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## Sunray (May 15, 2021)

Indian people have multigenerational households so all the people returning went to houses with 50+ and school children age groups.


cupid_stunt said:


> I watched the press briefing, and as usual the messaging seemed confused, saying they are concerned, but haven't seen a substantial increase in hospital admissions, leaving some people wondering why the concern.
> 
> If they had used Bolton as an example, and said that 'there was 11 admissions in the last week, which although isn't a big number, it represents a 57% increase on the pervious week, which is concerning, and could become a problem if that increase continues to grow', I think people would have a better understanding.



It takes a while for those people to get sicker and end up in trouble so the increase we are seeing comes with an unknown component that only time will tell.

The point of this 5 week gap was to watch out for things like this.  Nobody apart from pubs and restaurants will care much if we go on like we are for a couple of weeks more.  Boris Johnson's government is just paying lip service to science with no intention of actually doing anything they say to protect the public.


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## elbows (May 15, 2021)

Cloo said:


> It does look, especially with the 'push to 2nd vaccinate the over 50s', that the gov is really going for keeping things at Monday 17th rules for longer if it has to, cope with infections rising but hope hospitalisation/death rates stay manageable. Keeping going but keeping those things in tolerable bounds is not a deplorable aim IMO and one we have to accept at some point, but it does seem it's a bit soon and a bit experimental and finger-crossing to go with that approach this year.



I'd say thats only their temporary position, whilst awaiting data or events that lean more strongly in one direction or the other and provide a higher degree of confidence about whether the current approach is expected to keep things within those bounds or not.

They could still push ahead with the June relaxation, or they could be forced to slam on the brakes more comprehensively. I dont think there is any way for me to deduce the answer to that more quickly, we just have to wait and see what happens on a number of fronts over the next few weeks. Bad news/data/evidence that triggers a new position could come within days, or might take weeks to emerge, whereas good news/data/evidence will not come within days and will be weeks away if not longer.


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## elbows (May 15, 2021)

Sunray said:


> The point of this 5 week gap was to watch out for things like this.  Nobody apart from pubs and restaurants will care much if we go on like we are for a couple of weeks more.  Boris Johnson's government is just paying lip service to science with no intention of actually doing anything they say to protect the public.



Perhaps we could speculate as to why there was no Vallance in yesterdays press conference. I could easily come up with a story that he does not agree with the approach taken yesterday, eg that he wanted a pause to the step 3 May relaations, or take some other action now, and so did not appear. But of course I am just inventing this story, based on nothing more than some of the things SAGE said in their documented meeting this week, and the fact he seemed to become less happy with Johnsons approach as the pandemic went on, somewhat positioning himself as someone who was calling for quicker/stronger lockdowns at various moments previously.


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## baldrick (May 15, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> I follow the daily updates that some academic hero posts daily (and has done throughout!) on r/CoronavirusUK (reddit). It's pretty comprehensive.



Isn't that just copied from the PHE dashboard?





__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## glitch hiker (May 15, 2021)

baldrick said:


> Isn't that just copied from the PHE dashboard?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I imagine so. But whoever it is compiles a pretty thorough list of facts


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Hospitalisations in Bolton are concerning, according to that link, yet either the BBC or Sky had a report from there and their reporter said there was no evidence of a spike in hospitalisations from the Indian variant, just a few admissions reported. So which is it? Or is there more information that was not reported on the news, such as that the hospitalisations were of fully-vaccinated people, for example?



Just catching up on the thread, there's only been 11 hospital admissions in Bolton during the 7-day period to 2nd May, the latest date on the government's covid dashboard, so a reporter wouldn't see a 'spike in hospitalisations'. However, that was a 57% increase on the 7-days before, so that's where the concern is.



MJ100 said:


> But as was pointed out by Whitty in the press conference, the rise in cases in Bolton etc are happening NOW. Vaccinating everyone there will still not prevent a further rise in cases because the vaccines take a few weeks to work, so nor will bringing forward the second jabs, surely, as well as potentially reducing the effectiveness of the second jab?



Vaccinating everyone there will not prevent a further rise in cases in the short term, but would start impacting in 2-3 weeks time, so I can see some logic to doing that.

Trouble is, is it worth buggering about with the logistics of moving vaccines from other areas, when it's already seeded over a fairly wide area, so extra doses are going to be needed everywhere fairly soon.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2021)

Here's a handy graph as to where they have found the Indian variant so far, and to what degree it is becoming the most dominant one.


And, we know from the Kent variant how quick a situation like that can spread across the whole country, and fill up hospitals.  

Talking about hospitals, I better go and see how my mother is getting on.


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## elbows (May 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just catching up on the thread, there's only been 11 hospital admissions in Bolton during the 7-day period to 2nd May, the latest date on the government's covid dashboard, so a reporter wouldn't see a 'spike in hospitalisations'. However, that was a 57% increase on the 7-days before, so that's where the concern is.



Admissions data per trust on the dashboard currently goes up to 9th May, numbers in hospital goes up to the 11th. The hover-over on those graphs sometimes struggles to show the most recent dates info, so I usually click on the data tab to see the raw figures. Per-trust weekly data is also available in spreadsheet form at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


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## Petcha (May 15, 2021)

I've said it before maybe on this thread, but I live in a largely (like 80%) British Asian area and mask take up, social distancing and presumably vaccine take up has been very very low. I'd be interested in a totally amnesty on political correctness failures discussion on why this might be. I love the area, the people, but I'm usually the only guy wearing a mask, to the point where I actually think whats the point myself. This ignorance, for whatever reason, of what the fuck is going on in the country plus the fact a highly virulent strain has arrived from India spells very very big trouble. Oh and let's open everything up on Monday too, just for the added kicks.


----------



## baldrick (May 15, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I've said it before maybe on this thread, but I live in a largely (like 80%) British Asian area and mask take up, social distancing and presumably vaccine take up has been very very low. I'd be interested in a totally amnesty on political correctness failures discussion on why this might be. I love the area, the people, but I'm usually the only guy wearing a mask, to the point where I actually think whats the point myself. This ignorance, for whatever reason, of what the fuck is going on in the country plus the fact a highly virulent strain has arrived from India spells very very big trouble. Oh and let's open everything up on Monday too, just for the added kicks.


Yeah I imagine it's quite area/demographic specific because I also live in a majority British Asian area and the vast majority of people here have been wearing masks. Social distancing not so much, but it's a very busy/crowded area so I tend to give people a pass on that if I'm honest. It bothers me less than mask wearing, I tend to think that's the major thing to get right, it's a visible signal that you're taking this seriously if nothing else.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 15, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I've said it before maybe on this thread, but I live in a largely (like 80%) British Asian area and mask take up, social distancing and presumably vaccine take up has been very very low. I'd be interested in a totally amnesty on political correctness failures discussion on why this might be. I love the area, the people, but I'm usually the only guy wearing a mask, to the point where I actually think whats the point myself. This ignorance, for whatever reason, of what the fuck is going on in the country plus the fact a highly virulent strain has arrived from India spells very very big trouble. Oh and let's open everything up on Monday too, just for the added kicks.



Because social distancing is such a social thing, I'd expect random fluctuations in behaviour to be amplified. If you have two otherwise similar neighbourhoods which started off at 49% and 51% mask wearing, over time the one might tend towards 0% and the other 100% for no other reason than people modelling their behaviour on those around them.

That's an entirely baseless theory of course. We'll likely never know for sure. If anyone does any research it'll probably be survey-based with all the sampling/uptake problems that drags in. Any data could also be skewed by some of the same factors being investigated in the first place.


----------



## glitch hiker (May 15, 2021)

I think what depresses me most about the incoming third wave, if it's asinevitable as the models say, is that I don't see a way out of this. Hopefully vaccines, but as the Guardian article says,wave three will happen in spite of vaccines. Perhaps I have misunderstood. 
It's not that Johnson has, again, fucked up. It's that he, and his clown car posse, are about as capable of understanding this situation as a dog understands geometry. It's that he will never ever grasp this and nothing, it seems, will change. This is hardly going to be the last VOC after all, and his cack handed viral stupidity ensures more will breed.
Stir that petri dish with your union jack!


----------



## glitch hiker (May 15, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> Insane, isn't it? But based on Johnson's record so far, hardly surprising.
> 
> Not even localised lockdowns.


I really won't be surprised if there's a turn arounad early next week. But all the local pubs are gearing to open next week as well. They haven't even opened outdoors so far. One poor couple opened a new bistro last summer, they've had a hell of a time. I don't know them but god knows how they've managed not to go under.


----------



## elbows (May 15, 2021)

baldrick said:


> Yeah I imagine it's quite area/demographic specific because I also live in a majority British Asian area and the vast majority of people here have been wearing masks.



Same here, although I'm not really going out so this impression is based largely on looking out of my window, and it does seem to vary a bit over time.

As for vaccinations, here are figures from the latest weekly surveillance report at https://assets.publishing.service.g...986168/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w19.pdf


----------



## The39thStep (May 15, 2021)

Masks and social distancing are compulsory here in Portugal everywhere and for everyone  until at least August. . They've just issued the rules for the beach, wear  mask , find a spot a metre and a half away, remove mask. Wear it as you leave the beach. Patrolled by Maritime Police and council and fines starting at 100 euro.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Admissions data per trust on the dashboard currently goes up to 9th May, numbers in hospital goes up to the 11th. The hover-over on those graphs sometimes struggles to show the most recent dates info, so I usually click on the data tab to see the raw figures.



Cheers for that tip, I wasn't aware of the glitch with the 'hover-over' function.


----------



## Petcha (May 15, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Masks and social distancing are compulsory here in Portugal everywhere and for everyone  until at least August. . They've just issued the rules for the beach, wear  mask , find a spot a metre and a half away, remove mask. Wear it as you leave the beach. Patrolled by Maritime Police and council and fines starting at 100 euro.



I laud this but I can't see that flying here. I've seen half-hearted attempts by lone bobbies walking up to groups and politely suggesting they move on, break up, whatever, but really what the fuck is the cop gonna do? There's no way Boris is gonna bring in laws like that. Our supermarkets here have big signs saying masks must be worn.  And half the staff are strolling around without them.


----------



## souljacker (May 15, 2021)

baldrick said:


> Isn't that just copied from the PHE dashboard?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The dashboard has an API and some decent and well written developer guides so he may even just be running a script at 4pm every day and publishing the response. You could then script posting that to reddit. It's possible that this person is posting every day without doing anything at all


----------



## kabbes (May 15, 2021)

Vaccination take-up is vastly complicated.  It will be affected by a lot of things, including the subjective sense of obedience to authority, the subjective sense of trust in the institution asking you, the subjective sense of safety, social identity and the impacts from cognitive bias and, I suppose to some degree, rational information.  (The last being the least.)

The BAME community have a lot of reasons to distrust authorities that have, historically, been genuinely out to get them.  That’s not paranoia, it’s real, seen in everything from Windrush to Tuskegee.  The other factors I mention are built on top of that, but I would expect the baseline trust to be much lower.  I’m therefore not surprised that the vaccination rate is accordingly also lower.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I laud this but I can't see that flying here. I've seen half-hearted attempts by lone bobbies walking up to groups and politely suggesting they move on, break up, whatever, but really what the fuck is the cop gonna do? There's no way Boris is gonna bring in laws like that. Our supermarkets here have big signs saying masks must be worn.  And half the staff are strolling around without them.



It seems to vary so much, around Worthing it's very rare to see anyone not wearing a mask in shops, including staff behind plastic shields.


----------



## Petcha (May 15, 2021)

kabbes said:


> The BAME community have a lot of reasons to distrust authorities that have, genuinely, been historically out to get them.  That’s not paranoia, it’s everything from Windrush to Tuskegee.  The other factors I mention are built on top of that, but I would expect the baseline trust to be much lower.  I’m therefore not surprised that the vaccination rate is accordingly also lower.



A) there's no such thing as a 'BAME community' and b) It's really not rocket science to hear, see, what the fuck is going on. In my area, I do think it would be might useful to have multi-lingual signs up, and in shops other than supermarkets, as the matriarchs, some of whom possibly don't speak much English, who don't shop in supermarkets (they shop in the little local shops). The tea shops, whatever - it's clearly not being communicated properly.


----------



## baldrick (May 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Same here, although I'm not really going out so this impression is based largely on looking out of my window, and it does seem to vary a bit over time.
> 
> As for vaccinations, here are figures from the latest weekly surveillance report at https://assets.publishing.service.g...986168/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w19.pdf
> 
> View attachment 268407


That's a very interesting graph and it correlates with my anecdotal evidence about where I live in terms of visible mask compliance & who is attending the testing/vaccine centre - it's majority British Indian here and a smaller but significant number of Caribbean heritage people. I wonder if there's something available at a local level, I will have a look.


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## elbows (May 15, 2021)

Regarding vaccine uptake, it will be interesting to see if ideas like the 'vaccination bus' that I believe they've tried in some parts of Bolton are repeated elsewhere and make a real difference to uptake. I've forgotten where I was reading detail of this but when they explored the issues they decided that poverty and car ownership were impacting on people getting the jab.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Regarding vaccine uptake, it will be interesting to see if ideas like the 'vaccination bus' that I believe they've tried in some parts of Bolton are repeated elsewhere and make a real difference to uptake.* I've forgotten where I was reading detail of this but when they explored the issues they decided that poverty and car ownership were impacting on people getting the jab.*



I can't remember if it was Sky or the BBC reporting from the vaccine bus site in Bolton earlier today, but the doctor interviewed did mention those issues.

Sussex has had a vaccine bus on the road for months, calling on rural communities and poorer areas in various towns too.


----------



## kabbes (May 15, 2021)

It’s worth remembering that both polling (eg YouGov) and academic studies (eg OCEANSII) in Sept/Oct consistently put serious vaccine hesitancy at about 25-30% and the UK governments vaccine plan in December was anticipating just a 75% take-up.  From the word go, that proved to be way too pessimistic and true take up across the population is over 95%.  BAME take-up is also higher than initially anticipated, but it’s obviously still  low in this context.  I can (and have!) written an essay on why this difference between anticipated hesitancy and real-life hesitancy arose and the reasons are multifaceted.  I’m pretty sure it’s nothing whatsoever to do with rational information, though.  If you want to increase take up in areas that where it is currently low, you need to start by understanding why in other areas it ended up surprisingly high.


----------



## Badgers (May 15, 2021)

Badgers said:


> Was working at the Luton Lateral Flow test centre today. Had the first (4) positive tests for a week which was an Indian family  also we had to refuse entry to several people with symptoms for the first time in a while. Might have just been one of those days
> 
> More concerning is that the South African variant has now been found in Luton. Waiting to hear more on that.
> A


Another batch of (7) positive tests today  all Indian sad to say.


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## ash (May 15, 2021)

I took part in surge testing in Lambeth, we haven’t been told the outcome, surely they should let people know?


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## existentialist (May 15, 2021)

kabbes said:


> It’s worth remembering that both polling (eg YouGov) and academic studies (eg OCEANSII) in Sept/Oct consistently put serious vaccine hesitancy at about 25-30% and the UK governments vaccine plan in December was anticipating just a 75% take-up.  From the word go, that proved to be way too pessimistic and true take up across the population is over 95%.  BAME take-up is also higher than initially anticipated, but it’s obviously still  low in this context.  I can (and have!) written an essay on why this difference between anticipated hesitancy and real-life hesitancy arose and the reasons are multifaceted.  I’m pretty sure it’s nothing whatsoever to do with rational information, though.  If you want to increase take up in areas that where it is currently low, you need to start by understanding why in other areas it ended up surprisingly high.


Veering somewhat off-topic, this is the price I think we will end up paying for things like Windrush and the Home Office's "hostile environment" policy. It might tick all the boxes as far as anti-immigration voters are concerned, but it poisons the well big time for those who are (perfectly legitimately or otherwise) here. The government has played into the populist nationalist narrative, so is it any wonder that groups who find themselves on the sharp end of that are hardly going to be eager to trust the authorities with vaccination, far less feel motivated to do it for the common good - a good that they are, at least in the political narrative, excluded from.


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## MrSki (May 15, 2021)

Well a possible 20000 people were allowed to enter the UK before India was placed in the red zone.


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## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Well a possible 20000 people were allowed to enter the UK before India was placed in the red zone.






> The rise of the new variant has given rise to tensions in Whitehall about whether the prime minister delayed putting India on the red list because he was hoping to fly to Delhi on April 25 to discuss a post-Brexit trade deal with the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. Pakistan and Bangladesh were put on the red list on April 2, a measure that came in to force on April 9.



For anyone not using the 'by-pass paywalls extension', which is fucking brilliant, here's the full article from The Times, it's a shocking read, but I doubt anyone here will be surprised by it.



Spoiler: HERE



At least 20,000 passengers who could have been infected with a virulent strain of coronavirus were allowed to enter Britain while Boris Johnson delayed imposing a travel ban from India.

The prime minister only added India to the so-called red list on April 23, three weeks after announcing a ban on flights from neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh.

A huge surge in cases of the Indian variant threatens to derail the easing of lockdown restrictions.

The government is sticking by plans for the biggest easing of lockdown rules on Monday, which will allow people to socialise indoors in homes, pubs and restaurants. Physical contact between households will be permitted for the first time in more than a year and limited audiences will be allowed back into theatres, music venues and sports stadiums. Foreign travel will also be allowed.

But senior government sources have admitted that they would not be able to say whether the final lifting of lockdown could go ahead on June 21 until “a week before”, leaving many people’s plans for the summer up in the air for another month.

To combat the variant’s spread, people aged over 50 and the clinically vulnerable will have their second doses of a Covid vaccine accelerated — but that is expected to cause delays to vaccinations for younger people.

Those in England aged over 35 will be able to book their vaccinations from Monday. But hopes in government that the threshold might have been reduced this week to 30 have been put on hold.


The rise of the new variant has given rise to tensions in Whitehall about whether the prime minister delayed putting India on the red list because he was hoping to fly to Delhi on April 25 to discuss a post-Brexit trade deal with the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. Pakistan and Bangladesh were put on the red list on April 2, a measure that came in to force on April 9.

Johnson was forced to cancel the trip on April 19 amid surging infections, the day it was announced that India was being added to the red list — although travellers were given four days to get back to Britain.

Analysis of Civil Aviation Authority air traffic figures indicates an average of 900 people were arriving daily from India during the three-week period — 20,000 between April 2 and April 23.

A source who attended a Whitehall war gaming exercise on the Indian variant on Thursday said: “It’s very clear that we should have closed the border to India earlier and that Boris did not do so because he didn’t want to offend Modi.”

Johnson is facing pressure from scientists to “pause” the lifting of lockdown. At a series of meetings last week government advisers “pushed for a delay in fully opening the pubs of four to five weeks”, one source said.

Scientists at the Joint Biosecurity Centre provided analysis and data to the government which suggested that the conditions had not been met for the northwest of England to move to the next phase of the road map and that the northwest should be excluded from the easing of restrictions or that the roadmap be paused for the whole country.

Minutes of Thursday’s emergency meeting of the Sage committee of scientific advisers reveal that ministers were told progressing with “step three” of unlocking might lead to a “substantial resurgence” of hospitalisations “similar to, or larger than, previous peaks”, which would wreak havoc in the NHS. And if the government also persists in unlocking on June 21, the size of the third wave could double that of January’s peak.

Senior government sources said the modelling presented was “not convincing” and that ministers decided to press ahead because the Indian variant was leading to more cases but not yet to more hospitalisations.

Johnson and his senior ministers contemplated tighter controls in the worse hit areas, with Michael Gove calling for the toughest measures and Rishi Sunak opposed. Johnson and Matt Hancock, the health secretary, agreed on surge vaccination instead.

Ministers are shortly to announce that Heathrow’s Terminal 2 — known as the Queen’s terminal — will be set aside as a “red zone only” landing spot for passengers from the worst hit countries to stop those who have to quarantine from mingling with passengers from green and amber list countries.

Officials are considering adding further countries on the amber list to the red list because of fears that people are exploiting new routes to return from India and avoid paying hefty hotel quarantine fees.

An Oxford University study has confirmed that current vaccines work well against the Indian variant. Early findings from the laboratory study found that both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer jabs significantly diminish the risk of hospital admission and death.

Sir John Bell, Oxford’s emeritus professor of medicine, told Times Radio’s T&G programme: “It looks like the Indian variant will be susceptible to the vaccine in the way that others are. The data looks rather promising. I think the vaccinated population are going to be fine.”

Ministers admit that if it was the South African strain, “the pubs would not be opening” on Monday.

However, Professor Susan Michie of University College London, who sits on Sage, said that the government should suspend Monday’s unlocking. “If we are following data not dates, it is surprising that the road map is going ahead without adjustment,” she said. “Opening indoor hospitality venues has the potential to increase Covid-19 transmission.”

Dr Gabriel Scally, visiting professor of public health at the University of Bristol and a member of Independent Sage, said: “It’s astounding that the government still hasn’t learned one of the key public health lessons, which is that you have to act quickly — you must not hesitate.”


He called for immediate “ring vaccination” in Indian variant hotspots where everyone over the age of 18 would be offered the vaccination.

Questioned why Bangladesh and Pakistan had been added to the red list two weeks ahead of India, the health minister Edward Argar said the decisions were made “on the basis of the evidence”. He added: “It is impossible to completely hermetically seal the borders of the country”.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said: “The PM has serious questions to answer about suggestions that he delayed adding India to the red list until he decided to cancel a scheduled trade visit to India, and that he did not put the safety of the British people first.”

Layla Moran, chairwoman of the all party parliamentary group on coronavirus, said the delay to banning travel from India would “no doubt come to be seen as a catastrophic error of judgment”.

A government spokesman has pointed out that there are three strains of the virus from India and that the one that has now become dominant was only identified as a concern six days after India was put on the red list — though before that at least one other variant had been thought to be immune to vaccination.

“We have some of the toughest border measures in the world,” the spokesman said. “We took precautionary action to ban travel from India on April 23, six days before this variant was put under investigation and two weeks before it was labelled as of concern. We have since sped up our vaccination programme and put in enhanced local support to curb transmission.”


----------



## David Clapson (May 15, 2021)

So we've risked a third wave because Johnson didn't want to offend a ruthless genocidal crackpot. Fuck my life. Pleeease can we be a sensible country run by a clever, collaborative woman? Where is our Kaja Kallas, our Tsai-Ing Wen, our Jacinda Ardern, our Katrín Jakobsdóttir, our Sanna Marin? Why are we so shit?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2021)

So, Scotland is going ahead with surge vaccination. England to follow in a couple of weeks?



> Adults aged 18 and over are now being invited to get their coronavirus vaccine in some areas of Glasgow amid fears over the so-called Indian variant.
> 
> Glaswegians in areas most impacted by Covid have been receiving text messages outlining details of their appointment for their first dose - with some jabs taking place as early as next week.
> 
> ...











						Glasgow Covid vaccine rollout expanded to over 18s amid Indian variant concerns
					

All adults in 'affected areas' have been invited to take up the first dose of the jab amid a recent spike in case numbers - which is believed to have been caused by a so-called Indian variant of the virus.




					www.dailyrecord.co.uk


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## elbows (May 15, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> So we've risked a third wave because Johnson didn't want to offend a ruthless genocidal crackpot. Fuck my life. Pleeease can we be a sensible country run by a clever, collaborative woman? Where is our Kaja Kallas, our Tsai-Ing Wen, our Jacinda Ardern, our Katrín Jakobsdóttir, our Sanna Marin? Why are we so shit?



I wont attempt to repeat all of my previous comments on why we are crap, but phrases that have tended to spring to mind include:

An arrogant thin veneer, hollow, hafl-arsed, going through the motions, mere lip-service, shit priorities, a dysfunctional ruling class. A strong dedication to a can't do mentality.


----------



## elbows (May 15, 2021)

And its all the more infuriating for the fact that lots of people try really hard. But their efforts are often squandered by shit decisions from on high. And some of the shit and ineffective attitudes do trickle down.

Scotland and Wales are not free from this dodgy sphere of influence, but there are times when they begin to demonstrate that more can be achieved with even a relatively mild change of emphasis.


----------



## Sunray (May 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, Scotland is going ahead with surge vaccination. England to follow in a couple of weeks?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This is all too late.
Takes at least 3 weeks to have any effect so whatever happens with the India variant was set in stone by not preventing people coming from Indian via quarantine.
Fortunately, infections and deaths are now decoupled due to the vaccines but this is a real test of their effectiveness and one we as an Island nation shouldn't be doing.

The reality is we should push back May 17th to early June. It's not like anyone would really notice.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 15, 2021)

Sunray said:


> This is all too late.
> Takes at least 3 weeks to have any effect so whatever happens with the India variant was set in stone by not preventing people coming from Indian via quarantine.
> Fortunately, infections and deaths are now decoupled due to the vaccines but this is a real test of their effectiveness and one we as an Island nation shouldn't be doing.



Of course it's not too late, sure there's a delay between vaccination & protection, but after 2-3 weeks such a vaccination roll-out should start reducing any 'serious illness' or death.


----------



## glitch hiker (May 15, 2021)

Sunray said:


> This is all too late.
> Takes at least 3 weeks to have any effect so whatever happens with the India variant was set in stone by not preventing people coming from Indian via quarantine.
> Fortunately, infections and deaths are now decoupled due to the vaccines but this is a real test of their effectiveness and one we as an Island nation shouldn't be doing.
> 
> The reality is we should push back May 17th to early June. It's not like anyone would really notice.


Even if he does, Johnson has, again, massively fucked it. He must know this, perhaps contributing to why he's prevaricating. Places are getting ready to open. One of the local pubs is recruiting bar staff. Another, I mentioned above, is a brand new business that's barely had any time to trade planning to finally (re) open this coming week. Once again this fucking clown has put himself into an impossible position because of his stupidity ignorance and ideology. Consequently fucking everyone else in the process. This really ought to be a resignation matter. If only there was an opposition to hammer the point home and drive the last nail in this cunt's John Lewis coffin

That's how I see it anyway


----------



## LDC (May 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Regarding vaccine uptake, it will be interesting to see if ideas like the 'vaccination bus' that I believe they've tried in some parts of Bolton are repeated elsewhere and make a real difference to uptake. I've forgotten where I was reading detail of this but when they explored the issues they decided that poverty and car ownership were impacting on people getting the jab.



Bit pissed so this isn't the most erudite post, but...

Just heard about the local vaccine bus here, incredibly poor attendance and also someone turned up started throwing stuff and shouting 'murderers' at it. Eventually was de-escalated but fucking hell...

Do think people spreading anti-vax and conspiracy stuff need fucking locking up or hammering in some way something, they're actually killing people in reality. (I know all the issues with that, but I'm pissed, so fuck them.)


----------



## MJ100 (May 15, 2021)

Would it be at all possible to create a kind of 'vaccine buffer' around the areas affected by the Indian variant, by surging vaccinations in, say, Lancashire, Cheshire and Merseyside for example, so that by the time the variant reaches those areas in number in a few weeks it runs into a blockade of people of all ages who have had their first jab? Or is it already too late for that? It's presumably already too late just to vaccinate everyone in Blackburn/Bolton because it takes weeks for the protection to come into effect, but could a firebreak of sorts be created? Or is that just fanciful thinking?


----------



## teuchter (May 15, 2021)

I was in central London today - there are loads of conspiracy/anti lockdown/protect your freedoms type stickers everywhere. Last weekend I was in Oxford and saw them there too.


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## elbows (May 15, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Would it be at all possible to create a kind of 'vaccine buffer' around the areas affected by the Indian variant, by surging vaccinations in, say, Lancashire, Cheshire and Merseyside for example, so that by the time the variant reaches those areas in number in a few weeks it runs into a blockade of people of all ages who have had their first jab? Or is it already too late for that? It's presumably already too late just to vaccinate everyone in Blackburn/Bolton because it takes weeks for the protection to come into effect, but could a firebreak of sorts be created? Or is that just fanciful thinking?



That is what some of the SAGE papers were getting at the other day, yes. I will fish out some quotes when I get a chance.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 15, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I was in central London today - there are loads of conspiracy/anti lockdown/protect your freedoms type stickers everywhere. Last weekend I was in Oxford and saw them there too.


There was a Freedom Rally in Regent's Park today, so the stickers were probably put around by them. 

I could see the point in those rallies in January, but it all seems rather futile two days before a major easing of restrictions with infection levels currently right down. I had a wander through them. From what I could tell, there wasn't any real focus to it. More of a gathering than a protest. I had to stop myself from bursting out laughing at a young man with an 'Icke Was Right' t-shirt on.


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## elbows (May 15, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Would it be at all possible to create a kind of 'vaccine buffer' around the areas affected by the Indian variant, by surging vaccinations in, say, Lancashire, Cheshire and Merseyside for example, so that by the time the variant reaches those areas in number in a few weeks it runs into a blockade of people of all ages who have had their first jab? Or is it already too late for that? It's presumably already too late just to vaccinate everyone in Blackburn/Bolton because it takes weeks for the protection to come into effect, but could a firebreak of sorts be created? Or is that just fanciful thinking?



OK in regards to doing it in a wider area:



> There is an inherent lag between vaccination and the establishment of protection of the vaccinated individual, and B.1.617.2 has the potential to spread very rapidly out of areas where it is currently present. It will take some time before surge vaccination starts to break chains of transmission, and thus the variant could spread beyond the targeted area. For that reason, for surge vaccination to be successful it would need to be:
> 
> Started as soon as possible, while the absolute number of cases B.1.617.2 remains relatively low
> *Targeted at a wider geographical area than that where the variant is prevalent*
> Combined with short term non-pharmaceutical interventions covering the area in question, to allow for the surge vaccination to have time to take effect.



Their general attitude is that they dont know if it will work, especially until they know how well vaccines work against this variant. But they think its worth a try because of a large potential upside. However it is worth noting that there are limits to what they expect it could achieve:



> with the aim of dampening transmission rather than stopping it completely





> In summary, while the success of a surge vaccination programme is not guaranteed, from a non-operational epidemiological perspective alone, it has a large potential upside with relatively small potential drawbacks with regard to transmission.



And obviously the government have not so far paid much heed to the third of those earlier bullet points, about the need for other interventions to cover the area in question in order to allow time for surge vaccination to take effect.

Those quotes are from the recent SAGE pandemic modelling group document:  https://assets.publishing.service.g.../986709/S1237_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf

On the theme of the actions SAGE suggested as opposed to what Johnson has actually gone for so far, and geographical area, there is this from the main SAGE minutes:



> The “earlier, harder, broader” principles of responding quickly, taking strong measures, and doing so over a wider geography than where the issues have been identified in response to outbreaks, remain relevant. Testing, tracing and, in particular, isolating cases remains very important.



Thats from https://assets.publishing.service.g...e/986564/S1236_Eighty-nineth_SAGE_meeting.pdf

Johnson lacks those principals, he favours "later, softer, narrower", the fucking piece of shit. We know that so far in the pandemic this eventually leads to u-turns and having to take a belated "even harder and broader for longer" approach because situations are allowed to grow much larger than was necessary.


----------



## Sunray (May 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Bit pissed so this isn't the most erudite post, but...
> 
> Just heard about the local vaccine bus here, incredibly poor attendance and also someone turned up started throwing stuff and shouting 'murderers' at it. Eventually was de-escalated but fucking hell...
> 
> Do think people spreading anti-vax and conspiracy stuff need fucking locking up or hammering in some way something, they're actually killing people in reality. (I know all the issues with that, but I'm pissed, so fuck them.)



No, fuck them all. 

I am reminded of this scene

SPOCK: Do not grieve, Admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many, outweigh…
KIRK: The needs of the few.


----------



## elbows (May 15, 2021)

The Guardian says Johnson is under mounting pressure, but I'm not currently convinced the pressure is different to pressures he resisted for ages when fucking up at the start of previous waves.









						Johnson ‘must think again on plans to relax Covid rules’
					

Top adviser warns of India variant impact, as scientists urge delay in Monday’s changes




					www.theguardian.com
				




There are signs there of Labour choosing the safe ground, criticise the failure to quickly agree to surge vaccination, criticise past border mistakes, rather than calling for the difficult and potentially unpopular stuff like delaying Mondays relaxations.

In the past at moments like these I have been tempted to call for people to take matters into their own hands and for people to refuse to take advantage of the new relaxation of measures. Not everyone would go along with it, but if  sizeable chunk of people did then it would help reduce the damage Johnsons decisions cause. In reality some people already take this sort of stance, they just do it individually without making a big deal of it. This time round due to Johnsons shift to a 'take personal responsibility, use your own judgement and common sense' thing, it is even more tempting to call for people to take this far beyond anything Johnson could imagine. But where are the high profile entities that will call for such ideas, discuss them loudly in the public sphere, get the idea to show up in the headlines? Nowhere as far as I can tell so far in this pandemic, and it would probably be stupid of me to hope otherwise this time.


----------



## Petcha (May 15, 2021)

tbf to Boris, this kind of advice from quoted in that guardian story from a leading scientist does sound like something you'd hear in the bogs at a spoons (if they were open)



> While the evidence to postpone Monday’s relaxation is not yet there, “we may look back in three weeks’ time and think that step 3 was ill-advised, though we may not”.


----------



## Sue (May 15, 2021)

Petcha said:


> tbf to Boris, this kind of advice from quoted in that guardian story from a leading scientist does sound like something you'd hear in the bogs at a spoons (if they were open)


Boris? Why call him Boris? He's not your friend.


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## Sue (May 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> In the past at moments like these *I have been tempted to call for people to take matters into their own hands and for people to refuse to take advantage of the new relaxation of measures. *Not everyone would go along with it, but if  sizeable chunk of people did then it would help reduce the damage Johnsons decisions cause. In reality some people already take this sort of stance, they just do it individually without making a big deal of it. This time round due to Johnsons shift to a 'take personal responsibility, use your own judgement and common sense' thing, it is even more tempting to call for people to take this far beyond anything Johnson could imagine. But where are the high profile entities that will call for such ideas, discuss them loudly in the public sphere, get the idea to show up in the headlines? Nowhere as far as I can tell so far in this pandemic, and it would probably be stupid of me to hope otherwise this time.


We've had 15 months of pretty much solid lockdown and I think this would be unlikely to work. Apart from how fed up everyone is, loads of employers -- whose employees have been wfh up till now -- are now planning on making everyone get back to the office ASAP.

My employer is definitely doing this, despite there not being enough space for social distancing if everyone's in the office. And they're being extremely insistent about it too. Get back to the office or bugger off is essentially the message. 

Eta And this is in a sector where they have problems recruiting too.


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## Petcha (May 15, 2021)

Sue said:


> Boris? Why call him Boris? He's not your friend.



_thats_ what you took out of that?


----------



## Sue (May 15, 2021)

Petcha said:


> _thats_ what you took out of that?


Yes. There wasn't much else to take tbh.


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## Petcha (May 15, 2021)

Sue said:


> Yes. There wasn't much else to take tbh.



I was commenting on the quality of the 'advice' being given to the Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson  (does that title make you feel better?)


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## Sue (May 16, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I was commenting on the quality of the 'advice' being given to the Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson  (does that title make you feel better?)


We don't know what advice or scientific insight he's being given. And neither does the Guardian. 🤷‍♀️


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## elbows (May 16, 2021)

Sue said:


> We don't know what advice or scientific insight he's being given. And neither does the Guardian. 🤷‍♀️



We know quite a lot of it, the SAGE meeting documents from this week, and from earlier in the month, were published quickly. I've quoted from them and linked to them too much already to do it again right now.


----------



## elbows (May 16, 2021)

Petcha said:


> tbf to Boris, this kind of advice from quoted in that guardian story from a leading scientist does sound like something you'd hear in the bogs at a spoons (if they were open)



To be 'fair' to him in that way is to ignore the most obvious lessons from the previous waves. The ones that people go on about all the time in this thread.


----------



## elbows (May 16, 2021)

Sue said:


> We've had 15 months of pretty much solid lockdown and I think this would be unlikely to work.



No we havent, there have been very long periods of restrictions but I cannot overlook the relaxations last summer, and the wave they enabled. Anyway I'm not claiming it would work in the sense that I'm not expecting 99% of people to be keen on this idea. But I'd also say that if things pan out in a very terrible way this time then there will be plenty of people who say it was so obvious that we should not have proceeded with all the planned relaxations at this time, and they will understandably be very angry with Johnson. I'm just taking the same concepts and applying them in a different way, and before the doom rather than after. There are quite a lot of different ways I could frame this, for example I could tell people that if they think they might get angry with Johnson about this, they could do their bit now by not expanding the number of contacts they are making at the moment, by not visiting the indoor part of a pub, etc. As for employers, attempts to get staff back to the office should be resisted by anyone who is in a position to be able to do so without terrible consequences.


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## elbows (May 16, 2021)

Plus there is the lesson we've learnt twice the hard way already - that in fact my sort of approach, if done at the right time, is actually the way to minimise the length of time people need to remain under the heaviest restrictions. Because allowing really large waves to happen means the authorities eventually have to slam on the brakes rather hard for rather a long period of time. The resistance to the cautious, timely approach doent end up saving people from long periods of lockdown, quite the opposite.

Factors such as vaccination do start to change this picture, so it would perhaps be unfair for me to lay this timing point down as heavily as it was appropriate to do in the first two waves. But I do not think its safe to say that the underlying principal is redundant quite yet.


----------



## Sue (May 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> No we havent, there have been very long periods of restrictions but I cannot overlook the relaxations last summer, and the wave they enabled. Anyway I'm not claiming it would work in the sense that I'm not expecting 99% of people to be keen on this idea. But I'd also say that if things pan out in a very terrible way this time then there will be plenty of people who say it was so obvious that we should not have proceeded with all the planned relaxations at this time, and they will understandably be very angry with Johnson. I'm just taking the same concepts and applying them in a different way, and before the doom rather than after. There are quite a lot of different ways I could frame this, for example I could tell people that if they think they might get angry with Johnson about this, they could do their bit now by not expanding the number of contacts they are making at the moment, by not visiting the indoor part of a pub, etc. As for employers, attempts to get staff back to the office should be resisted by anyone who is in a position to be able to do so without terrible consequences.


Let me rephrase that. For some (many?) of us, we've been doing the same lockdown stuff for the last 15 months. I've been following the rules -- more than the rules -- for all that time. I really really can't do this for much longer and most of my friends are in the same boat.

As to resisting employers...well, yeah. Trying that but at some point pretty soon it'll be back in the office or no job. (Also to add my workplace is very young so most people won't have been vaccinated by then.)


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## Sue (May 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Plus there is the lesson we've learnt twice the hard way already - that in fact my sort of approach, if done at the right time, is actually the way to minimise the length of time people need to remain under the heaviest restrictions. Because allowing really large waves to happen means the authorities eventually have to slam on the brakes rather hard for rather a long period of time. The resistance to the cautious, timely approach doent end up saving people from long periods of lockdown, quite the opposite.
> 
> Factors such as vaccination do start to change this picture, so it would perhaps be unfair for me to lay this timing point down as heavily as it was appropriate to do in the first two waves. But I do not think its safe to say that the underlying principal is redundant quite yet.


Yes, we do know imposing hard measures will reduce the overall length of time. But fuck me, I'm doing my bit and more but all this bollox about not closing borders etc in time and employers forcing people back to the office for no good reason makes it feel a bit fucking pointless.


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## Orang Utan (May 16, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I was commenting on the quality of the 'advice' being given to the Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson  (does that title make you feel better?)


Johnson is his name unless you know him personally


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## elbows (May 16, 2021)

Sue said:


> Let me rephrase that. For some (many?) of us, we've been doing the same lockdown stuff for the last 15 months. I've been following the rules -- more than the rules -- for all that time. I really really can't do this for much longer and most of my friends are in the same boat.
> 
> As to resisting employers...well, yeah. Trying that but at some point pretty soon it'll be back in the office or no job. (Also to add my workplace is very young so most people won't have been vaccinated by then.)





Sue said:


> Yes, we do know imposing hard measures will reduce the overall length of time. But fuck me, I'm doing my bit and more but all this bollox about not closing borders etc in time and employers forcing people back to the office for no good reason makes it feel a bit fucking pointless.



I totally sympathise with that stance, but the problem is that we've felt like that before and feeling that way doesnt make much difference to what actually ends up happening.

When I said a short time ago that perhaps due to vaccinations, I should tone down my point about acting early and strongly to reduce the overall length of burdens, I think at this stage of vaccination programme its actually the other way around - I should make the point even more strongly.

Because if this variant has a large transmission advantage, but does not get around the effectiveness of vaccines, then we only have to buy ourselves a certain amount of time to get the 'how many people protected by vaccines' and transmission situation to a much better point. It would be possible to state that the length of sacrifice required is not all that long, especially not compared to the length of sacrifice we will have to make if another large wave develops.

I hope people understand that I'm just calling for a pause so we can figure out the situation better and make a few attempts to get it under control. I have very deliberately not insisted that everyone must remain under tight lockdown for the entire pandemic, I have told people when I'm not comfortable with all the relaxation steps, but I have not insisted that my every concern must be adhered to at every point. I recognise the need to have at a minimum some periods where people can recharge their batteries somewhat. For example if this new variant does not turn out to have the potential to cause a wave of similar or larger size to the previous ones, then I would be able to join in with the stances people have started to take more in terms of the whole 'learning to live with covid' thing, the 'deaths and hospitalisations within manageable levels' thing. Those arent my ideal preference, I prefered zero covid/closed borders etc, but I would live with it due to the need to balance that with other forms of human suffering caused by lockdowns etc. But clearly the authorities have several reasons to be concerned about this variant and how it has grown so far, and if I'm going to make these points I have to make them now, not wait and end up joining in with the sort of delays Johnson prefers. It would actually be a nice novelty if I called for something that later proved to be excessive and unnecessary, because so far its been almost impossible to make that mistake in this pandemic, its always been the opposite. I just want to err on the side of caution because I too was looking forward to stuff being relaxed and I dont want the gains to be blown yet again!


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## littlebabyjesus (May 16, 2021)

My biggest frustration is that the balance with human suffering has been massively skewed. It has been clear for a while now that closely controlling borders was the thing to do, and that the mistake made last year was the failure to see this. I would suggest that that is the least-bad option wrt suffering for the vast majority of people, but it hasn't been done for what seem to me to be purely political reasons, including the ludicrous exemptions for rich business travellers that were in place until very recently. Meanwhile people's entire support networks have been shut down for months.


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## Sue (May 16, 2021)

Thing is elbows, you can call for this or insist on that or prefer whatever else but you're ultimately some random on a board, no matter how informed you are.

I'm sure we all massively appreciate the efforts you put in but apart from those of us here, it sadly doesn't matter a jot what you say or think.


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## elbows (May 16, 2021)

Sue said:


> Thing is elbows, you can call for this or insist on that or prefer whatever else but you're ultimately some random on a board, no matter how informed you are.
> 
> I'm sure we all massively appreciate the efforts you put in but apart from those of us here, it sadly doesn't matter a jot what you say or think.



And thats exactly why my post that started us on this angle tonight involved me compalining that no entities with very loud voices and large audiences, including the 'official party of opposition', seemed to have the guts to call for the right measures, prefering instead to focus on more popular, less painful-sounding options.

Plus there is very little that I've said in this pandemic which is unique to me. Indie SAGE often says similar stuff. Hell even the official government SAGE often says similar stuff when we really compare the detail, thats why I end up quoting them so much! So lets not make the mistake of thinking I am some radical who frequently goes out on a limb. I just find new ways to express the basics. Half the time when I watch a press conference I see a lot of similarities between words coming out of Whittys mouth and things I've said on the forum in the preceding 24-48 hours.


----------



## elbows (May 16, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> My biggest frustration is that the balance with human suffering has been massively skewed. It has been clear for a while now that closely controlling borders was the thing to do, and that the mistake made last year was the failure to see this. I would suggest that that is the least-bad option wrt suffering for the vast majority of people, but it hasn't been done for what seem to me to be purely political reasons, including the ludicrous exemptions for rich business travellers that were in place until very recently. Meanwhile people's entire support networks have been shut down for months.



Its not the whole picture though, not once the first opportunity to keep things out via border closures & properly tracing & containing the first trickle of cases into a country at the start of the pandemic is missed.

Obviously in this country we cant do anything about the original failings on that front at the start of the pandemc, and so a broader palette of measures is necessary. eg if you want to get back to a situation resembling the original start point, you need to keep managing travel and the borders but you also need to suppress the infections domestically. How you do that depends how many cases you've ended up with. And then you need to keep pushing things down, down down to a zero covid type level.

Otherwise when you relax again infections rise again, even without any fresh imports from other countries. And the Kent variant already demonstrates that we are more than capable of generating our own mutations of the virus in our own country, if we allow the virus in general to thrive and reproduce.

In this particular case the very same mutations that give the India variant its troublesome properties could have popped up here independently in our own future homegrown strain one day, if we gave the virus the opportunity. If it turns out to have properties that reduce our vaccines effectiveness then this would have been a big problem whenever it happened to occur. If on the other hand the main worrisome property of this variant turns out to just be transmissibility, then the fact we let it come into the country at this moment in time, when our vaccination rollout was not yet sufficient to counter the transmission advantage of this variant, is indeed an error that is even more worth shouting about, and  in this particular instance you will have been right to focus mostly on the border aspect more than the other measures.

As for 'purely political reasons', well that phrase can cover quite a lot of ground. It can cover the economic system and the history of a nation, how we ended up as some kind of global hub and centre of travel etc over a long period, including the echos of empire past. It can cover ideological belief aspects in individual leaders and parties. If can cover others with various sorts of power putting pressure on those who make decisions. And it cam include the very differing beliefs that people like you and me have about what we think needs to be done, what we consider palatable, what lines up with own own priorities. Which very much includes the stuff I have a massive go at you about, something that I am not going to do again now given my display last night.


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## elbows (May 16, 2021)

Some of which leads back to things that experts made reference to back when we were first beginning our journey into the pandemic vaccination era. We've had a lot of trouble already with mutations that increase transmissibility, so just imagine how bad the projections would be if we were talking about escape mutants that piss all over the levels of immunity we've gained thus far from a combination of natural infections and vaccinations. And one of the scenarios experts worry about is that if you have a good chunk of the population with immunity at the same time as quite high levels of prevalence and transmission, then you are taking quite the risk. Because the virus comes under pressure to escape immunity, or rather obtaining that ability gives a strain thats happened to obtain that property it a big advantage. And if there are still lots of cases at that time, then you are rolling the dice with far too a high a frequency when it comes to those opportunities to mutate. A viral version of monkeys and typewriters coming up with the works of Shakespeare.

Therefore at a minimum people need to be very careful with all sorts of versions of 'learning to live with Covid'. Taking shortcuts comes with the risk that you'll just go round in another loop and things will unavoidably turn back into 'learning to live with lockdown'.


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## elbows (May 16, 2021)

Since vaccines are not expected to save everyone who has them from being hospitalised, the following news and the numbers it mentions are not enough to serve as proof that the India variant has vaccine-busting properties. A more complicated analysis of numbers vs expected numbers is required for that. But I'm still going to mention this story, in part because its being said to have influenced the Scottish governments approach:



> People in Scotland who have already been vaccinated against coronavirus are being treated in hospital for the new Indian variant.
> 
> This was one of the driving factors for the Scottish Government deciding to keep Glasgow in a higher level of lockdown, the Record can reveal.
> 
> ...











						Scots in hospital with Indian variant despite being vaccinated against Covid
					

There are believed to be six patients – who have had the vaccine – currently being treated for complications suspected to be related to the variant.




					www.dailyrecord.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 16, 2021)

I'm going to take a break now but please note that my ability to cope with people not liking my tone or attitude is very much greater than my ability to stay cool if I start suspecting we are entering a period where some people are increasingly tempted to shoot the messenger.


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## elbows (May 16, 2021)

Oh and even without factoring in the current variant of concern, I would recommend people at least be aware of the attitudes expressed in this sort of article:









						Lockdown easing: Scientists tell us what they will (and won't) be doing
					

How will scientists use their new-found freedoms when Covid restrictions are eased on Monday?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## MJ100 (May 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Their general attitude is that they dont know if it will work, especially until they know how well vaccines work against this variant. But they think its worth a try because of a large potential upside. However it is worth noting that there are limits to what they expect it could achieve



That's interesting, thanks for digging that out. Good to know they've thought about it at least. I'm not convinced it would work either as it's probably not possible to encompass a wide enough area (the council areas surrounding Bolton, the counties surrounding it, or even farther afield?) and it's almost certainly too late to contain it to those few areas since it's popping up all over anyway. But it might be possible for, say, Wales to create a 'hard border' (oh joy) with vaccines- assuming, of course, that some infected person doesn't simply drive across the firebreak like a brand from a forest fire and start a spot fire somewhere else.


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## kabbes (May 16, 2021)

Sue said:


> As to resisting employers...well, yeah. Trying that but at some point pretty soon it'll be back in the office or no job. (Also to add my workplace is very young so most people won't have been vaccinated by then.)


If you make an official request for flexible working (specifically, to work from home, which is mentioned within the definition), which of the legal grounds for refusal do you think your employer could use to say no?





__





						If the request is not possible: Responding to a flexible working request - Acas
					

What you can do if your employee's flexible working request is not possible.




					www.acas.org.uk
				






> By law, a request can only be turned down if:
> 
> 
> it will cost your business too much
> ...



Bear in mind that they have to prove their reason to be true, and they have to do so in the context of you having worked entirely home for a year, without apparent loss of service (I presume).


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## emanymton (May 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Johnson is his name unless you know him personally


Although I belive 'that cunt' or similar is also acceptable.


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## Pickman's model (May 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh and even without factoring in the current variant of concern, I would recommend people at least be aware of the attitudes expressed in this sort of article:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Tl;dr? Don't be an early adopter of the new relaxations


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## existentialist (May 16, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Tl;dr? Don't be an early adopter of the new relaxations


Yep. I'm inclined to let the early adopters be my guinea pigs.


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## teuchter (May 16, 2021)

I certainly had no plans to rush off to sit indoors in pubs or anything like that anyway...just like last summer. I don't think I'll feel inclined to do that until vaccination has reached the lower age groups at least.


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## lazythursday (May 16, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Tl;dr? Don't be an early adopter of the new relaxations


But that's what I did last year - held back to see how things went, and then within about six weeks we were back in restrictions across most of the north. So I missed out on a brief window of opportunity. So this year I feel quite anxious to take advantage of the relaxations and fuck the risk of the new variant, because I've got really stuck in an isolated rut, am really starting to worry for my mental health. I'd rather they delayed the changes, but if I can do stuff again I think I really need to go and do it this time.


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## Looby (May 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh and even without factoring in the current variant of concern, I would recommend people at least be aware of the attitudes expressed in this sort of article:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is actually reassuring as it’s pretty much where I am at the moment and I was starting to worry I was being over cautious. I’ll stick to outside socialising mostly. I’m not rushing to go to the cinema or gigs.

I’m definitely not in step with some of my friends though and with one I feel almost bullied by her aggressive need to push and push.
We went out Friday and she was talking about being inside pubs and going to each other’s houses and seemed pissed off with me that I said I won’t really be doing that. Why would I sit inside a pub when I could sit in the garden (once the weather improves). Pub gardens are great now, people are making huge efforts. 

Last summer we went to her garden and she spent all evening trying to get us to go inside because it was cold. 
I gently said that her telling me she has already been breaking the rules doesn’t really make me want to be in close contact with her. 
She thinks because I’m fully vaccinated that I don’t need to worry at all. 
We had a calm chat about respecting each other’s boundaries and I though she got it then was ranting later when she was drunk about how we’re all shut ins and too anxious and it’s all ridiculous. My pregnant friend drove her home and she wouldn’t put a mask on and was bitching about the windows being open. I’d have left her on the side of the road. 
How can someone be angry with me for wanting to be safe when I was shielding until April? If she doesn’t back off I won’t see her at all.


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## Sunray (May 16, 2021)

Hancock said today five single and one double vaccinated have been hospitalised in Bolton.


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## bimble (May 16, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Hancock said today five single and one double vaccinated have been hospitalised in Bolton.


Just read the same thing, Not to worry because hancock goes on to say that the person in hospital after two jabs was 'frail' anyway.


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## Sunray (May 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just read the same thing, Not to worry because hancock goes on to say that the person in hospital after two jabs was 'frail' anyway.


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## cupid_stunt (May 16, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Hancock said today five single and one double vaccinated have been hospitalised in Bolton.



I saw that interview on the Marr show, so that's 6 out of 18 currently in Bolton hospital, the majority of those other 12 were entitled to a jab, but hadn't had one.

Whilst at first it seems worrying, being 1 out of 3, there's not enough detail to make much of it.

Let's say all those 12 could have had a jab, and the uptake is just 80% in Bolton, that would mean 12 cases from 20% population and equal 48 from the other 80% of population if the vaccines didn't work, rather than just 6, so that's positive. 

We also don't know how long after a jab before they were infected, nor how seriously ill each group is, nor how many of those 18 are the Indian variant. 

I guess we will learn fairly quickly over the next few weeks exactly how well the different vaccines are protecting people from the Indian variant.


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## cupid_stunt (May 16, 2021)

Personally I wish the twat had kept his mouth shut, instead of quoting a totally pointless out of context figure, which no doubt the anti-vaxxers will get all excited about.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Personally I wish the twat had kept his mouth shut, instead of quoting a totally pointless out of context figure, which no doubt the anti-vaxxers will get all excited about.


It does make you wonder whether he understands basic statistics. I didn't see the interview, but presumably he didn't provide an analysis like yours above, which is the correct way to look at it.

Looking him up, he has an MPhil in Economics. You'd have hoped some statistics would have been involved.


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## elbows (May 16, 2021)

Yeah same logic is in effect as what I said when posting last night about similar numbers in Glasgow. If this variant doesnt escape vaccines, some vaccinated people would still be expected to get hospitalised or die. Its a question of seeing whether the numbers are higher than expected, with the expected figures being based on how effective they think vaccines are against other existing strains rather than there being some cases at all being a clear indicator.

I hear he also claimed that there is increasing evidence that the vaccine offers protection against the India variant. I cannot judge that for exactly the same reason, need a lot more data and analysis of the details that I dont have.

I am glad he shared those figures though because not revealing them comes with its own harms and suspicions too. Whats unfortunate is that all this is happening before people even got a chance to have it demonstrated to them what vaccines not offering 100% protection against other existing strains means in practice for hospital and death figures. Lessons I have long said I wasnt looking forward to being revealed to the masses, due to many peoples tendency to engage in binary thinking about vaccines and the protection they offer. This also relates to why I was arguing with platinumsage the other day about what vaccine percentage of protection it was reasonable for third wave scenario modellers to use.

As usual it seems that my version of 'taking a break' doesnt mean not posting at all, just hopefully posting less.


----------



## Sunray (May 16, 2021)

We should push back the reopening for a couple of weeks.
So it's best to stay outdoors for a couple of weeks till we are better informed.


----------



## bimble (May 16, 2021)

Sunray said:


> We should push back the reopening for a couple of weeks.
> So it's best to stay outdoors for a couple of weeks till we are better informed.


I honestly think that a very large proportion of people will do just that, make their own minds up instead of rushing out to do whatever BJ says is allowed.
But then i've thought that all along (both ways, significant amounts of people being both more and less cautious than government rules) and tbh mostly I've been surprised by how wrong I seem to be, how many people have taken the rules at any given point as the most important thing and stuck to them doing no more and no less throughout.


----------



## Supine (May 16, 2021)

Sunray said:


> We should push back the reopening for a couple of weeks.
> So it's best to stay outdoors for a couple of weeks till we are better informed.



Luckily no one is forcing us into pubs and restaurants. Personal choice innit.


----------



## nagapie (May 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> I honestly think that a very large proportion of people will do just that, make their own minds up instead of rushing out to do whatever BJ says is allowed.
> But then i've thought that all along (both ways, significant amounts of people being both more and less cautious than government rules) and tbh mostly I've been surprised by how wrong I seem to be, how many people have taken the rules at any given point as the most important thing and stuck to them doing no more and no less throughout.


The restaurants and live music venues are already totally booked out.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 16, 2021)

I’m going to see loads of films next week. Can’t wait - it’s all masked up and socially distanced so don’t see the issue. One of the films has sold only 3 tickets anyway, so will almost have the vast room to myself.


----------



## BillRiver (May 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> Luckily no one is forcing us into pubs and restaurants. Personal choice innit.



Not for everybody, no it isn't.

Think workers being forced back to work (and on to public transport) etc.

And it's not like other people's choices don't effect all of us, either.


----------



## maomao (May 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> Luckily no one is forcing us into pubs and restaurants. Personal choice innit.


You're obviously not on furlough from the hospitality industry.


----------



## BillRiver (May 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m going to see loads of films next week. Can’t wait - it’s all masked up and socially distanced so don’t see the issue. One of the films has sold only 3 tickets anyway, so will almost have the vast room to myself.



Yeah I'm really looking forward to returning to my fave, Castle cinema, as that feels really safe (especially going on how they did it last Autumn).

I won't be going anyway near any pubs or restaurants though, nor visiting friends indoors, for a long time.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 16, 2021)

I had planned on visiting London to visit friends in June and July but not sure now. Glad I didn’t get round to buying train tickets. Visiting keithy for her birthday in early but it’s gonna be outside in the yard, so should be ok, but it’s only fifteen miles away from Bolton, so will have to keep an eye on the situation


----------



## Supine (May 16, 2021)

maomao said:


> You're obviously not on furlough from the hospitality industry.



i know plenty who are and they are all looking forward to doing back.


----------



## 2hats (May 16, 2021)




----------



## StoneRoad (May 16, 2021)

I've been thinking about the changes to the restrictions, especially with regard to this Indian variant. I'm anxious about it. I think it is too soon and tomorrow's unlockening should be delayed - or things not loosened quite as much as planned.

I've had both vaccine doses (Oxford) but that second jab was less than two weeks ago and I have fairly decent immune system.
So, personally, I feel fairly well protected or I will be in the near future. Additionally, I live in a low case area - apart from the spike before crimble last year (Kent variant, anecdotally at least, probably propagating via the educational system).

Currently, however, outside my home / garden I'm still masking up when in confined spaces inside, or when potentially meeting people whose vaccinated / covid status is unknown.
The workshop could be a difficult area, we've gone from "individual" areas (literally, separate compartments) back to indoors. It is a large floor area, fairly well ventilated (or it will be when I get that foam off the windows) and the working areas are quite well apart. There are some shared machines and sometimes two or three people need to be in close proximity to complete a task. The anti-vaxxer has left ... and I think everybody else has had at least one jab.

But on the social side of life, I don't feel confident that the risk is worth going into a noisy or crowded venue, especially when alcohol is involved.
I might consider one of the quieter pubs that does food, but not yet awhile.


----------



## Sunray (May 16, 2021)

Here is an interesting graph from the ZOE Covid tracker.  
Clear evidence of how a self-selecting data set can bias your stats.  Much longer and they will approach 100% vaccinated.


----------



## teuchter (May 16, 2021)

On the other hand it will provide quite a useful means of watching what happens within an almost fully vaccinated subset of the population.


----------



## elbows (May 16, 2021)

ZOE also recently changed their calculations, causing all their main figures to change, to try to compenate for how large a proportion of their users have been vaccinated.

I dont think I can pay too much attention to their estimates at this particular moment, they dont have enough data to estimate R for some areas and in others the possible ranges they have are quite wide.


----------



## maomao (May 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> i know plenty who are and they are all looking forward to doing back.


I'm sure most of them are. Not the same as it being a free choice though.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (May 16, 2021)

I mean it was _never_ going to happen that, once they'd announced a date, they would go back on it.


----------



## Sunray (May 16, 2021)

Reading more on the ZOE Covid app data which I have been contributing to over the last year or more, I am reassured by this 








						COVID cases up but milder infections in vaccinated and in the young
					

This week the ZOE COVID Study figures reflect an updated methodology, accounting for the large number of vaccinated individuals within the data set.




					covid.joinzoe.com
				




It's a little long but worth a read I think.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 16, 2021)

I agree with some peoples' posts just above --apply *caution*

From tomorrow, I won't be in any pub until Thursday evening (at the earliest!) anyway


----------



## William of Walworth (May 16, 2021)

Saying that, does anyone know to what extent pubs will continue to insist on table service only and just on distanced tables, etc.?
(I have no issues at all with that, btw  )

I haven't been inside any pub at all since Monday 30th November, so fuck knows .

I'll do some on-the-ground 'research' later this coming week, and the one after , but *slowly* and with caution


----------



## BillRiver (May 16, 2021)

Hmm...

Ignore lockdown easing to curb Indian Covid variant, health experts urge


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 16, 2021)

Can't wait for tomorrow's no masks in the college where Mrs SI and I work & our son studies, and also my daughter's school. 
I'm wearing a mask for the foreseeable.


----------



## miss direct (May 16, 2021)

The no mask in schools thing is unbelievable and yet again makes me realise how right I was to quit my school based job.


----------



## souljacker (May 16, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Saying that, does anyone know to what extent pubs will continue to insist on table service only and just on distanced tables, etc.?
> (I have no issues at all with that, btw  )
> 
> I haven't been inside any pub at all since Monday 30th November, so fuck knows .
> ...



I'm booked in to my local on Tuesday. Table service only and masks whilst moving about. I don't expect it to be busy though. It's still only a Tuesday night after all.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 16, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I mean it was _never_ going to happen that, once they'd announced a date, they would go back on it.



And all hell would break loose if they did. If they were really planning to follow the data there would never have been target dates given months in advance.

They've also said no more tiers or local variations in restrictions which paints them into another corner.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

Yes there would be an obvious political cost to not doing things on the dates they hoped for, but Johnson did deliberately raise the spectre of that possibly happening with the June relaxation. I expect part of the reason he did this was to increase peoples sense of caution.

Plenty of front pages tomorrow are full of the cautious message, even if they are also being typical shits at the same time eg the Daily Mail one.


----------



## editor (May 17, 2021)

The thing is just about everyone I know - including people like me whose livelihoods have been absolutely destroyed by the Covid restrictions - are all saying they think the notion of being back to normal business after June 21st is crazy. Much as I'd love it to happen, I really, really cannot imagine me DJing to a crowd like his in just over a month.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

In some ways getting people to do less than the formal restrictions allow has usually been part of their equations, and I'm saying that now because its increasingly obvious at the moment via the governments current rhetoric.

It will soon be a year since Van-Tam told people not to tear the pants out of it.  Then they had to resort to a lot of that sort of messaging in the buildup to Christmas, and now they have various reasons to do the same again. Even without the new variant concerns of this moment, they'd probably have resorted to some of this cautious message now, to compensate for some of the riskier aspects of their chosen unlocking timetable.

There are cetainly exceptions to that, especially in the middle of last year when Johnson made premature attempts to get more people back to workplaces, and initially had an unrealistic hopes about when schools would reopen. And of course there was the eat out to help out scheme which was designed to encourage many people back to certain normal settings for meals. Should they attempt that sort of thing again at some point, I will take it as a sign that the data gives them reason to think that the pandemic has really reached a stage where less behavioural changes/reduced contacts changes are required to keep things within the levels they can cope with.

Authorities and especially politicians with Johnsons sort of ideological beliefs would have liked to have been able to rely mostly on that sort of messaging and the resulting behavioural changes in order to manage the pandemic, rather than all the draconian stuff they ended up having to do, but the pandemic virus was too transmissible and deadly for that approach to do the job, they had to go so much further into previously unthinkable territory. But we should still expect them to return to the classic approach as soon as the pandemic numbers game seems likely to allow. Indeed it was pretty clear in both of Johnsons pandemic press conferences this week that the 'leave it to individuals judgement' rhetoric was in full effect, the journey in that direction has begun big time, to replace the formal brakes.

If the new variant causes a load of shit then we'll get to see how far and for how long they try to get this lack of formal brakes phase to carry all the strain, or whether they reach a point of u-turn once again. If the new variant doesnt cause as many problems as feared, then relief and exasperation that this was some kind of 'false alarm' could I suppose cause a behavioural bounce back in the other direction, towards more behavioural normality in a month or so than people currently think seems likely.

If I was in charge and had no love of rushed timescales and no particular desire to stop to using formal brakes as soon as possible, then I would have picked an unlocking timetable that lined up better with the vaccination programmes conclusion of the adult phase at least, and I would have wanted peoples confidence to grow in better sync with the unlocking steps as a result. Variants would still have been a potential complication to this, so I'd have tried to avoid giving dates too far in advance. But I suppose that isnt so easy when journalists and businesses are crying out for 'certainty'. What they actually get when their demands are met is only a feeble form of certainty though, no matter what anyone says or promises real certainty cannot be assured. Especially not when they need confident punters to provide a certain level of footfall for their business to be in profit.


----------



## David Clapson (May 17, 2021)

Dude, you've put so much work into this thread. Your posts are such a valuable resource. But don't you need a break? We can make do with Devi's twitter or something while you relax for a week or two. The virus will still be here afterwards.


----------



## LDC (May 17, 2021)

Will avoid the news today. It's going to be full of 'interviews' with the first British tourists on beaches in Portugal isn't it?


----------



## cybershot (May 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes there would be an obvious political cost to not doing things on the dates they hoped for, but Johnson did deliberately raise the spectre of that possibly happening with the June relaxation. I expect part of the reason he did this was to increase peoples sense of caution.
> 
> Plenty of front pages tomorrow are full of the cautious message, even if they are also being typical shits at the same time eg the Daily Mail one.
> 
> ...



Ah of course. It’s the public’s fault of the Indian variant spreads. Not the governments.


----------



## cybershot (May 17, 2021)

Sorry if already asked but I need to make sense of this: 

People can now meet indoors in groups of up to six or two households

Are 4 people from 3 different households allowed to meet indoors? Or is it saying there is a maximum of two households can meet regardless of if it’s less than 6. 

Can a family of 5 meet with a family of 4 or does the rule of 6 mean they can’t?

Or is it the opposite way round. Up to 6 can net from however many households and however many can meet as long as two households isn’t breached. 

Are these rules so ambiguous no one really knows hence they can’t be policed so no one cares?


----------



## kabbes (May 17, 2021)

cybershot said:


> Sorry if already asked but I need to make sense of this:
> 
> People can now meet indoors in groups of up to six or two households
> 
> ...


Government website lays it out:





__





						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk
				






> Meeting friends and family indoors (rule of 6)​It is safer to meet people outdoors. This is because COVID-19 spreads much more easily indoors. However, you can meet up indoors with friends and family you do not live with, either:
> 
> in a group of up to 6 from any number of households (children of all ages count towards the limit of 6)
> in a group of any size from up to two households (each household can include an existing support bubble, if eligible)
> If you are meeting friends and family, you can make a personal choice on whether to keep your distance from them, but you should still be cautious. You should read the guidance on meeting friends and family.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 17, 2021)

This study, involving health care workers, who are clearly at high risk, sounds promising that the AZ vaccine does offer a high level of protection to the Indian variant.



> The AstraZeneca Covid vaccine is 97 per cent effective against India strain, according to reports.
> 
> New research of nearly 3,300 people in India discovered only two hospitalisations with Covid. All of the people anaylsed were vaccinated with the AstraZeneca jab, and they worked in healthcare.
> 
> The Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in Delhi published the study, finding a hospital admission rate of less than 1 per cent. Dr Anupam Sibal, group medical director, said: “Our study demonstrated that 97.38 per cent of those vaccinated were protected from an infection."











						AstraZeneca vaccine 'is 97 per cent effective against India strain'
					

New research of nearly 3,300 people in India discovered only two hospitalisations with Covid




					www.birminghammail.co.uk


----------



## prunus (May 17, 2021)

cybershot said:


> Sorry if already asked but I need to make sense of this:
> 
> People can now meet indoors in groups of up to six or two households
> 
> ...



Any number of people can gather indoors if they are from just 2 households.

If there are members of 3 or more households in the gathering then the gathering is limited to 6 people.

The maximum number of households that can gather together indoors is therefore 6 (only one person from each household).


----------



## emanymton (May 17, 2021)

Or just to be crazy here. Don't worry too much about the letter of the law and go with what feels safe. Consider things like who has had a job, has everyone had a LFT.


----------



## existentialist (May 17, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Hmm...
> 
> Ignore lockdown easing to curb Indian Covid variant, health experts urge


This feels like a new departure: there were clearly times during the previous waves when experts were frantically signalling that they thought the relaxations were a bad idea, but they stopped short of actually directly contradicting the Government's advice. So this - an overt plea to not take full advantage of the loosening of restrictions - seems to me to represent a hardened/more desperate effort to flag up the risks.


----------



## existentialist (May 17, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Or just to be crazy here. Don't worry too much about the letter of the law and go with what feels safe. Consider things like who has had a job, has everyone had a LFT.


I'm not even going to go that far - I'm going to wait a good couple of weeks, and carry on as I have been, until we have had a chance to see what the fallout will be.


----------



## glitch hiker (May 17, 2021)

Dr John Campbell, on YouTube, is saying the variant of concern from India is doubling weekly.


----------



## 2hats (May 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This study, involving health care workers, who are clearly at high risk, sounds promising that the AZ vaccine does offer a high level of protection to the Indian variant.


Hospitalisation rate 0.06%, OK. A study apparently reporting infection based on self-reporting of symptoms, hmm. Let's see the preprint.


----------



## glitch hiker (May 17, 2021)

existentialist said:


> This feels like a new departure: there were clearly times during the previous waves when experts were frantically signalling that they thought the relaxations were a bad idea, but they stopped short of actually directly contradicting the Government's advice. So this - an overt plea to not take full advantage of the loosening of restrictions - seems to me to represent a hardened/more desperate effort to flag up the risks.


I noticed that. It felt like the scientists were essentially saying "we know the government aren't going to listen to us, so we're talking to you directly".


----------



## StoneRoad (May 17, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> I noticed that. It felt like the scientists were essentially saying "we know the government aren't going to listen to us, so we're talking to you directly".


I got that impression, as well.

will add a link, when I can find it ...

E2A - beeb link 








						Lockdown easing: Scientists tell us what they will (and won't) be doing
					

How will scientists use their new-found freedoms when Covid restrictions are eased on Monday?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




there are some interesting comments in those interviews ...


----------



## MrSki (May 17, 2021)

This is the sort of questioning that ministers put up as the face of the tories deserve.
Well done Adil Ray.


----------



## Teaboy (May 17, 2021)

Hopefully if there is anything positive to take from the rapid spread of the Indian strain is that it should aid the vaccination drive.  I think one of the reasons the take-up on the initial roll out was high was because it started at a time when the virus was running rampant and the national lockdown was in place.









						Covid: More than 6,000 vaccinated in Bolton over variant
					

Thousands of people got jabs in Bolton over the weekend as the town battles the Indian variant.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I guess as humans we sometimes need things like this to focus the mind.  The situation in Oz where they have had a slow rollout and lowish uptake is not surprising when the virus isn't such an every day thing.


----------



## Sunray (May 17, 2021)

2hats said:


> Hospitalisation rate 0.06%, OK. A study apparently reporting infection based on self-reporting of symptoms, hmm. Let's see the preprint.


Just give it three weeks and we will know.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

cybershot said:


> Ah of course. It’s the public’s fault of the Indian variant spreads. Not the governments.



One consequence of the governments messaging about people doing the right thing is that there have been a bunch of occasions where people here have commented along the lines of the government setting things up to blame the people.

It hasnt actually turned out like that so far - there have been moments where individual ministers have said things which involved a shitty blame game, but its not turned into their main narrative and rather the message they've gone for has been to thank people for their efforts, playing up the levels of compliance and the positive side of that stuff. This is one of the few areas where they've actually done the right thing and listened to what their experts have told them in terms of public communication.

I know there are many good reasons why people think there are no limits to the cheek and gall governments demonstrate on this sort of front. But there are big reasons why there have been limits to how far they push and stretch things on this front, not least because it could blow up in their face and draw anger and attention towards all the mistakes the government have blatantly made during the pandemic.

I dont really expect any different this time.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Dude, you've put so much work into this thread. Your posts are such a valuable resource. But don't you need a break? We can make do with Devi's twitter or something while you relax for a week or two. The virus will still be here afterwards.



Thanks. Whenever I've run out of steam in the past and started going on about taking a nice long break, I've actually recovered more quickly than expected so the break didnt last long. And I type quickly so I dont think my posts actually take as long to make as it may seem. Plus I picked the right times to take a break in the past, eg June & July 2020 I was still posting but by my standards it was still a break and I didnt spend the whole time agonising over signs of the second wave arriving, that came later in August/early September.

The India variant concerns have emerged at an annoying time because this years wave and unlocking timing means that right now should be the equivalent of last June, and even though there are limits to how much good the vaccination programme can do, this should still largely be a positive moment.  It is inevitable that I'll be somewhat preoccupied with these variant concerns for some weeks now, but whether or not I post about them here they will still be on my mind, so a total mental break is impossible for me. Thats ok though, I recharge quickly when I distract myself with non-pandemic stuff for a few hours here and there.


----------



## weepiper (May 17, 2021)

This is the message we're getting in Scotland (Facebook ad I've seen today).

Pretty cautious still.


----------



## Teaboy (May 17, 2021)

This reminds me, has anyone any idea what is going in Moray at the moment?  I can understand local spikes in urban areas but ,my recollection of Moray being quite rural and sparsely populated, the sort of place I'd expect to be largely unaffected by covid or at least not to say the degree as a big town or City.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> This reminds me, has anyone any idea what is going in Moray at the moment?  I can understand local spikes in urban areas but ,my recollection of Moray being quite rural and sparsely populated, the sort of place I'd expect to be largely unaffected by covid or at least not to say the degree as a big town or City.



I'm not sure. I did find this:



> The localised Moray outbreak has been attributed partly to low levels of Covid-19 in Moray throughout the past year – leading to low immunity, and people not following rules because of a perception that the virus is no longer a significant risk.



From Where is Moray, why is it pronounced Murray, how bad is the covid outbreak, will Nicola Sturgeon lift restrictions?

But I suppose I could also make a broader point about how areas that first show up as hotspots at times where many locations are showing relatively low virus prevalence rates, may just be a sign of what fate may await very many other locations in future. eg quirks of timing and combinations of bad luck and chance make some places stick out earlier than others, but there may not be any particularly unique features to explain why.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (May 17, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I got that impression, as well.
> 
> will add a link, when I can find it ...
> 
> ...



The problem with this stuff I think is the same as any attempt to deal with population level issues with appeals to individual behaviours. Your individual risk from going to the pub or  to meet family is really quite low, your individual impact on the overall levels of Covid where others aren't quite strictly restrained (and despite the endless moaning the vast majority of people have been complying and have been heavily restricted) is very low, and the personal cost of sticking to something along the lines of what has been the rules is very high. It's quite rational for most people to not do it tbh.

It's similar to trying to tackle climate change by asking people not to fly or not to eat meat. It can't hurt to promote it and it might help a little bit but it's not going to make a fundamental difference IMO.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

Makes sense to delay this:



> A planned review of social distancing measures due to take place this month could be delayed due to the spread of the Indian Covid variant, Downing Street says.
> 
> The PM's official spokesman says: "We want to do it as soon as possible but... we need time to assess the latest data on this variant first identified in India so I'm not going to give a set time for doing that.
> 
> ...



Thats from the 13:17 entry of the BBC live updates page 
	

			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57116436
		


edit - ah they turned this into its own article Covid-19: Variant fears could delay England's social distancing review


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

Even though I have gone on about this aspect a number of times in 2021, I am unsure how much people realise that in the event of a significant wave, a large number of hospitalised people will be people who were vaccinated. I was reminded of this when I saw some tweets today.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

Hancock has been speaking in parliament and I will cover some bits properly later but in response to a question from Labour he confirmed that vaccinating everyone aged over 18 in hotspots areas is not their current approach.


----------



## Sue (May 17, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> This reminds me, has anyone any idea what is going in Moray at the moment?  I can understand local spikes in urban areas but ,my recollection of Moray being quite rural and sparsely populated, the sort of place I'd expect to be largely unaffected by covid or at least not to say the degree as a big town or City.


I heard it's related to a high school/a couple of food processing places but no idea if that's true or not.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

Some figures from Hancocks statement, via the Guardian:



> *Hancock *is now talking about the Indian variant, B.1.617.2.
> 
> He says there have now been 2,323 cases of this.
> 
> He says 483 of these cases were in Bolton and in Blackburn with Darwen, where it is the dominant strain.



                           27m ago    16:34                  



> *Hancock* says there are now 86 council areas with five or more cases of the Indian variant.
> 
> After Bolton and Blackburn, the next biggest area of local concern is Bedford, he says. He says surge testing is being deployed there.
> 
> ...



                           19m ago    16:41                  

In regards that final point, the Labour bloke did point out that there was some evidence from India that the variant may affect the ability of the vaccine to prevent vaccinated people transmitting the virus.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

Sanger institute genomic data with interactive map has been updated and now goes up to May 8th. This link should give a map showing the India variant in particular.





__





						COVID-19 Genomic Surveillance – Wellcome Sanger Institute
					

The Wellcome Sanger Institute's COVID–19 Genomic Surveillance Initiative, part of the COVID–19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium




					covid19.sanger.ac.uk


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

In terms of the nature of criticisms Hancock is facing in parliament today, there is quite a lot of focus on the timing of the India red list decision compared to Pakistan etc. Johnsons India trade trip was mentioned.


----------



## brogdale (May 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> In terms of the nature of criticisms Hancock is facing in parliament today, there is quite a lot of focus on the timing of the India red list decision compared to Pakistan etc. Johnsons India trade trip was mentioned.


IINM, Hancock claimed that the redlist decision regarding Pakistan & Bangladesh was based upon those two countries of origin yielding significantly higher rates of test positivity than India at that time.

Sounds like BS; hope he's asked to produce the data to support the claim.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

Its quite possible he can produce dataa that fits the narrow criteria and timing, but then the question just becomes how shit that narrow criteria was.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 17, 2021)

brogdale said:


> IINM, Hancock claimed that the redlist decision regarding Pakistan & Bangladesh was based upon those two countries of origin yielding significantly higher rates of test positivity than India at that time.
> 
> Sounds like BS; hope he's asked to produce the data to support the claim.



I heard him saying yesterday that India was testing far more than Pakistan & Bangladesh, so I checked on worldometers, hoping to nail him, but he was correct about testing. 

Tests per 1m population-
India - 227,344
Pakistan - 55,401
Bangladesh - 34,359

All worrying TBH, the UK is on 2,478,213.









						Coronavirus Update (Live): 129,471,257 Cases and 2,828,154 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
					

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## brogdale (May 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its quite possible he can produce dataa that fits the narrow criteria and timing, but then the question just becomes how shit that narrow criteria was.


And whether to not it was applied equally to other countries, or was it really just number crunching created with hindsight to cover Johnson's trade-deal based decision regarding India?


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

brogdale said:


> And whether to not it was applied equally to other countries, or was it really just number crunching created with hindsight to cover Johnson's trade-deal based decision regarding India?



Yes.


----------



## brogdale (May 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I heard him saying yesterday that India was testing far more than Pakistan & Bangladesh, so I checked on worldometers, hoping to nail him, but he was correct about testing.
> 
> Tests per 1m population-
> India - 227,344
> ...


Yeah, but in the commons he specifically called it on the rate of positive tests results. I presume that's testing on arrival?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 17, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Yeah, but in the commons he specifically called it on the rate of positive tests results. I presume that's testing on arrival?


I presumed it was the rate in the counties concerned.  🤷‍♂️


----------



## brogdale (May 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I presumed it was the rate in the counties concerned.  🤷‍♂️


Is such data accessible?


----------



## brogdale (May 17, 2021)

No expert, but that doesn't sound like it's something to toast down 'spoons this evening?


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

brogdale said:


> View attachment 268799
> No expert, but that doesn't sound like it's something to toast down 'spoons this evening?


Yeah thats why I go on about not focussing too much on the current hotspots if that risks distracting from the fact this variant is seeded quite widely across the country. When combined with how long the time is between cases occuring and genomic analysis revealing how many were of the new variant, the safest thing to assume is that this variant is widespread by now. If searching for something more positive to say, the best I can manage is to also keep in mind the context of the overall levels of prevalence of infections in general still being fairly low right now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 17, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Is such data accessible?



Actually you were right, he was talking about testing on arrival, and he says the data has been published by the quarantine management service.


----------



## Supine (May 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Actually you were right, he was talking about testing on arrival, and he says the data has been published by the quarantine management service.



India was testing 5% positive on arrival so not exactly a green light for them.


----------



## brogdale (May 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> India was testing 5% positive on arrival so not exactly a green light for them.


Yes, there's only so much cover from their _Captain Hindsight _schtick...


----------



## bimble (May 17, 2021)

Are we not desperately trying to get a trade deal with pakistan and bangladesh too?


----------



## brogdale (May 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> Are we not desperately trying to get a trade deal with pakistan and bangladesh too?


Evidence would suggest not quite so desperately as with India.


----------



## bimble (May 17, 2021)

5% on arrival is loads isnt it? 
Like every single flight had covid on it on average?


----------



## BillRiver (May 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> 5% on arrival is loads isnt it?
> Like every single flight had covid on it on average?



Liked cos that's exactly what I was thinking, not because I like anything about this actual reality.


----------



## bimble (May 17, 2021)

It doesnt seem the most important thing to me right now but this particular shit decision might be the one that sticks with them, in time. Control are borders was a very popular slogan not long ago and when it mattered they fucked it up.


----------



## Supine (May 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> 5% on arrival is loads isnt it?
> Like every single flight had covid on it on average?



In short, yes. And those flights were supposed to be people who tested negative before boarding


----------



## glitch hiker (May 17, 2021)

MrSki said:


> This is the sort of questioning that ministers put up as the face of the tories deserve.
> Well done Adil Ray.



Not bad, he almost sounds like Piers Morgan 

Kwasi Karteng is a piece of shit


----------



## Teaboy (May 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> In short, yes. And those flights were supposed to be people who tested negative before boarding



Which brings into question the whole pre-testing before flying strategy which seems to be the cornerstone of how international travel can be done.  Basically its looks like a total failure.


----------



## bimble (May 17, 2021)

Bolton local news says two schools have had 'significant outbreaks' confirmed by tests over the weekend, with kids now isolating at home. Not good but not surprising, just hope they don't actually get ill from it at all.


----------



## MrSki (May 17, 2021)

Long Covid is a big concern amongst youngsters who catch it. Can be a problem for months if not longer.


----------



## bimble (May 17, 2021)

All that noise about having to show vaccine status to go inside pubs and things never amounted to anything did it.


----------



## Supine (May 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> View attachment 268814
> 
> All that noise about having to show vaccine status to go inside pubs and things never amounted to anything did it.



She hasn’t exactly mastered mask wearing yet


----------



## Thora (May 17, 2021)

I'm 37 and just booked my vaccine if anyone else is waiting.


----------



## MrSki (May 17, 2021)

How Singapore reacts is slightly different to the UK approach.


----------



## elbows (May 17, 2021)

On a related note:



> Last week, Bedford Borough Council called for vaccines to be offered to all residents aged 16 and over due to the increase in cases.
> 
> Professor Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, said local "surge vaccinations" were not being pursued as there was a "finite" supply of doses and younger people were less at risk from the virus.
> 
> ...



From Covid: Surge testing in Bedford due to Indian variant

I dont know what I'd do about that, I dont think my first instinct would be to rush to vaccinate people in the younger age groups.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 17, 2021)

bimble said:
			
		

> All that noise about having to show vaccine status to go inside pubs and things never amounted to anything did it.






			
				Supine said:
			
		

> She hasn’t exactly mastered mask wearing yet



Not a great message at all, I agree , 

But TBF, Mrs Couperthwaite might well have just been posing for the press-opportunity before the place actually opened.

(When I manage to get myself to Bolton some time in the future, I'm going to go to that pub I think! Beer choice looks good  )


----------



## Yossarian (May 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> View attachment 268814
> 
> All that noise about having to show vaccine status to go inside pubs and things never amounted to anything did it.



That story's headline might have been misinterpreted if it had said "Old Man and Scythe extremely busy as pubs reopen."


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 18, 2021)

This is an interesting graph on vaccine hesitancy, the numbers of 'no' and 'don't know' were a lot higher back at the end of last year, but I guess the combination of having such a bad winter, and the amazing success of the vaccine roll-out, seeing so many millions getting the jab without much problem, has changed a lot of minds.

So, the overall hesitancy (no/don't know) is around 10%, but I can see the possibly of that dropping even further as & when younger people actually get their invites, and the peer pressure feeling, as almost all their mates & family members are jabbed.

So, it's feasible we could see an uptake of perhaps around 95%, when there was plenty of talk of needing 70-80% to get to some form of 'herd immunity', it's looking very positive. 



It's taken from this report on vaccine hesitancy, which is worth reading in full.



> Yet both Downing Street and local MPs cautioned on Monday that the public should not draw damaging conclusions about anti-vaccination sentiment, particularly among minority ethnic communities in two key towns, Bolton and Blackburn.
> 
> Bolton has the highest case rate in the country as of 11 May, with 255 cases per 100,000 residents, though its vaccination rate was in line with the national average, with 88.9% of people aged 40 and over having received their first dose. The rate is significantly higher than parts of London, including Westminster, where the rate is 63%.
> 
> While the Bolton-wide vaccination rate is in line with the England average of 89.8%, there are large variations within the local authority. In Lever Edge, which has the highest case rate in Bolton, 84.7% of those aged 40 and over are vaccinated.





> Case rates in Bolton are significantly higher in areas of high deprivation, while vaccination rates are lower in poorer areas and in those with higher black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) populations, in line with national trends.
> 
> Yasmin Qureshi, the Labour MP for Bolton South East, said the issue in the town was “incredibly complex” and it was “wrong” to suggest people from BAME backgrounds were to blame for the increased cases of the B.1.617.2 variant first detected in India.
> 
> Qureshi claimed there had been problems with the rollout of the vaccine in her constituency, something which she had raised with board members of the Bolton clinical commissioning group (CCG), NHS England and the local authority in February.












						No 10 says vaccine hesitancy is low in UK, amid Bolton concerns
					

Government says it has deployed thousands more vaccine doses to areas with rising cases due to India variants




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Teaboy (May 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> View attachment 268814
> 
> All that noise about having to show vaccine status to go inside pubs and things never amounted to anything did it.



No, because the idea went down like a shit sandwich.  It was left down to individual businesses to decide and having had over a year of all sorts of crippling restrictions they weren't about to self-impose anymore.  Turkeys and Christmas spring to mind.  Its a shit situation but I don't blame them, thrown under the bus yet again.

I'm pretty sure there will be passports of some sort for international travel and I suspect they will largely be a failure as well as the system will inevitably be simple to circumnavigate.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2021)

Yes, I can't blame them, that manager of the little pub in Bolton for instance, or the people who are going for a pint as the PM told them they can, at all. Just made me feel sad, that quote about how nice it was to see the place busy again yesterday.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 18, 2021)

These figures are incredibly impressive!



> The race to tackle an outbreak in Bolton of the virulent new strain of Covid-19 first identified in India began with a flurry of phone calls on Thursday afternoon. The urgency at senior levels was clear to those on the ground, who were told: “If we throw every bit of Pfizer at you that we can find, how many [people] can you jab this weekend?”
> 
> *In one meeting, Michael Smith, the chief officer of Bolton’s GP federation, told NHS England they could jab 5,000 people in one weekend – eight times the average rate. “Everybody’s faces were a bit like: what? Really?”
> 
> By Sunday evening more than 6,200 people had received a jab at a makeshift mass vaccination site* *in south-west Bolton*. Smith, one of those leading Bolton’s vaccine drive, told the Guardian he wanted another 15,000 people to have received a jab by next Sunday. If that target is met, roughly one in 10 of the town’s adult population will have received their first Covid-19 vaccination in just eight days.



‘A mammoth undertaking’: Bolton steps up Covid jabs to tackle outbreak


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 18, 2021)

Here's a 'no shit Sherlock' moment...



> Experts initially thought there was a reluctance among people to get their jab but after knocking on doors and speaking to residents within the community, they now believe it is more likely to be related to social factors and the availability of the vaccine.
> 
> "To go to the main site you've got to ring your GP, get through to somebody, get an appointment booked and then plan that into your life," Dr Wall added.
> 
> "If you're working shifts, if you're doing low paid shift work you can't just nip out for a vaccine because you've got an appointment, you can't always know what your shifts are going to be, you can't plan that, so there's so many barriers."



Again, worth reading the whole article, a belated light bulb moment!









						GPs 'inundated' in Bolton as people rush to try and get Covid-19 jabs
					

GPs are being 'inundated' with calls as people try to book their jabs, the doctor in charge of the vaccination programme has said.




					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## kabbes (May 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is an interesting graph on vaccine hesitancy, the numbers of 'no' and 'don't know' were a lot higher back at the end of last year, but I guess the combination of having such a bad winter, and the amazing success of the vaccine roll-out, seeing so many millions getting the jab without much problem, has changed a lot of minds.
> 
> So, the overall hesitancy (no/don't know) is around 10%, but I can see the possibly of that dropping even further as & when younger people actually get their invites, and the peer pressure feeling, as almost all their mates & family members are jabbed.
> 
> ...



I feel like a stuck record here, but none of those graphs show vaccine heistancy.  Vaccine hesitancy is defined by the WHO's SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy as being the difference between _actual _take-up of a vaccine and its availability in a region.  Those graphs show _polled_ vaccine hesitancy.  It's not the same thing.  Asking somebody, "do you intend to take a vaccine" is not reading off of their true future behaviour from some kind of internal dashboard.  It's getting them to make a perfomative act of positioning within the discourse that is framed by the question.  As such, their response will depend on a hell of a lot of things, not least how they feel about the current political situation and the message that is important for them to give in that context.  In short, they don't _know_ how they will behave when asked to take the vaccine.  They don't even know that they don't know.  Hell, they don't know that they don't know that what they are answering isn't the question they think they are answering.

It's the same mistake as was made in December, when we also had polled vaccine hesitancy running at 20-30% and subsequent actual hesitancy (in over-50s so far) at less than 5%.

This problem is not just in reports in the Guardian.  There are a lot of proper scientific analyses that make this mistake (this being a key influential one).  The nature of the way our political responses are constructed in this neoliberal world is that governments like quantitative studies performed by people who buy into the same neoliberal model of humanity that they do.  The study I linked to has absolutely _zero_ social psychologists included within its collaborators.  It's all psychologists who use individualised, universalist models of human behaviour (like CBT) combined with epidemiologists, biomedics and mathematicians.  Nobody was involved who understands how information actually gets into the public discourse and affects social behaviour.


----------



## maomao (May 18, 2021)

kabbes said:


> It's the same mistake as was made in December, when we also had polled vaccine hesitancy running at 20-30% and subsequent actual hesitancy (in over-50s so far) at less than 5%.


Surely that's vaccine refusal and most people who were hesitant end up getting vaccinated.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> These figures are incredibly impressive!
> 
> 
> 
> ‘A mammoth undertaking’: Bolton steps up Covid jabs to tackle outbreak


An excellent illustration of how you need to devolve responsibility downwards to get the most effective results. See also track and trace.


----------



## Teaboy (May 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Here's a 'no shit Sherlock' moment...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It is interesting because it was well known that in areas of high immigration there would be language, cultural and practical barriers in the way of a high vaccine take-up.   I was reading something the other saying the lowest take up is amongst the black afro-Caribbean community.  One of the main reasons given that the government had focused its efforts of the South Asian origin communities and hadn't prioritized black communities the same way.

Given the above it seems off that the ducks were not all in a row in places like Bolton and Blackburn given how much they've suffered over the last 15 months.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I feel like a stuck record here, but none of those graphs show vaccine heistancy.  Vaccine hesitancy is defined by the WHO's SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy as being the difference between _actual _take-up of a vaccine and its availability in a region.  Those graphs show _polled_ vaccine hesitancy.  It's not the same thing.  Asking somebody, "do you intend to take a vaccine" is not reading off of their true future behaviour from some kind of internal dashboard.  It's getting them to make a perfomative act of positioning within the discourse that is framed by the question.  As such, their response will depend on a hell of a lot of things, not least how they feel about the current political situation and the message that is important for them to give in that context.  In short, they don't _know_ how they will behave when asked to take the vaccine.  They don't even know that they don't know.  Hell, they don't know that they don't know that what they are answering isn't the question they think they are answering.
> 
> It's the same mistake as was made in December, when we also had polled vaccine hesitancy running at 20-30% and subsequent actual hesitancy (in over-50s so far) at less than 5%.
> 
> This problem is not just in reports in the Guardian.  There are a lot of proper scientific analyses that make this mistake (this being a key influential one).  The nature of the way our political responses are constructed in this neoliberal world is that governments like quantitative studies performed by people who buy into the same neoliberal model of humanity that they do.  The study I linked to has absolutely _zero_ social psychologists included within its collaborators.  It's all psychologists who use individualised, universalist models of human behaviour (like CBT) combined with epidemiologists, biomedics and mathematicians.  Nobody was involved who understands how information actually gets into the public discourse and affects social behaviour.


While I agree with your post, on the ground people have been acting quite differently, as in there have been concerted efforts to discover which groups have been not taking up the vaccine and think of ways to get to them. What happened in Tower Hamlets was a good illustration of that. Early in the process, back in February, it was discovered that take-up among the Bangladeshi community was very low. The response was to get the imam at the East London Mosque to get his vaccination publicly, then to open a big vaccination centre in the mosque. A few weeks later, the take-up among Bangladeshis had almost entirely caught up. 

I give local authorities some credit here. They've been trying to come up with solutions. The blockages are coming from the fixation on centralised control exhibited by the government and PHE.


----------



## kabbes (May 18, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> While I agree with your post, on the ground people have been acting quite differently, as in there have been concerted efforts to discover which groups have been not taking up the vaccine and think of ways to get to them. What happened in Tower Hamlets was a good illustration of that. Early in the process, back in February, it was discovered that take-up among the Bangladeshi community was very low. The response was to get the imam at the East London Mosque to get his vaccination publicly, then to open a big vaccination centre in the mosque. A few weeks later, the take-up among Bangladeshis had almost entirely caught up.
> 
> I give local authorities some credit here. They've been trying to come up with solutions. The blockages are coming from the fixation on centralised control exhibited by the government and PHE.


Yes, and the way they have tackled it is to understand the discourse producing the concern.  As opposed to the big studies like Freeman et al (2020), which were conceptualising hesitancy in terms of fixed attributes and attitudes, like “conspiratorislism”, which is why they saw it as something that could be measured using surveys.


----------



## kabbes (May 18, 2021)

maomao said:


> Surely that's vaccine refusal and most people who were hesitant end up getting vaccinated.


Not according to the WHO’s SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy, who are about as strong an authority on this as you could really hope for.


----------



## maomao (May 18, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Not according to the WHO’s SAGE Working Group on Vaccine Hesitancy, who are about as strong an authority on this as you could really hope for.


Not an authority on lexical semantics though. Poor choice of words if you ask me.


----------



## kabbes (May 18, 2021)

maomao said:


> Not an authority on lexical semantics though. Poor choice of words if you ask me.


Maybe you should read their 64 page report, which includes a chapter in how they arrived at that definition and why, and then we can have a chat about it.  Here you go:





__





						Loading…
					





					www.who.int
				




(Here's their full definition in Section 3:

Definition: Vaccine Hesitancy 
Vaccine hesitancy refers to delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccine services. Vaccine hesitancy is complex and context specific, varying across time, place and vaccines. It is influenced by factors such as complacency, convenience and confidence.

There's then a series of follow-up clarifications followed by an explanation of why they have taken that definition)


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's taken from this report on vaccine hesitancy, which is worth reading in full.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/society...-low-in-uk-despite-concerns-government-claims
> 
> Yet both Downing Street and local MPs cautioned on Monday that the public should not draw damaging conclusions about anti-vaccination sentiment, particularly among minority ethnic communities in two key towns, Bolton and Blackburn.



Yes and I've just quoted that bit in particular because I noticed that the press were quoting the shit Andrew Lloyd Webber comparing the unvaccinated to drink drivers, and todays fucking Daily Mail had a front page headline about 'Now vaccine refuseniks threaten freedom'. The latter is very much part of their recent framing of everything with shit along the lines of 'Tory MPs warn Johnson not to delay unlocking'. Its certainly a popular stance at the moment to pin the largest hopes of defeating the India variants third wave potential on vaccines, but of course the right-wing, anti-lockdown press have their own shrill and shitty version of this.


----------



## Supine (May 18, 2021)




----------



## brogdale (May 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Here's a 'no shit Sherlock' moment...
> 
> 
> 
> ...





brogdale said:


> IINM, Hancock claimed that the redlist decision regarding Pakistan & Bangladesh was based upon those two countries of origin yielding significantly higher rates of test positivity than India at that time.
> 
> Sounds like BS; hope he's asked to produce the data to support the claim.


Unsurprisingly, it would appear that Hancock was lying and misled Parliament:


----------



## NoXion (May 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> These figures are incredibly impressive!
> 
> 
> 
> ‘A mammoth undertaking’: Bolton steps up Covid jabs to tackle outbreak



That is certainly very impressive, but it also adds to my worries about relying too heavily on vaccination, which I fear could come to bite us in the arse if some nasty new variant arises that's resistant.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 18, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Those graphs show _polled_ vaccine hesitancy.



'Well, of course it's a poll of vaccine hesitancy, I didn't think that needed spelling out, considering the graph is clearly marked as being based on a yougov survey.

The interesting point is, as you say back in Dec the polls were showing vaccine hesitancy running at around 30% in the the younger age groups, whereas now it's showing at around half that number, and will probably end up being even less than that.


----------



## brogdale (May 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Unsurprisingly, it would appear that Hancock was lying and misled Parliament:
> 
> View attachment 268947


And...an unsurprising 'update'...


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> They have better data here:  https://www.boltonft.nhs.uk/2020/09/increase-in-covid-patients-at-royal-bolton-hospital/



I have since determined that the page linked to there is from September 15th last year. I havent seen any indications that the figures in the table have been updated since then, perhaps they have, but not since I first looked at that page when you provided the link so I'd guess probably not.


----------



## MrSki (May 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> And...an unsurprising 'update'...
> 
> View attachment 268975


I am beginning to like Adil Ray.


----------



## brogdale (May 18, 2021)

MrSki said:


> I am beginning to like Adil Ray.



As an aside, having never watched that programme, in all the clips I've ever seen on here the woman presenter appears to have no other role than move her head from side to side an occasionally nod. It seems to have a very macho MO.


----------



## MrSki (May 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> As an aside, having never watched that programme, in all the clips I've ever seen on here the woman presenter appears to have no other role than move her head from side to side an occasionally nod. It seems to have a very macho MO.


I don't often watch it but Suzanna Reid often gives it out too.


----------



## brogdale (May 18, 2021)

MrSki said:


> I don't often watch it but Suzanna Reid often gives it out too.


Fair enough.


----------



## kabbes (May 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> 'Well, of course it's a poll of vaccine hesitancy, I didn't think that needed spelling out, considering the graph is clearly marked as being based on a yougov survey.
> 
> The interesting point is, as you say back in Dec the polls were showing vaccine hesitancy running at around 30% in the the younger age groups, whereas now it's showing at around half that number, and will probably end up being even less than that.


The whole point of what I wrote is that polled vaccine hesitancy is not the same thing at all as actual vaccine hesitancy.  The point is that vaccine hesitancy was _not_ running at 30% in December.  That’s just what polling showed.  It’s a demonstration that the polls are an unreliable method of estimating what actual hesitancy will be.  It’s not a demonstration that things changed in the space of two weeks.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2021)

I've been watching a great example of actual hesitancy in my friend at the moment, she's properly scared of the rare clot thing, she thinks she has reason to be (due to medical / family stuff that i don't really understand) and so she's been getting the gp to test her platelets etc, and she has so far booked and then cancelled her first jab three times! She says she definitely wants to get it done. Whatever's going on for her is obviously really stressful.


----------



## LDC (May 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> I've been watching a great example of actual hesitancy in my friend at the moment, she's properly scared of the rare clot thing, she thinks she has reason to be (due to medical / family stuff that i don't really understand) and so she's been getting the gp to test her platelets etc, and she has so far booked and then cancelled her first jab three times! She says she definitely wants to get it done. Whatever's going on for her is obviously really stressful.



Sounds like some variant of health anxiety. How old is she? Maybe she can get the Moderna?

I have a friend who's hesitant. Due to her 'not trusting' the mRNA stuff in 'all the vaccines'. Even when I pointed out that they're not all mRNA ones they still couldn't quite articulate a logical position and mumbled something about it being her choice. I expect she will get one eventually, but she's being a bit random why she hasn't so far...


----------



## Teaboy (May 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> I've been watching a great example of actual hesitancy in my friend at the moment, she's properly scared of the rare clot thing, she thinks she has reason to be (due to medical / family stuff that i don't really understand) and so she's been getting the gp to test her platelets etc, and she has so far booked and then cancelled her first jab three times! She says she definitely wants to get it done. Whatever's going on for her is obviously really stressful.



Being worried about the blood clot thing is not an unreasonable position to take.  This is especially the case the younger you get as the risk v benefit calculation is much less clear.

My g/f is 36 and is a neuroscientist who works in the larger pharma industry.  She's used to looking at all this stuff and interpreting it and she was quite relieved when it became apparent that she was likely to be given a choice of az or another.  She would happily have gone for az if that was the only option but 1 in 100,000 risk doesn't sound so bad but 1 in 60,000 (or whatever the numbers were) is beginning to get a bit real.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Being worried about the blood clot thing is not an unreasonable position to take.  This is especially the case the younger you get as the risk v benefit calculation is much less clear.
> 
> My g/f is 36 and is a neuroscientist who works in the larger pharma industry.  She's used to looking at all this stuff and interpreting it and she was quite relieved when it became apparent that she was likely to be given a choice of az or another.  She would happily have gone for az if that was the only option but 1 in 100,000 risk doesn't sound so bad but 1 in 60,000 (or whatever the numbers were) is beginning to get a bit real.


yep. I hesitated too. Saturday 22nd is in my diary as 'definitely not dead from clot'.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sounds like some variant of health anxiety. How old is she? Maybe she can get the Moderna?
> 
> I have a friend who's hesitant. Due to her 'not trusting' the mRNA stuff in 'all the vaccines'. Even when I pointed out that they're not all mRNA ones they still couldn't quite articulate a logical position and mumbled something about it being her choice. I expect she will get one eventually, but she's being a bit random why she hasn't so far...


She's 45. I don't know enough to make a judgement on whether her fears that she's at heightened risk are baseless or not, but do know she's had really crappy experiences in the past of being told to stop worrying by a GP when in fact she was seriously ill. Maybe they will offer her an alternative if she waits longer, that might be what she's thinking not sure.


----------



## MrSki (May 18, 2021)

Interesting interview from Independent Sage member saying it is not really a vaccine hesitancy issue.


----------



## Teaboy (May 18, 2021)

Yup I'm furious the government has yet again failed to do the obvious and make some proper effort to secure the borders.  The Indian variant was always going to get here but if they could just have delayed it for a couple of months we would have been in a much better position with the vaccine rollout.

Oh well, here we are again.


----------



## belboid (May 18, 2021)

The contraceptive pill has a one in a thousand risk of blood clots.  The vaccines risk is comparatively tiny.


----------



## Teaboy (May 18, 2021)

belboid said:


> The contraceptive pill has a one in a thousand risk of blood clots.  The vaccines risk is comparatively tiny.



Yes we know this.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2021)

This is a good article, i don't know what to take from all the figures in it though. 








						Vaccine hesitancy narrative fuelling divisions in Bolton, says MP
					

Yasmin Qureshi says rising Covid rates not fault of certain communities




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## weepiper (May 18, 2021)

belboid said:


> The contraceptive pill has a one in a thousand risk of blood clots.  The vaccines risk is comparatively tiny.


This is not a particularly helpful take, given how many women are on the pill. Is there a higher risk of blood clots for women who are already also at a higher risk because they're on the pill? What amount of risk is acceptable? Also, women don't just pop the pill without thinking about the side effects and it's a bit unfair to suggest we do so it's silly to worry about the vaccine.

Caveat, I will take whatever vaccine they offer me at my appointment because I'm more concerned about Covid than blood clots. But I understand why some people are anxious.


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2021)

belboid said:


> The contraceptive pill has a one in a thousand risk of blood clots.  The vaccines risk is comparatively tiny.


Yeah but you don't feel the weight of that choice you're making, to take that risk, every morning when you take yr pill, i think thats at least a part of it.


----------



## belboid (May 18, 2021)

weepiper said:


> This is not a particularly helpful take, given how many women are on the pill. Is there a higher risk of blood clots for women who are already also at a higher risk because they're on the pill? What amount of risk is acceptable? Also, women don't just pop the pill without thinking about the side effects and it's a bit unfair to suggest we do so it's silly to worry about the vaccine.
> 
> Caveat, I will take whatever vaccine they offer me at my appointment because I'm more concerned about Covid than blood clots. But I understand why some people are anxious.


I haven't made any such suggestion. It is simply about comparing risk (and, I must admit, I hadnt realised the risk was _that _high from taking the pill). Fears (perfectly understandable and reasonable ones) are being stoked and ramped up all around and it is generally useful in such instances to make comprisons to indicate the general degree of risk.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> This is a good article, i don't know what to take from all the figures in it though.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think the figures paint a pretty simple picture. The uptake of vaccines has been high, even in areas with lower uptake, and the spread of the virus in Bolton  has been primarily among the unvaccinated groups. That's backed up by the heat maps on the govt website.

Deeply depressing that this is even being discussed in these terms. It's fucking obvious why this has happened and who is to blame for it. Infuriating because all the signs were that the Kent variant was on its way out.


----------



## teqniq (May 18, 2021)

I am liking this guy, fair dos:


----------



## bimble (May 18, 2021)

teqniq said:


> I am liking this guy, fair dos:



who is that man with the sad face that the gov sent out to defend them?


----------



## platinumsage (May 18, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Interesting interview from Independent Sage member saying it is not really a vaccine hesitancy issue.




She keeps saying in various places "we now know that it's about 50% more transmissible than the Kent variant" which we absolutely do not know yet, and also she keeps pushing the notion that vaccine hesitancy is not the major issue based only on the government statement that it has infected six people in a hospital in Bolton who have been vaccinated, despite five of those only having one dose, and possibly without having time to gain any from it yet. There is a lot more data out there on vaccine hesitancy which suggests she shouldn't be brushing it under the carpet.

I'm not sure she knows anything much about viruses or epidemiology at all, her background is in inequality research isn't it?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> who is that man with the sad face that the gov sent out to defend them?



George Eustice Useless, Environment Secretary.

My brain always hears his surname as 'useless'.


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think the figures paint a pretty simple picture. The uptake of vaccines has been high, even in areas with lower uptake, and the spread of the virus in Bolton  has been primarily among the unvaccinated groups. That's backed up by the heat maps on the govt website.
> 
> Deeply depressing that this is even being discussed in these terms. It's fucking obvious why this has happened and who is to blame for it. Infuriating because all the signs were that the Kent variant was on its way out.



I wonder if Johnson is toast if it is significantly more transmissive and causes a large 3rd wave.

I dont find it easy to predict pandemic politics but it would be quite the combination of doom for Johnson:

Another wave of death.
More restrictions / not the summer Johnson led people to expect, and his 'irreversible' claims shown to be bullshit.
Johnsons failure to stop this variant being seeded widely in the UK via imports.
The vaccine bounce not working as well if the limits of current vaccination levels and vaccines in general is demonstrated via a large wave.

Whatever happens politically, I'm not looking forward to finding out what a 50-60% more transmissible strain looks like at this present moment, so I hope it turns out not to have that transmission advantage. I'm not sure where that hope is really supposed to come from though, other than the current estimates being rather tentative.


----------



## brogdale (May 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> I wonder if Johnson is toast if it is significantly more transmissive and causes a large 3rd wave.
> 
> I dont find it easy to predict pandemic politics but it would be quite the combination of doom for Johnson:
> 
> ...


The notion that he delayed the red-listing of India on the basis of a trade deal prospect also has the potential to cause considerable political damage as it indirectly meshes Brexit and sleaze into the potential 3rd wave body pile.


----------



## elbows (May 18, 2021)

Yes and I also left 'failing to pause the May relaxation step' and whatever other failures he makes while cases grow off my list.

I suppose I expect it has a transmission advantage because there are plenty of signs of it becoming the dominant strain and it if thats the case then it is getting an advantage from somewhere. In the hope department this only really leaves the idea its not quite as transmissive as feared, or that the modelling is wrong about how much protection is in effect from vaccines so far/how big a wave we'd expect.


----------



## oryx (May 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> I wonder if Johnson is toast if it is significantly more transmissive and causes a large 3rd wave.


Much as I would like to see the demise of Johnson, and the sooner the better, I think he is more Teflon than toast.

He's seen off a failure to lock down early enough the first time, the highest death figures in Europe, the PPE crisis, the Cummings saga, various procurement sagas and I'm sure there are others I've missed, and those are just the Coronavirus related ones.


----------



## teuchter (May 18, 2021)

The UK has not had the highest death figures in Europe.


----------



## oryx (May 18, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The UK has not had the highest death figures in Europe.


I'm going on the graph shown by the BBC. The UK has the highest number of deaths after the US, Brazil, India and Mexico.



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51235105


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2021)

oryx said:


> I'm going on the graph shown by the BBC. The UK has the highest number of deaths after the US, Brazil, India and Mexico.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51235105


Proportional to population, though?

And anyway, those figures are something of a nonsense. You have to look at excess deaths. Russia has had way more covid deaths than the UK in absolute terms. Judging by excess deaths, probably about three times more. Serbia hides down most lists as well, and it's been worse than the UK too.]

Not seeking to excuse Johnson there. There are a variety of reasons why the UK could and should have been lower than many other places, at least as low as Ireland. The reasons why it wasn't are Johnson's government.


----------



## oryx (May 18, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Proportional to population, though?


No, I don't mean the death *rate*, I mean the actual number of deaths. 

I mean globally, the figures are not as meaningful, but comparing the UK with Italy, France, Germany and Spain doesn't seem that unreasonable.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2021)

oryx said:


> No, I don't mean the death *rate*, I mean the actual number of deaths.
> 
> I mean globally, the figures are not as meaningful, but comparing the UK with Italy, France, Germany and Spain doesn't seem that unreasonable.


If you don't adjust for population, the figure is meaningless. If you want to compare countries you have to do two things - first adjust for population, and second ensure that you're comparing similar methodologies.

For example, one of the stories that is emerging is that of a number of Eastern European countries that largely missed the first wave fucking up very very badly in the second wave, often criminally so. Corruption, disorganisation and general shitness have led to huge numbers of deaths. But those countries are split into smaller chunks, so you might totally miss it just looking at individual country chunks and not adjusting.


----------



## oryx (May 18, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If you don't adjust for population, the figure is meaningless. If you want to compare countries you have to do two things - first adjust for population, and second ensure that you're comparing similar methodologies.



But without going into statistical detail, there was a lot of talk about how bad our death figures were early in the pandemic, and it didn't seem to affect Johnson...which is kind of my point.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 18, 2021)

oryx said:


> But without going into statistical detail, there was a lot of talk about how bad our death figures were early in the pandemic, and it didn't seem to affect Johnson...which is kind of my point.


Sure. Britain could and should have done much better. That we didn't is ultimately Johnson's fault, and he's got away with it. 

But there are many other countries whose people are saying the same thing.


----------



## oryx (May 18, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Sure. Britain could and should have done much better. That we didn't is ultimately Johnson's fault, and he's got away with it.
> 
> But there are many other countries whose people are saying the same thing.


Absolutely. The exasperating thing - well more than exasperating, tragic - is that Johnson is likely to continue to get away with it if we get a third wave.

He's under pressure from some backbenchers to press ahead with ending legal guidelines on 21 June and (so far) is likely to do so, in spite of everything pointing to this being an unwise move in the face of the Indian variant.


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

oryx said:


> Much as I would like to see the demise of Johnson, and the sooner the better, I think he is more Teflon than toast.
> 
> He's seen off a failure to lock down early enough the first time, the highest death figures in Europe, the PPE crisis, the Cummings saga, various procurement sagas and I'm sure there are others I've missed, and those are just the Coronavirus related ones.



Yeah, the second wave failings for months was missing from that.

I've said I dont find it easy to predict pandemic politics but I'd also say the same about politicians who have reputations for nothing sticking to them and being winners - its true until it isnt, and I wouldnt like to guess when that moment is going to arrive. It does tend to happene eventually though, see Trump for a modern example.

I suppose I do think there are reasons why he might not be forgiven for his failings this time round when he was the for the firt two waves, but we shall just have to wait and see. Well I'd still rather not get to find out because I dont want a third wave to happen, so I have probably started this conversation too soon.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 19, 2021)

Sorry I wasn't trying to pick a fight. I don't let off Johnson at all. He's done his best to fuck things up, but despite him, Britain does have functioning institutions. 

But comparisons worldwide come up against countries with corrupt leaders and much less well functioning institutions to act as a bulwark against them. So, eg, Bulgaria has twice as many covid deaths than it admits to, far worse than the UK. At the height of the crisis they were turning people away from hospital. Their vaccination programme has been a disorganised joke. We don't hear much about it here as nobody gives much of a shit about what's happening in Bulgaria.


----------



## teuchter (May 19, 2021)

I've no idea why the BBC etc continue to present numbers unadjusted for population. It's not just meaningless but actively misleading. 

Of course the UK or US would appear to be doing marvellously well if you presented 'number of people who haven't died of covid' in the same way.


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

oryx said:


> He's under pressure from some backbenchers to press ahead with ending legal guidelines on 21 June and (so far) is likely to do so, in spite of everything pointing to this being an unwise move in the face of the Indian variant.


He would like to go ahead with it but that doesnt mean I think its likely he will actually be able to do so, because I dont know what case numbers and hospitalisations will look like by then. And it wont do him much good if he does just manage to squeeze in that last unlocking step if he has to reverse it very quickly afterwards, so I'm really not sure timing is on his side this time.


----------



## Yossarian (May 19, 2021)

Other countries may have had responses almost as shitty as Britain's, but not many of them resulted in the spawning of a new COVID variant that caused case numbers to get out of control in many other countries, Johnson shares some of the blame for those deaths as well.


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

When it comes to total death comparisons, dont forget that a measure some in the media etc go by is looking at UK deaths compared to 'other major western economies with fairly large populations'.

Whichever way I look at it we are still up there in terms of countries who did especially badly, but thats in part because there was the usual puffed up sense of UK brilliance that makes some judges think we were supposed to be in a really good position to manage this sort of pandemic well. But as everyone who has listened to me whittering on since the start of this pandemic knows, I always expected us to do especially badly on a lot of the fronts that matter.


----------



## oryx (May 19, 2021)

I've just remembered another couple of huge failings in Covid strategy by this government - the track and trace fiasco and the failure to adequately ensure that those required to isolate are financially compensated for not being able to work, where this applies. 

With the first one, Johnson's government awarded the head job to a crony who had a poor track record . With the second, it's easily within the government's gift to remedy this, and they haven't. 

And yet Johnson is riding high in the polls and has an 81 seat majority.


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

Yes and if we try to list every pandemic there will be a much longer list than the on we've come up with this evening.

I suppose my reason for bringing it up is wondering if any potential failures this time round are likely to be received differently to the ones of the past. There is probably a certain political psychology at work in terms of forgiving leaders who are trying to 'get a nation through tough times that are partly beyond their control' but I wonder what the limits of that are.

Another way of looking at the same thing I'm on about but from a different angle would be to ask how many large waves and associated restrictions and crushed expectations people will actually put up with before they start responding differently to how they did the first few times round that loop. I dont know the answer.


----------



## oryx (May 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes and if we try to list every pandemic there will be a much longer list than the on we've come up with this evening.
> 
> I suppose my reason for bringing it up is wondering if any potential failures this time round are likely to be received differently to the ones of the past. There is probably a certain political psychology at work in terms of forgiving leaders who are trying to 'get a nation through tough times that are partly beyond their control' but I wonder what the limits of that are.
> 
> Another way of looking at the same thing I'm on about but from a different angle would be to ask how many large waves and associated restrictions and crushed expectations people will actually put up with before they start responding differently to how they did the first few times round that loop. I dont know the answer.


It's an interesting, if worrying one.

I see the forgiving leaders thing as definitely playing a part, and my take on it would be incredulity at that level of forgiveness in the face of some of the blatant fuck-ups mentioned above. (Also, piss poor opposition but I may be over-politicising this thread when there are other threads about that!).


----------



## BigMoaner (May 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> who is that man with the sad face that the gov sent out to defend them?


He needs to be pointing at a pot hole.


----------



## BigMoaner (May 19, 2021)

Heard Johnson on the radio "we should be on for 21st June but we will know more in a few days"
He's lining things up for the you turn, isn't he? What a fucking shambles.
I'll be amazed if it all goes to plan.

If we lockdown and it's a long and brutal one, i honestly fear we will never get fully on top of this. Indian today, God knows what tomorrow. Vacinne good but only for some covid types. Its like a pot slowly reaching boiling point.


----------



## BigMoaner (May 19, 2021)

Nothing like having a prime minister that has a long and sordid history of lying (even to those he loves, the cheating bastard). Nothing like not being able to trust a single word he speaks during a global pandemic when so much is at risk.


----------



## David Clapson (May 19, 2021)

Johnson is completely safe. A 3rd wave could only unseat him if there was a Tory MP rebellion and massive public support for the leader of the opposition. Neither will happen. The Tories would never jeopardise their majority. The public prefer the Tories to Labour. We've seen ample proof of that with the recent elections and polling of voting intentions. If the death rate shoots up most people won't want a change of PM. Johnson has already said we'll have a 3rd wave and more deaths next winter. If that happens there won't be much public enthusiasm for getting rid of him. People will think that he learned lessons in the 1st wave and that by the time the 3rd wave comes around he'll be dealing with it more or less as well as anyone else would.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2021)

Worldometers has the UK in position 17 on deaths per million, of course some countries are well under reporting, including the likes of Russia & India, excess deaths in the UK is actually a few thousand less than covid deaths reported.

This certainly illustrates how bad the second wave has been in eastern Europe, with very little media attention in the UK.











						Coronavirus Update (Live): 129,471,257 Cases and 2,828,154 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic - Worldometer
					

Live statistics and coronavirus news tracking the number of confirmed cases, recovered patients, tests, and death toll due to the COVID-19 coronavirus from Wuhan, China. Coronavirus counter with new cases, deaths, and number of tests per 1 Million population. Historical data and info. Daily...




					www.worldometers.info


----------



## Petcha (May 19, 2021)

I've just seen on GMB that flights from India havent stopped at all. There's 5 coming into Heathrow today alone. I thought they'd banned them? wtf?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I've just seen on GMB that flights from India havent stopped at all. There's 5 coming into Heathrow today alone. I thought they'd banned them? wtf?



No, they haven't been banned, India was added to the 'red list', which means they have to take a test before flying, and book & pay for a quarantine hotel package, including 2 more tests.


----------



## Petcha (May 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> No, they haven't been banned, India was added to the 'red list', which means they have to take a test before flying, and book & pay for a quarantine hotel package, including 2 more tests.



Ok, so why dont they just stop them altogether like countries have?


----------



## BigMoaner (May 19, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Ok, so why dont they just stop them altogether like countries have?


Because that makes rational sense.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Ok, so why dont they just stop them altogether like countries have?



Only British or Irish residents are allowed to travel, with a negative test result, not sure it would be right to prevent them from coming home.

Most countries do the same, banning travel except for their own people, I know Australia introduced a total ban on flights from India, but that didn't go down well, so they have now started repatriation flights.


----------



## bimble (May 19, 2021)

I get that some people need to be allowed to get home and so on but yeah this is odd:

'While the UK government has banned direct flights from 11 other Red List countries that have direct flights to the UK, including Brazil and South Africa, it did not adopt a similar policy when India was placed the list.'

So those other red list countries you just have to route via someone else's airport first?








						LBC reveals over 100 flights from India landed in UK since country placed on 'red list'
					

One hundred and ten direct flights from India have landed in the UK in the three and a half weeks since the country was placed on the travel Red List amid rising concerns about Covid-19 variants, LBC can reveal.




					www.lbc.co.uk


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 19, 2021)

The UK figures are dire and were shameful but thankfully (- I am not actually thankful for massive amounts of death) everyone in Europe seems to have cocked up the second wave in a massive way and those figures are now no longer quite so shameful.

Governments have constantly attempted to put economy ahead of deaths and people have died and if there was any justice a solid wave of revolutions and voting out would follow.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> I get that some people need to be allowed to get home and so on but yeah this is odd:
> 
> 'While the UK government has banned direct flights from 11 other Red List countries that have direct flights to the UK, including Brazil and South Africa, it did not adopt a similar policy when India was placed the list.'
> 
> ...



If you come via another country, you still have declare where you have been, and the same rules apply, or face a massive fine and/or even imprisonment, although I have little faith in them picking up all such cases TBH.



> What are the fines if I break these rules?​Providing false or deliberately misleading information when filling out a passenger locator form is an offence punishable by imprisonment. You could be fined up to £10,000, imprisoned for up to 10 years or both if you do not provide accurate details about the countries you have visited in the 10 days before you arrived in the UK. If you break the quarantine rules, you may face a penalty of up to £10,000.
> Several people have already been fined £10,000 for failing to declare they had travelled to the UK from a “red list” country, according to police.


----------



## bimble (May 19, 2021)

yeah but why ban direct flights from some places on red list & not india? I don't think its the most important thing but seems to me the vaccine-fuelled boost of 'didnt they do well' support that the gov got will suffer as a result of so obviously cocking this up.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 19, 2021)

With (understandable) talk of Johnson doing a U-turn over June 21st, do people think he'll just postpone the planned easing of restrictions for a few weeks?

Or toughen restrictions to the point of another big lockdown?

The latter seems somewhat less likely to me, because although vaccinations should not bear the whole burden, the programme is surely having a good effect?

Also, I don't (yet) think that there'll automatically be a _major_ third wave (not lin the summer anyway -- winter quite possibly?), but I could easily end up being proved completely wrong about that


----------



## Petcha (May 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> yeah but why ban direct flights from some places on red list & not india? I don't think its the most important thing but seems to me the vaccine-fuelled boost of 'didnt they do well' support that the gov got will suffer as a result of so obviously cocking this up.



I think it's hugely important. The virus initially came into the country by air travel, and so has this variant. I cant believe they're still allowing anyone in from India. It's insane.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> yeah but why ban direct flights from some places on red list & not india?



No idea, it could be a hang over on timings, e.g. travel from South Africa was banned in Dec., Brazil in Jan., but the quarantine hotels were only set-up in Feb.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> With (understandable) talk of Johnson doing a U-turn over June 21st, do people think he'll just postpone the planned easing of restrictions for a few weeks?
> 
> Or toughen restrictions to the point of another big lockdown?


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> yeah but why ban direct flights from some places on red list & not india? I don't think its the most important thing but seems to me the vaccine-fuelled boost of 'didnt they do well' support that the gov got will suffer as a result of so obviously cocking this up.


Thank goodness the media and the opposition will expose this and demand answers on a wide scale


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> yeah but why ban direct flights from some places on red list & not india? I don't think its the most important thing but seems to me the vaccine-fuelled boost of 'didnt they do well' support that the gov got will suffer as a result of so obviously cocking this up.



"This time, the 900th time Boris lies and idiocy have been exposed, this time for sure he'll have people turn against him"


----------



## strung out (May 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> yeah but why ban direct flights from some places on red list & not india? I don't think its the most important thing but seems to me the vaccine-fuelled boost of 'didnt they do well' support that the gov got will suffer as a result of so obviously cocking this up.


Presumably because there are shit loads of British residents in India needing to get home and nowhere near as many in Brazil or South Africa.


----------



## bimble (May 19, 2021)

strung out said:


> Presumably because there are shit loads of British residents in India needing to get home and nowhere near as many in Brazil or South Africa.


yes. And loads of people have gone over there for funerals obvs.


----------



## brogdale (May 19, 2021)

strung out said:


> Presumably because there are shit loads of British residents in India needing to get home and nowhere near as many in Brazil or South Africa.


We don't have to presume anything; they've told us why India didn't get put on the red-list when Pakistan and Bangladesh did.
Johnson said it was because the South African variant had been detected in Pakistan and Hancock said that travellers arriving from both there and Bangladesh had positive test rates 3 times the level of those from India.

They just haven't been able to produce any data to support those explanations yet.


----------



## teuchter (May 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Worldometers has the UK in position 17 on deaths per million, of course some countries are well under reporting, including the likes of Russia & India, excess deaths in the UK is actually a few thousand less than covid deaths reported.
> 
> This certainly illustrates how bad the second wave has been in eastern Europe, with very little media attention in the UK.
> 
> ...



It's not really just a story of the UK and then Eastern Europe having done badly though.

The UK sits within a bunch of other 'western' European countries that have done similarly badly. And it's not doing loads worse than the EU average.

And we're not done with this yet of course; the UK having got ahead with vaccination might mean that in relative terms it'll be doing significantly better a few months down the line.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2021)

Time for everyone to cross their fingers.


> Latest data on transmissibility of Indian variant offers 'glimmer of hope', says Prof Ferguson​It was introduced from overseas principally into people with Indian ethnicity, a higher chance of living in multi-generational households and often in quite deprived areas with high density housing. And so we’re trying to work out whether the rapid growth we’ve seen in areas such as Bolton is going to be typical of what we could expect elsewhere [ie, whether the Kent variant would have spread just as quickly, because of the social conditions], or is really what is called a founder effect, which is often seen in these circumstances.


Then came the good news. Ferguson went on:



> There’s a little bit of, I would say, a glimmer of hope from the recent data that whilst this variant does still appear to have a significant growth advantage, the magnitude of that advantage seems to have dropped a little bit with the most recent data. The curves are flattening a little. But it will take more time for us to be definitive about it.











						UK Covid: Matt Hancock says final decision on further unlocking to be taken on 14 June – as it happened
					

Health secretary says government will make decision on unlocking on 14 June as cases of Indian variant rise 28% in two days




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 19, 2021)

Oh, what joy...



> *Matt Hancock is expected to lead a Downing Street press conference today at 5pm.*
> 
> The Health Secretary will update the public on Covid-19 as the Indian variant threatens the government’s roadmap out of lockdown.











						Matt Hancock to give press conference amid Indian variant and vaccine refusal
					

The Health Secretary will provide a Covid-19 update as the Indian variant threatens the government’s roadmap out of lockdown.




					www.dorsetecho.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (May 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh, what joy...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


another opportunity to lie, obfuscate, dissemble and generally mislead the nation


----------



## strung out (May 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> We don't have to presume anything; they've told us why India didn't get put on the red-list when Pakistan and Bangladesh did.
> Johnson said it was because the South African variant had been detected in Pakistan and Hancock said that travellers arriving from both there and Bangladesh had positive test rates 3 times the level of those from India.
> 
> They just haven't been able to produce any data to support those explanations yet.


That wasn't the question I was answering, which is why there are still flights arriving from India and not Brazil/South Africa.


----------



## BigMoaner (May 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Oh, what joy...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ere we go


----------



## Teaboy (May 19, 2021)

Hancock generally doesn't do the big lockdown announcements, that's Johnson's domain.  My guess is it'll just be a numbers update combined with reassurances that the situation isn't that bad at the moment with a side portion of warnings for everyone to behave.

He'll probably look to control the narrative regarding the Indian variant.  It was inevitable it would arrive in the UK etc etc.  The narrative is one of the few things they have managed to control in this pandemic.


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> With (understandable) talk of Johnson doing a U-turn over June 21st, do people think he'll just postpone the planned easing of restrictions for a few weeks?
> 
> Or toughen restrictions to the point of another big lockdown?
> 
> ...



It depends how accurate the modelling has been, which includes the various numbers and assumptions they feed into the model, and what scenarios they model.

The modelling expected a third wave in the summer even without the more transmissive variant, once steps 3 and 4 of the unlocking happened. But since there are a range of possibilities regarding vaccine rollout pace, vaccine effectiveness, peoples behaviour in terms of how cautious they remain and how low they keep their number of contacts, as well as unknowns about the degree to which seasonal factors will help over summer, there is no way to be certain at this point. If we manage to get through to the school summer holidays without cases exploding then that should help too.

In terms of predicting what Johnson will do, using history as a guide the picture is ugly. They never want to do the really draconian stuff until a situation that threatens hospital capacity is well under way. That phenomenon is likely to be even stronger this time around for various reasons including that plenty of people will not believe the sharp hospital and death side of the pandemic is still in effect in the vaccine era unless they get to see that unfolding in an undeniable way and at great scale. The prospect of responding appropriately at an earlier stage mostly relies on Johnson believing the expert forecasts in a way that he did not last September when the second wave was getting going.

And this time even if he should start to do the right thing earlier in the cycle than he did previously, there is likely to be greater political opposition. There are already signs that Labour will oppose local lockdowns etc, taking a stance somewhat similar to what happened with Burnham and Manchester in the second wave. I have every sympathy with those who will take such a stance because everyone can see how such things didnt work last time and were in some ways the worst of both worlds, or used as a delaying tactic in terms of doing what needed to be done on a national level. But its going to be hard for me to support positions that lead to more delays that will inevitably increase the wave size.

So I really do hope that we manage to avoid that situation fully taking shape in the first place. I'm not too optimistic about that but there is enough uncertainty in my mind that I am far from considering a very large, deadly wave to be completely inevitable in the months ahead. But neither would I bet heavily against it, because lets not forget that this was my stance, due to the modelling done, even before the more transmissive India variant concerns were added to the mix. But the modelling isnt perfect, so I simply have to keep a partially open mind.


----------



## Teaboy (May 19, 2021)

I don't believe for one minute Johnson has changed his views at all, there's no damascene moment here.  For the last few months people around him have managed to get him saying the right things in public but every time he thinks he's off the record he has said something dumb.

The battle will be who will win out over the next few days and weeks.  I won't be holding my breath (except in crowded indoor spaces).


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> And this time even if he should start to do the right thing earlier in the cycle than he did previously, there is likely to be greater political opposition.



And I should have drawn attention to a significant aspect of such things - whether we are talking about direct opposition or very loud calls to take specific action, the vaccine era has provided people, the media and politicians with a very convenient thing to call for to the exclusion of other things that may actually be necessary:

"Roll the vaccine out quicker and to more age groups" will be the loudest cry and we've seen that already in the last week.

It sounds reasonable, and local authorities, Labour etc are so much more comfortable calling for that than anything else. And it should help a bit, if it cam actually be done. Its not widely expected to be a complete fix though, and I do worry that attention to that side of things will happen at the expense of other things that may be necessary.


----------



## brogdale (May 19, 2021)

strung out said:


> That wasn't the question I was answering, which is why there are still flights arriving from India and not Brazil/South Africa.


Fair enough.


----------



## l'Otters (May 19, 2021)

Why aren’t local authorities calling for more resources to support self isolation & to do locally led track and trace? 

Indie Sage had guests from Leicester and Newham on a couple of weeks ago giving the detail on their successes with this, Newham’s support for isolation sounded like what should be happening in all areas.


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

The wheels are slowly turning in terms of surge testing in my part of Nuneaton. They've now got as far as sticking a glossy leaflet through the door about how they will be delivering tests for everyone aged 2 or over tomorrow between 10.30am and 6.30pm.


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

Sounds like the sewage testing I've often bored on about has come in handy:









						Covid-19: More variant hotspots to get surge tests and jabs
					

The emergence of the Indian variant makes vaccinations "even more important", Matt Hancock says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Surge testing and jabs will be expanded to six new areas of concern in England to combat the spread of the Indian Covid variant, Matt Hancock has said.
> 
> These were identified using new techniques, including analysing waste water and travel patterns, he told a Downing Street briefing.





> Surge testing and vaccinations will now be introduced in:
> 
> Bedford
> Burnley
> ...


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

Oh I see that article has anaysis by Nick Triggle. Historically someone who I used as an example of the most reckless wishful thinking and dubious pandemic messaging, he had improved since he learnt the hard way that his stance last September was fatally flawed.

So now here he is talking up the good news when it comes to variants and vaccines:



> There's growing confidence the vaccines will remain effective against the variants that are emerging.
> Lab work using blood from vaccinated people to see how well they block the variant viruses from infecting cells shows some drop-off in potency - and this is what has caused such concern in recent months.
> The biggest drop-off by far is for the South African variant with early reports suggesting the Indian variant only weakens the vaccine effect a little more than the UK variant does.
> But lab work only takes you so far. Emerging real world evidence is what is giving scientists the most hope.
> ...



I am very happy for any good news on the vaccine front. But people should understand the limits - concerns about a third wave involve a lot of the dynamics of transmission and overall population immunity, so even when no end of good news arrives in terms of how much protection against severe illness vaccines, I would not recommend getting too carried away. And I dont advise viewing things as a simple battle, so when he says things like "In the fight between vaccines and variants, it's the vaccines that are winning." I do groan a bit. Its the sort of shit I wouldnt want to say because even if such sentiments didnt come back to haunt us in the next few weeks or months, this could be a long-term balancing act and premature declarations of victory are unhelpful.


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

I havent watched the press conference yet but I will try to do so later. I did note this quote from the BBC live updates page at 17:47 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57168021



> Prof Van Tam says: "I think scientists are sure this virus is more transmissible than the strain it is beginning to replace" but we do not know yet how transmissible it is.
> 
> He says the data should "firm up some time next week" when it will be the first time when we have a "ranging shot at what the transmissibility increase is".
> 
> This will feed into models into how it looks in terms of a resurgence and minister will be able to make further decisions, he says.


----------



## elbows (May 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> It will soon be a year since Van-Tam told people not to tear the pants out of it.



Pant tearing reprise!


----------



## Sue (May 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Pant tearing reprise!



Is that the politer version of 'don't kick the arse out if it'?


----------



## ddraig (May 19, 2021)

Had this text the other day from what looks like a mobile number
Anyone else had it?


----------



## Supine (May 19, 2021)

ddraig said:


> Had this text the other day from what looks like a mobile number
> Anyone else had it?
> 
> View attachment 269233



it is a trial being run in Bristol for a combination covid / flu vaccine. Not sure about the mobile number but you can contact them at comflucov directly by googling them.


----------



## ddraig (May 19, 2021)

Supine said:


> it is a trial being run in Bristol for a combination covid / flu vaccine. Not sure about the mobile number but you can contact them at comflucov directly by googling them.


Thanks, yes the link seems legit


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 20, 2021)

You can now book your first jab if...

you're aged 34 or over
you'll turn 34 before 1 July 2021
Considering they are speeding up 2 doses, they seem to be doing well in also working down the age groups, there's some suggestions that all over 30's will be able to book by the end of next week.


----------



## Teaboy (May 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> I havent watched the press conference yet but I will try to do so later. I did note this quote from the BBC live updates page at 17:47 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57168021



What did you think about Hancock giving it the big one about the az jab and how it's Britain's gift to the world etc?   There is a point in there somewhere in that there was heavy investment from the UK taxpayer in its development.  Also the point about it being a far more practical vaccine then some of the others particularly for developing countries because it is being sold at cost.

All fair enough points but it seemed more about deflecting the growing criticism around vaccine inequality.


----------



## existentialist (May 20, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> What did you think about Hancock giving it the big one about the az jab and how it's Britain's gift to the world etc?   There is a point in there somewhere in that there was heavy investment from the UK taxpayer in its development.  Also the point about it being a far more practical vaccine then some of the others particularly for developing countries because it is being sold at cost.
> 
> All fair enough points but it seemed more about deflecting the growing criticism around vaccine inequality.


I think it's more about the UK government making a land grab on the vaccination programme - the part of the whole Covid response that they had least to do with, and the bit that's been most successful.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 20, 2021)

> Holidaying Brits should expect a knock on the door when quarantining at home upon their return, Home Secretary Priti Patel has said.
> 
> Officials have the capacity to carry out 10,000 home visits a day, the Daily Mail reported, and efforts would be concentrated on those who have visited amber list countries, including France and Spain, to make sure they are complying with staying at home for 10 days.



What's that smell, coming from that farm?


----------



## kabbes (May 20, 2021)

My workplace has issued a worldwide edict that we are still a “work from office” company but they recognise that people have reformed their lives around WFH in the last year so there will be a transition period, going via 3 in/2 out to eventually land at a permanent 4 in/1 out.  Going from biggest to smallest areas, the ex-US and European regions followed suit in backing that up with a slightly greater focus on recognising that there will need to be regional variations and allowance for local regulations.

The UK part of the company hasn’t yet issued its own statement but I fully expect them to also (attempt to) impose this.  It may stick, it may not.  The London office already had a lot of people doing at least one day WFH even pre-pandemic, despite that being against official worldwide company policy.  It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s tougher to get these people to return to 4/1 than management are anticipating.  If people just quietly carry on doing 3/2 or even 2/3 I’m not sure there is much stomach for confrontation.  We’ll see, I guess.


----------



## brogdale (May 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> What's that smell, coming from that farm?


You say that...but look here...we can go live to one of the busts....


----------



## existentialist (May 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> What's that smell, coming from that farm?


I bet she bloody loved saying "...should expect a knock at the door". Give her enough time, and Patel is going to have her Home Office gauleiters in jackboots and big hats.


----------



## glitch hiker (May 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Pant tearing reprise!



It's pretty obvious he's really saying we should have held off on phase 3 of 'freedom' because why else say to people be cautious unless phase 3 wasn't as safe as Bozo would have us believe.

Given the number of infections remains pretty static and, IIRC, slightly higher than the September new school year debacle, could it be that we have reached the safe limit of what we can do? Yet no doubt the Tories will want their victory lap on June 21st.


----------



## glitch hiker (May 20, 2021)

brogdale said:


> You say that...but look here...we can go live to one of the busts....
> 
> View attachment 269280


What's wrong with her legs?


----------



## bimble (May 20, 2021)

what do you reckon, headed for another lockdown around.. September?


----------



## maomao (May 20, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> What's wrong with her legs?


She's trying to march straight legged while wearing a high waisted skirt.


----------



## Teaboy (May 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> what do you reckon, headed for another lockdown around.. September?



Maybe or maybe not.  There are plenty of reasons why that might be the case but equally some very good reasons why it seems unlikely.  Personally I think that June date is looking increasingly unwise but doing something unwise is Johnson's signature move.

I'm not sure there is much point in speculating about it though as all it does is raise anxiety.  Or we can do as individuals is affect our own behaviour.


----------



## Elpenor (May 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> what do you reckon, headed for another lockdown around..  booked a trip around UK in late September


Just booked a trip around the UK for late September


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> what do you reckon, headed for another lockdown around.. September?



Impossible to predict exactly but modelling implied that any substantial third wave would be sooner than that, eg July. But there are plenty of unknowns to that including seasonal effects. There should also be more protection from vaccines at the population level as time goes on, so a wave that ame later could be much smaller. Obviously if a variant comes along that can bypass a substantial chunk of immunity then the picture would change. And when it comes to lockdowns, the timing of those is even harder to predict than the timing of waves, since we dont know how long Johnson would manage to delay the inevitable restrictions.


----------



## existentialist (May 20, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> What's wrong with her legs?


They're attached to a hateful, racist, power-hungry apparatchik?


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> What did you think about Hancock giving it the big one about the az jab and how it's Britain's gift to the world etc?   There is a point in there somewhere in that there was heavy investment from the UK taxpayer in its development.  Also the point about it being a far more practical vaccine then some of the others particularly for developing countries because it is being sold at cost.
> 
> All fair enough points but it seemed more about deflecting the growing criticism around vaccine inequality.



I dont think I've got anything new to say about that. When it comes to me getting upset about vaccine inequalities globally I've long taken the stance that the UK would have a few things it could point to in order to provide cover. In the past they clung to their COVAX funding commitments in order to excuse the other shit (eg actual supplies to countries at vital moments) and this is just another variation on that common theme.


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

There are already enough holes an weaknesses in test & trace, variant reporting etc to cause problems, so additional data issues are most unwelcome:









						Covid: Test and Trace failure helped Indian variant spread, report says
					

Several councils did not receive up-to-date Covid data for almost three weeks, the BBC learns.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *Failures in England's test-and-trace system are partly responsible for a surge in the Indian variant in one of the worst affected parts of the country, a report seen by the BBC says. *
> For three weeks in April and May, eight local authorities in England did not have access to the full data on positive tests in their area.
> The number of missing cases was highest in Blackburn with Darwen, Lancashire.
> A recent surge in infections there has been linked to the Indian variant.





> The other areas affected by what is thought to have been a technical glitch were Blackpool, York, Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock.





> Between 21 April and 11 May, the system only provided details of a limited number of positive cases of coronavirus to the eight local authorities.
> On 11 May, they were told by the Department of Health and Social Care that, over that period, 734 positive tests had not been reported.
> According to a report by officials at one of the councils affected, the central test-and-trace system failed to notify its staff of cases, meaning their contacts could not be traced locally.





> The Department of Health told Blackburn with Darwen Council that there were 164 cases it had been unaware of. The people affected were subsequently traced.
> Another 130 cases were not reported, but, because they had passed the 10-day isolation period, could not be followed up.
> Even when cases were uploaded to the system on 12 May, some key information, such as phone numbers or addresses, was still incomplete.


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

Given my unease with the giddy aspects of the vaccination phase, I wish I'd come up with this use of language:



> "Vaccines may be a light at the end of the tunnel - but we cannot be blinded by that light."



The context, from the 12:35 entry on the BBC live updates page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57183056



> Countries should "rethink or avoid" international travel because of uncertainty over new variants, the World Health Organization's regional director for Europe says.
> 
> As the UK government faces criticism and confusion over its traffic light system for international travel, Hans Kluge says increased mobility in Europe could jeopardise the current fall in cases and small outbreaks could lead to "dangerous resurgences".
> 
> "Most of us are still susceptible to the virus and not vaccinated yet. Right now, in the face of a continued threat and new uncertainty, we need to continue to exercise caution, and rethink or avoid international travel," he tells a news conference.





> He says the variant first identified in India is able to spread rapidly and could displace the Kent variant that is currently dominant in Europe.
> 
> But he says all variants that have emerged so far can be controlled with public health measures and all respond to approved vaccines.


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

Since I had a brief argument with someone about what numbers it was fair for the modellers to use for vaccine effectiveness, I thought I should probably draw attention to the latest numbers that PHE have come up with, much of which is based on real world data rather than trials, and their level of confidence in each number overall based on things like number of studies available so far.

This is from the weely vaccine surveillance report https://assets.publishing.service.g...193/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_20.pdf


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

Oh and I wonder if this bit from that report contributes to their desire to bring forwards the timing of 2nd doses:



> With the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine there is a small reduction in vaccine effectiveness from 10 weeks after the first dose. This may be explained by some waning of protection or by biases due to differences in the earliest groups who were vaccinated compared to later groups. There is no evidence of this waning effect with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.


edit - i should have pointed out that the statement is from the 'effectiveness against symptomatic disease' section.


----------



## souljacker (May 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Since I had a brief argument with someone about what numbers it was fair for the modellers to use for vaccine effectiveness, I thought I should probably draw attention to the latest numbers that PHE have come up with, much of which is based on real world data rather than trials, and their level of confidence in each number overall based on things like number of studies available so far.
> 
> This is from the weely vaccine surveillance report https://assets.publishing.service.g...193/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_20.pdf
> 
> View attachment 269353



Do they not do Moderna or is it too soon?


----------



## brogdale (May 20, 2021)

So the Indian variant has a doubling time of 5 days atm.


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Do they not do Moderna or is it too soon?



Im presuming not enough time and not enough quantity yet, plus it may be even harder to deduce real-world effects due to the lower Covid risk in the age groups we have selected to be prioritised for that vaccine, potentially adding to the lower confidence in data/how long it takes to get strong data. Whatever the reasons, I dont think its mentioned in that report at all.


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Nice little jibe there.
> 
> I remember you weren't a fan of my support for JCVI lengthening the time between Pfizer jabs either. The baseless and widespread opprobrium that attracted here was one of the reasons I tried to ignore this forum for a while. I should try harder.


I felt the need to revisit this since you said it less than a week ago and since then we have seen the authorities fiddling with the time between first and second doses. Perhaps you have some thoughts on the changes on that front or something I've drawn attention to in my last 2 posts. Perhaps not.


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

brogdale said:


> So the Indian variant has a doubling time of 5 days atm.


I guess your source that that is this, based on the latest weekly figures released for the variant.



It is indeed a rough calculation. My own sense of these matters is sort of stuck in a holding pattern at the moment, waiting for more analysis next week (Van Tam indicated in the press conference the other day that they expect to be able to have a dirst decent crack at estimating how much more transmissible it is sometime next week).

edit - ah I see that tweet has been deleted, which might give clues about him regretting doing that sort of crude calculation. The guardian still has traces of the original tweet so I can include this screenshot for future reference.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 20, 2021)

I don't know about the Kent variant taking 2 weeks to double, around here it was basically doubling every week, we went from around 25 to 800 cases in just 5 weeks.


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I don't know about the Kent variant taking 2 weeks to double, around here it was basically doubling every week, we went from around 25 to 800 cases in just 5 weeks.



Yes and Im not convinced he has done the 5 days calculation properly anyway. I will wait for better analysis, some of which will be based on particular locations and detail rather than the general country-wide cumulative total.


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

> A BioNTech spokeswoman said lab tests show that when the blood of vaccinated people is exposed to the Indian variant, 25% to 30% fewer antibodies were binding to the virus than would have been the case with the original coronavirus.
> 
> That suggests protection against the variant, whether symptomatic or not, is a bit lower but still 70% to 75%.











						BioNTech says vaccine likely to be effective against India variant
					

BioNTech SE  said on Thursday the COVID-19 vaccine it developed with Pfizer (PFE.N) should be roughly as effective against the new coronavirus variant first detected in India as it has been shown to be against the South African variant.




					www.reuters.com
				




I can imagine getting bored of vague talk about how the vaccine is 'still effective' when actually its a question of 'how effective', the percentage of protection on offer, that can make all the difference to what sort of future waves show up in modelling. That story is an example of both the detail I want and the sort of vague positive headline that I dont necessarily find helpful.


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

Oh and even when we get that detail I'd still take it with a pinch of salt, eg how it translates into real world effectiveness, and effectiveness against severe disease could be better or worse than initial lab-based findings indicate.


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2021)

I am now more certain that the link to Bolton hospital figures platinumsage provided some days ago is useless as its data relates to last September.

So we are reliant on the UK dashboard or NHS spreadsheet figures that are only updated once a week, or on authorities releasing data on this separately, or the press obtaining more recent figures. 

It appears the latter is providing the goods today:









						Number of patients in Bolton hospital with Covid rise again, as Indian variant spreads
					

Hospital admissions are thought to lag infections by two to three weeks as Indian variant surges across the UK




					www.independent.co.uk
				






> The number of patients in hospital with Coronavirus in Bolton has increased to 30, rising by 5 in 24 hours, The Independent has learned.
> 
> Bosses at the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust are opening an extra ward for Covid positive patients today, as a previous ward has become full.





> Staff at the trust confirmed there were a total of 30 patients being treated in the hospital on Thursday, up from 25 on Wednesday after four new admissions and one patient already in hospital testing positive for Covid-19.
> 
> There are seven patients in intensive care or high dependency, with 27 patients on oxygen.
> 
> Typically, patients admitted now for Covid-19 were likely to be have been infected 2 to 3 weeks ago, suggesting numbers could rise further.


----------



## planetgeli (May 21, 2021)

Spain to allow travellers from UK and Japan in without Covid tests​A quick snap from Reuters here that Spain will allow travellers from Britain and Japan into the country without a negative PCR test for Covid-19 from 24 May, according to an order published this morning in the state gazette.
Spain is on the UK’s “amber” list, so UK restrictions still require travellers returning to Britain from Spain to isolate upon arrival. Ministers have said that people should not travel to “amber” list countries for holidays.



What could possibly go wrong?


----------



## Teaboy (May 21, 2021)

Mental.  Then again Spain is currently in the amber list so absolutely no one will be going there from the UK apart for emergencies.  Real emergencies as well.


----------



## strung out (May 21, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Mental.  Then again Spain is currently in the amber list so absolutely no one will be going there from the UK apart for emergencies.  Real emergencies as well.


Emergency week in the sun


----------



## Petcha (May 21, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Mental.  Then again Spain is currently in the amber list so absolutely no one will be going there from the UK apart for emergencies.  Real emergencies as well.



Is there anything stopping me from going to Gibraltar? I've been there before and I actually quite liked it - one of the weirdest places I've ever been. Plus you can literally walk across to Spain.


----------



## Orang Utan (May 21, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Is there anything stopping me from going to Gibraltar? I've been there before and I actually quite liked it - one of the weirdest places I've ever been. Plus you can literally walk across to Spain.


Probably not as it involves common sense


----------



## Teaboy (May 21, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Is there anything stopping me from going to Gibraltar? I've been there before and I actually quite liked it - one of the weirdest places I've ever been. Plus you can literally walk across to Spain.



I think as long as its not a red zone country all you have to do is print up a letter from your mum (or legal guardian) saying you promise you don't have covid.  If its a red zone country just come back a via a different country with the same letter.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 21, 2021)

bimble said:


> what do you reckon, headed for another lockdown around.. September?



No I think we're done, any lethality has been reduced to low levels by the vaccines so we're going to carry on regardless of how many people get sick and how close the NHS is to tipping over treating younger patients.


----------



## elbows (May 21, 2021)

Actually they expect an increasing proportion of hospitalised cases to have been people who were vaccinated, because thats just how the numbers are expected to work out when there are large number of vaccinated people but not 100% protection. Because a small percentage of a very large number is still quite a large number. Quite how large the number will be depends on multiple factors so will just have to wait and see.


----------



## Sunray (May 21, 2021)

Does anyone think blaming the eligable unvaccinated for getting sick going to do much?  
The Gov has to find someone to blame other than themselves, it's the law now.


----------



## Sunray (May 21, 2021)

This Q&A is worth a listen


----------



## MrSki (May 21, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Is there anything stopping me from going to Gibraltar? I've been there before and I actually quite liked it - one of the weirdest places I've ever been. Plus you can literally walk across to Spain.


Probably the small number of hotel rooms available. I think it is less than 600 but don't quote me on that.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 21, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Probably the small number of hotel rooms available. I think it is less than 600 but don't quote me on that.



Quoted. 

It's 700.



> But, with only 700 *hotel rooms* on *Gibraltar*, it is wise to book early.











						Gibraltar: where to stay, eat and drink
					

Joy Lo Dico on why Gibraltar's history makes it a compelling travel destination




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## miss direct (May 21, 2021)

Whats this Yorkshire variant mumbling all about. Should we be worried about it? I'm in  Yorkshire.


----------



## elbows (May 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> This Q&A is worth a listen



I am so not on the same page as him in regards his first few answers.

This doesnt mean I'm confident that I will be right and that he will be shown to be wrong/overoptimistic. And I would much prefer it if it turns out his stance is compatible with reality and that my level of caution at this stage is unnecessary.

I suppose his current output makes me interested in what sort of stances and expectations he had at the start of the pandemic or at various other crucial moments later on.

I will resist getting into the 'was lockdown effective' stuff right now, but I'm sure I will revisit that subject at some later point and will have far too much to say about it. Again, I'm not on the same page as him at all, but there is lots of complicated detail involved that will bring out the most tedious aspects of me so no, no, nobody deserves that again from me right now.


----------



## smokedout (May 21, 2021)

Not sure where to put this but this seems one of the busier threads and I think it's important.  Long read from wired about aerosol transmission and some of the mistakes, assumptions and what looks like arrogance that has prevented this from being taken as seriously as it should.  Makes an interesting argument that Covid (and other coronavirus and flu) transmission may actually be largely driven by airborne particles rather than large droplets but because these particles are larger than 5 microns they are not recognised as aerosols despite the fact they can travel a lot more than 2 meters through the air.  And this lack of recognition seems to be largely down to a fuck up.



> “The physics of it is all wrong,” Marr says. That much seemed obvious to her from everything she knew about how things move through air. Reality is far messier, with particles much larger than 5 microns staying afloat and behaving like aerosols, depending on heat, humidity, and airspeed. “I’d see the wrong number over and over again, and I just found that disturbing,” she says. The error meant that the medical community had a distorted picture of how people might get sick.











						The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill
					

All pandemic long, scientists brawled over how the virus spreads. Droplets! No, aerosols! At the heart of the fight was a teensy error with huge consequences.




					www.wired.com
				




I find it pretty persuasive, especially given there seems to be so little outdoor transmission despite people nattering into each other's faces outside just like they do inside.  I've always found the large droplets thing a bit odd as the main driver of infection, and there seems to be some support for that.


> Li’s elegant simulations showed that when a person coughed or sneezed, the heavy droplets were too few and the targets—an open mouth, nostrils, eyes—too small to account for much infection. Li’s team had concluded, therefore, that the public health establishment had it backward and that most colds, flu, and other respiratory illnesses must spread through aerosols instead.



Anyway I'm sure someone with more knowledge than me could pick it apart and scientists don't seem to all fully agree but there's certainly airborne transmission going on and I really don't think the ventilation advice has been taken on board.  The vaccination centre I went to had really slick social distancing and sanitising procedures but no ventilation at all and lots of shops and places I've been in have seemed to be on the case with hygeine and distancing but haven't thought about ventilation.  If the researchers quoted in that piece are right then this could be a game changer in how some infectious diseases are mitigated, and if not it's still probably a good idea to tell people to open the windows.


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## elbows (May 21, 2021)

Without getting into the details, its a fair example of the sort of inadequacies and failings that put humanity deeper into the shit when it came to minimising this pandemic. Just the sort of thing loud gobby people like me fuelled their rants with over a considerable period of time. That particular one isnt one of the ones I've gone on most about, but there is no reason for that other than me having more to say about other failings of the orthodoxy/ But the subject has come up before and I think I've seen signs that plenty of people intuitively knew more about what the reality was likely to be on that front than some of the experts who really should have known better came out with in the past. This common wisdom manifests in various forms including skepticism about the governments ideas as to what really counts as a 'covid secure' business.

But having said that, even the likes of the UK government have 'fresh air' as part of their central public health message these days, but there are still limits as to how far they are willing to acknowledge the full picture on that stuff. Sadly thats not surprising, lots of the detail is inconvenient to them and potentially incompatible with how far they are willing to go with certain rules and recommendations.


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## elbows (May 21, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Whats this Yorkshire variant mumbling all about. Should we be worried about it? I'm in  Yorkshire.



Depends partly on the person and their relationship with worrying, whether such pandemic worries are useful to them or damaging.

For this variant we are mostly at early, nerdy detail stage. Its got rather a lot of mutations of potential concern, but what implications of that actually turn into in practice, if anything, remains to be seen.

Whats tended to happen so far is that the variants which actually end up making a difference to the picture in a way that everyone really needs to know about and keep in mind tend to eventually get highlighted by the government and talked about a lot including in their central press conference messages, and not just for a short period of time.  The media will also highlight such concerns but again I'd use whether the messages are sustained or not sustained as part of the guide.

In other words, if there is something really big to worry about then you'll hear all about it in a new and urgent way at some point, and I dont think we are at that point with that variant yet, and any prediction I could offer at this moment would be foolish. And it can take a while for that moment to arrive or for the threat to recede - we've heard a lot about the Indian variant and the government have had reasons to highlight that one and give people some clues about what some of the unhappier implications could be, but in other ways its still early days for that one too, still plenty of unknowns.

Also I dont think the way we are able to track a significant chunk of the evolution of this virus is something we've had so much of in the past. If I claim this is totally uncharted territory that would probably be going to far. But I'd certainly say we are still learning about how this picture of mutations and details of concerns translates into the crucial details in practice - whether they do or do not end up translating into the stuff that matters in each case, eg a new large wave, a strain becoming the new dominant strain etc.


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## existentialist (May 21, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Whats this Yorkshire variant mumbling all about. Should we be worried about it? I'm in  Yorkshire.


I think it's just that it's better than all t'other variants.


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## Artaxerxes (May 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I think it's just that it's better than all t'other variants.



Transmitted by a rogue whippet and makes you cough like a chimney, the only known cure is a little short bloke with some pinions.


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## miss direct (May 21, 2021)

Thanks elbows 

I am prone to anxiety but like to be informed especially as a balance to most of those around me who are ecstatic to be "back to normal."


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## David Clapson (May 21, 2021)

Heads up everyone! The Guardian today goes with the headline "Dominic Cummings evidence could settle Boris Johnson’s fate". The story is that Cummings will provide evidence to MPs on Wednesday. He'll 'spill the beans on key Covid decisions'. The article gives no details on what might happen to Johnson after that. It ends with a quote from a pro-Cummings MP:  "The public don’t want to hear it." So..bollocks. We might as well be in Putin's Russia.









						Dominic Cummings evidence could settle Boris Johnson’s fate
					

Analysis: Westminster eagerly awaits as former aide prepares to spill beans on key Covid decisions




					www.theguardian.com


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Thanks elbows
> 
> I am prone to anxiety but like to be informed especially as a balance to most of those around me who are ecstatic to be "back to normal."


In a way I envy the ecstatic people, but such a stance would not work for me at all at the moment. There will come a time when I can move somewhat in that direction, but that time is not now. It is an inevitable part of my cautious approach that I will be late rather than early in terms of when I get to claim that the really heavy and huge part of the pandemic is behind us.

My stance works for me because I do not need to be optimistic at this stage, without suitable substance to back it up. My stance is compatible with my broader attitude in life.

Take for example that Tim Spector video that I gave some thoughts on earlier. If he has got it wrong then it will be a disaster, both for his credibility and for everyone having to put up with more pandemic horror. When I am wrong, it will be wonderful. I will be so happy to be wrong, and to be able to move with the times and reality and make a significant adjustment to my sense of future risk. And any loss of my credibility will be moderated by the fact that somewhat hedging my bets and maintaining a high degree of uncertainty is baked into my stance. And also it wont really matter if my pandemic credibility takes a hit at that point because we'll have  reached a stage where the worst of the pandemic will be behind us and any help my words can provide to people will be somewhat obsolete anyway.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

Although there is one obvious risk with the cautious approach. If some of the current fears do not translate into bad things happening in a big way, then the optimists and certain agendas will use it to get everyone to listen less to those with a cautious view. Which will probably mean that if things go bad again at some later point, the shits will be able to avoid taking the necessary measures in a timely fashion. So my previous comment about the lack of implications from loss of credibility of those with with a cautious approach were not spot on, if the future is bumpy and messy with false dawns that are not actually sustained over a long period of time.

Meanwhile I am very happy with the expansion of sewage testing, I consider this to be a useful weapon in our surveillance arsenal. I'm delighted that its gone from a fringe topic early in the pandemic to something that this country has embraced big time.









						Covid-19: Sewage testing ramped up in England
					

Programme to test wastewater for the virus that causes Covid now covers two-thirds of England's population.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## platinumsage (May 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> I felt the need to revisit this since you said it less than a week ago and since then we have seen the authorities fiddling with the time between first and second doses. Perhaps you have some thoughts on the changes on that front or something I've drawn attention to in my last 2 posts. Perhaps not.



It's clear for Pfizer and AZ that 12 weeks+ between doses gives the best protection as measured 2 weeks after the second dose. The indications are that especially with Pfizer, protection might reduce slightly in older people from 10 weeks. Bringing the second dose forward is therefore a strategy indicated only when prevalence is increasing or otherwise of concern.

But given that you were against anything other than a 4-week period between doses from the start, and were ramping concerns about a 12-week gap leading to loads of nasty mutants arising, even to the extent that we shouldn't be vaccinating widely at all when prevalence was so high, then I don't expect you to agree with anything the JCVI or MHRA are recommending.


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## teuchter (May 22, 2021)

Would we ever be able to know whether or not increasing to 12 weeks has had an effect on number of mutants arising?


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## cupid_stunt (May 22, 2021)

Another drop in ages for booking a jab, it's now if...

you're aged 32 or over
you'll turn 32 before 1 July 2021


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## cupid_stunt (May 22, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Spain to allow travellers from UK and Japan in without Covid tests​A quick snap from Reuters here that Spain will allow travellers from Britain and Japan into the country without a negative PCR test for Covid-19 from 24 May, according to an order published this morning in the state gazette.
> Spain is on the UK’s “amber” list, so UK restrictions still require travellers returning to Britain from Spain to isolate upon arrival. Ministers have said that people should not travel to “amber” list countries for holidays.
> 
> What could possibly go wrong?



I do find that odd, Germany has gone totally in the other direction.



> Germany's Public Health Institute has designated the UK as a virus variant area of concern.
> 
> From Sunday 23 May, people travelling to Germany from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland may only enter the country if they are a German citizen or resident. Spouses and children under 18 of a German citizen or resident can also enter, as long as the household are travelling together. Those with an urgent humanitarian reason such as an immediate family bereavement are also able to enter.
> 
> *But anyone entering the country from the UK will have to quarantine for two weeks, even if they test negative for the coronavirus.*







__





						Loading…
					





					www.bbc.co.uk


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## Supine (May 22, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Would we ever be able to know whether or not increasing to 12 weeks has had an effect on number of mutants arising?



no chance. look how many people in the world are infected,a minor decrease in uk numbers would be insignificant.


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## thismoment (May 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I do find that odd, Germany has gone totally in the other direction.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This is incredibly bizarre that the UK are welcome in one country at the same that another country says no to travellers from the UK.
edit: I guess it’s the motivation of the countries. My guess is that Spain needs the tourism and Germany is keen to keep variants away


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## cupid_stunt (May 22, 2021)

From the Telegraph's live updates...



> Two doses from either the AstraZeneca or the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine are over 80 per cent effective in preventing infection from the Indian variant, a new Government study has found.
> 
> Data published by Public Health England also revealed that the two doses provides 87 per cent protection from the Kent variant discovered earlier this year.
> 
> The study's findings were presented to a meeting of the Government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag).



So, a bit less effective in preventing infection from the India variant compared to the Kent one, I suppose we'll have to wait and see how effective they are in preventing severe infection & deaths, but seems reasonably positive. 



> It comes after a genomic sequencing expert warned that Indian variant, known as B. 1.617.2, could be 50 per cent more transmissible than other variants in a "worst case scenario".
> 
> Dr Jeffrey Barrett, director of Covid-19 genomics at the Sanger Institute, told BBC's Today programme:  "I think it's  clearly growing, which anyone can see from the numbers as they are reported week by week.
> 
> "*If I had to put a guess today it would be 20 or 30 per cent rather than 50 per cent (more infectious than the Kent variant)*. But there is still uncertainty, 50 per cent might be a reasonable worst case scenario."











						Coronavirus latest news: Two doses of AstraZeneca vaccine provide over 80 per cent protection against Indian variant, PHE study finds
					

Two doses from either the AstraZeneca or the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine are over 80 per cent effective in preventing infection from the Indian variant, a new Government study has found.




					www.telegraph.co.uk


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## littlebabyjesus (May 22, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Would we ever be able to know whether or not increasing to 12 weeks has had an effect on number of mutants arising?


Probably not, but we can know if it led to a material difference. I would say that the evidence just from the UK is that it didn't lead to any significant mutations. We're now well into our programme, with 20 million 12-weekers, and all the indicators were positive until a variant from abroad came in. 

I read a couple of things warning about the dangers of vaccinating during a pandemic, but thus far I would suggest that the worst fears have not happened. Jury is still out on what the Indian variant will do to us, but if it doesn't wreak havoc, that will be down to having vaccinated during a pandemic.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> From the Telegraph's live updates...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Those numbers for the vaccines are still very positive to me. For az, Urban's main vaccine of choice, the figures are quite a bit higher than we were initially led to expect. Council jab's not so bad after all. 

Also very good news for India! And for the Covax scheme.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It's clear for Pfizer and AZ that 12 weeks+ between doses gives the best protection as measured 2 weeks after the second dose. The indications are that especially with Pfizer, protection might reduce slightly in older people from 10 weeks. Bringing the second dose forward is therefore a strategy indicated only when prevalence is increasing or otherwise of concern.
> 
> But given that you were against anything other than a 4-week period between doses from the start, and were ramping concerns about a 12-week gap leading to loads of nasty mutants arising, even to the extent that we shouldn't be vaccinating widely at all when prevalence was so high, then I don't expect you to agree with anything the JCVI or MHRA are recommending.



Thanks for reponding. I did have concerns about those things, they made me uneasy, but I didnt invent those concerns myself, some people I respect had them too and I was inclined to agree.

If every single concern I've had during this pandemic came true, then it would have been a worse pandemic than the one we've actually had. And I do understand the difficult balancing act that various advisers and authorities have to make judgements about. Sometimes there are no perfect choices and there are inherent theoretical risks, and I'd rather at least talk about them than proceed as if there is more certainty around these matters than is actually the case.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

I'd also like to expand on the mutation risk point by splitting it into two different things. Certainly I shared concerns about what the risk might be of full on escape mutants having opportunities to emerge and gain an obvious advantage during vaccination phases of the pandemic. I was pleased that the subject came up and that authorities had a chance to explain their feelings about this risk and the rationale of proceeding anyway.

But then I'd say there is also a milder version of that - the concerns about strains that the vaccines can still be expected to offer some protection against, but reduced protection. In this area it is important to study the current language used by government etc - if they simplify things down to a binary level where they can say things like 'the vaccine is still effective' or words to the effect of 'the vaccines arent useless against that strain', then something is lost from the picture. If efficacy is somewhat reduced then there is still a great purpose to vaccination, but it does have an impact on calculations about how much of a third wave we might expect. And those calculations are important right now. So I will continue to watch this area closely and point out when overly reassuring language is being deliberately used.

A completely different concern I had about the giddy vaccination phase during times of relatively high viral prevalence involved people getting infected during the process of vaccination, or as a result of changing their behaviours to soon or too much after receiving a dose. I believe I have probably pointed out before what was said about this in a SAGE meeting in March, but here are some relevant quotes again:





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				






> The vaccination programme is continuing at pace. CO-CIN analysis shows that of those people who have been hospitalised and tested positive for COVID-19 after being vaccinated, the majority of these developed symptoms before immunity would be expected to have developed, with few developing symptoms more than 2 weeks post-vaccination (with at least a first dose).





> The observation that a significant number of people developing symptoms within a few days of a first dose may suggest some behaviour change following vaccination (and before immunity has developed). It is important therefore that communications around vaccination reinforce the need for safe behaviours to be maintained. It may also be the case that some infections occur during the end-to-end process of vaccination (i.e. including journeys to and from vaccination). The low number of people in the study with symptom onset in the days prior to vaccination is expected, as most people with symptoms would not attend their vaccination appointments. Many of those included in the study would have been vaccinated at a time when community prevalence was very high.





> Although the COVID-19 vaccines in use in the UK are highly effective, no vaccine is 100% effective, and some people will be hospitalised with COVID-19 even after completing their full vaccination schedule (high confidence). It will be particularly important to monitor the prevalence of different variants present in this group by sequencing to understand any potential immune escape. This is underway by PHE.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It's clear for Pfizer and AZ that 12 weeks+ between doses gives the best protection as measured 2 weeks after the second dose. The indications are that especially with Pfizer, protection might reduce slightly in older people from 10 weeks. Bringing the second dose forward is therefore a strategy indicated only when prevalence is increasing or otherwise of concern.
> 
> But given that you were against anything other than a 4-week period between doses from the start, and were ramping concerns about a 12-week gap leading to loads of nasty mutants arising, even to the extent that we shouldn't be vaccinating widely at all when prevalence was so high, then I don't expect you to agree with anything the JCVI or MHRA are recommending.


I also think you are missing out the fact that my concerns were also based on the data, or lack of data, available at the time. I will not accept the view that it was wrong to consider what time periods were used in the original trials that provided most of the actual data available at the time. We have better real world data now which would enable me to form a somewhat different opinion.

it may be that experts in the field had prior knowledge which enabled them to believe that increasing the timing between doses might have a positive effect, even before such data was actually in place. I did not have that prior knowledge, and I dont recall hearing much about it at the time. The official reason given was they they weighed various things up and decided the potential upside, in terms of the vaccine rollout schedule, outweighed the risks. Thats fair enough, but was still worthy of discussion.


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## teuchter (May 22, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Probably not, but we can know if it led to a material difference. I would say that the evidence just from the UK is that it didn't lead to any significant mutations. We're now well into our programme, with 20 million 12-weekers, and all the indicators were positive until a variant from abroad came in.
> 
> I read a couple of things warning about the dangers of vaccinating during a pandemic, but thus far I would suggest that the worst fears have not happened. Jury is still out on what the Indian variant will do to us, but if it doesn't wreak havoc, that will be down to having vaccinated during a pandemic.


The thing is,that it could, say, lead to a 60% risk that a dangerous mutant will arise in a population of X million, and we have just been lucky (so far) that it hasn't happened.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

In terms of escape mutants I suppose its also possible that such mutants may also end up with disadvantages compared to other strains. And therefore we wouldnt expect to see them gain an overall advantage and thrive until we are in a situation where a very large proportion of people the virus will come up against have that sort of immunity, outweighing any other disadvantages the escape mutant variant has. But perhaps there is something missing from this picture that I havent considered.


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## platinumsage (May 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> I also think you are missing out the fact that my concerns were also based on the data, or lack of data, available at the time. I will not accept the view that it was wrong to consider what time periods were used in the original trials that provided most of the actual data available at the time. We have better real world data now which would enable me to form a somewhat different opinion.



I know exactly that's what yours and others’ concerns were based on, which I found very frustrating. There was literally no evidence from other vaccines that immunity would evaporate between 4 and 12 weeks. Insisting on going only by the arbitrary time period used in the trials was the risky move. Off-label use is so widespread in medicine I found it concerning there was such a furore coming from certain apparent experts, which if not motivated by political considerations seemed to be based on a certain tunnel vision and inability to see the full clinical picture.

I know there’s lots to fault in the UK’s response to the pandemic, but I struggle to muster any significant criticism where vaccines are concerned, perhaps because there aren’t the competing interests in government that are present with other aspects such as lockdowns, travel and comms.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

My concern was not that immunity would evaporate between 4 and 12 weeks, it was mostly about a lack of data at the time as to what effect a longer gap might have on the levels of protection finally obtained after both doses.

Mistakes I may have made in terms of rigidity is that I like evidence-based decisions, and so I found it unhelpful that we were using timing that didnt match the timing used in the trials which provided the early evidence and data. I thought that introduced uncertainty, and I didnt know if it was safe to make assumptions.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

In terms of 'competing interests' witin government, I'd mostly point to a different sort of balancing of priorities which is fair enough, and that the 12 weeks thing provides a good example of. They were trying to maximise protection/minimise death whilst taking account of actual supply availability, which involved some compromise and fiddling with certain parameters. I was concerned about whether they had made the right choices about that, and I was keen to draw attention to those sorts of compromises. Only the passsage of time offered certainty about that, and I was pleased to be wrong. I am also pleased when they maintain a flexible enough approach that they are prepared to change the rollout schedule again as circumstances change. I dont bank on them always managing to dodge unintended consequences, and I am bound to voice concerns when I have them, but I dont expect every single concern of mine to be fully realised.

I soppose my largest concern regarding vaccinations remains unchanged for now, the binary nature of many peopels thinking about it and the levels of protection on offer, and the potential effects on peoples behaviour that could result. ie all my waffle about the giddy nature of the rollout, the chances of a third wave, how much pandemic weight the vaccines can reasonably be expected to carry. Only the passage of time without a significant third wave can diminish those concerns for me, and I think our recent disagreement flared up because we have a different view about this stuff. I'd certainly much rather that it turns out that your stance on this works out fine, but in the meantime my concerns will remain.


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## platinumsage (May 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> My concern was not that immunity would evaporate between 4 and 12 weeks, it was mostly about a lack of data at the time as to what effect a longer gap might have on the levels of protection finally obtained after both doses.
> 
> Mistakes I may have made in terms of rigidity is that I like evidence-based decisions, and so I found it unhelpful that we were using timing that didnt match the timing used in the trials which provided the early evidence and data. I thought that introduced uncertainty, and I didnt know if it was safe to make assumptions.



There wasn’t trial data supporting administration to the over 80s either. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> There wasn’t trial data supporting administration to the over 80s either. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.



Maybe it is useful to try to take me down a peg or two at times, it should reduce the chances of me making pandemic mistakes. I'd rather it happened in the form of discussing detail though. For example I'd like to better understand what knowledge enabled you to be confident in dismissing the concerns about proceeding in a manner that didnt match the timing used in trials. I'm assuming there is some, and I've never fully understood what it consisted of. If there wasnt anything in particular that made such assumptions safer, and it was mostly a case of looking at the upside in terms of number of people jabbed then that is also understandable.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

If anyone is still interested in the detail of UK concerns, judgements and balancing act in regards the 12 week timing of the second dose and the situation at the start of this year, this is one of the papers I read at the time:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/954990/s1015-sars-cov-2-immunity-escape-variants.pdf
		


A few relevant summary quotes:



> For both vaccines approved for use in the UK, the virus neutralization titres and efficacy are higher after two doses than one. There is therefore a higher risk of virus replication under partial immunity after one dose than after two doses, so in the short-term, delaying the second dose would be expected to somewhat increase the probability of emergence of vaccine resistance - but probably from a low base.





> Whilst the neutralization titres seen after one dose of vaccine are lower than the median titre of convalescent plasma, they are within the lower range of responses seen following natural infection.





> In the current UK circumstances the unquantifiable but likely small probability of the delayed second dose generating a vaccine escape mutant must be weighed against the measurable benefits of doubling the speed with which the most vulnerable can be given vaccine-induced protection.





> It is a realistic possibility that over time immune escape variants will emerge, most likely driven by increasing population immunity following natural infection.



I dont like unquantifiable risks and so although I took on board what they said, I didnt have a means to judge whether their approach would actually stand the test of time.


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## bimble (May 22, 2021)

According to my parents, the Swiss are doing this: If you have had covid (meaning if you know you have had it) then you only get one jab of vaccine. If you haven't had the covid you get both. Is that likely to be driven just by shortage of supply?


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

bimble said:


> According to my parents, the Swiss are doing this: If you have had covid (meaning if you know you have had it) then you only get one jab of vaccine. If you haven't had the covid you get both. Is that likely to be driven just by shortage of supply?


Its another example of a balancing act where supply realities are part of the picture, but where they try to be clever using available evidence.

If there is evidence that levels of protection offered by natural infection and then one vaccine dose are in the same range as protection offered by two doses of vaccine, then it makes plenty of sense. And I think there have been signs of such evidence, though I havent studied the details in depth myself.

edit - oops typed infection when I meant to type vaccine! Reminds me of the time in a press conference when Johnson said the virus needed to be kept in a freezer.


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## Supine (May 22, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> There wasn’t trial data supporting administration to the over 80s either. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.



Luckily a lot of knowledge in the medical profession can also be a wonderful thing. Clinical trial data and pragmatism ftw.


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## cupid_stunt (May 22, 2021)

TBF, elbows, it wasn't just you expressing concerns about the 12 week gap, that was the majority view on here.

I was one of a few, in fact it may have just been me, that was agreeing with platinumsage, and getting shot down over it, because I trusted what my SiL had discussed with me.



> I am looking at the details of the balance of decisions, including long conversations with my SiL, who is a scientist, and has been discussing the delay between the 2 doses over recent weeks with colleagues, and based on what I am hearing, and the fucked-up situation the UK is in, on balance the 12 week gap is the right decision.



I think it was fair for people to have had those concerns, because of how the trials were done using the 3-4 week period, perhaps it the situation hadn't been so urgent, those early trials would have tested the longer period, but, that was then, and it all worked out OK, so I am not sure it's worth revisiting that point in time.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

Cheers.

I wonder if we will end up having any similar disagreements when it comes to the time where questions about how long immunity lasts will become a more pressing concern.

I expect that at the moment there is a mixture of historail knowledge and assumptions, combined with some bits of contemporary data that offer some clues and so some people who figure they know abot this stuff will have some ideas about this already. But in terms of a wider body of evidence, as JVT mentioned in the press confrence recently, we cannot fast-forward time and only time will really tell. Obviously this topic already comes up when we hear current stories about trialling booster jabs.

Perhaps some of the disagreemnts relate to a different form of binary thinking about vaccines than the one I usually draw attention to. Confidence is an important part of ensuring a successful vaccine rollout. Uncertainty could get in the way of that, making it tempting to take a simplified stance in order to diminish concerns that could impact confidence. I expect we will see some of this when it comes to vaccines effectiveness against new strains - the last thing the government want is for lots of people to become defeatist about the vaccines and not bother with doses because they think it doesnt work well enough to bother. So they may be very tempted to oversimplify the message and talk about vaccines still working. I am bound to be interested in the detail, and when I talk here I want to discuss uncertainty and changes to levels of effectiveness properly. There are some circumstances in which my view becomes more binary, in the most obviously indisputable areas or in the direst of circumstances, but I mostly trust peoples to be able to cope with the nuances.


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## cupid_stunt (May 22, 2021)

Not sure there's much scope for disagreements over how long immunity lasts, because both the virus and the vaccines are new, trying to second guess longevity would be pretty dumb, until real world data becomes available, everyone is saying 'only time will tell', including my SiL, even when I've pushed her on what would be her best guess/bet, she refuses to go down that road.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

Yeah thats my presumption but its only a presumption so I thought I would test it to see if there are other stances out there.

I suppose it somewhat ties into my inability to really understand where the views on confidence about not having a big third wave come from. If its not simply wishful thinking then I want to understand that evidence that underpins it better.


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## teuchter (May 22, 2021)

The other bit of the Spector video that seemed a bit controversial was the suggestion that lockdowns haven't actually had much of an effect.


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## cupid_stunt (May 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yeah thats my presumption but its only a presumption so I thought I would test it to see if there are other stances out there.
> 
> I suppose it somewhat ties into my inability to really understand where the views on confidence about not having a big third wave come from. If its not simply wishful thinking then I want to understand that evidence that underpins it better.



I've kept away from discussing a third wave, my gut feeling is we will get one, but I hope the vaccines will prevent it being a big one, so I remain cautiously optimistic, which probably has a lot to do with how hard this lockdown has hit my mental health, but I am prepared, thus only cautiously optimistic.


----------



## elbows (May 22, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The other bit of the Spector video that seemed a bit controversial was the suggestion that lockdowns haven't actually had much of an effect.


I've tried to resist going into detail about that because it will involve lots of tedious waffle from me including about changes to behaviour that came in the buildup to the lockdowns, including peples taking matters into their own hands and adjusting their own sense of risk before the government got round to acting. I also need to update my understanding of the various studies on this topic so far.

At least when it comes to platinumsage not being on the same page as me in regards some aspects of third wave risk, he made it clear enough that thats partly based on not agreeing with the vaccine effectiveness figures the modellers used. With Spector I dont really have a good sense of where his confidence on this comes from, except that he seems to treat the '70% of the population gaining immunity' as a magic threshold. There will be a threshold like that somewhere, but I dont think I'd be that specific or attach that much confidence to it at this point, nor do I understand the reasons for being so relaxed about the Indian variants potential.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

I had a very brief dig around to get a slightly more rounded view of his current stance.



I do have some sympathy with that position, but I think he may be going too far.

For example before this pandemic I did tend to spend quite a bit of my influenza forum talk time pointing out the excessive nature of some newspaper etc reporting on 'Australian flu' and suchlike, and how such concerns would not necessarily translate to the UK seasonal influenza picture at all. So it is not a good idea to ignore the media hype aspects of infectious diseases.

But given whats happened so far in this pandemic, and some of the largest mistakes that were made, it does seem rather stupid to me to become as confident as he is at this particular stage. His learning to live with Covid stance is also rather too perfectly in tune with certain interests and stances that I consider to be incomptaible with an appropriate public health response at this stage. If months go buy without problems then my position will gradually shift, and eventually we do need to make all sorts of adjustments to our sense of risk from this virus. But this soon after the last wave, with the current valid concerns about variants still being explored, and vaccination not yet complete? No, I cannot do that at the moment, far from it.


----------



## elbows (May 22, 2021)

Maybe he should remember to mention more often what he said about predictions in April.


----------



## elbows (May 22, 2021)

bimble said:


> According to my parents, the Swiss are doing this: If you have had covid (meaning if you know you have had it) then you only get one jab of vaccine. If you haven't had the covid you get both. Is that likely to be driven just by shortage of supply?



Oh and I just found this when looking at things Spector has said on twitter in the past.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 22, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The thing is,that it could, say, lead to a 60% risk that a dangerous mutant will arise in a population of X million, and we have just been lucky (so far) that it hasn't happened.


Sure. We have an order of magnitude idea, though, in that we now know that it is possible to vaccinate 20 million people at a 12 week interval in the teeth of a wave and not create a variant that ruins the process. We can calculate that a certain level of luck is extremely unlikely. And that's practical evidence that can inform, for instance, India's response to its current wave.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Maybe he should remember to mention more often what he said about predictions in April.



It's a question of what you want from your predictions, though. In this case, a new variant has been allowed to seed many times across the country by a particularly stupid and avoidable government decision wrt border control. So his prediction may well have been right without that specific event, an event that clearly hasn't (yet) happened in Israel.

It's one of the problems with the many models. How do you incorporate Boris Johnson into your covid models?


----------



## elbows (May 22, 2021)

What I want from predictions is for them to cover the likely range of things that will actually happen, and not be used as an excuse to act late.

I continued to travel backwards along his twitter timeline and was unsurprised to discover that his negative feelings about lockdowns are not new.

Just one example:



So I am partly at odds with him in some important areas. However, since I have been going on about the important role of hospital infections for a very long time, there are some things he highlights which are very much in tune with my thinking. And this stuff is a balancing act too - I would suggest that if we had a perfect grip on hospital infections including during dangerous periods, we could get away with fewer draconian measures in other areas. And I'd assume that hospital infection control is one of the areas where vaccines reducing transmission will be very important. Vaccines can be a gamechanger in that setting, but this also means I will be alert and worried about any indications that new variants start to hamper the vaccines ability to reduce transmission.


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## littlebabyjesus (May 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> What I want from predictions is for them to cover the likely range of things that will actually happen, and not be used as an excuse to act late.


How do you model Boris Johnson? Do you look at the list of countries he wants to make trade deal with and factor those in to your predictions? There's an argument that you should, that models of future UK covid waves aren't going to be much good without factoring in the idiot at the head of government. 

It's also ok imo, and I think more useful, to say 'well if X doesn't happen, I predict this, but if X does happen, I predict that', where 'X' may be anything, including something like politically motivated border control measures. 

And that's where Twitter can be the problem. It's not the best medium on which to express nuance and conditionality.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

I'm only using twitter to find examples of what his stance on lockdown and the future was like in the past.

The modelling I'm interested in is quite narrow and specific. It models things like expected cases, hospitalisations and deaths in different scenarios. So modelling Johnson doesnt really come into it, except to say that the modelling I tend to get to see is based on scenarios that are compatible with the governments plans for unlocking steps etc. Which is why SAGE looks at those model runs in particular and then we get to see the papers. And they arent supposed to be predictions of exactly what will actually happen, just indications of what we might expect from different scenarios and different ranges of parameters. I'm always going to moan at people who try to turn particular model runs into confident predictions about what will actually happen, although I suspect I've ended up in that territory myself on a few occasions despite my attempts not to go that far.

Anyway I found a lot more things that Spector said along these lines but I wont bore everyone with all the lockdown-related ones. Instead I'll just use one more of a different sort, to make a point I havent made for a while:



If you want actions based on science you have to look at things from more than one angle. I've always said that one of the reasons closing schools is a measure which ends up being taken at very bad stages of the pandemic is actually nothing to do with levels of infection and transmission in certain age groups and within the schools themselves. Rather its because if you close schools then it causes a lot of disruption to adults normal routines, contact mixing patterns and ability to attend workplaces. Stuff that needs to be disrupted big time to cope with bad waves.


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## 2hats (May 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> I do have some sympathy with that position, but I think he may be going too far.



It's a very parochial viewpoint. We can stop worrying when >=70-80% of all countries' populations have been fully vaccinated. In the meantime, in unvaccinated, partially vaccinated, convalescent and even vaccinated cohorts the virus has an opportunity to explore advantageous point mutations from a perspective of fitness and degrees of immune escape and improved transmission (which would of course nudge the aforementioned target percentage higher).


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## littlebabyjesus (May 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> The modelling I'm interested in is quite narrow and specific. It models things like expected cases, hospitalisations and deaths in different scenarios. So modelling Johnson doesnt really come into it, except to say that the modelling I tend to get to see is based on scenarios that are compatible with the governments plans for unlocking steps etc. Which is why SAGE looks at those model runs in particular and then we get to see the papers.


I have to disagree. Modelling Johnson has to come into it if you are to provide meaningful estimates of which scenarios are likely. The most recent example is the perfect case in point, I would have thought. So what would have happened if we hadn't imported a new variant in that way? Would the Kent variant have continued to decline? If the answer is yes, then you have to factor in Johnson to come up with any meaningful idea of when and where the next wave will come as it is conditional on decisions made by Johnson.

In reality, all predictions are necessarily conditional. It's just that some state their conditions while others don't.

Regarding Spector, generally his positions are much closer to those of someone like Anders Tegnell of Sweden than those of the likes of Neal Ferguson. Sweden gets much maligned because it's done worse than its Scandinavian neighbours, but it's had about half the number of excess deaths of the UK. It's not absurd to question the effectiveness of the lockdowns that have been imposed just as infection levels have peaked or even passed their peaks.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

2hats said:


> It's a very parochial viewpoint. We can stop worrying when >=70-80% of all countries' populations have been fully vaccinated. In the meantime, in unvaccinated, partially vaccinated, convalescent and even vaccinated cohorts the virus has an opportunity to explore advantageous point mutations from a perspective of fitness and degrees of immune escape and improved transmission (which would of course nudge the aforementioned target percentage higher).


It pains me that such attitudes still persist despite how many times such approaches blew up in their face earlier in the pandemic, including at the start when I couldnt quite believe how much scope I had to get a better grip of reality than some of the people who do it for a living.

It pisses me off. Some of his other comments about lockdowns in the past are along the lines of "we shouldnt do national lockdowns, we should go for options that are more 'efficient'". And vague sentiments about how we will be ok if everybody behaves sensibly. I find that stance hard to take, especially when there arent too many signs of these people having a good hard think about how sensible their own attitudes really are.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I have to disagree. Modelling Johnson has to come into it if you are to provide meaningful estimates of which scenarios are likely. The most recent example is the perfect case in point, I would have thought. So what would have happened if we hadn't imported a new variant in that way? Would the Kent variant have continued to decline? If the answer is yes, then you have to factor in Johnson to come up with any meaningful idea of when and where the next wave will come as it is conditional on decisions made by Johnson.
> 
> In reality, all predictions are necessarily conditional. It's just that some state their conditions while others don't.
> 
> Regarding Spector, generally his positions are much closer to those of someone like Anders Tegnell of Sweden than those of the likes of Neal Ferguson. Sweden gets much maligned because it's done worse than its Scandinavian neighbours, but it's had about half the number of excess deaths of the UK. It's not absurd to question the effectiveness of the lockdowns that have been imposed just as infection levels have peaked or even passed their peaks.



Do you actually read the modelling papers that come via SAGE? They model specific scenarios at specific moments in time, to match up with contexts that require SAGE offer the government advice at a particular moment. So the ones a few months ago were looking at the likely unlocking timetable, and what might happen after each step. They have to leave various unknowns out of the picture, or deal with them by creating a range of additional generalised scenarios, such as what a third wave might look like if vaccine effectiveness is only such and such a percentage.

Given how long it takes to find out what impact a particular variant of concern ends up having in practice, I dont see much point in also trying to guess which countries might seed which variants widely around the country in future based on guesses about what travel & border policies Johnson will follow at any given moment with any given country. At most there are a few scenarios that I would model to try to cover some of those bases, but the models are not supposed to be a crystal ball, they arent supposed to give one single answer as to out future plight.

For example none of the modelling made public in recent months allows me to make a confident, assured prediction about what will happen with a third wave. They offer strong clues about the expected impact of the unlocking steps, and some guide as to the magnitude of wave potential that still exists under a nrage of possible scenarios. I can use that to urge caution or to warn people about how much protection we can expect from a wave via vaccination, or to criticise aspects of the unlocking timetable. I wouldnt expect them to be able to enable solid predictions, to enable me to be able to say 'we will have a wave with x hospitalisations per day in the middle of July'. They can help me to avoid ruling such possibilities out, or inappropriately developing a sense that such possibilities are outlandish.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

Just a few small examples of things one of the Warwick modelling papers came out with that I found useful. Note the fact that they can offer ranges, depending on how various factors actually turn out:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/984533/S1229_Warwick_Road_Map_Scenarios_and_Sensitivity_Steps_3_and_4.pdf
		




> The size of the third wave is most sensitive to the speed of vaccine deployment, vaccine efficacy and the level of transmission (and hence population-level behaviour) in Step 4 (Fig. 17). These three elements could combine to generate highly optimistic scenarios with 6890 (CI 1540-23,800) hospital admissions over the third wave, or highly pessimistic scenarios with 186,000 (CI 88,200- 346,000) hospital admissions (Fig. 18).





> England remains extremely vulnerable to novel variants with either higher transmission or that can partially escape existing immunity (Fig. 24). A variant that is 30-40% more transmissible than B.1.1.7 is projected to generate more total hospital admissions than the first wave. Variants that escape immunity (either from infection or vaccination) could generate outbreaks larger than the second wave unless immunity confers a significant degree of protection against severe disease.



And there is heaps of info about what thigns they do and do not include in their considerations, and the areas of greatest uncertainty.

In terms of variants of concern, this is the first part o their explanation as to what assumptions they used for this particular exercise, including the seeding amount, geography and timing:



> We consider three different scenarios of a variant successfully invading the UK in early March 2021, but in very low numbers. To understand the role that NPIs play in controlling these novel variants, we consider a situation in which relaxation is halted at Step 2, one in which only Steps 2 and 3 occur (compare to Fig. 1), and one in which relaxation proceeds through Steps 2 to 4 (compare to Fig. 6). In general, the majority of the third wave of infection (from June 2021 onwards) in these scenarios is attributable to the novel variant. We assume that the VoC has been introduced to England at very low levels on 15th March 2021 (at one infection per NHS region), and it grows from this small seeding.



But I always feel like I've done a disservice to the papers as a whole when I try to zoom in on little chunks, there is so much detail in them!


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

Plus there is usually more than one model to choose from. So just to provide a final example, here is the new variant scenario that the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine described in their modelling which was considered by SAGE early in May at the same time as the Warwick  modelling I already mentioned:



> We also consider scenarios introducing variants of concern. We consider two scenarios related to the characteristics of a VOC: an escape mutant with 80% transmissibility relative to B.1.1.7 and 50% cross protection from prior infection with other SARS-CoV-2 variants, and an increased transmissibility variant with 150% transmissibility relative to B.1.1.7 and 100% cross protection from prior infection with other SARS-CoV-2 variants. Each of these variants is introduced into the model by seeding 5 daily infections with the third virus variant (which is modelled explicitly) from 1st January 2021 onwards. We base our assumptions around vaccine effectiveness for the escape mutant variant of concern scenario on limited evidence available related to vaccine effectiveness against the B.1.351 variant (Table 4). For the increased transmissibility scenario, we assume vaccine effectiveness values shown in Table 1.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/984546/S1230_LSHTM_Interim_roadmap_assessment_prior_to_steps_3_and_4.pdf
		


Using those parameters and all the other assumptions and details they fed into their models, that particular exercise came up with this, which I have probably posted before:



I dont know how close to reality either of those might turn out to be. But when I see that stuff, it certainly informs my opinion about whether it is wise for the likes of Tim Spector to say the things he has been saying recently.


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## cupid_stunt (May 22, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Regarding Spector, generally his positions are much closer to those of someone like Anders Tegnell of Sweden than those of the likes of Neal Ferguson. Sweden gets much maligned because it's done worse than its Scandinavian neighbours, *but it's had about half the number of excess deaths of the UK*. It's not absurd to question the effectiveness of the lockdowns that have been imposed just as infection levels have peaked or even passed their peaks.


Per million covid deaths reported, UK 1873 -v- Sweden 1415, and you think that's about half?

Their current average covid death rates are running at about 7 times that of the UK, adjusted for population.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

I have now seen enough of Spectors track record to conclude that I will not be listening to his opinion on variants of concern.

Not that I have a brilliant record either, since I spent a fair bit of the first pandemic year trying to tell people not to take pandemic mutation cliches in the media (eg 1918 stuff) too seriously, and  had no way of initially judging whether the UK government were hyping up the Kent variant risk when they first started going on about it and hiding behind it when having to u-turn over restrictions, Christmas etc.

All the same, I am concluding that Spector is a bit of a pillock.


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## glitch hiker (May 22, 2021)

"Triple mutant"

Britain is the bestest, precious...

To be honest, I've never thought the ZOE app has enough data to produce reliable predictions.


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> "Triple mutant"
> 
> Britain is the bestest, precious...
> 
> To be honest, I've never thought the ZOE app has enough data to produce reliable predictions.



I suppose I should point out that my views of him as a general pandemic commentator are seperate from my views on the ZOE data & analysis.

I have found the ZOE data useful at times. No single surveillance source is good enough to rely on in isolation, and certainly when it comes to looking at things on a per region basis, they didnt have enough active users in some places to do an adequate job (eg Northern Ireland). We have to understand the limitations of their data & methodology. I suppose the value for me in the ZOE data is that unlike the other sample based surveillance studies, the ZOE one had less lag, much quicker reporting and on a daily basis rather than weekly etc. Some detail on limitations was discussed recently because they have a proportion of vaccinated users that is not the same as the wider picture across the nation, theirs is much higher, so they recently had to take steps to try to take this into account when they do their estimates.


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## cupid_stunt (May 22, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Regarding Spector, generally his positions are much closer to those of someone like Anders Tegnell of Sweden than those of the likes of Neal Ferguson. Sweden gets much maligned because it's done worse than its Scandinavian neighbours, but it's had about half the number of excess deaths of the UK. *It's not absurd to question the effectiveness of the lockdowns that have been imposed just as infection levels have peaked or even passed their peaks.*



Coming back to the BiB, when did the UK impose lockdowns 'as infection levels have peaked or even passed their peaks'?  

Every time, new cases continued to increase after lockdowns were imposed, and only started to drop after restrictions kicked in.

FFS, much of the south-east went into lockdown [tier 4] on Boxing Day, where the Kent variant was causing a major issue, and having not spread much beyond that region, at that point  - with new cases at national levels being over 36k daily, even when that lockdown became a national one over a week later, cases continued to increase.

We hit a peak of almost 60k around 9th Jan., after the area driving the new wave had been in lockdown for over 2 weeks.

In November, we were on around 22k cases as we went into that 'mockdown', peaking 2 weeks later at 25k, before seeing a dip after we came out of that to fucking early, only to witness the shit storm that unfolded after.


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## glitch hiker (May 22, 2021)

I really don't fancy facing another winter like that. 

I found it horrible, and I wasn't sick, living in poverty, nor watching friends and family die.

I guess a repeat seems unlikely but cases are stubborn which tells me the virus will persist in the community for some time, evolving or adapting, hopefully getting weaker.


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## The39thStep (May 22, 2021)

I've only speed read it as I have no idea what he's on about with some of the delivery structure stuff but some interesting stuff from Cummings. Which if true asks questions not only of the Government but also to those who assumed Cummings was the architect of the herd immunity approach.









						Thread by @Dominic2306 on Thread Reader App
					

Thread by @Dominic2306: 1/ Covid… Summary evidence on lockdowns. For UK political pundits obsessed with spreading nonsense on Sweden/lockdowns, cf. SW econ did a bit WORSE than Denmark which locked down, AND far mo...…




					threadreaderapp.com


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> I've only speed read it as I have no idea what he's on about with some of the delivery structure stuff but some interesting stuff from Cummings. Which if true asks questions not only of the Government but also to those who assumed Cummings was the architect of the herd immunity approach.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Most of it is consistent with my views, perhaps with an exception here or there, especially some of the stuff on vaccines which I dont know enough about to judge properly.

And he is certainly correct about the SAGE 'minutes' not really being proper minutes that actually give a sense of how those meetings went.

When it comes to vital detail and response in pandemics, I have to be prepared to use sources like Cummings that are shits in other ways. Whether he is responsible for any failings at the start and whether his attitude only shifted after a certain point I cannot say. But many of his complaints about the way the establishment dealt with the pandemic over a longer period ring true to me. There are plenty of terrible attitudes and grotesque failures for him to choose from, that much is evident to me as an outsider since quite early on so an insider  should really be able to add weight to specifics.

Its especially painful when he goes on about how if SAGE etc were more open we'd have been able to spot some of the colossal errors they were making at crucial moments early on. Because even without that access to info they said enough publicly in March that we could see some of the terrible errors in play, including the timing where as I often point out, various people on the internet including people here were aware that '4 weeks behind Italy' was bollocks and was off by several weeks. I think near the start of the pandemic I was going on about what a fan of open, shared info on the internet etc I was, althogh I doubt that I realised quite how strongly the advantages of such things were to be demonstrated in March 2020 and beyond.


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## The39thStep (May 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Most of it is consistent with my views, perhaps with an exception here or there, especially some of the stuff on vaccines which I dont know enough about to judge properly.
> 
> And he is certainly correct about the SAGE 'minutes' not really being proper minutes that actually give a sense of how those meetings went.
> 
> ...


I was surprised by , but supportive of his advocacy of openness and scrutiny tbh


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## elbows (May 22, 2021)

I suppose I wasnt that surprised because although I havent spent too much of my life researching him, he is a somewhat complicated character and some of his views on data, processes and the establishment have plenty in common with mine. Its just we are very different in terms of what our politics and priorities are, and what we would try to do with such changes if they were brought about. 

His final tweet of that thread is a fair example of stuff that it was possible to say here at the time (assuming he is talking about the crucial week in March 2020 which I have mentioned many times as being the week where plan A went down in flames). He knows much more than me about how explicitly herd immunity was baked into plan A, although its been possible to deduce a fair chunk of that during and since those times.


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## muscovyduck (May 22, 2021)

What does SW1 mean in this context? Is it the postcode?


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## Orang Utan (May 22, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> What does SW1 mean in this context? Is it the postcode?


I was confused by that but that’s Victoria/Belgravia not Whitehall isn’t it?


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## elbows (May 23, 2021)

I'm not a Londoner but if you want to approach that question the long way round and vomit your brains out at the same time then reading the about us page of the PR company that was unsubtle enough to name itself the SW1 Group may offer some hideous clues.





__





						ABOUT | The SW1 Group | London
					

Groundbreaking new strategic advisory group for the world's most ambitious people and organisations; transforming and protecting brands and reputations based on cutting-edge insight and analysis.




					www.thesw1group.com


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## Smangus (May 23, 2021)

I take it to meane the establishment, civil service etc.


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## elbows (May 23, 2021)

The media were actually useful in one or two respects on the week he mentions there. I recall that I was preoccupied with the things said in press conferences etc that week which indicated their timing was all fucked up, and although I likely criticised their approach in various ways, I didnt pick up on it fully till the Friday(? need to check) when Vallance explicitly mentioned herd immunity to the press or to a committee, and the likes of Nick Triggle from the BBC wrote stupid things about how the message was we should carry on with our lives and how the virus was already with us so we'd catch it sooner or later.  But some of the media in the press conferences earlier that week did react to what was being said with questions that left little doubt that the governments plan A was proving to be a difficult sell and looked a bit doomed. So the media did end up helping me to think that the writing was on the wall for plan A by the end of that week, even without knowing that behind the scenes the government were also being told that modelling etc indicated their plan would generate totally unsustainable numbers in hospital etc. By the end of the weekend we'd heard more about that modelling side of things too and it was clear plan A was dead, but then it took a further week+ for Johnson to properly initiate the necessary replacement for that plan.

But yes some of the useful indicators some sections the media provided during that period were of the 'look how these media herd managers will try to sell the public whatever shit plan the government throws our way' and it was quite interesting to see how they had to quickly change the trajectory of their propaganda when a very different plan emerged. Some even tried to do this without acknowledging that a huge u-turn had happened. And in terms of then holding the government to account over the herd immunity aspect of the original plan in a more sustained way, Cummings criticism is certainly right when it comes to some types of journalists. The very narrow game and useless worldview of political commentators was on ugly and stark display when performed in front of a pandemic background, although even some of them managed to ask the right question at the right time at least once. Some others who didnt specialise in living inside a crap Westminster bubble probably did better.


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## elbows (May 23, 2021)

I was also at least partially fooled by their original approach. There was a certain rationale to 'pushing down on the peak' as they described it for days before Vallance described it explicitly as seeking herd immunity. I could understand that rationale and was more concerned about whether they were going to push down at the right time, or hard enough. Coupled with me probably not knowing what sort of numbers of hospitalisations and deaths would be involved in seeing plan A all the way through, stretching the pandemic out over a much longer period rather than trying to prevent anyone from ultimately getting infected, I dont think I went nuts about it till the limits of their ambition were made clearer that Friday. And then much of my stance that remains to this day would have been formed the following Monday by the Imperial College report that gave me my first proper look at modelled UK numbers.

With a proper open system we should have been able to get get that picture and reject the original plan much earlier, probably weeks before that crucial March week. Not that the European Centre For Disease Control was much better in touch with reality until the same sort of time in March, just to give one example of orthodox establishment failures elsewhere that also had to be quickly abandoned.

Anyway the exercise NIMBUS thing he mentioned is of interest to me. For all manner of reasons including the eyewatering numbers he mentions, and how the schools stay open bit rings true because one of the really striking aspects when rewatching the press conferences from the week of 9th March 2020 is how hard they were trying to set the scene for keeping schools open. Thats one of the things that ruined the credibility of their plan and how it went down with the press, because by then other countries close to home were announcing school closures.

I dont seem to be able to post the tweet Im on about without the previous one also showing up, sorry about that.


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## Puddy_Tat (May 23, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> What does SW1 mean in this context? Is it the postcode?





Orang Utan said:


> I was confused by that but that’s Victoria/Belgravia not Whitehall isn’t it?



Whitehall, Downing Street, Buckingham Palace are all in SW1

The post office did not use anything as simple as the river to decide what counted as SW London...


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## elbows (May 23, 2021)

Spot the spin:









						Covid: Pfizer and AstraZeneca jabs work against Indian variant - study
					

They are effective against symptomatic disease but protection is low after only one dose, a study says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## bimble (May 23, 2021)

What does it mean when it says for instance '60% effective'?
I still don't understand it. Effective against what - getting infected or getting really ill or passing it on or all of these?

All the headlines say 'Yay the jabs work here we come Freedom Day' but tbh this looks like a really low number to me. 

"The analysis, carried out between 5 April and 16 May, found the Pfizer vaccine was 88% effective against symptomatic disease from the India variant two weeks after a second dose, compared with 93% effectiveness against the Kent strain.
*For its part, the AstraZeneca jab was 60% effective*_,_ compared with 66% against the Kent variant over the same period.'









						Pfizer and AstraZeneca ‘highly effective’ against India Covid variant
					

A Public Health England study has revealed the vaccines can be up to 88% effective after a second dose




					www.theguardian.com


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## Supine (May 23, 2021)

Here we go. Gov fucked up again.


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## glitch hiker (May 23, 2021)

Government covering up data about spread of variant in schools. This from a concerning thread:


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## Buddy Bradley (May 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> What does it mean when it says for instance '60% effective'?
> I still don't understand it. Effective against what - getting infected or getting really ill or passing it on or all of these?


It means "this is all really complicated science stuff that we can't be bothered to explain properly, so here's a simple number you dumb fucks can read and then forget about".


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## Artaxerxes (May 23, 2021)

Absolute bullshit going around today.


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## two sheds (May 23, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Absolute bullshit going around today.



Gupta talked to Johnson didn't she? So it was certainly discussed.









						Tory billionaire bankrolled ‘herd immunity’ scientist who advised PM against lockdown
					

Exclusive: Johnson ruled out lockdown 24 hours after meeting with Sunetra Gupta – resulting in ‘1.3m extra COVID infections’




					www.opendemocracy.net


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## MrSki (May 23, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Absolute bullshit going around today.



She also said said that Cheltenham was safe & masks not needed. Definitely the government's scientific mouthpiece.


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Gupta talked to Johnson didn't she? So it was certainly discussed.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That was later and to do with trying to avoid the 2nd ( and as it turned out third) lockdowns.

All this recent denial about herd immunity is to do with what Cummings has said, and is to do with the original government plan A which died somewhere around March 13th-15th 2020.

The government are desperate to deny it and have got Patel to issue the same denial today, Coronavirus: Patel denies No 10 pursued herd immunity policy

However this is a fucking stupid game and we dont even need Cummings to demonstrate that the original approach involved letting people catch it. We had more than enough indicators at the time. A little bit later I will fish out the most obvious evidence of this that was public at the time.


----------



## MrSki (May 23, 2021)

'Take it on the chin' from Johnson's own mouth.


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

MrSki said:


> 'Take it on the chin' from Johnson's own mouth.



That was actually a distorted snippet because there are clips going round of that which cut what he said off at a point which changes the meaning of what he was saying.


----------



## 2hats (May 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> What does it mean when it says for instance '60% effective'?
> I still don't understand it. Effective against what - getting infected or getting really ill or passing it on or all of these?


60% effective with respect to symptomatic infection. Efficacy at reducing any degree of transmission would be lower than that (symptomatic plus asymptomatic infection leads to degrees of transmission). Efficacy to severe illness (hospitalisation, death) would be higher.

As per PHE, AZD1222 _might_ achieve an efficacy closer to that reported for BNT162b2 when measured over a longer period (antibody studies would suggest). Perhaps something around 12 weeks post second dose ie 6 months after the first dose if we are sticking to the original, trial ascertained, 'optimal' 12 week dosing interval (this would perhaps not be entirely unsurprising as one moves up the age cohorts anyway, considering the inevitability of immunosenescence).








						Vaccines highly effective against B.1.617.2 variant after 2 doses
					

New study by PHE shows for the first time that 2 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against the B.1.617.2 variant first identified in India.




					www.gov.uk
				



Preprint.

As ever, longitudinal studies are needed and it won't be clearer how these vaccines mediate immunity in the long term for a year or two (do antibody levels drop so infection and transmission increase, perhaps necessitating further interventions, whilst cell mediated immunity is maintained, still protecting from serious disease?).


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

The main public evidence I would present on herd immunity all relate to the crucial week of March 9th 2020. There will be much greater info that isnt public yet, but this public info and the reporting of it at the time is still enough.

Exhibits a and b involve Patrick Vallance and things he said in press conferences and in interviews that week. I'm not going to go back through it all in detail now but will instead rely on this sort of story from the Guardian:









						Coronavirus: science chief defends UK plan from criticism
					

Patrick Vallance says aim is to broaden peak of epidemic as Jeremy Hunt raises concerns




					www.theguardian.com
				






> “Our aim is to try and reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; also, because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission, at the same time we protect those who are most vulnerable to it. Those are the key things we need to do.”





> But Vallance sought to underline that it is the epidemiology that is guiding the decision not to impose more draconian restrictions on the public’s day-to-day lives immediately.
> 
> “If you suppress something very, very hard, when you release those measures it bounces back and it bounces back at the wrong time,” he said. The government is concerned that if not enough people catch the virus now, it will re-emerge in the winter, when the NHS is already overstretched.



If I had more time I would go back and extract the exact press conference quotes that mention wanting to avoid a second wave in the winter, stuff that lines up with that last part of the above Guardian quote.

My other exhibit is something I have shouted about many times on this thread, including on the day it was published (and later removed). This was briefly part of a BBC article on Friday 13th March 2020.


----------



## teuchter (May 23, 2021)

2hats said:


> 60% effective with respect to symptomatic infection.



Does this effectively mean, 60% of people (with relevant vaccine) exposed to the virus will not experience a symptomatic infection?

Or does it mean 60% of people generally going about their business (maybe or maybe not coming into contact with the virus) will not experience a symptomatic infection?


----------



## two sheds (May 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Or does it mean 60% of people generally going about their business (maybe or maybe not coming into contact with the virus) will not experience a symptomatic infection?


That wouldn't make any sense would it? The 60% would vary depending on how many people around you were infected.


----------



## prunus (May 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Does this effectively mean, 60% of people (with relevant vaccine) exposed to the virus will not experience a symptomatic infection?
> 
> Or does it mean 60% of people generally going about their business (maybe or maybe not coming into contact with the virus) will not experience a symptomatic infection?



It means that 60% of people who would have developed a symptomatic infection due to their exposure (or exposures) to the virus had they not been vaccinated will not develop one because of the effect of the vaccine.  NB it’s not per exposure, it’s total risk over the timeframe of the whole study - ie for every 10 unvaccinated people who develop a symptomatic infection at any time over a period, only 4 vaccinated people will over the same period (assuming the populations are properly randomly selected).  The period in question is I believe still increasing (ie I don’t think we’ve seen evidence of immunity drop off in the study populations yet - anyone know?).


----------



## l'Otters (May 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> I also think you are missing out the fact that my concerns were also based on the data, or lack of data, available at the time.





elbows said:


> it may be that experts in the field had prior knowledge which enabled them to believe that increasing the timing between doses might have a positive effect, even before such data was actually in place.





elbows said:


> The official reason given was they they weighed various things up and decided the potential upside, in terms of the vaccine rollout schedule, outweighed the risks.


This is the thing, they didn’t share the information they based that change to the vaccine dose intervals on. I was very concerned about it at the time. It typifies the approach to communicating with the people, they don’t give us the relevant data, the info to be able to make an informed choice just isn’t there. We’re told what to do.


----------



## bimble (May 23, 2021)

prunus said:


> for every 10 unvaccinated people who develop a symptomatic infection at any time over a period, only 4 vaccinated people will over the same period


It's probably my lack of patriotism but that (4 out of 10 vaccinated people are still susceptible to symptomatic infection) does not seem to me very astounding, and does not seem to justify headlines like this one which are all over the place today.




Look at them all the papers have gone with the same idea.








						Newspaper headlines: Jab beats variant and BBC review to be widened
					

New data showing vaccines are effective against the Indian variant is among Sunday's front-page stories.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

Yeah thats why I said spot the spin when I linked to the BBC version of the story late last night. The sugarcoated headlines for this sort of thing never match the underlying numbers as far as I'm concerned.

Similar to when I complain about cheering that 'the vaccine is still effective' when the detail matters, ie how effective.


----------



## teuchter (May 23, 2021)

prunus said:


> It means that 60% of people who would have developed a symptomatic infection due to their exposure (or exposures) to the virus had they not been vaccinated will not develop one because of the effect of the vaccine.  NB it’s not per exposure, it’s total risk over the timeframe of the whole study - ie for every 10 unvaccinated people who develop a symptomatic infection at any time over a period, only 4 vaccinated people will over the same period (assuming the populations are properly randomly selected).  The period in question is I believe still increasing (ie I don’t think we’ve seen evidence of immunity drop off in the study populations yet - anyone know?).


Ok, I see, thanks.

I guess the number cannot really take into account change in behaviour/risk attitude of vaccinated vs unvaccinated people. Which could mean that in reality it might actually be a bit better.


----------



## teuchter (May 23, 2021)

two sheds said:


> That wouldn't make any sense would it? The 60% would vary depending on how many people around you were infected.


Yes, that was going to be my next (now redundant) question.


----------



## teuchter (May 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> It's probably my lack of patriotism but that (4 out of 10 vaccinated people are still susceptible to symptomatic infection) does not seem to me very astounding, and does not seem to justify headlines like this one which are all over the place today.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It seems to me that the more important numbers are the ones for severe symptoms/hospitalisation.


----------



## bimble (May 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It seems to me that the more important numbers are the ones for severe symptoms/hospitalisation.


True. I don't know what's known now about that, apart from the old hopefully misremembered / outdated news about a third (something like that ?) of the people in hospital in Bolton having been vaccinated.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> It's probably my lack of patriotism but that (4 out of 10 vaccinated people are still susceptible to symptomatic infection) does not seem to me very astounding, and does not seem to justify headlines like this one which are all over the place today.
> 
> View attachment 269845
> 
> ...



The papers have, even by their standards, not covered themselves in glory this last year.

They are solely responsible for the hype around "we're going to have a normal Christmas" that loomed around in the autumn and was only gradually removed a week or two before


----------



## teuchter (May 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> True. I don't know what's known now about that, apart from the old hopefully misremembered / outdated news about a third (something like that ?) of the people in hospital in Bolton having been vaccinated.


As far as I understand, the vaccines are thought to still be pretty highly effective in terms of preventing hospitalisations too. I think that's misremembered/misreported info.


----------



## bimble (May 23, 2021)

Maybe the “astoundingly effective” (at 60%) headlines are meant to encourage people to get jabbed, they read like adverts.


----------



## 2hats (May 23, 2021)

prunus said:


> It means that 60% of people who would have developed a symptomatic infection due to their exposure (or exposures) to the virus had they not been vaccinated will not develop one because of the effect of the vaccine.  NB it’s not per exposure, it’s total risk over the timeframe of the whole study


This. It's an estimate for the sub-population in the study. It is not an individual's level of risk.


prunus said:


> The period in question is I believe still increasing (ie I don’t think we’ve seen evidence of immunity drop off in the study populations yet - anyone know?).


Not seen any documented in any studies yet (note: there is at least one study identifying that there could be an intradose drop in neutralising titres for some BNT162b2 cohorts). _Probably_ won't manifest until around a year or so into studies, if it does.


----------



## 2hats (May 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It seems to me that the more important numbers are the ones for severe symptoms/hospitalisation.


In the short term, but not necessarily the longer term.


----------



## bimble (May 23, 2021)

Are there any ideas as to what causes a person to be amongst 60% or the 40% ? Or is that just not known yet. Or is it a missing the point entirely question .


----------



## LDC (May 23, 2021)

2hats said:


> In the short term, but not necessarily the longer term.



It's also entirely possible that _even_ if nobody died or got seriously ill that some parts of the NHS could still be over-whelmed and maybe grind to a halt through dealing with all the 'not that seriously unwell' people needing assessment, advice, and maybe some treatment and care.


----------



## LDC (May 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> Are there any ideas as to what causes a person to be amongst 60% or the 40% ? Or is that just not known yet. Or is it a missing the point entirely question .





2hats said:


> This. It's an estimate for the sub-population in the study. It is not an individual's level of risk.


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

At least we now have a better sense of why they've made a bi deal of bringing forwards second doses.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Ok, I see, thanks.
> 
> I guess the number cannot really take into account change in behaviour/risk attitude of vaccinated vs unvaccinated people. Which could mean that in reality it might actually be a bit better.



I am due to have my 2nd AZ vacc on Tuesday (although now only 9 weeks apart from my first).
My daughter's secondary have made the sensible decision to keep the kids wearing masks in all common areas (although a few teaching staff have also never followed the open windows policy in their classrooms).
The school I work in (almost literally next door) has not - and on top of that, on Friday - have also decided to move the tills around in the canteen to get the kids through more quickly but which means we are now even closer to the kids.

We asked from the start that they put up plastic barriers and they did on some of the tills but not all of them (and not mine) because they said they were going to put _better_ ones up instead (the ones they did put up _are_ ridiculous/pointless) but have never done it.
The member of the SLT who was overseeing the change on Friday did voice a vague 'Hmm.. social distancing though?' thought, but they've done it anyway. 

It's also made no difference to the speed because our cook is now manning the food counters on our side and is being totally over the fucking top about insisting on them all _queueing_ when the first place they arrive  is the baguettes, where they scan through a huge choice of available options, instead of moving directly on to the hot food points if they DON'T want a baguette, which has been deliberately reduced from the start, so as NOT to give them so much choice/time spent deciding. 

I am sat by an open door (a couple of meters behind me) but they now pass directly by me, along with the queue from the till one of my workmates is on (one of two anti-vaxxers I work with  ) via a very narrow gap.

I expect this sort of stuff is going on very widely - how employers choose to interpret and/or ignore exisiting _rules_, with the changing advice - let alone individuals, cos I imagine there's a huge signal (even more so to the younger, unvaccinated cohorts?) that it's all ok now.


----------



## MrSki (May 23, 2021)

So how much was Cummings actually involved in the policy of herd immunity?


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

I cant say but I can say that it is my very strong opinion that its the approach they would have tried regardless of whether Cummings was within a million miles of government at the time.

Because there was a tedious and misguided rationale behind it which was quite predictable and it was also predictable that all manner of experts in establishment roles would go along with it up to a certain point at least. The deep unease had likely very much set in by the time they were trying to explain and sell the concept publicly but the fact they still went ahead with such attempts at that point speaks volumes. As well as it going down badly in public, it was the somewhat improved modelling that was eventually done which showed really huge numbers for hospitalisations and deaths that killed that plan.


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

Basically I'd say the attempt to go along with the idea was down to a combination of:

Lack of UK capacity in various key regards.
Some epidemiological concepts being used inappropriately in lieu of vaccines being available.
Ideology regarding restrictions etc.
A can't do mentality in terms of many things that needed to be done to pursue a different approach well from the start.
The nature of pre-existing pandemic plans.
Some idiotic misunderstandings about the scale of the hospital and death problem that the approach would create.

It was UK business as usual. The unusual thing was that it blew up in their face so early that it got ditched rapidly (although still not rapidly enough).


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 23, 2021)

It should be an appalling embarrassment (at the least) that they're still trying to pretend that wasn't the case, eh - but while they're still stalling the start of an enquiry, I guess they're just figuring no one will give a fuck by the time it's widely known and acknowledged that that is exactly the route they pursued to begin with. Shameless, all the way through.


----------



## Sunray (May 23, 2021)

The Gov has got in another order of 60m Pfizer for boosters in the Autumn just in case it's needed.  I think we have now ordered a total of 500m vaccines.

I see there has been a modest bump in the numbers but nothing yet on people going to hospital.  I suppose it takes a week before that increase in numbers to translate into anything significant. According to the Guardian data page, it's mainly in the 0-19 age group.


----------



## BillRiver (May 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It seems to me that the more important numbers are the ones for severe symptoms/hospitalisation.



Plus those who develop Long Covid.


----------



## Supine (May 23, 2021)

Shakes head


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

I dont know as that was down to confusion, it was more likely that initial version of plan B also fell well short of what was needed and what eventually ended up being done.

It goes without saying that the 2nd tweet/graphs peak death rate and total deaths in both of the scenarios was terrible.


----------



## MrSki (May 23, 2021)

Supine said:


> Shakes head



I saw this tweet earlier but not the actual interview. Still very believable & if true a good piisstake.


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

So far what he has tweeted about that crucial u-turn week and plans A and B is consistent with the impression we could glean at the time or shortly afterwards.


----------



## MJ100 (May 23, 2021)

I would take anything that comes out of the mouth of Cummings with an enormous pinch of salt unless he backs it up with verifiable evidence as to what was said or done (SAGE minutes, confidential emails or the like). We know he has a history of making shit up (remember when he edited his blog to make it sound like he had been a Cassandra-type figure crying out about the dangers of Coronaviruses?) and that he also has a big axe to grind with the man who got rid of him. That doesn't mean what he says isn't true, but it needs to be backed up by actual facts rather than just his word against that of someone else. If you're looking for ways to criticise the government over the early days of the response, there are plenty of other sources out there (not least their own press conferences, SAGE notes, what Vallance said, etc) that are likely to be more reliable. Not sure Cummings will bring anything new to the party unless he has access to data which he is allowed to share but has not yet been released by anyone else. Are those graphs in his Twitter stuff new, or are they just slides that were available at the time?


----------



## Supine (May 23, 2021)

Big summary. I’m getting concerned.


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

Supine said:


> Big summary. I’m getting concerned.




Yep, good summary, consisting mostly of stuff thats come up here and certainly the stuff thats influenced my opinion the most during this delicate phase.

I'm glad they drew attention to the way the latest vaccine effectiveness estimates against that strain have been presented by media etc as great news but that actually there is plenty of bad news, or at least news with big implications, in the figures.

I wasnt very confident about chances of avoiding a substantial third wave even without that variant, so I'm certainly not confident about our prospects now that this variant is on the march towards dominance. More than one piece of genuinely good news will have to emerge in the coming weeks to start to change my mind about that.


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

On a somewhat personal note the fire brigade were involved with the local surge testing here, and at least the turnaround time for test result was reasonably impressive - they picked tests up from our house yesterday morning and I got the negative result message by around 2am.


----------



## BigMoaner (May 23, 2021)

#scared


----------



## elbows (May 23, 2021)

I'd be less concerned about the size of next wave if they showed more signs of being prepared to delay and roll-back some of the unlocking while they are trying to get vaccination levels up to the sort of figures that can really start to diminish the theoretical wave size. Unlike some previous pandemic stages where people found it quite easy to lose sight of what good stuff we were going to buy ourselves with the time gained via restrictions, it should be more obvious this time what could be achieved by buying a bit more time. Better levels of protection from vaccines. The potential to reach tipping points beyond which the virus will struggle more to really explode in a huge way.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 24, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Plus those who develop Long Covid.



Yep, and it's estimated that over 1 million in the UK are suffering from long covid.

Two of my friends are, one hasn't been able to return to work since she got it in January, and the other is only coping with p/t hours since he got it in December.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'd be less concerned about the size of next wave if they showed more signs of being prepared to delay and roll-back some of the unlocking while they are trying to get vaccination levels up to the sort of figures that can really start to diminish the theoretical wave size. Unlike some previous pandemic stages where people found it quite easy to lose sight of what good stuff we were going to buy ourselves with the time gained via restrictions, it should be more obvious this time what could be achieved by buying a bit more time. Better levels of protection from vaccines. The potential to reach tipping points beyond which the virus will struggle more to really explode in a huge way.



Everyone I've spoken to around here wants us to stick to the roadmap, because Worthing is now on under 1 case per 100k and they are not seeing the bigger picture, I seem to be a lone voice in expressing the view that the June stage, which is a big one, at the very least should be held off for a few more weeks, to see how things play out and to get more jabs into people, despite explaining why, it falls on deaf ears.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 24, 2021)

Yesterday's reported daily jabs, was a record for 2nd doses at 556,951 plus 1st doses at 205,410, total 762,361. It's taken a few weeks to bounce back from those low daily figures in April, and looks like we will be back up to the Feb/Mar levels soon. 

That's in second place, behind the all time record on the 20th March of 844,285, with a plan to hit 1m a day over the coming weeks, it'll be interesting to see if that record is actually broken.


----------



## platinumsage (May 24, 2021)

I wouldn't be surprised if they have a plan to try and offer all adults a jab by 21st June. Of course that won't give all those adults protection by that date, but it gives them a handy rejoinder when queried on the lockdown-lifting date.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 24, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I wouldn't be surprised if they have a plan to try and offer all adults a jab by 21st June. Of course that won't give all those adults protection by that date, but it gives them a handy rejoinder when queried on the lockdown-lifting date.



There was a report of a leaked NHS document predicting all over 18s would get their first jab by the end of June, this was dismissed by the government as just speculation, but I guess they would say that in case that target is missed, whereas if it's hit, it gives them a good news story, beating their own deadline by a month.


----------



## bimble (May 24, 2021)

Supine said:


> Big summary. I’m getting concerned.



Well. That’s not at all how the papers put things yesterday is it.


----------



## 2hats (May 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm glad they drew attention to the way the latest vaccine effectiveness *estimates* against that strain have been presented by media etc as great news but that actually there is plenty of bad news, or at least news with big implications, in the figures.


'Estimates' should be in bold and underlined.

The PHE vaccine effectiveness analysis could easily be an underestimate (overcount of B.1.617.2 numbers since using S gene proxy, and/or significant numbers of convalescents across the control and experimental groups) or an overestimate (disproportionally more convalescents in the experimental group, say if heavy with early vaccinees such as healthcare workers, emergency responders, care home staff and residents) relative to a broader immunonaive population.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (May 24, 2021)

I just got my letter through inviting me to book the jab. I've got my first this Friday, and my second on 19 August. My housemate who's the same age (we're both 34) had an identical NHS letter, which is presumably also an invite, but from conversations I've had with him, I don't think he'll bother.


----------



## elbows (May 24, 2021)

2hats said:


> 'Estimates' should be in bold and underlined.
> 
> The PHE vaccine effectiveness analysis could easily be an underestimate (overcount of B.1.617.2 numbers since using S gene proxy, and/or significant numbers of convalescents across the control and experimental groups) or an overestimate (disproportionally more convalescents in the experimental group, say if heavy with early vaccinees such as healthcare workers, emergency responders, care home staff and residents) relative to a broader immunonaive population.



Yes and however loudly or quietly I enphasise that, the media will still largely ignore the ranges shown via confidence intervals, and the contents of columns labelled confidence in things like the table in the tweet bimble posted above.


----------



## elbows (May 24, 2021)

I lack the means to tell whether this will be any good, and its a disgrace that its taken this long to trial, but its something I suppose:









						Covid: Parts of England to trial self-isolation support
					

People in overcrowded homes will be offered alternative accommodation in a bid to improve compliance.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 24, 2021)

Too little, too late, as usual.


----------



## muscovyduck (May 24, 2021)

I'm wary of the fact they appear to still be saying no extra financial support in the form of cash. Lets face it at least half of those "bespoke plans" are going to be useless


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 24, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> I'm wary of the fact they appear to still be saying no extra financial support in the form of cash. Lets face it at least half of those "bespoke plans" are going to be useless



It says increased social care support but of course shielding is now ended so.


----------



## elbows (May 24, 2021)

Disappointing but maybe not that surprising and I would assume that multiple factors are behind this, perhaps including fear of infection whilst attending the vaccine centre?









						Covid: Half of appointments missed at Glasgow mass vaccine hub
					

The BBC has learned a "considerable" number of no shows were recorded this weekend at Glasgow's Hydro.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Also this story is missing the context of how many such appointments resulted in no-shows previously.


----------



## elbows (May 24, 2021)

There is no shortage of stuff in SAGE documents that demonstrate that the current government approach to the situation regarding variants is not following the scientific advice properly. We've talked about some of it already but when reading some of the more nerdy papers a few things popped up which I want to quote. They may have been mentioned before via media reports, not sure.



> ● SPI-M Roadmap modelling suggests new variants with increased transmissibility are capable of generating a wave of infections bigger than previous waves.
> ● Incontrovertible evidence that B.1.617.2 is more transmissible may come too late.
> ● It is possible the outbreak in India is partly the result of higher transmission of B.1.617.2.
> ● In the face of uncertain evidence the risk of over-reacting seems small compared to the potential benefit of delaying a third wave until more people are vaccinated.



Thats from a May 11th paper that was published on May 21st. https://assets.publishing.service.g...ies_Pandemic_and_Epidemiological_Research.pdf


----------



## elbows (May 24, 2021)

Meanwhile in Wales:



> People "should be worried" about a resurgence in Covid, with an increase in cases of the Indian variant of concern, the Welsh government's chief medical officer says.
> 
> Dr Frank Atherton said the increase to "around 57" cases was "something we need to watch very carefully".
> 
> ...











						Covid Indian variant: Public should be worried, says Wales chief medic
					

Cases of the so-called Indian variant are rising, the chief medical officer for Wales has warned.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (May 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> There is no shortage of stuff in SAGE documents that demonstrate that the current government approach to the situation regarding variants is not following the scientific advice properly. We've talked about some of it already but when reading some of the more nerdy papers a few things popped up which I want to quote. They may have been mentioned before via media reports, not sure.
> 
> 
> 
> Thats from a May 11th paper that was published on May 21st. https://assets.publishing.service.g...ies_Pandemic_and_Epidemiological_Research.pdf



That final bullet point is the key one really.  Just extending the current restrictions till the end of July initially seems the obvious thing to do and would bring the timetable in line with the vaccination program a bit more.


----------



## muscovyduck (May 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> Disappointing but maybe not that surprising and I would assume that multiple factors are behind this, perhaps including fear of infection whilst attending the vaccine centre?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The bottom of the article questions whether people are actually getting their invite letters. Anecdotally today I've been seeing a lot of Scottish 30-32 years old getting pissed off because they've not had their invite yet but under 30s are getting invites. Might be a connection?


----------



## elbows (May 24, 2021)




----------



## elbows (May 24, 2021)

I havent looked into Halpern yet. And as usual for this series of Cummings tweets, he is referring to the crucial week starting 9th March 2020 that I have spoken about so much.

edit - this article expands in these things:









						Dominic Cummings doubles down on claim government planned ‘herd immunity’ response to Covid
					

No 10 and ministers insist it was never official policy




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> I lack the means to tell whether this will be any good, and its a disgrace that its taken this long to trial, but its something I suppose:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I properly shouted at the car radio this morning when this came up. Now? You're only fucking doing this _now?   _


----------



## glitch hiker (May 24, 2021)

£12 million doesn't seem like a lot.

No doubt it will go to private IAPT/CBT types. The sort that have massive waiting lists and offer a small fixed number of sessions. YMMV

I can't help thinking this is a tacit admission they know this crisis isn't going away anytime soon/third wave


----------



## elbows (May 24, 2021)

From the hospital infections side of the pandemic comes:









						Up to 8,700 patients died after catching Covid in English hospitals
					

Exclusive: official NHS data reveals 32,307 people contracted the virus while in hospital since March 2020




					www.theguardian.com
				




This wont be the full story of that side of things, but is more easy to measure than the complex picture of feedback loop between cases who caught it in hospital and broader community infections.


----------



## existentialist (May 24, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> £12 million doesn't seem like a lot.
> 
> No doubt it will go to private IAPT/CBT types. The sort that have massive waiting lists and offer a small fixed number of sessions. YMMV
> 
> I can't help thinking this is a tacit admission they know this crisis isn't going away anytime soon/third wave


Classic "when all you've got is a [nasty cheap B&Q] hammer, everything looks like a nail". They could easily recruit armies of therapists, but they won't, because "not invented here". It's just got to be the IAPT thing, and only that.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Not sure Cummings will bring anything new to the party unless he has access to data which he is allowed to share but has not yet been released by anyone else. Are those graphs in his Twitter stuff new, or are they just slides that were available at the time?



The shapes shown in the graphs were used in some press conference material at the time, but they tended to strip off all the value and date labels, and also tended to present them as showing the wave in terms of cases rather than deaths.

I see in one of Cummings tweets the same shaped curve on the graph as the 'do nothing' one at the start of material that Vallance attempted to present in a press conference of March 12th 2020. Unfortunately this attempt ended up being the origins of the phrase we got used to hearing later, 'next slide please', because this was the press conference where his remote control failed to advance the slideshow, leaving everyone gazing at that unmitigated curve without getting to see the next one. The next one would likely be the same as the other one on the Cummings graph, but again without the sheer scale of things being obvious because the scale was missing from the graphs deemed suitable for public consumption at that time.

The following video was compiled by someone on youtube who is actually an anti-lockdown, pro great Barrington declaration fuckwit who is not happy that the original herd immunity approach was abandoned. So a position I despise, but in this case they've been unintentionally useful by editing together all the herd immunity talk from Vallance on that week, the last week where that plan was still in effect. The graph from his failed slideshow that I just described is visible in the first segment of this video.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

The current public comms feels rather half-arsed even compared to their efforts during the u-turn botchathon days.









						Covid: Eight Indian variant areas should avoid indoor gatherings
					

People are also asked not to go into or out of places hardest hit by the so-called Indian variant.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The government has advised people not to travel into and out of areas hardest hit by the Indian variant of Covid-19 unless necessary, it has emerged.
> 
> Health officials said it was spreading fastest in Bolton, Blackburn, Kirklees, Bedford, Burnley, Leicester, Hounslow and North Tyneside.





> On Friday, the government issued guidance on its website where it recommended those living in the listed areas:
> 
> Meet outside rather than inside where possible
> Keep two metres apart from people who you do not live with (unless you have formed a support bubble with them), this includes friends and family you don't live with
> Avoid travelling in and out of affected areas unless it is essential, for example for work (if you cannot work from home) or education





> The guidance appears to have been updated on Friday, without any government announcement, to include the eight affected areas - although it was first given earlier in the month for Blackburn and Bolton.
> 
> A televised Downing Street briefing on Wednesday focused heavily on the Indian variant - but did not outline any specific rules or guidance for those areas.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

By the way it is possible to get some idea of certain other areas of concern, including those where they really arent sure the scale of the new variant problem but have their suspicions, by looking at the list of locations using surge testing which is updated on the following page quite often:









						[Withdrawn] Surge testing for new coronavirus (COVID-19) variants
					

How ‘surge testing’ and genomic sequencing are being used in locations in England where coronavirus (COVID-19) variants have been identified.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## 5t3IIa (May 25, 2021)

Woo Kirklees 🙄


----------



## teqniq (May 25, 2021)

And all the while they kept allowing flights from India. This is completely criminal.


----------



## Cloo (May 25, 2021)

I see we're back at the 'government optimistically giving half arsed advice when it should be actually taking action in an area' stage again.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

And they are getting Zahawi to deal with this in parliament.

And Labour run the usual risk of taking a stance (withdraw guidance) that I consider inappropriate from an epidemiological point of view. Not that this is necessarily something I can go completely nuts about given how little the governments half-arsed attempt is likely to achieve.

From the BBC live updates page at 12:44: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57237893


> Ashworth: Withdraw this guidance now​Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth asks if Zahawi understands how insulting it is to have "local lockdown's by stealth, by the backdoor" and the health secretary "doesn't bother to tell us"?
> He asks why local authority leaders were not consulted and why MPs were not informed.
> "What does it mean for our constituents?" he says and asks what it means for families in those areas who have booked trips or made plans to visit other areas.
> "Withdraw this guidance now," he declares, and calls for a meeting to be convened to form a plan.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

As expected the laissez-faire pandemic doom sausage is back big time. The vaccination era means the government and the wider establishment have reverted to their standard approach, deadly business as usual. This was always on the cards at some point, its part of what 'learning to live with covid' really means to these shits, but I think they're really pushing their luck by doing it this soon. There is still a chance they will get away with it, but I wouldnt bet on it.



> Downing Street says the government has been upfront about the "extra risk" posed by the so-called Indian variant after local authorities said they were not consulted about new guidance for eight hotspot areas in England.
> 
> The prime minister's official spokesman says ministers want to move away from "top-down edicts" as lockdown restrictions ease, saying it was for individuals to make a judgment on how to behave.
> 
> The new guidance was "not statutory", the spokesman says.



Thats from the 13:20 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57237893


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

Meanwhile in Bolton:



> A hospital in Bolton is taking "urgent actions" to manage demand as it says yesterday was one of its busiest days ever in its emergency department.
> 
> Andy Ennis, chief operating officer of Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, says they have 41 inpatients with Covid, including eight in critical care.





> "Going into the bank holiday weekend and half-term, which is always a busy time for the NHS, we anticipate this pressure continuing," he says.
> 
> "People are presenting with a range of problems and staff are working very hard to ensure they receive all the care they need as quickly and efficiently as possible.
> 
> "However, we are also now seeing more people requiring hospital treatment from the effects of Covid-19."



Thats from the BBC live updates page again, 13:52 entry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57237893


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

Plus in regards the doom sausage, herd immunity is part of the rationale again.

Unlike the original plan that died mid March 2020, this time they probably think they can do it. Because modelling implied that the next wave, whatever its size, would be the last significant one and that this particular sharp end of the pandemic would be over by later this year.

Unlike the original plan that aimed to achieve herd immunity via letting a huge proportion of the population get infected, this time its achieved by all the immunity from infection over three waves, plus the immunity acquired via vaccination. Then the idea is we'll have gone past the threshold that is necessary to stop future waves being big enough to overwhelm healthcare nationwide.

Obviously whats missing from this picture is the curveballs that new variants can throw at the picture either now or at any point in future. And a tolerance towards plenty more death this year is required.


----------



## Cloo (May 25, 2021)

With everyone having made lots of nice plans for summer,  I presume what will happen is that anyone who gets a covid 19 app or other notification to self isolate but really wants to go to Dave's belated 40th is going to go 'Oh sod it', maybe get a lateral flow test to feel like they're being careful and go anyway.


----------



## The39thStep (May 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> Meanwhile in Bolton:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There’s a live press conference in Manchester re this : LIVE: Andy Burnham holds latest Greater Manchester Covid press conference


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

Oh and what I left out of my previous post was the medium and long term, even without variants of particular concern.

Because even when 'the pandemic is over' the virus is expected to still be with us. And we'd expect that even if the virus only evolves slowly, drifting in its genomic detail, there will be years when that and other factors mean the level of population immunity dips below the magic threshold. But waves that happen as a result of that will be spoken of as being epidemics.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> There’s a live press conference in Manchester re this : LIVE: Andy Burnham holds latest Greater Manchester Covid press conference



Sounds like it was unimpressive stuff, involving mild criticism of the governments botched comms, lots of reassurances and talk of how the hospital situation was nothing like previous waves, and local governments own version of the very 'business as usual' approach that I was drawing attention to earlier.

The most sensible detail I heard was the tory council leader suggesting that allowing flexibility with the school mask rules so that schools in the worst affected areas could carry on having their pupils wear masks would be a good idea.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

In terms of the governments current approach and how they think it will be able to cope with a third wave: As well as hoping the wave isnt too huge, they've also been given indications by their 'experts' that there will be a large amount of variation in numbers between different locations. And this will encourage them to think they have plenty of wiggle room in that if it isnt the entire countries NHS that is at risk of being overloaded, they can shuffle poeple around hospitals across the country.


----------



## brogdale (May 25, 2021)




----------



## bimble (May 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> In terms of the governments curent approach and how they think it will be able to cope with a third wave: As well as hoping the wave isnt too huge, they've also been given indications by their 'experts' that there will be a large amount of variation in numbers between different locations. And this will encourage them to think they have plenty of wiggle room in that if it isnt the entire countries NHS that is at risk of being overloaded, they can shuffle poeple around hospitals across the country.


Why do the experts think it will have more regional variation in numbers now than previous renditions?


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

I've said before I think we undersell vaccines.  

The CDC has said recently they are unlikely to ever achieve the mythical 'heard immunity' for COVID in the USA due to vaccine hesitancy.



Except we are witnessing the effect of 60% of the USA getting a single dose of any vaccine in possibly the most vaccine resistant non-mask wearing country in the world.
Yet cases are going down, in a weirdly similar fashion to the UK.  Why that blip in April?  

I was worried about the Indian variant but I've seen little in the numbers, especially given we have opened up more, I was expecting lot more people to test positive now.  I do think the weather has helped.  Brrr.  But it's tentatively leading me to conclude that a vaccine has beaten a virus.  Again.  15 routine vaccinations keeping us all from getting sick from some pretty horrible diseases.  This will be number 16.  

Looking at Hackney's vaccinations figures show how deeply ingrained vaccination hesitancy is in ethnic communities in this country.  


Though nobody has died of COVID in Hackney in the last 7 days. Hackney Central | Daily summary


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> Why do the experts think it will have more regional variation in numbers now than previous renditions?



I can probably fish out more detail if required, but for now I'll just quote a simple summary point from the modelling Warwick Uni did earlier in May:



> We expect to observe considerable heterogeneity between regions and local areas in the scale of the third wave, reflecting past exposure and vaccine uptake.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/984533/S1229_Warwick_Road_Map_Scenarios_and_Sensitivity_Steps_3_and_4.pdf


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I've said before I think we undersell vaccines.
> 
> The CDC has said recently they are unlikely to ever achieve the mythical 'heard immunity' for COVID in the USA due to vaccine hesitancy.



I havent undersold them. They are expected to be a game changer. I only go on about the pesky details because some people expect too much, and too quickly, and a game changer does not mean a game ender.

I am guided by the modelling, which take the form this sort of modelling always takes - waves and the size and length of them boil down to a relatively simple model where the number of susceptible individuals is key, and other stuff like the speed of spread and the levels of human activity & mixing patterns also affects the results.



> I was worried about the Indian variant but I've seen little in the numbers, especially given we have opened up more, I was expecting lot more people to test positive now.  I do think the weather has helped.  Brrr.  But it's tentatively leading me to conclude that a vaccine has beaten a virus.  Again.  15 routine vaccinations keeping us all from getting sick from some pretty horrible diseases.  This will be number 16.



One of the most basic lessons in this pandemic so far is that it takes time for the virus to bounce back to levels where it has a bad effect on hospitals etc. Remember last summer, things did not bounce back straight away, we had months of concerns about local hotspots before things went dramatically wrong across the country. Therefore it is not possible to declare that the acute phase of the pandemic is over in any country until low number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths have been seen for a prolonged period of time.

There are too many variables for either me or the modellers to give an exact prediction of third wave size and timing. There are clues that imply a notable third wave will happen. There are unknowns about exact extent of seasonal effects, so there is also a fairly broad range of timing possibilities. And the modelling does think that at some point this year a combination of infections and vaccinations will bring an end to the initial pandemic phase. And things will move onto a situation where varying levels of population immunity over time, and the evolution of the virus, lead to epidemics in future years. ie even when the pandemic ends, the virus still has disruptive potential in the long term, but not constantly.

Herd immunity is not a mythical concept, it is at the heart of what makes a pandemic a pandemic in the first place, how that phase ends, and how epidemics caused by the same virus are expected to be an ongoing but intermittent feature. There could still be surprises that change the somewhat simplified picture we are given on this stuff, but we are a long way from being able to see those or understand them.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

And to briefly recap last summers timing: Leicester was causing concern by June, national resurgence just started to show up in the basic data by mid August, and the alarm bells were really ringing by early September, via signs such as the test system capacity being heavily stretched by demand.

If we get through the current phase without things exploding before the school summer holidays start, that should help.


----------



## glitch hiker (May 25, 2021)

Pandemic could be declared over in the UK, says vaccine expert
					

New data should confirm the news very soon




					www.walesonline.co.uk
				




Seems optimistic to me.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Pandemic could be declared over in the UK, says vaccine expert
> 
> 
> New data should confirm the news very soon
> ...



The headline is misleading but the detail within is really just 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating' so isnt really wrong. Its part of what I've been trying to describe in recent posts, part of the reason why I've started going on about herd immunity again, and part of the uncertainty about the size of a third wave. A third wave of infections that is not accompanied by a sizeable third wave of hospital admissions is exactly the sort of moment we'd expect authorities to declare victory of some form or another, although as usual there is plenty of tedious detail that could still make that inappropriate or premature.



> Professor Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group at the University of Oxford, suggested the pandemic could be declared over if people are kept out of hospital by vaccines.
> 
> Referring to Public Health England (PHE) data published at the weekend, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that more time was needed to see how the vaccines work in the longer-term as people build immunity.



And to be clear, the pandemic being over wont mean that people never have to think about this virus again, but it will be different to the acute horror we've faced since early 2020. Although moments that still resemble that are still expected via future epidemics.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

And as for the timing of when such a declaration can sensibly be made, I refer to last summer again. We had months where hospital admission figures did not cause alarm, but we had to wait a good while to see if that held true as infections spread across the age groups. On that occasion it was clearly not true that we were out of the woods, no matter how loudly the anti lockdown idiots shouted and distorted. And I will have to be extra careful about that stuff this time because although vaccines are brilliant, they will also tempt more people to prematurely think its all over.


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

Sadly 'Herd immunity means different things to politicians and the rest of the world.   An overused term becoming somewhat meaningless.
The level of immunity suggested we attained with vaccines, some say at least 75% some say even more fully vaccinated or they don't work as expected.  But the numbers are in, we are way way off this 75% number.

The USA has 39% and the UK has 44% fully vaccinated.  Yet we have smashed the numbers, from thousands dying daily and hospitals and ICU rammed to pretty much nobody dying and hospitals going back to normal in *4 months*. If I said that this time last year that the UK would halt the pandemic in the UK with only 40% fully vaccinated, I'd have been shot down. Also why I think we undersell vaccines.

This will definitely feed into how the rest of the world vaccinates.   Just need to make more vaccines and get them to everyone.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

Which bit of 'its too early to claim we've seen the back of nasty level of hospital admissions' are you struggling to understand? Relaxations havent been eased for long enough to say that yet, remember last summers timetable!

Authorities all over the globe will rush to deduce good news as soon as they can find it. That time has not arrived in terms of using the UK as an example.


----------



## Teaboy (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Sadly 'Herd immunity means different things to politicians and the rest of the world.   An overused term becoming somewhat meaningless.
> The level of immunity suggested we attained with vaccines, some say at least 75% some say even more fully vaccinated or they don't work as expected.  But the numbers are in, we are way way off this 75% number.
> 
> The USA has 39% and the UK has 44% fully vaccinated.  Yet we have smashed the numbers, from thousands dying daily and hospitals and ICU rammed to pretty much nobody dying and hospitals going back to normal in *4 months*. If I said that this time last year that the UK would halt the pandemic in the UK with only 40% fully vaccinated, I'd have been shot down. Also why I think we undersell vaccines.
> ...



I could have sworn there was a lockdown as well or something.


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> Which bit of 'its too early to claim we've seen the back of nasty level of hospital admissions' are you struggling to understand? Relaxations havent been eased for long enough to say that yet, remember last summers timetable!
> 
> Authorities all over the globe will rush to deduce good news as soon as they can find it. That time has not arrived in terms of using the UK as an example.


Numbers are there for all to see. Unless there is a variant that escapes the vaccines we are good.  
Last summer we weren't vaccinated and that was politicians being dumb as fuck, which is the current level of intelligence of our inbred ruling elite.
This summer we are, feeding back into my point on vaccinations.


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I could have sworn there was a lockdown as well or something.


People have been out and about since the 12th April.  Nothing happened, why?


----------



## bimble (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Numbers are there for all to see. Unless there is a variant that escapes the vaccines we are good.
> Last summer we weren't vaccinated and that was politicians being dumb as fuck, which is the current level of intelligence of our inbred ruling elite.
> This summer we are, feeding back into my point on vaccinations.


Did you get your opinion from looking at Sundays newspaper headlines?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (May 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> Did you get your opinion from looking at Sundays newspaper headlines?


The numbers are very encouraging re the vaccine tbf. Just about ten times more infection in the under 60s than the over 60s in Bolton atm, for instance, a pattern repeated in the other current hotspots. It was a massive, avoidable blunder to allow the Indian variant in last month, but the vaccines are working against it, and half a million more vaccines are being done a day.

Other future variants, who knows, but against the current nasty, things look promising.


----------



## Teaboy (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> People have been out and about since the 12th April.  Nothing happened, why?



Its a week to the day that mixing indoors has been allowed.  One week.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

Since the modelling tended to imply a July wave (wih uncertainty about seasonal impact and size of wave, and also whether vaccine rollout pace changes) there is no way anybody should expect me to become more optimistic or start declaring things to be over until sometime in July or later.

Here is another way people can think about the current picture and contrast it with local hotspots last summer:

The concerns about Leicesters case numbers last summer caused them to go into lockdown at the end of June. But if you look at their hospital admissions for that period and later, as the restrictions dragged on, you wont see any huge and shocking figures. Rather that stuff started getting real bad again at around the same time as the rest of the country, months later.

That was in a pre-vaccine era so if people see similar patterns again, please wait before reaching conclusions that vaccines have done all that we are asking of them in terms of hospitalisations.

Especially since this time around we have Bolton as the obvious local example, and there has been something of a rise in their hospital figures of late. 

The other big clue is that even though the government have decided to go for a relaxed, minimal approach, they still felt the need to warn everyone that the India variant posed a risk to the future plan, warned people to be careful in other ways, and felt the need to fiddle with the vaccine rolllout.


----------



## teuchter (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Yet we have smashed the numbers, from thousands dying daily and hospitals and ICU rammed to pretty much nobody dying and hospitals going back to normal in *4 months*.


Remember how we did this last year too, without any vaccines? And then do you remember what happened next?


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Just about ten times more infection in the under 60s than the over 60s in Bolton atm, for instance, a pattern repeated in the other current hotspots.



Analysis of that sort of data is certainly one of the things authorities will do in order to find good or bad news.

We need to be slightly careful with it because even in the pre-vaccine era the common trend when a wave was arriving was for cases to rise in the younger age groups before rising notably in order age groups. And its a shame that the age breakdown on the main dashboard is split in a fairly crude way, and we know that plenty of hospital admissions have happened in the past in the middle aged group. The heatmap provides a better breakdown, but I dont tend to post those here.

Here is the Bolton graph from the main dashboard. Note the initially similar pattern last summer, but that as time goes on this time around we are seeing a bigger gap than that seen in the pre-vaccine era of waves. So yes there is something here, but I am cautious about how far to stretch it at right this moment. The government will be keen to daw further atention to this as soon as they can, which might not be far away.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

Also although I am rusty about some of the small details of herd immunity and its expected impact, I dont think seeing great big case rate leaps in the younger age groups like the one shown in the recent part of that Bolton graphs is something they'd expect to see if overall levels of population immunity had hit the desired level.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Remember how we did this last year too, without any vaccines? And then do you remember what happened next?



My build in capacity to be boring is really amplified by the failure of some to learn even the most basic things from really quite recent history. Good thing I am going to be a bit busy with other stuff tomorrow, a much needed break! Apart from the Cummings stuff which I will have to squeeze in somewhere even if I cant watch it live, does anybody know what time that is scheduled for?


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> Did you get your opinion from looking at Sundays newspaper headlines?



No. 

From looking at the numbers on a daily basis, watching and reading solid scientific papers and information e.g. from the ONS which publish stuff that is a little out of date but fairly interesting. They do national covid sampling to give some evidence on COVID prevalence in the UK.  Here is the latest for your perusal Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics

And yes it's an opinion, but it's hard to argue that the numbers are low and we and the USA aren't even remotely close to the 75% fully vaccinated.
The USA is an interesting case too, they didn't lock down like here.  Some red states were pretty much open for business the whole time.  Yet they are experiencing the same drop off in numbers as we are, why is this?

Texas isn't getting to 50% vaccinated probably ever.


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Its a week to the day that mixing indoors has been allowed.  One week.


9 days? But do you really think that the 17th of May was some sort of grand opening?  
You are a fool if you think this.  From the 12th of April, this very cautions house suddenly couldn't take it any longer and had parties every weekend for the whole month.  I can guarantee this was replicated across the UK as it was fucking freezing and being outdoors at 12 am was abandoned.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

Even 'eat out to help out' didnt result in an instant surge that showed up in data straight away. It takes time for cases to double and double etc etc until levels have wider implications for healthcare.


----------



## bimble (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> No.
> 
> From looking at the numbers on a daily basis, watching and reading solid scientific papers and information e.g. from the ONS which publish stuff that is a little out of date but fairly interesting. They do national covid sampling to give some evidence on COVID prevalence in the UK.  Here is the latest for your perusal Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics
> 
> ...



Are you saying that the low numbers in the US are because of vaccination?
I haven't got an answer as to why there are low numbers but I'm just not following your logic.
Things like this suggest to me that vaccination is not the end of the story:








						The Seychelles is the most vaccinated nation on Earth. But Covid has surged
					

The Seychelles is causing concern for world health experts after a rise of Covid-19 cases among fully vaccinated individuals.




					www.cnbc.com
				



Covid: Why has Seychelles seen rising case numbers?


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

The complex realities of behavour and mixing, as a result of gradual easing of restrictions over multiple steps, is somewhat visible in google mobility data. There is a fair amount of variation by area too.









						COVID-19 Community Mobility Report
					

See how your community is moving around differently due to COVID-19



					www.google.com


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> Are you saying that the low numbers in the US are because of vaccination?
> I haven't got an answer as to why there are low numbers but I'm just not following your logic.
> Things like this suggest to me that vaccination is not the end of the story: Covid: Why has Seychelles seen rising case numbers?


FYI: The Seychelles used the Sinopharm vaccine? I'm feeling it's not the best.  Not approved in any western country.  Unlikely to ever be approved.  WHO experts voice "very low confidence" in some Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine data

I'm saying we undervalue vaccines. We should be more keenly aware of their power to halt a viral pandemic in its tracks.  Even modest numbers of vaccinations appear to have dulled COVID's blade.

Saying we need 75% of everyone to have the full course for it to be nationally effective isn't what has happened.  I was fully expecting numbers to explode post the 12th but nothing.
Expressed in percentages things look bad. For instance, Hackney has had a shocking 300% rise in hospital admissions for COVID in the last 7 days.  From 1 to 4.

The USA have one dose vaccinated an incredible 163,907,827 people in a few months (many millions every day) many of those were the most vulnerable and likely to get very sick and die.
This appears to have been enough barring a variant that can escape the immune system.


----------



## MrSki (May 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> does anybody know what time that is scheduled for?


I think it is a 9.30am kick-off.


----------



## bimble (May 25, 2021)

Sunray i genuinely want you to be right. I am a bit of a pessimist by nature when it comes to 'the world' and should bear that in mind when i think about this. It's the news from India through April that has spooked the hell out of me, the speed and ferocity of it ripping through families, i didn't recognise these stories from our first or second waves, pre vaccine.


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

Here's a thought I had the other day. While we wring out hands with worry about vaccine escape due to mutations of this virus.  
Could a variant arise that is highly contagious yet harmless with no symptoms yet providing lifelong immunity to COVID-19?   
As some vaccines are based on live viruses, this has to be a possibility, no?
Could this actually be the reason we experienced the downward trends last summer?


----------



## bimble (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Here's a thought I had the other day. While we wring out hands with worry about vaccine escape due to mutations of this virus.
> Could a variant arise that is highly contagious yet harmless with no symptoms yet providing lifelong immunity to COVID-19?
> As some vaccines are based on live viruses, this has to be a possibility, no?
> Could this actually be the reason we experienced the downward trends last summer?


I think your sunny version of the virus would have been noticed, if it was so popular that it conferred herd immunity by stealth. We'd be exporting it for £££ in a post-brexit celebration of our world beatingness, instead of the kent variant which was less excellent.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> *The USA have one dose vaccinated an incredible 163,907,827 million people *in a few months (many millions every day) many of those were the most vulnerable and likely to get very sick and die.
> This appears to have been enough barring a variant that can escape the immune system.


163,907,827 million people would be incredible, considering their population is under 333 million.


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> Sunray i genuinely want you to be right. I am a bit of a pessimist by nature when it comes to 'the world' and should bear that in mind when i think about this. It's the news from India through April that has spooked the hell out of me, the speed and ferocity of it ripping through families, i didn't recognise these stories from our first or second waves, pre vaccine.


I understand.  

India is a tragedy that is beyond our understanding.  What is happening in India is partly down to living conditions and quality of health care.  We live in a cosy blanket NHS land where you break something and you get whisked off to hospital, back home the next day fully sorted out with some strong pain killers in hand.    We can social distance.

This is how packed Indian cities can get.








						Covid crisis grips crowded Kolkata
					

Kolkata, one of the most densely-populated cities in India, hasn't escaped the Covid-19 surge.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Social distancing?


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## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> 163,907,827 million people would be incredible, considering their population is under 333 million.


Oops fixed.


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> I think your sunny version of the virus would have been noticed, if it was so popular that it conferred herd immunity by stealth. We'd be exporting it for £££ in a post-brexit celebration of our world beatingness, instead of the kent variant which was less excellent.


How about if it was just 1.1:1 contagious as the 1st one to hit our shores but wasn't detected on a PCR test. You'd not get any symptoms so you'd not go to get tested anyway. Hence the reason for last summers drop then the Kent variant got hold and outcompeted it.


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## elbows (May 25, 2021)

Although the Kent variant had its origins some while before it caused disaster in December, there were very many initial second wave infections and hospitalisations that were caused by a previous version of the virus, not the Kent one. We had a wave bad enough to cause a lockdown before the Kent strain became the dominant strain.


----------



## bimble (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I understand.
> 
> India is a tragedy that is beyond our understanding.  What is happening in India is partly down to living conditions and quality of health care.  We live in a cosy blanket NHS land where you break something and you get whisked off to hospital, back home the next day fully sorted out with some strong pain killers in hand.    We can social distance.
> 
> ...


We've done this before. I strongly disagree with you that its any particularities of India that are the explanation. Not diet or density or any of it.
Just as it wasn't the particularities of India that explained its miraculous recovery - do you remember that? - a few months ago.
When everyone was speculating that they'd reached herd immunity that was the only explanation.

I know some of the people who have sickened and died there, it's not just infectiousness it's the ferocity of the disease the speed with which they got sick and died that has frightened me.


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> We've done this before. I strongly disagree with you that its any *particularities of India* that are the explanation. Not diet or density or any of it.
> Just as it wasn't the particularities of India that explained its miraculous recovery - do you remember that? - a few months ago.
> When everyone was speculating that they'd reached herd immunity that was the only explanation.
> 
> I know some of the people who have sickened and died there, it's not just infectiousness it's the ferocity of the disease the speed with which they got sick and died.


I refer you to my thought experiment above. Plus they did a crazy lockdown which we know works quite well against COVID-19.

I disagree.  India has a well-known diabetes problem.  Many people in India have diabetes but are undiagnosed so are comorbid without knowing it.  This is a significant issue Diabetes, infection risk and COVID-19 - PubMed


> Notably, in several studies, diabetes is one of the most reported comorbidities in patients with *severe *COVID-19


  and it's also causing the Black Fungus epidemic we are now seeing in India as it thrives on elevated sugar levels in the blood.

Interestingly, you probably have black fungus up your nose right now, fortunately, you also have a functioning immune system.


----------



## bimble (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I refer you to my thought experiment above. Plus they did a crazy lockdown which we know works quite well against COVID-19.
> 
> I disagree.  India has a well-known diabetes problem.  Many people in India have diabetes but are undiagnosed so are comorbid without knowing it.  This is a significant issue Diabetes, infection risk and COVID-19 - PubMed
> 
> and it's also causing the Black Fungus epidemic we are now seeing in India as it thrives on elevated sugar levels in the blood.



The Indian gov did the worst most disastrous lockdown imaginable, 'crazy' is correct, it led to millions crossing the country en masse.
And diabetes is not killing villagers in Bihar.
Your thought experiment - of a benign version of the virus  - is your best shot at explaining why they had tiny case numbers _and then a catastrophe? _Fine. nonsense.
This is not the place for you & me to fight about India.


----------



## baldrick (May 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> And to briefly recap last summers timing: Leicester was causing concern by June, national resurgence just started to show up in the basic data by mid August, and the alarm bells were really ringing by early September, via signs such as the test system capacity being heavily stretched by demand.
> 
> If we get through the current phase without things exploding before the school summer holidays start, that should help.


And Leicester is causing concern again I think. I spent some time on the Coronavirus dashboard today comparing figures from the 7 day rolling avg. Quite a few areas look 'fine' but the numbers are beginning to turn the other way after a period of sustained reduction. Birmingham has 39% more cases than it did the week before (260-something last week vs 179 from week ending 11th).


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

baldrick said:


> And Leicester is causing concern again I think. I spent some time on the Coronavirus dashboard today comparing figures from the 7 day rolling avg. Quite a few areas look 'fine' but the numbers are beginning to turn the other way after a period of sustained reduction. Birmingham has 39% more cases than it did the week before (260-something last week vs 179 from week ending 11th).



Yes its one of the locations that are on their main list of places of concern due to Indian variant detection/potential.

They will have used a mix of data sources when picking out the places, including the sewage surveillance system that has been used to detect the presence of the variant without having to rely on everyone coming forwards for normal testing.


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> The Indian gov did the worst most disastrous lockdown imaginable, 'crazy' is correct, it led to millions crossing the country en masse.
> *And diabetes is not killing villagers in Bihar.*
> Your thought experiment - of a benign version of the virus  - is your best shot at explaining why they had tiny case numbers _and then a catastrophe? _Fine. nonsense.
> This is not the place for you & me to fight about India.


I put forward a thought experiment as it is just that.  It's based upon a thought I had.  Nothing more.

So what is your explanation of their initial escape? I suspect that lockdown has something to do with it, it might have been dumb but it did something.

It probably is diabetes.  10% of Indians are *diagnosed *diabetic. Many many aren't diagnose and in Bihar I suspect few are. Remember you don't have to be fat to be diabetic. In the western world, there is a 50:50 ratio between fat and skinny people with T2 diabetes. Some people get belly fat, some people get subcutaneous fat. It's the belly fat that's the problem category. How to cure type 2 diabetes – without medication

It doesn't take many people to overwhelm a health system, esp if there isn't one.


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## bimble (May 25, 2021)

Sunray i think we should just stop tbh. I don't know how come they had a miraculous recovery, such that everyone hypothesised herd immunity, and then they had this. you think its diabetes okay.


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## BillRiver (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I put forward a thought experiment as it is just that.  It's based upon a thought I had.  Nothing more.
> 
> So what is your explanation of their initial escape? I suspect that lockdown has something to do with it, it might have been dumb but it did something.
> 
> ...



Maybe, maybe not.

Trying to guess, without any real evidence, doesn't seem helpful, respectful, or interesting though imo.


----------



## Sunray (May 25, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Maybe, maybe not.
> 
> Trying to guess, without any real evidence, doesn't seem helpful, respectful, or interesting though imo.


No Evidence?

T2 diabetes as a contributing factor in severe COVID-19 is well established.  There are tons of papers out there on this if you cared to check but didn't.  Here's one https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/diacare/early/2020/10/23/dc20-1444.full.pdf

India has a diabetes problem (as does China for the same reasons)
World Diabetes Day: Why is India the World Capital for Diabetes?


> 50% are symptomless, undiagnosed and young.



India now has a COVID-19 problem. Not a good combination.


----------



## BillRiver (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> No Evidence?
> 
> T2 diabetes as a contributing factor in severe COVID-19 is well established.  There are tons of papers out there on this if you cared to check but didn't.  Here's one https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/diacare/early/2020/10/23/dc20-1444.full.pdf
> 
> ...



No evidence of link between diabetes and high rates of covid in India, I mean.

Having diabetes doesn't make a person more likely to catch covid, as far as I know.

I'm well aware of the implications for people with diabetes after they've caught it, thanks.


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## bimble (May 25, 2021)

If only Sunray worked at the WHO . Maybe it's not the variant it's just about how much sugar they take in their chai.


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## BillRiver (May 25, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I put forward a thought experiment as it is just that.  It's based upon a thought I had.  Nothing more.



Sigh...


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## BillRiver (May 25, 2021)

Countries ranked on prevalence of diabetes as proportion of population:

Countries ranked by Diabetes prevalence (% of population ages 20 to 79)

India is at 46.


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## bimble (May 25, 2021)

i want to go to Kiribati now


----------



## muscovyduck (May 25, 2021)

I've completely lost track of understanding it all and I'm beginning to panic a bit, anyone else feel like this?


----------



## BillRiver (May 25, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> I've completely lost track of understanding it all and I'm beginning to panic a bit, anyone else feel like this?



Not at the moment but regardless how I'm feeling - it's totally valid for you to feel that.

What might help?


----------



## Supine (May 25, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> I've completely lost track of understanding it all and I'm beginning to panic a bit, anyone else feel like this?



Reading Sunray’s thought experiment ideas    probably isn’t helping 

I’m feeling pretty chipper at the moment. The next few weeks will be important as the impact of the India variant is determined. I’m trying to stay positive and plan to go to a pub tomorrow for the first time in over a year.


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## elbows (May 25, 2021)

Its also understandable if some are feeling anxious because the government have passed the buck back to 'personal responsibility'. Although I'd say that regardless of how draconian the rules were at any point, its always been about how everyone behaves anyway.

Risk is currently still lower than the moments of maximum danger that previous waves offered. Unless you are somewhere where case numbers have gone in an alarming direction or where specific variants of concern have been highlighted locally, this is supposed to be a stage where people can somewhat recharge their mental batteries.


----------



## muscovyduck (May 25, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Not at the moment but regardless how I'm feeling - it's totally valid for you to feel that.
> 
> What might help?





Supine said:


> Reading Sunray’s thought experiment ideas    probably isn’t helping
> 
> I’m feeling pretty chipper at the moment. The next few weeks will be important as the impact of the India variant is determined. I’m trying to stay positive and plan to go to a pub tomorrow for the first time in over a year.


It's this Indian variant thing that's confusing me I think. I sort of feel like how I felt in early March 2020 (and then again in the autumn) when it felt like everyone was sleepwalking towards doom but then I'm fairly sure that's not what's going to happen this time because we have vaccines. But then there's all this stuff about booster vaccines which is worrying me and the fact that even if you are vaccinated it's not 100% effective? But I can't figure out how worried to be about that?

Like back in 2020 it was scary but I felt like I had a good grip on how to keep myself safe and what was going to happen next. But now I'm a bit  and I can't remember what I was doing back then that had me feeling so confident. I suppose I'm wondering if there's going to be another wave and if so how bad it's going to be.



elbows said:


> Its also understandable if some are feeling anxious because the government have passed the buck back to 'personal responsibility'. Although I'd say that regardless of how draconian the rules were at any point, its always been about how everyone behaves anyway.
> 
> Risk is currently still lower than the moments of maximum danger that previous waves offered. Unless you are somewhere where case numbers have gone in alarming direction or where specific variants of concern have been highlighted locally, this is supposed to be a stage where people can somewhat recharge their mental batteries.


thanks elbows, do you mean that as in the risk of a third wave? I think I'm just confused about whether there's another one coming or not and it's the unknown that's freaking me out. Do I just have to accept that for now everything is unknown?


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## MJ100 (May 25, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I could have sworn there was a lockdown as well or something.



This latest lockdown was nowhere near as tight as the first one, yet numbers fell even more rapidly, despite the Kent variant that is much more transmissible than the original. They also fell without the benefit of summer and seasonality, which began early last year in terms of higher temperatures, and has barely even started yet, and yet we are at similar levels of cases, deaths and hospital admissions at the moment as we were last mid-summer. Why play down what the vaccines have achieved? Of course the lockdown helped, and hat's not to say that other restrictions MIGHT be needed again (though I fucking pray not for a thousand reasons), but the vaccines have helped massively, not just here but in the USA too, and elsewhere (Israel being the most prominent example so far). It's fucking stupid and pretty damn ignorant to try and claim otherwise.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

muscovyduck said:


> thanks elbows, do you mean that as in the risk of a third wave? I think I'm just confused about whether there's another one coming or not and it's the unknown that's freaking me out. Do I just have to accept that for now everything is unknown?



In that particular case I meant sense of personal risk of infection, illness etc, but also risk that a third wave will arrive in a big way 'any day now' weighing people down at a time when they can actually take their eyes off that ball for a bit if they want to. I took this stance last summer too, some people were not sure if they should be sitting around expecting news to suddenly appear any day that the next wave had arrived. I couldnt tell them that there wouldnt be another wave, but I could give a vague indication that it would take time to get back to that point, and that I personally was going to try to take June off, in terms of where my mental energies were pointing. Then I managed to extend the same thing into July, and even into August although we didnt make it to the end of August before that phase ended.

There are some similarities to that again now, although its even more complicated this time because we understand more about variants and some of the things they can cause, but also because there is more good stuff in the picture like vaccinations, which make it harder to tell if or when there may be another wave, and how large it will be. Or how long governemnt might resist doing things that could end up being necessary once again.

And yes, sometimes the uncertainty is the worst thing, eg in the past there are some sides of my brain which are more at ease when some uncertainty was replaced with the government finally ordering another lockdown and other stuff like that.

People are going to progress at different rates in terms of recovering from this pandemic mentally. A lot of the uncertainty and questions about personal risk, personal protection from the virus, how to behave, are far more like the sorts of things we've had to get used to dealing with in the rest of our lives. People vary in how they cope with big issues like death and the fragility, uncertainties and somewhat random nature of life and the stuff it throws at us, good and bad. So I cant give 'one size fits all' advice about that, other than looking to whats worked for you in the past when confronting lifes unknowns.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> This latest lockdown was nowhere near as tight as the first one, yet numbers fell even more rapidly, despite the Kent variant that is much more transmissible than the original. They also fell without the benefit of summer and seasonality, which began early last year in terms of higher temperatures, and has barely even started yet, and yet we are at similar levels of cases, deaths and hospital admissions at the moment as we were last mid-summer. Why play down what the vaccines have achieved? Of course the lockdown helped, and hat's not to say that other restrictions MIGHT be needed again (though I fucking pray not for a thousand reasons), but the vaccines have helped massively, not just here but in the USA too, and elsewhere (Israel being the most prominent example so far). It's fucking stupid and pretty damn ignorant to try and claim otherwise.



Combination of lockdown/other behavioural changes, the number of people who still had immunity via infection in the first wave, number of vulnerable people that had already died the first time, and very much improved hospital infection control (not universal, better in some hospitals than others), and also a different approach to discharge into care homes and other matters that reduced the care home wave size in the second wave compared to the first.

But yes, also vaccinations. Impossible to say quite how acurate various attempts to estimate the real impact of this have been so far, but at the very least such things offer some clues and sense of how much goof vaccines may already have done. I will fish out some details shortly.


----------



## MJ100 (May 25, 2021)

On the local "don't go there unless you have a vital reason" farrago today, it was interesting to see that the local authorities were quick and loud in their complaints about Bojo and co, yet made not a peep about Sturgeon doing the exact same thing in Scotland a few days ago, advising people not to travel to Bolton, Blackburn etc. Wonder if they will ask Cummings anything about local lockdowns tomorrow? Do we know what his stance was/is on them?


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

No idea what his stance was on most things to be honest, most of his revelations so far have not been about his own opinions. A lot of what he will say about pre-first wave cockups is already known, less so about what he will reveal about the cockups before/during the second wave. I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about it.

Anyway here are the vaccine-related numbers I was on about. These are from Public Health England and are only estimates but they still offer some sense of how much good the vaccines are already though to have done:



> PHE estimates to 9 May 2021 based on the direct effect of vaccination and vaccine coverage rates, are that around 39,100 hospitalisations have been prevented in those aged 65 years and over in England (approximately 4,700 admissions in those aged 65 to 74, 15,400 in those aged 75 to 84, and 19,000 in those aged 85 and over) as a result of the vaccination programme (Figure 8). There is increasing evidence that vaccines prevent infection and transmission. The indirect effects of the vaccination programme will not be incorporated in this analysis, therefore the figure of 39,100 hospitalisations averted is likely to be an underestimate.





> PHE estimates to 9 May 2021 based on the direct effect of vaccination and vaccine coverage rates, are that that 11,100 deaths were averted in individuals aged 80 years and older, 1,600 in individuals aged 70 to 79 and 300 in individuals aged 60 to 69 years giving a total of 13,000 deaths averted in individuals aged 60 years or older in England (Figure 9). There is increasing evidence that vaccines prevent infection and transmission. The indirect effects of the vaccination programme will not be incorporated in this analysis, therefore the figure of 13,000 deaths averted is likely to be an underestimate.



Those quotes are from the weekly vaccine report, which also contains graphs directly relating to what was said in those quotes. I haent had time to look for any equivalents for Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. https://assets.publishing.service.g...193/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_20.pdf


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## MJ100 (May 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> Combination of lockdown/other behavioural changes, the number of people who still had immunity via infection in the first wave, number of vulnerable people that had already died the first time, and very much improved hospital infection control (not universal, better in some hospitals than others), and also a different approach to discharge into care homes and other matters that reduced the care home wave size in the second wave compared to the first.
> 
> But yes, also vaccinations. Impossible to say quite how acurate various attempts to estimate the real impact of this have been so far, but at the very least such things offer some clues and sense of how much goof vaccines may already have done. I will fish out some details shortly.




Yes, all those other factors will have fed into the current levels of infection too, it's obviously a combination of things. It just pisses me off whenever people seem to deliberately play down the effectiveness of vaccines (both on social media and the mainstream media), though maybe I'm just misinterpreting what they're trying to say sometimes. They work. We know they work. Of course they're not 100%, but they were never expected to be. I think the government estimates were either 13 or 30-thousand lives saved so far by vaccines in the UK (I forget which, and take it with a pinch of salt since it's from Boris etc, but still).


----------



## MJ100 (May 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> No idea what his stance was on most things to be honest, most of his revelations so far have not been about his own opinions. A lot of what he will say about pre-first wave cockups is already known, less so about what he will reveal about the cockups before/during the second wave. I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about it.
> 
> Anyway here are the vaccine-related numbers I was on about. These are from Public health England and are only estimates but they still offer some sense of how much good the vaccines are already though to have done



That's the one, 13,000 deaths and 39,000 hospitalisations prevented. Just an estimate as you say, but it still shows how effective the vaccines are against a variant (the Kent one) that didn't even exist when they were being developed and tested. That's pretty decent, I'd say, even if they might end up being less effective against the Indian jab (though not by a huge amount, according to the preliminary studies, after two doses at least). How exactly will the booster jabs play into that? Will they just be another dose of the current stuff, or will they have enough time to tweak them against the Indian variant by the autumn when they seem to want to start administering them?


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## elbows (May 25, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Yes, all those other factors will have fed into the current levels of infection too, it's obviously a combination of things. It just pisses me off whenever people seem to deliberately play down the effectiveness of vaccines (both on social media and the mainstream media), though maybe I'm just misinterpreting what they're trying to say sometimes. They work. We know they work. Of course they're not 100%, but they were never expected to be.



Well people might have got that sort of impression about my stance at times, because I spent quite a lot of time warning people not to ask vaccines to carry more pandemic weight than they were reasonably expected to be able to do at this stage. And loads of people do seem to have trouble not thinking about these things in binary terms, which is a mistake, especially when we know some vaccinated people will still get sick and die, and that the programme of vaccination isnt finished.

Of course I think I've expressed balanced views about all this stuff. But there is still a risk that the sorts of things I find it most important to talk about involve concerns and common misconceptions, and thats often negative stuff and sad, deadly possibilities rather than the happier stuff. And a cautious approach inevitably means that good news from me will be late rather than early, although I do ocasionally try to compensate for that.


----------



## elbows (May 25, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> How exactly will the booster jabs play into that? Will they just be another dose of the current stuff, or will they have enough time to tweak them against the Indian variant by the autumn when they seem to want to start administering them?



It gets all complicated, there are lots of factors. I started reading about how they were going to figure all this stuff out longer term, but the document contained a lot of detail and its mostly questions rather than answers at this stage.

Certainly there were recent stories about how they are starting a trial involving boosters. I forgot the detail, eg whether its looking at giving people a different brand of vaccine compared to the one they had for their first and second dose.

I dont know quite how quickly they expect to be able to adjust the vaccines to include details from newer variants rather than the original Wuhan strain. That stuff needs sorting well in advance for flu vaccines, but thats partly because a lot of flu vaccines use old tech which involves growing stuff in eggs. The Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing process should be a fair bit more nimble than that, but there are other parts of the jigsaw such as how nations and the whole world will decide what strains to use over time. 

Some of the talk in the news etc has been about how big a chunk of the population will be given boosters later this year too, eg whether they will they stick to the over 50s for this.

I dont know how closely I will follow this stuff till more detail has firmed up.


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## MJ100 (May 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> It gets all complicated, there are lots of factors. I started reading about how they were going to figure all this stuff out longer term, but the document contained a lot of detail and its mostly questions rather than answers at this stage.
> 
> Certainly there were recent stories about how they are starting a trial involving boosters. I forgot the detail, eg whether its looking at giving people a different brand of vaccine compared to the one they had for their first and second dose.
> 
> I dont know quite how quickly they expect to be able to adjust the vaccines to include details from newer variants rather than the original Wuhan strain.



Just saw something on Sky News' website saying 'boosters won't be given until 2022,' but the facts behind that must be buried somewhere in their live update thing. I suspect they don't actually know how quickly they'll be able to adjust things yet either! Guess we'll see in due course.


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## MJ100 (May 25, 2021)

This might have been posted before, but has anyone seen this?





__





						COVID-19 Genomic Surveillance – Wellcome Sanger Institute
					

The Wellcome Sanger Institute's COVID–19 Genomic Surveillance Initiative, part of the COVID–19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium




					covid19.sanger.ac.uk
				




An interactive map from the Wellcome Sanger Institute that lets you track the spread of each variant within your local council area. Pretty useful, though for god's sake don't look at it too closely if you suffer from Covid anxiety.


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## Raheem (May 26, 2021)

.


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## 2hats (May 26, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Just saw something on Sky News' website saying 'boosters won't be given until 2022,' but the facts behind that must be buried somewhere in their live update thing. I suspect they don't actually know how quickly they'll be able to adjust things yet either! Guess we'll see in due course.


Moderna mRNA-1273 has already been adapted and new versions, one specifically targeting E484K based variants (eg B.1.351, P.1) and another multivalent (targeting both ancestral variants, ie based around D614G, and more recent E484K variants), are already in clinical trials (promising results from phase II thus far - ie appropriate antibody responses have been measured). Takes less than a month to produce trial samples. The details of accelerating regulatory approval are still being thrashed out and then there is the delay in switching and ramping up industrial production.

Determining any booster interval (if any is needed at all) will of course only become apparent in the fullness of time (ie roughly when the relevant time interval has passed since a given vaccine was administered to early trial participants).


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## elbows (May 26, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Just saw something on Sky News' website saying 'boosters won't be given until 2022,' but the facts behind that must be buried somewhere in their live update thing. I suspect they don't actually know how quickly they'll be able to adjust things yet either! Guess we'll see in due course.



Clive Dix said some stuff about that to the telegraph earlier in May, such as thinking boosters wont be needed till January or February, but he also said other stuff I dont think is wise to say at all, or that at the very least involved sloppy language.









						Outgoing vaccine chief claims Covid will not be circulating in UK by August
					

Dr Clive Dix believes British population will be protected from the virus and all its known variants by the summer




					www.theguardian.com


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## cupid_stunt (May 26, 2021)

The NHS site has been updated, book a jab now if...

you're aged 30 or over
you'll turn 30 before 1 July 2021


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## kabbes (May 26, 2021)

The kabbess was due her jab tomorrow (having had to book it originally about three weeks in advance due to a lack of slots) but got a text last night saying the appointment had been cancelled.  Fine, she rebooked it and there was actually a slot on Friday.  But this means she had to rebook her second appointment too, whence this post.

She had the option to book a second jab as early as mid-July (something like six or seven weeks’ time).  However, she is more interested in the reports saying that twelve weeks gives better antibody protection and so delayed her second appointment for the full twelve weeks.  I was less convinced that this was a smart move, given that we know that the Indian variant really needs you to be double-jabbed ASAP.  Any views on who was right?


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## platinumsage (May 26, 2021)

kabbes said:


> The kabbess was due her jab tomorrow (having had to book it originally about three weeks in advance due to a lack of slots) but got a text last night saying the appointment had been cancelled.  Fine, she rebooked it and there was actually a slot on Friday.  But this means she had to rebook her second appointment too, whence this post.
> 
> She had the option to book a second jab as early as mid-July (something like six or seven weeks’ time).  However, she is more interested in the reports saying that twelve weeks gives better antibody protection and so delayed her second appointment for the full twelve weeks.  I was less convinced that this was a smart move, given that we know that the Indian variant really needs you to be double-jabbed ASAP.  Any views on who was right?



Personally I am going for 12 weeks+ based on the published antibody research. However an important factor is the chance of contracting COVID in the 8 to 12 week window, and this depends on its general prevalence in your area at that time, and how many contacts she has (e.g. working from home or not) etc.

Depends what she's concerned about, but the data for the Indian variant isn't great at this stage with some huge confidence intervals, and it relates only to mild illness or yielding a positive test, rather than severe disease against which a single jab is likely to offer very strong protection especially in those under 50.

It should be trivially easy to move the second appointment forward/back in a few weeks when more data is available


----------



## kabbes (May 26, 2021)

It’s the 8-12 week window but it’s also the 12-16 week window too, bearing in mind that full protection only seems to come about 4 weeks after the second jab.  I think that waiting until mid-August means you aren’t fully protected until mid-September, which sounds to me like prime time for the next wave.  Going for late July fully protects you before any September wave hits.


----------



## prunus (May 26, 2021)

kabbes said:


> The kabbess was due her jab tomorrow (having had to book it originally about three weeks in advance due to a lack of slots) but got a text last night saying the appointment had been cancelled.  Fine, she rebooked it and there was actually a slot on Friday.  But this means she had to rebook her second appointment too, whence this post.
> 
> She had the option to book a second jab as early as mid-July (something like six or seven weeks’ time).  However, she is more interested in the reports saying that twelve weeks gives better antibody protection and so delayed her second appointment for the full twelve weeks.  I was less convinced that this was a smart move, given that we know that the Indian variant really needs you to be double-jabbed ASAP.  Any views on who was right?



There isn’t really enough data to say for
sure I don’t think - the differential response between 6 and 12 week boosters hasn’t I don’t think been studied in detail. However, to speculate:

I think that the optimal strategy depends in part on how she plans to behave in the 6 or so weeks that would have been post one week after the earlier second jab; if she intends to continue lockdown-like protocol during this time then the (likely) significant additional immune response she will benefit from going forward from the longer interval booster is probably worth the small (because mitigated) temporary increase in risk in the inter-jab interval. If she intends to make full use of the new freedoms coming in 4 weeks from now and do extensive indoor social mixing etc then I think, given the uncertainty about the immediate future trajectory of the ‘Indian’ variant 2, I think the better protection earlier would be the better pay off.

It’s also important to remember that (I think - if I’m wrong then obviously not important to remember!) the studies showing better immune responses are so far just that - I don’t think there are any yet showing differential efficacies, and efficacy is not linearly proportional to response.


----------



## teuchter (May 26, 2021)

If it were me, I'd go for getting the second jab sooner rather than later, because my understanding is that the difference in protection post 1st and post 2nd seems fairly clear and significant while the difference caused by length of gap seems less clear and less significant. And I'd want it to kick in before any 3rd wave happens (which I'm hoping won't happen of course).


----------



## Supine (May 26, 2021)

I weighed up the 8-12 week thing and decided to move my 2nd jab forward a few weeks. I get full 5G capability at 10am this morning


----------



## glitch hiker (May 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> The headline is misleading but the detail within is really just 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating' so isnt really wrong. Its part of what I've been trying to describe in recent posts, part of the reason why I've started going on about herd immunity again, and part of the uncertainty about the size of a third wave. A third wave of infections that is not accompanied by a sizeable third wave of hospital admissions is exactly the sort of moment we'd expect authorities to declare victory of some form or another, although as usual there is plenty of tedious detail that could still make that inappropriate or premature.
> 
> 
> 
> And to be clear, the pandemic being over wont mean that people never have to think about this virus again, but it will be different to the acute horror we've faced since early 2020. Although moments that still resemble that are still expected via future epidemics.


I can't really see social distancing ending on 21/6. That not only entails everyone no longer wearing masks, but moving into closer proximity (sitting in the adjacent seat on buses again, currently not allowed, for example).


----------



## LDC (May 26, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> ...but moving into closer proximity (sitting in the adjacent seat on buses again, currently not allowed, for example).


No, that is allowed. That's guidance not law. 

IME stuff has changed dramatically already with plenty of people massively easing up on all sorts of rules and guidance.


----------



## emanymton (May 26, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No, that is allowed. That's guidance not law.
> 
> IME stuff has changed dramatically already with plenty of people massively easing up on all sorts of rules and guidance.


It is getting more common for my buses to full to the point were not everyone can get a seat without having to sit next to someone. 

Seems to be made worse a lot of the time by collage students sitting downstairs instead of upstairs meaning that older people either have to struggle with the stairs or sit next to someone. I don't want to just go on about young people. But I have seen them hugging their mates at the bus stop then large groups of 10+ getting on and all sitting in the already pretty full bottom deck while the top one is more or less empty. 

This morning and old guy with a stick asked someone (not a student in this case) to move from the priority seating and they refused so he just sat next to them. 

Today was also the only time I have seen someone get kicked of a bus for not wearing a mask. Pretty eventful morning as bus trips go.


----------



## 2hats (May 26, 2021)

kabbes said:


> It’s the 8-12 week window but it’s also the 12-16 week window too, bearing in mind that full protection only seems to come about 4 weeks after the second jab.  I think that waiting until mid-August means you aren’t fully protected until mid-September, which sounds to me like prime time for the next wave.  Going for late July fully protects you before any September wave hits.


Astrazeneca: likely the optimum is around 12±2 weeks dosing interval and then 'full' protection is probably up to 12 weeks after that (6 months after the first dose). Though this will generally vary with age and immune function. Little data on seropositives here (yet).

Either mRNA: optimum dosing interval may be around 6-8 weeks. 'Full' protection by around 3 weeks after second dose. For seropositives it would appear that 'beyond sufficient' protection kicks in by around two weeks after one dose (possibly earlier).

Though bear in mind there is no comprehensive study into variation of dosing intervals and subsequent longitudinal immune response for any of the vaccines (yet). Also note that something less than 'full' protection might be 'sufficient' ('full', whatever that is, being your individual, maximal response).


----------



## danny la rouge (May 26, 2021)

The speculation is that we’re going back into Level 4 (the top tier lockdown in Scotland). ☹️

The rest of Scotland is Level 2 now.  We’ve been kept in Level 3.


----------



## 20Bees (May 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The NHS site has been updated, book a jab now if...
> 
> you're aged 30 or over
> you'll turn 30 before 1 July 2021


Youngest and her partner are both 29 and their clinic lets anyone registered with a Derby GP book. They both had Pfizer last week (no side effects at all) and second jabs are after 11 weeks. When they booked their first ones the Gov website was only for those over 34.

Eldest is 34 and had hers (AZ) through work, 11week interval, my son lives in China and had his two (Sinovac), four weeks apart. It’ll be interesting to see the criteria for autumn boosters across the various vaccines and age groups.


----------



## Sue (May 26, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> View attachment 270319
> 
> The speculation is that we’re going back into Level 4 (the top tier lockdown in Scotland). ☹️
> 
> The rest of Scotland is Level 2 now.  We’ve been kept in Level 3.


Shit. My sister was optimistically hoping last night you were about to go back down to 2.


----------



## danny la rouge (May 26, 2021)

Sue said:


> Shit. My sister was optimistically hoping last night you were about to go back down to 2.


We’ll see. All I have is speculation, but it’s based on the spikes crashing back through the level 4 threshold, so it’s not just idle gossip.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (May 26, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> The speculation is that we’re going back into Level 4 (the top tier lockdown in Scotland). ☹️
> 
> The rest of Scotland is Level 2 now.  We’ve been kept in Level 3.


 Any speculation about other areas of Scotland? My daughter's planning to be in Edinburgh next week.


----------



## glitch hiker (May 26, 2021)

I'm sure everyone else knows, but for the first time in a long while we're back to (just over) 3k cases a day.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 26, 2021)

Yep, new cases up 18% in the last 7 days, more worrying is patients admitted to hospital have gone up 10.8%, fuck!


----------



## danny la rouge (May 26, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Any speculation about other areas of Scotland? My daughter's planning to be in Edinburgh next week.


Edinburgh seems OK.  The problem areas now are Glasgow, Clackmannan, East Renfrewshire and Midlothian.  Only Glasgow is Level 3, the others are all currently in Level 2 but apparently getting close to level 4 threshold.

However I’m not an epidemiologist, but it’s worth noting that’s cases. Deaths are not going up.


----------



## Steel Icarus (May 26, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Edinburgh seems OK.  The problem areas now are Glasgow, Clackmannan, East Renfrewshire and Midlothian.  Only Glasgow is Level 3, the others are all currently in Level 2 but apparently getting close to level 4 threshold.
> 
> However I’m not an epidemiologist, but it’s worth noting that’s cases. Deaths are not going up.


Well, deaths tend to follow hospitalisations which follow cases. How much effect the vaccination programme has on those last two stages is the big question, I guess.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 26, 2021)

Someone seems to have broken the covid dashboard, a few days ago we only had one case in a week, with a population of just over 110k, hence the 7-day rolling rate of 0.9 per 100k shown below.

Today it reports we have had 9 cases in the last 7-days, which is a 800% increase, yet it shows an increase of 0.0%.


----------



## danny la rouge (May 26, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Well, deaths tend to follow hospitalisations which follow cases. How much effect the vaccination programme has on those last two stages is the big question, I guess.


Yes, hospitalisations are going up too.  But the numbers in ICU are level. So that could be the vaccine.  As younger people get vaccinated, maybe ICU admissions and deaths will not follow from case numbers and hospital admissions.


----------



## weltweit (May 26, 2021)

I always thought Johnson was stupid to use the word "irreversible" ..


----------



## David Clapson (May 26, 2021)

I don't think Cummings' performance today will affect Johnson much. Here's an excellent summary of the hearing by Ian Dunt: Dominic Cummings's evidence was a story of liars - told by a liar


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 26, 2021)

weltweit said:


> I always thought Johnson was stupid to use the word "irreversible" ..



Yes at the time it felt very much like yet another word he, or rather everyone else, would have to eat sooner or later.


----------



## redsquirrel (May 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Someone seems to have broken the covid dashboard, a few days ago we only had one case in a week, with a population of just over 110k, hence the 7-day rolling rate of 0.9 per 100k shown below.
> 
> Today it reports we have had 9 cases in the last 7-days, which is a 800% increase, yet it shows an increase of 0.0%.


I suppose it would be too much too hope that this is because giving % increases (or decreases) of very small numbers does not make sense.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 26, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> I suppose it would be too much too hope that this is because giving % increases (or decreases) of very small numbers does not make sense.



No, they have always recorded increases & decreases before, even with small numbers.  🤷‍♂️


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> No, they have always recorded increases & decreases before, even with small numbers.  🤷‍♂️



I cant look into this properly for you because they use two different sorts of figures which complicates matters:

The current daily number of 6 and last 7 days number of 9 is number of positives by reporting date. 

Also the rate per 100,000 people is based on specimen date, not reporting date, and covers a somewhat different date range (since last 5 days numbers by specimen date are considered incomplete, more will be reported later).

When I go to the main cases page and the search for and select Worthing from the dropdown, I can see daily numbers. But there are by specimen date, not reporting date. And this stops me performing the required exercise - if I could easily see the table showing cases there per day by reporting date, then I would be able to add up how many cases were reported in the previous period which was 13th-19th May. Because the most likely explanation for what you are seeing is that actually 9 cases were reported during both 13th-19th May and 20th-26th May, making a change of 0 and a percentage change of 0.

I cannot do that unless I find the historical daily reporting figures, but I can have a guess. We know that it takes some days between the actual specimen date and the figures being reported. There were only a couple of cases by specimen date between 13th-19th of May. But allowing for the lag I need to look back a little further, and there is a  4, and some 2's by specimen date in the period 9th-12th May. So it wouldnt surprise me at all if 9 were reported in period 13th-19th May!

edited to add - this link should go straight to the main cases page for Worthing that I am speaking about, and then if you click on the data tab for the first graph, you'll see the cases by specimen date that I was on about. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=ltla&areaName=Worthing


----------



## Sunray (May 26, 2021)

I expected it to be a lot worse by now, I was fully behind a two week delay to the reopening, there was an inevitability that infections were going up.  But nothing _yet_.  

Boris 'Bodies' Johnson has no intention of doing anything on the 17th of June regardless. So all these numbers are largely academic.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 26, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I expected it to be a lot worse by now, I was fully behind a two week delay to the reopening, there was an inevitability that infections were going up.  But nothing _yet_.



Nothing yet?    


cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, new cases up 18% in the last 7 days, more worrying is patients admitted to hospital have gone up 10.8%, fuck!


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2021)

By the way I dont know why they dont show the cases by reporting date when we zoom into to smaller regions, its present on the overall UK cases page, and the data is in the system, just not exposed.

I could collect it for particular places each day if I went in every day and recorded the number reported for that day for that area that is shown in the daily summary areas. But thats rather tedious. I might be able to get it via the API, but havent bothered to do any web programming during this pandemic. I havent even looked for ages at what other websites might be consuming and displaying the dashboard data.


----------



## Sunray (May 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Nothing yet?



The B 1.1.7 was 1st detected in early December. This variant took ~4-5 weeks to outcompete the variant we already had.  Eventually killing 1200 a day at its peak and we were in a fairly comprehensive national lockdown.

India was put on the red list on the 23rd of April.  B 1.617 was Detected in February 2021, 60% more transmissible, we are three months into its appearance.  The red list was over a month ago, so say 5-6 weeks from more than a few isolated cases.  According to Daily summary | Coronavirus in the UK there are 115 people a day going to hospital.  If literally, everyone who went to hospital started dying that would be bad but still a long way below January's figures.  It's likely most will recover so the current numbers still look positive, so far.  No lockdown to suppress this variant either.  Though locking down Bolton for two weeks might be a good idea.

How long do I have to wait?


----------



## elbows (May 26, 2021)

You should explore more of the B.1.1.7 timing details if you want to attempt that sort of analysis. Because resting on 'early December' as a starting point is a bad mistake.



> B.1.1.7 was first detected in early December 2020 by analysing genome data with knowledge that the rates of infection in Kent were not falling despite national restrictions.[2][15]
> 
> The two earliest genomes that belong to the B.1.1.7 lineage were collected on 20 September 2020 in Kent and another on 21 September 2020 in Greater London.[13] These sequences were submitted to the GISAID sequence database (sequence accessions EPI_ISL_601443 and EPI_ISL_581117, respectively).[16]
> 
> Backwards tracing using genetic evidence suggests B.1.1.7 emerged in September 2020 and then circulated at very low levels in the population until mid-November. The increase in cases linked to the variant first became apparent in late November when Public Health England (PHE) was investigating why infection rates in Kent were not falling despite national restrictions. PHE then discovered a cluster linked to this variant spreading rapidly into London and Essex.[17]











						SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## Sue (May 27, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Edinburgh seems OK.  The problem areas now are Glasgow, Clackmannan, East Renfrewshire and Midlothian.  Only Glasgow is Level 3, the others are all currently in Level 2 but apparently getting close to level 4 threshold.
> 
> However I’m not an epidemiologist, but it’s worth noting that’s cases. Deaths are not going up.


I really want to go and see my family -- it's been a lonely year -- but seems too early to make any plans just yet.   (I'd be doing Edinburghish and Glasgow.)


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 27, 2021)




----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Yeah I went through all the relevant period on this thread last night, rereading and skimming and lining things up with Cummings version of events and reminding myself just how much we knew or could guess at the time. Someone posted that very tweet here at the time, and the timing was great since the tweet was from March 10th 2020 and was posted here on the 11th. The useless plan A that inspired such tweets was dead within days,


----------



## maomao (May 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


>



Posted on this thread 11th March 2020.


----------



## Sunray (May 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> You should explore more of the B.1.1.7 timing details if you want to attempt that sort of analysis. Because resting on 'early December' as a starting point is a bad mistake.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I did. That is the very doc I read, very low levels of possible earlier genetic lineage in September. But there is clear evidence that it started to become a problem in early December.  4 weeks later was chaos. We're a long way from that right now.   If you take detection as your starting point, September-Jan is 4 months.

The B 1617 variant was detected in India in December 2020.  As December-February are great times to visit India due to the med like climate, highly likely it was already here in January at very low levels.  It was first detected in the UK in February, also 4 months ago.

It appears we are standing at the very same place chronologically as we were in January locked away in our houses. With some obvious differences.

115 v 3500 daily hospitalizations.
No lockdown v Lockdown
Protection v A wing and a prayer

Lots of hand wringing and worry going on. At what point do we breathe a sigh of relief on this variant?  Or alternatively at what point do we start buying more loo roll than we need?


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Your sense of timing is off. We havent finished the phase of easing restrictions yet, we have not returned to baseline normal behaviour which would allow the virus to spread with its maximum potential. At this stage all we need are signs of the situation growing worse in a couple of locations. Those signs are present, and then it becomes about more complicated detail of exact scale, and waiting to see if the same pattern happens in other locations.

There is no doubt that vaccinations have altered the picture of population susceptibility, and that this is one of the major inputs into modelling of what sort of sized waves to expect, and when. Thats extremely good news, but again the devil is in the detail, and some aspects of the vaccine success can actually lead to complacency and poor analysis of the current situation and risk. The key question is whether the level of immunity in the population, via previous infections and the vaccine programme, is enough to prevent a large wave from developing in the coming months.

Put it this way: Vaccines already given would be expected to change the timing, pace etc of the development of a subsequent wave. Therefore you should not be using the speed at which the last wave developed, in a pre-vaccine era, in order to conclude that the Indian variant is of no concern because it hasnt exploded everywhere yet. Yes it is possible that a combo of vaccines given already and enough people taking things seriously will be enough to keep a subsequent wave modest or barely visible. But it is simply too soon to make that claim. As I keep saying, the modelling implied a third wave might arrive in July, so there is absolutely no way I can be reassured before then.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Having reread what was said on this thread at the time 9March 2020), I dont feel the need to go all through the details of Cummings testimony again now, it was quite well covered by outsiders like us at the time, regardless of the lack of insider knowledge.

However in terms of the claims about early first wave mistakes by the experts, and Johnsons second wave errors costing tens of thousands of lives, I do feel the need to post this. Again its obvious and hardly needed confirmation again now, but here it is anyway:









						SAGE expert: 'Cummings is right that UK needed earlier lockdown last autumn' | ITV News
					

SAGE expert John Edmunds admitted he was 'disappointed' Boris Johnson did not follow his advice in September last year. | ITV National News




					www.itv.com
				




Also note:



> Asked of Johnson should fully unlock the UK in June, Dr Edmund said: "No... it looks a little bit risky. The Indian variant is taking off in a number of places. Luckily, we’ve still got low levels but it is concerning.
> 
> "And we are still not back to normal. We're still at less than half of our normal contact patterns at the moment. So I think that is helping to keep the lid on it, to some extent."


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Oh no, what a combination.....



> Following his appearance in the Commons earlier, Health Secretary Matt Hancock will be leading a Downing Street press conference about the pandemic at 17:00 BST.
> 
> He will be joined by Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

The weekly surveillance report continues to not show anything highly dramatic, although people may still want to take a look at it if they are interested in cases by age group or stuff to do with the vaccination programme and antibodies from infection and vaccination estimated via blood donor sampling,

Since I tend to focus on any warning signs more than good news, here is the number of outbreak incidents reported graph.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/989845/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w21.pdf


----------



## glitch hiker (May 27, 2021)

3542 cases today. I believe that's a further increase on yesterday. Seems like a definite trend is manifesting.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, new cases up 18% in the last 7 days, more worrying is patients admitted to hospital have gone up 10.8%, fuck!



None of this is looking good, I know it's from small numbers, but we all know how small numbers can become big very quickly.

The increase in patients admitted to hospital is almost double those reported yesterday.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Even Johnson still has 'we may need to wait' in his vague messaging.









						Covid: Boris Johnson says England may need to wait to end restrictions
					

But Boris Johnson says he sees nothing "currently in the data" to suggest unlocking will have to be delayed.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The increase in patients admitted to hospital is almost double those reported yesterday.



I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to. Here are some of the recent daily numbers for UK hospital admissions. Although since they are UK totals they are lagging behind as some nations data is further behind than others when it comes to this measure. I'll start graphing English regional hospital admissions again soon.


----------



## sojourner (May 27, 2021)

Oh ffs. I'm trying to book a few days off to visit my lass in Scotland - this is the last bastard thing I want to see


----------



## Elpenor (May 27, 2021)

So we are definitely in potential third wave territory?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Even Johnson still has 'we may need to wait' in his vague messaging.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They changed that headline quickly, 8 minutes earlier the headline on that article was -
Covid: Nothing in data to stop England's unlocking on 21 June - Johnson​


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> So we are definitely in potential third wave territory?



Sort of but maybe not how you mean.

Modelling implied that the potential will be there for some time, regardless of the very latest data or fears on any given week or whatever happens with variants. Its a waiting game and there remains a high degree of uncertainty. There are some warning signs, but it was always going to be a waiting game at this stage, once we got to step 3 of unlocking (the May unlocking that already happened).


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to. Here are some of the recent daily numbers for UK hospital admissions. Although since they are UK totals they are lagging behind as some nations data is further behind than others when it comes to this measure. I'll start graphing English regional hospital admissions again soon.


The rate of increase in hospital admissions over the last 7-days reported today & covering up to 23rd May being up 19.9%, yesterday it was up 'only' 10.8% covering up to 22nd May.


----------



## Elpenor (May 27, 2021)

Oh well, I don’t think my life is very different whether we are lockdowned or not.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The rate of increase in hospital admissions over the last 7-days reported today & covering up to 23rd May being up 19.9%, yesterday it was up 'only' 10.8% covering up to 22nd May.



I dont know how helpful I find those particular figures during periods where actual underlying numbers are bumping along the bottom end of things.

For example one days abnormally low figures (which can happen for a number of reasons) can skew some rolling indicators of change over time.

Judge for yourself using these graphs that apply to England NHS figures rather than the whole of the UK. Data is slightly more recent than some of the dashboard figures.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They changed that headline quickly, 8 minutes earlier the headline on that article was -
> Covid: Nothing in data to stop England's unlocking on 21 June - Johnson​



Typical! Have to watch the framing and the way it changes, especially with the BBC!


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Now if on the other hand I wanted to find hospital daily admissions/diagnoses data that was more obviously alarming, I would have to zoom into a specific trust such as the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust.:



Can people find any others that are showing that trend? Official dashboard has this weeks per-trust data on it now (admissions up to May 23rd) so no messing around with spreadsheets is required.



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=nhstrust&areaName=Bolton%20NHS%20Foundation%20Trust


----------



## nagapie (May 27, 2021)

So compared to other post lockdowns, how much impact do the vaccines seem to be having or too early to tell?


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

nagapie said:


> So compared to other post lockdowns, how much impact do the vaccines seem to be having or too early to tell?



Weekly estimates are given for how many hospitalisations and deaths they think have been prevented by vaccination. A new one came out today. They think its an underestimate because they are not taking into account vaccines effect on transmission yet. 



> PHE estimates that 13,200 deaths have now been prevented in people aged 60 years or older in England up to 13 May 2021 (11,200 deaths in individuals aged 80 years and older, 1,700 in individuals aged 70 to 79 and 300 in individuals aged 60 to 69 years).
> 
> Estimates also indicate that the vaccination programme has prevented around 39,700 hospitalisations in those aged 65 years and over in England (approximately 4,900 admissions in those aged 65 to 74, 15,600 in those aged 75 to 84 and 19,200 in those aged 85 and over).











						COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report published
					

National coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine surveillance report, including estimated number of hospitalisations and deaths prevented.




					www.gov.uk
				











						COVID-19 vaccine surveillance reports (weeks 19 to 38)
					

Data on the real-world effectiveness and impact of the COVID-19 vaccines.




					www.gov.uk
				




The method for analysing the approximate number of deaths and hospitalisations prevented by the vaccine programme now takes into account the impact of both first and second doses, due to more data being available. However, it does not include the impact of vaccination on transmission, therefore the true impact of the vaccination programme is likely to be even greater.

Which isnt quite the same as judging post-lockdown picture to the previous one. But also consider that even without the India variant, we had the higher transmission fromt he Kent variant to deal with this time. I havent tried to do an analysis. Off the top of my head we havent got daily hospital admissions quite as low as was eventually achieved last summer, but I havent checked properly


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Hancock says in press conference that at least half and possibly as many as three quarters of new cases are of the India variant.

I havent had a chance to study that data yet, hopefully I quoted him properly, just tuned in as he was saying it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Hancock says in press conference that at least half and possibly as many as three quarters of new cases are of the India variant.
> 
> I havent had a chance to study that data yet, hopefully *I quoted him properly*, just tuned in as he was saying it.


You did.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Cheers. Numbers here: Covid Mutations


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 27, 2021)

Go out there and just bang on about how great we are at doing vaccines. Going on mute till questions from press.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Hancock was able to lie a bit about vaccine effectiveness against India variant, but Harries had to acknowledge the somewhat more complex picture shown by the provisional figures so far. Thanks Pete of the public for the question!


----------



## Numbers (May 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Cheers. Numbers here: Covid Mutations


I read that like I was a U75 Covid Mutation


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Numbers said:


> I read that like I was a U75 Covid Mutation



Sorry about that. At least you dont have people coughing into you like I do via my nickname!


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

I dont blame the press for going after him over the hospital->care home testing detail, thats the one I'd have picked on too.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

He's had to resort to "my recollection of events".


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

What a shameless fuck he is. When he looks back, he think of all the hard work he did to get a testing system in place. And his family suffered Covid death too dont you know.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Harries got in on the family deaths club too, and then went on about how low a proportion of care home deaths were caused via the hospital route. Its true that care home staff not being tested either was thought to be a large factor, but I'm still not impressed.


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

Journalists knew how to try to pin him down, eg by saying stuff to the effect of 'if lack of test capacity was your excuse and the big issue, why under those circumstances did you still sign off on the hospital discharge plan'?

The discharge plan was an obvious disgrace but it was also no surprise that they did it, and that other parts of the establishment would have advised that it was the only option. This sort of thing is one of the reasons I spread my criticisms broadly when it comes to the establishment and this pandemic. Doesnt let Hancock off the hook though, some of the bucks stop with him.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Harries got in on the family deaths club too, and then went on about how low a proportion of care home deaths were caused via the hospital route. Its true that care home staff not being tested either was thought to be a large factor, but I'm still not impressed.



And, of course, agency staff spreading it between various care homes.


----------



## andysays (May 27, 2021)

Indian variant now 50-75% of new cases - Hancock

I'm probably over-simplifying, but this is essentially down to Johnson not wanting to ban travel from India because he was due to fly out there to negotiate a trade deal with the Indian PM, isn't it?


----------



## souljacker (May 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> What a shameless fuck he is. When he looks back, he think of all the hard work he did to get a testing system in place. And his family suffered Covid death too dont you know.



Moved to tears too....


----------



## elbows (May 27, 2021)

andysays said:


> Indian variant now 50-75% of new cases - Hancock
> 
> I'm probably over-simplifying, but this is essentially down to Johnson not wanting to ban travel from India because he was due to fly out there to negotiate a trade deal with the Indian PM, isn't it?



Yeah. Even with better timing the holes in the system may have let some cases of that variant in anyway, but the number that get in makes a difference to how well seeded the new variant is and how easy it is for it to take off everywhere.


----------



## sojourner (May 27, 2021)

I've still not been called up for my 2nd jab, despite being over 50 and in the North West.

Not sure whether to ring GP or what. Do people get emailed or texted to go for them?


----------



## Numbers (May 27, 2021)

We got a text from our GP.


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 27, 2021)

Same here, a text and a link to booking appointment. Couldn't book online for 2nd and waited for text.


----------



## sojourner (May 27, 2021)

Ta


----------



## xenon (May 27, 2021)

I wouldn’t rely on your GP texting you. i’ve only had my first jab but no messages from the GP. Booked it myself online.


----------



## sojourner (May 27, 2021)

xenon said:


> I wouldn’t rely on your GP texting you. i’ve only had my first jab but no messages from the GP. Booked it myself online.


Where did you book it?


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 27, 2021)

sojourner said:


> Where did you book it?


You could try here. Or I think you can ring 119? 
I didn't have these options for some reason. 
Book or manage your coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination


----------



## sojourner (May 27, 2021)

Thanks again


----------



## xenon (May 27, 2021)

sojourner said:


> Where did you book it?



The NHS link, it has been posted on here a few pages back. Sorry not got it to hand. it might be different I suppose if someone’s already had one jab. I booked both at the same time. Might be worth a look though. you need your NHS number.


----------



## Calamity1971 (May 27, 2021)

sojourner said:


> Thanks again


Hope you can get one booked.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 27, 2021)

xenon said:


> I wouldn’t rely on your GP texting you. i’ve only had my first jab but no messages from the GP. Booked it myself online.



If you booked on the NHS website for the first jab, I don't think you would get a text from your GP for your second jab, the NHS & GPs [private contractors] operate different systems.

I had my first jab at a GP hub, and got a text from the GP about moving my second appointment forward.

My brother had his first at an NHS site, and got a text from the NHS about a week after I had mine from my GP.


----------



## zora (May 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, of course, agency staff spreading it between various care homes.


That's one of the worst aspects of this whole sorry saga imo - putting the people running and working in care homes in this awful position. 
I remember how freaked out I was not just by the possibility of contracting the dreaded virus (despite nominally being pretty low risk), but of passing it on to someone else, and that was from the safety of my socially distanced furlough.


----------



## MrSki (May 27, 2021)

Good twitter feed on Jennie Harries & why she maybe not the best person for her new job.


----------



## strung out (May 27, 2021)

A few friends of mine (aged between 28 and 34) managed to wander into a Boots today and get an AstraZeneca jab with no appointment or anything. Not sure if they specifically had to confirm that they were happy to get AZ given they should have had Pfizer, but they were so desperate to get done I don't think they cared.


----------



## purenarcotic (May 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> If you booked on the NHS website for the first jab, I don't think you would get a text from your GP for your second jab, the NHS & GPs [private contractors] operate different systems.
> 
> I had my first jab at a GP hub, and got a text from the GP about moving my second appointment forward.
> 
> My brother had his first at an NHS site, and got a text from the NHS about a week after I had mine from my GP.



It seems to really vary; I booked mine through an NHS site and went to a hospital hub vaccination site and had the date for my second given to me on the day of my 1st dose. I then got a call from my GP a month before my 2nd dose was due saying I could for it that day if I wanted as there were spares at the local hub they were using. My mate had her invite letter from her GP and several weeks on has still not been able to book as there are never any appointments available.


----------



## teuchter (May 27, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Good twitter feed on Jennie Harries & why she maybe not the best person for her new job.



Matthew Lesh the Adam Smith Institute guy who has a thing about PHE and state run bureaucracies, he was on about not enough stuff being outsourced, back at the beginning of things last year.



			https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56eddde762cd9413e151ac92/t/5e84ec2f224cce74bd7edb12/1585769520777/ASI+-+Testing+Times+-+Matthew+Lesh+-+FINAL.pdf


----------



## platinumsage (May 28, 2021)

Estimating vaccine efficacy from hospital admissions:


----------



## MrSki (May 28, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Matthew Lesh the Adam Smith Institute guy who has a thing about PHE and state run bureaucracies, he was on about not enough stuff being outsourced, back at the beginning of things last year.
> 
> 
> 
> https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56eddde762cd9413e151ac92/t/5e84ec2f224cce74bd7edb12/1585769520777/ASI+-+Testing+Times+-+Matthew+Lesh+-+FINAL.pdf


Doesn't mean his points about Jenny Harries are any less valid. You might have guessed that I am not her biggest fan.


----------



## strung out (May 28, 2021)

strung out said:


> A few friends of mine (aged between 28 and 34) managed to wander into a Boots today and get an AstraZeneca jab with no appointment or anything. Not sure if they specifically had to confirm that they were happy to get AZ given they should have had Pfizer, but they were so desperate to get done I don't think they cared.


Update to this - all four of them had the worst night they've had in ages, shivery, nausea, dizziness. I'm now laughing at them telling them they should have waited for Pfizer


----------



## sojourner (May 28, 2021)

Calamity1971 said:


> Hope you can get one booked.


Absolutely fucking useless.  Went on the website, but you have to cancel first before you can rebook, without sight of the dates, and I didn't wanna take a chance on cancelling the 14th June one only to find there aren't any until the end of June (or later). Rang GP, on hold for 20 fucking minutes, to be told that I can go onto the website and do it, but I'd have to cancel first. They won't book me one  Said I'd be as well just waiting for the 14th.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 28, 2021)

This seems positive.



> The average age for someone testing positive for coronavirus has dropped to its youngest age yet.
> 
> The median age now stands at 29 as of the week ending May 19, which is down from 35 at the start of April and 41 at the beginning of the year.
> 
> ...











						Average age of people testing positive for Covid drops to 29
					

The median age has dropped lower and lower as the UK's vaccination programme progresses.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## BassJunkie (May 28, 2021)

sojourner said:


> Absolutely fucking useless.  Went on the website, but you have to cancel first before you can rebook, without sight of the dates, and I didn't wanna take a chance on cancelling the 14th June one only to find there aren't any until the end of June (or later). Rang GP, on hold for 20 fucking minutes, to be told that I can go onto the website and do it, but I'd have to cancel first. They won't book me one  Said I'd be as well just waiting for the 14th.


I was nervous about this too. Mrs BassJunkie took the plunge first and got a sooner date. So I had a go - my second was meant to be on the 30th June. I managed to get it moved to the 9th June. But yeah, it's a bit of leap of faith.


----------



## editor (May 28, 2021)

BassJunkie said:


> I was nervous about this too. Mrs BassJunkie took the plunge first and got a sooner date. So I had a go - my second was meant to be on the 30th June. I managed to get it moved to the 9th June. But yeah, it's a bit of leap of faith.


It wasn't that bad for me. Just a fairly horrible night of sweats and chills and a run down day. All better than catching covid.


----------



## sojourner (May 28, 2021)

BassJunkie said:


> I was nervous about this too. Mrs BassJunkie took the plunge first and got a sooner date. So I had a go - my second was meant to be on the 30th June. I managed to get it moved to the 9th June. But yeah, it's a bit of leap of faith.


Yeh, I really don't wanna take the chance. I'm meant to be visiting my lass in Scotland at the end of June, and don't want anything to get in the way of that, or take the chance I'll get a much later appointment.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 28, 2021)

Breaking news, the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen single dose vaccine has been approved for use in the UK.

They were hoping this could increase take-up in the younger age groups, as it's more convenient having just one jab, but there's been reports of possible blood clotting events associated with it, so maybe it will be restricted like the AZ one.



> *A single-dose Covid vaccine made by Janssen has been approved for use in the UK by the medicines regulator.*
> The vaccine, which was 85% effective in stopping severe illness from Covid-19 in trials, has met expected safety standards.
> Twenty million doses have been ordered for the UK and will arrive later this year.



Janssen single-dose Covid vaccine approved by UK


----------



## Brainaddict (May 28, 2021)

Yeah, not sure of the use cases for J&J in the UK now. I can see it being of most use in remote areas of poorer countries and ethically we should probably give them all away for that use.


----------



## StoneRoad (May 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Breaking news, the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen single dose vaccine has been approved for use in the UK.
> 
> They were hoping this could increase take-up in the younger age groups, as it's more convenient having just one jab, but there's been reports of possible blood clotting events associated with it, so maybe it will be restricted like the AZ one.
> 
> ...



I'm wondering if they might use it as a "booster" for the most vulnerable (& those that were jabbed very early) later in the year ?


----------



## BillRiver (May 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Yeah, not sure of the use cases for J&J in the UK now. I can see it being of most use in remote areas of poorer countries and ethically we should probably give them all away for that use.



Agreed, although could also be useful for those here who have chaotic lifestyles and might find it harder to return for a second jab eg. homeless people, people in active addiction?


----------



## Riklet (May 28, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I'm wondering if they might use it as a "booster" for the most vulnerable (& those that were jabbed very early) later in the year ?



No theyve already confirmed that will be pfizer. Theyve bought 60m extra. Not sure if there is any trial data on using it as a booster yet... i think theres a study underway tho.

Id imagine they will probably hold off on the widespread use of J&J for the moment, especially in under 40s... cos of the clotting thing. They might also donate some abroad who knows. Or they might deploy it in badly affected areas where they need to go door to door or jab very quickly.


----------



## danny la rouge (May 28, 2021)

sojourner said:


> Oh ffs. I'm trying to book a few days off to visit my lass in Scotland - this is the last bastard thingI want to see





Sue said:


> I really want to go and see my family -- it's been a lonely year -- but seems too early to make any plans just yet.   (I'd be doing Edinburghish and Glasgow.)


Glasgow to remain in lockdown level 3 ahead of potential level 2 move next week
Glasgow to remain in lockdown level 3 ahead of potential level 2 move next week


----------



## brogdale (May 28, 2021)

Clear and damning.


----------



## Sunray (May 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Yeah, not sure of the use cases for J&J in the UK now. I can see it being of most use in remote areas of poorer countries and ethically we should probably give them all away for that use.



Given we have ordered some 500m doses where we need 130 million for everyone of any age to get 2, giving them away seems the only sensible choice.


----------



## Brainaddict (May 28, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Given we have ordered some 500m doses where we need 130 million for everyone of any age to get 2, giving them away seems the only sensible choice.


Sensible....ethical....Boris Johnson...  He'll probably throw them all in the sea and get a five point poll lift out of it, going on recent evidence.


----------



## sojourner (May 28, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> Glasgow to remain in lockdown level 3 ahead of potential level 2 move next week
> Glasgow to remain in lockdown level 3 ahead of potential level 2 move next week


Ah she's in level 2 where they live.


----------



## Sunray (May 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Sensible....ethical....Boris Johnson...  He'll probably throw them all in the sea and get a five point poll lift out of it, going on recent evidence.


I've of the opinion we should target a specific country or a limited set of countries and donate the vaccines en mass rather than spread them over lots of countries.  Such as countries that have ordered from India but aren't likely to get them anytime soon.

Hopefully, the USA will delete its Defence Production Act on vaccines soon so it can export and the rest of the world can make more.








						Single-use Plastic Bioreactor Bags to Filters: Why India Needs Them from United States for COVID Vaccines
					

These raw materials for vaccines are produced in a limited number of countries, around 27, and by a limited number of manufacturers, around 270.




					www.news18.com
				




its become a very interconnected world








						Global Covid vaccine rollout threatened by shortage of vital components
					

Pharmaceutical firms warn of delays to items such as the large bags in which vaccine cells are grown




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Sunray (May 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> Your sense of timing is off. We havent finished the phase of easing restrictions yet, we have not returned to baseline normal behaviour which would allow the virus to spread with its maximum potential. At this stage all we need are signs of the situation growing worse in a couple of locations. Those signs are present, and then it becomes about more complicated detail of exact scale, and waiting to see if the same pattern happens in other locations.
> 
> There is no doubt that vaccinations have altered the picture of population susceptibility, and that this is one of the major inputs into modelling of what sort of sized waves to expect, and when. Thats extremely good news, but again the devil is in the detail, and some aspects of the vaccine success can actually lead to complacency and poor analysis of the current situation and risk. The key question is whether the level of immunity in the population, via previous infections and the vaccine programme, is enough to prevent a large wave from developing in the coming months.
> 
> Put it this way: Vaccines already given would be expected to change the timing, pace etc of the development of a subsequent wave. Therefore you should not be using the speed at which the last wave developed, in a pre-vaccine era, in order to conclude that the Indian variant is of no concern because it hasnt exploded everywhere yet. Yes it is possible that a combo of vaccines given already and enough people taking things seriously will be enough to keep a subsequent wave modest or barely visible. But it is simply too soon to make that claim. As I keep saying, the modelling implied a third wave might arrive in July, so there is absolutely no way I can be reassured before then.



I think we are all of the opinion post the 17th May, cases were going to rise.  We clearly can't be in lockdown forever. So is just a matter of timing + vaccination.
It's just the numbers going into hospital that is the big worry.  While this has risen, it's not huge yet and mainly under 35's. 


The good news is the number of people needing ventilation has yet to rise, at 120 people.


----------



## glitch hiker (May 28, 2021)

This isn't good. Town was rammed today. Buses were as busy as they ever were pre Covid. Roads are hectic now with, presunably, people off for a weekend break.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 28, 2021)

Earlier this week we went back over 3000 new cases reported in the daily figures, today we're on 4,182, a 24% increase in the 7-day average compared to the 7 days before.

Of course, there're various things in play - stage 3 unlocking, the Indian variant, and surge testing in hotspot areas - and an increase in new cases was always expected as we unlock, it's hospital admissions they are more interested in.

Sadly, the admissions have been going up the last few days, on Wednesday the 7-day average was up +10.8%, yesterday +19.9%, today +25.2%.

Deaths reported yesterday were up +14%, today they are up +38.1%.

If these tends continue, I fucking hope they delay the next stage of unlocking.


----------



## brogdale (May 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Earlier this week we went back over 3000 new cases reported in the daily figures, today we're on 4,182, a 24% increase in the 7-day average compared to the 7 days before.
> 
> Of course, there're various things in play - stage 3 unlocking, the Indian variant, and surge testing in hotspot areas - and an increase in new cases was always expected as we unlock, it's hospital admissions they are more interested in.
> 
> ...


Guardian leading on that line right now...


----------



## StoneRoad (May 28, 2021)

Those trends in cases etc are very worrying.

There have been a few mutterings about potential delays to the June unlockening ... but a few days ago bojo was saying that he didn't see anything in the available data that would indicate that.
But, looking at those trends ...

Unless the vaccination rate gets better in the areas with higher case rates of the "Indian" variant *and* people are sensible over the next few week (and especially over this coming bank holiday w/end) I forsee some more trouble ahead.

Personally, I think the May step should have been delayed as we hadn't managed to keep the "Indian" variant out and now it is here, we don't seem to be able to get cases under control - at least in some areas.

I know using "local" restrictions didn't work well last time they were tried, but surely the lessons have been learnt ... maybe they should be tried again.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2021)

I really cant draw attention to national hospital admission figures yet. I know you can get some rises out of certain rolling averages but when I look at the daily numbers I still dont really have anything to add beyond what I pointed out yesterday. In my book the rolling average rises are mostly still just showing up because there was an additional dip in the past that I tend to see as a blip.        #37,335      

Obviously if I zoom into places like Bolton then their hospital admissions and numbers in hospital show a more obvious increase.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2021)

The surge testing in my local area which has now been ongoing for a week had failed to make any interesting difference to the daily case numbers here, but today there is a sign that may be changing. I have to wait more days to be sure though, and the graphs I could show wont show anything interesting yet, unlike a bunch of other places that we are now used to hearing about on the news.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Guardian leading on that line right now...


Yes, what he is saying is entirely consistent with basic pandemic maths, lessons learnt (or not learnt) from the first wave and the second wave, modelling at the start of May, and the wide range of uncertainty about the exact impact of the new variants and whether or not we might just about get away with things given levels of vaccination etc.

Nothing much has changed in terms of my expectations since I first started going on about the modelling much earlier in May. The 'great news' about vaccine effectiveness is actually a mixed picture, contrary to the headlines, but we've discussed that already as well. I just have to wait and see. A very sensibile country that erred on the side of caution would not have done the May unlocking on schedule, let alone the June unlocking which is the step plenty of experts especially shit themselves about right now.


----------



## weltweit (May 28, 2021)

Hancock was wittering about hoping to have broken the link between cases and hospital admissions because of vulnerable people having had vaccines. Is there any evidence of this?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 28, 2021)

I can see Worthing cropping-up in reports over the next few days, being the area with the highest increase in new cases, at a whopping 1200% reported today. 

However, over the last few days, Worthing has been reported as one of only two areas with zero cases, then we went to one, now 13 or 11.7 per 100k population - hence the 1200% increase, which again demonstrates that when case numbers are very low, just a few extra cases can produce a very big percentage increase.

And, there was me thinking of getting this map framed.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Hancock was wittering about hoping to have broken the link between cases and hospital admissions because of vulnerable people having had vaccines. Is there any evidence of this?



Its true to some extent, the billion dollar question is to what extent.

Its always been a numbers game, when they fucked it all up to start with they got the numbers wrong and we had to live with the consequences whilst plan B had time to take hold. Then the seocnd time Johnson was an utter cunt and fucked it all up despite the basic reality being so obvious to so many.

In the vaccine era the link between cases and hospitalisations has been changed, not utterly broken. This makes a difference to the numbers game, but modelling suggests that we are not in a situation where we can allow a huge number of cases to develop without still facing serious consequences in terms of hospitalisations and deaths. This is also where the large remaining uncertainties exist - there isnt doubt that relaxing measures leads to more cases, but there is uncertainty about all the different things vaccine does, and therefore how many of each sort of thing to expect. The number of people vaccinated, how much vaccines reduce transmission, how much they reduce symptomatic disease, how much they reduce hospitalisations and how much they reduce deaths, all feature some uncertainty. New variants have the ability to reduce certainty further. There are positive signs about how much vaccines will achieve, but without certainty and the test of time, it is currently not possible to say exactly how big and how deadly the next wave will be. Possibilities range from it being small enough that its not really much of an issue, to waves of hospitalisation and death that are similar or larger than the ones we've already had.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2021)

Here is the Gowers letter the Guardian have published. The one that apparently helped change their idiotic herd immunity plan by pointing out that athe numbers just didnt add up. Its a pretty easy read, although it obviously comes with the usual facepalms when we consider the backdrop, how long the fuckwits in power failed to appreciate this in the buildup to the first wave, until the dramatic u-turn that begun late on March 13th 2020. (a u-turn which became obvious to us within a few days). That letters like this, along with criticism from some other experts in public in the buildup to that date, were required to get them to u-turn is still a damning testament to the incompetence of the government and indeed the crap establishment approach to this sort of emergency. Long-standing crap priorities and establishment attitudes are partly to blame. Some of that shit is creeping back in.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.documentcloud.org


----------



## glitch hiker (May 28, 2021)




----------



## Sunray (May 28, 2021)

I’m coming to the conclusion that Dominic Cummings is way smarter than Boris Johnson.   Whatever his politics, this makes me think he would have done a much better job than Boris ‘Bodies’ Johnson in this pandemic.
It’s a low bar but it’s clearly true.









						Expert who helped change No 10 Covid policy in first wave warns over risk of easing
					

Exclusive: Prof Sir Tim Gowers says ‘things will get bad very quickly’ after June if new variant spread is underestimated




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2021)

What sort of smartness are you referring to? That he was capable of opening that letter from Tim Gowers?


----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 28, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I’m coming to the conclusion that Dominic Cummings is way smarter than Boris Johnson.   Whatever his politics..


They’re both Tory is all you need to know!


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2021)

Since I always went on about hospital infection control in this pandemic, went on about an outbreak at my local hospital last June, and posted a Guardian article about the number of deaths via these sorts of infections, I may as well post the sad stats for my local hospital that the local news site has published.



> Information from a Freedom of Information (FOI) act request has revealed that almost a third of Covid-19 deaths came from catching coronavirus from within the hospital itself.
> 
> There were 69 probable cases of hospital acquired coronavirus cases at the 'Eliot and 83 definite, a total of 152 between March 2020 and March 2021.
> 
> Of these, it resulted in 45 people losing their lives.



They also included Univerity Hospitals Birmingham figures:



> Neighbouring University Hospitals Birmingham had the highest number of hospital-acquired Covid-19 infections, at 1,463. It also had the highest number of deaths from Covid-19 caught in the hospital, at 408.











						Almost a third of patients who caught Covid-19 in hospital sadly died
					

Data has been revealed in a Freedom of Information request




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## MJ100 (May 28, 2021)

Any news on this 'Thai' variant that I saw reported somewhere today? Traced from Thailand and ultimately back to Egypt(!) apparently. 100 or so cases detected in the UK so far. I forget where it was (maybe the BBC live updates today). The Yorkshire variant seems to have gone quiet too.


----------



## elbows (May 28, 2021)

Depends what you are expecting to hear. There wont be that much about them in the news except when the weekly figures come out or there is some specific new concern or study involving them. A lot of the nerdy aspects and the weekly numbers tend to get mentioned on the Covid Mutations thread.


----------



## elbows (May 29, 2021)

> A “sense of confusion” is undermining the government’s efforts to suppress coronavirus, a Sage psychologist has warned. Professor Stephen Reicher told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Westminster is in a “pickle” because it appears to have dropped its ‘data, not dates’ principle ahead of its planned lockdown exit on 21 June.
> 
> Professor Reicher also accused the government of contradicting itself in current messaging, such as by telling people that they can legally travel and hug each other – but “please don’t”.



From some independent live updates page that I dont normally look at Government’s mixed messages ‘undermining work to control virus’ - follow live

The data not dates thing was always bullshit because they named a lot of dates at the time. They knew how they were supposed to do this properly, but they didnt want to even back then.


----------



## Supine (May 29, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Any news on this 'Thai' variant that I saw reported somewhere today? Traced from Thailand and ultimately back to Egypt(!) apparently. 100 or so cases detected in the UK so far. I forget where it was (maybe the BBC live updates today). The Yorkshire variant seems to have gone quiet too.



It was discussed a bit at Indy Sage on Friday. Still early days as it’s so new.


----------



## Sunray (May 29, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I’m coming to the conclusion that Dominic Cummings is way smarter than Boris Johnson.   Whatever his politics, this makes me think he would have done a much better job than Boris ‘Bodies’ Johnson in this pandemic.
> It’s a low bar but it’s clearly true.
> 
> 
> ...



Understanding that Gowers was one of the leading mathematicians in the UK and getting in touch with him. I don't think Boris Johnson feels there is anyone clever than him.




			
				Prof Sir Tim Gowers said:
			
		

> It’s good that I came to that realisation when I did, because the day after that (or to be precise at 1.23am, but I saw it only when I got up the next morning), Dominic Cummings, who already knew me from discussions about mathematics teaching several years ago, *got in touch*. So I wrote and told him that I thought we needed to move urgently to extreme containment measures.


----------



## johnwesley (May 29, 2021)

The so-called Freedom March has taken their troops to Westfield.


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 29, 2021)

strung out said:


> Update to this - all four of them had the worst night they've had in ages, shivery, nausea, dizziness. I'm now laughing at them telling them they should have waited for Pfizer



Wife had a shit time in the Pfizer. I had a rough headache on zeneca's first but the second was pish


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 29, 2021)

johnwesley said:


> The so-called Freedom March has taken their troops to Westfield.




Fucking twats, marching into Westfield demanding 'freedom', when everyone in there were already exercising their 'freedom' to shop.


----------



## Supine (May 29, 2021)

I hope I’m wrong but it looks like we’re starting a new wave and we haven’t even done the stage four opening yet. The government haven’t learnt anything.


----------



## Supine (May 29, 2021)

Going in hard and fast saves lives. That isn’t in dispute. At least we need to wait another month or so to get the vaccination percentage up. Why gamble now???


----------



## elbows (May 29, 2021)

Yeah. I know I posted certain modelling stuff too much already, but I suppose I better do it again.

Because usually when I talk about it, I say another peak is modelled for July. But I should point out that in some of this modelling the wave actually begins at end of May or early June, and its the explosive bit that comes in July.

Because we have a new variant taking over I havent bothered with the central scenarios from the modelling, instead concentrating on their variant of concern scenarios. And I've left out Imperial Colleges modelling because unless I read their document wrong, for a variant of conern they only modelled the same or less transmissivity relative to the Kent variant.

These arent new, they are the same early May modelling documents I've posted about plenty before.

Warwick:



London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine:





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/984533/S1229_Warwick_Road_Map_Scenarios_and_Sensitivity_Steps_3_and_4.pdf
		




			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/984546/S1230_LSHTM_Interim_roadmap_assessment_prior_to_steps_3_and_4.pdf
		


Although I've tended to go on about how a wave was expected even if we only did step 3 and not step 4 of unlocking, I believe at least one of the models suggested there would be a summer wave even if we'd only gone as far as step 2 of the unlocking, albeit a modest one.

As ever these models are sensitive to all sorts of assumptions, including vaccine rollout pace and efficacy of the vaccines.

R is expected to be lowered during school holidays so half term will do something, but is obviously rather short.


----------



## elbows (May 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> But I should point out that in some of this modelling the wave actually begins at end of May or early June, and its the explosive bit that comes in July.



Oh how I hate trying to reduce these modelling documents down to a few sentences. My description of June and the explosive bit not till July only applies to one of the universities model results, the other has a lot of the big swing upwards happening in June, when looking at the variant with higher transmission scenario.

Is it fair to say that the public have not been given much sense of the implications that a 50% more transmissive strain may have in terms of wave size compared to previous waves, even in the vaccination era?


----------



## elbows (May 30, 2021)

Also rather than driving myself mad trying to look at the age heatmaps for every place via the dashboard, I noticed that I can quickly look at them all via documents on this page:









						Coronavirus cases by local authority: epidemiological data, 26 May 2021
					

Weekly watchlist giving epidemiological coronavirus (COVID-19) data for each lower-tier local authority (LTLA) in England.




					www.gov.uk
				




Here is one example, some of the ones from the North West:


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## pinkmonkey (May 30, 2021)

My brothers son has covid, big outbreak at his school, in Yorkshire, what a shit bank holiday weekend for them all. Their trip out today was to get the rest of the family PCR tested.


----------



## elbows (May 30, 2021)

The ZOE Covid people had a report about the effects of vaccination and I feel the need to highlight some particular details that people might not have heard via other sources yet:



> Looking more closely, we saw that people with less healthy lifestyles and higher body mass index (BMI) were more at risk of becoming reinfected after vaccination, as well as people living in areas of higher social deprivation.
> 
> Older people with health conditions causing frailty were also more likely to get infected after their jab, which could be particularly relevant for elderly people living in care homes, although age itself didn’t seem to affect the chances of reinfection.





> According to our analysis, people over the age of 60 who’d been vaccinated were less likely to develop prolonged COVID symptoms (long COVID) than those who had not.
> 
> Having an underlying health condition - including asthma, cancer, diabetes, and lung or heart disease - didn’t increase the chances of being reinfected after vaccination compared with unvaccinated groups, although there was a small increase in risk for people over the age of 60 with kidney disease. It’s possible that people with these conditions are still shielding to some extent, whether vaccinated or not, which could explain this finding.



I take particular note of this finding:



> Curiously, we did notice that people who had been vaccinated and then tested positive for COVID-19 were more likely to report sneezing as a symptom compared with those without a jab.











						What’s my risk of COVID-19 after vaccination?
					

Our latest analysis of data from the ZOE COVID Study app reveals who is most at risk from being reinfected with COVID-19 after vaccination.




					covid.joinzoe.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 30, 2021)

If the increases in both new cases and hospital admissions of 23% over the last 7 days, is the start of a trend, surely they will end-up delaying stage 4 of the unlocking for a few weeks, to allow the vaccination programme time to get more people jabbed?

Almost half of the population thinks they should, according to this poll in the 'i', and I would expect that to grow if/as cases & hospital admissions continue to increase.











						Almost half of Britons do not believe England's Covid-19 rules should ease on 21 June
					

Doubts have been cast on the Government’s plans to move to step four of the roadmap due to increase in cases of the Indian variant




					inews.co.uk


----------



## Sunray (May 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> If the increases in both new cases and hospital admissions of 23% over the last 7 days, is the start of a trend, surely they will end-up delaying stage 4 of the unlocking for a few weeks, to allow the vaccination programme time to get more people jabbed?
> 
> Almost half of the population thinks they should, according to this poll in the 'i', and I would expect that to grow if/as cases & hospital admissions continue to increase.
> 
> ...


That doesn't make any sense, because whatever we are doing now is allowing the spread?
So really we should go back before the 17th of May? 
On past performance, it's all going ahead as it 'irreversible'.
I also note that that hospital admissions are nearly a week out of date on the PHE website.


----------



## kabbes (May 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> That doesn't make any sense, because whatever we are doing now is allowing the spread?
> So really we should go back before the 17th of May?
> On past performance, it's all going ahead as it 'irreversible'.
> I also note that that hospital admissions are nearly a week out of date on the PHE website.


“Things are already slightly bad so we should make them worse”?


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> That doesn't make any sense, because whatever we are doing now is allowing the spread?
> So really we should go back before the 17th of May?


I very much doubt they will roll-back on the May unlocking, I think the best we can hope for is that June unlocking will be put off, to give the vaccine programme a better chance to get ahead of the virus in the race.

They always expected an increase in cases with unlocking, and the Indian variant is not helping, their concern is overloading the NHS again. If those increased hospital admissions are mainly in the Indian variant hotspot areas, where they are throwing resources at it, I doubt they will be concerned about the NHS being overloaded at present.

Looking at Bolton, they do seem to have turned the tide on new cases, down -16.6% in the last 7-days, hospital admissions up +36%, but if those now start to drop in line with a drop in cases, it would be a good sign the local action plan has worked. 



> On past performance, it's all going ahead as it 'irreversible'.



They wanted the unlocking to be 'irreversible', but each stage is still down to consideration of 3-4 weeks of data & a week's notice of change, so it's possible stage 4 will be delayed, so that they don't have to reverse it later.


----------



## LDC (May 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Is it fair to say that the public have not been given much sense of the implications that a 50% more transmissive strain may have in terms of wave size compared to previous waves, even in the vaccination era?



Definitely, even quite sensible people who have followed things reasonably closely the last year now now seem to think it's all over IME.


----------



## LDC (May 30, 2021)

Sunray said:


> That doesn't make any sense, because whatever we are doing now is allowing the spread?
> So really we should go back before the 17th of May?
> On past performance, it's all going ahead as it 'irreversible'.
> I also note that that hospital admissions are nearly a week out of date on the PHE website.



Yesterday in the city centre it felt normal really, so I think some of the big steps have been taken already, June will, I expect, just add a little to the mix.


----------



## cupid_stunt (May 30, 2021)

This article is a good summary of the current hospital admissions situation, and how increases are mainly a localised reaction to a localised hotspots, which is why I can't see them rolling back on the May unlocking.









						Covid-19 hospital admissions in England: What do the local numbers show?
					

About two-thirds of acute hospital trusts in England are currently recording no Covid-19 admissions.




					www.standard.co.uk


----------



## LDC (May 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This article is a good summary of the current hospital admissions situation, and how increases are mainly a localised reaction to a localised hotspots, which is why I can't see them rolling back on the May unlocking.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, it's all 'irreversible', until it isn't...


----------



## teuchter (May 30, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Definitely, even quite sensible people who have followed things reasonably closely the last year now now seem to think it's all over IME.


Just yesterday I overheard someone, saying to their friend who was reminding them to put their mask on as they went into a supermarket, "oh yeah I forgot...in my mind it's all over now".


----------



## existentialist (May 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Just yesterday I overheard someone, saying to their friend who was reminding them to put their mask on as they went into a supermarket, "oh yeah I forgot...in my mind it's all over now".


I can see what would tempt someone into believing that, TBF. Although it's up to all of us not to get complacent.


----------



## pinkmonkey (May 30, 2021)

pinkmonkey said:


> My brothers son has covid, big outbreak at his school, in Yorkshire, what a shit bank holiday weekend for them all. Their trip out today was to get the rest of the family PCR tested.


and my brother has it now, he had one vaccine but he still has symptoms, says he feels sweaty and tired.


----------



## Supine (May 30, 2021)

Just shared a train with hundreds of drunk maskless youth. Passing through hotspots like Bolton with everyone seemingly going on the piss in Manchester. Things are going to get bad pretty quickly if this is the new normal.


----------



## elbows (May 30, 2021)

Given my focus on hospital infections as a pandemic wave driver, the possible increase in transmissiveness of the new variant, and the talk of hoe vaccine failure is more likely to be seen in people with other health problems, I have to eercise much restraint to stop my mind running wild when I read things like:



> But he said it was "incredibly striking" how busy hospitals were, as they deal with non-Covid backlogs.
> 
> Trusts were going "full pelt", he said.











						Covid-19: 'Very few' Covid hospital patients had two jabs, NHS boss says
					

NHS boss Chris Hopson adds it is "incredibly striking" how busy hospitals are with non-Covid patients.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




The headline comment doesnt mean much to me other than on the reassuring propaganda / encourage vaccination watch front. Because its what I'd expect them to draw attention to, and its a poor guide as to what the picture would look like if we have another big wave. And documents I read which deal with the next wave tend to say that its inevitable that the proportion of hospitalised patients that have been vaccinated will be significant in future,

Having said all that, there is still quite a wide range of possibilities in my mind in regards what we will see in the months ahead.


----------



## LDC (May 30, 2021)

Supine said:


> Just shared a train with hundreds of drunk maskless youth. Passing through hotspots like Bolton with everyone seemingly going on the piss in Manchester. Things are going to get bad pretty quickly if this is the new normal.



Same with town yesterday, just looked normal.


----------



## elbows (May 30, 2021)

In terms of behaviours returning to normal, I suppose its sensible to use 'extreme ambulance service pressure for non-Covid reasons' as an indicator too? Although such a situation can also relate to staffing pressures, in this case they are talking about a record number of calls.









						South Western Ambulance Service declares 'critical incident'
					

South Western Ambulance Service blames "extreme pressures" for extended wait times for patients.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 20Bees (May 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Just yesterday I overheard someone, saying to their friend who was reminding them to put their mask on as they went into a supermarket, "oh yeah I forgot...in my mind it's all over now".


I was working on the supermarket checkout yesterday and a guy unloading his basket snapped at the woman (in her 50s?) behind him to step back. She looked at me, clearly bewildered. I said, “Please will you wait at the next floor marker until the customer in front of you has gone“, ... she did then move away, saying “Sorry, I didn’t think we had to do that now everywhere’s open”!


----------



## elbows (May 30, 2021)

An additional complication in my ability to use things like the Bolton hospital reality to gather clues about how bad a subsequent wave will be, is how keen the authorities are to present as much as possible as being good news. Some of it might turn out to be good news but I'm bound to resist crude attempts to characterise it as such at this stage. Its something I might look back on and think I should have been more positive about, or I might look back and rant about what a load of bullshit wa flying around at this time. The BBC news on telly today was esepcially vulgar in this respect, although it is a bank holiday weekend so that might partly explain why they are laying it on even thicker than usual.


----------



## Brainaddict (May 30, 2021)

20Bees said:


> I was working on the supermarket checkout yesterday and a guy unloading his basket snapped at the woman (in her 50s?) behind him to step back. She looked at me, clearly bewildered. I said, “Please will you wait at the next floor marker until the customer in front of you has gone“, ... she did then move away, saying “Sorry, I didn’t think we had to do that now everywhere’s open”!


I don't really blame individuals for this. The government should be making it more clear.


----------



## Flavour (May 30, 2021)

Supine said:


> Just shared a train with hundreds of drunk maskless youth. Passing through hotspots like Bolton with everyone seemingly going on the piss in Manchester. Things are going to get bad pretty quickly if this is the new normal.


Aren't pubs open now, like inside? The messaging is: it's fine now, go and get pissed. And I can understand young people going for it. The government have been too gung ho.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (May 30, 2021)

Lots of folk really don’t give a fuck anymore - mental health is frayed  - PUB!!


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## pinkmonkey (May 30, 2021)

7 kids positive at my nephews school, more expected to test +ve. Apparently the outbreak is down to someones kid showing symptoms but didn't want to miss their last week of school. This is so infuriating.


----------



## elbows (May 30, 2021)

Supine said:


> I hope I’m wrong but it looks like we’re starting a new wave and we haven’t even done the stage four opening yet. The government haven’t learnt anything.




Martin McKee agrees:



> Martin McKee, a professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said he believed the third wave had begun.
> 
> “We can already see that the current measures are not stopping cases rising rapidly in many parts of the country. This looks very much as if we are now early in a third wave,” he said. “Unless there is a miracle, opening up further in June is a huge risk. The rise in cases we are seeing now should cause a reassessment of the most recent relaxation.”



From the end of Third wave of Covid may be under way in UK, scientists say


----------



## Petcha (May 30, 2021)

I went out last night and it was completely like life pre-pandemic here London. I confess I was as guilty as anyone. I've not been properly smashed in a while but I did last night. And watching the night bus stops etc was terrifying, everyone's completely forgotten about it.


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## Brainaddict (May 31, 2021)

It's maddening. You can just look at all the countries who thought they had the pandemic beat and opened up too early, and see our future there. And many of those countries were without the increased transmissibility of the Indian variant...

The country that did have that was of course India. And we can look there and...holy fuck what will it take for people to take the situation seriously?


----------



## Flavour (May 31, 2021)

With the vaccination rate being as high as it is... I think it just feels a bit difficult to imagine another scenario like the one in January happening again. Not saying it can't or won't... but I understand why people are acting as if it's over, because the reopening signals that


----------



## Artaxerxes (May 31, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> It's maddening. You can just look at all the countries who thought they had the pandemic beat and opened up too early, and see our future there. And many of those countries were without the increased transmissibility of the Indian variant...
> 
> The country that did have that was of course India. And we can look there and...holy fuck what will it take for people to take the situation seriously?



You can also look at literally last year here


----------



## purenarcotic (May 31, 2021)

I’m on a train down to London. It’s very busy in my carriage. A woman has sat down next to me because, well I don’t know why tbh, maybe because I have a table and the other empty seats don’t but she’s not wearing her mask properly, she keeps pulling it down and then putting it back up if she wants to sneeze. Just keep it on ffs. Some wearing masks, a lot aren’t. I’ve been double vaxxed and have an n95 mask on but it doesn’t feel very safe tbh. I’m now wishing I had reserved the seat next to me and pretended someone else was due to sit there. I much preferred it when being as far away from one another was the done thing. 😂🤦🏻‍♀️


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## two sheds (May 31, 2021)

different carriages where possible


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## LDC (May 31, 2021)

Lots of news today saying we're in the early stages of a third wave...


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## purenarcotic (May 31, 2021)

two sheds said:


> different carriages where possible



I’ve moved myself to a different seat now. Two other unmasked people have now sat at the table. Lunacy.


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## weepiper (May 31, 2021)

😐


----------



## purenarcotic (May 31, 2021)

two sheds said:


> different carriages where possible



I had to come to London for a hospital appointment in November last year. It was like having a personal train service, there were about ten people on the train and I had the whole carriage to myself. Glorious.


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## teuchter (May 31, 2021)

I have to get a train to scotland next week and am thinking I will try and get one at an ungodly hour of the morning and hope the maskless crowds are still asleep while I travel.


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## cupid_stunt (May 31, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I have to get a train to scotland next week and am thinking I will try and get one at an ungodly hour of the morning and hope the maskless crowds are still asleep while I travel.



It would be safer to drive.


----------



## elbows (May 31, 2021)

At least some are pointing out the bullshit about new variant effects on vaccine protection - positive spin about that has been driving me mad recently.



> Dr Deepti Gurdasani, a clinical epidemiologist and senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, said the situation was “entirely predictable”, adding that while many experts have been calling for early action, that window of opportunity has now been missed.
> 
> “When government was claiming that these outbreaks were localised, it was very clear that B.1.617.2, while at different frequencies in different regions, was rapidly increasing across all of England, which meant that the variant would become dominant even where it wasn’t frequent in a matter of weeks – and this is exactly what happened,” she said.





> “Now, we have a highly transmissible variant, capable of a significant level of escape from vaccines – especially after a single dose – leading to exponential rise in cases in many areas,” she added.
> 
> “While vaccines will help, we need to remember only 38% of our population are fully vaccinated, leaving large numbers unprotected, or with minimal levels of protection. Still, the focus in the media seems to be on 21 June, when the real question is: how do we deal with what is a public health crisis right now?”











						India Covid variant spreading across England, data shows
					

Scientists say geographical spread ‘entirely predictable’ and window of opportunity has been missed




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## 2hats (May 31, 2021)

elbows said:


> The ZOE Covid people had a report about the effects of vaccination


Preprint - DOI: 10.1101/2021.05.24.21257738.
Post vaccination risk (odds ratios):


----------



## Ms Ordinary (May 31, 2021)

Outbreak at a big secondary school near my Dad, so they are keeping masks compulsory for the pupils there (other schools have stopped, I think).

Milton Keynes, so fairly near to Bedford which has a lot of cases.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 31, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I am due to have my 2nd AZ vacc on Tuesday (although now only 9 weeks apart from my first).
> My daughter's secondary have made the sensible decision to keep the kids wearing masks in all common areas (although a few teaching staff have also never followed the open windows policy in their classrooms).
> The school I work in (almost literally next door) has not - and on top of that, on Friday - have also decided to move the tills around in the canteen to get the kids through more quickly but which means we are now even closer to the kids.
> 
> ...



Just thought I would expand on this.
Last Tuesday, we had four cases amongst one year.
The following day, there were three more cases and the whole year was sent home. I mean 

I had my vacc on Tues, which was ok, but started feeling 'normally' ill (as opposed to what happened, and much sooner, with the first vaccination) late on Weds and on Thurs woke up with a sore throat and a muddy head, ears and eyes both affected. No cough, snot and nothing chesty at all - like a bad head cold. Occasional, mild temp fluctuations.
By that afternoon, I noticed a _bit_ of a change in taste and smell, so ordered a home test.

I then remembered that the last time I ordered a test, it didn't come until after the last priority box collection, so booked a walk in apt for the next morning.

Got an email on Friday to say the home test would arrive in time to do it, though, so tried to cancel the (earlier!) walk-in apt but there was no way to do that. 
The test DID arrive  but... there was no liquid in the vial!  

(Can't remember if it was then or the next day that I started to get a cough/snots/sneezes/total loss of appetite - unusual  - to add to it)

I called 119 to check whether that test would defo not work (lol) and also asked if there was anywhere one of my kids could collect a home test (I don't drive and wasn't up to going to the walk in if I didn't have to) and the advisor said there wasn't, so I ordered a _second_ home test.

Got an email at 4am on Sat morning, from Royal Mail, saying 'Sorry, your parcel from Covid 19 Home Testing Programme needed to be re-routed.
It's now on its way to you.'.

The tracking info showed it had arrived at a Home Counties depot, offered huge apologies and assured it had been immediately sent back out again.
Checked the tracking throughout that morning but it was stuck on having arrived at that (incorrect) depot at 11pm the night before, so I ordered ANOTHER home test. 

Realised a bit later that I wouldn't be able to do a test until Tuesday by then, because none of the priority boxes had collecetions until then, so then booked a walk in for yesterday.

Dragged myself up and down the hills and that was all pretty straightforward - and they told me that you CAN collect home testing kits directly from them.
Have had a neg result today, but taken on Day 5 of symptoms, instead of what would have been Day 3. 

I still feel ill. Nothing I'm worried about - I was assuming some level of protection from my first vacc and it does feel like a bad head cold (am currently hacking away, with a very productive cough  head/ears/eyes still all bad but snot/sneezes have stopped) - but just WTAF?!

It may well be that I have picked up some new bug that's doing the rounds, with the mask removal (and I defo haven't picked it up anywhere but work) or that it IS down to my 2nd vacc, or it may be that it is covid that just hasn't been picked up due to the effectiveness of the test itself and the delay in testing - but how the fuck can you know when there is such a lack of efficiency with the testing system itself, or bloody SENSE (in terms of my workplace!). 
I am just going to assume I need to carry on staying at home for now (because I can, because I'm off for half term) - still ill and don't want to pass anything on to add to the bloody confusion at the very least, but I am SO fucked off at being governed, even on a very 'small world' (work) level, by such a bunch of dangerous, thick idiots.

I have sent a shitty response to the 'How did we do?' email, re testing - I mean maybe I just had an especially bad experience but it seems to be the assumption that people drive (or that they are capable of driving if they do, when they are ill), when I can only think it would all work better if it was set up for people who DON'T, even if the testing kits are actually fit for purpose.


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 31, 2021)

That sounds like a monumental, personal moan (and is tbf  ) but I don't mean that to have been the point - just thought it might be interesting to record my experience there, re the testing system (along with the school stuff)...


----------



## David Clapson (May 31, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> That sounds like a monumental, personal moan (and is tbf  ) but I don't mean that to have been the point - just thought it might be interesting to record my experience there, re the testing system (along with the school stuff)...


Very interesting posts. I hope you recover asap with nothing long term.

And I've just noticed your family planning tip. Reminds me of a gf who used to say "one up the bot saves one in the cot".


----------



## sheothebudworths (May 31, 2021)

Also to add - I'm not sad about it, I'm angry! 
It has caused some friction in my home for the first time, too - but I was thinking today, if I wasn't now on holiday anyway, it may have put me in a really difficult situation with work. 
For people who are not being paid for any of this and/or don't get sick pay - well, why would you even _bother_?


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 1, 2021)

sheothebudworths - I hope you have a quick recovery after all that hassle !

That symptom list sounds a bit like something my close friends had in January last year (although they had something based around gastroenteritis) and my OH still has currently [also tested -ve, twice so far].
Be warned that it may well knock you for six and expect some serious feelings of tiredness / downright exhaustion. [I got the later from my AZ jabs]


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 1, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I expect this sort of stuff is going on very widely - how employers choose to interpret and/or ignore exisiting _rules_, with the changing advice - let alone individuals, cos I imagine there's a huge signal (even more so to the younger, unvaccinated cohorts?) that it's all ok now.



This is definitely the case in schools. I went for an interview on friday and the school had given up separating the kids into separate year groups but were still making them go round a one-way system so they could spend much more time in confined, unventilated spaces with loads of other kids.

The fact that this stuff is all done via risk assessments, which are not fit for purpose even with known, quantifiable risks, does not fill me with confidence. Everything becomes a question of how do we cover our own arse, not how do we actually minimise harm.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

I see a bit more is being done in recent days to alert more of the public to the realities of the current situation. This sort of message wont reach everyone properly at this time, but its a start.









						Covid-19: Job not done despite vaccination success, scientist warns
					

Calls to delay ending Covid restrictions in England on 21 June have come amid warnings of a third wave.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Of course it still features some idiots with shit pandemic track records. Such as Dingwall. Its only been a few weeks since I moaned about this shithead. This is what he has come out with this time:



> Another member of Nervtag, professor of sociology Robert Dingwall, told Times Radio he hadn't seen anything in the latest data to make a case for postponing relaxing restrictions.
> 
> He said the younger age groups who were not vaccinated faced "much lower risk", adding that "many of the scientists who've been talking over the weekend simply haven't adjusted their expectations to understand that (for these people) Covid is a mild illness in the community".



I wont repeat all of my previous complaints, but please note the following sort of thing he was saying in September last year, when a wave had begun but had not yet exploded into horrific numbers that left few in doubt of reality at the time:



> In fact, Prof Robert Dingwall, a sociologist and an adviser to the government, believes the public may well be now at the stage where it is "comfortable" with the idea that thousands will die from Covid just as they are that they die of flu.
> 
> He believes it is only a particular element of the public health and scientific leadership who worry about driving down the infection level and is critical of politicians for not being "brave enough" to be honest with the public that the virus will be around "forever and a day" even with a vaccine.



That particular quote is from a post I made last September where I was complaining about Nick Triggles dangerous BBC pandemic shit. Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

I wont spend all day ranting about Dingwall, but I did go back and read a shit article he wrote in late January 2020. The seeds of key themes were certainly present, suggesting it would be more like flu, that our response would be more damaging than the effects of the virus, and a bunch of logic that was used by those who later promoted the doomed herd immunity approach. Sounds like it had to be edited later to correct some basic flaws in risk comparisons used.









						We Should Deescalate the War on the Coronavirus
					

Fear, finger-pointing, and militaristic action against the virus are predictable, but unproductive. We may be better off adjusting to a new normal of periodic outbreaks.




					www.wired.com
				




My mind does wander to people like Dingwall when I think of the behavioural scientists who complained that they were blamed for the 'lockdown fatigue' shit that was used as an excuse for not taking strong, early action.  They said they did not recognise the concept and that it hadnt come from them. I wouldnt be surprised if such things actually came from Dingwall & friends.


----------



## Anju (Jun 1, 2021)

Went to a little, 20-25 people party on Sunday night. They deliberately kept the numbers down to that and it was outside so I thought it would be OK. Couple of hours in and people were sharing spliffs and a bit later I counted 7 people share the same rolled up note. Ended up leaving shortly after that as despite it feeling great to be out people seem to be treating covid as if it's over. I just don't understand why someone who greets you with an elbow bump is trying to pass you something they've just had in their mouth half an hour later.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

Anju said:


> Went to a little, 20-25 people party on Sunday night. They deliberately kept the numbers down to that and it was outside so I thought it would be OK. Couple of hours in and people were sharing spliffs and a bit later I counted 7 people share the same rolled up note. Ended up leaving shortly after that as despite it feeling great to be out people seem to be treating covid as if it's over. I just don't understand why someone who greets you with an elbow bump is trying to pass you something they've just had in their mouth half an hour later.



Try singing 'dont bogart that virus, my friend' and see if the penny drops.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

Comments from the 15:45 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57313078



> Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, is one of those who cautions against lifting restrictions in England on 21 June.
> 
> He tells BBC Radio 4's the World at One programme: "If we got to a stage where we have a two dose vaccine delivered through the age group, I think we'd be in a fairly safe situation but we're not there yet."





> Asked whether it should be accepted that there will be a constant background level of infection, he says: "That boils down to a profound policy debate maybe we need to have, and can't be whisked through by a sleight of hand, that says what kind of country do we want to be in the next one or two or five years or 10 years.
> 
> "And different countries will make different choices about whether they want to try to get as close as possible to elimination or whether they want to tolerate a percolating level of susceptibility to this variant and the next variant forever more and those will have enormous implications."


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

Tom Spectors bullshit is starting to get called out by people who know better on twitter.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 1, 2021)

This seems good. Some parts of Scotland moving to level 0 from Saturday. Central belt staying at level 2 for now.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 1, 2021)

Anju said:


> Went to a little, 20-25 people party on Sunday night. They deliberately kept the numbers down to that and it was outside so I thought it would be OK.


This is in the face of current guidelines, right?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 1, 2021)

S☼I said:


> This is in the face of current guidelines, right?



Yep, it's within the rules, the limit is 30 for outside gatherings.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 1, 2021)

weepiper said:


> This seems good. Some parts of Scotland moving to level 0 from Saturday. Central belt staying at level 2 for now.



Although I've just had an email from my kids' high school saying the headteacher and several staff have tested positive


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 1, 2021)

just under 3200 cases today. It doesn't seem to be spiking madly...yet. Hopefully never will. But that's the nature of this isn't it. Complacency will do us no good. OTOH, the wave may yet prove not to materialise after all. We just don't know


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> just under 3200 cases today. It doesn't seem to be spiking madly...yet. Hopefully never will. But that's the nature of this isn't it. Complacency will do us no good. OTOH, the wave may yet prove not to materialise after all. We just don't know



TBF, the number of tests being reported over the bank holiday period are well down, e.g., we were averaging almost 900k a day last week, and only just over 600k reported today, covering yesterday.

Yet, despite that, the creeping up of cases continues, yesterday new cases were up 28.8% week-on-week, today it's 31.9%.


----------



## Indeliblelink (Jun 1, 2021)

Covid: Zero daily deaths announced in UK for first time
					

The latest figures come amid concern over a recent small rise in cases linked to the Indian variant.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




First day there have been no deaths since March 2020.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

Indeliblelink said:


> Covid: Zero daily deaths announced in UK for first time
> 
> 
> The latest figures come amid concern over a recent small rise in cases linked to the Indian variant.
> ...



Thats a bit of a useless non-story, since the article itself points out weekend and bank holiday effect, and its not news that deaths have gone down to a very low level recently.

Meanwhile in terms of the future, I recommend this thread:


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 1, 2021)

Indeliblelink said:


> Covid: Zero daily deaths announced in UK for first time
> 
> 
> The latest figures come amid concern over a recent small rise in cases linked to the Indian variant.
> ...



No deaths reported, bank holiday lag in reporting.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

I still hate the 28 day limit with those death figures too. That BBC article points out that there would have been a day last summer with 0 reported deaths i we'd been using that bullshit measure of death at the time:



> In fact, according to the UK’s current definition, deaths within four weeks of a positive test, there was a day with no reportable deaths last summer – on 30 July.
> 
> But the government did announce some deaths on that day as they were using a different definition at the time.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

Speaking of that, here are the latest figures comparing the 28 day death measure with the 60 day measure. Doesnt include deaths that were recorded before the end of June 2020.



Thats from the weekly surveillance report https://assets.publishing.service.g...989845/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w21.pdf


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Thats a bit of a useless non-story, since the article itself points out weekend and bank holiday effect, and its not news that deaths have gone down to a very low level recently.
> 
> Meanwhile in terms of the future, I recommend this thread:



If i understand, the point is that, because Delta is that much more transmissible, we could still end up with comparable hospital admissions even factoring in the vaccines. Delta is increasing exponentially (Dr John Campbell in his vids say it's increased 80% in a really short time).


----------



## Sunray (Jun 1, 2021)

Guardian said:
			
		

> The government’s former chief scientific adviser, Prof Sir Mark Walport, said it was “not impossible” that the country was in the foothills of new wave.
> 
> 
> “I hope not, but it’s not impossible,” Walport told BBC Breakfast. While the B.1.1.7 variant, or “UK variant”, was disappearing, the B.1.617.2 variant, or India variant, was taking over, he said. The World Health Organization has renamed B.1.1.7 as the Alpha variant, and B.1.617.2 as the Delta variant.
> ...



Only time will tell.
The government isn't going to do anything. We could be in a full-on 3rd wave and it's all open in just over 2 weeks.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> just under 3200 cases today. It doesn't seem to be spiking madly...yet. Hopefully never will. But that's the nature of this isn't it. Complacency will do us no good. OTOH, the wave may yet prove not to materialise after all. We just don't know


The thing is, we might learn what an "exponential curve" is at school, but we very rarely have it explained what it is like to *be *on an exponential curve. But with something like Covid, it's a classic example of the genre. And exponential curves (but also less exponential ones) all start out with small, apparently insignificant rises...which, if you're not thinking about exponential curves, seem just that - insignificant. The only way you get to find out for sure which it is, is to wait. And if you do that, then by the time you discover that it *is* an exponential curve, and your various lobbyists have had their say, you've hidden away from it for a week, and your cabinet has weighed in on behalf of various interested sectors, a huge opportunity has been missed, and you're now trying to alter the gradient of a now much more rapidly rising curve. Rinse and repeat. Or just look at the last 14 months in the UK


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Tom Spectors bullshit is starting to get called out by people who know better on twitter.



Got to be careful about mixing representations here, though. So Spector's map shows overall infection levels, while the others show proportions. It's clear that the Kent variant is disappearing quickly everywhere. Looks like we'd have been in a very good place today if the Indian variant hadn't been allowed in the way it was back in April, but the Indian variant has taken over as the dominant variant in areas like the South West, South East and London without - so far - leading to significant spikes in overall numbers infected.  

Spector's optimism may be misplaced or premature but it isn't entirely discredited by those other graphs.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> If i understand, the point is that, because Delta is that much more transmissible, we could still end up with comparable hospital admissions even factoring in the vaccines. Delta is increasing exponentially (Dr John Campbell in his vids say it's increased 80% in a really short time).


He showed this graph, the proportion of tests that were the B.1.167.2. This is beyond exponential.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

I didnt need a pandemic to inform me that Simon Jenkins is a prick, but anyway here we are:



> Yet what can we say? Alarmist scientists guarding their reputations are competing daily not to be thought “soft on lockdown”. Just a few more weeks of lockdown costs them nothing. They are right that the rise in cases is exactly what preceded the previous two waves, when those who cried wolf were proved right. Do we really want to risk thousands more deaths?
> 
> At such moments we tend to fall back on our default ideologies. I believe that the ultimate proof of Britain’s success in vaccination is precisely that it can take a risk on 21 June. Provided, of course, that ministers do what they often find so hard to do: explain precisely the risk involved to the public. But just now risk assessment is wholly dependent on the flow of data.
> 
> So everyone must hold their horses. We have to honour those for whom Covid has been the most ghastly trauma and for whom lockdown remains the only line of last defence. We have, for just two weeks, to accept that the only thing we know is that we don’t know. We should, for once, respect those who must make these awful decisions for us.



Bollocks should I respect them, or those whose use of language like 'alarmist', 'cried wolf' and 'costs them nothing' betrays their pretence of being reasonable.









						Will ‘freedom day’ go ahead? The only thing we know is we don’t know | Simon Jenkins
					

As new Covid data emerges, decisions over England’s lockdown easing on 21 June will go down to the wire, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Got to be careful about mixing representations here, though. So Spector's map shows overall infection levels, while the others show proportions. It's clear that the Kent variant is disappearing quickly everywhere. Looks like we'd have been in a very good place today if the Indian variant hadn't been allowed in the way it was back in April, but the Indian variant has taken over as the dominant variant in areas like the South West, South East and London without - so far - leading to significant spikes in overall numbers infected.
> 
> Spector's optimism may be misplaced or premature but it isn't entirely discredited by those other graphs.



The data shows that his use of the language 'not taking hold more widely' is entirely inappropriate and thats what they were pointing out.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> I didnt need a pandemic to inform me that Simon Jenkins is a prick, but anyway here we are:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Well, if nothing else, SJ has put into words the reasoning (or whatever passes for it) behind the current government's cack-handed approach. "If we don't know something, it can't be _that_ bad...". Even though Jenkins himself acknowledges that the "crying wolf" on the previous two occasions was not, in fact, "crying wolf", but chillingly accurate predictions of what actually then transpired.

With people like this doing our large-scale thinking for us, what hope do we have?


----------



## l'Otters (Jun 1, 2021)

I downloaded the zoe app last year and started logging my symptoms (or lack of) daily. I’ve gotten pretty disillusioned with the project since Spector’s analysis on things seems way off key & have stopped contributing my data. Possibly the data is still useful and worth inputting to the app though?


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> The data shows that his use of the language 'not taking hold more widely' is entirely inappropriate and thats what they were pointing out.



So if it is taking hold more widely, why are we not seeing huge rises in cases? In hospitalisations? In deaths? It's been months since the variant was first spotted here, surely to god that's long enough for it to cause major rises in all those things.


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Bollocks should I respect them, or those whose use of language like 'alarmist', 'cried wolf' and 'costs them nothing' betrays their pretence of being reasonable.



If you don't believe that some scientists have been alarmist over the past year then you've clearly not been paying attention to some of the cunts and their endless wailing. There's a difference between sensible concern and shouting about 12,000 deaths a day or a 'Category 5 hurricane of Covid facing the USA' (the latter being said just a couple of months ago) without a shred of evidence to support those claims. These people need taking to task for the effect they will have had on the mental health of millions of people. Their choice of words fucking matters. It's like that Welsh prick from last week saying people should be 'Worried' about the Indian variant. Not 'concerned,' 'sensible,' 'pragmatic,' 'cautious,' or even 'nervous.' Just straight up 'worried,' he said. What a fucking shithead who clearly didn't think for one second about the effect his choice of words might have.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> So if it is taking hold more widely, why are we not seeing huge rises in cases? In hospitalisations? In deaths? It's been months since the variant was first spotted here, surely to god that's long enough for it to cause major rises in all those things.



You would hope that having large scale restrictions on public movement in place would suppress the virus.  Restrictions on mixing inside have really only been released recently.


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> You would hope that having large scale restrictions on public movement in place would suppress the virus.  Restrictions on mixing inside have really only been released recently.



That's true, but people have been mixing indoors for months, and schools have been open for months, and they are meant to be the major channels of spread. I suppose we'd have more detail on that if the government weren't allegedly suppressing the data regarding schools.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> If you don't believe that some scientists have been alarmist over the past year then you've clearly not been paying attention to some of the cunts and their endless wailing. There's a difference between sensible concern and shouting about 12,000 deaths a day or a 'Category 5 hurricane of Covid facing the USA' without a shred of evidence to support those claims. These people need taking to task for the effect they will have had on the mental health of millions of people. Their choice of words fucking matters. It's like that Welsh prick from last week saying people should be 'Worried' about the Indian variant. Not 'concerned,' 'sensible,' 'pragmatic,' 'cautious,' or even 'nervous.' Just straight up 'worried,' he said. What a fucking shithead who clearly didn't think for one second about the effect his choice of words might have.



Everyone should be worried by the delta variant and you are a shithead whose pandemic attitude makes my blood boil.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> The data shows that his use of the language 'not taking hold more widely' is entirely inappropriate and thats what they were pointing out.


My reaction was same as littlebabyjesus .

If the delta variant is 90% of cases in an area with 10 cases then it's fair to say it's not "taking hold" in that area, I'd say.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> That's true, but people have been mixing indoors for months, and schools have been open for months, and they are meant to be the major channels of spread. I suppose we'd have more detail on that if the government weren't allegedly suppressing the data regarding schools.



Sure, there would have been a certain percentage of people who have carried on visiting others homes throughout but I've been surprised by how many have stuck to teh rules.


----------



## brogdale (Jun 1, 2021)

Indeliblelink said:


> Covid: Zero daily deaths announced in UK for first time
> 
> 
> The latest figures come amid concern over a recent small rise in cases linked to the Indian variant.
> ...


Yep, and isn't that great...but...but...I just can't get over the hordes of troy MPs tweeting that like their celebrating 'the end'; "VC day" and all that...such irresponsible posting but, of course, we can't criticise them for pointing out that it's good.

Angry, confused and not very coherent; sorry.


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Everyone should be worried by the delta variant and you are a shithead whose pandemic attitude makes my blood boil.



No, I'm not. Like I just said, there's a fucking difference between being concerned and openly saying 'people should be worried.' Shit like this pisses me off massively, as does your complete and disgusting dismissal of people's mental health with a casual insult. I have NEVER said we shouldn't be concerned, I have NEVER said we shouldn't implement restrictions where necessary, I have NEVER said the previous lockdowns were not necessary, I have NEVER said we shouldn't delay this next step, and I have NEVER said that the Indian variant is not a potential problem (in fact I have expressed my concern about it before several times such as when I suggested forming a 'ring of vaccines' around the hotspots). The fact that you want to ignore that and also ignore the fact that some scientists have said inappropriate things just to insult me, again, says a lot about your attitude and your personality.


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Thats a bit of a useless non-story, since the article itself points out weekend and bank holiday effect, and its not news that deaths have gone down to a very low level recently.
> 
> Meanwhile in terms of the future, I recommend this thread:




How does she get from 3x cases to compared to second wave = same number of hospital admissions and half as many deaths? It seems pretty outlandish to me.


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Sure, there would have been a certain percentage of people who have carried on visiting others homes throughout but I've been surprised by how many have stuck to teh rules.



There would, but there have also been easings of family mixing fairly recently, I thought (March, was it?) that would have seen people meeting up in larger numbers.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> My reaction was same as littlebabyjesus .
> 
> If the delta variant is 90% of cases in an area with 10 cases then it's fair to say it's not "taking hold" in that area, I'd say.



Taking hold related to that variants dominance of the overall infection picture. Even the government acknowledged quite some time ago that it was quite likely to become the dominant strain.

In my book saying about a strain taking over does not in itself include any sense of the current level of infection, it can be said whether there are a handful of cases or hundreds of thousands of cases. I can appreciate that the term 'taking hold' may imply to some people an increase in cases more broadly, but thats not how I've been reading some of Spectors comments in this regard. Especially given his video that was posted here some time ago that was advising peole not to worry about the variant. But of course I'm going to read things a certain way because I already decided that he is a prick whose pandemic commentary is sadly wide of the mark at times where it matters.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> So if it is taking hold more widely, why are we not seeing huge rises in cases? In hospitalisations? In deaths? It's been months since the variant was first spotted here, surely to god that's long enough for it to cause major rises in all those things.



Try reading the thread, follow the data & news, and become informed, instead of being a uneducated potato.

And, frankly, a complete fucking twat.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> How does she get from 3x cases to compared to second wave = same number of hospital admissions and half as many deaths? It seems pretty outlandish to me.



You didnt like the modelling I kept drawing attention to either though, and much of that disagreement seemed to boil down to differences in opinion between us about how much vaccine effect it was safe to assume. I havent done my own sums on this but given the range of modelling predictions I have no particular reason to find these scenarios outlandish. Nor are they completely inevitable, my mind is partially open as far as quite how bad I expect it to get. But we probably fell out in the past because your range of what seems plausible is narrower than mine, so its not surprising if that same sort of difference in our opinions continues.

I can say that Nicola Sturgeons statement today included her saying so far they've seen the hospitalised proportion of cases go from about 10% down to about 5% in the vaccine era so far, although of course thats based on data from a period of ongoing vaccination, a continually evolving situation. And I should check the exact wording she used, I will report back on that.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> There would, but there have also been easings of family mixing fairly recently, I thought *(March, was it?)* that would have seen people meeting up in larger numbers.



No, for indoor mixing, May.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

The bit of Sturgeons statement I was on about:



> For example, since January in Scotland, the proportion of new cases which lead to hospital admission has reduced - on current estimates from 10% to 5% - although it is important to say that we are still assessing the recent impact of the new variant.
> 
> In addition, the length of time people are spending in hospital has also been reducing quite markedly since the new year - though, again, we are monitoring the data closely and carefully.



Her speech as a whole is a bit of a balancing act and a fudge of priorities, but at least she is hedging some bets rather than going full steam ahead on every front:









						Coronavirus (COVID-19) update: First Minister's statement - 1 June 2021
					

Statement given by the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh on Tuesday 1 June 2021.




					www.gov.scot


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> You didnt like the modelling I kept drawing attention to either though, and much of that disagreement seemed to boil down to differences in opinion between us about how much vaccine effect it was safe to assume. I havent done my own sums on this but given the range of modelling predictions I have no particular reason to find these scenarios outlandish. Nor are they completely inevitable, my mind is partially open as far as quite how bad I expect it to get. But we probably fell out in the past because your range of what seems plausible is narrower than mine, so its not surprising if that same sort of difference continues.


I’ll have to rack open my own calculations tomorrow.

I‘m not sure we fell out, just disagreed. FWIW I’ve noticed on Twitter and elsewhere that a person’s optimism or pessimism about the current situation seems less related to the science, and more about how their general personality sits in the optimistic-pessimistic axis, or dare I say it, their politics. Scientists with no special knowledge on the matter tend to be amplified on social media based on the extremeness of the predictions rather than any kind of peer recognition of their methods or conclusions.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> No, I'm not. Like I just said, there's a fucking difference between being concerned and openly saying 'people should be worried.' Shit like this pisses me off massively, as does your complete and disgusting dismissal of people's mental health with a casual insult. I have NEVER said we shouldn't be concerned, I have NEVER said we shouldn't implement restrictions where necessary, I have NEVER said the previous lockdowns were not necessary, I have NEVER said we shouldn't delay this next step, and I have NEVER said that the Indian variant is not a potential problem (in fact I have expressed my concern about it before several times such as when I suggested forming a 'ring of vaccines' around the hotspots). The fact that you want to ignore that and also ignore the fact that some scientists have said inappropriate things just to insult me, again, says a lot about your attitude and your personality.



If people are not worried about the new variant then this will impact on their behaviours and make future restrictions, and future negative impact on mental health, more likely.

I used the word shithead specifically because youd used the term to describe those who said things you arent happy with. I left out the fucking bit, but as it happens I am happy to call you a fucking shithead.


----------



## pinkmonkey (Jun 1, 2021)

pinkmonkey said:


> and my brother has it now, he had one vaccine but he still has symptoms, says he feels sweaty and tired.


they had a call from public health england, it's the Indian variant. Despite having one vacc, my brother is still pretty ill, he says he's exhausted, has a fever and a tight chest /stuffy nose.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I’ll have to rack open my own calculations tomorrow.
> 
> I‘m not sure we fell out, just disagreed. FWIW I’ve noticed on Twitter and elsewhere that a person’s optimism or pessimism about the current situation seems less related to the science, and more about how their general personality sits in the optimistic-pessimistic axis, or dare I say it, their politics. Scientists with no special knowledge on the matter tend to be amplified on social media based on the extremeness of the predictions rather than any kind of peer recognition of their methods or conclusions.



Well I mostly quote people on twitter who are known for their other avenues, whether it be the ZOE bloke who I am at odds with, or the Indie SAGE people like Christina Pagel who I respect. I havent really checked who get amplified on social media, I just keep returning to the same sources that I am already familiar with, although I will occasionally choose others with something interesting (or something I consider stupid) to say that matches the moment.

Optimists and wishful thinkers have not been well suited to the pandemic so far. There are exceptions in certain areas - I would not want can't do mentalities or defeatism to have gotten in the way of the vaccine development and rollout programme, for example. And eventually this should change, its just a question of when.

And I do expect that if I stick for too long to the pandemic stance that everyone is used to hearing from me so far, I will eventually fall foul of reality and be proven wrong in a happy and glorious way. Maybe I will manage to avoid that by picking the right moment to adjust my sense of reality and future wave risk. But I'd really quite like that outcome eventually because it will mean the pandemic has gone beyond the acute phase before I expected it to.

I would be keen to hear about your own calculations. I'll try not to be a dick about the detail, even if I dont quite agree with them.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

pinkmonkey said:


> they had a call from public health england, it's the Indian variant. Despite having one vacc, my brother is still pretty ill, he says he's exhausted, has a fever and a tight chest /stuffy nose.



Sorry to hear that. Authorities are particularly concerned about the ability of the new variant to infect people who've only had one dose of vaccine, and this is why ramping up and bringing forwards second doses was in the news quite a bit in May. Hope your brother is feeling better soon.


----------



## pinkmonkey (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Sorry to hear that. Authorities are particularly concerned about the ability of the new variant to infect people who've only had one dose of vaccine, and this is why ramping up and bringing forwards second doses was in the news quite a bit in May. Hope your brother is feeling better soon.


thanks, he's quite shocked at how ill he's got, but he and I are  in a high risk category and even the vaccine knocked me off my feet.  People are acting like it's over, it so very isn't over.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 1, 2021)

Flavour said:


> Aren't pubs open now, like inside? The messaging is: it's fine now, go and get pissed. And I can understand young people going for it. The government have been too gung ho.


The government have failed - as ever - to think about the longer-term consequences of their messaging and decision making (assuming there's been much of the latter...).


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> I downloaded the zoe app last year and started logging my symptoms (or lack of) daily. I’ve gotten pretty disillusioned with the project since Spector’s analysis on things seems way off key & have stopped contributing my data. Possibly the data is still useful and worth inputting to the app though?



The app was useful in several ways. It had a somewhat similar function to the more general population surveillance survey things like the ONS one and REACT, with ZOE having the advantage of being able to release their data in a very timely fashion. It was also of use when determining which symptoms were important to associate with COVID infection.

My negative opinion of Tim Spectors pandemic opinions is something I treat separately to the app and its data/analysis. It wouldnt put me off using the app if I was a user. I never signed up to use it because I hardly ever go out in this andemic and so would have had no symptoms etc to report.

More recently the app has been useful for looking at what symptoms people who have been vaccinated but still end up getting infected are seeing - they found that vaccinated people are more likely to sneeze if infected.

Limitations of the app include not having enough active users in some regions to be able to produce certain estimates for those areas. They may have suffered from a decline in active users overall as perceptions of the pandemic change. And there is probably underrepresentation of certain parts of society in their apps userbase. Some weeks ago they had to adjust various estimates because they determined that a higher proportion of their users had been vaccinated than the vaccinated proportion of wider society.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> The app was useful in several ways. It had a somewhat similar function to the more general population surveillance survey things like the ONS one and REACT, with ZOE having the advantage of being able to release their data in a very timely fashion. It was also of use when determining which symptoms were important to associate with COVID infection.
> 
> My negative opinion of Tim Spectors pandemic opinions is something I treat separately to the app and its data/analysis. It wouldnt put me off using the app if I was a user. I never signed up to use it because I hardly ever go out in this andemic and so would have had no symptoms etc to report.
> 
> ...


I'm still using it, but the high point of the last year was the day I was able to say "Yes, I *have* had a vaccine". It's all been a bit downhill from there - it doesn't even ask me how many people I've been within 1m of any more  (the answer was nearly always zero, anyway, but that's not the point )


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

Interesting, I wonder what their excuse was for not asking that question anymore. I might look into that.


----------



## xenon (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> That's true, but people have been mixing indoors for months, and schools have been open for months, and they are meant to be the major channels of spread. I suppose we'd have more detail on that if the government weren't allegedly suppressing the data regarding schools.




Indoor mixing of different households, bubbles aside, has only been allowed since 17th of May. Some people were ignoring that before then of course but how much of that has contributed to cases, is unknowable.

I actually agree on the point about alarmist language though. It's not doing anyone any favours. A cool assessment of the risks and possible mitigations is more helpful.

I think delaying the 21st final lifting of restrictions only seems sensible just now though.


----------



## souljacker (Jun 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm still using it, but the high point of the last year was the day I was able to say "Yes, I *have* had a vaccine". It's all been a bit downhill from there - it doesn't even ask me how many people I've been within 1m of any more  (the answer was nearly always zero, anyway, but that's not the point )



It never asked me that. It only asked questions a few times but it was usually where have you been sort of questions and did you wear a mask.


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> No, for indoor mixing, May.


 I didn't say indoor, did I?









						The lockdown rules that will be eased on 29 March under England's roadmap
					

The Rule of Six is set to return in public outdoor spaces on 29 March




					inews.co.uk


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> If people are not worried about the new variant then this will impact on their behaviours and make future restrictions, and future negative impact on mental health, more likely.
> 
> I used the word shithead specifically because youd used the term to describe those who said things you arent happy with. I left out the fucking bit, but as it happens I am happy to call you a fucking shithead.




So your argument boils down to two things.

1) You think people should be 'worried,' I think they should be 'concerned,'
2) You can sit there and call respected scientists, economists, sociologists and other experts 'shitheads' and 'pandemic cunts' (Spector and Dingwall most recently), and even dismiss practically everything they've ever said for saying one thing you disagree with, but how _dare_ anyone else disagree with one thing said by someone you happen to agree with?

Gotcha.


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

xenon said:


> Indoor mixing of different households, bubbles aside, has only been allowed since 17th of May. Some people were ignoring that before then of course but how much of that has contributed to cases, is unknowable.
> 
> I actually agree on the point about alarmist language though. It's not doing anyone any favours. A cool assessment of the risks and possible mitigations is more helpful.
> 
> I think delaying the 21st final lifting of restrictions only seems sensible just now though.




I was thinking of the 'rule of 6' that came back in in March, which involved going into people's gardens etc. I agree that we should delay things a bit though. The question then is how long for? Until schools break up? Until all the vulnerable groups have had two jabs? Until we reach a certain percentage of 1st or 2nd doses being given?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I didn't say indoor, did I?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Pardon?


MJ100 said:


> That's true, but people have been mixing indoors for months,...



You fucking clown.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> So your argument boils down to two things.
> 
> 1) You think people should be 'worried,' I think they should be 'concerned,'
> 2) You can sit there and call respected scientists, economists, sociologists and other experts 'shitheads' and 'pandemic cunts' (Spector and Dingwall most recently), and even dismiss practically everything they've ever said for saying one thing you disagree with, but how _dare_ anyone else disagree with one thing said by someone you happen to agree with?
> ...


I am sure it's well past time someone else told you to fuck off.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> So if it is taking hold more widely, why are we not seeing huge rises in cases? In hospitalisations? In deaths? It's been months since the variant was first spotted here, surely to god that's long enough for it to cause major rises in all those things.


"...Surely to god..."

So, speculation, then.


----------



## Supine (Jun 1, 2021)

Why are we not seeing huge numbers of cases? The answer is you are not looking at the data.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> So your argument boils down to two things.
> 
> 1) You think people should be 'worried,' I think they should be 'concerned,'
> 2) You can sit there and call respected scientists, economists, sociologists and other experts 'shitheads' and 'pandemic cunts' (Spector and Dingwall most recently), and even dismiss practically everything they've ever said for saying one thing you disagree with, but how _dare_ anyone else disagree with one thing said by someone you happen to agree with?
> ...



I go into tedious detail about why I disagree with people and why  think some of them deserve to be regarded as dangerous idiots in the pandemic. Its not hard, since some of them have impressive track records of dismal failure, the detail of which I can point out either at the time or bring up again later. I could do the same with you but who cares. They and their attitudes are partly to blame for the second wave. Fuck them, I dont respect them, and I spend a lot of time explaining why. The extent to which I call them rude names varies and only distracts from the detail when shit heads like you come along and pick on my language because there isnt much else for you to get your teeth into, so feeble is your substance.

Meanwhile I have emphasised this bit because its a fair fit:









						UK Covid: zero deaths reported today but daily cases above 3,000 – as it happened
					

UK records no new deaths within 28 days of a positive test but 3,165 new cases amid warnings the pandemic is not over




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Discussing his warning over the 21 June unlocking, Professor Adam Finn, from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
> 
> *There are a lot of people who are very fed up about the idea of us even worrying about this.
> 
> ...


----------



## l'Otters (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Interesting, I wonder what their excuse was for not asking that question anymore. I might look into that.


I’m pretty sure they stopped asking about contacts etc when the track n trace app came out.

I was finding those q’s quite interesting / useful to answer regularly - it was once a week iirc - as it made me consider how my levels of in person interactions etc were fluctuating as the weeks & months passed.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

I also think its important to either highlight peoples track records or insult them as shorthand for a more detailed study of their past bullshit, because their latest proclamations may include some areas of truth, but distorted to fit their own long-standing preferences.

Take another bit of what Dingwall the pandemic cunt was saying to Times Radio today:

                           11h ago    10:07                   



> By the time we get to June 21, everybody who is in the nine priority groups or the highest risk will have had both jabs, and would have had a period of time to consolidate the immunity.
> 
> What are we going on with is really running into younger age groups who are intrinsically much lower risk. Many of the scientists who’ve been talking over the weekend simply haven’t adjusted their expectations to understand that - (for these people) Covid is a mild illness in the community.





> As the Director of Public Health Bolton was saying last week, the people who are going into hospital... it’s not like January, these are not desperately ill people.
> 
> They’re people who need a little bit of extra support with oxygen, they need access to the dexamethasone treatment, which is very effective.
> 
> They go in, stay in hospital for three or four days and they go out again. There is no realistic prospect of the NHS facing the sorts of pressures that it faced in January and February. And that’s why I think we have to we have to push on with this.



Its important to know that before the first wave really got going his attitude towards the level of illness that would be seen was also a load of shit. As time goes on the actual reality of the situation is likely to move a bit closer to his bullshit. Variants pose questions with currently unknwon answers in terms of setbacks on that front. And so I will not be relaxing and deciding to treat the illness as something people just need to pop into hospital for a few days for at this stage. I wont downplay it in the way Dingwall does, because however reasonable his views and expertise might  for all I know turn out to be in other areas of health and society, he has been a dangerous idiot in the acute phases of this pandemic. We will know we are really in a different phase of living with this virus when many of the claims of Dingwall and those like him no longer earn a sweary rant from me. It will happen eventually. Not yet.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

And why should I offer event he slightest respect to someone who comes out with this, as Dingwall did today:

                           11h ago    09:41                   



> I think we need to recognise the way in which levels of fear and anxiety in the population have been amplified over the last 15 months or so.
> 
> We’ve got to look at the collateral damage in terms of untreated cancers, untreated heart conditions, all of the other things that people suffer from.



Again that was also his stance right at the start, before people saw the horror for themselves. I dont think he has adapted sensibly to pandemic reality at any stage, he will just keep playing  the same tune until such a time as there is actually a chance of erring on the side of caution actually doing more harm than good.

Fear and anxiety are best managed via an effective response that instills confidence, not by making claims that will not stand the test of pandemic time.

And the collateral damage argument has been shown to be an absurd distortion already because taking a stance of avoiding lockdowns etc doesnt avoid that damage at all. Rather it makes it larger and more prolonged because other health services still get suspended due to the levels of infection that are reached by failing to impose the right restrictions at the right time. There will be many terrible medium and long term health consequences from this pandemic, but Dingwall and his ilk would not have helped avoid this.

It would not be easy to design a healthcare system that could have avoided these other consequences in this sort of pandemic. The most likely way to achieve it would have been to try a policy of actually keeping the virus out in the first place and stamping down very hard on the early outbreaks caused by early cases that did get through. Once things had gone out of control far beyond that, its much harder. A much larger health service with more staff and spare capacity all sorts of other things could have helped a bit. As could a much better attitude and capability in regards hospital infection control, and public confidence about going to hospital at a time of high infection rates. Even then, there would still be problems and health damage that would take a long time to recover from.

If you ask me the first lesson of this pandemic, apart from the lockdown-related stuff like acting early, travel restrictions etc, is that nations should be spending a much greater proportion of their wealth on healthcare. Its not a waste of money in normal times unless you have shit priorities, and the pandemic has amplified that point.


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Pardon?
> 
> 
> You fucking clown.



That was from a different post where I was taking about the subtly different issue of people who have been mixing indoors throughout. In the post you snarkily replied to I was talking about the March easing. But you probably knew that, didn't you?


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

This website tracks areas of England that have shown unusually high rates of infection in official data:





__





						COVID-19 in England - Areas with unusually high rates of infection
					





					archive.uea.ac.uk


----------



## existentialist (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> That was from a different post where I was taking about the subtly different issue of people who have been mixing indoors throughout. In the post you snarkily replied to I was talking about the March easing. But you probably knew that, didn't you?


You fucking clown


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> The extent to which I call them rude names varies and only distracts from the detail when shit heads like you come along and pick on my language because there isnt much else for you to get your teeth into, so feeble is your substance.



I've already explained several times that I fucking AGREE with most of what you have been saying, but clearly you deliberately choose to ignore that. I'm picking up on the fact that alarmist rhetoric does NOT help anyone and can, will, and has had a huge impact on people's mental health, something you evidently don't give a fuck about. Yes, an uncontrolled pandemic will be bad for that as well (which, again, is why I agree that restrictions are needed), but that doesn't mean it should give a free reign to people to terrify the public when just making them concerned and wary will achieve the same effect.


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> You fucking clown



Grow up.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 1, 2021)

Given that the rise is happening now before we remove all restrictions it seems that at the very least they will not only have to postpone _Freedom Day_ but roll back. Surely at that point, _he said naively, _tory voters will wake the fuck up


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> I've already explained several times that I fucking AGREE with most of what you have been saying, but clearly you deliberately choose to ignore that. I'm picking up on the fact that alarmist rhetoric does NOT help anyone and can, will, and has had a huge impact on people's mental health, something you evidently don't give a fuck about. Yes, an uncontrolled pandemic will be bad for that as well (which, again, is why I agree that restrictions are needed), but that doesn't mean it should give a free reign to people to terrify the public when just making them concerned and wary will achieve the same effect.


Your view on what counts as terrifying the public is at odds with mine it seems.

I believe in informing the public of the range of possibilities that are ahead of us. The delta variant threatens the unlocking roadmap, and even Johnson acklowledged that weeks ago.

Speaking of terror, I also believe in alerting people to the fact that herd immunity is part of the calculation again.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> That's true, but people have been mixing indoors for months, and schools have been open for months, and they are meant to be the major channels of spread. I suppose we'd have more detail on that if the government weren't allegedly suppressing the data regarding schools.



Since the full reopening of schools in March, masks have been mandatory - that changed on May 17th.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

Given the misleading way the PHE data about vaccines and the new variant has tended to be covered by the media, I feel the need to quote a section of an opinion piece that appeared in the BMJ a few days ago:



> On the same day, the _Financial Times_ covered an important leaked report by Public Health England, which suggested vaccines were highly effective against B.1.617.2 following two doses. [17] This was widely presented as a “good news” story across the media, prior to the full report being published. When it was, the full report along with additional documents (including a delayed report on variants) released late on a Saturday, presented a stark contrast to the message in the media. [18-21] Apart from showing substantial reduction in efficacy against symptomatic infection after the first dose (33% efficacy for both Pfizer and AstraZeneca), and modest reductions after the second dose (89% efficacy for Pfizer, 60% for AstraZeneca), it showed that vaccinated individuals were 1.5 times more likely to carry B.1.617.2 compared with B.1.1.7 (over a period when B.1.1.7 was the dominant variant), confirming greater vaccine escape than B.1.1.7. [19] This is concerning given that only 30% of the UK population has been fully vaccinated. Furthermore, the reports described a rapid growth of B.1.617.2, which by 15 May comprised 50% of all sequenced positive tests and was likely the dominant variant in many parts of England. [21] In non-travellers, the secondary attack rate of B.1.617.2 was 50% higher than that of B.1.1.7, consistent with higher transmissibility. [21] As a result of these findings, the PHE risk assessment _increased_ the alert level associated with vaccines from amber to red. [20] Far from being the “good news” story reported in the media, the data suggested a real risk to public health from B.1.617.2 spread. We are seeing rapid spread of a new more transmissible variant with the ability to partially escape vaccines, with predictions from government advisors suggesting that if transmissibility is at the higher end of the plausible range, we are heading towards another wave that could be as large as the last one. Although there is uncertainty around the impact of spread of B.1.617.2 on hospitalisations and deaths given current levels of vaccination and accelerated vaccine rollout, it is clear that hospitalisations are already increasing in some areas (e.g. Bolton). [22] Until and unless we have definitive evidence that B.1.617.2 is not as threatening as it currently seems, we must act with caution.











						The UK's response to new variants: a story of obfuscation and chaos - The BMJ
					

The UK government’s response to the B.1.617.2 variant is, once again, characterised by complacency, dither, and delay The rapid rise of the B.1.617.2 variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK, since [...]More...




					blogs.bmj.com


----------



## existentialist (Jun 1, 2021)

MJ100 said:


> Grow up.


I thought you had me on ignore, you fucking clown


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Your view on what counts as terrifying the public is at odds with mine it seems.
> 
> I believe in informing the public of the range of possibilities that are ahead of us. The delta variant threatens the unlocking roadmap, and even Johnson acklowledged that weeks ago.
> 
> Speaking of terror, I also believe in alerting people to the fact that herd immunity is part of the calculation again.




I didn't say terrifying them, I just think that the choice of words matters. That's all. Saying people should be 'worried' will scare those who are already scared, and will have no impact on those who are minded to ignore the restrictions anyway. I absolutely agree that the public need to be aware of the range of possibilities and like I said, I think we should probably delay the reopening at least for a bit. I just think that there should be a more careful consideration of how the scientists choose to word their statements.


----------



## MJ100 (Jun 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I thought you had me on ignore, you fucking clown


 Far as I know I don't have anyone on ignore.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

I'm nearly ready to stop posting too much on this thread for tonight.

I want to highlight a few more quotes from Sturgeons statement today.



> And full vaccination is vital. Protection against the Delta variant after one dose is not negligible - but it is not substantial either. It is after two doses that the protection becomes much stronger.
> 
> So if cases continue to rise significantly, for too long a period of time, while significant numbers are not fully vaccinated, we could still see a significant burden of illness and death, and severe pressure on our NHS.





> And it might also be worth just pausing to reflect at this stage on what ‘protecting the NHS’ – which has been a key aim throughout this pandemic - means in this current context.
> 
> After coping with the pandemic for more than a year, the NHS is now seeking to get non-COVID treatment back on track.
> 
> That means protecting the NHS can’t just be about preventing it from being completely overwhelmed - although that is of course vital. It must also be about protecting its ability to get services back to normal.





> So even although the health service ‘coped’ earlier this year, when more than 2,000 people were in hospital – albeit I should say with enormous pressure on the workforce - that shouldn’t be our benchmark. Anything remotely like that again would set back our efforts to get the NHS operating normally again.
> 
> So this is a key and a difficult moment.
> 
> We do remain on the right track overall. I remain confident that - with cautious, albeit difficult decisions now - we will enjoy much greater normality over the summer and beyond.











						Coronavirus (COVID-19) update: First Minister's statement - 1 June 2021
					

Statement given by the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh on Tuesday 1 June 2021.




					www.gov.scot
				




I dont think I've seen too much decent reporting of that side of her statement, or the bit I posted earlier about how they've seen proportion of cases hospitalised reduce from 10% to 5% this year so far with caveats about the new variant. If anyone does see an article that draws particular attention to those details and her case for what should count as protecting the NHS now, please do let us know cheers.


----------



## elbows (Jun 1, 2021)

Most of the newspapers have used the zero Covid deaths story on their front pages to indulge in undisguised propaganda.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Jun 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Given the misleading way the PHE data about vaccines and the new variant has tended to be covered by the media, I feel the need to quote a section of an opinion piece that appeared in the BMJ a few days ago:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Having not read the past couple of pages,  and just skim read the above,  should we be getting a message that vaccinated people should be extra cautious around non-vaccinated and partially-vaccinated people as they (the vaccinated ones) are more likely to be spreaders of the Indian/ delta variant?

Cos that's not something I'm picking up from anywhere else.


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> And why should I offer event he slightest respect to someone who comes out with this, as Dingwall did today:
> 
> 11h ago    09:41
> 
> ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 2, 2021)

I have to admit, I've been reading his name as 'Dingbat' the last few days.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Most of the newspapers have used the zero Covid deaths story on their front pages to indulge in undisguised propaganda.



How is that a story and not just a reporting blip due to the bank holiday?


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> How is that a story and not just a reporting blip due to the bank holiday?


They have a fetish for daily numbers, however meaningless, and fake milestones. The anti-lockdown newspapers also used it as a blatant propaganda opportunity, coming as it did at a difficult moment and a day where headlines should have reflected Sturgeons pause. Others such as the BBC were happy to have it as their main website headline for a prolonged period of time.

I'd also expect propaganda to be espeically vulgar at the moment because many of the medias 'finest minds' are probably on holiday.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

Ms Ordinary said:


> Having not read the past couple of pages,  and just skim read the above,  should we be getting a message that vaccinated people should be extra cautious around non-vaccinated and partially-vaccinated people as they (the vaccinated ones) are more likely to be spreaders of the Indian/ delta variant?
> 
> Cos that's not something I'm picking up from anywhere else.


Its a complex subject and I cant explore all of it right now, but I can say that isnt the reason why they brought up this detail:



> it showed that vaccinated individuals were 1.5 times more likely to carry B.1.617.2 compared with B.1.1.7 (over a period when B.1.1.7 was the dominant variant), confirming greater vaccine escape than B.1.1.7.



That is being mentioned because its an indicator that the delta variant appears to have a better ability to escape at least some of the protection that vaccines offer than the alpha (kent) strain has. So they are just using it as part of the collection of evidence on that particular front.

I dont think there is anything wrong with your logic, except that it doesnt represent the full picture. Firstly what they describe is apparently from a while ago, before the delta variant became the dominant variant. And it includes no comparison of that sort of risk, eg it only tells us that vaccinated people who were still infected were more likely to have the delta variant than the older variants. It doesnt tell us how likely vaccinated people were to have any sort of covid infection compared to non-vaccinated people, and it doesnt tell us whether they were more or less likely to spread it to other people. Hope that makes sense!

This doesnt mean that what you've picked up on is entirely false or irrelevant. But perhaps it doesnt make that much sense to focus in on that particular risk, given how widespread the delta variant is becoming, and its of more value to focus on those who are at risk of catching this variant rather than details about who they might catch it from. I'm not that impressed with how that side of things has been reported on either - the government tried to be overly reassuring about the effectiveness of vaccines against that strain, no doubt with the excuse that if people become  less confident about how much protection vaccination offers, it will lead to some defeatism and lower vaccine uptake, as well as threatening the unlocking timetable/slowing peoples return to normal levels of economic activity. They havent hidden the fact that people who have only had one dose of vaccine are not hugely protected against this variant, and this is made obvious by the increased emphasis and faster timetable for giving people second doses. But they have downplayed it, and the media has not drawn as much attention to this aspect as they should.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

Given the number of experts expressing concern about the situation recently, I'm not surprised that others are being sent forth to reassure us.

Sir John Bell:









						Covid-19: UK's data encouraging, says government adviser
					

Sir John Bell says balance is needed in the discussion over when to end lockdown restrictions.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Sir John Bell, part of the government's vaccine taskforce, said there needed to be "balance" to the discussion.
> 
> "If we scamper down a rabbit hole every time we see a new variant we are going to spend a long time huddled away."



A typical technque that we've also heard from Spector of late. Ignores the fact that people dont go nuts about every variant, just ones that become dominant and appear to have transmission and vaccine escape advantages. Also ignores the timing context - incomplete vaccination programme and looming unlocking.



> Sir John, regius professor of medicine at University of Oxford, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the UK's "numbers don't look too intimidating" and he was "encouraged" by what he saw.



When I did a quick google search for Sir John Bell I was not encouraged by what I saw from earlier this year:









						Tracking down John Bell: how the case of the Oxford professor exposes a transparency crisis in government
					

As testing and the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine are hailed as UK pandemic successes, why won’t Oxford University or the government disclose the “long list” of financial interests of a high profile researcher at the centre of both? Paul D Thacker investigates  Since the covid-19 outbreak began...




					www.bmj.com
				






> Since the covid-19 outbreak began early last year, John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, has held high profile roles in the UK government’s epidemic response while also working with AstraZeneca on the vaccine.
> 
> But both Oxford and the government have refused to disclose Bell’s financial interests after The BMJ filed freedom of information (FOI) requests. More alarmingly, it appears that the government is referring media enquiries about Bell through the Cabinet Office and is scrutinising a reporter for The BMJ as it has other reporters it finds troublesome.1The BMJ has been unable to gain either direct contact with Bell or contact through his employer, Oxford University, despite multiple attempts.





> The BMJ has previously raised concerns about Bell’s financial ties to industry, during a campaign it ran from 2009 for access to the clinical trial data on Tamiflu (oseltamivir), with an open letter to Bell published in 2012.5 At that time Bell was on the commercial board of Roche and received $420 000 from the company in 2011.67
> 
> Since The BMJ approached Oxford University and the government last November about Bell, he has made appearances in many media outlets—such as the BBC, Channel 4 News, CNBC, and the Financial Times—to comment on public policy. Yet questions remain about the exact sum and nature of his self-confessed “long list” of financial investments, and how that might affect the government’s coronavirus policy.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

And now a small random selection of outbreak news:









						Covid in Scotland: Douglas Ross isolating after David Duguid tests positive
					

Douglas Ross and David Duguid carried out a number of engagements together in Peterhead on Monday.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross is self-isolating after coming into contact with someone who has now tested positive for Covid-19.*
> The Highlands and Islands MSP was told of the result on Wednesday morning after arriving at Holyrood.
> He is now self-isolating in a hotel in Edinburgh, and is due to take a test.
> Four other Tory MSPs are also taking tests as a precaution, while two MSPs from another party have been advised they could do likewise.











						Covid: Indian variant spike in Leek sees 1,000 self-isolating
					

Thirty-one people with links to two schools and a college have tested positive for coronavirus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *Almost 1,000 pupils and staff are self-isolating after 28 people with links to two schools and a college tested positive for coronavirus.*
> Staffordshire health chiefs said cases found were thought to be the so-called Indian variant, now named Delta variant by the World Health Organization.
> The 28 people have links to Westwood College, St Edward's Middle School and Leek High School, the council said.
> Households with links to the schools are urged to get rapid PCR Covid tests.





> The county council said staff and customers who visited the following venues on the specified dates are also being urged to get tested, as the positive cases may have visited the venues while infectious:
> 
> The Three Horseshoes Country Inn & Spa, Buxton Road, Blackshaw Moor ST13 8TW between 24 and 26 May
> The Black Lion, 12 Hollow Lane Cheddleton, ST13 7HP between 22 and 23 May


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Given the number of experts expressing concern about the situation recently, I'm not surprised that others are being sent forth to reassure us.
> 
> Sir John Bell:
> 
> ...



Of course the more prevalent this partially-escaped variant becomes, the greater the pool of hosts from which a new, completely escaped variant can emerge.

Which, if I can figure it out, anyone posing as any kind of 'expert' should already know.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Of course the more prevalent this partially-escaped variant becomes, the greater the pool of hosts from which a new, completely escaped variant can emerge.
> 
> Which, if I can figure it out, anyone posing as any kind of 'expert' should already know.



Well more broadly I expect to see this propaganda battle rage on right up until the decision in a few weeks. I suppose I will have to pick and choose which days to pay attention to this, as if I pay full attention every day I will wear myself out.

Unknowns include what data may emerge during this period, and which way authorities will try to spin it. Its been many months since the government first set the stage for the reframing of case numbers to not in themselves being met with the same approach as before, along with telling us that R being above 1 was no longer going to be seen by them as the alarm it once was.

There is a logic to some of that reframing, along the lines of vaccines etc modifying the relationship between cases and hospitalisations/deaths. But they go too far by going on about the link being broken, as opposed to the reality that the link ratios have been changed, not utterly destroyed.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

I expect one of the dissapointing features of UK knowledge and reporting during this pandemic is the very limited info we've had about many details of transmission in regards specific cases.

I think this Australian article is interesting because it goes into far more detail than we usually get about that stuff. Some of it may be inaccurate or over the top, I cannot judge, but I found it quite fascinating so am sticking it in this UK thread. The use of the word bizarre in the headline is stupid.









						Scary new Victorian transmission revealed
					

Victoria’s chief health officer Brett Sutton says people are becoming infected with Covid-19 in ways we have not seen before.




					www.news.com.au
				






> Speaking to reporters on Wednesday where it was announced the state’s seven-day lockdown would continue for another week, Professor Sutton said a person was infected at an indoor enclosed space “two hours after an infectious case had left”.
> 
> “(It) was therefore a substantial period of time but they had left two hours before the next exposed individual came in who has become a case,” he said.
> 
> “That’s in the kind of measles category of infectiousness. Probably relates to an unventilated setting where someone spent a great deal of time but to come in two hours later and be infected. It may be on surfaces but it could absolutely be through airborne transmission as well because of that indoor setting.”





> He said the ease with which the virus is spreading may be a feature of the Indian variant.
> 
> “We are used with previous variants, we are more used to transmission occurring in the home, in the workplace, where people know each other already, not all of those big social settings,” he said.
> 
> “We have seen transmission in these places with very fleeting contact. We have transmission in places like the Telstra store in South Melbourne, JMD Grocers, the display home we talked about a few days ago, I’d add Craigieburn Central shopping centre.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 2, 2021)

Re 'zero' cases -

The long Easter weekend looked like this -

Thu  1/4 - 51
Fri    2/4 - 52
Sat   3/4 - 10
Sun  4/4 - 10
Mon 5/4 - 26
Tue  6/4 - 20
Wed 7/4 - 45
Thu  8/4 - 53

and the early May bank holiday weekend like this -

Thu 29/4 - 22
Fri  30/4 -  15
Sat   1/5 -    7
Sun  2/5 -  14
Mon 3/5 -   1
Tue  4/5 -    4
Wed 5/5 -  27
Thu  6/5 -  13


I mean this is OBVIOUS stuff being allowed to run _completely manipulated_ to fit the June 21st agenda isn't it.  

It's actually exactly the sort of thing that Whitty/Valance/Van Tam etc actually went to quite some pains to point out during press conferences (figures being skewed over weekends and holidays) and this is all still without the delay you would expect to have to happen, after cases started rising, before you could even be sure that hospitalisations weren't increasing dramatically, let alone deaths, too.


----------



## editor (Jun 2, 2021)

Good work Wales!


----------



## Smangus (Jun 2, 2021)

Impressed with Mongolia, I have visions of Vaccination centre yurts being set up all over the steppes.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 2, 2021)

Even more impressed with Mongolia, though likely very urban focussed. Note that UK regional breakdown is skewed by ignoring under 18s (because of course, they magically don't transmit). True values are roughly Scotland: 38%, NI: 35%, Wales: 36%, England: 39% (which then better tallies with the second chart).


----------



## brogdale (Jun 2, 2021)

Far fewer Tory MPs tweeting up today's death toll or number of new infections; wonder why that is?


----------



## teuchter (Jun 2, 2021)

From Data to Travel Freedom
					

IATA urged governments to make data-driven decisions to manage risks when reopening borders




					www.iata.org
				




IATA seems to be saying that 1 in 50 incoming air passengers turn out to have Covid ... And therefore we should ease restrictions?


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> From Data to Travel Freedom
> 
> 
> IATA urged governments to make data-driven decisions to manage risks when reopening borders
> ...


you are the g7? for that is on whom the iata are calling. it says so in your link. if you bother reading it.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 2, 2021)

Yes, the UK is in the G7, hence what they are calling for is restrictions on arrivals to the UK to be eased.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 2, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Far fewer Tory MPs tweeting up today's death toll or number of new infections; wonder why that is?



I was thinking - it must feel especially devastating to have to endure all of this for the families of the people who did die yesterday. 
It just gets completely lost in all the noise, doesn't it - the personal losses, set against _numbers_.
And now, celebrating 'Zero'. Awful.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I was thinking - it must feel especially devastating to have to endure all of this for the families of the people who did die yesterday.
> It just gets completely lost in all the noise, doesn't it - the personal losses, set against _numbers_.
> And now, celebrating 'Zero'. Awful.


Yes and by date of death on the dashboard, even with the 28 day bullshit limit, the number of UK deaths yesterday is already 2 and will likely increase further.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes and by date of death on the dashboard, even with the 28 day bullshit limit, the number of UK deaths yesterday is already 2 and will likely increase further.


I expect they'll all be posting corrections on the front pages tomorrow  

TBF, the Beeb have this: How significant is a day without Covid deaths?


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I expect they'll all be posting corrections on the front pages tomorrow
> 
> TBF, the Beeb have this: How significant is a day without Covid deaths?



Yeah a chunk of that is a rehash of stuff mentioned in their full article yesterday, but that didnt stop them havig that article as their main website story for many hours.

Despite seeming to be a sensible look at the detail, that article still leaves something basic out:



> Just because no deaths were announced on 1 June does not mean for certain that no deaths actually occurred. Often the figures are revised once death certificates are examined for precise details of date of death.



Death certificate figures are their own thing, updated weekly and lagging several weeks behind the current moment.

In fact as per my last post, the first thing to look at is that the daily announced deaths are not revised later, instead we just need to look at deaths by date of death on the official dashboard, figures that grow over time and are indeed subject to daily revisions as a result. And then it quickly becomes obvious that deaths reported on a particular day are never deaths that actually happened on that day, there is a minimum of 1 days lag an often much more. So the figure announced on June 1st was never about how many deaths actually happened on June 1st, and no revision to that particular figure is necessary, just the accumulation of actual data that records deaths by date of death.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes and by date of death on the dashboard, even with the 28 day bullshit limit, the number of UK deaths yesterday is already 2 and will likely increase further.



Yes, I saw that. 12 _reported_ deaths today and still not a single day with no _actual_ daily deaths (and then just going on the 'within 28 days' timeframe) since the beginning of March last year.

And a rise, of 17% on the week before, of hospital admissions up until 6 days ago - bit of a jump from 110 -123 for patients on mechanical ventilation in England yesterday, too.
I very much hope that none of that translates into a growth in deaths, obviously, but it's just too early to say, eh.
Certainly, actively continuing to flog June 21st as a lifting date is moronic though.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Yes, I saw that. 12 _reported_ deaths today and still not a single day with no _actual_ daily deaths (and then just going on the 'within 28 days' timeframe) since the beginning of March last year.


Going by UK death certificate deaths by date of death instead, the lowest things got since the first wave began was 8 deaths recorded on 29th August last year. There was one day in May thats only showing 7 so far but that might increase further in future. So its probably reasonable to claim that deaths have recently fallen to levels somewhat similar to those seen at the lowest point between waves 1 and 2. There are plenty of dates at various times where Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland had no recorded Covid deaths, but the same cannot be said for England as a whole.


----------



## Supine (Jun 2, 2021)

UK in commercial negotiations with AZ for a new variant booster shot.









						Britain seeks extra AstraZeneca shots to combat Beta COVID-19 variant
					

Britain is in talks with AstraZeneca (AZN.L) for additional doses of its COVID-19 vaccine that will have been modified to better target the Beta coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa, health minister Matt Hancock said on Wednesday.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

lol Tim Spector did a video where he said that in his opinion this isnt a third wave beginning, its just a ripple. And then later in the same video he thanked the department of health for giving them several million quid to carry on their work for another year.

Its debatable quite how much I should laugh or rant about that because I suppose I cannot actually fully exclude the possibility that what we are seeing now will not turn into a large wave of the sort seen previously. But that doesnt mean I would go around claiming that I think that all we are seeing these days is a small bump in the road. Cautiously waiting to see what the reality turns out to be is the sensible approach. If the current situation turns into something horrific then it will be hard for me not to go around sarcastically remarking 'its only a ripple'.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

Although when I say some of that stuff I should probably point out that even last summer, when I did expect an autumn/winter wave, I had to force myself to keep an open mind about what would happen in future, rather than fully consider a 2nd wave to be a 100% certainty within the imagined timescale. Mostly because there is probable reality, and there are my own views which may become inappropriately rigid without me fully noticing, so I try not to exclude possibilities even when I deem them unlikely. And so I try to hedge my bets when making large proclamations. So far in this pandemic that has turned out to be an unnecessary watering down of my expectations, but I suppose I better stick to that approach since in theory its more likely to come in handy eventually, its just a question of when.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

This reminds me quite a lot of some stuff I did with graphs in previous waves to study the timing of different data and how well one was a predictor of what the others would do later.


----------



## elbows (Jun 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> Note that UK regional breakdown is skewed by ignoring under 18s (because of course, they magically don't transmit). True values are roughly Scotland: 38%, NI: 35%, Wales: 36%, England: 39% (which then better tallies with the second chart).


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

It is so far beyond disgraceful that this hasnt been fixed yet that I havent had words to describe my anger about this for a long time now:

*



			More than 20 healthcare organisations - including those representing nurses, doctors, surgeons and therapists - have united in an unprecedented appeal for stronger defences against coronavirus.
		
Click to expand...

*


> In a planned virtual meeting with UK officials on Thursday, they will say the current guidance leaves them vulnerable to infection through the air, especially by new variants.
> 
> And they will argue that other countries, including the United States, protect their health workers with higher-grade equipment.











						Covid-19: Health staff in plea for better protection
					

They say current guidance on items such as face masks leaves them vulnerable to airborne infection.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I also note this detail:



> At least 17 hospital and ambulance trusts have already decided to break with official guidance by equipping their staff with FFP3 masks, but the majority have not.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

A poor choice of words from the BBC live updates page wanking on about which countries will be added too the green list, given what that word has been more commonly used for recently.



> Robert Boyle, former director of strategy at British Airways' parent company IAG, predicts a number of summer* hotspots* will be added to the green tier.



(from 10am entry of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57340860 )


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 3, 2021)

Experts monitor variants after 10 children admitted to hospital ‘with Covid’ in Scotland
					

‘There are still some people being hospitalised with the vaccine,’ minister says




					www.independent.co.uk
				






As a rough average of Scotland's daily 'patients in hospital' figures over the last week or so, that'd be around 10% of them being kids under 10. Very worrying.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Experts monitor variants after 10 children admitted to hospital ‘with Covid’ in Scotland
> 
> 
> ‘There are still some people being hospitalised with the vaccine,’ minister says
> ...


Yeah thats something that some raised concerns about when the situation in India itself was at its worst. I wish I could have answered it more usefully, but was stuck with 'its hard to tell because a small percentage of a very large number is still a sizeable number of people' stuff.

Now that a version of that fear has reached us, I am still left with a quite long list of possible factors, and no way to rule them in or out at the moment. Some of the possibilities to consider include:

That the variant actually has a greater health impact on children.
That the variant is spreading rapidly in children, leading to high levels of infection which then automatically translates to more hospitalisations even if the variant doesnt have a worse health impact per child in this group.
That the proportions have changed because numbers of older people are reduced via vaccines.
Generally we've seen that people who are in hospital for other reasons but then catch Covid in hospital are lumped into the admissions stats, and detail that helps separate these different phenomenon can be slow or missing. So I cant exclude things like the variant spreading through childrens wards etc.

The reality is likely a mix of a number of those factors, but I cant say which ones. And probably there are a few others that havent popped into my head right now.

I'll try to find some age-related data over time later. Not sure what is available for Sotland, I might have to resort to figures for England to illustrate the picture prior to this stage.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> A poor choice of words from the BBC live updates page wanking on about which countries will be added too the green list, given what that word has been more commonly used for recently.
> 
> 
> > Robert Boyle, former director of strategy at British Airways' parent company IAG, predicts a number of summer hotspots will be added to the green tier.


BBC News channel has just said that (they understand that) no countries are to be added.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 3, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Experts monitor variants after 10 children admitted to hospital ‘with Covid’ in Scotland
> 
> 
> ‘There are still some people being hospitalised with the vaccine,’ minister says
> ...


There's a big outbreak based in a primary school in the west of Edinburgh at the moment, I wonder if kids from there are some of the hospitalised children. There is also a lot of cases in my kids' high school right now


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

The current approach and nature of the vaccine rollout means that government are effectively still going for a 'herd immunity via infection' approach when it comes to kids and younger adults!

Public Health England still havent published the data about the delta variant and infections in children. Should be a massive scandal but the media dont seem too bothered about it.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

2hats said:


> BBC News channel has just said that (they understand that) no countries are to be added.


And if reports are accurate, Portugal is to be removed from the green list.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

The weekly surveillance report is out. There are some graphs I would post if it werent for the fact that the height of the last peak means the scale used compresses the view of more recent climbs from a low base into a mush that isnt very easy to look at.

So here is just one graph from the supplimentary document instead.











						National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports
					

National influenza and COVID-19 report, monitoring COVID-19 activity, seasonal flu and other seasonal respiratory illnesses.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## brogdale (Jun 3, 2021)

weepiper said:


> There's a big outbreak based in a primary school in the west of Edinburgh at the moment, I wonder if kids from there are some of the hospitalised children. There is also a lot of cases in my kids' high school right now


Christina Pagel tweets about the decline of testing as well:


----------



## NoXion (Jun 3, 2021)

Why was the mask mandate removed? The virus is still at large. We still have to wear masks on public transport. I don't think the virus gives a shit whether you're in school or on a bus. oh, and also schoolkids are still using ordinary buses, if it were up to me I would have hired more buses just for the kids.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

Latest contacts report, based on surveys they've been doing for ages:



			https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/reports/comix/Comix%20Weekly%20Report%2061.pdf
		




> The latest data confirm early indications from last week’s report that contacts appear to have increased since the 17th of May and are now at similar levels to those observed during August 2020.
> Physical (skin-to-skin) contacts remain low compared with historical levels. However, adults are reporting fewer contacts outdoors, which could be reflecting a change in the risk of contacts.
> Children’s contact levels (measured before the half-term break) are at the highest level observed over the whole pandemic, driven by contact patterns in school and a continued increase in leisure and social contacts.
> It appears as if similar patterns of contact are occurring across the regions of England and nations of the UK, though discerning differences by region is difficult due to small sample sizes.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 3, 2021)

Are the


weepiper said:


> There's a big outbreak based in a primary school in the west of Edinburgh at the moment, I wonder if kids from there are some of the hospitalised children. There is also a lot of cases in my kids' high school right now


Did Scotland go with removing masks on the 17th, too? 

We had 7 cases over two days by the following Weds in the school I work in. All Year 10's, so the whole year out.
Half term now so no idea how many more cases came up from that but that's already the highest number of kids we've had at any one time, throughout.
My daughter's school (next door) sensibly decided to keep masks everywhere except classrooms at least - no cases.

Even if they don't give a fuck about kids health or their obvious ability to spread it in the community, they're now all missing even more school.
We had really got to a place where there was no need to remind them to put them on/pull them up, too - just completely fucking irresponsible and unnecessary.
It really DOES feel like a deliberate stab at herd immunity amongst children now. Cunts.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

We're back into 'ominous failure to update the dashboard at 4pm' territory again.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 3, 2021)

Any country the government stuck on a green list becoming a covid hotspot was yet another depressingly predictable outcome.

I hope the few quid the Portuguese tourist industry made from those few weeks was worth it for all the covid that's now been imported into their country.


----------



## maomao (Jun 3, 2021)

I'm obviously not a scientist but isn't having a massive pool of virus circulating through a half vaccinated population a pretty efficient way to come up with a proper escape variant?


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm obviously not a scientist but isn't having a massive pool of virus circulating through a half vaccinated population a pretty efficient way to come up with a proper escape variant?


This is what the establishment variant of experts had to say about the broader subject when concerns came up about the UK extending the second dose time to 12 weeks. As such it also pre-dates the delta variant concerns, and was written at a time when we were still at a high point in a deadly wave:



> In the current UK circumstances the unquantifiable but likely small probability of the delayed second dose generating a vaccine escape mutant must be weighed against the measurable benefits of doubling the speed with which the most vulnerable can be given vaccine-induced protection.
> 
> It is a realistic possibility that over time immune escape variants will emerge, most likely driven by increasing population immunity following natural infection.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/954990/s1015-sars-cov-2-immunity-escape-variants.pdf
		


So they thought the risk was possible but couldnt measure how likely it was, decided it was a small risk, and suggested that the escape mutant risk over a longer period would probably come via natural infections more than vaccinations. Immunosuppressed patients worry them because they have some actual evidence of what can happen with such patients and certain treatments. But of course it also happens to be convenient for them to think that way and downplay certain possibilities that get in the way of the plans and the proactive stuff like vaccination.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

Also note various things from the 'monitoring immune-escape' section of that document, since such things often offer better clues about their concerns than sections that feature specific attempts to downplay specific risks. Again this pre-datesimported delta variant concerns.



> Vaccine breakthrough should be closely monitored.
> Vaccinated cases who develop COVID-19 should undergo virus sequencing and genotype to phenotype characterization as quickly as possible to understand whether viral variation may explain the breakthrough.
> Sequencing pillar 1 and pillar 2 samples will be used to understand whether new clusters with hallmark antigenic changes accumulate in the next few months of vaccine roll out.





> More intense study of vaccine recipients in immunosuppressed groups are planned that will reveal whether mutants may arise in this cohort.
> 
> It might prove useful to create a cohort of immunosuppressed, vaccinated individuals for active surveillance and sequencing to serve as a sentinel population in whom we watch for vaccine escape with particular care.





> Vaccine efficacy after one dose should be carefully monitored to inform future vaccine policy.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

PHE variant news summary:









						Covid: Indian variant 'now dominant' in the UK
					

Confirmed cases of the Indian variant have risen to 12,431 in the UK, according to new data from Public Health England



					www.bbc.co.uk
				





> *The variant of coronavirus first identified in India is now the dominant strain in the UK, Public Health England (PHE) has said.*
> The number of cases confirmed by laboratory analysis rose by 79% over the last week to 12,431.
> Scientists believe the variant, now known as Delta, has overtaken the Kent, or Alpha, variant.
> They say that there may also be a higher risk of hospitalisation linked to the Delta variant.
> But that is based on early evidence, and PHE say more data is needed to have more confidence in the finding.



Sounds like the much hidden delta variant schools data may actually have been published, finally.



> PHE has also published a breakdown of outbreaks and clusters of variants in schools settings with cases rising in line with higher levels of the Delta variant in the community.



I havent had time to locate and read the PHE document(s) myself yet.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 3, 2021)

PHE technical briefing 14 is out. Indicates that there is clearly a greater risk of hospitalisation from B.1.617.2.


> there was a significantly increased risk of hospitalisation within 14 days of specimen date (HR 2.61, 95% CI 1.56-4.36, p<0.001), and emergency care attendance or hospitalisation within 14 days (HR 1.67, 1.25-2.23, p<0.001), for Delta cases compared to Alpha cases after adjustment for confounders (age, sex, ethnicity, area of residence, index of multiple deprivation, week of diagnosis and vaccination status).


Educational settings clearly playing a major role in the spread of it (surprise!).


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 3, 2021)

2hats said:


> PHE technical briefing 14 is out. Indicates that there is *clearly* a greater risk of hospitalisation from B.1.617.2.



Only given that they didn’t control for vaccinations and pre-existing conditions.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 3, 2021)

2hats said:


> PHE technical briefing 14 is out. Indicates that there is clearly a greater risk of hospitalisation from B.1.617.2.
> 
> Educational settings clearly playing a major role in the spread of it (surprise!).



No wai


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

2hats said:


> PHE technical briefing 14 is out. Indicates that there is clearly a greater risk of hospitalisation from B.1.617.2.
> 
> Educational settings clearly playing a major role in the spread of it (surprise!).


Delta variant already generating impressive reinfection numbers given the relatively short period of time its been with us compared to Alpha.


----------



## xenon (Jun 3, 2021)

Got a text to say my second appointment had been cancelled. Rebooked it within the hour for the next day. Bit odd.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 3, 2021)

No we still have masks for secondary pupils here, kids don't have to social distance but adults are meant to keep 2m still. My kids report a lot of mask fannying about (below noses, taking off to sneeze  etc) though.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

I see that report does feature a modest reduction in their secondary attack rate estimates.



> Secondary attack rates for contacts of cases with Delta and no travel history are higher than those for contacts of non-travel cases with Alpha: 12.4% compared to 8.2%. The estimate of secondary attack rate for contacts of cases with Delta represents a decrease compared to that published in Technical Briefing 13 for the period to 29 March to 4 May 2021, which was 13.5% (95% CI 12.5% to 14.6%).


----------



## maomao (Jun 3, 2021)

If they're up to Kappa, it'll be the London Lambda next.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Only given that they didn’t control for vaccinations and pre-existing conditions.


Vaccination status was part of the analysis:


> Based on a record linkage of sequence-confirmed Delta and Alpha cases in England tested between 29 March 2021 and 20 May 2021, an analysis of 38,805 sequenced cases was performed to assess the risk of hospitalisation and emergency care attendance. Using stratified Cox proportional hazard regression, there was a significantly increased risk of hospitalisation within 14 days of specimen date (HR 2.61, 95% CI 1.56-4.36, p<0.001), and emergency care attendance or hospitalisation within 14 days (HR 1.67, 1.25-2.23, p<0.001), for Delta cases compared to Alpha cases after adjustment for confounders (age, sex, ethnicity, area of residence, index of multiple deprivation, week of diagnosis and vaccination status).


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 3, 2021)

Figures for today delayed?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 3, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm obviously not a scientist but isn't having a massive pool of virus circulating through a half vaccinated population a pretty efficient way to come up with a proper escape variant?



You're a better scientist than half the actual scientists on government payroll by the looks of things.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Figures for today delayed?


Yes, I commented on ominous dashboard delays earlier, although occasionally such delays have been due to technical reasons that did not conveniently overlap with bad news.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

Some more of the stuff from todays PHE variant technical briefing document:




No wonder the government wanted to sit on the delta variant schools data.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 3, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Only given that *they didn’t control for vaccinations* and pre-existing conditions.


Try reading the report first. Or even just the quote you are yourself quoting.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 3, 2021)

weepiper said:


> No we still have masks for secondary pupils here, kids don't have to social distance but adults are meant to keep 2m still. My kids report a lot of mask fannying about (below noses, taking off to sneeze  etc) though.



Well if you're already having outbreaks, I guess thank fuck they do still have the policy in place, at least. 

I wouldn't know what happens in the classrooms, tbf - and there are always some kids who will just not QUITE manage it  but those aside, I think it just took some time for them to get used to _remembering_ to do it, iykwim - so what I saw in our canteen was that the majority of them _had_ pretty much got there, until they were then removed again.
Just seemed like a pointless risk to take with half a term left - and with the likelihood (maybe  ) that they will have to return to that very shortly now anyway.

All of that without the more obvious health risks, and indeed the further loss of time in school - but even just on a _practical_ level, kids are likely to find the constant changes, the predictable U-turns, even more difficult to adjust/readjust to than us adults might, so if it ain't broke... sorta thing. 

(Our head was one of those 'Oh it's just like flu' types back in March though, so I wasn't surprised they went with the new guidance, despite having a choice in it  )


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 3, 2021)

The dashboard has finally been updated, 5,274 new cases/7-day average up +38.9%. 

However, 7-day average hospital admission up by only 3%, based on 30/5/21 latest figures.  Deaths 18, 7-day average down - 5.5%


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)




----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 3, 2021)

This is going on the wrong direction. Clearly.

I fear we'll have to rollback restrictions, not just postpone 'Freedom Day'.


----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jun 3, 2021)

Just in case it wasnt clear from earlier technical quotes:



> An analysis of 38,805 sequenced cases in England revealed that the Delta variant was associated with a 2.61 fold higher risk of hospitalisation within 14 days of specimen date compared with the Alpha variant. There was a 1.67 times higher risk of A&E care within 14 days. These figures take into account factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, area of residence and vaccination status .
> 
> Data from Scotland supported the findings, also pointing to a more than twofold higher risk of hospitalisation for those infected with the Delta variant compared with the Alpha variant.
> 
> “Confirmatory analyses are required to confirm the magnitude of the change in risk and to explore the link to vaccination in more detail,” the document states.











						India Covid variant may increase risk of hospital admission, early data suggests
					

Public Health England analysis finds Delta variant is more likely to lead to hospitalisation than Kent variant




					www.theguardian.com
				




edit - I added a bit more to the quote.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 3, 2021)

Another Scottish school outbreak  Covid mobile testing unit sent to Falkirk High School after outbreak


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 4, 2021)

Well, this all has a depressing ring of familiarity to it.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 4, 2021)

I must admit that I am getting more and more worried about the possibility of a third wave now, rather than later in the year (winter). Just when I was hoping for the chance to do more normal things ...

I do not trust our political bosses to follow the science, at all; certainly not as a first choice and eventually only when forced to do so by developments.
In other words, they'll miss the boat, again. And people will suffer and die, again, despite the vaccine rollout.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 4, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I must admit that I am getting more and more worried about the possibility of a third wave now, rather than later in the year (winter). Just when I was hoping for the chance to do more normal things ...
> 
> I do not trust our political bosses to follow the science, at all; certainly not as a first choice and eventually only when forced to do so by developments.
> In other words, they'll miss the boat, again. And people will suffer and die, again, despite the vaccine rollout.


Still, at least they’ve timed it this time to fuck up the summer


----------



## zora (Jun 4, 2021)

Urgh, the whole thing really feels on such a knife edge! 

Anecdotally, there seem to be not twice as many cases as a few weeks ago, but many more times over, just going by the amount of people here who are reporting cases in their extended families or their schools and workplaces. 

The one positive thing I can report, again anecdotally, is that they (the NHS in this case) are not dragging their heels with bringing the second vaccinations forward! Just had a call yesterday and am going in this morning for second vaccination (originally booked for 1 July). I have leap-frogged the b/f who will be having vaccination 2 next week, brought forward by a week or so. 

I am very pleased about getting mine, because I finally have a lengthy dentist appointment booked in for end of June, and I was worried how high cases will be by then, at least now I will be fully vaccinated for that date.

But yeah, why take this gamble at this point?


----------



## Sunray (Jun 4, 2021)

It's got to the point they have to backtrack, get it under control, get as many vaccinations done and move forward.  Not just about leaving it where we are, this isn't doing much with infections.   Perhaps tell everyone to stop socialising indoors for a few weeks. Get people to stay outside when eating meals and where possible drinking.  

Unfortunately, the Government has demonstrated a willingness to throw everyone under a bus for dogma, can't see this being different.
Does anyone believe this government is going to change course, I'd be quite shocked if they do?


----------



## brogdale (Jun 4, 2021)

Justifiably angry sounding...


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 4, 2021)

They've blatantly lied about the situation with children throughout.  They ain't going to change now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 4, 2021)

I guess we will see the vaccination programme extended at some point. 



> Britain’s medicines regulator said on Friday it had extended approval of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech so it can be used on 12- to 15-year-olds.
> 
> “We have carefully reviewed clinical trial data in children aged 12 to 15 years and have concluded that the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is safe and effective in this age group and that the benefits of this vaccine outweigh any risk,” said Dr June Raine, the chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
> 
> She added it would be up to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to decide whether this age group would come under the vaccine deployment programme.











						UK regulator approves Pfizer Covid vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds
					

Decision that jab is safe and effective potentially paves way for vaccination campaign in schoolchildren




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 4, 2021)

They always refer to severe cases, i.e. those that require hospital admission, but to me 'long covid' is fucking severe, and the majority suffering it have never been in hospital for covid, 376,000 are suffering a year on from infection.



> An estimated 1 million people in private households in the UK reported experiencing long Covid in the four weeks to 2 May, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
> 
> Of these people, an estimated 869,000 first had Covid-19 – or suspected they had Covid-19 – at least 12 weeks previously while 376,000 first had the virus or suspected they had the virus at least one year ago.
> 
> Long Covid was estimated to be adversely affecting the day-to-day activities of 650,000 people, with 192,000 reporting that their ability to undertake day-to-day activities had been limited a lot.











						376,000 people in UK have had long Covid symptoms for at least a year – ONS
					

Data shows marked increase in self-reported cases of symptoms lasting 12 months or more




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They always refer to severe cases, i.e. those that require hospital admission, but to me 'long covid' is fucking severe, and the majority suffering it have never been in hospital for covid, 376,000 are suffering a year on from infection.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I suspect considerations around Long Covid play little to no part in the thinking when it comes down to managing restrictions and the virus in general.


----------



## andysays (Jun 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They always refer to severe cases, i.e. those that require hospital admission, but to me 'long covid' is fucking severe, and the majority suffering it have never been in hospital for covid, 376,000 are suffering a year on from infection.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I can see why number of cases requiring hospital admission is one measure of seriousness, but it certainly shouldn't be the only one.

But from the beginning, the government's stated primary aim is to avoid the NHS being overwhelmed, rather than to minimize death and long term suffering. Unfortunately that translates as meaning it's not too much of a problem if people suffer long-term consequences, as long as they don't take up hospital beds while they're doing so.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 4, 2021)

andysays said:


> I can see why number of cases requiring hospital admission is one measure of seriousness, but it certainly shouldn't be the only one.
> 
> But from the beginning, the government's stated primary aim is to avoid the NHS being overwhelmed, rather than to minimize death and long term suffering. Unfortunately that translates as meaning it's not too much of a problem if people suffer long-term consequences, as long as they don't take up hospital beds while they're doing so.



Which is dumb, because it's going to cost the state a lot if people are unable to work, and for ongoing treatment too.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 4, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Justifiably angry sounding...




Are cases in schoolkids 'remaining low' or 'reflecting what's happening in the wider community' because they can't be doing both those things.


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They always refer to severe cases, i.e. those that require hospital admission, but to me 'long covid' is fucking severe, and the majority suffering it have never been in hospital for covid, 376,000 are suffering a year on from infection.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don’t fear getting ill from COVID-19 per se, but I do fear Long Covid more than anything.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

zora said:


> Anecdotally, there seem to be not twice as many cases as a few weeks ago, but many more times over, just going by the amount of people here who are reporting cases in their extended families or their schools and workplaces.



Another potential tell-tale sign is that we are starting to see more news stories about random sportspeople, politicians etc either testing positive or having to self-isolate because someone else has tested positive. Along with filming of specific tv shows, films etc being suspended due to cases or close contact with cases.

I try to keep an open mind about this, but its been a fair indicator of the wider state of play in the past. I suppose it is possible that better testing systems mean that many different sorts of cases and outbreaks have been spotted at a slightly earlier stage of wave proceedings this time, and even with a more transmissive variant it is to be expected that different waves can evolve at different speeds in terms of the overall national picture and the sort of tipping points where case numbers really explode.


----------



## Supine (Jun 4, 2021)

Indy Sage now. They are releasing an emergency statement today…


----------



## nagapie (Jun 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> Indy Sage now. They are releasing an emergency statement today…


Pity no one listens to them and even in the height of covid their videos only got about 10 000 views.


----------



## Supine (Jun 4, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Pity no one listens to them and even in the height of covid their videos only got about 10 000 views.



I’d say they are successfully guiding the media and politicians narrative. Members are regularly on the news. The gov listening to them is another matter.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> I’d say they are successfully guiding the media and politicians narrative. Members are regularly on the news. The gov listening to them is another matter.


I haven't seen them having much impact on the media or politicians, at least not in the previous two waves. More like the loan voices of intelligence, but happy if that's changed.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 4, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Pity no one listens to them and even in the height of covid their videos only got about 10 000 views.



MD in Private Eye had a bit of a dig at them in one of the recent editions.  Suggesting maybe that egos were in play and suggested that there was a bit of academic one-upmanship going on at times.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> MD in Private Eye had a bit of a dig at them in one of the recent editions.  Suggesting maybe that egos were in play and suggested that there was a bit of academic one-upmanship going on at times.



Such criticism is a crap distraction from the matters of substance.


----------



## belboid (Jun 4, 2021)

MD in private eye has been a contradictory fool on several occasions.   Let’s not forget PE was a significant booster of Wakefield initially


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Such criticism is a crap distraction from the matters of substance.



Even if its influencing their output?


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 4, 2021)

belboid said:


> MD in private eye has been a contradictory fool on several occasions.   Let’s not forget PE was a significant booster of Wakefield initially



Sure.  I've no skin in the game just thought it was an interesting observation.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Even if its influencing their output?



I expect the major driver of their output has similarities to what motivates me to commentate on the pandemic here on this forum.

Its an outlet that reduces the hideous psychological effects of feeling like you are banging your head against a brick wall in silence, coupled with a desire to spread knowledge and explain things as you see them.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 4, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> MD in Private Eye had a bit of a dig at them in one of the recent editions.  Suggesting maybe that egos were in play and suggested that there was a bit of academic one-upmanship going on at times.


You will struggle to find anywhere in [UK] academia where there isn't one-upmanship _at least_ some of the time.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

2hats said:


> You will struggle to find anywhere in [UK] academia where there isn't one-upmanship _at least_ some of the time.



Yeah and I dont mean to suggest its not part of the mix. Its just not one I care to focus on in particular in this pandemic. Like when people fairly or unfairly criticise my attitude, personality, etc. So fucking what, these are not the issues that make the subject vital to focus on right now. Nobody is paying attention to the pandemic because of what it does or does not bring out in me.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 4, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> MD in Private Eye had a bit of a dig at them in one of the recent editions.  Suggesting maybe that egos were in play and suggested that there was a bit of academic one-upmanship going on at times.


Disappointing angle from PE.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

When it comes to the substance, I expect that when I read their emergency statement shortly, it will leave me wanting. Because from watching most of todays live stream from them, I'm expecting it to be a bit compromised by the desire not to tell people we need to close schools or reverse unlocking steps that have already happened.

If u75 was a fully fledged anarchists forum, I imagine I would have called for a third SAGE, 'blunt SAGE', which emphasised people taking matters into their own hands at the right moments.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

Assuming the following is their emergency statement, then yeah, its along the lines of what I was expecting via what they said in the video, and it doesnt go far enough in my book.

Not that my book is a complete guide, there are still a lot of grey areas in my mind about how rapid and how large the next wave will be. And that obviously leaves me with something of a quandary as to how far I think restrictions should go right now.





__





						Indie SAGE statement on the UK government roadmap for ending all restrictions | Independent SAGE
					






					www.independentsage.org


----------



## andysays (Jun 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Which is dumb, because it's going to cost the state a lot if people are unable to work, and for ongoing treatment too.


This is true, though even to put it as you have done risks* presenting ill-health as a problem primarily because of economic costs, rather than viewing good health as a positive thing in its own right.

* I'm not suggesting that this is what you believe, just that there can be a problem for all of us in unintentionally expressing ourselves in ways which echo that sort of ruling class narrative


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Assuming the following is their emergency statement, then yeah, its along the lines of what I was expecting via what they said in the video, and it doesnt go far enough in my book.
> 
> Not that my book is a complete guide, there are still a lot of grey areas in my mind about how rapid and how large the next wave will be. And that obviously leaves me with something of a quandary as to how far I think restrictions should go right now.
> 
> ...



It is all very achievable though, well except maybe bringing some sanity to the border control situation.  The government have made it quite clear that clusterfuck is their only policy in this regard.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> It is all very achievable though, well except maybe bringing some sanity to the border control situation.  The government have made it quite clear that clusterfuck is their only policy in this regard.



But is it enough to acheive a sufficient reduction of risk that the third wave will seem like a non-event compared to the first two waves? I'm far from convinced.

I wish I could predict exactly what will happen in the remaining days before the government announce their decision. There are all manner of alarming details about the Delta variant that make me think the third wave will be worse than the previous two. But then I also have some mixed signals, such as the fact that surge testing in my local town has not revealed a very large number of new cases that would have suggested an explosion of the third wave in my town has already happened or will only take days to emerge. And we've had a half term holiday that may temporarily affect the transmission picture. That in itself may be enough of a delay to things that the government can still squeeze in a dodgy decision before the eventual wave reality becomes too clear to deny.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> But is it enough to acheive a sufficient reduction of risk that the third wave will seem like a non-event compared to the first two waves? I'm far from convinced.



Probably not but it appears they are considering the practical and political as well as the actual situation on the ground.  Its hard to see how those actions alone will reverse the situation but its even harder to see this government actually reimplementing curbs and restrictions.  At this stage, anyway.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

Scotland offers a sneak peek of the government framing that was set out months ago in terms of not reacting to rising cases - its now being applied. The stuff that is misleadingly described as breaking the link between cases and hospitalisations, when its actually about changing the ratios rather than totally breaking that link. UK government vary in quite how misleading they choose to be about that, and its no surprise that Scotland have chosen to describe the link in somewhat more honest terms.









						Covid in Scotland: Number of new cases highest since February
					

A total of 992 people tested positive for the virus on Thursday, the highest daily figure since 17 February.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Scotland has recorded its highest number of new Covid cases since February, a day before restrictions ease across much of the country.
> 
> A total of 992 people tested positive for the virus on Thursday, the highest daily figure since 17 February.
> 
> ...





> However, she stressed that the success of the vaccine programme meant that the country could continue to look forward to living with fewer restrictions over the summer.
> 
> And she said the link between the number of cases and the number of people being hospitalised and dying because of the virus was not as strong as it has been in the past - but had not disappeared completely.
> 
> Ms Sturgeon said: "We are at a very critical juncture right now in what we still very much hope, and believe, is a transition to a less restrictive way of dealing with Covid, but the position we are in now on that transition is a fragile one."


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

I've grabbed these R estimates off the bbc live updates page. These sorts of estimates tend to lag behind reality a bit,


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

I've restarted my graphs of daily hospital admissions/diagnoses per English region.

This one is smoothed out via 7 day averages. Data is from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## weepiper (Jun 4, 2021)

One of the three feeder primaries for our secondary school has closed/gone to remote learning today because of Covid cases.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 4, 2021)

> *Robert Jenrick* said he did not know how many cases there were of the new Nepal variant of the coronavirus.
> 
> Speaking to the Today programme, the communities secretary said it appeared to be a “further mutation of the Indian variant”.
> 
> ...





> *Robert Jenrick* said there was still “nothing at the moment that suggests that we won’t be able to move forward” with the next stage of lifting restrictions on 21 June.
> 
> He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
> 
> ...



Yes but, no but...  Urrrraaarrrgh!


----------



## nagapie (Jun 4, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Probably not but it appears they are considering the practical and political as well as the actual situation on the ground.  Its hard to see how those actions alone will reverse the situation but its even harder to see this government actually reimplementing curbs and restrictions.  At this stage, anyway.


They have to consider what the public will actually follow and I imagine you'd get a lot of anger and non compliance if you tried to tighten things up to anything that looked like a lockdown right now.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 4, 2021)

weepiper said:


> One of the three feeder primaries for our secondary school has closed/gone to remote learning today because of Covid cases.





Are you pre or post a school holiday, weeps?

Omg, it's all just going to shit again, isn't it? 


I wonder how many more days to come before we have a briefing (and how many BUT WE ARE DOING IT ANYWAY!  briefings _before_ the briefing where they swerve again).


----------



## pogofish (Jun 4, 2021)

weepiper said:


> One of the three feeder primaries for our secondary school has closed/gone to remote learning today because of Covid cases.



Yup, since he went back to school, Mrs Fish’s boy’s classes have been continually sent home to isolate/WFH because of positive tests amongst his classmates - I don’t think he has managed more than a few full weeks in class yet! Thankfully he’s not at the assessment stage yet.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 4, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Are you pre or post a school holiday, weeps?
> 
> Omg, it's all just going to shit again, isn't it?
> 
> ...


We're approaching the end of term but not very soon - schools break up for summer around the 25th of June here. My older two are in the middle of their exams-that-aren't-exams


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 4, 2021)

weepiper said:


> We're approaching the end of term but not very soon - schools break up for summer around the 25th of June here. My older two are in the middle of their exams-that-aren't-exams



Yeah, three more weeks is a long time with this going on.
My girl has just finished her exams that aren't exams - and has left - although Ofsted are now saying they _shouldn't_ have left, lol.
Total fuck up. 
I hope your biggest two are holding up alright and that they reach the end safely and without more disruption and worry. I can see that's looking more and more unlikely, though - fuck sake.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 4, 2021)

I'm going to write this here so I don't rant about it too much at the social event I'm attending tonight (weather had better clear up) but if you have 400% a week growth in cases in some areas of England as we do then THE FACT YOU ARE STARTING FROM FAIRLY SMALL NUMBERS OF CASES IS NOT THAT COMFORTING. I know I don't have to explain that to most people here but apparently the fucking government needs it explaining to them.


----------



## lazythursday (Jun 4, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I'm going to write this here so I don't rant about it too much at the social event I'm attending tonight (weather had better clear up) but if you have 400% a week growth in cases in some areas of England as we do then THE FACT YOU ARE STARTING FROM FAIRLY SMALL NUMBERS OF CASES IS NOT THAT COMFORTING. I know I don't have to explain that to most people here but apparently the fucking government needs it explaining to them.


indeed, 500% increase in several of the very local MSOA areas close to me on the map - and according to local public health team it's the Delta variant and contact tracing suggests this has been spread through evening socialising, not through workplaces or cramped housing or any of the more usual hotspot explanations.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

This article implies that the first fallback contingency plan will be to delay the next unlocking step by a couple of weeks.





__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com
				






> A senior civil servant closely involved with coronavirus planning said that officials were drawing up contingency plans to delay the fourth and final phase of easing, possibly to July 5, if the data suggested it was necessary. “A variety of options are being drawn up, including a delay to step four and trading off some measures against others.”
> 
> Another Whitehall insider said that there was an increasing sense that a “smallish delay” may be likely. “Irreversibility is key to this. The prime minister doesn’t want to go backwards, so if it’s a choice of more measures in the future, I think he can stomach a minor delay,” they said.





> But one senior Downing Street official cautioned “we’re not in that space yet” for a delay. “There’s still nothing in the data that shows we need to change our plans”. The official added that there would be more clarity in the data by the end of next week.



Johnson isnt the only one keen to avoid a backwards step and/or the impression of a backwards step, Sturgeons speech was full of 'we are not going backwards' talk earlier this week.


----------



## Supine (Jun 4, 2021)

Who remembers the 2m for fifteen minutes rule? Seems like the good old days now.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jun 4, 2021)

Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until everyone's been offered both jabs? We're starting to see light at the end of the tunnel, don't fuck it up now...


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 4, 2021)

They will not alter any of their dates.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> Who remembers the 2m for fifteen minutes rule? Seems like the good old days now.


I still remember the empty shelves that stank of disinfectant (BANG! And the toilet paper's gone!).

Good times


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> Who remembers the 2m for fifteen minutes rule? Seems like the good old days now.



Well I certainly remember the days where pandemic policy seemed to last about 15 minutes before having to be replaced by something tougher, such was the extent to which the decision makers found themselves to be behind the curve.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They will not alter any of their dates.



I wouldnt be so sure, and Johnson already set the scene for that possibility weeks ago.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jun 4, 2021)

delta variant has arrived in berkshire - surge testing about to start (i'm not in one of the areas involved at this stage)









						Surge testing in Reading and Wokingham - live
					

Both Reading and Wokingham borough councils have released details




					www.getreading.co.uk


----------



## muscovyduck (Jun 4, 2021)

my fave was when in the middle of the tier chaos someone randomly announced we were going up to "level 5"


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> I wouldnt be so sure, and Johnson already set the scene for that possibility weeks ago.


They've never altered an announced date before, and the stupid way the media works in this country means they would face much more consequence for missing a date than keeping to it but being forced to lock down afterwards because of that, and they're only interested in their appearance, so that's why I say that.

We'll see I guess. Nothing any of us can do about it.


----------



## Supine (Jun 4, 2021)

I think the public are being softened up ready for a delay in some measures. There are news stories about long covid in kids coming up. Delays have not been ruled out.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 4, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> They've blatantly lied about the situation with children throughout.  They ain't going to change now.



The virus is dormant in school settings and also in pubs when offered a substantial meal.


Was not aware that the virus was literally my Dad


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> I wouldnt be so sure, and Johnson already set the scene for that possibility weeks ago.



Given the bodies were getting stacked 5 deep a week before Christmas and Boris still didn't announce for another 4 days I'd not take the money if someone bet me Boris would do another lockdown. 

We may, possibly, probably, get extended same level of current restrictions till Autumn and the odd super targeted further restriction to some Labour council areas, but lockdown isn't happening.


----------



## Raheem (Jun 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> Who remembers the 2m for fifteen minutes rule? Seems like the good old days now.



Think that never went away. It was a contract-tracing threshold, and still is. Although, tbf, that also makes it irrelevant, I suppose.


----------



## elbows (Jun 4, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Given the bodies were getting stacked 5 deep a week before Christmas and Boris still didn't announce for another 4 days I'd not take the money if someone bet me Boris would do another lockdown.
> 
> We may, possibly, probably, get extended same level of current restrictions till Autumn and the odd super targeted further restriction to some Labour council areas, but lockdown isn't happening.



There is a very simple calculation when it comes to full lockdowns. If the government thinks hospitals could collapse, then they are eventually forced to do lockdowns. But there are plenty of moments where things are not so clearcut, and we get lots of fog and mud and resistance to doing things instead. We are not currently close to a situation where they would do a full lockdown, but that doesnt mean I can make confident predictions about the future.


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 4, 2021)

I think most of the British public fall into one of three groups:

1. Those that do what the government tells them they can and can't, no matter what.

2. Those that flout all rules and advice, and will continue to do so, no matter what.

3. Those (like me, and most of my friends) who base their behaviour on a combination of what the government advises, and what the science and data is saying.

Currently we are being much more cautious, distancing and wearing masks much more than government rules and advice says we must.

For example I'm still not meeting anyone indoors without a mask and lots of ventilation, and I'm still distancing indoors and out.

At other times we've gone the other way, eg. I met with a friend once a week in a local park, at a distance of more than 2 metres, and wearing masks, last March and April, when that was illegal.

I can't predict what the government will or won't do in the next weeks or months but I do predict that most individual members of the public will continue to fall into the same one of the groups as listed above, as they have throughout, regardless.


----------



## Supine (Jun 4, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> I think right most of the British public fall into one of three groups:
> 
> 1. Those that do what the government tells them they can and can't, no matter what.
> 
> ...



Definite 3 here. I locked down a few weeks before that stuff all started getting official. I’ll probably still wear a mask when you don’t need to. I’d go to a rave in a field tonight if I was younger.


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 4, 2021)

Supine said:


> I’d go to a rave in a field tonight if I was younger.



lol I’d go to a rave only if I had somewhere comfy to sit down!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 5, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They've never altered an announced date before, and the stupid way the media works in this country means they would face much more consequence for missing a date than keeping to it but being forced to lock down afterwards because of that, and they're only interested in their appearance, so that's why I say that.
> 
> We'll see I guess. Nothing any of us can do about it.



They wouldn't be missing a date as such, as steps 2 to 4 in the covid roadmap were prefixed with 'not before', and careful wording around hoping too. 



> Step 4 - not before 21 June​Social contact​By Step 4 which will take place no earlier than 21 June, the government hopes to be in a position to remove all legal limits on social contact.


----------



## andysays (Jun 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They wouldn't be missing a date as such, as steps 2 to 4 in the covid roadmap were prefixed with 'not before', and careful wording around hoping too.


Although strictly speaking this is correct, it's been presented in the media for a long time (pretty much from when it was first announced) that the restrictions would be eased on the particular dates announced.

To go beyond that would definitely be seen/portrayed by many as a failure, which is why I don't think it will happen, however much it would be the sensible thing to do, unless there were an immediate of hospitals being overwhelmed (and as far as I'm aware, there isn't, at least not at a national level).


----------



## Thora (Jun 5, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> I think most of the British public fall into one of three groups:
> 
> 1. Those that do what the government tells them they can and can't, no matter what.
> 
> ...


Actually I think most people do more or less what the government tells them, depending on what they want to do, and will bend/stretch the rules a bit.


----------



## Chilli.s (Jun 5, 2021)

I have no idea what the restrictions are now. I do my own thing. It's more strict than the governments advice so don't worry.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 5, 2021)

This household of four are now fully vaccinated, but plenty of people I see about locally may only have had one jab, if that.
But many of them, like us, are still masking up for shopping etc ...

Even back in the days of the tiers (remember them ?) we (us 4) were being far more strict than we needed to be, according to the "rules and advice". This included keeping a watch on our "local" figures, and I was comparing our tiny area with the rest of the county and nearby zones.

Now, with the advantages of vaccination, I wonder if a more nuanced tiering system would work against the variants.
Specifically; one that is properly supported in financial ways - eg £££ for those isolating / unable to work 'cos their work is closed; and "insurance" to cover business costs if a closure is required [eg cost of beer or food that can't be sold, no takeaway facilities].
And perhaps extra layers to it that depend on vaccination - and not just infection / variant - rates.


----------



## Red Cat (Jun 5, 2021)

Aren't we supposed to mask for shopping? Most people I've seen are. The idea of masks is to protect others. When I was in Ikea the other day they had announcements reminding people. A lot of kids in my eldest's school are still wearing masks in communal areas even though they no longer have to, I don't think mask-wearing is going to suddenly stop.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 5, 2021)

Red Cat said:


> Aren't we supposed to mask for shopping? Most people I've seen are. The idea of masks is to protect others. When I was in Ikea the other day they had announcements reminding people. A lot of kids in my eldest's school are still wearing masks in communal areas even though they no longer have to, I don't think mask-wearing is going to suddenly stop.


Yes. I had to check, too - I was pretty sure I'd not heard anything about that changing but a bunch of shops and people don't seem to bother any more and I wondered if I was going mad. Passed a small barbers yesterday which had eight or so people in, none in masks.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 5, 2021)

Red Cat said:


> Aren't we supposed to mask for shopping? Most people I've seen are. The idea of masks is to protect others. When I was in Ikea the other day they had announcements reminding people. A lot of kids in my eldest's school are still wearing masks in communal areas even though they no longer have to, I don't think mask-wearing is going to suddenly stop.



Yes, at least, I think so !

Local school kids are usually masked up perhaps because around here the Kent variant peak last year arrived via holidays but was widely spread by school-kids and then a couple of workplaces.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jun 5, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Yes. I had to check, too - I was pretty sure I'd not heard anything about that changing but a bunch of shops and people don't seem to bother any more and I wondered if I was going mad. Passed a small barbers yesterday which had eight or so people in, none in masks.


Maybe the masks would make it difficult for the barber to get at certain parts of their hair. I know in pubs/cafes etc you're technically supposed to wear masks still, but they make an exception for when you're actually eating/drinking. So maybe they don't bother enforcing it because they think "Oh, what the hell, they'll have to come off at some point anyway!"


----------



## smee (Jun 5, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I did. That is the very doc I read, very low levels of possible earlier genetic lineage in September. But there is clear evidence that it started to become a problem in early December.  4 weeks later was chaos. We're a long way from that right now.   If you take detection as your starting point, September-Jan is 4 months.
> 
> The B 1617 variant was detected in India in December 2020.  As December-February are great times to visit India due to the med like climate, highly likely it was already here in January at very low levels.  It was first detected in the UK in February, also 4 months ago.
> 
> ...


----------



## existentialist (Jun 5, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Maybe the masks would make it difficult for the barber to get at certain parts of their hair. I know in pubs/cafes etc you're technically supposed to wear masks still, but they make an exception for when you're actually eating/drinking. So maybe they don't bother enforcing it because they think "Oh, what the hell, they'll have to come off at some point anyway!"


That would make some sense, if the barber were masked, and customers were wearing theirs while waiting for a cut. I bet that's not what is happening, though.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 5, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Yes. I had to check, too - I was pretty sure I'd not heard anything about that changing but a bunch of shops and people don't seem to bother any more and I wondered if I was going mad. Passed a small barbers yesterday which had eight or so people in, none in masks.





LeytonCatLady said:


> Maybe the masks would make it difficult for the barber to get at certain parts of their hair. I know in pubs/cafes etc you're technically supposed to wear masks still, but they make an exception for when you're actually eating/drinking. So maybe they don't bother enforcing it because they think "Oh, what the hell, they'll have to come off at some point anyway!"



My barbers will not let people in to wait, you queue outside, both barbers & customers have to wear masks, they are skilful in lifting the mask's string off one ear at a time, whilst holding the mask in place, as they cut around the ears.

But, mask wearing around here has always been near to 100% everywhere, from small shops to supermarkets, takeaways, garages, etc., etc.

ETA - It's best to book online first, but they will do walk in appointments if they have spare slots, but that's hit & miss.


----------



## emanymton (Jun 5, 2021)

existentialist said:


> That would make some sense, if the barber were masked, and customers were wearing theirs while waiting for a cut. I bet that's not what is happening, though.


Last time I got a hair cut they told me the rule was that a mask had to be on at all times, so they had to unhook it from my ear and hold it while cutting around there. Bit awkward but it worked OK.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 5, 2021)

Chilli.s said:


> I have no idea what the restrictions are now. I do my own thing. It's more strict than the governments advice so don't worry.



Aye.

It’s basically just habit at this point I stay away from people and indoor environments as much as possible and it’s going to take very conscious effort to break it.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 5, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Maybe the masks would make it difficult for the barber to get at certain parts of their hair. I know in pubs/cafes etc you're technically supposed to wear masks still, but they make an exception for when you're actually eating/drinking. So maybe they don't bother enforcing it because they think "Oh, what the hell, they'll have to come off at some point anyway!"


I've seen others where everyone is wearing masks. In this case just nobody was wearing them tbh - the barbers, the people in chairs, the people hanging around in the shop chatting.

The council "covid wardens" seem to have been laid off too which may be contributing - I don't think they did any serious investigation but this was a glass windowed shop, doesn't take much effort to call that in.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 5, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I've seen others where everyone is wearing masks. In this case just nobody was wearing them tbh - the barbers, the people in chairs, the people hanging around in the shop chatting.



I just don't get this at all, I wouldn't go anywhere near a place that like, WTF are they thinking?


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 5, 2021)

Must check out the local barbers and see what they are doing about things ...

(it's in the not-usual route so making time for a detour is all)


----------



## purenarcotic (Jun 5, 2021)

Mask wearing in Brum has drastically decreased. People are wearing them, but like a fashion item under the chin. They seem to have forgotten that once you enter a shop / get on a bus, you need to pull it back up to cover your face, not leave it there as a pointless bit of cloth.


----------



## elbows (Jun 5, 2021)

andysays said:


> Although strictly speaking this is correct, it's been presented in the media for a long time (pretty much from when it was first announced) that the restrictions would be eased on the particular dates announced.
> 
> To go beyond that would definitely be seen/portrayed by many as a failure, which is why I don't think it will happen, however much it would be the sensible thing to do, unless there were an immediate of hospitals being overwhelmed (and as far as I'm aware, there isn't, at least not at a national level).



But there are other aspects that the medias simplified bullshit has obscured.

The focus is on whether step 4 is delayed, and I'm guilty of that focus too. But the fact is that exactly what step 4 consists of is also up for grabs - and this detail depends heavily on the governments 'social distancing review'.

Johnson said that he hoped to show the public the results of that review by the end of May, but the new variant already caused them to concede that probably wasnt going to happen, and indeed it hasnt.

So they can fiddle around not just with dates, but also the detail of what the next new normal is supposed to consist of on various dates.

So they could go for a 'we must wait just a few more weeks, to get more vaccinations done, before taking this last step'. Bu they could also go for a fudge where they still deliver one or more headline-grabbing relaxations from June 21st onwards, but push other ones further down the road.

Meanwhile despite tings being touted at times as 'a return to normality', the travel-related rules and the ways they are still subject to change demonstrates the illusion of that really happening this summer isnt very deep.


----------



## miss direct (Jun 5, 2021)

I went out last night and noticed a few things.

Quite a few people on the tram who pull their mask down in order to talk to the conductor, very close up. How can people be that stupid? 

In pubs the vast majority of people sitting outside. Weathers nice and lots of good outdoor areas. 

Ripped down two pages of fake science anti vacc stuff from the tram stop.

Shop on the way home:


----------



## teuchter (Jun 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I just don't get this at all, I wouldn't go anywhere near a place that like, WTF are they thinking?


It's just an example of behaviour becoming normalised. They are thinking no-one else seems bothered so why should I be.


----------



## elbows (Jun 5, 2021)

Does anyone have any thoughts on this claim compared to the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust graphs from the dashboard?



> But Mr Hopson said that in Bolton, people in hospital with Covid were "a lot younger" than patients in earlier stages of the pandemic, which meant there was "less demand on critical care".



(quote is from Covid: People in hospital with Indian variant not increasing significantly - NHS boss )


----------



## andysays (Jun 5, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Last time I got a hair cut they told me the rule was that a mask had to be on at all times, so they had to unhook it from my ear and hold it while cutting around there. Bit awkward but it worked OK.


I've had my hair cut a couple of times since barbers reopened.

The policy followed by my barber, which I thought was the official rule TBH, was that the customer who's actually having their haircut doesn't wear a mask, but the barber and anyone waiting for a haircut do.

That seems reasonable to me. I certainly wouldn't go anywhere where there were loads of mask-less people waiting


----------



## elbows (Jun 5, 2021)

By the way the purpose of my last post was not to illustrate the current Bolton hospital situation - the data in those charts lags behind and is only updated weekly.

For example news via journalists suggests an improved picture since then, eg the tweet below. But since my point was more about the ratio of hospitalised to mechanical ventilation patients, I didnt need the very latest data to make that point.


----------



## elbows (Jun 5, 2021)

BBC 'analysis' on their live updates page now makes much the same point that I made earlier:



> But what does the roadmap actually commit to?
> 
> It says the government will reopen venues like nightclubs, it hopes to lift caps on numbers at weddings and remove "all legal limits on social contact".
> 
> ...





> The results had been expected to be announced at the end of May but are now likely to come with the decision on step four on 14 June.
> 
> That raises the possibility of step four going ahead as planned - but with at least some social distancing measures staying in place.
> 
> ...



From the 14:20 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57367906


----------



## Spandex (Jun 5, 2021)

From glancing at the newspaper front pages it's easy to see where a casual observer might get the idea that we're close to the end of Covid and 21 June is hopefully when it'll all be over. It's like looking at some kind of parallel reality sometimes. Combined with people being sick of it all, it's no wonder some people are letting their guard down.

From the past few weeks:


----------



## Dystopiary (Jun 5, 2021)

From the same link as elbows above (I'm quoting all of this part in case it gets lost amongst updates):

15:14
Reopening on 21 June would be 'foolish', government adviser says​It would be "foolish" and a "major risk" to go ahead with the 21 June reopening in England as planned, an expert on a government advisory group says.
Prof Stephen Reicher says there is currently enough evidence to say one of the government's four key tests for its roadmap out of lockdown has not been met.
The professor - a member of the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (Spi-B) which advises the government  - says the criteria of risks not being fundamentally changed by new variants is "not upheld" because of the Delta variant.
He tells the PA news agency: "I think by the government's own criteria it's quite clear that it would be foolish to proceed on the data that we've got at the moment. The risk would be very great indeed."
He adds: "Again, I make the point that it is about data not dates, and if you make it too much about the dates then you box yourself into a corner and I think that's what the government has done."


----------



## Dystopiary (Jun 5, 2021)

Spandex said:


> From glancing at the newspaper front pages it's easy to see where a casual observer might get the idea that we're close to the end of Covid and 21 June is hopefully when it'll all be over. It's like looking at some kind of parallel reality sometimes. Combined with people being sick of it all, it's no wonder some people are letting their guard down.
> 
> From the past few weeks:


Irresponsible bastards. This bs is gonna make it a lot easier for anti-lockdown types and full-on conspiracy theorists to get people onside. Fuming.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 5, 2021)

There's a load of anti mask/vax types camping out on Shepherd's Bush Green - been there since last weekend. Their big signs don't say that of course but they're wandering around with "no vaccine passport" signs inside so yknow.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 5, 2021)




----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 5, 2021)

This time last year cases were half what they are today. 

We've never been able to get them that low since. We're at the point we were when scientists were calling for a circuit breaker last year.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 5, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> There's a load of anti mask/vax types camping out on Shepherd's Bush Green - been there since last weekend. Their big signs don't say that of course but they're wandering around with "no vaccine passport" signs inside so yknow.


So they are carrying around a physical documentation of their vaccination status while complaining about having to carry around a physical....


----------



## elbows (Jun 5, 2021)

Its impressive how many milestones to shout about (make propaganda out of) they've been able to squeeze out of the vaccination statistics this week. We've had days with percentage milestones being loudly drawn attention to and now they are making the most of having gone over 40 million first doses given. And all during a week where the daily numbers havent been so great compared to previous weeks (bank holiday effect).


----------



## two sheds (Jun 5, 2021)

Been round to see neighbours/friends last couple of weekends. Nicely spaced out (  ) but people are back to hugging and shaking hands and stuff which I don't altogether feel comfortable with. It's cornwall so there's very little round yet but not habits I want to get back into for when cases rise again.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 5, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Nicely spaced out (  )



Weed or shrooms?


----------



## teuchter (Jun 5, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> This time last year cases were half what they are today.
> 
> We've never been able to get them that low since. We're at the point we were when scientists were calling for a circuit breaker last year.


Not sure that's quite true.


----------



## pbsmooth (Jun 5, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> This time last year cases were half what they are today.
> 
> We've never been able to get them that low since. We're at the point we were when scientists were calling for a circuit breaker last year.


Lockdowns were about hospital capacity not cases and last year nobody was vaccinated. 40% are now fully vaccinated in UK


----------



## editor (Jun 5, 2021)

Oxford Street was rammed when I waked down. I'd say about 5% were wearing masks in the street. There was even a random twat who popped up and starting shouting at an elderly couple to take their masks off. He'd gone before I could have 'advised' him to leave them the fuck alone.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 5, 2021)

Our local anti-masker was yelping on Main Street this afternoon.

Told him to Feck Orffff when he started yelling at me to take my mask off - I was going into another shop straight after having come out of the Co-op. And I know quite a few local people aren't vaxx'd yet. He had a fit when I told him to go and get jabbed, he started on all of the CTs ... so he got another F... OFF, louder this time.

Coming out of my third shop the local PCSO was moving him on, as someone had complained he was obstructing the narrow pavement.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 5, 2021)

editor said:


> Oxford Street was rammed when I waked down. I'd say about 5% were wearing masks in the street. There was even a random twat who popped up and starting shouting at an elderly couple to take their masks off. He'd gone before I could have 'advised' him to leave them the fuck alone.



I really don't think we should get too bothered about busy streets and people being outside without masks.  In the last year we've seen an awful lot of marches and protests which a lot of us have supported.  Now people are going about their day to day I really don't see the difference.

Wankers hassling people over masks is a different matter.


----------



## editor (Jun 5, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I really don't think we should get too bothered about busy streets and people being outside without masks.  In the last year we've seen an awful lot of marches and protests which a lot of us have supported.  Now people are going about their day to day I really don't see the difference.
> 
> Wankers hassling people over masks is a different matter.


It wasn't really a criticism but an observation - it was the least masked up street I've seen since the start of the pandemic.


----------



## l'Otters (Jun 6, 2021)

The demos I’ve been on this year had good mask wearing, I’d say the vast majority of people had one on.


----------



## Griff (Jun 6, 2021)

COVID-19: 'Time to distinguish' between those who have and have not had a vaccine, Tony Blair says
					

"It makes no sense at all to treat those who have had vaccination the same as those who haven't," the former prime minister says.




					news.sky.com
				




Thoughts on this cunt's opinion?


----------



## existentialist (Jun 6, 2021)

Griff said:


> COVID-19: 'Time to distinguish' between those who have and have not had a vaccine, Tony Blair says
> 
> 
> "It makes no sense at all to treat those who have had vaccination the same as those who haven't," the former prime minister says.
> ...


It's a cunt's opinion. Next


----------



## Griff (Jun 6, 2021)

Glad we agree on something.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 6, 2021)

Griff said:


> COVID-19: 'Time to distinguish' between those who have and have not had a vaccine, Tony Blair says
> 
> 
> "It makes no sense at all to treat those who have had vaccination the same as those who haven't," the former prime minister says.
> ...



Yep, a cunt with a cuntish opinion.

He's basically banging on about vaccine passports, which will probably become the norm for international travel, but he can fuck off with the idea of using them at home.


----------



## maomao (Jun 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, a cunt with a cuntish opinion.
> 
> He's basically banging on about vaccine passports, which will probably become the norm for international travel, but he can fuck off with the idea of using them at home.


What would they be used _for_?

As long as there are exceptions for people who can't have the vaccination then I'm okay with people who've refused the vaccination being refused entry to large gatherings until this is over.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 6, 2021)

maomao said:


> What would they be used _for_?
> 
> As long as there are exceptions for people who can't have the vaccination then I'm okay with people who've refused the vaccination being refused entry to large gatherings until this is over.



He's not clear, but sounds like more than just large events. Israel has dumped the idea, because once you have a high level of inoculation, they become pointless, and we are heading in that direction.



> Israel, which led the way on Covid passports by issuing ‘green passes’ to vaccinated adults, got rid of the system this week because policymakers deemed them redundant when rates of inoculation were so high.











						'Time to distinguish' between vaccinated and unvaccinated, says Tony Blair
					

The former PM has called for vaccine passports to be rolled out to allow those who've had the jab to return to their normal lives.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## xenon (Jun 6, 2021)

To indulge this rubbish for just a sec. What does had the jab actually mean regards being able to do stuff. Only those who've had 2 can go to gigs, large sporting events, the pub? So no concerts or football matches for kids. What happens when booster jabs are offered, your vaccine passport is revoked until you've had yours, possibly months away.

Why the fuck are we still listening to Blaire anyway. It's all over the radio too.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 6, 2021)

xenon said:


> Why the fuck are we still listening to Blaire anyway. It's all over the radio too.


For the same reason they were talking about Diana on the news this morning. The UK is permanently stuck in the 90s.


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2021)

I dont believe in paying any attention to coercive ways to 'encourage' vaccination at a stage where plenty of people who wants to be vaccinated havent been dealt with by the system yet.

The 'drop-in without appointment' vaccination centres that have been in effect in my town on random days in recent weeks have been a great success so far. There is a lot of mileage left in this sort of thing, even once the majority who have been able to engage with the booking system and travel to vaccine centres further afield have been dealt with.

Blair is a narrow, divisive fuck with an audience that does not represent a broad cross-section of the country. He is the kiss of death.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 6, 2021)

Griff said:


> COVID-19: 'Time to distinguish' between those who have and have not had a vaccine, Tony Blair says
> 
> 
> "It makes no sense at all to treat those who have had vaccination the same as those who haven't," the former prime minister says.
> ...



Time to distinguish between those who have and have not done war crimes.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 6, 2021)

maomao said:


> What would they be used _for_?
> 
> As long as there are exceptions for people who can't have the vaccination then I'm okay with people who've refused the vaccination being refused entry to large gatherings until this is over.



Vaccine refuseniks are not a big enough demographic to have much impact on transmission rates.

Until everyone who wants a vaccine has had one, there should be no large gatherings.


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> For the same reason they were talking about Diana on the news this morning. The UK is permanently stuck in the 90s.



Even the elements of the nation that lag decades behind, whether they be actual people or the media that think those people are their core audience, move on eventually. They used to be stuck in the 1950s, the 1970's, the 1980's etc.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 6, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> For the same reason they were talking about Diana on the news this morning. The UK is permanently stuck in the 90s.


But it's never 31.3.90, 12.9.92 or 18.6.99: not to mention 22.11.90


----------



## DotCommunist (Jun 6, 2021)

The constant 'rare interventions' from blair are annoying as fuck but do show starmer up as a fucking placeman. Also, blairs creepy obsession with getting everyone numbered, indexed and cross referenced that existed long before the rona.


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2021)

DotCommunist said:


> The constant 'rare interventions' from blair are annoying as fuck but do show starmer up as a fucking placeman. Also, blairs creepy obsession with getting everyone numbered, indexed and cross referenced that existed long before the rona.



About the only thing that still interests me about the views of Blair the malign influencer, is whether his preference for ID cards etc is based on having been sold on a vision of how things could heat up in this country once some of the biggest challenges of this century are in full effect.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> About the only thing that still interests me about the views of Blair the malign influencer, is whether his preference for ID cards etc is based on having been sold on a vision of how things could heat up in this country once some of the biggest challenges of this century are in full effect.



I don't credit him as that deep of a thinker tbh. He probably thinks if we all just doubled down on technocratic centrism all those challenges would simply melt away for some reason.


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I don't credit him as that deep of a thinker tbh. He probably thinks if we all just doubled down on technocratic centrism all those challenges would simply melt away for some reason.



He wouldnt need to be a deep thinker, would just have needed to pay attention to briefings that had a medium-long term focus. I lost a lot of the documents I was reading in the new Labour era, but for example I remember one that was going on about the threat posed by a 'decline in readership/trust of 'quality news sources' years before we had the whole 'fake news' thing going mainstream.

But I do need to allow for my own natural bias and opinions about the big stories of this century - eg I had an interest in peak oil and thats actually one of the reasons I spent a long time getting clued up about pandemics in the first place, over 15 years ago now! Its somewhat inevitable that I look for tie-ins on those fronts, the ways that big issues of this century may combine. eg I look at the various things that had to be done in this pandemic, and the ways it affected peoples lives and travel etc, and I look at the climate change/energy stuff and the changes that will usher in in the next few decades, and I end up with much to think about! When I was young and all that was new to me, I had to learn not to get paranoid and conspiratorial about such things, and I'm very glad I completed that rebalancing inside my mind a long time before this pandemic arrived. Lots of sensible, non-paranoid bollocks tie-ins remain. Because Im not looking at sinister plots and wacky shit, just the way issues end up rubbing against eachother, the detail of where there is overlap in terms of the consequences for humanity, etc etc.


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2021)

I see Hancock has been setting the scene, although there are a number of different ways this positioning could be interpreted.









						Covid-19: Government 'open' to delaying 21 June England lockdown end date
					

Matt Hancock says 21 June is a "not before" date for ending England's remaining restrictions.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont believe in paying any attention to coercive ways to 'encourage' vaccination at a stage where plenty of people who wants to be vaccinated havent been dealt with by the system yet.


The younger folk where I work are _desperate_ to get vaccinated. They queue up in the rain whenever a local centre says they are doing their age group. They don't want to infect their families and they don't want to catch it themselves.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 6, 2021)

Death secretary, whilst doing the rounds today, mentions that the latest advice he has from SAGE*** is that B.1.617.2 is "about 40% more transmissible" (than B.1.1.7).








						Covid Delta variant ‘about 40% more transmissible’, says Matt Hancock
					

Under-30s to be offered jabs from next week but variant makes decision on easing rules in England ‘more difficult’




					www.theguardian.com
				




For context (Warwick SPI-M-O model):





*** no references to published analysis provided.


----------



## LDC (Jun 6, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> The younger folk where I work are _desperate_ to get vaccinated. They queue up in the rain whenever a local centre says they are doing their age group. They don't want to infect their families and they don't want to catch it themselves.



Anecdote obviously, but yeah the 18 year I know and her friends think the whole anti-vax thing is mental and they'd all get the vaccine happily. She'd never heard of the 5G etc. stuff until I told her about it and thought it was quite mad.

Is it more a older or middle aged person thing you think?


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2021)

2hats said:


> Death secretary, whilst doing the rounds today, mentions that the latest advice he has from SAGE*** is that B.1.617.2 is "about 40% more transmissible" (than B.1.1.7).
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I sure could do with some updated modelling that also includes a newer set of assumptions including the possibility that hospitalisation might be 2.5x more likely with the Delta strain. 

I forgot how much, if any, seasonal factors Warwick built into their model.

Oh well, I can still use this stuff as a foundation upon which I can bend the graph in different directions based on emerging analysis or my own whims. We know that the models will never be perfect and there are so many variables and simplifications.

I am currently searching for right-wing people who may have shitty views about lockdown etc, and how much weight vaccines can reasonably be expected to carry, how many hospitalisations are considered tolerable. Not those who bark and misunderstand all the detail, but rather those who are prepared to do their own modelling because, for example, they are economists. They have a bias towards favouring unlocking and so if the recent data makes even them poop their pants and concede that the June 21st date is an unwise time to proceed, that will be useful to know. I have found one candidate on twitter already but I dont want to give them any publicity, at least not until I see what they do with last weeks estimates regarding transmission advantage, hospitalisation, vaccine escape etc. When the time comes I will share their findings, unless they indulge in such mental gymnastics that their results have no credibility at all. Reason for me to perform this exercise is that they have very different biases and expectations compared to me, so if even they are forced to concede defeat at this juncture, this will be a useful guide beyond me just listening to my usual trusted sources who are consistently on my side of the debate regarding pandemic management and public health.


----------



## maomao (Jun 6, 2021)

2hats said:


> Death secretary, whilst doing the rounds today, mentions that the latest advice he has from SAGE*** is that B.1.617.2 is "about 40% more transmissible" (than B.1.1.7).
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So 40% more than Kent not 40% more than OG covid. 

And Kent was 50% more transmissible. So the new one is 210% more transmissible than the original.


----------



## Maltin (Jun 6, 2021)

maomao said:


> So 40% more than Kent not 40% more than OG covid.
> 
> And Kent was 50% more transmissible. So the new one is 210% more transmissible than the original.


110%


----------



## maomao (Jun 6, 2021)

Maltin said:


> 110%


Sorry. 210% _as_ transmissible. 110% more.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Is it more a older or middle aged person thing you think?


Definitely skews towards 30somethings IME (note that this means "millennials").


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2021)

Given my tendency to focus on hospital transmission of the virus, you can imagine what I think about the implications of the Delta variant and UK hospitals when I read articles like this one about a hospital outbreak in Finland:









						Indian coronavirus variant behind hospital outbreak in Kanta-Häme, Finland
					

THE INDIAN VARIANT of the new coronavirus has been identified as the cause of a string of 80 infections detected in hospitals in Kanta-Häme, Southern Finland. “The Indian variant is extremely easily transmissible. There’s reason for concern. You can’t belittle this because it’s clear the...




					www.helsinkitimes.fi
				






> THE INDIAN VARIANT of the new coronavirus has been identified as the cause of a string of 80 infections detected in hospitals in Kanta-Häme, Southern Finland.
> 
> “The Indian variant is extremely easily transmissible. There’s reason for concern. You can’t belittle this because it’s clear the protective measures that used to be enough have simply not been enough,” Sally Leskinen, the chief medical officer of Kanta-Häme Hospital District, told Helsingin Sanomat.





> “Wearing surgical masks in all situations and meeting patients with symptoms of an infection in complete protective equipment wasn't enough now.”





> “The virus has transmitted easily. In the wards that had infections before the first cases were detected and the chains of infection were contained, 40 per cent of patients became infected,” highlighted Leskinen.





> What is surprising about the cluster is that roughly four-fifths of the infected people had received at least the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine. Although the majority of staff had also received the booster dose, 11 per cent of staff members in the ward where the outbreak began have tested positive for the virus. About half of them developed symptoms from the infection, some relatively serious ones.
> 
> Lehtinen said to Helsingin Sanomat that vaccinations can make detecting infections more challenging, as even members of risk groups may only exhibit mild symptoms at the onset of infection. The hospital district is consequently mulling over stepping up its measures to slow down the epidemic.



The vaccine details in regards the cluster really isnt that surprising, and more details than are offered in that article about how many only had one dose of vaccine would help understanding.


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> The younger folk where I work are _desperate_ to get vaccinated. They queue up in the rain whenever a local centre says they are doing their age group. They don't want to infect their families and they don't want to catch it themselves.



Yeah here is a bloody Telegraph video but given the contents Im posting it anyway regardless of the shitty source.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jun 6, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> The younger folk where I work are _desperate_ to get vaccinated. They queue up in the rain whenever a local centre says they are doing their age group. They don't want to infect their families and they don't want to catch it themselves.


Yep. I hope Matt Hancock's ashamed of himself for his scapegoating of "young people".


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 6, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Yep. I hope Matt Hancock's ashamed of himself for his scapegoating of "young people".


Unfortunately the man is a crooked murderous liar generally and I don't think he has a concept of shame.


----------



## IC3D (Jun 6, 2021)

I wonder how many young people want it to protect older family refusnicks they are worried about.


----------



## BristolEcho (Jun 6, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Unfortunately the man is a crooked murderous liar generally and I don't think he has a concept of shame.



To busy saving lives and putting himself front and centre of anything positive that is done in spite of him. He doesn't have time to feel shame.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 6, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> The younger folk where I work are _desperate_ to get vaccinated. They queue up in the rain whenever a local centre says they are doing their age group. They don't want to infect their families and they don't want to catch it themselves.



But it's the fully-vaccinated old timers who run politics and the press who decide when restrictions are removed so...


----------



## NoXion (Jun 6, 2021)

I fucking hate those newspaper covers. There's a stench of needy desperation about them.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yeah here is a bloody Telegraph video but given the contents Im posting it anyway regardless of the shitty source.



Of the Tory press, I think it's the best of a bad lot, at least it's actually news.


----------



## elbows (Jun 6, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Of the Tory press, I think it's the best of a bad lot, at least it's actually news.



They've been one of the worst for trying to find new ways to demand and justify an anti-restrictions approach to the pandemic at various key moments that have ended up costing lives.


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 6, 2021)

I think they're useful for factual info on specific subjects, eg. military and arms trade, but really bad for other stuff eg. opinions about restrictions during this pandemic.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> They've been one of the worst for trying to find new ways to demand and justify an anti-restrictions approach to the pandemic at various key moments that have ended up costing lives.


I didn't say they were great, I just pointed out it's a reasonable source of news. If you want an alternative,  search through youtube, I can guarantee there will be something on there. Just might take a while to find.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

I wasnt at all impressed with some aspects of this article and luckily people who know a lot more than me didnt seem impressed either. Katrinas post is actually a thread if you want to read more detail.









						Data on Delta variant splits scientists on lifting final Covid restrictions
					

Sage group advises against easing social distancing on 21 June, but others say it is too early to assess risks




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## existentialist (Jun 7, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Yep. I hope Matt Hancock's ashamed of himself for his scapegoating of "young people".


I am not sure that Hancock - or any of the Cabinet - is capable of shame in the way normal people would experience it. In many ways, the way this Cabinet was packed, the selection process actively favoured shameless, mendacious, corrupt, self-serving fools with zero moral compunction. Starting with the Brexiteer loyalists, and working ethically downwards from there.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 7, 2021)

BristolEcho said:


> To busy saving lives and putting himself front and centre of anything positive that is done in spite of him. He doesn't have time to feel shame.


Shame is outsourced at public expense


----------



## 5t3IIa (Jun 7, 2021)

When is the next press conference please? When is the PM one to annouce what he has decided re: 21/6? Thank you.


----------



## Sue (Jun 7, 2021)

5t3IIa said:


> When is the next press conference please? *When is the PM one to annouce what he has decided re: 21/6*? Thank you.


22/6 or 23/6 I reckon...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 7, 2021)

5t3IIa said:


> When is the next press conference please? When is the PM one to annouce what he has decided re: 21/6? Thank you.



The announcement re-21/6 is due next Mon. 14/6.

Handjob is updating the commons today at around 3.30pm, there may be a hint in that, but probably not.


----------



## 5t3IIa (Jun 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The announcement re-21/6 is due next Mon. 14/6.


Thank you!


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

PHE are more overtly drawing attention to poorer protection from only 1 jab against the Delta variant in their public health messages:


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> I am currently searching for right-wing people who may have shitty views about lockdown etc, and how much weight vaccines can reasonably be expected to carry, how many hospitalisations are considered tolerable. Not those who bark and misunderstand all the detail, but rather those who are prepared to do their own modelling because, for example, they are economists. They have a bias towards favouring unlocking and so if the recent data makes even them poop their pants and concede that the June 21st date is an unwise time to proceed, that will be useful to know. I have found one candidate on twitter already but I dont want to give them any publicity, at least not until I see what they do with last weeks estimates regarding transmission advantage, hospitalisation, vaccine escape etc. When the time comes I will share their findings, unless they indulge in such mental gymnastics that their results have no credibility at all. Reason for me to perform this exercise is that they have very different biases and expectations compared to me, so if even they are forced to concede defeat at this juncture, this will be a useful guide beyond me just listening to my usual trusted sources who are consistently on my side of the debate regarding pandemic management and public health.



So far this attempt is a failure because the ring-winger I selected is too much of a shithead to have come out with anything useful yet in the wake of the updated Delta estimates last week.

So for today at least I am taking a different approach. I've found someone else who does modelling, and I am not for the moment going to analyse where they stand on the political spectrum or their track record in this pandemic so far. Instead I am just going to drw attention to the fact they've updated their modelling with new parameters and they have posted a lengthy thread on twitter that goes into the detail. I do not have the ability to judge the accuracy of their modelling and even if their model was spot on, there is still much uncertainty about various aspects of the Delta variant which they have to feed into the model. But given that we dont currently have any more recent official SPI-M modelling than the stuff done by three academic establishments in early May, this stuff will have to do:


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 7, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Definitely skews towards 30somethings IME (note that this means "millennials").



The two I know (I work with them both in a kitchen where SD is almost impossible) are my age (51) and one is married to a GP. 
I have no idea what his wife thinks about it, tbf, cos I can't abide even speakng to them about it anymore - just makes me rage.
He believes in aliens, too, mind you - which was mildly amusing until _this_.
The other one is just one of those who absorbs every batty claim she reads on Facebook as THE TRUTH, despite the fact that she has actually lost people to it.
She has also had it (caught during lockdown 2 from her bf who was living in a - different - shared house) but had pretty mild symptoms, so I guess that, along with the fact that both relatives were elderly, has fed into it all, too.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

The Guardian have taken a simplified stab at questions as to how bad this wave could be:









						Could a third wave of Covid be more serious than UK’s first two?
					

Analysis: Concern over Delta variant means decision on ending restrictions on 21 June hangs in balance




					www.theguardian.com
				




Towards the end we hear stuff about data in the coming period will be crucial, except the Guardian says the next week but the person they are quoting says weeks not week. And this weeks data is problematic for me because of the potential impact of the half term break last week etc. If the data is full of bad news this week then it will be useful in its own right, but if it appears to show better news then I'll be nervous about whether that actually continues or is just a temporary blip.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 7, 2021)

From tomorrow, those aged 25-29 will be able to book their first jabs.   

The government target was to offer all over 18s their first jab, and carried it out for those that came forward, by the end of July, it's seems clear that will be done by the end of June now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 7, 2021)

As of the 3rd of June, over 12k cases of the delta variant, 126 were admitted to hospital -

83 - were unvaccinated
28 - had one dose only
3 - had two doses

That sounds good to me.

* source Handjob updating the commons.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> The Guardian have taken a simplified stab at questions as to how bad this wave could be:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't understand that model, tbh, not with the vast majority of those at high risk of hospitalisation now double-jabbed. I see the early evidence suggesting strongly the reverse. Places like Bolton and Bedford that were hit early appear, tentatively, to be past their local peaks, and without a massive surge in hospitalisation or deaths.

My back of an envelope calculation puts the effective R number reducing by around 5 per cent per week due to ongoing vaccinations, that percentage going up a bit each week as we edge towards completion. (Working on 3.5 million vaccinations a week, around 70 million more vaccinations to do the entire population, assuming that each vaccination equals 0.5 protection.)


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

I will try to answer you more fully a little later.

For now I'll just make a point I was going to make now anyway:

Those that were cautiously optimistic about the size of the next wave, or as some call it 'the exit wave', are aware that the estimated level of transmission advantage that the Delta variant has is one of the key variables. Their modelling numbers turn out better if it is 40% more transmissive than the Alpha variant, as opposed to say 50% or 60% more transmissible. So they were hopeful that when Hancock spoke yesterday of it being 40% more transmissible, that this was a firming up of the PHE etc estimate compared to the broader range others had spoken of up till that point.

And so I note with interest that the language used by Hancock in parliament some minutes ago was that the Delta variant appears to be *at least* 40% more transmissible. And so his 40% number represents the lower end of a range, not a definitive settling on 40%.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I don't understand that model, tbh, not with the vast majority of those at high risk of hospitalisation now double-jabbed. I see the early evidence suggesting strongly the reverse. Places like Bolton and Bedford that were hit early appear, tentatively, to be past their local peaks, and without a massive surge in hospitalisation or deaths.
> 
> My back of an envelope calculation puts the effective R number reducing by around 5 per cent per week due to ongoing vaccinations, that percentage going up a bit each week as we edge towards completion. (Working on 3.5 million vaccinations a week, around 70 million more vaccinations to do the entire population, assuming that each vaccination equals 0.5 protection.)


I'll try to be briefer than I normally am when discussing models etc with you, I'll just whack out a partial skeleton and you can choose which bits you want to discuss further.

Its not one model, its lots of models including amateur modelling attempts online. But every one of these models is capable of generating a number of very different results, and sometimes the changes to size of wave can be large with only a small adjustment to input parameters.

Possible reasons for not understanding how the hospitalisation rates can still end up so large in the current circumstances:

Not appreciating quite how large the number of daily cases could become in this wave.

Not appreciating quite how many people in ages younger than the eldest groups are still at risk of hospitalisation. A new set of data for hospitalisations in England by age group is due out in 3 days and I will no doubt use that to make some points as soon as I can.

Not appreciating how many vaccinated people are still expected to be hospitalised in the event of a significant wave of infections.

Not having factored in all of the estimates about Deltas capabilities compared to previous variants.

I dont do my own R calculations but when I get a chance I will try to point out some stuff I've seen other people doing on this front on twitter.

It is true that data from places like Bolton has given some people cause for optimism. Its too soon for me to join that club, but I have noted what they are on about. If I knew that the turnaround seen in such places will be fully sustained, and that no other location would show a worse pattern, I could join that club. Sadly it takes much longer for those matters to be settled than we've had so far, at least as far as Im concerned.

Finally I'll just say that there is significantly more uncertainty in my own view of the future and the magnitude of this new wave than I have experienced at any previous point in the pandemic. This is due to the combination of immunity through prior infection and immunity via vaccination, coupled with all the variables relating to the Delta strain. I do not exclude the possibility that this wave will be modest, but for all sorts of reasons I cannot possibly exclude the much worse possibilities either, and when I try to drill down into the detail and understant the models etc, these bad possibilities still make sense to me, they dont seem implausible.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

And I really think you might find this blokes updated modelling thread from twitter today, that I mentioned some posts ago, to be helpful. Because he is showing a number of different scenarios based on a number of different input parameters. And goes into some detail, so I think its quite likely to offer you plenty of clues as to what factors can make models come out with either modest or large results for the coming period, or indeed some more complicated shapes and timings.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jun 7, 2021)

We're now very close to the whole of cohorts 1-9 being double-vaxed. So the vast majority of everyone over 50, health and care workers and everyone with serious preconditions. And each week, that number goes up - we'll have most people over 40 double-done by the end of the month. Pair that up with the early evidence from places like Bolton, Bedford, Glasgow, etc, which are now a month into their Delta waves and may be past their peaks, and the numbers being admitted to hospital who have had both jabs. Plus the strong evidence in all those places that infections among the young are not spreading widely to the vaccinated old. The repetition of the same pattern on these points is striking and allows some conclusions to be drawn. Add to that the fact that anywhere not currently experiencing significant rises is becoming more protected against it by around 5 per cent per week.

A model showing higher hospital admissions than we saw in January doesn't look at all credible to me given all of the above. Are they using Bayesian techniques to update their predictions as new evidence comes in?


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> My back of an envelope calculation puts the effective R number reducing by around 5 per cent per week due to ongoing vaccinations, that percentage going up a bit each week as we edge towards completion. (Working on 3.5 million vaccinations a week, around 70 million more vaccinations to do the entire population, assuming that each vaccination equals 0.5 protection.)


Leaving aside for a moment the calculation about how the vaccination programme will reduce R over time, I'd like to quickly focus on the starting point.

Have you applied that using a particular starting point for R at the moment? eg 1.4? I see that there is debate online about whether all that has changed recently has already been 'priced in' to the current estimate for R, and the only way is down, or whether some stuff hasnt fully made its presence felt yet. eg whether some of the advantages of the Delta variant have fully shown up yet or whether there is still a bit more of that to come as it completes its spread across the country. Likewise whether all the behavioural changes including those from step 3 of unlocking have fully shown up yet. And obviously a similar thing will apply if/when step 4 happens.

I can also add to that some uncertainty about seasonal effects. Some but not all modelling includes an estimate of seasonal impact on R etc, but I dont know how close to reality that stuff is, so this is yet another unclear input parameter!


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> As of the 3rd of July, over 12k cases of the delta variant, 126 were admitted to hospital -
> 
> 83 - were unvaccinated
> 28 - had one dose only
> ...



Think you mean June! 

What about the other 10?


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We're now very close to the whole of cohorts 1-9 being double-vaxed. So the vast majority of everyone over 50, health and care workers and everyone with serious preconditions. And each week, that number goes up - we'll have most people over 40 double-done by the end of the month.


I dont find terms like very close, vast majority or most people to be very helpful when used in this context.

There are may different ways I can pick at this characterisation. I can point to the fact I'm 46 and I only dragged my heels booking an appointment for a few weeks, yet I'm not currently due to receive a 2nd dose until late July or early August (depending on whether they start bring forwards 2nd appointments for under 50s forwards like they have done with over 50s).

I could pick on large differences between different places, and different ethnicities. Have you looked at vaccination figures for different places in London for example? Some of it is horrific and we really need to hope that some of that is down to using wildly incorrect population figures when coming up with percentages!

And then there is stuff like this:


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 7, 2021)

Cases now up by 52.9% over the previous week (5,683 today).

Testing numbers, which had not been updated for a few days (and were stuck on -23% odd) have been updated today, which has brought it right up again (-4.4%) following a massive increase yesterday, however over a million of those were LFT's and that's in England alone. 

No update to any of the healthcare figures, from any nation, since 4th June (last _complete_ figures are 1/06 for patients admitted and 3/06 for patients in hospital and patients on mechanical ventilation).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 7, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Think you mean June!
> 
> What about the other 10?



Yes, of course June.   

It's actually 12 missing from that list, I am fairly sure those were the figures Handjob announced, because I skipped back on the live coverage to double check I had typed them right.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

Dashboard data for the London regions vaccinations is important to look at.

I shouldnt really try to post images of all the important ways they've presented this data, but I will post one indicator of the state of play in the London region for all adults. But please visit the dashboard take note of the heatmap at the bottom of the page, and the fact that there is button to choose between whether its showing first or second doses.







__





						Loading…
					





					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes, of course June.
> 
> It's actually 12 missing from that list, I am fairly sure those were the figures Handjob announced, because I skipped back on the live coverage to double check I had typed them right.



You're quite right - 12!
Maybe those are hospitalised children, who _don't count_.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> A model showing higher hospital admissions than we saw in January doesn't look at all credible to me given all of the above. Are they using Bayesian techniques to update their predictions as new evidence comes in?



The models I and the media have tended to mention were presented by a number of universities to SAGE in the first days of May. I havent seen updated versions of those modelling reuslts since then. This is one of the reasons I have started to look at individual attempts to do updated modelling via twitter etc recently.

Certainly there are also people on twitter who are estimating things like R and the doubling time using the latest data. One who I've been following was hoping to see an improvement to this picture by now, and I think they are starting to get nervous, their optimism might not hold at this rate, but the week is yet young,


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 7, 2021)

I _think_ I understand the stuff about the effectiveness of the AZ vaccine (being too early to tell, in comparison with the earlier roll out of Pfizer?) but does any of the modelling incorporate that, too - the 60% for Delta - or does it assume complete protection after two doses of any vaccine?


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> No update to any of the healthcare figures, from any nation, since 4th June (last _complete_ figures are 1/06 for patients admitted and 3/06 for patients in hospital and patients on mechanical ventilation).


Since the NHS alert level was reduced some time ago, they stopped publishing hospital data for England over weekends and bank holidays.

However it is still the case that to avoid additional lag in seeing hospital numbers, it is often necessary to zoom in on the figures for England and its regions only. And sometimes the data available via the NHS daily spreadsheet at the following website is more up to date than the dashboard. I believe that may be the case today but I havent actually had a chance to consume this data today yet.

In any case it is still a bit early for me to expect to see notable rises in these figures. I know I did at least one graph last week but until/unless the situation changes, I wont be doing that at high frequency.





__





						Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity
					

Health and high quality care for all,  <br />now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk


----------



## teuchter (Jun 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> So far this attempt is a failure because the ring-winger I selected is too much of a shithead to have come out with anything useful yet in the wake of the updated Delta estimates last week.
> 
> So for today at least I am taking a different approach. I've found someone else who does modelling, and I am not for the moment going to analyse where they stand on the political spectrum or their track record in this pandemic so far. Instead I am just going to drw attention to the fact they've updated their modelling with new parameters and they have posted a lengthy thread on twitter that goes into the detail. I do not have the ability to judge the accuracy of their modelling and even if their model was spot on, there is still much uncertainty about various aspects of the Delta variant which they have to feed into the model. But given that we dont currently have any more recent official SPI-M modelling than the stuff done by three academic establishments in early May, this stuff will have to do:



This is the first time I've met the term "exit wave".


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I _think_ I understand the stuff about the effectiveness of the AZ vaccine (being too early to tell, in comparison with the earlier roll out of Pfizer?) but does any of the modelling incorporate that, too - the 60% for Delta - or does it assume complete protection after two doses of any vaccine?


The May modelling was done before specifics of Delta were estimated. Instead the various universities picked different general scenarios to model, eg including sceenarios if a variant with x% more transmissibility came about, or if a particular variant caused a certain level of vaccine escape.

The models did use general estimates for vaccine effectiveness that existed at the time.

This is another reasons I am resorting to amateur modelling exercises, although I hope we get updated SAGE modelling made public sometime soon, perhaps in conjunction with next weeks decision.

Also modelling need to factor in the early, tentative estimates of increased hospitalisation risk from the Delta variant. (eg 2-2.5 times greater risk). I'm running out of time for right now, but check that James Ward blokes twitter modelling thread to see the detail of what he updated in his various modelling scenarios.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> This is the first time I've met the term "exit wave".


I only heard it when I went to twitter in the last few days, and it was tending to be used by right-wingers, or optimists, or at least those who seem confident that this will be the final wave. So not a term I am hugely keen on at this stage, but perhaps it will turn out to be appropriate. I wont know for ages.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

OK I just about had time to quickly do latest version of English daily hospital admissions/diagnoses. Most noteworthy feature is still the North West region.

Raw daily numbers from start of May onwards:



Start of April onwards, smoothed via averages over time:


Using data from        Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## bimble (Jun 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> right-wingers, or optimists


The whole pandemic has made me see the conjunction of these two traits in a new way, seems to be a big factor in what decisions are taken, by governments & individuals, the degree of optimism (sometimes coloured by nationalism sometimes just I’m alright jackism) of the decision makers.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

I ran out of time for the next few hours at least, probably just as well. But I'll just say that although the hospital data isnt highly significant yet, the regional reality does make me groan when I compare it to Hancocks recent language about hospitalisations being broadly flat (or words to that effect, I forget and dont have time to check now).


----------



## andysays (Jun 7, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> We're now very close to the whole of cohorts 1-9 being double-vaxed. So the vast majority of everyone over 50, health and care workers and everyone with serious preconditions.



Not sure what you mean by "very close" - I'm 56 and although I booked my first vaccination at the earliest opportunity, my second isn't until next week.

I also work with two people in their 60s who have had their first but are still waiting to be contacted with dates for the second. They both have conditions which meant they were shielding until Easter, yet are still not yet fully vaccinated.

So I'd be very cautious about making assertions like yours, unless you provide figures from a reliable source.


----------



## NoXion (Jun 7, 2021)

Might the lack of second vaxxes in older folks have something to do with their GPs? Because when I learned that my age range could get the jab, I signed up via the NHS website, without knowing my NHS number. I was sent to a vaccination centre in Heathrow. I was able to book a date for the second dose.

It seems weird that I would be able to get a date for my second jab when there are still people over 60 who haven't got such an appointment yet.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Does anyone have any thoughts on this claim compared to the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust graphs from the dashboard?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Re Bolton specifically, there was this you posted a couple of days back elbows


----------



## teuchter (Jun 7, 2021)

I just had a bit of an altercation with a megaphone weilding Covid nutter outside kings cross station who said I was wearing "religious garb" (a facemask) and "worshipped at the altar of Chris Whitty".


----------



## teuchter (Jun 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> I only heard it when I went to twitter in the last few days, and it was tending to be used by right-wingers, or optimists, or at least those who seem confident that this will be the final wave. So not a term I am hugely keen on at this stage, but perhaps it will turn out to be appropriate. I wont know for ages.


Yes, it's a term that provokes some raised eyebrows from me.


----------



## maomao (Jun 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> I only heard it when I went to twitter in the last few days, and it was tending to be used by right-wingers, or optimists, or at least those who seem confident that this will be the final wave. So not a term I am hugely keen on at this stage, but perhaps it will turn out to be appropriate. I wont know for ages.


It's a bit like 'late capitalism'. Would be nice but a bit too optimistic,


----------



## prunus (Jun 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> As of the 3rd of June, over 12k cases of the delta variant, 126 were admitted to hospital -
> 
> 83 - were unvaccinated
> 28 - had one dose only
> ...



Need to know the vaccination rates in the cohorts from which those 12,000 people come (and/or those in the 12,000 themselves). Eg if delta is spreading mainly among young people, as certainly some of the heat maps I have seen suggest, then those unvax/onevax/twovax proportions might not be far from those in the general sub-population.  Ie vaccination makes no difference…


----------



## weepiper (Jun 7, 2021)

Mr W is 54 and only had his first jag on the 12th of April. He hasn't even got an appointment for the second one yet. I'm 43 and only had my first one last weekend! It's way too early to say 'enough people are double-jagged'.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 7, 2021)

Meanwhile Edinburgh numbers increasingly not looking great. Our test positivity rate is now worse than Glasgow's. We had a relaxing of restrictions about three weeks before they did. I read an article saying four high schools are reporting cases in the school and it didn't include my kids' school (where another kid tested positive today, that makes five kids and an undisclosed number of staff).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 7, 2021)

There's around 25m over 50s in the UK. [source]

Around 28m* people have had their second jab, so most over 50s should have had it by now, and almost all the remaining ones should have it within the next week or so. 

* 53% of over 18s.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 7, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Think you mean June!
> 
> What about the other 10?





cupid_stunt said:


> Yes, of course June.
> 
> It's actually 12 missing from that list, I am fairly sure those were the figures Handjob announced, because I skipped back on the live coverage to double check I had typed them right.



I bloody knew I had typed those numbers right, so there is 12 unaccounted for, from that total of 126.



> The health secretary said: "As of 3 June, our data show that of the 12,383 cases of the Delta variant, 464 went onto present at emergency care and 126 people were admitted to hospital.
> 
> "Of these 126 people, 83 were unvaccinated and 28 had received one dose and just three had received both doses of the vaccine."











						COVID-19: Hospital admissions 'broadly flat' despite Indian variant, says Hancock
					

The health secretary also announced the next acceleration in the vaccine programme - with over-25s eligible from Tuesday.




					news.sky.com


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's around 25m over 50s in the UK. [source]
> 
> Around 28m* people have had their second jab, so most over 50s should have had it by now, and almost all the remaining ones should have it within the next week or so.
> 
> * 53% of over 18s.


I recommend the dashboard vaccine page, then zooming in on England and scrolling down to the bottom where you can see an age heatmap for 1st and 2nd doses.

Here is a sneak peek at the hover over for latest 50-54 age range 2nd doses data:





			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations?areaType=nation&areaName=England


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)




----------



## maomao (Jun 7, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Meanwhile Edinburgh numbers increasingly not looking great. Our test positivity rate is now worse than Glasgow's. We had a relaxing of restrictions about three weeks before they did. I read an article saying four high schools are reporting cases in the school and it didn't include my kids' school (where another kid tested positive today, that makes five kids and an undisclosed number of staff).
> View attachment 272371


One of my cousin's in Edinburgh has just got covid, a week after his first jab, and had to cancel his wedding for the third time.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

I feel the need to use someone elses twitter posts to refute some of that earlier Guardian article, and get into more detail.


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2021)

Sorry for the quantity of tweets I've been posting recently.


----------



## mx wcfc (Jun 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Sorry for the quantity of tweets I've been posting recently.



well, they would know, if anyone.  

two weeks takes out Mayhem at Micks  (BOOO), but not Gail's at the Tiddley  (YAY).

(not that I'm being completely self centred about this).


----------



## tommers (Jun 7, 2021)

elbows said:


>



That doesn't mean that "efficacy is 96%".

Your other retweet further down is right.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

Yeah, I mostly posted it for his other point, but thanks for pointing that bit out.

Meanwhile at times like this I like to check up on what certain pandemic shitheads that the media were happy to quote have been up to recently, given the current situation. Fucking Carl Heneghan seems to have been trying to cover his tracks. This tweet is the start of a thread that contains more detail.


----------



## NoXion (Jun 8, 2021)

I love web archives. Don't the pricks who go on tweet-deleting sprees realise that there are multiple efforts going on to scrape Twitter? It's like they _want_ people to realise what pieces of lying filth they are.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

NoXion said:


> I love web archives. Don't the pricks who go on tweet-deleting sprees realise that there are multiple efforts going on to scrape Twitter? It's like they _want_ people to realise what pieces of lying filth they are.



Something strange had happened to archive.orgs snapshots of the Friday 13th March 2020 BBC news article where Nick Triggle did his infamous 'what we should do is carry on with our lives' analysis. The snapshots where his analysis was actually included in the article dont seem to be there any more, or have redirect code in them, as just those snapshots redirect to the current live version of the article! Snapshots of the same article before his analysis was part of it, and after his analysis was replaced, still work. Or at least that was the case when I tried a few weeks ago, as opposed to May 2020 when I know those snapshots were alive and well.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

This is what the current version of local measures looks like:

*



			Greater Manchester and parts of Lancashire will receive extra help to boost vaccinations and testing.
		
Click to expand...

*


> Health Secretary Matt Hancock said a "strengthened package of support" will be provided to tackle a rise in the Delta variant of Covid.
> 
> It will include military support and supervised in-school testing in the areas hardest hit by the variant.
> 
> People have also been advised to minimise travel in and out of the area and avoid meeting indoors.











						Covid: Greater Manchester and Lancashire to get extra help
					

The measures include military support and in-school testing in areas hardest hit by the Delta variant.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

They held the 'havent seen anything in the data to suggest delay' line for ages but it appears to be evolving:



> Boris Johnson has told members of his Cabinet that the data needs to continue to be scrutinised ahead of any decision on lifting Covid restrictions in England on 21 June.
> 
> The PM told ministers that "while the relationship between cases and hospitalisations has changed, we must continue to look at the data carefully ahead of making a decision on Step 4".



From the 13:32 entry of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57396502


----------



## magneze (Jun 8, 2021)

I've been invited for the REACT study. From the letter it seems that this is simply a single test and then that's it? Is that right? Anyone done it?


----------



## NoXion (Jun 8, 2021)

magneze said:


> I've been invited for the REACT study. From the letter it seems that this is simply a single test and then that's it? Is that right? Anyone done it?



I did this. They send you a test and have a questionnaire for you to fill in, when you sign up and again when you do the test. They let you know what the test result is; mine was negative.

It would be nice if they gave you one of those tests that let you know if you've ever had it, and not just the one which tells if you have it right now.


----------



## editor (Jun 8, 2021)

I'm not going to name the place as it's a lovely pub but I was disheartened to see the risks they were taking.

I was there recently for a jam session and it was _absolutely packed _full of mainly young people singing loudly in a confined space. There was little to no ventilation. The 'outside' area was equally rammed and it looked like a regular super-busy  pub from pre-pandemic times. I retired to a quieter part of the bar and tried to tell the landlord that he was both risking people's lives and risking getting the pub closed down.

I'm not really blaming anyone - I get why the punters have had enough and why the pub is trying to get some much needed income, and I imagine you'll find similar scenes all over the UK -  but it does highlight how easily the virus can spread when it's mainly non vaccinated people partying away like it's (early) 2019.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

NoXion said:


> I did this. They send you a test and have a questionnaire for you to fill in, when you sign up and again when you do the test. They let you know what the test result is; mine was negative.
> 
> It would be nice if they gave you one of those tests that let you know if you've ever had it, and not just the one which tells if you have it right now.


There is a different REACT study that looks at the antibody side of things.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

Rather predictably given the way things are panning out and stuff like the Times article saying Whitty & Vallance gave a downbeat briefing to ministers, Whitty is trending on twitter and features all the usual know-nothing, detached from reality idiots shouting.

They'd like to have us believe that the government end up taking action/delaying the unlocking simply because they are listening to doom-mongers who are wrong. Oh how I hate these useless chumps and the ways they attempt to distort reality to fit their utter misunderstanding of how the world and this pandemic virus works.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)




----------



## tommers (Jun 8, 2021)

FFS.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 8, 2021)

Note that Scotland's half term is earlier than England's. When school is a/the major location for transmission you would expect them to be ahead on numbers, all other things being equal.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 8, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Note that Scotland's half term is earlier than England's. When school is a/the major location for transmission you would expect them to be ahead on numbers, all other things being equal.


Yep, we're in the middle of term just now, two and a half weeks til school breaks up for the summer.

I now have Covid approaching from two fronts in a pincer movement: as well as the multiple children in my middle son's year with it, the girlfriend of one of my work colleagues (who I spent all morning with) has just tested positive. Just done a lateral flow test myself which was negative but fully expecting colleague's PCR test to come back positive which means I'll probably have to self isolate.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

Sorry to hear that. The earlier summer holiday timing there may yet help with the way the wave evolves, but I cant have a high degree of confidence about that depending on how the spread has evolved through the age-groups by then.

Meanwhile:



Although Reichers characterisation of how Hancock and Johnson see things is already out of date and over-reliant on the public line government stuck to recently but is now probably shifting away from, as opposed to what they probably thought privately for some time.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

I bet Tim Spector is already regretting the stupid things he said about not worrying about variants, and his 'ripple not a wave' shit.

Meanwhile it seems I started my plan to monitor some people who do modelling on twitter but have stupid Telegraph type attitudes to the pandemic in the nick of time. The person I picked is already unhappy with what data that came out since shows, is going to have to redo their modelling next weekend, and is regretting their stupid decision to call their previous modelling results a prediction not a scenario.

The same old mistakes, largely because of their tendency to believe what they wanted to believe, rather than what was actually most likely to fit with reality.

A large range of possibilities for this wave still exist in my mind. So far the indications point towards bad shit, but there is always a chance things might improve.


----------



## teuchter (Jun 8, 2021)

I've literally travelled the length of the country in the past 24hrs and 6 different trains and my feeling is that mask wearing is similarly ropey everywhere, from South London to the Scottish Highlands. Loads of under-30s seemingly not bothered at all, mixed sketchiness with the middle aged, and the only carriage I've been in where nearly everyone had a mask on was going through the Yorkshire dales filled with a group of retired-aged walkers.

Meanwhile my reading during this journey has changed my general feeling from "maybe we've got a bit of a problem coming up" to "looks rather likely we might have a big problem coming up".


----------



## maomao (Jun 8, 2021)

The school where I work has been very good at mask wearing, ventilation and distancing but now the mask mandate's gone everyone's stopped bothering. There was a small outbreak (one class and a few contacts sent home) a week before half term so there's obviously virus around. The windows are still open all the time but I think that's more to do with it being June. 

Not recognising half my students was the main problem. There's one kid who looks like my best mate from primary school with a mask on but has a weird skinny face without it. Was a bit of a shock. 

They're still testing though so there will probably be outbreaks soon.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 8, 2021)

My old "war wound" is tingling about the rise in case rates ...

Out for various things today and I'm seeing quite a lot of stupidity / risk-taking with masking (poking out noses and the like).

I do hope that the vaccines do their job at breaking the link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths. But people need to continue to observe  : Hands : Face : Space & Fresh Air to reduce cases as much as possible.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

Things so bad in UK that Biden is using the situation to encourage vaccination uptake in their younger age groups!


----------



## bimble (Jun 8, 2021)

Was just texting with my cousin who lives in New York, who says his two teenaged daughters have been double jabbed. When I told him we are celebrating that 25 year olds are at the front of the queue he replied ‘It’s strange how far behind the Uk is’. And I had really no idea, to some extent ive been comparing us to places where it’s 100 times worse but also no question I must have bought the Gov’s Worldbeating theme.


----------



## miss direct (Jun 8, 2021)

It's all comparative though, isn't it. We're certainly doing "better" in terms of vaccines than many, many other places.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 8, 2021)

bimble said:


> Was just texting with my cousin who lives in New York, who says his two teenaged daughters have been double jabbed. When I told him we are celebrating that 25 year olds are at front if the queue he replied It’s strange how far behind the Uk is.
> And I had really no idea, to some extent I’ve bought the Gov’s Worldbeating theme .



The US is well behind the UK on vaccinations.

Just because they are jabbing teens, doesn't mean they have done well with adults.


----------



## bimble (Jun 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The US is well behind the UK on vaccinations.


By what measure? How come his kids are double vaxxed? Maybe he paid to get that idk.


----------



## bimble (Jun 8, 2021)

miss direct said:


> It's all comparative though, isn't it. We're certainly doing "better" in terms of vaccines than many, many other places.


Sure. That’s what I’ve been thinking all along which is why it was so jarring his text about how far behind we are, compared to New York not compared to Guatemala .


----------



## LDC (Jun 8, 2021)

bimble said:


> By what measure? How come his kids are double vaxxed? Maybe he paid to get that idk.



Could be all sorts of reasons, loads of teenagers here have had the vaccine as well. Carers, underlying health, using up leftovers, etc. Also varies massively State by State in the US.

We are ahead of the US anyway in % terms.


----------



## Sue (Jun 8, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Could be all sorts of reasons, loads of teenagers here have had the vaccine as well. Carers, underlying health, using up leftovers, etc. Also varies massively Stat by State in the US.


And call me cynical but...is it being given to people according to age/vulnerability regardless of their means/insurance status or not..?


----------



## bimble (Jun 8, 2021)

Looks like NY state tops the rankings there for fully vaccinated percentage. Inline with Uk as a whole. I’m just surprised his healthy teens all doubledone.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 8, 2021)

bimble said:


> By what measure? How come his kids are double vaxxed? Maybe he paid to get that idk.












						Covid vaccines: How fast is progress around the world?
					

Charts and maps tracking the progress of Covid vaccination programmes.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## bimble (Jun 8, 2021)

Just googled to find fully vaxed figures yeah.


----------



## editor (Jun 8, 2021)

bimble said:


> Was just texting with my cousin who lives in New York, who says his two teenaged daughters have been double jabbed. When I told him we are celebrating that 25 year olds are at the front of the queue he replied ‘It’s strange how far behind the Uk is’. And I had really no idea, to some extent ive been comparing us to places where it’s 100 times worse but also no question I must have bought the Gov’s Worldbeating theme.


Your friend is wrong


----------



## Dystopiary (Jun 8, 2021)

bimble said:


> Was just texting with my cousin who lives in New York, who says his two teenaged daughters have been double jabbed. When I told him we are celebrating that 25 year olds are at the front of the queue he replied ‘It’s strange how far behind the Uk is’. And I had really no idea, to some extent ive been comparing us to places where it’s 100 times worse but also no question I must have bought the Gov’s Worldbeating theme.


That's England, not the UK. Wales has already started offering vaccines to all adults. 

Wales' Covid-19 vaccine rollout 'one of the best in the world' | ITV News


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 8, 2021)

It depends on what you're comparing, no?

If you look at England only, instead of the UK as a whole, and if you look at New York only, instead of the US as a whole?


----------



## weepiper (Jun 8, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> That's England, not the UK. Wales has already started offering vaccines to all adults.
> 
> Wales' Covid-19 vaccine rollout 'one of the best in the world' | ITV News


Scotland too. Registering for a coronavirus vaccine


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> Things so bad in UK that Biden is using the situation to encourage vaccination uptake in their younger age groups!




Looks like Biden opening up UK-US as a G7 bonus isn’t going to happen then


----------



## bimble (Jun 8, 2021)

As said, New York state seems to be just slightly better than Uk as a whole, they must just doing it differently. He just replied saying he didn't pay. he'd definitely insured tho.
 I'm not trying to talk down Great Britian! was just saying it was a shock to hear that.


----------



## Sue (Jun 8, 2021)

bimble said:


> As said, New York state seems to be just slightly better than Uk as a whole, they must just doing it differently. He just replied saying he didn't pay. he'd definitely insured tho. I'm not trying to talk down Great Britian! was just saying it was a shock to hear that.
> View attachment 272551View attachment 272550


Yeah but you seem to be comparing NY state with the whole of the UK. Which doesn't really seem like a reasonable basis for comparison?


----------



## bimble (Jun 8, 2021)

Yes, i shall now stop comparing them.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

I dont know why people are so interested in international comparisons when they are apparently so disinterested in comparisons between different countries and regions within the UK.

Also how good the population estimates which are used to come up with percentage figures are bound to vary. As I was saying yesterday, better hope the London regions population estimates are wrong:


----------



## bimble (Jun 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont know why people are so interested in international comparisons when they are apparently so disinterested in comparisons between different countries and regions within the UK.
> 
> Also how good the population estimates which are used to come up with percentage figures are bound to vary. As I was saying yesterday, better hope the London regions population estimates are wrong:
> 
> View attachment 272553


 Is it cos London is full of Young People?


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

bimble said:


> Is it cos London is full of Young People?


Its probably a number of reasons combined, including what you've said there but also stuff that I was on about the other day:        #37,781


----------



## Yossarian (Jun 8, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> It depends on what you're comparing, no?
> 
> If you look at England only, instead of the UK as a whole, and if you look at New York only, instead of the US as a whole?



Yep, the Northeastern states seem to be mostly ahead of the UK - way ahead, in some cases - while the Bible Belt states are mostly a long way behind.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> Yep, the Northeastern states seem to be mostly ahead of the UK - way ahead, in some cases - while the Bible Belt states are mostly a long way behind.


Yeah I've seen an increase of fretting about that on twitter recently. The west coast is also doing better, much like the north east.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)




----------



## Yossarian (Jun 8, 2021)

I don't think vaccination rates would be the only ranking where Vermont comes first and Mississippi comes last - according to this list, if the UK was a state it would rank 28th in terms of the proportion fully vaccinated, between Illinois and Florida.









						States ranked by percentage of population fully vaccinated: Oct. 27
					

Vermont has the highest percentage of its population fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the CDC's COVID-19 vaccine distribution and administration data tracker.




					www.beckershospitalreview.com


----------



## Sue (Jun 8, 2021)

elbows said:


>



Suspect there's going to be less mud but shitter music...


----------



## bimble (Jun 8, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> I don't think vaccination rates would be the only ranking where Vermont comes first and Mississippi comes last - according to this list, if the UK was a state it would rank 28th in terms of the proportion fully vaccinated, between Illinois and Florida.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Between Illinois and Florida sounds bad, as a place to be, in any context.
The thing these numbers don't show is what's down to availability and what's down to refusal.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

Posting this both for the info it contains and because of the unfortunate typo.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 8, 2021)

Are the figures for the U.S. (or anywhere) actually comparable to ours when it's the proportion of 'people', rather than 'adults' (I think?), vaccinated?


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Are the figures for the U.S. (or anywhere) actually comparable to ours when it's the proportion of 'people', rather than 'adults' (I think?), vaccinated?


Ye that is certainly one of the thingss to watch out for when making comparisons.

Meanwhile in the North West of England:


----------



## MrSki (Jun 8, 2021)

Well not a surprise that George Eustice has a car crash trying to defend the red listing of India. What a twat.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> Meanwhile in the North West of England:


Although thanks to one of his other tweets I figured out that I can actually get daily dashboard data that shows age groups for hospitalised cases. Its a real pain to process that data, and its annoying that one of the age groups used is a very broad 18-64, but its something. This wide age group does make me tut slightly at the 'younger adults' language he used. I expect I will post my versions of it from time to time when there is a story to tell beyond that which he tells in this tweet/graphs.




Another limitation with this sort of analysis is that they tend to shy away from 'patients in mechanical ventilation beds' data, but I will cover that myself occasionally too.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

And I should also point out that this Oliver person is an example of optimists etc with a rather different pandemic stance to me starting to become alarmed by data.


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

I see the travel industry are predictably unhappy about this, but the US would be mad to put the UK on a safer travel list at the moment.









						Travel: US eases travel rules for 61 countries - but not UK
					

The US public health agency has lowered 61 countries to Level 3, including Japan and France.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

And now the talk of a 2 week delay is joined by talk of a 4 week delay and Sunaks view.









						Covid: Sunak could accept four-week delay to ending restrictions in England
					

Guardian understands chancellor not fixated on 21 June date for enacting final stage of roadmap




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jun 8, 2021)

That article also contains various bollocks and stuff about Whitty and Vallance being at the more optimistic end of SAGE, in contrast to previous reports about their recent meeting.

In regards whether Bolton type tactics could work elsewhere, I note that the BBCs Nick Triggle is still a somewhat reformed character compared to his failings in the March to October 2020 period. I'm referring mostly to what he said in the second quote below.



> The tactics deployed in Bolton over the past month are now being seen as the template for how to curb the Delta variant.
> 
> When infection rates took off in early May the area was flooded with testing, while there was a big push on getting people to come forward for vaccination - the numbers receiving their first jab more than trebled in the space of a few weeks.
> 
> The result has seen a drop in infection rates - they are down by more than a quarter in the past 10 days - without the need to impose extra restrictions.





> With other parts of Greater Manchester seeing big rises, the hope now is that the tactics will work on a wider footprint.
> 
> But these tactics have their limitations. At the moment the rise in cases in England is largely being drive by what is happening in the North West - more than 40% of all cases over the past week were in this region.
> 
> If other parts of the country start to see more significant rises, the approach becomes more difficult to pull off as resources become more stretched.











						Covid: Greater Manchester and Lancashire to get extra help
					

The measures include military support and in-school testing in areas hardest hit by the Delta variant.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

There may be an upside after all....



Meanwhile the fucking Daily Mail resorts to making shit up. Well the 1% thing could be true, temporarily, I havent checked.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

This BBC reality check article even manages the include the Warwick Uni modelling graph for early May that showed what effect different increases in transmissibility caused by variants would be expected to have on hospitalisations. One of the graphs I posted a number of times in the past and that others have also drawn attention to recently.









						Lockdown easing: Four numbers to look for ahead of the 21 June decision
					

The key numbers that offer clues as to whether "freedom day" will proceed as planned on 21 June.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Almost all the narratives in the media and even from the likes of Indie SAGE inolve whether step 4 delays are necessary or not. Almost none are continually pointing out that certain relaxations were reliant on what a government review of remaining social distancing guidance etc came out with, and that the review has already been delayed beyond its original expected date on the end of May. Nor are they talking about whether we shouldnt have gone ahead with step 3, the step that got us into the current predicament, or whether we will have to go backwards with the unlocking. I'm quite prepared to talk about those things, although there probably isnt that much I can say at this stage beyond what I've already been saying for months. I certainly wont be forgetting that even Johnson didnt use his 'irreversible' rhetoric for very long before he felt the need to keep sticking words like 'hopefully' in front of it.


----------



## Thora (Jun 9, 2021)

I’m in a well known UK holiday resort at the moment and there seems to be a bit of an outbreak going on  Lots of people who stayed last week and over the weekend are reporting on the Facebook page that they either tested positive or have been told to isolate by the app.  Heard nothing from the resort management itself though...


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 9, 2021)

Fucking _Freedom Day_, honestly
Love how the anti-any-restrictions-to-their-selfish-fucking-lives crowd wave the low numbers _due to resistrictions_ around as "evidence" everything should open immediately


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 9, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Fucking _Freedom Day_, honestly
> Love how the anti-any-restrictions-to-their-selfish-fucking-lives crowd wave the low numbers _due to resistrictions_ around as "evidence" everything should open immediately



There's a lot of this where I work. _Most people are vaccinated now, we should just go for it_. Although of course the Venn diagram of people who express this view and people who have already had their vaccine is a circle. Just add it to the ever-growing pile of entirely legitimate grievances the young are going to have against everyone else before this is over.

And of course it's young people who have to work most of the front of house jobs in all the pubs and restaurants and hotels and venues that all the people who don't have to work there are insisting reopen with no restrictions.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 9, 2021)

Has to be said COVID is testing my ability to adhere to the self- and wife- ban from arguing with the general public on local Fb groups


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jun 9, 2021)

I'm just sick of the conspiracy theories in general. I've got four housemates, three of whom buy into a lot of the propaganda. These are people I like and consider friends, and we usually manage to agree to disagree. But with conspiracy nuts in general, I resent their patronising air of authority and "you poor little fool" attitude.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

More analysis from the 'reformed Nick Triggle' department. The extent to which we can use him as a proxy indicator of 'reformed government pandemic thinking' is uncertain, but I expect there is some degree of link.



> It was always expected cases would rise at this stage – allowing indoor mixing is the move that allows the virus to spread most easily.
> 
> But what is concerning government scientists is how quickly cases are going up – and how that has begun to translate into hospital admissions.
> 
> The increase in hospital admissions is only really apparent in the north-west so far – more than a third of admissions in England have been in that region over the past week.





> The hope was the progress of the vaccination programme would lead to a slower increase in infections and hospital admissions would be flatter. But the Delta variant appears to have complicated matters - and so the alarm bells are beginning to ring.
> 
> But it is still early days. There is hope this rise could tail off given the immunity that has built up in the population and what has been seen in the north-west does not translate to other parts of the country.
> 
> ...



Thats from the 9:34 entry of the BBC live updates page, but may also end up embedded in some other article. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57409973/page/2


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 9, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

Leaving aside R for a moment, here we have yet another sign that the U number, a number I made up which indicates how quickly people with unsustainable positions are forced to u-turn, is very high with the Delta variant.

Tim 'only a ripple' Spectors latest video features radically different mood music compared to previous videos which I was highly critical of.

Even if you dont watch this one, I feel the title they have gone for here illustrates my point. "Hyper-infectious Delta Variant sweeps partially vaccinated into latest COVID wave"


----------



## Flavour (Jun 9, 2021)

What even are the current restrictions in the UK?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 9, 2021)

Flavour said:


> What even are the current restrictions in the UK?



Been at least a year since I bothered to check. I know what the official national restrictions are in the school I work in, but they're somehow very different in the next school over.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> More analysis from the 'reformed Nick Triggle' department. The extent to which we can use him as a proxy indicator of 'reformed government pandemic thinking' is uncertain, but I expect there is some degree of link.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The mood music has definitely changed the press in the last few days.  The stuff about Sunak in the Guardian today alongside the the mail getting more hysterical and desperate.  Things are moving now.


----------



## Sue (Jun 9, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> There's a lot of this where I work. _Most people are vaccinated now, we should just go for it_. Although of course the Venn diagram of people who express this view and people who have already had their vaccine is a circle. Just add it to the ever-growing pile of entirely legitimate grievances the young are going to have against everyone else before this is over.
> 
> And of course it's young people who have to work most of the front of house jobs in all the pubs and restaurants and hotels and venues that all the people who don't have to work there are insisting reopen with no restrictions.


The majority of people at my work are in their 20s so haven't been vaccinated yet. The company's still pushing for everyone to be back in the office on 21/06. Given everyone's been working from home throughout lockdown, feels like a completely stupid thing to be doing. 🤷‍♀️


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> The majority of people at my work are in their 20s so haven't been vaccinated yet. The company's still pushing for everyone to be back in the office on 21/06. Given everyone's been working from home throughout lockdown, feels like a completely stupid thing to be doing. 🤷‍♀️



Yes it does because regardless of what decisions are made the work from home if you can instruction is pretty much nailed on to remain.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> The majority of people at my work are in their 20s so haven't been vaccinated yet. The company's still pushing for everyone to be back in the office on 21/06. Given everyone's been working from home throughout lockdown, feels like a completely stupid thing to be doing. 🤷‍♀️


They will probably have to change their tune. If they dont then its somewhat likely the government will have underlined the 'carry on working from home if you can' message by then.

In the meantime if you have a need to confront them with specifics, it might be worth pointing out that advice about whether people should still work from home was one of the things the government review into social distancing etc was supposed to look into. And the fact that review has been delayed (was due at end of May) speaks for itself.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> The mood music has definitely changed the press in the last few days.  The stuff about Sunak in the Guardian today alongside the the mail getting more hysterical and desperate.  Things are moving now.


Yeah although I am still cautious about what some of the noises in the press these days really indicate. And it goes without saying by now that I dont trust the government to do the right thing in this pandemic.

There is also this, although it should be noted that he apparently said it on Monday and things can change quickly:



> Michael Gove has told colleagues that if he were a “betting man” he would “bet on a relaxation” of England’s Covid rules on June 21.











						Michael Gove Would 'Bet' On June 21 Relaxation Of Covid Rules
					

Exclusive: Senior minister told colleagues on Monday that he believes more restrictions will be lifted on the planned date.




					www.huffingtonpost.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yeah although I am still cautious about what some of the noises in the press these days really indicate. And it goes without saying by now that I dont trust the government to do the right thing in this pandemic.
> 
> There is also this, although it should be noted that he apparently said it on Monday and things can change quickly:
> 
> ...



Throughout the pandemic I've never been convinced that Gove has been particularly close to any of the decision making process.  He seems more than happy to do press interviews but I get the impression he's just winging it.

This being said because Johnson is Johnson and being the populist he is it wouldn't surprise me if there is some tinkering around the edges with some of the less important stuff like more people at live external sport, that sort of thing.  That way he can still give it the big one about the unlocking process still proceeding.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 9, 2021)

A couple of weeks ago, we first went back over 3,000 cases a day, yesterday it tipped over 6,000, today it's gone over 7,500 new cases, 7-day average up 66%.


----------



## LDC (Jun 9, 2021)

Kick me for my optimistic delusions... but _surely_ they won't relax restrictions on the 21st? Cases and hospitalizations are going up significantly now, even under this set of restrictions, if they get relaxed even further things will be out of control very quickly?


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> A couple of weeks ago, we first went back over 3,000 cases a day, yesterday it tipped over 6,000, today it's gone over 7,500 new cases, 7-day average up 66%.


Definitely a third wave, IMO.

I would say theyd be fools to open now but...


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 9, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Definitely a third wave, IMO.



Ceratinly looks that way.  All eyes now on the hospitalization numbers.



> I would say theyd be fools to open now but...



but indeed.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Kick me for my optimistic delusions... but _surely_ they won't relax restrictions on the 21st? Cases and hospitalizations are going up significantly now, even under this set of restrictions, if they get relaxed even further things will be out of control very quickly?


The data and the changing mood music and words from various quarters have set the scene for a delay. So thats which direction I lean towards, but I like to hedge my bets and dont like to be surprised, so I keep the other possibilities open in my mind. If they dont do what we expect, I will wait to hear their choice of justifications before getting into depth on the details.


----------



## zora (Jun 9, 2021)

The thing I don't get is - the 'end' of restrictions was surely not meant to end testing, self-isolation for positive cases and quarantine for contacts? 🤔 And while that's still ongoing, surely high case numbers, even if they didn't lead to a strain on the health service, are hugely disruptive to people's lives? As has been seen already in the huge numbers of children who continue to miss school, but it's surely shit as well for businesses with staff affected, and for people booking events/holidays and not being able to go?

Eta: Just had a little google around the topic, and found some articles from beginning of May in which the idea of daily lateral flow testing replacing quarantine was pitched, pending a study outcome - seems like the trial that somehow Gove got on...


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

Yes and there would probably have been a whole host of other terrible ideas for us to rage about by now if their review into social distancing etc measures had not been delayed.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> A couple of weeks ago, we first went back over 3,000 cases a day, yesterday it tipped over 6,000, today it's gone over 7,500 new cases, 7-day average up 66%.


But there are a lot of stories and comments about how this doesn't really matter because we've "broken the link between cases and deaths".


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> But there are a lot of stories and comments about how this doesn't really matter because we've "broken the link between cases and deaths".


I would certainly expect that if the government press ahead with final stages, or do other shit when it comes down to the detail, this will form a major part of their justification.

Certainly it was a big part of the framing they put in place months ago, around the time when they originally announced the unlocking plans. "cases and R will rise as we unlock, but dont worry about it in the ways we did previously' was part of that framing, but this variant has complicated matters and there are still limits as to how much bad news in data that stuff can absorb without dying on its arse.

I tend to complain that what is described by some as 'breaking the link between cases and hospitalisations/deaths' is actually a gradual weakening of such links, changing the ratios between these things, not utterly smashing all links. But those who have been coming out with that sort of thing this week are still really keen to push the language beyond reasonable limits. Even when the likes of Hancock were conceding that the links were not yet completely broken, I think he then used another inappropriate word such as severed!

The extent to which immunity acquired via vaccination and via previous infection is able to reduce these links is the billion dollar question when it comes to the size of this wave, how many u-turns will be required to cope with it, etc. There is still something in recent data that optimists etc can latch onto to maintain such hopes in their largest form, eg by looking at the ages of people being hospitalised as hospitalisations rise. Given the apparent features of the Delta variant, I consider it unwise to make confident statements about what the reality will turn out to be at this stage.

Unknowns about this sort of thing, and the power of the Delta variant are the primary reasons why a large range of possibilities still exist in my mind when it comes to the size of this wave in terms of hospitalisations and deaths. It is not very likely that I will be able to narrow this range a lot until we see for ourselves what actually happens. Other factors include human behaviours and how seriously people still take the threat of this virus. Given the 'they think its all over' shit thats been encouraged and highly sought in many minds these days, things dont look too promising on that front either.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

Another factor relates to timing - some who favour an approach that really tests our luck in the 'variant vs vaccine' battle would probably have been hoping that this wave built up at a fairly slow rate, in order that english school summer holidays arrived, with their associated reduction in R, in time to do some of the heavy lifting in the battle against this wave. Again I am not terribly optimistic about whether this variant and peoples behaviours and what is already open will allow that sort of timing to work out. Its obviously somewhat different timing in Scotland as their holidays come sooner, but they also seem to be ahead in terms of the wave. Well I say ahead, maybe not ahead of the North West of England, but rather other regions and nations.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

Now if I place to one side my standard desire to keep an open mind and hedge my bets, I would now be very tempted to say:

EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY, hideous wave with horrific potential. Adjust your expectations now if you havent already. Be prepared for some bad times ahead, far beyond a delay to final steps.

But there is still room for me to be wrong about that. But I must warn people that the higher end of the range of possibilities I consider plausible are a bloody nightmare. I so badly need to be wrong about this. I so hope I am wrong. The last thing I want is for us to be facing the worst wave yet, with a lot more mess on many fronts. And there are a bunch of ways that I can turn out to be wrong on this, lets hope one or more of them prove to be valid! I've been warning all this year about the limits to how much pandemic weight I think vaccines can reasonably be certain to achieve on their own. I do not want those warnings to turn into reality. They might, they might not, in which case I can retire from the pandemic in peace (at least for this period).


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

That last message is partly sponsored by the fact that when I decided last weekend to start using optimists, certain sorts of rightwingers etc as an experimental guide, eg by monitoring their response to new data over time, I was expecting a slower evolution of their stance, But some of them have really started to fear that their expectations for a moderate wave are already very far adrift from the data we are actually seeing at this stage. One of my other motivations for listening to them was supposed to help me find some balance between their views and my default assumptions and attitude, but the opposite has happened, some of their attitudes have changed so much so quicly that its actually made me more afraid of the scale of whats to come than I was before.


----------



## magneze (Jun 9, 2021)

Today's stats seem to show a doubling of cases in a week.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 9, 2021)

magneze said:


> Today's stats seem to show a doubling of cases in a week.



If you call a 66% average increase over a week, a doubling of cases in a week, yes they do.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

This is really not the week I want to see daily UK vaccines given stats doing what they've been doing in recent days either.


----------



## magneze (Jun 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> If you call a 66% average increase over a week, a doubling of cases in a week, yes they do.


OK. Yes I've misread a digit in the figures I was looking at.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 9, 2021)

Covid in Scotland: Recorded cases in children reach highest level
					

The number of weekly cases among 0-14 year olds is now higher than in early January, figures show.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)




----------



## cuppa tee (Jun 9, 2021)

elbows said:


>




it took me three clicks from that tweet to get to someone telling me that Dr Hillary off breakfast telly is one of Bill Gates henchmen and that the variants are all made up, (via a load of people saying ‘open up the nightclubs it’s just a cold)


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

Mood music changes have probably been sposored not just by recent data but by updated modelling:









						Sage modelling warns of risk of ‘substantial’ Covid third wave
					

Growing pessimism over 21 June reopening plan amid fears of surge in cases to rival January’s second wave




					www.theguardian.com
				






> New modelling for the government’s Sage committee of experts has highlighted the risk of a “substantial third wave” of infections and hospitalisations, casting doubt on whether the next stage of Boris Johnson’s Covid roadmap can go ahead as planned on 21 June.
> 
> Government sources suggested the outlook was now more pessimistic but stressed that a decision would be taken after assessing a few more days’ worth of data on the effect that rising infections are having on hospitalisations.





> Johnson is understood to be personally frustrated at the prospect of delaying the reopening, but a No 10 source said there were now clearly signs for concern in the data.
> 
> Key ministers and officials are expected to discuss a range of options on Sunday, when Johnson will still be hosting the G7, including a two- to four-week delay, as well as the possibility of a watered-down reopening that keeps some rules in place.





> A Whitehall source said it was “broadly correct” that the outlook was now more pessimistic. “Cases are obviously higher and they are growing quickly,” the source said.
> 
> *Prof Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College London, said modelling updated this week suggested there was a risk of a surge in infections and hospitalisations that could rival the second wave in January.*





> “There is a risk of a substantial third wave,” Ferguson said. “It could be substantially lower than the second wave or it could be of the same order of magnitude, and that critically depends on how effective the vaccines are at protecting people against hospitalisation and death.”



There is really quite a lot more detail in the article than I've quoted there, I havent managed to highlight every important point with these quotes.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

One more quote which still doesnt complete this collection of important quotes from the article but without which my previous quotes may be quite off balance.



> Evidence is firming up around the Delta variant being 60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant, with estimates ranging from 40% and 80%. The variant is somewhat resistant to vaccines, particularly after one dose.
> 
> While Ferguson believes we may see fewer deaths in the third wave compared with in January, the latest modelling does not rule out what he called a “disastrous” third wave if transmission and vaccine resistance are at the higher end of the best estimates.


----------



## elbows (Jun 9, 2021)

Too many things are aligning into perfect storm territory. Vaccines are our storm shelter. I hope the roof doesnt get blown off.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 9, 2021)

I found Tim Spectors video today very interesting. Saying London’s R value is at 1.8 so look out for that by next week.
The other notable thing he said, from the beginning of May the symptoms have changed.

It’s now very like a cold and they are starting to think this is driving infection, people are going about their business thinking they have a moderate cold. Headache, sore throat and runny nose.  Loss of taste is rarely reported, coughing is number 5 in the list. 
If you aren’t vaccinated or have only had one dose and you get a cold, which is unusual at this time of year, get tested.


----------



## maomao (Jun 9, 2021)

And there are other colds going round. I've got one at the moment though I've had one jab and have been doing daily lateral flow tests since it came on (all negative).


----------



## wtfftw (Jun 9, 2021)

The narrow symptom list has always been an error imo. But there was testing capacity and disruption to think of. In theory pretty much every household is doing twice weekly lateral flows at the mo. I'd be interested to know if that's really happening.


----------



## IC3D (Jun 10, 2021)

It has always seemed likely it will become  a common cold. That's a good thing, going away with a whimper hopefully now.


----------



## Raheem (Jun 10, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> In theory pretty much every household is doing twice weekly lateral flows at the mo. I'd be interested to know if that's really happening.


Eh? Some households, but I don't think it's anything close to every household. Mine hasn't done a single one.


----------



## l'Otters (Jun 10, 2021)

zora said:


> The thing I don't get is - the 'end' of restrictions was surely not meant to end testing, self-isolation for positive cases and quarantine for contacts? 🤔 And while that's still ongoing, surely high case numbers, even if they didn't lead to a strain on the health service, are hugely disruptive to people's lives? As has been seen already in the huge numbers of children who continue to miss school, but it's surely shit as well for businesses with staff affected, and for people booking events/holidays and not being able to go?
> 
> Eta: Just had a little google around the topic, and found some articles from beginning of May in which the idea of daily lateral flow testing replacing quarantine was pitched, pending a study outcome - seems like the trial that somehow Gove got on...


Short thread on this issue here: There are ~400 schools across England involved in the govt’s [unethical] experiment to see if you can replace self-isolation with lateral flow tests in schools.


----------



## NoXion (Jun 10, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Eh? Some households, but I don't think it's anything close to every household. Mine hasn't done a single one.



Indeed. I've had precisely one (1) PCR test since this pandemic started, and nothing else. That was part of the REACT study I participated in.


----------



## wtfftw (Jun 10, 2021)

Well there we go then. Lateral flow tests are available for everyone. In theory you do twice a week and we catch more infectious cases. In practice this isn't happening unless you have to for work.


----------



## Numbers (Jun 10, 2021)

We only test if we’re doing something (e.g. seeing family/friends or going for a meal), 3 days before and after.

I get tested every week in hospital also.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> This is really not the week I want to see daily UK vaccines given stats doing what they've been doing in recent days either.
> 
> View attachment 272689



Bright sunshine and warm weather is likely not the best partner for a mass vaccination program, particularly when you're now into younger age cohorts who have been at much lower risk of getting ill from covid, well up until now anyway.  I suspect many an appointment has been missed because there is something more fun going on with friends in the sunshine.

I'm a little surprised they've not brought the over 40's second jabs forward yet, there was some suggestion they may.  Most of this age cohort (like me) will have had AZ and as I understand it the country's supply of that is much greater than pz and Moderna and they're not giving it out for first jabs now.  Lets use it.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 10, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Bright sunshine and warm weather is likely not the best partner for a mass vaccination program, particularly when you're now into younger age cohorts who have been at much lower risk of getting ill from covid, well up until now anyway.  I suspect many an appointment has been missed because there is something more fun going on with friends in the sunshine.
> 
> I'm a little surprised they've not brought the over 40's second jabs forward yet, there was some suggestion they may.  Most of this age cohort (like me) will have had AZ and as I understand it the country's supply of that is much greater than pz and Moderna and they're not giving it out for first jabs now.  Lets use it.



From what I can gather there's been massive and enthusiastic take up of vaccine bookings amongst younger people. I don't see any reason to think many will miss those appointment just because it's sunny. 

On the second bit I'm 42 and I moved mine up several weeks the other day so you can do it.


----------



## PursuedByBears (Jun 10, 2021)

I've moved my 2nd jab forward 3 weeks (45 & AZ). You can do this if you booked via the NHS website, it looks like this hasn't been publicised though.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 10, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> From what I can gather there's been massive and enthusiastic take up of vaccine bookings amongst younger people. I don't see any reason to think many will miss those appointment just because it's sunny.



Yeah, its a guess and its based upon one incident but when I had my 1st jab there was over 50 other people at the centre queing and waiting their turn.  When my partner went a few weeks later to the same centre the weather had changed to the sunshine we have now and there were less than 5 people there for their jab.  Obviously a tiny snapshot like that doesn't mean much but I can think back to how me and my mates would have been at that age plus add in the terrible May weather and terrible year in general.



> On the second bit I'm 42 and I moved mine up several weeks the other day so you can do it.



Oh, seems like the sort of thing the government could have made a bigger deal of.


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 10, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> On the second bit I'm 42 and I moved mine up several weeks the other day so you can do it.


Still can’t do this - Pfizer, aged 39, Devon. I keep trying every few days but can’t move it from 11 weeks after jab 1.


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 10, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Yeah, its a guess and its based upon one incident but when I had my 1st jab there was over 50 other people at the centre queing and waiting their turn.  When my partner went a few weeks later to the same centre the weather had changed to the sunshine we have now and there were less than 5 people there for their jab.



I volunteer at my local vax centre. On any given day, throughout my time there (I started in December) there are ebbs and flows - at one moment there might be a massive queue, an hour later it might be almost empty.


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2021)

I'm not following Hancocks testimony properly and I'm hoping not to post too much today.

But I'll point out this bit from a BBC artile because of my interest in hosptai-acquired COVID and authorities concerns about it which they mostly downplayed publicly at the time.



> Adding that ministers had always "followed the clinical advice," he said that early on in the pandemic there were worries that testing asymptomatic people could provide "false assurance" due to incorrect negative results.
> 
> He also added clinicians were worried about people picking up Covid in hospitals during the 4-day turnaround period to receive a laboratory test result.



From Matt Hancock: I knew Dominic Cummings wanted PM to sack me


----------



## Sue (Jun 10, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> On the second bit I'm 42 and I moved mine up several weeks the other day so you can do it.


Yeah, quite a few of my friends have just done this.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 10, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Still can’t do this - Pfizer, aged 39, Devon. I keep trying every few days but can’t move it from 11 weeks after jab 1.



Your age is the key factor here.  Most of the us 40+ lot will have had az which they have a good stock of and also the most robust supply chain.  

As I understand it the there isn't really a stock of pz and Moderna and what is received each week is used each week.  In this case the 1st jabs will remain the priority for the time being or unless supplies increase and they feel confident they can bring 2nd jabs forward without creating shortages for 1st jabbers.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 10, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Your age is the key factor here.  Most of the us 40+ lot will have had az which they have a good stock of and also the most robust supply chain.
> 
> As I understand it the there isn't really a stock of pz and Moderna and what is received each week is used each week.  In this case the 1st jabs will remain the priority for the time being or unless supplies increase and they feel confident they can bring 2nd jabs forward without creating shortages for 1st jabbers.


 
Yeah mine was AZ so that would fit.


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 10, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Yeah mine was AZ so that would fit.


Bollocks


----------



## zahir (Jun 10, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I found Tim Spectors video today very interesting. Saying London’s R value is at 1.8 so look out for that by next week.
> The other notable thing he said, from the beginning of May the symptoms have changed.
> 
> It’s now very like a cold and they are starting to think this is driving infection, people are going about their business thinking they have a moderate cold. Headache, sore throat and runny nose.  Loss of taste is rarely reported, coughing is number 5 in the list.
> If you aren’t vaccinated or have only had one dose and you get a cold, which is unusual at this time of year, get tested.



The video is here:


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2021)

Although I'm not watching the Hancock appearance before the committee I see that Labour MP Graham Stringer has again demonstrated what a piece of shit he is in this pandemic.

In previous committee meetings it became clear he was skeptical about the need for lockdowns, especially when the second wave was growing in his part of the country. He was the only Labour MP to vote against stronger restrictions in the North West last October. There are probably other examples I have missed. His previous performance in the committee I mentioned caused someone here on the forum to wonder at the time whether he was drunk.

Anyway today he decided to focus on the fact that some people on SAGEs behavioural group, SPI-B, were hand-wringing in quotes they gave to some book, about their use of fear to encourage public compliance when lockdowns etc were first kicking in here. The sort of thing the Telegraph like to quack on about due to their own stance on lockdown. Now this is an interesting subject that is worthy of discussion, because many people here will be well used to inappropriate use of fear by government & media partners to deal with a host of issues and behaviours. But of course I believe that such things were rather necessary at times in this pandemic, since behaviour is key and when people dont get it, lots of extra deaths occur. This will be an issue again now as we face the threats to public health that this latest wave offer. All the same I do study propaganda in as many forms as I can manage, and it was not lost on me how this stuff was done via the media in not very subtle ways at key moments via the media - some of the messageing was turned on and off rather abruptly. But given the actual realities, in this pandemic I broadly supported such messaging.

Anyway I'm hardly surprised that Stringer is shit in this pandemic. He was chair of Manchester Airport plc briefly in the 1990s. He is heavily linked to climate change denialism. In 2009 he described dyslexia as a cruel hoax. And this is just the most obvious stuff that can be discovered via a brief look at his wikipedia entry.

Fuck you Graham Stringer, you are on my pandemic wall of shame.

He is such a shithead that I've had to side with Hancock on this one!



> Stringer points out that members of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) have apologised and expressed regret for giving extreme advice.
> 
> "Do you accept any responsibility for that advice?" he asks Hancock.
> 
> ...



(thats from 12:37 BBC live updates page entry https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57424534 )


----------



## Petcha (Jun 10, 2021)

I know they've all supposedly been tested. But I'm currently watching 18,000 people getting absolutely smashed at the cricket in the west midlands. Is this wise?


----------



## 20Bees (Jun 10, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Well there we go then. Lateral flow tests are available for everyone. In theory you do twice a week and we catch more infectious cases. In practice this isn't happening unless you have to for work.


The take-up rate for staff to have lateral flow tests at work (supermarket) has plummeted and I imagine it will be wound up before long. I aim for twice a week as I look after a grandson who goes to day nursery, and shuttles between his separated working parents, but I also got a pack of tests from the local chemist so if there’s nobody available to test me during my shift, I can do one at home instead. 
I wonder how many home tests that have been handed out at doorsteps are being done accurately though.


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I know they've all supposedly been tested. But I'm currently watching 18,000 people getting absolutely smashed at the cricket in the west midlands. Is this wise?


Many unwise things are happening that are a poor match for the new variant and the current stage of things.

I've just begun to look at various sources of mobility data. Only done Apples so far, and oh dear! Perhaps others who are interested could look into other sources such as Google and report back at some point in the coming days? I got annoyed with Googles reports when I tried to look myself, because most fo the graphs I found didnt go back many months, so there was a lack of broader pandemic context.



From COVID‑19 - Mobility Trends Reports - Apple where people can also drill down further in terms of locations if desired.


----------



## wtfftw (Jun 10, 2021)

There's some graph/maps here








						COVID-19: Google Mobility Trends
					

To tackle the Coronavirus pandemic, countries across the world have implemented a range of stringent policies, including stay-at-home ‘lockdowns‘; school and workplace closures; cancellation of events and public gatherings; and restrictions on public transport.




					ourworldindata.org


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2021)

Chers, thats better than Googles own official reports that I looked at because it covers the full timespan. Their own reports are useful for looking at the more recent stuff by individual city, county etc. https://www.google.com/covid19/mobility/


----------



## wtfftw (Jun 10, 2021)

There's also this way of looking at the google data




__





						Covid 19 - Google Global Mobility Report
					





					datastudio.google.com


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 10, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I know they've all supposedly been tested. But I'm currently watching 18,000 people getting absolutely smashed at the cricket in the west midlands. Is this wise?



This is just hyperbole though isn't it?

There are questions enough about the wisdom of continuing trials with large sporting and other events without accusing everyone being there of being "absolutely smashed" which of course makes them irresponsible and gives us someone to blame.    Like I've said before, we've had over a year of street protest after street protest which many here supported.  Even being described as essential work.  Some people try and enjoy themselves within the rules and its back to this stuff again.

A time for cool heads.

ETA: I've said this before but when the virus situation is less scary I'm going to start a thread on some of the demonization I've seen in the last year.  I think its very interesting.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 10, 2021)

Very slightly lower number of new cases reported today, at 7,393.

However, hospital admissions for the 7 days up to 6th of June are now showing as being up by +7.1%, compared to the pervious 7-days. 

Total patients in hospital are now back over 1,000 again.


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2021)

Age/sex pyramids for vaccine uptake in England from this weeks PHE surveillance report.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk


----------



## weepiper (Jun 10, 2021)

Edinburgh test positivity rate up to 5.6% today - which I think is the second highest in Scotland after Dundee


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Edinburgh test positivity rate up to 5.6% today - which I think is the second highest in Scotland after Dundee


I know I sometimes point out the better aspects of the Scottish governments pandemic handling and communication, but they still arent that impressive 

I cant say the news some days ago about the trams in Edinburgh returning to normal service for the first time in the pandemic was good news.









						Edinburgh trams resume normal service amid growing demand
					

Edinburgh's trams are operating every seven minutes throughout the day for the first time in more than a year.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 10, 2021)

I'm finding the situation in Bolton interesting.  Covid: Things are looking up in Bolton, eye of the variant storm

Obviously the situation there is still very precarious and its hard to see how that scale of operation could be delivered in more than a handful of areas at any one time.  The thing that strikes me is though the initial signs are that they have managed to stamp on the virus as it was getting out of control.

Thinking back to all the local lockdowns and Johnson going on about whack a mole this is the only time I can think of which appears to have had any success.

I know logistically large walk-in vaccination centres are difficult to say the least.  I just think there is something in it to mop up all those who for whatever reason have missed the standard booking process.


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2021)

I wont have much to say about Bolton for ages, because I need to give it much longer to see if their gains hold.

Its not even impossible to think that the patterns seen there so far could be replicated elsewhere even if the capacity to manage to situation proactively is not available everywhere else that will need it. However this is just one possibility, on the much happier side of possible wave prospects. It would be a demonstration that vaccines are able to carry the weight asked of them at this time. I dont rule it out, but its not something I would confidently claim.

Certainly its not a surprise that boots on the ground can make a real difference when it comes to testing etc.


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2021)

For example I will be keeping a close age on the age-group heatmap for Bolton. I can see why the media make claims about the age groups most involved in this wave so far, but this is one area where it could be easy to reach the wrong conclusions by making them too early. I have to force myself to wait longer to see if cases still trickle up the ages. Second chart down on this page:





__





						Loading…
					





					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




edit to add that I've poined out before that Blackburn with Darwens heat chart is worse than Boltons in that respect. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=ltla&areaName=Blackburn with Darwen


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2021)

Plus it may be possible that we've caught certain stages of early outbreaks, ie in school aged people, earlier than in the previous wave due to the current testing regime. This might end up being part of good news in regards how this wave pans out, but it could also lead into a false sense of what stage we are at and what sort of stages may be yet to come.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 10, 2021)

Reading Dr Gurdasani's tweets, it seems like the government just wants to revise the history of what happened. Perhaps that's not surprising at all.


----------



## elbows (Jun 10, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Reading Dr Gurdasani's tweets, it seems like the government just wants to revise the history of what happened. Perhaps that's not surprising at all.


They tweet a lot and a number of their tweets have featured here of late. Which ones are you referring to?


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The US is well behind the UK on vaccinations.
> 
> Just because they are jabbing teens, doesn't mean they have done well with adults.


I was talking to a friend in San Francisco a couple of months back, he's had both jabs as he's a teacher while his wife (not a teacher) was waiting for a second jab. In some ways they're approaching things better by jabbing people who're needed in work than our just doing it by age and vulnerability. At least in sf


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 10, 2021)

The top 25 hotspots of where the Delta variant is rising rapidly, based on data from the Zoe app.











						Map reveals 25 areas in UK where cases of Indian variant are rising fastest
					

Stirling in Scotland now has the highest prevalence of the variant and cases are still going up.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## Sunray (Jun 10, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> This is just hyperbole though isn't it?
> 
> There are questions enough about the wisdom of continuing trials with large sporting and other events without accusing everyone being there of being "absolutely smashed" which of course makes them irresponsible and gives us someone to blame.    Like I've said before, we've had over a year of street protest after street protest which many here supported.  Even being described as essential work.  Some people try and enjoy themselves within the rules and its back to this stuff again.
> 
> ...


Download starts tomorrow, it's the tester festival. 

Totally agree though. Far too quick to demonise groups, the young, the maskless, the ravers etc.  

Afaik this article is still true.  Perhaps the Kumba Mela was, but it's common to sleep in dorms which isn't very COVID safe.








						How the beach 'super-spreader' myth may have hampered UK Covid reaction
					

News that no outbreaks were linked to beach trips highlights important message about outdoor transmission, says expert




					www.theguardian.com
				




Even in the winter, we probably could have done something more than the 1 person in the park outdoors to improve peoples quality of life without impacting the health service.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> They tweet a lot and a number of their tweets have featured here of late. Which ones are you referring to?


This thread of hers:


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 10, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Download starts tomorrow, it's the tester festival.
> 
> Totally agree though. Far too quick to demonise groups, the young, the maskless, the ravers etc.
> 
> ...


Perhaps I've misunderstood. Download has been postponed this year.


----------



## Sunray (Jun 10, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Perhaps I've misunderstood. Download has been postponed this year.



You did, starts tomorrow. Two-stage test event.

I am sitting here grumpy as I was invited to work it but there were limited places and I was really in a groove at work and didn't see my alert so missed out. 

BAH


----------



## AverageJoe (Jun 10, 2021)

Sunray said:


> You did, starts tomorrow. Two-stage test event.
> 
> I am sitting here grumpy as I was invited to work it but there were limited places and I was really in a groove at work and didn't see my alert so missed out.
> 
> BAH



Cheer up. 

Next Download starts 10 June 2022 according to the website 

\m/


----------



## weepiper (Jun 11, 2021)

Not a _massively_ encouraging email to receive from school


----------



## Sue (Jun 11, 2021)

Is that primary or secondary, weepiper ? Assuming secondary but the P thing is confusing me.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 11, 2021)

Sue said:


> Is that primary or secondary, weepiper ? Assuming secondary but the P thing is confusing me.


Secondary. The P stands for period, not primary.


----------



## Sue (Jun 11, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Secondary. The P stands for period, not primary.


Ah okay.  I was wondering whether P7 were getting a completely free pass.


----------



## bimble (Jun 11, 2021)

Please can anybody tell me whether these numbers mean anything or are they too small or too little info to extrapolate from?


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

I will try to wind down for a few days before the Monday announcement. I may not be too successful if there are lots of interesting news items.

Another 'reformed Nick Triggle' article:









						June 21: Why lockdown easing may be delayed
					

The UK should be braced for a surge in infections - but what's coming will be quite different to before.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Sounds like the government have asked the NHS to start differentiating between people hospitalised because of their Covid symptoms, and people in hospital for other reasons who test positive for Covid (presumably including people who catch it in hospital). It will be good to see this detail, just so long as the government dont use this split to distort or suppress one side of this picture, and dont use it to justify terrible pandemic policies.









						NHS told to identify patients actually sick from Covid-19 separately to those testing positive
					

Exclusive: Changes to the way hospitals collect data will make the impact of the virus on the NHS look better




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

bimble said:


> Please can anybody tell me whether these numbers mean anything or are they too small or too little info to extrapolate from?
> 
> View attachment 272946


They are an early glimpse at the picture. We may expect ratios of vaccinated/partially vaccinated/fully vaccinated people with Delta who still end up hospitalised to change over time, if the outbreaks spread into older age groups and if there are hospital outbreaks, care home outbreaks etc. Lots of itfs, just have to wait and see.

Here is a BBC article about the PHE technical report:









						Covid: Unvaccinated most at risk from Delta variant
					

There have been nearly 30,000 new cases of the variant in the UK in the past week.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




The real bad news for now is the risk of being hospitalised being double with this variant, and the 60% increased transmission. These have big implications for the burden that will be felt in this wave. If these estimates hold, then they point towards the scary wave graphs shown in previous modelling, rather than the lower end of projections.


----------



## bimble (Jun 11, 2021)




----------



## bimble (Jun 11, 2021)

Can’t help it I think this should have been anticipated & understood, just by looking properly at what was happening in India, the rates of infection & hospitalisation within families etc. It was pretty plain to see, imo. But I suppose everyone was hoping the vaccination rate would be our salvation.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Much of the media framing of events continues to be about the next step of unlocking, rather than the possibility that we will actually have to go backwards to cope with this variant.









						June 21: Delay lockdown lifting, urge local health leaders
					

The government is warned that unlocking in England on 21 June risks the country "going backwards".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Still find people in such articles saying what a difficult decision delaying the next step will be. Its actually become a much easier decision in the last week or so, apart from all the shitheads in the press etc wanking on about freedom day.

Whether we have to go backwards to cope depends in great part on the strength of the wall that vaccines have built against high levels of disease in older people, and the ability of the vaccine-induced picture to protect hospitals and care homes. As such I do not have a confident prediction as to whether we will need to go backwards, but it is certainly an option I would not bet against.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

bimble said:


> Can’t help it I think this should have been anticipated & understood, just by looking properly at what was happening in India, the rates of infection & hospitalisation within families etc. It was pretty plain to see, imo. But I suppose everyone was hoping the vaccination rate would be our salvation.


You were far ahead of the picture being painted in the UK as a result of the fact you did pay attention to that stuff.

You werent alone, privately these fears will have been present in a significant proportion of the relevant sceintific and expert communities in this country, even when they werent shouting about it publicly.


----------



## bimble (Jun 11, 2021)

So a third of the people who are known to have died after catching the delta variant had been fully vaccinated 2 weeks or more before? 
That really doesn’t seem like great news does it. That seems like relying on vaccination and no behavioural measures would be a kind of madness, given the rest of the stuff that’s being learned about it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 11, 2021)

bimble said:


> So a third of the people who are known to have died after catching the delta variant had been fully vaccinated 2 weeks or more before?
> That really doesn’t seem like great news does it.



Very much depends on factors like age & underlying health conditions in those 12, compared to the other 30 deaths.


----------



## bimble (Jun 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Very much depends on factors like age & underlying health conditions in those 12, compared to the other 30 deaths.


How so?  I mean even if those 12 vaccinated people were very old & all had underlying conditions, whilst the other 30 were neither, how would that change things greatly ? I’m just not following what you mean.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

bimble said:


> So a third of the people who are known to have died after catching the delta variant had been fully vaccinated 2 weeks or more before?
> That really doesn’t seem like great news does it. That seems like relying on vaccination and no behavioural measures would be a kind of madness, given the rest of the stuff that’s being learned about it.



Not quite a third.

A lot of people were encouraged to get the wrong idea about how much pandemic weight vaccines could carry on their own. I've been boring on about this for most of 2021. In great part because as far as I'm concerned, even without this variant it is incredibly stupid to manage a pandemic at this stage via vaccines alone, with all behaviours returned to the old normality.

Even without this Delta variant dominating in the UK, earlier modelling suggested there could have been a notable wave this summer.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

For example a SAGE modelling group paper from the end of March said this:



> This shows that most deaths and admissions in a post-Roadmap resurgence are in people who have received two vaccine doses, even without vaccine protection waning or a variant emerging that escapes vaccines. This is because vaccine uptake has been so high in the oldest age groups (modelled here at 95% in the over 50-year olds). There are therefore 5% of over 50-year olds who have not been vaccinated, and 95% x 10% = 9.5% of over 50-year olds who are vaccinated but, nevertheless, not protected against death. This is not the result of vaccines being ineffective, merely uptake being so high.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/975909/S1182_SPI-M-O_Summary_of_modelling_of_easing_roadmap_step_2_restrictions.pdf


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 11, 2021)

bimble said:


> How so?  I mean even if those 12 fairly healthy people people were very old & all had underlying conditions, whilst the other 30 were neither, how would that change things greatly ? I’m just not following what you mean.



If it means fairly healthy people are not dying after 2 jabs, but fairly healthy unvaccinated people are, and bearing in mind most people that have had 2 jabs will be somewhat older than those that haven't, so without that second jab would be at greater risk of dying, it makes a big different. 

The devil is in the details, when the figures are that low.


----------



## Smangus (Jun 11, 2021)

R at 1.2-1.4 now 

eta - in England


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 11, 2021)

Smangus said:


> R at 1.2-1.4 now
> 
> eta - in England



That low?

I'm sceptical.  I suppose its an average.  I reckon most big urban areas will be closer to 1.7 / 1.8.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 11, 2021)

I hear from a neighbour that a load of journalists in a Falmouth hotel are having to isolate because of coronavirus detected there. I said I hope they include Mail journalists who are all gung ho about getting out of lockdown. He said "yes they brought it with them "

Correction: St Ives hotel


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Those R estimates are usually out of date by the time we hear of them. And yes there will be substantial variation between different places, cohorts and settings.

Its possible to derive estimates of such numbers from other publicly available data, though its not something I attempt myself. Others do though, eg:


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)




----------



## Teaboy (Jun 11, 2021)

elbows said:


>




Ah, a convenient 'out' for Johnson.  Sorry folks, can't be helped - my hands are tied etc etc.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Limited potential for that, since its far from the only factor. I'm sure if will be part of their narrative though, unless they dont want to admit that there are supply reductions, an area where they havent traditionally been very transparent.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

> The source said that in the first week of June this year, Public Health England (PHE) and the Department for Education (DfE) sent a proposal to the DHSC regarding the release of information on COVID-19 transmission in schools, including a proposal to publish relevant data. DHSC officials were requested to review and advise.
> 
> According to the official, this resulted in a decision to limit the release of information. “The Department of Health basically responded by saying: let’s release some information, but keep it vague and release it alongside everything else to make the situation look not as bad as it is.” Asked about Hancock’s role in this decision, the source said: “That decision came from him personally.”





> Hancock’s attempt to dominate COVID-19 information flows in Whitehall has been going on since February 2021, the official added – around the same time the vaccine rollout picked up pace – forcing England’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty to “start going over him” to get things done.











						Matt Hancock ‘Suppressing’ COVID Data from Government Departments, Says Whistleblower – Byline Times
					

The Health and Social Care Secretary has been limiting information distributed to the public and inside Whitehall, an insider alleges




					bylinetimes.com


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

That piece also makes mention of this piece from a day earlier:









						Health Department Whistleblower: Political Pressure ‘Watered-Down’ Public Health England Care Home Guidance Over COVID Testing – Byline Times
					

Nafeez Ahmed reports on an insider’s account of how the Department of Health and Social Care leaned on Public Health officials to drop Coronavirus testing of people transferred from hospitals into care homes




					bylinetimes.com
				






> “Public Health England’s original advice was that people shouldn’t be released from homes and hospitals without being tested to ensure they are not carrying the disease,” they said.
> 
> That initial advice was signed-off by two PHE officials – Dr Eamonn O’Moore, director for health and justice; and Dr Julia Verne, head of clinical epidemiology – and was the case up to the period “just before the lockdown”, the source revealed.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 11, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I hear from a neighbour that a load of journalists in a Falmouth hotel are having to isolate because of coronavirus detected there. I said I hope they include Mail journalists who are all gung ho about getting out of lockdown. He said "yes they brought it with them "


Can't see anything in UK-wide media about this yet but apparently St Ives rather than Falmouth









						Hotel putting up G7 security staff closes after Covid outbreak
					

A hotel in Cornwall reportedly hosting media and security staff for the G7 has closed following a coronavirus outbreak.




					www.falmouthpacket.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Very slightly lower number of new cases reported today, at 7,393.
> 
> However, hospital admissions for the 7 days up to 6th of June are now showing as being up by +7.1%, compared to the pervious 7-days.
> 
> Total patients in hospital are now back over 1,000 again.



New cases 8,125, up +58.1%.

Hospital admissions, up to 7th June, now up +14.4%

Deaths +10.9%

That's 'Freedom Day' fucked, right there.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

I havent had a chance to rant about the use of lateral flow tests for ages but here we are:









						Rapid Covid tests used in mass UK programme get scathing US report
					

Innova tests’ performance not proven and they should be returned to manufacturer or thrown in bin, says FDA




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The US Food and Drug Agency (FDA) has raised significant concerns about the rapid Covid test on which the UK government has based its multibillion-pound mass testing programme.
> 
> In a scathing review, the US health agency suggested the performance of the test had not been established, presenting a risk to health, and that the tests should be thrown in the bin or returned to the California-based manufacturer Innova.





> In early April, the UK government announced plans for the use of universal Covid-19 tests as a means to ease England out of lockdown. By the end of the month, the MHRA expressed concerns that the people who test negative would be given false reassurance by their result and would let down their guard if they believe they are Covid-free – suggesting the government’s universal testing plan was “a stretch” of the authorised use of rapid tests.
> 
> The MHRA’s special authorisation of the Innova test – which is repackaged and deployed by the NHS – is due for another review by 22 June.





> “It is important to realise that the UK and EU process for assuring the safety of most medical tests is mainly based on trust – manufacturers’ provide notification that they abide by the required legislation – there is no scrutiny of the evidence,” said Jon Deeks, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Birmingham.
> 
> “It is time that this is changed to ensure that our regulator has the legal ability and independence to act in the right ways to protect the health of the public. Bad tests do harm.”


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> I havent had a chance to rant about the use of lateral flow tests for ages but here we are:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



There's so many conflicting reports on lateral flow tests, but the University of Oxford and Public Health England carried out a large-scale study, and concluded they were good enough for their purpose, and can detect up to 91% of those infected with the virus.



> But while the authors of the Oxford research acknowledged that the role of lateral flow tests has been controversial, they concluded that the tests can detect most people ‘who would otherwise go on to infect someone else’. This is because the same people who are detected best by lateral flow kits – those with high viral loads – are also the most infectious, the study found.
> 
> ‘This is the first time this has been confirmed in a large-scale study and explains part of why some people pass Covid-19 on and others do not. Overall, only six in 100 contacts of infected cases went on to get infected themselves,’ the researchers said.
> 
> Tim Peto, professor of medicine at the University of Oxford and senior author on the study, added: ‘We know that lateral flow tests are not perfect, but that doesn’t stop them being a game-changer for helping to detect large numbers of infectious cases sufficiently rapidly to prevent further onward spread.’





			https://nixdigital.surf/news/covid-19/lateral-flow-tests-pick-up-90-of-covid-cases-study-finds/?__cpo=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGhlcGhhcm1hY2lzdC5jby51aw


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 11, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I hear from a neighbour that a load of journalists in a Falmouth hotel are having to isolate because of coronavirus detected there. I said I hope they include Mail journalists who are all gung ho about getting out of lockdown. He said "yes they brought it with them "
> 
> Correction: St Ives hotel





two sheds said:


> Can't see anything in UK-wide media about this yet but apparently St Ives rather than Falmouth
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Covid on the Cop Gin Palace too





__





						News article
					

The latest news and appeals from Devon and Cornwall Police




					www.devon-cornwall.police.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's so many conflicting reports on lateral flow tests, but the University of Oxford and Public Health England carried out a large-scale study, and concluded they were good enough for their purpose, and can detect up to 91% of those infected with the virus.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It depends what authorities use them for as to whether I consider 91% to be in any way good enough.

Its better than nothing for some settings, unless authorities stretch the use too far, which I think the UK government have been in real danger of doing this year.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> It depends what authorities use them for as to whether I consider 91% to be in any way good enough.
> 
> Its better than nothing for some settings, unless authorities stretch the use too far, which I think the UK government have been in real danger of doing this year.



But, lateral flow tests are not a replacement for PCR tests, that are only available under very specific circumstances, they are in addition to PCR testing.

Have the authorities actually stretched the use too far?


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, lateral flow tests are not a replacement for PCR tests, that are only available under very specific circumstances, they are in addition to PCR testing.
> 
> Have the authorities actually stretched the use too far?


There is quite a long history of the government seeking to use them inappropriately, I'm not going to go through all the examples again now, especially since we discussed plenty of them at the time. Partly because I am knackered covering all the other news of recent weeks but I promise to return to this subject next time a good example comes up. Or if our regulator says anything interesting in the June 22nd review.


----------



## steveo87 (Jun 11, 2021)

Sir Van Morrison: Ian Paisley defends joining anti-Swann chant
					

Ian Paisley and the singer chanted about the NI health minister after cancellation of Belfast gigs.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Should've quit after Brown Eyed Girl...


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)




----------



## sojourner (Jun 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The top 25 hotspots of where the Delta variant is rising rapidly, based on data from the Zoe app.
> 
> View attachment 272815
> 
> ...


Ace. My fkn hometown is no 15.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Given how dominant Delta is now I think I'll mostly now look at overall case levels in different places rather than zoom in on more limited Delta data.


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 11, 2021)

elbows said:


>




Those percentages are much better than I'd have guessed/predicted, actually. I find that quite reassuring. Seems like, if these figures are accurate, a lot of people are still taking sensible precautions.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 11, 2021)

Sky News just reporting hospital admissions in the NW are up 66%.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News just reporting hospital admissions in the NW are up 66%.


Here are my regional hospital admissions/diasnoses charts. First one uses raw daily numbers and the second one is smoothed by using 7 day averages. London is slowly creeping up too.

The North West is clearly up, although percentages where the underlying numbers are starting from a low base arent something I draw attention to that much.

Also have to keep in mind the stuff discussed in the article about the government asking the NHS to start giving them seperate figures for people hospitalised because of Covid-19 symptoms, as oppsoed to those going in for other reasons that test positive. The latter are bound to rise when number of cases in the community rises.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

On a related note, see this article about Scotland and the stuff said about number of children hospitalised with Covid a while back:









						Watchdog says Humza Yousaf child Covid claim 'inaccurate'
					

Scotland's health secretary claimed that 10 children had been hospitalised "because of Covid".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Supine (Jun 11, 2021)

FT reporting a one month delay to lockdown easing


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## Sue (Jun 11, 2021)

So just been looking at the numbers where I am. Total cases up 183% in the last week at borough level, up 400% in my ward (the latter admittedly from a low base). Feels locally like people think it's all over but the numbers look to be telling a different story.


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## Elpenor (Jun 11, 2021)

Supine said:


> FT reporting a one month delay to lockdown easing



July 19th I understand, with a break clause of July 5th if hospitalisation remain low.


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## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Supine said:


> FT reporting a one month delay to lockdown easing



I suppose they should really say England rather than the UK.

The authorities will be hoping that cases stay within certain limits over that month, and that they can reach English school holiays without having to impose further restrictions.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> July 19th I understand, with a break clause of July 5th if hospitalisation remain low.


I wonder what counts as low in their book.

I also wonder if they'll start changing the published figures so that they only count the 'in hospital because of Covid symptoms' as opposed to the broader stats we've had in the pandemic so far which include everyone else who has Covid while in hospital for other reasons.


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 11, 2021)

So is this a pause to the pouring of petrol onto the fire or is it applying a fire extinguisher?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 11, 2021)

Sue said:


> So just been looking at the numbers where I am. Total cases up 183% in the last week at borough level, up 400% in my ward (the latter admittedly from a low base). Feels locally like people think it's all over but the numbers look to be telling a different story.



Some big percentage increases can show up, when case numbers are low, I freaked for a moment, a couple of weeks ago, when I saw Worthing borough had gone up 2000% in a week.   

But that was from 1 to 21 cases per 100k, it's levelled off at 28 now.


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## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> So is this a pause to the pouring of petrol onto the fire or is it applying a fire extinguisher?


I cant really call it an extinguisher when all the rises we've got so far are a result of changes that already happened. The media dont want to touch the subject of having to go backwards at the moment. Nor indie SAGE last time I checked. I'm one of the only people who keep raising that nightmare prospect.


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Not that I could call it inevitable, which I would if we werent in the vaccination era. I still consider it possible enough thats its worth mentioning.

As far as the government and mainstream are concerned, the closest we currently come to extinguishers is to repeat the sort of things done in Bolton - more testing and boots on the ground etc.


----------



## Smangus (Jun 11, 2021)

Johnson the cunt ,trading young people's live for a shitty Indian trade deal. ffs


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Johnson the cunt ,trading young people's live for a shitty Indian trade deal. ffs


I should really fish out NERVTAG quotes I found from their meeting number 50 of April 16th about that subject. Probably I should wait until the 'pause' news chatter dies down. Teaser: their minutes include the use of the word 'consternation', which counts as strong language when it comes to that sort of official experts body minutes.


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## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Masks spotted in schools. Oh wait. This is only an image by the way, the play button isnt going to do anything, much like our government.


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## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

Supine said:


> FT reporting a one month delay to lockdown easing



Guardian version of the same:









						England’s lockdown easing on 21 June likely to be delayed by up to four weeks
					

Monday’s announcement will come as coronavirus case are rising at fastest rate since second wave




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jun 11, 2021)

And the BBC are reporting the same sort of thing:









						21 June: End of England's Covid lockdown could be delayed by one month
					

It comes amid concern over rising cases and the transmissibility of the Delta variant in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 11, 2021)

So, announcement by back-door leaks again. world-beating, once more.

I'm going to go back to taking serious precautions ... not that I had really eased off.

Hands face space !


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 11, 2021)

This comes from Harry Cole. It's not certain but I think it's inevitable.

Fuck's sake Starmer needs to kick the Tories to fucking death over this. We are - again - here because Johnson and his corrupt wanking crew are totally to blame for this. The media will make excuses; find some hapless holidaying couple and blame them for it all. Bonus points if they were actually Indian. This is a fucking mess and then some. it's take 6 months for 40% or so to be vaccinated. That's just short of 2% a week, so in four weeks that'll be another 8-10% vaccinated. 

We are going to have to roll back from where we are as well, but they won't discuss that. 

I'd say I can't believe what a fucking catastrofarce Boris Johnson Pfeffle Shitbag is but I've been here throughout. For anyone not a grasping flatulent race baiting opportunist pauper bashing cunt this would be a matter of resignation. Bloody hell it should be like the scene at the end of 47 Ronin where they all fucking seppuku. Except there's no honour for these bastards


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 11, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> This comes from Harry Cole. It's not certain but I think it's inevitable.
> 
> Fuck's sake Starmer needs to kick the Tories to fucking death over this. We are - again - here because Johnson and his corrupt wanking crew are totally to blame for this. The media will make excuses; find some hapless holidaying couple and blame them for it all. Bonus points if they were actually Indian. This is a fucking mess and then some. it's take 6 months for 40% or so to be vaccinated. That's just short of 2% a week, so in four weeks that'll be another 8-10% vaccinated.
> 
> ...



Well said. Given it a like for that, not for the behaviour of our government, obvs.


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## Sunray (Jun 12, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> This comes from Harry Cole. It's not certain but I think it's inevitable.
> 
> Fuck's sake Starmer needs to kick the Tories to fucking death over this. We are - again - here because Johnson and his corrupt wanking crew are totally to blame for this. The media will make excuses; find some hapless holidaying couple and blame them for it all. Bonus points if they were actually Indian. This is a fucking mess and then some. it's take 6 months for 40% or so to be vaccinated. That's just short of 2% a week, so in four weeks that'll be another 8-10% vaccinated.
> 
> ...


This

Banning people who go to private/public schools from entering office would make quite a difference to how this country is governed. It’s got to the point it’s run as some form of game to these people.
They really don’t give a shit about the people who live in this country.

We are an island? Why are we here?

this is the beginning of a third wave and this government has no ability to deal with pandemics.


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## glitch hiker (Jun 12, 2021)

Sunray said:


> This
> 
> Banning people who go to private/public schools from entering office would make quite a difference to how this country is governed. It’s got to the point it’s run as some form of game to these people.
> They really don’t give a shit about the people who live in this country.
> ...


It won't be the last variant, and it won't be the last we import (and also export, but very few talk about that as well).

What happens if the next crisis is coincides with the winter, another variant, and the lack of protection of the first people to have been vaccinated having need of a booster that is also going to require a vast nationwide rollout?

Sooner or later you know they'll outsource that process. Probably to Talk Talk.


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## cuppa tee (Jun 12, 2021)

I was a bit surprised when the London mayor said this.....
“: “The latest available data shows the four tests set out in the Government’s roadmap have been met in London, and it isn’t clear why our city shouldn’t relax restrictions further on June 21”





__





						Eight million Covid vaccines delivered as Sadiq Khan tells Boris Johnson: It’s time to unlock London
					





					www.msn.com
				




is it that he knows there will be no easing and so he’s asking for more support for businesses and putting the ball in the governments court preemptively ?


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## SpookyFrank (Jun 12, 2021)

cuppa tee said:


> I was a bit surprised when the London mayor said this.....
> “: “The latest available data shows the four tests set out in the Government’s roadmap have been met in London, and it isn’t clear why our city shouldn’t relax restrictions further on June 21”
> 
> 
> ...



Demanding thing X is easy when you know there's no prospect of it happening.

It's not very helpful though. The whole idea that we can have the virus controlled in one bit of the country but not in another is not helpful. If cases are rising anywhere, they'll soon be rising everywhere.


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## platinumsage (Jun 12, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Demanding thing X is easy when you know there's no prospect of it happening.
> 
> It's not very helpful though. The whole idea that we can have the virus controlled in one bit of the country but not in another is not helpful. If cases are rising anywhere, they'll soon be rising everywhere.



There’s one big factor in controlling the virus that varies massively across the country, and that’s vaccinations. Compare Shetland with 92% of adults having had their first dose and 67% their second, with Tower Hamlets where it’s 44% and 22%. London is ranks particularly badly on this metric, of which the mayor is well aware.


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## elbows (Jun 12, 2021)

London is one of the areas of concern in terms of the data as well as vaccinations.

I've added Khan to my list of Labour shitheads in this pandemic.


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## elbows (Jun 12, 2021)

2h ago    14:00                    



> _Robert Peston: So we’re delaying by four weeks aren’t we? _
> 
> PM: Well we’re setting out the position on Monday but what I can certainly tell you is that to deliver an irreversible roadmap you’ve got to be cautious, we’re still looking at the data, we’re seeing unquestionably not just cases but also hospitalisations going up - there’ll be arguments about the extent to which they’re going up, extent to which feeding into fatalities. But in order to deliver an irreversible roadmap gotta be cautious.
> 
> ...



Regarding that last bit, NERVTAG were concerned on April 16th and told the government to add India to the red list. Johnson etcs excuse that the variant of concern was not labelled as such till quite a bit later is not a convincing excuse. I probably will fish out the NERVTAG quotes shortly.


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## elbows (Jun 12, 2021)

NERVTAG Meeting 50, April 16th. The substance of these quotes is somewhat repetitive because some come from summaries and others are from the slightly more detailed discussion. I've included them all anyway.



> PHE updated on VUIs and VOCs. B.1.617 is still considered a VUI, but the committee wished to raise with DHSC because of 1) its genomic characteristics, 2) the situation in India and 3) the significant number of importations into UK via travel. NERVTAG recommended to DHSC that the travel policy with India should be reviewed.





> B.1.617, a new VUI from India was highlighted.  This was reported directly by India;forming a high proportion of what is being sequenced in Maharashtra, where a surge is taking place. It has a novel combination of L452R and E484Q substitutions. The variant appears to be very successful and in the two weeks it has been monitored, 70 caseshave been imported, despite travel restrictions.





> Members expressed their consternation about the number of introductions of B.1.617 in to the UK in the light of likely unlocking of travel restrictions this summer and the fact that India is not red listed.
> 
> Given the observed substitutions, the COVID-19 situation in India, and the introductions into the UK, it was felt that the committee should raise an alert about B.1.617 and make a recommendation that measures, such as travel restrictions, were reviewed. PHE indicated that at the moment, based on the phylogenetics, importations are taking place and then there are small household clusters, not community transmission.





> It was noted that there is an assumption that B.1.617 is widespread in India, because of importations from India. However, there is limited sequencing data from India and the surge in cases may not be associated with this particular variant. B.1.617 constitutes 60% of sequencing from Maharashtra, but it is not known if all the imports are from Maharashtra





> NERVTAG highlighted two issues to DHSC:1.) B.1.617 is a worry because of 1) its genomic characteristics, 2) the situation in India and 3) the significant number of importations into UK via travel. NERVTAG recommended to DHSC that the travel policy with India should be reviewed.



From the minutes pdf at : 
	

	




						Box
					






					app.box.com


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## glitch hiker (Jun 12, 2021)

cuppa tee said:


> I was a bit surprised when the London mayor said this.....
> “: “The latest available data shows the four tests set out in the Government’s roadmap have been met in London, and it isn’t clear why our city shouldn’t relax restrictions further on June 21”
> 
> 
> ...


If he thinks it unlikely Boris will unlock, as the news indicates, then he's just playing a game


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## elbows (Jun 12, 2021)

I also note this from the BBCs version of todays Johnson comments:



> The government put India on the "red list" of places to which travel is banned on 23 April, two weeks later than Pakistan and Bangladesh, which had fewer cases per million at the time.
> 
> Asked if he regretted this, the prime minister said the Delta variant had not "even been identified as a variant under investigation" at the time, though documents on the government's website say it was designated as such on 1 April.











						Covid: PM promises caution over 21 June lockdown end
					

Boris Johnson says it is vital any changes are "irreversible", amid rising Delta variant cases.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## 2hats (Jun 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> I also note this from the BBCs version of todays Johnson comments:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


de Waffel of the particulars of variants around that time is just smoke and mirrors. Obvious bullshit is obvious...


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## Dystopiary (Jun 12, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> This comes from Harry Cole. It's not certain but I think it's inevitable.
> 
> Fuck's sake Starmer needs to kick the Tories to fucking death over this. We are - again - here because Johnson and his corrupt wanking crew are totally to blame for this. The media will make excuses; find some hapless holidaying couple and blame them for it all. Bonus points if they were actually Indian. This is a fucking mess and then some. it's take 6 months for 40% or so to be vaccinated. That's just short of 2% a week, so in four weeks that'll be another 8-10% vaccinated.
> 
> ...



I'm wondering how the hell that guy can be the political editor of the Scum.


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## Smangus (Jun 12, 2021)

Well if this wave takes off then the timing of putting India on the red list  could well be Johnson's undoing. Especially if we have to go back into lockdown, don't think the public will forgive him for that after all the freedom day bollocks. 

Still every cloud eh?


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## elbows (Jun 12, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Well if this wave takes off then the timing of putting India on the red list  could well be Johnson's undoing. Especially if we have to go back into lockdown, don't think the public will forgive him for that after all the freedom day bollocks.
> 
> Still every cloud eh?


Yes a third wave has been on my radar in terms of its potential to doom Johnson for ages, even before this variant, and the variant angle makes it easy for a story of his personal failure to become the dominant variant of the story quite easily.



2hats said:


> de Waffel of the particulars of variants around that time is just smoke and mirrors. Obvious bullshit is obvious...



Yes. I mention this stuff because there have already been signs that they will try to hide behind awareness timing in regards the .2 Delta version of the variant in particular. I dont think it will wash, media have been skeptical of these excuses from the start and the trade deal stuff hands this to them on a plate.


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## Elpenor (Jun 12, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> I'm wondering how the hell that guy can be the political editor of the Scum.


Was with Guido Fawkes before I think


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## elbows (Jun 12, 2021)

A map that goes well with me moaning about Khan earlier.


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## elbows (Jun 12, 2021)

Ah the idea of going backwards has finally come up. Johnsons answers not exactly convincing.


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## Elpenor (Jun 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> A map that goes well with me moaning about Khan earlier.



Makes me glad on a personal level to have left Reading (area of concern for Delta variant and with low number of vaccinations) for Devon earlier this year.


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## rubbershoes (Jun 12, 2021)

Lots of no shows at the vaccination centre today. Probably a combination of the age group attending not feeling hugely at risk, and the good weather


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## elbows (Jun 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> But, lateral flow tests are not a replacement for PCR tests, that are only available under very specific circumstances, they are in addition to PCR testing.
> 
> Have the authorities actually stretched the use too far?



Returning to this, I dont honestly know when I will get a chance to talk about it in more detail.

But I did just stumble upon this person on twitter who has a large number of tweets about the subject. I dont suppose anyone saw the Newsnight piece on it?



Also see things like:









						Covid-19: Tests must be more rigorously regulated to protect public, say statisticians
					

Statistical experts have called for new standards for diagnostic tests in response to regulatory gaps identified during the covid-19 pandemic.  Current legislation does not require tests to be evaluated in the settings where they will be used. But in a review of the statistical evidence needed...




					www.bmj.com
				












						More work needed to evaluate Covid tests – experts
					

Experts said tests should be evaluated in the setting where they are intended to be used.




					www.standard.co.uk
				




An example of the government potentially stretching things too far would be this trial. Granted the purpose of a trial is to determine the effectiveness of such things, but they already felt the need to pause it before, and are doing it at a fair scale if things have proceeded according to info in this article from a few months back: 









						Schools to trial daily Covid testing to replace need for self-isolation
					

Pilot scheme means students classed as close contact of positive case can remain in school




					www.independent.co.uk


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## elbows (Jun 13, 2021)

Experiencing surreal feelings due to an article in the Telegraph that says the sort of things I say, and features the sorts of graphs I would use.









						We face a third wave of Covid-19 and the die may already have been cast
					

The raw data does not look good – cases of the delta variant have been growing exponentially since the last unlocking in May




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				




Also contains a link to a new modelling paper which I havent had time to look at yet, I will take a look on Sunday afternoon:



			https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.07.21258476v1.full.pdf
		


Elsewhere in the Telegraph there is far more typical shit, such as an article which ping-pongs back and forwards between comments somewhat resembling reality, and deranged anti-lockdown people such as MP Marcus Fysh who was happy to boast about how he would start breaking the rules if they still exist come June 21st. He has an especially hideous record in this pandemic and rarely misses an opportunity to push on every front available, including a few weeks ago when he said that schools should curtail their use of hand sanitiser due to its corrosive effects on skin. If I wanted to seek out obvious threats to public health in this pandemic, he would be high on my list of really obvious and absurd examples.


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## kabbes (Jun 13, 2021)

The unlocking in May is basically the same as the unlocking last November.  The permitted socialising in November and December saw the alpha variant rapidly being devastating, so I don’t know why anybody would be surprised that the same permitted socialising is now also seeing the delta variant do the same.  It’s clearly not protective enough to allow the things currently allowed.


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## Spandex (Jun 13, 2021)

kabbes said:


> The unlocking in May is basically the same as the unlocking last November.  The permitted socialising in November and December saw the alpha variant rapidly being devastating, so I don’t know why anybody would be surprised that the same permitted socialising is now also seeing the delta variant do the same.  It’s clearly not protective enough to allow the things currently allowed.


Last November was the mini-lockdown, which ended on 2nd Dec.

It was generally effective against the original strain, after weeks of fucking about with local restrictions, while barely containing the Kent strain, which hadn't spread far before the lockdown started. As soon as restrictions were eased the Kent variant spread across the country like wildfire.

I think with the easing of restrictions this May the government was okay with the virus starting to spread again. When he announced it Johnson said that deaths would inevitably rise again. He/they were hoping that the vaccine programme was far enough along that hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed. The Indian variant has changed that though, spreading even faster and seeming to hit younger, unvaccinated, people harder. But having made a big point that the easing of restrictions are irreversable he's only looking at not ending the restrictions on social mixing on 21 June rather than considering reintroducing those that ended in May. That has the potential to go very wrong, but there will probably be a debate about the acceptable level of hospitalisation and death before any restrictions are reimposed. I suspect the government will have a higher tolerance for people dying than most of us do.


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## baldrick (Jun 13, 2021)

rubbershoes said:


> Lots of no shows at the vaccination centre today. Probably a combination of the age group attending not feeling hugely at risk, and the good weather


A shame.  I had my second one yesterday. Funny how on the one hand you have no-shows and on the other there is this:

Queues at Crucible vaccine pop-up


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## rubbershoes (Jun 13, 2021)

baldrick said:


> A shame.  I had my second one yesterday. Funny how on the one hand you have no-shows and on the other there is this:
> 
> Queues at Crucible vaccine pop-up



Indeed. The other Somerset centre was operating  a no appointment and just turn up system and was absolutely rammed.


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## miss direct (Jun 13, 2021)

I am hoping for a walk in centre for second jabs. There was one here in Sheffield aimed at the black community, hopefully there will be more. Otherwise my second one isn't due till August. 

Anecdotal, but I went out last night and was really disgusted that the group of guys next to us at a pub kept spitting in our direction and sneezing multiple times, again, in our direction. Felt too threatened by a big group of men to say anything


----------



## elbows (Jun 13, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Last November was the mini-lockdown, which ended on 2nd Dec.
> 
> It was generally effective against the original strain, after weeks of fucking about with local restrictions, while barely containing the Kent strain, which hadn't spread far before the lockdown started. As soon as restrictions were eased the Kent variant spread across the country like wildfire.
> 
> I think with the easing of restrictions this May the government was okay with the virus starting to spread again. When he announced it Johnson said that deaths would inevitably rise again. He/they were hoping that the vaccine programme was far enough along that hospitals wouldn't be overwhelmed. The Indian variant has changed that though, spreading even faster and seeming to hit younger, unvaccinated, people harder. But having made a big point that the easing of restrictions are irreversable he's only looking at not ending the restrictions on social mixing on 21 June rather than considering reintroducing those that ended in May. That has the potential to go very wrong, but there will probably be a debate about the acceptable level of hospitalisation and death before any restrictions are reimposed. I suspect the government will have a higher tolerance for people dying than most of us do.



There is another important consideration when thinking about the November 2020 lockdown - schools were kept open for all, not just for key workers children.

As for what forces the government to act, yes there are reasons I've tended to say its more about level of hospitalisation than about the level of death. And this time there are ways they can fiddle with the equations in regards hospitalisations. We know that they've recently started collecting data about how many people are being hospitalised because of the severity of their Covid symptoms, separately from how many people go into hospital for other reasons but then test positive either because they were infected in the community before admission, or infected whilst in hospital. There are sensible ways they can use that data, but it will also be used either by government or by anti0lockdown types to make a bunch of tedious and largely inappropriate points. In the other direction, if the government feel the need for a new justification for taking tougher action, they can point to the NHS backlog and how the level of Covid infections threatens the ability of the NHS to deal with that backlog, making the backlog larger not smaller. Either way and somewhat regardless of the wider debate about these details, there will still be the modelling which gives the government a sense of whether the situation threatens to overwhelm hospitals etc.


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## l'Otters (Jun 13, 2021)

What is it going to take for some actual investment in infrastructure to keep schools open for all kids? Proper ventilation, extra venues, that sort of thing. Fucking enrages me if I actually think about it much.


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## rubbershoes (Jun 13, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I am hoping for a walk in centre for second jabs. There was one here in Sheffield aimed at the black community, hopefully there will be more. Otherwise my second one isn't due till August.
> 
> Anecdotal, but I went out last night and was really disgusted that the group of guys next to us at a pub kept spitting in our direction and sneezing multiple times, again, in our direction. Felt too threatened by a big group of men to say anything



FFS


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## l'Otters (Jun 13, 2021)

They want the schools open so the parents can go to work. No investment in childcare. But making schools safer, by spending money on it? Not a fucking chance. It’s disgusting on so many levels.


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## elbows (Jun 13, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> What is it going to take for some actual investment in infrastructure to keep schools open for all kids? Proper ventilation, extra venues, that sort of thing. Fucking enrages me if I actually think about it much.



On top of all the reasons why this sort of thing is not what we expect from the establishment in this country, there is another problem. As well as preventing transmission in schools, the other reason authorities have to resort to shutting schools at times during a bad pandemic is that this has an effect on adult contact mixing patterns, very much including stopping a chunk of people from going to work.


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## l'Otters (Jun 13, 2021)

Yes but if they put this type investment in the effects of keeping schools open would be massively reduced.


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## elbows (Jun 13, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Yes but if they put this type investment in the effects of keeping schools open would be massively reduced.



It questionable as to exactly how much could be achieved, especially with more and more transmissible variants. They should still try. The removing of mask requirements was absolute idiocy.

But my point was not to be defeatist about that side of things, but rather to point out that its not just about the infection risk within the school. Its part of a broader emergency handbrake because it forces adults behaviour to change in various ways, shattering the sense of normality and attempts to carry on as normal.


----------



## LDC (Jun 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> Experiencing surreal feelings due to an article in the Telegraph that says the sort of things I say, and features the sorts of graphs I would use.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



In that article there's a mention of _The Lancet_ study that shows the longer spaced out intervals between 1st to 2nd Pfizer jabs causes immunity to fall faster, especially in the old.


----------



## elbows (Jun 13, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> In that article there's a mention of _The Lancet_ study that shows the longer spaced out intervals between 1st to 2nd Pfizer jabs causes immunity to fall faster, especially in the old.



Yes when I read that bit I quickly re-read the Lancet study but the detail that actually pointed in that direction didnt leap out at me so I didnt seize on it last night. Can you or others take a look at the study and see if you can spot the bit that makes that point? I might just have been way too tired when I read it, and I also didnt have time to search for other press etc mentions of this aspect. Also it might be that they are talking about immunity waning during the period between the two doses, rather than after the second dose?

The other thing I think people need to keep in mind in terms of their own behaviour and sense of risk at the moment is that authorities currently dont have enough data to make a claim about how much protection two doses of the AZ vaccine offers against Delta.


----------



## prunus (Jun 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes when I read that bit I quickly re-read the Lancet study but the detail that actually pointed in that direction didnt leap out at me so I didnt seize on it last night. Can you or others take a look at the study and see if you can spot the bit that makes that point? I might just have been way too tired when I read it, and I also didnt have time to search for other press etc mentions of this aspect. Also it might be that they are talking about immunity waning during the period between the two doses, rather than after the second dose?
> 
> The other thing I think people need to keep in mind in terms of their own behaviour and sense of risk at the moment is that authorities currently dont have enough data to make a claim about how much protection two doses of the AZ vaccine offers against Delta.



I can’t see that the Lancet study linked in the telegraph article does say what they claim - this one: DEFINE_ME

it does say that the longer gap between first and second doses leaves people in a significantly less protected state (single dose) for longer than they would be if the second dose was sooner, perhaps the telegraph is misreading that? Or perhaps they meant to link a different study?  Or perhaps I have failed to see where the linked paper says anything about increased immunity drop off with longer intervals.


----------



## elbows (Jun 13, 2021)

prunus said:


> I can’t see that the Lancet study linked in the telegraph article does say what they claim - this one: DEFINE_ME
> 
> it does say that the longer gap between first and second doses leaves people in a significantly less protected state (single dose) for longer than they would be if the second dose was sooner, perhaps the telegraph is misreading that? Or perhaps they meant to link a different study?  Or perhaps I have failed to see where the linked paper says anything about increased immunity drop off with longer intervals.



Thanks, that matches the thoughts I had last night. I will look into it more when I get a chance, but I dont know when that will be.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 13, 2021)

prunus said:


> I can’t see that the Lancet study linked in the telegraph article does say what they claim - this one: DEFINE_ME
> 
> it does say that the longer gap between first and second doses leaves people in a significantly less protected state (single dose) for longer than they would be if the second dose was sooner, perhaps the telegraph is misreading that? Or perhaps they meant to link a different study?  Or perhaps I have failed to see where the linked paper says anything about increased immunity drop off with longer intervals.



There was this study, led by the University of Birmingham, that suggested the opposite.



> The UK’s decision to delay second doses of coronavirus vaccines has received fresh support from research on the over-80s which found that giving the Pfizer/BioNTech booster after 12 weeks rather than three produced a much stronger antibody response.
> 
> A study led by the University of Birmingham in collaboration with Public Health England found that antibodies against the virus were three-and-a-half times higher in those who had the second shot after 12 weeks compared with those who had it after a three-week interval.
> 
> Most people who have both shots of the vaccine will be well protected regardless of the timing, but the stronger response from the extra delay might prolong protection because antibody levels naturally wane over time.











						Delay in giving second jabs of Pfizer vaccine improves immunity
					

Study finds antibodies against Sars-CoV-2 three-and-a-half times higher in people vaccinated again after 12 weeks rather than three




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 13, 2021)

This could potentially be another tool in the fight against covid.



> British scientists say they have developed a ceiling-mounted Covid "alarm" that can detect anyone infected in as little as 15 minutes.
> 
> The highly-accurate device, slightly larger than a smoke alarm, is being hailed as a potential boon for screening in aircraft cabins, classrooms, care homes and offices, The Sunday Times reports.
> 
> ...





> The sensor, made by Cambridgeshire firm Roboscientific, works by detecting chemicals produced by the skin or present in the breath of those infected with coronavirus.
> 
> These "volatile organic compounds" create odour too subtle to be sniffed by the human nose.
> 
> A study by the Covid alarm's research team showed they could be detected by dogs, but the alarm would be more accurate and more practical.











						Covid ceiling alarm developed that can 'detect virus in room within 15 minutes'
					

Early studies show the device developed by British scientists is accurate 98-100% of the time, making it just as reliable as PCR lab-based Covid tests




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## lazythursday (Jun 13, 2021)

Can you imagine the panic when it goes off though. And the accusations of who looked the most peaky.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 13, 2021)

And "Who was in here 15 minutes ago ?"


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2021)

Delayed.









						Covid: Lockdown easing in England to be delayed by four weeks
					

Most current Covid rules will remain for four more weeks after 21 June, government sources say.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> Delayed.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Good.


----------



## pesh (Jun 14, 2021)

i'm sure the numbers will be much better in 4 weeks


----------



## Numbers (Jun 14, 2021)

pesh said:


> i'm sure the numbers will be much better in 4 weeks


Thanks pesh it's been a rough ride but hoping I'm good soon.


----------



## maomao (Jun 14, 2021)

pesh said:


> i'm sure the numbers will be much better in 4 weeks


By 'better' do you mean 'much much higher'?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 14, 2021)

So, numbers are rising, so rather than tightening restrictions we’re going to just wait for 4 weeks, with the same restrictions that are currently allowing numbers to rise.

I… can see a flaw in this plan.


----------



## Supine (Jun 14, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, numbers are rising, so rather than tightening restrictions we’re going to just wait for 4 weeks, with the same restrictions that are currently allowing numbers to rise.
> 
> I… can see a flaw in this plan.



We’re going to beat this virus with plucky British spirit


----------



## maomao (Jun 14, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> So, numbers are rising, so rather than tightening restrictions we’re going to just wait for 4 weeks, with the same restrictions that are currently allowing numbers to rise.
> 
> I… can see a flaw in this plan.


Well, vaccinations, particularly second vaccinations should have increased significantly by the end of a month. So it's not like nothing at all will be different.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 14, 2021)

Apparently [according to t'beeb] the walking haystack is doing an announcement at 18:00 today.
Although the delay has been well signposted by repeated leaks from govt sources ...

Shall we run a sweepstake on when the first "Alas" appears, and how many we get ?


----------



## Petcha (Jun 14, 2021)

This decision was finalised at least 10 days ago. It's a disgrace that it wasn't communicated to businesses then and there to stop them hiring staff, buying stock etc.


----------



## Supine (Jun 14, 2021)

Petcha said:


> This decision was finalised at least 10 days ago. It's a disgrace that it wasn't communicated to businesses then and there to stop them hiring staff, buying stock etc.



it was finalised yesterday


----------



## Petcha (Jun 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> it was finalised yesterday



Nope


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> it was finalised yesterday


Bollocks was it


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 14, 2021)

Correction, it appeared to have been officially finalised yesterday.

But it should have been clear over a month ago that at least some delay was needed because of the Delta/Indian variant spreading as fast as it was (and still is).
And I don't think a month is going to be enough, unless a huge number of vaxx are done (and both doses at that)


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 14, 2021)

Petcha said:


> This decision was finalised at least 10 days ago. It's a disgrace that it wasn't communicated to businesses then and there to stop them hiring staff, buying stock etc.



Business have tended to do things ahead of the government since the start, many businesses started rolling out wfh policies up to a month before the first lockdown, the city slowly draining before the government finally got its head out of its arse.


----------



## bimble (Jun 14, 2021)

I just feel so lucky that i have a life where basically its up to me whether i go into crowded indoor places or transport or have to be within a meter of anyone really.


----------



## andysays (Jun 14, 2021)

Petcha said:


> This decision was finalised at least 10 days ago. It's a disgrace that it wasn't communicated to businesses then and there to stop them hiring staff, buying stock etc.


I agree that it should have been made and announced at least ten days ago, if not more, but I'd be interested to see what evidence you have for stating quite so categorically that it was.


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2021)

They've known things were going wrong for ages but it was only 1 week ago that cabinet was presented with worrying modelling etc by Whitty etc.

In terms of signs that there would be delays, May 17th featured a big one, when the government started to indicate that the social distancing review conclusions that they hoped to unveil by the end of May would be delayed.


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2021)

Just a few snippets from BBC live updates page in regards the approaches of the four nations. Well I havent bothered with England.



> In Scotland, caution has been the watch word.
> 
> The hope had been the whole country will be down to what’s described as level zero two weeks today on 28 June, but that’s increasingly in doubt now.
> 
> Yesterday the Scottish health secretary said it was fair to question that everybody would get to level zero by then.





> But it’s important to say that level zero is not a full return to normality – it’s not the full easing of restrictions. There are still limits, for example, on the number of people who can meet up. Nightclubs and adult entertainment venues have to stay shut, there are still rules on social distancing and you’d be expected to wear a mask in a shop or on the bus.





> Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford has always been made out to be the most cautious of all the nations leaders.
> 
> His last review was a week and a half ago, where he set out what could be eased on 21 June.
> 
> But the Welsh Government has never set a date for end of restrictions and has never said 21 June would be the end of restrictions in Wales.





> There is still no hint of sign of a “freedom day” here.





> The easing of restrictions across Northern Ireland was always planned to be more cautious, at a slower pace, certainly compared with England.
> 
> The 21 June date was never going to be the date when all restrictions would be removed here.
> 
> Northern Ireland has already been looking at a date further off towards the end of July.





			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57466097


----------



## sojourner (Jun 14, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Shall we run a sweepstake on when the first "Alas" appears, and how many we get ?


He says it so much, it made it into a poem I wrote. The twat.


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2021)

Starmer went on about Johnson having to say alas earlier, so perhaps he will seek an alternative word.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> Starmer went on about Johnson having to say alas earlier, so perhaps he will seek an alternative word.


"Alack", perhaps? Or maybe he'll go all Latin on us and go for "eheu"


----------



## Threshers_Flail (Jun 14, 2021)

Is it possible to find historic local infection rates? I want to know how bad things are in the north west compared to other high points of the last 15 months.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 14, 2021)

I’ve got a feeling they’re going to announce some sort of new restrictions, but somehow try and dress it up as nothing changing.


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2021)

Threshers_Flail said:


> Is it possible to find historic local infection rates? I want to know how bad things are in the north west compared to other high points of the last 15 months.



Well there are a bunch of different ways to present such data, but the official dashboard goes all the way back and you can look at regions or more local areas, Here for example is the North West:



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=region&areaName=North%20West
		


Just keep in mind that due to woeful testing capacity the first wave is not well represented by such data. Have to use estimates, population testing surveys etc for that first wave instead.


----------



## miss direct (Jun 14, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> I’ve got a feeling they’re going to announce some sort of new restrictions, but somehow try and dress it up as nothing changing.


I wish there would be more of a crackdown on masks. I had a horrible journey yesterday with multiple individuals and groups of people without masks. And no, I don't accept that they are all medically exempt. There was an effort in New Street station with staff handing masks out, but I'd say around 50% of people there didn't bother at all.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 14, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I wish there would be more of a crackdown on masks. I had a horrible journey yesterday with multiple individuals and groups of people without masks. And no, I don't accept that they are all medically exempt. There was an effort in New Street station with staff handing masks out, but I'd say around 50% of people there didn't bother at all.



Yeah, I've been on a couple of trans and tubes over the last two days and about 50% sounds right.  That is 50% wearing masks properly the others just being word badly or not bothered with at all.


----------



## Threshers_Flail (Jun 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> Well there are a bunch of different ways to present such data, but the official dashboard goes all the way back and you can look at regions or more local areas, Here for example is the North West:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks!


----------



## miss direct (Jun 14, 2021)

The one thing that makes me feel slightly better about masks is my Italian student, who worked in an office with someone who got coronavirus. He didn't catch it, and he thinks it's because he always wore a decent mask (not a cloth one!) 

The coach was particularly awful. Didn't even want to take my mask off to eat my snack.


----------



## andysays (Jun 14, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I wish there would be more of a crackdown on masks. I had a horrible journey yesterday with multiple individuals and groups of people without masks. And no, I don't accept that they are all medically exempt. There was an effort in New Street station with staff handing masks out, but I'd say around 50% of people there didn't bother at all.


The whole "medically exempt" thing has always been a bit sketchy though, no clear definitions of what counts and certainly no move towards certification (and there are actually good reasons why).

It's been kind of left to the individual to decide whether they consider themselves exempt, and while on one level that's probably a good thing, it obviously means that some people can take advantage.

Personally, I try (not always successfully) not to get too worried about non-mask wearers, unless they're doing other stuff which increases risk, like standing too close etc.

And there's also the issue of who "enforces" mask wearing. It's one thing to check people as they enter the station, but they can easily take their mask off when they're sat on the train, and there are reasons why other passengers might feel uncomfortable about challenging them.

So while I understand you calling for a crackdown on mask wearing, I'm not sure how such a thing could work.


----------



## miss direct (Jun 14, 2021)

Not saying this is a good idea, but in Turkey, police patrol, and there are on the spot fines. Masks were required from the beginning and there are no exceptions. Here it's all been so wishy washy that there is no chance of getting people to comply now. I try not to get bothered, but when you're on a coach which is completely full, with no windows that open and boiling hot, it bothers me. The last time I took a coach about a month ago, the policy was one person (or group) per double seat. Don't know if that was just that company, but the coach yesterday was packed and horrible. As I was travelling to see my mother, I was trying to be as careful as possible. I'll find another way to travel back, I think.


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## l'Otters (Jun 14, 2021)

IME people who don't wear masks also don't give a damn about keeping any spatial distance from you and also DGAF whether you were in whichever part of the shop first or are keeping a distance from the person in front of you at the veg stand / fridge / whatever it is you want to get. I've been finding it a lot more of a challenge this last couple of weeks, end up just giving up and walking out half the time. Not a single person with a mask on in the last 4 shops I went in. 

It's been an absolute shitshow with no clear messaging and like many other things, no extra resources given to implement them, just handed off to the shopkeepers, pubs etc to deal with it.

As far as enforcing it goes, how would that even work, I've seen signs up on train stations etc saying if you don't wear a mask there's £x fine, but how would they prove that the person wasn't exempt? It's not on to interrogate people who are genuinely unable to wear one, so the whole thing is just unworkable.


----------



## thismoment (Jun 14, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I wish there would be more of a crackdown on masks....


I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a couple of students where i work have tested positive since the changes to masks in school when we hadn’t had a positive result in a while. IMO it has led to confusion amongst staff and pupils which I think then leads to inadvertently letting down your guard regarding general precautions around COVID particularly at when there’s a new variant


----------



## Sue (Jun 14, 2021)

When's the official announcement?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 14, 2021)

Sue said:


> When's the official announcement?



6 pm.


----------



## Ranbay (Jun 14, 2021)

Anyone else only post here when they have to be in the office and "work"

Waves at everyone


----------



## LDC (Jun 14, 2021)

Anyone got any wild card hopes for the press briefing?

Personally I've got my fingers crossed for banning of all weddings forever.


----------



## LDC (Jun 14, 2021)

Why has nobody asked about rates under current restrictions, whether we need to go back to tighter restrictions, and if we stay at this level what does the modellng show re: hospitalizations and deaths?


----------



## LDC (Jun 14, 2021)

Harwood from GB News got a slot for a question, ffs.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 14, 2021)

God, he's still preaching that "confident" message. He makes it harder and harder to maintain compliance as he dangles these empty promises just beyond people's noses all the time. It's like some kid giving excuse after excuse for why his homework is late.


----------



## Cloo (Jun 14, 2021)

Well, we have daughter's Bat Mitzvah on 26th, having delayed from last year - a date we were given well before this Freedom Day bullshit. Johnson is huffling and pfeffeling about some kind of extra numbers allowed for family dos, but still no clue what this means. I think the service remains limited and I'm happy with that - the way it's done now is pretty covid safe, but higher numbers would not be.

That is if we even make it that far due to Johnson letting Delta Variant get it's grip on things - awaiting a test result from this morning after son had high temp yesterday (but fine today, so fingers crossed), but even if we make it past that, we have a week and a half in which either of our kids could get a contact and we all have to isolate and cancel the day itself, which seems not unlikely as friends and their kids are getting contacts or symptoms left, right and centre.


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why has nobody asked about rates under current restrictions, whether we need to go back to tighter restrictions, and if we stay at this level what does the modellng show re: hospitalizations and deaths?



It sort of came up a few times, Vallance was asked about the modelling twice and did his best not to answer with any detail the questioner wanted. I think the closest he got to an answer involved how much of a push down on the peak this delay might enable.

The main theme of this downbeat press onference where Johnson was pretty subdued and disheveled was mostly a comtinuation of the themes introduced in February or whenever it was that they announced the unlocking plan. Where the main theme is to show the limits of their ambition, and how learning to live with the disease forever will mean plenty of hospitalisation and death. A world where vaccines are asked to carry almost all the weight. A demonstration of how much of the old, classic, establishment orthodox approach in this country would rebound as soon as options from the vaccination playbook were available.

They also set the scene for how awkward the July relaxation date will be, since they expect it to come at a moment where we have rather high numbers of cases, hospitalisations etc and were quite prepared to say that today.

Even if Johnson had been in a boosterish mood today, which he clearly was not, any happy sounding future featuring the old normal that he tries to conjure up is permanently in the shadow of him feeling the need to mention that a dangerous new variant could always come along and eat their homework.

Apparently part of returning us to the old normal involves not bothering to underline any of the public health messages that used to get repeated all the time in press conferences. This side of things is also mostly about vaccines only as far as they are concerned, dont bother to explain the current rules or what people should do other than get the jab. 

I suppose in many ways I see this stage as a test. A test of how much people will accept this approach. A test of how much vaccines can actually do on their own. A test of their ability to hold their nerve with this attempt to get away with a return to the old attitudes. Even if one of more of these things fail again this time, they will surely try again with the same shit next time. 

I dont know how many times this country will be prepared to go round that loop before either finally reaching the establishments choice of destination, or giving up and trying something else. I dont know as we'll ever find out where the limit of peoples political patience is to be found, especially given the unknowns about the size of hospitalisation and death wave we face this time, let alone what happens far beyond that point, whether the cycle repeats yet again at a scale that cant be coped with in the absence of restrictions. In theory there will only be a finite number of times that they can try this approach before people decide that something else, even something currently considered unrealistic, offers an alternative way out and is worth a try. 

But they may eventually get their way some cycles before we reach that point, hard to say due to unknowns regarding how much room variants have to keep spoiling the immunity etc picture. eg if mutants keep pissing on their parade, eventually even stuff like zero Covid (or at least low covid, controlled covid, properly controlled borders) might start to sound like the common sense approach to a far wider range of people. Or maybe the virus evolution realities will be more forgiving and this new wave will be the last one for ages that is big enough to exceed the levels government think can be coped with.


----------



## LDC (Jun 14, 2021)

I left before all the questions had been done, I just thought that was the obvious first one with the current rate increase and no tightening planned.


----------



## LDC (Jun 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> They also set the scene for how awkward the July relaxation date will be, since they expect it to come at a moment where we have rather high numbers of cases, hospitalisations etc and were quite prepared to say that today.



Yeah I thought was an interesting moment. The July date is going to be very difficult, rates are clearly going to be high, unknown about deaths but could easily be hundreds daily (or on the way to that) I'd have thought. Is it really going to be possible to plough forward with more loosening with that going on? On the other hand I do think people are going to be very unhappy to go backwards, and I'm not sure they'll try. But I know people do buckle and change when things get bad, and compliance is generally good, so maybe...


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I left before all the questions had been done, I just thought that was the obvious first one with the current rate increase and no tightening planned.



At this particular moment I wasnt that surprised or bothered that this didnt become the main angle of the press questioning. Because its clear that at this stage Johnson is mostly at the same point Sturgeon was a while back, prepared to pause but still to dismiss talk of going backwards for now. The 'not going backwards' thing will be a line they stick to for a while to come, and the results of trying to probe them on this will be very dull as a result. There will be ongoing nervousness from experts, the press and inside government as data about the trajectory ahead accumulates. We will probably notice if a time comes when they have to start abandoning that line, just as Johnsons line up until recently about 'not having seen anything in the data to suggest the need to delay' eventually gave way to something much less assured.


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah I thought was an interesting moment. The July date is going to be very difficult, rates are clearly going to be high, unknown about deaths but could easily be hundreds daily (or on the way to that) I'd have thought. Is it really going to be possible to plough forward with more loosening with that going on? On the other hand I do think people are going to be very unhappy to go backwards, and I'm not sure they'll try. But I know people do buckle and change when things get bad, and compliance is generally good, so maybe...



Another thing that will be part of that mix, that we already know via what they were prepared to acknowledge as part of todays performance, is that they will point out the looming school holidays and the effect those can have. They will probably also consider themselves lucky if we can get all the way through to that stage in July without having to reimpose some sorts of restrictions before we even get to that date.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 14, 2021)

It appears the public are behind the delay in the last stage of unlocking.



> A YouGov snap poll today shows that 71% of English people support this delay, with 41% saying they "strongly” support it.
> 
> Only a quarter (24%) of those living in England oppose the delay, with 14% saying they "strongly” oppose the decision.
> 
> There is widespread support across all social groups, but there is a big divide by age – the older you are, the more likely you are to support the delay. Eight in ten (81%) of those aged 65 or older say they are supportive, as do 77% of those aged 50-64, falling to 66% of those aged 25-49, and down to 54% of those aged 18-24.











						Seven in ten English people support delaying the 21 June lockdown lifting by four weeks  | YouGov
					

A YouGov snap poll today shows that 71% of English people support this delay, with 41% saying they  strongly” support it.




					yougov.co.uk


----------



## muscovyduck (Jun 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah I thought was an interesting moment. The July date is going to be very difficult, rates are clearly going to be high, unknown about deaths but could easily be hundreds daily (or on the way to that) I'd have thought. Is it really going to be possible to plough forward with more loosening with that going on? On the other hand I do think people are going to be very unhappy to go backwards, and I'm not sure they'll try. But I know people do buckle and change when things get bad, and compliance is generally good, so maybe...


People suddenly get a lot more pro-lockdown every time the gov bring out a new round of business grants, which makes sense because most the vocal and agressive anti-lockdown types round here at least are entitled small business owning types or adjacent. Don't think there's been any of the business grants for a good few months now and the government changed the phrasing of the last ones to "re-start grant" or some other bullshit.


----------



## elbows (Jun 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It appears the public are behind the delay in the last stage of unlocking.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Before the press conference even the rancid GB News acknowledged they were getting a lot of feedback in favour of delay. And then immediately proceeded to find a bunch of comments that were not happy about it to read instead. I doubt I will be spending much time checking their stance on the pandemic in future.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jun 14, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I wish there would be more of a crackdown on masks. I had a horrible journey yesterday with multiple individuals and groups of people without masks. And no, I don't accept that they are all medically exempt. There was an effort in New Street station with staff handing masks out, but I'd say around 50% of people there didn't bother at all.



The really piss poor approach to mask wearing will be my enduring memory of this pandemic. I've worked all the way through this in a small convenience store. While lots of people have been good with wearing masks, so many people haven't.

Unfortunately, it's more or less destroyed my attitude to the public. I used to be pretty tolerant and compassionate now I have days where I really despise people and it's all because of this. I've really seen just how many people, particularly blokes, are just complete and utter arrogant cunts who really do not give a fuck about anyone else apart from themselves. Nearly every single non masker has been some brain dead, knuckle dragging fuckwit scratching his bollocks. I've had plenty of rows and cross words throughout. So many arseholes tell me they're exempt because of their asthma or whatever whilst buying tobacco. It's been bloody awful. I used to enjoy my job but I hate it now and can't wait to piss off travelling for several months whenever I'm able to.

What really boils my piss about it is the complete lack of concern or respect for people working in places like mine. My mum works in ASDA and her mental health has really suffered from people abusing her and not wearing masks. A woman in her 60s being called a cunt for not allowing people to buy more than the limit on certain items.

 All of this as a result of the utter shower governing us with this 'use ya common sense' approach... To a fucking pathogen, common sense. Repeated plagues on all their houses. I'd happily have gone all authoritarian on this shit like many EU countries did. No form explaining why you're outside in lockdown? £200 fine. No mask without a good enough reason? £200 fine.

Just to add it has been bloody terrifying working throughout. I say it affected my mum's mental health but it's affected mine too, I haven't been quite right for months truth be told. I'm just so, so, so relieved to have been double vaccinated now. I feel it protects me more from the arrogant than it does from the virus.


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 14, 2021)

I posted on another thread but at least 30% at Sainsbury’s tonight weren’t wearing mask, I spotted only one exemption lanyard. The chap on the door reckoned everyone else had exemption cards but I found it hard to believe - particularly when groups of 3 or 4 maskless people are shopping together.

I only go to Sainsbury’s for things I can’t get in Aldi like ginger beer and rice pudding pots. Thankfully Aldi seems much better and I can be in and out in 15 minutes due to a smaller footprint.


----------



## Sue (Jun 14, 2021)

What's this reviewing after two weeks bollocks? Trying to hedge their bets/inviting all this premature speculation yet again is just nonsense.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jun 14, 2021)

Sue said:


> What's this reviewing after two weeks bollocks? Trying to hedge their bets/inviting all this premature speculation yet again is just nonsense.



dunno

2 weeks notice (to postpone again) would be better than 1 week's notice, if that's what they are thinking

that's probably me being charitable though...


----------



## miss direct (Jun 14, 2021)

Anyone else due their second jab, try logging on to the NHS page. Previously I couldn't get any dates till August and didn't book, as may be working away. Logged on tonight and managed to get an appointment for the middle of July, exactly 8 weeks after my first jab.


----------



## Sue (Jun 14, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> dunno
> 
> 2 weeks notice (to postpone again) would be better than 1 week's notice, if that's what they are thinking
> 
> that's probably me being charitable though...


It sounded like in two weeks, they were thinking things might be better so they'd pull the July date back but maybe I misunderstood.


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 14, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Anyone else due their second jab, try logging on to the NHS page. Previously I couldn't get any dates till August and didn't book, as may be working away. Logged on tonight and managed to get an appointment for the middle of July, exactly 8 weeks after my first jab.


I can’t get anything sooner for Devon but can get it 2 weeks earlier  in Berkshire and I’m up there that weekend anyway.

But I’ve got the dentist and then seeing friends for drinks. This may not be the best time to have a bad reaction?


----------



## T & P (Jun 15, 2021)

Looking at tomorrow’s front pages, I wonder not for the first time… Is there any other country in the world so obsessed with the eventual end date of restrictions as the most important issue to worry about the pandemic? And furthermore, to describe such development as ‘freedom’?

I get individual members of the public spouting such shit on social media, but this is most of the mainstream press ffs.

Fuck people dying or being seriously ill. Fuck the very basic concept of making temporary small sacrifices for the greater good. Apparently we’ve been prisoners of some sort, our basic freedoms stamped on in the most appalling way. Never mind that this country has enjoyed one of the most permissive set of restrictions anywhere.

Fuck off already with pretending your freedom is being infringed you selfish cunts


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 15, 2021)

40 kids and staff sent home from my school yesterday because they're close contacts with someone who got a positive lateral flow test.

We were within a gnat's bollock of complete elimination around here (Devon) before the most recent rule changes and the half term break when the world and his mum got in their cars and drove down here


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## SpookyFrank (Jun 15, 2021)

T & P said:


> Looking at tomorrow’s front pages, I wonder not for the first time… Is there any other country in the world so obsessed with the eventual end date of restrictions as the most important issue to worry about the pandemic? And furthermore, to describe such development as ‘freedom’?
> 
> I get individual members of the public spouting such shit on social media, but this is most of the mainstream press ffs.
> 
> ...



Are we obsessed or is it just the papers? General mood among people I talk to is it's better to have 'freedom' kicked down the road a bit than risk losing it again altogether, and pissing away everything we've already done to control spread, get people vaccinated etc.


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## Sue (Jun 15, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Are we obsessed or is it just the papers? General mood among people I talk to is it's better to have 'freedom' kicked down the road a bit than risk losing it again altogether, and pissing away everything we've already done to control spread, get people vaccinated etc.


This absolutely. This 'Freedom Day' narrative/bullshit is seriously doing my head in.


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## redsquirrel (Jun 15, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Are we obsessed or is it just the papers? General mood among people I talk to is it's better to have 'freedom' kicked down the road a bit than risk losing it again altogether, and pissing away everything we've already done to control spread, get people vaccinated etc.


It's the papers - see cupid_stunt's post - a large majority of people support the delay. And in general throughout the whole situation people have been far more supportive of lockdowns and other restrictions than the papers, loudmouths and politicians.


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## redsquirrel (Jun 15, 2021)

Even back in mid-May the public were more cautious than the wankers in media/parliament 
Ok a plurality thought the speed of opening up was about right but about a third of people felt it was too fast (2.5 times as many as felt it was going too slow). 

'Freedom Day', the removal of restrictions, travel all this crap is being pushed by capital and states not by workers.


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## kabbes (Jun 15, 2021)

Actually, fuck it


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## sparkybird (Jun 15, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> The really piss poor approach to mask wearing will be my enduring memory of this pandemic. I've worked all the way through this in a small convenience store. While lots of people have been good with wearing masks, so many people haven't.
> 
> Unfortunately, it's more or less destroyed my attitude to the public. I used to be pretty tolerant and compassionate now I have days where I really despise people and it's all because of this. I've really seen just how many people, particularly blokes, are just complete and utter arrogant cunts who really do not give a fuck about anyone else apart from themselves. Nearly every single non masker has been some brain dead, knuckle dragging fuckwit scratching his bollocks. I've had plenty of rows and cross words throughout. So many arseholes tell me they're exempt because of their asthma or whatever whilst buying tobacco. It's been bloody awful. I used to enjoy my job but I hate it now and can't wait to piss off travelling for several months whenever I'm able to.
> 
> ...


I'm so sorry to hear how you and your mum have both been so badly affected by those selfish people.
Thank you for posting this.
I do hope you get to go travelling soon.
Virtual hugs to you and your mum.


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## LDC (Jun 15, 2021)

My prediction for this morning is they won't roll back restrictions between now and July, and they will loosen things on the July date (with possibly some token things staying), and then that'll be it - with their excuse that the vaccine offers good protection and that everyone's been offered a dose and we need to 'live with the virus'.


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## Chilli.s (Jun 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> and they will loosen things on the July date


Quite likely, the school/university holidays will be on by then and that always seems to lessen transmission


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## LDC (Jun 15, 2021)

Chilli.s said:


> Quite likely, the school/university holidays will be on by then and that always seems to lessen transmission



Yeah, that's one of the things they're hoping will bring things down a bit I expect. That and good weather and so people being outside more. 

Would 'love' to sit in on one of those meeting where they're like, 'How about 200 people dead a day? Think that's something we can work with and get the public to be OK with?'


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## strung out (Jun 15, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Anyone else due their second jab, try logging on to the NHS page. Previously I couldn't get any dates till August and didn't book, as may be working away. Logged on tonight and managed to get an appointment for the middle of July, exactly 8 weeks after my first jab.


Thanks for this - just got mine brought forward to mid-June. 

Am 37 years old with Pfizer if that makes any difference.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jun 15, 2021)

sparkybird said:


> I'm so sorry to hear how you and your mum have both been so badly affected by those selfish people.
> Thank you for posting this.
> I do hope you get to go travelling soon.
> Virtual hugs to you and your mum.


Thank you 🙂


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## wtfftw (Jun 15, 2021)

strung out said:


> Thanks for this - just got mine brought forward to mid-June.
> 
> Am 37 years old with Pfizer if that makes any difference.


It's not working for Chemistry. He's 39. Would really prefer him to be up to full strength as he's a fucking teacher.


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## wtfftw (Jun 15, 2021)

I guess luckily he's had previous infection and pfizer so hopefully that really is enough.


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## strung out (Jun 15, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> It's not working for Chemistry. He's 39. Would really prefer him to be up to full strength as he's a fucking teacher.


That's annoying. I've just recommended it to friends who have had Moderna, AZ and Pfizer, who have all been able to book. Maybe have a play with venues? My closest venue still only had 12 weeks, but the main hub had 8 weeks.


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## brogdale (Jun 15, 2021)

Hmmm


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## souljacker (Jun 15, 2021)

How can you change the appointment? Manage my bookings doesn't offer the chance to move it on the NHS site.

I now know loads of people who are much younger than me who have had or are getting their second jab before mine! We are in a surge area too.


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## quimcunx (Jun 15, 2021)

Cancel then rebook.


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## souljacker (Jun 15, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Cancel then rebook.


Really? That doesn't seem to make sense.


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## strung out (Jun 15, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Really? That doesn't seem to make sense.


Whether or not it makes sense, that's definitely how you do it


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## souljacker (Jun 15, 2021)

strung out said:


> Whether or not it makes sense, that's definitely how you do it


Only date I can have when I rebook is a week after my appointment I just cancelled FFS!


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## souljacker (Jun 15, 2021)

I would strongly discourage people from using the cancel and rebook method. Rather than moving my second jab up, I've now got it a day later than my previous appointment at a time that means I'll need to take time off work.


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## quimcunx (Jun 15, 2021)

try some different locations? 

Sorry, most people have managed to bring theirs forward by a fair bit!


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## souljacker (Jun 15, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> try some different locations?
> 
> Sorry, most people have managed to bring theirs forward by a fair bit!


All the other locations were miles away. One was Gatwick lol.


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## BassJunkie (Jun 15, 2021)

I cancelled mine on the 30th June and got it on the 9th of June instead. But yeah, doesn't make sense.


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## glitch hiker (Jun 15, 2021)

I don't see how things can really change much in four weeks and am getting bloody fed up with the nauseating 'freedom day' culture. As soon as that happens the country is going to go nuts as people it seems believe that either side of that border is the polar opposite of the other. One day we go from having the vrus to everything's ok let's party!

As for masks. I completely agree with the comment above about masks in shops. Our local shops even had an outbreak. The butchers had to close for a couple of weeks and another shop was running half staffed because people were having to isolate. People rely on those shops, but the bakery inbetween still had all the _blokey blokes _not wearing masks (not all of them obv.) and another shop, on the main road, which has mainly passing trade, continually has people rocking up not bothering.

If staff can wear a mask all day, then ffs...


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## kabbes (Jun 15, 2021)

Cheers — the kabbess managed to bring her second jab forward 9 days, to 6 Aug.  43y/o, Pfizer.


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## Elpenor (Jun 15, 2021)

souljacker said:


> All the other locations were miles away. One was Gatwick lol.


I was looking at Pfizer options in the Reading area out of curiosity and could see only see a chemist in Wokingham and Basingstoke fire station.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

Chilli.s said:


> Quite likely, the school/university holidays will be on by then and that always seems to lessen transmission



They even acknowledged that a couple of times in the press conference.


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## xenon (Jun 15, 2021)

strung out said:


> That's annoying. I've just recommended it to friends who have had Moderna, AZ and Pfizer, who have all been able to book. Maybe have a play with venues? My closest venue still only had 12 weeks, but the main hub had 8 weeks.



You still in Bristol?
Mine is 26th July, pfizer, I’m 45. Don’t want to risk rebooking. It’s already changed twice, not at my behest.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My prediction for this morning is they won't roll back restrictions between now and July, and they will loosen things on the July date (with possibly some token things staying), and then that'll be it - with their excuse that the vaccine offers good protection and that everyone's been offered a dose and we need to 'live with the virus'.



Yes they have made no secret of the fact that 'learning to live with the virus' very much includes 'learning to die with the virus'.

I cannot offer a prediction about them being forced to reimpose some restrictions that have already been eased, because it depends on the numbers. There are scenarios where especially bad data will force them to act, just as happened in the past. But I dont know if things will deteriorate that quickly or not.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

Sue said:


> It sounded like in two weeks, they were thinking things might be better so they'd pull the July date back but maybe I misunderstood.



Thats why they included the earlier review, yes. They've done this before, eg first lockdown - they initially made it pretty clear it would last at least 12 weeks but then had to add some bullshit about reviewing it after 4 weeks, even though they knew there was no real prospect of things looking better within that timeframe.

This time Johnson rather diminished any hope that could be pinned to the earlier date by saying stuff like 'like be realistic folks' when mentioning it, downplaying the prospects that things will be rosier by then. Because they expect things to be worse by then, not better.


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## LDC (Jun 15, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Really? That doesn't seem to make sense.



It does from a booking admin perspective that is trying to reduce the number of missed and fucked-up appointments. If people book and then are expected to cancel a certain amount will never cancel wasting slots and reducing overall numbers that can get appointments.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jun 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It does from a booking admin perspective that is trying to reduce the number of missed and fucked-up appointments. If people book and then are expected to cancel a certain amount will never cancel wasting slots and reducing overall numbers that can get appointments.


It's still a crap way of doing it, making people gamble. A bit of coding that automatically cancels one appointment when you book another could have been possible.


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## LDC (Jun 15, 2021)

Yeah I think it's clear the 2 week review think was something he stuck in for his backbench or something similar. It's clearly bollocks, although I've already heard some people talk about how the restrictions might get lifted in 2 weeks when things 'look better'.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> It's the papers - see cupid_stunt's post - a large majority of people support the delay. And in general throughout the whole situation people have been far more supportive of lockdowns and other restrictions than the papers, loudmouths and politicians.



Several things motivate the papers - all their usual shit, but also the effect the pandemic has had on their sales. Even without this factor the likes of the fucking Daily Mail would still have ranted about the disgrace of people working from home last summer, but all those office workers etc not buying their shitty paper on the way to work gave them additional impetus to pursue this deadly angle.


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## LDC (Jun 15, 2021)

littlebabyjesus said:


> It's still a crap way of doing it, making people gamble. A bit of coding that automatically cancels one appointment when you book another could have been possible.



Have you come across the NHS IT systems before? Cutting edge 2004 technology. We're lucky we can do it online and not by fax.


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## killer b (Jun 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My prediction for this morning is they won't roll back restrictions between now and July, and they will loosen things on the July date (with possibly some token things staying), and then that'll be it - with their excuse that the vaccine offers good protection and that everyone's been offered a dose and we need to 'live with the virus'.


I'm sure they'd love to do this - would always have loved to do this. The only issue is 'can this be done without hospitals being overwhelmed', which is something that's actually out of their control. If it looks like it can't be - then the brakes will be back on again.


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## sojourner (Jun 15, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Only date I can have when I rebook is a week after my appointment I just cancelled FFS!


That's why I didn't chance it, and just stayed with the appt I had. Sorry to hear that.


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## platinumsage (Jun 15, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Hmmm




Neither of you read the foot note or noticed the alternative figure 2? It's because the original figure contained data that might be used to identify individuals.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Hmmm




I will spend a chunk of today looking at the modelling.

I'm not that shocked that they've redacted some of it - same reason that Vallance was dodging questions about how many hospitalisations their modelling implied in yesterdays press conference.

In the past waves I didnt see such redactions, but thats in great part because they tended not to release stuff like that to the public within a reasonable timeframe at all. And the stuff that was available tended to be vaguer, eg modelling certain scenarios of what would happen if we did not act at all, rather than what was expected to happen if we did act according to the governments plan.

It would be nice to think that there will be a big stink about this that forces them to release the hidden info, but having seen how prepared the press were to overlook certain things previously in this pandemic, I have my doubts. I'll do some digging when I get a spare hour.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Jun 15, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Cancel then rebook.





LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Have you come across the NHS IT systems before? Cutting edge 2004 technology. We're lucky we can do it online and not by fax.


Fax would probably have worked better...
Tried to rebook for a friend, at the "manage your appointment" part where you are to cancel it took me straight to "book an appointment" and when at the end I had selected a new one and validated the choice it magically brought me back to the start page of the process, 3 times in a row...
Never got the confirmations I had asked for either so gave up on it, will take her to her original appointment.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Neither of you read the foot note or noticed the alternative figure 2? It's because the original figure contained data that might be used to identify individuals.



I havent read any of the released documents yet, I'll be sure to let you know whether I think your explanation covers everything when I've had a chance to read stuff for myself.


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## LDC (Jun 15, 2021)

killer b said:


> I'm sure they'd love to do this - would always have loved to do this. The only issue is 'can this be done without hospitals being overwhelmed', which is something that's actually out of their control. If it looks like it can't be - then the brakes will be back on again.



Yeah, I have massive concerns with NHS capacity in a number of areas. Even if deaths were low, but infections were at a high level things could get very messed up very quickly in a number of areas and hospitals are only one of those.

People I know working in various other areas of medicine are very busy with confirmed covid, likely covid, not likely covid but needs checking, people avoiding hospital due to fears but then presenting to other services inappropriately, people suffering from things that have got worse as they've not been able to see their GP, people anxious after vaccine, people anxious generally, etc.

I also know that plenty of staff are off sick, both with symptoms, post-covid symptoms, other illnesses, stress, and also being fucking fed up.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Neither of you read the foot note or noticed the alternative figure 2? It's because the original figure contained data that might be used to identify individuals.



By the way I know that with previous modelling you werent very impressed with the vaccine effectiveness percentages they used. So I'd be keen to hear what you think of the figures the different universities have used this time, when trying to take account of the Delta variant.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

Since I've started to read the new SAGE documents about the modelling, I will pluck out a few bits to quote here in the coming hours.



> This exponential growth in cases will accelerate as people have more social contact (including more riskier contacts), particularly if Step 4 is taken on 21st June. This increase will continue to quicken until either a) behaviours spontaneously change in response to the resurgence, b) policy changes or c) a build-up in immunity (acquired either through vaccination or by infection) means the epidemic starts to grow more slowly and eventually shrink.





> The delta variant is highly transmissible. Whilst the precise herd immunity threshold cannot be calculated, an R0 of 7 would require over 80% of all people (not just adults) to be immune for herd immunity to be reached and for the epidemic to begin to shrink without further measures. Younger adults play a disproportionately large role in transmission but have not yet been vaccinated.





> Whilst highly effective, vaccines do not provide perfect protection against infection and so more than 80% of the population need to be either vaccinated or infected to prevent ongoing long chains of transmission. Despite the success of the vaccine rollout, without behavioural change, the growth in cases will increase for many more weeks.







__





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					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 15, 2021)

Vaccines to be available to all adults from later this week apparently.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Neither of you read the foot note or noticed the alternative figure 2? It's because the original figure contained data that might be used to identify individuals.



OK I've read that document now, I see that unlike what I said earlier, the redacted thing relates to data concerning what has already happened, not future projections.

I'll tell you exactly why I think it was redacted and it involves 3 letters. JBC. The Joint Biosecurity Centre has been extremely secretive so far, I dont think I've ever seen and detailed output from it made public in the pandemic so far. It is way less open than SAGE etc. I would have ranted more about this but its hard to know what sort of info they've been sitting on during their existence so far since its relatively rare for their name to even come up and the press havent gotten stuck into this.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

My conclusion from reading that document giving a summary of recent modelling is that right now they are stuck in the same sort of position as me. There is great uncertainty about level of hospitalisations and deaths, they dont know if the peak is going to be better or worse than the last waves peak.



> Figure 4 shows the results of the groups’ central scenarios7. In all instances, the confidence intervals indicate that under these particular sets of assumptions, a peak in hospital admissions that is either higher or lower than that of January 2021 is plausible.





> This shows that, while there is a significant resurgence in admissions in all scenarios, the scale of that resurgence is highly uncertain and ranges from considerably smaller than January 2021 to considerably higher. The difference between the optimistic and cautious effectiveness assumptions leads to a factor of three difference in the peak height; between 20% additional and 20% less transmission advantage leads to a factor of five difference.
> 
> As results are so sensitive to these assumptions, SPI-M-O cannot determine with confidence whether taking Step 4 of the Roadmap on 21st June would result in a peak that might put unsustainable pressure on the NHS.



School summer holidays get a mention:



> Models assume that transmission will be significantly reduced during the school summer holidays and so a delay of four weeks that moves further relaxations into this time period has a particularly large effect.



My attempt to insert the relevant charts may end up a bit large so I'm sticking it in a spoiler tag.



Spoiler


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## platinumsage (Jun 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> By the way I know that with previous modelling you werent very impressed with the vaccine effectiveness percentages they used. So I'd be keen to hear what you think of the figures the different universities have used this time, when trying to take account of the Delta variant.



Again all three models used hospitalisation assumptions much lower than the 92%/96% figures published yesterday.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Again all three models used hospitalisation assumptions much lower than the 92%/96% figures published yesterday.



I've got information overload at the moment, where are the 92%/96% figures to be found? Cheers.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)




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## strung out (Jun 15, 2021)

xenon said:


> You still in Bristol?
> Mine is 26th July, pfizer, I’m 45. Don’t want to risk rebooking. It’s already changed twice, not at my behest.


Yeah, rebooked at Ashton Gate for 14th July. I hadn't actually booked a second appointment, so I didn't need to cancel it to bring mine forward.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> OK I've read that document now, I see that unlike what I said earlier, the redacted thing relates to data concerning what has already happened, not future projections.
> 
> I'll tell you exactly why I think it was redacted and it involves 3 letters. JBC. The Joint Biosecurity Centre has been extremely secretive so far, I dont think I've ever seen and detailed output from it made public in the pandemic so far. It is way less open than SAGE etc. I would have ranted more about this but its hard to know what sort of info they've been sitting on during their existence so far since its relatively rare for their name to even come up and the press havent gotten stuck into this.



An example of a reply on twitter to Christinas redaction question.


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## platinumsage (Jun 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> I've got information overload at the moment, where are the 92%/96% figures to be found? Cheers.











						Vaccines highly effective against hospitalisation from Delta variant
					

New analysis by PHE shows for the first time that 2 doses of COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective against hospitalisation from the Delta (B.1.617.2) variant.




					www.gov.uk


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## platinumsage (Jun 15, 2021)

I haven’t seen any rationale for the hospitalisation rates used in models, or any reasoning as to why they should always be lower than what I would consider a reasonable assumption to be at the time of preparing the model.

Certainly if I was a modeller I’d want my output to predict a range of scenarios from “we don’t need to do anything” through to “we need to take serious measures to protect the NHS”. That way, I wouldn’t be able to be wrong. If I picked a protection from hospitalisation rate that was too high, and all my scenarios were consequently unalarming, I’d be worried about the blame if things turned out worse.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

Thanks very much for the info.

Regarding timing and which estimates they use, I note that SAGE discussed those modelling results on 9th June and although I havent read the individual models papers yet, they were tending to use real data up to dates like 1st June and 4th June. The hospitalisation estimates you helpfully pointed me to were ony published yesterday, and I dont know exactly when that analysis was completed or how much advanced sight of those estimates the modellers had, if any. Although I do note that the data used for that also went up to June 4th.

I note that the ranges their vaccine hospitalisation estimates involved are really still quite large. So its more stuff where a 'wait for more data' approach is required in order to increase my confidence that the estimates remain valid. eg 2nd dose Pfizer range of 86-99% and 2nd dose AZ range of 75-97%.

A couple of tables from the main analysis document and the supplimental document. I'll stick them in spoiler tags again due to potential size of these images (as I'm having some hi res display issues when taking screenshots)



Spoiler








From the two documents at Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against hospital admission with the Delta variant - Public library - PHE national - Knowledge Hub


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## thismoment (Jun 15, 2021)

strung out said:


> Thanks for this - just got mine brought forward to mid-June.
> 
> Am 37 years old with Pfizer if that makes any difference.


I had Moderna end of May and have the second one in August. Really want to move it forward but I’m worried that if I cancel I’ll end up rebooking for even later.


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## thismoment (Jun 15, 2021)

sojourner said:


> That's why I didn't chance it, and just stayed with the appt I had. Sorry to hear that.


That’s put me off changing mine too. Oh well, I’ll just be grateful that I have a second appointment booked


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## strung out (Jun 15, 2021)

If you're already 11 or 12 weeks between jabs, the system won't let you book one any later than that.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

I probably dont need to say much more about the modelling given the high degree of uncertainty. Will just have to wait for more real data to become avaiable int he coming weeks. I'll take the opportunity to have a break when I can, I wont be reporting on daily data every day, just when I can say something new about it.

An additional reason for me not going on about the detail of the modeeling too much at the moment:



> The modelling does not reflect preliminary estimates from PHE and PHS of a higher rate of hospitalisation of cases for the delta variant compared with the alpha variant, which are still highly uncertain.



Thats from the minutes for SAGE meeting 92 of June 9th. https://assets.publishing.service.g...nt_data/file/993387/S1284_SAGE_92_minutes.pdf

Also in that part of the minutes, they discuss how a delay will allow more data to accrue, which should reduce uncertainties they have about the effects of proceeding with step 4. Then they make a brief reference to reimposing measures:



> Reducing uncertainty about whether there may be unsustainable pressure on the NHS also reduces the risk of needing to consider reimposing measures. Although there is a risk of unsustainable pressures even with a delay, it is much lower.


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

The previous SAGE meeting, of June 3rd makes mention of mitigation measures required to deal with the Delta variant and the rise in cases, including hospital infection control:



> The rising prevalence of the delta variant will increase the importance of mitigation measures. If the infectious dose were lower for this variant, this might increase the relative importance of measures to reduce the risk of airborne transmission, in particular (e.g., ventilation). Measures to reduce the risk of nosocomial transmission are crucial and will become increasingly important as COVID-19 hospital admissions increase. Updated guidance has recently been published on this and now needs to be implemented within the NHS.







__





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					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)




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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

Although I look at various vaccination stats I dont attempt to do my own sums about supply and rates needed to meet announced targets. This guy does and he reckons the targets they laid out yesterday involve a quite pathetic rate of vaccination compared to what we've been able to deliver previously. I lack the means to check his sums.





There are other tweets of his that go into more detail and I think he does vaccination weekly figure projections on there too.


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## LDC (Jun 15, 2021)

I worked at a vaccine clinic today as have been for a 5 months or so. Was doing 2 clinics a week for ages, last 2 months they've been fortnightly, and today's was the penultimate one, with the last one in 2 weeks.

I asked how this was the case when more people are going to need jabbing, especially now it's been opened up to over-18s and plenty still need second doses. Was told they're going to the local large NHS hub as GPs can't manage it anymore. Except have also been told that the local large NHS hub is mostly closing as it's being used for sporting stuff (as it's a football stadium). Plus boosters are not far off I expect...


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## Supine (Jun 15, 2021)




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## Supine (Jun 15, 2021)

Great thread on how the next wave is looking


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## elbows (Jun 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I worked at a vaccine clinic today as have been for a 5 months or so. Was doing 2 clinics a week for ages, last 2 months they've been fortnightly, and today's was the penultimate one, with the last one in 2 weeks.
> 
> I asked how this was the case when more people are going to need jabbing, especially now it's been opened up to over-18s and plenty still need second doses. Was told they're going to the local large NHS hub as GPs can't manage it anymore. Except have also been told that the local large NHS hub is mostly closing as it's being used for sporting stuff (as it's a football stadium). Plus boosters are not far off I expect...



Thanks for the examples on this side of things. I did find myself writing on another thread recently about some of the vaccination centres in my town that are on reduced hours or have/will soon be shutting up as some of the venues return to normal use. I much preferred the couple of times I got to write about pop up vaccination centres that were active on a handful of days some weeks ago now, when this was one of the places undergoing durge testing for the Delta variant. Both because they were popular and were reaching some people the main system didnt, and because more choice and capacity is obviously more pleasurable to talk about than reductions at a crucial time.


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## LDC (Jun 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Thanks for the examples on this side of things. I did find myself writing on another thread recently about some of the vaccination centres in my town that are on reduced hours or have/will soon be shutting up as some of the venues return to normal use. I much preferred the couple of times I got to write about pop up vaccination centres that were active on a handful of days some weeks ago now, when this was one of the places undergoing durge testing for the Delta variant. Both because they were popular and were reaching some people the main system didnt, and because more choice and capacity is obviously more pleasurable to talk about than reductions at a crucial time.



Yeah, sometimes a view 'on the ground' (as it were) is short sighted or too focused on the job in hand with no decent overview, and I'm more than happy for that to be the case here with what I posted above, but nobody I have come across seems to be able to answer what the medium and long term vaccination plan is for getting millions more people done.

Hopefully someone clever in an office somewhere has a national overview and it's all in hand...


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I worked at a vaccine clinic today as have been for a 5 months or so. Was doing 2 clinics a week for ages, last 2 months they've been fortnightly, and today's was the penultimate one, with the last one in 2 weeks.
> 
> I asked how this was the case when more people are going to need jabbing, especially now it's been opened up to over-18s and plenty still need second doses. Was told they're going to the local large NHS hub as GPs can't manage it anymore. Except have also been told that the local large NHS hub is mostly closing as it's being used for sporting stuff (as it's a football stadium). Plus boosters are not far off I expect...



Whereabouts is your vaccine clinic?


----------



## LDC (Jun 15, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Whereabouts is your vaccine clinic?



Northern England city, PCN clinic (so run by a number of GP surgeries).


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Northern England city, PCN clinic (so run by a number of GP surgeries).



Interesting, thanks. I work at one in Hackney, also organised and funded by a group of GP's (I think they call it a consortium).


----------



## miss direct (Jun 15, 2021)

Yeah I'm having to go to the big arena right across the city for jab 2 rather than the medical centre up the road.


----------



## Boudicca (Jun 16, 2021)

Our vaccine hub is closing for 3 weeks for a cheerleading competition.  

Except that I wonder whether that is going ahead now that unlocking has been delayed.


----------



## prunus (Jun 16, 2021)

Age limit for self-booking has dropped to 21 it seems

Book or manage your coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination


----------



## baldrick (Jun 16, 2021)

Looks like the national booking system is being updated so people can see availability of slots before they cancel and rebook an earlier vaccination


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 16, 2021)

Anyone know how this works if you've had a first jab through a GP? It seems to be set up for those who went through the big centres, is it still a case of waiting for the GP to contact you?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 16, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Anyone know how this works if you've had a first jab through a GP? It seems to be set up for those who went through the big centres, is it still a case of waiting for the GP to contact you?



I had a text from my GP inviting me to book an earlier second appointment.


----------



## MickiQ (Jun 16, 2021)

Our local main vaccination centre is (special offer today only) allowing 18+ to drop in for the their first jab. I've texted Youngest Q (aged 19) to tell her but she reckons that she is busy at work and won't be able to get there in time.
But if they're down to letting 21 years old book online then she can't be far off, hopefully she will get both before she goes off to Uni in September.


----------



## LDC (Jun 16, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Anyone know how this works if you've had a first jab through a GP? It seems to be set up for those who went through the big centres, is it still a case of waiting for the GP to contact you?



Where I work GP is texted/contacting people for their second jab, think you can book that with them via a few ways, which way seems to be a bit depending on what the GPs have got sorted or need.


----------



## strung out (Jun 16, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Anyone know how this works if you've had a first jab through a GP? It seems to be set up for those who went through the big centres, is it still a case of waiting for the GP to contact you?


You can just go in and book. I got my first jab through my GP and booked in for my second 8 weeks later via the main NHS site without waiting for a text from my GP.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 16, 2021)

First jab was just over 20 miles away, in the local market town. For all four of this household. It was located in the GP hub next to the hospital. [two GP group practices share the site]
That was closed a few weeks ago, after the main older / vulnerable cohorts had had their first and some second jabs, as the GPs wanted to get back to being GPs ...

Second jab was a mixed bag, of the older three, one got jabbed at the hub and the other two at the local GPs, using up the supply for that day - phone call was along the lines of "get thisen doown 'ere now !"
That left me waiting (again, as I'm the youngest). A couple of days later I got an invitation text, went online and was offered either the hub (but it had no appointments) or the local GP. So I went there, and got jabbed within a week of the other three.

A couple of weeks ago, I went back into the local market town for something or other and whilst driving up to the car park entrance noticed the "Vaxx clinic signd" were up again. Enquired and found that they were set up next to the GPs that had been the hub.
There had been a suggestion that the cattle market corporate suites or the leisure centre were going to be used, but the access for both of those is worse than usual atm due to nearby roadworks.

It is a good job that most of my team drive, a couple of them were offered appointments nearly two hours drive away !
[paid time off if they wanted, no need to take holiday for that sort of thing]


----------



## elbows (Jun 16, 2021)

Just a quick update for those who remember the disgraceful reporting about 'zero deaths' on June 1st.

By date of death, limited to deaths within 28 days of a positive test, the number for June 1st is 4 (3 England, one Northern Ireland).

By death certificate the latest ONS figures have the UK number for June 1st as being 9.

And if I swap Englands figure to use deaths within 60 days of a positive test instead of the 28 day limit, the UK total for June 1st is 10 (9 England, 1 Norrthern Ireland).


----------



## elbows (Jun 16, 2021)

Some London vaccination options via football stadiums:



> In north-east London, over 18s are invited to get their first dose on 19 June at West Ham's London Stadium for pre-booked appointments between 10:00 and 18:00 BST
> 
> In south-west London, Chelsea's ground will offer Pfizer vaccines to anyone eligible on 19 June between 10:00 and 19:30 BST
> 
> ...



Thats from the BBC live updates page, 14:12 entry: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57494788


----------



## elbows (Jun 16, 2021)

For some reason I can hear the voice of Jello Biafra going on about 'you will be left to fend for yourselves in the marketplace'.....



> People will need to use their judgement when it comes to decisions like wearing face coverings once restrictions are eased in England on 19 July, Public Health England's Covid-19 strategic response director has said.
> 
> Dr Susan Hopkins says it will be up to individuals to decide whether they wear face coverings in shops, but they could be mandatory in more tightly confined spaces.
> 
> ...



From the 13:42 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57494788


----------



## elbows (Jun 16, 2021)

And the latest entry on that live updates page right now:



> Mass vaccination of 12 to 17-year-old children against Covid-19 is unlikely to be recommended soon, the BBC understands - but certain groups of children may be offered a vaccine.
> 
> Official advice from the UK's vaccine committee, the JCVI, to the government is expected on Wednesday.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> For some reason I can hear the voice of Jello Biafra going on about 'you will be left to fend for yourselves in the marketplace'.....
> 
> 
> 
> From the 13:42 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57494788



The mask thing was always going to be difficult to manage, its already fading away fast.  

I know this won't be a popular opinion here but I'm pretty sceptical about their effectiveness.  I'm not questioning the science behind it more the reality of when they come up against the behaviour of people here in the UK.  Just the problems of compliance, not being worn properly, being taken down to speak etc etc - the list goes on.

People are just not wearing them nearly as much as before, even on things like poorly ventilated tube trains.  I dunno.  Unfortunately they've also become highly politicized which is never a good thing when you're talking about basic health precautions.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 16, 2021)

New cases have broken the 9k mark,  coming in at 9.055.

And, hospital admissions up to 12th June are up a whopping 41.4% on the pervious 7-day period.

Meanwhile, GB News continues to moan about 'Freedom Day' being put off for 4 weeks.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 16, 2021)

Just been looking at the national scale interactive cases map on the gov't dashboard and the daily summary.

It's gone from that nice pale green / yellow over vast swathes of the country [low cases]
to loads of blue and dark blue, meaning case rates of 100 per 100,000 or more.

Even though I'm double jabbed (well over a month ago for the second) I am starting to get anxious again.

I've gone back to carrying or wearing my high quality mask (not just the surgical ones), loads of hand-washing / sanitising and generally keeping away from people.
Our local case-rate (5 days ago) was 0-2 and i haven't heard anything to indicate a spike locally ...

But, I'm still anxious !


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 16, 2021)

Depressingly I find myself wondering if, in lieu of the official ending of restrictions next week, whether people just _will_ anyway. Not that many need an excuse to ignore social distancing/masks already.

I see we've just peaked 9k today. Bit grim really. The last time we were in double figures I was not a happy bunny


----------



## l'Otters (Jun 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> For some reason I can hear the voice of Jello Biafra going on about 'you will be left to fend for yourselves in the marketplace'.....
> 
> 
> 
> From the 13:42 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57494788


How much would Jello want for reading these announcements out I wonder. I might actually listen to them if he did.


----------



## l'Otters (Jun 16, 2021)

I’ve been wondering about the delta variant’s increased transmissibility, now that it’s dominant in this country. All the studies on routes of infection, length of exposure, setting, distance, etc were based on the “wild” variant. I upgraded my masks in January with the Kent variant because it was obvious and doable. I wouldn’t mind having some new basic figures on distance and exposure time, just for personal guidance.

On the same subject, I’m guessing the track n trace app is still basing its alerts on the transmission behaviour of a last year’s variant?


----------



## elbows (Jun 16, 2021)

For now I can only repeat what SAGE said in a meeting on June 3rd:



> The rising prevalence of the delta variant will increase the importance of mitigation measures. If the infectious dose were lower for this variant, this might increase the relative importance of measures to reduce the risk of airborne transmission, in particular (e.g., ventilation). Measures to reduce the risk of nosocomial transmission are crucial and will become increasingly important as COVID-19 hospital admissions increase. Updated guidance has recently been published on this and now needs to be implemented within the NHS.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...nt_data/file/993106/S1266_SAGE_91_Minutes.pdf

Meanwhile I am starting to see older age groups showing up in hospital admission statistics for the North West. Also starting to see increase in the figures which imply hospital transmission.


----------



## elbows (Jun 16, 2021)

eg for North West regions daily admission/diagnoses, the rise was first apparent in the very broad 18-64 category:



But is now showing up in the two age groupings above that:



Made using data obtained via the download section of the dashboard.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Meanwhile I am starting to see older age groups showing up in hospital admission statistics for the North West. Also starting to see increase in the figures which imply hospital transmission.


The signal has been there in cases for some days now eg





But it wasn't clear if this was an artefact of testing, a reflection of those in those age groups who could not be vaccinated, or inevitable immunosenescence.


----------



## elbows (Jun 16, 2021)

Yeah. What wont be clear from my graphs is how many of those hospitalised cases are people catching it in hospital.

There is some data for that but its not split by age and likely represents only a fraction of the picture. This is what I have for hospital infections in recent months anyway:



Made by subtracting numbers in one table from numbers in another table of the daily NHS England spreadsheet. Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## bimble (Jun 16, 2021)

I live in a very well behaved mask wearing sort of area and today noticed a little bunch of 3 non masking builders (I was in a builders merchants & a DIY shop and they went to the same 2 places at same time as me). Nobody challenged them or anything, and it’s just a feeling but I think, a short while ago, they would have, screwfix used to be really on the case right from the start last year. I feel like people are just bored & exhausted.


----------



## elbows (Jun 16, 2021)




----------



## Riklet (Jun 16, 2021)

Buildery blokes and people doing manual jobs are definitely less cautious IME... probably cos theyve been working the whole way through and are used to it. Thats my observation of round here anyway.

One plumber brazenly walked into my mums house without his mask on all "it's ok love I've got anibodies". Wanker.

So bad the Cornwall stats. Def G7 but also all the holiday makers too nuh?


----------



## elbows (Jun 16, 2021)

Meanwhile in some parts of the North West they have activated plans to move some patients to other hospitals. This is a combination of covid and non-covid pressures, plus attempts to keep routine surgery etc going and deal with hospital infections.









						Hospital at centre of Covid surge appeals for help from nearby trusts as critical care beds fill up
					

Exclusive: Hospital patient numbers up 30 per cent in two weeks across England, new data shows




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 16, 2021)

Also if it's been hot weather and you're sweating your mask can get wet then pointless.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 16, 2021)

elbows said:


>





Yep St Ives (thank you G7) and around Falmouth-to-Helston


----------



## elbows (Jun 16, 2021)

So about 60 fuckwits in parliament voted agains the delay. I havent looked for a list of names yet but I think its fairly safe to presume Philip Davies is one of them.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 16, 2021)

scientific method is communism I'm glad he cleared that up


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 16, 2021)

Philip Davies has been quiet recently, I remarked to myself the other day...

Twat


----------



## 2hats (Jun 16, 2021)

Surprised he trusts the vaccine created by communists. Surely doesn't want it contaminating his precious bodily fluids?


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 16, 2021)

elbows said:


>



Probably too early for G7 to have had a full impact? Half term though.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 17, 2021)

Return of holidays abroad for people who are fully vaccinated



Spoiler: Article text.



Return of holidays abroad for people who are fully vaccinated
By Charles Hymas, Home Affairs Editor
16 June 2021 • 11:30pm

Double-jabbed tourists could be allowed to travel to amber list countries without quarantining under new government plans

Summer holidays abroad will be opened up for vaccinated Britons under plans being considered by the Government, The Telegraph understands.

Officials are drawing up proposals that could allow people who have had both Covid jabs to avoid having to quarantine on their return from amber list countries although they will still have to be tested.

The change would effectively turn amber countries green for the vaccinated, opening up the possibility of quarantine-free travel to most major holiday destinations in Europe and the US.

The proposals to ease the restrictions for vaccinated people are said to be at an early stage. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, who has fought for tough border restrictions, is said to be "open" to the change.

"They haven't definitely got there yet, but that's the direction of travel," a senior source told The Telegraph.

It came as Boris Johnson was attacked by Tory MPs in the Commons on Wednesday over his failure to end Covid restrictions as expected on June 21. 

On Wednesday evening, 49 Tory MPs rebelled against the Prime Minister to vote against delaying the final lifting of lockdown. Despite the rebellion, the Government won by 461 votes to 60.

A leaked memo also suggested officials were planning to keep the work from home instruction beyond the new July 19 date for the ending of restrictions. 

The plans are expected to be ready to be discussed by the Cabinet Covid operations committee within the next fortnight, potentially in advance of a June 28 deadline when ministers have pledged to review the current traffic light system for testing and quarantining travellers.

Officials are still working on whether any new regime would be limited to returning Britons or apply to all arrivals, what exemptions there could be for those who could not be vaccinated and whether children under 18 should be exempted given that they will not have been jabbed by July 19.

"It is still at an early stage and it is not clear whether it will be worked out in time for the end of the month. There is an awful lot to do. The devil is in the detail," said a source.

A government spokesman said: "Recognising the strong strategic rationale and success of the vaccine programme, we have commenced work to consider the role of vaccinations in shaping a different set of health and testing measures for inbound travel."  

Changes to the current travel regime have been urged by Tory MPs and travel chiefs who fear the UK could lose out to Europe economically as it lifts restrictions for vaccinated travellers. On Wednesday, the EU added the US and Hong Kong, key trading partners, to its "white list" for jabbed visitors to avoid tests or quarantine.  

Henry Smith, the Tory chairman of the all-party Future of Aviation group, said Britain would be an "outlier" if it did not adopt the same approach to vaccinated travellers as most other countries. 

At least 33 countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Greece, exempt vaccinated passengers from quarantine.

"If we don't do it, we will be at a significant disadvantage to our international competitors. Public health paranoia will have trumped common sense if we don't go down that route," Mr Smith said.  

Under the traffic light system, there are just 11 countries on the UK's green list – of which Iceland, Gibraltar and Israel are the only viable holiday destinations.

Anyone travelling to them is exempt from quarantine but has to have a pre-departure test followed by a PCR test on return to the UK to enable health officials to detect any variants.

As well as 10 days of quarantine, any traveller returning from an amber country currently has to have a pre-departure test, then PCR tests on days two and eight of self-isolation, with the option of a test to release on day five.

There is no date set for any change in the restrictions, although Boris Johnson has pledged to offer vaccines to all those over 18 by July 19. This would mean that by then no adult could face discrimination going abroad by not being vaccinated and having to continue to quarantine on their return.

It follows research by Public Health England (PHE), cited by the Prime Minister, which found the Pfizer vaccine was 96 per cent effective against hospitalisation with the delta Covid variant after two doses and the AstraZeneca jab 92 per cent effective.

Tony Blair, the former prime minister and an early proponent of vaccine passports, told The Telegraph on Wednesday that the Government should "bite the bullet" and introduce passports for domestic and international travel.

He said current government policy "literally makes no sense at all" in terms of the practicalities of travelling, the race to achieve herd immunity or day-to-day risk management of Covid infections.

Tim Alderslade, the chief executive of Airlines UK, said: "The welcome news from PHE that vaccines are highly effective against the delta variant following a full dose is further evidence that fully vaccinated passengers can safely be exempted from quarantine and testing restrictions from green and amber countries.

"This is already happening in Europe and across the world, and with two-thirds of UK adults expected to be fully jabbed by July 19, there is no reason why such a move cannot happen now to save the summer season and enable people to get away with their loved ones.

"This would be proportionate and data-driven and entirely consistent with the Government's approach of using our vaccine dividend to safely unlock society and get the economy moving again."

Karen Dee, the chief executive of the Airport Operators Association, said: "The UK should follow the example of the US and the EU, who are reducing restrictions for fully vaccinated travellers, and give Britons their vaccine dividend."

John Holland-Kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow Airport, said: "The Government is confident that vaccinations are effective – so surely people who have been fully vaccinated should be able to travel without the need to quarantine or take expensive tests.

"The freedom of travel will not only incentivise people in this country to get vaccinated, it will also show other countries the benefits of scaling up their vaccination programmes."

On Wednesday, Mr Hancock told MPs that he backed a system of testing as a potential alternative to self-isolation for people who may have come into contact with Covid.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 17, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Probably too early for G7 to have had a full impact? Half term though.


How many weeks ahead do you think folks rock up for planning, setup, security and secret squirrel reasons? Most likely some combination of that and the uptick in tourists.


----------



## elbows (Jun 17, 2021)

Ha ha the fucking Daily Mail reporting on their own worst nightmare.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 17, 2021)

Dr Campbell is saying that it looks like the vaccine will last for over a year.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> So about 60 fuckwits in parliament voted agains the delay. I havent looked for a list of names yet but I think its fairly safe to presume Philip Davies is one of them.




That wasn't the most insane of the lot during that debate.  I'd strongly advise against digging too deep into some of the MP's speeches.  It was like some fantasy reality that they had created for themselves.  

The conclusion I came to is that MP's are no more immune to crackpot conspiracy than anyone else.  It was just a different type of conspiracy to your 5g Bill Gates loons.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 17, 2021)

Imperial REACT-1 round 12 study findings (20 May to 7 June) suggest 0.15% of people had the virus (during the period under study). That's about twice the current 7-day rolling rate (and 4-5 times that reported, via national testing, during the study period). For context, that's over 7 times the limit set for foreign travel last summer. Infection rates were highest in under 24s.


> ...in the most recent testing round, the reproduction number (R) is *1.44*.
> 
> Most infections are happening in children and young adults, but they are rising in older people too, increasing at a similar rate in the over 50s and the under 50s.
> 
> The study found that *the link between infections, hospitalisations and deaths had been weakening since February*, suggesting infections were leading to fewer hospital admissions and deaths due to the vaccination programme. But *since late April, the trend has been reversing for hospitalisations*.











						Coronavirus infections rising exponentially in England - REACT study | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

The number of people infected with the coronavirus is increasing rapidly in England, doubling every 11 days.




					www.imperial.ac.uk
				



Preprint here. Next round of sampling runs from 26 June till 12 July, due to report around 22 July.


----------



## elbows (Jun 17, 2021)

I havent read this weeks surveillance report properly yet, but it includes some data on reinfections for the first time:



> This week, data on SARS-CoV-2 reinfections in England are being reported for the first time. 15,893 possible reinfections have been identified, of which 53 have been confirmed by identification of genetically distinct specimens from each illness episode.







			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/994577/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w24.pdf


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> New cases have broken the 9k mark,  coming in at 9.055.
> 
> And, hospital admissions up to 12th June are up a whopping 41.4% on the pervious 7-day period.


 Big jump today, 11,007 new cases.   

Hospital admissions up to 13th June, up 43% on the pervious 7-day period.


----------



## brogdale (Jun 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Big jump today, 11,007 new cases.
> 
> Hospital admissions up to 13th June, up 43% on the pervious 7-day period.




Not great.


----------



## elbows (Jun 17, 2021)

> Some of Scotland's biggest universities did not reduce the capacity of their student halls despite the need for physical distancing, the BBC has found.
> 
> A Disclosure investigation found many student halls were 100% full despite the risks of spreading Covid.
> 
> ...











						Covid in Scotland: University outbreaks were ‘accident waiting to happen’
					

A BBC investigation finds universities did not reduce capacity in halls and changed guidance on remote working.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Jun 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> Covid in Scotland: University outbreaks were ‘accident waiting to happen’
> 
> 
> A BBC investigation finds universities did not reduce capacity in halls and changed guidance on remote working.
> ...


A friend of mine used to say that "there's not such thing as 'road traffic accidents' - they're acts of driver carelesness". The same could be said of much of the UK's Covid response over the last 18 months.


----------



## miss direct (Jun 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> Covid in Scotland: University outbreaks were ‘accident waiting to happen’
> 
> 
> A BBC investigation finds universities did not reduce capacity in halls and changed guidance on remote working.
> ...


I'm not really sure why this is a surprise. Landlords/ accommodation providers are hardly going to half fill blocks if there is demand. I was in student accommodation last summer. The idea was one flat was a bubble and you weren't allowed into anyone else's. Of course in reality that's not what happens.


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 17, 2021)

existentialist said:


> A friend of mine used to say that "there's not such thing as 'road traffic accidents' - they're acts of driver carelesness".



Absolutely. That's why emergency workers call them RTC's - Road Traffic Collisions - not accidents.


----------



## zora (Jun 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Big jump today, 11,007 new cases.
> 
> Hospital admissions up to 13th June, up 43% on the pervious 7-day period.


Well this is a bit shit, isn't it? It does seem like an almost deliberate attempt at vaccine-resistant variant breeding; never mind the Wuhan lab...(I don't really think it's deliberate as such, but yeah 'careless' sounds about right...)

Not quite sure what to make of it all anymore. Is this going to end well..?

Now that I'm fully vaccinated (had second jab two weeks ago) I feel less concerned about my personal health, covid-wise, but I am beginning to find these case numbers quite stressful again, mainly due to the uncertainty they bring.
Just something as (formerly) simple and (now) utterly amazing as visiting my friend in Bristol this weekend for the first time in ages, is a bit overshadowed by worries.
Such as what if I suddenly come down with something while I'm at hers - am I supposed to invite myself to stay for 10 days of self-isolation or take the train home...? (I don't drive)
Such high cases just bring so much inconvenience and shitness for everyone having to self-isolate or quarantine as contacts (let alone the people who are still getting seriously ill!), I don't get how it's desirable.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 17, 2021)

That single purple MSOA is the uni campus area.
Coldean & Moulsecoomb NorthMSOA
Seven days to 12 June 2021​Total cases​47*






41 (683.3%)*
Case rate per 100,000 people​401.4


Also - it still really irritates me that the age demographics on the daily summary are split into neat 5 year groups. 
It might be visually easier to look at but it also, conveniently, doesn't get close to demonstrating the individual spread within pre-school, nursery, infants & juniors, secondary yrs 7-11 & sixth form, or uni years. Was all very well while they were pretending children weren't at risk/wouldn't spread it but that was, unsurprisingly, proved wrong a long time ago.
There remains a POINT in that though, I know, I know...


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 17, 2021)

zora said:


> yeah 'careless' sounds about right...



Negligent?

Corrupt?


----------



## prunus (Jun 17, 2021)

18+ year olds can now book via the nhs site. It still says 21 but they’ve changed the backend before the text. Pass it on to anyone for whom it will be useful!


----------



## baldrick (Jun 17, 2021)

prunus said:


> 18+ year olds can now book via the nhs site. It still says 21 but they’ve changed the backend before the text. Pass it on to anyone for whom it will be useful!


Thanks! Have messaged my niece


----------



## bimble (Jun 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> I havent read this weeks surveillance report properly yet, but it includes some data on reinfections for the first time:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


what the hell is going on there with women so much more likely to get a second infection ? Is it social (public -facing jobs & childcare related stuff) - or else what? 
this i mean


----------



## weepiper (Jun 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> what the hell is going on there with women so much more likely to get a second infection ? Is it social (public -facing jobs & childcare related stuff) - or else what?
> this i mean
> View attachment 273988


40-59 most likely to have teenage children? It seems to be largely spreading through high schools ATM. Plus what you said about jobs.


----------



## bimble (Jun 17, 2021)

have women just had more covid the whole time?
don't think i've ever seen infections broken down by sex tbh, only know that men seem to get worse outcomes from severe symptoms.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> have women just had more covid the whole time?
> don't think i've ever seen infections broken down by sex tbh, only know that men seem to get worse outcomes from severe symptoms.



Not any kind of an answer but I read this the other day re women and long covid and there are some bits that might be relevant, although equally, that may show something completely opposite - but just linking to it cos I thought it was interesting and you have reminded me to.









						Why are women more prone to long Covid?
					

While men over 50 tend to suffer the most acute symptoms of coronavirus, women who get long Covid outnumber men by as much as four to one




					www.theguardian.com


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## sheothebudworths (Jun 17, 2021)

zora said:


> Well this is a bit shit, isn't it? It does seem like an almost deliberate attempt at vaccine-resistant variant breeding; never mind the Wuhan lab...(I don't really think it's deliberate as such, but yeah 'careless' sounds about right...)
> 
> Not quite sure what to make of it all anymore. Is this going to end well..?
> 
> ...



I am still a bit unsettled because of having had AZ, specifically.
I do get that less time has passed to assess the effectiveness (?) of it but with the current known levels of protection a way below Pfizer etc after two doses, and working in a school, I can't say I wouldn't have preferred to have the Pfizer jab, for eg.
I am not remotely an anti-vaxxer but I do feel like the (currently) lower AZ efficacy is kind of... not spoken about much  and on a personal level, I definitely don't feel protected enough to imagine there's not much for me to worry about _currently_ (60% for Delta/66% for Alpha with AZ, two weeks after second dose, as opposed to 88% and 93% for Pfizer, iirc).
Remembering that Pfizer did start earlier though - but of course that unknown will also have a huge impact on what happens next, too.


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## Chilli.s (Jun 17, 2021)

prunus said:


> 18+ year olds can now book via the nhs site. It still says 21 but they’ve changed the backend before the text. Pass it on to anyone for whom it will be useful!


Thanks for this info,  youngun has just booked the first for sunday, very pleased


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## Supine (Jun 17, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I am still a bit unsettled because of having had AZ, specifically.
> I do get that less time has passed to assess the effectiveness (?) of it but with the current known levels of protection a way below Pfizer etc after two doses, and working in a school, I can't say I wouldn't have preferred to have the Pfizer jab, for eg.
> I am not remotely an anti-vaxxer but I do feel like the (currently) lower AZ efficiency is kind of... not spoken about much  and on a personal level, I definitely don't feel protected enough to imagine there's not much for me to worry about _currently_ (60% for Delta/66% for Alpha with AZ, two weeks after second dose, as opposed to 88% and 93% for Pfizer, iirc).
> Remembering that Pfizer did start earlier though - but of course that unknown will also have a huge impact on what happens next, too.



just remember that almost all of these % quoted are for symptomatic disease. And on average you get less symptoms if jabbed.

For all of the vaccines the chance of icu/death is almost zero after double jabs.


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## sheothebudworths (Jun 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> just remember that almost all of these % quoted are for symptomatic disease. And on average you get less symptoms if jabbed.
> 
> For all of the vaccines the chance of icu/death is almost zero after double jabs.



Yes, I really don't mean that I am walking around afraid every day - I couldn't go to work if I was! 
It is just something that is in my mind and tbh, any anxiety I have felt - all the way through - has always mostly been down to the possibility of me _spreading_ it. Working in a school and having daily contact with _hundreds_ of kids, the worry has always been around that and I don't feel significantly more secure in that respect, if that makes sense.


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## MickiQ (Jun 17, 2021)

prunus said:


> 18+ year olds can now book via the nhs site. It still says 21 but they’ve changed the backend before the text. Pass it on to anyone for whom it will be useful!


My 19 year old was actually here in this house when you posted this but I have only just read it and she has gone, however like most teenagers her mobile is virtually an extension of her so I have let her know.


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## elbows (Jun 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> have women just had more covid the whole time?
> don't think i've ever seen infections broken down by sex tbh, only know that men seem to get worse outcomes from severe symptoms.



There are some age and sex pyramids in the same surveillance report. The first wave featured crap amounts of testing and the first pyramid only covers the second half of last year onwards. THe second pyramid shows just the most recent period.

There will be a number of reasons why, including some that apply to some age groups and not others, eg occupational ones, proportion of care home residents (and people still alive at those advanced ages) that are female, etc. It is also possible that there are differences between the sexes in terms of proportion of people who bother to get tested. 

When it comes to the reinfection thing, keep in mind that the numbers they've detected are small compared to the number of first infections happening at the time. This is also a side of the pandemic that I would not necessarily expect them to capture very well via such studies, they may be underestimating the phenomenon, or not, I havent studied their methodology in detail yet. Its also possible that some occupations are better represented in that particular reinfection study than others.



I am currently crunching a lot of age + sex specific cases data for the different regions of England. Its taking ages for me to get my spreadsheets setup and sorting the data into a format I can do the graphs I want with, but at some point in the next week or so I will be able to share the results of that. Anyway I am mostly doing it so I can see how well the vaccines are doing in practice, but I will make sure to do some stuff with the sex data too, and will let you know when I have some of it to share.


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## Thora (Jun 18, 2021)

Can't find the answer to this online and wondered if anyone knew - if you have a vaccine appointment booked and one of your children is sent home from school as there has been a positive case in their class, can you still go to the appointment?  No one in the household has any symptoms.


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## wtfftw (Jun 18, 2021)

Thora said:


> Can't find the answer to this online and wondered if anyone knew - if you have a vaccine appointment booked and one of your children is sent home from school as there has been a positive case in their class, can you still go to the appointment?  No one in the household has any symptoms.


It's just your child isolating for contact not you? Then I would think the appointment is fine as it's for you - just leave isolating child at home.


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## Thora (Jun 18, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> It's just your child isolating for contact not you? Then I would think the appointment is fine as it's for you - just leave isolating child at home.


Yes I think so too, child can stay at home.


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## 2hats (Jun 18, 2021)

Latest PHE technical briefing (16) suggests delta has a 43% transmission advantage over alpha, 42% increase for household contacts, 55% increase for other contacts, so still in the 40-60% ballpark. Single dose vaccine efficacy to hospitalisation due to delta 75(95CI:57-85)% rising to 94(95CI:85-98)% after second dose. For symptomatic disease those numbers are 31(95CI:25-36)% and 80(95CI:77-82)%.

PHE variant update (6) also out. Lambda (C.37, alias of B.1.1.1.37 noted first in Peru, Chile, USA and Germany; features T859N, F490S, *L452Q*, T76I, G75V along with D614G in spike) added. Six cases have been sequenced in the UK up to 7 June.


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## elbows (Jun 18, 2021)

As far as the summary from the risk sheet goes, this is what they say in regards Delta:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/994761/18_June_2021_Risk_assessment_for_SARS-CoV-2_variant_DELTA.pdf
		




> Delta is predominant. All analyses continue to support increased transmissibility and reduced vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection. The interplay between the current findings of increased risk of hospitalisation and preserved vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation requires careful consideration. The clinical course of disease and severity of hospitalised illness also require further detailed assessment. It is too early to assess the case fatality ratio compared to other variants. The priority investigations are more detailed analysis of hospitalised cases, characterisation of the generation time, viral load and period of infectivity, and epidemiological studies of reinfections.


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## elbows (Jun 18, 2021)

2hats said:


> Single dose vaccine efficacy to hospitalisation due to delta 75(95CI:57-85)% rising to 94(95CI:77-82)% after second dose.



That latter one should say a CI of 85-98.


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## lazythursday (Jun 18, 2021)

I'm not sure what vaccine effectiveness actually means, mathematically, in real life. So a double dose of vaccine is 80% effective against symptomatic disease. So does that mean if I catch Covid (delta variant) I have a 1 in 5 chance of getting ill? (and a 4 in 5 chance of asymptomatic Covid?)

I note there isn't really any evidence put forward about transmissability / infectiousness - are people who are double vaccinated any less likely to catch the virus and pass it on or not?


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## Brainaddict (Jun 18, 2021)

They seem to bundle together 'not getting the virus' and 'asymptomatically getting the virus' in these efficacy stats, which may be with good reason but we don't know the effect of asymptomatic virus on long covid as far as I know.

Isn't it a bit weird they didn't split out the vaccine efficacy for delta into different vaccines? I think we have that info and Pfizer is significantly better than AZ, no?


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## lazythursday (Jun 18, 2021)

In this format this just seems like useless information. It's reassuring I probably won't get hospitalised with Covid now, but I'd rather not end up having to self isolate, or transmitting the virus to someone vulnerable like my unvaccinated elderly mother, and I don't know how to interpret this data properly. It feels as though they have deliberately made it confusing so all you get is the main message that the vaccines mostly work. Obviously it will also really depend on just how much virus is circulating around you.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 18, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I'm not sure what vaccine effectiveness actually means, mathematically, in real life. So a double dose of vaccine is 80% effective against symptomatic disease. So does that mean if I catch Covid (delta variant) I have a 1 in 5 chance of getting ill? (and a 4 in 5 chance of asymptomatic Covid?)



As I understand it it means that all other things being equal (so you don't change your behaviour as a result of being vaccinated) you're 80% less likely to suffer symptomatic disease than you would be if you hadn't had the vaccine.


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## lazythursday (Jun 18, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> As I understand it it means that all other things being equal (so you don't change your behaviour as a result of being vaccinated) you're 80% less likely to suffer symptomatic disease than you would be if you hadn't had the vaccine.


But given that one of the main points of getting vaccinated is to be able to change your behaviour... it's not that helpful. In fact given that no-one understands that it's positively dangerous information in some ways. If you think the vaccine is giving you 80% protection you're likely to think that means you can take a lot more risks. In which case you might be down to 20-30% less likely.


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## 2hats (Jun 18, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I'm not sure what vaccine effectiveness actually means, mathematically, in real life. So a double dose of vaccine is 80% effective against symptomatic disease. So does that mean if I catch Covid (delta variant) I have a 1 in 5 chance of getting ill? (and a 4 in 5 chance of asymptomatic Covid?)


It applies generally to a population. Your own personal risk depends on prevalence in the locations you frequent, on your behaviour and that of those around you that you encounter.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 18, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> But given that one of the main points of getting vaccinated is to be able to change your behaviour... it's not that helpful. In fact given that no-one understands that it's positively dangerous information in some ways. If you think the vaccine is giving you 80% protection you're likely to think that means you can take a lot more risks. In which case you might be down to 20-30% less likely.



Yes absolutely. Once you start digging into it it's very complex and it is hard for people to understand the implications. What are they meant to do though, not put it out there?


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## lazythursday (Jun 18, 2021)

Yeah, I get that it's at population level... but we all want to figure out what a sensible level of precaution is. Can I now think about going back to the gym? Visiting my elderly unvaccinated mother? I just don't know how to assess the risk any more, whereas I felt I had some basis for calculating it before, based on the local per 100,000 figures.


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## elbows (Jun 18, 2021)

2hats said:


> It applies generally to a population. Your own personal risk depends on prevalence in the locations you frequent, on your behaviour and that of those around you that you encounter.



On a vaguely related note, I see they had this in that same technical briefing document.


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## elbows (Jun 18, 2021)

The regulator has allowed the UKs choice of lateral flow tests to continue being used, but there is a lot of devilish detail, and some things government want to use them for are not approved of.



I note that the document being referenced says of its contents "They do not represent UK government policy and are not regulatory requirements". So I expect UK government will still try to use lateral flow tests inappropriately going forwards.


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## elbows (Jun 18, 2021)

A big reason I expect them to do so because their 'learning to live with Covid' agenda requires them to find a way of getting rid of loads of disruption caused by self-isolation in various settings in future. eg staffing issues caused by self-isolation of contacts and in the case of schools, disruption to pupils as well as staff. So they are keen to use lateral flow tests inappropriately as an alternative to self-isolation.


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## SpookyFrank (Jun 18, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> But given that one of the main points of getting vaccinated is to be able to change your behaviour... it's not that helpful. In fact given that no-one understands that it's positively dangerous information in some ways. If you think the vaccine is giving you 80% protection you're likely to think that means you can take a lot more risks. In which case you might be down to 20-30% less likely.



Well yes and no. There's also the effect of vaccines on transmission rates to factor in, which at the last best guess I saw was 40-60%. 

Although a 40% reduction in onward transmission from vaccinated people is a long way short of the 100% reduction many people will assume the vaccine provides.


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## andysays (Jun 18, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> But *given that one of the main points of getting vaccinated is to be able to change your behaviour*... it's not that helpful. In fact given that no-one understands that it's positively dangerous information in some ways. If you think the vaccine is giving you 80% protection you're likely to think that means you can take a lot more risks. In which case you might be down to 20-30% less likely.


I think that way of looking at it is unfortunate and too individualistic (though it's understandable if people think of it that way.

Although might be able to change our own behaviour a little once we've been vaccinated, we shouldn't really be changing it that much until everyone* has been vaccinated.

* or 90-95% or whatever is needed to provide "herd immunity"


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## andysays (Jun 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> The regulator has allowed the UKs choice of lateral flow tests to continue being used, but there is a lot of devilish detail, and some things government want to use them for are not approved of.
> 
> 
> 
> I note that the document being referenced says of its contents "They do not represent UK government policy and are not regulatory requirements". So I expect UK government will still try to use lateral flow tests inappropriately going forwards.



My recollection from when my work brought in LF tests about six months ago (well before they were universally available) is that we were told if we tested positive we would have to isolate but then get a PCR test to confirm. If the PCR test was negative we would be expected to return to work.

And it was known back then that a negative LF test was no guarantee of actually being COVID free, so while the test might catch some positive cases, it was never going to eliminate transmission entirely, even if everyone took one every day.


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## 2hats (Jun 18, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> But given that one of the main points of getting vaccinated is to be able to change your behaviour...


No. That's not one of the main points at all (obviously may have been mis-sold by politicians and media). The main point of getting vaccinated is to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system (and the domino race that that precipitates).


lazythursday said:


> Yeah, I get that it's at population level... but we all want to figure out what a sensible level of precaution is. Can I now think about going back to the gym? Visiting my elderly unvaccinated mother? I just don't know how to assess the risk any more, whereas I felt I had some basis for calculating it before, based on the local per 100,000 figures.


It's an entirely individual calculation. YMMV etc. I'll change my behaviour (eschew NPIs) when I see fully vaccinated uptake running at >=80% evenly across all age cohorts (perhaps under 12s excepted) and rolling 7-day infection rates per 100k in single digit figures, for all locations I frequent and routes between them (essentially easier to wait for the national figure to drop). I don't visit the gym right now (why would I lock myself in a confined space, during a global pandemic of a notifiable respiratory disease, with young, predominately partially- or non-vaccinated people, who are exercising at their near-maximal spirometric output?). I would only visit my elderly, fully vaccinated parents, after isolating for a few days and then only if I can travel by myself via private transport.


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## andysays (Jun 19, 2021)

billy87 said:


> listen to youselves, grown adults acting like sniveling cowards over something that has a 99.8% survival rate. They are going to keep this country locked down forever how does it feel to be locked away in a shitty row house cowering to the likes of a buffoon like bojo the clown, and the commie labor party. Ha Ha Im glad I crossed the med, well all be ruling this dreadful dead wreck of an island by the end of the decade..BLACK LIVES MATTER!!! BITCHES


Welcome to Urban.

With comments like that I'm sure you will soon become a valued and much-loved member of our community.


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## krtek a houby (Jun 19, 2021)

billy87 said:


> listen to youselves, grown adults acting like sniveling cowards over something that has a 99.8% survival rate. They are going to keep this country locked down forever how does it feel to be locked away in a shitty row house cowering to the likes of a buffoon like bojo the clown, and the commie labor party. Ha Ha Im glad I crossed the med, well all be ruling this dreadful dead wreck of an island by the end of the decade..BLACK LIVES MATTER!!! BITCHES



Fuck off, you weeping, featureless, lonely bellend and after you've done so, gouge your eyes out with a rusty spoon and nail them to your kneecaps.


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2021)

> Surge testing is being rolled out in parts of south London and Cumbria after a rise in Delta cases.
> 
> Extra testing has started today in Clapham, Brixton, Stockwell, West Norwood and Vauxhall.
> 
> People who live in Lambeth are strongly encouraged to take a Covid-19 PCR test, whether or not they have symptoms.



Thats from the 11:23 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57536890


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## elbows (Jun 19, 2021)

From the inappropriate use of lateral flow tests department:



> The government is “gambling” on risking the spread of Covid in schools by running controversial trials that do not require some pupils to self-isolate, experts have warned.
> 
> In an open letter to education secretary Gavin Williamson, a group of academics and scientists have called on the government to suspend the daily contact testing trials taking place in schools.
> 
> It also criticises the decision to include cases of the Delta variant of Covid in the trials and raises concern about how widely consent has been sought across the schools involved.











						Call to halt school Covid tests amid 'serious risks'
					

Scientists and academics call for daily Covid contact testing trials to be halted in schools amid concerns over Delta variant




					www.tes.com
				






> It is undisputed that LFD tests cannot detect the lower levels of virus among individuals in early infection. [9,10] Data from Liverpool showed that one third of cases with high viral loads were missed by the LFD where testing was carried out by non-experts. [9] Despite claims that LFDs may pick up “infectiousness” with high accuracy even if they don’t pick up “infection,” there are no systematic data that currently support this claim for asymptomatic testing by non-experts. Studies that have examined this have only focused on transmission from symptomatic cases, and assumed high test accuracy based on testing by laboratory scientists or health-care workers, which do not apply here. [10,11] Data from contacts in the Test-and-Trace programme have shown that spread can occur from individuals who had low viral loads at the point of testing. [10] Thus there is a high chance that infected contacts in a classroom may be infectious before they are detected as positive by a LFD test. This trial is gambling on the undetected infectious period in infected contacts being short enough for disease spread not to occur, despite the evidence showing little support for this.





> In line with this, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have both recommended that isolation should continue among contacts, even with negative tests, and MHRA authorisation does not extend to the use of these as “green light tests,” where negative tests would permit certain activities. [12,13] The recent withdrawal of the INNOVA LFD test by the FDA, citing “risk to health,” including risk of “serious illness and death,” and “further spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus” is all the more concerning. [3] The Orient Gene tests being used in these trials have limited data on accuracy and have not been tested among children, asymptomatic people, and accuracy of testing by non-experts is unknown. [11] This test is not currently registered with the MHRA.











						Daily contact testing trials in schools are unethical and extending them to include the delta variant puts everyone at risk - The BMJ
					

Dear Gavin Williamson Secretary of State for Education Department for Education, We are writing to express our concerns about certain aspects of the trials on the use of daily contact [...]More...




					blogs.bmj.com


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## 2hats (Jun 19, 2021)




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## Dystopiary (Jun 19, 2021)




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## zahir (Jun 19, 2021)

A thread on living with the virus





> While we see an exponential rise in cases & hosp the govt: -has no mitigations in schools - is considering no isolation for contacts of cases if fully vaccinated -planning to replace isolation with LFDs -not offering vaccines to adolescents
> 
> We know that those fully vaccinated get infected & pass on- possibly even more so with the delta variant, given the moderate level of escape seen. It's hard to escape that idea that the govt plan here is to allow a large surge to happen - as they're doing nothing to prevent it.
> 
> ...


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## elbows (Jun 20, 2021)

Yeah thats pretty consistent with rants I've had int he past regarding the orthodox establishment approach in this country. An approach that was only ever partially abandoned out of necessity, and that the vaccination successes reenable. I wont repeat myself further on all the details of that again, or on the 'herd immunity to full in the gaps' shit that is in effect. We arent quite there yet in terms of the establishment being confident they can fully return to business as usual, we are only part of the way backt o that shit, hence the recent delay to final unlocking step.

Its hard to say whether the UK establishment will 'get away with it' when it comes to this approach and the stubborn priorities which underpin our particular form of shit. There are some downsides to the approach that are already known and measurable, eg the hospitalisations and deaths. There are a large bunch with much potential that are harder to measure, including: 

Long term effect on health care system including staff morale, backlog etc. Same with care home system.
Long term implications of long Covid and other damage from the virus that could take a long time to manifest (eg see recent brain studies for possible clues). 
Unknowns regarding potential interplay between different diseases and vaccines in future. 
Unknowns about size of 'bounce back' of some other diseases that largely 'went missing' in last year+ due to social distancing etc curtailing their spread.
Unclear to what extent a return to normal that can actually afford to ignore infection outbreak disruptive potential in settings like schools will actually happen, and how quickly.
Much uncertainty about the extent to which the shabby government & establishment approach to the pandemic will cause a sizeable chunk of the population to be very hesitant about returning to normal levels of interaction, economic activity etc, overcome the mental health effects of the pandemic threat.
Rather large unknowns regarding whether the entire approach will utterly blow up in their face again if variants with certain characteristics come along in quick succession.

The establishment can live with most of those uncertainties banging on their door, and will only bend very slightly when people that give more of a shit demand to have such factors accommodated. So I tend to think its the last one, variants, if their mutations force restrictions upon us that government claimed were a thing of the past, that are the biggest threat to the establishments standard plan, instincts and priorities. They might get away with it, they might not. I expect that this virus has certainly not run out of potential to carry on humbling our establishments pandemic approach, but I do not underestimate how readily establishment figures will keep scurrying back onto their standard path whenever the opportunity arises. Its also easy for their ways to end up the default, because lots of half-arsedness is involved and thats well compatible with their approach, which helps a slide towards such defaults come naturally to this country. And we are used to having to take this sort of shit on the chin, and to feel largely powerless in its wake.


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## zahir (Jun 20, 2021)

elbows - do you think it's possible that variants could develop with significantly higher mortality rates? comparable say with the original SARS.


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## elbows (Jun 20, 2021)

zahir said:


> elbows - do you think it's possible that variants could develop with significantly higher mortality rates? comparable say with the original SARS.



I tend to take most attempts to work out an infection fatality rate or a case fatality rate with a pinch of salt, so I'm a bit vague about such matters in some ways. For example I'm not really sure the original SARS outbreak was large enough for me to have a fully sense of what the mortality rate for the original SARS actually was. And I get drawn into other important detail such as how that rate increases with age both with SARS and the various versions of SARS-CoV-2 we've seen so far in this pandemic.

Certainly there are some assumptions made by some in media and various professions about how viruses will naturally evolve in a less deadly direction to be out of date and unsafe. So I certainly dont rule out variants with mutations that make the disease worse in some people. With the current Delta variant there have already been some forms of analysis which imply an increased risk of hospitalisation. But I do keep in mind that the present and future picture is now a messy one, full of even more factors interacting in complicated ways. 

For example its not hard to find quotes and stories about how its an increase in transmissive abilities of a variant that bothers experts more than a rise in its deadliness, because transmission makes a very large difference to the size of an outbreak, size of the wave, and that has a large impact on how many people will die.

And the ability of a variant to overcome existing immunity would be expected to make a huge difference to what will happen in future. 

Take those possibilities and add in the population immunity we've got from infections and from vaccinations, and peoples changing behaviour and attitudes towards the pandemic, and various treatments and improvements to clinical management of cases, and a whole bunch of other stuff, and we get some sense of how messy things are. 

I do not intend to 'learn to live with the virus' in the ways the government would like. But so far the biggest genuine step I cant take in terms of 'coming to terms with the virus and its ongoing implications', is to accept the large degree of uncertainty, the swarming mass of partially understood detail and a never ending array of questions, the chaos and its resistance to attempts to paint a neatly ordered picture of it. I am left with an open mind about how the virus will evolve over the next few years. But we've had a much better view of its evolution so far in this pandemic than we've had with other viruses in the past. Given what its been able to achieve so far in terms of increased ease of transmission, if I've learnt one thing about the evolution of the virus so far its that it would be unwise to ignore the potential for ongoing trouble on this front.


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## Cat Fan (Jun 20, 2021)

Hi chaps, just wondering if anyone has traveled to an amber list country recently and if so what providers they used for testing.

Lambeth is doing asymptomatic surge PCR testing but for whatever reason NHS PCR tests aren't "good enough" for travel.


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## LDC (Jun 20, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Hi chaps, just wondering if anyone has traveled to an amber list country recently and if so what providers they used for testing.
> 
> Lambeth is doing asymptomatic surge PCR testing but for whatever reason NHS PCR tests aren't "good enough" for travel.



Nothing to do with 'not good enough'. It's to stop the NHS testing capacity being over-whelmed when used for personal travel reasons.


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## Cat Fan (Jun 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Nothing to do with 'not good enough'. It's to stop the NHS testing capacity being over-whelmed when used for personal travel reasons.


I understand the point but it does seem silly that if people happen to have got an NHS test anyway (that we all paid for through our taxes) then they need to get a second private test.

Did you have any insight into my question or just wanted to score points?


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## Supine (Jun 20, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I understand the point but it does seem silly that if people happen to have got an NHS test anyway (that we all paid for through our taxes) then they need to get a second private test.
> 
> Did you have any insight into my question or just wanted to score points?



if you had a PCR test on the NHS due to need you wouldn’t be travelling.

if your ok and need a travel PCR pay for it yourself. Seems fair to me.


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## nagapie (Jun 20, 2021)

Supine said:


> if you had a PCR test on the NHS due to need you wouldn’t be travelling.
> 
> if your ok and need a travel PCR pay for it yourself. Seems fair to me.


A lot of areas are doing mass PCR testing because of Delta.


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## Supine (Jun 20, 2021)

nagapie said:


> A lot of areas are doing mass PCR testing because of Delta.



so depending on your view 1. You are lucky, use the test or 2. If you live in a surge area you really shouldn’t be leaving it to go abroad.


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## SpookyFrank (Jun 20, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I understand the point but it does seem silly that if people happen to have got an NHS test anyway (that we all paid for through our taxes) then they need to get a second private test.
> 
> Did you have any insight into my question or just wanted to score points?



My taxes are not paid to fund your holiday. Next.


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## LDC (Jun 20, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I understand the point but it does seem silly that if people happen to have got an NHS test anyway (that we all paid for through our taxes) then they need to get a second private test.
> 
> Did you have any insight into my question or just wanted to score points?



I was correcting your mistake that 'NHS tests weren't good enough', not scoring points. And if people happen to have an NHS test that means they don't need to pay for one for their trip away, then some people will 'happen to have symptoms' before they go on holiday so they can get an NHS test.

There's been discussion on private PCR tests on other threads, this one tends to be for more national big picture stuff.


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## andysays (Jun 20, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I understand the point but it does seem silly that if people happen to have got an NHS test anyway (that we all paid for through our taxes) then they need to get a second private test.
> 
> Did you have any insight into my question or just wanted to score points?


I was talking to a friend the other day who plans to fly to the US tomorrow for the first time since all this kicked off to visit family etc.

She had to have a negative test taken no more than three days before her planned day of travel, so was taking the test Friday.

If you just happen to be taking a test three days before your planned day of travel, either because you have symptoms or because you live in a surge area where everyone is being urged to get a test, you probably shouldn't be travelling anyway.


----------



## Maltin (Jun 20, 2021)

andysays said:


> I was talking to a friend the other day who plans to fly to the US tomorrow for the first time since all this kicked off to visit family etc.
> 
> She had to have a negative test taken no more than three days before her planned day of travel, so was taking the test Friday.
> 
> If you just happen to be taking a test three days before your planned day of travel, either because you have symptoms or because you live in a surge area where everyone is being urged to get a test, you probably shouldn't be travelling anyway.


Are they a US citizen? I think it is still quite difficult to go to the US if you are not and have been living in the UK


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 20, 2021)

Look in the comments of frequent flyer blogs where the other selfish cunts are discussing the options.

Alternatively stop doing the virus a favour and spreading it round the world


----------



## andysays (Jun 20, 2021)

Maltin said:


> Are they a US citizen? I think it is still quite difficult to go to the US if you are not and have been living in the UK


You're quite right, she mentioned that.

She has dual US/UK citizenship.

She also mentioned that she won't need to quarantine when she arrives in the US, but will need to do so (at home) for 10 days when she gets back.


----------



## andysays (Jun 20, 2021)

Looks like Andy Burnham is outing himself as a COVID cunt again
'It's completely disproportionate' - Burnham on travel ban​


> The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has accused the Scottish government of "double standards", after it banned Scots from non-essential travel to and from parts of the city.





> Speaking to Nick Robinson on the BBC's Andrew Marr show,* he said he would be writing to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to demand compensation for holidaymakers and businesses.*


----------



## magneze (Jun 20, 2021)

King of the North, well not that far North. King of the sandwich in between the North and the Midlands? Actually it's a bit smaller than that isn't it. King of the pickle in the Northern sandwich.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 20, 2021)

Although both the government & Cornwall council denies the G7 was a superspreader event, the figures seem to indicate it was.



> Areas of Cornwall where G7 events were focused saw infections rise more than 2,000 per cent in the seven days leading up to the end of the meeting between global leaders .
> 
> The area around Carbis Bay, where the summit took place, and Falmouth, where the world’s media were based along with many of the 6,000 of officers policing the event and protesters, are now suffering some of the highest rates of infection in the country.
> 
> The rate of Covid-19 infections in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly during the week to, and including, 13 June has risen from 2.8 per 100,000 people on the Sunday before G7 began to 81.7 per 100,000. This compares to a national average of 77.4 per 100,000.





> But it is in the areas most closely linked to G7 events where rates are of particular concern to local health chiefs.
> 
> The rate of infection in St Ives and Halsetown has risen 2,450 per cent in the seven day period to 733.2 per 100,000 people in the seven days to 13 June, when the summit came to an end. In the council ward of St Ives East, Lelant & Carbis Bay the rate has risen by 800 per cent to 294.9 per 100,000 people in the same period.
> 
> In a number of Falmouth council wards the rates are now more than 500 per 100,000, with Falmouth East hit by a 2,000 per cent rise in infections to 600 per 100,000.



Yeah, nothing to see here, move along.









						G7 was ‘super spreading’ event in Cornwall as cases go up 2,450% after Johnson summit
					

Locals, politicians and business leaders call on Government to implement surge testing in G7 Covid clusters as young hospitality staff fall ill forcing the closure of dozens of businesses




					inews.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 20, 2021)

andysays said:


> Looks like Andy Burnham is outing himself as a COVID cunt again
> 'It's completely disproportionate' - Burnham on travel ban​



Thanks for pointing that out, I am sick of ranting about him so I'm always glad when someone else does it instead.

I dont really understand what took Scotland so long, I support travel restrictions in regards badly affected areas but I dont know what threshold Scotland are using, and a greater impact from restrictions would be expected if they were done early. 

For future reference both the recommendations and the formal bans Scotland imposes are listed on this website:









						Coronavirus (COVID-19): travel and transport
					

Guidance on travel rules including cruises around Scotland.




					www.gov.scot
				




In terms of their recommendations rather than the fully banned areas, they recommend looking at the list of places in England that the government says have fast spreading Delta outbreaks:









						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk
				




Speaking of that list for England, I am reminded that when Bolton ended up on that list, there was an argument about the recommendations in regards not travelling to or from those areas. Since the UK government were keen, for their own shitty reasons, to avoid the impression of local lockdowns this time around, they backed down somewhat on that at the time. But I note that the page in question still lists 'Minimise travel in and out of affected areas' in their pathetically worded list of 'Wherever possible, you should try to:' things for those areas.

Part of this 'learning to live with covid' phase seems to be deliberately weak and understated public health messaging, both directly and via the media, lacking in both high profile drawing of attention towards the detail, and lack of repetition at every opportunity. With the main exception being, rather obviously given the governments approach, getting vaccinated.


----------



## elbows (Jun 20, 2021)

One of the things that bothers me about the current situation is the interaction between the resurgence of the virus, and the way that A&E has come under severe pressure in recent times, presumably because quite a lot of people resumed activities that led to injury or illness or no longer putting off seeking treatment. The lack of capacity in our healthcare system is exposed in many ways by the pandemic, and in some ways this story has only just begun.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Although both the government & Cornwall council denies the G7 was a superspreader event, the figures seem to indicate it was.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A neighbour died last week and I was asked to go to the funeral, which I'd have really liked to do but I asked his wife whether she'd mind if I didn't go for exactly this reason. She was fine about it  and I asked whether it was being videoed and it is so I'll watch it instead.


----------



## elbows (Jun 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> One of the things that bothers me about the current situation is the interaction between the resurgence of the virus, and the way that A&E has come under severe pressure in recent times, presumably because quite a lot of people resumed activities that led to injury or illness or no longer putting off seeking treatment. The lack of capacity in our healthcare system is exposed in many ways by the pandemic, and in some ways this story has only just begun.



I missed out the signs that failure of other parts of the system to meet pent up demand, eg via GPs, are part of the reason A&E departments are in deep shit. Plus Covid infection control measures having affected capacity and speed of case processing.


----------



## elbows (Jun 20, 2021)

Its becoming more common to see articles discussing why Delta got so bad in the UK so quickly. With emphasis on how the dynamics work when initial seeding involves large numbers:



> There's an element of chance - if five people arrive in the UK carrying the variant, you could get lucky and none of them would pass it on. If 500 come in, it's just more likely at least one will pass on their infection, or even be a super-spreader.
> 
> So the difference between five and 500 travellers entering with the Delta variant won't be exactly 100 times the infections - it could be the difference between the variant fizzling out altogether and it taking off.











						Covid: Why has the Delta variant spread so quickly in UK?
					

It is now the dominant strain in the UK - but the rest of the world may well follow suit.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 20, 2021)

Glad it isnt just me that thinks this kind of thing....


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 21, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> My taxes are not paid to fund your holiday. Next.





SpookyFrank said:


> My taxes are not paid to fund your holiday. Next.


Did I say I was going on holiday?

A member of my wife's family has passed and we want to visit the family she has left (for the first time in years).


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 21, 2021)

Supine said:


> so depending on your view 1. You are lucky, use the test or 2. If you live in a surge area you really shouldn’t be leaving it to go abroad.


If the government really cared about (2) wouldn't they put additional restrictions on so called "surge areas"?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I was correcting your mistake that 'NHS tests weren't good enough', not scoring points. And if people happen to have an NHS test that means they don't need to pay for one for their trip away, then some people will 'happen to have symptoms' before they go on holiday so they can get an NHS test.
> 
> There's been discussion on private PCR tests on other threads, this one tends to be for more national big picture stuff.


Ok finally getting close to answering my question, thanks. Which other thread?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 21, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Look in the comments of frequent flyer blogs where the other selfish cunts are discussing the options.
> 
> Alternatively stop doing the virus a favour and spreading it round the world


I have never been on a frequent flier blog and don't know where to find one.

I'm vaccinated, extremely careful and have never had coronavirus symptoms. I came to ask a simple question not be a scapegoat for everyone's anxiety about rising cases FFS.

If you want something to get angry about, how about the government's plans to let thousands of people in without isolating for the football?


----------



## 2hats (Jun 21, 2021)

You need to find out which test providers are acceptable to your transit/destination countries.

Then follow the UK government instructions on your return (they list approved providers that you can purchase tests from).









						Browse: Travel abroad - GOV.UK
					

Includes the latest travel advice by country, your rights at the airport and getting help abroad




					www.gov.uk


----------



## LDC (Jun 21, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I have never been on a frequent flier blog and don't know where to find one.
> 
> I'm vaccinated, extremely careful and have never had coronavirus symptoms. I came to ask a simple question not be a scapegoat for everyone's anxiety about rising cases FFS.
> 
> If you want something to get angry about, how about the government's plans to let thousands of people in without isolating for the football?



Sorry to hear about your relative.

There's some discussion on a few threads, inc. the general covid chat one iirc, but it is a bit scattered all over the place as not many here have traveled. Is it a recommendation for a place to get tested you're after, or just some chat on the process etc. or something else. Try the search function maybe?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sorry to hear about your relative.
> 
> There's some discussion on a few threads, inc. the general covid chat one iirc, but it is a bit scattered all over the place as not many here have traveled. Is it a recommendation for a place to get tested you're after, or just some chat on the process etc. or something else. Try the search function maybe?


Hoping for a recommendation really, because it's a stressful process and the penalty for something going wrong is high.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 21, 2021)

An _estimation_ of the length of covid related hospital stay (in England) for Apr-Jun based on an analysis of such admissions during Nov-Apr, when compared to recorded stays would suggest that the duration of admissions in the new (current) wave is around 25% shorter than those during the previous wave (and that percentage appears to be gradually increasing). Whilst evolution of treatment and patient management has contributed to this, likely the main drivers are vaccinations protecting the elderly and a higher proportion of cases in younger cohorts.





Thread. Code.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 21, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Did I say I was going on holiday?
> 
> A member of my wife's family has passed and we want to visit the family she has left (for the first time in years).



We'd all like to visit people. Without getting into who has the right to travel and who doesn't, those who are travelling should understand that whatever measures are in place are there so that as many people as possible are still alive to visit and be visited this time next year.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 21, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> If you want something to get angry about, how about the government's plans to let thousands of people in without isolating for the football?


It is possible to be angry about multiple things at once.


----------



## elbows (Jun 21, 2021)

2hats said:


> An _estimation_ of the length of covid related hospital stay (in England) for Apr-Jun based on an analysis of such admissions during Nov-Apr, when compared to recorded stays would suggest that the duration of admissions in the new (current) wave is around 25% shorter than those during the previous wave (and that percentage appears to be gradually increasing). Whilst evolution of treatment and patient management has contributed to this, likely the main drivers are vaccinations protecting the elderly and a higher proportion of cases in younger cohorts.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



On a related note I remain interested in the ratio of hospitalised to mechanical ventilator cases in a couple of the NHS Trust areas that are furthest along.

eg Bolton: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/det...nhsTrust&areaName=Bolton NHS Foundation Trust

and East Lancashire: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/det...&areaName=East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust


----------



## elbows (Jun 21, 2021)

Sturgeon knows how to deal with Burnham it seems:



> But Nicola Sturgeon said the decision was a public health measure, based on Covid levels in the area.





> "I have always got on well with Andy Burnham. If he wants a grown-up conversation he only has to pick up the phone," she said.
> 
> "But if, as I suspect might be the case, this is more about getting a spat with me as part of a some positioning in a Labour leadership contest of the future, then I am not interested."





> The first minister said she was "confused" by Mr Burnham's position.
> 
> "Back in May we imposed travel restrictions on Bolton for exactly the same reasons we are now doing it on Manchester," she said.
> 
> "Andy Burnham is mayor of Bolton as well and he did not raise any of these issues then."











						Covid in Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon defends Manchester travel ban
					

Scotland's first minister says she is "confused" by the criticism from Greater Manchester's mayor.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Elsewhere in the article Dundees case rates are compared to the likes of Manchester and I would certainly agree that its stupid to impose restrictions on travel to one but not the other.


----------



## elbows (Jun 21, 2021)

Burnham always manages to be shitter than I give him credit for.



> I find that insulting, not for me, but for people here who are directly affected by what she announced. It’s not just the direct impact on Greater Manchester, it’s on our reputation as a city.
> 
> If the first minister of a country stands up at a press conference and announces that the UK’s second city is going under a travel ban, it has an impact. People elsewhere in Europe, around the world, hear that. So it’s not like it’s just a sort of more localised thing between us and Scotland, it has an impact on our city region.



Fucking reputation management during a public health crisis. Fuck off with that, thats the sort of thing that leads regimes to sacrifice lives in order to protect their image or the image of certain institutions. Reputation managements role in all manner of scandals, including historical sexual abuse, is well known. It is the classic justification for cover-up, weasel words and inaction.

Fuck you Burnham, your shit attitude in this pandemic is the only thing that has damaged Manchesters reputation as far as I'm concerned.

I reckon Sturgeons Bolton comment got to him as well, because elsewhere in his response he repeatedly brings up Bolton without acknowledging what she said about him not seeming bothered with Scotlands earlier Bolton travel ban.  So now he is overcompensating. Pathetic.



> Why is Bolton under a travel ban today, when it has a case rate that is quite a lot lower than Dundee? How is that fair?





> You know if you’re an elderly couple from Bolton and you are both double-jabbed and you haven’t seen your grandkids for two years, and all of a sudden you can’t go to your holiday cottage this week and you’re a couple of grand out of pocket, I think they are owed an explanation by the first minister because it seems totally disproportionate to me to take that away from them.











						UK Covid: Burnham tells Sturgeon to justify Scotland ban on non-essential travel to and from Manchester – as it happened
					

Mayor of Greater Manchester writes open letter to Scotland’s first minister about decision ban on non-essential travel to and from city




					www.theguardian.com
				




Its fair to say that Burnham was already on my lists of threats to public health in this pandemic, so now I just have to move him higher up that list.


----------



## BCBlues (Jun 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Burnham always manages to be shitter than I give him credit for.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Off topic but why is he referring to Manchester as the "second city" when its officially Birmingham


----------



## weepiper (Jun 21, 2021)

Where is this 'double jabbed so I can do what the fuck I like now' attitude coming from? AFAIK there's no evidence that you can't transmit the virus after you've been vaccinated.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 21, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Where is this 'double jabbed so I can do what the fuck I like now' attitude coming from? AFAIK there's no evidence that you can't transmit the virus after you've been vaccinated.


I had that thus morning after a colleague who has been pinged by the NHS app to self isolate came in to work. "You've had both your jabs, why are you worried?"


----------



## bimble (Jun 21, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> We'd all like to visit people. Without getting into who has the right to travel and who doesn't, those who are travelling should understand that whatever measures are in place are there so that as many people as possible are still alive to visit and be visited this time next year.


The way it works currently is that if you can afford a couple of hundred quid for tests, and then can happily work from home upon your return, then you're free to go pretty much wherever you like, your reason for going is irrelevant. So it's not about anyone's rights or safety really it's just using cost as the mechanism to limit the numbers of those who can travel.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 21, 2021)

If there's something that's very high up my list of things I'd really like to know, it's more (and up-to-date!) information about how much vaccinated people actually do transmit.

This possibly reveals ignorance on my part (  ), but it seems counterintuitive to me to assume that vaccinated people, particularly double-vaccinated people, are transmitting the virus just as much as before they're vaccinated 

Are there many studies and figures yet, about this?

Just to reassure, I'm in no way advocating that double-vaccinated people like me shouldn't continue to be cautious -- of course we should!


----------



## Chilli.s (Jun 21, 2021)

BCBlues said:


> Manchester as the "second city" when its officially Birmingham


He thinks they're both the same


----------



## Griff (Jun 21, 2021)

Johnson on Sky News:

"You can never exclude that there will be some new disease, some new horror that we simply haven't budgeted for or accounted for," *Boris Johnson* said when asked if he could discount the possibility of reimposing *COVID-19* measures later this year.


----------



## Griff (Jun 21, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> If there's something that's very high up my list of things I'd really like to know, it's more (and up-to-date!) information about how much vaccinated people actually do transmit.
> 
> This possibly reveals ignorance on my part (  ), but it seems counterintuitive to me to assume that vaccinated people, particularly double-vaccinated people, are transmitting the virus just as much as before they're vaccinated
> 
> ...


According to the NHS leaflet it's not yet known how much you can transmit if you've been vaccinated.


----------



## elbows (Jun 21, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Where is this 'double jabbed so I can do what the fuck I like now' attitude coming from? AFAIK there's no evidence that you can't transmit the virus after you've been vaccinated.



It sort of pops up naturally when people engage in binary thinking about vaccines. Amd even when they dont lurch straight to binary feelings about how much magic the vaccine has worked, a more general slide in that direction can occur. Especially from people who never wanted restrictions in the first place and are keen to jump the gun.

Eventually the UK government are likely to want to embrace such concepts as much as they dare, as part of their 'learning to live with covid' agenda. We are already seeing more stories in the press about various scenarios where they are hoping to replace self-isolation with testing, and a persons vaccination status may also end up a part of that policy mix. The extent to which they have to try to fudge the science, and the extent to which the likes of Whitty will approve, remains to be seen.


----------



## elbows (Jun 21, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> If there's something that's very high up my list of things I'd really like to know, it's more (and up-to-date!) information about how much vaccinated people actually do transmit.
> 
> This possibly reveals ignorance on my part (  ), but it seems counterintuitive to me to assume that vaccinated people, particularly double-vaccinated people, are transmitting the virus just as much as before they're vaccinated
> 
> ...



It can be tricky or take a very long time for proper medical and scientific research to determine all the answers on that front.

Some of the other stuff we have heard about in terms of the impact of vaccines so far in this country are based on deducing things from our broad data - number of cases, hospitalisations and deaths in this country over time, linked to individual cases vaccination status and/or the broader population figures for vaccination. Various maths is used to compare whats actually happened to what we'd have expected to see if there were no vaccines, or finding maths that mirrors the reality of what happens to vaccinated versus unvaccinated people at a time of rising levels of infection in this country.

As cases continue to rise here, they will certainly expect to deduce more things, its a useful situation in terms of gathering that sort of real world data.

I expect that the chllenge of repeating those sorts of exercises but with transmission rather than symptomatic illness etc as the focus is not a small challenge, it can be tricky to deduce the effects on transmission because of all the other variables that affect the size and speed of this wave. I expect they will try, but I have no expectations as to when we may hear some results of such analysis, or how wide the range of uncertainty will still be.

Probably I will take a more serious look at the evidence once we come to the stage where government are actually proposing certain policies regarding vaccinated individuals in various circumstances, eg the replacement of self-isolation with regular testing that I mentioned in my previous post. It is likely that when trying to justify such policies, they will have some specific, narrow trial data that applies directly to the policy. And on top of that what will increase their chance of pressing ahead with such policies without being thwarted, is if they've got some broader estimates of transmissive impact of vaccination in our population.

Whatever the detail turns out to be, as far as Im concerned I would tend to paint the picture as follows. Vaccination will have an impact on this side of the picture. Its just a question of how much, and whether that changes with other new variants in future. In terms of the broad government equations at the population level, there may be a large enough impact that it really affects their sums and unlocks some options. But since we know that when it comes to the level of individuals, vaccines will not save absolutely everyone from illness, hospitalisation or death, it stands to reason that some double vaccinated individuals will still be capable of passing the virus on. If the proportion of such is relatively modest then the government wont care and will press ahead, and tough luck to the individuals who end up suffering as a result. But of course there is the balance with all the suffering due to restrictions etc to consider to, a balance I am not against discussing and keeping in mind despite my relatively hard-line stance on many pandemic matters. And I do need a real sense of remaining risk in order to judge such balancing acts, so i will probably save my opinions till the policies and the evidence they use to justify them are clear. Its still relatively early days on that, its too soon for me to say whether I'll be complaining about some of the new policies or not. And if I start looking for evidence about vaccines and transmissions in the meantime, I'll probably be disappointed by how little there is, especially in relation to the Delta variant we currently face.


----------



## elbows (Jun 21, 2021)

What really shits me up about the likes of Burnhams 'the reputation of our city' stuff is quite where that logic could so easily lead. 

Would I be able to trust a man like Burnham to release data that makes for uncomfortable viewing? He invites the suppression of vital public health data with his shit. The horror!


----------



## andysays (Jun 21, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Where is this 'double jabbed so I can do what the fuck I like now' attitude coming from? AFAIK there's no evidence that you can't transmit the virus after you've been vaccinated.


To some extent, vaccines have been promoted as allowing post vaccine individuals to do stuff they couldn't/shouldn't do pre vaccine, rather than it being more of a social/collective responsibility thing.

But in this case I think it's safe to say it's just something Burnham has pulled out of his arse and, as Sturgeon has suggested, it's about him attempting to position himself within the Labour party rather than giving much of a genuine fuck about the real risks of transmission.


----------



## elbows (Jun 21, 2021)

This is the sort of potential policy I was on about in recent posts:









						Fully vaccinated people in England may not need to isolate, Hancock says
					

Health secretary looking to drop 10-day ‘stay at home’ order for those in close contact with person infected with Covid




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jun 21, 2021)

Now when it comes to the letter Burnham has sent to Sturgeon, I believe it is fair to go for the angle he has done in regards why Scotlands internal travel restrictions dont seem to line up with their policy in regards Manchester etc. Its a shame he consistently soils himself with other ill-considered comments in this pandemic, since there is enough reasonable ammunition he can use that does not constitute a pandemic crime in my book.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 21, 2021)

bimble said:


> The way it works currently is that if you can afford a couple of hundred quid for tests, and then can happily work from home upon your return, then you're free to go pretty much wherever you like, your reason for going is irrelevant. So it's not about anyone's rights or safety really it's just using cost as the mechanism to limit the numbers of those who can travel.



Fair point, but money has always been a factor in who can travel where. With all the 'surge pricing' on domestic holidays a lot of people won't be able to go anywhere this year. We probably won't.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 21, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Fair point, but money has always been a factor in who can travel where. With all the 'surge pricing' on domestic holidays a lot of people won't be able to go anywhere this year. We probably won't.


I never found it cheaper to holiday in the U.K. pre-pandemic anyway. You'd think that travelling within a country would be cheaper, if you'd not been aware of the train system here for the last couple of decades.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 21, 2021)

And fucking silly prices being charged for accomodation in Cornwall (and probably elsewhere) now I hear.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 21, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I never found it cheaper to holiday in the U.K. pre-pandemic anyway. You'd think that travelling within a country would be cheaper, if you'd not been aware of the train system here for the last couple of decades.


If you have a car it's significantly cheaper, especially for a family. For a single person by train, not so much.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 21, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> If you have a car it's significantly cheaper, especially for a family. For a single person by train, not so much.


particularly if you all sleep in the car


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 21, 2021)

two sheds said:


> particularly if you all sleep in the car


I am considering my next car to be one I can sleep in such as an Alphard or Berlingo.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 21, 2021)

wise move


----------



## zahir (Jun 22, 2021)

A thread from Christina Pagel


----------



## Sunray (Jun 22, 2021)

two sheds said:


> And fucking silly prices being charged for accomodation in Cornwall (and probably elsewhere) now I hear.



Yes, I was looking, there just isn't capacity, everyone has been going to Spain for 40 years now. Entirely a supply and demand issue.
Even campsites are £25 quid pn and I'm bringing the accommodation!
Post august bank holiday and it's less crazy.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> This is the sort of potential policy I was on about in recent posts:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


how can that work? Freedom will mean being able to go out and do things, but who will provide those services when we aren't all fully vaccinated? Who will serve in the bars and pubs and restuarants to all these freedom loving double vaxxers wanting to enjoy their freedom? This is why the so called great barrington declaration was a great load of horsetwat!


----------



## elbows (Jun 22, 2021)

Theres more where that came from.









						Covid-19: Aim for double-jabbed arrivals to avoid quarantine - Hancock
					

Ministers are "working on" plans for quarantine-free travel from amber list countries if vaccinated.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 23, 2021)

On the data front it is not surprising that government and experts have started making more positive noises about the situation recently. 

I'm more optimistic than I was because the strong impact of vaccines is showing up clearly in most data, and its probably fair to say that the figures have not been going up as quickly as it looked like they were a few weeks ago. But I am extremely wary of getting too carried away with that, since I always fear that pressures can mount up, and that tipping points could yet be reached. Plus in previous waves some took too much comfort from periods where figures only seemed to be growing slowly, being caught off guard when the pace or inevitable consequences of exponential growth took off. And I'm not very happy with the ICU numbers and the Covid pressure on hospitals combined with all the other pressures hospitals are facing at the moment. 

A wide range of possibilities are still plausible as far as this wave goes, so I have to wait more weeks before I can think it wise to have a more hopeful picture of this wave really solidify in my mind.

One example of an expert saying the data is encouraging:





__





						‘Professor Lockdown’ Neil Ferguson raises hopes of lockdown ending in July
					





					www.msn.com
				






> Professor Ferguson explained: “We are seeing as we expected rises in case numbers across the country, but they have slowed slightly compared with a couple of weeks ago, and we’re seeing rises in hospitalisations and indeed in deaths but again they’re at a much lower level compared with cases than they were previously, demonstrating the high effectiveness of vaccines at protecting people particularly against severe illness.”



And from the 9:49 entry of BBC live updates page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57577068



> He also says "it is clear" two doses of vaccine offers a high level of protection and even those who do get infected are "almost certainly probably 50% less infectious".



And some shit about schools:



> On the question of schoolchildren, who we know are facing disruption as children are sent home to isolate, he says the measures are proving relatively effective at stopping large outbreaks in schools.
> 
> "That picture will continue for a few weeks more until we get past the third wave which will unfold in the next couple of months," Ferguson, from Imperial College London, tells the programme.



One example of NHS fears over rising number of Covid cases on ventilators:









						NHS alarm over rise in number of UK Covid patients on ventilators
					

Bosses say trusts under ‘huge pressure’ as people in ventilator beds increase 41% during last week




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## 2hats (Jun 23, 2021)

Dosing appears to be levelling off at progressively lower levels in younger cohorts. The target immunity threshold likely needs to be around 85%.


----------



## elbows (Jun 23, 2021)

Yeah and the media have been very poor at picking up on that, they'd rather just go along with the flow by doing easy stories about long queues at vaccination centres when they were opened for younger people. But high demand upon initial availability is not a guide as to what proportion of those age groups will actually seek vaccination.


----------



## elbows (Jun 23, 2021)

Nor have the media done a good job of pointing out the decline in daily vaccination figures in recent weeks, in an era that was painted as a big rush to vaccinate people during the delay to step 4 of unlocking. Not that this is a good moment for me to show that graph, since IT issues earlier in the week mean that the recent figures for England are missing. Apparently all that data will be present when the dashboard is updated later today.

I see there is a press conference at 5pm with the vaccines minister.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jun 23, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Fair point, but money has always been a factor in who can travel where. With all the 'surge pricing' on domestic holidays a lot of people won't be able to go anywhere this year. We probably won't.


Yeah, it doesn't seem to occur to the "Weh, weh, we can't go on holiday abroad this year" that that's the reality every year for loads of people. 

eta: Not saying that that's what bimble was saying!


----------



## 2hats (Jun 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yeah and the media have been very poor at picking up on that, they'd rather just go along with the flow by doing easy stories about long queues at vaccination centres when they were opened for younger people. But high demand upon initial availability is not a guide as to what proportion of those age groups will actually seek vaccination.


Similar problem in the US.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 23, 2021)

JFC 16k cases today!


----------



## LDC (Jun 23, 2021)

In hospital numbers taken a big jump up to, 1508 today...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 23, 2021)

And, another 19 deaths, meaning deaths have gone up by 53% in the last 7 days.


----------



## LDC (Jun 23, 2021)

Just anecdotally it seems to have changed. 3 weeks ago I knew nobody who'd had symptoms, positive tests, or had to isolate etc. for ages. In the last 1-2 weeks loads of kids of friends sent home with contact, a few positive tests, lots of people with some symptoms. Does feel very similar to the foothills of the last wave in that way.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 23, 2021)

This is inevitable now. Surely? The scientists have been screaming out (if Twitter is any indication) but the fucking Torycunts...

SMH


----------



## LDC (Jun 23, 2021)

Cases going up is inevitable. How that translates into hospitalizations and deaths is less clear. And what's even less clear is what levels of deaths people will accept as alright when the July date comes about. And what the impact of it all will mean for the capacity of the NHS, deaths or not.


----------



## Griff (Jun 23, 2021)

Could be similar to what the Jerusalem Post is saying is happening in Israel, just viral infections:









						COVID-19 might be over, but viral infections in Israel are surging
					

Children and adults around the country are getting sick as it usually happens in the winter, experts say.




					m.jpost.com


----------



## LDC (Jun 23, 2021)

Griff said:


> Could be similar to what the Jerusalem Post is saying is happening in Israel, just viral infections:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You're suggesting the increase in positive covid cases generally, and those in hospital, isn't actually covid cases but other viral infections?


----------



## Griff (Jun 23, 2021)

You mentioned symptoms, I posted a link and said it could be that, I didn't suggest anything about an increase in positive cases.


----------



## LDC (Jun 23, 2021)

Ah, you should have quoted my post, to me looked like you were referring to the one I made just above. Yeah, some of the upsurge in symptoms definitely non-covid viral stuff going about, they're expecting a bad winter with flu etc. But the positive case numbers do show massive increase in covid cases alongside that too.


----------



## Griff (Jun 23, 2021)

Sorry, should have quoted you. Apologies.


----------



## elbows (Jun 23, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> This is inevitable now. Surely? The scientists have been screaming out (if Twitter is any indication) but the fucking Torycunts...
> 
> SMH



Depends which scientists. Some have been more relaxed about the current plan than others, and I already talked about the optimistic sentiments some were expressing earlier. Todays figures should help stop the optimists from getting too carried away.

Todays big leap in reported cases seems mostly to have been caused by the number of speciments taken on Monday that have come back positive. Scotland especially has posted a very large number indeed, but its true more broadly than that too.

I am still scrunching away at various data that shows cases and hospitalisations by age group, so I can get a better understanding of the current picture. I'm doing a lot of manual processing and its taking ages. I will probably be able to share some graphs later in the week, looking at some regions in particular.

Londons figures dont currently have as steep a trajectory as some other regions, so the bullshit where the media and government find it easier to carry on as normal when London isnt hitting a crisis tipping point may be in effect at the moment.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Todays big leap in reported cases seems mostly to have been caused by the number of speciments taken on Monday that have come back positive. Scotland especially has posted a very large number indeed, but its true more broadly than that too.


The last round of REACT-1 hinted that the daily testing numbers are (of late) under-reporting by a factor of at least something like 3-5x.


----------



## flypanam (Jun 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just anecdotally it seems to have changed. 3 weeks ago I knew nobody who'd had symptoms, positive tests, or had to isolate etc. for ages. In the last 1-2 weeks loads of kids of friends sent home with contact, a few positive tests, lots of people with some symptoms. Does feel very similar to the foothills of the last wave in that way.


Same here. My brother has to isolate. Some students came to his tutorial with covid, they thought they had hay fever. My work place has seen a pretty large jump in cases especially in postgrads and final year students.


----------



## elbows (Jun 23, 2021)

2hats said:


> The last round of REACT-1 hinted that the daily testing numbers are (of late) under-reporting by a factor of at least something like 3-5x.



Yes that would not be surprising. ANy idea if the picture has changed much compared to the second wave when it comes to figures captured by testing compared to estimates based on random sample-based surveillance?

I still have to make use of daily testing numbers since the population survey based stuff has so much lag.


----------



## elbows (Jun 23, 2021)

This BBC graphic of Scotlands positive test results tells its own story.











						Covid in Scotland: The latest cases
					

A weekly update on Covid-19 cases, hospital admissions and deaths in Scotland.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 2hats (Jun 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> This BBC graphic of Scotlands positive test results tells its own story.


It's a complete mystery. What could possibly have happened in the last 7-14 days that predominately involves young(er) males?


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 23, 2021)

oooh, oohhh I know ! or I can guess ...

and possible locations for near super-spreader events, and it wasn't the G7 !

[maybe - something to do with two teams of 11 kicking a round ball ???]


----------



## elbows (Jun 23, 2021)

Assuming I havent mangled the data during processing, here is a look at some positive cases by age for the North West region.

The 0-19 age group has 7 day rolling averages for positive cases by specimen date that are higher than seen previously in the pandemic.

Zooming in further, its the 5-9 and 10-14 age groups which are posting record numbers. Obviously the testing system has changed over time so that needs to be factored in when making these comparisons. 15-19 numbers are high but havent passed the previous peak for the North West yet. Likewise the 20-24 age group for this region.

The yellow and grey lines in the first graph, representing over 60's and those aged 40-59 in the North West testing positive, are what passes as the good news in this sort of data, the reason government attitude remains different this time around, at least so far.





When the next weekly data by region and age is out, I will use it to check whether I've mangled anything when trying to prepare this data.

Some of the falls at the end of these curves are because this data is cases by specimen date, so most recent figures are incomplete. Whether there is anything else going on with the testing/data system that would explain some broader recent blunting of some of those curves I cannot currently say. Some of the trajectories have gone a bit odd more recently but I dont have clues as to why, or whether or not it represents a real change in the infection picture. I havent done every region yet, but this stuff seems especially pronounced in the North West. Other areas that are high on my priority list for this sort of data, because the overall case trajectory in those regions is rather steep, are the North East, Yorkshire and Humber, and the South West.


----------



## elbows (Jun 23, 2021)




----------



## BillRiver (Jun 23, 2021)

I've been meaning to say this for a while, and now seems as good a time as any:

Many thanks for all of your informative posts sharing data and your analysis of it all here, elbows 

I have been reading everything you post for a while now and find it extremely helpful.

Best wishes, Billy


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 23, 2021)

If only as a country we’d had a couple of practice goes at dealing with this, then we’d have certainly known what to (not) do.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 23, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> oooh, oohhh I know ! or I can guess ...
> 
> and possible locations for near super-spreader events, and it wasn't the G7 !
> 
> [maybe - something to do with two teams of 11 kicking a round ball ???]


I can't/can believe they've allowed the fucking football. Utter fucking madness IMO. How many fans will leave the country going home to spread the delta? How many more spreading it locally?


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 23, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> If only as a country we’d had a couple of practice goes at dealing with this, then we’d have certainly known what to (not) do.


If at first you don't succeed....

Vote tory, shove your head up your flue, and continue not succeeding


----------



## William of Walworth (Jun 23, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> oooh, oohhh I know ! or I can guess ...
> 
> and possible locations for near super-spreader events, and it wasn't the G7 !
> 
> [maybe - something to do with two teams of 11 kicking a round ball ???]





glitch hiker said:


> I can't/can believe they've allowed the fucking football. Utter fucking madness IMO. How many fans will leave the country going home to spread the delta? How many more spreading it locally?



Do either of you know, StoneRoad and/or glitch hiker , what the exact rules were, about football fans at either Hampden Park or Wembley??  

*Hint* : Gut hatred of the round ball game isn't _*necessarily*_ (note emphasis!) the best or only guide to analysing infection increases in either Scotland or England, at this fairly football-dominated time


----------



## xenon (Jun 23, 2021)

there have been no international football matches played in Cornwall. And yet the rate has gone up there. some of that might be tourists but the rest, have a guess.


----------



## ska invita (Jun 23, 2021)




----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 23, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Do either of you know, StoneRoad and/or glitch hiker , what the exact rules were, about football fans at either Hampden Park or Wembley??
> 
> *Hint* : Gut hatred of the round ball game isn't _*necessarily*_ (note emphasis!) the best or only guide to analysing infection increases in either Scotland or England, at this fairly football-dominated time


According to something I read (and noticed locally to me) there were a lot of footie fans gathered in places other than Hampden Park or Wembley - it was that social mixing I was refering to, in addition to the main events ...

[IIRC, back in the early stages of the pandemic there was a major spike traced back to an inter-village / pub footie match only about 50 miles from where I live]


----------



## weepiper (Jun 23, 2021)

Anecdotally things seem suddenly pretty bad in Edinburgh as of the last month. Lots of cases in my kids' high school and many other schools throughout the city. Quite a lot of small business closed for ten days with signs in the door saying they've had cases. We had to do that in my own workplace just last week because one of the eight members of staff tested positive. Then I had to get a test for one of my kids on Monday and isolate again while we waited for the result (which was negative). Today one of the guys at work's girlfriend has tested positive, she caught it off her friend so had already been isolating for a few days so hopefully he won't be affected. But it just seems to be bloody everywhere suddenly.


----------



## elbows (Jun 23, 2021)

Yes, somewhat dependent on where you live, we are well into a period where people will struggle not to notice directly via their lives that the amount of infections is rather high again now.

Even if we were to 'get away with' this wave in terms of hospitals, a large wave at this time will make a mockery of the governments 'learning to live with covid' approach, in terms of the amount of disruption caused. I dont think the virus can be allowed to let rip in the younger working age and school ages without consequences for all manner of things including staff absence rates. That stuff is part of the reason they are so keen to change various rules to reduce disruption from self-isolation, but this wave comes too soon for that, and in order to 'live with' future waves beyond this one the overall numbers will need to be lower than they are this time around. 

Its messy out there and I expect it will get messier. Our mass media is doing a poor job of capturing the current state of affairs, and as we've seen previously in the pandemic, they seem to have 'modes' which dictate the focus, the mood music etc. They have been happy to be mostly in summer ostrich mode. We will probably see signs of things reaching crunch point if they suddenly switch modes, as seen previously.

Here is a BBC story about the Scottish case numbers and the possible football link. Its socialising in general around things like the football that they expect makes this big a difference to numbers at great scale. So very much including watching games in pubs or at home with guests, not just the stuff we notice visually via scenes of large crowds etc.









						Covid gender gap widens as cases surge in Scotland
					

One expert suggests younger men meeting up to watch the Euro 2020 football tournament is behind the increase.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 24, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> I've been meaning to say this for a while, and now seems as good a time as any:
> 
> Many thanks for all of your informative posts sharing data and your analysis of it all here, elbows
> 
> ...



Thanks, thats appreciated. I was hoping I'd have nothing much left to say about the pandemic by this point, but thats not proving to be the case so far  The Delta variant and the nature of the relaxation of measures means I havent even had any late spring/summer downtime like I managed partially last year. It would have been nice to at least have had a few more months where the data wasnt intimidating, but with this governments approach I'm hardly shocked that didnt happen.


----------



## andysays (Jun 24, 2021)

ska invita said:


>


One thing that graph certainly doesn't show is any correlation between having a team in the Euros and rates going up.

Though perhaps Germany and France have different rules about getting together in bars to watch the games.


----------



## bimble (Jun 24, 2021)

ska invita said:


>


Well that looks stark as hell. How come those 4 comparison countries shown do you know?


----------



## ska invita (Jun 24, 2021)

andysays said:


> One thing that graph certainly doesn't show is any correlation between having a team in the Euros and rates going up.
> 
> Though perhaps Germany and France have different rules about getting together in bars to watch the games.


Many remaining games are in Delta-Wembley so lets see how this all looks a week after the final


			https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57546042
		


It seems inevitable to me that Delta will hit the mainland soon enough.


bimble said:


> Well that looks stark as hell. How come those 4 comparison countries shown do you know?


no idea sorry


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 24, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Do either of you know, StoneRoad and/or glitch hiker , what the exact rules were, about football fans at either Hampden Park or Wembley??



Overseas fans haven't been allowed in so there won't be a massive spread from them back to their home nations as was suggested.

They do however seem to be letting in lots of officials and 'VIPs.'


----------



## strung out (Jun 24, 2021)

Anecdotally, I know of a bus load of Scotland fans who went down to London and all came back with Covid. No idea of course whether they caught it in London, or if one of their number already had it and successfully spread it to all of them, but I think it's hard to argue that the football hasn't had some kind of effect with tens of thousands of people travelling from across the country to both Wembley and Hampden.


----------



## bimble (Jun 24, 2021)

i think i'm doing the riskiest thing i've done all year today, having a friend's teenaged daughter come to stay here for a bit from London. I don't think there's any point in trying to socially distance inside the house or anything like that is there. I am really just scared of the long covid.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 24, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Do either of you know, StoneRoad and/or glitch hiker , what the exact rules were, about football fans at either Hampden Park or Wembley??
> 
> *Hint* : Gut hatred of the round ball game isn't _*necessarily*_ (note emphasis!) the best or only guide to analysing infection increases in either Scotland or England, at this fairly football-dominated time


Here's what the bbc says:

Covid: Wembley VIP fans will face restrictions - minister.

Having to have 2 jabs a fortnight prior is very good. But you can still get in if all you've got is a clear test the same timeframe prior. That seems insufficient, though perhaps I've misunderstood

It's not football per se, though you are correct to infer I am not a fan. I make no secret of that. However 60,000 people?


----------



## IC3D (Jun 24, 2021)

Why football and not festivals, outdoor raves? OK well I know but pft anyway.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 24, 2021)

elbows - thanks for all the data analysis that you do, most illuminating. Take care of yourself !

ref the footie and the other (sports) events, people going abroad etc.

Even with the almost 82% first jabs administered, I still don't think there has been enough time for sufficient immunity levels to have developed in the population for such easing of social contact rules.

Maybe three weeks after 90 to 95% have had the first jab ?
Better still to wait the two or three weeks after the second jabs for that same percentage of the population.
Then we might see covid under control [assuming no more new variants, especially one that evades the vaccine]

I'm pessimisstic that sufficient people will take enough precautions before the population reaches that level of immunity ...
Especially as the Delta variant seems to be spreading significantly among the younger sectors of the population.

[rumour has it that one of the most popular local secondary schools has loads of cases and has restricted access and our county cases/age heat map had a bunch of cases in 5 to 9 years olds at the end of March - now a similar spot in 0-4s at the moment.

I'm double-jabbed (back in early May, as I'm "old") but this Delta variant surge is making me more anxious than, logically, it should. So I am still taking all sorts of precautions ...


----------



## wtfftw (Jun 24, 2021)

What happened with research thing? Events Research Programme - Science
Does it predate delta?


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 24, 2021)

strung out said:


> Anecdotally, I know of a bus load of Scotland fans who went down to London and all came back with Covid. No idea of course whether they caught it in London, or if one of their number already had it and successfully spread it to all of them, but I think it's hard to argue that the football hasn't had some kind of effect with tens of thousands of people travelling from across the country to both Wembley and Hampden.



I went to the first England game at Wembley.  It was actually very chilled because of the very reduced capacity.  At no point did I feel concerned about covid and I'm more cautious than most.  I suppose the only time bodies were close enough was in toilets during half time and at the end but a few seconds stood next to someone doesn't seem like a major issue to me.  Most areas of Wembley are either outdoors completely or large ventilated spaces.  Plus if you only put 25k people in a 90k stadium there was a lot of space.

I have no doubt that the euros will cause a spike across the UK but I think it will be more about the travelling around in groups and people gathering to watch it on TV in various locations rather than what happens at the stadiums.  Last year's Cheltenham & _that_ Liverpool game got a lot of coverage but most things I've read now believe it was more about all the hospitality around the stadium rather than the actual live sport event element itself.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 24, 2021)

Yeah it's definitely the related travel, gatherings etc that are the issue from what I can see. The actual grounds are very controlled environments, particularly somewhere like Wembley, (which is why the comparisons to raves etc don't hold up). You go through a fixed gate and are then in a fixed area, with mixing between those areas very limited. When watching you get a set seat. Etc etc. 

A load of people gathering in the pub, or in Leicester Square, not so much.


----------



## Supine (Jun 24, 2021)

Don’t get me started on all the fans who gathered in homes / pubs for the Friday night game, caught covid and then travelled down to London for the Tuesday game.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Jun 24, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Overseas fans haven't been allowed in so there won't be a massive spread from them back to their home nations as was suggested.
> 
> They do however seem to be letting in lots of officials and 'VIPs.'


According to this weeks Private Eye UEFA threatened to pull games from Wembley unless their several thousand VIP’s were exempted from quarantine measures.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 24, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> According to this weeks Private Eye UEFA threatened to pull games from Wembley unless their several thousand VIP’s were exempted from quarantine measures.



Needless to say UEFA are being complete cunts as they are with everything they do.  That being said with the situation in Europe and the situation in the UK I'd say the ship has sailed.  They are more at risk of taking delta covid home with them then they are off causing a problem here.  My thoughts anyway.

Merkel is right to be trying to rally fellow European countries against UK tourists.  We are as we always have been a covid basket case.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jun 24, 2021)

'He's full of…': What the Queen and PM said about 'poor man' Matt Hancock
					

Her Majesty and Boris Johnson met at Buckingham Palace for their first in-person weekly audience in over a year.




					news.sky.com
				




Ha ha! Well, Hancock sure is full of something.


----------



## Flavour (Jun 24, 2021)

Yeah having 60,000 fans at Wembley for the Euros final is obviously a ridiculous idea


----------



## LDC (Jun 24, 2021)

Also in the news that the Formula 1 at Silverstone is running at full capacity of 140,000 people before the restrictions end in July (even assuming they do...).


----------



## Petcha (Jun 24, 2021)

Are any of the people attending the football, motor racing etc etc the same people who wanted to lynch Cummings last year? He was widely blamed for people slacking off in lockdown because of his drive for an eye test, but, er. This is slightly worse. He's still a cunt of course but it's useful to cast your mind back to the outcry then.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 24, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Are any of the people attending the football, motor racing etc etc the same people who wanted to lynch Cummings last year? He was widely blamed for people slacking off in lockdown because of his drive for an eye test, but, er. This is slightly worse. He's still a cunt of course but it's useful to cast your mind back to the outcry then.



He was slated for breaking his own government's rules. Not quite the same is it.

If crowds are allowed at events of course people will go. If that's an issue it's a government issue not about the individuals involved.


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 24, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Are any of the people attending the football, motor racing etc etc the same people who wanted to lynch Cummings last year? He was widely blamed for people slacking off in lockdown because of his drive for an eye test, but, er. This is slightly worse. He's still a cunt of course but it's useful to cast your mind back to the outcry then.



Get over yourself.

Crappy blame shit.  We've had enough of this shit already.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 24, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Get over yourself.
> 
> Crappy blame shit.  We've had enough of this shit already.



Ah much more succinct. Better than my effort tbf.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 24, 2021)

"British Antarctic Territories"


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 24, 2021)

bimble said:


> i think i'm doing the riskiest thing i've done all year today, having a friend's teenaged daughter come to stay here for a bit from London. I don't think there's any point in trying to socially distance inside the house or anything like that is there. I am really just scared of the long covid.


Why don't you insist she shows you evidence of a negative lateral flow test before she arrives bimble ?


----------



## elbows (Jun 24, 2021)

Since the healthcare system is under general strain, I've started using these sorts of data sources to keep an eye on a broader picture:





__





						National ambulance syndromic surveillance: weekly bulletins 2021
					

The number of people calling ambulances each day, with results published every week under the syndromic surveillance system.




					www.gov.uk
				








__





						Emergency department: weekly bulletins for 2021
					

The number of people going to emergency departments each day, with results published every week under the syndromic surveillance system.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Jun 24, 2021)

that's really interesting information elbows that's for sharing - people are making as many covid related 999 calls now as there were in Nov 2020 which indicates people are either feeling quite unwell with covid or in a state of some anxiety after being in contact 

I wonder if this data is harder to obscure - it's a broad indication of what people are experiencing


----------



## elbows (Jun 25, 2021)

The BBC are finally covering the A&E crisis but with the framing 'stop bringing your sick young children to A&E'.









						A&Es 'overwhelmed' by children with mild winter viruses, doctors warn
					

Winter viruses are flourishing as more people mix, and a doctor's chief says A&Es are struggling to cope.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Jun 25, 2021)

Like when they harpoon whales and drag them onto boats to be cut up?


----------



## andysays (Jun 25, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Like when they harpoon whales and drag them onto boats to be cut up?



Maybe it's a scientific research programme to see how effectively Covid is transmitted between UEFA VIPs and then back to their home countries.

Generous of the VIPs to volunteer to take part, IMO.

If only the rest of us were equally public spirited, we'd have this whole Covid thing sorted in no time.


----------



## elbows (Jun 25, 2021)

Maybe some internal government pandemic comms werent so very different to this thread.

Cumming latest revelations include him mentioning on 3rd May 2020 that "At the moment I think we ar negligently killing the most vulnerable who we are supposed to be shielding and I am extremely worried about it".

And Johnson replying to something else about test & trace on 26th April 2020 with:



> Thanks totally agree
> 
> The whole track and trace thing feels like whistling in the dark
> 
> ...





> And above all no idea how to get new cases down to a manageable level or how long it will take
> 
> By which time uk may have secured double distinction of being the European country w the most fatalities and the biggest economic hit
> 
> ...











						More evidence on how the PM's & Hancock's negligence killed people
					

Below is a note I sent on 26 April regarding how we could shift to Plan B including with a serious testing system. It helps people understand what an incredible mess testing was and why care homes were neglected. Hancock had monumentally failed. The Cabinet Office did not have the people it...




					dominiccummings.substack.com


----------



## maomao (Jun 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> The BBC are finally covering the A&E crisis but with the framing 'stop bringing your sick young children to A&E'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This will kill children sooner or later. At the height of the pandemic my kid was bounced between a doctors surgery who wouldn't examine him or let him on the premises because he had a 'fever' and an A&E department who wouldn't take a proper look because his temperature wasn't high enough for nearly two months before they managed to diagnose him correctly.


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 25, 2021)

Apparently kids on TikTok have worked out they can avoid school by getting a positive lateral flow test result by using orange juice.


----------



## nagapie (Jun 25, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Apparently kids on TikTok have worked out they can avoid school by getting a positive lateral flow test result by using orange juice.


I wanna do it!


----------



## belboid (Jun 25, 2021)

nagapie said:


> I wanna do it!


I can confirm it works with Tesco’s orange & mango juice


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 25, 2021)

WTF is going on in London, only about 37% of over 18s have been double jabbed, compared with the national average of almost 62%?


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> WTF is going on in London, only about 37% of over 18s have been double jabbed, compared with the national average of almost 62%?



A big part of that will just be the age profile. London is quite heavily younger adult weighted - that whole 'move to London after college then move out to have kids' thing. Then there's the low rates among some ethnic groups. There are probably other factors though I guess.


----------



## belboid (Jun 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> WTF is going on in London, only about 37% of over 18s have been double jabbed, compared with the national average of almost 62%?


A younger and more transient population, some disagreement about how that population figure is come to (students etc being registered n London but aren’t there at the moment). And vaccine hesitancy


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 25, 2021)

Mix of a younger population and a large BAME community that are understandably wary?   Maybe we have a larger population of woo conspiracy types too. 

My refugee friend was saying that his white friends have had their 1st but a lot of his black friends havent. He has had his 1st after asking my advice on whether he should or not. 

He also reports that people he knows in Kenya are suspicious of it. 

/anecdata.


----------



## andysays (Jun 25, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Mix of a younger population and a large BAME community that are understandably wary?   Maybe we have a larger population of woo conspiracy types too.
> 
> My refugee friend was saying that his white friends have had their 1st but a lot of his black friends havent. He has had his 1st after asking my advice on whether he should or not.
> 
> ...


When I was waiting for my second jab last week, I got chatting to a youngish (early twenties I'd guess) black woman, who was also waiting.

Turned out she was also getting her second jab, because she had asthma, and she'd been encouraged by her mum who also has asthma, and had hers first.

But she also said that in general her friends (many of whom are likely to also be BME because we're in Tottenham, an area with high BME population) who don't have medical conditions and so are being offered their first jab about now were keen to have it, possibly to some extent encouraged by her having had it first..

Although I'm sure there is some apprehension in BME communities, we shouldn't just assume that it's inevitable and can't be overcome by personal contacts etc (not saying you're doing this, more making a general point).


----------



## brogdale (Jun 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> WTF is going on in London, only about 37% of over 18s have been double jabbed, compared with the national average of almost 62%?


Supply of Pfizer & Moderna have been an issue, apparently:

Give us the right vaccines to open up London


> L
> ondon health chiefs have requested extra supplies of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines so that they can tackle worryingly low levels of take-up in the capital, the Evening Standard can reveal.
> They want to rush out doses to hundreds of thousands of younger people across the capital to help slow the transmission of the more dangerous Delta (Indian) variant.
> London health officials are understood to have requested 367,000 extra Pfizer and Moderna doses — which can be safely given to younger age groups — on top of existing supplies.





> Despite 7.8 million doses being given to Londoners, the capital has the lowest vaccination level of any region or nation in the UK, by a wide margin. Some 68.6 per cent of Londoners have had a first jab, compared with 79.2 per cent nationally. Some 43.4 per cent of Londoners have had a second jab, compared with 56.9 per cent nationally.


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 25, 2021)

I don’t know about that I could get my second Pfizer jab in the London area 3 weeks ahead of when I can in Devon


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> WTF is going on in London, only about 37% of over 18s have been double jabbed, compared with the national average of almost 62%?



Is that "national" figure for England or for the UK I wonder.


----------



## Raheem (Jun 25, 2021)

Is the proportion of people in London who are OAPs also lower than the national average? That might be part of the picture.


----------



## brogdale (Jun 25, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Is that "national" figure for England or for the UK I wonder.


The ES piece I linked to had the London figure at 43.4% over 18's double jabbed, as opposed to 56.9 nationally, which I take to mean England.


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 25, 2021)

brogdale said:


> The ES piece I linked to had the London figure at 43.4% over 18's double jabbed, as opposed to 56.9 nationally, which I take to mean England.



It's just that the government and media have been quite dodgy with that issue, often quoting UK figures when it makes them sound better while England figures (for numbers vaccinations) have been significantly lower than UK as a whole or than other individual UK nations eg Wales and Scotland, and England figures have often been harder to find out.


----------



## 2hats (Jun 25, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Supply of Pfizer & Moderna have been an issue, apparently:


It's a shame that Novavax, NVX-CoV2373, is unlikely to now get regulatory approval before late September* (raw materials supply issues).


> The mRNA Vaccines Are Extraordinary, but Novavax Is Even Better
> Persistent hype around mRNA vaccine technology is now distracting us from other ways to end the pandemic.
> 
> The success of the Novavax vaccine should be A1 news. The recent results confirm that it has roughly the same efficacy as the two authorized mRNA vaccines, with the added benefit of being based on an older, more familiar science. The protein-subunit approach used by Novavax was first implemented for the hepatitis B vaccine, which has been used in the U.S. since 1986. The pertussis vaccine, which is required for almost all children in U.S. public schools, is also made this way. Some of those people who have been wary of getting the mRNA vaccines may find Novavax more appealing.
> ...


* see also Valneva, VLA2001 - pending final results of phase 3 trials.


----------



## David Clapson (Jun 26, 2021)

Lambeth Council emailed this just now:



> Lambeth currently has a case rate of 150 per 100,000 people, which is a 50 per cent rise since the start of June. The highest number of cases are among those *aged 20 to 35, *and Lambeth Council is particularly urging people in this age range *to get a PCR test* as well as using regular rapid tests.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 26, 2021)

maomao said:


> This will kill children sooner or later. At the height of the pandemic my kid was bounced between a doctors surgery who wouldn't examine him or let him on the premises because he had a 'fever' and an A&E department who wouldn't take a proper look because his temperature wasn't high enough for nearly two months before they managed to diagnose him correctly.


Please don't be too stressed about this, all the evidence points to Covid having almost no risk to anyone normally healthy under 30 and it's certainly not risky to young babies. The data and evidence is all there.

The story says A&E are busy because parents are stressed and bringing in kids when they don't need to (mild colds or whatever). NHS guidelines say they have to keep in for obs for 4 hours so you can imagine they get very busy.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 26, 2021)

Would encourage everyone to keep an eye on the government dashboard. Yes, cases are up but hospitalisations/deaths are _way_ down on previous waves. This means the vaccines are working at preventing serious illness in the vulnerable, which is a huge, huge relief.
The media hypes everything to generate more clicks but sometimes it's good to just look at the data.
Daily summary | Coronavirus in the UK


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 26, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Would encourage everyone to keep an eye on the government dashboard. Yes, cases are up but hospitalisations/deaths are _way_ down on previous waves. This means the vaccines are working at preventing serious illness in the vulnerable, which is a huge, huge relief.
> The media hypes everything to generate more clicks but sometimes it's good to just look at the data.
> Daily summary | Coronavirus in the UK


Sounds great, but presumably you're taking into account the length if time between a rise in cases and hospitalisations and finally deaths?


----------



## maomao (Jun 26, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Please don't be too stressed about this, all the evidence points to Covid having almost no risk to anyone normally healthy under 30 and it's certainly not risky to young babies. The data and evidence is all there.
> 
> The story says A&E are busy because parents are stressed and bringing in kids when they don't need to (mild colds or whatever). NHS guidelines say they have to keep in for obs for 4 hours so you can imagine they get very busy.


I'm not worried about covid. My son has leukaemia and was repeatedly turned away from hospitals and doctors in November and December last year because his fevers were misdiagnosed as 'mild colds'. Parents should be believed when they say their kids are ill and shouldn't be made to feel that they are wasting doctors' time or have to wait two months before someone considers a blood test. I have met the mother of a child with neuroblastoma who literally had to sit down in the middle of A&E and refuse to go to get her son looked at properly.  The same goes for adults quite frankly it's just the framing of that particular article that sent shivers down my spine.


----------



## Elpenor (Jun 26, 2021)

Leading on from what maomao says I’ve found nothing but  resistance from GPs when I’ve visited with  concerns. It feels like they show no interest, are desperate to get you out of their office and are reading from scripts.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 26, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Sounds great, but presumably you're taking into account the length if time between a rise in cases and hospitalisations and finally deaths?


Yes that's taking into account the lag. There was a good analysis on Radio 4's More or Less and they said something like 40,000 hospitalisations prevented because of the vaccine so far.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 26, 2021)

maomao said:


> I'm not worried about covid. My son has leukaemia and was repeatedly turned away from hospitals and doctors in November and December last year because his fevers were misdiagnosed as 'mild colds'. Parents should be believed when they say their kids are ill and shouldn't be made to feel that they are wasting doctors' time or have to wait two months before someone considers a blood test. I have met the mother of a child with neuroblastoma who literally had to sit down in the middle of A&E and refuse to go to get her son looked at properly.  The same goes for adults quite frankly it's just the framing of that particular article that sent shivers down my spine.


Sorry about that, didn't get the context. It's not been my experience when I took my son to A&E at King's last year. He was fully examined and a follow up appointment arranged with a specialist at a leading hospital. I hope your son is getting the best possible care now. Best wishes.


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Yes that's taking into account the lag. There was a good analysis on Radio 4's More or Less and they said something like 40,000 hospitalisations prevented because of the vaccine so far.



The latest estimates for England are that 44.500 hospitalisations of people 65 and over have been prevented, along with 14.000 deaths of people aged 60 and above. They think these are underestimates because the indirect effects of vaccination havent been included.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/996565/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_25.pdf
		


I note that in another post you mention media hype, but the media arent hyping stuff at the moment, they are underplaying the implications of the current wave.


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2021)

The Guardian somewhat put the timing of the stuff reffered to by Cummings latest revelations into context:



> Publishing what he said were Johnson’s words, Cummings said the prime minister confided that he feared the proposed system to track down Covid cases and stop transmission was like “legions of imaginary Clouseaus [fictional French detectives] and no plan to hire them”.
> 
> Johnson reportedly complained of “apps that don’t yet work” and “above all no idea how to get new cases down to a manageable level or how long it will take … by which time [the] UK may have [the] secured double distinction of being the European country with the most fatalities and the biggest economic hit”. He concluded: “We GOTTA turn it round.”





> His gloomy assessment contrasted strongly with the prime minister’s public statement the next day that “if this virus were a physical assailant, an unexpected and invisible mugger … then this is the moment when we have begun together to wrestle it to the floor”.





> Cummings told the prime minister on 3 May 2020 by WhatsApp: “these goddam plans should already exists … but I don’t think they do” and that “at the moment I think we are negligently killing the most vulnerable who we’re supposed to be shielding and I am extremely worried about it”.
> 
> At the time of the warning there was desperation in care homes where more than 2,000 residents in England and Wales were still dying from Covid each week. Care operators warned on 5 May that more than three-quarters of care staff were not being tested despite a promise by Hancock three weeks earlier that there was capacity for all of them.





> A few days after Cummings’ warning about care home deaths, the Guardian reported care operators’ anger that testing was “a complete system failure” even though Hancock had promised tests for all care residents from 28 April. With care staff unable to detect who had the virus, deaths of care home residents from the virus didn’t drop below 1,000 until the end of the month.
> 
> Care operators responded to the revelations by noting that weeks later Johnson publicly blamed care operators for deaths, saying “too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures in the way that they could have”.
> 
> “If these messages are accurate, it’s clear that the PM was aware of the risk to vulnerable people due to a lack of testing capacity,” said Nadra Ahmed, the executive chairman of the National Care Association, who recalled that it had been impossible to know who had the virus as testing was taking more than 10 days in some cases. “The tragedy of this is the potential that lives were lost unnecessarily because these problems weren’t recognised or rectified.”











						PM said test and trace would be ‘like whistling in the dark’, says Cummings
					

Former adviser publishes contents of April 2020 email from Boris Johnson expressing concern over Matt Hancock’s plans for testing




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2021)

> Doctors and nurses working at Manchester’s Royal Infirmary say they were told the hospital had declared a major incident on Thursday amid mounting pressures in its emergency department, long waits for patients and fears of a shortage of staff and beds.
> 
> Multiple sources at the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, from different departments, said staff were told the declaration was made, but then rapidly reduced to an internal incident to “avoid bad press”.
> 
> The trust denied declaring any incident but has taken what is known as ‘business continuity measures” which is part of NHS England’s incident response and is designed to ensure hospitals can maintain patient services in the face of increased demand.











						NHS staff in Manchester reveal ‘major incident’ over hospital pressures
					

Exclusive: Hospital denies declaring incident but has put in place measures to maintain services as patients face long waits




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 26, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Where is this 'double jabbed so I can do what the fuck I like now' attitude coming from? AFAIK there's no evidence that you can't transmit the virus after you've been vaccinated.



It was inevitable because some people are ignorant cunts

It’s exactly what I expected to happen


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2021)

From the 'Tim Spector is a twat' department comes this. This sort of sentiment is bound to be part of 'learning to live with covid' but these shitheads are pushing for it too soon.


----------



## David Clapson (Jun 26, 2021)

Anyone know the latest numbers for the efficacy of two doses of the AZ/Oxford?


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Anyone know the latest numbers for the efficacy of two doses of the AZ/Oxford?







__





						Public library - UKHSA national - Knowledge Hub
					






					khub.net


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> From the 'Tim Spector is a twat' department comes this. This sort of sentiment is bound to be part of 'learning to live with covid' but these shitheads are pushing for it too soon.



Says man whose son is not a school kid


----------



## andysays (Jun 26, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> It was inevitable because some people are ignorant cunts
> 
> It’s exactly what I expected to happen


It's not just (or even mostly) because some people are ignorant cunts.

It's been quite frequently suggested by government etc that individuals who have had two jabs should be allowed to behave in ways which are still extremely risky.

Unless I've misunderstood your post and it's specifically the government you're calling ignorant cunts.


----------



## Boudicca (Jun 26, 2021)

Are there any demographics on more recent deaths?  I've been trying to tell my (black British) friend that it is too soon to look at how many BME people are dying because they haven't been vaccinated, because there isn't be enough data yet for the figures to be reliable.


----------



## David Clapson (Jun 26, 2021)

Just had a PCR test for the Lambeth surge. There's a testing facility in the middle of Brixton but hardly any takers, even though it's very busy with shoppers and people ambling around enjoying themselves.


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2021)

Boudicca said:


> Are there any demographics on more recent deaths?  I've been trying to tell my (black British) friend that it is too soon to look at how many BME people are dying because they haven't been vaccinated, because there isn't be enough data yet for the figures to be reliable.


I would certainly agree that the overall number of deaths at the moment mean the data will suffer, the level of usual random 'noise' in the data will be quite high compared to the total numbers of deaths.

I have started to pay attention to the following sort of data in regards intensive care. Its still early days for this wave on that front too.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W25.pdf


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 26, 2021)

Another new record for this wave - 18,270 new cases reported today, 7-day average up +54.4%.

Patients admitted to hospital, 7-day average are 'only' up +10.3%, which is sort of good news.

However, new deaths reported 23, 7-day average up +60.8%.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 26, 2021)

WYF is the Scottish government playing at?







Look at the rates and the 'levels'.

Anything over 150 should be in level 3, East Lothian is in level 1.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 26, 2021)

And about a week ago, my little/local patch got a +ve case ...

great, that's really gonna help my bezza's mental state.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 26, 2021)

Those figures are fucking grim, Sasaferrato.  

And, there's me pissed off that we've gone from 1 to almost 80 cases/100k over the last few weeks.


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> WYF is the Scottish government playing at?


Broadly speaking they are following the same approach as the UK government - let it rip.

They are relying on the age of many cases being low, and the hospitalisation figures, to justify not imposing new restrictions.

As case numbers increase to record levels, we also need to consider other forms of brake that exist within the current system, beyond the handbrake that is lockdown.

For example, assuming plenty of people still get tested and still follow self-isolation rules, as the number of cases in communities increase, we end with a sort of 'partial lockdown by stealth' as various businesses and services including schools and hospitals lose many staff members to self-isolation, and are no longer able to provide a normal service. In future the authorities will look to remove much of this stuff from the picture too, by changing the rules, but those rules havent been removed in time to avoid large disruption in this particular wave.

I am not happy about this approach so I am just attempting to explain certain parts of it, not justify it.


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2021)

Plus some of Scotlands recent numbers are probably even worse than the data currently shows, since they've had some sort processing backlog at the Glasgow lighthouse lab.

This wave is likely a lesson in how high numbers can go in some settings and sections of the population when faced with a nasty variant, and thus how high the numbers can still go overall. Combined with lessons about how little of a shit authorities give as long as hospitals remain within capacity, combined with the huge gains that the vaccines have offered. The extent to which there will be an ugly lesson about the limits of how much we can reasonably ask of vaccinations at this stage remains to be seen.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Those figures are fucking grim, Sasaferrato.
> 
> And, there's me pissed off that we've gone from 1 to almost 80 cases/100k over the last few weeks.



Cases in our area, West Lothian, have quadrupled in two weeks.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> Plus some of Scotlands recent numbers are probably even worse than the data currently shows, since they've had some sort processing backlog at the Glasgow lighthouse lab.
> 
> This wave is likely a lesson in how high numbers can go in some settings and sections of the population when faced with a nasty variant, and thus how high the numbers can still go overall. Combined with lessons about how little of a shit authorities give as long as hospitals remain within capacity, combined with the huge gains that the vaccines have offered. The extent to which there will be an ugly lesson about the limits of how much we can reasonably ask of vaccinations at this stage remains to be seen.



We have TV adverts advising us to be tested twice a week. That would be 8 million tests a week, we simply do not have the capacity to turn those tests round in a meaningful time.


----------



## Boudicca (Jun 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> I would certainly agree that the overall number of deaths at the moment mean the data will suffer, the level of usual random 'noise' in the data will be quite high compared to the total numbers of deaths.
> 
> I have started to pay attention to the following sort of data in regards intensive care. Its still early days for this wave on that front too.
> 
> ...


Thanks for that.  Not great news.  My friend has had his vaccine but most of his family have decided not to.


----------



## weepiper (Jun 26, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> We have TV adverts advising us to be tested twice a week. That would be 8 million tests a week, we simply do not have the capacity to turn those tests round in a meaningful time.


It means lateral flow tests Sas, you do them at home yourself so they don't need to be turned around as such. PCR tests are for people who have symptoms. Lateral flow tests are to keep an eye on the virus in asymptomatic people. If you do a positive lateral flow test you're supposed to then isolate and get a PCR test to confirm.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 26, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> We have TV adverts advising us to be tested twice a week. That would be 8 million tests a week, we simply do not have the capacity to turn those tests round in a meaningful time.


There is no way we can get enough people fullly vaccinated by the 19th of July, which means Hancock is going to have to find the credibility to call for lockdown (as people see it) being extended again.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 26, 2021)

weepiper said:


> It means lateral flow tests Sas, you do them at home yourself so they don't need to be turned around as such. PCR tests are for people who have symptoms. Lateral flow tests are to keep an eye on the virus in asymptomatic people. If you do a positive lateral flow test you're supposed to then isolate and get a PCR test to confirm.



Thanks for the clarification, I don't think the adverts make that clear.


----------



## elbows (Jun 26, 2021)

Scotlands overall case numbers are breaking their previous records, and this is especially notable on the dashboard graph of cases by specimen date for Edinburgh.


----------



## Cloo (Jun 26, 2021)

Aside from resultant deaths and hospitalisations, even if lower, surely with this level of infection there will just be impractically high levels of people being isolated in the next few months? Businesses having to open and close, etc etc.

We, thankfully, held my daughter's bat mitzvah today, postponed from last year - socially distanced in the synagogue, small garden party afterwards. Very, very luckily neither of our kids got a contact in the period running up to it (one scare with son suddenly having fatigue and high temp, but PCR negative, just under a fortnight ago) and also luckily we only 'lost' a few people to isolation but I would not want to be having a big event in the next month


----------



## flypanam (Jun 27, 2021)

About 125 students in my work got pinged by Track and Trace on Thursday. 20 staff mainly in admin and reception are isolating for ten days too, looks like our 4 week term extension will end 3 weeks early on Wednesday.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jun 27, 2021)

More than one of the schools where OH has done loads of supply after taking "early retirement" are currently suffering multiple cases or isolations among the teaching / ancillary staff and students.
So glad to be a) retired b) double jabbed ...

However, still taking precautions when outside our house and garden or when stuff is delivered.
Chatted to postperson a couple of days ago - one of his anti-vaxx co-workers is, yet again, having to isolate as one of their several bratts is (again) a contact to a +ve case. This "worker" should be on the P/Time list, they done so few hours in the past 18 months.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jun 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another new record for this wave - 18,270 new cases reported today, 7-day average up +54.4%.
> 
> *Patients admitted to hospital, 7-day average are 'only' up +10.3%, which is sort of good news.*
> 
> However, new deaths reported 23, 7-day average up +60.8%.



Highlighted bit is only up until the 22nd, mind - so that figure doesn't actually line up with the other two, iyswim.

For eg - the last data on that, for England, was the following day when numbers rose from 182 to 214 -


DateSorted column (descending) - Apply ascending sort.England dailyUnsorted column - Apply ascending sort.Northern Ireland dailyUnsorted column - Apply ascending sort.Scotland dailyUnsorted column - Apply ascending sort.Wales dailyUnsorted column - Apply ascending sort.England totalUnsorted column - Apply ascending sort.Northern Ireland totalUnsorted column - Apply ascending sort.Scotland totalUnsorted column - Apply ascending sort.Wales totalUnsorted column - Apply ascending sort.24-06-2021N/AData not currently available for this metric.0N/AData not currently available for this metric.8N/AData not currently available for this metric.9,480N/AData not currently available for this metric.32,21423-06-20212142N/AData not currently available for this metric.5403,9979,480N/AData not currently available for this metric.32,20622-06-20211824356403,7839,47825,58332,20121-06-202118123010403,6019,47425,54832,19520-06-20211710275403,4209,47225,51832,185


----------



## elbows (Jun 27, 2021)

In recent times we've gone from a period where data made optimists nervous to the point that they conceded delaying step 4 was probably sensible. Then there was a period where the rate of case increases seemed less, and some of the optimists started to revert to their standard form. But rise in case numbers in the data has been rather explosive again recently, and the nerves are back for them. Since I am not one of the optimists, my stance mostly remains 'emergency, emergency!', with only some relatively brief moments where I become less fearful of this wave.

Now isnt the right time for me to start waving various graphs around because there is a data processing issue for cases in England which means some are missing from todays dashboard update. So I will wait till later in this coming week before I share some charts which give examples of what I am on about in terms of explosive growth.

For anyone that is still looking to avoid catching this virus, who doesnt want to rely on vaccines alone, and who are looking to update their sense of risk, its probably a good idea to read the following sort of articles. Including paying attention to how a country like Australia, with a very different approach (and very different level of vaccinated population) is handling public communication about the Delta variant.









						Covid Delta variant is ‘in the air you breathe’: what you need to know about Sydney outbreak strain
					

Delta strain is significantly more infectious but it spreads the same way as the original virus – including by ‘fleeting’ encounters and respiratory aerosols




					www.theguardian.com
				












						Delta Covid variant may be edging race against vaccines
					

Analysis: research suggests ‘scarily fleeting’ contact could infect, and that places with high jab rates are susceptible




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jun 27, 2021)

A fair chunk of the explosive growth is probably in student populations.









						Leeds waits for vaccine as Covid rates go sky-high in student areas
					

Coronavirus rates in parts of the city are 10 times the UK average as the authorities play catch-up in giving out jabs




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## weepiper (Jun 27, 2021)

Another guy at work has tested positive. Not connected to the other guy who had it a couple of weeks ago, this one caught it from his girlfriend. She's just left school in an area of the city where there's currently a positivity rate of over a thousand people per 100,000


----------



## elbows (Jun 27, 2021)

G7 and the limit of vaccines news:



> BBC presenter Andrew Marr has revealed he suffered a “nasty” bout of Covid-19 despite having already received both vaccine doses.
> 
> The journalist told viewers on his flagship show that he thinks he got the disease while covering the G7 summit in Cornwall earlier this month. When interviewing London mayor Sadiq Khan he said: “I think I got mine at the G7 in Cornwall.”
> 
> He also said: “I had a bit of Covid last week despite being double-jabbed, and very nasty it was too.”











						Andrew Marr had ‘very nasty’ Covid despite being double jabbed and believes he caught at G7 in Cornwall
					

‘I had a bit of Covid last week despite being double-jabbed and very nasty it was too’




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jun 27, 2021)

> What is truly different about the current situation, he says, is that every constituent part of the system is desperately struggling to cope.
> 
> “Sometimes you get lots of pressures on GPs, or the ambulance service, or A&E, or urgent operations, or on pharmacies or dentists,” he says.
> 
> “What you don’t normally get is all of that at the same time and that’s why clinicians are saying this is ‘unprecedented’ - the escape valves aren’t there.”











						A midwinter NHS crisis in midsummer
					

Extreme pressure in primary care is spilling over into hospitals, along with an uptick in winter viruses and a fresh surge of Covid. “The question I get asked the most is ‘when is it back to normal - when is it back to normal?’ And there is no date.”



					www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk


----------



## Cloo (Jun 27, 2021)

flypanam said:


> About 125 students in my work got pinged by Track and Trace on Thursday. 20 staff mainly in admin and reception are isolating for ten days too, looks like our 4 week term extension will end 3 weeks early on Wednesday.


About a third of Year 10 at daughter's school were sent home the day before her bat mitzvah


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> A midwinter NHS crisis in midsummer
> 
> 
> Extreme pressure in primary care is spilling over into hospitals, along with an uptick in winter viruses and a fresh surge of Covid. “The question I get asked the most is ‘when is it back to normal - when is it back to normal?’ And there is no date.”
> ...


"System that was fucked beforehand and already failing" in "surge in demand causes it to be even fuckeder" shock.

But that counts for the entire time really. The mental health system can't cope with the uptick in patients? It couldn't cope beforehand either.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 28, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Just had a PCR test for the Lambeth surge. There's a testing facility in the middle of Brixton but hardly any takers, even though it's very busy with shoppers and people ambling around enjoying themselves.


The one in Brockwell Park is very quiet as well. Me/my wife often walk past and there's never anyone there getting a test.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 28, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> "System that was fucked beforehand and already failing" in "surge in demand causes it to be even fuckeder" shock.
> 
> But that counts for the entire time really. The mental health system can't cope with the uptick in patients? It couldn't cope beforehand either.


Yes, completely. If we had to wait until there is no pressure on the NHS before we ended lockdown then would still be in lockdown in 2100. Lockdown causes different kinds of health problems, like fewer people being treated for cancer.


----------



## maomao (Jun 28, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Lockdown causes different kinds of health problems, like fewer people being treated for cancer.


This is a lie regularly used by anti lockdown nutjobs. It is hospitals and the NHS being under pressure that causes cancer treatments to be postponed and cancelled as well as slowing down GP referrals. Without lockdowns hospitals would have been treating covid and little else.


----------



## LDC (Jun 28, 2021)

I agree, that's oft repeated 'common sense' that's actually bollocks. Under-funding etc. are the root causes for that, not lockdowns. And without lockdowns it would all have been _much _worse for people with other non-covid conditions.


----------



## LDC (Jun 28, 2021)

Anyway, came on here to say it's not a good indicator that I a bit wish Hancock was still in the HS job. Javid, especially going by his first words to camera, is going to be much more anti-lockdown than Hancock was. Nothing about health of the country, that people that have died/suffered, etc. just 'get over the pandemic and back to normal' asap stuff, urgh.


----------



## maomao (Jun 28, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anyway, came on here to say it's not a good indicator that I a bit wish Hancock was still in the HS job. Javid, especially going by his first words to camera, is going to be much more anti-lockdown than Hancock was. Nothing about health of the country, that people that have died/suffered, etc. just 'get over the pandemic and back to normal' asap stuff, urgh.


I agree. He actually said he was going to 'end the pandemic' but I think we all know what he meant.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 28, 2021)

maomao said:


> This is a lie regularly used by anti lockdown nutjobs. It is hospitals and the NHS being under pressure that causes cancer treatments to be postponed and cancelled as well as slowing down GP referrals. Without lockdowns hospitals would have been treating covid and little else.


What I was referring to is people not wanting to go to the GP/hospital out of fear of being infected, and also many vital surgeries being cancelled. Of course the NHS does what it can but cancer treatment has fallen by the wayside somewhat. It's debatable what role lockdowns and government messaging has played.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 28, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> "System that was fucked beforehand and already failing" in "surge in demand causes it to be even fuckeder" shock.
> 
> But that counts for the entire time really. The mental health system can't cope with the uptick in patients? It couldn't cope beforehand either.



Britain's mental health service has been functionally deceased for a long time.


----------



## David Clapson (Jun 28, 2021)

Is anyone bothered by Hancock's flouting of the social distancing rule? There were lots of good reasons for him to go, but it needs to be legal to transition to a new partner outside your household. That's just life. If Hancock and his new squeeze stick to the rules in other respects, the risk of them causing more transmissions is negligible.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jun 28, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> What I was referring to is people not wanting to go to the GP/hospital out of fear of being infected, and also many vital surgeries being cancelled. Of course the NHS does what it can but cancer treatment has fallen by the wayside somewhat. It's debatable what role lockdowns and government messaging has played.



GPs also essentially pulled up the drawbridge, it's next to impossible to get an appointment even over the phone.


----------



## maomao (Jun 28, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> What I was referring to is people not wanting to go to the GP/hospital out of fear of being infected, and also many vital surgeries being cancelled.


Surgeries have been cancelled because NHS resources have been concentrated on covid, and because of the amount of covid in hospitals, not because they've been locked down. And why would people not fear being infected without lockdowns? Lockdowns kept the infection rate down at the peaks. Or do you think it's all been overhyped?

GP services seem to have ended up being biased towards their elderly regulars but again they would either have had to implement infection control or the death figures would have been twice as high as they were.


----------



## maomao (Jun 28, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Is anyone bothered by Hancock's flouting of the social distancing rule? There were lots of good reasons for him to go, but it needs to be legal to transition to a new partner outside your household. That's just life. If Hancock and his new squeeze stick to the rules in other respects, the risk of them causing more transmissions is negligible.


This is just nonsense. It's basically been illegal for people to have new sexual relationships for most of the last year. That includes ' transitioning to a new partner'.


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## cupid_stunt (Jun 28, 2021)

It's certainly not easy for GPs, what with having to manage infection controls at surgeries, a surge in demand, whilst also delivering the bulk of the vaccination programme, delivering around 75% of jabs, with the other 25% being done directly by the NHS & their appointed pharmacies.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> In recent times we've gone from a period where data made optimists nervous to the point that they conceded delaying step 4 was probably sensible. Then there was a period where the rate of case increases seemed less, and some of the optimists started to revert to their standard form. But rise in case numbers in the data has been rather explosive again recently, and the nerves are back for them. Since I am not one of the optimists, my stance mostly remains 'emergency, emergency!', with only some relatively brief moments where I become less fearful of this wave.
> 
> Now isnt the right time for me to start waving various graphs around because there is a data processing issue for cases in England which means some are missing from todays dashboard update. So I will wait till later in this coming week before I share some charts which give examples of what I am on about in terms of explosive growth.
> 
> ...



On the subject of scarily fleeting contact someone in china told me there was a case where they didnt appear to have any contact with someone then found out they'd been in the same public bathroom for 14 seconds.


----------



## LDC (Jun 28, 2021)

maomao said:


> I agree. He actually said he was going to 'end the pandemic' but I think we all know what he meant.



Yeah, 'end the pandemic', shit _of course,_ that's the problem, nobody's realized that's what we need to do. FFS. 

Brilliant he's health secretary now, once he's ended the pandemic, he can work on ending cancer, ending heart disease, etc.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 28, 2021)

maomao said:


> Surgeries have been cancelled because NHS resources have been concentrated on covid, and because of the amount of covid in hospitals, not because they've been locked down. And why would people not fear being infected without lockdowns? Lockdowns kept the infection rate down at the peaks. Or do you think it's all been overhyped?
> 
> GP services seem to have ended up being biased towards their elderly regulars but again they would either have had to implement infection control or the death figures would have been twice as high as they were.







__





						Latest UK and World News, Sport and Comment - Express.co.uk
					

Latest news, showbiz, sport, comment, lifestyle, city, video and pictures from the Daily Express and Sunday Express newspapers and Express.co.uk




					www.express.co.uk
				



"Experts have blamed the backlog on fearful patients staying at home, difficulties in accessing services in lockdowns and disruption as the staff were redeployed to tackle the pandemic."

Hindsight is 20/20, but I do think we shouldn't be blind to where NHS/government over-caution may have cost lives as well as the important positive benefits of lockdown in reducing Covid cases.


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## Cat Fan (Jun 28, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Is anyone bothered by Hancock's flouting of the social distancing rule? There were lots of good reasons for him to go, but it needs to be legal to transition to a new partner outside your household. That's just life. If Hancock and his new squeeze stick to the rules in other respects, the risk of them causing more transmissions is negligible.


I think it's reasonable for us to hold the Health secretary to an extremely high standard, when it comes to Covid laws that everyone is supposed to follow.


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## David Clapson (Jun 28, 2021)

But shouldn't the law permit people to start a new relationship? I don't think the rules are supposed to stop us doing that.


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## cupid_stunt (Jun 28, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...



But, without lockdowns, cases & deaths would have skyrocketed, resulting in even more fear for non-covid patients seeking treatment, and even more staff redeployed to tackle the pandemic.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jun 28, 2021)

I'd say breaking the distancing rules is probably somewhere in the middle of the 'list of reasons why Hancock should have been sacked' tbh.


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## maomao (Jun 28, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> "Experts have blamed the backlog on fearful patients staying at home, difficulties in accessing services in lockdowns and disruption as the staff were redeployed to tackle the pandemic.


GP services would have had to put the same or similar infection control measures in place (or kill twice as many) with or without a lockdown and no lockdown would have meant people were even more at risk and therefore more afraid. More staff would have had to be redeployed. It's like you've zoomed in on the word lockdown without reading the whole article.


----------



## maomao (Jun 28, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> But shouldn't the law permit people to start a new relationship? I don't think the rules are supposed to stop us doing that.


They specifically stop that.


----------



## David Clapson (Jun 28, 2021)

Well well. Being perpetually single I must have missed that bit.


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## quimcunx (Jun 28, 2021)

I think if  you had two people living alone you could meet online then for a walk then form a bubble.  I don't think that was the case here.


----------



## Thora (Jun 28, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> But shouldn't the law permit people to start a new relationship? I don't think the rules are supposed to stop us doing that.


You can start a new relationship, but you can't snog them in your office.


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## David Clapson (Jun 28, 2021)

But without the Office Snog stage a lot of relationships would never get started.


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## maomao (Jun 28, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Well well. Being perpetually single I must have missed that bit.


Not surprised if you think Hancock's behaviour was reasonable.


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## Thora (Jun 28, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> But without the Office Snog stage a lot of relationships would never get started.


Yeah a lot of relationships probably didn't get started during the pandemic   That's the point isn't it?  Lots of people stuck on their own, going for socially distanced walks while the Health Sec is ignoring his own rules and feeling up his staff.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jun 28, 2021)

Just had a text from my GP surgery warning that appointments are going to be more difficult to get again due to a local surge (delta) - thankfully I don't need to go there for a couple of months.
I was building up to getting my teeth fixed though - and have been waiting for the various "openings up" ...

Meanwhile, in my usually very well-behaved part of Bristol, two days in a row there have been maskless people in two different supermarkets - including the staff ...


----------



## miss direct (Jun 28, 2021)

People are so much better behaved with masks here in Malvern compared to Sheffield. 

I'm travelling back today. Paying more to go on the train because the coach experience was so unpleasant.


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## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Scotland broke another record for reported cases, but no need to worry as their finance finance secretary says their government are being as cautious as possible 









						Covid in Scotland: New cases pass 3,000 to reach new record high
					

A further 3,285 cases of the virus have been recorded in Scotland, with 12.6% of tests positive.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




In terms of UK hospitalisations, things are going about as well as they could possibly have hoped for, which is why we are hearing all sorts of optimistic noises from the UK government at the moment. Having studied the modelling it seems reasonable to say that things have an appearance of going much better on that front than the modelling implied, but in terms of timing its actually still too early to be confident that reality will be quite different to the alarming modelling scenarios. So I have to see if this holds true for the next few weeks before I start to feel my worst case fears slipping away, to be replaced by something still unpleasant but not on the scale seen previously.  And I'm probably going to have to study the detail more thoroughly since some kind of rise in hospitalisations is still on the cards, so it might take a while before I can tell the difference between a curve that will lead to something far below previous peaks, and something that quickly turns into a complete nightmare.

In other words, hope is not lost at this stage, the numbers are within a range where it is not utterly inevitable that my worst case fears will fully materialise. But neither would I be ready yet to cash in that hope for something more substantial and irreversible.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Things that would kill that hope for me: A large spread of cases into higher age groups over time. An alarming trajectory in regards hospitalisations (and deaths).

Things that will allow that hope to blossom and solidify: The passing of time without the above happening.

Current enablers of hope: Some of the data (but certainly not overall case numbers & trajectory). The vaccines being rather good and having passed the stress test so far.

Really I suppose I'm just waiting to see that the vaccines pass the next stages of stress test, where an ever increasing load will be placed on them. If that happens, then my attitude to the pandemic will evolve.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

When my impression of this wave and my pandemic attitude will change: Probably sometime between 4pm today and 4 weeks time*

*Will inevitably take longer to form a happier impression of this wave than it will to breathe a sign of relief, so the earliest prospect, 4pm today, is reserved only for gloomy direction of travel, I dont think I can become optimistic about the situation for a minimum of 2 weeks, and more likely 3 or 4. But we are already in a period where I am at least prepared to acknowledge the more optimistic possibilities rather than utterly dismiss them as fantasy incompatible with a bad pandemic.


----------



## xenon (Jun 28, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> What I was referring to is people not wanting to go to the GP/hospital out of fear of being infected, and also many vital surgeries being cancelled. Of course the NHS does what it can but cancer treatment has fallen by the wayside somewhat. It's debatable what role lockdowns and government messaging has played.


The services were curtailed because the amount of the virus in circulation and the pressures that was putting the NHS under. It’s difficult enough to get a GP appointment round here anyway, and no chance of a face-to-face one in the last 18 months.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 28, 2021)

Perhaps Sturgeon has just given up, crossed her fingers that 1. they just be able to limp to the finish line of schools shutting for summer and 2.  that all the holidays people will now go on will magically not do what travel and fraternising does, and 3.  vaccinations will keep hospital figures low.  Then something, something, sunlit uplands.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

The best way to protect healthcare systems in a pandemic like this one is to do the sort of thing Australia did. Repeatedly try to nip things in the bud so that levels of infection in the community never reach the point where too many health workers get infected or have to isolate, where the public dont substantially fear heathcare settings infection risk, and where very few desperately ill covid patients and patients with other problems who dont even know they've got covid come through the hospitals doors.

Not that Australia is out of the woods yet, they face probably their most serious challenge yet at the moment. But anyway the approach mentioned is a million miles away from anything the UK has ever been interested in. Orthodox establishment attitudes towards genuine containment attempts remain unchanged, as we've seen again recently with Delta. Half-hearted containment that is really more about surveillance of the variant than actually stopping it. The usual. Most of the other arguments about healthcare burden in the pandemic are red herrings, because with or without specific bits of lockdowns being implemented, there will be massive disruption whenever levels of infection grow past a low level.

Learning to live with covid should mean keeping levels low enough not to cause all this stress to the health system. But the UK employs a different, higher stakes version of learning to live with covid, which means us having to live with the ongoing lack of care and shit priorities that our establishment treats us to as standard. Stiff upper lip, morgue edition.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Perhaps Sturgeon has just given up, crossed her fingers that 1. they just be able to limp to the finish line of schools shutting for summer and 2.  that all the holidays people will now go on will magically not do what travel and fraternising does, and 3.  vaccinations will keep hospital figures low.  Then something, something, sunlit uplands.


They might even get away with it, especially given their different school holiday timing. Which will be great in some ways, but runs the risk of some very bad lessons being learnt which could damage public and political attitudes in a manner that stores up problems for some later wave.


----------



## Sue (Jun 28, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Perhaps Sturgeon has just given up, crossed her fingers that 1. they just be able to *limp to the finish line of schools shutting for summe*r and 2.  that all the holidays people will now go on will magically not do what travel and fraternising does, and 3.  vaccinations will keep hospital figures low.  Then something, something, sunlit uplands.


I think they've limped. Know it's slightly different timings in different regions, but know Glasgow and the Borders at least finished up last week. (It's normally last week in June IIRC?)


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 28, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Another guy at work has tested positive. Not connected to the other guy who had it a couple of weeks ago, this one caught it from his girlfriend. She's just left school in an area of the city where there's currently a positivity rate of over a thousand people per 100,000



I ask again, WTF is the Scottish government playing at. Earlier in the pandemic, the 'stages hammer' came down swiftly.













There are only five areas that should be in Level 1. Everywhere bar those five should be in L3 or L4.


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 28, 2021)

Sue said:


> I think they've limped. Know it's slightly different timings in different regions, but know Glasgow and the Borders at least finished up last week. (It's normally last week in June IIRC?)



Yes.  I think one of my gidgets doesn't finish until today but the rest have.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> I ask again, WTF is the Scottish government playing at. Earlier in the pandemic, the 'stages hammer' came down swiftly.


I already answered you last time. They are following the UK approach where they give much less of a shit about case numbers this time, and are happy to let it rip so long as it doesnt cause a problem with hospital admission levels.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Positive cases by date of specimen, smoothed via 7 day averages. There is always a little downturn at the end of these figures because they are by specimen date and the latest dates data hasnt all come in yet.


----------



## LDC (Jun 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> I already answered you last time. They are following the UK approach where they give much less of a shit about case numbers this time, and are happy to let it ri so long as it doesnt cause a problem with hospital admission levels.



Yeah, just looking at the numbers today cases are going up, but looks like hospitalizations are still much lower, and then deaths are steady-ish at low numbers as well.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 28, 2021)

We only broke the 18k case number on Saturday, today's new cases reported are 12,868, 7-day average up +69.9%.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

And the same graphs for the worst affected regions of England so far in this wave:


----------



## LDC (Jun 28, 2021)

Be interested to see some graphs of the relationship between positive tests = hospitalizations = deaths from a month last year and last month. If you get what I mean!


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 28, 2021)

"irreversible, no going back"

Fourth wave it is then


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Be interested to see some graphs of the relationship between positive tests = hospitalizations = deaths from a month last year and last month. If you get what I mean!


Yeah, I'm waiting till the hospital situation has a bit more time to evolve before doing such things. But its fair to ay that so far the link, whilst not broken, has been massively changed. But since explosive growth in case numbers has been happening more recently, I need to wait a bit.

I'll also be doing some more graphs showing age groups affected, since those tell a story of their own.

But for now some more of the same graphs as above.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Since I already posted so many graphs I wont bore everyone with the other regions and nations right now, they are all broadly like the following one at this point but I obviously expect that to change:


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> I already answered you last time. They are following the UK approach where they give much less of a shit about case numbers this time, and are happy to let it rip so long as it doesnt cause a problem with hospital admission levels.



Sorry, yes you did, and I don't doubt you were right.

More of a rhetorical question.

I find this approach terrifying, absolutely terrifying. From a medical point of view, it is an extraordinarily dangerous gamble. Hosp[ital admissions are rising, and although the patients by and large are less ill, that isn't guaranteed to continue.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

In terms of hospitalisations this wave so far compared to the last one tells quite the story so far, but its still relatively early days. This is for daily admissions/diagnoses in England by region.



I'll do a couple of age-based case graphs later, but probably just for a couple of regions to keep the number of graphs down.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Sorry, yes you did, and I don't doubt you were right.
> 
> More of a rhetorical question.
> 
> I find this approach terrifying, absolutely terrifying. From a medical point of view, it is an extraordinarily dangerous gamble. Hosp[ital admissions are rising, and although the patients by and large are less ill, that isn't guaranteed to continue.


Cheers. Yeah Im not happy about it either, and find myself wanting them to get away with it because I dont want to see a huge number of new deaths, but at the same time I dont want them to validate their shit establishment instincts.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Regarding hospitalisations, this is what happens if I zoom into more recent months and smooth the results using 7 day averages. Sorry that I dont think all the colours match the previous graph.

I havent posted this sort of graph much in recent weeks because there isnt that much to see, thankfully.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> Cheers. Yeah Im not happy about it either, and find myself wanting them to get away with it because I dont want to see a huge number of new deaths, but at the same time I dont want them to validate their shit establishment instincts.



Very nicely put. Welcome the outcome, but not the method.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Very nicely put. Welcome the outcome, but not the method.


Plus we wont really have a proper view of the outcome until we know more about what burden things like long covid will have in the years ahead. They could win the current battle but still lose the war.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Looking at the case graphs by region I posted, is it fair to say the media have done a shit job of highlighting the situation in the North East and Yorkshire?

The North East is likely one of the regions I will do the age group case graphs for later, given its steep trajectory.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> Plus we wont really have a proper view of the outcome until we know more about what burden things like long covid will have in the years ahead. They could win the current battle but still lose the war.



Long covid is a huge can of worms.

I don't know many people that have had Covid, maybe five, but two of those were quite unwell for a long time, one still is.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 28, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Sorry, yes you did, and I don't doubt you were right.
> 
> More of a rhetorical question.
> 
> I find this approach terrifying, absolutely terrifying. From a medical point of view, it is an extraordinarily dangerous gamble. Hosp[ital admissions are rising, and although the patients by and large are less ill, that isn't guaranteed to continue.


I sometimes think that they are incapable of basic maths, though I know they must have people doing modelling. But the policy makers don't seem to understand that if you let the virus run free the vaccination protection statistics don't look as good any more. 80% protection sounds great but 20% of a big number is still big, and at some point the deaths start to mount up again even if they are 1%. And that's before you even get to the long covid problem, which we don't know how much protection the vaccines offer against yet (probably some, but since you can get long covid with mild illness, probably not enough). But I can barely summon the anger any more. I expended too much watching the delta cases arrive in the country by the hundred, knowing full well where we would be a few weeks later.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I sometimes think that they are incapable of basic maths, though I know they must have people doing modelling. But the policy makers don't seem to understand that if you let the virus run free the vaccination protection statistics don't look as good any more. 80% protection sounds great but 20% of a big number is still big, and at some point the deaths start to mount up again even if they are 1%. And that's before you even get to the long covid problem, which we don't know how much protection the vaccines offer against yet (probably some, but since you can get long covid with mild illness, probably not enough). But I can barely summon the anger any more. I expended too much watching the delta cases arrive in the country by the hundred, knowing full well where we would be a few weeks later.


The quite wide range of possibilities shown by modelling, combined with a fairly high establishment tolerance for death and hospital woe, unlocked this approach for them.

They were prepared to delay some unlocking steps because it was the last chance to do something without having to ditch the 'no going backwards' rhetoric. They will be very reluctant to have to go further with measures, and in that respect the equations we've seen before are still in play - they will only act if forced to by hospitalisation etc figures breaching some threshold. Unlike previous occasions, there is not quite the same inevitability to that picture this time, and so they've made the most of that by taking the piss. The authorities have ripped the pants out of it and it just remains to be seen whether they get away with having their buttocks on full display in this wave. They might.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Be interested to see some graphs of the relationship between positive tests = hospitalizations = deaths from a month last year and last month. If you get what I mean!


In addition to whatever you can glean from my separate graphs, it looks like someone has done this on twitter for Scotland. I havent checked their numbers. And I'm bound to want to wait till hospital picture & data has had time to catch up with the current level of infections before reaching a final conclusion.


----------



## andysays (Jun 28, 2021)

maomao said:


> They specifically stop that.


Not suggesting you're wrong, but I would be interested in seeing exactly what they do say, if you have a link 

(insert obligatory "asking for a friend" comment here)


----------



## LDC (Jun 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> In addition to whatever you can glean from my separate graphs, it looks like someone has done this on twitter for Scotland. I havent checked their numbers. And I'm bound to want to wait till hospital picture & data has had time to catch up with the current level of infections before reaching a final conclusion.




Oh, that's a nice way of showing it! I was trying to think through how it could be done easily, but the maths bit of my brain died a long time ago.


----------



## maomao (Jun 28, 2021)

andysays said:


> Not suggesting you're wrong, but I would be interested in seeing exactly what they do say, if you have a link
> 
> (insert obligatory "asking for a friend" comment here)


You're not (or weren't) allowed physical contact with anyone from outside your household. Fairly clearly covers sexual relationships. Maybe specifically is the wrong word. I was posting from the queue in Lidl.


----------



## andysays (Jun 28, 2021)

maomao said:


> You're not (or weren't) allowed physical contact with anyone from outside your household. Fairly clearly covers sexual relationships. Maybe specifically is the wrong word. I was posting from the queue in Lidl.


OK, thanks for that.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Oh, that's a nice way of showing it! I was trying to think through how it could be done easily, but the maths bit of my brain died a long time ago.


I've somewhat copied the idea now, as I'd been looking for a neat way to show what the ratio of covid patients in hospital to covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds was like.

I've been rather lazy when creating this graph so in order to make the scale of the ventilator cases about the same as the hospitalisations, and show then on a single graph, I've multiplied all the mechanical ventilation numbers by minus 10.

This graph is for the North West region. The region is continuing the trend I previously drew attention to in relation to places like Bolton. A trend I am not happy about, and indeed this is the main sign I havent liked the look of in the hospital data for this wave so far.


----------



## AverageJoe (Jun 28, 2021)

Gina's dad must be gutted and ashamed. He didn't even get a contract out of it. 

Her dad Rino is a millionaire businessman who is the boss of the international pharmaceutical company Rephine.


----------



## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)




----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> The quite wide range of possibilities shown by modelling, combined with a fairly high establishment tolerance for death and hospital woe, unlocked this approach for them.
> 
> They were prepared to delay some unlocking steps because it was the last chance to do something without having to ditch the 'no going backwards' rhetoric. They will be very reluctant to have to go further with measures, and in that respect the equations we've seen before are still in play - they will only act if forced to by hospitalisation etc figures breaching some threshold. Unlike previous occasions, there is not quite the same inevitability to that picture this time, and so they've made the most of that by taking the piss. The authorities have ripped the pants out of it and it just remains to be seen whether they get away with having their buttocks on full display in this wave. They might.


If they get away with it because deaths aren't too high and hospitals aren't overwhelmed I will then expect stories in six months time about how we are all 'surprised' by the rate at which people have been getting long covid, and since it is so surprising there will be no consequences for anyone. There will be no discussion about how when it comes to ruining the long term health of tens/hundreds of thousands of people maybe you should err on the side of caution. It's all quite depressing.


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## elbows (Jun 28, 2021)

Labour not at their worst in regards the pandemic at the moment.

                           2h ago    17:45                    



> This is what *Jonathan Ashworth*, the shadow health secretary, said in his response to Javid about how the government should be more cautious about lockdown easing. Ashworth said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

A total scandal that the national authorities let the inadequate mask situation carry on all the way through. I cant think what excuses are really left, and its a joke that the following sort of research is required in order to try to draw attention to something that is bloody obvious without the need for such research.









						Covid: Masks upgrade cuts infection risk, research finds
					

Wearing a high grade FFP3 mask can almost entirely protect health workers from Covid, research finds.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I dont suppose anyone has stumbled upon the list of 17 trusts? Maybe I have even seen it before and forgotten.



> The Cambridge trust is among 17 across the UK known to have decided to upgrade PPE regardless of national policy.



All the government really seem to have done about this issue is to hide behind these kind of weasel words throughout:



> A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said guidance on PPE standards was regularly updated to reflect the latest science.
> 
> "The safety of the NHS and social care staff has always been our top priority and we continue to work round the clock to deliver PPE to protect those on the frontline.
> 
> "Emerging evidence and data are continually monitored and reviewed and guidance will be amended accordingly if appropriate."


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 29, 2021)

I don't understand why all the news coverage about the possible change in school policy is framed as "300% increase in children being sent home to isolate" rather than "300% increase in positive Covid cases in schools". They seem to just treat the two things as unrelated.


----------



## wtfftw (Jun 29, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I don't understand why all the news coverage about the possible change in school policy is framed as "300% increase in children being sent home to isolate" rather than "300% increase in positive Covid cases in schools". They seem to just treat the two things as unrelated.


Isolation is definitely the problem. We can fix that. We can't fix case rates...








						Ministers set to end automatic isolation for pupils in England
					

Move means hundreds of thousands of children will no longer have to stay at home after contact with Covid case




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## wtfftw (Jun 29, 2021)

Gaaaaah


----------



## quimcunx (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> A total scandal that the national authorities let the inadequate mask situation carry on all the way through. I cant think what excuses are really left, and its a joke that the following sort of research is required in order to try to draw attention to something that is bloody obvious without the need for such research.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The whole PPE fiasco can seem like it was a long time ago, but for one this was news to me that PPE had only been brought up to standard in some places, not nationally and for two it's important it isn't forgotten.  Letting PPE run down, get out of date, ignoring advice from those pandemic planning scenarios I've forgotten the name of, the PPE contracts scam etc. People should be jailed for it, IMO.


----------



## Griff (Jun 29, 2021)

Over 7 Hours of footage of Sunday's 'Ravers Against Restrictions' in London.

'Shocking scenes' says The Daily Express.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> The whole PPE fiasco can seem like it was a long time ago, but for one this was news to me that PPE had only been brought up to standard in some places, not nationally and for two it's important it isn't forgotten.



Probably because although the media made a noise about this issue for a time during the first wave, especially when nurses had to resort to wearing bin bags, they soon got bored and stopped giving it the attention it deserved.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2021)

Griff said:


> Over 7 Hours of footage of Sunday's 'Ravers Against Restrictions' in London.
> 
> 'Shocking scenes' says The Daily Express.



Bunch of wallies


----------



## LDC (Jun 29, 2021)

Griff said:


> Over 7 Hours of footage of Sunday's 'Ravers Against Restrictions' in London.
> 
> 'Shocking scenes' says The Daily Express.




Ah great, you're back posting videos like that with no worthwhile comment, just what we needed.


----------



## Griff (Jun 29, 2021)

Just showing activity in London.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

I've been messing around with case numbers by age groups for England, using 7 day averages to smooth things out. Dates are by test specimen date, so the very latest dates are always incomplete.

I still dont know if I've mangled any of this data whilst processing it, but assuming I've got it right, it does indicate a few things.

I'd say there are two ways to avoid complete horror in this wave. Vaccines could reduce the level of illness experienced by so many people that really high case numbers dont translate into massive hospital woe, and the following data says nothing about that. But the other hope was that cases would not rise much in older people. But looking at this data, I think the pattern shown means that the only hope of that is if the peak for all age groups arrives sooner rather than later.....

I normally avoid using graphs with logarithmic scales because I know they confuse some people. But in this instance I have used one for the second graph because it really illuminates the picture with the older age groups in this data. Both graphs show the very same data, its just one uses a logarithmic scale.


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## Sasaferrato (Jun 29, 2021)

Which is the church showing at the end of the road?


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

bimble I know I promised I would provide something about how male and female case numbers compared once I had processed that data.

So here are the same number of positive cases by specimen data for England, smoothed using 7 day averages. Again I'm having to assume I havent mangled the data involved.

We are at a stage where the number of males testing positive has gone very slightly above the number of females, but they are still rather close together so it doesnt show up that well on the graph yet.


Likely I will do something similar for deaths etc at some point, but I'm not working on that data at the moment so it will have to wait.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> bimble I know I promised I would provide something about how male and female case numbers compared once I had processed that data.
> 
> So here are the same number of positive cases by specimen data for England, smoothed using 7 day averages. Again I'm having to assume I havent mangled the data involved.
> 
> ...


Do you think that the earlier disparity was due to women being more likely to work as carers?


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Do you think that the earlier disparity was due to women being more likely to work as carers?


I assume its a combination of factors involving stuff like you mentioned, but also the greater number of women who survive well into the oldest age groups, end up in care homes etc.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> I assume its a combination of factors involving stuff like you mentioned, but also the greater number of women who s*urvive well into the oldest age groups*, end up in care homes etc.



Indeed. 

Meanwhile, with regard to 'letting it rip' your view has just been confirmed.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Yeah I'm afraid they set that scene up months ago when they first unveiled the roadmap out of lockdown. Its not really been a secret 

Vallances '20,000 would be a good result', uttered at the start of the pandemic, turns out to be '20,000 is a result the authorities can live happily with'.


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yeah I'm afraid they set that scene up months ago when they first unveiled the roadmap out of lockdown. Its not really been a secret
> 
> Vallances '20,000 would be a good result', uttered at the start of the pandemic, turns out to be '20,000 is a result the authorities can live happily with'.



No one ever batted an eyelid about 20,000 flu deaths other than the peak impacts on hospitals in winter, and urging over-50s to get jabbed. I find it a bit strange that some people think this new disease should be managed so utterly differently.


----------



## existentialist (Jun 29, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No one ever batted an eyelid about 20,000 flu deaths other than the peak impacts on hospitals in winter, and urging over-50s to get jabbed. I find it a bit strange that some people think this new disease should be managed so utterly differently.


Funny, then, that they were so adamant that they were going to keep case numbers down so low in the first place.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No one ever batted an eyelid about 20,000 flu deaths other than the peak impacts on hospitals in winter, and urging over-50s to get jabbed. I find it a bit strange that some people think this new disease should be managed so utterly differently.


Yes I've mentioned in the past about how there is a lack of collective memory about what was happening with flu during the period where people were celebrating 'the new millenium' for example.

Its still uncharted territory as far as public acceptance of this sort of thing going in future with Covid though, because the nature of the pandemic caused people to pay attention, and face restrictions, in a way that was quite different to anything most living people have experienced in the past.

Right now I have a neutral opinion about whether people will go along with this. Perhaps, perhaps not. The government will be relying on people being tired of restrictions in order to bounce this approach through, but I must wait and see what this wave and future variants do to the picture.

Another unknown this time is whether comparisons to what other countries do will keep unease about this approach burning, as happened at the start of the pandemic when other countries close to home were taking a very different approach, which tipped our press off that our authorities were going down a dodgy path.

I never forget articles like this one either:









						When it comes to national emergencies, Britain has a tradition of cold calculation | David Edgerton
					

The government’s reluctance to put the health of citizens first has echoes in the 1940s and 50s, says author David Edgerton




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 29, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No one ever batted an eyelid about 20,000 flu deaths other than the peak impacts on hospitals in winter, and urging over-50s to get jabbed. I find it a bit strange that some people think this new disease should be managed so utterly differently.



Flu generally doesn't put so many people in ICU, probably because everyone has some level of immunity.

I saw a report yesterday that Astra and Pfizer may confer lifelong immunity, taken with the obligatory pinch of salt at the moment.


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## two sheds (Jun 29, 2021)

It's the exponential growth that separates coronavirus from flu isn't it?


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No one ever batted an eyelid about 20,000 flu deaths other than the peak impacts on hospitals in winter, and urging over-50s to get jabbed. I find it a bit strange that some people think this new disease should be managed so utterly differently.



Following on from what I just aid, the pandemic has also let the cat out of the bag in terms of how many flu deaths are preventable.

How many normal seasonal flu deaths are caused by inadequate infection control measures in hospitals and care homes, and via a disinterest in mass testing?

I still hope that if the authorities have learnt anything via this pandemic, its that we should make our mass testing system a permanent thing that we apply routinely to a number of other diseases. And that attitudes towards going to work when sick will change. So far the authorities have at least pretended that these gains will stick around and be used in other areas of health in future. But given the disruption that proper testing and self-isolation cause, and issues with staffing levels if people do the right thing by staying at home when sick, I have my doubts.

And there is certainly no lack of people whose shit instincts towards disease never really went away, who I butted heads with early in the pandemic and will probably continue to do so for the rest of my life. Whether I am left with any sort of audience for such rants in the years ahead remains to be seen.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

two sheds said:


> It's the exponential growth that separates coronavirus from flu isn't it?


No. The exponential growth stuff is standard for all manner of epidemiological curves.

The difference with pandemic viruses is only really that they are new, novel, so there is no existing population immunity to rely on.

When that is coupled with a disease that leads to a relatively high percentage of hospitalisations and deaths, there is a problem and the authorities have to move beyond their 'do little' comfort zone. Until the picture changes due to levels of population immunity changing via infections and vaccination programmes.


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## SpookyFrank (Jun 29, 2021)

two sheds said:


> It's the exponential growth that separates coronavirus from flu isn't it?



Short answer, no. An exponential growth phase is common to all pathogens. We don't notice this stage with flu so much because there are always multiple older and newer variants in circulation, creating an overall impression of a relatively steady number of infections or deaths.

e2a: Who could have guessed that elbows would beat me to it


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Short answer, no. An exponential growth phase is common to all pathogens. We don't notice this stage with flu so much because there are always multiple older and newer variants in circulation, creating an overall impression of a relatively steady number of infections or deaths.
> 
> e2a: Who could have guessed that elbows would beat me to it


If people look at the actual numbers and news reporting each winter, there isnt really much sense of a stable picture with flu.

ie there are bad epidemic years and years where the burden is much smaller. And the effects of this are not subtle, they show up in all the excess mortality graphs quite clearly. I will probably fish out a few of those later, highlighting some large flu epidemics.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 29, 2021)

Fair play, but isn't that just the reason that we don't get the exponential growth in practice with flu while we do with coronavirus? It is still the difference.


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## platinumsage (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Following on from what I just aid, the pandemic has also let the cat out of the bag in terms of how many flu deaths are preventable.
> 
> How many normal seasonal flu deaths are caused by inadequate infection control measures in hospitals and care homes, and via a disinterest in mass testing?
> 
> ...



I don't see test & isolate being here to stay and being extended to flu also. I'm not sure it would pass a cost/benefit analysis. Hospital infection control maybe, especially as sub-FFP2 masks and hand sanitiser are likely to help more against flu than coronavirus. Careworker flu/corona jabs and masks should be here to stay, along with improved flu/corona jabbing of NHS workers, which was abysmal before the pandemic. I'm more interested in the next pandemic: e.g. will an "atypical pneumonia" report from the WHO or a suspected human-human transmission of a noval H-subtype flu lead to an instant global shutdown of air travel for example...


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Heres a quick example of what I said in previous post. Deaths per day from all causes for England and Wales. 1988 and 1989, the latter of which featured a bad flu epidemic that was in the news at the time.

I also include a graph I started for 2020 which I didnt get round to completing, showing the first wave Covid-19 death spike. But do keep in mind that the 2020 death spike would have been larger if we hadnt had lockdowns & massive behavioural changes.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Fair play, but isn't that just the reason that we don't get the exponential growth in practice with flu while we do with coronavirus? It is still the difference.


Our influenza epidemics feature exponential growth. So please give up this line of thinking, its just wrong.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I don't see test & isolate being here to stay and being extended to flu also. I'm not sure it would pass a cost/benefit analysis.


Yeah I dont expect that across society. I would hope that it is at least in place in terms of people going into hospital, care homes etc. And that in general our medical system may use testing more than guessing in future.


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## platinumsage (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Heres a quick example of what I said in previous post. Deaths per day from all causes for England and Wales. 1988 and 1989, the latter of which featured a bad flu epidemic that was in the news at the time.
> 
> I also include a graph I started for 2020 which I didnt get round to completing, showing the first wave Covid-19 death spike. But do keep in mind that the 2020 death spike would have been larger if we hadnt had lockdowns & massive behavioural changes.



Yes I'm not saying it should have been treated like flu, but that an aim of 20,000 deaths max at the start, and such an aim from now onwards, is within the scope of what the population have previously not given two figs about.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Our influenza epidemics feature exponential growth. So please give up this line of thinking, its just wrong.


Just to expand on that slightly.

These diseases feature epidemic growth until the virus runs out of access to enough victims to enable that growth to continue.

There are several key parameters that affect when a particular virus runs out of victims. When there is an existing a level of immunity against the disease, whether via infections past or present or vaccinations, that makes a difference to when the peak will come. How people behave when cases rise affects when the peak will come. etc. The numbers didnt stack up well for this SARS-Cov-2 virus, we couldnt rely on the peak coming before hospital etc capacity was exceeded, and so we had to modify behaviours and contact mixing patterns. And when we abandoned those changes, the threat was still there and the virus still had a large pool of victims to exploit, causing a return to exponential growth. With flu the dynamics are different because the peaks typically come because the pool is smaller, the virus actually runs out of sufficient vulnerable hosts and runs its course without totally collapsing the system. Although it still gets pretty close at times, in terms of hospital etc burden.


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## Teaboy (Jun 29, 2021)

I guess what remains to be seen is how seasonal covid becomes and whether there is an overlap with a bad flu year.  I know they were worried about that last winter but it didn't happen presumably due to all the measures in place to prevent the spread of covid.

A bad flu winter + covid doesn't sound like something that can just be shrugged off by politicians or the wider population.


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## two sheds (Jun 29, 2021)

I'd have thought a major difference is that we have a flu vaccine and, now, a coronavirus vaccine.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Yes I'm not saying it should have been treated like flu, but that an aim of 20,000 deaths max at the start, and such an aim from now onwards, is within the scope of what the population have previously not given two figs about.


Yes and thats a big part of why government think they can go back to business as usual in the months ahead. I'm just saying that the assumption might not be safe, one of the big unknowns is whether attitudes will remain changed for years, or whether everyone other than government will also return to the old, blinkered, ways.


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## Teaboy (Jun 29, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I'd have thought a major difference is that we have a flu vaccine and, now, a coronavirus vaccine.



The efficacy of flue vaccines changes from year to year, I would have thought with mutations etc its reasonable to think covid will continue to adapt and our vaccines will vary in their effectiveness as well.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I guess what remains to be seen is how seasonal covid becomes and whether there is an overlap with a bad flu year.  I know they were worried about that last winter but it didn't happen presumably due to all the measures in place to prevent the spread of covid.
> 
> A bad flu winter + covid doesn't sound like something that can just be shrugged off by politicians or the wider population.


As we have seen they try to shrug such things off unless data and modelling indicates that capacity will be breached, and then they begrudgingly have to actually do something.

Certainly one of the reasons hospitals are currently under pressure is that various other diseases that were suppressed by lockdowns and behavioural changes have bounced back.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> The efficacy of flue vaccines changes from year to year, I would have thought with mutations etc its reasonable to think covid will continue to adapt and our vaccines will vary in their effectiveness as well.


Flu vaccines have had mixed performance. H3N2 strain of flu is a pain in the arse because it has a fairly high disease burden and they've had a fair amount of trouble with vaccines against it due to some detail of the flu vaccine manufacturing process - its done in eggs and they've tended to find that H3N2 strains may alter whilst growing in egg culture, producing sub-optimal vaccines. Not that many years ago they changed the type of vaccine given to older people to try to improve the level of protection on offer for this vulnerable group.

Hopefully there will be more effort put into more modern flu vaccines in future.


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## BillRiver (Jun 29, 2021)

No doubt you're all well aware of this but I'm going to say it anyway.

Every single death, while only a blip in the data, is an enormous event for the person who died and all who loved them.

In February 1976 my apparently perfectly healthy aunt Susan died of the flu. It took 3 weeks and she was never hospitalised. She was 28 years old.

My cousin J was 8 years old at the time, and lost her (single) mother. My mum lost her beloved only sister. It was a massive event that changed the course of many lives. My cousin J came to live with us and became my sister. Susan's partner grieved for decades and did time in prison for drink driving. My mum and sister J never fully got over the loss.

Susan was a teacher and a political activist. In a sense the whole world lost something significant when she died.

And I never got to know my aunt. I was 18 months old when she died.


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## cupid_stunt (Jun 29, 2021)

I read somewhere recently that they are developing mRNA vaccines for the flu, so may be using this new technology will increase the efficacy of flu vaccines.


ETA - New RNA Technology Could Get the Flu Vaccine Right, Every Year | pfpfizeruscom


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Also my 9 year old nephew developed type 1 diabetes during the pandemic last year. There are several reasons I dont go on about this here, one of them being that the authorities werent too bothered about exploring whether there was a link to the SARS-CoV-2 virus. If we lived somewhere with a hospital where research was done, this might have been different. And his father is a type 1 diabetic, so there was likely genetic susceptibility to diabetes present. But since they think viral infections can often be the trigger for the diabetes developing, I have to keep an open mind about a possible link.


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## Sasaferrato (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes I've mentioned in the past about how there is a lack of collective memory about what was happening with flu during the period where people were celebrating 'the new millenium' for example.
> 
> Its still uncharted territory as far as public acceptance of this sort of thing going in future with Covid though, because the nature of the pandemic caused people to pay attention, and face restrictions, in a way that was quite different to anything most living people have experienced in the past.
> 
> ...



Well, the Sas's were just discussing this very thing the other day. I'm vulnerable (four lobes and emphysema), Mrs Sas is in good health. We reckoned that vaccination and 'live with it' is going to be the way forward.

There is a phrase in medicine 'The operation was a complete success, but the patient died'. If controlling the virus fully kills the economy completely, what is the point. Going forward, we are going to have to accept a level of death from Covid.


----------



## LDC (Jun 29, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> If controlling the virus fully kills the economy completely, what is the point. Going forward, we are going to have to accept a level of death from Covid.



Just a quick reminder; the economy and the way it's run kills loads of people as well.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No one ever batted an eyelid about 20,000 flu deaths other than the peak impacts on hospitals in winter, and urging over-50s to get jabbed. I find it a bit strange that some people think this new disease should be managed so utterly differently.


Just returning to this again, I would certainly agree that in terms of risk to government of the public not accepting this, I'd suspect that the situation with hospitals and other medical care is more likely to be the problem area than sheer number of deaths.

I dont find it that hard to believe that people could 'learn to live with covid' in the manner government desires, if this can be done whilst still allowing routine medical care to happen. But as soon as hospitals come under prolonged pressure, and the rest of the system fails to deliver, I somehow doubt the public will just be prepared to take it in the chin.

This wave will certainly test this, and thats when we will find out whether the government has pushed for this approach too soon, risking much.


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just a quick reminder; the economy and the way it's run kills loads of people as well.


Yes and when modelling was done looking at the likely burden in terms of death, quality of life years lost etc, it was a bit awkward. Because they had to factor in a large number of deaths and illnesses not happening as usual, because such deaths reduce at the start of recessions! (eg see        #1       )


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Another potential issue with medium to long term management of this virus is that we dont know what will happen to vaccine uptake figures going forwards.

The authorities better hope that the initial vaccines have a long-lasting effect, because we'd generally expect the number of people feeling a pressing need to get their shots to decline over time, especially if a huge part of the overall risk starts to fade from view.

There is also a potential consequence on this front if it turns out that the government have shifted to 'learning to live with covid' too soon. Because if this current wave turns out to be very large and deadly, some proportion of people will, no matter how much the underlying detail is explained to them, likely develop some defeatist thoughts about the covid vaccines. "they didnt work" stuff, even when the reality is that vaccines actually manage to carry a considerable burden. It remains to be seen whether what counts as success as far as the government is concerned actually resembles success in the minds of the average person.


----------



## two sheds (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Just to expand on that slightly.
> 
> These diseases feature epidemic growth until the virus runs out of access to enough victims to enable that growth to continue.


Indeed, assuming that the R value is greater than 1


----------



## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Scotlands approach is quite farcical these days.









						Scottish government lifts Manchester travel ban
					

The ban had sparked a row between First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> However, Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said the measure - and a similar ban on travel to and from Bolton that was announced in May - is to be lifted from midnight on Tuesday after a "careful review of the data".
> 
> A ban on non-essential travel to the Blackburn with Darwen local authority area will remain in place for at least another week.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Scotlands approach is quite farcical these days.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



'Useless' Yousaf knows somewhat less about public health than my cat.


----------



## andysays (Jun 29, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No one ever batted an eyelid about 20,000 flu deaths...





platinumsage said:


> ...cost/benefit analysis...


You're a nasty piece of work, aren't you...


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 29, 2021)

andysays said:


> You're a nasty piece of work, aren't you...



Do you really not know how government works?


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 29, 2021)

I don't think its unreasonable to say most people had any idea how many people die from flu each year.  I think most of us were aware it does kill but not to the extent of 20,000 in a bad year.


----------



## andysays (Jun 29, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Do you really not know how government works?


I know how government works, and after your contributions on a number of threads recently, I've got a pretty good idea how your mind works too.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jun 29, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I don't think its unreasonable to say most people had any idea how many people die from flu each year.  I think most of us were aware it does kill but not to the extent of 20,000 in a bad year.



There's around 600k deaths a year in the UK, so even in a bad year, the flu 'only' accounts for around 2.5% of that, which I guess is why it's no considered to be 'big news'.


----------



## platinumsage (Jun 29, 2021)

andysays said:


> I know how government works, and after your contributions on a number of threads recently, I've got a pretty good idea how your mind works too.


Good for you.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> If people look at the actual numbers and news reporting each winter, there isnt really much sense of a stable picture with flu.
> 
> ie there are bad epidemic years and years where the burden is much smaller. And the effects of this are not subtle, they show up in all the excess mortality graphs quite clearly. I will probably fish out a few of those later, highlighting some large flu epidemics.



I did say _relatively _stable. As in not five cases one year, 500,000 the next. Although of course individual flu strains do behave exactly like that.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 29, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I don't think its unreasonable to say most people had any idea how many people die from flu each year.  I think most of us were aware it does kill but not to the extent of 20,000 in a bad year.











						One year on: Three myths about COVID-19 that the data proved wrong | The Health Foundation
					

The Health Foundation is an independent charity committed to bringing about better health and health care for people in the UK. Find out more about us.




					www.health.org.uk
				




30,000 in a bad year. 


In a bad flu year on average around 30,000 people in the UK die from flu and pneumonia, with a loss of around 250,000 life years. This is a sixth of the life years lost to COVID-19.


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## Supine (Jun 29, 2021)




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## glitch hiker (Jun 29, 2021)

At the risk of repeating myself, 

I have no idea where all this is heading. Cases are as high as they were in January, yet with hospital admissions currently much lower (deaths too), we appear to be in the twilight zone with only one direction of travel, guaranteed to increase at least positive cases. I don't understand how that can coexist with normality.

At the risk of...


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## LDC (Jun 29, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> At the risk of repeating myself,
> 
> I have no idea where all this is heading. Cases are as high as they were in January, yet with hospital admissions currently much lower (deaths too), we appear to be in the twilight zone with only one direction of travel, guaranteed to increase at least positive cases. I don't understand how that can coexist with normality.
> 
> At the risk of...



Yeah, that's roughly my concern as well. Cases and hospitalizations are going up quickly with some break in the relationship between them and deaths, but not a complete break. And infectiousness is higher, _and _all restrictions will be gone in less than 3 weeks.... feel like we could end up with very high levels of cases and hospitalizations and even if deaths are low it will be very difficult for things to function as normal, including the NHS.


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## editor (Jun 29, 2021)

I went for a PCR test today. They took no details of my own and I was just given a 'test receipt' with a barcode on it. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? In the end I had to spend 20 mins on the phone to the NHS to register it. Or have I missed something really obvious?


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Supine said:


>



Yes so the same sort of thing as I got when I plotted cases by age group using a logarithmic scale earlier. The vaccine effect shows up as bigger gaps between the different lines, but the lines all still follow eachother in direction, on similar trajectories.

And until we see what level cases ends up peaking at, we cant tell what the maximum extent of the horror will be of other things on the graphs like hospitalisations and deaths.


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## miss direct (Jun 29, 2021)

editor 
Is it a QR code? I think you can scan it on the NHS app - thats what you do with the lateral flow results.


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## David Clapson (Jun 29, 2021)

editor said:


> I went for a PCR test today. They took no details of my own and I was just given a 'test receipt' with a barcode on it. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? In the end I had to spend 20 mins on the phone to the NHS to register it. Or have I missed something really obvious?


Go to the web address on one of the 2 pieces of paper they gave you. I've just done this - it works.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> At the risk of repeating myself,
> 
> I have no idea where all this is heading. Cases are as high as they were in January, yet with hospital admissions currently much lower (deaths too), we appear to be in the twilight zone with only one direction of travel, guaranteed to increase at least positive cases. I don't understand how that can coexist with normality.
> 
> At the risk of...


Cases breached previously detected levels in Scotland, but for the other nations and regions of England, that point hasnt been reached just yet. There are a few age groups in a few regions that I can zoom in on which have reached or gone past previous waves highs, but not the overall figures.

Although we also need to consider the difference between positive cases detected via testing, and the actual number of infections in reality. Including chances to the testing regime over time. General population survey testing provides clues about how the present level of infection compares to past waves, but only in hindsight since it lags behind the picture we get via testing of symptomatic people & contacts.

The current situation and what will come in the next weeks cannot really coexist with the old sense of normality. Even the government knows this, so this wave is considered to be part of the push back towards normality, rather than actually arriving at that destination. Its a high risk approach not only in terms of public health, but also politically there will be heavy ramifications if they've pushed too far and this whole exit attempt blows up in their face. Even then they will have a consolation prize in mind, the idea that this is the exit wave and either via vaccines or via getting infected, after this wave they will expect population immunity levels to be reasonably good, further unlocking their 'back to business as usual' destination. 'If at first you dont succeed, try try again' is in play.

The great unknowns remain whether the numbers of this variant vs the vaccines will add up, and whether even if the government get away with their plan this time or in the near future, what variants may come along to spoil the viability of their approach at any point.


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## editor (Jun 29, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Go to the web address on one of the 2 pieces of paper they gave you. I've just done this - it works.


I was given one piece of paper with no web address.


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## andysays (Jun 29, 2021)

editor said:


> I was given one piece of paper with no web address.


Have you had your result yet (if you only had the test today I'm assuming not, but maybe I've misunderstood)?

How will (was) the result (be) sent to you?


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## blameless77 (Jun 29, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I'd say breaking the distancing rules is probably somewhere in the middle of the 'list of reasons why Hancock should have been sacked' tbh.



My 16 daughter’s comment was ‘they sacked the guy that killed 100k people for kissing someone?’


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## editor (Jun 29, 2021)

andysays said:


> Have you had your result yet (if you only had the test today I'm assuming not, but maybe I've misunderstood)?
> 
> How will (was) the result (be) sent to you?


I took the result today and was given a 'test receipt card' that only contained a barcode and nothing else.


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## weepiper (Jun 29, 2021)

editor said:


> I took the result today and was given a 'test receipt card' that only contained a barcode and nothing else.


Did you book the test appointment somehow or was this a walk-in surge test?


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## editor (Jun 29, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Did you book the test appointment somehow or was this a walk-in surge test?


Walk in.


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## andysays (Jun 29, 2021)

editor said:


> I took the result today and was given a 'test receipt card' that only contained a barcode and nothing else.


I've done pre-booked lateral flow tests in the past where they take your details when you arrive and later text you with the result.

Unless anyone else can explain what's happened, it sounds to me like someone has fucked up by not taking your details


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## andysays (Jun 29, 2021)

Maybe your best bet is to speak to someone else who's done a surge related PCR test in your area recently and see if anything was done differently editor


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## cuppa tee (Jun 29, 2021)

editor said:


> Walk in.


I did the same surge test last week, you have to register the test online via the government site ‘ Book a drive-through test ‘ they will ask you for the barcode number on the kit and it’s individual parts, you need to fill a form giving personal details and contacts. Do it at same time as you do the test, you can ignore the Royal Mail bits if you’re taking it back to the same testing site....

Edited....dunno why the link refers to a drive thru test. but it still takes you to right place.


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## editor (Jun 29, 2021)

andysays said:


> Maybe your best bet is to speak to someone else who's done a surge related PCR test in your area recently and see if anything was done differently editor


I've got the details registered in the end via a phone call, but it looks like they did fuck up at the testing site.


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## andysays (Jun 29, 2021)

editor said:


> I've got the details registered in the end via a phone call, but it looks like they did fuck up at the testing site.


I was just thinking maybe you could return to the test centre with your barcode and they could add your details that way, but it sounds like you've got it sorted.

Good luck for a positive (negative) result


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## cuppa tee (Jun 29, 2021)

editor said:


> I've got the details registered in the end via a phone call, but it looks like they did fuck up at the testing site.


When I did mine they gave me a bundle of leaflets but the first surge test in Lambeth was a little confusing. Good luck with the result...!


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## David Clapson (Jun 29, 2021)

editor said:


> I was given one piece of paper with no web address.


You have the Test Receipt Card but not the Test Registration Card. Go to gov.uk/register-your-test and input your bar code. You can type the number in or scan it. You will also be asked for a 3 letter code for your test centre. This is on the Test Registration Card. The code for Windrush Square is WMR. If yow went to a different centre I think there might be a link to tell you the code? Not sure.


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## glitch hiker (Jun 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Cases breached previously detected levels in Scotland, but for the other nations and regions of England, that point hasnt been reached just yet. There are a few age groups in a few regions that I can zoom in on which have reached or gone past previous waves highs, but not the overall figures.
> 
> Although we also need to consider the difference between positive cases detected via testing, and the actual number of infections in reality. Including chances to the testing regime over time. General population survey testing provides clues about how the present level of infection compares to past waves, but only in hindsight since it lags behind the picture we get via testing of symptomatic people & contacts.
> 
> ...


You're quite good at this. 

I find it difficult reconciling the two realities, as I see them. Partly I think because of my own cognitive issues (not important). Not being able to get a handle on the situatoin means I lack control or agency and that makes me very uncomfortable. I can catch a bus to go to do my shopping in Tesco but there are people I have had no interaction with since March last year. Fortuantely I'm not one of the unlucky ones in this horrible situation. I've not lost loved ones and, obvoiusly, not my life. We're all going to have to cope with this and I dread to think how services are going to cope moving forward. Particularly when I consider what future Work Capability Assessment are going to be like. Never mind for those poor sods suffering long covid whom I'm sure the government will dismiss


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## Artaxerxes (Jun 29, 2021)

Business lunch - £200
Signing the deal - 30 grand
Spinning out viral particles and infecting dozens of not hundreds - Priceless


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## BillRiver (Jun 29, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Going forward, we are going to have to accept a level of death from Covid.



Would you like us to say that at your funeral if you do end up being one of those deaths? I guess if you survive and Mrs Sas doesn't you'll say it yourself?


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## Griff (Jun 29, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Would you like us to say that at your funeral if you do end up being one of those deaths? I guess if you survive and Mrs Sas doesn't you'll say it yourself?



So the zero-covid idea really exists.
Let's all live in your lock-down, masked up life then.


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## BillRiver (Jun 29, 2021)

Griff said:


> So the zero-covid idea really exists.
> Let's all live in your lock-down, masked up life then.



Nah, let's let loads of people die horribly, gasping for breath, and loads more become longterm disabled, when we could have prevented it. Much more fun.


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## Griff (Jun 29, 2021)

Oh fuck off you stupid brainwashed cunt. That's not happening is it?


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Your comments are a disgrace on several levels.

There are many perfectly acceptable discussions to be had about the extent to which we genuinely try to minimise the number of infections. Zero covid is at one end of the spectrum and everyone knows that its not been the chosen approach in this country, and that now is hardly the perfect time to sell everyone on the idea. But its certainly a time where it is understandable that aspects of that approach are going to come up, when we discuss what it means to follow various versions of 'learning to live with covid'. It is also possible to be concerned about the current approach, the current situation, and what is being advertised as the future approach, without travelling all of the distance towards zero covid. Whereever people settle on that spectrum, I dont think its aceptable that they should be abused for it, or for pointing out the real impact in terms of individual lives lost.

People who are very tired of restrictions should be free to point out the impact that stuff has on them too. And since we are in an era of vaccination, they might be able to carry that all the way to the extreme end of that spectrum without that inevitably involving death on a massive scale. The high quantity of death that such stances always previously entailed caused me to be rude and aggressive towards that sort of stance when taken too far in the past, but I do have to adjust my sense of what counts as too far now that vaccines are carrying some of the pandemic weight. But it does still involve some death, just as we have some ongoing deaths right now, and people should be free to point that out without being called a cunt.


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## iona (Jun 29, 2021)

Griff said:


> Oh fuck off you stupid brainwashed cunt. That's not happening is it?


Which part isn't happening?


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## Griff (Jun 29, 2021)

Zero-covid is an insanity policy. Strangling life as we know it for a disease which has a mortality rate mostly for the 80÷. i.e. Life.

Maybe people here wish to live their lives in masks even though they've been jabbed, it seems that way. 

Sorry, pissed after the England game, but some of the shit posted in here enfuriates me. 

Seems like you don't want normality anymore, love lockdowns and love the theatre of masks. So depressing.


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## Supine (Jun 29, 2021)

There will be a period of readjustment where everyone finds their own way to the new normal. It’ll probably look much like the old normal.

Calling people cunts won’t help anyone though.

Unfortunately at the moment it looks like covid will end up as a disease for the deprived, the BAME communities and the privileged anti-vaxers. Shorter term we need to take measures to limit spread while the unvaccinated are addressed.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Oh that sort of stance Griff, thanks so much for sharing your ignorance.

Its actually possible to do zero covid, or very close to zero covid, with less effort and sacrifice than the people of this country have had to make when following the approach that was actually taken. Its not some magic fix, and effort is required in various areas that are a poor fit with the shit establishment attitudes, priorities and economic interests of the establishment of this country.

Lots of health care workers lives are made much easier, and lots of people are spared from illness and death as a result of that sort of thing. The economy usually fares better too, because there ends up being less disruption overall.

The downsides include effort being required in areas that the powerful in this country cant be bothered with, people who will seek to foster an army of ignorance to defeat such attempts at a sane policy that is best for public health above all else. No surprise that those who stoop to using terms like brainwashing are more likely to be the ones who have been effectively sold various lies that enable much shit. A foundation of compacted shit that makes them think they are on solid ground when they are at their most ignorant, well done.

Other downsides are that people get complacent if the threat is kept to a low, fleeting level domestically. Then when the time comes for vaccination, there can be problems getting high enough uptake because people didnt feel as unsafe because they'd not had to deal with huge waves of death.

There are some shit 'global hub' aspects to the way GB PLC sees itself, that made zero covid approaches an unlikely fit, but I still say thats more about the peculiars of our establishment and their priorities than a real fundamental barrier to ever making that approach work here in practice, if the will was there. We probably wont ever get to find out unless the chosen approach repeatedly fails again now and in future, eg via future variants mucking everything up, in which case there will be further opportunities to demonstrate why ideas that lockdowns and restrictions and disruption are worse & longer with zero covid approach than they have been with the chosen UK approach are false. I doubt there is much chance of convincing anyone who hasnt already grasped that of it in the meantime though, but its very similar to the stuff about doing lockdowns early or late - the economy and the restrictions on peoples lives ends up being worse if we act too late, too weakly rather than taking things seriously from the start and trying to nip things in the bud.

Anyway even though I well understand the underlying sponsors of your sort of rant, and provide much content that I'm sure infuriates you, I'm not actually planning to be some weird extremist that will be subject to your sort of disgusting attacks, once the pandemic has gone beyond its acute phase. I spent years talking about flu in nerdy detail, and with a fairly strong stance, without routinely brushing know-nothing, freedom and ignorance loving fuckheads up the wrong way. Once I am satisfied that the largest threats from this virus are no longer a massive deal, I'm sure there will be a version of my normal where I can linger without falling foul of this sort of aggression, because so many people will lose interest and the stakes in so many ways will not be so high, so it wont matter.

In the meantime we will just have to endure a period of uncertainty with a diverse array of opinions about how far we should or should not be going.

I do think, as socierty seeks out a new normal, a new set of accepted values etc, that it inevitably involves some degree of arguments, insults, and energy. I was after all likely a conduit for some of that myself when it came to people coming to terms with a temporary new normal that featured many restrictions previously considered unthinkable. I suppose since I was happy to call some people stupid cunts for not buying into the benefit of masks, or failing to recognise what lockdowns etc actually achieved, that I may be being hypocritical to complain about someone else doing much the same thing now that we are travelling in a different direction.


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## Griff (Jun 29, 2021)

'The unvaccinated are addressed' ? What does that mean?


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## Supine (Jun 29, 2021)

Griff said:


> 'The unvaccinated are addressed' ? What does that mean?



Convincing them to get vaccinated. Wtf do you think I was suggesting!


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## Doctor Carrot (Jun 29, 2021)

Griff said:


> Zero-covid is an insanity policy. Strangling life as we know it for a disease which has a mortality rate mostly for the 80÷. i.e. Life.
> 
> Maybe people here wish to live their lives in masks even though they've been jabbed, it seems that way.
> 
> ...


Drunken twat spewing drunken bollocks. How interesting. 

The whole 'blah it only kills 1% of people' line is so pathetic it bearly even needs pointing out anymore. I will anyway though. 1% of tens of millions of people is still a huge number. Not to mention that a much higher percentage need hospital treatment and a significant percentage get long covid requiring long term hospital treatment. 

I'm sick of lockdowns, sick of wearing a fucking mask all day and sick of morons coming into where I work not wearing a mask. Nobody loves all this, we're all sick of it. 

Maybe sleep it off before posting more?


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## Griff (Jun 29, 2021)

Yes Doctor Carrot, we're all sick of it, that's the point. Counting cases rather than hospitalisations, rather than deaths. Doing this, we'll never get out of it. 

I'll take your advice and go to bed.


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## quimcunx (Jun 29, 2021)

Griff said:


> Zero-covid is an insanity policy. Strangling life as we know it for a disease which has a mortality rate mostly for the 80÷. i.e. Life.
> 
> Maybe people here wish to live their lives in masks even though they've been jabbed, it seems that way.
> 
> ...



But it's the countries which pursued zero covid who are living normal lives. We are in constant economic limbo because our govt didnt pursue it.  They wanted to save the economy, not us,  and it backfired. That's the insanity.


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## Griff (Jun 29, 2021)

Like Australia, locking down again?


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Griff said:


> Yes Doctor Carrot, we're all sick of it, that's the point. Counting cases rather than hospitalisations, rather than deaths. Doing this, we'll never get out of it.
> 
> I'll take your advice and go to bed.



Cases are linked to hospitalisations and deaths, that link is not broken, just the ratios changed.

The ideal end destination for mass vaccination is that levels of population immunity are reached that mean whilst outbreaks are still possible, we dont routinely get huge nationwide viral resurgence and really high number of infections. Or at least not too often, eg might go in epidemic cycles every so many years eventually. In real bad seasons some measures will be required to help hospitals etc cope, but between those times it will be more like the old normal.

Even the governments version of 'learning to live with covid' is not supposed to feature as much infection as we are being treated to now and in the coming weeks. Thats why they have not tried to come close to reaching this destination yet, the current wave and all its uncertainties is part of what they need to reach that destination in future. Thats why they've left certain rules in place but are busy telling us the ways in which they plan to erode those rules in future. Thats why they delayed the final unlocking steps. Because they know that the required population immunity levels, that would stop cases exploding generally all the time, are not yet in place. Some of the infections they are letting happen now are part of the way they want to reach that destination, filling in some of the gaps that they dont expect vaccines to reach for one reason or another (including them not looking too keen on vaccinating children from what we can tell of their approach so far).

If the impatience of recent times leads to a massive pandemic setback then the rush to freedom ASAP will have been one of the worst own-goals I've ever seen. It will be just another version of 'we didnt want disruption so we stuck our heads in the sand and ultimately ended up with even greater disruption as a result'. Unlike the previous occasions there is at least a chance that these fears of mine will not come to full fruition this time, that the rush and bluster approach will be gotten away with. I'll be very happy to avoid much more death, but then people like you will probably have your ignorance cemented by the government getting away with this sloppy unlocking, ready for some future catastrophe where bleating about not listening to doommongers and pessimists will actually lead straight to doom.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2021)

Griff said:


> Like Australia, locking down again?



Perhaps you could add up how long Australians have been under lockdown in total throughout the pandemic so far and compare it to the length of our harshest restrictions. Or how normal their lives were in between compared to ours. Its also winter there, and they and the world faces a harsh new variant, the same one you dont think should dictate our lives in the UK right now.


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

You were doing so well until the condescending 'people like you with your ignorance'. 

I apologise for my working class ignorance. 

Not sure about your Australia post, could you explain, NSW was under far more severe lockdowns, yet there they are again.


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## quimcunx (Jun 30, 2021)

Griff said:


> Like Australia, locking down again?



How much lockdown have they had compared to us?

 I'd be pretty fucked off with the UK and all the others who pissed their chances  up the wall last year then export covid back to the countries who did well.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Griff said:


> You were doing so well until the condescending 'people like you with your ignorance'.
> 
> I apologise for my working class ignorance.
> 
> Not sure about your Australia post, could you explain, NSW was under far more severe lockdowns, yet there they are again.


It is true that I am condescending towards people who display grotesque ignorance about pandemic details and then demand that certain things be done or not done based on that ignorance.


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> How much lockdown have they had compared to us?
> 
> I'd be pretty fucked off with the UK and all the others who pissed their chances  up the wall last year then export covid back to the countries who did well.


Their lockdown was awful compared to ours. Proper nasty, not allowed out of the house, coppers hitting people stuff etc. 

Not sure what the rest of your post means.


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> It is true that I am condescending towards people who display grotesque ignorance about pandemic details and then demand that certain things be done or not done based on that ignorance.


Then when this finishes, I sincerely hope you"re as totally clever as you think you are. 

I really mean that.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Dont need to be clever to spot your level of ignorance. Attempting to avoid the question of how long lockdowns lasted in various parts of Australia by moving the goalposts towards vague ideas about police violence wont do.

And just look at the results, I can only dream of this sort of chart for a UK city or region in this pandemic:


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

But they"re locking down again, cleverclogs.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Jun 30, 2021)

Griff said:


> But they"re locking down again, cleverclogs.


how long have they "not have a lockdown" over the past year and a bit?
e2a: disregarding everything else


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

Fuck Knows, I don't care, the fact is they went for a zero-covid strategy yet they still have resort to these restrictions. 

Getting back to the fact we have to live with it and have a life or live with the zero-covid zealots who want masks/testing constantly.




.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

If you dont want masks or testing, then you want death for people. Thanks very much, murderous idiot.


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

Murderous! Fuck me, your pretentious posts were grating, but you've surpassed yourself. 

God forbid I walk past you in the street maskless.


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## David Clapson (Jun 30, 2021)

How can it be pretentious to know that Covid kills? Your posts are just as batshit as Trump when he complained that more testing meant more cases. You really need to have a word with yourself.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Conflating zero covid with the need for masks and tests is so fucking stupid, you know far less about the pandemic than I gave you credit for.

You arent the first person I've labelled a disgusting threat to public health in this pandemic and you wont be the last. And you arent the first person to point out how pretentious or pompous I can be, but no shits are given in these quarters about that, since that is not a matter of life and death.

You'll get no chance to walk past me in the street, proudly failing to wear a mask, spreading germs and ignorance in your wake. Because I take matters into my own hands by going out of my way to avoid shits like you and everyone else for that matter. Because we've been going through a bad pandemic where well over 150,000 people in the UK have died. That fact is not lost on me, and the fact it is apparently lost on people like you gives me every reason to double down on my stance and the practical steps I take to avoid virus-spreading shitheads.


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

Well more testing will show more cases, that doesn't equate to more hospitalisations or more deaths, moreso with the old and vulnetable vaccinated. What is batshit Trump crazy about that?


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Sometimes I surprise myself with how wound up I can still get when encountering cheerleaders for team virus, who imagine that their 'ignore it and it will go away' approach will actually lead to a resumption of normal life more swiftly than taking an adult stance towards deadly viruses will.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Griff said:


> Well more testing will show more cases, that doesn't equate to more hospitalisations or more deaths, moreso with the old and vulnetable vaccinated. What is batshit Trump crazy about that?



A rise in cases leads to more hospitalisations and deaths. That link cannot be truly and completely broken, only diminished.

Hospitalisations already rose. Deaths have been creeping up.

On the 29th May there were 119 covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds in UK hospitals. As a result of the increase in cases, on the 28th June there were 297.


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Conflating zero covid with the need for masks and tests is so fucking stupid, you know far less about the pandemic than I gave you credit for.
> 
> You arent the first person I've labelled a disgusting threat to public health in this pandemic and you wont be the last. And you arent the first person to point out how pretentious or pompous I can be, but no shits are given in these quarters about that, since that is not a matter of life and death.
> 
> You'll get no chance to walk past me in the street, proudly failing to wear a mask, spreading germs and ignorance in your wake. Because I take matters into my own hands by going out of my way to avoid shits like you and everyone else for that matter. Because we've been going through a bad pandemic where well over 150,000 people in the UK have died. That fact is not lost on me, and the fact it is apparently lost on people like you gives me every reason to double down on my stance and the practical steps I take to avoid virus-spreading shitheads.



By next Friday from yesterday I will have had 7 Covid tests for various reasons ( work/care home visits) I'm pretty damn sure all of them will be negative

Now if you're so paranoid about this as you seem, I think you need psychiatic help, as you seem paranoid of  the outside world. Sorry.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Before this pandemic I could well understand why people might find my attitudes towards public health, risk, and what protection people deserve to be a little unusual or out on a limb. But then we had this pandemic wakeup call and a huge number of people demonstrated an ability to come to terms with an emerging reality and act accordingly.

Meanwhile I suspect the already overstretched mental health services would consider me a timewaster if I attempted to seek treatment on the basis that some pandemic know-nothing pissed up cunt who cant grasp the basics thinks I need professional help.


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

Well going by your post I quoted  am I wrong? Sociapath going on about lockdowns?


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

I also moon my arse, without a mask, at the sad little comic book imagined world of covid zealots you came up with. Zealots who apparently want to live in a lockdown masked up testing & restrictions fantasy world forever, a class of imagined foes and party-poopers who for the most part dont actually fucking exist except in the minds of the dull. Its just a shit mischaracterisation of people who give a different sort of shit about public health to you, or who see the details very differently.

I want normality too you know. That you can only frame the current, delicately balanced situation in such a pathetic way speaks volumes about your general pandemic ignorance. Your ignorance of the need to be careful during this exit phase, and not ask more of vaccines than they can reasonably offer, will not be masked by these tragic attempts to justify your stance on the basis that people who oppose it like me must be freaks with a lockdown fetish. I have no special interest in lockdowns at all, and the many nerdy hours I spent studying pandemics in general years before this one actually came, didnt really feature anything about lockdowns at all, they arent why I was interested in the subject. I only found myself having to go on about them so much because they became a temporary emergency tool in this pandemic, due to the level of hospitalisations this virus causes. They werent much a part of the governments original plan, and so I didnt originally expect to end up commentating on them. At least not until the level of hospitalisation became clearer via places like Italy a short while before our own wave exploded, and it became clear that the governments original plan was going to die on its arse and be replaced with something much stronger.

There is also an additional reason why I will be even more glad to see the back of lockdowns. Their exit from the scene will make it much less likely that I end up wasting my time communicating with people like you who havent managed to incorporate the need for lockdowns into your understanding of the world and its pandemics.

There are also plenty of times I have bored or infuriated myself during this pandemic, so Im sure there are plenty of people other people who are sick off my pandemic output here. And this is where something else to look forward to lay ahead for us at some unknown point in future - eventually the relationship between this virus and humanity will reach a stage where I can shut the fuck up about the pandemic and related matters for ages. I dont know who is looking forward to that day most, me or someone else here. Maybe we can have a competition to find out.


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## krtek a houby (Jun 30, 2021)

Griff said:


> Zero-covid is an insanity policy. Strangling life as we know it for a disease which has a mortality rate mostly for the 80÷. i.e. Life.
> 
> Maybe people here wish to live their lives in masks even though they've been jabbed, it seems that way.
> 
> ...



Wear a mask, you div


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Griff said:


> Well going by your post I quoted  am I wrong? Sociapath going on about lockdowns?



Ah so now Team Virus invites us to believe that those who want to transition as safely as possible into the vaccine era of the pandemic, minimising death as much as possible during a delicate phase of coping with the Delta variant whilst levels of population immunity have not yet reached their maximum, are the sociopaths. Not those who invite more death than necessary of their fellow human beings via 'fed up now, restrictions bore me, let it rip!', no, they couldnt possibly be the ones who pose more theoretical risk of harm to their fellow beings, they couldnt be characterised as sociopaths at all. Fuck off you desperately dull projector, I'm done now.


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

Well apologies elbows, your last post sounded like you wanted to inflict your own social insecurities on all of society, so if thst's not the case, all is good. But it's something that I've noticed, that people are happy in their 'new normal' due to their insecurities. Not something we should all have to suffer.


Edited to add: 

Just read your last post, gave you the benefit of the doubt, you sad, sad individual. ---> sad face


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## two sheds (Jun 30, 2021)

I thought you were hardly posting anymore


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## krtek a houby (Jun 30, 2021)

Griff said:


> Well apologies elbows, your last post sounded like you wanted to inflict your own social insecurities on all of society, so if thst's not the case, all is good. But it's something that I've noticed, that people are happy in their 'new normal' due to their insecurities. Not something we should all have to suffer.



We shouldn't have to suffer from selfish anti-mask, covid deniers either.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Griff said:


> Well apologies elbows, your last post sounded like you wanted to inflict your own social insecurities on all of society, so if thst's not the case, all is good. But it's something that I've noticed, that people are happy in their 'new normal' due to their insecurities. Not something we should all have to suffer.
> 
> 
> Edited to add:
> ...



Dont bother giving me the benefit of your doubt, Im not giving you the benefit of mine.

What makes my life not sad, and its own reward in its own way, was enabled decades ago when I learnt to ignore other people views on what constitutes a sad life, or how they rate my life on the sadometer. I'm not asking anyone else to be like me, or even to like me, and I'm just living my life with the hand I've been dealt. It works for me, to an extent at least, I could always hope for more but that hope is usually misplaced.

Look, even if you won an argument against people like me, it wouldnt genuinely help your cause. Because its the virus, and the failure of feeble and inappropriate attempts to keep it below levels the system cant cope with, that forces us into highly restrictive measures over rather long periods of time. Most of what we've had to endure is not the result of people like me's stance at all, because the government instincts were more like yours than mine. And that shit repeatedly blew up in their face, forcing the crude handbrake to be applied. Leaving people understandably nervous about whether the same thing will happen again this time, a time when the government are loudly proclaiming that they are throwing away the handbrake forever.

If we get through the next period without doom, then there should end up being considerably less of a gap between my sort of stance by then and your position. In some basic ways at least, probably we will never have much in common in terms of the underlying pandemic detail by the sounds of it. Never mind, we dont need to get along. But be clear, my position does evolve as the rest of reality changes, just because its not happening at the same pace as yours doesnt mean we are actually on opposite sides of the universe.


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Dont bother giving me the benefit of your doubt, Im not giving you the benefit of mine.
> 
> What makes my life not sad, and its own reward in its own way, was enabled decades ago when I learnt to ignore other people views on what constitutes a sad life, or how they rate my life as on the sadometer. I'm not asking anyone else to be like me, or even to like me, and I'm just living my life with the hand I've been dealt. It works for me, to an extent at least, I could always hope for more but that hope is usually misplaced.
> 
> ...



I'd rather hear your point of view than the ridiculous 'selfish'' 'anti-mask' 'anti-vax " tiresome words that appear here, even though it may not seem that way.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Sure, I can actually believe that, cheers.

I should probably try to explain some of my anger that went in your direction tonight.

Its understandable when people express feelings of being fed up with it all and being very keen to go back to the old normal now ar as soon as possible. Its just that such complaints seem to slip quite easily into territory where sensible health measures get criticised in ways that seem to have more in common with anti-mask, anti-vax etc idiots than the basic realities of pandemic public health.

Im sure we are all sick of it. But when it comes to detail, it gets infuriating. Because from my viewpoint some of those attitudes are what doom us to repeat large waves of infection, time and time again. The picture is changed by vaccines, but it takes time to be sure of the exact extent of gains, and so patience is required at a time when patience may be in short supply.

I'm going to be so angry if the rush to remove restrictions forces another difficult round of them to be reimposed again. Its so counterproductive, it doesnt get us to the end of the tunnel any quicker, and now I just have to hope it hasnt made the tunnel longer again. What I want to happen is something that some of Johnsons rhetoric claimed to be in support of - that relaxations be done in a manner that allows them to actually stand a good chance of being permanent, or at least to last longer than a few months before the shit hits the fan again.

The current bunch of vaccines are really quite impressive. I might actually allow myself to hope that they will carry all this weight. But the way some people talk its as if they want to keep pushing more weight on, testing things to destruction, in the name of freedom. I dont think thats the most reliable path to freedom, I'll be bloody happy if they do get away with it, but it just seems like extra risk to me that could have been avoided in ways that werent too draconian or headfucky.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Hell I didnt even tell anyone not to go down the pub this time of relaxed measures, or heckle disapprovingly at restaurant or sports goers. And thats taken some effort, someone better buy me a pint when this is all over!


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## Griff (Jun 30, 2021)

I do wonder just how many people up and down the country have been traumatised by this since March 2020. I've heard of people who literally haven't ventured outside for 15 months.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Its going to be an issue, one of many.

We caught one sort of glimpse of it after the first wave, last summer. The government had a 'lets get the economy going' agenda and an original timetable for things like going back to offices and reopening schools which they had to abandon quite quickly for a number of reasons. This made a lot of people more wary, not less, it was counterproductive to cajole people back to a version of reality that was really still out of reach at the time. Some could take advantage of those times, but others were left behind. Especially those that were told to shield, since the government was so slow to unlock shielding that by the time they did so the danger had started to grow a lot again, and then they were slow to reimpose it! Reckless shit.

This is also one of the areas where I think its a shame we are attempting to ditch all mitigation measures so quickly.

For example in order for economic activity to truly recover, various sorts of confidence need to return. Some wont struggle to find that confidence (as some never lost it in the first place) but others will. And I think that will be a tougher nut to crack if the government and broader establishment ditch stuff like masks and certain forms of distancing at the very earliest opportunity.

For some people mental recovery will be best enabled by us actually getting to enjoy a long enough period where there are not shitloads of cases, and not a mass of hospitalisations and a bunch of deaths.

A modern society and economy also needs a certain level of functioning healthcare system that is able to somewhat cope with demand in order to create a foundation of confidence about that aspect of our lives. Even if this wave isnt a bad one, the prior state of the NHS, the backlog and the way health care professionals have been shat on in various ways in this pandemic means this is likely to be rather an arduous task that is still mostly ahead of us.


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## l'Otters (Jun 30, 2021)

Rewinding to Sassaferato's post, I had a think about this and by the time I came back there'd been that whole exchange between Griff and Elbows (which I've read most of but not fully taken in):

Australia probably wouldn't be having any problems now if the various other countries weren't letting it rip.

Living with covid doesn't just mean an increased % of people grieving, of people who've had their lives cut short unnecessarily,
It also means living with long term disability. Long covid affects peoples' brains, (Deepti Gurdasani (@dgurdasani1))

There's a significant % of people who survive very mild covid and are left with a fraction of the functionality they previously had.
It means living with a burnt out traumatised healthcare work force and a health service which is probably never going to recover.

Sass probably understands that the experiment the uk govt took in putting the economy first has failed miserably (at least that's what I took from the reference to a surgical proceedure being successful but the patient being dead, Sass please correct me if I read that wrong.)

The uk govt deciding we're going to just live with it also means we'll likely go on incubating and exporting variants around the globe. It drives up the chances of a variant which escapes vaccine or exposure acquired immunity, which in turn fucks things up for the rest of the world. (All the while hoarding access to the vaccines, of course.) Bringing us back to where I started, all the countries which went for short and stringent measures and had successfully avoided high death tolls or extended lock downs, are now at risk once again because of the craven corrupt short sighted actions of the twats in charge of places like the UK that are run by disaster capitalists.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

In addition to my last post, vaccines and the sense of changed risk that has accompanied them for many people can play quite a big role in mental recovery and venturing back out into the world.

Whether people have already taken that concept of reduced risk and run a little too far with it, given that vaccines havent yet unlocked the level of overall population immunity that can really dampen waves down to manageable levels, is one of the questions we will learn the answer to via the current wave and how high it ends up going. And indeed how people respond if it does reach dangerous heights again. The polling about whether people supported the previous delay to step 4 unlocking suggests a lot of people still grasp the current situation reasonably well, but plenty of people have already raced back to the old normal to the maximum extent possible, and probably wont react well to any setbacks, so I think that one is also delicately balanced at the moment.


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## Chairman Meow (Jun 30, 2021)

Griff said:


> Their lockdown was awful compared to ours. Proper nasty, not allowed out of the house, coppers hitting people stuff etc.
> 
> Not sure what the rest of your post means.


 Absolute horse shit. I am in Oz and our lock downs have been much shorter and less severe than in the UK. I am in Perth, at the minute we are having a four day lockdown, before that I hadn't worn a mask in months.


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## andysays (Jun 30, 2021)

Griff said:


> Zero-covid is an insanity policy. Strangling life as we know it for a disease which has a mortality rate mostly for the 80÷. i.e. Life.
> 
> Maybe people here wish to live their lives in masks even though they've been jabbed, it seems that way.
> 
> ...



_In vino veritas,_ innit

Funny how a few people flying beneath at least my radar have revealed themselves to be utter twats over Covid recently.


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## Cat Fan (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Heres a quick example of what I said in previous post. Deaths per day from all causes for England and Wales. 1988 and 1989, the latter of which featured a bad flu epidemic that was in the news at the time.
> 
> I also include a graph I started for 2020 which I didnt get round to completing, showing the first wave Covid-19 death spike. But do keep in mind that the 2020 death spike would have been larger if we hadnt had lockdowns & massive behavioural changes.
> 
> ...


Thanks Elbows for sharing some informative charts. What really stands out in the data is that after so many people passed away in the initial wave, deaths fell down to record lows.

The irony of Covid being a sh!tshow in this country and so many vulnerable people dying is that we now have an older population that is on average much healthier and better placed to survive future flu outbreaks. This "dry tinder" effect is why you never see bad flu seasons back to back.

For the record I'm not saying that Covid only affects the old/vulnerable, but it has hit those groups the hardest, especially those suffering from pre existing health conditions (technical term is comorbidities)

In conclusion between the successful vaccine rollout and the built up immunity in the population, I'm highly optimistic we will genuinely be able to go back to normal this year. There's even a glimmer of hope for those of us with family in the EU that travel may restart for the double vaccinated.


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## nagapie (Jun 30, 2021)

krtek a houby said:


> Wear a mask, you div


I can understand why people are anti more lockdown, but masks, they're such a small and easy adjustment!


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## krtek a houby (Jun 30, 2021)

nagapie said:


> I can understand why people are anti more lockdown, but masks, they're such a small and easy adjustment!



What with the flu season and sugi allergies, mask wearing is no big deal here but the way it's become politicised in other places is baffling.


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## bimble (Jun 30, 2021)

nagapie said:


> I can understand why people are anti more lockdown, but masks, they're such a small and easy adjustment!


Just anecdotally from the last few weeks i think the very obvious increase round here in mask refusal is about people expressing / signalling to others how they feel about the whole thing, basically 'fuck that it's over' or something similar.
 It's not that putting a mask on your face for 2 minutes when you go into a shop to buy milk is hard work it's that _not _doing so feels good, to them. I might be projecting but thats how it seems to me. It was very rare round here for the last year and a half now it seems like its mostly just older people who will reliably be wearing them.


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## teuchter (Jun 30, 2021)

I'm not sure how much Australia or NZ's short term 'zero covid' success can tell us about the practicalities of the UK achieving something similar in the long term. As far as I understand, they don't intend to continue these policies post vaccination.

Maybe I am overlooking something but a true zero Covid approach is so infeasible it's hardly worth discussing as an option is it? The only way I can see it working is if the whole world, or the majority of the world, does it.


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## l'Otters (Jun 30, 2021)

Indie_sage tend to use the phrase “maximum suppression” rather than zero covid.


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## miss direct (Jun 30, 2021)

Mask compliance has noticeably dropped here. Was shopping yesterday and I'd say only 30% were wearing them. Plus distancing in queues seems to have been forgotten too. Which is really a pity. I'd quite happily distance from most of humanity for the rest of my life in queues and on public transport.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jun 30, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just anecdotally from the last few weeks i think the very obvious increase round here in mask refusal is about people expressing / signalling to others how they feel about the whole thing, basically 'fuck that it's over' or something similar.
> It's not that putting a mask on your face for 2 minutes when you go into a shop to buy milk is hard work it's that _not _doing so feels good, to them. I might be projecting but thats how it seems to me. It was very rare round here for the last year and a half now it seems like its mostly just older people who will reliably be wearing them.



The sort of people who I've seen not wearing a mask throughout this whole thing are mainly your real knuckle dragging blokey bloke type of arsehole. There's a lot more of them around than I thought. 

I've gone on about it quite a lot but I am pretty bitter about it all. I'm still surprised by it too at times. There's one bloke who comes in to where I work. He's 88 years old and recently had a really bad fall. So bad in fact he now breathes with the help of a tracheostomy yet he still wears a mask. I've told him several times there's no need but he wants to do his bit. 
Makes a mockery of all those arrogant ratlickers or people who claim exemption whilst buying a pouch of tobacco.


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## Artaxerxes (Jun 30, 2021)

The fucking "no mask over the nose thing" is getting a bit fucking silly* and I just see more and more people doing it.



*no its been silly from the start


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## Doctor Carrot (Jun 30, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Mask compliance has noticeably dropped here. Was shopping yesterday and I'd say only 30% were wearing them. Plus distancing in queues seems to have been forgotten too. Which is really a pity. I'd quite happily distance from most of humanity for the rest of my life in queues and on public transport.



Social distancing could've been a real opportunity to make public space more welcoming for everyone. Griff was saying earlier how social distancing works for some people but the rest of us want to get back to normal. 

Leaving aside the fact he doesn't speak for 'the rest of us' whoever they are he does have a point though. Lots of people either like or don't mind close social contact in shops and the like. That's fine but personally I can get fairly anxious in a crowded supermarket and on public transport, I was extremely anxious on the tube over bankholiday when I ended up having to take it because the trains were fucked. 

I've really enjoyed being able to shop with lots of space in supermarkets and not having to squash next to a stranger on a coach when travelling on my own. I think we could've let elements of that remain as we emerge out of all this. Doesn't look on the cards though. Instead we're just rushing headlong into opening up again because the economic model takes pole position above everything else.


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## BillRiver (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> someone better buy me a pint when this is all over!



I would be very happy to.


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## Supine (Jun 30, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> I would be very happy to.



Almost there. July 19th!!!


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## BillRiver (Jun 30, 2021)

Supine said:


> Almost there. July 19th!!!



I'd rather wait until it's genuinely safe, thanks, not just when this government claims it is.


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## Cat Fan (Jun 30, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Social distancing could've been a real opportunity to make public space more welcoming for everyone. Griff was saying earlier how social distancing works for some people but the rest of us want to get back to normal.
> 
> Leaving aside the fact he doesn't speak for 'the rest of us' whoever they are he does have a point though. Lots of people either like or don't mind close social contact in shops and the like. That's fine but personally I can get fairly anxious in a crowded supermarket and on public transport, I was extremely anxious on the tube over bankholiday when I ended up having to take it because the trains were fucked.
> 
> I've really enjoyed being able to shop with lots of space in supermarkets and not having to squash next to a stranger on a coach when travelling on my own. I think we could've let elements of that remain as we emerge out of all this. Doesn't look on the cards though. Instead we're just rushing headlong into opening up again because the economic model takes pole position above everything else.


I agree, it would be great if some lessons can be learned in terms of making supermarkets and public transport more accessible to people who struggle in crowded environments.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'm not sure how much Australia or NZ's short term 'zero covid' success can tell us about the practicalities of the UK achieving something similar in the long term. As far as I understand, they don't intend to continue these policies post vaccination.
> 
> Maybe I am overlooking something but a true zero Covid approach is so infeasible it's hardly worth discussing as an option is it? The only way I can see it working is if the whole world, or the majority of the world, does it.


I mostly bring it up because I am always interested in adding elements to the mix that are not well covered by politicians and the media in this country.

Plus it forms a handy placeholder for one end of a spectrum that is bound to come up at the moment when discussing the whole 'learning to live with covid approach'. And we dont need to position ourselves at the very end of that spectrum in order to debate the merits and drawbacks of the other end of the spectrum, the UKs let it rip approach.

And the likes of Australia come up when trying to talk about what sort of lockdown etc burden the various approaches actually end up entailing. Certainly when I mention Australia at the moment I am keen to point out their current challenge in winter with Delta, and also some problems they are having with vaccine uptake. So I dont tout their approach as being perfect and without drawbacks. Nor would I describe it as something thats supposed to be ongoing in perpetuity. Countries that went for this approach mostly did so to cover the unvaccinated period, and vaccines are gradually supposed to take over the heavy lifting as time goes on. It may well not turn out that neatly.

We dont actually tend to have many serious and longlived discussions about an actual full zero covid approach that imagines total global suppression and elimination of this virus. That would be a tricky thing to pull off and would be very hard to imagine if the vast majority of countries were not fully onboard with the concept. But we can still discuss all things in between, very much including whether the UK should still be trying to suppress the disease at this stage, at least keeping the numbers down below a certain level.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Supine said:


> Almost there. July 19th!!!


The date upon which the UK has surely decided that beyond which any remaining virus must register here in order to become a resident.


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## teuchter (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> I mostly bring it up because I am always interested in adding elements to the mix that are not well covered by politicians and the media in this country.
> 
> Plus it forms a handy placeholder for one end of a spectrum that is bound to come up at the moment when discussing the whole 'learning to live with covid approach'. And we dont need to position ourselves at the very end of that spectrum in order to debate the merits and drawbacks of the other end of the spectrum, the UKs let it rip approach.
> 
> ...


Sure.

I'm just saying that Aus/NZ demonstrate quite well that pre-vaccinations, a zero-covid approach can result in fewer restrictions than the UK's approach has led to - but they also demonstrate that achieving zero-covid involves certain restrictions (primarily international travel) that almost no-one would tolerate after they can see that vaccination can keep hospital pressure and illness/death to historically tolerated levels.


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## Petcha (Jun 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'm not sure how much Australia or NZ's short term 'zero covid' success can tell us about the practicalities of the UK achieving something similar in the long term. As far as I understand, they don't intend to continue these policies post vaccination.
> 
> Maybe I am overlooking something but a true zero Covid approach is so infeasible it's hardly worth discussing as an option is it? The only way I can see it working is if the whole world, or the majority of the world, does it.



Friends in NZ have told me they aren't expecting to be receiving overseas visitors for another year. Not sure where that info came from. But if it's from the Govt at least they're honest with their population.


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## Petcha (Jun 30, 2021)

Of course these same people have just spent a lovely covid-free summer at cricket grounds and beaches and are looking forward to ski season so really don't a fuck whether or not we can go there! Apparently a lot of the world's billionaires have been buying up property and sadly, passports.


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## Sasaferrato (Jun 30, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Would you like us to say that at your funeral if you do end up being one of those deaths? I guess if you survive and Mrs Sas doesn't you'll say it yourself?



I take your point, but I cannot envisage living like this for the rest of my days.

I've been shot at, bombed and on a burning ship, the death risk from covid is smaller.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Thanks Elbows for sharing some informative charts. What really stands out in the data is that after so many people passed away in the initial wave, deaths fell down to record lows.
> 
> The irony of Covid being a sh!tshow in this country and so many vulnerable people dying is that we now have an older population that is on average much healthier and better placed to survive future flu outbreaks. This "dry tinder" effect is why you never see bad flu seasons back to back.
> 
> ...


Its a phenomenon that is visible on such graphs but its not that impressive and there are actually multiple causes.

Although some of the death reductions are caused by people that would have lived till then having died earlier because of the pandemic, there are other factors. Such as the effects of lockdown and reduced economic activity, equivalent to start of a recession that would be expected to reduce deaths due to factors such as air pollution, and people not going out and indulging in risky behaviour. And the effects of lockdowns and other measures reducing the number of other illnesses at various times.

And certainly the level that deaths fell to after the first wave was not an indicator of their future potential to rise, it didnt stop deaths reaching horrible levels again when the second wave came along.

Although a large number of vulnerable people lost their lives already in this pandemic, I dont think the overall state of the nations health is positively transformed as a result. Especially not with the healthcare backlog that has accumulated so far, and the currently unknown scale and longer term impact of things like long Covid, state of health and care services etc.

Anyway here is an updated graph which shows the period I hadnt filled in on the graph I posted the other day. It shows deaths from all causes per day for England only. Deaths have been especially low again recently, but I expect those figure to bounce back at some point. I dont know exactly what the baseline they've used is based on but it does provide a guide as to how much deaths are expected to change with the seasons in normal, non-pandemic times.


Made using data from the weekly PHE surveillance reports (the latest spreadsheet of data from National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports ).


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## Sasaferrato (Jun 30, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Nah, let's let loads of people die horribly, gasping for breath, and loads more become longterm disabled, when we could have prevented it. Much more fun.



How long do you think that we can tolerate the prevention measures? How long would you lock down for.

I have been isolating pretty much for 464 days. The number of shops I've been in in that time is still under 20. No pubs, no gym, no swimming pool.

We give real thanks that we have a house with a garden, and enough space not to both have to be in the same room all the time. The real heros of this are the folks who have got through whilst living in a flat with children and little outside space.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> How long do you think that we can tolerate the prevention measures? How long would you lock down for.


I think its important not to always drag lockdown into these discussions of what a reasonable future looks like. I wouldnt go so far as to call it a red herring, but it is an emergency handbrake that authorities here will only resort to if the numbers become too extreme for healthcare systems to cope with.

Surely a sensible argument about what this next period should look like involves more of a balance of other things, such as various measures designed to reduce transmission but that do not totally spoil our lives.

Masks are a great example. There was 'cultural resistance' to mask wearing by our establishment, and there have been press conferences with the likes of Van Tam saying that there wont simply be a day where we all throw away our masks, which gave Johnson the chance to demonstrate just how much he hated that view of the future, and would instead try to abandon masks as quickly as possible.

And there are many ways to frame that stuff. If, instead of people moaning about masks and being desperate to ditch them as soon as possible, they were encouraged to consider the possibility that keeping mask rules makes it less likely that the draconian stuff like lockdowns will have to be reimposed in future, then perhaps people would view them in a more positive light.

Distancing and venue capacity rules are another issue. Clearly there are business reasons why plenty of entities dont think they can live with those rules for a long time to come, and pressure exists to ditch them. But simply running along this route as quickly as possible is hardly the most secure strategy if trying to avoid future restrictions that are even more damaging to business is the goal. 

We could also consider stuff like masks in schools and exactly what the motive and logic was of ditching those rules when we did. Establishment cultural resistance to kids wearing masks in the classroom manifested itself via a number of claims including that the masks disrupt kids ability to learn. I would suggest that the recent spread of Delta variant through schools has had a far greater disruptive effect on kids eduction than masks.


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## Supine (Jun 30, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> I've been shot at, bombed and on a burning ship, the death risk from covid is smaller.



I survived a stag do in Leeds.


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## Sasaferrato (Jun 30, 2021)

Supine said:


> I survived a stag do in Leeds.



You win! Much kudos!


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## Sasaferrato (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> I think its important not to always drag lockdown into these discussions of what a reasonable future looks like. I wouldnt go so far as to call it a red herring, but it is an emergency handbrake that authorities here will only resort to if the numbers become too extreme for healthcare systems to cope with.
> 
> Surely a sensible argument about what this next period should look like involves more of a balance of other things, such as various measures designed to reduce transmission but that do not totally spoil our lives.
> 
> ...



When out, I wear a mask, of course I do. I also maintain distance, and sanitise my hands when out and about.

Because of very reduced lung function, it only takes about fifty yards until I am gasping for breath, the mask makes this quite unpleasant. It follows, that I want masks dropped ASAP, when it is safe to do so.

I don't really pay a lot of attention to government diktat, my own measures are much more stringent, but I do look forward to the day when things return to as normal as they will ever.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Regardless of individual circumstances, my point remains that I wont be very impressed if the rush to ditch some things actually ends up making a return to normal less likely to be sustainable.

I for one will return to normal behaviour much more slowly if there are no mask rules. I wont be alone.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Football linked to 2,000 Scottish Covid cases
					

Most of the 1,991 cases were people who travelled to London for Scotland's game with England on 18 June.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 30, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> How long do you think that we can tolerate the prevention measures?


But one of the most frustrating things at the moment is that one reasonable answer to this - not perfect but at least defensible - was to say 'until most people were double jabbed', and that would only have been a few months more - just a few more months after fifteen months of shit. Instead we're getting an answer to it that has a mostly political logic, and as a result future lockdowns have been made more likely, with increased future deaths and increased long covid rates a certainty.


----------



## LDC (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Football linked to 2,000 Scottish Covid cases
> 
> 
> Most of the 1,991 cases were people who travelled to London for Scotland's game with England on 18 June.
> ...



Wonder how many deaths that'll have caused?


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Regardless of individual circumstances, my point remains that I wont be very impressed if the rush to ditch some things actually ends up making a return to normal less likely to be sustainable.
> 
> I for one will return to normal behaviour much more slowly if there are no mask rules. I wont be alone.



I am not, and never have advocated instant normality, I'm a retired nurse, I understand infection (as do you).


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> I am not, and never have advocated instant normality, I'm a retired nurse, I understand infection (as do you).


Sure, I'm just bouncing my opinion off of some of your posts, I dont think you are advocating some kind of deluded ostrich approach.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Sure, I'm just bouncing my opinion off of some of your posts, I dont think you are advocating some kind of deluded ostrich approach.



I am very very glad that this is not my call. I cannot think of anything worse than having to take the decision as to what happens next, and when.


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 30, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> When out, I wear a mask, of course I do. I also maintain distance, and sanitise my hands when out and about.
> 
> Because of very reduced lung function, it only takes about fifty yards until I am gasping for breath, the mask makes this quite unpleasant. It follows, that I want masks dropped ASAP, when it is safe to do so.
> 
> I don't really pay a lot of attention to government diktat, my own measures are much more stringent, but I do look forward to the day when things return to as normal as they will ever.



I don't wear masks just to walk outside, away from other people. There's really need no need, there's negligible risk of infection in that scenario.

Masks are needed when close to others outdoors, and when sharing space indoors. As you probably know.


----------



## l'Otters (Jun 30, 2021)

Re. Masks, 
In early April 2020 I joined a group of people who had started making cloth masks, with a lot of sharing info on designs, fit, materials, filtration, user friendliness, and distribution. My reaction to this was really positive, as this could make it possible for me to minimise the risk of the activities I needed to do. (eg in person shopping or negotiating crowded pavements.) It also meant I felt ok about going round to a friend’s mum’s garden and sitting outside for a chat. I welcomed them and viewed them as very beneficial. And (more fool me) looked forward to them catching on.

In short, I took to masks as a means of widening out my range of activities. Never saw them as a restriction or as an imposition.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jun 30, 2021)

26,000 new cases today. We are well on the way for 30k by weekend. There's NHS rallies happening on saturday as well. Ironically


----------



## Dogsauce (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Football linked to 2,000 Scottish Covid cases
> 
> 
> Most of the 1,991 cases were people who travelled to London for Scotland's game with England on 18 June.
> ...


Weekend before last they had the conference league playoffs here in Bristol, Hartlepool vs Torquay. Drove past a pub near the ground and there were literally hundreds of people jammed into the beer garden and spilling onto the pavement, all squashed together. Reckon that might have seeded a few cases, what are the stats like in monkey hanger land now?


----------



## LDC (Jun 30, 2021)

Anyone (elbows?) done any forward projections for number of daily cases and hospitalizations we are possibly going to be on  by July 19th?


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anyone (elbows?) done any forward projections for number of daily cases and hospitalizations we are possibly going to be on  by July 19th?


I dont generally do such things myself, I just look at what modellers come up with for various scenarios, occasionally look at other peoples attempts on twitter, etc. I'll post someone eleses next time I see one.

Although in theory its not hard to do a crude projection if I plot stuff using a logarithmic scale so that the graph resembles zig-zags rather than curves.

The government knew things would be rather bad by mid July though, its part of the reason why they are repeatedly underlinig their learning to live with covid rhetoric at the moment.

When judging the UK figures as a whole, we'll also need to wait and see what happens to Scotlands data now that their schools have broken up for summer.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

This will probably offer some clues about the future hospitalisation levels:


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

And this should offer clues about cases:





Which reminds me to say that optimists on twitter (such as that Oliver person who is prone to describing themselves as a corona centrist) were happier during the period where there was a slight kink in the trajectory as shown in one of those graphs, but more recently they are alarmed again because the trajectory returned to a rather steep one with high R and short doubling time.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

And one of the replies:


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

And its exactly that sort of case data presented in that fashion (eg using log scale) that has caused me to shout 'emergency, emergency!' a few times in recent weeks. I dont know if I should be trying to raise the alarm in a different way at the moment.


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## LDC (Jun 30, 2021)

Thanks, I had a look at Pagel's Twitter and saw those. It looks like we're a bit fucked case and hospitalizations wise, even if deaths stay reasonably low relative to them.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

I should also say that I probably wouldnt attempt to do a future hospital projection just yet, since there is a suspicion that the admissions curve is going to bend upwards soon, and I dont want to be misled by it being on a less steep incline until then.

I think I will be paying much attention to mechanical ventilator beds figures this time around, since it may provide more clues about deaths than the broader hospital figures. And so far I've been keen to point out that the ratio of hospitalised to mechanical ventilation patients seems worse this time, so I want to keep an eye on it quite carefully.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Plus these sorts of projections dont offer enough clues about when the virus might start to run low of victims in certain age groups. We can see how bad things will be if all these measures remain on their current trajectories, but that doesnt offer many clues about when, and at what level, the trajectories will start to bend lower, leading to a peak and then decline.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Other infections bouncing back bigtime also remains of high concern.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jun 30, 2021)

It's really upsetting that there are so many people who won't make a tiny bit of effort, then you've got someone who, as I posted here, from March 2020 did not leave their house for fear of catching Covid. Their situation, their freedom, is seriously impacted by the former group of people, who _do_ go out but complain that people might object to them not wearing a mask to protect themselves and others. 

Disabled and chronically ill people, as usual, at the bottom of the pile are the ones whose freedoms are being most curtailed, on top of them receiving even less support than they already did. 

I am fucking terrified of catching this thing. My life's already restricted, proper restricted like. Wearing a mask on the rare occasions I do go out is the absolute least of my worries. 😡


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Yes and I'll put my latest attempt to raise the alarm as follows - if peoples circumstances allow it then this next month would be a great time to minimise contact with other people and shield as much as possible.


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## Cat Fan (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its a phenomenon that is visible on such graphs but its not that impressive and there are actually multiple causes.
> 
> Although some of the death reductions are caused by people that would have lived till then having died earlier because of the pandemic, there are other factors. Such as the effects of lockdown and reduced economic activity, equivalent to start of a recession that would be expected to reduce deaths due to factors such as air pollution, and people not going out and indulging in risky behaviour. And the effects of lockdowns and other measures reducing the number of other illnesses at various times.
> 
> ...


Number of deaths prevented from "not engaging in risky behaviour" is going to be rather low. Same goes for air pollution given that's more of a long term than a short term factor.

But I'm not by any means suggesting we can't see high numbers of deaths from a new variant of Covid or from any other new virus that comes along. Covid is different from flu because the mortality rate is much higher in older ages and people with comorbidities.

I also agree that long term the pandemic has been bad for life expectancy because of the negative economic effects, long Covid and delayed treatments.

On the plus side the current vaccines work very well at preventing serious illness from the current variants, so I do think it's worth giving this unlocking thing a shot. We can always lock down again if variant Zeta comes along.

For anyone who is not comfortable with unlocking, they can at least take their own personal precautions. (E.g. order groceries online, limit social contact, avoid crowded places). 

For younger people who have never been at risk and have given up their freedom it's a chance for them to have a life again. Thinking particularly of those who are single, or those who have had weddings postponed multiple times.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Number of deaths prevented from "not engaging in risky behaviour" is going to be rather low. Same goes for air pollution given that's more of a long term than a short term factor.



Risky behaviour was shorthand for all manner of things that happen to people during periods of high economic activity.

A lot of deaths of different sorts were prevented in 2020. Pollution kills asthmatics and people with various other conditions in the short term, it triggers acute illness from conditions they already have. the effects of pollution are not simply a matter of longer term health. Indeed they are one of the factors that causes some spikes in death during certain summer weather conditions.

And more generally, I had too long an argument with someone else last night to want to have another one today, but I very much disagree with the bulk of your current pandemic stance that you have been expressing recently. And for now never mind future variants, we have a heavy battle on our hands right now with the Delta variant.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

eg see charts like this one that I talked about ages ago at The nerdy amounts of pandemic detail thread

The stuff in green, less deaths etc than usual, is the reason I was entirely unsurprised by how low deaths fell at some stages of 2020. Note that there is an entire table relating to short-term impact.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Anyone (elbows?) done any forward projections for number of daily cases and hospitalizations we are possibly going to be on  by July 19th?



Oh and this is someone elses basic projection that is now out of date but may be of interest anyway.


----------



## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> And more generally, I had too long an argument with someone else last night to want to have another one today, but I very much disagree with the bulk of your current pandemic stance that you have been expressing recently. And for now never mind future variants, we have a heavy battle on our hands right now with the Delta variant.



And sorry if thats a bit strong. Its a difficult moment right now because there is the very awkward juxtaposition of a rapidly declining situation, combined with increased desires from some quarters to advocate a return to normality for many. These two things rub rather uneasily against eachother, and I am also extra tetchy whenever we are in a period of seeing cases escalate but before government has gotten round to responding to the increases with action. But this time around, unlike previous occasions, we dont even know if or when they will be forced to take action, their rhetoric has set them up to resist u-turns much more than on previous occasions. But there is still a limit to how far this government can stretch indifference and inaction somewhere, a limit government may yet have to face if hospitalisations get back on track with following case rises (hospital admissions had a period where they stagnated recently, which overexcited the optimists, but that stage now seems to have passed).


----------



## Cat Fan (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> eg see charts like this one that I talked about ages ago at The nerdy amounts of pandemic detail thread
> 
> The stuff in green, less deaths etc than usual, is the reason I was entirely unsurprised by how low deaths fell at some stages of 2020. Note that there is an entire table relating to short-term impact.
> 
> View attachment 276146


Nice table, but these things are notoriously difficult to estimate correctly. The whole thing hangs on 3000 fewer deaths due to air pollution, but road traffic went back pretty quickly to pre pandemic levels unfortunately.

And don't get me started on the economic bit of the table. 2000 less deaths from dementia and 2000 less from heart conditions, because there will be a recession? What? Because lockdowns cure dementia and make people do more exercise to improve their cardio health? It completely contradicts itself because it highlights low exercise as one of the risks.


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## Cat Fan (Jun 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> And sorry if thats a bit strong. Its a difficult moment right now because there is the very awkward juxtaposition of a rapidly declining situation, combined with increased desires from some quarters to advocate a return to normality for many. These two things rub rather uneasily against eachother, and I am also extra tetchy whenever we are in a period of seeing cases escalate but before government has gotten round to responding to the increases with action. But this time around, unlike previous occasions, we dont even know if or when they will be forced to take action, their rhetoric has set them up to resist u-turns much more than on previous occasions. But there is still a limit to how far this government can stretch indifference and inaction somewhere, a limit government may yet have to face if hospitalisations get back on track with following case rises (hospital admissions had a period where they stagnated recently, which overexcited the optimists, but that stage now seems to have passed).


No worries, I respect your point of view but it's clear we are on opposite ends of optimism/pessimism spectrum.

I don't see anything to worry about in terms of hospitalisations on the govt. dashboard either but that may be the optimist in me. Case numbers are dire I admit.


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## Chilli.s (Jun 30, 2021)

The numbers, however they are looked at, are pretty fuckin shit


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## LDC (Jun 30, 2021)

Lots can happen in the gap between a positive case and a hospitalization as well. Numerous other healthcare service contacts, various calls to GPs and 111, a GP appointment, an OOH clinic trip, maybe ambulance attending, possibly a trip to A&E without ending up in admission, all sorts of stuff that impacts the capacity of the NHS.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Nice table, but these things are notoriously difficult to estimate correctly. The whole thing hangs on 3000 fewer deaths due to air pollution, but road traffic went back pretty quickly to pre pandemic levels unfortunately.
> 
> And don't get me started on the economic bit of the table. 2000 less deaths from dementia and 2000 less from heart conditions, because there will be a recession? What? Because lockdowns cure dementia and make people do more exercise to improve their cardio health? It completely contradicts itself because it highlights low exercise as one of the risks.



I dont have time to properly get my teeth into this now. I'll just say its very complicated and there are lots of factors at play, some of which may not immediately spring to mind.









						How the next recession could save lives
					

Death rates have dropped during past economic downturns, even as many health trends have worsened. Researchers are scrambling to decipher lessons before the next big recession.




					www.nature.com
				




The old normal, and prosperity, kills people.


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## elbows (Jun 30, 2021)

Plus there a lot of different aspects to the timing of death. Recessions can change the timing of death in ways that may seem counterintuitive if you are only thinking about the development of their health condition over the long term, as opposed to events that actually trigger their death within a particular period of time.


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## nagapie (Jun 30, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> But one of the most frustrating things at the moment is that one reasonable answer to this - not perfect but at least defensible - was to say 'until most people were double jabbed', and that would only have been a few months more - just a few more months after fifteen months of shit. Instead we're getting an answer to it that has a mostly political logic, and as a result future lockdowns have been made more likely, with increased future deaths and increased long covid rates a certainty.


What about the large numbers of people not getting jabbed? I have no agenda with this question. Waiting a few months would have been my idea too, I don't want a forever limited life but numbers of non vaxxers in my area are high.


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## 2hats (Jun 30, 2021)

Reports from Israel suggest negotiations are underway to transfer around 1 million unused doses of Pfizer to the UK within the next week as their current stock would expire before a second dose could be administered. In return the UK would forward to Israel an equivalent number of doses from their upcoming shipments from Pfizer.








						N12 - מגעים מתקדמים בין ישראל לבריטניה על חילופי חיסונים
					

במשרד הבריאות חוששים מאובדן של מאות אלפי מנות וחשבו על פתרון יצירתי • בריטניה עשויה לקבל מיליון חיסונים כבר בשבוע הבא




					www.mako.co.il
				



Failing that they would seek an extension of validity from the manufacturer.


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## Supine (Jun 30, 2021)

2hats said:


> Reports from Israel suggest negotiations are underway to transfer around 1 million unused doses of Pfizer to the UK within the next week as their current stock would expire before a second dose could be administered. In return the UK would forward to Israel an equivalent number of doses from their upcoming shipments from Pfizer.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



is this the same batch the Palestinians turned down because it was being offered but about to expire?


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## 2hats (Jun 30, 2021)

Supine said:


> is this the same batch the Palestinians turned down because it was being offered but about to expire?


Not clear. Supposedly these 'expire' 30 July. Of course, if Pfizer can validate that they can be used for an extended period...


----------



## 2hats (Jun 30, 2021)

Proposed timetable for autumn booster (third) doses and influenza vaccinations floated by the JCVI.


> Any potential COVID-19 booster programme should be offered in 2 stages:
> 
> Stage 1. The following persons should be offered a third dose COVID-19 booster vaccine and the annual influenza vaccine as soon as possible from September 2021:
> 
> ...











						JCVI interim advice: potential COVID-19 booster vaccine programme winter 2021 to 2022
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## Supine (Jun 30, 2021)

2hats said:


> Not clear. Supposedly these 'expire' 30 July. Of course, if Pfizer can validate that they can be used for an extended period...



The first batches will have been put on stability studies. I’m not sure what end time point they will have used, but it will be longer than the existing expiry date printed on the batches.

If arsed I could have a look at the AZ submission to EU for product approval. It should be in there. I’ve not seen any info for pfizer though, and that is a very different product with respect to stability.


----------



## BillRiver (Jun 30, 2021)

2hats said:


> Proposed timetable for autumn booster (third) doses and influenza vaccinations floated by the JCVI.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's interesting. So they're not suggesting going by dates of first and second jabs?


----------



## editor (Jun 30, 2021)

State of this fucking country. It's going to shoot up even higher after all the football too.


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## ska invita (Jul 1, 2021)

Surely Delta will rip through Europe and the US soon too?


----------



## prunus (Jul 1, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Surely Delta will rip through Europe and the US soon too?



Yup. The simple fact is that we (and most of the world) are loosening the restrictions from one pandemic, just as another one that actually requires tighter restrictions than the first did than the first sweeps across us.

The plan, if there is one, can only be to hope like hell that vaccination can save us. It’s still not nearly clear from the guinea pig (us) that it is going to be able to, at least in terms of severe disruption to hospitals etc.

I’ve been expecting for a while now the messaging to change to “don’t worry [if you’ve been vaccinated and] test positive, don’t go to hospital, stay at home, you’ll be fine [and if you die, well at least you won’t have clogged up the nhs]”

Also I have no conception what the ‘plan’ regarding this new pandemic is with regards to the vast swathes of the developing world where vaccination simply isn’t going to be at a level to even possibly be a bulwark.

I’m veering towards the pessimistic


----------



## ska invita (Jul 1, 2021)

prunus said:


> Yup. The simple fact is that we (and most of the world) are loosening the restrictions from one pandemic, just as another one that actually requires tighter restrictions than the first did than the first sweeps across us.
> 
> The plan, if there is one, can only be to hope like hell that vaccination can save us. It’s still not nearly clear from the guinea pig (us) that it is going to be able to, at least in terms of severe disruption to hospitals etc.
> 
> ...


as i said on the schools thread, the Javid era plan seems to be herd immunity for kids, vaccine immunity for adults, tough shit for anyone who dies/gets seriously ill


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 1, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Surely Delta will rip through Europe and the US soon too?


Yeah and I think the yanks are more complacent than us about it.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 1, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Yeah and I think the yanks are more complacent than us about it.


the one factor that might slow it is schools will break up soon, so they might miss that cauldron phase...but seems inevitable to me...certainly by September (only a couple of months away).

Looking at that graph Ed posted, looks like US and EU figures ever so slightly going up too


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 1, 2021)

ska invita said:


> the one factor that might slow it is schools will break up soon, so they might miss that cauldron phase...but seems inevitable to me...certainly by September (only a couple of months away).
> 
> Looking at that graph Ed posted, looks like US and EU figures ever so slightly going up too


It looks to me like a repeat of last year but a bit different due to vaccines. Open up in the summer and then restrictions again in autumn once the weather turns and numbers really go up. I don't expect there will be another lockdown though.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 1, 2021)

Are there any figures showing how high the numbers/percentages are, for people who've been double jabbed but still get re-infected?? 

I'm aware that how long it is since their second jab before infection comes, must be one of the relevant factors.

It's just that the story at the weekend about Andrew Marr getting Covid again** caught my attention 

**ETA : After having been double-jabbed, but I have no idea of timings on that.


----------



## Anju (Jul 1, 2021)

Another reason we should be trying to keep infections down. Potentially huge numbers of people with covid induced immune system issues, assuming I have understood the article. 









						Data support COVID-19 as autoimmunity trigger in patients without preexisting IMIDs
					

Emerging data are beginning to show that COVID-19 can induce autoimmunity in patients without preexisting immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, with consequences that are yet unknown, according to a speaker at the 2021 Interdisciplinary Autoimmune Summit. “This raises several questions. Will...




					www.healio.com


----------



## existentialist (Jul 1, 2021)

Griff said:


> But they"re locking down again, cleverclogs.


You're tilting at a bit of a windmill here, and it isn't a good look. Elbows has a monumental track record of accurate, carefully-researched posts, and you're not going to get ANY traction by simply playing semantic games and sniping at him.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 1, 2021)

2hats said:


> Proposed timetable for autumn booster (third) doses and influenza vaccinations floated by the JCVI.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Many younger adults won't have even been offered their second dose by September.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 1, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> Are there any figures showing how high the numbers/percentages are, for people who've been double jabbed but still get re-infected??
> 
> I'm aware that how long it is since their second jab before infection comes, must be one of the relevant factors.
> 
> ...


Pfizer gives you 80-90% protection against reinfection, two weeks after the second dose. AZ gives 60-70% according to this article: The Covid Delta variant: how effective are the vaccines?

Obviously 30% of a big number is still a big number, which is one explanation for case numbers continuing to rise. (The other reason being that most under 40s haven't had two jabs yet so they don't have strong protection.)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 1, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Pfizer gives you 80-90% protection against reinfection, two weeks after the second dose. AZ gives 60-70% according to this article: The Covid Delta variant: how effective are the vaccines?
> 
> Obviously 30% of a big number is still a big number, which is one explanation for case numbers continuing to rise. (The other reason being that most under 40s haven't had two jabs yet so they don't have strong protection.)



But, better protection against hospital admission.



> According to an analysis by PHE, the Pfizer/BioNTech jab was linked to a 94% vaccine effectiveness against hospital admission with the Delta variant after one dose and 96% after two doses, while the figures for the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab were 71% and 92% respectively.


----------



## Supine (Jul 1, 2021)

> Pfizer gives you 80-90% protection against reinfection, two weeks after the second dose. AZ gives 60-70% according to this article: The Covid Delta variant: how effective are the vaccines?


That is incorrect (in the article).

Figure are for protection against symptoms or hospitalisations or death, not against picking up an infection. Sorry for being a pedant.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 1, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Pfizer gives you 80-90% protection against reinfection, two weeks after the second dose. AZ gives 60-70% according to this article: The Covid Delta variant: how effective are the vaccines?
> 
> Obviously 30% of a big number is still a big number, which is one explanation for case numbers continuing to rise. (The other reason being that most under 40s haven't had two jabs yet so they don't have strong protection.)


 These numbers aren't anything to do with "re-infection".


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 1, 2021)

Supine said:


> That is incorrect (in the article).
> 
> Figure are for protection against symptoms or hospitalisations or death, not against picking up an infection. Sorry for being a pedant.


The question I was answering was about Andrew Marr who had a symptomatic infection. Ok, asymptomatic infection exists as well but it doesn't put anyone in hospital and it's not as common as people think.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> These numbers aren't anything to do with "re-infection".


They are to do with _infection_. Reinfection is a subset of infection.

If you're being pedantic then, the chances of reinfection should logically be lower for anyone who has both acquired immunity and a vaccine. So those numbers represent a lower bound.

Just replace 60-70% with _at least_ 60-70% and you're good to go.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 1, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Many younger adults won't have even been offered their second dose by September.


Yes, that article covers that; there's no need for a third dose for them to safeguard healthcare provision over the winter.


Cat Fan said:


> Pfizer gives you 80-90% protection against reinfection, two weeks after the second dose. AZ gives 60-70% according to this article: The Covid Delta variant: how effective are the vaccines?


No it doesn't. The figures are for a (sub-)population, not an individual, as has been mentioned repeatedly.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 1, 2021)

2hats said:


> Yes, that article covers that; there's no need for a third dose for them to safeguard healthcare provision over the winter.
> 
> No it doesn't. The figures are for a (sub-)population, not an individual, as has been mentioned repeatedly.


Please elaborate. Population statistics should apply to the average individual too?


----------



## teuchter (Jul 1, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> They are to do with _infection_. Reinfection is a subset of infection.
> 
> If you're being pedantic then, the chances of reinfection should logically be lower for anyone who has both acquired immunity and a vaccine. So those numbers represent a lower bound.
> 
> Just replace 60-70% with _at least_ 60-70% and you're good to go.


It's not pedantic to point out you are providing numbers that are for something other than what you said they were. If it needs to say "at least" then it's your job to write that, not the reader's to insert it.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> It looks to me like a repeat of last year but a bit different due to vaccines. Open up in the summer and then restrictions again in autumn once the weather turns and numbers really go up. I don't expect there will be another lockdown though.



Unclear which countries you are suggesting that timetable for. Because as far as the UK goes the explosive growth in cases is happening now, no need to wait for autumn.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 1, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Please elaborate. Population statistics should apply to the average individual too?



Good luck identifying the average individual.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 1, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Please elaborate. Population statistics should apply to the average individual too?


But not any actual individual.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 1, 2021)

Since people seem to doubt the numbers on vaccine protection against Delta, I went back to the Lancet article.

Two things to note. 1) It was based on a test negative analysis, i.e. this is protection against all types of infection (symptomatic and non-symptomatic). 2) they used a model to fit to the entire population so it should be a reliable population estimate.

It's the Lancet not the daily mail, to get published it has to be peer reviewed by experts.





__





						DEFINE_ME
					





					www.thelancet.com
				




_Considering the whole population cohort (rather than just hospital cases), the test-negative analysis to estimate vaccine effectiveness in preventing RT-PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection showed that, compared to those unvaccinated, at least 14 days after the second dose, BNT162b2 (Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine) offered very good protection: 92% (95% CI 90–93) S gene-negative, 79% (75–82) S gene-positive. Protection associated with ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine) was, however, substantial but reduced: 73% (95% CI 66–78) for S gene-negative cases versus 60% (53–66) for those S gene-positive (appendix p 6). These estimates were obtained from a generalised additive logistic model adjusting for age, temporal trend when the swab was taken, and number of previous tests using splines plus sex and deprivation._


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## Cat Fan (Jul 1, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Good luck identifying the average individual.


They used a mathematical model to predict the probability for the average individual. That's about as useful information as you can get without going into each person's age and medical history.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 1, 2021)

nagapie said:


> What about the large numbers of people not getting jabbed? I have no agenda with this question. Waiting a few months would have been my idea too, I don't want a forever limited life but numbers of non vaxxers in my area are high.


Yeah, my area too, but you've got to make the best of a bad job sometimes. This is not making the best of it. That would have meant at least waiting until everyone who _wanted_ the jab had got both doses, and even offering some incentives towards the end of the vaccination program to shift a few more people. With that done I could at least understand the attitude of 'we have to learn to live with it now', even though I'm pretty pissed off at the path we've taken to get here that caused a lot more death and disability than necessary and wish we could have taken a more precautionary approach to virus spread all along.

What doesn't make ANY sense to me is the attitude of 'we have to learn to live with it' before we've vaccinated as many people as possible. The truth is they've opened up at a point where they can drastically reduce the death rate because older people are vaxxed but the disability rate will be very high - and we should be thinking of long covid as disabling because it is for many, many people. We also run the risk of more variants with the high circulation rate - and that could fuck us even further. Grrr.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 1, 2021)

As an aside, I've thought in the past that it's a bit shit that no-one is keeping track of the disability rate in the same way as the death rate. To my mind it should be being reported alongside the death rate. It's trickier to measure, because you have to class the degree of disability (highly variable with long covid) and also keep track of recoveries. But it's not impossible in a rich country with centralised healthcare system if they set their minds to it, and we could at least be getting a weekly figure for it. The lack of reporting on it has helped the government to downplay it as it's not one of the figures making headlines all the time.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Its been about a month since I started going on about how it looks like they are going for herd immunity via infection for kids and younger adults.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)




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## StoneRoad (Jul 1, 2021)

OH has an urgent referral hospital appointment this afternoon.
at what is touted as the "clean" hospital ...
in an area with much higher case rates than we have locally, and the latter is already far too high for my peace of mind..


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Im sort of expecting that at some point, government will decide that some of the routine data that gets published is getting in the way of the 'learning to live with covid' agenda, and they will attempt to suppress that data. I dont know when they will be stupid enough to try this, but I bet the urge is there.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 1, 2021)

elbows said:


>




Yeah I saw this in yesterday's standard. 

I think the one thing learnt (if anything actually has been learnt) from these 'test events' is that things like vaccine passports and proof of negative tests are not really a viable plan.  There is just no way to really do it without it being so leaky as to make it a largely worthless scheme.

Of course the obvious answer should be that if we can't make it safe it shouldn't happen but here we are...


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## platinumsage (Jul 1, 2021)

I still haven't seen any stats on the people are currently being hospitalised (age/gender/comorbidities/length of stay etc). I think we've had this previously in the pandemic, but not for this wave? Surely this is important stuff, especially for people who are clinically vulnerable.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I still haven't seen any stats on the people are currently being hospitalised (age/gender/comorbidities/length of stay etc). I think we've had this previously in the pandemic, but not for this wave? Surely this is important stuff, especially for people who are clinically vulnerable.



Although it doesnt show up on the main dashboard, the download section of the dashboard does include daily hospital admissions in different age groups, which isnt quite what you've asked for. There are two reasons I havent published graphs of this data very much yet - I was waiting for this wave to get going more, and for hospital figures to rise more first. And there is another issue that one of the age groups is stupidly broad - 18 to 64.

There is also a version of that data which is released once a month via the NHS England stats website, in spreadsheet form.

When todays figures come out I will update my graphs and will try to share some of them here this evening, or tomorrow if I run out of time to do this today.

In terms of more detailed reports that includes outcomes, what you are probably after is the dynamic CO-CIN reports to SAGE. These are available sporadically via released SAGE documents, eg the last one I can currently see is from June 9th: https://assets.publishing.service.g...a/file/994736/S1291_CO-CIN_Dynamic_Report.pdf

Again its been a bit too early for me to draw attention to that sort of report yet, as they have reset everything to only include cases from 1st May onwards, so there isnt that much data in the June 9th version.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

From the BBC live updates page at 11:01 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57676408



> German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has accused the European football governing body, Uefa, over its handling of the Euro 2020 Championship.
> 
> "I think Uefa's position is utterly irresponsible because we live in a time of a pandemic and in countries like Great Britain, where there’s a high incidence rate," Mr Seehofer said.
> 
> "Looking at the footage, people being very close to each other, it’s a foregone conclusion that this will drive the rate of infection. I have the suspicion that this is about commercial interests, and commercial interests must not supersede the protection of the public from infection."



I have resisted repeatedly ranting about this but its certainly been surreal to see some of the scenes. Covids coming home, its coming home.


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## l'Otters (Jul 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Im sort of expecting that at some point, government will decide that some of the routine data that gets published is getting in the way of the 'learning to live with covid' agenda, and they will attempt to suppress that data. I dont know when they will be stupid enough to try this, but I bet the urge is there.



They did this already with the data on infection levels schools, around when the decision to take masks away went ahead.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> They did this already with the data on infection levels schools, around when the decision to take masks away went ahead.



They delayed PHE publishing some analysis of that, which was eventually published.

What I'm on about is the really regular data that we currently get, including various daily figures.


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## Teaboy (Jul 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> From the BBC live updates page at 11:01 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57676408
> 
> 
> 
> I have resisted repeatedly ranting about this but its certainly been surreal to see some of the scenes. Covids coming home, its coming home.



UEFA are very much to blame for this along with the individual governments of course.  There were stipulations around now many supporters must be allowed for grounds to be a host venue.  Ireland is the only exception I think who gave up their host status because of this insanity.

I mentioned previously that I went to the first England game at Wembley.  It was 25,000 people in a 90,00 stadium and it all felt very well done and I felt safe.  The more recent scenes from Wembley and other grounds have been pretty mental.


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## magneze (Jul 1, 2021)

It's not just the football. Wimbledon had 7,000 people in Centre Court last night with the roof closed all screaming at Murray. What pandemic?


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

They think its all over, it isnt now.


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## maomao (Jul 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> They think its all over, it isnt now.


If it works out and we don't have hundreds of deaths a day or a vaccine resistant escape variant it will be a grand victory for Johnson.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

maomao said:


> If it works out and we don't have hundreds of deaths a day or a vaccine resistant escape variant it will be a grand victory for Johnson.



Yes that prospect has informed my thinking in recent months. In terms of cases there is little doubt that this wave is a complete shitshow, in terms of everything else the painful wait continues. But since there is still a relationship between cases and deaths, I'm not looking forward to finding out exactly how bad it gets.


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## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

I just read Johnson's latest burbling / statement. In which he says 19th of July opening up will be done "cautiously and irreversibly". 
Strikes me as odd choices of adjective both. Past experience would suggest he's just saying whatever he thinks the person he's talking to wants to hear so maybe nothing to read into.


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## Smangus (Jul 1, 2021)

Even if death rates remain relatively low I really worry about the levels of long covid this is all encouraging.


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## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Even if death rates remain relatively low I really worry about the levels of long covid this is all encouraging.


thats what i'm scared of too, for myself. Sounds in some cases a lot like what they used to call M.E, which i've seen from a friend what it can be like I don't think i'd cope at all well.


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## Teaboy (Jul 1, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Even if death rates remain relatively low I really worry about the levels of long covid this is all encouraging.



Me too but I also think the potential issues around long covid are not enough in themselves to restrict personal freedom in the way we have seen.


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## BillRiver (Jul 1, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> UEFA are very much to blame for this along with the individual governments of course.  There were stipulations around now many supporters must be allowed for grounds to be a host venue.  Ireland is the only exception I think who gave up their host status because of this insanity.
> 
> I mentioned previously that I went to the first England game at Wembley.  It was 25,000 people in a 90,00 stadium and it all felt very well done and I felt safe.  The more recent scenes from Wembley and other grounds have been pretty mental.



Yes and for me the most worrying sight was all the Scottish fans in Leicester Square on the evening of the England v Scotland match. I was fuming, thinking about how predictable that was and therefore how easy to have organised to be less dangerous. Large screens at multiple sites across Central London, well publicised, well stewarded, etc.
I don't blame the fans, I blame the government.


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## Smangus (Jul 1, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Me too but I also think the potential issues around long covid are not enough in themselves to restrict personal freedom in the way we have seen.



Maybe, but from now on in it's likely to be the younger/unvaccinated  20ish-40ish people that are affected as that's where the highest infection rates are (I think). 

What a future this country is offering our young people.


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## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Me too but I also think the potential issues around long covid are not enough in themselves to restrict personal freedom in the way we have seen.


This is true, for proper lockdowns, if only because overwhelmed emergency departments and huge numbers of deaths are a very obvious kind of catastrophe, many thousands of people quietly off sick for ages are just kind of invisible compared to that.
But at the same time, preventing that seems enough of a reason to do _something _past the 19th of this month, like keep wearing a little mask when you go on a tube etc.


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## teuchter (Jul 1, 2021)

In the longer term, a convention that if you've got cold or flu symptoms, you wear a mask in places like shops and public transport (which is what happens in many Asian countries) is something that would be very welcome.

I reckon the best we can hope for is that a certain portion of the population might start doing this, a bit. But there will be some kind of threshold of number of people doing it, under which most people (perhaps including me) would decide it's not worth participating.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Maybe, but from now on in it's likely to be the younger/unvaccinated  20ish-40ish people that are affected as that's where the highest infection rates are (I think).
> 
> What a future this country is offering our young people.



Weekly surveillance reports and media coverage of them will have created the impression that cases are mostly in younger people these days. And its certainly true that those age groups were ahead of the game this time. But a far wider range of ages are being infected again, and so plenty of other age groups are showing explosive growth in cases these days.

This graph is for England using the data that came out at 4pm yesterday. It features smoothed results via 7 day averages, of positive cases by specimen date. The full version of the data is broken down into age groups that span 5 years each, so I have lumped a lot together into wider age groups of my own choosing, in order to reduce the number of lines shown.



edit - oops I have actually posted the graph for the North East of England above, rather than for the whole of England. I will post the latest England one later on, once todays figures are out. Sorry about that!

Its important to note that correction because the North East has the scariest graph in terms of how steep the lines are getting. England as a whole isnt that steep, yet.


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## Hollis (Jul 1, 2021)

Anecdotal I know, but a guy I was at school with is now spending some nights in hospital with Covid - he'd had both injections..


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

I decided its better to post Englands graph now, using yesterdays data, rather than wait, given the trajectories and levels reached relative to previous wave are different for England as a whole compared to the North East graph I posted by mistake in my previous post.

Still the cases in older age groups are going up with the usual curves.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Hollis said:


> Anecdotal I know, but a guy I was at school with is now spending some nights in hospital with Covid - he'd had both injections..



Unfortunately this is to be expected and highlights one of the problems with thinking about vaccines and the protection they offer in too binary a manner.

Modelling done months ago implied that in this wave the largest numbers of people who end up in hospital will be vaccinated people. Not because the vaccines dont work, but rather the combination of them not working for 100% of people and the high proportion of the population that has been vaccinated. In terms of the real numbers so far rather than the modelling, last time I checked this phenomenon had not yet fully emerged in the data, but it should become more apparent as time goes on.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

And of course that also means anti-vax fuckwits who indulge in a different version of binary thinking get the wrong end of the stick and the likes of the BBC have to write articles like this one to try to explain:









						Covid: Misleading stat claims more vaccinated people die
					

Vaccines reduce the risk of death but do not eliminate it completely.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> No vaccine is perfect in preventing people from getting Covid and therefore a small number of people will still die.
> 
> And in a world where every single person had been vaccinated, 100% of Covid deaths would be of vaccinated people.
> 
> But the actual number of people dying would be much lower - a 20th as many as if no-one was vaccinated, according to PHE estimates.



Although I should note that such articles, for a number of reasons, may end up trying a little too hard to be overly reassuring.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Percentage positivity for England from the latest weekly surveillance report that just came out.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Some vaccine stats from the same publication.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Im just going to take this opportunity to say how much I have hated in particular the framing and priorities of political commentators throughout this pandemic. Fuck all that resembles grown up pandemic public health politics, just the usual shit panto politics. Gossip about the feeling inside the Westminster bubble.

Viki Young for example:



> The prime minister was sounding very confident about lifting restrictions on 19 July, on his visit this morning to the Nissan vehicle factory in Sunderland.
> 
> *What everyone wants to know is how far he'll go when it comes to masks, social distancing, school bubbles, travel.
> 
> ...



Actually I'm much more inclined to look at what Johnson is actually quoted as saying in the article, clues about whether some measures will remain.



> "I know how impatient people are to get back to total normality, as indeed am I," he said.
> 
> "But I think I've said it before, we'll be wanting to go back to a world that is as close to the status quo, ante-Covid, as possible. Try to get back to life as close to it was before Covid.
> 
> "But there may be some things we have to do, extra precautions that we have to take, but I'll be setting them out."











						Covid: Boris Johnson upbeat about easing lockdown in England on 19 July
					

Boris Johnson hopes England will return to as close to the "status quo" as possible on 19 July.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## LDC (Jul 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Im sort of expecting that at some point, government will decide that some of the routine data that gets published is getting in the way of the 'learning to live with covid' agenda, and they will attempt to suppress that data. I dont know when they will be stupid enough to try this, but I bet the urge is there.



That exact thing was being talked about on R4 today elbows. Someone saying publishing the figures causes fear and that's getting in the way of us treating it just like all the other respiratory viruses going about. Also said we need to stop testing and a few other gems. Didn't catch who it was, but they had a chunk of airtime.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That exact thing was being talked about on R4 today elbows. Someone saying publishing the figures causes fear and that's getting in the way of us treating it just like all the other respiratory viruses going about. Also said we need to stop testing and a few other gems. Didn't catch who it was, but they had a chunk of airtime.


And they will probably get their way, gradually. After all I'm under no illusions that a time will come where I am mostly left talking to myself about that virus, but it would be a stretch to claim that time is already upon us.

I wonder who it was. I never listen to radio 4 so I am clueless about that.


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## 2hats (Jul 1, 2021)

Have a feeling it was...


e2a: Confirmed. 17m38s into the programme here:








						World at One - 01/07/2021 - BBC Sounds
					

Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague




					www.bbc.co.uk


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

That wouldnt be surprising. Funnily enough despite him often being quoted in the press as being a NERVTAG member, his name didnt really show up as having attended any of the recent NERVTAG meetings for which minutes are available online. He is a bad joke in this pandemic, and on the fringes of NERVTAG at best.

Summer 2020 remains a fair preview of how they would change the mood music to try to get people back to a normal mindset. They stopped the daily briefings. The press attempted to shift away from Covid being the main focus of the top headlines. That failed badly last time. This time around the government will hope to get a wave with lots of cases but not so much of the other stuff, and then they will use that to justify removing all sorts of things.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

And of course sections of the press fucking love to quote Dingwalls stance. There is no point listening to his view of when it is safe to let society carry on as normal, let younger people catch it etc, because he has had that same stance since before the pandemic began. Waves of death made no difference to his attitude at all, so he is no kind of guide as to what a reasonable approach might be as the nature of the pandemic changes via vaccines etc. What a piece of shit he is.


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## Cat Fan (Jul 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> I decided its better to post Englands graph now, using yesterdays data, rather than wait, given the trajectories and levels reached relative to previous wave are different for England as a whole compared to the North East graph I posted by mistake in my previous post.
> 
> Still the cases in older age groups are going up with the usual curves.
> 
> View attachment 276241


We know that most under 50s haven't had the second dose, so it's comforting that the numbers are low in the older age groups which have almost all been double jabbed.

We just need to hurry up and get everyone who can be vaccinated vaccinated!

The government could be doing a lot more to encourage vaccination I think.


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## xenon (Jul 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That exact thing was being talked about on R4 today elbows. Someone saying publishing the figures causes fear and that's getting in the way of us treating it just like all the other respiratory viruses going about. Also said we need to stop testing and a few other gems. Didn't catch who it was, but they had a chunk of airtime.



and on LBC yesterday. I wasn’t listening to oclosely but urban favourite Ian Duncan Smith was mentioned.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> We know that most under 50s haven't had the second dose, so it's comforting that the numbers are low in the older age groups which have almost all been double jabbed.
> 
> We just need to hurry up and get everyone who can be vaccinated vaccinated!
> 
> The government could be doing a lot more to encourage vaccination I think.


The current rates of vaccination are limited by supply.

And its a great mistake to look at the case numbers by age and conclude that all is well with older age groups.

Plotting the same data on a logarithmic scale can help with that, because it shows that the rates of growth are still bad in the older age groups, and that if the current wave keeps growing, the absolute numbers for older groups wont take that long to reach high levels.

What this data doesht show is exactly what the hospital and death burden from that will be. That story will show up via a combination of data and its simply too early for me to judge yet.

Same data as earlier, but log scale. The fact many of these lines got steeper recently is a cause for concern.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Since I posted the rather alarming non-logarithmic version of that data for the North East region by mistake earlier, I suppose I ought to post the logarithmic version of the North Easts figures too.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

I am really quite close to Tamworth.

From the 15:43 entry of the BBC live updates page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57676408



> Football fans watching Euro 2020 games in pubs and bars have been linked to a town's rapid rise in Covid-19 infections.
> 
> Cases in Tamworth started to rise after the England versus Scotland match on 18 June.
> 
> ...


----------



## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

i've not been following things properly, and maybe this is an entirely stupid question but:
I have a mostly baseless idea that this particular month, despite the impending joyous announcement and all, would be a really good month to just reduce risk and hunker down, more hunkering than i've been doing lately and more than I plan to do in future.

Is that at all sensible?

I just told my parents that i wont go fly to visit them end of this month even though i probably would be allowed to by then. They will of course think i'm being ridiculous. As said before, my main fear is the long covid. 
If this month is the same risk as next month and the rest of the year then I am being ridiculous.


----------



## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

Or is going this month safer than doing it sometime in the next 2 months? that might be more likely.


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## teuchter (Jul 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> Or is going this month safer than doing it sometime in the next 2 months? that might be more likely.


I think the answer is that no-one knows, because the extent to which prevalence is decoupled from serious illness remains to be seen.


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## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

I am not worried about 'serious illness', the hospital kind, for myself personally, so its just about prevalence, how likely i am to be sat next to covid on a flight.


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## Supine (Jul 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> I am not worried about 'serious illness', the hospital kind, for myself personally, so its just about prevalence, how likely i am to be sat next to covid on a flight.



the chance is growing larger every day


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## LDC (Jul 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> Or is going this month safer than doing it sometime in the next 2 months? that might be more likely.



As numbers of cases are going up, and are almost certainly going to continue to do so for a while, the likelihood of you coming into contact with someone that's infected is less now than it will be in 2/3/+ weeks, all other things being equal.


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## lazythursday (Jul 1, 2021)

I'm in exactly the same situtation bimble - on the one hand, much more confident because double jabbed... but on the other, increasingly worried that it's becoming much easier to catch because of local case numbers and increasingly crowded spaces like public transport. Two of my friends are self isolating at the moment, one of which I spent loads of time with a few days ago. And I really feel I should go and see my mum but she's unvaccinated and I've probably missed the window of opportunity again.


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## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some vaccine stats from the same publication.
> 
> View attachment 276263
> View attachment 276264


bloody men eh. The numbers there would suggest lots of people must be in some sort of relationships where they disagree about whether its a good idea to get the vaccine.


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## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I would think that as numbers of cases are going up, and are almost certainly going to continue to do so for a while.
> 
> So the likelihood of you coming into contact with someone that's infected is less now than it will be in 2/3/+ weeks, all other things being equal.


i am not double vaxxed until 12th of this month so was thinking 10 days/ 2 weeks after that, for travel to see parents. It was either this or September. Maybe this, end of July, is a better bet. What a crappy calculation to be trying to make.


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## teuchter (Jul 1, 2021)

I've just had my second jab ... so should become increasingly protected over the next 2-3 weeks, but it looks very likely that prevalence will be going up over that same period, so am similarly unsure about everything.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I've just had my second jab ... so should become increasingly protected over the next 2-3 weeks, but it looks very likely that prevalence will be going up over that same period, so am similarly unsure about everything.


I've had my 2nd jab this afternoon, but I similarly unsure.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jul 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Unclear which countries you are suggesting that timetable for. Because as far as the UK goes the explosive growth in cases is happening now, no need to wait for autumn.


I meant this country. I'm aware cases are going up now but by the way things look with opening up I can't see them being low by autumn and cases go up anyway over the time as more people are indoors.

It's a shit show isn't it? Why the fuck are they letting cases run this high? They know it runs the risk of a vaccine escaping variant taking hold.


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## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

Having thought about it a bit more, it looks like, very roughly, prevalence is going to increase here for at least a couple of months, after which maybe it will get better (once 80% are fully vaccinated or something) or else maybe at some point the government will tell everyone to go indoors and alas and who could have predicted this etc.
Buut either way, maybe the sooner the better is the best i can do as a risk minimisation strategy, if I don't want to get the long covid but do want to see my parents this year, so the opposite of what i thought.


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## Brainaddict (Jul 1, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Why the fuck are they letting cases run this high? They know it runs the risk of a vaccine escaping variant taking hold.


Imagine yourself as a person who has spent their entire life doing a shit job of everything and taking risks that would destroy other people's careers, but your level of privilege is so enormous, and your ability to bullshit so immense, that you are constantly rewarded for this, over and over again, until finally you are rewarded with the job of running the country. I think you can now answer that question.

We really do have the worst possible prime minister at the worst possible time.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> Having thought about it a bit more, it looks like, very roughly, prevalence is going to increase here for at least a couple of months, after which maybe it will get better (once 80% are fully vaccinated or something) or else maybe at some point the government will tell everyone to go indoors and alas and who could have predicted this etc.
> Buut either way, maybe the sooner the better is the best i can do as a risk minimisation strategy, if I don't want to get the long covid but do want to see my parents this year, so the opposite of what i thought.


Yes that sort of thing. Although you can chuck in a few more factors such as when the Euros football ends (or England get knocked out), and the effects of school holidays which are expected to reduce R in their own right. Plus the increasing numbers of people who will have some immunity via catching the disease in the recent past or the near future.

April or May were good times to do stuff. I dont know exactly when this wave will peak so I cant say when the next good window of opportunity will occur. There may be a time in between this wave and whatever happens in autumn/winter where rates drop quite low again, reducing risk.


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## glitch hiker (Jul 1, 2021)

Papers say that Johnson has not ruled out having some restrictions post July 19th. 

So completely going back on everything he has said this year including what his new health secretary said a few days ago. This of course will be completely denied and so we will move forward while going backward despite reality.

I don't know what to think anymore. It seems uterly naive to think there won't be restrictions though. Moving only forward at this point with cases rising doesn't seem practical at all.


----------



## Fruitloop (Jul 1, 2021)

Definitely hunkering down here, we managed to get out and about a little bit more recently, but those times are definitely over


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Papers say that Johnson has not ruled out having some restrictions post July 19th.
> 
> So completely going back on everything he has said this year including what his new health secretary said a few days ago. This of course will be completely denied and so we will move forward while going backward despite reality.
> 
> I don't know what to think anymore. It seems uterly naive to think there won't be restrictions though. Moving only forward at this point with cases rising doesn't seem practical at all.



I'm not sure he'll actually be going back on anything.  He's only said largely back to normal which gives plenty of wriggle room.  Its the press who have been playing it up as freedom day etc.  The only thing they have said is irreversible, leaving a few restrictions in place (which don't appear to be doing much anyway) will still be in line with the general plan.


----------



## LDC (Jul 1, 2021)

Short of something changing that shifts the situation dramatically (a sudden jump in deaths for example), I think it'll go ahead on 19th, and the measures he's mentioned that will stay in place (although likely guidance rather than law) will be marginal ones like masks on public transport, or recommended in crowded indoor spaces I expect.


----------



## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

i just clicked on a (cancellable) flight for end of the month, just because that does feel like my best lowest risk chance of seeing them this year. not looking forward to the journey at all.


----------



## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I'm not sure he'll actually be going back on anything.  He's only said largely back to normal which gives plenty of wriggle room.  Its the press who have been playing it up as freedom day etc.  The only thing they have said is irreversible, leaving a few restrictions in place (which don't appear to be doing much anyway) will still be in line with the general plan.


why would he have said that irreversible word do you think , struck me as an odd thing to say.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

My local hospital managed to go from 1st April to 27th June without any Covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds, but now there is a patient receiving that level of care.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> why would he have said that irreversible word do you think , struck me as an odd thing to say.


The first time Johnson ever came out with it, some months ago now, he said it again about 5 minutes later but with the word hopefully tacked on the front of it.


----------



## magneze (Jul 1, 2021)

Because he's a fucking idiot.


----------



## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

magneze said:


> Because he's a fucking idiot.


Yep that's my main Johnson psychology theory, that he is an unusually stupid man. Terrible at strategy. Which combined with his craving to be liked causes words like that to come out of him, which have really only one function which is, potentially, to bite him a little while later.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> why would he have said that irreversible word do you think , struck me as an odd thing to say.



To keep a increasingly upset number of his own MP's onside.  He's under a lot of pressure internally and this line keeps them at bay for a bit.  Also he really has no problem in saying any old shit then going back on it and pretending he didn't say it or mean it.


----------



## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> To keep a increasingly upset number of his own MP's onside.  He's under a lot of pressure internally and this line keeps them at bay for a bit.  Also he really has no problem in saying any old shit then going back on it and pretending he didn't say it or mean it.


oh yeah. that does help explain it.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yep that's my main Johnson psychology theory, that he is an unusually stupid man. Terrible at strategy. Which combined with his craving to be liked causes words like that to come out of him, which have really only one function which is, potentially, to bite him a little while later.



No, its just politics. The message wasn't meant for us.  He doesn't give a shit about us.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Daily covid hospital admissions/diagnoses by age group for England. Logarithmic scale.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 1, 2021)

editor said:


> State of this fucking country. It's going to shoot up even higher after all the football too.
> 
> View attachment 276175



If you think that is bad we are worse.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 1, 2021)

.


----------



## zora (Jul 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> Having thought about it a bit more, it looks like, very roughly, prevalence is going to increase here for at least a couple of months, after which maybe it will get better (once 80% are fully vaccinated or something) or else maybe at some point the government will tell everyone to go indoors and alas and who could have predicted this etc.
> Buut either way, maybe the sooner the better is the best i can do as a risk minimisation strategy, if I don't want to get the long covid but do want to see my parents this year, so the opposite of what i thought.



I'm beginning to feel quite despondent about this as well. I have last seen my family in Germany in February last year (lucky, I have got to add, that I did get to see them so shortly before it all kicked off in earnest).
Missed my uncle's funeral, missed my dad's 80th birthday. Didn't go last year in summer because it didn't seem like the right thing to do, never even planned to go at Christmas because I could see the impending catastrophe a mile off.
But through all of last year, I really thought I would be able to go sometime this summer without too much trouble. But then Germany put the UK on the quarantine list because of the Alpha variant, then the UK Germany because of high case numbers in Germany, then the other way round again because of the Delta variant - currently I would be required to quarantine both there and here if I wanted to visit. And by the time more people are vaccinated, some sort of autumn wave seems likely to be on the way again regardless. 😖


----------



## Wilf (Jul 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Papers say that Johnson has not ruled out having some restrictions post July 19th.
> 
> So completely going back on everything he has said this year including what his new health secretary said a few days ago. This of course will be completely denied and so we will move forward while going backward despite reality.
> 
> I don't know what to think anymore. It seems uterly naive to think there won't be restrictions though. Moving only forward at this point with cases rising doesn't seem practical at all.


In a sane world/country, you'd hope the Scottish fans in London would act as a cautionary tale. Not just 'don't have large attendance football matches', more 'this is what will happen if you have people in close proximity, with physical contact and drink'.  Would have thought there were major implications for clubs, pubs in busy areas and gigs of all sizes.   Feel like a fucking killjoy writing that but...


----------



## klang (Jul 1, 2021)

zora said:


> I'm beginning to feel quite despondent about this as well. I have last seen my family in Germany in February last year (lucky, I have got to add, that I did get to see them so shortly before it all kicked off in earnest).
> Missed my uncle's funeral, missed my dad's 80th birthday. Didn't go last year in summer because it didn't seem like the right thing to do, never even planned to go at Christmas because I could see the impending catastrophe a mile off.
> But through all of last year, I really thought I would be able to go sometime this summer without too much trouble. But then Germany put the UK on the quarantine list because of the Alpha variant, then the UK Germany because of high case numbers in Germany, then the other way round again because of the Delta variant - currently I would be required to quarantine both there and here if I wanted to visit. And by the time more people are vaccinated, some sort of autumn wave seems likely to be on the way again regardless. 😖


yeah. it's so frustrating. my family never met my son. 
but football's alright


----------



## zora (Jul 1, 2021)

littleseb said:


> yeah. it's so frustrating. my family never met my son.
> but football's alright


I know, it's been extra galling to see all the football-related super-spreading going on.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 1, 2021)

After escaping most of it St Ives, Falmouth, Newquay and St Columb up to 400-799 per 100,000. taken hold most other places too. Was thinking of getting a lift up to the post office with a mate just north of Falmouth to renew my driving licence but am thinking I'll walk instead.


----------



## bimble (Jul 1, 2021)

zora said:


> I'm beginning to feel quite despondent about this as well. I have last seen my family in Germany in February last year (lucky, I have got to add, that I did get to see them so shortly before it all kicked off in earnest).
> Missed my uncle's funeral, missed my dad's 80th birthday. Didn't go last year in summer because it didn't seem like the right thing to do, never even planned to go at Christmas because I could see the impending catastrophe a mile off.
> But through all of last year, I really thought I would be able to go sometime this summer without too much trouble. But then Germany put the UK on the quarantine list because of the Alpha variant, then the UK Germany because of high case numbers in Germany, then the other way round again because of the Delta variant - currently I would be required to quarantine both there and here if I wanted to visit. And by the time more people are vaccinated, some sort of autumn wave seems likely to be on the way again regardless. 😖


Yep. I have been luckier than you, no missed funerals and i did go and see the parents sometime in the late summer last year. But when people are old it matters more doesn't it.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 1, 2021)

zora said:


> I'm beginning to feel quite despondent about this as well. I have last seen my family in Germany in February last year (lucky, I have got to add, that I did get to see them so shortly before it all kicked off in earnest).
> Missed my uncle's funeral, missed my dad's 80th birthday. Didn't go last year in summer because it didn't seem like the right thing to do, never even planned to go at Christmas because I could see the impending catastrophe a mile off.
> But through all of last year, I really thought I would be able to go sometime this summer without too much trouble. But then Germany put the UK on the quarantine list because of the Alpha variant, then the UK Germany because of high case numbers in Germany, then the other way round again because of the Delta variant - currently I would be required to quarantine both there and here if I wanted to visit. And by the time more people are vaccinated, some sort of autumn wave seems likely to be on the way again regardless. 😖


I have family in France that I haven't seen since 2019, and Delta has killed off hope of visiting anytime soon. 

It's extra depressing when you have hundreds of thousands of people moving around freely within the UK (e.g. football fans, people flooding down to Cornwall for holidays) but there are extremely strict restrictions to go visit the EU.

Viruses spread the same way no matter where the lines are drawn on the map.


----------



## Elpenor (Jul 1, 2021)

So the best time to travel anywhere was before I got vaccinated


----------



## weepiper (Jul 1, 2021)

Edinburgh.

This doesn't really display in a helpful way - the majority of the city is in the darkest colour in the key (400+)


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

Doubling time for England down to 9 days according to this persons calculation.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Edinburgh.



Recent daily positives rather dwarf the previous peaks.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 1, 2021)

European holidays could be off limits to 5m Britons given Indian-made AstraZeneca jab
					

The jab, authorised in the UK in February, is not yet approved in Europe or recognised under EU’s new vaccine passport scheme




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				





Spoiler: European holidays could be off limts to 5m Britons given Indian-made AstraZeneca jab (article text)



Up to five million Britons face being locked out of European holidays because their vaccines are not recognised by the EU's passport scheme, the Telegraph has learned.

Millions of vaccines administered here do not qualify for the European Union’s vaccine passport scheme, because the shots were manufactured in India and are not yet authorised by the European Medicines Agency (EMA)

The hitch could leave thousands of Britons turned away at EU border crossings when the batch numbers on their vaccines are checked digitally.

The EU Digital Covid Certificate, which launched on Thursday, is designed to allow Covid-secure travel across the continent but does not recognise a version of the AstraZeneca vaccine called Covishield, produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII), because it is yet to receive approval in Europe.

*Up to five million doses of this version of the vaccine have been administered in the UK and are identifiable by the vaccine batch numbers (4120Z001, 4120Z002, 4120Z003) included on recipients’ vaccine cards and in the Covid travel pass available via the NHS app.*

The EU ruling has already sparked outrage in Asia and Africa, where the Indian manufactured shot – which forms the backbone of the Covax distribution scheme – has been widely used. Now, some British holiday makers may find themselves similarly excluded.

The Telegraph has traced three Britons affected, none of whom were told in advance they were to receive the Indian version of the AstraZeneca vaccine. All received their shots of the SII vaccine in March.

“Quite frankly [I feel] discriminated against, for lack of a better word,” said 21-year-old Hannah Smith, who found that her first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine was produced in India when she checked the batch numbers. She added that, until the situation was clarified, she would jettison plans for a European holiday and “settle for Scotland”.

Another individual, whose first shot was also produced in India but who asked not to be identified, added: “That vaccine passports would be a thing is entirely predictable, so our Government should have made sure any they purchased would be recognised for travel everywhere.”

The EU Digital Covid Certificate allows those who are fully vaccinated, recently tested or recovered from Covid-19 to move across borders within the EU without having to quarantine or undergo extra coronavirus tests upon arrival.

But only vaccines approved by the EMA are included, though individual member states are free to accept other vaccines if they choose.

The EMA approved vaccines are Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and the version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in the UK or Europe, which is sold under the brand name Vaxzevria.

“Entry into the EU should be allowed to people fully vaccinated with one of the vaccines authorised in the EU,” a spokesperson from the European Commission said. “Member States are… not required to issue certificates for a vaccine that is not authorised on their territory.”

The UK authorities have used the brand name Vaxzevria on all UK medical records where the AstraZeneca vaccine has been used, but up to five million doses are actually the Indian-made Covishield version. The doses remain identifiable by their batch numbers.

“For these purposes, the batch numbers; 4120Z001, 4120Z002, 4120Z003 of the SIIPL COVID‑19 Vaccine (ChAdOx1‑S [recombinant]) manufactured by Serum Institute India… were assessed and are treated as Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca,” says an amendment made to the agreement between AstraZeneca and the UK regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA), on 23 February. 

The EU vaccine passport will soon integrate with the Covid travel pass on the NHS app. By scanning a QR code, the EU system pulls up information including the traveller's name, date of birth and vaccine details, including batch numbers.

“The authorisation via the centralised procedure provides the confidence that all member states can rely on the data on efficacy and safety and on the consistency of the batches being used for vaccination,” says the relevant EU legislation.

The Department of Health refused to say this week how many of the Indian manufactured shots had been administered in the UK, citing commercial sensitivities. However it was widely reported that five million doses from the SII were imported from India earlier this year. 

“As we continue to cautiously reopen international travel, NHS Covid Pass will be a key service that allows people to demonstrate their Covid-19 vaccination status,” a spokesman for the Department of Health said.

He added that all AstraZeneca doses used in the UK appeared under the name Vaxzevria in medical records and on the NHS app, even if they had come from India. Only the batch numbers, also included in the NHS Covid pass, identify them.

“All AstraZeneca vaccines given in the UK are the same product and appear on the NHS Covid Pass as Vaxzevria,” said the spokesman.

A travel industry specialist noted many EU countries allowed entry without proof of vaccine status as long as travellers had taken a PCR test within 72 hours of arrival and the result was negative.

There is no suggestion that the Indian manufactured doses are in any way substandard. The EMA has not authorised the vaccine only because the Indian manufacturers have not yet sought a licence for the product in Europe, as the SII intend to predominantly supply low and middle income countries. 

British travellers face a similar issue in the United States where no version of the AstraZeneca shot has yet been licensed.

For example, vaccine certificates were a requirement for entry to a Bruce Springsteen show on Broadway in New York last month – but only shots approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were accepted. 

The EU’s failure to recognise the Indian manufactured Covishield has been met with widespread anger in Asia and Africa, with some accusing it of a “colonial” mindset. 

They point out that the shot has been authorised by the World Health Organization (WHO), while the SII is one of the world’s largest vaccine manufacturers.

“It is outrageous,” Dr Ayoade Alakija, co-chair of the Africa Union Vaccine Delivery Alliance, told The Telegraph. “I’ve no doubt it will eventually be rectified but it speaks to the non inclusive nature of the entire scheme… how do you exclude the majority of the world’s population from Europe on the basis of where their vaccine was manufactured?”

She added that the move reinforces the view that poorer countries are getting a “worse” vaccine. Across much of Africa, in particular, hesitancy has risen since rollout began – especially after western countries temporarily suspended use of the AstraZeneca vaccine amid concerns of very rare blood clots.

“What the world is saying to us with actions like this is: we have superior vaccines that provide better protection, because essentially your lives and health status don’t matter as much as ours,” Dr Alakija said. “That’s the message it sends... a two-tier vaccine system for a two-tier world.”

For Britons looking for “green” countries to travel to, the vaccine passport issue is currently only a theoretical problem as there are so few European countries on the list.  

However, it is legal to travel to “amber” rated countries, including favourites including France, Spain and Portugal, and many UK citizens had hoped vaccine passports would make things easier. 

An analysis by former BA strategy chief Robert Boyle suggests that more than 20 amber countries including France, Italy and Austria are on track to join the UK’s green list and open to British holidaymakers this month.

The 22 nations – primarily in Europe – all meet the threshold for inclusion on the Government’s quarantine-free green list, according to the analysis. All have infection rates below 20 cases per 100,000 of the population, far lower than current rates in Britain.

In India, both the foreign minister and the chief executive of the SII said they had raised the vaccine passport issue with the EU, while the organisations behind Covax have urged Europe to accept all WHO-approved shots. 

On Friday, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel at Downing Street, where travel and vaccines are understood to be on the agenda.

Experts say the issue is only likely to be resolved if and when the EMA formally authorises the Indian-made version of the AstraZeneca jab in Europe.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 1, 2021)

2hats said:


> European holidays could be off limits to 5m Britons given Indian-made AstraZeneca jab
> 
> 
> The jab, authorised in the UK in February, is not yet approved in Europe or recognised under EU’s new vaccine passport scheme
> ...



"Indian made"

Remember when they were really proud of the Oxford astrazeneca?

Fwiw I'm fine with it myself, its not as effective but it'll stop me dying apparently so always a plus.

Edit: bugger, read the article first not the headline.  Ignore the above.


----------



## elbows (Jul 1, 2021)

I always considered that taking millions of vaccines from that source of manufacture was a great demonstration of what fucking shithead values this countries establishment stood for. Those doses should have been used in India and other countries. I know people come up with various excuses or justifications for that, but they dont wash with me.

They mention 5 million doses in that article. It should have been 10 million, but Indias own woes picked up just as a shipment was set to occur months ago, and so some expected exports didnt happen, causing a UK vaccine rollout slowdown during April.


----------



## Supine (Jul 1, 2021)

Interesting contingency plans getting reported 









						Health chiefs' Covid winter plan with masks and social distancing for 5 years
					

EXCLUSIVE: A draft blueprint drawn up by officials is said to include options to make masks mandatory and bring back social distancing in future outbreaks




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## 2hats (Jul 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> European holidays could be off limits to 5m Britons given Indian-made AstraZeneca jab
> 
> 
> The jab, authorised in the UK in February, is not yet approved in Europe or recognised under EU’s new vaccine passport scheme
> ...


In somewhat related matters...








						Joint COVAX Statement on the Equal Recognition of Vaccines
					

COVAX was built on the principle of equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines to protect the health of people all across the globe. That means protecting their lives and livelihoods, including their ability to travel and conduct trade. As travel and other possibilities begin to open up in some parts...




					www.who.int


----------



## 2hats (Jul 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> Reports from Israel suggest negotiations are underway to transfer around 1 million unused doses of Pfizer to the UK within the next week as their current stock would expire before a second dose could be administered. In return the UK would forward to Israel an equivalent number of doses from their upcoming shipments from Pfizer.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Scratch that...








						Million Pfizer jabs face being dumped after Israel-UK swap deal fails
					

Israel says technical issues have scuppered deal to give UK Covid vaccines expiring on 30 July




					www.theguardian.com
				



Pfizer won't extend the validation date.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> Scratch that...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's a scandal.  Not Pfizer's decision but that this situation was allowed to arise.


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 2, 2021)

I shouldn't be shocked by anything at this point but it's still jarring to see Britain's daily case numbers are now almost double those of the US.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> Scratch that...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That the situation has arisen is the real scandal. What a waste of a very scarce resource !

Bizarre about the validation date ...
Surely, if the stuff has been continuously & correctly stored, such cryogenic conditions should "preserve" the vaccine almost indefinitely ?


----------



## magneze (Jul 2, 2021)

What, and hit profits?


----------



## Riklet (Jul 2, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> That's a scandal.  Not Pfizer's decision but that this situation was allowed to arise.



Yeah shocking that apartheid Israel sat on them rather than giving them to Palestinians or donating them to Covax months ago. Probably cos theyre struggling with vaccinating younger people. Clearly some vaccine hestiancy in Israel.


----------



## Supine (Jul 2, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Bizarre about the validation date ...
> Surely, if the stuff has been continuously & correctly stored, such cryogenic conditions should "preserve" the vaccine almost indefinitely ?



Unfortunately they preserve them for the shelf life. Vaccines are inherently unstable.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 2, 2021)

Riklet said:


> Yeah shocking that apartheid Israel sat on them rather than giving them to Palestinians or donating them to Covax months ago. Probably cos theyre struggling with vaccinating younger people. Clearly some vaccine hestiancy in Israel.



The Palestinian Authority rejected them, and previous offers of vaccines from the Israeli government. I guess they want to demonstrate they are capable of doing it themselves.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 2, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> That the situation has arisen is the real scandal. What a waste of a very scarce resource !
> 
> Bizarre about the validation date ...
> Surely, if the stuff has been continuously & correctly stored, such cryogenic conditions should "preserve" the vaccine almost indefinitely ?


I remember something about a maximum amount of moves allowed as well, whether it's an issue here though I wouldn't know.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The Palestinian Authority rejected them, and previous offers of vaccines from the Israeli government. I guess they want to demonstrate they are capable of doing it themselves.


 The official story is that they don't want vaccines that are about to expire and I can sympathise with that. It's questionable how much they could even use in time before it's too late.


----------



## Riklet (Jul 2, 2021)

Im wondering whether to start modifying my behaviour more if case numbers keep increasing exponentially. Its not terrible but not great around here... like case rate of 140. Bristol is much worse.

Up til now been taking the bus for short journeys, had dinner in a pub garden and drinks a few times at another pub garden etc. Im playing it pretty safe as it is... and I have got some vaccine protection. Wondering whether i'll need to modify my behaviour any more.. im a bit sick of hunkering down!


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2021)

How simple an answer there is to that depends on individual circumstances, attitudes, comfort zone and what sort of activities you need to do to cope this summer.

We are into a zone where plenty of people might have good reason to modify their behaviour again in order to increase their chances of dodging the virus. Some will have reasons that is difficult or doesnt balance with their other needs and feelings. I've been raising the alarm for a little while now, but I'm not very interested in making other peoples judgements on their behalf, and there is still quite a broad range of possibilities ahead in terms of things like how bad the hospitalisation rate gets in this wave.


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2021)

The first segment of indie sage today, lasting just under 23 minutes, includes some case grahs using log scales and prjections of how many cases there will be by July 19th using a couple f different growth rates.



Includes comments about what a terrible plan the current approach of letting million(s) more people get infected in this period is.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 2, 2021)

Remind me again which nation didn't make it to the Euro 2020 tournament...






In other data...
 
From the ONS 'Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK: 2 July 2021'.

Additionally, monitoring of Scottish waste water indicates the explosion in cases there is very real and no artefact of increases in daily testing (national average trends in wastewater Covid-19 and daily case rates (7 day moving average)):

From 'Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic in Scotland (Issue No. 58)'.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 2, 2021)

For this wave, we have another record number of new cases reported today - 27,125 / 7-day average +74.2%

Hospital admission rates creeping up a bit faster now, 304 reported for 28th June / 7-day average +16.5%

Patients in hospital, on 30th June - 1,795, almost double that at the start of June.

ETA - 

FFS, here in Worthing, we've gone from a 7-day average of 4 cases to over 90, in just one month. With hospital admissions reported for 27/6/21 resulting in a 7-day average increase of +80%.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> Remind me again which nation didn't make it to the Euro 2020 tournament...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ah yes, the monitoring of Scottish waste water...


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 2, 2021)

So the military were taking the piss?


----------



## bimble (Jul 2, 2021)

I tried to book a Sunday lunch at a local fancy country pub for this Sunday just gone but they were full. Now the exact pub has just appeared in a bbc article saying they found out on Sunday that one of the staff tested positive so theyve had to close business etc. Very close to home, again, quite suddenly.


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2021)

2hats said:


> Remind me again which nation didn't make it to the Euro 2020 tournament...


Northern Irelands upwards trend will start showing up more in subsequent infection surveys I'm sure.

The Scottish wastewater data is very interesting. At one point the UK dashboard people suggested wastewater data would be added at some point, but I dont see any signs of that happening so far. Various surveillance entities that were created during this pandemic and/or have military and intelligence links are enjoying their lack of openness as per the usual norms.

In terms of the standard daily testing data rather than these infection surveys, the North Easts cases are going to break records for that region soon, if they havent already.


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2021)

bimble said:


> I tried to book a Sunday lunch at a local fancy country pub for this Sunday just gone but they were full. Now the exact pub has just appeared in a bbc article saying they found out on Sunday that one of the staff tested positive so theyve had to close business etc. Very close to home, again, quite suddenly.


When I scan various local news websites around the country, stories of outbreaks, isolation and/or closures related to pubs and restaurants and sports bars are popping up all over the place.

It probably goes without saying that I'm not exactly recommending people frequent such venues at the moment, but people will of course do as they want.


----------



## bimble (Jul 2, 2021)

Yep I’m done, full hunkering mode until I go see parents.


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2021)

I note some NERVTAG minutes came out for a couple of May meetings.

The 51st meeting of May 14th included this:



> PH introduced the 51st NERVTAG meeting, giving a reminder about confidentiality of NERVTAG papers and discussions pending public release of minutes.



Since this was back in May, it also featured continued complaints about how the Delta variant travel stuff was handled:



> PHE updated on the current situation with VOC B1.617.2. The committee again expressed their concerns about the importation of this variant and the spread in certain parts of the country. Of particular concern was the fact that introductions took place via travellers who were in home quarantine and it was noted that home quarantine is not effective if other household members, who have daily contact with the person in quarantine, are able to leave the house and go about their normal business.



Also contains various failures to get anywhere with understanding more about the potential for faecal transmission, a look at a Delta variant outbreak at a care home in north London, a look at reinfection and waning immunity, and a bunch of other analysis, some of which has likely been superseded with subsequent knowledge by now.

Also featured a request to check that the SAGE modelling group were using the right parameters in their modelling:



> This was a request from SAGE to check that the parameters used for the modelling by SPI-M are correct; the paper will go to SAGE on 27 May.







__





						Box
					






					app.box.com
				




I'm not quoting anything from the other minutes published, for meeting 52, as this largely dealt with further attempts to estimate various aspects of Delta. Also includes them reviewing the PHE risk assessment of that variant, which they praised. Box


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> For this wave, we have another record number of new cases reported today - 27,125 / 7-day average +74.2%
> 
> Hospital admission rates creeping up a bit faster now, 304 reported for 28th June / 7-day average +16.5%
> 
> Patients in hospital, on 30th June - 1,795, almost double that at the start of June.


Yes the daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for England are now rising in the manner I started mentioning the other day, after a previous period where things overall stagnated for a bit with that picture. They are still dwarfed by rates seen in previous waves, and I still have very limited clues about how large they could become.


----------



## marshall (Jul 2, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yep I’m done, full hunkering mode until I go see parents.



Really?  I rarely give Covid a second thought now tbh, even though I'm regularly in and out of bars, restaurants, shops. Always wear a mask and sanitise - and I probably always will now for the rest of my life (can't believe I used to go through a whole day in London without washing my hands - ride the tube, buy a sarnie, grab a coffee - might wash up in the evening, might not). Dunno, just stopped worrying about it, if it happens it happens, but y'know...


----------



## bimble (Jul 2, 2021)

marshall said:


> Really?  I rarely give Covid a second thought now tbh, even though I'm regularly in and out of bars, restaurants, shops. Always wear a mask and sanitise - and I probably always will now for the rest of my life (can't believe I used to go through a whole day in London without washing my hands - ride the tube, buy a sarnie, grab a coffee - might wash up in the evening, might not). Dunno, just stopped worrying about it, if it happens it happens, but y'know...


Yeah, I see that a lot of people, maybe most, feel like you do. My view has changed with the numbers, I really really don’t want the long covid so I’ll just live quiet for a while til things look better again. No great hardship for me tbh.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 2, 2021)

marshall said:


> Really?  I rarely give Covid a second thought now tbh, even though I'm regularly in and out of bars, restaurants, shops. Always wear a mask and sanitise - and I probably always will now for the rest of my life (can't believe I used to go through a whole day in London without washing my hands - ride the tube, buy a sarnie, grab a coffee - might wash up in the evening, might not). Dunno, just stopped worrying about it, if it happens it happens, but y'know...


I don't think it's a good time to be developing that way of looking at it tbh. And if it happens, it happens? If it happens you may become disabled. People don't understand what fatigue means in long covid so I'm increasingly using the word 'disabled' so that people understand it may affect what they are capable of doing for a long time, with the possibility you may not be able to do whatever your job is now for months or years, quite besides the wider quality of life issues, which can be very harsh: Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics



> Symptoms adversely affected the day-to-day activities of 634,000 people (65.9% of those with self-reported long COVID), with 178,000 (18.5%) reporting that their ability to undertake their day-to-day activities had been "limited a lot".



Edit to add: I don't want to scare people just for the sake of it. But the fatigue people talk about with long covid is not just feeling a bit tired. It means your entire lifestyle could be significantly compromised. I actually didn't have it as bad as many people, but bad enough that I can talk with some confidence about how much you do not want it.


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## elbows (Jul 2, 2021)

My view of what new normal goals I should set myself wont develop properly until we have seen whether we can unlock the population/herd immunity benefits of vaccination. Because individual protection and changed risk picture is one thing, lower levels of hospitalisations and death another, but the benefits can really be amplified if we end up with a picture where overall levels of transmission are kept down via population immunity. And we clearly arent at that point now, hence the ridiculous number of infections.


----------



## bimble (Jul 2, 2021)

I mean, ‘if it happens it happens’ is, always, true, but I’d really very much prefer it not to and that’s why I’m going to stop going to indoor public stuff for a bit, cos that will make it massively less likely, to happen. Just in time for Freedom Day, brilliant.


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## elbows (Jul 2, 2021)

The indie sage projection I mentioned earlier.


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## Supine (Jul 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> The indie sage projection I mentioned earlier.




I was so depressed after watching her presentation I had to go out and walk up a mountain!


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## prunus (Jul 2, 2021)

marshall said:


> Really?  I rarely give Covid a second thought now tbh, even though I'm regularly in and out of bars, restaurants, shops. Always wear a mask and sanitise - and I probably always will now for the rest of my life (can't believe I used to go through a whole day in London without washing my hands - ride the tube, buy a sarnie, grab a coffee - might wash up in the evening, might not). Dunno, just stopped worrying about it, if it happens it happens, but y'know...



If people start to act in a blasé manner with respect to covid infection then (probably other) people will end up disabled or dead that wouldn’t have ended up that way with a more cautious attitude on the part of the former people. It’s not a judgement, it’s just a fact.   How much (and for how long) are people prepared to modify their behaviour in order to save the life or livelihood of probably a complete stranger? We don’t really know. But also I think a lot of people don’t really know that the causal link exists.


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2021)

Supine said:


> I was so depressed after watching her presentation I had to go out and walk up a mountain!


Better to walk up one than stare at the horrible mountains in the data!


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 2, 2021)

Really enjoying the simple but effective graphing in The Guadian.

The tale now seems to be in the comparison of this wave with the second. Looking at the charts shows what an enormous calculated risk/gamble/hold-you-nerve moment the UK is in. The world watches:









						Covid UK: coronavirus cases, deaths and vaccinations today
					

Are coronavirus cases rising in your local area and nationally? Check week-on-week changes across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the latest figures from public health authorities




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jul 2, 2021)

Since the total number of daily positive cases by specimen date for the North East is approaching the highest level seen in the last peak, here is a different look at how the different age groups make up those totals.

First graph is the latest data (with most data for cases with specimen date of 1st July not yet available), second graph is from the end of 2020/start of 2021 peak.


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## teuchter (Jul 2, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I don't think it's a good time to be developing that way of looking at it tbh. And if it happens, it happens? If it happens you may become disabled. People don't understand what fatigue means in long covid so I'm increasingly using the word 'disabled' so that people understand it may affect what they are capable of doing for a long time, with the possibility you may not be able to do whatever your job is now for months or years, quite besides the wider quality of life issues, which can be very harsh: Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics
> 
> 
> 
> Edit to add: I don't want to scare people just for the sake of it. But the fatigue people talk about with long covid is not just feeling a bit tired. It means your entire lifestyle could be significantly compromised. I actually didn't have it as bad as many people, but bad enough that I can talk with some confidence about how much you do not want it.



This all really depends on what the consequences of being vaccinated are though - does being vaccinated protect you from 'long covid' in the same way it protects you from death/hospitalisation? IN other words do we expect the numbers of people suffering it to track the 'cases' graphs or the 'hospitalisations' graphs.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 2, 2021)

elbows - thanks for those graphs. It fits with what I know anecdotally.

Although interesting data to examine, as I'm in the North-East I'm finding this third wave to be in the depressingly "I told you so" territory.

The only bright spot I can see, is that the vaccination programme has "protected" a lot of the more vulnerable people who were getting infected during the holiday seasons in 2020.
But that is being made up for by the relatively large numbers of un-protected under 30s who are getting infected in 2021 ...

It is re-enforcing my inclination to haul up the drawbridge - despite needing to travel out of the area for work in the next two to three weeks. I am double-jabbed, but still anxious. {especially after Marr getting a case}


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> This all really depends on what the consequences of being vaccinated are though - does being vaccinated protect you from 'long covid' in the same way it protects you from death/hospitalisation? IN other words do we expect the numbers of people suffering it to track the 'cases' graphs or the 'hospitalisations' graphs.



There's not enough information on that yet.

Personally, I've got two mates locally suffering long covid for over 6 months, neither had been hospitalised.

So, I think there remains a risk of long covid for vaccinated people contracting covid, but not requiring hospital treatment.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> This all really depends on what the consequences of being vaccinated are though - does being vaccinated protect you from 'long covid' in the same way it protects you from death/hospitalisation? IN other words do we expect the numbers of people suffering it to track the 'cases' graphs or the 'hospitalisations' graphs.


Yeah, we don't know yet, it will almost certainly be somewhere between, but I suspect closer to tracking cases, given how many people with mild covid have had long covid. We'll see, but in terms of the personal risks people feel up for taking, I think it's important to understand what the risks are, and if you don't happen to know a few people with long covid (as much of my family doesn't) it is still easy to see it as an unimportant risk, either because it's hard to understand what fatigue* means, or because the case numbers have been low profile in the media most of the time.

*Of course many people have a wide array of other symptoms, but that is the most common one.


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## zahir (Jul 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> The first segment of indie sage today, lasting just under 23 minutes, includes some case grahs using log scales and prjections of how many cases there will be by July 19th using a couple f different growth rates.
> 
> 
> 
> Includes comments about what a terrible plan the current approach of letting million(s) more people get infected in this period is.





Thread from Christina Pagel covering the same ground


----------



## zahir (Jul 3, 2021)

Deepti Gurdasani talking about current policy (starts at 18 minutes in)


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## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

The fucking Daily Mail finally figured out that current self-isolation for contacts rules + the rather high number of cases = rather a lot of disruption. So of course they've written a load of shit on their front page about what pressure Johnson is under to change the rules, and their latest pathetic front page headline cries 'dont let NHS app cripple Britain'.

Obviously I see it from a different angle, dont let that many people get infected if you dont want that sort of disruption. But they dont care about the number of infections, just their immature, unrealistic race to normality.

These rules are one of the only brakes the government have left available for this wave without having to u-turn, its nowhere near as comprehensive as a lockdown but it should still start to grind a chunk of 'normal life' to a halt during the most insense part of a wave. I've spoken previously about how I'm sure they would like to change these rules eventually, but this wave has come too soon, and looks too large and aggressive for them to attempt such a thing right now. Though its true that this government are so shit at handling the pandemic that I suppose I should not rule out the possibility of them changing stuff on this front ridiculously early. I dont think they've given me any particular reason to think it will happen as soon as the fucking Daily Mail would like, or go as far as they would like. But there will certainly be various sorts of pressure in the weeks ahead as cases will presumably reach stunning levels, leading to all sorts of mess and stupid, deadly noises from some quarters.


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## l'Otters (Jul 3, 2021)

prunus said:


> If people start to act in a blasé manner with respect to covid infection then (probably other) people will end up disabled or dead that wouldn’t have ended up that way with a more cautious attitude on the part of the former people. It’s not a judgement, it’s just a fact.   How much (and for how long) are people prepared to modify their behaviour in order to save the life or livelihood of probably a complete stranger? We don’t really know. But also I think a lot of people don’t really know that the causal link exists.


That last sentence - yes. Conversations I have about risk mitigation seem to always veer towards assessment of personal risk. The most frustratingly blinkered reaction is when people frame my caution or sense as about personal fear and anxiety. It does come up with friends who work in care, or live with clinically vulnerable relatives.

Even when it’s framed as about direct contact with clinically vulnerable people, whether through work or home/family situation, there’s been some degree of people sort of accepting more cautious behaviour as reasonable for that specific context. But not taken on board as something everyone should be thinking about. And there’s a definite sense that if I or a friend weren’t in such a position our approach wouldn’t be taken seriously / boundaries wouldn’t be respected on our account alone.


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## Cat Fan (Jul 3, 2021)

teuchter said:


> This all really depends on what the consequences of being vaccinated are though - does being vaccinated protect you from 'long covid' in the same way it protects you from death/hospitalisation? IN other words do we expect the numbers of people suffering it to track the 'cases' graphs or the 'hospitalisations' graphs.


There is a good Nature article here that I found useful in understanding more about long Covid.








						The four most urgent questions about long COVID
					

Scientists are starting to get insights into the lingering disorder that affects some people infected with SARS-CoV-2 — but many mysteries remain unsolved.




					www.nature.com
				




The quote saying "Covid is like a nuclear bomb to the immune system" and the speculation that long Covid is an autoimmune disease makes me think that the vaccines should help a lot because they train the immune system, making Covid infection come as less of a shock.

But it's all speculation at this stage. Long Covid being "long" means we have to wait a while for the data to come through.


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## andysays (Jul 3, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> That last sentence - yes. Conversations I have about risk mitigation seem to always veer towards assessment of personal risk. The most frustratingly blinkered reaction is when people frame my caution or sense as about personal fear and anxiety. It does come up with friends who work in care, or live with clinically vulnerable relatives.
> 
> Even when it’s framed as about direct contact with clinically vulnerable people, whether through work or home/family situation, there’s been some degree of people sort of accepting more cautious behaviour as reasonable for that specific context. But not taken on board as something everyone should be thinking about. And there’s a definite sense that if I or a friend weren’t in such a position our approach wouldn’t be taken seriously / boundaries wouldn’t be respected on our account alone.


As I think I've mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, we have for decades now been generally encouraged to think individually, not socially or collectively, and it's really difficult for people to make that switch (even if the government, media etc were framing it in that way, which they aren't).

So in addition to all the other reasons why the transmission and effects of Covid have been worse than they need have been (and there are clearly many other reasons) one is that as a society we are struggling to make the shift required from thinking as individuals to thinking in wider social terms.

TL;DR It's Thatcher's fault


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## bimble (Jul 3, 2021)

Hadn't even occurred to me that vaccination would help prevent long covid, i mean if you catch the virus whilst vaccinated. Glad to see its at least possible that it might.


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## SpookyFrank (Jul 3, 2021)

teuchter said:


> This all really depends on what the consequences of being vaccinated are though - does being vaccinated protect you from 'long covid' in the same way it protects you from death/hospitalisation? IN other words do we expect the numbers of people suffering it to track the 'cases' graphs or the 'hospitalisations' graphs.



The timescales involved mean we effectively have no data on the effects of the vaccine on long covid. But if case numbers are going to continue to rise unchecked then any protective effect of vaccines is likely to be swamped by the sheer number of cases.


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## SpookyFrank (Jul 3, 2021)

andysays said:


> As I think I've mentioned elsewhere in this discussion, we have for decades now been generally encouraged to think individually, not socially or collectively, and it's really difficult for people to make that switch (even if the government, media etc were framing it in that way, which they aren't).
> 
> So in addition to all the other reasons why the transmission and effects of Covid have been worse than they need have been (and there are clearly many other reasons) one is that as a society we are struggling to make the shift required from thinking as individuals to thinking in wider social terms.
> 
> TL;DR It's Thatcher's fault



It's effectively impossible for individuals to accurately judge population-scale risks though. The decisions have to be made on a centralised basis, ideally by some kind of AI that doesn't ever read the papers.

And I say that as an instinctive anarchist with an innate distrust of technology.


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## LDC (Jul 3, 2021)

It is important to remember that 'long covid' isn't a single thing you get and then have forever, and some of it is very clearly understood, such as the issues suffered with long term ICU stays. Most people don't get long covid at all, those that do often have some symptoms for a number of weeks and which then pass, and even those with much longer term symptoms might eventually recover. And the symptoms are a mix of things, some that can be diagnosed with tests, and some are less easy to find an identifiable physical cause for.

Anecdata again, but I only personally know 3 people with any sign of long covid, one had long term loss of smell that came back after about 6-8 months (but was otherwise fine), one had occassional chest pain and shortness of breath on exertion that also passed after a few months (and nothing was found on investigation), and then one felt fatigued and still does 6 months post-infection, but they feel it is improving slowly and they admit themselves they were very run down and over worked before catching the virus and they think that contributed. All 3 had what I would say had mild to moderate symptoms while infected (no hospital admission but felt rough). Just realized all 3 are women in their 30s fwiw.

I suspect one of the ways to help avoid some of the long covid symptoms is looking after yourself well while ill, and then understanding it might take a long time to recover to full fitness, and adjust life stuff to account for this rather than rushing back to everything quickly (E2A: if you can, know that's not always easy for some folks with busy lives.)


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## Yossarian (Jul 3, 2021)

It's going to be years before we can effectively gauge the effects of long COVID - one thing a study of 2 million people who tested positive in the US found was that many people who had mild symptoms or no symptoms at all ended up experiencing new health problems months after they were infected.



> Those affected were all ages, including children. Their most common new health problems were pain, including in nerves and muscles; breathing difficulties; high cholesterol; malaise and fatigue; and high blood pressure. Other issues included intestinal symptoms; migraines; skin problems; heart abnormalities; sleep disorders; and mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.











						Many Post-Covid Patients Are Experiencing New Medical Problems, Study Finds
					

An analysis of health insurance records of almost two million coronavirus patients found new issues in nearly a quarter — including those whose Covid infection was mild or asymptomatic.




					www.nytimes.com


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## andysays (Jul 3, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> It's effectively impossible for individuals to accurately judge population-scale risks though. The decisions have to be made on a centralised basis, ideally by some kind of AI that doesn't ever read the papers.
> 
> And I say that as an instinctive anarchist with an innate distrust of technology.


I'm not talking about accurately judging population-scale risks.

I'm talking about simply recognising that our individual behaviours have consequences for those around us and that, especially in a pandemic situation, we need to modify our behaviour even if we don't (can't) have an accurate calculation of the potential consequences of not doing so. And I mean independently of an authoritarian government telling what we must do.

Obviously, some people can and have done that. But my contention is that four decades (more, probably) of indoctrination into individualistic ways of thinking and behaviour make it more difficult, in general, for people to do that.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 3, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It is important to remember that 'long covid' isn't a single thing you get and then have forever, and some of it is very clearly understood, such as the issues suffered with long term ICU stays. Most people don't get long covid at all, those that do often have some symptoms for a number of weeks and which then pass, and even those with much longer term symptoms might eventually recover. And the symptoms are a mix of things, some that can be diagnosed with tests, and some are less easy to find an identifiable physical cause for.
> 
> Anecdata again, but I only personally know 3 people with any sign of long covid, one had long term loss of smell that came back after about 6-8 months (but was otherwise fine), one had occassional chest pain and shortness of breath on exertion that also passed after a few months (and nothing was found on investigation), and then one felt fatigued and still does 6 months post-infection, but they feel it is improving slowly and they admit themselves they were very run down and over worked before catching the virus and they think that contributed. All 3 had what I would say had mild to moderate symptoms while infected (no hospital admission but felt rough). Just realized all 3 are women in their 30s fwiw.
> 
> I suspect one of the ways to help avoid some of the long covid symptoms is looking after yourself well while ill, and then understanding it might take a long time to recover to full fitness, and adjust life stuff to account for this rather than rushing back to everything quickly (E2A: if you can, know that's not always easy for some folks with busy lives.)


Most people don't get it, but as many as 10% do according to that Nature article. I have to admit that's a lot more than I thought.

But as you say it's not necessarily a chronic condition, most people would expect to get gradually better over time provided they are able to rest properly and let their body recover.

Fully agree that the best way to protect against Covid symptoms (long or short) is to be generally healthy and well rested. It's anecdotal, but when professional athletes get it they never seem to have any strong symptoms. And of course being vaccinated should help a lot.

The famous example that scares people at the moment is Andrew Marr but it's worth noting he's sadly in a vulnerable group (over 60 and stroke/tumor survivor according to Wikipedia) where the immune response might not be as strong.


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## bimble (Jul 3, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> It's anecdotal, but when professional athletes get it they never seem to have any strong symptoms.


i have an anecdote that points the other way, i think we just need to wait for more info.


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## bimble (Jul 3, 2021)

Government reportedly considering making it so that if you have been fully jabbed you're exempt form having to isolate after contact with an infectee, you'd just be 'advised' to test yourself thats all. 
This seems problematic in various ways. I get why they would want to do it though.


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## zahir (Jul 3, 2021)

Thread: "We are planning for a peak of hospital admissions around early August."


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## Artaxerxes (Jul 3, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> It's going to be years before we can effectively gauge the effects of long COVID - one thing a study of 2 million people who tested positive in the US found was that many people who had mild symptoms or no symptoms at all ended up experiencing new health problems months after they were infected.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



One of the less reported aspects seems to be the number Covid does on you long term, a huge chunk of recovered patients ended up dying soonish after - officially recorded as something else but it's clear it really damages you


----------



## zahir (Jul 3, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> But as you say it's not necessarily a chronic condition, most people would expect to get gradually better over time provided they are able to rest properly and let their body recover.



For me there was improvement over the first six months or so. Since then it hasn't got better and I'm expecting it will be with me for life. I can understand the desire to not sound too discouraging to people with long covid but tbh I'm getting tired of the optimistic takes.


----------



## zahir (Jul 3, 2021)




----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 3, 2021)

zahir said:


>



She's chosen the dates so it doesn't show the much worse second wave. I prefer the government one which has a bit more context.

Could also be a lot better though, and it's a worrying trend.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 3, 2021)

Gah this fucking government! 

'We've got it under control we should get back to normal now' - Andrew Bridgen on LBC just now.


----------



## klang (Jul 3, 2021)

andysays said:


> I'm not talking about accurately judging population-scale risks.
> 
> I'm talking about simply recognising that our individual behaviours have consequences for those around us and that, especially in a pandemic situation, we need to modify our behaviour even if we don't (can't) have an accurate calculation of the potential consequences of not doing so. And I mean independently of an authoritarian government telling what we must do.
> 
> Obviously, some people can and have done that. But my contention is that four decades (more, probably) of indoctrination into individualistic ways of thinking and behaviour make it more difficult, in general, for people to do that.


I thought the spirit was there last March / April, in the early days of Covid. People (at least in my immediate neighbourhood) looked out for each other, helped with shopping, kept their distance, enquired about each others' wellbeing, set up neighbourhood support groups, etc etc.
There doesn't seem to be too much left of it, it's developed into a more each-on-their-own-attitude.
Sparse mask wearing, not taking the vulnerable into consideration, worrying about oneself. Can't blame people for it, and I'm probably no different. 
As you say, services have been cut for 40 odd years, essential bodies have been privatised, and people had to learn to fend for themselves. Plus covid and lockdowns are getting stale. Add to this the under-reporting of school closures and latest stats, everything seems scary but dandy.


----------



## andysays (Jul 3, 2021)

littleseb said:


> I thought the spirit was there last March / April, in the early days of Covid. People (at least in my immediate neighbourhood) looked out for each other, helped with shopping, kept their distance, enquired about each others' wellbeing, set up neighbourhood support groups, etc etc.
> There doesn't seem to be too much left of it, it's developed into a more each-on-their-own-attitude.
> Sparse mask wearing, not taking the vulnerable into consideration, worrying about oneself. Can't blame people for it, and I'm probably no different.
> As you say, services have been cut for 40 odd years, essential bodies have been privatised, and people had to learn to fend for themselves. Plus covid and lockdowns are getting stale. Add to this the under-reporting of school closures and latest stats, everything seems scary but dandy.



You're right, there was some of that stuff at the beginning. I don't want to dismiss that, because to do so would be to risk suggesting that social thinking and collective action has become impossible.

I guess I'm talking in super-broad brush strokes here, which inevitably covers up a lot of important detail.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 3, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Gah this fucking government!
> 
> 'We've got it under control we should get back to normal now' - Andrew Bridgen on LBC just now.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> She's chosen the dates so it doesn't show the much worse second wave. I prefer the government one which has a bit more context.
> 
> Could also be a lot better though, and it's a worrying trend.



She chose that range so that we can actually see the rise properly. see the change in trajectory. I do the same myself. She is not trying to disguise the fact that the current levels are nothing like the peak levels seen in the past, and indeed in yesterdays video when she presented these and other graphs the broader context was made quite clear, as was the 'good news' so far in terms of hospitalisations and deaths (thanks to vaccines).


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

bimble said:


> Government reportedly considering making it so that if you have been fully jabbed you're exempt form having to isolate after contact with an infectee, you'd just be 'advised' to test yourself thats all.
> This seems problematic in various ways. I get why they would want to do it though.


Yeah this is the sort of thing the Daily Mail have heard and are pushing for, hence their stupid front page today that I was moaning about last night.

It comes up in this BBC article too, which also includes the British Medical Association calling for verious things to remain and for there to be much better public health messaging about the need for ventilation.









						Covid: Doctors want to keep some measures after 19 July
					

Ministers are considering allowing fully vaccinated people to avoid isolation if exposed to Covid.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I expect the government to include all sorts of stupid moves when they announce the July 19th details. But I dont think they will instantly be able to do everything they would like to on that date, there will be pressure from different directions due to what the number of cases etc are likely to be like by then.

I do expect that some of the moves will have 'pressure more people into getting vaccinated' as one of the underlying aims, but they will probably botch it and do it in a very unfair way.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

Oh and in regards those hospital graphs, as I've also been focussing on recently the other way to show the current increases clearly whilst still preserving a look at the previous wave in the same graph, is to use logarithmic scales.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

zahir said:


> Thread: "We are planning for a peak of hospital admissions around early August."




I see they are also hinting in that thread at the same kind of 'change the self-isolation rules' stuff we are hearing elsewhere at the moment.



On a related note, I'm not seeing large signs of hospital infections yet this time, but that might change as overall numbers rise and if rules start getting bent for specific reasons involving enabling the system to cope.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

andysays said:


> You're right, there was some of that stuff at the beginning. I don't want to dismiss that, because to do so would be to risk suggesting that social thinking and collective action has become impossible.
> 
> I guess I'm talking in super-broad brush strokes here, which inevitably covers up a lot of important detail.


Broadly speaking, what happened near the start was way more than authorities and experts expected. People overall passed that test as far as I'm concerned and demonstrated that some of what Thatcherism etc tried to sell people was rather superficial and simply falls away in many segments of society if the situation demands it.

But such things certainly rely on peoples impressions of a situation, and this time around the picture is very partial and deliberately distorted. And some portion of the good will that existed has been eroded by shit authorities, the rich, toxic newspapers and the usual unfairness.


----------



## zahir (Jul 3, 2021)

I wonder if there will be a reaction in a while from young people realising that they've become the subjects of a medical experiment in herd immunity.


----------



## klang (Jul 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> Broadly speaking, what happened near the start was way more than authorities and experts expected. People overall passed that test as far as I'm concerned and demonstrated that some of what Thatcherism etc tried to sell people was rather superficial and simply falls away in many segments of society if the situation demands it.
> 
> But such things certainly rely on peoples impressions of a situation, and this time around the picture is very partial and deliberately distorted. And some portion of the good will that existed has been eroded by shit authorities, the rich, toxic newspapers and the usual unfairness.


Politics aside, I think  boredom plays a part too. Bored with the situation, oneself, the grind, the routines, the bad news. Bored with not seeing something amazing instantly happening when displaying kindness and good will. By everybody doing the right thing things wouldn't improve, they'd just stay at a certain standard, if that. It gets boring after a while.
Not going to the pub and sitting on the sofa was exciting for a while but got boring. So got online gigs and supporting each other through hardship.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

Well things certainly got messier once the initial shock had worn off. But I wont forget in a hurry that as far as I was concerned at the time, it was sections of the media that got lockdown fatigue before everyone else, and the shit questions and emphasis on holidays and 'when will we be able to...' etc began in earnest.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

What really dooms us this time around is the ridiculously narrow framing that even those entities that are normally on the side of caution are willing ti indulge in this time.

Note for example this Guardian article about the aforementioned plan to remove self-isolation for double-vaccinated people. Note that the emphasis is all about whether its fair or will lead to resentment, and what the hospital figures are doing. Nowhere does the concept of trying to prevent the spread of the disease and keep the numbers down feature.

And its not just the government, the media are going along with it, and plenty of experts will also see no problem with these plans. Vaccines truly have unlocked the standard UK approach to all this stuff, an approach which is an appalling corruption of public health principals, a cold and shitty form of pragmatism. The sort of stuff that informed the original plan a (dont bother doing much, use herd immunity to justify inaction), a plan they had to ditch back then but have always been desperate to return to.









						Letting fully vaccinated skip quarantine in England ‘will cause resentment’
					

Expert warns that plans to drop all legal requirements after 19 July could lead to mass non-compliance




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

If sufficient people go along with all of this without a fight, then we are just asking to be fucked over by mutants. Which isnt necessarily what will actually happen, but I wouldnt bet against it.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 3, 2021)

Trying not to blame members of the public so much, and to focus my anger on this shit government and a lot of the media, but honestly it's going to be hard to forgive people who wouldn't look at the bigger picture and thought only of themselves during the pandemic. At least conspiracy theorists have some "reasons" (in their mind) not to wear a mask, social distance etc, although they are infuriating. The "I'm alright Jack" types are just obnoxiously selfish.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

Medway Foundation Trust has a bad reputation in some ways, including in matters relating to this pandemic. Here is the latest revelation:









						Regulator criticises covid-hit trust over infection control
					

Concerns have been raised about a trust's approach to infection prevention and control issues - more than a year into the pandemic - including that it stopped screening those arriving at the hospital entrances for covid after 5pm.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				






> People entering the hospital after 5pm were not being screened for covid. Staff members who checked temperatures and asked about covid symptoms at hospital entrances went off duty at 5pm


----------



## LDC (Jul 3, 2021)

To me it does look like the link between infection and deaths is much more weakened than the link between infections and hospitalizations. Kinda obvious I know, but just looking at the recent figures.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 3, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Ah yes, the monitoring of Scottish waste water...


Has been ongoing by groups in the academic community (with the support of the ONS, DEFRA, water companies), including Scotland, since early summer 2020. Google and various telecoms companies have been providing mobility data to numerous academic research groups for a year or more now.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 3, 2021)

Just been looking at the cases map.

Bliddy 'ell !  

I'm at the point of being scared, double-jabbed or not, I'm really worried now.
Especially as I'm booked to work about 300 miles away from home next week ...


----------



## miss direct (Jul 3, 2021)

How many in your area, StoneRoad ? Or what's the rate per 100,000?


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## StoneRoad (Jul 3, 2021)

miss direct
Locally, the 'current' case rate was 256 per 100,000 - for the seven days ending 28th June 2021(an increase of 500%) ... up from almost nothing a few days before that. County-wide that rate is 270 / 100,000.

Have a look at Tyneside on the dashboard map - that's gone the pale purple for the same period. Which I'm finding very worrying.

However, we're doing better than the national and county averages for both first and second doses in the vaccination stakes.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 3, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> miss direct
> Locally, the 'current' case rate was 256 per 100,000 - for the seven days ending 28th June 2021(an increase of 500%) ... up from almost nothing a few days before that. County-wide that rate is 270 / 100,000.
> 
> Have a look at Tyneside on the dashboard map - that's gone the pale purple for the same period. Which I'm finding very worrying.
> ...


Worth remembering that 256 in 100,000 means less than 3 in every thousand people so the chances of any random person on the street having it are still pretty low!

The government colour coding of their infection map is a bit arbitrary and in low population areas the colours flip around all over the place. One small outbreak can move it from white straight to blue.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 3, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Worth remembering that 256 in 100,000 means less than 3 in every thousand people so the chances of any random person on the street having it are still pretty low!
> 
> The government colour coding of their infection map is a bit arbitrary and in low population areas the colours flip around all over the place. One small outbreak can move it from white straight to blue.


(Not least because most people who have it should be isolating not out on the street...)


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 3, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> To me it does look like the link between infection and deaths is much more weakened than the link between infections and hospitalizations. Kinda obvious I know, but just looking at the recent figures.



I wonder if the threshold for taking someone into hospital has changed? Maybe not but it's not necessarily fixed I don't think - if the hospital is already overwhelmed maybe there's a higher bar.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Worth remembering that 256 in 100,000 means less than 3 in every thousand people so the chances of any random person on the street having it are still pretty low!
> 
> The government colour coding of their infection map is a bit arbitrary and in low population areas the colours flip around all over the place. One small outbreak can move it from white straight to blue.


But also worth remembering that number of people actually testing positive is not at all the same as the estimates for what proportion of the population are actually infected.

eg the ONS infection survey:





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

Estimates for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This survey is being delivered in partnership with University of Oxford, University of Manchester, Public Health England and Wellcome Trust. This study is jointly led by the ONS and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC)...



					www.ons.gov.uk
				






> In England, the percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) continued to increase in the week ending 26 June 2021; we estimate that 211,100 people within the community population in England had COVID-19 (95% credible interval: 185,200 to 239,300), equating to around 1 in 260 people.



Obviously there is considerable variation per area and even more variation when we zoom in closely. And the infection survey doesnt have sufficient numbers to do accurate estimates for small geographical areas. The North East is in especially bad shape.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> To me it does look like the link between infection and deaths is much more weakened than the link between infections and hospitalizations. Kinda obvious I know, but just looking at the recent figures.



I require more time to let the death figures catch up, since there is bigger lag with those and they were starting from a very low level. I also expect they have been affected by the fact that something happened with the North West regions rise of all figures in the last month, it was a messy picture rather than a very clean, dramatic picture as seen more recently with the North East. And since the North West was 'first' as far as England and this wave goes, that can have more of an impact on deaths etc.

Anyway here is an attempt to shed light on what you are on about, using logarithmic scales. This data is for the whole of the UK. Where average is mentioned, its because I've used 7 day averages to smooth things out. Cases and deaths are by date of specimen and date of death, so most recent figures for those are incomplete in the latest data. I may repeat the exercise with just Englands figures, or specific regions of England, later. But as I said before, its still quite early as far as the death picture goes, so ideally I'd wait a bit longer before reaching conclusions on that. Plus the death figures I'm using are the standard dashboard ones with the 28 day limit that I dont like. But that only makes a very small difference at this stage, because all of the death figures are small at this stage.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> I require more time to let the death figures catch up, since there is bigger lag with those and they were starting from a very low level. I also expect they have been affected by the fact that something happened with the North West regions rise in the last month, it was a messy picture rather than a very clean, dramatic picture as seen more recently with the North East. And since the North West was 'first' as far as England and this wave goes, that can have more of an impact on deaths etc.
> 
> Anyway here is an attempt to shed light on what you are on about, using logarithmic scales. This data is for the whole of the UK. Where average is mentioned, its because I've used 7 day averages to smooth things out. Cases and deaths are by date of specimen and date of death, so most recent figures for those are incomplete in the latest data. I may repeat the exercise with just Englands figures, or specific regions of England, later. But as I said before, its still quite early as far as the death picture goes, so ideally I'd wait a bit longer before reaching conclusions on that. Plus the death figures I'm using are the standard dashboard ones with the 28 day limit that I dont like.
> 
> View attachment 276634


You need to sort out your X axis, to reduce the number of numbers down there


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 3, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I wonder if the threshold for taking someone into hospital has changed? Maybe not but it's not necessarily fixed I don't think - if the hospital is already overwhelmed maybe there's a higher bar.



I am sure I read somewhere that hospital stays are also shorter on average.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 3, 2021)

Cases down slightly today. Perhaps a corner has been turned?


----------



## Supine (Jul 3, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Cases down slightly today. Perhaps a corner has been turned?



why would it turn? look at the 7 day average rather than individual data points.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

Yeah there is no point trying to read anything at all into those sorts of wobbles, such fluctuations are perfectly normal.

Plus Wales dont seem to report cases over weekends, or at least that data doesnt make it to the UK dashboard, so Wales contribution to todays reported cases is 0, compared to 570 yesterday,


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 3, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Cases down slightly today. Perhaps a corner has been turned?



Daily reported figures are always up & down, the 7-averages give a better guide.

And, talking about those 7-averages, regarding hospital admissions they have been floating around +10% for a good period of time, until yesterday when it went up to about +16%, and today a whopping +24.2%.

That includes the usual reporting lag, so is only up to 29th June.

Seeing it change from +10% to +24% in a few days seems worrying to me, OK, it's from small overall numbers, but we all know how small numbers can become big numbers very quickly, if the percentage increases keep growing like that.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> But also worth remembering that number of people actually testing positive is not at all the same as the estimates for what proportion of the population are actually infected.
> 
> eg the ONS infection survey:
> 
> ...


See also REACT (round for the period late May/early June suggested infection was at least three times that indicated by daily testing).


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Daily reported figures are always up & down, the 7-averages give a better guide.
> 
> And, talking about those 7-averages, regarding hospital admissions they have been floating around +10% for a good period of time, until yesterday when it went up to about +16%, and today a whopping +24.2%.
> 
> ...


What you have seen there is driven by both England but now Scotland too. I usually post figures for England because there are additional delays for countries like Scotland that make the UK dashboard figure extra laggy. eg England wont report over the weekend these days, but if you click the by nation stuff on the dashboard and then click data, you can see that a figure of 331 is the latest for England, for June 30th, an increase from 283 admissions in England the day before. The 331 figure was already available on the NHS website version of the data yesterday, so its already included in the recent hospitalisations in England graph I posted yesterday evening        #38,875     

I have neglected Sotland a lot with hospital data because I didnt get the same level of detail or same frequency of updates via the UK dashboard, but since they are ahead of England with this wave and with the timing of their school summer holidays, I will be paying much more attention in the next critical days. What happens next with their cases and hospitalisations will probably contain some very strong clues about what the story of this wave will turn out to be for the UK.

I shall make a Scotland graph or two shortly.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 3, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Worth remembering that 256 in 100,000 means less than 3 in every thousand people so the chances of any random person on the street having it are still pretty low!


The infections aren't randomly distributed though. They are (inevitably) concentrated in clusters.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

2hats said:


> See also REACT (round for the period late May/early June suggested infection was at least three times that indicated by daily testing).


I've lost track of whether they or anybody else uses such estimates to keep a rough running total of estimated number of infections so far. The UK dashboard is up to over 4.8 million confirmed positive cases so far, but we know it missed the vast bulk of the first wave ones in addition to all the ones it hasnt picked up as we've gone through subsequent waves.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> I've lost track of whether they or anybody else uses such estimates to keep a rough running total of estimated number of infections so far. The UK dashboard is up to over 4.8 million confirmed positive cases so far, but we know it missed the vast bulk of the first wave ones in addition to all the ones it hasnt picked up as we've gone through subsequent waves.


Could easily be in the 10-20 million ballpark (maybe 3-4 times numbers from daily testing - DOI: 10.1101/2021.02.09.21251411).


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## bimble (Jul 3, 2021)

Are people as ready to get themselves tested as they were last year or a few months ago ? I’d be surprised tbh, just going by the general sod it It’s all over kind of attitude.


----------



## iona (Jul 3, 2021)

bimble said:


> Are people as ready to get themselves tested as they were last year it a few months ago ? I’d be surprised tbh, just going by the general sod it It’s all over kind of attitude.


Anecdata here but the bloke I was working for yesterday casually mentioned at the end of the day that he and his wife have both had bad colds all week, and seemed baffled by my suggestion that they should maybe do a lateral flow test at least


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

OK 4 different graphs of the same hospital admissions/diagnoses data for Scotland. Two use logarithmic scales and two are zoomed in on the more recent period.

Exponential growth at a pretty consistent rate has been seen so far. Not as steep as seen in previous waves (longer doubling time).

When I highlighted Scotland as making an increasingly notable contribution to the UK admissions increases mentioned earlier, its because Scotland has reached the point where in order for that exponential growth to continue on the same trajectory, the scary bend upwards when viewed on a linear scale has to begin, and indeed has begun to show up in the last few days worth of data. (an exponential trajectory that is shown by the relatively straight lines of the logarithmic graphs as opposed to the curves of the linear graphs).

As with all the other data we are viewing in horror at the moment, the key questions are whether any of these trajectories change, and when. If we assume a constant exponential trajectory then it is trivial to just keep drawing straight lines at the same angle they've been at on the exponential graphs, to see what sorts of levels they reach at different points in time in future. Which still doesnt tell us when thinks will peak and decline, but at least allows a proper sense of when the shit will hit the fan if things just keep carrying on as they are. And obviously when we look at hospital admissions data, we expect it to have a relationship to levels of infection at an earlier point in time. So we should suppose that until some time after Scotlands cases peak, we should expect these hospital numbers to keep doing roughly what they have been doing (at least when viewed using logarithmic scale, as opposed to the curved nature of linear graphs luring people into a false sense of security and then boom).

Since I tend to place quite a lot of emphasis in the role of hospital infections as additional pandemic wave drivers, I do not rule out tipping points on that front giving an additional scary boost to the numbers and trajectory. But I've not tended to catch a clear and obvious sight of this in overall data in the past. If the relationship between case figures and hospitalisations, including the timing, is less neat and tidy than some people were expecting this time, then I might look in that direction for possible explanations.


----------



## l'Otters (Jul 3, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> (Not least because most people who have it should be isolating not out on the street...)


Yeah but the majority of people don’t because we don’t have adequate financial or any other kind of support in place.


Some individual councils have rearranged their resources to provide more comprehensive support for people to isolate. But one of the govt ministers admitted they don’t want to increase the support available or make it easier to claim it in case people were to fake their results and claim it fraudulently. 🤯🤬

Just checked. 11% of people instructed to quarantine / isolate actually do so. Had to double check because its so utterly wrong.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 3, 2021)

NE takes off, in slightly older cohorts than recent, it would appear.


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

2hats said:


> NE takes off, in slightly older cohorts than recent, it would appear.



Yeah I've been going on about this recently and its a reason I've started showing graphs of the North East more.

This is the latest positive case data for the North East, using 7 day averages of cases by specimen date.

Although the North East sticks out in terms of what stage its at and its trajectory, to my mind it remains to be seen whether they are really the odd one out, or whether it was actually the North West that was the odd one out. What happens in regions such as the West and East Midlands in the coming days will offer some clues about that.

And part of the reasons I've been posting age charts in recent times is because I thought there might be some misconceptions about age groups being infected. Partly due to the usual nature of exponential growth when levels are still relatively low, hence my inclusion of stuff using logarithmic sale.


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## glitch hiker (Jul 3, 2021)

Oxford's not looking too clever:


----------



## elbows (Jul 3, 2021)

Yeah and in additional to general rises seen pretty much everywhere, many places with student populations have seen extra rapid increase of positive cases recently.


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## Elpenor (Jul 3, 2021)

I’m wondering what else  I can do practically. Can work at home, don’t go anywhere apart from supermarket, wear a mask when I do.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 3, 2021)

18 deaths yesterday. Still 300 on machines. 78.5 million vaccinations given. Steady as she goes.


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## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

2hats said:


> See also REACT (round for the period late May/early June suggested infection was at least three times that indicated by daily testing).


Oh and I forgot ZOE do their own estimates too.


----------



## Supine (Jul 4, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> I’m wondering what else  I can do practically. Can work at home, don’t go anywhere apart from supermarket, wear a mask when I do.


You’re doing enough


----------



## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

This is easily the most surreal period of the pandemic for me, apart from March 2020 which will always have its own special status in this circus.

The press tonight are full of more tales about things that will be removed on July 19th, and lots of optimistic takes on the situation. It is that and the different sense of the pandemic being over that many have this time which makes it so surreal.

Plus I dont have the simple guide of lockdown timing giving us strong clues about what peak timing to expect of cases, hospitalisations and deaths this time.

I suppose the earliest I might ascertain how bad things will get is if Scotlands overall number of cases peaks real soon, and then clearly fall, assuming their hospital admissions then follow within a week or so. That wont give me a precise guide, but it will offer strong clues. As will whatever happens next for the North East and its alarming indicators.

I suppose as previously implied via modelling, that I still expect to get a much better idea about this wave in July. I just dont know exactly how much of July will pass before we get a proper sense of whether the government have 'gotten away with' their chosen approach, or whether it busts past their expected limits and spoils the current plan. In the meantime both what they can live with and what they cant will resemble grim stuff for a bit. And its pretty likely they will announce the details of the July 19th plan before it is clear to us via real data which of these will become reality. But by July 19th itself we might well know, or at least have firmer suspicions.


----------



## blameless77 (Jul 4, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Thanks Elbows for sharing some informative charts. What really stands out in the data is that after so many people passed away in the initial wave, deaths fell down to record lows.
> 
> The irony of Covid being a sh!tshow in this country and so many vulnerable people dying is that we now have an older population that is on average much healthier and better placed to survive future flu outbreaks. This "dry tinder" effect is why you never see bad flu seasons back to back.
> 
> ...



Maybe some of the testing infrastructure developed to fight cove could be redeployed for other endemic viruses? Multiplex?


----------



## bimble (Jul 4, 2021)

Quite impressed, i got a text yesterday from some mobile number saying there's space in the next few days if i wanted to bring my 2nd jab forward and so that's rebooked for Wednesday now, even though the website said there was nothing available.
 Felt like there was an actual human there on the other end just doing their best to get the thing done as efficiently as possible.


----------



## LDC (Jul 4, 2021)

Bit weird seeing all the crowds going wild watching the football last night, how are they not going to be massive spreading events?!


----------



## baldrick (Jul 4, 2021)

bimble said:


> Quite impressed, i got a text yesterday from some mobile number saying there's space in the next few days if i wanted to bring my 2nd jab forward and so that's rebooked for Wednesday now, even though the website said there was nothing available.
> Felt like there was an actual human there on the other end just doing their best to get the thing done as efficiently as possible.


Yeah the sense I'm getting throughout this whole thing is that there is a whole bunch of people in different roles involved in vaccine rollout, public health, education, media, data, epidemiology, and so on all doing their best to get the right messages across and get things done that are being utterly hamstrung by government policy. Nevertheless, they keep trying.


----------



## LDC (Jul 4, 2021)

baldrick said:


> Yeah the sense I'm getting throughout this whole thing is that there is a whole bunch of people in different roles involved in vaccine rollout, public health, education, media, data, epidemiology, and so on all doing their best to get the right messages across and get things done that are being utterly hamstrung by government policy. Nevertheless, they keep trying.



Someone I know well works reasonably high up in a local (council area) response to the pandemic and the area mostly works well. I know they've done lots of good work on vaccine hesistancy and tailored messaging for restrictions (for example) and they say the same pretty much; that they manage despite central government rather than being helped by them.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 4, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Bit weird seeing all the crowds going wild watching the football last night, how are they not going to be massive spreading events?!


Narrator: They were.


----------



## Aladdin (Jul 4, 2021)

Griff said:


> I do wonder just how many people up and down the country have been traumatised by this since March 2020. I've heard of people who literally haven't ventured outside for 15 months.



I'm one of those 16 monthers.
And I'm fucking livid at the attitude some people have..."I really need to go to a restaurant and dine indoors ...my mental health is suffering cos I cant do that". Well...fuck off...cunt.
This is the me me me crowd. The ones who have not lost family to covid. The ones whose lives have not been impacted by the horrors of covid. 

I'll gladly do another 15 months indoors to make sure this virus doesn't get the chance to kill me or my family all of whom are very vulnerable. 

People are stupid. And stupidity will be the driver of the fourth and fifth wave.

So wear the mask, maintain social distance and stick to the public health guidance.


----------



## bimble (Jul 4, 2021)

Reports that everything, all measures, including wearing masks in any situation are going to be made a matter of 'personal choice' from the 19th. I'm a healthy person who doesn't have to use the tube or do face to face work or anything and this makes me feel very uneasy. Must be very scary for a lot of people.


----------



## bimble (Jul 4, 2021)

Just read this in Indian news:
'Children aged up to 15 years accounted for 4% of Covid cases in Gurugram during the height of the second wave between April 1 and May 31. Of the 4,676 children who were infected during this period, 94 (2%) had to be hospitalised, according to data sourced from the health department..'
1 in every 50 infected children needed hospital treatment? That is really bad.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jul 4, 2021)

bimble said:


> Reports that everything, all measures, including wearing masks in any situation are going to be made a matter of 'personal choice' from the 19th. I'm a healthy person who doesn't have to use the tube or do face to face work or anything and this makes me feel very uneasy. Must be very scary for a lot of people.


Tbh, from what I've seen in London, this already applies. 
I'll be wearing my mask indoors for the foreseeable and for the same reason that I have done since last year...that I don't want to pass it on.


----------



## andysays (Jul 4, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> Tbh, from what I've seen in London, this already applies.
> I'll be wearing my mask indoors for the foreseeable and for the same reason that I have done since last year...that I don't want to pass it on.


Unusually for me, I've travelled on buses and trains in London quite a few times in the past week, and although the signs requiring people to be masked are still there, fewer people than I remember seem to be wearing them.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 4, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just read this in Indian news:
> 'Children aged up to 15 years accounted for 4% of Covid cases in Gurugram during the height of the second wave between April 1 and May 31. Of the 4,676 children who were infected during this period, 94 (2%) had to be hospitalised, according to data sourced from the health department..'
> 1 in every 50 infected children needed hospital treatment? That is really bad.



Bear in mind that children admitted to hospital are far more likely to be tested than those that aren’t, so the actual rate will be much lower.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 4, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just read this in Indian news:
> 'Children aged up to 15 years accounted for 4% of Covid cases in Gurugram during the height of the second wave between April 1 and May 31. Of the 4,676 children who were infected during this period, 94 (2%) had to be hospitalised, according to data sourced from the health department..'
> 1 in every 50 infected children needed hospital treatment? That is really bad.





platinumsage said:


> Bear in mind that children admitted to hospital are far more likely to be tested than those that aren’t, so the actual rate will be much lower.



Indeed, plus there's not much testing going on in Indian, around 300k tests per million population/UK over 3m, so there would have been far more cases amongst children than the 4,676 reported, and thus the percentage hospitalised would be much lower for this reason too.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jul 4, 2021)

Makes me laugh all this jubilant ending of mask laws. As if there were ever any in the first place. 

Govnt - 'You must wear a mask in shops and on public transport unless you are exempt. You don't have to prove you're exempt at all though.'

Retail Workers - 'Can you wear your mask please so I don't get seriously ill/die/kill vulnerable people I live with.'

Ratlickers - 'I don't have to wear a mask because I'm exempt. 20 B&H please.'

Retail Workers -


----------



## bimble (Jul 4, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Makes me laugh all this jubilant ending of mask laws. As if there were ever any in the first place.
> 
> Govnt - 'You must wear a mask in shops and on public transport unless you are exempt. You don't have to prove you're exempt at all though.'
> 
> ...


I think it was you that was talking about the knuckle dragging macho types being over represented in the mask-refusing camp and a very insightful friend of mine said something yesterday that felt spot on, said that what some of these people hated was having to _pretend _to care about other people, which they experienced as an affront to their masculinity.


----------



## xenon (Jul 4, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Bear in mind that children admitted to hospital are far more likely to be tested than those that aren’t, so the actual rate will be much lower.



Also children can obviously have medical conditions that make them more vunrible too.

Not to downplay a horrific situation but there's things the raw numbers don't tell you.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 4, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Yeah but the majority of people don’t because we don’t have adequate financial or any other kind of support in place.
> 
> 
> Some individual councils have rearranged their resources to provide more comprehensive support for people to isolate. But one of the govt ministers admitted they don’t want to increase the support available or make it easier to claim it in case people were to fake their results and claim it fraudulently. 🤯🤬
> ...


Yeah, our government is ideologically opposed to providing a decent safety net, so that was always going to happen.

Someone needs to explain the term "false economy". If we'd had proper support in place for people to isolate then not only would we have saved lives, but the economic damage could have been much less.

E.g. in the first wave when you had some agency care workers acting as super spreaders. They're paid by the day, so no way they would ever take time off sick unless they were forced to.


----------



## Aladdin (Jul 4, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> Tbh, from what I've seen in London, this already applies.
> I'll be wearing my mask indoors for the foreseeable and for the same reason that I have done since last year...that I don't want to pass it on.



My brother is working in the local hospital. He is so careful...wears an n95 mask if he calls to see us ..which has been only twice since March this year.
He told us he will not be seeing us again for a while because delta is on the increase here now.

It's pretty devastating tbh. We all thought that vaccination would be the way forward. My parents and I were on the very vulnerable list so we are fully vaccinated now. But my sister who was ok is now very high risk because of the stroke she had after AZ1. She is not getting a second vaccine now. Because AZ could cause another stroke and people who have had a bad reaction to AZ can apparently have a worse reaction to Pfizer. .


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 4, 2021)

bimble said:


> I think it was you that was talking about the knuckle dragging macho types being over represented in the mask-refusing camp and a very insightful friend of mine said something yesterday that felt spot on, said that what some of these people hated was having to _pretend _to care about other people, which they experienced as an affront to their masculinity.


That does sound spot on to me. I thought people not wearing masks were just selfish pricks but I think this analysis is better. 

I try not to generalise and sorry if anyone gets annoyed by this but think of your average scaffolder and those were the type of people that I've never seen wear a mask. I get a lot of scaffolders into my shop and not a single one of them has worn a mask in the 18 months I've been working through this and every single one of them has been like I described. Whenever I confronted them I was just dismissed or laughed at so I stopped bothering in the end. They were never going to listen so why bother? 

In fact I remember a site manager moaning to me about how he had to cancel a job because the customer wanted workers to wear a mask whenever they were inside the house. '_My boys ain't gonna wear a mask, end of.'_ Said to me while I'm standing there wearing a mask. 

Not that I'm just picking on scaffolders because I had more than enough students with the same attitude only more Americanised. Lots of calling me '_bro_' while scratching their bollocks and ordering beer. 

So I think your friend is spot on. I'm a bloke and I have never understood this type of masculinity. It's like a performance to me, completely conditioned by society. I loathe it but i guess it's the dominant way men perform their masculinity. 

By the way if I sound massively bitter about all this it's because I am.


----------



## prunus (Jul 4, 2021)

bimble said:


> I think it was you that was talking about the knuckle dragging macho types being over represented in the mask-refusing camp and a very insightful friend of mine said something yesterday that felt spot on, said that what some of these people hated was having to _pretend _to care about other people, which they experienced as an affront to their masculinity.



Are there really that many people that fragile?  I’d have thought it would be hard to operate in the world if your sense of self is so weak. Not saying your friend is wrong, it sounds right, but it means there are a _lot_ of people walking around with dangerously severe self-image issues.


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## StoneRoad (Jul 4, 2021)

prunus said:


> Are there really that many people that fragile?  I’d have thought it would be hard to operate in the world if your sense of self is so weak. Not saying your friend is wrong, it sounds right, but it means there are a _lot_ of people walking around with dangerously severe self-image issues.



There are, tbh, a lot of "me, me, me" people that appear not to care a jot about other people, as was said above - I, too, blame thatcher's 'no such thing as society' grottiness and the culture of 'greed for self' she promoted for much of it.
Typical of this is the "why should I wear a mask" attitude.


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## glitch hiker (Jul 4, 2021)

Sugar Kane said:


> I'm one of those 16 monthers.
> And I'm fucking livid at the attitude some people have..."I really need to go to a restaurant and dine indoors ...my mental health is suffering cos I cant do that". Well...fuck off...cunt.
> This is the me me me crowd. The ones who have not lost family to covid. The ones whose lives have not been impacted by the horrors of covid.
> 
> ...


You won't want to read Jenrick (for the record, Robert Jenrick breaks rules on behalf of rich pornographers) in the BBC.









						Covid-19: Masks will become personal choice, says Robert Jenrick
					

Robert Jenrick says mask laws in England could go but Scotland says there will be an "ongoing need".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Javid was also saying something similar. Clearly the Tories are leaning into the wind on this wind, while the rest of us get blown away. Freedom at all costs isn't freedom, it's political posturing to win over the covidiots. I think we all know that long covid isn't being taken seriously, by the media and the political class at large (it seems). That won't get any better, never mind when more people wind up with it.

The vaccines are the only tool the Tories have seriously invested in. They still don't' have a decent test system and won't anytime soon. However the vaccine rollout can only succeed insofar as the NHS infrastructure allows. and, despite the heroic efforts of its workers, it is still limited, thanks to the Tories. So whichever way you slice it, we are really in a tight spot. It is two weeks till the 19th and if you're going to say "personal choice" you are really saying "don't wear them, wave your pathetic little flag instead, that's the true blue vaccine, plebs". IN that time we aren't going to reach herd immunity. Fully vaccinated is just shy of 50% while 1 dose is about 67%. according to Google.

I was in a Zoom call and one of the people present, a young guy who'd been double vaccinated, had just recovered from catching the virus. He seemed to have recovered, I have no idea what his overall health is like but he said it laid him up for ten days. That's with a full vaccine.

Once that genie is let out the bottle on the 19th (that's a shit metaphor) it ain't going back without a fight.


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## Supine (Jul 4, 2021)

I certainly won’t be relaxing my personal restrictions after July 19th. Although I am looking forward to a festival in august which should be fine as it’s all outside. Plus i have a face mask with a covid ecstacy tablet printed on it


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## miss direct (Jul 4, 2021)

It would be good if a new lanyard came out to replace the sunflower ones. Or perhaps sunflower ones could be rebranded to indicate that a person wearing one is vulnerable and/or would like to avoid close contact.


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## Spandex (Jul 4, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Freedom at all costs isn't freedom, it's political posturing to win over the covidiots.


It's the Tory concept of freedom: _I'll do as I please and damn the consequences! Oh. Consequences. Must be the fault of foreigners and the poors..._


----------



## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

2hats said:


> NE takes off, in slightly older cohorts than recent, it would appear.



I was thinking more about this last night and the idea that the North East would be hit hard in this wave started to ring a bell. I eventually remembered that it had been mentioned in one of the modelling exercises of recent months, and I tracked it down to page 25 of the Warwick modelling report from June.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				






> The predicted scale of the third wave for all three measures is a function of historical cases, vaccine uptake, vaccine efficacy and the competitive advantage inferred for B.1.617.2 (Fig. 1). All regions except London are predicted to have large numbers of infections in the third wave (equivalent or more than in wave 2 for both the default and cautious efficacy assumptions, Fig. 18 top left), with the North East and Yorkshire suffering the highest burden. As expected we observe smaller levels of infection for the optimistic efficacy assumptions giving the smallest outbreak sizes while the cautious assumptions give the largest.





> When considering deaths due to COVID-19 (top right), the protective effects of the vaccine are even more marked, with none of the regions expected to experience more deaths in the third wave compared to wave 2 for the optimistic and default efficacy assumptions, but many regions projected to experience a larger third wave (compared to the second) for the more cautious assumptions. This pattern is echoed in the total hospital admissions projections (lower graph), the mean number of hospital admissions in the third wave under the optimistic and default assumptions is consistently lower than during the second wave, but the cautious efficacy assumptions lead to a substantial increase for many regions. Again, the North East and Yorkshire suffers the highest projected burden of hospital admissions.



There are some graphs on that page too. I also note their prediction that London wont be hit so bad by this wave.

I believe that some others have since pointed this out on twitter.


----------



## andysays (Jul 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> I was thinking more about this last night and the idea that the North East would be hit hard in this wave started to ring a bell. I eventually remembered that it had been mentioned in one of the modelling exercises of recent months, and I tracked it down to page 25 of the Warwick modelling report from June.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Is there a simpl(ish) reason why they think London won't be so badly hit as other regions?


----------



## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

andysays said:


> Is there a simpl(ish) reason why they think London won't be so badly hit as other regions?


I believe in large part its down to how many people they think already caught the virus in a previous wave, with high numbers in the previous waves contributing to a much reduced pool of susceptible individuals now. Quite how sophisticated a version of that analysis they did I dont know, eg they might have done it per age group and then factored in what age groups are least protected by vaccines at this stage.

Whether they got all this right obviously remains to be seen.


----------



## andysays (Jul 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> I believe in large part its down to how many people they think already caught the virus in a previous wave, with high numbers in the previous waves contributing to a much reduced pool of susceptible individuals now. Quite how sophisticated a version of that analysis they did I dont know, eg they might have done it per age group and then factored in what age groups are least protected by vaccines at this stage.
> 
> Whether they got all this right obviously remains to be seen.


Thanks for that, kind of makes sense.

I haven't been following the detail anywhere nearly as closely as you, but I seem to remember there were concerns at one stage that vaccination rates were lower in London that elsewhere, which would tend (all else being equal) to suggest London being more at risk from a new wave.


----------



## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

andysays said:


> Thanks for that, kind of makes sense.
> 
> I haven't been following the detail anywhere nearly as closely as you, but I seem to remember there were concerns at one stage that vaccination rates were lower in London that elsewhere, which would tend (all else being equal) to suggest London being more at risk from a new wave.



Yes thats been highlighted as an issue. The extent to which the percentage of people vaccinated stats are affected by less acurate total population estimates for each age group in London is unknown, so that sort of thing may be a factor in their lower percentages.

And London certainly gets a wave, its just a question of how bad the burden from it is. Particular communities in London could be badly affected without this causing the overall figures for London to stick out as being especially bad.

There are so many potential factors that I dont like to sound too sure about this sort of thing at all.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 4, 2021)

I am a bit concerned about the NorthEast getting hammered in a Third Wave ...

Yet, my little corner of the Northumbria has had a very good uptake of the vaccine [both doses] and mask (etc) compliance - from what I can see - is still fairly good.


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## rubbershoes (Jul 4, 2021)

andysays said:


> Unusually for me, I've travelled on buses and trains in London quite a few times in the past week, and although the signs requiring people to be masked are still there, fewer people than I remember seem to be wearing them.



And the vaccination take up is lower than in many other parts of the country


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## andysays (Jul 4, 2021)

rubbershoes said:


> And the vaccination take up is lower than in many other parts of the country


As mentioned above, I remember reading that a while ago, wasn't sure if it was still the case.


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## Leighsw2 (Jul 4, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> Tbh, from what I've seen in London, this already applies.
> I'll be wearing my mask indoors for the foreseeable and for the same reason that I have done since last year...that I don't want to pass it on.


As will I. But surely, whether you or I wear a mask is seriously compromised if nobody else does?


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## rubbershoes (Jul 4, 2021)

andysays said:


> As mentioned above, I remember reading that a while ago, wasn't sure if it was still the case.



To 30 June


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## kalidarkone (Jul 4, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> As will I. But surely, whether you or I wear a mask is seriously compromised if nobody else does?


I can only control what I do though......but yes.


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## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

At this rate I am expecting Javid to soon announce that we've done a trade deal with the virus.


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## Riklet (Jul 4, 2021)

The vaccination stats for London are shocking! Whats up with that? Lack of jabs and not enough slots plus reluctance in young people/different ethnic groups?

I just dont get how the vaccine uptake can be so bloody low... in the busiest place in the country.


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## Dystopiary (Jul 4, 2021)

Health Secretary in today's Fail on Sunday has made his intentions clear. And on twitter: 

 

😡


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## StoneRoad (Jul 4, 2021)

feckin 'ell, Javid's a callous barsteward.
but I think that he's had that opinion all along, and it fits in with bojos personal view.
I wish bj's brush with the virus had included long covid.

my opinion is directly opposed.
To me, the health arguments actually point to a further delay for the final unlockening.
or at least until the jabs applied to the younger adults have had time to develop a decent level of immunity
(and the older kids have been jabbed)


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## bimble (Jul 4, 2021)

Oh great. Health secretary who revives the it’s just flu thing.


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## 2hats (Jul 4, 2021)

Riklet said:


> The vaccination stats for London are shocking! Whats up with that? Lack of jabs and not enough slots plus reluctance in young people/different ethnic groups?
> 
> I just dont get how the vaccine uptake can be so bloody low... in the busiest place in the country.


It's not clear to me precisely how the data are classified geospatially. Are counts by vaccinee GP registration or vaccine [assumed] home address? Perhaps by vaccination location in the absence of addresses? The map probably doesn't reflect where a not insignificant number of vaccinees spend most of their active time, where they are more likely to come into contact with greater numbers of others. See also: maps of case counts, especially as a proxy for infections.


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## Espresso (Jul 4, 2021)

I see that Wimbledon will be back to its full capacity from Tuesday. 
Glad I won't be on a train round those parts next week.


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## platinumsage (Jul 4, 2021)

2hats said:


> It's not clear to me precisely how the data are classified geospatially. Are counts by vaccinee GP registration or vaccine [assumed] home address? Perhaps by vaccination location in the absence of addresses? The map probably doesn't reflect where a not insignificant number of vaccinees spend most of their active time, where they are more likely to come into contact with greater numbers of others. See also: maps of case counts, especially as a proxy for infections.



Some details here:









						Why is Cambridge’s vaccination rate so low?
					

While there are many opinions about the UK’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic, it’s widely agreed that the vaccination rollout has been one of the more successful aspects. This char…




					philrodgers.wordpress.com


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## SpookyFrank (Jul 4, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> Health Secretary in today's Fail on Sunday has made his intentions clear. And on twitter:




Hope all this shit is getting archived for evidence after an even worse variant emerges from the exponentially-growing population of infected people and sends us right back to square one.


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## Riklet (Jul 4, 2021)

Fingers crossed one of these top Tories croaks despite being vaccinated.

_They'll just have to find a way to live with it._


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## glitch hiker (Jul 4, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> As will I. But surely, whether you or I wear a mask is seriously compromised if nobody else does?


A year prior to this I had started carrying handsoap during the flu season because I got sick of being sick from bug on public transport (I assumed). I had seen a few people wearing masks prior, but very few, as you'd expect. Mainly people of far east asian extraction, which I only mention because perhaps that attitude, sensible, was informed by their experience with SARS which the rest of us generally didn't have. Seems like a good habit to emulate


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## 2hats (Jul 4, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Some details here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The ONS v NIMS population count disparity is well known. What is not very clear is precisely how vaccination (or case, etc) data is geospatially classified.


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## platinumsage (Jul 4, 2021)

2hats said:


> The ONS v NIMS population count disparity is well known. What is not very clear is precisely how vaccination (or case, etc) data is geospatially classified.



I would have thought that was obvious.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 4, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> Health Secretary in today's Fail on Sunday has made his intentions clear. And on twitter:
> 
> 
> 
> 😡



Since I'm not going to read the Heil on Sunday I will assume it's the same bananas attributed to him elsewhere. This idea of health benefits is deeply sinister. No wonder Boris picked him, probably on Sunak's reputation as they appear to share the same denialist dna, ideologically speaking. It's the new 'eat out to help out'. Play your plebian part.

The health effects - stress/domestic violence/mental health - were always there, thanks to capitalism and the feudal society he willingly advocates for. Had we approached the crisis properly those effects would be been lessened - are ther ecomparable outcomes in countries like Vietnam or New Zealand? In the end he's just revealing the failings of his own government. They mismanaged a crisis that exacerbated the problems already amped up through ten years of neoliberal realignment. All of this is on his government, and now him.

This does not bode well for the the direction of travel with him at the helm. Not that it was ever going to be much better under Hanock, and thinking about what's under Hancock these days isn't something I care to do.


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## 2hats (Jul 4, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I would have thought that was obvious.


Evidently these matters are not to you.


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## glitch hiker (Jul 4, 2021)

Plague island, baby


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## platinumsage (Jul 4, 2021)

2hats said:


> Evidently these matters are not to you.



Wow you really are supercilious aren’t you. A shame you often don’t seem to know what you’re on about despite the regurgitation of other sources that you’re so good at.


----------



## xenon (Jul 4, 2021)

Is there any evidence yet as to whether vaccines prevent people both contracting the virus and spreading it?
If they do not in fact stop you contracting, and spreading the virus rather than protecting you from severe illness, what is the alternative to eventually just opening everything up anyway.
Note this is not a defence of this shambolic vnal government. But if we took I hypothetical best case scenario where all adults have been double jabbed by the end of August.


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## Supine (Jul 4, 2021)

xenon said:


> Is there any evidence yet as to whether vaccines prevent people both contracting the virus and spreading it?
> If they do not in fact stop you contracting, and spreading the virus rather than protecting you from severe illness, what is the alternative to eventually just opening everything up anyway.
> Note this is not a defence of this shambolic vnal government. But if we took I hypothetical best case scenario where all adults have been double jabbed by the end of August.



TBD on exact numbers. Vaccinated people do still catch and can transmit covid. Definitely less than unvaccinated people though.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 4, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Wow you really are supercilious aren’t you. A shame you often don’t seem to know what you’re on about despite the regurgitation of other sources that you’re so good at.


Goodbye.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 4, 2021)

xenon said:


> Is there any evidence yet as to whether vaccines prevent people both contracting the virus and spreading it?


Degrees of reduction in infection and transmission (table 3). Note also post #9734.


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## Loose meat (Jul 4, 2021)

15 deaths yesterday. Still 300 on machines. 78.9 million jabs given. Steady as she goes.


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## Storm Fox (Jul 4, 2021)

But the cases are still rapidly rising.  Each case rolls the dice of new mutation. A mutation that could work around the vaccine and we will be back to square one. Why is this so difficult to understand? We need to keep some controls in place for a few more weeks until the cases start falling.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 4, 2021)

Riklet said:


> The vaccination stats for London are shocking! Whats up with that? Lack of jabs and not enough slots plus reluctance in young people/different ethnic groups?
> 
> I just dont get how the vaccine uptake can be so bloody low... in the busiest place in the country.


As a Londoner I can confirm that everyone I know who has been offered the vaccine has taken it. London is a lot younger than the rest of the UK, so I imagine that's the main reason (there will be plenty of under 30s who have booked their 1st dose but not got it yet).

Could also be that well known NHS registration miscounting thing to be honest, lots of people (especially students) register with GPs and then forget to register somewhere else when they move. Many Londoners left the country and aren't coming back, so there's that as well if those people are included in the calculations.

Finally London also has a high proportion of vulnerable and minority groups that are less able to access a vaccine or don't want to get one.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 4, 2021)

Storm Fox said:


> But the cases are still rapidly rising.  Each case rolls the dice of new mutation. A mutation that could work around the vaccine and we will be back to square one. Why is this so difficult to understand? We need to keep some controls in place for a few more weeks until the cases start falling.


Scientists think there will be new variants every year just like flu, and we will produce new vaccines every year, just like flu, and that's how we will keep it under control. Most likely the vaccine will only be offered to older people and the vulnerable.


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## Storm Fox (Jul 4, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Scientists think there will be new variants every year just like flu, and we will produce new vaccines every year, just like flu, and that's how we will keep it under control. Most likely the vaccine will only be offered to older people and the vulnerable.


But Covid is a lot me severe than flu. More deaths, higher R0 value and more long term health issues. So more people will need to be vaccinated annually.  Are you willing to pay higher taxes for this or wait for a few more weeks?


----------



## Chilli.s (Jul 4, 2021)

In the UK it is as always a class thing. The richer you are the easier it is to distance from possible transmission and the easier it is to look after yourself and family at home. The poor better get back to work as toffs pensions are going to suffer.

The get back to normal narrative is all about the economy, the awful newspapers have been haemorrhaging money and only sell papers when people buy them on the way to work, so they happily spin that freedom nonsense.

Irreversible end of restrictions? irresponsible wishes unless you are a time traveller.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 4, 2021)

xenon said:


> Is there any evidence yet as to whether vaccines prevent people both contracting the virus and spreading it?
> If they do not in fact stop you contracting, and spreading the virus rather than protecting you from severe illness, what is the alternative to eventually just opening everything up anyway.
> Note this is not a defence of this shambolic vnal government. But if we took I hypothetical best case scenario where all adults have been double jabbed by the end of August.


For me it's two concerns. One, is long covid. Having rates of infection this high and going ahead with opening up will push rates higher than we've ever seen them. Not enough people are vaccinated yet so far too many are vulnerable. A significant percentage of people who get it suffer with long covid, even with the vaccine you're not safe from it. More vaccinated people and lower case numbers means slower and less spread as vaccinated people are less likely to catch and pass it on than unvaccinated. 

Second and more pressing concern is variants that escape vaccine entirely. This is the ideal scenario for that. A novel virus running this rampant coming into high numbers of vaccinated people gives it more chance to figure out ways to get round our immune systems. Flu virus mutates only slightly every year whereas this one mutates more significantly and faster. 

I may be wrong about all this but these are my concerns about it. I'm scared of long covid. One of my best friends has ME and it completely altered the path her life was on. At this rate I'm not sure I'll ever go to a packed gig or club again.


----------



## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Scientists think there will be new variants every year just like flu, and we will produce new vaccines every year, just like flu, and that's how we will keep it under control. Most likely the vaccine will only be offered to older people and the vulnerable.


Thats a general approach but there are loads of potential timing flaws.

We've now got some sense of how long a mass vaccination programme takes, and what sort of rate of supply has been available to a country like the UK that is prepared to grab as much as it can.

And we've heard various confident claims about how quickly vaccines can be adapted to include new characteristics of the virus.

We've also seen how quickly a new variant with a big advantage can take hold, even with some restrictions and behavioural changes in place, and how long it takes to get a handle on the variants details, study it to see where its advantage may be found etc.

What we havent had the opportunity to put all of the above together into a scenario where we need to urgently respond to a new strain because it escapes a lot of prior immunity, and is fit enough for purpose with key advantages over its rivals, so that it has the potential to dominate. How quickly will it take in practice to offer protection to the population in such circumstances?

If we look at the timing of the gap between our authorities suspecting a new variant was going to swamp this country, and the wave of that variant actually doing so, the timescales dont imply success with the above.

Rather the authorities will be rather reliant on the idea that the first new variant to actually cause this sort of immune escape and become the dominant strain, will not in practice be exactly the same as being back to square one with a new, novel virus that the population has no prior protection against. They will be hoping that the vaccines and prior infections still do something against the new strain, that effectiveness is reduced but not obliterated. Or that the variant will also have some disadvantages which end up buying us more time. We've seen with the two variants most relevant to the UK so far that they showed signs of doing a bit on the immune escape front, just not enough to make existing vaccines really quite bad, just slightly less good than before. They are examples of something a traditional vaccine update & distribution schedule could hope to cope with, by gradually evolving the vaccines used to cope with gradually decreasing effectiveness. And the authorities lean on other stuff during any tricky periods, eg by relying on the vaccine protection still being enough to work with their numbers game. The sort of test the UK currently faces as we wait to fully establish how bad this Delta wave will be. If we get away with that I will probably have further comment, and if we fail I certainly will. For example the Delta strain has certainly complicated the numbers game because of how much less protection one dose of current vaccines seems to offer against it, but the results are better with second dose so we could lean on solutions involving dose timing this time, to try to make the numbers game turn out ok again. But there are various combinations of parameters that the current shit government approach has no chance against, and this current wave will certainly help inform my thinking on that.

I am not able to judge how likely a much worse scenario will be. eg a mutation that does really cause a giant problem in one go in terms of immune escape. We are bound to learn more about this entire area as we move further into an era where the virus will really need to gain an immune escape advantage in order to thrive. The seelction pressure is being ramped up and I am not arrogant or self-assured enough to think I already know what the big stories will be in that era. It will be a long time before I can remove the idea that the virus will make fools of the UK approach from my list of possibilities, and I dont think I can take any reassurances on that front too seriously, only with the passing of time will the ultimate guide to that end up writing itself before our very eyes.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 4, 2021)

I wrote earlier about how coming out of this we had a real chance to make public space more welcoming for people. 

We could've done this by still limiting numbers into shops, increasing capacity on public transport and having more single seats for those travelling solo. Not only will this be more welcoming for people who get anxious in crowded supermarkets, transport etc it will also help us live with this and mitigate other respiratory illnesses going forward.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 4, 2021)

Storm Fox said:


> But the cases are still rapidly rising.  Each case rolls the dice of new mutation. A mutation that could work around the vaccine and we will be back to square one. Why is this so difficult to understand? We need to keep some controls in place for a few more weeks until the cases start falling.


Cases are rising, few are dying. That's always been the plan. The 80 millionth jab will be done this week. 

Looking at the West End yesterday, people are making their choices.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 4, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Cases are rising, few are dying. That's always been the plan. The 80 millionth jab will be done this week.
> 
> Looking at the West End yesterday, people are making their choices.


That doesn't answer my point does? Every case increases the chance of a mutation. A mutation that could evade the vaccine, or do you disagree with this basic science?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 4, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I wrote earlier about how coming out of this we had a real chance to make public space more welcoming for people.
> 
> We could've done this by still limiting numbers into shops, increasing capacity on public transport and having more single seats for those travelling solo. Not only will this be more welcoming for people who get anxious in crowded supermarkets, transport etc it will also help us live with this and mitigate other respiratory illnesses going forward.


I feel like the whole world has an overpopulation/overcrowding problem, but it's especially true in cities (which is where most people live).

Climate change is only going to make that problem worse as less and less of the earth becomes habitable. It's a bit sad how short term people are that the whole world stops when people start getting sick, but everyone carries on as usual when the whole planet is sick.


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## Cat Fan (Jul 4, 2021)

It definitely feels like we are flying blind with this whole opening up thing. But let's be honest, most of the restrictions were relaxed anyway when we came out of lockdown and that's why cases have gone sky high. Doesn't help when high profile government figures don't obey their own rules either...


----------



## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

Its certainly true that step 3 of unlocking was my biggest concern, but it is unclear how much further R can rise with the abandoning of various other things - a lot probably, but that will be balanced by however many people dont go back to normal and by whatever effects of population immunity we develop. But rhetoric about future approach, and indeed the entire way things have been framed in the UK via government and media for most of 2021 are a cause for concern for the short, medium and long term of coping with this virus. As I've been saying in recent weeks, they might get away with it in terms of whether this wave crushes hospitals, their plans and their political future, they might not. I dont feel like there is much longer left before I will get a much better sense of what the numbers are going to turn out like in this wave, in terms of the sharp end of hospitalisations and deaths.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 4, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I feel like the whole world has an overpopulation/overcrowding problem, but it's especially true in cities (which is where most people live).
> 
> Climate change is only going to make that problem worse as less and less of the earth becomes habitable. It's a bit sad how short term people are that the whole world stops when people start getting sick, but everyone carries on as usual when the whole planet is sick.


Just to add to that point. Disease thrives in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions. We treat animals horrendously, especially those we breed for food. Eventually that creates super viruses that can jump the species barrier.

Anyone who wants to stop the next pandemic could do worse than become a vegetarian/vegan.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its certainly true that step 3 of unlocking was my biggest concern, but it is unclear how much further R can rise with the abandoning of various other things - a lot probably, but that will be balanced by however many people dont go back to normal and by whatever effects of population immunity we develop. But rhetoric about future approach, and indeed the entire way things have been framed in the UK via government and media for most of 2021 are a cause for concern for the short, medium and long term of coping with this virus. As I've been saying in recent weeks, they might get away with it in terms of whether this wave crushes hospitals, their plans and their political future, they might not. I dont feel like there is much longer left before I will get a much better sense of what the numbers are going to turn out like in this wave, in terms of the sharp end of hospitalisations and deaths.


Indeed, Delta seems to be absurdly contagious, but have been "lucky" that the vaccines still work in preventing serious illness so far.


----------



## nagapie (Jul 4, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> As a Londoner I can confirm that everyone I know who has been offered the vaccine has taken it. London is a lot younger than the rest of the UK, so I imagine that's the main reason (there will be plenty of under 30s who have booked their 1st dose but not got it yet).
> 
> Could also be that well known NHS registration miscounting thing to be honest, lots of people (especially students) register with GPs and then forget to register somewhere else when they move. Many Londoners left the country and aren't coming back, so there's that as well if those people are included in the calculations.
> 
> Finally London also has a high proportion of vulnerable and minority groups that are less able to access a vaccine or don't want to get one.


I work with a team of 8 twenty something year olds; half are not getting it.


----------



## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

So the Johnson press conference announcing what the next step will look like is happening tomorrow, and then a final decision on everything being 'ok', timing and it going ahead will happen a week later on the 12th.









						Covid: Mask law and one metre rule set to end in England
					

Boris Johnson is ready to announce most remaining Covid restrictions can be eased from 19 July.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Jul 4, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Bit weird seeing all the crowds going wild watching the football last night, how are they not going to be massive spreading events?!


Yep. My guess is that the police and local authorities have just about given up on controlling that kind of behaviour.  Well, they might as well since the government has given covid permission to spread just how the fuck it likes in 2 weeks.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> So the Johnson press conference announcing what the next step will look like is happening tomorrow, and then a final decision on everything being 'ok', timing and it going ahead will happen a week later on the 12th.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Very optimistic of the BBC to use the word "final" there!


----------



## xenon (Jul 4, 2021)

But how do you suppress case numbers once everyone has been fully vaccinated. For values of everyone.
that’s what I’m getting at. Just let cases rise possible mutants which May or may not be more harmful.

seems like this is the path we are on so I guess we will find out. The tension is between how do vulnerable people protect themselves, how do we as a society live with this. With the risk of more deadly mutants arising. 
Yeah I know Captain obvious.
But the only case for lockdown is when the NHS becomes overwhelmed. If that and let’s hope it doesn’t, become a thing. What then. Oh well, they must’ve argued about this during the black plague,. Sarcasm.


----------



## xenon (Jul 4, 2021)

I mean can we just not have people pointing at numbers going oh my God oh my God. We did that last year. Can we have a debate, or something.


----------



## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

Well Labour have asked some of the right questions about it, but I'm not sure how much of a debate there will be about it. And whether there is much of one at all does depend on whether certain numbers reach levels that add impetus to such debate and the sense that the government are doing it all wrong (or, alternatively, getting away with the numbers game in the vaccination era).



> Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth urged the government to confirm "what level of mortality and cases of long Covid" it considers acceptable.
> "Letting cases rise with no action means further pressure on the NHS, more sickness, disruption to education - and risks a new variant emerging with a selection advantage," he warned.



From Boris Johnson to set out England's final Covid lockdown easing

As for us mere mortals here on this forum, I expect we will do the usual mix of both. No point asking people not to react in horror at various data or to want to talk about it. But plenty of discussion and debate of all manner of aspects along the way too. Some nasty arguments too I expect.

As for tomorrows details it sounds like much has been leaked again. I dont really feel like repeating the details via tweets from some shithead from the Sun, so i wont get into the detail right now. But it sounds like the expected sort of mix where some stuff is ditched completely, some stuff will still linger voluntarily or because the businesses and institutions in question decide to, and some government stuff remaining in place for now, like matters related to self-isolation that they'd like to get rid of at some point but probably dont feel confident enough to do that yet and still have key numbers stand a chance of adding up against Delta..


----------



## elbows (Jul 4, 2021)

And there is a sort of debate on twitter, or at least #ToryCovidCatastrophe is trending.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 4, 2021)

xenon said:


> But how do you suppress case numbers once everyone has been fully vaccinated. For values of everyone.
> that’s what I’m getting at. Just let cases rise possible mutants which May or may not be more harmful.
> 
> seems like this is the path we are on so I guess we will find out. The tension is between how do vulnerable people protect themselves, how do we as a society live with this. With the risk of more deadly mutants arising.
> ...


Personally I just think we do the things I mentioned earlier. Masks on public transport and in shops and just giving each other more space in public. I also think limited capacity in clubs, pubs etc and allowing for more flexible working arrangements between home and office. Couple these with proper financial support to keep businesses and individuals afloat. 

This won't be forever of course, although I wish the space thing would remain permanent in shops etc, and this isn't the same as lockdowns but I think this is what's needed until we can understand, prevent treat long covid better and until such time a variaint comes along that isn't so destructive to our health. That's not definite but there's as much chance of that happening as there is as even more dangerous variants emerging. Throwing all these restrictions out the window now though is fucking insane.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 5, 2021)

Plus improve ventilation in buildings, see how we can minimize the risks of the virus being passed on in crowded spaces.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 5, 2021)

Storm Fox said:


> That doesn't answer my point does? Every case increases the chance of a mutation. A mutation that could evade the vaccine, or do you disagree with this basic science?


I think that your interlocutor is less interested in basic science than political posturing.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 5, 2021)

Storm Fox said:


> That doesn't answer my point does? Every case increases the chance of a mutation. A mutation that could evade the vaccine, or do you disagree with this basic science?



Not sure I can bothered at 8am with this daft idea there is only one interpretation of 'the science', and that's the science that suits you. Scientists are, as ever, divided. Media report what suits them, you believe what suits you.

Double jabbed, I'm getting on with my life now on the basis that 15 deaths from 66 million people makes it safer than crossing the road.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Not sure I can bothered at 8am with this daft idea there is only one interpretation of 'the science', and that's the science that suits you. Scientists are, as ever, divided. Media report what suits them, you believe what suits you.
> 
> Double jabbed, I'm getting on with my life now on the basis that 15 deaths from 66 million people makes it safer than crossing the road.


Except that now, being less likely to die from Covid, you're going to have many more opportunities to cross the road, thereby putting yourself at even greater risk. Vaccines kill.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 5, 2021)

Anyone quantified this 'risk' of under 65s dying after a double jab.

1 : 1K?
1 : 5K?
1 : 10K?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 5, 2021)

Not sure I can bothered at 8.15 am with this daft idea there is only one quantified 'risk' of under 65s dying after a double jab.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 5, 2021)

psst. quantify doesn't mean a single number, Einstein.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 5, 2021)

zahir said:


> I wonder if there will be a reaction in a while from young people realising that they've become the subjects of a medical experiment in herd immunity.



Adding insult to injury there's now likely to be stuff you can only do if double-jabbed, which most young people are not.


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat maybe outside the internet you have a fulfilling life, a loving family, and wide circle of friends. And there might even be a (well disguised) point worthy of discussion in what you're saying, but jesus fucking christ you don't half come across as a total cunt the way you're posting on this subject.


----------



## bimble (Jul 5, 2021)

Personally not worried about dying of it at all Loose meat , what i'm worried about is the seemingly really high chance that if i do catch the bloody thing i get the long fatigue afterwards which goes on for unknown amount of time. I live alone self employed & an active sort of person and if i couldn't function i'd be totally fucked not just emotionally but practically financially all of it.


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

bimble said:


> Personally not worried about dying of it at all, what i'm worried about is the seemingly really high chance that if i do catch the bloody thing i get the long fatigue afterwards that goes on for unknown amount of time. I live alone and if i couldn't function i'd be totally fucked,



Why do you think there's a high chance of that? Statistically there really isn't.


----------



## bimble (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why do you think there's a high chance of that? Statistically there really isn't.


Its because of some numbers i saw about women in my age group, i think it was 1 in 5 or something? But can't remember now. Maybe that's very wrong in which case please say so!

eg this sort of thing: Covid-19: Middle aged women face greater risk of debilitating long term symptoms
And they're saying that there's no obvious link between severity of illness and likelihood of long term impairment.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> psst. quantify doesn't mean a single number, Einstein.



psst. then don't suggest a single number, Einstein.



> 1 : 1K?
> 1 : 5K?
> 1 : 10K?


----------



## Supine (Jul 5, 2021)

Numberwang!


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 5, 2021)

bimble said:


> Personally not worried about dying of it at all Loose meat , what i'm worried about is the seemingly really high chance that if i do catch the bloody thing i get the long fatigue afterwards which goes on for unknown amount of time. I live alone self employed & an active sort of person and if i couldn't function i'd be totally fucked not just emotionally but practically financially all of it.


Excellent. Extra caution seems to be the right choice for you, maybe for your mental health, maybe for your physical health.


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

bimble people are mixing up a whole host of symptoms and time scales. Some of the studies use 4 weeks post-positive test for still having any symptoms, which is a very short period of time. It's also a very complex mix of symptoms, and anything involving chronic fatigue is also a very complicated issue for a whole host of reasons (one of the reasons why it's not used as a key symptom for whether people have a covid infection or not).


----------



## bimble (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Excellent. Extra caution seems to be the right choice for you, maybe for your mental health, maybe for your physical health.


How would you suggest i protect myself from you?


----------



## bimble (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> bimble people are mixing up a whole host of symptoms and time scales. Some of the studies use 4 weeks post-positive test for still having any symptoms, which is a very short period of time. It's also a very complex mix of symptoms, and anything involving chronic fatigue is also a very complicated issue for a whole host of reasons (one of the reasons why it's not used as a key symptom for whether people have a covid infection or not).


Yeah. I am aware that its a murky and not very clear (yet?) area, with a whole bunch of theories as to why women have so much poorer outcomes. I'm not hiding behind the sofa terrified just want to avoid it if i can & best way of doing that seems to be to not catch the virus in the first place.

There is something of a personal fear in this, because of knowing a lovely young woman who is completely unable to function due to some sort of version of what they call M.E (long before covid) . She needs people to do every personal thing for her, is often in a wheelchair, it really frightens me.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 5, 2021)

Don't hug me so tight.


----------



## Chilli.s (Jul 5, 2021)

It's all a bit loosely me me me me this no mask freedom day


----------



## xenon (Jul 5, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Personally I just think we do the things I mentioned earlier. Masks on public transport and in shops and just giving each other more space in public. I also think limited capacity in clubs, pubs etc and allowing for more flexible working arrangements between home and office. Couple these with proper financial support to keep businesses and individuals afloat.
> 
> This won't be forever of course, although I wish the space thing would remain permanent in shops etc, and this isn't the same as lockdowns but I think this is what's needed until we can understand, prevent treat long covid better and until such time a variaint comes along that isn't so destructive to our health. That's not definite but there's as much chance of that happening as there is as even more dangerous variants emerging. Throwing all these restrictions out the window now though is fucking insane.



Can't disagree with any of that. My worry is even with these measures and as two sheds says, better understanding and implementation of confined space ventilation, we're in for a worrying couple of months.

Some scientists are saying the earlier lock down measures wouldn't be enough to contain Delta and the pesamist in me wonders if we'd have to see a worse, more restrictive lockdown in the near future. Probably just need a break from reading about this stuff again...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> bimble people are mixing up a whole host of symptoms and time scales. Some of the studies use 4 weeks post-positive test for still having any symptoms, which is a very short period of time. It's also a very complex mix of symptoms, and anything involving chronic fatigue is also a very complicated issue for a whole host of reasons (one of the reasons why it's not used as a key symptom for whether people have a covid infection or not).



The recent REACT one looked at 4 & 12 weeks plus 5 months, and whilst there's plenty of 'ifs and buts', especially surrounding how bad the symptoms are, and how much impact they have on day-to-day life, it still makes for uncomfortable reading.



> These figures are based on reports from the people (almost one in five) who reported having had COVID-19, either suspected or confirmed by PCR test, one-third of whom reported persistent symptoms at 12 weeks. This could mean that more than two million people in England may have been affected by these persistent symptoms after COVID-19.





> The proportion of people with symptoms rapidly declined in the first four weeks, followed by a small drop by 12 weeks. However after 12 weeks there was little change up to 150 days (5 months) of follow-up.



Over 2 million adults in England may have had long COVID - Imperial REACT

I personally have two mates locally, who were perfectly fit & healthy before catching covid, that are still suffering long covid over 6 months later. One caught it in Dec., main symptom being fatigue, he started work again about 3 months ago, but is still only managing p/t hours. The other caught it in Jan., main symptom being shortness of breath, and she is still struggling with just going up stairs, so hasn't returned to her job in a care home.


----------



## Ax^ (Jul 5, 2021)

more news reporting of the wanky "freedom day"

and the Queen been going enough to give one medal to the NHS
sure its better than a pay rise


----------



## Spandex (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> I'm getting on with my life now on the basis that 15 deaths from 66 million people makes it safer than crossing the road.


In 2019 (so pre-Covid) 1,752 people were killed in road traffic accidents - that's all road traffic accidents, not just people crossing the road. That figure has been broadly similar since 2012. That makes an average 4.8 people per day dying in RTAs. There was a 16% drop in RTA fatalities in 2020 because lockdowns.

So the 15 reported Covid deaths yesterday - a weekend figure, which is usually lower, before this wave has really got going - means, on average, people in the UK were over 3 times as likely to die from Covid as in an RTA.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> psst. quantify doesn't mean a single number, Einstein.


Your social skills could use some work, Dunning-Kruger.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 5, 2021)

Spandex said:


> In 2019 (so pre-Covid) 1,752 people were killed in road traffic accidents - that's all road traffic accidents, not just people crossing the road. That figure has been broadly similar since 2012. That makes an average 4.8 people per day dying in RTAs. There was a 16% drop in RTA fatalities in 2020 because lockdowns.
> 
> So the 15 reported Covid deaths yesterday - a weekend figure, which is usually lower, before this wave has really got going - means, on average, people in the UK were over 3 times as likely to die from Covid as in an RTA.


This is so stupid it's funny.

If you are really so anal, what are the RTA numbers for inner London. Rural Scotland not being quite so useful.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Double jabbed, I'm getting on with my life now on the basis that 15 deaths from 66 million people makes it safer than crossing the road.



I had my second jab on 8th January.

Yet I'm still taking various precautions regardless what the tories say.

Why?

Because I don't want to be responsible for carrying it, spreading it, allowing it it to multiply.

I want to feel confident that my actions have not lead to the suffering of others - whether or not it kills them. I think severe illness, even if one recovers, is quite unpleasant enough. Let alone long covid.

I don't want anyone gasping for breath, because I was too cocky. Not one person.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 5, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Your social skills could use some work, Dunning-Kruger.


If you're equating an internet message board with 'social skills', I think we might have identified an issue


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 5, 2021)

This has just arrived. Stephen Bush's daily newsletter:



> Good morning. The government will announce the end to almost all restrictions in England on 19 July later today: along with the end to table service, the test-and-trace doohickeys at every establishment, and social distancing – and an end to the legal obligation to wear masks in enclosed spaces, including public transport.
> 
> Is it too early to unlock? Scientists are divided: some believe that we should wait until everyone has been given the opportunity to have both their jabs, to minimise the risks to the young of the Delta variant and of new, vaccine-resistant variants. Others think that with the elderly and vulnerable vaccinated, and the reality that Covid-19 will be with us forever, now is the time to begin returning to normality.
> 
> ...


----------



## xenon (Jul 5, 2021)

I'm not dismissing longcovid but it's worth noting symptoms of various infections can persist for a while anyway. Especially if talking relatively mild ones.

E.g. I had a bad cough towards end of 2019. Went and came back over a couple of months. For periods I was short of breath and quite tired. The latter I put down to not sleeping much as I kept bloody coughing.

I wasn't overly concerned, as knew others had similar around that time. I'm not saying this was Covid, no idea but it did fortunately ease off after a while.


And many have had the kind of annoying cold that won't go away. Persistent mild symptoms aren't particularly unusual.

Longcovid along with CFS / ME should be better researched though.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> If you're equating an internet message board with 'social skills', I think we might have identified an issue


Which rather begs the question: since you're so sneeringly dismissive of this "internet message board", then what the fuck are you even doing here?


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 5, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Which rather begs the question: since you're so sneeringly dismissive of this "internet message board", then what the fuck are you even doing here?


Goodness, look at those goal posts. 

I'm sneering at your superior, judgemental middle class tone; what terrible manners the chap has.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Goodness, look at those goal posts.
> 
> I'm sneering at your superior, judgemental middle class tone; what terrible manners the chap has.


Keep on sneering, then. It seems to fit well with your general persona


----------



## zahir (Jul 5, 2021)

Thread from Deepti Gurdasani


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Goodness, look at those goal posts.
> 
> I'm sneering at your superior, judgemental middle class tone; what terrible manners the chap has.


Fuck off cunt sock. How does that tone work for you?


----------



## xenon (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> This is so stupid it's funny.
> 
> If you are really so anal, what are the RTA numbers for inner London. Rural Scotland not being quite so useful.



Come on, you can't throw out a stat and then get huffy if someone uses another relevant one, to put it into perspective.

Let's take last year for example, there'll be less than 2000 RTA related fatalities in London for 2020. There were around 14000 for Covid19...


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 5, 2021)

xenon said:


> I'm not dismissing longcovid but it's worth noting symptoms of various infections can persist for a while anyway. Especially if talking relatively mild ones.
> 
> E.g. I had a bad cough towards end of 2019. Went and came back over a couple of months. For periods I was short of breath and quite tired. The latter I put down to not sleeping much as I kept bloody coughing.
> 
> ...



I understand groups that represent people with long covid define it as significant disability persisting for more than 12 weeks.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 5, 2021)

Bit sad when correcting someone's false figures makes you "anal". If it had meant London it should have said London.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 5, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> I had my second jab on 8th January.
> 
> Yet I'm still taking various precautions regardless what the tories say.
> 
> ...



Although I am aware this is easier for some and harder for others, depending on work, care responsibilities, etc etc.

And, Loose meat, is perfectly possible to "get on with our lives" and also take sensible precautions. It's really not an either or situation.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 5, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Bit sad when correcting someone's false figures makes you "anal". If it had meant London it should have said London.


I think this poster uses words like "anal" to describe situations where their blatant ignorance is being held up to scrutiny. An understandable confusion, given the intellectual forces being deployed...


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 5, 2021)

xenon said:


> Come on, you can't throw out a stat and then get huffy if someone uses another relevant one, to put it into perspective.
> 
> Let's take last year for example, there'll be less than 2000 RTA related fatalities in London for 2020. There were around 14000 for Covid19...


We're talking about ending lockdown in two weeks and the loss of life now, not pandemic  history.

Time to get on with the day. Hopefully people on here will be sharper later.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> We're talking about ending lockdown in two weeks and the loss of life now, not pandemic  history.


 aka not learning from what has happened before



Loose meat said:


> Time to get on with the day. Hopefully people on here will be sharper later.


For all the concern you've professed for the working class you do realize the deaths will be largely concentrated amongst poor people who are crowded together in homes and work places.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> We're talking about ending lockdown in two weeks and the loss of life now, not pandemic  history.


Actually people are concerned about what will be happening with hospitalisations in 2 or 4 or 8 weeks on from now - which will be determined by what is happening with case rates now. We are yet to find out what the link will look like.


----------



## killer b (Jul 5, 2021)

I'm fairly sure this weirdo isn't here for an honest debate guys


----------



## two sheds (Jul 5, 2021)

True, but ignoring it won't help either. Seems to me best approach is to just concentrate on posts that are demonstrably crap.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 5, 2021)

two sheds said:


> True, but ignoring it won't help either. Seems to me best approach is to just concentrate on posts that are demonstrably crap.



That's a lot to take on, TBH.


----------



## Ax^ (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Goodness, look at those goal posts.
> 
> I'm sneering at your superior, judgemental middle class tone; what terrible manners the chap has.



quite post an article from the Guardian or the FT to prove your working class rooots


----------



## xenon (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> We're talking about ending lockdown in two weeks and the loss of life now, not pandemic  history.
> 
> Time to get on with the day. Hopefully people on here will be sharper later.



It was you dufus, that compared risks of death crossing the road being greater than dying of covid19, siting 15 deaths of the latter yesterday. If that persists for the rest of the year.

Prompting Spandex to show where your working erred.

Have another coffee and think about it...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 5, 2021)

> Sajid Javid’s statement to MPs about Covid will be at 5pm, *Jacob Rees-Mogg*, the leader of the Commons, has announced. That means Boris Johnson can hold a press conference at 5pm as usual and not worry about Javid announcing the news first.
> 
> This arrangement follows complaints from Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, that No 10 used to make Covid announcements via press conferences without MPs being notified formally. Under the ministerial code, major government announcements are meant to be made first in parliament.



From the Guardian live updates.


----------



## Spandex (Jul 5, 2021)

xenon said:


> Prompting @Spandex to show where your working erred.


Dude! Don't trust my maths. I got a U in my maths A-Level. Spent 2 years copying work from Mark who sat next to me and then spent the exam drawing a lovely picture of a trolley with no idea what forces were at work on it.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 5, 2021)

xenon said:


> It was you dufus, that compared risks of death crossing the road being greater than dying of covid19, siting 15 deaths of the latter yesterday. If that persists for the rest of the year.
> 
> Prompting Spandex to show where your working erred.
> 
> Have another coffee and think about it...


Ironically enough, Loose meat 's initial engagement on urban75 was to argue against road changes in South London that are aimed at improving road safety for pedestrians and cyclists.


----------



## prunus (Jul 5, 2021)

Anecdotes for the anecdata mill:  up until about a fortnight ago there had been very few cases in my kids’ school (1200 pupil south London secondary), maybe 3 or 4 (they’ve been very good at being covid secure, and possibly lucky) and no-one we knew or even that anyone we knew knew. Over the last coups of weeks cases are spreading like wildfire - both my kids know several people personally who have it, and many more isolating as a result.  It really feels totally different to the prior 16 months, and out of control.


----------



## xenon (Jul 5, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Ironically enough, Loose meat 's initial engagement on urban75 was to argue against road changes in South London that are aimed at improving road safety for pedestrians and cyclists.



Yep. I read some of those posts on that mega thread.



prunus said:


> Anecdotes for the anecdata mill:  up until about a fortnight ago there had been very few cases in my kids’ school (1200 pupil south London secondary), maybe 3 or 4 (they’ve been very good at being covid secure, and possibly lucky) and no-one we knew or even that anyone we knew knew. Over the last coups of weeks cases are spreading like wildfire - both my kids know several people personally who have it, and many more isolating as a result.  It really feels totally different to the prior 16 months, and out of control.



And yeah. People around me are getting pinged more than last year. In the last 3 weeks, 3 instances, 2 of them work with children, the other was from a pub.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 5, 2021)

killer b said:


> I'm fairly sure this weirdo isn't here for an honest debate guys



Of course not. Hence Loose meat  not acknowledging or responding to my posts from this morning.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 5, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> We're talking about ending lockdown in two weeks and the loss of life now, not pandemic  history.
> 
> Time to get on with the day. Hopefully people on here will be sharper later.


Well, TBF, the average IQ of Urban does make a sharp upward move whenever you sign off...


----------



## Wilf (Jul 5, 2021)

zahir said:


> Thread from Deepti Gurdasani



That's a perfect way of framing what lockowns are - a response to the failure of the government's pandemic management. An entirely _necessary _response, but still an indication that the government failed to pull just about every other lever, or did so too late, or broke the fucking lever...


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

I think the mask wearing or not after the 19th is going to be a really divisive and horrible issue. I really feel for people working on transport and in retail and other places where this will mainly play out.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

Wilf said:


> That's a perfect way of framing what lockowns are - a response to the failure of the government's pandemic management. An entirely _necessary _response, but still an indication that the government failed to pull just about every other lever, or did so too late, or broke the fucking lever...


The reality isnt quite that neat and tidy though. I remember many occasions where I've felt the need to bore on here about how the other, nicer sounding measures arent always enough, even for countries that try really hard to keep infections down to none or very few, secure their borders etc. They still end up having periods where they need to do stuff that will be described as lockdown. Its just that theirs get far more impressive results, in less time, because of not dragging their heels.

For example we've seen around the world that just having a test & trace system isnt enough, you also have to be prepared to closely watch the data that comes from that test & trace system, and if it tells you that there has been a notable outbreak, you may very well have to do lockdown type stuff in an area to nip it in the bud.


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

Going to be interested to see what they say when the 'acceptable numbers of dead' questions come up. I mean, apart from desperately avoid answering them. Another 10,000 dead in the next 12 months is a figure kicking about in the media, so about 30 daily and 900 a month (no idea where that figure comes from and how valid it is).


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

I listened to Dr Gurdasani's interview with Jeremy Vine. She really is the voice of all fucking reason right now, I hope she doesn't burn herself out smashing her head against the wall of broadcast indifference and 'balance'.

I listened right up until Vine said there was another side of the argument, immediately turning to some libertarian twat from the institute of fuckoffand die to dismiss science and reason. 

I swear to all the imagined gods...


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Going to be interested to see what they say when the 'acceptable numbers of dead' questions come up. I mean, apart from desperately avoid answering them. Another 10,000 dead in the next 12 months is a figure kicking about in the media, so about 30 daily and 900 a month (no idea where that figure comes from and how valid it is).


If history is any guide they will simply resist giving anything in terms of limits of daily levels of deaths or hospitalisations. The most we'll get is them pointing to previous high points in other waves and making noises about how much lower things are right now than that, or what levels in the past were clearly problematic for the NHS. And at most, variations on a '20,000 is a good result' theme when it comes to totals per year or wave etc.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Adding insult to injury there's now likely to be stuff you can only do if double-jabbed, which most young people are not.


I only paid vague attention to last nights leaks, but I got the impression that a lot of the stuff relating to double-jabbed people being allowed to do stuff and not needing to self-isolate, which the press have been quite obsessed with, is in the pile of future ambitions rather than stuff the government are ready to announce today. I suppose at this point I may as well just wait a few more hours to become sure either way.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think the mask wearing or not after the 19th is going to be a really divisive and horrible issue. I really feel for people working on transport and in retail and other places where this will mainly play out.


Yes it is. I've decided that I'm not going to get into it with anyone......and just do what I find acceptable which is to wear a mask indoors in public, lft 2x per week, wash my hands.


----------



## Sue (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think the mask wearing or not after the 19th is going to be a really divisive and horrible issue. I really feel for people working on transport and in retail and other places where this will mainly play out.


Folk from USDAW/Unite on R4 earlier sounding very unhappy about it. Who knows if that'll end up being anything more concrete though.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think the mask wearing or not after the 19th is going to be a really divisive and horrible issue. I really feel for people working on transport and in retail and other places where this will mainly play out.



I know I go on about this a lot but people in touristy areas will be pretty fucked if they want to avoid large numbers of maskless people.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jul 5, 2021)

I've been isolating since Tuesday and ZOE have invited me to do a PCR test which will be sent to me to do. Intrigued to see as I don't really trust the lft.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Actually people are concerned about what will be happening with hospitalisations in 2 or 4 or 8 weeks on from now - which will be determined by what is happening with case rates now. We are yet to find out what the link will look like.


Yes. There are already case to hospital links we can look at in this wave so far, but I've deliberately resisted treating the future picture as though it will resemble the recent picture. Mostly because the number of positive cases being detected in older people has started from a very low base and as usual it takes time for exponential growth to reveal via real data its true momentum and potential. If current rates of increase in older age groups are maintained, it wont be very long till their numbers are far more substantial, and not too long after that when the hospital data will reflect this growth of disease in older people. Thats when I'll start to be in a better position to judge quite how much of the weight of this wave the vaccines continue to successfully carry.


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> Yes it is. I've decided that I'm not going to get into it with anyone......and just do what I find acceptable which is to wear a mask indoors in public, lft 2x per week, wash my hands.



I mean the fact that it looks like it'll be entirely voluntary means it's pretty much going to be impossible to challenge anyone tbh, it's hard enough now even when it's a legal requirement. I think stuff might even shift the other way and mask wearers start getting more grief.

I think keeping the requirement for them on public transport and in shops is a pretty fair compromise.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 5, 2021)

i wonder what will happen now that we're going to be giving delta to each other, whether it will be long till we see epsilon (or the boris bug as it will doubtless become known) which may have more means of evading the various vaccines than the current crop of coronavirus. once again the government are going to fuck this up.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> The reality isnt quite that neat and tidy though. I remember many occasions where I've felt the need to bore on here about how the other, nicer sounding measures arent always enough, even for countries that try really hard to keep infections down to none or very few, secure their borders etc. They still end up having periods where they need to do stuff that will be described as lockdown. Its just that theirs get far more impressive results, in less time, because of not dragging their heels.
> 
> For example we've seen around the world that just having a test & trace system isnt enough, you also have to be prepared to closely watch the data that comes from that test & trace system, and if it tells you that there has been a notable outbreak, you may very well have to do lockdown type stuff in an area to nip it in the bud.


... and of course 'lockdown' has rarely meant 'lockdown'.


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

The other things that sounds like it's going is the requirement to self isolate if you have contact with an infected person if you have had both vaccine doses. I'm not sure on what I think about that, but I do think it'll mean the end of nearly all self isolation in reality.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

Wilf said:


> ... and of course 'lockdown' has rarely meant 'lockdown'.


Yeah its a broad term. Our versions of lockdown have been enough to get R below 1 so that things shrink instead of grow. They havent been the sort of lockdowns you'd want if you were genuinely trying to contain an outbreak in a particular place, to really get on top of a particular outbreak or strain, to really nip anything in the bud as opposed to just more generally dampen things down.


----------



## Riklet (Jul 5, 2021)

My instinct is they´re plugging zero restrictions now, cynically knowing they'll go back on some of them in 2 weeks time.

They'll keep the freedom loonies at bay but also can be seen to be "listening to concerned scientists" about the mask stuff when they set out final rules. But the negotiating position is stronger.  I'd be surprised if they drop the requirement on public transport for example.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 5, 2021)

Neo-liberal problem: gig economy workers have no incentive to stay off work in a pandemic.

Neo-liberal solution: get the fuck to work. 

Cunts.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The other things that sounds like it's going is the requirement to self isolate if you have contact with an infected person if you have had both vaccine doses. I'm not sure on what I think about that, but I do think it'll mean the end of nearly all self isolation in reality.


Oh thats exactly the sort of thing I'd heard they would not announce today. But I'm reliant on media for that info.


----------



## MickiQ (Jul 5, 2021)

_Ryanair said face masks would remain mandatory on its flight "in order to protect the health of our passengers and crew"._
You will be allowed to take it off for a £10 fee


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

Riklet said:


> My instinct is they´re plugging zero restrictions now, cynically knowing they'll go back on some of them in 2 weeks time.
> 
> They'll keep the freedom loonies at bay but also can be seen to be "listening to concerned scientists" about the mask stuff when they set out final rules. But the negotiating position is stronger.  I'd be surprised if they drop the requirement on public transport for example.


There are possible scenarios with this wave where the system will buckle and they will probably have to reimpose stuff that was already removed in May. Giant u-turns, the death of the 'irreversible' rhetoric. This is worst case stuff.

But if they avoid that happening with this wave, if they avoid number of hospitalisations becoming too great, I think they will be keen to also give themselves every chance of avoiding announcing anything now that needs u-turning on quickly if the wave is bad, but not totally catastrophic.

So I expect the rhetoric to be about freedom and choice and all the things they are ditching. But if they dont mess with self-isolation etc rules right now then they have actually left some brakes in place, some forms of disruption in place that can affect the trajectory of cases when the shit really hits the fan. ie if infections double and double again in this wave, then a lot of normal life will be disrupted to ever greater extents in the coming weeks, via self-isolation, lack of staff, personal sense of risk etc. Not to the extent of formal lockdown, but somewhat similar in practice in some areas. Then a little later school holidays for England will come, which are also equivalent to applying the brakes. This will lead to much moaning from 'freedom lovers' and the shit newspapers, businesses etc, they will realise that the rhetoric about opening up, and the governments ultimate ambitions on this front, have not actually come to full fruition this July.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 5, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> _Ryanair said face masks would remain mandatory on its flight "in order to protect the health of our passengers and crew"._
> You will be allowed to take it off for a £10 fee


Genuinely can't tell if the last sentence is sarcasm or not.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 5, 2021)

A cautionary tale apparently from the Ministry of Health in Israel: in recent weeks a dramatic decline in the effectiveness of the vaccine (Pfizer BNT162b2) against corona infection has been observed.

Before June protection against infection was around 94%. From 6 June, five days after restrictions were all abolished, to recent (limit of current data), the effectiveness of the vaccine to infection, and mild disease, had dropped to 64%. Effectiveness in preventing hospitalisation dropped from 98% to 93% over this same period.

Delta/B.1.617.2 currently appears to account for around 60% of infections in Israel, with alpha/B.1.1.7 around 38%.








						פרסום ראשון: ירידה ביעילות החיסון בארץ, עדיין מונע תחלואה קשה ב-93%
					

לפי נתוני משרד הבריאות המעודכנים, יעילות החיסון מפני הדבקה צנחה ל-64% בחודש האחרון, על רקע התפשטות זן דלתא וביטול ההגבלות. עם זאת, ההגנה מפני מחלה קשה ואשפוז עדיין גבוהה מאוד. בכיר בצוות לטיפול במגיפות: "נתונים מטרידים". בדיון הצוות הלילה לא התקבלה החלטה בנוגע לחיסון שלישי




					www.ynet.co.il
				




e2a: Israeli Ministry of Health brief statement confirming this.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 5, 2021)

Please say they will still be required by airlines. Or will that depend if it's a British airline or not?


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

If the NHS were to take the George Cross down to the pawn shop, could they exchange it for a decent standard of PPE?


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

2hats said:


> A cautionary tale apparently from the Ministry of Health in Israel: in recent weeks a dramatic decline in the effectiveness of the vaccine (Pfizer BNT162b2) against corona infection has been observed.
> 
> Before June protection against infection was around 94%. From 6 June, five days after restrictions were all abolished, to recent (limit of current data), the effectiveness of the vaccine to infection, and mild disease, had dropped to 64%. Effectiveness in preventing hospitalisation dropped from 98% to 93% over this same period.
> 
> ...


If people get confused about what we will see more obviously via positive case and hospitalisation numbers in different age groups around this country in the weeks ahead, that may go a long way towards explaining it.


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> If the NHS were to take the George Cross down to the pawn shop, could they exchange it for a decent standard of PPE?



Apologies (half-hearted ones) for posting satire on a serious thread, but... 









						Seven occasions when a George Cross is better than money, by an NHS worker
					

SURE, money is great, but midwife Eleanor Shaw and other NHS staff awarded the George Cross agree that it’s nothing compared to a notional medal.




					www.thedailymash.co.uk


----------



## Petcha (Jul 5, 2021)

This does feel a bit too much like a concert poster. And one of those gigs when you think the artists lower down the bill will probably outshine the headliner


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 5, 2021)

Petcha said:


> This does feel a bit too much like a concert poster. And one of those gigs when you think the artists lower down the bill will probably outshine the headliner



.


----------



## Cloo (Jul 5, 2021)

Anecdotally people seem about 50/50 on continuing to wear masks or not... I'm think I might order some of the right and proper disposable ones just for a few occasions upcoming where I will have to be in an enclosed space with others seeing as they might really count in that situation.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

State of fucking this:


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> If the NHS were to take the George Cross down to the pawn shop, could they exchange it for a decent standard of PPE?


----------



## zahir (Jul 5, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> State of fucking this:


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 5, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> State of fucking this:




FFS!

She dealt with it well, but I can't help feeling she missed an opportunity there to explain that communism involves giving a shit about your community, not just yourself as an individual. 

Fair play to her though, she couldn't have known she'd be asked that, and shouldn't have been.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 5, 2021)

Philip Schofield annoyed me this morning (yeah I had This Morning on for a bit between lessons) by attempting to argue with a doctor who said the plans to drop masks were ludicrous. Seeing him argue against masks annoyed me far more than a random idiot on the street because him and Holly have real influence over many people.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jul 5, 2021)

I really, really hope that UK hospital trusts insist on face masks at work being mandatory. Although when covid first arrived in the UK us NHS staff were told not to wear masks  .


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 5, 2021)

as a public facing worker, i’m very worried about the relaxing of mandated mask wearing. it’s a huge mistake imo. such a tiny measure that can slow transmission and yet they’re considering letting people go maskless inside


----------



## MickiQ (Jul 5, 2021)

That was pretty shit to be honest what's her politics got to do with it? He might as well as said "Why should we take you seriously when you're wearing a red jumper and clearly have no fashion sense?"
The woman was presenting a scientific argument, he should have either brought on a scientist with a different view or have been honest and said "Other concerns overide the science" which is also a valid argument not tried to discredit her because he disagreed with her politics.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> as a public facing worker, i’m very worried about the relaxing of mandated mask wearing. it’s a huge mistake imo. such a tiny measure that can slow transmission and yet they’re considering letting people go maskless inside



Yes, I can see why you would be concerned. Is there a meaningful discussion to be had with your employer re mandating masks for the punters?


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 5, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Philip Schofield annoyed me this morning (yeah I had This Morning on for a bit between lessons) by attempting to argue with a doctor who said the plans to drop masks were ludicrous. Seeing him argue against masks annoyed me far more than a random idiot on the street because him and Holly have real influence over many people.



Willoughby has the IQ of a flipflop, and Schofield, little, if any better. They are a pair of irritating fuckwits.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 5, 2021)

The Twitty & Whitty show is about to start.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 5, 2021)

Absolute fucking disgrace.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Jul 5, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> I really, really hope that UK hospital trusts insist on face masks at work being mandatory. Although when covid first arrived in the UK us NHS staff were told not to wear masks  .


Ordered not to wear masks on pain of disciplinary action.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> That was pretty shit to be honest what's her politics got to do with it? He might as well as said "Why should we take you seriously when you're wearing a red jumper and clearly have no fashion sense?"
> The woman was preventing a scientific argument, he should have either brought on a scientist with a different view or have been honest and said "Other concerns overide the science" which is also a valid argument not tried to discredit her because he disagreed with her politics.


It's absolutely blatant smear tactic. Poisoning the well. Madeley is an avowed 'lockdown sceptic', baptised by Saint Hitchens of Twat. Never mind his comedy Partridge stylings, he's a crank


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 5, 2021)

1,905 patients in hospital was on the 1st. 1,888 in England alone in today's figures.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 5, 2021)

As expected. Lift all restrictions and let it rip.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

"People will be allowed to make their own decisions about what is safe, instead of behaviour being determined by laws."

Death by libertarianism


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 5, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Yes, I can see why you would be concerned. Is there a meaningful discussion to be had with your employer re mandating masks for the punters?


they will probably continue to tell the public to mask up inside their buildings, but us ground troops are the ones having to enforce this and it won’t be fun if UKGOV has told everyone they can do whatever they liked


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> I really, really hope that UK hospital trusts insist on face masks at work being mandatory. Although when covid first arrived in the UK us NHS staff were told not to wear masks  .



There's been lots on how masks will still be compulsory in healthcare settings.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jul 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> they will probably continue to tell the public to mask up inside their buildings, but us ground troops are the ones having to enforce this and it won’t be fun if UKGOV has told everyone they can do whatever they liked


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Jul 5, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> "People will be allowed to make their own decisions about what is safe, instead of behaviour being determined by laws."
> 
> Death by libertarianism


Personally I believe that smoking isn't bad for your health. Therefore passive smoking is quite OK and nothing to worry about. I also think that there's nothing wrong with my driving around at 120 mph on the wrong side of the road. I'll probably be alright. That's what really matters.


----------



## Mr Retro (Jul 5, 2021)

This is fantastic news. Waves of relief 😎


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 5, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> This is fantastic news. Waves of relief 😎


in what way is it good news?


----------



## kalidarkone (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> There's been lots on how masks will still be compulsory in healthcare settings.


Good!


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> There's been lots on how masks will still be compulsory in healthcare settings.


i wish this could be extended to any public-facing role


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 5, 2021)

It does feel like we are all participants in some grand experiment.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> in what way is it good news?



The poster who said that has consistently been against lockdowns and pretty much any measures taken to prevent the spread of the virus.

Personally I suspect the announcement today makes another full lockdown more likely.


----------



## andysays (Jul 5, 2021)

Sue said:


> Folk from USDAW/Unite on R4 earlier sounding very unhappy about it. Who knows if that'll end up being anything more concrete though.


More here

*Unions warn workers at risk if face masks rules dropped*

It really does seem that it's time for those of us who are in a position to take a collective stand through our unions etc to do so now, and start discussing and organising for what we're going to do on 19th July.


----------



## Supine (Jul 5, 2021)

Sounds like irreversibly has been dropped and contingency measures are the new thing. That’s a further lockdown being prepared for.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 5, 2021)

Supine said:


> Sounds like irreversibly has been dropped and contingency measures are the new thing. That’s a further lockdown being prepared for.



Yes I got that impression as well.  Some interesting choice of words being used.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 5, 2021)

I'm getting the impression we're getting a summer holiday from restrictions and then back to reintroducing them later.


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> Let’s meet back here in a month or so and see where we are. If deaths are above what would normally by associated with the approaching winter season I’ll admit I was wrong. When I’m right I’ll still be nice to youse 👍
> 
> I hope with all my heart I’m right



September 2020 post from them. Any admission that you don't know what you're talking about yet Mr Retro?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 5, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> I'm getting the impression we're getting a summer holiday from restrictions and then back to reintroducing them later.



Same as last summer, then - and no support available in the meantime for anyone who 'takes personal responsibility', despite being encouraged to but also not to.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jul 5, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Ironically enough, Loose meat 's initial engagement on urban75 was to argue against road changes in South London that are aimed at improving road safety for pedestrians and cyclists.


Every. Single. Time.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 5, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> I'm getting the impression we're getting a summer holiday from restrictions and then back to reintroducing them later.


Yeah, 'people have to start dying in large numbers before we change our policy', seems to be the policy.


----------



## LDC (Jul 5, 2021)

And those people will be poor, vulnerable, and key workers mostly, again.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

Supine said:


> Sounds like irreversibly has been dropped and contingency measures are the new thing. That’s a further lockdown being prepared for.


With the public to blame when that happens

Again


----------



## belboid (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> And those people will be poor, vulnerable, and key workers mostly, again.


as Jonathan Ashworth has actually pointed out!

_In a response to the government’s announcement, the shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, asked Javid what does the phrase he used “learning to life with Covid” mean, how many deaths are acceptable, how many cases of long Covid are acceptable? What risk assessment has he done of new variant emerging, why is the government collapsing all mitigations completely?

Ashworth said that “masks don’t restrict freedoms in a pandemic, they ensure those that go to the shops or who take public transport can do so safely because it protects others”.

Ashworth added: “Who suffers when masks are removed, it’s those who work in shops, those who drive buses, drive taxis, those who work in hospitality, low paid workers without access to decent sick pay, who live in overcrowded accommodation, who have been savagely disproportionately impacted from the virus since day one.”_


----------



## Espresso (Jul 5, 2021)

I trust* that on 19th July, every single MP will be in the House of Commons, cheek by jowl with each other, arguing the toss over whatever is on the cards for that date, because working from home will be over. 

*Where trust = do not believe at all


----------



## prunus (Jul 5, 2021)

I can’t understand how 

“If it does not open up now, it might be worse opening up later, when the autumn is getting closer.”

can possibly make any sense?  Can anyone help?


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

Supine said:


> Sounds like irreversibly has been dropped and contingency measures are the new thing. That’s a further lockdown being prepared for.


In some ways the press conference was hilarious with its awkward juxtapositions, and went as predicted in so many ways.

It wasnt exactly a freedom day parade. Whittys bit about wearing masks was quite good.

"If we dont open up now then when will we ever open up?" as a new justification for acting now was something to behold. One that invites a few different answers that are all more sensible than the governments own.

As expected they resisted going into exact details about what hospital and death numbers modelling lead them to expect, but they were more graphic than expected about doubling times and Johnson even had an illustration of the sort of number of cases we might be seeing by the 19th written into his remarks.

They didnt have all that much to announce about changing self-isolation etc but they still pushed bits of that further than I hoped they would. Although some of that was just noise about what they plan to do with bubbles and isolation for children at some future moment, an issue they will likely sort for next term. And a noise they wanted to make to disguise the lack of movement on the self-isolation front right now. All the same, it doesnt sound like there will be long periods to wait before having to groan about the nature of further developments on that policy front. The newspapers didnt get all of what they demanded, just as Johnson did not give the Express what they wanted from todays press conference in terms of a firm and boosterish 'get back to the workplace' message, they got something but it was halfhearted.

Part of the reason I find such press conferences hilarious is how desperate they are these days to point out what a firebreaker advantage school holidays offer, in contrast to how desperate they were to downplay the positive effect of school closures on pandemic waves when they were bullshitting their way through press conferences in the first half of March 2020.

The somewhat muted tone of the press conference, 'the pandemic is far from over' and other related messaging can be interpreted in several different ways. Delta has taken some of the wind out of their sails and they arent getting to go quite as far as they would like, and are wary about what may be necessary later. But they are also being reckless with some policies, and are just trying to compensate for that by wrapping their lack of caution in cautious language. Whilst also making it sound like things will be more normal than they actually will, in order to disguise their reduced ambitions.


----------



## MickiQ (Jul 5, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Genuinely can't tell if the last sentence is sarcasm or not.


The scariest thing is that I'm not sure it is either


----------



## oryx (Jul 5, 2021)

"If we don't go ahead now when we've clearly done so much with the vaccination programme to break the link... when would we go ahead?" says Johnson.

How about on a day when we don't have 27,334 new cases?


----------



## Mr Retro (Jul 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> September 2020 post from them. Any admission that you don't know what you're talking about yet Mr Retro?


 If we are going to bring up old posts I remember not 3 or 4 weeks ago reading something from you saying deaths will "easily be hundreds daily" or similar.  So I could ask you the same question could I not LynnDoyleCooper?

I'm not interested in an argument. For me the relief I feel has taken me by surprise and I just needed to say it. Kids back in uninterrupted education, people able to fully run their business, choose if I want to wear an ineffective cloth covering on my face. We have achieved what was sold to us 16 months ago and "flattened the curve" now is the right time to open up society fully.


----------



## quiet guy (Jul 5, 2021)

None of it makes sense. They are playing to their sponsors / donors demands and ignoring all the sensible data. It's the usual dog whistle politics.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

prunus said:


> I can’t understand how
> 
> “If it does not open up now, it might be worse opening up later, when the autumn is getting closer.”
> 
> can possibly make any sense?  Can anyone help?


There are various modelling exercises which can show that some combinations of when and how far you go with imposing or removing restrictions can lead to a wave that has very bad timing, eg coming during a difficult winter period when there are lots of additional pressures.

And some of that came up today. But I'd be inclined to judge that sensible stuff separately from their crude new rhetoric about 'if we cant open up this summer then we'd either have to do it in winter or not till next year, and next year or winter arent options we want to go for, so now it is!'.

This sort of thing could also come up if someone comes out with the alternative 'at least wait till the adult population is vaccinated', because then they can point to that not happening till end of summer/early autumn, which is then getting into the winter danger timing zone in terms of not being when you want to start letting people relax. Although I think Johnson fucked up his precise claim today, when he said that everyone over 40 would have been double-jabbed by the 19th or whatever claim it was he made - it was the wrong claim, he was supposed to claim something different to that because things are not on track for all over 40s to be double-jabbed by then. Maybe he was supposed to say over 50s, or a different date, I havent checked.

Of course only a moderate reframing of the above is required in order to describe things more bluntly as 'we think we'll have to restrict things again in future but we still want to make use of a window of opportunity that we expected this summer to offer. And we still intend to do that even though it looks like that window of opportunity has actually been nailed shut by Delta. So we will throw a brick through the window and invite people to lean out of it this summer'.


----------



## zahir (Jul 5, 2021)




----------



## BillRiver (Jul 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> There are various modelling exercises which can show that some combinations of when and how far you go with imposing or removing restrictions can lead to a wave that has very bad timing, eg coming during a difficult winter period when there are lots of additional pressures.
> 
> And some of that came up today. But I'd be inclined to judge that sensible stuff separately from their crude new rhetoric about 'if we cant open up this summer then we'd either have to do it in winter or not till next year, and next year or winter arent options we want to go for, so now it is!'.
> 
> ...



Summertime restrictions (I no longer refer to lockdowns when talking about the UK because we never have fully locked down) are much easier to tolerate for most people - meeting outside is bearable when it's warm and dry. Pleasant, even.

What I fear, as well as the sickness, disability, and deaths, is that all this risk taking now could lead to another winter of restrictions.

Winter restrictions, in the dark and the cold, are tough on a whole other level, ime.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Summertime restrictions (I no longer refer to lockdowns when talking about the UK because we never have fully locked down) are much easier to tolerate for most people - meeting outside is bearable when it's warm and dry. Pleasant, even.
> 
> What I fear, as well as the sickness, disability, and deaths, is that all this risk taking now could lead to another winter of restrictions.
> 
> Winter restrictions, in the dark and the cold, are tough on a whole other level, ime.


Thats one of their excuses for letting it rip now though, with the idea that all the people catching it now wont then catch it in winter.

But they wont promise a normal winter for all because of the remaining unknowns about that picture, and because of the potential for other respiratory infections to come along at the same time and cause too much hospital pressure in total.


----------



## inva (Jul 5, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> It's absolutely blatant smear tactic. Poisoning the well. Madeley is an avowed 'lockdown sceptic', baptised by Saint Hitchens of Twat. Never mind his comedy Partridge stylings, he's a crank


He's vile, worth remembering this one from 2013 as well:



			
				Journal of Paramedic Practice said:
			
		

> On Saturday January 12, 2013, under the heading ‘Risking a baby's life for lunch’ the Richard & Judy article asserted the ‘grotesque truth’ that ‘West Midlands Ambulance Service's finest continued to munch their lunch after a six-week-old baby boy suffered a heart attack’ and that ‘Incredibly, paramedics refused to interrupt their lunch break despite an emergency call for an ambulance to attend”.’
> 
> ‘It's simply not true that this crew sat ‘feeding their faces’ knowing that a patient, in this case a baby, was suffering a life-threatening heart condition,’ said Andy Proctor, Paramedic spokesperson for College of Paramedics members in the West Midlands.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> It does feel like we are all participants in some grand experiment.


One thing for sure is that the UK government hope to claim this approach has been a success, so the likes of Johnson can then claim that we have shown the rest of the world how a return to relative normality can be done.

Many are probably watching on with interest, unsure whether there is any reasonable prospect of that happening, or whether the UK will end up as a sick joke again, one thats overrepresented in the 'what not to do' column.


----------



## prunus (Jul 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> There are various modelling exercises which can show that some combinations of when and how far you go with imposing or removing restrictions can lead to a wave that has very bad timing, eg coming during a difficult winter period when there are lots of additional pressures.
> 
> And some of that came up today. But I'd be inclined to judge that sensible stuff separately from their crude new rhetoric about 'if we cant open up this summer then we'd either have to do it in winter or not till next year, and next year or winter arent options we want to go for, so now it is!'.
> 
> ...



Is that anything other than (partial) herd immunity?  Ie it's better if the next X million people who catch it do so spread over summer rather than all at once in winter? It really is just you're all on your own now, good luck, and if you're unable to protect yourself to extent you'd like because eg you work in a shop or drive a bus, well, maybe next time you'll think about that before deciding to be poor.

Cunts the lot of them.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Summertime restrictions (I no longer refer to lockdowns when talking about the UK because we never have fully locked down) are much easier to tolerate for most people - meeting outside is bearable when it's warm and dry. Pleasant, even.
> 
> What I fear, as well as the sickness, disability, and deaths, is that all this risk taking now could lead to another winter of restrictions.
> 
> Winter restrictions, in the dark and the cold, are tough on a whole other level, ime.


I agree entirely. My mental health took a real hit this past winter. Hasn't fully recovered and won't while we're still in the twilight zone thanks to this government. I'm far from the only or the worst either (I'm alive after all ffs)


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

Landlords and bosses will of course be celebrating. Could this be a summer/autumn of evictions?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 5, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> This is fantastic news. Waves of relief 😎


Which one is your favourite? First, second or third wave?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Part of the reason I find such press conferences hilarious is how desperate they are these days to point out what a firebraker advantage school holidays offer, in contrast to how desperate they were to downplay the positive effect of school closures on pandemic waves when they were bullshitting their way through press conferences in the first half of March 2020.


A very good point. The government and its shills like that ghoul Harries banging on about schools not being a vector for covid now saying how great the holidays are coming as this will naturally lower cases is more rank hypocrisy and plain opportunist bullshittery


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

prunus said:


> Is that anything other than (partial) herd immunity?  Ie it's better if the next X million people who catch it do so spread over summer rather than all at once in winter? It really is just you're all on your own now, good luck, and if you're unable to protect yourself to extent you'd like because eg you work in a shop or drive a bus, well, maybe next time you'll think about that before deciding to be poor.
> 
> Cunts the lot of them.


Yes in some key ways it is that, a reworking of their original plan A at the start of the pandemic, and a reworking of some of the rhetoric that went with it. Vallances doomed herd immunity justification that they tried in desperation just before that plan died mid March 2020, was that if we pushed down too hard on the curve to really suppress things, it would just bounce back again later when we dont want it, eg in winter.

I would say that this whole population immunity side of things is a big chunk of the governments approach, but its not quite the whole thing. Hence the reason why the 19th wont be a full freedom day in the way some demanded. Even this shit, reckless government is still wary enough to have left some other options available to them if they cant make the numbers add up. So yeah its herd immunity via a combination of infections and vaccination, with some stuff left in place to attempt to keep R within a certain range they think the system can cope with.

If there wasnt a school summer holiday coming, with its expected effects on R, then I'm not exactly sure what they'd have tried in order to create a compatible version of this plan. Probably they would have had to keep a number of other restrictions in place on July 19th compared to what they've actually gone for via the wiggle room that school holidays provide. Which also implies that once schools are back again after the summer holiday, if population immunity levels have not unlocked a very different picture in terms of potential for more waves of notable size, they will have to do something to compensate for that. Or just do what they did last year and ignore the problem for as long as possible and then have to slam on some really quite hard brakes some months further down the line.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

S☼I said:


> A very good point. The government and its shills like that ghoul Harries banging on about schools not being a vector for covid now saying how great the holidays are coming as this will naturally lower cases is more rank hypocrisy and plain opportunist bullshittery


Although every time that comes up, I feel the need to mention that some of the impact school closures have on reducing R is because this affects adult contact mixing patterns too, so its not just about direct transmission in schools.

Modellers may have tended to only look at the direct effects, ie school children mixing patterns during term time vs during holidays though.

When it comes to the modelling, this is the sort of assumptions that were used (in this case from the Imperial College modelling paper from June). Some care is required to interpret this because the R numbers here are for the previous Alpha variant, and dont take into account the impact of increasing immunity. So I expect they take these numbers, multiply by a factor to cover Delta being a more transmissive variant, and then combine that with their expectations of the immunity/susceptibility picture over time.

Central Scenario
School holidays: 2.70 (2.04 – 3.51)
School terms: 3.00 (2.33 – 3.80)

Higher R following full NPI lifting:
School holidays: 4.20 (3.51– 4.98)
School terms: 4.50 (3.81 – 5.28)

In other words with the Alpha variant they were using a 0.3 decrease in R during school holidays.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 5, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> My mental health took a real hit this past winter.



Mine too.

Love, rage, and solidarity x


----------



## Mr Retro (Jul 5, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> The poster who said that has consistently been against lockdowns *and pretty much any measures taken to prevent the spread of the virus.*


Which poster was that?


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

I dont get the same mileage out of examining the words of the BBCs Nick Triggle as I used to, but in the interests of completeness and future comparison between the different waves and the messages that swirled around each time, I will do so once again.

I've called him 'partially reformed' this year, because the only way was up for him compared to the shit he tried to sell in March 2020 and September 2020. Its still his job to frame things in a rather establishment way, but there are signs that he has at least learnt how to position his message so that he doesnt look so instantly and comprehensively foolish if the plan goes horribly wrong. In this case, via his first sentence and his last.



> No country in the world has attempted to lift restrictions like this - in the face of rapidly rising cases driven by the new, more infectious Delta variant.
> 
> Some say it would be better to wait until autumn when all adults will have had the chance to get a second vaccine dose.
> 
> That may sound good in principle, but scientists advising government seem to be backing a summer lifting.





> Unlocking was always going to drive up infections. And the problem with trying to delay that is the risk of a surge in cases at a much worse time.
> 
> By the autumn schools will be back - and we can see the huge disruption the rise in cases in recent weeks has had.
> 
> People will also be outdoors more in the summer months, which could help flatten the peak.





> But perhaps most importantly you risk running into the flu season.
> 
> That is when the NHS is under most pressure, while a Covid infection followed by flu in quick succession puts the vulnerable even more at risk.
> 
> The move is not without risk. The government is banking on the wall of immunity built up by the vaccination programme stemming these rises soon.



From the analysis section of Covid: Most rules set to end in England, says PM

As usual with these relatively narrow framing and parroting exercises, much is still missing from this picture. So I'm not about to give him an award for pandemic journalism. But I note the wiggle room and all that is not said.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

For anyone that didnt see the full press conference, this is the Guardians coverage of Whittys attempt not to be a shithead about masks:









						Chris Whitty suggests guidelines for use of masks after 19 July
					

England’s medical chief gives three situations in which it would be important to wear face covering




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 5, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Landlords and bosses will of course be celebrating. Could this be a summer/autumn of evictions?



Section 21 notice period drops back down to 2 months in October. The de facto moratorium on enforcement of possession orders will presumably be out the window as well.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

I have not read the SAGE document that the Mirror are on about in this article yet.









						SAGE warn of 'significant risk' from scrapping Covid rules in grim new papers
					

SAGE scientists warned the government step four of the roadmap 'may recreate the conditions for super spreader events' and stringent measures might be needed to bring cases down again




					www.mirror.co.uk
				






> "There is significant risk in allowing prevalence to rise, even if hospitalisations & deaths are kept low by vaccination," the document reads.
> 
> "If it were necessary to reduce prevalence to low levels again...then restrictive measures would be required for much longer."





> They warned the poor and people from a minority ethnic background have higher risk of infection and lower vaccination rates - and that this meant an increase in infections is likely to "increase health inequalities in Covid-related illness and death."





> "It is notable that countries (e.g. New Zealand) that have near-zero Covid-19 have decided to retain some baseline measures (e.g. wearing of masks on public transport) to reduce the impact of occasional outbreaks."


----------



## 2hats (Jul 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> I have not read the SAGE document that the Mirror are on about in this article yet.


From SAGE meeting 87, 22 April 2021: 'EMG, SPI-M and SPI-B: Considerations in implementing long-term ‘baseline’ NPIs'. Published 5 July, 2021.


----------



## bimble (Jul 5, 2021)

This bit, about vaccinatation certificates, in the guardian writeup of what was announced today -
_"The document outlining the full plans noted that certificates could be used to help keep businesses open “if the country is facing a difficult situation in autumn or winter”._

so yeah, if this is "irreversible" like PM kept saying the other day i'd be v surprised.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 5, 2021)

II


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 5, 2021)

bimble said:


> This bit, about vaccinatation certificates, in the guardian writeup of what was announced today -
> _"The document outlining the full plans noted that certificates could be used to help keep businesses open “if the country is facing a difficult situation in autumn or winter”._
> 
> so yeah, if this is "irreversible" like PM kept saying the other day i'd be v surprised.


You are correct, it is absolutely reversible, and it will be reversed if and when the hospital numbers threaten to overwhelm the NHS.

Personally I'm going to try and enjoy the relative freedom* while we have it because I struggle to see us getting through winter without restrictions.

*While staying safe


----------



## 2hats (Jul 5, 2021)

brogdale said:


> View attachment 277079
> 
> II


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

This is the document covering todays announcements. Much of it is quotable so I will have to restrict myself to just a few key points.



> There will still be high levels of infection and illness and therefore disruption to lives, the economy and delivery of public services.





> *Retain contingency measures* to respond to unexpected events, while accepting that further cases, hospitalisations and deaths will occur as the country learns to live with COVID-19.





> Businesses must not require a self-isolating worker to come to work, and should make sure that workers and customers who feel unwell do not attend the setting.





> It will remain a legal requirement for people to self-isolate if they test positive or are told to do so by NHS Test and Trace.





> Individuals may choose to limit the close contact they have with those they do not usually live with in order to reduce the risk of catching or spreading COVID-19, particularly if they are clinically extremely vulnerable. It is important to respect and be considerate of those who may wish to take a more cautious approach as restrictions are lifted.











						COVID-19 Response: Summer 2021
					






					www.gov.uk
				




I will cover some stuff to do with schools and the governments ambitions to remove certain forms of self isolation in another post.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

So in regards removing schools bubbles, and the timing of that and other changes to self-isolation rules, thre is this sort of stuff. They've given themselves a bit of wiggle room and as expected the timing for some of this shit is not till later.



> The Government will change the controls that apply in early years, schools, colleges and higher education institutions to maintain a baseline of protective measures while maximising attendance and minimising disruption to children and young people’s education. The Government’s intention is that from step 4 children will no longer need to be in consistent groups (‘bubbles’), and early years settings, schools or colleges will not be required to routinely carry out contact tracing, which will help to minimise the number of children isolating. Contact tracing in specific educational settings would only be triggered if deemed necessary in response to a local outbreak.
> The Government also intends to exempt under 18s who are close contacts of a positive case from the requirement to self-isolate, in line with the approach for those who are fully vaccinated (as set out below). Further detail will be published in due course and the changes are likely to come into effect later in the summer. There will be no restrictions on in-person teaching and learning in universities.





> The Government expects the Test, Trace and Isolate system will remain necessary through the autumn and winter.
> 
> Continued take-up and compliance is essential to supporting the country in living with the virus through autumn and winter.





> The Government intends to exempt people who have been fully vaccinated from the requirement to self-isolate if they are a contact of a positive case, with a similar exemption for under 18s (as above). Anyone who tests positive will still need to self-isolate regardless of their vaccination status. Further details will be published in due course and the changes are likely to come into effect later in the summer.
> 
> Until at least the end of September, self-isolation enforcement and support will otherwise continue as it is now.



As for the emergency brakes they are retaining:



> The Government will maintain contingency plans for reimposing economic and social restrictions at a local, regional or national level if evidence suggests they are necessary to suppress or manage a dangerous variant. Such measures would only be re-introduced as a last resort to prevent unsustainable pressure on the NHS. The Government will also maintain the current regulations until 28 September that enable local authorities to respond to serious and imminent public health threats. The Government will also publish an updated COVID-19 contain outbreak management framework for local areas in due course.



And there are a few other things in the document that hint at how much local public health authorities will still be able to intervene in specific outbreaks.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 5, 2021)

Thank you elbows


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 5, 2021)

*Disabled women have begun a three-week protest to highlight “appalling” research findings that showed they were almost twice as likely to die from COVID-19 during the pandemic as non-disabled women. 

Disabled women decide ‘enough is enough’ and launch protest over pandemic deaths*

They said the research showed that disabled women have been treated as “collateral damage” by the government during the pandemic.

About 20 disabled members of the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) and allies – including the party’s co-founder, Sandi Toksvig – were outside the Houses of Parliament yesterday (_pictured_)) to begin their #91Percent campaign.

The party wants to ensure that the official inquiry into the handling of the pandemic crisis examines its impact on disabled people, including the disproportionate loss of life faced by disabled women.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Thank you elbows


No problem.

So as far as I can judge, plenty of the brakes that exist already in terms of specific outbreak responses at a local level will still be in place for the current wave. The stuff I've mentioned in recent weeks that is nowhere near as comprehensive as lockdowns etc, but is still something that has an effect and that causes obvious disruption and a sense that life is not 'back to normal'.

Even the school stuff doesnt necessarily amount to that much less disruption - it sounds like it may stop disruption when the number of children testing positive is a few, but notable school outbreaks will probably still lead to plenty being told to self-isolate, or the schools themselves shutting down certain stuff for a while, as already happens. And when staff catch it things wont change much until the broader, and more vaguely timed changes for vaccinated adults isolating when they've been in contact with someone positive come in. And the proposed timing of these school changes means the new system wont really get a chance to demonstrate itself before the summer holidays begin, so in some sense they arent really making this change as earlier as they are trying to suggest they are.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

And at least the fucking document is written in such a way that there are plenty of bits of it that I can wave in the face of any peers, family members etc that think I'm some kind of freak for still treading extremely carefully in the months ahead. And although the plan gives businesses the green light for all sorts of shit, it still includes lip service to enough pandemic principals that employees can point out if they come under pressure to do something they arent comfortable with by management.


----------



## Supine (Jul 5, 2021)

I’m starting a new work contract next week and it means I’ll be working away from home for most of the next six months.

i honestly think I’m in more danger of catching covid in the next few months than i have been for the last 18.

Boris is a reckless idiot. Everything Whittey said contradicted his news on loosening restrictions.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> They said the research showed that disabled women have been treated as “collateral damage” by the government during the pandemic.
> 
> About 20 disabled members of the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) and allies – including the party’s co-founder, Sandi Toksvig – were outside the Houses of Parliament yesterday (_pictured_)) to begin their #91Percent campaign.
> 
> The party wants to ensure that the official inquiry into the handling of the pandemic crisis examines its impact on disabled people, including the disproportionate loss of life faced by disabled women.



Yes there is quite the collection of groups that will have good cause to claim they've been treated in that way in the pandemic, backed up by a fair amount of evidence. So I do expect this side of things will get some attention at the inquiry. Relatively strong language for an inquiry may end up being used in regards some of the findings and recommendations in this area, and then there will be the usual spectacle of the government claiming they will take the finding on board, but trying to get away with not learning the lessons and doing as little as possible.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 5, 2021)

Lots of asking business owners what they think about the relaxation of restrictions, on the radio tonight.

Not so much asking of their workers, or the ICU nurses, or ICU cleaning staff, etc...


----------



## existentialist (Jul 5, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> State of fucking this:



It's nice to be reminded from time to time why I'm right not to bother watching broadcast television.


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

Supine said:


> Boris is a reckless idiot. Everything Whittey said contradicted his news on loosening restrictions.


In terms of when Whitty talks about a specific public health measure that he supports and doesnt think should be ditched or seen as something abnormal to be eliminated as soon as ossible, yes the differences are clear. Simialr to a painful press conference discussion between Johnson and Van Tam about masks some time ago.

But Whitty is also always very keen to point out that ministers make the decisions and what a terribly hard balancing act they have. He is part of the establishment that will sometimes justify the unjustifiable in the name of that balance and the practicalities of what the service can actually offer.

I also groaned at his line about how the NHS is an emergency service so it will always be able to cope with whatever emergencies are thrown at it. But the implication of that is that its only true because an emergency service is allowed to cut standards and what can reasonably be expected from it when it is faced with something that means it has to go into emergency firefighting mode. We saw in the first wave that in some parts of the country at certain moments, 'die at home to protect the NHS' was very much a consideration although obviously it was people like me pointing that out so bluntly rather than anyone at a podium doing so.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 5, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> That was pretty shit to be honest what's her politics got to do with it? He might as well as said "Why should we take you seriously when you're wearing a red jumper and clearly have no fashion sense?"
> The woman was presenting a scientific argument, he should have either brought on a scientist with a different view or have been honest and said "Other concerns overide the science" which is also a valid argument not tried to discredit her because he disagreed with her politics.


Yebbut...Richard Madeley   I mean, we're not talking "heavyweight political commentator" here.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

existentialist said:


> It's nice to be reminded from time to time why I'm right not to bother watching broadcast television.


Neither do I.

Read bloody twitter thouhg


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Yebbut...Richard Madeley   I mean, we're not talking "heavyweight political commentator" here.


Doesn't really matter. His job is to poison the well. I don't see GMB being bomabrded with complaints about his misunderstanding of communism and why it's not relevant to the discussion. Apparently Susan's interlocutor was some clown from Turning Point UK! That well known science forum


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Personally I believe that smoking isn't bad for your health. Therefore passive smoking is quite OK and nothing to worry about. I also think that there's nothing wrong with my driving around at 120 mph on the wrong side of the road. I'll probably be alright. That's what really matters.


if people had to pay for their healthcare (misnomer, they already do) they woudl value it more, especially during a non existent plandemic caused by Prince Charles and Billy Gates that affects the poorest, women, and ethnic minorities more than me! Good luck with that!


----------



## elbows (Jul 5, 2021)

2hats said:


> From SAGE meeting 87, 22 April 2021: 'EMG, SPI-M and SPI-B: Considerations in implementing long-term ‘baseline’ NPIs'. Published 5 July, 2021.


Thanks. I wont attempt to quote all the good bits from it right now due to the amount of other stuff I already quoted. But here is a nice chunk that neatly describes the important aspects we have to keep pointing out whenever dealing with drooling freedom 'its all over' fuckwits or those that just start moaning about low or zero covid being an unrealistic approach without merit.



> Although vaccination of most vulnerable groups will have reduced the proportion of community infections that lead to hospitalisation and death, there remain many advantages from an epidemiological perspective in maintaining both low prevalence and R<1. It makes it easier to prevent a return to rapid growth in the epidemic which could lead to the NHS being overwhelmed (e.g. because it gives more time to react to increases when starting from a low baseline, it is easier to spot outbreaks in advance of them growing large, and Test Trace and Isolate (TTI) can be more effective at lower prevalence). This has been shown in some countries that have very low or near-zero Covid-19, since occasional outbreaks can then be dealt with quickly, including rapid sequencing of all cases to search for new variants. Lower transmission also reduces the in-country risk of the emergence of variants of concern as well as slowing spread of any VoCs (including imported VoCs). Lower infection rates will also reduce impact of post-Covid syndromes and allow more NHS capacity to be used for routine care. Since groups from a lower socioeconomic position and minority ethnic backgrounds have higher risk of infection and lower vaccination rates then any increase in prevalence is also likely to increase health inequalities in Covid-related illness and death.6 7
> 
> There is significant risk in allowing prevalence to rise, even if hospitalisations and deaths are kept low by vaccination. If it were necessary to reduce prevalence to low levels again (e.g., VoC become more pathogenic for others previously less affected), then restrictive measures would be required for much longer.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 5, 2021)

I don't want to be endlessly linking to disaster tory insanity clips, and I hate to side with a wanker like Ian Dale. But this?



Fucking all the Christ; people actually voted for this mess


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 5, 2021)

Thousands of disabled people aren't even double jabbed yet - remember, not all disabled people fall into the "clinically vulnerable" category for jab priority, far from it. Doesn't mean they're not more vulnerable than the average for contracting, getting seriously ill from, or dying from Covid.

That's from a variety of factors including increased risked of poverty, worsened health, and higher likelihood of needing physical contact with other people for care* (often a number of different people, who are themselves in close phyical contact with other clients).


*what passes for care these days, often outsourced to private companies who don't give a damn about their employees or "clients"


----------



## cuppa tee (Jul 5, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> I don't want to be endlessly linking to disaster tory insanity clips, and I hate to side with a wanker like Ian Dale. But this?
> 
> 
> 
> Fucking all the Christ; people actually voted for this mess



Science background too.....







						Miriam Cates MP
					

About Miriam  Miriam was born and brought up in Sheffield, and for over ten years has lived with her husband and three children in Oughtibridge, a village in the South of her constituency.  Miriam is an active member of her community, she has chaired the school PTA, helped to set up and lead a...




					www.miriamcates.org.uk


----------



## Smangus (Jul 5, 2021)

She sounds really fucking thick and self entitled


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 5, 2021)

If the lunacy of lifting all restrictions when cases are rising sharply results in another COVID variant I'm going to rip Boris Johnson's lungs out - with the possible exception of Xi Jinping, I don't know if there's a person alive who has done more to help the virus spread.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 6, 2021)

This is ridiculous. The government want me to feel safer now and so are lifting restrictions yet for the first time this year, even though I'm double jabbed, I feel distinctly unsafe and stressed about it again because of the unknown of long covid.

I just know that more people are going to come in to where I work with no masks. Ffp2 masks are my best bet aren't they? Can i reuse them a few times?


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 6, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> This is ridiculous. The government want me to feel safer now and so are lifting restrictions yet for the first time this year. Even though I'm double jabbed I feel distinctly unsafe and stressed about it again because of the unknown of long covid.
> 
> I just know that more people are going to come in to where I work with no masks. Ffp2 masks are my best bet aren't they? Can i reuse them a few times?


Really feel for you Doctor Carrot. I think N99 masks are the more protective (but more expensive) ones, though n95 pretty good. Think you can reuse them  (99 and 95) up to a point.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jul 6, 2021)

Dreading the point where I'm going to have to get back on a tube train every morning to go to work. Back in March, when I got my first jab, I didn't mind the idea of returning two or three days a week, especially after being cooped up at home for a year. But three months later, with Delta here, rapidly growing levels of community infection and the prospect of full tube carriages with lots of maskless people, it all seems like a recipe for inevitable infection. I guess the question is, now I'm double jabbed, how _lucky _do I feel? Basically, the Government are like a reckless gambler in a casino, but we're the chips that are being thrown down on the table!


----------



## zahir (Jul 6, 2021)

Thread from Deepti Gurdasani


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jul 6, 2021)

Britain, the petri dish of the world - let's run an experiment to see what happens when we allow the delta variant to let rip through a population of millions with no attempt at control. What could possibly go wrong?!


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 6, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> This is ridiculous. The government want me to feel safer now and so are lifting restrictions yet for the first time this year, even though I'm double jabbed, I feel distinctly unsafe and stressed about it again because of the unknown of long covid.
> 
> I just know that more people are going to come in to where I work with no masks. Ffp2 masks are my best bet aren't they? Can i reuse them a few times?Covid: Masks upgrade cuts infection risk, research finds



Found this: 
Covid: Masks upgrade cuts infection risk, research finds​
Covid: Masks upgrade cuts infection risk, research finds


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 6, 2021)

zahir said:


> Thread from Deepti Gurdasani



Thanks.

"Please tell me what 'personal responsibility' my child can exercise in a classroom of 32 children where no one is required to wear masks, & there are no basic ventilation requirements & infection rates are sky high. What 'personal responsibility' can i exercise as her parent?" 

That's brilliant and I wish it was qualified, senisble people like her who were the ones who had a say in what happens next, instead of the shower of shit we've got.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

I take back some of what I've said about Triggle in recent months, because he is at his shitty worst when he gets to write a whole article. Includes the typical shit from Dingwall. 









						Why it's time to think differently about Covid
					

The virus is not the deadly threat it was, but the plan to lift all restrictions is not without risk.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




"Why its time to think differently about Covid' from the man who told us on March 13th 2020 that the message was we should carry on with our lives because one way or another we'd end up catching it anyway. Just fuck off.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

Its a bit like getting a sneak preview of what the BBC might be like if one of our nuclear power stations has a meltdown. What we should do is carry on with our lives, the radiation is with us now so we may as well suck it up. In fact the faster we suck it up the sooner we can go back to the finer things in life like worshipping the queen. And its only equivalent to the dose we'd get from being exposed to BBC state propaganda for a year. And besides there are many other ways in which the government can demonstrate how little value it places on our lives, we should think about this new risk in the broader context of all the classic threats to our health that we learn not to revolt over. Seasonal flu kills lots of old people but you cant prove that this nuclear power station killed anybody. For example Professor Rupert Deathray tells us that lot of death certificates mention flu all the bloody time but none mention the Johnson memorial nuclear power station complex as a cause of death. Everything is fine, and it should be a matter of personal choice as to whether the reactor design should feature a containment vessel, and which way the wind blows. Plus kids arent thought to be at risk from radiation because they piss it out quicker. For children under 12 its more like the equivalent of a grazed knee. Keep calm, soak your balls in a Charles & Diana wedding mug, and consider working from home if you get a positive result on the literal glow tests.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

Meanwhile in the land of the most obviously shit newspapers in the pandemic period, its no surprise that the likes of the Daily Mail and the Telegraph found the ridiculous "its now or never" words of Johnson to be the ones worth turning into todays front page headlines.

I do wonder if the crude attempts at herd management have managed to impress or convince anyone beyond the class of people who on some level understand themselves to be part of the herd management brigade. Imagine being given the material they have in this pandemic and thinking yeah, I can sell this, great content, great angles. Compelling, no harder to pull off than the bullshit of normal times, honest.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 6, 2021)

9 deaths yesterday, 321 on machines, 79 million jabs done. Steady as she goes.

Germany lifts ban on double jabbed from the UK, no quarantine - it's almost as if the summer tourist cash now outweighs smearing Oxford/AZ:









						Covid-19: Germany lifts ban on tourists from UK and Portugal
					

People who are fully vaccinated will also not be required to quarantine when they arrive.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## bimble (Jul 6, 2021)

This (kings college & zoe collab study) says that vaccinated people, if infected, are 'up to 30%' less likely to get the long covid. Thats good. Not amazing but still am glad to see it.


----------



## Aladdin (Jul 6, 2021)

bimble said:


> This (kings college & zoe collab study) says that vaccinated people, if infected, are 'up to 30%' less likely to get the long covid. Thats good. Not amazing but still am glad to see it.




Still....30% less likely is not great.
😳


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 6, 2021)

30% of 15% but it doesn't say what the chance is of getting Covid is now in the first place: it's a percentage of a percentage of an unstated percentage.


----------



## bimble (Jul 6, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> 30% of 15% but it doesn't say what the chance is of getting Covid is now in the first place: it's a percentage of a percentage of an unstated percentage.


Are you stupid ? 
How could they or anyone tell you what 'the chance is of catching covid now '? It depends on where you are what you're doing and what day you ask the question on doesn't it. Whatever that number is for me today it will definitely be bigger next week anyhow.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 6, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Dreading the point where I'm going to have to get back on a tube train every morning to go to work. Back in March, when I got my first jab, I didn't mind the idea of returning two or three days a week, especially after being cooped up at home for a year. But three months later, with Delta here, rapidly growing levels of community infection and the prospect of full tube carriages with lots of maskless people, it all seems like a recipe for inevitable infection. I guess the question is, now I'm double jabbed, how _lucky _do I feel? Basically, the Government are like a reckless gambler in a casino, but we're the chips that are being thrown down on the table!


We know it takes until two weeks after the second jab before the maximum level of protection is reached.

So I'm really surprised to hear some employers promoting full attendance in the office from 19 July, when a good chunk of their staff won't be fully vaccinated yet.


----------



## LDC (Jul 6, 2021)

Javid on BBC Breakfast News, first words out of his mouth 'learn to live with covid'. Stuttering over expected number of infections and an acceptable level of deaths, although is admitting they'll go much higher.

The not isolating for double vaccinated people question came up, he said they'll be a statement later today, but sounds like it'll be no isolation for them.


----------



## bimble (Jul 6, 2021)

Whats going to happen with privately-run transport & flights? Can't really imagine that airport and my flight on 26th will be mask free.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 6, 2021)

bimble said:


> Whats going to happen with privately-run transport & flights? Can't really imagine that airport and my flight on 26th will be mask free.


Airports will keep the restrictions (at least in many areas). One reason is that there will be passengers from red and amber list countries arriving, not all of whom will be vaccinated.

I think TfL will keep the restrictions on the tube and buses as well. (Not that people on buses seem to have worked out how to cover both their nose and their mouth)


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 6, 2021)

bimble said:


> Are you stupid ?
> How could they or anyone tell you what 'the chance is of catching covid now '? It depends on where you are what you're doing and what day you ask the question on doesn't it. Whatever that number is for me today it will definitely be bigger next week anyhow.


Yes I'm stupid.

Hence I couldn't work out 30% of 15% of "where you are what you're doing and what day you ask the question".

Thanks for the 'study' link. No, really.


----------



## Elpenor (Jul 6, 2021)

bimble said:


> Whats going to happen with privately-run transport & flights? Can't really imagine that airport and my flight on 26th will be mask free.


Airports / planes are technically public transport aren’t they?


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 6, 2021)

Christ, on that note I will technically leave the U75 Brains Trust to its daily masturbation.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 6, 2021)

Decent masks are  on sale at primark of all places, reduced to £5.50. Wore mine on the tram this morning and it felt really secure to my face and comfortable. Might buy a couple more.


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Jul 6, 2021)

Ryanair announced yesterday that they’d uphold mask policy for all passengers & crew. I suspect all other airlines will do the same.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 6, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Christ, on that note I will technically leave the U75 Brains Trust to its daily masturbation.


Feel free to fuck off from this thread on a more permanent basis.


----------



## klang (Jul 6, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> 9 deaths yesterday, 321 on machines, 79 million jabs done. Steady as she goes.
> 
> Germany lifts ban on double jabbed from the UK, no quarantine - it's almost as if the summer tourist cash now outweighs smearing Oxford/AZ:
> 
> ...


still have to quarantine on the way back though, so my excitement was vey short lived.


----------



## Supine (Jul 6, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Christ, on that note I will technically leave the U75 Brains Trust to its daily masturbation.



New tshirt thread is >


----------



## existentialist (Jul 6, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Christ, on that note I will technically leave the U75 Brains Trust to its daily masturbation.


Don't let the door handle get caught in your arse crack on the way out...


----------



## teqniq (Jul 6, 2021)

Great. Just when the idiots in charge are going to relax all restrictions on the 19th:


----------



## Petcha (Jul 6, 2021)

Covid-19: Government considers permanent MIQ facility, dismisses UK's decision to 'live with Covid'
					

Plans for a permanent quarantine suggest restrictions may be with us for years, in contrast to the UK, where Boris Johnson is ready to accept deaths as the price of freedom.




					www.stuff.co.nz
				






> “At the overall rate of vaccination that they have, I wouldn't be considering removal of all restrictions ... I don't think that's the way we'll see things unfold in New Zealand,” Hipkins said.
> 
> “We are likely to see more incremental change, [rather] than dramatic change where we wake up one morning and say, 'We just go back to the way things were before Covid-19.'
> 
> “One of the things that [the] UK Government have been very clear about [is] that there will be a spike in cases, potentially thousands of cases a day; there will be more people dying ... That's not something that we have been willing to accept in New Zealand.”



Comments from the NZ director of health. I agree with all of the above.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 6, 2021)

2hats said:


> Reports from Israel suggest negotiations are underway to transfer around 1 million unused doses of Pfizer to the UK within the next week as their current stock would expire before a second dose could be administered. In return the UK would forward to Israel an equivalent number of doses from their upcoming shipments from Pfizer.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Now destined for ROK.








						Israel, South Korea agree COVID-19 vaccine swap
					

Israel will deliver about 700,000 expiring doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's (PFE.N) coronavirus vaccine to South Korea later this month, and South Korea will give Israel back the same number, already on order from Pfizer, in September and October.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 6, 2021)

But these are expert scientists, what the fuck do they know? Johnson and Javid now far more knowledgeable.

I was starting to feel more confident about things, now I feeling really worried again.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 6, 2021)

Storm Fox said:


> But these are expert scientists, what the fuck do they know? Johnson and Javid now far more knowledgeable.
> 
> I was starting to feel more confident about things, now I feeling really worried again.


I was feeling hopeful. But not any more.


----------



## Petcha (Jul 6, 2021)

We're already getting pressure to go into the office as of the 19th. Puts me in a shitty position. Because I don't want to go back into the office, frankly I don't believe the government and am not willing to take the risk of long-covid. I'm operating on reduced lung capacity. Which is why I got the vaccine long before most people my age.

Am I within my rights to refuse to go in?


----------



## Aladdin (Jul 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> an acceptable level of deaths



That is terrifying.


----------



## LDC (Jul 6, 2021)

Petcha said:


> We're already getting pressure to go into the office as of the 19th. Puts me in a shitty position. Because I don't want to go back into the office, frankly I don't believe the government and am not willing to take the risk of long-covid. I'm operating on reduced lung capacity. Which is why I got the vaccine long before most people my age.
> 
> Am I within my rights to refuse to go in?



Probably not tbh, although chatting to your union would be a starting point. Lots of this stuff is going to depend on the reasonableness of your boss/employer I think.


----------



## LDC (Jul 6, 2021)

Been mentioned before but I so fucking detest the way that basic collective public health measures to protect everyone have been turned into some horrible political and cultural war between people.


----------



## Aladdin (Jul 6, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Great. Just when the idiots in charge are going to relax all restrictions on the 19th:





Oh shit


----------



## kalidarkone (Jul 6, 2021)

Petcha said:


> We're already getting pressure to go into the office as of the 19th. Puts me in a shitty position. Because I don't want to go back into the office, frankly I don't believe the government and am not willing to take the risk of long-covid. I'm operating on reduced lung capacity. Which is why I got the vaccine long before most people my age.
> 
> Am I within my rights to refuse to go in?


Absolutely, your work place should make reasonable adjustments for you based on your clinical vulnerability. I'd get onto the union ASAP and if you are not in one join one!


----------



## bimble (Jul 6, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> Ryanair announced yesterday that they’d uphold mask policy for all passengers & crew. I suspect all other airlines will do the same.


Think so too. Cabin crew must be a very high risk of infection job and if they were to be testing positive all the time airliines wld be screwed.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 6, 2021)

Petcha said:


> We're already getting pressure to go into the office as of the 19th. Puts me in a shitty position. Because I don't want to go back into the office, frankly I don't believe the government and am not willing to take the risk of long-covid. I'm operating on reduced lung capacity. Which is why I got the vaccine long before most people my age.
> 
> Am I within my rights to refuse to go in?



I would certainly question this with your employer and make clear your objections and reasons.  When Johnson was doing his time to get back to work nonsense last summer as numbers were beginning to soar my partner's employer tried to get everyone back in and she just told them she was asthmatic and really not keen and they were fine with that. 

It will depend on the employer in how decent they are but I think in general a blanket refusal to return to work is legally unstable ground.

My employer was already gearing for everyone to be back at work even before yesterday's gubbins.  After a year of being really worried that covid sweeping through the factories would essentially shut us down they now think its fine to just go back to normal.  I did query it with my manager and just got the standard shrug in response.

It does feel like we're living in some sort of weird parallel world at the moment.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 6, 2021)

I've got to try and stop worrying about it because it does me in. I'm just going to carry on taking the same precautions I've always been taking and hope for the best, that's all I can do.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 6, 2021)

It's just one big experiment, and not one I am going to get involved with, I'll carry on as I have been for some time, and see how it plays out.


----------



## Petcha (Jul 6, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I would certainly question this with your employer and make clear your objections and reasons.  When Johnson was doing his time to get back to work nonsense last summer as numbers were beginning to soar my partner's employer tried to get everyone back in and she just told them she was asthmatic and really not keen and they were fine with that.
> 
> It will depend on the employer in how decent they are but I think in general a blanket refusal to return to work is legally unstable ground.
> 
> ...



About half of our employees have worked in the office right through this, despite the guidance of 'work from home where possible'. Which it most definitely is, it's an office. I joined during the pandemic and haven't really met many of my colleagues in person so I can see the value in that but I suspect the big boss likes to look out from his office survey his realm, 70 odd people beavering away.

I'll talk to them. It just looks a bit bad unfortunately im the only one who disobeys. I think they'll agree but my card might be marked thats my worry.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 6, 2021)

Petcha said:


> About half of our employees have worked in the office right through this, despite the guidance of 'work from home where possible'. Which it most definitely is, it's an office. I joined during the pandemic and haven't really met many of my colleagues in person so I can see the value in that but I suspect the big boss likes to look out from his office survey his realm, 70 odd people beavering away.
> 
> I'll talk to them. It just looks a bit bad unfortunately im the only one who disobeys. I think they'll agree but my card might be marked thats my worry.



I think in the first instance I would approach HR (assuming they have a HR department) and or occupational health.  You clearly have pre-existing health conditions which make you more vulnerable and managers who make decisions on promotions , pay rises etc should not necessarily be aware of those conditions.  It strikes me as a health gdpr thing but I'm no expert.

I understand your predicament which is even more difficult because you're still new with them.  I would hope that your card wouldn't be marked but if it does come to that your health is the most important and it will tell you a lot of the company you are working for.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 6, 2021)

Ugh, can't wait to hear Philip Schofield's views on whether masks should remain on public transport - as if anyone on This Morning uses public transport...


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Jul 6, 2021)

Sorry if I've missed this and it's already been discussed. Chris Whitty seems to be saying that there will inevitably be a new wave, that it's better to have this in the summer than later in the winter. But if more and more people get vaccinated, and possibly get a booster jab as well, then surely any new wave later on will be substantially lower?


----------



## Petcha (Jul 6, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Ugh, can't wait to hear Philip Schofield's views on whether masks should remain on public transport - as if anyone on This Morning uses public transport...



Richard Madeley went full Partridge once again yesterday on this subject.. he's also told a government minister last week on the show going to his villa in France, whatever the guidance


----------



## andysays (Jul 6, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> Absolutely, your work place should make reasonable adjustments for you based on your clinical vulnerability. I'd get onto the union ASAP and if you are not in one join one!


While it's true that employers have to make reasonable adjustments within the workplace, part of many people's concerns will involve their journey to and from work, which their employer obviously can't control directly.

And if public transport is about to become even more of a free for all in terms of masks etc, there's still a significant problem with expecting people (especially those who are more vulnerable) to go back to work just because the government says it's safe now.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jul 6, 2021)

andysays said:


> While it's true that employers have to make reasonable adjustments within the workplace, part of many people's concerns will involve their journey to and from work, which their employer obviously can't control directly.
> 
> And if public transport is about to become even more of a free for all in terms of masks etc, there's still a significant problem with expecting people (especially those who are more vulnerable) to go back to work just because the government says it's safe now.


My idea of reasonable adjustments according to Petcha  is that they are allowed to work from home given reduced lung function (Health and Saftey)  plus the numerous amounts of evidence of the benefits for employers and employees when staff that want to work from home are permitted to do so. Petcha  I think you should ask for an occupational health referral and start getting the evidence to support your stance. 

I'm assuming a lot about your work place so sorry if you do not have HR or occupational health. I still think you should gather clinical and psychological evidence to support you continuing to work from home.


----------



## Dogsauce (Jul 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think the mask wearing or not after the 19th is going to be a really divisive and horrible issue. I really feel for people working on transport and in retail and other places where this will mainly play out.


Maybe they can have maskless carriages on trains, in the same way they had smoking carriages? Might also reduce the number of people sexually assaulted on public transport since I’d imagine there to be quite a strong correlation between the two.


----------



## Sue (Jul 6, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Maybe they can have massless carriages on trains, in the same way they had smoking carriages? *Might also reduce the number of people sexually assaulted on public transport since I’d imagine there to be quite a strong correlation between the two.*


What?


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Sorry if I've missed this and it's already been discussed. Chris Whitty seems to be saying that there will inevitably be a new wave, that it's better to have this in the summer than later in the winter. But if more and more people get vaccinated, and possibly get a booster jab as well, then surely any new wave later on will be substantially lower?



This is partly because they've only been given two options to analyse and choose from - open up now or open up later this year.

Its also because there doesnt seen to be a plan to vaccinate people under 18, so there is a huge pool of the population that they are tempted to build up immunity in via infection rather than vaccination!

Its partly because they dont know what percentage of younger adult population will actually take them up on the offer of vaccination (generally this percentage drops the younger people are). And they dont really know how many people will take up the offer to have boosters. Or what properties the latest variant will have by then. Or indeed whether any combination of these things will actually unlock a level of overall population immunity that achieves key thresholds that 'keep everyone safer' and stops large waves.

Typical, somewhat simplistic modelling tends to imply that with the current approach and timing, the current wave will be large but may live up to their hopes of being an 'exit wave', beyond which there could still be smaller waves at times but nothing like seen previously. The modelling has it limitations, eg they have to make certain assumptions about vaccine effectiveness and they cant predict the future of variants.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

For example I could use the pyramid of first doses given, from the weekly surveillance report, to offer clues about what the ultimate level of vaccine uptake will be in different age groups.


From National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 6, 2021)

Presumably the infected younger population will be where the virus does its mutating ?
Though the same thing applies to vast swathes of the planet.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 6, 2021)

So. How long does immunity from infection last?


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Presumably the infected younger population will be where the virus does its mutating ?
> Though the same thing applies to vast swathes of the planet.


It may not be that straightforward. Plenty of people in older age groups are getting infected right now. And this pandemic has offered an opportunity to study the evolution of the virus in practice, which may reveal surprises compared to the prior theoretical picture scientists etc used in the past.

We know that on paper vaccinating lots of people, or a large chunk of the population having immunity from prior infection, creates a selection pressure. For the virus to thrive, it must find a way round this immunity. The extent to which it will, and how quickly, remains to be seen. There are already examples of mutations that include such advantages, but they havent had enough overall advantage compared to other strains to become the dominant one yet. Over time these equations shift and imune escape advantages become the key advantage.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> So. How long does immunity from infection last?


They dont know. They will only know once enough time has gone by to see it happening.

The reality will probably be messy. There is more than one part of the immune system at work. Protection via vaccination may last a different length of time to protection via natural infection. And in the oldest age groups the timetable may be quite different compared to those who responded more robustly, on more different immune levels, to vaccination or infection. There may also be considerable differences between people who have had no infection and two vaccine shots, and those who've caught covid at least once and then been vaccinated later. Plus differences between different vaccines, and differences between different strains of the virus.


----------



## killer b (Jul 6, 2021)

I was talking to Mrs B's niece at the weekend - she started uni last September and she and all her flatmates caught covid within a week of arriving (she was pretty ill)

She says over the last month loads of her peers have caught it again - so while it's obviously going to vary, 9 months seems like a reasonable length of time to start feeling nervous


----------



## miss direct (Jul 6, 2021)

I hope the shops don't all remove the spaced out things for queueing. That's something I would like to keep forever, virus or no virus.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 6, 2021)

Just logged on. Saw the last posts. Why fucking even bother: the U75 Brains Trust. Logs out.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 6, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> So. How long does immunity from infection last?


0-2+ years.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

The track record of the collective wisdom of this place in this pandemic speaks for itself. Very impressive everyone, I am so happy I chose this place to do my pandemic ranting. I trust your brains far more than the authorities pathetic handling of this pandemic. We've only had a very small number of pandemic-denying bores and know-nothing idiots, and they mostly restrict themselves to popping up and making the usual noises for brief periods when the government is setting out relaxation steps or new restrictions. They are rarely ever to be spotted at times when a nasty wave actually happens and high volumes of hospitalisations and deaths abound.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 6, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Great. Just when the idiots in charge are going to relax all restrictions on the 19th:




Well, we’re boned


----------



## teqniq (Jul 6, 2021)

There's a Lambda variant too first identified in December 2020. it is causing some concern:









						Lambda variant: What is the new strain of Covid detected in the UK?
					

Scientists are concerned the latest strain could be more infectious and resistant to vaccines




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 6, 2021)

teqniq said:


> There's a Lambada variant too first identified in December 2020. it is causing some concern:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


sadly there will never be a lambada variant


----------



## teqniq (Jul 6, 2021)

fixed


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

I see the details of the removal of contact-related self-isolation for under 18's, school bubbles and double-jabbed adults has indeed been announced today.

As I've been boring on about recently once hints about the plan started to appear, they arent confident enough to do this till next term for schools, and not till mid August for adults.

Its not sensible but exactly how mad I go about it will depend in part on what the levels of infection are like by then. I also note that they havent gone for a regime where the school bubbles are replaced by more testing, it sounds like there will actually be less testing there than there has been so far this year.









						Covid bubbles to be axed in England's schools
					

Restrictions in England's schools are axed, as 641,000 pupils miss school due to Covid regulations.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				












						Covid: Self-isolation to be scrapped for double-jabbed and children in England
					

Under-18s in England also won't have to self-isolate if a close contact tests positive from 16 August.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 6, 2021)

killer b said:


> I was talking to Mrs B's niece at the weekend - she started uni last September and she and all her flatmates caught covid within a week of arriving (she was pretty ill)
> 
> She says over the last month loads of her peers have caught it again - so while it's obviously going to vary, 9 months seems like a reasonable length of time to start feeling nervous


Hah. I'm at 9 months.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Probably not tbh, although chatting to your union would be a starting point. Lots of this stuff is going to depend on the reasonableness of your boss/employer I think.


I've just been in my union exec (UCU) and talking about the full return to the campus. The University still hasn't published it's plans but we are expecting some sort of 'hybrid model' in terms of the teaching (combination of in person and online). But when it comes down to it, the expectation is the university will insist on people coming in - and that all social distancing will be abandoned on campus (following johnson's lead, the cunt). For staff with health conditions or anxieties, there may be 'support', but ultimately it will be turn the fuck up.  For those who don't, longer term, they will be facing competency proceedings.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 6, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Just logged on. Saw the last posts. Why fucking even bother: the U75 Brains Trust. Logs out.


Off ya fuck then. Is that OK? Is that all the attention you need now or do you need a little bit more to feel validated?


----------



## Wilf (Jul 6, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I would certainly question this with your employer and make clear your objections and reasons.  When Johnson was doing his time to get back to work nonsense last summer as numbers were beginning to soar my partner's employer tried to get everyone back in and she just told them she was asthmatic and really not keen and they were fine with that.
> 
> It will depend on the employer in how decent they are but I think in general a blanket refusal to return to work is legally unstable ground.
> 
> ...


Johnson's message was pretty much 'get back to work, no social distancing'.  ONce he's said that, I'd have thought most employers have very few obligations beyond existing legislation. Crazy situation. Taking me as an example, I've been working from home and been in semi isolation for a year or more due to health issues.  Cases are about to rocket and if I get the virus there's a statistically high chance it will be at work, teaching in a university that has plans for seminars of up to 30 students per class.  In the absence of social distancing, work will be an unsafe place for a lot of people (and of course has been all the way through for others).


----------



## killer b (Jul 6, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Hah. I'm at 9 months.


You've been vaccinated since though?


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Johnson's message was pretty much 'get back to work, no social distancing'.  ONce he's said that, I'd have thought most employers have very few obligations beyond existing legislation. Crazy situation. Taking me as an example, I've been working from home and been in semi isolation for a year or more due to health issues.  Cases are about to rocket and if I get the virus there's a statistically high chance it will be at work, teaching in a university that has plans for seminars of up to 30 students per class.  In the absence of social distancing, work will be an unsafe place for a lot of people (and of course has been all the way through for others).


In practice the existing pre-pandemic legislation may still end up placing various requirements on business. See this bit of the document released yesterday:



> ‘Working Safely’ guidance will be updated to provide examples of sensible precautions that employers can take to reduce risk in their workplaces. Employers should take account of this guidance in preparing the risk assessments they are already required to make under pre-pandemic health and safety rules.



From COVID-19 Response: Summer 2021

It also sounds like local public health teams will still get involved if there are outbreaks in specific settings.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> I've lost track of whether they or anybody else uses such estimates to keep a rough running total of estimated number of infections so far. The UK dashboard is up to over 4.8 million confirmed positive cases so far, but we know it missed the vast bulk of the first wave ones in addition to all the ones it hasnt picked up as we've gone through subsequent waves.
> 
> 
> 2hats said:
> ...


Just to add to this - seroprevalence seen in blood donors (England) would hint currently somewhere in the region of 10-15 million (UK).


----------



## andysays (Jul 6, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I've just been in my union exec (UCU) and talking about the full return to the campus. The University still hasn't published it's plans but we are expecting some sort of 'hybrid model' in terms of the teaching (combination of in person and online). But when it comes down to it, the expectation is the university will insist on people coming in - and that all social distancing will be abandoned on campus (following johnson's lead, the cunt). For staff with health conditions or anxieties, there may be 'support', but ultimately it will be turn the fuck up.  For those who don't, longer term, they will be facing competency proceedings.


Is your union, either nationally or locally, saying anything about that?

Are they planning to resist it or just go along with it?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 6, 2021)

Our local hospital is now saying don't turn up with anything not life-threatening, as numbers of covid cases plus 18 months of backlog have put them a gnat's bollock away from collapse. This is one of the biggest hospitals in the south west, where the population is likely to increase by a factor of three or four times in a fortnight or so when school holidays start.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Our local hospital is now saying don't turn up with anything not life-threatening, as numbers of covid cases plus 18 months of backlog have put them a gnat's bollock away from collapse. This is one of the biggest hospitals in the south west, where the population is likely to increase by a factor of three or four times in a fortnight or so when school holidays start.


Just to add that the current pressure is also caused by people getting injured etc when returning to more normal behaviours, and also a resurgence in various other respiratory illnesses, including in children, at levels more usually seen during winters.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 6, 2021)

> Our local hospital is now saying don't turn up with anything not life-threatening, as numbers of covid cases plus 18 months of backlog have put them a gnat's bollock away from collapse. This is one of the biggest hospitals in the south west, where the population is likely to increase by a factor of three or four times in a fortnight or so when school holidays start.



SpookyFrank Not Exeter I hope - a mate has to have urgent back surgery (possibility of paralysis with  but also without) but has been told Truro has a year's waiting list and he'll have to go to Exeter.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

2hats said:


> Just to add to this - seroprevalence seen in blood donors (England) would hint currently somewhere in the region of 10-15 million (UK).
> View attachment 277213 View attachment 277214


Cheers. I tend to apply an additional range of uncertainty to the blood-donor based figures, since they've seen signs that this group doesnt represent all sections of society well and is more illustrative of levels of antibodies in a subset of the population rather than the whole. But I forgot where I last read about that.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 6, 2021)

andysays said:


> Is your union, either nationally or locally, saying anything about that?
> 
> Are they planning to resist it or just go along with it?


Nationally, there will be a push on safe working, locally less so. It will all be about making sure the university 'supports' staff amid unsafe working rather than resisting it.  A 'non militant' branch, with me as the lone leftist on the Exec, a really shitty situation that gets even shittier in these circumstances.  

Having said that, now that johnson has said 'no social distancing, normality, get back to work', the legal/quasi-legal grounds on which you can object to unsafe Covid working are limited. It's why of course you need high levels of unionisation and _political _strategies of resistance.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

two sheds said:


> SpookyFrank Not Exeter I hope - a mate has to have urgent back surgery (possibility of paralysis with  but also without) but has been told Truro has a year's waiting list and he'll have to go to Exeter.


Most stories about current overload apply to A&E departments so far, but obviously there are other sorts of capacity problems in other parts of the hospital system.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Our local hospital is now saying don't turn up with anything not life-threatening, as numbers of covid cases plus 18 months of backlog have put them a gnat's bollock away from collapse. This is one of the biggest hospitals in the south west, where the population is likely to increase by a factor of three or four times in a fortnight or so when school holidays start.


That's strange. 

I had got a specialist appointment for 12 October cancelled on Monday. Hospital phoned this morning to rearrange for .. this Thursday - 3 months sooner. 

Last I heard, 2% of NHS was Covid orientated. Literally  321 patients in ICU across the UK.


----------



## andysays (Jul 6, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Nationally, there will be a push on safe working, locally less so. It will all be about making sure the university 'supports' staff amid unsafe working rather than resisting it.  A 'non militant' branch, with me as the lone leftist on the Exec, a really shitty situation that gets even shittier in these circumstances.
> 
> Having said that, now that johnson has said 'no social distancing, normality, get back to work', the legal/quasi-legal grounds on which you can object to unsafe Covid working are limited. It's why of course you need high levels of unionisation and _political _strategies of resistance.


Liked for the last sentence, not the shitty situation.

Good luck with it.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> That's strange.
> 
> I had got a specialist appointment for 12 October cancelled on Monday. Hospital phoned this morning to rearrange for .. this Thursday - 3 months sooner.
> 
> Last I heard, 2% of NHS was Covid orientated. Literally  321 patients in ICU across the UK.


Its a general problem with A&E demand at the moment.

Your ICU figures are out of date. The latest UK number is 369.

if it doubles three times then it will be back at levels that people can more obviously associate with previous nasty waves.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

And if growth in 'patient in mechanical ventilation beds' continues at the same pace as seen recently, it will take a couple of months to reach the same height as the previous peak.

I dont really expect things to evolve that neatly though, so I currently have no prediction for how bad that number will get, or how quickly.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

And my 'couple of months' comment is simply based on plotting the existing UK ventilation bed numbers using a logarithmic scale, which turns exponential growth curves into simple straight lines, and then just drawing a future line with the same trajectory in my mind.

Like I said, I wouldnt expect the picture to actually turn out quite that tidy and consistent, rates of growth wont necessarily remain constant and we dont know when the peak in cases will happen. But its a useful lesson for those who repeatedly fail to grasp what exponential growth looks like.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 6, 2021)

Patients in hospital hit 2,140 on Sunday, that's an increase of almost 225% in a month.

Patients admitted on 30th June - 406, bringing the 7-day average increase to +29.1%.

That percentage increase continues to creep up, but even it if stayed at 30%, that could take us to over 1,000 a day, in the next 4 weeks.


----------



## Teaboy (Jul 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Patients in hospital hit 2,140 on Sunday, that's an increase of almost 225% in a month.
> 
> Patients admitted on 30th June - 406, bringing the 7-day average increase to +29.1%.
> 
> That percentage increase continues to creep up, but even it if stayed at 30%, that could take us to over 1,000 a day, in the next 4 weeks.



It was pretty explicit in the press conference yesterday that they will tolerate large numbers of hospitalizations but are banking on the peak of the wave being reached before hospital capacity.  I think big numbers are going to be the norm for the next few weeks.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 6, 2021)

two sheds said:


> SpookyFrank Not Exeter I hope - a mate has to have urgent back surgery (possibility of paralysis with  but also without) but has been told Truro has a year's waiting list and he'll have to go to Exeter.



Exeter yes, but the announcement relates to A&E alone. Anything scheduled should be going ahead as planned as far as I know. But that Truro waiting list gives you an idea of the scale of the problem. Healthcare resources in this part of the country are pretty knife-edge even when there isn't a pandemic on.

e2a: Devon hospital on highest possible alert


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Patients in hospital hit 2,140 on Sunday, that's an increase of almost 225% in a month.
> 
> Patients admitted on 30th June - 406, bringing the 7-day average increase to +29.1%.
> 
> That percentage increase continues to creep up, but even it if stayed at 30%, that could take us to over 1,000 a day, in the next 4 weeks.


Restricting myself to daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for England rather than the whole of the UK,  so that I can see more recent data up to 4th July, I get the following sort of picture. First two graphs use linear scale and the last one uses logarithmic scale.


Smoothed using 7 day averages:


----------



## bimble (Jul 6, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Christ, on that note I will technically leave the U75 Brains Trust to its daily masturbation.





Loose meat said:


> Just logged on. Saw the last posts. Why fucking even bother: the U75 Brains Trust. Logs out.


You keep announcing your disgusted departure then coming back again several times in the very same day to check how we are managing without you. Maybe you could find a more fulfilling hobby.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 6, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Last I heard, 2% of NHS was Covid orientated. Literally  321 patients in ICU across the UK.



There are also staff absences due to isolation, as well as the disproportionate impact of covid cases on space, staffing and other resources because of the need to isolate covid+ patients.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> There are also staff absences due to isolation, as well as the disproportionate impact of covid cases on space, staffing and other resources because of the need to isolate covid+ patients.


Yeah staff absenses are one of the motivations for government to fuck around with the self-isolation rules for contacts of positive cases. They cant wait to make that change, but even they decided that they have to wait a bit longer before daring to proceed with that.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)




----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 6, 2021)

Petcha said:


> We're already getting pressure to go into the office as of the 19th. Puts me in a shitty position. Because I don't want to go back into the office, frankly I don't believe the government and am not willing to take the risk of long-covid. I'm operating on reduced lung capacity. Which is why I got the vaccine long before most people my age.
> 
> Am I within my rights to refuse to go in?


I'd echo what others have said - first step talk to your union.

More generally you are better to never (or only in the most extreme circumstances) direct refuse a request by an employer/line manager. Rather you should reply that you are *unable* to comply with the request because of x, y, z. 

In this case the first thing is have you had a personal risk assessment carried out by a suitable person? If not that is your first reasons for why you are unable to comply with any request to return to work at this moment.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

When he said they havent put a number on it, what he really means is they had decided not to share a number publicly at this time, just like with yesterdays press conference where we knew they would not properly answer questions along those lines.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 6, 2021)

Newsthump's satire nails it again.









						Man wistfully recalls time when Government didn’t actively try to kill its citizens
					

A man has spent the morning gazing wistfully into the distance remembering a time when the Government didn’t seek to actively kill the population.




					newsthump.com


----------



## Wilf (Jul 6, 2021)

Storm Fox said:


> Newsthump's satire nails it again.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wembley about 60-70% full for the Italy v Spain match, but not spread out at all.  Behind the goals they are as stacked as you'd expect pre-Covid. Fucks. Sake.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 6, 2021)

I hadn't noticed that under 18s also won't have to isolate if they come into contact with an infected persons (in addition to the double vaccinated).








						Double-jabbed contacts won’t need to self-isolate from 16 August, says Javid
					

Close contacts of people in England who test positive will not have to self-isolate if they have had both vaccinations




					www.theguardian.com
				




Fucking insanity.  We are now well into 'how would you design a policy to maximise the spread of a virus' territory.


----------



## LDC (Jul 6, 2021)

I do think the next few months is looking like it's possibly going to be the most unpredictable and bonkers bit of the last 18 months.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I do think the next few months is looking like it's possibly going to be the most unpredictable and bonkers bit of the last 18 months.



Everything is fine, I asked the super computer to model what will happen with Javid-19 as health secretary and got this result.


----------



## Supine (Jul 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I do think the next few months is looking like it's possibly going to be the most unpredictable and bonkers bit of the last 18 months.



I think this weeks decisions will really hurt Johnson/Javid in the medium term. When i say medium term I’m thinking by September. I’m not looking forward to working away from home for the next few months.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

I'm interested in what sorts of problems people are thinking of when they talk about timeframes like September. So since you just mentioned that sort of timeframe, I hope you dont mind if I use this as an opportunity to ask for more information about this sort of expectation.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 6, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I hadn't noticed that under 18s also won't have to isolate if they come into contact with an infected persons (in addition to the double vaccinated).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Seems like the strategy for under 18s is herd immunity


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

Yes its been quite easy to make that claim ever since they removed the school masks requirements, and since then more parts of that jigsaw have revealed themselves, making an even stronger case that this is part of their plan. I believe they are occasionally asked this in interviews and their public stance remains the same as it has since around March 14th 2020 - simply deny herd immunity is part of any of their plans. As opposed to briefing journalists that it was very much part of the plan right up until that fateful day in March last year.

They used vaccines to enable them to go back to the classic approach of dealing with a pandemic, to reenable their original instincts and priorities.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jul 6, 2021)

i've had a worrying thought

what if matt 'fucking useless' hancock was (relatively speaking) the competent one?


----------



## Supine (Jul 6, 2021)

September.

My back of a fag packet data modelling is telling me this. We have exponential growth with the current rules. Delta appears to have an R0 of 6-7 as opposed to 3ish before (don’t quote me on these numbers).

The gamble is that vaccinations will achieve herd immunity before hospitalisation overwhelms the nhs. Vaccination uptake is slowing as the keen are done or booked in already. The vaccine hesitant will take persuasion so getting 85%+ of the population vaccinated could take some time. So exponential growth will continue.

This all leads me to believe an autumn lockdown is inevitable. I’d like to think the UK population and press will see this as a massive Johnson/Javid fuckup, but who knows what will happen in that regard.

When I put that all together my model shows a rather bad situation in August and political ramifications in September. Hope i’m wrong.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

Thanks very much for taking the time to explain.

I certainly know what you mean. I am thinking that in some ways the shit will probably hit the fan before July ends. But its also harder to predict peak timing this time.

I suppose the safest thing to predict right now is an increasing media etc focus on all the disruption that increasing number of cases bring in the next few weeks. Far more regions are reaching the point when the curves become more obviously steep to those viewing them on a linear scale. And thats becoming more true in regions other than the North West and North East & Yorkshire. So things like the plight of the North being possible to ignore by those in the Westminster bubble will no longer be enough to ensure the mood music remains tuned to 'everythings fine'.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

And some of my key expectations for July still cover a broad range because they mostly boil down to how steep the rise in hospital admissions is. I'm going to try really hard not to post so much in the coming days, until I have a fresh chapter of the story to describe in regards hospital admissions. I am just about to look at hospitalisations by region by age group data, so perhaps I'll have a graph or two of that later, if I think any of them show something worth adding to the discussion right now.


----------



## Supine (Jul 6, 2021)

Hospital admissions will be interesting. Johnson keeps talking about the link between cases and admissions being broken. Scientists keep saying the link has been changed. If Johnson really believes what he says he is an absolute bellend.

One of the key pieces of info we need now is how cases actually turn into hospitalisations. Time will tell.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jul 6, 2021)

Supine said:


> If Johnson really believes what he says he is an absolute bellend.



I'm not sure he has ever believed anything he says, but he is still an absolute bellend


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 6, 2021)

Are they seriosuly now saying we'll see 100,000 cases a day over the course of what's currently passing for a summer?

Have I gone round the bend finally? Surely to god no government, not even this lot, can get away with that?


----------



## Supine (Jul 6, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Are they seriosuly now saying we'll see 100,000 cases a day over the course of what's currently passing for a summer?
> 
> Have I gone round the bend finally? Surely to god no government, not even this lot, can get away with that?



Javid said 50k by July 19th. Pagel said 50-100k by same date. Forget the end of summer, these are predictions for a couple of weeks time! Exponential growth just gets worse and worse.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 6, 2021)

killer b said:


> You've been vaccinated since though?



I had my 2nd jab on 8th January.

9 months for me is about 2 months away, and from everything I've read I won't be offered a booster for several months.

I have emphysema (COPD) but am not classed as clinically vulnerable cos it's not that severe, and I'm only 46 years old.

I got my 1st and 2nd jabs by fluke. I felt lucky at the time. I'm not sure I do any more.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 6, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its a general problem with A&E demand at the moment.
> 
> Your ICU figures are out of date. The latest UK number is 369.
> 
> if it doubles three times then it will be back at levels that people can more obviously associate with previous nasty waves.



My mate is a nurse in A & E.

She said recently that they've seen a huge increase in people being brought in with high temperatures and difficulty breathing, only about 40% of whom turn out to have Covid.

Of those with Covid, many spent a day or a night on A & E, receiving oxygen and meds to stabilise them before going home.

Obviously others are admitted, but the point being all of them, whether with Covid or with some other cause for their suffering, and whether admitted to the wards or not, make the A & E a busy place right now.

And a busy place that contains a lot of people who might have Covid, and have to be treated as if they do have it (ie kept safely away from other patients, etc) until their test results come back.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 6, 2021)

Supine said:


> Hospital admissions will be interesting. Johnson keeps talking about the link between cases and admissions being broken. Scientists keep saying the link has been changed. If Johnson really believes what he says he is an absolute bellend.
> 
> One of the key pieces of info we need now is how cases actually turn into hospitalisations. Time will tell.



Sort of. 

If 1/3 of those dying now are still people over 65 who chose to not have the jab, then we need to know what impact the anti-vaxxers are having on beds and services.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 6, 2021)

Storm Fox said:


> Newsthump's satire nails it again.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Us who rely on sickness and disability benefits struggle to remember those days.


----------



## elbows (Jul 6, 2021)

Supine said:


> Hospital admissions will be interesting. Johnson keeps talking about the link between cases and admissions being broken. Scientists keep saying the link has been changed. If Johnson really believes what he says he is an absolute bellend.
> 
> One of the key pieces of info we need now is how cases actually turn into hospitalisations. Time will tell.



Well even when using linear scale, daily hospital admissions by age group for England have reached a point where the 18-64 curve appears to be reaching a moment of truth. This is a big part of why I keep going on about July.

And when using logarithmic scale, we can also see unpleasant movement in the numbers for the older age groups, and the younger ones.

Its this sort of graph that I will be using to track this picture this month, along with regional versions of the same data and some others that do things like directly compare positive cases to admissions, or look at mechanical ventilator patient numbers.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 6, 2021)

So. If having caught covid and not been vaccinated and then you're vulnerable again 9 months later. And you're still not going to be vaccinated because you're a child. It's not even herd immunity is it?


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Jul 7, 2021)

I look forward to people's foreign holidays being cancelled in three months time due to the new Bognor Regis* variant  I also look forward to the democratically-elected representatives of said town spreading said variant to a packed House of Commons. We MUST learn to live with this virus after all  I don't doubt my employer will throw me and my colleagues to the wolves for the sake of sales, so it'll be good to know our lords and masters will share in our prosperity.

*I toyed with Milton Keynes and Northampton before I settled on this

Sajid Javid for PM! He's my hero. He's saved organic candle shops IMO


----------



## extra dry (Jul 7, 2021)

a video from  John campbell


----------



## zahir (Jul 7, 2021)

Thread from Deepti Gurdasani


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 7, 2021)

have seen that name crop up often, is Gurdasani an academic?


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

A bunch of the newspapers ranging from the pandemic criminals at the Telegraph and the Daily Mail to the FT and the Guardian have realised what the fact the self isolation rules wont end till mid August means in terms of the disruption and isolation this wave will cause. And have splashed it on their front pages in various ways.

I was wondering how long it would take them to realise the implications of this brake still being in place during the steep rise up this wave.









						Newspaper headlines: 'Isolation insanity' and 'Beer we go' as England awaits
					

The papers consider the risks of extending isolation rules for the fully vaccinated as Euros fever builds.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Isolation insanity the fucking Daily Mail calls it. Isolation rules slam the brakes on freedom cries the Telegraph. Business fears staffing carnage warns the FT. Fears 10 million may face summer isolation says the Guardian.

Insanity would be removing that brake right now.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

I'm just checking when I started going on about the sort of thing those newspapers have now gone crazy about.

June 26th:



elbows said:


> As case numbers increase to record levels, we also need to consider other forms of brake that exist within the current system, beyond the handbrake that is lockdown.
> 
> For example, assuming plenty of people still get tested and still follow self-isolation rules, as the number of cases in communities increase, we end with a sort of 'partial lockdown by stealth' as various businesses and services including schools and hospitals lose many staff members to self-isolation, and are no longer able to provide a normal service. In future the authorities will look to remove much of this stuff from the picture too, by changing the rules, but those rules havent been removed in time to avoid large disruption in this particular wave.



After all, the government even ended up putting this in their own document about this weeks step 4 announcement:



> There will still be high levels of infection and illness and therefore disruption to lives, the economy and delivery of public services.











						COVID-19 Response: Summer 2021
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

I missed this article on Tuesday:



> The Highlands' largest hospital has been placed on "code black status" after reaching capacity amid increasing Covid cases.
> 
> NHS Highland said staffing and services at Inverness' Raigmore Hospital were under pressure due to large numbers of staff having to self-isolate.
> 
> The health board said its other hospitals and services were facing similar challenges with staffing.











						Covid in Scotland: Raigmore Hospital at capacity amid rising cases
					

Raigmore - the largest hospital in the Highlands - is at "code black status" due to pressure on staff and services.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

Three other articles from the BBC in Scotland which have plenty in common with each other.

Broadly the same approach as the UK government, just different flavours of bullshit on offer from government and media like the BBC. Slightly less bullshit in the bullshit than England.









						Covid in Scotland: Restrictions to end as planned
					

Most of Scotland's Covid rules are to be removed despite the country having Europe's highest Covid rates.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				












						Does political pressure shape pandemic decisions?
					

With Scotland and England on the road out of lockdown, does political pressure encourage a "four nation" approach?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				












						What happened to Scotland's 'free from Covid' hopes?
					

In summer 2020, there was talk of being "not far away" from eliminating the virus. That did not happen, but is there still cause for optimism?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2021)

Regarding letting it rip amongst younger people, Kwasi Kwarteng was just asked on Sky News if this was just herd immunity again, needless to say he dodged the question.

He'll probably on BBC Breakfast after 7.30am, that's the usual schedule for minsters, Sky just after 7am, followed by the BBC.


----------



## zahir (Jul 7, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> have seen that name crop up often, is Gurdasani an academic?







__





						Gurdasani, Deepti
					





					www.qmul.ac.uk


----------



## LDC (Jul 7, 2021)

Just feels like cases are massively taking off now in my wider circle, last few days I keep hearing of people isolating and getting positive tests, including a couple this morning who are both weeks post double vaccinations.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 7, 2021)

I haven't heard 'herd immunity' from anyone serious since the first wave. I thought our understanding of the virus and of sciety had got better since then.

Is it really still a thing or just a U75 thing?


----------



## belboid (Jul 7, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> I haven't heard 'herd immunity' from anyone serious since the first wave. I thought our understanding of the virus had got better since then.
> 
> Is it really still a thing or just a U75 thing?


Just fuck off you useless failure


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> Just fuck off you useless failure



I see this on social media a lot. And then everyone throws their hands up in horror when someone kills themseleves.

I won't do that but it's interesting to watch how the group dynamic and virtue signalling works with the cool-on-the-internet folks. Desperate, needy stuff.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Jul 7, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> I haven't heard 'herd immunity' from anyone serious since the first wave. I thought our understanding of the virus and of sciety had got better since then.
> 
> Is it really still a thing or just a U75 thing?


Two things. Firstly, Tories have no understanding of society worth mentioning. Secondly, nobody in government will admit to pursuing a policy of herd immunity now, but that doesn't mean they won't. They can't talk about it, but they may well do it.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 7, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Us who rely on sickness and disability benefits struggle to remember those days.


Speaking of which, as the government has thrown the responsibility to mask/not mask onto us will that mean, if and when I'm next compelled to a WCA in a sweaty town centre office, will I be able to refuse because I personally don't feel safe?

I think we all know the answer. But if things get as bad as the _trained scientists_ say, what will happen?


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 7, 2021)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Two things. Firstly, Tories have no understanding of society worth mentioning. Secondly, nobody in government will admit to pursuing a policy of herd immunity now, but that doesn't mean they won't. They can't talk about it, but they may well do it.


I wasn't talking about Gov. I said anyone serious, as in a professional in a relevant field. 'herd immunity' is naive with what we now know, isn't it?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> I haven't heard 'herd immunity' from anyone serious since the first wave. I thought our understanding of the virus and of sciety had got better since then.
> 
> Is it really still a thing or just a U75 thing?



What the hell do you think they are doing now?

Herd immunity via vaccination in older age groups, and letting it rip among the younger adults & children to produce natural immunity. 



> Herd immunity is a form of indirect protection from infectious disease that can occur with some diseases when a sufficient percentage of a population has become immune to an infection, whether through vaccination or previous infections, thereby reducing the likelihood of infection for individuals who lack immunity.


----------



## belboid (Jul 7, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> I see this on social media a lot. And then everyone throws their hands up in horror when someone kills themseleves.
> 
> I won't do that but it's interesting to watch how the group dynamic and virtue signalling works with the cool-on-the-internet folks. Desperate, needy stuff.


Says the troll returning to his vomit  for another day


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 7, 2021)

Urg. You must be a hero to the regulars on here.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 7, 2021)

Help help I'm being repressed


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jul 7, 2021)

We've got lots of whole school years sent home to isolate in my area, but all the teachers I know (and that's quite a few) say they think there are a load of false positives. Apparently the kids all know that the NHS tests can be made to give a positive using any drink with some citric acid in. Fruit shoots work every time they reckon. One of best mates says his school has 20 staff isolating due to contact with kids with positive results, but some of the kids have told them and their parents, everyone's faking them. All over tiktok too, so if it's out there, who knows.

I'd think this is rubbish, were it not close friends I trust implicitly saying it

E2A: How children are spoofing Covid-19 tests with soft drinks


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 7, 2021)

Not sure what the point of spoofing a test would be when nobody is actually verifying positive results.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 7, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Urg. You must be a hero to the regulars on here.


This is an important thread, particularly to those of us who are vulnerable. Please stop shitting over it. If you stop insulting people and posting up crap, people will stop insulting you.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 7, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> I see this on social media a lot.



I bet you do.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 7, 2021)

Herd immunity is a bit of a weaponised term but in scientific terms it means building up immunity in the population either by vaccination or by letting the virus spread and give natural immunity.

For under 18s there's no vaccine currently available and self isolation will no longer be required for close contacts of people testing positive.

It looks like a herd immunity strategy... It quacks like one...


----------



## maomao (Jul 7, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Not sure what the point of spoofing a test would be when nobody is actually verifying positive results.


Two days off.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jul 7, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Not sure what the point of spoofing a test would be when nobody is actually verifying positive results.


Kids wanting to get out of school


----------



## killer b (Jul 7, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Not sure what the point of spoofing a test would be when nobody is actually verifying positive results.


you can be damn sure their parents will be


----------



## editor (Jul 7, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Urg. You must be a hero to the regulars on here.


Stop this now. This thread = important. Your off topic whining = unimportant.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 7, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> I see this on social media a lot. And then everyone throws their hands up in horror when someone kills themseleves.
> 
> I won't do that but it's interesting to watch how the group dynamic and virtue signalling works with the cool-on-the-internet folks. Desperate, needy stuff.


Fuck off.


----------



## bimble (Jul 7, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just feels like cases are massively taking off now in my wider circle, last few days I keep hearing of people isolating and getting positive tests, including a couple this morning who are both weeks post double vaccinations.


Same here. Nothing for months and now several, including yesterday someone who had two pfizers. No symptoms just +tive test.


----------



## CNT36 (Jul 7, 2021)

Are there no confirmatory PCR tests?


----------



## CNT36 (Jul 7, 2021)

bimble said:


> Same here. Nothing for months and now several, including yesterday someone who had two pfizers.


Someone's off work because their sons year are off and now she is also off as she had a notification from the app. One of the juniors I cox had to isolate as well. All in the last week.


----------



## LDC (Jul 7, 2021)

bimble said:


> Same here. Nothing for months and now several, including yesterday someone who had two pfizers. No symptoms just +tive test.



Some of the ones I know are definitely having symptoms, 2 are quite unwell even post-vaccine. Not hospital unwell, but bad flu unwell.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 7, 2021)

Given that 'let it rip' is now the policy, a question about the most vulnerable, particularly those who have been double jabbed.  I've seen the figures that suggest Astra and Pfizer provide 90%+ protection against death with, I think, slightly higher protection for the 65%+ group.  But then the protection against symptomatic infection is much lower.  So, with the bonfire of regulations, the coming wave is going to sweep through care homes again, as well as other institutions under one roof.  I'm guessing that the 90%+ protection from death figure is derived from wider populations and we don't really know what protection is provided for the most vulnerable with complex health problems. If that's the case, we might not be seeing the deaths we saw in care homes last Spring, but we could see significant fatalities.  That or care homes themselves having to impose their own lockdowns.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 7, 2021)

What strategy (not tactics) would people prefer? Delay the peak until winter by retaining more measures? Lockdown until all kids are double jabbed? Lockdown indefinitely in the hope of better vaccines?


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> What strategy (not tactics) would people prefer? Delay the peak until winter by retaining more measures? Lockdown until all kids are double jabbed? Lockdown indefinitely in the hope of better vaccines?


Move to Iceland.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> What strategy (not tactics) would people prefer? Delay the peak until winter by retaining more measures? Lockdown until all kids are double jabbed? Lockdown indefinitely in the hope of better vaccines?


If this approach is pursued through to the Autumn, the peak will surely be much higher then.  There will be more cases in the population ready to spread even further when the schools go back, students move away to university etc.


----------



## LDC (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> What strategy (not tactics) would people prefer? Delay the peak until winter by retaining more measures? Lockdown until all kids are double jabbed? Lockdown indefinitely in the hope of better vaccines?



Continue with masks on public transport and in shops for a while longer.
Delay some of the loosening a few weeks until more people have had both vaccinations.
Some limits on large events.
Stop announcing things like isolation will finish on X date, as it effectively means plenty of people stop straight away.
Stop going on about the economy and talk more about public health and working together to protect us all.
Proper support people isolating and not able to work.

The problem is things have been made such a fucking mess that some of what is proposed now, in the context of having fucked everything up so far, kind of makes some insane sense.


----------



## pbsmooth (Jul 7, 2021)

tories had to have a big everything ends 'freedom day' so the thickos would forget everything prior and remember the govt stuck it to the wokies and gave us our freeedoommm!!!11!


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 7, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Continue with masks on public transport and in shops for a while longer.
> Delay some of the loosening a few weeks until more people have had both vaccinations.
> Some limits on large events.
> Stop announcing things like isolation will finish on X date, as it effectively means plenty of people stop straight away.
> ...



All those tactics such as masks, limiting events and delaying loosening will shift the peak from August into the winter. I don't see how they could help.


----------



## belboid (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> All those tactics such as masks, limiting events and delaying loosening will shift the peak from August into the winter. I don't see how they could help.


Because significantly more people will be double jabbed.  It’ll only be around 50% by July 19


----------



## Wilf (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> All those tactics such as masks, limiting events and delaying loosening will shift the peak from August into the winter. I don't see how they could help.


Given that the measures announced mean there will be significantly more virus circulating than would have otherwise been with the restrictions, what impact do you think that will have on the Autumn/Winter period/peak?


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> Because significantly more people will be double jabbed.  It’ll only be around 50% by July 19



Most of those are under-40s. The benefits of double-jabbing in terms of reducing hospitalizations is rapidly declining as we move down the age groups, whereas the risks of the peak being delayed until winter remain the same.


----------



## souljacker (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> Because significantly more people will be double jabbed.  It’ll only be around 50% by July 19


It's 64.3% as of yesterday


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 7, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Given that the measures announced mean there will be significantly more virus circulating than would have otherwise been with the restrictions, what impact do you think that will have on the Autumn/Winter period/peak?



The peak is currently modeled to be in August, so without restrictions we'll have the worst of delta out of the way before winter.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> Because significantly more people will be double jabbed.  It’ll only be around 50% by July 19


True, and it's two weeks after the second jab that full protection is reached.

Right now we are opening up bars, pubs, nightclubs and huge events such as festivals, with no restrictions and tens of thousands of unvaccinated or partially vaccinated (young) people will attend.


----------



## LDC (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Most of those are under-40s. The benefits of double-jabbing in terms of reducing hospitalizations is rapidly declining as we move down the age groups, whereas the risks of the peak being delayed until winter remain the same.



That's one of the fucked up things I mentioned. On some level it does make some sense now rather than later due to the winter concerns. But the reason that is partly true is that we're now in a situation that's been so badly managed we don't have many good options.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Most of those are under-40s. *The benefits of double-jabbing in terms of reducing hospitalizations is rapidly declining as we move down the age groups*, whereas the risks of the peak being delayed until winter remain the same.


Hey, well why bother jabbing them at all? You seem to forget that jabbing reduces the chances of onward transmission, particularly to vulnerable people.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The peak is currently modeled to be in August, so without restrictions we'll have the worst of delta out of the way before winter.


I think there will probably be a new variant and a new peak in Winter sadly.


----------



## LDC (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The peak is currently modeled to be in August, so without restrictions we'll have the worst of delta out of the way before winter.



"Worst of delta out of the way" means more people dying and getting long term problems. It's so fucked up we're in this position, which in no way was inevitable.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 7, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Hey, well why bother jabbing them at all? You seem to forget that jabbing reduces the chances of onward transmission, particularly to vulnerable people.



It doesn't reduce it enough to get R below 1, so the exponential growth continues. It's only a case of when the peak happens.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jul 7, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> True, and it's two weeks after the second jab that full protection is reached.
> 
> Right now we are opening up bars, pubs, nightclubs and huge events such as festivals, with no restrictions and tens of thousands of unvaccinated or partially vaccinated (young) people will attend.


Yup, that's going to be an incubator. The campaign from hospitality to open everything has been wrongheaded from the start. They should have been campaigning for funding to stay closed


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 7, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> "Worst of delta out of the way" means more people dying and getting long term problems. It's so fucked up we're in this position, which in no way was inevitable.



It's where we're at. This is why Whitty and Valance are on board with this ending of restrictions now, because there are no good choices and this is the best one.


----------



## belboid (Jul 7, 2021)

souljacker said:


> It's 64.3% as of yesterday


That’s adults not population


----------



## maomao (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It's where we're at. This is why Whitty and Valance are on board with this ending of restrictions now, because there are no good choices and this is the best one.


They've been 'on board' with everything anyway. They're senior civil servants. It's their job to be. It doesn't prove anything. 

Your argument is based on the assumption that all waves are equal in size.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 7, 2021)

I just need to ask this because I'm feeling pretty concerned with this drastic move to dropping all restrictions. I was feeling OK but with potentially huge amounts of infection around and of the delta variant I'm kinda bricking it again.

My situation is I work in a shop, I was double jabbed with AZ 2 months ago, I wear a surgical mask all day, I'm in the second category of vulnerability, the shop is extremely well ventilated due to the door being open all day and I'm about to go into a situation where more and more people are going to stop wearing masks in the shop after the 19th.

For the sake of my sanity, and I mean that literally at this point, what are my risks of:

1. Catching it
2. Getting symptomatically ill from catching it. I'm thankfully not concerned about being hospitalised with it.
3. Getting long covid. That's my biggest concern as a dear friend of mine has had ME getting on for 10 years and it completely and utterly derailed their life.

I appreciate there are unknowns in this but I'd just like some evidence of these risks, how mild or severe they are and to what extent and how I need to protect myself further or not because I'm just fucking exhausted with it all. I'm exhausted with people not taking it seriously, exhausted with shit heads not wearing masks and exhausted with trying to work all this stuff out and searching for useful information. So if someone who has access to useful information about this then could they please share it with me? Thanks.


----------



## Supine (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It's where we're at. This is why Whitty and Valance are on board with this ending of restrictions now, because there are no good choices and this is the best one.



Whitty pretty much contradicted everything Johnson said in the press conference.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 7, 2021)

souljacker said:


> It's 64.3% as of yesterday


Just under 51% of the population. A population that's now being encouraged to mix with other sub-populations of the global population with lower, some far lower, levels of vaccination.


----------



## prunus (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> That’s adults not population



~34 million are double jabbed in the UK now, and so should be more or less fully protected* by the 19th, = just over 51%  The other 49% are concentrated in the younger age groups.  Guess which age groups are more likely to be cramming into nightclubs and pubs and other social melees?  I reckon 75% or more of those crowds will be incompletely protected.  Massive explosion in infections anyone?

Also - it seems from noises coming out of the government that the modelling tightrope they're walking to try to justify opening in July relies on people continuing to isolate if they have symptoms/test positive.  From what I can gather there's going to be a lot a lot of people who throw that out with the rest of the regulations.   Sniffle?  Fuck it let's go clubbing.  Going to get tested?  Nah, no point, it's over.  Work in hospitality?  Don't get tested - we need the staff.  App telling you to isolate?  Delete the app.

I am by nature a pessimist, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong to be very worried we're heading into a shitstorm.

* e2a: and fully protected looks like perhaps only 65% protected against delta at best, from data coming out of Israel.


----------



## souljacker (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> That’s adults not population



True but there isn't a vaccine available for under 18s unless they are vulnerable or live with someone who is.


----------



## zahir (Jul 7, 2021)




----------



## BillRiver (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> That’s adults not population



And is it UK adults, or England adults?

Because the media keep giving figures for UK, instead of each nation, because going by each nation = lower % in England.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 7, 2021)

maomao said:


> They've been 'on board' with everything anyway. They're senior civil servants. It's their job to be. It doesn't prove anything.
> 
> Your argument is based on the assumption that all waves are equal in size.



Exactly.

And all restricted periods are not equal either, as I said yesterday - it's easier to avoid socialising indoors in summer versus in winter, and therefore better to ask people to "lockdown" now than later.


----------



## Smangus (Jul 7, 2021)

I would like to know what proportion of infected people are likely to end up with long Covid and how that translates to our younger population in numbers potentially going forwards. 

So X people are likely to be infected in the next (say)  3 months, of that Y% are likely to end up with long Covid to varying degrees which equals  Z number of people. Or something along those lines. 

 If Javid is touting 100K a day infections at some stage then Z  cannot be an insignificant number going forwards and the implications it has for the future quality of life for these people and the cost to the country of their care.

There seems to be a massive hole in the debate overall about this, or am I missing something? 

Death or hospitalisation is not the only outcome, Long Covid had potentially far reaching effects. Not enough is being made of this by the media , Labour and other parties imo.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

CNT36 said:


> Are there no confirmatory PCR tests?



Yes, people who test positive on a lateral flow test are supposed to get a PCR test.

This is one of the reasons I've been ignoring the stories about kids finding ways to generate positive lateral flow tests.

The other reasons are that its a story that people who seek to deny this wave will seize upon. And that we have plenty of evidence via other forms of testing, sewage monitoring results shared by Scotland, rising hospitalisations etc that demonstrate the very real nature of this wave.

On a couple of levels it would actually be hilarious if youngsters had subverted the lateral flow testing system in this way. It would serve government right for treating the needs of children so poorly in this pandemic, and for trying to use lateral flow tests in inappropriate ways.

Anyway it was notable yesterday that the governments plans to remove the self-isolation rule for contacts of positive cases was a straightforward dropping of those rules, rather than replacing self-isolation with regular testing (as trialled by the likes of Gove as an alternative to him having to self-isolate recently).


----------



## CNT36 (Jul 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes, people who test positive on a lateral flow test are supposed to get a PCR test.
> 
> This is one of the reasons I've been ignoring the stories about kids finding ways to generate positive lateral flow tests.
> 
> ...


Exactly. 

As an aside most kids I know or hear about from other people even the ones that normally hate school seem pretty keen to go rather than be stuck at home again.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> And is it UK adults, or England adults?
> 
> Because the media keep giving figures for UK, instead of each nation, because going by each nation = lower % in England.



There's not a lot in it, TBF, Wales ahead, Scotland & England neck-and-neck, NI behind, therefore the UK figures matches the figures for England.


----------



## andysays (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The peak is currently modeled to be in August, so without restrictions we'll have the worst of delta out of the way before winter.


"the peak" is not some abstract thing that just happens independently of what measures are taken.

Taking the wrong measures, which it appears we're doing yet again, will allow numbers to keep rising so that the peak is higher and happens later than it might otherwise have, had better measures been taken.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's not a lot in it, TBF, Wales ahead, Scotland & England neck-and-neck, NI behind, therefore the UK figures matches the figures for England.
> 
> View attachment 277337



Oh,  that's new! Thanks. Last time I checked, admittedly a couple of weeks ago, it was very different.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It doesn't reduce it enough to get R below 1, so the exponential growth continues. It's only a case of when the peak happens.


The more young people that are vaccinated the less virus circulates, not only helping the NHS, but also offering a modicum of protection for the vulnerable.  Early on in the crisis, the cranks were proposing 'let it rip but protect the vulnerable'. This time we are going with let it rip _without _protection for the vulnerable (particularly the end of social distancing).  It isn't just a case of _when _it happens. This is Dunkirk, but without the flotilla of small ships even if, making the analogy yet more torturous, most of the troops stuck on the beach have improved body armour.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 7, 2021)

prunus said:


> Also - it seems from noises coming out of the government that the modelling tightrope they're walking to try to justify opening in July relies on people continuing to isolate if they have symptoms/test positive.  From what I can gather there's going to be a lot a lot of people who throw that out with the rest of the regulations.   Sniffle?  Fuck it let's go clubbing.  Going to get tested?  Nah, no point, it's over.  Work in hospitality?  Don't get tested - we need the staff.  App telling you to isolate?  Delete the app.


Yep, every bit of governmental body language, every sly 'nudge', is pushing people in this direction.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 7, 2021)

Wilf said:


> The more young people that are vaccinated the less virus circulates, not only helping the NHS, but also offering a modicum of protection for the vulnerable.  Early on in the crisis, the cranks were proposing 'let it rip but protect the vulnerable'. This time we are going with let it rip _without _protection for the vulnerable (particularly the end of social distancing).  It isn't just a case of _when _it happens. This is Dunkirk, but without the flotilla of small ships even if, making the analogy yet more torturous, most of the troops stuck on the beach have improved body armour.


While allowing the enemy to test which weapons best defeat the improved body armour.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2021)

I guess this is positive, and could keep this wave under some sort of control.



> Around nine in 10 adults in the UK are estimated to have Covid antibodies, new figures suggest.
> 
> The Office for National Statistics said that in England, 89.8 per cent of the adult population would be likely to have tested positive for antibodies against coronavirus in the week beginning 14 June – suggesting they had the infection in the past or have been vaccinated. That was an increase from 79.6 per cent a month ago.
> 
> The figure stretched from 84.7 per cent in Scotland (up month on month from 71.8 per cent) to 91.8 per cent in Wales (up from 82.1 per cent). In Northern Ireland, it is estimated that 87.2 per cent of the adult population would have tested positive for antibodies, up from 80.0 per cent.





> Commenting on the figures, Meaghan Kall, lead epidemiologist in Covid-19 epidemiology cell at Public Health England, said the antibody data suggested those aged 25 and over were “very close to herd immunity” through vaccination and previous infection.
> 
> Across England as a whole, the highest percentage of adults testing positive for antibodies were estimated to be the age groups 60 to 64, 70 to 74 and 75 to 79 (all 96.8 per cent). The lowest percentage was for 16 to 24-year-olds (59.7 per cent).











						UK ‘very close to herd immunity’ as Covid antibodies estimated in 90% of adults
					

Public Health England expert says country ‘very close’ to reaching critical level of protection




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 7, 2021)

Smangus said:


> I would like to know what proportion of infected people are likely to end up with long Covid and how that translates to our younger population in numbers potentially going forwards.
> 
> So X people are likely to be infected in the next (say)  3 months, of that Y% are likely to end up with long Covid to varying degrees which equals  Z number of people. Or something along those lines.
> 
> ...


Some studies have said 10%. But vaccines might reduce down the proportion.

Still, if most of the 100k are unvaccinated it's a huge impact.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> What strategy (not tactics) would people prefer? Delay the peak until winter by retaining more measures? Lockdown until all kids are double jabbed? Lockdown indefinitely in the hope of better vaccines?



Well one of the big problems is that some of the most sensible options are destroyed by past mistakes.

For example it is entirely understandable for people to conclude, when watching Delta spread around the world, that it would not have been possible for the UK to entirely keep this variant out.

However I consider it to have been an entirely realistic option that we could have really significantly reduced the amount of seeding of that variant here. And that would have made a difference to timing. 

Via a combination of measures we could have bought more time, so that the explosion of cases would not have happened well before the schools finished for summer. That would have given us a bit more wiggle room, and a different proportion of the population having had 2 doses by the time the shit was trying to hit the fan.

Whichever way the government twist and turn, premature freedom days are incompatible with basic pandemic reality. Until we see what the peak will be like in this wave, we cannot fully judge quite how catastrophic this latest attempt will be. But we can already judge that its the worst of all worlds in some ways, because the disruption makes a mockery of those who were expecting normality, with a load of hospitalisations, long covid etc on top.

The whole 'if not now then the winter, and that will be worse' is a silly way to frame things. There is a rationale to it, but its one that features unknowns. We dont actually know if population immunity thresholds will be reached, or how well they will hold up against future variants. When this current wave peaks we probably wont be able to be sure that its down to population immunity alone, eg by then it could also be attributed to disruption due to self-isolation and people changing their behaviour in the face of stunning levels of infection, schools being off for the summer etc. 

I also look back and like to think about how a broadly similar approach to the one the UK has taken could have happened but with very different framing. eg instead of bullshitting about a permanent freedom round the next corner, we could have framed things more honestly. The reality has involved periods of strong measures and periods of relative relaxation. They could have been honest about giving us periods of relaxed rules for us to recharge our batteries, without claiming that these periods would last beyond a few months.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I guess this is positive, and could keep this wave under some sort of control.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


True, but a lot depends on whether those antibodies are effective against the Delta variant or not.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I guess this is positive, and could keep this wave under some sort of control.



I usually water down such figures a bit to account for the fact they dont include people under 16 or care home residents.

If this wave peaks sooner than plenty of people are expecting then this may be why, although other possible contributions include stuff I mentioned in previous post, eg all the disruption and self-isolation and behavioural changes in response to this wave. 

This is also an area where Delta has changed the equations - perhaps we already have levels of protection that would have been enough to make a wave of Alpha cases quite modest and slightly more akin to 'a ripple' like the foolish Tim Spector suggested this wave would be some time ago.

The level of positive cases that Scotland has reached did not give cause for optimism on this and other fronts. But if Scotlands numbers dont keep going up, and show signs of coming down soon, some optimism may yet be salvaged.

Personally I'm very much hedging my bets, which is why I have no prediction for when or at what levels we will peak at in this wave.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 7, 2021)

crojoe said:


> tories had to have a big everything ends 'freedom day' so the thickos would forget everything prior and remember the govt stuck it to the wokies and gave us our freeedoommm!!!11!



I don't think people who want 'freedom' at any cost are as big a constituency as the government seems to believe. They generally take the covers of the papers as a proxy for the public mood and I think the likes of the mail, with their endless whinging headlines about when can we go on holiday, are some distance away from what people are actually concerned about.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

One of the downsides to the sense that herd immunity might be just around the next corner is that it encourages the authorities to hold their nerve and let cases etc go well past the levels where they blinked and imposed lockdowns etc in previous waves.

When I say that the government may 'get away with' the current approach, this sort of thing is why, if it turns out that we do reach a point where a peak is induced due to the virus not finding enough susceptible individuals to sustain its exponential growth.

Certainly without the level of immunity granted by vaccines and prior infections so far, I think its reasonable to say that we'd already have reached breaking point in this wave, as far as hospitalisations go. Every time I do a graph these days I see the effects of vaccines showing up, usually in the form of bigger gaps between different age groups numbers than seen in previous waves. But some of these gaps may shrink a little as the levels of infection and hospitalisation rise overall. And bigger gaps between them doesnt mean cases arent still rising exponentially in all groups, so far they still are.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 7, 2021)

It's very hard to get a handle on 'long covid' and its prevalence. There's no agreement on how to define it.

I think this is quite a good article.









						Does Long Covid really exist?
					

Patients with debilitating symptoms are being treated like political pawns




					unherd.com


----------



## belboid (Jul 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's very hard to get a handle on 'long covid' and its prevalence. There's no agreement on how to define it.
> 
> I think this is quite a good article.
> 
> ...


good ol' UnHerd. Spiked for people who think they're too posh for Spiked.  I also see Mr Ritchie is a psychologist not a medic.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

I dont have the time or inclination to read that now, and overall I'm limited in what I can claim about long covid. But I'd certainly go along with what I believe I remember Whitty saying in the latest press conference, that what we call long covid is likely a bunch of different syndromes.


----------



## belboid (Jul 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont hae the time or inclination to read that now, and overall I'm limited in what I can claim about long covid. But I'd certainly go along with what I believe I remember Whitty saying in the latest press conference, that what we call long covid is likely a bunch of different syndromes.


Its pretty poor and says that because we dont really have an absolutely clear idea of what 'long covid' is then it may well not exist. But then goes on to list various examples where people are ill for a long time and breaks them down into different categories (a la Whitty). It's basically an article saying we shouldn't worry about it, we can let it rip now.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> It's basically an article saying we shouldn't worry about it, do let rip.



No it's not.

It's written by the guy who made this website .


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

Thanks for the summary of it belboid.

Now I am having to hold my nose and post an article from the Standard.

Because it contains the stuff which is behind the reason I keep saying that I dont know what will happen with this wave, and how there is still a chance government will get away with this approach.

It also contains the term that officials have apparently come up with to describe the current version of the herd immunity approach. Hybrid immunity.....









						Exclusive: Boris Johnson banking on August virus fall
					

New data on ‘hybrid immunity’ will suggest Covid is set to pass peak then decline




					www.standard.co.uk
				






> Data modelling due over the coming days is hoped to confirm that the turning point in Britain’s pandemic is likely to come this summer. Ministers believe the peak could be reached next month as the disease rips through people who are unvaccinated and those who have only had a single jab.





> Department of Health officials have reportedly coined the term “hybrid immunity” to describe the protection from vaccinating older, more vulnerable people, combined with a mixture of vaccinations and natural immunity in the young.



Even if the modelling indicates a peak within a timeframe they can live with, it doesnt take many modelling parameters to be wrong before the reality diverges nastily from their hopes.

Also if the current rate of infection remains constant, then we can look at how many doublings there will be before the peak is reached according to their timing estimates, apply that to things like hospital admissions, and then consider the magnitude of the horror involved.


----------



## belboid (Jul 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> No it's not.
> 
> It's written by the guy who made this website .


that website just debunks the absolute loon theories, it says nothing (at a quick glance) about Johnsonian practises.

(I have tho, amended my post to make it clear he thinks we can let rip _now, _as opposed to thinknig we could have let rip whenever)


----------



## teuchter (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> that website just debunks the absolute loon theories, it says nothing (at a quick glance) about Johnsonian practises.
> 
> (I have tho, amended my post to make it clear he thinks we can let rip _now, _as opposed to thinknig we could have let rip whenever)


Where is he promoting a "let it rip" approach - either now or in the past?


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

OK I read the bloody thing and I agree, the only way in which 'let it rip' type mentalities get a look in is when he is describing what stuff, including long covid, it has been tempting to use to piss on the let it rip brigade in the past.


----------



## teqniq (Jul 7, 2021)

Wow. Heartfelt:


----------



## belboid (Jul 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> OK I read the bloody thing and I agree, the only way in which 'let it rip' type mentalities get a look in is when he is describing what stuff, including long covid, it has been tempting to use to piss on the let it rip brigade in the past.


I'm thinking of the bit where he minimises the number with 'long covid' This is the 'best ever effort' figure he says and it reduces the number of sufferers to 3,327, 0.27%, rather than the up to 400,000 others report.  Even given a justifiable distinction between those simply getting a worse case than others and those who have quite distinct clinical symptoms, that is such a vast difference that would imply it isn't really that much of an issue.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> I'm thinking of the bit where he minimises the number with 'long covid' This is the 'best ever effort' figure he says and it reduces the number of sufferers to 3,327, 0.27%,* rather than the up to 400,000 others report.*  Even given a justifiable distinction between those simply getting a worse case than others and those who have quite distinct clinical symptoms, that is such a vast difference that would imply it isn't really that much of an issue.



Or the over 2 million estimated by the REACT study.









						Over 2 million adults in England may have had long COVID - Imperial REACT | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

A study of over half a million adults in England found that one in 20 had persistent COVID-19 symptoms.




					www.imperial.ac.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> I'm thinking of the bit where he minimises the number with 'long covid' This is the 'best ever effort' figure he says and it reduces the number of sufferers to 3,327, 0.27%, rather than the up to 400,000 others report.  Even given a justifiable distinction between those simply getting a worse case than others and those who have quite distinct clinical symptoms, that is such a vast difference that would imply it isn't really that much of an issue.



My problem with that aspect of the article is the same as a problem I often have when people try too hard to be so bloody reasonable and balanced. Sometimes I make my posts very long and detailed in order to try to do full justice to a picture, not over-egg things or conveniently leave a bit out. But sometimes this just waters shit down and gives people an excuse for inaction or a wait and see approach. And I've concluded that actually, there are times where I achieve far more by going out on a limb, having a rant, taking a stance that may seem extreme etc. Because Id much rather be assused of going over the top than of playing into the hands of the moderates whose sense of moderation actually leads to extremely unacceptable outcomes all too easily.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jul 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's very hard to get a handle on 'long covid' and its prevalence. There's no agreement on how to define it.
> 
> I think this is quite a good article.
> 
> ...



Anything on that site will remain 'unheard' by me


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

Labour have actually pulled the trigger. Called it the Johnson variant.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2021)

Yeah, I did enjoy that moment during PMQs.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

I wont get too excited about them finally kicking some balls into an open goal, but its a start.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 7, 2021)

On patients admitted - the daily dashboard is showing a rise of 42.5% today on the previous weeks figures - but that's only up until 3/07 due to Scotland's not having been updated since then.
However, England's figures alone have gone up to a weekly total of 2,345 on the 5/07 from 1,489 the week before, so a rise of 57%. The daily figure for England on 5/07 was 416, so already over the published national, daily figure (386).

32,548 new cases today, too.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 7, 2021)

The problem with "long covid" is not as simple as the question of whether numbers are being over- or under- estimated. The problem is that the numbers can be wildly different according to how you define it, even if you ignore uncertainties about to what extent symptoms are actually caused by Covid. 

The "two million people" number quoted in the REACT article is people reporting certain symptoms 12 weeks after suffering from Covid. To me, that's something very different from a 'long covid' that is defined as a truly chronic illness that might affect someone for the rest of their life. Of course, by definition, we can't know at this point in time how many people will turn out to end up with permanent problems. 

Long covid is something that I worry about and one of the main reasons I'm pretty keen to avoid getting covid. But I would like to attempt to link my level of worry to the best possible guess at what the likelihood is, of a covid infection leading to truly long term chronic health problems. I'm not saying that living with symptoms for 3 or 4 months is trivial - just that it's a very different thing to a condition that will never improve.


----------



## belboid (Jul 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> My problem with that aspect of the article is the same as a problem I often have when people try too hard to be so bloody reasonable and balanced. Sometimes I make my posts very long and detailed in order to try to do full justice to a picture, not over-egg things or conveniently leave a bit out. But sometimes this just waters shit down and gives people an excuse for inaction or a wait and see approach. And I've concluded that actually, there are times where I achieve far more by going out on a limb, having a rant, taking a stance that may seem extreme etc. Because Id much rather be assused of going over the top than of playing into the hands of the moderates whose sense of moderation actually leads to extremely unacceptable outcomes all too easily.


It’s about the context of where and when it is published that we have to make those choices, no?

if it were an effectively peer reviewed site where the claims can be challenged and interrogated (like here) then a longer version makes sense.  But if it’s somewhere where that doesn’t really happen (like Spiked or UnHerd) it is more likely to be taken as fitting with the general consensus of that site.  Which, in this case, is about being less well disposed to greater lockdowns and legal measures being put in place.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 7, 2021)

I also don't understand the constant claims about the link between cases and hospitalisation being broken/reduced when we are carrying out so many more tests now than previously. 
Am I missing something?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Labour have actually pulled the trigger. Called it the Johnson variant.



oooo johnson didn't like that, the mask slipped for two moments


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 7, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I also don't understand the constant claims about the link between cases and hospitalisation being broken/reduced when we are carrying out so many more tests now than previously.
> Am I missing something?


No. Boris Johnson and his foul crew are tho


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2021)

Cases in Worthing have gone up 98.9% in 7-days to 181 (about 163 per 100k), we were on just 5 (4.5 per 100k) a month ago. 

Despite being an urban borough, we still have the lowest rate of the 7 lower tier councils in West Sussex county, but it's spreading over the border from Brighton & Hove, which turned purple on the interactive map (5-day lag) with over 400 cases per 100k.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 7, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> No. Boris Johnson and his foul crew are tho



It just seems like a mental claim to make, given that.
Ignoring test numbers, but with positivity rates etc it all looks much more similar to beg-mid Oct time and that seems to be pretty well reflected in admissions and all the rest - and now they have completely taken their feet off the pedals. I cannot see how the very much unfinished job of vaccinations is going to balance any of that out and it doesn't seem like enough time has passed to properly see the impact on deaths, even with the current restrictions still in place.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2021)

Can we go back to May, please?



* Map only up to 2/7/21, today it's reported as up 98.9% in 7-days to 181 (about 163 per 100k)


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 7, 2021)

Also, re testing - that it's _younger _people who are more easily/likely to be able to be tested as opposed to either of the last two waves - so it would therefore take longer to wait and see whether that does start to creep up in the older groups (as it seems to be, to a degree). 
Looking at the heatmap, it was never going to reflect previous waves when so many younger and asymptomatic people have access to tests now.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Can we go back to May, please?
> 
> View attachment 277370View attachment 277371
> 
> * Map only up to 2/7/21, today it's reported as up 98.9% in 7-days to 181 (about 163 per 100k)


Never mind _that_ may, can we go back to theresa may? Never thought I'd say that


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I also don't understand the constant claims about the link between cases and hospitalisation being broken/reduced when we are carrying out so many more tests now than previously.
> Am I missing something?



Lots of the graphs I do end up showing signs of what vaccines have achieved. However there are good reasons why I am deliberately waiting until this wave reaches some crucial stages before making claims about how much has been achieved and how much of a problem is still clearly evident.

There is a lot of testing these days but there was quite a lot during a big chunk of the second wave too. But one thing that is very clear this time is that older age groups have not been magically spared from the burden of this wave, the picture has been improved compared to what it would be like without vaccines, but there is still exponential growth in older age groups and the implications of that will be increasingly felt.

I do not mind when the Vallances or Whittys of this world go on about the link between cases and hospitalisations being weakened. But I see that Johnson has been using the word severed again today, which is an inappropriate and fucking stupid claim to make. And the data will keep demonstrating this in the weeks ahead.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Never mind _that_ may, can we go back to theresa may? Never thought I'd say that



The sad thing is that if we look at Scotlands approach, or the approach of many other 'large economies' nations, Johnson is just an extra dollop of shit on top of a terrible, deadly, approach that all these other nations are still following too.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 7, 2021)

Cold War Steve:


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Can we go back to May, please?
> 
> View attachment 277370View attachment 277371
> 
> * Map only up to 2/7/21, today it's reported as up 98.9% in 7-days to 181 (about 163 per 100k)




Yeah, we have gone from 33 cases/case rate of 11.3 on May 22nd to 1220/419.4 on the 2nd.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

Labour are, unsurprisingly, fuckwits trying to have their cake and eat it when it comes to detail. They are largely trying to pick and choose things that sound good to the public who are more concerned about disruption than anything else.

Some bits from the BBC live updates page (14:29 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57746332/page/2 )



> Asked if Labour is in favour of bringing forward the date when self-isolation rules will be eased for those who are double-jabbed, Ashworth tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme: "I think you can bring it forward if people are taking a daily lateral flow test which has been properly recorded, that there is a PCR test at an appropriate moment throughout that period.
> 
> "Otherwise you are going to find huge swathes of public services unable to cope because their workforce will be isolating."



But the BBC also have a Whitehall source to explain what I've basically been saying for a few weeks, that the government dont dare to change the policy at this stage of this wave because its one of the few brakes they've left available to themselves for at least some stages of this wave without having to reimpose stuff.



> A Whitehall source has told the BBC the government received scientific advice that waiting to change the self-isolation policy for the double-jabbed would reduce the peak of the third wave.



The disruption is one of the brakes!


----------



## brogdale (Jul 7, 2021)

32,548 new cases today.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 7, 2021)

I don't think the majority support continuing restrictions any more. If you have to go out to work which most do to survive then you need to open up.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 7, 2021)

IC3D said:


> If you have to go out to work which most do to survive then you need to open up.


But not make face coverings and social distancing optional - we need those more than ever now


----------



## bimble (Jul 7, 2021)

belboid said:


> Its pretty poor and says that because we dont really have an absolutely clear idea of what 'long covid' is then it may well not exist. But then goes on to list various examples where people are ill for a long time and breaks them down into different categories (a la Whitty). It's basically an article saying we shouldn't worry about it, we can let it rip now.


Don't think it says that , at all. I found it interesting to see someone being honest about that temptation everyone feels to 'iron out' any lumpy bits in order to press your side of the argument home.

Also think it may well be correct, that in time a lot of this, particularly the fatigue and muscle weakness versions (that scare me the most) will be added to the long-debated poorly understood and extremely divisive category of things that just get called  'Post Viral Fatigue'. None of that is comforting to me, btw.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I don't think the majority support continuing restrictions any more. If you have to go out to work which most do to survive then you need to open up.


Yes attitudes shift. A big chunk of people havent shifted in that way, but I wouldnt claim they are still in the majority.

There is bound to be some further shifting though, back in the other direction, as the magnitude of this wave makes itself felt.

And then, if the wave peaks before it reaches utter doom levels, then the government will feel vindicated and all the 'back to normal' stuff that they have set in play will move beyond its early, premature phase and stand a good chance of becoming a more permanent majority view that even manages to be at least partially supported by basic pandemic reality.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 7, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> But not make face coverings and social distancing optional - we need those more than ever now


Of course their optional how could they not be?


----------



## IC3D (Jul 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes attitudes shift. A big chunk of people havent shifted in that way, but I wouldnt claim they are still in the majority.
> 
> There is bound to be some further shifting though, back in the other direction, as the magnitude of this wave makes itself felt.
> 
> And then, if the wave peaks before it reaches utter doom levels, then the government will feel vindicated and all the 'back to normal' stuff that they have set in play will move beyond its early, premature phase and stand a good chance of becoming a more permanent majority view.


Ive worked in London throughout and it is pretty much normal life now. I know when I go out of London it is strikingly different so attitudes differ.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

Its still only a fraction of normal life. As usual it is easy to only see the people who have gone back to normality and not account for all those who are still missing from the usual scenes of bustle.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 7, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Of course their optional how could they not be?


In a world where the pandemic had been handled intelligently, perhaps we could trust people to respect others voluntarily.
I feel very bad for shop workers and those who have to use public transport without those measures.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 7, 2021)

IC3D said:


> of course their optional how could they not be?



The 'exemption' thing is far from perfect (see the number of entire families/social groups who by some shatteringly unlikely coincidence all have legitimate medical exemptions) but it's better than 'do whatever you like' which will rebalance the social pressures involved drastically.


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

These days when I use words like fraction I should probably go out of my way to say that yeah, its a much larger fraction now than it once was. Not that I've looked at the mobility data for a few weeks. London is still lacking in normality numbers on some fronts especially though, eg tourism is still largely on its knees even though there is a bit of it around. Other stuff too, like a larger percentage of jobs in the South East being easier to do from home, again something where the picture is changing but hasnt travelled anywhere near back to normal yet.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 7, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> The 'exemption' thing is far from perfect (see the number of entire families/social groups who by some shatteringly unlikely coincidence all have legitimate medical exemptions) but it's better than 'do whatever you like' which will rebalance the social pressures involved drastically.


About 3rd appear to be exempt on the tube and increasing daily. Pisses me off. Went for a cocktail with my sons mum to celebrate a new job. Posh place and a couple coughing their heads off. People are twats often, any public facing worker knows this


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 7, 2021)

IC3D said:


> About 3rd appear to be exempt on the tube and increasing daily. Pisses me off. Went for a cocktail with my sons mum to celebrate a new job. Posh place and a couple coughing their heads off. People are twats often, any public facing worker knows this



London is worse for this than anywhere else I've been. And every nine seconds or so the tannoy at the tube stations reminds you about the 10,000 quid fine for not wearing a mask, which just adds insult to injury.


----------



## Supine (Jul 7, 2021)

Indy SAGE emergency summit tomorrow morning


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 7, 2021)

England’s reopening plan is a ‘dangerous experiment’, ministers told

Guardian article mainly quoting these people:

Home | PeoplesCovidInquiry


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

Just for the sake of completeness, the BBCs take on the reaction to people realising whatt the delay to changing self-isolation rules means for the coming weeks. Just in case anyone wasnt already sick enough of the spectacle of articles that invite us to go crazy about the number of people that may be asked to self-isolate in the weeks ahead, as opposed to going crazy about how many people getting infected we are invited to expect.









						Covid: Millions could be self-isolating between now and 16 August
					

BBC analysis shows more than 4.5 million people could be asked to self-isolate before 16 August.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> A conservative guess is that we might see 1.5 million cases in the four weeks after 19 July - that would be just over 50,000 cases a day on average.
> 
> About three close contacts have been identified for every Covid case reported, according to Test and Trace figures for England in the last month.
> 
> ...



This bit of whats siad is probably based on the same sort of Whitehall briefing that the Standard were on about earlier, just without going on about the 'hybrid immunity' aspect of why they think it might peak in that timeframe:



> So why are we doing it? Clearly there is a risk scrapping the self-isolation policy would push up the infection rate.
> 
> The hope is in another month the rise in cases will have peaked and the change would not be as risky.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 7, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> London is worse for this than anywhere else I've been. And every nine seconds or so the tannoy at the tube stations reminds you about the 10,000 quid fine for not wearing a mask, which just adds insult to injury.


Is it really 10 grand? I thought it was 200. Imagine if that had been fully enforced across the country. The entire bill for furlough would be an absolute breeze to cover.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> *Is it really 10 grand?* I thought it was 200. Imagine if that had been fully enforced across the country. The entire bill for furlough would be an absolute breeze to cover.



No, it's not, the plank likes making-up & posting nonsense as if it's fact.


----------



## prunus (Jul 7, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> No, it's not, the plank likes making-up & posting nonsense as fact.



Maximum fine of £6,400 for repeat offenders.


----------



## prunus (Jul 7, 2021)

Watching 60,000 people bawling out god save the queen at the top of their lungs at Wembley all I can think of is the cloud of virus aerosol blowing into all those people’s faces…


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 7, 2021)

prunus said:


> Maximum fine of £6,400 for repeat offenders.



It takes a lot of repeated offending to get to that , which is still well short of £10k.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 7, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Is it really 10 grand? I thought it was 200. Imagine if that had been fully enforced across the country. The entire bill for furlough would be an absolute breeze to cover.



I was exaggerating for comic effect. With no prospect of enforcement though it's comical enough already.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 7, 2021)

I really can't believe what is about to happen. My mind is reeling from all this, not wishing to be melodramatic.

I cannot concieve how they can sit back if cases get to at least 100,000 a day. Surely to god the re will be considerable public outcry. You'd think.

But with no restrictions and transmission untramelled by the vaccine....good lord!

I didn't sign up for this, and vaccine aside, this approach just shoves two fingers up at everything we've all done and put up with for the last 15 months. None of that has meant a damn because it's back to square one and their herd immunity madness


----------



## elbows (Jul 7, 2021)

They are hoping that some of what we know could happen doesnt happen and that things peak sooner/at a lower level than some of the possibilities they've floated in recent days. In which case they'll consider it a big victory and a vindication of the gamble they have taken.

I've still got no idea whether they will get away with the current approach without things busting past the limits they think are tolerable for hospitals etc.

Has Scotland shown some signs of peaking? I hate trying to detect peaks quickly using daily case data. Whatever happens there will offer some clues.


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 7, 2021)

brogdale said:


> 32,548 new cases today.



Fuck's sake - that would have been a new record number of cases if it had happened any time before the last 10 days of December.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 7, 2021)

They threw their lot in with the vaccine months ago, certainly not supporting  healthcare workers. I knew that when frontline NHS staff got a 1% pay cut in the middle of a pandemic.


----------



## Elpenor (Jul 7, 2021)

IC3D said:


> About 3rd appear to be exempt on the tube and increasing daily. Pisses me off. Went for a cocktail with my sons mum to celebrate a new job. Posh place and a couple coughing their heads off. People are twats often, any public facing worker knows this


Funny how all the exempt people seem to hang out together


----------



## Elpenor (Jul 7, 2021)

prunus said:


> Watching 60,000 people bawling out god save the queen at the top of their lungs at Wembley all I can think of is the cloud of virus aerosol blowing into all those people’s faces…


Covids coming home


----------



## Wilf (Jul 7, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> But not make face coverings and social distancing optional - we need those more than ever now


Yep, this, absolutely.  You could imagine the government going for some substantial measure of opening up in the name of some kind of 'balance'. I almost certainly wouldn't have agreed with doing that before everyone is even vaccinated, but it would have been a genuine debating point. But actively removing the requirement for masks and social distancing means it really is a let it rip policy. Nothing else.  The requirement to mask up has just about no downside, aside from loon campaigns and for most sectors, social distancing can be easily accommodated.  The government are genuinely trying to speed up the spread of a still deadly disease.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jul 7, 2021)

IC3D said:


> They threw their lot in with the vaccine months ago, certainly not supporting  healthcare workers. I knew that when frontline NHS staff got a 1% pay cut in the middle of a pandemic.


Pay rise you mean? Still shit.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 7, 2021)

prunus said:


> Watching 60,000 people bawling out god save the queen at the top of their lungs at Wembley all I can think of is the cloud of virus aerosol blowing into all those people’s faces…


Yep, along with public transport too and from, plus rammed pubs before and after.


----------



## weepiper (Jul 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> They are hoping that some of what we know could happen doesnt happen and that things peak sooner/at a lower level than some of the possibilities they've floated in recent days. In which case they'll consider it a big victory and a vindication of the gamble they have taken.
> 
> I've still got no idea whether they will get away with the current approach without things busting past the limits they think are tolerable for hospitals etc.
> 
> Has Scotland shown some signs of peaking? I hate trying to detect peaks quickly using daily case data. Whatever happens there will offer some clues.


Maybe. Bit early to tell



From Scotland Coronavirus Tracker


----------



## weepiper (Jul 8, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I just need to ask this because I'm feeling pretty concerned with this drastic move to dropping all restrictions. I was feeling OK but with potentially huge amounts of infection around and of the delta variant I'm kinda bricking it again.
> 
> My situation is I work in a shop, I was double jabbed with AZ 2 months ago, I wear a surgical mask all day, I'm in the second category of vulnerability, the shop is extremely well ventilated due to the door being open all day and I'm about to go into a situation where more and more people are going to stop wearing masks in the shop after the 19th.
> 
> ...


I really hear you. I'm fucking exhausted with being afraid. 18 months of being in the firing line is wearing me down now.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 8, 2021)

weepiper said:


> I really hear you. I'm fucking exhausted with being afraid. 18 months of being in the firing line is wearing me down now.


Likewise, in fact the announcements made this week have all but finished me off for now as I've been signed off for a couple of weeks. The sense of relief is immense.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Maybe. Bit early to tell
> 
> 
> From Scotland Coronavirus Tracker


Thanks for the info and your thoughts on that.

I see the language Sturgeon has gone for currently, as reported by the BBC involves 'could' and 'stabilising'.









						Covid in Scotland: Dates for lifting restrictions 'not set in stone'
					

Nicola Sturgeon says it would not be responsible to make guarantees in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Ms Sturgeon said case numbers were "much higher than we want them to be", but said it could still be the case that the recent increase was stabilising.



And stuff like this:



> She said: "We are literally monitoring the data on a daily basis right now, as we head towards the review point next week where we will be able to say what our plans are for 19 July.
> 
> "We are looking at this very carefully. My biggest concern right now is that even though we are seeing a weakening of the link between cases and hospitalisations, if we have a high number of cases even a lower proportion of those cases ending up in hospital can put pressure on our NHS."



Its so sad that its so easy to find stories about elements of Scotlands NHS being under such bad pressure right now.


----------



## zahir (Jul 8, 2021)

Letter to the Lancet

DEFINE_ME


> As the third wave of the pandemic takes hold across England, the UK Government plans to further re-open the nation. Implicit in this decision is the acceptance that infections will surge, but that this does not matter because vaccines have “broken the link between infection and mortality”.1 On July 19, 2021—branded as Freedom Day—almost all restrictions are set to end. We believe this decision is dangerous and premature.
> An end to the pandemic through population immunity requires enough of the population to be immune to prevent exponential growth of SARS-CoV-2. Population immunity is unlikely to be achieved without much higher levels of vaccination than can be reasonably expected by July 19, 2021. Proportionate mitigations will be needed to avoid hundreds of thousands of new infections, until many more are vaccinated.
> Nevertheless, the UK Government’s intention to ease restrictions from July 19, 2021, means that immunity will be achieved by vaccination for some people but by natural infection for others (predominantly the young). The UK Health Secretary has stated that daily cases could reach 100 000 per day over the summer months of 2021.2 The link between infection and death might have been weakened, but it has not been broken, and infection can still cause substantial morbidity in both acute and long-term illness. We have previously pointed to the dangers of relying on immunity by natural infection,3 and we have five main concerns with the UK Government’s plan to lift all restrictions at this stage of the pandemic.
> First, unmitigated transmission will disproportionately affect unvaccinated children and young people who have already suffered greatly. Official UK Government data show that as of July 4, 2021, 51% of the total UK population have been fully vaccinated and 68% have been partially vaccinated. Even assuming that approximately 20% of unvaccinated people are protected by previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, this still leaves more than 17 million people with no protection against COVID-19. Given this, and the high transmissibility of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, exponential growth will probably continue until millions more people are infected, leaving hundreds of thousands of people with long-term illness and disability.4 This strategy risks creating a generation left with chronic health problems and disability, the personal and economic impacts of which might be felt for decades to come.
> ...


----------



## Aladdin (Jul 8, 2021)

Wilf said:


> If this approach is pursued through to the Autumn, the peak will surely be much higher then.  There will be more cases in the population ready to spread even further when the schools go back, students move away to university etc.



And wait til the as yet unidentified flu hits.🙁


----------



## andysays (Jul 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Can we go back to May, please?
> 
> View attachment 277370View attachment 277371
> 
> * Map only up to 2/7/21, today it's reported as up 98.9% in 7-days to 181 (about 163 per 100k)


Could you post a link to the webpage where those maps are available, please.

I had previously bookmarked it, but can't seem to find it anymore.

ETA: You or anyone


----------



## Sue (Jul 8, 2021)

andysays said:


> Could you post a link to the webpage where those maps are available, please.
> 
> I had previously bookmarked it, but can't seem to find it anymore.
> 
> ETA: You or anyone


There you are, andysays 









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 8, 2021)

First (very brief) TWIV comment on UK strategy ...
Given later comments I doubt they registered that it included an end to compulsory masks in key areas...


----------



## bimble (Jul 8, 2021)

zahir said:


> Letter to the Lancet
> 
> DEFINE_ME


thank you. Was just about to ask if anyone can find the letter.
"This strategy risks creating a generation left with chronic health problems and disability, the personal and economic impacts of which might be felt for decades to come."
What a time to have these particular idiots in charge of the country, elected by the old.


----------



## andysays (Jul 8, 2021)

Sue said:


> There you are, andysays
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks Sue 

Things are certainly looking worse round our way than I remember from last time I looked a few months (?) ago.


----------



## andysays (Jul 8, 2021)

bimble said:


> thank you. Was just about to ask if anyone can find the letter.
> "This strategy risks creating a generation left with chronic health problems and disability, the personal and economic impacts of which might be felt for decades to come."
> What a time to have these particular idiots in charge of the country.


It's a pretty stark warning.

No need to quibble about the exact definition of Long Covid, the risk of a generation left with chronic health problems and disability is good enough for me.


----------



## Sue (Jul 8, 2021)

andysays said:


> Thanks Sue
> 
> Things are certainly looking worse round our way than I remember from last time I looked a few months (?) ago.


Yeah, they are. It was pretty much suppressed for ages and now it's very much on the way up. 

ETA And this obviously isn't helping either. Hackney is one of the least vaccinated places in Britain


----------



## andysays (Jul 8, 2021)

Sue said:


> Yeah, they are. It was pretty much suppressed for ages and now it's very much on the way up.
> 
> ETA And this obviously isn't helping either. Hackney is one of the least vaccinated places in Britain


Thanks for that link.

If nothing else, it will provide me with an additional argument if/when we're told we need to return to normal pre covid working practices on 19th July.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Jul 8, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Ive worked in London throughout and it is pretty much normal life now. I know when I go out of London it is strikingly different so attitudes differ.


Photos of mates around Wembley Stadium, looked pretty much like a busy FA cup final day of old


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 8, 2021)

No ambiguity about what he thinks of the plan.


----------



## LDC (Jul 8, 2021)

I'm actually just stunned about the plans for the next months. It's just unbelievable. I can't see how it's not just going to be horrendous.


----------



## Aladdin (Jul 8, 2021)

zahir said:


> Letter to the Lancet
> 
> DEFINE_ME




Thanks for posting this.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 8, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm actually just stunned about the plans for the next months. It's just unbelievable. I can't see how it's not just going to be horrendous.


Manageable deaths, second place in the Euros and a choreographed row with the EU. It's coming home.


----------



## Cloo (Jul 8, 2021)

Everything seems to be a recipe for people just deleting the Track & Trace app as well - or everyone's just going to ignore 'pings', certainly by August when they'll go 'Well no one will need to isolate in a few weeks anyway, so forget it'. Has it been in the least bit effective in the last month anyway? Sounds like way too many and too fast case spread for the system to have any mitigating effect now.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 8, 2021)

Charging for tests now.

Yeah a rich libertarian is definitely in charge of public health


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 8, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Charging for tests now.
> 
> Yeah a rich libertarian is definitely in charge of public health



What?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> What?



Indy is scaremongering. We'll see what happens









						People could be charged for lateral flow tests from next month, government reveals
					

Free tests only guaranteed until the end of July - despite ‘get tested’ campaign launched in April




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Jul 8, 2021)

This mornings Indie Sage. Very strong, very clear and direct account of why the government's approach is appalling.  I've been critical of Whitty on various threads and the guy from the Lancet mentions him and Vallance from 55:35 onwards.  The whole thing is worth a (depressing) watch though.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 8, 2021)

I almost feel there's a pause on this thread. Things are so awful, particularly the spread to young people, impact on the vulnerable and widespread long covid. All that combined with a situations where 'we' have so little chance of impacting on what they are doing. Things like the bedroom tax and the coming of PIP were all battles that were ultimately lost, but there was a chance to fight.  This isn't even a battle.  Mass infection.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I almost feel there's a pause on this thread. Things are so awful, particularly the spread to young people, impact on the vulnerable and widespread long covid. All that combined with a situations where 'we' have so little chance of impacting on what they are doing. Things like the bedroom tax and the coming of PIP were all battles that were ultimately lost, but there was a chance to fight.  This isn't even a battle.  Mass infection.


I suppose I dont really see it that way because the chances of u-turns in this pandemic have been much greater than u-turns in other policy areas.

In terms of the number of different people posting on this thread and the volume of posts, it has clearly dropped over time. eg no subsequent lockdown generated quite as much traffic as the original one. Partly because these things were no longer a shocking new event that was unlike anything we had previously seen in out lifetimes.

If the peak comes relatively early then the government may avoid repeating the same set of u-turns this time. Or if the pace of increasing infections slows then the timing will be changed and the government will be hoping to cling on to their current approach. So it is not possible to claim that this period will be sure to be a sort of re-run on the first half of March 2020. It might, it might not.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> No ambiguity about what he thinks of the plan.



Unfortunately he felt able to say that bit by prefacing it with comments about how he did not believe the UK approach involved the old 'herd immunity' plan.

He isnt directly quoted on that bit in this article but they do mention it.



> Ryan did, however, address reactions to Johnson’s announcement earlier this week amid claims by some that the new policy appeared to be to allow new infections on top of vaccinations so that the country could reach herd immunity, saying he did not believe that was the intention.











						WHO warns of ‘epidemiological stupidity’ of early Covid reopening
					

Mike Ryan issues warning over letting people catch Covid earlier as England prepares for ‘big bang’ reopening




					www.theguardian.com
				




But actually he is wrong about that. As I mentioned yesterday, journalists have been briefed that 'hybrid immunity' is part of the plan. And that just means a mix of immunity through vaccination and immunity through infection, so it is just a modified version of the old herd immunity plan, reenabled by vaccine programme successes.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> I suppose I dont really see it that way because the chances of u-turns in this pandemic have been much greater than u-turns in other policy areas.
> 
> In terms of the number of different people posting on this thread and the volume of posts, it has clearly dropped over time. eg no subsequent lockdown generated quite as much traffic as the original one. Partly because these things were no longer a shocking new event that was unlike anything we had previously seen in out lifetimes.
> 
> If the peak comes relatively early then the government may avoid repeating the same set of u-turns this time. Or if the pace of increasing infections slows then the timing will be changed and the government will be hoping to cling on to their current approach. So it is not possible to claim that this period will be sure to be a sort of re-run on the first half of March 2020. It might, it might not.


I don't doubt this government are capable of u-turns and it may well be the pressure on acute beds, cancer operations and the  rest that does it. Trouble is I think they've pinned their colours so much to this de facto mass infection policy that any potential u-turns will be further down the line that might have been the case in previous waves. The other thing is, if it's the NHS becoming overwhelmed that restores a degree of sanity, well, that's the NHS being overwhelmed.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Yes.

Although they will also be able to use the likes of Scotland to provide clues about peak size and timing and whether levels of immunity there result in what they have banked on actually happening.

Having said that, in terms of official announcements about next step timing I think the UK government are due to reveal theirs a day earlier than Scotland, next week.


----------



## LDC (Jul 8, 2021)

Just got to that 55 minute point in the Indy SAGE briefing now...

"A drive by the libertarian right to get us to live with death and long term disability for ideological reasons." Or something very similar said.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Pinning all that shit down to being a libertarian right thing ignores the very many decades where it was part of the establishment standard thinking in this country. The UK has an incredibly long history of that sort of thing.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> Pinning all that shit down to being a libertarian right thing ignores the very many decades where it was part of the establishment standard thinking in this country. The UK has an incredibly long history of that sort of thing.


The libertarian ideology is a continuation of pre-Victorian attitudes towards “well the poor deserve it, rules are for those who can’t pay to disobey”

They’ve just been continually in charge since the oil shock of the 70s whether they call themselves neoliberals, Thatcherite or libertarians


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Yeah although if anything I think it goes even deeper than that.

Plenty of other nation states have their own version of that, and yet ours is so bad that it really gets exposed in this pandemic when certain international comparisons are made.

I'll never forget the stupid looks on their faces as they realised in press conferences of March 9th and March 12th 2020 that they were going to struggle to sell the classic UK plan to the public and press this time.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 8, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just got to that 55 minute point in the Indy SAGE briefing now...
> 
> "A drive by the libertarian right to get us to live with death and long term disability for ideological reasons." Or something very similar said.



"Independent" SAGE, although ostensibly apolitical, has clearly been filled up with people who ideologically oppose the Conservative government, so it would be a surprise if they didn't shoehorn this sort of stuff into their output. I tend to ignore them because they're never going to provide anything more useful than a robot parrot set to shake it's head continuously. This might be nice if you think the government get every single thing completely wrong, but it's not useful.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 8, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just got to that 55 minute point in the Indy SAGE briefing now...
> 
> "A drive by the libertarian right to get us to live with death and long term disability for ideological reasons." Or something very similar said.


I watched about an hour and found it to be perfectly modulated, articulate and relevant.  A politically engaged public understanding of science event.  The depressing thing is all that science and rationality has no political agency and remains detached from class forces.  Feels to me that gig economy workers will be currently anxious as hell about having to work in areas without masks and distancing, whilst being relieved about not having to isolate.  None of this has taken us to a point where there are mass campaigns against precarity.  My point isn't, obviously I hope, that workers and particularly gig economy workers don't know the science/risks, it's the absence of any kind of poles of opposition, any kind of sense of how things might be different.  It's how wrong all those opinion pieces were a year ago saying how something better 'must' emerge from the pandemic.

Sorry, I'm essentially just venting my own depression about the situation.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> "Independent" SAGE, although ostensibly apolitical, has clearly been filled up with people who ideologically oppose the Conservative government, so it would be a surprise if they didn't shoehorn this sort of stuff into their output. I tend to ignore them because they're never going to provide anything more useful than a robot parrot set to shake it's head continuously. This might be nice if you think the government get every single thing completely wrong, but it's not useful.


Sometimes I idly wonder what brought you here in this pandemic.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I watched about an hour and found it to be perfectly modulated, articulate and relevant.  A politically engaged public understanding of science event.  The depressing thing is all that science and rationality has no political agency and remains detached from class forces.  Feels to me that gig economy workers will be currently anxious as hell about having to work in areas without masks and distancing, whilst being relieved about not having to isolate.  None of this has taken us to a point where there are mass campaigns against precarity.  My point isn't, obviously I hope, that workers and particularly gig economy workers don't know the science/risks, it's the absence of any kind of poles of opposition, any kind of sense of how things might be different.  It's how wrong all those opinion pieces were a year ago saying how something better 'must' emerge from the pandemic.
> 
> Sorry, I'm essentially just venting my own depression about the situation.


I do keep an eye on the likes of the FT fretting that surveys implied 41% of people want to find a different job once the acute phase of the pandemic had worn off.

Pandemic-inspired change may well not be as direct, swift and obvious as many hoped. But I think its contributed to something that was probably already happening due to the somewhat precarious state of various things today, and the large amount of changes required in the coming decades in order to cope with climate change & energy issues.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> But actually he is wrong about that. As I mentioned yesterday, journalists have been briefed that 'hybrid immunity' is part of the plan. And that just means a mix of immunity through vaccination and immunity through infection, so it is just a modified version of the old herd immunity plan, reenabled by vaccine programme successes.


And I probably should point out that this plan has much in common with with very many other countries will attempt.

But the detail matters and will be the difference between whether this plan is in tune with the inevitable end game of pandemic epidemiology, or something that blows up in the UKs face this time around. And if it does blow up in their face again then we'll just have to see whether that only leads to a delay before attempting the same thing again, or whether there is a political earthquake.

It boils down to timing (eg fucking up timing by assuming the overall protective effects of population immunity levels are close if they are actually further away). And quite how far a return to the old normal is pushed.

Countries will not ignore the levels of immunity in their populations and will base much of their plans and timetables on this. The careful ones will take it slowly and will keep certain baseline measures in place well beyond the moments of maximum danger.

The UK takes the approach of Johnson seeking to dust off the superman cape he wanted to wear at the start of the pandemic. They want to demonstrate to other countries that they too can follow this path with accelerated timing. They want to be the first to claim victory and to use that as a foundation for all manner of hideous ideology and policy.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> "Independent" SAGE, although ostensibly apolitical, has clearly been filled up with people who ideologically oppose the Conservative government, so it would be a surprise if they didn't shoehorn this sort of stuff into their output. I tend to ignore them because they're never going to provide anything more useful than a robot parrot set to shake it's head continuously. This might be nice if you think the government get every single thing completely wrong, but it's not useful.


Do you even listen to their output? As far as I know they haven't got much, if anything, wrong throughout. They're not even saying don't open up they're saying not yet and not without things like keeping masks mandatory, better ventilation in schools and more vaccination. 
My guess is they said the things about the libertarian right because if it looks and quacks like a duck it's a duck. The libertarian right are doing this and they are demanding you accept a certain level of death and disability, all of which is predicted in various modelling.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 8, 2021)

Wilf said:


> This mornings Indie Sage. Very strong, very clear and direct account of why the government's approach is appalling.  I've been critical of Whitty on various threads and the guy from the Lancet mentions him and Vallance from 55:35 onwards.  The whole thing is worth a (depressing) watch though.



This is not Indie SAGE is it?
As far as I can see this is the group of people who wrote the letter in the Lancet.

This is the latest Indie SAGE:



I don't think it's helpful for Indie SAGE to air political opinions, like the one about the Libertarian right that's been discussed in the past page or so - but I don't think they have. That comment was made in a different context.


----------



## Supine (Jul 8, 2021)

It was Indy Sage but today they were alongside The Citizens and the Lancet.

It isn’t really possible to disconnect the science from politics at the moment is it. Indy Sage have made scientific proposals throughout. The latest government decisions are directly not related to the data. As was pointed out in today’s briefing.

Science needs to get more political if it wants to get the gov to u-turn on current July 19th plans.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 8, 2021)

The latest Imperial REACT-1 (interim) report (round 13, 24 June-5 July) is out. 47k people across England RT-PCR swabbing.

This indicated exponential growth throughout this period where R=1.87 [95CI:1.40-2.45], doubling rate 6.1 days [95CI:4.0-12].

590/100k infection rate seen, with infection rising substantially in all age cohorts under 75, but particularly 13-17 years (around 1430/100k). Growth in infection in all regions but notably much higher incidence in London, followed by Yorks/Humber; lowest in the SW and the SE. Infection higher in males.

Amongst under 65s infection rates were three times higher in unvaccinated versus vaccinated, though rises in both cohorts were proportionately similar (note: vaccination status self-reported).

The estimate of unadjusted(*) effectiveness for two doses of vaccine against PCR-confirmed infection was 72.6% [95CI:62.8-79.6%] for this round (compared to 72.4% [95CI:56.7-82.4%] for the previous round).
* ie does not account for variation in individual behaviour (eg adoption of NPIs).



> Our results indicate that England is now experiencing a substantial third wave of infections, reinforcing other data streams which have been showing a similar signal.
> 
> Our results add important context since, being based on a random community sample of named individuals, they should be less affected by changes in testing behaviour than the routine testing. Also, our results show a similar trajectory to those reported by the Office for National Statistics Coronavirus Infection Survey which again uses a community sample.
> 
> In summary we have documented the continued and accelerating increase of exponential growth of SARS-CoV-2 infections in England from May to early July 2021, as the third wave of infections in England takes hold. We are entering a critical period with a number of important competing processes: continued vaccination rollout to the whole adult population in England, increased natural immunity through infection, reduced social mixing of children during school holidays, increased proportion of mixing occurring outdoors during summer, the intended full opening of hospitality and entertainment and cessation of mandated social distancing and mask wearing.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> This is not Indie SAGE is it?
> As far as I can see this is the group of people who wrote the letter in the Lancet.
> 
> This is the latest Indie SAGE:
> ...



Yep. My mistake.  Not sure I agree with you on the political opinions though. A pandemic isn't just science/virus, it has a social response. And in this country it's the government's response rather than the virus that has killed tens of thousands who didn't need to die.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 8, 2021)

In fact that's worth saying directly, it isn't the virus that's killing people in this country, it's the government.  An obvious point in some ways, but my brain hadn't ever put it together as a sentence.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Its a coalition, the covid coalition.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Just a random example of the recent hospital situation from my town in the middle of the midlands.

10 patients. 4 unvaccinated. One single dosed. Five double dosed. Slanted headline is a bit silly as a result.









						Almost half of Nuneaton hospital's Covid-19 patients have not had vaccination
					

It has led to a plea to people to make sure that they get their jab




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

I say silly because its a bit awkward having to frame it that way. But there are entirely understandable public health reasons why reporting of all things relating to vaccines are done in a manner designed to encourage people to get vaccinated.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 8, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Yep. My mistake.  Not sure I agree with you on the political opinions though. A pandemic isn't just science/virus, it has a social response. And in this country it's the government's response rather than the virus that has killed tens of thousands who didn't need to die.



I think that by including political opinions in information that is presented as scientific advice you are liable to put certain people off, and open yourself to being accused of presenting the scientific facts in a way that is biased by your political opinions.

There are people who will agree with the scientific facts, but disagree with what the response should be. And there will be people who reject the science. Indie SAGE is wasting its time with the latter, but for the former group, I think its best not to alienate them, because you have some chance of influencing their response, and making sure their response is not based on wrong or partial facts.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 8, 2021)

All of this:


----------



## NoXion (Jul 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> "Independent" SAGE, although ostensibly apolitical, has clearly been filled up with people who ideologically oppose the Conservative government, so it would be a surprise if they didn't shoehorn this sort of stuff into their output. I tend to ignore them because they're never going to provide anything more useful than a robot parrot set to shake it's head continuously. This might be nice if you think the government get every single thing completely wrong, but it's not useful.



The government is embarking on a plan that will purposefully see more people infected, with the attendant possibility of death or long-term/permanent illness. You don't have to be anti-Conservative to have a problem with that, you just have to be a decent fucking human being.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 8, 2021)

NoXion said:


> The government is embarking on a plan that will purposefully see more people infected, with the attendant possibility of death or long-term/permanent illness. You don't have to be anti-Conservative to have a problem with that, you just have to be a decent fucking human being.



Any plan other than an immediate full-on lockdown is a plan that will purposefully see more people infected.


----------



## NoXion (Jul 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Any plan other than an immediate full-on lockdown is a plan that will purposefully see more people infected.



Wrong. Allowing more time for people to get their vaccinations and for allowing them to build up immunity once jabbed will provide better outcomes.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 8, 2021)

NoXion said:


> Wrong. Allowing more time for people to get their vaccinations and for allowing them to build up immunity once jabbed will provide better outcomes.



Maybe, maybe not if infections are just delayed until winter. However what is clear is that infections are already increasing exponentially right now. Therefore maintaining the status quo of restrictions is also an action that will purposefully see more people infected. Don't pretend that there's some philosophical difference between the positions because there isn't.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 8, 2021)

New cases 32,551, a drop in the 7-day average increase to +34.9%

Hospital admissions (4/7) - 456, 7-day average increase +51.5%

Deaths 35, 7-day average increase +52.6%



Here in Worthing, 7-day average increase in cases +146.5%, hospital admissions +166.7%.


----------



## NoXion (Jul 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Maybe, maybe not if infections are just delayed until winter. However what is clear is that infections are already increasing exponentially right now. Therefore maintaining the status quo of restrictions is also an action that will purposefully see more people infected. Don't pretend that there's some philosophical difference between the positions because there isn't.



Yes there is, are you fucking trolling right now? If restrictions are lifted further, then that provides more opportunity for the virus to spread. That means more infections and more chances that people will die or get seriously ill. By winter there will be more people vaccinated than there are now. I'm due my second jab in August. So it's not just a question of delay, it's also a question of allowing more people to gain immunity via vaccination, instead of by risking death and illness through infection.

Good grief.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 8, 2021)

NoXion said:


> Yes there is, are you fucking trolling right now? If restrictions are lifted further, then that provides more opportunity for the virus to spread. That means more infections and more chances that people will die or get seriously ill. By winter there will be more people vaccinated than there are now. I'm due my second jab in August. So it's not just a question of delay, it's also a question of allowing more people to gain immunity via vaccination, instead of risking death and illness.
> 
> Good grief.



Right, even if you are convinced of what you say, I'm not sure why you think the status quo isn't purposefully allowing more people to be infected. Following your logic, a lockdown stringent enough to get R below 1 immediately should be imposed. Otherwise it's just a matter of degrees of infection rather than a philosophical difference in approach.


----------



## NoXion (Jul 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Right, even if you are convinced of what you say, I'm not sure why you think the status quo isn't purposefully allowing more people to be infected. Following your logic, a lockdown stringent enough to get R below 1 immediately should be imposed. Otherwise it's just a matter of degrees of infection rather than a philosophical difference in approach.



They're literally throwing the doors open you stupid fucking twat. How the fuck does NOT result in more people getting infected than a more gradual re-opening that allows more vaccine immunity to build up first?


----------



## teuchter (Jul 8, 2021)

NoXion said:


> They're literally throwing the doors open you stupid fucking twat. How the fuck does NOT result in more people getting infected than a more gradual re-opening that allows more vaccine immunity to build up first?


It's a matter of degree. The doors are pretty much open already.


----------



## NoXion (Jul 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's a matter of degree. The doors are pretty much open already.



The situation is bad, so let's make it worse? Great logic there.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 8, 2021)

Around the time of the winter peak, we had some argument/discussion about the idea that the average of "by date reported" provided some clues about what the actual numbers "by day of test/death" would be doing a few days later (having caught up with reporting backlog).

The chart for cases by date reported looks like this just now.


and on a log scale:


----------



## teuchter (Jul 8, 2021)

NoXion said:


> The situation is bad, so let's make it worse? Great logic there.


You're not reading what's being posted.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Yes I was just in this middle of posting to say that they've added log scale versions of the charts to the UK dashboard, when I saw your post appear....

Unfortunately I find the most interesting stuff these days involves graphs with different age groups, and although a lot of that data is present on the dashboard behind the scenes, its not well represented in very many charts.

Also the amount of vertical size they allow for each chart is still limited, so most graphs end up with fairly shallow looking trends, making it harder to spot some of the smaller fluctuations in trajectory on some of the log scale charts.

This chart they provide is one way to see the fluctuations much more clearly:


----------



## NoXion (Jul 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> You're not reading what's being posted.



Get fucked, you dickhead.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

And the way those percentage changes have been oscillating means its even harder for me to conclude at any early stage that clues are present about peak timing. I'll be stuck not really being able to be sure of the peak until we reach a point where there is a fall in reported cases that is sustained for quite some time. A slowing of percentage increases wont be enough of a clue, especially if it keeps oscillating with rhythm like it has been.


----------



## andysays (Jul 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I think that by including political opinions in information that is presented as scientific advice you are liable to put certain people off, and open yourself to being accused of presenting the scientific facts in a way that is biased by your political opinions.
> 
> There are people who will agree with the scientific facts, but disagree with what the response should be. And there will be people who reject the science. Indie SAGE is wasting its time with the latter, but for the former group, I think its best not to alienate them, because you have some chance of influencing their response, and making sure their response is not based on wrong or partial facts.


Yeah, let's keep politics out of science, especially when infection rates continue to rise as a result of the scientific advice being dismissed and overridden by the government to further their own political careers and economic interests.

That's definitely the best approach


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Often there isnt even really a very large gap between SAGEs stance and the stance of Indie SAGE. The biggest difference is in the tone, and a lot of that comes down to the muted and 'not really comprehensive minutes' nature of the SAGE minutes made available, and their official relationship to the decision makers. Plus the variable delays in how long it takes for SAGE documents to be made public.

There are exceptions though where there is a wider gap between them. If I were looking to explore that more right now, which Im not, matters relating to schools and children would be the obvious starting point.

Certainly the official SAGE were happy to put a section about the importance of maintaining low prevalence of the virus in their documents at the end of April.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Since I'm using data from Scotland for peak clues, I suppose I really should point out the version of the graph I posted a few posts ago but for Scotland:


----------



## teuchter (Jul 8, 2021)

andysays said:


> Yeah, let's keep politics out of science, especially when infection rates continue to rise as a result of the scientific advice being dismissed and overridden by the government to further their own political careers and economic interests.
> 
> That's definitely the best approach


I'm not someone who thinks that politics and science can be kept absolutely separate, but I think it is often useful for people to be clear about whether they are attempting to offer scientific or political opinion. There are scientists who are naive about politics and there are politicians who are niave about science. Indie SAGE presents itself as a group set up to provide scientific opinion and information. If I want political commentary on how policy is (or isn't) responding to scientific advice then I'd prefer to get it elsewhere.

What did you think about Richard Madeley asking Susan Richie about being a communist?


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Indie SAGE presents itself as a group set up to provide scientific opinion and information. If I want political commentary on how policy is (or isn't) responding to scientific advice then I'd prefer to get it elsewhere.



I see Indie SAGE as a response to the way official SAGE advice was published, not published, how official SAGE stuff was used or misused by other parts of government, and also to provide contrast between views a SAGE consensus took compared to other scientific positions.

And its always had quite a heavy focus on the gaps between various forms of scientific advice and what actions government have and have not taken at different points.

Plenty of its positions have become quite predictable and it has comfort zones that it finds relatively easy to discuss but it also shies away from some areas. For example they find it much easier to call for various sensible mitigation measures in particular settings, eg to keep going on about ventilation and schools. But they arent going to call for the heaviest brakes to be slammed on at quite the same time an individual like me might.


----------



## andysays (Jul 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> ...What did you think about Richard Madeley asking Susan Richie about being a communist?


I can't remember the exact details of this incident, but are you suggesting there's any sort of equivalence between Madeley attempting to undermine Richie's opinion about Covid on the basis that she's a communist and a group of scientists drawing a political conclusion when they see the government acting that runs counter to the scientific advice in a way which will impact on the lives and future health of currently uncountable numbers of people?


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

It did sound like he was suggesting that, and it wasnt terribly convincing.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 8, 2021)

andysays said:


> I can't remember the exact details of this incident, but are you suggesting there's any sort of equivalence between Madeley attempting to undermine Richie's opinion about Covid on the basis that she's a communist and a group of scientists drawing a political conclusion when they see the government acting that runs counter to the scientific advice in a way which will impact on the lives and future health of uncountable numbers of people?


There was an implication that her opinions about what should be done about Covid were driven by a political agenda rather than looking at scientific evidence. There are always people who will want to try and dismiss scientific advice as being biased and driven by political agendas. And if scientists start giving their opinions on why politicians are ignoring the science, rather than just stating that they are ignoring the science, then it seems to me that people are more liable to suspect that those scientists are just motivated by political ideologies and not take seriously the scientific opinion they are offering. We've had an example of that in the last page of this thread.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

I dont recommend bending over backwards to try to accommodate those who will always be able to find some excuse to dismiss stuff that doesnt fit their own politics. You'll just waste time, water down your message and play into their hands.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

See I think Indie SAGE would be wasting their time trying to broaden their appeal in that way.

Because there are already plenty of people who think they are some kind of 'pandemic centrist' who arent fans of Indie SAGE. Not to mention those with the more obviously extreme positions further to the right. Attempts to win these people over seem futile and counterproductive, Indie SAGE should stick to their guns.

Individuals that make up Indie SAGE farting around with their language to restrain themselves a bit is not going to be a key difference maker. Rather they should keep going with their main messages, and if those messages ring true to people then thats all you can hope for. And it will be the unfolding reality of this wave that largely gets to dictate the extent to which such messages ring true beyond an obvious core audience.


----------



## Cloo (Jul 8, 2021)

Presumably the government is counting on infections peaking before September so it can be all 'back to school'.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Presumably the government is counting on infections peaking before September so it can be all 'back to school'.



They are counting on the peak coming much sooner than that in order that levels of hospitalisations dont bust well beyond what the system can hope to cope with.

I think they are also partially banking on it peaking earlier and at lower levels than some of the figures they've chucked around in public recently. So they can turn that into a great news story, an additional victory by beating expectations.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 8, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Presumably the government is counting on infections peaking before September so it can be all 'back to school'.


Or it will be like January: back to school, because anything else would be "inhumane", then U-turn before teatime on day one.


----------



## flypanam (Jul 8, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Everything seems to be a recipe for people just deleting the Track & Trace app as well - or everyone's just going to ignore 'pings',


At a staff meeting today a member of the teaching staff admitted telling her students not to check in and turn off Bluetooth when on campus, so they don’t get pinged.

Nothing was said by senior mgmt. Our union branch is having a meeting tomorrow,  dunno what will come out of it though.


----------



## teqniq (Jul 8, 2021)




----------



## andysays (Jul 8, 2021)

teqniq said:


>



Someone should really tell that senior NHS clinician to keep their political opinions out of their tweets...


----------



## teqniq (Jul 8, 2021)

Whether you're being serious or otherwise, I wish more of them spoke up, and that wasn't a tweet it was a DM.


----------



## andysays (Jul 8, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Whether you're being serious or otherwise, I wish more of them spoke up, and that wasn't a tweet it was a DM.


Sorry, I was being flippant, but I was trying to make a serious point.

It is perhaps a measure of the despair and frustration that many are feeling at recent developments that have led those who previously might not have expressed those political thoughts, maybe not even thought in those terms, to start doing so now.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 8, 2021)

People shouldn't mention poverty being linked to coronavirus deaths because that's political too.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 8, 2021)

No one said people shouldn’t be political ffs, but a body that claims to be apolitical should probably try to be, or else stop claiming that they are.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No one said people shouldn’t be political ffs, but a body that claims to be apolitical should probably try to be, or else stop claiming that they are.


if you any thoughts at all, how can you be apolitical?


----------



## Hollis (Jul 8, 2021)

Was due to visit parents for first time in 16 months next week - anyway have cancelled.  His immune system ain't all it should be due to treatment, so not worth the risk.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Even if they bent over backwards to be non-political they would still be accused of being political as soon as they said something someone didnt like. Usually because the someone in question has shit politics.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 8, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> if you any thoughts at all, how can you be apolitical?



Why do they claim to be then?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Why do they claim to be then?


they probably obliged to


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Where do they make that claim anyway?

Politics isnt mentioned on their page about themselves:





__





						What is Independent SAGE? | Independent SAGE
					






					www.independentsage.org
				




And their youtube description is:



> "‘We are following the science’ is the message the British public have been hearing from government since COVID-19 mitigating measures began. It says it is following the advice of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). But the activities of the committee have been kept secret and excluded from scrutiny by the public or wider scientific community.
> 
> In response, on Monday May 4, the Independent SAGE convened as a group of preeminent experts from the UK and around the world. The aim of the Independent SAGE was and is to provide robust, independent advice to HM Government with the purpose of helping the UK navigate COVID-19 whilst minimising fatalities.
> 
> The Independent SAGE is chaired by former HM Government Chief Scientific Advisor Sir David King and draws on a range of international and British experts."



I note the word robust. Some of the wording reflects just how little official SAGE stuff was published in the early days. They have wound some people up by using words like preeminent, and other people with some experience in the field may rant about 'self appointed experts' or people seeking attention or undue prominence. Most of this is understandable but rather typical petty human stuff that should not be allowed to get in the way of the substance of the messages such entities or individuals may feel like coming out with in this pandemic.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Why do they claim to be then?


I really don't understand your obsession with this. Say you're a scientist with truck loads of data that you see all going in the wrong direction. You see ample numbers of people likely being disabled and the possibility of escape variants due to rampant infection. You know all this is going to be caused directly by government policy and your job is to communicate this information to the public, what are you gonna do? 

How exactly do you say 'there's really bad shit coming into view right now and it's all because of government policy' without in some way sounding political? Granted, they could've not said the stuff about a hard libertarian government doing this for ideological reasons but fuck it, why not? There's enough bullshit and obfuscation  in public discourse now so why not, for once, just call a spade a spade?


----------



## Dogsauce (Jul 8, 2021)

258,000 vaccinations today. At one point they were doing 700,000. Is there any particular reason for the drop? They ought to be going at it full pelt given the planned ending of restrictions, take mobile units round secondary schools etc.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 8, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> 258,000 vaccinations today. At one point they were doing 700,000. *Is there any particular reason for the drop?* They ought to be going at it full pelt given the planned ending of restrictions, take mobile units round secondary schools etc.



Yes, supply of alternatives to the AZ one, required for the under 40's, is the main issue.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Yep supply, probably a few other logistics issues at times at local level, variations in uptake/demand from various age groups. And the timing of when the most first doses were given obviously having an effect on demand for second doses at different moments in time.

The much lower rates of vaccination are certainly one of those issues where it is bemusing but unsurprising to see the press not focussing on very much at all. Graphs of daily vaccination rates are freely available o the UK dashboard, they are no secret, but they dont get turned into colourful stories in the press much do they? For various reasons those arent really the stories they want to tell on an ongoing basis.

I dont think I've got any sense of what proportion of people took up the offer to move their second dose forwards either.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 8, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Everything seems to be a recipe for people just deleting the Track & Trace app as well - or everyone's just going to ignore 'pings', certainly by August when they'll go 'Well no one will need to isolate in a few weeks anyway, so forget it'. Has it been in the least bit effective in the last month anyway? Sounds like way too many and too fast case spread for the system to have any mitigating effect now.


A friend of mine's daughter came into contact with another kid who subsequently tested positive.

School won't let her keep her daughter home unless they have been contacted by test and trace. The positive test was on Sunday. As of Thursday test and trace still hasn't been in touch.

So yeah... Test and trace doesn't seem to be working anymore (if it ever worked)


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Test & trace systems generally decline quite badly when the number of cases gets too large too. We heard much about this in previous waves but its been largely ignored in England so far this time. I believe it has come up in Scotland recently, probably because statistics are kept as to whether targets are being met for how quickly contact tracing etc is done, and they've not been hitting their targets. I'm not bloody surprised given their overall case numbers in recent times.

Meanwhile in Scotland I see that Sturgeons language continues to ring bells in terms of the sort of language used during periods of possible peak in past waves. Authorities hesitate for good reason to declare that things have peaked at the very earliest opportunity to make that claim. It comes more gradually, which is fair enough because I too cannot really judge peaks with a high degree of confidence until quite a bit of time passes after the date that actually turns out to be the peak. Sometimes in the past the authorities have left it slightly later than me to declare that we've gone past a peak, but not by much.









						Covid in Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon says surge in cases may be levelling off
					

Nicola Sturgeon says a "slowdown" in infections gives her optimism that restrictions can be eased.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## zahir (Jul 8, 2021)

Questions over whether the testing system will be able to cope with 100,000 cases a day - though I'm not sure why cases shouldn't go far higher than that.









						Lifting Covid rules in England ‘will overwhelm testing capacity’
					

Exclusive: Expert says 660,000 PCR tests a day will be needed if country has 100,000 daily infections




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

Yeah if we actually reach a point with that level of infection then things will buckle and if history is any guide they will have to start restricting access to testing. 

I really hoped we'd get regular, timely sewage data for England, eg on the dashboard, in time to monitor this wave via a means that isnt reliant on attitudes to testing, testing capacity etc. That data exists but it isnt often publicly shared 

Also if anyone remembers the period when we were heading downwards on the slope of the last wave, and the government etc were only too happy to tell us that as the number of positives fell, they'd be able to do genomic sequencing on a far greater proportion of positive tests. Well that isnt going to be possible with silly numbers so our variant surveillance will also suffer. Although they do have some forms of sewage analysis on the genomic level too.


----------



## bimble (Jul 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> They are counting on the peak coming much sooner than that



By what mechanism would infections peak before September?
I'm just not understanding what would cause that to happen, in the circumstances.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 8, 2021)

zahir said:


> Questions over whether the testing system will be able to cope with 100,000 cases a day - though I'm not sure why cases shouldn't go far higher than that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The tracing part already seems to be breaking down. Little point in the testing when the tracing doesn't work.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

bimble said:


> By what mechanism would infections peak before September?
> I'm just not understanding what would cause that to happen, in the circumstances.



Theres a few different ways I can describe this.

It boils down to the virus needing to find ever increasing numbers of susceptible individuals to infect in order to carry on with its exponential growth.

Modelling of waves is done via all sorts of detail but at its heart it usually boils down to a model of how many susceptible people there are in the population being modelled, and how that changes over time. As the number of infections increases to giddy heights, the number of susceptible individuals starts to drop at a faster rate than before, and this eventually adds up to a situation that starts to thwart the virus more and more.

There are less susceptible individuals now, due to a combination of vaccination and previous infections. The government appear to be banking on this causing a threshold to be reached which will change the balance, and leave the virus still finding victims but not enough of them to sustain growth in case numbers.

In the past we have hit peaks because the virus couldnt sustain its growth. This has been down to a combination of infection and behavioural changes. People met less other people, took steps to reduce the chances of infection, self-isolated, shielded, worked from home, experienced various degrees of lockdown etc.

Government have thrown away some of those brakes because they think that the immunity picture can carry more of the weight. They know that school summer holidays will also have an impact on the opportunities the virus has. And they know that some brakes are still in place, some people will not return to normal, will self-isolate etc etc.

Plus they know that they can expect a different ratio of cases to hospitalisations now, due to vaccines.

On the negative side with the current picture is the Delta variant, and the people who've been vaccinated but who wont end up being protected, and the various brakes the government says it has thrown away and will not touch for now.

All of the above combines to create a picture of uncertainty where the government will be encouraged to try their luck, but where people like me wont be able to judge whether they can get away with it or not until we actually find out for ourselves. They might, they might not.

If they dont get away with it and the virus shows no signs of running out of an ever increasing daily number of victims, then if that carries on for long enough the government will end up having to reapply stronger brakes or massively change more rules than they've announced so far.


----------



## elbows (Jul 8, 2021)

And so another way to put it is that peaks still come without lockdowns, the difference is when and how high. And in the case of lockdown & behavioural change-induced peaks, what sort of resurgence and new wave is possible again when those behaviours and rules are changed. As opposed to peaks caused mostly by levels of immunity, where we wouldnt expect subsequent waves of note unless/until immunity dropped back below the threshold, either because of changes in our bodies or changes to the virus.

Since reality is normally a combination of these factors, to some extent even without formal lockdowns, I wont be too confident as to whether immunity threshold stuff is solely responsible for any peak, since certain brakes and behavioural changes are still contributing too. So the future could still be bumpy, especially during winters, even if there were no big changes to the virus itself or our levels of immunity.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 8, 2021)

zahir said:


> Questions over whether the testing system will be able to cope with 100,000 cases a day - though I'm not sure why cases shouldn't go far higher than that.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Probably part of the plan. Case numbers can't keep going up if testing collapses.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No one said people shouldn’t be political ffs, but a body that claims to be apolitical should probably try to be, or else stop claiming that they are.


Oh, I'd have thought diagnosing the causes of a problem comes with the territory for doctors. Particularly in the realm of public health.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 8, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I really don't understand your obsession with this. Say you're a scientist with truck loads of data that you see all going in the wrong direction. You see ample numbers of people likely being disabled and the possibility of escape variants due to rampant infection. You know all this is going to be caused directly by government policy and your job is to communicate this information to the public, what are you gonna do?
> 
> How exactly do you say 'there's really bad shit coming into view right now and it's all because of government policy' without in some way sounding political? Granted, they could've not said the stuff about a hard libertarian government doing this for ideological reasons but fuck it, why not? There's enough bullshit and obfuscation  in public discourse now so why not, for once, just call a spade a spade?


(((Scientists being honest))))


----------



## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

It appears they've decided to make one of the brakes I keep going on about weaker, by fucking around with the sensitivity of the app.

Whether this turns out to be seen as pragmatic and sensible or ends up being seen as part of a doomed approach will come down to peak size and timing.









						NHS Covid app to be tweaked to cut need for self-isolation
					

Ministers decide to make app less sensitive amid fears millions will have to stay home over next month




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## two sheds (Jul 9, 2021)

Isn't the delta variant _more_ transmissible? I've seen where even slight contact between people passed it on.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 9, 2021)

Given that they actively want the under 18s to get infected, maybe they should design the app to show where you can take your sons and daughters to get a lung full. Other ideas they are trialling include sponsoring the infected to tour schools and playgroups and Group 4 run _Help the Virus Escape the Vaccine_ events.  White feathers will be handed out to the able bodied non-infected.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 9, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Isn't the delta variant _more_ transmissible? I've seen where even slight contact between people passed it on.


Yeah exactly. They should be tweaking it to be more sensitive.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 9, 2021)

There’s no such thing as apolitical science.  All scientific research takes place within a context.  Even things as straightforward as what the research question is and what is measured are based on assumptions, priorities and biases that are derived from social contexts that can broadly be described as “political”.  Then we have the way that the data is interpreted — what is included and what isn’t, how groups are divided within the data, what type of method is applied — that’s all contextual, political-with-a-small-p.  And that’s all before we get to the bit about how the results are written up, discussed and broadcast, which is where the politics are most obviously evident.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Every time I do a graph these days I see the effects of vaccines showing up, usually in the form of bigger gaps between different age groups numbers than seen in previous waves. But some of these gaps may shrink a little as the levels of infection and hospitalisation rise overall. And bigger gaps between them doesnt mean cases arent still rising exponentially in all groups, so far they still are.


Most helpful graphing that's not behind a paywall >>









						Covid UK: coronavirus cases, deaths and vaccinations today
					

Are coronavirus cases rising in your local area and nationally? Check week-on-week changes across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the latest figures from public health authorities




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Thora (Jul 9, 2021)

I live in a small town in the south west that has been largely unaffected by covid, we've always had very low numbers.
Today, Year 7 is isolating at the secondary school.
Year 2 and Reception are isolating at the primary.
I went into the pharmacy today and they had a poster up warning of staff shortages for the next 10 days.
My local pub is closed til at least the 12th due to all 4 staff isolating.


----------



## l'Otters (Jul 9, 2021)

teuchter said:


> This is not Indie SAGE is it?
> As far as I can see this is the group of people who wrote the letter in the Lancet.
> 
> This is the latest Indie SAGE:
> ...



The comment about the libertarian right that’s sparked this discussion of whether the Indie Sage are political or not. Who actually made that comment? Is he on the Indie Sage panel? (Hint: no.)

Yesterday’s thing was a press conference with various people who’d signed an open letter in the Lancet. Some overlap with Indie Sage. Not the same thing.

Doesn’t negate the entire discussion of whether Indie Sage are or should be political or not. Just seems like a lot of people are basing their arguments of that on something which isn’t what they think it is.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 9, 2021)

if it's a week away, hell of an opportunity for those who have chosen to not get jabbed to change their minds. 

At this point, for the over 65s, you'd think not dying or taking up NHS resouces might outweigh worries about alien mutant vaccine 5th circle of hell phone masts.


----------



## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Modelling of waves is done via all sorts of detail but at its heart it usually boils down to a model of how many susceptible people there are in the population being modelled, and how that changes over time. As the number of infections increases to giddy heights, the number of susceptible individuals starts to drop at a faster rate than before, and this eventually adds up to a situation that starts to thwart the virus more and more.


I should really have more explicitly stated that at its heart its the interaction between the number of infectious individuals at each moment and the number of susceptible people at those same moments, and the number of recovered people. I guess that was still somewhat clear from what I said, but the number of infectious and recovered people should have gotten equal billing. Well to be more specific, a lot of the models are of the type called SIR - Susceptible, Infected, Recovered. Thats been around a long time so there are quite a few modified versions that use that approach as the foundation and add further complications.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 9, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> if it's a week away, hell of an opportunity for those who have chosen to not get jabbed to change their minds.
> 
> At this point, for the over 65s, you'd think not dying or taking up NHS resouces might outweigh worries about alien mutant vaccine 5th circle of hell phone masts.


Yes that occurred to me too.


----------



## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

Unfortunately vaccine hesitancy goes well beyond those sort of anti-vax stances, its a messy thing. In some areas they have successfully been chipping away at some versions of this problem. And in some peoples minds circumstances evolve in a direction that pushes them over the line towards getting a vaccine rather than continuing to resist.

But I'm not sure at this point how statistically significant such progress will be. We can already see an expected shape on the vaccination charts of how uptake gradually declines as we move down the age groups, and at this point due to them as yet incomplete nature of the programme, I wouldnt like to guess on what percentages the uptake in younger ages will ultimately settle on. Lower uptake in men is increasingly obvious with decreased age too. I will post a chart of two later since updated info on this came out in yesterdays weekly surveillance report.


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## klang (Jul 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> In some areas they have successfully been chipping away


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

The latest risk assessment for Delta was published yesterday. Its just a single page summary and I wont try to quote most of it, just the Overall assessment at the bottom:



> Delta is predominant in the UK and there is very rapid global spread. All analyses continue to support increased transmissibility and reduced vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection. Whilst risk of hospitalisation appears increased, early data on hospitalised patients does not show indicators of increased severity once in hospital and further analyses are required to resolve this. The priority investigations are to improve understanding of asymptomatic transmission in the vaccinated, to monitor for new mutations occurring on Delta, and continued investigation of the viral kinetics and clinical course of disease.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1000661/8_July_2021_Risk_assessment_for_SARS-CoV-2_variant_DELTA_02.00-1.pdf


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

littleseb said:


>


On this occasional I was referring to chipping away at a problem in a sincere way, ie via actually getting some people who had been resisting vaccination to get jabbed.

My brain isnt working very well today, had a migraine earlier in the week, so I dont know if my choice of language or ability to interpret other peoples posts is impaired at the moment.


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## klang (Jul 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> On this occasional I was referring to chipping away at a problem in a sincere way, ie via actually getting some people who had been resisting vaccination to get jabbed.
> 
> My brain isnt working very well today, had a migraine earlier in the week, so I dont know if my choice of language or ability to interpret other peoples posts is impaired at the moment.


sorry was a v bad joke referring to micro chipping. not the right thread for jokes, i admit. sorry.


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

Oh I get it, lol. I'm the sort of person who has to mix humour into even the most serious of subjects in order to cope, so no need to apologise as far as I'm concerned. My brain was just not in a state to actually pick up on the joke!


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## klang (Jul 9, 2021)

done


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## Elpenor (Jul 9, 2021)

Not sure where to put this, but my workplace, a public sector org, has now decided that long covid = normal sickness so they’re all going down to half pay from August. So treated as any other illness

I am only the payroll person so don’t know the whys and wherefore of each case but it’s highly likely they contracted COVID-19 doing their frontline public-facing key worker job with inadequate PPE.

doesn’t seem a fair way to treat people in my view


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## existentialist (Jul 9, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Not sure where to put this, but my workplace, a public sector org, has now decided that long covid = normal sickness so they’re all going down to half pay from August. So treated as any other ill
> 
> I am only the payroll person so don’t know the whys and wherefore of each case but it’s highly likely they contracted COVID-19 doing their frontline public-facing key worker job with inadequate PPE.
> 
> doesn’t seem a fair way to treat people in my view


I hope all their people leave, and that they have a nightmare time trying to find replacements.

Ultimately, the only thing that is going to stop employers behaving like cunts is the realisation that doing so is a major impediment to recruitment. I would _love_ to see us move on from this since-the-80s attitude of "there's plenty of unemployed people out there who'd like your job" bullshit, which enables so much of this oppressive nastiness.


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## Elpenor (Jul 9, 2021)

I’d hope there was a case to be made for ill health retirement in due course. Hope the poor sod is in a Union


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

On the story of them changing the app sensitivity, the BBC has:



> One possible solution could be to change the sensitivity of the app, so it would tell people to self-isolate only after closer and more prolonged contact.
> But sources at the app developers told the BBC they have not yet been asked to do this, although they are planning a change from 16 August when people would be able to record that they were fully vaccinated to turn off the self-isolation countdown timer.











						NHS Covid app may change as rules change, Grant Shapps says
					

The transport secretary says the app's sensitivity may need to be reduced as restrictions change.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## l'Otters (Jul 9, 2021)

If the delta variant is more transmissible the app’s sensitivity should be adjusted in the opposite direction!

But again I’m wondering what the point is if only 10% of people alerted are able to isolate anyway.


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## existentialist (Jul 9, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> If the delta variant is more transmissible the app’s sensitivity should be adjusted in the opposite direction!
> 
> But again I’m wondering what the point is if only 10% of people alerted are able to isolate anyway.


Ah, but you're making the fundamental error of assuming that the purpose of the app is for anything other than providing some kind of figleaf for a corrupt, backsliding, lying, deceitful government that isn't interested in anything except the contents of its pockets.


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

I think I said I would post some vaccine charts but I'm not going to have time for that today, so I'll just highlight this story instead. I'm not really surprised since the initial uptake in younger people was not really a good indication of how that picture would end up looking as a whole.



> Covid-19 vaccine uptake in England has almost halved over the past fortnight, with health experts blaming mixed government messaging about normality returning on 19 July.
> 
> Analysis from the Guardian found that take-up had particularly slowed among people under the age of 30 in the last three weeks after an initial surge of enthusiasm that the government likened to a “Glastonbury-style rush”.











						Vaccine uptake in England almost halves ‘amid mixed messages’
					

Demand from under-30s slows, with Manchester and Sheffield health chiefs noting ‘false sense of security’




					www.theguardian.com
				




Indie SAGE had that story in their video today which is what drew my attention to it.


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

Indie SAGE were also prepared to describe Scotland as looking like its peaked.


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2021)

It's hardly surprising that take up has slowed among people under the age of 30, we always knew take up would be lower as they worked down the age groups.

Those that wanted it came forward early, those that don't, haven't since.


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

Its probably one of the reasons theyve briefed on 'hybrid immunity' rather than trying to do it with vaccines alone. That and not offering vaccines to people under 18.


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its probably one of the reasons theyve briefed on 'hybrid immunity' rather than trying to do it with vaccines alone. That and *not offering vaccines to people under 18.*



Unless I've missed something, isn't the jury (JCVI) still out on that?


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## Fruitloop (Jul 9, 2021)

All of the (stupid) noises members have been making point to no though, alas


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## LDC (Jul 9, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> If the delta variant is more transmissible the app’s sensitivity should be adjusted in the opposite direction!
> 
> But again I’m wondering what the point is if only 10% of people alerted are able to isolate anyway.



Yeah, but it's due to the fact they know if they loosen restrictions infections will massively surge, and businesses will struggle with all the isolating workers connected to those infections. Also why some NHS executives are arguing that NHS staff should be spared isolation if a contact of a positive case after 19th July. Which is totally irresponsible, but also in the logic of the completely bonkers plan also makes some kind of sense.

Just thinking out loud really, know you know this. The whole thing is fucked up. In the areas I've heard about NHS staffing is really struggling now, I can't imagine what it's going to be like in a few weeks.


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Unless I've missed something, isn't the jury (JCVI) still out on that?



yeah I'm talking about in time for this wave. I've no idea what they are planning for later, although they are clearly weary about whether thr risk-reward balance will stack up in favour of vaccination for children. Things in future could change that equation that I cannot account for at this time.


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## Loose meat (Jul 9, 2021)

Shit load of data released by the ONS, most of it excellent news. Including this tit bit;




__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19)  latest insights - Office for National Statistics
					

A roundup of the latest data and trends about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic from the ONS and other sources



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




Deaths in England and Wales fall below five-year average​6 July 2021​The number of deaths from all causes in England and Wales in the week ending 25 June 2021 was 8,690; 7.6% below the five-year average for the corresponding week.

There were 99 deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19) registered in England and Wales in the week ending 25 June; three deaths fewer than the previous week. *Deaths involving COVID-19 accounted for around 1 in 91, or 1.1%, of all deaths.*


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, but it's due to the fact they know if they loosen restrictions infections will massively surge, and businesses will struggle with all the isolating workers connected to those infections. Also why some NHS executives are arguing that NHS staff should be spared isolation if a contact of a positive case after 19th July. Which is totally irresponsible, but also in the logic of the completely bonkers plan also makes some kind of sense.


The covidiots were arguing against NHS staff self-isolating, over a 'little flu', right from the start of all this.

It's like the lunatics have taken the asylum.


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## Sue (Jul 9, 2021)

All my youngish colleagues (20s) are desperate to get vaccinated.


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

A big chunk of the lunacy is just how the establishment likes to do things normally, couldnt with this virus, but then figured they can again because of vaccinations.

They would like the waves of infection to be smaller as a result of vaccination, and without this the absurdities become more obvious to everyone. But so long as the hospital numbers dont go beyond a certain point, they will carry on regardless. And they will certainly be aiming to reduce disruption over time, one way or another - either by changing rules and level of testing/surveillance or by actually ending up with less potential for explosive waves in future.

Thi was always going to be part of the landscape when transitioning away from the aute phase of a pandemic. I'd rather have seen it done without a big wave of infections. And I never know how long the gains will hold due to mutation uncertainties, ie I wont know for sure if we have really escaped the acute pandemic phase properly until quite a lot of time passes. But for now at least the march towards something closer to the old normal remains in progress, its just a bit ugly.


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> yeah I'm talking about in time for this wave. I've no idea what they are planning for later, although they are clearly weary about whether the risk-reward balance will stack up in favour of vaccination for children. Things in future could change that equation that I cannot account for at this time.



Yeah, the 'risk-reward balance' question has clearly become more complex, what with AZ already ruled out, and now the rare cases of the inflammation of the heart associated with both the Pfzier and Moderna vaccines.


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yeah, the 'risk-reward balance' question has clearly become more complex, what with AZ already ruled out, and now the rare cases of the inflammation of the heart associated with both the Pfzier and Moderna vaccines.



And since the number of children who die from Covid is low, it doesnt take much vaccine death to really make things look bad and run the risk of an understandable backlash if the vaccine kills more children than it saves.


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## LDC (Jul 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> A big chunk of the lunacy is just how the establishment likes to do things normally, couldnt with this virus, but then fiure they can again because of vaccinations.



Yeah, I do feel a bit dirty having worked on the vaccination program lots in the last months. Feels like it's now given them a shield to do what they're now going to do. (I know more complicated and not quite like that, but does grate on my nerves when they go on about it.)


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## teuchter (Jul 9, 2021)

Loose meat said:


> Shit load of data released by the ONS, most of it excellent news. Including this tit bit;
> 
> 
> 
> ...


When exponentially rising numbers are what you're worried about, I'm not sure how numbers from more than two weeks ago can present excellent news.


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> All my youngish colleagues (20s) are desperate to get vaccinated.



Can they not get appointments now? 

Our GP hubs have plenty of appointments & vaccines available, but the uptake by those 18-29 has petered out at 60%, so they are throwing their doors open for 'walk-in' sessions, no appointment required, in the hope to increase take-up.


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## existentialist (Jul 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> All my youngish colleagues (20s) are desperate to get vaccinated.


I wonder how many young adults are quietly seething at the way in which they are going to be expected to stand on the front lines and face the inevitable tsunami, while finding it very difficult to get a vaccine?

If I were the hot-headed young adult I was in my 20s, that might just piss me off enough to make me want to throw things. In the company of many others, also throwing things.


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## sheothebudworths (Jul 9, 2021)

teuchter said:


> When exponentially rising numbers are what you're worried about, I'm not sure how numbers from more than two weeks ago can present excellent news.


And covid deaths still using the 'within 28 days of testing' measure, which has been gone over many times before (here) as a poor one.


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## LDC (Jul 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> All my youngish colleagues (20s) are desperate to get vaccinated.



Yeah, what's stopping them Sue, loads of people that age have had a jab?


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## Sue (Jul 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Can they not get appointments now?
> 
> Our GP hubs have plenty of appointments & vaccines available, but the uptake by those 18-29 has petered out at 60%, so they are throwing their doors open for 'walk-in' sessions, no appointment required, in the hope to increase take-up.


Yeah, some have been done, others are waiting for their appointments to arrive. There's been much talk about how to get earlier appointments etc.


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## sheothebudworths (Jul 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> Yeah, some have been done, others are waiting for their appointments to arrive. There's been much talk about how to get earlier appointments etc.



They don't have to wait for appointments - should be able to book online!









						Book or manage a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination
					

Use this service to book a coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination or manage your appointments.




					www.nhs.uk


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## glitch hiker (Jul 9, 2021)

So, great


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## Sue (Jul 9, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, what's stopping them Sue, loads of people that age have had a jab?


Sorry, they are. Just lots of trying to get done earlier and discussions about where has walk-in appointments etc. A lot of people are staying with family elsewhere too which in some cases is complicating things due to GPs being elsewhere and all that


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

Lambda is of concern due to its properties rather than how much of its been detected in the UK so far. The number for the UK is 8, not 6, and that number has not increased since last weeks initial report of those numbers.

(numbers from Variants: distribution of case data, 9 July 2021 )


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> Yeah, some have been done, others are waiting for their appointments to arrive. There's been much talk about how to get earlier appointments etc.



Waiting for appointments to arrive?  

Around here the GP's have come together to provide a central number to call, to book at any GP hub across the coastal strip of West Sussex, and no need to actually be registered with any local GP, and certainly no need to wait for contact.

Or, they can book online with the NHS direct, but the nearest NHS sites are Brighton & Chichester (over 20 mile round trips), so can be a pain, but with 3 GP hubs in Worthing, no one is more than a fairly short walk or bus trip to one.


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## existentialist (Jul 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Lambda is of concern due to its properties rather than how much of its been detected in the UK so far. The number for the UK is 8, not 6, and that number has not increased since last weeks initial report of those numbers.
> 
> (numbers from Variants: distribution of case data, 9 July 2021 )


It'd be nice to think that the Government might learn from the mistakes around the delta variant, and do something different this time. Of course, they bloody won't...


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## Sue (Jul 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Waiting for appointments to arrive?
> 
> Around here the GP's have come together to provide a central number to call, to book at any GP hub across the coastal strip of West Sussex, and no need to actually be registered with any local GP, and certainly no need to wait for contact.
> 
> Or, they can book online direct with the NHS, but the nearest NHS sites are Brighton & Chichester (over 20 mile round trips), so can be a pain, but with 3 GP hubs in Worthing, no one is more than a fairly short walk or bus trip to one.


I don't really know the ins and outs tbh. I'm aware there are lots of discussions and people swopping info but I haven't been following it very closely tbh as I had my second one ages ago. 🤷‍♀️


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

Also note that Lambda has its own risk assessment now: 


			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1000662/8_July_2021_Risk_assessment_for_SARS-CoV-2_variant_LAMBDA_01.00-1.pdf
		


In terms of when and where Lambda has been found in this country, its not a variant that has been detected to be building up any steam here at this point.



> As of the 5 July 2021, there have been 8 cases of Lambda in the UK between 23 February and 18 June 2021. Six cases were in London, one in the South West, and one in the West Midlands. Six cases have a history of travel overseas; 2 cases have not provided information.





Thats from one of the variant surveillance reports. https://assets.publishing.service.g...Variants_of_Concern_Variant_Data_Update_8.pdf


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## Espresso (Jul 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> Sorry, they are. Just lots of trying to get done earlier and discussions about where has walk-in appointments etc. A lot of people are staying with family elsewhere too which in some cases is complicating things due to GPs being elsewhere and all that


Where I live - in the North West - there are vans going to different places every day, like squares, outside the football ground, in big car parks and offering jabs to anyone who just pitches up. Grab a Jab, I think it's called.  It's an NHS thing. Might be worth them checking that out wherever they live.


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## Loose meat (Jul 9, 2021)

teuchter said:


> When exponentially rising numbers are what you're worried about, I'm not sure how numbers from more than two weeks ago can present excellent news.


it's called a baseline.


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## sheothebudworths (Jul 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> Sorry, they are. Just lots of trying to get done earlier and discussions about where has walk-in appointments etc. A lot of people are staying with family elsewhere too which in some cases is complicating things due to GPs being elsewhere and all that



I was going to say, I think it's really understandable that younger people might generally have (yet again) found the messaging confusing over how and where to book.
They generally have less experience of being proactive in arranging health stuff for themselves and even for us, it has changed from invite to being free to book, then all the complications over moving second bookings and having to cancel the original one IF there was a second one even booked to begin with.
Also all the stories of mass walk-ins - I can completely see how it is confusing for them not to either just wait or to expect to be asked.

I _think_ - but can't quite recall, that so long as they are already with a GP, booking online MAY give them an option to input a current postcode for availability if the most obvious one (which will be local to their registered GP) doesn't work for them...


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yeah, the 'risk-reward balance' question has clearly become more complex, what with AZ already ruled out, and now the rare cases of the inflammation of the heart associated with both the Pfzier and Moderna vaccines.



Ah ye I see thats in the news at the moment, Its been seen for quite a long time and has been reported on in places like the USA and Israel. But the way this news gradually emerges means some might not have heard about that yet. Young men appear to be most at risk of this side effect.









						Heart inflammation link to Pfizer and Moderna jabs
					

But European regulators say the benefits of Covid vaccines continue to far outweigh the risks.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2021)

When the roll-out started, and GPs were tied-up with doing the time consuming jabs, care homes/housebound/etc., people around here were happy enough to travel the 20+ mile round trips to the NHS sites, but once the GPs got past that point, fuck me did competition come into play, with them making it so much easier & convenient to use their services, hardly surprising when they are getting over £12.50 per jab.

Last time I looked, some weeks ago, my GP hub, 3 or 4 surgeries working together, had done over 40k jabs, netting them well over £500k.


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## sheothebudworths (Jul 9, 2021)

Sue - just in case it's helpful for them - I found this guidance, which is specifically for students, but reading through it, I can't see how it wouldn't widely apply to anyone registered with a GP outside the area they currently live in (and they certainly weren't asking for student status on booking) -



> How will students be invited for the COVID-19 vaccination?
> The COVID-19 vaccination is being offered to everyone aged 18 or over at local sites run by GPs or community pharmacies, at larger vaccination centres and in some hospitals. Local areas may also work with partners to set up “pop up” temporary clinics at locations convenient for students to access, for example, on university campuses. Students registered with a GP can book their appointment at a larger vaccination centre, a community pharmacy run site or at some GP run sites through the National Booking Service website or by phoning 119. Those who are registered with a GP will also receive an invitation to be vaccinated from their GP practice. While registration with a GP is encouraged to access the vaccine, individuals can request to book COVID-19 vaccination appointments as an unregistered patient through a local GP practice. GP practices should support unregistered patients and those without an NHS number to access the vaccine; they can record these vaccinations and be paid for them. Some students may have already received their vaccinations if they are at higher risk of COVID-19, are on a placement as a frontline health or care worker, are an unpaid carer, or are a household contact of someone who is immunosuppressed.





> *What do students do if they are registered with a GP in their hometown, but not where they study, or vice versa?
> If a student aged 18 or over is registered with a GP practice, they can book both appointments online through the National Booking Service at a location that is convenient to them*, or book a first dose through their GP and a second dose in a different location through the National Booking Service. How can students access their second dose if they are in a different location to where they had their first dose? We have published FAQs on Second Doses in general here. In general, patients should return to the place they had their first dose to have their second dose. However, it is appropriate for students to receive their second dose in a different location to their first dose due to their circumstances. The National Booking Service has an option to book or re-arrange the second vaccination appointment at a different location to the first appointment. If a student had a first dose in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, but is in England at the time of their second dose, they should either 1) book a second dose through the National Booking Service (if they are registered with a GP in England and therefore have an English NHS number); 2) register with a GP in England and book an appointment that way; or 3) approach a local GP and ask to be vaccinated as an unregistered patient. 2 We are working with the NHS in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to ensure that records of vaccinations in those nations flow into a patient’s English NHS record.





			https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2021/06/C1317-COVID-19-vaccination-FAQs-students-in-Higher-Education-Institutions-.pdf


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## Sue (Jul 9, 2021)

Thanks sheothebudworths, I'll pass it along


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## sheothebudworths (Jul 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> Thanks sheothebudworths, I'll pass it along





I can totally see why they imagine their options are either to wait for an invite OR to keep their eyes open for some local free for all/hours of queuing event, to share between each other.
It's another failure eh - the straightforward options should be much more widely publicised, and done so _continually_, as each new age cohort became eligible. 
Even more so when gov is dropping everything else, too.


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> New cases 32,551, a drop in the 7-day average increase to +34.9%
> 
> Hospital admissions (4/7) - 456, 7-day average increase +51.5%


Another new high in new cases for this wave, coming in at 35,707, however  the 7-day average increase has dropped again, to +30.7%, whereas earlier this week it was over 50%, so that's a positive.

Hospital admissions (5/7) - 509, 7-day average increase is up again at +55.9%


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## elbows (Jul 9, 2021)

And









						‘Dread and anxiety’ among NHS staff as Covid cases surge again
					

Mixture of resignation and anger on frontline, but bosses expect ‘slow burn’ rather than crippling pressure




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> I think I said I would post some vaccine charts but I'm not going to have time for that today, so I'll just highlight this story instead. I'm not really surprised since the initial uptake in younger people was not really a good indication of how that picture would end up looking as a whole.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They may be motivated to do it once they realise that if they don't, they won't be able to go on holiday internationally


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## Cat Fan (Jul 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Can they not get appointments now?
> 
> Our GP hubs have plenty of appointments & vaccines available, but the uptake by those 18-29 has petered out at 60%, so they are throwing their doors open for 'walk-in' sessions, no appointment required, in the hope to increase take-up.


Probably desperate to get their second dose. I imagine none of them would have had it yet.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jul 9, 2021)

first bit of my local council's weekly update e-mail 



> Cases staggeringly high in 20-29 year olds​
> Weekly case rates up to 1 July show the highest infection rates amongst Wokingham borough residents are in people aged 20 to 24 (760 per 100,000 population) and 25 to 29 (373 per 100,000 people). Those infected will likely be people who aren’t fully vaccinated.


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## wtfftw (Jul 9, 2021)

Sue said:


> Sorry, they are. Just lots of trying to get done earlier and discussions about where has walk-in appointments etc. A lot of people are staying with family elsewhere too which in some cases is complicating things due to GPs being elsewhere and all that


Can they get to Millwall tomorrow (Saturday)? Pfizer vaccine clinic at Millwall Football Club


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## Cat Fan (Jul 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> When the roll-out started, and GPs were tied-up with doing the time consuming jabs, care homes/housebound/etc., people around here were happy enough to travel the 20+ mile round trips to the NHS sites, but once the GPs got past that point, fuck me did competition come into play, with them making it so much easier & convenient to use their services, hardly surprising when they are getting over £12.50 per jab.
> 
> Last time I looked, some weeks ago, my GP hub, 3 or 4 surgeries working together, had done over 40k jabs, netting them well over £500k.


My experience as a "young" (30s) person. My local (London) GP only has AZ and isn't vaccinating anyone under 40. I had to get on a train to London Bridge because there were no appointments nearby. Still waiting for my second one which is currently beginning of September.

It hasn't been that convenient where I live at all.


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## Supine (Jul 9, 2021)

I’m thinking a 4


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## bimble (Jul 10, 2021)

The framing of this.
It's not public health that's of concern to the government but public opinion.

"Two Whitehall sources told the Guardian that ministers had been spooked by internal polling. One said the data showed just 10% of the public support the policy of scrapping all restrictions at once, while another said substantially more people believed the government was moving too quickly than at the last reopening step on 17 May. These accounts were denied by No 10."









						Boris Johnson may tone down ‘freedom’ rhetoric amid reopening jitters
					

PM expected to urge public to behave responsibly as polls show widespread concern over end of rules in England




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## existentialist (Jul 10, 2021)

bimble said:


> The framing of this.
> It's not public health that's of concern to the government but public opinion.
> 
> "Two Whitehall sources told the Guardian that ministers had been spooked by internal polling. One said the data showed just 10% of the public support the policy of scrapping all restrictions at once, while another said substantially more people believed the government was moving too quickly than at the last reopening step on 17 May. These accounts were denied by No 10."
> ...


From the same article... 


> Government sources conceded that while Johnson had warned the public at last Monday’s press conference not to be “demob happy”, his cautious message had “got slightly lost” as he announced the scrapping of all restrictions, including mandatory mask-wearing and social distancing.


"Got slightly lost"?? WTF? They were following your lead, Johnson, you cunt.


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## andysays (Jul 10, 2021)

bimble said:


> The framing of this.
> It's not public health that's of concern to the government but public opinion.


Yeah, this is pretty much confirming what we already knew, isn't it?


----------



## Dogsauce (Jul 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> And since the number of children who die from Covid is low, it doesnt take much vaccine death to really make things look bad and run the risk of an understandable backlash if the vaccine kills more children than it saves.


The difficult thing to explain to people is that vaccinating children saves non-child lives, so the mortality rate of Covid among children isn’t the only thing on the other side of the risk/reward equation.


----------



## emanymton (Jul 10, 2021)

NHS staff abused by people seeking second Covid jab early for holiday
					

Doctors say some vaccination centres have had to call police or hire security guards over safety fears




					www.theguardian.com
				




What the fuck is wrong with people?


----------



## bimble (Jul 10, 2021)

emanymton said:


> NHS staff abused by people seeking second Covid jab early for holiday
> 
> 
> Doctors say some vaccination centres have had to call police or hire security guards over safety fears
> ...


for fucks sake. At the beginning of all this i was able to squint my eyes a bit and see it as a rare example of look we really are all in this together, i haven't managed that perspective for at least a year.


----------



## emanymton (Jul 10, 2021)

bimble said:


> for fucks sake. At the beginning of all this i was able to squint my eyes a bit and see it as a rare example of look we really are all in this together, i haven't managed that perspective for at least a year.


What really gets be about this is that people are not demanding the 2nd jab because they are worried about their health or the health of their families but just so they can go on fucking holiday.

The whole holiday obsession over the last year and a half has driven me up the wall.

90% of the time I am thinking fuck these entitled cunts. And 10% of the time I think how sad it is that so many peoples lives are so miserable that they apparently can't cope without a week or two spent sunbathing every year.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 10, 2021)

FFS, they were already getting abuse, threats and aggression from antivaxxers, and now from people demanding their second jab early so they can go on fucking holiday, talk about getting shit from both sides.


----------



## emanymton (Jul 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> FFS, they were already getting abuse, threats and aggression from antivaxxers, and now from people demanding their second jab early so they can go on fucking holiday, talk about getting shit from both sides.


Yes I could not decide if that funked me of the most or the holiday thing settled on the holiday.

I fell a bit better thanking that both times I went for the jab everyone was polite and patient and for lack of a bitter word there was a good 'atmosphere' and I like to think that is more typical


Mind you my second one was done by the army and they may get given less shit. And complete off topic I loved that they had camo masks on.


----------



## Supine (Jul 10, 2021)

Model isn’t going well


----------



## MickiQ (Jul 10, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> The difficult thing to explain to people is that vaccinating children saves non-child lives, so the mortality rate of Covid among children isn’t the only thing on the other side of the risk/reward equation.


That's going to be a near impossible sell to most parents i think


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 10, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> That's going to be a near impossible sell to most parents i think



This YouGov poll suggests most people would get their child vaccinated.



> A YouGov poll of 938 parents with children aged 17 or under found that 53% said they would get their child vaccinated, rising to 59% of parents who have already had, or were planning to get, the jab themselves.
> 
> However, one in five (18%) of all parents said that they would not vaccinate their children, while another 29% were unsure.
> 
> Among those adults having the vaccine themselves, 29% of parents were uncertain about getting their offspring jabbed, while 12% said they would not do it.











						More than half of parents willing to have kids jabbed against Covid if offered
					

Men were more likely to say yes to jabs for kids than women




					www.walesonline.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 10, 2021)

emanymton said:


> 90% of the time I am thinking fuck these entitled cunts. And 10% of the time I think how sad it is that so many peoples lives are so miserable that they apparently can't cope without a week or two spent sunbathing every year.



I bet they're bitter, miserable twats when they're on holiday as well tbf.


----------



## LDC (Jul 10, 2021)

emanymton said:


> NHS staff abused by people seeking second Covid jab early for holiday
> 
> 
> Doctors say some vaccination centres have had to call police or hire security guards over safety fears
> ...



Abuse of NHS staff isn't new, but the article does say it's unclear how common it is, and I suspect the reality is that it's very, very uncommon. And of course once is one too many times, but when people are emotional, scared, stressed etc. they do behave badly and out of character sometimes. I dunno, newspapers, especially _The Guardian_, do like a sneering article as well so I wouldn't get too depressed about that piece.

And I'm writing that as someone that has found plenty of behaviour from some people very depressing and grim in the last 18 months.


----------



## weepiper (Jul 10, 2021)

We went to Glasgow yesterday to get my eldest some familiarity with the city centre because she's going to go to uni there in September. It was _very_ busy both there and in Edinburgh city centre too, lots of people with wheeled luggage coming out of the train station etc, shopping centres looked totally back to pre-Covid business, hen night parties wandering around etc which was quite disconcerting. On the other hand, we were on two buses, two trains, in a restaurant and in two shops and I saw almost 100% mask compliance in all of those places, lots of hand sanitizer stations being well used etc. So it's clear that people here are still really thinking about Covid risk even though they're much more out and about.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This YouGov poll suggests most people would get their child vaccinated.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah. I'm eager to get my child vaccinated.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 10, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I bet they're bitter, miserable twats when they're on holiday as well tbf.


They'll be the ones bitterly complaining about how inferior and expensive fish and chips is in Spain.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 10, 2021)

existentialist said:


> They'll be the ones bitterly complaining about how inferior and expensive fish and chips is in Spain.


I had a very nice portion of cod’s cheeks in batter in Spain a few years ago


----------



## andysays (Jul 10, 2021)

emanymton said:


> What really gets be about this is that people are not demanding the 2nd jab because they are worried about their health or the health of their families but just so they can go on fucking holiday....


This is one of the obvious downsides of creating "vaccine passport" relaxations for those who have had both jabs before everyone has had a chance to have them.


----------



## sideboob (Jul 10, 2021)

The tongue is the best part according to Newfies.  But I'm not a fish eater so can't confirm.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 10, 2021)

On the two jabs to go on holiday thing. Please bear in mind there are millions living in the UK with family abroad, sometimes they haven't seen parents or loved ones in years. 

The government has made visiting amber list countries an expensive and admin heavy nightmare so it's no surprise people are desperate to get the second jab. It's not all just selfish people who want two weeks in the sun. (But there are some of those I bet.)

It's a complicated picture and it's hard not to put some blame on the government as well for making testing to travel so expensive and stressful.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 10, 2021)

Supine said:


> Model isn’t going well


To be fair, that was two weeks ago and the accompanying text explicitly states it is not a forecast - because, amongst other factors: government diktat, individual behaviour (it can't "account for changes two to three weeks prior"). However, from the same briefing document, the deaths have verified thus far (they are of course 'baked in' for two to three weeks).


----------



## MickiQ (Jul 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This YouGov poll suggests most people would get their child vaccinated.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


that's interesting but there is no break down by age of child which I suspect is probably significant, I can imagine parents of 15, 16 or 17 year olds (and children of that age should be consulted as to their own opinions) being much keener than the parents of younger children.  Setting aside the objections of the complete fuckwits who are anti-vaccination because it will make them sterile/give them magnetic arms(??)/contains microchips there is a very valid argument that expecting the young to place themselves at greater risk to reduce the risk to the elderly is not necessarily a good thing. (If the risk from the vaccines is greater than the virus for children)
My kids are adults (and in varying stages of being vaxxed) but my grandsons are 1 and 4 if my daughter said to me I don't want to vaccinate them until they are 16 or 17 rather than 12 or 13 because of the risk then I am cool with the idea that she might consider their lives more valuable than mine even though I will be well into my 70's by then.
Hopefully by then we will have a lot more idea where the point at which the risk from the vaccine drops below the risk from the virus


----------



## Red Cat (Jul 10, 2021)

16 and 17-year old 'children' consent to their own medical treatment.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 10, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> That's going to be a near impossible sell to most parents i think



Is it? No vaccine is 100% risk free and yet most parents still vaccinate their kids.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 10, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Is it? No vaccine is 100% risk free and yet most parents still vaccinate their kids.



Indeed.

Even my brother and his ex, who did not allow their 6 Yr old daughter to be vaccinated for anything pre-pandemic, did allow her to have the flu vaccine (a spray) last winter when her school offered it, and plan to allow her to have the covid one if/when she is offered that.

This pandemic seems to have changed their minds on vaccines in general, although sadly not enough to make them ask for her to get the others (MMR etc) yet.


----------



## elbows (Jul 10, 2021)

2hats said:


> To be fair, that was two weeks ago and the accompanying text explicitly states it is not a forecast - because, amongst other factors: government diktat, individual behaviour (it can't "account for changes two to three weeks prior"). However, from the same briefing document, the deaths have verified thus far (they are of course 'baked in' for two to three weeks).



Yes, and I expect the modelling done longer ago, involving the unlocking steps and scenarios with different levels of increased transmission is probably still more useful. I might do some comparisons in the coming days.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 10, 2021)

I'm still nervous about getting the MMR as an adult - perhaps once I can't wear a mask all year - and  if I acquire a social life ...


----------



## elbows (Jul 10, 2021)

existentialist said:


> From the same article...
> 
> "Got slightly lost"?? WTF? They were following your lead, Johnson, you cunt.



The change in tone at last Mondays press conference was noticeable and was commented on by a few people here.

But yes this is only one factor and expectations were largely driven by actual policy announcements and the tone that was set much longer ago.

Its a real shame that the public appear to have been more supportive of the May relaxation step, because thats the step that contributed heavily to where we are at now. And that step wasnt really offset by anything, unlike the July step which will be offset by schools breaking up for summer holidays.


----------



## elbows (Jul 10, 2021)

And lets not be in any doubt, the current plan is basically a pre-Delta plan. And the main concession they made to the likely realities of Delta was to delay the final step so that it comes around the same time as school holidays in England.

Whether that timing change is enough for them to 'get away with it' remains to be seen. It seems clear that Delta has already rained on their freedom parade and the mood music will be different at this point to what it would have been without Delta.

Daily hospitalisation rates continue to very much be at the point of the curve where big upswings were expected and are indeed materialising. This should become increasingly obvious over the next 5-10 days, and will contribute to nerves. Whether such nerves are offset by any changes to the rate of growth of people testing positive, or any wobbles in the hospitalisation figures, remains to be seen.


----------



## prunus (Jul 10, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I'm still nervous about getting the MMR as an adult - perhaps once I can't wear a mask all year - and  if I acquire a social life ...



Why is that if you don’t mind me asking? (The nervousness).


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 10, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I'm still nervous about getting the MMR as an adult - perhaps once I can't wear a mask all year - and  if I acquire a social life ...


I've posted this before, but please watch this. Wakefield deliberately misled everyone for monetary gain, including giving unnecessary colonoscopies to children severely injuring some of them and not getting the correct informed consent from their parents. 
The guy is scum and should be in jail.  There is a link in the description to a file giving all the references for the points made in the video.  The guy notes the relevant citation numbers throughout.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 10, 2021)

prunus said:


> Why is that if you don’t mind me asking? (The nervousness).


I was on a roll until the side effects of the AZ wacked me for a week ... but I will probably go for it

I also retired last year so my risk profile is different now ...


----------



## MickiQ (Jul 10, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Is it? No vaccine is 100% risk free and yet most parents still vaccinate their kids.


Absolutely, however with regular childhood vaccinations they are done to protect the child on the grounds that the risk to 'them' of the virus is far greater than the risk to 'them' of the vaccine. It also provides protection to the wider community which is good of course but that is secondary to the primary aim of protecting the innoculated child. With CoVID all the evidence there is so far is that the health risks drop like a stone the younger you are whereas there is some (though by no means conclusive) evidence that the health risks of the vaccine go up the younger you are. Is there a point at which the risks of vaccine vs virus is greater (hopefully no)? It's too early to know yet but it's not a concern that can just be dismissed.
Where it comes to childhood vaccinations Mrs Q and the GMC see eye to eye and all four of ours were jabbed with whatever was appropriate at the appropriate ages. I don't know about my grandsons but I know my wife well enough to know that she will have grilled Eldest and since there have been no annoyed rants I am confident that our daughter's answer was satisfactory.
I have no patience with the anti-vaxxer loons and am quite happy for them to die due to their own stupidity but we are however in unknown territory here and I can understand the concerns of parents (who would be happy to take the vaccine themselves) who might want greater reassurance before having their children vaccinated.


----------



## Red Cat (Jul 10, 2021)

I think it's likely that the uncertainty about this virus and who is most vulnerable as the virus itself changes also morphs into fears about the vaccine and who might be at risk from that.


----------



## elbows (Jul 10, 2021)

Supine said:


> Model isn’t going well




In addition to what I already said about this, I note that they have these graphs per region too. And since the North East & Yorkshire are badly affected at the moment, and were one of the steeper graphs they generated, I decided to have a go at overlaying the latest data on top of their graph for that region. I havent got it lined up 100% perfectly, but I think its close enough. The green line is the real data I added via my own chart.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 10, 2021)

Isn't it that with mutations and vaccine escape we want the smallest pool of unvaccinated people? There's a vast number of children...


----------



## Supine (Jul 10, 2021)

2hats said:


> To be fair, that was two weeks ago and the accompanying text explicitly states it is not a forecast



I know they always have that kind of proviso. They shouldn’t put forward looking estimates with confidence levels if they don’t want people to use them


----------



## elbows (Jul 10, 2021)

Supine said:


> I know they always have that kind of proviso. They shouldn’t put forward looking estimates with confidence levels if they don’t want people to use them



Using them means paying attention to the caveats they plaster all around those charts. Very much including the fact that they dont think these models account for changes to behaviour etc that happen in the previous few weeks leading up to their projection.

Although frankly these medium term projections have never been very useful to me, especially as there is often quite some delay in publishing them.

I expect they are especially wide of the mark at the moment because the rate of growth in cases has fluctuated in a big way on several occasions recently. There was a period which would have made the short-medium term modelling more optimistic, and this particular set of projections probably fell foul of that. Some projections from much earlier in June were a better fit for whats been happening recently than the more recent ones, probably for the same reason.

I completed my per-region exercise and the South West is the only region where the hospitalisations so far have continued to track their central projection rather than shooting up to close to or beyond their maximum shaded range. Some of these developments are quite recent so I need to give it more time to see what happens next.


----------



## zahir (Jul 11, 2021)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 11, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> Absolutely, however with regular childhood vaccinations they are done to protect the child on the grounds that the risk to 'them' of the virus is far greater than the risk to 'them' of the vaccine. It also provides protection to the wider community which is good of course but that is secondary to the primary aim of protecting the innoculated child. With CoVID all the evidence there is so far is that the health risks drop like a stone the younger you are whereas there is some (though by no means conclusive) evidence that the health risks of the vaccine go up the younger you are. Is there a point at which the risks of vaccine vs virus is greater (hopefully no)? It's too early to know yet but it's not a concern that can just be dismissed.



There is, of course, the issue of long covid, and this is the first report I've seen that covers figures in respect of children, according to official statistics, some 33,000 are suffering from it, although some will be suffering more serious illness than others.



> Serious cases of long covid among the young have also been emerging. Claire Hayes said her daughter Gracie was a bright and successful pupil at her school in Northumberland until July last year. Since then, the 11-year-old has not managed to complete a week in the classroom. “She’s lost a lot of weight, and the fatigue kicked in,” Hayes said. “She’s had horrible headaches, rushes, pains. When she stands up, her heart rate doubles. And she gets brain fog. Some days she can’t get out of bed because she feels dizzy. Just having a shower is impossible.”





> Fran Simpson of Long Covid Kids said: “Children who’ve got long covid – it’s completely destroyed their lives for some of them. They’ve gone from being children going to school, seeing their friends, having hobbies, to not being able to school. Some are not well enough to walk – they’re using wheelchairs. Others are not eating properly because of the impact on taste and smell. It feels like they’ve had their childhood stolen.”
> 
> *About 7% to 9% of children who become infected with covid go on to develop some long-Covid symptoms, according to Office for National Statistics data.*











						‘Their childhood has been stolen’: calls for action to tackle long Covid
					

MPs and peers demand review of debilitating condition as fears grow of surge among young after 19 July lifting




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## existentialist (Jul 11, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There is, of course, the issue of long covid, and this is the first report I've seen that covers figures in respect of children, according to official statistics, some 33,000 are suffering from it, although some will be suffering more serious illness than others.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think our (I use the term loosely) government has been and is carefully and studiously ignoring the long Covid issue.

Mind you, Javid-19 is ignoring pretty much any reality that doesn't fit the ideology.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 11, 2021)

Decisive leadership


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 11, 2021)

Nasty cop nice cop ....


----------



## IC3D (Jul 11, 2021)

Splitting hairs over any politicians words is like complaining about the way you are being kicked in the nuts/tits. I do not support anything more than offering the symptom reducing injection to those that want it. Its a corona virus it will run and run. Personally I suspect its laboratory in origin and the emergency planning seems very focused on a laboratory solution, social engineering aspects have been appalling constructed and implemented.   Harm reduction by mask promotion, public health awareness should be ramped up, NHS services funded.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 11, 2021)

zahir said:


>



I think the question is interesting. I think it's related to why the Tories under May went so hard Brexit when they didn't have to. My interpretation is they were shocked by a party (UKIP) sneaking in to the right of them and causing so much trouble. So now they are determined not to allow any space to the right of them for that to happen again, and because of Labour's various fuck-ups (remain wavering, inability to persuade people that Corbyn was on their side (against hostile press), failing to get electorate on board with 2019 manifesto, electing an empty suit) they feel that they don't have to worry too much about losing votes to their left. So alas their mask position is nothing to do with evidence or science and everything to do with electioneering. The vote they are worried about is the macho 'freedom-loving' nuts who hate mandatory masks. It sucks. It may also turn out to be a miscalculation, because it's possible they are fighting the last war (Brexit) and that isn't the electorate they need to be chasing at all. But I'm being optimistic.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 11, 2021)

That is what I don't get. The exeptance that this just occured seems glaringly remiss. World govts Inc China would be all over finding out how to prevent a repeat occurrence but instead they focus on data collection and damage limitation


----------



## maomao (Jul 11, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I think the question is interesting. I think it's related to why the Tories under May went so hard Brexit when they didn't have to. My interpretation is they were shocked by a party (UKIP) sneaking in to the right of them and causing so much trouble. So now they are determined not to allow any space to the right of them for that to happen again, and because of Labour's various fuck-ups (remain wavering, inability to persuade people that Corbyn was on their side (against hostile press), failing to get electorate on board with 2019 manifesto, electing an empty suit) they feel that they don't have to worry too much about losing votes to their left. So alas their mask position is nothing to do with evidence or science and everything to do with electioneering. The vote they are worried about is the macho 'freedom-loving' nuts who hate mandatory masks. It sucks. It may also turn out to be a miscalculation, because it's possible they are fighting the last war (Brexit) and that isn't the electorate they need to be chasing at all. But I'm being optimistic.


I think it's more likely an ideological belief that the boss class should be allowed to exploit people and resources unhindered.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 11, 2021)

maomao said:


> I think it's more likely an ideological belief that the boss class should be allowed to exploit people and resources unhindered.


Masks don't stop that though, do they? I agree that's the explanation of why people won't have to self-isolate and some of the other measures.


----------



## zahir (Jul 11, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I think the question is interesting. I think it's related to why the Tories under May went so hard Brexit when they didn't have to. My interpretation is they were shocked by a party (UKIP) sneaking in to the right of them and causing so much trouble. So now they are determined not to allow any space to the right of them for that to happen again, and because of Labour's various fuck-ups (remain wavering, inability to persuade people that Corbyn was on their side (against hostile press), failing to get electorate on board with 2019 manifesto, electing an empty suit) they feel that they don't have to worry too much about losing votes to their left. So alas their mask position is nothing to do with evidence or science and everything to do with electioneering. The vote they are worried about is the macho 'freedom-loving' nuts who hate mandatory masks. It sucks. It may also turn out to be a miscalculation, because it's possible they are fighting the last war (Brexit) and that isn't the electorate they need to be chasing at all. But I'm being optimistic.


I wonder if they're risking dividing their base of support. I can't see that everyone on the right is going to be behind them. See this by Melanie Phillips for example:








						A reckless gamble
					

With the prospect of an alarming rise in Covid infections, Boris Johnson is saying "bring it on"




					melaniephillips.substack.com
				




eta: that came to my attention because it was shared by a life-long Conservative supporter.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 11, 2021)

zahir said:


>



If that survey is really representative... I'm a bit concerned that a quarter of the population want nightclubs closed forever, and nearly 20% want a 10pm curfew forever.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> If that survey is really representative... I'm a bit concerned that a quarter of the population want nightclubs closed forever, and nearly 20% want a 10pm curfew forever.


I guess never underestimate the bitter vindictiveness of the older Tory vote? They're not happy so why should anyone else be. Alternatively people may not take these surveys very seriously when they answer them.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> If that survey is really representative... I'm a bit concerned that a quarter of the population want nightclubs closed forever, and nearly 20% want a 10pm curfew forever.


Well, a quarter of people who took part in the survey. I didn't take part and I bet thousands of others didn't either. Still iffy.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 11, 2021)

Remember that when answering questions like these, people don’t consult a predetermined rational checklist in their head and look up the answer.  They construct a position in the moment based on loads of contextual factors.  That’s why the specific wording of question and answer are important, along with which questions preceded this.  But it also matters who is asking and how, and what difference the questioned person perceives their answer will make and why the question has been asked.

As somebody with no power to actually make it happen, if asked to state a personal preference by a random clipboard-bearer on the street, I might well respond that I would happier if nightclubs stayed shut forever. Doesn’t mean I think they _should_ stay shut forever.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jul 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Remember that when answering questions like these, people don’t consult a predetermined rational checklist in their head and look up the answer.  They construct a position in the moment based on loads of contextual factors.  That’s why the specific wording of question and answer are important, along with which questions preceded this.  But it also matters who is asking and how, and what difference the questioned person perceives their answer will make and why the question has been asked.
> 
> As somebody with no power to actually make it happen, if asked to state a personal preference by a random clipboard-bearer on the street, I might well respond that I would happier if nightclubs stayed shut forever. Doesn’t mean I think they _should_ stay shut forever.



Also worth remembering that a huge number of people are thick as shit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 11, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Remember that when answering questions like these, people don’t consult a predetermined rational checklist in their head and look up the answer.  They construct a position in the moment based on loads of contextual factors. * That’s why the specific wording of question and answer are important, along with which questions preceded this.*  But it also matters who is asking and how, and what difference the questioned person perceives their answer will make and why the question has been asked.
> 
> As somebody with no power to actually make it happen, if asked to state a personal preference by a random clipboard-bearer on the street, I might well respond that I would happier if nightclubs stayed shut forever. Doesn’t mean I think they _should_ stay shut forever.



True, as so well demonstrated in this clip.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 11, 2021)

Government beginning to bottle it over their mass infection policy? Well, a significant move back towards masks in England:









						Nadhim Zahawi says mask wearing will be ‘expected’ after 19 July
					

Minister signals harder stance on face coverings in England as soaring Covid infections cause concern




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Spandex (Jul 11, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Government beginning to bottle it over their mass infection policy? Well, a significant move back towards masks in England:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So you don't have to wear a mask but you do have to wear a mask. I'm glad that's clear now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 11, 2021)

Spandex said:


> So you don't have to wear a mask but you do have to wear a mask. I'm glad that's clear now.



Yeah, I commented about it on the face-mask thread, it's going to be advice and not law, which is as dumb as it gets.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 11, 2021)

Sorry if this has been covered and I missed it, but if someone's infected after vaccination is there still a risk of creating a variant?


----------



## LDC (Jul 11, 2021)

Casinos closed forever in that poll though.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 11, 2021)

Spandex said:


> So you don't have to wear a mask but you do have to wear a mask. I'm glad that's clear now.


Maybe just wear it askew?


----------



## elbows (Jul 11, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Government beginning to bottle it over their mass infection policy? Well, a significant move back towards masks in England:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They are probably unsettled that their attempts to change the tone of the rhetoric in the last press conference were too little, too late. And the opinion polling, and the number of authorities (eg mayors) who are signalling that they will try to keep mask rule in certain settings.

Whether any analysis of recent data has also given them fresh cause for concern I cannot judge, since I havent seen the analysis. 

They wanted to have their cake and eat it, but thats not a realistic goal. Especially when economic recovery and something approaching normal life requires the masses to be confident, and the governments own approach repeatedly undermines that. It reminds me a little of how, once the first wave was diminishing, Johnson tried to push too soon for schools reopening and people going back to work for June last year, an attempt that faltered very quickly.

The WHO continue to be unimpressed too:



> The World Health Organization (WHO) is becoming increasingly vocal about the dangers of the government’s plans. While not referring to the prime minister by name, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, said that allowing the disease to spread and infect others “by not implementing consistently proven actions that prevent infections, reduce spread, prevent disease and save lives is immoral, unethical and non-scientific”.











						Public alarm grows at Boris Johnson’s plan for Covid ‘freedom day’
					

Poll shows 50% want rules to stay in place, as mayors urge masks on public transport




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cuppa tee (Jul 11, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Maybe just wear it askew?



....or just covering the mouth as many have since the beginning.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 11, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Well, a quarter of people who took part in the survey. I didn't take part and I bet thousands of others didn't either. Still iffy.



Other polls have shown support for ongoing restrictions more in the 50% area.

I'd be interested to see these results broken down by age group. If you're double-jabbed and you're telling those who aren't to put themselves at risk for your sake, well let's just say you're not my kind of person.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 11, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Sorry if this has been covered and I missed it, but if someone's infected after vaccination is there still a risk of creating a variant?


It's my understanding that if only partially vaccinated the virus can still get a foot hold, see the immune response and have more of a chance to find ways round it.

If fully vaccinated there's less chance of the virus getting a foothold before the immune system sees it. Although, AZ is only 60% effective against the delta variant, even with double doses so I guess there's still a good chance of variants. All this just further highlights the absolute fucking idiocy of doing away with all restrictions when numbers are high and ever climbing.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> They are probably unsettled that their attempts to change the tone of the rhetoric in the last press conference were too little, too late. And the opinion polling, and the number of authorities (eg mayors) who are signalling that they will try to keep mask rule in certain settings.
> 
> Whether any analysis of recent data has also given them fresh cause for concern I cannot judge, since I havent seen the analysis.
> 
> ...


I think it will be interesting if the public work out that 'we  want young people to catch Covid' is the plan, with all the attendant risks of long Covid.  If there was ever a time for Labour to push hard on fully funded sick pay and replacing the gig economy, this is it.  However weary people are of the restrictions, there's a deep sense of unease out there, crying out for social democratic responses.  It's not my politics, but it's an indication that there's still a terrain for labour to occupy.


----------



## elbows (Jul 11, 2021)

On a related note most of the media didnt want to touch Labours use of JohnsonVariant with a bargepole.


----------



## zahir (Jul 11, 2021)

Thread from Deepti Gurdasani


----------



## zahir (Jul 11, 2021)

A new variant?


----------



## prunus (Jul 11, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Sorry if this has been covered and I missed it, but if someone's infected after vaccination is there still a risk of creating a variant?



Yes is the simple answer.

Any actively replicating pool of virus (as in an infected person) will be creating variants all the time through copying errors.  

Whether or not any of those variants are better at infecting people is down to chance.

A person with a strong immune response (whether from previous infection or vaccination or just because) might be able to kill off some of the variants that arise inside them before they can spread.   However by definition any variant that arises that is especially good are infecting human cells and/or evading the immune response will be more likely to be able to win out and spread.   This is the selective pressure.


----------



## elbows (Jul 11, 2021)

zahir said:


> A new variant?




The question of whether there is something else going on in the North East is an interesting one and I was surprised it took so long to gain some traction.

The North East certainly stuck out on graphs I've made. However I am not qualified to judge whether it really contains 'a signal' that authorities look for when considering variants, as happened with the Kent variant towards the end of last year. Because I certainly didnt identify the data from the South East as being a signal at the time. It was obvious that cases had exploded there but a deeper analysis than I am capable of was required to unpick that one at the time, I couldnt tell the difference between it being a new variant and a failure of policy/too weak a November lockdown, coupled with regional factors.

I cannot tell from the basic numbers whether something is such a signal, or whether it is more a question of the North East being first, with other regions set to follow the same trend later. There has been a clear contrast between the North West and the North East, but there are multiple possible explanations for that and I considered the possibility that its the North West thats been the odd one out, rather than the North East.

Plus since this is the first Delta wave we've had, it is hard for me to tell the difference between a signal of some other variant or modified Delta, as opposed to data being in tune with what we'd expect from Delta.

There have also been some false starts, in terms of the fact some people are looking closely and have become somewhat wedded to the idea that something is up in the North East. For example there was an upload to a genome database that cause alarm the other day, but then this was blamed on faulty data. There was the article that mentions authorities having seen 'a signal', but then PHE issued a denial which seemed carefully worded to exclude some possibilities but with the door still left ajar to them having seen a signal.

As a result of this I currently have an open mind on the subject. There are certain warning signs and possibly some associated weasel words and murk, but I cannot faily describe all of these as being genuine tell-tale signs at this point. From my limited vantage point this one does require the benefit of hindsight, but it would be nice to think that some authorities are much better placed to get to the bottom of things in a timely manner that is unavailable to me.

I also have to keep in mind that some modelling exercises done months ago thought that the North East would be especially badly affected this time, in great part due to them having a more modest Alpha wave than many regions (eg because the timing of their wave meant January lockdown was more timely for that region than others, and so cut off their peak at an earlier stage).


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 11, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Other polls have shown support for ongoing restrictions more in the 50% area.
> 
> I'd be interested to see these results broken down by age group. If you're double-jabbed and you're telling those who aren't to put themselves at risk for your sake, well let's just say you're not my kind of person.


I can't tell if your last sentence is directed at me specifically or if you're speaking generally, but I'm talking about those who want nightclubs to shut and a curfew _regardless _of coronavirus. That sounds unnecessarily controlling. Obviously I accept we need restrictions while Covid is still a threat, but after?


----------



## elbows (Jul 11, 2021)

prunus said:


> Yes is the simple answer.
> 
> Any actively replicating pool of virus (as in an infected person) will be creating variants all the time through copying errors.
> 
> ...



Plus very knowledgeable people like 2hats are not afraid to point out the ways in which crap policies may end up enhancing such selection pressures.

eg if you make various rules and surveillance attempts weaker for double-vaccinated people, then you are inviting strains of the virus that are adept at infecting double-vaccinated people to walk through the door.


----------



## elbows (Jul 11, 2021)

Carrying on the North East 'signal' stuff, I have been pondering what sorts of signals would alarm authorities. It wont just be raw number of cases. It could be the doubling time. Or the age profiles of people getting infected. Or the age profiles or vaccination status of those requiring hospitalisation, or a differing profile of disease severity and outcomes. Theres probably more where that came from. Some of that data is available to me in relatively timely fashion, others I dont get to see till quite a bit later.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 11, 2021)

prunus said:


> two sheds said:
> 
> 
> > Sorry if this has been covered and I missed it, but if someone's infected after vaccination is there still a risk of creating a variant?
> ...


And whilst high community prevalence is not addressed, it will skew in favour of the virus over time, as selection pressure playfully nudges the bricks of the tottering jenga tower of government pandemic policy.


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 11, 2021)

If Johnson's policies result in a Sunderland variant spreading across the world I hope another country decides to take him out with a drone strike.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jul 11, 2021)

Wilf said:


> .... If there was ever a time for Labour to push hard on fully funded sick pay and replacing the gig economy, this is it.  However weary people are of the restrictions, there's a deep sense of unease out there, crying out for social democratic responses.  It's not my politics, but it's an indication that _there's still a terrain for labour to occupy_.


Which rather presumes that's a terrain that Labour would like to occupy. Unfortunately this is probably not the case with the people who are now in charge.


----------



## elbows (Jul 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> Public alarm grows at Boris Johnson’s plan for Covid ‘freedom day’
> 
> 
> Poll shows 50% want rules to stay in place, as mayors urge masks on public transport
> ...



I shouldnt really miss the opportunity to say that hospital infections were mentioned in that Guardian article.



> Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said a combination of self-isolation, growing pressures from infections and accumulated staff leave since the start of the pandemic was likely to create problems this summer. “One trust [is] predicting a 20% overall absence rate in three weeks resulting in 900 lost operations,” he said. “The Delta variant, now the dominant variant, is 60% more transmissible than the Alpha variant, first identified in Kent. The risk of nosocomial infection – patients and staff acquiring Covid-19 in healthcare settings – is therefore correspondingly higher.”


----------



## two sheds (Jul 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> On a related note most of the media didnt want to touch Labours use of JohnsonVariant with a bargepole.


How about Javid-19?


----------



## LDC (Jul 11, 2021)

'Enjoyed' reading this at work. Good article, even if in _The Guardian..._

The NHS is already overstretched – dropping Covid restrictions will spell disaster for patients | Rachel Clarke


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 11, 2021)

zahir said:


> A new variant?




The *i* article Pagel cites seems to be unsupported:









						Public Health England not investigating a new Covid variant in the North East
					

Reports have suggested that Public Health officials are investigating a new Covid-19 variant which is said to have emerged in the North East.




					www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 11, 2021)

Yes I mentioned the denial earlier. They dont explicitly deny that there was a potential signal in the data, but I already gave my thoughts on that, I cant really tell and its unclear to me why the North East data seemed so surprising to some. Somebody somewhere briefed a journalist that a signal had been seen, but without having a clue about who that source was, I cant really place any weight on the original reporting.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 11, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The *i* article Pagel cites seems to be unsupported:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Somehow "public health officials are _not_ investigating a new variant" is not reassuring.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> I also have to keep in mind that some modelling exercises done months ago thought that the North East would be especially badly affected this time, in great part due to them having a more modest Alpha wave than many regions (eg because the timing of their wave meant January lockdown was more timely for that region than others, and so cut off their peak at an earlier stage).


Also Cornwall. I'm not sure what percentage of cases now are delta - infections started around mid june but people will presumably have come from all over the place for G7 and holidays.


----------



## elbows (Jul 11, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Also Cornwall. I'm not sure what percentage of cases now are delta - infections started around mid june but people will presumably have come from all over the place for G7 and holidays.



Yeah but I was just talking about particular modelling, and I probably added my own thoughts on top of what they actually claimed. Basically apart from London they had most areas doing badly in a wave. Tthe North East & Yorkshire got mentioned for being the worst but most of the rest werent exactly great. Page 25 of https://assets.publishing.service.g.../file/993358/s1288_Warwick_RoadMap_Step_4.pdf


----------



## Cloo (Jul 11, 2021)

Extra infection surge (especially among men) after tonight?


----------



## Supine (Jul 11, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Extra infection surge (especially among men) after tonight?



Having traveled through London via train stations today all i can say is YES


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 11, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Extra infection surge (especially among men) after tonight?



Covid is coming home.


----------



## pug (Jul 11, 2021)

This whole situation reminds me of the south park episode where the mums tell the kids to spit in each others mouths.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 11, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Extra infection surge (especially among men) after tonight?


Does it transmit via the medium of fisticuffs?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 11, 2021)

I bet they've not taken hand sanitizers with them


----------



## Wilf (Jul 12, 2021)

More rowing back from the superbrains who run the country:









						Covid unlocking on 19 July must come with a warning, says Johnson
					

Ministers are told easing of restrictions could be accompanied by 2m new cases in coming weeks




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Cerv (Jul 12, 2021)

so we're to go clubbing in hot, sweaty crowded rooms but wear masks while we do? or what? does anyone understand what the government's messaging is now?


----------



## kabbes (Jul 12, 2021)

Cerv said:


> so we're to go clubbing in hot, sweaty crowded rooms but wear masks while we do? or what? does anyone understand what the government's messaging is now?


“Be careful whilst not actually doing anything careful. Just think careful and talk about how careful you are.”


----------



## andysays (Jul 12, 2021)

kabbes said:


> “Be careful whilst not actually doing anything careful. Just think careful and talk about how careful you are.”



It's this, basically


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

I think the message is just Keep supporting your friendly blameless government  -  if you want to be careful then here is some sober face and some words about Vigilance for you, if you want to burn your mask & party go right ahead, enjoy the gift of Freedom Day, either way, not our fault keep voting conservative thanks.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 12, 2021)

bimble said:


> I think the message is just Keep supporting your friendly blameless government  -  if you want to be careful then here is some sober face and some words about Vigilance for you, if you want to burn your mask & party go right ahead, enjoy the gift of Freedom Day, either way, not our fault keep voting conservative thanks.



Yup. Since day one of this the government's power move has been positioning themself so that they can blame the public when shit inevitably gets worse.


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Jul 12, 2021)

This looks like an interesting bit of research - having the flu jab reduces the risks of certain outcomes in COVID.









						Flu jab may reduce severe effects of Covid, suggests study
					

Analysis of 75,000 coronavirus patients found fewer major health problems among people with flu jab




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## existentialist (Jul 12, 2021)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Also worth remembering that a huge number of people are thick as shit.


Especially if the survey was done anywhere near Westminster...


----------



## NoXion (Jul 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> On a related note most of the media didnt want to touch Labours use of JohnsonVariant with a bargepole.



Of course they didn't. They've been constantly whining about "fReEdOm dAy!" like spoilt little babies. All of my hate.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 12, 2021)

farmerbarleymow said:


> This looks like an interesting bit of research - having the flu jab reduces the risks of certain outcomes in COVID.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This prompted my to check again about ACE inhibiters,
It seems they are slightly protective, but once you get to hospital then they have not effect if you end up in the ICU.




			
				https://heart.bmj.com/content/106/19/1503 said:
			
		

> Conclusion​In this very large population-based study, ACE inhibitor and ARB prescriptions were associated with a reduced risk of COVID-19 RT-PCR positive disease in a hospital setting adjusting for a wide range of demographic factors, potential comorbidities and other medication. There was no evidence of an increased or decreased risk associated with either drug for ICU admission. There are marked variations in risk of COVID-19 disease and ICU admission by ethnic group, with highest rates among BAME groups. The strength of this association is greater with the more severe outcome and is not explained by age, sex, deprivation, geographical region or several comorbidities and intercurrent medications included in the analysis. The counterintuitive finding of smokers having a lower risk of COVID-19 disease requiring hospital admission and ICU admission deserves further study.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 12, 2021)

Flu jab may reduce severe effects of Covid, suggests study
					

Analysis of 75,000 coronavirus patients found fewer major health problems among people with flu jab




					www.theguardian.com
				






> People who are vaccinated against influenza may be partly protected against some of the severe effects of coronavirus, and be less likely to need emergency care, according to a major study.
> 
> The analysis of nearly 75,000 Covid patients found significant reductions in stroke, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and sepsis, and fewer admissions to emergency departments and intensive care units, among those who had been given the flu jab.


Edit now I've caught up with the thread:


> grrr


----------



## Spandex (Jul 12, 2021)

I'm sick of hearing the phrase _if not now, when?_ It's clearly on the 'line to take' bit of their briefings before ministers go in front of the media. Junior health minister Edward Agar was using it again on the media rounds this morning.

_If not now, when?_

How about once the Delta wave has subsided, hospitals aren't filling up with Covid patients and everyone I meet doesn't have a story about someone they know who has Covid even though they've been double jabbed.


----------



## prunus (Jul 12, 2021)

Spandex said:


> I'm sick of hearing the phrase _if not now, when?_ It's clearly on the 'line to take' bit of their briefings before ministers go in front of the media. Junior health minister Edward Agar was using it again on the media rounds this morning.
> 
> _If not now, when?_
> 
> How about once the Delta wave has subsided, hospitals aren't filling up with Covid patients and everyone I meet doesn't have a story about someone they know who has Covid even though they've been double jabbed.



I’ve stopped listening to the lying shits on their morning round of lying to the public via the medium of the complicit media outlets, but can anyone tell me - is there any explanation at any point (or even are they asked for one) as to why the ‘if not now then when?’ removal of public health protections in favour of the economy includes _mask wearing_, which has effectively zero effect on economic output and productivity?


----------



## Spandex (Jul 12, 2021)

prunus said:


> I’ve stopped listening to the lying shits on their morning round of lying to the public via the medium of the complicit media outlets, but can anyone tell me - is there any explanation at any point (or even are they asked for one) as to why the ‘if not now then when?’ removal of public health protections in favour of the economy includes _mask wearing_, which has effectively zero effect on economic output and productivity?


Because... errr... because... errr...

FREEDOM!


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 12, 2021)

prunus said:


> is there any explanation at any point (or even are they asked for one) as to why the ‘if not now then when?’ removal of public health protections in favour of the economy includes _mask wearing_, which has effectively zero effect on economic output and productivity?


Indeed  - why has this become such an icon of "freedom" - when so many of us are looking at all unnecessary exposure to pathogens in the light of the current experience.
So many other things have been accepted - like seat belts and not smoking in hospitals ...

It was unfortunate that they got the messaging about masks so crazily wrong early on ...


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

very interesting this. Not much info in here but intriguing. If they can identify long covid via a test for these special kind of antibodies does that a treatment more likely to follow? 








						Long Covid: rogue antibody discovery raises hope of blood test
					

Test could be available from GPs within six months, as scientists warn of ‘a lot of damage to a lot of lives’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## LDC (Jul 12, 2021)

bimble said:


> very interesting this. Not much info in here but intriguing. If they can identify long covid via a test for these special kind of antibodies does that a treatment more likely to follow?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Might do, but given it's not a singular condition it seems unlikely currently. What this test (although it's quite early days for it) does raise is maybe some complex situations where people who are saying they have long covid then don't have the antibodies from this test, so any long covid diagnosis gets discounted.


----------



## prunus (Jul 12, 2021)

bimble said:


> very interesting this. Not much info in here but intriguing. If they can identify long covid via a test for these special kind of antibodies does that a treatment more likely to follow?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Maybe, probably, certainly not less likely. Knowing the aetiology of a disease is usually an important step in developing therapies. However autoantibodies are already known to be a part of a number of autoimmune disorders, and we don’t yet have much in the way of ‘cures’ (rather than ameliorations). It’s being worked on though, and presumably these ones will be added into the mix.


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

Yep. The immunologist interviewed there, he doesn’t mince his words when talking about the thousands & thousands of long term ill people he expects to see. ‘We could not be more alarmed’ is not a good news story.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 12, 2021)

A key thing that interests me is the differences between offering just the spike protein to teach the body's immune system and expecting it to learn to recognise the whole virus ...
I figure maybe it's going to be more "efficient" for teaching the immune system...
Presumably if the antibodies learn to attack a large variety of viral proteins, there's more chance of it attacking the wrong thing.
I still don't know if the "long flu" I had in 2019 was "ME" or just because I'd sailed into diabetic waters through inactivity ...


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 12, 2021)

I had to laugh when Johnson said he'd continue wearing his mask on a crowded train. Yeah, so big of the man who's probably never been near public transport in his life and gets driven everywhere by a private chauffeur.

And it doesn't need to be all or nothing. Just because masks will no longer be mandatory doesn't mean I'll be throwing mine away. I plan to use mine until at least a few weeks after the deadline for everyone being offered their second jab, and beyond that if things still haven't improved.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 12, 2021)

I'm in favour of keeping masks as a thing for a while but I wonder if it will become the next 'hand sanitiser', ie. something you get people to do to make it look like you're actually taking measures to reduce risk, while you just ignore a whole bunch of other stuff that would probably make a bigger difference.

For the first time in ages this weekend I went for a meal 'out' but sitting indoors. Something I am still planning to avoid as much as possible for a while. The place had hand sanitizer at the door, it had the NHS check in QR, the staff all had masks on. But then we were shown to a table in quite a large room, there was only one other table occupied but they put us at a table virtually next to them instead of one of the free ones at the other end of the room. It was a warm summer evening but exactly zero windows were open, and nor were the the full height patio doors. You had to put a mask on to go to the toilet though so it was all perfectly risk free.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 12, 2021)

Not that I have been in a pub or restaurant for years, or eat any kind of takeaway food, but I feel very sorry for people whose livelihoods depend on it.


----------



## andysays (Jul 12, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'm in favour of keeping masks as a thing for a while but I wonder if it will become the next 'hand sanitiser', ie. something you get people to do to make it look like you're actually taking measures to reduce risk, while you just ignore a whole bunch of other stuff that would probably make a bigger difference.
> 
> For the first time in ages this weekend I went for a meal 'out' but sitting indoors. Something I am still planning to avoid as much as possible for a while. The place had hand sanitizer at the door, it had the NHS check in QR, the staff all had masks on. But then we were shown to a table in quite a large room, there was only one other table occupied but they put us at a table virtually next to them instead of one of the free ones at the other end of the room. It was a warm summer evening but exactly zero windows were open, and nor were the the full height patio doors. You had to put a mask on to go to the toilet though so it was all perfectly risk free.


Did you mention any of your concerns to the management?


----------



## l'Otters (Jul 12, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'm in favour of keeping masks as a thing for a while but I wonder if it will become the next 'hand sanitiser', ie. something you get people to do to make it look like you're actually taking measures to reduce risk, while you just ignore a whole bunch of other stuff that would probably make a bigger difference.
> 
> For the first time in ages this weekend I went for a meal 'out' but sitting indoors. Something I am still planning to avoid as much as possible for a while. The place had hand sanitizer at the door, it had the NHS check in QR, the staff all had masks on. But then we were shown to a table in quite a large room, there was only one other table occupied but they put us at a table virtually next to them instead of one of the free ones at the other end of the room. It was a warm summer evening but exactly zero windows were open, and nor were the the full height patio doors. You had to put a mask on to go to the toilet though so it was all perfectly risk free.


Masks would make more of a difference to the spread of an airborne disease than hand sanitiser, but a lot of people do use them as a kind of talisman (masks & / hand sanitiser).


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 12, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Masks would make more of a difference to the spread of an airborne disease than hand sanitiser, but a lot of people do use them as a kind of talisman (masks & / hand sanitiser).



Well, not having held the Euros would probably have helped even more, but apparently some things are more important and talismanic than others.

https://todayuknews.com/economy/eng...ould-be-fuelling-covid-surge-scientists-fear/








						Lack of COVID awareness at Euro final 'devastating' - WHO
					

A WHO epidemiologist said she had been devastated to watch unmasked crowds singing and shouting at the Euro 2020 soccer final in London on Sunday, expressing concerns that it would spur COVID-19 transmission, including of the Delta variant.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 12, 2021)

One thing I don't understand is supermarkets offering both hand sanitiser and antiviral spray ...
I just slop on the hand sanitiser and squidge it all over the basket handle and maybe wipe off the excess on my trousers...


----------



## teuchter (Jul 12, 2021)

andysays said:


> Did you mention any of your concerns to the management?


No, so I suppose if anyone catches Covid there in the next few weeks and then dies, it'll all be my fault.


----------



## prunus (Jul 12, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> A key thing that interests me is the differences between offering just the spike protein to teach the body's immune system and expecting it to learn to recognise the whole virus ...
> I figure maybe it's going to be more "efficient" for teaching the immune system...
> Presumably if the antibodies learn to attack a large variety of viral proteins, there's more chance of it attacking the wrong thing.
> I still don't know if the "long flu" I had in 2019 was "ME" or just because I'd sailed into diabetic waters through inactivity ...



The immune system and response are intricately complicated things, and the many layers of it respond in different ways to different threats.  Your speculations above are not really how it (probably) works in this case I don’t think, certainly not the idea that antibodies attacking lots of viral proteins leads to more cross-species attacks, or even that there’s any advantage in the antibodies attacking a wide range of proteins in this case.

The spike protein is the functional infection unit - so binding to it stops it working. This is key to the antibodies’ utility. T cells and the like need to be able to recognise infected cells - luckily the mode of this virus is to expose spike proteins on the surface of infected cells - so that recognising this is a good way of doing that.

As it’s a functional unit it can’t change that much without disabling itself. Other surface proteins can be much more polymorphic and so not so useful. It’s as if you are looking for a 7’8” tall fugitive man with red hair, 3 fingers on his left hand and wearing a navy greatcoat and glasses, and you want to train a bunch of searchers to look for him.  He can easily change his coat, glasses and hair colour. Not so easily his fingers and height - so don’t bother teaching the searchers about the former, just the latter.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 12, 2021)

prunus said:


> I’ve stopped listening to the lying shits on their morning round of lying to the public via the medium of the complicit media outlets, but can anyone tell me - is there any explanation at any point (or even are they asked for one) as to why the ‘if not now then when?’ removal of public health protections in favour of the economy includes _mask wearing_, which has effectively zero effect on economic output and productivity?


Only logic I can see is that masks retard the spread of the disease. It interferes with the mass infection policy.

The other line I can think of is that johnson has misjudged the public mood and thinks masks are something the public hate, in favour of some mythical unicorn 'freedom'. So, on the latter, he's a silly cunt and on the former, a murderous one.


----------



## xenon (Jul 12, 2021)

It's the latter. It's just trying to placate the yapping rightwingers in his own party and signal the Tories aren't in fact the party that want to interfere in your lives, business etc...

Unless you want to protest about something , obv.


----------



## maomao (Jul 12, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Only logic I can see is that masks retard the spread of the disease. It interferes with the mass infection policy.
> 
> The other line I can think of is that johnson has misjudged the public mood and thinks masks are something the public hate, in favour of some mythical unicorn 'freedom'. So, on the latter, he's a silly cunt and on the former, a murderous one.


They're also a visual reminder that there's a pandemic on. If you're wanting to wish it all away and get back to normal then you can do without them. They've never taken the human impact of the disease seriously and only done lockdowns when health infrastructure was on the verge of collapse.


----------



## emanymton (Jul 12, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'm in favour of keeping masks as a thing for a while but I wonder if it will become the next 'hand sanitiser', ie. something you get people to do to make it look like you're actually taking measures to reduce risk, while you just ignore a whole bunch of other stuff that would probably make a bigger difference.
> 
> For the first time in ages this weekend I went for a meal 'out' but sitting indoors. Something I am still planning to avoid as much as possible for a while. The place had hand sanitizer at the door, it had the NHS check in QR, the staff all had masks on. But then we were shown to a table in quite a large room, there was only one other table occupied but they put us at a table virtually next to them instead of one of the free ones at the other end of the room. It was a warm summer evening but exactly zero windows were open, and nor were the the full height patio doors. You had to put a mask on to go to the toilet though so it was all perfectly risk free.


Might intreset you.









						Hygiene theatre: how excessive cleaning gives us a false sense of security
					

Covid-19 is a mainly airborne disease. So does our endless disinfecting and hand sanitising serve any purpose – or could it be worse than useless?




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Riklet (Jul 12, 2021)

Forget the stupid hand sanitiser, they should focus on laws and grants to improve airflow. Obvs main thing is to make people more aware of this... it's no coincidence people arent generally getting covid outside...

I had to open some of the windows on the bus cos some arsehole had closed them. Most of the local shops round here dont keep their doors open... and that's in bloody summer. Hopeless!

People may get a bit chilly as months go on but this is the logical solution. Tons of places could be adapted very easily...


----------



## Wilf (Jul 12, 2021)

maomao said:


> They're also a visual reminder that there's a pandemic on. If you're wanting to wish it all away and get back to normal then you can do without them. They've never taken the human impact of the disease seriously and only done lockdowns when health infrastructure was on the verge of collapse.





Riklet said:


> Forget the stupid hand sanitiser, they should focus on laws and grants to improve airflow. Obvs main thing is to make people more aware of this... it's no coincidence people arent generally getting covid outside...
> 
> I had to open some of the windows on the bus cos some arsehole had closed them. Most of the local shops round here dont keep their doors open... and that's in bloody summer. Hopeless!
> 
> People may get a bit chilly as months go on but this is the logical solution. Tons of places could be adapted very easily...


As always it's the interaction of the pandemic policy with neoliberalism and power relations in the workplace. As mentioned above, it's not just about mask when it comes to having a 'Covid secure' workplace, but social distancing and masks were key defences for shop workers and others. Masks of course are as much about defence of others than the wearer. For most businesses there would have been little problem maintaining social distancing in areas where workers meet the public (or each other) and there could have been state aid for those who would have seen significant impact. Infecting and hospitalising people in the name of 'normality'.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 12, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Might intreset you.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes, I have been rolling my eyes continually at "hygiene theatre" since this thing began.


----------



## emanymton (Jul 12, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Yes, I have been rolling my eyes continually at "hygiene theatre" since this thing began.


Same here.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 12, 2021)

I wonder how much resistance to masks also comes from them looking 'foreign' to us because they were used so much in the Far East.


----------



## Elpenor (Jul 12, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I wonder how much resistance to masks also comes from them looking 'foreign' to us because they were used so much in the Far East.


I think a lot of British exceptionalism - we are stronger than the hypochondriac weaklings in those countries etc - informed decision making by our illustrious leaders


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 12, 2021)

So we delayed reopening long enough for us to class the Delta variant as no longer a "new variant of concern" because it's been around for too long? That feels like moving the goalposts somewhat...


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

oh god he's on.
Just a stream of burbled nonsense.
Clearly walked back from his 'irreversible' claims tho. All he ever said was that he HOPED it'd be irreversible.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 12, 2021)

bimble said:


> oh god he's on.
> Just a stream of burbled nonsense.
> Clearly walked back from his 'irreversible' claims tho.


following Ingerlund not winning it must be a tricky calculation ...


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 12, 2021)

My faith in Chris Whitty is waning. 



> But he admits that there is disagreement about whether this is the ideal date to open up. That is because there is no ideal date, he says.



This is a terrible argument. The scientists disagree because it isn't safe to open up now. They are not saying there is an _ideal_ time, they are saying now is the _wrong_ time.


----------



## Calamity1971 (Jul 12, 2021)

bimble said:


> oh god he's on.
> Just a stream of burbled nonsense.
> Clearly walked back from his 'irreversible' claims tho.


' like I've said all along _*I hope *_it's irreversible' 
The lying bastard. Just admit you were fucking wrong.


----------



## Calamity1971 (Jul 12, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> My faith in Chris Whitty is waning.


Never had any faith in him. Looks like a rabbit in the headlights today.


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

This is the man the great british people elected as prime minister, the same people whose best judgement we are all now to rely on.


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

' don't tear the pants out of it' thats it. Thats the advice from the PM.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 12, 2021)

Are we taking bets yet on when the "irreversible" unlockening is reversed and new lockdown measures have to be introduced?


----------



## Calamity1971 (Jul 12, 2021)

bimble said:


> ' don't tear the pants out of it' thats it. Thats the advice from the PM.


I liked when asked the initial question he paused and then said 'err I'll have a go at that' . Have a fucking go, no, just know the fucking answer you arse wipe. I'm fuming.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 12, 2021)

bimble said:


> ' don't tear the pants out of it' thats it. Thats the advice from the PM.


Am I the only person who has never heard that expression before ?


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Am I the only person who has never heard that expression before ?


some stupid americanism i imagine.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 12, 2021)

So what's the betting that the numbers next week will be too bad to open up, or like January and the schools, will open up for a short period before enacting more restrictions.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 12, 2021)

sounds like a posh version of a wedgie


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 12, 2021)

LIke the alternative queen's speech, only with the lives of the country at stake.



>


----------



## Sue (Jul 12, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Am I the only person who has never heard that expression before ?


I'm familiar with 'don't rip the arse out of it' which I suspect is the more real world version of that ^ expression.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 12, 2021)

I wonder if there is going to be any tracking of mask/social-distancing adherence after the 19th, as a way of measuring the "personal responsibility" metric that we're all apparently going to rely on from now on?


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 12, 2021)

Sue said:


> I'm familiar with 'don't rip the arse out of it' which I suspect is the more real world version of that ^ expression.


when I googled it, it seems he used it before ...

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q='+don't+tear+the+pants+out+of+it'


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

what is he wanging on about the world cup for fucks sake


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 12, 2021)

If he wanted to sound like the rest of it, why couldn't he have said "don't take the piss" ... ?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 12, 2021)

bimble said:


> what is he wanging on about the world cup for fucks sake


distraction from the real shitty issues


----------



## Wilf (Jul 12, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Are we taking bets yet on when the "irreversible" unlockening is reversed and new lockdown measures have to be introduced?


Suppose we are about to see a mass experiment on the extent to which the vaccine has weakened the link with hospitalisation. I say weakened, because we need to get away with the clearly dishonest claim that it has broken the link.  Those who do the science and stats will know this better but it seems to me that it will probably ramp up over the Summer in a series of messy stages. Been a plateau in cases the last few days, though there might be a measurable 'Euro blip' next.  Then it's the battle between kids being off school and the bonfire of regulations next week.  Then, we get to schools and colleges going back + universities.  Anyway, nothing good in all of that and, as has been mentioned on this thread, the whole strategy is one borne out previous failures.


----------



## Loose meat (Jul 12, 2021)

New data relevant to NHS capacity >>>


----------



## brogdale (Jul 12, 2021)

Perhaps there should be a public vote for the naming of the next variant that develops as a result of the UK unlocking spike?

Varianty McVariantFace


----------



## Wilf (Jul 12, 2021)

Feel like some sort of killjoy reporting this, but still:



> In the closing stages of the match against Italy, the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, tweeted: “Am I supposed to be enjoying watching transmission happening in front of my eyes?”











						‘Devastating’: WHO scientist condemns Euro 2020 final over Covid risk
					

WHO’s Covid-19 technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove, says event likely to have spurred Covid-19 transmission




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Wilf (Jul 12, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Perhaps there should be a public vote for the naming of the next variant that develops as a result of the UK unlocking spike?
> 
> Varianty McVariantFace


Whitty's Still Drawing His Salary Variant


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> LIke the alternative queen's speech, only with the lives of the country at stake.


quite interesting here it is


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Am I the only person who has never heard that expression before ?



He used it because Jonathan Van-Tam (deputy CMO) said it in a press conference last year at a time when really quite large numbers of people were paying attention to the regular press conferences. And he said it back then in the same context of some impending relaxation of rules. And the press ran with it at the time because compared to the droning from the likes of Whitty or Vallance, Van-Tams language was considered to have greater resonance with people, to be more memorable etc.


----------



## Cerv (Jul 12, 2021)

government is "encouraging" businesses to require and check vaccine certification.
but still no news on when those of us who got our jabs in clinical trials will have that shown in the app. they seem to have not mentioned it entirely since saying they were looking into it months ago.

I'll end up dropping out the trial (for follow up blood tests monitoring) and go for an unnecessary second set of NHS jabs if the alternative is being housebound.


----------



## Cerv (Jul 12, 2021)

I really don't think we should be expecting bouncers to check vaccine status. It's bad enough for them having to look out for fake proof of age, but at least there's decades of experience on that. 
How does anyone think they'll cope with spotting fakes if someone claims to have received the vaccine abroad? 

Surely it makes more sense to look at the herd as a whole, not individuals. And judge either it's safe enough to open events on that. Rather than try to filter the people coming into to skew away from the average.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 12, 2021)

Cerv said:


> I really don't think we should be expecting bouncers to check vaccine status. It's bad enough for them having to look out for fake proof of age, but at least there's decades of experience on that.
> How does anyone think they'll cope with spotting fakes if someone claims to have received the vaccine abroad?
> 
> Surely it makes more sense to look at the herd as a whole, not individuals. And judge either it's safe enough to open events on that. Rather than try to filter the people coming into to skew away from the average.



I assume the primary aim of this is to encourage vaccine takeup now.


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> My faith in Chris Whitty is waning.
> 
> 
> 
> This is a terrible argument. The scientists disagree because it isn't safe to open up now. They are not saying there is an _ideal_ time, they are saying now is the _wrong_ time.



There are various debates about timing that I wont go into detail about until I've seen the latest modelling that came out today.

I've moaned about Whitty for a long time.

He says a lot of sensible things that are important to say in these press conferences, but there are some big problem areas which are mostly caused by:

The nature of his job, which includes having to sell the chosen government approach to people
His old-school orthodox establishment attitude towards many things, and the limited extent to which he has modified these to cope with the realities of this pandemic.
Very much including his sense of balancing different risks, which is based on both the aforementioned attitudes and the nature of his job, but also because of having the make judgements based on the actual realistic capacity of various systems.

These things combine into results and certain utterances that I find to be a bit ugly at times like this, during the relaxation phases. So yes he is not telling the whole story with the dates issue, and offered a narrow characterisation of it. 

I also need to look at what the letter from the various royal colleges of medicine that he mentioned actually said, because he worded it to make it sound like they were agreeing with the governments chosen approach. If that turns out to not exactly be the case, more people are going to lower their opinion of him. 

I will probably mention him again shortly when talking about some other things said at todays press conference.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 12, 2021)

Riklet said:


> Forget the stupid hand sanitiser, they should focus on laws and grants to improve airflow. Obvs main thing is to make people more aware of this... it's no coincidence people arent generally getting covid outside...
> 
> I had to open some of the windows on the bus cos some arsehole had closed them. Most of the local shops round here dont keep their doors open... and that's in bloody summer. Hopeless!
> 
> People may get a bit chilly as months go on but this is the logical solution. Tons of places could be adapted very easily...



Its unfortunate that most offices have spent the last 50 years making themselves into as closed systems as possible really


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I assume the primary aim of this is to encourage vaccine takeup now.



Yes and there was even a bit of 'maybe you want to get a jab because you want to go on holiday' in there somewhere today.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> There are various debates about timing that I wont go into detail about until I've seen the latest modelling that came out today.
> 
> I've moaned about Whitty for a long time.
> 
> ...


sure there is discussion to have, or have had, about timing. Problem is the government doesn't want that conversation. They are just arguing a fallacy of perfection, misrepresenting the opposing argument as being based on that notion. But that's a kind of straw man

Oh and the pics of Heathrow Terminal 5 are exasperating. The reception desk to Dante's viral inferno. Loads of staff off sick/isolating


----------



## existentialist (Jul 12, 2021)

Calamity1971 said:


> I liked when asked the initial question he paused and then said 'err I'll have a go at that' . Have a fucking go, no, just know the fucking answer you arse wipe. I'm fuming.


It's all a bit of a jolly jape for him.


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

Todays press conference was very much a continuation of the themes and mood music established at last weeks press conference.

It remained awkward and suitably absurd, because it is no stretch at all to give it either of the following titles, with the majority of the words being direct quotes and the rest being what was meant but could not quite be said.

"Carry On Being Steady" - said directly by Whitty. Not likely one of the more popular Carry On films.

"it will only work as a fourth step if people dont actually do it" - the first part of this was said by Johnson and I simply replaced the ending to more bluntly spell out the underlying message taken to its logical conclusion.


----------



## iona (Jul 12, 2021)

Cerv said:


> government is "encouraging" businesses to require and check vaccine certification.
> but still no news on when those of us who got our jabs in clinical trials will have that shown in the app. they seem to have not mentioned it entirely since saying they were looking into it months ago.
> 
> I'll end up dropping out the trial (for follow up blood tests monitoring) and go for an unnecessary second set of NHS jabs if the alternative is being housebound.


The trial I'm on (Janssen / ENSEMBLE2) has sent out letters to use as proof of vaccination until trial jabs get linked up with the app. Whoever's running your trial should be able to do the same if you ask? (Bit crap that you've not had any info though)


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

Might be a small sample but of the vaccine refusers that I know , it would need to be something very real -real threat or solid carrot - to make them change their minds, they won’t be tricked by some idea that bouncers are going to be be able to tell if they did a rapid flow test correctly or whatever they’re not actually that stupid.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 12, 2021)

Cerv said:


> I really don't think we should be expecting bouncers to check vaccine status. It's bad enough for them having to look out for fake proof of age, but at least there's decades of experience on that.
> How does anyone think they'll cope with spotting fakes if someone claims to have received the vaccine abroad?


Yep. Unfair on bouncers/bar staff, and also discriminatory against those who can't have the jab for medical reasons, unless they plan to make an exception in that case. Even then, I'd be concerned about how they'd deal with that. People shouldn't have to carry proof of their personal medical history to say "This is why I can't be vaccinated" to non-medical people.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 12, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Yep. Unfair on bouncers/bar staff, and also discriminatory against those who can't have the jab for medical reasons, unless they plan to make an exception in that case. Even then, I'd be concerned about how they'd deal with that. People shouldn't have to carry proof of their personal medical history to say "This is why I can't be vaccinated" to non-medical people.



It's for those double jabbed OR have a recent negative rapid flow test, which can easily be faked, so totally pointless.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 12, 2021)

It's just bullshit, to nudge more younger people to get the jab.


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

A couple of other press conference notes.

Whitty is especially poor at including ventilation in his list of things people should be paying attention to. JVT was one of the first to go on about that properly in press conferences, but he isnt usually at the Johnson ones, and on this occasion it was Vallance that had to counter Whittys omission by going on about adequately ventilating businesses etc.

As expected they continue not to answer journalists questions about peak detail, or about what sort of trigger points would force government to impose new restrictions.

We did get Vallance talking about population immunity because he was asked about herd immunity. His answer was OK but incomplete. For example he did mention the benefits that build up gradually, a continuum of improvement, that is relevant before before actual thresholds for full herd immunity are reached. He did point out that R impacts on the calculations for what level of immunity would be needed to hit herd immunity threshold, but he did not explicitly point out that a variant like Delta with higher natural R potential therefore made that percentage higher (eg these days we tend to hear 85% given, it used to be lower when this stuff was first talked about with the original strain of virus). He did mention that population pockets of unvaccinated people can affect the picture.

Last week Johnson seemed to misspeak at one point about what ages of people would be vaccinated by a certain date. This time they have simplified their language about how many will be vaccinated, they are going for a 'two thirds of adults double vaccinated and every adult offered a single dose' line.

It is always useful when Whitty points out things like 'if three quarters of vaccinated people cant pass it on, that means a quarter can still pass it on'. So I liked all that stuff and the emphasis on going slowly, I just start to moan because he mixed that stuff in with claims that the government are going slowly in a way that all sorts of professionals approve of.


----------



## bimble (Jul 12, 2021)

Mask Wearing 'Optional' For MPs But Compulsory For Parliament Staff
					

Exclusive: 'Literally one rule for them..' staffer complains.




					www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
				




MPs can choose if they wear masks or not, but staff in parliament must keep wearing them.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 12, 2021)

Read this today and now feel justified in not disinfecting my shopping and only washing my hands before eating and after using the loo (though have been using hand sanitiser at work, but have been doing that for years):








						Hygiene theatre: how excessive cleaning gives us a false sense of security
					

Covid-19 is a mainly airborne disease. So does our endless disinfecting and hand sanitising serve any purpose – or could it be worse than useless?




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 12, 2021)

I'm a nose-picker so I have to wash my hands more 

My shopping quarantine queue is a lot shorter than it was...


----------



## frogwoman (Jul 12, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> On the two jabs to go on holiday thing. Please bear in mind there are millions living in the UK with family abroad, sometimes they haven't seen parents or loved ones in years.
> 
> The government has made visiting amber list countries an expensive and admin heavy nightmare so it's no surprise people are desperate to get the second jab. It's not all just selfish people who want two weeks in the sun. (But there are some of those I bet.)
> 
> It's a complicated picture and it's hard not to put some blame on the government as well for making testing to travel so expensive and stressful.


Exactly


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

Oh I forgot to mention the other detail in the press conference that people should keep in mind is when it was said that previously peaks were caused by intervention (eg things that have been called lockdown) which meant the peak timing was about the same everywhere. And since they arent intending to apply the same breakes this time, they are expecting wider variation in peak timing for different regions etc.

There are still some things that different regions will have in common, so I dont know quite how big the differences will be. Certainly the timing of the upward side of the curve is varying per place and per region, ans school holiday timing also varies. So its quite likely that when looking for the peaks, I will be doing it per region as well as for nations as a whole.


----------



## Cerv (Jul 12, 2021)

iona said:


> The trial I'm on (Janssen / ENSEMBLE2) has sent out letters to use as proof of vaccination until trial jabs get linked up with the app. Whoever's running your trial should be able to do the same if you ask? (Bit crap that you've not had any info though)


thanks for the reminder. I thought I was supposed to have a letter after the 2nd shot, but it's never come. will chase them up.

but the point of the NHS app is it's official and not so easily fakeable. anyone with 5 mins and a copy of Word can sort out a letter. so if the government tells people to accept that then why even bother?

but now that you mention it -


cupid_stunt said:


> It's for those double jabbed OR have a recent negative rapid flow test, which can easily be faked, so totally pointless.


I missed the lateral flow test point in Javid's announcement. 
faking one of those is as easy as scanning the QR code at home and ticking the box for negative. it's entirely done on the honour system.

going to give up trying to understand what the government actually means to achieve


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

I've now got as far as reading the latest SAGE minutes that have been published, from a 7th July meeting.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1001160/S1300_SAGE_93_minutes_Coronavirus__COVID-19__response__7_July_2021.pdf
		


They arent very long, and I will have to resist the urge to quote too many different bits. But of note:



> SAGE reviewed modelling of the proposed Step 4 of the roadmap in England and the potential effects of rapid or gradual changes, or delay in taking Step 4. It did not discuss options such as reintroduction of restrictions to reduce the current wave of infections.



Yeah they didnt discuss it because they largely restrain themselves to scenarios that the government has indicated are actually on the table at that time. But deliberately stating that they did not discuss these options is quit a statement in itself, designed to draw attention to this gaping hole.



> All modelled scenarios show a period of extremely high prevalence of infection lasting until at least the end of August. There is high uncertainty around both the scale of the peak in prevalence and in the number of confirmed cases that this would correspond to. SAGE also notes that the level of testing may become limited by uptake or capacity.





> There are four major risks associated with high numbers of infections. These are an increase in hospitalisations and deaths, more ‘Long-COVID’; workforce absences (including in the NHS); and the increased risk of new variants emerging. *The combination of high prevalence and high levels of vaccination creates the conditions in which an immune escape variant is most likely to emerge*. The likelihood of this happening is unknown, but such a variant would present a significant risk both in the UK and internationally.


My bold. I know we've discussed this before but its always worth pointing out that SAGE are drawing attention to this risk too. The next point is also related:



> High prevalence also presents a challenge to testing, contact tracing and sequencing. If PCR testing and genomic sequencing capacity are overwhelmed, it may not be possible to rapidly identify a new variant.



One of the new areas where the modelling ranges are limited enough that they can fish some good news out of them is in regards deaths:



> It is almost certain that the peak in deaths will be well below the levels seen in January 2021 due to the impact of vaccination (assuming that no new dominant variant emerges) (high confidence).



A lot of what I havent quoted deals with things that were central themes in this weeks press conference, stuff about how if this step and peoples return to normal behaviours is done slowly, the number of hospitalisations etc will be less. SAGE are also more explicit about the impact of masks etc:



> Maintaining interventions such as more people working from home, the use of masks in crowded indoor spaces, and increasing ventilation, would contribute to transmission reduction and therefore reduce the number of hospitalisations (high confidence). SAGE has previously advised on the effectiveness of different interventions (SAGE 87).



SAGE are not in love with the current approach. They fulfil their duties by restricting themselves to the options that have been up for discussion within the confines of the shitty limits the government have set, but its still apparent that even within this limited territory, there is much they can find fault with in the governments choice of balancing act.


----------



## Chilli.s (Jul 12, 2021)

Calamity1971 said:


> like a rabbit in the headlights


I'd not lift of the gas at all


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

Other stuff I didnt quote from that SAGE meeting included them saying that it might be a good idea to actually figure out what the impact on the NHS is of various different levels of Covid admissions, and actually take account of that.


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

There is also a hint in there that they've either been asked to comment on the idea of reducing the publics access to certain forms of data, or are concerned the government might try that.



> SAGE advises that continuing to provide near real time local information on prevalence would be helpful.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 12, 2021)

Are masks also not going to be compulsory in medical settings?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 12, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Are masks also not going to be compulsory in medical settings?


as LynnDoyleCooper testifies that’s already the case


----------



## miss direct (Jul 12, 2021)

Ugh. Just had my nurse housemate tell me how happy she is not to have to wear one anymore. Seems irresponsible.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jul 12, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Ugh. Just had my nurse housemate tell me how happy she is not to have to wear one anymore. Seems irresponsible.


FFS!


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

I dont think I'll talk about the modelling too much today, I'm sure there will be plenty of other opportunities to do so.

But here are the links for anyone interested in that much detail.

If forced to summarise, most model results are better than older modelling exercises, eg less hospitalisations. Partly due to the delay to step 4, partly due to improved estimates regarding vaccine effectiveness etc. But there is still wide variation, and some of the parameters are very sensitive. So a lot of these documents end up being a lesson in the uncertainties. eg they dont know how many unvaccinated people there are because population estimates are far from perfect. And rather unsurprisingly all the results depend on how quickly people return to pre-pandemic behaviours, and they dont know what the reality of this will be. Hence the emphasis on going slowly in todays press conference.

SPI-M-O: Summary of further modelling of easing restrictions – Roadmap Step 4 on 19 July 2021, 7 July 2021

Imperial College London: Evaluating the roadmap out of lockdown for England: modelling the delayed Step 4 of the roadmap in the context of the Delta variant, 7 July 2021

JUNIPER: Transitioning from non-pharmaceutical interventions to vaccination to control COVID-19 transmission, 7 July 2021

LSHTM: Updated roadmap assessment – prior to delayed Step 4, 7 July 2021

University of Warwick: Roadmap scenarios and sensitivity – Step 4, 6 July 2021


----------



## kabbes (Jul 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont think I'll talk about the modelling too much today, I'm sure there will be plenty of other opportunities to do so.
> 
> But here are the links for anyone interested in that much detail.
> 
> ...


I just had a look at the Warwick one.  Basically (assuming my quick read is right), hospitalisations peaking a bit lower than wave 1 rather than just higher than wave 2 (as would have been the case with a June opening).  So still fucked, just slightly less so.


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I just had a look at the Warwick one.  Basically (assuming my quick read is right), hospitalisations peaking a bit lower than wave 1 rather than just higher than wave 2 (as would have been the case with a June opening).  So still fucked, just slightly less so.


That is a fair description of one section and graph from the Warwick paper, I would agree.

But these exercises are riddled with all sorts of graphs where they demonstrate what the effects of changing different parameters are. So there is no single graph or story of the wave which I could possibly settle on as being a description of what they think will happen. Uncertainty abounds and we have to consider all these ranges and variables, at which point we end up with a rather broad and mushy picture of what is in store.

In this particular case the thing you zoomed in on seems to be a reasonable way of considering what sort of difference the step 4 delay may have meant. Note also the different timing, with the peak of hospital admissions in that particular graph occurring towards the end of August. But Im far from convinced its the best graph to give us a guide as to what this wave will actually look like, and its timing.

When seeking to somewhat capture the mushy range of possibilities, I suppose I recommend reading the SPI-M-O summary document rather than zooming in on one particular models output. Still need to zoom in as well, for example they point out that if they merge all the different models results, the timing of the peak goes all fuzzy and broad rather than sharp, which I dont think they expect to be a fair reflection of what will actually happen.

Having said all that I still have to pick some graphs in particular when I want to talk about this stuff here, I will have to zoom in to get to the detail and the nature of the uncertainties. But I havent read all of the modelling documents yet and I will want to sleep on it before deciding which graphs are most suitable for this purpose.


----------



## LDC (Jul 12, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> as LynnDoyleCooper testifies that’s already the case



I'm not sure tbh.

I _think_ they seem not to be now a legal requirement even in healthcare settings, but my work has emailed us saying nothing will change re: pandemic stuff after the 19th, and we 're not to expect it to at any point in the near future. The email was good, mentioned that the government don't seem to be following best science etc.

E2A: Ah, maybe Orang Utan was making a subtle point about my lovely anti-mask co-worker?! Anyway, my comment above was more about whether they are or not required in healthcare. I expect they will stay across the board tbh, at last for staff. Enforcing them for the public might be much harder though.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 12, 2021)

i didn’t think it was subtle but a direct reference, LynnDoyleCooper !


----------



## elbows (Jul 12, 2021)

Oh in terms of the North East 'variant signal' story that came up here, I previously pointed out the limitations of the language used in PHEs denial.

I have since seen this which is a lot closer to explicitly denying that a signal has been spotted in that region. They dont use the word signal but they've not left much room for that possibility to remain undenied, in that if the rise in that region is consistent with the rise in Delta, that implies no signal.

My mind inevitably remains somewhat open to various possibilities but I've not had any sort of moment with this story yet where I thought a special and alarming new explanation for the North Easts numbers was really required.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jul 12, 2021)

This excellent article by "Anonymous Doctor" in yesterday's Observer, is pretty informative (IMO) about potentially horrendous consequences for hospitals, particularly A & E departments and Intensive Care units :

I'm an intensive care doctor. Covid patients are getting younger this time




			
				Anonymous Doctor said:
			
		

> One key aspect of the current policy has not been discussed at all. The vaccine appears to have broken the link between infections and deaths, which is fantastic. But there are 5.3 million people with non-Covid related diseases waiting for treatment. If Covid infections are left to run rampant, with no policy measures to slow them down, how on earth is the NHS going to address the backlog?
> The first thing that will suffer is non-urgent operations. We can’t turn away people needing emergency surgery, so we have to have the beds for them. Elective surgery requires critical care capacity, so when something has to give it is inevitably going to be that. That’s devastating, given the backlog of people waiting for treatment.
> As infections rise, so too will admissions. As the hospital beds fill up with Covid patients, we will have to stop other work.



 

(ETA : Correction : The above article was in fact in The Guardian for Monday 12/7   )


----------



## andysays (Jul 13, 2021)

teuchter said:


> No, so I suppose if anyone catches Covid there in the next few weeks and then dies, it'll all be my fault.


I was just wondering how the management might have responded to you bringing these perfectly reasonable concerns to their attention, TBH.

Now I guess we'll never know.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes and there was even a bit of 'maybe you want to get a jab because you want to go on holiday' in there somewhere today.



This is pretty impressive in regard to waving the idea of vaccine passports around:


----------



## Cid (Jul 13, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> This is pretty impressive in regard to waving the idea of vaccine passports around:




When did he announce vaccine passports for cafes?


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 13, 2021)

Cid said:


> When did he announce vaccine passports for cafes?


----------



## bimble (Jul 13, 2021)

If he'd said proof of vaccination OR a totally useless dead easy to fake negative test result then what would have happened idk. Interesting.
Maybe i'm wrong and things like this could convince a lot of people to book jabs who otherwise won't.








						France reports rush for vaccines after Macron tightens Covid rules
					

More than 20,000 people a minute book jabs after cafes, malls and trains ruled out of bounds for the unvaccinated




					www.theguardian.com
				





eta oh its the same thing, he said vaccination OR a negative test result. Do they have the same sort of fairly useless lateral flow tests as we have?


----------



## Cid (Jul 13, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> View attachment 278354



Ahh, the end of the graph cropped on my phone.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 13, 2021)

Yes I spent a fruitless minute looking, too.


----------



## BCBlues (Jul 13, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Yes I spent a fruitless minute looking, too.



Same here


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 13, 2021)

Cid said:


> Ahh, the end of the graph cropped on my phone.



It's also cropped on my extra wide work monitor.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 13, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> It's also cropped on my extra wide work monitor.



I saw it but only by clicking on the tweet itself.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 13, 2021)

bimble said:


> If he'd said proof of vaccination OR a totally useless dead easy to fake negative test result then what would have happened idk. Interesting.
> Maybe i'm wrong and things like this could convince a lot of people to book jabs who otherwise won't.
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, they will allow negative tests, but they'll have to pay from them, from Sept.



> The same requirement will be extended to bars, cafes, restaurants, shopping centres, hospitals, long-distance trains and planes from 1 August, the president said.
> *Free Covid tests, meanwhile, will end in September, “to encourage vaccination”.*


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yup. Since day one of this the government's power move has been positioning themself so that they can blame the public when shit inevitably gets worse.


Its totally understandable that this complaint and suspicion has always come up.

I dont think its a proper reflection of all the forces at work though - the fact is that the pandemic has always depended on how the masses behave. But the government buck passing doesnt really work in this way in practice because ultimately government policy and rhetoric gets blamed for how people behave. Plus governments are told by their experts to focus on encouraging words, reinforcing the desired behaviours and praising the public for their pandemic behaviour.

This stuff is bound to come up again more now because the modelling makes it very clear that there is a wide range of possibilities for this wave and when the modellers adjust thing like how quickly people return to pre-pandemic behaviour, they get massively different wave sizes.

If the chosen approach goes wrong then the government will get most of the blame, whatever our other fears about the blame game may be.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

For example here is the simplified state broadcaster framed description of ths current situation and the modelling. Its Nick Triggle again. Last time I mentioned him it led to me ranting about what the BBC output would be like if a nuclear power station melted, and now there is a nuclear analogy in this article.









						Covid: Will 19 July unlocking gamble pay off or backfire?
					

Lifting remaining restrictions will come at a price, but could it help us finally get on top of Covid?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> One expert likens what is being done to taking the "control rods out of a nuclear reactor".
> 
> "This is going to make things worse than they are now and we don't know when it will peak," says Loughborough University data analyst Dr Duncan Robertson.



I dont think I have time to start fishing out various graphs and figures from the modelling papers today. This simplified boiling down of the Warwick modelling to two graphs in the above article will have to do for now. I dont think it quite captures the full range of possibilities but its a start.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Only other thin I'll say about all the recent modelling is that I dont think it begins to cover all the possible scenarios. In particular I dont want to exclude the possibility of an earlier peak than shown in the vast majority of the graphs. This doesnt mean I've suddenly turned into an optimist, but there are so many variables including a potentially wider range of human behavioural responses than they've modelled for, such as more people going 'fuck this' and changing behaviours in the other direction, back away from the old normal rather than just different speeds of still heading towards that old normal. I also dont relaly know if they've modelled properly all the potential dynamics that come from the gloomy mood music, the heightened sense that this plan is stupid, the full effects of lots of positive cases leading to disruption and less mixing oppotunities etc.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 13, 2021)

There's certainly a sense of there being a phoney war at the moment.  We might see a Euros blip in the daily cases next week, but otherwise it all hinges on what follows from the opening up.  Not just the (inevitable) rise in cases but the speed with which that happens.  Government are a lot less bullish than they were about it even 5 days ago.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Yeah and what happened in the Netherlands probably hasnt helped their nerves. In terms of SAGE advice and the modelling, its been about a week now since they had these reports behind the scenes.

When reading all the modelling documents its quite clear that the experts dont know the exact impact of seasonality, they dont quite know how many people have been infected in the past, they dont know how many unvaccinated people there are because the population estimates arent brilliant. Combine those things with the unknowns about behaviour and the uncertainties are greater than they've ever been, especially without the certainties that lockdown brings to peak timing.

For example these are the sorts of modelling graphs I'd be diving into properly here if I had more time. In this case the dotted and dashed lines shows what happens to hospital admissions in their model if the population is larger than has been assumed, and therefore vaccine uptake so far would have been lower than estimated. And each different graph in a different colour reflects a differnt sort of return by the public to pre-pandemic behaviours. Things like how abruptly there is a jump part of the way back to old behaviours, and then how long it takes for the rest of the return to normal to happen.


From the Warwick modelling document which also includes a bunch of very similar charts where instead of looking at different potential numbers of unvaccinated people, look at different seasonality, different future vaccine uptake in younger age groups, different speed of vaccine rollout.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				




Just had time to squeeze this post out but no more from me on the modelling today unless I find some time this evening.

PS. in terms of what those different colour scenarios actually mean, I've stuck the relevant charts beind a spoiler tag. Four scenarios are where there only a gradual change to behaviour over time, with differences in speed, and 4 where there is an initial leap of behavioural changes on the 19th and then gradual change on top over subsequent months. I dont really consider scenarios where almost everyone goes back to pre-pandemic behaviour very quickly to be plausible but its still interesting to see the results.



Spoiler


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

The other thing to keep in mind about the current UK plan is that it was partly always just going to be a political trick - moving away from legislation that the tory backbench loons and certain newspapers go mad about, but in practice still having quite a few of those rules in place in practice via stuff like the dreaded 'corporate responsibility'. Its an incredibly dangerous game with real implications, so I'm not trying to claim that the level of adherence seen before will remain intact, but its certainly far short of the freedom day bullshit they tried to pretend it was. The changes would have been more real and dramatic if it werent for Delta, so now we have more fudge on our hands.

The FT noticed this and stuck it on their front page today.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 13, 2021)

The neighbour opposite has COPD and has been locked-in since last March - except when she was carted off to hospital.
A workman has turned up - probably to put in a wheelchair ramp and is maskless as well as showing his pants...


----------



## weepiper (Jul 13, 2021)

Scotland relaxing a bit more next week but not looking at moving beyond level 0 until the 9th of August at the earliest so still some number limits on venues, hospitality has to close at midnight etc. And mandatory legally backed measures such as face masks will remain 'for some time'.








						Covid in Scotland: Restrictions to ease but face masks remain
					

Nicola Sturgeon says the whole of Scotland will move to a "modified" level zero from 19 July.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Cheers for the info weepiper, I havent had time to look into that announcement yet. Perhaps they should have renamed it level zero point five.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

More and more businesses and people in the media are figuring out that voluntary doesnt necessarily mean voluntary. And certainly when documents were released just over a week ago, it was clear from some of the language that actually yes, local public health teams still have various forms of brake available that will in practice likely mean all sorts of venues having to close under certain situations, on a venue by venue basis.



> Mr Kill said that although the policy was not mandatory at present, it could turn out that venues were "in the hands of local public health directors" who could force them to comply.





> Tristan Moffat, operations director of the Piano Works, which has two London venues, said: "It's like we've been given a rope to hang ourselves with.
> 
> "If it all goes wrong, we'll be closed down again and the buck will be passed back to the operators."











						Covid passes for nightclubs branded unworkable
					

The government is passing the buck by not making the policy mandatory, say nightclub operators.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Even before this change, in practice a quick glance at my local news shows that plenty of pubs, social clubs, sports bars etc have had to close for periods up to 10 days recently, either due to outbreaks which caused local public health teams to recommend closure, or because self-isolation rules made it impossible to get enough staff to work.

This stuff is one of the few big brakes we still have left in the system, and it isnt really clear to me whether the impact of such things is properly baked into all the modelling of this wave.


----------



## wayward bob (Jul 13, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Scotland relaxing a bit more next week but not looking at moving beyond level 0 until the 9th of August at the earliest so still some number limits on venues, hospitality has to close at midnight etc. And mandatory legally backed measures such as face masks will remain 'for some time'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


in the light of this does anyone think there's any chance of drakeford holding out to retain measures in wales in any meaningful sense? his next announcement is tomorrow and i'm dreading it tbh.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

On some levels the four nations stuff is just political theatre and the same approach is broadly agreed and followed across all four nations, with small differences in timing, detail, rhetoric and emphasis. Partly because the UK government still holds many of the purse strings etc.


----------



## weepiper (Jul 13, 2021)

GO ON NICOLA PUT THE BOOT INTO HIM


----------



## Cid (Jul 13, 2021)

bimble said:


> If he'd said proof of vaccination OR a totally useless dead easy to fake negative test result then what would have happened idk. Interesting.
> Maybe i'm wrong and things like this could convince a lot of people to book jabs who otherwise won't.
> 
> 
> ...



I think the age-correlated low vaccine uptake at least is just laziness/disconnect. Certainly what I see with my friends. No unwillingness as such, just working, not had to go the GP in years etc. That kind of measure would have them signing up in an instant. And the test option may be a bit of a shit addition, but I think a lot of people are still going to favour 'getting the vaccine out of the way', rather than having to repeatedly take/fake tests.


----------



## Sue (Jul 13, 2021)

weepiper said:


> GO ON NICOLA PUT THE BOOT INTO HIM



Too right. The latest stuff in England is absolutely ridiculous.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Yeah her opportunities to attack are somewhat limited by other polcy similarities but the masks stuff is a clear and obvious one where the UK government have made fools of themselves, and where the other administrations can make use of this to demonstrate their pandemic sanity credentials.

Meanwhile:









						Trusts to remind public they must wear masks after 19 July
					

Multiple trusts are planning to tell the public they must comply with current covid infection control measures, such as mask wearing, beyond 19 July when they visit NHS premises, HSJ can reveal.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				






> Multiple trusts are planning to tell the public they must comply with current covid infection control measures, such as mask wearing, beyond 19 July when they visit NHS premises, _HSJ_ can reveal.
> 
> Numerous trust chiefs told _HSJ_ they will insist public visitors continue to wear masks within their hospitals. This is despite Boris Johnson confirming yesterday mask-wearing will be advisory in crowded and enclosed spaces, rather than a legal requirement, from Monday.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Oh and the HSJ are also reporting the following, although I cannot read the full article at the moment. Its not unexpected since the issue has been in the news recently, although it does carry some risk on the nosocomial spread front.



> Trusts in the North East region have told staff identified as close contacts of positive covid-19 cases they can continue working if they take daily tests.



I believe this comes after PHE clarified to trusts that they could make their own decisions about this stuff.









						Hospitals allowing staff to avoid self-isolation instructions from app
					

Trusts in the North East region have told staff identified as close contacts of positive covid-19 cases they can continue working if they take daily tests.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## Spandex (Jul 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> There is also a hint in there that they've either been asked to comment on the idea of reducing the publics access to certain forms of data, or are concerned the government might try that.


Also, keep an eye on how data is recorded.

Now that we need to keep an eye on hospitalisation figures instead of case numbers to have an idea of how bad things are getting, the CRG are naturally calling for how they are recorded to be looked at.

Yesterday in Parliament there was this exchange:

*Mark Harper*_, the chair of the Covid Recovery Group, which represents lockdown-sceptic Tories, says hospital admission data is misleading because it included people testing positive for Covid, even if that is not why they were admitted to hospital. Policy should not be determined by “dodgy data”, he says.

*Javid* says Harper is making a “very good point”. He says he has asked for advice on whether the way the data is collected can change._

While Harper would claim to purely be interested in the accuracy of the hospitalisation figures, his suggested change would make future figures lower and harder to compare with previous waves.

Odd bunch the CRG. Obviously right-wing capitalist libertarians, their main platform seems to be ensuring Covid to kills as many of their constituents as possible. Strange way to go about re-election: _vote for me, I tried to kill you_. Has that campaign message been tried before? Who knows though, in this crazy mixed up world it might just work.


----------



## Thora (Jul 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yeah her opportunities to attack are somewhat limited by other polcy similarities but the masks stuff is a clear and obvious one where the UK government have made fools of themselves, and where the other administrations can make use of this to demonstrate their pandemic sanity credentials.
> 
> Meanwhile:
> 
> ...


My GP surgery (and hairdresser!) has already text to say nothing will change in their procedures on the 19th, masks still necessary etc.


----------



## sojourner (Jul 13, 2021)

Thora said:


> My GP surgery (and hairdresser!) has already text to say nothing will change in their procedures on the 19th, masks still necessary etc.


I've sent out a group email to all the tenants in the business centre I manage, saying nothing is changing.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Also, keep an eye on how data is recorded.
> 
> Now that we need to keep an eye on hospitalisation figures instead of case numbers to have an idea of how bad things are getting, the CRG are naturally calling for how they are recorded to be looked at.
> 
> ...


And its important to know that the NHS were told weeks ago to start recording the admissions that were actually due to Covid rather than the covid positive being coincidental.

So far that stuff is being recorded as 'management data', we dont get to see it publicly and there has been no change to the nature of the figures we do get to see publicly.

I wouldnt actually mind if they published both, it would be useful and it wouldnt spoil our ability to compare the past and the future. But ever since this was first reported the suspicion is there that they might look to replace one figure with the other publicly.

Up until a certain stage last year, Scotland also reported things like 'suspected cases' in hospital. And their numbers in hospital beds originally had no cut off point, but at some stage I think they changed it so that people who were hospitalised for a long time were no longer included in the figures, resulting in an sudden drop in numbers at one distinct moment last year.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> For this wave, we have another record number of new cases reported today - 27,125 / 7-day average +74.2%



I posted that on 2nd July, about a week ago the 7-day average increase was still around+50%, but has continued to drop, today it's reported as +26.6%, which is a little bit of positive news.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Just in case anyone is interested in the etail of what I was going on about in regards some of Scotlands hospital data, note the repeated references to 28 days in this sort of text which I have taken from their 'trends in daily Covid-19 data' spreadsheet from Coronavirus (COVID-19): trends in daily data - gov.scot

This isnt a recent change but I dont think we've talked about it before. At least they are also recording figures for people in ICU beyond the 28 day cutoff.



> 1. This new Table 2 has replaced the previous table on number of confirmed COVID-19 patients in hospital and ICU, which included people (in larger NHS Boards) who had previously tested positive for COVID-19 but are now in hospital for another reason, or had hospital onset COVID-19 and remain in hospital.  The Table 2 presented in previous versions of this daily data update is now provided in an archived worksheet in this excel file. Collection of the data under this definition was stopped after 15 September 2020.
> 
> 2. This new measure focuses on hospital in-patients with a more recent positive COVID-19 test. This is defined as patients who first tested positive in hospital or in the 14 days before admission. Patients are also no longer included after 28 days in hospital (or 28 days after first testing positive if this is after admission). Further background on this change is provided in this blog Improving completeness of data on protected characteristics.
> 
> ...



Oh and just to complete my waffling on, this is the sudden drop in figures in the people in hospital graph for Scotland that happened last year, presumably as a result of one of these changes.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I posted that on 2nd July, about a week ago the 7-day average increase was still around+50%, but has continued to drop, today it's reported as +26.6%, which is a little bit of positive news.


I note that 50 deaths within 28 days of a positive test were reported for the UK today, although you know me, I prefer to focus on data by date of death rather than date of reporting. And so far numbers have been below the threshold where I feel the need to start posting horrible death graphs here all the time.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

The North Easts case figures are at an interesting stage where they might soon start to show signs of peaking in the data, but where I wont be sure if that reflects a real peak or just aspects of the testing regime, impending school holidays etc. And I've probably made this point too soon.

Certainly the North East is at the stage where if we divide cases into the above and below 60 years of age, like one of the graphs on the dashboard does, we could roughly say that cases in those below 60 are twice those seen in previous peaks, and for those over 60 its about half that seen in previous peaks. Even half is still a lot more than we'd like to see in people that age. And I am being a bit sloppy with my descriptions of half and double.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Scotland relaxing a bit more next week but not looking at moving beyond level 0 until the 9th of August at the earliest so still some number limits on venues, hospitality has to close at midnight etc. And mandatory legally backed measures such as face masks will remain 'for some time'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've now read Sturgeons statement. Its the expected performance - goes out of her way to find some areas where saying the right thing helps. eg speaking of people who were shielding, the unknowns about long covid. A few slightly better policies, eg masks and social distancing. But elsewhere in the statement plenty of signs of the areas where the approach is very similar across the UK, eg future desire to change the self-isolation rules.

I'll just focus on the good bits with these quotes:



> It is important to stress that measures like the continued wearing of face coverings are important, not just to give added protection to the population as a whole, but also to give protection and assurance to those amongst us who are particularly vulnerable and who previously had to shield.
> 
> Lifting all restrictions and mitigations right now would put all of us at greater risk - but in particular it would make it much more difficult for the most clinically vulnerable to go about their normal lives. It would risk the imposition of shielding by default and, in my view, that is not something we should do.





> But at the moment, the pressure on the NHS is of concern.
> 
> First and foremost, it means a significant number of people suffering illness. It also means more pressure on a workforce that has already given so much.
> 
> And it holds back NHS recovery. Every hospital bed occupied by a Covid patient is one less bed available to tackle the backlog of non Covid care.





> Another reason to take the current level of infection seriously is the risk of long Covid.
> 
> Many people, including young people, who get the virus but never need hospital care will still suffer long Covid.
> 
> ...



In terms of the current situation in Scotland, whether they have peaked etc:



> Also encouraging is that case numbers – which were rising sharply two weeks ago – now appear to have levelled off. In fact, they have fallen in recent days.





> And not all cases are confirmed by testing. So although the current fall is encouraging, we continue to monitor all data - including, for example, on wastewater sampling – to get the fullest possible picture.





> In January more than 10% of people who tested positive for Covid had to go to hospital. That is now around 3%. It is also the case that people admitted to hospital with Covid are being discharged more quickly.



Another area where Sturgeon is very different to Johnson is that she is happy to use international situation and WHO comments to underline various points:



> That sense of caution is reinforced by looking at the international situation and listening to the WHO.
> 
> Several countries across Europe – for example Portugal and Spain – are now dealing with very sharp rises in cases. Holland has just reintroduced restrictions that were lifted at the end of June.
> 
> ...





> There is no doubt that Delta has become, unfortunately, something of a game-changer – even for countries on course to achieving full vaccine protection.











						Coronavirus (COVID-19) update: First Minister's statement – 13 July 2021
					

Statement given by the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh on Tuesday, 13 July 2021.




					www.gov.scot


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Oh and one problem with some of her rhetoric is that she says stuff like 'we cannot be complacent about young people getting the virus' and yet its quite clear that when case numbers rose to obscene levels, they werent going to slam on any brakes to prevent a big chunk of those infections.

So better lip service to reality and what the right thing to do should be, but not matched by policy.


----------



## belboid (Jul 13, 2021)

Cerv said:


> government is "encouraging" businesses to require and check vaccine certification.
> but still no news on when those of us who got our jabs in clinical trials will have that shown in the app. they seem to have not mentioned it entirely since saying they were looking into it months ago.
> 
> I'll end up dropping out the trial (for follow up blood tests monitoring) and go for an unnecessary second set of NHS jabs if the alternative is being housebound.


I did the Oxford trial and it is now showing on the app.  There as a link to download a pdf for Trial Events and another for Travel.  Both say they are only valid up to August 12th (how glorious).

E2a: mrsb’s app is showing the same thing now too, after getting a ‘normal’ jab


----------



## Wilf (Jul 13, 2021)

sojourner said:


> I've sent out a group email to all the tenants in the business centre I manage, saying nothing is changing.


By contrast I've just had an email from my employer, a university, welcoming the return to 'normal operations'.  They are hedging their bets about the teaching, planning for a 'hybrid model' of online lectures but normal (large) seminars.  There's also some horsewank about 'agile working', which amounts to doing your marking and preparation at home, but otherwise being in.  In many ways that puts teaching staff in a much better position than other groups of workers with regard to risk. Also, I'm not griping for myself as I'm 60 and could go on the sick and take my pension if teaching without masks and social distancing becomes too stressful (I have a couple of health issues). It's more that universities are lining up to become major transmission centres again as students move into halls in a couple of months and then into 'normal' classrooms. Partying like it's 2020...


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Sturgeon may also be used as a partial guide when people wonder to themselves how much better we could have been expected to do in this pandemic if we'd had a different PM/government/party in power.

Better rhetoric. Different emphasis. A different style of lying, better in some ways and worse in others. Potentially better timing (quite hard to have worse timing that Johnson). A little bit of room for better policy, but not to the extent of a sea change seeming highly plausible.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)




----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Jul 13, 2021)

Oh. My daughter has to self isolate due to a case at school in her year.
Oddly they are saying 10 days, but are backdating it so that it's '10 days from possible contact' which means only 5 days.

This is the first time this has happened at the school as far as I am aware. What happens with self isolation after 'freedom day'? I'm honestly seeing more friends with it on facebook than ever before, and now this. Why are they ending restrictions?


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> This is the first time this has happened at the school as far as I am aware. What happens with self isolation after 'freedom day'?


They were planning to fuck around with various aspects of self-isolation come freedom day. In many ways they've not been able to proceed on schedule, Delta has spoilt some of the equations, so they have delayed these changes. They went ahead and announced them but not with an immediate start date. They probably hope cases peak around the same time as the changes happen, or that school holidays have at least lowered R by then.

I forget exactly when the version of the changes that apply to kids kick in, whether its the 19th or not till mid August, but in practical terms its next term when these differences will be felt.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Jul 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> They were planning to fuck around with various aspects of self-isolation come freedom day. In many ways they've not been able to proceed on schedule, Delta has spoilt some of the equations, so they have delayed these changes. They went ahead and announced them but not with an immediate start date. They probably hope cases peak around the same time as the changes happen, or that school holidays have at least lowered R by then.
> 
> I forget exactly when the version of the changes that apply to kids kick in, whether its the 19th or not till mid August, but in practical terms its next term when these differences will be felt.


The letter I previously had from school was that nothing will change until next term when they say restrictions will be lifted, and the government say the school can go back to normal (though the school says it will be a bit more cautious than that).


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Why are they ending restrictions?


A collection of shitty politics and economics brought it about. Combined with making plans on this front long ago, and then trying to resist reality when Delta came along to piss on their freedom parade. 

So right now we are operating with a modified version of the original opening up plan - some things delayed a bit but then allowed to proceed anyway. A change of tone. Some panic due to the uncertainties about how big this wave will be.

They always planned to exit with a wave, its just a question of how big that wave is. And since this Delta variant is highly transmissive, in terms of number of infections the numbers are very high already. Ad authorities calculations can survive a high number of infections this time around because the ratio of cases to hospitalisations has been changed by vaccination. 

Cold establishment calculations made even worse by the high degree of uncertainty. It is still not possible for me to say whether the authorities will roadly get away with this approach or quite how much it will blow up in their face. I can find signs pointing in both directions, and I certainly dont rule out them getting away with it, if for example Scotlands numbers are a genuine sign of a peak there and the various regions of England end up going a similar way with a similar peak point. Even 'getting away with it' in terms of politics still means a very messy and unpleasant for those who catch it and those that have to treat the sick, and everyone affected by disruption.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> The letter I previously had from school was that nothing will change until next term when they say restrictions will be lifted, and the government say the school can go back to normal (though the school says it will be a bit more cautious than that).


The government have been lying when they've evoked the idea of 'normal'. The way things look now in many settings including education, there will still be a local public health response to outbreaks. They are moving the bar for when disruption happens, the odd case here and there wont trigger the same sort of isolation and disruption, but some other situations will. And if the policy leads to many more infections then moving the bar wont necessarily reduce disruption, only postpone it slightly.

I dont want to predict quite what next term will look like until we see more of the size and timing of the current wave.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Jul 13, 2021)

Thank you elbows for a most helpful and level response.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Cheers. By the way I did my usual bad habit of adding a sentence to that post after you'd liked it.

There may be other angles relevant to what you were asking that I havent explored, I've been talking too much again today so will give it a rest now.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

World beating.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 13, 2021)

Reading that article. 

I'ma getting a bit _frighten _now.

No government is as lucky as ours thinks it is. Once the health system hits crisis point...


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

They've taken a collection of gambles with the current approach.

I dont get many glimpses of what frank, detailed discussion of the escape variant threat is. It is tempting to think that some establishment experts think the risk isnt that high, or have other beliefs that make them somewhat oblivious to the risk.

I dont know if, for example, some really seek to test the theory and 'get it over with early' if its going to happen.

From the outside it does sometimes resemble the deliberate pushing of luck and testing things to destruction. But I cant give accurate odds on their chances of getting away with it.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Oh and just because I keep saying that the government may get away with their chosen approach, doesnt in any way mean I've taken off the table the possibility that it will blow up in their face to such an extent that Johnson ends up as toast politically. They are gambling on that front in ways I'm not even sure they've realised.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> They've taken a collection of gambles with the current approach.
> 
> I dont get many glimpses of what frank, detailed discussion of the escape variant threat is. It is tempting to think that some establishment experts think the risk isnt that high, or have other beliefs that make them somewhat oblivious to the risk.
> 
> ...


I assume they think now we've got a vaccine, we're all safe again. But they're not allowing time for everyone to a) get both jabs, and b) have an extra few weeks to develop immunity, which is what I'd have done if I was in charge. At least waiting until October or November might have been safer despite their fears of winter bugs. But hey, what do I know.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

They know we arent all safe again which is why they go on about how many infections and hospitalisations there could be, and why Johnson keeps asking people to prepare for more death.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 13, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Also, keep an eye on how data is recorded.
> 
> Now that we need to keep an eye on hospitalisation figures instead of case numbers to have an idea of how bad things are getting, the CRG are naturally calling for how they are recorded to be looked at.
> 
> ...


Quite a few Tories voted to send their constituents into the meat grinders that were various aspects of UK foreign policy even during the last century and more.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> The other thing to keep in mind about the current UK plan is that it was partly always just going to be a political trick - moving away from legislation that the tory backbench loons and certain newspapers go mad about, but in practice still having quite a few of those rules in place in practice via stuff like the dreaded 'corporate responsibility'. Its an incredibly dangerous game with real implications, so I'm not trying to claim that the level of adherence seen before will remain intact, but its certainly far short of the freedom day bullshit they tried to pretend it was. The changes would have been more real and dramatic if it werent for Delta, so now we have more fudge on our hands.
> 
> The FT noticed this and stuck it on their front page today.
> 
> View attachment 278372


It's true, I don't know any companies that are rush rushing everyone back into the office 5 days a week.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> It's true, I don't know any companies that are rush rushing everyone back into the office 5 days a week.


Also see things like:









						Firms don't plan to rush back to offices on Monday
					

Businesses to keep a cautious approach to bringing staff back as Covid restrictions are lifted in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

I dont watch much tv but it seems like a switch has been flipped again recently. In that plenty of worried experts and hospital workers can be seen giving interviews on the BBC.

I note the BBC also started showing the sort of graphs about vaccination that demonstrate the declining rate of daily vaccination in this country, and have started openly acknowledging the challenge of improving uptake in the younger age groups and the fall in demand.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> Also see things like:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hmm well quite. I work for a large company and we don't even have a date for starting to return to office yet. I think the government restrictions don't really matter when working from home is a clear win in terms of keeping office workers happy, healthy and safe.


----------



## belboid (Jul 13, 2021)

mrsb has been told she isn’t expected back into the (council) office until next year _at least.  _

All of the jobs I’m going for at the moment say they’ll be WHF for the foreseeable after an introductory couple of weeks.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 13, 2021)

belboid said:


> mrsb has been told she isn’t expected back into the (council) office until next year _at least.  _
> 
> All of the jobs I’m going for at the moment say they’ll be WHF for the foreseeable after an introductory couple of weeks.


Blimey, Sheffield? In Leeds, loads of people are coming back to work


----------



## Sue (Jul 13, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Hmm well quite. I work for a large company and we don't even have a date for starting to return to office yet. I think the government restrictions don't really matter when working from home is a clear win in terms of keeping office workers happy, healthy and safe.


You'd think but my company wanted everyone back from the 19th. It's now modified that a bit due to pushback from staff but they still want everyone back in the office asap.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Jul 13, 2021)

Oof, I have just had a work contract that says I am working remotely but states that when the government lifts restrictions they can ask me contractually to work at the office. Firstly, I don't want to, secondly the office is in Manchester.
Can they make me go to work?
Can I even claim vulnerable status anymore? Will I be breaching contract?


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

I cant read the following article but if someone could let me know if they ever see this story reported elsewhere, thanks.









						Nightingale deaths lead to warning over ‘confusion’ around ventilator equipment
					

Two patients died while being treated at London's Nightingale Hospital amid what a coroner has described as 'widespread confusion' around some of the equipment used for ventilation machines.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				






> Two patients died while being treated at London’s Nightingale Hospital amid what a coroner has described as ‘widespread confusion’ around some of the equipment used for ventilation machines.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 13, 2021)

Sue said:


> You'd think but my company wanted everyone back from the 19th. It's now modified that a bit due to pushback from staff but they still want everyone back in the office asap.


The danger with companies having an attitude like that is they may start to lose people to more flexible working rivals.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 13, 2021)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Oof, I have just had a work contract that says I am working remotely but states that when the government lifts restrictions they can ask me contractually to work at the office. Firstly, I don't want to, secondly the office is in Manchester.
> Can they make me go to work?
> Can I even claim vulnerable status anymore? Will I be breaching contract?


If it's in the contract your options might be limited, but I would suggest talking to your union, if you have one, in the first instance.


----------



## Sue (Jul 13, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> The danger with companies having an attitude like that is they may start to lose people to more flexible working rivals.


Already happening. Which, given they have problems recruiting people with the right skills, is very stupid indeed. 🤷‍♀️


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 13, 2021)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Oof, I have just had a work contract that says I am working remotely but states that when the government lifts restrictions they can ask me contractually to work at the office. Firstly, I don't want to, secondly the office is in Manchester.
> Can they make me go to work?
> Can I even claim vulnerable status anymore? Will I be breaching contract?


How far away do you live from the office? Think I read somewhere (ages ago) that if it's more than 25 miles they can't force you. I'll dig around and see if I can find it again.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Jul 13, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> How far away do you live from the office? Think I read somewhere (ages ago) that if it's more than 25 miles they can't force you. I'll dig around and see if I can find it again.


Deffo more than 25 miles. I live in London.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Third of England still without any Covid immunity, scientists warn
					

Some argue delaying reopening would make little difference while other say government taking big risk




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Whitty drew attention to all the recent SAGE documents including the stuff I was quoting yesterday that wasnt exactly happy with the governments approach. PHE retweeted it.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

Oh speaking of Whitty, I did mention yesterday that things he said in the press conference about scientific opinion and some letter might not go down very well in some quarters. I still havent had time to look into the reaction, except I just saw this.


----------



## AverageJoe (Jul 13, 2021)

For the first time ever, kids in Ted's u10 football team are having to isolate. One missed last week and one so far is missing this week. It's tournament season now so lots of kids mixing.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 13, 2021)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Deffo more than 25 miles. I live in London.


Then that would definitely be unreasonable. That being said, it does sound like the standard wording they use for all remote staff without taking into account your individual circumstances. It's not about whether the government have lifted restrictions or not in your case, the point is they offered you the remote job on the understanding that you lived 200 miles away, and that hasn't changed. If it's now an issue for them that you can't come in, they should pay for a hotel for you in Manchester.


----------



## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Jul 13, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Then that would definitely be unreasonable. That being said, it does sound like the standard wording they use for all remote staff without taking into account your individual circumstances. It's not about whether the government have lifted restrictions or not in your case, the point is they offered you the remote job on the understanding that you lived 200 miles away, and that hasn't changed. If it's now an issue for them that you can't come in, they should pay for a hotel for you in Manchester.


Even if they did pay for my hotel in Manchester I wouldn't want to go. . . . for several reasons.


----------



## elbows (Jul 13, 2021)

I bet Hancock isnt happy that he was axed before getting a chance to brag about the MegaLab.




I was reading about it earlier in my local newspaper since there are apparently still hundreds of vacancies there:









						Hundreds of jobs still up for grabs at UK's first coronavirus 'Megalab'
					

It is said to be one of the centrepieces of the of future Test and Trace




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## belboid (Jul 13, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Blimey, Sheffield? In Leeds, loads of people are coming back to work


Across South Yorkshire, for me.   If I’m going for a ‘community’ job I’ll have to leave the house, but not otherwise.


----------



## editor (Jul 13, 2021)

And here we go


----------



## andysays (Jul 14, 2021)

One small piece of good news among all the shit
*Covid: Masks to remain compulsory on London transport*​


> Face coverings must be worn on London's transport network despite restrictions easing on 19 July, London's mayor says. Sadiq Khan said he was not prepared to put Tube, tram and other transport users at risk by relaxing the rules on face coverings.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 14, 2021)

Wilf said:


> By contrast I've just had an email from my employer, a university, welcoming the return to 'normal operations'.  They are hedging their bets about the teaching, planning for a 'hybrid model' of online lectures but normal (large) seminars.  There's also some horsewank about 'agile working', which amounts to doing your marking and preparation at home, but otherwise being in.  In many ways that puts teaching staff in a much better position than other groups of workers with regard to risk. Also, I'm not griping for myself as I'm 60 and could go on the sick and take my pension if teaching without masks and social distancing becomes too stressful (I have a couple of health issues). It's more that universities are lining up to become major transmission centres again as students move into halls in a couple of months and then into 'normal' classrooms. Partying like it's 2020...


Had a spiky meeting with management on Monday where our utterly craven head of H&S repeated the gov's 'personal responsibility' line and lied that they cannot do anything about facemarks because the legislation is being removed. Twats


----------



## Cloo (Jul 14, 2021)

andysays said:


> One small piece of good news among all the shit
> *Covid: Masks to remain compulsory on London transport*​


As I've said elsewhere, doubtless twats will now be tantruming that they won't use 'Khan's' , 'Marxist, oppressive transport system' now. Good - they can stay away so vulnerable people won't be housebound by those people's selfish behaviour.


----------



## teqniq (Jul 14, 2021)

So there we have it. Libertarian vermin force Johnson's hand or at least that's what the article implies (use bypass paywalls to read the whole thing):


----------



## two sheds (Jul 14, 2021)

"there’s no way we could have passed with Labour". Labour would have voted to scrap masks?


----------



## bimble (Jul 14, 2021)

two sheds said:


> "there’s no way we could have passed with Labour". Labour would have voted to scrap masks?


No, just not enough Labour MPs


----------



## teqniq (Jul 14, 2021)

two sheds said:


> "there’s no way we could have passed with Labour". Labour would have voted to scrap masks?


No, voting to continue restrictions and Johnson would have had to rely on Labour votes to continue them. That's what the article is saying anyway.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 14, 2021)

What's the current state of evidence on masks, by the way? Is there strong evidence of significant benefit or is it more marginal? I realise that I wouldn't have an answer to this quesroom if challenged on it.


----------



## bimble (Jul 14, 2021)

teuchter said:


> What's the current state of evidence on masks, by the way? Is there strong evidence of significant benefit or is it more marginal? I realise that I wouldn't have an answer to this quesroom if challenged on it.


i had a look for this the other day, lots of studies claiming they are very highly effective at the reducing the R, even only the low tech paper ones, but only if a v high % of people are wearing them.

eg )'The study, based on mathematical modelling, showed that _if an entire population wore face coverings_ that were only 75% effective, it would bring the reproduction number (the R) from 4.0 to under 1.0, without the need for lockdowns..'


----------



## teuchter (Jul 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> i had a look for this the other day, lots of studies claiming they are very highly effective at the reducing the R, even only the low tech paper ones, but only if a v high % of people are wearing them.
> 
> eg )'The study, based on mathematical modelling, showed that _if an entire population wore face coverings_ that were only 75% effective, it would bring the reproduction number (the R) from 4.0 to under 1.0, without the need for lockdowns..'


'based on mathematical modelling' suggests they are looking at population level effect but based on some assumptions about what a mask actually does in real life... I guess I'm curious to know how strong the evidence is there.


----------



## andysays (Jul 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> As I've said elsewhere, doubtless twats will now be tantruming that they won't use 'Khan's' , 'Marxist, oppressive transport system' now. Good - they can stay away so vulnerable people won't be housebound by those people's selfish behaviour.


I was thinking about including something along those lines in my post, TBH, but decided to stick to just the facts, in the knowledge that someone else would probably make that point.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 14, 2021)

teuchter said:


> 'based on mathematical modelling' suggests they are looking at population level effect but based on some assumptions about what a mask actually does in real life... I guess I'm curious to know how strong the evidence is there.



There's a number of interesting links in this article.









						COVID-19: Do face masks work? Here is what scientific studies say
					

The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that wearing a mask reduced transmissions of COVID-19. Here are the studies that prove it.




					news.sky.com


----------



## 2hats (Jul 14, 2021)

teuchter said:


> What's the current state of evidence on masks, by the way?


Post #157.


----------



## bimble (Jul 14, 2021)

teuchter said:


> 'based on mathematical modelling' suggests they are looking at population level effect but based on some assumptions about what a mask actually does in real life... I guess I'm curious to know how strong the evidence is there.


yep, i don't know. Havent heard of any controlled experiments that would give definitive number-shaped answers to this, the evidence all seems to be at scale, population level, like countries that introduced masks straight away faring much better etc.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 14, 2021)

teqniq said:


> No, voting to continue restrictions and Johnson would have had to rely on Labour votes to continue them. That's what the article is saying anyway.


I still can't quite get my head round this. So more than 160 tory MPs would vote for removing restrictions? Even though most people in the country want to see at least some retained?


----------



## teqniq (Jul 14, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I still can't quite get my head round this. So more than 160 tory MPs would vote for removing restrictions? Even though most people in the country want to see at least some retained?


Yeah it does seem somewhat unlikely. That's why i've used 'implies' and 'what the article is saying'. It could just as easily be Johnson & co lining up a plausible excuse. Plausible on the surface at least.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 14, 2021)

Mind you "huge number of fuckwit Tory MPs" doesn't stretch the imagination any.


----------



## bimble (Jul 14, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Mind you "huge number of fuckwit Tory MPs" doesn't stretch the imagination any.


There's the 'covid recovery group' anti lockdown pro FreEdom who have been there pissing inside Johnsons tent all year, might be some 70 tory Mps.




__





						COVID Recovery Group - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				



They (63 signatories) demanded back in Feb that all legal restrictions be lifted once all over 50s vaccinated.









						Concerns raised over ‘dark money’ funding anti-lockdown MPs
					

Tory MP Steve Baker's Covid Recovery Group has received £10,000 in donations from an unregistered association. Experts say electoral law needs to change




					www.opendemocracy.net


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 14, 2021)

I can't get over just how appallingly bad the mask advice was at the start of this - even from experts.
A massive cultural shift is needed.
At work in a university, surrounded by highly intelligent and otherwise lovely people, they would just let rip with their sneezes and as I've often said, the last 3 day viral infection I caught was from a post-grad life sciences student in November 2019.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 14, 2021)

Who had colleagues looking to get vaccinated? was it Sue ? friday at the tate is another event Pfizer vaccine clinic at Tate Modern


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 14, 2021)

My workshop manager is getting his second jab on Thursday ...

and I'm still encouraging the rest of the team to try for earlier appointments.


----------



## Mr Retro (Jul 14, 2021)

teuchter said:


> What's the current state of evidence on masks, by the way? Is there strong evidence of significant benefit or is it more marginal? I realise that I wouldn't have an answer to this quesroom if challenged on it.


There is no randomised controlled study that proves the efficacy of masks. The only RCT that studied this, the Danmask-19 studies authors found "wearing a surgical mask when outside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mask wearers in a setting where social distancing and other public health measures were in effect"


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> There is no randomised controlled study that proves the efficacy of masks. The only RCT that studied this, the Danmask-19 studies authors found "wearing a surgical mask when outside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mask wearers in a setting where social distancing and other public health measures were in effect"


You forgot some of the other choice quotes: "The main benefit of a surgical face mask is to protect others from droplet and aerosol spread, and not the wearer- the study was not designed to investigate this"

"The findings were inconclusive and cannot definitively exclude a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection of mask wearers in such a setting." and  "The findings, however, should not be used to conclude that a recommendation for everyone to wear masks in the community would not be effective in reducing SARS-CoV-2 infections, because the trial did not test the role of masks in source control of SARS-CoV-2 infection."


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 14, 2021)

There are at least two maskless workmen in the house opposite having to squeeze in and out past the woman's oxygen tank - perhaps she's fully masked-up ..


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> There is no randomised controlled study that proves the efficacy of masks. The only RCT that studied this, the Danmask-19 studies authors found "wearing a surgical mask when outside the home among others did not reduce, at conventional levels of statistical significance, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mask wearers in a setting where social distancing and other public health measures were in effect"


You don't think people might be looking for a slightly more credible source than you?


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> You forgot some of the other choice quotes: "The main benefit of a surgical face mask is to protect others from droplet and aerosol spread, and not the wearer- the study was not designed to investigate this"
> 
> "The findings were inconclusive and cannot definitively exclude a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection of mask wearers in such a setting." and  "The findings, however, should not be used to conclude that a recommendation for everyone to wear masks in the community would not be effective in reducing SARS-CoV-2 infections, because the trial did not test the role of masks in source control of SARS-CoV-2 infection."


Were he only capable of noticing, our funny little retro friend would now be experiencing that "owned" feeling


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 14, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I can't get over just how appallingly bad the mask advice was at the start of this - even from experts.
> A massive cultural shift is needed.
> At work in a university, surrounded by highly intelligent and otherwise lovely people, they would just let rip with their sneezes and as I've often said, the last 3 day viral infection I caught was from a post-grad life sciences student in November 2019.



“this is a cold but we can’t prove masks reducing airborne vapour will solve it” - half of the scientific establishment 

Oh Mate.

Its why I sigh when I see Twitter shouting about “EVERY THING WOULD BE FINE IF WE FOLLOWED THE SCIENCE”


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Jul 14, 2021)

I just find all this arguing so exhausting now


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> Let’s meet back here in a month or so and see where we are. If deaths are above what would normally by associated with the approaching winter season I’ll admit I was wrong. When I’m right I’ll still be nice to youse 👍


From 21st Sept., but you still haven't admitted you were wrong.


Mr Retro said:


> I’ll see you all back here on the 13th of October and we’ll see if we are at 50,000 cases and on track for 200 deaths a day.


From 22nd Sept., and, yet you didn't post again until June this year, you hid as cases went over 50k, and deaths over 1,200 a day.


Brainaddict said:


> You forgot some of the other choice quotes: "The main benefit of a surgical face mask is to protect others from droplet and aerosol spread, and not the wearer- the study was not designed to investigate this"
> 
> "The findings were inconclusive and cannot definitively exclude a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection of mask wearers in such a setting." and  "The findings, however, should not be used to conclude that a recommendation for everyone to wear masks in the community would not be effective in reducing SARS-CoV-2 infections, because the trial did not test the role of masks in source control of SARS-CoV-2 infection."


You didn't expect this plonker to have read the whole report on the study, did you?

He, like the other covid loons, will just share the little quotes that they think supports their shitty attitudes, and ignore everything else, because they are basically total fuckwits.


----------



## killer b (Jul 14, 2021)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I just find all this arguing so exhausting now


If it makes you feel any better there isn't actually an argument about masks anymore - it was won last year. The results are in, and they do help reduce infections. 

What there is is a very small number of people with broken minds shouting very loudly that they don't work, and it's easy to mistake that for an argument.


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Jul 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> If it makes you feel any better there isn't actually an argument about masks anymore - it was won last year. The results are in, and they do help reduce infections.
> 
> What there is is a very small number of people with broken minds shouting very loudly that they don't work, and it's easy to mistake that for an argument.


That's what I mean though. The constant noise from The Special Ones who just will not stop seeing all this as a personal attack on their freedom. It's just exhausting and I am absolutely sick of it.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

Mrs Miggins said:


> That's what I mean though. The constant noise from The Special Ones who just will not stop seeing all this as a personal attack on their freedom. It's just exhausting and I am absolutely sick of it.


They can be safely ignored.


----------



## killer b (Jul 14, 2021)

Mrs Miggins said:


> That's what I mean though. The constant noise from The Special Ones who just will not stop seeing all this as a personal attack on their freedom. It's just exhausting and I am absolutely sick of it.


Is it constant? I don't actually see very much of it since I stopped arguing with them on facebook and the algorithm stopped showing them to me... just this retro dude here atm.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 14, 2021)

Mrs Miggins said:


> That's what I mean though. The constant noise from The Special Ones who just will not stop seeing all this as a personal attack on their freedom. It's just exhausting and I am absolutely sick of it.


Not to mention acting like the rest of us must enjoy the restrictions, as if we haven't also got families, friends, jobs and social lives that have been affected by all this. One of my Twitter followers was saying yesterday if he sees anyone wearing a mask after 19th July, he'll personally rip it off their face (assault). And that he hates anyone wearing masks outside because he sees it as virtue signalling and thinks they're judging him (judgmental in and of itself).  I've unfollowed and blocked him, I'm sick of that shite popping up in my mentions.

Also, I've always considered myself a fairly strong-minded person and, although not anti-authority for the sake of it, I've never been afraid to challenge authority if I think they're wrong. So I resent people like that making me out to be a "sheep" or a "bedwetter" for trying to be considerate of my fellow human beings.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 14, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I still can't quite get my head round this. So more than 160 tory MPs would vote for removing restrictions? Even though most people in the country want to see at least some retained?


we could always have a referendum on mask wearing and other restrictions. that’s sure to end well


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> Is it constant? I don't actually see very much of it since I stopped arguing with them on facebook and the algorithm stopped showing them to me... just this retro dude here atm.


it’s constant if you work with the public face to face


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 14, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> One of my Twitter followers was saying yesterday if he sees anyone wearing a mask after 19th July, he'll personally rip it off their face (assault).



Well, he's heading for a punch in the face, the twat.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, he's heading for a punch in the face, the twat.


He'll get a punch all right if he tries it with me.


----------



## killer b (Jul 14, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> it’s constant if you work with the public face to face


yeah, fair enough.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> Is it constant? I don't actually see very much of it since I stopped arguing with them on facebook and the algorithm stopped showing them to me... just this retro dude here atm.


I still constantly see stickers with worse arguments about masks than you see even on the internet. However I'm still just sane enough to recognise that standing in the street and arguing with a sticker is a bad look.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 14, 2021)

i’m sick with worry about the 19th tbh - mainly about dealing with arsehole customers


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Not to mention acting like the rest of us must enjoy the restrictions, as if we haven't also got families, friends, jobs and social lives that have been affected by all this. One of my Twitter followers was saying yesterday if he sees anyone wearing a mask after 19th July, he'll personally rip it off their face (assault). And that he hates anyone wearing masks outside because he sees it as virtue signalling and thinks they're judging him (judgmental in and of itself).  I've unfollowed and blocked him, I'm sick of that shite popping up in my mentions.
> 
> Also, I've always considered myself a fairly strong-minded person and, although not anti-authority for the sake of it, I've never been afraid to challenge authority if I think they're wrong. So I resent people like that making me out to be a "sheep" or a "bedwetter" for trying to be considerate of my fellow human beings.


I'm happy to ignore the namecalling...but I would *definitely *react to someone reaching out to pull my mask from my face as a potential attack. I'm sure it's going to happen, and I fervently hope that it happens to at least a few people who are willing and capable of responding proportionately, ie., with a swift punch to the face.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 14, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm happy to ignore the namecalling...but I would *definitely *react to someone reaching out to pull my mask from my face as a potential attack. I'm sure it's going to happen, and I fervently hope that it happens to at least a few people who are willing and capable of responding proportionately, ie., with a swift punch to the face.


I made a bloke's nose bleed a couple of years ago when he groped my tit as I walked past. Happy to do it again if necessary.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 14, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> There are at least two maskless workmen in the house opposite having to squeeze in and out past the woman's oxygen tank - perhaps she's fully masked-up ..


So selfish. This is the thing, someone could be super-careful and even isolating but then (maybe because of their vulnerability) needs someone to come out to bring them something or instal something, and because _they_ can't be bothered, that's it - put at risk despite their best efforts. 🙁 Wish people would stopbeing so damn selfish.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 14, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> i’m sick with worry about the 19th tbh - mainly about dealing with arsehole customers



Yes I'm worried about anyone in a public-facing job. Teachers and school staff have already had their 'freedom day' moment of suddenly having to work with loads of maskless people, and I definitely didn't enjoy that. But at least in a school if people give you shit you can give them detention. The so-called adults out there in the wild, they need fear no such reprimand.

In the event of customers being aresholes, I would recommend a similar tactic to one that generally works with petulent children; do not give them an emotional response. Pick your line, know it well, and don't budge from it. If you have to say the exact same thing in the same tone of voice ten times, do so. As soon as they're out of earshot you can rant and rave and curse, just don't let them see it.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 14, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> So selfish. This is the thing, someone could be super-careful and even isolating but then (maybe because of their vulnerability) needs someone to come out to bring them something or instal something, and because _they_ can't be bothered, that's it - put at risk despite their best efforts. 🙁 Wish people would stopbeing so damn selfish.


Also, the black and white thinking pisses me off. Like when the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers go "But...but...99% survival rate!" I know I'm preaching to the converted here, but with Covid it's not just a case of you either die or you're completely better after a week. I'm sure loads of people are, but they're ignoring long Covid which can also affect previously healthy people. I'm in excellent health and have never been ill other than minor colds and sniffles once or twice a year, and were I to catch the corona, then yes, chances are I'd be fine after a week sleeping it off. But I also might not be, and as I sing for a living, I really don't want to risk any lung damage, thanksverymuch.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 14, 2021)

Someone could easily rip off my mask the way I am these days, although they'd surely realise it would be an extremely bad look, plus I think (I hope!) someone would intervene.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yes I'm worried about anyone in a public-facing job. Teachers and school staff have already had their 'freedom day' moment of suddenly having to work with loads of maskless people, and I definitely didn't enjoy that. But at least in a school if people give you shit you can give them detention. The so-called adults out there in the wild, they need fear no such reprimand.
> 
> In the event of customers being aresholes, I would recommend a similar tactic to one that generally works with petulent children; do not give them an emotional response. Pick your line, know it well, and don't budge from it. If you have to say the exact same thing in the same tone of voice ten times, do so. As soon as they're out of earshot you can rant and rave and curse, just don't let them see it.


TBF, the mask helps with that


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 14, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> Someone could easily rip off my mask the way I am these days, although they'd surely realise it would be an extremely bad look, plus I think (I hope!) someone would intervene.


Oh, I'm sure loads of people would. Luckily though, I think people like that like to talk all hard online but probably wouldn't dream of carrying out the threat if they really did meet you! All mouth and no trousers.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Oh, I'm sure loads of people would. Luckily though, I think people like that like to talk all hard online but probably wouldn't dream of carrying out the threat if they really did meet you! All mouth and no trousers.


Yeah, I think there's going to be a lot of "face nappy" catcalls from a safe distance. Depending on how grumpy I'm feeling, I might still engage with that...


----------



## editor (Jul 14, 2021)

"A few patients we are caring for still deny Covid exists, even as we strap oxygen masks to their faces. That is perplexing..."

 









						I’m an intensive care doctor. Covid patients are younger this time
					

NHS consultant predicts an awful winter with Covid-denier patients, bed shortages and staffing issues




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Mrs Miggins (Jul 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> Is it constant? I don't actually see very much of it since I stopped arguing with them on facebook and the algorithm stopped showing them to me... just this retro dude here atm.


I'm afraid I live with someone who "questions everything" and then there's the debate on here to add in so yeah, it's pretty constant for me.


----------



## Mr Retro (Jul 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> If it makes you feel any better there isn't actually an argument about masks anymore - it was won last year. The results are in, and they do help reduce infections.
> 
> What there is is a very small number of people with broken minds shouting very loudly that they don't work, and it's easy to mistake that for an argument.


This is simply untrue.  Until we decided to copy China the advise was masks don't work:

World Health Organisation: ‘There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can protect them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19.’
Mike Ryan a director at WHO: ‘There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.’
Chris Whitty: ‘In terms of wearing a mask, our advice is clear: that wearing a mask if you don’t have an infection reduces the risk almost not at all . So we do not advise that.’
The only gold standard RCT Danmask-19 concluded since these quotes found outcomes between those wearing masks and those not was ‘not statistically significant’. So you can keep insisting masks work and I can keep saying they don't but to say the argument they work is won is simply wrong.


----------



## killer b (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> This is simply untrue.  Until we decided to copy China the advise was masks don't work:
> 
> World Health Organisation: ‘There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can protect them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19.’
> Mike Ryan a director at WHO: ‘There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.’
> ...


I'm not interested, weirdo.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 14, 2021)

Mrs Miggins said:


> I'm afraid I live with someone who "questions everything"


I think that's the difference between healthy scepticism and being a rabid conspiraloon. It's true we shouldn't believe everything politicians or the papers say, but to automatically dismiss it just _because _it comes from that source is just as bad as blind faith. I used to work with someone like that. Like one day I mentioned a local story I'd read in the Hackney Gazette to do with a minor traffic accident, which nobody would've had any need to exaggerate. She responded contemptuously "No CatLady, that's just what the papers wanted you to think!"  

Another time, I saw a picture of my ex in the Newham Recorder, who'd gone to prison for assaulting his pregnant girlfriend. I was shocked and said "Bloody hell, I used to go out with him! Talk about a lucky escape". Her response was "You don't know how she might have provoked him, or that the baby was even his!" I told her that's no excuse for beating someone up or risking harm to an innocent baby; and that if your girlfriend is so terrible, you leave her, not beat the shit out of her. But when people think like that, it's very hard to argue them out of it.

I don't think she was a conspiracy theorist though, just an argumentative twat who'd rather eat dog shit than agree with anybody about anything (and her buying into harmful myths about domestic violence shows she's the very type of sheep she's sneering at).


----------



## kabbes (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> This is simply untrue.  Until we decided to copy China the advise was masks don't work:
> 
> World Health Organisation: ‘There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can protect them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19.’
> Mike Ryan a director at WHO: ‘There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.’
> ...


Got it.  Everybody just needs to know with 100% certainty if they have an infection or not, then the ones that know with certainty that they are not infected don’t need to wear a mask.  Sounds easy.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> This is simply untrue.  Until we decided to copy China the advise was masks don't work:
> 
> World Health Organisation: ‘There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can protect them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19.’
> Mike Ryan a director at WHO: ‘There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.’
> ...


What dates / months were these statements made. I should image the advice and science has evolved since then. 

The science on ACE inhibitors has changed repeated since COVID started from beneficial to detrimental and now beneficial to a certain extent.


----------



## Mr Retro (Jul 14, 2021)

Storm Fox said:


> What dates / months were these statements made. I should image the advice and science has evolved since then.
> 
> The science on ACE inhibitors has changed repeated since COVID started from beneficial to detrimental and now beneficial to a certain extent.


The _advice_ has, but the science sure hasn't


----------



## Mr Retro (Jul 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> I'm not interested, weirdo.


Of course you're not


----------



## Mr Retro (Jul 14, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Got it.  Everybody just needs to know with 100% certainty if they have an infection or not, then the ones that know with certainty that they are not infected don’t need to wear a mask.  Sounds easy.


I'm not sure how you came up with that from my post but OK


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 14, 2021)

Blood Cancer UK on vaccines:


----------



## bimble (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> I'm not sure how you came up with that from my post but OK


Really?
your post was about, there’s no point in people wearing masks unless they’re infected . It’s like you haven’t understood what the masks are for at all? Maybe that’s what the problem is idk.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> I'm not sure how you came up with that from my post but OK


Because that’s what that advice says.  Did you not actually read it?


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 14, 2021)

Nature Seems to disagree with Mr Retro.








						Face masks: what the data say
					

The science supports that face coverings are saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, and yet the debate trundles on. How much evidence is enough?




					www.nature.com
				



As does the university of California








						Still Confused About Masks? Here’s the Science Behind How Face Masks Prevent Coronavirus
					

We talked to UCSF epidemiologist George Rutherford, MD, and infectious disease specialist Peter Chin-Hong, MD, about the CDC’s reversal on mask-wearing, the current science on how masks work, and what to consider when choosing a mask.




					www.ucsf.edu
				



As does PNAS








						An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19
					

The science around the use of masks by the public to impede COVID-19 transmission is advancing rapidly. In this narrative review, we develop an analytical framework to examine mask usage, synthesizing the relevant literature to inform multiple areas: population impact, transmission...




					www.pnas.org
				



And the CDC








						Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
					

CDC provides credible COVID-19 health information to the U.S.




					www.cdc.gov
				




And many many more.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 14, 2021)

Retro dude is quoting out-dated opinions, made when there was a shortage of the masks and other PPE most suitable for social care / medical situations and the official line was that transmission was mostly by touching surfaces.

Now, recent experience & studies have shown that transmission is largely by aerosol / droplets - which are reduced or stopped by masks plus, the supply chain has caught up with demand and PPE is available ...
So, WHO and others are promoting mask wearing as part of a wider infection control strategy.

No. I'm not going to trawl back and find the links ...
e2a especially as Storm Fox ,thanks mate, has neatly summarised them !


----------



## belboid (Jul 14, 2021)

The initial advice was less than wholly enthusiastic about masks, but it wasn’t due to being uncertain as to whether they could inhibit infections per se, it was because of the importance of the stress they were (rightly) putting on _stay the fuck at home. _

Not having face to face contact was vastly more useful than going out in a mask and so their limitations were stressed. Once people started following the _stay the fuck at home _guidance, more stress was put on the value of mask wearing in situations where going out was necessary.


----------



## pug (Jul 14, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Not to mention acting like the rest of us must enjoy the restrictions, as if we haven't also got families, friends, jobs and social lives that have been affected by all this. One of my Twitter followers was saying yesterday if he sees anyone wearing a mask after 19th July, he'll personally rip it off their face (assault). And that he hates anyone wearing masks outside because he sees it as virtue signalling and thinks they're judging him (judgmental in and of itself).  I've unfollowed and blocked him, I'm sick of that shite popping up in my mentions.
> 
> Also, I've always considered myself a fairly strong-minded person and, although not anti-authority for the sake of it, I've never been afraid to challenge authority if I think they're wrong. So I resent people like that making me out to be a "sheep" or a "bedwetter" for trying to be considerate of my fellow human beings.


he thinks other people by wearing a mask are judging him 
What else do other people do which make him feel judged? 
What a fucking knob.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> I'm not sure how you came up with that from my post but OK


No, I don't suppose you are. Sure, that is. I suspect kabbes would have to dumb his post down a hundredfold, AND write it in a fist-held crayon, to stand even the slightest chance of your getting any kind of clue.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 14, 2021)

From the daily dashboard -

*14 July 2021
Because of a processing issue, today's update is delayed. 

UK figures for 14 July 2021: 42,302 new cases | 49 new deaths within 28 days of a positive test | 

46,037,090 people have now received the first dose of a vaccine | 35,155,767 have received a 2nd dose.*


----------



## editor (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> This is simply untrue.  Until we decided to copy China the advise was masks don't work:
> 
> World Health Organisation: ‘There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can protect them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19.’
> Mike Ryan a director at WHO: ‘There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.’
> ...


Misleading, outdated advice.  Your WHO quote is over a year old. 

Here's what the WHO say: 



> Masks should be used as part of a comprehensive strategy of measures to suppress transmission and save lives; the use of a mask alone is not sufficient to provide an adequate level of protection against COVID-19.
> 
> If COVID-19 is spreading in your community, stay safe by taking some simple precautions, such as physical distancing, wearing a mask, keeping rooms well ventilated, avoiding crowds, cleaning your hands, and coughing into a bent elbow or tissue. Check local advice where you live and work. *Do it all!
> 
> ...











						Fact check: WHO recommends mask-wearing to prevent COVID-19 spread
					

An online article is spreading the baseless claim that the World Health Organization changed its guidance on mask-wearing.




					eu.usatoday.com
				




The Chris Witty quote is also well over a year old. Why are you posting up such obviously misleading information? 

Even though we're going out of lockdown he is still saying he will wear a mask:



> Professor Chris Whitty, the government’s Chief Medical Adviser, later set out the three scenarios in which he would continue to wear a mask once the rules are lifted: in crowded indoor spaces; if required to do so by “any competent authority”; and when doing so will make others feel more comfortable.











						Chris Whitty on the three times we should still wear a mask after July 19
					

Professor Whitty said he will continue to wear a mask in crowded indoor spaces; if required to do so by ‘any competent authority’; and when doing so will make others feel more comfortable




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## bimble (Jul 14, 2021)

pug said:


> he thinks other people by wearing a mask are judging him
> What else do other people do which make him feel judged?
> What a fucking knob.


Thought that was interesting that bit.
So if this dude sees someone walking along outdoors with a mask on he immediately reckons they are being all sanctimonious and superior. 

Sometimes (occasionally) i notice people here in the park walking along alone with loads of space all around them wearing a mask and i do find it weird but my assumption is that they're just really fckin scared of the virus, like irrationally afraid. So we're all wandering about projecting meanings onto other people's mask / no mask behaviours.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 14, 2021)

pug said:


> he thinks other people by wearing a mask are judging him
> What else do other people do which make him feel judged?
> What a fucking knob.


Oh, that attitude is depressingly common. It's why you get so many stories about people's friends trying to sabotage their diets, or their efforts at giving up smoking. My ex-colleague I mentioned earlier used to bring in a pack of Jammie Dodgers every day and offer them round. Sometimes we'd fancy one, sometimes we wouldn't but she'd get so offended if you declined, demanding "WHY?" I told a friend about it, and she said "Maybe she thought you were fat shaming her." I hadn't thought of it that way, but I think that could be why some people take other people's choices personally and make it about themselves. "How dare you be different AT me!"


----------



## killer b (Jul 14, 2021)

editor said:


> Misleading, outdated advice.  Your WHO quote is over a year old.
> 
> Here's what the WHO say:
> 
> ...


he knows all this, cause he's been told it multiple times - but then he reappears the next day to post the same ratlicking stuff, basically the same post over and over. I think the covid threads would be much better without him disrupting them tbh, it's the only thing he's here for.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 14, 2021)

Yes totally - he's brought this old stuff up before and it was explained/dismissed before.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

editor said:


> Misleading, outdated advice.  Your WHO quote is over a year old.
> 
> Here's what the WHO say:
> 
> ...


At this rate, you're going to get yourself accused of "confusing me with the facts"


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Oh, that attitude is depressingly common. It's why you get so many stories about people's friends trying to sabotage their diets, or their efforts at giving up smoking. My ex-colleague I mentioned earlier used to bring in a pack of Jammie Dodgers every day and offer them round. Sometimes we'd fancy one, sometimes we wouldn't but she'd get so offended if you declined, demanding "WHY?" I told a friend about it, and she said "Maybe she thought you were fat shaming her." I hadn't thought of it that way, but I think that could be why some people take other people's choices personally and make it about themselves. "How dare you be different AT me!"


I think that people sometimes forget that everything isn't always all about them


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 14, 2021)

editor said:


> Misleading, outdated advice.  Your WHO quote is over a year old.




Yep, some incorrect advice was given in March 2020, way back in the early months of the pandemic - for some reason anti-maskers have chosen to treat that advice like it was handed down carved in stone tablets and ignore everything that has been learned in the last 15 months.


----------



## Supine (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> This is simply untrue.  Until we decided to copy China the advise was masks don't work:
> 
> World Health Organisation: ‘There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can protect them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19.’
> Mike Ryan a director at WHO: ‘There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.’
> ...



You are using quotes from the early days of the pandemic when it simply wasn’t known if covid was aerosolised. It didn’t take long in 2020 for science to do its job and to come to a conclusion. Since that was done all the people quoted have changed their minds to reflect the science. You should too.


----------



## editor (Jul 14, 2021)

killer b said:


> he knows all this, cause he's been told it multiple times - but then he reappears the next day to post the same ratlicking stuff, basically the same post over and over. I think the covid threads would be much better without him disrupting them tbh, it's the only thing he's here for.


I'm kicking him off this thread. Urban has been an absolutely essential oasis of non-loon, science-based discussion since the beginning of this pandemic, and I'm keeping it that way.

It is weird how these people can get so lost in their own conspiracy fuckwittery that they think its fine to completely ignore all scientific developments from the last year and dishonestly repost old quotes.


----------



## killer b (Jul 14, 2021)

cheers!


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 14, 2021)

.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 14, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> Had people trying to spike me (I'm vegetarian) with meat when I was pregnant.


What the fuck? That's outrageous! People like that make me ashamed to be a meat eater. Why would anyone try to force an adult to eat something they don't like? (I don't think it's right to do it to kids either, but that's a whole other rant). I think that's why so many people claim to be allergic when they're not, because apparently that's the only acceptable reason for not wanting to eat something. Why can't we normalise just not liking things?


----------



## andysays (Jul 14, 2021)

editor said:


> I'm kicking him off this thread. Urban has been an absolutely essential oasis of non-loon, science-based discussion since the beginning of this pandemic, and I'm keeping it that way.
> 
> It is weird how these people can get so lost in their own conspiracy fuckwittery that they think its fine to completely ignore all scientific developments from the last year and dishonestly repost old quotes.


I was just about to say, I like a barney as much as anyone, but this is a serious thread about a serious life and death issue and I don't think we ought to give this twat any opportunity to obscure or divert the conversation in the way they've been doing.

Thanks for taking action.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 14, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> What the fuck? That's outrageous! People like that make me ashamed to be a meat eater. Why would anyone try to force an adult to eat something they don't like? (I don't think it's right to do it to kids either, but that's a whole other rant). I think that's why so many people claim to be allergic when they're not, because apparently that's the only acceptable reason for not wanting to eat something. Why can't we normalise just not liking things?


It's like what's being said for sure, people's decisions can get taken like an attack on _them_ somehow.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> What the fuck? That's outrageous! People like that make me ashamed to be a meat eater. Why would anyone try to force an adult to eat something they don't like? (I don't think it's right to do it to kids either, but that's a whole other rant). I think that's why so many people claim to be allergic when they're not, because apparently that's the only acceptable reason for not wanting to eat something. Why can't we normalise just not liking things?


My mother used to pull that stunt. "Oh, did you like that <food thing>?" Me: "Yes" Her: "It had meat in it" <smug self-satisfied look>. I suspect that, without stunts like that hardening my attitude, I'd probably be eating meat now.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 14, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> What the fuck? That's outrageous! People like that make me ashamed to be a meat eater. Why would anyone try to force an adult to eat something they don't like? (I don't think it's right to do it to kids either, but that's a whole other rant).


Totally - and not just something they don't like but something they are making a (possibly) ethical decision about and could quite understandably find meat revolting. 

My ex didn't even like using plates that had also been used for meat which I fully understood - we ate vege at home and I nipped off into town for my weekly bacon & egg fix, and cleaned my teeth when I got home  .


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 14, 2021)

teuchter said:


> 'based on mathematical modelling' suggests they are looking at population level effect but based on some assumptions about what a mask actually does in real life... I guess I'm curious to know how strong the evidence is there.



I know this isn't exactly what you're asking (around benefits of face masks in the general population) but I did read this the other day (and not peer reviewed, so just for interest) -









						Cambridge hospital’s mask upgrade appears to eliminate Covid risk to staff
					

Hospital infection study shows use of FFP3 respirators at Addenbrooke’s ‘may have cut ward-based infection to zero’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## xenon (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> I'm not sure how you came up with that from my post but OK



that is because you are thick. and wilfully so I reckon. Masks of course do nothing to protect anyone from you if you don’t have the infection. The point is there are so many asymptomatic cases you can’t know unless you just had a test a highly reliable one, that  you aren’t carrying coronavirus. at the beginning of this it wasn’t known how high proportion of cases were asymptomatic.


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> You are using quotes from the early days of the pandemic when it simply wasn’t known if covid was aerosolised. It didn’t take long in 2020 for science to do its job and to come to a conclusion. Since that was done all the people quoted have changed their minds to reflect the science. You should too.



It's like arguing that scientists don't even know whether this mysterious new virus from Wuhan can be transmitted between people.


----------



## Supine (Jul 14, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> It's like arguing that scientists don't even know whether this mysterious new virus from Wuhan can be transmitted between people.



I follow @badvaccinetakes on twitter. Some of the denialists are crazy as bat shit


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> This is simply untrue.  Until we decided to copy China the advise was masks don't work:
> 
> World Health Organisation: ‘There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can protect them from infection with respiratory viruses, including Covid-19.’
> Mike Ryan a director at WHO: ‘There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.’
> ...



You posted this nonsense last week, you had replies explaining the change in advice, and you ignored them, just like you always do, and then you just repeat the same old shite again.

Just like all the other fucking loons do.


----------



## bimble (Jul 14, 2021)

Retro / quirkily obsolete is fine for things like home furnishings / t shirts but less good as a preferred style of public health advice.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 14, 2021)

I posted the above reply before knowing the twat had been kicked off this thread, my thanks to the editor.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 14, 2021)

The message about vulnerable people staying at home is just a cop-out (obviously).


----------



## Chilli.s (Jul 14, 2021)

Mr Retro said:


> This is simply untrue. Until we decided to copy China the advise was masks don't work:


You are deluded


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

Dystopiary said:


> The message about vulnerable people staying at home is just a cop-out (obviously).



As ever, where this government is concerned, children (who do not vote) do not exist. Except when they need to be trotted out for "won't they think of the children?" propaganda opportunities.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 14, 2021)

Chilli.s said:


> You are deluded


He's banned from posting on this thread. And since he's only really interested in vomiting his garbage onto Urban, and spectacularly uninterested in listening to what anyone else has to say, I shouldn't imagine he'll be reading your words...


----------



## ska invita (Jul 14, 2021)

Question: This plan to get cases up to 100,000 a day - is there a projection made public for when cases will fall?


----------



## Supine (Jul 14, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Question: This plan to get cases up to 100,000 a day - is there a projection made public for when cases will fall?



when the august lockdown begins? who knows!


----------



## ska invita (Jul 14, 2021)

they must have projections because they've said this is the "sweet spot" to stop restrictions
they must have projections because they've said they expect cases to go over 100,000 a day
id like to see what this curve looks like


----------



## Smangus (Jul 14, 2021)

ska invita said:


> they must have projections because they've said this is the "sweet spot" to stop restrictions
> they must have projections because they've said they expect cases to go over 100,000 a day
> id like to see what this curve looks like



it looks fucked.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 14, 2021)

ska invita said:


> they must have projections because they've said this is the "sweet spot" to stop restrictions
> they must have projections because they've said they expect cases to go over 100,000 a day
> id like to see what this curve looks like



Absent any meaningful restrictions, cases go down when there's nobody left to infect and not before.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 14, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Absent any meaningful restrictions, cases go down when there's nobody left to infect and not before.


yes it looks like thats the plan
id like to see their calculation for when that will be


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2021)

ska invita said:


> yes it looks like thats the plan
> id like to see their calculation for when that will be



There isnt a single projection, there are a whole bunch of modelling things and a summary document by the SAGE modelling group from slightly earlier in July.

Some of them feature an even larger number of graphs than normal because they consider the different speeds at which people might return to normal in the months ahead. There are very different sizes of peaks and some difference in timing and chances of a winter wave depending on how behaviour evolves after July 19th.

They werent asked to model new restrictions, or what would happen if people decided to behave in a more restrained way than they have been doing since the May step 3 relaxation of rules.

They do have the impact of school summer holidays baked into them on some level.









						SAGE meetings, July 2021
					

Minutes and papers from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) meetings held in July 2021.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2021)

And the simplified BBC version of a couple of model outputs looks like this. It covers daily hospitalisations but you can imagine the number of cases peaking just a little sooner than the hospitalisations.



From articles such as Covid: Will 19 July unlocking gamble pay off or backfire?

Personally I am hoping for an earlier peak than most of the modelling shows these days.


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2021)

For example if I look at those graphs in particular, I'm very far from convinced that it will take as long as they imply to get to 1000 daily hospital admissions. But there are so many possibilities, including in the way the hospital admissions data will evolve in the next week or two, so I dont think I can compress things down to a simple description.

Plus changes in hospital admissions data each day changes my expectations slightly. For example yesterdays published hospital admissions/diagnoses for England number was 502 for the 11th July. Todays figure, for 12th July, was 605. And I cant tell whether it will shoot up like that again tomorrow or whether it will wobble around its current range for a little bit, or even fall a bit on the odd day.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 14, 2021)

Sure other people have said this but I'm sure people are dying and suffering unnecessary pain because the government has decided that the way to smash the health service is simply to undermine efforts to prevent transmission of the virus, betting that the lower death rate now won't be noticed by people. And the knock-on effect on waiting lists will make force a ton of people to go private. The doctors and academics protesting this are trying to be reasonable with people who are unreasonable.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> And the simplified BBC version of a couple of model outputs looks like this. It covers daily hospitalisations but you can imagine the number of cases peaking just a little sooner than the hospitalisations.
> 
> View attachment 278547
> 
> ...


that looks like a shorter wave than i imagined/wouldve expected


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Sure other people have said this but I'm sure people are dying and suffering unnecessary pain because the government has decided that the way to smash the health service is simply to undermine efforts to prevent transmission of the virus, betting that the lower death rate now won't be noticed by people. And the knock-on effect on waiting lists will make force a ton of people to go private. The doctors and academics protesting this are trying to be reasonable with people who are unreasonable.


They have a complex and ugly agenda for the health service but I think a lot of their piss poor pandemic policy motives at the moment are driven by other things. A lot of petty party politics for a start.

There are a bunch of ways they can break the health servie in a relatively short period which will spell utter political doom for them. They dont mind forcing it to bear an unpleasant burden, or for quality and throughput to take a hit, but if they melt big, important chunks of it before everyones eyes in this pandemic then I think they are in deep shit.

Their approach seems to involve banking on a number of things to stand a chance of them getting away with it. Including a relatively early peak or at least a peak that doesnt get to the size required to cause near-instant doom on the hospital admissions front.


----------



## elbows (Jul 14, 2021)

ska invita said:


> that looks like a shorter wave than i imagined/wouldve expected


Other shapes and timings are available but you'll probably have to trudge through all the papers I linked to a little earlier to find them.

There is a huge range of uncertainty because unlike previous waves, this planning assumes the peak wont happen due to lockdowns etc, they assume it will happen due to the virus running out of sufficient vulnerable people in its path. Which doesnt mean it suddenly runs out of victims, just runs out of access to enough of them to maintain exponential growth, doubling in size etc.

Unknowns are many and include how people will behave and mix in the months ahead, and various other things that make a difference such as how many people who are vaccinated or previously infected will get infected this time. They also know how many vaccinated people there are, but due to imprecise population estimates they dont actually know how many unvaccinated people there are. And that matters to these sorts of models where they need to know how many suseptible people there are at any moment in time.

I wont be surprised if everything happens more quickly than these models suggest, but nor will I be surprised if it drags on horribly. I wont be surprised if it fails to reach close to the levels that force them to slam on emergency brakes, but I wont be shocked if it busts past all the limits and causes much woe. And if I was forced to guess right now, I'd have a dilemma because Scotland has shown some signs of having peaked, but this needs to be confirmed via other forms of data that I dont have any access to yet. And even if things have peaked there, we dont know what sort of rate of decline there will be, or whether future changes allow the virus to get going in the upwards direction again.


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

I guess its been about a year since last years 'preparing for winter' pandemic report. There seems to be an equivalent for this year. I havent read the full report yet, but the BBC attempt to summarise some of it here:









						Medics fear surge in winter viruses alongside Covid
					

A potential triple whammy of viruses prompts calls for more testing to reduce spread this autumn.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




The report:



			https://acmedsci.ac.uk/file-download/4747802
		


People staying home when ill, continuing with face covering and social distancing, and thinking about testing for multiple respiratory viruses at once are some of the themes.


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

Early in the pandemic I seem to recall the authorities doing the usual 'no evidence of greater risk in...' thing in regards pregnant women and covid, which I may have been happy to report on early on.

Unfortunately that is no longer considered to be the case and so the current disgraceful situation with letting case numbers go crazy means we also get stories like this:









						Covid unlocking risk for pregnant women, say doctors
					

Doctors and midwives warn Covid can pose a greater risk to women in the later stages of pregnancy.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Early in the pandemic I seem to recall the authorities doing the usual 'no evidence of greater risk in...' thing in regards pregnant women and covid, which I may have been happy to report on early on.
> 
> Unfortunately that is no longer considered to be the case and so the current disgraceful situation with letting case numbers go crazy means we also get stories like this:
> 
> ...


Important to know, thanks.

Let's all spread the word to any pregnant people we know.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 15, 2021)

Pregnancy has been on lists for a while. Vulnerable but not extremely. I think pregnant women are likely well aware as literally from the day you declare you're pregnant everyone tells you everything dangerous.


----------



## bimble (Jul 15, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> Sure other people have said this but I'm sure people are dying and suffering unnecessary pain because _the government has decided that the way to smash the health service is simply to undermine efforts to prevent transmission of the virus,_ betting that the lower death rate now won't be noticed by people. And the knock-on effect on waiting lists will make force a ton of people to go private. The doctors and academics protesting this are trying to be reasonable with people who are unreasonable.


You are seriously saying the removal of restrictions is happening now because it's part of the government's cunning plan to destroy the NHS? Bonkers.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> You are seriously saying the removal of restrictions is happening now because it's part of the government's cunning plan to destroy the NHS? Bonkers.


Eighteen months ago, I'd have agreed with you, bimble. Now, I'm not so sure. 

I don't necessarily think the goal is "destroy the NHS", so much as "let's get our snouts in the trough", but the means of achieving that goal are pretty much the same - create a situation where you can say "The NHS is failing - the only way to save it is to sell bits of it off to our mates" (OK, they probably won't say that last bit out loud), and then start flogging it off.

Maybe it isn't even that - perhaps they're just so keen to look all freedom-loving and libertarian that they'll simply use the state of overwhelm in the NHS as their benchmark (after all, they'll be thinking about the "optics"), and then they can opportunistically use its apparently failing state to do the snouts in the trough thing. They probably think they are being _extremely _clever.


----------



## bimble (Jul 15, 2021)

i think this is stupid. There's no need to look for such machinations, they're not even that rational as to be doing it to make money.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> i think this is stupid. There's no need to look for such machinations, they're not even that rational as to be doing it to make money.


I hope that you're right, and I'm wrong. Right now, though, it feels to me as if no interpretation of the motives of this nefandous (thanks, Pickman's model ) shower of shit could ever be too cynical.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> You are seriously saying the removal of restrictions is happening now because it's part of the government's cunning plan to destroy the NHS? Bonkers.


What's bonkers is the way you make up what other people are saying. I am saying that people are dying and suffering unnecessarily because of the choices the government has made. That's well known, it shouldn't be controversial. There are people not getting diagnoses or treatment and waiting lists are at record highs. 

Before the mantra was protect the NHS. Now the government admits the virus will run rampant through the population but against the science, against the evidence presented to it, is removing restrictions. This will increase the chances of overloading the NHS. We know the government has been running down and privatising the NHS for years. We know that many existing trends have been accelerated by the virus. 

Yet you say it's mad to believe the government would take advantage of the crisis to achieve its ideological aims. I wonder, have you been watching what's been going on the past eighteen months as the government has spaffed billions on ineffective private measures which would have been done cheaper and efficiently by the NHS? While they let the delta virus in because Johnson wanted to go to India? It's madness to believe they won't take advantage of the pandemic.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> i think this is stupid. There's no need to look for such machinations, they're not even that rational as to be doing it to make money.


That's really fucking stupid. Out of curiosity who do you think makes money when bits of the NHS are privatised? When private companies provide NHS services?


----------



## bimble (Jul 15, 2021)

You said they’ve “decided that the way to smash the nhs” is to let infections run riot. Whatever. I think that’s a daft conspiracy theory.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 15, 2021)

The tory sh1tcunt5 will find ways to claim everything needs to be sold off, mostly to their mates - who will then give them directorships even before they leave the HoC. They've got form for this ...
And I include the NHS in that prediction, as the twunts have sold off most of the family silver and artworks already ...

Whether the NHS will collapse (enough) for this arseovertit policy to work depends on how much influence the CRG & other backbenchers have over b0j0 compared to the "scientists" and hence how bad this wave / a winter wave gets - like the stupidly murderous nature of the current "policy" creating a vax-escaping mutant virus.


----------



## MrSki (Jul 15, 2021)

The NHS bill the had its second reading yesterday allows for NHS contracts not to be put out for tender & just be awarded. What could be wrong with that?


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 15, 2021)

Local buses have had a lot of problems it seems recently with 'operational issues'. I'm just going to assume that's because staff are having to self isolate. Now they don't come out and say this so I'm having to assume, but should they?


----------



## teuchter (Jul 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> You said they’ve “decided that the way to smash the nhs” is to let infections run riot. Whatever. I think that’s a daft conspiracy theory.


I agree, it's conspiracy nonsense.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> You said they’ve “decided that the way to smash the nhs” is to let infections run riot. Whatever. I think that’s a daft conspiracy theory.


I see you're shifting your position 

It seems to me to be what they're doing. NHS staff are demoralised and exhausted. All their hard work isn't valued by the government, who feel the doctors and nurses should be chuffed with 1% when inflation's rather more than that

Lots of people have clearly told the government of the consequences of going ahead with the removal of restrictions. Of the danger of overwhelming the NHS. Of the risk of new variants. Javid has been told waiting lists could reach 13 million. What happens to the NHS in the next period of the pandemic is a deliberate choice by the government who cannot complain no one warned them of possible consequences.

A lot of NHS staff are, apparently, considering leaving. A lot have left. There are over 100,000 nursing vacancies alone. Before shortfalls in doctors and ancillary staff are considered. I can't see staff retention being improved by government decisions like relaxing restrictions. 

And the upshot of this is that private companies will see desperate patients turning to them, as dentists are apparently with their backlog. I can't see this as other than a deliberate policy as the government have been clearly told of the risks they're running with a health service already long underfunded and being privatised

I've explained my view at some length while you've simply said you disagree without offering any counter argument. I don't think you have such a thing, but I'd like to be proved wrong. Don't suppose I will be tho.


----------



## Thora (Jul 15, 2021)

I tried to book a pcr test today and the nearest test sites available to me are in Newport and Caerleon (I live in Wiltshire) - not a good sign, is it


----------



## MrSki (Jul 15, 2021)

This is Jon Trickett from yesterday's debate.


----------



## Riklet (Jul 15, 2021)

Thora said:


> I tried to book a pcr test today and the nearest test sites available to me are in Newport and Caerleon (I live in Wiltshire) - not a good sign, is it



Hope youre ok Thora!

Can you order one online? Might well come tomorrow.


----------



## bimble (Jul 15, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> I see you're shifting your position
> 
> It seems to me to be what they're doing. NHS staff are demoralised and exhausted. All their hard work isn't valued by the government, who feel the doctors and nurses should be chuffed with 1% when inflation's rather more than that
> 
> ...


I haven’t changed my view at all, still think you posted a silly conspiracy theory.
This is not any kind of explanation for why we have this Freedom Day. 
Why on earth would they require it to get more broken before continuing to sell bits off anyway but, think as you like of course there is no need for us to agree.


----------



## Thora (Jul 15, 2021)

Riklet said:


> Hope youre ok Thora!
> 
> Can you order one online? Might well come tomorrow.


I'm pretty fine, I have a headache and sore throat (and itchy eyes but think that is hayfever) so the Zoe app asked me to do a pcr test.

I actually have a spare one here that we didn't use from a couple of months ago, do you think I can still use that or do they expire?


----------



## MrSki (Jul 15, 2021)

Thora said:


> I'm pretty fine, I have a headache and sore throat (and itchy eyes but think that is hayfever) so the Zoe app asked me to do a pcr test.
> 
> I actually have a spare one here that we didn't use from a couple of months ago, do you think I can still use that or do they expire?


They expire I think. Get one posted.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 15, 2021)

Thora said:


> I'm pretty fine, I have a headache and sore throat (and itchy eyes but think that is hayfever) so the Zoe app asked me to do a pcr test.
> 
> I actually have a spare one here that we didn't use from a couple of months ago, do you think I can still use that or do they expire?



There should be an expiry date on it.


----------



## Numbers (Jul 15, 2021)

MrSki said:


> This is Jon Trickett from yesterday's debate.



I kept thinking why does he keep reaching for his heart.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> I haven’t changed my view at all, still think you posted a silly conspiracy theory.
> This is not any kind of explanation for why we have this Freedom Day. For a start why on earth would they require it to get more broken before continuing to sell bits off anyway makes no sense to me.




i don't know why we're having this 'freedom day'. because any normal way you look at it it is very fuckwitted. we know - the government has told us - that the virus will run rampant through the population. but they're going ahead with it anyway. we know - doctors and health academics have told us - that this will cause great problems for the nhs. we also know that as a result of this waiting lists will rise. and they're already at record levels.

and this is i feel why they want to get more broken. not before they continue to sell bits off but as they do. because what's required for a wholesale and really obvious privatisation is demand for 'something to be done'. for the public service to fall short. for people to need to go private to receive the treatment they need. for this to happen in sizeable numbers. the demand needs to be there, both in terms of wanting something done, and in needing something done.

the 'protect the nhs' slogan, which suggested some concern for the service, is now withdrawn. the government is deliberately going down a path which health professionals and experts warn will overwhelm it. so who benefits from such a thing? it's not a conspiracy theory when it is accompanied by legislation for privatisation. and if your only objection to my view is it's a conspiracy theory _when the fucking thing is going on in front of your eyes _then you're either blind or stupid.


----------



## bimble (Jul 15, 2021)

Oh I see, it’s not ok to disagree with you. I’m stupid & blind then , off out, carry on.


----------



## Fruitloop (Jul 15, 2021)

Did they not do this with pretty much every other public service they intended to sell off; run it down until it was obviously shit, to weaken the opposition they knew that they would face.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> Oh I see, it’s not ok to disagree with you. I’m stupid & blind then , off out, carry on.


it's absolutely fine to disagree with me. but if your only objection is that it's a conspiracy theory when the fucking thing is happening in front of your eyes - _then_ you're either blind or stupid. if you've some actual grounds for your view then post them up.


----------



## zahir (Jul 15, 2021)

Thora said:


> I tried to book a pcr test today and the nearest test sites available to me are in Newport and Caerleon (I live in Wiltshire) - not a good sign, is it



It looks like there's a wider problem:


----------



## lazythursday (Jul 15, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> i don't know why we're having this 'freedom day'. because any normal way you look at it it is very fuckwitted. we know - the government has told us - that the virus will run rampant through the population. but they're going ahead with it anyway. we know - doctors and health academics have told us - that this will cause great problems for the nhs. we also know that as a result of this waiting lists will rise. and they're already at record levels.
> 
> and this is i feel why they want to get more broken. not before they continue to sell bits off but as they do. because what's required for a wholesale and really obvious privatisation is demand for 'something to be done'. for the public service to fall short. for people to need to go private to receive the treatment they need. for this to happen in sizeable numbers. the demand needs to be there, both in terms of wanting something done, and in needing something done.
> 
> the 'protect the nhs' slogan, which suggested some concern for the service, is now withdrawn. the government is deliberately going down a path which health professionals and experts warn will overwhelm it. so who benefits from such a thing? it's not a conspiracy theory when it is accompanied by legislation for privatisation. and if your only objection to my view is it's a conspiracy theory _when the fucking thing is going on in front of your eyes _then you're either blind or stupid.


I'm not so sure about this. I think they have a kind of magical belief in the vaccines and the NHS ability to cope. Of course the Tories and their friends in private healthcare will use any crisis to increase the role of the private sector, but that's not the same thing as deliberately creating a situation in order to further an ideological goal. It's a bit like when the covid-denier crowd claim that the crisis was invented to benefit Amazon or the cashless economy - these are consequences of capital responding to a crisis situation, not evidence that a situation was engineered to cause a shift in the economy.


----------



## bimble (Jul 15, 2021)

Was supposed to go to a concert thing indoors in Hackney this eve but just feels impossible for me at the moment, to go and enjoy that. Making excuses that don’t sound like ‘i think you’re irresponsible to be hosting this right now ’ is a bit awkward.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 15, 2021)

Is he coming down from something?


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 15, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Is he coming down from something?




They think it's all over ...


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

zahir said:


> It looks like there's a wider problem:



We are well into a period where it would be expected that the test system would start to struggle with demand.

Attempts to fully pin this down might be tricky because that test booking/availability system is updated a lot, and where no tests are available at one moment, there might be some available a short while later that same day.

I expect the delays to contact tracing and cases showing up in published data has probably started to grow too.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 15, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I'm not so sure about this. I think they have a kind of magical belief in the vaccines and the NHS ability to cope. Of course the Tories and their friends in private healthcare will use any crisis to increase the role of the private sector, but that's not the same thing as deliberately creating a situation in order to further an ideological goal. It's a bit like when the covid-denier crowd claim that the crisis was invented to benefit Amazon or the cashless economy - these are consequences of capital responding to a crisis situation, not evidence that a situation was engineered to cause a shift in the economy.


i think the vaccine creates the conditions for the scheme to work because of the great reduction in the numbers of dead - that severing that link between cases and deaths hides the most obvious consequences of the pandemic. however, i think this is deliberately creating a situation to further an ideological goal - because they have received clear warnings of possible consequences of going ahead as they are. i don't think this is capital responding but boris johnson, because the very people who are the ostensible beneficiaries of the move, namely the hospitality industry, are going to be big losers if this all goes, as predicted, tits up.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> We are well into a period where it would be expected that the test system would start to struggle with demand.
> 
> Attempts to fully pin this down might be tricky because that test booking/availability system is updated a lot, and where no tests are available at one moment, there might be some available a short while later that same day.
> 
> I expect the delays to contact tracing and cases showing up in published data has probably started to grow too.


Not that there's necessarily a link but that's fucking convenient isn't it.


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

No I dont run far with that logic, it makes them look bad and it doesnt really convince everyone that the situation is less bad than it really is. It wont stop weekly survey-test based studies from reporting increasing prevalence, and if the number of positive cases reported is increasingly limited by testing limits then this will show up via changes to the proportion of cases to hospitalisations.

Last September when the test system was under strain Hancock resorted to blaming people for creating too much demand for testing and that went down quite badly.

It is bloody inconvenient for anyone that needs to get a test, and it is something I have to take account of in the data. I'd much rather the system was able to cope with high levels of demand, but the best way to do that would be to keep the number of infections down to something far lower than we are seeing at present.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 15, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> They think it's all over ...


More like, They think _we_ think it's all over


----------



## andysays (Jul 15, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> I see you're shifting your position
> 
> It seems to me to be what they're doing. NHS staff are demoralised and exhausted. All their hard work isn't valued by the government, who feel the doctors and nurses should be chuffed with 1% when inflation's rather more than that
> 
> ...


I think a few years ago this idea might have seemed more in the realms of conspiracy theory, but today it appears all too believable, whether or not it is actual deliberate policy.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 15, 2021)

andysays said:


> I think a few years ago this idea might have seemed more in the realms of conspiracy theory, but today it appears all too believable, whether or not it is actual deliberate policy.


on march 15 2020 i would have poo-pooed the notion i put forwards. but after all the deaths and all the corruption and the decision to go full steam ahead at that iceberg i think it is - as you say - all too believable


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

If they kill it quickly then they have killed themselves politically.

If they kill it more slowly then more of what people are suggesting here becomes valid.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 15, 2021)

andysays said:


> I think a few years ago this idea might have seemed more in the realms of conspiracy theory, but today it appears all too believable, whether or not it is actual deliberate policy.



Less a deliberate policy than a general strategy of using every disaster or upheaval that comes along to push their agenda in ways that might not work in peacetime.


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

Things arent going well for my local testing centre. The backstory is they only just moved to this site recently, they were previously in a much larger carpark opposite the current site.









						PCR test centre forced to close over 'health and safety' issues
					

People were being turned away




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


----------



## two sheds (Jul 15, 2021)

I favour the view that they just don't care. The money they and their party and their mates get is just a bonus.


----------



## andysays (Jul 15, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> on march 15 2020 i would have poo-pooed the notion i put forwards. but after all the deaths and all the corruption and the decision to go full steam ahead at that iceberg i think it is - as you say - all too believable


I'm still not sure. 

They're *saying* that the pressures on the NHS won't be so severe now that most of the more vulnerable have been vaccinated.

Most sane people recognise that's still a bit of risk to be taking, but it's not impossible that they actually believe it, and aren't that bothered about the potential consequences, rather than going for a deliberate "overwhelm the NHS" policy, which is what you appear to be suggesting.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 15, 2021)

andysays said:


> I'm still not sure.
> 
> They're *saying* that the pressures on the NHS won't be so severe now that most of the more vulnerable have been vaccinated.
> 
> Most sane people recognise that's still a bit of risk to be taking, but it's not impossible that they actually believe it, and aren't that bothered about the potential consequences, rather than going for a deliberate "overwhelm the NHS" policy, which is what you appear to be suggesting.


for sure, the pressures on the nhs won't be so severe as they would have been without the vaccine. but everything that's coming from the nhs is that they need no extra pressure, that every patient coming in is taking attention and care away from other patients who have serious conditions or need surgery, and that this pressure is particularly acute in icu beds. and that was a little time ago, it must be worse now. so acting as the government are in deliberately ignoring the concerns of nhs staff and warnings of super-high waiting lists indicates, to me anyway, that they are not wholly unhappy to see these things.


----------



## MickiQ (Jul 15, 2021)

This Govt has proven both its ability to let its optimism trump reality and its inability to do much planning. When they originally picked the date of 19th July for 'Freedom Day', the science was probably telling them that there was a good chance that things would be largely under control by then. Along came the Delta variant which doesn't have to answer to either Parliament or the voters and completely f*cked up things up.
So they are now in a position of either having to change their plans and extend/deepen lockdown with all the public blowback that will entail since they have been trumpeting 19/07 for weeks or just go ahead and hope for the best.
They've gone for the second and are just hoping for the best. It's not so much a case of being sure that the NHS can cope as just hoping it can. When you've staked something high on an outcome (in this case their reputation) then people can get fairly obssesive about wishing for the outcome they want.


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> This Govt has proven both its ability to let its optimism trump reality and its inability to do much planning. When they originally picked the date of 19th July for 'Freedom Day', the science was probably telling them that there was a good chance that things would be largely under control by then. Along came the Delta variant which doesn't have to answer to either Parliament or the voters and completely f*cked up things up.
> So they are now in a position of either having to change their plans and extend/deepen lockdown with all the public blowback that will entail since they have been trumpeting 19/07 for weeks or just go ahead and hope for the best.
> They've gone for the second and are just hoping for the best. It's not so much a case of being sure that the NHS can cope as just hoping it can. When you've staked something high on an outcome (in this case their reputation) then people can get fairly obssesive about wishing for the outcome they want.


They originally picked June 21st for freedom day and it was Delta that made them delay it till July. Delta realities have also forced them to change the mood music, and delay the removal of certain self-isolation rules.

A proper response to Delta would have involved going much further than this, picking some brakes to slam on, or at the very least not being utter arseholes over mask policy.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 15, 2021)

Not to forget that last year they apparently deliberately chose 4th July ...

I wonder what other notable dates are left ...


----------



## Supine (Jul 15, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Not to forget that last year they apparently deliberately chose 4th July ...
> 
> I wonder what other notable dates are left ...



Bonfire night


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

Supine said:


> Bonfire night


Remember, remember the fifth wave of Covember.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 15, 2021)

Just missed Bastille Day, which was apparently used to protest against Covid restrictions:








						France protests: clashes with police on Bastille Day amid anger at tighter Covid rules
					

Demonstrations in Paris and other cities over plan for mandatory vaccinations for health workers and vaccine pass for public places




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Wilf (Jul 15, 2021)

We've had the change in tone around masks, TfL keeping masks, metropolitan mayors asking to keep restrictions on public transport.  Probably need a daily measure of how much johnson's 'freedom' policy has eroded.  Maybe include it on the Covid Dashboard.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 15, 2021)

I was pleased to find everyone (of adult age) in Lidl wearing masks today, but bemused by the local forest nursery who seemed to be on a "school trip" which involved parading a crocodile of toddlers up and down the aisles, weaving in and out of elderly couples/people in wheelchairs. What happened to "shop alone"? (And are there not more exciting places to take the children on a lovely sunny day like today?)


----------



## IC3D (Jul 15, 2021)

bimble


miss direct said:


> I was pleased to find everyone (of adult age) in Lidl wearing masks today, but bemused by the local forest nursery who seemed to be on a "school trip" which involved parading a crocodile of toddlers up and down the aisles, weaving in and out of elderly couples/people in wheelchairs. What happened to "shop alone"? (And are there not more exciting places to take the children on a lovely sunny day like today?)


Scammy twats get out of public woods and pay some rent. Doesn't suprise me one bit they shop at Lidl


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Pregnancy has been on lists for a while. Vulnerable but not extremely. I think pregnant women are likely well aware as literally from the day you declare you're pregnant everyone tells you everything dangerous.


Yes I should have been clearer that the knowledge about the risk is not new.

Whats new now is that they are concerned about vaccine uptake and so are doing a campaign about this.


----------



## bimble (Jul 15, 2021)

IC3D said:


> bimble
> 
> Scammy twats get out of public woods and pay some rent. Doesn't suprise me one bit they shop at Lidl


did you @ me because I live in the woods? Was just having a nap in a hollow tree not bothering a soul.


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

In the North East of England the number of positive cases detected in the under 30's is pretty similar to the totals for all age groups seen there in previous peaks.

These graphs feature 7 day averages, the raw daily numbers are actually much closer to 4000 now than these averages can indicate.



And here I attempt to show what percentage of cases each of these age groups (which I simplified by combining lots of 5 year sized age groups) provide over time.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> In the North East of England the number of positive cases detected in the under 30's is pretty similar to the totals for all age groups seen there in previous peaks.
> 
> These graphs feature 7 day averages, the raw daily numbers are actually much closer to 4000 now than these averages can indicate.
> 
> ...


so cases are starting to come down ?


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

ska invita said:


> so cases are starting to come down ?


Cant make that claim from this sort of data, its positives by specimen date so the most recent ones are incomplete and also the length of time to get test results has worsened due to stress on the system.

There has certainly been a slowdown in growth speeds, which have also fluctuated in the past. 

I will continue to make people aware that things could peak sooner than government, media, modelling etc have tended to imply, but that I wont be able to demonstrate that such a thing has actually happened until some time after the event.

All of the daily test-based indicators continue to imply that Scotland peaked a while ago. Then have to start looking at detail to see if these trends are the same for all age groups (last time I checked their cases in older people were not falling with the same timing).


----------



## bimble (Jul 15, 2021)

What could be the cause of it slowing down?


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

Changing behaviours, the virus struggling to find ever larger numbers of people to infect.

Changing behaviours include football, weather, people reacting to the grim news and number of cases, the number of people being told to self-isolate and doing so, the number of pubs, school year groups etc etc that end up getting closed by local public health teams, university students having finished with their end of term parties etc, and other things that are not leaping readily to mind as I type this.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> What could be the cause of it slowing down?


the vaccine roll out meaning a limit to numbers it can infect and spread onwards


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

But certainly at this moment, issues with test system capacity affecting the data cannot be ruled out. That sort of thing can be judged later by comparing the number of hospitalisations in a week or so to the case numbers at the time. Or getting clues from the percentage positive data.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 15, 2021)

...may be coming down in the NE, but still a way to go to peak in the south, from what i can gather. The NE had a big head start IIRC


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

For example it will be much easier to speak with confidence about Scotland peaking once their daily hospital admissions clearly demonstrate a peak. Unfortunately it looks like Scotland only releases that data once a week, on Wednesdays.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 15, 2021)

I don't buy that the government is trying to run the NHS into the ground so they can privatise it. Any government that ruined the NHS would be committing electoral suicide. The one thing that stopped the government from running with a herd immunity strategy from day 1 was the threat of the NHS being overwhelmed.

They can (and are) privatising it anyway regardless.


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

ska invita said:


> ...may be coming down in the NE, but still a way to go to peak in the south, from what i can gather. The NE had a big head start IIRC



Yes the timing varies per region and even more when we zoom in on individual locations, and thats expected to be even more relevant in this wave because in previous waves the peak timing was largely down to lockdown timing, which was the same across England.

The North West was ahead of everywhere else but their growth wobbled around at various points compared to the North East which was more obviously explosive and dramatic, overtaking the North West in some ways not so long ago.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 15, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I don't buy that the government is trying to run the NHS into the ground so they can privatise it. Any government that ruined the NHS would be committing electoral suicide. The one thing that stopped the government from running with a herd immunity strategy from day 1 was the threat of the NHS being overwhelmed.
> 
> They can (and are) privatising it anyway regardless.


By rights, just about everything they've done since 2010 should've caused their electoral suicide but it doesn't stop people being daft enough to vote them in.


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I don't buy that the government is trying to run the NHS into the ground so they can privatise it. Any government that ruined the NHS would be committing electoral suicide. The one thing that stopped the government from running with a herd immunity strategy from day 1 was the threat of the NHS being overwhelmed.
> 
> They can (and are) privatising it anyway regardless.


The plan is far more likely to be to take a risk and get ready to gloat if this wave, by some measures (very much not including positive cases), turns out to be fairly modest compared to the previous ones. And then use that to further the 'return to normality' agenda.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 15, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I don't buy that the government is trying to run the NHS into the ground so they can privatise it. Any government that ruined the NHS would be committing electoral suicide. The one thing that stopped the government from running with a herd immunity strategy from day 1 was the threat of the NHS being overwhelmed.
> 
> They can (and are) privatising it anyway regardless.


This isn't true, if you are not ill it is out of mind. The majority are fully stockholmed into basic needs and desires until you get ill that is. Id say the only people that care about the NHS are sick or their loved ones. A minority.


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

Polling has told them for many years in all sorts of ways what they can and cannot get away with in regards the NHS. There are some things they are wary of doing because of the NHSs cherished status, but that doesnt stop them taking the piss in other regards.

They are quite prepared to push their luck in terms of the eergency side of care. But there are clear limits in the pandemic that even they were not stupid enough to push beyond. Hence the number of u-turns Johnsons ended up having to perform in the past. If we dont get such u-turns this time it will be because admissions dont reach the levels that cause rapid doom, or if the variations in timing mean they can shuffle patients around the country more. They did a lot of that in the second wave and it didnt quite get the attention it deserved.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 15, 2021)

IC3D said:


> This isn't true, if you are not ill it is out of mind. The majority are fully stockholmed into basic needs and desires until you get ill that is. Id say the only people that care about the NHS are sick or their loved ones. A minority.


i’m not sure about that. In fact that is certainly not true


----------



## IC3D (Jul 15, 2021)

An example the


Orang Utan said:


> i’m not sure about that.


Ok guess how much we pay for a covid test sent from a ward to the testing service on site?

ETA wrong post


----------



## IC3D (Jul 15, 2021)

Anyway its £40 and my trust test every patient x3 per week


----------



## MrSki (Jul 15, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Anyway its £40 and my trust test every patient x3 per week


I was expecting £20 maybe £30 at a push. Is your on-site service contracted out?


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

Regarding peaks and changes in trajectory, I dont know if these sorts of charts are of interest but I find them useful at times.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 15, 2021)

MrSki said:


> I was expecting £20 maybe £30 at a push. Is your on-site service contracted out?


To Matt Hancock's niece, probably.


----------



## editor (Jul 15, 2021)

Virus takes off


----------



## bimble (Jul 15, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Id say the only people that care about the NHS are sick or their loved ones. A minority.


Nah. The nhs was even more important than brexit at the last election, so people claimed anyway,  but still we got these lot.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 15, 2021)

Must be living in a tree if you think that bimble People didn't vote Tory because they valued the nhs. Easy to say in a survey but reality does not reflect that.


----------



## bimble (Jul 15, 2021)

It’s possible they were all lying when they said they cared about the nhs.
people I think mostly just want it to function & to continue being free at point of use. The rest (public - private contracts, efficiency of) isn’t what most people mean when they say the nhs is important factor  for how they’ll vote.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 15, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> By rights, just about everything they've done since 2010 should've caused their electoral suicide but it doesn't stop people being daft enough to vote them in.


True, but allowing the NHS to fail completely would dwarf everything else that's happened.


IC3D said:


> This isn't true, if you are not ill it is out of mind. The majority are fully stockholmed into basic needs and desires until you get ill that is. Id say the only people that care about the NHS are sick or their loved ones. A minority.


Not true, people care about the NHS so much in this country it's practically a religion. There was a NHS component to the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony! Not to mention that we all got out our pots and pans to clap for it last year and everyone put rainbows in their windows. It's not like that in every country!


----------



## IC3D (Jul 15, 2021)

They believe its patriotic in the same nebulous way they clapped for underpaid nurses getting sick or dying while scraping by on low wages. Virtue signaling bimble


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 15, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Must be living in a tree if you think that bimble People didn't vote Tory because they valued the nhs. Easy to say in a survey but reality does not reflect that.


Hiring a bunch of nurses and policemen was basically their main election pledge (aside from Brexit)

How's that going by the way? 








						Boris Johnson's pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt
					

Number of nurses coming from EU fell again and coronavirus prevented further arrivals




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jul 15, 2021)

I see a lot more people experimenting with data shown using log scales these days, including myself. And Peston has noticed whats happened with hospitalisations in the youngest two age groups.


----------



## zahir (Jul 15, 2021)

The effect on the NHS




Also from that thread:


----------



## Wilf (Jul 15, 2021)

Operation 'Let's Make Sure Everybody Gets Covid' proceeds apace I see:









						Covid-19 in the UK
					

Explore the data on coronavirus in the UK.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




It was only on the 6th when they announced their devout hope that 100000 a day would get it. From memory it was only about 32000 then, so today's 48000 is a good start - about 50% up. Well done!


----------



## bimble (Jul 16, 2021)

'The need to isolate after exposure to a confirmed Covid case will be dropped for fully vaccinated people in England from 16 August.'

I get why they want to do this (can't have millions of people isolating instead of going to work) but have they actually attempted to explain their reasoning on public health grounds  - as in, if you've vaccinated it doesn't matter if you've been in contact with a confirmed case because .. . ?


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 16, 2021)

> I want to remind you all that we are still in Step 3 this weekend, so please remember to follow the guidance when you’re out and about or seeing friends and family....
> 
> Take care,
> Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol



I suppose he has to say something ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 16, 2021)

Now he speaks out, somewhat bloody late.



> *Boris Johnson could be forced to order new Covid lockdown curbs in five weeks, Chris Whitty has warned just days before Monday's "Freedom Day".*
> 
> The Chief Medical Officer sounded the alarm over a potential "scary" growth in hospitalisations which could leave the NHS "in trouble again surprisingly fast" once restrictions are lifted.
> 
> The top medic said if hospital admissions begin doubling and the jabs rollout was not "topping out" the pandemic, in "five, six, seven eight weeks' time" the Prime Minister may need to "look again" at restrictions.





> He said that the doubling time for hospital cases was "around three weeks" and while the number of hospitalisations was "mercifully much lower", it was "not trivial".
> 
> He said: "We've still got over 2000 people in hospital, and that number is increasing.
> 
> *"If we double from 2000 to 4000, from 4000 to 8000, to 8000 [from 8000 to 16000] and so on, it doesn't take many doubling times till you're into very very large numbers indeed."*











						Chris Whitty warns UK could be plunged back into restrictions in just 5 weeks
					

Speaking ahead of "Freedom Day", the Chief Medical Officer said a spike in hospitalisations could leave the NHS in "trouble again, surprisingly fast"



					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 16, 2021)

Lucy Frazer, Solicitor General for England & Wales, asked on Sky News about what Chris Whitty is saying, replied, 'if we get into a situation that is unacceptable, and we do need to put back further restrictions, of course it's something the government will look at.' 

It's almost like they are getting us ready for yet another U-turn.


----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2021)

We all know that if Boris says irreversible he actually means the opposite.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> We all know that if Boris says irreversible he actually means the opposite.


The original compulsive liar.


----------



## bimble (Jul 16, 2021)

behold, the most popular comment on the dm's report about covid football case numbers & what whitty said:


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 16, 2021)

Yeah. People I know just want to go back to normal -they don't personally know anyone that died, everyone got it mildly, they didn't have it, anyway we're vaccinated now...


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 16, 2021)

If, moving forward, people are compelled to face to face WCA or JC+ meetings will they have any right of refusal? I'm going to assume not. But it seems outrageous to force people into unsafe conditions like that. The local WCA office here has the pokiest waiting room. Social distancing would be impossible. 

Even though I'm vaxxed up and not exceptionally vulnerable, I find the idea of being forced to expose myself to this existential risk unreasonable. It shouldn't have come down to this


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Lucy Frazer, Solicitor General for England & Wales, asked on Sky News about what Chris Whitty is saying, replied, 'if we get into a situation that is unacceptable, and we do need to put back further restrictions, of course it's something the government will look at.'
> 
> It's almost like they are getting us ready for yet another U-turn.


I think Boris would actually prefer some restrictions, or to at least keep where we are (which isn't ideal either), it's just he didn't want to lose to Labour and thus have the 1922 committee breathing down his neck.

The cranks rule the roost over at Tory Towers


----------



## bimble (Jul 16, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> I think Boris would actually prefer some restrictions, or to at least keep where we are (which isn't ideal either), it's just he didn't want to lose to Labour and thus have the 1922 committee breathing down his neck.
> 
> The cranks rule the roost over at Tory Towers


yep this, i think its mostly just internal party stuff thats driving things (covid recovery group and all that). Maybe if he hadn't purged everyone that wasn't a rabid brexiteer (tend to be optimists) shortly before the pandemic but too late for that now.


----------



## maomao (Jul 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> behold, the most popular comment on the dm's report about covid football case numbers & what whitty said:
> View attachment 278729


Daily Mail comments are slightly more representative of 'public mood' than Urban but not much.


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jul 16, 2021)

Three covid wards open at James Cook as 30 patients admitted in 48 hours
Middlesbrough


----------



## bimble (Jul 16, 2021)

maomao said:


> Daily Mail comments are slightly more representative of 'public mood' than Urban but not much.


yeah, i shouldn't look but i do. I think of it as an arsehole barometer. 
Some  of it is just short attention spans, they were all scared enough on there last year.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 16, 2021)

Tesco and John Lewis will ask customers and staff to wear face masks
					

Retailers set out their policies for shops in England in run-up to end of restrictions on 19 July




					www.theguardian.com
				



Freedom day indeed.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 16, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Tesco and John Lewis will ask customers and staff to wear face masks
> 
> 
> Retailers set out their policies for shops in England in run-up to end of restrictions on 19 July
> ...


Ha! They're going to have to boycott eating.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

my employer is not only dropping most of restrictions but also mandatory track and trace. it’s madness


----------



## MrSki (Jul 16, 2021)

Not looking good.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> my employer is not only dropping most of restrictions but also mandatory track and trace. it’s madness


As someone who works in a similar role I share your concern.  I know lots of people around me will be maskless and I know there will be little I can do about them. 

So, for the sake of my teetering mental health, I'm taking a belt and braces approach. I've ordered proper FFP2 masks as they actually protect the wearer from infection. I feel a lot better about things now. I'm also reducing my hours because I'm lucky enough to be able to do so. I'm currently signed off too because when I heard what was happening on the 19th I got into a bit of a tizz. 

If you can do any of those things do it. Just being off for two weeks has helped me a lot. 

Life is too short to put up with the shit us in retail have had over the past 18 months. I know health workers have been on the front line but I feel like we've been in the reserve trenches taking shrapnel.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 16, 2021)

FFS this is insane. I'm not in greater Manchester but for some reason I got an ad related to that area on the radio just now. It sounded ominous as fuck:

'This is a message from the government. There is a variant of concern spreading across Greater Manchester. Please continue to keep 2 metres apart, minimise non essential travel etc etc'

A variant of concern spreading across Greater Manchester? Presumably they mean a variant that isn't Delta? So lifting of restrictions from Monday but a new variant of concern spreading in Manchester. More infection, more potential variants that escape vaccine. Beyond insanity.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 16, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> FFS this is insane. I'm not in greater Manchester but for some reason I got an ad related to that area on the radio just now.



It was probably a networking cock-up, someone putting the wrong ad into the playout system for the wrong local opt out, I've heard covid ads on behalf of the London mayor, on Greatest Hits Radio Sussex.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> 'The need to isolate after exposure to a confirmed Covid case will be dropped for fully vaccinated people in England from 16 August.'
> 
> I get why they want to do this (can't have millions of people isolating instead of going to work) but have they actually attempted to explain their reasoning on public health grounds  - as in, if you've vaccinated it doesn't matter if you've been in contact with a confirmed case because .. . ?


The flaw with that for me is that vaccines don't actually stop people getting Covid.  You get ballpark figures of around 70% protection after 2 jabs for the AZ, though off hand I don't remember how long after vaccinaton that is. Certainly they provide a fair amount of protection and then if you do get it, less severe symptoms.  All that adds up to a highly effective vaccine, but it's not the basis for a 'no masks, no social distancing, get back into work, go clubbing' policy.


----------



## zahir (Jul 16, 2021)

Starting now...


----------



## Wilf (Jul 16, 2021)

crossthebreeze said:


> Three covid wards open at James Cook as 30 patients admitted in 48 hours
> Middlesbrough


That's my local hospital.   

'The five areas with the biggest week-on-week rises are:

Middlesbrough (up from 454.0 to 961.8)
Redcar & Cleveland (468.1 to 923.8)
South Tyneside (937.9 to 1,375.7)
Allerdale (171.8 to 596.4)
Hartlepool (566.9 to 990.8)'









						Covid hospitalisations on rise as infections soar - list of cases in your area
					

Latest Public Health England data reveals that 288 of the country's 315 local authority areas have seen a week-on-week rise in cases, after Prof Chris Whitty sounded the alarm over hospitalisations




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Now he speaks out, somewhat bloody late.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The best time to speak out if seeking to minimise infections and change policy was before step 3 was implemented.

At the moment I think he is just saying these things now because there is an attempt to moderate peoples behaviour via this shift in mood music that we have seen in the last 10 days or so.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> my employer is not only dropping most of restrictions but also mandatory track and trace. it’s madness



Contact your union.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

Meanwhile a lot of the newspaper front pages are full of deadly moaning about the app having pinged half a million people in a week.

As I've said before, this is one of the few brakes that have been left in place to cope with this wave, for now anyway, but the reporting etc will erode this a bit.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Contact your union.


they’ve gone along with it


----------



## purenarcotic (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> my employer is not only dropping most of restrictions but also mandatory track and trace. it’s madness



That’s insane. We got an email yesterday saying absolutely nothing is changing and we’ve now made it a requirement that women coming into refuge must agree to perform LFT twice a week, even in the refuges we have where the flats are completely self-contained and nothing is shared.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 16, 2021)

zahir said:


> Starting now...



I'm half way through watching that. The considered view from scientists around the world is _'are you fucking bonkers_!'


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 16, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Tesco and John Lewis will ask customers and staff to wear face masks
> 
> 
> Retailers set out their policies for shops in England in run-up to end of restrictions on 19 July
> ...



More like a day when staff get to choose between having endless arguments with selfish, ignorant arseholes and just giving up and accepting the needless risk to their own health and that of the general public.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I'm half way through watching that. The considered view from scientists around the world is _'are you fucking bonkers_!'


I'm not watching it at the moment but I imagine its very similar to the start of the pandemic where experts in some countries thought the UKs original plan was satire.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> they’ve gone along with it



I wish I could say I'm surprised but my union also folded on this ages back.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I wish I could say I'm surprised but my union also folded on this ages back.


we’ve been told that we need to fully open again to get people visiting so our service doesn’t get taken away cos no one uses it. which is basically a threat


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

Ask to see their risk assessment.


----------



## teqniq (Jul 16, 2021)

International pariah, here we come:









						Boris Johnson’s Covid policy poses ‘danger to the world’, international scientists warn
					

International experts convene emergency summit ahead of England’s unlocking




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

I've already commented on the mask bit of this survey on another thread, but heres the bit about how worried people are by the easing of restrictions:







__





						Two-thirds of adults still plan to wear masks in shops and on public transport - Office for National Statistics
					

Limits on social contact and many other coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions will be eased in England and Scotland from 19 July 2021 and in Wales from 7 August.  What are people looking forward to, and which coronavirus restrictions will they continue to follow?



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## xenon (Jul 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I'm half way through watching that. The considered view from scientists around the world is _'are you fucking bonkers_!'



Yeah. I don't really bother with these things normally. But...

I paraphrase.
Taking away the umbrella when it's raining hard and many people still don't have rain coats.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm not watching it at the moment but I imagine its very similar to the start of the pandemic where experts in some countries thought the UKs original plan was satire.


There's genuine bemusement amongst the science bods about the UK/England's plan.  They are currently making it clear that Whitty's claim about a scientific consensus was equally crazy.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 16, 2021)

I have to try not to think about the fact that with the knowledge we have about this virus and the vaccines we have available we could now be at a point where we were removing restrictions without this demented mass sacrifice of health and lives. We could be at a point where we genuinely had this fucking thing on the ropes and could really start to think about normality and not just the latest act of an everlasting shitshow.

The one upside I can think of is that Javid and pals are on record stating that they know the cost, they know the risks, and they're doing it anyway. That'll be important somewhere down the line I reckon.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 16, 2021)

You still have to pull yourself up short, to get your head round what they are planning (in fact what is already happening):_ the *deliberate *infection of a population, to maximise the spread of an disease that hospitalises, kills and has long term health impacts. That's what our government is *deliberately *doing._


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 16, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I have to try not to think about the fact that with the knowledge we have about this virus and the vaccines we have available we could now be at a point where we were removing restrictions without this demented mass sacrifice of health and lives. We could be at a point where we genuinely had this fucking thing on the ropes and could really start to think about normality and not just the latest act of an everlasting shitshow.
> 
> The one upside I can think of is that Javid and pals are on record stating that they know the cost, they know the risks, and they're doing it anyway. That'll be important somewhere down the line I reckon.


We were at that point, the Alpha variant was in decline until the spread of Delta.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Meanwhile a lot of the newspaper front pages are full of deadly moaning about the app having pinged half a million people in a week.
> 
> As I've said before, this is one of the few brakes that have been left in place to cope with this wave, for now anyway, but the reporting etc will erode this a bit.


Can't imagine why it's pinging so often now.

Just turn if off. Out of sight out of mind, right?

Fucking madness


----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2021)

Glad to hear more talk about N95/FFP2 masks on urban recently.

It’s going to be really important that we protect ourselves for the next few months. None of this relying on others is going to cut it.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> You still have to pull yourself up short, to get your head round what they are planning (in fact what is already happening):_ the *deliberate *infection of a population, to maximise the spread of an disease that hospitalises, kills and has long term health impacts. That's what our government is *deliberately *doing._


When they first confirmed the lifting of restrictions, I thought "Well, I just hope they know what they're doing." Now I'm like "They do! That's the problem."


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I have to try not to think about the fact that with the knowledge we have about this virus and the vaccines we have available we could now be at a point where we were removing restrictions without this demented mass sacrifice of health and lives. We could be at a point where we genuinely had this fucking thing on the ropes and could really start to think about normality and not just the latest act of an everlasting shitshow.
> 
> The one upside I can think of is that Javid and pals are on record stating that they know the cost, they know the risks, and they're doing it anyway. That'll be important somewhere down the line I reckon.


I dont see how we could genuinely be at that point now.

If we had delayed and reduced the arrival and spread of Delta then things would look at a lot better at the moment, but then we'd reduce restrictions based on everything going well, and would end up in the same boat, just with different timing.

The knowledge we have about the virus would, in a sane system, translate into keeping various restrictions. Not all of them all of the time, but certainly nothing like the UK plan this year so far.

And even if we had waited to vaccinate more people with two doses before proceeding with relaxation, we would still end up going through a period of uncertainty where we take off some of the brakes and then watch to see whether levels of population immunity can prevent major waves from developing.

So there would always have been that moment of truth, where the proof of the pudding was demonstrated via the eating. But yes we could certainly have set ourselves up better for a greater chance of success in that phase. We could have reduced the number of lives lost or damaged in this phase.

Israel at the moment is not a bad example of this. They were a bit more careful than us and then they moved to see if vaccines could carry all the load, quickly decided they couldnt and so reimposed certain restrictions. How far they will have to go with restrictions remains to be seen, but at this stage they are a demonstration of why the idea of the virus being 'on the ropes' is part of what dooms us to these cycles. False dawns are everywhere. Over time some of these do end up having far more genuine substance than before, but still far from being able to declare total victory.

I cannot tell how quickly this description will become obsolete. If we peak without a giant u-turn being involved then there will be much greater temptation to declare victory, but the authorities already know that this could be down to a mix of behaviours and immunity, rather than immunity alone, and that autumn/winter will come with increased risk in some ways.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> The flaw with that for me is that vaccines don't actually stop people getting Covid.  You get ballpark figures of around 70% protection after 2 jabs for the AZ, though off hand I don't remember how long after vaccinaton that is.


For infection in the wider population we are looking at a peak of 65-90% a few weeks after the second dose (PHE COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report, week 28). It varies widely from individual to individual (degrees of) and over time, initially peaking, then waning after a few months (though perhaps typically to a lesser degree for those with prior infection). Transmission reduction is, of course, lower - something around 50% (perhaps; could be less reduction) - and is likely to be modulated in a not dissimilar fashion.


----------



## zahir (Jul 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I'm half way through watching that. The considered view from scientists around the world is _'are you fucking bonkers_!'



Report here:








						England’s Covid unlocking is threat to world, say 1,200 scientists
					

International experts say ‘unethical experiment’ could allow vaccine-resistant variants to develop




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Wilf (Jul 16, 2021)

Amid the government's highly risky strategy, the capacity of the NHS to deal with the rise in hospitalisations will be key (to some king of U turn). I wonder if the Nightingale hospitals will feature again, though I know at least one is being used as a vaccination centre?  If they do, that will be a massive symbol of failure and _may _be a point where public opinion will shift against the government.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Amid the government's highly risky strategy, the capacity of the NHS to deal with the rise in hospitalisations will be key (to some king of U turn). I wonder if the Nightingale hospitals will feature again, though I know at least one is being used as a vaccination centre?  If they do, that will be a massive symbol of failure and _may _be a point where public opinion will shift against the government.



In many ways they are a red herring, and service pressure and prolitical pressure would reach unsustainable levels in other ways before they were needed.

I never say never because of things like new variants, and certainly there is a different ratio of hospitalised to hospitalised in intensive care patients these days which will challenge intensive care capacity if things go past a certain point. But other options are available to them, especially if there are large differences between the regions in terms of numbers and timing - they will shuffle patients around the country like they did in the second wave.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

This weeks ONS infection survey came a bit too soon to clearly see Scotlands peak, although there are hints of it, so will have to wait another week for stronger signs of that from this data source. By which time there should also be more clues via Scotlands daily hospital admission figures (which only seem to come out once a week these days).





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

Estimates for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This survey is being delivered in partnership with University of Oxford, University of Manchester, Public Health England and Wellcome Trust. This study is jointly led by the ONS and the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC)...



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




Their estimate for England overall is that 1 in 95 people in the general community have had the virus in the week ending July 10th.


----------



## bimble (Jul 16, 2021)

zahir said:


> Report here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


i feel embarrassed, like the Uk is that maskless man in a crowded bus shouting and spluttering about Freedom. 
if we do produce & export some successful new variant, like everyone seems to think is likely, then Johnson's stupid face will be at the podium making jokes and saying who could have predicted such a thing.


----------



## RileyOBlimey (Jul 16, 2021)

I can’t say I’m impressed with Chris Whitty’s comment on potential “scary numbers”. This sounds like the crap Boris would spout to paint those voicing concerns as a bit of a wuss.









						Covid-19: Whitty says case levels may get 'scary' and warning on organ damage
					

Five things you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic this Friday morning.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> i feel embarrassed, like the Uk is that maskless man in a crowded bus shouting and spluttering about Freedom.
> if we do produce & export some successful new variant, like everyone seems to think is likely, then Johnson's stupid face will be at the podium making jokes and saying who could have predicted such a thing.



I'm glad the WHO recommendation for calling variants "Delta" instead of "Indian" etc. was widely adopted, but an exception should be made to get Johnson's name associated with any new variant that does come out of this.


----------



## RileyOBlimey (Jul 16, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> I'm glad the WHO recommendation for calling variants "Delta" instead of "Indian" etc. was widely adopted, but an exception should be made to get Johnson's name associated with any new variant that does come out of this.



Someone on here has coined the coming variant Javid-19


----------



## existentialist (Jul 16, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I have to try not to think about the fact that with the knowledge we have about this virus and the vaccines we have available we could now be at a point where we were removing restrictions without this demented mass sacrifice of health and lives. We could be at a point where we genuinely had this fucking thing on the ropes and could really start to think about normality and not just the latest act of an everlasting shitshow.
> 
> The one upside I can think of is that Javid and pals are on record stating that they know the cost, they know the risks, and they're doing it anyway. That'll be important somewhere down the line I reckon.


That *should *be important somewhere down the line. I fear that it will be too late by then, and this clique of liars, fraudsters, and feathers of nests will be happily rolling in dollar bills and signing up for non-executive directorships and memoir contracts by the time any accounting comes home to roost.

It really, really needs to be a People's Accounting. With lamp-posts.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 16, 2021)

RileyOBlimey said:


> Someone on here has coined the coming variant Javid-19


elbows has the credit for that one.


----------



## Numbers (Jul 16, 2021)

existentialist said:


> elbows has the credit for that one.


And it doesn’t stop there.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

existentialist said:


> elbows has the credit for that one.


Although the other day I finally got round to searching for the term on twitter and wasnt really surprised to see that loads of people thought of it quite a long time before I did!


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Although the other day I finally got round to searching for the term on twitter and wasnt really surprised to see that loads of people thought of it quite a long time before I did!


I honestly thought I'd invented Matt Handjob before I read it here.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

Original thoughts are overrated anyway, most of the time the best we can hope for is an original combination of unoriginal thoughts, expressed in a refreshing way that puts the zest back into life


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

RileyOBlimey said:


> I can’t say I’m impressed with Chris Whitty’s comment on potential “scary numbers”. This sounds like the crap Boris would spout to paint those voicing concerns as a bit of a wuss.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thats not how he was meaning to use it at all, quite the opposite, he was calling them scary numbers because they should quite rightly scare people. And he and Vallance were just the sort of people that the right-wing anti-lockdown idiots tried to write off as being professors of gloom and doom when a wave arrived last autumn.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

51,870 UK cases reported today.


----------



## RileyOBlimey (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Thats not how he was meaning to use it at all, quite the opposite, he was calling them scary numbers because they should quite rightly scare people. And he and Vallance were just the sort of people that the right-wing anti-lockdown idiots tried to write off as being professors of gloom and doom when a wave arrived last autumn.



If that was the case then they should have broken rank by now.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

RileyOBlimey said:


> If that was the case then they should have broken rank by now.


The closest he has come to breaking rank was last autumn when he and Vallance ended up doing their own press conference because Johnson wasnt interested.

The lack of resignations on matters of principal in this pandemic are a sign of what sorts of people end up in such roles, they are compatible with a broad swathe of disgraceful establishment shit. There are still some limits, but we havent reached them much in this pandemic.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

I moaned the other day that Whitty didnt go on about ventilation in the press conference and Vallance had to add that bit. I note that in the webinar that Whitty participated in that the press have reported on quite widely today, he did remember to mention ventilation.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> 51,870 UK cases reported today.


_That's 51% of the way to the 100,000 Blue Peter Appeal Javid total._


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 16, 2021)

RileyOBlimey said:


> I can’t say I’m impressed with Chris Whitty’s comment on potential “scary numbers”. This sounds like the crap Boris would spout to paint those voicing concerns as a bit of a wuss.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


it's just trolling at this point. "scary numbers" while doing fuck all about it except bending the knee to boris.

Fuck's sake. If this clown really cared about the community he'd speak out, surely.

I watched the latest presentation from The Scientists. At this point their Greatest Hits Tour is getting repetitive  

Inappropriate humour aside, I was concerned when Dr Scally said that 'face coverings' aren't good enough. Now I'm not sure whether he means regular cloth masks or the stupid idiots in Tesco who pull up their t shirt over their nose and try and grab a Red Bull quickly, as if someone had farted. I have a cloth mask. Not sure where I'd get anything else.

was also concerned by the NZ doctor's comments that because of this we aren't going to achieve proper herd immunity as the threshold will be much higher/the vaccine isn't strong enough.

We are dooming ourselves to covid groundhog day.

Fuck the Tories. And frankly fuck all the politicians. I've heard not a peep from Starmer. If nothing else they should be organising a proper opposition party and at least trying for a vote of no confidence. If not now, when?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> 51,870 UK cases reported today.



So much for 'we could see 50k daily cases by freedom day'.  

The cunts.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> So much for 'we could see 50k daily cases by freedom day'.
> 
> The cunts.


I'm upgrading my British Rage Status to officially _cheesed off_

I hope I don't upset the vicar.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> So much for 'we could see 50k daily cases by freedom day'.
> 
> The cunts.


Hancock tried his best but was struggling. The new guy's hit the ground running, well done Tories!


----------



## andysays (Jul 16, 2021)

I expressed my concerns a while back that the relaxing of restrictions would lead to my council workplace being expected to go back to normal pre-Covid working, but a week ago we all had an email from our Acting Chief Executive saying the following

_


Spoiler: Spoiler in case it's googleable without



You will hopefully have seen the Prime Minister’s broadcast earlier this week confirming the Government’s plans to remove lockdown restrictions from 19 July. In his update the Prime Minister explained that further details will be shared by Ministers in the coming days and the Government plans to formally confirm their decision on Monday 12 July.

As we expected, it is clear that careful planning will be needed to review the guidance that the Government will be issuing and decide how we should apply this in our workplaces, customer service spaces and our venues. While the legal restrictions are due to be removed, the Prime Minister warned us that 'It's not time to get demob happy' and he made it clear that we will all be expected to continue to act with caution. We must also make sure that we carry out our health and safety duties responsibly and consider our public health leadership role in <name of council removed>.

We are currently finalising updates to our guidance on the precautions you should take when carrying out work that involves visiting people’s homes. This will help colleagues and services as they make their plans to step up services in line with lockdown easing.

As I have explained in my previous updates to you, our office arrangements will remain as they currently are until at least the start of September. It is important that for those staff who can, you should continue to work from home where possible and only use our ‘Covid secure’ office spaces when necessary for work purposes or personal health and wellbeing reasons. We have and will continue to provide ‘Covid secure’ office space where needed for service or individual needs - this can be organised through your service’s Office Champions.

Thank you again for your continued hard work making sure that we continue to deliver the vital services that our community and local economy rely on.


_
So I thought everything was OK for now. But today our immediate 
service manager has sent this out, to supervisors only, expecting them to explain it to the rest of the workforce

_


Spoiler: Also spoilered



As I am sure you are all aware the government is lifting covid restrictions in a bid to return to normal. As such the measures that we had put in place , although gradually decreasing in line with our covid risk assessments will now stop. 

Thank you all for your commitment to these temporary rules during a difficult period and lets hope we can remain in our "back to normal" position.


_
Still awaiting the official response from the unions (I think it may have taken them by surprise, TBH), but the mood among the workforce is not good...


----------



## miss direct (Jul 16, 2021)

I'm very pleased to have been getting emails from various train companies, tour organisations, food banks, etc, all saying they are sticking to masks. Interesting email about trains that go between Scotland and England and vice versa. 

_Whilst social distancing guidance remains in place in Scotland, we have reached an agreement with Transport Scotland that LNER will operate under English guidance. This will ensure a consistent experience for customers on our cross-border services. However, face coverings remain mandatory in Scotland for the time being._


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

This is the context of the Whitty comment about scary numbers. Mostly the usual attempts to explain exponential growth.


----------



## andysays (Jul 16, 2021)

In other news, I spent most of this afternoon arranging a second vaccination for one of my team members.

He's 63 years old, and has learning difficulties, and no family or support worker to help him.

I've been trying to help him get it sorted for a while, but with no success, so this afternoon we finally had to go together to his GP surgery and arrange things with the receptionist (who was really helpful). He now has an appointment for his second jab next Thursday afternoon.

I'm sure part of the reason vaccination rates are low in some areas isn't because people are choosing not to get vaccinated but because many simply aren't able to access the system themselves and don't have the support to help them do so.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Now he speaks out, somewhat bloody late.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Wtf? There were over 2000 people in hospital on _July 3rd_! 

Anyway - glad he's been shamed into saying _something_ now - that clip from The Lancet editor (posted here recently) was very scathing of his comments on 'agreement' from scientists.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 16, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Wtf? There were over 2000 people in hospital on _July 3rd_!


Yep, and 3,964 reported for the 15th July, so around double in 2 weeks, rather than the 3 weeks he talks about.   









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## BassJunkie (Jul 16, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Less a deliberate policy than a general strategy of using every disaster or upheaval that comes along to push their agenda in ways that might not work in peacetime.


"That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital."
Noam Chomsky,


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Wtf? There were over 2000 people in hospital on _July 3rd_!
> 
> Anyway - glad he's been shamed into saying _something_ now - that clip from The Lancet editor (posted here recently) was very scathing of his comments on 'agreement' from scientists.


Stuff he is saying now is being said for the same reasons he said certain things in the press conference on Monday, the 'trying to get people to cahnge their behaviours slowly' thing.

And that was the same press conference where he characterised broader scientific opinion in ways that I knew would wind people up.

His performances are no surprise to me because this is after all one of the people that stood behind the podiums in the first half of March 2020 and tried to sell us on the original government 'herd immunity' plan. And then had to stand there and look consistent whilst they u-turned on that plan.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

Plus Vallance said Whitty shouted at him when Vallance wanted to lockdown faster once they started to u-turn in March 2020. Not that Vallance is impressive either.


----------



## Sue (Jul 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> In other news, I spent most of this afternoon arranging a second vaccination for one of my team members.
> 
> He's 63 years old, and has learning difficulties, and no family or support worker to help him.
> 
> ...


You're a good man, andysays


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Stuff he is saying now is being said for the same reasons he said certain things in the press conference on Monday, the 'trying to get people to cahnge their behaviours slowly' thing.
> 
> And that was the same press conference where he characterised broader scientific opinion in ways that I knew would wind people up.
> 
> His performances are no surprise to me because this is after all one of the people that stood behind the podiums in the first half of March 2020 and tried to sell us on the original government 'herd immunity' plan. And then had to stand there and look consistent whilst they u-turned on that plan.



But he's used a hospitalisation figure that is half of the _actual_ total?!
I mean I'm not the fucking CMO but even I can work that much out. 
Have I misunderstood? It doesn't relate to admissions or patients in ICU... but I've also watched the clip and the reporting of it is exactly what was said.
Just seems a bit bizarre for the chief CMO to have forgotten (?) the figures, even if it doesn't minimize the point he's apparently (finally  ) trying to make.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 16, 2021)

Sue said:


> You're a good man, andysays



Yes, very much this. Good on you.


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> but because many simply aren't able to access the system themselves and don't have the support to help them do so.


I’m sure this is so. And well done.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> But he's used a hospitalisation figure that is half of the _actual_ total?!
> I mean I'm not the fucking CMO but even I can work that much out.
> Have I misunderstood? It doesn't relate to admissions or patients in ICU... but I've also watched the clip and the reporting of it is exactly what was said.
> Just seems a bit bizarre for the chief CMO to have forgotten (?) the figures, even if it doesn't minimize the point he's apparently (finally  ) trying to make.


I cant tell you why he made that mistake.

If forced to guess then the best I'd probably come up with is that 'a little over 2000' was a good fit for the number for Covid-19 patients in hospitals in England on July 7th when SAGE had a meeting to look at the unlocking step, a moment which then probably involved him having to brief people like Johnson, who probably needed a similar lesson about epidemic exponential growth. Maybe numbers from that period are burned into his brain.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 16, 2021)

A SAGE flavoured thread...


----------



## andysays (Jul 16, 2021)

Sue said:


> You're a good man, andysays


Thanks.

I don't want to make a big thing out of it, because it just seems like a normal decent human thing to do, to help someone who needs a bit of help, but the juxtaposition of the two things that have happened at work today certainly got me a bit fired up


----------



## editor (Jul 16, 2021)

The graph is almost totally vertical now


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 16, 2021)

I'm just .


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> Glad to hear more talk about N95/FFP2 masks on urban recently.
> 
> It’s going to be really important that we protect ourselves for the next few months. None of this relying on others is going to cut it.



Those masks are beyond my budget. And will be for many. I'm just not going to use public transport or go inside anywhere that isn't my flat, for a while. I'm lucky, I can do that. I'm not employed, nor am I a carer for anybody, and I am well enough to cycle.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 16, 2021)

"world-beating" [but not in a good way].

I'm dreading the next few weeks, even doubled-jabbed and able to safely "hide" away for much of the time.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 16, 2021)

Plagueisland is trending on the twitters. 
Even though I've been double jabbed, 
I'm getting very nervous about about going out at all. 

Perhaps policy will change when every other country puts the UK in their Red Lists.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> I cant tell you why he made that mistake.
> 
> If forced to guess then the best I'd probably come up with is that 'a little over 2000' was a good fit for the number for Covid-19 patients in hospitals in England on July 7th when SAGE had a meeting to look at the unlocking step, a moment which then probably involved him having to brief people like Johnson, who probably needed a similar lesson about epidemic exponential growth. Maybe numbers from that period are burned into his brain.



That makes sense, and the numbers for England on that day would match up with a doubling over three weeks, albeit that that has already reduced to two weeks now (which he vaguely suggested might be happening). 
Just seems important to know the correct current numbers if/when they're actually being used to illustrate such massive points (or just _anyway_, tbh), even when there is already some other dishonesty involved, iyswim!


----------



## editor (Jul 16, 2021)

Storm Fox said:


> Plagueisland is trending on the twitters.
> Even though I've been double jabbed,
> I'm getting very nervous about about going out at all.
> 
> Perhaps policy will change when every other country puts the UK in their Red Lists.


I'm kind of glad I've got the inevitable out of the way now - and that it's been so mild (thus far).


----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Those masks are beyond my budget. And will be for many. I'm just not going to use public transport or go inside anywhere that isn't my flat, for a while. I'm lucky, I can do that. I'm not employed, nor am I a carer for anybody.



by reusing it’s costing me 90p per week. Not free but not hugely expensive.


----------



## cuppa tee (Jul 16, 2021)

i was wondering how much football in pubs, homes and stadiums might have contributed to the big jumps we are seeing, stats will tell us more in time but this came to my attention today.....








						Swathes of England fans report coming down with 'Wembley variant' after Euro 2020 final — inews
					

One fan said he knew of people who had tested positive for the virus and gone to the match regardless




					apple.news


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 16, 2021)

And now Norovirus has joined the party.


----------



## purenarcotic (Jul 16, 2021)

What are the other countries doing differently? My understanding is we had much higher vaccination uptake than on the continent, so what restrictions do they still have that we don’t? I can’t believe you still can’t go to the pub or get your hair cut, so what are they doing right that we aren’t? Restrictions on numbers? Better track and trace?


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> by reusing it’s costing me 90p per week. Not free but not hugely expensive.



The only ones I've seen for sale are single use.

I'd rather not risk re-using them.

Also as I understand it, to really protect you they'd need to be specifically fitted to your face, not just generic ones.

But I appreciate there are degrees of protection, and we all do what we can in our various circumstances.


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 16, 2021)

With any luck every other country will ban travel to and from the uk. For their sakes and maybe even ours.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 16, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> What are the other countries doing differently? My understanding is we had much higher vaccination uptake than on the continent, so what restrictions do they still have that we don’t? I can’t believe you still can’t go to the pub or get your hair cut, so what are they doing right that we aren’t? Restrictions on numbers? Better track and trace?



We imported the Delta variant & let it rip, which is why we are in the shit, it's only just starting to take off in the rest of Europe, no doubt partly because Brits have seeded it in holiday hotspots.


----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> The only ones I've seen for sale are single use.
> 
> I'd rather not risk re-using them.
> 
> ...



The next level up requires fit testing. N95 fits superbly to almost everyones face, significantly better than surgical or cloth masks.

Buy five and swap them around daily. Covid doesn’t live on surfaces so you can mitigate contamination risks by doing that.

Single use doesn’t mean they fall apart or stop having electostatic protective properties after a few hours (although washing them may well bugger up that protection they offer so just let them sit on a shelf between uses).


----------



## 2hats (Jul 16, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> What are the other countries doing differently?


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 16, 2021)

2hats said:


>


He looks so much like the first Blackadder in that shot. The rest of the time, he's Baldrick. "Are the words 'I have a cunning plan' marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?"


----------



## purenarcotic (Jul 16, 2021)

2hats said:


>



Sure, but day to day on the ground what is different. I know we’re run by a bunch of morons, that’s not quite what I’m trying to understand though.


----------



## purenarcotic (Jul 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> We imported the Delta variant & let it rip, which is why we are in the shit, it's only just starting to take off in the rest of Europe, no doubt partly because Brits have seeded it in holiday hotspots.



Is that literally it though, the variant I mean? They are all as open as we are?


----------



## bimble (Jul 16, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> Sure, but day to day on the ground what is different. I know we’re run by a bunch of morons, that’s not quite what I’m trying to understand though.


Spoke to my dad earlier, in Switzerland. Currently ..398 confirmed cases in the country, up from 60 so concerning.
Same basic rules as us (masks indoors in public places etc) the ones we are ditching on Monday. With 50,000 or whatever cases.
It’s the combination of our exceptional case numbers & our wild abandonment that makes us special.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> The next level up requires fit testing. N95 fits superbly to almost everyones face, significantly better than surgical or cloth masks.
> 
> Buy five and swap them around daily. Covid doesn’t live on surfaces so you can mitigate contamination risks by doing that.
> 
> Single use doesn’t mean they fall apart or stop having electostatic protective properties after a few hours (although washing them may well bugger up that protection they offer so just let them sit on a shelf between uses).



OK thanks, that makes sense, and is useful info. Appreciated.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> Is that literally it though, the variant I mean? They are all as open as we are?


You really have to wait, the biggest difference is timing. Not just timing of Delta seeding, but timing of previous waves, timing of restictions being imposed and relaxed.

Many countries in Europe had an Alpha wave quite a bit later than us (since we were the source of that variant). So their previous waves were often less time ago than ours.

And look at places like the Netherlands - they massively relaxed restrictions and then had to u-turn very quickly because their case numbers exploded really quickly. And unlike the UK, they hadnt planned for that level of growth in cases that quickly, so they u-turned and their leader even apologised for poor judgement.

I havent checked too many countries in detail recently, if I remember correctly then in addition to the Netherlands woes, Spain and Malta were going wrong. Oh and Greece, with a different variant.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 16, 2021)

Sky News is reporting that the government is considering putting France on the 'red list'. 









						COVID-19: Ministers to decide if France will be moved to red travel list within days
					

Sources have told Sky News that ministers are under pressure to make a decision before the end of the school term.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News is reporting that the government is considering putting France on the 'red list'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Does that help keep Andrew Neil out of the country?


----------



## purenarcotic (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> You really have to wait, the biggest difference is timing. Not just timing of Delta seeding, but timing of previous waves, timing of restictions being imposed and relaxed.
> 
> Many countries in Europe had an Alpha wave quite a bit later than us (since we were the source of that variant). So their previous waves were often less time ago than ours.
> 
> ...



Thank you, that’s really helpful.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 16, 2021)

I suppose that's one day to spin things - put the rest of the world on the red list...

plus of course UK tourism industry ...


----------



## Raheem (Jul 16, 2021)

editor said:


> I'm kind of glad I've got the inevitable out of the way now - and that it's been so mild (thus far).


Not necessarily. Pretty sure I've had it twice (once vanilla, once delta), including once after I'd had my first jab.


----------



## editor (Jul 16, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Not necessarily. Pretty sure I've had it twice (once vanilla, once delta), including once after I'd had my first jab.


Unless you got tested you'll never know for sure though, and if you do get it the second time (which is very rare it seems) it's likely to be mild 









						You can catch covid-19 twice, but the second bout is likely to be mild
					

Several studies suggest that reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 is fairly rare in Europe and the US and when it does happen, symptoms are less severe second time round




					www.newscientist.com


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> The next level up requires fit testing. N95 fits superbly to almost everyones face, significantly better than surgical or cloth masks.
> 
> Buy five and swap them around daily. Covid doesn’t live on surfaces so you can mitigate contamination risks by doing that.
> 
> Single use doesn’t mean they fall apart or stop having electostatic protective properties after a few hours (although washing them may well bugger up that protection they offer so just let them sit on a shelf between uses).


the only reason i don’t use single use is cos of the waste


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 16, 2021)

Loads of batshit stuff in this article, including -



> On Friday it emerged that ministers have shelved proposals to urgently overhaul the app, however, which currently detects if a person has been within two metres of someone with Covid for more than 15 minutes and tells them to isolate for 10 days.
> 
> No 10 did not deny reports that people had been pinged through walls but said this would not affect a “large number” of people. It was a “matter for individuals” if they wanted to close windows at home to stop getting told to isolate, a spokesperson said.



So, in hot weather, and where we have been encouraged to invite visitors into our home with some obvious sensible guidance about ventilation/opening windows and doors, we should also _shut_ them, to avoid getting pinged by next door (and/or to take personal responsibility for that happening)? 

Eta - not to say I'm not relieved that they won't be tweaking the app to make it less sensitive to a more contagious variant, while also fuelling the spread.

And...



> In a further sign that Downing Street has abandoned the notion that its roadmap is “irreversible”, the prime minister’s spokesperson also declined to rule out reimposing some lockdown restrictions but said Johnson wanted to avoid it “given the huge economic, social and health costs there are as a result”.
> 
> Contingency plans which outline “reimposing economic and social restrictions at a local, regional or national level if evidence suggests they are necessary to suppress or manage a dangerous variant”, are available, the Downing Street source said, but these would only be used as a “last resort to prevent unsustainable pressure on the NHS”, which it is not currently facing.
> 
> *But Lord Bethell, a health minister, signalled there would be no return to mandatory mask wearing, which will be dropped in most settings from Monday. He told the Lords on Friday: “Were we to mandate it, what is the option for the country? Are we going to issue tens of millions of fines to those who do not wear masks? If they do not wear them, will we lock them up in prison?”*



I mean... do what we've already been doing for months and months, with no need to 'issue _tens of millions_ of fines', let alone sling people in prison. It's not exactly an either/or situation, is it?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 16, 2021)

editor said:


> Unless you got tested you'll never know for sure though, and if you do get it the second time (which is very rare it seems) it's likely to be mild
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I can't read all of that - can you/someone c&p, please?


----------



## a_chap (Jul 16, 2021)




----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> the only reason i don’t use single use is cos of the waste



so don’t single use them. Its no safer to multi use another type of mask. The manufacturer cant say multiple use because they cant take responsibility for their product eternally.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> so don’t single use them. Its no safer to multi use another type of mask.


not if it comes apart in a washing machine or is less effective afterwads


----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> not if it comes apart in a washing machine or is less effective afterwads



how often do you wash yours?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> how often do you wash yours?


after each use


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 16, 2021)

Don't put an FFP2 in a washing machine or in fact wash it at all.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> Does that help keep Andrew Neil out of the country?



Doubtful, under government guidelines Andrew Neil classes as good for the economy and bypasses all rona controls and immigration barriers whereas a refugee who'll work there arses of to survive doesn't.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Don't put an FFP2 in a washing machine or in fact wash it at all.


will it fall apart? i've just bought some disposables but can't afford to be using one just once. May end up sticking with the cloth ones, which also have the benefit of not going on your ears, which start getting irritated only about an hour of wearing them?
There must be some washable ones out there


----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> after each use



fair play.

It’s a question of odds though isn’t it. The protection from different masks is something like:

n95 95-98% personal and protection for others
Blue surgical 60-70% 
Cloth 20-40%
Face Shields 2%

I have no idea how washing the things changes those percentages.  I’m happiest at the top of that list but each to their own


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> will it fall apart? i've just bought some disposables but can't afford to be using one just once. May end up sticking with the cloth ones, which also have the benefit of not going on your ears, which start getting irritated only about an hour of wearing them?
> There must be some washable ones out there



Your mask becomes garbage and doesn't work.

You shouldn't even be reusing them really


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Your mask becomes garbage and doesn't work.
> 
> You shouldn't even be reusing them really


that's me out then


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> will it fall apart? i've just bought some disposables but can't afford to be using one just once. May end up sticking with the cloth ones, which also have the benefit of not going on your ears, which start getting irritated only about an hour of wearing them?
> There must be some washable ones out there


Washing them can damage them structurally and does nothing effective. Just leave them for a bit and re-use them. I have four or so on the go and use one per day.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 16, 2021)

That's what I'd have thought - how long does the virus last on cloth or whatever the masks are made of?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Washing them can damage them structurally and does nothing effective. Just leave them for a bit and re-use them. I have four or so on the go and use one per day.


oh yeah good call


----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2021)

two sheds said:


> That's what I'd have thought - how long does the virus last on cloth or whatever the masks are made of?



not sure about cloth. From what i remember a year ago 3-4 days was max. If memory serves that might have been stainless steel though.


----------



## klang (Jul 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> In other news, I spent most of this afternoon arranging a second vaccination for one of my team members.
> 
> He's 63 years old, and has learning difficulties, and no family or support worker to help him.
> 
> ...


i posted elsewhere - the day centre for people with ld / autism i work at is meant to fully open in a couple of weeks with no covid policy in place. no restriction in numbers, no mandatory mask wearing, etc etc. most of our client base have been cut most if not all support over the last few years and are classed as highly vulnerable. a quick survey showed that roughly half of them have not been vaccinated. not because they are not eligible, but because they don't get the support to access services.


----------



## editor (Jul 16, 2021)

cuppa tee said:


> i was wondering how much football in pubs, homes and stadiums might have contributed to the big jumps we are seeing, stats will tell us more in time but this came to my attention today.....
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> One England fan said he had taken a PCR test on the Friday prior to the match, attended the match on Sunday, and then received a positive result a day later. The fan had taken a lateral flow test on Sunday which had been negative.


Surely it takes more than 12-24 hours for the infection to show up?


----------



## zahir (Jul 16, 2021)

littleseb said:


> i posted elsewhere - the day centre for people with ld / autism is meant to fully open in a couple of weeks with no covid policy in place. no restriction in numbers, no mandatory mask wearing, etc etc. most of our client base have been cut most if not all support over the last few years and are classed as highly vulnerable. a quick survey showed that roughly half of them have not been vaccinated. not because they are not eligible, but because they don't get the support to access services.



That has a bit of a eugenics sound to it.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 16, 2021)

editor said:


> Surely it takes more than 12-24 hours for the infection to show up?


LFD's have a much higher false negative rate. 
They're better than fuck all in catching some random asymptomatic cases but to be using them in any other way - as 'proof' of a negative - is both ridiculous and dangerous.


----------



## cuppa tee (Jul 16, 2021)

editor said:


> Surely it takes more than 12-24 hours for the infection to show up?


...articles saying a lot rocked up who already had it, but iirc incubation time is about 5 days and the fun and games got underway Sunday, but loads probably got right on the footie vibe Saturday too...


----------



## klang (Jul 16, 2021)

zahir said:


> That has a bit of a eugenics sound to it.


it's vile.
yet, if we can't get enough (paying) people through the door we'll be threatened with closure.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> not sure about cloth. From what i remember a year ago 3-4 days was max. If memory serves that might have been stainless steel though.


From a quick search looks like virus lasts 4 to 5 days to a week on paper and cloth. Oldish studies though as you say and not sure whether also true for delta variant


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 16, 2021)

editor said:


> Surely it takes more than 12-24 hours for the infection to show up?


 I think I've misunderstood your own misunderstanding here actually!
It wasn't to say he _caught_ covid at Wembley - but that he'd actually been positive when he attended, having done the required neg LFD test beforehand - just so happened that a PCR test he did on Friday came back with a positive result on the Monday, when it was too late.
(Doesn't say why he did the PCR test, mind you - whether that was because he had symptoms)


----------



## Supine (Jul 16, 2021)

two sheds said:


> From a quick search looks like virus lasts 4 to 5 days to a week on paper and cloth. Oldish studies though as you say and not sure whether also true for delta variant



i was hoping that throwing out a memory would get a more meticulous member to google it


----------



## two sheds (Jul 16, 2021)

Me too


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> That makes sense, and the numbers for England on that day would match up with a doubling over three weeks, albeit that that has already reduced to two weeks now (which he vaguely suggested might be happening).
> Just seems important to know the correct current numbers if/when they're actually being used to illustrate such massive points (or just _anyway_, tbh), even when there is already some other dishonesty involved, iyswim!



Regarding the doubling time, the rate of growth has been oscillating for both cases and hospitalisations. So the doubling time has changed quite a bit during this wave so far.

I've started attempting to graph this for England, but I dont know if I've got all my calculations right. But certainly its showing the same sort of trends as other peoples attempts to graph this I've seen on twitter.

The very last little downward part of the red line on this one is affected by case numbers not being complete for most recent dates yet.

These sorts of oscillations make quite a mess out of my attempts to explain my thoughts about the timing of this wave. eg I've sometimes talked about the shit hitting the fan in July rather than August, or said that I'm not convinced hospital admissions will take as long to reach 1000 as some models seemed to suggest. But when I look at this kind of graph that shows rate of growth changing so much over time, I start to appreciate that there is a fair chance my sense of timing could easily be well off.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 16, 2021)

littleseb said:


> i posted elsewhere - the day centre for people with ld / autism is meant to fully open in a couple of weeks with no covid policy in place. no restriction in numbers, no mandatory mask wearing, etc etc. most of our client base have been cut most if not all support over the last few years and are classed as highly vulnerable. a quick survey showed that roughly half of them have not been vaccinated. not because they are not eligible, but because they don't get the support to access services.



So many ways this could have been done better but that is just wrong on every level and there's just no excuse for any of it.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 16, 2021)

Novara's Michael Walker has a shocking ambivalence to this crisis. I thought much better of him than this. Just wants to go clubbing. Ridiculous.


----------



## klang (Jul 16, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> So many ways this could have been done better but that is just wrong on every level and there's just no excuse for any of it.


the provider's line is government's policy. front line staff hands' are tied.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Novara's Michael Walker has a shocking ambivalence to this crisis. I thought much better of him than this. Just wants to go clubbing. Ridiculous.


What I thought is 'who is he?' since I dont follow their output at all.

Then I had a look, and I wont be looking again. If he is clever and enlightened about some things, this pandemic is not one of them, at least not now.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 16, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> What are the other countries doing differently? My understanding is we had much higher vaccination uptake than on the continent, so what restrictions do they still have that we don’t? I can’t believe you still can’t go to the pub or get your hair cut, so what are they doing right that we aren’t? Restrictions on numbers? Better track and trace?


I'm in an unnamed European country which has almost zero cases and almost zero restrictions. It's jarring to go into shops and see no one wearing masks.

I think there were two major failures from the UK. 1) test and trace is a bad joke. It's been shown to make no measurable difference to transmission. Other countries (e.g. Germany) seem to have much better systems.

2) we hesitated to put India and other countries on the red list (Boris wanted his visit and his trade deal). We were also very slow to set up the hotel quarantine system in the first place. And Delta is much, much faster spreading than Alpha


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 16, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I'm in an unnamed European country which has almost zero cases and almost zero restrictions. It's jarring to go into shops and see no one wearing masks.
> 
> I think there were two major failures from the UK. 1) test and trace is a bad joke. It's been shown to make no measurable difference to transmission. Other countries (e.g. Germany) seem to have much better systems.
> 
> 2) we hesitated to put India and other countries on the red list (Boris wanted his visit and his trade deal). We were also very slow to set up the hotel quarantine system in the first place. And Delta is much, much faster spreading than Alpha


I should also add this country doesn't currently allow UK tourists, which seems like a smart move given what's happening in Spain now.

It makes sense to put UK on the red list unless you are _very_ confident in your vaccine programme


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I'm in an unnamed European country which has almost zero cases and almost zero restrictions. It's jarring to go into shops and see no one wearing masks.
> 
> I think there were two major failures from the UK. 1) test and trace is a bad joke. It's been shown to make no measurable difference to transmission. Other countries (e.g. Germany) seem to have much better systems.
> 
> 2) we hesitated to put India and other countries on the red list (Boris wanted his visit and his trade deal). We were also very slow to set up the hotel quarantine system in the first place. And Delta is much, much faster spreading than Alpha


would like to know which country this is? Freedonia? Sealand? Monaco?


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> What I thought is 'who is he?' since I dont follow their output at all.
> 
> Then I had a look, and I wont be looking again. If he is clever and enlightened about some things, this pandemic is not one of them, at least not now.



I thought he'd been better at this previously. They had been giving airtime to people who aren't nutbags, like Dr Gurdasani. 

But he seems to have fallen for the government's notion that it's best to do it now. Because....nightclubs or something.

Meanwhile Tim Spector is arguing that we're past the peak of this new wave, or that it's peaking now/prior to Monday. That can't be right. The independent Sage heroes (they bloody are) are saying lat August early September. 

And where's Starmer in all this? If there was ever a time for a coalition among the opposition party (and I'm not naive enough to think they aren't all grasping opportunists) then surely this is it. At least do something to stop this fucking insanity and put the brakes on.

Again, I just _cannot_ wrap my head around seeing 100k cases daily. Surely at that point, the public will crack. That's way too much. But we've already reached 50k in a matter of weeks under current restrictions, such as they are.


----------



## xenon (Jul 16, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Loads of batshit stuff in this article, including -
> 
> 
> 
> ...



mad as you say. I always have a window open unless it’s raining or very cold. But don’t most people turn the app off when at home? To be honest I forget to turn it on when I go out a lot of the time.


----------



## xenon (Jul 16, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Don't put an FFP2 in a washing machine or in fact wash it at all.



I have only been using cloth ones. But I don’t wash them well, other than with the same alcohol stuff I clean my hands with. wash them a bit with that and hang to dry.
I think I will buy some better masks though, FFP2 or FFP three. Not for every day use but just if I have to use public transport to visit someone in the next few months.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

xenon said:


> mad as you say. I always have a window open unless it’s raining or very cold. But don’t most people turn the app off when at home? To be honest I forget to turn it on when I go out a lot of the time.


does it only ping if you scan a QR code? or do you just have to be in the vicinity with your phone on? my phone spends a lot of time in a locker at work next everyone else’s phones and i’ve never had a ping


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> would like to know which country this is? Freedonia? Sealand? Monaco?


When I said almost zero that was a slight exaggeration. But it's very low especially if you plot it against the UK.


----------



## xenon (Jul 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> does it only ping if you scan a QR code? or do you just have to be in the vicinity with your phone on? my phone spends a lot of time in a locker at work next everyone else’s phones and i’ve never had a ping



QR code is just to identify a venue. otherwise it’s supposed to ping you if the owner of a phone nearby has registered a positive test. as in your device was near someone who’s told us they had a positive test recently. not without obvious flaws. no pun intended, I live in a flat, on my own, why would you have it turned on at home. That’s asking for trouble.


----------



## xenon (Jul 16, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> When I said almost zero that was a slight exaggeration. But it's very low especially if you plot it against the UK.



which country then?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 16, 2021)

Catlandia


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Meanwhile Tim Spector is arguing that we're past the peak of this new wave, or that it's peaking now/prior to Monday. That can't be right. The independent Sage heroes (they bloody are) are saying lat August early September.



Indie SAGE dont know when it will peak. They may well describe certain scenarios with that timing of peak but they dont know when it will peak, and they have certainly seen Scotlands numbers start to fall like everyone else has seen.

Lockdown timing heavily influenced peoples thoughts on the timing of previous waves peaks. We dont have that this time. And there are lots of factors, which I went on about lots already so wont repeat now.

Tim Spector has spoken of a plateau because thats what his apps data is showing him. But some segments of society are underrepresented in their apps users. On twitter he acknowledged that survey+test methods of surveillance is struggling a bit at the moment so people need to combine multiple views of the situation to form a picture, This doesnt stop him saying things at times in his videos that I consider unwise.

Its also not possible to tell quite how messy this wave will be in terms of how long plateaus drag on for, whether things go down and then back up again later, etc.

I've already told people not to be surprised if there is a peak far sooner than some mainstream sources, models etc have been implying. This does not mean I am predicting an early peak, but I am certainly not ruling one out.


----------



## xenon (Jul 16, 2021)

Andora,


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 16, 2021)

xenon said:


> QR code is just to identify a venue. otherwise it’s supposed to ping you if the owner of a phone nearby has registered a positive test. as in your device was near someone who’s told us they had a positive test recently. not without obvious flaws. no pun intended, I live in a flat, on my own, why would you have it turned on at home. That’s asking for trouble.


i don’t think you can turn it off. you can turn bluetooth off but my bluetooth is on all the time cos i use it to listen to music and podcasts


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> I've already told people not to be surprised if there is a peak far sooner than some mainstream sources, models etc have been implying. This does not mean I am predicting an early peak, but I am certainly not ruling one out.


And the reason I keep mentioning it is because I'm trying to say at least a few things that people may not hear from many other sources as soon. And Scotland certainly influences my decision to keep mentioning it, although obviously the timing of when their wave got going, when they went out of the Euros and when their schools finished for the summer holidays is different to Englands.

When peaks become visible I am likely to focus on them in terms of the different regions of England, rather than England as a whole, unless the timing ends up being similar in most regions.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

I wonder if some of the absurdities of this period will be even greater because the wave is entering a dangerous stage at the same time as summer silly season where loads of politicians and people in the media go on holiday.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

The FT have stuck this on their front page but the timing of all this bothers me because really the time to stop such a risky situation developing was months ago.

One of the things I most despise about the roadmap was that it dragged a lot of people along in terms of control over the narrative. And even those who are set up to challenge poor government pandemic decisions found it easier to keep looking ahead to the next set of relaxations instead of dwelling on step 3 which when combined with Delta caused the current situation. There is nothing wrong with people focussing on concerns about what step 4 would mean, but step 3 was bad enough and that step should have been where the maximum pressure to u-turn happened if we wanted to avoid a ridiculous percentage of the population being infected at the same time.


----------



## elbows (Jul 16, 2021)

And all the wank about fiddling with the app or turning it off or deleting it. Every newspaper etc that put front page effort into making that the agenda rather than trying to reduce the number of infections is probably delighted.

Meanwhile on that front....


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 17, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> i don’t think you can turn it off. you can turn bluetooth off but my bluetooth is on all the time cos i use it to listen to music and podcasts


you listen to podcast and music in your worl locker?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 17, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> you listen to podcast and music in your worl locker?


no, at home and while commuting or shopping and pretty much any time i'm not working. can't usually bear dealing with my own thoughts, so distraction is necessary


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 17, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> i don’t think you can turn it off. you can turn bluetooth off but my bluetooth is on all the time cos i use it to listen to music and podcasts


You can turn it off from within the app. It nags you once to turn it back on but it doesn't turn it on again automatically.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 17, 2021)

> N95 Masks Can be Rotated, 1 Mask Every 3–4 Days​Use 3–4 masks, numbered on the outside as 1–4, for each day. They can be used each day in numerical order. All SARS-CoV-2 viruses on the mask will be dead in 3 days (2). Masks should be kept at room temperature (21–23°C [70–73°F]) and 40% humidity. There is no change in the mask's properties.



From here:









						N95 Respirator Cleaning and Reuse Methods Proposed by the Inventor of the N95 Mask Material
					






					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
				




The bloke who actually invented the masks so I think I'll stick with this method. If it's good enough for health workers dealing with severe covid patients then it'll definitely be appropriate for shop workers and for going into crowded places.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 17, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> Is that literally it though, the variant I mean? They are all as open as we are?


There's a summary from the BBC here and here (though they are about as light on detail as all BBC news seems to be these days). Short story UK is not the only country seeing cases going crazy but is #1.


----------



## MrSki (Jul 17, 2021)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 17, 2021)

Because of fears over both covid & flu this winter, they are expanding the flu vaccination programme.



> Similar fears last year saw flu vaccine eligibility expanded to all adults over 50 and children in Year 7. This year the plans are even bigger, with secondary school pupils up to Year 11 included in the roll-out.
> 
> From August 31,  free flu jabs will also be offered to all children aged two and three , primary school pupils, people with certain health conditions, unpaid carers, pregnant women and frontline health and adult social care staff.
> 
> In total, officials expect the jab to be offered free to more than 35 million people. By comparison, a record 19 million seasonal flu jabs were administered in winter 2020.











						Free flu jabs offered to 35,000,000 people amid warnings of NHS winter crisis
					

Medics fear as many as 60,000 people could die from flu this winter as Covid and seasonal viruses put the NHS at risk of being ‘unable to cope’.




					metro.co.uk


----------



## zahir (Jul 17, 2021)

COVID-19: Bulgaria bans British travellers from same day it moves to UK's green travel list
					

The move comes into effect on Monday, meaning that Britons who had booked to visit the country from the UK will need to cancel.




					news.sky.com
				





> Bulgaria has banned UK travellers from entering the country due to concerns about the growing number of coronavirus cases in Britain.
> 
> The ban comes into force on Monday - the same day Bulgaria moves to the UK's green travel list, meaning quarantine-free travel for passengers arriving in the UK from Bulgaria.
> 
> ...


----------



## MrSki (Jul 17, 2021)

zahir said:


> COVID-19: Bulgaria bans British travellers from same day it moves to UK's green travel list
> 
> 
> The move comes into effect on Monday, meaning that Britons who had booked to visit the country from the UK will need to cancel.
> ...


The first of many I expect.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 17, 2021)

So on Monday I can do me day-trip to Calais, but have to self-isolate for 10 days on return...however it being Johnson's  'freedom day' I won't have to wear a mask on the train up from Dover.

Well thought through.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> Indie SAGE dont know when it will peak. They may well describe certain scenarios with that timing of peak but they dont know when it will peak, and they have certainly seen Scotlands numbers start to fall like everyone else has seen.
> 
> Lockdown timing heavily influenced peoples thoughts on the timing of previous waves peaks. We dont have that this time. And there are lots of factors, which I went on about lots already so wont repeat now.
> 
> ...


It was Dr John Campbell that first mentioned the September/late August peak. Of course he wasn't saying that for certain for the same reasons. I haven't heard anything different except from Tim Spector.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 17, 2021)

A new FF2 mask comes into use tomorrow ... to add to the three I've already got on the go.
I'm working away from home for two days, for something that has been put off several times so the client is getting a bit fed up the job ain't finished yet [and still further delays as waiting for more parts from Spain] - travelling out Sunday and back Tuesday. About six to seven hours in a hire car, hope the air con works !


----------



## ska invita (Jul 17, 2021)

im looking for stats for uk vaccination by age range , can anyone help. ive tried but failed


----------



## Supine (Jul 17, 2021)

ska invita said:


> im looking for stats for uk vaccination by age range , can anyone help. ive tried but failed



the indy sage presentation yesterday had a slide on this, and they always have a web link at the bottom to the data


----------



## crossthebreeze (Jul 17, 2021)

littleseb said:


> i posted elsewhere - the day centre for people with ld / autism i work at is meant to fully open in a couple of weeks with no covid policy in place. no restriction in numbers, no mandatory mask wearing, etc etc. most of our client base have been cut most if not all support over the last few years and are classed as highly vulnerable. a quick survey showed that roughly half of them have not been vaccinated. not because they are not eligible, but because they don't get the support to access services.


Is there a vaccine bus or mobile clinic in your area? Could it arrange to visit your centre? Of at least a gp/public health worker with info/support for people?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 17, 2021)

ska invita said:


> im looking for stats for uk vaccination by age range , can anyone help. ive tried but failed



The dashboard has stats, see the heat map towards the bottom of this page, and hover over the age groups, to see percentage uptake.



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations?areaType=nation&areaName=England


----------



## ska invita (Jul 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The dashboard has stats, see the heat map towards the bottom of this page, and hover over the age groups, to see percentage uptake.
> 
> 
> 
> https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations?areaType=nation&areaName=England


thanks...so according to this in the 70s and over bracket 90-100% have had at least one vax, am i reading that right?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 17, 2021)

ska invita said:


> thanks...so according to this in the 70s and over bracket 90-100% have had at least one vax, am i reading that right?
> View attachment 278939



Yep, that looks right, bit depressing once you move down the age groups.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 17, 2021)

They need to reverse this opening up now - if not now, then when?


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 17, 2021)

ska invita said:


> im looking for stats for uk vaccination by age range , can anyone help. ive tried but failed




I screenshot this from a YouTube video so sorry if image quality is crap. 

I was surprised how low the second dose rate is for people up to 45. Plenty of people in their 40s end up in serious trouble with this. I'm sure there will be many more after Monday.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, that looks right, bit depressing once you move down the age groups.


perhaps explains a fair amount about the current wave,,,
hard to read  the colours, but looking at the 40-50s bracket looks like 80-90%


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 17, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> View attachment 278942
> 
> I screenshot this from a YouTube video so sorry if image quality is crap.
> 
> I was surprised how low the second dose rate is for people up to 45. Plenty of people in their 40s end up in serious trouble with this. I'm sure there will be many more after Monday.



They only recently reduced the period for second doses, for the under 40's, so I expect that will soon start changing. .


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 17, 2021)

MrSki said:


> The first of many I expect.


It's not the first. For example Norway and Sweden have had a ban in place for UK tourists for ages now.

They also don't seem to currently have a problem with Delta so it's worked well for them so far.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 17, 2021)

ska invita said:


> perhaps explains a fair amount about the current wave,,,
> hard to read  the colours, but looking at the 40-50s bracket looks like 80-90%



Up to 15th July, uptake by age - 

55-59 - 88.32%
55-54 - 85.75%
45-49 - 80.78%
40-44 - 74.67%
35-39 - 68.02%
30-34 - 62.37%
25-29 - 57.80%
18-24 - 57.39%


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 17, 2021)

I'm part of a political group that earlier this week met indoors for the first time since the pandemic started, somewhat nervously, with everyone wearing masks. We asked everyone to get a lateral flow test before coming, and someone got a faint positive line on theirs and didn't come as a result. She's now confirmed positive with PCR and feeling quite ill. I've been a bit sceptical of the LFTs but I'm now very glad we used them - fifteen people including me would now be self-isolating if we hadn't. Not sure we'll be meeting indoors again any time soon tho. It makes me think though, maybe it would be good if the government proposed that people did LFTs before meeting up with big groups of friends or family. Might be one way of reducing the 'pingdemic', as the crap newspapers are calling it.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 17, 2021)

I've ordered another pack - worried by rumours of them no longer being free/accessible.


----------



## editor (Jul 17, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> We asked everyone to get a lateral flow test before coming, and someone got a faint positive line on theirs and didn't come as a result.


Even the feintest of lines is a positive, so good job she didn't show up!


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 17, 2021)

editor said:


> Even the feintest of lines is a positive, so good job she didn't show up!


Yeah, I actually didn't know it could just be super faint - I've never seen a positive one, thank goodness.


----------



## editor (Jul 17, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Yeah, I actually didn't know it could just be super faint - I've never seen a positive one, thank goodness.


I know this because mine was super feint and I thought about persuading myself that perhaps I wouldn't have to be stuck in my home for ten long, hot summer days!


----------



## klang (Jul 17, 2021)

a faint hint of rona


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 17, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I've ordered another pack - worried by rumours of them no longer being free/accessible.


Supermarkets sell them over here , is it the same in her U.K. ?


----------



## andysays (Jul 17, 2021)

littleseb said:


> i posted elsewhere - the day centre for people with ld / autism i work at is meant to fully open in a couple of weeks with no covid policy in place. no restriction in numbers, no mandatory mask wearing, etc etc. most of our client base have been cut most if not all support over the last few years and are classed as highly vulnerable. a quick survey showed that roughly half of them have not been vaccinated. not because they are not eligible, but because they don't get the support to access services.


Aren't you in Haringey?

If so, this might be some help

Community COVID-19 vaccination programme


----------



## MrSki (Jul 17, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Supermarkets sell them over here , is it the same in her U.K. ?


Free from chemists.


----------



## klang (Jul 17, 2021)

andysays said:


> Aren't you in Haringey?
> 
> If so, this might be some help
> 
> Community COVID-19 vaccination programme


west london operation but i'll look into it


----------



## Supine (Jul 17, 2021)

From looking at those heat maps it appears Tory voters are double vaxxed and labour voters aren’t.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 17, 2021)

So this thread makes the claim that the planned opening, now, is the best option we have. 

TBH I don't really understand his reasoning. How would there be a big wave next spring if people are vaccinated? I mean, it's not impossible, but the crisis we're facing is because of Delta which is a direct result of our government's inaction. In fact they still haven't sorted the borders out.


----------



## Thora (Jul 17, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> View attachment 278942
> 
> I screenshot this from a YouTube video so sorry if image quality is crap.
> 
> I was surprised how low the second dose rate is for people up to 45. Plenty of people in their 40s end up in serious trouble with this. I'm sure there will be many more after Monday.


Most people won’t have had the chance to have a second dose yet. I (37) booked my first dose as soon as I could and my second one was mid August, though I have managed to rebook for end of July now.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 17, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> So this thread makes the claim that the planned opening, now, is the best option we have.


Or not...


----------



## Supine (Jul 17, 2021)

2hats said:


> Or not...




I don’t think that guy should be let near spreadsheets


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2021)

Javid has tested positive on a lateral flow test and is now self-isolating.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> Javid has tested positive on a lateral flow test and is now self-isolating.


Oh noes


----------



## pug (Jul 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> From looking at those heat maps it appears Tory voters are double vaxxed and labour voters aren’t.


Theres an interactive vaccination map on Gov website. Dunno about labour voters but definitely innercity and deprived areas with lowest take up sadly.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Oh noes


No freedom day for him.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 17, 2021)

There's an “amber plus” category. Do we get a red minus, too? Schoolkids are going to get very confused at traffic lights.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 17, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Oh noes



Thoughts and prayers with Covid at this difficult time


----------



## 2hats (Jul 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> Javid has tested positive on a lateral flow test and is now self-isolating.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2021)

Its a little known fact that whenever we have a wave here, the establishment get Croft & Perry to write the script.


----------



## klang (Jul 17, 2021)

'I'm not just the health secretary - I'm the social care secretary too ...'
thanks for rubbing it in


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2021)

ska invita said:


> im looking for stats for uk vaccination by age range , can anyone help. ive tried but failed


I like the pyramids that appear in the weekly PHE surveillance report. They are for England only rather than the whole of the UK, but the way the data is presented seems useful to me.



Page 79 of:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1003027/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w28_v2.pdf


----------



## SpineyNorman (Jul 17, 2021)

Sajid Covid


----------



## Spandex (Jul 17, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> the 'pingdemic', as the crap newspapers are calling it.


All this whingeing about a 'pingdemic' is pissing me off. Partly because I got pinged on Thursday so I'm stuck at home when summer has finally arrived, but that's okay with me because it's the right thing to do.

I've heard so much shit from people I've spoken to since:

"Oh you should've turned your bluetooth off" - no I fucking shouldn't, because that would defeat the entire point of downloading the app in the first place.

"If you leave your phone at home you could go out; I'm sure it'll be fine" - or maybe it won't be fine and I'll end up spreading Covid about like a killer cunt.

"I heard you can get pinged if the signal goes through walls and a neighbouring has it" "I heard you can get pinged if someone in the next car has it" - I'm sure there are some examples of the signal passing through a wall, especially with some of the flimsy walls in new builds, but if this is such a big issue why didn't it cause a 'pingdemic' last December, or throughout lockdown when most people were at home all the time? Because it isn't a big issue. And I suppose it is possible, if you were stuck in really bad traffic, to spend 15 minutes within 2 meters of a positive case while in your car, but it's quite unlikely. These are just excuses people are holding onto to as a reason ignore the app when it tells them to self-isolate. And that temptation is there. When I looked at my phone on Thursday and saw the message a part of my brain did scream at me "you could just ignore it and pretend nothing has happened". I'm sure that's the exact same thought that ran through the head of every hit and run driver ever.

And then there's the cunting right wing press and shitbag right wing politicians moaning that all these pings are causing chaos. It's not the pings that are causing the chaos you sniveling wankstains, it's because Covid is fucking everywhere.

"Why can't we reduced the sensitivity of the app" they drivel - because spending 15 minutes within 2 meters of someone who is positive is plenty of time to catch it. With the Delta variant we should be looking at increasing the sensitivity.

"Can't we stop using the app sooner?" they blather - only if they want Covid to sweep the country faster than it already is, so that rather than healthy people sitting at home affecting their precious economy it's Covid ridden people spluttering at home, or filling up hospitals, or dying.

Since these cuntbubbles coming out with the last two are the same shit munchers that have been opposed to every Covid measure that impacts on their freedom to do what they want, when they want and making more money for themselves every word that crawls out of their self-centred mouths deserves to be ignored.

Yes, it's a pain in the arse having to self-isolate and yes, it is causing problems for the country, but that's the fault of the government for failing to keep Covid under any kind of control. The 'let it rip' approach was always going to cause chaos, even if the vaccines do mean less death and less hospitalisations. This is what 'taking it on the chin' looks like, even without the potential for things to yet take a turn for the catastrophic.


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2021)

I had a very brief rant about that last night and then chucked in some stats.        #40,295      

I erroneously claimed that the shit newspapers would be delighted, when actually they were sold a dud - the government told them they would change the apps sensitivity, but yesterday it was reported that they arent going to after all.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 17, 2021)

So, we can finally be assured that the health secretary is having an impact on the figures.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> From looking at those heat maps it appears Tory voters are double vaxxed and labour voters aren’t.


Correlation does not imply causation


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2021)

We're going to have a full on flu winter potentially as there are so few antibodies floating around. There's a nasty norovirus going round that myself and other parents  have had because immunity hasn't developed in paeds. I see no chance of delaying providing significant protection when peak vaccination has been reached. No chance parents are going to on mass let children have these shots. 
This is like fighting a common cold with a leaky vaccine. The absurdly named United Kingdom is a blip of humanity on our planet where this virus is largely running free. We need a massive injection of money into the NHS to keep the majority of hospitals free for public health and triage covid in separate sites where they can get oxygen and steroids. It's basic stuff and fucking annoying  that point of care services haven't been overhauled so we can get on with life... End of rant


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 17, 2021)

Another record for this wave - 54,674, and the 7-average is up +40.6%

Hospital admissions tracking that at +39.4%, and 740 admitted yesterday.

Deaths have increased more at +47.9%, with 41 more reported.

And, this is before 'Freedom Day'.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2021)

There is no money in logistics and funding public healthcare but there is fucking loads in vaccines and  testing services.
It's a pandemic and our national health service is being asset stripped by Torys and capitalists.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another record for this wave - 54,674, and the 7-average is up +40.6%
> 
> Hospital admissions tracking that at +39.4%, and 740 admitted yesterday.
> 
> ...


We'll just have to hope Javid's not feeling too groggy to enjoy his latest triumph.


----------



## prunus (Jul 17, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Correlation does not imply causation


 Yes it does, it does. It just doesn’t _prove_ it. The implication needs to form the basis of a hypothesis which can then be tested to either add support to or not the initial idea.
In this case off the top of my head you’d want to control for indices of deprivation, race and education all of which are possible confounders.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> I don’t think that guy should be let near spreadsheets


I tried tweeting at him to ask what his modelling is based on because just showing graphs is meaningless, especially if you're Joe Schmoe, citizen scientist


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> I don’t think that guy should be let near spreadsheets


In all seriousness, could you explain why?


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> Javid has tested positive on a lateral flow test and is now self-isolating.


I think I might die of irony


----------



## editor (Jul 17, 2021)

I'm hearing about LOADS of people in my area getting Covid in the last days, the majority of whom are young (20-35).  And it's only going to get worse. 

And the trajectory seems unstoppable:


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 17, 2021)

all the health secretaries we've had during covid have caught covid! 

How are the tories this shit?


----------



## MrSki (Jul 17, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> all the health secretaries we've had during covid have caught covid!
> 
> How are the tories this shit?


Well there has only been two & neither has had the decency to peg it in office. Might send a better message.


----------



## Ax^ (Jul 17, 2021)

Boris Johnson Mostly


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Hospital admissions tracking that at +39.4%, and 740 admitted yesterday.


That 740 UK figure is for Tuesday 13th.

Largely because of Scotlands slow admissions data release schedule. Have to drill down to England or other nations to see the most recent figures. And thsoe arent so recent either, especially because of weekend non-reporting.


----------



## Ax^ (Jul 17, 2021)

editor said:


> I'm hearing about LOADS of people in my area getting Covid in the last days, the majority of whom are young (20-35).  And it's only going to get worse.
> 
> And the trajectory seems unstoppable:
> 
> View attachment 279010



But FREEDOM DAY !!!

seriously how fucking thick are parts of the population


----------



## campanula (Jul 17, 2021)

A bunch (10)  of my youngest's friends went on a camping trip...and all of them have now got the 'rona. All somewhat mystified because they were 'outside'...so sharing lines of chang has nothing to do with it!
Some of them are right unwell.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 17, 2021)

campanula said:


> A bunch (10)  of my youngest's friends went on a camping trip...and all of them have now got the 'rona. All somewhat mystified because they were 'outside'...so sharing lines of chang has nothing to do with it!
> Some of them are right unwell.


I mean sitting in a tent with people is not going to be good is it. Even if the tent is outdoors.


----------



## MrSki (Jul 17, 2021)

campanula said:


> A bunch (10)  of my youngest's friends went on a camping trip...and all of them have now got the 'rona. All somewhat mystified because they were 'outside'...so sharing lines of chang has nothing to do with it!
> Some of them are right unwell.


Yeah won't have a vaccine but will stick a used note plus any old shite they are sniffing up their noses.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 17, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Well there has only been two & neither has had the decency to peg it in office. Might send a better message.


we cannot be sure there was no pegging in Hancock's office


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

Aprox half of the people in the UK are not double jabbed as we celebrate Freedom Day , is that about right?
mr health secretary says he only has a mild case cos he’s all jabbed up the clever man.
 Is there any way of knowing how much of that (not vaxxedness) is through choice ?


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

Lol just saw javid’s I’ve  got covid video. Looks quite unwell. 
Crams a bit of idiotic nationalism in there (best vaccine rollout in the whole world ?) and what on earth is he on about urging people to “help preserve our way of life” what a laughable twat.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2021)

editor said:


> I'm hearing about LOADS of people in my area getting Covid in the last days, the majority of whom are young (20-35).  And it's only going to get worse.
> 
> And the trajectory seems unstoppable:
> 
> View attachment 279010


This is a reflection of the amount of public money we give to capitalists. It is a true picture of infection rates but no way France or Spain hands over tax payers money like the United Kingdom does for these tests and anacdotaly there is fuck tons of covid in these countries atm and their true rate is on far more on a par with us than the tests show.
It's a virus not a political entity.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 17, 2021)

IC3D said:


> This is a reflection of the amount of public money we give to capitalists. It is a true picture of infection rates but no way France or Spain hands over tax payers money like the United Kingdom does for these tests and anacdotaly there is fuck tons of covid in these countries atm and their true rate is on far more on a par with us than the tests show.
> It's a virus not a political entity.


I don't think "everyone else's government is lying about case numbers but somehow ours is telling the truth" works in the slightest really.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I don't think "everyone else's government is lying about case numbers but somehow ours is telling the truth" works in the slightest really.


Your missing the point. They aren't financing testing.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 17, 2021)

I'm not going to fuck about, if you've got a point explain it rather than vaguebooking.


IC3D said:


> Your missing the point. They aren't financing testing.


of course they are financing testing


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

IC3D said:


> This is a reflection of the amount of public money we give to capitalists. It is a true picture of infection rates but no way France or Spain hands over tax payers money like the United Kingdom does for these tests and anacdotaly there is fuck tons of covid in these countries atm and their true rate is on far more on a par with us than the tests show.
> It's a virus not a political entity.


Are you saying, we test more because we are more capitalist than, say, America? Wally.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> Are you saying, we test more because we are more capitalist than, say, America? Wally.


It's actually an argument that Trump used to "explain" why the US had such high covid case numbers.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> Aprox half of the people in the UK are not double jabbed as we celebrate Freedom Day , is that about right?
> mr health secretary says he only has a mild case cos he’s all jabbed up the clever man.
> Is there any way of knowing how much of that (not vaxxedness) is through choice ?


I doubt the "active refusers" are that numerous but they are very loud, the majority will be the "on the fence" people who are getting bombarded by "well meaning" antivaxxers with scary emotionally charged and fact free propaganda.


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It's actually an argument that Trump used to "explain" why the US had such high covid cases.


Yep. Stop testing the problem goes away! Genius.


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I doubt the "active refusers" are that numerous but they are very loud, the majority will be the "on the fence" people who are getting bombarded by "well meaning" antivaxxers with scary emotionally charged and fact free propaganda.


Was thinking more of the young, waiting for their jabs. Javids video is offensively stupid, as if the only people not double jabbed are the recalcitrant.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> Are you saying, we test more because we are more capitalist than, say, America? Wally.


Exactly we are far more capitalist than other European nations and more willing to fund these corporations surely you can see that from your tree.


----------



## killer b (Jul 17, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I doubt the "active refusers" are that numerous but they are very loud, the majority will be the "on the fence" people who are getting bombarded by "well meaning" antivaxxers with scary emotionally charged and fact free propaganda.


all the polling has people who either have been vaccinated or are willing to be vaccinated at around 90%


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Exactly we are far more capitalist than other European nations and more willing to fund these corporations surely you can see that from your tree.


Spell it out for me. You think we have more availability of tests due to more capitalism, and that’s why we have more cases ?
When did other European countries put India on the red list?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 17, 2021)

"Vaccine refusers" is the new "people going to the park in groups of over six people". It's a story meant to take blame away from shit government policy. Vaccine turnout is very high, actually unusually high in the UK.


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> "Vaccine refusers" is the new "people going to the park in groups of over six people". It's a story meant to take blame away from shit government policy. Vaccine turnout is very high, actually unusually high in the UK.


This actually helps with understanding what’s going on & the health secretary’s video today. He talked as if the only people unjabbed have chosen to refuse it, happy freedom day , best vaccine rollout in the world. Not a word about the people waiting for their 1st or 2nd jabs.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> Spell it out for me. You think we have more availability of tests due to more capitalism, and that’s why we have more cases ?
> When did other European countries put India on the red list?


OK so imagine your a virus, might be difficult or not. You really think public health measures in France are so staggingly effective that when you hit blighty you break out like acne on a teenager with a liking for fried chicken?


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> Javid has tested positive on a lateral flow test and is now self-isolating.



Walking it like he talks it with the "100% COVID" strategy.


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

IC3D said:


> OK so imagine your a virus, might be difficult or not. You really think public health measures in France are so staggingly effective that when you hit blighty you break out like acne on a teenager with a liking for fried chicken?


I don’t think you understand what’s gone on here at all. You really think we have no more of a problem than anyone else we just have more tests.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> This actually helps with understanding what’s going on & the health secretary’s video today. He talked as if the only people unjabbed have chosen to refuse it, happy freedom day , best vaccine rollout in the world. Not a word about the people waiting for their 1st or 2nd jabs.


He's a Randian. Under that philosophy everything is down to individual choice and merit, there are no other mechanisms within the world apart from governments not letting people express their individual choice and merit (always bad). Everything is always your fault if you are poor, or the government's fault if you are rich.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> I don’t think you understand what’s gone on here at all. You really think we have no more of a problem than anyone else we just have more tests.


OK for the sake of spelling it out my initial post referring to the graph showing infection rates way higher than other European countries is bulshit. We test more that's it. I've freinds in Paris and Barcelona and they are being hit with loads of infections. We simply test more. I suggest that's because the tests are funded better because of the political state of our union. Do you 
Disagree? If so why?


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

IC3D said:


> We test more that's it.





IC3D said:


> Do you Disagree? If so why?


i think the onus is on you. you're the one making a wild claim.
Your infected friends over there in the less capitalist countries how did they manage to get tested was it hard?
We have more cases because we are the number one place where the delta variant first got imported so we have a head start on this fun new wave thats all.


----------



## Supine (Jul 17, 2021)

IC3D said:


> OK for the sake of spelling it out my initial post referring to the graph showing infection rates way higher than other European countries is bulshit. We test more that's it. I've freinds in Paris and Barcelona and they are being hit with loads of infections. We simply test more. I suggest that's because the tests are funded better because of the political state of our union. Do you
> Disagree? If so why?



To win that argument you need to present % positivity results for each country


----------



## elbows (Jul 17, 2021)

IC3D said:


> OK for the sake of spelling it out my initial post referring to the graph showing infection rates way higher than other European countries is bulshit. We test more that's it. I've freinds in Paris and Barcelona and they are being hit with loads of infections. We simply test more. I suggest that's because the tests are funded better because of the political state of our union. Do you
> Disagree? If so why?



You've got this all wrong, there is a bit of the logic in there that has sometimes applied in the past but its a really poor fit with what the data actually looks like in these countries at the moment.

France and Spain had no trouble posting similar rates of positive cases as the UK during the peak of previous waves.

Wave timing variations are all thats required to explain what you think you are seeing in data. Your views on the data are out of date too, since Spains numbers have been shooting up, whereas in France the wave timing is still a little further behind.


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

they must be getting more capitalist by the day.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> they must be getting more capitalist by the day.


People getting very fucking rich of our sweat.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 17, 2021)

I believe France is in beta testing at the moment


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

IC3D said:


> People getting very fucking rich of our sweat.


do you still think 'we test more that's it'? seriously.


----------



## hash tag (Jul 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> Javid has tested positive on a lateral flow test and is now self-isolating.


Scare tactics. Be afraid


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> do you still think 'we test more that's it'? seriously.


No I'm making an argument for 





bimble said:


> do you still think 'we test more that's it'? seriously.


Yea I am


----------



## bimble (Jul 17, 2021)

ok great have a nice weekend glad thats sorted.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 17, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> "Vaccine refusers" is the new "people going to the park in groups of over six people". It's a story meant to take blame away from shit government policy. Vaccine turnout is very high, actually unusually high in the UK.



They started telling young people off for not getting the jab in like February/March when it was still a long long way off reaching them


----------



## xenon (Jul 17, 2021)

I only got my second last Saturday. I am in my 40s.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 17, 2021)

xenon said:


> I only got my second last Saturday. I am in my 40s.


There seems to be be some real inequity in the provision of vaccine. I (45-50) and Mrs Fox (40-45) both had our 2nd jabs on the 1st July. We both received emails saying we could bring our original jabs dates forward.


----------



## Supine (Jul 17, 2021)

Covid tests are almost all manufactured in China. Are you saying it’s a Chinese capitalist conspiracy?


----------



## IC3D (Jul 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> i think the onus is on you. you're the one making a wild claim.
> Your infected friends over there in the less capitalist countries how did they manage to get tested was it hard?
> We have more cases because we are the number one place where the delta variant first got imported so we have a head start on this fun new wave thats all.


Interesting premise.


----------



## weepiper (Jul 17, 2021)

I am 43 and still can't have my second jag for a fortnight.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 17, 2021)

Seems to me that keeping or rolling back restrictions would have been a better incentive for people to get jabbed than to let everything rip. Now people aren't going to care because everything's open and _so fucking what innit._

I think the tension building for next week is palpable. It's an almost tangible thing. My prediction: back under restrictions, possibly lockdown, in two weeks. I just cannot see even Boris the Spider keeping this up. It's the most stupid standoff ever.


----------



## Supine (Jul 17, 2021)

Trending on twatter


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 17, 2021)

I was watching some 20 year olds out and about in the heat - prominently wearing masks away from shops.
Just lately I was getting to see the unvaccinated young and their parents as being hazardous to the health of my generation - as they were in my old workplace, but in light of the delay in vaccination - but now I see that careless middle-aged people are just as much a threat to them ...


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 17, 2021)

prunus said:


> Yes it does, it does. It just doesn’t _prove_ it. The implication needs to form the basis of a hypothesis which can then be tested to either add support to or not the initial idea.
> In this case off the top of my head you’d want to control for indices of deprivation, race and education all of which are possible confounders.


No, it doesn't. It really, really doesn't.

You need to form a hypothesis first not just pick out random correlations with no logic behind them.

In this instance as you point out there are many potential variables that can confound a comparison between Tory and Labour voters. Age being one of them. It's not possible to draw the conclusion that "Labour voters are less likely to be vaccinated" without at least attempting to control for those factors.

If you still don't believe me I suggest you do some reading

Source:




__





						Correlation does not imply causation - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


----------



## killer b (Jul 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> Trending on twatter
> 
> View attachment 279051


trending on the opinion polls:


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Jul 17, 2021)

weepiper said:


> I am 43 and still can't have my second jag for a fortnight.


----------



## Supine (Jul 17, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> No, it doesn't. It really, really doesn't.
> 
> You need to form a hypothesis first not just pick out random correlations with no logic behind them.
> 
> ...



I don’t think you are applying the right type of analysis to this. The heat map shows older people are fully vaccinated. There is lots of survey data that shows older people vote conservative. No need for any kind of cause / effect required.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> I don’t think you are applying the right type of analysis to this. The heat map shows older people are fully vaccinated. There is lots of survey data that shows older people vote conservative. No need for any kind of cause / effect required.


Ok, but then you should say old people are more vaccinated not Tory voters are more vaccinated. Voting intention has nothing to do with it


----------



## Supine (Jul 17, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Ok, but then you should say old people are more vaccinated not Tory voters are more vaccinated. Voting intention has nothing to do with it



Older people are fully vaccinated and they are statistically more likely to have voted conservative in elections.

Now they are safe lets have the virus rip through the 20-40 year olds who don’t have full protection and have a higher probability of voting Labour.

How is that?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 17, 2021)

hash tag said:


> Scare tactics. Be afraid


What? Do you think Sajid Javid is faking getting Covid to scare people?

That's a bold career move.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> Older people are fully vaccinated and they are statistically more likely to have voted conservative in elections.
> 
> Now they are safe lets have the virus rip through the 20-40 year olds who don’t have full protection and have a higher probability of voting Labour.
> 
> How is that?


Perfect cheers!


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 17, 2021)

The way Johnson was looking earlier this week, it wouldn't surprise me if he had a second bout.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jul 17, 2021)




----------



## MickiQ (Jul 17, 2021)

I am pretty sure Darth Javid like all Sith Lords can channel the Dark Side to heal himself
Mrs Q and I have had our first day trip out today since before the pandemic began, When we got back our new next door neighbours at No 5 were having a family party with at least a  dozen adults and six or seven children.
There are or were (judging by the directions the different sounds were coming from) at least 2 other parties going on within earshot range of the Q residence. Clearly plenty of people are not waiting for Freedom Day and letting the good weather go to waste.


----------



## hash tag (Jul 17, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> What? Do you think Sajid Javid is faking getting Covid to scare people?
> 
> That's a bold career move.


It's possible. I wouldn't trust them nor put it past them


Storm Fox said:


> The way Johnson was looking earlier this week, it wouldn't surprise me if he had a second bout.


Has Johnson got another dose



Of covid. They have been in contact


----------



## little_legs (Jul 17, 2021)




----------



## Smangus (Jul 17, 2021)

Cunt probably turned his app off...


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 17, 2021)

So after three weeks in the job,  Javid has COVID, half the country has COVID, all restrictions are being lifted,  and the prime minister is in quarantine?

It's almost impressive, I don't think even Chris Grayling could have fucked up on the same scale.


----------



## weepiper (Jul 17, 2021)

The Health Secretary and the Prime Minister _both_ have to self isolate for the first week after 'Freedom Day' and therefore won't be available to talk to the press or be questioned in Parliament?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2021)

weepiper said:


> The Health Secretary and the Prime Minister _both_ have to self isolate for the first week after 'Freedom Day' and therefore won't be available to talk to the press or be questioned in Parliament?


 but also 😆


----------



## l'Otters (Jul 18, 2021)

For people who want to upgrade their masks for whatever reason, there's a few to pick from at the mo;





__





						NPR Cookie Consent and Choices
					





					www.npr.org
				




I've been wearing three layer well fitted cloth masks in most contexts, and double mask with an N95 with a 2 layer cotton one over the top when things feel a bit more on top virus wise (public transport, eg).


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)




----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 18, 2021)

Johnson & Sunak have both been contacted by test & trace. 

However, they will not be isolating. 



> A Number 10 spokesperson said: "The prime minister and chancellor have been contacted by NHS Test and Trace as contacts of someone who has tested positive for COVID.
> 
> "They will be participating in the daily contact testing pilot to allow them to continue to work from Downing Street.
> 
> "They will be conducting only essential government business during this period."











						'Important everybody sticks to same rules': PM makes U-turn on isolation and urges caution on eve of unlocking
					

Downing Street had said Mr Johnson and Mr Sunak will be taking in a pilot scheme whereby they will be tested daily and so do not have to quarantine - but that plan has now been scrapped.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 18, 2021)

How does that remotely make any sense? If you tested positive, you HAVE Covid. What's the point of seeing whether letting you spread it to other people is a good idea or not?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 18, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> How does that remotely make any sense? If you tested positive, you HAVE Covid. What's the point of seeing whether letting you spread it to other people is a good idea or not?



They haven't tested positive, they are just close contacts of Javid, who has.

It's early, you probably need another coffee.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They haven't tested positive, they are just close contacts of Javid, who has.
> 
> It's early, you probably need another coffee.


Ah, I misread Sunak as Javid for some reason. You're right, it's too early.


----------



## bimble (Jul 18, 2021)

teuchter said:


> What's the current state of evidence on masks, by the way? Is there strong evidence of significant benefit or is it more marginal? I realise that I wouldn't have an answer to this quesroom if challenged on it.


I just read this, its another 'scientists beg people to keep wearing masks' piece.

must admit that this, to me, looks pretty crappy:

"This point was backed by Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia. “Most studies are observational and prone to all sorts of biases, but taken together there is a consistent finding towards face coverings having benefit both in protecting others if the wearer is infected and also to protect the wearer from others,” he told the _Observer_. _“Estimates vary but they probably reduce transmission somewhere between 10 and 25%."  _

10-25% reduction thats it? So if i'm sat next to a covid person and we both have masks on i only have perhaps a 90% change of catching it instead of 100? that is pretty marginal.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> I just read this, its another 'scientists beg people to keep wearing masks' piece.
> 
> must admit that this, to me, looks pretty crappy:
> 
> ...


When they say transmission they mean R number, so e.g. if it's 20%, reduce from R= 1.2 to R=1.0. Or from R=5 to R=4.

It's fairly significant but not a complete game changer on its own. Other measures needed too.


----------



## bimble (Jul 18, 2021)

its a lot less than i thought tbh. Maybe masks have taken on a signicance they don’t really warrant just because they’re something very visible that we can do.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> its a lot less than i thought tbh. Maybe masks have taken on a signicance they don’t really warrant just because they’re something very visible that we can do.


Yeah, I think it's pretty low impact compared to say a full lockdown. But the "cost" is far lower, so for most scientists it's a no brainer.


----------



## Supine (Jul 18, 2021)

Don’t worry, the numbers are not comparable. Wearing a mask is significantly more protective than the overall impact on R at the population level.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

There are also masks and masks, cloth ones worn loosely or not properly covering both the mouth and nose are fairly ineffective. 

The N95 ones are much better. But something is still better than nothing.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 18, 2021)

I find that photo terrifying.
That sort of density definitely demands a proper mask.

Those of you who normally travel by tube, how many times a year do you get a 3 day in bed type virus ?

For me, working in a university - but able to cycle there and back - most years it was just once - though I often felt I was sickening for something.
Those of us in IT were particularly vulnerable because of the area we covered.

Given I've been masked since last April, I don't yet know if I ever caught viruses in the supermarket ...


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

Sweden has been mask free the whole pandemic (outside of some healthcare and care home settings, and rush hour on public transport) and their outcome hasn't been hugely different to other European countries, one can argue. (Better than some, worse than others.)

They are definitely the outlier though.









						Sweden says no need for face masks as COVID-19 deaths top 7,000
					

Sweden has not needed face masks yet, a top health official said on Thursday, as deaths from the pandemic climbed above 7,000 and a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) expanded recommendations for when masks should be used.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## purenarcotic (Jul 18, 2021)

- this is a very useful thread regarding masks (and how to improve the fit given we now know it’s airborne). I have always struggled with mask fit and looping the straps does nothing for me. I now use N95 but there is a gap under my chin. I expect masks are made to fit men’s  faces…


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I find that photo terrifying.
> That sort of density definitely demands a proper mask.
> 
> Those of you who normally travel by tube, how many times a year do you get a 3 day in bed type virus ?
> ...


Very rarely 3 day in bed, but I used to always catch colds from commuting on densely packed trains and since lockdown I've not had more than a single 24 hour cold.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jul 18, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> - this is a very useful thread regarding masks (and how to improve the fit given we now know it’s airborne). I have always struggled with mask fit and looping the straps does nothing for me. I now use N95 but there is a gap under my chin. I expect masks are made to fit men’s  faces…



Thanks for that really interesting and good thread. (Just a shame it was not on a better medium that twitter)


----------



## xenon (Jul 18, 2021)

There is a bit of a totemic thing going on with masks. Don’t get me wrong, I wear one I believe in continuing to wear one. But the way people just go on and on about them. They are not magic.


----------



## andysays (Jul 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> I just read this, its another 'scientists beg people to keep wearing masks' piece.
> 
> must admit that this, to me, looks pretty crappy:
> 
> ...


While it's understandable that you're focusing on it from a personal individual risk point of view, the more important thing is the overall transmission rates.

I think what those numbers mean is that if everyone wears a mask in situations where it's appropriate, overall transmission rates are reduced by between 10 and 25%.

Another way of looking at it is that if no one wears a mask, transmission rates will be significantly higher than if they did.


----------



## editor (Jul 18, 2021)

andysays said:


> While it's understandable that you're focusing on it from a personal individual risk point of view, the more important thing is the overall transmission rates.
> 
> I think what those numbers mean is that if everyone wears a mask in situations where it's appropriate, overall transmission rates are reduced by between 10 and 25%.
> 
> Another way of looking at it is that if no one wears a mask, transmission rates will be significantly higher than if they did.


This is a good point:


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 18, 2021)

editor said:


> This is a good point:



Go easy on Johnson, he can't even count the number of his own children, we can't expect him to understand exponential growth.


----------



## purenarcotic (Jul 18, 2021)

xenon said:


> There is a bit of a totemic thing going on with masks. Don’t get me wrong, I wear one I believe in continuing to wear one. But the way people just go on and on about them. They are not magic.



Of course not. It is one measure amongst many that can help. It is also a particularly easy one for us all to do.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 18, 2021)

Of course masks are "not magic" but they are one layer of defence. The more layers the better, the harder it is for the virus to get through, as explained here:

Covid-19: Vaccines alone will not stop Covid spreading - here's why - BBC News


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Johnson & Sunak have both been contacted by test & trace.
> 
> However, they will not be isolating.
> 
> ...



They clearly didn't like how the media reacted, U-turn 101 -



> Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been contacted by NHS Test and Trace as contacts of someone who has tested positive for Covid and had initially decided to participate in a daily contact testing pilot to allow them to continue to work from Downing Street.
> 
> However, both have now reversed course, with Mr Sunak posting on Twitter that he recognises that "the sense that the rules aren't the same for everyone is wrong" and a Downing Street spokesman confirming that Mr Johnson will isolate at Chequers.











						'Stick with the programme,' Boris Johnson urges as he isolates ahead of Freedom Day after being 'pinged'
					






					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## xenon (Jul 18, 2021)

Everyone knows that already. Just gets a bit boring is all. From both sides. Well all sides.

e2a

Referring to the masks discussion. There's never going to be near 100% proper usage of good masks. Most people I still believe will make an effort and cover their face in certain situations but the charts are ireleveant to real world day to day situatoins. Those outside of medical estlishments, closed gatekept environments. I just think it's a waste of mental energy and another thing to thrett about.


----------



## Supine (Jul 18, 2021)

This made me laugh


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 18, 2021)

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and just state outright that most people who don't wear mask after tomorrow will not have looked into the relevant research on their effectiveness in any great detail, or indeed at all.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They clearly didn't like how the media reacted, U-turn 101 -
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The very fact they took so long to figure out not isolating would be seen as a huge pisstake tells you everything about them. Morals led by poll numbers. Hate them, hate them.


----------



## little_legs (Jul 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Johnson & Sunak have both been contacted by test & trace.
> 
> However, they will not be isolating.
> 
> ...


It's already been announced that from August 16th double vaccinated people won't need to self isolate, exactly what are they 'piloting'? A 'one rule for us'?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 18, 2021)

So Freedom Day comes with the PM, the Chancellor, and the Health Sec isolating due to Covid. How they can seriously even contemplate throwing open the doors to everything without laughing or cringing is beyond me.
This "Churchillian" speech Johnson was planning has been shelved, too, as it was seen as not appropriate. Er, never was, mate


----------



## xenon (Jul 18, 2021)

S☼I said:


> The very fact they took so long to figure out not isolating would be seen as a huge pisstake tells you everything about them. Morals led by poll numbers. Hate them, hate them.



They're not even very good at that.

Misreading the public mood, listening to a few dubious advisors and rabid Tory fuckwit MPS.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 18, 2021)

I haven't felt this anxious about corona for ages, even though I'm double jabbed and on holiday til mid-August.


----------



## Lurdan (Jul 18, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Thanks for that really interesting and good thread. (Just a shame it was not on a better medium that twitter)


Well, some days ago somebody used threadreaderapp to archive that thread in the form of a web page here. And since such pages will vanish if the tweets are deleted, somebody else then archived it, using the Archive Today service at archive.vn, to back it up as a web page here.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 18, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I find that photo terrifying.
> That sort of density definitely demands a proper mask.
> 
> Those of you who normally travel by tube, how many times a year do you get a 3 day in bed type virus ?
> ...


Usually working in small crowded badly ventilated venues I normally get 2 or 3 "cold" in the autumn and in the spring, nothing this past year and a bit due to not having worked.
Next job is Friday, I hope my FFP2 wil have arrived by then.


----------



## andysays (Jul 18, 2021)

editor said:


> This is a good point:



Yeah, I was going to add something along those lines, but the mathematical detail was beyond me, especially on a Sunday


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They clearly didn't like how the media reacted, U-turn 101 -
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No surprise that they tested positive on the literal u-turn test.

They probably made their original decision on the basis that Gove got away with that approach. But there is a difference between getting away with it in slightly calmer times for the virus, and doing so when the media have been going nuts about half a million people being told to self-isolate by the app in a single week.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

Plis the timing context is one where they are looking to ditch those self-isolation rules but couldnt make the numbers stack up if they did it on freedom day, and had to delay such changes until at least mid August.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

Can I just take opportunity number 1,567,543 to say what an absolute cunt Blair is.



> However, former Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "I don't want the prime minister of the country to be in isolation at the moment. I need him, you know, at his desk doing his job."
> 
> He said it was reasonable for Mr Johnson not to self-isolate, given his immunity thanks to vaccination and a previous infection, and the fact that he was being tested. "The point is to do this for everyone," he said.











						Covid-19: PM and chancellor self-isolate after rapid U-turn
					

It comes after anger over "VIP testing" allowing them to work following Sajid Javid's positive test.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Also contains u-turn stats:



> This must be one of the fastest government U-turns ever: 157 minutes after saying the PM and chancellor wouldn't be isolating, Downing Street decided they would.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

The next big argument is likely to be about vaccinating people under 18, since that decision is apparently due soon and some newspapers are already saying that JVCI will recommend not doing it now and instead waiting for more evidence.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 18, 2021)

IC3D said:


> OK for the sake of spelling it out my initial post referring to the graph showing infection rates way higher than other European countries is bulshit. We test more that's it. I've freinds in Paris and Barcelona and they are being hit with loads of infections. We simply test more. I suggest that's because the tests are funded better because of the political state of our union. Do you
> Disagree? If so why?


My understanding is UK is uniquely terrible in terms of cases because of delta variant in combo with already very loose restrictions.

I don't think delta has taken off on the continent yet as it has here. It may well do soon.

That's my understanding, happy to be corrected


----------



## ska invita (Jul 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> Can I just take opportunity number 1,567,543 to say what an absolute cunt Blair is.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Johnson can sit in a hot office on zoom all week like much of the rest of the country


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 18, 2021)

ska invita said:


> My understanding is UK is uniquely terrible in terms of cases because of delta variant in combo with already very loose restrictions.
> 
> I don't think delta has taken off on the continent yet as it has here. It may well do soon.
> 
> That's my understanding, happy to be corrected


 88.6% of COVID-19 cases here are Delta


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 18, 2021)

He doesn't do his job wherever he's sitting anyway.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> He doesn't do his job wherever he's sitting anyway.


There is a risk that if he performs his duties via zoom, he might leave mute on when shouting about letting the bodies pile higher.


----------



## Ax^ (Jul 18, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> He doesn't do his job wherever he's sitting anyway.



might keep him from trying to cheat on his missus for a few days


----------



## two sheds (Jul 18, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> might keep him from trying to cheat on his missue for a few days


I keep thinking of words you could have meant but I then decided not to


----------



## MrSki (Jul 18, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Johnson can sit in a hot office on zoom all week like much of the rest of the country


Is there a pool at Chequers? Where he is holed up for the duration.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

Because of whats happened with Scotlands number of positive cases, I am paying particular attention to their weekly report.

It looks like a situation where wastewater testing adds a significant new dimension to the picture:



> The number of locations where the levels of Covid in wastewater are monitored has increased to 110 sites around Scotland. In contrast to Covid-19 case records, virus shedding into wastewater is a biological process. This means that wastewater data is unaffected by factors that impact whether testing is done. The level of wastewater (WW) Covid-19 levels continued to rise rapidly, reaching the highest levels observed. Increases are seen in a broad range of local authorities. At Hatton, which covers Dundee, wastewater levels in the last week rose to extremely high levels, substantially higher than in January. While this displays a large amount of variability, this shows a clear departure from case trends and represents the highest levels recorded in a major site.



So I can claim that Scotlands number of positive cases has peaked, but that doesnt mean the underlying reality is of a simple peak already having happened.


In terms of contact patterns during summer/while sschools are on summer holidays, this is how they describe that picture:



> Changes in patterns of mixing and adherence to restrictions will impact on future case numbers. The Scottish Contact Survey measures times and settings that people mix where they could potentially spread Covid2. From this survey we can say that average contacts have decreased by approximately 18% in the last two weeks (comparing surveys pertaining to 17th June - 23rd June and 1st July - 7th July) with a current level of 3.8 daily contacts. Contacts within the work and other setting (contacts outside of the school, home and work) have decreased compared to two weeks prior by 37% and 13% respectively. Average contacts within the home setting have remained at similar levels over the same period. Mean contacts across all age groups have shown a reduction in comparison to two weeks prior with those aged between 18-29 reporting the largest decrease of 37%. The biggest decrease in interactions is seen between those aged 18-49 with those under 18, decreasing by at least 55%.



In their words there is considerable uncertainty about future projections. Maybe things will be a little clearer in a weeks time.









						Coronavirus (COVID-19): state of the epidemic - 16 July 2021
					

This report brings together the different sources of evidence and data about the Covid epidemic to summarise the current situation, why we are at that place, and what is likely to happen next.




					www.gov.scot


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

In the absense of a narrative about wastewater Covid levels in England, we'll have to treat any peak in positive cases found through the testing system with some caution. Would expect school holidays to impact on the testing system quite rapidly. If they dont start talking about how that compares to wastewater levels, we'll have to wait extra weeks to judge the situation via hospital admissions, and population survey testing systems like the ONS one and REACT.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 18, 2021)

Ax^ said:


> might keep him from trying to cheat on his missus for a few days


you jest but it could be one reason all those senior Tories were so keen to end lockdown


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

The extent to which wastewaster indicators are a bit laggy (eg reflecting all people currently infected, not just trends in the very latest infections) is not totally clear to me by the way. Need to take that into account when judging peaks etc using wastewater surveillance.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 18, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> 88.6% of COVID-19 cases here are Delta


As they were here a few weeks back ... Would expect Portugal to follow similar trajectory to UK if your overall rules are similar to ours (though we also had schools to do incubation, whereas Portugal now has school holidays)


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> The extent to which wastewaster indicators are a bit laggy (eg reflecting all people currently infected, not just trends in the very latest infections) is not totally clear to me by the way. Need to take that into account when judging peaks etc using wastewater surveillance.



Lots to think about if comparing to January too. For example the delta variant and/or vaccination might affect the level of virus a person excretes into the sewage system.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 18, 2021)

andysays said:


> I'm sure part of the reason vaccination rates are low in some areas isn't because people are choosing not to get vaccinated but because many simply aren't able to access the system themselves and don't have the support to help them do so.


Yeah, I reckon that too. Glad the receptionist was decent though. Nice one for helping the guy.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Lots to think about if comparing to January too. For example the delta variant and/or vaccination might affect the level of virus a person excretes into the sewage system.


Yes, although I'm mostly interested in this sort of surveillance being able to detect peaks, rather than for comparing sizes of different waves peaks.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 18, 2021)

ska invita said:


> As they were here a few weeks back ... Would expect Portugal to follow similar trajectory to UK if your overall rules are similar to ours (though we also had schools to do incubation, whereas Portugal now has school holidays)


Rules here are law rather than advice or reccomendations , even so similar pattern ie lare number of cases and some pressure on hospitals whislt they bump out the vaccines.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> So I can claim that Scotlands number of positive cases has peaked, but that doesnt mean the underlying reality is of a simple peak already having happened.


 
Some locations trending up to 300 million gene copies per person per day in the last week. Transient disparity Dec/Jan _might_ suggest this is down to test availability/uptake, though innate viral property can not necessarily be ruled out (assuming sampling methodology is consistent). e2a: Or perhaps transient populations.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> This is the context of the Whitty comment about scary numbers. Mostly the usual attempts to explain exponential growth.



Maybe this is simplistic, but couldn't he have said this on the 12th?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

2hats said:


> View attachment 279229 View attachment 279228
> Some locations trending up to 300 million gene copies per person per day in the last week. Transient disparity Dec/Jan _might_ suggest this is down to test availability/uptake, though innate viral property can not necessarily be ruled out (assuming sampling methodology is consistent).


Certainly doesn't look like cases have peaked then?


----------



## 2hats (Jul 18, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Certainly doesn't look like cases have peaked then?


_Cases_ have peaked. _Infections_ maybe, maybe not.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

2hats said:


> View attachment 279229 View attachment 279228
> Some locations trending up to 300 million gene copies per person per day in the last week. Transient disparity Dec/Jan _might_ suggest this is down to test availability/uptake, though innate viral property can not necessarily be ruled out (assuming sampling methodology is consistent).


I'm melting in the heat, can you point me to the source of that graph? Thanks very much!


----------



## 2hats (Jul 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm melting in the heat, can you point me to the source of that graph? Thanks very much!


Sorry. Same source I mentioned upthread. Latest issue (number 60) from the Scottish Government - Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic in Scotland.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

Thanks. I note this stuff:



> In Seafield, levels rose to almost 250 Mgc/p/d with a sample taken on 2nd July. However, three subsequent samples were tested and showed a decline in levels from that peak, with the two most recent samples giving an estimate of around 60 Mgc/p/d. This approximates the pattern in cases, albeit in a more exaggerated manner.





> Some other sites, including Nigg (covering Aberdeen) and Dalmuir (covering parts of Glasgow), show a similar pattern of a large increase in one sample followed by a reduced second sample. Taken together, however, this still represents a week to week increase in average WW Covid-19 levels. This sort of rapid (intra-week) change in levels is difficult to capture in aggregated statistics for weekly or fortnightly intervals. It is too early to tell if these reductions in WW Covid-19 levels will be maintained.


So I'd say there are tentative signs of peak in that data too, but need to wait longer to see if that picture solidifies.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 18, 2021)

Isabel Bullshit tweeted thus




My feeling is that it ought be reported


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 18, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> NB: I have no idea about all this html bollocks here.


Just post the link to the tweet. There's a system which automatically generates the embed code (using the OEmbed API, if you're interested).


----------



## bimble (Jul 18, 2021)

i think the people who would be impressed by her tweet have already deleted it tbh. If the comments on DM are any indication of anything at all, deleting the App has the cool thing to do for a while now. 
It's all voluntary really, all of it, and always has been. I don't think anything much is changing tomorrow for the same reason.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

2hats said:


> _Cases_ have peaked. _Infections_ maybe, maybe not.


Could be too early to say on both, no? I take your point though.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> i think the people who would be impressed by her tweet have already deleted it tbh. If the comments on DM are any indication of anything at all, deleting the App has the cool thing to do for a while now.
> It's all voluntary really, all of it, and always has been. I don't think anything much is changing tomorrow for the same reason.



I agree with you in terms of people wearing masks, using the app, etc.

I think those that have been will continue to do so, mostly, and those that haven't been will continue not to.

What scares me (apart from the R number already!) is the numbers of people having to return to work in person, having to use public transport to do so, and above all - the people going to pubs, bars, and nightclubs from tomorrow onwards.

I'm seeing stuff on social media from the latter group that's really worrying me.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Could be too early to say on both, no? I take your point though.


Cases is used to describe people who have tested positive, so for Scotland it is safe to make that particular claim.

Next Wednesdays release of hospital admissions data for Scotland is probably the next opportunity to talk about this.


----------



## bimble (Jul 18, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> I agree with you in terms of people wearing masks, using the app, etc.
> 
> I think those that have been will continue to do so, mostly, and those that haven't been will continue not to.
> 
> ...


Yeah you're right. It is not going to continue the same because the choices are widening & people are being forced back to work.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

But also the virus has less fresh victims to find, less unvaccinated people, and school holidays impact R.

A mess of different factors pulling in different directions.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

Also for example the rather large number of infectious people at the moment vs the rather large number of people who are self-isolating.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 18, 2021)

I disable the app scanning regularly. It doesn't account for the situation - in fact, since it judges partially based on signal attenuation, it's more likely to ping outdoors than indoors - and I only ever stay in once place for any length of time either (a) at home alone or (b) outside in super-ventilated areas, where my sitting at a table behind someone who then goes on to get covid means that my exposure risk is effectively zero, regardless of what the distance and time algorithm says. I turn it back on for public transport and other situations which _are_ indoors.

eta: what I don't do is delete it. There's no point. If it pings you and you delete it then it will ping you again if you re-install it. It's not legally mandatory for you to obey it if it pings. And if you don't have the app you can't sign into anywhere that needs a QR code sign-in, not that anyone will be doing that from tomorrow I guess.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 18, 2021)

The venue will ask for a phone number or except another member of your group logging in, that's if they even ask. I've never been refused entry for not having it.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 18, 2021)

IC3D said:


> The venue will ask for a phone number or except another member of your group logging in, that's if they even ask. I've never been refused entry for not having it.


It's just a little quicker to scan, and you don't get pinged from scanning anyway.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> Cases is used to describe people who have tested positive, so for Scotland it is safe to make that particular claim.
> 
> Next Wednesdays release of hospital admissions data for Scotland is probably the next opportunity to talk about this.


I'd be interested to see if it's the true peak or just a false dawn, given what the infection numbers are supposedly saying.

TL;Dr agree with what you said #40472


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I'd be interested to see if it's the true peak or just a false dawn, given what the infection numbers are supposedly saying.


I dont know what numbers you are referring to exactly - which numbers contradict the peak seen in other Scottish data?

Feel free not to answer this as my brain is melting in the heat and I've probably misconstrued what you are saying anyway.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 18, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I'd be interested to see if it's the true peak or just a false dawn, given what the infection numbers are supposedly saying.


For too many people it's a widow's peak


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont know what numbers you are referring to exactly - which numbers contradict the peak seen in other Scottish data?
> 
> Feel free not to answer this as my brain is melting in the heat and I've probably misconstrued what you are saying anyway.


What you said in 40472 that it's not completely clear cut. Unless you changed your mind since then.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

By the way I'm not a big fan of Scotlands offical dashboard, I tend to use this one instead:









						Scotland Coronavirus Tracker
					

Current and historical data of the Coronavirus outbreak in Scotland. Includes breakdowns by region, maps, charts, and more!




					www.travellingtabby.com
				




In particular their 7 day case rates by age group.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> What you said in 40472 that it's not completely clear cut. Unless you changed your mind since then.



My overall impression has been that Scotland probably did peak when the peak first showed up in their basic case data. But that I couldnt be too confident about it till more time passed and hospitalisation data demonstrated the same thing.

Certainly the wording on one document about their wastewaster testing made me less certain, but then the other document that 2hats pointed me towards went into more detail which implied peaks probably starting to be seen in that data too, but still a little early to have really high confidence about that.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

Plus lengths of plateaus in older age groups in the Scottish data have implications for hospital admission rates over time.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

Opening up could lead to a rise in cases again. But hopefully not and that's the worst of it.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

For England I'm copying what some people have done on twitter and have now set up my spreadsheet so that I can track changes in growth rate of cases in different age groups in England. I'll probably post a graph once we are beyond weekend related drops in figures.

Rates of growth had been falling for a while, but still in the territory of growth rather than decline, but more recently they stopped falling and went higher again, most notably in the 15-29 age group.

These rates determine the length of the doubling time, and will also offer another way to spot the plateau.


----------



## elbows (Jul 18, 2021)

This is the sort of thing I mean, expcet I'll be lumping mine together into larger age groups so I can stick the entire range of ages on one graph without a big mess.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 18, 2021)

I can't run the app, my phone isn't smart enough.

I still can't quite believe what is happening tomorrow. The more I think about it the more my stress increases. Javid talked about mental health as one of his reasons for lifting restrictions, yet we all know that the opposite will be true for a great many. Myself included. 

I have to believe - or hope at least - they'll relent soon. I'm dreading visiting the shops. THey already had a scare earlier this year, one of the local shops had to close for a fortnight. It spread to another shop which scraped by on skeleton staff. This could now lead to a situation where shops, supermarkets, are forced to close. It is utter fucking insanity.

I can only hope they will enforce and demand mask wearing at the very least.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 18, 2021)

Have to say I am quite glad that I managed to get a hair cut in and have plenty of food in. The local Lidl is open till 10pm so going in the evening seems like a good bet to avoid crowds.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 18, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Have to say I am quite glad that I managed to get a hair cut in and have plenty of food in. The local Lidl is open till 10pm so going in the evening seems like a good bet to avoid crowds.


I go do my shopping around 7 30 am at the local texpress. A habit I picked up during this crisis. It's usually quiet, except for all the blokey bloke builder types who don't wear masks when picking up their snacks. There's a housing development just down the road so...


----------



## zora (Jul 18, 2021)

It's come to quite something when you find yourself opening the email from Tesco's CEO with a fluttering of hope in your heart to find some moral guidance for the nation in a time of crisis...[me, just now]


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 18, 2021)

zora said:


> It's come to quite something when you find yourself opening the email from Tesco's CEO with a fluttering of hope in your heart to find some moral guidance for the nation in a time of crisis...[me, just now]



This seems to be similar to the start where companies are running policies the govt should be. 
The company I work for was contracting at a large multinational as the situation evolved it went from: Not no from high risk countries were allow to in building, then restricted to everyone staying at their own sites, to essential and critical staff, finally just critical staff who where needed to keep things from failing. This was done before the official lockdown.

The same seems to be happening again now, but with the added problem of anti-mask nutjobs kicking off.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 18, 2021)

zora said:


> It's come to quite something when you find yourself opening the email from Tesco's CEO with a fluttering of hope in your heart to find some moral guidance for the nation in a time of crisis...[me, just now]


They're a business, so they are doing what they think will get the most people to shop at Tesco.

If their customer research said the vast majority of people wanted to drop the mask wearing requirement in their shops, then you can bet they would drop it.

I suspect it (quite sensibly) says the opposite right now.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 18, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> eta: what I don't do is delete it. There's no point. If it pings you and you delete it then it will ping you again if you re-install it. It's not legally mandatory for you to obey it if it pings.


I think it is


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 18, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> They're a business, so they are doing what they think will get the most people to shop at Tesco.
> 
> If their customer research said the vast majority of people wanted to drop the mask wearing requirement in their shops, then you can bet they would drop it.
> 
> I suspect it (quite sensibly) says the opposite right now.



That's what pleased me about the email I got from Tesco's today. Not that I think it says anything new about Tesco's, it doesn't, but what it says about public opinion.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 18, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I think it is


it's not

I was pinged by it a while back and made very sure of that, though self-isolated anyway, on the basis that I'd installed the damn thing so should damn well take the consequences


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jul 19, 2021)

I feel terribly depressed by this, now the day has arrived. I'm in disbelief actually. I'm struggling to believe that we're governed by this level of lying incompetence and that whole swathes of the population just lap this shit up.

As I write this I know of two clubs in the city I live in that are open right now til 6 with a full roster of DJs and lots of tickets sold. That's being repeated across the country. I just can't believe it's happening. I've never felt as flabbergasted about any government policy before, angry yes but never like this. I feel numb. I know I'm not alone in feeling this but I feel very alone at the moment.

Good luck out there.


----------



## Sue (Jul 19, 2021)

FWIW, everyone I known is planning to continue with face masks and social distancing. But we're lucky people who can continue to work from home.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 19, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I feel terribly depressed by this, now the day has arrived. I'm in disbelief actually. I'm struggling to believe that we're governed by this level of lying incompetence and that whole swathes of the population just lap this shit up.
> 
> As I write this I know of two clubs in the city I live in that are open right now til 6 with a full roster of DJs and lots of tickets sold. That's being repeated across the country. I just can't believe it's happening. I've never felt as flabbergasted about any government policy before, angry yes but never like this. I feel numb. I know I'm not alone in feeling this but I feel very alone at the moment.
> 
> Good luck out there.



Same here.

Solidarity.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 19, 2021)




----------



## ElizabethofYork (Jul 19, 2021)

Sue said:


> FWIW, everyone I known is planning to continue with face masks and social distancing. But we're lucky people who can continue to work from home.


I feel very lucky that I can continue to work from home.


----------



## bimble (Jul 19, 2021)

when did google maps add covid data ? maybe its been there a while but i never noticed. Just went to look up directions to somewhere and it pops up top left corner, you click on it and it colour codes the world by new cases per 100,000 in the past week. Zoom right out and you get this .  
Happy freedom day everyone


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 19, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> it's not
> 
> I was pinged by it a while back and made very sure of that, though self-isolated anyway, on the basis that I'd installed the damn thing so should damn well take the consequences


Did I misread this, then?


----------



## existentialist (Jul 19, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Did I misread this, then?
> 
> View attachment 279379


Remember that the rules in Wales are different...


----------



## Espresso (Jul 19, 2021)

I was in Sainsbury's this morning at 7, which is when it opens. I usually go at that time because it's quiet. Everyone in there was masked up, the signs saying to wear a mask were still there, as well as the hand sanitising stations. The one difference I noticed was that there was no one clocking you in and out and the chicane to get in had been done away with. 

I suppose it's no surprise that everyone who was there at that time was masked up, because to go in so early probably means you're quite risk averse to start with.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 19, 2021)

The app pinging you does not count as being contacted by Test & Trace, which is what the law is based on (and to what the above paragraph seems to refer).


----------



## souljacker (Jul 19, 2021)

I'm on the train to Paddington and there is full mask compliance as far as I can see, even though the 'wear a mask" signs have all gone. I suspect the tube will be different though 

It's a lot busier than it has been but still nowhere near the madness of pre-covid times.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 19, 2021)

Can't wait for photo after photo of maskless people in confined spaces today


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

PM begs England to 'please, please be careful' as he braces for catastrophe
					

The Prime Minister dramatically shifted his tone in a desperate last-minute plea - despite giving the green light to a 'Freedom Day' that could send cases surging as high as 200,000 a day




					www.mirror.co.uk
				




Just demonstrates how little goes on in his head, announce freedom day, then basically beg people not to take advantage of it.


----------



## tommers (Jul 19, 2021)

Christ. This is all so inept.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 19, 2021)

Tesco this am was about the same as it has been. A couple of maskless twats. Till person wasn't masked though she usually is so perhaps it was just reasons. Others, including myself, were masked. Fortuantely it wasn't very busy at all. Am curious as to what the local shops will be like, will find out shortly.​


----------



## miss direct (Jul 19, 2021)

Aren't your cashiers behind screens? I care less about them being unmasked if they're behind a screen. And let's hope the screens stay for now.


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 19, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Aren't your cashiers behind screens? I care less about them being unmasked if they're behind a screen. And let's hope the screens stay for now.



The screens arent of much use at all.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 19, 2021)

Even Murdoch getting YG to poll can't produce anything other than a resounding no:



That persistent 1/3 of cunts in this country.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Aren't your cashiers behind screens? I care less about them being unmasked if they're behind a screen. And let's hope the screens stay for now.



Screens are on a par with wearing face shields, without a mask, they are both fairly pointless, covid aerosols floating in the air will easily get around a piece of plastic, I seem to remember face shields on their own, give around only 2% protection.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 19, 2021)

I suppose I'm thinking of someone sneezing/coughing - I'd rather there be a screen than not. I get the point though.


----------



## bimble (Jul 19, 2021)

Friend told me that this morning dropping her kids off at school there was just one lone parent going yay no masks happy freedom day and everyone else was wearing one and told her to duck right off. So that’s good.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> ...told her to duck right off.



Did you type duck, or was that auto-correct?


----------



## bimble (Jul 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Did you type duck, or was that auto-correct?


autocorrect but i have stopped bothering to change it now. Its fine, not often misunderstood.


----------



## prunus (Jul 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> autocorrect but i have stopped bothering to change it now. Its fine, not often misunderstood.



Fancy coming over for a duck in orange sauce?


----------



## emanymton (Jul 19, 2021)

Espresso said:


> I was in Sainsbury's this morning at 7, which is when it opens. I usually go at that time because it's quiet. Everyone in there was masked up, the signs saying to wear a mask were still there, as well as the hand sanitising stations. The one difference I noticed was that there was no one clocking you in and out and the chicane to get in had been done away with.
> 
> I suppose it's no surprise that everyone who was there at that time was masked up, because to go in so early probably means you're quite risk averse to start with.


Hardly online on the bus this morning was wearing one and the same in  shops cafes etc. Maybe around 20% and 0% for the staff I have seen. What has shocked me a bit is that all the NHS track and track has been pulled down so you can't scan the app even if you want to. I didn't know that was ending today. I have also noticed that a places that had screens up looked to have pulled them down already. I was expecting a massive drop in mask wearing but I am a bit shocked just how much of a return to normal it feels.

I have just popped out to grab a sandwich and a coffee for lunch, there're 6 members of staff working in close proximity and not one with a mask on. All the signs about social distancing are gone so there is nothing to stop people sitting more or less on top of each other.


----------



## prunus (Jul 19, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Hardly online on the bus this morning was wearing one and the same in  shops cafes etc. Maybe around 20% and 0% for the staff I have seen. What has shocked me a bit is that all the NHS track and track has been pulled down so you can't scan the app even if you want to. I didn't know that was ending today. I have also noticed that a places that had screens up looked to have pulled them down already. I was expecting a massive drop in mask wearing but I am a bit shocked just how much of a return to normal it feels.
> 
> I have just popped out to grab a sandwich and a coffee for lunch, there're 6 members of staff working in close proximity and not one with a mask on. All the signs about social distancing are gone so there is nothing to stop people sitting more or less on top of each other.



Well, if that’s replicated over the country then all the government’s modelling goes out of the window. I think they’re relying on a ‘gradual’ return.  We’ll see I guess.


----------



## emanymton (Jul 19, 2021)

prunus said:


> Well, if that’s replicated over the country then all the government’s modelling goes out of the window. I think they’re relying on a ‘gradual’ return.  We’ll see I guess.


What a shock. 

Like I said I expected a big drop in mask wearing. But there is no evidence we are in the middle of a pandemic in the places I have seen, besides a few customers wearing masks. I know the screens don't much but they at least communicate the need to be careful and I am quite shocked they have gone already.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Jul 19, 2021)

At work today I'd say 95% of customers were wearing masks and 85% of the staff.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 19, 2021)

I'm  at my usual home office spot but my Dad tells me he's been to the supermarket this morning and only saw one couple without masks - everyone else had one on.


----------



## emanymton (Jul 19, 2021)

From where I am sat I can see 8 customers and 5 staff members. 1 person is wearing a mask. Last week it would have been 1 or 2 without.


----------



## xenon (Jul 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> autocorrect but i have stopped bothering to change it now. Its fine, not often misunderstood.



I often use dictation to post my gems of wisdom. It always gets the swear words right, which I'm not sure says anything good about me.


----------



## Supine (Jul 19, 2021)

prunus said:


> Fancy coming over for a duck in orange sauce?



saucy!


----------



## emanymton (Jul 19, 2021)

emanymton said:


> From where I am sat I can see 8 customers and 5 staff members. 1 person is wearing a mask. Last week it would have been 1 or 2 without.


May have picked a bad time for my little audit. As I was typing 2 mask wearers walked in so a little better.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 19, 2021)

And of course my housemate chose to appear while I was making a coffee and give me a cheery "happy freedom day"...she got a bit of a mouthful back I'm afraid, as just off the phone from my Mum, who is now self isolating.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

There is something about Scotlands approach that I find very insidious.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Theres a wee bit more virus around at the moment, dont worry, we've got patronising tips for ye.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> There is something about Scotlands approach that I find very insidious.



it's the sort of tweet that should be written in comic sans


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Theres a wee bit more virus around at the moment, dont worry, we've got patronising tips for ye.



It's that pally wally faux cutesy manner of talking to you like your a child you see on Pret or Innocent smoothie adverts 

Glad the advertising industry still has work


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Oh well at least Labour arent sitting on the fence.



> We've got more from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer now, who accuses the Conservative government of getting "virtually every big decision wrong" in its response to Covid.
> 
> He says: "During this pandemic, government decisions have been a matter of life and death - good decisions have had the power to save thousands of lives, bad decisions have led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, so we all need the government to succeed in this pandemic.
> 
> That's why supporting the government during the pandemic was the right thing to do for the country, but the truth is the Tories have got virtually every big decision wrong, either in substance, in timing or both."





> Starmer says the PM's “chaotic” leadership style is “dangerous” and has “deadly consequences for the country”, “undermines” public safety during the pandemic, and “puts lives at risk”.
> 
> He goes on to say that today's lifting of all restrictions in England is “reckless” and “Labour does not support the plan.”



From 13:04 entry of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57864699

Given that Labours sense of timing isnt always the best either, the tories will be hoping for an early peak so that new childish options of mocking peoples gloomy expectations become available.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

Cry me a river, it's a bit late to start paddling to put distance between themselves & government.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Yeah 'opposition' timing in this pandemic suffers the same timing flaws as many other things - if you wait till the data fully demonstrates the scale of the problem, you've left it too late.

As I've been saying for more than two months, it was step 3 where a lot of the danger lurked. Step 3 got us to this point of horror, not step 4.

And it is not like I magically came up with this theory on my own, a huge chunk of my impressions about this came from SAGE modelling. Probably from early May (I forget right now).


----------



## kabbes (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> There is something about Scotlands approach that I find very insidious.




It’s “humaneering”, is why:



> From its Modernist beginnings, social psychology has had what Tiffin et al. (1940) termed a ‘humaneering’ mission:
> 
> 
> > The value of learning more about ourselves and human nature is obvious. Our social, political and economic theories rest ultimately upon our understanding of human nature. Upon sound knowledge of human nature depends the possibility of directing social changes, so as to make social institutions and practices better suited to human needs. As citizens, then, we need to make our beliefs about human nature as sound and rational as possible. The nineteenth century was marked by great achievements in engineering. Advances in psychology, sociology, andhysiology should lead to as striking advances in ‘humaneering’ during the twentieth century.
> ...



(Taken from this book: ftp://117.239.47.98/MBA/Ebooks/Social%20Psychology.pdf )


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

I am surprised, but there's a Downing Street briefing at 5 pm.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

I'm not that surprised, they usually do one when a big change has just happened.

Johnson via video link. Vallance as usual. No Whitty, JVT is being used instead apparently.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am surprised, but there's a Downing Street briefing at 5 pm.


Sudden reversal?

Or just another batch of meaningless twaddle and bluster as Johnson attempts to shift responsibility onto anyone-but-him for the coming catastrophe?


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Plus they have vaccines for under 18s to talk about.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Sudden reversal?



I'll LMFAO if that happens.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 19, 2021)

prunus said:


> Well, if that’s replicated over the country then all the government’s modelling goes out of the window. I think they’re relying on a ‘gradual’ return.  We’ll see I guess.


There was always a cowardly dishonesty about the shift to 'personal choice' and johnson's slightly panicked request to people to 'show restraint'.  In so many areas of life it isn't a choice.  As well as workers in the gig economy having no incentive to isolate, so many areas of urban living force you into close contact - retail settings, pubs and restaurants, public transport and the rest.  They are systems literally _designed _to have a maximum throughput of people.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Plus they have vaccines for under 18s to talk about.


Indeed, was on the BBC front page for a while yesterday - papers seem to be suggesting they're going to open up to the "almost 18"s and kids living with vulnerable adults only?


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Indeed, was on the BBC front page for a while yesterday - papers seem to be suggesting they're going to open up to the "almost 18"s and kids living with vulnerable adults only?



Children with certain conditions that leave them especially vulnerable are also on the list.









						Experts recommend Covid jabs for some under-18s in UK
					

The vaccines minister says he will announce the final decision in Parliament on Monday afternoon.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *Experts have recommended that a limited group of children should be offered Covid jabs to protect them against the pandemic ahead of winter, Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi has said. *
> 
> He told BBC Breakfast it included children who were almost 18, vulnerable to Covid or who lived with people who were clinically vulnerable.
> 
> But whether to jab healthy children aged 12-17 will be "kept under review".


----------



## Thora (Jul 19, 2021)

QueenOfGoths said:


> At work today I'd say 95% of customers were wearing masks and 85% of the staff.


I've just got back from Morrisons and estimate it's gone from 90% mask wearing to maybe 75-80%.  People of all ages wearing masks.
Same at school drop off - majority of parents wearing masks outside the gates.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 19, 2021)

They simply don’t have enough to supply to start vaccinating healthy children now.


----------



## bimble (Jul 19, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> They simply don’t have enough to supply to start vaccinating healthy children now.


i just saw that, globally, only 1 in 8 frontline health care workers has been fully vaxed. I know this is a thread about the Uk but that is just so incredibly stupid and wrong. The estimated death toll from covid for medical staff around the world already is just huge.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jul 19, 2021)

More #anecdata - Mrs SI just went to home bargains and was surprised how many people were masked. Maybe 3 or 4 in there without in a pretty busy shop. Course this is Day One


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 19, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I feel terribly depressed by this, now the day has arrived. I'm in disbelief actually. I'm struggling to believe that we're governed by this level of lying incompetence and that whole swathes of the population just lap this shit up.
> 
> As I write this I know of two clubs in the city I live in that are open right now til 6 with a full roster of DJs and lots of tickets sold. That's being repeated across the country. I just can't believe it's happening. I've never felt as flabbergasted about any government policy before, angry yes but never like this. I feel numb. I know I'm not alone in feeling this but I feel very alone at the moment.
> 
> Good luck out there.


Solidarity.


----------



## 20Bees (Jul 19, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> The screens arent of much use at all.


I’m a supermarket cashier and the screens are very reassuring. Sitting at the checkout I’m at a lower level than the customers are, if they cough or sneeze, or raise their voices, I certainly feel better protected than I did before the screens were installed. We have been told they’ll stay in place until at least the end of the year.
I’m working this evening, Monday is usually quiet but I wonder how many staff and customers will be maskless and not distancing. The teenage staff haven’t been good at remembering distancing all through the restrictions. And the girls most inclined to wear a full face of makeup are also most likely to be ‘exempt’ from masks! 
I think I will be wearing one in any store or indoor setting, for years to come.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

Unbelievable...



> Coronavirus lateral flow tests given out by the Government for free have run out as millions order kits on Freedom Day.
> 
> The government's website tells people to "come back tomorrow".











						UK runs out of Covid lateral flow tests on Freedom Day as millions order kits
					

Lateral flow tests, which tell people if they have coronavirus in less than half an hour, have run out. The government's booking website is telling people to try again tomorrow




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Except they didnt run out.



> But a government spokeswoman told the Mirror: “We can confirm that lateral flow devices (LFDs) are still available to order via gov.uk website.
> 
> "There was a temporary technical glitch with the website earlier today and this has now been rectified.”


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)




----------



## ska invita (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


>



It boggles the mind this... If they are infected surely the worst possible place they could go to is a hospital.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> It boggles the mind this... If they are infected surely the worst possible place they could go to is a hospital.


Its a sign of failure, but I understand why they've resorted to it. Poor levels of staffing kill too. I'd have tackled the whole thing differently by not letting cases rise to anything like this level.

The fudge relies on risk assessments to wave things through.



> The decision to allow NHS and social care staff to attend work after being told to self-isolate should be made on a case-by-case basis, and only after a risk assessment by the organisation’s management.
> 
> This must be authorised by the organisation’s local Director of Infection Prevention and Control, the lead professional for health protection, or the Director of Public Health relevant to the organisation.











						Frontline health and care staff can work rather than self-isolate
					

Frontline NHS and social care staff can attend work rather than self-isolate with testing mitigations in exceptional circumstances under updated guidance




					www.gov.uk
				




That page also contains the obnoxious bullshit from Javid that we are already used to:



> As we learn to live with this virus, it’s important that we ensure frontline staff can keep providing the best possible care and support to people up and down the country.
> 
> The government has backed healthcare services at every turn through this global pandemic and these new rules will fortify our collective defences against this awful virus, by allowing fully vaccinated frontline NHS and social care staff to continue to work when needed.



Fortify my arse.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


>



They don't even need a confirmatory negative PCR?


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


>




I shouted at the radio last night, when they (the BBC) described NHS workers as being "allowed" to continue to work in these circumstances. 

FFS!

Like the workers are so desperate, begging to continue to work and put themselves, their colleagues, their patients, their families, at risk! Like they should be happy and grateful. Like it's a good thing for them, for any of us. Grrrrrrr!


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> They don't even need a confirmatory negative PCR?


One.



> This measure is being introduced to alleviate pressure on NHS and social care services and will be contingent on staff members only working after having a negative PCR test and also taking daily negative lateral flow tests for a minimum of seven days, and up to 10 days or completion of the identified self-isolation period.



That quote is from the same page I already linked to.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> I shouted at the radio last night, when they (the BBC) described NHS workers as being "allowed" to continue to work in these circumstances.
> 
> FFS!
> 
> Like the workers are so desperate, begging to continue to work and put themselves, their colleagues, their patients, their families, at risk! Like they should be happy and grateful. Like it's a good thing for them, for any of us. Grrrrrrr!


To be honest quite a lot of NHS workers do feel bad when they have to self-isolate, usually because they know the staffing pressures on their department at the time. So I'd expect a range of opinions from them about this, some will support it.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> To be honest quite a lot of NHS workers do feel bad when they have to self-isolate, usually because they know the staffing pressures on their department at the time. So I'd expect a range of opinions from them about this, some will support it.



Possibly. None of those that I know do though.

Yes they feel bad for their colleagues when they have to isolate, but no they don't think this is in any way an answer.


----------



## LDC (Jul 19, 2021)

My opinion is that it's like lots of what's happening now in that when you make a series of terrible decisions the place you end up in is one where another terrible decision does sometimes make some kind of fucked-up sense.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Yeah, pragmatism of the damned.

I have too much focus on the role of hospital infections to be happy about it. But staffing pressures this summer are immense so something had to give.

Meanwhile:


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 19, 2021)

Bit confused by this superspreader event:


surely they must have been breaking the law by having all of those people in before midnight?


----------



## maomao (Jul 19, 2021)

Mask wearing at my kid's school pick up time has gone from over 90% to maybe 25% at most. Though it is outside so maybe not representative. What I didnt understand was why, in the circumstances, two silly cunts had gone to the bother of putting their masks on but not covered their noses. Just take the fucking thing off.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> To be honest quite a lot of NHS workers do feel bad when they have to self-isolate, usually because they know the staffing pressures on their department at the time. So I'd expect a range of opinions from them about this, some will support it.


from what ive read of NHS urbanites the work pressure culture is a really unhealthy one


----------



## xenon (Jul 19, 2021)

Having drinks later outside, at a pub on the harbourside. one person has been pinged off, as it were. I genuinnely forget to turn the app on when I'm out. Yeah, I know you're supposed to check in but this is not 100% observed in places I've been.


cupid_stunt said:


> Unbelievable...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I've never ordered any before. Just did so on Saturday and they arrived today.

I just got them as a precaution and intend to use them if I get pinged or come down with any symptoms. I know people recommend doing 2 a week but I'm not mixing with that many people and not visiting anyone vunrible any time soon. (Plus I need someone to help read the indicator over video call, which adds a bit more hassle to it.)


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Meanwhile all is not well on the Freedom Tossers Stock Exchange:



> The FTSE 100 index has fallen on renewed concern over the third wave of coronavirus surging across the UK.
> 
> Overall the FTSE 100 is down 2.3%, with ITV down 6% - with analysts pointing to concerns that a big wave of infection could hit advertisers’ confidence to spend money on TV advertising.
> 
> ...



From the 15:45 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57864699


----------



## Smangus (Jul 19, 2021)

Fuck business , or something


----------



## kabbes (Jul 19, 2021)

Is not just the U.K.  This is the day the whole world decided to get scared again.  Tomorrow, who knows?


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Over 1 million people in the UK have been reported as testing positive between step 3 (May 17th) and step 4!

To be completely fair to this point perhaps I should have waited till the same could be said for England alone. That moment is pretty close too.


----------



## QueenOfGoths (Jul 19, 2021)

Thora said:


> I've just got back from Morrisons and estimate it's gone from 90% mask wearing to maybe 75-80%.  People of all ages wearing masks.
> Same at school drop off - majority of parents wearing masks outside the gates.


Interesting as I was one of the few wearing masks at school. I'd say only about 15% were still wearing them at school pick up. 

Also none of the teaching staff that i saw were wearing them however I'm not sure if they were when in the school buildings.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 19, 2021)

anecdata: i just went to a big Sainsbury’s and a Majestic Wines - most people instore and all the cabbies I used were masked up. the three cabbies i spoke to were all insisting their customers wore masks and none had any pushback on this today so far.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 19, 2021)

I went to nursery pick up which had same amount of mask wearing and Iceland where everyone had noses out or chin warmers.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Todays press conference featured threats to nightclubs, some attempts to copy Macrons stick to get more younger adults vaccinated, some talk of when the peak may be, and JVTs superspreading shed.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 19, 2021)

The smallish Sainsbury's near me was basically exactly the same as normal, apart from them having removed the barrier outside. One person unmasked, a dozen or so others masked.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

And for the surreal bit of todays press conference, we had Vallance listing reasons why the high level of infections is bad. It was a bit Spanish inquisition since he ended up having more reasons than he originally counted.


----------



## souljacker (Jul 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Bit confused by this superspreader event:
> 
> 
> surely they must have been breaking the law by having all of those people in before midnight?




They opened at exactly midnight. Everyone was sat outside having drinks beforehand.


----------



## souljacker (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Meanwhile all is not well on the Freedom Tossers Stock Exchange:
> 
> 
> 
> From the 15:45 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57864699


----------



## xenon (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Over 1 million people in the UK have been reported as testing positive between step 3 (March 17th) and step 4!
> 
> To be completely fair to this point perhaps I should have waited till the same could be said for England alone. That moment is pretty close too.



May 17. when indoor hospitality reopened.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Oops yes I said March instead of May due to heat-frazzled brain! I have edited my post to fix that, thanks for pointing it out. For the actual maths behind my claim, I did use May 17th.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 19, 2021)

The US CDC has advised Americans not to come here. I mean, it's reasonable.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

So, 60% of hospital admissions are people double jabbed, according to Vallance.

It would be nice to see stats on ages, other conditions, etc.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 19, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> The US CDC has advised Americans not to come here. I mean, it's reasonable.




And it makes hanging out in the "royal parks" of Central London so very much nicer for me...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

I am bloody sure that vaccination passports will not be introduced for nightclubs, it's just hot-air to scare younger people into getting the jab.


----------



## The39thStep (Jul 19, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Is not just the U.K.  This is the day the whole world decided to get scared again.  Tomorrow, who knows?


Tourist industry over here waiting for British tourists to arrive tbh


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am bloody sure that vaccination passports will not be introduced for nightclubs, it's just hot-air to scare younger people into getting the jab.


Only time will tell, its a threat for sure, an imitation of Macrons stick without actually using the stick yet. I would not be confident either way about whether it is merely an empty threat.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Only time will tell, its a threat for sure, an imitation of Macrons stick without actually using the stick yet. I would not be confident either way about whether it is merely an empty threat.



Well both Lab & the LibDems (remember them?) have already come out against it, mix in a large Tory revolt, and there's not a chance in hell of it happening.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

All the same, 'not a chance' is not a concept I tend to deploy in this pandemic.


----------



## magneze (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Todays press conference featured threats to nightclubs, some attempts to copy Macrons stick to get more younger adults vaccinated, some talk of when the peak may be, and JVTs superspreading shed.


It's a joke:


> Hours after clubs were allowed to reopen for the first time in 16 months, Boris Johnson said he was concerned about “the continuing risk posed by nightclubs” and that from the end of September entry was set to be barred for those who are not fully vaccinated.











						Covid vaccine certificates to be compulsory for crowded venues in England
					

Ministers hope move for venues such as nightclubs will boost vaccine uptake among young people




					www.theguardian.com
				




Fucking unbelievable. End of September. Dickheads.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 19, 2021)

For a government whose only real interest is in extremely short term PR, guessing that people will forget everything in a few days, they are pretty fucking bad at it.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> It boggles the mind this... If they are infected surely the worst possible place they could go to is a hospital.



Don’t worry, most medical staff have had the app turned off for the last year as otherwise the nhs wouldn’t have had any staff


----------



## weltweit (Jul 19, 2021)

So apparently the plan is that people who have been double vaccinated will not be required to isolate if they have been in contact with an infected person but rather will need to do daily tests. 

Perhaps I have been on another planet, but double vaccinated people can still become infected and can still transmit the virus to others. So why are they not being asked to isolate like anyone else who comes into contact with an infected person?


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

weltweit said:


> So apparently the plan is that people who have been double vaccinated will not be required to isolate if they have been in contact with an infected person but rather will need to do daily tests.
> 
> Perhaps I have been on another planet, but double vaccinated people can still become infected and can still transmit the virus to others. So why are they not being asked to isolate like anyone else who comes into contact with an infected person?


Because of staffing pressures.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 19, 2021)

souljacker said:


> They opened at exactly midnight. Everyone was sat outside having drinks beforehand.


so what was the countdown for?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 19, 2021)

Why September for clubs though? When presumably any widespread infections have already been transmitted. I just don't see the logic.


----------



## magneze (Jul 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> so what was the countdown for?


Twats


----------



## sheothebudworths (Jul 19, 2021)

So then - once again - if/when it goes wrong, it's all on _you_, irresponsible young people.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 19, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Why September for clubs though? When presumably any widespread infections have already been transmitted. I just don't see the logic.


Because that's when they'll be reintroducing restrictions anyway...


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 19, 2021)

magneze said:


> It's a joke:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'd like to see the cost benefit analysis - cost of paying furlough to nightclubs for 2 extra months vs. cost to NHS of thousands of additional infections


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Why September for clubs though? When presumably any widespread infections have already been transmitted. I just don't see the logic.


Its because its being used to try get improve the rather feeble vaccination rates in younger adults, and they think that in order to make the threat fair, they have to allow time for those people to get two jabs.

Its also because schools go back in September so they will be looking for things they can claim compensate for that.

A lot of these plans and their timing are indeed especially absurd looking at the moment due to the ridiculous number of infections we currently have. Some of them were originally conceived with a different level of infection during the summer months in mind.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 19, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Why September for clubs though? When presumably any widespread infections have already been transmitted. I just don't see the logic.


So all over 18s will have had the chance to be double vaccinated first


----------



## two sheds (Jul 19, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> So all over 18s will have had the chance to be double vaccinated first


But clubs are open before then? So double vaccination comes a bit bloody late?


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> So then - once again - if/when it goes wrong, it's all on _you_, irresponsible young people.


The concept will always come up because the pandemic is inherently linked to behaviour.

What rarely happens is a full on blame game of the sort people are always alert for here. Largely because (a) the government are told to encourage people and praise their efforts in order to increase compliance and (b) if peoples behaviour is inappropriate then the government ultimately get blamed anyway for sending the wrong signals, relaxing things, etc. So it does not work well as a buck passing exercise at all, the buck is simply set alight and passed straight back into the hands of the government.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

two sheds said:


> But clubs are open before then? So double vaccination comes a bit bloody late?


Thats where immunity by other means comes in. The government have not demonstrated that they sincerely seek to minimise infection in younger people. They seek to fill in the gaps in the immunity picture in younger people by any means necessary, via vaccination and natural infection. 'hydrid immunity' as some were apparently happy to call it when briefing the press recently.

Why do they care about the immunity picture at all if they dont care about people getting infected now? They still care about the disruption from huge waves and the NHS pressure. They seek a future where the wave potential is moderated to some extent by the immunity picture.


----------



## Spandex (Jul 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Bit confused by this superspreader event:
> 
> 
> surely they must have been breaking the law by having all of those people in before midnight?



I read about Heaven reopening somewhere. It was a permitted sit down event until 23:50, then they cleared the tables and chairs off the dancefloor ready for the midnight superspreading. That explains why it's quite sparsely filled.

More shocking than the Covid convention held there is how fucking rubbish the reopening event looks. I used to go to Heaven bitd. This is the home of Rage and Megatripolis; proper 90s rave mayhem. Now look at it


----------



## weltweit (Jul 19, 2021)

weltweit said:


> So apparently the plan is that people who have been double vaccinated will not be required to isolate if they have been in contact with an infected person but rather will need to do daily tests.
> 
> Perhaps I have been on another planet, but double vaccinated people can still become infected and can still transmit the virus to others. So why are they not being asked to isolate like anyone else who comes into contact with an infected person?





elbows said:


> Because of staffing pressures.


Is it only for the NHS then?


----------



## quimcunx (Jul 19, 2021)

magneze said:


> It's a joke:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Possibly because most clubbers cant be double  be vaccinated until then.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 19, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Because that's when they'll be reintroducing restrictions anyway...


Or ease the restrictions too soon again


----------



## Espresso (Jul 19, 2021)

If they're bringing in vaccine passports for night clubs, then theatres and gig venues and all sorts of other inside places where you go for a few hours will have to go the same way.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 19, 2021)

Spandex said:


> I read about Heaven reopening somewhere. It was a permitted sit down event until 23:50, then they cleared the tables and chairs off the dancefloor ready for the midnight superspreading. That explains why it's quite sparsely filled.
> 
> More shocking than the Covid convention held there is how fucking rubbish the reopening event looks. I used to go to Heaven bitd. This is the home of Rage and Megatripolis; proper 90s rave mayhem. Now look at it


doesn’t look sparsely filled to me


----------



## Smangus (Jul 19, 2021)

We are officially being governed by the Keystone Cops.


----------



## Smangus (Jul 19, 2021)

Cue illegal vax free raves etc.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Is it only for the NHS then?


I already linked to the detail earlier.

       Frontline health and care staff can work rather than self-isolate


----------



## Spandex (Jul 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> doesn’t look sparsely filled to me


When the camera pans back there's loads of room on the dancefloor. People have room to dance. Seen it much busier.

I'd love to go out dancing, but not enough to catch Covid.

Max capacity at Heaven is about 1000. With over 1 person in 100 having Covid at the moment, probably higher amongst youngsters, it's almost guaranteed that there'll be a few people there with it


----------



## bimble (Jul 19, 2021)

i'm sucking all the positive feelings i can get out of the fact that around here - and apparently in lots of other places too - the vast majority are just totally ignoring the ridiculous Prime Minister:
People were wearing their masks before today not because it was 'the law' but because they felt it the right thing to do, and they're wearing them now for the same reason. 
Just like how even if bashing old ladies over the head to steal their handbags was suddenly not illegal i'd still not be much tempted. Heartening stuff.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 19, 2021)

Spandex said:


> When the camera pans back there's loads of room on the dancefloor. People have room to dance. Seen it much busier.
> 
> I'd love to go out dancing, but not enough to catch Covid.
> 
> Max capacity at Heaven is about 1000. With over 1 person in 100 having Covid at the moment, probably higher amongst youngsters, it's almost guaranteed that there'll be a few people there with it


i’ve been there loads but it still seemed packed to me. at least the people there were jammed up next to each other with little dancing room.
never liked overstuffed dancefloors even before this, mind


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Lloyd Webber gets a bit more of what he deserves.









						Cinderella: Andrew Lloyd Webber says theatre is on its knees due to Covid rules
					

The first two nights of his new West End show are cancelled due to Covid-19 self-isolation measures.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Lloyd Webber gets a bit more of what he deserves.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, I just saw that. Oh how I laughed. He's such a cunt.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 19, 2021)

Yeah fuck the whole theatre industry, bunch of cunts, and the Equity union, cunts.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Yeah fuck the whole theatre industry, bunch of cunts, and the Equity union, cunts.



Fuck the hospitalisations, long covid and deaths from this virus. Pay money to covid-spreading industries so they can stay shut until it is actually safer to reopen than is currently the case.

Never will I apologise for laughing when a disgusting threat to public health like Lloyd Webber gets his just deserts in this pandemic. He was effectively calling for policies that mean death for some, so fuck him.


----------



## editor (Jul 19, 2021)

Absolutely world beating


----------



## LDC (Jul 19, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Yeah fuck the whole theatre industry, bunch of cunts, and the Equity union, cunts.



Yeah, that's exactly what I said.  Webber was one of the 'open it all up' pretty much all the way through the last year or so, and has consistently moaned about _any _restrictions at all, so like I said, fuck him being 'heart broken'. And yes, tbh, what Equity are calling for is fucking irresponsible. In a global pandemic with over 4 million dead so far we should probably listen to scientists before Equity don't you think?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 19, 2021)

This is a week behind, but we're not the only ones in trouble.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 19, 2021)

How I wish I could trust the figures coming out of Turkey. They currently have a 9 day national holiday (eid), minimal restrictions and the resorts are full of unvaccinated Russians and Ukrainians.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

editor said:


> Absolutely world beating
> 
> View attachment 279489



Careful, Johnson might be tempted to use that graph to demonstrate how we are leading the world into a new era. 

"We have signed a trade deal to export Delta to the world in never before seen quantities, Johnson boasted. Britannia rues the Covid waves, we will level the world up. In the global pie of commerce, we slurp the gravy, we make the crust. And thanks to vaccinations you dont even need to wear the foil tray on your head in order to receive important messages from brain commandant Cummings".


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 19, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, that's exactly what I said.  Webber was one of the 'open it all up' pretty much all the way through the last year or so, and has consistently moaned about _any _restrictions at all, so like I said, fuck him being 'heart broken'. And yes, tbh, what Equity are calling for is fucking irresponsible. In a global pandemic with over 4 million dead so far we should probably listen to scientists before Equity don't you think?



What Equity is asking for is entirely reasonable given we had the fucking Euro championships and have opened up nightclubs. Suggesting that theatre performers ought to be able to form a bubble or take daily tests instead of cancelling their work for the foreseeable is not irresponsible.


----------



## Raheem (Jul 19, 2021)

Thora said:


> I've just got back from Morrisons and estimate it's gone from 90% mask wearing to maybe 75-80%.


Went to Morrison's today at it was the same. Hope it keeps at that level. I reckon there will be a tipping-point somewhere where if it gets below a certain percentage people who want to wear masks will start feeling self-conscious and the whole thing will collapse.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> What Equity is asking for is entirely reasonable given we had the fucking Euro championships and have opened up nightclubs. Suggesting that theatre performers ought to be able to form a bubble or take daily tests instead of cancelling their work for the foreseeable is not irresponsible.



I'm not going to enter the race to the bottom where other terrible things that shouldnt have been allowed are held up as reasons why some other slightly lesser shit should be looked at as proportionate and responsible.

When even this shit government feel they are not in a position to offer alternatives to self isolation to a broad swathe of people yet, I am not inclined to think such things a good idea.

File this stuff under 'stuff that maybe could have stood a chance of being done sensibly by now if we had done other things to keep the overall levels of infection down, minimise the amount of seeding of Delta, etc'

I've got no sympathy for people whose policy preferences invited a vast wave of infection, who then moan about the cost of all the disruption that inevitably then comes with a huge wave.

Its like the unforgivable pingdemic propaganda - fuck anyone who tries to sell that angle, who sees the demolishing of self-isolation rules as a suitable solution. No, the solution was not to let levels of infection reach anything like the absurd and tragic levels they are at now.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

And if 'test them instead of forcing them to self isolate' envisaged involves the appropriate use of PCR tests instead of the inappropriate use of lateral flow tests, then just imagine how many daily PCR tests would be required right now to use in that system. Rather a lot, no chance of doing that with the system under such strain at the moment from the silly number of infections and number of people self-isolating. These workarounds dont scale up well beyond a certain point, and this wave has violated such limits big time.

There will come a time where some of these aspects will either be abandoned or where the size of waves will be expected to be modest enough that the testing system can cope. Then such businesses do stand a chance of engaging in stuff closer to the old reality. That time is not now, so the government have pushed a bit towards it without trying to get all te way there. When things give them reason to be more confident, they will push further. If it wasnt for Delta we'd probably be in that moment already, but we arent, and whichever solutions people come up with, this summer would still not resemble normality for many people and sectors, especially in entertainment.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm not going to enter the race to the bottom where other terrible things that shouldnt have been allowed are held up as reasons why some other slightly lesser shit should be looked at as proportionate and responsible.
> 
> When even this shit government feel they are not in a position to offer alternatives to self isolation to a broad swathe of people yet, I am not inclined to think such things a good idea.
> 
> ...



Given how the furlough scheme shafted theaters, it has been entirely appropriate throughout for the unions and sector to lobby government to find a way to make things work. Equity aren't responsible for the availability of testing, that's entirely on the government, and Webber and the union aren't cunts for asking for this particular thing right now. That's like saying unions shouldn't ask for pay rises during a recession.


----------



## Hellsbells (Jul 19, 2021)

weltweit said:


> So apparently the plan is that people who have been double vaccinated will not be required to isolate if they have been in contact with an infected person but rather will need to do daily tests.
> 
> Perhaps I have been on another planet, but double vaccinated people can still become infected and can still transmit the virus to others. So why are they not being asked to isolate like anyone else who comes into contact with an infected person?


🤣 You think that's crazy, try living in the Isle of man. Here the government have now said no close contacts (regardless of vaccination status) need to isolate or get tested (although they do recommend it🙄) Cases are going mental ☹️


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Given how the furlough scheme shafted theaters, it has been entirely appropriate throughout for the unions and sector to lobby government to find a way to make things work. Equity aren't responsible for the availability of testing, that's entirely on the government, and Weber and the union aren't cunts for asking for this particular thing right now. That's like saying unions shouldn't ask for pay rises during a recession.



I support lobbying for better pandemic bailouts. Its been rare for me to support lobbying for weaker restrictions that are a threat to public health in a pandemic. And opportunities for me to move to a more nuanced stance on this have been squandered by poor action in regards variants, timing of relaxations, and failures to mitigate spread properly in settings such as schools.

Vaccines etc will probably still get us to a point where I can shift my stance on this quite a bit. But this time around with infections at the current levels, my sympathy towards people affected by the disruption forms an intense but relatively narrow beam and the stuff you are on about falls well outside of that beam.


----------



## souljacker (Jul 19, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Yeah fuck the whole theatre industry, bunch of cunts, and the Equity union, cunts.



Maybe Lloyd-Webber could break into his personal fortune of £1.9 billion to help them out?


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

I'm also in no mood for that debate right now because its bad enough that we've reached a point where the government has been prepared to fiddle with those rules when it comes to various sorts of essential workers.

I have to accept that stuff when it reaches the point that essential workers are desperately thin on the ground, again due to the stupid size of this wave, because otherwise more harm than good can result. But its still a desperation move and a sign of failure, and I cannot sensibly consider extending that to non-essential workers at this moment of near-maximum pressure. Some priorities still have to trump others. Later more will be possible, but not now.









						Covid: Isolation rules loosened for critical workers
					

People performing "critical" tasks including air traffic controllers will still be able to work under new rules.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm also in no mood for that debate right now because its bad enough that we've reached a point where the government has been prepared to fiddle with those rules when it comes to various sorts of essential workers.
> 
> I have to accept that stuff when it reaches the point that essential workers are desperately thin on the ground, again due to the stupid size of this wave, because otherwise more harm than good can result. But its still a desperation move and a sign of failure, and I cannot sensibly consider extending that to non-essential workers at this moment of near-maximum pressure. Some priorities still have to trump others. Later more will be possible, but not now.
> 
> ...



Good for you not being able to consider extending it to other workers, doesn’t make those workers cunts for asking the government though does it?


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jul 19, 2021)

went to sainsburys this evening (wokingham-ish) - mask wearing seemed about the same level as it has been for the last few months.  one or two non-masked with visible sunflower lanyards, one or two non-masked who may consider themselves exempt through being twats.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Good for you not being able to consider extending it to other workers, doesn’t make those workers cunts for asking the government though does it?



Lloyd Webber is a cunt. Sacha Lord the Manchester nighttime economy advisor is a cunt. Others I would have to review on a per case basis. I'd certainly want to check with each of then whether they understand that self-isolation is one of the few big pandemic brakes that have been left in place for this phase, before judging whether they are being a cunt at this stage of the pandemic.

Its understandable that people moan about the disruption at this stage but that disruption is an inevitable consequence of being sold a lie about freedom day which was incompatible with Delta and our levels of vaccination/immunity. 

If I had any power over policy then very many workers would have been affected by the fact that I did not agree with step 3 of the roadmap, let alone step 4, when faced with Delta.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 19, 2021)

Abandoning social distancing and masks, allowing clubbing - an active policy of mass infection or some twisted libertarian strand that adds up to the same. I take the point that this follows on from all the other failures and has a certain logic to it, but only in the way the Mai Lai massacre did.  So, we've got the NHS struggling alongside the return of forms of leisure and consumption that will make things clearly and obviously worse. I'm relieved to hear people are still mask wearing, but my question is whether there is any way out from this other than waiting for chaos and death to lead to a u-turn?  Labour are an irrelevance and the unions will only have an impact on workplaces where they are strong.  I'm not even looking for collective _action_, there doesn't even seem to be any politicised or critical _public opinion_. I do get a sense that if they have to lock down again in a month, johnson will take a hit, but he's more frightened of his backbanchers than anything we can mobilise. Fuck.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Abandoning social distancing and masks, allowing clubbing - an active policy of mass infection or some twisted libertarian strand that adds up to the same. I take the point that this follows on from all the other failures and has a certain logic to it, but only in the way the Mai Lai massacre did.  So, we've got the NHS struggling alongside the return of forms of leisure and consumption that will make things clearly and obviously worse. I'm relieved to hear people are still mask wearing, but my question is whether there is any way out from this other than waiting for chaos and death to lead to a u-turn?  Labour are an irrelevance and the unions will only have an impact on workplaces where they are strong.  I'm not even looking for collective _action_, there doesn't even seem to be any politicised or critical _public opinion_. I do get a sense that if they have to lock down again in a month, johnson will take a hit, but he's more frightened of his backbanchers than anything we can mobilise. Fuck.



What you probably need to imagine is one of the scenarios I keep going on about more in recent weeks. 

I dont want to repeat all my usual words about it - just imagine this wave peaks at some point in the coming weeks, and what that will do to the politics and the mood music. Peak timing is a subject which did come up in todays press conference too. A peak without requiring a lockdown to induce it is the prize the tory regime currently seeks. 

There is some strong public opinion out there. Whats missing to turn that into impetus for large, dramatic action, is the ultimate sense of what the worst case scenario was, what the stakes were. eg if this was a pandemic where really huge numbers of people who arent so old were dying, then it becomes easier to imagine scenarios where people would more overtly take matters into their own hands in terms of what pressure they placed on the regime. But then in those circumstances the regimes own calculations would likely have ended up different to what they actually went for.

Since this pandemic does not live up to those parameters, what we've mostly seen from opposition is a sort of delay and unwillingness to press too hard that in many ways mirrors the governments own reluctance to act properly in this pandemic. eg opposition waiting till its too late to do anything about it before condemning the government plans. The time to oppose having a wave this big was before we did step 3, months ago now! And even the likes of Indie SAGE try to stick to things that sound more palatable to people, I dont recall them demanding that step 3 not go ahead. They were more comfortable calling for sensible stuff that was likely not enough on its own, like better mitigation measures in schools.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 19, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Good for you not being able to consider extending it to other workers, doesn’t make those workers cunts for asking the government though does it?


what about the boss though? he could easily fund those workers from his own pocket


----------



## Saul Goodman (Jul 19, 2021)

Just watched the F1 at Silverstone. Spectators crammed in like sardines and barely a mask in sight. The pandemic is officially over... Or has it just started, again.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 19, 2021)

Saul Goodman said:


> Just watched the F1 at Silverstone. Spectators crammed in like sardines and barely a mask in sight. The pandemic is officially over... Or has it just started, again.



The risk drops dramatically outside but I'm guessing it was standing room at the bar


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, 60% of hospital admissions are people double jabbed, according to Vallance.
> 
> It would be nice to see stats on ages, other conditions, etc.



He fucked the stat up. 

Modelling has changed a bit over time as to what proportions to expect in this regard, so I dont have a particular number in mind myself right now. The number he came out with is probably a fair fit for where they previously thought things might be at in this regard, but I'll have to remind myself what the most recent modelling expected.

There will eventually be more stats detail like you want, but such things emerge very slowly, usually only cover a proportion of cases, or dont contain all those variables you are interested in in the same study, table etc.

Anyway, the Vallance correction:


----------



## ska invita (Jul 19, 2021)

So 40% of hospital admissions are people double jabbed?


----------



## Spandex (Jul 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> So 40% of hospital admissions are people double jabbed?


No, Vallance is now saying 40% of hospital admissions are either single or double jabbed.

I think?


----------



## ska invita (Jul 19, 2021)

Spandex said:


> I think?


im glad he cleared it up in that tweet


----------



## Spandex (Jul 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> im glad he cleared it up in that tweet


If all his advice is this clearly worded it's no wonder we're so far up shit creek.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 19, 2021)

Spandex said:


> No, Vallance is now saying 40% of hospital admissions are either single or double jabbed.
> 
> I think?


Still, it's not a great thought though.  As exposure rockets, which is the phase we are in now, the number of doubly vaccinated people who go on to be significantly ill (whether requiring hospitalisation or not) will be significant.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Still, it's not a great thought though.  As exposure rockets, which is the phase we are in now, the number of doubly vaccinated people who go on to be significantly ill (whether requiring hospitalisation or not) will be significant.



Which you'd kind of expect because we deliberately prioritised those more likely to get ill for the jabs.


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

This is the sort of thing modelling about vaccine status and hospitalisation etc come out with.

Woudnt expect reality to completely mirror one of these scenarios because there are a lot of assumptions that have to be made and fed into the model that wont all end up matching reality.



That one is from LSHTM: Updated roadmap assessment – prior to delayed Step 4, 7 July 2021


----------



## ska invita (Jul 19, 2021)

Spandex said:


> If all his advice is this clearly worded it's no wonder we're so far up shit creek.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


>




Unsure how much Owen Jones is helping there..


----------



## RileyOBlimey (Jul 19, 2021)




----------



## Leighsw2 (Jul 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> doesn’t look sparsely filled to me


Believe me, it can be a lot more filled than that! (or rather, back in the day....)


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 19, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Believe me, it can be a lot more filled than that! (or rather, back in the day....)


i remember! went to Megatripolis loads and the Soundshaft even more


----------



## 8ball (Jul 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> i remember! went to Megatripolis loads and the Soundshaft even more



Those names are like, totally fucking Mexico, yeah?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 19, 2021)

8ball said:


> Those names are like, totally fucking Mexico, yeah?


eh? no.


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jul 19, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> i remember! went to Megatripolis loads and the Soundshaft even more


Oh yes, Soundshaft - very sweaty!


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 19, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Oh yes, Soundshaft - very sweaty!


it was apparently used as cold storage for dead bodies of casualties from WW1


----------



## Leighsw2 (Jul 19, 2021)

Nice. I always thought there was a sort of _ambiance _in there.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 19, 2021)

Leighsw2 said:


> Nice. I always thought there was a sort of _ambiance _in there.


i had some fun times there, especially when Sex Love & Motion was there. Megatripolis would use it too but can’t remember what they played there - was it the ambient room that had lectures from people like Terence McKenna? that place is such a maze


----------



## elbows (Jul 19, 2021)

I know its already being discussed in other threads but I feel like the pandemic book of UK absurdities needs to feature the latest Johnson detail.



> In a WhatsApp message sent on 15 October, shared with the BBC, Mr Johnson appears to have described himself as "slightly rocked by some of the data on Covid fatalities".
> 
> The "median age" for those dying was between 81 and 82 for men and 85 for women, the prime minister allegedly wrote, adding: "That is above life expectancy. So get Covid and Live longer.
> 
> "Hardly anyone under 60 goes into hospital... and of those virtually all survive. And I no longer buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff. Folks I think we may need to recalibrate... There are max 3m in this country aged over 80."



Get Covid and live longer 









						Covid: Boris Johnson resisted autumn lockdown as only over-80s dying - Dominic Cummings
					

Boris Johnson also questioned whether the NHS would be overwhelmed, his former aide tells the BBC.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Some of the Great Barrington killer clowns he met in that period probably helped fill his head full of misleading statistics. I remember being rather complacent about that sort of influence at the time, because I said it would not change the equations of when authorities would be forced to lockdown or face hospitals being overwhelmed. This was still true, for example Johnson was still forced to order a lockdown by the end of October. But it gave Johnson extra reasons to follow his terrible instincts and the likes of the Telegraph who Cummings claims Johnson often refers to as being his real boss, for as long as possible before giving in to the inevitable. That Telegraph stuff is mentioned in the above BBC article.

Anyway at the time it was obvious that Johnson had not left himself any proper sceintific cover for his stupid decisions to try to avoid the inevitable last autumn. A bunch of terrible mistakes he made in that period led to a large number of second wave deaths that were quite avoidable. So we dont need Cummings attacks to demonstrate this. Perhaps they are still somewhat useful though, people seeing the apparent private words of Johnson for themselves. I've seen via twitter that Cummings has the same attitude towards ascribing blame to the first two waves as me - Johnson was just one part of broad establishment failures in the first wave, but the scale of the second wave is all on him. I'm not sure exactly what Cummings has said about the current wave but I expect its seen as similar to the second in many ways, with added emphasis on Cummings favoured careening shopping trolley descriptions of Johnson.


----------



## Combustible (Jul 20, 2021)

The good thing about using median age of death as a metric to judge severity is that as long as you make sure you kill an octogenerian for every younger person who dies, then the number will remain unworryingly high.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 20, 2021)

Combustible said:


> The good thing about using median age of death as a metric to judge severity is that as long as you make sure you kill an octogenerian for every younger person who dies, then the number will remain unworryingly high.



<sets up popcorn stand and sounds the statistician klaxon>


----------



## Petcha (Jul 20, 2021)

I'm not 100% convinced this test and trace app works. 5 days after my colleague reported her positive test on the app, and prior to that letting me know by text message, I've just received a ping. Telling me I need to isolate for 5 days. So conceivably I could have been walking around for 5 days spreading this, if i didn't happen to know the person in question who informed me 'off the record'?

Why is there such a lag? Didn't this thing cost billions?


----------



## two sheds (Jul 20, 2021)

Not a ping from someone else and the original contact wasn't picked up?

Not that this answers your final question


----------



## 8ball (Jul 20, 2021)

I haven't used the app - I always fill in the paper thing.
None of my friends that I've been to those places to have been pinged, though...


----------



## Petcha (Jul 20, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Not a ping from someone else and the original contact wasn't picked up?
> 
> Not that this answers your final question



Well, no the timings match up. It's a ten day isolation right, if you're pinged immediately? She reported it exactly five days ago, and I've just got the warning now, saying I have to isolate for five days. Or am I wrong about the 10 days.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 20, 2021)

Liked for showing my post up to be crap. Someone else will have to provide a more substantive answer


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 20, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I'm not 100% convinced this test and trace app works. 5 days after my colleague reported her positive test on the app, and prior to that letting me know by text message, I've just received a ping. Telling me I need to isolate for 5 days. So conceivably I could have been walking around for 5 days spreading this, if i didn't happen to know the person in question who informed me 'off the record'?
> 
> Why is there such a lag? Didn't this thing cost billions?



Yes, it did, and yes, it's shit isn't it.

When my mate tested positive, and informed the app (and me), the day after we'd sat indoors at a table in a pub together (and told the app we were doing that) it took 48 hours before I was informed by the app.

I was outraged, but other people told me that was relatively prompt compared to their experiences, which were more like yours.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 20, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Well, no the timings match up. It's a ten day isolation right, if you're pinged immediately? She reported it exactly five days ago, and I've just got the warning now, saying I have to isolate for five days. Or am I wrong about the 10 days.



You're not wrong.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Get Covid and live longer


That Oxford education was worth every penny, clearly.


----------



## prunus (Jul 20, 2021)

Petcha said:


> I'm not 100% convinced this test and trace app works. 5 days after my colleague reported her positive test on the app, and prior to that letting me know by text message, I've just received a ping. Telling me I need to isolate for 5 days. So conceivably I could have been walking around for 5 days spreading this, if i didn't happen to know the person in question who informed me 'off the record'?
> 
> Why is there such a lag? Didn't this thing cost billions?



The answer is, sadly, because it’s not fit for purpose, and is going to get worse as the numbers of infections increases over the next little while.

And yes it did cost billions.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 20, 2021)

A colleague got pinged on day 7, so only had to isolate for three days afterwards.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 20, 2021)

8ball said:


> <sets up popcorn stand and sounds the statistician klaxon>


Ok, so technically if there are ten people dying age 20 and ten aged 100 then the median is 60. But if there are 11 age 20 and 10 age 80 then the median is 20.

In a large sample like the UK Covid deaths then median is fairly stable, but it's never a good idea to look at one statistic in isolation.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 20, 2021)

I hope Bezos gets bludgeoned to death by his irritated crew after repeatedly prefixing every noun with the the word ‘space’.
Bezos: can you please pass me the space biscuit on a space saucer?
Crew: AAAAAAAAARRRGHHHH!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 20, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I hope Bezos gets bludgeoned to death by his irritated crew after repeatedly prefixing every noun with the the word ‘space’.
> Bezos: can you please pass me the space biscuit on a space saucer?
> Crew: AAAAAAAAARRRGHHHH!




Meanwhile, back to covid in the UK...


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 20, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> A colleague got pinged on day 7, so only had to isolate for three days afterwards.


Does all this indicate that everything the app does to ping people is reviewed by humans? I had assumed it was all automatic but these delays suggest not.


----------



## Spandex (Jul 20, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> A colleague got pinged on day 7, so only had to isolate for three days afterwards.


In December I got pinged on day 10 and had to self-isolate for 3 hours


----------



## Petcha (Jul 20, 2021)

Spandex said:


> In December I got pinged on day 10 and had to self-isolate for 3 hours



Where exactly did the billions go? Surely it can't be that difficult for the top brains in the industry to just make it text me as soon as she's entered her positive result? are they really manually checking everything?

the wetherspoons app is streets ahead of this, get those guys on it.


----------



## MickiQ (Jul 20, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Where exactly did the billions go? Surely it can't be that difficult for the top brains in the industry to just make it text me as soon as she's entered her positive result? are they really manually checking everything?
> 
> the wetherspoons app is streets ahead of this, get those guys on it.


around 2024/25 I expect there will be a Panorama expose about where the billions went


----------



## Spandex (Jul 20, 2021)

Petcha said:


> Where exactly did the billions go? Surely it can't be that difficult for the top brains in the industry to just make it text me as soon as she's entered her positive result? are they really manually checking everything?
> 
> the wetherspoons app is streets ahead of this, get those guys on it.


There's going to be some delay between you having contact with someone and them feeling ill, getting tested, getting a positive result and that result getting put on the system for the ping to go out.

Seems some delays are longer than others.

I'm currently on day 6 of self isolation after getting pinged last Thursday. Only took 2 days from the contact to me getting the message this time.


----------



## Petcha (Jul 20, 2021)

Spandex said:


> There's going to be some delay between you having contact with someone and them feeling ill, getting tested, getting a positive result and that result getting put on the system for the ping to go out.
> 
> Seems some delays are longer than others.
> 
> I'm currently on day 6 of self isolation after getting pinged last Thursday. Only took 2 days from the contact to me getting the message this time.



She didn't have symptoms. She went to a baby shower on the saturday, her friend texted her on Tuesday afternoon saying she had tested positive and to get her own PCR test. Which she did, got the positive result on Wednesday morning, entered it into the app immediately so I would have thought at that point the app would swing into action and ping all her close contacts.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 20, 2021)

So the government now has ministers going on major news programmes saying you don't really need to isolate anyway, while putting out statements saying actually you do. While Johnson obviously thinks he shouldn't really.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 20, 2021)

I knew this, but it seems the government is pushing it out there, to reduce self isolating, and create more confusion, no doubt.



> *But this morning Paul Scully, the business minister, offered an alternative solution; you can always ignore a ping from the NHS Covid app, he pointed out.*
> 
> Scully was able to say this because, while an instruction to isolate from NHS test and trace is a legal requirement, a ping from the app is just advisory. This was not a distinction that was widely advertised when the app was launched, but ministers now seem keen to highlight it.
> 
> Scully told Times Radio:





> It’s important to understand the rules. You have to legally isolate if you are on the ... contacted by test and trace, or if you’re trying to claim isolation payments.
> 
> The app is there to give ... to allow you to make informed decisions. And I think by backing out of mandating a lot of things, we’re encouraging people to really get the data in their own hands to be able to make decisions on what’s best for them, whether they’re employer or an employee.
> 
> *Asked whether this meant people should or should not self-isolate if pinged, Scully replied: “We want to encourage people to still use the app to be able to do the right thing, because we estimate it saves around 8,000 lives.” But he said it was “up to individuals and employers”.*













						UK Covid: 96 further coronavirus deaths recorded, highest daily total since March – as it happened
					

Latest updates: highest daily total for almost four months as total number of deaths over past week is up 60.6% on previous week




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Petcha (Jul 20, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> So the government now has ministers going on major news programmes saying you don't really need to isolate anyway, while putting out statements saying actually you do. While Johnson obviously thinks he shouldn't really.



Yeh I saw that gormless minister this morning. He'd obviously been briefed to highlight this. Again, whats the fucking point of this app.


----------



## LDC (Jul 20, 2021)

It had a point, and it still does, as an important part of dealing with infection rates.

The minister isn't being gormless, but calculating. The government (or at least elements of it) are now angling to push everything and everyone 'back to normal' as quickly as possible, and fuck the consequences for people's health. And part of that is what the minster did, sow the idea that people can decide not to isolate if they get notified by the app.


----------



## Petcha (Jul 20, 2021)

Oh and now Downing St is hanging that guy out to dry



> No 10 insists it is 'crucial' for people to isolate when pinged, in rebuke to minister who implied otherwise​*Downing Street* has effectively slapped down Paul Scully, the business minister, for suggesting it is acceptable for people to ignore a request from the NHS Covid app to isolate. (See 9.25am.) A No 10 spokeswoman said:
> 
> 
> > Isolation remains the most important action people can take to stop the spread of the virus.
> ...


----------



## xenon (Jul 20, 2021)

How do NHS test and trace contact people. As distinct from the app I mean.
The app, as I understand works like:
Person A, feels a bit rough, tests positive. If they're using the app they enter this and it pings phones that were nearby for 15 minutes within a specific date range.


NHS test and trace.
Persoan B feels rough, tests positive. Then what, NHS call them and ask for a list of contacts they've been near in the last few days?


----------



## existentialist (Jul 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It had a point, and it still does, as an important part of dealing with infection rates.
> 
> The minister isn't being gormless, but calculating. The government (or at least elements of it) are now angling to push everything and everyone 'back to normal' as quickly as possible, and fuck the consequences for people's health. And part of that is what the minster did, sow the idea that people can decide not to isolate if they get notified by the app.


Plausible deniability, innit?

I wonder how Scully feels now, having been given the "fall guy" gig?


----------



## LDC (Jul 20, 2021)

Business will love him. I fully expect some people now to be asked if they got told to isolate by the app or by T&T, and if the answer is the app, then their employer will tell them to come in anyway as it's only guidance.


----------



## killer b (Jul 20, 2021)

xenon said:


> NHS test and trace.
> Persoan B feels rough, tests positive. Then what, NHS call them and ask for a list of contacts they've been near in the last few days?


Yeah


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 20, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Plausible deniability, innit?
> 
> I wonder how Scully feels now, having been given the "fall guy" gig?



They should be getting used to it, TBH.

I can't remember who the minister was, doing the TV & radio rounds, on the morning the story broke about Johnson & Sunak not self-isolating, over 2 hours trying to defend the indefensible on various stations, and literally within minutes of getting the job done, Downing Street, seeing the outrage, issues a press statement saying they would be self-isolating.   

Fucking classic.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It had a point, and it still does, as an important part of dealing with infection rates.
> 
> The minister isn't being gormless, but calculating. The government (or at least elements of it) are now angling to push everything and everyone 'back to normal' as quickly as possible, and fuck the consequences for people's health. And part of that is what the minster did, sow the idea that people can decide not to isolate if they get notified by the app.



Yep. Next round - stories about how many people are not isolating to promote the 'well nobody else is doing it so why should I' feeling that gives people the mental excuse to ignore it. 

I think you could actually make a case for it as a more targeted alternative to lockdowns tbh - it might or might not be a good case depending on the numbers but it would at least be a coherent idea. They're just treating it as an annoying fly in their 'freedom' ointment at this stage though aren't they.


----------



## Petcha (Jul 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They should be getting used to it, TBH.
> 
> I can't remember who the minister was, doing the TV & radio rounds, on the morning the story broke about Johnson & Sunak not self-isolating, over 2 hours trying to defend the indefensible on various stations, and literally within minutes of getting the job done, Downing Street, seeing the outrage, issues a press statement saying they would be self-isolating.
> 
> Fucking classic.



That was Jenrick. One of their better performers. The guy this morning - I love the description of his comments being 'freelance'. I wonder if Boris will ever actually do the media rounds himself instead?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 20, 2021)

Here comes more travel chaos, Spain and Greece could soon follow France onto the ‘amber-plus’ list. 



> Data shows that cases of the Beta variant in Spain are nearly three times as high as France. According to the Gisaid Research Centre, 9.3 per cent of coronavirus cases in Spain were the Beta variant, compared to 3.7 per cent in France.
> 
> In Spain, the 14-day infection rate has now reached 377 cases per 100,000 people, and 613 in the Balearic islands, which include popular UK tourist destinations Ibiza, Mallorca and Menorca. France’s rate is far lower, at 63.3 per 100,000.











						Whether Spain could be added to the 'amber plus' list as cases rise
					

Spain and Greece could soon follow France onto the 'amber-plus' list, throwing thousands of summer holiday plans into chaos




					inews.co.uk


----------



## editor (Jul 20, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Yep. Next round - stories about how many people are not isolating to promote the 'well nobody else is doing it so why should I' feeling that gives people the mental excuse to ignore it.
> 
> I think you could actually make a case for it as a more targeted alternative to lockdowns tbh - it might or might not be a good case depending on the numbers but it would at least be a coherent idea. They're just treating it as an annoying fly in their 'freedom' ointment at this stage though aren't they.


I've had the dullest 8 days of my life staying in to self isolate and it's not over yet, even though I've felt absolutely fine for days.

But the mixed messages the govt are giving out right now really makes me wonder how many people will bother to see it through.


----------



## editor (Jul 20, 2021)

It's not looking good for a lot of other countries.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 20, 2021)

Wish Id called in sick that week Ibiza was on the green list


----------



## Raheem (Jul 20, 2021)

Not long ago, we had more cases than the rest of the* EU combined, so it looks like we're improving fast.

* Acid flashback.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 20, 2021)

Its not going to happen, people will not isolate at personal cost if there is doubt anyone else is complying. The only measures that work are unvirsal. We are basically untrusting of others.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 20, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Not long ago, we had more cases than the rest of the* EU combined, so it looks like we're improving fast.
> 
> * Acid flashback.


Brits going to Spain on holiday ?


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 20, 2021)

editor said:


> View attachment 279561
> 
> It's not looking good for a lot of other countries.


I'm assuming most countries are now going to have their own delta waves as India and the UK have. I don't see how it can be prevented without extremely strict border measures - implemented by only a few countries.


----------



## editor (Jul 20, 2021)

I didn't realise that the Netherlands was doing so badly too.


----------



## magneze (Jul 20, 2021)

The Netherlands PM apologised for opening up too early.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 20, 2021)

Surely by now they should have some data about *how *people are catching it - i.e. public transport / workplace / children bringing it home from school ?


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Its not going to happen, people will not isolate at personal cost if there is doubt anyone else is complying. The only measures that work are unvirsal. We are basically untrusting of others.


Large numbers of people will continue to self-isolate despite the bullshit of recent times.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 20, 2021)

editor said:


> I didn't realise that the Netherlands was doing so badly too.
> 
> View attachment 279568


They opened bars and nightclubs just before the big surge. Reminds me of somewhere else...


----------



## Raheem (Jul 20, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Surely by now they should have some data about *how *people are catching it - i.e. public transport / workplace / children bringing it home from school ?



I think it's just impossible to determine where someone has caught it, in the vast majority of cases, so no. I think there are some attempts to score different environments, but these are based on in-theory opinions of epidemiologists, rather than real-world data.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 20, 2021)

editor said:


> I didn't realise that the Netherlands was doing so badly too.
> 
> View attachment 279568


At least the rate of increase is slowing quite sharply for the Dutch. Right now, Spain's looking like the place with the biggest problem in terms of rate - even the UK's looks as if it's slowing a bit.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Surely by now they should have some data about *how *people are catching it - i.e. public transport / workplace / children bringing it home from school ?


Their analysis of such matters is crude and simplistic, delivered in a manner where a long list of caveats provide plausible deniability to anyone seeking to defend a particular setting against accusations that it is responsible for a large chunk of the spread.

Part of this is because people do multiple activities that could have been responsible, and unpicking that isnt so trivial.

All the same its quite possible to build some kind of picture. Schools, shops, pubs, restaurants, workplaces, prisons etc etc etc. In the absence of detailed analysis and concrete answers, authorities do pick up on specific outbreaks and a certain proportion of super-spreading events. Some of these we get to hear about via the news.


----------



## zahir (Jul 20, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Surely by now they should have some data about *how *people are catching it - i.e. public transport / workplace / children bringing it home from school ?



I posted this on another thread: General Coronavirus (COVID-19) chat

Evidence from Australia that with delta there's increased likelihood of catching it outdoors.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 20, 2021)

I have for some time just assumed its passed on like a common cold. I think it will undramaticly weaken and become one that is less deadly, just how long this takes is unknown. Seeing the rates in Europe confirm what Ive been hearing from Barca and Paris that it is not localised to Countries boarders and is essentially endemic across Europe at roughly the same level and political desisions other than hard lockdowns have little impact


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I have for some time just assumed its passed on like a common cold. I think it will undramaticly weaken and become one that is less deadly, just how long this takes is unknown. Seeing the rates in Europe confirm what Ive been hearing from Barca and Paris that it is not localised to Countries boarders and is essentially endemic across Europe at roughly the same level and political desisions other than hard lockdowns have little impact



Your bullshit on this matter is unsupported by the data. There are waves, the timing of which varies per country a bit. I already showed you a graph demonstrating that what you said about number of people testing positive was bullshit and that your picture of positive tests in Spain was out of date.

Specifically, your claim that France and Spain werent showing high number of cases becaucse of testing regime differences was shit. It was because their wave timing was slightly different to ours, and Spain and France are more than capable of posting huge numbers when they are actually experiencing large waves. Spains wave is well under way so their numbers are now large. France is a bit further behind but there numbers were starting to go back up again last time I checked.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Large numbers of people will continue to self-isolate despite the bullshit of recent times.


Of course but there are a wide range of pressures at play other than protecting yourself or loved one for a lot of people.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Of course but there are a wide range of pressures at play other than protecting yourself or loved one for a lot of people.



Yes there are, and these pressures are evolving as a result of bullshit government policy.

The system is being eroded. I just resist the temptation to stretch that way too far by claiming that the majority of people will give up on the system when in fact the changes will be more gradual than that.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jul 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Meanwhile, back to covid in the UK...


oops, wrong thread!


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

zahir said:


> I posted this on another thread: General Coronavirus (COVID-19) chat
> 
> Evidence from Australia that with delta there's increased likelihood of catching it outdoors.


I would expect an increased chance of catching Delta in all situations where there are other humans present compared to previous versions of the virus.

I approve of Australia being far keener to point out specifics.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Your bullshit on this matter is unsupported by the data. There are waves, the timing of which varies per country a bit. I already showed you a graph demonstrating that what you said about number of people testing positive was bullshit and that your picture of positive tests in Spain was out of date.
> 
> Specifically, your claim that France and Spain werent showing high number of cases becaucse of testing regime differences was shit. It was because their wave timing was slightly different to ours, and Spain and France are more than capable of posting huge numbers when they are actually experiencing large waves. Spains wave is well under way so their numbers are now large. France is a bit further behind but there numbers were starting to go back up again last time I checked.


So the data is now showing hardly any difference across europe which was what I suggested anacdotatly. That post has been confirmed. I went on to question data collection and posed another theory. There is always varience in different cohorts and methods of collection. I am questioning even if it sounds like Im making a statement often.


----------



## bimble (Jul 20, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Of course but there are a wide range of pressures at play other than protecting yourself or loved one for a lot of people.


Yes. Some just won’t be able to, some will not bother. But your idea that nobody will do it if they know others aren’t doing it is bollocks. As all the voluntary mask wearers prove. You’re just wrong.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes there are, and these pressures are evolving as a result of bullshit government policy.
> 
> The system is being eroded. I just resist the temptation to stretch that way too far by claiming that the majority of people will give up on the system when in fact the changes will be more gradual than that.


Theres not much to suggest other European populations are behaving very differently. They have same protests, young cohorts getting infected, rule breaking. The virus globally is winning this apart from rich isolated countries in southern hemisphere who thought better of joining in


----------



## IC3D (Jul 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yes. Some just won’t be able to, some will not bother. But your idea that nobody will do it if they know others aren’t doing it is bollocks. As all the voluntary mask wearers prove. You’re just wrong.


I didn't nobody, just compliance will be limited now.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

Wave timing still varies and your attempt to roll back on the claims you were quite prepared to argue with people about the other day makes a mockery of your position. Do not invite me to believe the stuff you are coming out with now about behaviours etc, much of which is true, is the same as your position the other day, which was based on other countries not showing as high a level of infections as the UK because of flaws in their testing system. The differences were down to differences in Delta wave timing, because the UK wave of that started earlier, with a larger amount of seeding.

Whether any of those countries have as big a wave as us will come down to variations in vaccination rates and prior infections and behaviours and rules, eg at what stage of the wave authorities impose new restrictions.


----------



## bimble (Jul 20, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I didn't nobody, just compliance will be limited now.


You said people won’t do it. So I thought you meant people in general. Compliance always was limited. Your idea humans generally rush to do as little as we think we can get away with is where I think you’re wrong.


----------



## xenon (Jul 20, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Surely by now they should have some data about *how *people are catching it - i.e. public transport / workplace / children bringing it home from school ?



Yes. All that. I would think. Basically any place where there are mixed groups of people in fairly close proximity and poor to no ventilation.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 20, 2021)

.


----------



## bimble (Jul 20, 2021)

If European countries are basically just lagging behind us then their often far higher vaccine hesitancy / refusal rates are probably going to show up soon aren’t they, in casualty and hospital admission numbers.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 20, 2021)

Data accuracy varies enormously, don't really get why you think I'm rolling back. You have discussed this yourself before. If anything the data presented today has vindicated my point that it is laggy and inaccurate depending on origin and method. 
Where Im not strong is my criticism of this countries financing of private business compiling testing data.


----------



## RileyOBlimey (Jul 20, 2021)

4 million excess deaths in India: Covid-19: India excess deaths cross four million, says study


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Data accuracy varies enormously, don't really get why you think I'm rolling back. You have discussed this yourself before. If anything the data presented today has vindicated my point that it is laggy and inaccurate depending on origin and method.
> Where Im not strong is my criticism of this countries financing of private business compiling testing data.


Testing systems do not pick up close to every case, in that sense they are inaccurate.

They are pretty good at picking up overall trends and what stage of a wave countries are at. You picked a moment to make your point where the UK was well into its Delta wave, and the other countries in question were at an earlier stage of that journey.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> If European countries are basically just lagging behind us then their often far higher vaccine hesitancy / refusal rates are probably going to show up soon aren’t they, in casualty and hospital admission numbers.
> View attachment 279578


Can see vaccine data for EU as a whole and individual EU countries using this website:





__





						COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker | European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control
					






					vaccinetracker.ecdc.europa.eu
				




The extent to which we will notice the implications of these differing rates play out in hospitalisations and deaths is currently unknown to me. Because that will depend on other factors too, such as how well protection of care home residents is going, hospital infection control, general population behaviours and what rules are in place at different stages.

Plus we dont yet know the extent of how bad hospitalisations will get in the UK.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

After rather a long period of not wanting to claim too strongly that Scotland was past its peak, speaking at most of seeing a 'levelling off', Sturgeon is now ready to go further:



> Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been giving her latest coronavirus briefing.
> 
> She says that although case numbers remain high they are "very much right now on a downward path".
> 
> ...



From the BBC live updates page at 12:53 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57898328


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 20, 2021)

When did their schools break up?


----------



## prunus (Jul 20, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> When did their schools break up?


Beginning of July.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

Thursday 24th June and Friday 25th June were the most common end of term dates in Scotland. 

This was indeed a big reason for looking for signs of Scotlands peak, along with the fact their wave also started earlier.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

And purely looking at positive test numbers by specimen date, Scotlands peak was June 28th-30th. Hence my comments about how long its taken the authorities to fully acknowledge this peak.

Impacts of schools closing on the testing system does need to be factored in, so when combined with other forms of infection surveillance the true peak may be somewhat unclear or may vary somewhat from the peak in positive tests.

Hospital admissions peak still to be determined, in part because they are only releasing that data weekly, with next set of daily admissions figures due tomorrow I believe. Peak of number of patients in hospital and ICU will lag still further behind, as will deaths.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

So those things are a big factor in my mind when I ponder the possibility that England could peak now, or certain regions could peak now or soon.

But obviously there are some differences between England and Scotland. Scotland did not reopen nightclubs at the same moment that schools were finishing, to give a really obvious example.

And we dont know how much difference the change in mood music over the last 2 weeks has made to behaviour. I expect its made quite a bit of difference, but there are so many things changing at the same time that I dont know how it will all stack up. If things keep soaring then nerves will grow in government and the media. I havent got too many means to predict, the modelling gave such a wide range of possibilities that me talking about Englands potential peaks right now might turn out to be a very bad joke, or may not end up so far away from the reality.


----------



## Dystopiary (Jul 20, 2021)

existentialist said:


> At least the rate of increase is slowing quite sharply for the Dutch. Right now, Spain's looking like the place with the biggest problem in terms of rate - *even the UK's looks as if it's slowing a bit.*


But that's up to the 19th, when Johnson and Sunak decided to let it rip... 🙁


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 20, 2021)

My mum was at a small picnic on Saturday with 8 other people. All over 70 yrs old, all double jabbed. Two of them (a married couple) tested positive yesterday (PCR), have symptoms, and are isolating.

They told my mum and the others this last night.

My mum has today decided, after a long phone chat with me, to isolate. Only one other attendee is isolating.

My mum wants data/research to share with them all, about how Delta variant is not just more transmissible in general (I've given her that) but about how it seems to be more transmissible outdoors, and with briefer exposure/contact times.

I have found some stuff about it but would be grateful for any other links on this anyone has please.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> So those things are a big factor in my mind when I ponder the possibility that England could peak now, or certain regions could peak now or soon.
> 
> But obviously there are some differences between England and Scotland. Scotland did not reopen nightclubs at the same moment that schools were finishing, to give a really obvious example.
> 
> And we dont know how much difference the change in mood music over the last 2 weeks has made to behaviour. I expect its made quite a bit of difference, but there are so many things changing at the same time that I dont know how it will all stack up. If things keep soaring then nerves will grow in government and the media. I havent got too many means to predict, the modelling gave such a wide range of possibilities that me talking about Englands potential peaks right now might turn out to be a very bad joke, or may not end up so far away from the reality.



This one of the reasons I trust what you say, and appreciate you taking the time to say it here, so very much. You are clear about what you know and what you can't yet know.

Also you seem to be proved right over time, every time, when you do say something decisive.

Massive respect.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 20, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> My mum was at a small picnic on Saturday with 8 other people. All over 70 yrs old, all double jabbed. Two of them (a married couple) tested positive yesterday (PCR), have symptoms, and are isolating.
> 
> They told my mum and the others this last night.
> 
> ...


there's this I guess









						Covid Delta variant is ‘in the air you breathe’: what you need to know about Sydney outbreak strain
					

Delta strain is significantly more infectious but it spreads the same way as the original virus – including by ‘fleeting’ encounters and respiratory aerosols




					www.theguardian.com
				












						Delta Variant Infects 6 Vaccinated Guests at Outdoor Wedding
					

Six fully-vaccinated guests who attended an outdoor wedding in Texas were infected with the Delta coronavirus variant.




					www.webmd.com
				




There was also an open air event in Denmark iirc that prompted the government to rethink opening up after the virus spread. Unfortunately I have no links. It was an article posted just before Monday iirc warning about what happened there happening here.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> There was also an open air event in Denmark iirc that prompted the government to rethink opening up after the virus spread. Unfortunately I have no links. It was an article posted just before Monday iirc warning about what happened there happening here.


You may be thinking of the Netherlands. It was well publicised that a festival there ended up being linked to 1000 positive cases. And they also saw soaring rates more generally that caused them to u-turn on having nightclubs open.

I believe the festival did feature large dance tents so it wasnt purely fully open air.

Australia has made quite a bit deal of pointing out the outdoor transmission risks from Delta, but part of the reason their public hear so much about that from them is that they are trying to squash infections there more comprehensively than most European countries have tried to, and so they go hard with their messages to the public.

I'm not that good at following every scientific paper that tries to look at things like how transmissible Delta is, because the limitations and timing of such studies tends to frustrate me. Its useful to do these studies but they often arent that compelling on their own, they dont manage to cover all the questions people have or thoroughly convince them, I think people often respond better to real world examples.

Personally I understand the importance of ventilation and how the risk increases when the quantity of virus increases, but I'm not too complacent about outdoor situations with people in close proximity. Especially not as variants have arrived with improved spreading capabilities.

I could put it like this: The number of infected people out there is the biggest deal when it comes to my sense of risk of picking up the virus. At really high levels, reassurances from being outdoors end up meaning far less to me. The relative safety of the setting cannot fully compensate for the higher chance of someone infectious being present, during peak periods where a significant proportion of the population are infectious. So at the current stage England is at, now is not a time I can make many reassuring comments about safety of certain activities. ie the opposite of what I was moaning about in regards the limitations of 'mass events' trials that were held during times of relatively low viral prevalence.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> This one of the reasons I trust what you say, and appreciate you taking the time to say it here, so very much. You are clear about what you know and what you can't yet know.
> 
> Also you seem to be proved right over time, every time, when you do say something decisive.
> 
> Massive respect.


Thanks very much 

I dont know how to respond to such praise, normally I want to point out some of my mistakes, blow my trumpet a little, point out all the other people who have made valuable contributions throughout the pandemic, etc. But its warm, so I wont explore those things again now.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

I usually focus on positive cases by specimen date rather than reporting date.

So I note that whilst todays number of positive cases reported in the UK is not going to break any records, the UK has now managed to report 60,031 positives for the test specimen date of July 15th (last Thursday)!

It is currently unclear whether subsequent dates will be able to rival and exceed that number. I would rarely like to bet either way at this stage.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

And especially not betting based on figures that come out on a Tuesday, since Tuesdays numbers are sometimes a cause for relative optimism but then Wednesdays and Thursdays numbers lead to a reality check as case reporting catches up from weekend effects. And I wont be abe to tell the difference between that and genuine signs of a slowdown until a while after the event.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 20, 2021)

Thanks lots glitch hiker  and elbows


----------



## Flavour (Jul 20, 2021)

RileyOBlimey said:


> 4 million excess deaths in India: Covid-19: India excess deaths cross four million, says study


10x their official death count (though this should be in the worldwide thread)

makes you wonder about brazil, russia, turkey, argentina...


----------



## bimble (Jul 20, 2021)

what the hell is even going on with this country. 








						Border officials told not to make Covid checks on green and amber list arrivals
					

Exclusive: officers in England no longer have to verify whether new arrivals have received a negative Covid test




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> what the hell is even going on with this country.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


after freedom day we have freedoom day :/


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 20, 2021)

xenon said:


> Yes. All that. I would think. Basically any place where there are mixed groups of people in fairly close proximity and poor to no ventilation.


So I'll be catching Covid at work this coming Friday then.


----------



## Spandex (Jul 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> what the hell is even going on with this country.


We're in a weird fucking place at the moment. The government seem to be trying two contradictory approaches to dealing with Covid at the same time.

There's one approach where various restrictions are put in place to try and reduce the spread; and there's another approach where the government treat it like the annual flu outbreak, giving out vaccines and otherwise carrying on business as usual (business being the key word there). Johnson seems to be full on for the second approach, but can't come right out and say it as most people support the first approach. That leads to this confusing muddle we face of contradictory messages, things you have to do but don't have to do and government rules that the government say is nothing to do with them.

Fuck knows where it's all going.


----------



## 20Bees (Jul 20, 2021)

I popped into Boots and they’re taking bookings for flu jabs. Booked mine for 18 September, a couple of weeks earlier than last year’s. I imagine any Covid vaccine booster will be separate as there’s no mention of it on the website.


----------



## MrSki (Jul 20, 2021)

I have not understood why more businesses have not checked temperatures on the way in. A simply 2 second test could have saved so much spread.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 20, 2021)

and where are all those dogs we were told about?


----------



## 20Bees (Jul 20, 2021)

I haven’t been into many business premises throughout the pandemic - I work in an out-of-town supermarket, have been to Superdrug in town for my Covid jabs, the farm shop occasionally, a department store twice, and the post office. The only temperature check was before being allowed to enter a hair salon last autumn.
My son lives in northern China and they were temperature checked on leaving and returning to their gated apartment community, and even now still checked on entering shopping malls.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

I dont go on about temperature checks much because they are not thought to be highly effective for screening at all.



> All of the above has led the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to conclude that, although some COVID-19 cases do get detected through temperature-screening procedures at airports, evidence indicates that such measures on the whole aren’t effective.
> 
> In the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has similarly warned that “temperature screening products, some of which make direct claims to screen for COVID-19, are not a reliable way to detect if people have the virus”. The Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health also noted years ago that “the accuracy of infrared skin thermometers is equivocal and requires more research”.











						Temperature scanners aren’t good at telling who has COVID-19 – here’s how to fix that
					

Professor Mike Tipton writes for The Conversation on overcoming the ineffectiveness of temperature scanning in detecting Covid-19




					www.port.ac.uk


----------



## MrSki (Jul 20, 2021)

Yeah the only times I have been temp. checked was going for my vaccines.


----------



## elbows (Jul 20, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Yeah the only times I have been temp. checked was going for my vaccines.


I was expecting that when I went for my first one, because thats what the website of the company running it said, but on the day they werent actually bothering at all!


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 20, 2021)

After the steep rise in infections, the inevitable is happening - 96 deaths reported Tuesday, the highest since March.


----------



## MrSki (Jul 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> I was expecting that when I went for my first one, because thats what the website of the company running it said, but on the day they werent actually bothering at all!


Mine was run by the three local surgeries plus volunteers & everyone saw a doctor (for simple questioning) & got jabbed by a nurse. Couldn't fault it. Hand sanitiser at the door & temp check before going into the main hall. 
I was pretty impressed with the speed of the set-up. Went first with my 82 year old Mum in the early days when the pavements were icy. (Seems a log time ago now)


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 20, 2021)

Only got temperature checked when going into hospital several months ago.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> what the hell is even going on with this country.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


They made the system so complicated that it's impossible to enforce. But they still haven't managed to get mutual recognition for people who have been vaccinated overseas.

Reason to be pissed off about Brexit #1000


----------



## Petcha (Jul 20, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> After the steep rise in infections, the inevitable is happening - 96 deaths reported Tuesday, the highest since March.



There's currently 25,000 people screaming, singing, throwing beer over each other at the cricket up in Manchester as if there was absolutely nothing wrong with the world. I sound like a total humbug, but um. No. Not a good idea. Normally I'd be envious watching these pictures but it's making me cringe.


----------



## MrSki (Jul 20, 2021)

Petcha said:


> There's currently 25,000 people screaming, singing, throwing beer over each other at the cricket up in Manchester as if there was absolutely nothing wrong with the world. I sound like a total humbug, but um. No. Not a good idea. Normally I'd be envious watching these pictures but it's making me cringe.


Sweet Caroline.


----------



## Petcha (Jul 20, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Sweet Caroline.



Yes. That's it for me. My toes are curled up to the point of actual pain.


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Jul 21, 2021)

Pleased to report 95% of the staff at work are still wearing masks, and prolly 80-85% of customers too. Haven't seen many over 35 not wearing a mask or a lanyard explaining why  Worst offenders by far - construction workers, who obviously feel not spreading disease should be a personal matter and have clearly agreed to make a point of it, whilst they shop in their hard hats, safety boots and hi-vis vests for their their roast chicken and cans of Monster


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 21, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> After the steep rise in infections, the inevitable is happening - 96 deaths reported Tuesday, the highest since March.



TBF the Tuesday figure is usually inflated, catching-up on the weekend reporting lag, which means figures reported on Sun & Mon tend to be a lot lower.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2021)

Even by the standards of this tory governments pandemic handling, the new slogan 'keep life moving' is pretty fucking offensive. Keep people dying is more appropriate.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Even by the standards of this tory governments pandemic handling, the new slogan 'keep life moving' is pretty fucking offensive. Keep people dying is more appropriate.



Sick fucks.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2021)

Keep libertarians murdering.

Keep loving money.

Know lies matter.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jul 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> TBF the Tuesday figure is usually inflated, catching-up on the weekend reporting lag, which means figures reported on Sun & Mon tend to be a lot lower.


The key thing is it is double last week's figure. If we have deaths doubling every week that gets nasty quickly.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jul 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Even by the standards of this tory governments pandemic handling, the new slogan 'keep life moving' is pretty fucking offensive. Keep people dying is more appropriate.


Ah, they've always been the same. They're handling it just like they did/do with draconian benefit cuts. No morals, no respect for human life.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 21, 2021)

I think the key thing about Freedom Day is the Tories are now free not to have to pay anyone to close/not work - this is driving policy.
Its cant be a coincidence its ex-chancellor Sajid Javid in the hotseat


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 21, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> The key thing is it is double last week's figure. If we have deaths doubling every week that gets nasty quickly.



It's pointless picking one day & comparing it to the same day in the week before, 7-day averages are far more accurate, be it the daily reported figures, or 'by specimen date', which has some lag.

We are not [yet] at the stage of doubling every week, although it's grim enough, with deaths averaging 52.3 a day, and the 7-day average up +59.8%.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2021)

Over 39,000 care home deaths.









						Coronavirus: Worst affected care homes revealed by watchdog
					

Figures from Care Quality Commission lay out the pandemic's 'devastating impact' on care homes in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Meanwhile positive test data continues to be complicated to interpret this week. eg just like yesterday it remains unclear if the figure of 60,000+ cases with a sample date of July 15th will be beaten in this wave, whether there is an additional backlog for subsequent dates yet to fully report, beyond the backlogs normally seen, etc.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2021)

As if Scotlands schedule for publishing hospital admissions data wasnt shit enough already, there has now been a delay so a whole weeks worth of figures have not come out as scheduled today.

So people interested in monitoring hospital admissions on the dashboard will need to look at England rather than the UK, because the UK figure is still stuck on 14th July due to the missing data from Scotland.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2021)

And the missing Scotland data is very annoying becauce it should cover a crucial period - it was already taking rather a long time for Scotlands hospital admissions to show an obvious peak compared to when their positive case numbers peaked. There are some standard assumptions about peak hospitalisation timing relative to case peaks that I am not willing to fully rely on in this wave, and so I need the actual hospitalisations data to shime light on what might be a quite messy picture. For example if the largest case number drops are in younger age groups, then have to be careful to establish that theres actually been the sort of peak and drop that would make the crucial different to the health care system in a pandemic wave.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2021)

Plus its especially pressing that I learn more about whats happened in Scotland given what the case numbers for England are doing this week.

The following is part of the England cases graph on the dashboard that is roughly equivalent to the sort of colour-coded deaths graphs I used to produce to demonstrate the difference between deaths by report date and where they fit in by actual date of death. Except this is for cases and just covers where todays reported case numbers belong in terms of specimen date, by showing them in yellow.

If a lot more cases dont end up getting added to the days after July 15th, then is that really the peak? And if it is a peak in terms of positive cases detected and reported, how does this relate to the underlying reality of case numbers, and what we expect from hospital admissions in the next two weeks?


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2021)

I dont know, for example, whether there is a reporting issue that means some data is missing. Its happened in the past, but I wont make any assumptions about whether thats happened this time, that might not be the explanation at all, and I've certainly gone on about peaks a lot recently so I dont exclude the possibility it is a real peak.

Meanwhile I see that yesterday they found a lot of historical positive tests down the back fo the sofa:



> PCR tests from pillar 1 in England and the UK reported from 20 July 2021 include tests carried out within NHS Trusts that host a PHE lab. 28,214 historical test samples dating from November 2020 onwards have been added to the total figure.



That quote is from the updates section of the dashboard.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2021)

When I say reporting issue, I include the possibility that some specific parts of the testing system might have become overwhelmed or are running low on key supplies used in the testing process.

Certainly whatever is responsible was rather abrupt, although actual cases picked up by testing can genuinely abruptly change too around the peak.

So I'm none the wiser, I dont think there is anything barring news of a problem, or subsequent data that fills in the gaps, that can give me further clues other than the passing of time.

Plus I was anticipating seeing some things of interest in this period, due to schools breaking up and the football being further behind us and the amount of disruption due to self-isolation and behavioural changes due to the changed mood music.


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2021)

Also ZOE hasnt been much help checking this because in recent weeks they showed various flattening off of numbers too soon and so have had to change their methodology again now to get their results to better fit other data sources.


----------



## Cloo (Jul 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Also ZOE hasnt been much help checking this because in recent weeks they showed various flattening off of numbers too soon and so have had to change their methodology again now to get their results to better fit other data sources.


I've noticed that and thought it can't be right. 

I'm currently wondering whether I should put money on the government deciding to vaccinate 12-17 year olds around mid December or thereabouts when it'll probably be too late for it to do much good in winter


----------



## elbows (Jul 21, 2021)

Well Tim Spector from ZOE has put out a video explaining the change, except its mostly a load of waffle and some awkward references to the elephant in the room and blah blah blah.


----------



## miss direct (Jul 22, 2021)

So worrying that people are being asked to test and go (and ignore isolating). Mum was negative on Monday and positive on Wednesday...A negative test following exposure doesn't mean a person doesn't have it, or might not develop it.


----------



## Chz (Jul 22, 2021)

We were definitely told to isolate The Boy for 10 days regardless of what his tests (all negative) say.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 22, 2021)

Vincent Racaniello and Amy Rosenfeld continue to be laid-back about the risk of infection to the double-vaccinated and stating that they always remove their masks when meeting other double-vaccinated people and that the unvaccinated should wear masks to protect themselves ...
With regards the UK it seems to be "hard luck if you chose not to get vaccinated" ...
They are very obviously getting weary after so many months of being diverted from their core interests ...


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

Well from what I've seen there is a lot more binary thinking about vaccines in the USA, at least from sections of their media and experts.

Other differences include the USA making a far greater deal of the number of young people and children who have been hospitalised in the pandemic.

I have not had time to study these differences properly, but it means their vaccine drive has been more simplistic and I dont know what will happen to the messages there as Delta really gets going.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Well from what I've seen there is a lot more binary thinking about vaccines in the USA, at least from sections of their media and experts.
> 
> Other differences include the USA making a far grater deal of the number of young people and children who have been hospitalised in the pandemic.
> 
> I have not had time to study these differences properly, but it means their vaccine drive has been more simplistic and I dont know what will happen to the messages there as Delta really gets going.


Annecdotal:
I see a lot of parents asking on how to get their children vaccinated in the USA on a vaccine discussion group on facebook, so there are worried people out there.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 22, 2021)

Az is a bit shit on this stat 


Three to six weeks after full vaccination with Pfizer, antibody levels typically stood at about 7,500 units per ml, but more than halved to 3,320 units per ml after 10 weeks. For AstraZeneca, antibody levels peaked at about 1,200 units per ml and typically fell to 190 units per ml after 10 weeks. Since publishing the results in a letter to the Lancet, the researchers have seen the same trend in a further 4,500 participants in the study.

While antibody levels are important for protection, the immune system has other defences that are built up after infection or vaccination. It is normal for antibody levels to wane over time and for the immune system to “remember” the infection with memory B cells. Should the virus invade, these cells rapidly churn out antibodies targeted at the virus. Further protection comes from T cells, which destroy infected cells and limit the severity of disease.

...

If the government don't get a grip we're going to be having a lot of jabs every year


----------



## gentlegreen (Jul 22, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Az is a bit shit on this stat


I can't help continuing to wonder if it's a coincidence that AZ alone chose not to stabilise the spike  ....


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

Fans of vaccine percentage stats on the dashboard should note that they are switching to use newer population estimates today, so if you want to compare how the percentages look for a particular area before and after this change, you have a few hours left to record the current numbers.

I dont know how much difference it will make so I have grabbed a few.


----------



## bimble (Jul 22, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Az is a bit shit on this stat
> 
> 
> Three to six weeks after full vaccination with Pfizer, antibody levels typically stood at about 7,500 units per ml, but more than halved to 3,320 units per ml after 10 weeks. For AstraZeneca, antibody levels peaked at about 1,200 units per ml and typically fell to 190 units per ml after 10 weeks. Since publishing the results in a letter to the Lancet, the researchers have seen the same trend in a further 4,500 participants in the study.
> ...


I don’t understand what this means. If you only have 190 thingies then are you protected from getting seriously ill or not?


----------



## prunus (Jul 22, 2021)

bimble said:


> I don’t understand what this means. If you only have 190 thingies then are you protected from getting seriously ill or not?



Yes, probably, but in a slightly different way. Having a high antibody level circulating means that any virus that attempts to get going can immediately be swamped (with luck).

A lower level might mean that the virus has about 12 hours to get going while the immune system recognises it and gets underway producing the antibodies from the original template.

It’s a bit like the difference between having a large standing army and a smaller army of scouts with a large reservist army ready to be mobilised when the scouts spot the enemy - and for a similar reason - keeping large standing armies ready to fight all the possible pathogens/enemies that might turn up is very expensive, so to be avoided.

As time passes without infection the immune system thinks “maybe the risk had passed, let’s stand down and go into watch mode”.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jul 22, 2021)

This Kurzgesagt Video helps to explain the various parts of the immune system


----------



## bimble (Jul 22, 2021)

prunus said:


> Yes, probably, but in a slightly different way. Having a high antibody level circulating means that any virus that attempts to get going can immediately be swamped (with luck).
> 
> A lower level might mean that the virus has about 12 hours to get going while the immune system recognises it and gets underway producing the antibodies from the original template.
> 
> ...


Why does one company’s vaccine give you a so much smaller standing army though? Does that matter ?


----------



## teuchter (Jul 22, 2021)

One approach to differing feelings about risk


----------



## existentialist (Jul 22, 2021)

teuchter said:


> One approach to differing feelings about risk



Pragmatic


----------



## Supine (Jul 22, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Az is a bit shit on this stat
> 
> 
> Three to six weeks after full vaccination with Pfizer, antibody levels typically stood at about 7,500 units per ml, but more than halved to 3,320 units per ml after 10 weeks. For AstraZeneca, antibody levels peaked at about 1,200 units per ml and typically fell to 190 units per ml after 10 weeks. Since publishing the results in a letter to the Lancet, the researchers have seen the same trend in a further 4,500 participants in the study.
> ...



Analysing the real world effectiveness of vaccines on real patients is a much better way to determine how good the vaccines are. You need to be pretty expert to understand what that units per ml actually means in the real world.


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

Supine said:


> Analysing the real world effectiveness of vaccines on real patients is a much better way to determine how good the vaccines are. You need to be pretty expert to understand what that units per ml actually means in the real world.


Yeah, I dont attempt such things myself.

2hats posted some interesting news from Israel on that front here        #1,415       but we still have to consider factors like Israel sticking to a shorter gap between doses than the stretched out schedule the UK went for.


----------



## bimble (Jul 22, 2021)

yeah i've read the article now and it basically says, we won't really know what it means until double vaxxed people turn up in hospital.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 22, 2021)

teuchter said:


> One approach to differing feelings about risk



I love the I always swim on the no pissing side of the pool comment regarding wearing a mask to go to the bogs. Sums up how I feel about that precaution.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 22, 2021)

bimble said:


> yeah i've read the article now and it basically says, we won't really know what it means until double vaxxed people turn up in hospital.


There will always be x2 vaxxers in hospital due to age and comorbities. I don't find hospital data that clear. Is it admissions for covid or they have it on admission? elbows?


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

bimble said:


> yeah i've read the article now and it basically says, we won't really know what it means until double vaxxed people turn up in hospital.


Plenty of vaccinated people have turned up in hospital so far but then it takes time for the data to accumulate and for analysis to be done. 

Certainly have a look at the Israeli stuff I just mentioned.


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

IC3D said:


> There will always be x2 vaxxers in hospital due to age and comorbities. I don't find hospital data that clear. Is it admissions for covid or they have it on admission? elbows?


The figures tend to include anyone thats tested positive, even if they are in hospital for a different reason. Hospitals in England were asked some time ago to start collecting info on which cases were hospitalised because of Covid, but I think this data has remained private management info for now, not published.

And the daily hospital admissions figures are actually described as admissions/diagnoses so these figures suffer from the same limitation.

For vaccine-specific stats we tend to get figures for things like number of Delta cases by vaccine status and whether they were hospitalised or died. But these figures tend to come out once every few weeks and tend to end up being a subset of cases rather than the whole picture (due to lag but also because it only includes cases that had genomic sequencing done to determine the strain was Delta).

Modelling etc means they have always expected a significant proportion of hospitalised cases to have been vaccinated at this point. Because of a combination of the vaccines not being 100% effective and that a huge proportion of adults in the country are vaccinated.

Signs of waning immunity would come from analysis that demonstrated the proportions getting worse over time in ways that cant be accounted for by other factors, the estimated risk of hospitalisation increasing in the vaccinated over time, etc.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 22, 2021)

Reflects my understanding. My trust in London published numbers in weekly emails which I didn't share as I'm sure it's breaking some condition of employment but have now stopped so I just ask  doctors im freindly with last week it was 28 covid, I'll be asking again next week for sure.. It's going up and covid are slipping in causing major hassles which is why I'm angry that triaging is not done off site after all this time and think money could have been spent protecting frontline services, staff Inc.


----------



## prunus (Jul 22, 2021)

bimble said:


> Why does one company’s vaccine give you a so much smaller standing army though? Does that matter ?



The actual mechanism by which different vaccines lead to different immune responses is going to be an extremely complicated one so at that level I don’t know we’ll ever know for sure ‘why’ - but at a higher level the ‘why’ is that the strength of the immediate immune response (and hence short- and possibly longer-term ‘standing army’) is based on how serious the immune system ‘assessed’ the threat from the infection to be. One can therefore surmise that the mRNA vaccines present a more dangerous-looking scenario, hence the increased response.  Why or how they do that - not known (as far as I know).  I would guess that the proliferation of induced spike proteins is faster and/or higher in magnitude. But that’s a guess.

Does it matter?  A bit, but not much, at least not yet, in terms of serious results (severe disease/death) - we’re seeing about the same levels of protection from both in these terms so far.   As time passes we may see both ‘standing army’ levels tail off to about the same, and both equally effective at protection by reservists, or we might see the differential maintained, and at some point AZ-immunised people needing a reminder (booster).   Or everyone needing it. We shall see.

Higher circulating antibody levels are likely to mean a response closer to sterilising immunity however, and this might be relatively more important - ie with a high antibody titre an infected individual might be less likely to get to a level of viral load where they are likely to pass it on.  

All the above is informed speculation based on the science I know and have seen to date. Future (or indeed already published) results may mean some of the above is wrong for this virus (or may support it). But there you go.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 22, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Az is a bit shit on this stat


Not really.

As stated multiple times before, the vaccines aim to prevent severe disease, not infection. They will reduce incidence of infection to varying degrees - from person to person and (gradually, decreasingly) over time. The important detail is that all the vaccines promote (in the healthy) a strong cellular immune response thereby greatly reducing the severity of disease and the risk of requiring medical assistance.

The measurements of (eg binding antibody units per unit volume) are steps on the ladder of standardisation towards correlates of protection such that vaccine development can be accelerated and emergency use authorisations granted based on phase 2 immunogenicity trials rather than time consuming and logistically complex phase 3 efficacy trials (which might struggle to meet their endpoints as more of the general population are vaccinated). This type of approval has already just happened in Taiwan (post #1413), though that was based on a relative comparison of immunogenicity with a previously approved vaccine that had proven results via phase 3 efficacy trials.


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

I think it would only really be fair to describe any of the vaccines used in the UK so far as 'a bit shit' is if you have been massively oversold on what these vaccines should achieve.

When it comes to the real details the relevant UK authorities havent really oversold anything.

But when it comes to headlines and the amount of weight the government decided to let vaccines carry via their relaxation of measures policies this year, the wrong impression may have been given. When dickheads like Hancock and Johnson insisted on using words like severed to describe the link between cases and hospitalisation/deaths in the vaccine era, that was misleading, to give just one example.

Take for example the risk assessment for Delta, including what it does to vaccine effectiveness. The risk assessment sheet is quite grim in some ways, but I dont think headlines and rhetoric did proper justice to this detail at all. https://assets.publishing.service.g...ment_for_SARS-CoV-2_variant_DELTA_02.00-1.pdf

As for AstraZenica, right from the earliest trial data there were certain numbers that were not super dooper amazing. Not bloody awful, but enough to get plenty of people to lower their expectations. Since those early days a lot of the subsequent studies have been better news for that vaccine, so people like me actually found their impression of AZ improving over time rather than declining. There are limits to this though, I probably still prefer mRNA vaccines on paper to the likes of the AZ one. But in the years ahead we may learn a lot that changes my impression considerably.


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Take for example the risk assessment for Delta, including what it does to vaccine effectiveness. The risk assessment sheet is quite grim in some ways, but I dont think headlines and rhetoric did proper justice to this detail at all. https://assets.publishing.service.g...ment_for_SARS-CoV-2_variant_DELTA_02.00-1.pdf



Actually there is one detail from that which was actually captured pretty well by the headlines and the rhetoric. The first dose numbers not being great against Delta, and the resulting emphasis on people getting second jabs.

In other news, I dont see much new in todays figures. There is still the big drop in positive case numbers after the 15th July. 

Scotland finally published some more hospital admissions data so can now see what looks like a peak in those figures. Now just have to wait to see number in hospital drop there, and for number in intensive care to show a clear plateau and decline.

I havent looked at the vaccine figures yet and how much they've been changed by updated population estimates.


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

I havent spent much time reading twitter this week as its been too warm. Has anybody seen any theories in regards the drop in positive cases?

I think I saw one person who decided that confidently declaring that July 15th was the peak was the approach to take. I cannot rule that possibility out but I would avoid making confident claims like that at this stage. Especially as the drops appear to have happened everywhere at the same time, which might point towards at least some of the drop being down to testing system factors.


----------



## Supine (Jul 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> I havent spent much time reading twitter this week as its been too warm. Has anybody seen any theories in regards the drop in positive cases?
> 
> I think I saw one person who decided that confidently declaring that July 15th was the peak was the approach to take. I cannot rule that possibility out but I would avoid making confident claims like that at this stage. Especially as the drops appear to have happened everywhere at the same time, which might point towards at least some of the drop being down to testing system factors.



Not much conclusive but a quick look on gov for positivity rates seemed to show an increase. So i suspect testing or something and cases to rise.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 22, 2021)

I think the current appearance of a peak is more or less wishful thinking / statistical artifice.

As soon as the mask-free shenanigans on Monday got underway, it is only a matter of time before there is an affect on case numbers. I don't think there has been enough take up in vaccines among the younger age groups nor long enough for sufficient immunity to develop.

However, locally (seems to me at least) there does seem to be a continuance of mask-wearing and social distancing behaviours. Our case rate peaked a few days ago [5 day lag in data] ...
The weather (very hot and dry) seems to be helping, although having the germ-factories  school kids [and educational settings in general] breaking for the summer hols on 16th July 2021 will be a significant reducing factor ...

[and the local council website says first day of autumn term will be 6th September, pushed back from the 2nd ... I wonder why ?]


----------



## Supine (Jul 22, 2021)

First good analysis for consideration


----------



## kabbes (Jul 22, 2021)

2hats said:


> Not really.
> 
> As stated multiple times before, the vaccines aim to prevent severe disease, not infection. They will reduce incidence of infection to varying degrees - from person to person and (gradually, decreasingly) over time. The important detail is that all the vaccines promote (in the healthy) a strong cellular immune response thereby greatly reducing the severity of disease and the risk of requiring medical assistance.
> 
> The measurements of (eg binding antibody units per unit volume) are steps on the ladder of standardisation towards correlates of protection such that vaccine development can be accelerated and emergency use authorisations granted based on phase 2 immunogenicity trials rather than time consuming and logistically complex phase 3 efficacy trials (which might struggle to meet their endpoints as more of the general population are vaccinated). This type of approval has already just happened in Taiwan (post #1413), though that was based on a relative comparison of immunogenicity with a previously approved vaccine that had proven results via phase 3 efficacy trials.


I’ve heard it characterised that the injections are more “treatment” than true vaccine, at least in the way we have previously tended to understand the latter.  They are an extremely effective pre-loaded treatment that will likely stop your disease from becoming serious.  They are not designed to be a full stop to the infection.  It’s an interesting way of looking at it, that I think would encourage a more realistic public response.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 22, 2021)

2hats said:


> be





kabbes said:


> I’ve heard it characterised that the injections are more “treatment” than true vaccine, at least in the way we have previously tended to understand the latter.  They are an extremely effective pre-loaded treatment that will likely stop your disease from becoming serious.  They are not designed to be a full stop to the infection.  It’s an interesting way of looking at it, that I think would encourage a more realistic public response.


I think that is becoming the common understanding despite it never being explicitly said by health or govt spokespeople


----------



## Supine (Jul 22, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I think that is becoming the common understanding despite it never being explicitly said by health or govt spokespeople



Or has been explicitly said by healthcare professionals and government agencies throughout. Maybe not fully understood by journalists or politicians though.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 22, 2021)

Supine said:


> Or has been explicitly said by healthcare professionals and government agencies throughout. Maybe not fully understood by journalists or politicians though.


That's simply not true


----------



## zahir (Jul 22, 2021)

Witnessing England’s response to Covid at first hand has profoundly shocked me | William Hanage
					

On a visit to the UK from the US, I have seen how incoherent government policy is allowing Delta to run rampant, says Harvard epidemiologist William Hanage




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Supine (Jul 22, 2021)

IC3D said:


> That's simply not true



It simply is true.

As one small example, the FDA - which is a government agency - set the bar at 50% for vaccines being effective for approval.


----------



## prunus (Jul 22, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’ve heard it characterised that the injections are more “treatment” than true vaccine, at least in the way we have previously tended to understand the latter.  They are an extremely effective pre-loaded treatment that will likely stop your disease from becoming serious.  They are not designed to be a full stop to the infection.  It’s an interesting way of looking at it, that I think would encourage a more realistic public response.



That sounds like it’s based on a misunderstanding of what a vaccine is - most vaccines work in this way - flu vaccines are generally about 50% effective; measles around mid 90s after a boost. Polio can reach close to 100% but that takes a prime and 3 boosts over 8(?) years.

Vaccines just prepare the immune system with information to allow it to swing into action faster when it encounters the pathogen. They don’t convey special powers.


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

That sort of misunderstanding is a big part of the reason why I have been boring on since the early days of the vaccination programme along the lines of "I dont like the giddy nature of the UK vaccine rollout", "binary thinking about vaccines is a problem", "there are limits to how much heavy lifting we can expect vaccines to do in this pandemic".

What hasnt happened much is the opportunity for me to directly talk here to someone who has actually adopted overly simplistic thinking about the effects of vaccine. Here I mostly get to talk to people who do understand some or all of the limitations. Some of them may talk about other people who have got the wrong end of the stick about vaccines, but these views are largely theoretical and I lack manifest examples of such thinking that I can confront here.


----------



## Cloo (Jul 22, 2021)

Entertained by dispairing tweets I've seen today from people (aka selfish idiots) going 'Oh my God I went to the shops and almost everyone was wearing masks, it's so terrible!'


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 22, 2021)

Supine said:


> First good analysis for consideration



An alternative view


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

Supine said:


> First good analysis for consideration




Thanks. I've not much to add since its a pretty good fit with stuff I went on about too much already. She oversimplified the end of term date for England, and perhaps I would have placed more emphasis on the extent to which changing mood music, number of self-isolation requests etc could have made a difference. I could also probably find at least one example of modelling output that does have an earlier peak than the ones she mentions (eg certain scenarios that fall within the confidence intervals of the best case scenario from the autumn/winter planning document by the Academy of Medical Sciences), but its certainly true that most of the ones we've seen via SAGE dont have a peak this early.

But these small details aside, certainly the theme of 'different factors pulling in different directions' is the overriding one she mentions that I agree with, one that can easily confound simplistic expectations about this period.

With that in mind I wouldnt personally want to echo her words "I dont think this is the peak" nor the words of those who have confidently claimed that the 15th was the peak. Both seem plausible to me at the moment, and so I cant say either with confidence. Although if there is a real peak in there somewhere then its unlikely to be as abrupt as the current data indicates. There are probably multiple stories at work here and I dont know if we will be unable to unpick them until I know what happens next.

It might be reasonable to claim that at least a chunk of the recent falls are data/test system/peoples attitudes towards getting tested related. Because they seem to have happened everywhere at exactly the same time, and although some of the things that have changed affect everywhere in England simultaneously (eg end of Euros), others do not.

Hopefully if the temperature in my room comes down enough in the next day or two I can explore the recent positive test data by age group, to see if it helps ascertain any of the reasons for the fall. But Im sort of expecting to find out that the falls were similar in all the data at the same time, which will be another sign that the underlying reality is not being properly reflected by recent data. At least when Scotlands numbers started to fall we saw the sort of variations in timing and rate of decline between different age groups that we'd have expected to see if it were a real peak.

Another potential problem with the current situation is that in theory we could have multiple peaks I suppose, but I probably shouldnt go on about that in depth unless it looks like its actually happening.


----------



## Supine (Jul 22, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> An alternative view




hahahahaha. Alternative lol.


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> An alternative view




What I'd say about that is:

Big questions about state of immunity in the population are one of the reasons I dont exclude the possibility of early peaks. That and what happened so far with Scotland are the reasons why I have been very keen to prepare people here not to be surprised if the peak happens at a stage they were not expecting it to.

I'd also say that studies of the levels of antibodies within the population are probably not perfect, it can be hard to get a genuinely representative sample because certain groups may be mostly out of reach, much less likely to participate. And those groups may also have other differences that affect their risk and pandemic outcomes compared to the segments of society that are much easier to reach in antibody studies. Chuck in some remaining uncertainties about immunity waning, Delta, and vaccines, and I end up not being a fan of people coming out with confident population immunity claims. But I dont reject such possibilities either, or how messy and prolonged the period could be where people still arent sure which factors are driving the developments of this wave, eg whether a decline is a sign of 'herd immunity' or not.


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

Also if people want to go on about wonderful levels of immunity in the population, they should really use the percentages for the population, not adults only. Or at least explicitly point out the difference.

This matters less if they are not explicitly trying to make a point about reaching a 'herd immunity' threshold unlocking further benefits of vaccination, reducing waves to less disruptive size etc. In this case that single tweet does not offer me clues as to whether they are trying to run in a particular direction with that claim, I suppose I will go and see what else they are saying. On its own I dont see it as an alternative view to what Christina Pagel said because it is not discussing the peak or placing obvious assumptions on top of the fact they think the immunity figure is great news.


----------



## elbows (Jul 22, 2021)

Oh, he is a Telegraph fan and a member of the 'if not now, with these levels of immunity, then when?' brigade.

There are usually certain details in these sort of peoples stance which I can find some redeeming features of, or at least some angle to keep in mind, but I have no desire to read their output all the time and their overall sense of balance usually winds me up a treat. So no more exploring the views of Dr Levinson for me at the moment.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> An alternative view



9 in 10 adults are estimated through modelling to have antibodies (antibody status of ~3 in 10 of the population not modelled). A binary SARS-CoV-2 antibody positive/negative (and a modelling estimate at that) tells us nothing about the antibody titres across the population, their potency, nor longitudinal evolution of such, let alone degree of immunity (see: correlates of protection). It only tells us, at best, this fraction of adults likely have been recipients of vaccines and/or were previously infected.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Despite going on for about a month about the disruption and self-isolation brakes that have been left in place for this wave, and why that was quite deliberate, I've now completely forgotten whether I actually stumbled on any modelling of the effects of that stuff, SAGE discussions of it etc.

Anyway, I see the following was mentioned in a Guardian story about the latest changes to the self-isolation regime:



> Ministers had been reluctant to act despite lifting most pandemic restrictions on Monday, insisting that time was needed before dropping the self-isolation rule as coronavirus infections soar. The government had been warned that waiving the requirement on 19 July would result in cases being up to 25% higher than waiting another four weeks to do so.











						Limited number of critical workers to be allowed to avoid self-isolation
					

Separate pilot daily testing programme will be expanded to up to 500 food and drink supply chain employers




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## IC3D (Jul 23, 2021)

I think the data is going to become more foggy as covid is passed around as a nasty cold and no one does anything about it. At least that's what I see happening going forward.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

The link between infection and hospitalisation will have to become much weaker than it is at the moment before authorities would be too keen to promote that level of change in attitude towards the virus.

I think right back at the very start of this forum discussing this virus I somewhat unwisely chose to draw attention to the long term future of the virus, colds etc, and since then it hasnt really felt appropriate to go on about that eventuality. A long time will probably still have to pass before I go on about that much.

Should we reach a point where routine testing at scale isnt a thing any more, or attitudes towards the system weaken it, we'll still have other forms of surveillance, population sampling and sentinel stuff, which will give us some kind of laggy but fair estimates. I much prefer having both, except on weeks like this one where we arent being given an official explanation for the drop in daily case numbers of recent days, arent quite sure what to make of them, and have to wait quite some time for other forms of surveillance to give us some answers. Or perhaps a load of positive case data will show up and fill in some gaps, or an official narrative will come.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 23, 2021)

I always liked the idea of sewage as a measure of infection rate but seeing as it's not  gained any solid pft exeptance I guess it's dodgy as a method
As policy has changed, tracking stopped and public behaviour will be more blasie surely r rate will become vague and hospitalisation will be it


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I always liked the idea of sewage as a measure of infection rate but seeing as it's not  gained any solid pft exeptance I guess it's dodgy as a method



Its not dodgy as a method and surveillance by that means has been incorporated into the UK Covid surveillance system to a fairly significant extent.

However the authorities in England have so far not shown much desire to routinely publish all the pertinent data from that system, so it appears largely invisible to us. It may be in the hands of the new entities that have been created that, unlike PHE, dont seem to have a built in remit to share stuff with the public in a timely way. In Scotland they have published some of the data from wastewater surveillance, especially recently when they had cause to want to use it to see if they could see a peak like the one they saw in their positive test numbers. We were talking about it here quite recently, though I dont have a link handy right now.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

OK I checked and it was Sunday afternoon when we were discussing wastewater surveillance on this thread in relation to Scotland.









						Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
					

Johnson can sit in a hot office on zoom all week like much of the rest of the country  Is there a pool at Chequers? Where he is holed up for the duration.




					www.urban75.net
				




But you should keep reading posts after my initial post because 2hats quickly found more detailed stuff including graphs that came from a different Scottish document, stuff that left me with a different impression of whether they were starting to see a peak in that data.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Also in regards the future of other forms of routine mass testing, do keep in mind that the government seized on the idea of building more of a diagnostics industry and permanent capacity once they came to terms with how useless the original capacity was in this sort of situation.

Now obviously there are very few things that are really unshakeably permanent. But given the business links to this stuff and things like the first Megalab opening, I would be more likely to bet on this stuff being around at fair scale for quite a long time, and that even aspects of the Covid threat retreat, they will have other uses they can put this sort of capacity to. Depending on quite how far they go with this stuff they could be looking for a permanent change in a bunch of attitudes towards a range of infectious diseases, and so I find it much too early right now to predict what the future holds for mass testing. At the very least this is not an area where I would assume that a rapid return to the old normal is on the cards.

Certainly if I were a capitalist with a plan to get in on the act with testing, I would be tempted to develop a brand called 'Rapid U-Turn'. Perhaps each test could come with an amusing collectable card or sticker featuring caricatures of government figures performing any one of a number of famous pandemic u-turns.


----------



## andysays (Jul 23, 2021)

Hmm, not sure this is such a great idea...

*Covid: Food workers given exemption from isolation rules*​


> Critical parts of the food industry are now allowed to do daily Covid testing instead of asking staff to self-isolate. The government said daily testing would be implemented at key sites, such as supermarket depots and food manufacturers. Close to 10,000 staff at 500 sites in the UK will eventually be affected.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

2hats said:


> 9 in 10 adults are estimated through modelling to have antibodies (antibody status of ~3 in 10 of the population not modelled). A binary SARS-CoV-2 antibody positive/negative (and a modelling estimate at that) tells us nothing about the antibody titres across the population, their potency, nor longitudinal evolution of such, let alone degree of immunity (see: correlates of protection). It only tells us, at best, this fraction of adults likely have been recipients of vaccines and/or were previously infected.


Absolutely, I know it's not saying anything about degree of immunity, but it's still great news. Some immunity is better than none.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Also if people want to go on about wonderful levels of immunity in the population, they should really use the percentages for the population, not adults only. Or at least explicitly point out the difference.
> 
> This matters less if they are not explicitly trying to make a point about reaching a 'herd immunity' threshold unlocking further benefits of vaccination, reducing waves to less disruptive size etc. In this case that single tweet does not offer me clues as to whether they are trying to run in a particular direction with that claim, I suppose I will go and see what else they are saying. On its own I dont see it as an alternative view to what Christina Pagel said because it is not discussing the peak or placing obvious assumptions on top of the fact they think the immunity figure is great news.


He said the word adult right there in the tweet. It's clear enough for me.

The reason I shared it is that it's easy to get in a doom spiral on Twitter with Christina Pagel and co. I've never once seen them share any positive news or put a positive spin on any of the numbers.

Say what you like about this Dr Levinson, but he is a medical doctor, not just an armchair doctor and he's entitled to his opinions (even if we don't agree with them).

Sometimes it's good to peek over the other side of the fence to get a bit of balance.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 23, 2021)

andysays said:


> Hmm, not sure this is such a great idea...
> 
> *Covid: Food workers given exemption from isolation rules*​



Cone of chips and a cod please, extra Covid on the chips


----------



## kabbes (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> He said the word adult right there in the tweet. It's clear enough for me.
> 
> The reason I shared it is that it's easy to get in a doom spiral on Twitter with Christina Pagel and co. I've never once seen them share any positive news or put a positive spin on any of the numbers.
> 
> ...


He’s a GP turned CEO.  Especially at this point, he has no better knowledge of the largely new, immensely complex and highly specialist subject of immunology than any other keen amateur.

One of the big problems of this epidemic has been the mixing up of specialist opinion with generalist opinion. The kabbess’ supervisor is a researcher in infections and still says that he personally doesn’t feel qualified to talk about coronavirus immunity because he specialises in bacterial rather than viral infections. He in turn knows _viral_ researchers who don’t feel qualified to talk about _this_ viral infection.  And yet in the minds of the media and the general public, anybody with a vaguely medical background is somehow equally qualified to give pronouncements about this pandemic.


----------



## prunus (Jul 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> He’s a GP turned CEO.  Especially at this point, he has no better knowledge of the largely new, immensely complex and highly specialist subject of immunology than any other keen amateur.
> 
> One of the big problems of this epidemic has been the mixing up of specialist opinion with generalist opinion. The kabbess’ supervisor is a researcher in infections and still says that he personally doesn’t feel qualified to talk about coronavirus immunity because he specialises in bacterial rather than viral infections. He in turn knows _viral_ researchers who don’t feel qualified to talk about _this_ viral infection.  And yet in the minds of the media and the general public, anybody with a vaguely medical background is somehow equally qualified to give pronouncements about this pandemic.



This is why I take all my own surmises on how this works and might play out with a pinch of salt.  At a broad brush level I’m happy that my scientific training and knowledge is enough to understand the main outlines, but there is plenty of room for wriggles in the detail.

That said nothing’s really happened in the first 18 months that’s been surprising I don’t think, it’s all played out so far well within my expectations - with really the notable exception being the efficacy and speed of development of the vaccines. Under a year from identification to full-scale roll-out was faster than I thought was possible (and they work better than I dared hope). This might be because my knowledge is slightly dated 

The next possible surprise that is hinting at its existence is the possibility that the current wave here has already peaked, and will continue to decline despite the removal of most restrictions.  I don’t expect that, but it may happen.

For what it’s worth I am expecting at least one and probably more than one better-adapted-than-delta variants to arise in the next year or so - this virus only made the leap into humans a little while ago, and from what I can remember of calculations based on mutation rate, effective population size and variability space I’d be surprised if it’s reached more than a few local optima yet.  That said, as I’ve said before, I think the total number of viable variants is likely to be finite and low, meaning that multivalent vaccines should be able to contain them all without too much issue (if they even prove necessary).


----------



## nagapie (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> He said the word adult right there in the tweet. It's clear enough for me.
> 
> The reason I shared it is that it's easy to get in a doom spiral on Twitter with Christina Pagel and co. I've never once seen them share any positive news or put a positive spin on any of the numbers.
> 
> ...


Sometimes I don't watch IS and listen to Christina and co because it's too much and my anxiety gets too high. But have they actually ever been wrong? The idea that the scienctists are miserablists doesn't sit well with me and sounds more like Boris' everything's ok and we shouldn't listen to those killjoys narrative. The undermining of science to get a 'positive spin'.


----------



## bimble (Jul 23, 2021)

andysays said:


> Hmm, not sure this is such a great idea...
> 
> *Covid: Food workers given exemption from isolation rules*​


quite a long list of essential supply chain worker's employers this is being offered to:

'The guidance lists 16 sectors: energy, civil nuclear, digital infrastructure, *food production and supply*, waste, water, veterinary medicines, essential chemicals, *essential transport, *medicines, medical devices, clinical consumable supplies, emergency services, border control, essential defence and local government..'

lorry drivers & warehouse workers but not supermarket staff though.









						Limited number of critical workers to be allowed to avoid self-isolation
					

Separate pilot daily testing programme will be expanded to up to 500 food and drink supply chain employers




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 23, 2021)

The last of the staff at my workshop are now getting their second jabs ... I think there are two left to go, everyone else is already double-jabbed, although one was only got his second a couple of weeks ago.
Fingers crossed that we stay clear ...

Still got a supply of disposable masks, a couple of hand sanitiser gels and a spray for the post ... that's staying for the foreseeable. I will need to put out fresh masks tonight, from the bagged stock in my desk.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Sometimes I don't watch IS and listen to Christina and co because it's too much and my anxiety gets too high. But have they actually ever been wrong? The idea that the scienctists are miserablists doesn't sit well with me and sounds more like Boris' everything's ok and we shouldn't listen to those killjoys narrative. The undermining of science to get a 'positive spin'.


It will be many years from now before we can draw conclusions on who was "wrong" or "right". We might get some answers from the forthcoming government enquiry although I'm not holding my breath on that.

There's a whole spectrum of commentators out there ranging from your Telegraph/Spectator people on one side saying we should throw everything open and remove travel restrictions, to the Guardian/Indie Sage people on the other side who would have us use extreme caution at all costs and only unlock once everyone is vaccinated including kids (and maybe not even then. Some Guardian commentators think we should have restrictions in place forever.) 

As always the truth is likely to be somewhere between the two extremes but Twitter and social media tends to magnify the most extreme voices and not much in-between.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Telegraph
> Spectator
> Guardian
> Indie Sage



One of these is not like the others.  Can you spot which?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> He’s a GP turned CEO.  Especially at this point, he has no better knowledge of the largely new, immensely complex and highly specialist subject of immunology than any other keen amateur.
> 
> One of the big problems of this epidemic has been the mixing up of specialist opinion with generalist opinion. The kabbess’ supervisor is a researcher in infections and still says that he personally doesn’t feel qualified to talk about coronavirus immunity because he specialises in bacterial rather than viral infections. He in turn knows _viral_ researchers who don’t feel qualified to talk about _this_ viral infection.  And yet in the minds of the media and the general public, anybody with a vaguely medical background is somehow equally qualified to give pronouncements about this pandemic.


I don't agree. A doctor is better qualified than the average person on the street to opine on viruses because they have to go through several years of medical school for a start. 

It's a moot point in this case because he's sharing ONS data not his own personal research or thesis.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> One of these is not like the others.  Can you spot which?


The one that doesn't have editorial standards?


----------



## kabbes (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> The one that doesn't have editorial standards?


Oh, it is to laugh


----------



## kabbes (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I don't agree. A doctor is better qualified than the average person on the street to opine on viruses because they have to go through several years of medical school for a start.
> 
> It's a moot point in this case because he's sharing ONS data not his own personal research or thesis.



Going through medical school decades previously, where you did a handful of courses on the simplified subject, which will now almost entirely be out of date, does not make you better qualified than, well, anyone really.


----------



## Supine (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> The one that doesn't have editorial standards?


The Telegraph?


----------



## Cloo (Jul 23, 2021)

I note after weeks of falling, about which I was skeptical,  ZOE data from my area is now showing a rise - elbows I think you mentioned them needing to adjust their metrics on some way a few pages back,  so maybe they've done that now!


----------



## Wilf (Jul 23, 2021)

BMA calling for urgent action on the pandemic itself rather than the 'pingdemic'. 10:39 here:








						UK Covid live news: more than 800,000 people had coronavirus last week, ONS estimates – as it happened
					

Cases increased in all four nations, says Office for National Statistics




					www.theguardian.com
				




As usual, everything's a fucking mess with this government and every phase of failure lays the groundwork for the next. But as they say, a policy of 'let it rip' is the real problem.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I note after weeks of falling, about which I was skeptical,  ZOE data from my area is now showing a rise - elbows I think you mentioned them needing to adjust their metrics on some way a few pages back,  so maybe they've done that now!



What I mentioned the other day is that they had changed their methodology and that their numbers looked different as a result. And that there was a slightly awkward Tim Spector video where he addresses the elephant in the room in as squirmy a manner as possible.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I don't agree. A doctor is better qualified than the average person on the street to opine on viruses because they have to go through several years of medical school for a start.
> 
> It's a moot point in this case because he's sharing ONS data not his own personal research or thesis.


Well, if you are going to go with doctors, what about the BMA chair I just quoted? That's _lots of_ doctors.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I don't agree. A doctor is better qualified than the average person on the street to opine on viruses because they have to go through several years of medical school for a start.
> 
> It's a moot point in this case because he's sharing ONS data not his own personal research or thesis.



Doctors are trained to treat people - they are not trained to be scientists.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> It will be many years from now before we can draw conclusions on who was "wrong" or "right". We might get some answers from the forthcoming government enquiry although I'm not holding my breath on that.
> 
> There's a whole spectrum of commentators out there ranging from your Telegraph/Spectator people on one side saying we should throw everything open and remove travel restrictions, to the Guardian/Indie Sage people on the other side who would have us use extreme caution at all costs and only unlock once everyone is vaccinated including kids (and maybe not even then. Some Guardian commentators think we should have restrictions in place forever.)
> 
> As always the truth is likely to be somewhere between the two extremes but Twitter and social media tends to magnify the most extreme voices and not much in-between.



The public inquiry may reveal some specific details of interest but we dont need that at all in order to form some prety strong conclusions about the response to previous waves.

There are very few questions that require us to wait years to get answers, and when it comes to previous waves we have the death tolls to indicate who was wrong and who was right.

This particular wave is more complicated in some ways, and we have to wait a little bit longer for certain answers. So I have been especially keen to hedge my bets in this wave, and not to stick to all my prior assumptions that served me well in previous waves.

But thats not the same as staying neutral, and we dont have to read many posts to know that neither you or I are neutral. For example whatever happens next with this wave, I do not think it was a good idea to let over a million people get infected, or for the NHS to be placed under this much strain again at a time where it needed to start dealing with backlog in other cases.  805 hospital admissions/diagnoses in England on the 20th July, a fucking disgrace!

It is certainly true that there are possible scenarios in this wave which those who oppose the precautionary stance of Indie SAGE will use to attempt to claim that Indie SAGE was wrong and are extremists that should not be listened to. It will be disgusting 'let it rip', 'if not now then when' extremists who will most delight in making those claims, should that time actually come. The sort of murderous shitheads who have had the luxury of falling silent and walking away in previous waves when their deadly stances resulted in a criminal level of infections, hospitalisations and deaths. They just shrug and think oh well, maybe next time. If this turns out to finally be 'their time', via an early peak, then I will not think any better of these shits, or you for that matter.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

andysays said:


> Hmm, not sure this is such a great idea...
> 
> *Covid: Food workers given exemption from isolation rules*​



Given the amount of infection that has been allowed to occur in this country in every wave, I'm actually rather impressed with how well the essential infrastructure has held up!

I'm not happy about the media attitude to the 'pingdemic', all their bullshit and awful emphasis on that, I consider the self-isolation system to be very important and one of the few brakes even this government realised they could not remove during this phase of this wave. But I'm not surprised they have had to fiddle with it a bit to keep certain crucial wheels turning. Some of the media have repeatedly tried to exaggerate how much of a change to self-isolation was coming, and they were at it again last night in regards the new list of exemptions. From what I've seen the new exemptions seem like a fairly reasonable compromise. A compromise that is relatively modest, in that in some sectors we may be talking about a few tens of thousands of people being able to get tested rather than isolate, which we can contrast with figures like 600,000 told to self-isolate in a single week.

Any weakening of this brake is not great, but these changes seem a lot less bad to me than the removal of all the other brakes that enabled us to get to the current ridiculous levels of infection in this wave in the first place.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

The weekly surveillance report for England contains some eye watering percentage positivity rates.

This is just one of a number of graphs that demonstrate the gap that opened up between male and female cases in recent weeks, or was present since the start of this wave. The sort of thing that usually promotes discussion about the effects of football.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1005056/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w29.pdf


----------



## nagapie (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> It will be many years from now before we can draw conclusions on who was "wrong" or "right". We might get some answers from the forthcoming government enquiry although I'm not holding my breath on that.
> 
> There's a whole spectrum of commentators out there ranging from your Telegraph/Spectator people on one side saying we should throw everything open and remove travel restrictions, to the Guardian/Indie Sage people on the other side who would have us use extreme caution at all costs and only unlock once everyone is vaccinated including kids (and maybe not even then. Some Guardian commentators think we should have restrictions in place forever.)
> 
> As always the truth is likely to be somewhere between the two extremes but Twitter and social media tends to magnify the most extreme voices and not much in-between.


What I'm saying is that the virus has pretty much followed the trajectories that IS have put forwards, that's where they've been right. There's been 18 months of this already. I also don't find their position an extreme, that's how they are painted. For example they are not pro lockdown, they've been forced to recognise when the government's cock ups mean they can't be avoided.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Just keep in mind that there is more uncertainty with this wave, so there is probably an increased risk of Indie SAGE getting something wrong about the wave trajectory and timing.

Anyway here is the latest ONS infection survey. I will resist the urge to get carried away with tentative signs of plateaus in a couple of regions, and will just have to keep looking at this stuff for several more weeks to come. But I will certainly keep in mind what is being shown here.

I also note that their estimates for Scotland show a picture that is different to that provided by the daily testing system there.






						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

Estimates for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## two sheds (Jul 23, 2021)

A tad confused here, the interactive map showed results up to 20th the other day, I'll swear. They seem to have gone backwards. 



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases


----------



## weltweit (Jul 23, 2021)

Did Nadhim Zahawi really state in Parliament that trial participants who had received placebo would be treated as if they were fully vaccinated?



> We are working with other countries to make sure that that is recognised, but as far as the UK is concerned, they will be considered fully vaccinated, whether they have had the *placebo *or the vaccine.











						Covid-19 Update - Thursday 22 July 2021 - Hansard - UK Parliament
					

Hansard record of the item 'Covid-19 Update' on Thursday 22 July 2021.




					hansard.parliament.uk


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 23, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Sometimes I don't watch IS and listen to Christina and co because it's too much and my anxiety gets too high. But have they actually ever been wrong? The idea that the scienctists are miserablists doesn't sit well with me and sounds more like Boris' everything's ok and we shouldn't listen to those killjoys narrative. The undermining of science to get a 'positive spin'.



Pagel was doom-mongering about a new variant in the north east a couple of weeks ago.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

two sheds said:


> A tad confused here, the interactive map showed results up to 20th the other day, I'll swear. They seem to have gone backwards.
> 
> 
> 
> https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases



Dunno about that, since the last time I tried to use that map it was broken. I dont think its unusual for various bits of dashboard data to lag some days behind other data available there, since their more recent data, especially cases by specimen date, is incomplete. And when I download certain data from the dashboard that is very local, eg positive cases by age for a particular town, its quite a number of days urther behind than the main numbers


----------



## danny la rouge (Jul 23, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Did Nadhim Zahawi really state in Parliament that trial participants who had received placebo would be treated as if they were fully vaccinated?


He only thinks he did, but to him it feels as if he did.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Pagel was doom-mongering about a new variant in the north east a couple of weeks ago.



It was reasonable for people to look at the North Easts figures and wonder what lay behind them.

Although I wasnt too impressed that a few responses to her tweets on that subject, which pointed out that some modelling exercises had expected the North East to be especially badly hit in this wave, did not seem to get picked up on and repeated by her.

Some of the Indie SAGE mindsets have demonstrated their limitations to a higher degree than I'm happy with in this wave. But I still find them useful when consumed as part of a balanced diet.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Besides Im still pissed off with them for playing their part in the 'call for palatable action rather than demanding we u-turn on easing of restrictions' in relation to step 3 unlocking which, in partnership with Delta, enabled this wave.

Its a bit too Guardian or LibDem-tastic for me at times. There are plenty of public health aspects which can be sensibly discussed within such constraints, within that comfort zone, but  they struggle with some of the more dramatic, draconian stuff that may actually be prudent at times.


----------



## Supine (Jul 23, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Pagel was doom-mongering about a new variant in the north east a couple of weeks ago.



Doom-mongering or trying to analyse the data and form an opinion on it. Or literally doing her job as some would call it.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

weltweit said:


> Did Nadhim Zahawi really state in Parliament that trial participants who had received placebo would be treated as if they were fully vaccinated?



I've not followed the story properly but I did see placebo trending on twitter last night and saw at least one part of the jigsaw puzzle as a result:


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Supine said:


> Doom-mongering or trying to analyse the data and form an opinion on it. Or literally doing her job as some would call it.



And at least we know who she is and where she is coming from, what the agenda is, unlike some dubious spinners of a narrow pandemic line here, who routinely invite us to know our place and place our trust in arbitrary authorities.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Going through medical school decades previously, where you did a handful of courses on the simplified subject, which will now almost entirely be out of date, does not make you better qualified than, well, anyone really.


Are you disputing the ONS finding that 90%+ of adults have antibodies, or what's your point? It feels like you're using an ad hominem argument because you don't like the conclusion.

See data here:




__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) antibody and vaccination data for the UK        - Office for National Statistics
					

Antibody and vaccination data by UK country and regions in England from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 23, 2021)

Supine said:


> Doom-mongering or trying to analyse the data and form an opinion on it. Or literally doing her job as some would call it.



No, doom-mongering.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Well, if you are going to go with doctors, what about the BMA chair I just quoted? That's _lots of_ doctors.


I agree with what the BMA are saying. They're also acting in their members' best interests as any good union should.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No, doom-mongering.



Are you the sort of cunt that would happily describe Whitty and Vallance as doctor doom and professor gloom at key moments of the pandemic in order to further an agenda?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Doctors are trained to treat people - they are not trained to be scientists.


Some are both... But normally it's helpful to have multidisciplinary teams to get the best outcomes.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Aere you the sort of cunt that would happily describe Whitty and Vallance as doctor doom and professor gloom at key moments of the pandemic in order to further an agenda?



I'm not aware that Pagel has ever said anything optimistic whatsoever. Surely if she was "doing her job" in her balanced analysis she'd occasionally realize once or twice that she had over-egged the pudding and say as much. When it comes to Twitter talking heads, I tend to prefer the people with a stats background who are straight-up in stating what they don't know, and clear that their predictions may be an over or under estimate of the actual situation. I assign the label "doom monger" to people whose output seems unreasonably unbalanced.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 23, 2021)

It looks like the rise in cases might be levelling off slightly.
Guess sooner or later the virus will run short of new youngsters/idiots to infect, but seems a bit early for that.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> The kabbess’ supervisor is a researcher in infections and still says that he personally doesn’t feel qualified to talk about coronavirus immunity because he specialises in bacterial rather than viral infections. He in turn knows _viral_ researchers who don’t feel qualified to talk about _this_ viral infection.


Reminded me of this apposite article:








						Immunology Is Where Intuition Goes to Die
					

Which is too bad because we really need to understand how the immune system reacts to the coronavirus.




					www.theatlantic.com


----------



## 8ball (Jul 23, 2021)

2hats said:


> Reminded me of this apposite article:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I like the joke at the start.
I learned just enough immunology in Uni to get a tiny taste of how brain-melting it is, and this was in the 90's.


----------



## platinumsage (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Are you the sort of cunt that would happily describe Whitty and Vallance as doctor doom and professor gloom at key moments of the pandemic in order to further an agenda?



Here's an example. Have we peaked? A 15 post Twitter thread from Pagel. No case for and against - just everything she can think of to suggest cases might rise again, and can't resist putting that line about new variants at the end...

Balanced? No. Doom-mongering? Yes.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Are you disputing the ONS finding that 90%+ of adults have antibodies, or what's your point? It feels like you're using an ad hominem argument because you don't like the conclusion.
> 
> See data here:
> 
> ...



Why should anyone support unsafe conclusions?

You know the dangers of drawing the wrong conclusions from antibody studies, since you yourself said this in the past:



Cat Fan said:


> True, but a lot depends on whether those antibodies are effective against the Delta variant or not.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> The public inquiry may reveal some specific details of interest but we dont need that at all in order to form some prety strong conclusions about the response to previous waves.
> 
> There are very few questions that require us to wait years to get answers, and when it comes to previous waves we have the death tolls to indicate who was wrong and who was right.
> 
> ...


It's hard to say without a randomised controlled study what would have happened if different things had happened at different times.

In any case I'm not a lockdown sceptic and I don't appreciate being pigeon holed as one.

Nor do I appreciate the snide personal remarks against me or others, let's stick to the facts.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Here's an example. Have we peaked? A 15 post Twitter thread from Pagel. No case for and against - just everything she can think of to suggest cases might rise again, and can't resist putting that line about new variants at the end...
> 
> Balanced? No. Doom-mongering? Yes.




Fair enough, to an extent. I already commented on her thread and said that I would not confidently claim that there is no way this is the peak.

How am I doing in this wave do you think? Have I done enough to avoid the label of doom-monger in recent weeks? (Not earlier before this wave got going, when I was keen to point out some of the more alarming modelling results). Is my balancing act reasonable?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Why should anyone support unsafe conclusions?
> 
> You know the dangers of drawing the wrong conclusions from antibody studies, since you yourself said this in the past:


What unsafe conclusions? At no point did I say we should throw caution to the wind just because population immunity is looking reasonably high. I'm not one of these frothing at the mouth Spectator types.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> It's hard to say without a randomised controlled study what would have happened if different things had happened at different times.
> 
> In any case I'm not a lockdown sceptic and I don't appreciate being pigeon holed as one.
> 
> Nor do I appreciate the snide personal remarks against me or others, let's stick to the facts.



Facts include that you attributed a lack of cancer care to lockdowns instead of it being an inevitable consequence of letting infections spiral out of control.



Cat Fan said:


> Yes, completely. If we had to wait until there is no pressure on the NHS before we ended lockdown then would still be in lockdown in 2100. Lockdown causes different kinds of health problems, like fewer people being treated for cancer.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 23, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Here's an example. Have we peaked? A 15 post Twitter thread from Pagel. No case for and against - just everything she can think of to suggest cases might rise again, and can't resist putting that line about new variants at the end...
> 
> Balanced? No. Doom-mongering? Yes.




Not getting into the arguments about doom-mongering or othwerwise, but there's some interesting stuff there which helps with my question - cheers.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> What unsafe conclusions? At no point did I say we should throw caution to the wind just because population immunity is looking reasonably high. I'm not one of these frothing at the mouth Spectator types.



Why quote tweets from Dr Charles Levinson then? Did you check what agenda he was promoting via the antibody stats?

He is after all the sort of person who has this pinned to the top of their twitter feed:


----------



## teuchter (Jul 23, 2021)

All those doom-mongers who've spent the last 18 months telling us that things are not going especially well - and yet in reality it's been a year and a half of joy and larks! Time to stop paying any attention to them.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

My filthy language has already demonstrated what I think of those that use labels like doom-monger for a purpose.

However I do consider it relevant to consider that stuff from a slightly different angle.

I do not exclude the possibility that the likes of Indie SAGE and recently Labour may have walked into a trap. This is one of the reasons I have warned people not to stick to narrow assumptions about peak timing this time around. And why I can imagine scenarios which enable the likes of Johnson to gloat and to accuse his pandemic opponents of being too cautious and gloomy.

A trap that I am clearly keen to avoid, at the price of even more waffle, bet hedging and fence sitting than usual.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> A trap that I am clearly keen to avoid, at the price of even more waffle, bet hedging and fence sitting than usual.




Tbf that 'predicting the future' lark is a mug's game.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> All those doom-mongers who've spent the last 18 months telling us that things are not going especially well - and yet in reality it's been a year and a half of joy and larks! Time to stop paying any attention to them.



Yeah and some forms of optimism have been deadly in this pandemic.

But there are many different angles where optimism can be pointed. I doubt anyone would think of me as an optimist in this pandemic, and yet I have been consistently optimistic when it comes to questions of how many people will get a pandemic clue and do the right thing, how much of a positive effect on viral levels that will have, how much burden people will carry without society collapsing and civil unrest. And I've been keen to point out peaks and good news whenever such opportunities have fleetingly made themselves available.

I'm sure we know what sort of optimism (or bloody minded madness) people are referring to most of the time, and there have been slim pickings for such optimists gaining credibility by actually being right in this pandemic so far. My assumption at the moment is that it is dangerous to assume that this state of affairs will simply persist in the dramatic form which we have become used to in this pandemic so far. They may yet have their day, their moment, and if this is an 'exit wave' where a big chunk of the wave crushing is actually caused by immunity, it would be foolish to ignore this prospect.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

8ball said:


> Tbf that 'predicting the future' lark is a mug's game.



I prefer giving people a sense of what the realistic spectrum of possibilities looks like. And that spectrum has been rather broad in this particular wave so some of my old near certainties, which have served me well in previous waves, are currently suspended.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Plus I seem to remember going on in the past about how I wont get bogged down by dogma, how I will move with the times in this pandemic. But it would probably be ridiculous to claim that I have not accrued any dogmas of my own during this pandemic. Aware of this, I have forced myself to reduce my rigidity at this stage. Whether there was any need to do this now or whether I would have gotten away with a narrower stance remains to be seen. In recent weeks I've given myself lots of future opportunities to blow my own trumpet if this wave turns out to peak earlier than many expected, with lots of caveats with which to salvage my credibility if things just carry on being a shitshow instead.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Plus I seem to remember going on in the past about how I wont get bogged down by dogma, how I will move with the times in this pandemic. But it would probably be ridiculous to claim that I have not accrued any dogmas of my own during this pandemic. Aware of this, I have forced myself to reduce my rigidity at this stage. Whether there was any need to do this now or whether I would have gotten away with a narrower stance remains to be seen. In recent weeks I've given myself lots of future opportunities to blow my own trumpet if this wave turns out to peak earlier than many expected, with lots of caveats with which to salvage my credibility if things just carry on being a shitshow instead.


I'm fully expecting a continued shitshow, regardless of when Delta peaks.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Yes I should have defined shitshow. Continuing growth of case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths,

Anyway if we get a peak without the formal handbrake of lockdown, its obvious that anti-lockdown types will try to use that to rewrite history. I'm ready for that, with my usual explanations about how peaks are caused by the virus not being able to continue to find ever larger numbers of victims. And how that picture is governed by all the things that reduce the number of susceptible people, and keep susceptible people out of harms way. So for example all the disruption, self-isolation and changes to behaviours that occur when infections reach silly levels, even before formal lockdowns were introduced in the past. Behavioural changes that manifested themselves in data such as mobility in the early weeks of the first wave, when the largest behavioural changes happened about a week before formal lockdown was belatedly introduced.

This stuff will become a hot potato in some ways when this wave peaks, if the peak isnt induced by u-turns and lockdowns. Because there will be people whose agenda means they will seek to attribute the peak to the immunity picture alone, as opposed to the combination of immunity with school holidays, self-isolation, voluntary reductions in risky behaviour etc that this period actually features. Which means some of these questions will lurk unhelpfully over periods like the autumn, and the battle to determine how normal a life we can go back to this year.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yeah and some forms of optimism have been deadly in this pandemic.
> 
> But there are many different angles where optimism can be pointed. I doubt anyone would think of me as an optimist in this pandemic, and yet I have been consistently optimistic when it comes to questions of how many people will get a pandemic clue and do the right thing, how much of a positive effect on viral levels that will have, how much burden people will carry without society collapsing and civil unrest. And I've been keen to point out peaks and good news whenever such opportunities have fleetingly made themselves available.
> 
> I'm sure we know what sort of optimism (or bloody minded madness) people are referring to most of the time, and there have been slim pickings for such optimists gaining credibility by actually being right in this pandemic so far. My assumption at the moment is that it is dangerous to assume that this state of affairs will simply persist in the dramatic form which we have become used to in this pandemic so far. They may yet have their day, their moment, and if this is an 'exit wave' where a big chunk of the wave crushing is actually caused by immunity, it would be foolish to ignore this prospect.



I've been an 'optimist' on and off at various points ... right at the beginning I reckoned it was going to be a brief thing that would blow over; I remember reading articles about why we wouldn't be affected like Italy was; when everything died down last summer I was watching other countries' opening up and thinking it looked like that was it; when the 'Delta variant' first appeared I thought probably that the increased transmissibility would turn out not to be as much as initial reports suggested. I thought all the modelling of another surge about now might turn out to be wrong.

I also quite frequently come on these threads and wonder if everyone here has lost the plot a bit with levels of worry and so on. And sometimes might think that certain people get off a bit on playing the doom-monger role.

Mostly though - the warnings that things are looking like they are going downhill, they have turned out to be true, at least to some extent. And in the past year and a half what everyone has gone through, even those who've not had Covid, has been far from trivial.

The latest from Pagel is really just an opinion - she thinks we've not seen the peak yet. She may or may not be right. She says there's a lot of uncertainty. Her opinion is backed up with arguments and info. She's not saying the world is going to end. Seems silly to describe her as a doom-monger.


----------



## kabbes (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Are you disputing the ONS finding that 90%+ of adults have antibodies, or what's your point? It feels like you're using an ad hominem argument because you don't like the conclusion.
> 
> See data here:
> 
> ...


It’s not “ad hominem” if you are making an argument from authority by saying we should listen to him because he’s a doctor and I point out that being a GP is insufficient in terms of being an authority on this subject.  

(And we’ve already rehearsed on this thread the reasons why there merely being antibodies present in the population is not necessarily a source of relief.)


----------



## 8ball (Jul 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The latest from Pagel is really just an opinion - she thinks we've not seen the peak yet. She may or may not be right. She says there's a lot of uncertainty. Her opinion is backed up with arguments and info. She's not saying the world is going to end. Seems silly to describe her as a doom-monger.



I think things like the belief that it has peaked are liable to become factors driving the peak higher.  There's a sawtooth nature to a lot of the case rises we have seen (which you'd expect regardless of feedback effects like this).


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

8ball said:


> I think things like the belief that it has peaked are liable to become factors driving the peak higher.  There's a sawtooth nature to a lot of the case rises we have seen (which you'd expect regardless of feedback effects like this).



Thats one of the reasons authorities are very slow to describe peaks as such in public until more time has passed by than is strictly necessary to identify a peak.


----------



## 8ball (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Thats one of the reasons authorities are very slow to describe peaks as such in public until more time has passed by than is strictly necessary to identify a peak.



Fair, but it's not the authorities as such that's my concern.


----------



## scalyboy (Jul 23, 2021)

If we are approaching a peak soon, that would be great news, but obviously it's too early to say. For one thing, I guess the impact of 'freedom day' has yet to show up in the stats.
The first weekend since the 19th starts tomorrow, so there may be lots of busy shopping centres, and the decent-ish weather might mean lots of people going on day or overnight trips, some  via public transport (not that I'm judging, just saying).

But as I understand things, we have to hope the peak is soon approaching, because our incompetent government won't help - this shower is unlikely to reintroduce a lockdown so soon after promising 'freedom' on July 19th; in any case, they were criminally slow to react during the previous two waves.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I also quite frequently come on these threads and wonder if everyone here has lost the plot a bit with levels of worry and so on. And sometimes might think that certain people get off a bit on playing the doom-monger role.



It probably wasnt possible to tell whether I get off a bit on playing the doom-monger role, or something else. It was something else - I get off on being right, appearing to have moments of prescience, being able to convey info that is useful. This stuff may have the largest impact when the theme happens to be gloomy, so I dont know if the examples that point in the other direction are easily overlooked. I do remember going on about how people shouldnt expect to see some massive new Christmas day spike, to give just one example, although that sentiment was built on the gloomy foundations of case rates already having become so extremely high before that day.


----------



## andysays (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Are you disputing the ONS finding that 90%+ of adults have antibodies, or what's your point? It feels like you're using an ad hominem argument because you don't like the conclusion.
> 
> See data here:
> 
> ...


The point here surely is that no-one yet knows what the significance of this figure of 90% really means in terms of stopping/slowing the spread.

It's been suggested by some, including you as far as I can see, that this means that transmission rates will be right down as a result, and the implication is that the battle is almost over and that we can get rid of the various restrictions which we've all had to rely on for the last 18 months because they're no longer necessary.

But the truth is it's still too early to be sure, and in all the circumstances a rather more cautious approach might be advisable...


----------



## teuchter (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> It probably wasnt possible to tell whether I get off a bit on playing the doom-monger role, or something else. It was something else - I get off on being right, appearing to have moments of prescience, being able to convey info that is useful. This stuff may have the largest impact when the theme happens to be gloomy, so I dont know if the examples that point in the other direction are easily overlooked. I do remember going on about how people shouldnt expect to see some massive new Christmas day spike, to give just one example, although that sentiment was built on the gloomy foundations of case rates already having become so extremely high before that day.


Yeah, it's not you that I'd put in the 'getting off on being a doom monger category'. If it seemed that was what I was implying.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

scalyboy said:


> If we are approaching a peak soon, that would be great news, but obviously it's too early to say. For one thing, I guess the impact of 'freedom day' has yet to show up in the stats.
> The first weekend since the 19th starts tomorrow, so there may be lots of busy shopping centres, and the decent-ish weather might mean lots of people going on day or overnight trips, some  via public transport (not that I'm judging, just saying).
> 
> But as I understand things, we have to hope the peak is soon approaching, because our incompetent government won't help - this shower is unlikely to reintroduce a lockdown so soon after promising 'freedom' on July 19th; in any case, they were criminally slow to react during the previous two waves.



Yes too early to see the impact of freedom day yet, and more broadly this weeks positive case numbers have been a mess that is not easy to interpret. Next set of data due in minutes, no idea whether it will bring any clarity to this weeks picture.

Freedom day itself is a tug of war between any relaxed behaviours and risky settings people have visited and mixed with others in, and the effects of the sombre mood music which ended up being played for several weeks before freedom day. Plus the weather as you mention, and also schools closing for summer. And really large numbers of people told to self-isolate, which is bound to have some kind of impact.

Most of the recent modelling of this wave just looked at different rates at which people might proceed from cautious pandemic behaviour all the way back to behaving as in pre-pandemic times. They are rather crude and simplistic, and cannot hope to capture this tug of war between factors in full detail, except by chance.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Yeah, it's not you that I'd put in the 'getting off on being a doom monger category'. If it seemed that was what I was implying.



There were moments where the label would have seemed a good fit for me, mostly when actual doom was impending!

We lost our most obviously dramatic poster on the subject of how bad the first wave was going to be, people dropping dead in the streets etc etc, right at the moment where that waves arrival and growth became apparent to people in this country. I wonder what happened to them, I hope they are OK.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I remember reading articles about why we wouldn't be affected like Italy was



I dont suppose you have links to any of those now? I could do with a laugh! I was probably at my most useful in the period between the shit hitting the fan in Italy and the true scale of the UKs first wave becoming apparent to even our slowest authorities.

The pandemic has certainly provided many reasons why I might want to rebrand British exceptionalism as British absurdism.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

No case data has been published today that would fill in gaps some werent expecting to see this week.

See for example this bit of a graph from the dashboard, covering England not the UK as a whole, with the cases reported today being in yellow.


----------



## Supine (Jul 23, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No, doom-mongering.



If it was all good news they wouldn't bother doing it


----------



## teuchter (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont suppose you have links to any of those now? I could do with a laugh! I was probably at my most useful in the period between the shit hitting the fan in Italy and the true scale of the UKs first wave becoming apparent to even our slowest authorities.



There was one article I specifically remember reading... because I recall reading it on my phone as I wandered through central london... and it was a list of reasons that the Italy experience might not translate to the UK. I think it was around the point where I was wavering between thinking people were over-reacting, and realising something fairly major was actually likely to happen.

I feel it was somewhere quite mainstream like BBC or guardian - but I can't seem to find it now.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 23, 2021)

two sheds said:


> A tad confused here, the interactive map showed results up to 20th the other day, I'll swear. They seem to have gone backwards.
> 
> 
> 
> https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases


Errm fucking hell I've just checked again and it's changed I'll swear again. Lots more of the country at 400-800/100,000 including Cornwall which was 200-400 on the map earlier. 

Noted what elbows said though.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There was one article I specifically remember reading... because I recall reading it on my phone as I wandered through central london... and it was a list of reasons that the Italy experience might not translate to the UK. I think it was around the point where I was wavering between thinking people were over-reacting, and realising something fairly major was actually likely to happen.
> 
> I feel it was somewhere quite mainstream like BBC or guardian - but I can't seem to find it now.



Not to worry, cheers for looking. I dont remember the articles, I remember some people here expressing various forms of hope that our fate would not be the same, which likely prompted me to take the piss a bit by going on about the virus being allergic to radio 4 and a nice cup of tea.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Errm fucking hell I've just checked again and it's changed I'll swear again. Lots more of the country at 400-800/100,000 including Cornwall which was 200-400 on the map earlier.
> 
> Noted what elbows said though.



Its gone 4pm so there is an additional days data there now, map page now says 7 day period ending on 18th. And since the period in the 7 days up to the 18th included days with very dramatic rises, I'm not surprised the map has evolved since last time you looked.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Since there wont be any more hospital data for the next few days due to a lack of weekend reporting on that, I may as well take this opportunity to post a few graphs. For a start here is how daily hospital admissions/diagnoses have been looking for the different regions of England:


----------



## Wilf (Jul 23, 2021)

8ball said:


> I'm fully expecting a continued shitshow, regardless of when Delta peaks.


The thing about shitshows is this government have treated us to the full range of shithows through the last 18 months.  Johnson's always had a vaguely libertarian, certainly neoliberal disposition towards a 'blustering-do-nothing' with a full side show of herd immunity.  Last Spring his do fuck all approach was blown apart by dire warnings about the likely death toll, though not until he'd delayed so long that mass death was the outcome.  Then there's been the crony, private sector, give the contract to the brother of the woman you are shagging approach to PPE, test and trace and the kit needed.  Outright lies about testing before people were discharged from care homes.... and plenty of other ways to 'let the bodies pile up'.  Back to last Autumn the whole thing played out again as Johnson's laziness and libertarianism piled a few more bodies up.  But reality and science made him shift back to lockdown and regulation.  Managed to pack in a few cracking ideas that time round, such as getting university students on campus to the point where they had to be fenced in and fenced in to accommodation costs. Nice one!

Anyway... I take the point that Elbows has made that the current unlocking was all put in place and planned a while back.  But as of this month it seems to me that johnson's own instincts and fear of the loons on the back benches has left them singularly unable to put together a 'balanced' approach.  The rhetoric of Freedom Day, no social distancing and abandoning masks has left them trapped by their own idiocy.  The changes were 'irreversible'   They _could _U turn, they have in the past, but they are dragging a libertarian anchor behind them now. Similarly in terms of the 'pingdemic' they are moaning about and no doubt stoking in the right wing media, I really don't think they have a way through it. They can see cases are high even before we see the effects of 'Freedom' but are listening to the squawkings of business. Here's the point I suppose I want to make (finally ) I don't think they are confident that when all over 18s or even over 12s have been offered the vaccine that they _will _have achieved a functioning herd immunity.  They are pretty much doing what they are doing now because they've talked and politicked themselves out of a more 'managed' and sensible approaches.


----------



## David Clapson (Jul 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There was one article I specifically remember reading... because I recall reading it on my phone as I wandered through central london... and it was a list of reasons that the Italy experience might not translate to the UK. I think it was around the point where I was wavering between thinking people were over-reacting, and realising something fairly major was actually likely to happen.
> 
> I feel it was somewhere quite mainstream like BBC or guardian - but I can't seem to find it now.


There was a theory that a lockdown in Italy would never work because Italians wouldn't comply. Whereas the trusty British would grumble but obey. There was also a story that lots of Italians in the North had decamped to the South, where there wasn't a lockdown at first.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its gone 4pm so there is an additional days data there now, map page now says 7 day period ending on 18th. And since the period in the 7 days up to the 18th included days with very dramatic rises, I'm not surprised the map has evolved since last time you looked.


It was still marked 17th when I posted it.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Here is a comparison of various different data from Scotland, plotted using a log scale so that all these forms of data fit on the same scale of chart without manipulation.

I'd like to see the number in intensive care come down a bit before I go overboard about whats happened there.

Deaths are by date of death so more recent numbers are incomplete. Cases are the same except I use a 7 day average and have chopped off the latest, most incomplete daily figure.

Note that their daily admissions/diagnoses reached a level that is not too far off the autumn (pre-Alpha) wave.


----------



## scalyboy (Jul 23, 2021)

.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Whatever happens with this wave, the strain on hospitals and ambulance services this summer is awful. The recent heat wont have helped. The high levels of RSV infection which have placed strain on intensive care for young children hasnt really been reported on enough I dont think, although that isnt the theme of this particular article either.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Anyway... I take the point that Elbows has made that the current unlocking was all put in place and planned a while back.  But as of this month it seems to me that johnson's own instincts and fear of the loons on the back benches has left them singularly unable to put together a 'balanced' approach.  The rhetoric of Freedom Day, no social distancing and abandoning masks has left them trapped by their own idiocy.  The changes were 'irreversible'   They _could _U turn, they have in the past, but they are dragging a libertarian anchor behind them now. Similarly in terms of the 'pingdemic' they are moaning about and no doubt stoking in the right wing media, I really don't think they have a way through it. They can see cases are high even before we see the effects of 'Freedom' but are listening to the squawkings of business. Here's the point I suppose I want to make (finally ) I don't think they are confident that when all over 18s or even over 12s have been offered the vaccine that they _will _have achieved a functioning herd immunity.  They are pretty much doing what they are doing now because they've talked and politicked themselves out of a more 'managed' and sensible approaches.



They are running low on how much doubling of hospital admissions wiggle room they have left. And so I am not surprised that plans are being drawn up. But given uncertainties about peak timing, and indeed the lag between an apparent case peak in Scotland and a reduction in hospitalisations there, I currently have contradictory clues as to whether such a u-turn will end up being required this time.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

And there are scenarios where they can win a battle against this Covid wave, but still lose the war due to a number of non-Covid things combining with Covid when it comes to pressures on the NHS. The non-Covid NHS alarm bells have been going off for a very long time already, so I'm not surprised things look a bit desperate.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

I've not had time to read the documents in question yet, especially the new variant stuff which people shouldnt read much into at this stage. 

The reason I am posting this article is because I know people are very interested in vaccinated hospitalisation stats.



> PHE’s data also showed that between 21 June and 19 July, 1,788 people were hospitalised after contracting the Delta variant. More than half (54.3 per cent) were unvaccinated, while nearly one-third (29.6 per cent) had received both doses of a vaccine.











						New Covid variant under investigation in the UK, PHE says
					

No evidence to suggest it causes more severe illness, PHE says




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Although note that such figures only represent a subset of hospital admissions, where data is available and sequencing for Delta has been done, and likely some other criteria. For example, using dashboard admissions/diagnoses for England, I get a figure of more like 11,826 admissions over that period.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Some food for thought.


----------



## scalyboy (Jul 23, 2021)

.


elbows said:


> They are running low on how much doubling of hospital admissions wiggle room they have left. And so I am not surprised that plans are being drawn up. But given uncertainties about peak timing, and indeed the lag between an apparent case peak in Scotland and a reduction in hospitalisations there, I currently have contradictory clues as to whether such a u-turn will end up being required this time.



From that Independent link in the tweet:

'One scientific adviser said the plans to reintroduce restrictions was typical of No 10’s handling of the pandemic. "It perfectly fits the previous pattern in previous waves – first ignore the problems and deny action is needed, then realise there is a problem and tell people it is up to them to act, then, belatedly, impose greater restrictions than would have been needed if one acted early,” the adviser said.'


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Yeah, its such a boring and deadly pattern of government behaviour and policy that I've sort of gone beyond commenting on it that often. I'm happy to repeat myself a lot but even I have limits!


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Ding dong merrily on high, Dingwalls time of important sounding titles is OVER!


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

From the latest PHE variant technical report (same source as the Delta vaccinated hospital figures mentioned in a news article earlier):

Reinfection risk:



> The adjusted odds ratio of reinfection with the Delta variant was 1.46 (95% CI 1.03 to 2.05) compared to the Alpha variant. The risk of reinfection was not elevated for Delta if the primary infection was <180 days (adjusted odds ratio = 0.79, 95% CI 0.49 to1.28) but was higher for those with a prior infection ≥180 days earlier (adjusted odds ratio = 2.37, 95%CI 1.43 to 3.93). Further work to examine the risk of reinfection is being undertaken.



Deaths - I've put totals and then the numbers for people aged under 50 first in brackets, followed by the number for people aged 50 and over.

Total Delta deaths that were part of this analysis: 460 (45, 415)
Missing data: 6 (1, 5)
Within 21 days of dose one: 5 (3, 2)
21 days or more after dose one: 60 (3, 57)
Received 2 doses: 224 (4, 220)
Unvaccinated: 165 (34, 131)

https://assets.publishing.service.g...t_data/file/1005517/Technical_Briefing_19.pdf with those death figures coming from a table on pages 18 & 19.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Facts include that you attributed a lack of cancer care to lockdowns instead of it being an inevitable consequence of letting infections spiral out of control.



My words that you quoted were rather careless I admit. 

What I was grasping at is that fear of Covid prevented many from going to A&E or GPs because they were too scared (or in the case of GPs, unable to get an appointment). The long term consequences of this healthcare gap are yet to be seen. The media is partly to blame because initially Covid was made out to be a death sentence, when it's actually very low risk to most.

There's also the mental health angle which is covered in today's Guardian.









						Youth violence likely to explode over summer, UK experts fear
					

Long-term issues overlain with stress and isolation of Covid have set scene for ‘eruption’, charities say




					www.theguardian.com
				




I do think on balance lockdowns were absolutely the right thing to do, and the government locked down way too late both times. However that's not too say that there weren't aspects which could have been handled much better with hindsight.

I think the treatment of students, young people and small business owners/ self employed has been particularly bad.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Why quote tweets from Dr Charles Levinson then? Did you check what agenda he was promoting via the antibody stats?
> 
> He is after all the sort of person who has this pinned to the top of their twitter feed:



I didn't share that rather ludicrous article, but now you have. 

That said though, I find it quite amusing that there's nothing to stop anyone driving to one of the virus hotspots in UK major cities and partying in nightclubs, but anyone traveling back from practically any European country has to spend a fortune on umpteen PCR tests and isolate when they arrive!

Of course double standards are nothing new for this government.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 23, 2021)

andysays said:


> The point here surely is that no-one yet knows what the significance of this figure of 90% really means in terms of stopping/slowing the spread.
> 
> It's been suggested by some, including you as far as I can see, that this means that transmission rates will be right down as a result, and the implication is that the battle is almost over and that we can get rid of the various restrictions which we've all had to rely on for the last 18 months because they're no longer necessary.
> 
> But the truth is it's still too early to be sure, and in all the circumstances a rather more cautious approach might be advisable...


Oof no, please don't paint me with the lockdown sceptic brush.

I'm fully agreeing with you that it's too early to sure and I wish the government had been more cautious. Thankfully people are not stupid and have been taking matters into their own hands by staying cautious


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> My words that you quoted were rather careless I admit.



Thanks for saying that and taking more time to explain your stance.



> What I was grasping at is that fear of Covid prevented many from going to A&E or GPs because they were too scared (or in the case of GPs, unable to get an appointment). The long term consequences of this healthcare gap are yet to be seen. The media is partly to blame because initially Covid was made out to be a death sentence, when it's actually very low risk to most.



One thing the media tried hard not to go on about too much was the risk of catching it in hospital, especially throughout the first wave this subject was quite the no-no. People still figured out that risk for themselves anyway. Also, the government messaging made people not want to place a burden on the NHS, so some didnt get treatment as a result of that.

I have had a special focus on hospital acquired Covid throughout this pandemic. And this inevitably ends up being one of the areas where I end up falling out with people who make reassuring noises about this virus being 'very low risk to most'.

Dont evoke concepts like 'most people' when talking about something specific such as risk to those who require hospital for other reasons.

Because these days we have statistics like the following that I will dig up and throw in your face:









						Up to 8,700 patients died after catching Covid in English hospitals
					

Exclusive: official NHS data reveals 32,307 people contracted the virus while in hospital since March 2020




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

And sometimes I am sorry about how much of a dick I can be to people. But I get very, very upset and annoyed with things like the aforementioned hospital infection deaths, and it makes me even more gobby and rude than usual.


----------



## elbows (Jul 23, 2021)

As for infections acquired in hospital in this current wave, during the long periods without proper press coverage or official reporting with analysis being published, there is one basic measure I can use. I can subtract the figures from one NHS England spreadsheet table from those in another table, to get some sense of how many admissions/diagnoses per day involved people who had been in hospital for more than 7 days before testing positive. This is a similar but simplified version of the sort of analysis they do when trying to monitor this stuff more thoroughly, but its the best I can manage without special access to non-public data.

So far those figures show that things have not exploded on that front in the ways they did in previous waves. I expect vaccines have helped. Relative success on this front still means over 400 people contracting it in English hospitals in July so far. But in other waves these sorts of figures sometimes ramped up to more than that many people catching it in a single day, so the current situation looks very modest on a graph. Given the raw potential of Delta I was afraid I would end up posting such graphs quite a lot, but so far the numbers mean I have not felt a pressing need to do so. I just hope that continues. Things have still grown from June onwards compared to how low the numbers got in April and May, but look minuscule compared to previous waves.


----------



## elbows (Jul 24, 2021)

I really wonder to what extent the government thought through all the key implications of letting the virus run rampant in recent months.

Its probably about a month since I started drawing attention to the role that disruption, self-isolation etc would play in this wave. The way they are failing to get a grip on the need to keep sufficient key workers working makes me wonder if they even considered the basic fundamentals of this waves impact on that front.

The latest shit about that for example does not imply much thinking ahead of time:









						Covid: Food exemption scheme delayed until Monday
					

Iceland warns the move will not solve the issue of staff shortages in supermarkets themselves.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




In previous waves they remembered that they needed to consider workforce issues when closing schools, and did the stuff where children of key workers could still attend school. If thinking about that topic properly, it would probably have been a good idea for them to remember that the workforces are not in the same state during summer when schools are closed, there is less wiggle room, and combining that with allowing a ridiculous number of cases is asking for trouble of the variety that can get serious quickly. Especially if you've placed a burden on services by encouraging the masses to start doing a whole bunch of things that they were avoiding doing during lockdowns etc.

And then there are the other implications of letting a huge amount of younger people get infected. I dont think I've gone on about the following angle before now, although it had crossed my mind since I am due my second jab in a few weeks:









						Fears rollout of second vaccine doses is being delayed by high covid cases and isolation rules
					

Young people have been missing their vaccine appointments and in some cases are being forced to wait an extra four weeks to get jabbed




					inews.co.uk


----------



## Smangus (Jul 24, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> My words that you quoted were rather careless I admit.
> 
> What I was grasping at is that fear of Covid prevented many from going to A&E or GPs because they were too scared (or in the case of GPs, unable to get an appointment). The long term consequences of this healthcare gap are yet to be seen. The media is partly to blame because initially Covid was made out to be a death sentence, when it's actually very low risk to most.
> 
> ...



My step father is ill with terminal cancer, he has not been able to drink much in the last few days which is very concerning due to the hot weather. 

This morning we were advised by a clinician not to take him to hospital as they are worried he would get Covid and die, not because we don't want him to go.  This is Woolwich in se London and sounds like this is what people are being advised not to do.

There are probably manybmore cases like this around the country.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 24, 2021)

Smangus said:


> There are probably manybmore cases like this around the country.



Peterborough hospital just closed their doors to any visitors. Edit: Hinchingbrooke too:









						Covid visiting restrictions increased at Peterborough, Stamford and Hinchingbrooke hospitals
					

Visiting restrictions at Peterborough City, Hinchingbrooke and Stamford and Rutland hospitals will be increased from Monday as a precautionary measure to manage the spread of Covid-19




					www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Jul 24, 2021)

Edited as made mistake hastily reading a post.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 24, 2021)

Doesn't normally stop the rest of us.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> Thanks for saying that and taking more time to explain your stance.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you for the reasonable and well thought out response.

Just to play devil's advocate, we don't know if Covid was the primary cause of those 8700 deaths or not (although it certainly would have been a factor).

What is extremely important is that if anyone has a mild heart attack, stroke or is displaying any warning signs of early stage cancer, that they don't delay getting help out of fear of catching Covid.

For myself personally I needed to take one of my children into A&E during Covid and it felt very safe (and almost eerily quiet). Covid patients were treated in a different part of the hospital which helped to minimise risk.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 24, 2021)

Smangus said:


> My step father is ill with terminal cancer, he has not been able to drink much in the last few days which is very concerning due to the hot weather.
> 
> This morning we were advised by a clinician not to take him to hospital as they are worried he would get Covid and die, not because we don't want him to go.  This is Woolwich in se London and sounds like this is what people are being advised not to do.
> 
> There are probably manybmore cases like this around the country.


Best wishes. Hope he's as comfortable as possible at home. Shame that the hospital is turning people away because they don't feel they can control the spread of the virus. 

Edit: or because they're swamped with covid cases and don't have enough beds, which is going to become more and more of a problem


----------



## maomao (Jul 24, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> For myself personally I needed to take one of my children into A&E during Covid and it felt very safe (and almost eerily quiet). Covid patients were treated in a different part of the hospital which helped to minimise risk.



When my son was taken from our local to Great Ormond Street at the height of the second wave we were taken through the Covid Wing of the hospital and to the ambulance bay where covid patients were being treated in ambulances. Was rather frightening. 

 I'm in hospital with him right now (suspected chickenpox which is rather dangerous for someone with his condition) and nurses are still wearing masks but the other staff seem to have given up. Much easier to get in too, no temp gun and quiz at the door anymore.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 24, 2021)

maomao said:


> When my son was taken from our local to Great Ormond Street at the height of the second wave we were taken through the Covid Wing of the hospital and to the ambulance bay where covid patients were being treated in ambulances. Was rather frightening.
> 
> I'm in hospital with him right now (suspected chickenpox which is rather dangerous for someone with his condition) and nurses are still wearing masks but the other staff seem to have given up. Much easier to get in too, no temp gun and quiz at the door anymore.


The temperature check thing has been discredited though, I think


----------



## LDC (Jul 24, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Best wishes. Hope he's as comfortable as possible at home. Shame that the hospital is turning people away because they don't feel they can control the spread of the virus.




I'm slightly baffled by that tbh, if someone needs to be in hospital, turning them away is negligent and not something I've experienced or seen. I expect there might be more complexities than what's been said.


----------



## maomao (Jul 24, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> The temperature check thing has been discredited though, I think


Well most times I've had to take him in in the last six months he has had a fever. So I tell them not to bother as we wouldn't be there if his temperature was normal. They're used to us now though. 

The temp gun they use at my daughter's after school club is rubbish. I once had a member of staff hand my daughter to me and announce her temperature was 32 degrees. I told her she'd be dead if that was true. They worked well in China because if you had a fever you wouldn't dare go out as you'd encounter a street stop with temp guns every couple of hundred yards but as a diagnostic tool they're rubbish.


----------



## Smangus (Jul 24, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm slightly baffled by that tbh, if someone needs to be in hospital, turning them away is negligent and not something I've experienced or seen. I expect there might be more complexities than what's been said.


 
Probably , there always are. But that is what we were told by the doctor. They asked about numbness in the legs which would indicate pressure on the spine from the tumour. But that is not an issue yet. I think they would have taken him if it was the case. 

But specifically told we shouldn't take him there due to covid risk.


----------



## LDC (Jul 24, 2021)

Assuming then they were happy he could be cared for at home without needing to go to hospital? E2A: Ah, yeah so they didn't need to admit from what you said and they would if he got worse.

There's a subtle difference between someone saying he 'could go to hospital but there's a risk of covid if he does', or he 'should go to hospital but there's a risk of covid if he does'.

Hope he gets better and the treatment he needs wherever he is though.


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## Smangus (Jul 24, 2021)

Thank you 🙂

I wasn't in on the conversation so don't know the exact wording, mum rang them and phoned me after.


----------



## elbows (Jul 24, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Just to play devil's advocate, we don't know if Covid was the primary cause of those 8700 deaths or not (although it certainly would have been a factor).



By going there you are just confirming to me that my suspicions about where you stand in this pandemic were well founded.

Lets leave it at that, I dont wish to go into this further as I know where it leads, its not pretty and my resulting rants will be a repetition that nobody needs to see again now.


----------



## wtfftw (Jul 24, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There was one article I specifically remember reading... because I recall reading it on my phone as I wandered through central london... and it was a list of reasons that the Italy experience might not translate to the UK. I think it was around the point where I was wavering between thinking people were over-reacting, and realising something fairly major was actually likely to happen.
> 
> I feel it was somewhere quite mainstream like BBC or guardian - but I can't seem to find it now.


This? 




__





						Coronavirus: how do Italy and the UK compare? | Coronavirus | The Guardian
					

With Britain approximately two weeks behind Italy in Covid-19 deaths, questions about the nations’ similarities remain




					amp.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jul 24, 2021)

That was a slightly later phase with a narrower form of hope and wishful thinking. The stuff teuchter was on about would have been mostly a little earlier, before our first wave was quite that visible. I might do some digging shortly.


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## elbows (Jul 24, 2021)

Meanwhile the steady stream of hospital news from Shaun Lintern continues. He has been good and persistent in this pandemic.









						Hospitals experiencing ‘perfect storm’ as Covid infections and holiday season collide
					

Operations cancelled and staff warned to prepare for difficult weeks ahead




					www.independent.co.uk


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## elbows (Jul 24, 2021)

I found one of the old Italy articles from the period.

To put the timing in context, this was about 3 weeks after alarming signals started to emerge from Italy, and a few days after their lockdown rapidly expanded to the whole country. And it came on the notorious Friday 13th at the end of the big week where the UK's plan A was going down badly in press conferences. On a day where the establishment had one last go at selling that plan, including going on about herd immunity. A week where my alarm bells went off about wave surveillance and modelling because they told us in press conferences that we were 4 weeks behind Italy when we were actually 2 weeks behind Italy. Plan A died within hours of this article, or at the very least did not survive the weekend.









						Coronavirus: Three reasons why the UK might not look like Italy
					

Boris Johnson's chief scientific adviser says the UK is four weeks behind Italy, What does that mean?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 24, 2021)




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## elbows (Jul 24, 2021)

With words like cower, Javid rises up my pandemic shit list quicker than the Delta virus in the middle of a football tournament.


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## elbows (Jul 24, 2021)

There may be a trend emerging that countries with huge Delta spikes featuring incredibly quick growth are also quite quick to fall, at least for the initial portion of the downwards curve post-peak.

Even though I have to base plenty of my thinking on models, I'm not exactly convinced that all the dynamics of outbreaks are captured properly with our traditional understanding of these matters. I dont find it easy to discuss this subject because modelling is broadly correct in some ways, and it is very unlikely that I am going to figure out any technical riddles myself. And some directions of thought get bogged down by anti-lockdown types that think they can spot a way to fit their version of reality with how waves turn out in practice, no matter how many times such waves repeat. It could even turn out that there are certain specific aspects of their stance which are compatible with this unknown reality, and I'd be prepared to concede what was necessary but still pick apart the more reckless and deadly aspects of their stance, But doing that when stumbling around in the dark not even knowing what the missing details in our understanding of waves are, is not something I would find easy to cope with. Plus there may not be any major errors or missing pieces, and its just the ability to model and survey human behaviour and mixing patterns that is too limited and crudely estimated, perhaps underplaying how rapid the dynamics of shifting behaviours during outbreaks can be.

Plus when I zoom in to specific towns or cities in the UK that are further along with their Delta outbreaks, the picture is often a big mess, sometimes with more than one peak, so I do need to be careful not to judge things based on overall national data alone, since such large areas have a smoothing and simplifying effect on curves, including painting a picture of very straightforward momentum and decline that may not be shown at each local level.

For example there was a time when some used Bolton to feel reassured, when it looked like Bolton had peaked. But the people that shouted about Bolton at the time wont have been drawing attention to it since, because it did this:


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## teuchter (Jul 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> I found one of the old Italy articles from the period.
> 
> To put the timing in context, this was about 3 weeks after alarming signals started to emerge from Italy, and a few days after their lockdown rapidly expanded to the whole country. And it came on the notorious Friday 13th at the end of the big week where the UK's plan A was going down badly in press conferences. On a day where the establishment had one last go at selling that plan, including going on about herd immunity. A week where my alarm bells went off about wave surveillance and modelling because they told us in press conferences that we were 4 weeks behind Italy when we were actually 2 weeks behind Italy. Plan A died within hours of this article, or at the very least did not survive the weekend.
> 
> ...


Yes that could be the article I was remembering...or something similar around the same time.


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## Storm Fox (Jul 24, 2021)

Thanks elbows for all of your work on this thread, it's great that someone is making the science easier to understand and cutting through the bullshit.


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## bimble (Jul 24, 2021)

I'm sure i remember back then people writing about how the italians are more convivial,  have bigger multi generational family units etc, so we'd be fine.


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## elbows (Jul 24, 2021)

Storm Fox said:


> Thanks elbows for all of your work on this thread, it's great that someone is making the science easier to understand and cutting through the bullshit.



Cheers. I'm only covering a small fraction of stuff though, and I've got little idea quite what I have missed. 

I think I was expecting other people to go on more about the extent of the decline in Englands vaccination programme, for example.


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## Supine (Jul 24, 2021)

No dashboard results today. Maybe waiting until the sunday paper deadlines until publishing…


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## Cat Fan (Jul 24, 2021)

bimble said:


> I'm sure i remember back then people writing about how the italians are more convivial,  have bigger multi generational family units etc, so we'd be fine.


It was amazing how pervasive UK exceptional ism was at the start of the pandemic. Even pretty rational people I knew seemed to dismiss that we would ever have a problem with Covid on the same scale as Italy.


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## Cat Fan (Jul 24, 2021)

Fantastic article by Tim Harford, well worth a read.


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## Wilf (Jul 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> With words like cower, Javid rises up my pandemic shit list quicker than the Delta virus in the middle of a football tournament.



It certainly shows he's a shitball. Never mind the rest of the population who have been taking reasonable precautions, how are vulnerable people who have to return to work, go on public transport, brush past unmasked people in the shops supposed to feel?  A lot of those people are already scared and they've now got that cunt deriding them.

But on another note it doesn't suggest this particular member of government is rowing back from 'freedom day' rhetoric as it seemed a couple of them were in the face of rising numbers.  Is it possible that 4/5 days of lower figures are acting as a mini dose of confirmation bias and we are back on course with the bullish wrecklessnes of say 3 weeks ago?


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## elbows (Jul 25, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Fantastic article by Tim Harford, well worth a read.




The masks and lockdown points in that article annoy me in some ways, because some of what is said only covers a couple of quite narrow angles.

In regards lockdowns, I dont think anyone here thinks that everything revolves around the formal rules. We know how much people had started to modify their behaviour in this country some time before the government finally had a formal lockdown. And the study linked to in the article is all about the economics and 'consumer traffic'. And I decided to take this opportunity to skim through that studies details. 

For example it includes bits like this. Its American so it tends to use terms like SIP which I assume is Stay In Place.



			https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27432/w27432.pdf
		




> Repealing lockdowns may not a particularly powerful tool for restarting growth. If people are otherwise concerned about potential infection, lifting legal restrictions on their activity has limited effect. Moreover, such a policy would have to be balanced against the fact that S-I-P orders may slow the spread of the disease—see, e.g., Baker et al. (2020), Chen et al. (2020), Dave et al. (2020b, 2020c), or Friedson et al. (2020). If repealing lockdowns leads to a fast enough increase in COVID infections and deaths and a concomitant withdrawal of consumers from the market place, they might ultimately end up harming business activity.



Plus in addition to measuring overall activity, they looked at diversion of business that was due to formal restrictions.



> The shutdown orders did, however, have significantly reallocate consumer activity away from “nonessential” to “essential” businesses and from restaurants and bars toward groceries and other food sellers.



I coud go on for ages about other aspects of lockdown that make real differences beyond peoples voluntary response to the pandemic. I wont do that right now, but for example I remember well the period when peoples sense of risk reached a suitable place, but lockdown was not yet in place. It ws very unpleasant to leave it to individuals to make decisions about whether they should pull their kids out of school, and there are various forms of the 'social solidarity' he mentions that can be significantly enhanced with the right rules at the right time, for reasons very much including the message that sends and how well crafted and communicated rules can restrain certain elements that are a threat to the sense of 'we're all in this together' can be weakened. Obviously when those with special status then turn out to not be following those rules, the opposite happens, but thats a subject for another day.


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## elbows (Jul 25, 2021)

Wilf said:


> It certainly shows he's a shitball. Never mind the rest of the population who have been taking reasonable precautions, how are vulnerable people who have to return to work, go on public transport, brush past unmasked people in the shops supposed to feel?  A lot of those people are already scared and they've now got that cunt deriding them.
> 
> But on another note it doesn't suggest this particular member of government is rowing back from 'freedom day' rhetoric as it seemed a couple of them were in the face of rising numbers.  Is it possible that 4/5 days of lower figures are acting as a mini dose of confirmation bias and we are back on course with the bullish wrecklessnes of say 3 weeks ago?



I assume its part of an agenda that will not be halted unless the hospital situation reaches a certain point. He is coming out with shit that is a better fit for the treasury than the health department. That paper I was just going on about in my previous point contains some obvious stuff that the tories are well aware of, that it is the mindset of people that needs to change in order for normal levels of economic activity to return. Johnson originally had a go at doing this for an imagined June 2020 march back towards normal before that plan was watered down, and they ended up relying on gimmicks like eat out to help out, but didnt have a plan that was sustainable beyond summer.

This time Im sure they have their eyes on a grand prize, and part of my focus on early peak possibilities involves what they will do with any success on that front to keep on pushing harder with this vulgar attempt to get peoples mindsets back to the old normal. I am expecting more attacks on those with a more cautious approach whenever the opportunity arises, and thats why I've spoken about the possibility that some may be walking into a deliberate trap at this stage of the current wave. Sort of like a giant mutant Daily Telegraph but with momentum and reach on its side, and maybe even some features of its stance that are more compatible with reality than they were at earlier stages of the pandemic.

Me going on about that all the time these days in no way means I have excluded the possibility that things will still blow up in their face again as happened with previous waves. Javid will be especially badly positioned if that happens. Hancock was not impressive but there were signs that by April 2020 he had at least figured out what a lot of the appropriate noises to make were. Javid is deliberately making all the wrong noises, and I think there is some method to that madness, but as with so many aspect of the Tories current game it is high stakes stuff.

I'm always going to want the outcome where the wave is as small and brief as possible, but if that happy eventuality comes to pass I'll have to prepare myself for quite how insufferable the tories will be if they get away with their big gamble. If they feel the need to poison the well and to paint the cautious as being extremists who need to get a grip and stop being afraid, its going to stink.


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## little_legs (Jul 25, 2021)

I certainly expect attacks on the long Covid sufferers. Give it a couple of months, the government and its trusted media is going to call them scoungers.


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## Cat Fan (Jul 25, 2021)

elbows said:


> The masks and lockdown points in that article annoy me in some ways, because some of what is said only covers a couple of quite narrow angles.
> 
> In regards lockdowns, I dont think anyone here thinks that everything revolves around the formal rules. We know how much people had started to modify their behaviour in this country some time before the government finally had a formal lockdown. And the study linked to in the article is all about the economics and 'consumer traffic'. And I decided to take this opportunity to skim through that studies details.
> 
> ...


Well, you're free to disagree with the piece. But Tim Harford's articles tend to be well researched and backed by data.

If you have seen scientific studies that disprove any of what he's saying then feel free to share.


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## Chz (Jul 25, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Well, you're free to disagree with the piece. But Tim Harford's articles tend to be well researched and backed by data.
> 
> If you have seen scientific studies that disprove any of what he's saying then feel free to share.


"More or Less" is a bastion of sanity as the rest of the media goes to shit. And notably a show that's more than ready to point out its own errors.


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 25, 2021)

Outrage is rightly growing over this fucking dumb tweet from Javid.

[Martin McKee, director of public health at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.]



ETA - that tweet quoted Javid's tweet, which he has since deleted, this is what he posted - 



> "Full recovery from Covid a week after testing positive. Symptoms were very mild, thanks to amazing vaccines.
> 
> "Please - if you haven't yet - get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus."


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## Supine (Jul 25, 2021)

Supine said:


> No dashboard results today. Maybe waiting until the sunday paper deadlines until publishing…



Not for the first time my prediction was totally wrong. Only 31k cases yesterday. Could this be the good weather?


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## glitch hiker (Jul 25, 2021)

Is testing waning? Hospitalisations increase but the recorded case rate has been appearing to tail off or plateau this week. Surely that can only be explained by lower testing.


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## glitch hiker (Jul 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Outrage is rightly growing over this fucking dumb tweet from Javid.
> 
> [Martin McKee, director of public health at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.]



Certainly the most revealing


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## cupid_stunt (Jul 25, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> *Is testing waning?* Hospitalisations increase but the recorded case rate has been appearing to tail off or plateau this week. Surely that can only be explained by lower testing.



Doesn't look like it, the 7-day average is hoovering around the 1 million a day mark, it did hit a peak of 1.3m back in March, before dropping to 0.8m in April, but has been floating around the 1m mark for the last 4 or 5 weeks.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 25, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Is testing waning? Hospitalisations increase but the recorded case rate has been appearing to tail off or plateau this week. Surely that can only be explained by lower testing.



There's a fairly long lag between cases and hospitalisation isn't there. So hospitalisation this week is driven by cases a week or two back. Not that that in itself proves the fall in cases isn't lower testing but it could just be that.


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## maomao (Jul 25, 2021)

Schools started breaking up about a week ago in England (though my daughter only broke up two days ago). Are there enough kids on holiday yet to have had a dampening effect on cases already?


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## StoneRoad (Jul 25, 2021)

I'll stick my neck out a bit.
I suggest that the drop in cases is partly because the [little germ factories] school pupils & students are not being tested and are not in quite so close contact with other [little germ factories], so less transmission in educational settings.
Secondly. The weather has been hot and dry so reducing the survival rates of floating virus particles.
Thirdly, a lot of social interactions are happening outside, with plenty of ventilation.


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## glitch hiker (Jul 25, 2021)

It's confusing to be honest. On one hand we're a far cry (yet) from the predictions of a hundred thousand daily cases. But on the other 31,000 is by no means small nor is it acceptable. Yet we must 'learn to live with this'.


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## Spandex (Jul 25, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I suggest that the drop in cases is partly because the [little germ factories] school pupils & students are not being tested and are not in quite so close contact with other [little germ factories], so less transmission in educational settings


Like maomao says in the post above yours, English school term only finished on Friday, with many places having an inset day or two before that. They won't have made any impact on the figures yet. Colleges, sixth forms and private schools finished a couple of weeks ago and Scottish schools about a month ago. I think you could overstate schools' impact on the current drop in figures.



StoneRoad said:


> Secondly. The weather has been hot and dry so reducing the survival rates of floating virus particles.
> Thirdly, a lot of social interactions are happening outside, with plenty of ventilation.


As you note, it'll most likely be a combination of things, including the good weather, that have caused figures to drop. 

The rapidly rising figures have caused a wider recognition that, despite the impression created by the government and some newspapers, we do still need to be careful and some behaviors have changed to reflect that. 

There's the 'pingdemic', with over a million people pinged by the NHS app in a couple of weeks, hundreds of thousands of school kids sent home as bubbles burst, plus hundreds of thousands who've tested positive and their families all supposed to be self isolating. I've no idea what compliance with self-isolation is like, but it must be doing something for the government to keep it in the face of huge pressure to drop it from business.

There's to football superspreading coming to an end and a list of other things that could be responsible.

The big question is whether new cases continue to fall, hold steady at an uncomfortably high level or if last Monday's big reopening sees cases take off again. As is so often the case with this pandemic all we can do is take care and watch the figures with our fingers crossed.


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## MrSki (Jul 25, 2021)

Well people who are re-infected are not included in dashboard figures.  

See tweet thread.


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## Cat Fan (Jul 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Outrage is rightly growing over this fucking dumb tweet from Javid.
> 
> [Martin McKee, director of public health at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.]
> 
> ...



I also think a symptomatic illness that lasts a week is hardly what I would call mild.


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## 2hats (Jul 25, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Well people who are re-infected are not included in dashboard figures.


This was confirmed a few days ago by Hadjibagheri, and is mentioned in the methodology 'small print'. That the daily dashboard case numbers of late don't reflect actual infections _on the ground_ (variously by factors of 2/3/4, for a range of reasons) has been clear for some time.


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## elbows (Jul 25, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Well, you're free to disagree with the piece. But Tim Harford's articles tend to be well researched and backed by data.
> 
> If you have seen scientific studies that disprove any of what he's saying then feel free to share.



Since I am not trying to demolish and disprove everything he says, there is no need for me to find further scientific studies. I already went into some detail using the paper about lockdown that he linked to, so I'm not sure why you are inviting me to repeat myself about that.

I dont disagree with the whole article anyway, I've been very specific about the aspects where I did not agree, where I felt the article was too quick to diminish other aspects in order to try to make its points stand out cleanly. The masks section would be another example, there are points in there that are fine, its just the framing is a bit stupid when he uses lines like "masks matter, but not for the reason you think". Bollocks, they matter for a number of reasons that we already think about. If he just wants to add another reason on top then thats fine, but the technique of doing that by first inviting us to forget those other reasons, diminishing their importance as a result, is not fine. This just means I dont like certain aspects of his style and technique, elements that are probably an inevitable feature of 'here are the ways you've been thinking about something wrong and missing the real point which I will now explain' type articles. In some areas it really doesnt matter, but when talking about lockdowns and masks I really think it is important not to diminish stuff just for the sake of making your own angle stand out more.


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## Cat Fan (Jul 25, 2021)

2hats said:


> This was confirmed a few days ago by Hadjibagheri, and is mentioned in the methodology 'small print'. That the daily dashboard case numbers of late don't reflect actual infections _on the ground_ (variously by factors of 2/3/4, for a range of reasons) has been clear for some time.




Apparently it's still not that common to be reinfected though, which is good


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## elbows (Jul 25, 2021)

MrSki said:


> Well people who are re-infected are not included in dashboard figures.
> 
> See tweet thread.




Those of us who dont have special access to senior government officials could have known this all along by simply reading the description on the dashboard that includes the line "People tested positive more than once are only counted once, on the date of their first positive test. "

There is some study of reinfections with data published once a week. I tend to assume such studies only capture a fraction of the actual reinfections. I'll probably go and find the latest version of that shortly. The numbers they pick up arent huge comapred to overall case numbers. edit - ah I see another quoted tweet just before this post has that covered.

There are a number of stats where I'd rather the definitions used were not so narrow. But I suppose Im somewhat relaxed about these omissions from the positive case figures because I always take those figures with a pinch of salt anyway, and rely more on hospital data. 

Plus Peston mentions that this also excludes people who were positive in spring 2020. But given how limited the testing regime was back then, most people who caught it that time around didnt get a positive test result in the first place, so wont be excluded if they test positive this time.


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## elbows (Jul 25, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Apparently it's still not that common to be reinfected though, which is good



Its probably a lot more common these days than it once was, and as I said I dont expect their surveillance for reinfections to capture the whole picture. All the same, I struggle to get overexcited about Pestons revelation for reasons already explained.


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## elbows (Jul 25, 2021)

Regarding the apparent peak in case data, I already said plenty about that and dont really have anything new to add today.

But certainly this coming weeks hospital admissions data should start to give us clues about the underlying reality. And this coming weeks daily positive cases by specimen dates should start to reveal whether what was seen was a proper peak, or whether those highs just represented a temporary spike. And whether the figures will now continue to grow from the level established before that spike happened, reestablishing previous momentum, or whether the only way is down.


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## elbows (Jul 25, 2021)

Meanwhile as I briefly mentioned last night, people can look at other countries that had intense Delta waves with similar timing to us and whether their case numbers have started to plummet dramatically.


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## 2hats (Jul 25, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Apparently it's still not that common to be reinfected though, which is good



The underlying problem is cases != infections.


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## elbows (Jul 25, 2021)

2hats said:


> The underlying problem is cases != infections.



I remember a time when some small official noises were made about adding wastewater data to the dashboard. I think I've given up hope of that happening.


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## bimble (Jul 25, 2021)

People who understand antibodies and how the vaccines work, please can you confirm that this policy of the Swiss health service is logical and not about supply issues?


I’m going to visit my parents there tomorrow. Flight is full, my old Dad having had covid has only been given the one shot of Pfizer and I can’t help it i’m anxious about it.
Does this make sense, medically, their policy?


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## elbows (Jul 25, 2021)

Supply issues are always a consideration that contributes to policy but there is other logic to that policy too, there is actual science about immunity after infection + 1 dose. However its still a compromise and since immunity and vaccine effectiveness varies per person, I wouldnt want to stretch claims too far.









						Is one vaccine dose enough if you’ve had COVID? What the science says
					

Research shows that a previous coronavirus infection plus one dose of vaccine provides powerful protection — but concerns linger.




					www.nature.com


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## bimble (Jul 25, 2021)

Interesting & a bit reassuring thanks. So yes it’s about supply but it’s also probably a reasonable thing to do.


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## LDC (Jul 25, 2021)

Well


bimble said:


> Interesting & a bit reassuring thanks. So yes it’s about supply but it’s also probably a reasonable thing to do.



Yeah, their plan isn't full of holes.

Sorry.


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## bimble (Jul 25, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Well
> 
> 
> Yeah, their plan isn't full of holes.
> ...




This is nuts though right? (my dad, just now):


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## LDC (Jul 25, 2021)

Was the 'Angry' at the terrible Swiss cheese joke, or something else bimble? Elbows covered it above more seriously, it's a reasonable position, likely supply issue related in part.


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## 2hats (Jul 25, 2021)

This isn't without fairly strong scientific basis, both from current and historical immunological research. Indeed, several countries have adopted this approach. Hybrid immunity arising from (heterologous) infection (prime) then single dose (booster) has been covered in the vaccination thread. In particular see post #1359.

Probably those who experienced worse covid symptoms (to a point) may be more likely to gain from this approach (B, T cells already sufficiently primed for the booster) than those who had very mild/asymptomatic infections. To be sure, however, one would ideally have a full serological screening post booster to be reasonably certain (insert usual health warning about as yet not fully established correlates of protection).

One data point: I'm a mRNA single dose convalescent - very strong symptoms but not sufficient to require medical assistance - have had our lab screen me post vaccination and antibodies to spike epitopes easily reach the top of the range they are happy to report (might have a chance to examine T cells in due course). Ideally everyone would be able to do this and tailor their regimen (though this is clearly not that practical, at least right now, so the general advice is: both doses). The above studies tend not to show much if any benefit, for many convalescents, of a second dose at the standard posology. A longer interval might improve breadth and duration of immunity, however it has to be balanced against risk of infection, and individual consequences thereof, in the intervening period.

I am not a medical doctor/This does not constitute medical advice/Consult your GP/etc.


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## prunus (Jul 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> People who understand antibodies and how the vaccines work, please can you confirm that this policy of the Swiss health service is logical and not about supply issues?
> 
> 
> I’m going to visit my parents there tomorrow. Flight is full, my old Dad having had covid has only been given the one shot of Pfizer and I can’t help it i’m anxious about it.
> ...



It does, in that studies have shown that the immune response in convalescents to a single dose of Pfizer is generally greater than that of naive people to the second dose - ie your dad should be as well protected as someone who hasn’t had it is after two shots (better in fact).


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## bimble (Jul 25, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Was the 'Angry' at the terrible Swiss cheese joke, or something else bimble? Elbows covered it above more seriously, it's a reasonable position, likely supply issue related in part.


oh yes, just at the really quite bad pun.


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## zahir (Jul 25, 2021)

2hats - how do you think booster shots will fit in with this?


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## Supine (Jul 25, 2021)

zahir said:


> 2hats - how do you think booster shots will fit in with this?



It’ll depend if the booster is the original wild type varient or more tailored to delta or another mutation / variant of concern. I know this is being actively studied at the moment.


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## LDC (Jul 25, 2021)

bimble said:


> oh yes, just at the really quite bad pun.



Did you hear where in India they're making worse jokes than mine about the vaccine though?

Punjabi.


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## StoneRoad (Jul 25, 2021)

we need a "groan" emoji !

'cos of all the bad puns ...


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## StoneRoad (Jul 25, 2021)

Copied (enbolded) from the dashboard homepage ...

_*25 July 2021*_
*Because of technical difficulties in processing England deaths data, today's update is delayed.*

That's what they said yesterday - it appeared only just in time ...
_*Last updated on *_*Saturday 24 July 2021 at 11:59pm*

I'm not holding my breath !


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## BigMoaner (Jul 25, 2021)

What's the data on those being admitted to hospital being vaxxed or not?


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## Saul Goodman (Jul 25, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> What's the data on those being admitted to hospital being vaxxed or not?


I think 40% had been vaxxed at last count.


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## 2hats (Jul 26, 2021)

zahir said:


> 2hats - how do you think booster shots will fit in with this?


So there are a few factors, and I suspect it is not going to become clear (in the UK) for at least a month plus yet. It might not even happen at all; BioNTech's CEO so far sees no need for an additional dose for most vaccinees. Pfizer has been advocating for third dose rollout. Some countries might take the same path as Israel which has already started offering a third dose to immunocompromised individuals, after seeing apparent hints of waning immunity in some cohorts.

Some considerations...

Sufficient stock for some (third dose) boosters in the UK _should_ be available in the autumn (a large delivery of Pfizer has been reported to be due around then). Precisely how it is best to deploy those isn't completely clear right now. However, that _might_ be better clarified in September when a number of investigations are scheduled to deliver results. In particular mix and match studies. Also, we _should_ (with any luck) see a couple more vaccines (based on early type spike) being granted regulatory approval around that time. So, it might prove more efficacious (and be possible) to switch to different platforms for particular cohorts of third dose recipients, though this will of course be constrained to various degrees by supplies and timing of approvals (also factoring in decisions to offer vaccination widely to 12-17 years, or not).

Irrespective, more vulnerable cohorts (elderly, immunosuppressed, exhibiting poor seroconversion) _might_ benefit from a third dose of current mRNA vaccines anyway (as per Israel), both raising circulating antibody levels and, subsequently, more importantly, hopefully promoting a broader and more enduring B and T cell response (the post second dose several months interval _may_ assist here).

Additionally, as has been mentioned, right now there are no approved vaccines 'retuned' to more recent variants/VOCs. There are at least four currently in trials (see numerous recent posts in the vaccines thread), from manufacturers of previously approved vaccines (early type spike, same platforms), and a few others (new manufacturers/platforms), all of which target (typically) beta/B.1.351 (E484K flavoured) spike. One would guess that those might not be available until at least towards the end of the year, or sometime next year, if they progress to approval and distribution at all.

Beyond that, it _might_ need a switch of delivery method to elicit more enduring and sterilising immunity if we need to better quench transmission and all infection. For example, intranasal vaccines that promote a more focused degree of IgA/IgG in the mucosal tissues of the upper respiratory tract (see vaccines thread, post #1418). There are candidates that have been tested in animal models, and some in small trials, but one could imagine they _might_ not reach approval and distribution until later in 2022/2023, assuming they are suitably effective.


----------



## 2hats (Jul 26, 2021)

Saul Goodman said:


> I think 40% had been vaxxed at last count.


Indeed - a visualisation:


----------



## ash (Jul 26, 2021)

This is the first time during the whole pandemic that I’ve known so many people with Covid.  Mostly teenagers but some adults who are double vaxed !!!!


----------



## Sue (Jul 26, 2021)

ash said:


> This is the first time during the whole pandemic that I’ve known so many people with Covid.  Mostly teenagers but some adults who are double vaxed !!!!


Yes, same for me over the last few weeks. Including a double-vaxed friend who's a teaching assistant, has been in school throughout and had managed to avoid it until a couple of days before the end of term. She's not seriously ill but is feeling pretty rotten.

Eta All mine are adults who've had one or both vaccines.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 26, 2021)

2hats said:


> Indeed - a visualisation:


Apologies if already posted, but do we have detailed breakdowns of who both the 40 and 60% are?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 26, 2021)

Sue said:


> Yes, same for me over the last few weeks. Including a double-vaxed friend who's a teaching assistant, has been in school throughout and had managed to avoid it until a couple of days before the end of term. She's not seriously ill but is feeling pretty rotten.
> 
> Eta All mine are adults who've had one or both vaccines.


Same with me, it's young, relatively healthy people who are getting it. The people I know getting it now have mostly only had the first jab.

I believe the protection from symptomatic illness from Delta is quite low with only the first jab. It improves dramatically with the second.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 26, 2021)

Some of the papers are making a big thing about the daily reported cases dropping, which is good news, but it seems somewhat early to be celebrating, as we haven't seen the impact of 'freedom day' yet.

The 7-day averages reported yesterday:

New cases down -15%
Hospital admission up +26.7%, but that rate of increase is now slowing.
Deaths up +59%


----------



## Dogsauce (Jul 26, 2021)

There‘s been a number of people at work isolating because family members (usually young) are positive, before that I only knew of a couple of cases, and I think at school we’d only ever had one bubble close until about a month ago, since then four classes out. The infection rate in Bristol is higher than it‘s ever been, by around 50%.  I just didn’t have the anecdotes first time around.  I’m quite glad school has finished and it’s now deserted when I’m working up there.


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2021)

Well, this looks a bit encouraging, no? I mean it's still appallingly high, but at least it's going the right way.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jul 26, 2021)

Would the fall in umbers have anything to do with Schools breaking up and the resultant fall in testing of children who were after all making up a large proportion of cases?


----------



## teuchter (Jul 26, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Would the fall in umbers have anything to do with Schools breaking up and the resultant fall in testing of children who were after all making up a large proportion of cases?


This is all discussed in the last few pages.


----------



## andysays (Jul 26, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Would the fall in umbers have anything to do with Schools breaking up and the resultant fall in testing of children who were after all making up a large proportion of cases?


Although schools in Scotland broke up a while ago, those in England (and Wales?) only broke up last week, it's too soon to see any effect from that, I would have thought.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jul 26, 2021)

Im not talking about a fall in actual cases, rather a fall in testing which would show a change in numbers straight away


----------



## LDC (Jul 26, 2021)

It's been discussed plenty. Pagel had a Twitter thread on it a few days ago which covered the factors she thought might be behind a fall in positive tests. Testing issues was one of the factors.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 26, 2021)

Pissing on the memory of the dead.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jul 26, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's been discussed plenty. Pagel had a Twitter thread on it a few days ago which covered the factors she thought might be behind a fall in positive tests. Testing issues was one of the factors.


Cheers I don't do the twitter. is there a consensus on how real the apparent case rate slowdown is? (Not a straightforward matter I know but I think there are some knowledgeable people here)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 26, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Im not talking about a fall in actual cases, rather a fall in testing which would show a change in numbers straight away



According to the dashboard, we have been testing around 1m a day across the UK, all month, although that only goes up to last Thur. 22/7, whereas daily reported cases shows a drop in England from a peak on the 17th July with almost 51k cases, dropping to 25.5k yesterday.



According to the 'cases by specimen date' chart, that peak actually occurred on the 15th, there's a time lag with that one, but it looks like it's heading in the same direction as the 'daily reported cases' chart.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jul 26, 2021)

> According to the dashboard, we have been testing around 1m a day across the UK



No offense, but thats a bit vague, got a link to the data?

apologies I don't know where to find this stuff


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 26, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> No offense, but thats a bit vague, got a link to the data?
> 
> apologies I don't know where to find this stuff



No problem, it's the government's official covid data/dashboard site, direct link to the 'testing' page -



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing


----------



## Supine (Jul 26, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Cheers I don't do the twitter. is there a consensus on how real the apparent case rate slowdown is? (Not a straightforward matter I know but I think there are some knowledgeable people here)



Consensus is nobody knows for sure. Schools have just gone but they had large numbers isolated for before. Could be the nice weather. In Scotland the case drop has been followed by an admissions drop which suggests whatever the causes it is a real drop.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

I probably need this weeks data before I can say more about the peak.

But here is a clue. This graph shows positive cases for England by specimen date.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

And this is how the male positives for England look when broken down into some broad age groups of my choosing.


----------



## killer b (Jul 26, 2021)

andysays said:


> Although schools in Scotland broke up a while ago, those in England (and Wales?) only broke up last week, it's too soon to see any effect from that, I would have thought.


most of England broke up on the 16th


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 26, 2021)

killer b said:


> most of England broke up on the 16th



Really?

I thought most broke up last week, certainly both East Sussex & West Sussex schools broke up on  Fri. 23/7, and likewise both Kent & Surrey schools broke up on Thur. 22/7.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

There is quite a lot of variety between different parts of England in terms of end of term. Leicestershire finished a week earlier than most, plenty had end of term dates in the middle of last week but those days may have been used for teacher training (oops, old fashioned term, inset days or whatever they are called now). Some, as cupid_stunt points out, were a week later.


----------



## scalyboy (Jul 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> And this is how the male positives for England look when broken down into some broad age groups of my choosing.
> 
> View attachment 280613


Good stuff elbows - thanks as always for your sterling work.

It will be interesting to see if there's been any significant rise following this weekend just gone, the first weekend since 'freedom day'. The Tube was rammed yesterday afternoon, first time in 18 months I've had people sat next to me on both sides. Most but not all people masked up, two separate non-maskers sneezing and coughing


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

scalyboy said:


> Good stuff elbows - thanks as always for your sterling work.
> 
> It will be interesting to see if there's been any significant rise following this weekend just gone, the first weekend since 'freedom day'. The Tube was rammed yesterday afternoon, first time in 18 months I've had people sat next to me on both sides. Most but not all people masked up, two separate non-maskers sneezing and coughing



No problem. Im waiting to see if the 15th was the proper peak or whether that was a Euros etc spike and things will keep growing again from the pre-spike level upwards.

Certainly in the past the virus has struggled to regain momentum after a peak and the only way was down. But those were different circumstances including lockdowns, and we saw via a combination off too short and weak a lockdown last November, and the arrival of the Alpha (Kent) variant that things can explode again. 

Plus a huge chunk of the reason I started telling people here not to be surprised if the peak came earlier than they expected, was what happened with Scotland. And its always sensible to factor in school holidays as the large factor they surely are, because they arent just about transmission in school, they affect a lot of adult behaviour and mixing patterns. A rather large number of people already having been infected in this wave, and a rather large number of people being told to self-isolate should also make quite a difference, as will have the very different mood music of recent weeks. And the better weather.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

There are also questions in my mind about how long the very steepest parts of upward growth curves can actually be maintained once they've reached that almost vertical incline.


----------



## editor (Jul 26, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Would the fall in umbers have anything to do with Schools breaking up and the resultant fall in testing of children who were after all making up a large proportion of cases?


From the same spurce:


----------



## Chz (Jul 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Really?
> 
> I thought most broke up last week, certainly both East Sussex & West Sussex schools broke up on  Fri. 23/7, and likewise both Kent & Surrey schools broke up on Thur. 22/7.


LBSutton it was the 21st (well, 22nd but it's an inset day). Or would have been for us, but the Boy was already self-isolating.


----------



## andysays (Jul 26, 2021)

killer b said:


> most of England broke up on the 16th


OK, reading the responses, it appears there's some variation.

I assumed everywhere in England was roughly the same, but apologies for the misleading post.

Maybe there is a school holiday effect beginning, though I still think it's probably too early.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

Out of curiosity Im going to check exactly when I started going on about the potential for a peak that was earlier than many expected, just in case it reminds me of some useful factor.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 26, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Pissing on the memory of the dead.
> 
> View attachment 280596



Fucking hell. Was Clive Sinclair unavailable?


----------



## Wilf (Jul 26, 2021)

I notice the govt are floating the idea of university students needing the jab before coming onto campus/halls, having said that wasn't the case earlier in the day. I won't link to it as I think it was some right wing paper I saw it in.  So, the politics of our government are currently a mix of bullish, anti-'cowering' libertarianism along with hints of enforced vaccine passports to offset the damage done in the rest of their approach. World beating.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I notice the govt are floating the idea of university students needing the jab before coming onto campus/halls, having said that wasn't the case earlier in the day. I won't link to it as I think it was some right wing paper I saw it in.  So, the politics of our government are currently a mix of bullish, anti-'cowering' libertarianism along with hints of enforced vaccine passports to offset the damage done in the rest of their approach. World beating.



Similar reason as stuff like getting Gareth Southgate to promote vaccination - they arent too happy with the uptake in younger age groups.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> Out of curiosity Im going to check exactly when I started going on about the potential for a peak that was earlier than many expected, just in case it reminds me of some useful factor.



Looks like it was around July 7th-8th that I started going on about these early peak possibilities. Which means my thoughts were largely driven by the picture that was emerging in data from Scotland by that date. No crystal ball or other interesting sources.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I notice the govt are floating the idea of university students needing the jab before coming onto campus/halls, having said that wasn't the case earlier in the day. I won't link to it as I think it was some right wing paper I saw it in.  So, the politics of our government are currently a mix of bullish, anti-'cowering' libertarianism along with hints of enforced vaccine passports to offset the damage done in the rest of their approach. World beating.



Well summed up.

Apparently Johnson is fuming, fuming I tell you, at how many young people haven't had a jab, not that they couldn't have spotted that one coming down the line, when so many polls showed a higher level of hesitantly, as you work down the age groups. 

Yet they didn't get any real messaging out to help solve that, when it was needed months ago, instead they waited until it unfolded, and are now throwing their toys out of their pram, and making all sorts of threats over covid passports.


----------



## Spandex (Jul 26, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Pissing on the memory of the dead.
> 
> View attachment 280596


Is that same Thomas Heatherwick that designed Johnson's folly, the new Routemaster?

The same Thomas Heatherwick that was paid £2.76m for designing Johnson's other folly, the Garden Bridge that never was?

That Thomas Heatherwick?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 26, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Is that same Thomas Heatherwick that designed Johnson's folly, the new Routemaster?
> 
> The same Thomas Heatherwick that was paid £2.76m for designing Johnson's other folly, the Garden Bridge that never was?
> 
> That Thomas Heatherwick?



The guy who designed a monument in New York that had to be shut because to many people were busy jumping off it. The one who designed a spikey ball of death for 1.5 million quid that fell to bits.

Yes that one.

Certain people in this country only ever fail upwards and I kind of wish I was one of them because I could do with the cash.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 26, 2021)

Seems a little unfair to Heatherwick to hold him responsible for all of these things.


----------



## Spandex (Jul 26, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Seems a little unfair to Heatherwick to hold him responsible for all of these things.


Probably. I quite like his East Beach Cafe in Littlehampton. About the most interesting thing in LA.

He does seem to be Johnson's go to guy for designing publicly funded things.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

This attempt at an article explaining peak stuff contains plenty of useful data about lag and timing of data vs reality. But it dodges the possibility of their being a simple peak by going on about multiple hills, rather ignoring whats happened in Scotland so far.

There certainly could be multiple hills, but thats not the only possibility.









						Has England reached a peak in Covid infections? | Graham Medley
					

Expect a range of hills rather than a single mountain, says Graham Medley, chair of the Sage sub-group on pandemic modelling




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 26, 2021)

24,950 new cases reported today, bringing the 7-day average down by -21.6%, that figure was -15.4% yesterday.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 26, 2021)

As shown in the Guardian live feed:


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 26, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Pissing on the memory of the dead.
> 
> View attachment 280596



There already is a Covid memorial in London. It's proper public art, made by the public for the public. It's the wall of hearts by the Thames, near St Thomas' Hospital.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 26, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Seems a little unfair to Heatherwick to hold him responsible for all of these things.



Except that he is responsible, he designed them.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 26, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Except that he is responsible, he designed them.


Responsible for what exactly?


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

brogdale said:


> As shown in the Guardian live feed:



I think it took about a week after the peak in positive cases detected for Scotlands percentage positive to peak and then start to come down.

I dont mess around with such figures myself much but I'll see if I can extract anything useful in that regard from the data I do play with.

Meanwhile I note that Scotlands number of Covid patients in intensive care has continued to increase, no signs of a drop in that yet.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 26, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> There already is a Covid memorial in London. It's proper public art, made by the public for the public. It's the wall of hearts by the Thames, near St Thomas' Hospital.
> 
> View attachment 280636


"*Public* art"? How's anyone going to make any money out of that???


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 26, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Responsible for what exactly?



For them. The things he designed.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jul 26, 2021)

.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> I think it took about a week after the peak in positive cases detected for Scotlands percentage positive to peak and then start to come down.
> 
> I dont mess around with such figures myself much but I'll see if I can extract anything useful in that regard from the data I do play with.
> 
> Meanwhile I note that Scotlands number of Covid patients in intensive care has continued to increase, no signs of a drop in that yet.


Yep...



> A total of 5,055 patients were in hospital on 26 July, according to the latest figures from NHS England. *This is up 33% from the previous week, and is the highest since 18 March.*
> 
> All regions of England have seen week-on-week increases in patients, with London up 48% from 647 to 957, and the Midlands up 31% from 730 to 959.
> 
> The combined area of north-east England and Yorkshire continues to record the highest number of any region, with 1,152 Covid-19 patients on July 26, up 36% week-on-week.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 26, 2021)

existentialist said:


> "*Public* art"? How's anyone going to make any money out of that???



Tourists? They seem to like visiting places where there is public (outdoor) art.

And yes I do know you were being sarcastic, but honestly I think planners and those in power unvalue public art at their peril. Not just financially, of course.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Yep...


Not really sure what recent figures for England have to do with my point about intensive care cases in Scotland to be honest.

Hospital & ICU figures always keep rising for a short while after admissions start to decline. A clear and sustained decline in admissions for England has not been seen yet, so I wouldnt expect the other hospital figures to drop yet. My point about Scotland is slightly different - their ICU cases are still going up despite an apparent admissions peak already having happened, and their peak in positive cases was much earlier than Englands.


----------



## elbows (Jul 26, 2021)

brogdale said:


> As shown in the Guardian live feed:



OK Ive had a look to see if I can calculate my own positivity figures using other data that is available from the dashboard download section. Sort of, I can get figures that are broadly in the right range that move in the right direction at about the right time, but they dont quite match up to the figures they calculate themselves, so I wont be publishing graphs of my version.

Anyway my figures for that are starting to drop, and the official ones on the dashboard are just starting to show signs of dropping too. And unlesss there is a sudden change to the number of positive cases coming through the system this week, the drop in percentage positivity should end up being quite noticeable quite soon.


----------



## thismoment (Jul 26, 2021)

.


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

The dispicable fuckers at the Telegraph are now trying to get the figures regarding how many Covid patients were hospitalised for non-Covid reasons released. I wouldn't mind seeing those figures myself, but the Telegraph have their own disgusting pandemic stance motives for wanting them.

I noticed via tomorrows front pages the following article where they try to pile on pressure by talking about some different data that has apparently been leaked to them. This data gives some indication of when people tested positive, which is related to what they are really after but not at all the same thing. So the article has to do some twists and turns to serve their agenda.









						Exclusive: Over half of Covid hospitalisations tested positive after admission
					

Leaked data suggest vast numbers classed as being hospitalised by the virus when they were admitted with other ailments




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				




They've got a figure of 44% of covid patients having tested positive in the 14 days before they were admitted. 43% testing positive within 2 days of admission, and the remaining 13% testing positive outside that timeframe, which they acknowledge will include people who catch the virus in hospital.

Those figures dont surprise me, and via that data leak the Telegraph still has no idea how many of the 43% + 13% were actually in hospital for non-covid reasons, so they have to dig up people like Carl Heneghan to make noises that support their agenda.

Also to support their shit they make it sound like if a large number of people were hospitalised for other reasons and just happened to have Covid then this would magically make the burden on the NHS less than the routine data implies. As opposed to the reality of such patients simply being a different aspect of pandemic shit the NHS has to deal with at some cost to its capacity and ability to treat everyone safely.

I've read enough Telegraph pandemic articles to know that they often employ logic that other media wont touch with a bargepole, but if this sinister emphasis spreads wider then I can still fall back on number of patients who have tested positive and are in mechanical ventilation beds. That isnt necessarily a completely 'pure' statistic either, but I dont really need to know the medical case history of each person receiving that level of care to know that its very bad news for them to be in mechanical ventilation beds and have covid at the same time.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jul 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> The dispicable fuckers at the Telegraph are now trying to get the figures regarding how many Covid patients were hospitalised for non-Covid reasons released. I wouldn't mind seeing those figures myself, but the Telegraph have their own disgusting pandemic stance motives for wanting them.


The method of reporting Covid deaths as "within 28 days of a positive result" does seem almost designed to make you suspicious of exactly how many of those people were run over or otherwise died for non-Covid reasons. Would be nice if the data _felt _cleaner somehow.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 27, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> The method of reporting Covid deaths as "within 28 days of a positive result" does seem almost designed to make you suspicious of exactly how many of those people were run over or otherwise died for non-Covid reasons. Would be nice if the data _felt _cleaner somehow.



The "within 28 days of a positive result" figures are a method of gathering data quickly, whilst it may capture a small number of people that died from totally unrelated reasons to covid, it will also miss some that weren't tested, the figure since mass testing has been available, are similar to the number of people with covid on their death certificate, suggesting it is a good proxy.

There's some lag in reporting the figures for 'covid on their death certificate', but they are on the dashboard* for all to see, but that lag means only fairly accurate 7-day averages are currently only going up to 18th June.

Death certificates are filled out by medical professionals who may take covid test results into account, but are not required to include covid as a cause of death if it isn’t relevant to the death of someone, so will exclude non-covid related deaths, such as being run over.

* scroll down here - https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths


----------



## Chilli.s (Jul 27, 2021)

What with the 28 days and the only counted the first time it seems that the figures on the dashboard are much less useful than they were


----------



## Chz (Jul 27, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Except that he is responsible, he designed them.


He's responsible for the exterior and interior look of the New Bus for London. And, quite frankly, it's pretty good in that respect. It's the _engineering_ of the design that blows goats. Someone took the drawings, said "That looks great! How can we fuck it up?" and went to it. That's not Heatherwick's fault.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 27, 2021)

Chz said:


> He's responsible for the exterior and interior look of the New Bus for London. And, quite frankly, it's pretty good in that respect. It's the _engineering_ of the design that blows goats. Someone took the drawings, said "That looks great! How can we fuck it up?" and went to it. That's not Heatherwick's fault.


Likewise the bits falling off the spiky thing was down to a manufacturing defect.

And it's not Heatherwick who determines what projects Boris Johnson spends money on.


----------



## belboid (Jul 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Likewise the bits falling off the spiky thing was down to a manufacturing defect.
> 
> And it's not Heatherwick who determines what projects Boris Johnson spends money on.


It was a design flaw, which is why his company had to pay Manchester council £1.7m.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 27, 2021)

belboid said:


> It was a design flaw, which is why his company had to pay Manchester council £1.7m.


Heatherwick's company did not do the structural engineering, nor did it carry out the welding. It looks like the structural engineer and contractor were subcontractors to Heatherwick, so his company will have paid out to Manchester council but it will almost certainly have reclaimed most of that from its subcontractors.

Like the routemaster, flaws were in the engineering, which is not what Heatherwick does.


----------



## belboid (Jul 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Heatherwick's company did not do the structural engineering, nor did it carry out the welding. It looks like the structural engineer and contractor were subcontractors to Heatherwick, so his company will have paid out to Manchester council but it will almost certainly have reclaimed most of that from its subcontractors.
> 
> Like the routemaster, flaws were in the engineering, which is not what Heatherwick does.


His company paid the fine.  He designed something that could not be built for anything like the price quoted.  That is poor design.  Quite possibly true for the routemaster too.  Looking great is worthless if it can’t be built.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Jul 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Seems a little unfair to Heatherwick to hold him responsible for all of these things.


No it doesn't, he's shit... Probably because he's from London.


----------



## Saul Goodman (Jul 27, 2021)

belboid said:


> His company paid the fine.  He designed something that could not be built for anything like the price quoted.  That is poor design.  Quite possibly true for the routemaster too.  Looking great is worthless if it can’t be built.


How shit a designer do you have to be to design multiple things that either can't be built or fall to pieces once built.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 27, 2021)

belboid said:


> His company paid the fine.  He designed something that could not be built for anything like the price quoted.  That is poor design.  Quite possibly true for the routemaster too.  Looking great is worthless if it can’t be built.


He sounds like _exactly _the sort of person Johnson would hire...


----------



## Chz (Jul 27, 2021)

Saul Goodman said:


> How shit a designer do you have to be to design multiple things that either can't be built or fall to pieces once built.


He's designed dozens of things all around the world, one of which has fallen apart due to substandard construction because, yes, it was difficult to build (in the UK, at least - there've been some pretty challenging builds elsewhere with fewer problems). You have to remember he's not an architect, he comes up with things that get handed off to architects to realise. You can debate about whether that's wanky or not 'til the cows come home, but I happen to like a number of his projects.


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 27, 2021)

Do we want/need a separate thread about Heatherwick?

Because I have things to say, but don't want to derail this thread any further.


----------



## belboid (Jul 27, 2021)

Chz said:


> He's designed dozens of things all around the world, one of which has fallen apart due to substandard construction because, yes, it was difficult to build (in the UK, at least - there've been some pretty challenging builds elsewhere with fewer problems). You have to remember he's not an architect, he comes up with things that get handed off to architects to realise. You can debate about whether that's wanky or not 'til the cows come home, but I happen to like a number of his projects.


His company employs architects, as well as engineers and others who work out if the design is feasible.  So you can’t really use that as an excuse.  

(I like the rolling bridge, but that thing in littlehsmpton looks well shit)


----------



## existentialist (Jul 27, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Do we want/need a separate thread about Heatherwick?
> 
> Because I have things to say, but don't want to derail this thread any further.


It'd probably fit quite nicely on the Tory sleaze thread...


----------



## Saul Goodman (Jul 27, 2021)

existentialist said:


> He sounds like _exactly _the sort of person Johnson would hire...


Posh boy attends one of the most expensive schools in the country. Goes on to become shit designer who has taxpayer money thrown at him by fellow Tories. 
Nothing to see here.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 27, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Do we want/need a separate thread about Heatherwick?
> 
> Because I have things to say, but don't want to derail this thread any further.


Go for it with a new thread - it's rather off topic here.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Apparently Johnson is fuming, fuming I tell you, at how many young people haven't had a jab, not that they couldn't have spotted that one coming down the line, when so many polls showed a higher level of hesitantly, as you work down the age groups.
> 
> Yet they didn't get any real messaging out to help solve that, when it was needed months ago, instead they waited until it unfolded, and are now throwing their toys out of their pram, and making all sorts of threats over covid passports.



Now if this is true, and it does make a lot of sense, it is indeed down to Johnson fuming at the low uptake in jabs amongst the younger folk, and the threat of covid passports, something they probably know will not get past parliament, or certainly not the current proposal, and are basically just a knee-jerk reaction, to push people into getting jabbed 



> The vaccine passports plan for nightclubs was forced through despite a majority of ministers calling for it to be postponed at a meeting just hours before it was announced, it has emerged.
> 
> The Telegraph can disclose that widespread concerns have been raised in the Cabinet after Boris Johnson last week stated that people attending nightclubs would be required by law to be double jabbed by the end of September.
> 
> Following the announcement on July 19, multiple sources have claimed that the policy was “railroaded” through at a Cabinet Covid O subcommittee meeting, which took place earlier that day.





> It is understood that during the discussion, a “majority” of those taking part raised concerns over the timing of the announcement, as well as fears over equalities legislation and the potential risk of legal action against venues.
> 
> Another source said that “every member of the meeting”, with the exception of Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, and Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary - who all reportedly spoke in favour - called for the announcement of the policy to be postponed.



And, so the reason...



> Those advocating for the plan are said to have argued that *there was a need to drive up vaccine uptake among 18 to 30-year-olds*. There are currently three million people in this age group who have failed to take up the offer of a first jab.





> Recounting last week’s meeting, one senior minister involved said: “Quite a few of us are okay with passports. However, the rush was not okay and as a consequence there were things that needed to be ironed out that weren’t.
> 
> “There has been no assessment, no legal advice … they haven’t provided it to other committee members. That’s what is frustrating.
> 
> ...











						Vaccine passports plan ‘railroaded through’ despite ministers’ concerns
					

Sources claim that the majority of ministers attending a Covid O meeting last week raised concerns over the policy, but were ignored




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Go for it with a new thread - it's rather off topic here.



Done.

Thread 'Thomas Heatherwick & National Covid Memorial' https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/thomas-heatherwick-national-covid-memorial.375492/


----------



## two sheds (Jul 27, 2021)

I find this a bit confusing









						People shielding five times more likely to die of Covid, Scottish study finds
					

High-risk individuals were still much more vulnerable to catching virus and dying in first wave of pandemic




					www.theguardian.com
				




So caught it from family members or delivery people or ...?


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

Chilli.s said:


> What with the 28 days and the only counted the first time it seems that the figures on the dashboard are much less useful than they were


Their usefulness hasnt really changed much but peoples perceptions change a bit as they learn the detail.

My perception of them hasnt really changed, although it would be foolish of me to claim that I know how many reinfections have been picked up and not reported there due to the current rules. I expect the number to be modest compared to the positive cases that do show up, but the nature of Delta and this wave means that they really should change the definition soon to include reinfections. The lack of testing in the first wave actually helps us with this, because many people infected in the first wave and the current wave will still show up in this waves positive case figures, because as far as the system is concerned this is the first time they've had it since they simply didnt have access to testing in the 1st wave.

As for deaths I'll do another post about that shortly.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 27, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Done.
> 
> Thread 'Thomas Heatherwick & National Covid Memorial' https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/thomas-heatherwick-national-covid-memorial.375492/


Link doesn't work.









						Thomas Heatherwick & National Covid Memorial
					

Ministers ask Heatherwick for ideas to help nation mourn  "Thomas Heatherwick has been asked by the government to advise on how to commemorate the pandemic and help the nation mourn. The designer met Cabinet Office minister Chloe Smith earlier this year for what a spokesperson termed an...




					www.urban75.net


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I find this a bit confusing
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Should be very careful interpreting the results of that due to the terribly limited testing in the first wave. Therefore in the first wave they were mostly picking up people who were really ill or required hospital treatment for other reasons, because thats the setting where testing was most likely to actually happen and the general population had very little access to tests during that period. I'll try to read the actual study rather than the Guardian writeup later.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 27, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I find this a bit confusing
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Does it include care home residents?


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The "within 28 days of a positive result" figures are a method of gathering data quickly, whilst it may capture a small number of people that died from totally unrelated reasons to covid, it will also miss some that weren't tested, the figure since mass testing has been available, are similar to the number of people with covid on their death certificate, suggesting it is a good proxy.
> 
> There's some lag in reporting the figures for 'covid on their death certificate', but they are on the dashboard* for all to see, but that lag means only fairly accurate 7-day averages are currently only going up to 18th June.
> 
> ...



Its been a while since I went on about this so I'll provide some indicative figures again now. And as usual I will state that I would expect death certificates to underestimate Covid deaths too, although the extent of that will have varied over time.

Figures are for the UK as a whole.

Where I say '60 day deaths' this is actually me replacing the figures for England dying within 28 days of a positive test, with figures for England within 60 days of a positive test. I cannot repeat this for the other nations as the data isnt available or they used other criteria in the first place.

Dates I'm using:
Wave 1 - March 2020 till end of August 2020.
Wave 2 - September 1st 2020 till end of May 2021. (Was actually 2 waves rolled into one in most places, pre-Alpha and Alpha, but cant separate them properly)
Wave 3 - June 1st 2021 onwards.

Wave 1:
28 day deaths: 41,648
60 day deaths: 45,607
Death certificate deaths: 57,893

Wave 2:
28 day deaths: 86,210
60 day deaths: 100,433
Death certificate deaths: 95,799

Wave 3:
28 day deaths: 1,314
60 day deaths: 1,574
Death certificate deaths: 966 (lags further behind the other measures)

Totals so far:
28 day deaths: 129,172
60 day deaths: 147,614
Death certificate deaths: 154,658

My figures may vary a little from those shown on dashboards due to the way I use figures by date of death rather than by reporting date, and other tedious details.

I would also factor in that in the first wave it was possible to use excess deaths as a guide, and there may have been around 65,000 of those in that period. We could argue for a long time about how many of those were Covid deaths, but I would certainly use that figure to suggest that death certificate figures did not capture the full death burden during that wave.

Overall when combining different figures, I would not like to claim that there have been less than 160,000 Covid-related deaths in the UK so far.


----------



## NoXion (Jul 27, 2021)

I know this is from a while back, but...



elbows said:


> Remember, remember the fifth wave of Covember.



Lung-power, wheezing, and snot.


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

I see the media, various experts and the government are in a quandry about the current situation.

Governments dont usually like to go on about being past the peak until there has been a clear and sustained fall in hospitalisations. But because whats happened does not fit with the expectations they set publicly, they are forced to say things now. Also they will be nervous because experts have probably told them that the nature and geographical uniformity of the recent falls is not indicative of an effect thats purely down to immunity. Which means human behaviour is a big part of the mix, causing the likes of Johnson to have to take the following stance because if people relax then fortunes could in theory be reversed:









						Covid: UK cases fall for seventh day in a row
					

Despite falling numbers, the PM is urging people to "remain cautious" and "not jump to conclusions".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




And then we have articles like this one, which begins 'Who thought we would be here, now?'









						Covid: Have we passed the peak and can we relax?
					

Nobody really expected cases to fall so fast in the UK, so what does it mean for getting back to normal?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I cannot claim that I thought we would be here now, but I can certainly claim that I didnt rule the possibility out and tried to draw peoples attention to this scenario in recent weeks. So the question I would ask is different, it is 'Why did all these people who came out with simple positions not pay more attention to what happened in Scotland?'. Now they are scrabbling around, not quite sure what position to adopt, and with public trust that any experts know what will happen next eroded.

I have no idea what will happen next. It could be messy, it could be simple. A resurgence might not come, or it might not come until schools are back. Or things could start to rise again within days or weeks. I'm certainly not at all surprised that a combination of the Euros ending, self-isolation, other disruption, schools ending and people acting appropriately in response to the step 4 delay and gloomier mood music of July, and better weather for a time, made a real difference. But that doesnt offer me all that many clues about what will happen next on the behaviour front either.

Nor do I really know how long the tory government will manage to maintain cautious rhetoric, when the shift to gloating about success may emerge.

I didnt like the very end of that 2nd BBC piece by the way, "But for now, it looks like we're in a better position than we've ever been.". I know what they mean but I consider it inappropriate to express it in that way given the current level of daily hospitalisations.


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

Oh some Nick Triggle analysis was added to that piece about Johnson since I wrote the above, but he mostly says the same sort of thing as me anyway in regards why Johnson hasnt been celebratory so far.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 27, 2021)

i remember you saying elbows cases could come down quicker than expected
and even a few weeks back there were some local figures - Bolton IIRC? - where cases went high and came down again quickly as the virus ran through younger people and then seemed to run out of hosts because of vaccination on older population?
whats the hypothesis for whats happening here with this sharp drop?


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 27, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I find this a bit confusing
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"Advised to shield" - they may not have been able to do it, e.g. if they still needed to go into work or were living in the same household as people not shielding.

We know that the first wave hit deprived areas hardest, where people are also more likely to have health conditions, and be living in overcrowded or unsuitable accomodation.

Also may have been hospital acquired infections.

And as others have said, tests were only available for those displaying symptoms. Symptoms are more likely to be bad for shielding groups.

Lots of possible things could have undermined shielding. Which is why people should wear masks!


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

ska invita said:


> i remember you saying elbows cases could come down quicker than expected
> and even a few weeks back there were some local figures - Bolton IIRC? - where cases went high and came down again quickly as the virus ran through younger people and then seemed to run out of hosts because of vaccination on older population?
> whats the hypothesis for whats happening here with this sharp drop?


Bolton was misused by those whose agenda means they wanted to 'prove' that population immunity levels were responsible for the drop there.

They soon stopped going on about Bolton because it stopped serving their narrative, since cases went back up again there (see        #40,983      )

The picture is messy and complicated. Its likely a combination of multiple factors, very much including behaviour when confronted by a bad situation and dire warnings about how bad things could get. What happens next may offer more clues about whats happened recently. I expect really huge numbers of people being told to self-isolate helped. As did the weather, the end of the Euros, the end of university term and the end of school term.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Bolton was misused by those whose agenda means they wanted to 'prove' that population immunity levels were responsible for the drop there.
> 
> They soon stopped going on about Bolton because it stopped serving their narrative, since cases went back up again there (see        #40,983      )
> 
> The picture is messy and complicated. Its likely a combination of multiple factors, very much including behaviour when confronted by a bad situation and dire warnings about how bad things could get. What happens next may offer more clues about whats happened recently. I expect really huge numbers of people being told to self-isolate helped. As did the weather, the end of the Euros, the end of university term and the end of school term.


...and who knows, maybe all those pings worked!

Cheers elbows


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> 24,950 new cases reported today, bringing the 7-day average down by -21.6%, that figure was -15.4% yesterday.



23,511 today, down -30.8%*. 

ETA- * 7-day average


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 27, 2021)

Is it possible that cases are, in general, rising, but that the big peak (and now decline) we've seen thus far was a temporary artifact of the football?


----------



## editor (Jul 27, 2021)

Interesting piece here



> While anecdotal accounts of breakthrough infections can make such cases feel widespread, the real numbers have remained small and were generally in line with expectations, experts said. “There’s no such thing as a perfect vaccine . . . with Covid it’s no different,” said Professor William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.
> 
> The yellow fever jab, for example, is widely understood to be the most effective live-virus vaccine ever invented, with a single dose generating long-lasting immunity in 98 per cent of those vaccinated. But even that means that on average 2 per cent of people will still get infected.
> 
> Phase 3 trials for most of the leading Covid-19 jabs showed an efficacy against symptomatic infection of more than 90 per cent. Real-world studies of effectiveness in the UK, Israel and Canada suggest that vaccines are displaying a slightly lower effectiveness outside of the trial environment, probably because of the spread of the more vaccine-resistant Delta variant. Estimates put protection against symptomatic infection, depending on the vaccine, at between 60-90 per cent.









__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


----------



## _Russ_ (Jul 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> 23,511 today, down -30.8%.


Im not good with figures but going from 24,950 to 23,511 isnt a 30% drop, so the 30% is something else? im missing something??


----------



## Artaxerxes (Jul 27, 2021)

Saul Goodman said:


> How shit a designer do you have to be to design multiple things that either can't be built or fall to pieces once built.



He designed a bus with windows that didn't open.

But it wasn't his fault.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 27, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Im not good with figures but going from 24,950 to 23,511 isnt a 30% drop, so the 30% is something else? im missing something??



The 7-day average is down -30.8%, sorry that wasn't clear.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 27, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Is it possible that cases are, in general, rising, but that the big peak (and now decline) we've seen thus far was a temporary artifact of the football?



I don't think so. In that if there's a general rise excluding the football effect, ie R is above 1 anyway, then once the football was done then that rate would continue to apply to the previous cases - so including the rise caused by the football. I don't think there's any mechanism by which those ones would just fall away without leading to increasing cases while other cases kept on rising.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 27, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Is it possible that cases are, in general, rising, but that the big peak (and now decline) we've seen thus far was a temporary artifact of the football?


Probably not. The fall is across all age groups.

If we think of it like a fire burning through a forest, the faster it spreads then the quicker it reaches its maximum.

Delta spreads much more quickly than Alpha, so it's not crazy to assume that it would peak more quickly.

I'm not ruling out a second peak in the same wave, but to be honest at this point I don't think it's that likely. 

I think the next peak will be in autumn or winter when respiratory viruses normally thrive.


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

At this particular stage my stance is to be deliberately unsure about everything and not to have a strong opinion on what will happen next.

I suppose there are ways that football can start a fire which diminishes once the football socialising ends, as opposed to just carrying on buning ever greater numbers of people. Some percentage of spread involves dead ends, as we see when particular versions of this virus end up going extinct. So the underlying realiies are likely far more complex and messy than the simplified pictures we usually think about.

I only rely on positive test numbers during certain stages of waves, and we are into the period where for England my attention starts to shift far more to hospital figures instead. So far hospital admissions are still following the usual pattern (eg 2 days a week numbers in the North East drop and then go higher again), The next 3 days of admissions data will be my first proper opportunity to start looking for any signs of a peak in admissions, but it may take longer.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 27, 2021)

Ok this is nuts








						Zoe Health Study - COVID Data
					

COVID infection & vaccination rates in the UK today, based on public data and reports from millions of users of the ZOE Health Study app




					covid.joinzoe.com
				




That's more than twice the official figure!


----------



## teuchter (Jul 27, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Ok this is nuts
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You're not comparing like with like. The Zoe study is an estimate of infections (tested or not) that is extrapolated from their sample of the population. The official figures only tell us the number of positive tests.


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

Yeah ZOE is trying to do the same sort of things as the weekly ONS infection survey and the REACT study.

Plus ZOE changed their methodology not so long ago and I dont currently know what to make of their figures really.


----------



## LDC (Jul 27, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Ok this is nuts
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
My completely unproven suspicion is that the ZOE figures are in part picking up the upsurge in non-covid respiratory illnesses that are widespread at the moment as they have much wider symptom criteria than just the cough/smell/fever ones.


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> My completely unproven suspicion is that the ZOE figures are in part picking up the upsurge in non-covid respiratory illnesses that are widespread at the moment as they have much wider symptom criteria than just the cough/smell/fever ones.


But that upsurge started ages ago including in a period where their figures were too low, forcing them to change their methodology. Maybe I am wrong about this though, its just my first thought.

And actual testing forms some part of their study.

Problems they have certainly include the fact they dont have enough users from every part of society, and they have so many vaccinated users that they may struggle to have enough data from the unvaccinated population.


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

I know percentage positivity came up here in the last day or so. Its started dropping more obviously in the data now.


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

Updated analysis of vaccines and hospitalisations, based on the data that came out last week.









						How many COVID patients in hospital are vaccinated? An update.
					

An update on the breakdown of COVID-19 hospital admissions between the unvaccinated, partly vaccinated and fully vaccinated.




					www.covid-arg.com


----------



## elbows (Jul 27, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Probably not. The fall is across all age groups.


By the way falls in older age groups are happening a little later than younger ones, which is expected.

This is probably seen most clearly on the dashboard via the graphs they have for cases above and below 60, once you drill down to England, its regions, or individual places in England. Those graphs are laggy because they wait to make sure positive results data from the last 5 days of specimen dates are pretty much complete first. So in some places the over 60s still shows a rise or a plateau, the drop is starting to show in some places graphs but not others.


----------



## Aladdin (Jul 28, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I find this a bit confusing
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Frightening.  

Were many of them in nursing homes?


----------



## BillRiver (Jul 28, 2021)

Sugar Kane said:


> Frightening.
> 
> Were many of them in nursing homes?



I'm guessing also some were in their own homes but with paid care staff coming in?

My mate has that. She is visited by carers 3 times a day. In the first few months of the pandemic last year her carers were given no PPE, and were travelling around the Borough of Camden by bus, visiting vulnerable clients. Eventually they were given some PPE, but they remained reliant on buses.

Her carers can't distance from her as she needs them for personal care.


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 28, 2021)

Quarantine rules now eased for fully vaccinated arrivals from the US and EU, though the G20 country with the highest vaccination rate is being excluded for some reason.



			https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-not-exempt-uk-quarantine-1.6120715


----------



## editor (Jul 28, 2021)

It's still shockingly but at least it's going in the right direction


----------



## _Russ_ (Jul 28, 2021)

Petrol station and local shop by me now have staff not wearing masks, none of them.
Isnt it still the law that they should in Wales?, about 50% of customers also maskless and my area now has over 200 cases per 100,000 daily...pisses me right off I want to punch someone


----------



## _Russ_ (Jul 28, 2021)

editor said:


> It's still shockingly but at least it's going in the right direction
> 
> View attachment 280950


I still  think its mostly down to reduced testing and other shenanigans but its hard to tell the Welsh figures only show cumulative testing so unless you make a note of figures every day you cant see the daily/weekly/monthly numbers


----------



## Cloo (Jul 29, 2021)

It seems to me that at least 50% of people are not launching back into 'life as usual' - I gather 'worst case' figures were more based on everyone doing that. There's probably a certain amount of unconscious, natural lag in getting back to normal socialising, and there's definitely no mass return to office. I think a lot of people are going 'I won't do X while cases are so high' - especially as people are wanting to go on holiday, and I think quite a lot people are semi-isolating in the weeks before, as in avoiding the tube, crowded situations etc before going. People can be stupid, but I think most are smart enough to see cases are still high and if they can avoid certain situations, they should.

 Notably seen a few friends offering theatre tickets for sale this week - I'm guessing they bought back in May and are maybe thinking better of it sitting in a theatre for two hours (daughter & sacrificed a trip last night for this reason).


----------



## editor (Jul 29, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I still  think its mostly down to reduced testing and other shenanigans but its hard to tell the Welsh figures only show cumulative testing so unless you make a note of figures every day you cant see the daily/weekly/monthly numbers


There's still plenty of testing going on. In fact the UK are one of the world leaders in terms of daily testing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 29, 2021)

Testing is down, from around 1m a day to around 800k a day in the last week or so, much of that will do with schools breaking-up & pupils not doing the regular tests, so that must play a role in the number of new reported cases dropping.

I was cautiously optimistic about the numbers dropping, but I am more suspicious now, the 7-day averages dropped by -15.4% on Sunday, and yesterday it was down by -36.1%, more than double the rate in just 4 days. 

And, I am not the only one -



> The decrease in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases released by the government each day "looks a bit fishy", according to a leading symptoms researcher whose study has shown infections are on the rise.
> 
> Professor Tim Spector, who co-founded the ZOE COVID Symptom Study app, said a "sudden drop" in people testing positive for the virus in the government's data is "very suspicious".
> 
> His study has shown around one in 84 people are contracting the virus every day, which is roughly 60,000, whereas latest government figures released on Wednesday suggest 27,734 tested positive in the last 24 hours.



I believe the ZOE app has proven itself over time, so I think it's worth reading the full report.









						COVID-19: UK's daily coronavirus data 'looks a bit fishy' - as major symptom study suggests cases on the rise
					

Professor Spector, the man behind the ZOE COVID Symptom Study, says reduced coronavirus testing and the impact of the "pingdemic" could be behind the "suspicious" drop in the number of daily cases recorded by the government.




					news.sky.com


----------



## hattie (Jul 29, 2021)

elbows Your updates on this thread have become essential reading for me - I really appreciate the time and effort you put into keeping us informed


----------



## teuchter (Jul 29, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Testing is down, from around 1m a day to around 800k a day in the last week or so, much of that will do with schools breaking-up & pupils not doing the regular tests, so that must play a role in the number of new reported cases dropping.
> 
> I was cautiously optimistic about the numbers dropping, but I am more suspicious now, the 7-day averages dropped by -15.4% on Sunday, and yesterday it was down by -36.1%, more than double the rate in just 4 days.
> 
> ...


Rubbish journalism in that article as usual - it says



> His study has shown around one in 84 people are contracting the virus every day, which is roughly 60,000, whereas *latest government figures* released on Wednesday suggest 27,734 tested positive in the last 24 hours.
> 
> Of the roughly 60,000 testing positive according to ZOE data, 36,000 of those are unvaccinated and 24,000 have received at least one dose.



The "60,000 testing positive" according to ZOE aren't that - that's the ZOE estimate of how many people are infected, and that will include some people who've not had a test.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 29, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Rubbish journalism in that article as usual - it says
> 
> 
> 
> The "60,000 testing positive" according to ZOE aren't that - that's the ZOE estimate of how many people are infected, and that will include some people who've not had a test.



Yep, that was sloppy, ZOE's figures are always an estimate.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 29, 2021)

The government are not releasing the age profile of the people taking Covid tests? Is that what he means? If so, astonishing.


> He said: "Looking at our own data, there's a suggestion that we are seeing a reduction in the cases of the young and so they have been largely driving these figures for the last month or so, and that could be that less young people are getting tested.
> 
> "*We are not able to easily get those government figures*, but if the proportion of young people being tested is going down and older people is going up, that could explain this change."


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

hattie said:


> elbows Your updates on this thread have become essential reading for me - I really appreciate the time and effort you put into keeping us informed


Thanks very much!

I have temporarily run low on things to say. But there are probably a couple of things I can come up with today. Nothing thats going to change peoples sense of the current picture though I dont think.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

Wilf said:


> The government are not releasing the age profile of the people taking Covid tests? Is that what he means? If so, astonishing.


Data is available for the ages of those testing positive, as opposed to those tested. And can see percentage positivity in different age groups via things like the weekly surveillance report. More on this later.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Data is available for the ages of those testing positive, as opposed to those tested. And can see percentage positivity in different age groups via things like the weekly surveillance report. More on this later.


Ta.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

Spector is right in the sense that you shouldnt rely on the standard testing regime alone to give a sense of the picture.

I'd rather look for other sources for his words to see if the journalists left anything out. But before having done that, things I would add are:

The other population survey testing surveillance is important and fulfils a similar role to ZOE - weekly ONS infection survey and REACT studies.

I would listen to these people more if they talked more about Scotland and what has happened there, since Scotlands numbers also plummeted but are backed to a certain extent by later hospital admission figures.

Where is the campaign calling for the wastewater surveillance data for England to be made public? Scotland make some of this public. In SAGE and other documents from November last year they talked about putting a version of this data on the dashboard, but it hasnt happened. And this is important surveillance data that can provide something much closer to the true picture without having to worry about the extent to which the testing regime and peoples use of it has changed over time.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Data is available for the ages of those testing positive, as opposed to those tested. And can see percentage positivity in different age groups via things like the weekly surveillance report. More on this later.


This weeks surveillance report is available.

Here are percentage positivity by age group charts. I'm only showing the pillar 2 ones here, but pillar 1 is also available in the report.

That it fell in the 20-29 group and most other ages higher than that should provide a bit of reassurance that there is a real change beyond that which can be attributed to the testing system alone. Although clearly testing system stuff in relation to people under 20 is demonstrated by their positivity rates continuing to climb in this period.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1007250/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w30.pdf


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

From the same report we can see the effect of school holidays but also an increase in care home outbreaks. And although its not easy to see in this graph, an increase in hospital outbreaks.


----------



## ska invita (Jul 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> From the same report we can see the effect of school holidays...


I forgot about school hols...the sudden drop off overlays very neatly on school break ups - must be a factor


----------



## teuchter (Jul 29, 2021)

ska invita said:


> I forgot about school hols...the sudden drop off overlays very neatly on school break ups - must be a factor


But it appears to drop off in age groups older than school pupils, and it appears to drop off somewhat before end of term.

If school hols were the main factor (suddenly stopping transmission between under 20s) then you'd expect to see a drop off mainly in that age group first, and probably slightly after than the actual end of term. I think.


----------



## Riklet (Jul 29, 2021)

Things peaked then improved first in Scotland and then now gradually in England it seems. Yes the numbers are not constantly going down day by day now, but the general trend seems to be good. Did schools break up earlier there?

Personally I think combo of schools out, hot weather, greater herd immunity, vaccine protection, end of football, continuing social distancing, NHS pings/isolating are are all factors at play. Yes there is less testing but the decline in numbers in some areas cant be explained just by that .. numbers down 50% here in past 7 days for example, testing sure isnt.

numbers still high in 18-24s for example, where not all of these factors may apply so much.


----------



## Supine (Jul 29, 2021)

teuchter said:


> But it appears to drop off in age groups older than school pupils, and it appears to drop off somewhat before end of term.
> 
> If school hols were the main factor (suddenly stopping transmission between under 20s) then you'd expect to see a drop off mainly in that age group first, and probably slightly after than the actual end of term. I think.



apart from the fact a million kids were isolating before term ended…


----------



## Spandex (Jul 29, 2021)

Tuesday = 23,340 new cases
Wednesday = 27,572 new cases
Today = 31,117 new cases

I don't like the look of those figures


----------



## Riklet (Jul 29, 2021)

Weather crap again innit.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Tuesday = 23,340 new cases
> Wednesday = 27,572 new cases
> Today = 31,117 new cases
> 
> I don't like the look of those figures


It would have been incredibly unusual not to see such spikes in the positives by report date.

They have after all been a feature previously and their absence was perhaps an indicator of testing system issues being part of the decline shown. So in that sense its actually reassuring to see such spikes return.

However it is also too soon for me to confidently describe them as just being those spikes, depending on data in future days that might indicate something else at work.

Also I still prefer to look at cases by specimen date.

Either way it would be unusual if the extremely rapid rate of decline in the figures persisted. Things already fell so rapidly that people are scrambing for various explanations, and there was no reason to expect such a pace of decline to continue since that would quickly have resulted in an exceedingly low number of cases being achieved so rapidly as to lack credibility.

Positive cases for England by reporting date. Note the similar spikes/gaps in the previous wave and how we've seen unusually few of them in the downwards curve this time until recent days.



England positives by specimen date shows something vaguely familiar and are indicative of anything from a typical blip bump to signs that things are levelling off or at least the rate of decline is slowing. But as usual the most recent data, shown here in grey, is incomplete so we just have to wait and see.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

Daily hospital admissions/diagnoses are currently compatible with a peak/plateau having really been acieved earlier this month. It is still early days though so I maintain a degree of uncertainty about this until I see an obvious, sustained decline in hospital admission figures.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 29, 2021)

It's certainly tempting to read a levelling-off into the England number of patients in hospital graph



I'm not sure to what extent these figures tend to get added to retrospectively.


----------



## Spandex (Jul 29, 2021)

Obviously it's too soon to read anything into the rise in reported cases the last two days. Could be a blip, could be the start of something new. I've just liked looking at the rapidly falling new case numbers in the past week, whatever the causes. It is around now that we might expect to see the impact of the big reopening on the figures. Keep watching to see what happens next...


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's certainly tempting to read a levelling-off into the England number of patients in hospital graph
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not sure to what extent these figures tend to get added to retrospectively.


England does not retrospectively change such figures, at least not routinely. Other nations do at times retrospectively adjust certain hospital figures, sometimes continually.

Anyway it sounds like the data about why covid-positive people are in hospital which I've gone on about plenty, most recently because of a shit story in the Telegraph, has been made available. I have not looked at it yet, but here is the description from the page where it and other NHS data is made available in spreadsheet from:





__





						Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity
					

Health and high quality care for all,  <br />now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk
				






> A supplementary analysis of confirmed COVID-19 patients who are being treated primarily for COVID-19 can be found in the file below. Note that this covers acute providers only.
> 
> The majority of inpatients with Covid-19 are admitted as a result of the infection. A subset of those who contract Covid in the community and are asymptomatic, or exhibited relatively mild symptoms that on their own are unlikely to warrant admission to hospital, will then be admitted to hospital to be treated for something else and be identified through routine testing. However these patients still require their treatment in areas that are segregated from patients without Covid, and the presence of Covid can be a significant co-morbidity in many cases. Equally, while the admission may be due to another primary condition, in many instances this may have been as a result of contracting Covid in the community. For example research has shown that people with Covid are more likely to have a stroke (Stroke Association); in these cases people would be admitted for the stroke, classified as ‘with’ Covid despite having had a stroke as a result of having Covid.





> The headline published numbers in publications to date have been “inpatients with confirmed Covid” without differentiating between those in hospital “for” Covid and those in hospital “with” Covid. Recognising the combination of high community infections rates, with the reduced likelihood of admission for those who contract Covid in the community and are fully vaccinated, the Covid SitRep was enhanced to add a requirement for providers to distinguish between those being primarily treated ‘for’ Covid and those ‘with’ Covid but for whom the primary reason for being in hospital was non-Covid related. In practice this distinction is not always clear at the point of admission when the patient’s record has not been fully clinically coded. In light of this trusts have been asked to provide this “for” and “with” split on a ‘best endeavours’ basis.


Remember some of the stuff they say there if shitty media try to make shitty use of this data to serve their shitty pandemic agendas. Some of what they've felt the need to point out does read like the sort of thing I'd like to shout at the fucking Telegraph.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

OK I've quickly turned that brand new data into a graph. The proportions shown by this data dont reveal anything that would serve the Telegraphs awful agenda well, but I expect they will try anyway. Or they will cry about the 'best endeavours' basis of the data. Fuck the Telegraph. I dont think I will post this graph too often since to interpret it properly you absolutely have to pay attention to the text I quoted in my previous post, eg the stuff about people admitted for strokes.


----------



## brogdale (Jul 29, 2021)

Er...looks like we doom-mongers have got it all wrong?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 29, 2021)

A "minister" who didn't want to give their name for some weird reason.


----------



## existentialist (Jul 29, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> A "minister" who didn't want to give their name for some weird reason.


It's presumably likely to be one of the CRG swivel-eyed loons, isn't it?


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jul 29, 2021)

existentialist said:


> It's presumably likely to be one of the CRG swivel-eyed loons, isn't it?


Or somebody who just doesn't exist.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

Sinister minister without snortholio.


----------



## Yossarian (Jul 29, 2021)

Daily Mail: "Pingdemic chaos has brought the country to a STANDSTILL"

Also Daily Mail: "Pandemic declared OVER after case numbers go down for unknown reason"


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

The public inquiry should really feature a module where the Mail and Telegraph are burnt at the stake.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

As well as a rebuttal of that shit from the Mail, the latest from Van-Tam also featured estimates of what vaccines have achieved.

Previously I was quite happy to point such figures out, and although I am still happy to do so, I must point out that we are quite far into a period where these figures become quite silly in places. This is because they are looking at what would have happened with no vaccines and no lockdown. And its fair to say that by now if we hadnt had vaccines, we would have had another lockdown or not relaxed restrictions so much in the first place.

So we end up with figures like 22 million infections prevented, when actually we'd have found another way to prevent rather a lot of those happening, or else we would have faced utter doom.

I assume this is why even the BBC stats man says that the 60,000 deaths figure is 'a bit of an exaggeration'.









						Covid vaccines have prevented 60,000 deaths in England - Jonathan Van-Tam
					

He says future lockdowns are less likely the more people, including 18-25-year olds, get vaccinated.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Prof Van-Tam said: "I wish it were so. This is not 'all over bar the shouting'.
> 
> "I hope the worst is behind us but I think it's quite possible that we're going to have one or two bumpy periods in the autumn and in the winter, not only through Covid, but also through flu and other respiratory viruses as well."


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Tuesday = 23,340 new cases
> Wednesday = 27,572 new cases
> Today = 31,117 new cases
> 
> I don't like the look of those figures


By the way when I replied to this earlier I suppose it may be possible for what I said to be misconstrued.

I dont know what will happen next at all, and my main point should have been that we usually need more than a couple of days worth of data in order to correctly identify meaningful trends. With a second point that positive cases picked up by testing were declining so quickly that such a rate of decline was pretty much impossible to sustain, eg we wouldnt expect cases to suddenly fall straight back to levels seem before this Delta wave got going, so they pretty much had to stop plummeting in the daily data soon.

If cases should start rising again, increasing in a sustained way beyond the levels they've fallen to recently, it will take a while before I can actually say that has happened with any confidence. 7 day rolling average comparisons that people may use have some lag in them by their very nature, and sometimes we can spot real trends in the raw daily data sooner than they show up in the 7 day average stuff. But its not that much quicker when doing it properly, I usually have low confidence in 2-3 days worth of data and then confidence starts to increase the more days beyond that I can add to the picture. Weekend reporting limitations and delays affect confidence timing a bit too, and are another reason people may choose to judge week on week instead of day by day.


----------



## Supine (Jul 29, 2021)

I read an interesting theory today about how the pingdemic has essentially acted like a lockdown and network theory shows this would cut cases. But only temporarily.

No idea where i read it, so no link!


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

Supine said:


> I read an interesting theory today about how the pingdemic has essentially acted like a lockdown and network theory shows this would cut cases. But only temporarily.
> 
> No idea where i read it, so no link!


Let us know if you find it or similar, cheers.

Its sort of doing my head in that I can blow my own trumpet about that aspect of this wave so much.

None of my points strike me as being novel or hard to come up with. So why are there certain moments in this pandemic when I manage to blurt out the right combination of details a bit earlier than other sources? I was going on about self-isolation etc being a sort of partial lockdown by stealth before the end of June. How come I decided to go on about that before others? I dont really get why these concepts dont arrive at the forefront of peoples minds at the same sort of time?

I suppose I'm moaning about how reactive as opposed to proactive so many of the sources that we may turn to for stories about whats going on are. Is it to much to ask that they might join the right dots ahead of time and share those expectations with us a bit earlier?

In some ways I suppose I've turned that into a coping strategy on the handful of occasions I've been able to do so in this pandemic so far. Feeling one or two steps ahead of the game is one way to come to terms with stuff and construct some order out of chaos. Quite a lot of the time Im only hours or a few days ahead, or I say something at the very last opportunity before it becomes invalid, which is always weird to look back on. And its actually quite frustrating on the few occasions where I've somehow got weeks ahead of where the newspapers etc are at in their appreciation of events.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

Now in contrast to what I just said, various data and non-official modelling people on twitter tend to be quicker than me to start going on about trends seen in data. I only started following such people in recent months and at times I've found it a bit exhausting. I have copied quite a few of their techniques and the results can be interesting but Im often not confident to shout here about what they seem to be showing, at least not till more time has passed and data accrued.

A lot of them also make me feel I have to draw attention to details such as the values on an axis so that people dont misunderstand what the graphs are showing.

I suppose the following serves as a recent example. I post it here because the trend is interesting if sustained, and I will be gong on a lot more about this sort of age based rates of growth and decline in future if they contain interesting stories about where this wave is heading. But you need to be careful looking at these graphs and his use of language, ie note that so far he is talking about the rate of decline growing smaller, the figures highlighted in the first graph are not back into positive growth territory just yet. I suppose for convenience and strength of point reasons I'd probably have held off the 2nd point until the data actually showed that 20-24 age group back in positive growth territory.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

I've finished my own look at positive cases by specimen date per age group for England.

To my eyes what the recent cases have done to the picture is make the declines more modest, increasing somewhat the plausibility of what is being shown in this data.

I really dont think the data as of today offers me a guide as to what happens next, it doesnt give me strong clues about whether that was the peak of a wave as we've seen in the past or something else like a euros spike where case growth will then resume after the fall from that spike. 

There may be some regional stories emerging but I have to process all this data manually so I havent recently looked at any of those myself properly yet.


----------



## teuchter (Jul 29, 2021)

How plausible is it that the Euros could cause such a prominent spike? I'm not a football person myself...but would a few football matches really cause a large proportion of the population to act significantly differently to what they would have done otherwise? Are there many people whose nervousness about going to a pub is overcome by the desire to go there to watch a football game they could watch at home?


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

I'm using it as shorthand really, there could be other reasons for the same spike, or combinations of factors. I expect there will be attempts to analyse the role of the football eventually, but I dont know how long it will take before such things occur.

Certainly people have been very tempted to look for not very subtle clues in the case data.

Here are positive cases by specimen date (so most recent data is incomplete), broken down into a few age groups. Females on the left graph, males on the right.

A proper analysis would need to takke account of other factors such as differences in vaccination rates.


----------



## elbows (Jul 29, 2021)

With a few exceptions such as Shaun, UK media are still failing to communicate the scale of current hospital pressure, although obviously there is quite some variation between different places.


----------



## IC3D (Jul 29, 2021)

The NHS pressures are ambulance staff being pinged and self isolating. Nurses quitting, off with stress or moving to easier roles. No newly qualified replacing leaving staff. No funding. No support from political parties and being asset stripped for privatisation. No industrial action.


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2021)

Yes but the incoming pressure via patient numbers too.

I just read this weeks emergency department bulletin. Its a sustained nightmare on nearly every page apart from influenza and where the effects of covid vaccines show up. And there has been one of those unpleasant drops in number of cardiac cases attending again.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				




Just a few examples:


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2021)

The National Ambulance Syndromic Surveillance System report isnt much fun either.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				




A few examples:


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2021)

By the way there are loads of caveats to those charts, and they should be used to monitor trends rather than take the numbers as totals. These forms of surveillance arent designed to count every case. And some forms of covid triage affect certain numbers.


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2021)

As expected when I talked about the NHS releasing the figures that break down covid admissions/diagnoses into two categories, the Telegraph has gone ahead and made a crappy front page out of it.

Never forget their pandemic attitude. Their attempts to distort and mislead are numerous and disgusting. They took the stance below long before any numbers were available, and they were going to say it whatever the numbers turned out to be. They are divorced from practical reality. Indeed as I said earlier, the NHS already took steps to address some of this shit when they released the figures. Stuff I wont repeat right now but suspect I will have further cause to repeat at some point.


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2021)

Oh maybe I should quote it again so that it sits next to their shit.



> The majority of inpatients with Covid-19 are admitted as a result of the infection. A subset of those who contract Covid in the community and are asymptomatic, or exhibited relatively mild symptoms that on their own are unlikely to warrant admission to hospital, will then be admitted to hospital to be treated for something else and be identified through routine testing. However these patients still require their treatment in areas that are segregated from patients without Covid, and the presence of Covid can be a significant co-morbidity in many cases. Equally, while the admission may be due to another primary condition, in many instances this may have been as a result of contracting Covid in the community. For example research has shown that people with Covid are more likely to have a stroke (Stroke Association); in these cases people would be admitted for the stroke, classified as ‘with’ Covid despite having had a stroke as a result of having Covid.





> The headline published numbers in publications to date have been “inpatients with confirmed Covid” without differentiating between those in hospital “for” Covid and those in hospital “with” Covid. Recognising the combination of high community infections rates, with the reduced likelihood of admission for those who contract Covid in the community and are fully vaccinated, the Covid SitRep was enhanced to add a requirement for providers to distinguish between those being primarily treated ‘for’ Covid and those ‘with’ Covid but for whom the primary reason for being in hospital was non-Covid related. In practice this distinction is not always clear at the point of admission when the patient’s record has not been fully clinically coded. In light of this trusts have been asked to provide this “for” and “with” split on a ‘best endeavours’ basis.







__





						Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity
					

Health and high quality care for all,  <br />now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Jul 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> As expected when I talked about the NHS releasing the figures that break down covid admissions/diagnoses into two categories, the Telegraph has gone ahead and made a crappy front page out of it.
> 
> Never forget their pandemic attitude. Their attempts to distort and mislead are numerous and disgusting. They took the stance below long before any numbers were available, and they were going to say it whatever the numbers turned out to be. They are divorced from practical reality. Indeed as I said earlier, the NHS already took steps to address some of this shit when they released the figures. Stuff I wont repeat right now but suspect I will have further cause to repeat at some point.
> 
> View attachment 281194



Torygraph have been right shitehawks all through the pandemic, I didn't expect them to change stance.
They twist the stuff to fit their agenda, and always have done.
Personally, I think they fit right in (hand in glove style) with the covid recovery group MPs with all their shite.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> How plausible is it that the Euros could cause such a prominent spike? I'm not a football person myself...but would a few football matches really cause a large proportion of the population to act significantly differently to what they would have done otherwise? Are there many people whose nervousness about going to a pub is overcome by the desire to go there to watch a football game they could watch at home?


Lots of gatherings to watch it in people's homes, because pubs were strictly limited on numbers.

We know the virus transmits very well indoors so when you have multiple households (or just groups of young men) getting together to watch the football, including 4 high profile knockout games then it does make sense.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> As expected when I talked about the NHS releasing the figures that break down covid admissions/diagnoses into two categories, the Telegraph has gone ahead and made a crappy front page out of it.
> 
> Never forget their pandemic attitude. Their attempts to distort and mislead are numerous and disgusting. They took the stance below long before any numbers were available, and they were going to say it whatever the numbers turned out to be. They are divorced from practical reality. Indeed as I said earlier, the NHS already took steps to address some of this shit when they released the figures. Stuff I wont repeat right now but suspect I will have further cause to repeat at some point.
> 
> View attachment 281194


23% - less than 1 in 4
They get it right in the article text by saying "over three quarters... ..."primarily covid"".

More than three quarters is quite a lot. Poor decision by the editorial team to run with that headline. It's the headline that's misleading not the numbers.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 30, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Lots of gatherings to watch it in people's homes, because pubs were strictly limited on numbers.
> 
> We know the virus transmits very well indoors so when you have multiple households (or just groups of young men) getting together to watch the football, including 4 high profile knockout games then it does make sense.



The bit I don't get about the theory that the football caused a spike is the other side - the downward slope. I can see how you'd potentially get an increase in cases as a result but it's not like all those affected are going to isolate afterwards is it? So a return to normal might see a lower rate of increase but a rapid decrease? I can't see how that happens.


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2021)

We dont even know yet how close to reality the daily positive test figures have been. Still waiting for a bunch of other sources of data about that to emerge fully. Things that look like massive drops via positive test data might be far more gradual in reality, and a plateau in reality might look like something else in the positive case data. 

And there are so many factors that combine, none of which I can pick apart with any certainty, so I am mostly left with various forms of speculation. Much as I am happy to speculate about this stuff, I may as well wait and make use of more hindsight.

Certainly theres been rather a lot of self-isolation in certain age groups.


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> The bit I don't get about the theory that the football caused a spike is the other side - the downward slope. I can see how you'd potentially get an increase in cases as a result but it's not like all those affected are going to isolate afterwards is it? So a return to normal might see a lower rate of increase but a rapid decrease? I can't see how that happens.


It would help if we knew what proportion of cases occurred via super spreading. And what proportion of cases were dead ends where the infection was not passed on. Some opportunities that were available to the virus stopped being so available when term ended, euros ended, weather changed, mood music changed, levels of disruption changed etc. And when the virus is around in very large numbers, thats a lot of new victims it has to find all the time to avoid shrinking, it can do it with ease when its highly transmissive and when momentum is on its side via peoples behaviours. When behavioural changes kick in they have their own momentum too, number of close contacts can fall quite quickly, and we end up with a right tug of war I suppose. But as I was saying before we quickly end up with so many potential factors that there seems no reasonable way for me to work out which ones were the actual difference makers, or even what the current difference is exactly. If things keep changing direction then people will probably go on about the weather factor more.


----------



## glitch hiker (Jul 30, 2021)

29k cases today. Perhaps not the viral apocalypse that had been feared - so far - including by me.

Honestly it's all very strange and hard to know what to think.


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2021)

Starmer demonstrating that he doesnt know what he is doing in this pandemic. And that his interest is in trying to say popular things rather than public health.









						End self-isolation for double-jabbed sooner, says Sir Keir Starmer
					

Labour is calling on Boris Johnson to bring England in to line with Wales on quarantine measures.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Jul 30, 2021)

Reicher on evidence of the impact of the footie from Indy SAGE:


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2021)

The BBCs version of the hospital data story includes a quote from fucking Heneghan, but at least it finishes with a quote from Spiegelhalter.



> Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, from the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at the University of Cambridge, said: "The main role for hospitalisation statistics is to indicate the pressure on the NHS.
> 
> "Patients with Covid have to be treated in a resource-intensive way, whether Covid was the primary reason for their admission or not, and even if they caught it in hospital.
> 
> "Therefore the total number in hospital with Covid seems an appropriate overall summary statistic, although this new breakdown does provide additional information."











						Covid: Up to one in four admitted to hospital for other reasons
					

The government says counting all patients who test positive is vital because of the impact on the NHS.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jul 30, 2021)

BBC article on the hunt for certainty over case numbers, including bits of info about how slow the ONS study is to reflect changes, and some Tim Spector quotes.









						Hunt for certainty over Covid cases continues
					

Flurry of Covid data does not resolve debate around state of the pandemic in the UK.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> The BBCs version of the hospital data story includes a quote from fucking Heneghan, but at least it finishes with a quote from Spiegelhalter.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I can't praise Spiegelhalter highly enough.


----------



## Cat Fan (Jul 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Starmer demonstrating that he doesnt know what he is doing in this pandemic. And that his interest is in trying to say popular things rather than public health.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So it's officially Labour policy to end isolation for double jabbed UK people earlier, but keep isolation for double jabbed travelers from other countries for longer? WTF? 😅

What does Labour have against people vaccinated in the EU/US, some of which are British citizens?









						Easing travel rules for those vaccinated in US and EU ‘reckless’, says Labour
					

Angela Rayner warns plan to lift quarantine for arrivals in England could allow in new Covid variant




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## teqniq (Jul 31, 2021)

worth a watch:


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jul 31, 2021)

Good video, thanks teqniq, even if it did raise my blood pressure.


----------



## two sheds (Jul 31, 2021)

I hope his papers are beyond dispute otherwise he's going to be out of the country fairly rapidly you'd imagine


----------



## zahir (Jul 31, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2021)

That document is a pretty good primer for the subject in general.

I could pretty much quote all of it for being interesting, but obviously I cannot do that so here is just one thing I've picked out.



> Variants can potentially change the transmission of the virus leading to different modes of infection within community or demographies associated with potential novel properties, for example a faecal oral transmission rather than respiratory. Examining other coronavirus in animals and humans show faecal oral transmission can occur as an efficient additional means of transmission as was the cases with SARS-CoV and transmission in the Amoy Garden Complex. There is not yet evidence for alternate routes of transmission for SARS-CoV-2 but delta variant has been associated with increased frequency of GI symptoms.


----------



## zahir (Jul 31, 2021)

Yesterday's Independent Sage briefing with some analysis of case numbers etc from Christina Pagel


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2021)

Here is another SAGE document from July, looking at things in the next few months that concern the SAGE modelling group. Again I find the whole document interesting and I'm just picking out a few things to quote here.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1007484/S1325_SPI-M-O_Concerns_for_the_next_few_months.pdf
		




> As the force of infection increases with increasing incidence, it is possible that vaccines could be less effective than is currently estimated2. Vaccine effectiveness to date has been measured in a relatively low prevalence world with infrequent exposures. As infections increase, so will the number and strength of challenges from SARS-CoV-2 that vaccinated individuals will face. If vaccines protect against a given percentage of challenges, rather than a percentage of individuals, the effectiveness estimated to date may be overly optimistic.





> Data gaps continue to limit SPI-M-O’s view of the pandemic and could mean that important signals are missed, or their detection is delayed. In particular, SPI-M-O are missing timely and linked data on vaccination status and hospital admissions. There is no national database of infection control measures used across different hospital trusts.



I know we get some hospital-vaccine status data, but as I've pointed out before the numbers included have only been covering a small fraction of the hospitalisations seen.


----------



## Wilf (Jul 31, 2021)

teqniq said:


> worth a watch:



Brilliant.


----------



## elbows (Jul 31, 2021)

Covid: Pulse oxygen monitors work less well on darker skin, experts say
					

Pulse oximeters, which spot falling oxygen levels, may work less well on darker skin, experts warn.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I remember getting quite upset at how relatively little press coverage the warning in March seemed to get at the time, but I dont think I mentioned it here. I kept a link to this article from March:









						Blood oxygen devices could be giving ‘seriously misleading’ results to Black people, experts warn
					

Factor may contribute to increased Covid-19 mortality rates of ethnic minority patients, researchers say




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 1, 2021)

Not a bad headline from the Sunday People.



Yes, they are going to offer inducements to increase the uptake in vaccines amongst younger people, which could motivate some that just haven't been arsed yet, or who are a little hesitate, but I fear it will feed into the paranoia of the anti-vaxxers. 



> Companies including ride-sharing app Uber and food delivery service Deliveroo have been recruited to drive vaccine uptake among younger age groups.
> 
> Ministers are hoping the push will help overcome hesitancy in 18-29 year-olds in England after it was revealed that just 67 per cent of the age bracket have received a first dose, compared with the UK total of 88.5 per cent of all adults.
> 
> As part of the campaign, Uber will send reminders to users to get the jab in August, along with discounts on rides and Uber Eats meals for those who get vaccinated. Meanwhile, Deliveroo and Pizza Pilgrims are offering discounts and incentives to customers who protect themselves from Covid-19.











						Double-jabbed ‘half as likely’ to suffer long Covid symptoms - follow live
					

Latest developments as they happen




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 1, 2021)

I feel cheated 

Though I would have wanted broccoli vouchers...


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2021)

It’s a great way of teaching younger generations that you should only do things if there is an immediate personal consumer reward for it, and you should never do anything communally minded straightaway because that means you won’t be rewarded for it. What wonderful lessons.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 1, 2021)

kabbes said:


> It’s a great way of teaching younger generations that you should only do things if there is an immediate personal consumer reward for it, and you should never do anything communally minded straightaway because that means you won’t be rewarded for it. What wonderful lessons.


TBF, maybe it would have been more in keeping with current government policy if they'd structured it as some kind of pyramid selling scam...


----------



## LDC (Aug 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> TBF, maybe it would have been more in keeping with current government policy if they'd structured it as some kind of pyramid selling scam...



Yeah, or have a jab and get exclusive access to some of your friends personal data to enable you to promise to deliver kebabs to them in the near future made by someone with no cooking experience via an offshore company.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 1, 2021)

kabbes said:


> It’s a great way of teaching younger generations that you should only do things if there is an immediate personal consumer reward for it, and you should never do anything communally minded straightaway because that means you won’t be rewarded for it. What wonderful lessons.



It's not ideal, but if it helps in this particular unique situation, I am more comfortable with inducements than the threat of passports for clubbing, which I've never been convinced will happen, I prefer the carrot to the stick approach. 

It seems to be working in other countries, and Washington state is even offering “Joints for Jabs”. 



> On Monday, the Washington state liquor and cannabis board announced the promotion, aptly called “Joints for Jabs”, that will run until 12 July. During the initiative’s run, state-licensed dispensaries can give age-appropriate customers, 21 and older, a pre-rolled joint when they receive their first or second dose.
> 
> LINK


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Aug 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It seems to be working in other countries, and Washington state is even offering “Joints for Jabs”.


Hmmn. Time for my booster, methinks.


----------



## Dogsauce (Aug 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's not ideal, but if it helps in this particular unique situation, I am more comfortable with inducements than the threat of passports for clubbing, which I've never been convinced will happen, I prefer the carrot to the stick approach.
> 
> It seems to be working in other countries, and Washington state is even offering “Joints for Jabs”.


They should offer to legalise weed here if people under 30 reach a 95% vaccination status. Watch the peer pressure at play...


----------



## Cerv (Aug 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's not ideal, but if it helps in this particular unique situation, I am more comfortable with inducements than the threat of passports for clubbing, which I've never been convinced will happen, I prefer the carrot to the stick approach.
> 
> It seems to be working in other countries, and Washington state is even offering “Joints for Jabs”.



passports for university access was announced and dropped within a space of a week. seems like Universities UK have a better lobbying outfit than the Nighttime Business Association. similar objections on the total impracticality of checking.

given the 8 week turnaround to get double dosed, anyone intending to keep on clubbing through Sept needs to be getting theirs already. I really wouldn't be surprised if by the time we get there the government doesn't follow through on the requirement. the threat is enough to motivate (young) people now, without then having to go to the effort of actually enforcing anything or holding the awkward vote in parliament with another backbend rebellion.


----------



## thismoment (Aug 1, 2021)

I am so worried for some of my family that have not had jabs yet that if they get it done to get a freebie then it is what it is….obviously in an ideal world they would just have had it done already


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 1, 2021)

Cerv said:


> passports for university access was announced and dropped within a space of a week. seems like Universities UK have a better lobbying outfit than the Nighttime Business Association. similar objections on the total impracticality of checking.
> 
> given the 8 week turnaround to get double dosed, anyone intending to keep on clubbing through Sept needs to be getting theirs already. I really wouldn't be surprised if by the time we get there the government doesn't follow through on the requirement. the threat is enough to motivate (young) people now, without then having to go to the effort of actually enforcing anything or holding the awkward vote in parliament with another backbend rebellion.


Young people don't really like clubbing as much as in the old days for what it's worth. I'd be very surprised if the threat on access to clubbing actually changed many people's minds.


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 1, 2021)

thismoment said:


> I am so worried for some of my family that have not had jabs yet that if they get it done to get a freebie then it is what it is….obviously in an ideal world they would just have had it done already


Yes, exactly. If there's one thing young people don't always have it's tons of free time, or even access to their own private transport to get to a centre.

It costs money and time to get there, so a small freebie or incentive is a pretty good idea IMO.

It doesn't have to be huge, it could be like when you go to give blood and you get a tea and biscuit and a pat on the back.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2021)

Of course short-term, ends-justify-the-means solutions do work for the things they are being used to directly address.  That isn’t the question.  The question is whether you are actually better off in the long run by employing them.  You can give a dog a treat every time it misbehaves in order to get it to shut up then and there but by doing so you are training it to misbehave.


----------



## elbows (Aug 1, 2021)

Diminishing opportunities for Johnson to brag.


----------



## elbows (Aug 1, 2021)

kabbes said:


> It’s a great way of teaching younger generations that you should only do things if there is an immediate personal consumer reward for it, and you should never do anything communally minded straightaway because that means you won’t be rewarded for it. What wonderful lessons.


Plenty see vaccination as its own reward, personally and more broadly, and I doubt a large chunk of them will change their mind just because the carrot and stick has come out now.


----------



## platinumsage (Aug 1, 2021)

I got a smartie for having a measles vaccination aged 2.


----------



## elbows (Aug 1, 2021)

I cannot evaluate whether there are any flaws in this exercise, but its worth keeping in mind, and is a good fit for concerns about the UK in the current phase.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Plenty see vaccination as its own reward, personally and more broadly, and I doubt a large chunk of them will change their mind just because the carrot and stick has come out now.


I am more concerned about the ongoing fragmentation of the sense of community being its own reward.


----------



## elbows (Aug 1, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I am more concerned about the ongoing fragmentation of the sense of community being its own reward.



Well I cant quite describe myself as relaxed about that subject, but the pandemic response as a whole demonstrated that the erosion of such things over the last 40 years has been overstated, at least on some fronts.

I'd suggest that peoples sense of community is a distorted mess with limitations and barriers in some ways, but has held up remarkably well given all the bullshit that has been thrown at us for many decades.


----------



## elbows (Aug 1, 2021)

Possibly in part because those who are marginalised find ways to form a new sense of community within the marginalised group.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Well I cant quite describe myself as relaxed about that subject, but the pandemic response as a whole demonstrated that the erosion of such things over the last 40 years has been overstated, at least on some fronts.
> 
> I'd suggest that peoples sense of community is a distorted mess with limitations and barriers in some ways, but has held up remarkably well given all the bullshit that has been thrown at us for many decades.


I think the pandemic response has shown that there has been an erosion of the sense of community  to some degree, but that humans are social creatures who don’t give up their mutual sense of social support easily.  Nevertheless, the degree to which the sense of “what’s in it for me personally?” has permeated demonstrates that feeding the sense of individual reward being the only thing worth worrying about is dangerous.


----------



## elbows (Aug 1, 2021)

Motivation to be vaccinated is almost always a combination of what it does to sense of person risk, risk to your family, and wider community risks.

The broader benefits are still part of the messaging, but getting the uptake to go beyond the level that it originally settles on after initial uptake is very difficult. I'm not surprised they have resorted to gimmicks.

There are a number of worrying aspects to the current phase. Messaging has been hugely flawed by this 'learning to live with Covid' shit because part of that message implies that its somehow OK for younger people to get infected. And plenty of vaccination appointments have been hampered by the people involved having caught the virus in reent times, delaying their opportunity to get vaccinated. 

A more sophisticated version of 'learning to live with Covid-19' would certainly have emphasised that the relaxation of measures is only sustainable if we achieve higher vaccine uptake. In contrast to the bullshit about 'irreversible unlocking' that we got instead.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 1, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I got a smartie for having a measles vaccination aged 2.


polio vaccination was on a lump of sugar I liked that


----------



## LDC (Aug 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> A more sophisticated version of 'learning to live with Covid-19' would certainly have emphasised that the relaxation of measures is only sustainable if we achieve higher vaccine uptake. In contrast to the bullshit about 'irreversible unlocking' that we got instead.



Totally, they could have more publicly and clearly linked loosening restrictions to % of the population vaccinated, and made it feel like a collective effort to get vaccinated _and_ be part of things improving for everyone.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 1, 2021)

Time was that a government would have made a decision about whether everybody needed vaccinating (except those that couldn’t be) and mandated it.  I offer no view on whether that is a better approach or not but it certainly demonstrates that the current neoliberal “personal choice is everything and the free market of ideas will win out” assumption is not an inevitable and only approach. It doesn’t _have_ to be about persuading each individual that it is in their personal best interests to do something.


----------



## wtfftw (Aug 1, 2021)

We are going to be learning to live with it, unless I've missed some mention of vaccinating young kids.


----------



## elbows (Aug 1, 2021)

It does seem to be possible to find some placces on the dashboard that are not following the same patterns seen elsewhere.

Here are a couple of examples. Can people find any others? Doesnt have to be rises above earlier July peak, can be broadly flat number of cases too.

I will study the data by age group for these places when I get a chance.

Exeter



Lincoln


----------



## elbows (Aug 1, 2021)

Actually probably no need to sift through places manually, can just use some of the tables on this website, for example the "R-Values - Highest first" table.





__





						COVID-19 in England - Estimates of R for each Local Authority
					





					archive.uea.ac.uk


----------



## glitch hiker (Aug 1, 2021)

I freely admit that I'm possibly, very, embarrassingly, wrong to say this: but I just don't trust these daily figures anymore. I cannot see how the virus has receded such from the weekend of 50+k cases right on the cusp of the 19th.  Yet here we are being told that's happening.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 1, 2021)

No I am suspicious of them as well. The rise didn't seem unprecedented, we've seen that in other circumstances, but this sharp fall just doesn't look like anything we've seen before.


----------



## Storm Fox (Aug 1, 2021)

CovidZoe is showing the peak has just passed, but I don't know how CovidZoe trends relate to the official figures in past peaks.


----------



## sojourner (Aug 1, 2021)

Our numbers up north are rising all the time, in contrast to the positive messages on national news.


----------



## elbows (Aug 1, 2021)

sojourner said:


> Our numbers up north are rising all the time, in contrast to the positive messages on national news.


Where do you mean?


----------



## elbows (Aug 1, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> No I am suspicious of them as well. The rise didn't seem unprecedented, we've seen that in other circumstances, but this sharp fall just doesn't look like anything we've seen before.


This is one of the reasons I'm trying to look at cases by age group in places where the pattern is different to the recent overall national and regional trends. More on that later.

In terms of the overall data, it was suspiciously sharp. However some of the data last week caused a subsequent bump that made the overall downward trend seem a bit more plausible. And the very peak of waves can feature some big spikes on top and the drop off from those can be very sharp, but drops of that sharpness dont last long.

Probably the safest bet right now is to assume that multiple things happened, and we cant be precise about any of them. For example something real probably happened to case numbers, but also one or more things happened that affected this particular form of data, at a minimum making it more extreme than the underlying reality.

Hospital admissions so far are compatible with at least a plateau, and should give clearer signals during the coming week. The laggy but still useful ONS population survey, based on testing a sample of households, should be a bit more useful when the next version comes out this coming Friday. And the data from the main testing system will still be interesting this coming week, even if we arent sure what to make of its recent performance. So I think we'll have more clues by the end of this coming week, although whether a coherent picture will emerge or not I cannot claim to know.

As for trusting the figures or not, its always better not to rely on a single measure to tell what is going on, especially when it shows something very dramatic. But I still have to pay some attention to it because the other forms of data that can back it up or give a different picture take quite a bit longer to emerge.

Plus I still cannot ignore what happened in Scotland, a reasonably impressive rate of decline that has been backed up by other data so far. It probably isnt too much longer before we see what clues Scotland offers about how the rate of decline may slow, whether number of cases gets stuck around a certain rate etc.

Looking at positive cases by specimen date graphs for Scotland and England, it is true that Englands plunge looked incredible and a bit absurd for a time. But a bulge of cases last week makes the overall downwards slope look somewhat less absurd now, it looks more like a decline with an additional chunk of testing/data missing from a period following the peak, but then a return to something more realistic looking. Whether my perceptions of how it looks have further to change still I cannot say either.


----------



## Dogsauce (Aug 1, 2021)

two sheds said:


> polio vaccination was on a lump of sugar I liked that


I remember thinking that was the reward for having the inoculating jab I had at the same time. Sharp needle then here’s a lump of sugar to make it better.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 1, 2021)

It's the only vaccination I remember as a kid, was about 6 I think, got it in our front room.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 1, 2021)

I can distinctly remember a sugar lump around 1965 -ish, but there's nothing on my record ... 

*08-Jun-1961 *First polio vaccination

*23-Aug-1962 *Booster polio vaccination

*01-Sept-1976 boos*ter polio vaccination


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 1, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Time was that a government would have made a decision about whether everybody needed vaccinating (except those that couldn’t be) and mandated it.  I offer no view on whether that is a better approach or not but it certainly demonstrates that the current neoliberal “personal choice is everything and the free market of ideas will win out” assumption is not an inevitable and only approach. It doesn’t _have_ to be about persuading each individual that it is in their personal best interests to do something.


How would the government go about persuading people who were anti vaccination to get their mandatory vaccine? Threaten them with fines, prison? Now we're back to carrot and stick. It's better to have a small carrot than a big stick I would say.

I don't buy this whole "communities are collapsing" thing, was it so much better in the old days when open racism and homophobia was the norm? 🤔

If the disease was lethal to young people and did nothing to the elderly then I bet the vaccine take-up percentages would be reversed.


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> I freely admit that I'm possibly, very, embarrassingly, wrong to say this: but I just don't trust these daily figures anymore. I cannot see how the virus has receded such from the weekend of 50+k cases right on the cusp of the 19th.  Yet here we are being told that's happening.


The new case numbers are still very, very high though.


----------



## Wilf (Aug 1, 2021)

Telegraph giving clear indication the booster/3rd dose will start next month. A detailed enough story to suggest it is true, shy of a u turn. Also, that it may be a different vaccine than the one you had for 1st and 2nd:




__





						Vaccine booster shots for 32m to begin next month
					





					www.msn.com


----------



## redsquirrel (Aug 2, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Totally, they could have more publicly and clearly linked loosening restrictions to % of the population vaccinated, and made it feel like a collective effort to get vaccinated _and_ be part of things improving for everyone.


The other thing is (as with self-isolation and other things) to provide better support.

I have a job with relatively flexible working hours, that said that it would allow staff to use work time to get vaccinated, and where I live I have good public transport access to the vaccination centre - even so it took most of a morning for be to get vaccinated (and then some time to get over he side effects).

If you are doing hourly paid work and live in the "wrong" place getting vaccinated could cost a day's work. That will be a big deal for some people.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Telegraph giving clear indication the booster/3rd dose will start next month. A detailed enough story to suggest it is true, shy of a u turn. Also, that it may be a different vaccine than the one you had for 1st and 2nd:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



looks like flu jabs are going to be a regular thing too - and at a lower age threshold ...


> all adults aged 50 years and over





> The JCVI’s interim advice is that a third booster jab is offered to the following groups in 2 stages:
> 
> 
> Stage 1. The following people should be offered a third dose COVID-19 booster vaccine *and the annual influenza vaccine *as soon as possible from September 2021:
> ...











						Most vulnerable could be offered booster COVID-19 vaccines from September
					

Boosters aim to ensure protection from COVID-19 is maintained ahead of winter and against new variants.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## glitch hiker (Aug 2, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> The new case numbers are still very, very high though.


So it's like we're in the Twilight Zone, it feels. The case rate isn't good. But the vaccine has had an effect that, while welcome, has allowed the cranks now in charge of policy to unfetter everything and leave all of us high and dry.

I personally feel a bit lost. I'm uncertain how or when to move forward (probably have the issue forced when the next brown envelope from the DWP arrives).

But that's just me. At least I'm not dead or Long Covidified


----------



## LDC (Aug 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Telegraph giving clear indication the booster/3rd dose will start next month. A detailed enough story to suggest it is true, shy of a u turn. Also, that it may be a different vaccine than the one you had for 1st and 2nd:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



On Friday I got a slightly stressed email from the PCN I was vaccinating for asking for our availability from September for the booster program...


----------



## kabbes (Aug 2, 2021)

Question about the way efficacy is reported: when they say “two jabs are shown to have 90% efficacy against being hospitalised”, is that a relative or absolute efficacy?  In other words, does it reduce the basal rate by 90%, to result in 10% of something that was already low in the first place?  Or are they saying that the hospitalisation rate is now 10%?  I’m assuming the former (ie relative reduction), but the way the stories are written often contextually implies the latter.


----------



## maomao (Aug 2, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Question about the way efficacy is reported: when they say “two jabs are shown to have 90% efficacy against being hospitalised”, is that a relative or absolute efficacy?  In other words, does it reduce the basal rate by 90%, to result in 10% of something that was already low in the first place?  Or are they saying that the hospitalisation rate is now 10%?  I’m assuming the former (ie relative reduction), but the way the stories are written often contextually implies the latter.


The hospitalisation rate was never as high as 10% before was it? It's surely just journalists misunderstanding statistics.


----------



## purenarcotic (Aug 2, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Question about the way efficacy is reported: when they say “two jabs are shown to have 90% efficacy against being hospitalised”, is that a relative or absolute efficacy?  In other words, does it reduce the basal rate by 90%, to result in 10% of something that was already low in the first place?  Or are they saying that the hospitalisation rate is now 10%?  I’m assuming the former (ie relative reduction), but the way the stories are written often contextually implies the latter.



My understanding is it is a relative reduction. I am neither a statistician nor very good at maths either, but that has always been my understanding; vaccination significantly reduces my risk of hospitalisation and death and reduces to a much smaller extent my risk of transmitting it to others. I have thought a lot of the messaging around vaccination has been very poor, with a lot of people thinking it means they can never catch it or pass it on. This hasn’t helped in understanding around why despite vaccination, social distancing measures should be maintained.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> The hospitalisation rate was never as high as 10% before was it? It's surely just journalists misunderstanding statistics.


That was what struck me when I read the newspaper stories


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 2, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Question about the way efficacy is reported: when they say “two jabs are shown to have 90% efficacy against being hospitalised”, is that a relative or absolute efficacy?  In other words, does it reduce the basal rate by 90%, to result in 10% of something that was already low in the first place?  Or are they saying that the hospitalisation rate is now 10%?  I’m assuming the former (ie relative reduction), but the way the stories are written often contextually implies the latter.


Long story short it's relative risk reduction. You reduce your risk by 90% compared to not having the vaccine, but it has nothing to do with how many people will actually get hospitalised in the real world.





__





						COVID Vaccine Efficacy Explained | Charles River
					

Is efficacy the best factor to decide which COVID-19 vaccine to get?




					www.criver.com


----------



## xenon (Aug 2, 2021)

I assumed it meant for argument sake. 

Pre vaccination, if you caught coronavirus you had a 3% chance of being hospitalised 
Post vaccination with an assumed efficacy of 90%, you now have a 0.3% chance of being hospitalised.

Obviously as an average applied to a population, not taking into account the local prevalence, your medical history, work / living conditions and the 3% figure is one I made up...


----------



## prunus (Aug 2, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> My understanding is it is a relative reduction. I am neither a statistician nor very good at maths either, but that has always been my understanding; vaccination significantly reduces my risk of hospitalisation and death and reduces to a much smaller extent my risk of transmitting it to others. I have thought a lot of the messaging around vaccination has been very poor, with a lot of people thinking it means they can never catch it or pass it on. This hasn’t helped in understanding around why despite vaccination, social distancing measures should be maintained.



Absolutely it’s relative - and importantly at a population level - it means that for every 10 unvaccinated people hospitalised only 1 vaccinated person will be (matching the groups for age and other risk factors etc).

What that means for any individual is not as clear yet (and difficult to work out) - on average over the population it’s a 90% reduction, but it might be that some people are effectively immune but others only have say a 50% reduction in their personal risk.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 2, 2021)

So in the last week I met up with a family for something. The whole family had 'a cold', and one of them was coughing. But they had taken lateral flow tests, so were confident it wasn't covid  I had to point out that if you have symptoms you need to get a pcr test. They were actually quite embarassed when I pointed it out and said the symptoms had snuck up on them and they hadn't thought about it enough. It got me thinking about the covid cases that might not be getting tested at the moment. People might be confusing it for a cold and not worrying about it. The symptoms might be quite mild because of vaccination (this family was double jabbed) so people are more inclined to dismiss it as a cold. And if this family were using lfts to test mild symptoms then probably lots of other people are too, and getting false negatives.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 2, 2021)

This thing about the % effectiveness can really easily be confusing, not just because of the confusion about whether it's relative or not but because sometimes the % given is to do with death, sometimes hospitalisation, etc etc.

What I'd really like is a big table with age groups down one side, death/hospitalisation/symptomatic/transmission along the other, and then in each box the absolute risk for unvaccinated/one does/two doses. Even with lots of caveats about uncertainties it would help to get a handle on things.


----------



## maomao (Aug 2, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> So in the last week I met up with a family for something. The whole family had 'a cold', and one of them was coughing. But they had taken lateral flow tests, so were confident it wasn't covid  I had to point out that if you have symptoms you need to get a pcr test. They were actually quite embarassed when I pointed it out and said the symptoms had snuck up on them and they hadn't thought about it enough. It got me thinking about the covid cases that might not be getting tested at the moment. People might be confusing it for a cold and not worrying about it. The symptoms might be quite mild because of vaccination (this family was double jabbed) so people are more inclined to dismiss it a cold. And if this family were using lfts to test mild symptoms then probably lots of other people are too, and getting false negatives.



I know that lfts are intended for use on people without symptoms but does this mean that they're ineffective on people who have symptoms? Or just that they're not as effective as PCRs? I have had a cold that I have several reasons to believe is not covid and did several lfts but was a bit busy to go for a pcn. We're the lfts entirely pointless?


----------



## teuchter (Aug 2, 2021)

Weekend anecdote (second hand) - friend who says they were not going to get the vaccine due to vague "sticking it to the man" reasons mixed up with some fairly standard anti-vax "safety concerns". This led to an argument, some tears and a bit of a fall-out, then the next morning further discussions and a making up of sorts. A few hours later a whatsapp message saying they'd decided to go and get vaccinated after all


----------



## teuchter (Aug 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> I know that lfts are intended for use on people without symptoms but does this mean that they're ineffective on people who have symptoms? Or just that they're not as effective as PCRs? I have had a cold that I have several reasons to believe is not covid and did several lfts but was a bit busy to go for a pcn. We're the lfts entirely pointless?


I think it's just that they are less reliable... if you get a positive result with LFT then it's probably correct, but if you get a negative result it's likely that it's incorrect.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> I know that lfts are intended for use on people without symptoms but does this mean that they're ineffective on people who have symptoms? Or just that they're not as effective as PCRs? I have had a cold that I have several reasons to believe is not covid and did several lfts but was a bit busy to go for a pcn. We're the lfts entirely pointless?


my s-i-l's m-i-l was coughing and coughing and did a lft which came back positive, so i think they do work on people with symptoms as well as people without


----------



## 2hats (Aug 2, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Question about the way efficacy is reported: when they say “two jabs are shown to have 90% efficacy against being hospitalised”, is that a relative or absolute efficacy?  In other words, does it reduce the basal rate by 90%, to result in 10% of something that was already low in the first place?  Or are they saying that the hospitalisation rate is now 10%?  I’m assuming the former (ie relative reduction), but the way the stories are written often contextually implies the latter.


Relative.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> I know that lfts are intended for use on people without symptoms but does this mean that they're ineffective on people who have symptoms? Or just that they're not as effective as PCRs? I have had a cold that I have several reasons to believe is not covid and did several lfts but was a bit busy to go for a pcn. We're the lfts entirely pointless?


You can't say they're entirely pointless, they do catch people with symptoms too, but their false negative rate is very high. Testing symptomless people this doesn't matter (too much) because you wouldn't catch any cases without testing, while with testing you might catch about half of all cases. Once you have symptoms that might match, and the probability of you having it is much higher, a false negative is a dangerous thing.


----------



## maomao (Aug 2, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> You can't say they're entirely pointless, they do catch people with symptoms too, but their false negative rate is very high. Testing symptomless people this doesn't matter (too much) because you wouldn't catch any cases without testing, while with testing you might catch about half of all cases. Once you have symptoms that might match, and the probability of you having it is much higher, a false negative is a dangerous thing.


What about seven negatives over the course of a week all performed rigorously, gag reflex thoroughly tested and swab almost into the brain etc. And the other person in the house with the same symptoms has had two negative pcns? What then?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 2, 2021)

This is worth a read.



> PHE Porton Down’s labs have shown four lateral flow tests to have a sensitivity of more than 70% for all PCR positive cases *but, importantly, they are able to catch those with high viral loads, suggesting they are effective in identifying cases that are most likely to transmit the disease.  *











						How reliable are lateral flow COVID-19 tests? - The Pharmaceutical Journal
					

It is estimated that around one-third of people with COVID-19 do not have symptoms and could be spreading the virus unknowingly. To help tackle this, the government has rolled out rapid lateral flow antigen tests that can detect cases in under 30 minutes, meaning those who have a positive test...




					pharmaceutical-journal.com


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> What about seven negatives over the course of a week all performed rigorously, gag reflex thoroughly tested and swab almost into the brain etc. And the other person in the house with the same symptoms has had two negative pcns? What then?


I'm not enough of a statistician to know how the maths of false negatives versus genuine negatives accumulates through multiple tests (it might also depend on the mechanism of failure). It also seems a lot of trouble to go to when you could have one pcn delivered and send it off.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> What about seven negatives over the course of a week all performed rigorously, gag reflex thoroughly tested and swab almost into the brain etc. And the other person in the house with the same symptoms has had two negative pcns? What then?


stopped bothering with the tonsil bit, just keep the swab a bit longer up the nose.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> I know that lfts are intended for use on people without symptoms but does this mean that they're ineffective on people who have symptoms? Or just that they're not as effective as PCRs? I have had a cold that I have several reasons to believe is not covid and did several lfts but was a bit busy to go for a pcn. We're the lfts entirely pointless?


Aren’t you only meant to get a PCR if you have either a positive LFT or have the symptoms they list (fever, continuous cough or loss of taste/smell). Even if you have a cold, unless you have the above, I don’t think you are meant to have a PCR. Obviously you can lie and get one.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> stopped bothering with the tonsil bit, just keep the swab a bit longer up the nose.


I'd go with that if it's as accurate - I have remarkably strong gag reaction around back of throat.


----------



## Thora (Aug 2, 2021)

Maltin said:


> Aren’t you only meant to get a PCR if you have either a positive LFT or have the symptoms they list (fever, continuous cough or loss of taste/smell). Even if you have a cold, unless you have the above, I don’t think you are meant to have a PCR. Obviously you can lie and get one.


Or if youve had contact with a positive person.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 2, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I'd go with that if it's as accurate - I have remarkably strong gag reaction around back of throat.


Definitely go with what Pickman's model has decided is sufficient, rather than the instructions that come with the tests.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Definitely go with what Pickman's model has decided is sufficient, rather than the instructions that come with the tests.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 2, 2021)

The family I mentioned one of them had a cough, so I felt it particularly inappropriate to stick to lfts. However the similarity in symptoms between covid and a cold is I think something that the government downplays for political reasons. My own covid could have been a cold, someone I know passed something he thought was a cold to a grandparent, who died from the covid, and recently the zoe app has been saying how the delta variant is even more cold-like than previous variants. Many of my friends now get pcr tests if they have cold symptoms, based on their experience of the disease, or the experience of people they know. But I agree that the government says something else.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Definitely go with what Pickman's model has decided is sufficient, rather than the instructions that come with the tests.


the nhs website suggests either / or may be sufficient How to do a rapid lateral flow test for coronavirus (COVID-19)


----------



## purenarcotic (Aug 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Definitely go with what Pickman's model has decided is sufficient, rather than the instructions that come with the tests.



I had training to be a test operative and site supervisor for work. It advises if someone really cannot tolerate the throat swab, then going up both nostrils is okay. HTH.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Definitely go with what Pickman's model has decided is sufficient


teuchter seal of approval I'll do that then


----------



## teuchter (Aug 2, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> the nhs website suggests either / or may be sufficient How to do a rapid lateral flow test for coronavirus (COVID-19)


No it doesn't. It suggests following the instructions:



It also says that you can do nose only but it may be less accurate:


----------



## maomao (Aug 2, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> I had training to be a test operative and site supervisor for work. It advises if someone really cannot tolerate the throat swab, then going up both nostrils is okay. HTH.



It's also standard to just do the nose when testing kids. I'm pretty sure this is more down to the possibility of the kids vomiting everywhere than any difference in the way the test works on children and grown ups.


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 2, 2021)

prunus said:


> Absolutely it’s relative - and importantly at a population level - it means that for every 10 unvaccinated people hospitalised only 1 vaccinated person will be (matching the groups for age and other risk factors etc).
> 
> What that means for any individual is not as clear yet (and difficult to work out) - on average over the population it’s a 90% reduction, but it might be that some people are effectively immune but others only have say a 50% reduction in their personal risk.


Well if you think about it, we know a small percentage of people have weak immune systems/comorbidities and for those people vaccines tend to be less effective.

So for anyone with a normal immune system it should be a greater than 90% reduction in risk.


----------



## purenarcotic (Aug 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> It's also standard to just do the nose when testing kids. I'm pretty sure this is more down to the possibility of the kids vomiting everywhere than any difference in the way the test works on children and grown ups.



I was about to add my understanding was that for little ones you dispensed with the tonsil swab, good to have it confirmed.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> No it doesn't. It suggests following the instructions:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


oh dear oh dear oh dear

it says you can do someone else's nose only.


----------



## wtfftw (Aug 2, 2021)

Oh. I have been swabbing my childs tonsils. I think the nose is worse tho.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 2, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> oh dear oh dear oh dear
> 
> it says you can do someone else's nose only.


I trust you will edit your advice above before you become responsible for any more thousands of Covid infections than is already the case.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I trust you will edit your advice above before you become responsible for any more thousands of Covid infections than is already the case.


i am responsible for no covid infections


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 2, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Oh. I have been swabbing my childs tonsils. I think the nose is worse tho.


if they're fine with it don't change. but when it's been discussed at work generally people - admittedly adults - have reported great discomfort with the tonsils bit.


----------



## elbows (Aug 2, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> looks like flu jabs are going to be a regular thing too - and at a lower age threshold ...



Flu jabs were already a regular thing and they initially brought in the lower age threshold of 50 during last flu season, with theoretical winter hospital pressure in mind. It makes sense for them to continue that under the current conditions.


----------



## elbows (Aug 2, 2021)

maomao said:


> The hospitalisation rate was never as high as 10% before was it? It's surely just journalists misunderstanding statistics.



To get rates that high typically the comparison being made is between number of people testing positive and number of people hospitalised. Obviously this is not the real ratio of infections to hospitalisations, because many infections are not picked up and recorded via the testing system.

Scotland covers that measure in routine weekly reports, for example:



> The proportion of all people who were admitted to hospital within 14 days of a laboratory confirmed COVID-19 positive test has declined, from 13% in the week commencing 25 January 2021, to 3% in the most recent week commencing 05 July 2021





			https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/8568/21-07-28-covid19-publication_report.pdf
		


They also present some vaccine hospital admission data in a way people might find useful. For example:


----------



## elbows (Aug 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> What I'd really like is a big table with age groups down one side, death/hospitalisation/symptomatic/transmission along the other, and then in each box the absolute risk for unvaccinated/one does/two doses. Even with lots of caveats about uncertainties it would help to get a handle on things.



I cannot give you exactly what you want in that regard. Especially because an analysis of this really needs to apply to Delta to be valid at the moment, and the analysis available in this regard for delta only seems to cover a fraction of cases so far, and only involves a very crude separation of age groups (above and below 50 if Im remembering properly). I will still post this later anyway even though it doesnt come that close to what you want.

Looking from a different angle, I think these charts which have been posted several times on this thread already are still of some use.


----------



## elbows (Aug 2, 2021)

Actually the thing I said I would post later is probably too far away from what you want to bother posting. Its a table but its not the most readable and doesnt contain risk stuff. Pages 18 and 19 of https://assets.publishing.service.g...t_data/file/1005517/Technical_Briefing_19.pdf


----------



## 2hats (Aug 2, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> if they're fine with it don't change. but when it's been discussed at work generally people - admittedly adults - have reported great discomfort with the tonsils bit.


Having performed my first swabbing in the past week (previously only serological testing), I find swabbing my own tonsils no problem at all, but the second I put the 'almost furry' swab up a nostril I start sneezing uncontrollably (eyes also water heavily, making it difficult to see).


----------



## elbows (Aug 2, 2021)

Extracts from the latest Sottish wastewater surveillance picture:

From pages 19 to 21 of the pdf version of Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic  (issue no. 62) - gov.scot 





> WW Covid-19 aggregate trends appear to be following cases on a downward path. However high levels remain.
> 
> Figure 17 shows Seafield (a sampling site covering Edinburgh), which is one of many larger sites that show a large decline in WW viral Covid-19 levels compared to previous weeks. Other examples include Shieldhall (covering much of Glasgow) and Hatton (covering Dundee).







> However, at a number of locations, WW viral Covid-19 levels do not appear to be falling from high levels, despite declines in new case rates. This includes Nigg (covering Aberdeen), Kirkcaldy and Levenmouth in Fife, Daldowie, Carbarns and Hamilton in Lanarkshire, and Paisley in Renfrewshire (Figure 18). In the case of Paisley, as cases decline, WW COVID-19 levels appear to be increasing. These sites need to be monitored closely to see if the situation persists.


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> This thing about the % effectiveness can really easily be confusing, not just because of the confusion about whether it's relative or not but because sometimes the % given is to do with death, sometimes hospitalisation, etc etc.
> 
> What I'd really like is a big table with age groups down one side, death/hospitalisation/symptomatic/transmission along the other, and then in each box the absolute risk for unvaccinated/one does/two doses. Even with lots of caveats about uncertainties it would help to get a handle on things.


What do you want to use that information for? The thing is that while these types of statistics are useful for public health, they aren't that useful to individuals because each individual's level of risk will be wildly different.

All that we need to know as individuals is getting vaccinated gives us a lower chance of catching Covid and a much, much lower chance of developing a serious illness from it. Less risk of long Covid too for those wondering.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 2, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Less risk of long Covid too for those wondering.


Can I ask where that comes from? There is a subset of 'long covid' that is people with long term physical damage as a result of being in ICU and so on. For sure that will be reduced. But a lot of long covid is about system dysregulation arising from even mild cases - do you have any data on that or were you referring to the former?


----------



## bimble (Aug 2, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Can I ask where that comes from? There is a subset of 'long covid' that is people with long term physical damage as a result of being in ICU and so on. For sure that will be reduced. But a lot of long covid is about system dysregulation arising from even mild cases - do you have any data on that or were you referring to the former?


There was this, it’s a bit old now but :




bimble said:


> This (kings college & zoe collab study) says that vaccinated people, if infected, are 'up to 30%' less likely to get the long covid. Thats good. Not amazing but still am glad to see it.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 2, 2021)

bimble said:


> There was this, it’s a bit old now but :


Thanks, hadn't spotted this


----------



## bimble (Aug 2, 2021)

Stray ponder: are people researching anti viral treatments for covid ? Haven’t seen anything about that.


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 2, 2021)

bimble said:


> There was this, it’s a bit old now but :


Thanks, that is what I was thinking of. There are also some studies which show a lot of people get long Covid symptoms without having had Covid. So there's something there as well, i.e. some potential misdiagnosis. Not to downplay long Covid which does exist.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Thanks, that is what I was thinking of. There are also some studies which show a lot of people get long Covid symptoms without having had Covid. So there's something there as well, i.e. some potential misdiagnosis. Not to downplay long Covid which does exist.


ME related? Similar symptoms from what I've heard.


----------



## LDC (Aug 2, 2021)

A certain subset of 'long covid' will be very similar to ME/CFS in terms of having no detectable physical cause and will get diagnosed after other things have been ruled out.



Cat Fan said:


> There are also some studies which show a lot of people get long Covid symptoms without having had Covid.



Plenty of people also have ME/CFS with no identifiable viral trigger or cause, so I guess that's a similarity. (Have you got a link to that study?)


----------



## teuchter (Aug 2, 2021)

Hospital admissions continues to look encouraging.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 2, 2021)

I note that the Pulse GP trade paper is reporting that the NHS Covid-19 app has now been tweaked to reduce its sensitivity.



			https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/coronavirus/nhs-covid-app-tweaked-to-ping-fewer-contacts/


----------



## elbows (Aug 2, 2021)

bimble said:


> Stray ponder: are people researching anti viral treatments for covid ? Haven’t seen anything about that.



Yes but some people arent happy with the amount of money and effort thrown at brand new antivirals so far. A lot of the initial effort was in establishing whether any existing antivirals were useful.

I think the subject also came up again recently as a result of the SAGE document that looked at various risks. They were warning that if single antivirals were used, history suggests that resistant strains would emerge. And so they were suggesting that combination therapies where more than one antiviral is given would reduce this risk. 

I have not looked at any antivirals myself, so I dont think I can say much more than that.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 2, 2021)

bimble said:


> There was this, it’s a bit old now but :


More recently: clear evidence that even mild infections post vaccination can lead to long covid symptoms. The rate being somewhere (hand-wavingly) between around a half to one times that in the unvaccinated.
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2109072.


----------



## elbows (Aug 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Hospital admissions continues to look encouraging.



Yes hospital admissions for England and changing with exactly the right timing necessary to demonstrate that at least some of the fall in cases via testing was very real. These figures will soon start to become more useful in determining the real extent of the drop in cases.

As for case figures, Mondays arent terribly useful so it will probably be Wednesday before I next comment on the evolution of that side of the picture. I did look at a bunch of locations with high case numbers, broken down into age groups last night, and that picture is very messy, with variation in patterns seen in these different places. A common theme is that age groups such as 20-24 have stopped dropping or have gone back up again, but its still a bit too early for me to make a big deal of this or see quite where it is going.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 2, 2021)

Are we going to be exporting the Delta variation to countries where they've not had so many vaccinated do we know?


----------



## elbows (Aug 2, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Are we going to be exporting the Delta variation to countries where they've not had so many vaccinated do we know?



Delta has spread to very many countries already. As a global travel hub we will have played some part in that, but other routes were also available.

I wish I'd had more time to discuss all the countries that have had or are starting to have a nightmare with Delta. Indonesia is just one example I could name. Delta is also testing the messy vaccine picture in the US.


----------



## elbows (Aug 2, 2021)

I should also have said that there is quite a long list of countries that have imposed restictions on travel to/from the UK, but I've not tried to keep on top of the details at all.


----------



## bimble (Aug 3, 2021)

I think i must be reading this wrong. 
What does  it mean when it says that ZOE man's study has shown "around 60,000 cases a day" are reported ?
is that using zoe figures plus some algorithm ? 








						COVID-19: UK's daily coronavirus data 'looks a bit fishy', says professor behind UK's largest symptom study
					

Professor Spector, the man behind the ZOE COVID Symptom Study, says reduced coronavirus testing and concerns over the "pingdemic" could be behind the "dramatic drop" in the number of daily cases recorded by the government.




					news.sky.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 3, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I note that the Pulse GP trade paper is reporting that the NHS Covid-19 app has now been tweaked to reduce its sensitivity.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/coronavirus/nhs-covid-app-tweaked-to-ping-fewer-contacts/



Official line is that the sensitivity hasn't been changed but that people will only now be told to isolate if they were in contact with an infscted person within the last two days, rather than five.

So that's one of the last things providing a brake on infection rates being seriously watered down.


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 3, 2021)

bimble said:


> I think i must be reading this wrong.
> What does  it mean when it says that ZOE man's study has shown "around 60,000 cases a day" are reported ?
> is that using zoe figures plus some algorithm ?
> 
> ...


Yeah, it's based on scaling up the people who use the ZOE app to the full population.

Needless to say it's anyone's guess who is right here. There's a good chance the methodology for getting that 60,000 number is wrong. But I wouldn't be surprised if the official numbers were a bit understated either.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 3, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Yeah, it's based on scaling up the people who use the ZOE app to the full population.
> 
> Needless to say it's anyone's guess who is right here. There's a good chance the methodology for getting that 60,000 number is wrong. But I wouldn't be surprised if the official numbers were a bit understated either.



The official numbers have always been and always will be understated I think - they're not going to pick up all the asymptomatic cases and not everyone who does have symptoms will necessarily get a test. It should at least be a fairly consistent underestimate though so I guess the question is what would cause the recent decline in those figures if other measures are showing something different. The hospital admissions figures should be more reliable though and they do seem to be indicating a genuine decrease in numbers.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 3, 2021)

The sewer data looks convincing though ... the arseholes seem to have won the gamble - presumably people are being reasonably sensible.

The oversell on the vaccine pisses me off hugely.  I've been trying to learn a bit of the science since the beginning, but somehow missed the limitations of vaccines - which I suppose is always going to be different when you're in the middle of a pandemic, rather than just routinely vaccinating well in advance of exposure ...
It's making me wonder what a light case of measles is like ...


----------



## zahir (Aug 3, 2021)

Thread from Deepti Gurdasani




with a warning to expect a rise in cases in September...


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 3, 2021)

zahir said:


> Thread from Deepti Gurdasani
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And with the infinite wisdom you expect from management almost all the covid precautions will be removed at work by September


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Yeah, it's based on scaling up the people who use the ZOE app to the full population.
> 
> Needless to say it's anyone's guess who is right here. There's a good chance the methodology for getting that 60,000 number is wrong. But I wouldn't be surprised if the official numbers were a bit understated either.



Authorities know that daily number of people testing positive is not the whole picture at all. They do not treat the official daily numbers as though they resemble the true figure, so neither should we.

They do use the official testing system numbers as a guide to trends, but even there they like to have it confirmed by other data such as hospitalisations and also the ONS population survey, REACT, ZOE, and wastewaster monitoring. The percentage positivity rate of the official testing system is also a measure they pay attention to, since it offers clues about trends and about the extent to which not enough testing is being done to accurately capture the picture at different stages of waves.


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> The sewer data looks convincing though ... the arseholes seem to have won the gamble - presumably people are being reasonably sensible.



Unless I've missed something I've only seen the wastewater data for Scotland, and although Scotland continues to be a useful guide as to the fate of the rest of the country, paths could diverge somewhat at some point.

I'm rather unhappy about the new entities which have been setup in this pandemic that seem to have a culture of secrecy built in. The Joint Biosecurity Centre has been awful so far in this respect. It even turns out that the head of that organisation left and this was not properly publicised nor had a decent statement been made about who was now in charge of it.

I've neglected Wales in this wave, there are some things I need to look into there including whether any of their wastewaster surveillance data has been published.

The gamble has many components. They have won at least one of these for now, but at quite some political cost if the polls are to be believed. And it is unclear quite what story August will tell. So I'm currently reserving judgement.


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2021)

And its no bloody surprise that the JBC is so secretive given that it appears to be based on other spooky institutions and the head that quit was actually on secondment from some cyber security entity.



> The JBC looks to be based on the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC). JTAC analyses intelligence related to terrorism and sets threat levels, which in turn inform ministers’ decisions on protecting the public and operational deployments by the police and other agencies.







__





						StackPath
					





					www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk
				




An example of a recent story confirming the JCB head quit:









						Government denies travel system is ‘rudderless’ after data body chief quits
					

Head of Joint Biosecurity Centre has left her post, minister confirms




					www.independent.co.uk
				




Perhaps this news would have been less surprising to the media if they had noticed this from March:









						'Challenge of a lifetime': DHSC seeks leader for Joint Biosecurity Centre
					

JBC could get its third director general since being set up last year




					www.civilserviceworld.com
				




I suppose my focus on transparency should probably shift to the UK Health Security Agency, since the JBC is supposed to be rolled into that new entity. But its got security in the name, which does not exactly inspire confidence that it will have the same ethos of sharing info with the public that the likes of Public Health England have.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 3, 2021)

I've just thought today about how many headlines we've had about 'Boris/government SAVES holidays/Christmas (except they didn't)/everyone from being pinged' etc.

But not once has a headline celebrated a move to control infection as 'Saving lives'


----------



## Wilf (Aug 3, 2021)

If there really is progress (however defined or measured) it goes without saying that's a good thing.  But it's still best to keep in mind this is a flawed strategy in the sense that it's been a mixture of gambling and flailing around (over issues like travel and isolation).  And that's not just to remind us that they are incompetent scum who have killed tens of thousands, it's also about a lack of confidence how it will play out September onwards. There'll be the schools of course, but I've seen nothing to suggest university halls won't be infection factories again.  At a lower level of infection certainly, but passing the virus on to the unvaccinated _and _vaccinated. The other thing about universities is that most of them seem to be planning to maximise the amount of traditional teaching, in a response to 'why am I paying nine grand for this' complaints.  My own institution will be putting large lectures online but otherwise returning to normal lectures and seminars.  Universities are in a marketplace and none of them are going to insist on mask wearing or that students get vaccinated, afaik. They will be running pro-vaccination ads, I'm sure, and maybe that's the best way to go. But having unvaccinated 18 year olds living in halls ain't great in a pandemic.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 3, 2021)

I do hope they will change their minds re: vaccinating kids as surely schools being closed is the most obvious reason for the drop. I've heard that enough Pfizer vaccines are on their way in September to do the kids and boosters for the oldies so just maybe they'll reconsider - but as I've said elsewhere, I suspect that if they do it will be several months too late to help winter.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 3, 2021)

It's only a couple of weeks until scottish school holidays finish, so no doubt everyone will be watching closely what happens there.


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> If there really is progress (however defined or measured) it goes without saying that's a good thing.  But it's still best to keep in mind this is a flawed strategy in the sense that it's been a mixture of gambling and flailing around (over issues like travel and isolation).  And that's not just to remind us that they are incompetent scum who have killed tens of thousands, it's also about a lack of confidence how it will play out September onwards. There'll be the schools of course, but I've seen nothing to suggest university halls won't be infection factories again.  At a lower level of infection certainly, but passing the virus on to the unvaccinated _and _vaccinated. The other thing about universities is that most of them seem to be planning to maximise the amount of traditional teaching, in a response to 'why am I paying nine grand for this' complaints.  My own institution will be putting large lectures online but otherwise returning to normal lectures and seminars.  Universities are in a marketplace and none of them are going to insist on mask wearing or that students get vaccinated, afaik. They will be running pro-vaccination ads, I'm sure, and maybe that's the best way to go. But having unvaccinated 18 year olds living in halls ain't great in a pandemic.


Yes, Universities will inevitably see a spike in cases. Same as when I was in Uni and would get "freshers flu" every year. Except now with added Covid. Let's hope that as many students get vaccinated as possible in advance. It can be done if there's enough pressure from peers and from the Universities themselves.


----------



## Wilf (Aug 3, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Yes, Universities will inevitably see a spike in cases. Same as when I was in Uni and would get "freshers flu" every year. Except now with added Covid. Let's hope that as many students get vaccinated as possible in advance. It can be done if there's enough pressure from peers and from the Universities themselves.


I think there will be genuinely good 'messaging' in universities about getting vaccinated, but an unwillingness to do anything that interferes with recruitment competition and the HE free market.


----------



## redsquirrel (Aug 3, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I think there will be genuinely good 'messaging' in universities about getting vaccinated, but an unwillingness to do anything that interferes with recruitment competition and the HE free market.


Yep I think that will be bang on


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It's only a couple of weeks until scottish school holidays finish, so no doubt everyone will be watching closely what happens there.



I dont have time to analyse all the local data for Scotland but due to an evolving picture there I am trying to pay more attention to those who are.


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2021)

I mentioned the high rates in Lincoln the other day. And now we have some signs of what caused it:









						Covid: Lincoln rate highest in England as outbreak linked to club
					

High infection rates are being linked to an outbreak at a city centre nightclub, health bosses say.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> New cases increased by 83% to 649 in the week to 29 July, giving the area England's highest infection rate of 654 per 100,000 people.
> 
> The Wharf and University district, a popular destination for bars, clubs and restaurants, recorded a rate of 1,140.





> Natalie Liddle, from Public Health Lincolnshire, said the majority of cases were in people aged under 30.
> 
> "We are currently managing a cluster of outbreaks in and around Lincoln - and we've seen a particular increase in cases linked to the night-time economy," she said.
> 
> "We are particularly dealing with one large outbreak at the moment, [and] that has impacted a large number of people."


----------



## Badgers (Aug 3, 2021)

Odd that new cases are down but hospital admissions and deaths are rising


----------



## elbows (Aug 3, 2021)

Badgers said:


> View attachment 281919
> 
> Odd that new cases are down but hospital admissions and deaths are rising
> 
> View attachment 281920


Hospital admissions stopped rising a while ago, and have done a mix of staying the same or decresing since, with more decreases of note more recently.

Intensive care numbers and deaths are always the last to stop rising, and death reporting delays are numerous so its takes some time for the true picture to emerge there. Certainly its not a good idea to read too much into deaths by reporting date, because there will be days like today where the number includes a lot of catchup from weekend etc.

Looking at UK figures rather than figures for England can also introduce further delays into certain hospital figures, eg there is more lag with Scottish admission figures.

If the modest decline in numbers in English intensive care seen today continues, then it is reasonable to think that the peak in deaths will turn out to be around this period too, give or take a few days. But since the numbers of deaths per day are lower than in previous waves, they may be buffetted around more by the usual random nature of things, so I should avoid too narrow a prediction. And due to lag it will take some time for this weeks and last weeks death figures to solidify. Last time I checked the highest number of deaths by date of death for the UK was still 'freedom day', July 19th, but there are now some later contender dates for that dubious honour.


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## elbows (Aug 3, 2021)

Oh and this is what hospital admissions have been doing from July 1st onwards in the English regions and England as a whole. Made using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity which is also the same data used on the dashboard.


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## elbows (Aug 3, 2021)

Since this waves timing and scope caught many commentators and experts out a bit, leaving shit on their crystal balls, I suppose I should not be surprised that I'm hearing more talk in the media being framed with "the virus has surprised us before so..." type lines.

I think I've moaned about such framing before, because from where I've sat in this pandemic its not that easy to think of occasions where the virus has genuinely surprised me. And I wont be the only one that feels that way. Probably because what people really mean is that they were surprised to find out they were wrong about something. And in most areas I was either lucky enough to seize on the right clues or realise the extreme limitations of my own predictive abilities and hedge my bets accordingly. Maybe that is cheating, but its harder to be surprised if you keep an open mind about as many details as possible. The most obvious thing I got really, really wrong, that I could rewrite as 'the virus surprised me' if I were that way inclined, was the speed with which important new variants with implications arrived, dominated and caused waves. I expected waves linked to behaviour, I did not expect the more transmissible variants to add to that picture of waves so soon in the pandemic. But arrive they did, and I felt very foolish for choosing the wrong messages to believe at the start of the pandemic about how slowly the mutation stuff was likely to happen with this sort of virus. I should have realised that there wasnt much substance to these claims, other than the error detection mechanism this sort of virus has to reduce copying errors. And that the error detection mechanisms effects would not be enough to compensate for the fact this virus was to have so very many opportunities to copy itself. And when Alpha emerged and started to dominate, I initially had no way to judge the extent of its impact compared to the impact of botched and late lockdowns of that period. I didnt know how much was being played up by government in order to use Alpha as an excuse for their failings and u-turns. That does seem like a very long time ago now, but it really wasnt. How my attitude to variants and their potential has changed since then!

But surprises in the Delta era? Hard to come up with one, but I suppose I can. Scotlands peak was rather simultaneous with their end of school term, rather than lagged a bit behind, so I was surprised by that. But that surprise held the key to then not being surprised by whats happened in England with this wave in recent weeks.

It probably also helped me that some of the modelling for more transmissive variants, that I stared at a lot in recent months, had peak timing that was really quite close to what we've actually seen so far, which is why I kept saying July might be the month the shit hit the fan, rather than August or September. But the thing about the modelling Im on about is that I think it was from before they decided to delay step 4 of unlocking, and a lot of the later modelling had the peaks pushed further into the future. So maybe I was just lucky and a bunch of wrongs with out of date assumptions ended up being right by chance.

I suppose I should really think about what could surprise me in future. If I just stick to the current wave for now, I suppose I would be most surprised if the virus rapidly fell away to incredibly low levels. That would at least be a sign that something interesting was happening. Does anyone else have any thoughts about what would surprise them if it happened next in this wave? Because I've mostly got very little sense of what will happen next.


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## Humberto (Aug 4, 2021)

"Does anyone else have any thoughts about what would surprise them if it happened next in this wave? Because I've mostly got very little sense of what will happen next."

They are still the jingoism sell/chumocracy profiteers. Political charlatans and incompetent layabouts. So you are left with guesswork.


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## Humberto (Aug 4, 2021)

You could make a long list of governmental clueless dickheads. The Prime Minister and Bill Cash and most of the cabinet with them. It is frankly an incompetent and atrocious parliament, including the PM.


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## two sheds (Aug 4, 2021)

Here's an unhelpful slant on things 









						The latest terrible pandemic trend? Vaccine hypocrites | Arwa Mahdawi
					

Some people have been wearing disguises to vaccine appointments, because they don’t want to be seen by anti-vax friends. The culprit? Culture war capitalism




					www.theguardian.com
				




they're getting the fucking vaccination - in secret because otherwise they'd be marked down


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## gentlegreen (Aug 4, 2021)

I'm sufficiently lonely that I spend time in Paltalk chatrooms and that probably explains quite a lot of the crazy opinions expressed on there.


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## existentialist (Aug 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Here's an unhelpful slant on things
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Must be a grim choice for them - the obvious disguise would be a mask, only...


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## andysays (Aug 4, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Here's an unhelpful slant on things
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It's slightly concerning, but 



> It has been reported that some people in Missouri, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the US, are wearing disguises to their vaccine appointments



is perhaps not the knockout punch the Guardian appear to think it is.


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## Supine (Aug 4, 2021)




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## Buddy Bradley (Aug 4, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I do hope they will change their minds re: vaccinating kids


Ask and ye shall receive (in some limited fashion). Although given they still haven't updated the GOV.UK website to work for those that are almost 18, it might be a while before 16-17 year olds can actually book a vaccine, and I doubt it's all going to happen fast enough to make much of a dent in the back-to-school explosion of infections in September.


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## two sheds (Aug 4, 2021)

Supine said:


>



I hope he wasn't going in disguise to keep the vaccination secret


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## Cloo (Aug 4, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Ask and ye shall receive (in some limited fashion). Although given they still haven't updated the GOV.UK website to work for those that are almost 18, it might be a while before 16-17 year olds can actually book a vaccine, and I doubt it's all going to happen fast enough to make much of a dent in the back-to-school explosion of infections in September.


Hmm, better than nothing but 12+ would be good.


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## zahir (Aug 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> Does anyone else have any thoughts about what would surprise them if it happened next in this wave? Because I've mostly got very little sense of what will happen next.


I'll be surprised if cases don't start to rise again when schools go back. Then again I wasn't expecting the current fall.


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## Plumdaff (Aug 4, 2021)

Yes, I'd be shocked if we didn't find ourselves in a bit of trouble with case numbers in the autumn. I hadn't anticipated this drop either, and wonder if once it's pissing it down and cold again we'll see behaviour change that could ramp up the infection rate.


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## souljacker (Aug 4, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Ask and ye shall receive (in some limited fashion). Although given they still haven't updated the GOV.UK website to work for those that are almost 18, it might be a while before 16-17 year olds can actually book a vaccine, and I doubt it's all going to happen fast enough to make much of a dent in the back-to-school explosion of infections in September.


Every time they have changed the qualifying age, they have failed to update the website text to reflect the change. The website might not say 16-17yo can book but they probably can.


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 4, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Every time they have changed the qualifying age, they have failed to update the website text to reflect the change. *The website might not say 16-17yo can book but they probably can.*



I doubt that, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation hasn't yet announced that 16 & 17 years will be offered the jab, but they are expected to later today.


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## souljacker (Aug 4, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I doubt that, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation hasn't yet announced that 16 & 17 years will be offered the jab, but they are expected to later today.


I wasn't really saying that 16-17yo could book, just that the website doesn't necessarily say what the actual available age groups are. It certainly didn't when they opened up to over 45s and over 30s.


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## elbows (Aug 4, 2021)

Looks like the vaccine announcement is about to be discussed officially in a press conference that does not feature government ministers.

Speakers:

Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England
Dr June Raine, Chief Executive, Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency
Prof Wei Shen Lim, Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation


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## Raheem (Aug 4, 2021)

Seems a bit risky. They could say all sorts of unhelpfully sensible stuff.


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## elbows (Aug 4, 2021)

Raheem said:


> Seems a bit risky. They could say all sorts of unhelpfully sensible stuff.


Van-Tam started by saying how pleased he was to see journalists back in the room in person, and said that they wanted to stick to the vaccine topic today rather than discuss other stuff.


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## elbows (Aug 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> If the modest decline in numbers in English intensive care seen today continues, then it is reasonable to think that the peak in deaths will turn out to be around this period too, give or take a few days. But since the numbers of deaths per day are lower than in previous waves, they may be buffetted around more by the usual random nature of things, so I should avoid too narrow a prediction. And due to lag it will take some time for this weeks and last weeks death figures to solidify. Last time I checked the highest number of deaths by date of death for the UK was still 'freedom day', July 19th, but there are now some later contender dates for that dubious honour.



The last part of what I said there is no longer true by the way, the 30th July is currently showing the most deaths by date of death, but that can easily change again in future.


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## elbows (Aug 4, 2021)

I dont have anything much to say in regards the important bits of the vaccine press conference and this new policy for vaccinating 16-17 year olds. Instead I distracted myself with some slightly awkward moments in the press conference due to the lack of detail and evidence they wanted to go into in regards risk-reward balance etc. And I commented on part of that in another thread and thought perhaps I should repeat it here too. But I'm not trying to make a big deal out of this, I just like to make observations about how public communications are handled, obvious omissions and what they fall back on to fill the gap.....

In todays press conference the JCVI didnt offer the sort of risk numbers the press were after, or much info on whether the risk estimates/risk-reward balances had actually changed recently in light of new data. The press were after these sort of numbers given the sort of number that were used in some previous vaccine press conferences, plus the press were aware that the chief medical officers of the four nations had asked the JCVI to look again at this issue now. So instead we got a lot of talk about how data confidence increases over time, how independent the JCVI are, and then Van-Tam talking about how many hundreds of years worth of expert experience sit on the JCVI.


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## elbows (Aug 4, 2021)

Current levels of positive cases detected by specimen data make it quite tempting to start pondering what happens if levels of infection remain in this sort of zone throughout August. If that happens it doesnt really leave much wiggle room in terms of future doublings if things start rising again when schools go back. If things stopped declining now then it would involve us being at quite similar levels to those we found ourselves with during the November lockdown.

This thought is premature since levels may continue to fall. Its just hard not to start thinking like this when the curves currently show some signs of levelling off at still very high rates. In past waves when we have concerned ourselves with the possibility if things getting stuck at a certain level, the dynamics havent ended up that way at all. But that doesnt mean I should exclude the possibility when looking to the future, especially as the current situation is complex and doesnt feature a lockdown.


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## zahir (Aug 4, 2021)

Thread on today's briefing from Deepti Gurdasani


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

zahir said:


> Thread on today's briefing from Deepti Gurdasani




The official document has this to say about that last bit:






						JCVI statement on COVID-19 vaccination of children and young people aged 12 to 17 years: 4 August 2021
					






					www.gov.uk
				






> Following disruptions in routine immunisation programmes because of the pandemic, there is an urgent need to catch-up on non-COVID-19 school immunisations such as human papillomavirus (HPV) and meningitis (MenACWY) vaccinations, and there may be a need to offer other routine vaccines (such as mumps, measles and rubella (MMR)) in the school setting as part of overall recovery. In addition, for 2021 to 2022, the childhood influenza programme has been extended in the expectation that influenza activity may be earlier and more pronounced this year. The health benefits from these various non-COVID-19 school-based immunisation programmes are well established, and some may provide the last effective opportunity to complete an individual’s immunisation course and provide timely and/or lifelong protection. Further deferral of the delivery of these immunisation programmes may be associated with permanent decreases in uptake of these vaccines in affected school age cohorts.
> 
> Delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine programme for children and young people is likely to be disruptive to education in the short-term, particularly if school premises are used for vaccination. Adverse reactions to vaccination (such as fevers) may also lead to time away from education for some individuals.
> 
> Considerable additional resource will be required to minimise the operational impacts of a COVID-19 vaccine programme on the wider health of children and young people.


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

By the way, there are a number of reasons why they only announced the first doses for that age group.

Reasons include potential supply issues and giving authorities future wiggle room on that front. And allowing more time for data and research to accumulate, which was the main justification they mentioned int he press conference. But also I believe that the patterns seen in some other countries involving the heart inflammation side effect also has an influence on the second dose decisions. eg see this from the document I linked to in previous post. I have highlighted the most relevant bit via bold font.



> In recent weeks, reports have been submitted in the UK and other countries of the extremely rare occurrence of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane around the heart), following the use of Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 and Moderna mRNA- 1273 vaccines[footnote 3]. *These extremely rare adverse reactions have been more frequent shortly after the second dose, and in younger individuals and males; data from the United States indicate about 60 reported cases per million second doses in younger males, with reporting rates after the first dose being 6 to 7-fold lower[footnote 4].* The mechanism of action underlying these rare events is not currently known. Israel and the United States have reported most of the cases and experience from these countries indicate that the reported cases of myocarditis following mRNA vaccination are of a ‘milder phenotype’ with the vast majority of persons recovering swiftly from the acute episode, compared to more typical cases of myocarditis (which are mostly viral or idiopathic in aetiology). Follow up of reported cases in Israel and the United States is on-going. These reports will continue to be closely evaluated by MHRA and JCVI. See MHRA reports on COVID-19 vaccines.


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

The Independent recently ran some stories about a UK SARS planning document from 2005.









						In 2005 a blueprint was drawn up to fight a coronavirus – then it was ‘lost’
					

The Coronavirus Files: After Sars swept across the globe, the UK drew up a plan for fighting an airborne virus arriving in Britain from China. The 2005 document was filed away in Whitehall, and apparently never used. Now uncovered, its recommendations – from limiting travel to stopping...




					www.independent.co.uk
				












						In full: The 2005 coronavirus plan that predicted outbreak response from ‘super-spreader’ events to travel
					

The Coronavirus Files: Samuel Lovett looks at what the uncovered Sars blueprint recommended – and what the UK government did at the same point in the pandemic




					www.independent.co.uk
				




I would rather be able to read the full document myself, but I dont know if thats possible.

Anyway from the info I can read via those articles, it doesnt change much for me. The problem was not so much a lack of understanding of many of the details, it was a lack of will to invest in systems that could have hoped to cope, and not wanting to 'think the unthinkable' in terms of stuff like border controls and hospital capacity.

Much of the Independents angle is about how this sort of planning fell off the radar some years after that document was created. I'm not as interested in that angle because we now know that there was a MERS exercise, Exercise Alice in 2016. And to be honest even if all prior knowledge was lost, a team of experts could have cobbled together an appropriate response to the current pandemic from scratch in a number of hours. But that would not have helped make what needed to be done to become compatible with actual capabilities and capacity (including travel screening and mass testing and the right quality of PPE).

Probably of most interest is that they were well aware in 2005 of how important ventilation was, airborn transmission of this sort of virus etc. Stuff they were very slow to acknowledge in this pandemic, although it should have been bloody obvious and was not a secret at all. You only have to look at images of what sort of PPE hospital workers were wearing in South Korea once they'd had a hospital outbreak near the start. So again I dont think how obvious it was was actually the problem, it was the implications of actually having to respond appropriately to such factors that led to failures on that front. A proper response was not deemed practical or achievable, so they didnt bother.

The excuses that authorities are left with when all this other shit is stripped away, are that SARS and MERS were not as transmissible as this pandemic virus, and that asymptomatic transmission is a bigger deal with the current virus. So I doubt the 2005 documents envisaged the same scale of outbreak as the one we've had this time, and this sort of thing is also visible via the fact the 2005 plan envisaged a stage where the virus was eradicated here. This stuff is easily joined with oversimplified explanations for failure such as 'we followed a flu plan instead of a coronavirus plan' which has never impressed me. Mostly because our influenza plans would not have coped with a bad influenza pandemic virus either, and this narrative ends up as a distraction from the bottom line which was our unwillingness to invest in capacity that could have hoped to cope with a bad pandemic of any sort.

Also largely missing from these sorts of stories about why the failures happened, is the long history of cold calculations that the UK establishment indulge in. And one of the biggest barriers to having a sane system which placed the greatest emphasis on saving as many lives as possible is that most stuff that requires huge effort and investment is written off as being impractical. A question of values and priorities, rather than a simple story of bureaucratic ineptitude or accidentally looking in the wrong direction.


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## Fruitloop (Aug 5, 2021)

elbows nailed it 👍


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## Chilli.s (Aug 5, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> elbows nailed it 👍


Yet again...he shoots, he scores!

Thanks@elbows


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

Cheers. I probably neglected to cover everything about that story that I could have, and it seems I ended up repeating my main point rather too much. And I've ranted about that sort of thing before, so I'm a bit set in my ways on that particular subject. I still hope to be surprised and better informed by future leaks, public inquiry etc, but I have my doubts about what else will actually emerge that really adds to the picture. Plus in terms of my knowledge from before this pandemic, much of it came from knowing what our standard pandemic plans were like, I've never gotten my hands on any of the juicy details from non-flu planning documents and exercises. 

Oh and the 'funny' thing about how come I always expected asymptomatic transmission to be a fairly big deal in this pandemic is that I got that impression via influenza knowledge! So maybe I just lucked into guessing that one right in a way some experts did not. This does make a further mockery of the two largest remaining excuses though, 'followed flu plan' and 'didnt appreciate role of asymptomatic transmission' are excuses that are not fully compatible with each other, there is an awkward contradiction. 

Frankly I always assumed authorities played down the asymtomatic possibilities in the early months becase it was a highly inconvenient truth with massive implications. Authorities and some experts therefore had many reasons not to want to believe asymptomatic transmission was a big deal, and it isnt easy for me as an outsider to know which experts and people in authority actually convinced themselves it wasnt a big factor, and which ones knew the probable reality but decided to bullshit.

I would love some estimates about what proportion of cases are superspreader events. Thats another thing they already knew to expect from SARS-like viruses via the original SARS experience.

Speaking of experts and what they genuinely believed, these days many themes that relate to children are where the greatest contentions within the scientific community that share their thoughts publicly are to be found. It can get quite nasty at times, rows between scientists may involve less swear words but get personal just as quickly as any other disagreement. There will be the usual mix of reasons for this - emotive issues that come automatically from issues involving children, but also the same stuff I mentioned earlier about unthinkable implications that it is more convenient to deny (eg matters with an impact on the merits of schools closures = childcare issues = workforce issues). And the continual friction between 'what should really be done' and things like vaccine supply realities. Its no surprise that Indie SAGE get into scraps about issues on this front all the time, and that nearly everyone cherry picks angles that serve their overall stance well. 

Speaking of children, there is a long list of things where the UK ends up looking especially bad in this pandemic compared to many other countries. But somtimes the amount of effort and resources actually put into mitigation within schools, and the educational needs of children is an especially embarrassing stain. 

Half arsed and absurd. Deranged noises from some quarters to distract what our priorities should be.


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## editor (Aug 5, 2021)

And up she rises


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

There is probably angry song potential in something like:

Learning to live with Covid-19, 
Hospital admissions aged 0 to 17.



(dont take first wave levels at face value due to a lack of testing in that period and the start of that wave being missing from the data)


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

editor said:


> And up she rises


By test specimen date, the current temptation when looking at the latest graphs of positive cases is to see a picture of case numbers either stagnating or only falling at much slower rates recently.

Since this is by specimen data some figures are incomplete and will be added to in future. That sort of period is shown here in grey but some of those grey bars apart from the most recent one might not actually grow much more in the coming days, impossible to say.


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## Fruitloop (Aug 5, 2021)

Relating to the previous point, it reminds me of the Economist's criticism of Richard Temple importing rice during the Orissa famine, i.e. that it would lead people to erroneously believe that it was the government's job to keep them alive. The great unwashed exist for the purpose of value extraction, not as a value sink, an attitude that hasn't changed a lot in the minds of British elites since 1866.


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

I've complained in the past that when I try to look at hospital admissions by age, there is an absurdly broad 18-64 group in the data.

Now that authorities have reasons to try to improve vaccine uptake in younger age groups, we've been treated to a one off revelation that a fifth of admissions are aged 18-34.









						Covid: Fifth of England hospital admissions aged 18-34
					

The new NHS chief executive urges unvaccinated young adults to get jabbed, saying it is "so important".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Well what I really mean is that when I read that story I initially feared it was just a one-off revelation in an interview, but actually it looks like they've put these details in the proper data now too. The spreadsheet that comes out once a month with some age details has been updated to include a much larger number of separate age bands. I shall dig into this data later, I think its the last file on this page: Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

Apologies for the colours used in this graph. 

What we have here is the  hospital admissions/diagnoses per day by age group for England, as mentioned in previous post.

We can see that in the youngest age groups, peak hospitalisation numbers are quite similar to those seen in the terrible winter wave. But we dont have to travel that far up the age groups to see the massive impact of vaccines this time, with admissions a fraction of those seen in the winter wave.

If we look at the autumn wave (pre-Alpha) instead, we can see that this time around the combination of admissions in age groups all the way up to 64 this time around is not dissimilar to the autumn peak admission levels in people up to that age, and that its those who were in the age groups above that which made the autumn peak higher than the one seen recently.

I suppose I will do a follow up post to this at some point where I look at the peak number of admissions in each age group and describe them in terms of what percentage of the autumn and winter peaks they reached.


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## Cat Fan (Aug 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> Apologies for the colours used in this graph.
> 
> What we have here is the  hospital admissions/diagnoses per day by age group for England, as mentioned in previous post.
> 
> ...


Very interesting, thanks.

Too bad for the poor 25-34s who weren't fully vaccinated and have been hit just as hard in this wave as the last one.

Most 25-34s I know have only just got their 2nd jab or will be getting it v. soon. So we should see admissions go down in that age group 2-3 weeks from now if we're lucky.


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Very interesting, thanks.
> 
> Too bad for the poor 25-34s who weren't fully vaccinated and have been hit just as hard in this wave as the last one.
> 
> Most 25-34s I know have only just got their 2nd jab or will be getting it v. soon. So we should see admissions go down in that age group 2-3 weeks from now if we're lucky.



I've done some percentage comparisons now of the latest peak compared to the autumn and winter ones.

But note that for this exercise I have only used absolute worst day peak numbers for whichever days in these waves each age group experienced their very highest numbers. A better way of judging the overall burden on each age group would be to count the total admissions, but I cant do that for this wave yet, and there are terrible complications trying to do it for the autumn and winter waves as they hugely overlap.

Compared to the January peak admission figures, I get things like this for the recent July peak:

0-5: 100% (peak of 33 admissions/diagnoses in one day on both occasions)
6-17: 100% (31 on both occasions)
18-24: 100% (64 on both occasions)
25-34: 84.2% (144 this time, 171 last time)
35-44: 52% (119 this time, 229 last time)
45-54: 28.5% (119 this time, 417 last time)
55-64: 18.4% (115 this time, 625 last time)
65-74: 14.2% (102 this time, 718 last time)
75-84: 11.8% (106 this time, 899 last time)
85+: 10% (80 this time, 800 last time)

Like I said, I would prefer to do this with total admissions over the length of each wave, but cannot. It still gives some useful indication I suppose. I've also done plenty of manual work to come up with those figures and there is nobody to check my workings out so who knows if I've made any mistakes.

I guess I'll post the same figures but compared to the autumn peak shortly.

There are a number of things we can draw from this sort of data. We can for example notice how much of the burden has been reduced in older ages, but also how that now means that pretty much every age group above 24 has placed a somewhat similar strain on hospitals this time.


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## teuchter (Aug 5, 2021)

It looks like 35-45s age group also hasn't changed hugely.

Should probably be seen in the context of quite different behaviour during each wave though. In other words people in these age groups have possibly been out and about a lot more during this wave but not suffered increased hospitalisations as a result.


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

Same comparison but with the July peak compared to the November 2020 autumn peak:

0-5: 253.8% (33 this time, 13 last November)
6-17: 206.7% (31 this time, 15 last November)
18-24: 213.3% (64 this time, 30 last November)
25-34: 205.7% (144 this time, 70 last November)
35-44: 132.2% (119 this time, 90 last November)
45-54: 85.6% (119 this time, 139 last November)
55-64: 53.5% (115 this time, 215 last November)
65-74: 32.5% (102 this time, 314 last November)
75-84: 26.3% (106 this time, 403 last November)
85+: 22% (80 this time, 363 last November)

Also note that even where there are similarities in totals between waves, the way they have been spread across each region has varied a fair bit for each wave, and I wont be repeating any of these tedious exercises on a per region basis! I have done something vaguely similar for a few regions in terms of peak number of people in hospital beds and in mechanical ventilator beds, but I'm not ready to describe those properly at the moment and may as well wait to see what happens next in this wave before I do more of this sort of thing.


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## elbows (Aug 5, 2021)

One further way of looking at the same data is to look at what percentage of admissions per day each age group is responsible for.

A quick eyeballing of charts like this one suggest that the age groups under 55, who accounted for about a quarter of hospital admissions at one stage of the winter wave, were involved in over half the admissions per day in the current wave. Although when I say that I have to point out that its been gradually sliding slightly back in the other direction, but not to the extent that we would quickly end up back with the old proportions.

Thats represented in the following chart by the area from the bottom up to, and including, the purple area.


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## Badgers (Aug 6, 2021)




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## Badgers (Aug 6, 2021)

Boris Johnson's £75m 'Brexit jet' provided by same company running red list quarantine hotels
					

The Airbus A321, acquired to ferry ministers and the members of the Royal Family to engagements around the globe, was secured via Corporate Travel Management, an Australian-based company awarded two key Covid-response contracts




					inews.co.uk


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## Artaxerxes (Aug 6, 2021)

Badgers said:


>




Yes


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## Cat Fan (Aug 6, 2021)

Badgers said:


>



Yes, and even the red list itself is 90% about politics, 10% about science.

For example India is being moved onto the amber list ahead of many other red list countries in similar situations.

USA is on the amber list despite being in the midst of a big resurgence in cases. Mexico is being moved onto the red list but not USA.

Meanwhile the USA has a travel ban on people coming in from the UK anyway! Some special relationship there...


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## existentialist (Aug 6, 2021)

WG has issued a deliciously ranty statement re quarantining and international travel: Written Statement: International travel changes from 8 August 2021 (5 August 2021) | GOV.WALES



> The UK Government has announced changes to the red, amber and green country lists for international travel in England. Despite our continued efforts to press for UK-wide decision-making in this area, decisions for England have once again been made without engagement with the Welsh Government or the other Devolved Governments.
> 
> This is unacceptable – international travel policy affects all parts of the UK and Welsh interests need to be part of the decision-making process.
> 
> ...



tldr: they're aligning their policy with that of England.


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 6, 2021)

existentialist said:


> WG has issued a deliciously ranty statement re quarantining and international travel: Written Statement: International travel changes from 8 August 2021 (5 August 2021) | GOV.WALES
> 
> 
> 
> tldr: they're aligning their policy with that of England.


No offence to the Welsh government, but they only represent 3m people out of a country of 70m and they don't have any major airports. All the impotent rants in the world won't change that!


----------



## existentialist (Aug 6, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> No offence to the Welsh government, but they only represent 3m people out of a country of 70m and they don't have any major airports. All the impotent rants in the world won't change that!


It remains the case that they ARE part of the UK, and it would have made a lot more sense throughout this pandemic if the English government had at least attempted to co-ordinate their actions with their devolved counterparts.

It's not just about international travel - there is considerable traffic, including holiday traffic, between England and Wales, and the abrupt and seemingly random changes in English policy have made it extremely difficult for the Welsh government to continue to implement its own policies - as it is perfectly legally entitled to do. With the result that, for example, we have recently had a lot of English people coming to Wales and then refusing to comply with Welsh regulations and wear masks because "I'm English". FTR, I am also English - this isn't a Welsh nationalist thing. It's a consideration and courtesy thing, and I think that the Welsh Government is perfectly entitled to call out the shabby way in which Johnson has conducted himself in regard to his relationships with the devolved nations.


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 6, 2021)

existentialist said:


> It remains the case that they ARE part of the UK, and it would have made a lot more sense throughout this pandemic if the English government had at least attempted to co-ordinate their actions with their devolved counterparts.
> 
> It's not just about international travel - there is considerable traffic, including holiday traffic, between England and Wales, and the abrupt and seemingly random changes in English policy have made it extremely difficult for the Welsh government to continue to implement its own policies - as it is perfectly legally entitled to do. With the result that, for example, we have recently had a lot of English people coming to Wales and then refusing to comply with Welsh regulations and wear masks because "I'm English". FTR, I am also English - this isn't a Welsh nationalist thing. It's a consideration and courtesy thing, and I think that the Welsh Government is perfectly entitled to call out the shabby way in which Johnson has conducted himself in regard to his relationships with the devolved nations.


 Not impressed with that, if the WAG think its really a bad policy they shouldn't mirror it and having an open border between us an England wouldnt completely negate the positive effect of us not allowing high infection countries open travel to Cardiff, it is of course about the Economy but Drakeford wants its to look like it's Boris's fault when things take off again here in Wales


----------



## LDC (Aug 6, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Yes, and even the red list itself is 90% about politics, 10% about science.
> 
> For example India is being moved onto the amber list ahead of many other red list countries in similar situations.
> 
> ...



Not disputing that politics doesn't play a part, but it's not as simple as numbers of cases, there's other factors at play; variants and vaccination levels for example. Just going on about how it doesn't make sense when you look at the case numbers is that trick the travel industry uses to try and put pressure on the government to open up more.

Look at the testing and vaccination % level difference between Mexico and the USA for example, that's the difference.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 6, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Look at the testing and vaccination % level difference between Mexico and the USA for example, that's the difference.



Yep, Mexico is not big on testing, they've done 66,385 tests per million population, compared to the USA at 1,625,465.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 6, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Not impressed with that, if the WAG think its really a bad policy they shouldn't mirror it and having an open border between us an England wouldnt completely negate the positive effect of us not allowing high infection countries open travel to Cardiff, it is of course about the Economy but Drakeford wants its to look like it's Boris's fault when things take off again here in Wales


Well, yes - I would prefer that WG had continued to plough its own furrow, and not capitulate to the Haystack Buffoon. But I imagine that the situation is probably pretty untenable as it stands - the disparities were hard enough to police earlier on in lockdown, and it's probably even worse now.

And, if it does all go pear shaped in Wales, why shouldn't we point the finger at England's shitty and useless approach? It's hardly as if we'd be on our own, given the fairly extensive international criticism of UK policy throughout.

One thing's for sure - it's playing very nicely into the hands of the Welsh nationalist movement, and good luck to them.


----------



## sparkybird (Aug 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, Mexico is not big on testing, they've done 66,385 tests per million population, compared to the USA at 1,625,465.


You have to pay for a covid test in Mexico - I wonder if that affects the numbers????


----------



## elbows (Aug 6, 2021)

Hopefully the hospitalisations by age stuff I posted the other day gives people the right sense of what was actually said and meant by Amanda Pritchard.

Because its not unusual for recent reporting to describe what was said as "She added the level of young adults being admitted to hospital was four times higher than the peak last winter."

People might think that 'level' implies the raw number of cases, but this isnt what the data shows. Its the proportion of younger adults that is much higher, not the actual numbers of younger people being 4 times higher.

Hugh Pym of the BBC seems to understand this, and so uses the right language, eg:



> In one sense the latest figures showing a sharply higher proportion of under 35s among Covid hospital patients illustrates the success of the vaccination programme.



Quotes are from Covid: Fifth of England hospital admissions aged 18-34 but I've seen similar vague use of the word level more recently so felt the need to make this post.


----------



## glitch hiker (Aug 6, 2021)

What do you do if you can't afford the quarantine bill on your return?


----------



## IC3D (Aug 6, 2021)

Has it been established that we measure hospital admissions citing covid as the the cause rather than detected?


----------



## elbows (Aug 6, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Has it been established that we measure hospital admissions citing covid as the the cause rather than detected?



No the definition used for the standard daily data has not changed.

What happened is that "for" and "with" info is being collected, and a version of this data was made public on July 29th, leading to shit articles by the Telegraph. I don think that form of data has been released again since.

So when I post daily hosiptal admissions/diagnoses graphs for England like the one below, it still includes every patient for whom Covid was detected in the hospital setting (or prior to admission).

This graph is one of a number of data sources which demonstrate why my current levels of optimism are rather limited in regards about whats happened recently and what is to come. But the picture might look different again to me by the next time this data comes out (it isnt reported at weekends). In much the same way that this graph would have created a somewhat more pleasing impression last time I posted it, because it didnt have those last 3 days of entries in it back then.



Data used to make that graph is from the following page, which also has the July 29th data I mentioned and some blurb explaining it and some caveats. Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## Supine (Aug 6, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> What do you do if you can't afford the quarantine bill on your return?



stay in jail for free? With better facilities


----------



## elbows (Aug 6, 2021)

In terms of cases by specimen date, when zooming into individual towns, cities etc it seems to be much easier for me to find places where number of cases is getting stuck at high levels recently, than places showing other patterns. Dont get me wrong, there are still quite a lot of places we can find with other trends, but the levelling off of numbers seems the rather dominant trend right now.

With football season upon us and a mixed picture on the weather front, and the hospital numbers I just posted, my sense of optimism remains diminished but I still dont rule anything out, I still dont know what will happen next.


----------



## elbows (Aug 6, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Has it been established that we measure hospital admissions citing covid as the the cause rather than detected?


I forgot to say that this is the post where I graphed that data.        #41,170


----------



## IC3D (Aug 6, 2021)

Thx elbows
We have green Amber and red pathways which is fairly self explanatory. However there is a lot of pressure to take red patients, those with confirmed +ve or confirmed contact into siderooms on green and Amber wards because pressures. Sometimes comes very close to a slip up esp with junior staff leading to patients that self isolate losing that green status.


----------



## existentialist (Aug 6, 2021)

Supine said:


> stay in jail for free? With better facilities


The likelihood of sexual harassment is probably somewhat lower...


----------



## elbows (Aug 6, 2021)

The following is a small fraction of the data available in the latest critical care report.

I havent attempted to establish what percentage of the cases that end up in critical care are covered by these reports.




                             ICNARC_COVID-19_Report_2021-08-06.pdf from ICNARC – Reports


----------



## Cat Fan (Aug 6, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> What do you do if you can't afford the quarantine bill on your return?


In theory you have to buy the quarantine before you travel or you won't be allowed on the flight.

I understand that it's worse for Australian expats trying to get back home. 1) limited numbers so you have to wait months 2) paying for quarantine on arrival and 3) flights cost an absolute bomb, and you probably need to buy a business class ticket or you will get bumped


----------



## weepiper (Aug 6, 2021)

This seems like good news








						R number in Scotland below 1 for first time since May
					

The rate at which Covid infection is spreading in Scotland has fallen to its lowest level since the spring.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2021)

weepiper said:


> This seems like good news
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oh they have noticed the wastewater surveillance that is part of the weekly modelling report that article mentions. This is the same stuff I mentioned from the previous few weekly reports, and it sounds like the situation has continued in the manner first hinted at in the previous weeks report. Wastewater Covid levels higher than number of positive cases detected imply they should be. 



> Among the data the report looks at is wastewater monitoring.
> 
> It says Covid-19 RNA concentrations have fallen by about 20%, although the current levels of wastewater Covid are still in a similar range to late January/early February.
> 
> ...


----------



## platinumsage (Aug 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh they have noticed the wastewater surveillance that is part of the weekly modelling report that article mentions. This is the same stuff I mentioned from the previous few weekly reports, and it sounds like the situation has continued in the manner first hinted at in the previous weeks report. Wastewater Covid levels higher than number of positive cases detected imply they should be.



No one has published enough about UK wastewater analysis to assure me they can make accurate comparisons between areas over time, or confidently relate unexpected changes in a particular area to actual infection levels.  For example, sewage systems in different locations would be expected to respond differently to varying inputs over time, and the type of properties, urban/rural setting etc would affect this.

This is what the gov say:

"Estimating infection rates

Some studies have shown SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations to correlate with COVID-19 cases. However, exact infection rates cannot yet be calculated from SARS-CoV-2 wastewater monitoring. This is because calculating exact infection rates from a sample relies on knowing how much virus is released from faeces and/or urine during different infection stages and how long it can persist in different sewer networks. Researchers do not know this yet for SARS-CoV-2. Instead, scientists are starting to estimate viral RNA concentrations per inhabitant based on wastewater monitoring. For this, scientists need to know how many people are contributing to a wastewater sample and if rain and/or industrial wastewater diluted the sample. This is important so that monitoring results can be compared over time and across different regions...."

All sorts of things can affect the dilution and degradation of RNA in sewage systems, from rainfall to whether the local authority puts bleach block toilet cleaners in school cisterns or whatever.


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 7, 2021)

The other drawback to waste water surveillance is that many if not most rural locations are "off-grid" as the inhabitants rely on septic tanks and bio-disc or similar reed-bed systems ...

I live a couple of miles outside a small rural town (with a population of under 4,000) and we have a septic tank, as do all the surrounding farm-houses ( & the largest "small hotel / pub" a mile or two away has a bio-disc plant ) ...


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> The other drawback to waste water surveillance is that many if not most rural locations are "off-grid" as the inhabitants rely on septic tanks and bio-disc or similar reed-bed systems ...
> 
> I live a couple of miles outside a small rural town (with a population of under 4,000) and we have a septic tank, as do all the surrounding farm-houses ( & the largest "small hotel / pub" a mile or two away has a bio-disc plant ) ...


Yeah thats not the sort of surveillance its good for.


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No one has published enough about UK wastewater analysis to assures me they can make accurate comparisons between areas over time, or confidently relate unexpected changes in a particular area to actual infection levels.  For example, sewage systems n different locations would be expected to respond differently to varying inputs over time, and the type of properties, urban/rural setting etc would affect this.
> 
> This is what the gov say:
> 
> ...


I've seen enough to know that its useful for trend monitoring, though I wouldnt want to use it as the only source of info. It compliments other data streams in a useful way. The document you linked to mentions that they can use it for trends more than for estimating exact infection rates.

I was quite impressed with some of the outbreaks they managed to detect using this method during pilot trial stages. In terms of its usefulness in spotting real things in a situation like the recent/current one, it will be interesting to see if the patterns being seen in Scotland end up revealing a situation that is then confirmed by other means, or whether its a false signal and they learn something some about the limitations as a result.

I do get sad when I read documents like the one you posted because its another of the official docs that teased me by suggesting such data would be added to the dashboard 'soon'. But as such articles tended to emerge in November and December last year, they did not live up to that aim.


----------



## elbows (Aug 7, 2021)

And I dont blame you for being far from convinced at this stage. At least Scotland releasing some of their data & analysis means we get a chance to judge this stuff on a certain level at least. If I had the England data I could judge it similarly, see how well it seems to fit with other indicators as this wave evolves.


----------



## l'Otters (Aug 8, 2021)

I’m interested in getting a portable HEPA filter. Any pointers on finding a decent one that won’t break the bank?


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 8, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> I’m interested in getting a portable HEPA filter. Any pointers on finding a decent one that won’t break the bank?


May I ask how you would use it?, would it be left on in a room?


----------



## editor (Aug 8, 2021)

existentialist said:


> WG has issued a deliciously ranty statement re quarantining and international travel: Written Statement: International travel changes from 8 August 2021 (5 August 2021) | GOV.WALES
> 
> 
> 
> tldr: they're aligning their policy with that of England.


Quite right too.


----------



## elbows (Aug 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Speaking of experts and what they genuinely believed, these days many themes that relate to children are where the greatest contentions within the scientific community that share their thoughts publicly are to be found. It can get quite nasty at times, rows between scientists may involve less swear words but get personal just as quickly as any other disagreement. There will be the usual mix of reasons for this - emotive issues that come automatically from issues involving children, but also the same stuff I mentioned earlier about unthinkable implications that it is more convenient to deny (eg matters with an impact on the merits of schools closures = childcare issues = workforce issues). And the continual friction between 'what should really be done' and things like vaccine supply realities. Its no surprise that Indie SAGE get into scraps about issues on this front all the time, and that nearly everyone cherry picks angles that serve their overall stance well.


The very next day after I said that, indie SAGE had a child from an at-risk group on their live stream to ask a question.

This went down very badly in some quarters. Some of the complaints seem reasonable, but part of the poor reaction to this is from people in positions of responsibility whose stances failed children like this, and they really dont like being called out for it or having their judgement questioned at all. They consider themselves to be oh so bloody reasonable, grounded in reality where difficult decisions and balances have to be made, and they are not up for being shamed by indie SAGE. Often their line of attack turns to the unaccountability of indie SAGE, or descends to the depths of scientists shouting at each other to stay in their own specialist lanes.

I dont spend that much time studying this stuff, I jsut see a fraction of it while scrolling through a list of pandemic-relevant accounts that I threw together on twitter some time ago. Indie SAGE are far from perfect and some of the complaints are fair enough, but I cannot help but notice that some of those complaining are experts whose utterances at the early stages of the pandemic were not very impressive to me at the time. Overall they were still fine in terms of pandemic attitude, but their limitations were exposed when it came to specific details, and those same flaws are still in play now. I often speak broadly about experts and the establishment, without delving too deeply into what constitutes the establishment. Well meaning experts whose sights have been narrowed by the realities of their jobs, the system, the available resources, the priorities and what is considered reasonable, trapped by 'the way things are done round here'. Even where they may hate some of those systemic limitations, they end up becoming part of the system that upholds such flaws and entrenches mediocrity. They end up having to justify the unjustifiable, and jumping through such hoops becomes second nature to them, so they react badly when this is challenged.


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 10, 2021)

Just been watching the Anti-Vaxxer morons in London, they just spout complete falsehoods as if they are facts, really makes me sad that there is such a large cadre of idiots spreading that crap


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 10, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Just been watching the Anti-Vaxxer morons in London, they just spout complete falsehoods as if they are facts, really makes me sad that there is such a large cadre of idiots spreading that crap


What interests me is the average level of biological education in the general populace.
I was dismayed to learn that my sister thought the AstraZeneca vaccine she had been given was an MRNA vaccine ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 10, 2021)

According to the ONS, vaccine hesitancy has dropped amongst the younger age groups, with 16-17 age olds it has decreased from 14% to 11%, 18-21's went down to 5% from 9%, 22-25's down to 9% from 10%, which sounds good.

But, it's not reflected in the numbers having had their first jabs, despite the threat of vaccine passports for clubs., etc., and more recently bribes, the numbers are depressingly low in England with 18-24's at just 60.1%, and 25-29's at just 60.7%. (source - government dashboard) 🤷‍♂️









						COVID-19: Coronavirus vaccine hesitancy among younger people decreases, ONS figures show
					

The survey looked at attitudes during the period from 23 June to 18 July - a day before most coronavirus restrictions were lifted in England.




					news.sky.com


----------



## kabbes (Aug 10, 2021)

There is a huge tier of establishment psychology that thinks it can measure attitudes of people as if they are consistent (if not constant) and that attitudes define behaviour. Neither thing is true. I am not remotely surprised that asking people what they think of taking vaccines can be inconsistent with how many people actually take vaccines. The former is a contextual construction created in the moment, the latter is based on the material reality of peoples’ lives and their priorities day to day.


----------



## killer b (Aug 10, 2021)

the numbers in the young being low reflect a cohort that can't really be bothered rather than hesitancy as such, I'd imagine. Like with voting etc


----------



## LDC (Aug 10, 2021)

kabbes said:


> There is a huge tier of establishment psychology that thinks it can measure attitudes of people as if they are consistent (if not constant) and that attitudes define behaviour. Neither thing is true. I am not remotely surprised that asking people what they think of taking vaccines can be inconsistent with how many people actually take vaccines. The former is a contextual construction created in the moment, the latter is based on the material reality of peoples’ lives and their priorities day to day.



I had someone in to get their vaccine a few months ago who.... had had covid, but didn't believe covid was real, didn't trust the vaccine or want one, yet was there to get the vaccine. I chatted to them a bit and couldn't make much sense of any of it. I'm not sure they would have been an easily categorized survey subject!


----------



## andysays (Aug 10, 2021)

killer b said:


> the numbers in the young being low reflect a cohort that can't really be bothered rather than hesitancy as such, I'd imagine. Like with voting etc


I think the whole use of the term "vaccine hesitancy" is problematic or at least unhelpful. 

There is a whole range of reasons why people, whatever their age, might not have got tested, and lumping them all together as "hesitant", with the unstated implications behind that word, doesn't shed any real light on the range of reasons or what might be done to persuade those who haven't been vaccinated. 

But I guess the "couldn't be bothered" slice is likely to be bigger in younger cohorts than older, as you suggest.


----------



## IC3D (Aug 10, 2021)

I think that even with full vaccinations covid will not go away, people who are vaccinated are catching it still and spreading it presumably. I can't see a rational behind getting vaccinated other than protecting yourself from hospitalisation which appears to be successful and that is vital but it is not stopping covid in any sense. I think it could well be a leak from a lab and this is why everything is so heavy handed regarding testing and data collection because they have no idea if it will get worse or not. That's as far as I go with conspiracies but I get why others are going for more nutty stuff. 
As a caveat I don't understand virology but if 80% of the global population(we don't seem to be sharing) are not vaccinated it stands to reason we will be getting more shots for a long time.


----------



## elbows (Aug 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I think that even with full vaccinations covid will not go away, people who are vaccinated are catching it still and spreading it presumably. I can't see a rational behind getting vaccinated other than protecting yourself from hospitalisation which appears to be successful and that is vital but it is not stopping covid in any sense. I think it could well be a leak from a lab and this is why everything is so heavy handed regarding testing and data collection because they have no idea if it will get worse or not. That's as far as I go with conspiracies but I get why others are going for more nutty stuff.
> As a caveat I don't understand virology but if 80% of the global population(we don't seem to be sharing) are not vaccinated it stands to reason we will be getting more shots for a long time.



I dont quite get one of your points because I dont see what difference the origin of the virus in humans would make towards future possibilities. Regardless of the starting point, mutations are random errors that happen naturally, but with selection pressure involved in various circumstances, and more opportunities to mutate the more infections occur. Whether the virus went straight from animals to humans or whether this happened via an intermediate lab accident stage makes no difference to these latter mutation events. And even an extreme hypothesis where some lab engineering was involved doesnt mean that the future mutations will then follow a pre-conceived human plan.


----------



## IC3D (Aug 10, 2021)

I appreciate your reply elbows as I said without a successful global vaccination program if what you say is correct about reduced mutation then we still won't be getting anywhere.
For example reduced selection opertunities in bacteria has led diectly to more resistance in relation to antibiotics. A potential nightmare in the near future, which I believe is fueling much of the medical research into viruses. Already a virus has been made that eats c diff which is as you may know a nasty bacteria that destroys the bowel and attacks people on antibiotics.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I can't see a rational behind getting vaccinated other than protecting yourself from hospitalisation which appears to be successful and that is vital but it is not stopping covid in any sense.


Apart from protecting us from hospitalisation and death, what have the vaccines ever done for us?


----------



## two sheds (Aug 10, 2021)

Maltin said:


> Apart from protecting us from hospitalisation and death, what have the vaccines ever done for us?


and the people around us

and doctors and nurses from burnout and infection


----------



## elbows (Aug 10, 2021)

It is true that some recent studies have found similar viral loads in vaccinated people who have caught the virus and those who were not vaccinated. So the hope on that front is now more concentrated on how much less likely vaccinated people are to catch it in the first place.


----------



## Maltin (Aug 10, 2021)

two sheds said:


> and the people around us
> 
> and doctors and nurses from burnout and infection


Right. Apart from protecting us from hospitalisation and death, protecting the people around us and the doctors and nurses, what have the vaccines ever done for us??


----------



## IC3D (Aug 10, 2021)

Maltin said:


> Apart from protecting us from hospitalisation and death, what have the vaccines ever done for us?


As long as you support my right to have babies were cool


----------



## IC3D (Aug 10, 2021)

two sheds said:


> and the people around us
> 
> and doctors and nurses from burnout and infection


Doctors and nurses are burnt out for other reasons but thanks for the thought.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Doctors and nurses are burnt out for other reasons but thanks for the thought.


Indeed, a major reason has to be having to care for the huge number of people admitted to hospitals with covid though.


----------



## IC3D (Aug 10, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Indeed, a major reason has to be having to care for the huge number of people admitted to hospitals with covid though.


Thankfully that isn't happening as the vulnerable cohort are vaccinated. Dealing with 18 month backlog of people requiring hospital care with reduced staffing due stress sickness and staff leaving is now the problem facing the NHS


----------



## IC3D (Aug 10, 2021)

This dwarfs covid I promise you


----------



## two sheds (Aug 10, 2021)

But a lot of the burnout and stress sickness surely has been caused by last year's insane workload - much of that caused by covid. Coming burnout will indeed come from huge waiting lists.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 10, 2021)

Plus the stress of wondering whether you're going to catch covid from patients on the ward. With (as I understand it) PPE that's often not good enough.


----------



## elbows (Aug 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Thankfully that isn't happening as the vulnerable cohort are vaccinated. Dealing with 18 month backlog of people requiring hospital care with reduced staffing due stress sickness and staff leaving is now the problem facing the NHS


In this wave in the North East, the number of covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds reached 63% of the level seen in that region last autumn, and 46.8% of the levels seen at the peak of their winter wave.

The press have done a terrible job at reporting this wave in those sort of terms. And only today I caught the Guardians live updates page going on about how many hospitalised people are there for other reasons. But they totally ignore the data the NHS actually published about this, and instead go with a lot of useless shit that the likes of the Telegraph came out with before that data was published, about how half of people didnt test positive until after they were admitted. (                           1h ago    14:55                    )


----------



## BillRiver (Aug 10, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Plus the stress of wondering whether you're going to catch covid from patients on the ward. With (as I understand it) PPE that's often not good enough.



It depends which ward/department you work in, to quite a large degree. My mate who is a nurse in A&E has been very affected (and indeed did catch covid from a patient). Other nurses in some other wards/departments somewhat less so.


----------



## IC3D (Aug 10, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> It depends which ward/department you work in, to quite a large degree. My mate who is a nurse in A&E has been very affected (and indeed did catch covid from a patient). Other nurses in other wards/departments somewhat less so.


Yea very dependent on the area. I'm triaging onc, thorasic, ent and haem it's a nightmare. Sone areas it's not been so heavy


----------



## IC3D (Aug 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> In this wave in the North East, the number of covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds reached 63% of the level seen in that region last autumn, and 46.8% of the levels seen at the peak of their winter wave.
> 
> The press have done a terrible job at reporting this wave in those sort of terms. And only today I caught the Guardians live updates page going on about how many hospitalised people are there for other reasons. But they totally ignore the data the NHS actually published about this, and instead go with a lot of useless shit that the likes of the Telegraph came out with before that data was published, about how half of people didnt test positive until after they were admitted. (                           1h ago    14:55                    )


To be blunt religiosity is a problem with older people and I'd guess they are Bangladeshi and Pakistanis


----------



## belboid (Aug 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> To be blunt religiosity is a problem with older people and I'd guess they are Bangladeshi and Pakistanis


Overcrowded housing and poverty probably rather more important than their religion.


----------



## IC3D (Aug 10, 2021)

belboid said:


> Overcrowded housing and poverty probably rather more important than their religion.


No some people just believe in God strongly


----------



## Numbers (Aug 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> No some people just believe in God strongly


My sister in law refuses to have the jab, she believes her prayers will keep her safe.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 10, 2021)

Ask her whether she drives at full speed across junctions without stopping - prayers would keep her just as safe.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 10, 2021)

Numbers said:


> My sister in law refuses to have the jab, she believes her prayers will keep her safe.


----------



## Yossarian (Aug 10, 2021)

Numbers said:


> My sister in law refuses to have the jab, she believes her prayers will keep her safe.



"If only God would make it so there was some way we could protect ourselves from this terrible virus."


----------



## belboid (Aug 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> No some people just believe in God strongly


Yes, lots do.  But Islam has no problem with modern medicine and even claims to have invented half of it.  So there is no simply _religious_ reason why they should be over represented in figures.


----------



## elbows (Aug 10, 2021)

We are used to various dubious contrarians or a few loud experts who should know better adopting stupid attitudes in this pandemic. But I think we are now into a period where we will glimpse more thoughts like that from those with more respectable pandemic track records, from more professional quarters.

For example today I had cause to post this article in one of the vaccine threads, but there is other stuff in the article I should probably draw attention to and attempt to explain.









						Oxford-jab chief criticises UK's Covid booster plan
					

Health Secretary Sajid Javid says he plans to begin the third jab rollout in a matter of weeks.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Prof Pollard also warned that herd immunity was "not a possibility" because the delta variant would continue to infect people who had been vaccinated.
> 
> Even if all children were vaccinated, that wouldn't stop transmission of the virus, he said.
> 
> ...



I have not looked into the record of Pollard. Assuming they are not the sort of arsehole I would have shouted about all the way through this pandemic, my initial thoughts are along the lines of:

This is an example of how traditional, orthodox views on how we manage disease combine with the return to relative normalcy agenda, and in this case Pollard also has another agenda which is to discourage the use of boosters and promote the supply of vaccines for vulnerable people in other countries.

Other themes that are probably involved are that even if you dont think herd immunity thresholds can be achieved, there are still reasons why some disciplines are trained to want to see conditions where the immunity picture is relatively stable, and part of that thinking may involve letting plenty of people catch the disease, as a different way to boost immunity without using further vaccine doses.

Quite how crazy I would go about the idea of moving away from community testing depends in part on when exactly they would envisage such a transition. It would be a very unhelpful move in terms of surveillance of new variants. And it would be done in order to encourage a new attitude towards catching this virus that I simply cannot support at this stage of the pandemic. Even though I am a fan of us doing more routine testing for all manner of diseases, I will try to be flexible in my attitude towards this should a time arrive where circumstances have changed sufficiently that I dont think we need to control levels of infection in quite the same way any more. I doubt such circumstances will arise until after this coming autumn & winter, but I suppose I ould be pleasantly surprised on that.

Oh here is some other reporting of what was said in case it adds useful detail for anyone trying to make sense of this stuff: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ant-renders-herd-immunity-from-covid-mythical


----------



## Storm Fox (Aug 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> View attachment 282975


This reminds me of this old joke:



> fellow was stuck on his rooftop in a flood. He was praying to God for help.
> Soon a man in a rowboat came by and the fellow shouted to the man on the roof, "Jump in, I can save you."
> The stranded fellow shouted back, "No, it's OK, I'm praying to God and he is going to save me."
> So the rowboat went on.
> ...


----------



## elbows (Aug 10, 2021)

I forgot to say in previous post that I would like people to draw attention here to any stuff that like that appears in the press in the coming weeks and months. I'm only reading a fraction of the news stories that are out there, so I dont know what I am missing, and I certainly didnt have time to watch the committee meeting where those comments were made.

Depending on who you believe, herd immunity thresholds seem like a red herring - recent reporting blame Delta for this but others say that herd immunity doesnt work for any human coronavirus and that this one is no exception. So I started looking around for what the next step down from herd immunity is, and I have found the phrase 'endemic equilibrium'. I havent looked into this to see what the details are and whether this is a fully accepted concept, but I'm shucking the term out there now in case others want to look into that.


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## teuchter (Aug 10, 2021)

The trend on this graph is not looking as encouraging as it did last week.


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## elbows (Aug 11, 2021)

Yeah it seems like the number of daily admissions/diagnoses is oscillating right around the level which results in the number of people in hospital remains roughly stuck at a particular point. This situation might change even if number of hospital admissions doesnt change, depending on how quickly patients are discharged or die, or other phenomenon such as patients dropping off the official figures if its been too many days since they last tested positive. Plus number of admissions includes people who catch it in hospital, so if there is a change to the hospital outbreak picture then this will affect all the other numbers.

Looking at cases by age or by region may reval a somewhat different picture though. I'll take another look at those aspects once todays figures are published.

I think number of people in mechanical ventilation beds has also been creeping upwards very slightly recently.


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## elbows (Aug 11, 2021)

And I'm afraid that picture I just described is pretty consistent with whats happened with number of positive people, and their age groups, that have been detected in recent weeks. There just hasnt been a straightforward, sustained fall in positive cases detected, and so we dont see a sustained fall in hospitalisations either.


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## _Russ_ (Aug 11, 2021)

The Torygraph:

"A panel of experts including the head of the Oxford vaccine team has said, as they called for an end to mass testing so that Britain can start to live with the virus. They said it was time to accept that there is no way of stopping the virus spreading through the entire population, and monitoring people with mild symptoms was no longer helpful. Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, who led the Oxford vaccine team, said it was clear that the delta variant can still infect people who have been vaccinated, which made herd immunity impossible to reach, even with the UK’s high uptake.  The Department of Health confirmed that more than three quarters of adults have received both jabs, and calculated that 60,000 deaths and 66,900 hospitalisations have been prevented by the vaccines. However, experts said it would never be enough to stop the virus spreading. Speaking to the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, Sir Andrew said: “Anyone who is still unvaccinated will, at some point, meet the virus."

“We don’t have anything that will stop transmission, so I think we are in a situation where herd immunity is not a possibility, and I suspect the virus will throw up a new variant that is even better at infecting vaccinated individuals.”


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## elbows (Aug 11, 2021)

Yes thats the same Pollard stuff I mentioned yesterday, but with added vile Telegraph spin.

Specifically Pollard did not say 'end mass testing now', he said 'Over time, there needed to be a move away from community testing of mild infections'.


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## elbows (Aug 11, 2021)

And ultimately I expect that agenda to win, its mostly a question of timing and what setbacks there will be along the way.

Its not sensible to contemplate such a move right now. They must at least wait to see what the impact of relaxation of self-isolation rules, schools going back, football season starting, autumn etc is before considering the first move along that path. Not that I will be surprised if they start making these changes well before I think it sensible to do so.


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## elbows (Aug 11, 2021)

I've found the video of Pollard and others talking for several hours so tomorrow I will watch the bits that the media turned into those stories, since I expect that as usual they've not fully explained the context.

As for the hospitals data I mentioned earlier, I'm tired so for today I'll just post my smoothed 7 day averages of hospital admissions/diagnoses in the regions of England. Its not surprising that the North East had the largest drop since they were in the worst situation and also saw the biggest drop in people testing positive (although Id need to check quite how much larger that was than other regions).


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## Spandex (Aug 12, 2021)

After the alarming rise in cases in early July, peaking on July 15th with 60,681 positive tests (by specimen date), and the equally rapid drop over the next week, we've now spent the last two weeks bouncing along with new cases ranging between 20,103 and 31,588 per day. It might be going up a bit, it might not - we'll only see that in retrospect. 

Deaths are at a 7-day average of 80-something (exact figure depending on which stats you look at). I guess this'll come down a bit as we get further from that peak and then stabilise at bit more in line with the recent case numbers.

Hospital admissions have come down a bit and I guess they'll now hold steady-ish too as long as case numbers remain fairly constant.

I have no idea where this is going. Cases might trend up, or hold steady, or trend down. The end of school holidays or the arrival of colder autumn weather might see cases take off again. Further vaccinations might see cases go down. We're in uncharted territory. And that's without the risk of new variants. 

Going out there's a complete mix of reactions depending where you are and what you're doing and who you're with. There's people still going out in full PPE (there's one older lady I see near me who's been dressed in what looks like a home made NBC suit everytime I've seen her since last March), there's people who pay no heed to any precautions at all. Some places I've been I'm the only person wearing a mask, others are 100% fully masked. Some places still require loads of safety measures, some barely pay lip service to it.

The vaccine programme has been an amazing success, but we seem to be in a kind of nowhere land at the moment where it's okay in comparison to last spring or late last year/earlier this year, but bad compared to the old normal.

The government's view seems to be: we've given you vaccines, now get on with life and get used to this new normal. They've obviously decided hospitals won't collapse under the weight of numbers and they won't be bothered by CRISIS! headlines in the news, but I can't help feeling the current situation is all a bit:


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## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 12, 2021)

I guess if it stays level 4000ish death a year is something the people in power can live with.
what was that phrase elbows mentionned a day or two ago? 
e2a: found it:
endemic equilibrium


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## Teaboy (Aug 12, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I guess if it stays level 4000ish death a year is something the people in power can live with.
> what was that phrase elbows mentionned a day or two ago?
> e2a: found it:
> endemic equilibrium



I suspect they can live with higher than that.  The phrase _20,000 in a bad flu year_ has been used repeatedly.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 12, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I suspect they can live with higher than that.  The phrase _20,000 in a bad flu year_ has been used repeatedly.


yes, this probably counts as winning in the orange baboon meaning of the word


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 12, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I guess if it stays level 4000ish death a year is something the people in power can live with.
> what was that phrase elbows mentionned a day or two ago?
> e2a: found it:
> endemic equilibrium



They would be very comfortable with 80 deaths a week, trouble is it's around that per day ATM, getting on for 30,000 a year.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> They would be very comfortable with 80 deaths a week, trouble is it's around that per day ATM, getting on for 30,000 a year.


ooopss
being a qualified bean counter I should always double check what I add up
but I suspect even 30000 a year is something they can live with


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## Teaboy (Aug 12, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> ooopss
> being a qualified bean counter I should always double check what I add up
> but I suspect even 30000 a year is something they can live with



Especially if a high enough percentage are unvaccinated regardless of the reason why.


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## glitch hiker (Aug 12, 2021)

Mask wearing has certainly declined, if my experience shopping today was any indicator. Such it was that I felt very self conscious wearing mine. Can't say I'm surprised though. This is just what the government wants. 

However according to Professor Christina Pagel the trend is starting to go up again. I'm not sure I see that, or perhaps I've misread what she said. This is before the schools return as well which will be the real test I supppose. 

It is weird how everything is in this particular twilight zone.


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 12, 2021)

Daily reported new cases have been going up slightly since last weekend, the 7-day average reported today is up +8.6%


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## elbows (Aug 12, 2021)

I dont really think about the current level of infections, hospitalisations and deaths as being a level we should expect things to settle at for very long periods of time. So I havent really considered the current levels in the ontext of whether they could live with them if they remained around these levels.

Not that I have much idea exactly what will happen next. But I dont think levels remaining pretty constant for ages is high on my list of possibilities.

Also I dont know what sort of levels of daily hospitalisation the authorities have in mind in terms of coping with this virus in a sustainable way. I'm guessing they need to be lower than the current level because recent admissions seem balanced delicately around the level where number of patients in hospital could still go up rather than remain constant or very slowly decline. And in some locations quite the reconfiguration of NHS resources was required in order to cope. But expereinces will vary quite a bit per NHS trust and there are big chunks of that picture missing from my mind.

Another reason I'm not sure they'd be comfortable with current levels is that there isnt much wiggle room in terms of doubling - I think they would much rather have rates that require multiple doublings before they reach troubling levels, and I dont think I can say that about recent rates at all.

Plus the rates we see at the moment are rates in summer. Authorities likely expect the situation to be worse in other seasons, and I have no desire to see what the winter equivalent of the current situation is.

I found the term endemic equilibrium as an attempt to find a phrase that covers a weaker version of the herd immunity concept, since the original full on herd immunity threshold isnt something plausible to aim for according to some experts. I would not use the phrase to describe the current situation.


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## elbows (Aug 12, 2021)

Take for example the latest hospital admissions for England. If someone told me these would continue to fluctuate around at these sorts of levels for weeks to come, I would not find that implausible. But if someone told me they would remain like this for months and months, I think I would express some surprise.

If we did experience something relatively stable fo a prolonged period then I suspect that when looking at the underlying detail there would be a lot of things in flux that just happened to combine into the same sort of overall picture over time. Because its quite hard to imagine all the key underlying factors remaining constant - rules are still changing, behaviour and contact mixing patterns will be changing with the return of football season, and then schools going back etc. And when it comes to the rule changes I mentioned, changes to self-isolation rules are quite a big change to me on paper, and I just have to wait and see what the actual impact ends up being,


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## Mation (Aug 13, 2021)

Anyone know how Monday's rule changes will affect people currently self-isolating? My quarantine was due to end on Sunday, but then another housemate tested positive and it was extended by a few days.

I'm assuming I'll still have to isolate for the whole period, but if anyone has a link to something definitive, that would be much appreciated. I haven't found anything thus far.


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## maomao (Aug 13, 2021)

Mation said:


> Anyone know how Monday's rule changes will affect people currently self-isolating? My quarantine was due to end on Sunday, but then another housemate tested positive and it was extended by a few days.
> 
> I'm assuming I'll still have to isolate for the whole period, but if anyone has a link to something definitive, that would be much appreciated. I haven't found anything thus far.


If you're double jabbed you don't have to isolate.


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## gentlegreen (Aug 13, 2021)

> From Monday, fully vaccinated adults and anyone under the age of 18 will no longer have to self-isolate if they come into contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus. *They will only be required to isolate should they test positive* for the virus themselves.


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## Mation (Aug 13, 2021)

But does that also apply to people who are in the middle of an isolation period, ie can I cut it short? I don't think I _should_, but I want to know if I can, and whether my employer might ask me to come in.

Or are the changes only for anyone who is fully vaccinated and comes into contact with someone on or after Monday?


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## gentlegreen (Aug 13, 2021)

You put your left leg in ...


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## elbows (Aug 13, 2021)

Some hospital infection study of the first wave. I dont think it significantly adds to the picture of this I had built in my mind, and its no surprise that the first wave was the worst in this regard because availability of testing was limited, PPE situation was a mess, and I expet all manner of lessons were learnt in the months after the first wave peaked in the community but rumbled on in terms of hospital infections. And even if all hospitals had followed the same procedures, things like the nature of their buildings layout, ventilation etc probably explains some of the wide difference seen between different hospitals.









						Huge gulf in hospitals' ability to contain Covid
					

Hospital-acquired Covid ranged from 1% to 25% of cases in different hospitals.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## kabbes (Aug 13, 2021)

Mation said:


> But does that also apply to people who are in the middle of an isolation period, ie can I cut it short? I don't think I _should_, but I want to know if I can, and whether my employer might ask me to come in.
> 
> Or are the changes only for anyone who is fully vaccinated and comes into contact with someone on or after Monday?


I’m not sure I really understand the question, in practical terms. You want to know not what you _should_ do but what is _strictly required_?  I would say that the answer to that always derives from knowing what is being enforced.  And the answer is: nobody is enforcing anything for the fully vaccinated.  So in terms of strict requirements, your need to isolate must therefore necessarily be over.


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## two sheds (Aug 13, 2021)

kabbes said:


> And the answer is: nobody is enforcing anything for the fully vaccinated.


Apart from isolating if they have symptoms?


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## kabbes (Aug 13, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Apart from isolating if they have symptoms?


I think so?


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## 20Bees (Aug 13, 2021)

I work in a supermarket and we have had notification today that anyone currently isolating because they are a close contact should return to work on Monday if they are at least two weeks beyond being fully vaccinated (unless under 18 1/2 or unable to receive the vaccine due to medical reasons).


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## Mation (Aug 13, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’m not sure I really understand the question, in practical terms. You want to know not what you _should_ do but what is _strictly required_?  I would say that the answer to that always derives from knowing what is being enforced.  And the answer is: nobody is enforcing anything for the fully vaccinated.  So in terms of strict requirements, your need to isolate must therefore necessarily be over.


I don't want to know what's being enforced, I want to know if the rules say anything about people who are already isolating being able to cut their isolation short. The question is very literal. I don't know how else to ask it 

Personally, I think the fact that symptoms can take up to 10 days to develop will be just as true next week as it is this week. Therefore I think I should finish the full quarantine period.

Currently my employer accepts that I'm off because it's a legal requirement. I know that changes next week, but I want to know whether my employer will then be able to say that I must go in before the quarantine is up, or whether there's something in the rules that says, all Mastermind like, I've started so I'll finish.


20Bees said:


> I work in a supermarket and we have had notification today that anyone currently isolating because they are a close contact should return to work on Monday if they are at least two weeks beyond being fully vaccinated (unless under 18 1/2 or unable to receive the vaccine due to medical reasons).


Yes, that's the sort of thing I'm wondering about. They haven't said anything to me thus far, but I want to know whether to expect that they might yet.


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## prunus (Aug 14, 2021)

Mation said:


> I don't want to know what's being enforced, I want to know if the rules say anything about people who are already isolating being able to cut their isolation short. The question is very literal. I don't know how else to ask it
> 
> Personally, I think the fact that symptoms can take up to 10 days to develop will be just as true next week as it is this week. Therefore I think I should finish the full quarantine period.
> 
> ...



What appears to be the definitive answer from gov.uk:

“If their self-isolation period began before 16 August and was due to end after 16 August, they will be able to leave self-isolation on 16 August”

from here: 

Self-isolation removed for double-jabbed close contacts from 16 August

Published 11th Aug so as up to date as one could hope really.


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## Mation (Aug 14, 2021)

prunus said:


> What appears to be the definitive answer from gov.uk:
> 
> “If their self-isolation period began before 16 August and was due to end after 16 August, they will be able to leave self-isolation on 16 August”
> 
> ...


Thank you. I read that page, but managed to miss it.


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## Steel Icarus (Aug 14, 2021)

Looks terrifying to me. And I know plenty of that is down to how I feel about getting ill but fuck me. Last few days I've just had the sense that everyone has just fucked it all off like Covid was a few years ago. Not 32,000 cases yesterday.


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## elbows (Aug 14, 2021)

Well I suppose its been clear for most of this year that this was going to be a surreal summer full of contradictions.

To some extent the current approach has only been viable because it isnt really 'everyone' behaving like this, those who remain cautious are far less visible via photos and anecdotes but they are still a major force. But there are large numbers of people going back to normal things, due to a combination of the passage of time, vaccines, government policy and complicit media.

Even a fair chunk of people who still engage on this forum and take the pandemic seriously have been doing some things which arent hugely compatible with the current stage of the pandemic. I decided long ago that I would not spend my time moaning at them, and that its not my place to judge everyone elses sense of balance.

I do still have some fairly major doubts about how sustainable this approach and this level of mixing will be. But as part of 'balance', mental health coping etc, I can see why giving people something during summer has some merits. I just question whether that will be possible when we move on to autumn and winter. Perhaps, although its asking vaccines to carry way more weight than I find sensible.


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## elbows (Aug 14, 2021)

And it certainly wont shock me if football causes an obvious change to the infection picture in the coming weeks. Although given the change to self-isolation rules arriving at about the same time, as usual I will struggle to fully unpick the potential factors and correctly apportion blame.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 14, 2021)

Yeah, I get the sense that a combination of people having just got too tired of it all to worry that much added to a sense of "we've more or less all been vaccinated now" has given the impression - rightly it wrongly - that the dark days of Covid are thoroughly behind us.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 14, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Yeah, I get the sense that a combination of people having just got too tired of it all to worry that much added to a sense of "we've more or less all been vaccinated now" has given the impression - rightly it wrongly - that the dark days of Covid are thoroughly behind us.


I’m not sure I get the impression from people that it is all over so much as the attitude of, “there’s nothing more we can realistically do, so if not now then when?”  People don’t want to live in isolation forever, but they’ll do it to a plan with an exit strategy. The promise of vaccines was the exit strategy that was presented to them.  Even the people I know that want to keep lockdown going only want to do so until everybody has had their chance to get vaccinated.

I can’t blame them, really. I am more of an isolationist and could carry on with social distancing indefinitely, viewing it as swings and roundabouts. But most people are not like that and they don’t want to be told “This is just life now”


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## Steel Icarus (Aug 14, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’m not sure I get the impression from people that it is all over so much as the attitude of, “there’s nothing more we can realistically do, so if not now then when?”  People don’t want to live in isolation forever, but they’ll do it to a plan with an exit strategy. The promise of vaccines was the exit strategy that was presented to them.  Even the people I know that want to keep lockdown going only want to do so until everybody has had their chance to get vaccinated.
> 
> I can’t blame them, really. I am more of an isolationist and could carry on with social distancing indefinitely, viewing it as swings and roundabouts. But most people are not like that and they don’t want to be told “This is just life now”


Yeah, I'm under no illusion that how I view "the state of the nation" is unlikely to be accurate or widespread, and me not being ready to move into the next phase while others are is making me more nervous than perhaps it should.


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## StoneRoad (Aug 14, 2021)

I'll be watching the case rate in Scotland for the next few weeks, as I think the schools are going back.

To me, the overall case rate is still far too high, Although locally we had only 4 new cases, according to the map on the dashboard.

So, as a fully vaccinated person I'm still being cautious, as I don't think enough "youngsters" have had even their first jab.
[At work, our "KickStart" trainee is booked for their _first_ next week. As they are only part-time I am wondering if we should suggest a mask for the next few weeks - when I went in last week, I wore mine.]


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## elbows (Aug 14, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I'll be watching the case rate in Scotland for the next few weeks, as I think the schools are going back.



I recommend the 7 day case rate per age group graphs towards the end of this page:









						Scotland Coronavirus Tracker
					

Current and historical data of the Coronavirus outbreak in Scotland. Includes breakdowns by region, maps, charts, and more!




					www.travellingtabby.com
				




Things have already turned again there, with patterns that remind me quite a bit of whats been happening in England recently.

The aforementioned Scottish graphs:


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## Sunray (Aug 14, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’m not sure I get the impression from people that it is all over so much as the attitude of, “there’s nothing more we can realistically do, so if not now then when?”  People don’t want to live in isolation forever, but they’ll do it to a plan with an exit strategy. The promise of vaccines was the exit strategy that was presented to them.  Even the people I know that want to keep lockdown going only want to do so until everybody has had their chance to get vaccinated.
> 
> I can’t blame them, really. I am more of an isolationist and could carry on with social distancing indefinitely, viewing it as swings and roundabouts. But most people are not like that and they don’t want to be told “This is just life now”



Vaccines are all we have.  I've decided, having caught it and double vaccinated for ages, to just go out there now.  I think some exposure to all pathogens is a good idea. We (humans) don't live in isolation its just not really possible long term.  General immunity can wane if you sit in your house for good.  The longer you do, you might have uncomfortable time when you do finally leave the house. Non-Covid respiratory illnesses on rise in UK, medical experts say

76% of the adult population is fully vaccinated. We are about 13 weeks away from everyone who wants one being fully vaccinated and time to take effect.

I see the issue with the delta variant is its so infectious its keeping itself alive in the vaccinated.  I know a quite of quite a few people, fully vaccinated that have got it again   I think now most people that have it again are vaccinated.  Perhaps Pfizer or Moderna can exercise their technical prowess and mod the vaccine for the delta and P1 variants?


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## redsquirrel (Aug 15, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Vaccines are all we have.


But that is bollocks - we also have a huge range of public health policies we can (and should) be using. 
And at the other end we do have more effective treatments than we did in 2020.


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## Sunray (Aug 15, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> But that is bollocks - we also have a huge range of public health policies we can (and should) be using.
> And at the other end we do have more effective treatments than we did in 2020.



Not sure those public health policies work too well with the transmissibility of the delta variant.  When your infectious, its been shown you can give out 1000 times the viral load of the original wild virus. 

How the Delta variant achieves its ultrafast spread 

People can get it outdoors just by passing each other.  You can be vaccinated and get it. The only truly effective solution is to lock down.  I'm fairly sure most of us don't want this.

While we are better at managing this virus in the infected, there are no magic bullets and what treatments there are, you really don't want to be needing them because it means your very sick indeed.


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## redsquirrel (Aug 15, 2021)

Again that is simply not true. Sure the greater infectiousness of delta means that masks, ventilation, social distancing etc do not cut infections to the same extent as  before but they still do help. It is absolutely not true that it is the vaccine or nothing, and the message that vaccines are "all we have" is an anti-social, attack on the public health approaches. 

One of the reasons why cases have not been as high as was expected was precisely because people have not thrown all precautions out the window - that they are remaining masked up, are taking care, are working from home.


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## teuchter (Aug 15, 2021)

This idea that Delta is likely to transmit via fleeting outdoors or time-separated contact - has that actually been confirmed anywhere other than what I think was originally an Australian report?


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## _Russ_ (Aug 16, 2021)

I dunno, as far as I can see beyond using studies in aerosol/droplet dynamics and combining that with extrapolated data on the variants infectiousness, all that you could really do would be to take the word of infected subjects as to their movements in the presumed times of infection???
Doesn't seem like an easy one to answer


----------



## existentialist (Aug 16, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I dunno, as far as I can see beyond using studies in aerosol/droplet dynamics and combining that with extrapolated data on the variants infectiousness, all that you could really do would be to take the word of infected subjects as to their movements in the presumed times of infection???
> Doesn't seem like an easy one to answer


There are so many factors and variables that it is always going to be an inexact science.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 16, 2021)

true, but you'd think they could study the number of droplets/individual viruses dispersed under different but controlled conditions.


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## elbows (Aug 16, 2021)

two sheds said:


> true, but you'd think they could study the number of droplets/individual viruses dispersed under different but controlled conditions.



A July SAGE meeting mentions the following:



> A Human Challenge Study has taken place in which young healthy volunteers were administered a controlled low dose of SARS-CoV-2. An acceptable infection rate was achieved, symptoms were mild, and the quarantine phase of the study was safely completed. This section of the study will reveal kinetics of viral shedding, particularly early after infection, and allow assessments of lateral flow tests. Environmental and air samples were used to monitor emissions to the environment. The volunteers will continue to be monitored. The full study completes by the end of 2022.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1010057/SAGE_94_minutes.pdf


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## elbows (Aug 16, 2021)

Although I should also have said that I doubt they used the Delta variant in that study.

A lot of figures from the 'what we think we now know' department are also out of date in that they came from periods before Delta, often during periods where the number of infections wasnt that high, further weakening the conclusions. For example a bunch of vaccine effect estimates were quite recently still pre-Delta, and authorities also expected some of the figures to become less rosy once evidence came in from a period of high levels of infection.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 16, 2021)

I'm surprised they actually infected people in that - you'd imagine that people could breathe out and then mechanically take a sample with a mouth-sized detector 1-m away to check the viral load.

eta: assuming you can count the little fuckers


----------



## Sunray (Aug 18, 2021)

I see NZ is panicking with their few cases as its the delta variant and they went all over the country into popular spots for people who live there.   One of the infected is a vaccinated nurse.
I suspect a lot will be outdoor infection as its an outdoorsy place.  Highlights how transmissible it is compared to the other variants.


----------



## Elpenor (Aug 18, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I see NZ is panicking with their few cases as its the delta variant and they went all over the country into popular spots for people who live there.   One of the infected is a vaccinated nurse.
> I suspect a lot will be outdoor infection as its an outdoorsy place.  Highlights how transmissible it is compared to the other variants.


Not sure where it's been detected but fairly full stadiums at the 2 New Zealand vs Australia rugby matches and no masks in the crowd.


----------



## Storm Fox (Aug 18, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Not sure where it's been detected but fairly full stadiums at the 2 New Zealand vs Australia rugby matches and no masks in the crowd.


Up to now, they've had almost no community cases, They are going into a three day lockdown as they have community cases of Delta. 
There are a lot of updates here: New Zealand
Not looking great

Sneering from a county that has 1000's of deaths to a country that has very very few.
Overseas media surprised by NZ's lockdown after 'single case' in this case fuck CNN.


----------



## elbows (Aug 18, 2021)

Yeah the situation in Australia and New Zealand does present opportunities to spot the propaganda in UK reporting, and I expect that is repeated in many other countries that have been embarrassed by those who took a zero covid approach.

For example the BBC had the nerve to write this in a recent article about Australia:



> Case numbers and deaths in the Australian state remain relatively low compared to some of the world's worst outbreaks, including in the US and UK.



(from Australia: New South Wales 'in worst ever Covid situation' )

On the one hand it is good that they acknowledged we had one of the worlds worst outbreaks. But the phrase 'relatively low' is quite the fucking bullshit understatement.

For example I believe there have been at least 26 days in this pandemic where the UK recorded more deaths on each of those single days than Australia has experienced in total in the entire pandemic so far.


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 18, 2021)

Not sure if it has already been mentioned, but I saw a reference (Guardian, I think) to Moderna aka spikevac (?) being cleared for administration down to 12 year olds. Hopefully it is also more "tuned" to Delta. Just need JCVI to agree.

But I think there is not quite enough time for two jabs at 4 weeks separation to get enough kids jabbed before school & the winter flu season both get started.

Also hoping that the promised boosters for the elderly / more vulnerable will soon be available - ditto flu jabs. 
Must check with my local GP.


----------



## elbows (Aug 18, 2021)

In regars the shit propaganda that is hurled at New Zealand by nations with disgusting pandemic records, this Guardian article does a fairly good job of demolishing the shit.









						Ardern’s Covid lockdown finds favour as New Zealand watches Sydney’s Delta disaster
					

Asked what she would say to people who questioned the need for a level 4 lockdown, the prime minister responded with one word: ‘Australia’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Aug 18, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Moderna aka spikevac (?)



Yeah most of them have stupid brand names these days. Moderna is Spikevax, Pfizer is Comirnaty and OxfordAZ is Vaxzevria. Compared to the other two the Moderna choice of brand isnt bad. And some other brand names are sometimes used for regions other than Europe.

I am bitter that the branding opportunity 'Spike Milligram' has not been seized upon, especially if we end up walking backwards for Christmas.


----------



## elbows (Aug 18, 2021)

I dont have so much to say when nobody elese has so much to say. And I've rather overdone the ranting over the last 18 months.

But here are some things I would normally have more to say about.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 18, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Not sure if it has already been mentioned, but I saw a reference (Guardian, I think) to Moderna aka spikevac (?) being cleared for administration down to 12 year olds. Hopefully it is also more "tuned" to Delta. Just need JCVI to agree


Moderna are still testing a delta specific booster (mRNA-1273.617) and a multivalent (mRNA-1273.213; original WT plus delta), at standard and lower doses, so probably wouldn't be available for some months. They might not even get approval for such use; re-exposure to early type spike booster after several months appears to be sufficient to build breadth and potency to a wide range of variants (post #352). Third dose 'boosters' in US, from 20 September, will still be based on early type.


StoneRoad said:


> But I think there is not quite enough time for two jabs at 4 weeks separation to get enough kids jabbed before school & the winter flu season both get started.


Ideally dosing interval would be much greater than that. Lower dosage and even single shots could be considered (particularly for prior infection). Protein subunit and inactivated, which should be available soon, _might_ also prove more optimal for younger cohorts.


elbows said:


> Yeah most of them have stupid brand names these days. Moderna is Spikevax, Pfizer is Comirnaty and OxfordAZ is Vaxzevria. Compared to the other two the Moderna choice of brand isnt bad. And some other brand names are sometimes used for regions other than Europe.


mRNA-1273, Spikevax also known commercially as Elasomeran in some markets.


----------



## elbows (Aug 18, 2021)

Hospital admissions are still fluctuating around levels where as a result the number of people in hospital beds and mechanical ventilation beds is going up rather than down.


----------



## zahir (Aug 18, 2021)

Apparently we need to learn to manage unhelpful thoughts.


----------



## zahir (Aug 18, 2021)

Deepti Gurdasani isn't impressed.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 18, 2021)

zahir said:


> Apparently we need to learn to manage unhelpful thoughts.




Tip 04 - don't breathe in


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 18, 2021)

zahir said:


> Apparently we need to learn to manage unhelpful thoughts.



They've done this before. It really epitomises "mindfulness culture" - feeling bad? There's nothing actually wrong with the situation, you're just weak and/or shit, but here are some self-help tips about that. No there is no mental health system any more.

Maybe you could inhale a Little Book Of Calm.


----------



## BCBlues (Aug 18, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Tip 04 - don't breathe in



Tip 05 - Dont breathe out


----------



## kabbes (Aug 18, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> They've done this before. It really epitomises "mindfulness culture" - feeling bad? There's nothing actually wrong with the situation, you're just weak and/or shit, but here are some self-help tips about that. No there is no mental health system any more.
> 
> Maybe you could inhale a Little Book Of Calm.


See also: the replacement of welfare with well-being


----------



## pug (Aug 18, 2021)

I love the way they call it 'going back to normal'.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 18, 2021)

It's very telling how it is not phrased as "worried? Here are some reasons you shouldn't be worried" but rather as "worried? Here are some ways to get over your irrational feelings".


----------



## BillRiver (Aug 18, 2021)

A local to me "LGBTQI+ mental health" group posted similar nonsense on Instagram a couple of weeks ago.

When I politely commented, as a queer person with a diagnosis of severe & enduring mental illness, that this felt to me like gaslighting, and pointed out how high the R-rate was in our area that day, they told me my response was unhelpful and asked me to refrain from commenting any further.

It's the only comment I've ever made on their page.

They are the only group that I know of in my area for LGBTQI+ people in the psychiatric system.


----------



## elbows (Aug 18, 2021)

I dont think they've got a cure for how I feel when I look at English hospital admission/diagnoses by age group. Older age groups are making up an increasing percentage of admissions.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Aug 18, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> A local to me "LGBTQI+ mental health" group posted similar nonsense on Instagram a couple of weeks ago.
> 
> When I politely commented, as a queer person with a diagnosis of severe & enduring mental illness, that this felt to me like gaslighting, and pointed out how high the R-rate was in our area that day, they told me my response was unhelpful and asked me to refrain from commenting any further.
> 
> ...


I hesitate to use the term "gaslighting" these days because it does get overused, but telling people that their perception of the facts is just wrong and their reaction is only because they're looking at things the wrong way surely fits.

You get more attention to your POV if you straight out deny vaccines work or covid exists. People queue up with factual evidence then.


----------



## BillRiver (Aug 18, 2021)

FridgeMagnet said:


> I hesitate to use the term "gaslighting" these days because it does get overused, but telling people that their perception of the facts is just wrong and their reaction is only because they're looking at things the wrong way surely fits.
> 
> You get more attention to your POV if you straight out deny vaccines work or covid exists. People queue up with factual evidence then.



Yes I think it's the first and only time I have ever used the term, and even then I didn't straight out say it was gaslighting - I said it felt a bit like gaslighting. Because it did. But hey, I'm obviously the wrong kinda crazy queer for them! They seem more focused on "mental health and wellbeing" than actual mad people, anyway, but still it hurt for a little while when it happened. Disappointing.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 19, 2021)

I think we can now say fairly confidently that the infection rate is creeping up again. Since there's nothing in place to change the current trend (though at a stretch better weather might help?) I assume it will continue to creep up until schools go back, at which point it will stop creeping and start shooting up. I was really hoping to feel safer going out in crowded places by the end of this month but it's just not going to happen is it.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 19, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Since there's nothing in place to change the current trend


Other than gradually increasing rates of vaccination / immunity via infection.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Other than gradually increasing rates of vaccination / immunity via infection.


Maybe, a bit too gradual though I suspect


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Aug 19, 2021)

We have two 17-year-olds, and so we've been dutifully waiting for their vaccine invitations since it was announced they would be extending it to 16-17 year olds. Turns out what that means is you get a photocopied letter from the NHS, telling you to look on their website for nearby walk-in centres. If they'd just said that originally, it could have all been sorted by now. Fucking useless.


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I think we can now say fairly confidently that the infection rate is creeping up again. Since there's nothing in place to change the current trend (though at a stretch better weather might help?) I assume it will continue to creep up until schools go back, at which point it will stop creeping and start shooting up. I was really hoping to feel safer going out in crowded places by the end of this month but it's just not going to happen is it.



Yeah I dont think the situation is good, although it still remains hard to make clear predictions. I suppose I would expect the poor weather, the return of football and covid falling far down the media agenda to make the situation worse even before the schools return.

Earlier in summer I was framing things as whether the government 'get away with' their chosen approach. I will break that down into a few different elements:

From a media and political opposition standpoint, they totally got away with it, they were able to set the agenda and watch everyone else fall into line. A pattern of compliance that is not unusual for this country. Pingdemic framing worked in their favour, and the official opposition played right along by calling for changes to self-isolation rules to happen even sooner than planned.

They were able to take advantage of the summer window of opportunity to open up, although the Delta wave somewhat curtailed their ambitions in terms of timing.

The relative success of not having cases etc carry on doubling throughout the summer has its limits. Its set the scene for starting autumn from a position of weakness, where only one doubling is required for the shit to hit the fan again, and even before that stage I wait to see when the media notice what is happening with hospitalisations going back up again already.

There is also little doubt that authorities were hoping vaccines would do better at preventing infections and transmission. That the vaccines cannot offer as much of that as hoped against this Delta strain further calls into question the sustainability of the governments current approach. There are plenty of little signs of concern on this front, eg the following from a BBC live updates entry about booster shots:



> Earlier, Prof Finn told BBC Breakfast the JCVI would be meeting this morning to discuss the issue.
> 
> He said it was "less clear" whether offering a third dose more widely across the population was "going to make very much difference".
> 
> ...



That quote is from the 8:55 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58266043

With those things in mind, it is still tempting for me to think that the government may have won a few battles but can easily still end up losing the war. And then they will be in deep shit.


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2021)

Meanwhile SAGE continue to advise the government to set clear data trigger points, which would activate contingency plans at a point early enough to cope with a rise in infections before hospitalisation rates become overwhelming.

Such advice has tended to fall on deaf ears so far, probably because agreeing to a sensible system of triggers removes a lot of the political decisions, and the government want to retain the power to make arbitrary decisions at a time of their choosing rather than have actions automatically linked to what the data is showing.

A sensible government that wanted to do the right things at the right time regardless of any political opposition would actually leap at the chance to have automatic triggers. But of course that is not what our current government have in mind at all.

An example of SAGE giving that advice, from a July meeting. Also we are still at the ridiculous stage where the work hasnt even been done to figure out what level of admissions causes what problems for the NHS:



> In the event that increasing hospitalisations were likely to put unsustainable pressure on the NHS, this would need to be identified rapidly and contingency plans enacted within days, given the delays between infection and hospitalisation (i.e., because hospitalisations will continue rising for a time even once infections start to fall). Having clear trigger mechanisms for this in place is strongly advised.





> ACTION: NHSE and JBC to provide analysis of local and national NHS impacts at different levels of hospital or ICU admissions or occupancy.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1010057/SAGE_94_minutes.pdf


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 19, 2021)

Yeah, on vaccinated people and transmission, my pessimism now also comes from looking over at Israel, where they've had to back down from fully opening up: Israel tightens restrictions as Covid-19 cases surge


----------



## ska invita (Aug 19, 2021)

I wonder when we'll have to get vaccinated again. Last I heard Autumn Boosters were going to be only for the most vulnerable.

Doesn't any immunity only last six months? If there's another peak over new year.... Could be grim


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Yeah, on vaccinated people and transmission, my pessimism now also comes from looking over at Israel, where they've had to back down from fully opening up: Israel tightens restrictions as Covid-19 cases surge



Yes they are a good example of a sensible response to emerging detail. Something the UK is now infamous for resisting at every opportunity. How long that resistance will continue is hard to judge, although an assumption the UK authorities will push their luck for as long as possible seems reasonable. Once summer silly season in the press is over and the powerful are back at their desks, the situation could change quite quickly, or collective denial may remain stubbornly in place for quite some time - doubling time for infections and hospitalisations will probably get to dictate that pace.


----------



## belboid (Aug 19, 2021)

I wonder when we'll have to get vaccinated again. Last I heard Autumn Boosters were going to be only for the most vulnerable.


ska invita said:


> Doesn't any immunity only last six months? If there's another peak over new year.... Could be grim


No immunity last longer, falling off slightly but probably not to lower than a single dose.


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> I wonder when we'll have to get vaccinated again. Last I heard Autumn Boosters were going to be only for the most vulnerable.
> 
> Doesn't any immunity only last six months? If there's another peak over new year.... Could be grim



Immunity is complex and the thing we find easiest to measure, antibody levels, are very far from a complete guide. I expect some forms of immunity to last much longer than that, but the chosen approach is still a numbers game which boils down to a question of just how many people become at risk of hospitalisation in future.

Those known to have the weakest immune response to vaccines are probably the biggest target for booster shots. And the oldest who had their vaccines the longest ago.

The decision to have a larger gap between first and second doses in this country is also likely relevant, because in theory it should stand us in better stead than the likes of the USA, in terms of when boosters for a larger group are deemed necessary.

Whatever happens, it is sensible to expect trouble during winter. And since the peak seen in July does not look like it is certain to have been the ultimate maximum of the current wave, I have other peaks in mind long before a winter peak.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 19, 2021)

Victor Racaniello is seriously annoyed about the autumn boosters - concurring with the WHO that those doses would be far better deployed for the unvaccinated.


----------



## zora (Aug 19, 2021)

Question - What is the current policy on people going into work with "cold symptoms" (if indeed there is one)?

Last year, unhelpfully, the ridiculous idea was floated of "having to learn to distinguish between covid and a cold" - as if anything but a PCR test could actually make that distinction - ; and I have been hearing loads of people self-diagnose in that manner.
Compounded now by the fact that the symptoms of the delta variant, especially in the fully vaccinated, are different from the classic top 3 symptoms. The Zoe app lists the top 5 as headache, runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, loss of smell. Yet, afaiu, only the "old top 3" qualify you officially for a PCR test; people with other symptoms are encouraged to take lateral flow tests and only do a confirmatory PCR when a LFT comes up positive. Is that right?

We just had a case at work of someone coming in with "a bit of a cold" on Tuesday following a negative LFT, only for them to test positive on the LFT the following day.
I wouldn't count as a close contact under the very narrow definitions of T&T, but knowing what we know about transmissability, and the time she and I both spent in the same unventilated space, I can't rule out that I could have caught it. Also, I am double-vaccinated, so wouldn't have to properly quarantine even if I was counted as a close contact. But as someone who doesn't want to spread covid around and who thinks that the guidelines around this are a crock of shit, this is still seriously impacting my week. Had to cancel a couple of appointments in my self-employed work, won't be seeing my boyfriend this weekend, and am cancelling meeting my friend tonight.

I am pissed off that that colleague came in, but at the same time recognize that she probably did everything "right".
However, having a quick google just now I hit on this from Gloucestershire County Council from July this year

"If your PCR test result is negative but you still have symptoms, *you may have another virus such as a cold or flu. You should stay at home until you feel well *[my bold]. Seek medical attention if you are concerned about your symptoms.

You can stop isolating as long as:


you are well;
no-one else in your household has symptoms or has tested positive for COVID-19; and / or
you have not been advised to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace.
Anyone in your household who is isolating because of your symptoms can also stop isolating."

That seems to say that people with cold symptoms should stay at home until they are well, even if a test is negative? Of course, it might only be talking about about people with the old classic 3 symptoms because people with the main delta symptoms 'shouldn't' get a PCR test in the first place...aaarrrgh!

Basically, I am looking for something that I can show to my work, and say, look, can we not have people coming in with "just colds" all autumn and winter, but instead encourage them to stay at home for a few days no matter what kind of cold. But I guess that's not going to happen, is it. 

Don't like the recent findings just how high the viral load of delta can be in vaccinated infected people. It's going to be - it already is - pretty shit and pretty limiting for people who want to not encourage spread and who want to protect more vulnerable friends and family if the current strategy continues. :/


----------



## LDC (Aug 19, 2021)

Will depend on your workplace?

I have come across so many people with _just a cold_ that's turned out to be covid. Some of it is the symptoms being wider, some of it is people in denial, some is people stuck in habits (personal and work related), and then also the concerns people have that being off sick means they won't get paid or might get in trouble etc.

Personally I think nobody should be going to work with a cold in the current situation.


----------



## elbows (Aug 19, 2021)

It drives me nuts, and 'its just a cold' assumptions are on the rise again for sure. 

Sensible authorities would do something about this, but instead they just pay lip service to the idea of not going to work when sick, because they dont actually want everyone who is sick to stay at home because of the disruption and staffing issues this causes.

I dont have any useful advice, other than to keep making a noise about these sorts of issues at work, so long as you can get away with that without risking your job. Ideally people would make such a stink about these issues that it become easier for workplace authorities to address it properly rather than trying to ignore it.

More broadly one of the things being looked at with a view to this coming autumn and winter is multiplex tests where a whole range of viruses are tested for at the same time. But I dont know how successful trials of such tests will be, or the extent to which authorities intend to use them. eg they will certainly want to use such things on people being admitted to hospital, but whether they will also make such things a part of routine population testing I cannot say. If they can do it on massive scale then some sensible options are unlocked, but I'll just have to wait and see whether we get anywhere close to that.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 19, 2021)

Yeah, it's driving me nuts too. As far as I'm concerned if you have 'cold' symptoms at the moment you should get a PCR test. Instead we're in a situation where people with actual coughs are testing themselves with LFTs and think that's enough. At an event I was running the other day we had to stop someone who was on her way to the event as that was what she had done. We had to tell her to stay home and get a PCR because she had a cough. Not sure why anyone needs telling that at this point but it certainly feels like there has been a massive failure of communication by the government, both on what covid can look like and what the different tests are used for. If one more person tells me 'I had some covidy symptoms but I took an LFT and it was negative so it wasn't covid' I think I might scream.


----------



## ska invita (Aug 19, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Yeah, it's driving me nuts too. As far as I'm concerned if you have 'cold' symptoms at the moment you should get a PCR test. Instead we're in a situation where people with actual coughs are testing themselves with LFTs and think that's enough. At an event I was running the other day we had to stop someone who was on her way to the event as that was what she had done. We had to tell her to stay home and get a PCR because she had a cough. Not sure why anyone needs telling that at this point but it certainly feels like there has been a massive failure of communication by the government, both on what covid can look like and what the different tests are used for. If one more person tells me 'I had some covidy symptoms but I took an LFT and it was negative so it wasn't covid' I think I might scream.


interesting, must admit at this stage i wouldn't have thought to do that with a cough - though last year when LFTs weren't available i wouldve gone PCR for sure


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 19, 2021)

First box here: Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance and support

Not that I expect everyone to read the website. It seems the government have failed to get the message out properly.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 19, 2021)

Just remembered, the other day I took a photo of a rare thing; an establishment actually paying some attention to ventilation instead of just getting everyone to do hand sanitiser and then sit next to one another in a sealed box.

Two doors fully open, with a big fan running in one of them.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 19, 2021)

Hurrah! Yes, I prefer to give my custom to places that space and ventilate... I don't give a toss about how you clean surfaces, just have the fecking doors and windows open. 

These next few months are definitely going up test the government's resolve on 'no more lockdowns' that's for sure.  I think we're definitely and unsurprisingly seeing an infection uplift from 19 July now, and as others have said, it's going to become rocket powered once kids are in school.  As a household we have avoided it so far, I suspect it'll be our turn in the next 2-3 months.


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 19, 2021)

Broke my personal rule about staying home as much as possible today. Third time in two weeks [the previous trips were with OH to hospital for an ultrasound (also took biopsies) and to a family funeral (OH's uncle who died from a severe stroke)]

So, OH and I took a short tour - covering a number of things in one trip. The two short meetings we had were with everybody masked up and socially distanced (one effectively outside, as well).
Plenty masks / sanitiser and open doors in evidence, but we also detoured to avoid a couple of local areas with increased case rates. Washed hands etc when we got back.

I am still very nervous about such trips ...


----------



## teuchter (Aug 19, 2021)

Are we seeing a 'back to school' effect in the scottish case numbers here?


----------



## maomao (Aug 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Are we seeing a 'back to school' effect in the scottish case numbers here?
> 
> View attachment 284334View attachment 284335


They only went back this week didn't they?


----------



## PursuedByBears (Aug 19, 2021)

maomao said:


> They only went back this week didn't they?


Back yesterday I think.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 19, 2021)

Have the journalists asked about saving xmas yet?


----------



## Sue (Aug 19, 2021)

PursuedByBears said:


> Back yesterday I think.


Think everywhere's back this week but the exact date depends on the region. My nephew (Glasgow) went back on Monday, for example.


----------



## killer b (Aug 19, 2021)

a couple of scottish regions were back last week, lots on Monday, and all by now.


----------



## 2hats (Aug 19, 2021)

Partially return driven, but doubtless also partly due to an increase in testing in the lead up to returning to school (starting to reveal something closer to the true level of signal in the community).


----------



## 2hats (Aug 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> I wonder when we'll have to get vaccinated again. Last I heard Autumn Boosters were going to be only for the most vulnerable.


Would appear the JCVI still aren't entirely convinced yet.








						Extremely vulnerable in UK must urgently get booster shots, say campaigners
					

Government’s vaccines watchdog has cast doubt on start date for Covid jab booster programme




					www.theguardian.com
				





ska invita said:


> Doesn't any immunity only last six months?


Immunity to what precisely? All evidence thus far points to immunity from severe disease lasting a year, perhaps even several years, for the majority of vaccinees.


----------



## weepiper (Aug 19, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Are we seeing a 'back to school' effect in the scottish case numbers here?
> 
> View attachment 284334View attachment 284335



Nightclubs reopened on the 9th of August.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 19, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> First box here: Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance and support
> 
> Not that I expect everyone to read the website. It seems the government have failed to get the message out properly.


There's a surprise


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 19, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> We have two 17-year-olds, and so we've been dutifully waiting for their vaccine invitations since it was announced they would be extending it to 16-17 year olds. Turns out what that means is you get a photocopied letter from the NHS, telling you to look on their website for nearby walk-in centres. If they'd just said that originally, it could have all been sorted by now. Fucking useless.


My son's had a letter inviting him for a jab. He doesn't want one because _bullshit reason after bullshit reason_.


----------



## brogdale (Aug 19, 2021)

Is it just me, or are the numbers starting to look a bit shit again?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Is it just me, or are the numbers starting to look a bit shit again?


It's not just you.


----------



## weepiper (Aug 19, 2021)

S☼I said:


> It's not just you.


All a bit close again here. One of Patrick's friends has it and my brother is currently isolating awaiting a PCR result due to close contact with several positive cases.


----------



## zora (Aug 19, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> First box here: Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance and support
> 
> Not that I expect everyone to read the website. It seems the government have failed to get the message out properly.


Yes, the poor messaging has struck me as well. And LFTs (while potentially a useful tool) have sown a lot of confusion. 

Example from my work again: A couple of my colleagues told me that they had taken LFTs on Tuesday evening after finding out that our colleague who had been in that day had had a positive LFT test, and were greatly relieved that theirs was negative. Surely that doesn't mean shit? I mean it's highly unlikely if not impossible to test positive on a LFT 5 hours after exposure?

Yet there is the other confusing message of taking a PCR test as soon as possible after being notified of a contact instead of quarantine.
Now I guess that the timeframe of that is somewhat different, because by the time the person had their test back some time after developing symptoms sometime after hanging out with you and informed you, it could be 3-5 days or whatever after contact, and with the PCR being more sensitive, would be more likely to show a reliable result. 
But wasn't the whole point of quarantining for (initially 14) 10 days because it could take a while for the infection to take hold..? Otherwise we could have been "testing to release" on day 4 all this time? Now this might have changed somewhat with delta, where time from exposure to infection and infectiousness might be quicker.

But anyway, point is: I am sure the message - "just take a test as soon as possible after potential exposure" is very confusing to people, and unless you are a major covid geek you are unlikely to be able to make an informed decision - even I feel somewhat flummoxed now.


----------



## The39thStep (Aug 19, 2021)

S☼I said:


> My son's had a letter inviting him for a jab. He doesn't want one because _bullshit reason after bullshit reason_.


Keep on his back


----------



## 2hats (Aug 19, 2021)

2hats said:


> ska invita said:
> 
> 
> > Doesn't any immunity only last six months?
> ...


Just to underline this...

Media today have got a little distracted by an Oxford/ONS study preprint, concentrating on the slow drop in *immunity to infection* due to delta over time (not disease - the study investigated symptomatic infection) and how this might make a case for a third dose booster.

But this is to be expected. It's what a healthy immune system does - gradually throttles back circulating antibodies as the antigen is removed from your body. You don't want your body held in a constantly heightened inflammatory state; that way lie immune problems. Circulating antibodies from a third dose booster will also wane if your immune system is in correct working order.

The really important observation from that study, which should inform vaccination programmes moving forward, is that heterologous exposure to antigens at longer intervals produces better sustained, more potent, broader protection, in particular to new, emerging VOCs:

See hybrid immunity and heterologous immunisation in the vaccines thread (eg post #1359 and subsequent posts).


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 19, 2021)

The39thStep said:


> Keep on his back


Yeah, his mum's on it. Not as much as I'd be but that's probably a good thing.

A colleague has Covid and two people he works with have been sent home despite having no symptoms. That's not the new guidelines is it. I don't think anyone at college fully knows them. Nobody has told me. "It's down to individual choice" is the line now


----------



## 2hats (Aug 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Is it just me, or are the numbers starting to look a bit shit again?


English hospital admission numbers are already back to levels seen during the July peak.


----------



## The39thStep (Aug 19, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Yeah, his mum's on it. Not as much as I'd be but that's probably a good thing.
> 
> A colleague has Covid and two people he works with have been sent home despite having no symptoms. That's not the new guidelines is it. I don't think anyone at college fully knows them. Nobody has told me. "It's down to individual choice" is the line now


Had to really peck my lads head about this. Was too busy etc , However every text he sent and every phone call , we speak once a week, I kept on to him  about it. His steo sister got covid and some of his mates so that and hopefully me  might have nudged him. Hes had the first now so I think he will get the second.


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## elbows (Aug 20, 2021)

No surprises here:









						9,000 Covid cases linked to Euro 2020 games in mass events scheme
					

Study paper says England’s progress to final ‘generated a significant risk to public health across the UK’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Aug 20, 2021)

2hats said:


> English hospital admission numbers are already back to levels seen during the July peak.


Reporting on this is still largely shit or non-existent.

Northern Ireland has come back onto the BBCs radar at least.









						Covid-19: NI records highest number of cases in a single day
					

Another 2,397 cases are reported, as doctors warn hospital staff are struggling to meet demand.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> A critical care consultant said dealing with the virus was as difficult now as at any time during the pandemic.
> 
> Dr George Gardiner told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme that continuing to carry out surgery while admitting Covid-19 patients to intensive care was a "huge ask" for staff.
> 
> "What's different this time is that we haven't switched off all the other essential services that hospitals in Northern Ireland provide," he said.


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> No surprises here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That case load increase was an absolute certainty ..., and I suspect 9,000 cases is actually way under the real figures ...


----------



## elbows (Aug 20, 2021)

Yeah I wouldnt never treat such numbers as the whole story, they are just an indication of a larger problem, aspects of which are not captured by these evaluations. Its the same with a lot of studies, for example studies into numbers of people who caught the virus in hospital freely admit that they arent detecting the whole picture. For example those werent generally setup to count people who showed symptoms or tested positive only after being discharged from hospital. And we dont generally include the full chain of infection that results from such spread in any of the numbers.

As far as the mass events evaluation programme, its conclusions from the earlier stages were of extremely limited use due to low viral prevalence at the time. These sorts of evaluations are quite sensitive to such things, in much the same way that estimates about effectiveness of vaccines are generally expected to get worse when data comes in from the most challenging periods where there is a lot of infection about so much more weight for vaccines to carry. I could claim a football event seemed safe if I carried it out when there werent many infections in the community, but the real test is holding such events in very difficult circumstances when rates in the community were already high, otherwise I just file it under reassuring bullshit.


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## campanula (Aug 20, 2021)

The last coupla months have been the worst of all, afaiac. I knew where I was, all last year (at home) and had tailored my expectations accordingly. This vague open/not open has really left me floundering. We normally have an annual party in the wood which is something we all work towards. Last year, it was definitely off, but this year, it's on, it's off, we are all doing tests but having just come out of a very close COVID scare, the limitations of lateral flow tests have become abundantly clear (the longish gap between exposure until viral load is high enough to register)...and, of course, all the conflicting hopes and expectations of friends and family are, frankly, doing my fucking head in. Covid exhaustion is definitely taking a toll on  people around me and I am finding it much, much harder to engage with the world outside of my tiny bubble.


----------



## elbows (Aug 20, 2021)

Its now been right about a year since some people started to wonder whether the case numbers were showing a meaningful rise. Within a couple of weeks it became clearer that the rise looked meaningful and sustained, and then the whole thing dragged on at such a pace that Johnson was able to delay a suitable response for a very long time indeed.

I was far from the first to start going on about that at the time, I was quite slow to get into that mode. And looking back it seems that we could have started such pondering a whole month earlier than we did,  but the numbers were relatively small and there had been a big mainstream narrative and response involving local outbreaks and local lockdowns which distracted from commentary on the national picture.

Back then the level at this stage of August 2020 was around 1100 UK cases per day (7 day average), after a very gradual increase from around 570 at the start of July 2020. This time around our averages are just below 30,000, and the lowest we got in between this wave and the previous one was 1850, although to be fair there is more testing available compared to the start of July 2020.

Anyway nobody really needs me to tell them that this is a terrible starting point should the situation deteriorate in the last part of summer and into autumn like it did last year. Explosive growth from this starting point would create a situation that even this government couldnt ignore for too many months before having to act. But I dont actually know if we will have a return to that sort of explosive growth again in the coming weeks or whether there will continue to be a more gradual increase or another pattern entirely. Scotland may offer clues but its early days for their alarming data and I need to study that a bit more before making any big claims.


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## elbows (Aug 20, 2021)

Oh the BBC have done a 'compare now to a year' ago thing just now too.









						Covid cases: This summer compared with last
					

Case numbers are 30 times higher than at the same point last year - where might we be heading next?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Contains comments by Professor Hunter about things including endemic equilibrium, comments I will keep in mind but that I would not dream of expressing with such confidence at this stage.


----------



## elbows (Aug 20, 2021)

Also:









						Army supporting ambulance services in England
					

High demand and staffing shortages have meant the Army has been called in to help look after patients.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				





> *Nearly 100 members of the Army have been brought in to help four ambulance trusts in England look after patients.*
> 
> High demand and staffing shortages mean they are being used to work alongside NHS staff.
> 
> ...





> The pressures on the ambulance service are not just down to the pandemic.
> 
> There have been unprecedented numbers of 999 calls - increasing demand on ambulances combining with sickness, staff isolating because of Covid and annual leave.



Hugh Pym isnt too bad at describing the situation and grasping its future implications without too much sugarcoating bullshit.



> It was understandable that military personnel were called in to help the NHS during the first and second waves of the pandemic.
> 
> The worry is that they are needed to back up frontline staff in August even after the predicted surge in Covid infections did not happen.
> 
> This does not bode well for the months ahead when a difficult flu season and the usual winter pressures as well as Covid will stretch a tired workforce even further.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Also:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



South West ambulance called in the army at least a fortnight ago.

There are big light-up signs near the hospitals telling tourists to either ring 111 or go home to their own GPs if unwell. All the hospitals round here were full even before the school holidays started.


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## StoneRoad (Aug 20, 2021)

Same / similar problem here in the North East ...









						Army personnel to help North East Ambulance Service
					

Last month the North East Ambulance Service answered nearly 45,000 calls, the highest in its history.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




However, having skimmed that article - the Army team is only 25 persons and they have been trained to drive the "patient transport" vehicles, not the emergency ambulances.


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## elbows (Aug 20, 2021)

I started to look into Scotland a little more. Their latest weekly 'modelling the epidemic in Scotland' report came at an awkward time where the data period it covers doesnt do justice to the more recent increases, and they know it so the report includes plenty of language trying to acknowledge the trend of more recent days.

One of the ways they do this is via their regular section on what the wastewater monitoring indicators look like. I wont be posting the graphs and more detailed wording from that section, instead here is the wastewater summary from earlier in the document:



> Overall, wastewater (WW) Covid-19 RNA concentrations rose from the previous week similar to the observed rise in the rate of new cases. However, levels were rising substantially at the end of the period at many sites.
> Comparing the last two days of WW measurements (since 13th August) to measurements immediately prior, an increase in WW viral RNA is seen in 19 out of the 22 sites with available data. The increase is of a large magnitude, doubling or tripling the level in many sites.





			https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2021/08/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-issue-no-65/documents/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-65/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-65/govscot%3Adocument/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-65.pdf


----------



## Hollis (Aug 22, 2021)

I'm beginning to get might confused about the effectiveness of vaccines now..



If some of the vaccines are only 50% effective that isn't great progress is it?


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 22, 2021)

Seeing those drops in vaccine effectiveness against the delta variant infections makes me even more convinced that the UK should not have dropped social distancing measures and requiring the wearing of proper masks in crowded places, especially indoors.
It could also explain the continued rises in case numbers ...

I hope "they" are planning to tweak the autumn booster shots for extra protection against the Beta and Delta variants.


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## Mation (Aug 22, 2021)

Are we heading for another lockdown?


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## Elpenor (Aug 22, 2021)

Mation said:


> Are we heading for another lockdown?


I’ve started wondering this too. My dad mentioned cases were going up today. I have to admit I’ve switched off from the covid news of late.

While it won’t impact my day to day life much I will have to reschedule or cancel various things I’d planned.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 22, 2021)

Mation said:


> Are we heading for another lockdown?



I can't see it any time soon. The previous lockdowns have been a panicked reaction to hospitalisations and deaths going through the roof and we're a long way from those levels. The 'irreversible' stuff is obviously bullshit but it doesn't suggest there'll be a lower trigger point for this in future does it.


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## Mation (Aug 22, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I can't see it any time soon. The previous lockdowns have been a panicked reaction to hospitalisations and deaths going through the roof and we're a long way from those levels. The 'irreversible' stuff is obviously bullshit but it doesn't suggest there'll be a lower trigger point for this in future does it.


Are we that far from lockdown hospitalisation levels? Deaths, yes. Now. But I can't help feeling that winter is coming.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 22, 2021)

If my potentially faulty memory serves, history suggests that lockdowns are triggered at the point that hospitalisations threaten to rise above something like 1000 per day in the imminent future.  I believe that the hospitalisation rate is something like 0.5-1% at the current rate of vaccination?  So that would imply that the government won't take serious action unless we get up to something like 100-200,000 cases per day.  Unless one of the many things I am trying to remember in that equation is wrong, of course.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Aug 22, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> "If only God would make it so there was some way we could protect ourselves from this terrible virus."



“and god has granted you dominion over the beasts of the Earth and the sea and the sky”
_several thousand years later_

“Guys this means you can get vaccines stop asking me for help you twats, get the jab”


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## elbows (Aug 23, 2021)

Hollis said:


> I'm beginning to get might confused about the effectiveness of vaccines now..
> 
> If some of the vaccines are only 50% effective that isn't great progress is it?


Its more complicated than that.

Firstly the effectiveness against infection is one thing, but there are also the other key numbers such as effectiveness against hospitalisation and death. Those have been higher than effectiveness against infection in studies all the way along.

Secondly it an be a bit tricky to unpick multiple factors, for example how much of a decline is due to the Delta variant and how much is due to effects of vaccination waning over time. And there may be notable differences in that picture between nations where some nations used a different dosing schedule between first and second doses.

Another phenomenon that may also be part of the picture is that a lot of the real world studies of vaccines over time have limitations imposed on them by the epidemic circumstances that are in play during the study period. I believe it was expected that there might be a decrease in some of the estimates once vaccinated populations impacts could be measured under very difficult circumstances, and this Delta wave is the first to fully offer that opportunity. If the proof of the pudding is in the eating then this present phase is puddingfest 2021 as far as vaccines go.

I have been complaining for most of this year that the approach the UK has gone for in 2021 is bloody stupid and asks vaccines to carry more pandemic weight than it is sensible to ask of them. But for a while the estimated effectiveness against infection was so high that I was at least ready to entertain the possibility that the government might get away with their chosen approach. I still have to entertain that possibility even though those the estimates you mention have now fallen very far below the level where some of the most simplistic notions about 'herd immunity' seemed like a plausible goal to aim for. But the picture is complicated and messy and I havent seen modelling of what could happen next once the latest vaccine effectiveness estimates are taken into account.

And there are other complications too for the months ahead. There is the issue of waning immunity and booster shots. Israel have drawn a gloomy conclusion about that and are pressing on with boosters now, but their data is from their circumstances where they only had the short gap between the first two doses. The UK is likely to provide a missing piece of that picture by studying waning immunity in a country where many people had a much longer gap between first and second jabs, and indeed there seems to be a new antibody testing programme going live here which may be designed to help with those questions and some other.

And this brings me to the final complication I shall mention now. Time and time again we have seen studies where the immunity afforded to many people who have been infected and vaccinated seems notably better than for those who have been vaccinated but not infected. It is possible that vaccination regimes over time might be able to get closer to the protection offered by infection plus vaccination, especially if the nature of vaccines themselves is altered. But without such triumphs on the near horizon, in some ways the infected plus vaccinated route is music to the ears of the UK establishment, since it provides a new justification for their original instincts, for plans and priorities that see no problem in letting millions of people get infected, just so long as the hospital burden doesnt become too great.


----------



## elbows (Aug 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> If my potentially faulty memory serves, history suggests that lockdowns are triggered at the point that hospitalisations threaten to rise above something like 1000 per day in the imminent future.  I believe that the hospitalisation rate is something like 0.5-1% at the current rate of vaccination?  So that would imply that the government won't take serious action unless we get up to something like 100-200,000 cases per day.  Unless one of the many things I am trying to remember in that equation is wrong, of course.



Not only has the UK government gone out of its way to avoid having publicly stated trigger points/red lines for that sort of thing, if they've even had any private ones internally they've kept them very close to their chests.

Because SAGE minutes from meetings conducted in July this year still felt the need to go on about the need to set such trigger points. And they didnt even know at what levels they should be set, and meeting minutes included actionable points about getting NHS England and the Joint Biosecurity Centre to report on the impact of certain rates of hospitalisation/bed occupancy/ICU occupancy. 

It was the usual absurd bullshit that I was reading such requests in a meeting from summer 2021 rather than spring 2020. But it was hardly surprising to me given my long history of peering with contempt at the UKs pandemic response. SAGE minutes are rather dry, they arent even minutes at all, but its still possible to decode signs of exasperation in those documents from time to time.

Here are some relevant quotes from meetings 93 and 94 of July 2021.



> If the aim is to avoid the NHS becoming overwhelmed, SAGE advises that it is important to understand the impact of different levels of admissions on NHS function and have appropriate contingency plans in place.





> Pre-defining hospital (and ICU) admission or occupancy levels which would trigger further contingency planning and interventions would be important.





> In the event that increasing hospitalisations were likely to put unsustainable pressure on the NHS, this would need to be identified rapidly and contingency plans enacted within days, given the delays between infection and hospitalisation (i.e., because hospitalisations will continue rising for a time even once infections start to fall). Having clear trigger mechanisms for this in place is strongly advised.





> ACTION: NHSE and JBC to provide analysis of local and national NHS impacts at different levels of hospital or ICU admissions or occupancy.



From SAGE 93 minutes: Coronavirus (COVID-19) response, 7 July 2021 and SAGE 94 minutes: Coronavirus (COVID-19) response, 22 July 2021

Its no surprise that such things havent been put in place in the past because thats what youd do if you wanted a scientific, data driven approach to call the shots. A sensible regime might want such a system so that some of the ugly politics of restrictions could be bypassed via effectively automating the big trigger. The current government dont favour that, they want to retain all the power to make such decisions arbitrarily at a time of their choosing, and if there are trigger points they'd at least pay some attention to, they would probably hide them inside a black box. 

I could go back and look at historic data to try to estimate where the red lines might be, but I dont know how reliable a guide that would actually turn out to be. And its certainly not just about current levels, its also about the doubling times in effect at that moment. If the doubling time is fairly short, and only one more doubling from the current level is required to land in deep shit, then the time to act is now or some time ago. One of the reasons Johnson was able to drag his heels for so long in the autumn was that the relatively long doubling time made things seem like a slow motion version of the first wave, right up until the point where suddenly the situation didnt seem to be evolving so slowly anymore, and then the shit hit the fan. The usual predictable pattern where idiots think they can ignore exponential growth because the first bunch of doublings seem so modest. This time around if things get worse we are already starting from rather high levels, and to hold their nerves for ages they will probably need the doubling time to be extremely long, eg more like the gradual, modest rises seen in England positive case numbers in recent weeks than the rather rapid rise Scotland is seeing in case numbers recently.


----------



## elbows (Aug 23, 2021)

kabbes said:


> If my potentially faulty memory serves, history suggests that lockdowns are triggered at the point that hospitalisations threaten to rise above something like 1000 per day in the imminent future.  I believe that the hospitalisation rate is something like 0.5-1% at the current rate of vaccination?  So that would imply that the government won't take serious action unless we get up to something like 100-200,000 cases per day.  Unless one of the many things I am trying to remember in that equation is wrong, of course.



I had a quick go at eyeballing the historic data and seeing whether I could make sure a simple trigger rule work. If I do things formally by using the dates that Johnson announced lockdowns, I cant really make it work, because there is a huge difference between hospital admission rates when he finally ordered a lockdown at the end of October 2020 compared to when he announce one in early January 2021. The same can be said for number of patients in hospital beds and in mechanical ventilation beds.

But then there is all the stupid detail behind the pictures at those two stages:

There is the difference between when the lockdowns were formally announced, and when they first started to look inevitable. We can use the mood music and leaks to the media to give us a broader range of dates than the formal announcement date.

There is the bullshit politics, some of which is influenced by the calendar - eg December was full of woe and talk of the new variant, but there looks to have been an agenda to delay the inevitable in order to let certain aspects of the Christmas economy have their moment, an attempt to fudge the rules over Christmas itself and lean heavily on alarming messaging and words of caution, with the inevitable formal lockdown postponed till early January. And the November lockdown wasnt as much of a lockdown as we'd seen before or since, in that it had a short fixed length and the schools didnt close for any pupils.

And there is the fact that it wont just be trigger points that lead them to these decisions, it will be stuff like various modelling. In the pre-vaccine era the modelling picture was pretty straightforward, with waves becoming unbearably immense, and a pretty solid sense of inevitability in regards the doom in store past a certain point. This time around is more complicated, with opportunities offered by some modelling output that would allow the authorities to believe that things would pass with a horrible period of pressure that was nevertheless still modest enough to get through without having to slam on those heavy brakes. Now we've had the additional complication of an 'unexpected' early peak in July and then things deteriorating quite slowly for a time after, and now alarming indications from Scotland about what could be next. And the authorities had the wiggle room afforded by school holidays, which is soon to disappear.

I dont know what will happen next and I dont know to what extent the latest modelling may have changed to take account of how people have behaved post-restrictions, what impact the latest vaccine-Delta estimates have on how bad the modelling thinks things can get, etc. 

But with all that said, personally I would actually use 1000 as a rough guide. At least in the sense that I am fond of going on about the shit hitting the fan, and over 1000 hospital admissions a day and/or over 1000 people in mechanical ventilation beds would probably be the sort of level where I'd be saying the shit has indeed hit the fan. But it does depend on the rate of increase too, and how long modelling suggests such a rise might continue. We really arent far away from 1000 for either admissions or ICU bed figures right now, and I expect that my posts here will be somewhat different if it next crawls past the 1000 level compared to if it shoots past that level rapidly. 

Anyway I often take the piss out of aspects of media pandemic reporting but I can use their output as an unsubtle guide as to when the authorities realise the shit has hit the fan and that a u-turn looms. Because of this I cannott say that previous lockdowns or delays to the roadmap were a surprise to people by the time they were announced. But again its a bit more complicated this time because the current approach involved an inevitable period where the government fully expected the shit to hit the fan, but where they thought it wouldnt go on for too long so they could get away with letting it happen rather than having to u-turn as they did in the past. And to stand a better chance of not exceeding the limits, they made use of gloomy mood music and toned down the freedom day rhetoric and timing. So I need to be able to distinguish between that sort of messaging in the media as seen in early July, and the previous versions of this which we could take as an indicator that a u-turn & lockdown was coming.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 23, 2021)

To be clear, I wasn’t suggesting that 1000 hospitalisations a a day was any kind of official or documented trigger for action. I was just looking for when the government has seemed to take action and noting that this has been at the point that the NHS seemed to be within sight of being overwhelmed (which seems to be at about 1000 hpd). They’ve been quite consistent about not doing anything so long as hospitals are ‘coping’ but then reacting in a panic when it’s looking like this will stop being the case.  I fully expect this to continue.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 23, 2021)

Hollis said:


> I'm beginning to get might confused about the effectiveness of vaccines now..
> 
> 
> 
> If some of the vaccines are only 50% effective that isn't great progress is it?




The first reply is more reassuring...


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 23, 2021)

That document does show again that AZ is less effective than the MRNA vaccines, why does everyone avoid discussing this and just lump all vaccines together in most discussions of how good they are?, because its uncomfortable?

P.S. I believe the majority in UK have had AZ?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 23, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> That document does show again that AZ is less effective than the MRNA vaccines, why does everyone avoid discussing this and just lump all vaccines together in most discussions of how good they are?, because its uncomfortable?
> 
> P.S. I believe the majority in UK have had AZ?



With 2 doses, when it come to symptomatic infection AZ is less effective (70% -v- 85%), at least in the short term, I did read a report recently, that in the longer term AZ overtakes Pfizer, as efficacy drops faster with Pfizer over time.

When it comes to hospitalisation and deaths, both are very effective at 95%

These are the Public Health England figures, based on a longer gap between doses in the UK compared to most countries.


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 23, 2021)

But if the document in that tweet is correct and AZ is only 60% effective against infection against mrna at 83% then AZ will have measurably less ability to kerb transmission which I suppose aids keeping that reservoir of the infected present, its complicated innit

P.S. what do the colours in the different boxes represent?, is it confidence in the data?


----------



## teuchter (Aug 23, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> But if the document in that tweet is correct and AZ is only 60% effective against infection against mrna at 83% then AZ will have measurably less ability to kerb transmission which I suppose aids keeping that reservoir of the infected present, its complicated innit


That relies on extrapolation from symptomatic infection to judge effects on transmission though, and it seems no-one is very clear about to what extent you can do that.

And those numbers are for symptomatic infection, not infection, which are two different things.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> And those numbers are for symptomatic infection, not infection, which are two different things.


I don't understand why they never made clear that vaccinated or unvaccinated, the initial infection / replication / shedding phase is the same whether vaccinated or not and that this will not magically solve the problem.

I was reminded the other day of the estimate that double-vaccination assuming it worked, basically gives you a 20 year advantage in terms of disease progression - so as a healthy 61 year old and with some children actually dying, I plan to continue treating everyone else like they were Typhoid Mary.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 23, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> the initial infection / replication / shedding phase is the same whether vaccinated or not


I'm not sure that's actually known is it?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 23, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> That document does show again that AZ is less effective than the MRNA vaccines, why does everyone avoid discussing this and just lump all vaccines together in most discussions of how good they are?, because its uncomfortable?
> 
> P.S. I believe the majority in UK have had AZ?



Current thinking is that immunity from the AZ jab declines less quickly, so that about nine months after a second jab the AZ is more effective than the Pfizer. Early results though.


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 23, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I'm not sure that's actually known is it?


I believe it has been tested recently - possibly looking for live virus rather than just fragments ...
So far as I understand, the immunity given by prior infection / vaccination can't get to work until there is some replication - and then it's a game of catchup ...


----------



## Spandex (Aug 23, 2021)

Mation said:


> Are we heading for another lockdown?


I can't see there being another lockdown until we're well into a complete and absolute shitstorm. Johnson put off lockdown last spring, last autumn and last winter, and after all his irreversible no more lockdown you've had your vaccine new normal talk he'll be even more resistant to introducing another one. 

We're currently bumping along with 30,000+ positive tests per day, 900 and something people going into hospital every day and around 100 people a day dying, with all the figures drifting up for a few weeks. Apart from the odd story about local NHS struggling all the messaging is still Get Back to Normal, and plenty of people (especially in government) are fine with this.

If numbers really take off again - a possibility as summer comes to an end - I expect the government to try everything they can to avoid locking down again - denial followed by talk of annual flu rates and the success of vaccines followed by pingdemic 2 and bringing back local 'restrictions', anything to avoid another lockdown until it's past inevitable.

I really, really hope we don't end up there. I'm sick of the whole fucking thing now. My 7 year old was 5 when this all started, he barely remembers a time without Covid. But if there's a government who can manage to fuck things up in the most disastrous way, then it's Johnson's shambolic excuse for a government.


----------



## Petcha (Aug 23, 2021)

Wrong thread!


----------



## weepiper (Aug 24, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Aug 24, 2021)

weepiper said:


>




Talk of the 'sharp rise' and the current situation being 'fragile' and a 'pivotal moment'. And the typical mix of calls for people to do their bit by wearing masks, keeping distance, ventilation etc. Joined by vague comments about how limited, proportionate restrictions could be reimposed in future if necessary. 

Also revealed that about a third of current positive cases are vaccinated. 

Avoided giving any concrete info in response to journalists questions about what trigger points would be. Did point out that due to NHS resuming other forms of care, it will take less Covid pressure to cause a problem this time than it would have done earlier in the pandemic.

Also bits of detail about their public inquiry.


----------



## elbows (Aug 24, 2021)

Todays press conference from Scotland also included a good example of the phenomenon where the focus on which age group have the highest cases ends up distracting from very important things happening in other age groups.

For eample the trends in other age groups are really important, not just the absolute numbers.  And cases in some older age groups have always been lower than some other age groups, but the different ratio of hospitalisation in older group still makes their numbers a big deal.

Here are the latest 7 day averages by age group for Scotland from this website Scotland Coronavirus Tracker

Its not hard to see why younger age groups grab the attention, but the trajectory of other groups actually bothers me equally if not more.


----------



## scalyboy (Aug 24, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Apart from the odd story about local NHS struggling all the messaging is still Get Back to Normal, and plenty of people (especially in government) are fine with this.


Agree. 

The 'get back to normal' message seems (at least round my way) to have encouraged more and more people not to wear masks, sometimes it's the majority on a bus or in a shop - just now I noticed several shop workers who've stopped bothering to wear them too. 

Ceasing to wear a mask in a confined space seems very much at odds with the sharp increase in infections over the past week(?) and I suspect the two are directly related! 

And as you said Spandex , Johnson will be very reluctant to introduce another lockdown - he looks at his popularity and not the nation's health, or at common sense - and if he does bring in another lockdown, there will be a looooong delay before he does so, as was the case before. 

So let's hope it's not necessary, cos the f*cker will delay and prevaricate all the way into autumn/winter.


----------



## Riklet (Aug 24, 2021)

Bloody nora the south west is being hammered by Covid again. Bloomin tour-er-ism!!

I had a look at the age breakdown for Somerset and Bristol and it's still very high rates with under 40s and much lower with older ages. So socialising must be a big factor.

Loads of selfish cunts dont wear a mask inside at the local places here now. It's only the chemist's that's actually strict.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 24, 2021)

Yep my area has one of highest case rates in (looks like) the country. Apart from holidays and second homes and boardmasters in Newquay I'm presuming that it comes partially because we got off so well in the first rounds. Even though most are now double vaccinated.


----------



## Elpenor (Aug 24, 2021)

Very high in my part of Devon which will probably include holiday parks etc in Dawlish. Thankfully I can more or less lock myself away from the world. I agree with two sheds  that the SW having had low rates initially is suffering more later on


----------



## two sheds (Aug 24, 2021)

Same here - I've always liked the idea of a desert island and I got similar now but with deliveries


----------



## IC3D (Aug 24, 2021)

With an increasing number of people in London who have already had it, I'm not surprised mask wearing reducing and local in inner city  boroughs it is very low with shop workers and has been for ages. Totally different world if you go to an affluent area.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 24, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Very high in my part of Devon which will probably include holiday parks etc in Dawlish. Thankfully I can more or less lock myself away from the world. I agree with two sheds  that the SW having had low rates initially is suffering more later on



Bank holiday weekend coming up. We're pretty much gonna stock up on everything and then stay indoors for the duration 

E2a: Dartmoor's still miraculously quiet though. I guess because most of it is more than forty feet from a car park or a place where you can buy some fried grease or an inflatable giraffe.


----------



## elbows (Aug 24, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Yep my area has one of highest case rates in (looks like) the country. Apart from holidays and second homes and boardmasters in Newquay I'm presuming that it comes partially because we got off so well in the first rounds. Even though most are now double vaccinated.



Yes thats a theme in the modelling too, areas that do better in previous waves wave have more potential to do worse in the next. And this logic still works in the vaccine era because numerous studies imply that infection + vaccination offers better immunity than vaccination alone.

This came up in the Scottish press conference at one point too, when a comparison to the situation and timing in England was being made.


----------



## Elpenor (Aug 24, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Bank holiday weekend coming up. We're pretty much gonna stock up on everything and then stay indoors for the duration
> 
> E2a: Dartmoor's still miraculously quiet though. I guess because most of it is more than forty feet from a car park or a place where you can buy some fried grease or an inflatable giraffe.


The few times I’ve driven into Dartmoor during a weekend it’s been quiet.


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 24, 2021)

Much the same here. Also in a "tour-ista" area [Roman / history plus some scenery / walking routes]
But with plenty of local cases and much reduced masking - although we do have a very high vaccination count especially with the more vulnerable sectors of the population - a few refusniks despite evidence.

Regular grocery delivery on Saturday night, then we'll batten down for the next few days.
Maybe watch film(s) and drink some wine once or twice. 
Might even have a "picnic" if the weather behaves !


----------



## Flavour (Aug 25, 2021)

Covid infection protection waning in double jabbed
					

Experts say it is to be expected and boosters may be needed, at least for some people, ahead of winter.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## Supine (Aug 25, 2021)

Flavour said:


> Covid infection protection waning in double jabbed
> 
> 
> Experts say it is to be expected and boosters may be needed, at least for some people, ahead of winter.
> ...



I’d say that headline over dramatises the actual findings and expert opinions tbh.

Vaccines would protect a lot more people if they were given to developing countries rather than used as third doses.


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 25, 2021)

B&M this morning  (Wales where masks are still a legal requirement in shops)..not one single member of Staff wearing a mask...fucking idiots


----------



## teuchter (Aug 25, 2021)

On the theme of 'returning to normal' it's pretty obvious there is a massive gulf between different people in terms of whether they reckon that's happened. Have done a fair bit of traveling the past few days, some trains feel 'normal' as far as number of passengers are concerned. A mix of mask and non mask wearing, the ratio of which seems to vary a lot depending on what type of train and where it's going.

The other day, I saw an unmasked guy ask if he could sit down next to a masked woman on a busy service. I don't think anyone would have tried that a couple of months ago - even a refusenik I think would recognise that as having been deemed socially as off limits.

The woman's response was to quickly get up and move off to another carriage looking pretty pissed off. I wonder whether the maskless man got any message through to his brain from this interaction.


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 25, 2021)

Its hard to say without being there but Ive see a range from: *Too fucking ignorant to even get it* all the way to: *Ha I know I'm intimidating this person but I actually enjoy doing it cos im a cunt*


----------



## skyscraper101 (Aug 25, 2021)

COVID latest news live: Thousands heading to UK music festivals as prevalence of virus in England rises to 1 in 70
					

Blood clot risk higher from COVID itself than jabs; teenagers aged between 12 and 15 experienced mild side-effects after Pfizer jab; Primark changing rooms become pop-up jab clinics at two London stores.




					news.sky.com
				






> *More than 1,000 Latitude festivalgoers test positive for COVID*
> 
> More than 1,000 people who attended Latitude Festival last month have tested positive for coronavirus, according to reports.
> 
> ...



Reading and Leeds (this weekend) are going to be hotbeds of virus spreading aren't they.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 25, 2021)

skyscraper101 said:


> COVID latest news live: Thousands heading to UK music festivals as prevalence of virus in England rises to 1 in 70
> 
> 
> Blood clot risk higher from COVID itself than jabs; teenagers aged between 12 and 15 experienced mild side-effects after Pfizer jab; Primark changing rooms become pop-up jab clinics at two London stores.
> ...



Badgers posted this one in the covid chat thread...






						Almost 5,000 Covid cases linked to Cornish music and surf festival | Cornwall | The Guardian
					

Organisers of Boardmasters say event had measures in place ‘above and beyond national guidelines’Coronavirus – latest updates




					amp.theguardian.com


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 25, 2021)

skyscraper101 said:


> COVID latest news live: Thousands heading to UK music festivals as prevalence of virus in England rises to 1 in 70
> 
> 
> Blood clot risk higher from COVID itself than jabs; teenagers aged between 12 and 15 experienced mild side-effects after Pfizer jab; Primark changing rooms become pop-up jab clinics at two London stores.
> ...



Yes.

I was at a festival last weekend and stayed well away from any sweaty crowded tents full of young people but it was easy to see that all these festivals will be super spreader events.  Still, maybe they can get it out of the away before they reopen the plague pits shortly.


----------



## elbows (Aug 25, 2021)

Supine said:


> I’d say that headline over dramatises the actual findings and expert opinions tbh.
> 
> Vaccines would protect a lot more people if they were given to developing countries rather than used as third doses.



Yeah as usual its hard to be sure they've reached a 'pure' conclusion and that some of what was seen was not down to initial vaccine infection protection estimates being overly optimistic due to the earlier data covering a period where there was not as much virus in circulation.

I think I've gone on about this recently as 'proof of the pudding' stuff for vaccines, and described the current Delta wave as puddingfest 2021. In that particular artile the same sort of thing is expressed via bits like:



> Dr Simon Clarke, an expert in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading, said infection levels in the community would alter a person's chance of encountering and catching Covid at any given time, making it hard to draw firm conclusions about waning immunity.


----------



## thismoment (Aug 25, 2021)

teuchter said:


> On the theme of 'returning to normal' it's pretty obvious there is a massive gulf between different people in terms of whether they reckon that's happened….


I think it’s also a case of what people are individually used to. For example, I am ok with getting the train and tube for my commute to work, it the most practical to get to work. I’ve probably been on 2/3 buses since the pandemic. However, last night I had to get a bus home  and didn’t get it because it was very busy (there were lots of people sitting next to each other) and more people were getting on. I waited for another bus and same thing. I ended up getting a cab. And yet I get the tube for work which doesn’t make all that much sense except it’s what I’m used to.


----------



## Wilf (Aug 25, 2021)

I've been working from home, very careful due to health issues all the way through. But then last night I managed a frog in the pan of water moment, aka a moment of idiocy.  I'd been watching FC United at the weekend at their home ground.  Fair bit of space in the ground, fairly short beer queue, all very low risk. I then went to watch them away last night at South Shields.  Ground pretty full and much less personal space, but the real issue was the bar, which was a tight indoor space with a queue that doubled back on itself - me the only person with a mask.  Must have been in the queue 15 minutes and kept thinking this is madness, but somehow stayed there - the logic of 'oh, i'm a bit nearer, a bit nearer...'.

The point of the (fascinating!) personal story?  Maybe I'm a daft bastard. Perhaps, but it was a bit like falling off the wagon.  New normal? Temptation?  The point where policy change and opening up intersects with your own decision making.  Long winded way of saying 'this is why case numbers are rising'.


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 25, 2021)

Not enjoying the good weather today.

getting concerned about some travelling I need to do, quite soon.
I need new glasses and a few other things.

This waning immunity in the double jabbed plus rising cases - which started in the younger sections of the population - are beginning to make me worry ...


----------



## two sheds (Aug 25, 2021)

You don't want to get glasses across the web? Or is there an eye test too?


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 25, 2021)

two sheds said:


> You don't want to get glasses across the web? Or is there an eye test too?


No, I need an eye examination & test.
Very short-sighted in my left eye, to the point that most of the "express" places don't have suitable lens blanks in stock.

Our "local" optician's testing room is really tiny ...


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 25, 2021)

I'm in Northumberland and while people are wearing masks in shops practically zero staff are wearing them in cafes and pubs and even I haven't worn one when inside places ordering drinks or food. I'm pretty much the only person choosing to eat or drink outside.

It's like on holiday = holiday from covid.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 25, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> No, I need an eye examination & test.
> Very short-sighted in my left eye, to the point that most of the "express" places don't have suitable lens blanks in stock.
> 
> Our "local" optician's testing room is really tiny ...


My (small business) optician did a home visit which I really appreciated, they seem to be offering them as standard. Masked up in a largeish room with the door open, felt really safe.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 25, 2021)

I was really short sighted made worse when I got cataracts. Have said elsewhere, but the cataract operation cured my short sight - now have pretty well 20/20 vision, just need magnifying glass/reading glasses for print that is too small for the human eye. First time in 60 years I've not had to wear glasses, love it.

I'm recommending people get cataract operation whether they need it or not


----------



## elbows (Aug 25, 2021)

Maybe I should get off the 'I dont know what will happen next' fence by at least saying that advisors seem to be expecting a significant surge, which makes sense, would be a bit silly to bet against that.

Scotland continue to break their records for number of positive cases detected per day.

And there is greater acknowledgement that those early pilot mass event studies which claimed such events could be held safely were flawed due to taking place during a period of relatively low community infection levels.

eg see this 15:00 entry from BBC live updates page:



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58326657
		




> It is "realistic" to say there will be a "significant" surge in coronavirus infections as schools return and people attend summer festivals, an expert advising the government on the virus has told the BBC.
> 
> Prof Ravindra Gupta, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, says: "Of course there is going to be an associated surge in cases, given that the young people in these events are largely going to be unvaccinated.
> 
> "So that's just something that is predictable and will happen, despite best efforts."





> He adds that when the government carried out pilot music events earlier this year, the Delta variant was not dominant and community transmission was relatively low.
> 
> Those pilot events were concluded to lead to "no substantial outbreaks" - but Prof Gupta says if a study were to be carried out now, "you may find something different".


----------



## elbows (Aug 25, 2021)

Hospital infection control update:









						Major spikes in hospital-acquired covid infections at two trusts
					

Two acute trusts have seen a spike in the number of covid infections that were probably acquired in hospital.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				






> Two acute trusts have seen a spike in the number of covid infections that were probably acquired in hospital.
> 
> Official data suggests The Royal Wolverhampton Trust had a weekly average of 25 probable hospital-acquired covid infections in mid-August, which was more than half the highest weekly average it reached in the peak of the covid wave in January.
> 
> ...





> There was also a spike in probable hospital-acquired covid cases at Yeovil District Hospital Foundation Trust at the start of August, when its weekly average reached similar levels to those reported in January, despite overall covid occupancy being just 50 per cent of its January levels.
> 
> In the first week of August, 46 per cent of the trust’s covid-positive patients appeared to have caught the virus in hospital.





> According to NHS England and international definitions, covid infections diagnosed eight days or more after admission are likely to have been acquired in hospital. The numbers of these “nosocomial” infections have been rising again nationally, as overall covid occupancy has risen.
> 
> In the latest data, around 5 per cent of all hospital covid cases were probably acquired in hospital, compared to 25 per cent in January.


----------



## elbows (Aug 26, 2021)

Fucking Nick Triggle alert.









						Coronavirus: Waning immunity and rising cases - time to worry?
					

A month ago infection rates were falling - how concerned should we be about the change in direction?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> And this illustrates, once again, why we need to get used to Covid circulating.
> 
> Experts have been clear we should expect to be infected repeatedly over our lifetimes.
> 
> ...





> And experts believe we have effectively reached an equilibrium whereby small changes - either in immunity across the population or behaviour and the number of contacts people have - can make the difference between infection levels rising or falling.





> But there is also an acknowledgement our approach and attitude to Covid needs to change too.
> 
> About 4,700 cases have been linked to a festival in Newquay, Cornwall.
> 
> ...





> More than 100 people a day on average are still dying with the virus.
> 
> But during a bad winter, 300 to 400 people a day can die from flu.



I've deliberately posted the worst bits that fit the Triggle alert theme I often had to resort to when reviewing BBC coverage of this pandemic. And even the bad bits do contain subjects I'd bring up myself. Its just that its no surprise that Triggle is in love with the idea of equilibrium and is not a subtle operator when it comes to learning to live with Covid-19.



> Prof Mike Tildesley, an infectious disease modeller at the University of Warwick, says September will be the crucial moment, when schools are back and people return to work.
> 
> "August is such an odd month," he says, "it makes interpreting what is happening more difficult.
> 
> "In September, normal behaviour and contact levels return."





> And if the signs from Scotland are right - the holiday season has already ended and cases are rising sharply - there could be quite a jump.
> 
> "We are already at quite a high base level in terms of infection," Prof Tildesley says.
> 
> "So if they go up across the board from here and that translates to a rise in hospital cases, there could be problems."





> But there are no guarantees that will happen - especially if we are truly close to an equilibrium whereby the levels of immunity in the population can keep the virus at bay.
> 
> "The truth is we just don't know," Prof Tildesley says.
> 
> "And it will probably be the end of September before we can say with any certainty."



Regarding that last bit, I'm not sure whether we will actually have to wait till the end of September, we might find out sooner than that, especially if we can continue to use Scotland as a guide. And I'm probably not on the same page as Triggle etc when it comes to what really counts as keeping the virus at bay. I dont really think the levels we have seen in recent months are what was envisaged as the suitable, sustainable backdrop for the whole learning to live with Covid thing.

And when it comes to 'equilibrium', the present situation is not really what I had in mind when I first spotted that phrase being used some weeks back. But I havent studied it that much yet, I dont know if there is any expert consensus about the details of what that term should mean in this pandemic context. I'd certainly agree that August is a very untypical month as far as contact mixing patterns go, and that makes me even keener to reject the idea that the phrase "experts believe we have effectively reached an equilibrium" is appropriate for anything other than the Triggle school of cheap spin. Because you cant use August to establish whether meaningful equilibrium is really there and sustainable. And if the baseline levels of infection during a state of relative equilibrium are too high, I dont think this concept is actually all that much use to promoters of the learning to live with covid agenda. At least not unless you are prepared to invest in a dedicated covid patient treatment branch of the NHS that can permanently cope with the resulting level of hospital admissions without disrupting other care.


----------



## elbows (Aug 26, 2021)

At least if it all blows up again I can add another entry to the pandemic phrasebook.

Triggles Equilibrium can join Johnsons Permafolly and Spectors Ripple.

Not that I should have been surprised by Triggles use of the equilibrium concept. After all, I mention equilibrium a while back as a replacement for an idea of herd immunity that no longer looked applicable to this pandemic. So it figures that those who previously used herd immunity to justify specific policy agendas and behaviours are also seeking a suitable replacement. And we've both heard the equilibrium thing coming out of the mouths of one or two experts of late. 

Never mind, I will still go on about these concepts no matter how they are used by others, since some of the principals may eventually become highly relevant, and in the meantime they may still be partially relevant. I just dont believe in clinging to things prematurely, and a substantially lower baseline level of infections needs to be demonstrated for quite some continual period of time before I will change my pandemic tune and start to move on.

It wouldnt surprise me if dull shits like Triggle will decide they were right all along once we reach a pandemic end point, no matter how many huge and deadly mistakes they made via wishful thinking and their willing bullshit salesman role all the way up to that point. Dismal stuff, since appropriate timing and the right measures at the right time are what matter during the pandemic. Those who take the pandemic and public health seriously are not part of some weird club that would keep us in a state of emergency for all perpetuity. And claiming we are nearer the end than it is really safe to claim does not get us to the end any quicker, potentially quite the opposite.


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 26, 2021)

Just skimmed that Triggle twaddle.

Only got two words "Depressing Defeatism"

Sorry to say that, to me, it now looks as if this f********g gobermint is trying to get "equilibrium" aka "herd immunity" by a mixture of deliberate policy changes to allow a mixture of infection and vaccination. 
Why else would the ******s completely lift the mask & social distancing rules.

Sod that for a game of soldiers !
Personally, I'm not in a very highly vulnerable group. But everyone I live with is either 70 or nearly so ... one has asthma, another has a "sticky" & thickened heart valve and I have low blood pressure. We are all double jabbed - with me last, and that was about five months ago ...
Therefore, despite the heckling I'm still wearing a decent mask indoors and avoiding crowds outside. And using santiser or washing hands ...

The daily case figures are still far too high for my peace of mind [especially as the admittedly low(ish) levels of hospitalisations and deaths are continuing to creep up] and I most definitely am not looking forward to the explosion in case rates when the education sector reopens ...


----------



## elbows (Aug 26, 2021)

Yes thats the agenda. But the equilibrium thing is not directly equivalent to herd immunity, its a weaker version of the concept where the upsides arent as impressive.

I reckon I could take the very same factoids that Triggle used to paint a much less impressive picture.

eg Am I supposed to be impressed that current levels of daily Covid death in summer, with the schools shut, are a third to a quarter of the daily flu deaths we can get in a bad winter?

Am I supposed to think that we are close to equilibrium when we cannot even demonstrate full equilibrium during summer when the schools are closed?

It is reasonable to think that this agenda will ultimately prevail, but its still a question of when this actually becomes viable. The chances are they have pushed for this much too soon, and that a more honest approach would have been to frame the relaxation of measures as something we could temporarily get away with in summer, but that not all of those gains would hold during other seasons.

I suppose what I find especially dangerous about promoting that stuff now is that it provides further opportunities not to do the right things, and to fall back on the seductive idea that equilibrium could be just around the next corner if we just hold a nerve for a bit longer. And that people like me may find it difficult to 'prove' that such a possibility is not plausible. I wont be able to accurately predict when such a state of equilibrium will occur, and will only be able to deny it is at all plausible if the situation gets very bad indeed with no end in sight.


----------



## elbows (Aug 26, 2021)

Regarding the hospital infections situation which I posted about the other day, it shows up somewhat in this weeks surveillance report too.


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...013593/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w34.pdf


----------



## elbows (Aug 26, 2021)

By the way, when the subject of the causes of the July decline comes up, I have tended to mention that the drop began so simultaneously with the end of term that it didnt really fit the picture fully given that we normally expect some lag.

But I should really take more account of the disruption that happened even before term ended, and how this impacted how many people were put in harms way during the last part of term.

For example here is a quote from an article about the propaganda campaign that is launching,



> Attendance fell of dramatically towards the end of the summer term, as Covid cases were rising in the younger population











						Media reassurance campaign to get pupils back to school
					

The government launches a media campaign to persuade parents it is safe for pupils to return to school.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Just like the rest of the 'pingdemic', I would expect this to have impacted on case numbers, because the numbers affected by the self-isolation rules of that period would have acted as a sort of mini lockdown equivalent, especially when the numbers reached staggering levels.


----------



## elbows (Aug 26, 2021)

I usually force myself to pay attention to SAGE papers that are only made public a very long time after their initial presentation at SAGE meetings.

Here is an example from January that only came out in August. Its about importation of cases and behavioural issues regarding quarantine etc.

SPI-B Policing and Security Sub-Group: Behavioural aspects of international importation, 20 January 2021

Here are some choice highlights, which are quite revealing in terms of how the world works and how 'responsible members of the establishment' think. My selection of quotes is not designed to cover everything that document discusses, I'm mostly highlighting stuff that fits a particular theme that I'm seeking to draw attention to, smell the statecraft!



> The long-term viability and legitimacy of sanitary measures in the UK depends on a degree of parity with those of other nations, particularly those regarded as similar to the UK in terms of the balance they strike between public health and individual freedoms. Removing discrepancies between individual nations is also widely regarded as desirable from an economic point of view and for this reason has long been an object of diplomacy.





> The absence of international protocols on cross-border travel means that there is likely to be prolonged disruption in the last phase of the pandemic and for some time beyond. Nations will continue to respond harshly and sometimes precipitately on the basis of limited and possibly flawed epidemiological intelligence. States are also likely to use public health concerns/travel restrictions to gain economic/political advantage or as a form of retaliation. Every sanitary system so far devised has been abused in this way.
> 
> An international protocol on measures to replace travel bans is therefore vital. The UK is peculiarly vulnerable because of its highly developed system of genomic surveillance, which is likely to identify Covid19 variants before they are identified in other nations. The reputation (and economic well-being) of nation states is likely to depend crucially on the extent to which they are seen to comply with international norms. This was seen clearly in the wake of SARS in 2004. It is important for the UK to have a formative role in shaping these norms.





> Over the last 150 years, pandemics and regional disease outbreaks have been a catalyst to international protocols/cooperation. But it normally takes some time to achieve this. The chief difficulty in drafting a protocol is that countries differ in their approach to quarantine and travel restrictions. For geographical, political and historical reasons, remote island nations such as Australia and authoritarian regimes with large land frontiers tend to favour strict arrangements, whereas nations like the UK, which depend heavily on trade and movement, tend to favour more liberal ones.





> The acceptability of quarantine in Australia also rests upon different models of policing. Australia has a policing tradition based upon paramilitary/colonial policing strategies. As such, policing and social control in Australia is strongly focussed on strict enforcement and compliance, and there is (at least among white populations) greater tolerance for intrusive policing approaches. From a complex systems perspective, the UKs greater international connectivity compared to Australia and New Zealand is also highly relevant. Full UK border closure has wider and more significant effects than these less connected nations.





> Most nations with collective cultures such as Singapore, Vietnam, China, South Korea have had greater success in achieving and enforcing compliance than cultures such as the US and UK, where the focus has been largely upon the impact of compliance on individual liberty.31 This may mean that some of the strategies used in China and Singapore, for example, are unlikely to work in the UK as they will be perceived as unacceptable limitations upon liberty. This could influence messaging in the sense that strategies may need to focus on individual concerns - e.g. small loss of liberty is good for one's self and one's loved ones – in addition to social good.





> Air crew: air crew are accustomed to dealing with discomfort and mild infections in the course of their work. At an early stage in the pandemic, many shrugged off symptoms but later realised that they had Covid-19 and became a source of infection.





> Without detection and enforcement, some objective measures of mobility have shown small increases over time during lockdowns in the UK and elsewhere, while self-reports of staying at home decreased. The same could be expected if quarantine were not enforced. However, even if the number of gross violations is small, it can be expected that the media will highlight them, which will lead to demands for stronger enforcement. In the UK – and in most other Western cultures – there is a bias towards dispositional attributions of behaviour; in other words, to attribute acts to ‘wrong-doing’ rather than to accept situational drivers or limitations. Generally, this impacts disproportionately upon people perceived as socially marginal.40,41,42 There is a danger that stigmatisation could result from such reporting. Furthermore, frequent reports of this kind could paradoxically create norms of non-compliance. As with adherence to other regulations and positive behaviours, it will be necessary to counterbalance negative reporting with praise for people who do the right thing. Most people will follow the rules most of the time and positive behaviour should be reinforced continually.



Lets just say some of those things remond me why I have an enduring appetite to wade through otherwise dull documents in the first place. All the endless bullshit in public discourse only makes me keener to explore what is going on beneath the widow dressing and false narratives, and quotes like the above remind me of what the games are and where the action is.


----------



## Numbers (Aug 26, 2021)

I don’t know where you get the strength elbows 

As has been said plenty and rightly so, thanks for all your posting on this.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 26, 2021)

What I don't understand is why there are still complicated rules around international travel when there is zero attempts to control the virus domestically.  With schools going back next week with effectively no mitigation and everything open and operating normally why are they worried about travel?

I mean, I can understand why other countries don't want anybody from Plague Island to be allowed in to their country.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Aug 26, 2021)

Numbers said:


> I don’t know where you get the strength elbows
> 
> As has been said plenty and rightly so, thanks for all your posting on this.


100% this.


----------



## elbows (Aug 26, 2021)

Cheers. There is a lot I have to miss out though and my posts still end up too long and too numerous!



Teaboy said:


> What I don't understand is why there are still complicated rules around international travel when there is zero attempts to control the virus domestically.  With schools going back next week with effectively no mitigation and everything open and operating normally why are they worried about travel?
> 
> I mean, I can understand why other countries don't want anybody from Plague Island to be allowed in to their country.



Different perceived risk-reward balances, different politics and political pressures. Different economic impacts. And for example Johnson seemed to get more blame for 'letting Delta in' than for 'letting Alpha be born here'. Plus uncertainty about which new variant fears to pay the most attention towards. 

Plus although current mitigation measures and rules are shitty, I would not say there are zero attempts to control the virus domestically. We still have a testing and tracing system and self-isolation requirements for those testing positive. And no matter how much we are encouraged to worry less about overall levels of infection, since the link between infections, hospitalisations and deaths is only weakened not broken, the state does actually still care about levels of infection. Not enough to bother trying to suppress infections down to a tiny amount, but enough to still be forced to act if the numbers go beyond a certain point. Time will tell how obvious this becomes this autumn/winter.


----------



## elbows (Aug 26, 2021)

Another behavioural group document where I have no intention of trying to do the main subject justice. This one is from September 2020 and is from the same policing and security behavioural subgroup.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1012400/S0781_SPI-B_PS_Security_and_Policing_Challenges_-_Horizon_Scanning.pdf
		


This first one I suppose I shall file under 'reasons used  to justify feeding the masses a series of bullshit, short-term narratives rather than frame things properly':



> If it were to be generally realised that national restrictions would have no lasting effect, and that they might need to be continually reintroduced until (if) an effective vaccination is widely available, then this could be a major cause of anxiety and a focus for civil unrest – not least because of the implications for the economy.



There is a section titled Sabotage:



> o The rollout of vaccination will provide an opportunity for mobilisation and disruption by anti-vaccination groups, some of which are backed by hostile state actors.19
> o Attacks on symbolic targets such as 5G masts may resume as the nights become longer; these have also been encouraged by hostile state actors,20 although the motivations for the attacks are diverse (e.g. health concerns; OCG activity; and anarchist/eco-extremist groups).



References 19 and 20 mentioned in the above anti-vax bit are:








						Russian trolls fueled anti-vaccination debate in U.S. by spreading misinformation on Twitter, study finds
					

Study by George Washington University found trolls ramped up controversy by inflating different viewpoints




					www.cbsnews.com
				











						Anti-vaxxers and Russia behind viral 5G COVID conspiracy theory - Alliance for Science
					

Like the fruitless search for the coronavirus “patient zero,” we may never know where the conspiracy theory falsely linking 5G communications networks with the COVID-19 pandemic first arose. But a more important question is this: who took a fringe conspiracy theory and promoted it to a global...




					allianceforscience.cornell.edu
				




There is a lot else in there that would have been more quotable if the situation had not since moved on.


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## elbows (Aug 26, 2021)

Other documents only published this August include:

An early April 2020 behavioural group report in regards self-reported adherence to social distancing measures early on in the pandemic:



> • While Government campaigns are reaching most people (91%+), Government measures are not completely understood. Approximately 25% of the sample think that Government measures allow outings from the home (for groceries/pharmacy, for exercise, and to go to work if necessary) even if they are symptomatic.1
> • Self-reported adherence to self-isolation if symptomatic in the past seven days was poor: 30% reported staying at home for seven days when symptomatic; with 57% staying at home for 14 days when someone in their household was symptomatic.





> If they or someone in their household are symptomatic: 27-28% of people think that you can go out to the shops for groceries/pharmacy; 30-32% of people think that you can go out for a walk or some other exercise; 16-25% of people think you can go out to work if necessary; and 18-23% of people think that you can go out to help or provide care for a vulnerable person.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1012505/s0713-self-reported-adherence-self-isolation.pdf
		


A July 2020 attempt to adjust the number of possible deaths from August 2020 to March 2021 that a reasonable worst case scenario of the time came up with. This scenario was based on previous covid death certificate deaths. The adjustment involved removing the people they would have expected to die from other causes during the period, but adding the various 'non-Covid' excess deaths seen in wave 1, given that those deaths were expected to have either been related to Covid or measures to control covid.

The former of those, accounting for people who would have died anyway, is relatively modest:



> Overall, the expected change in total deaths is -7.0%. So 93.0% of COVID-19 deaths (both in the RWCS, and additional added in Section 2) are not expected to occur otherwise within the 38-week period.



The adjustment upwards due to the 'non-covid' deaths (plenty of which Im confident were actually covid deaths but not captured as such by the data) was not so modest. +31.1% for England & Wales as a whole.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/958741/S0678_ONS_RWCS_Adjustment__1_.pdf
		


And some others that I might discuss later once I've read them.


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## Puddy_Tat (Aug 26, 2021)

skyscraper101 said:


> Reading and Leeds (this weekend) are going to be hotbeds of virus spreading aren't they.



i declined the chance to be involved in running transport services to the reading festival this year...



two sheds said:


> I'm recommending people get cataract operation whether they need it or not





mum-tat has her first one next week


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## cupid_stunt (Aug 26, 2021)

The NHS is offering jabs at both the Reading and Leeds festivals this weekend. 

Surely no one will risk the side effects whilst at a festival?


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## Supine (Aug 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The NHS is offering jabs at both the Reading and Leeds festivals this weekend.
> 
> Surely no one will risk the side effects whilst at a festival?



the side effects of ketamine and cider will mask them


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## Steel Icarus (Aug 26, 2021)

thismoment said:


> I think it’s also a case of what people are individually used to. For example, I am ok with getting the train and tube for my commute to work, it the most practical to get to work. I’ve probably been on 2/3 buses since the pandemic. However, last night I had to get a bus home  and didn’t get it because it was very busy (there were lots of people sitting next to each other) and more people were getting on. I waited for another bus and same thing. I ended up getting a cab. And yet I get the tube for work which doesn’t make all that much sense except it’s what I’m used to.


I'm having to get the bus to work tomorrow which I'm apprehensive about. It's been a year since I did public transport and it freaked me the fuck out.

I'll be getting on early on the journey so hopefully can get a good seat near the back or in a perfect world the back of a double decker. Windows open, mask on, music blaring, twenty five mins and off.


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## _Russ_ (Aug 26, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I'm having to get the bus to work tomorrow which I'm apprehensive about. It's been a year since I did public transport and it freaked me the fuck out.
> 
> I'll be getting on early on the journey so hopefully can get a good seat near the back or in a perfect world the back of a double decker. Windows open, mask on, music blaring, twenty five mins and off.


Damn thats really shit, I mean we all  have to balance genuine concerns with the need to actually live but I have to admit the thought of getting on a bus with a load of maskless mouth breathers would scare the shit out of me right now (I hope there arent too many maskless on your trip just they seem to be increasing rapidly round my way these days)  *sending protective vibes*


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## lazythursday (Aug 26, 2021)

I now get buses and trains regularly and have just accepted that it is a risk worth taking, given how difficult my life is trying to avoid it or limit it. Generally about half of the other passengers are maskless. I'm avoiding journeys longer than about 20 mins on a single form of transport and I try to sit near a window. I won't sit inside a pub or restaurant though and I think that's a lot more risky given generally much poorer ventilation and the fact you're likely to be sat there in the same space for longer. I've got a friend though who won't even do a five minute journey by public transport but is perfectly happy to go to restaurants - I guess because she thinks that adds more to her quality of life.


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## Steel Icarus (Aug 26, 2021)

Yeah, of course a lot about perceived risk is how large it is in your head, I mean I'm not nervous about sharing a classroom with 20 unmasked students for an hour while unmasked myself ten times a week but 25 mins on a bus is bothersome. As with everything else during the 'Demic (as nobody calls it) I'll just focus on what _I_ can do as I can't do more.


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## Johnny Vodka (Aug 27, 2021)

News reports floating around that Scotland could be heading into another lockdown, or at least an increase in level.  There's going to be an update today.


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## teuchter (Aug 27, 2021)

Yesterday evening I met up at a central london pub with some friends I've not seen for a while. It was obvious that within the group there were quite different feelings about risk and so on. For most of the evening we sat at an outside table but the outside area was closed at some point and we moved inside. I wasn't totally comfortable with this; although I've been going on public transport a fair bit I've still been avoiding sitting indoors in pubs and restaurants. I am gradually changing my approach on a "probably isn't going to get much better than this now" basis so I did move inside, where it wasn't actually very busy (but not windows/doors left open for ventilation). No-one in the pub was wearing a mask; this had been mostly true throughout the evening, and you had to go to the bar to take orders.

Anyway the point of this boring story is that maybe it reminded me how much behaviour is influenced by peers and normalised by what you see around you. Being in a pub with people I know well, some of whom were entirely unbothered by covid risk, and also surrounded by others all of whom seemed quite comfortable with this situation, changed my feeling about what seemed appropriate to the extent that if I'd put on my mask to go to the toilet I would have felt conspicuous and people might have thought I was doing it to make a point, in the way that I see people unmasked in the supermarket and thing they are just doing it to make a point.

Then on the way home I stopped in at a convenience store, put my mask on as usual and then felt a bit weird about it, as if I could now see myself from the outside as looking paranoid.

Over the past months I've seen groups of people on trains etc all unmasked and it's irritated me a bit, for reasons most people reading this will relate to. But yesterday got me wondering, whether when I see those groups of people, several of them actually would prefer to be wearing a mask but they are caught between what they'd do themselves and how they think their peer group would read their decision.

This is all quite obvious really; I just found it notable how rapidly my behaviour was altered by the social context.


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## Supine (Aug 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Yesterday evening I met up at a central london pub with some friends I've not seen for a while. It was obvious that within the group there were quite different feelings about risk and so on. For most of the evening we sat at an outside table but the outside area was closed at some point and we moved inside. I wasn't totally comfortable with this; although I've been going on public transport a fair bit I've still been avoiding sitting indoors in pubs and restaurants. I am gradually changing my approach on a "probably isn't going to get much better than this now" basis so I did move inside, where it wasn't actually very busy (but not windows/doors left open for ventilation). No-one in the pub was wearing a mask; this had been mostly true throughout the evening, and you had to go to the bar to take orders.
> 
> Anyway the point of this boring story is that maybe it reminded me how much behaviour is influenced by peers and normalised by what you see around you. Being in a pub with people I know well, some of whom were entirely unbothered by covid risk, and also surrounded by others all of whom seemed quite comfortable with this situation, changed my feeling about what seemed appropriate to the extent that if I'd put on my mask to go to the toilet I would have felt conspicuous and people might have thought I was doing it to make a point, in the way that I see people unmasked in the supermarket and thing they are just doing it to make a point.
> 
> ...



We are in a transition period. There is no right and wrong way to act or feel about this stuff now (imho). I don’t mask at my hotel but i do on transport and in shops. I’ve not had a indoor pint yet but will at some point soon i’m sure.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Aug 27, 2021)

Yeah I'm definitely aware that my attitude to risk around this isn't consistent - it varies based on all sorts of things to be honest. Probably just mood as much as anything. 

It all feeds into that 'it feels safe' thing that you hear people say a lot now. How closely is that related to actual safety? Probably pretty loosely a lot of the time I think.


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## teuchter (Aug 27, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> It all feeds into that 'it feels safe' thing that you hear people say a lot now. How closely is that related to actual safety?


Probably hardly at all!


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## lazythursday (Aug 27, 2021)

It's so difficult to navigate this. Some days I really feel I should just be braver - still wear masks in shops and buses but also do things like go back to the gym, sit inside pubs, go to the cinema etc, and just accept that infection will come eventually and I will cope. But then I hear the latest story of some acquaintance going down badly with covid and taking weeks and weeks to recover and I change my mind. And then I see people behaving like it's totally all over and feel really resentful that they're having a fuller life than me.


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> News reports floating around that Scotland could be heading into another lockdown, or at least an increase in level.  There's going to be an update today.



They've broken their daily positive cases record again. 

But they wont do anything about this yet, since their approach is only a slight modification of the approach taken in England - better attitude to masks, a slightly more reasonable unlocking timetable over summer, better public messaging. Those things can help a bit but I dont think they are key difference makers that will turn the tide at this stage. And overall there is still the same overarching cold calculations and plan to try to learn to live with covid more rapidly than it seems sensible to attempt.

I dont know at what stage they would be forced to u-turn and reimpose certain restrictions. But since we've seen in the past that just starting to warn of the risk of having to reimpose stuff can have an impact on behaviour which can help. So thats all they are trying for now, change the mood music and see how people respond. I doubt it will be enough but predictions are difficult.


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## killer b (Aug 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont know at what stage they would be forced to u-turn and reimpose certain restrictions.


I don't think there's many truly effective restrictions they could reimpose without westminster providing the cash to support them is there?


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> It all feeds into that 'it feels safe' thing that you hear people say a lot now. How closely is that related to actual safety? Probably pretty loosely a lot of the time I think.



Such feelings are a combination of fatigue/wishful thinking and crude expectations about vaccines and summer and the plan the governments have been signalling for most of 2021 that the media have gone along with. Plus how people see others behaving in the wake of those changes.

My own sense of safety is influenced less by those things because the dominant indicator for me is the rate of infection, and the numbers are huge this summer so I am not on board the 'feels safer' bus at all. Having received my 2nd jab 3 weeks ago my attitude towards personal risk was modified, but not by the extent necessary to override the feelings I have as a result of current daily positive test numbers.


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

killer b said:


> I don't think there's many truly effective restrictions they could reimpose without westminster providing the cash to support them is there?



I know what you mean but I'll reserve judgement on that and see what happens. We'll only get an answer to that question if their projections show an impossible burden on hospitals etc.


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## killer b (Aug 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> I know what you mean but I'll reserve judgement on that and see what happens. We'll only get an answer to that question if their projections show an impossible burden on hospitals etc.


It's just that when we talk about Scotland's approach being 'only a slight modification' of England's, it needs to be seen in that context - the Scottish government doesn't have the cash to close the pubs, extend furlough, support businesses etc, so the actions available to them are necessarily fairly close to the English government's actions.


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

killer b said:


> It's just that when we talk about Scotland's approach being 'only a slight modification' of England's, it needs to be seen in that context - the Scottish government doesn't have the cash to close the pubs, extend furlough, support businesses etc, so the actions available to them are necessarily fairly close to the English government's actions.



Its partly that but its also about establishment instincts there, which are only slightly better than Englands.

Its not just funding either, there are other policy and systemic issues where Scotland remain tightly bound to the overall UK approach, with no real choice in the matter. I suppose I expect that the Scottish pandemic public inquiry might end up shining a light on some of those matters in a way that could see such things become part of the independence debate.


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I am gradually changing my approach on a "probably isn't going to get much better than this now" basis



This is one of the insidious effects of the current government approach. 

The current levels of infection are not what advisors had in mind when it comes to the baseline of cases to expect in a 'learning to live with covid' era. eg modelling showed a wave that then diminishes at some point, down to much lower levels than we are dealing with at the moment, and those lower levels are what the government had in mind, that was the prize and it hasnt happened. If cases instead were to remain at these levels, then I dont think its a sustainable situation that would enable the government to get away with their preferred approach. Especially not given that we are talking about a rate in summer, with much extra pressure of various sorts expected in autumn and winter.

A crystal ball would have been most useful for determining what part of late spring/summer was actually most appropriate to let our guard down and recharge our mental batteries. So far in this pandemic our thoughts about personal risk and what behaviours to indulge in have been out of sync with reality, mostly through no fault of our own. eg this year people have been doing stuff in July and August that was actually safer to do in May. And last year the government were so slow to change the advice to people shielding that the safest period was missed and people ended up being encouraged to dance too close to the fire when the fire had already started growing bigger.

Even if the government had a much better approach to the pandemic I dont know as it would have been possible to radically improve this picture. Not least because if people had relaxed sooner then we'd have been back in the shit sooner.


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

In other words the 'learning to live with covid' agenda was based on there being an exit wave that the government were happy to risk having to deal with temporarily, especially if it meant having the cases out of the way during summer rather than the same wave happening in the more dangerous autumn and winter period.

And I am keen to point out that there is a difference between the levels of infection that government was prepared to deal with temporarily as part of an exit wave, and the levels they would be prepared to deal with on an ongoing basis.


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## Johnny Vodka (Aug 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> They've broken their daily positive cases record again.
> 
> But they wont do anything about this yet, since their approach is only a slight modification of the approach taken in England - better attitude to masks, a slightly more reasonable unlocking timetable over summer, better public messaging. Those things can help a bit but I dont think they are key difference makers that will turn the tide at this stage. And overall there is still the same overarching cold calculations and plan to try to learn to live with covid more rapidly than it seems sensible to attempt.
> 
> I dont know at what stage they would be forced to u-turn and reimpose certain restrictions. But since we've seen in the past that just starting to warn of the risk of having to reimpose stuff can have an impact on behaviour which can help. So thats all they are trying for now, change the mood music and see how people respond. I doubt it will be enough but predictions are difficult.



I kind of think that anti-maskers/anti-vaxxers aren't going to change their behaviour (or adhere to the rules) just because cases rise.  They seem to have a certain thick stubbornness about them IME.


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## LeytonCatLady (Aug 27, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> I kind of think that anti-maskers/anti-vaxxers aren't going to change their behaviour (or adhere to the rules) just because cases rise.  They seem to have a certain thick stubbornness about them IME.


They also won't get vaccinated because of the threat of Covid passports. They'll cut their nose off to spite their face and say "Well, I just won't go to gigs then!"


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> I kind of think that anti-maskers/anti-vaxxers aren't going to change their behaviour (or adhere to the rules) just because cases rise.  They seem to have a certain thick stubbornness about them IME.



The behaviours of that group arent the key difference maker, not unless their numbers swelled to become a really huge chunk of the population. Its everyone else that is relied upon to make a notable difference when the mood music goes gloomy.

There are limits to how much can be achieved by that alone. We've seen this summer that such effects were enough to blunt some of the reopening effects in England, at least for a time. But its not something I can rely on to carry the pandemic weight over a prolonged period without other actions being taken by authorities.


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## weepiper (Aug 27, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> News reports floating around that Scotland could be heading into another lockdown, or at least an increase in level.  There's going to be an update today.


_Big_ numbers today.








						Scotland records huge increase in daily Covid cases
					

A total of 6,835 new cases were reported on Friday - more than 1,800 above the previous highest figure.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

Frankly I find it very tempting to believe that the entire 2021 approach taken by UK authorities relied on vaccines keeping case numbers down to a far greater extent than is actually happening with the Delta strain.  There are too many breakthrough infections.

Whether this failure is sufficient to totally derail the plan is not clear to me, because there could be 'unexpected' turns in the same way the mid July peak was 'unexpected'. Or it might take quite a long time before the shit hits the fan to the extent that a rethink becomes unavoidable. Or things could move quickly, I cannot tell. If Englands case numbers explode again like Scotlands have, I suspect the current plan wont be sustainable for all that long.


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## quimcunx (Aug 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Yesterday evening I met up at a central london pub with some friends I've not seen for a while. It was obvious that within the group there were quite different feelings about risk and so on. For most of the evening we sat at an outside table but the outside area was closed at some point and we moved inside. I wasn't totally comfortable with this; although I've been going on public transport a fair bit I've still been avoiding sitting indoors in pubs and restaurants. I am gradually changing my approach on a "probably isn't going to get much better than this now" basis so I did move inside, where it wasn't actually very busy (but not windows/doors left open for ventilation). No-one in the pub was wearing a mask; this had been mostly true throughout the evening, and you had to go to the bar to take orders.
> 
> Anyway the point of this boring story is that maybe it reminded me how much behaviour is influenced by peers and normalised by what you see around you. Being in a pub with people I know well, some of whom were entirely unbothered by covid risk, and also surrounded by others all of whom seemed quite comfortable with this situation, changed my feeling about what seemed appropriate to the extent that if I'd put on my mask to go to the toilet I would have felt conspicuous and people might have thought I was doing it to make a point, in the way that I see people unmasked in the supermarket and thing they are just doing it to make a point.
> 
> ...



I had very similar. I thought I'd wear a normal mask if others were and a protect  me mask if others were not, but actually when I had to check into a hotel it was a harvester style pub and no one was wearing masks and it was only a few minutes and I just didn't then or any other time I went inside to order a drink etc. I was pretty much the only person eating and drinking outside. When I had the breakfast buffet I didnt wear one either even though it was half an hour inside. It would have felt awkward and a bit pointless doffing and donning between eating and collecting things.


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

My somewhat casual observation of Scottish wastewater data so far continues to indicate that this is a useful form of surveillance. 

Certainly the big rises mentioned in last weeks report, that I mentioned here Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion have since been confirmed by more recent positive case figures.

This weeks report says:



> • Nationwide, the latest levels of wastewater Covid-19 RNA have approximately doubled since the previous week.
> 
> Wastewater Covid-19 RNA concentrations are now approaching the maximum level reached during the peak in July 2021. The rise in wastewater has been greatest in the central belt and the south.



This weekly report also has various detail about contacts:



> • Average contacts have increased by 15% in the last two weeks (comparing surveys pertaining to 5th August - 11th August and 19th August - 25th August) with a current level of 4.7 daily contacts.
> • Contacts within the work have increased by approximately 64% compared to two weeks prior. Contacts within the home and other settings (contacts outside of the home, school and work) have remained at similar levels over the same period.
> • All age groups with the exception of those aged 18-29 have had an rise in contacts within the last two week, with those aged 30-39 approximately doubling. Increases across the age groups are largely driven by a rise in contacts within the work setting.
> • The biggest increase in interactions is seen between those 30-39 with those under 18.
> • Visits to a work place have increased from approximately 14% to 19% with individuals visiting a pub or restaurant increasing from 46% to 49% in the last two weeks.





			https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2021/08/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-66/documents/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-66/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-66/govscot%3Adocument/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-66.pdf


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

That Scottish report also has some useful data on vaccination and people testing positive. It not perfect, eg it doesnt differentiate between one dose and two doses, but its far more than we get for England.





> The Early Pandemic Evaluation and Enhanced Surveillance of Covid-19 (EAVE) 2 Study Group4 has updated the pattern of demographics and clinical risk groups over time for those who tested positive in Scotland (see Technical Annex in issue 34 of the Research Findings).
> 
> Figure 4 gives the age group, risk group and vaccination status of those first testing positive in the period 7th to 13th August 2021 and linking into the EAVE cohort. Vaccine status is a simple binary classification denoting that the individual had at least one dose of the vaccine before testing positive (vaccinated) or was unvaccinated at the time of testing positive. Risk group status is the number of Q-Covid5 risk groups to which a person belongs.





> One quarter of those testing positive are under 18, 50% are aged under 30 and only 6% aged 65+6. Among those aged under 18 the vast majority are unvaccinated while among those aged 18-29 just over half of them are vaccinated, most will just have had one dose. Very few individuals testing positive under 40 have multiple co-morbid conditions (0.2% of all cases were under 40 and had 3 or more co morbid conditions). The majority of those aged over 40 are vaccinated when testing positive, and most will have had two doses of vaccine, but a relatively small proportion are in the groups most at risk of a severe outcome. Among those testing positive 1.5% are aged 65+ and have 4 or more co-morbid conditions.


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## teuchter (Aug 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> This is one of the insidious effects of the current government approach.
> 
> The current levels of infection are not what advisors had in mind when it comes to the baseline of cases to expect in a 'learning to live with covid' era. eg modelling showed a wave that then diminishes at some point, down to much lower levels than we are dealing with at the moment, and those lower levels are what the government had in mind, that was the prize and it hasnt happened. If cases instead were to remain at these levels, then I dont think its a sustainable situation that would enable the government to get away with their preferred approach. Especially not given that we are talking about a rate in summer, with much extra pressure of various sorts expected in autumn and winter.


Yes, I realise this, and my "probably isn't going to get much better than this" approach is based on my guess about what's going to happen next, which is that we will wobble around for an extended period of time with a rate that is much higher than the target, and higher than it needed to be, had there been a better response up until now. And I know that by second-guessing what the government response to things is going to be, I help to reinforce a kind of vicious circle... but at some point everyone reaches the stage where they are fed up with being the mug sat at home for the greater good while everyone else gets on with things and enjoys themselves. That threshold is clearly very different for different people, and is also related to the perceived personal risk (ie not the "greater good" risk). I'm happy to be the guy that stays at home for a couple of months longer than many of my peers but I don't think I'm going to be the guy that does that for 6 months or two years or whatever.

I think my behaviour will now only move back towards a "more cautious" approach if there's a really dramatic rise in cases and/or a significant rise in hospitalisations/deaths.


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I think my behaviour will now only move back towards a "more cautious" approach if there's a really dramatic rise in cases and/or a significant rise in hospitalisations/deaths.



Yeah thats where the action will be, that will be the key dynamic if circumstances demand it. That will be a journey you will not be alone on, you'll probably be part of the majority.

I dont spend much time shouting at people over such matters, especially not during summers. There is an inevitability to much of this that means I do not seek to place many millions of people into a villainous pandemic role. I reserve that for those whose impatience and rigidity leave them facing in entirely the wrong direction, calling for the wrong things, at really crucial moments in other seasons.

Plus the only reason I'm not fully on that journey myself, at least during summer, is down to my own circumstances and how limited my contact patterns were before this pandemic. WIth the fact I only got my 2nd jab 3 weeks ago on top. And the fact I dont have quite the same relationship with summer as many do, because from a young age hayfever put some barriers I cant be arsed with in my way during that season. I'm a bit of a miserable outsider during summers, apart from a period in my youth where I did do festivals, but that doesnt mean I lack empathy in regards what others expect of summers. I try to compensate for my own personal bias and circumstances and that means not judging others harshly during pandemic summers. Maybe some pent-up stuff from summers does make me harsher towards certain attitudes in autumn and winter thought.


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## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

And from a less personal angle, this is a pretty neat fit with ideas such as 'there is a world of difference between the government getting away with their agenda in summer compared to the other seasons'. The press and the public went along with things this summer to an extent that cannot be banked on once less favourable seasons start to weigh more on peoples minds. But how evident this actually becomes, and how quickly, really does come down to various key bits of data. If hospital numbers start to rise more quickly then a chunk of the media will start to cast doubt on the sustainability of the current approach, and this may become the dominant theme.


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## glitch hiker (Aug 27, 2021)

I just, again, don't see an end to this. 

The government has clearly given up pretending to fight the pandemic in any way the scientific community would find sound. So I just don't see how things can ever get out of this twilight zone. 

I feel increasingly stupid wearing a mask, like the only person invited to a fancy dress party as the only person who didn't realise it _wasn't_ a fancy dress party. Or the time, at a friend's 30th years ago that was fancy dress. Everyone turned up in fairly benign family friendly costume except for 2 mutual friends and cosplayers who turned up rocking full on serious Hellraise cenobite costumes.

The shops are full of people not wearing masks. Buses are increasingly going the same way. I shall continue to wear mine as long as I can, it's not stupid to do so of course. But the peope are clearly being led to believe it's all over. Back to normal. Furlough ends in a short while, coinciding with the new school year and the footie season, and of course Autumn and Winter. I'm not really feeling positive. We're stuck at around a thousand deaths a week from this, how can that be anything other than a tragedy? But of course the goons will just say "people die every day" as they have for months. A thousand people a day, all year round, weren't dying of the same cause though were they. Fuck's sake. I don't even want to go out anymore, but I don't want to not be able to


----------



## Supine (Aug 27, 2021)

I got forced into tesco as co-op don’t stock enough food these days. Think I was almost the only person wearing a mask.

I wasn’t bothered tbh - I was also least likely to catch covid


----------



## editor (Aug 27, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> They also won't get vaccinated because of the threat of Covid passports. They'll cut their nose off to spite their face and say "Well, I just won't go to gigs then!"


And that's a win all round!


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Aug 27, 2021)

editor said:


> And that's a win all round!


Yes, from a not mixing with them point of view, but it won't stop them spreading their shit elsewhere.


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 27, 2021)

editor said:


> And that's a win all round!


Trouble is they will hold demos outside and bellow at you as you try get in, remember these people aren't reasonable adults they're fucking loons who think freedom means being free to intimidate people who don't believe their horse shit


----------



## weepiper (Aug 27, 2021)

I had to get a bus this afternoon. Almost everyone wearing masks, except for a young family (parents and two young kids) who got on with no masks and sat two seats in front of me and then the parents bellowed at the top of their voices across the aisle to each other for the rest of the journey. Felt deeply uncomfortable and got off the bus earlier than I needed to


----------



## Supine (Aug 27, 2021)

Lots to process here









						Boris Johnson 'privately accepts' up to 50,000 annual Covid deaths as acceptable, advisers say
					

i understands Downing Street will consider a cost-benefit analysis on both saving lives and effect of deaths on the UK economy before implementing contingency plans for further lockdowns




					inews.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Lots to process here
> 
> 
> 
> ...



A bit higher than I expected to be considered 'acceptable', but that doesn't surprise me at all, TBH.


----------



## lazythursday (Aug 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> A bit higher than I expected to be considered 'acceptable', but that doesn't surprise me at all, TBH.


well given we're at about 56,000 for the year so far I guess we'll be locking down tomorrow then?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 27, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> well given we're at about 56,000 for the year so far I guess we'll be locking down tomorrow then?



I doubt they will include those deaths from Jan-Mar, more likely to start counting from April, ironically, the start of a new financial year.


----------



## editor (Aug 27, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Trouble is they will hold demos outside and bellow at you as you try get in, remember these people aren't reasonable adults they're fucking loons who think freedom means being free to intimidate people who don't believe their horse shit


No problem with that as I'll be inside in the warm enjoying good company and beer while they shout to the sky in the rain.


----------



## Spandex (Aug 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Lots to process here
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Is 50,000 deaths the new 20,000 "is a good outcome"?

On one level it's hard to put too much weight on this. Words coming out of Johnson's mouth might as well be meaningless noise. If he made a promise this morning I'd expect him to be doing the opposite by now, with all the acknowledgement he'd changed of a weather person who was predicting sun but is now predicting rain. 'A Downing Street spokesman' is as reliable a source of information as the woodlouse my daughter was playing with earlier. 

But that said, this will reflect the current thinking amongst some of the government's advisors. So what the fuck does it mean? 

The article says that the cost-benefit analysis suggests 50,000 dead in a year is the point it becomes economical to act. Because money is all that matters. Do they have models that suggest numbers dead will be below 50,000 in the next year? Is that just what they think they can get away with? 

50,000 dead in a year. That's 137 deaths per day. Today the 7 day rolling average is around 110 deaths per day. Case numbers are rising and it's widely predicted that the bank holiday weekend followed by schools going back will see a further rise in numbers. It won't take much to surpass 137 deaths per day. Is the government expecting the current wave to burn itself out over autumn and winter before we hit that number? Is it the first step towards softening us up for the reintroduction of restrictions? Does it mean nothing at all? I might as well read the tea leaves as read the news.


----------



## elbows (Aug 27, 2021)

Its bollocks in the sense that if they judge things based on cost-benefit analysis then they will have to do the same for hospital pressures, indirect deaths due to NHS being overwhelmed, the effects that has on wider societies economic activity etc.

Its never been a simple numbers game based only on deaths, there are political etc considerations involving the death rate but the hospital numbers game trumps that, especially when it comes to timing of measures.

So personally I dont find the detail in those articles interesting, the noteworthy thing is more that we are in a period where such articles are being written again - this does not suggest establishment and media confidence that the current approach will be plain sailing from here on.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Aug 28, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> I kind of think that anti-maskers/anti-vaxxers aren't going to change their behaviour (or adhere to the rules) just because cases rise.  They seem to have a certain thick stubbornness about them IME.


no changes from them


editor said:


> No problem with that as I'll be inside in the warm enjoying good company and beer while they shout to the sky in the rain.


thy will be in there too ;-)
e2a;; TYPOS


----------



## kabbes (Aug 28, 2021)

I went to the office for the first time in 10 months on Thursday and I encountered something that seemed new. Several people I spoke to said that they thought it was better to get infected now whilst their vaccine was still fully effective. That way, they will almost certainly be fine and they can gain additional, or “top-up” immunity. So long as they keep getting reinfected whilst their immunity is strong, they’ll continue to be almost certainly okay.

I think there is an understandable logic to this — maybe they’re even right from a self-protection perspective given the circumstances we now find ourselves in — but it really is the defeatism of those who have come to believe that the government won’t or can’t do anything and they have to find the least worst option for themselves.


----------



## lazythursday (Aug 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I went to the office for the first time in 10 months on Thursday and I encountered something that seemed new. Several people I spoke to said that they thought it was better to get infected now whilst their vaccine was still fully effective. That way, they will almost certainly be fine and they can gain additional, or “top-up” immunity. So long as they keep getting reinfected whilst their immunity is strong, they’ll continue to be almost certainly okay.
> 
> I think there is an understandable logic to this — maybe they’re even right from a self-protection perspective given the circumstances we now find ourselves in — but it really is the defeatism of those who have come to believe that the government won’t or can’t do anything and they have to find the least worst option for themselves.


I've heard this line several times this week too, that it might be better to get infected now. Unconvinced.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 28, 2021)

I'm going to continue to try not to get it. Obviously this is going to prove increasingly difficult but as I've said in response to everyone who's said it's not that bad it's the random nature of effects that scares me. I might be anything from vaguely under the weather to dead, and same for anyone I might pass it on to. I don't think this is good for mentally because it means worry and hyper-vigilance but I'm not ready to simply let the chips fall where they may.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I went to the office for the first time in 10 months on Thursday and I encountered something that seemed new. Several people I spoke to said that they thought it was better to get infected now whilst their vaccine was still fully effective. That way, they will almost certainly be fine and they can gain additional, or “top-up” immunity. So long as they keep getting reinfected whilst their immunity is strong, they’ll continue to be almost certainly okay.
> 
> I think there is an understandable logic to this — maybe they’re even right from a self-protection perspective given the circumstances we now find ourselves in — but it really is the defeatism of those who have come to believe that the government won’t or can’t do anything and they have to find the least worst option for themselves.


This says a lot about how long covid has been downplayed all along. Mild covid (such as you might get when vaccinated) gives you a percentage chance of medium to long term disability that is much, much higher than most people would be willing to accept in any other situation. Knowing the cost of mild covid not just to myself but to multiple other people I know, it's like most of the population has decided to get into wingsuit flying from mountains without understanding the risks.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Mild covid (such as you might get when vaccinated) gives you a percentage chance of medium to long term disability that is much, much higher than most people would be willing to accept in any other situation.



Do we actually know this, though?


----------



## xenon (Aug 28, 2021)

I read somewhere the other day the vaccines do decrease the chance of getting long Covid. I can’t remember where. And it obviously just getting Covid does mean a chance of getting long Covid. I think that is what BAis getting at. this is a non-0 risk which otherwise wouldn’t be there.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 28, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Do we actually know this, though?


We don't have a large pool of people who have been vaccinated, got covid, then got long covid yet, but early evidence shows it probably can happen: Can the Vaccinated Develop Long Covid After a Breakthrough Infection?

You can wait for more evidence to come in before you stop wingsuit flying, or you could not go wingsuit flying until the evidence is in on disability rates. It's up to you.


----------



## Elpenor (Aug 28, 2021)

By that logic it’s best to crash your car on a weekday before A&E gets busy in the weekend. When actually it’s better still to take measures to not crash it at all


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 28, 2021)

xenon said:


> I read somewhere the other day the vaccines do decrease the chance of getting long Covid. I can’t remember where. And it obviously just getting Covid does mean a chance of getting long Covid. I think that is what BAis getting at. this is a non-0 risk which otherwise wouldn’t be there.


There's a certain pool of 'long covid' sufferers who are in fact suffering the consequences of very severe covid and hospitalisation etc - a lot of the damage is sheer physical damage to lungs and so on. Obviously vaccination reduces this group of people dramatically. Most of the people who I know with long covid were younger and covid just felt like a cold or something to them - in fact one of them thought it was a cold until suddenly she was getting spells of dizziness and exhaustion that left her in bed for days at a time.


----------



## xenon (Aug 28, 2021)

As for me, Apart fro some mask wearing, I’m pretty much just going about things as normal. But with that nagging doubt in the back of my mind. I haven’t gone anywhere crowded thus far yet though. I would actually like to go to a gig soon. And I have been putting off visiting my unvaccinated sister...


----------



## andysays (Aug 28, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Do we actually know this, though?


We may not actually know the percentage risk of coming down with long term post Covid conditions, or have full knowledge of the chances of specific conditions or disabilities within that, but I think it's fair to say that for many people the perceived risk of Covid is all about the chance of dying and very little about the chances of long term post Covid conditions, unless perhaps they happen to know someone who is already experiencing such things.

Part of that is because of the impossibility of having statistical info about long term conditions ATM, although I'm sure decent approximations and estimates are available.

But part of it is also because of what appears to have been a deliberate downplaying of these risks, led by the government but taken up by others eg  many parts of the media.

So I think it's a valid point being made that if people are saying they'd rather get Covid now because the consequences won't be as bad as if the caught it later, that's based in part on an incomplete picture of the risks involved.


----------



## Yossarian (Aug 28, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Do we actually know this, though?



Hard to say what we know or don't know about the long-term effects of a disease that was unknown 20 months ago - there have definitely been enough reports of complex long-term effects, especially neurological issues, from infections that initially seemed mild, to suggest that deliberately getting infected is insanely reckless.
_
In the case of Covid, Dr. Bell said, experts believe that the symptoms are caused by “an inflammatory reaction to the virus” that can affect the brain as well as the rest of the body. And it makes sense that some people experience multiple neurological symptoms simultaneously or in clusters, Dr. Bell said, because “there’s only so much real estate in the brain, and there’s a lot of overlap” in regions responsible for different brain functions._









						They Had Mild Covid. Then Their Serious Symptoms Kicked In.
					

A new study illuminates the complex array of neurological issues experienced by people months after their coronavirus infections.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 28, 2021)

On the question of whether people have enough information to decide about the risks of long covid, I would say that not only has it not been reported enough, but it has also frequently been reported in a way that doesn't help people understand the impact. So here's a post from a long covid fb group that just came up in my feed. I didn't have to go looking for this - it's a very common type of post in those groups - this is from a quite young-looking woman (in a public group and I don't think she'd mind it being reposted):

"I’m having a little pity party today. I am so sick of this **** of a virus and how it’s destroyed my life.
Went to the football on Tuesday night, was probably a bad idea and didn’t think through how far I would have to walk (cos of the crowds) and stand. Been basically bed/ sofa / house ridden since. Was supposed to be going to Leeds Fest today. At 6am the crashing realisation that I can’t physically manage going hit me, and that it was a stupid idea in the first place as even on a good day I wouldn’t be able to walk that distance, manage the porta loos or the late night.
I just want to be able to do the things I used to do. Covid has taken everything from me, my job, my career, my social life and my health.
Feel like I have let my husband down as I can’t go with him (other people are going so he’ll still go) and that everyone is going to have an amazing day whilst I spend yet another day trapped in the house"

So you could just hope that vaccination reduces the chances of this happening to you. Fingers crossed, right?

Anyway, the point has been made. I'll leave it there.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> We don't have a large pool of people who have been vaccinated, got covid, then got long covid yet, but early evidence shows it probably can happen: Can the Vaccinated Develop Long Covid After a Breakthrough Infection?
> 
> You can wait for more evidence to come in before you stop wingsuit flying, or you could not go wingsuit flying until the evidence is in on disability rates. It's up to you.


Wingsuit flying isn't a very good analogy because it's not something you do in the hope of decreasing your risk.

As I understand it, there's sketchy evidence that an infection plus vaccination gives you better long term protection than vaccination alone. And there's also sketchy evidence that the risk of getting long covid is not insignificant, if you get infected after being vaccinated.

What I was asking if we actually knew, was the "percentage chance of medium to long term disability that is much, much higher than most people would be willing to accept in any other situation". It suggests that out there, there's a reasonably reliable percentage chance. I don't think there is - it's not really known, other than that it's a risk.

Also, taking the attitude that getting infected post vaccination could even be beneficial, isn't just about an attempt to decrease your covid risk, it's part of a bigger decision making picture that includes how much you want to do activities that, unfortunately, carry a risk of infection.

So if, say, someone really wants to go to a festival, it wouldn't be unreasonable to look at the sketchy information out there, and decide that overall, there may be a small chance of you ending up with long covid, and also a small chance that if you do get infected, it'll actually benefit you in the long term. It all goes into the imprecise weighing-up that people do. If there's some evidence that a post vaccination infection might be beneficial then it seems fair enough to throw that into that mix of considerations.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> On the question of whether people have enough information to decide about the risks of long covid, I would say that not only has it not been reported enough, but it has also frequently been reported in a way that doesn't help people understand the impact. So here's a post from a long covid fb group that just came up in my feed. I didn't have to go looking for this - it's a very common type of post in those groups - this is from a quite young-looking woman (in a public group and I don't think she'd mind it being reposted):
> 
> "I’m having a little pity party today. I am so sick of this **** of a virus and how it’s destroyed my life.
> Went to the football on Tuesday night, was probably a bad idea and didn’t think through how far I would have to walk (cos of the crowds) and stand. Been basically bed/ sofa / house ridden since. Was supposed to be going to Leeds Fest today. At 6am the crashing realisation that I can’t physically manage going hit me, and that it was a stupid idea in the first place as even on a good day I wouldn’t be able to walk that distance, manage the porta loos or the late night.
> ...


This is just anecdata that is not really useful in making an informed decision. It's like deciding whether or not to try homeopathy based on comments on a group of people who feel that homeopathy cured their illness. Or deciding whether to get vaccinated by looking at a facebook group for people who have had severe adverse reactions to vaccination.

This is not me saying that there is no evidence that long covid is a significant problem, I am just saying that it seems very difficult to judge what the actual risk is, at the moment.


----------



## Brainaddict (Aug 28, 2021)

teuchter said:


> This is just anecdata that is not really useful in making an informed decision. It's like deciding whether or not to try homeopathy based on comments on a group of people who feel that homeopathy cured their illness. Or deciding whether to get vaccinated by looking at a facebook group for people who have had severe adverse reactions to vaccination.
> 
> This is not me saying that there is no evidence that long covid is a significant problem, I am just saying that it seems very difficult to judge what the actual risk is, at the moment.


Yes, it is. On this point we are in agreement.


----------



## kabbes (Aug 28, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> By that logic it’s best to crash your car on a weekday before A&E gets busy in the weekend. When actually it’s better still to take measures to not crash it at all


This might actually be a reasonable approach to take, though, if you think that regardless of the measures you take, the lack of general control over road safety means you will definitely have a crash anyway eventually and if having regular small crashes would help mitigate the effect.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 28, 2021)

Life goes on and the last thing I want is to restrict my kids from living theirs, but I have to admit my son having his first girlfriend and consequently going out to Maccies, on buses, and to an actual gig tonight makes me quite anxious that at some point he'll bring Covid back with him. He won't have a jab, doesn't believe masks do anything and Mrs SI is reluctant to insist on him getting jabbed. His girlfriend's mum has told her she wont let her have one.


----------



## emanymton (Aug 28, 2021)

Don't know how common this is but my local council has decided to have some kind of festival this weekend with the town centre full of food tents, rides and so on and a nice big stage set up. I know it is outside but if this is common across the country it is going to be an issue right?


----------



## Yossarian (Aug 28, 2021)

The view from overseas:

_Such is the strange new phase of Britain’s pandemic: The public has moved on, even if the virus has not. Given that Britain has been at the vanguard of so many previous coronavirus developments — from incubating variants to rolling out vaccines — experts say this could be a glimpse into the future for other countries.

“We don’t seem to care that we have these really high infection rates,” said Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London who has been leading a major study of Covid-19 symptoms. “It looks like we’re just accepting it now — that this is the price of freedom.”









						Britons, Unfazed by High Covid Rates, Weigh Their ‘Price of Freedom’
					

Britain is reporting more than 30,000 new coronavirus cases a day, but the public seems to have moved on. Experts say this could be a glimpse into the future for other countries.




					www.nytimes.com
				



_


----------



## kabbes (Aug 28, 2021)

“doesn't believe masks do anything”

Do you know where this belief comes from?  If you think about it, this kind of thing is an odd thing to have “belief” about. It’s like having belief against germ theory or antibiotics.


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 28, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Life goes on and the last thing I want is to restrict my kids from living theirs, but I have to admit my son having his first girlfriend and consequently going out to Maccies, on buses, and to an actual gig tonight makes me quite anxious that at some point he'll bring Covid back with him. He won't have a jab, doesn't believe masks do anything and Mrs SI is reluctant to insist on him getting jabbed. His girlfriend's mum has told her she wont let her have one.



That would worry/scare the 5h1t out of me ...
Sorry @S Catsbum - your son & his girlfriend's (mum) are being incredibly selfish (IMO).

Apart from the direct risk of covid itself to you (death & long covid) there is also the risk involved with the pool of potential variants mutating happily in infections of the unvaccinated ...

There's a guy in my local area who can't be vaccinated - he had neuropathy in his shoulder / arm from a jab years ago - and he's not willing to risk that again. When I see him, I wear a mask - a high quality one - and keep a good three meters away ... which he really appreciates ...


----------



## StoneRoad (Aug 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> “doesn't believe masks do anything”
> 
> Do you know where this belief comes from?  If you think about it, this kind of thing is an odd thing to have “belief” about. It’s like having belief against germ theory or antibiotics.



So, why do we see the characters in M*A*S*H wearing them to operate, even in field situations ?

Maybe a demonstration of the principles of water filtration would demonstrate the theory ...


----------



## elbows (Aug 28, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> The view from overseas:
> 
> _Such is the strange new phase of Britain’s pandemic: The public has moved on, even if the virus has not. Given that Britain has been at the vanguard of so many previous coronavirus developments — from incubating variants to rolling out vaccines — experts say this could be a glimpse into the future for other countries.
> 
> ...



That article is missing key info such as the level of contacts these days compared to pre-pandemic (it has not returned to anything like normal). Nor are the differences in returns to normal behaviour between different age groups looked at. And although government messaging i mentioned, the role of that and the medias mood music is not looked at properly. 

Months ago Spector did his bit to encourage the current situation, with his ill advised talk about how this wave would only be 'a ripple' and that we shouldnt worry about every variant. So although he is sometimes talking more sense these days, I am wary of quotes from him.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Aug 28, 2021)

S☼I said:


> His girlfriend's mum has told her she wont let her have one.


Sounds controlling. Is the girlfriend over 16? If so, it's not up to her mum. She'd be classed as an adult when it comes to consent, and that includes medical stuff.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> “doesn't believe masks do anything”
> 
> Do you know where this belief comes from?  If you think about it, this kind of thing is an odd thing to have “belief” about. It’s like having belief against germ theory or antibiotics.


Sigh. The internet, of course. I mean he's taken a mask with him today but I'd bet my dog(s) and lot he won't wear it anywhere that doesn't insist on it. Mrs SI has said "leave it to me" to persuade him to get vaccinated, but it's one thing letting him have an untidy room for several years, quite another to get a potentially life-saving injection. Time is of the essence surely


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 28, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Sounds controlling. Is the girlfriend over 16? If so, it's not up to her mum. She'd be classed as an adult when it comes to consent, and that includes medical stuff.


No, she's happy with not having it. Young people are invincible aren't they.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Aug 28, 2021)

S☼I said:


> No, she's happy with not having it. Young people are invincible aren't they.


And she's probably picked up her mum's prejudices against the jab too, which is frustrating.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 28, 2021)

Gotta love the post-facts era.


----------



## editor (Aug 28, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> I've heard this line several times this week too, that it might be better to get infected now. Unconvinced.


Staff in pubs I know just want to 'get it out of the way' seeing as they've got just about zero protection in the workplace now.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Aug 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> “doesn't believe masks do anything”
> 
> Do you know where this belief comes from?  If you think about it, this kind of thing is an odd thing to have “belief” about. It’s like having belief against germ theory or antibiotics.



It comes from being a selfish cunt who can't be bothered to wear a mask. If you're that bothered about evidence the internet will gladly spoonfeed you some 'information' that supports your belief that you're actually not a selfish cunt, you're just ahead of the curve. But most people I suspect don't even bother with that. You can believe anything you like, or nothing at all.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 28, 2021)

"Whatever the cause though, experts have been clear we should expect to be repeatedly infected over our lifetimes."
- Trick Niggle, from








						Covid infection protection waning in double jabbed
					

Experts say it is to be expected and boosters may be needed, at least for some people, ahead of winter.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Makes me wonder what the fucking point of trying or worrying is


----------



## 2hats (Aug 28, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Several people I spoke to said that they thought it was better to get infected now whilst their vaccine was still fully effective. That way, they will almost certainly be fine and they can gain additional, or “top-up” immunity. So long as they keep getting reinfected whilst their immunity is strong, they’ll continue to be almost certainly okay.


Exposure to antigen via vaccine is always a better option than by exposure to live virus. It is safer, doesn't carry the risk of long covid and, at least as importantly, presents zero onward transmission risk.

From the vaccines/treatment thread, as they say here - _don't try this at home_.




__





						Science | AAAS
					






					www.sciencemag.org


----------



## elbows (Aug 28, 2021)

S☼I said:


> "Whatever the cause though, experts have been clear we should expect to be repeatedly infected over our lifetimes."
> - Trick Niggle, from
> 
> 
> ...



I might invent an expert claim that "if you listen to Nick Triggle, you can expect to be infected more often than most".

I expect to be infected on some occasions during my life, but I'd rather wait till (a) treatments have improved, (b) I've lost some weight, and (c) we are beyond the acute pandemic phase.


----------



## prunus (Aug 29, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> It comes from being a selfish cunt who can't be bothered to wear a mask. If you're that bothered about evidence the internet will gladly spoonfeed you some 'information' that supports your belief that you're actually not a selfish cunt, you're just ahead of the curve. But most people I suspect don't even bother with that. You can believe anything you like, or nothing at all.



While the behaviour is ultimately selfish, I believe a better way to identify the cause is fear, fear of the virus and the unknown and the lack of control we have over it: if one wears a mask one is implicitly acknowledging all the time, on one’s face, that there is something to fear, and even that the little things we can do to mitigate it are not going to be 100% effective, so one is doing what what can and living with the fear. People’s unconsciousnesses don’t like living with fear, so to avoid the cognitive dissonance associated with deciding (pretending) there is nothing to fear yet taking active steps to mitigate that ‘nothing’ (masks, vaccines, etc) one has to discard the latter. And be angry with anyone who doesn’t, as they are reminding you there is something to fear.

Fear is very powerful and subtly insidious.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 29, 2021)

Same true of seatbelts though?


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 29, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Sigh. The internet, of course. I mean he's taken a mask with him today but I'd bet my dog(s) and lot he won't wear it anywhere that doesn't insist on it. Mrs SI has said "leave it to me" to persuade him to get vaccinated, but it's one thing letting him have an untidy room for several years, quite another to get a potentially life-saving injection. Time is of the essence surely



Used to be that one of 2 things happened either (inevitably and completely naturally) your kid became a self obsessed pain in the arse and basically took the piss, so you kicked him her out or your kid had enough of his/her parents controlling them and fucked off of their own accord.

There has been a massive power shift in the last 30 years that results in a lot less of either these scenarios being played out and you have 30 year old kids all over the place


----------



## BillRiver (Aug 29, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Used to be that one of 2 things happened either (inevitably and completely naturally) your kid became a self obsessed pain in the arse and basically took the piss, so you kicked him her out or your kid had enough of his/her parents controlling them and fucked off of their own accord.
> 
> There has been a massive power shift in the last 30 years that results in a lot less of either these scenarios being played out and you have 30 year old kids all over the place



Nothing to do with economics then?


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 30, 2021)

I'm sure Economics played a part but also expectations are much higher, I lived in rented accommodation up to my 40s, and also didnt have a vehicle till I was mid 30's this seemed quite normal at the time
I left home at 17 which also seemed fairly normal

Society has changed.


----------



## lazythursday (Aug 30, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I'm sure Economics played a part but also expectations are much higher, I lived in rented accommodation up to my 40s, and also didnt have a vehicle till I was mid 30's this seemed quite normal at the time
> I left home at 17 which also seemed fairly normal
> 
> Society has changed.


Don't really understand this post, given that the current generation are even more likely to be in rented accommodation into middle age. The problem is not overgrown spoiled kids not wanting to fly the nest, it's the fact that it's harder and harder to afford to do so given the cost of rent and mortagages.


----------



## elbows (Aug 30, 2021)

Todays 30 year olds were coming of age when we were reading about how their generation were going to be fucked over by austerity, ludicrous house prices etc.

Circumstances change, there is no permanent version of what normal is, and changes to multi-generation household norms reflect harsh economic realities. The 30 year olds affected arent children, their independence has been curtailed by circumstance beyond their control. I mourn the loss of social mobility too, the window of opportunity has been bricked over and writing people off as children just invites the opposite retort of 'so say the old farts who had it different'.


----------



## Mation (Aug 30, 2021)

prunus said:


> While the behaviour is ultimately selfish, I believe a better way to identify the cause is fear, fear of the virus and the unknown and the lack of control we have over it: if one wears a mask one is implicitly acknowledging all the time, on one’s face, that there is something to fear, and even that the little things we can do to mitigate it are not going to be 100% effective, so one is doing what what can and living with the fear. People’s unconsciousnesses don’t like living with fear, so to avoid the cognitive dissonance associated with deciding (pretending) there is nothing to fear yet taking active steps to mitigate that ‘nothing’ (masks, vaccines, etc) one has to discard the latter. And be angry with anyone who doesn’t, as they are reminding you there is something to fear.
> 
> Fear is very powerful and subtly insidious.


Thank you. That makes sense of behaviour I haven't been able to understand in a way that doesn't write people off as just cunts.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Aug 30, 2021)

Mrs SI just stopped at some Peterborough services. Place was full of grubby twenty somethings just having been to Leeds or Reading. Not one mask worn, she said. She sat in the car and ate her Maccies. Cannot imagine being in a large crowd of people from all over the country at the moment. Is it just me? Am I over cautious? Or is it, as I've always suspected, that it's the world that's mad and not me?


----------



## BillRiver (Aug 30, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Mrs SI just stopped at some Peterborough services. Place was full of grubby twenty somethings just having been to Leeds or Reading. Not one mask worn, she said. She sat in the car and ate her Maccies. Cannot imagine being in a large crowd of people from all over the country at the moment. Is it just me? Am I over cautious? Or is it, as I've always suspected, that it's the world that's mad and not me?



It's not just you.


----------



## elbows (Aug 30, 2021)

> Covid cases in Scotland have roughly doubled every week since restrictions eased, leading to an increase in hospital admissions.
> 
> More than 500 people who have tested positive for the virus are in hospital.
> 
> ...











						Covid in Scotland: Cases doubling weekly after restrictions eased
					

More than 500 people who have tested positive for the virus are in hospital in Scotland.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 8ball (Aug 30, 2021)

Mation said:


> Thank you. That makes sense of behaviour I haven't been able to understand in a way that doesn't write people off as just cunts.



On the other hand, Occam’s razor does have a good track record…


----------



## elbows (Aug 30, 2021)

I see there is a chart in that story about Scotland I posted earlier (and the story has been updated at least once).

Northern Ireland also deserves attention but I'm afraid I havent done so yet.


----------



## Femboy for Thug (Aug 30, 2021)

Mandatory vaccination and boosters, at gunpoint if necessary. 

Anyone expressing anti-vax views confined to quarantine facilities with armed guards. Permanently sterilized, and forced to work for their rations. No chances for release. 

Children of anti-vaxxers placed in special homes where they’ll receive proper education away from their toxic parents. 

This is the only way we’ll get this virus under control so we can live normally again.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Aug 30, 2021)




----------



## glitch hiker (Aug 30, 2021)

Femboy for Thug said:


> Mandatory vaccination and boosters, at gunpoint if necessary.
> 
> Anyone expressing anti-vax views confined to quarantine facilities with armed guards. Permanently sterilized, and forced to work for their rations. No chances for release.
> 
> ...


I don't you're ever going to live normally again


----------



## The39thStep (Aug 30, 2021)

Femboy for Thug said:


> Mandatory vaccination and boosters, at gunpoint if necessary.
> 
> Anyone expressing anti-vax views confined to quarantine facilities with armed guards. Permanently sterilized, and forced to work for their rations. No chances for release.
> 
> ...


Nothing wrong with a bit of blue sky thinking Femboy .


----------



## gentlegreen (Aug 30, 2021)

one post wonder ?


----------



## two sheds (Aug 30, 2021)

Refreshing to see a new poster with no emotional issues.


----------



## Mation (Aug 30, 2021)

8ball said:


> On the other hand, Occam’s razor does have a good track record…


Doesn't really apply though where what seems obvious and most likely to some, even many, is a subjective judgement about people's motivation. 

Your experience might well be that most people are cunts, or that most people behaving cuntishly are  all round cunts. Mine isn't. Occam's razor can't adjudicate on that.


----------



## Elpenor (Aug 30, 2021)

Someone I know said she’d stopped wearing a mask in shops recently to “try and get back to normal”. I don’t think she’s a cunt though.

 Thing is there are still 100 people a day dying from covid, and I don’t want that to be seen as normal. I also don’t want to be one of them or have long covid so I will keep wearing a mask. Naturally I won’t challenge other people who don’t wear a mask. I will silently tutt instead.


----------



## krtek a houby (Aug 31, 2021)

Femboy for Thug said:


> Mandatory vaccination and boosters, at gunpoint if necessary.
> 
> Anyone expressing anti-vax views confined to quarantine facilities with armed guards. Permanently sterilized, and forced to work for their rations. No chances for release.
> 
> ...



Hysterical not so subtle satirists to be sedated for their own good.


----------



## Mation (Aug 31, 2021)

Femboy for Thug said:


> Mandatory vaccination and boosters, at gunpoint if necessary.


We're going to need some boats.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 31, 2021)

Daughter and I went to outdoor theatre yesterday - negligible mask wearing on tube although was very quiet both ways and people were able to be 2m+ apart. I suspect most people had a mask on them but were thinking 'Ah, not many people, won't bother', though we're sticking with wearing one on tube in principle.

We've stayed covid-free as a household, but I have a feeling this term will be the one when it gets us. There was a headline about 'We must not allow school reopening to cause cases to rise' and I was a bit 'Uh, well you don't really get to make that happen if you're gonna reopen schools with fewer mitigations than before'  I'm kind of resigned to going out and doing some things (theatre and galleries) in the next weeks and risking it because at least this way I've done some stuff before they probably have to shut shit down again, though this government seems hell-bent on pushing for reopening at all costs while crying 'Normality!' as no one can keep anything open because everyone's off sick.


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 31, 2021)

Hope you stay safe Cloo, but I think being in a tube with most not wearing masks well, the 2 metres thing wont help too much with Delta floating around inside

P.S. I guess you probably know that and are just trying to re-assure yourself which I reckon is a pretty common thought process right now, unfortunately the virus remains unaffected by a positive mindset


----------



## Cloo (Aug 31, 2021)

Seeing a Twitter convo where a mum is mentioning that a mum from her CEV kid's class has been helpfuland let it be known to other parents she has COVID - she's got 3 kids who, according to this thread, will be expected in school if they get a negative PCR or else it will be considered unauthorised absence. Wondering how much leeway schools will have on this. If any of us have a +ive PCR, I'd want to keep my kids off school as even if they are negative a day or two later, doesn't mean they won't be after a few more.

I'm not actually especially worried about catching it from tube yesterday, there really weren't many people at all, but most likely one of the kids will get it in school.  I have been extra cautious over holidays because I didn't want a) daughter to miss her residential camp or b) us to miss last week's holiday but.... I know this is selfish but I want to go some places and do some stuff before it's all gone again for a while, which I suspect it will be at some point before the end of the year.


----------



## teuchter (Aug 31, 2021)

I wouldn't be surprised if a tube carriage is significantly better ventilated than many school classrooms. Plus most people will only be on the tube for 15 or 30 minutes whereas a classroom might be occupied all day.


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 31, 2021)

May was probably the time to go do shit, its a bit late now


----------



## teuchter (Aug 31, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> May was probably the time to go do shit,


Not really, for those of us not fully vaccinated until July or August or later.


----------



## quimcunx (Aug 31, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I wouldn't be surprised if a tube carriage is significantly better ventilated than many school classrooms. Plus most people will only be on the tube for 15 or 30 minutes whereas a classroom might be occupied all day.



The tube is occupied all day, just not by the same people the whole time.


----------



## editor (Aug 31, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Hope you stay safe Cloo, but I think being in a tube with most not wearing masks well, the 2 metres thing wont help too much with Delta floating around inside
> 
> P.S. I guess you probably know that and are just trying to re-assure yourself which I reckon is a pretty common thought process right now, unfortunately the virus remains unaffected by a positive mindset


The tube trains have signs saying that the air is completely refreshed every 3 minutes.


----------



## Teaboy (Aug 31, 2021)

With there basically being no attempts to mitigate community spread and schools going back with a similar lack of virus control mitigation its hard to not conclude that the government is just expecting everyone to get covid and they are fine with that.  

I'm even seeing news articles about how the best form of immunity is vaccine + previous infection.  

Its such a bizarre situation and must be so scary for many people.  Given where we are I'm beginning to have sympathy for people who have given up caring and are just going back to normal life.  There's just an inevitable fatalism about it all.


----------



## elbows (Aug 31, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Not really, for those of us not fully vaccinated until July or August or later.



Given the emerging vaccine breakthrough picture, in terms of chances of catching Covid, I think I'd have felt less exposed in risky settings in May than now.

In terms of personal risk of hospitalisation, I do of course feel less at risk now that I've been double jabbed as of early August than I would of in May.

I suppose I could do a crude calculation to determine whether the above is actually true, but I'd rather the vaccine effectiveness estimates were allowed to settle before performing such a calculation. And I dont currently have a good sense of how much difference 'which vaccine' would actually make to such a calculation.

Certainly when it comes to my parents who were jabbed much earlier, they were safer doing stuff in May than now.


----------



## elbows (Aug 31, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> With there basically being no attempts to mitigate community spread and schools going back with a similar lack of virus control mitigation its hard to not conclude that the government is just expecting everyone to get covid and they are fine with that.
> 
> I'm even seeing news articles about how the best form of immunity is vaccine + previous infection.
> 
> Its such a bizarre situation and must be so scary for many people.  Given where we are I'm beginning to have sympathy for people who have given up caring and are just going back to normal life.  There's just an inevitable fatalism about it all.



A key question in my mind is how people will react if this is totally turned on its head in the weeks ahead. Because even this shit government have limits to things like hospitalisation trends, beyond which they will have to u-turn. And under such circumstances, rapid changes to how we are told to think about this stuff and how we should behave will not be subtle and this would be quite jarring to people, potentially evoking a different flavour of fatalism.


----------



## BillRiver (Aug 31, 2021)

editor said:


> The tube trains have signs saying that the air is completely refreshed every 3 minutes.



Yes I heard that, and have seen similar on overground trains. What I wonder, especially with the underground, is - refreshed with what? Where does the "fresh" air come from in that scenario and how fresh is it really?


----------



## teuchter (Aug 31, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Yes I heard that, and have seen similar on overground trains. What I wonder, especially with the underground, is - refreshed with what? Where does the "fresh" air come from in that scenario and how fresh is it really?


It comes from the tunnels and the tunnels in turn are forcibly ventilated to outside air (they would become unbearably hot if they weren't). It's not exactly what you could call fresh air because it's full of dust and stuff, but in terms of virus concentration, I would have thought that it would be fairly effective.


----------



## two sheds (Aug 31, 2021)

You'd presume they have dust type filters though.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 31, 2021)

elbows said:


> A key question in my mind is how people will react if this is totally turned on its head in the weeks ahead. Because even this shit government have limits to things like hospitalisation trends, beyond which they will have to u-turn. And under such circumstances, rapid changes to how we are told to think about this stuff and how we should behave will not be subtle and this would be quite jarring to people, potentially evoking a different flavour of fatalism.


Times like this I am glad I don't celebrate Christmas,  let's put it that way.


----------



## elbows (Aug 31, 2021)

> *The death rate of people living in the most deprived areas of Scotland was almost double that of those in the least deprived areas last year.*
> 
> Figures from the National Records of Scotland's (NRS) annual population review showed the pandemic appeared to be increasing the gap.
> 
> ...





> The report said the general mortality rate in the most deprived areas of Scotland was 1.9 times the rate in the least deprived areas. However, for deaths caused by Covid-19, the figure was 2.4 times the rate of those in more affluent areas.
> 
> That compares with a figure of 2.1 in the early stages of the pandemic.
> 
> The report stated that many of the risk factors associated with the virus were more common in poorer communities - such as diabetes, obesity and lung disease.











						Pandemic sees death rate among rich and poor widen
					

The death rate of those in the most deprived areas of Scotland was almost double that of the least deprived in 2020.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Aug 31, 2021)

Wales joins the depressing mood music club.

Without proper statistics I'm unable to judge the extent to which the focus on the unvaccinated is somewhat misplaced. Because its completely understandable that the narrative will tend to focus on the unvaccinated since in theory you can still do something about some of those via messaging. But theres a chunk of the hospital picture that doesnt involve the unvaccinated, but without proper data I cant judge the size of it properly.

Anyway I'm not quoting those bits but rather the more general:



> She added that Covid was "everywhere right now" and said people needed to keeping taking precautions and being sensible, whether they were vaccinated or not.











						Covid: Doctor blames misinformation for hospital admissions rise
					

A critical care consultant says some hospitals were at their busiest for months last weekend.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Aug 31, 2021)

I'm pretty sure Paul Hunter is the name I keep seeing in connection with recent press talk about 'endemic equilibrium' and here we are again but with added detail:



> He also says Covid-19 is approaching the "endemic equilibrium", the number of cases we should expect to see per day forever. In other coronaviruses that have been circulating for many years in humans, this is about 45,000 cases a day, Prof Hunter says.
> 
> But he says because of widespread immunity, the serious illness of Covid-19 will be "consigned to history", except for occasional cases. In most pandemics, the professor says this takes about three years.



Thats from a BBC live updates page 14:15 entry, with the main thrust of that entry being the apparently imminent decision about booster shots: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58391759

This is the first I've heard of the numbers to expect and the timescale. I currently lack the ability to judge whether he is right about that detail. I will try to get clued up about this more in the months ahead. I'm certainly not inclined to simply take his word for it. And the number of actual cases per day should not be confused with the number we formally identify through testing.


----------



## elbows (Aug 31, 2021)

Here are more of the same quotes from him via some random local news site:









						Vaccine booster campaign should start ‘pretty soon’ for over-80s and vulnerable
					

The NHS is poised to start administering booster Covid-19 jabs within days but is yet to get final nod from vaccine experts




					www.shropshirestar.com
				






> The professor in medicine said that the nation will continue to see Covid infections in society, “but the issue is whether actually that’s going to cause ill health”.
> 
> He said: “We’re getting close to what’s called the endemic equilibrium, which is the sort of number of infections we can expect on average per day forever.
> 
> “Looking at the other coronaviruses it’s about 45,000 infections a day.





> “If you work it out, based on what we know about duration of immunity and the principles for Covid, it works out about 45,000 infections a day (across the UK). So that’s what we’ve got to look forward to.
> 
> “But the vast majority of those infections for the other coronaviruses asymptomatic, they don’t cause any harm. And when they do with some mild dose of the common cold.
> 
> “And that’s the way that this is going to go, absolutely no doubt about it.





> “We won’t see Covid ‘the disease’ any more after a few years. Typically pandemics tend to last for about three years, give or take.
> 
> “And the last big coronavirus pandemic lasted three years – that was in 1890, with the Russian flu. The virus that caused the Russian flu is still with us, and it’s still not that different probably from the virus that circulated 130 years ago, but we don’t see it causing the disease.
> 
> “Covid-19 the disease will almost certainly consigned to history except in very few occasional cases.”



Even if I end up with no cause to question these details, I will certainly question the merits of going on about this stuff right now. Because the future scenario he describes is clearly not what we are dealing with right now, even if case numbers are similar at times. I certainly question whether similar numbers at the moment actually give any indication at all that we are 'getting close'. Surely thats not just a question of case numbers but also trends going forwards and levels of hospitalisation need to be factored in since in my book those are currently incompatible with the idea we are close to a scenario where 'the vast majority of those infections dont cause any harm'.

By the way although I have been very interested in the theory that the 1890 'Russian flu' was actually a coronavirus pandemic, I dont think its firmly established fact, although I certainly wouldnt bet against it.


----------



## elbows (Aug 31, 2021)

A grim story about the hospital situation in Northern Ireland, albeit one where Covid is relegated to a brief mention at the end.









						NI hospitals: 400 emergency patients wait over 12 hours for bed
					

A senior doctor says many of those waiting for beds are "our most vulnerable patients".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Aug 31, 2021)

Scottish data still a massive cause for concern.


From Scotland Coronavirus Tracker


----------



## elbows (Aug 31, 2021)

Back to the theme that was emerging before the July peak and the August changes in mixing patterns and press coverage. I dont think this pressure significantly diminished in August, only the reporting of it.



> The health service in England is experiencing "winter-like pressures", the Society of Acute Medicine is warning.
> 
> Medics from the organisation, which represents doctors working in the field of acute medicine, say doctors are treating "vast numbers" of people with non-Covid illnesses as well as many attending hospital with severe coronavirus symptoms.





> "I think it is fair to say we are currently facing an unprecedented summer workload that feels more like the worst winter pressures most of us can recall," says Dr Scriven.
> 
> "We are seeing vast numbers of patients with non-Covid illness alongside the steady admission rates of those still very poorly with Covid.
> 
> "We are also noticing frailer people who have deconditioned over lockdowns so that any illness that previously might have been fairly minor now need an extended stay in hospital with periods of rehabilitation."



Thats from the 15:13 entry of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58391759


----------



## _Russ_ (Aug 31, 2021)

editor said:


> The tube trains have signs saying that the air is completely refreshed every 3 minutes.


I bet the Virus shits itself when it reads that


----------



## Cloo (Aug 31, 2021)

I predict the gov will hold out until end of October/early November and then, yet again try some ineffectual demi-shutdown to 'save Christmas' and fail to 'save Christmas'.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 31, 2021)

My other half has just got a text from GP saying vaccines for 12-15 yos will now be available in one place nearby, which surprises me a bit given there's been no announcement. I know they were talking about it, but the indications seemed to be it would be a few weeks coming. He says it doesn't indicate anything about it just being CEV - anyone else heard anything like this?


----------



## elbows (Aug 31, 2021)

Cloo said:


> My other half has just got a text from GP saying vaccines for 12-15 yos will now be available in one place nearby, which surprises me a bit given there's been no announcement. I know they were talking about it, but the indications seemed to be it would be a few weeks coming. He says it doesn't indicate anything about it just being CEV - anyone else heard anything like this?


Its not been announced but the indications are there, eg even the BBC have the following wording in some recent articles:



> NHS organisations in England have been told to make preparations to jab all 12 to 15-year-olds. But a final decision is awaited.











						Covid: Which children are being vaccinated and why?
					

All children aged 12-15 across the UK are being offered one dose of the Pfizer vaccine.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Currently it isnt just CEV children aged 12-15, its also children in that age group who live with CEV adults.


----------



## Cloo (Aug 31, 2021)

Thanks - at any rate we will discuss with daughter when she gets home, though we know she's keen to have it.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 1, 2021)

kabbes said:


> “doesn't believe masks do anything”
> 
> Do you know where this belief comes from?  If you think about it, this kind of thing is an odd thing to have “belief” about. It’s like having belief against germ theory or antibiotics.


It sounds like a "convenient truth" that wouldn't stand up to any enquiry. I imagine that's a pretty depressing thing to see in one's own offspring...


----------



## kabbes (Sep 1, 2021)

existentialist said:


> It sounds like a "convenient truth" that wouldn't stand up to any enquiry. I imagine that's a pretty depressing thing to see in one's own offspring...


I guess some people don’t believe in a spherical Earth and do believe in the healing power of crystals, so why not?  Who needs empiricism anyway?


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Sep 1, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I guess some people don’t believe in a spherical Earth and do believe in the healing power of crystals, so why not?  Who needs empiricism anyway?


It's difficult enough spelling empicirism, let alone needing it.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 1, 2021)

If he's right, and the consensus is now that herd immunity is impossible, because the vaccine can't prevent transmission, then that's obviously very significant in terms of what the policy will be from now on.

This presumably also assumes that it's not going to be possible to 'tweak' the vaccine such that it can prevent onwards transmission.

He doesn't really talk about what happens if we get to a point where the health service can't deal with hospitalisation numbers.


----------



## glitch hiker (Sep 1, 2021)

I just watched that. It seems pretty depressing. Seems like the denialists got what they want. Especially if we aren't going to vaccinate kids. I don't know where we go from here since winter is coming, to coin a phrase. Inevitably it will rise again.


----------



## gentlegreen (Sep 1, 2021)

I was getting around to that sort of thinking - keep up with the vaccines as best we can to have a head start then taking a very low viral load through a mask to get coverage for more of the prevalent epitopes (viral proteins).


----------



## teuchter (Sep 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Seems like the denialists got what they want.


Not sure exactly what you mean by this.


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 1, 2021)

And what does this mean for the countries like NZ, and those poorer countries where they have maybe done their best with public health measures but have more malnourished children etc.  Seems like we've fucked them over.


----------



## glitch hiker (Sep 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Not sure exactly what you mean by this.


I watched the clip this morning and it just feels like the situation has been allowed to get to this point because the people in charge (not just in Britain, tbf) still believe in the 'let it rip' mentality. They've not taken it seriously at at all. 

I'm not saying Dr Campbell, or his sources, are wrong, more that we've been led to this point by a clown parade of politicians


----------



## gentlegreen (Sep 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> I watched the clip this morning and it just feels like the situation has been allowed to get to this point because the people in charge (not just in Britain, tbf) still believe in the 'let it rip' mentality. They've not taken it seriously at at all.
> 
> I'm not saying Dr Campbell, or his sources, are wrong, more that we've been led to this point by a clown parade of politicians


Personally I reckon the key problem was overselling the vaccine and claiming it replaced masks and SD ... perhaps it was always the plan to ensure onward transmission ...


----------



## glitch hiker (Sep 1, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Personally I reckon the key problem was overselling the vaccine and claiming it replaced masks and SD ... perhaps it was always the plan to ensure onward transmission ...


Unfortunately Delta hit after the vaccination. Delta seems to be the problem. Perhaps they can devise a stronger shot. 

All the more reason to maintain basic hygiene standards, but mask wearing, IME, has massively declined in the last couple of weeks. YMMV


----------



## gentlegreen (Sep 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Unfortunately Delta hit after the vaccination. Delta seems to be the problem. Perhaps they can devise a stronger shot.
> 
> All the more reason to maintain basic hygiene standards, but mask wearing, IME, has massively declined in the last couple of weeks. YMMV


No vaccine configuration will do more than deal with the infection more quickly.
 The virus apparently always does plenty of replication in the URT  and asymptomatic spreading before the immune system can get on top of it.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> If he's right, and the consensus is now that herd immunity is impossible, because the vaccine can't prevent transmission, then that's obviously very significant in terms of what the policy will be from now on.
> 
> This presumably also assumes that it's not going to be possible to 'tweak' the vaccine such that it can prevent onwards transmission.
> 
> He doesn't really talk about what happens if we get to a point where the health service can't deal with hospitalisation numbers.



That is pretty depressing, though I guess it's not a surprise - the data has been pointing that way for a while. But I still had some hope that when young people and kids were vaccinated the spread would be significantly diminished and there might be only occasional outbreaks. But it seems more like it will just be circulating everywhere most of the time. We just have to wait and see what the long covid rate will be with that. I hope lower than the unvaccinated rate. 

And yeah, I wonder how Aus and NZ are going to deal with this. Will they be forced to let it in once everyone is vaccinated? I don't see how they can stay disease-free islands forever.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 1, 2021)

NZ has an exit plan that involves vaccinating everyone then starting to drawn down the quarantine from low-risk countries. Still aiming for zero Covid though, as far as I'm aware


----------



## glitch hiker (Sep 1, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> No vaccine configuration will do more than deal with the infection more quickly.
> The virus apparently always does plenty of replication in the URT  and asymptomatic spreading before the immune system can get on top of it.


Are we ready for the pandemic to move to the endemic stage though?


----------



## LDC (Sep 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Not sure exactly what you mean by this.



The move to testing only clinically ill people not people more generally (contacts for example) I assume, as in no point testing and getting huge numbers when it's hospitalisations and deaths that really matter. (I don't agree 100%, but I think that's what glitch hiker was getting at?)


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 1, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> NZ has an exit plan that involves vaccinating everyone then starting to drawn down the quarantine from low-risk countries. Still aiming for zero Covid though, as far as I'm aware


Can they really stick to zero covid if it is circulating freely in some of the world's biggest economies which they have to interact with? It would mean quarantine with UK and US forever wouldn't it?


----------



## teuchter (Sep 1, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> And what does this mean for the countries like NZ, and those poorer countries where they have maybe done their best with public health measures but have more malnourished children etc.  Seems like we've fucked them over.


I think that it means that countries like NZ will end up with a similar situation to what we'll end up with here. The difference - assuming they wait until the population is well vaccinated before opening up - will be that they will have got to that point without losing so many lives along the way.

If it's true that vaccines can't stop Covid becoming endemic, then it looks to me that everyone ending up with endemic covid was inevitable whatever. In that sense, I'm not sure that the UK's approach will have had a major impact on where NZ ends up in the long term... unless the argument is that if everyone had kept numbers low, the delta variant would never have appeared. I don't know if that's plausible.

The idea that it would ever have been possible for the whole world to pursue and achieve "zero covid" seems a bit fantasy to me - unless it had been entirely contained right at the beginning in Wuhan.


----------



## gentlegreen (Sep 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Are we ready for the pandemic to move to the endemic stage though?


If everyone wore masks and did their best to minimise risk, hopefully the dosing would be at "prophylactic" levels ?


----------



## gentlegreen (Sep 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> The testing I assume, as in no point testing and getting huge numbers when it's hospitalisations and deaths that really matter. (I don't agree 100%, but I think that's what glitch hiker was getting at?)


I imagine the extensive testing has served its purpose now that there is plenty of data from the vaccinated ?


----------



## teuchter (Sep 1, 2021)

glitch hiker said:


> Are we ready for the pandemic to move to the endemic stage though?


What would determine when we're ready?

I'd say it's when we've got everyone who wants to be, vaccinated, and there's no reasonable expectation of near-future developments in vaccines being able to change the picture significantly.

I'm not sure if we're close to that point or not.


----------



## elbows (Sep 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I think that it means that countries like NZ will end up with a similar situation to what we'll end up with here. The difference - assuming they wait until the population is well vaccinated before opening up - will be that they will have got to that point without losing so many lives along the way.
> 
> If it's true that vaccines can't stop Covid becoming endemic, then it looks to me that everyone ending up with endemic covid was inevitable whatever. In that sense, I'm not sure that the UK's approach will have had a major impact on where NZ ends up in the long term... unless the argument is that if everyone had kept numbers low, the delta variant would never have appeared. I don't know if that's plausible.
> 
> The idea that it would ever have been possible for the whole world to pursue and achieve "zero covid" seems a bit fantasy to me - unless it had been entirely contained right at the beginning in Wuhan.



NZ will have got to that point with many less lives lost, many less hospitalisations, less periods under lockdown, less economic damage, less mental health damage, less exhausted medical staff, etc.

Complete eradication of the virus would have been a very long shot indeed, but it would have been worth a go because you dont know unless you try, and because of the other benefits all the way along as mentioned above.

In terms of new variants emerging, the rate of mutation is tightly linked to the number of cases, there is no doubt about that. This doent mean we wouldnt get new variants eventually, but it does have big implications as to the timing of their emergence, and their opportunities to dominate. Because to dominate they need not only to come into being, but also to have sufficient opportunities to spread, less dead ends in the chains of transmission. And very tough policies and restricted behaviours mean more dead ends. But it wouldnt have been plain sailing, eg if the virus had been kept at much lower levels until vaccines arrived, and then restrictions and behaviours changed, then there would be a lot of selection pressure on the virus and one of the first major resulting strains we'd have got could have had more vaccine-busting properties than Delta has. So there are definite limits to my claims on this front!

I will do another post in regards peoples reactions to the news about herd immunity going down the toilet. I am exasperated about some of the reactions.


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## elbows (Sep 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> What would determine when we're ready?
> 
> I'd say it's when we've got everyone who wants to be, vaccinated, and there's no reasonable expectation of near-future developments in vaccines being able to change the picture significantly.
> 
> I'm not sure if we're close to that point or not.


In practical terms being ready means having a healthcare system that can actually cope with the level of severely ill people generated by the number of cases present during the endemic steady state. Or being prepared to modify behaviours or introduce restrictions to bring that number down.

I do not consider the number of cases seen this summer, with the schools closed, to be a useful guide as to what numbers to expect from endemic covid. I consider we are currently in a wave and that things will change again in future, so there is little point in me trying to judge the eventual endemic status of this virus based on things we are seeing at the moment. And even if I turn out to be wrong about that, there is still no point proceeding with that line of thought until it has been clearly demonstrated that I'm wrong via the passage of time.

Here are some of the reasons I think the whole endemic angle has come up now:

Its being twisted to fit the 'learning to live with covid' agenda which I consider to be premature to say the least.

People were sold some lies involving simplistic versions of herd immunity, and were encouraged to believe that vaccines could carry more pandemic weight than was likely to be the case. Some of that now needs to be corrected, including peoples expectations about the end-point of this pandemic.

Lots of expert commentary was tied to framing and narratives involving waves and expectations about the timing and scale of those waves, and they got egg on their face due to the 'unexpected' July peak. They are now much less keen to offer predictions on this front going forwards, but their new narratives are still influenced by case data over the last month or so. So we inevitably end up with narratives that have a relationship to the relatively stable but high number of cases seen in England since the initial fall after that July peak.

The likes of Whitty always made no secret of his expectation that the virus would be endemic, and I dont think those authorities ever expected vaccines to be so brilliant as to offer sterilising immunity against this virus. So I dont really think there is anything new about the emerging consensus, other than more of them talking about it openly now. And I have to be a bit wary of that due to the timing relative to recent case levels, the learning to live with covid agenda etc. Which is not to say there are no valid reasons to go on about it more now, eg presumptions that vaccines would not offer sterilising immunity are increasingly backed up by actual data these days.

Also a permanently endemic state of affairs for this virus doesnt even mean that the era of waves of this virus are over. And it certainly doesnt automatically mean an end to all restrictions. Because a steady state implies an R of 1, and changes to the seasons, behaviours, levels of population immunity and the virus itself would be expected to create periods where R is not 1, and an epidemic wave becomes plausible. How well we manage to keep that situation balanced in the years ahead is in some ways epidemiological business as usual, whether that be via public health messaging, restrictions, or ongoing vaccination programme boosters and changes to the vaccines. A simplistic version of this is present in notions such as 'there will be good winters and bad winters', so I'm not suggesting that era will involve big scary waves as often as seen during the acute pandemic phase, it could be something that we have to act upon every few years. Or it might not pan out quite that way at all.


----------



## elbows (Sep 1, 2021)




----------



## Sunray (Sep 1, 2021)

In the 1st study of its kind, it appears booster shots are pretty effective.  



			https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/vaccine-efficacy-safety-follow-up-committee/he/files_publications_corona_booster-27082021.pdf
		


See Dr J Cambell for one of his talks on this study.


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## elbows (Sep 1, 2021)

Skipping over the bit where Nick Triggle explains current death rates and what experts expected in ways I partially disagree with, a piece of analysis that was no doubt deemed necessary because there was a high figure today due to the reporting catch up from the long bank holiday weekend, we also have this from him:



> The more difficult thing to predict is what will happen in September when schools are fully open across the UK and people are back in workplaces and return to more normal behaviour and mixing patterns.
> 
> Scotland, where the holiday season ends earlier, has already seen a sharp rise.
> 
> ...



I dont think dificult questions are involved but rather answers that are clearly unpalatable to some.

Anyway I got that from the 17:06 entry of the BBC live updates page. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58406184


----------



## elbows (Sep 1, 2021)

JCVI issues advice on third dose vaccination for severely immunosuppressed
					

The JCVI is advising that people with severely weakened immune systems should have a third vaccine dose as part of their primary COVID-19 vaccination schedule.




					www.gov.uk
				






> This third dose should be offered to people over 12 who were severely immunosuppressed at the time of their first or second dose, including those with leukaemia, advanced HIV and recent organ transplants. These people may not mount a full response to vaccination and therefore may be less protected than the wider population.
> 
> This offer is separate to any potential booster programme. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is still deliberating the potential benefits of booster vaccines for the rest of the population and is awaiting further evidence to inform this decision.





> Those with less serious immunosuppression are not included in this advice but are likely to become eligible for another dose as part of a potential booster programme, pending further advice from the JCVI.
> 
> In the event of a booster programme, it is expected that severely immunosuppressed people will also be offered a booster dose, at a suitable interval after their third dose.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 1, 2021)

Bit of a strange article in de Volkskrant from the Netherlands: 



> Brits onderzoek: een derde geïnfecteerde tieners kampt met long covid​



"uk research a third of infected teenagers struggling with long covid"

and have problems after three months, but doesn't say which uk research, and I can't see anything saying that on uk sites.


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## cupid_stunt (Sep 2, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Bit of a strange article in de Volkskrant from the Netherlands:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It seems to be reporting on the University College London and Public Health England study.



> Almost a third of teens experience coronavirus symptoms three months after diagnosis, according to a U.K. study that suggests long COVID also afflicts the young.
> 
> The children aged 11 to 17 reported persistent symptoms such as fatigue and shortness of breath, according to the study led by University College London and Public Health England. The findings were published in pre-print form, meaning they weren’t peer-reviewed.











						A U.K. study found that a third of teenagers experience long COVID symptoms
					

The teenagers reported fatigue and shortness of breath months after being diagnosed with COVID.



					fortune.com
				




However, here it's reported as 1 in 7...



> Up to one in seven children who test positive for coronavirus could still have symptoms linked to the disease three months later, according to a study that suggests the prevalence of long Covid in young people is lower than initially feared.
> 
> The analysis, led by University College London and Public Health England researchers, drew on survey responses from nearly 7,000 11- to 17-year-olds who underwent PCR tests between January and March. Of these, 3,065 tested positive and 3,739 tested negative.
> 
> Many children in either group reported at least one symptom associated with coronavirus when surveyed at an average of 15 weeks after their test. Roughly 30% of those in the positive group reported having at least three or more symptoms after that time, and about 16% in the negative group.











						One in seven children with Covid still suffering three months later – study
					

Researchers also find no difference in mental health scores between children who test positive or negative




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Sep 2, 2021)

There was also this yesterday, but its by Nick Triggle so involves some spin and dubious framing. The actual study doesnt seem bad to me, but by focussing on the reassuring bits by contrasting their findings with the worst-case fears of the past, I end up not liking the tone of the BBC story.









						Long Covid in children 'nowhere near scale feared'
					

Public should be reassured over rates of persistent symptoms, leading child health experts say.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




But even I will give them a bonus point for actually linking to the study.









						Long COVID - the physical and mental health of children and non-hospitalised young people 3 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection; a national matched cohort study (The CLoCk) Study.
					

Research Square is a preprint platform that makes research communication faster, fairer, and more useful.




					www.researchsquare.com
				




I especially like this bit from the study:



> Taking the studies together, there is consistent evidence that some teenagers will have persisting symptoms after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and that mental and physical health symptoms are closely related. Avoiding false dichotomies between mind and body is likely to be helpful as, for example, stressed individuals may present with somatic symptoms or conversely persisting physical symptoms may be associated with depression and anxiety. Some individuals may develop somatic symptoms disorders29 and the existing evidence for effective management of conditions such as pain, headache and fatigue30 might be usefully evaluated in CYP presenting with persistent physical symptoms post-COVID. CYP with clinically impaired mental ill health should receive the appropriate evidence-based treatments whether or not they have physical symptoms. Family approaches and understanding of persistent symptoms is key31. Investigation of persisting symptoms may be needed or requested, with consideration of the potentially negative impact of protracted medical treatments or investigations if no abnormalities are found29.



I cant quote all the sensible bits or hope to do the whole thing justice with a summary. But its certainly a complicated subject, especially in teenagers because non-Covid, normal background levels of things like fatigue are very high in this group in non-pandemic times.


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## elbows (Sep 3, 2021)

Data on vaccinated/unvaccinated people hospitalised in England gets on my nerves a bit, because it covers only a subset of hospital admissions.

By this I mean that in England the dashboard shows roughly 47,000 hospital admissions/diagnoses since June 2021 began. But the analysis thats made public has a narrow Delta angle to it, it only covers 'confirmed or likely' Delta cases, and this number is very much smaller than the total admisions/diagnoses. I would prefer it if numbers were available which included all admissions, rather than the subset. Because I have no way of knowing if the proportions shown below hold true for the whole picture. And frankly since Delta dominates the 'likely' Delta cases should really be almost all cases these days, which would give a figure far higher than 9,472 hospitalisations.



> Some 9,472 people had been admitted to hospital in England up to 29 August who were either confirmed or likely to have had the Delta variant of Covid, PHE says.
> 
> Of those 5,098 were under 50. Of the under-50s 73% were unvaccinated, 14% had received one dose and 10% were fully jabbed.
> 
> Of the 4,374 people hospitalised aged 50 and over 30% were unvaccinated, 9% had received one dose and 61% had received two doses.



That quote is from the 10:58 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58431842 with the underlying data likely coming from https://assets.publishing.service.g...le/1014926/Technical_Briefing_22_21_09_02.pdf


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## cupid_stunt (Sep 3, 2021)

BREAKING NEWS.

The JCVI will not be recommending jabs for healthy kids ages 12 - 15 years old. 









						Mass vaccination of children between 12 and 15 not recommended by JCVI
					

COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children aged between 12 and 15 are not being recommended by the UK's vaccine advisers.




					www.thenational.scot


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## elbows (Sep 3, 2021)

I'm not surprised. They are probably concerned about what the impact of the rare heart inflammation  side-effect will do to attitudes if there are headlines about vaccine deaths in that group as a result.

Because that would be expected to affect not just attitudes towards children getting the covid vaccine, but also children and getting other vaccines going forwards, and overall attitudes towards covid vaccines.


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## elbows (Sep 3, 2021)

In regards my complain about the vaccine hospital data only covering a subset of cases for England. I can always use Scotlands information for clues, since theirs does not have that Delta-related limitation.

These are from https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/8946/21-09-01-covid19-publication_report.pdf


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## platinumsage (Sep 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm not surprised. They are probably concerned about what the impact of the rare heart inflammation  side-effect will do to attitudes if there are headlines about vaccine deaths in that group as a result.
> 
> Because that would be expected to affect not just attitudes towards children getting the covid vaccine, but also children and getting other vaccines going forwards, and overall attitudes towards covid vaccines.



The heart side-effect isn't fatal. The concern is over possible unknown long-term health effects stemming from this side-effect vs the 1:500,000 risk of severe complications from COVID.

JCVI didn't make this decision based on parents not taking their kids for measles jabs, but on the risks from COVID vs the risks of the vaccine for 12-15 year olds.


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## elbows (Sep 3, 2021)

In theory it can be fatal, which is why the article you link to also mentions the death of a woman. I note that the US data mentioned in that article covers 16-29 year olds and 18-24 year olds, it doesnt say anything about people younger than that. But yes, I did not mean to indicate that death was the only concern, thats at the extreme and less likely end of their spectrum of concerns, but its still relevant.

Its also clear that there are plenty of unknowns about the extent to which catching the virus can also lead to the same complication of myocarditis. And there are a bunch of other considerations which Im sure inform their thinking, the one you mention is a central one but its not the only factor.

Some of them are discussed in this article:









						What difference will jabbing young teens make?
					

How to weigh the pros and cons of a vaccine for a disease that is rarely serious in young people.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




It includes the following:



> But the JCVI's caution may mean it's not persuaded by the data it has seen to date. The last thing it wants is to give the go-ahead and then for a series of adverse events to dent parents' confidence in other childhood vaccines.


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## elbows (Sep 3, 2021)

That same side effect is also why people might have seen stories in July about not exercising strenuously after vaccination. Such stories may have been driven by Singapore making a version of that recommendation, I'm not sure that many other countries have taken this approach:



> As a precautionary measure, adolescents and men below 30 years of age are advised to avoid strenuous physical activities such as running, weightlifting, competitive sports, or playing ball games for one week after their first and second vaccination doses.











						Health Advisory
					

You are considered fully vaccinated against COVID-19 if you have had: 2 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech / Comirnaty, at least 21...




					www.vaccine.gov.sg


----------



## elbows (Sep 3, 2021)

Sounds like the government may get the CMO's to approve of jabs for 12-15 year olds because JCVI werent prepared to make that recommendation on their own.



> The UK's Health Secretary Sajid Javid says he and the other UK health secretaries have written to the chief medical officers to ask that they consider the vaccination of 12 to 15-year-olds "from a broader perspective, as suggested by the JCVI".
> 
> “We will then consider the advice from the chief medical officers, building on the advice from the JCVI, before making a decision shortly.”



Thats from the 15:59 entry on the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58431842


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## cupid_stunt (Sep 3, 2021)

The loons with have a field day, if it goes ahead on the advice of the CMO's, but not the JCVI.


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## Teaboy (Sep 3, 2021)

Will be uncomfortable to say the least if otherwise healthy children start to die after being vaccinated.


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## elbows (Sep 3, 2021)

Well although I was disagreeing with platinumsage about various details, there were some very good reasons for them to draw attention to the lack of actual short term deaths. I brought up deaths not because I expect to see loads of them, but because that is at the extreme end of where the worst-case fears take people who have to make these judgement calls. I was somewhat sloppily using it as shorthand for the full spectrum of concerns.

I'm not the best person to provide reassurances because I always fear being misleading if I rely too much on stating just how low the risk is. In this area like so many others in the pandemic, I struggle to escape the whole 'very low percentages of very high numbers' thing. In this case to be sure of avoiding 'loss of confidence in medical authorities and vaccines', I'd have to be able to guarantee no deaths at all, and how can I really ever go that far that about any risk of death?

Anyway they were also correct to draw attention to concerns over possible longer term consequences. For example even in the following sort of article which despite being able to offer some meaningful reasurance about low severity of cases, still features one marker of concern for them (which I've put in bold type):



			https://www.neurologyadvisor.com/general-medicine/case-series-describes-covid-19-vaccine-associated-myocarditis-in-children/
		




> Postvaccination myocarditis was found to be mild in most pediatric patients following receipt of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (BNT162b2), according to a small case series study published in JAMA Cardiology.
> 
> Study authors reviewed the cases of 15 patients hospitalized with myocarditis within 30 days of receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine between May 1 and July 15, 2021 at the Department of Cardiology, Boston Children’s Hospital. Fourteen of the patients were male and the average age was 15 years.





> Three patients had decreased left ventricular ejection fraction and 5 patients had abnormal global longitudinal or circumferential strain. Findings consistent with myocarditis were reported in 13 patients using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging; late gadolinium enhancement was present in 12 patients.





> None of the patients were admitted to the intensive care unit and all were discharged within 5 days. At follow-up (1 to 13 days after discharge), echocardiogram results were reported to be normal for all but 1 patient.
> 
> “In this case series, in short-term follow-up, patients were mildly affected,” the study authors concluded. *Given the presence of late gadolinium enhancement in most patients, they noted that longitudinal studies were needed to better understand the long-term risks.*



That marker has somewhat understood implications for health in other contexts. But I expect this is another area where not enough research has been done in the past, and a lot of future understanding of it will come the hard way, via real world patient data in the years and decades to come.

I suspect there is also low public awareness about viral myocarditis in pre-pandemic times. That the broader theoretical risks and long-term implications of myocarditis in general may be new to people is not going to help moderate reactions to them hearing about the vaccine-induced version of myocarditis. eg I wouldnt be surprised if people tend to think about heart health in terms of defects people might be born with, and genetic and lifestyle aspects which cause issues for heart health as we grow older. I'm not sure theres been much room in that picture for other possible dimensions such as the heart sometimes picking up damage over time via various infections, especially those usually considered to be far from deadly in the young.


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## elbows (Sep 3, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The loons with have a field day, if it goes ahead on the advice of the CMO's, but not the JCVI.


JCVI advice does have baked into it the idea that others might want to take a broader look at the balance and reach a different judgement. In some ways this is sensible and reasonable, in other ways its an establishsment fudge that leaves wiggle room but doesnt exactly provide a solid foundation on which to build confidence. Not that any of this detail will make much difference to loons, but it could affect how a broader group react, it may add to the sense of unease.

After finding various government statements, letters from health secretaries to CMOs about this Letter from UK health ministers to UK CMOs on COVID-19 vaccination of 12 to 15 year olds: 3 September 2021 , I finally found the actual updated advice from JCVI:









						JCVI issues updated advice on COVID-19 vaccination of children aged 12 to 15
					

The JCVI has reviewed the evidence on vaccinating children aged 12 to 15 who do not have underlying health conditions that put them at increased risk from severe COVID-19.




					www.gov.uk
				




It includes:



> The assessment by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is that the health benefits from vaccination are marginally greater than the potential known harms. However, the margin of benefit is considered too small to support universal vaccination of healthy 12 to 15 year olds at this time.
> 
> It is not within the JCVI’s remit to consider the wider societal impacts of vaccination, including educational benefits. The government may wish to seek further views on the wider societal and educational impacts from the Chief Medical Officers of the UK 4 nations.





> There is evidence of an association between mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and myocarditis. This is an extremely rare adverse event. The medium- to long-term effects are unknown and long-term follow-up is being conducted.
> 
> Given the very low risk of serious COVID-19 disease in otherwise healthy 12 to 15 year olds, considerations on the potential harms and benefits of vaccination are very finely balanced and a precautionary approach was agreed.



In some ways by already having agreed to vaccines for that age group where specific conditions that increase their covid risk are present, and by expanding that list of conditions further today, they've ended up making it harder to justify vaccinating children in that age range that dont have those risks.


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## zahir (Sep 3, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> The concern is over possible unknown long-term health effects stemming from this side-effect vs the 1:500,000 risk of severe complications from COVID.



Deepti Gurdasani disputing this figure:


----------



## zahir (Sep 3, 2021)

And a thread on this:


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## Elpenor (Sep 3, 2021)

Starting to wonder if I should restrict my social contacts to those without school age kids


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## _Russ_ (Sep 3, 2021)

Ive mostly avoided young parents for years anyway, do my fucking head in they do, they perceive the world as only existing to facilitate their needs, it’s completely natural of course but I reserve the right to show that demographic as little concern as they do everyone else


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## Sue (Sep 3, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Ive mostly avoided young parents for years anyway, do my fucking head in they do, they perceive the world as only existing to facilitate their needs, it’s completely natural of course but I reserve the right to show that demographic as little concern as they do everyone else


Jeez, you're a barrell of laughs.


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## nagapie (Sep 3, 2021)

A good thing there's no young parents on this board 😂.


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## Elpenor (Sep 3, 2021)

Bit extreme  , I’d really struggle without seeing my nieces regularly.


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## PursuedByBears (Sep 4, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Ive mostly avoided young parents for years anyway, do my fucking head in they do, they perceive the world as only existing to facilitate their needs, it’s completely natural of course but I reserve the right to show that demographic as little concern as they do everyone else


Fuck you too 😀


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## LeytonCatLady (Sep 4, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Ive mostly avoided young parents for years anyway, do my fucking head in they do, they perceive the world as only existing to facilitate their needs, it’s completely natural of course but I reserve the right to show that demographic as little concern as they do everyone else


Twat.


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## StoneRoad (Sep 4, 2021)

My great-nieces are still being home-schooled, the elder is probably "on the spectrum" [the diagnosis process is underway] and the younger is allergic to "almost everything".
Coupled with that, the two generations of adults in the household are all classed as medically very vulnerable. The eldest, my SiL, had her jabs the second day that they were being administered [she had had a stroke about nine months before].

I am so glad OH is retired from teaching, in all it's forms [was doing some EOTAS and supply until the gall-bladder episodes & hip replacement operation]. I dreaded the start of the autumn term, as something nasty in the cold/flu/digestive upset line almost always came back home in the first few weeks, and I usually went down with it.
Someone referred to schools as plague pits or germ warfare factories and personally speaking, I agree.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 4, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Ive mostly avoided young parents for years anyway, do my fucking head in they do, they perceive the world as only existing to facilitate their needs, it’s completely natural of course but I reserve the right to show that demographic as little concern as they do everyone else



Like everyone else, parents range from lovely to unspeakably awful. And like with everyone else, the awful ones are the ones you're more likely to notice. You don't notice quiet, well-behaved kids on a train; or a car that's not parked on the yellow zig zags; or a woman who accepts the news that the ice cream van has run out calippos with quiet composure instead of an acid-spitting rage tantrum. 

As my work involves dealing with parents I have to be very careful about generalising based on one particularly unpleasant encounter. With new parents you also have to ask yourself how reasonable you'd be after six months without any proper sleep.


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## klang (Sep 4, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> You don't notice quiet, well-behaved kids on a train


you'll def notice mine then.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 4, 2021)

klang said:


> you'll def notice mine then.



Well lucky for you there are others who do raise their kids properly, so the world remains a broadly habitable place.


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## klang (Sep 4, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Well lucky for you there are others who do raise their kids properly, so the world remains a broadly habitable place.


thanks. appreciated.


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## elbows (Sep 4, 2021)

I go on about Nick Triggle in this thread a lot during the pandemic not just because he has a knack for writing the occasional sentence that winds me up, but also because I use him as a bit of a barometer of establishment thinking and propaganda.

So I am inclined to read something into the content and timing of the following story. Its setting the scene, bringing together some of the reasons why the NHS is under such pressure with concerns about how it can cope. More attention could have been drawn to these things for several months already, but I'm not surprised that early September is when the need has been felt to present this picture on the BBC.









						Covid: Shaken to the core, can the NHS cope this winter?
					

The pandemic, the return of normal winter illnesses and a growing backlog, could stretch it to its limit.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Sometimes it feels like we are on a seasonal merry-go-round with heavy soundproofing and thoughtproofing between the seasons. Playing a tune in summer with deliberately zero regard for whether the story being told is sustainable past that season, and a fairly crude switchover to a different story with different mood and expectations whenever a new seasonal reality dawns.


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## elbows (Sep 4, 2021)

The extent of influenza this winter is one of the giant unknowns for me, up there with what happens to the covid rates. There are some very good reasons why they fear the potential exists for a bad flu season to occur. I share those concerns, but I suppose I do not exclude the possibility that we might get away without such a clusterfuck.


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## StoneRoad (Sep 4, 2021)

elbows said:


> The extent of influenza this winter is one of the giant unknowns for me, up there with what happens to the covid rates. There are some very good reasons why they fear the potential exists for a bad flu season to occur. I share those concerns, but I suppose I do not exclude the possibility that we might get away without such a clusterfuck.



Although our local GP (& others) have been promoting flu jabs for some months already ... there has been some noise about the lack of lorry drivers having the potential to disrupt supplies.

Which reminds me, I must get mine booked ... I'ld like to have that done & dusted before the potential covid boosters.

I'm mildly concerned as to whether "they" get the virus mix right this year. 
I had a jab last year, but was voluntarily sequestered / locked down over the period I would have expected to be at risk. So no idea how good or not last year's jab mix was in actual practice.


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 4, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Twat.


Havnt't got one, but hows yours?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 4, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Although our local GP (& others) have been promoting flu jabs for some months already ... there has been some noise about the lack of lorry drivers having the potential to disrupt supplies.



It's been in the news, and just a few minutes ago, I got a text from my GP saying supplies are delayed for 1 to 2 weeks, and don't contact them, they'll contact patients when they can book them.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Sep 4, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Havnt't got one, but hows yours?


In tip top condition from lack of contact with people like you, thanks!


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 4, 2021)

11 pupils in my nieces class in Scotland have covid including my niece.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Sep 4, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> 11 pupils in my nieces class in Scotland have covid including my niece.


Hope they all recover ASAP.


----------



## Sweet FA (Sep 4, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Well lucky for you there are others who do raise their kids properly, so the world remains a broadly habitable place.


----------



## BristolEcho (Sep 4, 2021)

Met two of my mates today who have been pissing me of since the beginning when they were sharing photos of them obviously out with mates during the first lockdown. General attitude of "does anyone actually know anyone with this?" You know, when the rest of us were drowning in stretched services and also isolating to protect others? 

No flat out covid denial but that real undertone of "it's not been that bad, I am alright jack" attitude which I had a few bites back at as I just am not in the mood. I'm not being overly cautious now though still masking up etc, but why is it so easy for them to dismiss so many deaths due to the inconvenience it caused to their steady and safe lives? Hard with relationships like that as my energy to maintain is not there.

Sorry bit of a rant there - and I did put them straight anyway but geeze it's hard not to anyalise their whole character based on this.


----------



## thismoment (Sep 4, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> With new parents you also have to ask yourself how reasonable you'd be after six months without any proper sleep.


….19 months no proper sleep. unreasonable AF


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 5, 2021)

There are of course many other less visible reasons for missing sleep sometimes lasting years, but I'll desist wandering from the subject now

Wales in the shit btw,
 I waited 12 hours in A&E in a waiting room recently with at peak  just 8 other people in a large new built Hospital (I don't know wtf was happening to any newly arrived cases after that they must have just sent them back home or left them in an ambulance), great new facility-no fucking Doctors, all through the night they just repeated the cycle of calling you in to a room taking your Vitals and pushing you back out to the waiting room

Latest situation:


			https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/public.health.wales.health.protection/viz/RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary


----------



## elbows (Sep 5, 2021)

If we were in the pre-vaccine pandemic era then I doubt I would hesitate to predict severe house of commons outbreak(s) with consequences for MPs health. Even in the vacine era that might still turn out to be the case, its just I cant be quite so confident about that outcome.

Anyway here is a Guardian live feed post about that, with lots of health professionals condemning the decision to go back to normal in that setting:

                           1h ago    12:24


----------



## Aladdin (Sep 5, 2021)

Its almost as if they have lost patience with those in society who are more vulnerable.  
The ultimate "I'm in the lifeboat" attitude.

Very frightening


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> If we were in the pre-vaccine pandemic era then I doubt I would hesitate to predict severe house og commons outbreak(s) with consequences for MPs health. Even in the vacine era that might still turn out to be the case, its just I cant be quite so confident about that outcome.
> 
> Anyway here is a Guardian live feed post about that, with lots of health professionals condemning the decision to go back to normal in that setting:
> 
> 1h ago    12:24



It's bonkers.

Still, if a few more of them end-up in hospital, maybe a few of the loony ones will change their attitude to it.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Sep 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's bonkers.
> 
> Still, if a few more of them end-up in hospital, maybe a few of the loony ones will change their attitude to it.


You'd think Johnson''s brush with death last year would've scared them, but obviously not.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 5, 2021)

Pal of my dad's (early 70s, double vaxxed) has been in bed with fluey symptoms for five days. Did three lateral flow tests at various points, all negative. He's just got his PCR test result back: positive. Bit concerning that even with two jags he's still feeling so unwell with it and that the lateral flow tests don't appear to have picked it up.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 5, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Pal of my dad's (early 70s, double vaxxed) has been in bed with fluey symptoms for five days. Did three lateral flow tests at various points, all negative. He's just got his PCR test result back: positive. Bit concerning that even with two jags he's still feeling so unwell with it and that the lateral flow tests don't appear to have picked it up.


For older people the risks from covid are so high that even in vaccinated older people the risk of serious illness is still significant. That's another thing that hasn't been communicated enough. But also it's a reminder that without the vaccine he would be worse, possibly fatally so.


----------



## Supine (Sep 6, 2021)

Interesting lockdown speculation









						Government plans October firebreak lockdown if Covid hospital admissions remain high
					

A senior Government scientist and Sage member has told i half-term could be extended to two weeks in late October if NHS is pushed to the brink of capacity




					inews.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Sep 6, 2021)

Supine said:


> Interesting lockdown speculation
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Plausible and consistent with stuff in SAGE documents I fished out a while back. ie stuff they were on about in July in regards how it would be a good idea to work out what level of hospitalisations cause too much pressure on the NHS, and how some sort of trigger levels should be determined. Unfortunately since last time I checked there werent any published SAGE documents from August, I dont currently know what happened next in that exercise to determine a trigger point. Probably something compatible with that article I would guess.


----------



## Dogsauce (Sep 6, 2021)

Hardly anyone wearing masks in Lidl earlier, customers or staff.  Kind of felt like a culture shock having been in Portugal until just over a week ago, where most are wearing them outside and everyone is inside. Have people given up trying?


----------



## MBV (Sep 6, 2021)

Not sure if time of day has an effect. Most people wearing them in supermarket (Sainsburys) on sat evening


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 6, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Hardly anyone wearing masks in Lidl earlier, customers or staff.  Kind of felt like a culture shock having been in Portugal until just over a week ago, where most are wearing them outside and everyone is inside. Have people given up trying?


Pretty much. It can be quite difficult to not give in to it. Like sitting outside a pub and putting a mask on to go in to a toilet. But everyone in the pub is not wearing them, including those walking around, so you feel like a numpty and also feel like what's the point.

I think it's one of the reasons transmission rates have crept up - behaviour has gradually changed over the course of the summer.


----------



## elbows (Sep 6, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Hardly anyone wearing masks in Lidl earlier, customers or staff.  Kind of felt like a culture shock having been in Portugal until just over a week ago, where most are wearing them outside and everyone is inside. Have people given up trying?



Some never wanted to bother in the first place, some take their cues from others and so it was a very slippery slope once less people bothered, some stopped because they took their cues from shit government advice/the letter of the regulations.

I can understand why staff often resembled the first to abandon such things, but I found this especially unfortunate given the way people take their cues from others and the ways a sense of defeatism and fatalism can so easily set in.

Unless there are incredible successes in the coming weeks, I expect the government to feel the need to start singing a different song about masks again, ie they will start encouraging their use in various settings again.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 6, 2021)

SPONSORED
Pupils and staff look forward to more familiar routine as schools return in September​
Advertisement feature from the UK Government


----------



## two sheds (Sep 6, 2021)

Coming soon in the Independent: 

*People with coronavirus looking forward to nice little holiday in hospital *


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 6, 2021)

two sheds said:


> SPONSORED
> Pupils and staff look forward to more familiar routine as schools return in September​
> Advertisement feature from the UK Government



Except here in Devon where it'll still be masks and bubbles


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 7, 2021)

two sheds said:


> SPONSORED
> Pupils and staff look forward to more familiar routine as schools return in September​
> Advertisement feature from the UK Government



So to be clear we have simultaneously a discussion about the school half term being used as an extended firebreak combined with the government using our money to pay for adverts which say its all fine in schools?

What a time to be alive.  Those of us that survive that is.


----------



## elbows (Sep 7, 2021)

Supine said:


> Interesting lockdown speculation
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I note that the following denial doesnt actually deny any of the important things. The denial is just built around the fact the measures only get triggered if the situation is bad enough.









						Covid: No plans for October lockdown, says government
					

Officials deny a newspaper report saying new rules could come in around England's half-term holiday.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 7, 2021)

Interesting reaction to the Hospital's policy stance [from a member of frontline staff]









						Covid: Unvaccinated frontline NHS staff at Southampton hospital to be redeployed
					

Southampton trust says it wants to keep patients safe but one staff member says she feels "bullied".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## oryx (Sep 7, 2021)

> One member of staff said they felt "bullied" by the trust's decision.
> Speaking to the BBC anonymously, she said: "I made my mind up that I'm not quite ready yet to have it [the vaccine] and it's my own risk, isn't it?"


No, it's other people's risk as well, you complete idiot.

(From the article StoneRoad has posted above).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 7, 2021)

> The woman explained: "For me, I think it's freedom of choice. I'm not against vaccines. I do understand the purpose of vaccinations."



How about the freedom of choice for the patients not to be infected by you?


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 7, 2021)

oryx said:


> No, it's other people's risk as well, you complete idiot.
> 
> (From the article StoneRoad has posted above).


Exactly ! 
That "it's my own risk" is a serious fallacy ... 

I hope more hospital trusts start this re-deployment process. I believe the one that employs my SiL is starting something similar, now they've got down into the real refusniks, after a long term but low key persuasion campaign.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 7, 2021)

If nothing else, a hospital trust would lay itself open to claims of negligence and compensation if a patient caught covid from one of these tossers.


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 8, 2021)

two sheds said:


> If nothing else, a hospital trust would lay itself open to claims of negligence and compensation if a patient caught covid from one of these tossers.


Thing is proving it aint straightforward.
No doubt many patients have already caught it from Hospital staff (I know at one point a month or so ago some Hospitals only required twice weekly Lateral flow tests for staff so fuck knows how many of them really have it)  how do you prove that a Patient  caught it from an unvaccinated member?
Anyone heard of any litigation in this respect yet?, I havn't


----------



## IC3D (Sep 8, 2021)

Hospitals are full of unmasked unvaccinated patients. An HCP who is wearing a mask and sanitising their hands is far less of a risk than someone in the bed next to you or their visitors. They are public spaces.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 8, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Hospitals are full of unmasked unvaccinated patients. An HCP who is wearing a mask and sanitising their hands is far less of a risk than someone in the bed next to you or their visitors. They are public spaces.


Not if they are examining your eyes, lifting you off the bed, administering just about any procedure etc.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 8, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Thing is proving it aint straightforward.
> No doubt many patients have already caught it from Hospital staff (I know at one point a month or so ago some Hospitals only required twice weekly Lateral flow tests for staff so fuck knows how many of them really have it)  how do you prove that a Patient  caught it from an unvaccinated member?
> Anyone heard of any litigation in this respect yet?, I havn't


Wouldn't an analysis of the particular form of covid be able to tell who it came from? 

I'd have thought hospitals who let front line staff wander round unvaccinated would have difficulty demonstrating they'd performed due care, particularly if a patient had entered the hospital without covid.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 8, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Not if they are examining your eyes, lifting you off the bed, administering just about any procedure etc.


I had an x ray on my knee the other day and the unwell looking woman next to me in a packed waiting room said you might not want to sit there Ive got covid. I moved.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 8, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I had an x ray on my knee the other day and the unwell looking woman next to me in a packed waiting room said you might not want to sit there Ive got covid. I moved.


FFS! Even though she may have come via A and E there are still multiple warnings about not attending if you have Covid symptoms (or, presumably, going through a different route if you have something serious that needs immediate attention).


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 8, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I had an x ray on my knee the other day and the unwell looking woman next to me in a packed waiting room said you might not want to sit there Ive got covid. I moved.


What a fucking idiot


----------



## IC3D (Sep 8, 2021)

S☼I said:


> What a fucking idiot


What I should have stayed there?


----------



## two sheds (Sep 8, 2021)

I think S☼I meant her


----------



## xenon (Sep 8, 2021)

S☼I said:


> What a fucking idiot



genuine question, what are you meant to do then if you have coronavirus but need urgent medical attention for something else. and presumably get to the hospital they stick you somewhere to wait. if there isn’t an isolation ward or something and you can’t sit in the car park...


----------



## IC3D (Sep 8, 2021)

She was a Covid patient the porter who brought her presumably for a CXR fucked up and left her in the main area. I told staff that it needed to be flagged as an incident but I doubt they did.


----------



## xenon (Sep 8, 2021)

So yeah, she’s probably not an idiot.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Sep 8, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I think S☼I meant her


Yeah, I meant the Covid woman was an idiot


----------



## elbows (Sep 8, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Hospitals are full of unmasked unvaccinated patients. An HCP who is wearing a mask and sanitising their hands is far less of a risk than someone in the bed next to you or their visitors. They are public spaces.



Authorities wont ignore pathways of transmission involving healthcare workers just because there are also other sources of transmission in hospitals. 

Some studies have been done involving genomic sequencing in order to better understand hospital spread. These studies are not really comprehensive enough for me to start throwing around solid numbers that would indicate proportion of cases where healthcare workers are involved or anything like that. But the studies certainly indicate that they obtain a much less complete picture of clusters if they leave contacts involving healthcare workers out of the picture.

An intro to one study last year:









						Spread of COVID-19 mapped in hospitals to ‘break the chain’ of transmission
					

A first-of-its kind clinical trial, led by scientists at UCL, will evaluate the use of ‘real time’ viral genomic data to reduce the spread of COVID-19 within hospitals.




					www.ucl.ac.uk
				




The results of one study:









						Genomic and healthcare dynamics of nosocomial SARS-CoV-2 transmission
					

Characterisation of SARS-CoV-2 genomic divergence in healthcare-associated outbreaks demonstrates that the inclusion of healthcare workers in contact networks identifies additional links in SARS-CoV-2 transmission pathways.




					elifesciences.org
				




I have very mixed feelings about mandatory vaccination. It a difficult area, but its certainly not one where I would seek to diminish the merits by pointing to other risks that exist in that environment. Need to tackle things on as many fronts as possible.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 8, 2021)

Yea elbows having read the findings of the study you posted it confirms that patient spread was a major factor and confirms HC workers playing a role in transmission. 
I'll say that things change, in march 2020 failure to protect patients and HCPs led to outbreaks in care homes and deaths in hospital workers. 
However the picture is different now partly due to extensive testing of inpatients, high levels of vaccination of both patients and HCPs and better protocols but as my previous post shows not always effective, what triggers me is the disrespect to personal choice of workers who most likely have caught covid a long time ago and have antibodies. I don't know any HCPs who worked frontline and didn't. At this point there is very low levels in hospitals. They are generally safe environments as much as anywhere else.


----------



## elbows (Sep 8, 2021)

There were really huge numbers of hospital acquired infections in the autumn/winter wave(s) too. Which is not to say there had not been improvements by then compared to the first wave situation. But there was still a big problem with spread in hospitals later. This time around I havent seen detailed analysis and data yet but from the vaguer data I have seen, so far the situation has been much more impressive. I am unsure quite how much of that to attribute to vaccines, it is very tempting to attribute a lot to that, in regards both patients and workers. I wait nervously to see whether these gains hold true this autumn and winter.

I am not sure whether I believe vaccination should be an entirely personal choice for all workers in heath and care. Having seen the eye watering number of infections that have been attributed to hospital spread in the pandemic so far, I am really torn. I suspect that if I were placed in a position where I was the one making a decision about that, I would not want unvaccinated people in frontline healthcare roles at all, regardless of whether they'd been infected in the past.


----------



## elbows (Sep 8, 2021)

But like I said, I'm torn on that, so almost as soon as I write something like that last post, I start to have doubts and end up feeling glad that I dont have to make decisions about such things.

If I restrict myself to look at the issue only from a single angle, its obviously much easier. For example I imagine my reaction if one of my loved ones had to go into hospital and interact with unvaccinated staff, I would think patients should have the right to expect much better than that. 

Another decision I would find incredibly difficult is the question of booster jabs. I see this is in the news again because some vaccine scientists dont want it to happen soon because it will rob them of certain real-world data. Data is very valuable so I can see where they are coming from, but I dont really like the full implications of this sort of thinking, it could place a fair chunk of the population at unnecessary risk for a period. But then I also dont like global vaccine inequalities and might prefer to focus on initial doses in other countries at this stage.









						AstraZeneca bosses warn against rush for boosters
					

Data on whether they are needed is still awaited but ministers say the NHS is ready to go if they are.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Sep 8, 2021)

Watch out for the detail behind this sort of statement from Johnson:



> Three quarters of those hospitalised had not had a Covid jab, with a "higher proportion" of younger people now being affected, he said.











						Covid: Boris Johnson concerned over unvaccinated hospital patients
					

Boris Johnson says a "higher proportion" of younger people are being affected by the virus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




When it comes to daily hospital admissions in England, I cannot comment on what the very latest proportions are in terms of vaccinated/unvaccinated. Its been reported in my local press that of the covid patients in hospital here, half were not double jabbed.

What I'd draw attention to is the description of the changing age profile. Because the claim still has some truth to it, but the shifting picture over the last month or so is absent from that description.

The winter wave featured periods where for England approximately 60% of the daily hospital admissions for covid were in people aged 65 and over. Around the time of the mid July 2021 peak, the picture was indeed quite different, peoples aged 65 and over were down to about 30% of daily admissions. But ever since then that has been creeping up again, and in the most recent data those aged 65+ are getting close to accounting for 50% of daily hospital admissions.

I think this is probably one of the larger stories not being told at the moment. I have told it here before via some graphs, and the trend has continued since I last did that.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

I have moaned recently that unlike Scotland, Englands published number of hospitalisations etc by vaccine status was limited to those cases deemed to be Delta, and was only showing a small fraction of the full picture as a result (even though we expect most cases are actually Delta these days, they hadnt use that assumption in their methodology).

It looks like they have now rectified this, though I havent actually looked into the data yet.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

Hope nobody minds me posting other tweets from that series. It should be rather obvious why I was moaning about this picture previously being missing.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> The winter wave featured periods where for England approximately 60% of the daily hospital admissions for covid were in people aged 65 and over. Around the time of the mid July 2021 peak, the picture was indeed quite different, peoples aged 65 and over were down to about 30% of daily admissions. But ever since then that has been creeping up again, and in the most recent data those aged 65+ are getting close to accounting for 50% of daily hospital admissions.
> 
> I think this is probably one of the larger stories not being told at the moment. I have told it here before via some graphs, and the trend has continued since I last did that.


Since the monthly NHS England data which involves a more detailed number of different age groups was published today, I can now post a graph about this.

Sorry that some of the colours repeat. The youngest age groups are at the bottom of this chart. So the yellow, green and grey parts at the top of the chart represent those aged 65 and over. We can see that during the July peak the younger age groups made up a greater proportion of daily admissions/diagnoses than is now the case.

Data is from the spreadsheet linked to at the very bottom of this page Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

I havent had a chance to look at this properly:


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

To protect my own mental health I have not spent a lot of time this year seeing what foul shit the Great Barrington pandemic arseholes have been spewing. But I saw this on twitter and thought I better mention it.

Hopefully my own stance is clear enough that I can go on and on about some of the limitations to vaccines, and the risks that remain, without using that to reach incorrect conclusions or to pedal inappropriate policies. Generally speaking, ignore shit that relies on crude binary thinking. eg the fact that vaccines dont prevent all transmission doesnt mean they have an irrelevant impact on transmission.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

Even though I knew this period would be messy and much harder to predict, I seem to have managed to surprise myself in regards quite how uncertain I currently am about the prospect of cases in England seeing a rapid and massive spike in case numbers as a result of the return to schools.

Itt appears that no matter how much I might have claimed to have be keeping an open mind about that sort of thing, there was still some expectation in my mind of seeing signs of such a spike in the data by now. Perhaps my sense of timing is off and we will still see this in the next week or so. Perhaps it will be a slower affair that grinds on without a huge spike on top of whats already there. Perhaps an entirely different pattern will emerge, surprising people in much the same way the July drop caused some surprise. Perhaps what happens next will offer some strong clues about what actually happened in July to result in the pattern we've seen since reopening/removal of restrictions.

I never had crystal balls in this pandemic, but if that impression was sometimes given then I have to report that my balls have shrunk!


----------



## IC3D (Sep 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> To protect my own mental health I have not spent a lot of time this year seeing what foul shit the Great Barrington pandemic arseholes have been spewing. But I saw this on twitter and thought I better mention it.
> 
> Hopefully my own stance is clear enough that I can go on and on about some of the limitations to vaccines, and the risks that remain, without using that to reach incorrect conclusions or to pedal inappropriate policies. Generally speaking, ignore shit that relies on crude binary thinking. eg the fact that vaccines dont prevent all transmission doesnt mean they have an irrelevant impact on transmission.


The vaccine (dubious name) doesn't prevent infection or onward transmission. It does wonderfully prevent serious illness and death for the individual. Laying it on thick in the hope it will reduce transmission in society is wishful and looking increasingly poorly evidenced.   Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant Among Vaccinated Healthcare Workers, Vietnam


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

Your claim is dangerously close to misleadingly suggesting that vaccination doesnt reduce infection and transmission at all.

All year I have doned on about the dangers of asking vaccines to carry too much pandemic weight alone. That doesnt mean I have any interest in denying the impressive amount of difference they can make.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 9, 2021)

IC3D said:


> The vaccine (dubious name) doesn't prevent infection or onward transmission.


Infection and transmission are not simple binary outcomes. There are degrees in reduction of each and that varying as a function of time (since seroconversion), as well as prior exposure to antigen.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

2hats said:


> Infection and transmission are not simple binary outcomes. There are degrees in reduction of each and that varying as a function of time (since seroconversion), as well as prior exposure to antigen.


Given the choice of which healthcare workers me and my loved ones would interact with, I would choose people who had been both infected and vaccinated, because on paper they have the best protection.

Ideally I would like anyone who doesnt want to get vaccinated in response to this sort of pandemic to leave the health service. Although that wouldnt be ideal for years because it would cause staffing issues that would take a long time to fix. But given the choice when pushed, thats which way I lean.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Your claim is dangerously close to misleadingly suggesting that vaccination doesnt reduce infection and transmission at all.
> 
> All year I have doned on about the dangers of asking vaccines to carry too much pandemic weight alone. That doesnt mean I have any interest in denying the impressive amount of difference they can make.


Yet a completely different statement at the same time. The degree to which infection is prevented by the current vaccine seems to be decreasing and I think massively overstated in the first place.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

Such estimates were expected to diminish because early estimates at a time where prevalence was reducing were inevitably on the high side. The real test was going to be how well vaccines did when other measures were relaxed and a new wave emerged. Plus early anaysis involved a previous variant and Delta is a trickier foe.

But these sorts of things change the numbers game in a manner that makes authorities more desperate to increase proportion of population that are vaccinated, not less. And I agree, these things are all reasons to get more people vaccinated.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Given the choice of which healthcare workers me and my loved ones would interact with, I would choose people who had been both infected and vaccinated, because on paper they have the best protection.


Interestingly, studies are currently underway to investigate if vaccination then infection yields a similar "supercharged" hybrid immunity response as that arising from infection then vaccination.


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

2hats said:


> Interestingly, studies are currently underway to investigate if vaccination then infection yields a similar "supercharged" hybrid immunity response as that arising from infection then vaccination.


Good, I'd been meaning to ask you if it was expected to work the other way around. Fingers crossed.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 9, 2021)

Seems pretty likely Covid is here to stay doesn't it



> Adults who have been fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 can carry the same viral load of the delta variant as those who are unvaccinated, a preliminary analysis of UK data suggests.1











						Covid-19: Fully vaccinated people can carry as much delta virus as unvaccinated people, data indicate
					

Adults who have been fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 can carry the same viral load of the delta variant as those who are unvaccinated, a preliminary analysis of UK data suggests.1  The latest results from the UK’s national covid-19 infection survey show that having two vaccine doses remains...




					www.bmj.com
				





> University of East Anglia’s Paul Hunter noted, “There is now quite a lot of evidence that all vaccines are much better at reducing the risk of severe disease than they are at reducing the risk from infection. We now know that vaccination will not stop infection and transmission, [but it does] reduce the risk. The main value of immunisation is in reducing the risk of severe disease and death.”


----------



## Artaxerxes (Sep 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Your claim is dangerously close to misleadingly suggesting that vaccination doesnt reduce infection and transmission at all.
> 
> All year I have doned on about the dangers of asking vaccines to carry too much pandemic weight alone. That doesnt mean I have any interest in denying the impressive amount of difference they can make.



Perfect is the enemy of good - I won't take the vaccine or trust it because it's not perfect just means you or your loved ones will catch it and catch it hard


----------



## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Seems pretty likely Covid is here to stay doesn't it
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Part of that quote says "[but it does] reduce the risk". On that basis I am very much at odds with your stance.

I didnt expect Covid to go away so there is no great revelation on that front.


----------



## IC3D (Sep 9, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Perfect is the enemy of good - I won't take the vaccine or trust it because it's not perfect just means you or your loved ones will catch it and catch it hard


You're both making a straw man here. I've not insisted on a perfect vaccine or deny it saves lives. It is clear though it won't stop or possibly effect transmission greatly. I just find it interesting how things are or may evolve


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## Supine (Sep 9, 2021)

IC3D said:


> You're both making a straw man here. I've not insisted on a perfect vaccine or deny it saves lives. It is clear though it won't stop or possibly effect transmission greatly. I just find it interesting how things are or may evolve



Not sure what point you are trying to make tbh.


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## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

IC3D said:


> You're both making a straw man here. I've not insisted on a perfect vaccine or deny it saves lives. It is clear though it won't stop or possibly effect transmission greatly. I just find it interesting how things are or may evolve



Well I'm pretty sure that earlier in the year I warned about overselling vaccines abilities in public health messaging because of how messy it can get when people realise the picture is more nuanced than that. So I always watch with interest to see how things evolve on that front.

But you seem to have combined that interest with your views about whether healthcare workers need to be vaccinated, and have been leaning towards a 'why bother' attitude to justify that stance. The cherrypicked evidence you present is getting right on my tits.


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## andysays (Sep 9, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Seems pretty likely Covid is here to stay doesn't it
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm not a doctor or a statistician, but even I know that the word "can" in this sentence 

_Adults who have been fully vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 can carry the same viral load of the delta variant as those who are unvaccinated, a preliminary analysis of UK data suggests_

could mean that the worst/highest levels of viral load in vaccinated adults are the same or similar to the best/lowest cases in unvaccinated adults


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## StoneRoad (Sep 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Even though I knew this period would be messy and much harder to predict, I seem to have managed to surprise myself in regards quite how uncertain I currently am about the prospect of cases in England seeing a rapid and massive spike in case numbers as a result of the return to schools.
> 
> Itt appears that no matter how much I might have claimed to have be keeping an open mind about that sort of thing, there was still some expectation in my mind of seeing signs of such a spike in the data by now. Perhaps my sense of timing is off and we will still see this in the next week or so. Perhaps it will be a slower affair that grinds on without a huge spike on top of whats already there. Perhaps an entirely different pattern will emerge, surprising people in much the same way the July drop caused some surprise. Perhaps what happens next will offer some strong clues about what actually happened in July to result in the pattern we've seen since reopening/removal of restrictions.
> 
> I never had crystal balls in this pandemic, but if that impression was sometimes given then I have to report that my balls have shrunk!


To go back to this point about a potential rise in cases as schools etc go back in September.

The school my OH used to teach at was running pre-return testing (pre-booked) in the first few days this week. Which may, or may not pick up some cases. I don't recall if it was mandatory. Monday was inset / test admin training plus some actual testing.
This school has well over 1000 pupils to test, even with pre-booking that's some target.

What I do expect is that even with such pre-term screening, once the new term gets underway, there will be a spike in cases. Purely from the degree of social mixing in the schools setting. 
All it needs is for a pupil zero to have an infection but with insufficient virus to be detected on testing day(s) and for the virus to then develop enough to be infectious to others who are susceptible before they get detected by the next test.


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## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

Yes there isnt much doubt about transmission opportunities. But I'm still unsure how much difference it will make to the overall picture.

These uncertainties for me are also sponsored by the fact that if I try to use Scotland as a guide as to what happens in England, there are some other differences. For example they relaxed certain restrictions much later than England, and its probably not so easy for me to tell how much of their huge spike in cases was down to those relaxations as oppsoed to schools going back.

Certainly in terms of number of tests each day in England, the school holidays show up pretty clearly. And this is another reason why I might have expected to see a more obvious spike in positive cases already.

So just to be clear, the following graph is for number of tests in England, not number of positives:



And its a similar story for the number of lateral flow tests graph for England that is available from the same source, the official dashboard. Note that the first graph above does already include such lateral flow tests as part of its overall totals.


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## StoneRoad (Sep 9, 2021)

That peak on the 6th September appears to correspond with pre-term school testing (at least around here - Northumberland ; OH taught in Gateshead)


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## elbows (Sep 9, 2021)

They were one of the later areas to go back then. A lot of places were the week before that. Leicestershire were even earlier back. 

Its possible to see the same data per local area on the dashboard, and the school restart sends a strong enough signal in the data that such graphs of tests conducted probably allow us to figure out when term started in different places without even having to look the term dates up! But I cant really be filling this thread up with all of those. But just to give one example, the one below is for lateral flow tests in Leicestershire.


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## Brainaddict (Sep 10, 2021)

A question for the data geeks. We know anecdotally that once restrictions relaxed, people began to (a) test themselves with lateral flow tests (and not pcr) when they have symptoms and (b) use the re-emergence of the common cold to convince themselves they had only a cold without bothering to test, even though both the delta variant and the vaccine made distinguishing between them almost impossible without a test. Is it possible to work out how much of the drop in positive test figures was due to those two factors?


----------



## Supine (Sep 10, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> A question for the data geeks. We know anecdotally that once restrictions relaxed, people began to (a) test themselves with lateral flow tests (and not pcr) when they have symptoms and (b) use the re-emergence of the common cold to convince themselves they had only a cold without bothering to test, even though both the delta variant and the vaccine made distinguishing between them almost impossible without a test. Is it possible to work out how much of the drop in positive test figures was due to those two factors?



Data geeks don’t work on a couple of anecdotes 

As to (a) above - if people test lft and don’t pcr report wouldn’t this raise test positivity


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## teuchter (Sep 10, 2021)

Things aren't looking great in Scotland. Although, it does appear that hospitalisations aren't really translating into deaths.


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## Brainaddict (Sep 10, 2021)

Supine said:


> Data geeks don’t work on a couple of anecdotes
> 
> As to (a) above - if people test lft and don’t pcr report wouldn’t this raise test positivity


Anecdotes aren't data but there's nothing wrong with using anecdotes to inspire you to go looking for something in data. Scientists often go looking for things based on 'instinct', personal experience and all sorts of 'unscientific' factors. In fact those factors are very much necessary for uncovering things that looking at data alone wouldn't have told you.


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## Supine (Sep 10, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Anecdotes aren't data but there's nothing wrong with using anecdotes to inspire you to go looking for something in data. Scientists often go looking for things based on 'instinct', personal experience and all sorts of 'unscientific' factors. In fact those factors are very much necessary for uncovering things that looking at data alone wouldn't have told you.



Thanks for the science lesson 

Put forward your hypothesis and we can test it


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## Dogsauce (Sep 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> They were one of the later areas to go back then. A lot of places were the week before that. Leicestershire were even earlier back.
> 
> Its possible to see the same data per local area on the dashboard, and the school restart sends a strong enough signal in the data that such graphs of tests conducted probably allow us to figure out when term started in different places without even having to look the term dates up! But I cant really be filling this thread up with all of those. But just to give one example, the one below is for lateral flow tests in Leicestershire.
> 
> View attachment 287585


Do these tests only include NHS tests? There will have been a lot of private testing towards the end of the summer break as people came back from holidays overseas.  Where do those numbers go, are they excluded or differentiated somehow?


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## Teaboy (Sep 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> The vaccine (dubious name) doesn't prevent infection or onward transmission.



I have no idea why you would speak with such assured and ill-deserved confidence on a matter where there remains so many unknowns.  Have the last 18 months taught you nothing?

What they have taught me is to be very distrustful of those who would claim to make bold absolutist claims during this pandemic.


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## IC3D (Sep 10, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I have no idea why you would speak with such assured and ill-deserved confidence on a matter where there remains so many unknowns.  Have the last 18 months taught you nothing?
> 
> What they have taught me is to be very distrustful of those who would claim to make bold absolutist claims during this pandemic.


The statement linked is absolutely true. It's an established fact, some quarters play it down but it is not a false claim


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## teuchter (Sep 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> The statement linked is absolutely true. It's an established fact, some quarters play it down but it is not a false claim


When you say it doesn't prevent infection or onwards transmission, I think you mean that it doesn't prevent it completely.

However, it does reduce the risk that someone will be infected or transmit the infection onwards.

Do you agree with the second sentence?


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## elbows (Sep 10, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> A question for the data geeks. We know anecdotally that once restrictions relaxed, people began to (a) test themselves with lateral flow tests (and not pcr) when they have symptoms and (b) use the re-emergence of the common cold to convince themselves they had only a cold without bothering to test, even though both the delta variant and the vaccine made distinguishing between them almost impossible without a test. Is it possible to work out how much of the drop in positive test figures was due to those two factors?



Normally I would try to account for any impact on changing attitudes towards symptoms and getting tested by looking at other data that is not so influenced by such things. For example the ONS survey which uses random sampling in the community to infer rates of prevalence in private households. And very much the hospitalisation figures a week or so later than the positive case figures. I would also be sure to try to look at all these forms of data by age group. And things like the percentage of positive tests can be used as an indication of whether enough testing is being done. In many periods I'd also advise looking at data on number of tests taken, but this was, as expected, massively affected by school holidays which clouds that picture and makes it less than suitable for getting to the bottom of the anecdotal picture you mention due to similar timing.

On this occasion I've mostly just compared positive test results to hospital admissions/diagnoses. And there is a good match, so the drops seen were very real, not a mere artefact of changing attitudes to testing. For example the drop in case numbers was largest in the younger age groups, and this same pattern was then seen in hospital data. As we travel up through the age groups, the July drop in cases becomes more modest, and the drop in hospitalisations in those age groups becomes more modest too. I've not got time for graphs right now but for some age groups what I've said is shown quite powerfully, its not a subtle change. And in age groups like 18-24 and 25-34, the drop in hospital admissions has been sustained. But by the time we get to age groups like 65-74 and 75-84, there was barely a drop in the first place, more of a levelling off followed by a gradual rise. Everything I've said in this paragraph relates to data for England rather than the UK as a whole.

Since you mention lateral flow tests its probably also worth pointing out that the positive case figure for England include those who test positive with lateral flow tests, although that obviously only applies where the results are reported to authorities and these positives are also removed from the figures later if they test negative on a subsequent PCR test taken within a few days of the lateral flow test.


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## Teaboy (Sep 10, 2021)

IC3D said:


> The statement linked is absolutely true. It's an established fact, some quarters play it down but it is not a false claim



No, you've not understood it properly.  That's fine you're clearly not an expert, neither am I which is why we should be wary of making such definitive statements.


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## zora (Sep 10, 2021)

Args, I know we discussed this some pages back, but my vexation at the situation hasn't lessened:

This is now the third fucking time that a colleague is merrily informing me that they haven't got covid - after I spent the lunch break in the staffroom with them, and something raised my suspicion about their state of health.
In this case, I noticed my colleague snivelling a bit towards the end of our lunchbreak, but told myself "let's not be paranoid, everyone can have a bit of an allergy or whatever else". Only then he gets up and I notice him popping some panadol.
Me (innocently): "Are you feeling alright?". Colleague: "Yeah I have just got this really sore throat". Me: "Gnmrrrmph!" Colleague: "Don't worry, it's not covid, I have taken a lateral flow test"...

This is two weeks after a colleague came in with exact same symptoms and negative LFT, only to test positive by the evening. Aaaarghhh! 🤬

Have raised this with management who sound somewhat sympathetic to my idea that people just stay the fuck at home for at least a couple of days with ANY symptoms.
I totally blame government guidance on this which STILL hasn't (and now presumably never will) updated the fucking list of symptoms for which to get PCR tested. (I know that you could just tick the "I have a cough"-box anyway, but the guidance is just fucking shit).
Or if they really really "must" come in I'd appreciate it if they told me so that I could eat my lunch outside and don an FFP2 mask when indoors!

And I know I have been living a comparatively sheltered life that this is only the third time in the whole pandemic this is happening, compared to people in healthcare or with kids in school etc, but it is just so...unnecessary!


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## Brainaddict (Sep 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> Normally I would try to account for any impact on changing attitudes towards symptoms and getting tested by looking at other data that is not so influenced by such things. For example the ONS survey which uses random sampling in the community to infer rates of prevalence in private households. And very much the hospitalisation figures a week or so later than the positive case figures. I would also be sure to try to look at all these forms of data by age group. And things like the percentage of positive tests can be used as an indication of whether enough testing is being done. In many periods I'd also advise looking at data on number of tests taken, but this was, as expected, massively affected by school holidays which clouds that picture and makes it less than suitable for getting to the bottom of the anecdotal picture you mention due to similar timing.
> 
> On this occasion I've mostly just compared positive test results to hospital admissions/diagnoses. And there is a good match, so the drops seen were very real, not a mere artefact of changing attitudes to testing. For example the drop in case numbers was largest in the younger age groups, and this same pattern was then seen in hospital data. As we travel up through the age groups, the July drop in cases becomes more modest, and the drop in hospitalisations in those age groups becomes more modest too. I've not got time for graphs right now but for some age groups what I've said is shown quite powerfully, its not a subtle change. And in age groups like 18-24 and 25-34, the drop in hospital admissions has been sustained. But by the time we get to age groups like 65-74 and 75-84, there was barely a drop in the first place, more of a levelling off followed by a gradual rise. Everything I've said in this paragraph relates to data for England rather than the UK as a whole.
> 
> Since you mention lateral flow tests its probably also worth pointing out that the positive case figure for England include those who test positive with lateral flow tests, although that obviously only applies where the results are reported to authorities and these positives are also removed from the figures later if they test negative on a subsequent PCR test taken within a few days of the lateral flow test.


Thanks, that's good to know


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## elbows (Sep 10, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Do these tests only include NHS tests? There will have been a lot of private testing towards the end of the summer break as people came back from holidays overseas.  Where do those numbers go, are they excluded or differentiated somehow?



Pillar 1 is the NHS testing, the capacity of which gradually grew to just over 200,000 per day. Pillar 2 is the testing done via 'commercial partners', network of labs etc. This has two to three times the stated capacity of the pillar 1 NHS testing. Both are included in the figures for positive cases. 

The two dont tend to be differentiated between on the official dashboard, but lots of the data that appears in the weekly surveillance reports is split into pillar 1 and pillar 2. But since pillar 2 is about far more than travel-related testing alone, this still wont allow you to see travel-related figures separately. Weekly surveillance reports for England are available at National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports: 2021 to 2022 season


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## elbows (Sep 10, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Thanks, that's good to know



A couple of graphs to somewhat illustrate the point I made. I've cut corners to get these so the hospital admissions include a very broad 18-64 age group, and for positive case rates I've just coped something off the official dashboard. Both are for England only.

Dashboard case rates graph. The light blue line is case rates for those aged 0-59, the dark blue line is case rates for those aged 60 and over.



Hospital admissions. The initial drop is very clear to see, primarily in those aged 18-64, but unfortunately so is the gradual rise in admissions in older age groups since then.


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## 2hats (Sep 10, 2021)

Heterologous boosting this autumn (the JCVI discussed COV-Boost study results yesterday).
UK prepares for ‘mix and match’ Covid vaccine booster programme


> Government officials said it was expected that many people would receive a booster vaccine different to the one used for their first two doses.
> 
> One senior Department of Health insider said: “We’ll be giving Pfizer to those who had AstraZeneca the first time, and AstraZeneca to those who had Pfizer. It’s the best combination to get as much protection as possible.”





Spoiler: UK prepares for ‘mix and match’ Covid vaccine booster programme - full text



UK prepares for ‘mix and match’ Covid vaccine booster programme
Government officials say using different jabs for third doses should provide better protection
Sebastian Payne, Sarah Neville, Hannah Kuchler and Oliver Barnes in London, 6 hours ago, FT 10/09/2021

The UK is preparing to become the first big country to administer “mix and match” coronavirus vaccines for its booster programme, according to senior government figures.
Many Britons are expected to have a third, booster dose that is different to their first two jabs, on the basis that it would provide better protection against Covid-19, said the government insiders.
Ministers want to press ahead with an autumn booster campaign after separate studies from Oxford university and the team behind the Zoe Covid app found that the protection against symptomatic infection provided by the BioNTech/Pfizer and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines waned four to six months after second doses.
A final decision by the government on its booster plan will be made once the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, an advisory body, has made a recommendation.
The UK’s vaccination programme has been dominated by AstraZeneca, which has been found to have lower effectiveness against infection with the Delta variant of coronavirus compared with Pfizer.
However, some studies have suggested that AstraZeneca’s effectiveness declines more slowly than Pfizer’s.
The JCVI has been preparing its guidance for the government about the booster programme.
Members of the JCVI met on Thursday to analyse data from the University of Southampton’s Cov-Boost trial. It has looked at antibody responses among people who were initially given AstraZeneca or Pfizer jabs when they are subsequently given one of seven different vaccines as a third dose.
Previous research has suggested benefits in mixing and matching vaccines. An Oxford university study, published in June, showed people who received a first jab of AstraZeneca followed by a second of Pfizer experienced a nine-fold increase in antibody levels compared with those who had two doses of AstraZeneca.
Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, said a combination of AstraZeneca and a vaccine using mRNA technology such as Pfizer “may give better, longer-lasting protection when used together”.
Government officials said it was expected that many people would receive a booster vaccine different to the one used for their first two doses.
One senior Department of Health insider said: “We’ll be giving Pfizer to those who had AstraZeneca the first time, and AstraZeneca to those who had Pfizer. It’s the best combination to get as much protection as possible.”
Another senior Whitehall official confirmed that mixing doses was “how we’re going to do the autumn booster programme”.
The Department of Health said in response to a request for comment: “Our independent regulator, the MHRA, has confirmed the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines are safe and effective to be used as booster jabs and third doses for people who are immunosuppressed.
“We continue to prepare for an autumn booster programme . . . Any booster programme — including which vaccines might be recommended for use — will be based on the final advice of the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.”
Israel, the country furthest along with its booster programme, relies on Pfizer, which has been mainly used for initial vaccine doses. The US is likely to stick to giving the same vaccines, based on trial data for third doses provided by manufacturers.
But other countries have administered mix and match doses for first and second jabs. In Europe some governments approved mixing after concerns about a very rare side effect from AstraZeneca involving blood clotting led them to allow people who had been given it as a first dose to then have a different second vaccine.
In Turkey and Thailand, where there were concerns about efficacy of the Sinovac Chinese vaccine, some were offered an additional dose of Pfizer.
Clive Dix, former head of the UK government’s vaccines task force, said it was well known in scientific circles that “heterologous boosting” was more effective in increasing people’s immune response than giving another dose of the vaccine the individual had originally received.
“The science of vaccinology has shown . . . that if you boost somebody with a different vaccine construct you tend to get a stronger response than if you give them the same one again,” he added.


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## Sunray (Sep 10, 2021)

I don't think I need it as I have had it, been vaccinated (AZ) and was recently in close contact with someone who the next day PCR tested positive for C-19.  She's been feeling rubbish, I've been testing negative.

But will have it anyway.  Getting it wasn't exactly fun, so happy to take anything that would give me a swerve on getting it again.


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## Supine (Sep 10, 2021)

I’ve been thinking about boosters. I don’t think i will take one this year if offered. They should be going to other countries at the moment. I’m not in a vulnerable group though.


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## 2hats (Sep 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> Good, I'd been meaning to ask you if it was expected to work the other way around. Fingers crossed.


Crotty confirmed the other day (TWiV 802) that there are several such studies underway. He suspects (no results yet - just his best guess) that vaccination then infection would provide some boost but the prior vaccine dose(s) likely would blunt the B cell response to some degree (it is, after all, the job of the vaccine to hamper the progression towards disease). So immunoresponse in that scenario _might_ not be as great as that as has been seen in infection followed by vaccination (though better than vaccination alone). However, vaccination then infection (like infection then vaccination) might provide for a greater degree of IgG/IgA homing to the oronasal mucosa and saliva, than vaccination alone (since that is systemic) - so might aid in symptom/transmission reduction on subsequent reinfection.

He also commented that:

he would be surprised if improved immune responses were not seen in all combinations of heterologous regimens - mRNA, viral vector, inactivated, protein subunit, etc.
dosing interval needs to be tuned - of sufficient length to optimise immunoresponse (already noted in some comparative studies, eg DOIs: 10.1016/S2213-2600(21)00357-X, 10.2139/ssrn.3777268, 10.1101/2021.05.15.21257017). If the dosing interval is too short/frequent it might prematurely shut down B cell development in germinal centres thus truncating the affinity maturation process, interrupting somatic hypermutation, so potentially resulting in a poorer response to future infection - a reduction in quality and breadth to current and future variants.
maybe all the vaccines (or more appropriately, exposures to viral proteins) might need to be three dose (episodes) to provide durable immunity due to the cost-benefit analysis that the evolutionary mechanism underlying affinity maturation performs with repeat exposures to antigen (cf tetanus, hepatitis B immunisation - notably those are dosed over 1 and then 6-12 month intervals).
immunocompetents unlikely to need, indeed benefit to any significant degree from vaccines expressing other variant spike proteins as full maturation delivers sufficient breadth to handle VOCs.


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## Sunray (Sep 10, 2021)

Supine said:


> I’ve been thinking about boosters. I don’t think i will take one this year if offered. They should be going to other countries at the moment. I’m not in a vulnerable group though.



I'm in agreement with the sentiment of this statement as there is no question its the right thing to do. But the nuance is its not as simple as giving them away.  Covid-19 vaccines: Why some African states can't use their vaccines

Getting all the infrastructure in place for mass (insert any entire population scale event here) requires serious thinking and logistics and money.  Lots of vaccinations have expired since they were available.   I'm leaning towards straight up cash being better than vaccines in this case.


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## Cat Fan (Sep 11, 2021)

Is it just where I live, or have a good 50% of people stopped wearing face masks in shops?


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## Elpenor (Sep 11, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Is it just where I live, or have a good 50% of people stopped wearing face masks in shops?


A mate was in Kendal yesterday and said it was only 20% wearing in shops


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## Dogsauce (Sep 11, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Is it just where I live, or have a good 50% of people stopped wearing face masks in shops?


Yep, majority have given up now. I even went to a gig earlier this week, quite crowded, and I’d say under 10% masked up. Seems that ‘fuck other people’ is winning.


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## StoneRoad (Sep 11, 2021)

So, the increase in cases comes as no surprise if people really are thinking that vaccines will protect them or, basically "fuck you and the risk to you".

I'm still masking up in crowded places, rarely go in shops


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## Orang Utan (Sep 11, 2021)

i work in a library and today i was in a different branch to the one I usually work in and was surprised how different it was as so many more people were wearing masks. the demographic for the area is mainly middle class families and students, though a fair chunk of council tenants too. The place i normally work at is in a very deprived area and mask use is way less, presumably because of a) mistrust of officialdom and b) poor access to authentic information on health, risk, etc


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## Elpenor (Sep 11, 2021)

I’m double jabbed, but am still quite heavily overweight so regard myself as still being at risk. I don’t go in shops unless I have to, and always do so masked.

 I have been to a few restaurants (outside if possible) but no pubs. Live alone and rarely do any socialising as don’t know anyone here yet. Happy to keep doing that until covid is gone and my risk perception drops.

Going to a 40th party next weekend though which will be a big tester.


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## Dogsauce (Sep 11, 2021)

I did my weekly shop at about 9:30 last night and there was hardly anybody else shopping, with nearly all masked. I might make this a regular shopping time as it felt much safer. Only went then as the mrs skipped going earlier in the day as traffic was bad.


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## teuchter (Sep 12, 2021)

In many contexts i am now the only person wearing a mask and feel quite conspicuous for it.

Having completely avoided indoor restaurants and pubs for some time, I'm now going in a bit, don't feel entirely comfortable but am kind of resigned to things just gradually reverting to 'normal' now.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 12, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Is it just where I live, or have a good 50% of people stopped wearing face masks in shops?



Yeah to the point where I now feel weird about wearing one.


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## StoneRoad (Sep 12, 2021)

F*****g javid - wants to stop tests for travellers. there was something previously about stopping the red >>>green codes / isolation for those entering the country.
and ditching checks (passports or whatever) for nightclubs and big events.

That 5h1te 
plus the not jabbing over 12s (ie teenagers) on the same grounds that they were saying before, ie kids don't get it etc ...
and only giving boosters to extremely vulnerable instead of all the first cohorts ...

I am now becoming convinced that this F********g tory scum are more interested in getting the economy (& their donors income streams) up and running ...
and their attitude seems to be F***k the rest of you, you need to get back to work, and you can suffer & die until the (mythical) herd immunity is reached.

Sod that for a game of soldiers ...
The economy can be resuscitated, but you can't resurrect the 134,144 poor souls that have already died [and the daily average is now 140 more lost] and cure the devastation that has caused to the affected families and friends.

Fuck me, I'm depressed with this all this callousness.
[apologies for the rant]


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## cupid_stunt (Sep 12, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> F*****g javid -
> and ditching checks (passports or whatever) for nightclubs and big events.



That was never going to happen, there wasn't the numbers for it in the commons.



> plus the not jabbing over 12s (ie teenagers) on the same grounds that they were saying before, ie kids don't get it etc ...



That could change this week, when the Chief Medical Officers report back to Javid. 



> and only giving boosters to extremely vulnerable instead of all the first cohorts ...



If you mean boosters for all over 50s, that too is likely to be going ahead, just waiting on the advice as to whether they will mix vaccines, so you get a different one to the first 2 jabs.


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## Cloo (Sep 12, 2021)

I've just had our 'riskiest' activity since this all began: Hamilton in packed theatre on Friday, though we were at back and not surrounded on all sides - almost 0 mask wearing. Went to a fringe show this morning, although that was a much smaller, with spread out audience.

I am keeping an eye on my NHS app - it is Yom Kippur later this week and although all services are masked, I will not go to any  or have family over to break fast, if I get pinged even though I'm vaccinated. gsv had two days in the office this week and found his colleague had been exposed the two days before by someone else there, but the guy gsv worked with was negative fortunately. I guess this is where vaccines help - there's not such a sense of inevitability if people are exposed.

People are still good with masks in shops around here, but are getting really shit on the tube. If you get on at a busy time, still pretty good, but a lot of people don't seem to bother if it's quieter, even when it gets busy subsequently. My heart sinks slightly now when I hear loud conversation as people get on, as that inevitably means a group none of whom will wear a mask.


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## elbows (Sep 12, 2021)

There is all sorts of bit and bobs in this article including one companies analysis of what level of cases and hospital admissions would put the NHS under so much pressure that it faced being overwhelmed. And they mention someone who has analysed hospital admissions by age in a manner that allows them to draw attention to the rising age, a subject I've been complaining hasnt received attention.



> It is forecast that hospitalisations would need to hit 1,500 a day for the NHS to once again become overwhelmed by Covid-19 – a figure that could be reached within the next two months if certain measures are not reintroduced.





> New analysis from the science analytics company Airfinity shows that the hospitalisation threshold that has led to previous lockdowns in the UK could be met in mid-November if admissions continue to rise unabated. It’s estimated that daily infections will need to surpass 50,500 to reach this point – 37,622 daily infections were recorded on Friday.





> Separate analysis from Colin Angus, a senior research fellow and health inequalities modeller at the University of Sheffield, shows that the majority of hospital admissions in July were among those aged 25-34.
> 
> However, since early August, the highest admission rates have been recorded in the 75-84 age bracket, and are “clearly rising” in the over-65s.
> 
> “There’s a definite shift towards cases being older now compared to six weeks ago,” said Angus. He suggested this is unlikely to be a result of waning immunity among these groups, which have high vaccination rates, but because cases are beginning to rise.



There is plenty else I consider worth quoting in the article but I'll leave it at that for now.









						Covid hospitalisations moving in ‘alarming’ direction, NHS officials say
					

Admissions are once again rising among older age groups, and come at a time of ‘exceptional demand for urgent and emergency care’ within hospitals




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## RileyOBlimey (Sep 13, 2021)

Boris rules out future lockdowns: Boris Johnson to scrap draconian lockdown laws in Covid Winter plan

How long will he take to do a u turn on this? Get yer bets in!


----------



## BristolEcho (Sep 13, 2021)

RileyOBlimey said:


> Boris rules out future lockdowns: Boris Johnson to scrap draconian lockdown laws in Covid Winter plan
> 
> How long will he take to do a u turn on this? Get yer bets in!


"Draconian" ffs.


----------



## andysays (Sep 13, 2021)

BristolEcho said:


> "Draconian" ffs.


Maybe if they'd been a bit more "draconian" earlier, we wouldn't be in this situation now...
*Covid: More than 300,000 suspected of breaking quarantine rules*​


> Nearly a third of people arriving in England and Northern Ireland as the coronavirus Delta variant took off may have broken quarantine rules. More than 300,000 cases were passed to investigators between March and May, according to figures seen by the BBC. *The government was not able to say how many of these were found to have broken the rules or could not be traced*.


----------



## elbows (Sep 13, 2021)

RileyOBlimey said:


> Boris rules out future lockdowns: Boris Johnson to scrap draconian lockdown laws in Covid Winter plan
> 
> How long will he take to do a u turn on this? Get yer bets in!



Predictions are harder these days. I'll wait for formal announcements tomorrow. It does seem like they are making a very large show of all the stuff they are abandoning, probably in order to deal with tory party politics as much as anything. So I will be sure to pay special attention to what quietly remains on the books.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 13, 2021)

The travel situation has just been shit from day one.  A system based entirely on trust was always going to be useless.  The traffic light system has been shit as well and was just a knee jerk reaction to teh government being embarrassed about India and the Delta variant being prolifically spread throughout the UK.  The actual list is nakedly political and its just further fucking the travel industry without keeping the country any safer.

You have to ask really why they are bothered by people coming into the country with Delta when they are doing next to nothing to control it here?


----------



## elbows (Sep 13, 2021)

At this point it will be other variants that necessitate border/travel genomic surveillance. Delta is what made their expert advisors demand a better system on this front at the time, but the underlying principal remains long after Delta came to dominate here.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 13, 2021)

As expected, the CMO's have approved jabs for those over 12.









						UK children aged 12 to 15 to be offered Covid jab
					

UK’s four chief medical officers decide to set aside view of vaccine watchdog that benefits of jabs were too minimal to justify them




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## miss direct (Sep 13, 2021)

I'm going to be even more upset about lack of masks when I come back from Turkey, aren't I? I quite enjoyed telling a government worker off here yesterday as he kept taking his mask off to talk to me.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> At this point it will be other variants that necessitate border/travel genomic surveillance. Delta is what made their expert advisors demand a better system on this front at the time, but the underlying principal remains long after Delta came to dominate here.



That's what we should have but we don't have it with the current system.  Hopefully when they change it in the near future it will be more fit for purpose.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Sep 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> Predictions are harder these days. I'll wait for formal announcements tomorrow. It does seem like they are making a very large show of all the stuff they are abandoning, probably in order to deal with *tory party *politics as much as anything. So I will be sure to pay special attention to what quietly remains on the books.


Could it be they have a conference coming up?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> As expected, the CMO's have approved jabs for those over 12.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It will be interesting to see what the take-up is like.  The risk / reward calculation seems to get more difficult the younger the person is.


----------



## thismoment (Sep 13, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I've just had our 'riskiest' activity since this all began: Hamilton in packed theatre on Friday, though we were at back and not surrounded on all sides - almost 0 mask wearing. Went to a fringe show this morning, although that was a much smaller, with spread out audience.
> 
> I am keeping an eye on my NHS app - it is Yom Kippur later this week and although all services are masked, I will not go to any  or have family over to break fast, if I get pinged even though I'm vaccinated. gsv had two days in the office this week and found his colleague had been exposed the two days before by someone else there, but the guy gsv worked with was negative fortunately. I guess this is where vaccines help - there's not such a sense of inevitability if people are exposed.
> 
> People are still good with masks in shops around here, but are getting really shit on the tube. If you get on at a busy time, still pretty good, but a lot of people don't seem to bother if it's quieter, even when it gets busy subsequently. My heart sinks slightly now when I hear loud conversation as people get on, as that inevitably means a group none of whom will wear a mask.


Glad you got to see Hamilton, I’ve been debating it forever! Regarding the tube…. Just go off the tube and I countered  3 out of 11 people wearing masks. I was one of the 3. Guess some people have had it with mixed messaging are just doing what they want. Although I thought you had to wear masks on the tube


----------



## Cloo (Sep 13, 2021)

Yes, it's supposed to be mandatory, but there aren't enough staff to enforce and when, like you, you're one of the 3 out of 11 bothering it's pretty difficult to mount any sort of pressure to get others to do so.


----------



## thismoment (Sep 13, 2021)

Yeah, I really do emphasise with the train/TfL staff. I had a bit of a laugh when on my train a dad looked up from his phone to declare to his daughter that her test had just come back and it was negative. Neither where wearing masks but hey, it could’ve been negative something else, right! Also if the daughter was symptomless then it’s ok. That was some journey home!


----------



## elbows (Sep 13, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Could it be they have a conference coming up?



They have to get some stuff through parliament soon and thats what I was thinking of. But yes, when it comes to party politics conferences are also something that needs to be navigated.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 13, 2021)

thismoment said:


> Glad you got to see Hamilton, I’ve been debating it forever! Regarding the tube…. Just go off the tube and I countered  3 out of 11 people wearing masks. I was one of the 3. Guess some people have had it with mixed messaging are just doing what they want. Although I thought you had to wear masks on the tube


There's not really mixed messaging on the Tube and TfL generally - there are plenty of signs as well as recorded announcements telling people they should still be wearing masks.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 13, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There's not really mixed messaging on the Tube and TfL generally - there are plenty of signs as well as recorded announcements telling people they should still be wearing masks.


Yes, it's perfectly damn clear but maybe some people are assuming the signs on tubes are just left there from before and all the rules have gone now.


----------



## Ninja (Sep 13, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Yes, it's perfectly damn clear but maybe some people are assuming the signs on tubes are just left there from before and all the rules have gone now.


Or it maybe simply people have grown tired and weary about covid now and want a return to 'the old normal'.


----------



## Cloo (Sep 13, 2021)

Ninja said:


> Or it maybe simply people have grown tired and weary about covid now and want a return to 'the old normal'.


Definitely a degree of that.

I've spent some of time today looking back in anger at this time last year and at why the fuck the government couldn't have done the sensible thing and told people to prepare for a Christmas with just their household and for school closures over winter. They should really be doing the same this year too, but they won't. I mean, it was a novel virus with no reliably effective treatment and (at the time) no vaccine, and no one had magicked up 4 times as many NHS hospitals and staff in the meantime. There was clearly no way winter would not be worse than spring; I'm not a scientist, but I knew this. But I guess a) they wanted to 'Save Christmas' and b) they wanted people to spend money on Christmas stuff. They knew fucking well that Christmas was not going to be fine. Winter would still have been bad, but 10,000s fewer would have died, i'm betting.


----------



## Cerv (Sep 13, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There's not really mixed messaging on the Tube and TfL generally - there are plenty of signs as well as recorded announcements telling people they should still be wearing masks.


mixed messaging in that the national government said masks were no longer required, but then the local London government issued a contradictory directive for their part only.

can imagine that a lot of people genuinely didn't know or remember that masks are supposed to be required still. and with the low compliance you're not necessarily going to twig like you would if 99% of others on your carriage were wearing them.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 13, 2021)

Ninja said:


> Or it maybe simply people have grown tired and weary about covid now and want a return to 'the old normal'.


well they can’t


----------



## Riklet (Sep 13, 2021)

Yeah, this kinda wistful childish nostalgia is pissing me off. People of all ages guilty of it.. surprised at the number of selfish old fuckers that dont bother on the bus or in the local shop tho! Mask wearing round here is probably better than some areas but still pretty 50/50 at best.

I really resent this "I wont be opressed with this minor inconvenience" selfish attitude. And it obviously spirals cos loads of shop and takeaway staff here (in a large village) have stopped wearing masks.. so customers dont either, so other people see it and think "fuck it".

I am continuing to wear a mask and only going to places with good ventilation/door open for the moment.


----------



## oryx (Sep 13, 2021)

Riklet said:


> Yeah, this kinda wistful childish nostalgia is pissing me off. People of all ages guilty of it.. surprised at the number of selfish old fuckers that dont bother on the bus or in the local shop tho! Mask wearing round here is probably better than some areas but still pretty 50/50 at best.
> 
> I really resent this "I wont be opressed with this minor inconvenience" selfish attitude. And it obviously spirals cos loads of shop and takeaway staff here (in a large village) have stopped wearing masks.. so customers dont either, so other people see it and think "fuck it".
> 
> I am continuing to wear a mask and only going to places with good ventilation/door open for the moment.


This, and also it's hardly arduous or an assault on 'freedom' to wear a mask (everyone knows those with serious reason not to like severe asthma or PTSD are exempt), or keep a reasonable distance where possible.

There are so many other curtailments on freedom such as CCTV everywhere, privatisation of public space, tracking by big data, restrictions on the right to protest etc. etc. and I bet the anti-mask, anti-'rules' brigade do fuck all about this.

(Probably belongs on the other thread TBH).


----------



## Sunray (Sep 13, 2021)

I've been reading and watching people say its now endemic.  There is no getting rid of it as the vaccinated can get it again and they spread it the same as unvaccinated. 
Germany is stopping free testing next month because what's the point of knowing numbers if most of them just recover.  Obviously test sick people.  Hospitalisation and deaths are still important.

Unless we go into 8 weeks of lockdown, which is never going to happen with this embarrassment of a government.  I can't see how to do much about this?  So everyone is going to get exposed to C-19 and there isn't much to be done.
On a positive note.  It does seems it's possible to be robustly immune to COVID-19. I've been in crowds some huge, all summer. Nothing.  Couple of weeks ago I was partying for hours at a festival with someone who tested positive the >very next day<. Sitting right next to each other chatting. Doing lines of K and sharing the shovel etc. Plus hanging out on and off for the whole weekend.  

Thought this is it.  Going going to get it again.  She was rough but is fine now.  Delta is super infectious and I clearly breathed loads of it in for hours. Nothing. Tested negative. Nobody around us got it either,  just her.  Some people felt so shit after 4 days hard parting,  they got a PCR test (lol), negative.

So I am hopeful this will become how most people's immune systems end up and we can go back to worrying about flu. 
Its interesting the schools have gone back and cases seem to be going down a bit.


----------



## Ninja (Sep 13, 2021)

When presented with a potential threat (and especially whose actual level of threat is hard to assess) not all people react the same way as is simple human nature. 

There is no guarantee others will react the same as yourself and assess that risk the same as yourself. Furthermore, even if they assess the risk similar to yourself they may still judge it not sufficiently high to compromise parts of their life that's important to them.

Eg. Some people baulk in horror at the thought of riding a motorbike at high speed due to the risk, while others knowingly take that risk because the love the thrill.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 13, 2021)

Ninja said:


> When presented with a potential threat (and especially whose actual level of threat is hard to assess) not all people react the same way as is simple human nature.
> 
> There is no guarantee others will react the same as yourself and assess that risk the same as yourself. Furthermore, even if they assess the risk similar to yourself they may still judge it not sufficiently high to compromise parts of their life that's important to them.
> 
> Eg. Some people baulk in horror at the thought of riding a motorbike at high speed due to the risk, while others knowingly take that risk because the love the thrill.


This is true, although riding a motorbike at high speed (although in practice brings much less risk to others than motorists do to bikers) can bring risk to others. How does that fit in?


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 13, 2021)

Ninja said:


> When presented with a potential threat (and especially whose actual level of threat is hard to assess) not all people react the same way as is simple human nature.
> 
> There is no guarantee others will react the same as yourself and assess that risk the same as yourself. Furthermore, even if they assess the risk similar to yourself they may still judge it not sufficiently high to compromise parts of their life that's important to them.
> 
> Eg. Some people baulk in horror at the thought of riding a motorbike at high speed due to the risk, while others knowingly take that risk because the love the thrill.


so? none of this makes the need to carry on taking minor precautions go away.


----------



## Ninja (Sep 13, 2021)

To the last two posters....people simply assess risk differently to yourselves.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 14, 2021)

Ninja said:


> To the last two posters....people simply assess risk differently to yourselves.


that’s irrelevant


----------



## two sheds (Sep 14, 2021)

> To the last two posters....people simply assess risk differently to yourselves.


?
Just to confirm that (your example) motor cyclists travelling at high speed can cause risks for others?

But that's ok


----------



## Ninja (Sep 14, 2021)

To the last two posters it still comes down to a diversity of they way people assess risks and dangers.
I could list endless examples of people taking risks where others don't but the point ultimately still ends up being they are essentially not you.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 14, 2021)

Well yes but it's down to the objective rather than subjective risk. 

For example I'm classed as vulnerable. If you have coronavirus but are classed as not vulnerable, you're of no risk to yourself but could be of great risk to me. Why would you not wear masks/get vaccinated to reduce the risk to me?


----------



## teuchter (Sep 14, 2021)

Ninja said:


> To the last two posters....people simply assess risk differently to yourselves.



If yourself must come on here to repeatedly inform ourselves of the obvious, could myself request that yourself please refrains from abusing reflexive pronouns. Thankyourself.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Germany is stopping free testing next month because what's the point of knowing numbers if most of them just recover.  Obviously test sick people.  Hospitalisation and deaths are still important.



That is not why Germany is stopping free tests at all. Its to try to encourage more people to get vaccinated. And those who do not get vaccinated and dont have proof of prior infection will face a greater testing burden in order to be allowed entry into certain settings.



> To nudge more people to get vaccinated amid concerns about a rise in new cases, Merkel said the government will stop offering free tests from Oct. 11, except for those for whom vaccination is not recommended, such as children and pregnant women.
> 
> The government will also require people to be either vaccinated, test negative or have a recovery certificate to enter indoor restaurants, participate in religious ceremonies and do indoor sport.











						Germany to end free Covid-19 testing in bid to boost vaccination
					

Germany’s coronavirus vaccination drive has slowed and those people who have not taken up the opportunity to have shots will have to take COVID-19 tests to take a full part in public life, Chancellor…




					www.france24.com


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 14, 2021)

Ninja said:


> To the last two posters it still comes down to a diversity of they way people assess risks and dangers.
> I could list endless examples of people taking risks where others don't but the point ultimately still ends up being they are essentially not you.


but it’s not up to most people to calculate the risks, it’s the epemiologists, the virologists, the doctors. it’s their opinion that matters, not some bloke who doesn’t want to wear a mask in a shop.


----------



## Yossarian (Sep 14, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> but it’s not up to most people to calculate the risks, it’s the epemiologists, the virologists, the doctors. it’s their opinion that matters, not some bloke who doesn’t want to wear a mask in a shop.



Yep - your right to independently assess risks for yourself ends at the point where you put others at risk.


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 14, 2021)

Nick Triggle BBC Health Correspondent on a page dated today 14th September mainly about Booster rollout:



> *It was feared September could see Covid cases rise, but there are no signs of that happening yet.*











						Covid: Booster jabs for over-50s expected to be announced
					

A single dose of Pfizer will be offered at least six months after a second dose, the BBC understands.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




 FFS these people are highly paid BY US!!!! and we have no choice but to pay..ever felt like you were being shafted?


----------



## existentialist (Sep 14, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Nick Triggle BBC Health Correspondent on a page dated today 14th September mainly about Booster rollout:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm not sure what your outrage is about?


----------



## Sue (Sep 14, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Nick Triggle BBC Health Correspondent on a page dated today 14th September mainly about Booster rollout:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Don't understand what you mean.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 14, 2021)

So the government have released their plan for winter.  I appreciate its only headline stuff but quite frankly anyone of us could have written it in 5 minutes.









						Boris Johnson warns Covid risk remains as he unveils England's winter plan
					

But he says the UK is better placed to tackle the disease as he outlines England's winter plan.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Basically just try and avoid doing anything until it gets so bad they are forced into acting.  Its not worked brilliantly for the last 18 months but hey, try try again.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 14, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> So the government have released their plan for winter.  I appreciate its only headline stuff but quite frankly anyone of us could have written it in 5 minutes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


At this rate, we're going to have to start calling Javid Baldrick.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 14, 2021)

The only things that seem to be an advance over repeating previous stupidities is the vaccine rollout to teenagers and the prospect of boosters for the over 50s [plus flu jabs for the over 50s - mine is tomorrow]

I can see the situation with the increasing number of the hospital admissions & deaths getting to the point that the gov't will be forced into encouraging masking / wfh again, and even something akin to the tiers (mockdowns).

If my monitoring the data has it starting to go towards that point during next two months, I'll be back to wfh & masking up etc ... not that I have given up on particularly on the latter, just largely avoiding crowded & enclosed places.


----------



## xenon (Sep 14, 2021)

What would you expect them to say though. Right everyone mask up and work from home again.


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 14, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I'm not sure what your outrage is about?


Are you on the same planet as nick?, One where telling lies like " *It was feared September could see Covid cases rise, but there are no signs of that happening yet." * on a public funded news Site is OK then ?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 14, 2021)

xenon said:


> What would you expect them to say though. Right everyone mask up and work from home again.



That's basically Plan B which will be implemented at a time things have got so bad that Plan C will follow mere days later.  That has been what has happened for the last 18 months.  I remain unconvinced they will be able to avoid a repeat though obviously I hope they can.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2021)

Press conference dull so far apart from one question from the public involved Johnson having to read out the old '20,000 deaths would be a good result' thing, and then Johnson accidentally calling another member of the public Covid instead of Kirstie.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 14, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Are you on the same planet as nick?, One where telling lies like " *It was feared September could see Covid cases rise, but there are no signs of that happening yet." * on a public funded news Site is OK then ?


There's not clear evidence of a rise in cases in September at this point.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 14, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Are you on the same planet as nick?, One where telling lies like " *It was feared September could see Covid cases rise, but there are no signs of that happening yet." * on a public funded news Site is OK then ?


Well, *telling* us what you're outraged about helps....


----------



## Spandex (Sep 14, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Are you on the same planet as nick?, One where telling lies like " *It was feared September could see Covid cases rise, but there are no signs of that happening yet." * on a public funded news Site is OK then ?


1st Sept = 35,693 reported new cases/35,050 new cases by 7 day rolling average
13th Sept = 30,825 reported new cases/34,521 new cases by 7 day rolling average

They did go up in early September, with the higest number reported being 42,067 on 3rd Sept and the average reaching a peak on 5th Sept of 38,925, but has come down since then. 

Triggle is right that the feared rise in cases during September hasn't happened yet. It might not happen. It might start happening when todays figures come out. Nobody knows what's going to happen.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2021)

Yeah there was the specific concern that cases in England would spike massively in the same way seem in Scotland. Its totally fair enough to point out that there havent been signs of that yet.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 14, 2021)

Today's reported new cases are down to 26,628, meaning the 7-day average has dropped by -14.3%


----------



## Sunray (Sep 14, 2021)

elbows said:


> That is not why Germany is stopping free tests at all. Its to try to encourage more people to get vaccinated. And those who do not get vaccinated and dont have proof of prior infection will face a greater testing burden in order to be allowed entry into certain settings.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ok. But my point is still valid


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Ok. But my point is still valid



No it isnt. Authorities dont want the public to start ignoring testing and they dont want to lose the data that comes from that system. Because authorities know that they are not out of the woods yet, they have to allow for the possibility that things deteriorate badly over autumn and winter. So they dont want to throw away all the tools at their disposal yet. Some right wing fucks in the media demand that they do, but they will be ignored for now, because they dont actually know what they are talking about in regards this pandemic.

I would say that its true that governments will eventually want peoples behaviours to return to normal far more than is the case so far. And when they are really confident that time has arrived, they will likely look to ditch some stuff that affects peoples attitudes and stops them returning to their pre-pandemic levels of contact mixing and economic activity. I dont really expect to be hearing about the case numbers on the news every day for the next ten years. I cannot predict what the authorities attitudes to mass diagnostic testing will be like in the long-term, and given the capacity and industry created, they may want bits of that to become more permanent, its too early for me to offer a confident prediction about that.

Whitty pointed out in the press conference today that this country has not yet experienced a winter with the very nasty Delta variant. And this is certainly one of the big reasons why they are not tearing up every covid measure and non-vaccine weapon in their arsenal at this stage. That luxury is simply unavailable to them at this stage and those who claim otherwise are misreading the range of possibilities.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 14, 2021)

Considering that I thought (& still do) that totally dropping mask mandates was a stupid move ... 
Delta is the current problem, being more transmissible even with vaccination ...


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2021)

Some observations in regards the press conference:

They made use of the data that has recently become available in regards how many hospitalisations and deaths were vaccinated. I'll probably post those slides later.

Covid passports arent a completely dead idea, they found a new use for them. They are presented as something they might bring in if a situation in reached which I would have described in the past as necessitating 'slamming on the brakes'. But because Johnson doesnt want to go on about the prospect of closing stuff again, since that would be a reversal of stuff he 'hoped' was irreversible earlier this year, they are presenting vaccine passports as a new alternative brake they might feel the need to use. Journalists brought the vaccine passports up a lot, and one of Johnsons main talking points to fall back on when they did, was to emphasise all the events that have voluntarily used such schemes already.

Working from home was another similar thing that they arent too ashamed to mention they are keeping in reserve as part of plan B. 

Person said he has recently recovered from Covid having been double-jabbed. And he did manage to get them to wriggle uncomfortably by asking why, given the graphs showing how much higher the numbers are compared to this time last year, they werent doing some of the softer stuff to bring those numbers down now.

When asked to justify the booster campaign, they were happy to go on about waning immunity. Personally I would have split that possibility, and it showing up in basic data, into 3 different things - there is actual waning immunity, there are the vulnerable people for whom the vaccine never generated a brilliant response in the first place, and there is also the effect of Delta on vaccine effectiveness. 

A journalist (maybe from the TImes) brought up the Nicki Minaj vaccine impotency bollocks, which led to Whitty having a rant which included advising the press not to give this untrue shit attention because when its repeated some people start to believe there is something to it.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2021)

A couple of the more interesting press conference slides. From https://assets.publishing.service.g...Press_Conference_Slides__for_publication_.pdf


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 14, 2021)

The fact that confirmed cases are on a downwards slope again is interesting isn't it. What are the educated explanations for that currently?


----------



## weepiper (Sep 14, 2021)

My 13 and 15 year olds on hearing the news that they can get the jag from next week: 'thank God, people are dropping like flies' and 'I thought the day would never come!'.


----------



## elbows (Sep 14, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> The fact that confirmed cases are on a downwards slope again is interesting isn't it. What are the educated explanations for that currently?



One of the consequences of expert commentary being caught out by the July peak is that many of them are far more wary of offering explanations and predictions these days.

Fundamentally the level of infection should still be based on the combination of the population immunity picture, coupled with behaviours/contact mixing and recent numbers of infectious people, along with the characteristics of the currently dominant variant.

Its the worng day of the week for me to analyse the figures, when it comes to positive case numbers reported I prefer to wait till Wednesdays. But I'll say again that I prefer to look at the individual nations rather than overall UK figure. And I try to look by age group and region too, since clues could be lurking there.

When I next get round to that, I still wouldnt expect a nice tidy answer. In the meantime I will throw out there the possibility that the spell of nice weather we had earlier this month might have had an impact for all I know, and the timing might be about right for that to fit as one partial explanation. And that relatively high levels of immunity are changing the nature of the game somewhat, making things better but also messier and less easy to confidently predict. And that evolving immunity picture very much includes the impact of millions of people having caught it since the start of June.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 14, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> The fact that confirmed cases are on a downwards slope again is interesting isn't it. What are the educated explanations for that currently?


I was about to say that it's not yet reflected in the perhaps more important healthcare numbers, which looked to be still rising gradually, but I've just noticed that selecting for England rather than the whole UK shows them all pretty level (no clear decline though). This is in contrast to what's happening in Scotland at the moment.


----------



## little_legs (Sep 14, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> So the government have released their plan for winter.  I appreciate its only headline stuff but quite frankly anyone of us could have written it in 5 minutes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The post-reset pre-reset reset.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2021)

I havent read the SAGE documents that came out yet, but since they generated headlines about many thousands of hospitalisations per day still being on their radar, I will.

eg:



> Government scientists have warned that there could be a large jump in Covid hospital admissions if restrictions are not tightened soon.
> 
> The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said its modelling suggested hospitalisations could reach 2,000 to 7,000 per day next month.
> 
> ...











						Covid: Plan B would be triggered by NHS pressure, Sajid Javid says
					

Government scientists are warning of a jump in Covid hospital admissions if rules are not tightened soon.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




If people respond to worsening mood music as they did in the past, then that in itself will count as a measure that makes a difference as far as I'm concerned. And it has certainly been very much easier to predict that the message would shift to one of great concern once autumn loomed than it is to actually predict what will exactly happen with the rates of infection and hospitalisation these days.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2021)

I havent seen any full modelling done for SAGE yet, so mostly I just have the minutes of their September 9th meeting to go on so far. Various key quotes from that document are below. Not all of them are bad news, and I note that SAGE dont sound happy with our approach compared to some other countries (I put that quote in bold):



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1017296/S1360_SAGE_95_minutes.pdf
		




> Step 4 Roadmap modelling was reviewed in light of new data. Hospitalisations in August did fall within expectations under some scenarios, but occupancy and deaths were lower than expected under central assumptions. Behaviour change following step 4 has been slower than in some modelled scenarios and the future trajectory is increasingly unlikely to reach the peak of the January 2021 wave.





> Key uncertainties include the potential impact of any waning of immunity and any significant changes in contact patterns associated with increased attendance at workplaces and reopening of education settings. It will take several weeks to be able to fully understand the impact of any such changes.





> When R is around 1, even small changes can lead to a significant change in the number of infections and subsequently hospitalisations. Similarly, small interventions can be effective to bring rates back down. This is particularly true in the presence of high levels of population immunity.





> Hospital admissions will continue to be a critical metric to assess the trajectory of the epidemic, particularly in the elderly; these have been rising recently from a low base. Increasing cases remain the earliest warning sign that hospital admissions are likely to rise. Other early warning signals would be a change in the relationship between cases and hospital admissions, or a change in the pattern of people admitted to hospital who are fully vaccinated.





> SAGE reiterated the importance of acting early to slow a growing epidemic. Early, "low-cost" interventions may forestall need for more disruptive measures and avoid an unacceptable level of hospitalisations.
> 
> *SAGE noted that European comparators with similar levels of vaccination have maintained more interventions (masks, vaccine certification, work from home) than the UK and are seeing their epidemics decline.*





> It is not yet clear why trajectories in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have been so different from England, where cases appeared to flatten rapidly in mid-July across all regions.





> For patients admitted after 16 June 2021 (by which time vaccination rates in adults were high) the majority of patients had received two doses. This is to be expected, as SAGE has noted previously.
> 
> Vaccination generally reduced the odds of in-hospital mortality, although immunocompromised patients in the study had persistently high risk of mortality after both first and second dose vaccines.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2021)

And now a quick look at their modelling consensus summary from the same time period.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1017129/S1376_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf
		


I dont think they know what R to expect because they have reduced confidence in their ability to estimate what behaviours and level of contacts people had after the various unlocking stages. In the following graph based on several different R values, their best guess is that the reality will be somewhere in between the blue and green lines. They think the red line scenario where R is 2 is highly unlikely, unless waning immunity or a new variant become a big deal. But they are still a bit nervous about totally ruling out such a scenario due to how high R got in Scotland recently.



Unless we are lucky enough not to see R rise in the weeks ahead, the scenarios painted involve the sort of peak timing the authorities were hoping to avoid. Indeed the whole 'if not now then when?' rhetoric of a few months ago relied in part on justifying the relaxations on the basis that it would be better to get the peak out of the way before autumn/winter. Now they think that peak has been pushed later, which is not good news. But I think there is plenty of uncertainty about what will actually happen. Especially if people behave cautiously as a result of gloomy mood music and peoples expectations that things get worse in seasons that arent summer.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2021)

Other stuff from that modelling document:



> There is a clear consensus that continued high levels of homeworking has played a very important role in preventing sustained epidemic growth in recent months. It is highly likely that a significant decrease in homeworking in the next few months would result in a rapid increase in hospital admissions.





> The modelling did not foresee such rapid transient change in dynamics, with possible reasons including the closure of schools for the summer, changes in behaviour during and following the Euro 2020 football matches, a period of warm weather, and* a large proportion of the population isolating as a result of being identified as a contact of a case*, as discussed in a previous consensus statement



I put part of that in bold as its a good fit for the idea that the 'pingdemic' was like a mini partial lockdown that made an important difference. Fuck the press that moaned and mischaracterised it at the time.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Today's reported new cases are down to 26,628, meaning the 7-day average has dropped by -14.3%



That 7-day average has dropped again, now down -18.4%, and that's almost 2 weeks since the schools went back, so somewhat surprising.


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 15, 2021)

got a batch of Flowflex tests from the Government - so relieved, as i’ve not been able to do tests properly until now, so have avoided doing it unless i’m going to a social thing, and not doing it for work - we’re only strongly encouraged to do it rather than instructed to, so it was easy just to not bother.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> got a batch of Flowflex tests from the Government - so relieved, as i’ve not been able to do tests properly until now, so have avoided doing it unless i’m going to a social thing, and not doing it for work - we’re only strongly encouraged to do it rather than instructed to, so it was easy just to not bother.


Presumably because they say you dont have to stick these very far up nostrils?


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Presumably because they say you dont have to stick these very far up nostrils?


they’re nasal only, so you don’t have to gag yourself. I never managed to successfully touch my tonsils at all let alone for as long as the instructions said, so I gave up trying. now i can do this three times a week and feel confident that i’ve done it properly.


----------



## existentialist (Sep 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Presumably because they say you dont have to stick these very far up nostrils?


I've found the post-sampling gagging and sneezing near to intolerable, so I eagerly opened my new pack of tests to see if they're any different from the previous ones, but sadly not. Gagging and sneezing, here we come


----------



## nagapie (Sep 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That 7-day average has dropped again, now down -18.4%, and that's almost 2 weeks since the schools went back, so somewhat surprising.


I'm finding this hard to believe. We have groups of  staff testing positive daily.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2021)

nagapie said:


> I'm finding this hard to believe. We have groups of  staff testing positive daily.


Even if cases are rising in some segments of society, or regions, age groups etc, this is often masked in the overall figures if big falls are happening elsewhere.

I'll be looking into how case numbers are going in different age groups and regions and will have something to say on this within the next couple of days.


----------



## Spandex (Sep 15, 2021)

nagapie said:


> I'm finding this hard to believe. We have groups of  staff testing positive daily.


A couple of things to remember:

Reported case numbers may have come down a bit in the last week, but the numbers are still huge. The lowest reported daily new case number in the last month was yesterday's 26,628. That's just in one day. In pre-vaccine times that would be disastrous. It still is disastrous - 201 reported deaths today; the daily death toll currently averaging 139 deaths per day over the last week (that's equivalent to 50,735 deaths per year).

That figure is the national figure. There's considerable variation across the countries. Glasgow has 873.5 cases per 100,000 on the latest available info (up to 10th Sept); Hackney has 171 cases per 100,000.


----------



## elbows (Sep 15, 2021)

For example in regards what I said in my previous post, look at the 7 day totals by age group in Scotland. Younger age groups tend to have been responsible for the most cases, with more dramatic rises and falls, and earlier timing of trajectory changes than older groups. But when it comes to things like hospitalisations, even when the rises in positive cases in older age groups have been more modest, they tend to drive a significant chunk of hospitalisations. This is part of the reason why dramatic fall in overall case numbers sometimes only leads to a modest drop or plateau of hospitalisation figures.

I'm resorting to Scotland again now because their trends have been more dramatic and obvious, but also because I can just go to the following website to get this graphic, rather than England where I tend to feel the need to make my own graphics in a way that involves some tedious arsing around with data manually in a spreadsheet. So I need more time before I can show the age-related picture for England.









						Scotland Coronavirus Tracker
					

Current and historical data of the Coronavirus outbreak in Scotland. Includes breakdowns by region, maps, charts, and more!




					www.travellingtabby.com


----------



## elbows (Sep 16, 2021)

'Learning to live with' Covid in Scotland leads to a request for 'targeted military assistance' for the ambulance service.









						Military to be called in to help Scottish ambulance crews
					

A series of serious ambulance delays have emerged, including one where a man died after a 40-hour wait.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Sep 16, 2021)

It looks like there was a real drop in hospital admissions/diagnoses for England across age groups, although as usual I hesitate to read too much into it and I dont really use it as a guide as to what happens next.

I supose I post it now mostly to backup the idea that at least some of the fall in case numbers in data for England recently is actually real. I still dont know how much of that to attribute to a spell of good weather a little while back.

I still havent had time to look at English positive case data by age group and region.


----------



## elbows (Sep 16, 2021)

I dont watch Tim Spector of ZOEs videos too often, except on occasions where people have reasons to draw attention to something he's said like that 'only a ripple' error months back. The ZOE youtube channel do quite like clickbait titles, and I decided to make myself watch the latest one as it was titled "Is the UK sleepwalking into a COVID disaster?".

I dont want to describe it in full or even review it properly. Many of the usual themes were there including their feelings about what symptoms should count officially, a mix of hopeful and not so hopeful data, and plenty of "we'll have to wait and see". Anyway the reason I am bothering to make this post is that there was a small part of the video where he looked with envy at graphs showing what a few other well vaccinated European countries had been able to achieve in terms of bringing down hospitalisations in a sustained manner. And he wants plan B stuff to be done now.

Rather than link to the video which I find a bit tedious, here is a bit of a statement that they've put out on the same subject:









						With the highest cases in Europe, UK should trigger Plan B now
					

According to ZOE COVID Study incidence figures, in total there are currently 47,276 new daily symptomatic cases of COVID in the UK on average, based on PCR and LFT test data from up to five days ago.




					covid.joinzoe.com
				






> I also don't understand why we are waiting for the situation to get worse and the NHS is pressured further before implementing simple measures that would help to bring down the number of new cases and save lives. With such high levels of virus in the population we should also still be wearing masks and keeping our distance in crowded public places, as in major European cities where cases are much lower than ours.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Sep 17, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont watch Tim Spector of ZOEs videos too often, except on occasions where people have reasons to draw attention to something he's said like that 'only a ripple' error months back. The ZOE youtube channel do quite like clickbait titles, and I decided to make myself watch the latest one as it was titled "Is the UK sleepwalking into a COVID disaster?".
> 
> I dont want to describe it in full or even review it properly. Many of the usual themes were there including their feelings about what symptoms should count officially, a mix of hopeful and not so hopeful data, and plenty of "we'll have to wait and see". Anyway the reason I am bothering to make this post is that there was a small part of the video where he looked with envy at graphs showing what a few other well vaccinated European countries had been able to achieve in terms of bringing down hospitalisations in a sustained manner. And he wants plan B stuff to be done now.
> 
> ...


but...
the public perception
the party conference
the rabid back benchers
all those other political rather than public health related reasons
...possibly also unicorns in teh distance


----------



## teuchter (Sep 17, 2021)

This has appeared near me. I don't get it. Is it pro-vax or anti-vax? Can anyone explain?


----------



## BigMoaner (Sep 17, 2021)

teuchter said:


> View attachment 288752
> 
> This has appeared near me. I don't get it. Is it pro-vax or anti-vax? Can anyone explain?


it's some sad sack sicko comparing the brutalisation of black people in the american south to being a absoloute thicko who trusts michael on whatsapp over a global scientific consensus.


----------



## Yossarian (Sep 17, 2021)

teuchter said:


> View attachment 288752
> 
> This has appeared near me. I don't get it. Is it pro-vax or anti-vax? Can anyone explain?



It's a reference to segregated drinking fountains for Blacks and whites in the South in the Jim Crow era - definitely anti-vaxx.


----------



## maomao (Sep 17, 2021)

teuchter said:


> View attachment 288752
> 
> This has appeared near me. I don't get it. Is it pro-vax or anti-vax? Can anyone explain?


It's anti-vax or at least anti vaccine passport etc. It's comparing the way the unvaccinated are treated to black people not being allowed to use the same water fountains as white people in 20th century US.


----------



## BigMoaner (Sep 17, 2021)

teuchter said:


> View attachment 288752
> 
> This has appeared near me. I don't get it. Is it pro-vax or anti-vax? Can anyone explain?


hmm maybe it's not anti vax. is the covid idiot polluting the other sink because they are linked by the pipe?


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## BigMoaner (Sep 17, 2021)

there's no need for hte pipework. i think the pipe work is saying somethign


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## Wilf (Sep 17, 2021)

.


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## SpookyFrank (Sep 17, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> it's some sad sack sicko comparing the brutalisation of black people in the american south to being a absoloute thicko who trusts michael on whatsapp over a global scientific consensus.



Nail, head etc.


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## BigMoaner (Sep 17, 2021)

it could eaqually say that the unvaxxed are poisoning the rest of us. look at the pipe work


----------



## BigMoaner (Sep 17, 2021)

although why the waste would be feedign the taps i am not sure, lol


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## BigMoaner (Sep 17, 2021)

i think there's a pipe leading from the waste direct to the tap, but it's very faint in the pic


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## wemakeyousoundb (Sep 17, 2021)

Hmmm that's from him: The Artful Dodger (A. Dee) is on Instagram • 209 posts on their profile


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## BigMoaner (Sep 17, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Hmmm that's from him: The Artful Dodger (A. Dee) is on Instagram • 209 posts on their profile


pro vax


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## Wilf (Sep 17, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> pro vax


I didn't get very far with that as it kept wanting me to log in to instagram, which I don't have. I'll take your word for it though and have edited my (hostile) comments.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 17, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I didn't get very far with that as it kept wanting me to log in to instagram, which I don't have. I'll take your word for it though and have edited my (hostile) comments.


Yeah I already looked at some of his other stuff (there's a fair bit of it around here) and there are some pro NHS themed murals but noting specifically about vaccines (either pro or anti) as far as I can see.


----------



## Yossarian (Sep 17, 2021)

If the artist is trying to send a pro-vax message, depicting a Black man in 1950s clothing drinking from a segregated water fountain marked 'UN-VAXXED' is a weird way to go about it.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 17, 2021)

I hadn't got that they were drinking fountains (was thinking they were wash basins). Understanding that, I can see that it is making some point about racial segregation. But it remains unclear what exactly it's trying to say. I'm not sure if the linked pipework is significant; maybe it's not.

It could be trying to say that those who get offered the vaccine (on a global basis, or maybe in a USA context) are more likely to be white & wealthy but then I don't see what the specific relevance of Biden and Fauci is.

The fact that Biden and Fauci are there gives it a kind of anti-vaxx tone but this is in London - why is it showing US rather than UK politicians/advisors?


----------



## Yossarian (Sep 17, 2021)

I don't think there's any hidden message with the pipework, seems to be a faithful reproduction of this image.


----------



## pogofish (Sep 17, 2021)

The square of booze sheds at the beach have finally been closed - and look sorrier than ever now they are completely fenced-off.


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 17, 2021)

The situation in Scotland really is quite baffling.  I've not been that impressed by the SNP's handling of the crisis, sure its been better than Johnson and his mates but that is a horribly low bar to set.  When compared to other similar sized European countries it doesn't look good.

I'm kind of mystified that there isn't stronger rules being brought in, I mean having to deploy the army is an alarm call surely?  Or have I missed something?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 17, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That 7-day average has dropped again, now down -18.4%, and that's almost 2 weeks since the schools went back, so somewhat surprising.



The daily reported new cases continue to drop, and that 7-day average was down -22.4% yesterday, and -23% today. 

And, it now seems to be reflected in the hospital admissions & patients in hospital, both dropping slightly.


----------



## brogdale (Sep 19, 2021)

Fucking state of this.


----------



## weepiper (Sep 19, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> The situation in Scotland really is quite baffling.  I've not been that impressed by the SNP's handling of the crisis, sure its been better than Johnson and his mates but that is a horribly low bar to set.  When compared to other similar sized European countries it doesn't look good.
> 
> I'm kind of mystified that there isn't stronger rules being brought in, I mean having to deploy the army is an alarm call surely?  Or have I missed something?


It's been happening in England for ages already








						Army supporting ambulance services in England
					

High demand and staffing shortages have meant the Army has been called in to help look after patients.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				











						Record number of armed forces personnel help with Covid response
					

The Defence Secretary has today updated Parliament on the role the UK Armed Forces are playing to tackle Covid.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 19, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Fucking state of this.




I know people who work there !
That'll P155 a few of them off most severely ...


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> The situation in Scotland really is quite baffling.  I've not been that impressed by the SNP's handling of the crisis, sure its been better than Johnson and his mates but that is a horribly low bar to set.  When compared to other similar sized European countries it doesn't look good.
> 
> I'm kind of mystified that there isn't stronger rules being brought in, I mean having to deploy the army is an alarm call surely?  Or have I missed something?


The whole of the UK is basically nailed to the same approach, with some meaningful but still fairly minor differences.

Scotland tended to have slightly better rhetoic and public health messaging during the pandemic so the current approach can seen especially jarring there. But its been this way for months, it was the same with their pre-summer holiday peak when numbers soared far past levels where they would previously have taken action.

They are wedded to the same path partly because they dont have control over all the areas of policy that would enable a truly independent pandemic approach, but also because establishment attitudes there have much in common with the rest of the UK. And at this phase of the pandemic the authorities in all four nations are emboldened to push their luck. Because they have seen that it might be possible to just about cope with the peaks, so there is a greater temptation to hold their nerve and see if a corner is turned without having to slam on the brakes real hard. They are still reliant on public behaviour and mixing patterns changing when the picture becomes grim, and there is quite a bit of focus in their weekly reports about how contact patterns are changing week by week.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 20, 2021)

Hospital admissions don't currently appear to be increasing whether you look at the UK as a whole or England alone. It looks plausible to me that there is a gradual decrease.


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2021)

For sure there was a real decrease, its visible in the positive case figures for England by age group. Includes older age groups which will have a larger impact on hospitalisations.

However its no guide for me as to what happens next. Especially as we can see a couple of young age group with a different trend, which I have drilled down into a bit using some additional graphs.

Note that this data involves cases by specimen date so the most recent figures are incomplete.



The 5-9 and 10-14 age groups are the only ones that have graphs like that at the moment.


----------



## elbows (Sep 20, 2021)

Another look at hospital infections:









						‘Higher proportion’ of patients caught Covid in hospital during second wave
					

An estimated 36,824 people were infected after being admitted to hospital with a non-Covid health issue between August 2020 and May 2021




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 21, 2021)

Does anyone know if covid test centres or postal pcr tests give quicker results these days? Or will it be about the same? I'm in London if that makes any difference.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2021)

Not sure where to put this but I've been told (2nd hand but via sensible people I trust) that there is a Government instructed "media blackout" (not my words) in operation on aspects of the Covid surge right now. This chimes with seeing how my Uni are manipulating their case stats by not counting cases reported by staff/students but diagnosed off campus.


----------



## killer b (Sep 21, 2021)

chilango said:


> Not sure where to put this but I've been told (2nd hand but via sensible people I trust) that there is a Government instructed "media blackout" (not my words) in operation on aspects of the Covid surge right now. This chimes with seeing how my Uni are manipulating their case stats by not counting cases reported by staff/students but diagnosed off campus.


I don't think university administrators need to be instructed to do this sort of thing tbh


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

chilango any more details? Which bits are they particularly trying to cover up?


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 21, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Does anyone know if covid test centres or postal pcr tests give quicker results these days? Or will it be about the same? I'm in London if that makes any difference.



Badgers may be able to give you a steer.  The 2 times I've had tests both were postal and got the results back within 24 hours of sending them back.  I would have though that the drop in centres would be quicker as you don't have to wait for it to be sent to you.  That's just me guessing though.

I don't know how many drop in test centres are still operational but the one near where I live certainly appears to be.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2021)

With regards the media, I expect its the usual stuff that is actually a bit more subtle than that.

Its not so much that things are totally hidden, its more a question of emphasis and mood music. The media are easily lead and various aspects have a sense of 'duty' which involves trying to move with the times and the agenda. When the agenda is to get people to behave more normally, and to accept high ongoing levels of infection, Covid reporting will take a backseat and the narrative will soften. But so far there has been the ongoing possibility that the authorities will require people to modify their behaviour during certain periods so that systems can cope, and so there are moments where it feels like the switch suddenly gets flipped and the mood music changes overnight. We've seen that a number of times in this pandemic so far, eg when we suddenly start seeing images from intensive care units and interviews with healthcare professionals or other experts urging caution.

The above doesnt apply to every nook and cranny of the media, certain specific publications and individual journalists will have their own stances that they've stuck to throughout, and there is more than one phenomenon at work when it comes to media control and manipulation. Existing bias and the 'right people' with the 'right attitudes' in the right jobs, knowing how the game is played, knowing how power works and what happens if you go against the flow is a big chunk of this, but more formal or spooky versions probably exist too, especially when it comes to the state broadcaster.

And there are limits to how far the above can be pushed. For example in March 2020 when UK plan A was a doomed joke, some journalists were unconvinced by plan A and asked the right question in the press conferences. Others tried to sell us the bullshit plan and ended up looking murderous and stupid. And even now some newspapers will splash the specific concerns of experts on their front pages from time to time. But what we dont have is a large mainstream media entity that was prepared to take an ongoing stand against the entire approach, there is no newspaper that wanted to go to war with the whole idea of letting this many infections happen every day. Some do manage to reflect ongoing concerns as to whether the current plan is sensible and workable.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2021)

No, the Uni thing is separate, but part of an overall strategy to downplay, or suppress, the scale of what's happening.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> chilango any more details? Which bits are they particularly trying to cover up?


Don't know. I was told - from someone who'd know and would have no reason to exaggerate - that "the government has ordered a media blackout of Covid coverage". That's the quote. What exactly it means or covers I don't know.vBut what I do know is that if that is being talked about at the levels it's coming from then we should brace ourselves for a tough autumn/winter.


----------



## Wilf (Sep 21, 2021)

I know at my place, a university, there's been a desperate attempt at getting everything face to face and on campus, even a 'festival' to celebrate the return.  Getting everything back on campus is the primary response to some truly dire National Student Survey results.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2021)

If it gets really bad in terms of hospital pressure then we'll have the very opposite of a media blackout, authorities will require people to modify their behaviour and so we will never stop hearing about the terrible burden of the disease.


----------



## chilango (Sep 21, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I know at my place, a university, there's been a desperate attempt at getting everything face to face and on campus, even a 'festival' to celebrate the return.  Getting everything back on campus is the primary response to some truly dire National Student Survey results.


Yep similar here (dunno abou how we did on the NSS though). F2F is mandatory for students, online provision reserved for students stuck overseas afaics.


----------



## platinumsage (Sep 21, 2021)

chilango said:


> Don't know. I was told - from someone who'd know and would have no reason to exaggerate - that "the government has ordered a media blackout of Covid coverage". That's the quote. What exactly it means or covers I don't know.vBut what I do know is that if that is being talked about at the levels it's coming from then we should brace ourselves for a tough autumn/winter.



It sounds like a load of bollocks to me.


----------



## platinumsage (Sep 21, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I know at my place, a university, there's been a desperate attempt at getting everything face to face and on campus, even a 'festival' to celebrate the return.  Getting everything back on campus is the primary response to some truly dire National Student Survey results.



In our university, they kicked off the term with blended learning i.e. half online, half in person. Lecturers could choose whether to alternate the classroom with online, or do half the term one way and half the other. Predicatbly they all decided to teach the first half online, meaning students turned up with no staff to greet them. Now they're being offered extra pay to come in immediately.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It sounds like a load of bollocks to me.


To be able to demonstrate that it was not bollocks, we would need the claim to be much more specific for a start.

I'm sticking to my views about how its the emphasis and repetition or lack of repetition where a lot of the action is on this front.

For example the media, in this case the BBC, are not hiding the following factoid from the official state stats agency:



> Covid-19 was the third leading cause of death in England in August, up from the ninth leading cause in July, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) says.
> 
> This is the highest ranking for Covid since March, when it was also the third leading cause of death.



(from the 10:58 entry of BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58635383 )

So such inconvenient facts are not hidden, but how many front page headlines will they generate?

Personally I have found that a combination of the mass media, official data, some expert voices via media quotes and social media, and some scientific papers to be perfectly sufficient for me to develop a reasonable approximation of reality throughout the pandemic so far. But admittedly that does involve some reading between the lines in terms of timing, media stories, data definitions and analysis etc.

I suppose we could also look at the times that I have complained that the media has not been telling such and such a pandemic story. Usually when I've made this complaint, its only been a question of time and emphasis before the complaint becomes obsolete. Often I've just been able to get in there a few days or weeks early, and the mainstream narratives catch up in the end. Sometimes coverage of particular aspects is rather subdued, but its usually still there eventually. And the behaviours the authorities require from the public are very much reflected in media timing and emphasis, to the extent that it becomes fairly predictable, and I'm usually only slightly ahead of that game.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2021)

chilango said:


> Don't know. I was told - from someone who'd know and would have no reason to exaggerate - that "the government has ordered a media blackout of Covid coverage". That's the quote.


That's different from what you said in your first post.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

Doesn''t seem particularly different to me


----------



## Wilf (Sep 21, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> In our university, they kicked off the term with blended learning i.e. half online, half in person. Lecturers could choose whether to alternate the classroom with online, or do half the term one way and half the other. Predicatbly they all decided to teach the first half online, meaning students turned up with no staff to greet them. Now they're being offered extra pay to come in immediately.


Wow, that's really quite impressive, world beating levels of stupidity from the bosses there.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

Obv the information is out there if you go looking for it; Indie sage, twitter, ONS, PHE etc etc. But most people aren't looking for it so if there's a soft blackout in that sense it's still going to make a big difference to the information that the majority of people are getting.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

Six dead kids from Covid so far this month, that's probably one thing they're sitting on


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Six dead kids from Covid so far this month, that's probably one thing they're sitting on



Official numbers for England and Wales from the ONS, based on Covid being mentioned on death certificates, has a total of 54 people aged 0-19 having died by that measure during the pandemic so far. Thats by week of occurrence up to 10th September 2021. Using data from the spreadsheet at Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional        - Office for National Statistics


----------



## belboid (Sep 21, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> In our university, they kicked off the term with blended learning i.e. half online, half in person. Lecturers could choose whether to alternate the classroom with online, or do half the term one way and half the other. Predicatbly they all decided to teach the first half online, meaning students turned up with no staff to greet them. Now they're being offered extra pay to come in immediately.


I'm surprised at that, at both Sheffield uni's the phrase 'blended learning' has been banned. Practicalities mean it will have to be like that in some cases, but everyone has been told to go into work as if it were 2019.


----------



## mr steev (Sep 21, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Does anyone know if covid test centres or postal pcr tests give quicker results these days? Or will it be about the same? I'm in London if that makes any difference.



My daughter had a PCR test at a drive-through last week. Took the test at 9.15am and had the results emailed and texted at 2.15am the next morning. Which I thought was quite quick


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 21, 2021)

I'm getting a PCR tomorrow because someone I was (slightly) in contact with tested positive on two LFTs. However that person has now got a negative result from a PCR test that they took the following day. I'm aware that there is a false negative rate with PCRs - how high it is seems up for debate still. I think in their situation I would get a second PCR to confirm, but I don't know them very well and suspect they won't do that - they are blaming it on dodgy LFTs. So what is the chance that this person has covid?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Official numbers for England and Wales from the ONS, based on Covid being mentioned on death certificates, has a total of 54 people aged 0-19 having died by that measure during the pandemic so far. Thats by week of occurrence up to 10th September 2021. Using data from the spreadsheet at Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional        - Office for National Statistics


So 54 in 18 months, or 3/month, except we don't know how many of the 6 Fruitloop mentioned are included in that number. So somewhere between a 0% and 100% jump, maybe, I guess? You'd expect any school-related bounce to show up in the Scottish figures first, really.


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## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

Anecdotally there seem to have been a lot more negative PCR tests after a positive or multiple positive LFTs, so if someone has any kind of positive test I would be inclined to assume that they're positive


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Six dead kids from Covid so far this month, that's probably one thing they're sitting on





Fruitloop said:


> Anecdotally there seem to have been a lot more negative PCR tests after a positive or multiple positive LFTs, so if someone has any kind of positive test I would be inclined to assume that they're positive



Where are you getting this stuff from? 

Facebook or twitter?


----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Anecdotally there seem to have been a lot more negative PCR tests after a positive or multiple positive LFTs, so if someone has any kind of positive test I would be inclined to assume that they're positive


Are you suggesting that PCR tests are inherently unreliable or that this is deliberate?


----------



## xenon (Sep 21, 2021)

Yeah not really helpful. Dead children and faulty tests. You really should provide links for such claims.


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## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

maomao said:


> Are you suggesting that PCR tests are inherently unreliable or that this is deliberate?



No idea, like I said it's anecdotal based on people I'm in contact with. But I've heard of several in person and more on twatter, when previously I hadn't heard of any.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)




----------



## maomao (Sep 21, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


>



An anonymous Twitter account is not a source.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


>




Seriously, that's all you have got?

Blimey, you picked your username well.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 21, 2021)

maomao said:


> An anonymous Twitter account is not a source.


Looks like the twitter account is using this as a source





__





						UK Data | by @antonio_caramia on Twitter
					





					www.ilpandacentrostudio.it


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2021)

Buddy Bradley said:


> So 54 in 18 months, or 3/month, except we don't know how many of the 6 Fruitloop mentioned are included in that number. So somewhere between a 0% and 100% jump, maybe, I guess? You'd expect any school-related bounce to show up in the Scottish figures first, really.


Well up until recent posts I had no idea what the source of info was.

Its probably legit, but I'll check the underlying data source for myself and will report back.

Child deaths during the pandemic are a feature for sure, one that has received very little attention due to (a) the small numbers involved and (b) the tendency to diminish such things because they usually involve children with underlying health issues. I am displeased with this phenomenon, although I find it hard to get the balance right.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

Dammit teuchter, faster than me on the draw. Those are better than the ONS, although from those you can see that they're talking about the same data: Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights - Office for National Statistics


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

elbows it worries me that 'underlying conditions' is a pretty broad category, I believe asthma is included, along with a bunch of other things that are very common.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

Also, I fucking hate twitter, if you read something and want to quote it, it's completely impossible to find it once it gets buried under the more recent stuff. The search facility blows goats.


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## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

So obviously I just read a ranked list of the conditions that are considered underlying, and now I can't fucking find it


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Looks like the twitter account is using this as a source
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Fruitloop said:


> Dammit teuchter, faster than me on the draw. Those are better than the ONS, although from those you can see that they're talking about the same data: Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights - Office for National Statistics



ONS data is based on death certificates. Dashboard data is based on deaths within 28 days of a positive test. There is usually some variation between these two different measurements. And ONS data is slower to emerge.

Anyway I checked that website and it is indeed using legitimate data that can be downloaded from the official government dashboard. I have just downloaded that data and created my own charts, and they match what that website shows:

Here are the daily figures from July 1st onwards, to match the time period that is shown for daily figures on that website. And also the same data but stretching over the entire pandemic so far. These figures are for England only.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

top chart action


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Looks like the twitter account is using this as a source
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Fruitloop said:


> Dammit teuchter, faster than me on the draw. Those are better than the ONS, although from those you can see that they're talking about the same data: Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights - Office for National Statistics



But, these data sources don't support the claim that there's been '6 Child deaths so far in September', unless you include deaths in those aged up to 20, which is pushing it somewhat.


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## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

Yeah she's including 15-19 in that, it was in the twitter thread I posted, the second tweet after the one pictured


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## Fruitloop (Sep 21, 2021)

Looks like it's going to get worse too:


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> elbows it worries me that 'underlying conditions' is a pretty broad category, I believe asthma is included, along with a bunch of other things that are very common.



When it comes to children I recommend looking at studies specific to those age groups.

I recommend looking at the three papers linked to at the bottom of the following article. I never let the headlines and the framing about how incredibly rare these cases are put me off from exploring the detail that such studies also inevitably include. And there is almost always something of interest well beyond the central narrative that such studies generate.









						Deaths from COVID ‘incredibly rare’ among children
					

Studies find that overall risk of death or severe disease from COVID-19 is very low in kids.




					www.nature.com
				




I dont want to summarise all the bits I find interesting right now. It would be nice if someone else could take a look and pick a few alternative headlines that are supported by the data.


----------



## elbows (Sep 21, 2021)

Regarding the media angle we've been talking about recently, I'm running out of steam for today but just a couple more things:

I've complained before that all sorts of data could be used to create all sorts of headlines and stories that we havent seen in this pandemic. On a number of occasions I have pointed out a bunch of stories I can tell if I separate various data into the different waves. Since the subject of children has come up, I shall probably repeat this exercise with a few different bits of data regarding children, sometime later this week.

The subject of the lack of recent international reporting has come up in the last few posts on the worldwide pandemic thread. That is an interesting area that I dont have time to comment on right now, but I will get round to it as soon as I can. Just mentioning it here to tip people off that were interested in the nature of media coverage, or lack of.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 22, 2021)

Sorry, the hated twatter again but I am kind of enjoying this pile-on to the DfE:


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 22, 2021)

> Of 3,105 deaths from all causes among the 12 million or so people under 18 in England between March 2020 and February 2021, 25 were attributable to COVID-19 — a rate of about 2 for every million people in this age range. None had asthma or type-1 diabetes, the authors note, and about half had conditions that put them at a higher risk than healthy children of dying from any cause.



elbows is that the reporting that got a bit of a bad rap, because it divided the number of deaths by the total number of children in the UK, rather than the number that had actually had Covid? So in effect in somewhere like NZ where your chances of catching covid are much lower then the chances of dying from it are infintesimal, and at the moment as Covid-19 rips through the younger age-groups in the UK that number will have gone up significantly.


----------



## Supine (Sep 22, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Sorry, the hated twatter again but I am kind of enjoying this pile-on to the DfE:




12 of my relatives currently down with covid. Three families, all caught from the kids. Anecdotally things seem really bad at the moment whatever the test numbers say.


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## quimcunx (Sep 22, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Anecdotally there seem to have been a lot more negative PCR tests after a positive or multiple positive LFTs, so if someone has any kind of positive test I would be inclined to assume that they're positive



Anecdotally I've only heard of it the other way round. positive PCR after several negative LFTs.  My understanding is false negatives are an issue with LFTs, not false positives.  Of course someone could  think a line beside the C means Covid.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 22, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Anecdotally I've only heard of it the other way round. positive PCR after several negative LFTs.  My understanding is false negatives are an issue with LFTs, not false positives.


yes, same here.
If you get a positive LFT, you've very likely got covid.
Negative LFT, you probably don't have covid but you might.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 22, 2021)

teuchter said:


> yes, same here.
> If you get a positive LFT, you've very likely got covid.
> Negative LFT, you probably don't have covid but you might.


That was my understanding but I know a few people who have had it the other way round recently.


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## quimcunx (Sep 22, 2021)

I had a PCR test in the post the other day and did notice some (cost cutting) changes.  Maybe there is a new supplier and a dodgy batch.


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## l'Otters (Sep 22, 2021)

Thinking back to a breakdown of the false positive / negative rates of ltf’s by Christina Pagel, iirc, it’s about 50% false negative and something around 5-10% false positive. But would have to dig out that info again to be sure as it was months ago now.


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## elbows (Sep 22, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> elbows is that the reporting that got a bit of a bad rap, because it divided the number of deaths by the total number of children in the UK, rather than the number that had actually had Covid? So in effect in somewhere like NZ where your chances of catching covid are much lower then the chances of dying from it are infintesimal, and at the moment as Covid-19 rips through the younger age-groups in the UK that number will have gone up significantly.



I dont know because I just ignore those aspects anyway, like the comforting headlines they are a distraction I seek to bypass. I posted it so you can have a look at the detail of what sort of health conditions they are seeing increasing the risk, and also because it demonstrates that a fair number of the children did not have known underlying conditions that are considered to be risk factors. Not because I think the actual risk numbers they've come up with are perfect. Take them with a pinch of salt and they still offer useful clues. I have a vague memory that the most recent complaint along the lines of what you describe was actually in regards a different report to do with long covid in children, but the same sort of logic will apply. 

In other words I am less interested in any attempts such reports make to quantify individual risk on a whole population basis, and more interested in what percentage of the children that their studies actually saw admitted to hospital, intensive care, or who died had what conditions.


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## Fruitloop (Sep 22, 2021)

Sure, understood. I'll have a dig into the important details and ignore the surface trivia


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## elbows (Sep 22, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Sure, understood. I'll have a dig into the important details and ignore the surface trivia



Just to clarify my feelings on that - those things arent trivia really, but they are an area of contention and thats why I tend to bypass them so that sight is not lost of other important detail.


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## elbows (Sep 22, 2021)

Here is a bit from one of those reports that I would certainly highlight. This is a study which looked at the results of many other studies.









						Which children and young people are at higher risk of severe disease and death after SARS-CoV-2 infection: a systematic review and individual patient meta-analysis
					

Background We aimed to use individual patient data to describe pre-existing factors associated with severe disease, primarily admission to critical care, and death secondary to SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and young people (CYP) in hospital.  Methods We searched Pubmed, European PMC, Medline...




					www.medrxiv.org
				






> Number of comorbid conditions was associated with increased odds of admission to critical care and death for COVID-19 in a dose-related fashion. For critical care admission odds ratios were: 1 comorbidity 1.49 (1.45-1.53); 2 comorbidities 2.58 (2.41-2.75); ≥3 comorbidities 2.97 (2.04-4.32), and for death: 1 comorbidity 2.15 (1.98-2.34); 2 comorbidities 4.63 (4.54-4.74); ≥3 co-morbidities 4.98 (3.78-6.65). Odds of admission to critical care were increased for all co-morbidities apart from asthma (0.92 (0.91-0.94)) and malignancy (0.85 (0.17-4.21)) with an increased odds of death in all co-morbidities considered apart from asthma. Neurological and cardiac comorbidities were associated with the greatest increase in odds of severe disease or death. Obesity increased the odds of severe disease and death independently of other comorbidities.





> Interpretation Hospitalised CYP at greatest vulnerability of severe disease or death from SARS-CoV-2 infection are infants, teenagers, those with cardiac or neurological conditions, or 2 or more comorbid conditions, and those who are obese. These groups should be considered higher priority for vaccination and for protective shielding when appropriate. Whilst odds ratios were high, the absolute increase in risk for most comorbidities was small compared to children without underlying conditions.


----------



## Dogsauce (Sep 22, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> That was my understanding but I know a few people who have had it the other way round recently.


My boss has had exactly this, and has had some symptoms. Several positive lateral flow, PCR negative. Her interpretation is that the lateral flow was picking up ‘some other flu type thing’ which I‘m pretty sure isn’t how they would work.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 23, 2021)

A polite request:
For various reasons I haven't been keeping up to date with the UK/England/London covid picture over the last several weeks

I;,m now back face to face teaching at university 
very few students wearing masks 
colleagues unsure when to wear a mask or not
I'm after an overview of where we are with covid infections,  hospitalisation and death this week because I'm taking a meeting on Friday with immediate colleagues to pass on the union line on personal risk assessment and how we can get more students to wear masks

Does anyone have the energy to give me some headlines to share with colleagues ?  

We have plenty of anecdata from colleagues with school age children who have covid and a few colleagues are off with covid caught from their children
Plenty of my students have school age children and/or work in nursery and school settings when not at uni


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## elbows (Sep 23, 2021)

Well mask wearing has collapsed, its been denormalised and I'd only expect it to start increasing again if we have a sustained period of scary mood music, data and headlines. And those headlines are unlikely to be forthcoming at this present moment now since hospital admissions in England fell a fair bit in recent weeks.

Rates of infection are still really high but thats been normalised too.

So its not the best moment for headlines on the situation because a lot of the trends have been downwards and there are probably a lot of stories and headlines that arent going to happen unless it spikes back up again. In the meantime, obvious topics they could focus on more would be the rise in cases in school aged children which does show up in the data quite clearly. The press have tended to comment on it in terms of statistics about number of children off school, rather than the daily number of cases in those age groups going up.

I can give a slightly more detailed view using graphs rather than media headlines. I'll try to do some for the London region on Thursday. Including by age group. A lot of the falls have been in younger adults and one of the stories the press are likely to be waiting for is whether the return to universities leads to a new spike in certain age groups that them spreads across a broader range of age groups.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2021)

Although to be honest, London isnt the region I would focus on so far if I wanted to tell dramatic stories using data in this wave. Because unlike the North East for example, this wave so far has been more modest in London than the previous wave was in London. Thats also probably one of the big reasons why, since more people were infected in London in previous waves, leaving less susceptible people avaialble to catch it in this wave.

I dont know quite how many graphs I will get round to doing in time for your purpose, but there is really one headline story that really leaps out from the daily positive case numbers for England at the moment. And its a continuation of the story people have already been telling recently, but the data got substantially worse in recent days....

Positive cases in the 10-14 age group in England, by date of test specimen:



I havent checked every regions version of that data yet. But its likely to be a similar pattern in all regions, just more pronounced in some than others. 

For example the leap in recent few days is dramatic in the East Midlands:



It is still present in the London region, but not to the same extent yet (eg note different scale on chart axis, and levels now compared to the July peak). Still not a million miles away from a very rapid doubling though:



Most of the other age groups have been going in quite the opposite direction, except 5-9 year olds where things are getting bad too, but not yet with such a dramatic additional spike/nearly doubling in the last few days. I dont have graphs ready to get into more detail in regards the other age groups yet.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2021)

Fuck the tories in this article.









						Chris Whitty warns MPs it is ‘inevitable’ unvaccinated children will catch Covid
					

Chief medical officer says transmission in England highest among 12- to 15-year-olds




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, asked if the witnesses acknowledged there was “low transmission” of Covid among the 12-15 age group.
> 
> Whitty replied: “That is not true, there is definitely substantial transmission happening in this age group. In fact the age group we are talking about is the one in which the highest rate of transmission is currently occurring, as far as we can tell.”





> He added that it was a “reasonable stab” to estimate that 50% of children in England had already had Covid, leaving many still at risk, and noted that children in deprived areas were at the greatest risk of seeing their education disrupted.
> 
> Caroline Johnson, the Conservative MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham, asked: “Why not vaccinate just those children? We know that children from black and ethnic minoroity groups are more at risk from Covid.”
> 
> Whitty responded: “I’m not convinced that feels to me like an effective public health intervention,” adding that such discrimination would not be desirable.





> But Johnson – a medical doctor – went on to ask Whitty if the risks to some “white boys” from vaccination made it justified.
> 
> “Just to be really clear on this, if you’re a parent in a rural area with relatively low levels of Covid disruption so far, who is white, male, and already certainly had Covid and tested positive for Covid before, is the vaccine still, for that child, in their benefit?” Johnson said.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 23, 2021)

I like Deepti Gurdasani's phrase 'manufactured inevitability'. As in, it's not actually inevitable, but it will be because we're too busy lining our pockets and those of our mates to actually fucking do anything about it.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 23, 2021)

Meanwhile, I think it's fair to say things are going very badly:











__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2021)

That saves me thr trouble of having to do other graphs. I note that their story also includes hopes that the peak in that age group came quickly and then diminished in Leicester (where schools went back earlier).


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2021)

In terms of longer term consequences, I suppose I am expecting that a range of stories are possible in regards to how our immune systems can be recalibrated by this virus. It might be a long time before all the implications of this emerge. But in the meantime we have stories like this:









						Salons report new allergic reactions to hair dye
					

Scientists at Imperial College London are now researching a link between Covid-19 and new allergies.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Hairdressers in parts of the UK are reporting clients having new allergic reactions, like rashes and burns, to hair dye after contracting coronavirus.
> 
> Scientists at Imperial College London are now researching how the disease could be reprogramming our immune system, in a similar way to other illnesses.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2021)

Shit all hospital data updates for England in the last few days due to 'a major incident with the data collection system used by NHS England'.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 23, 2021)

After around 10 days of the daily reported 7-average of new cases dropping, today it's gone up by 9.4%.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Shit all hospital data updates for England in the last few days due to 'a major incident with the data collection system used by NHS England'.


Ran out of rows on their Excel spreadsheet again.


----------



## elbows (Sep 23, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> After around 10 days of the daily reported 7-average of new cases dropping, today it's gone up by 9.4%.



For England this is driven largely by the age groups we've been talking about in the last day or two. But there were also quite a lot of cases in many other age groups with a test specimen date of this last Monday the 20th September. Need more data to see if thats the start of more sustained rises (or at least a halting of falls) in those age groups.

Since age is an increasingly important aspect to focus on at the moment due to large differences between age groups, I'm posting all of the age group graphs I have for England, but there are a lot so I'll stick them in a spoiler tag. As usual these are by specimen date so most recent days are incomplete. Note different y scales for each graph. And these are raw numbers rather than rates per 100,000, so havent been adjusted to show the exact proportion of impact on each age group. Sorry they may be a bit blurry, but hopefully that doesnt matter since I post them like this mostly for comparing the shapes over time. Oh and I didnt deliberately make the three youngest groups at the bottom larger, I think its just how the forum software formatted them since that part of the image wasnt as wide since its 3 graphs on that row not 4.



Spoiler


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 23, 2021)

Thanks elbows for your data and analysis
Really appreciate it


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2021)

I know its pretty redundant to post the following data here since we've covered it numerous ways already, but I'll do so anyway in order to point out that the BBC is bothering to tell this story.





> The weekly Covid-19 case rate among those aged 10 to 14 has been rising since the start of the autumn term and is now higher than during the summer wave — in fact the rate is at its highest since the start of the pandemic.
> 
> The rise coincides with lockdown measures easing and the removal of school restrictions such as mask-wearing and keeping children in so-called bubbles.





> However, cases among 15 to 19-year olds are falling, perhaps in part due to high levels of vaccination in the group. Over half of 16 and 17 year-old’s have received one jab, according to the latest NHS England data.
> 
> Last week it was announced that those aged 12 and over would be offered the vaccine too, despite the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation saying the health benefits alone were marginal.
> 
> Justifying the decision, Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty on Wednesday said it was “inevitable” unvaccinated children would become infected, causing disruption to their education.



Thats the 11:37 entry of their live updates page today https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58674934


----------



## Chz (Sep 24, 2021)

I don't think it's necessarily Covid - he's had two negative LFTs and we're waiting on a PCR - but the 11 year old has been sick out of school all week since they sent him home Monday morning. I'm sure there's a lot of Covid out there, but it's matching up with a nasty cold that's also going around.


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2021)

Chz said:


> I don't think it's necessarily Covid - he's had two negative LFTs and we're waiting on a PCR - but the 11 year old has been sick out of school all week since they sent him home Monday morning. I'm sure there's a lot of Covid out there, but it's matching up with a nasty cold that's also going around.



Yeah. Our surveillance for other illnesses isnt really strong enough for me to expect it to paint the full picture, but its not completely useless either. This is from the weekly surveillance report at https://assets.publishing.service.g...019975/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w38.pdf


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2021)

And this Covid rates map from the same surveillance report is probably a nice simple way for me to point out the current regional variations.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 24, 2021)

Someone needs to tell the map maker that you either run your colour coding on a spectrum from green through blue to purple (like the govt dashboard) or you run it from green through yellow to red. You don't set it up so that green is not your colour for "best".


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2021)

More bit and bobs from the BBC live updates page.



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58674934
		


13:56:



> Covid infections in England are now highest among school age children, according to the Office for National Statistics, with secondary school children the worst affected.
> 
> Prof Adam Finn, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), says the higher case numbers in that age group will be partly down to more testing among school children.
> 
> “Some of this is a genuine rise in cases in that age group and some of it is that you’re finding cases because you’re looking for them,” he tells BBC Radio 4’s The World at One.





> He says “adults are infecting children more than children are infecting adults”, and warns there could be a spike among young adults “coming up” as students start university.
> 
> “The people we need to most urgently pay attention to are the young adults who socialise a lot, many of whom are still not immunised. That’s where we’re going to see most transmission going on in the coming weeks and months,” he says.
> 
> “The universities really need to give every opportunity they can to students coming in to make it easy and convenient.”



14:12:



> People in Scotland are twice as likely as those in England to test positive for Covid at the moment.
> 
> One in 45 people test positive north of the border compared with one in 90 below it.
> 
> ...





> Even the England football team’s run to the finals of the Euros, which did help Covid spread, could have topped up immunity.
> 
> Differences in the schooling system – schools in Scotland go back in mid-August rather than early September – could also have an impact.
> 
> Understanding the difference could help us figure out what is going to happen in the months to come as there is still considerable uncertainty about how tough this winter is going to be.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Sep 24, 2021)

thanks elbows   that was really helpful to know the changing recent picture of covid especially when so many staff are parents and so many students are parents and/or work with children in school or nursery


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 24, 2021)

Wales is now above 500 case per 100.000 and our NHS is about as close to collapse as Ive ever seen it.
Todays claim of 10 years to clear a backlog in Cancer care needs to be seen for that really means...thousands of people not ever getting the cancer treatment they otherwise would and dieing
I cant get to see a GP I dont know what the fuck they are doing tbh, either on long term holiday or sat at home counting all the £12:50s per head for jabs whilst picking out the accessories for next years merc or range rover while the nurses, real doctors and army are working their tits off I presume?
We no longer have a first world health service, its broken down


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Sep 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> And this Covid rates map from the same surveillance report is probably a nice simple way for me to point out the current regional variations.
> 
> View attachment 289930


It's grim oop north.


----------



## Supine (Sep 24, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I cant get to see a GP I dont know what the fuck they are doing tbh, either on long term holiday or sat at home counting all the £12:50s per head for jabs whilst picking out the accessories for next years merc or range rover while the nurses, real doctors and army are working their tits off I presume?


Wow. Perhaps maybe doctors have had a really tough couple of years don’t you think.


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 24, 2021)

Supine said:


> Wow. Perhaps maybe doctors have had a really tough couple of years don’t you think.


Doctors on the whole yea, GP's though have been hiding for the past 18 months...and they've got used to it.


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2021)

The GP side of the health system was always likely to break down over time even without the pandemic, eg via baby boomer demographics affecting both the number of patients seeking attention and a generation of GPs retiring. Plus there were pre-pandemic trends in far more GPs becoming part time.

Chuck in all the pandemic-related woe and the other parts of the system lacking capacity and I'm not surprised its falling over these days. And the lack of service from the GP side of things adds significantly to hospital A&E pressures.

Probably a bold new vision and a much larger chunk of GDP needs to go into completely rebuilding frontline healthcare in this country. Crude, half-arsed attempts to shift some of the burden to online and phone based services isnt good enough. I'd include a decent version of online consultation, patient management and records as part of the proper solution, but probably we also need a whole new class of real physical clinics and frontline services, as well as much better efforts to deal with long term health issues.

Another completely broken aspect is the entire attitude to prescription drugs. Just look at how ridiculous some of these figures are:



> The review found that around one in five hospital admissions in the over-65s are caused by the adverse effect of medicines as well as 6.5 per cent overall. It also recommends further research into why overprescribing disproportionately affects older people, people with disabilities and ethnic minorities.











						Ministers to crack down on overprescription of medicines on the NHS
					

Government-commissioned review finds 10 per cent of drugs prescribed by primary care doctors are not wanted or needed




					www.independent.co.uk
				




We need an NHS 2.0.


----------



## Supine (Sep 24, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Doctors on the whole yea, GP's though have been hiding for the past 18 months...and they've got used to it.



Idiot


----------



## maomao (Sep 24, 2021)

That's exactly how I feel about my gp tbh. They were always shit though.


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2021)

There are good GPs and bad GPs and average GPs. Some criticism is fair and some is misdirected because the big issues are systemic or demographic related and the GP gets blamed simply because they are on the front line, the most immediate face of a failure that goes far beyond what they are actually the cause of. There are some class issues too. 

Its also entirely understandable if they are 'hiding' from face to face patient contact during the pandemic, since their chances of meeting the virus in those conditions is rather high. But yes we cannot judge that in isolation, it merges with other factors and peoples oversimplified notions and frustrations when they dont get the service they expect.

I wont let GPs off scot free, but I wont be blaming them for demographic timebombs and health system entropy. But they dont escape inclusion in a broader critique of half-arsed Britain and its unsustainable fudges.


----------



## Elpenor (Sep 24, 2021)

I have to say it's taken me 20 years to find a good GP practice. The three I was registered with in Reading were all pretty poor. I still never see the same doctor down here but I feel a lot more valued and listened to as a patient at my current practice.


----------



## xenon (Sep 24, 2021)

I guess I am pretty lucky with my health, but I never bother with GP. Last saw one about 10 years ago I think. Probably I should have seen them for one or two things since then but when there are no appointments for two weeks kind of figured well I’ll be dead or better by then.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 24, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Someone needs to tell the map maker that you either run your colour coding on a spectrum from green through blue to purple (like the govt dashboard) or you run it from green through yellow to red. You don't set it up so that green is not your colour for "best".


I’m not sure I necessarily agree with this. Red for hot and blue for cold are well established semiotics


----------



## teuchter (Sep 24, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’m not sure I necessarily agree with this. Red for hot and blue for cold are well established semiotics


On the best most legible maps they don't have green in between though.


----------



## kabbes (Sep 24, 2021)

teuchter said:


> On the best most legible maps they don't have green in between though.
> 
> 
> View attachment 289968


Agreed, green is a poor choice of intermediate colour. It’s not unknown, mind, particularly in RAGB gap analyses (red = problem without resolution, Amber = problem with resolution, green = no problem, blue = complete). Not that this map is a gap analysis, which is why I agree that green is a poor choice for intermediate.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 24, 2021)

Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2021)

This sort of article is probably fair enough given some of the trends seen in England in recent months:









						‘A bit of a mystery’: why hospital admissions for Covid in England are going down
					

Analysis: Experts say it is first time since start of pandemic that sustained decline is recorded out of lockdown




					www.theguardian.com
				




However it does leave some possible factors out (eg a period of nice weather a while ago that would be expected to temporarily affect case numbers which would then have affected hospitalisations a bit later. But even if it included them we still wouldnt learn much more beyond the very easy prediction that this period of the pandemic would be messy.

For eample its fair enough for them to highlight the possibility that the immunity picture is making a big difference, and that there are probably tugs of war going on there. But I need months more in order for the immunity situation to be tested under a wider range of circumstances eg worsening weather, less hours of daylight, evolving contact patterns, impact of schools and universities, any waning immunity. Plus we are still seeing how the immunity picture is balanced against the current level of contacts, levels which are still well below the pre-pandemic norm. Anyway I dont really object to herd immunity being mentioned because thats only a dirty word to me if it is used in certain contexts or to make a claim that isnt really proven yet.

I'm not sure about the bit where a claim is made that there was no 'obvious change in behaviour' in Scotland at the time of their fall in cases. There are plenty of fluctuations in behaviour and contact mixing patterns reported on in weekly reports for Scotland, such as https://www.gov.scot/binaries/conte...9-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-70.pdf These changes might not be dramatic enough to really show up on some experts radars though, and I dont think the data on that fully captures the publics response to worsening case numbers and mood music. By the way that report again has their wastewater surveillance data showing the same trend as the official testing system, increasing confidence that the decrease in positive cases mirrors the real picture.

If we are lucky then the immunity picture is indeed leading to a situation where even when there can be massive spikes in cases in some or all age groups, these end up being relatively short-lived. But much uncertainty remains.


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 24, 2021)

Supine, You know how much a GP gets paid to do one overnight shift as an out of hours Doc?...I do and its well North of a grand.
Its a tough job, but plenty of nurses got it tougher every fucking night and they dont get paid a small fortune or get to spend the the rest of the week sat down fobbing off patients with a phone call


----------



## Orang Utan (Sep 24, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Wales is now above 500 case per 100.000 and our NHS is about as close to collapse as Ive ever seen it.
> Todays claim of 10 years to clear a backlog in Cancer care needs to be seen for that really means...thousands of people not ever getting the cancer treatment they otherwise would and dieing
> I cant get to see a GP I dont know what the fuck they are doing tbh, either on long term holiday or sat at home counting all the £12:50s per head for jabs whilst picking out the accessories for next years merc or range rover while the nurses, real doctors and army are working their tits off I presume?
> We no longer have a first world health service, its broken down


they’re just really busy what with covid and everything. they’re certainly not off golfing


----------



## elbows (Sep 24, 2021)

Also see articles from earlier this year such as:



> Asked how their career plans for the year ahead had changed, 36% of GPs who responded to a BMA poll said they planned to take early retirement.
> 
> Just over half of respondents said they planned to reduce their working hours, around a fifth said they planned to quit the NHS for an alternative career or to move abroad - and around 15% said they planned to shift to working as a locum. Among doctors who had changed their plans, workload and personal wellbeing were the main reasons cited for the change.











						More than one in three GPs plan early retirement as pandemic and workload take toll
					

More than a third of UK GPs plan to retire early and many more to reduce their working hours in the coming year as unmanageable workload and the pandemic leave the NHS facing a 'ticking timebomb', the BMA has warned.




					www.gponline.com


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 24, 2021)

_Russ_ 

Far from "fobbing" people off with phone appointments, GPs are still incredibly busy with all the usual things, on top of dealing with covid ...

My OH had a swollen gland in the neck. After an initial couple of phone appointments - which generated a 'script for antibiotics - there was a face-to-face appointment [after OH got a -ve LFT / PCR test results].
Then an urgent referral to the regional ENT centre, seen within two weeks and then after isolating & further -ve PCR test, an ultrasound & biopsy also within the next two weeks. Followed by a further GP appointment. Ultrasound & biopsy to be repeated in 3 months.
I don't see a failing NHS / GP service, I see one that is heavily overloaded and doing it's best to cope ...

PS - FYI - one of our older local GPs came out of retirement to assist the with the vaccinations, he's been doing covid, flu, pneumonia, shingles and the usual childhood jabs at both the local surgery and the area's hub for several months. I saw him in May for the covid jab ... and last week he was doing flu jabs at an evening clinic, although I got one of the nurse practitioners.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 24, 2021)

My GPs are stars - I actually quite like phone consultations since I don't really have anything to show them. I just make a list of things I want to talk to them about, they give me lots of time.


----------



## Supine (Sep 24, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Supine, You know how much a GP gets paid to do one overnight shift as an out of hours Doc?...I do and its well North of a grand.
> Its a tough job, but plenty of nurses got it tougher every fucking night and they dont get paid a small fortune or get to spend the the rest of the week sat down fobbing off patients with a phone call


Next time you get ill who you calling? Oh, don’t bother calling the doctor - it’s triaged now, a phone call is used to limit their f2f time due to a global pandemic. Crazy.  Call a vet instead.  Is that annoying you a bit? Should we force them into a room with you?


----------



## Chilli.s (Sep 25, 2021)

I have had to deal with my parents GP several times in the last year, they have been nothing but helpful.
Phone consultations and home visits were readily offered and used as well as surgery appointments.

If it's needed it seems to still be there.


----------



## Mation (Sep 25, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Does anyone know if covid test centres or postal pcr tests give quicker results these days? Or will it be about the same? I'm in London if that makes any difference.


My PCR test results are way slower these days. I used to get them after around 24 hours, but it seems to be a week or more, now.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 25, 2021)

Mation said:


> My PCR test results are way slower these days. I used to get them after around 24 hours, but it seems to be a week or more, now.


I did mine postally in the end, it was delivered in 24hrs, sent it off Wed around 11am and got the result 6am on Friday, maybe I was lucky.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 26, 2021)

Local area has gone right down ref new cases / case rate, after being in excess of both the county and national rate, it is now well below those. That might have something to do with the around 90% first dose vaccination rate, which for the local area is higher than the county & national rates (ditto for second doses) ...

Not quite sure what will happen with the boosters, we've already had our flu jags.

(& I need to get my pneumonia one organised - I think I may have "some" immunity, as a serious dose of it nearly killed me when I was a ten-year old. Told about the details afterwards, with that & what I remember :- what had been a cold rapidly went downhill, GP visited late at night, called ahead and arranged for admission & father drove me to the hospital. Spent some time in an oxygen tent & got a large dose of penicillin jabbed into my bottom. Shortish spell in hospital but much longer convalescing at home ... left me very weak for a long time & prone to bronchitis for years)


----------



## PursuedByBears (Sep 27, 2021)

From City Council FB page:
"Covid-19 cases across Lancaster and Morecambe have risen sharply by 46% in one week.
The number of people testing positive across the district now stands at 463 per 100,000, with increases in all age groups in the past week."


----------



## Dogsauce (Sep 27, 2021)

Think we’re going the way of Scotland aren’t we? I’m now one of those numbers (subject to PCR confirmation). Let the bodies pile high…


----------



## Indeliblelink (Sep 27, 2021)

So is the "worst cold ever" going around at the moment? I'll want to see more evidence than a BBC Newsbeat article taking their info from random student's tweets.








						Super cold: Is 'the worst cold ever' going around?
					

As more of us mix and the weather gets colder, the common cold is back - and it's flooring people.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Sep 27, 2021)

Given my focus on the large role of infections acquired in hospital in this pandemic, I am not at all pleased about the following development:









						Hospitals in England can relax Covid rules to treat more patients
					

Testing and isolating low-risk patients before planned operations can be dropped, new advice says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




However I do recognise the need to balance different factors, especially when factoring in the backlog. But it still makes me nervous and I will try to keep a close eye on the resulting situation. The data I get in daily, near realtime form on hospital infections for England is rather incomplate but it still provides strong clues about trends so I'll certainly be keeping a closer eye on that in the months ahead and will be sure to shout about it if it goes to shit.

I suppose I'll also file this in the 'gains we make as a result of vaccines etc very quickly being converted into different sorts of gains by the authorities' pile.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 27, 2021)

Indeliblelink said:


> So is the "worst cold ever" going around at the moment? I'll want to see more evidence than a BBC Newsbeat article taking their info from random student's tweets.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"Rebecca did lateral flow tests and got negative results, but has been ill for more than a week"

For fucks sake. And the beeb doesn't even point out that she took the wrong test. A friend of mine did the same last week, then later in the week her friend she'd been hanging out with tested positive with PCR and she realised she must have covid after all. Still hasn't done a PCR test herself. They really need to start sending out the LFT boxes with big stickers on them saying GOT SYMPTOMS? DON'T TAKE THIS TEST. GET A PCR INSTEAD.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> "Rebecca did lateral flow tests and got negative results, but has been ill for more than a week"
> 
> For fucks sake. And the beeb doesn't even point out that she took the wrong test. A friend of mine did the same last week, then later in the week her friend she'd been hanging out with tested positive with PCR and she realised she must have covid after all. Still hasn't done a PCR test herself. They really need to start sending out the LFT boxes with big stickers on them saying GOT SYMPTOMS? DON'T TAKE THIS TEST. GET A PCR INSTEAD.



There are big posters at pharmacies etc giving out LFTs saying 'tests for people without symptoms' or words to that effect. A lot of people are just very bad at processing ideas which contradict the picture they've already got in their head for whatever reason.


----------



## Mation (Sep 28, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> There are big posters at pharmacies etc giving out LFTs saying 'tests for people without symptoms' or words to that effect. A lot of people are just very bad at processing ideas which contradict the picture they've already got in their head for whatever reason.


We're all bad at that.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 28, 2021)

Mation said:


> We're all bad at that.



As a species, yes. It's one of those universal cognitive thingummies. But you can train yourself to think, 'I'm not sure about this, I should check'. Ideally this happens before you phone the Guardian about it.

E2a: It was the BBC but you get the idea.


----------



## Mation (Sep 28, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> As a species, yes. It's one of those universal cognitive thingummies. But you can train yourself to think, 'I'm not sure about this, I should check'. Ideally this happens before you phone the Guardian about it.
> 
> E2a: It was the BBC but you get the idea.


Yep, you can train yourself to do it for more things than you would 'naturally', but only for the stuff/areas you're inclined to notice due to being interested.


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 28, 2021)

But also the PCR portal only has the three main symptoms. I think it's reasonable that people are using lateral flows for sniffles (that may well be delta).


----------



## teuchter (Sep 28, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> But also the PCR portal only has the three main symptoms. I think it's reasonable that people are using lateral flows for sniffles (that may well be delta).


That's exactly what I did a week or so ago. Had cold symptoms, looked up whether I ought to do PCR. Website says only if the three main symptoms, none of which I had, so I did a LFT.


----------



## zahir (Sep 28, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> But also the PCR portal only has the three main symptoms. I think it's reasonable that people are using lateral flows for sniffles (that may well be delta).


The responsible thing to do is ignore the bit about the three main symptoms and get a PCR test.


----------



## sojourner (Sep 28, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> But also the PCR portal only has the three main symptoms. I think it's reasonable that people are using lateral flows for sniffles (that may well be delta).


Aye, the fella's come down with symptoms of a cold, and did a lat flow which was negative. I've persuaded him to stay off work today (he's a carer working with some very vulnerable people) and order a PCR test, and lie about the symptoms due to the portal only showing out of date symptom info. I feel absolutely fine, will do a lat flow later, but he's ordered me a PCR too.


----------



## StoneRoad (Sep 28, 2021)

For the first time for months we had visitors to the workshop yesterday.  They volunteered to mask up, and they both had done LFTs the evening before [-ve results] and they were double jabbed, and like me - hoping for their boosters before crimble.

Whilst we were "settling in" and having a ice-breaking chat as to how we had been doing over the past two years [elapsed time since the previous visit !] One of them mentioned about their packing, which now included masks, sanitiser and LFTs as well as all the other normal clothes type things. Joking about the "watch, wallet, keys & phone" thing, now including "masks, gloves or hand gel" ... he also said that he was hoping to see his year old grand-son in a few days, he's only seen a few images so far and it just isn't the same ...


----------



## kropotkin (Sep 28, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Doctors on the whole yea, GP's though have been hiding for the past 18 months...and they've got used to it.


They had 17 million face to face appts last month. 14 million (from memory) the month before. 
So.... No?


----------



## Chz (Sep 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> "Rebecca did lateral flow tests and got negative results, but has been ill for more than a week"
> 
> For fucks sake. And the beeb doesn't even point out that she took the wrong test. A friend of mine did the same last week, then later in the week her friend she'd been hanging out with tested positive with PCR and she realised she must have covid after all. Still hasn't done a PCR test herself. They really need to start sending out the LFT boxes with big stickers on them saying GOT SYMPTOMS? DON'T TAKE THIS TEST. GET A PCR INSTEAD.


TBF, there is a nasty cold going around. Little one had two negative PCRs and two LFTs negative, but was out of school for a week coughing his lungs out.


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 28, 2021)

Chz said:


> TBF, there is a nasty cold going around. Little one had two negative PCRs and two LFTs negative, but was out of school for a week coughing his lungs out.


Yes, sure, and some of the people in the article definitely had colds, but Rebecca doesn't know which she has because she took the wrong test. I just think a responsible journalist should know that and point it out.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 28, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> But also the PCR portal only has the three main symptoms. I think it's reasonable that people are using lateral flows for sniffles (that may well be delta).



Don't actually know what they are. Fever, cough, fatigue?


----------



## wtfftw (Sep 28, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Don't actually know what they are. Fever, cough, fatigue?


fever, cough, smell/taste


----------



## Brainaddict (Sep 28, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> But also the PCR portal only has the three main symptoms. I think it's reasonable that people are using lateral flows for sniffles (that may well be delta).


Yes and I do think they should expand that. But Rebecca had a cough. All week.


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I just think a *responsible journalist* should know that and point it out.


Umm


----------



## Cloo (Sep 28, 2021)

Ugh, it's just so miserable and embarrassing to be British in all this. Previously I guess I had thought 'Well, Europe will get battered by Delta as well, they're just a few weeks behind' but no. Everyone else is managing except us and approaching much more like normal while actually being more cautious. I fear we'll be a leper country and we'll be the no1 don't go/don't let if for everywhere next year while other places have basically recovered.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 28, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Everyone else is managing except us and approaching much more like normal while actually being more cautious.


Is that really true? The UK has not done well, and has done worse than the EU average by most measures but not so much worse as some people seem to think. There are plenty of other European countries who have done even worse than the UK on total deaths so far, and there are several who are seeing faster rates of increase at the moment.

Where do you get the impression that other countries are approaching "much more like normal" from? There seems to have been very little coverage of what's gong on in other countries as far as day-to-day restrictions are concerned, so I don't feel that I have much idea of how the UK compares right now.


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 29, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Is that really true? . There are plenty of other European countries who have done even worse than the UK on total deaths.



Ahem....

COVID-19 situation update for the EU/EEA, as of 28 September 2021


----------



## Cloo (Sep 29, 2021)

I know it's not everywhere, but certainly we have 10x more cases than countries like Germany and Denmark is basically returning to normal.

Another thing that's boiling my piss right now is I see right wing rags are on about 'Boris saving Christmas' again. This whole 'saving Christmas' thing sums up everything that's fucking wrong with this government's approach - sentimentalist, populist, business ahead of lives (and not even helping businesses in the end) and utterly irresponsible.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Sep 29, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I know it's not everywhere, but certainly we have 10x more cases than countries like Germany and Denmark is basically returning to normal.



I don't quite see how Denmark can be returning to normal to be honest. I mean I'm no expert but what's going to stop a surge in Covid cases if they do that? Surely you either 'return to normal' in the way we have with the government sticking their fingers in their ears or you maintain measures, ie not normal. I don't think a low covid normal is possible for anyone right now.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 29, 2021)

UK covid cases looking pretty mental at the moment, that's for sure:


----------



## elbows (Sep 29, 2021)

Some EU countries had delta wave spikes but the most obvious difference is that theirs subsequently fell away in a way ours have not (yet).

Although I would need to explore the testing regime and attitudes to testing in those countries in order to be sure. And rather than do that I may as well wait some more months to see what happens next in all these places including the UK. And if in doubt about positive case figures true comparability, use hospital admissions as a guide instead.


----------



## 2hats (Sep 29, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Another thing that's boiling my piss right now is I see right wing rags are on about 'Boris saving Christmas *profits*' again.


FTFY.


----------



## DaphneM (Sep 29, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> UK covid cases looking pretty mental at the moment, that's for sure:


shouldn't these figures be expressed as in relation to the amount of testing to be of use. Or are they already?


----------



## Cloo (Sep 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Some EU countries had delta wave spikes but the most obvious difference is that theirs subsequently fell away in a way ours have not (yet).
> 
> Although I would need to explore the testing regime and attitudes to testing in those countries in order to be sure. And rather than do that I may as well wait some more months to see what happens next in all these places including the UK. And if in doubt about positive case figures true comparability, use hospital admissions as a guide instead.


I note that although numbers are rising, it doesn't appear to be growing as exponentially as previously- ie, it's taken weeks to get from 29k-34k, not days


----------



## teuchter (Sep 29, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I note that although numbers are rising, it doesn't appear to be growing as exponentially as previously- ie, it's taken weeks to get from 29k-34k, not days


Overall, I don't see a clear picture of case numbers rising at the moment. It's been wobbling up and down for several weeks. There currently seems to be a downward trend in hospital admissions and ICU numbers, although these of course tend to lag somewhat.



I am showing England rather than UK numbers simply because this removes false patterns in recent data caused by different reporting periods.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 29, 2021)

But isn't the point about the numbers that they have stabilized at a completely fucking mental level - more than all of the rest of Europe put together!

I'm struggling to see any good news in this


----------



## Cloo (Sep 29, 2021)

Basically we're stretching the limits of what vaccination can achieve, I suspect.


----------



## miss direct (Sep 29, 2021)

Turkey isn't doing great. Around 250 deaths per day for ages and cases are only lower because there aren't many tests taken. And noone believes the official figures. Masks are obligatory in theory but in reality it's business as usual.


----------



## Fruitloop (Sep 29, 2021)

Is the October the first school strike on anyone's radar? Fair amount of parents getting a bit pissed off at the government's compulsory infection plan:


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 29, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Is the October the first school strike on anyone's radar? Fair amount of parents getting a bit pissed off at the government's compulsory infection plan:




Conveniently I had already decided to give myself the 1st off work. Now I can pretend I did it on principle.


----------



## elbows (Sep 29, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Overall, I don't see a clear picture of case numbers rising at the moment. It's been wobbling up and down for several weeks. There currently seems to be a downward trend in hospital admissions and ICU numbers, although these of course tend to lag somewhat.



I havent had time to look at overall England data recently, I will get round to it soon because you know I like to look at it by age group.

But aside from that I recommend zooming into individual places to see whats happening, because the picture is probably still very mixed depending on where exactly you look, and sometimes opposing trends cancel each other out when looking at overall national numbers. I'd tend to use the following website and tables such as 'R-Values - Highest First' and then look at the graphs for some of those places on the official dashboard.





__





						COVID-19 in England - Estimates of R for each Local Authority
					





					archive.uea.ac.uk
				




A screenshot of some of the places with very highest R values from that site right now, in this case I'm just highlighting ones with an R over 1.4(!) There are currently 248 places where R is over 1.0 in this data.



Case numbers are a pretty relaible guide for what will happen with hospitalisations, but since school age cases may be a very large part of recent increases, I need to look at per-age figures in order not to end up with the wrong expectations about the level of hospitalisations that will show up in the next week or so.


----------



## Elpenor (Sep 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> I havent had time to look at overall England data recently, I will get round to it soon because you know I like to look at it by age group.
> 
> But aside from that I recommend zooming into individual places to see whats happening, because the picture is probably still very mixed depending on where exactly you look, and sometimes opposing trends cancel each other out when looking at overall national numbers. I'd tend to use the following website and tables such as 'R-Values - Highest First' and then look at the graphs for some of those places on the official dashboard.
> 
> ...


I live in no 2. Devon had low numbers during last winter, so I assume this is Delta + Covid exploiting new markets.


----------



## teuchter (Sep 30, 2021)

And I live in Lambeth which is down very close to the bottom of the list along with most of the other London boroughs which had pretty high numbers in the first peaks


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 30, 2021)

I know correlation / causation but all this does seem to imply that existing immunity gained through exposure is playing a big roll here.  Since the latest lockdown was eased I've been expecting something quite bad to happen in SE London due to various factors but primarily due to comparatively low vaccine uptake.  So far that doesn't seemed to have occurred.


----------



## Supine (Sep 30, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> I know correlation / causation but all this does seem to imply that existing immunity gained through exposure is playing a big roll here.  Since the latest lockdown was eased I've been expecting something quite bad to happen in SE London due to various factors but primarily due to comparatively low vaccine uptake.  So far that doesn't seemed to have occurred.



Vaccines are brilliant


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 30, 2021)

Supine said:


> Vaccines are brilliant



They're less good when enough people don't use them, hence my comment regarding SE London.  I suspect vaccine take-up is higher in those South West areas listed in the table above then in many parts of South East London.

I know age demographics are clearly in play but it just occurs to me that immunity gained through previous exposure might be playing a significant roll.

ETA: If the history of the pandemic has taught me anything is that speculation like this from someone like me is usually wrong anyway so expect a massive spike in SE London any day soon.


----------



## Supine (Sep 30, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> ETA: If the history of the pandemic has taught me anything is that speculation like this from someone like me is usually wrong anyway so expect a massive spike in SE London any day soon.



Thats happened to all of us


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2021)

Wel its certainly true that modelling earlier this year in regards the expected 'exit wave' had considerable regional variance that was in great part based on proportion of people infected in previous waves. And that included London being less badly affected and the North East being badly affected.


----------



## _Russ_ (Sep 30, 2021)

Wales is doing really badly last 2 weeks, my MSOA has gone from 13 cases a day to 56, average now over 640/10,000 with some areas above 1500/100,000 Hospitals filling up again and deaths going up.

I can't believe that everyone round here is going around more worried about whether they'll get a fucking Turkey in December


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2021)

Since GPs came up here recently, I suppose I should draw attention to this:









						Face-to-face GP visits still near lockdown levels
					

Surgeries in England say remote consultations are the only option as they do not have enough staff.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2021)

Can maybe learn something from zooming in on an especially badly affected area:


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 30, 2021)

So weekly positive tests up by 18%.  Hmmm.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 30, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> So weekly positive tests up by 18%.  Hmmm.



Where has that figure come from?

According to the dashboard they are up 'just' 6.5%





__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## lazythursday (Sep 30, 2021)

My area (Calderdale ) has been pretty bad through all the peaks except the first one. This time its been noticeable that some of the more rural areas have been much worse hit than previously but even so, some of the same areas are getting hit again and again. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that the virus has burned itself out anywhere. It really puzzles me that London gets short peaks and drops down pretty low again when in other parts of the country it just seems to grind on and on.


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Where has that figure come from?
> 
> According to the dashboard they are up 'just' 6.5%
> 
> ...



Its down to the way media run news stories based on a range of different reports that wont all be in alignment.

In that particular case I suspect it comes from the Test & Trace side of the system which is probably reported weekly.

edited to add: yes its from the test & trace reports, but note the date range that figure covers.









						Covid weekly cases soar with 18% rise in people in England testing positive
					

Test and Trace figures reveal 191,771 people tested positive for coronavirus at least once 1 between 16-22 September 2021, the highest number since the week to September 8.




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## Teaboy (Sep 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Where has that figure come from?
> 
> According to the dashboard they are up 'just' 6.5%
> 
> ...



BBC live news ticker https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58744991


----------



## cupid_stunt (Sep 30, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> BBC live news ticker https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58744991



That's only up to 22nd Sept., so a week out of date, compared to the dashboard. 



> A total of 191,771 people tested positive for Covid in England in the week to 22 September, a rise of 18% on the week before, Test and Trace figures show


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2021)

lazythursday said:


> My area (Calderdale ) has been pretty bad through all the peaks except the first one. This time its been noticeable that some of the more rural areas have been much worse hit than previously but even so, some of the same areas are getting hit again and again. There doesn't seem to be much evidence that the virus has burned itself out anywhere. It really puzzles me that London gets short peaks and drops down pretty low again when in other parts of the country it just seems to grind on and on.



I'd agree that phrases like "burned out" dont end up doing the situation justice.

Different age groups and different sections of society in different parts of the country are certainly experiencing increases and falls at different times.

As time goes on it may be more appropriate to use concepts like burned out in a more limited way, eg if the virus hasnt run out of people to infect but has run out of sufficient people and opportunities that very large and rapid increases in growth result that lead to massive fresh peaks.

So maybe for now I'd prefer to think about this stuff in terms of whether some ceilings have been imposed in some places and some groups.

A few expert voices have started talking about equilibrium and endemic phase in recent months. Thats still a bit premature in my book, or at the very least I'd say that if we peer below the surface of periods that it is tempting to think demonstrate equilibrium, I'm more likely to find a messy picture involving opposing trends cancelling each other out when only viewed at the broadest level. So not real equilibrium, but perhaps a range of views on the road to equilibrium. Not that that desitnation is assured since in theory things can come along which leave more peoples susceptible again.

For now I do consider it appropriate to think about it in terms of some delicate balances involving levels of immunity. And since there unknowns about what will happen on the waning immunity front, such balancing acts may wobble quite a lot over time. And there are further complications because its not clear the extent to which waning immunity will affect not just peoples chances of catching it, but being hospitalised or dying, eg the virus might gain the chance to bounce back more in terms of number of infections, but not all of that rise will filter down into hospitalisations and deaths if some other vital parts of the immune system wane against this virus at a slower rate.

These sorts of things mean I am still stuck making posts like this one, talking about the situation being messy and not having any clearcut predictions for the next few months to share with anyone. 

As for why some of the same places seem to come up time and time again, I'd agree that I've seen some patterns in this regard. eg places like Kettering and Leicester have come up on the pandemic radar on more than one occasion, just to pick a couple of examples that I've seen directly for myself when studying specific data. Theres a bunch of reasons why this may be the case, and its worth trying to avoid the assumption that just because a place had newsworthy levels of infection in the past, the virus had run out of further large opportunities there in future. Maybe those places had ridiculously large potential for number of infections in the first place, and even a horrible prior wave only ate a chunk of that potential.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Sep 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> I havent had time to look at overall England data recently, I will get round to it soon because you know I like to look at it by age group.
> 
> But aside from that I recommend zooming into individual places to see whats happening, because the picture is probably still very mixed depending on where exactly you look, and sometimes opposing trends cancel each other out when looking at overall national numbers. I'd tend to use the following website and tables such as 'R-Values - Highest First' and then look at the graphs for some of those places on the official dashboard.
> 
> ...



Guess where I've been working in schools this week?

Teignbridge


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Guess where I've been working in schools this week?
> 
> Teignbridge



I'll dig into cases by age group for that location when I get a chance.

Just to finish off my waffle from my previous post.....

Plus activities and attitudes towards testing can make a difference to the pictures we end up seeing clearly in data. Not that I find it at all easy to unpick all the potential factors.

For example there have been times when I've seen better off parts of a town show a higher number of cases. Sometimes this might have been due to stuff like people from those areas being more likely to have been on holiday, or have gone to university, or to have found it hard to resist the allure of dinner parties and swanky covid restaurants. But at other times its possible that they were showing higher case numbers because attitudes towards bothering getting tested, or practicalities of accessing testing, or not being able to afford the implications of testing positive, were different there to some of the poorer areas.

And theres probably no need for me to go on about the opposite, all the poorer places where all the reasons the poor have been more vulnerable in this pandemic have led to a severe and/or prolonged high level of cases. Leicesters summer 2020 local lockdown probably generated the most press coverage of these issues in that context so far, but there are others. There have certainly been times in the past where the 'distribution spine' of England was lit up like a chirstmas tree on covid data maps, but its still hard to unpick that stuff because there is of course also a relationship between the distribution spine and population density.

Oh and returning to questions of whether true equilibrium is being seen and what stage of the pandemic we are at, its always worth keeping in mind that it is said that levels of contacts between people are still not back to pre-pandemic levels. I think I've seen a figure of things only being back to 75% of normal levels in the press recently, but there is more than one way to estimate that so I dont take that figure as a complete guide. I think I saw something about how even when people have gone back to work they are reporting less contacts, but I didnt pay that much attention to the story because the headline appeared to be framed with a naive 'but nobody knows why!'.


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Guess where I've been working in schools this week?
> 
> Teignbridge



I probably should have waffled more when I pointed to that website and the R estimates the other day. R estimates are giving info relevant to rate of increases, and will be subject to potentially larger swings where its a place where the absolute number of cases were lower in the first place. So this is why I recommended people then take places from that list and look at the case numbers for them on the official dashboard, an exercise that in many cases may lead people to wonder what all the fuss was about. But Ive got a bit of a sore head right now so I dont know if I've botched that explanation and I dont want to waffle on too much more. 

Anyway here are a couple of graphs for Teignbridge, positive cases by specimen date, which only go up to the 25th September right now. And I've clumped age groups together into broader age groups. Its a fairly typical pattern, with the most notable rises in 0-14 year olds (with 10-14 year olds being largely responsible for that trend). 

Note that one of these graphs uses the sum of ases over 7 days to smooth things out. Stuff which I would normally tend to then divide by 7 in order to come out with a 7 day average rather than a 7 day total, but like I said I've got a sore head right now so didnt bother fiddling with this particular spreadsheet to achieve this.

I may as well take the opportunity to say that one of the reasons I'm not posting graphs and details quite as often right now is that I feel there may be some diminishing returns in terms of how much peoples understanding of the situation is actually helped by this level of detail. And I dont want to wind people up for no good reason. But for teachers and parents the data by age is still noteworthy at this particular stage of the pandemic. Its a shame the official dashboard doesnt visually present the age data per place in a very detailed way, I have to download the raw figures and do my own graphs.





And again just to be clear - the above is for Teignbridge not the national picture, although there are similarities.


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2021)

OK I just found time to knock out one comparable graph for Kettering. I picked Kettering because thats an example of somewhere that got in the news due to very high rates. And its R estimate would have been very high, but since they have probably reached a peak on some fronts, their R on the website I mentioned the other day is probably quite low again right now. When making these direct comparisons it would be better to use rates adjusted for population size but Im not setup to do that so I stick to absolute numbers.

Again this is 7 day totals rather than 7 day averages.



I ran out of time now but I'll try to do national case and hospital admissions by age graphs tomorrow and will probably then take another break till trends change again.


----------



## Dogsauce (Sep 30, 2021)

That Kettering graph just says to me ‘school’ and ‘parents of schoolchildren’ based on the age ranges most affected.


----------



## elbows (Sep 30, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> That Kettering graph just says to me ‘school’ and ‘parents of schoolchildren’ based on the age ranges most affected.



Ah yes I forgot that I posted someones tweet about that earlier: Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion


----------



## elbows (Oct 1, 2021)

I'm not doing the national graphs I mentioned I would do today because todays data is late.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm not doing the national graphs I mentioned I would do today because todays data is late.


It's gone from "late" around 16:00, to "not before 18:30" and now it's "not before 20:30" ...

I'm now wondering wtf has gone wrong with the data collection / analysis !


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 1, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> It's gone from "late" around 16:00, to "not before 18:30" and now it's "not before 20:30" ...
> 
> I'm now wondering wtf has gone wrong with the data collection / analysis !



It's not the first time, it's not that unusual.

Remember they are collating stats from different organisations, in four different nations across the UK.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 1, 2021)

Desperately trying to think of a way to spin a big jump I reckon.


----------



## Supine (Oct 1, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Desperately trying to think of a way to spin a big jump I reckon.



Last time i predicted that the numbers went down


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 1, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Desperately trying to think of a way to spin a big jump I reckon.



Conspiracy nonsense.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 1, 2021)

They were 26 minutes late yesterday [usually update is at 16:00]


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Conspiracy nonsense.


Lin Wood is demanding a recount.  Not looking good for the Van Tams.


----------



## elbows (Oct 2, 2021)

Another half-arsed disgrace:









						Covid: Delay of third jabs for most vulnerable criticised
					

Charities say they have been inundated with calls from worried immunosuppressed people.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Steve Harrison, from Lincolnshire, had a kidney transplant in December 2020 and is eligible for a third dose. He feels the most vulnerable have been forgotten.
> 
> He said: "Arranging the third vaccine has been a nightmare. Neither my consultant nor my GP knew about it.
> 
> ...





> Kidney Care UK has passed on the names of more than 80 GP practices to NHS England which it says were not currently assisting people with a third dose.





> NHS England issued new guidance to hospital trusts on 30 September, with instructions that action be taken immediately to contact all those eligible for their third dose by 11 October.
> 
> These will be recorded as a "booster" shot until the national system can be updated to recognise third "primary" doses. This will ensure immunosuppressed patients can then be contacted again in six months for their booster fourth dose.



Leaving it to GPs clearly hasnt worked, but I do not currently know the extent to which this is GPs fault as opposed to failures elsewhere.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Leaving it to GPs clearly hasnt worked, but I do not currently know the extent to which this is GPs fault as opposed to failures elsewhere.



Trouble is GP's vary so much, some are on the ball, and some are not. But, this is just shit, "arranging the third vaccine has been a nightmare. Neither my consultant nor my GP knew about it", how the fuck does the GP not know about it? 

I had a text almost 2 weeks ago from my GPs saying they were now rolling out booster shots, and they will be in contact in due course.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 2, 2021)

Some friends are over 70 and another is highly vulnerable, but none are very up to date with modern communications. Will have to prod the local GPs on their behalf.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 2, 2021)

I did tell you, they are all sat at home counting their fucking bonuses


----------



## mr steev (Oct 2, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Trouble is GP's vary so much, some are on the ball, and some are not.



Different areas/trusts too. My mum (76) got a text from her GP the other day with a phone number to call... which is constantly engaged. I live in a different area and my gp sent me a link to book online. Done in less than a minute (well, booked my flu. I'm not due my booster yet, but that was there if i was)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 2, 2021)

mr steev said:


> Different areas/trusts too. My mum (76) got a text from her GP the other day with a phone number to call... which is constantly engaged. I live in a different area and *my gp sent me a link to book online. Done in less than a minute (well, booked my flu. I'm not due my booster yet, but that was there if i was)*



BIB - same here.

Around here the GPs have come together and have a special booking number for covid jabs, for those not booking on line, and that seems to work well, and keeps the pressure off the various surgeries' normal number.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 2, 2021)

I've had texts to ask me to book flu / covid from nhs / gp. 
I phoned a dedicated number for the flu jab, which was done at my local GPs.
For the two covid jabs, the text sent me to an online system. First jab was at a "hub" in the nearby market town, but the second was back at the GPs.
As I may have mentioned, the jabbers include a retired local GP that had been re-activated to do covid, flu and other jabs - now these are at mainly evening sessions. 

The "hub" was disbanded after the main First Dose campaign and the local evening sessions are to allow the GPs to start catching up on the backlog of "normal" work ... supplemented by initial phone / zoom appointments, to reduce the number of visitors to the surgery as the waiting area is still "socially distanced". And they have another dedicated phone line [recording calls] for repeat prescriptions - which can go direct to specified pharmacy.
In my experience, this new / revised system is working, probably better than the appointment system did pre-pandemic.


----------



## elbows (Oct 2, 2021)

A 15 year old has died of the virus on the day they were originally due to get vaccinated. No underlying health conditions.

Myocarditis is mentioned, which is also the same sort of thing that comes up as a rare complication of concern with young people and the mRNA vaccines. A month or so ago someone on the forum claimed that condition wasnt fatal, which is not something I agreed with at the time, although it is something that very many recover from.









						Portsmouth girl, 15, dies of Covid on day she was due jab
					

Jorja Halliday, from Portsmouth, was due to have her coronavirus vaccination on the day she died.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Nearly 9000 people have died within 28 days of a positive test in the UK since the start of June. Its not going to surprise anyone that I am rather upset with the handling of this phase of the pandemic, even though vaccines have been able to carry a lot of the pandemic burden in this wave.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Nearly 9000 people have died within 28 days of a positive test in the UK since the start of June. Its not going to surprise anyone that I am rather upset with the handling of this phase of the pandemic, even though vaccines have been able to carry a lot of the pandemic burden in this wave.


I mean, it seems to me that keeping the simplest of mitigating factors in like fucking mask mandates could have helped so much, but they'd rather appeal to the 'I won't be muzzled because I'm so brave/Boohoo masks are so oppressive' crowd.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 2, 2021)

I agree, it is extremely stupid for the politicians to have lifted the mask mandates and the simpler precautions, against the scientific advice.

Keeping those would have greatly assisted in mitigating the current wave of infections.

Same with maintaining some sensible precautions in the germ factories schools.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Oct 2, 2021)

Wales has well over twice the daily coronavirus cases that the entirety of Japan has, despite having only 2.5% of the population and mainly living in fields rather than packed megacities.

I don't know what to say really. Except 'wear a mask'.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 3, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I mean, it seems to me that keeping the simplest of mitigating factors in like fucking mask mandates could have helped so much, but they'd rather appeal to the 'I won't be muzzled because I'm so brave/Boohoo masks are so oppressive' crowd.


almost like they’re doing it on purpose, which if you pay attention to phrases like ‘hybrid immunity’ makes it almost impossible to think otherwise. Get people infected before winter kicks in, and let the bodies pile high.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 3, 2021)

Has anyone official got anything to say about positive LFTs but negative PCRs? Seems to be an issue right now.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 3, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Has anyone official got anything to say about positive LFTs but negative PCRs? Seems to be an issue right now.


Yes, I know loads of people in that situation. Suggestion is that it’s down to the Delta variant not expressing viral RNA in vaccinated people for very long so the PCR doesn’t pick it up.  Official guidance is that it’s a false positive and you should carry on as normal, which is bullshit and will only cause more cases. I’d do a second PCR a couple of days later if you have symptoms, my second PCR was positive in this situation. I’ve known some people be quite poorly with it and present positive lateral flows throughout but never a positive PCR. My other half is currently curled up in bed feeling shit yet PCR is clear.

Are you also in the West Country/Bristol? Wondering if this is a local thing as not hearing of it elsewhere.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 3, 2021)

No. Its not for me. I'm just seeing it be a thing just now. I'll make sure I restock on lft tests.


----------



## elbows (Oct 3, 2021)

Finally got round to updating cases by age group for England and it turns out if wasnt quite the right moment to have a look. We can see that cases in older age groups have been creeping up since the big spike in school-aged cases, but its now a question of waiting for more data to see if younger cases have peaked and what happens next more broadly.

This graph is smoothed using 7 day averages, I chopped a few days off due to incomplete data but some of the last ones I still inluded may still be incomplete. And I didnt wait for todays data to come out so this is based on yesterdays data.



I'll do hospitalisations by age group another day when data publishing resumes after the weekend.


----------



## elbows (Oct 4, 2021)

Here is the latest daily hospital admissions/diagnoses data for England, by age group, including the stupidly broad 18-64 group because a more granular set of age group is only available in data that comes out once a month.

Same format as I've posted in the past, with all three of these graphs showing the same data in different ways.

I dont think I have any new stories to tell with this data and they dont help me make any predictions, I'm just posting because I said I would and its been a while since I last did. I suppose I could say that at least the rise in positive cases in school aged children hasnt made an obvious difference to these figures so far.


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2021)

It sounds like there is penty of 'get back to the office' shit from the Tory conference this week.









						Conservative conference: Get off your Pelotons and back to work, says Oliver Dowden
					

Conservative chairman Oliver Dowden says civil servants must set an example by returning to the office.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> It sounds like there is penty of 'get back to the office' shit from the Tory conference this week.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



In a couple of words "Get Stuffed" you murdering capitalist *********ers.
I hope more people get the flexible working rights that the original wfh rules showed was possible and workable.


----------



## little_legs (Oct 5, 2021)




----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 5, 2021)

who are all these people still working from home? Isn't it just middle-class Londoners who are doing this. It's quite alienating reading all these lifestyle articles about working from home


----------



## Sue (Oct 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> who are all these people still working from home? Isn't it just middle-class Londoners who are doing this. It's quite alienating reading all these lifestyle articles about working from home


Depends on your job I guess. I'm still wfh as are my colleagues across the UK/Europe. The US ones mainly are too. At the moment, they're talking about no-one really being back in till January at the earliest.


----------



## Supine (Oct 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> who are all these people still working from home? Isn't it just middle-class Londoners who are doing this. It's quite alienating reading all these lifestyle articles about working from home



Couple of places I’m working are keeping masks and flex wfh. I think senior managers banged on about how their teams worked effectively under adversity so can’t now say they were less efficient wfh.

It works for me as it means rooms aren’t crowded, i can keep my distance, and there are no queues for anything.


----------



## souljacker (Oct 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> who are all these people still working from home? Isn't it just middle-class Londoners who are doing this. It's quite alienating reading all these lifestyle articles about working from home


I was wfh before it became cool.


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 5, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I did tell you, they are all sat at home counting their fucking bonuses


You can't possibly have enough information to know that. So you can only have got your 'information' from tabloids and right talk shows, whose business model literally relies on them stirring up indignation about things that they've invented.  Now they can't blame EU migrants for stealing jobs and healthcare, or Eurocrats for making your vacuum cleaner too weak, they're just reaching for new targets for you to get annoyed about, because annoyance drives consumption of their 'news' products, while helping the bosses target people for political gain. Some people are easily manipulated. Try not to be one of them.


----------



## lefteri (Oct 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> who are all these people still working from home? Isn't it just middle-class Londoners who are doing this. It's quite alienating reading all these lifestyle articles about working from home


i guess a fair few low paid clerical workers - the woman who does the invoicing at the paper merchants i work at for examples


----------



## Thora (Oct 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> who are all these people still working from home? Isn't it just middle-class Londoners who are doing this. It's quite alienating reading all these lifestyle articles about working from home


Mr Thora is still partially working from home and several friends/friend's partners who work for the council, NHS or local housing association are still working from home.  Anyone mainly office based can surely still do so.


----------



## Thora (Oct 5, 2021)

And several companies and organisations customer service people I've had to speak to recently are still home based.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 5, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> You can't possibly have enough information to know that. So you can only have got your 'information' from tabloids and right talk shows, whose business model literally relies on them stirring up indignation about things that they've invented.  Now they can't blame EU migrants for stealing jobs and healthcare, or Eurocrats for making your vacuum cleaner too weak, they're just reaching for new targets for you to get annoyed about, because annoyance drives consumption of their 'news' products, while helping the bosses target people for political gain. Some people are easily manipulated. Try not to be one of them.


it's clearly bullshit as well, as GPs and their staff are working harder than ever, just like other NHS workers


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2021)

GP issues are on both the supply and demand side of things.

And there are multiple reasons why there are not enough of them, very much including the number that have retired, gone part time, or transferred to a different role within the health service. Not a new problem, its been brewing for ages as best I can tell, but its come to a head in pandemic times.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> who are all these people still working from home? Isn't it just middle-class Londoners who are doing this. It's quite alienating reading all these lifestyle articles about working from home


I'm in SW Northumberland.
Still WFH, although I'm visiting the workshop at intervals to check what my team are doing.

It is more effective for me to WFH as I get fewer interruptions and less noise to distract me.
[ever tried writing a tender document next to a wood working machine shop ?]


----------



## oryx (Oct 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> who are all these people still working from home? Isn't it just middle-class Londoners who are doing this. It's quite alienating reading all these lifestyle articles about working from home


I'm thinking it's office workers who can work remotely and whose employer will let them. 

Nothing to do with geography and not always middle class people. E.g. a low paid administrative worker could work from home, an NHS consultant could not.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 5, 2021)

but surely the majority of jobs are not office based - retail, hospitality, manufacturing, health and social care etc?


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 5, 2021)

__





						Most people in UK did not work from home in 2020, says ONS | Working from home | The Guardian
					

Uneven impact of Covid laid bare, with affluent London suburbs having highest proportion of home workers




					amp.theguardian.com


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 5, 2021)

i read elsewhere that it’s just 17% of all UK workers


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> but surely the majority of jobs are not office based - retail, hospitality, manufacturing, health and social care etc?



Funny enough workers in those sectors have not been on WFH.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 5, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Funny enough workers in those sectors have not been on WFH.


quite. hence my post


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2021)

Taken from reddit:



> Academic research: share your views about COVID-19 to improve the UK public health​
> Hi, I hope this is fine to post this invitation here. *We deeply wish to hear people from every parts of the UK and from different backgrounds to share their views so we can develop new support aids for different groups in the UK.*
> We are a research team based at UCL and would like to invite you to take part in our research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health care and quality of life for different groups all over the UK.
> We'd like to hear your views about the pandemic experiences of *everyone* to help us and policymakers to improve public health.
> ...


----------



## Thora (Oct 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> but surely the majority of jobs are not office based - retail, hospitality, manufacturing, health and social care etc?


Well, yes - but that doesn't necessarily mean the office based ones are all middle class and in London.


----------



## Thora (Oct 5, 2021)

WFH has been really difficult and stressful for everyone I know - no spare room, no desk space, children at home that you have to keep quiet, partners running home based businesses like beauty or childminding.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 5, 2021)

Thora said:


> WFH has been really difficult and stressful for everyone I know - no spare room, no desk space, children at home that you have to keep quiet, partners running home based businesses like beauty or childminding.


i had to do it for just one month and i hated it.


----------



## oryx (Oct 5, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> but surely the majority of jobs are not office based - retail, hospitality, manufacturing, health and social care etc?


A lot of those people will have been furloughed but are no longer (not NHS and care staff obviously).

Those tabloid headlines and Johnson himself are all about dividing and ruling. Appeal to red wall voters by making them think that the lazy office workers in London are loafing about while making a mint. As the post from Thora I've just seen suggests WFH is not all about that.

ETA - and many, many people will still feel that WFH is safer, and it is, as COVID hasn't gone away although Johnson and co like to think it has.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 5, 2021)

Talking to neighbour who's working from home, said he's had enough - wakes up tired, same work routine every day, spends time with son, then watches tv or reads a book of an evening to wind down, goes to bed tired ...


----------



## little_legs (Oct 5, 2021)

I won't dismiss the fact that some people hate the idea of working from home, but the government's _get back to work_ is nothing more than an evil pandering to the pensioners who loath the idea of people not having to commute to work any more.


----------



## magneze (Oct 5, 2021)

little_legs said:


> I won't dismiss the fact that some people hate the idea of working from home, but the government's _get back to work_ is nothing more than an evil pandering to the pensioners who loath the idea of people not having to commute to work any more.


Why do they care?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 5, 2021)

Good to see the daily reported new cases dropping again, I suppose we can only hope that trend continues.


----------



## little_legs (Oct 5, 2021)

magneze  Because I am more productive working from home and require zero face to face contact with people I work with or provide support to, and yet my employer insists that I get on the London public transport network because the government says it's safe and is good for economy or something.


----------



## magneze (Oct 5, 2021)

little_legs said:


> magneze  Because I am more productive working from home and require zero face to face contact with people I work with or provide support to, and yet my employer insists that I get on the London public transport network because the government says it's safe and is good for economy or something.


No. I mean, why do pensioners care that people commute?


----------



## elbows (Oct 5, 2021)

The newspapers care because they perceive that it affects their sales.


----------



## little_legs (Oct 5, 2021)

magneze said:


> No. I mean, why do pensioners care that people commute?


Who do you think reads the DM? Pensioners that assume that because they commuted, so should the _peloton _generation.


----------



## Sue (Oct 5, 2021)

And will no-one think of Pret?


----------



## little_legs (Oct 5, 2021)

or the commercial landlord tory donors?


----------



## magneze (Oct 5, 2021)

little_legs said:


> Who do you think reads the DM? Pensioners that assume that because they commuted, so should the _peloton _generation.


Dunno about that. Seems more like they're pandering to business, as per usual. 🤷‍♂️


----------



## little_legs (Oct 5, 2021)

magneze said:


> Dunno about that. Seems more like they're pandering to business, as per usual. 🤷‍♂️


I take your point, but I can't completely agree with it. I mean look, a tonne of businesses across the UK had already let millions of people to work from home before the pandemic happened because it's cheaper and easier. The pandemic just pushed a whole lot of other companies and organisations over their dinosaur thinking to accept that the Mon-Fri 9-5 slog is an antiquated relic. So from where I am sitting, the government's target audience is the tory pensioners whose thinking is _well, I did it, now you, lazy so and so's, have to do it too_.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 5, 2021)

Hopefully, more than a few companies will continue to have WFM as an option, even if within a hybrid model, for a majority of their staff. Especially, given that the pandemic has proved the viability / cost effectiveness of that model and a number have already said that they want their workers to stay WFH if that works for them.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 5, 2021)

The pandemic hasn't really proved the long term viability of anything, as far as WFH is concerned.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 5, 2021)

Russ said:
			
		

> I did tell you, they are all sat at home counting their fucking bonuses






			
				Brainaddict said:
			
		

> You can't possibly have enough information to know that. So you can only have got your 'information' from tabloids and right talk shows, whose business model literally relies on them stirring up indignation about things that they've invented.  Now they can't blame EU migrants for stealing jobs and healthcare, or Eurocrats for making your vacuum cleaner too weak, they're just reaching for new targets for you to get annoyed about, because annoyance drives consumption of their 'news' products, while helping the bosses target people for political gain. Some people are easily manipulated. Try not to be one of them.



I've no idea where in this thread that original throwaway one-liner from 'Russ' was posted , but that kind of pig-ignorant, tabloid-headline fuelled bigotry really gets my fucking goat. 

I'm guessing it was aimed at ..... who?  

NHS workera? Public-sector workers in general? 'Featherbedded' Civil Servants in particular? 

But get your fucking facts straight, Russ, and listen to some *real-world facts* from _actual_ workers in those categories (some of them post on here!) 
Or listen to people in those sectors who (in real life) are activists for Trade Unions in those sectors?

Then you might not risk coming over as a Sun- or Mail=headline recycling twat!


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 5, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The pandemic hasn't really proved the long term viability of anything, as far as WFH is concerned.



There are some who would probably disagree with you.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Oct 6, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm guessing it was aimed at ..... who?



doctors / GPs


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 6, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> doctors / GPs


I'd rather pay attention to posts from kropotkin (and from other well-informed Urbans) in that case


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 6, 2021)

magneze said:


> Dunno about that. Seems more like they're pandering to business, as per usual. 🤷‍♂️


More pandering to their own prejudices. Certainly some sectors will push people to move back onsite but others will see opportunities in requiring less office space.


----------



## andysays (Oct 6, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> More pandering to their own prejudices. Certainly some sectors will push people to move back onsite but others will see opportunities in requiring less office space.


This is true, but it's also worth remembering that there's a difference between individual organisations, which may indeed see opportunities and benefits, and the overall economy. 

There's a significant (I don't know how significant, TBH) sector of the economy which exists to serve the everyday "needs" of commuting office workers, not just the obvious coffee shops, but also sellers of office type clothes, and if there is a substantial longer term shift away from office working, that sector will be affected.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 6, 2021)

I don’t know any company in the insurance Square Mile that’s wanting to return 100% to the office. It ranges between aiming at 3 days a week in the office and having a lot of staff permanently from home. Not only is office space incredibly expensive, companies have also seen that productivity has risen on bread-and-butter day-to-day work. They want to keep that. The issue is that they also know there are long-term benefits (or even necessities) behind the chance encounters and chit-chat that comprises office life. The trick is to find a way to mix the two (ie so-called hybrid working) but that comes with its own new challenges too.

I write and talk a lot about this stuff in my professional life so it’s too exhausting to do it too much on here too. But a lot of the problem is that different  sectors of people have fundamentally different ontological understandings of what “work” is.  A lot of the discussion about what should happen next is thus starting from different underlying assumptions about what the world is and what it means, but those discussing it don’t realise that. Their conversations are thus just blowing past each other. The details are trying to be settled without resolving first what the purpose is.

The discussions that are happening (across all society, not just my working area) are also incredibly divorced from other big discourses of our time, like so-called “diversity and inclusion” and climate change. This really just points up the individualised liberal nature all these separate  discussions are framed through, but even so it’s shocking just how little recognition is being given to wider debates. Companies are making public statements about encouraging inclusive environments, for example, and of working towards net zero emissions. In the next breath, they’re declaring that everybody should get back to the office. These things are not joined up.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 6, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> There are some who would probably disagree with you.


Of course, but I wonder if some of them might have a different view 2 or 5 or 10 years from now.

All I'd say is that what's been proven is that we can get through 1 or 2 years with a lot of people working from home, and the sky hasn't fallen in. I'd agree that in many ways, it seems to have worked better than many might have expected, and there's no doubt it will change working patterns from now on.

But what hasn't been proven is how sustainable it is in the long term. A year or two isn't long enough to get an idea of what the long term effects might be, either from an employee or employer point of view. You can coast through a year or two based on relationships that predated everyone doing WFH. What about all the training that used to happen informally on the job, that lets knowledge pass from more senior to more junior members of a team or company? You can probably put that on hold for a couple of years and not see major effects, but the picture may be quite different further down the line. 

And I expect that there are many of individuals who have so far thought that WFH is great. But their view might change when they see that some of their colleagues who are choosing to go into the office are getting opprtunities they aren't, because they are missing out on a load of incidental chat and discussion that happens in person at the workplace. Perhaps as the rest of the world returns starts to return to "normal" they start to feel the sense of isolation and monotony that a lot of people who WFH long term can find difficult. Maybe they currently live in a house with space for a dedicated home office, but need to move somewhere where they can't afford that, and find they are now trying to work from a space shared with others. Maybe they have kids and working at home without distraction becomes difficult. 

There are lots of things that we don't know yet. The pandemic hasn't proven the long term viability of anything because it was just a short term situation.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 6, 2021)

That’s all true, but rather than thinking the genie is going to be put back into the bottle, it is why companies are working so hard on trying to work out how to make the hybrid model work. There are serious problems to be worked through but don’t kid yourself — 100% working in the office also has serious problems. A lot of those problems were invisible because of taken-for-granted norms before the pandemic but they’re out in the open now.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 6, 2021)

Yes I'm sure that hybrid approaches will become very common. It will be interesting to see what happens over time though. My prediction is that over the next few years there will be a number of companies that realise they were too hasty in moving to largely WFH models. They will probably be the small/medium ones (for whom the cost savings are particularly attractive) rather than the big ones.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 6, 2021)

You cant build houses from home, or construct roads, or farm, or produce pretty much anything of real worth on a more than tiny scale.
If there is a re-balancing of socio-economics then it needs to be a massive cull of the types of jobs that wfh lends itself to, bureaucracy and trivial legislation that supports many of these jobs is of little real worth to anyone but those getting paid to do them


----------



## Sue (Oct 6, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> You cant build houses from home, or construct roads, or farm, or produce pretty much anything of real worth on a more than tiny scale.
> If there is a re-balancing of socio-economics then* it needs to be a massive cull of the types of jobs that wfh lends itself to*, bureaucracy and trivial legislation that supports many of these jobs is of little real worth to anyone but those getting paid to do them


That's a bit of a sweeping statement .


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 6, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> You cant build houses from home, or construct roads, or farm, or produce pretty much anything of real worth on a more than tiny scale.
> If there is a re-balancing of socio-economics then it needs to be a massive cull of the types of jobs that wfh lends itself to, bureaucracy and trivial legislation that supports many of these jobs is of little real worth to anyone but those getting paid to do them



What century do you think we're in?


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 6, 2021)

Lol I do one of those jobs that people can easily do from home.

If my job didn’t get done people would not have a binding reason to work as they wouldn’t receive payment for their labour, society as we know it and the government could collapse. Must be said the argument for not doing my job is actually quite persuasive


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 6, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> You cant build houses from home, or construct roads, or farm, or produce pretty much anything of real worth on a more than tiny scale.
> If there is a re-balancing of socio-economics then it needs to be a massive cull of the types of jobs that wfh lends itself to, bureaucracy and trivial legislation that supports many of these jobs is of little real worth to anyone but those getting paid to do them


Do you think your bins can get picked up without some desk-jockeys behind the scenes? Do you think the NHS can employ a million people and spend £150bn a year without a small army of people to organise how the money is distributed? It's true a lot of the useful work can't be done from desks, but even building companies can't operate without a certain percentage of their people sat behind desks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 6, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> You cant build houses from home, or construct roads, or farm, or produce pretty much anything of real worth on a more than tiny scale.
> If there is a re-balancing of socio-economics then it needs to be a massive cull of the types of jobs that wfh lends itself to, bureaucracy and trivial legislation that supports many of these jobs is of little real worth to anyone but those getting paid to do them



Yeah, let's cull all those pointless office jobs.

Perhaps we could start with the wages departments? Next, the accounts departments, I mean what company needs these pointless people to invoice their customers, it's not like they need the money coming in to pay the wages, because there's no pointless people left to pay the wages anyway.

This is brilliant thinking, Russ for PM.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 6, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> You cant build houses from home, or construct roads, or farm, or produce pretty much anything of real worth on a more than tiny scale.
> If there is a re-balancing of socio-economics then it needs to be a massive cull of the types of jobs that wfh lends itself to, bureaucracy and trivial legislation that supports many of these jobs is of little real worth to anyone but those getting paid to do them


A re-balance rather than a cull. Valuing people by what they do and how what they do relates to other workers as a whole does have big discrepancies


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 6, 2021)

Thanks, Thats one vote for the league against money for old rope then


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 6, 2021)

_Russ_ sort of has a point - there are so many bullshit jobs out there. #notallwfh though of course


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 6, 2021)

I think just because you don't understand someone's job it doesn't mean to say it doesn't have more value than simple money.  As someone who works in "building houses" I see I get a pass as someone doing a proper job though (even if I am doing it from home).  

Anyway we're moving away from the purpose of the thread and besides there is a WFH thread.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Companies are making public statements about encouraging inclusive environments, for example, and of working towards net zero emissions. In the next breath, they’re declaring that everybody should get back to the office. These things are not joined up.


I like joined up thinking and I expect all sorts of things to merge into an overarching story of the century, its just not clear to me when that will become undeniably obvious to everyone.

Work is certainly part of the problem when it comes to energy and climate, and in stark contrast to people moaning about 'pointless jobs', I can imagine a future where people end up being subsidised not to work/to work much less/work in a less energy intensive way. But there are many variables that could make my assumptions about that faulty.

The extent to which the pandemic will act as a catalyst is unclear to me. Its certainly provided some real world demonstrations and data about certain things. I suspect that given the amount of jobs that were disrupted, and the changes to levels of travel, there will be some dissapointment as to the limited extent to which energy use reduced during the period.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 6, 2021)

> The extent to which the pandemic will act as a catalyst is unclear to me.



No crystal ball here either, but considering that even whilst in the middle of a pandemic our governors thought they would offer as little a pay rise as possible to the people actually dealing with it doesnt lead me to think much will change untill there is civil war in this country


----------



## Supine (Oct 6, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> lead me to think much will change untill there is civil war in this country



So, next tuesday then


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 6, 2021)

Supine said:


> So, next tuesday then



I had it booked in for Tuesday week.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I had it booked in for Tuesday week.


Are you sure ? I thought it was on Thursday ...


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 6, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yeah, let's cull all those pointless office jobs.
> 
> Perhaps we could start with the wages departments? Next, the accounts departments, I mean what company needs these pointless people to invoice their customers, it's not like they need the money coming in to pay the wages, because there's no pointless people left to pay the wages anyway.
> 
> This is brilliant thinking, Russ for PM.


Happy to cull those in the the HR departments mind. Literally.


----------



## maomao (Oct 6, 2021)

There used to be a poster who posted both as 'Russ' + some numbers and then as Oddjob. Short posts, didn't make a lot of sense. I wonder if it's the same fella (pretty sure he'd be due another chance after 17 years).


----------



## Yossarian (Oct 6, 2021)

maomao said:


> There used to be a poster who posted both as 'Russ' + some numbers and then as Oddjob. Short posts, didn't make a lot of sense. I wonder if it's the same fella (pretty sure he'd be due another chance after 17 years).



17 years?? Could be Son of Oddjob by now.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Oct 6, 2021)

wtf is going on about getting lateral flow tests?

i'm having to do one a day at the moment due to hospital visiting, so rapidly running out of the box full i got from my employer.

i went in to a pharmacist and they said i need a QR code (i'm not sure my phone handles such things - it is a smart phone but i don't do e-mail on it)

i've just tried to order a set, and it said it would send a code to my mobile (it sends the test results to that) and nothing has happened

anyone got any ideas what's going on / how i get some?


----------



## maomao (Oct 6, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> wtf is going on about getting lateral flow tests?
> 
> i'm having to do one a day at the moment due to hospital visiting, so rapidly running out of the box full i got from my employer.
> 
> ...


How did they say they were sending the qr code and what details do they have for you. It's really unlikely they mean a text and probably meant an email. 

Any random free QR reader off Google will work if it's an android phone with a camera.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 6, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> wtf is going on about getting lateral flow tests?
> 
> i'm having to do one a day at the moment due to hospital visiting, so rapidly running out of the box full i got from my employer.
> 
> ...


you can order some here:





						Order coronavirus (COVID-19) rapid lateral flow tests
					

How to order coronavirus (COVID-19) rapid lateral flow home test kits.




					www.gov.uk
				



you can only order one pack of 7 at a time, but you can order one a day. they come the next day.  and they’re also nasal only. i could never do the mouth ones


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 6, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> wtf is going on about getting lateral flow tests?
> 
> i'm having to do one a day at the moment due to hospital visiting, so rapidly running out of the box full i got from my employer.
> 
> ...



I ordered some last week via the link below, no QR code involved, and delivered next day.






						Order coronavirus (COVID-19) rapid lateral flow tests
					

How to order coronavirus (COVID-19) rapid lateral flow home test kits.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## zora (Oct 6, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> wtf is going on about getting lateral flow tests?
> 
> i'm having to do one a day at the moment due to hospital visiting, so rapidly running out of the box full i got from my employer.
> 
> ...



Saw this in passing the other day when I was in Boots "something something from October QR codes", but as I still had a fresh pack (so 2-3 weeks supply for twice weekly testing) I didn't look into it further. 

Just had a little google and found this with an update on the October change








						C-19 lateral flow device distribution service
					

At the end of March 2021, a new Advanced service - the NHS community pharmacy COVID-19 lateral flow device distribution service (or 'Pharmacy Collect' as it is described in communications to the public) - was added to the NHS Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework. This service, which pharmacy co




					psnc.org.uk
				




with a link to the gov.uk site where you can get the code




__





						Book a drive-through test
					





					test-for-coronavirus.service.gov.uk
				




(^^^Don't know why this shows as "book drive through test..." , maybe still buggy because only just going live, hopefully not dodgy)


----------



## Supine (Oct 6, 2021)

I haven’t done a test for a few weeks. Think I’m taking my foot off the gas.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Oct 6, 2021)

thanks - was trying not to do the delivery thing, as (for the same reasons as the hospital visiting) i'm at mum-tat's house more than own home at the moment.

i'll see what i can do with local pharmacies tomorrow...


----------



## Cloo (Oct 6, 2021)

It feels like we're entering another dangerous phase in that, with infections overall seeming fairly stable (except in 10-14 year olds but they won't go to hospital and only a _couple _will die) the Tories think carrying on like this throughout winter is just fine, they won't need any more lockdowns, happy Christmas everybody falalalala-la-la-la-laaaa.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 6, 2021)

Although I see today that after seeming to hover at 30-34k infections the last few weeks it's hopped up to 39k.


----------



## zora (Oct 6, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> thanks - was trying not to do the delivery thing, as (for the same reasons as the hospital visiting) i'm at mum-tat's house more than own home at the moment.
> 
> i'll see what i can do with local pharmacies tomorrow...


Oops, only just seen in your previous post that you have already tried to order a collect code but it didn't come through.

That gov.uk link does indeed seem to say that there is an option for a code to be sent by text message as well as by email, so don't know what went awry there.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 6, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> thanks - was trying not to do the delivery thing, as (for the same reasons as the hospital visiting) i'm at mum-tat's house more than own home at the moment.
> 
> i'll see what i can do with local pharmacies tomorrow...


can you not just pick mum’s address for delivery?


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Oct 6, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> can you not just pick mum’s address for delivery?



if i don't get anywhere with the pharmacies tomorrow, i'll do that


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 6, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> if i don't get anywhere with the pharmacies tomorrow, i'll do that


it’s much easier than visiting a pharmacy! one minute online!


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 7, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I don’t know any company in the insurance Square Mile that’s wanting to return 100% to the office. It ranges between aiming at 3 days a week in the office and having a lot of staff permanently from home. Not only is office space incredibly expensive, companies have also seen that productivity has risen on bread-and-butter day-to-day work. They want to keep that. The issue is that they also know there are long-term benefits (or even necessities) behind the chance encounters and chit-chat that comprises office life. The trick is to find a way to mix the two (ie so-called hybrid working) but that comes with its own new challenges too.
> 
> I write and talk a lot about this stuff in my professional life so it’s too exhausting to do it too much on here too. But a lot of the problem is that different  sectors of people have fundamentally different ontological understandings of what “work” is.  A lot of the discussion about what should happen next is thus starting from different underlying assumptions about what the world is and what it means, but those discussing it don’t realise that. Their conversations are thus just blowing past each other. The details are trying to be settled without resolving first what the purpose is.
> 
> The discussions that are happening (across all society, not just my working area) are also incredibly divorced from other big discourses of our time, like so-called “diversity and inclusion” and climate change. This really just points up the individualised liberal nature all these separate  discussions are framed through, but even so it’s shocking just how little recognition is being given to wider debates. Companies are making public statements about encouraging inclusive environments, for example, and of working towards net zero emissions. In the next breath, they’re declaring that everybody should get back to the office. These things are not joined up.



One of the issues with modern work is that the very clear* defintions of Working Class have broken down and become nebulous, this has led to the Conservatives led by the richest people in the country somehow managing to paint themselves as the authentic voice of the working class and those claims repeatedly backed up by the media.

The very odd nature of modern work and the firesale on state assets over the last few decades means you have some very highly educated people working hand to mouth on zero hour contracts like Uni lecturers and plumbers owning a dozen properties


*it wasn't always clear even from the start tbh


----------



## Fruitloop (Oct 7, 2021)

Arcticle about the issue of positive lateral flows followed by negative PCRs, that I mentioned a couple of pages back as being anecdotally a thing: Health chiefs probe 'high number' of positive lateral flow tests followed by negative PCRs


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 7, 2021)

Looking at some stats this morning it seems that overall in the UK about 1 in 56 recorded C19 Cases ended up with a covid death recording, the same figures for the last 7 days shows about 1 in 295
How much of this is due to the vaccine and how much due to the high proportion of cases currently in the very young I have no idea.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 7, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Looking at some stats this morning it seems that overall in the UK about 1 in 56 recorded C19 Cases ended up with a covid death recording, the same figures for the last 7 days shows about 1 in 295
> How much of this is due to the vaccine and how much due to the high proportion of cases currently in the very young I have no idea.


Those two things aren't unrelated. 

The reason Covid in the UK hammered 15 to 25 year olds over the summer and is hammering 14 and unders since the schools went back is because they aren't vaccinated. The reason deaths are down is because 25 and unders don't die from Covid nearly as much as over 50s.

Without most older people being vaccinated the current wave would've been much, much worse in terms of case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 7, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> One of the issues with modern work is that the very clear* defintions of Working Class have broken down and become nebulous, this has led to the Conservatives led by the richest people in the country somehow managing to paint themselves as the authentic voice of the working class and those claims repeatedly backed up by the media.
> 
> The very odd nature of modern work and the firesale on state assets over the last few decades means you have some very highly educated people working hand to mouth on zero hour contracts like Uni lecturers and plumbers owning a dozen properties
> 
> ...



A plumber is always going to be a greater asset to society than a lecturer in Ancient Greek.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 7, 2021)

Indeed and also things like the lack of testing early on skews the overall numbers probably in a way that makes the improvement in case-death ratio seem larger than it really is


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 7, 2021)

nt


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 7, 2021)

maomao said:


> There used to be a poster who posted both as 'Russ' + some numbers and then as Oddjob. Short posts, didn't make a lot of sense. I wonder if it's the same fella (pretty sure he'd be due another chance after 17 years).


......Wakes to find the fire dead and arrows in his hat


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 7, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Indeed and also things like the lack of testing early on skews the overall numbers probably in a way that makes the improvement in case-death ratio seem larger than it really is


Aye, it has been more than a bit of a clusterfuck. 

This isn't going away, ever. It may become less virulent over time, vaccination will ameliorate the outcomes, but we are going to live with this forever. I'm 69, and expect it to still be here if I make it as long as my father did, he was 84 when he died.

The reason I'm so certain that it will persist is the huge reservoir of unvaccinated people worldwide.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 7, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> A plumber is always going to be a greater asset to society than a lecturer in Ancient Greek.


How are you measuring that?

Which plumber?

Which lecturer?


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 7, 2021)

If only Justin, poster of old was still here, an ardent classicist he’d have had a fit at that assertion


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 7, 2021)

The BMJ has published a study about which groups are vulnerable to severe Covid despite vaccination. Plain English summary here Study Identifies Groups Still At Risk of Severe COVID Despite Vaccination, original study here Risk prediction of covid-19 related death and hospital admission in adults after covid-19 vaccination: national prospective cohort study

These are the groups. The HR numbers are Hazard Ratios, whatever they are:

Down’s syndrome (HR 12.7)

Kidney transplantation (HR 8.1)

Sickle cell disease (HR 7.7)

Chemotherapy (HR 4.3)

Care home residency (HR 4.1)

HIV/AIDS (HR 3.3)

Liver cirrhosis (HR 3.0)

Neurological conditions (HR 2.6)

Recent bone marrow transplantation or a solid organ transplantation ever (HR 2.5)

Dementia (HR 2.2)

Parkinson’s disease (HR 2.2)


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Arcticle about the issue of positive lateral flows followed by negative PCRs, that I mentioned a couple of pages back as being anecdotally a thing: Health chiefs probe 'high number' of positive lateral flow tests followed by negative PCRs


I'm glad they have noticed that signal and are investigating. I'd like to have been talking much more about this in recent weeks, but I lacked the data and the detail with which to offer any useful thoughts about what is going on. Some possibilities likely exist beyond those mentioned in that article, eg issues to do with the timing window of opportunity to detect the virus in vaccinated people via PCR test. Or problems with some aspect of the PCR tests/the lab work that underpins them as opposed to some lateral flow tests being faulty.


----------



## Fruitloop (Oct 7, 2021)

Yeah. My gut tells me it's more likely to be false negatives in the PCRs, as anecdotally some of the people with positive LFTs seem to be pretty sick with quite Covid-y symptoms, but I don't have any actual evidence


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Yeah. My gut tells me it's more likely to be false negatives in the PCRs, as anecdotally some of the people with positive LFTs seem to be pretty sick with quite Covid-y symptoms, but I don't have any actual evidence


Yes and then it becomes a question of why there have been more false negative PCR results. The possibilities with the most serious implications, such as changes to the virus itself thwarting the tests, need to be ruled in or out urgently.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 7, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I don’t know any company in the insurance Square Mile that’s wanting to return 100% to the office. It ranges between aiming at 3 days a week in the office and having a lot of staff permanently from home. Not only is office space incredibly expensive, companies have also seen that productivity has risen on bread-and-butter day-to-day work. They want to keep that. The issue is that they also know there are long-term benefits (or even necessities) behind the chance encounters and chit-chat that comprises office life. The trick is to find a way to mix the two (ie so-called hybrid working) but that comes with its own new challenges too.
> 
> I write and talk a lot about this stuff in my professional life so it’s too exhausting to do it too much on here too. But a lot of the problem is that different  sectors of people have fundamentally different ontological understandings of what “work” is.  A lot of the discussion about what should happen next is thus starting from different underlying assumptions about what the world is and what it means, but those discussing it don’t realise that. Their conversations are thus just blowing past each other. The details are trying to be settled without resolving first what the purpose is.
> 
> The discussions that are happening (across all society, not just my working area) are also incredibly divorced from other big discourses of our time, like so-called “diversity and inclusion” and climate change. This really just points up the individualised liberal nature all these separate  discussions are framed through, but even so it’s shocking just how little recognition is being given to wider debates. Companies are making public statements about encouraging inclusive environments, for example, and of working towards net zero emissions. In the next breath, they’re declaring that everybody should get back to the office. These things are not joined up.


A lot of the government 'get back to work' talk seems to be aimed at older retired people who don't understand that a lot of work really can be done effectively from home, playing on this idea that everyone is lazy and workshy these days and has too many rights, so as to encourage calls to take them away.

Also, I note how wfh is joining the ranks of 'things that should not be aligned with politics being aligned with politics'. Wfh is 'woke' and for 'snowflakes' - which is of course bullshit as it can be great for people for lots of personal and life circumstance reasons.  But of course it speaks to reactionary senior business types and people who don't understand modern working practices. Aka tory voters.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 7, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> The BMJ has published a study about which groups are vulnerable to severe Covid despite vaccination. Plain English summary here Study Identifies Groups Still At Risk of Severe COVID Despite Vaccination, original study here Risk prediction of covid-19 related death and hospital admission in adults after covid-19 vaccination: national prospective cohort study
> 
> These are the groups. The HR numbers are Hazard Ratios, whatever they are:
> 
> ...


The hazard ratio will be the probability of death in the study group compared with a control.  The study group here will be comorbidity between Covid, presumably after vaccination, and the stated condition.  In this context, however, from what you’ve posted, I’m not sure whether the control is people without the stated condition who are vaccinated and get Covid or some other combination.


----------



## Chz (Oct 7, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Yeah. My gut tells me it's more likely to be false negatives in the PCRs, as anecdotally some of the people with positive LFTs seem to be pretty sick with quite Covid-y symptoms, but I don't have any actual evidence


The false negative rate with LFTs is running just under 50%!


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 7, 2021)

kabbes said:


> How are you measuring that?
> 
> Which plumber?
> 
> Which lecturer?



Any of either.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 7, 2021)

kabbes said:


> How are you measuring that?
> 
> Which plumber?
> 
> Which lecturer?


Well, if we were balancing the relative merits of a plumber and Enoch Powell...


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 7, 2021)

Alternatively Pl1ml1c0 plumbers vs any oxbridge don ...


----------



## 2hats (Oct 7, 2021)

Fruitloop said:


> Arcticle about the issue of positive lateral flows followed by negative PCRs, that I mentioned a couple of pages back as being anecdotally a thing: Health chiefs probe 'high number' of positive lateral flow tests followed by negative PCRs


Could be a new variant defeating the PCR (eg deletion causing dropout on all three S, N and ORF1 tests) or simply that the RNA window for one of the latest delta lineages is typically too short/variable or that there is a defective batch of test materials from the vendor or some combination of these.

Latest RT-PCR targets 8 RNA sequences over 3 separate regions (ORF1a, ORF1b and N), avoiding S where most mutagenic variation frequently occurs between variants (and alpha/B.1.1.7 caused a drop out), so that _should_ be more robust. But I have no idea if that is deployed (or deployed widely) in the UK yet.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 7, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> A plumber is always going to be a greater asset to society than a lecturer in Ancient Greek.



Even Pimlico?


----------



## teuchter (Oct 7, 2021)

Cloo said:


> A lot of the government 'get back to work' talk seems to be aimed at older retired people who don't understand that a lot of work really can be done effectively from home, playing on this idea that everyone is lazy and workshy these days and has too many rights, so as to encourage calls to take them away.


This seems a strange assertion. What's it based on?]

It seems much more likely that it's driven by what they think employers want to see - a removal of an excuse for people not to come in to work. No employer who thinks their employees function better in the office (and they might be wrong about that, but it's irrelevant) than at home will want government advice to encourage WFH for any longer than necessary. 

A bit odd to try and pin it on "retired" people.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2021)

Its also driven by what they think sections of the press want to see. Some of the worst newspapers did not disguise their thoughts and desperation in regards office workers and their own newspaper sales.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 7, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Although I see today that after seeming to hover at 30-34k infections the last few weeks it's hopped up to 39k.


Add to that all the cases we have down here in the SW that aren’t getting picked up by PCR so don’t count.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 7, 2021)

2hats said:


> Could be a new variant defeating the PCR (eg deletion causing dropout on all three S, N and ORF1 tests) or simply that the RNA window for one of the latest delta lineages is typically too short/variable or that there is a defective batch of test materials from the vendor or some combination of these.
> 
> Latest RT-PCR targets 8 RNA sequences over 3 separate regions (ORF1a, ORF1b and N), avoiding S where most mutagenic variation frequently occurs between variants (and alpha/B.1.1.7 caused a drop out), so that _should_ be more robust. But I have no idea if that is deployed (or deployed widely) in the UK yet.


The article mentions it’s a specific thing in the SW which correlates with me encountering this in Bristol (the person who most likely infected me didn’t manage a positive PCR at all, nor did her daughter, mine took three PCR tests before a positive result). The regional prevalence either suggests a variant or problems with the local lab processing PCR tests.

Possibly also of note that we were both double-vaxxed, although I could have expected reduced immunity as on immunosuppressant meds and last jab mid-April, but the mrs was jabbed in July and no medical issues other than Asthma, but is suffering worse than me. Others too having hard symptoms that I know of, and others taking PCR result to mean false positive so not isolating.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> A bit odd to try and pin it on "retired" people.



You've misrepresented that.  A message being directed at a certain demographic is not the same as blaming that demographic for the message.  

If it wasn't in part a message for others in addition to employers than why did they weirdly conflate working from home with their woke nonsense?


----------



## Cloo (Oct 7, 2021)

Thanks,  yes that's what I was getting at and that's why they're tying it in with 'wokeness'. It's like 'WFH is the sort of thing that is the enemy of your/our values'  because as ever,  the Tories love to whip up a culture war.  Though I'm sure WFH must be suiting many older workers very nicely thanks, whatever their politics.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 7, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Any of either.


I’ve had plumbers that have totally fucked up my heating system.  I would have been better with no plumber.

Furthermore, most of the time, I don’t need a plumber at all. Whereas I value culture all the time.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> The article mentions it’s a specific thing in the SW


I wouldnt say that with any degree of certainty. Just because anecdotes, press attention and local PHE team noticing the signal has been asssociated with that region, doesnt mean I am confident that such patterns wont also show up elsewhere via proper analysis of the data.

It could still turn out to be a phenomenon most strongly seen in the South West, but I will not be making any assumptions about that at this stage.


----------



## andysays (Oct 7, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’ve had plumbers that have totally fucked up my heating system.  I would have been better with no plumber.
> 
> Furthermore, most of the time, I don’t need a plumber at all. Whereas I value culture all the time.


Interesting that you are effectively/inadvertently identifying culture with lecturers of Ancient Greek though.

Knowing how to (correctly) install or repair your heating system is just as important a part of "culture" as being able to talk knowledgeably about the Odyssey, IMO.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 7, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’ve had plumbers that have totally fucked up my heating system.  I would have been better with no plumber.
> 
> Furthermore, most of the time, I don’t need a plumber at all. Whereas I value culture all the time.



If Ancient Greek professors disappeared, who would miss them? Seriously, they are enablers of buffoons.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> This seems a strange assertion. What's it based on?]
> 
> It seems much more likely that it's driven by what they think employers want to see - a removal of an excuse for people not to come in to work. No employer who thinks their employees function better in the office (and they might be wrong about that, but it's irrelevant) than at home will want government advice to encourage WFH for any longer than necessary.
> 
> A bit odd to try and pin it on "retired" people.



Quite. I'm retired, how employers/employees conduct their business of no interest to me. Well, other than when I was working, I could have worked just as well from home.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 7, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> If Ancient Greek professors disappeared, who would miss them? Seriously, they are enablers of buffoons.


In two generations, the knowledge related to an entire civilisation, which created the context within which much of our current culture was formed, would disappear.  With it would go not only much literature but also a massive understanding of the taken-for-granted norms and geneology of society. But you think that’s nothing, of course.


----------



## maomao (Oct 7, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> If Ancient Greek professors disappeared, who would miss them? Seriously, they are enablers of buffoons.


Let's not curse the whole profession just because of one shit prime minister with a classics degree. I don't know any professors of ancient Greek but I know a couple of very nice Latin teachers and have a third of a degree in classical Chinese myself, whereas the plumbers who 'fixed' my shower in March were a pair of useless cunts.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 7, 2021)

kabbes said:


> In two generations, the knowledge related to an entire civilisation, with created the context within which much of our current culture was formed, would disappear.  With it would go not only much literature but also a massive understanding of the taken-for-granted norms and geneology of society. But you think that’s nothing, of course.



Elitist bollocks I'm afraid. How much of ancient Greek culture is the average man on the street aware of, and is he a jot worse off for the lack of such knowledge? No.


----------



## klang (Oct 7, 2021)

...


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 7, 2021)

maomao said:


> Let's not curse the whole profession just because of one shit prime minister with a classics degree. I don't know any professors of ancient Greek but I know a couple of very nice Latin teachers and have a third of a degree in classical Chinese myself, whereas the plumbers who 'fixed' my shower in March were a pair of useless cunts.



I find that word of mouth recommendation is the best way to pick a plumber, if it's an emergency of course, any port.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 7, 2021)

klang said:


> ...



Your link ain't working.


----------



## maomao (Oct 7, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Elitist bollocks I'm afraid. How much of ancient Greek culture is the average man on the street aware of, and is he a jot worse off for the lack of such knowledge? No.


Loads. I've just taken over teaching a unit on Greek myth to eleven year olds and they know enough that they're constantly pulling me up.


----------



## klang (Oct 7, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Your link ain't working.


you are all very lucky indeed.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 7, 2021)

maomao said:


> Loads. I've just taken over teaching a unit on Greek myth to eleven year olds and they know enough that they're constantly pulling me up.



There is a wee bit of a difference between kids TV program Greek myth, and the study of classical Greek.


----------



## maomao (Oct 7, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> There is a wee bit of a difference between kids TV program Greek myth, and the study of classical Greek.


Never heard of Homer then.


----------



## andysays (Oct 7, 2021)

maomao said:


> Never heard of Homer then.


Even I've heard of him - he's Bart's dad...


----------



## Yossarian (Oct 7, 2021)

Neither plumbers nor professors of ancient Greek would have been on the B Ark. Not sure about the philatelists.


----------



## maomao (Oct 7, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> Neither plumbers nor professors of ancient Greek would have been on the B Ark. Not sure about the philatelists.


HMRC employees were on the C ark.


----------



## klang (Oct 7, 2021)

I thought only animals were welcome onboard the ark


----------



## teuchter (Oct 7, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> You've misrepresented that.  A message being directed at a certain demographic is not the same as blaming that demographic for the message.
> 
> If it wasn't in part a message for others in addition to employers than why did *they weirdly conflate working from home with their woke nonsense*?



I've missed that... where did this happen?


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2021)

I only just got round to noticing that Public Health England was finally no more as of the start of October. We've known for a long time that a lot of its functions were to be replaced by the UK Health Security Agency, and others by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. But the switchover happened in phases, and the UKHSA was only said to be fully operational on October 1st. Its headed by Harries so I dont expect people to be hugely impressed by its work at this stage.

So for example the weekly surveillance report is now branded UKHSA rather than PHE.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1023910/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w40_v2.pdf


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 7, 2021)

Average men (and even women!) on the street have all sorts of interests. Mostly not classical Greek sure but it will be for some.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 7, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I've missed that... where did this happen?











						Tory MP ridiculed for telling officials to stop 'woke-ing' from home
					

Jake Berry said civil servants who enjoy flexible working - something the Tory government wants to make easier - are simply being 'woke'




					www.mirror.co.uk
				




Also this gem from the chairman: Conservative conference: Get off your Pelotons and back to work, says Oliver Dowden

I don't think the minds of employers are preoccupied with Peloton bikes.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2021)

By the way I remember one or two people here in the past expressing surprise that London wasnt even more severely affected in the pandemic.

Well I've just briefly mentioned a health impact paper on the nerdy detail thread (        #118      ) and I thought I better mention this bit here too:



> Regionally, the pandemic shock and its impacts on the healthcare system varied significantly. Greater London experienced greatest direct health impacts of COVID-19: it had the highest rate of deaths to April 2021 once population size and age were taken into account; it also had the greatest QALY losses from death and morbidity. It experienced relatively lower reductions in elective and outpatient activity than other regions, though the drop in emergency activity in Greater London was greater than most regions (28.4% reduction compared to median of 24.9%).





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1018698/S1373_Direct_and_Indirect_Health_Impacts_of_C19_Detailed_Paper_.pdf


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> By the way I remember one or two people here in the past expressing surprise that London wasnt even more severely affected in the pandemic.
> 
> Well I've just briefly mentioned a health impact paper on the nerdy detail thread (        #118      ) and I thought I better mention this bit here too:
> 
> ...



This might have been me but I was referring to the current situation and the comparatively low levels of infection in SE London.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> This might have been me but I was referring to the current situation and the comparatively low levels of infection in SE London.


Yeah, though I was mostly thinking of longer ago than that. I dont know how good my memory is in that regard, maybe it was something FridgeMagnet said that I was remembering. In any case it wasnt a complaint by me, I just remembered the viewpoint generally and wanted to provide a glimpse of how badly London was affected once things like age of population was factored in.

In terms of more recently, ie this current wave, I probably already answered that areas that had less infection in previous waves were expected to do worse this time. This does tend to show up to a certain extent in figures for non-vaccine-induced antibody levels in blood donors by region, where London has always tended to come out with the highest proportions of those already infected. eg the following from the weekly surveillance report ( https://assets.publishing.service.g...910/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w40_v2.pdf )


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 7, 2021)

2hats said:


> Could be a new variant defeating the PCR (eg deletion causing dropout on all three S, N and ORF1 tests) or simply that the RNA window for one of the latest delta lineages is typically too short/variable or that there is a defective batch of test materials from the vendor or some combination of these.
> 
> Latest RT-PCR targets 8 RNA sequences over 3 separate regions (ORF1a, ORF1b and N), avoiding S where most mutagenic variation frequently occurs between variants (and alpha/B.1.1.7 caused a drop out), so that _should_ be more robust. But I have no idea if that is deployed (or deployed widely) in the UK yet.


There’s plenty of anecdata under this Twitter comment:



There‘s others reporting positives only after they sent in postal test, which was our circumstances too. I wonder if it could be a dodgy batch of tests used at walk up/drive through centres, but postal kits are OK? Although postal tests are more likely to be done later when not well enough to travel or isolating so that could also be a factor, showing up when the illness is more severe.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2021)

I dont really feel like fully exploring the released document about Operation Alice at the moment. Some of the detail will likely be of interest to me, although I already knew that lessons learnt from these exercises werent acted upon. Because all my expectations about the nature of the UK pandemic response and how shit it was likely to be were based on plans from a much earlier period of time, and unfortunately those did turn out to be a reliable guide as to how authorities would respond. It was a very bad sign that I was still able to guess various things correctly despite my knowledge and attention paid to the subject of pandemics not stretching much past initial reports into how the UK performed in the swine flu pandemic.









						Exclusive - Seven Secret Pandemic Reports (including Alice) - CygnusReports.org
					

We can now publish reports from seven secret pandemic exercises conducted by the British Government between 2015 and 2018, including Exercise Alice – the secret coronavirus exercise which could have helped us prepare for COVID-19, but which politicians and healthcare leaders failed to act on...



					cygnusreports.org
				












						Coronavirus report warned of impact on UK four years before pandemic
					

Exclusive: Report from planning exercise in 2016 alerted government of need to stockpile PPE and set up contact tracing system




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> If Ancient Greek professors disappeared, who would miss them?





Sasaferrato said:


> I'm retired



Probably not a great idea to start deciding who lives or dies based on perceived social utility then eh?


----------



## kabbes (Oct 8, 2021)

On the one hand, we have Mary Beard, beloved Classics academic, who uses her knowledge to entertain, intrigue and delight. Millions enjoy her learning. 

On the other, we have Chris.  Chris put the wrong valve on the inlet to our house from the LPG tank, causing a dangerous build up of gas, which fortunately tripped the system before — rather than after — it exploded.  Less fortunately, it left us without any heating or hot water for three days in the heart of winter.  Worse was to come.  When he came to fix his fuck-up, he managed to rip a hole in the outlet system of the tank, sending 2000L of LPG into the soil and atmosphere, at considerable environmental and, it must be said, financial cost.  In turn, this required an entire fire crew to spend their afternoon supervising its repair. 

I have to wonder: who would society miss more?  Mary?  Or Chris?


----------



## Supine (Oct 8, 2021)

kabbes said:


> On the one hand, we have Mary Beard, beloved Classics academic, who uses her knowledge to entertain, intrigue and delight. Millions enjoy her learning.
> 
> On the other, we have Chris.  Chris put the wrong valve on the inlet to our house from the LPG tank, causing a dangerous build up of gas, which fortunately tripped the system before — rather than after — it exploded.  Less fortunately, it left us without any heating or hot water for three days in the heart of winter.  Worse was to come.  When he came to fix his fuck-up, he managed to rip a hole in the outlet system of the tank, sending 2000L of LPG into the soil and atmosphere, at considerable environmental and, it must be said, financial cost.  In turn, this required an entire fire crew to spend their afternoon supervising its repair.
> 
> I have to wonder: who would society miss more?  Mary?  Or Chris?



Game, set and match


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 8, 2021)

kabbes said:


> On the one hand, we have Mary Beard, beloved Classics academic, who uses her knowledge to entertain, intrigue and delight. Millions enjoy her learning.
> 
> On the other, we have Chris.  Chris put the wrong valve on the inlet to our house from the LPG tank, causing a dangerous build up of gas, which fortunately tripped the system before — rather than after — it exploded.  Less fortunately, it left us without any heating or hot water for three days in the heart of winter.  Worse was to come.  When he came to fix his fuck-up, he managed to rip a hole in the outlet system of the tank, sending 2000L of LPG into the soil and atmosphere, at considerable environmental and, it must be said, financial cost.  In turn, this required an entire fire crew to spend their afternoon supervising its repair.
> 
> I have to wonder: who would society miss more?  Mary?  Or Chris?


I'll take your word for it, I've  not heard of either of em


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 8, 2021)

I'm surprised you even bothered with his utterly illogical and Daily Fail premise kabbes


----------



## teuchter (Oct 8, 2021)

Kabbes' anecdote just reveals that we are investing too much in classics academics instead of plumbers. As a result all of our classics academics are intriguing and delightful, but our plumbers are incompetent. A strong argument for shutting down universities and opening more technical colleges if you ask me. A badly trained classics scholar is unlikely to blow up your house, and in fact even if they just made stuff up, that sounded vaguely convincing, most people would still be intrigued and delighted.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 8, 2021)

Perhaps plumbers should be trained in the classics so even if they do blow up your house they can distract you from your woes with some tales of ancient roman plumbing misadventures.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 8, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Perhaps plumbers should be trained in the classics so even if they do blow up your house they can distract you from your woes with some tales of ancient roman plumbing misadventures.


And vice versa.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 8, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Perhaps plumbers should be trained in the classics so even if they do blow up your house they can distract you from your woes with some tales of ancient roman plumbing misadventures.



Fewer massive LPG tanks and more stone communal baths is the way forward I reckon.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> And vice versa.



If a classics scholar delights your with some stories about ancient roman plumbing misadventures they should also blow up your house?


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 8, 2021)

Roman plumbers created and refined many fine systems eg hypocaust and aqueducts.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 8, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Roman plumbers created and refined many fine systems eg hypocaust and aqueducts.



Unfortunately I'm an ordinary man in the street so am incapable of understanding any of that.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 8, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> If a classics scholar delights your with some stories about ancient roman plumbing misadventures they should also blow up your house?


If their stories are failing to delight me, they should fix some leaking taps while they are at it, so that they are not completely wasting my time.

Actually if all academics could do something practically useful while they are waffling on about stuff, that would be good.


----------



## prunus (Oct 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> If their stories are failing to delight me, they should fix some leaking taps while they are at it, so that they are not completely wasting my time.
> 
> Actually if all academics could do something practically useful while they are waffling on about stuff, that would be good.



Almost all academics I know are very practical and useful - almost as if their competence is general and spans more than one narrow field. 

By contrast the most useless outside-their-field people I know are those involved in “entertainment” - especially people in tv. 

These comments brought to you by Sweeping Unhelpful Generaliz-a-SHNZ.com. Why not check out our app?


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> If their stories are failing to delight me, they should fix some leaking taps while they are at it, so that they are not completely wasting my time.
> 
> Actually if all academics could do something practically useful while they are waffling on about stuff, that would be good.



Maybe fit you up with a lead-lined aqueduct?


----------



## Wilf (Oct 8, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Elitist bollocks I'm afraid. How much of ancient Greek culture is the average man on the street aware of, and is he a jot worse off for the lack of such knowledge? No.


To be honest, arguing with you is like the labour of Sisyphus.


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 8, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Elitist bollocks I'm afraid. How much of ancient Greek culture is the average man on the street aware of, and is he a jot worse off for the lack of such knowledge? No.


Trojan horse of an argument from a Cyclops of a poster.


----------



## kabbes (Oct 8, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Kabbes' anecdote just reveals that we are investing too much in classics academics instead of plumbers. As a result all of our classics academics are intriguing and delightful, but our plumbers are incompetent.


The original postulate from our bad-tempered elderly philistine was that every single existing plumber is more valuable to society than every single existing classics scholar (or, strictly, Ancient Greek lecturer). Your suggestion as to how to remedy the problems with existing plumbers implicitly acknowledges and agrees with me that his postulate was incorrect.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 8, 2021)

I'm just an ordinary bloke who has done fings like welding and muchining fings for a livin and built a little aeroplane that I now fly around (arrgh ungreen), I didnt have an upbringing like you clever classics people...or sumfing or nuffin

I wish I was cleverer too


----------



## Wilf (Oct 8, 2021)

These lads will sort your central heating while defending the Pass at Thermopylae to the last man.




__





						Spartan Plumbing & Heating
					






					www.spartanph.co.uk


----------



## Supine (Oct 8, 2021)

Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers
					

Liberal arts and the humanities aren't just for the elite.




					www.theatlantic.com


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 8, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Trojan horse of an argument from a Cyclops of a poster.



I have two (long sighted) functioning eyes.


----------



## klang (Oct 8, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Roman plumbers created and refined many fine systems eg hypocaust and aqueducts.


classic plumbing


----------



## 2hats (Oct 8, 2021)

Pass the shared tersorium (great for avoiding the next loo roll shortage).


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2021)

So what about that covid, eh?


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 8, 2021)

dp


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 8, 2021)

klang said:


> classic plumbing
> View attachment 291712


Indeed if you extend plumbing to include central heating, as many plumbers do both, then you have a forerunner to underfloor heating.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 8, 2021)

Mrs Frank knows classical Greek. I'd definitely prefer it if she were a qualified plumber.


----------



## Yossarian (Oct 8, 2021)

This March 2020 piece on what we could learn from Thucydides' account of the Great Plague of Athens now seems quite prophetic.

_In his account of the Great Plague, Thucydides looks frankly at the practical and moral weaknesses that the disease was able to exploit. He sharply notes how crowding in Athens, along with inadequate housing and sanitation, helped the disease spread more quickly and added to the number of casualties. He is aware that a lack of attention to important public-health and safety measures allowed the Plague to take root and made its effects much worse than they would have otherwise been...

Gone were the days when they could comfortably see themselves in the words Pericles spoke in his famed funeral oration at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, before the Plague carried him off to a less-than-glorious death: “We are not suspicious of one another … a spirit of reverence pervades our public acts; we are prevented from doing wrong by respect for the authorities and for the laws.”

The Great Plague tested this Athenian self-conception and found it wanting. Who people collectively believe they are is of the utmost importance, particularly in a democracy where the people are tasked with the grave responsibility of government. Self-government requires self-confidence. A democracy is unlikely to survive when the people have grown unsure of themselves and their leaders, laws, and institutions._









						What the Great Plague of Athens Can Teach Us Now
					

Disease changed the course of the war, and shaped the peace that came afterward, planting the seeds that would destroy Athenian democracy.




					www.theatlantic.com


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 8, 2021)

*Current COVID Pressures 'As Worrying as Peak': NHS Staff Poll* 



> An NHS Charities Together/YouGov poll finds 8 in 10 NHS staff feel current pressures are as concerning now as they were during the peak of the pandemic. More than 1000 staff were surveyed in August:
> 
> 81% said there's still a significant growth in problems
> 96% believe pressures will continue for years
> ...











						Current COVID Pressures 'As Worrying as Peak': NHS Staff Poll
					

An NHS Charities Together/YouGov poll finds 8 in 10 NHS staff feel current pressures are as concerning now as they were during the peak of the pandemic.



					www.medscape.com


----------



## kabbes (Oct 8, 2021)

We’ve had an email today ordering us all back to the office for at least 3 days a week from 18 October. Covid?  There is no Covid, the government says so. 

(Whether people will do as they are offered time will tell. I was planning to do 2 days a week anyway from next week so I’ll stick with that.)


----------



## smmudge (Oct 8, 2021)

We're in 2 days a week, pushed by the company as "this is what the people want!". (They asked us our opinions but expect they did not care what we said)

Yesterday our director emailed the team to say, I'm working from home Friday, so if you don't want to go into the office, you don't have to either.

Well guess how many of the team went into the office!


----------



## Sue (Oct 8, 2021)

kabbes said:


> We’ve had an email today ordering us all back to the office for at least 3 days a week from 18 October. Covid?  There is no Covid, the government says so.
> 
> (Whether people will do as they are offered time will tell. I was planning to do 2 days a week anyway from next week so I’ll stick with that.)


My ex-company imposed three days a week from the start of September. Lots of folk have been ignoring it and I have it on good authority they've started checking who's swiping in when and it's about to become an HR issue.  

Given how buoyant the job market is at the moment and the number of people who've already left for jobs with more flexibility, feels like a very bold move on higher management's part...


----------



## kabbes (Oct 8, 2021)

Sue said:


> My ex-company imposed three days a week from the start of September. Lots of folk have been ignoring it and I have it on good authority they've started checking who's swiping in when and it's about to become an HR issue.
> 
> Given how buoyant the job market is at the moment and the number of people who've already left for jobs with more flexibility, feels like a very bold move on higher management's part...


Yeah, it’s the ego and authoritarian narcissism of the CEO driving this, not any kind of sober analysis. Why else would you go to war with a bunch of contented and productive employees for no gain?


----------



## Sue (Oct 8, 2021)

kabbes said:


> Yeah, it’s the ego and authoritarian narcissism of the CEO driving this, not any kind of sober analysis. Why else would you go to war with a bunch of contented and productive employees for no gain?


What a coincidence, same.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 8, 2021)

Wilf said:


> These lads will sort your central heating while defending the Pass at Thermopylae to the last man.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Making sure your gates are hot, presumably


----------



## little_legs (Oct 8, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> You've misrepresented that.  A message being directed at a certain demographic is not the same as blaming that demographic for the message.
> 
> If it wasn't in part a message for others in addition to employers than why did they weirdly conflate working from home with their woke nonsense?


----------



## magneze (Oct 8, 2021)

I'm fairly surprised by the Yes percentages in all age groups there tbh.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 8, 2021)

65+ 

I'm also in favour of bringing back National Service now that I'm too old for it


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 8, 2021)

I suppose some will have been unable to work from home, some will rely on office workers for their jobs, some will miss being at the office, some will be stay at home parents sick of their partners being home.


----------



## BCBlues (Oct 9, 2021)

two sheds said:


> 65+
> 
> I'm also in favour of bringing back National Service now that I'm too old for it



I'm with you on this. Get rid of some of these 20+ "children" who hang about my house smoking dodgy cigarettes listening to crap music


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 9, 2021)

two sheds said:


> 65+
> 
> I'm also in favour of bringing back National Service now that I'm too old for it


been there, done that, it was all good being kicked out after 12 days.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 9, 2021)

Looks like the government is considering following in the footsteps of France & Germany, by scaling back free covid testing.

I can understand the appeal in doing so, but now is not the time, what with us having far higher number of cases compared to France & Germany, and winter about to arrive. There seems to be a battle between different government departments, hopefully they will kick the decision into the long grass, and review it in the spring.



> Mass free Covid testing could be scrapped and limited to high-risk settings such as care homes, hospitals and schools due to high costs to the taxpayer, it is reported.
> 
> The government is said to be considering scaling back the current arrangements where everyone has free access to lateral flow tests and some people can get hold of PCR tests.
> 
> A Whitehall source told the Telegraph: “It’s agreed that universal access isn’t sustainable or necessary given high vaccination levels. We now need to decide what the parameters should be that reasonably qualify access to free testing.”





> The Treasury and Cabinet are understood to support ending free mass testing, with one insider quoted as saying that the cost is the equivalent of 1p on income tax and that taxes could rise if the scheme continues.
> 
> Number 10 and the Department of Health and Social Care are believed to be more cautious as discussions take place between the DHSC and Treasury of announcements on all future departmental spending made in the Budget on 27 October.
> 
> Downing Street is understood to be playing down the chances of mass free testing ending over the winter and the PM is expected to have the ultimate say on the whether the scheme should change.











						Mass free Covid tests could be scrapped amid fears of winter surge in cases
					

Some figures in government are hesitant about ending the free Covid testing scheme at a time when Covid cases could surge this autumn and winter, it is reported




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## andysays (Oct 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looks like the government is considering following in the footsteps of France & Germany, by scaling back free covid testing.
> 
> I can understand the appeal in doing so, but now is not the time, what with us having far higher number of cases compared to France & Germany, and winter about to arrive. There seems to be a battle between different government departments, hopefully they will kick the decision into the long grass, and review it in the spring.
> 
> ...



Might inspire a run on free home testing kits...


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 9, 2021)

The idea has been to get as many people vaccinated and infected for better immunity over winter, right? They're happy with the death level and if we get quite lot of covid done now (the summer opening plan?) then the NHS will be absolutely fine (creaking at the seams) over flu season.

So sod quarantine and testing.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 9, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Making sure your gates are hot, presumably


They'll certainly bleed your radiators.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looks like the government is considering following in the footsteps of France & Germany, by scaling back free covid testing.
> 
> I can understand the appeal in doing so, but now is not the time, what with us having far higher number of cases compared to France & Germany, and winter about to arrive. There seems to be a battle between different government departments, hopefully they will kick the decision into the long grass, and review it in the spring.
> 
> ...



I'm rationing my rants at the moment so I dont think I'll bother dwelling on that possibility too much unless there are much clearer signs of it actually happening prematurely.

I'm also not confident in my guesses about what this government will do in this phase, but I would think that they will be nervous about doing it at a stage where they could be forced to rapidly u-turn on the decision if things deteriorate, or where it could have unintended consequences in terms of the psychology of getting people to drift back towards the old normal with any degree of confidence. So I suppose I expect them to wait until the main opportunity for a winter wave has passed.

Also the wording of various differnt things said publicly by government implies that even if they shit the bed by ending some free testing access too soon, it will be lateral flow tests rather than PCR tests that are first for the chop. The likes of Javid already said that PCR tests will remain available over autumn and winter.

Meanwhile this Nick Triggle article isnt too bad by his standards:









						Covid: The UK is Europe's virus hotspot - does it matter?
					

Winter is approaching with infection levels higher than elsewhere, so is the UK in trouble?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2021)

And I really do hope the scenario touched on in that article, where the cases in school aged children run out of steam in the coming weeks, followed by a broader decline in case numbers, is the one that happens. This is not a prediction that this is certain to happen, but it seems possible and I would very much like to avoid having to go into doom mode again.

With that in mind I will drill down into case age data for England again around the middle of next week. In the meantime I may get round to creating and post a graph of my own towns positive cases by age since the overall numbers here suck, they've been heading back towards the level seen here in Nuneaton & Bedworth at the July peak.

In the meantime here is the official dashboard graph for my location to illustrate what I just said:


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yes and then it becomes a question of why there have been more false negative PCR results. The possibilities with the most serious implications, such as changes to the virus itself thwarting the tests, need to be ruled in or out urgently.



I haven’t looked into the specificity of the specific LFTs being used, but couldn’t it be that they are picking up non-COVID coronaviruses, so of course the PCRs are negative:









						High incidence of false-positive results of IgG antibody against SARS-CoV-2 with rapid immunochromatographic antibody test due to human common cold coronavirus infection
					

We experienced a 72-year-old man who developed laboratory-confirmed human coronavirus HKU1 pneumonia. PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 from a nasopharyngeal…




					www.sciencedirect.com
				




Coronavirus colds aren’t necessarily just going to be a runny nose or whatever, and could share many symptoms with mild COVID.


----------



## l'Otters (Oct 10, 2021)

Didn't they have a glut of LFT's that needed using up? Is that coming to an end?


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 10, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I haven’t looked into the specificity of the specific LFTs being used, but couldn’t it be that they are picking up non-COVID coronaviruses, so of course the PCRs are negative:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


But quite a few (like us) are eventually getting positive PCRs, so it is picking it up late, but in some cases it isn’t at all - the person I most likely was infected by (at work) never managed a positive PCR.

I don’t think it’s an issue with specific LFTs as we had three different types in the house that came up positive at various points.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 10, 2021)

A friend's dad died of COVID yesterday, lives in the South West I think. It really feels like every COVID death now really is on the government, it was so avoidable but they just wanted to make the populist move and open everything up ASAP.


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> With that in mind I will drill down into case age data for England again around the middle of next week. In the meantime I may get round to creating and post a graph of my own towns positive cases by age since the overall numbers here suck, they've been heading back towards the level seen here in Nuneaton & Bedworth at the July peak.
> 
> In the meantime here is the official dashboard graph for my location to illustrate what I just said:
> 
> View attachment 291960



I drilled down into cases in Nuneaton & Bedworth and in addition to the huge spike in school aged cases, there has indeed been some spread into some other age groups.



I suppose I will repeat this exercise for the East Midlands region since the overall cases graph for that region is also showing things heading back to levels seen at the July peak.


----------



## teuchter (Oct 10, 2021)

I guess the surprisingly green patches we currently see in north Kent are not unrelated to the outbreak they had there some time back?


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Good to see the daily reported new cases dropping again, I suppose we can only hope that trend continues.


I know you tend to look at a different set of numbers to me, but I'd say the numbers have sucked since you posted that. I think todays numbers bothered some people on twitter since they are quite high for a Sunday.


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I guess the surprisingly green patches we currently see in north Kent are not unrelated to the outbreak they had there some time back?



Maybe. I know I keep saying that modelling implied that areas which had bad waves in the past would be expected to be less severely affected in this wave, but I'd still be cautious about making this assumption in regards to individual locations at particular moments in time. I'd probably want to wait longer to see what happens next, and would ideally augment the picture with local knowledge.


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I haven’t looked into the specificity of the specific LFTs being used, but couldn’t it be that they are picking up non-COVID coronaviruses, so of course the PCRs are negative:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That link appears to refer to an antibody test, so not relevant.

I havent looked into that issue much but this came up on twitter:



And I found the following sentence in this document: https://www.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/ox...E Porton Down  University of Oxford_final.pdf



> All nine kits also passed cross-reactivity analyses against seasonal human coronaviruses.


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2021)

Since the numbers sucked despite it being the weekend, I decided to look at cases by age for the whole of England rather than wait till later in the coming week. As usual these are positive cases by specimen date, with data fro the most recent days still incomplete.

I'm afraid we should expect hospitalisations in England to rise since last weeks positive case data included notable rises in older age groups.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 11, 2021)

Simple but stark:


----------



## lazythursday (Oct 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> Maybe. I know I keep saying that modelling implied that areas which had bad waves in the past would be expected to be less severely affected in this wave, but I'd still be cautious about making this assumption in regards to individual locations at particular moments in time. I'd probably want to wait longer to see what happens next, and would ideally augment the picture with local knowledge.


It's interesting that it appears from the interactive map that case rates are relatively low in the central cores of most major cities, but much higher in the hinterlands.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

I've not read the committee report yet, I've just seen some of the newspaper frontpage headlines about it ( Newspaper headlines: 'Damning' report into government Covid 'failings' ). And the following article which is by Nick Triggle, a person who deserves to be part of the evidence of failure in both March 2020 and September 2020 so I wont be taking his spin on it as the gospel.

As we should probably have expected, the committee could not fully avoid the obvious conclusion that herd immunity was very much part of the original plan A. Not surprising since later denials by government werent credible given they so clearly briefed journalists about that part of the plan A rationale during a crucial week in March just before that plan went in the incinerator. Even so, the report appears to have still done what it could to look charitably on this aspect.









						Covid: UK's early response worst public health failure ever, MPs say
					

But the new report by MPs fails to reflect the views of bereaved relatives, campaigners say.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Maybe I will pick through the detail of it in a dedicated thread, although I would have covered a bunch of the detail during or shortly after the events it describes anyway, so perhaps that exercise will be largely redundant at this point. Although maybe I can salvage some value from it if there are obvious weaknesses and incorrect conclusions drawn by this committee report, that it would be useful to detect now in the hope that the public inquiry can avoid some of those shortcomings.

If the Triggle article is accurate then one thing immediately leaps out to be as being inappropriate:



> And the NHS and government were also credited with the way hospital intensive care capacity was increased to ensure the majority who needed hospital treatment received it.



Thats certainly an area where to this day I dont think uncomfortable truths about what I tend to described as 'protect the NHS, die at home' have been dwelt upon and acknowledged properly at all. But I'll have to check the committees wording for myself, since "the majority who needed it" could be weasel words designed to hide a multitude of sins.

Plus later in the Triggle article we have this bit:



> For people with learning disabilities, not enough thought was given to how restrictions would have a detrimental impact on them - particularly in terms of accessing health care more generally. Do not resuscitate orders were also used inappropriately.



The motivation for using do not resuscitate orders inappropriately is surely as part of planning how to ration care, so I'm not in the mood to hear praise about care capacity. And there are many other aspects of the die at home thing that I've gone on about really quite recently so I wont repeat the rest of my thoughts on that again right now.

Triggle likely skates over much damning detail with this bit:



> For ethnic minorities, there were a variety of factors, including possible biological reasons and increased exposure because of housing and working conditions.



Again I've not read everything for myself yet, but at least one newspaper front page today says "Black and Asian NHS staff at risk after white colleagues had preferential access to PPE".


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

Covid response ‘one of UK’s worst ever public health failures’
					

Early handling and belief in ‘herd immunity’ led to more deaths, Commons inquiry finds




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Decisions on lockdowns and social distancing during the early weeks of the pandemic – and the advice that led to them – “rank as one of the most important public health failures the United Kingdom has ever experienced”, the report concludes, stressing: “This happened despite the UK counting on some of the best expertise available anywhere in the world, and despite having an open, democratic system that allowed plentiful challenge.”



Perhaps it would have worked better, and could work better in future, if such inflated opinions of our capabilities and democratic strengths were cast aside for being delusional shite. During a crucial March week some elements of the press asked the right questions in press conferences in a way that probably helped and was a rare sign of 'plentiful challenge'. But in many other ways the press were more interested in doing their duty via puff pieces about how brilliant and trusted the likes of Whitty were, how we should trust their judgement and feel for them as they make the big decisions. Herd management to go with herd immunity. Beyond the media, I dont think other forms of opposition were well placed to actually have a better grip on the situation or to challenge the decisions being made. Would have to look to various individuals on various parts of the internet in the period leading up to mid-March to find signs of something more potentially useful, a resource the state was apparently not setup to take suitable heed of (or they could have just copied certain other countries homework but they didnt show any apparent appetite for doing that either).



> Hannah Brady, of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, said the report found the deaths of 150,000 people were “redeemed” by the success of the vaccine rollout.
> 
> “The report … is laughable and more interested in political arguments about whether you can bring laptops to Cobra meetings than it is in the experiences of those who tragically lost parents, partners or children to Covid-19. This is an attempt to ignore and gaslight bereaved families, who will see it as a slap in the face,” she said.



There are aspects of the report which Im sure they are more than justified in criticising, and I believe that group are also pissed off that they didnt get to give evidence to the committee.


----------



## William of Walworth (Oct 12, 2021)

And it's all very well just mentioning this  at the end of your report, Triggle, but there's _far_ too little emphasis put on this throwaway remark IMO :




			
				Nick Triggle said:
			
		

> There was a lack of priority attached to care homes too at the start of the pandemic.
> *The rapid discharge of people from hospital into care homes without adequate testing or isolation* was a prime example of this.


(It was me who added the bolding, there).


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 12, 2021)

They claimed to have analysed South Korea's experience but were not believed! Lying fucks. Failure to learn from the experience of other countries is endemic throughout government. Our masters always think they know best. We are falling further and further behind other countries in our values and standards. We are a shameful third-rate shower of shit. I wish I was Norwegian.


----------



## maomao (Oct 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> "Black and Asian NHS staff at risk after white colleagues had preferential access to PPE".


That's terrible, have you (or anyone else) got a source for this? I assume it was a distribution bias (ie. PPE going to areas with less ethnic minorities or to healthcare roles less likely to be ethnic minorities) rather than actually just giving them to white people.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 12, 2021)

maomao said:


> That's terrible, have you (or anyone else) got a source for this? I assume it was a distribution bias (ie. PPE going to areas with less ethnic minorities or to healthcare roles less likely to be ethnic minorities) rather than actually just giving them to white people.





			https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.rcem.ac.uk/docs/Policy/RCEM%2520PPE,%2520ethnic%2520minorities,%2520and%2520risk%2520in%2520EDs%2520during%2520the%2520pandemic.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi8x_y8rMTzAhUpgf0HHcoNBOUQFnoECA4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw0aD5zXDrYTFzm363hc54Cx
		



I'm in a rush so I hope that works. It's a pdf link.

Basically. Training, access, risk assessment, fit. All fails.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 12, 2021)

New Covid variant could be to blame for positive lateral flow tests followed by negative PCR
					

Scientists are investigating a new strain as one theory behind the anomalies, which have occurred in the South West of England, but do not believe it is a serious concern




					inews.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

maomao said:


> That's terrible, have you (or anyone else) got a source for this? I assume it was a distribution bias (ie. PPE going to areas with less ethnic minorities or to healthcare roles less likely to be ethnic minorities) rather than actually just giving them to white people.


I'm not reading the full report properly today but I've skimmed it and it includes stuff like:



> 21. However, existing social, economic and health inequalities were exacerbated by the pandemic and combined with possible biological factors contributed to unequal outcomes including unacceptably high death rates amongst people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities. Increased exposure to covid as a result of people’s housing and working conditions played a significant role. We also heard that Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff in the NHS, who are underrepresented in leadership and management roles, faced greater difficulty in accessing the appropriate and useable Personal Protective Equipment. The experience of the covid pandemic underlines the need for an urgent and long term strategy to tackle health inequalities and to address the working conditions which have put staff from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities at greater risk.





> 306. Staff from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are crucial to the NHS and care sectors, making up over one-fifth of the workforce and it is notable that the first ten NHS staff to die from covid-19 were from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.457 There is some evidence that even within these frontline roles, ethnic minority staff were more exposed to covid-19 risk than their white colleagues. For example, the Health and Social Care Committee heard that in the first wave of the pandemic, frontline NHS staff from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds faced greater difficulty in accessing appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that fitted correctly.458





> 307. Professor Kevin Fenton, Regional Director of Public Health England London, who co-authored Public Health England’s August 2020 report, Disparities in the risk and outcomes of COVID-19, stated that adequate protection for staff was an area they were “very concerned” about in their review:
> Many BAME workers felt less empowered, less able to speak up and less able to express their concerns about PPE risk or any vulnerabilities they might have. That may have placed them at risk [...] staff felt less able to ask for PPE, or may have experienced what they felt was disproportionate distribution, utilisation or access to PPE as well.459





> 336. It is essential that in any future crisis, NHS staff from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are included in emergency planning and decision-making structures. NHS England should accelerate efforts to ensure that NHS leadership in every trust, foundation trust and Clinical Commissioning Group is representative of the overall Black, Asian and ethnic minority workforce.





> 337. Leadership in NHS England and Improvement should also increase their engagement with Black, Asian and minority ethnic worker organisations and trade unions to ensure that Black, Asian and minority ethnic members of staff feel valued by the organisation, are involved in decision-making processes and feel able to speak up when they are not being protected.





> 338. It is unacceptable that staff from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities did not have equal levels of access to appropriate and useable personal protective equipment as their white colleagues during the pandemic. The Government must learn from the initial shortage of appropriate PPE for these staff and set out a strategy to secure a supply chain of PPE that works for all staff in the NHS and care sectors.





			https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/7497/documents/78688/default/


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

And in regards the second part of paragraph 306, the evidence reference 458 points to this, which I also havent had time to read properly:



			https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/383/html/


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 12, 2021)

I have to say the whole minorities getting less access to PPE accusation is rather nebulous imo


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

Well one particular aspect is discussed in my previous link:



> A related question is that, as we know with most forms of protection, if it does not fit correctly, it is next to useless. One frontline NHS worker said, “PPE is designed for a 6-foot-3 bloke built like a rugby player.” I have heard anecdotally from a number of sources that there is a problem fitting the FFP3 masks for certain ethnicities, such as east Asians in particular. Nurses like my mum, for example, struggle to try to get the FFP3 mask to fit and it has failed a number of times. What are we doing to ensure that our staff are properly protected with PPE, especially the female BAME workforce and pregnant workers?





> You are absolutely right, Sarah, to identify that one of the consistent issues that is raised with our trust chief executives is that some of the different types of mask do not fit particular types of face. You are right to identify that that has been raised as an issue particularly for certain groups of black and ethnic minority staff. I had heard that east Asian nurses in particular were finding that some brands of mask did not fit in the right way. I have heard variants of your anecdote about some of it being built for 6-foot-3 rugby players.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

Plus given that the PPE failings were numerous and the dysfunction existed on many levels, it is unsurprising that this resulted in situations where staff who felt able to challenge management stood a slightly better chance of getting the situation improved for them, hence the focus on management representation in the committee report. So questions like the following one came up in the aforementioned evidence, although satisfactory answers were lacking.



> Taiwo Owatemi: My question is directed to Dr Dixon and Richard Murray. In a survey of over 2,000 BAME NHS staff, 50% stated that there was a culture of discrimination within the NHS. They felt that they were unable to speak up due to the lack of BAME representation in leadership roles. Currently, only 6% of NHS leadership positions are BAME staff. As the NHS plans for the long term, what practical steps are being taken to ensure that there is diversity in leadership positions across all professions?



Likely a broader issue lurks in regards managements fitness for purpose in terms of addressing the needs of all staff, regardless of ethnicity. But I dont expect committee reports to look at that properly because once you start picking at that, much of the way everything is ordered and managed in this country starts to get exposed as a crappy sham built on hideous priorities.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

I probably wont have time to go through the whole thing and comment on all of it, so I'll just pick a few more areas for now.

Hospital infection control is a special area of interest of mine so I'll start with that. It gets a brief mention in a section that wonders why we didnt try to learn from the likes of South Korea. And then it comes up a fair bit later on:



> 55. Moreover, the Nuffield Trust also highlighted the impact of low levels of capital investment on the NHS’s ability to respond to the pandemic, particularly in terms of infection prevention and control:
> 
> The fact that the UK trails most other countries in capital investment means many parts of the NHS are working with outdated buildings, and will be challenged to take steps such as separate Covid and non-Covid wards which could allow expanded activity while maintaining infection control.92





> This challenge was also highlighted in written evidence, including by the Healthcare Infection Society, who stated:
> 
> Ventilation, spacing and isolation facilities in most areas of hospitals were not compliant with recommendations in Health Building Notes (HBN) and Health Technical Memoranda (HTM). No practical solutions were available to address this.93



I expect thats also an issue during 'normal times' and probably contributes to the levels of influenza death we sometimes experience in this country.



> 56. These impediments to effective infection prevention and control made it more difficult for the NHS not only to see patients physically, but also led to widespread restrictions on people accompanying patients, like birth partners or, as we note elsewhere, advocates for people with learning disabilities.94 The Healthcare Infection Society also highlighted the issue of bed capacity and staff levels on infection prevention and control (IPC) grounds, not just the delivery of critical care:
> 
> Bed occupancy was chronically high with relatively low staffing ratios of qualified staff and an inadequate number of side rooms in most hospitals. These are undesirable in IPC terms. Not only are infections more likely to spread and be more difficult to control, but the deficiencies hinder the ability to respond to unusual IPC challenges.95



Which then leads on to a broader point about capacity:



> 57. Sir Simon Stevens summed up the broader issue of managing NHS capacity during a health crisis in his evidence to us in January 2021:
> 
> Should we try to build more resilience into public services rather than running everything to the optimum just-in-time efficiency? I think that is one of the big lessons from the pandemic. We talked a bit about it earlier in respect of extended supply chains versus domestic manufacturing capacity, but that is just one instance of the broader point, which is that resilience requires buffer, and buffer can look wasteful until the moment when it is not.96



Resulting recommendations include:



> 71. The experience of the demands placed on the NHS during the covid-19 pandemic should lead to a more explicit, and monitored, surge capacity being part of the long term organisation and funding of the NHS.





> 72. The NHS should develop and publish new protocols for infection prevention and control in pandemics covering staffing, bed capacity and physical infrastructure. In developing these protocols the NHS should consider the importance of maintaining access for people accompanying some patients such as advocates for people with learning disabilities and birthing partners.





> 73. Comprehensive analysis should be carried out to assess the safety of running the NHS with the limited latent capacity that it currently has, particularly in Intensive Care Units, critical care units and high dependency units.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 12, 2021)

Its more than a bit galling to read the front pages of the newspapers today.  I know solid brass neck is standard amongst that lot but a lot of the national press were (and still are) some of the most vocal and visible opponents of lockdowns and policies designed to stop the spread of the virus.  This is before we talk about all the rank stupidity around save Christmas / summer holidays which has no doubt influenced government policy in a very negative way.

Their own hands are also covered in blood to say the least.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

Yes, although there are exceptions, and I still remember commenting during the first lockdown that journalists asking questions in the press conferences of the time were the first to display 'lockdown fatigue' and start to undermine things.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

One of the other recommendations is that SAGE advice upon which ministers base their decisions should be published very quickly.

I've looked at the section dealing with the second wave. It concentrates on things like local lockdowns, crap test & trace system, muddled public messaging & rules, and lack of autumn circuit breaker. And ultimately it does the same thing that government and the official experts did at the time, hiding behind the Alpha(Kent) variant as an excuse for not understanding the situation and acting appropriately at the time.

As such it ends up downplaying the extent to which Johnson left himself with no scientific cover when making terrible decisions in the buildup to the second wave last year. Given that the report was quite happy to look at all the failings of SAGE etc at the start of the pandemic I am not impressed that they failed to highlight advice other than circuit-breakers in the months leading up to that period. So I will highlight just a couple of those aspects myself using SAGE minutes:

SAGE meeting 43, 23rd June 2020: https://assets.publishing.service.g...0561_Forty-third_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19.pdf



> There may be a need to change measures at the end of the summer in order to be able to keep R below 1 whilst proceeding with the planned reopening of schools. Planning for safe full reopening should take place now and should take account of the health benefits of reopening schools as well as the educational benefits



SAGE meeting 46, 9th July 2020: https://assets.publishing.service.g...7/s0622-forty-sixth-sage-meeting-covid-19.pdf



> It is important to ensure that there will be enough 'room' in terms of the epidemic to open schools in September.



SAGE meeting 51, 13th August 2020: https://assets.publishing.service.g...0696_Fifty-first_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19.pdf



> SAGE again reiterated the public health benefits of keeping incidence as low as possible



By September 2020 SAGE minutes reflected that they were well aware of what was happening. The committee report seems to focus a fair bit on the limited benefits Wales gained from its circuit breaker, including that it did not prevent subsequent lockdowns from being necessary. But actually SAGE minutes from September 2020 are full of indications that far more than circuit breakers would be required, and they didnt massively overstate the benefits. eg:

SAGE meeting 57, 17th September 2020: https://assets.publishing.service.g...62_Fifty-seventh_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19.pdf



> A 'circuit-breaker' type of approach, where more stringent restrictions are put in place for a shorter period could have additional impact. Modelling indicates that a two-week period of restrictions similar to those in force in late May could delay the epidemic by approximately four weeks, if the epidemic had a daily growth rate of 4% prior to this period.



During this period SAGE also repeatedly highlighted the need for financial and non-financial support were required to improve adherence to self-isolation.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 12, 2021)

You mentioned starting a thread just on this? I think that's an excellent idea.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

two sheds said:


> You mentioned starting a thread just on this? I think that's an excellent idea.



I decided I'm not doing it because I have no more time left to explore everything else in the report, and frankly the level of depth they operated at does not motivate me to do so. 

Meanwhile and not for the first time in this pandemic, Vallance has been defending himself publicly. As usual theres a mix of stuff, some of which I completely agree with and some of which makes me groan.









						Covid: Not my job to sugarcoat advice, Sir Patrick Vallance says
					

The chief scientific adviser says he does not just tell the government what it wants to hear.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




It may not be his job to sugarcoat things but like most people in such positions, part of the job involved staying on-message when delivering public briefings, and thats partly why he was a source of so much shit in the early months. He also attempts to mask early failings by couching it all in terms of evidence and evolving understanding. In reality thats only part of the picture of dismal failure, so on some levels thats just a crap excuse within easy reach of scientists. Precautionary principals are part of science too, and the initial response was entirely lacking in that dimension. Nor am I convinced that precautionary principals have since found their rightful place.


----------



## BillRiver (Oct 12, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Perhaps plumbers should be trained in the classics so even if they do blow up your house they can distract you from your woes with some tales of ancient roman plumbing misadventures.



My dad worked at Barking College of Technology for 20+ years, teaching literature including Shakespeare to hundreds of local people including a great many workers from the Ford factory in nearby Dagenham. They were paid, by Ford, for their one day a week at college at the same rates as if they'd been at work.

Eta: and my maternal grandad and great-uncle were involved in (self organised,  outside paid working hours) workers education amongst miners in Northumberland back in the day. They learnt Latin and studied poetry together, amongst other things.

It used to be normal, that sorta thing, according to my late grandad. For the men, at least.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> One of the other recommendations is that SAGE advice upon which ministers base their decisions should be published very quickly.


Something suggested in the 2010 independent review of the 2009 influenza (paragraph 15, chapter 4) as I heard earlier today on the radio.
But no, the poor sods weren't to know


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Something suggested in the 2010 independent review of the 2009 influenza (paragraph 15, chapter 4) as I heard earlier today on the radio.
> But no, the poor sods weren't to know



In many ways that 2009 swine flu pandemic review was a bit pathetic and congratulatory, something made possible by the relatively low burden of that pandemic such that a bunch of inadequacies were not properly tested by the arrival of that virus.

I've tended to mention that report in the past when I have been taking the piss out of what we call 'the containment phase' in our traditional pandemic plans. Again that particular report doesnt really explore the issues and implications properly because of the nature of that pandemic. But it still had criticism for the containment phase, but it went for a 'it confuses the public' angle rather than exploring how deadly that approach could be:



> Although communications materials were in general good, certain terms used during the pandemic were unclear and caused confusion. Given the critical importance of the public clearly understanding the advice being given by government, some of the terminology should be revisited. In particular, ‘containment’ was used to describe a strategy which was not intended to contain the disease but to slow the spread.



There were certainly numerous occasions during the current pandemic where I had to point out to people that we werent sincerely trying to contain the virus or the latest variant of it. And my recognition of that was certainly based on the 2009 approach.

I should say that I nearly choked when I read how the current committee report chose to briefly characterise that swine flu review:



> 20. Following the Swine flu outbreak of 2009, the then Government set up an independent review of the UK’s response to the 2009 influenza pandemic, which reported in July 2010. The review, led by Dame Deirdre Hine, found that pandemic preparedness was, generally, “impressive”.



It was only possible to judge the response as impressive because the virus didnt test various limitations,. Even so it gave a glimpse of some of the bullshit and British exceptionalism that would continue to infect our experts thinking on pandemic matters. For example the 2009 UK approach caused some head scratching around the globe when we decided to throw huge amounts of Tamiflu around in an attempt to use it as a prophylactic. And the abandoning of testing once we'd gone past the misnamed 'containment' phase offered strong clues about the failures to bother with testing at a crucial stage of the current pandemic:



> The move away from containment had a significant effect on the surveillance mechanisms employed to monitor H1N1 activity. Laboratory confirmation of all cases was discontinued in favour of clinical diagnosis, which meant that surveillance information would focus primarily on the geographical spread, trend, intensity and impact of the virus. The discontinuation of routine laboratory testing also meant that, rather than providing an absolute number of confirmed cases, estimated ranges of cases were produced by the Health Protection Agency based on available surveillance information.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

Plenty of responses to the report on the BBC live updates page today.



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58880971
		


I think I'll just quote this one and leave it at that.



> As the government's pandemic response comes under renewed scrutiny, A&E nurse Mark Boothroyd recalls the anxiety he and colleagues felt as the number of UK cases began to grow.
> 
> “We were wondering when they were going to lock down, we were wondering what other countries were doing and we were wondering why they weren’t copying them," says Boothroyd, who works at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
> 
> "They must have thought we were invincible."





> He tells the BBC it was "infuriating" when Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on TV on 3 March last year that he shook hands with people he met on a hospital visit, including Covid patients.
> 
> "It was completely against all the guidance that was out at the time. It was almost making a joke out of it. That was entirely the wrong message to the public and showed he wasn’t taking the thing seriously,” says Boothroyd.
> 
> Along with the discussions about herd immunity, he says it reflected a belief that the country could just "ride it out" like the flu, and misunderstood how bad Covid-19 could be.



Even the Lib Dems couldnt fail to notice some of the areas that the report didnt really touch on.



> Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat MP who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on coronavirus, says the report is "notable by its silence on a number of key areas".
> 
> She highlights the "catastrophic mismanagement of schools", the continued under-delivery on donations of vaccines to poorer countries and "no mention of long Covid in 151 pages".


----------



## LDC (Oct 12, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> My dad worked at Barking College of Technology for 20+ years, teaching literature including Shakespeare to hundreds of local people including a great many workers from the Ford factory in nearby Dagenham. They were paid, by Ford, for their one day a week at college at the same rates as if they'd been at work.
> 
> Eta: and my maternal grandad and great-uncle were involved in (self organised,  outside paid working hours) workers education amongst miners in Northumberland back in the day. They learnt Latin and studied poetry together, amongst other things.
> 
> It used to be normal, that sorta thing, according to my late grandad. For the men, at least.



Stuff that that still about in a slightly different form.





__





						WEA National homepage | WEA
					






					www.wea.org.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

Reid had enough of the spin from Madeley. I even watched it full screen so I could pay attention to her face when he was talking shite.


----------



## elbows (Oct 12, 2021)

Latest collection of bits and bobs in regards where things are at in regards the lateral flow tests positive but PCR tests negative issue:









						Calls for inquiry as negative Covid PCR tests after positive lateral flow reported
					

Scientists urge urgent investigation to ensure that people are not being given false negative results




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## little_legs (Oct 12, 2021)




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## _Russ_ (Oct 13, 2021)

Guardian


> Anecdotal reports have suggested that the issue may be more widespread in south-west England, prompting speculation that a new variant of Sars-CoV-2 may be the cause. However, GPs in Manchester and Oxfordshire have also reported discrepancies between lateral flow and PCR test results, and scientists think a new variant is unlikely.



I believe we are still leaders in genomic analysis here in the UK, so assume this possibility should be rapidly confirmed one way or the other, im a little surprised it hasnt already or perhaps they just arent telling us?


----------



## 2hats (Oct 13, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I believe we are still leaders in genomic analysis here in the UK, so assume this possibility should be rapidly confirmed one way or the other, im a little surprised it hasnt already or perhaps they just arent telling us?


Regular T&T sequencing is performed on a subset of positive PCR test samples. So if PCR is returning negatives...


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 13, 2021)

Hm, I see.
is there a way to do the same sequencing on a non positive PCR Sample?


----------



## 2hats (Oct 13, 2021)

You can't (or wouldn't waste your time/money) trying to sequence something your diagnostics are telling you isn't there.


----------



## bimble (Oct 13, 2021)

A question please.
Just carried out my mandatory Day2 PCR test (after travel) and about to post it.
There was a situation at the airport upon arrival back here - at midnight on Monday night / sunday morning - that was really risky (over an hour in dense crowd no ventilation small space queueing for passport control) and I want to know:

If this PCR is negative then when would be the optimal time to do a couple of lateral flow tests just to check?
Would it be day 8 after that exposure - is that why they used to have this timeframe ?


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 13, 2021)

2hats said:


> You can't (or wouldn't waste your time/money) trying to sequence something your diagnostics are telling you isn't there.


Not the way to look at it, the point is there is a suspicion that actually there is something there but the test no longer picks it up, surely that needs investigating?


----------



## LDC (Oct 13, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Not the way to look at it, the point is there is a suspicion that actually there is something there but the test no longer picks it up, surely that needs investigating?



It's not practical or a good use of resources to try and sequence 10,000s of negative PCR tests to maybe pick up a very small number that were false negatives. And even if you could and then did it's very likely the sequencing wouldn't tell you something of interest or use.


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## 2hats (Oct 13, 2021)

It is being investigated.


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## Dogsauce (Oct 13, 2021)

They should probably do some sequencing of negative PCR samples where LFTs have been positive based on the increased frequency of these. There’s been quite a few cases like mine where the PCR was eventually positive so hopefully any new flavour will get picked up through routine testing of those anyway.


----------



## bimble (Oct 13, 2021)

little_legs said:


>



Those numbers are just amazing. How much of our case numbers is to do with the number of tests being carried out here compared to those other european countries and how much is just that 'we' seem to have given up whilst they haven't? (i was in Rome, 'green pass' checks everywhere and everybody is masked, even in places like outdoor markets, and I did not see one single person wearing their mask on their chin).


----------



## belboid (Oct 13, 2021)

(Not sure which thread is best, so here’ll do…)

I’ve just been offered a booster jab.  I’ve no underlying health conditions, other than a smokers cough, and aren’t that old.  I did have my second jab over a year ago, though, which is probably why. 

I dunno if I approve tho.  All the indications are that the vaccines will still be providing me with 80%+ protection, so while there are still billions around the world without it does seem a bit ‘me first, fuck you’


----------



## IC3D (Oct 13, 2021)

I'm extremely sceptical European countries  have nearly 1/40 the infection rate of the UK.


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## _Russ_ (Oct 13, 2021)

> I did have my second jab over a year ago


What country?


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## elbows (Oct 13, 2021)

bimble said:


> Those numbers are just amazing. How much of our case numbers is to do with the number of tests being carried out here compared to those other european countries and how much is just that 'we' seem to have given up whilst they haven't? (i was in Rome, 'green pass' checks everywhere and everybody is masked, even in places like outdoor markets, and I did not see one single person wearing their mask on their chin).



Simplistic but useful ways to rule out variation in testing between countries include comparing the hospitalisation and death rates instead. Plus we could look for clues in the form of whether defenders of the UK approach try to make claims on this front rather than them relying on other ways to downplay the UK situation and failings.

The testing regimes do have some additional differences these days, such as some countries no longer offering free lateral flow tests in the way they were before. I dont expect this to make up the bulk of the difference though, there are real differences between approaches that are likely to be making a very real difference to the number of people getting infected in other countries compared to our own. I will do some digging into this later.


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## belboid (Oct 13, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> What country?


England (I did one of the clinical trials)


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## teuchter (Oct 13, 2021)

Deaths for Italy and France seem currently to be running at 1/3 to 1/2 of the UK's - which is less of a difference than seen in the case numbers. But still a fairly significant difference.

Italy still has a higher total deaths rate than the UK though. And France's total rate is not much below the UK's.


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## elbows (Oct 13, 2021)

Differences in approach that other people might want to dig into in the meantime include looking at what mitigation measures other countries have successfully used in education settings compared to the dismal UK approach on that front. Plus levels of vaccination in other countries, including age groups where the UK was very slow to start, and is not progressing at suitable page (eg younger teenagers).


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## elbows (Oct 13, 2021)

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Hospitalizations
					

On this page, we provide daily-updated data on hospitalizations and intensive care (ICU) admissions due to COVID-19. Our hospital & ICU data is collected from official sources and collated by Our World in Data. The complete list of country-by-country sources is available on GitHub.




					ourworldindata.org


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> Coronavirus (COVID-19) Hospitalizations
> 
> 
> On this page, we provide daily-updated data on hospitalizations and intensive care (ICU) admissions due to COVID-19. Our hospital & ICU data is collected from official sources and collated by Our World in Data. The complete list of country-by-country sources is available on GitHub.
> ...



It's a measure of how cynical this period in politics is making me that my immediate thought on seeing this graph was 'I expect Johnson's polling will rise then'.


----------



## bimble (Oct 13, 2021)

So we have more than 5 times as many people seriousy ill with covid than Italy does at the moment (very similar population numbers). That is not explainable by the fact that they have to pay to get tested. It has been a strange experience to be in a place where people are still behaving as though there's a pandemic on, and then come back here where they are mostly just not at all.


----------



## zora (Oct 13, 2021)

I would imagine that the figures in Germany currently are pretty accurate and reflecting a similar level of testing/detection of cases to the UK (although the free LFT tests just got scrapped). 

However, there is great concern that the winter is going to be very challenging and some additional measures to the ones currently in place might be needed. 

Mainly because of the comparatively poor vaccination rate, combined with lower naturally acquired immunity because Germany's case numbers over the last year were lower overall. 

If I understood my man Drosten right (who I haven't quoted/paraphrased in a long time), he seemed to think that by comparison and with its level of "hybrid" immunity, the UK might just about get away with its current approach (though trying to "get away with it" is not a strategy he - or indeed I! - was in favour of).


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## elbows (Oct 13, 2021)

Not my figures, and I've not looked into this data myself, but heres something in regars the positive LTFs/negaitve PCR situation. Probably a good idea to read the whole twitter thread this comes from. My brain hurts today so Im not adding my own thoughts to this at the moment.


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## bimble (Oct 13, 2021)

I just went to the dentist. £15 Covid Surcharge is that normal? It meant they gave me a pair of those blue plastic shower caps to put on over my shoes.


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## William of Walworth (Oct 13, 2021)

bimble said:


> I just went to the dentist. £15 Covid Surcharge is that normal? It meant they gave me a pair of those blue plastic shower caps to put on over my shoes.


Abnormal as hell, surely!!  

I went to mine on 6th October, and I have a follow-up appointment this Friday. No surcharges like that, and I doubt being in Wales makes any difference on this!!


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## Buddy Bradley (Oct 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> I just went to the dentist. £15 Covid Surcharge is that normal? It meant they gave me a pair of those blue plastic shower caps to put on over my shoes.


(Minor) disaster capitalism.


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## bimble (Oct 14, 2021)

glad to see all the  faces, good that this isn't normal, seems i just went to a shit dentist.


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## zora (Oct 14, 2021)

Actually, I did go , but then remembered that when I went to the dentist in May he said he would usually clean my teeth for me, but that he couldn't because of covid and I should book an appointment with the hygienist.
So effectively I paid a £60 surcharge..! 
I now wonder if I have been had, and it wasn't because of covid but because of the practice's general push to privately charged treatments...


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## Chilli.s (Oct 14, 2021)

I think this charge is at all dentists now, including mine


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## Artaxerxes (Oct 14, 2021)

zora said:


> Actually, I did go , but then remembered that when I went to the dentist in May he said he would usually clean my teeth for me, but that he couldn't because of covid and I should book an appointment with the hygienist.
> So effectively I paid a £60 surcharge..!
> I now wonder if I have been had, and it wasn't because of covid but because of the practice's general push to privately charged treatments...



Happened before rona to me - depended how lazy the dentist felt I guess.

Went in June/July and it was fine, all done in one


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 14, 2021)

zora said:


> Actually, I did go , but then remembered that when I went to the dentist in May he said he would usually clean my teeth for me, but that he couldn't because of covid and I should book an appointment with the hygienist.
> So effectively I paid a £60 surcharge..!
> I now wonder if I have been had, and it wasn't because of covid but because of the practice's general push to privately charged treatments...



To be fair to the dentists, they can no longer break even on the funding they get for NHS treatments. But a clean should still be available for the standard level 1 NHS fee of 23 quid or whatever.


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## platinumsage (Oct 14, 2021)

Band 1 only includes a scale and polish if necessary for clinical reasons, not for cosmetic reasons.


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## Sue (Oct 14, 2021)

Yeah, I was also charged for both the dentist and the hygienist (separate appointments). The hygienist was more and they also had to do some stuff manually that they normally wouldn't. My sister mentioned this to me too.  So sounds like you weren't done, bimble.


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## LDC (Oct 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> I just went to the dentist. £15 Covid Surcharge is that normal? It meant they gave me a pair of those blue plastic shower caps to put on over my shoes.



Just been to the dentist this morning, no extra 'covid surcharge' there. Sounds like a proper con tbh.


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## bimble (Oct 14, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just been to the dentist this morning, no extra 'covid surcharge' there. Sounds like a proper con tbh.


i was a bit pissed off, i think that by now we do know that putting disposable shower caps on my feet will not have been very useful.


----------



## clicker (Oct 14, 2021)

In a similar vein, I made hairdresser appointment last week and got a text 2 days later saying they are adding a £2 surcharge for ppe??

I rang abd queried what it was for and was told it was a mistake and would be removed from my bill....we shall see.


----------



## LDC (Oct 14, 2021)

bimble said:


> i was a bit pissed off, i think that by now we do know that putting disposable shower caps on my feet will not have been very useful.



Maybe you misheard and it was a carpet surcharge rather than a covid surcharge?


----------



## l'Otters (Oct 14, 2021)

zora said:


> Actually, I did go , but then remembered that when I went to the dentist in May he said he would usually clean my teeth for me, but that he couldn't because of covid and I should book an appointment with the hygienist.
> So effectively I paid a £60 surcharge..!
> I now wonder if I have been had, and it wasn't because of covid but because of the practice's general push to privately charged treatments...


IME it’s never been an option to get my teeth cleaned by the dentist, it’s always been a hygienist, prices from £40 - £70 per session at different dentists.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 14, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> IME it’s never been an option to get my teeth cleaned by the dentist, it’s always been a hygienist, prices from £40 - £70 per session at different dentists.


Same here


----------



## miss direct (Oct 14, 2021)

Glad I got mine done at the dentists while Im here in Turkey. £28 for a full check up, X-ray, clean and polish. Felt v. strange to have my mouth wide open with no mask on. Dentist wisely had not only a mask but a full shield.


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2021)

Attempts to spin the situation in recent months as involving 'equilibrium' are coming undone.

And what better a source to demonstrate that than fucking Nick Triggle, via the BBC live updates page today. He even mentions the same thing as I did last weekend, that the number of cases in older people rising will impact hospitalisations:



> Since July, infection rates have been bobbling around - with periods of increases followed by drops.
> 
> That is a sign we have reached an equilibrium whereby the amount of immunity in the population keeps the virus in check.
> 
> However, it is now clear we are seeing the most sustained rise since July, with more than 45,000 new cases reported in the UK today.





> There was always a concern the autumn could prompt a significant rise.
> 
> A combination of an increase in mixing with waning immunity could unbalance that equilibrium.
> 
> What is noticeable about the latest figures is that there are signs infection rates are going up in older age groups and not just in teenagers, certainly in England. That is a worry because of the impact it will have on hospital cases.



(from the 16:59 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-58908381 )

It includes a basic graph of cases by certain age groups but I'll be doing my own version of that again soon using more recent data.


----------



## elbows (Oct 14, 2021)

Unfortunately the rise in cases I mentioned the other day was indeed still a reliable indicator of what would happen to the hospital admissions/diagnoses figures.

The figure for admissions/diagnoses in England for the 12th is all messed up on the official dashboard right now. Its showing 13 but it should be 760, the highest number its been for well over a month. Correct figure comes from a spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

I'll do my admissions by age graph later if that data is intact on the dashboard, but in the meantime here is the regional picture via data from the aforementioned spreadsheet.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 15, 2021)

From the BBC:

NHS Test and Trace has suspended testing operations provided by Immensa Health Clinic Ltd at its laboratory in Wolverhampton.

It follows an investigation into reports of people receiving negative PCR test results after testing positive with a lateral flow test.

Investigations are under way into the precise cause but NHS Test and Trace estimates that around 400,000 samples have been processed through the lab.

The vast majority of these will have been negative results, but an estimated 43,000 people may have been given incorrect negative PCR test results between 8 September and 12 October, mostly in south-west England.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 15, 2021)

Let’s see the slippery vermin use this as an excuse for increased spread of the disease rather than their own ‘don’t give a fuck’ policies.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 15, 2021)

Covid test lab in Wolverhampton suspended over wrong results
					

Health chief says it's not clear what went wrong as 43,000 in England and Wales potentially affected.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 15, 2021)

I know of three people in the south west who had positive lfts then negative pcrs so I'll be sending that link on.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Let’s see the slippery vermin use this as an excuse for increased spread of the disease rather than their own ‘don’t give a fuck’ policies.



They have two approaches to dealing with the unrelenting chaos and misery they are presiding over.  First tactic is just to pretend its not happening and when that no longer works just blame someone else, anyone else.


----------



## bimble (Oct 15, 2021)

I just got my negative result from day2 travel PCR test which i posted off to whichever private company. How are people like me supposed to know if it was done in that dodgy lab, the website just says 'We have partnered with a network of private laboratories, all accredited blah'.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 15, 2021)

bimble said:


> I just got my negative result from day2 travel PCR test which i posted off to whichever private company. How are people like me supposed to know if it was done in that dodgy lab, the website just says 'We have partnered with a network of private laboratories, all accredited blah'.



Why worry?

Seriously, there's nothing you can do about it anyway.  Do another LFT and get on with your life.   Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh but there are things out of our control and this is one of them.


----------



## bimble (Oct 15, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> Why worry?
> 
> Seriously, there's nothing you can do about it anyway.  Do another LFT and get on with your life.   Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh but there are things out of our control and this is one of them.


I'm not massively worried just wondering. I paid £50 for the test, would be nice if it worked. Was planning anyway to do couple of LFs in a couple pf days, just because the luton airport immigration queue/mosh pit was by far the riskiest place i've been since this whole shitshow began.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2021)

Mistakes happen, but the hugely unimpressive thing here is how long it took them to notice there was some kind of problem and then discover the nature of it.

September 8th is quite a while ago, and the scale of the problem was not small. I believe that there are likely numerous fairly simple ways to analyse data that should have flagged up the issue really quite quickly after it began, but that didnt happen.

Just to give one example, the graph that someone tweeted the other day that I mentioned in post        #42,476      was not exactly subtle, the phenomenon was clearly visible from September 8th.


----------



## bluescreen (Oct 15, 2021)

Oh, and note that the lab where the error occurred was one of those instant companies that secured a massive contract.








						£119 Million COVID-19 Testing Contract Awarded to Four-Month-Old DNA Analysis Firm – Byline Times
					

A company incorporated on 18 May was awarded a huge Government contract to ramp-up Coronavirus testing, reports Sam Bright




					bylinetimes.com


----------



## zahir (Oct 15, 2021)

Thread from Deepti Gurdasani


----------



## Thora (Oct 15, 2021)

I'm in one of those areas where there has been a large number of positive LFTs followed by negative PCRs (children & staff in all three of my kids schools returning to school with symptoms).

We've just had an email from the secondary today saying a positive LFT = isolating, masks are back for kids and staff, no more assemblies and extra curricular clubs and sports all cancelled.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 15, 2021)

Seems to be loads of cases within my wider circle here in Bristol and surrounding area, heard of four cases today among people I know. They’ve lost control of it again, the fucking dunces.


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> They’ve lost control of it again, the fucking dunces.


Well there havent been very many mechanisms left in place to control it since July, so in some ways they are probably surprised they got away with it for this long.

Depending on what happens next we could go round the loop everyone already got used to earlier in the pandemic, the one where we have to go through a seasonal merry-go-round of mood music. Where things are said and planned in spring and summer that have little hope of being sustainable in other seasons. This time around that included various people wanking on about 'endemic equilibrium' which is a pretty pointless thing to dwell on if it turns out that the equilibrium only works in summer.

Meanwhile the Guardian have been poking around with some of the other history of the company who ran the lab that fucked up all those results.









						UK ministers face questions over firm linked to suspected Covid test errors
					

Immensa’s sister company already being investigated and a related US firm sent out used DNA test kits




					www.theguardian.com
				






> There have been further questions over the management of Immensa itself. Earlier this year, the DHSC promised to launch an investigation after the Sun on Sunday found workers appeared to be fighting, sleeping, playing football and drinking on duty while working at Immensa’s Wolverhampton lab. The government said at the time it would speak to Immensa as it took “evidence of misconduct extremely seriously”.


----------



## kalidarkone (Oct 15, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> IME it’s never been an option to get my teeth cleaned by the dentist, it’s always been a hygienist, prices from £40 - £70 per session at different dentists.


Same


----------



## elbows (Oct 15, 2021)

This is the latest data for hospital admissions/diagnoses in England by age group. Data goes up to October 13th. Three different ways of looking at the same numbers.

I'm still upset that I dont think the media ever properly highlighted the fact that the proportion of admissions made up by people aged 65 and over became substantially greater after the July peak. They really should have gone on about this given the prominence of their earlier stories about how the younger, unvaccinated made up a more significant chunk of admissions in the first part of this wave.


----------



## teqniq (Oct 15, 2021)

zahir said:


> Thread from Deepti Gurdasani



There is a possible connection to Cameron (from a rather long and diligently researched thread)


----------



## Mation (Oct 16, 2021)

In addition to wishing they didn't exist at all, and amongst many other things about this shit show, I do wish the company wasn't called Illumina. A nice little Maraschino jobby to plop on some tasty conspiraloon cake.


----------



## andysays (Oct 16, 2021)

Mation said:


> In addition to wishing they didn't exist at all, and amongst many other things about this shit show, I do wish the company wasn't called Illumina. A nice little Maraschino jobby to plop on some tasty conspiraloon cake.


It's good that someone's keeping an eye on the whole pyramid of nepotism and corruption though...


----------



## teqniq (Oct 16, 2021)

.


----------



## platinumsage (Oct 16, 2021)

Illumina have basically had a near-monopoly on genome sequencing kit for over 20 years, not sure it's quite the scoop he thinks it is.


----------



## Mation (Oct 16, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Cross-posting this from the Covid thread. It would appear that Cameron may well be involved:



You posted that on this thread yesterday. Did you mean to post it somewhere else?


----------



## teqniq (Oct 16, 2021)

Mation said:


> You posted that on this thread yesterday. Did you mean to post it somewhere else?


Thank you, yes I did.


----------



## Mation (Oct 16, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Thank you, yes I did.


For a split second, when I saw it posted twice in quick succession, I thought it was the bandwidth thread


----------



## Supine (Oct 16, 2021)

She isn’t happy…


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2021)

Reasons more people arent angrier include:

Excessive emphasis on those most directly at risk of hospitalisation and death, as opposed to long covid or even basic stuff such as case explosions in one age group feeding into other age groups.

Media misdirection, and things like a lack of regular government pandemic press conferences.

A tradition of not actually placing the welfare of our children very highly on the list of priorities we actually do something about. Big talk at times, little action.

Too many people being willing to look the other way if it means preserving a partial return to normal and the childcare that schools provide.

Various combinations of the above feeding into unimpressive groupthink. Including passively waiting to see if the situation deteriorates to such an extent that the powers that be are forced to act, rather than trying to force their hand earlier.


Personally I am just as angry in this phase as I was about earlier failings. But I have found myself spending less time turning this anger into written words, because even I eventually get sick of how much repetition there is in my rants. Also my feelings about vaccinating children were complicated by my opinions about global vaccine equity and global vaccine supply priorities in that regard. But I expect the way I would try to have my cake and eat it in that regard would not be popular either, because it would have meant keeping various restrictions in place for longer, and actually bothering with the best possible mitigation measures in schools, while waiting till the rest of the world has vaccinated the most vulnerable.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 16, 2021)

> Too many people being willing to look the other way if it means preserving a partial return to normal and the childcare that schools provide.



This is a big one and wont be discussed because criticism of  parenting is some sort of taboo


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 16, 2021)

Well, my SIL isn't happy. After all their care in shielding ...

The youngest member of their three-generation household (probably) brought the plague back from school - no symptoms - and everyone else has now tested +ve and they are isolating. 

(SIL is isolating, but will probably stay testing -ve, as her health vulnerabilities and key NHS worker status meant she got a booster jab within a week of the programme starting ...)


Bezza's SiL & her OH + family have all just had covid ... but are now recovered. 
Source in their case was a twat coming in with covid symptoms at OH's place of work [coughing etc] ...


----------



## nagapie (Oct 16, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> This is a big one and wont be discussed because criticism of  parenting is some sort of taboo


It's not a criticism. Parents have to work, there was never a law during the entire pandemic that you had to give paid leave to parents whose children were sent home to isolate. I should know, I ended up owing my employer money for this reason. Also being stuck at home unable to go out and see friends and family is not normal parenting, it's not like parents just want to get out of their responsibilites, it was a very stressful and abnormal situation.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> This is a big one and wont be discussed because criticism of  parenting is some sort of taboo


Well it goes well beyond parenting and we hear from many parents who arent happy with the situation. But there is a difference between being unhappy about it and actively trying to do something about it, especially in a country where much establishment effort goes into discouraging people from believing that they can make a real difference to how things are done. Many non-parents arent happy with the situation either. But even in these cases there is much for people to feel conflicted about, and for now 'muddle on' in anguished resignation (or ignorant and false sense of relief for those that think the pandemic is mostly all over) has won.

I expect there is loads more I could say but I have run out of energy for today.


----------



## elbows (Oct 16, 2021)

But I just have energy left to say that I would invite people to look at the landscape here in the current pandemic phase, including the media in recent months, and think about how similar it is to what we'd have had to put up with in this country if the authorities had been able to stick to their 'original plan A' for dealing with this pandemic. Much of what we have seen in recent months is how "carry on with our lives" would have looked under that plan. They only abandoned that plan because the number of hospitalisations wasnt workable, and people were not going to stagger into oblivion once the magnitude of that threat became so obvious. 

Its entirely unsurprising that at the first opportunity the establishment returned to their orthodox approach, the classic approach of paying lip service to stuff whilst entertaining really shitty priorities and not coming up with the necessary funding, sense of urgency or basic fucking decency. Half-arsed antics with a backdrop of grotesque inequality - whilst they make pretty speeches you will be ripped to shreds. Vaccines, favourable seasons and enough people still being cautious enabled this approach so far. The question for the authorities and everyone else is whether the numbers will remain within levels that hospitals can just about hope to cope with, whether the approach is sustainable over autumn and winter. If not, the establishment will begrudgingly be forced to bring back some stuff and belatedly put a bit more effort in and stop encouraging people to think its all over. Whether that happens is not a question I can answer yet, although if cases rise at a fast enough rate then it wouldnt take all that many weeks to find out.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 17, 2021)

I still think that dropping the mask mandate down to "personal choice" and removing [almost all] the other precautions was idiotic permitting deaths by corporate negligence.
"They" don't care about the health & well-being of the general population or any particular minority group, only getting the economy [ie party donations] moving again. The corollary from that policy [herd immunity, mark II] is increased cases, hospitalisations and deaths, only the quantity of the latter two have been reduced by the vaccines.
As I have said before, you can rebuild an economy from almost total collapse [although the furlough scheme, WFH and the online economy prevented much of that] but what even the best medical hospital can't do is reverse deaths from covid.


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 17, 2021)

I get angry when I think about it but I have a lot on my plate at the moment and the anger feels unproductive, so tbh I'm trying not to think about it. If people with more energy than me were organising big protests against current policies I'd happily turn up to support, but it feels like we're a long way from that situation. Like Pagel I'm a bit baffled that parents at least aren't a bit more pissed off. Decades of conservative 'speaking as a parent I feel I need to do batshit things in order to prevent all risks to little Timmy' and when an actual threat comes along those same parents just shrug and go along with it. (I know not all parents are just shrugging btw)


----------



## Thora (Oct 17, 2021)

Because for most parents covid doesn't feel like a threat to their children.  The risks of social isolation, impact on education, stress at home etc are much greater.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 17, 2021)

Thora said:


> Because for most parents covid doesn't feel like a threat to their children.  The risks of social isolation, impact on education, stress at home etc are much greater.



But, kids themselves may not be suffering with covid, however, they bring the infection home and it gets spread that way to more vulnerable adults.

That's probably what has happened at my SiL's a few days ago.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 17, 2021)

If vulnerable adults are protected by a vaccine then why do kids need it when they a better protected by natural imunity. It's endemic now.


----------



## xenon (Oct 17, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I still think that dropping the mask mandate down to "personal choice" and removing [almost all] the other precautions was idiotic permitting deaths by corporate negligence.
> _They_ don't care about the health & well-being of the general population or any particular minority group, only getting the economy [ie party donations] moving again. The corollary from that policy [herd immunity, mark II] is increased cases, hospitalisations and deaths, only the quantity of the latter two have been reduced by the vaccines.
> As I have said before, you can rebuild an economy from almost total collapse [although the furlough scheme, WFH and the online economy prevented much of that] but what even the best medical hospital can't do is reverse deaths from covid.



Just quibbling with your last point. An economy near total collapse kills and destroys lives too. You don't have to be a free market fanatic to see this. Rebuilding it to a comprable standard isn't necessarily possible. Look at countries with economies in such a state and wonder about life chances their. This would be so regardless of the particular government in power.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 17, 2021)

IC3D said:


> If vulnerable adults are protected by a vaccine then why do kids need it when they a better protected by natural imunity. It's endemic now.


Vulnerable adults, and vulnerable children too, are protected (degrees of) by those around them being vaccinated (as well as themselves being vaccinated, if that is an option).

All ages are better protected by vaccine induced immunity following a natural infection. Vaccine induced immunity before natural infection is, of course, far less risky.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 17, 2021)

xenon said:


> Just quibbling with your last point. An economy near total collapse kills and destroys lives too. You don't have to be a free market fanatic to see this. Rebuilding it to a comparable standard isn't necessarily possible. Look at countries with economies in such a state and wonder about life chances their. This would be so regardless of the particular government in power.



I don't disagree with your point. 
Poverty kills just as surely ...
And we do need to have a rebuilding process with a more environmentally friendly outcome to take account of climate change and general pollution not just "economic" targets.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 17, 2021)

IC3D said:


> If vulnerable adults are protected by a vaccine then why do kids need it when they a better protected by natural imunity. It's endemic now.


You've asked "questions" like this before, and had them comprehensively and carefully answered by people whose knowledge is beyond reproach.

And yet you keep on asking the same questions?


----------



## Cloo (Oct 17, 2021)

Thora said:


> The risks of social isolation, impact on education, stress at home etc are much greater



Indeed - y'see, I'd be prepared to go 'Oh just FFS shut schools from Dec-end February' but that's easy for me to say. We have older kids, space and devices for everyone, I have an understanding manager and my husband earns a good salary working on a part time contract. For other parents that scenario is a fucking nightmare that could mean a parent losing their job, vulnerable kids falling desperately behind and so forth.

It's weird, I have started to out and so some stuff in the last few months (theatre, office some work-related events) and I'm a bit wary of the risk... but none of it is as risky as my kids being in school every day  NB I expect to stop doing those things Dec until at least end Feb unless numbers miraculously stabilise.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 17, 2021)

Thora said:


> Because for most parents covid doesn't feel like a threat to their children.  The risks of social isolation, impact on education, stress at home etc are much greater.


And indeed the impact of successive lockdowns on children is now being seen by educators and the effects on learning, socialisation and mental health is significant. Not only but particularly on the poor and most vulnerable.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Oct 17, 2021)

Just had a text to say that the PCR test i did when i had some sort of bug last month (result came back negative) may have been dodgy, but since it was 3 - 4 weeks ago, there's not a lot of point in doing anything about it.

I've been doing LFT anything from twice a week to daily (while mum-tat was in hospital) since and they have all been negative so i probably didn't have it

hmm


----------



## gentlegreen (Oct 17, 2021)

I was walking home from the park earlier with the high street moderately busy ... I'll sometimes cross the street and back to avoid a busy bus stop,  but today I wanted the sunshine... I'll put a low-grade mask on when it gets too crowded for comfort, but today I was initially just hanging back, and this young woman sneezed twice into the breeze in front of me ... at the end of the day a very low chance of infection and I've survived 18 months like this, but it did make me wonder if she even gave any thought to what she'd done ... she didn't look around to see me holding my breath and putting my mask on ...


----------



## existentialist (Oct 17, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Indeed - y'see, I'd be prepared to go 'Oh just FFS shut schools from Dec-end February' but that's easy for me to say. We have older kids, space and devices for everyone, I have an understanding manager and my husband earns a good salary working on a part time contract. For other parents that scenario is a fucking nightmare that could mean a parent losing their job, vulnerable kids falling desperately behind and so forth.
> 
> It's weird, I have started to out and so some stuff in the last few months (theatre, office some work-related events) and I'm a bit wary of the risk... but none of it is as risky as my kids being in school every day  NB I expect to stop doing those things Dec until at least end Feb unless numbers miraculously stabilise.


I completely agree with your point, but I think the way to deal with it is not to continue the pretence that sending children to school will somehow miraculously not affect the transmission of the virus, but to honestly (and there's the problem ) admit that a balance is having to be struck between infectivity and enabling some part of the population to go about their business, throwing in the social benefits of children being able to interact again for good measure.

This attempt to try and pretend that it's all OK and that no compromises need to be - or are being - made is transparent, and just dilutes the general positive safety messages that are out there...or should be.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 17, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I was walking home from the park earlier with the high street moderately busy ... I'll sometimes cross the street and back to avoid a busy bus stop,  but today I wanted the sunshine... I'll put a low-grade mask on when it gets too crowded for comfort, but today I was initially just hanging back, and this young woman sneezed twice into the breeze in front of me ... at the end of the day a very low chance of infection and I've survived 18 months like this, but it did make me wonder if she even gave any thought to what she'd done ... she didn't look around to see me holding my breath and putting my mask on ...



It's hard to break habits of a lifetime though - I still sometimes don't think before coughing. 

But yes correct reaction on holding breath ...


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 17, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Well, my SIL isn't happy. After all their care in shielding ...
> 
> The youngest member of their three-generation household (probably) brought the plague back from school - no symptoms - and everyone else has now tested +ve and they are isolating.
> 
> ...



Rang the "plague pit" [Sil's description !} for an update earlier.

Situation generally improving with the kids and the middle generation, although youngest still not showing symptoms ! but her father is still coughing for Team GB [his comment, although not quite as much as he was].

SiL is still testing -ve on daily LFT and awaiting another PCR result, as suggested by her doc and the hospital she works in [the first test was -ve but still no symptoms].  Looks like her booster worked, touch wood.


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 17, 2021)

Thora said:


> Because for most parents covid doesn't feel like a threat to their children.  The risks of social isolation, impact on education, stress at home etc are much greater.


It does present a significant threat of disability, though threat of death is low, and that threat can be reduced with relatively easy measures that are being taken just across the channel, both in schools and in society more generally in order to keep the infection rate lower.


----------



## Thora (Oct 17, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> It does present a significant threat of disability, though threat of death is low, and that threat can be reduced with relatively easy measures that are being taken just across the channel, both in schools and in society more generally in order to keep the infection rate lower.


I'm not disputing that there should be more (any) mitigation measures in place in schools, but for most parents the question is "am I more worried about my child catching covid than I am about them catching chicken pox or glandular fever?".  And generally the answer is no.  I haven't heard any parent mention long covid.  Or heard of any child locally who has had covid having any lingering effects.


----------



## elbows (Oct 17, 2021)

Positive case numbers in all manner of older age groups were up again this past week compared to the week before, so in theiry hospital admissions in England will continue to increase. As usual these are cases by test specimen date so most recent data is incomplete. Also some proportion of the valley before the current rise was down to the dodgy lab false negatives.

By broad age groups of my own creation, levels are now higher than they were during the earlier peaks in this wave.


----------



## bimble (Oct 18, 2021)

more big and depressing numbers here. 








						Psychosis cases rise in England as pandemic hits mental health
					

29% rise in referrals for first suspected episode of psychosis between April 2019 and April 2021




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## bimble (Oct 18, 2021)

Good thread here:


----------



## CH1 (Oct 18, 2021)

I don't trust MH stats. My GP recently claimed to me that she had problems referring patients because there two routes - Comunity Treatrment team and Single Point of Access and she has had patients rejected by both on the grounds she should have referred the patient to the other route.

Seems in SLAM and Lambeth at least there are bureaucrats happy to do like this 1964 book of cod psychology to keep their diaries/wards clear - until an MP gets killed.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 18, 2021)

CH1 said:


> I don't trust MH stats. My GP recently claimed to me that she had problems referring patients because there two routes - Comunity Treatrment team and Single Point of Access and she has had patients rejected by both on the grounds she should have referred the patient to the other route.
> 
> Seems in SLAM and Lambeth at least there are bureaucrats happy to do like this 1964 book of cod psychology to keep their diaries/wards clear - until an MP gets killed.


That book, while definitely 1960s, is definitely _not_ "cod psychology". Although I expect it gets used, and cited, by lots of cod psychologists. I've used ideas from that book, and Berne's Transactional Analysis theory, extensively in my client work, and am in no doubt that it can be very helpful in many cases.

I agree with you re stats - we put every barrier possible in the way of people seeking MH help or diagnosis, and I am absolutely sure that many, many people are dissuaded from seeking help, either from previous unsatisfactory encounters, or because the general difficulty of getting a referral, let alone any decent treatment, is so high..

Which is not to say that nobody gets access to treatment, or even successful treatment, but the bar is set very high. Case in point - I run a counselling service providing 6 sessions of solution-focused therapy for people with mild to moderate severity. The pathway to access is very flat, in that we will accept self-referrals (from patients registered with the surgery we operate from), but there is a HUGE gulf of coverage for anyone whose problems require longer-term therapy (non-existent), or who are looking for treatment for trauma, or significant illness: the local psychotherapy day service has a waiting list of somewhere between 18 months and 2 years.

Which is without factoring in the rapidly rising caseload that is emerging as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic </offtopic>


----------



## manji (Oct 18, 2021)

As someone who has been ,very recently, been referred to the Community Care Team. Are you saying it a fob off by my GP ? 
Frankly it would not surprise me.........


----------



## kabbes (Oct 18, 2021)

existentialist said:


> That book, while definitely 1960s, is definitely _not_ "cod psychology". Although I expect it gets used, and cited, by lots of cod psychologists. I've used ideas from that book, and Berne's Transactional Analysis theory, extensively in my client work, and am in no doubt that it can be very helpful in many cases.


I want to second this. All  knowledge is situated in a time and place and this book is no exception — it displays all the misogyny of its era, for example. But the ideas are brilliant and continue to be interpretable right through to very 21st century psychological thought regarding intersubjectivity. His points were clear and concrete and concern the way that people don’t act in isolation but within small-scale (as well as macro) systems that direct their subjective understanding of the situation they are in.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 18, 2021)

Jesus, just found out that one of the people in work has died a couple of weeks after having Covid - she was double-jabbed, but seriously overweight, and smoked too. Only 43.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> Good thread here:



I generally don't 'do' twitter and think it's not great for setting out detailed info. But that thread was a perfect adaptation to the format.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 18, 2021)

sojourner said:


> Jesus, just found out that one of the people in work has died a couple of weeks after having Covid - she was double-jabbed, but seriously overweight, and smoked too. Only 43.


I mean, I'm not saying that Covid killed her, but it looks pretty bloody likely doesn't it?!


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 18, 2021)

manji said:


> As someone who has been ,very recently, been referred to the Community Care Team. Are you saying it a fob off by my GP ?



Probably not. MH services are patchy as fuck but most people involved will still try their best to get you the best and most suitable treatment possible. Community care teams are multi-agency IIRC; so you'll have psych nurses, clinical psychologists, social workers etc involved in a person's care as and where needed.


----------



## Red Cat (Oct 18, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I generally don't 'do' twitter and think it's not great for setting out detailed info. But that thread was a perfect adaptation to the format.



That was great. A really helpful step by step breakdown.


----------



## elbows (Oct 18, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Oct 18, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Oct 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> Good thread here:



Not bad. Could probably find plenty of other things to add to that list too. Such as the changes to self-isolation rules for close contacts, and lack of other mitigations in schools. Its also possible that Delta has evolved in the UK in a manner that gives it an additional transmission advantage.


----------



## bimble (Oct 18, 2021)

I thought the sick pay bit was really important, we are such a shit country by those metrics.


----------



## elbows (Oct 18, 2021)

bimble said:


> I thought the sick pay bit was really important, we are such a shit country by those metrics.


Yeah, no demonstration of what a disgrace the establishment in the UK is was really necessary, but the pandemic certainly provided numerous vivid demonstrations of this anyway. Its been this way for far longer than I've been alive, and its no consolation that the terrible establishment instincts and priorities in this country made it so much easier for me to provide reasonably accurate pandemic commentary. The failings were so predictable, as is the lack of interest in reducing such failings.


----------



## manji (Oct 18, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Probably not. MH services are patchy as fuck but most people involved will still try their best to get you the best and most suitable treatment possible. Community care teams are multi-agency IIRC; so you'll have psych nurses, clinical psychologists, social workers etc involved in a person's care as and where needed.


Thanks, I just need to be aware. I missed an opportunity about a year ago. Since I posted have had a call from my GP which is pretty good service, mentioned my concerns ,I have been referred to our local Wellbeing team and have a 45 minute telephone consultation next week. Moving forward.


----------



## bimble (Oct 18, 2021)

Does anybody know, what happens to tourists / visitors to the UK if they get a positive test result whilst they are here or just before they intend to fly home?
I'm curious because of what's happening to my friend, currently incarcerated in a quarantine facility in Spain, which is not at all pleasant but is free. 
All i can find online is the government website which sends people here, to book and pay their 2 grand, but thats just for if you are coming in from a red list country, what if you catch it whilst visiting.


----------



## kalidarkone (Oct 18, 2021)

sojourner said:


> I mean, I'm not saying that Covid killed her, but it looks pretty bloody likely doesn't it?!


I think until you know the facts you are merely speculating.


----------



## elbows (Oct 18, 2021)

Speaking more generally, there are various studies which suggest a greater risk of death in the weeks after covid. The one I'm going to link to now is not from the UK and involves those who were initially hospitalised with covid, but I believe there is a broader version of this phenomenon at work too.









						First 10 Days After Leaving Hospital Carry High Risk for COVID-19 Patients
					

The first 10 days after a COVID-19 hospital stay may be especially dangerous, compared with heart failure and pneumonia, study in veterans finds.




					labblog.uofmhealth.org


----------



## sojourner (Oct 18, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> I think until you know the facts you are merely speculating.


Yeh, I know, just a bit of a shock. She was in work on Friday, looked fine.


----------



## CH1 (Oct 18, 2021)

manji said:


> As someone who has been ,very recently, been referred to the Community Care Team. Are you saying it a fob off by my GP ?
> Frankly it would not surprise me.........


Its fine if they accept the referral - but my GP was saying they - in her experience - bounce people around in Lambeth presumably with the effect of denying treatment.
This is of course anecdotal - but I find it credible.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Oct 18, 2021)

50,000 positive cases in one day in the UK.

How does this compare to countries like France and Germany?

How bad are we fucking it up?

Why isn't it massive news?


----------



## MBV (Oct 18, 2021)

Pretty shocking:


----------



## Spandex (Oct 18, 2021)

mwgdrwg said:


> 50,000 positive cases in one day in the UK.





mwgdrwg said:


> How does this compare to countries like France and Germany?


France = 1,057 new reported cases today
Germany = 2,065 new reported cases today


mwgdrwg said:


> How bad are we fucking it up


Quite badly.


mwgdrwg said:


> Why isn't it massive news?


Didn't you get the message? Covid is over. It was bad for the economy.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Oct 18, 2021)

Get me the fuck out of here


----------



## eightball (Oct 18, 2021)

I bet this won't be on the front page of the express 









						UK lab investigated for false negative Covid tests is not fully accredited
					

Neither Immensa nor Dante Labs has ever been accredited, Ukas says, contrary to government comments




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## ska invita (Oct 19, 2021)

mwgdrwg said:


> Why isn't it massive news?


Because hospitalisations/deaths remain relatively low?


----------



## LDC (Oct 19, 2021)

I've mentioned it before, but even if deaths (and to some extent hospitalisations) are relatively low (although I'd say 100-200 a day on average isn't something to be complacent about) there can be massive pressures on the NHS, possibly sometimes resulting in lower standards of care and access to care for people. One infected person might have numerous contacts with various services (their GP, the OOH service, 111, pharmacist, 999, etc.) and might even go to ED once (or even more) but not be admitted, and then worst case post-infection will need long term follow-up and maybe other interventions.

And I know the NHS isn't some sacred thing to be protected from patients, but it is a factor is the rates and how they should be regarded etc.


----------



## bluescreen (Oct 19, 2021)

In any case, you have to be pretty ill to be admitted to hospital so there will be a lot of people feeling rough or very rough, and possibly continuing to feel too rough to go into work for a long time after they are infectious. Deaths + hospitalisations don't measure everything that matters.


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## existentialist (Oct 19, 2021)

bluescreen said:


> In any case, you have to be pretty ill to be admitted to hospital so there will be a lot of people feeling rough or very rough, and possibly continuing to feel too rough to go into work for a long time after they are infectious. Deaths + hospitalisations don't measure everything that matters.


Not to mention the question of long Covid, which the government seems to work very hard at pretending isn't a thing.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 19, 2021)

bluescreen said:


> Deaths + hospitalisations don't measure everything that matters.


Just to say in case it wasn't clear I'm not defending what's happening or ignoring all the other fallout, I was just answering the question of why the current situation isn't generating dramatic headlines.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 19, 2021)

I live fairly neer an ambulance station and when the hospital admissions are high, as they are now, the noise of sirens is a good indicator of how bad things are. Today is busy.


----------



## Supine (Oct 19, 2021)

I know three people who has covid real bad and still suffer from long covid. None were hospitalised even with severe breathing difficulties. Not a great metric for determining how bad the pandemic is/was.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 19, 2021)

With the significant increase of positive cases we've seen recently I find it very hard to believe this won't be filtering through to the more vulnerable groups for the next few weeks.

It just seems to be swirling all around us.


----------



## LDC (Oct 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Just to say in case it wasn't clear I'm not defending what's happening or ignoring all the other fallout, I was just answering the question of why the current situation isn't generating dramatic headlines.



Yeah, didn't take it as such. TBH I think for many people that it's been normalised through a mix of messaging, fatigue, and some weird denial in parts. Round where I live you'd be hard pressed to notice much difference to pre-pandemic life now; a few old posters and the odd person wearing a mask.


----------



## Spandex (Oct 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Because hospitalisations/deaths remain relatively low?
> View attachment 293337


That deaths figure is a Monday figure which is always low because of patchy reporting at the weekends. I guarantee this afternoon's figure will be much higher as it catches up, same as every Tuesday. The average number of deaths over the last week is 124 per day; equivalent to 45,260 deaths in a year. As cases increase, I expect the number of people dying will increase too.

Yesterday there were 915 people reported as admitted to hospital with Covid. 

These figures are only low relative to the horror shows in spring 20 and winter 20/21. It's certainly not a good position to be in going into winter.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 19, 2021)

Supine said:


> I know three people who has covid real bad and still suffer from long covid. None were hospitalised even with severe breathing difficulties. Not a great metric for determining how bad the pandemic is/was.



Yeah, I know two in the same position.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 19, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> With the significant increase of positive cases we've seen recently I find it very hard to believe this won't be filtering through to the more vulnerable groups for the next few weeks.
> 
> It just seems to be swirling all around us.



There's a bit on the beeb about why are / might the case numbers be so high ...









						Covid: Why are UK cases so high?
					

The UK has higher infections than most of its neighbours, as scientists fear a difficult winter.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




The subject is complex, but in my opinion, UK cases are high because 
a) no mask mandate / no social distancing etc etc, 
b) unlockening far too widely, far too quickly and much too soon,
c) vaccine rollout - despite the initial speed and coverage - is not yet complete - eg with teenagers and some of the BAME populations.
d) flu & booster / 3rd jags - rollout getting behind where it should be.

~~~~
Personally, I am still wearing my good mask indoors & in crowded places. 
I'm not quite as good as I was with the hand sanitising/washing unless I've been handling stuff outside my home, car & garden - or deliveries ; then I do keep up with the advice.
I'm lucky enough to be able to WFH ... although, sometimes I do go in, but usually after hours or at the weekend.
Still having food and other stuff delivered. [which means runs to take cardboard boxes for recycling about once a fortnight].


----------



## elbows (Oct 19, 2021)

Reasons also include changes to self-isolation rules, especially for children and when notified of a close contact via the app. Having deliberately ranted for ages about the 'pingdemic' months ago in order to pressure the authorities to weaken those systems, most of the press seem keen to utterly avoid all references to anything on this front as being part of the cause of current woe.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Oct 19, 2021)

from my local council



   😷


----------



## kabbes (Oct 19, 2021)

I get an interesting perspective on the impact of COVID from the kabbess, which is a perspective I’ve just not really heard from elsewhere.  She’s currently doing a Masters in regenerative medicine and her main focus of interest generally is cellular damage.  She says that the whole understanding that people generally have of what an illness is and what it does to the body is just not really right.  People view it as something that turns up as discrete little invaders and then the body fights off those invaders and everything goes back to normal.  But that isn’t really a suitable metaphor.

So here’s the bit where I’m out of my depth and attempt to explain what she tells me as if I understand it.  So you get the information filtered through my brain, for which I apologise.

Viruses get into cells and even if the virus is fought off, those cells are getting damaged.  Damaged in problematic, DNA-altering ways.  Damaged cells can become senescent, which means they aren’t working properly any more but they also don’t self-destruct, like normal cells that reach the end of their life.  So they sit there, signalling in ways that causes problems and may well cause surrounding cells to become senescent.  Effectively, it’s like those cells have _aged_.  So you end up with cells that are kind of “older”, which makes you as an organism effectively “older” too.  The problems that accumulate are kind of like the problems of old age.  The more this happens — the more you get infected with viruses — the more these problems accumulate.

Furthermore, to create antibodies, the body needs to activate stem cells.  These only have a limited number of uses.  So every time you have to fight off an infection, you are slightly using up your ability to fight infections.  I have to admit that my understanding kind of runs out at this point, but I am left distinctly feeling like you don’t want to have to keep on fighting off infections.

What all this means is that you can’t view yourself like a fortress that just fights off invaders and goes on undamaged.  Every fight takes its toll.  In a way, every disease has its “long” effect.  COVID just seems to be one for which that cellular damage is particularly systematic and extensive.  It’s not so much that you “get” something called “long COVID”, it’s more that something like COVID is an extreme example of viral damage.  And that means that it isn’t really a question of whether or not long COVID ‘exists’.  To ask whether it exists is to view reality in the wrong paradigm.  It always does damage, the question is only how much damage it has done and what impact that damage has for that individual both in the short and long term.

My apologies to those who have actual medical knowledge, who might be wincing at some of the way I have put things.  I think it’s important, though.  It certainly changes my perspective on diseases.  It means you can’t be cavalier about disease, _ever_.  Treat your body as if it is the only one you have and it can’t infinitely repair, basically.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 19, 2021)

Good post kabbes, that is basically how my SiL has explained it, and as you say Covid is an extreme example of viral damage, because it attacks just about every organ in the body at the same time.


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## LDC (Oct 19, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I get an interesting perspective on the impact of COVID from the kabbess, which is a perspective I’ve just not really heard from elsewhere.  She’s currently doing a Masters in regenerative medicine and her main focus of interest generally is cellular damage.  She says that the whole understanding that people generally have of what an illness is and what it does to the body is just not really right.  People view it as something that turns up as discrete little invaders and then the body fights off those invaders and everything goes back to normal.  But that isn’t really a suitable metaphor.
> 
> So here’s the bit where I’m out of my depth and attempt to explain what she tells me as if I understand it.  So you get the information filtered through my brain, for which I apologise.
> 
> ...



That's dead interesting, thanks. I've always meant to read that book _The Body Keeps a Score _that covers similar stuff about trauma I think. Working in medicine it is so shockingly obvious that a hard life (repeated infections, etc.) means you get much poorer long term physical (and often mental) health, which I think is related to what you've said. Too late to write more, but some of this stuff is really important for illuminating the health impacts for some of living the way society is now.


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## StoneRoad (Oct 19, 2021)

kabbes 
That is a very interesting read - my interpretation of the bit where you describe cellular damage caused by virus infections probably explains a lot of post-viral fatigue syndrome and why flu sometimes seems to knock me for six ...


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## elbows (Oct 19, 2021)

And thats just the start of it, check out another depth of understanding and ways of thinking about such matters:



> The human genome contains billions of pieces of information and around 22,000 genes, but not all of it is, strictly speaking, _human_. Eight percent of our DNA consists of remnants of ancient viruses, and another 40 percent is made up of repetitive strings of genetic letters that is also thought to have a viral origin. Those extensive viral regions are much more than evolutionary relics: They may be deeply involved with a wide range of diseases including multiple sclerosis, hemophilia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), along with certain types of dementia and cancer.











						The non-human living inside of you - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
					

Half of your genome started out as an infection; if left unchecked, some parts of it can turn deadly all over again. The human genome contains billions of pieces of information and around 22,000 genes, but not all of it is, strictly speaking, human. Eight percent of our DNA consists of remnants...




					www.cshl.edu


----------



## ska invita (Oct 19, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I get an interesting perspective on the impact of COVID from the kabbess, which is a perspective I’ve just not really heard from elsewhere.  She’s currently doing a Masters in regenerative medicine and her main focus of interest generally is cellular damage.  She says that the whole understanding that people generally have of what an illness is and what it does to the body is just not really right.  People view it as something that turns up as discrete little invaders and then the body fights off those invaders and everything goes back to normal.  But that isn’t really a suitable metaphor.
> 
> So here’s the bit where I’m out of my depth and attempt to explain what she tells me as if I understand it.  So you get the information filtered through my brain, for which I apologise.
> 
> ...


thanks for this
Yes makes perfect sense to me...when i was in the depths of Covid, say two, three months in, my hair started going grey, and fast! i felt 85 years old (am 46).
I just hope that i am young enough that i can regenerate those cells over time. 7 years to replace all cells isnt it? Does it work that way?
TBH i dont want to know any bad new saying it isnt as its important part of my recovery to try and get back in youthful ways - really hope this isnt permanent in any way. I seem to be in continuous if not linear improvement so remain hopeful


----------



## BillRiver (Oct 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> thanks for this
> Yes makes perfect sense to me...when i was in the depths of Covid, say two, three months in, my hair started going grey, and fast! i felt 85 years old (am 46).
> I just hope that i am young enough that i can regenerate those cells over time. 7 years to replace all cells isnt it? Does it work that way?
> TBH i dont want to know any bad new saying it isnt as its important part of my recovery to try and get back in youthful ways - really hope this isnt permanent in any way. I seem to be in continuous if not linear improvement so remain hopeful



Rooting for you, fwiw.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 19, 2021)

BillRiver said:


> Rooting for you, fwiw.


thanks a lot, ill be fine - already doing loads better... lots of people suffering a lot worse than me


----------



## BillRiver (Oct 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> thanks a lot, ill be fine - already doing loads better... lots of people suffering a lot worse than me



Glad to hear you're on the mend.

Not sure other people's suffering is all that relevant, but respect to you for thinking of them.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> Does anybody know, what happens to tourists / visitors to the UK if they get a positive test result whilst they are here or just before they intend to fly home?
> I'm curious because of what's happening to my friend, currently incarcerated in a quarantine facility in Spain, which is not at all pleasant but is free.
> All i can find online is the government website which sends people here, to book and pay their 2 grand, but thats just for if you are coming in from a red list country, what if you catch it whilst visiting.



How much do they earn per year and do they have a private plane?


----------



## kabbes (Oct 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> thanks for this
> Yes makes perfect sense to me...when i was in the depths of Covid, say two, three months in, my hair started going grey, and fast! i felt 85 years old (am 46).
> I just hope that i am young enough that i can regenerate those cells over time. 7 years to replace all cells isnt it? Does it work that way?
> TBH i dont want to know any bad new saying it isnt as its important part of my recovery to try and get back in youthful ways - really hope this isnt permanent in any way. I seem to be in continuous if not linear improvement so remain hopeful



The good news is that the body has all kinds of ways to gradually deal with damage.  So keep your spirits up.

Unfortunately, I know that it isn’t as straightforward as new cells replacing old.  But when in the past I have asked what it means when cells get replaced, I’m afraid I ended up with more headache than knowledge.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 19, 2021)

I wonder if in a dystopian future giant air sanitisers will analyse the chance of us getting an air born virus on your morning commute and broadcast it like the pollen index.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 19, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I wonder if in a dystopian future giant air sanitisers will analyse the chance of us getting an air born virus on your morning commute and broadcast it like the pollen index.


sounds totally possible to me
airfilters already exist which claim to analyse pollution contents, and filter germs etc
some hosptials have them
domestic ones too 
wouldnt be that big a next step....


----------



## Mation (Oct 19, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I wonder if in a dystopian future giant air sanitisers will analyse the chance of us getting an air born virus on your morning commute and broadcast it like the pollen index.


Or covid clothes/virus vests/morbid masks that change colour in the presence of a pathogen. Run away quick if it's you that's wearing them, or immediate sheep dip for anyone else.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> sounds totally possible to me
> airfilters already exist which claim to analyse pollution contents, and filter germs etc
> some hosptials have them
> domestic ones too
> wouldnt be that big a next step....


I'd be happy if they installed them in hospitals instead of the money spunked on track and trace


----------



## ska invita (Oct 19, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I'd be happy if they installed them in hospitals instead of the money spunked on track and trace


there was  talk about putting _something _like this in schools....i dont know how common they are in hospitals but some have them for sure. no idea how effective they are either


----------



## IC3D (Oct 19, 2021)

ska invita said:


> there was  talk about putting _something _like this in schools....i dont know how common they are in hospitals but some have them for sure. no idea how effective they are either


All of us with kids know 😅


----------



## Riklet (Oct 20, 2021)

Bath and Somerset highest cases in the whole of the UK. Fuck sake! Rates of 4200 in kids aged from 10-14. Predictably we are wayyy behind with vaccination of the yoot in these parts.

Nor sure whats going to happen in the next week but things seem to be continually worsening. I anticipate some plan B measures soon.. probably too late of course. Imo they should shut schools early until they can get a handle on the insane rates amongst kids.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

Riklet said:


> Bath and Somerset highest cases in the whole of the UK. Fuck sake! Rates of 4200 in kids aged from 10-14. Predictably we are wayyy behind with vaccination of the yoot in these parts.
> 
> Nor sure whats going to happen in the next week but things seem to be continually worsening. I anticipate some plan B measures soon.. probably too late of course. Imo they should shut schools early until they can get a handle on the insane rates amongst kids.



Half term is imminent for quite a lot of places (and the likes of Leicestershire are already on half term this week). And the expected seasonal shift in mood music and messaging has begun. Certain future possibilities in terms of hospitalisation figures might leave me able to make predictions about restrictions etc that I've felt unable to provide for months, whilst some other scenarios will maintain my existing degree of uncertainty.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

Oh and I think there has started to be talk in the press about the rates of people coming forward for booster shots not being high enough. And thats just the sort of thing that I think will make authorities nervous and have them seeking to change perceptions back towards 'this isnt over and people need to do their bit', a mission that will probably involve an accelerated change to the mood music.

I know I've  been saying mood music a hell of a lot recently. If there is a less wanky term I could use that still works as convenient shorthand then I'm open to suggestions.


----------



## quimcunx (Oct 20, 2021)

Latent messaging?


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 20, 2021)

Riklet said:


> Bath and Somerset highest cases in the whole of the UK. Fuck sake! Rates of 4200 in kids aged from 10-14. Predictably we are wayyy behind with vaccination of the yoot in these parts.
> 
> Nor sure whats going to happen in the next week but things seem to be continually worsening. I anticipate some plan B measures soon.. probably too late of course. Imo they should shut schools early until they can get a handle on the insane rates amongst kids.


This is a consequence of people getting false PCR tests and being told to get on with their lives/send their kids to school etc. It‘s everywhere around here at the moment unlike any of the previous waves.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh and I think there has started to be talk in the press about the rates of people coming forward for booster shots not being high enough.



I hadnt realised when I wrote the above that the tabloids have gone for full on front page booster pleas stuff.

Another newspaper notes on its front page that SAGE are only meeting once a month these days because ministers arent seeking their input much.









						Newspaper headlines: PM's 'green gamble' and 'booster jabs plea'
					

The papers focus on the government's climate strategy and fears of another Covid wave as cases rise.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

eightball said:


> I bet this won't be on the front page of the express
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It was on the BBC Midlands Today news on Tuesday, complete with video of Harries saying they were accredited followed by the the revelation that they werent.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

> But the significance of this intervention by the NHS Confederation is that it came just hours after Downing Street had ruled out Plan B at this stage and said it had not been discussed by the cabinet.
> 
> The confederation is, in effect, taking issue with ministers by suggesting the key government test for implementing Plan B in England - the likelihood of the NHS coming under unsustainable pressure - has already been met.











						Covid: Bring back rules amid rising cases, urge NHS chiefs
					

But the business secretary says it is not time for "Plan B" and he wants to avoid further lockdowns.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> I hadnt realised when I wrote the above that the tabloids have gone for full on front page booster pleas stuff.


As you say above, the mode music is changing at last, and the government really should be getting on with 'plan B' now, but they will probably leave it too late again, resulting in stricter measures over a longer period, than would otherwise be needed.

It's the main story on Sky News this morning, who have also churned out a number of articles on their website too, couple of interesting graphs in the one linked below.

Business Secretary now being interviewed, started off with an appeal for people to have the booster jabs, certain restrictions are likely to be coming back, but he thinks we can rule out a complete lockdown. 













						COVID-19: Cases are rising fast - but who's getting infected at the moment?
					

Scientists say there could be a "perfect storm" this winter as COVID-19 cases rise just as immunity levels start to wane for the elderly and clinically vulnerable.




					news.sky.com
				




And, short video report here:









						COVID-19: Minister rules out another lockdown as PM is urged to enforce 'Plan B' to avert winter crisis
					

NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor has urged the government to bring back certain measures, including mandatory face coverings in public places.




					news.sky.com


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 20, 2021)

kabbes said:


> And that means that it isn’t really a question of whether or not long COVID ‘exists’.  To ask whether it exists is to view reality in the wrong paradigm.  It always does damage, the question is only how much damage it has done and what impact that damage has for that individual both in the short and long term.



Whilst this perspective does make a lot of sense, I do think it should come with a caveat along the lines of '...but the experiences people have which are collectively referred to as long covid are real'. I'm sure you weren't trying to suggest otherwise but there are a lot of fuckwits out there who have already decided that they don't give a shit about covid and who will seize on anything that they think gives some kind of rational basis for that attitude.

I definitely agree that covid and long covid in particular forces us to ask some questions about what we actually understand by the term 'disease'. And of course our present social conditions mean that illness can result in material uncertainty and hardship for many people, and that alone has numerous physical symptoms as anyone who has spent an extended period in a state of anxiety or distress will know.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 20, 2021)

I just heard (on Classic FM) a clip of the Business Secretary.
All that bit I heard seems to say was keep the economy booming, no way will there be another lockdown.

That's really soured my mood. 
I'm beginning to agree that this attitude of let it rip & hope the vaxx ameliorates the worst affects is deliberate murderous bullshit.
It seems obvious to me that this third wave is already out of control, and the only thing stopping bodies being piled high has been the vaccine. But we know that the effectiveness is dropping, especially in the older & more vulnerable age groups - that's why the booster jags are being given.

Apart from pushing the boosters and teenager's jags, looking at the daily cases - something(s) need to be done sooner rather than later ... such as ...
significantly extending half term as a fire-break, re-introducing the mask mandates, self-isolation when pinged(*)
[I quite liked the hands:face:space+fresh air mantra]
and that (*) needs to be supported by proper funding to pay wages / realistic sick pay 

/derail but point of info - It used to be that a business could set their sick pay [SSP] costs against tax liabilities ; that option no longer exists ! and the scandal of zero hours not covering sickness ... /derail


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 20, 2021)

We all know the sensible options. Just as fucking always the morons are in charge.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 20, 2021)

Personally, after today, I'm going back to taking much higher grade precautions.
Never really stopped with my mask etc, tbh.
I'm not waiting !


----------



## Cloo (Oct 20, 2021)

Apparently press conference today at 5 - announcing masks and more work from home? If so, probably starting in 2 weeks' time or something.


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 20, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Apparently press conference today at 5 - announcing masks and more work from home? If so, probably starting in 2 weeks' time or something.


BBC trailing it as to do with booster jabs. Only Javid doing it, not sure if that means Johnson doesn’t want to be giving out bad news; or just doesn’t care enough to do so.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 20, 2021)

My parents have had theirs this week, which I'm relieved about.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> BBC trailing it as to do with booster jabs. Only Javid doing it, not sure if that means Johnson doesn’t want to be giving out bad news; or just doesn’t care enough to do so.



If the usual pattern holds then this means it will indeed mostly be about boosters and perhaps a few other bits and bobs and setting a slightly more sombre tone. Heavier measures are usually reserved for Johnson to announce and arent likely to be on the cards at this particular moment. But there are certain early versions of bad news that arent always left to Johnson, eg in the past it was sometimes Hancock who spoke about new variants in the early stages of revelations about those. But it was Johnson who would do the talking when the time came for the full implications of the new variant to be revealed in the form of fresh restrictions. Milder rule changes and 'recommendations' may be left to others though.


----------



## bluescreen (Oct 20, 2021)

Have a horrible feeling they're not likely to announce anything till after COP26


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

Well it remains very hard for me to predict how far they will have to go this autumn/winter, because that depends just how bad hospitalisation rates get.

Certainly given that they were so slow to act even in the era before vaccines were available, we should probably expect them to be even slower and more resistant to imposing heavy stuff this time round. Especially as the political consequences for them are probably worse this time, and plenty of people expected too much from vaccines. But there are limits as to how far even they can push things. Since we are almost into the half term holiday zone (already there in some places), they can also use that as an excuse to wait and see what difference it makes.

Since a lower than necessary uptake of boosters is one of their concerns that could threaten their entire approach, they may feel the need to be quite heavy with the amount of concern and fear they put in the messaging now, in order to push more people out of the complacency zone and into the booster queue. But given how deliberately weak and irregular their messaging has been for months, even bothering to hold a single press conference probably qualifies as getting tough by their standards.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2021)

Another grim set of figures today, but despite that, the bloody government will continue to delay reintroducing some measures.



Patients actually in hospital are up around 10% in the last week, even in the unlikely circumstances they are kept to that level of increase, rather than the percentage increase continually to go up, in 10 weeks, those numbers will be matching the peak in the first wave.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 20, 2021)

There’s no point using the vaccine to deny hosts and control the virus if by removing _all_ other precautions you more than make up for this. What the fuck were they thinking?


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 20, 2021)

They are definitely not introducing Plan B yet.

So next week then.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 20, 2021)

there is no plan b, well, no plan at all really


----------



## Supine (Oct 20, 2021)

Speech delayed by ten minutes. Time to make a plan b lads!


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 20, 2021)

Riklet said:


> Bath and Somerset highest cases in the whole of the UK. Fuck sake! Rates of 4200 in kids aged from 10-14. Predictably we are wayyy behind with vaccination of the yoot in these parts.
> 
> Nor sure whats going to happen in the next week but things seem to be continually worsening. I anticipate some plan B measures soon.. probably too late of course. Imo they should shut schools early until they can get a handle on the insane rates amongst kids.



Things were bad (we thought) last Christmas when cases in the area I work were at around 800 per 100K.

Today? 12,000 per 100K.


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 20, 2021)

Chilli.s said:


> there is no plan b, well, no plan at all really



The plan as ever is to pretend its not happening.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

Supine said:


> Speech delayed by ten minutes. Time to make a plan b lads!



I'm not sure if I got the right URL for the stream.


----------



## Sue (Oct 20, 2021)

Well this is saying nothing.


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 20, 2021)

Take whatever measures you can to protect yourself as the government has no interest in doing so.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

Sue said:


> Well this is saying nothing.



Trying to get a better uptake rate for boosters is really important. But I can understand why people who want more action arent impressed with todays messages.

Anyway I guessed right about the style and substance of todays press conference so I dont have much else to say. New variants did get a mention as part of the attempt to get people to take things a bit more seriously.


----------



## bimble (Oct 20, 2021)

The only interesting bit was when he said that one quarter of the case numbers are from people doing lateral flows regularly as a precaution. That means 3/4 are people who have symptoms or have had close contact with a confirmed case?


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

Harries announces plans to release a new single 'moving in the wrong direction' in time for Christmas.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

lol the first question from the public was about wearing face masks again.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

Oops one of the journalists pointed out that they are in danger of ignoring one of the biggest lessons of the pandemic, that if you delay taking action then you end up having to do harsher stuff for longer later.


----------



## Riklet (Oct 20, 2021)

Dr Evil has got nothing to say as per usual. Fuck sake.


----------



## redsquirrel (Oct 20, 2021)

Shit as the government is the opposition is no better, I'd missed Labour's brilliant solution earlier in the day



> *Jonathan Ashworth*, the shadow health secretary, told the World at One that the government should be using retired doctors to help administer vaccines to teenagers. He explained:
> 
> 
> 
> > I’ve heard stories from around the country that the reason a school has had to cancel its vaccination is because there wasn’t requisite school nurses available … if we’ve not got the school nurses available why don’t we mobilise retired clinicians to drive up vaccinations in school?


Yeah that's the biggest failure by the government FFS


----------



## xenon (Oct 20, 2021)

as someone who doesn’t actually like wearing a mask. But I do so on transport. Sometimes in shops. I don’t know why they just don’t say start wearing masks in public again. it doesn’t actually cost anything, business can continue. I know the Covid recovery group, but fuck them. I’m not sure how much effect they would have with Delta. But it’s worth trying. At least it would look like some kind of decision, leadership.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

"we really could lose that progress"


----------



## Sue (Oct 20, 2021)

One of the other things is going back to wfh where possible. (Most people I know are now back in at least two days a week.) But we must think of Pret so that's no doubt not a runner.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 20, 2021)

How much is being driven by schools? (Sorry I should know) As pointed out half terms are here/coming - perhaps they're waiting to see what happens with that.


----------



## stdP (Oct 20, 2021)

xenon said:


> as someone who doesn’t actually like wearing a mask. But I do so on transport. Sometimes in shops. I don’t know why they just don’t say start wearing masks in public again.



But they've already told us that the path out of lockdown was irreversible! And mandating masks on transport again would, amongst other things, mean saying people like Sadiq Khan might have had a valid point.


----------



## andysays (Oct 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oops one of the journalists pointed out that they are in danger of ignoring one of the biggest lessons of the pandemic, that *if you delay taking action then you end up having to do harsher stuff for longer later*.


It really shouldn't have taken the experience of the past 18 months to learn that lesson, it should be glaringly obvious to anyone with the simplest grasp of how viruses spread and multiply.

But to seemingly *still* not have got it, or at least to still be acting as if they still haven't got it, is utterly unbelievable...


----------



## Teaboy (Oct 20, 2021)

andysays said:


> It really shouldn't have taken the experience of the past 18 months to learn that lesson, it should be glaringly obvious to anyone with the simplest grasp of how viruses spread and multiply.
> 
> But to seemingly *still* not have got it, or at least to still be acting as if they still haven't got it, is utterly unbelievable...



You're right, its so obvious they must know it.  It's just baffling.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 20, 2021)

I looked at the beeb's "live" reporting as watching on the TV would, I think, have given me either the rage or thrown me deeper into despair.

Unfortunately, SJ's weaselly words have given me both.

They've lost control of infection rates (again) and even getting the booster take-up rates really ramped up is not going to save the retail sector's seasonal bacon.


----------



## andysays (Oct 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> *Trying to get a better uptake rate for boosters is really important*. But I can understand why people who want more action arent impressed with todays messages.
> 
> Anyway I guessed right about the style and substance of todays press conference so I dont have much else to say. New variants did get a mention as part of the attempt to get people to take things a bit more seriously.


There's a story about that here
Covid: Is the pace of the vaccine booster rollout too slow?​


> Latest data from the NHS shows 3.7 million people in England have been given a third jab under the programme, offering them the fullest protection against the virus this winter.





> According to calculations from the actuary John Roberts, from the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group, which has been tracking the vaccine rollout, there are 8.5 million people now eligible for a booster if they want it.





> That leaves 4.8 million who have had their second dose at least six months ago, but have not yet received that top-up. He says that shortfall has been growing by about 800,000 a week as more people become eligible.



It's unclear to me from that what the reasons are for the shortfall. 

It could be a reluctance from eligible people to come forward, but it could equally well be that the system isn't able to deliver boosters as quickly as we would all like, because of shortages of vaccine, shortage of staff to carry out vaccinations, or administrative problems arranging appointments.

But yet again it appears to be being presented (not by you, elbows) as individuals being at fault, for not getting their booster when they are eligible.


----------



## Numbers (Oct 20, 2021)

Teaboy said:


> You're right, its so obvious they must know it.  It's just baffling.


Isn't it.  I'm at a complete baffledom loss.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 20, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Take whatever measures you can to protect yourself as the government has no interest in doing so.



No change


----------



## Plumdaff (Oct 20, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Shit as the government is the opposition is no better, I'd missed Labour's brilliant solution earlier in the day
> 
> 
> Yeah that's the biggest failure by the government FFS


Fucking hell. He's as wilfully clueless as the government about how bad it is. Any half competent retired doctor who volunteered would be on the wards or GP surgeries, why the hell doesn't the Shadow Health Secretary have a clue how short staffed the NHS is?


----------



## stdP (Oct 20, 2021)

Plumdaff said:


> why the hell doesn't the Shadow Health Secretary have a clue how short staffed the NHS is?



They don't care. Under-resource the NHS for decades, wait until the staff are too exhausted to effectively fight back, stab the shuffling edifice in the back. Presumably you've already picked up on the anti-GP rhetoric in segments of the news the last few weeks? Expect this to continue until the bulk of the NHS are a smouldering crater that can be declared unfit for purpose.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2021)

andysays said:


> There's a story about that here
> Covid: Is the pace of the vaccine booster rollout too slow?​
> It's unclear to me from that what the reasons are for the shortfall.
> 
> ...



We don't have any NHS vaccination centre in Worthing, the nearest two are Brighton & Chichester, both a round trip of about 25 miles, so most get jabbed at the three GP hubs in town. That means any roll-out starts slowly, as they have to do the more time consuming ones first, i.e. care homes & the housebound, after those are done, the GPs soon start catching-up, so that must be part of the reason for the slow start in many areas.

Certainly those GP hubs have all started up again in the last 2 or 3 weeks, with no shortages of vaccines or staff, and they operate their own online & phone booking system, separate to the NHS national one, and there's certainly no problem with that. 

In fact the NHS system is causing confusion here, again, and the GP's have had to change their excellent booking system to help solve the confusion. 



> Confusingly, many of you have received letters from the National Booking Service for your Booster / 3rd dose. This may be a text, email or letter. If you try to book you’re offered e.g. Brighton i.e. not a local option. *YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE UP THIS OFFER FROM THE NATIONAL SERVICE*. You will most definitely be invited by us for a local vaccination once you are eligible. Given the national letters/texts/emails have caused some confusion, we’ve sorted it out so that if you receive such a letter, you may instead call [special number for all GP's in Worthing] and book your booster / 3rd dose locally,
> 
> *It’s quite frustrating the confusion the national invites have caused, since these appear to have in some instances been sent out days/weeks before you are eligible, and therefore before you receive a local invite. Unfortunately we had no warning of this. Rest assured we will invite you locally, and now you can call the local number if you get the national invite letter but want to book locally.*



I had a text weeks ago from my GP saying they will be in contact when mine is due [end Nov.], which will be a text link to their online booking system, if I get a letter from the NHS first, I'll probably ignore it until I get my GP text, as I did last year, because the text arrived just a few days later, and my appointment ended-up being sooner than it would have been with the NHS, and just a short walk rather than a 25 mile drive.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 20, 2021)

andysays said:


> There's a story about that here
> Covid: Is the pace of the vaccine booster rollout too slow?​
> 
> 
> ...


I dont believe it for a second, everyone I know who thinks thhey are elligible for a booster is champing at the bit, its a delivery problem


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 20, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I dont believe it for a second, everyone I know who thinks thhey are elligible for a booster is champing at the bit, *its a delivery problem*



You mean in Wales?


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 20, 2021)

Well yes, I suppose I should differentiate.

Problem is because we arent publishing figures im not sure that if we were we would be pretending the same that its all going swimmingly and any shortfall is the publics fault, I guess I dont know for England, but tbh most in here talk about England as if they are speaking for the UK


----------



## Supine (Oct 20, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I dont believe it for a second, everyone I know who thinks thhey are elligible for a booster is champing at the bit, its a delivery problem



There are enough doses in wales and scotland for everyone until end November currently. Maybe a delivery into arms problem but not vaccine availability.


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2021)

I believe the standard assumption would be that it will be hard to match the original vaccine uptake when it comes to boosters. Clues include that it wasnt even possible to get second dose figures to go as high as first dose ones. But only time will tell, and yes there are probably some system & logistics issues that mean I shouldnt interpret the initial numbers as being indicative of true demand/uptake.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 20, 2021)

By the by, the booster booking site isn't working at the moment.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 20, 2021)

My 3rd jab was supposed to be this week, I booked it weeks ago, it was cancelled with 4 days notice. As I've got caring duties with my old relatives I was on the phone to the surgery that's doing it hoping to talk them round. Not possible, it is supply problems and hopefully will happen in a rebooked by them appointment in 6 weeks time.

Has fucked up my plans big time


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 20, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> They've lost control of infection rates (again) and even getting the booster take-up rates really ramped up is not going to save the retail sector's seasonal bacon.


there will be fuck all stock in the shops because Brexit anyway, maybe they’re wanting a pre-Christmas lockdown so nobody notices…


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 20, 2021)

Supine said:


> There are enough doses in wales and scotland for everyone until end November currently. Maybe a delivery into arms problem but not vaccine availability.


Yea, there is supposed to be loads to go round, I think its just that they started the the 12year+ schoolkids jagging at the same time and are prioritising that whilst still doing teens and second doses...... lack of personnel would be my guess, I just dont believe its much to do with 3rd jag reluctance


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 20, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I dont believe it for a second, everyone I know who thinks thhey are elligible for a booster is champing at the bit, its a delivery problem


Some of us aren’t having the booster (or third regular shot for me as I’m immunocompromised) and cancelled our appointments because we got Covid.  Not sure how long I have to wait after infection before going for the jab, happy to let others jump the queue while I presumably have some natural immunity.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 20, 2021)

andysays said:


> It really shouldn't have taken the experience of the past 18 months to learn that lesson, it should be glaringly obvious to anyone with the simplest grasp of how viruses spread and multiply.
> 
> But to seemingly *still* not have got it, or at least to still be acting as if they still haven't got it, is utterly unbelievable...


Oh, they get it all right. But they're starting from their agenda, and are happy to bend the science to suit what they feel they need to do. It should be criminal.

See also: policy on Covid amongst children in schools.


----------



## bimble (Oct 20, 2021)

Statement from the BMA today, not mincing its words, calls the government 'wilfully negligent'. 








						‘Incredibly concerning’ that Government is not taking more action to protect public against Covid, warns BMA  - BMA media centre - BMA
					

Press release from the BMA




					www.bma.org.uk


----------



## ska invita (Oct 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Statement from the BMA today, not mincing its words, calls the government 'wilfully negligent'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


still hopefully there'll be an inquiry in 18 months time from which some lessons might be learned


----------



## existentialist (Oct 20, 2021)

ska invita said:


> still hopefully there'll be an inquiry in 18 months time from which some lessons might be learned


We'll be lucky if it's as soon as 18 months.

And "lessons will be learned". They always are. Mostly about more efficient ways to find a scapegoat, so that they don't actually have to accept any responsibility for themselves. It'll be a whitewash.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 20, 2021)

existentialist said:


> We'll be lucky if it's as soon as 18 months.
> 
> And "lessons will be learned". They always are. Mostly about more efficient ways to find a scapegoat, so that they don't actually have to accept any responsibility for themselves. It'll be a whitewash.


i was being sarcastic in that theres just been an inquiry, the results of which were they didnt act fast enough








						Government’s early Covid response ‘amounted in practice’ to herd immunity, MPs say
					

Inquiry led by two House of Commons select committees condemns government for catalogue of delayed decisions and errors that resulted in tens of thousands of preventable UK deaths




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Oct 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Statement from the BMA today, not mincing its words, calls the government 'wilfully negligent'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It will be too little, too late again for sure.

I think here in Scotland we're a little bit stricter on some stuff than England, but not sure we'll do that much better.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 21, 2021)

We really are governed by fucking psychopaths.


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 21, 2021)

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”​
Except this government can remember it, it was only 18 months ago ffs but chooses to forget it.


----------



## Cloo (Oct 21, 2021)

The Plan B, sticking plaster as it is, of masks and recommending wfh is practically zero cost in the scheme of things, but they won't do even that. All the evidence is that fucking no one will wear masks in large gathering places unless mandated and now the government has fucked it not many will even if mandated, but there you go.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 21, 2021)

....the banker ex Chancellor of the Exchequer is now health secretary...and so it goes....


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 21, 2021)

Cloo said:


> The Plan B, sticking plaster as it is, of masks and recommending wfh is practically zero cost in the scheme of things, but they won't do even that. All the evidence is that fucking no one will wear masks in large gathering places unless mandated and *now the government has fucked it not many will even if mandated*, but there you go.


My Bold...I agree, its still mandated inside shops etc in Wales and every day fewer and fewer are wearing them including staff. Nothing is policed or enforced anyway, it never was


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 21, 2021)

Cloo said:


> We really are governed by fucking psychopaths.



Just petty, venal idiots for the most part. Not that that makes much difference to the consequences, namely suffering and death on a scale usually reserved for genocidal maniacs.


----------



## smmudge (Oct 21, 2021)

So...is it possible we can't actually jab our way out of this? Or just booster jabs for everyone forever?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 21, 2021)

smmudge said:


> So...is it possible we can't actually jab our way out of this? Or just booster jabs for everyone forever?



It'll probably be an annual jab, like the flu one, and a fairly good chance they'll be combined into one, at some point.


----------



## smmudge (Oct 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It'll probably be an annual jab, like the flu one, and a fairly good chance they'll be combined into one, at some point.



My question really is, are jabs alone enough? We seem to be miles off only having to give booster jabs once a year to the vulnerable to keep it under control.

If we can't just jab our way out (which is looking more and more likely as case and hospital numbers rise), what next for the govt? That is literally their only basket and I can't imagine anything else so far that will be more important to dig their heels in and bury their heads in the sand about.

Bleak 

3 metaphors in one sentence, I need a lie down....


----------



## gentlegreen (Oct 21, 2021)

Vaccination is definitely not enough. We have to be grateful for small mercies that the Tories over-sold the vaccine .

I arrived home from my two hour bike ride just as the local primary school was emptying along a narrow path - children, parents *and grand-parents* - no masks, no social-distancing.
I stood back, but lots of people squeezed through.
It was outside and windy, so  when it got too crowded again, I held my breath and turned my back as they passed. 
I should have put on my mask - not least as a statement -  it was the most potential exposure I've had in a long time.

I suppose at some point there's resignation - their children, after all are mixing during the day ...

Two different worlds.
I am in the fortunate position that if I wanted I could lock myself in my house for ever by ordering my groceries online, while most people do not have that luxury.

Unless there is an official lockdown before the end of the year, I predict I will be faced with quite likely refusing an invitation from my sister for a meal over the hostilities where there will be four generations present  from 8 to 85 ... I know for a fact based on what they've said, that few if any of my family possess even the scant understanding of vaccination and infection that I do and my sister and 85-year old mother are full-on believers in the shite the government tells them.


----------



## andysays (Oct 21, 2021)

smmudge said:


> My question really is, are jabs alone enough? We seem to be miles off only having to give booster jabs once a year to the vulnerable to keep it under control.
> 
> If we can't just jab our way out (which is looking more and more likely as case and hospital numbers rise), what next for the govt? That is literally their only basket and I can't imagine anything else so far that will be more important to dig their heels in and bury their heads in the sand about.
> 
> ...


The government are certainly guilty of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 21, 2021)

Bolted???, its done 10 laps of Cheltenham and buggered off over the horizon


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2021)

andysays said:


> The government are certainly guilty of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.



The shut the door while the horse was resting, shot it and sold it for dog food, then denied there ever was a horse, and anyway it was your grandmother's fault for not cleaning the stable out properly.


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It'll probably be an annual jab, like the flu one, and a fairly good chance they'll be combined into one, at some point.



I just thank fuck we have the vaccines. Early on it wasn't a sure thing we would, and can you imagine if none had been sorted? We'd be on fuck knows how many dead, and it'd still be ongoing. Horrendous to think about.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 21, 2021)

I'm (more than) happy to join in condemnations of government as a bunch of murderous shitcunts.  A tidal wave of unnecessary death last year, with continuing awful performance right through to the present.

But from  _their _perspective, how would _they _describe their strategy?  6 weeks ago it felt like 'neo-herd immunity' was where they were at, with javid pushing a bullish line.  Now? 'We've got to live with the virus... hope the booster sorts shit out... business as usual... masks and social distancing would look like failure... squint at the hospitalisation figures... but know they can do some sort of u-turn in November as Labour are shit'.  It's not an actual strategy so much as an ideology. Am I missing something?


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Oct 21, 2021)

It's also about what's popular with the public.  I suspect a huge chunk of the public don't really want more restrictions and are willing to ignore deaths/the pressure on the NHS _until it directly affects them_.  Nicola Sturgeon gets a huge amount of abuse for going further than Westminster.


----------



## ska invita (Oct 21, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> It's also about what's popular with the public.  I suspect a huge chunk of the public don't really want more restrictions and are willing to ignore deaths/the pressure on the NHS _until it directly affects them_.  Nicola Sturgeon gets a huge amount of abuse for going further than Westminster.


yeah this + dreams of herd immunity


----------



## LDC (Oct 21, 2021)

Why have we not done short very strict lockdowns in the UK? Some countries do a few days or a week of very restrictive stuff, and it breaks the chain on infection quickly? I mean partly a rhetorical question, but seems like something that has a place, why not here? Ideology, actual effectiveness, something else?


----------



## Wilf (Oct 21, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> It's also about what's popular with the public.  I suspect a huge chunk of the public don't really want more restrictions and are willing to ignore deaths/the pressure on the NHS _until it directly affects them_.  Nicola Sturgeon gets a huge amount of abuse for going further than Westminster.


I think there's certainly a political calculation about disruption, as you say.  They are calculating that the impact of Covid on most people will be minimal, in terms of actual symptoms and disruption to lives (thus their attempts to dislodge the pingdemic).  Then there are those who become seriously ill and their families, a relatively small group. Somehow, the two groups are separating out, for practical purposes and political.  That starts to break down if the NHS is overwhelmed, so that's the thing that are watching.  Imagine that, the NHS getting overwhelmed becoming a _political/strategic crisis_ as opposed to significant human suffering.


----------



## Sue (Oct 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Why have we not done short very strict lockdowns in the UK? Some countries do a few days or a week of very restrictive stuff, and it breaks the chain on infection quickly? I mean partly a rhetorical question, but seems like something that has a place, why not here? Ideology, actual effectiveness, something else?


Because Pret. Or some such shit.

I mean for the last week or two it's certainly felt like we're going to end up back in lockdown at some point. I just wish they'd get on with it tbh. (Or at least reimpose mask wearing, wfh etc in the meantime.)


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Oct 21, 2021)

Not sure if I imagined it (I travel at different times of day / week so not sure if I'm comparing like with like) - but I had to take the tube at rush hour yesterday and at least 75% of people were wearing masks, which I haven't seen for ages.
(Tube was at pre-pandemic crush levels, which it has been for a while)

It could just be that people 'forced' to travel for work are much more likely to wear masks, than people travelling for leisure & socialising.


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Oct 21, 2021)

There was an interview on ch4 news last night, with a boss nurse saying her staff are getting frequent abuse (as in multiple times a shift) from the public about stuff like being asked to wear a mask or longer wait times to be seen due to impact of covid.  How can the Tories consider this okay?


----------



## andysays (Oct 21, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> There was an interview on ch4 news last night, with a boss nurse saying her staff are getting frequent abuse (as in multiple times a shift) from the public about stuff like being asked to wear a mask or longer wait times to be seen due to impact of covid.  How can the Tories consider this okay?


Tories don't give a fuck about that, frankly


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 21, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> There was an interview on ch4 news last night, with a boss nurse saying her staff are getting frequent abuse (as in multiple times a shift) from the public about stuff like being asked to wear a mask or longer wait times to be seen due to impact of covid.  How can the Tories consider this okay?


Are any of the Tory MPs nurses? Then it doesn't affect them does it? And therefore it doesn't matter. It's easy to get inside the mind of a Tory.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I'm (more than) happy to join in condemnations of government as a bunch of murderous shitcunts.  A tidal wave of unnecessary death last year, with continuing awful performance right through to the present.
> 
> But from  _their _perspective, how would _they _describe their strategy?  6 weeks ago it felt like 'neo-herd immunity' was where they were at, with javid pushing a bullish line.  Now? 'We've got to live with the virus... hope the booster sorts shit out... business as usual... masks and social distancing would look like failure... squint at the hospitalisation figures... but know they can do some sort of u-turn in November as Labour are shit'.  It's not an actual strategy so much as an ideology. Am I missing something?



In some ways I see it as a season based approach to propaganda, which is why I go on about merry-go-rounds of changing mood music to fit what month we are in. Little concern is paid to how unsustainable the central messages are, how short the life expectancy of rhetoric has been in this pandemic, compared to the expected longevity and pretend plausibility of political rhetoric in non-pandemic times. 

I suppose I've attempted to short-circuit that by going on about stuff during seasons where we are supposed to be looking in a different direction. But I do have to acknowledge that even if we remove the authorities priorities and politics from the equation, other factors remain that may make attractive or justify these repeated shifts. It may depend on whether peoples resilience, morale etc is actually sustained or partially recharged by having periods where people are encouraged to hope that the worst is behind us, that the light is at the end of the tunnel. Clearly for me personally I am not impressed by false hope and terrible teases, but there are still times where I feel like I might not be good for peoples minds if never a month goes by without me shouting about the ongoing nature of the struggle against this virus.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 21, 2021)

As a primary care NHS worker I've not had a break the entire pandemic bar Annual leave. Commuted in empty tube carriages, then with construction workers now with everyone it sometimes blows my mind people have been at home the entire time and are only now just returning to the office.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 21, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> There was an interview on ch4 news last night, with a boss nurse saying her staff are getting frequent abuse (as in multiple times a shift) from the public about stuff like being asked to wear a mask or longer wait times to be seen due to impact of covid.  How can the Tories consider this okay?


It's probably made easier by the fact that the Tories really don't like the NHS, and by extension the people who work within it, very much.

From their perspective, I suspect that "public health" just looks like an unnecessary cost.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> It's probably made easier by the fact that the Tories really don't like the NHS, and by extension the people who work within it, very much.
> 
> From their perspective, I suspect that "public health" just looks like an unnecessary cost.


Indeed, just imagine the tax cuts they'd be able to give the rich if they didn't have to spend £140 odd billion a year on keeping old poor people alive.


----------



## Fez909 (Oct 21, 2021)

I work for a TV station and can see which ads are played, and we have another govt Covid ad coming up. It was due to come in yesterday, presumably to broadcast today, but it's been delayed until tomorrow, for broadcast Saturday onwards.

It's not common, but also not _very_ rare for these delays, but I did wonder if they're redoing it, given some new info/feedback from the public mood - making it scarier, basically? I don't know what's in it except it relates to vaccines, so probably booster stuff.

Also, out of curiousity I had a look when the last corona ad was broadcast and it was way back in January.


----------



## little_legs (Oct 21, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> It's also about what's popular with the public.  I suspect a huge chunk of the public don't really want more restrictions and are willing to ignore deaths/the pressure on the NHS _until it directly affects them_.  Nicola Sturgeon gets a huge amount of abuse for going further than Westminster.


I don’t want to derail the thread but the SNP should field parliamentary candidates in the south. Sturgeon’s approach to the pandemic and her briefings are the testament of real leadership as opposed to the incoherent twaddle of the mudfish in a clown’’s wig we have been subjected to.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

little_legs said:


> I don’t want to derail the thread but the SNP should field parliamentary candidates in the south. Sturgeon’s approach to the pandemic and her briefings are the testament of real leadership as opposed to the incoherent twaddle of the mudfish in a clown’’s wig we have been subjected to.



Her rhetoric and public messaging was better. They are slightly better in some areas and quite a lot better with things such as masks.

But the limits to their approach and the similarities of failure when compared to the UK government are there for all to see, especially in the vaccine era. People in Scotland who were horrified to see their government sitting back and not acting in the face of several large peaks they've had in recent months are not likely to be found singing the praises of the SNP response to the pandemic these days.


----------



## little_legs (Oct 21, 2021)

That’s fair. Point taken elbows


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

Some of it will be down to the limited nature of devolution. But some of it will be down to the shared 'values' of their establishment including the upper echelons of the medical profession. The stuff I tended to label as 'the orthodox approach' in the UK which I've been criticising since about February or March 2020. The cold calculations, the 'cant do' mentality, the limited sense of what is operationally possible or even desirable to attempt.

In some senses their rhetoric wound me up because it involved bigger lies at times. For example in summer 2020 they decided that claiming to be going for total suppression of the virus sounded like the right thing to say, but there were no serious attempts to achieve that aim beyond what could be achieved temporarily during a summer season after a long lockdown.


----------



## bimble (Oct 21, 2021)

I am so tired, seems like years and years of dully puzzling over to what extent they are actually just mind bogglingly stupid or is it all just malevolence and lies.








						Rees-Mogg: Tories don't wear masks as they are friends
					

Jacob Rees-Mogg says a "convivial fraternal spirit" means the Conservatives do not need to wear masks in the Commons.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## andysays (Oct 21, 2021)

bimble said:


> I am so tired, seems like years and years of dully puzzling over to what extent they are actually just mind bogglingly stupid or is it all just malevolence and lies.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A "convivial fraternal spirit" is, of course, scientifically proven to be equally effective at preventing the spread of COVID as wearing a mask.

Utter cunts.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

Perhaps the title of that piece got truncated and it should have read "as they are friends with the virus".


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 21, 2021)

Its almost like they know they will get all the good antibody cocktails and superb treatment at private hospitals so dont give a fuck


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust declares critical incident
					

The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust says there is "unprecedented demand" on services.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I'll do hosiptal admissions by age group and by region later.


----------



## Yossarian (Oct 21, 2021)

bimble said:


> I am so tired, seems like years and years of dully puzzling over to what extent they are actually just mind bogglingly stupid or is it all just malevolence and lies.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

7 day averages of daily covid hospital admissions/diagnoses by region of England:


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 21, 2021)

Come on you stoopid polyticians.

Look at the daily stats on the dashboard, listen to the NHS & the scientists ...

Do the RIGHT thing, Like NOW, before it is too late [again] ...

Although, I don't think even their "Plan B" goes quite far enough. 
Half-term would be the ideal time for a sharp "circuit breaker" ...


----------



## planetgeli (Oct 21, 2021)

According to Drakeford Wales is already doing a lot of Plan B.

Which is laughable. On many levels.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

Plan B was in some ways a delaying tactic, a temporary line in the sand. Signs that it wont be enough if things carry on at the current trajectory include the fact the press has already moved on to discussions about a Plan C.

I'm still unable to make strong claims about whether the trajectory will continue in the manner seen recently.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

GPs in England threaten industrial action over in-person appointments
					

Family doctors reject plan to force them to see any patient who wants face-to-face appointment




					www.theguardian.com
				






> However, family doctors are also furious at a separate plan to compel those who are paid at least £150,000-a-year for NHS work to declare their earnings, starting next month.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 21, 2021)

Sky News just showing cases per 100k for the four nations -

Scotland - 316.6
England - 455.7
Northern Ireland - 473.2
Wales - 659.7


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 21, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Its almost like they know they will get all the good antibody cocktails and superb treatment at private hospitals so dont give a fuck



Honestly the private hospitals in this country are shite, especially with anything acute or life-threatening. They are able to exist and make money only because the NHS is perpetually overstretched, because the government spoon feeds them easy work and because there will always be a significant number of rich arseholes who must have the most expensive version of everything regardless of whether its actually any good.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 21, 2021)

Recall that a NHS facility apparently saved the life of a rich fool in April last year (so said the rich fool himself).


----------



## weepiper (Oct 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sky News just showing cases per 100k for the four nations -
> 
> Scotland - 316.6
> England - 455.7
> ...


It's half term this week in Scotland.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> GPs in England threaten industrial action over in-person appointments
> 
> 
> Family doctors reject plan to force them to see any patient who wants face-to-face appointment
> ...


I still think part of the Hospital overload is due to GPs taking the piss (yea ill get flak again, dont care)


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 21, 2021)

Theres been a lot of talk about plan B but so far I've not seen any sign of plan A.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

weepiper said:


> It's half term this week in Scotland.



And the timing of Scotlands peaks and declines so far in the Delta wave have not been in sync with England.

Some of those timing differences are probably down to differnt school holiday timings, but there are probably other factors too.

I'm not setup to illustrate the differences in timing properly right now but here is a picture of case rates on Scotland in different age groups from Scotland Coronavirus Tracker - it doesnt go back far enough to show the first peak they had this time around but they had another one at a different time to England which still dominates the scale on these charts compared to more recent levels of infection. Especially in the youngest age group shown here the picture in Scotland is quite different to England.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

Daily covid hospital admissions/diagnoses for England by age group. Looks like the two oldest age groups admissions figures are now the highest they've been in the delta wave so far.


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I still think part of the Hospital overload is due to GPs taking the piss (yea ill get flak again, dont care)



Covid and other respiratory diseases and resource and staff shortages and people coming forwards who didnt during earlier stages of the pandemic, and bed capacity and bed blocking issues. And yes, people resorting to A&E because they've not managed to get attended to properly by their GP is an additional issue on top of those. I wouldnt like to say exactly how much of that last issue I mentioned can be directly blamed on GPs in the way you do.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 21, 2021)

There are loads of people going to A&E with stuff that they could get sorted out by visiting a decent pharmacy / chemist ...
[or even using NHS webpages ...] even if they can't get to speak to or see someone at their GP surgery.

I was with my OH for a GP visit recently and *in the half hour* I was there (waiting pre-appointment & the actual appointment) there were *three no-shows out of nine* other appointments for GPs or the practice nurses.
*That's a lot of times that were booked and not available for other people* ...
[one guy did turn up, very late, as he'd had a fall and was still very shaken, so I'll let him off]


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 21, 2021)

> I was with my OH for a *GP visit* recently



We live in different worlds


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 21, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> We live in different worlds



I've managed it but it took 2 telephone calls with a month between them and he took 30 seconds to look in my ear and pass me on to the ENT people for a further appointment without giving any solid opinion on what was wrong.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 21, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I still think part of the Hospital overload is due to GPs taking the piss (yea ill get flak again, dont care)


How do you think they’re taking the piss? They’re as overworked and overwhelmed as any other workers in the NHS


----------



## existentialist (Oct 22, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Theres been a lot of talk about plan B but so far I've not seen any sign of plan A.


Plan A was the Plandemic


----------



## existentialist (Oct 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> Covid and other respiratory diseases and resource and staff shortages and people coming forwards who didnt during earlier stages of the pandemic, and bed capacity and bed blocking issues. And yes, people resorting to A&E because they've not managed to get attended to properly by their GP is an additional issue on top of those. I wouldnt like to say exactly how much of that last issue I mentioned can be directly blamed on GPs in the way you do.


Talking of bed blocking...our local NHS trust has released this letter: 'Unprecedented' demand on health and care service leads to call for help from home



> "There is currently an unprecedented demand on health and social care services across Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire, which is leading to significant delays in care provision.
> 
> "Put simply, the difficulty in discharging medically-fit patients from hospital – many of whom have complex personal circumstances and needs – is leading to significant bed shortages, and consequently, lengthy ambulance waits at the ‘front door’ of A&E departments, which mean that paramedics are unable to respond to other 999 calls in the community."


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 22, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Plan A was the Plandemic



Those two things both have the same word in them, so they must be the same.

/Facebook commenter logic


----------



## Fez909 (Oct 22, 2021)

Fez909 said:


> I work for a TV station and can see which ads are played, and we have another govt Covid ad coming up. It was due to come in yesterday, presumably to broadcast today, but it's been delayed until tomorrow, for broadcast Saturday onwards.
> 
> It's not common, but also not _very_ rare for these delays, but I did wonder if they're redoing it, given some new info/feedback from the public mood - making it scarier, basically? I don't know what's in it except it relates to vaccines, so probably booster stuff.
> 
> Also, out of curiousity I had a look when the last corona ad was broadcast and it was way back in January.


OK, this is now in and it's really tame. Not what I was expecting.

Vaccines help us. Cold and flu spreads in winter. Get a flu jab, and if over 50, get a top up. Happy nurse saying she's vaxxed.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2021)

Fez909 said:


> OK, this is now in and it's really tame. Not what I was expecting.
> 
> Vaccines help us. Cold and flu spreads in winter. Get a flu jab, and if over 50, get a top up. Happy nurse saying she's vaxxed.



They should have recycled images of Tony Blair with red demonic eyes. New variant, new danger.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2021)

New SAGE documents release leads to stories like this one:









						Covid: Home working likely to be best way to curb virus - scientists
					

Tougher measures to stop the spread of coronavirus could be avoided with early action, advisers say.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Early action, ho ho ho, my how we laughed.

I havent read the documents yet but they are here and relate to a meeting of October 14th:









						SAGE meetings, October 2021
					

Minutes and papers from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) meetings held in October 2021.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2021)

I have the usual problem of there being far too many relevant points made in the SAGE docs for me to even begin to quote them all. So I have to pick and choose. I'll assume everyone is aware that the usual stuff is in these documents, such as the need to act and plan early, utility of face masks etc, and I will stick to highlighting other stuff.

From the minutes for the October 14th meeting: https://assets.publishing.service.g...t_data/file/1027514/S1381_SAGE_96_minutes.pdf



> There should be no complacency around the risk posed by further viral evolution.
> Ensuring sufficient testing and sequencing capacity to monitor for variants and capability to characterise new variants and conduct predictive vaccinology is crucial. SAGE noted recent discussions on the significant level of infections sequenced and border surveillance measures that are required to identify new variants within specified timeframes following their emergence.





> Although there remains uncertainty about the timing and magnitude of any future resurgence, these scenarios suggest hospital admissions above those seen in January 2021 are increasingly unlikely, particularly in 2021.





> SAGE has previously noted the risks associated with high prevalence (SAGE 93). Cases and admissions are currently at much higher levels than in European comparators, which have retained additional measures and have greater vaccine coverage especially in children. Reducing prevalence from a high level requires greater intervention than reducing from a lower level.





> There has been a decrease in self-reported precautionary behaviours such as wearing a face covering. Effective reintroduction of measures would require clear and positive public communications (providing sufficient time for implementation), setting out expected impacts as well as scope, exemptions and approach to enforcement.





> Reintroduction of working from home guidance is likely to have the greatest individual impact on transmission out of the proposed measures. Impact would be dependent on effectiveness of communication and guidance, employer response, and the proportion of workers able to work from home who were not already doing so at the time of implementation. It was noted that “presenteeism” may become an increasing reason for spread in the workplace and that it will be important to communicate effectively to avoid this.





> SAGE reiterated the importance of individuals showing symptoms of any respiratory infection to prevent further transmission by staying at home. As noted above, public health communications should seek to tackle work presenteeism in the UK culture as we approach winter.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2021)

There is lots of detail about levels of testing (depressingly low) and the need for clear messages and support for people to not go to work when feeling unwell in this document. 



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1027649/S1402_Testing_when_symptomatic__and_staying_at_home_with_influenza-like_illness_during_autumn_and_winter_2021__30.09.2021_.pdf
		




> The UK Government’s ‘COVID-19 Response: Autumn and Winter Plan 2021’ proposes that existing NHS Test and Trace strategies will continue largely unchanged, with additional encouragement for employees to stay at home if they have non-COVID influenza-like illness.
> 
> 2. At present, among people who take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for COVID-19, rates of adherence to self-isolation are good [Moderate to High Confidence]. However, most people do not take a PCR test when symptomatic. [Moderate to High Confidence].
> 
> 3. Whether people test when symptomatic partly depends on how they interpret their symptoms, particularly if these are mild, non-specific, occur in isolation, have lasted only a day or two, or occur in the absence of an obvious transmission event [Moderate Confidence].





> The ubiquity of lateral flow tests has altered testing behaviour among people with symptoms [Moderate Confidence]. Around 45% of people with symptoms who have taken a test report having used a lateral flow test rather than a PCR, while 12% report having used both a lateral flow test and a PCR. There are trade-offs between the lower sensitivity of lateral flow tests and the greater likelihood that more people will use them earlier in their illness. Whether these trade-offs lead to a net beneficial or detrimental effect is unclear.





> Multiple factors affect whether someone attends work when experiencing influenza-like illness, including the absence of sick leave, organisational culture, lack of cover for work, a sense of professional obligation, not feeling sufficiently ill and financial worries [Moderate Confidence]. Many of these factors have been exacerbated by the pandemic. At the same time, ability to work from home and motivation to protect others from respiratory illness have become more common. Clear communication that it is important to stay at home when ill, even if a negative COVID-19 test result is obtained, may encourage more people to stay at home. This is particularly likely if communication comes from multiple sources. Support that enables people to take time off is also necessary [Moderate Confidence].





> The benefits of using PCR for symptomatic testing, and the limitations of using a lateral flow test in this situation, should be made clear to the public. Modelling to understand the trade- offs between a greater uptake of lateral flow tests among people with symptoms and a reduced sensitivity compared to PCR would be useful.





> Rates of testing among people who have COVID-19-like symptoms have always been low.





> Notably, the top barriers to intending to seek a test if symptomatic were “I know what symptoms I have and don’t believe they are COVID- 19 ones” and “it is unlikely I have COVID-19 because there aren’t many cases in my area.” Also common were “I’m not sure my symptoms are bad enough” and “I’m not sure this symptom is one that needs testing.”





> While lateral flow tests remain free for the public for the time being, from 4 October 2021, a “collect code” is required in order to receive packs from the pharmacy. The introduction of any barrier to distribution seems likely to reduce the number of people who access testing.


----------



## killer b (Oct 22, 2021)

It's cute that SAGE think 'work presenteeism' is a _culture _thing, rather than a_ most people don't have decent sick pay conditions_ thing.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 22, 2021)

idk, but it seems to me that the beeb has been "pushing" the idea of bringing in 'Plan B now' quite hard in the past few days.


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2021)

killer b said:


> It's cute that SAGE think 'work presenteeism' is a _culture _thing, rather than a_ most people don't have decent sick pay conditions_ thing.



Other aspects get a mention in the document I subsequently quoted, but note the pathetic 'moderate confidence' attached to this bit:



> Support that enables people to take time off is also necessary [Moderate Confidence]


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 22, 2021)

Support for sick pay - now that would be great. From both points of view. 

First of all, it needs to be a decent amount of £££ and secondly it needs to be either repaid somehow or usable as direct allowance against taxes.

As I have said before, several times, this support is very important for small firms.

It used to be, that if the company paid out SSP [statutory sick pay] it could claim it back, then they changed that to using as an offset against tax payments. Now, if you pay out SSP, it is an expense that you can't get back, other than rolling it up into your overheads. [Especially so if the illness is long term]


----------



## teuchter (Oct 22, 2021)

This graph gives quite a striking picture of the different situations in different part of the UK











						UK Coronavirus Tracker - Local
					

Current and historical data of the Coronavirus outbreak in the UK. Includes breakdowns by region, maps, charts, and more!




					www.travellingtabby.com


----------



## elbows (Oct 22, 2021)

We could probably have done with more of this language throughout the pandemic.



> Dr Tom Black, chairman of the British Medical Association (BMA) in Northern Ireland, says further easing of restrictions in NI is "madness" and "stupid".



From the 16:40 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59006498


----------



## Cloo (Oct 22, 2021)

Apparently Johnson sees 'no reason for there to be another lockdown on the cards'

I do - this fucking government which won't impose even the simplest of mitigation measures.

On the upside, if they fuck Christmas again, especially if the rest of the world doesn't, it might be the thing to _finally_ piss people off enough not to vote for them. I mean, not 100ks of deaths or anything like that....


----------



## bluescreen (Oct 22, 2021)

When they get the SAGE reports do they say: OK, just put it there with the others and I'll get round to reading it when I have a moment?


----------



## bluescreen (Oct 22, 2021)

.


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 22, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Support for sick pay - now that would be great. From both points of view.
> 
> First of all, it needs to be a decent amount of £££ and secondly it needs to be either repaid somehow or usable as direct allowance against taxes.
> 
> ...


For very small businesses this stopped in 2014, but for most larger organisations it’s not been recoverable since 1995 - see my quoted post from another thread. Notable that Labour chose not to remedy this in 13 years of government, they did find the time to introduce and expand paternity and maternity pay respectively. Paying at living wage would be a reasonable compromise. 



Elpenor said:


> I was wrong in my earlier cost, it’s not recoverable at all anymore even for micro employers. It was 80% recoverable initially, then dropped to 0% in 1995.  So it’s a cost to employers, unlike the parental based absences which are for the most part recoverable. This needs to change. It’s notable if not surprising that no attempt to reverse this measure during the period 1997-2010 when there was a Labour government with a dominant majority.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Oct 23, 2021)

My part of Berkshire has gone dark purple on the map of doom.  

Highest infection rate in the borough since it all started.  Secondary school kids and their families a high proportion of this.

And getting local PCR tests done by the dodgy lab (returning false negatives so people didn't isolate) didn't help


----------



## mx wcfc (Oct 23, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> My part of Berkshire has gone dark purple on the map of doom.
> 
> Highest infection rate in the borough since it all started.  Secondary school kids and their families a high proportion of this.
> 
> And getting local PCR tests done by the dodgy lab (returning false negatives so people didn't isolate) didn't help


I have colleagues in Berkshire, who have picked it up from their kids, who got it at school. One family of four, all down with it, and half the school off. We really need to collate all that bollocks that was spouted about kids not getting it and not spreading it, because, yes, the schools are the biggest vector at the moment.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 23, 2021)

ah well, it's half term and from my anecdata of today's driving delivery job all the kids are off school firebreaking going to visit granddad/ma auntie/uncle and suchlike, what could possibly go wrong...


----------



## existentialist (Oct 23, 2021)

Reports that the case rate in Pembrokeshire (next county along from me) is now experiencing case rates higher than at any point in the pandemic.

It is true that this part of the world has been very fortunate throughout most of this, in having comparatively low case rates, even when compared to towns and cities only a little further east. We've seen regular spikes, which correlate with periods during which we have seen large influxes of tourists (no prizes for guessing how *tha*t is going down in certain quarters ), but nothing quite as broad-based and consistent as what we're seeing now. Hospitals are thin on the ground, and are reporting getting very close to becoming overwhelmed, with all the consequences that go with that. And we still have a LOT of people awaiting non-Covid-related admissions for various things who've been waiting for the entire pandemic to be treated.

The biggest variable factor in the latest spike has to be the almost total reduction in protective measures around children going to school, though that's speculation.

But, even subjectively, Covid is "here" in a way it has never quite been up until now. And it's quite noticeable - the drummer in our band has succumbed; I've had a few close brushes, with one of my friendship group having had to isolate after contracting it; and my step-granddaughter (17, unvaccinated) is currently also isolating having tested positive. Thankfully, her mum (40, vaccinated, lots of health conditions) has tested negative and is showing no symptoms.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 23, 2021)

Looking at the "heatmap" ages by infection rates for Northumberland, this wave of cases has been concentrated in the school age and up a bit, then those likely to have produced said children with a later and lower peak in older groups, inc grandparent age groups.

That fits with the cases in my SiL's three generation household. Incoming vector was the youngest with no symptoms (child at primary school) everyone else - all adults double jabbed - got it to a greater or lesser degree, apart from my triple dosed SiL.[Although she isolated as a precaution, health vulnerabilities and health worker (patient facing)].


----------



## bimble (Oct 23, 2021)

The government have whole corridors full of people whose job it is to monitor the public mood don't they, so they must know that when they say things like 'the British public love freedom and would not accept any restrictions' they must know it's untrue


----------



## existentialist (Oct 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> The government have whole corridors full of people whose job it is to monitor the public mood don't they, so they must know that when they say things like 'the British public love freedom and would not accept any restrictions' they must know it's untrue
> View attachment 293836


As ever, they are choosing to cherrypick which aspects of public opinion support their already-decided approach, and they simply discount the views which don't.


----------



## brogdale (Oct 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> The government have whole corridors full of people whose job it is to monitor the public mood don't they, so they must know that when they say things like 'the British public love freedom and would not accept any restrictions' they must know it's untrue
> View attachment 293836


The difference between 'knowing' and caring.


----------



## BobDavis (Oct 23, 2021)

We have started wearing masks in shops again. I notice in local supermarkets mask wearing is now well over 50%. Much higher than that a few weeks ago. We have always used washable cloth masks but I thought we might upgrade. So a bit of research & it appears the proper light blue disposable masks as used by the NHS etc are IIR masks cost around £10 for 50. They are supposed to stop 98% of incoming droplets. Certainly the most comfortable masks I have worn.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Oct 23, 2021)

Think this has been shared before but it's useful on masks so with sharing again 
Trisha Greenhalgh (@trishgreenhalgh) Tweeted:
LONG THREAD on masks. Mute if not interested.
Do masks work? Why do some people claim they don’t work? Do they cause harm? What kinds of masks should we wear? How does masking need to change now we know that Covid is airborne? When can we stop wearing them? 
Get your popcorn.
1/


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Oct 23, 2021)

From that long thread on masks


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 23, 2021)

What with the data from Israel, showing excellent outcomes from booster jabs, there's also the preliminary results from the first randomised, controlled trial on boosters, that came out this week, it's no wonder the government is putting so much faith in them, although it still seems crazy not to mandate masks now, and certainly until the roll-out is speeded-up and hopefully we see results like this.



29th August was when Israel started roiling out booster jabs to everyone over 12.



> In a trial with 10,000 participants who had all completed a two-shot Pfizer regimen, half were randomised to receive a further equal-strength dose of the shot, and half a placebo. Five cases of Covid were registered in patients receiving the booster compared with 109 who were given a placebo.
> 
> FT link (paywalled).



That's bloody impressive, seriously reducing transmission, and should give us hope.  



> In other words, third doses are highly effective at preventing people from becoming infected with Delta, among those who are willing to be vaccinated. When third doses dramatically reduce a person’s susceptibility to infection, it creates a barrier to the onward transmission and spread of the virus. This is important because growing numbers of people are getting infected despite being vaccinated (though the risks of infection, spread and severe illness remain greatest among those who are unvaccinated). And they have similar peak levels of virus in their noses to those who are unvaccinated, contributing to the unrelenting spread of the virus.
> 
> Third doses stimulate the production of neutralising antibodies that are both higher in magnitude and have greater breadth against viral variants than those elicited by a second dose. Taken together, booster jabs aren’t just an immune refresher – they are an immunological upgrade. These superior neutralising antibody responses create an immunological buffer that is effective even against the Sars-CoV-2 Delta variant, explaining the dramatic reduction in risk of infection following third doses in Israel. The same buffer would be expected to reduce the need for frequent “boosting” in the future, as higher levels of neutralising antibodies are predicted to confer longer-lasting immunity.











						The message from Israel is clear: Covid booster shots should be standard | David O’Connor
					

A third dose of the vaccine provides significant protection, says pathology professor David O’Connor




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 23, 2021)

BobDavis said:


> We have started wearing masks in shops again. I notice in local supermarkets mask wearing is now well over 50%. Much higher than that a few weeks ago. We have always used washable cloth masks but I thought we might upgrade. So a bit of research & it appears the proper light blue disposable masks as used by the NHS etc are IIR masks cost around £10 for 50. They are supposed to stop 98% of incoming droplets. Certainly the most comfortable masks I have worn.


I think that is 98% outgoing, th enext level up (FFP2 masks) have to be 94% incoming or better.


----------



## Sue (Oct 23, 2021)

BobDavis said:


> We have started wearing masks in shops again. I notice in local supermarkets mask wearing is now well over 50%. Much higher than that a few weeks ago. We have always used washable cloth masks but I thought we might upgrade. So a bit of research & it appears the proper light blue disposable masks as used by the NHS etc are IIR masks cost around £10 for 50. They are supposed to stop 98% of incoming droplets. Certainly the most comfortable masks I have worn.


Out of interest, why did you stop?


----------



## kabbes (Oct 23, 2021)

Most families I know with kids around here have had it at some point the last two to three weeks


----------



## BobDavis (Oct 23, 2021)

Sue said:


> Out of interest, why did you stop?


I had a really bad bout of Covid over last Xmas which was the worst & most painful experience of my life & my partner same age 68 also got it but she was not that ill so we really paid attention to getting vacced & double vacced  soon as we could. At the time the consensus appeared to be that if you had previously caught Covid then got double vacced you were pretty much protected. So when the law allowed we just got out of the habit of masks.

What has happened is as well as Covid now there is a really bad cold virus going around which we both got about 10days ago. On top of that we had flu vacs booked for last Sat which cause some side effects & yesterday we got the booster & side effects of that with everything else we are both feeling like utter shit but hope to be ok in a few days.  So I have woke up my ideas. This is  not even nearly over so back to masks & proper disposable ones not cloth masks that we just washed over & over again.

Edit to add. Yes we have done several self tests this week all negative so we have bad colds not Covid.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 23, 2021)

> At the time the consensus appeared to be that if you had previously caught Covid then got double vacced you were pretty much protected. So when the law allowed we just got out of the habit of masks



Were you at all aware that mask wearing has a greater protection for others not to catch it from you? and that you could be carrying it without knowing?..... y'know like whats been repeatedly stated for months.


----------



## Wilf (Oct 23, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> What with the data from Israel, showing excellent outcomes from booster jabs, there's also the preliminary results from the first randomised, controlled trial on boosters, that came out this week, it's no wonder the government is putting so much faith in them, although it still seems crazy not to mandate masks now, and certainly until the roll-out is speeded-up and hopefully we see results like this.
> 
> View attachment 293844
> 
> ...


That is good news. It's not only good news in terms of actual protection, but also psychology.  If I knew I and the bulk of people I'd be interacting with were triple jabbed, I'd feel happier about doing more. I've felt my confidence about going to places declining with the rise in cases and the news on declining protection from the double jab.

Just one thing though, I'd have thought the triple jab in Israel would be an unlikely cause for much of that decline in cases.  The programme only started at the end of August and I presume it takes a week or two for the 3x jab to have an effect? But that aside, some good news.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 23, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Just one thing though, I'd have thought the triple jab in Israel would be an unlikely cause for much of that decline in cases.  The programme only started at the end of August and I presume it takes a week or two for the 3x jab to have an effect? But that aside, some good news.



It was the end of August when they opened up booster jabs for everyone, 2 million older people had had one by that time.


----------



## elbows (Oct 23, 2021)

Just remember to add Israels other measures to the picture. Their dropping of mask rules only lasted mere days in June. Their mood music became gloomy throughout the period, and they reintroduced an even stronger version of vaccine passports in August. I think they are also making the booster shots a requirement of these passes but I've lost track of what stage that change is at.



> As of August 20, “Green Passes” are required to enter restaurants, public pools, museums or any other public place besides parks. The pass is issued to people who have received two vaccine doses or who have recovered from coronavirus. But unlike in the past, children who are not eligible to get vaccinated must have the pass, too.











						Israel struggles with COVID surge despite mass vaccinations
					

Israelis flouting mask requirements may have been a main contributor to the rapid spread of the Delta variant in Israel.




					www.aljazeera.com


----------



## Wilf (Oct 23, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It was the end of August when they opened up booster jabs for everyone, 2 million older people had had one by that time.


Yeah, I'm not denying the effect, just thinking there must have been other things in play with that rapid decline in cases.


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 23, 2021)

What's the current thinking on how to avoid getting it if you go to a high risk place, i.e. somewhere very crowded with poor ventilation?


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 23, 2021)

Probably something like  *dont go to a high risk place thats very crowded with poor ventilation...*failing that,the same as its been for the last fucking year...... wear a mask.
I can't believe this far into this shit people still have to ask questions like this.


----------



## CH1 (Oct 23, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Probably something like  *dont go to a high risk place thats very crowded with poor ventilation...*failing that,the same as its been for the last fucking year...... wear a mask.
> I can't believe this far into this shit people still have to ask questions like this.


You say that - but  heard an MP on TV a couple of days ago recommending opening some windows.
Not possible in many public places of course - and if at home carries the added bonus of ultra high gas bill this year.


----------



## Thora (Oct 23, 2021)

As well as our schools going back to masks and bubbles, I've seen in the last couple of days a local Autumn fair and a couple of children's Halloween events have chosen to cancel.  Even if the govt. aren't going with plan B it seems like communities might be taking it upon themselves to reintroduce restrictions.


----------



## smmudge (Oct 23, 2021)

Thora said:


> As well as our schools going back to masks and bubbles, I've seen in the last couple of days a local Autumn fair and a couple of children's Halloween events have chosen to cancel.  Even if the govt. aren't going with plan B it seems like communities might be taking it upon themselves to reintroduce restrictions.



Yeah that has been the story of the pandemic really, I notice people change their behaviour first then the government bring in restrictions because everyone's basically already doing it.


----------



## zora (Oct 23, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> What's the current thinking on how to avoid getting it if you go to a high risk place, i.e. somewhere very crowded with poor ventilation?


Be double or triple-vaccinated, wear FFP2-mask.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Oct 23, 2021)

zora said:


> Be double or triple-vaccinated, wear FFP2-mask.


Or even ffp3 mask


----------



## two sheds (Oct 23, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Probably something like  *dont go to a high risk place thats very crowded with poor ventilation...*failing that,the same as its been for the last fucking year...... wear a mask.
> I can't believe this far into this shit people still have to ask questions like this.


Not a good reply to someone asking question in good faith.  We shouldn't be discouraging people from asking questions.


----------



## l'Otters (Oct 23, 2021)

BobDavis said:


> We have started wearing masks in shops again. I notice in local supermarkets mask wearing is now well over 50%. Much higher than that a few weeks ago. We have always used washable cloth masks but I thought we might upgrade. So a bit of research & it appears the proper light blue disposable masks as used by the NHS etc are IIR masks cost around £10 for 50. They are supposed to stop 98% of incoming droplets. Certainly the most comfortable masks I have worn.


If your washable cloth ones fit well you’d be best off continuing to use them, you can up the effectiveness by wearing a disposable blue paper one underneath. The fabric of the blue pleated ones filters very well but they hardly ever fit well, takes them down to abiut 46% effectiveness iirc from some comparative testing. Add a decent fitting cloth mask over the top and that goes right up. Dr Fauci was strongly recommending double masking earlier in the year.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 24, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> What's the current thinking on how to avoid getting it if you go to a high risk place, i.e. somewhere very crowded with poor ventilation?


don't breathe
not helpful, I know, but best advice I can give at this point in my general joe knowledge status.
e2a: a bit tipsy after coming back from working in one of those places, FFP2 mask for me all evening with a singalong young crowd in the house


----------



## 8ball (Oct 24, 2021)

Main thing about being somewhere crowded with poor ventilation is not to be there very long if possible.  The amount of time spent there is a major factor in the degree of risk, and I’m not sure proper weight is given to this.

If you need to be there for any length of time, the kind of protection needed gets considerably more advanced than a cloth mask, and if you _really_ need to be there for a long time, they should really have their own advice on the level of protection recommended (though what has been said here is good).


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 24, 2021)

Looks like the government is getting ready for introducing 'Plan B'.



> In the clearest sign to date that Whitehall is actively considering additional measures, the _Observer_ has learnt that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) contacted local authorities on Friday to canvass their level of support for the “immediate rollout of the winter plan – plan B”.
> 
> Boris Johnson has so far publicly resisted suggestions that he should order the implementation of plan B, a menu of measures which includes the use of vaccine passports at higher-risk venues and mass gatherings, as well as legally mandating the use of face masks in some settings.
> 
> However, in a memo marked “official – sensitive”, the agency states that it was urgently seeking the views of council chief executives and leaders to be fed directly into the Cabinet Office. “This is a tight turnaround as you might appreciate and so a response by close of play would be really helpful,” it states.











						UK government paves way to bring in tough ‘plan B’ Covid rules
					

Councils consulted over support for measures such as vaccine passports amid warnings by senior doctors that NHS faces winter illness ‘triple whammy’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Oct 24, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looks like the government is getting ready for introducing 'Plan B'.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Who would have guessed?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 24, 2021)

Plus, changes to the booking system are coming, so people will be able to book a booster jab appointment up to a month in advance of when it's due.



> Currently people are able to book a booster jab six months after their second dose and that could mean waiting two or three weeks more, with the average an 18 day wait for an appointment.
> 
> This delay is believed to be an important reason why only around 4.5 million of 9.3 million eligible in England have had the booster.
> 
> The new plan, which government sources have told the Mail on Sunday will be put in place as quickly as possible, will see people over 50 able to book their appointment in advance, so they can have the booster immediately after six months.











						'Millions more Brits to get Covid booster as over-50s can book month earlier'
					

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has reportedly told the NHS to allow people over 50 to book their third jab a month earlier so that they can have the booster vaccine after six months




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 24, 2021)

The slow-wits have missed the ideal opportunity for a "fire-break" - that would have been two / three weeks around the October half-term.

I really don't think that vaccines can control the plague on their own.
But, not enough of the population are yet vaccinated.
Nor are there enough people willing to use masks etc without some element of compulsion 
(thanks, maggie for destroying the social contacts that underpin community spirit).

So, at some point, preferably before the NHS melts down, they are going to have to use "Plan B"


----------



## Supine (Oct 24, 2021)

I’m thinking November to March will be back to mask’s. Can’t wait, I’m fed up of public transport full of unmasked selfish cnuts.


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## kabbes (Oct 24, 2021)

I’m wondering how dedicated everybody is in their mask wearing?  I will admit to not being so 100%, 100% of the time. I have exceptions:


On a train in the morning, I sometimes have bought a coffee, because it’s early and I’m fed up. I can’t sensibly drink with a mask on, so I don’t put it on until I’ve finished. There is mitigation — the train is mostly empty until long after I’ve finished. But others on the train will observe me not wearing a mask at that time
I get dry eye unless I wear moisture-retaining eyewear. If I wear mask and eyewear, the glasses immediately steam up. Normally, I prioritise mask. However, on the train coming back in the evening, I normally have pretty sore eyes and I may well wear eyewear instead of mask.
In our office, literally zero people wear a mask ever.  Across 7 floors of people. What would be the point of me wearing one?
If I’m going into a cafe, I generally won’t go through the charade of wearing a mask to the table and then taking it off.
Those are the things that spring to mind but there may be other occasions, such as if I’ve thought my mask was in my pocket when I went out but it actually wasn’t.

Is this partial dedication to wearing a mask unusual?  Surely not.  It can’t all be people who either refuse to wear one or treat it with religious devotion.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 24, 2021)

I also don't bother in cafes/restaurants etc. Seems pointless. Over the last few months I've been in Turkey and it's been easy to simply eat and drink outside, but now it's colder that's less likely. 

I don't really understand people who complain about others not wearing masks at places like cinemas and theatres. Of course the majority won't. The answer is to not go, sadly.


----------



## l'Otters (Oct 24, 2021)

I had a coffee on a train two weeks ago, to recover from the awful journey to the station: did the same I do when I’ve had a cup of tea at a friend’s place: keep my mask on apart from when taking a drink. 

Doing support work for group of vulnerable adults, involved taking them to a cafe last week. Kept mask on for all the chatting while waiting for food. Took my mask off to eat. (Didn’t feel comfortable about it tbh & next time would probably make sure I’d eaten beforehand and just get a drink.)

Sometimes in a rush I’ve arrived into a station still wearing the cloth mask I’ve had on the way. I take that off to switch to an n95/ffp2 on the platform, if it’s an indoor platform usually take a breath before removing the cloth mask and hold it until I’ve got the other one on. 

Had to figure out the glasses steaming up thing in April 2020. Would not have coped if I hadn’t, can’t stand steamed up glasses.


----------



## l'Otters (Oct 24, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I also don't bother in cafes/restaurants etc. Seems pointless. Over the last few months I've been in Turkey and it's been easy to simply eat and drink outside, but now it's colder that's less likely.
> 
> I don't really understand people who complain about others not wearing masks at places like cinemas and theatres. Of course the majority won't. The answer is to not go, sadly.


So the inconsiderate fucks are the ones who get to go to the theatre and cinema. Perfectly reflects the society we live in.


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Oct 24, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’m wondering how dedicated everybody is in their mask wearing?  I will admit to not being so 100%, 100% of the time. I have exceptions:
> 
> 
> On a train in the morning, I sometimes have bought a coffee, because it’s early and I’m fed up. I can’t sensibly drink with a mask on, so I don’t put it on until I’ve finished. There is mitigation — the train is mostly empty until long after I’ve finished. But others on the train will observe me not wearing a mask at that time
> ...



I always wear a mask on public transport (not that I use public transport that often).  If I'm heading to Glasgow on the train, I usually have a can, but passed last time coz (a) you're meant to wear a mask and (b) alcohol is banned on trains for the time being.  Still, quite a few people maskless and consuming booze on that train _and_ the packed one home!  Ticket inspectors weren't giving a shit, though TBF I don't blame them for not wanting to challenge people on this.  I suppose if the train is quiet such rule-breaking shouldn't be a massive deal anyway.

We don't have to wear a mask at work when we're in our own office, not that I'm actually back at the office.  I would hate to wear a mask all day.

I'll wear a mask as much as possible when walking around a pub/restaurant/cafe, though sometimes you forget after a few drinks.


----------



## zora (Oct 24, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’m wondering how dedicated everybody is in their mask wearing?  I will admit to not being so 100%, 100% of the time. I have exceptions:
> 
> 
> On a train in the morning, I sometimes have bought a coffee, because it’s early and I’m fed up. I can’t sensibly drink with a mask on, so I don’t put it on until I’ve finished. There is mitigation — the train is mostly empty until long after I’ve finished. But others on the train will observe me not wearing a mask at that time
> ...


That all sounds quite reasonable to me. In my workplace, I am stubbornly holding out while fewer and fewer colleagues and customers are wearing masks, but if I was literally the only one? I'd either double-down by wearing a mask that's more protective to myself or give up, too...

Sometimes, I have also still put on a mask while walking to a pub/cafe toilet, but you are right that that is somewhat of a charade, and I have done it more as a little sign of "there is still a pandemic on".

What I find more astonishing is how many people have gone from "it's not legally mandated to wear masks in e.g. shops anymore" to being in shops and on public transport _while displaying _raging respiratory illness symptoms _and still not _wearing mask_s. _Or indeed staying at home full stop! 
I thought it was quite interesting when whatshischops from the NHS said something at the press conference last week about staying at home for a few days with general cold symptoms - I got the impression that he checked himself halfway through and went "oh shit, I have gone off script - that would of course be the sensible thing to do but I wasn't supposed to say that." (because an overall shift in attitude towards this _is precisely not _what the government has in mind - but maybe I read too much into it...)

Also, what's been really noticeable to me these last couple of weeks is that the notion of outdoor dining/drinking has been all but abandoned with the chillier weather. Been to three different restaurants/pubs in the past ten days where not only were b/f and myself the only people in the outdoor area, we also very much had the impression that staff and other guests were thinking "wtf are these guys sitting in the cold for?" as if the last 18 months had never happened...


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 24, 2021)

BobDavis said:


> Edit to add. Yes we have done several self tests this week all negative so we have bad colds not Covid.


Lateral flow tests? I feel like this bulletin board and every social media needs a bot notice that goes up in response to statements like this: "Did you do a lateral flow test when you had possible covid symptoms and draw conclusions from that? STOP. This goes against government and scientific advice. Please now isolate and take a PCR test."


----------



## IC3D (Oct 24, 2021)

Tbh if you have kids at school ATM you aren't going to avoid covid by wearing a mask in public. 
The idea most wore them to protect others is wrong. Perhaps 50/50 at most did.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Oct 24, 2021)

Upon going back to work in August I bought masks designed more to protect me than others _from_ me. Virtually nobody has worn a mask since August at college.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 24, 2021)

I've stopped noticing who's wearing one or who's not and it at least has lessened any anxieties about this


----------



## l'Otters (Oct 24, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Tbh if you have kids at school ATM you aren't going to avoid covid by wearing a mask in public.
> The idea most wore them to protect others is wrong. Perhaps 50/50 at most did.


All the more reason to wear a mask on trains in shops etc so you don’t pass it on to everyone else breathing the same air as you.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 24, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Tbh if you have kids at school ATM you aren't going to avoid covid by wearing a mask in public.
> The idea most wore them to protect others is wrong. Perhaps 50/50 at most did.


I might agree that the _reason _most people wore masks was for self-protection, but whatever their reasoning, the fact of the matter is that masks DO protect others.

And if you have kids at school, and there is thus a possibility of you being infected, then that's all the more reason to be wearing one.

This is simple stuff, and you've had it explained to you often enough


----------



## l'Otters (Oct 24, 2021)

People use both sides of that to rationalise not wearing a mask.

Either it’s because it doesn’t protect them themselves and if fewer people are wearing them now what’s the point. Or they can’t avoid being exposed to it via kids in school or work therefore why should they bother because they’re going to get it anyway. Whether they frame it as masks were only to protect themselves, or were only to protect others, they get themselves to the same point.

I suspect they just find it inconvenient and/or don’t want to stand out or look different.

Fact is masks protect both the wearer and those around them (and those who come into a small space after they’ve gone).

And - most importantly for me - they protect the health service cos everyone who needs treatment for getting covid is going to take up nhs resources which could be better spent elsewhere.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 24, 2021)

CH1 said:


> You say that - but  heard an MP on TV a couple of days ago recommending opening some windows.
> Not possible in many public places of course - and if at home carries the added bonus of ultra high gas bill this year.



Ventilation is absoultely essential and I'm glad the MPs have noticed this just 18 months into the pandemic


----------



## existentialist (Oct 24, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Ventilation is absoultely essential and I'm glad the MPs have noticed this just 18 months into the pandemic


Gotta say that for them, they've absolutely had their finger on the pulse all the way through this pandemic


----------



## l'Otters (Oct 24, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> People use both sides of that to rationalise not wearing a mask.
> 
> Either it’s because it doesn’t protect them themselves and if fewer people are wearing them now what’s the point. Or they can’t avoid being exposed to it via kids in school or work therefore why should they bother because they’re going to get it anyway. Whether they frame it as masks were only to protect themselves, or were only to protect others, they get themselves to the same point.
> 
> ...


Despite the exasperated tone there I do still ascribe the majority of the blame for this to the government’s total failure on providing clear messaging on this. Next in line the antivax grifters. 

When people trot out these rationales it is difficult not to find them circumspect and annoying though.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 24, 2021)

Most people, I say loosely bought the govt line about vaccination providing protection from spreading covid. This was clear messaging, total bullshit and only now it's unravelling, rapidly. You can be irate on here but it doesn't change anything. This place is a bit of a bubble regarding views on covid.


----------



## l'Otters (Oct 24, 2021)

ooh cheers for the permission to “be irate on here”. how generous of you.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 24, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> ooh cheers for the permission to “be irate on here”. how generous of you.


Didn't point you out or try to cause offence


----------



## Wilf (Oct 24, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Plus, changes to the booking system are coming, so people will be able to book a booster jab appointment up to a month in advance of when it's due.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, I read that last night.  Given that all their eggs are in the vaccination basket, you'd have thought they'd have fixed that earlier.


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2021)

IC3D said:


> This place is a bit of a bubble regarding views on covid.



And yet the opinion polls throughout the pandemic have revealed that the position of many here is really not so different from the wider public stance, where polls have tended to show the public supporting more action than the government take.

There are some differences, such as those with idiotic pandemic views here being so heavily outnumbered that they probably go elsewhere to vent their spleens as a result. And we dont have our own version of shitty newspapers to distort peoples impressions of the balance of opinion here.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 24, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Tbh if you have kids at school ATM you aren't going to avoid covid by wearing a mask in public.
> The idea most wore them to protect others is wrong. Perhaps 50/50 at most did.



I have a hunch which 50% you belong to


----------



## Wilf (Oct 24, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’m wondering how dedicated everybody is in their mask wearing?  I will admit to not being so 100%, 100% of the time. I have exceptions:
> 
> 
> On a train in the morning, I sometimes have bought a coffee, because it’s early and I’m fed up. I can’t sensibly drink with a mask on, so I don’t put it on until I’ve finished. There is mitigation — the train is mostly empty until long after I’ve finished. But others on the train will observe me not wearing a mask at that time
> ...


I try and wear one at all times I'm in shops, but practicalities get in the way. We've got loads of masks in the car, but I've started going in more local shops and walking to them.  And where I'd have only gone in a pub with a mask on 6 months ago and then very rarely, I've had the odd 'opportunist pint', going in without a mask and then finding a quiet corner.  Suspect lots of people are the same, still think masks are important, probably should be legal requirements, but... life.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 24, 2021)

Why aren't we living in a socialist society all working toward the betterment of all? Because we might say when asked that we believe in these things but there is a govt pushing in different directions, work pressures, fed up with restrictions, hoping for the best etc. 
See what happens next I guess. 
And I fully support more personal responsibility and there has been shit health promotion and to much focus on vaccinations, everyone went with it because it was sold as a golden ticket. Who doesn't want that.


----------



## IC3D (Oct 24, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I have a hunch which 50% you belong to


Nd another thing is people like yourself getting judgemental on others creates further division.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 24, 2021)

Well, I have kept wearing a mask ... and I see no reason to change that opinion, especially with the gov't again dodging the issue & their responsibilities.

To protect the NHS, others in the wider community, myself and my immediate household. That sums it up.


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2021)

IC3D said:


> And I fully support more personal responsibility and there has been shit health promotion and to much focus on vaccinations, everyone went with it because it was sold as a golden ticket. Who doesn't want that.



That did happen but only to an extent, there were still limits in regards how much people bought into that. These limits showed up in various ways, eg aspects of 'freedom day' were still mocked and most people understood some of the reasons why that day ended up being delayed a few months ago.

Other examples include that "if not now then when?" logic only gained limited traction round these parts. And I was able to bang on since vaccines were first available about how it was asking for trouble to expect vaccines to carry the entire weight of this pandemic. I have little doubt that if everyone here had bought into the idea that vaccines would get the entire job done on their own, everyone would have turned on me at some point in the last 9 months.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 24, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Nd another thing is people like yourself getting judgemental on others creates further division.


Oh the division is there for real and is created by the differences in an individuals attitudes and actions/inactions as you pointed out.


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 24, 2021)

Reusable masks anyone? What about this? It's FFP2. Freedom1 FFP2 Graphene Protective Reusable Face Mask featuring Nanane™ and Polygrene™ You wear it ten times then spray it with graphene. You don't wash it. The mask is £9.60, and so is the graphene Graphene Mask Sanitiser Spray 100ml


----------



## elbows (Oct 24, 2021)

Given how wound up I get by the absolute bullshit myths that are repeated to this day about how well the NHS coped and gave care to those who needed it, I am pleased that such shit does not sound like its a feature of this book:









						Failures of State review – never forget the Johnson government's Covid disasters
					

A damning assessment, by investigative journalists Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott, of the handling of the pandemic by the British government




					www.theguardian.com
				






> There are lesser-known horrors in the catalogue too. The authors are keen to explode the comforting narrative that the NHS coped with the pandemic even at its peak, and that everyone got the care they needed. They report that some hospitals were forced to ration treatment according to a set of guidelines that struck doctors and nurses as “Nazi-like”, denying intensive care to those who scored too high on three metrics: age, frailty and underlying conditions. Whole categories of people – the old, the weak, the disabled – were denied the critical care that might have saved their lives.
> 
> Incredibly, the guidelines were so rigorously enforced that in one Midlands hospital, dozens of intensive care beds lay empty, kept free for younger, fitter patients, while those over-75 were left dying on regular wards, without even being offered non-invasive ventilation. It meant that of the patients who died at the height of the pandemic in April, just 10% had received any intensive care.



I shall probably get that book. Hopefully it also covers the number of people who didnt even seek NHS care, or were put off by 111 or otherwise denied admission.


----------



## Supine (Oct 24, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Reusable masks anyone? What about this? It's FFP2. Freedom1 FFP2 Graphene Protective Reusable Face Mask featuring Nanane™ and Polygrene™ You wear it ten times then spray it with graphene. You don't wash it. The mask is £9.60, and so is the graphene Graphene Mask Sanitiser Spray 100ml



My spider senses are tingling tbh. It’s an expensive spray (not actually graphene) and wouldn’t be needed if you just left a used mask to sit around for a few days. Also the CE attachment on the website isn’t actually a CE Declaration of Conformity as far as i can see.


----------



## miss direct (Oct 24, 2021)

I always spray my reusable masks with an anti bacterial thingy and then hang them up.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> Given how wound up I get by the absolute bullshit myths that are repeated to this day about how well the NHS coped and gave care to those who needed, I am pleased that such shit does not sound like its a feature of this book:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Bloody scandalous situation.
Wish we could have a 'class action' to sue the government for murder or, at the very least "corporate manslaughter", over their (mis-)handling of the pandemic. Right back to the start, or January 2020 ...


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 24, 2021)

Supine said:


> My spider senses are tingling tbh. It’s an expensive spray (not actually graphene) and wouldn’t be needed if you just left a used mask to sit around for a few days. Also the CE attachment on the website isn’t actually a CE Declaration of Conformity as far as i can see.


I see what you mean. The wording is confusing. The spray is some sort of chlorine. And the testing was done in Shanghai. https://files.elfsightcdn.com/1ab14...abf1/48846c04-23ef-450e-878b-30d23d9f59d6.pdf


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 24, 2021)

I have several decent ffp2 masks in use, in a rotation. I don't go out every day, though.

Every couple of cycles, or if I've been in a crowded area or with unknown people, the mask gets a spray with a decent quality disinfectant and left to dry. After a few cycles of this, I'll bin [burn] the mask and get a new one out of the box.

I was doing similar with the cheap "single use" ones, before I was able to buy the FFP2 ones - usually I paired them with a cloth over-mask. They were sprayed and left to dry, I had a row of nearly a dozen at one point, to allow plenty of time between uses. This was during the shortage era. Rather than throw these in the bin, after a few cycles, I would put them in a carrier bag and then burn them [our workshop wood-burner is very useful, it gets remarkably hot at times, & then it will get used for such disposals, before reloading with the normal fuel.

Gloves, the same. 
Although I tend to rely more on hand-washing / sanitising than gloves, unless I'm in an area with a very high case rate.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I’m wondering how dedicated everybody is in their mask wearing?  I will admit to not being so 100%, 100% of the time. I have exceptions:
> 
> 
> On a train in the morning, I sometimes have bought a coffee, because it’s early and I’m fed up. I can’t sensibly drink with a mask on, so I don’t put it on until I’ve finished. There is mitigation — the train is mostly empty until long after I’ve finished. But others on the train will observe me not wearing a mask at that time
> ...



Pretty similar.

I had a double take moment getting a coffee yesterday as the staff were masked / visored. I was coming in from outside and wanted to sit outside. The door was wide open. I wasn't gonna put a mask on for the few minutes I ordered but felt sorry for the staff having to all day.  I did clean my hands with sanitiser at the counter before paying.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2021)

QQ. Boosters are only for people 50 and over or with a condition that makes them vunrible right? Only they keep talking about this 6 month thing but omiting the other criteria.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 24, 2021)

xenon said:


> QQ. Boosters are only for people 50 and over or with a condition that makes them vunrible right? Only they keep talking about this 6 month thing but omiting the other criteria.



Yes, that's the case at present. IE - six months [190 days ?] from second dose for over 50s or in a vulnerable category.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 24, 2021)

xenon said:


> QQ. Boosters are only for people 50 and over or with a condition that makes them vunrible right?



Yes.



> Only they keep talking about this 6 month thing but omiting the other criteria.



No one in good health & under 50 should be anywhere near to the 6 month point ATM, so I don't think reports need to keep repeating the criteria, especially as it is set out clearly on the booking website, which doesn't allow people to book a booster unless they are entitled to one.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2021)

OK but I know of at least 2 people under 50, who had theirs 6 months ago due to occupation.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 24, 2021)

xenon said:


> OK but I know of at least 2 people under 50, who had theirs 6 months ago due to occupation.



Certain occupations make people more vulnerable to infection, such as health & care workers.


----------



## xenon (Oct 24, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Certain occupations make people more vulnerable to infection, such as health & care workers.



Fair point. They should be getting their booster soon I imagine. Will ask just out of curiosity next time we speak.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 25, 2021)

This is from the Torygraph, so I am sceptical about the claim they are aware of other unpublished models suggesting cases will come down without introducing 'Plan B', but the one they quote from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is certainly interesting.

Of course, there's always several models, with a whole range of possible outcomes, but it would be nice if this one has got it right.



> Covid cases will plummet in November even without Plan B restrictions, modelling seen by the Government suggests.
> 
> Ministers are thought to be holding back from introducing restrictions such as compulsory face masks, working from home and vaccine passports, after seeing projections from several groups which show infections declining rapidly within weeks.
> 
> One model, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, suggests that cases will soon peak before falling steeply in the winter months, even without Plan B.





> The Telegraph understands that other unpublished models seen by the Government have also shown similar imminent drops, with experts indicating that cases could fall to around 5,000 cases a day before Christmas.
> 
> John Edmunds, Professor in the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at the school, a member of Sage and the sub-group SPI-M, said: “When we were doing the work about two weeks ago, the Health Secretary had made it very clear that the government was not planning to introduce Plan B in the near future.





> “Our model was projecting that cases would start to decline some time in the autumn. However, the model also suggests that cases may start to climb again in the spring, due to a combination of waning immunity and increased contacts.”
> 
> Much of the current wave is being driven by high case rates in children. Scientific sources close to the Government expect the “children’s epidemic” to run out of steam soon as immunity in youngsters increases, both through infection and vaccination.
> 
> The October half term, which for many schools begins on Monday, is also expected to help bring down case numbers. Scientists believe that the virus is close to reaching “endemic equilibrium” and recent oscillations in case rates will soon settle down.





> Experts said if the models were correct, then it would do little good to bring in restrictions at this stage, and would be better for long-term immunity to allow the virus to spread.
> 
> Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine, at the University of East Anglia, said: “There are times when delaying is really valuable, but there comes a point when restrictions have no value because you’ve got as much protection as you’re going to get, so you end up putting it off to a point where you lose immunity.
> 
> ...











						Covid cases to slump this winter, say scientists
					

Modelling seen by Government predicts falling infections even without implementation of ‘Plan B’ restrictions




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## LDC (Oct 25, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Yes, that's the case at present. IE - six months [190 days ?] from second dose for over 50s or in a vulnerable category.



Or health and social care workers. I'm under 50 and had mine last week booked through the national online system as work didn't have slots (lack of them rather than being full), was just asked to be able to prove job with NHS ID.


----------



## LDC (Oct 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is from the Torygraph, so I am sceptical about the claim they are aware of other unpublished models suggesting cases will come down without introducing 'Plan B', but the one they quote from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is certainly interesting.
> 
> Of course, there's always several models, with a whole range of possible outcomes, but it would be nice if this one has got it right.
> 
> ...



Totally anecdotally it does seem to be the case among people I know. Loads of people I know have had it recently and have it now, and it's all just been cold-like symptoms and it's passed in a week or so with no complications. All are double vaccinated though. My friend working in public health currently thinks no restrictions and leaving it to go like is suggested above is _probably _the right thing to do now.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 25, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Totally anecdotally it does seem to be the case among people I know. Loads of people I know have had it recently and have it now, and it's all just been cold-like symptoms and it's passed in a week or so with no complications. All are double vaccinated though.



Same here, although I know one chap who ended-up in hospital despite being double jabbed, he's in his early 70's with various underlying health conditions, but got away with just 4 days on oxygen, and made a full recovery.


----------



## elbows (Oct 25, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> This is from the Torygraph, so I am sceptical about the claim they are aware of other unpublished models suggesting cases will come down without introducing 'Plan B', but the one they quote from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is certainly interesting.
> 
> Of course, there's always several models, with a whole range of possible outcomes, but it would be nice if this one has got it right.
> 
> ...



My thoughts on the modelling we did get to see is in the following post and the subsequent one: General Coronavirus (COVID-19) chat

One of the LSHTM model outputs is the 2nd graph I posted there.

As I said in those posts, I feel the need to point out that recent days worth of hospital admissions data for England really challenges the upper bounds of those projections already. So it wont take too long at all before we see whether the real data carries on increasing even beyond the confidence intervals shown in that modelling, or whether those numbers soon peak. 

We should expect half term to do something (and the changing mood music to do something), but I have a rather open mind about what will happen next. Perhaps some models have got it right, perhaps not. They cant all be right as there is quite a bit of variation in what they show. The modellers themselves should say that they just modelled a number of specific scenarios and what influence the effects of different degrees of waning immunity and changes to peoples behaviour would be expected to have, rather than trying to make an exact prediction about what will happen next. I would also say its a bad idea to cherrypick only the models that show scenarios the Telegraph are happy with, rather than ones that show nasty peaks around Christmas and new year.

The Hunter quotes and the 'endemic equilibrium' stuff is also not surprising. Hunter has been saying this sort of stuff for months, and only time will tell whether he is right or not. At the very least he usually sounds far too sure and confident for my liking, and he has ended up being a useful tool for pandemic shitheads during this phase. But obviously what really matters is whether he is right or not, and we should get some early answers to that question over the next 2-4 weeks. I would not like to guess either way, which is why I continue to be short on exact predictions about this wave myself.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 25, 2021)

https://public.tableau.com/app/prof.../RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary 🆘


----------



## little_legs (Oct 25, 2021)

The Guardian is no longer displaying the graphic with the latest data on its front page, this is their last graphic from Oct 22


----------



## Cloo (Oct 25, 2021)

The Telegraph thing does sound like 'Tories are listening to the projection they want to hear and going "lalalalala" to anything else'. I mean their 'strategy' such as it is since July 19 does seem to me to have been 'Let's get a peak before winter and hopefully it'll work out like that'. I mean, I'm not gonna say I hope they're wrong about that, but I'm not going to be confident in it either.


----------



## teqniq (Oct 25, 2021)

This is damning:


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 25, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> https://public.tableau.com/app/prof.../RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary 🆘



Apart from the numbers vaccinated, there's not much good news in that link.

The cases & %positivity trends are definitely not good at all.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 25, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> Reusable masks anyone? What about this? It's FFP2. Freedom1 FFP2 Graphene Protective Reusable Face Mask featuring Nanane™ and Polygrene™ You wear it ten times then spray it with graphene. You don't wash it. The mask is £9.60, and so is the graphene Graphene Mask Sanitiser Spray 100ml


"

A Freedom 1 mask can be worn for a whole day – carefully sanitised and reused, compared to changing a paper mask every 2-4 hours.
With careful use one Freedom1 mask will last up 10 cycles of wear and sanitisation without losing efficacy. Please refer to below cleaning instructions. 
"
So not quite what you said, I think I will stick with my regular FFP2s at £7.95 + shipping for a box of 20.


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 25, 2021)

I've tried several FFP2 suppliers, as I wear glasses I need a padded bridge, the wired ones are nearly as bad as a paper/medical styled one for misting up specs.
We found a suitable one in the early months of the Lockdown. [Respiratory BIOMASK 2.0 from Expert Technology / Scotts ; co. based in Wiltshire - where the masks are actually made, I don't know].
The packaging says "single use", but I've been spraying them with disinfectant and drying them, with about 10 days between uses. I don't need one everyday, as I'm WFH.


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 25, 2021)

I've ordered an Airpop mask. Reusable and well reviewed. Disposable masks are an environmental disaster. Reusable face coverings can be highly effective, Which? tests reveal – Which? News I want to go to the cinema.  I'm high risk. And triple jabbed. I'll use micropore tape to ensure a good seal.


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2021)

When I saw the word plummet in the headline I knew it would be Triggle, and it was.

Its the BBCs version of the Telegraph story except they stick to published modelling results unlike the Telegraph. And I already gave my thoughts on this modelling. It is possible, but there are no certainties for me at the moment. If we were at a earlier, more straightforward stage of the pandemic then I would be mercilessly mocking this article, and perhaps there will still be cause to do so in future, but perhaps not. After all it is half term, and the immunity picture is complicated these days. And there is more sense and balance later in the article than the headline and the start of the article would imply.









						Covid: Are cases about to plummet without Plan B?
					

Infection levels have been rising, but this could be about to change - and change quite dramatically.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Spandex (Oct 26, 2021)

The idea that case numbers are set to fall isn't that wild. It's happened before recently; here are reported new case figures for the last six months:


In mid-July and mid-September just as things started to look bad, and the impacts were rising to the point where somebody would have to do something, the numbers dropped unexpectedly away before starting to rise again.

The past four days have seen numbers come down; here are reported new case numbers for the past month:


So it's certainly a possibility. But no-one really knows where we're going with this. It could be a slight dip before numbers continue to rise, there might be a sharp fall followed by numbers creeping up again like the last two times, it might drop to a lower level and stay there. Just have to wait and see. Again.

That top graph is a rollercoaster ride and since July it's been going up and down in a range where the government can get away with doing nothing much, but Covid continues to hospitalise and kill significant numbers of people. I just wish it would go one way or the other so there's some kind of resolution, preferably dropping to a level where I'm comfortable living with it, because I'm sick of this twilight zone we're in where it's there, but we're supposed to pretend it's not..


----------



## scalyboy (Oct 26, 2021)

miss direct said:


> I always spray my reusable masks with an anti bacterial thingy and then hang them up.


How long do you hang them up for? I used to put them up in the window for 24 hours or so, but someone told me that's not long enough. And anyway I was doing so in summer, when we had some sun. Afterwards I began washing my N95/FFP2 masks after each use, but I suspect they can only take a limited number of washes before they become ineffective.


----------



## scalyboy (Oct 26, 2021)

Spandex said:


> ... Covid continues to hospitalise and kill significant numbers of people. I just wish it would go one way or the other so there's some kind of resolution, preferably dropping to a level where I'm comfortable living with it, because I'm sick of this twilight zone we're in where it's there, but we're supposed to pretend it's not..


I was just looking at the govt data over the past 19 months and - unless I've misunderstood the graphs - it looked like hospital admissions now are only slightly below the numbers of admissions at the same time last year. Similarly with deaths, they are lower than 12 months ago but by not as much as I'd expected. But I wasn't able to see whether these current hospitalisation and death stats can be further broken down so they distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated people


----------



## elbows (Oct 26, 2021)

Spandex said:


> The idea that case numbers are set to fall isn't that wild. It's happened before recently; here are reported new case figures for the last six months:
> View attachment 294252
> 
> In mid-July and mid-September just as things started to look bad, and the impacts were rising to the point where somebody would have to do something, the numbers dropped unexpectedly away before starting to rise again.



The July falls in England were not unexpected to me, because I paid attention to school holidays and what happened in Scotland when their schools broke up for summer.

Since its half term in many places this week I certainly dont expect this weeks numbers to show clear growth compared to last weeks. But I'll have to wait further weeks to get a proper glimpse about whats actually happening because schools being off tends to make a large difference to number of people getting tested, and also makes a difference to other behaviours and contact levels.

The mood music can also make a difference to behaviour, and that mood music has certainly changed in recent weeks.

Edited to add - As for what was seen in data during parts of September, at the time I attributed some of that to a nice spell of weather but that probably wasnt the only factor and I'll continue to describe this phase of the pandemic as messy and somewhat unpredictable. At least this spares everyone from my endless waffle about what the latest modelling shows, since such exercises could easily end up far wide of the mark.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 26, 2021)

scalyboy said:


> How long do you hang them up for? I used to put them up in the window for 24 hours or so, but someone told me that's not long enough. And anyway I was doing so in summer, when we had some sun. Afterwards I began washing my N95/FFP2 masks after each use, but I suspect they can only take a limited number of washes before they become ineffective.


I think if you wash FFP2s it fucks up the static electricity part of the filtration system.

Ways to disinfect is placing them into a tightly locked plastic bag and boiling the bag for 10 minutes.
If airing then they should hang for a week or so.
There is also a baking option at 80 degree centigrade for an hour but that one is easy to mess up apparently as too low a temperature and it doesn't work and too high  a temperature and they deform.


----------



## Supine (Oct 26, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I think if you wash FFP2s it fucks up the static electricity part of the filtration system.
> 
> Ways to disinfect is placing them into a tightly locked plastic bag and boiling the bag for 10 minutes.
> If airing then they should hang for a week or so.
> There is also a baking option at 80 degree centigrade for an hour but that one is easy to mess up apparently as too low a temperature and it doesn't work and too high  a temperature and they deform.



Just leave sat somewhere for 4-5 days. Job done. You have a danger of lowering their performance by trying to treat them. Plus it’s a waste of time


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 26, 2021)

I've been using a a UVC Lamp to disinfect them, helps if you leave the lamp in a small area like a cupboard as on top of the actual UV Rays it produces a fair amount of Ozone which gets to the bits the light misses


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 26, 2021)

Supine said:


> Just leave sat somewhere for 4-5 days. Job done. You have a danger of lowering their performance by trying to treat them. Plus it’s a waste of time


I have a box of 20 I have been rotating and airing, I'm all good


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 26, 2021)

What about spraying a mask with alcohol? (Not the drinkable kind.)


----------



## manji (Oct 26, 2021)

I have been self isolating for a while now due to underlying Heath problems. Up to last week I know of one person in my circle who has had Covid-19.
I have seen a lot of people going back to old habits. Commuting,attending Football , European holidays, Gigs etc. then this weekend many have been registering as isolating having caught COVID while dismissing it as a short illness “nothing to worry about” I feel like commenting yeah great but who have you transmitted it to.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 26, 2021)

David Clapson said:


> What about spraying a mask with alcohol? (Not the drinkable kind.)


I've read about vapourising hydrogen peroxide, nothing about spraying.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 26, 2021)

manji said:


> I have been self isolating for a while now due to underlying Heath problems. Up to last week I know of one person in my circle who has had Covid-19.
> I have seen a lot of people going back to old habits. Commuting,attending Football , European holidays, Gigs etc. then this weekend many have been registering as isolating having caught COVID while dismissing it as a short illness “nothing to worry about” I feel like commenting yeah great but who have you transmitted it to.


"nothing to worry about" 
"unless you end up on a ventilator in ICU"


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 26, 2021)

What a an absolute shower of insipid worthless sopping cow shit fucks these lot are.


----------



## magneze (Oct 26, 2021)

Fucking wankers


----------



## thismoment (Oct 26, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> What a an absolute shower of insipid worthless sopping cow shit fucks these lot are.



Huh? Makes no sense. But why would they be exempt?

ETA - from the bbc link above 
“But Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg last week said Conservatives did not need to do so because they knew each other well, and this meant they were complying with government guidance” 🙄


----------



## Artaxerxes (Oct 26, 2021)

thismoment said:


> Huh? Makes no sense. But why would they be exempt?
> 
> ETA - from the bbc link above
> “But Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg last week said Conservatives did not need to do so because they knew each other well, and this meant they were complying with government guidance” 🙄




Cunt.


----------



## thismoment (Oct 26, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Cunt.
> 
> View attachment 294311


It beggars belief


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 26, 2021)

I fucking hope they all get stabbed to death by perfectly rational non-terrorists


----------



## Cloo (Oct 26, 2021)

I note papers are heralding Scotland's COVID passport entry launch as an 'unmitigated disaster', as described by... a hospitality body. Well of course they're not going to view it especially positively are they?


----------



## Numbers (Oct 26, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I fucking hope they all get stabbed to death by perfectly rational non-terrorists


Be careful posting that, you’ll have the Top Gear tag team on your back.


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 26, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Be careful posting that, you’ll have the Top Gear tag team on your back.


Bring it on! No quarter to those cunts. Dunno why they’re here in the first place


----------



## David Clapson (Oct 26, 2021)

I would like Rees Mogg to die. I don't care how, but he doesn't deserve to live. Same with Duncan Smith.


----------



## teqniq (Oct 26, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Be careful posting that, you’ll have the Top Gear tag team on your back.


Who are the Top Gear tag team?


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Oct 27, 2021)

On the case numbers (positive tests) falling

I am possibly being over cynical here, but do we know whether the number of tests being done is falling?

Presume with schools being off for half term (understand some were last week, some this week) then tests in schools won't be happening

And last time I wanted a new pack of LFT tests, I just went in to the chemists' and asked for them, but you now have to go online and get a reference number and go back with that.  Can't help wonder if some people will just say the hell with it...

Just wondering if they are following the donald trump idea of doing less tests so there will be less cases...  

(or fewer.  i never got the hang of that.  it's late.  sod it.)


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 27, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Who are the Top Gear tag team?


The petrolheads on here who are just here to stir shit up and argue for fun


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 27, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> On the case numbers (positive tests) falling
> 
> I am possibly being over cynical here, but do we know whether the number of tests being done is falling?



Yes, according to the dashboard, there were 6,215,946 tests in the last 7 days, down -214,163 (-3.3%).

Over on worldometers, you can see we have been testing at a higher rate to most of Europe, indeed the world.



France is 29th on about half of the UK rate at 2,309,749 per million. Italy 39th @ 1,688,819, and Spain 49th @ 1,415,472. 

We must be catching a lot more asymptomatic cases, which contributes to our higher case numbers, but far from explains all of them.


----------



## Aladdin (Oct 27, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I note papers are heralding Scotland's COVID passport entry launch as an 'unmitigated disaster', as described by... a hospitality body. Well of course they're not going to view it especially positively are they?


Similar crap over here.

What galls me most are the
Night club owners and vintners declaring its a "disaster..."
They clearly have not seen the real disaster that is our ICU beds full of covid patients...

Speaking of Vintners...and night club owners...the very epitome of money grabbing selfish cunts.
When has a publican/vintner/night club owner ever given a toss about a customers health once they can keep on selling them alcohol...
When have they ever looked at the absolute misery they peddle? 
They're worse than drug dealers... they know fuckin well the misery that alcohol abuse leads to.
But we are all supposed to feel sorry for the vintners?

The gov came out and said nightclubs can open but customers need covid passes. Not a big deal you would think? But no...the night club owners are saykng "its unworkable ".
Why? Whats your problem? Just check them at the door... but thats WAY too much hassle for this shower of cunts. 

Fuckin bastards have no understanding of the word "disaster". 😡


----------



## ska invita (Oct 27, 2021)

Sugar Kane said:


> The gov came out and said nightclubs can open but customers need covid passes. Not a big deal you would think? But no...the night club owners are saykng "its unworkable ".
> Why? Whats your problem? Just check them at the door... but thats WAY too much hassle for this shower of cunts.


every music thing ive been to this year has required proof of a covid test
pubs on the other hand...


----------



## gentlegreen (Oct 27, 2021)

It just struck me that the pub and club demographics probably don't  overlap very much with the three generations of people you see when the schools empty ...


----------



## BassJunkie (Oct 27, 2021)

All this talk of who's taking the most tests. Or trying to compare with this time last year, shouldn't the first metric be percentage of those tested who turned out to be positive? 

Then one would have one number that "works' across all times and places. 

Does this happen? Have I been missing it?


----------



## Aladdin (Oct 27, 2021)

ska invita said:


> every music thing ive been to this year has required proof of a covid test
> pubs on the other hand...



Music venues are slightly different here in Ireland .. they seem to not have a difficulty with covid passports.  

Nightclubs on the other hand have been doing nothing BUT whinging about having to check covid passports and saying the restrictions are "unworkable". 
It's pathetic. 
They (owners) whined about being closed despite being paid well by gov covid supports. 
Now they can open.. albeit with a number of restrictions such as
..no bar queues...table service only...masks on when moving about in the club. But masks off when seated with your group or dancing. I dont get why its ok to dance on a packed dancefloor while unmasked? But that's another thing.  

Their understanding of the word "disaster " comes from having to possibly employ extra staff!! 
The nightclubs opened last Friday for the first time since March 2020. Queues were waiting 2 hours to get into them. They have been PACKED. They're also charging more for entry. I am 100% certain the owners are taking in more money than ever. 

So fuck them. And their ignorant pathetic reference to their "disaster". 

11 ICU beds left in the entire country. 
That's the real disaster.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 27, 2021)

Yes the positivity rates are published


BassJunkie said:


> All this talk of who's taking the most tests. Or trying to compare with this time last year, shouldn't the first metric be percentage of those tested who turned out to be positive?
> 
> Then one would have one number that "works' across all times and places.
> 
> Does this happen? Have I been missing it?


----------



## gentlegreen (Oct 27, 2021)

Sugar Kane said:


> 11 ICU beds left in the entire country.
> That's the real disaster.


----------



## Aladdin (Oct 27, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


>



Yep. We are heading for absolute disaster. 

Local hospital here had 178 people on TROLLEYS in A and E on Sunday.  
There are 7 general beds left in the second biggest hospital in Munster.
We are completely fucked.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Oct 27, 2021)

BassJunkie said:


> All this talk of who's taking the most tests. Or trying to compare with this time last year, shouldn't the first metric be percentage of those tested who turned out to be positive?
> 
> Then one would have one number that "works' across all times and places.
> 
> Does this happen? Have I been missing it?



I don't think it would, no.

That would work if the testing was allocated by random sampling. In reality though it's way more complicated than that, most notably people getting tested because they actually feel ill, then beyond that all sorts of reasons - proximity to others who have it, job roles, travellers, people going to concerts, self selecting safety-first screenings, etc etc. I'm not sure it would even be possible to pick out reliable figures out of all that lot to be honest but certainly a simple % positive figure wouldn't do it.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 27, 2021)

Sugar Kane said:


> Music venues are slightly different here in Ireland .. they seem to not have a difficulty with covid passports.
> 
> Nightclubs on the other hand have been doing nothing BUT whinging about having to check covid passports and saying the restrictions are "unworkable".
> It's pathetic.
> ...


TBF quite a number of restaurant and Cafe owners are  the same type of character,
 motivated by the same things and with the same priorities just a bit more considered in who they employ at the Coal face


----------



## kabbes (Oct 27, 2021)

BassJunkie said:


> All this talk of who's taking the most tests. Or trying to compare with this time last year, shouldn't the first metric be percentage of those tested who turned out to be positive?
> 
> Then one would have one number that "works' across all times and places.
> 
> Does this happen? Have I been missing it?


That only works if the population being tested is randomly sampled as a cross section of the whole society. The moment you start having criteria for who you test, you introduce bias into the statistics


----------



## kabbes (Oct 27, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I don't think it would, no.
> 
> That would work if the testing was allocated by random sampling. In reality though it's way more complicated than that, most notably people getting tested because they actually feel ill, then beyond that all sorts of reasons - proximity to others who have it, job roles, travellers, people going to concerts, self selecting safety-first screenings, etc etc. I'm not sure it would even be possible to pick out reliable figures out of all that lot to be honest but certainly a simple % positive figure wouldn't do it.


Oh snap, I hadn’t seen this


----------



## elbows (Oct 27, 2021)

The ONS survey that leads to weekly headlines such as '1 in 50 people were estimated to have had Covid last week in England' is based on random population sampling. There is inevitably still bias because some people are more likely to agree to participate than others, but its still something useful.






						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

Percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) in private residential households in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, including regional and age breakdowns.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




As for percentage positivity, plenty of the charts in the weekly surveillance report involve that measurement. Its a useful guide to trends and whether enough testing is being done.









						National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports: 2021 to 2022 season
					

National influenza and COVID-19 report, monitoring COVID-19 activity, seasonal flu and other seasonal respiratory illnesses.




					www.gov.uk
				




And as I've said many times before, I also compensate for any changes in attitudes to testing etc by relying more on hospital admission stats. Only have to wait about a week to see the positive test figure trends show up in hospital admissions data.


----------



## bimble (Oct 27, 2021)

This NHS test and trace ‘failed its main objective’, says spending watchdog

Says that more than 60 % of people who experienced covid symptoms never got tested.
That is a huge number.


----------



## sojourner (Oct 28, 2021)

Oh ffs, my big brother's got it now  Thank god he had his AF all sorted a few months back, and his asthma pretty much under control  He's been uber cautious too. My best mate's only just recovering from 2 weeks in bed with it too - 10 years younger than me and double jabbed.


----------



## Carvaged (Oct 28, 2021)

RIP Nanna, who died today. She'd had Covid twice and survived that and been vaccinated, but ultimately lost her marbles completely during the lockdown isolation in the care homes, which hit her bad and caused her immense distress and sadness. They'd just locked down once more yesterday due to another infected patient taken in from hospital, but let us in to see her just before she went.


----------



## Sue (Oct 28, 2021)

Sorry to hear that Carvaged. Look after yourself. X


----------



## teuchter (Oct 28, 2021)

Case rates now appear to be suggesting some decline. And hospital admissions giving the impression of levelling off.

The numbers are still quite wildly different in different parts of the UK though.


----------



## manji (Oct 28, 2021)

Anecdotal of course and take it as you want.But I was speaking to a Professional involved in the COVID effort and he was saying that the authorities are expecting to see a drop in cases as the vaccination, testing, etc. levels out. 
The other comment was most people who would have died from it come off the reporting


----------



## Aladdin (Oct 28, 2021)

Sorry for your loss Carvaged  .. very sad


----------



## Elpenor (Oct 28, 2021)

Sorry to hear that Carvaged 

Someone on another forum I frequent passed away today too.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Oct 28, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Case rates now appear to be suggesting some decline. And hospital admissions giving the impression of levelling off.
> 
> The numbers are still quite wildly different in different parts of the UK though.
> 
> View attachment 294552View attachment 294553View attachment 294554



7-day average of reported new cases are down -9.8%, but tests conducted are down -8.3%, school half-term in play.


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2021)

The rhetoric from the government of Wales is especially heavy, and not without good reason 



> *Scrapped Covid rules could be brought back to allow Wales to have a "normal" Christmas, First Minister Mark Drakeford has warned.*
> New measures are already being brought in to tackle Wales' high Covid rates - the worst in the UK.
> Covid passes will be extended to cinemas, theatres and concert halls from 15 November as part of the plans.
> Pubs, restaurants and cafes might also require passes if infections climb, amid a "wider repertoire of actions".





> At Friday's coronavirus briefing, Mr Drakeford said about 2,000 cases of a new and possibly more transmissible form of the Delta variant have been identified in Wales.
> The infection rate in Wales is currently the highest it has ever been, Mr Drakeford added.





> "This is largely being driven by very high levels of infections in younger people and among family members and close contacts at home," he said.
> "Mistakes at a private laboratory in England, which resulted in thousands of people wrongly being told their tests were negative may have further fuelled the growth in cases in south east Wales, where rates are highest."
> He added: "All this means the pandemic is far from over."



This scenario also provide new opportunities to further note the absurdities of state systems and their labels. Being at 'alert level zero' when hitting record breaking numbers is quite the spectacle.



> "We need to take more action now to strengthen the measures we have in place at alert level zero to prevent coronavirus spreading even further and more people falling seriously ill," said Mr Drakeford.
> "None of us wants to see a return to restrictions but if rates continue to rise, the cabinet will have no choice but to consider raising the alert level at the next review."











						Covid: Wales' restrictions could return to save Christmas
					

Cinemagoers will need Covid passes next month, but Mark Drakeford says he may have to go further.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 29, 2021)

"Bingo"  'save christmas' was the last buzzword on the diagonal for my bingo card !


----------



## teuchter (Oct 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> The ONS survey that leads to weekly headlines such as '1 in 50 people were estimated to have had Covid last week in England' is based on random population sampling. There is inevitably still bias because some people are more likely to agree to participate than others, but its still something useful.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Interesting to look at the numbers by age. It's clear that it's not people in their 20s and 30s I should be avoiding right now.



And this visualisation over time is quite good:





__





						Coronavirus (Covid-19) Infections by Age and Country
					





					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 30, 2021)

Some Covid booster doses brought forward
					

Care home residents are among those able to get their their Covid vaccine sooner.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Most people will still get their third dose of a coronavirus vaccine six months after their second.
> But a change in clinical guidelines in the UK means some - such as care home residents - will be able to get their next dose after a five month gap.
> The aim is to ensure more people's immune systems are topped up before winter.
> The concern is even small dips in vulnerable people's immunity will affect the NHS's ability to cope this winter.



Also contains this info:



> The government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) estimates the protection against needing hospital treatment for a Covid infection:
> 
> falls from 95% three months after getting the second doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca to 75% after six months
> falls from 99% three months after getting the second doses of Pfizer/BioNTech to 90% after six months



The SAGE document featuring this and other figures in various tables is here, from the batch of documents released a little over a week ago:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1029794/S1411_VEEP_Vaccine_Effectiveness_Table_.pdf
		


When it comes to deaths rather than hospitalisations, it says:



> For the AstraZeneca vaccine, less of a reduction in protetction is observed against mortality than against symptomatic disease and hospitalisation. At 0- 3 months protection is 95%, falling to 90% at 4-6 months and 80% for 6+ months. For Pfizer, effectiveness is estimates at 99%, 95% and 90% for the same periods. For Moderna data are not yet available. (New update) .



And its probably worth noting this detail too:



> Waning against severe disease, including hospitalisations and deaths, is much more limited and is most evident in older age groups and clinical risk groups from around 20 weeks following the second dose. For these groups, the actual level of protection is likely to be lower than the figures presented in the consensus VE table, which are for the population at large.


----------



## 2hats (Oct 30, 2021)

2hats said:


> Interestingly, studies are currently underway to investigate if vaccination then infection yields a similar "supercharged" hybrid immunity response as that arising from infection then vaccination.


Some initial data on this here. TLDR: yes, immunity appears to be boosted to degrees (though beware confounders, small sample size, insert usual preprint disclaimer).


----------



## Cat Fan (Oct 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Interesting to look at the numbers by age. It's clear that it's not people in their 20s and 30s I should be avoiding right now.
> 
> View attachment 294672
> 
> ...


Only if they are teachers. My friend who is a teacher is basically running a testing centre at his school because so many are testing positive.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 30, 2021)

> It's clear that it's not people in their 20s and 30s I should be avoiding right now



I wouldnt be too sure about those figures, its an age group that has less chance of being symptomatic and hence less likely to be getting a test


----------



## ddraig (Oct 30, 2021)

Fuckng positive LFT before event tonight!! :/
 off for proper test


----------



## Cat Fan (Oct 30, 2021)

I think it's the sweet spot of being recently Pfizer vaccinated, +less likely to come into contact with secondary school age children, where the virus is spreading fastest


----------



## teuchter (Oct 30, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> I think it's the sweet spot of being recently Pfizer vaccinated, +less likely to come into contact with secondary school age children, where the virus is spreading fastest


And possibly having had their own peak in infections a few months back.


----------



## elbows (Oct 30, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I wouldnt be too sure about those figures, its an age group that has less chance of being symptomatic and hence less likely to be getting a test


The data in question is based on random household sampling, so not having symptoms isnt a factor. The ONS get everyone in the participating households to take a test.

And via the more traditional testing route, plenty in that age group did show up very clearly some months ago. Numbers in that age group fell off a cliff once the Euros were over and they havent mounted a very strong comeback since.

However I would caution that even in the age groups which show lower rates in the ONS survey, that still translates to plenty of people. I havent done my graphs based on age groups of people testing positive via normal testing recently, but I will at some point in the next 2 or 3 days.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 30, 2021)

Thanks Elbows, yea the  Random testing regime means the figures have more validity than I was thinking


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 31, 2021)

2hats said:


> Some initial data on this here. TLDR: yes, immunity appears to be boosted to degrees (though beware confounders, small sample size, insert usual preprint disclaimer).


Just to make sure, I’m doing two shots/infection/two shots. Doubt there will be numbers for that.


----------



## Dogsauce (Oct 31, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Only if they are teachers. My friend who is a teacher is basically running a testing centre at his school because so many are testing positive.


My sister in law has just started doing supply work again after a few years off for childcare.

To me, people doing supply work at the moment in Covid-riddled schools are basically like those people they got to clear the debris off the roof at Chernobyl.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 31, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> My sister in law has just started doing supply work again after a few years off for childcare.
> 
> To me, people doing supply work at the moment in Covid-riddled schools are basically like those people they got to clear the debris off the roof at Chernobyl.


Without the high pay rates


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 31, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> My sister in law has just started doing supply work again after a few years off for childcare.
> 
> To me, people doing supply work at the moment in Covid-riddled schools are basically like those people they got to clear the debris off the roof at Chernobyl.



That'd be me then. Almost unbelievably, I haven't got sick yet. Which is lucky as I won't get paid if I do


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 31, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> That'd be me then. Almost unbelievably, I haven't got sick yet. Which is lucky as I won't get paid if I do


Very brave, I'm sure there's still work at Chernobyl if you need an alternative that includes sick pay/life insurance


----------



## zahir (Oct 31, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> That'd be me then. Almost unbelievably, I haven't got sick yet. Which is lucky as I won't get paid if I do


What's the guidance on staying off work if you have symptoms?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 31, 2021)

zahir said:


> What's the guidance on staying off work if you have symptoms?



Standard rules. I have to two rapid rests per week. But I work for an agency and get paid per day so no work, no pay. I might be able to get SSP of 35p a week or whatever but not sure about that as I exist in the hinterlands between 'employee' and 'contractor'.

E2a: as I've been at this agency less than three months I get no sick pay. Even if (when) I get sick as a direct result of working in an unsafe environment.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2021)

Just had my first direct experience of how completely useless the test and trace phone app is. 
A notification flashed up briefly on my phone which i think said i'd been exposed to someone on the 23rd who later tested positive . went to open the app and there's nothing there? no idea what on earth i'm supposed to do with that information which i got to glimpse for about 1 second and can find no sign of anywhere.  utterly useless what the fuck.


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just had my first direct experience of how completely useless the test and trace phone app is.
> A notification flashed up briefly on my phone which i think said i'd been exposed to someone on the 23rd who later tested positive . went to open the app and there's nothing there? no idea what on earth i'm supposed to do with that information which i got to glimpse for about 1 second and can find no sign of anywhere.  utterly useless what the fuck.



I had that ages ago and so did a few others. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s the google bit of the software not nhs iirc.


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2021)

Supine said:


> I had that ages ago and so did a few others. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s the google bit of the software not nhs iirc.


What does it mean am I supposed to do something? Was it a false notification?
23rd is over a week ago & it’s the day I went to (my very first) football match so I think I’m ok.


----------



## Supine (Oct 31, 2021)

bimble said:


> What does it mean am I supposed to do something? Was it a false notification?



Ignore it


----------



## ddraig (Oct 31, 2021)

ddraig said:


> Fuckng positive LFT before event tonight!! :/
> off for proper test


PCR positive too


----------



## Orang Utan (Oct 31, 2021)

ddraig said:


> PCR positive too


Oh no, hope it’s not too severe - are you feeling unwell?


----------



## ddraig (Oct 31, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Oh no, hope it’s not too severe - are you feeling unwell?


Thanks
Started feeling weird and achey on Tuesday at an event in early afternoon/evening. As it was an event with a range of people at in a building and we were preparing food myself and partner did LFT earlier that day which were both negative.
I then had a bit of a rough night, coughing, dry throat, temperature and sweating, partner didn't feel bad until the next day.
Both been rough but not too bad considering! Thanks to being double jabbed
Idiot mate not jabbed has been in bed for 12 days


----------



## bimble (Oct 31, 2021)

bimble said:


> This NHS test and trace ‘failed its main objective’, says spending watchdog
> 
> Says that *more than 60% of people who experienced covid symptoms never got tested.*
> That is a huge number.


Just an addendum to that figure, I haven't got the ZOE link but i saw this the other day, which matches the idea that we are twice as infected as the reported figures suggest .


eta i totally get why a lot of people would just not get tested, or wouldn't report their LF result even if they knew they had the covid.


----------



## nagapie (Oct 31, 2021)

Messages from two members of my team, one tested positive and one been told to isolate by track and trace. Neither vaccinated.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just an addendum to that figure, I haven't got the ZOE link but i saw this the other day, which matches the idea that we are twice as infected as the reported figures suggest .
> 
> 
> eta i totally get why a lot of people would just not get tested, or wouldn't report their LF result even if they knew they had the covid.



This is the mega brain that was so opposed to Johnson and in love with the EU she pimped the LibDems for ages, insisting that they would be able to win Kensington (with the end result of the vile ex-Tory Sam Gymaih taking just enough votes from Labour for the constituency to go blue again) and Uxbridge. 

It is possible she might be right in a stopped clock way, but someone who's so fucking thick to fall for yellow tory 'winning here' nonsense, not to mention all the other garbage her twitter feed it filled with, is someone who's claims need to be viewed with considerable suspicion.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> This is the mega brain that was so opposed to Johnson and in love with the EU she pimped the LibDems for ages, insisting that they would be able to win Kensington (with the end result of the vile ex-Tory Sam Gymaih taking just enough votes from Labour for the constituency to go blue again) and Uxbridge.
> 
> It is possible she might be right in a stopped clock way, but someone who's so fucking thick to fall for yellow tory 'winning here' nonsense, not to mention all the other garbage her twitter feed it filled with, is someone who's claims need to be viewed with considerable suspicion.


Err. Ok. 
I have no idea who she is tbh, I only saw it cos of someone I do ‘follow’ replying. You are funny. Maybe she’s lying about the content of the Zoe email but I don’t think so .


----------



## kabbes (Nov 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> .
> I have no idea who she is tbh,


She’s of those comedian-actors about whom you wonder how they can possibly keep going, given that they only get an acting job once in a blue moon, they pretty much never get a gig on the panel show circuit, and if they tour, they apparently do so completely invisibly.

She actually tried to stand for the Lib Dems in the last election, to run against Michael Gove (which is an adjacent ward to mine). She couldn’t even win the Lib Dem nomination, though, let alone the seat.


----------



## bimble (Nov 1, 2021)

Well she sounds like a thoroughly ridiculous person.
It’s true tho that the zoe website (just had a quick look) is estimating total daily cases as well over double the official (known tested & reported positive) cases. Which makes sense & shouldn’t be a surprise.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 1, 2021)

She's talking nonsense is she not? The Zoe estimate (about 1.2 million) is about the same as the infection survey estimate.

I assumed she's mixing it up with reported cases or something but that doesn't seem to fit the numbers.

If there's a significant difference, it's that the Zoe estimate doesn't seem to show any signs of a peak and decline yet.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 1, 2021)

Is it the difference between  the rate of new cases and the actual amount of present cases not yet recovered?, the former could reduce but not by enough to stop the latter increasing still


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 1, 2021)

All that not counting it the second time you catch it malarky? That has to skew the figures downwards from where the actual case numbers are.

Wonder how many people have caught it 3 times or more?


----------



## elbows (Nov 1, 2021)

Well cases that were reinfections are excluded from the headline daily numbers, but they might be present in other forms of surveillance.

Also as of early October they'd only detected 57,195 possible reinfections in total, so a small number compared to the number of first infections detected via the testing system. ( https://assets.publishing.service.g...029418/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w43.pdf ) Now of course the testing system is only picking up a fraction of actual cases, so take all these figures with a large pinch of salt, but there is nothing there to indicate that the picture is being massively distorted because of a lack of counting reinfections.


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 1, 2021)

Thank you elbows, your reading and understanding of these statistics is invaluable to us all here


----------



## elbows (Nov 1, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Is it the difference between  the rate of new cases and the actual amount of present cases not yet recovered?, the former could reduce but not by enough to stop the latter increasing still


There is a bit of a peak showing in their daily new cases graph but its still a bit early to make claims about what happens next.


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> She's talking nonsense is she not? The Zoe estimate (about 1.2 million) is about the same as the infection survey estimate.
> 
> I assumed she's mixing it up with reported cases or something but that doesn't seem to fit the numbers.
> 
> ...


Pandemic's going well then.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 1, 2021)

My brother's really fucking ill with it  He's on his 7th day now, and is having a horrible time.

He's triple fucking jabbed ffs.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 1, 2021)

bimble said:


> Err. Ok.
> I have no idea who she is tbh, I only saw it cos of someone I do ‘follow’ replying. You are funny. Maybe she’s lying about the content of the Zoe email but I don’t think so .


Funny because I think people might actually want to consider the sources they reposting stuff from. Yeah how _funny_,

(Incidentally Kennedy has been a member of the LibDems since 2010 so supported the coalition government and austerity


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 1, 2021)

Still awaiting today's [1/11/2021] figures on the dashboard.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 1, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Still awaiting today's [1/11/2021] figures on the dashboard.



It's been updated now.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 1, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's been updated now.


yup, at just about the same time I posted on here !
the first 'delay' warming said 5pm, that was changed to 6pm and it eventually appeared at 18:20.

the beeb interpretation page update is still awol at 20:10, though.
[possibly because the data delay today was related to the death totals].

During the past few weeks there have several days with "data issues"


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2021)

Predictable.









						MPs told to wear masks in Parliament amid rising Covid cases
					

Tours of Parliament have also been cancelled as health body warns of greater risk of transmission.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> A parliamentary spokesperson said that "recent increases in Covid across the country… are also being reflected in Parliament".





> In a statement, a parliamentary spokesperson said their priority was "to ensure that those on the estate are safe".
> 
> "The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has determined that the risk of transmission on the Parliamentary Estate is now greater.
> 
> ...


----------



## Cat Fan (Nov 2, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Messages from two members of my team, one tested positive and one been told to isolate by track and trace. Neither vaccinated.


Why did they decide not to get vaccinated, out of interest?


----------



## Cat Fan (Nov 2, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> This is the mega brain that was so opposed to Johnson and in love with the EU she pimped the LibDems for ages, insisting that they would be able to win Kensington (with the end result of the vile ex-Tory Sam Gymaih taking just enough votes from Labour for the constituency to go blue again) and Uxbridge.
> 
> It is possible she might be right in a stopped clock way, but someone who's so fucking thick to fall for yellow tory 'winning here' nonsense, not to mention all the other garbage her twitter feed it filled with, is someone who's claims need to be viewed with considerable suspicion.


Off topic, but Sam Gyimah resigned from a ministerial position on a point of principle because he saw the damage a no deal Brexit would do to his department (Science and Universities). I wouldn't throw around words like "vile", it takes a lot of courage to throw away a lucrative and prestigious career out of principle.

And furthermore it's debatable whether or not Labour would have won Kensington if the Lib Dems weren't there. Labour lost seats all over the country. Blame FPTP if you want.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Nov 2, 2021)

Tokyo down to single figures while the UK above 40K.

World beating!


----------



## andysays (Nov 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Predictable.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Whatever happened to Rees Mogg's convivial fraternal spirit?


----------



## bimble (Nov 2, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Funny because I think people might actually want to consider the sources they reposting stuff from. Yeah how _funny_,
> 
> (Incidentally Kennedy has been a member of the LibDems since 2010 so supported the coalition government and austerity


Yes, she sounds awful.
I understand she’s a terrible person. My post was just about how the numbers suggested by Zoe email she was talking about match perfectly to the thing the other day about 60% of people with symptoms not getting tested (or not reporting their test results).
But yes, should’ve taken the time to find the source of the email that the austerity comedienne person was talking about cos she is not in any way relevant to anything at all.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2021)

andysays said:


> Whatever happened to Rees Mogg's convivial fraternal spirit?


Some follow ups to that which I missed at the time:



> SNP Commons leader Pete Wishart said Conservative MPs are not immune from Covid-19, as he suggested they are “so convivial that several of them are now off having caught Covid”.
> 
> He said: “The Leader of the House should be thoroughly embarrassed about his ridiculous comments from businesses questions last week when he suggested that Tory MPs are protected from Covid because they have ‘a more convivial fraternal spirit’.
> 
> “It’s so convivial that several of them are now off having caught Covid, along with the leader of the Opposition and the chief whip of the Scottish National Party.





> But he noted Mr Rees-Mogg was not wearing a face masks and said “for goodness sake man, put it on, be the Leader of the House, not the libertarian of the House.”











						'I'm not spewing Covid': Rees-Mogg defends maskless Budget appearance | ITV News
					

The Commons Leader said he didn't need to wear a mask in a packed House of Commons as he has tested negative for coronavirus. | ITV National News




					www.itv.com


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 2, 2021)

andysays said:


> Whatever happened to Rees Mogg's convivial fraternal spirit?



Turns out all his fellow MPs think he's a cunt as well.


----------



## Smangus (Nov 2, 2021)

andysays said:


> Whatever happened to Rees Mogg's convivial fraternal spirit?


Hopefully it will kill the fucker.


----------



## Сarlin_Garfield (Nov 2, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Why did they decide not to get vaccinated, out of interest?


I am also interested in this topic. I would like to discuss. What do you think about this? If you make a vaccine, which one is the safest? Sorry for out


----------



## ddraig (Nov 2, 2021)




----------



## magneze (Nov 2, 2021)

Сarlin_Garfield said:


> I am also interested in this topic. I would like to discuss. What do you think about this? If you make a vaccine, which one is the safest? Sorry for out


I'd prefer to have a vaccine made by professionals rather than in someone's bathtub. HTH.


----------



## nagapie (Nov 2, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Why did they decide not to get vaccinated, out of interest?


Distrust of the vaccine.


----------



## redsquirrel (Nov 2, 2021)

Cat Fan said:


> Off topic, but Sam Gyimah resigned from a ministerial position on a point of principle because he saw the damage a no deal Brexit would do to his department (Science and Universities). I wouldn't throw around words like "vile", it takes a lot of courage to throw away a lucrative and prestigious career out of principle.
> 
> And furthermore it's debatable whether or not Labour would have won Kensington if the Lib Dems weren't there. Labour lost seats all over the country. Blame FPTP if you want.


What utter crap. The dead end of 'progressive' politics. Someone who endorsed years of attacks on the working class gets a pass, or even tributes, because he did not support Brexit. Vile is absolutely accurate to describe someone who repeatedly voted to push workers into poverty while enriching his class.

The anti-working class nature of the progressive alliance/die-hard remainiacs in full view again.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2021)

Hospital admissions/diagnoses for England are still fluctuating rather than continually rising:



But they are at levels which cause the number of covid patients in hospital beds to keep rising:


I will dig into admissions by age for England later.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2021)

Daily Covid hospital admissions/diagnoses by broad age group for England. A single set of data shown in three different ways like I've done previously.


----------



## Cat Fan (Nov 2, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Distrust of the vaccine.


That's a shame. It's easy to point to millions of people having had it and being completely fine, but I understand that not everyone feels like they can trust the government/NHS.


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2021)

No 10 concerned as 4.5 million eligible people fail to get Covid jab boosters
					

Downing Street fear hospitalisations and deaths among double-vaccinated could rise due to waning immunity




					www.theguardian.com
				






> No 10 is increasingly worried that hospitalisations and deaths among double-vaccinated people could rise due to waning immunity as an estimated 4.5 million people have failed to get their booster shots despite being eligible.
> 
> Downing Street sources told the Guardian that the gap between those eligible and those jabbed was too wide, ranking it as their major concern ahead of the winter months.



Not the first time we've heard of these concerns. They should have thought about this before indulging in reckless shit this summer that encouraged 'its all over' thinking. But painting it as 'their major concern' is in some ways more bullshit if its used to discourage thinking about all the other concerns, stuff that should be done as part of a sane attempt to genuinely learn to live with covid over winter and stand the best chance of coping. They deserve to have the 'learning to live with' rhetoric explode in their face, but the consequences far beyond government are not something I want to see.

Even if they hadnt made those mistakes this stuff would still be an issue now because we wouldnt expect booster uptake to match original uptake. Part of my thinking on that is that 2nd dose numbers never reached first dose numbers. Various things can be done to add some fresh impetus to matters, but on many fronts its hard to match the impetus to behave differently that exploded onto the scene when the pandemic arrived, or the initial vaccination impetus when vaccines first became available and people got their first opportunity to get vaccinated. Because not only has the initial shock worn off, but also the data doesnt have quite the same impact when it doesnt feature straightforward and rapid doublings of cases, hospitalisations and deaths in constant fashion leading straight up to harsh measures.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 3, 2021)

At work, I've only had to lightly remind a couple of the team to get their second vaccination. 
Most of us had to do some travelling to attend appointments ...
Apart from the anti-masker/vaxxer, who resigned in a huff, when told he needed to do one or the other [mask or jab] for the safety of the other people who work with him.

My [company] policy was to treat it as paid time [& the following day(s), but only a couple of them took more than the afternoon / morning of their jab days].

Apart from me [& my OH], there is only one person who is old enough to need a booster shot. There is a second guy that might qualify for one on medical grounds. The same policy will be applied as for the other two jabs.

I've also strongly suggested flu jags - and used the same policy of paid time to encourage them to take up the offers from their GP - although a couple went to their local pharmacy.


----------



## scalyboy (Nov 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> Part of my thinking on that is that 2nd dose numbers never reached first dose numbers.


I find this quite inexplicable; if someone understands the need to have the vaccine, why don't they get the second one? Over 4 million fewer people have had the second than have had the first... 

They can't be anti-vaxxers otherwise they wouldn't have had the first jab, right?
And although there've been a small number of bad reactions, surely not so many as would discourage 4 million people?

Unless these 4 million simply can't be arsed to go to the vaccine centre/clinic/pharmacy? 

Or they think that all they need is the first one...?

Total – first dose
50,025,020
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk​Total – second dose
45,731,565

Quite honestly baffled by this...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 3, 2021)

scalyboy said:


> I find this quite inexplicable; if someone understands the need to have the vaccine, why don't they get the second one? Over 4 million fewer people have had the second than have had the first...
> 
> They can't be anti-vaxxers otherwise they wouldn't have had the first jab, right?
> And although there've been a small number of bad reactions, surely not so many as would discourage 4 million people?
> ...



IIRC it's 8 weeks between 1st & 2nd jabs, so some more will probably get theirs soon, also some are probably in the 12-15 age group, who are only getting one jab ATM.


----------



## LDC (Nov 3, 2021)

scalyboy said:


> I find this quite inexplicable; if someone understands the need to have the vaccine, why don't they get the second one? Over 4 million fewer people have had the second than have had the first...
> 
> They can't be anti-vaxxers otherwise they wouldn't have had the first jab, right?
> And although there've been a small number of bad reactions, surely not so many as would discourage 4 million people?
> ...



Mix of can't be arsed, forgot, and whole load of other stuff.

I know someone that got the first (slightly reluctantly) then had a few weeks of being tired (much more related to their life at the time I think) and then used that as excuse to themselves not to have the second as they felt like they'd get that again. I think they do admit it's more complicated than that at heart though.


----------



## iona (Nov 3, 2021)

scalyboy said:


> I find this quite inexplicable; if someone understands the need to have the vaccine, why don't they get the second one? Over 4 million fewer people have had the second than have had the first...
> 
> They can't be anti-vaxxers otherwise they wouldn't have had the first jab, right?
> And although there've been a small number of bad reactions, surely not so many as would discourage 4 million people?
> ...


Only recently got their first jab / haven't got round to it yet / feel like the first jab will at least provide some degree of protection so getting the second one is less urgent...

The NHS system thought I'd only had one jab when I went for my booster, so that's 6000-odd supposedly single-jabbed people accounted for if they've recorded everyone else on the vaccine trial I'm on the same way.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> IIRC it's 8 weeks between 1st & 2nd jabs, so some more will probably get theirs soon, also some are probably in the 12-15 age group, who are only getting one jab ATM.


Yes I would start by looking at age-based figures, eg stuff like this from the weekly surveillance reports:









						National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports: 2021 to 2022 season
					

National influenza and COVID-19 report, monitoring COVID-19 activity, seasonal flu and other seasonal respiratory illnesses.




					www.gov.uk
				






Also includes this which gives a picture of vaccination uptake by ethnicity in the over 50s.


By the way the official UK dashboard now shows booster and 3rd doses.









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 3, 2021)

Part of the reason behind there being a lag between the first two doses is the number of weeks between them ...
Also, there was such a huge push to get the first jabs done that all sorts of places were used, and some of those places were not available for the second jab.
For example, my first jab was at a hub in a nearby market town - this was a primary care centre [two or three GP practices share the building] staffed by Drs and practice nurses from the local area. 
This hub had been discontinued as a mass centre and the extra staff dispersed after reaching it's first jab allocation.
So, my second jab was at my GPs, although administered by a retired Dr, specially re-activated to do vaxxing [covid & flu & so-on].


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2021)

scalyboy said:


> And although there've been a small number of bad reactions, surely not so many as would discourage 4 million people?


The astrazenica blood clots and deaths didnt help, but yes it wouldnt likely account for millions being put off, but could still have significant impact. Thats probably one of the reasons they've not gone for AZ vaccines as booster shots, so as not to further put people off. There are probably other reasons too though, which could include supply issues and vaccine effectiveness, especially once waning is factored in.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2021)

Other reasons for gap between number getting first doses and number getting second doses include some people dying in the meantime, and I expect some people were also put off if they felt crummy after receiving their first dose. But I'm not claiming these factors would account for really large differences.

Anyway I see they have wheeled Van-Tam out today to try to undo some of the 'its all over' thinking.



> *"Very high" coronavirus rates in the UK at present mean there are hard months to come, England's deputy chief medical officer has warned. *
> Prof Jonathan Van-Tam told the BBC it was a concern that Covid levels were "running this hot, this early in the autumn season".
> He said too many people believed the pandemic was now over.
> Christmas and the winter months are "potentially going to be problematic", Prof Van-Tam warned.











						Covid: Hard months to come in pandemic for UK, says Van-Tam
					

Too many people believe the pandemic is over, England's deputy chief medical officer warns.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## teuchter (Nov 3, 2021)

There's probably quite a few people who are sort of ambivalent and are neither worried about their risk of illness nor worried about the jabs, got the first dose when rates were high and thought "might as well", then by the time their 2nd one came around the perception was "it's all over now" so they just didn't bother.


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2021)

Following on from the previous data I published, from the same weekly surveillance report source we could also use these pyramids to look at the differences between men and women.



I suppose another factor to consider is those who caught the virus some time after their first dose but before their second. Some of those people probably figure they've ended up with protection via infection so they dont need to bother with subsequent jabs, or became defeatist.

The impetus to get vaccinated to protect others may also have diminished in some minds once it became clear that protection against infection and transmission is not close to 100%.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 3, 2021)

Vax take-up rates are definitely complex, with many factors affecting people's decisions to accept their jabs.

Those national scale figures will also disguise local (and not so local) regional variations.

My local area has just topped 90% again [ as that now includes the over 12s ] for the first dose ...


----------



## Elpenor (Nov 3, 2021)

scalyboy said:


> I find this quite inexplicable; if someone understands the need to have the vaccine, why don't they get the second one? Over 4 million fewer people have had the second than have had the first...
> 
> They can't be anti-vaxxers otherwise they wouldn't have had the first jab, right?
> And although there've been a small number of bad reactions, surely not so many as would discourage 4 million people?
> ...



Topcat probably accounts for a few thousand of the differences


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 3, 2021)

Meanwhile, a member of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which provides advice to the government, said


> If infection rates and hospitalisations went down it would be "very encouraging", but if they started going up it would be "a different situation completely".




Thank Fuck we have these highly paid knowledgeable experts to explain this shit


----------



## elbows (Nov 3, 2021)

I like Shaun Lintern, especially when he is not impressed by the summer situation and bullshit framing.


----------



## iona (Nov 3, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> Topcat probably accounts for a few thousand of the differences


Topcat's vaccine info probably has its own separate database spreadsheet by now


----------



## existentialist (Nov 3, 2021)

iona said:


> Topcat's vaccine info probably has its own separate database spreadsheet by now


It might run out of rows


----------



## 2hats (Nov 4, 2021)

Surprise! Imperial REACT reports highest prevalence yet seen. Mainly driven by schoolchildren.








						REACT study records highest coronavirus prevalence yet | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

New data from the Imperial-led REACT coronavirus monitoring programme reveal the highest number of infections since the study began in May 2020.




					www.imperial.ac.uk
				





> The prevalence rose across ages and in almost all regions from September to October 2021, with infections estimated to have been highest on 19/20 October, consistent with Pillar 2 testing data. However, the latest data show a recent fall with a reproduction number (R) below 1. *This is similar to the pattern of infections observed this time last year when infections dropped at half term, after which they rapidly grew again. However at the time, the prevalence of infection was lower than current rates, at 1.30%.*


----------



## zahir (Nov 4, 2021)

Thread from Deepti Gurdasani


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 4, 2021)

Yeah, that's not a surprise. 
When OH was teaching full-time, the two weeks after half-term always seemed to be peak cold/flu season.

Taking this drop in cases over half-term as the calm before the storm ...

I'm hoping for my booster in a couple or three of weeks, so until that's in my arm and my system has responded, I'm taking things very, very carefully.


----------



## rubbershoes (Nov 4, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> What utter crap. The dead end of 'progressive' politics. Someone who endorsed years of attacks on the working class gets a pass, or even tributes, because he did not support Brexit. Vile is absolutely accurate to describe someone who repeatedly voted to push workers into poverty while enriching his class.
> 
> The anti-working class nature of the progressive alliance/die-hard remainiacs in full view again.



Er.. wrong thread


----------



## elbows (Nov 4, 2021)

I've put this sort of data in my posts before, because I was unhappy that the media were mostly focussing only on the unvaccinated.

Latest deaths in recent weeks by vaccine status: (from https://assets.publishing.service.g...31157/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-44.pdf )



Anyway now that there is focus on not enough people getting boosters, it is no surprise to suddenly see the media paying attention to this sort of data, eg:



> With life slowly returning to normal in the UK, and most restrictions lifted, here are some statistics that might seem surprising.
> 
> Over the last month, 4,409 people over 50 were admitted to English hospitals after testing positive for Covid - despite having two doses of a vaccine. And 2,148 men and women in that age group lost their lives.











						Will complacency damage Covid booster rollout?
					

Millions of over-50s and others have had a third jab - but could they have been rolled out more quickly?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Those stats should not actually be surprising but I'm sure they are to people who had been relying on the media to paint the picture.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 5, 2021)

This weeks Zoe video from Tim Spector is suggesting we are past the peak of the latest wave and suggests this was the last peak of 2021.



Good news I suppose but deaths and hospitalisations are still high.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 5, 2021)

Actually, I think this dip in cases, and hospitalisations and deaths, is probably a temporary artefact of schools being on half-term. Especially as the autumn half-term in schools can be spread out over several weeks.   

eg Scottish schools - pupils off 8th to 19th October.
vs
NE England [Durham, Gateshead & Newcastle] - broke up 22nd October & go back on 1st November.

These are the official LEA dates, but "INSET", occasional days and being an academy or a private school that has freedom to set their own holidays can alter the dates. Some years Gateshead & Newcastle use non-overlapping but adjacent weeks.

I am fully expecting the cases to stay at the currently unacceptable high level, and possibly get a lot worse once the "half-term affect wears off ...

Unless the number of the various vaccinations increases significantly. [I hope the aim is for at least 90% double jabbed, plus the booster/3rd jabs well before the winter solstice]


----------



## elbows (Nov 5, 2021)

Last time he did a good news video featuring happy predictions he then had to spend subsequent months making gloomy videos because he initially thought the arrival of Delta wouldnt even be a proper wave but rather 'only a ripple'. Not that people here ever seem to post his bad news videos, only the ones that predict good news that I then have to pick apart.

Anyway he isnt the only person suggesting that sort of picture is what will happen next. And what he said in that video is not as mind-numbingly stupid as his 'only a ripple video' from months ago. These predictions could turn out to be accurate, although I'm certainly not banking on it.

I suppose I'll have a quick and somewhat sloppy attempt to explain what probably lies behind such predictions, because the way that things have oscillated around for months means that we certainly cannot take a drop in cases for a short period to be a clear indicator on its own that things will keep going in that direction, especially when some of the drop is half-term related:

I suppose they are basing their opinions on some or all of the following assumptions about factors:

People being a bit more careful again since the mood music changed and the threat seemed more real again due to personally hearing of more people they know getting infected.
Holidays etc temporarily breaking the momentum of the virus in a way that it wont bounce back from straight away.
Better immunity picture due to millions of people already having caught the virus in recent months, removing themselves from the pool of potential new victims.
The booster programme.
Various modelling exercises seem to indicate a sustained drop coming if certain variables match what they fed into the models, but there is more variation when it comes to whether and when there will be another peak, eg over Christmas/New year.

Anyway like I said they might be right, but I can only be fully convinced by what actually happens, and I still need some more weeks before my own opinion starts to firm up on this as more real world data comes in after the half-term effect has had a full chance to wear off.


----------



## ddraig (Nov 5, 2021)

So my self isolation meant to be up tonight tomorrow but had a text from track and trace saying thanks for isolating until the 9th?!? Which is from date of PCR not symptoms


----------



## Elpenor (Nov 5, 2021)

You can now book your booster online once you are 5 months after your second jab. 
You can only book it for a date 6 months after jab 2 still.

Presumably England only. 






						Do you know your NHS number? - Book a coronavirus vaccination - NHS
					






					www.nhs.uk


----------



## RileyOBlimey (Nov 5, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> You can now book your booster online once you are 5 months after your second jab.
> You can only book it for a date 6 months after jab 2 still.
> 
> Presumably England only.
> ...



Cheers for that.


----------



## Mation (Nov 6, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> You can now book your booster online once you are 5 months after your second jab.
> You can only book it for a date 6 months after jab 2 still.
> 
> Presumably England only.
> ...


Thank you. I last checked yesterday, and was told I can't book yet. Then saw the BBC news item about it, saying it would be possible for me* to book from Monday. However, I just tried again, based on your post, and successfully booked for next week. 

* I'm an 'over-50', and will be 6-months post dose 2 in a couple of weeks.

E2a: my booked date is about a week shy of 6 months.


----------



## miss direct (Nov 6, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> You can now book your booster online once you are 5 months after your second jab.
> You can only book it for a date 6 months after jab 2 still.
> 
> Presumably England only.
> ...


Thank you very much for sharing that. I'm most likely going abroad early next year to work for a while and would really like to have had my booster.  I'll book as soon as the five months are up.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 6, 2021)

I was just about to post the booking link above.  I've just used it and managed to get a booster next Saturday, which is 3 or 4 days less than 6 months.  Can't wait to get it, as a boost to actual immunity but also to self confidence for going out and doing things.


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 6, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> You can now book your booster online once you are 5 months after your second jab.
> You can only book it for a date 6 months after jab 2 still.
> 
> Presumably England only.
> ...


Many thanks for that, I tried about a week ago and couldn’t proceed. Booked for 1 December, my second dose of AZ was on 23 May and I’m glad to get the booster before silly season at work (supermarket checkout) really kicks off with seasonal temps and students back for the holidays. The regular youngsters have been quickest to abandon their masks so it’ll be interesting to see if those returning for the first time since summer will still wear theirs. Customers often comment that mask use, in both staff and customers, and frequent cleaning, is noticeably better than at any other store in the area, which is good, but we are soon to follow the other stores and introduce cleaning stations for customers to do their own trolley and basket handles. We’re told that the Perspex screens at checkouts will remain at least until the end of the year, we hope they’re permanent!


----------



## Sunray (Nov 6, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Actually, I think this dip in cases, and hospitalisations and deaths, is probably a temporary artefact of schools being on half-term. Especially as the autumn half-term in schools can be spread out over several weeks.
> 
> eg Scottish schools - pupils off 8th to 19th October.
> vs
> ...


There is going to be a point where all the school children have had it, so immune, natural immunity lasts quite a while.
 Can't keep passing it around so expect it to start coming down.


----------



## elbows (Nov 6, 2021)

BBC articles about where we are at are a lot better when not written by Nick Triggle. And they seem to have been using him less for this sort of thing recently.

Its still a bit surreal seeing Woolhouse quotes that are sensible and cautious.









						Where are we at with Covid?
					

There is a constant stream of data around the virus - so where do we stand at the moment?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Nov 7, 2021)

Wales got there first in terms of using Christmas in their rhetoric, but I see Javid has now done the same.









						Covid: Ten million boosters now given in UK but more needed - PM
					

It is vital people get their "lifesaving" third jab to ensure protection in winter, Boris Johnson says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Includes some indication of why they are bothered by the current situation, in that the article says about 30% of over-80s havent had the booster.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 7, 2021)

That 30% of over 80s still to have their boosters would be doubly worrying if they had had AZ for their first two jabs.


----------



## Weller (Nov 7, 2021)

ok so not really sure right place but Im confused about self isolating rules now and not much help from arsey workplace  only been there 2 months
basicly last week picked up a "bug" bad chest  really bad cough last wednesday that was obv going around in workplace despite me wearing mask and keeping distance from idiots because already had a bad case of covid year ago home lateral l flow test was negative wed am  and  Im double jabbed 
Told owner  was getting worse so going home to get pcr  tested and self isolate ,  for family and workmates safety as well as my own as was near constant cough something I rarely get then left despite them being unhappy about what I thought was rules and right thing to do , thurs morning was much worse so didnt go out or get booked in for pcr test until sat morning , still rough now and coughing fits little energy  etc but have had negative nhs pcr  test back last hour , instructions are not clear on if i can now go out or when should  

Anyone help with confusing gov info and if I can or should  go out  or have to keep self isolating
workplace dont seem to care how many get ill but obv dont pay whilst off

Please feel free to move or delete if in wrong thread etc


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 7, 2021)

Covid has really cemented my hate for Christmas tbh.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 7, 2021)

As far as I can tell, the government's 'plan B' for COVID is no more than people who are being careful and are able to do are doing at the moment - wearing a mask in public indoor places and not going into work (which is what I'm doing). And those who aren't doing it are unlikely to start doing either again, I think there's just now a critical mass against even bothering - not actively 'not complying', just government messaging and enforcement is so laissez faire that people just... can't even.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 7, 2021)

Weller said:


> ok so not really sure right place but Im confused about self isolating rules now and not much help from arsey workplace  only been there 2 months
> basicly last week picked up a "bug" bad chest  really bad cough last wednesday that was obv going around in workplace despite me wearing mask and keeping distance from idiots because already had a bad case of covid year ago home lateral l flow test was negative wed am  and  Im double jabbed
> Told owner  was getting worse so going home to get pcr  tested and self isolate ,  for family and workmates safety as well as my own as was near constant cough something I rarely get then left despite them being unhappy about what I thought was rules and right thing to do , thurs morning was much worse so didnt go out or get booked in for pcr test until sat morning , still rough now and coughing fits little energy  etc but have had negative nhs pcr  test back last hour , instructions are not clear on if i can now go out or when should
> 
> ...


Pretty sure that the current UK rules are:
if double vaccinated you only need to self isolate after a positive PCR test


----------



## Mation (Nov 8, 2021)

Weller said:


> ok so not really sure right place but Im confused about self isolating rules now and not much help from arsey workplace  only been there 2 months
> basicly last week picked up a "bug" bad chest  really bad cough last wednesday that was obv going around in workplace despite me wearing mask and keeping distance from idiots because already had a bad case of covid year ago home lateral l flow test was negative wed am  and  Im double jabbed
> Told owner  was getting worse so going home to get pcr  tested and self isolate ,  for family and workmates safety as well as my own as was near constant cough something I rarely get then left despite them being unhappy about what I thought was rules and right thing to do , thurs morning was much worse so didnt go out or get booked in for pcr test until sat morning , still rough now and coughing fits little energy  etc but have had negative nhs pcr  test back last hour , instructions are not clear on if i can now go out or when should
> 
> ...








						[Withdrawn] [Withdrawn] Stay at home: guidance for households with possible or confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) infection
					






					www.gov.uk
				





> *If you have a negative COVID-19 PCR test result after being tested because you had symptoms*
> 
> If your PCR test result is negative but you still have symptoms, you may have another viral illness such as a cold, flu or a stomach bug. You should stay at home until you feel well and for at least 2 more days if you have had diarrhoea or vomiting. Seek medical attention if you are concerned about your symptoms.
> 
> ...


That says keep isolating if you're still unwell, even after a negative PCR test.


----------



## elbows (Nov 8, 2021)

I dont have a HSJ subscription so I cant actually read these articles but I felt the need to post the headlines anyway.









						‘This is far worse than January – the vaccine hasn’t saved us this time’
					

"We should all be rated inadequate." The call HSJ received on Sunday lunchtime from one of the most respected chief executives in the NHS carried an air of desperation.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				












						Leaked recording of ‘scared’ CEO says major hospital ‘ceasing to function’
					

The chief executive of a major teaching trust has told an internal meeting he is 'anxious and scared' that its main acute site is under so much pressure it 'is ceasing to function as a hospital'.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (Nov 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont have a HSJ subscription so I cant actually read these articles but I felt the need to post the headlines anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Gimme a sec I'll try and c&p them.

E2a: Seems I only have access up to 2017. As you were.


----------



## IC3D (Nov 8, 2021)

From what Ive seen Belarus and turkey are working together to get rid of Kurdish people from Turkey there is zero chance of Isis being here. Turkish racsim and Belarusian political shenanigans to disrupt EU states


----------



## Mation (Nov 8, 2021)

IC3D said:


> From what Ive seen Belarus and turkey are working together to get rid of Kurdish people from Turkey there is zero chance of Isis being here. Turkish racsim and Belarusian political shenanigans to disrupt EU states


Wrong thread/not the one you intended?


----------



## 20Bees (Nov 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont have a HSJ subscription so I cant actually read these articles but I felt the need to post the headlines anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> ...











						Addenbrooke’s ‘ceasing to function as a hospital’ and may send patients to Birmingham or London, warns chief executive
					

Roland Sinker warned: ‘You’d have to be asleep to not realise the profound nature of the crisis we’re in.’



					www.cambridgeindependent.co.uk
				




I think that was on my local news


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 8, 2021)

Cambridge Independant headline said:
			
		

> Addenbrookes 'ceasing to function as a hospital' and may sent patients to Birmingham or London, warns chief executive



  

Addenbrookes is fucking enormous -- and 'New Addenbrookes' was relatively recently built, and is highly up-to-date and advanced!  
(Cambridge friends of my brother, work there ... )

That's a shocker ......


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 9, 2021)

Similar happening with the new built Grange Hospital near Cwmbran, opened ahead of schedule so they could justify closing departments in surrounding hospitals and hasnt been able to replace those lost services since opening as they dont have enough staff. My experience of a 12 hour wait was in may, it must be well broken by now


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 9, 2021)

Yet OH, who has a suspicious lump in the neck has just been in for the second set of tests [another ultrasound & biopsy of the smaller lump] to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.
Direct referral from GP to ENT, took less than 2 weeks for the appointment to do the first set of these tests.
This time it was as busy as the previous visit, if not more so, mainly with "internal" imaging requests. A few very ill people around.
It is the "clean" hospital ie non-covid and the masks/sanitiser/social distance rules were clearly still in place and 99% obeyed.

The only guy I saw without mask or lanyard was "in discussion" with [I think] a porter, who was offering a mask ...

edited (as _Russ_ pointed out) I meant with_*out*_ mask. I have a feeling this laptop wants to declare UDI.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 9, 2021)

> The only guy I saw with mask or lanyard was "in discussion" with [I think] a porter, who was offering a mask ...


Did you mean '_without_' a mask?


----------



## IC3D (Nov 9, 2021)

Tool wants vaccine mandate for NHS staff can't be arsed to wear a mask in a hospital.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 9, 2021)

His contempt for ordinary people is Blatant, how did we end up with this


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 9, 2021)

"democracy"


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 9, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Did you mean '_without_' a mask?


yeah,  I did, TY, see edit.


----------



## elbows (Nov 9, 2021)

Despite my high interest in hospital aquired infections, and the fact that figures like these do briefly pop up in the news a few times a year, I cant say I can remember right now what sort of figures for resulting deaths were given previously. Anyway here is the latest one, the timing of which seems designed to pour fuel on the flames of the compulsory NHS frontline vaccination policy agenda.









						Exclusive: 11,600 people caught Covid in hospital and died
					

‘Scandal’ comes as proposals for compulsory vaccinations for NHS staff look set to get green light




					www.telegraph.co.uk


----------



## sojourner (Nov 9, 2021)

Jesus. My brother's been signed off for another 10 days, a mate who was at Shirl's do on Saturday has tested positive, and now a big strong lad in work (double jabbed) has just been telling me he was hospitalised with it in October! It's breathing down my fucking neck here.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 9, 2021)

Well cases continues to drop, the 7-day average down by -14.8%, and hospital admissions down by -7.8%, and that's only up to 5th Nov., so hopefully has dropped even further since that date, and those drops should be reflected in the death rate soon, which is showing as being up +2.6%

Fingers crossed that this continues.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 9, 2021)

I suspect the drop in cases has three main causes :-
a) School's have just had the half-term break
b) Vaccinations are proceeding apace in many school areas, and hopefully some of the less hesitant of the refuseniks are getting done as well.
c) Boosters are starting to take affect.

But still not the time to be letting down your guard ...


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 9, 2021)

Presumably at some point the sheer number of people who have had it starts to affect the figures. I don't know if it's at that point but forty thousand cases a day, day after day, must start to have some sort of effect.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 9, 2021)

According to World-o-meter's site ...

UK's had/has 9,366,676 cases & 142,124 deaths, out of a population of 68,368,337 ...

I think it's more the affect of vaccinations.


----------



## elbows (Nov 9, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Presumably at some point the sheer number of people who have had it starts to affect the figures. I don't know if it's at that point but forty thousand cases a day, day after day, must start to have some sort of effect.


The number of susceptible people is affected by how many people caught the virus and the number of susceptible people is indeed one of the very major factors in basic epidemic modelling and the theory of waves.

So in some sense the sheer number of people who have had it has been affecting the picture since the very early days. Whether there is some magic threshold beyond which we see cases plummet in a sustained way is another question, one that is very much a part of the whole 'herd immunity' thing. And even if true herd immunity turns out to be an impossible goal, there are weaker versions of the same phenomenon which can still have some fairly notable affect on numbers but without bringing infections to a screeching halt.

Or another way to look at this is that in different age groups at different moments in this pandemic, the number of people already infected does cramp the viruses style. But maybe not enough for the virus to 'run out of fresh victims' but enough to stop the virus finding trice as many victims as a week or so before, hence providing a barrier against ever doubling case numbers.


----------



## elbows (Nov 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well cases continues to drop, the 7-day average down by -14.8%, and hospital admissions down by -7.8%, and that's only up to 5th Nov., so hopefully has dropped even further since that date, and those drops should be reflected in the death rate soon, which is showing as being up +2.6%
> 
> Fingers crossed that this continues.


As I always point out, daily hospitalisation figures for the whole of the UK lag behind a few more days due to some nations data lag such as Scotland. If you look at the numbers for admissions in England they go up to the 7th.

I still think I need another week or so's data before I get a proper look at whether falls are really sustained as opposed to being temporary. And often when I think I need one or two weeks data to tell it actually ends up being 3 or 4 weeks data. At least in this messy phase, where we cant make as many assumptions as we did when there were clearcut lockdown etc responses to guide our post-peak expectations. There have simply been far too many oscillators in the data and persistently high rates during this Delta wave for me to buy into confident predictions about the end of this wave until it shows up so much more clearly than it has come anywhere close to so far.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 10, 2021)

And now one of the (quite poorly) people that my fella cares for has tested positive. In fact, my fella tested him, cos he was coughing and has a fever already, and his lungs are in a right mess to begin with. Shite 

We're lat flowing like bastards and hoping for the best. At least the fella had his booster a couple of weeks ago.

Sorry to keep posting this stuff btw but it's just all around me at the moment and my anxiety is creeping up.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 10, 2021)

Post away - useful if sad to know


----------



## sojourner (Nov 10, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Post away - useful if sad to know


Thanks x


----------



## zora (Nov 10, 2021)

Yes, absolutely do post away, sojourner.
Very sorry that you are having to deal with the horrible feeling of covid closing in around you once more.  

Very good news that your fella had his booster though- that really should mahoosively increase the chances of him not contracting it and by extension of not passing it on to you. 
Are you eligible for your booster soon?


----------



## sojourner (Nov 10, 2021)

Thanks zora  x

Yeh, we're banking on that tbh, cos he's gonna continue caring for this chap. He's dependent on care, and only really trusts and is happy with my fella. 

Mid-December for the booster.


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 11, 2021)

https://twitter.com/i/events/1458733905729802242


----------



## glitch hiker (Nov 11, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Tool wants vaccine mandate for NHS staff can't be arsed to wear a mask in a hospital.


There could be a puddle of blood stained vomit on the floor and it still wouldn't be the worst thing on it. He don't care though.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 11, 2021)

ruffneck23 said:


> View attachment 296300
> 
> 
> 
> https://twitter.com/i/events/1458733905729802242


Good, maybe they'll finally do something about this


----------



## ruffneck23 (Nov 11, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Good, maybe they'll finally do something about this


Not so good for the dog though.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 11, 2021)

ruffneck23 said:


> Not so good for the dog though.


They could commission a statue to pay tribute to its brave sacrifice


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2021)

Its a misleading headline because there is no way its the first dog in the UK to catch Covid, its just the first one they've formally detected and then gone on about.

In terms of doing something about it, this country couldnt be bothered to deal with a variety of human-human vectors of transmission so the authorities arent likely to bother with anything on the human-animal or animal-human front unless it was demonstrated to be a main vector of transmission, and even then they would probably just shrug and offer meaningless reassurances.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 11, 2021)

Comments questioning if it can be transmitted to humans from animals completely baffle me, either you've not being attention or have really fucking short memories


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 11, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Comments questioning if it can be transmitted to humans from animals completely baffle me, either you've not being attention or have really fucking short memories


I think perhaps you have just mistaken a sardonic remark for an earnest one


----------



## kalidarkone (Nov 11, 2021)

I've been wondering why or how mdk1 have not managed to get covid despite me working in a patient facing role and mdk1 had been working in a tiny kitchen with young unvaccinated colleagues. This might be the answer?









						People testing negative for Covid-19 despite exposure may have ‘immune memory’
					

Study says some individuals clear virus rapidly due to a strong immune response from existing T-cells, meaning tests record negative result




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 11, 2021)

ruffneck23 said:


> View attachment 296300
> 
> 
> 
> https://twitter.com/i/events/1458733905729802242


Nope, definitely not the first; someone I know had a very poorly dog during the main 2020 Lockdown. They had it and then, just before they began to recover, the dog caught it [and they were both tested]. The local vets told me about it, because our dog had been 'friends' with the dog in question.


----------



## souljacker (Nov 11, 2021)

Our cat was poorly when me and the Mrs had it in January. Could have been covid, could have been a coincidence. Cats always seem to act weird around ill people anyway.


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> I've been wondering why or how mdk1 have not managed to get covid despite me working in a patient facing role and mdk1 had been working in a tiny kitchen with young unvaccinated colleagues. This might be the answer?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah Im no expert on these details but I've tended to assume that this and a few other things are why, when trying to judge new epidemics and pandemics, they never think the attack rate is going to be 100%.

And its one of the areas where I have traditionally been dismayed by our relative lack of understanding of the details. This pandemic has at least provided the opportunity and the impetus to learn more of the detail and test the theories with lots of real world data and via specific studies with no shortage of subjects.


----------



## elbows (Nov 11, 2021)

Another subscription article that I cant read but where the headline is probably enough for now anyway.









						NHS expecting covid negligence claims totalling over £800m
					

The NHS is expecting to receive compensation claims totalling over £800m over its handling of covid-19, HSJ can reveal.




					www.hsj.co.uk


----------



## bluescreen (Nov 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> Another subscription article that I cant read but where the headline is probably enough for now anyway.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I wish my first reaction wasn't 'Is that all?'


----------



## sojourner (Nov 11, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Our cat was poorly when me and the Mrs had it in January. Could have been covid, could have been a coincidence. Cats always seem to act weird around ill people anyway.


They generally 'look after' their owners when they're ill, I find.

They definitely DON'T like it when you're tripping


----------



## 2hats (Nov 11, 2021)

kalidarkone said:


> I've been wondering why or how mdk1 have not managed to get covid despite me working in a patient facing role and mdk1 had been working in a tiny kitchen with young unvaccinated colleagues. This might be the answer?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Second item, post #1376, vaccines thread.


----------



## 2hats (Nov 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its a misleading headline because there is no way its the first dog in the UK to catch Covid, its just the first one they've formally detected and then gone on about.
> 
> In terms of doing something about it, this country couldnt be bothered to deal with a variety of human-human vectors of transmission so the authorities arent likely to bother with anything on the human-animal or animal-human front unless it was demonstrated to be a main vector of transmission, and even then they would probably just shrug and offer meaningless reassurances.


There's little they can do bar watch anyway. It is very highly likely that SARS-CoV-2 zoonosis and reverse zoonosis has been underway for many months now (post #10152, worldwide thread) and over a range of mammalian species.


----------



## Dogsauce (Nov 11, 2021)

2hats said:


> There's little they can do bar watch anyway. It is very highly likely that SARS-CoV-2 zoonosis and reverse zoonosis has been underway for many months now (post #10152, worldwide thread) and over a range of mammalian species.


 
Any reported Covid bovids?


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 11, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Any reported Covid bovids?


They've been finding antibodies in Deer for some time, one study had 40% of the sample show positive

and yes I know they aren't cows just saying I bet its every-fuckin-where in many animals, this thing is a fucking nightmare


----------



## 2hats (Nov 11, 2021)

Post #9830, worldwide thread.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 11, 2021)

2hats said:


> Second item, post #1376, vaccines thread.


I nearly understood bits of that  

Do we know why they had stronger T-cells - because they'd actually half caught it but were asymptomatic, and the tests were after this?


----------



## 2hats (Nov 11, 2021)

two sheds said:


> I nearly understood bits of that
> 
> Do we know why they had stronger T-cells - because they'd actually half caught it but were asymptomatic, and the tests were after this?


Not stronger. Just cross-reactive populations of T cells possibly from earlier exposures to other human coronaviridae (a number of epitopes, eg in ORF1ab and S2, are preserved across that family) and perhaps associated with prior repeated occupational exposure to low viral loads.


----------



## elbows (Nov 13, 2021)

Personally I'm not so interesting in coming up with scenarios and then choosing which one I find more likely anymore, but I still thought this may be of interest. I also dont agree with framing things as 'when the public can forget about covid'.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 13, 2021)

Went to brunch at a very nice new local eatery, I note they've laid it out with a big window by the coffee machine, suspect that might be a deliberate hedge against lockdowns so they can easily maintain a takeaway service. I'd be interested to know what the impact has been on 'food and beverage' design - I'm guess a few places have been designed or redesigned now to allow for this.

For the first time in a while yesterday I was on a tube where the driver was taking a quite hard line about telling people who were able to to wear masks - got at least one person in our carriage to put his back on, so well done that driver. It would help if all drivers did this as apparently a lot of people still cannot be arsed until told to. 

I'm  at some people who are going 'Ooh look all these European country's infections are shooting up while ours are stabilising!'. Yeah, they're 'shooting up' to the levels our 'stablised' cases have been at for weeks from what I can tell. Not really anything to boast about.


----------



## Elpenor (Nov 13, 2021)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59273273
		


Speculation that under 50s could get a booster jab.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 13, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59273273
> 
> 
> 
> Speculation that under 50s could get a booster jab.


Well, as I understand it my vaccine will have lost its oomph some by some time in January, so it might make sense to boost the 40 somethings who will be vulnerable again in the middle of winter I suppose. I'll not be that bothered if they don't though.


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 13, 2021)

They're pinning it all on the vaccine and stoking hesitancy - I suppose they couldn't come out and admit that everyone needs to wear a mask and stay away from people for as long as it takes ..

Meanwhile, most of the world's inhabitants can't even get a first dose ...


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 13, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> They're pinning it all on the vaccine and stoking hesitancy - I suppose they couldn't come out and admit that everyone needs to wear a mask and stay away from people for as long as it takes ..



Well no, they couldn't. The current do nothing approach is terrible but indefinite social distancing isn't a viable policy is it.


----------



## elbows (Nov 13, 2021)

There is a difference between 'indefinite social distancing' and ending such measures prematurely. 'If not now then when?' was obvious bullshit at the time it was delivered.

Certainly, given the establishments default thoughts at the start included 'people wont be prepared to lockdown for very long', we would expect them to have low expectations as to how long such measures could be sustained after the first year of the pandemic. But this also becomes a convenient excuse to remove too many restrictions prematurely, even though its not hard to understand why authorities that rely on 'consent based policing' (ie not enough capacity or intent to actually proactively police) are wary of having rules in place that very few are following, undermining the very idea of authority and doing the right thing.

Given that people do get tired and desperate to move on, the compromises I would have been well prepared to make in regards my own stance on timing of easing restrictions would have been along the lines of letting people have a breather during certain seasons. But that should have been accompanied by a narrative grounded in basic reality, ie framing easings of restictions as something that could be done for a while in summer, but that people should not necessarily expect to last throughout seasons such as winter. Thats what many reasonable people end up deducing for themselves anyway, so I dont think we really needed the shitty merry-go-round which involved predictable timing of mood music changes, and stupid claims about measures being gotten rid of permanently. I dont think its good for mental health to string people along in the way they have, via unsustainable rhetoric.

In any case I expect the authorities still had their eyes on a slightly watered down variation of the 'herd immunity' prize and thats one of the reasons they were content to let over 5 million people test positive since June 1st 2021! Whether they crow about this probably depends on whether it does actually get the desired result over autumn and winter compared to whats happening in a bunch of other countries.


----------



## elbows (Nov 13, 2021)

And if long covid implcations turn out to be quite profound, I am unlikely to let 'we had to move on when we did!' shitheads and their pathetic justifications forget the fact that more people have tested positive in the UK since 1st June 2021 than did before that date! Although admittedly that statistic is flawed by the extreme lack of testing in the first wave.


----------



## Elpenor (Nov 13, 2021)

I’m still behaving as if everyone is covid. Mask everywhere, don’t go to anywhere inside except supermarket and chemist. No pubs / restaurants / cinema.

Occasionally go inside a friends house maskless. Can’t risk getting ill or long covid.


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 13, 2021)

I'm almost certain to turn down my sister if she plans an Xmas meal - though my 85 year old mother has already tested the waters by regularly baby-sitting her 8 year old great-grandchild ...
It will be misunderstood because my sister, like my mother, probably takes her advice from Boris Johnson.


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 13, 2021)

I have a feeling that it's a five year thing, we two year in


----------



## two sheds (Nov 13, 2021)

/orders more rum


----------



## zahir (Nov 14, 2021)

Proposal to end free PCR tests









						UK officials have compiled ‘Covid exit strategy’ from April – report
					

No 10 sources say ministers had not seen leaked plan to wind down testing and self-isolation




					www.theguardian.com
				





> The plan would involve the winding down of the Covid testing regime, which requires people to get a free test if they have any of the three main symptoms: cough, temperature and loss of smell or taste.
> 
> Testing would instead be paid for and left to the private marketplace, despite concerns about some of the companies offering tests. The Competition and Markets Authority are investigating a number of them over misleading claims.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Nov 14, 2021)

zahir said:


> Proposal to end free PCR tests



that will get (recorded) case numbers down dramatically...


----------



## xenon (Nov 14, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Went to brunch at a very nice new local eatery, I note they've laid it out with a big window by the coffee machine, suspect that might be a deliberate hedge against lockdowns so they can easily maintain a takeaway service. I'd be interested to know what the impact has been on 'food and beverage' design - I'm guess a few places have been designed or redesigned now to allow for this.
> 
> For the first time in a while yesterday I was on a tube where the driver was taking a quite hard line about telling people who were able to to wear masks - got at least one person in our carriage to put his back on, so well done that driver. It would help if all drivers did this as apparently a lot of people still cannot be arsed until told to.
> 
> I'm  at some people who are going 'Ooh look all these European country's infections are shooting up while ours are stabilising!'. Yeah, they're 'shooting up' to the levels our 'stablised' cases have been at for weeks from what I can tell. Not really anything to boast about.



Yesterday went to the cinema, first time since Jan last year. It was pretty busy in central  Bristol. Weather was mild. Lots of places have greatly increased their outside seating, or got some where before they didn't. A few streets still closed to traffic, except bikes to accommodate. I don't see that changing for a year or 2.

Went to a pub afterwards and a busy bar, which was the busiest place I've been on a person per square meter basis, in 2 years I reckon. And did think, ah, is this where I'll catch the 'rona and was a bit, 

But no known underlying health conditions, I live on my own and I'm not well suited to staying in all week. No judgement on anyone that is staying in, being extra cautious but I do resent this idea that people who are going out are ignorant or needlessly reckless.

Last para not aimed at you Cloo. Just a centiment that seems to be current.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2021)

Sky is waiting on a Downing Street briefing at around 9.30 am regarding covid & the booster roll-out.

Reports are suggesting boosters will now be rolled-out for at least the over 40s.


----------



## Elpenor (Nov 15, 2021)

Having just turned 40 and being shit scared of covid I welcome that news


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2021)

Just confirmed -

1 - those aged over 40 to be offered a booster jab.

2 - those aged 16 & 17 years to have 2nd dose at 12 weeks.


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 15, 2021)

I'm glad they're second dosing the kids.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2021)

Van-Tam quoting data from Israel, after their booster roll-out, there's been a 10 fold decrease in infection, a 18.7 fold reduction in hospital admissions, and 14.7 fold reduction in deaths, on top of the protection from two doses.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Van-Tam quoting data from Israel, after their booster roll-out, there's been a 10 fold decrease in infection, a 18.7 fold reduction in hospital admissions, and 14.7 fold reduction in deaths, on top of the protection from two doses.


Is that from an "already waned" baseline?
Presumably we have to wait and see how protection wanes again after the booster.


----------



## rubbershoes (Nov 15, 2021)

The infection rates in the South West have been much lower than in the rest of the country for almost all the time since March last year.

 But no longer. Devon is through the roof. It's currently running riot through the village with the primary school as a major vector. Both the pub and shop are closed at the moment


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 15, 2021)

rubbershoes said:


> The infection rates in the South West have been much lower than in the rest of the country for almost all the time since March last year.
> 
> But no longer. Devon is through the roof. It's currently running riot through the village with the primary school as a major vector. Both the pub and shop are closed at the moment


Sorry to hear that. Keep Safe !
But I've been saying all along that young kids & schools are a big vector, especially as they don't seem to show much in the way of symptoms.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 15, 2021)

I see that case numbers (measured nationally) seem to have returned to a fairly clear upward trend again, at the moment.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 15, 2021)

So far this week I’ve scrawled out a Shite rose QR code and a Where’s the Flu sticker.


Cunts.


----------



## editor (Nov 15, 2021)

Bloody hell. Look at the Netherlands!


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I see that case numbers (measured nationally) seem to have returned to a fairly clear upward trend again, at the moment.


Yes after being fed some stupidly simplistic narratives in recent weeks about how the pre-half term peak could be the last peak of 2021, we have now reached the time where that propaganda will be tested by real data.

I havent looked at cases by age for a bit, I suppose I will do so today or tomorrow. Perhaps when it comes to zooming in on detail in the data, there will still be mixed messages right now, or perhaps the trend will already be clear and relatively unambiguous, I dont know. I do know that the dynamics focussed on in this tweet someone linked to on the schools thread are of note:        #3,610


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2021)

editor said:


> Bloody hell. Look at the Netherlands!
> 
> View attachment 296910



It's even worst in some other European counties.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Van-Tam quoting data from Israel, after their booster roll-out, there's been a 10 fold decrease in infection, a 18.7 fold reduction in hospital admissions, and 14.7 fold reduction in deaths, on top of the protection from two doses.


Shame our establishment couldnt be arsed to do any of the other non-vaccine stuff Israel felt compelled to do when they started having trouble from the Delta variant.

Sounds like there will be a Johnson, Whitty & Vallance press conference at 3pm (unless schedule slips) which I expect will underline todays vaccine announcement details, continue the 'winter is coming, lets save Christmas' mood music and whatever the press decide to focus on.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 15, 2021)

Yeah, looking at my very local patch, the "half-term" affect has already worn off with cases again rising slightly.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 15, 2021)

Although the over 93% protection against hospitalisation two weeks after the booster quoted below is an improvement over the waning immunity, particularly for those who got AZ ...









						Boosters give over 90% protection against symptomatic COVID-19 in adults over 50
					

Results from first UK real-world study by UKHSA show significantly increased protection against symptomatic disease from Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine booster dose in those aged 50 and above.




					www.gov.uk
				




They are still expecting the boosted vaccinations to do the heavy lifting & protect the nhs this winter ...


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2021)

In addition to whatever real effects the boosters have, the establishment loves them because they can focus on those instead of all the other things that should be done. They can be seen to be doing something and can build a rhetorical wall, and they give the public a sense that individuals have done their bit for the effort by simply getting the booster. Even if it isnt enough and they eventually have to go further, it buys them time, it slows down the debate and keeps things in a holding pattern.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2021)

Plus the whole 'plan a' and 'plan b' rhetoric seems to serve a similar purpose. In that Johnson was doing his 'nothing in the data that suggests we need to do plan B now' routine again today, a very tidy way of not getting into any of the specifics and turning what should be a more nuanced picture and all manner of choices into a binary choice between two options. One of which everyone knows the government are very keen to avoid unless we go so far into the danger zone that key parts of the system are facing impending doom of the highest order. This makes a complete mockery of the timing considerations and public health consequences that should actually inform such decisions.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 15, 2021)

nail on head by elbows ...

This reliance on boosters while ignoring measures like masks & social distancing annoys the stuffing out of me.

I don't think that boosters alone can really cut the mustard over the coming winter, but the reluctance to invoke anything else, like "plan B" in case they can't "save christmas" is worrying ... and people are dying.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2021)

Im watching the press conference. This reboot of Wanes World isnt very good.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2021)

lol Whitty says 'people can slightly over-interpret slight upturns and downturns'.

Yes there certainly has been plenty of propaganda on that front recently.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2021)

Whitty also emphasises the need for pregnant women to get vaccinated, as he should.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2021)

First question from the media, Fergus from the BBC, straight into talk of Christmas lockdown and do we need to do anything other than boosters to prevent that?

Totally within Johnsons comfort zone, and he just answers using the well-worn 'I see nothing in the data that requires further measures now' shit.


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2021)

And now an interestingly mixed question 'have we been complacent with boosters, closing vaccine centres etc, and should we be prepared for war with Russia?'


----------



## elbows (Nov 15, 2021)

lol someone asked the scum Johnson about his failure to wear masks in some settings where people might be expected to wear them.

'I wear a mask wherever the rules say I should'. 'People will have seen me wearing face coverings quite a bit more recently as we've seen numbers ticking up in the uk'.

Talk about number ticking up recently and the threat of a new wave arriving from Europe are quite surreal to me given the very high sustained rates of covid we've been enduring for many months. We've already got a prolonged wave!

And its all over - short, rushed, pathetic.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 15, 2021)

Quite glad about the boosters as otherwise mine would be due to 'run out of juice' late Jan, and  my husband's a few weeks before, which is not ideal slap-bang in the middle of winter virus months.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> 'I wear a mask wherever the rules say I should'.



That's just bollocks isn't it - I wouldn't even try to go into a hospital without a mask on.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 15, 2021)

two sheds said:


> That's just bollocks isn't it - I wouldn't even try to go into a hospital without a mask on.



Yup, it's bollocks. A convenient LIE (what else to we expect from de piffel ...)

OH and I went into one of the Newcastle hospitals a couple of week ago.
At the entrance, there was a HUGE banner and notices all over saying remember "FACE : HANDS : SPACE"
And plenty of reminders to use hand sanitiser ...
Plus one of the Hospital Guild of Friends (a sweet elderly lady !) was handing out masks and dollops of hand sanitiser to all and sundry on the way past her seat.


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 15, 2021)

two sheds said:


> That's just bollocks isn't it - I wouldn't even try to go into a hospital without a mask on.


Literally bare faced lying cheek of the cunt

It does take a very special class of cunt to go into a hospital without a mask at the moment


----------



## magneze (Nov 15, 2021)

Is the booster always Pfizer?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 15, 2021)

magneze said:


> Is the booster always Pfizer?



It should be a mRNA vaccine, so that or Moderna, but not AZ.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 15, 2021)

so with nanobots


----------



## Sue (Nov 15, 2021)

two sheds said:


> That's just bollocks isn't it - I wouldn't even try to go into a hospital without a mask on.


I was at my local hospital earlier as it happens. They've signs up everywhere telling people to wear masks and are still checking/handing them out at the entrance. I didn't see anyone without one. And there's hand sanitiser everywhere.


----------



## Sunray (Nov 16, 2021)

Heard immunity has been discarded. The CDC have changed their tune.  Was 70%, then 80% then 90%, now, oh well.
ONS are saying 90%+ of people in the UK have antibodies so we should have hit heard immunity by now. ONS stats

Clearly not there, I'm guessing never will be.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Nov 16, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Heard immunity has been discarded. The CDC have changed their tune.  Was 70%, then 80% then 90%, now, oh well.
> ONS are saying 90%+ of people in the UK have antibodies so we should have hit heard immunity by now. ONS stats
> 
> Clearly not there, I'm guessing never will be.



Until we have an effective vaccine, this plague is going to grind on.

I would think that such a vaccine will be with us within a year.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 16, 2021)

Has Sasaferrato's post time-travelled from 18 months ago


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Has Sasaferrato's post time-travelled from 18 months ago


More likely just variations of opinion about what really counts as 'effective vaccine'.

The current vaccines enabled much less action to be taken against the virus in other ways, its just the UK pushed this to extremes and encouraged overly simplistic thinking. Well I say UK, England was especially bad, though I'm still not going to give a gold star to the other UK nations.

I still think its better not to think about this in terms of 'the virus going away' but rather the ramifications of the virus gradually changing due to an increasingly complex picture involving a mix of immunity through infection, repeated vaccination, increase in available treatments etc etc.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Nov 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It should be a mRNA vaccine, so that or Moderna, but not AZ.


We had Pfizer first, then a Moderna booster.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Nov 16, 2021)

N


teuchter said:


> Has Sasaferrato's post time-travelled from 18 months ago


No, just the hope.


----------



## editor (Nov 16, 2021)

I'm going for my booster tomorrow. Can't bloody wait.


----------



## elbows (Nov 16, 2021)

7 day averages for positive cases by specimen date for England, with a couple of the most recent days chopped off since those figures arent complete yet.


----------



## stdP (Nov 16, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Heard immunity has been discarded. The CDC have changed their tune.  Was 70%, then 80% then 90%, now, oh well.
> ONS are saying 90%+ of people in the UK have antibodies so we should have hit heard immunity by now. ONS stats
> 
> Clearly not there, I'm guessing never will be.



Welcome to the new high-kill, high-rage economy.


----------



## Sunray (Nov 17, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Until we have an effective vaccine, this plague is going to grind on.
> 
> I would think that such a vaccine will be with us within a year.


Odd.

Remember that vaccines don't prevent infection , you do.   
What your asking for is a more effective immune system.
Are you perfect, and therefore is your immune system? No. So what your asking for may or also may not be possible.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Nov 17, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Odd.
> 
> Remember that vaccines don't prevent infection , you do.
> What your asking for is a more effective immune system.
> Are you perfect, and therefore is your immune system? No. So what your asking for may or also may not be possible.



In which case, why is it possible for polio, smallpox and diphtheria?

I think you have the wrong end of the stick, vaccines enable the body to make antibodies, and to remember the intruder, so if it comes again, antibodies can be manufactured in quantity.

Measles infection _generally_ gives lifelong immunity, you are also unlikely to have had the same cold twice. A lot of immunity is by exposure to things like the cold, societies which have not had contact with those illnesses are hit very hard if they are introduced.

To say vaccines don't prevent infection is not accurate, they don't in themselves, but the antibody stimulus they engender does.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 17, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> In which case, why is it possible for polio, smallpox and diphtheria?
> 
> I think you have the wrong end of the stick, vaccines enable the body to make antibodies, and to remember the intruder, so if it comes again, antibodies can be manufactured in quantity.
> 
> ...


All this. And there is precedent for vaccines which need to be "topped up" - tetanus being one obvious example, not counting 'flu, which is more about the variety of strains of 'flu out there, and their tendency - like Covid - to mutate, and, at least in the case of 'flu viruses, "escape" the protection of the vaccine by failing to trigger an immune response.

It's odd how so many people think as if the whole world of vaccine development is something that only just happened...


----------



## Supine (Nov 17, 2021)

A minority of vaccines exhibit sterilising behaviour. Most need top ups or periodic tweaks.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Nov 17, 2021)

existentialist said:


> All this. And there is precedent for vaccines which need to be "topped up" - tetanus being one obvious example, not counting 'flu, which is more about the variety of strains of 'flu out there, and their tendency - like Covid - to mutate, and, at least in the case of 'flu viruses, "escape" the protection of the vaccine by failing to trigger an immune response.
> 
> It's odd how so many people think as if the whole world of vaccine development is something that only just happened...



Yep, tetanus, BCG, TABT... Yellow Fever however is now recognised as a one off. (one of or one off?)


----------



## existentialist (Nov 17, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Yep, tetanus, BCG, TABT... Yellow Fever however is now recognised as a one off. (one of or one off?)


The latter...


----------



## Sasaferrato (Nov 17, 2021)

existentialist said:


> The latter...



Ta. It's one of those ones, when you look at it, you think 'Is that right?'


----------



## existentialist (Nov 17, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Ta. It's one of those ones, when you look at it, you think 'Is that right?'


Since my stroke (TIA), I have those moments, too, now


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 17, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> Ta. It's one of those ones, when you look at it, you think 'Is that right?'


I get those all the time, 
I really can't spell some words I hear, if I have never seen them written before.
Which makes me wonder if I am actually dyslexic.


----------



## elbows (Nov 18, 2021)

Hospital infection control in the news as a result of a specific case in Scotland. A lot of the story is about a fungal infection but covid is a big part of it too.









						Widow demands answers over Covid official Andrew Slorance's death
					

Top civil servant Andrew Slorance was treated for an undisclosed infection at a troubled hospital.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 18, 2021)

The new 'Delta+ variant' appears to be even more infectious than the original Delta variant, and now accounts for over 1 in 10 cases in the UK, according to the latest REACT study, that's the bad news.

On the plus side it appears to be less likely to cause symptoms.



> A mutation of the Covid-19 Delta variant which has been found to be more infectious is now responsible for one in 10 Covid cases in England.
> 
> The latest results from a REACT-1 study by Imperial University found that the AY.4.2 variant, which is more infectious but less likely to cause symptoms, is growing at a rate of 2.8 per cent a day.
> 
> Tests carried out between 19 October and 5 November on more than 100,000 people in England showed that 11.8 per cent carried the variant.





> However, the data showed only a third of those with the AY.4.2 variant had the common Covid symptoms of fever, persistent cough or a loss or change in taste or smell compared to 46 per cent of people with the original form of the Delta variant.
> 
> They were also less likely to show any other symptoms.











						More infectious Delta variant accounts for one in 10 Covid cases
					

Tests on more than 100,000 people in England showed that 11.8 per cent carried the variant




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Nov 18, 2021)

Lack of symptoms isnt all good news, probably helps it spread undetected.


----------



## Sunray (Nov 19, 2021)

I've read that


editor said:


> I'm going for my booster tomorrow. Can't bloody wait.



I've seen quite a few people now stating fully vaccinated is now three doses.  
Looking at Israel, its really worked well so everyone should prepare to get it when offered.


----------



## Smangus (Nov 19, 2021)

Getting mine today, quite efficiently called up by text


----------



## sojourner (Nov 19, 2021)

Made an appointment for my booster today - will be bang on 6 months after my last vac


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 19, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Getting mine today, quite efficiently called up by text





sojourner said:


> Made an appointment for my booster today - will be bang on 6 months after my last vac



Don't forget to vote, or update your vote here -









						Have you had your booster jab (jag) ?
					

My Scottish booster/flu shot combined appointment arrived yesterday, 7th of December.




					www.urban75.net


----------



## elbows (Nov 19, 2021)

Daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for the regions of England.

I've not dug into positive cases by region recently but I believe that there are the expected parallels with this hospital data, eg North East showing the most obvious declines and London and the South East flatter or showing more signs of renewed growth. Probably in part due to what happened earlier in this wave in the different regions, eg the North East maybe now has a bit less remaining potential for the virus. But need to take into account things like variations in half term timing too, and the fact the North East is coming down from a higher level in the first place.


----------



## elbows (Nov 19, 2021)

In terms of positive cases by age group via the main testing system in England, there is growth in the youngest ages, then a lot of age groups where things are broadly flat or with modest increases or decreases, and then in the age groups 65 and over there have been more substantial declines. Boosters probably a factor in that but perhaps not the only one, time will tell.

There are rather too many of these graphs for me to post them all so I've just focussed on the youngest ones and a few of the older ones where we first go from not much decrease to notable decreases.

These are cases by test specimen date so the most recent few days of data shown in these graphs is incomplete. And I make no claim as to whether these trends will continue.


----------



## Smangus (Nov 19, 2021)

Got my booster today, chatted to the bloke who speared me appendage, he asked what vax I had had for the 1st  2 doses . It was AZ and the booster was Pfizer, he said that this was the best combination for effectiveness. Obvs  I don't know how true this is, but I have been wondering about the effectiveness of the booster shots which seems by all accounts very good but I haven't seen any figures for it or the various permutations of shots vs efficacy.  Any pointers to a resource about this  anywhere at all ?  Quite interested in this, or is it too early to say?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 20, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Got my booster today, chatted to the bloke who speared me appendage, he asked what vax I had had for the 1st  2 doses . It was AZ and the booster was Pfizer, he said that this was the best combination for effectiveness. Obvs  I don't know how true this is, but I have been wondering about the effectiveness of the booster shots which seems by all accounts very good but I haven't seen any figures for it or the various permutations of shots vs efficacy.  Any pointers to a resource about this  anywhere at all ?  Quite interested in this, or is it too early to say?


I dod remember reading about some studies who pointed that mix and match provided better protection but that was a while back though.


----------



## HAL9000 (Nov 20, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Got my booster today, chatted to the bloke who speared me appendage, he asked what vax I had had for the 1st  2 doses . It was AZ and the booster was Pfizer, he said that this was the best combination for effectiveness. Obvs  I don't know how true this is, but I have been wondering about the effectiveness of the booster shots which seems by all accounts very good but I haven't seen any figures for it or the various permutations of shots vs efficacy.  Any pointers to a resource about this  anywhere at all ?  Quite interested in this, or is it too early to say?











						Health Check - Mix and match Covid vaccines - BBC Sounds
					

New evidence on the benefits of mixing and matching doses of different Covid vaccines




					www.bbc.co.uk
				




3 minutes 22 seconds

no number but talks about observational studies.   I think it might be these results..









						Mix-and-match COVID vaccines ace the effectiveness test
					

Combining two different COVID-19 vaccines provides protection on par with that of mRNA vaccines — including protection against the Delta variant.




					www.nature.com


----------



## Smangus (Nov 20, 2021)

Thanks!


----------



## 2hats (Nov 20, 2021)

Smangus said:


> Any pointers to a resource about this  anywhere at all ?


You want the Com-COV study.


----------



## Sunray (Nov 21, 2021)

Given that there is a 32 times likelyhood of someone in hospital for COVID-19 being unvaccinated (ONS) and there are now millions of people waiting for treatment for other conditions, is there a case for denying treatment specifically for COVID-19 for the unvaccinated?

If you don't want to at least try to do your bit with a simple jab, why are you presenting to the hospital when it all goes wrong?

I know its not going to happen but the unvaccinated aren't helping clear the 5.5 million people waiting for treatment?
Is there ever a point the majority get priority over unvaccinated COVID-19 paitents? Healthcare is a finite resource, if you get really sick you consume a ton of resources.









						ICU is full of the unvaccinated – my patience with them is wearing thin | Anonymous
					

Most of the resources we are devoting to Covid in hospital are being spent on people who have not had jab, says an NHS consultant




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## IC3D (Nov 21, 2021)

Perhaps some kind of health insurance scheme where the premiums go up if you smoke, drink or have a poorly controlled diet and the public hospital refuses access if you do any of these, some kind of document to show you are living healthily could be rolled out too?


----------



## purenarcotic (Nov 21, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Perhaps some kind of health insurance scheme where the premiums go up if you smoke, drink or have a poorly controlled diet and the public hospital refuses access if you do any of these, some kind of document to show you are living healthily could be rolled out too?



Is this a serious post?


----------



## purenarcotic (Nov 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Given that there is a 32 times likelyhood of someone in hospital for COVID-19 (ONS) and there are now millions of people waiting for treatment for other conditions, is there a case for denying treatment for specifically for COVID-19 for the unvaccinated?
> 
> If you don't want to at least try to do your bit with a simple jab, why are you presenting to the hospital when it all goes wrong?
> 
> ...



Should we treat someone who falls off a motor bike because they chose the risk when they got on it? Or maybe if someone chooses to get so drunk they poison themselves we should turn them away from a busy A&E? Or maybe we could cling on to the bizarre notion that people don’t deserve to be left to die just because we might disagree with their decisions and that life has an inherent value we want to try and protect.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 21, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> Should we treat someone who falls off a motor bike because they chose the risk when they got on it? Or maybe if someone chooses to get so drunk they poison themselves we should turn them away from a busy A&E? Or maybe we could cling on to the bizarre notion that people don’t deserve to be left to die just because we might disagree with their decisions and that life has an inherent value we want to try and protect.


There are quite a few people in here that whilst  imagining they are woke would only agree with that proposal if its the right type of person under consideration, take a look at the Queen thread to see their real character


----------



## purenarcotic (Nov 21, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> There are quite a few people in here that whilst  imagining they are woke would only agree with that proposal if its the right type of person under consideration, take a look at the Queen thread to see their real character



Well I’m only speaking for me. I have no interest in the Queen. She is as entitled to healthcare as anybody else. The fact she gets the best private care by virtue of who she is is an issue for me, but she retains that entitlement as much as anybody. That is the point of a universal principle, it applies to people you don’t like as much as people you do.


----------



## Sunray (Nov 21, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> Should we treat someone who falls off a motor bike because they chose the risk when they got on it? Or maybe if someone chooses to get so drunk they poison themselves we should turn them away from a busy A&E? Or maybe we could cling on to the bizarre notion that people don’t deserve to be left to die just because we might disagree with their decisions and that life has an inherent value we want to try and protect.


Clearly missing the point. Healthcare is a finite resource. When it runs out difficult choices need to be made.

As far as I am aware there is no preventative measure for motorcycle accidents. I've not woken up on the back of an out of contol m/c, plus there isn't 1000's of them presenting to A&E.

At what point does the majority that at least tried to do the right thing, get prority over people that did nothing and because they got so sick get to the front of the queue?
People need treatment for other problems and this is preventing them and its also in the majority of cases preventable.
If you don't want a vaccine, ok fine.  Just don't go to A&E when you get sick, COVID-19 is out there like a common cold now, you are going to be exposed to it.
Others did get vaccinated,  the unvaccinated are preventing them getting the healthcare they need.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Clearly missing the point. Healthcare is a finite resource. When it runs out difficult choices need to be made.
> 
> As far as I am aware there is no preventative measure for motorcycle accidents. I've not woken up on the back of an out of contol m/c, plus there isn't 1000's of them presenting to A&E.
> 
> ...



Kicking all the smokers and ex-smokers off respiratory wards would surely help the COVID situation.


----------



## BassJunkie (Nov 21, 2021)

sojourner said:


> Made an appointment for my booster today - will be bang on 6 months after my last vac


Mine is also bang on 6 months after my second vaccination. That was a couple of weeks before the solstice. As this one will be.


----------



## LDC (Nov 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Clearly missing the point. Healthcare is a finite resource. When it runs out difficult choices need to be made.
> 
> As far as I am aware there is no preventative measure for motorcycle accidents. I've not woken up on the back of an out of contol m/c, plus there isn't 1000's of them presenting to A&E.
> 
> ...



Highly dodgy road to go down tbh.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 21, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> Well I’m only speaking for me. I have no interest in the Queen. She is as entitled to healthcare as anybody else. The fact she gets the best private care by virtue of who she is is an issue for me, but she retains that entitlement as much as anybody. That is the point of a universal principle, it applies to people you don’t like as much as people you do.


To be clear I'm not pro-everyone receiving care even if they are a complete horrible bastard who has contributed to other's deaths...but neither am I pretending to be enlightened and reasonable


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Nov 21, 2021)

Availability of healthcare is a politically organised decision: its been made scarce but need not be scarce 

Healthcare should remain everyone's entitlement 

All humans do things that impact adversely on their healthcare at times


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> <snip>Clearly missing the point. Healthcare is a finite resource. When it runs out difficult choices need to be made.
> 
> As far as I am aware there is *no preventative measure for motorcycle accidents*. I've not woken up on the back of an out of contol m/c, plus there isn't 1000's of them presenting to A&E.
> 
> </snip>


bib - there are several mitigations available ...
like - wearing proper gear :- helmet, gloves, boots and leathers/barbours -
plus - not driving like a dickhead & maintaining situational awareness

FYI - I've had my full M/B license since 1978, and whilst I've fallen off a couple of times in all those years, I've yet to need the NHS. Nor have I been nicked for speeding, or anything else [not counting a dodgy stop n tail lamp, and that was only advice to "get it fixed before dark !"]


----------



## purenarcotic (Nov 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Clearly missing the point. Healthcare is a finite resource. When it runs out difficult choices need to be made.
> 
> As far as I am aware there is no preventative measure for motorcycle accidents. I've not woken up on the back of an out of contol m/c, plus there isn't 1000's of them presenting to A&E.
> 
> ...



I’m just baffled by this thinking, sorry. You could make this argument about so, so many groups of people, none of whom should be denied healthcare or treatment. The blame is with a government that both allowed an unknown virus to run completely rampant and spent years under funding and under resourcing a public healthcare system. It’s not about Bob or Sue down the road who can’t be bothered to get jabbed.


----------



## purenarcotic (Nov 21, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> bib - there are several mitigations available ...
> like - wearing proper gear :- helmet, gloves, boots and leathers/barbours -
> plus - not driving like a dickhead & maintaining situational awareness
> 
> FYI - I've had my full M/B license since 1978, and whilst I've fallen off a couple of times in all those years, I've yet to need the NHS. Nor have I been nicked for speeding, or anything else [not counting a dodgy stop n tail lamp, and that was only advice to "get it fixed before dark !"]



But if you did your entitlement is absolute. You could argue you could prevent the risk by not getting on it at all. It’s a stupid argument, like. But that’s where these silly ‘does someone deserve healthcare more’ take us.


----------



## purenarcotic (Nov 21, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> To be clear I'm not pro-everyone receiving care even if they are a complete horrible bastard who has contributed to other's deaths...but neither am I pretending to be enlightened and reasonable



I’m not pretending to be enlightened. If you’re a horrible cunt you still get healthcare. My heart doesn’t bleed when I hear someone punched a fascist and their jaw broke, but they still get to have their jaw fixed. The consequence of their action was having the jaw broken. It’s a bit like should people in prison be denied books or TV because they’ve committed a horrible crime, which misses the point that the denial of their liberty is already the consequence served.


----------



## moochedit (Nov 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> It might run out of rows


Its not limited to 65535 anymore so might be ok.


----------



## elbows (Nov 21, 2021)

I've been finding it incredibly painful to see how long its taking to deal with this issue, and how little discussion it has generated.









						Covid: Sajid Javid orders review of medical device racial bias
					

The health secretary responds to research suggesting oximeters work less well for darker-skinned people.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 21, 2021)

> I’m not pretending to be enlightened



Wasnt directed at you, apologies if it came across as so.


----------



## xenon (Nov 21, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Clearly missing the point. Healthcare is a finite resource. When it runs out difficult choices need to be made.
> 
> As far as I am aware there is no preventative measure for motorcycle accidents. I've not woken up on the back of an out of contol m/c, plus there isn't 1000's of them presenting to A&E.
> 
> ...



It's a dangerous idea to erode the principle of universal access to life saving treatment.

I don't have a problem with people being told they need to lose wait, stop smoking, stop drinking in order to get a life enhancing operation, where that stipulation is based on medical outcome likelihoods. Fining people who repeatedly turn up at A&E to get patched up, because they're pissed or been mountain biking,  I think I'd be fine with too. 

But where it comes to potentially life or death, systemising who gets saved based on their life choices is a very bad idea.


----------



## xenon (Nov 21, 2021)

And you may ask why I phrased it like that, systemised. Because quite clearly all round the world, doctors have to make these heartbreaking decisions about who lives or dies, who gets the resources. Tough as that is, enshrining it in policy, something to be worked to without human oversight, is... Not going to be fun.


----------



## rubbershoes (Nov 21, 2021)

The Taunton vaccination centre was doing both pre booked and walk-ins today. 

The walk in side was swamped very quickly and they had to close that bit down. Cases are very high in the south west at the moment and maybe this had increased the demand


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 22, 2021)

I'm sure the local case rate does influence walk-ins - but when I was queueing up to 'register my arrival' for my booster, I was told that some of the people who turn up, even for booked appointments, still manage to forget the various bits of paper / information you are supposed to take with you ...


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2021)

Nick Triggle alert. I can spot his articles before even checking who wrote them.









						Covid: Can UK avoid a Europe-style return to lockdown?
					

Good vaccine uptake and natural immunity, coupled with public caution, has put UK in a strong position.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2021)

Meanwhile the UK government changed its lateral flow advice on the 17th November but the BBC (and probably others) only just noticed, presumably because the government didnt advertise the change much.



> Guidance updated to reflect the move from recommending twice-weekly lateral flow testing to a risk-based approach.





> You may wish to take a rapid lateral flow test if it is expected that there will be a period of high risk that day. This includes spending time in crowded and enclosed spaces, or before visiting people who are at higher risk of severe illness if they get COVID-19.











						Living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
					

Guidance for living safely with respiratory infections, including coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk
				




8:55 entry on BBC live updates page:



> The updated guidance on Covid testing suggests people may want to test themselves before going to crowded and enclosed spaces or visiting people at higher risk of severe illness from Covid-19.
> 
> Previous guidance urged people to take rapid tests twice a week or before visiting the medically vulnerable.
> 
> Although the latest advice does not mention specific examples, it comes in the run-up to Christmas when people may be picking up presents from busy shopping areas.





			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-59384577


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2021)

Also from that BBC updates page, latest ONS death figures:



> The figures show that almost 1,200 deaths involving Covid-19 were recorded across the UK in the week ending 12 November.
> 
> In this period there were 13,780 deaths registered in total in the UK, which was 17% above the five-year average. A total of 1,197 involved Covid-19, up by three on the previous week.
> 
> The ONS data also shows there have been a total of 169,767 deaths in the UK where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 23, 2021)

My (vaccinated) housemate has some coldy symptoms so she rang 111 today and they told her she is unlikely to have covid because she doesn't have a cough. I fucking despair. How can people even have a chance of trying to control the spread of the virus if the government gives scientifically incorrect advice?


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 23, 2021)

At my prompting my housemate is getting a PCR test but an accumulation of bad information going to people, some of it spread by the government and the NHS, must be part of the picture of why covid has stayed at such elevated levels - along with dropping masks unnecessarily and all the other fuck-ups.


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 23, 2021)

I know there are people on here who I trust more than government agencies, but this is how I answered a recent survey.
The clumsy communication for me started with the "masks not recommended" bullshit in the first weeks and went downhill from there.
The more recent"get vaccinated and no need for masks" thing on both sides of the Atlantic was criminally negligent in my opinion.


----------



## elbows (Nov 23, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> At my prompting my housemate is getting a PCR test but an accumulation of bad information going to people, some of it spread by the government and the NHS, must be part of the picture of why covid has stayed at such elevated levels - along with dropping masks unnecessarily and all the other fuck-ups.


They are relying in great part on lateral flow tests to fill in a big chunk of the gap thats exposed by having a very limited set of symptoms that quality for PCR testing. Well that and the number of people who ignore the narrow nature of symptoms and get a PCR test anyway.

They actually wanted elevated levels of infection in some ways, at least pre winter, as part of their second attempt at building population immunity via infection. But we've now reached the stage where even those with that shit agenda are going to get nervous if the rates remain elevated or increase in the coming weeks and months.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 23, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I know there are people on here who I trust more than government agencies, but this is how I answered a recent survey.
> The clumsy communication for me started with the "masks not recommended" bullshit in the first weeks and went downhill from there.
> The more recent"get vaccinated and no need for masks" thing on both sides of the Atlantic was criminally negligent in my opinion.
> 
> View attachment 297890



That really needs Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and a few other options to give a fuller picture.


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> They are relying in great part on lateral flow tests to fill in a big chunk of the gap thats exposed by having a very limited set of symptoms that quality for PCR testing. Well that and the number of people who ignore the narrow nature of symptoms and get a PCR test anyway.


But that is using lateral flow tests in a way that does not accord with what scientists said they could be used for, i.e. for people without covid symptoms. By refusing to change the symptoms that qualify you for PCR testing they are forcing people (unknowingly often - which is even more unethical) into using LFTs when they have covid symptoms as outlined in recent research. And of course people with covid symptoms are also not isolating because they are specifically told not to unless they have what is now a low-ranked symptom (a cough) if vaccinated. I know you know this but the unethical nature of it all sometimes just overwhelms me.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 23, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> My (vaccinated) housemate has some coldy symptoms so she rang 111 today and they told her she is unlikely to have covid because she doesn't have a cough. I fucking despair. How can people even have a chance of trying to control the spread of the virus if the government gives scientifically incorrect advice?


Last week I had an NHS nurse tell me that it made no difference if I wore a valved or unvalved mask as long as it was an FFP2 type, when I mentioned that masks were actually supposed to be more effective at protecting others than the wearer and having an exhaust valve on the front would probably not be a good idea in that respect she just gave me an arsey look and fucked off.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 23, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Last week I had an NHS nurse tell me that it made no difference if I wore a valved or unvalved mask as long as it was an FFP2 type, when I mentioned that masks were actually supposed to be more effective at protecting others than the wearer and having an exhaust valve on the front would probably not be a good idea in that respect she just gave me an arsey look and fucked off.



A bit of old rag was fine a year ago, now it's FFP2.
They know about upselling, these guys.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 23, 2021)

I did not know this, but they have specially designed face masks for singers.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 23, 2021)

8ball said:


> A bit of old rag was fine a year ago, now it's FFP2.
> They know about upselling, these guys.


Umm, I think you missed the point there (seems to be a theme in here)


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 24, 2021)

Currently working on an event in the medical school at work. Every single person in the building is wearing a mask. Think that says something.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 24, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Currently working on an event in the medical school at work. Every single person in the building is wearing a mask. Think that says something.



I'd have thought they'd be compulsory in a medical school.  The students will be going on ward rounds etc. near vulnerable patients.
I gather there are some livestreaming experiments going on, but I doubt it's a substitute.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 24, 2021)

8ball said:


> I'd have thought they'd be compulsory in a medical school.  The students will be going on ward rounds etc. near vulnerable patients.


This is a social event though.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 24, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> This is a social event though.



Ah, fair enough.  Still, I expect there has been some guidance issued rather than it all being spontaneous.
I mean, look at these cases of anti-vaxxers etc. among NHS staff...


----------



## existentialist (Nov 24, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Currently working on an event in the medical school at work. Every single person in the building is wearing a mask. Think that says something.


Meanwhile, the barefaced (in both senses of the word) cunt (in most senses of the word) Johnson was seen in a theatre without a mask covering his face, despite clear requests from the theatre for all their patrons to wear one.

It's not just that he's an entitled cunt - it's that he seems utterly uncaring - or oblivious as to the mixed messages these behaviours send.


----------



## editor (Nov 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> Nick Triggle alert. I can spot his articles before even checking who wrote them.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I found this interesting:


----------



## teqniq (Nov 24, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Meanwhile, the barefaced (in both senses of the word) cunt (in most senses of the word) Johnson was seen in a theatre without a mask covering his face, despite clear requests from the theatre for all their patrons to wear one.
> 
> It's not just that he's an entitled cunt - it's that he seems utterly uncaring - or oblivious as to the mixed messages these behaviours send.


Yup, here he is:


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 24, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Yup, here he is:



Not to mention the rudeness of talking during a performance.

[unless he was "translating" for someone - but I doubt the person shown would be doing something so caring]


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2021)

editor said:


> I found this interesting:


It is interesting but I find it very painful, because it was v2 of herd immunity and involved many many millions of infections here since June 1st. I do accept that in theory there are reasons to expect that has changed the future picture here, but even that article points out:



> But Dr Chapman also points out this has come at a price - the high rates of infection have resulted in a greater amount of serious illness and death in recent months than many of our Western European neighbours.
> 
> And he adds the research should not be seen as a guarantee we will escape the winter without seeing a surge in cases. "We may be in the strongest position - but we could still see cases double and that would cause problems."



This bit is also of note:



> But immunity alone does not explain why the UK, and in particular England, has seen such stable rates, says Prof Graham Medley, who chairs the government's infectious disease modelling group.
> 
> Prof Medley, speaking in a personal capacity, believes it is more complex than that. "I think we are seeing the public playing an important role."
> 
> ...



I dont like that 'keeping the virus in check' has meant living with absurdly high levels of infection, and that the 'in check' bit only means new daily cases didnt keep doubling in number.

And I'm still wary about what is in store. It wont surprise me if case numbers dont spiral to new highs, but it wont surprise me if they do either. And its not been many weeks since certain experts proclaimed that the previous peak in this wave would be the last one of 2021. Maybe, maybe not, I dont mind people suggesting these possibilities but I dont like the degree of confidence some approach such matters with.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 26, 2021)

New Covid variant: Javid says UK must act quickly over public health risk
					

The health secretary says southern African travel restrictions were imposed due to a "substantial risk" to health.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *The UK cannot take a risk over a new coronavirus variant identified in South Africa which may be able to evade the protection of vaccines, the transport secretary has said.*
> 
> Grant Shapps told the BBC the UK "acted immediately" with a "safety first" approach by placing six countries on its red list to restrict travel.
> 
> *Susan Hopkins, the UK Health Security Agency's chief medical adviser, said it was the "most worrying" variant yet.*



Bastard fucking virus.


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 26, 2021)

I wish they would stop playing the "variant" game - it plays right into the hands of the antivaxers.


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 26, 2021)

Meanwhile, perhaps following the antics of our dear leader, mask-wearing was down to maybe 10 percent in Aldi yesterday


----------



## William of Walworth (Nov 26, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I wish they would stop playing the "variant" game - it plays right into the hands of the antivaxers.


I don't think I'm understanding this -- can you explain further?


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 26, 2021)

William of Walworth said:


> I don't think I'm understanding this -- can you explain further?


“There’s no point getting the vax as they’ll just be another variant along next week”


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 26, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> “There’s no point getting the vax as they’ll just be another variant along next week”


Indeed - it's already all over the sewer that is Paltalk ...

My suggestion is to continue doing what we already know to do, and maybe choose a good information source.
Personally I settled on Victor Racaniello at Columbia - and his colleagues - who deserve the clicks for their efforts.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I wish they would stop playing the "variant" game - it plays right into the hands of the antivaxers.


Just because there can be awkward implications on that front in terms of people using it to form crap propaganda or to foster defeatist thoughts, doesnt mean we should try and look the other way when it comes to variants. Some variants that got some attention did not become dominant, but some did, and shaped the nature and timing of subsequent giant waves here that affected our lives. Thats not 'the variant game' its a really important part of the picture. Yes there are some aspects of variant news that fits into traditional tabloid hype, but that isnt a reason to downplay stuff as then it would be easy to make the opposite mistake.

On paper there are some aspects of this latest variant that are incredibly newsworthy. It will take time to find out what the ultimate reality of that is, the consequences wont necessarily be the worst case ones, but in the meantime there is no prospect of suffocating these news angles, and I take this new variant very seriously.

I could just as easily moan about the 'antivaxer' game where people seem to want to make the unvaccinated and antivaxxers a bigger part of the pandemic story in the UK these days than they actually are. Disgusting global vaccine inequality issues are a huge deal that only a few people bother to rant about here, and that shit has led to huge numbers of unprotected people in some countries. Well worth talking about. The other stuff involving antivax shitheads etc is still newsworthy and I'm not surprised people want to talk about it, but it gets more than its fair share of attention and an unfairly prominent role in the current framing. In reality people who havent had the vaccine dont seem to be making up the majority of UK covid deaths these days, so thats why I say those angles are receiving more than their fair share of attention, at the expense of other stuff.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

Plus when people go on about the anti-vax and the unvaccinated its often all so white focussed. White people, who as an overall group have impressive levels of vaccination in the UK, and less historical reasons for vaccine hesitancy and mistrust of medical authorities, going on about white anti-vax propagandists and idiots, white business idiots taking a stand against covid rules, reported on by the white press in a manner designed to take advantage of white unease and white value judgements.

Please forgive me for describing that in such a crude manner. I could easily replace all the references to ethnicity in the above with ones about age or class, to make much the same point about how narrow and stale our angles tend to become. And of course I am white and of a certain age and relatively privileged in a bunch of ways, which does rather limit my own potential to avoid the narrowness of gaze I have been describing, or to dare to speak with authority about stuff which is not often part of my daily reality.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

I'm probably ranting about this because as I've said plenty of times, I've not been impressed in 2021 with how much pandemic weight vaccines alone have been asked to carry. And that goes not just for things like not bothering with other non-vaccine measures, it also has a huge impact on which narratives come to dominate. And its clearly one of the big angles with variants too, the giant concern about variants with potential to escape vaccine-induced immunity. Well if that happens then the authorities invited it by asking vaccines to do all the hard work, and we've sponsored that too if we've allow our discussions and priorities to congeal around that topic at the expense of the other stuff. The desire to get back to normality is understandable and I dont really want to have a go at people about it. But if I take a step back I'm not really convinced that I could honestly claim that anti-vax idiots have done more harm than, for example, people who wanted to be given a free pass to think they could go back to the pub without consequences.

But thats not entirely balanced or fair either, I should take more steps back, and then end up in territory where we can ponder inequality and being left unprotected via phrases like 'work from home* if you can*'.

Anyway, back to this new variant. I suppose its noteworthy for the sheer number of mutations it has - its like a greatest (s)hits medley. So I dont think I can ignore it or treat it like all the others we've heard about that didnt amount to much. But only time will rally tell. I suppose if it does come to dominate then if I were looking for reasons to be cheerful I'd have to stretch a lot. I suppose I could say that it might get us much closer to the final pandemic end game, if its used up so many of the 'tricks its got left up its sleeve' in one go.

Not that I would pay too much attention to what I say about variants, they arent really one of the areas I've been able to offer much insight into in this pandemic so far.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 26, 2021)

Just on the 'variants game', I think it's important to know what's out there if for no other reason than being able to judge what our government is doing or not doing about it.  Johnson's complete indifference to stopping flights and the rest was crucial in allowing the spread of the Delta variant in the UK.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Just on the 'variants game', I think it's important to know what's out there if for no other reason than being able to judge what our government is doing or not doing about it.  Johnson's complete indifference to stopping flights and the rest was crucial in allowing the spread of the Delta variant in the UK.


Yes. Plus the 'experts' who attempted to downplay the risks from variants in the past tended to end up expose their own agendas and make fools of themselves.


----------



## Raheem (Nov 26, 2021)

8ball said:


> I did not know this, but they have specially designed face masks for singers.
> 
> View attachment 297905


That's not for singers. It's for allowing ducks to blend in as they carry out their plot to overthrow us.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 26, 2021)

8ball said:


> I did not know this, but they have specially designed face masks for singers.
> 
> View attachment 297905


That's actually quite disturbing.


----------



## andysays (Nov 26, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Just on the 'variants game', I think it's important to know what's out there if for no other reason than being able to judge what our government is doing or not doing about it.  Johnson's complete indifference to stopping flights and the rest was crucial in allowing the spread of the Delta variant in the UK.


Yeah, there appears to be a clear difference between the prompt response now and the absence of a proper response to the Delta variant.


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 26, 2021)

Grant Shapps told the BBC the UK "acted immediately" with a "safety first"

Unlike last year when they dithered about like the bunch of fuckwits they are


----------



## Raheem (Nov 26, 2021)

andysays said:


> Yeah, there appears to be a clear difference between the prompt response now and the absence of a proper response to the Delta variant.


Suspect there has been a degree of waiting for this to happen, because it represents an opportunity to get the idea of new restrictions back on the table "due to unforseen circumstances".


----------



## editor (Nov 26, 2021)

No surprises here 








						Covid patients in ICU now almost all unvaccinated, says Oxford scientist
					

Prof Sir Andrew Pollard says most of those infected who are fully vaccinated will experience only mild symptoms




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 26, 2021)

Losing patience with unvaxxed people falling ill. When faced with a massive issue science has come through in astonishing style to get us out of this mess and yet some morons 'want to wait' etc. Fuck 'em.


In other news, BB1's college is mandating masks in all areas from Monday due to massive rising numbers here. Surely that should be for everywhere now, it's hardly a big ask.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 26, 2021)

andysays said:


> Yeah, there appears to be a clear difference between the prompt response now and the absence of a proper response to the Delta variant.


Here already, I'm sure.


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 26, 2021)

hmm work with a guy who is suppose to go home to SA over the weekend 


guess he fooked :/


----------



## ska invita (Nov 26, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Here already, I'm sure.



presume people tested to get on flights though?


----------



## brogdale (Nov 26, 2021)

ska invita said:


> presume people tested to get on flights though?


Hmmm


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

editor said:


> No surprises here
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Please see one of my rants about potentially misleading reporting on this, along with some actual numbers. I havent got ICU figures but the other figures suggest a quite different picture to the one painted there.

See this post and some of my subsequent ones for example, I'll make myself ill if I try to repeat all the detail again now:        #5,572


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Here already, I'm sure.



Well Belgium has certainly detected a case for a start. And I note Israels rhetoric.



> Europe has identified its first case of the variant in Belgium. The Guardian reports that the case emerged in an unvaccinated young woman who had recently travelled from Egypt via Turkey and developed mild flu symptoms 11 days later.
> 
> *Israel's* Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Friday it is "on the verge of a state of emergency" regarding the new variant, and that he would "act fast, strong and now".











						Covid: US joins EU in restricting travel from southern Africa
					

Flights from eight African nations to be blocked as new variant is classified as being "of concern".



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## MBV (Nov 26, 2021)

I read a thread about the Nu variant and thought the  author was trying to save characters  

(rather than just new)


----------



## weepiper (Nov 26, 2021)

My friend whose early twenties daughter lives in South Africa and hasn't seen her for two years is pretty gutted that SA being on the red list means she now can't come home for Christmas (booked ages ago). Feel pretty sorry for them while at the same time feeling quite 'pull up the drawbridge' about it.


----------



## brogdale (Nov 26, 2021)

elbows said:


> Well Belgium has certainly detected a case for a start. And I note Israels rhetoric.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The game's up already; we know that from past events


----------



## Ax^ (Nov 26, 2021)

weepiper said:


> My friend whose early twenties daughter lives in South Africa and hasn't seen her for two years is pretty gutted that SA being on the red list means she now can't come home for Christmas (booked ages ago). Feel pretty sorry for them while at the same time feeling quite 'pull up the drawbridge' about it.



aye kinda the situation the fella i work with but the other way around

aging father in SA he in his mid 40's and has not been home in 2 years


was due to get a PCR test on Thursday and leave on Saturday

must be a kick in the nuts to get this for anyone


----------



## Cloo (Nov 26, 2021)

Just as well this variant didn't appear in a bigger economic partner, eh, or they probably wouldn't be bothering. Or do we think they might have learned something from Delta.

gsv was a bit  to see headlines about bits of Africa closing down as his brother is currently on route to Malawi with a 24-stopover in Kenya, going to see a dying friend, and he was worried he'd be stuck somewhere - but obviously they are not affected. Yet. Hoping he makes it back without disruption


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

brogdale said:


> The game's up already; we know that from past events



Certainly if I try to imagine us dodging a bullet with this variant, it would come down to properties of the variant rather than how widely its spread by now.

eg if it fails to manage to outcompete Delta. Which is certainly not a claim I'm trying to make, just on the list of theoretical possibilities, on the list of stuff we will find out given time.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> New Covid variant: Javid says UK must act quickly over public health risk
> 
> 
> The health secretary says southern African travel restrictions were imposed due to a "substantial risk" to health.
> ...


I think humans, power structures, priorities and decisions from on high made me more angry this year than the virus did.

We knew the virus had the potential to do this. Especially when:

Too much of a rush to return to relative normality, travel etc.
Too much binary thinking about vaccines.
Not enough pressure to do something about global vaccine inequalities.
Not enough focus on keeping case numbers down.
Not enough focus on potential zoonosis and reverse zoonosis cycles.
Not enough focus on the potential role of immunocompromised people catching the virus and it then having the opportunity to mutate many times while remaining in their bodies for a rather long period of time.

Alpha(Kent) variant should have offered stark lessons about the latter.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

Best outcome I can possibly hope for at this stage is that the new variant fails to dominate but that all the news about it, and dramatic action by some authorities on some limited fronts, helps suppress all versions of the virus this winter.

As mood music shifts go, this one is quite dramatic.


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

MBV said:


> I read a thread about the Nu variant and thought the  author was trying to save characters
> 
> (rather than just new)


I think that was just a guess about what it would be called, and Omicron is what they've actually gone for:

       #406


----------



## Fruitloop (Nov 26, 2021)

Please sign if you agree: Petition: Fast-track rollout of Covid vaccine in 5-11s post MHRA approval


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

> Prof Whitty told a panel discussion hosted by the Local Government Association: "My greatest worry at the moment is that people... if we need to do something more muscular at some point, whether it's for the current new variant or at some later stage, can we still take people with us?"
> 
> But he added that, despite previous restrictions being "very destructive" to society and the economy, the public had shown an "extraordinary" ability to "just accept that there are things we collectively have to do to protect one another and do collectively".



Such concerns are understandable but I'm bound to moan a bit about this bit:



> Prof Whitty added, however, that it had become harder to ensure compliance over time, saying: "It's easier to be confident of people's response right at the beginning than it is after people put up with two years of their lives being interfered with."



Because at the start Whitty was one of those who went on about fatigue etc as part of the UK governments justification for acting in a slow and crap way, part of their failed plan A sales pitch! So I'm bound to laugh in a atrange way when I hear him mention confidence in peoples response at the beginning.









						Chris Whitty: Public would need to back more Covid curbs
					

England's chief medical officer wonders if "we could take people with us" if new restrictions are imposed.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Nov 26, 2021)

Reinfection is one of the concerns about Omicron (        #409      ). So we should probably bring up again the fact the UK positive case figures only include individuals once, thus do not count reinfections, and that a long overdue change to the official definition so that such cases do count should probably happen. Whether it will, or how long it will take, I would not like to guess.


----------



## Mation (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Best outcome I can possibly hope for at this stage is that the new variant fails to dominate but that all the news about it, and dramatic action by some authorities on some limited fronts, helps suppress all versions of the virus this winter.
> 
> As mood music shifts go, this one is quite dramatic.


Not that the Omikron variant isn't one of concern, but I can't help feeling that the government's response is based less on acting sensibly to prevent future spread and dominance if it turns out to be more deadly (directly or indirectly), and more on creating a relatively receptive public environment for reintroducing some local restrictions, based on the extant UK situation.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

I wouldnt like to try too hard to separate the two, especially given the time of year. But I think the current UK situation does require us to at least dig down to level of data where we can see which age groups have been causing the case numbers to rise recently. Which so far tends to reveal a picture where they still have a bit of wiggle room/time to drag their feels, especially as booster jabs seem to have had an impact in the older groups that have received them so far. I suppose there are some circumstanes where local restrictions are possible but I tend to think national ones are more likely to be appropriate.

And Johnsons government probably did learn some lessons about the political consequences of not responding at all appropriately to Delta, at least as far as travel restriction timing went.

Plus frankly Omicron has potential to really fuck things up badly. I think a huge chunk of the dramatic response seen today is just down to that, how this variant looks on paper and in terms of its growth in South Africa. In those ways it looks very bad indeed and I'll be somewhat surprised and grateful if we even partially dodge any of those bullets with this variant.


----------



## Mation (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> I wouldnt like to try too hard to separate the two, especially given the time of year. But I think the current UK situation does require us to at least dig down to level of data where we can see which age groups have been causing the case numbers to rise recently. Which so far tends to reveal a picture where they still have a bit of wiggle room/time to drag their feels, especially as booster jabs seem to have had an impact in the older groups that have received them so far. I suppose there are some circumstanes where local restrictions are possible but I tend to think national ones are more likely to be appropriate.
> 
> And Johnsons government probably did learn some lessons about the political consequences of not responding at all appropriately to Delta, at least as far as travel restriction timing went.
> 
> Plus frankly Omicron has potential to really fuck things up badly. I think a huge chunk of the dramatic response seen today is just down to that, how this variant looks on paper and in terms of its growth in South Africa. In those ways it looks very bad indeed and I'll be somewhat surprised and grateful if we even partially dodge any of those bullets with this variant.


Sorry - by local restrictions, I meant national ones, because of the new global threat, iyswim.

And I've just noticed that I used the Nomad Soul spelling of Omicron


----------



## kabbes (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> But thats not entirely balanced or fair either, I should take more steps back, and then end up in territory where we can ponder inequality and being left unprotected via phrases like 'work from home* if you can*'.



On that score, I can tell you that I sit in on our continuity planning meetings at work (which deals with our offices in all countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and the approach that has been taken since the summer is “if a government isn’t mandating it, it doesn’t exist”. So when governments put out messages that merely say things like, “we’d prefer you to work from home if possible”, that is heard as, “carry on as you were”.


----------



## andysays (Nov 27, 2021)

kabbes said:


> On that score, I can tell you that I sit in on our continuity planning meetings at work (which deals with our offices in all countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and the approach that has been taken since the summer is “if a government isn’t mandating it, it doesn’t exist”. So *when governments put out messages that merely say things like, “we’d prefer you to work from home if possible”, that is heard as, “carry on as you were”.*


And I'm sure that governments are fully aware of that when making those statements.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 27, 2021)

kabbes said:


> On that score, I can tell you that I sit in on our continuity planning meetings at work (which deals with our offices in all countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa) and the approach that has been taken since the summer is “if a government isn’t mandating it, it doesn’t exist”. So when governments put out messages that merely say things like, “we’d prefer you to work from home if possible”, that is heard as, “carry on as you were”.


Which is why the UK obv has still got such a stupidly high case rate.
I'm still taking precautions such as masks etc when meeting people or in crowded areas.

Despite my booster jag, I shall be watching carefully for mentions of this new Omicron. 
And taking action, even if the gov't don't ... 

Although, the red listing this time was pretty quick for them.
I'm sure that they still want to be seen to save chrimble ...


----------



## kabbes (Nov 27, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Which is why the UK obv has still got such a stupidly high case rate.


It’s the same thing in a lot of European countries,  to be honest. A lot of governments say things like “we’d prefer you to work from home”, which businesses can then safely treat as if nothing has been said at all.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 27, 2021)

Well, the Daily Express headline today says it'll all be fine, so clearly we're totally fucked.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 27, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Well, the Daily Express headline today says it'll all be fine, so clearly we're totally fucked.


----------



## Sue (Nov 27, 2021)

kabbes said:


> It’s the same thing in a lot of European countries,  to be honest. A lot of governments say things like “we’d prefer you to work from home”, which businesses can then safely treat as if nothing has been said at all.


My (German) company has just announced everyone is to wfh until June (it was January before). I've worked for them since August, haven't been into the office at all and it's not even been vaguely hinted at that I should. My German colleagues seem to reckon this approach is standard over there. 🤷‍♀️


----------



## kabbes (Nov 27, 2021)

Sue said:


> My (German) company has just announced everyone is to wfh until June (it was January before). I've worked for them since August, haven't been into the office at all and it's not even been vaguely hinted at that I should. My German colleagues seem to reckon this approach is standard over there. 🤷‍♀️


There’s now a government mandate in Germany to work at home unless there are compelling operational reasons why this is not possible. They are thus  an example of governments creating more than just “advice” to WFH.

I guess the German company is just following its home office.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> View attachment 298382


Maybe it was the Mail - I dunno, those right wing rags all look the same to me...


----------



## kabbes (Nov 27, 2021)

The bit I don’t really have an answer to in BCP meetings is, “if the government says it’s okay to work in the office, who are we to say otherwise? Why are we doing something we’re not being explicitly told to?”  If that’s the attitude at the top level, there’s not much anyone can really say in response without firm rules to fall back on.

At best, “guidance” to work from home is just the difference between being given a mandatory instruction to return to office and having soft pressure to do it.


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 27, 2021)

kabbes said:


> The bit I don’t really have an answer to in BCP meetings is, “if the government says it’s okay to work in the office, who are we to say otherwise? Why are we doing something we’re not being explicitly told to?”  If that’s the attitude at the top level, there’s not much anyone can really say in response without firm rules to fall back on.


There's quite an easy answer to that in a factual sense: the government has been negligent about people's health and we can choose not to be negligent ourselves by sticking to stricter rules than the government mandates. But I realise that senior management are often (a) focused on the bottom line and (b) personality types with high levels of conformism in their makeup, and therefore disinclined to do anything they aren't ordered to do.


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 27, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Maybe it was the Mail - I dunno, those right wing rags all look the same to me...


*This *appears to be a key concern of *their *readers ...


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 27, 2021)

Supermarket in NE had about 7% masked today

I double bagged it, can't be too careful, the fuckin twats


----------



## kabbes (Nov 27, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> There's quite an easy answer to that in a factual sense: the government has been negligent about people's health and we can choose not to be negligent ourselves by sticking to stricter rules than the government mandates. But I realise that senior management are often (a) focused on the bottom line and (b) personality types with high levels of conformism in their makeup, and therefore disinclined to do anything they aren't ordered to do.


There are additional complications. The company spent the whole summer and autumn engaged in a battle for hearts and minds to get people to get used to being in the office again. I thought that was a tactical mistake at the time, but hindsight is irrelevant — they did it. Telling people at this point to go back to WFH would wind all that back to square 1.

Then you have the fact that they measure employee COVID rate, and it’s pretty damned low, to be honest. The offices themselves are big, ventilated places, desk usage is low and people are doing regular LFTs to go in. So there is an attitude of, “the office seems to be safe until you can provide evidence otherwise”. There’s definitely wilful blindness in that, but you can also see where they’re coming from. In truth, it’s more of a “greater good” thing that means people should stay at home, but the company takes the (not unreasonable) perspective that greater good is the domain of governments, not corporations.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Maybe it was the Mail - I dunno, those right wing rags all look the same to me...


It was the Mail.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 27, 2021)

Just came up on the news, hardly surprising, but Omicron has arrived in the UK.









						Covid: Two cases of new variant Omicron detected in UK
					

Two people in the UK have been found to be infected with the new Covid variant, Omicron, the health secretary says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Just came up on the news, hardly surprising, but Omicron has arrived in the UK.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, saw that.
Also Covid: South Africa 'punished' for detecting new Omicron variant

as in complaints about the travel bans.

The case zero seems to have been detected in a specimen from early (8th) November.
So it is no surprise that this new variant has already escaped into the rest of the world.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 27, 2021)

No surprise tbh


----------



## 8ball (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Reinfection is one of the concerns about Omicron (        #409      ). So we should probably bring up again the fact the UK positive case figures only include individuals once, thus do not count reinfections, and that a long overdue change to the official definition so that such cases do count should probably happen. Whether it will, or how long it will take, I would not like to guess.



Absolutely.

As an aside, I would put good money down on Omicron already being here.

Edit: oops - not reading the thread properly


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Yes its been a reasonable bet right since the start of the pandemic that by the time we detect something, the horse has already bolted.

Travel restrictions etc are still important though because even when they dont prevent things happening, they can buy a little time. We saw from analysis of initial wave and then the rise of various variants that the amount of seeding of a particular virus has quite an impact on spread timing and scale. At least for a little while, and then eventually some of that stuff doesnt offer any gains.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 27, 2021)

Downing Street press conference coming up today at 5pm, with Johnson, Whitty and Vallance.


----------



## klang (Nov 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street press conference coming up today at 5pm, with Johnson, Whitty and Vallance.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Nov 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street press conference coming up today at 5pm, with Johnson, Whitty and Vallance.



alas...


----------



## Cloo (Nov 27, 2021)

I wonder if this will finally make them take the nuclear option and introduce * gasp *  Plan B!!!! Aka what anyone who is considerate and able to do has been doing, and that others will not bother with even if it becomes The Law?


----------



## Cloo (Nov 27, 2021)

In fact makes me wonder if they were saving Plan B for a variant so they could look like they were Doing Something without shutting anything down.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Well the whole plan A, plan B thing was designed as a holding pattern, building in as many opportunities to delay sensible action for as long as they could get away with.

I dont have any predictions about what they will announce today. It could just be an introduction to the new situation, or they could decide to actually do something.

I suppose I will predict that I will get frustrated if no details emerge about what date the people who have tested positives samples were actually taken. They usually prefer not to let that detail emerge quickly, as it would get in the way of making useless reassuring noises about how those people are isolating and contact tracing taking place. And the press often fail to ask.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street press conference coming up today at 5pm, with Johnson, Whitty and Vallance.



"an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing"


----------



## existentialist (Nov 27, 2021)

kabbes said:


> The bit I don’t really have an answer to in BCP meetings is, “if the government says it’s okay to work in the office, who are we to say otherwise? Why are we doing something we’re not being explicitly told to?”  If that’s the attitude at the top level, there’s not much anyone can really say in response without firm rules to fall back on.
> 
> At best, “guidance” to work from home is just the difference between being given a mandatory instruction to return to office and having soft pressure to do it.


And I think this was foreseen - not least on Urban - when the Chief Clown announced "freedom day" in July. The cunt.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 27, 2021)

Obsessed with "getting it into arms". Such a weird phrase


----------



## Supine (Nov 27, 2021)

Anyone know what ‘tightening up mask wearing in shops and public transport’ means?


----------



## 2hats (Nov 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Anyone know what ‘tightening up mask wearing in shops and public transport’ means?


Cross those little ear-loops over?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Anyone know what ‘tightening up mask wearing in shops and public transport’ means?


I guess we'll find out soon enough


----------



## MickiQ (Nov 27, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> *This *appears to be a key concern of *their *readers ...
> 
> View attachment 298385


It's quite possible that they did exactly that, Trump made some of the early efforts to fight it a lot more difficult by insisting on calling it the 'China' virus. I suspect that whoever is in charge of picking names at the WHO wondered if Beijing would get mardy about it and decided it just wasn't worth it. CoVID is causing enough chaos as it is without throwing petty political egos into the mix.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Anyone know what ‘tightening up mask wearing in shops and public transport’ means?


What it _should_ mean - is wear a decent mask & properly, or no entry .

But I doubt clown-features will actually say that, it might discourage chrimble spending ...
/cynic


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Anyone know what ‘tightening up mask wearing in shops and public transport’ means?




Nothing at all


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 27, 2021)

It's so fucking maddening. 
Direct question about masks which was bumbled and stuttered over..."we'll require it" but "more from the health sec in the next day or so"
If that's earlier and harder than they'd like then they must literally want to do nothing at all with masks


----------



## existentialist (Nov 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Anyone know what ‘tightening up mask wearing in shops and public transport’ means?


Fuck all, almost certainly.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 27, 2021)

Malawi added to red list Cloo


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 27, 2021)

Again, half measures. What's the bloody point in saying you're going to tighten up mask wearing but not actually saying what that means


----------



## Cloo (Nov 27, 2021)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Malawi added to red list Cloo


Oh shit. I think BIL is there currently.


----------



## weepiper (Nov 27, 2021)

What the hell. So in response to this dangerous new variant, England is not even going to do the things which Scotland has been mandating all along (masks in shops and public transport, vaccine passports). What fucking use is that?


----------



## Santino (Nov 27, 2021)

It's great that Omicron sounds like an evil robot overlord.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 27, 2021)

Oh FUCK THE CUNTING FUCK OFF WITH YOUR CHRISTMAS SHITE


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 27, 2021)

weepiper said:


> What the hell. So in response to this dangerous new variant, England is not even going to do the things which Scotland has been mandating all along (masks in shops and public transport, vaccine passports). What fucking use is that?


_Alas, we strongly recommend you wear a mask if you like..._


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## Artaxerxes (Nov 27, 2021)

Mask wearing will be mandatory but we're not going to enforce it any way or support retail staff who'd like you to do it.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 27, 2021)

Santino said:


> It's great that Omicron sounds like an evil robot overlord.


I am always going to pronounce it thus:


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Nov 27, 2021)

And around we go again, once more seemingly not having learnt a single fucking thing.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 27, 2021)

This lady talking a load of sense

ETA Susan Michie of SAGE

She said the best way to avoid stronger clampdowns coming down the line is going hard, like, yesterday, and what the gov is doing is Plan B lite, in fact weaker measures than SAGE proposed in Sept before Omicron. So much for listening to the science


----------



## Supine (Nov 27, 2021)

S☼I said:


> This lady talking a load of sense



Susan Michie from Indy Sage?

The communist


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Whitty brought uo the absolute bullshit some of our worst newspapers came out with based on things Whitty said yesterday that they twisted.

The new testing regime for travellers is sensible from a genomic surveillance ansd spread reduction point of view, and will give the news channels endless opportunities to find travellers and travel industry people to moan to camera.

As was thr case last year, references to Christmas are largely the medias fault, they bring that shit up and then the politicians have to respond. Not that I'm excusing Johnsons current Christmas rhetoric when he finds himself having to answer such questions.

Its a bit awkward for the authorities having to acknlowdge that some of the concerns about this variant are to do with vaccine effectiveness, whilst at the same time relying on vaccines as part of their response to this variant, a big chunk of being seen to do something, etc. In reality this is a mix of both dubious double-think but also some rational science, since vaccines & boosters may well still offer certain forms of protection against this strain, even if it smashes past other aspects of protection. And I've always said the authorities here were asking the vaccines to carry too much weight against previous strains, let alone this one. On that note, it was slightly awkward for them having to explain how this new variant may still spread quite a lot between vaccinated people, when that was actually the case with the previous Delta variant too, a fact that wasnt hidden at the time but which may have gone unnoticed if relying only on their press conference rhetoric.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Nov 27, 2021)

"Firstly, can I ask you Prime Minister blah blah blah, and what about blah blah blah, and will this then affect blah blah blah? Also can I ask the scientists about  blah blah blah? When will this be blah blah blah? Finally, can I ask you about blah blah blah, and blah blah blah blah blah?"

"Wibble".


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

S☼I said:


> This lady talking a load of sense
> 
> ETA Susan Michie of SAGE
> 
> She said the best way to avoid stronger clampdowns coming down the line is going hard, like, yesterday, and what the gov is doing is Plan B lite, in fact weaker measures than SAGE proposed in Sept before Omicron. So much for listening to the science


On this front Johnson was wanking on about how Omicron requires a different response to the response he deemed adequate to deal with Delta. Never mind that the plans and timetable for this year were largely drawn up pre-Delta and that as far as Englands restrictions went, apart from the delay to 'freedom day', they couldnt be arsed to change anything when Delta came along. Or that in terms of actually sincerely trying to reduce the spread and number of cases, the things people need to do are fundamentally the same for all variants (although of course the results are better for less transmissible variants).


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

I've noticed that some members of the press are unable to remember the basics of the recent history of variants and so make reference to Delta and 'last year'. Alpha(Kent) was last year, Delta was well into this year!


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 27, 2021)

Arsehole.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 27, 2021)

I'm thinking about asking my workshop team to wear masks again, if they are working in close proximity (approx arm's length) to each other ... 

Also, visitors [admittedly, they are very rare] to be asked to wear mask & use hand sanitiser [must check how much is in the dispenser tomorrow].

And I must remind a couple of them that they do qualify for a booster. 
In one case, he's young enough that he's still to get a second jag.
I'll pay them normal time to go get the jag, and if they have after affects, then that'll be paid, as well.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> I've noticed that some members of the press are unable to remember the basics of the recent history of variants and so make reference to Delta and 'last year'. Alpha(Kent) was last year, Delta was well into this year!


Ben Brown of the BBC - who rudely cut off Michie after she said "dither and delay"  - also reported as one of the key points that people coming into the UK would have to take a PCR test on their second day in the country, rather than _by the end of their second day_


----------



## not a trot (Nov 27, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I'm thinking about asking my workshop team to wear masks again, if they are working in close proximity (approx arm's length) to each other ...
> 
> Also, visitors [admittedly, they are very rare] to be asked to wear mask & use hand sanitiser [must check how much is in the dispenser tomorrow].
> 
> ...


You are paying them too much, if they can afford jags.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 27, 2021)

not a trot said:


> You are paying them too much, if they can afford jags.


jags as in jabs


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Also it wont just be details and data regarding Omicron that they take a close look at in the coming weeks. It will also be looking at data that gives strong clues about the public response to the new mood music, whether there are clear signs of more people not just wearing masks, but avoiding certain situations completely, falls in mobility, retail footfall, economic activity, questionnaires about number of close contacts etc.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 27, 2021)

not a trot said:


> You are paying them too much, if they can afford jags.


You get a discount for bulk buy


----------



## Supine (Nov 27, 2021)

Just wait until the Valneva vaccine shows to be the best against this strain. The gov will have real egg on their face over saying the contract was cancelled as they didn’t think it would get mhra approval.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

The changes to the self-isolation rules for vaccinated contacts are going to need a lot more attention in the press etc in order for people to notice the change and act accordingly. I suppose they might not be in a huge rush since this will apply to cases where Omicron is suspected, so it will be a slow build in terms of the numbers affected by the change.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Susan Michie from Indy Sage?
> 
> The communist


She is part of the official SAGE too, well the behavioural psychology bit of it.


----------



## teqniq (Nov 27, 2021)




----------



## Cloo (Nov 27, 2021)

Brother in law is trying to find somewhere he can isolate on return from Malawi   If sister in law doesn't have a flatmate at the moment, easiest thing might be for her to move in with her parents and give him her flat for duration I guess - I think he'll be back before full protocol in place


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

James Gallagher of the BBC managed to put two and two togther:



> The issue is that *this variant will have the potential to spread in the UK as we have been “running hot”*. Cases of Covid have been climbing except for a lull over the October half term. They topped 50,000 in yesterday’s figures and the R number is just above that crucial threshold of one.
> 
> The success of boosters means the number of people needing either hospital treatment or dying is actually falling.
> 
> But it does tell us that *the overall package of measures, our behaviour and levels of immunity, are not enough to contain the current Delta variant*.



But in some other areas I dont agree with what he is saying:



> The measures announced this evening are aimed at preventing Omicron getting a foothold while scientists work to find the answers.



The measures are not designed to prevent it getting a foothold, just like how on previous occasions the use of the word 'containment' was bullshit. At best the measures are designed to somewhat slow its ability to gain a foothold.

Quotes are from the 19:03 entry on the BBC live updates page. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59443504


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 27, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Brother in law is trying to find somewhere he can isolate on return from Malawi   If sister in law doesn't have a flatmate at the moment, easiest thing might be for her to move in with her parents and give him her flat for duration I guess - I think he'll be back before full protocol in place



Malawi is now on the red list, so he needs to get back before 4 am tomorrow, otherwise I think he'll have to pay over £2k for hotel quarantine & testing.



> From 4am on Sunday, non-UK and non-Irish residents who have been in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola in the previous 10 days will be refused entry into England, officials said. This does not apply to those who have stayed airside and only transited through any of these countries while changing flights.
> 
> UK and Irish residents arriving from 4am on Sunday must isolate in a government-approved facility for 10 days. During their stay, they will be required to take a PCR test on day two and day eight.











						UK travel red list to include Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola
					

From 4am on Sunday, UK and Irish residents returning to England must isolate in an approved facility for 10 days




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> The changes to the self-isolation rules for vaccinated contacts are going to need a lot more attention in the press etc in order for people to notice the change and act accordingly. I suppose they might not be in a huge rush since this will apply to cases where Omicron is suspected, so it will be a slow build in terms of the numbers affected by the change.


Ah the BBC noticed, from the live updates page I linked to several times already:



> Tracking back to the prime minister's comments - there was a significant update to the self-isolation rules.
> 
> Fully vaccinated adults in the UK currently do not have to self-isolate if they are told they have been in close contact with a person who has Covid.
> 
> ...


----------



## tommers (Nov 27, 2021)

I've organised a get together at work in a couple of weeks. Got some people travelling from Sweden, Ireland, France etc. They're arriving on the day of the event going to it, staying overnight and then going home. Do they need to now isolate until they've had a negative PCR result? Cos that kind of fucks things up.


----------



## Supine (Nov 27, 2021)

tommers said:


> I've organised a get together at work in a couple of weeks. Got some people travelling from Sweden, Ireland, France etc. They're arriving on the day of the event going to it, staying overnight and then going home. Do they need to now isolate until they've had a negative PCR result? Cos that kind of fucks things up.



Basically yes, it ain’t happening


----------



## tommers (Nov 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Basically yes, it ain’t happening


Shit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 27, 2021)

tommers said:


> I've organised a get together at work in a couple of weeks. Got some people travelling from Sweden, Ireland, France etc. They're arriving on the day of the event going to it, staying overnight and then going home. Do they need to now isolate until they've had a negative PCR result? Cos that kind of fucks things up.



I think coming from Ireland is OK, because of the common travel area, but if coming from Sweden and France they are buggered.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

I think the thin is with masks, they only offer a small amount of protection to wearer and others, but along with hand washing, vaccines and social distancing they help to slow down the rate of infection which in turn helps to slow pressure on NHS. None of the measures are to finish off the pandemic merely to slow down the infections to a ‘manageable’ level. By raising awareness of the new variant and it’s associated potential to fuck us up, lots of us will take personal responsibility to increase our mask wearing and many others will do so because they are the kind of people that make a point of obeying orders from on high. It’s never been about getting 100% compliance because short of massively increasing numbers of bus inspectors and council enforcement officers it won’t happen. Plus of course big chunk of his party don’t believe in  infringing  on the rights of the individual to exercise choice etc etc. As long as majority of us comply and do what we can to influence or intimidate the reticent minority then we have to hope it’s enough to bring r rate  down and If they’re not then it’ll be lockdown Xmas  
None of these measures are designed to stop it in its tracks that window of opportunity went 3 years ago


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> I think the thin is with masks, they only offer a small amount of protection to wearer and others...



You think over 50% is a small amount?  









						Mask-Wearing Cuts New COVID-19 Cases by 53%, Study Says
					

When people wear face masks to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, the number of new COVID-19 infections drops by 53%, according to a new study published Thursday in the British Medical Journal.




					www.webmd.com
				






> None of these measures are designed to stop it in its tracks that window of opportunity went 3 years ago



It's only been around for 2 years.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> None of these measures are designed to stop it in its tracks that window of opportunity went 3 years ago


If China had acted 3 years ago they would have been a year early!


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> If China had acted 3 years ago they would have been a year early!


Ha ha - 2 years even . Whenever it was the WHO was first begging the world to take action to contain it before it reached pandemic status.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> Ha ha - 2 years even . Whenever it was the WHO was first begging the world to take action to contain it before it reached pandemic status.


Unfortunately the WHO at the time provided early examples of how to mount a slow and inappropriate response (although China was first). Some of my earliest pandemic rants were about that, including reappropriating the red dwarf red alert, are you sure sir, it does mean changing the bulb joke.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's only been around for 2 years.


I think you're forgetting the preparation that was needed for the plandemic


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Unfortunately the WHO at the time provided early examples of how to mount a slow and inappropriate response (although China was first). Some of my earliest pandemic rants were about that, including reappropriating the red dwarf red alert, are you sure sir, it does mean changing the bulb joke.


They’re are grossly under resourced to be as effective as they could be but somehow the world was saved from MERS, SARS1 plus they keep managing to contain the EBOLA  outbreaks in West Africa. All the aforementioned managed to go relatively unnoticed over here and perhaps if more attention had been paid to these past epidemics there would have been more pressure applied to our governments to update the WHO resource and we might have escaped this pandemic


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Its not just a question of resources, but priorities, politics, 'diplomacy' and neoliberal shit.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> They’re are grossly under resourced to be as effective as they could be but somehow the world was saved from MERS, SARS1 plus they keep managing to contain the EBOLA  outbreaks in West Africa. All the aforementioned managed to go relatively unnoticed over here and perhaps if more attention had been paid to these past epidemics there would have been more pressure applied to our governments to update the WHO resource and we might have escaped this pandemic



None of those were anywhere near as infectious as SARS-Cov2.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its not just a question of resources, but priorities, politics, 'diplomacy' and neoliberal shit.


Obviously. But most people are only truest concerned about health issues even they feel they are directly affected/at risk. HIV is a prime example. Never classified as a pandemic despite the fact that it still kills close to a million a year, and compromises the lives of many millions more. All despite the fact that we have the resources to hand to fully defeat that I articulate virus if the will was there. Most people didn’t give a shit here when it was only killing gays and drug users and Africans. Likewise it was hard to find much in the msn about the last big EBOLA outbreak a few years ago.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> None of those were anywhere near as infectious as SARS-Cov2.


Sure if you say so but the point remains we could have massively slowed its advance saving many lives if the will had been there at the start, and it’s not inconceivable it coukd have been geographically contained for a period allowing for the concentration of resources


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> Sure if you say so but the point remains we could have massively slowed its advance saving many lives if the will had been there at the start, and it’s not inconceivable it coukd have been geographically contained for a period allowing for the concentration of resources



It was geographically contained for a time because the Chinese government quietly locked up and shot those who tried to point out there was a novel new disease.

Eventually of course, as all diseases do, it broke out of the cordon.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> It was geographically contained for a time because the Chinese government quietly locked up and shot those who tried to point out there was a novel new disease.
> 
> Eventually of course, as all diseases do, it broke out of the cordon.


It did and the do  but the WHO was warning governments to prepare and were ignored.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> It was geographically contained for a time because the Chinese government quietly locked up and shot those who tried to point out there was a novel new disease.
> 
> Eventually of course, as all diseases do, it broke out of the cordon.


And you’re wrong because geographical containment can and does work in sone circumstances with some diseases if enacted early enough and hard enough


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Just wait until the Valneva vaccine shows to be the best against this strain. The gov will have real egg on their face over saying the contract was cancelled as they didn’t think it would get mhra approval.


Check this out:









						Boris Johnson ‘ignored’ my plan to tackle deadly Covid variants – senior official
					

Former head of vaccine taskforce says No 10 has not acted on his blueprint to prepare UK for new strains




					www.theguardian.com
				






> In an interview with the Observer, Clive Dix, a leading figure in drug development who chaired the taskforce until April, said that he believed the UK was no longer “on the front foot” in tackling the pandemic. “I wrote a very specific proposal on what we should put in place right now for the emergence of any new virus that escaped the vaccine,” he said. “That was written and handed into the [vaccine taskforce] at the end of April when I left. I haven’t seen a sign of any of those activities yet.





> Under Dix’s strategy, a coordinating team would seek out new vaccines, give the company involved a “fast track” to a swift trial, access to the data and regulatory approval, in return for early access to new vaccines. He said this system worked at the start of the pandemic and should be repeated.
> 
> He warned that by simply waiting to buy vaccines once they had been developed, Britain would find itself at the back of the queue because bigger customers would be prioritised. “If we leave it to the industry to do, they’re going to go to the highest bidder, and the UK won’t be at the front of that queue any more, because it’s not a big market. Whereas if you act as a partner, you get things done. It’s not rocket science, and the infrastructure is there.”





> He said that he had envisaged the French company Valneva as a key part of this process. However, he said the government’s “ridiculous” decision to scrap its existing contract with the company had damaged that approach.


----------



## Supine (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> It did and the do  but the WHO was warning governments to prepare and were ignored.



Which governments ignored it? North Korea, Tanzania. Any others?


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Most countries didnt ignore it, they just responded to it inappropriately and too slowly, didnt take it seriously enough, and the WHOs advice was also not that great in the first place. I dont want to go over all this history again right now, I spent too long talking about it at the time. I do remember that some people didnt like me referring to this as a pandemic before the WHO finally got round to doing so, but by the time they did most people understood where I was coming from. And its not like my initial response in January 2020 was the most appropriate either, at least not in mid January.


----------



## zahir (Nov 27, 2021)

Thread from Deepti Gurdasani


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Yes and from the nature of some of the questioning, even the weekend crew of journalists in the room had noticed.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Which governments ignored it? North Korea, Tanzania. Any others?


30th jan 2020 the WHO gave it pre pandemic status and called on the world to bring in social distancing, masks etc but was largely ignored by all countries in the west ( I really can speak for Tanzania or North Korea so I’ll leave that for your obvious intellect to enlighten us on). I believe it was March before we were doing anything much


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

Supine said:


> Which governments ignored it? North Korea, Tanzania. Any others?


Oh yeah they called on the world to enact testing and tracing I believe at that time as well


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

The WHO were not in favour of the general public wearing masks, and took many months to change their advice. Before then, their mask recommendations would mostly have applied to frontline healthcare workers PPE.

Here is the June 2020 u-turn on that front:









						Coronavirus: WHO advises to wear masks in public areas
					

The World Health Organization changes its guidance saying masks can help stop the spread of the virus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




If we must discuss this history again now, please do some basic fact checking.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> Oh yeah they called on the world to enact testing and tracing I believe at that time as well


Mid March 2020 was when they really started to highlight the test,test,test approach and rheotric, advice which the UK establishment tried to write off via the likes of Harries claiming this was advice for poor countries, not applicable to the UK and its amazing carry on/herd immunity plan that then rapidly went down the toilet. Please dont conflate what came in later months with the dismal shit of January 2020. Lots of authorities started to change their tune only by mid March 2020 or later, once the likes of Italy had locked down.









						WHO head: 'Test, test, test'
					

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calls for more testing to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Most countries didnt ignore it, they just responded to it inappropriately and too slowly, didnt take it seriously enough, and the WHOs advice was also not that great in the first place. I dont want to go over all this history again right now, I spent too long talking about it at the time. I do remember that some people didnt like me referring to this as a pandemic before the WHO finally got round to doing so, but by the time they did most people understood where I was coming from. And its not like my initial response in January 2020 was the most appropriate either, at least not in mid January.


Ahh what a pity the world wasn’t listening and taking note of you at that time then.  You obviously had a better handle on things than WHO. But…. If people had listened to the WHO when they stated on the 30th jan that the virus had potential to reach pandemic status and acted to the  advice then lived would have been saved.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> The WHO were not in favour of the general public wearing masks, and took many months to change their advice. Before then, their mask recommendations would mostly have applied to frontline healthcare workers PPE.
> 
> Here is the June 2020 u-turn on that front:
> 
> ...


Why don’t you duck off you sanctimonious prick 😎


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Such criticisms about my character didnt put me off from spouting facts at the time and certainly wont now. Stop talking shit about the easily searchable timeline of events.


----------



## mx wcfc (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> Why don’t you duck off you sanctimonious prick 😎


There's only one prick in that exchange, and it ain't elbows.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Such criticisms about my character didnt put me off from spouting facts at the time and certainly wont now. Stop talking shit about the easily searchable timeline of events.


What a fucking bore you are


----------



## two sheds (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Check this out:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


This is where he went wrong:


> Under Dix’s strategy, a coordinating team would seek out new vaccines, give the company involved a “fast track” to a swift trial, access to the data and regulatory approval, in return for early access to new vaccines.


"early access to new vaccines" needed to be replaced by "donations to the tory party"


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> There's only one prick in that exchange, and it ain't elbows.


Sorry I didn’t realise you were in it as well


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> Why don’t you duck off you sanctimonious prick 😎


Says the newb who hasn’t got a fucking pot of glue.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> Ahh what a pity the world wasn’t listening and taking note of you at that time then.  You obviously had a better handle on things than WHO. But…. If people had listened to the WHO when they stated on the 30th jan that the virus had potential to reach pandemic status and acted to the  advice then lived would have been saved.


(a) you have your arse handed to you 
(b) you respond by insulting the person who did it
(c) you look a bit of a prat


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> Ahh what a pity the world wasn’t listening and taking note of you at that time then.  You obviously had a better handle on things than WHO. But…. If people had listened to the WHO when they stated on the 30th jan that the virus had potential to reach pandemic status and acted to the  advice then lived would have been saved.


I was one of many, and plenty of people here got ahead of the curve as a result.

Its not a question of having a better handle on things than the WHO, more a question of not being bound by the same diplomatic & political limitations as the WHO that slowed their response and messaging to the public. I didnt have to mind my p's and q's or talk shit to serve powerful interests.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> I was one of many, and plenty of people here got ahead of the curve as a result.
> 
> Its not a question of having a better handle on things than the WHO, more a question of not being bound by the same diplomatic & political limitations as the WHO that slowed their response and messaging to the public,


I still stand by the point that out government and many others could have gone better if they had dated quicker at the outset by listen to the warnings and acting  as they came early2020. Test and trace might actually have been workable for example. You don’t . Great. Now fuck  off with your superior attitude


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

My superior attitude isnt scheduled to end until the pandemic does.

I called for quicker action many times during the pandemic, so you are missing my point. Not every aspect of the WHOs early advice was bad, but by their own admission they made mistakes and were not quick enough. They also pandered to some of Chinas desires and ended up delaying global understanding of the role of asymptomatic transmission of this virus. Later on, various governments including the UKs used the lack of appreciation of the role of asymptomatic transmission as one of the excuses for their own failings and slow response in the early months.


----------



## Supine (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> I still stand by the point that out government and many others could have gone better if they had dated quicker at the outset by listen to the warnings and acting  as they came early2020. Test and trace might actually have been workable for example. You don’t . Great. Now fuck  off with your superior attitude



You state the ducking obvious like it’s some new gospel. Congratulations


----------



## bluescreen (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> My superior attitude isnt scheduled to end until the pandemic does.
> 
> I called for quicker action many times during the pandemic, so you are missing my point. Not every aspect of the WHOs early advice was bad, but by their own admission they made mistakes and were not quick enough. They also pandered to some of Chinas desires and ended up delaying global understanding of the role of asymptomatic transmission of this virus. Later on, various governments including the UKs used the lack of appreciation of the role of asymptomatic transmission as one of the excuses for their own failings and slow response in the early months.


WHO still putting diplomacy over world health, don't you you think?


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> My superior attitude isnt scheduled to end until the pandemic does.
> 
> I called for quicker action many times during the pandemic, so you are missing my point. Not every aspect of the WHOs early advice was bad, but by their own admission they made mistakes and were not quick enough. They also pandered to some of Chinas desires and ended up delaying global understanding of the role of asymptomatic transmission of this virus. Later on, various governments including the UKs used the lack of appreciation of the role of asymptomatic transmission as one of the excuses for their own failings and slow response in the early months.


Of course they weren’t good enough I never implied they were. I’m saying ours and other countries responses were even worse: the whole system of international public health needs reviewing so maybe we can save sone of the million people a year that  AIDS, or prevent the next outbreak of EBOLA etc. Possibly your bleatings don’t reach the same numbers that the WHO can reach, and possibly their advance research stations around the world have a more extensive coverage than yours so maybe as a starting point we should be holding out governments to account over whether or not they did enough in the early stages (pre-pandemic), as they might have done to preserve lives. - of course they didn’t


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

bluescreen said:


> WHO still putting diplomacy over world health, don't you you think?


Its not so easy to imagine how it could be any different, unless we totally changed the nature of power, global and economic orders, and the resulting priorities.

They and many other aspects of the orthodoxy did manage to partially reform their pandemic instincts as a result of painful lessons learnt and necessity. But at the earliest opportunities they tend to revert to prior form, and unfortunately the era of vaccines that target this virus offered various opportunities to regress back to the old status quo.


----------



## weltweit (Nov 27, 2021)

I can remember when the WHO were not recommending face masks for populations, seemingly against the logic that says health workers should wear them. However at the time it was clear that even here in the UK there was a massive shortage of PPE such that health workers couldn't get enough. Opening demand up to the rest of the population would have only worsened the situation in the NHS. That was my understanding as to why WHO wasn't recommending masks for all at that time.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 27, 2021)

weltweit said:


> I can remember when the WHO were not recommending face masks for populations, seemingly against the logic that says health workers should wear them. However at the time it was clear that even here in the UK there was a massive shortage of PPE such that health workers couldn't get enough. Opening demand up to the rest of the population would have only worsened the situation in the NHS. That was my understanding as to why WHO wasn't recommending masks for all at that time.



Yes, they lied about the effectiveness of masks and eroded public trust massively.  Absolute blinder there, lads.


----------



## mx wcfc (Nov 27, 2021)

weltweit said:


> I can remember when the WHO were not recommending face masks for populations, seemingly against the logic that says health workers should wear them. However at the time it was clear that even here in the UK there was a massive shortage of PPE such that health workers couldn't get enough. Opening demand up to the rest of the population would have only worsened the situation in the NHS. That was my understanding as to why WHO wasn't recommending masks for all at that time.


Yes, and our government followed suit for the same reason - we were hopelessly unprepared, due to cost cutting. So they deliberately lied.  

I get that that was necessary, given the situation. Health workers had to get the limited PPE first.  

A little bit of honesty now wouldn't hurt though.  

"We had to say that face masks weren't important, because we fucked up and didn't have enough."  might have left me with some tiny amount of respect for honesty.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

weltweit said:


> I can remember when the WHO were not recommending face masks for populations, seemingly against the logic that says health workers should wear them. However at the time it was clear that even here in the UK there was a massive shortage of PPE such that health workers couldn't get enough. Opening demand up to the rest of the population would have only worsened the situation in the NHS. That was my understanding as to why WHO wasn't recommending masks for all at that time.


But they advised setting up test and trace back in January 2020 and our govt ignored them.


----------



## bluescreen (Nov 27, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> Yes, and our government followed suit for the same reason - we were hopelessly unprepared, due to cost cutting. So they deliberately lied.
> 
> I get that that was necessary, given the situation. Health workers had to get the limited PPE first.
> 
> ...


They could even have said, as the CDC said: if you can't get hold of regular masks, here's how to make your own, which are a whole lot better than nothing.


----------



## Southlondon (Nov 27, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> Yes, and our government followed suit for the same reason - we were hopelessly unprepared, due to cost cutting. So they deliberately lied.
> 
> I get that that was necessary, given the situation. Health workers had to get the limited PPE first.
> 
> ...


Plus we had a whole pandemic store cupboard full of out of date masks because our pandemic preparedness such as it was, didn’t seem to stretch to stock rotation


----------



## bluescreen (Nov 27, 2021)

bluescreen said:


> They could even have said, as the CDC said: if you can't get hold of regular masks, here's how to make your own, which are a whole lot better than nothing.


Instead they were saying, IIRC, that masks were worse than useless because they funnelled the virus back at you.


----------



## mx wcfc (Nov 27, 2021)

bluescreen said:


> They could even have said, as the CDC said: if you can't get hold of regular masks, here's how to make your own, which are a whole lot better than nothing.


There was plenty of that info out there.  mrs mx made ours out of old t-shirts - but yes, the government weren't helpful.

I still think that a  general announcement that wearing masks would protect people would have led to PPE being diverted from the NHS though, by private sector spivs out for a quick buck.   And the absolute priority was protecting frontline NHS staff 18 months ago.  

So I sort of understand the policy, whilst detesting the bastards for fucking up.


----------



## Cloo (Nov 27, 2021)

I think bro-in-law is now sorted for quarantine accommodation on his return, somehow arranged from rural Malawi. He's out there, sadly, to say goodbye to an amazing guy who is the head of a school BIL and wife have a charity to fund out there. They met him on their honeymoon, painting a wall at their hotel to help earn some money so he could help teaching kids at the school he worked at because the finance manager had fucked off with all their funds, so they returned home determined to help him fund it and it's now thriving. I had the privilege of meeting the guy once and he really was a great bloke who cared so much - heartbreakingly he's dying of cancer, so BIL wanted to go see him one last time. I think he'll consider it worth it, even with the quarantine.


----------



## bluescreen (Nov 27, 2021)

mx wcfc said:


> There was plenty of that info out there.  mrs mx made ours out of old t-shirts - but yes, the government weren't helpful.
> 
> I still think that a  general announcement that wearing masks would protect people would have led to PPE being diverted from the NHS though, *by private sector spivs out for a quick buck.*   And the absolute priority was protecting frontline NHS staff 18 months ago.
> 
> So I sort of understand the policy, whilst detesting the bastards for fucking up.


BIB makes me so savage. An attitude that has fucked up so much of the pandemic response - and much else generally since ever.


----------



## elbows (Nov 27, 2021)

Yeah the concerns about supply of masks were a real concern, and its why, when the UK government finally started to recommend some of that stuff in May 2020, they used the phrase 'face coverings' instead of masks, initially told people to make them rather than buy them, and got most of the media to follow suit for a time. And then followed a period where the advice slowly evolved further, and recommendations turned into rules, albeit ones with the usual lack of enforcement, and the language used gradually changed too. I think the Scottish authorities were some weeks ahead with masks advice back then too.

Speaking of masks I may as well spell out explicitly that I am something of a pro wrestling fan, with an appreciation for good heel work on the mic and working a crowd. Which is probably one of the reasons why, on the occasions when people might find reason to accuse me of being pompous, self-important etc etc during this pandemic, I am highly likely to play up to that rather than refute it. Same with accusations that I might be a bore, I can provide supporting evidence for that criticism all day long!


----------



## existentialist (Nov 27, 2021)

S☼I said:


> This lady talking a load of sense
> 
> ETA Susan Michie of SAGE
> 
> She said the best way to avoid stronger clampdowns coming down the line is going hard, like, yesterday, and what the gov is doing is Plan B lite, in fact weaker measures than SAGE proposed in Sept before Omicron. So much for listening to the science


Oh, they _listen_ to the science; they just don't _hear _the science. It's probably drowned out by the sounds of cash registers.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 27, 2021)

Southlondon said:


> Why don’t you duck off you sanctimonious prick 😎


You might do well to be a little less gratuitously rude to people, since you seem to be in the business of taking things personally.


----------



## Yossarian (Nov 27, 2021)

elbows said:


> Such criticisms about my character didnt put me off from spouting facts at the time and certainly wont now. Stop talking shit about the easily searchable timeline of events.



I got a reminder today of how crap the WHO were at the time when I looked back at a story from Feb. 3 last year - when case numbers were in single digits in the US and European countries, Ghebreyesus strongly advised against travel restrictions, saying they "can cause more harm than good by hindering info-sharing, medical supply chains and harming economies."









						Coronavirus: Hong Kong hospital staff strike to demand closure of China border
					

Workers want the border with mainland China completely shut - but authorities insist it stays open.



					www.bbc.com


----------



## elbows (Nov 28, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> I got a reminder today of how crap the WHO were at the time when I looked back at a story from Feb. 3 last year - when case numbers were in single digits in the US and European countries, Ghebreyesus strongly advised against travel restrictions, saying they "can cause more harm than good by hindering info-sharing, medical supply chains and harming economies."
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes I was moaning about that sort of thing from the WHO just the other day, although I do acknowledge that there are also some good historical reasons why some of that stuff is baked into the international health regulations.

It still ends up featuring depressing shit though, more signs of the neoliberal world in which the WHO operates, and what the priorities were.

Take for example these bits from the January 30th 2020 WHO statement where they got round to declaring things to be a public health emergency of international concern, having failed to agree about doing that during their previous meeting:

From a section specifically geared towards China:



> Conduct exit screening at international airports and ports, with the aim of early detection of symptomatic travellers for further evaluation and treatment, while minimizing interference with international traffic.



From the section about Temporary Recommendations (a specific category described in the International Health Regulations) applicable to all countries and 'the global community':



> The Committee does not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available.
> 
> Countries must inform WHO about travel measures taken, as required by the IHR. Countries are cautioned against actions that promote stigma or discrimination, in line with the principles of Article 3 of the IHR.





> Under Article 43 of the IHR, States Parties implementing additional health measures that significantly interfere with international traffic (refusal of entry or departure of international travellers, baggage, cargo, containers, conveyances, goods, and the like, or their delay, for more than 24 hours) are obliged to send to WHO the public health rationale and justification within 48 hours of their implementation. WHO will review the justification and may request countries to reconsider their measures. WHO is required to share with other States Parties the information about measures and the justification received.



There is a lot of stuff in the same document that is much better, but also some things that demonstrate an obvious contradiction compared to the above, one of which I've put in bold in this quote:



> Countries should place particular emphasis on reducing human infection, *prevention of secondary transmission and international spread*, and contributing to the international response though multisectoral communication and collaboration and active participation in increasing knowledge on the virus and the disease, as well as advancing research.











						Statement on the second meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
					

Following the advice of the Emergency Committee today, WHO Director-General has declared the outbreak of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. In China, more than 7700 cases have been confirmed, and 170 people have died. There are 82 additional cases...




					www.who.int


----------



## elbows (Nov 28, 2021)

And on a bunch of later occasions during the pandemic, I made derogatory references to this press release that the WHO put out nearly a month later, in late February 2020:









						A Joint Statement on Tourism and COVID-19 - UNWTO and WHO Call for Responsibility and Coordination
					

As the current outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) continues to develop, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) are committed to working together in guiding the travel and tourism sectors’ response to COVID-19.On 30 January 2020, the...




					www.who.int
				






> A Joint Statement on Tourism and COVID-19 - UNWTO and WHO Call for Responsibility and Coordination​


​


> As the current outbreak of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) continues to develop, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) are committed to working together in guiding the travel and tourism sectors’ response to COVID-19.
> 
> On 30 January 2020, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of COVID-19 to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and issued a set of Temporary Recommendations. WHO did not recommend any travel or trade restriction based on the current information available. WHO is working closely with global experts, governments and partners to rapidly expand scientific knowledge on this new virus, to track the spread and virulence of the virus, and to provide advice to countries and the global community on measures to protect health and prevent the spread of this outbreak.





> The tourism sector is fully committed to putting people and their well-being first. International cooperation is vital for ensuring the sector can effectively contribute to the containment of COVID-19. UNWTO and WHO are working in close consultation and with other partners to assist States in ensuring that health measures be implemented in ways that minimize unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade.
> 
> Tourism’s response needs to be measured and consistent, proportionate to the public health threat and based on local risk assessment, involving every part of the tourism value chain – public bodies, private companies and tourists, in line with WHO’s overall guidance and recommendations.





> UNWTO and WHO stand ready to work closely with all those communities and countries affected by the current health emergency, to build for a better and more resilient future. Travel restrictions going beyond these may cause unnecessary interference with international traffic, including negative repercussions on the tourism sector.
> 
> At this challenging time, UNWTO and WHO join the international community in standing in solidarity with affected countries.



Double-plus 'responsibility'. Neoliberalism good, restrictions bad. Smell the priorities. A health response that was shackled by 'value chains'.

Its fair to say attitudes evolved a tad since then, due to a rather different set of 'negative repercussions' that made themselves felt in the wake of this virus, within weeks of the above being published. So documents like that one havent aged well and rather make my point for me.


----------



## Sunray (Nov 28, 2021)

* Digs out posh V&A mask *

ya! Been looking for that, by William Morris.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I think bro-in-law is now sorted for quarantine accommodation on his return, somehow arranged from rural Malawi. He's out there, sadly, to say goodbye to an amazing guy who is the head of a school BIL and wife have a charity to fund out there. They met him on their honeymoon, painting a wall at their hotel to help earn some money so he could help teaching kids at the school he worked at because the finance manager had fucked off with all their funds, so they returned home determined to help him fund it and it's now thriving. I had the privilege of meeting the guy once and he really was a great bloke who cared so much - heartbreakingly he's dying of cancer, so BIL wanted to go see him one last time. I think he'll consider it worth it, even with the quarantine.



Did he get back to the UK by 4 am this morning, or has he had to pay out for a government-approved hotel quarantine facility?


----------



## Glitter (Nov 28, 2021)

I’m in Spain and coming home tomorrow. Do I need a PCR or is it just the day2 lateral flow I bought?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2021)

Glitter said:


> I’m in Spain and coming home tomorrow. Do I need a PCR or is it just the day2 lateral flow I bought?



You should be OK tomorrow, they are bringing in a PCR test for all individuals arriving in the UK from abroad on day two, with self-isolation until a negative test is reported, but it seems not until later in the week, same with masks, I heard someone mention they need a vote in the Commons first.



> At a Downing Street news conference on Saturday, the prime minister said Mr Javid would outline the tightening up of the mask rules. He did not indicate when the PCR testing requirements would begin, with the Department for Health saying only that it was among measures to be "introduced from next week".











						Covid: Travel and mask rules tightened over Omicron variant
					

New measures to slow Omicron's spread in England before Christmas are unveiled by Boris Johnson.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Did he get back to the UK by 4 am this morning, or has he had to pay out for a government-approved hotel quarantine facility?


I thought it was 4am Tuesday morning?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I thought it was 4am Tuesday morning?





> From 4am on Sunday, non-UK and non-Irish residents who have been in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola in the previous 10 days will be refused entry into England, officials said. This does not apply to those who have stayed airside and only transited through any of these countries while changing flights.
> 
> *UK and Irish residents arriving from 4am on Sunday must isolate in a government-approved facility for 10 days. During their stay, they will be required to take a PCR test on day two and day eight.*











						UK travel red list to include Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Angola
					

From 4am on Sunday, UK and Irish residents returning to England must isolate in an approved facility for 10 days




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## teqniq (Nov 28, 2021)

Absolute fucking clown:


----------



## Glitter (Nov 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> You should be OK tomorrow, they are bringing in a PCR test for all individuals arriving in the UK from abroad on day two, with self-isolation until a negative test is reported, but it seems not until later in the week, same with masks, I heard someone mention they need a vote in the Commons first.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hmm I’m seeing conflicting things. 

As usual the guidance is clear as mud.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 28, 2021)

My ethnographic research embedded into the higher tiers of capital (aka having a job that forces me into contact with rich people) reveals that there is a massively strong ideological opposition to home working. 

You (generic you) might think that’s to do with owning office buildings or shares in Pret or some other principle based on money-generation.  It’s not, though. These people own everything anyway, their assets can ride over a speed bump of social change like they’re in a HumVee. It’s to do with power. They like being able to look down from the top and seeing all the people they own.  They like wandering down from a big office and feeling the thrum of the machinery that keeps them being important.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 28, 2021)

Glitter said:


> Hmm I’m seeing conflicting things.
> 
> As usual the guidance is clear as mud.


Any of these wankstains said what day "next week" is for masks, by the way?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Any of these wankstains said what day "next week" is for masks, by the way?



Javid has said from Tuesday.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Nov 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Javid has said from Tuesday.


Thursday it is then


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 28, 2021)

Sod waiting - that's what cocked it up last time ! ...

Back to masks in shops etc aka crowded indoor spaces, despite being more than two weeks after my booster.
And I'm doing as much as I can with WFH rather than in the workshop ...

[I have a site visit on Tuesday, the weather might put the kybosh on that, save me having to say "no"]


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 28, 2021)

Last August when the government apparently got some sort of a clue regards compulsory mask-wearing, I went shopping for the first time with some trepidation ... it will be interesting to see what happens here this time as mask-wearing has only very recently become a minority activity.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 28, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Last August when the government apparently got some sort of a clue regards compulsory mask-wearing, I went shopping for the first time with some trepidation ... it will be interesting to see what happens here this time as mask-wearing has only very recently become a minority activity.


Mask wearing here became a minority activity from _Freedom Day_ 

I myself don't have to change my behaviour as I haven't stopped wearing a mask in shops or in public places at work


----------



## Cloo (Nov 28, 2021)

Of course the 'do not comply' children are not out in full force, bravely risking.... maybe not being let into Tesco if they have someone bloshy at the door and the very vague chance of a fine. It's almost like they've picked the easiest, least costly way to show their 'bravery' against 'oppression'.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 28, 2021)

The mask 'rule' doesnt even apply in Pubs and restaurants whether you're sat at the table or not.
In Wales the mask 'rule' was never dropped yet its at the point where only those that want to (including staff) bother with it, none of it has been enforced since the beginning I've yet to see plod help out in any way or even be present its just left to the shop workers.

Whole country is some sick joke now and probably due to get a lot sicker...we is fucked


----------



## elbows (Nov 28, 2021)




----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 28, 2021)

elbows said:


>




Literally every bit of advice I've had from my GP the last few years.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 28, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Literally every bit of advice I've had from my GP the last few years.


And you're still here


----------



## Wilf (Nov 28, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Absolut fucking clown:



Astonishing, appalling... again.  Things like yes to masks in shops and transport but not in leisure settings... just bizarre.  Maybe it's ideological, maybe it's the mythical 'balance' they are always on about, but it's also just fucking stupid.  We know full well that masks work and that keeping them on in pubs and elsewhere is hardly an inconvenience... but no.  It's as if the government have adopted boris johnson own level of stupidity where he wears a mask but then pulls it down or refuses to wear one in a fucking hospital.   They are somehow stuck in some odd place where, along with their bigger long terms fuck ups, something stops them using common sense.  There really is a sense that British politics has become configured in such a way that government won't do a thing that attracts public support - mask wearing - that has little cost and saves lives.  They genuinely prefer death.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Astonishing, appalling... again.  Things like yes to masks in shops and transport but not in leisure settings... just bizarre.  Maybe it's ideological, maybe it's the mythical 'balance' they are always on about, but it's also just fucking stupid.  We know full well that masks work and that keeping them on in pubs and elsewhere is hardly an inconvenience... but no.  It's as if the government have adopted boris johnson own level of stupidity where he wears a mask but then pulls it down or refuses to wear one in a fucking hospital.   They are somehow stuck in some odd place where, along with their bigger long terms fuck ups, something stops them using common sense.  There really is a sense that British politics has become configured in such a way that government won't do a thing that attracts public support - mask wearing - that has little cost and saves lives.  They genuinely prefer death.



I think it’s quite likely they have internal battles in the party about it and have adopted a policy of avoiding talking about it to avoid rows, leading to massive incoherence in their outward behaviour.

That Scottish historian guy on GBNews was saying just last night that there was absolutely no evidence that masks help, and some that said it was counterproductive.  This was challenged slightly by a guest, but was ultimately left to stand.


----------



## sparkybird (Nov 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> You should be OK tomorrow, they are bringing in a PCR test for all individuals arriving in the UK from abroad on day two, with self-isolation until a negative test is reported, but it seems not until later in the week, same with masks, I heard someone mention they need a vote in the Commons first.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Not clear on when it's being brought in, but I understand the PCR has to be done BY day two. So you could do it as soon as you get home and hopefully be released a little earlier


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 28, 2021)

sparkybird said:


> Not clear on when it's being brought in, but I understand the PCR has to be done BY day two. So you could do it as soon as you get home and hopefully be released a little earlier



PCR tests are not being introduced until discussions with the other 3 UK states are completed, Javid has said Tuesday at the earliest, so Glitter should be fine coming back tomorrow.


----------



## Raheem (Nov 28, 2021)

I get the feeling we weren't grateful enough for the searing brilliance of earlier lockdowns.


----------



## 2hats (Nov 28, 2021)

sparkybird said:


> Not clear on when it's being brought in, but I understand the PCR has to be done BY day two. So you could do it as soon as you get home and hopefully be released a little earlier


0400 Tuesday (30 Nov).


----------



## teqniq (Nov 28, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Astonishing, appalling... again.  Things like yes to masks in shops and transport but not in leisure settings... just bizarre.  Maybe it's ideological, maybe it's the mythical 'balance' they are always on about, but it's also just fucking stupid.  We know full well that masks work and that keeping them on in pubs and elsewhere is hardly an inconvenience... but no.  It's as if the government have adopted boris johnson own level of stupidity where he wears a mask but then pulls it down or refuses to wear one in a fucking hospital.   They are somehow stuck in some odd place where, along with their bigger long terms fuck ups, something stops them using common sense.  There really is a sense that British politics has become configured in such a way that government won't do a thing that attracts public support - mask wearing - that has little cost and saves lives.  They genuinely prefer death.


I think it's in part idealogical. they don't want to be seen to be doing anything that may hurt the economy and by extension, capital also a substantial number of their current supporters are complete libertarian headbangers and they don't wish to alienate them.


----------



## LDC (Nov 28, 2021)

teqniq said:


> I think it's in part idealogical. they don't want to be seen to be doing anything that may hurt the economy and by extension, capital also a substantial number of their current supporters are complete libertarian headbangers and they don't wish to alienate them.



kabbes wrote something good on this somewhere on here. It's highly ideological, not at all solely financial.

E2A, here it is:



kabbes said:


> My ethnographic research embedded into the higher tiers of capital (aka having a job that forces me into contact with rich people) reveals that there is a massively strong ideological opposition to home working.
> 
> You (generic you) might think that’s to do with owning office buildings or shares in Pret or some other principle based on money-generation.  It’s not, though. These people own everything anyway, their assets can ride over a speed bump of social change like they’re in a HumVee. It’s to do with power. They like being able to look down from the top and seeing all the people they own.  They like wandering down from a big office and feeling the thrum of the machinery that keeps them being important.


----------



## teqniq (Nov 28, 2021)

Oh FFS:


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 28, 2021)

teqniq said:


> Oh FFS:




He's comparing different tests. 

Best to stay off certain corners of twitter I find.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Nov 28, 2021)

teqniq said:


> I think it's in part idealogical. they don't want to be seen to be doing anything that may hurt the economy and by extension, capital also a substantial number of their current supporters are complete libertarian headbangers and they don't wish to alienate them.



Which is crazy because the vast majority of business didn't want anything to do with brexit.


----------



## Chilli.s (Nov 28, 2021)

Wilf said:


> it's the mythical 'balance' they are always on about


The balance between people who have to work and those with more flexibility in their circumstances.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 28, 2021)

teqniq said:


> I think it's in part idealogical. they don't want to be seen to be doing anything that may hurt the economy and by extension, capital also a substantial number of their current supporters are complete libertarian headbangers and they don't wish to alienate them.



Even johnson isn't quite so stupid that he can't keep a mask on his face as he walks down a hospital corridor (I _think_).   Not wearing a mask or pulling it down seems performative perhaps, it's a signal that he _doesn't want to believe _the scientists about the best way to avoid horrible deaths. Neo liberalism and croney capitalism are going strong even if we didn't manage to 'biff the virus'.  Maybe performative is a bit too grand, perhaps it's just their core personality and beliefs leaking into the world, the public health version of trying to say something sincere whilst bursting into laughter.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 28, 2021)

The mask business is a nudge and a wink to the anti-vaxxers.  Johnson knows people who care about whether he wears a mask in a hospital are unlikely to vote for him anyway.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 28, 2021)

8ball said:


> The mask business is a nudge and a wink to the anti-vaxxers.  Johnson knows people who care about whether he wears a mask in a hospital are unlikely to vote for him anyway.


Maybe at some level, though the anti-vaxx loons are not much of a constituency to chase.  Feels to me like this is the residue of bullish get-brexit-done neloliberalism, both an ideological thing and also a braying poshboy thing.  There was a clip of Johnson saying they weren't going to be put off by 'some corona virus' early on that didn't age well beyond the following week even.  They've had to accept something that goes against all their political instincts, to the point that johnson's, literal, body language shows that is the case. More to the point though, that's also lead to every action being half hearted, late with them even unwilling to do simple cheap things that save lives, masks in particular.  You can call it performative or even double think in action, but it's really the sneering teenage finally forced to wash up who wanders off after breaking three cups.  Total UK Covid deaths = 167,927.


----------



## Supine (Nov 29, 2021)

Work travel ban just announced. Looks like this company are locking down ahead of any government advice.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 29, 2021)

That twat's maskless walk, accompanied by the "director of nursing", in the hospital was at a place very local to me [the market town to my large village]. 
It didn't go down well with a lot of people, despite the area being very tory. 
It has a lot of vulnerable / elderly folk.
Fortunately, that also translates into over 90% first dose vaccinations. 
And, when I was there for my booster, the hub was doing a very brisk trade [several hundred were expected that day].
Most of the cases locally are in school age kids and their parents.

What will happen when Omicron gets here, I don't know; but I'm sort of dreading it, despite [hopefully] having good protection from vaccination.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 29, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> What will happen when Omicron gets here...



It's already here.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 29, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's already here.


I know, I meant in my local area.

We got off quite lightly in terms of % cases, in both the Original and initial Alpha waves, but not for the January 2021 Alpha nor for the Delta waves. Thankfully, the death rate locally has always been quite low.
Although the Delta case rate looks like it is now dropping back somewhat in this tiny area.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 29, 2021)

Have seen a grand total of two students and two staff wearing masks in communal areas at college so far. Zero edicts from SMT or health and safety. Two members of my team saying "it says _strongly recommend_, not _it's mandatory_ so I'm not bothering"


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Nov 29, 2021)

I wonder if more students will wear masks now? I've been continuing to wear mine all term most of the time in an effort to reinforce the idea that the pandemic hadn't gone away.   Feeling a bit stupid but carried on anyway despite only 1 or 2 students in each class wearing masks even when I took in a range of coloured masks to each class and asked them to take one.   

 I'm working off site today but I'm not sure if there will be any difference.   There hasn't been an email about it yet [surprisingly] 


S☼I said:


> Have seen a grand total of two students and two staff wearing masks in communal areas at college so far. Zero edicts from SMT or health and safety. Two members of my team saying "it says _strongly recommend_, not _it's mandatory_ so I'm not bothering"


----------



## brogdale (Nov 29, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Have seen a grand total of two students and two staff wearing masks in communal areas at college so far. Zero edicts from SMT or health and safety. Two members of my team saying "it says _strongly recommend_, not _it's mandatory_ so I'm not bothering"


A microcosm of Johnson's country.


----------



## Wilf (Nov 29, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> I wonder if more students will wear masks now? I've been continuing to wear mine all term most of the time in an effort to reinforce the idea that the pandemic hadn't gone away.   Feeling a bit stupid but carried on anyway despite only 1 or 2 students in each class wearing masks even when I took in a range of coloured masks to each class and asked them to take one.
> 
> I'm working off site today but I'm not sure if there will be any difference.   There hasn't been an email about it yet [surprisingly]


My university has just announced masks to be worn in communal areas only.  The usual lack of leadership, from government and from local institutions.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 29, 2021)

Wilf said:


> My university has just announced masks to be worn in communal areas only.  The usual lack of leadership, from government and from local institutions.


My college has also announced this for all staff from today - principal giving out masks in reception - but we're to _encourage_ students over the next few days


----------



## Wilf (Nov 29, 2021)

S☼I said:


> My college has also announced this for all staff from today - principal giving out masks in reception - but we're to _encourage_ students over the next few days


Fucks sake.  Not surprising though when boris johnson can't be bothered wearing one when he walks down a hospital corridor.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 29, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Fucks sake.  Not surprising though when boris johnson can't be bothered wearing one when he walks down a hospital corridor.


Not to mention that de piffle was accompanied by the trust's "director of nursing"

[FYI that corridor was in the hospital for the local market town, just about 20 miles away ...]


----------



## Carvaged (Nov 29, 2021)

More braindead mismanagement and waste of taxpayer money by the Tories. They seem uniquely incapable of planning and foresight:



> *Flagship UK vaccine manufacturing centre put up for sale*​
> *Companies submit bids for plant that has received £200m of government funding*







__





						Subscribe to read | Financial Times
					

News, analysis and comment from the Financial Times, the worldʼs leading global business publication




					www.ft.com


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 29, 2021)

Carvaged said:


> More braindead mismanagement and waste of taxpayer money by the Tories. They seem uniquely incapable of planning and foresight:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Makes sense to me, it was commenced in 2018 but the current pandemic has shown that what matters is having domestic facilities, not state-operated facilities.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 29, 2021)

Am I right to think that only a small proportion of positive PCR tests go for genomic testing?, if we knew what that proportion was then we could make a judgement on how many cases of Omicron variant we currently have, no doubt its orders of magnitude higher a number than the 9 so far detected.

Does anyone have any idea what the genomic testing proportion is or even how many of these tests are made daily?


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Am I right to think that only a small proportion of positive PCR tests go for genomic testing?, if we knew what that proportion was then we could make a judgement on how many cases of Omicron variant we currently have, no doubt its orders of magnitude higher a number than the 9 so far detected.
> 
> Does anyone have any idea what the genomic testing proportion is or even how many of these tests are made daily?



You also have to account for what proportion of people get PCR tested at all, and various kinds of lag. They also fiddle around with what sort of samples are prioritised for genomic testing, eg those from travellers, different regions etc.

It changes over time. One of the reasons it would have been better to keep overall case numbers down would be to be able to genomically sequence a high proportion of cases. Since we had a resurgence in case numbers months ago, the percentages dropped a lot from quite a high level.

Graphs such as the following provide some guide, but due to lag and other holes in the system I still wouldnt like to estimate likely number of Omicron cases. And the graph is rather dominated by the fact that percentage sequenced plummets when cases/number of tests in total rises.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...al_Briefing_29_published_26_November_2021.pdf


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2021)

The Van-Tam, JCVI, MHRA 3pm briefing is likely to be quite boring but I'll probably stick it on in the background anyway.


----------



## editor (Nov 29, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Arsehole.
> 
> View attachment 298425


What a vile woman


----------



## existentialist (Nov 29, 2021)

editor said:


> What a vile woman



"I SPAEK YOR BRANES"


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 29, 2021)

So, booster jabs to be rolled out to everyone over 18, with a minimum of 3 months between 2nd & 3rd jab.

2nd jabs to be rolled out to all kids over 12.


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2021)

Oh Van-Tam has wheeled out the football analogies. Alpha and Delta were like getting injuries and subs off the bench, Omicron could be like getting some yellow cards, not going to wait for the red card to happen.


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, booster jabs to be rolled out to everyone over 18, with a minimum of 3 months between 2nd & 3rd jab.
> 
> 2nd jabs to be rolled out to all kids over 12.


Plus the immunocompromised who already had three primary doses should now get a 4th dose as a booster.


----------



## Calamity1971 (Nov 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh Van-Tam has wheeled out the football analogies. Alpha and Delta were like getting injuries and subs off the bench, Omicron could be like getting some yellow cards, not going to wait for the red card to happen.


I stop listening when he starts with his inane fucking analogies.


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 29, 2021)

Will he mention Michael Fish?


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Will he mention Michael Fish?


Only if Fish moved to the South African weather forecasting service.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 29, 2021)

I've just had (another) conversation with a fella in work who hovers on the anti-vax tightrope (he listens to a LOT of talk radio), and had to explain to him that the infection numbers are DAILY, not weekly. A look of sheer confusion passed over his face as he worked out the weekly numbers...'but, but that's 300,000 odd'. Yes Paul. Yes it is. Wear your fucking mask, dickhead.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 29, 2021)

A slight downward tick is visile in the case numbers again. I know this doesn't necessarily mean much ... however, the deaths and hospital admissions numbers seem to be continuing on a consistent decline. I have been watching them waiting to see the uptick that we expect to lag behind the cases numbers ... but it hasn't happened yet. Previously the lag has tended to be about 2 or 3 weeks, right? But I think we are now beyond that.


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2021)

Well the first thing I will say is look at the date on that graphic for when that patients admitted data was last updated. This is due to delayed figures from the likes of Scotland. So I recommend looking at Englands figures for that sort of thing.

The second thing I will say is that the age groups that accounted for a lot of the recent rise in positive cases included a lot of people who are young enough that I wouldnt expect them to make as large a difference to hospitalisations as we've tended to see in the past. Combine this with the effects of booster jabs and I suppose I'm not surprised that the daily hospitalisation picture hasnt exactly mirrored the case numbers trend recently.

But I wouldnt like to push that concept too far, and will post some of my usual daily hospitalisation for England and its regions graphs in a little bit.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 29, 2021)

"New Cases" seems to be on the rise for approx six weeks, then drop for three then back to rising again.
The last dip, was, I think, related to school half term(s) ... 

But looking at the figures for the county where I live, figures for hospitals & deaths still seem to be on a generally downward trend. As does the case rate in over 60s, especially compared to under 60s ...
Hopefully, that decrease will be the result of vaccinations & boosters.


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2021)

Actually something has come up and Im probably not going to get a chance to update my graphs for several more days.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 29, 2021)

Here are cases & hospital admissions for England only. Cases on a general rise since early Nov, hospital admissions on a gradual decline.

Of course that's what you might expect with infections being more predominantly in lower age groups ... the worry is to what extent they are then spreading back to older agre groups and the lag in that happening might be on a longer timescale.


.


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2021)

OK I did find time to do daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for England as a whole by broad age group. Falls in older age groups show up very clearly.

I'm seeing some very different regional patterns though so I will try to post the same graphs for at least one region of interest to illustrate the point shortly.


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2021)

A few regions to illustrate some of the differences being seen:

North East:



London:



South East:


----------



## Calamity1971 (Nov 29, 2021)

sojourner said:


> I've just had (another) conversation with a fella in work who hovers on the anti-vax tightrope (he listens to a LOT of talk radio), and had to explain to him that the infection numbers are DAILY, not weekly. A look of sheer confusion passed over his face as he worked out the weekly numbers...'but, but that's 300,000 odd'. Yes Paul. Yes it is. Wear your fucking mask, dickhead.


This is for Paul..


----------



## teuchter (Nov 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> A few regions to illustrate some of the differences being seen:
> 
> North East:
> 
> ...



Out of these the only group showing a clear upward trend in November is 18-64 in the southeast. I note that the southeast of england also shows up as a bit of an outlier in this graph:



from UK Coronavirus Tracker - Local


----------



## elbows (Nov 29, 2021)

Yes, I also posted those graphs to draw attention to the variations in the extent of the downward trend in older groups.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2021)

Another Downing Street press conference this afternoon at 4pm.









						Boris Johnson will hold Downing Street press conference today on Omicron variant
					

The Prime Minister is expected to update the UK on new Covid rules which came into force at 4am today and discuss the booster vaccine rollout in a briefing in No10




					www.mirror.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Nov 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Another Downing Street press conference this afternoon at 4pm.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


_It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas*....




*2020_


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 30, 2021)

brogdale said:


> _It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas*....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I was about to say I would prefer someone else presented these updates, someone like the health secretary.........then I remembered


----------



## Sasaferrato (Nov 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> A slight downward tick is visile in the case numbers again. I know this doesn't necessarily mean much ... however, the deaths and hospital admissions numbers seem to be continuing on a consistent decline. I have been watching them waiting to see the uptick that we expect to lag behind the cases numbers ... but it hasn't happened yet. Previously the lag has tended to be about 2 or 3 weeks, right? But I think we are now beyond that.
> 
> View attachment 298708


Yes. Vaccination is certainly ameliorating the severity of the illness.

i heard a medic on the wireless at the weekend, saying that the majority are mow needing a few days of O2 on an ordinary ward, ICU numbers are well down.


----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2021)

The governments stance is so shit that even mild comments from the usually ineffective Harries has caused a fracture:



> We’ve seen is, in fact, that not everybody has gone back to work. I’d like to think of it more in a general way, which is if we all decrease our social contacts a little bit, actually that helps to keep the variant at bay. So I think being careful, not socialising when we don’t particularly need to and particularly going and getting those booster jabs.



                                   5h ago                            09:31                         



> *Harries played down the prospect of the latest Covid restrictions being lifted before Christmas.* She would not answer when she was asked if she could imagine this happening, but she stressed the possible threat posed by Omicron and said that it was important to be “very careful”. She said the new measures were designed to give the authorities time to study the threat posed by the new variant. She also said that escalating the booster programme would give Britain better protection.




                                   5h ago                            10:08                         



> The Downing Street lobby briefing has just finished, and No 10 has delivered an unusually firm rebuke to Dr Jenny Harries, head of the UK Health Security Agency, on the subject of socialising at Christmas. (See 9.31am.) It seems that Boris Johnson is in favour of “socialising when we don’t particularly need to” (Harries’s phrase).
> 
> The Sun’s *Harry Cole* has the key quotes.





                                   2h ago                            12:23


----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2021)

Lots more on that on the Guardians live updates page, not least because of the parliamentary debate today which gives the usual shitheads a chance to talk complete shit.









						UK Covid live: No 10 refuses to back health chief’s call for people to avoid unnecessary socialising
					

Unusual rebuke for Dr Jenny Harries comes after she says reducing social contacts could help keep new variant’s spread at bay




					www.theguardian.com
				






> In the Commons *Christopher Chope *(Con) said he thought the new Covid rules were part of a “scaremongering propaganda campaign” designed to suppress freedom.





> In the Commons* Steve Brine *(Con) quotes what Jenny Harries said on the Today programme this morning. (See 9.31am.) Brine, a former health minister, says Harries is a careful and professional civil servant. She does not say things off the cuff, he says. He says if Harries was not presenting the government’s position in that interview, the minister, Maggie Throup, should have said so from the despatch box.
> 
> Brine also says he is concerned that the regulation saying close contacts of people testing postive with Omicron should have to isolate could mean that, if one pupil at school tests postive, the other 29 pupils in the class could be spent home.






> *Mark Jenkinson *(Con) intervenes, saying this could lead to “lockdown by default” as a result of the work of “activist directors of public health”.
> 
> *Brine *welcomes the point. He says, before he votes for these measures, he wants to hear clarification of what “suspected case” means in the isolation regulations. He says there is “an element of the Salem witch trials about this”, because they could lead to people being told to isolate for no good reason.
> 
> He also says that the regulations could have negative impact on confidence. He says the government is not telling people to cancel Christmas parties, but that is happening anyway. He says he knows of events being cancelled in his constituency. That is due to “the chilling effect of these regulations”, he says.





> Back in the Commons *Sir Graham Brady,* chair of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee, says the government should have let MPs debate these regulations before they came into force.
> 
> He echoes the concern expressed earlier (see 1.16pm) about the lack of an expiry date in the isolation regulations. And he says there are “very serious concerns about the efficacy of what is being proposed”.






> *Dr Andrew Murrison *(Con) says, although the government says it wants to avoid the risk of the NHS being overwhelmed, there is “no conceivable way” that could happen because 90% of the population have antibodies.
> 
> Brady agrees, pointing out that Murrison is medically qualified.
> 
> *Sir Desmond Swayne* (Con) intervenes to say the danger with the current plans is that they could trigger another “pingdemic”.


----------



## scalyboy (Nov 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Lots more on that on the Guardians live updates page, not least because of the parliamentary debate today which gives the usual shitheads a chance to talk complete shit.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


These people travel around in their own cars or are chauffered here and there, I doubt they know the reality of public transport at rush hour.


----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Nov 30, 2021)

Main message from todays press conference seems to be that the new booster schedule is quite the challenge and they arent actually ready to do it yet, so dont contact the NHS etc if you werent already eligible for a booster at this time. And we'll hear all about it when they are allowing more groups to book earlier than was envisaged before Omicron arrived. They've set a target for the end of January to offer everyone a booster appointment.

Harries earlier comments, and the difference between them and what this shitty government say is necessary now, have unsurprisingly been seized upon by the press.


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 30, 2021)

So if I had a preference for novavax as my booster shot, do we think that would  (a) be available in the near future and (b) be used for the booster program?  With my long covid I'm drawn to the lower side-effects being touted for it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2021)

Big increases in the rate paid to the private contractors, GPs & pharmacists, for booster jabs delivered by the end of Jan., about 20% up / £15 per jab, and about a 30% increase for delivering shots to the housebound - £30 per jab.

I guess that could get the minority of GPs that opted out from the booster campaign, back onboard.

Also mentioned was £20 per jab delivered on Sundays by pharmacists, but no mention of that for GPs, which could piss them off.


----------



## _Russ_ (Nov 30, 2021)

No decent pay rise for nurses, yet they can give GPs 15-30 quid to give a jab..taking the piss


----------



## Steel Icarus (Nov 30, 2021)

I think it's brilliant that Christopher Chode thinks measures to keep people safe are suppression of freedom but him wanting conscription and being against same sex marriage is perfectly reasonable

The fucking chode


----------



## cupid_stunt (Nov 30, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> No decent pay rise for nurses, yet they can give GPs 15-30 quid to give a jab..taking the piss


Has anyone said the GP's will not be increasing the overtime pay rates to the nurses delivering most of the jabs?


----------



## Cloo (Nov 30, 2021)

God, this government with it's 'not part of our plan' shtick. A pandemic doesn't fucking care what your 'plan' is. It doesn't give a shit about Christmas. You're supposed to respond to the pandemic, not your plans or that it happens to be nearly Massive Capitalism Month.


----------



## 8ball (Nov 30, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I think it's brilliant that Christopher Chode thinks measures to keep people safe are suppression of freedom but him wanting conscription and being against same sex marriage is perfectly reasonable
> 
> The fucking chode



Liked especially for "chode".


----------



## 8ball (Nov 30, 2021)

Cloo said:


> God, this government with it's 'not part of our plan' shtick. A pandemic doesn't fucking care what your 'plan' is. It doesn't give a shit about Christmas. You're supposed to respond to the pandemic, not your plans or that it happens to be nearly Massive Capitalism Month.


----------



## LDC (Nov 30, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> So if I had a preference for novavax as my booster shot, do we think that would  (a) be available in the near future and (b) be used for the booster program?  With my long covid I'm drawn to the lower side-effects being touted for it.



TBH I think that's a slightly weird and mistaken position to have. Just get the vaccine you're offered and stop trying to over-think something. And personal preferences for that belong in another thread anyway, not UK news, maybe the first world problems thread.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 30, 2021)

Understandable if they've got long covid though.


----------



## LDC (Nov 30, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Understandable if they've got long covid though.



Well unless they have access to the trial data and can make comparisons with other trial data for that subset of patients, they're just wildly making likely incorrect guesses.


----------



## Brainaddict (Nov 30, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH I think that's a slightly weird and mistaken position to have. Just get the vaccine you're offered and stop trying to over-think something. And personal preferences for that belong in another thread anyway, not UK news, maybe the first world problems thread.


I was asking if anyone had any news on the matter. Your opinion wasn't required.


----------



## sojourner (Nov 30, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> TBH I think that's a slightly weird and mistaken position to have. Just get the vaccine you're offered and stop trying to over-think something. And personal preferences for that belong in another thread anyway, not UK news, maybe the first world problems thread.


I've commented on your pompous and patronising attitude before. Why can't you just respond with politeness? Being a medic doesn't give you carte blanche to be this blunt.


----------



## stdP (Nov 30, 2021)

I don't know if anyone else was in central today, but there seemed to be quite a heavy police presence at some of the larger stations. Three officers this morning at the entrance to the vicky line - I wasn't sure if they were there to question people not wearing masks (no-one around me wasn't) but on my tube journeys there were no less than three tannoy announcements requesting BTP attendance at parts of the stations.

TfL's page here was updated today and suggests they're taking it seriously now although I still saw a few people on the tube without masks (presumably with an exemption certificate) but mask wearing must have been over 90% (being sub-30% a couple of weeks ago).


----------



## Cloo (Nov 30, 2021)

It was no better than usual in Tesco today.


----------



## StoneRoad (Nov 30, 2021)

I was out at a site visit today - outside, so started off masked and well wrapped up.
After some climbing about my face was getting uncomfortable, first time that's happened for a while.

Very pleased to get in the car, out of the wind & take the mask off.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 30, 2021)

stdP said:


> I don't know if anyone else was in central today,


Central what?


----------



## Wilf (Nov 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Central what?


Maybe the link to a TfL page gave a clue...


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 30, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Maybe the link to a TfL page gave a clue...


Totally fascist Layout map?


----------



## teuchter (Nov 30, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Maybe the link to a TfL page gave a clue...


Yup, looks like the second paragraph is talking about London but not sure about the first. BTP so must be somewhere in the UK, which is what you'd expect given the thread subject.


----------



## stdP (Nov 30, 2021)

TfL obviously refers to the train from Texas to fort Lauderdale. BTP is of course Build That Pancreas, a Kentucky biotech startup who were collecting genetic samples from unmasked travellers on the train to be used for creating 3D-printed human organs in a cloned chaffinch stapled to the back of Shane Ritchie's left buttock.

Sorry for not making things clearer.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 1, 2021)

stdP said:


> TfL obviously refers to the train from Texas to fort Lauderdale. BTP is of course Build That Pancreas, a Kentucky biotech startup who were collecting genetic samples from unmasked travellers on the train to be used for creating 3D-printed human organs in a cloned chaffinch stapled to the back of Shane Ritchie's left buttock.
> 
> Sorry for not making things clearer.


Thanks for the info. Still doesn't answer my original question though.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 1, 2021)

Imagine a world outside the big shitty


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2021)

Oh good, someone leaked SAGE minutes to the BBC:









						Covid: Omicron may require 'very stringent response', say Sage scientists
					

Officials should prepare for a "potentially significant" wave of cases, government scientific advisers say.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *The impact of the Omicron variant on the UK is "highly uncertain" but may require a "very stringent response", government advisers have said.*
> 
> The BBC has seen leaked minutes of a meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies held on Monday.
> 
> Officials should prepare now for a "potentially significant" wave of infections while data on the variant is collected and analysed, they say.





> More than 30 scientists attended a video conference on 29 November, led by the government's chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and chief medical adviser Chris Whitty.





> The minutes, which have not yet been published but have been seen by the BBC, say that it is "highly likely" that Omicron can escape immunity caused by previous infection or vaccination "to some extent".





> The advisers say that there is not currently any evidence of widespread community transmission of Omicron in the UK, as there has been in parts of South Africa. They say the impact on a country like the UK remains uncertain as it is different in terms of age structure, the numbers previously infected with coronavirus and the level of vaccination coverage.





> The scientists believe that booster jabs are likely to provide protection against severe disease, hospitalisation and death from most variants in the short term.
> 
> But they note: "Any significant reduction in protection against infection could still result in a very large wave of infections. This would in turn lead to a potentially high number of hospitalisations even with protection against severe disease being less affected."
> 
> Although the size of any future wave remains "highly uncertain", the scientists say it may be of a scale that requires "very stringent response measures" to avoid unsustainable pressure on the NHS.





> The minutes make it clear that it is too early to know how ill the Omicron variant will make those infected or how that might vary by age. They say the first indications of the likely impact on vaccines should come from laboratory studies over the coming weeks.
> 
> But the advisers note: "It is important to be prepared for a potentially very significant wave of infections with associated hospitalisations now, ahead of data being available."
> 
> ...


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh good, someone leaked SAGE minutes to the BBC:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Lets face it, Its all 'no shit sherlock stuff'


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2021)

Although the government have so far resisted doing all that may turn out to be necessary, one significant change was to the self-isolation rules for people who are vaccinated but have close contact with a suspected Omicron case. This change has now gone into law until next March, and the Telegraph are moaning about it on their front page.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 1, 2021)

As SAGE seem to be pointing out, depiffle is still on the "too little, too late" path, trying to save chrimble for the tory party paymasters.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2021)

As with previous waves and slow Johnson response, we'll be reliant to a great extent on the public changing behaviours in advance of any formal rules changes.


----------



## LDC (Dec 1, 2021)

I think the Xmas stuff is a bit of a red herring, I don't think he or his party care that much, and I don't think much of the country cares outside the media hype. People will still get together etc. and if anything what's been shown is people are overall pretty careful when it comes down to it.

The Xmas fuss masks that they're really concerned with capital and its production, and then beyond that maintaining an strong ideological commitment to an individualized personal freedom that runs alongside an unbothered attitude towards the 'weak' and 'unproductive' in society.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 1, 2021)

UK death rate is now half the EU average and one of the lowest in Europe. Quite a change from 2 or 3 months ago when UK death rate was twice the EU average.




In terms of total deaths, the UK still fares badly but maybe not as badly as some might be led to believe, when compared to the EU average.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2021)

Is that based on deaths within 28 days of a positive test rather than, for example, death certificates mentioning Covid-19?


----------



## teuchter (Dec 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Is that based on deaths within 28 days of a positive test rather than, for example, death certificates mentioning Covid-19?


Can't tell you off hand. Looks like the data comes via John Hopkins. 





__





						Overview of 91-DIVOC | 91-DIVOC
					






					91-divoc.com
				




I always view it with an assumption that there may be various inconsistencies in how different countries report their numbers. But I think it's handy when trying to get a broad overview of what's going on in different places.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2021)

Yeah you know me, I was bound to mention it as I am oversensitive to potential undercounting. And the way the daily figures are reported continues to grind on my nerves give that the difference between 'within 28 days' and covid mentioned on death certificates is now over 20,000 (144,969 vs 167,927). Plus the death certificate form of measurement can still miss cases. And I couldnt even rely on excess death estimates due to periods where lockdowns, recession etc temporarily reduced deaths from other causes.

And I find it very hard to find out what criteria other countries have used, partly because of my poor foreign language skills and the vast amount of irrelevant stuff that comes up when I do basic searches online.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 1, 2021)

Probably posted elsewhere, but an Israeli doc who caught the Omicron thingy thinks he got it in London at a medical conference.








						Israeli doctor believes he caught Omicron variant of Covid in London
					

Exclusive: Cardiologist Elad Maor suspects he caught virus at conference attended by more than 1,200 people




					www.theguardian.com
				




Seems plausible that he did get it there but regardless, a medical event with 1200 people attending _in person_. WT Fucking F.


----------



## elbows (Dec 1, 2021)

Well being a medical professional is not on its own a reliable guide to pandemic levels of caution, and conferences were one of the first things some people were keen to rush back to as soon as possible, despite being one of the settings I'd be more inclined to visit if I were trying to catch Covid!


----------



## teuchter (Dec 1, 2021)

Not sure what's surprising about medics, most of whom by definition won't have been working from home for the last two years, deciding they'd like to attend a conference in person.
From my observations, trying to do conferences online is miserable and just doesn't really work.


----------



## 8ball (Dec 1, 2021)

elbows said:


> Well being a medical professional is not on its own a reliable guide to pandemic levels of caution, and conferences were one of the first things some people were keen to rush back to as soon as possible, despite being one of the settings I'd be more inclined to visit if I were trying to catch Covid!



Or crabs.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Not sure what's surprising about medics, most of whom by definition won't have been working from home for the last two years, deciding they'd like to attend a conference in person.
> From my observations, trying to do conferences online is miserable and just doesn't really work.


But that doesn't add up to the people putting it on doing a risk assessment and thinking 'yeah, fine'.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 1, 2021)

Wilf said:


> But that doesn't add up to the people putting it on doing a risk assessment and thinking 'yeah, fine'.


Large gatherings have been going on all over the place for some time now. Every day millions of people are sitting in pubs, trains, cinemas, planes, theatres. I don't see why a medical conference would be treated specially. Do you mean the attendees would be at an unusually high risk of carrying Covid?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 1, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Large gatherings have been going on all over the place for some time now. Every day millions of people are sitting in pubs, trains, cinemas, planes, theatres. I don't see why a medical conference would be treated specially. Do you mean the attendees would be at an unusually high risk of carrying Covid?


Nope, I just think medics would be a bit more minded to put public health first.


----------



## LDC (Dec 1, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Nope, I just think medics would be a bit more minded to put public health first.



I love and admire your boundless optimism comrade Wilf.


----------



## 8ball (Dec 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I love and admire your boundless optimism comrade Wilf.



The place is bloody exploding with it at the moment.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 1, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I love and admire your boundless optimism comrade Wilf.


Pessimism of the head and optimism of the heart.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Nope, I just think medics would be a bit more minded to put public health first.



The conference was about heart valves, including hands-on surgical training elements with new technologies. You may think that doctors should abandon such things for the foreseeable, but thankfully they don't agree with you.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 2, 2021)

Very important that they met in person in order to look at a screen.


----------



## Supine (Dec 2, 2021)

LOL at people criticising medical professionals for carrying on working during a pandemic.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 2, 2021)

tbf not really laughing at them for carrying on working - just questioning whether a largeish gathering in a conference room is a good idea when it might be better doing it virtually.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 2, 2021)

two sheds said:


> tbf not really laughing at them for carrying on working - just questioning whether a largeish gathering in a conference room is a good idea when it might be better doing it virtually.



It was both virtual and in-person. As has been said, it's not possible to do everything online, especially when it comes to new medical equipment.

But I'm sure some randoms on the internet know better than the clinicians involved.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It was both virtual and in-person. As has been said, it's not possible to do everything online, especially when it comes to new medical equipment.
> 
> But I'm sure some randoms on the internet know better than the clinicians involved.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 2, 2021)

In theory, I have no objection , at all, to this type of conference. 

But you would think that the people attending in person would be more than paranoid about ensuring the anti-covid precautions were above top-notch - and including travel to/from & during any 'socialising / networking' associated with the event.

I'm more incline to think the person concerned caught it on one the flights involved. [cf the Dutch experience with flights from SA recently]


----------



## Wilf (Dec 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It was both virtual and in-person. As has been said, it's not possible to do everything online, especially when it comes to new medical equipment.
> 
> But I'm sure some randoms on the internet know better than the clinicians involved.


If there's a good argument for a mass gathering of a 1000+ people sat next to each other in a hall, some without masks, I'm open to hearing it.  And no, I don't have any objection to ongoing practical training.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> If there's a good argument for a mass gathering of a 1000+ people sat next to each other in a hall, some without masks, I'm open to hearing it.  And no, I don't have any objection to ongoing practical training.



You realise that hospital doctors are more likely to catch the virus in hospital than elsewhere, right? Attending the conference would have reduced their risk for several days.


----------



## IC3D (Dec 2, 2021)

Judging from the sidelines is why nurses and doctors are reluctant to strike despite knowing that care given suffers through underfunding they will get blamed by patients for and blamed by the public for taking industrial action to do something about it.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 2, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Judging from the sidelines is why nurses and doctors are reluctant to strike despite knowing that care given suffers through underfunding they will get blamed by patients for and blamed by the public for taking industrial action to do something about it.


No, most medical people are reluctant to strike because they tend to give a pretty serious damn about the job they do. I think it's a bit of an insult to suggest it's because they're worried about being blamed.

And, of course, successive governments have been only too happy to exploit (and mischaracterise, as you have done) that sense of vocation, and use it to enable themselves to shit on front line medical staff, in the almost certain knowledge that they'll just suck it up.

ETA: interesting that IC3D thinks that this post is amusing (per the "like")


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> You realise that hospital doctors are more likely to catch the virus in hospital than elsewhere, right? Attending the conference would have reduced their risk for several days.


I dont agree with that at all. Conferences have inherent risks as was demonstrated near the start of the pandemic. Especially when participants gather from around the world. Obviously medical settings have big risks too but also plenty of mitigation measures, especially if appropriate PPE is actually available. The risk-reward balance is also different, and one setting involves absolutely essential work that cannot be said of the conference.

The virus loves it when humans network.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

And just because the professional classes have ways to dress up their socialising as being of vital importance, I dont view such things with much higher regard than the regard I had for certain classes weakness for dinner parties during the pandemic.

Plus if you think the participants normal jobs incurs a high risk of exposure to the virus, then bringing people with that shared risk together from all over the world so they can then spread anything they picked up in their normal job setting amongst themselves in a more casual setting hardly sounds like something that would genuinely 'reduce their risk for a couple of days'. New connections = new opportunities for the virus. Plus throw in some potential exposure or transmission whilst travelling.

Its not really surprising that lots of people wanted to return to old behaviours sooner than was strictly wise. Some degree of difficult judgements and balance were always going to be required. I'm entirely unsurprised that many poor decisions have been made on this front in 2021. Now the consequences will be felt, although at least even I dont view those consequences as likely to resemble 'being right back to square one'.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont agree with that at all. Conferences have inherent risks as was demonstrated near the start of the pandemic. Especially when participants gather from around the world. Obviously medical settings have big risks too but also plenty of mitigation measures, especially if appropriate PPE is actually available. The risk-reward balance is also different, and one setting involves absolutely essential work that cannot be said of the conference.
> 
> The virus loves it when humans network.



I'm not sure you're properly recognizing the insidious risks associated with indefinitely abandoning in-person medical educational and research events. Comparisons to pre-testing pre-vaccine events aren't really useful.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

The word indefinitely has something in common with 'if not now then when?' stuff that was used to justify a timetable for returning to normal in 2021 that I completely disagreed with.

I generally file all this stuff under 'asking the vaccine to carry more pandemic weight than it was wise to expect it really could, at least for the first year or so'.

A lot of the decisions and balancing acts arent easy, and I dont want to pretend otherwise. But all the mistakes and inappropriate attitudes and though processes at the start of the pandemic, including from the very people who ideally should have known better, offered strong clues about the nature of the mistakes that could be made again during the initial vaccination stage of the pandemic. And I'm a bit grouchy that it is indeed playing out this way as feared.


----------



## Supine (Dec 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> The word indefinitely has something in common with 'if not now then when?' stuff that was used to justify a timetable for returning to normal in 2021 that I completely disagreed with.
> 
> I generally file all this stuff under 'asking the vaccine to carry more pandemic weight than it was wise to expect it really could, at least for the first year or so'.
> 
> A lot of the decisions and balancing acts arent easy, and I dont want to pretend otherwise. But all the mistakes and inappropriate attitudes and though processes at the start of the pandemic, including from the very people who ideally should have known better, offered strong clues about the nature of the mistakes that could be made again during the initial vaccination stage of the pandemic. And I'm a bit grouchy that it is indeed playing out this way as feared.



Its all very well you sitting at home safely commenting on covid constantly but the medical profession has not had that luxury. They’ve most caught covid and been treble jabbed so to an extent when would they get back to normal if not this year?

Plus 1200 people at a conference and was it one report of catching it? Sounds like the conference could have been completely safe.


----------



## IC3D (Dec 2, 2021)

You can't learn hospital on zoom.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 2, 2021)

Supine said:


> Its all very well you sitting at home safely commenting on covid constantly but the medical profession has not had that luxury. They’ve most caught covid and been treble jabbed so to an extent when would they get back to normal if not this year?
> 
> Plus 1200 people at a conference and was it one report of catching it? Sounds like the conference could have been completely safe.


They can get back to normal when it's a safe thing to do, surely? 

Come on, there's no way 1,200 people at a conference are doing anything important they couldn't do over zoom. They're zoning out during presentations and eating food with French in the name. They're not learning new life-saving techniques hands-on, because you don't do that in groups of 1,200, and you rarely need to cross continents to get there.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

Supine said:


> Its all very well you sitting at home safely commenting on covid constantly but the medical profession has not had that luxury. They’ve most caught covid and been treble jabbed so to an extent when would they get back to normal if not this year?
> 
> Plus 1200 people at a conference and was it one report of catching it? Sounds like the conference could have been completely safe.


Dont go back to relative normality until the acute phase of the pandemic is clearly over, and a much higher proportion of the world is protected. Which it was not this year, as demonstrated in many ways including over 5 and a half million people testing positive in the UK since the start of June.

These new mistakes and stupid attitudes and justifications look a lot like the old mistakes made at the start. As do the arguments with me about it. Maybe you'll have better luck this time, but I have my doubts.


----------



## Supine (Dec 2, 2021)

Raheem said:


> They can get back to normal when it's a safe thing to do, surely?
> 
> Come on, there's no way 1,200 people at a conference are doing anything important they couldn't do over zoom. They're zoning out during presentations and eating food with French in the name. They're not learning new life-saving techniques hands-on, because you don't do that in groups of 1,200, and you rarely need to cross continents to get there.



If you looked at the conference website you’d notice there are lots of practical exercises in the syllabus. I’m keen to have heart surgery from people who have had a practice first


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Dont go back to relative normality until the acute phase of the pandemic is clearly over, and a much higher proportion of the world is protected. Which it was not this year, as demonstrated in many ways including over 5 and a half million people testing positive in the UK since the start of June.
> 
> These new mistakes and stupid attitudes and justifications look a lot like the old mistakes made at the start. As do the arguments with me about it. Maybe you'll have better luck this time, but I have my doubts.



I thought you said decisions and balancing acts weren’t easy, but apparently they are easy if only everyone would follow your assessment of risk.

If you think that this conference was a stupid mistake, you’re entitled to your view, but don’t act like it’s unreasonable for all those heart surgeons to have arrived at a different view.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I thought you said decisions and balancing acts weren’t easy, but apparently they are easy if only everyone would follow your assessment of risk.
> 
> If you think that this conference was a stupid mistake, you’re entitled to your view, but don’t act like it’s unreasonable for all those heart surgeons to have arrived at a different view.



Given the road many decided to go down this year, its not hard to see why things like that conference went ahead. The momentum was not on the side of what people like me thought reasonable to do in 2021, and I have to come to terms with that.

What I will consider to be really stupid is if lessons are not learnt from this, when combined with the current Omicron situation and its current unknowns.

So in many ways the extent to which I will be infuriated by some of the posts here today comes down to whether your sentiments only seek to explain and justify what has already happened with that conference, or whether they also form a basis to argue that such behaviours should carry on regardless now that we have some benefit of hindsight in regards Omicron existing.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 2, 2021)

Supine said:


> If you looked at the conference website you’d notice there are lots of practical exercises in the syllabus. I’m keen to have heart surgery from people who have had a practice first


Yes to practical training of course. Practical training in the most effective but also Covid sensible settings possible.  That might involve some travel, it might involve lots of things. But the bit that involves sitting in a hall in close proximity with 1000+ people is neither sensible nor safe.


----------



## Supine (Dec 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> But the bit that involves sitting in a hall in close proximity with 1000+ people is neither sensible nor safe.



Show some evidence that the conference caused any issues and then we can discuss.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

I see from the conference photo collection that the latest innovations in chin masks were demonstrated.


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## teuchter (Dec 2, 2021)

The differences of opinion on this sort of thing are not just down to different ideas about acceptable level of risk, they also come from different ideas of level of benefit. The value of meeting in person is rated very differently by different people, according to their personality and also the nature of their work. It's been quite clear throughout the last couple of years that for some people staying at home and not really seeing anyone is no big deal or even a pleasure ... While for others it has a very major negative impact on their well-being.


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## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

Its clear that some people have learnt very little from the pandemic. Infuriating. The usual suspects too, with the same brand of bullshit.


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## Wilf (Dec 2, 2021)

Supine said:


> Show some evidence that the conference caused any issues and then we can discuss.


That's a really stupid thing to suggest I need do. I don't have results of tests taken by participants, hotel workers and caterers since the event (though, if you want to go down that road, the reason we are discussing this is an Israeli doctor thinks he got Omicron at the event).  What do you want me to do, hold off saying warehouse parties/pissed up Euro 2020 parties/boris johnson's Christmas parties and the rest were a bad idea till I have some data?  FFS!  We know full well the scenarios that are not a good idea. And before you get into 'oh, so you think these doctors are just as bad as pissed up people at a party', no I don't.  More likely to be Covid aware, though clearly not social distancing or with 100% mask use.


----------



## Supine (Dec 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its clear that some people have learnt very little from the pandemic. Infuriating. The usual suspects too, with the same brand of bullshit.



Me?


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

Supine said:


> Me?


You might have learnt plenty, as may have others. And you werent clueless to start with either.

But yes I do get infuriated that there is something very familiar about how we clash over such matters.

I'd rather we all learnt and grew and made each other feel better, but there are some unfortunate aspects of my personality that are at odds with these aims. I suppose I'd feel better if we spent more time talking about what we've learnt and what mistakes we wont repeat.


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## Yossarian (Dec 2, 2021)

Holding a conference is one thing, but choosing to hold it in London of all places seems like a bad move - seems just as likely that the doctor caught omicron on public transport or in his hotel than at the conference itself.


----------



## xenon (Dec 2, 2021)

In a scenario that was never going to happen anyway. If lockdown had lasted till today. We still have this new variant to worry over. But with a much less exposed populous, fewer antibodies. It remains to be seen of course whether prior infection with Delta offers any protection against omnicrom.


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## xenon (Dec 2, 2021)

Dropping the advice, mandate even, to wear masks in shops et cetera was stupid. But other than that what else would’ve changed the picture. We’d still be here.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 2, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> Holding a conference is one thing, but choosing to hold it in London of all places seems like a bad move - seems just as likely that the doctor caught omicron on public transport or in his hotel than at the conference itself.


Most of London has had the lowest case rates in the UK for the past month or two.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

I never said we should stay in lockdown all the way through. There are plenty of other details somewhere in between the old normal and the sensible new normal that was actually appropriate in 2021.

We should not have placed so much reliance on vaccines alone. I've been saying that for nearly a year.

We should not have removed a lot of the basic social distancing measures.

We should not have rushed back to conferences and international travel.

We should not have let so many in the world go unprotected via disgusting vaccine distribution inequality.

The evolution of the virus is a messy picture. But prioritising keeping the number of infections down to a minimum can make quite a big difference to that. Even if it failed to prevent new mutations from appearing at a similar pace, it would have at least given health care systems and staff some opportunity to partially recover, to have a period with less burden on the front lines.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Most of London has had the lowest case rates in the UK for the past month or two.


The UK as a whole was a poor choice of destination but quite how much that was the primary mistake is unclear to me given that the gathering of people from around the world, and the associated travel and accommodation bring their own risks.

We might also ponder whether lax rules in the UK made it an ideal choice of destination for organisers of such gatherings. Come to the UK, where you only have to pay lip service to mask wearing and where there are no limits on participant numbers in indoor settings.


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## platinumsage (Dec 2, 2021)

PCR London Valves has run annually in London for many years, because the concentration of hospitals and research institutions make it a world-leading location for cardiovascular research and education.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its clear that some people have learnt very little from the pandemic. Infuriating. The usual suspects too, with the same brand of bullshit.



Luckily by venting on here you're not abusing heart surgeons on Twitter.


----------



## Supine (Dec 2, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> PCR London Valves has run annually in London for many years, because the concentration of hospitals and research institutions make it a world-leading location for cardiovascular research and education.



And a LOT of medical boards will have risked assessed the travel req’s for the participants


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## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

The sales, marketing and networking impetus behind conferences is not lost on me.


platinumsage said:


> Luckily by venting on here you're not abusing heart surgeons on Twitter.


Fuck off with that pathetic smear you disgusting pandemic piece of shit.


----------



## editor (Dec 2, 2021)

Anecdotally, I've suddenly had a fair few friends come down with Covid in the last five days or so - something like 9 or 10 people which is probably the most I've known at the same time. Mind you, at least four of them are anti vaxxers.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> The sales, marketing and networking impetus behind conferences is not lost on me.


I was about to post the same point.  I don't know about this particular conference, but conferences generally are part of the circuits of capital - from trade events specifically about selling through to academic events dominated by publishers stands.  I think this links to an earlier discussion on here about bosses needing to perform who they are and their position during Covid.  That was certainly the case with regard to academic events I've been involved in, the executive of an annual association and their favourite profs in a self congratulatory echo chamber.  Junior academics allowed to play the game and network, but within a paternalistic structure.  Other conferences/events are much better, needless to say.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

I cant help but think the media or their sources sat on the no 10 Christmas party story until this years Christmas loomed. Anyway here is the latest development to the political heat over that:









						Covid bereaved families 'sickened' over No 10 Christmas party
					

A bereaved families group calls for an apology from Boris Johnson over lockdown gathering.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I was about to post the same point.  I don't know about this particular conference, but conferences generally are part of the circuits of capital - from trade events specifically about selling through to academic events dominated by publishers stands.  I think this links to an earlier discussion on here about bosses needing to perform who they are and their position during Covid.  That was certainly the case with regard to academic events I've been involved in, the executive of an annual association and their favourite profs in a self congratulatory echo chamber.  Junior academics allowed to play the game and network, but within a paternalistic structure.  Other conferences/events are much better, needless to say.


I expect this conference was entirely typical.





__





						Loading…
					





					www.pcronline.com
				




But of course it isnt possible to fully pick apart commercial interests from the good work that is done in fields of medicine. There is a lot of overlap, a lot of profit, a lot of potential to improve health outcomes, and a lot of potential bickering with the usual people I clash with here and I've had more than enough of that for now.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> I expect this conference was entirely typical.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yep. At one level, I want to defend a generic thing called 'medicine' at the moment and another one called 'science', especially in the face of the murderous assault from conspiracists. But this pandemic should also be a perfect time to unearth the theft from the public purse, contracts and deals that increasingly sit at the heart of 'healthcare'.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

I suppose I'd start by focussing on the need to spend a much greater proportion of GDP on health care, and then ensuring that such extra funding didnt simply get whisked away as profit. 

Returning to more general talk about Omicron, I suppose I havent ruled out the possibility that it wont just be 100% bad news. Actions and behavioural changes as a result of Omicron fears can improve the existing Delta situation, and many unknowns about Omicron remain right now.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

editor said:


> Anecdotally, I've suddenly had a fair few friends come down with Covid in the last five days or so - something like 9 or 10 people which is probably the most I've known at the same time. Mind you, at least four of them are anti vaxxers.


What sort of ages are they? I'll probably graph cases by age group in the London region later.


----------



## editor (Dec 2, 2021)

elbows said:


> What sort of ages are they? I'll probably graph cases by age group in the London region later.


Mainly late 20s/early 30s.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

editor said:


> Mainly late 20s/early 30s.


Cheers for the info, hope they are feeling better soon.

I havent done cases by age for London region for quite a while so I've no idea what to expect until I dust off the spreadsheet once todays data has come out. London in general has given me some cause for concern recently, albeit starting from a lower base than some other regions.


----------



## magneze (Dec 2, 2021)

IC3D said:


> You can't learn hospital on zoom.


Indeed, you also need to have watched BOTH Casualty AND Holby City.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 2, 2021)

magneze said:


> Indeed, you also need to have watched BOTH Casualty AND Holby City.



I'm in awe of people with that level of dedication tbh.


----------



## Supine (Dec 2, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I'm in awe of people with that level of dedication tbh.



I only see doctors who have trained by watching DVD’s of House doing differential diagnosis.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

The number of daily reported cases in the UK is now incredibly close to the level seen at the July peak. 53,945 reported today compared to 54,674 on July 17th.


----------



## Sue (Dec 2, 2021)

Supine said:


> I only see doctors who have trained by watching DVD’s of House doing differential diagnosis.


I watched ER from the start during lockdown so am pretty much a fully-qualified doctor.


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)




----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)




----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 2, 2021)

elbows said:


>




Fuck me, the murdering barsteward [depiffle] has zero empathy, nor common sense ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

Hopefully the disgusting agenda will be scuppered by sufficient people doing the right thing without waiting for Johnson to be forced to go further.


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## elbows (Dec 2, 2021)

editor said:


> Mainly late 20s/early 30s.


As promised here is my attempt to graph positive cases by age group for the London region. Obviously this wont show up any trends that are more localised than that.

Rolling 7 day averages, by case specimen date, with the very latest data chopped off the end as its incomplete, although it looks like I didnt quite get the chopping right on the first graph.

Some of the trends and differences between age groups here are probably typical of this period, not unique to London. Some of this stuff probably highlights the benefits of booster jabs, so far at least.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 2, 2021)

This is just an observation, not a judgement.  I am purposely leaving my own subjective opinion out, because it isn’t really relevant and I’m not even sure what it is anyway.  

I don’t think I can overstate the difference in perception that I observe between this message board and those I come into contact with in outside life, regarding  how much a problem COVID is.  

For context, the people I come into contact with in outside life are those at work (the City), those in my living environs (a Surrey village), family and a handful of friends that don’t fit into other boxes.  Almost to a person, it is clear that they just view COVID now as a background inconvenience that might make you ill for a bit but then you get better, so they aren’t going to worry about it.  They’re fully vaccinated and that = safe in their eyes.  They’ll comply with mask wearing when the rules ask them to (because rule obeying is baked into them), but they’re doing it because they obey rules, not because they’re actually fussed personally.

At work, as I’ve mentioned before, there is zero mask wearing in the building.  Today was the Christmas do for the finance function — about 100-200 people in a basement room of a bar, no masks.  A really high proportion have had COVID at some point in the last six months, and they got ill for a bit then got better.  They‘re not bothered.  It’s universally blamed on their kids getting it first.  I don’t know about the wider City, but judging from behaviour in cafes I would say the same thing applies across the board.

In the village, there are a couple of people that remain worried about COVID, no doubt.  Other than this small handful, though, when you talk to people, they dismiss the idea that there is something to worry about.  They’re all fully vaccinated.  Many of them have had COVID — they got ill for a bit then they got better.  They caught it from their kids.

Family are a bit more circumspect but all of those with kids have had COVID, despite actually trying quite hard to avoid it.  My sister finally ended up with it a few weeks back after 18 months managing to avoid it.  It came from her son.  Anyway, although I say they are more circumspect in theory, none of them are really avoiding living normal things in their lives.

I would say there is definitely a two-speed society developing on this.  There are those whose availability bias has worked to deemphasise risk, because their experiences are that everybody just gets it in the end anyway and it’s not that bad anyway if you’ve been vaccinated.  And then there are those whose availability bias has worked to re-emphasise risk, because they are avoiding places that might have it and watching the news, which is full of worries.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 2, 2021)

kabbes said:


> I don’t think I can overstate the difference in perception that I observe between this message board and those I come into contact with in outside life, regarding  how much a problem COVID is.



I'd say the same, for the most part.


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## Cat Fan (Dec 3, 2021)

kabbes said:


> This is just an observation, not a judgement.  I am purposely leaving my own subjective opinion out, because it isn’t really relevant and I’m not even sure what it is anyway.
> 
> I don’t think I can overstate the difference in perception that I observe between this message board and those I come into contact with in outside life, regarding  how much a problem COVID is.
> 
> ...


It's getting to the point where most of my friends and colleagues have had it at least once. I agree, it's definitely not at the same fear level as back in March 2020. And that's probably a good thing I think. 

Although it's extremely tough to be clinically vulnerable when everyone around you has stopped caring.


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## Supine (Dec 3, 2021)

kabbes said:


> This is just an observation, not a judgement.  I am purposely leaving my own subjective opinion out, because it isn’t really relevant and I’m not even sure what it is anyway.
> 
> I don’t think I can overstate the difference in perception that I observe between this message board and those I come into contact with in outside life, regarding  how much a problem COVID is.
> 
> ...



Good post, and I’d broadly agree with this. I think people who have HAD to work outside the home throughout are generally less bothered because they are used to being out and about. 

I feel a bit sorry for the people who have had the luxury of locking themselves away. During 2020 it was a great thing to do but i worry some won’t get back to normal, especially if they spend all their time reading about every little covid development. 

I’m somewhere in the middle. Always out but still mask wearing and avoiding crowds.


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## existentialist (Dec 3, 2021)

Supine said:


> Good post, and I’d broadly agree with this. I think people who have HAD to work outside the home throughout are generally less bothered because they are used to being out and about.
> 
> I feel a bit sorry for the people who have had the luxury of locking themselves away. During 2020 it was a great thing to do but i worry some won’t get back to normal, especially if they spend all their time reading about every little covid development.
> 
> I’m somewhere in the middle. Always out but still mask wearing and avoiding crowds.


Yeah, this. I recall the feeling that my IT abilities enabling me to move my various works online more or less at the snap of my fingers seemed like a huge Big Win at the time, but with hindsight (not that I'd do it any differently again), the smoothness and novelty of adapting to the initial crisis made it very easy - too easy - to withdraw into a safe bubble. Which I have had to work hard to overcome the psychological effects of, and which have undoubtedly contributed to the range of symptoms of depression and anxiety that I then began to experience, and am only now beginning to struggle past.

It's been telling that pretty much every client I've seen since this all started has experienced some degree of additional distress as a result of some or other aspect of Covid.


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## Brainaddict (Dec 3, 2021)

Yes, I'm definitely aware of a difference between me and others - I am living normal life now but when I e.g. go to the cinema or go to a comedy gig, I wear a mask. But I am literally the only one who does. Why do I continue to do it? I think partly because my long covid makes me worry about getting it again (though I'm going out to crowded places so not too worried, I like to think) and even if the mask protects me 10%, that seems worth it to me. But also partly because I think we all have a duty to slow the circulation of the virus in order to protect more vulnerable people. But I can see why others don't follow this logic - the government sold them so hard on the vaccine as the cure-all, and when they gave up mask mandates they were basically declaring there is no social duty to slow the circulation of the virus. The problem with all that is (a) the vaccines don't protect older people or other vulnerable people as much as people think and (b) there are still plenty of unvaccinated people around. I'm more bothered by the former than the latter. And (c) long covid of course. But such has been the government's messaging that I don't really blame people for giving up on lowering circulation of the virus. They've been sold a dishonest idea of the outcome of high circulation with vaccination.


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## _Russ_ (Dec 3, 2021)

kabbes said:


> This is just an observation, not a judgement.  I am purposely leaving my own subjective opinion out, because it isn’t really relevant and I’m not even sure what it is anyway.
> 
> I don’t think I can overstate the difference in perception that I observe between this message board and those I come into contact with in outside life, regarding  how much a problem COVID is.
> 
> ...


Great appraisal, most people I know are also in the '54000 cases a day is of little concern" camp and as you say on other forums its slipped down the list of subjects below stuff like  - Aldi have an offer on frozen shredded animal today


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## BristolEcho (Dec 3, 2021)

In my groups of mates people still seem to be fairly consistent with mask wearing though things do slide when we are together, or after a few drinks etc. Most of us work in health and social care though so that's possibly why even if it's not a given.


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## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

Well its not like the shift in attitudes was some horrible surprise to me. I considered it to be pretty much inevitable in the vaccine era, and considering the amount of time that has passed, the attitudes and emphasis of the press and the government, and the realities of people who've had no choice but to risk exposure on a regular basis. Perceptions about who is likely to be hospitalised or killed also make a difference.

I was hoping that this evolution of attitudes would be a better fit with the realities of infection rates than has actually been the case. I would have moved much further along myself if we hadnt had such consistently high rates of infection throughout the summer and beyond. I'd even started to talk to my mum in a manner I hoped would help her travel a little further back towards normality than has been the case, but the way things have panned out means this keeps getting slowed down by events.

I was always going to see the whole acute phase of the pandemic out, I havent got stuck in an unexpected trap. And I'd been preparing for the next phase, talking about how I would move with the times, just in the very slow lane rather than the fast lane. And a lot of my emphasis has always been on what I expect authorities to feel the need to do, and there is a strong seasonal component to that, even without new variants with immune escape potential. If I have any reason to feel sorry for myself its only that my vaccination timing was far enough out of sync with the rest of my family (due to them being older and in the case of my slightly younger brother, a clinical vulnerability) that the timing was far from ideal in terms of everyone feeling at their most protected at the same time. Its a shame the vaccines strongest effects didnt last a bit longer than they do (at least after the initial 2 doses). Even my less cautious family members attitudes flip flopped as vaccine protection waned, bouncing back once they had boosters.

There is a reasonably strong relationship between peoples personal sense of risk, linked to age, health conditions and occupations, which leaves me unsurprised as to who has found it easiest to return to relative normality. But then there is also the stuff people do because they want to be a part of protecting the NHS when they are told this is a big issue. So far in the pandemic, opinion polling tends to imply that I am not some weird exeption, and that a great mass of people will behave somewhat appropriately when called for. This winter was always going to test that once more, and it remains to be seen how much Omicron amplifies both the need to behave differently and peoples willingness to do so once again.

I have moaned throughout 2021 that vaccines were asked to carry too much pandemic weight. And that goes for the weight of the pandemic on peoples minds too, since vaccines did lift a lot of that weight. Once of the reasons I keep going on about that is that I want people to retain some doubt in their minds as to whether that would be enough on its own, so that if everyone has to go further with heavier restrictions again, this didnt come as some terrible, soul-crushing shock to people. As with many of my concerns, I will be delighted if they prove unnecessary, but I'm not going to encourage people to think that its all over at this point.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

One slightly curious but I suppose not so surprising thing is that there seem to be a chunk of people who have a sort of weary fatalistic attitude that leads to expectations of the government imposing new lockdowns etc with similar timing to lastg year. I suppose its not unusual for people to use recent history as some guide, and seasonal risk does imply some common timing, but its an oversimplification too far for me, the resulting assumptions arent safe, though they are somewhat plausible.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

Also when I've massively played up to the most arrogant, pompous version of myself during this pandemic, I have at times declared how much I am looking forward to being wrong about the pandemic more often, since that will be a sign that we can move on without hideous setbacks. I was hoping this would have come to greater fruition than has been the case so far. I mention it again now because until now the timing of those who want to demonstrate that I've fallen out of step with reality and that my attitudes are no longer proportionate or appropriate, have tended to have bad timing and so we havent had to wait all that long to discover that I'm not redundant yet. I dont want this winter to suck or Omicron to have devastating properties, so hopefully this time other peoples attitudes will turn out to be more timely and appropriate, but I obviously have my doubts about that and will just have to wait and see.

I suppose another reason for my attitude this year is that the inevitable contradictions between peoples horror at the 'herd immunity approach' back in March 2020 and attitudes when the later, vaccine-era version of herd immunity (& hybrid immunity via both infection & vaccination) were in play was always likely to arrive on the scene, and indeed it did. And I dont think its been discussed properly. I have mixed feelings about it myself, since it isnt that hard to see why this may form a real component of 'the light at the end of the tunnel' and the exit from the acute phase of the pandemic, but also features possibilities more akin to 'the fright at the end of the tunnel'.  Because variants still have the potential to act as something of a spoiler in this regard, although probably not to the extent that we would really end up right back at square one.


----------



## zora (Dec 3, 2021)

I am very aware of this discrepancy, too. At some point, three/four weeks ago, most people at my work (both staff and customers), suddenly seemed to decide not to wear masks anymore, despite the "strong recommendation"-policy not having changed. 
Which has changed to very strong adherence again with the change in government policy last week. However, people really seem to be obeying the letter only, i.e. wearing them in public facing areas - our back of house team are all working without masks, and in relatively crowded conditions. 
And don't get started me on the staff room. We have got a balcony door and a kitchen window that create very good airflow, but out of a staff of about 30 people, I am literally the only one who ever opens them. Everyone else is happy to sit in there, in front of a little space heater that is merrily blowing all available particles about. I just don't get it. I know it gets cold in the room now, but noone even seems to have heard of the importance of ventilation, or the idea of briefly airing the room for ten minutes every hour or two, or even any kind of an idea that covid is still a thing at all. 

I don't quite get why people are so blase. Yes, for myself I am also a lot less worried thanks to the vaccination, but I still worry about potentially carrying it and passing it on to someone else both because of their potential vulnerability, and the sheer inconvenience it would cause them. I have had a couple of colds in quick succession over the last couple of months, and I found it a major pita both times - cancelling things, getting tested, not meeting boyfriend, so I'd really rather avoid catching them!
Hate the uncertainty hanging over everything, which is one of the reasons I would have much preferred a low/zero covid strategy. 

What gets me the most though, is the apparent discrepancy emotionally. I feel like we have been through (are going through) something very traumatic. All these drastic changes. I'm like - EVERYTHING CLOSED FOR SEVERAL MONTHS, SEVERAL TIMES, it seems quite...errr...major! (Let alone the illnesses and deaths, but those abrupt changes to routine and being unable to be close to loved ones were what affected me personally the most). My nervous system still feels like it's cut to shreds, and it would feel more appropriate to me to have a period of some kind of mourning and adjusting, rather than be flung back headfirst into capitalist consumer maelstrom. And I do wonder if this dissonance is also partly what is affecting MH for others.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

I suppose I should spell out the situation right now, one that the authorities are very aware of, not just people with attitudes like mine:

The future possible implications of Omicron involve heavy shit, and boosters may turn out to be a key difference maker. Omicron has been seeded here in the UK but we may be about a month or so away from the notable explosive growth phase of an Omicron wave. Slowing that evolution is much easier in the early phase. Put these things together and a picture of a race to boost as many people as possible, and buying a bit of extra time to get millions more boosted before the explosive growth phase, emerges.

So people should be acting right now to reduce transmission of the virus in general. The government know this but only wanted to do the bare minimum, and preferred to focus far more on the booster delivery side of this picture than the behavioural changes to buy time side of things.

This is the moment for people to act and do the right thing, not the best moment to be going on about how sorry they feel for people like me who have been left behind in the return to normal.

Indie SAGE covered much of this today in the initial data part of their stream.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

Also:

                                   2h ago                            12:40                         



> Around one in six adults in Britain believe that life will never return to what it was pre-pandemic, according to a new survey by the *Office of National Statistics* (ONS).
> 
> The results mark the highest proportion to share this view since the start of the pandemic.
> 
> The ONS opinions and lifestyle survey, conducted between 18 and 28 November, found that 16% of adults believed that life will never return to normal. This compares to 11% between 20 and 31 October.



Thats not exactly my view, although there are some similarities. I wont delve further into this right now since I've spent far too long going on about myself again recently.


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## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

zora said:


> What gets me the most though, is the apparent discrepancy emotionally. I feel like we have been through (are going through) something very traumatic. All these drastic changes. I'm like - EVERYTHING CLOSED FOR SEVERAL MONTHS, SEVERAL TIMES, it seems quite...errr...major! (Let alone the illnesses and deaths, but those abrupt changes to routine and being unable to be close to loved ones were what affected me personally the most). My nervous system still feels like it's cut to shreds, and it would feel more appropriate to me to have a period of some kind of mourning and adjusting, rather than be flung back headfirst into capitalist consumer maelstrom. And I do wonder if this dissonance is also partly what is affecting MH for others.


OJ perhaps I will squeeze in one last comment about myself now.

I think what has disturbed my mental health the most in the last 6 months is the extent to which people were prepared to look the other way when faced with a near constant stream of terrible news about the situation with ambulance waiting times. Thats not a pure covid story, but the pandemic is responsible for a fair chunk of it, directly and indirectly.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

This sort of thing hardly fills me with joy either:



> One in four care home residents are reportedly yet to receive a booster shot, despite government promises that they would be offered one by the start of November.
> 
> Citing figures from *NHS England*, the Telegraph reports that only 72% of care home residents have so far received a booster dose.
> 
> At a press conference on 15 November, Boris Johnson said that 80% of eligible people in care homes had received a booster, but charities claimed the new data raises questions over the prime minister’s claim.



                                   4h ago                            10:57


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## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

I pay some attention to this sort of thing too, people should read between the lines when there are mixed messages and a difference between what is said and what is done:



> Meanwhile, government departments were reportedly cancelling Christmas parties yesterday, ignoring calls by the prime minister to go ahead with them.
> 
> The Times reports “Omi-shambles in Whitehall” as multiple government departments call off festive celebrations.
> 
> ...



                                   5h ago                            10:07                     

Other Guardian entries on their live updates page today include:



> The British Medical Association (BMA) has said that people should be encouraged to “avoid large groups” and, where possible, meet outdoors during the festive period.





> “The message to people is fairly straightforward, which is keep calm, carry on with your Christmas plans,” he told Sky News this morning. “We’ve put the necessary restrictions in place, but beyond that, keep calm and carry on.”





> It comes after an influential scientist last night warned that he wouldn’t feel safe going to a Christmas party this year. *Prof Peter Openshaw*, a member of the Government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag), said the “chances of getting infected were too high” to have a party.
> 
> He told the BBC’s Question Time:
> 
> ...



I'll not accept being painted as a weird freak for not buying into 'keep calm and carry on' utter bullshit. And thats why I question whether some people actually learnt the key lessons from the earlier part of the pandemic. I want us to dodge some bullets, and to err on the side of imagining those bullets are real rather than believing they are excessive concerns that are out of step with reality. I dont want to have to go all round the loop again via the right things not being done and us ending up with months of severe restrictions as a result.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 3, 2021)

I really relate to what everything that  Brainaddict  and zora said about how people in general are behaving,  and why and how they are feelings 

I continue wearing a mask quite a lot because it's not clear that the pandemic impact has lessened yet.    I feel stupid and over the top doing it at work but I do it to avoid playing  a worse part in scenarios like  2 weeks ago where I went to a school one day and a nursery setting the next day [with FFP2 mask on feeling sheepish being the only one and a bit mean to small children to hide my face from them ] but went back to uni  to find that a student has tested positive and I'd worked with them in fairly close proximity a few days earlier.    I don't want to be the person who takes the virus to other people/settings  and I was glad to think mask wearing had helped avoid the risk of passing the virus on.    And also having had long covid and made a recovery,  I don't want to spend another lengthy period feeling totally fatigued,  in pain and worried about my health 

3 colleagues have come back to work on site and now have gone off long term sick - this is really unusual for those people and for our team. 
Everyone's had major barney's with each other at work [yeah I know I work in a stressful workplace that had lots of redundancies in 2021 but still we don't fall out usually to this extent] 
I've witnessed and heard about some shocking behaviour on the part of our students [who are usually a professionally minded bunch ]


----------



## xenon (Dec 3, 2021)

Didn't want to quote it again but yes agree with kabbes post.

I'm pretty much on the same page as the people he describes as just getting on with it, though my words not his. Although I'm tending to avoid crowds, but that is normal TBH. Social life, such that it is, basically normal. Going to pubs, cafes Now wearing a mask in shops again. I had stopped but continued on transport since last year. The whole mask chat actually just winds me up now. Wear one or not, I don't give a fuck.

Don't think I've had covid, terrible cough couple of years ago yarda, yarda. Concerned about vaccine dodging relatives, particularly my sister. Mildly concerned about catching the  Onmicronz. OTOH I live on my own. I'm not gonna stay in for weeks on end unless forced to.


----------



## xenon (Dec 3, 2021)

Just read your post above Miss-Shelf.

Obviously my wear a mask or not, thing wasn't aimed at you. Nor anyone here. Just th efixation on them really I get annoyed with, constant chat. etc.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

There was bound to be more talk of masks recently because the rules/guidance in England changed, resulting in notable changes to the number of people bothering.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 3, 2021)

I think one thing that has gone for most people that maybe some still cling to a bit is that 'step out of line once and you might kill someone's granny' approach just isn't viable any more. It doesn't fit with people's experience, whether that is having had to work throughout, having kids in school or having been out to the pub quite a bit or whatever, and it doesn't fit with what they see going on around them. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think though I do think most people are capable of understanding the wider picture and are happy to do their bit but it needs to be a) clearly communicated as to what that is and b) fair in terms of who carries the load. I think part b) is quite a key thing in whether people wear masks or not and the degree to which they respond to others' actions on it. 

Part a) is obviously a big issue with that twat Johnson in charge.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

This discussion and emphasis made much more sense to me in summer than it does in winter, and there are signs that I am hardly alone with that sort of thinking. I dont think I moaned at individuals for going somewhat back to normal in summer, even though I was bothered by high delta rates and advised against the dropping of all caution. My attitude was always going to change this winter, but Omicron may dramatically alter the extent to which it changes. Or we might dodge some bullets which will be great to see, and will also help my evolution next spring.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

I note this bit from SAGE 29th November meeting minutes:



> The earlier measures to reduce transmission are introduced, the more stringent they are, and the wider their geographic coverage, the more effective they will be (high confidence – see previous SAGE advice, including on Plan B). As with previous waves of infection, some settings (e.g. care homes) will require particular consideration.





> Even if measures are introduced immediately, there may not be time to fully ascertain whether they are sufficient before decisions are needed on further action. The situation could develop quickly over the coming weeks and decision-makers may need to act while there is still a high level of uncertainty including considering the potential need for stringent response measures.





> Evidence suggests that measures could be reintroduced with expectation of a similar level of adherence as has been seen in the past if messaging has a clear rationale and there is coherence between messaging and policy. Early communication of risk and potential decisions would allow people to plan accordingly, and in turn increase levels of adherence.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1037831/SAGE_97_Minutes_29_November_2021.pdf


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

Perhaps my contributions to this thread seem over the top today.

But I'm not pleased about Omicron or the timing of some peoples comments.

Also it seems there have been around 135,000 UK hospital admissions/diagnoses since the start of June, and about 17,500 deaths within 28 days of a positive test since then. To my mind some people talk as if that were not the case.


----------



## zahir (Dec 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> Perhaps my contributions to this thread seem over the top today.



 They sound pretty balanced to me.


----------



## Supine (Dec 3, 2021)

Today’s Indy Sage is well worth watching. The discussion and first question about Christmas plans was interesting. Depressing though.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 3, 2021)

elbows said:


> Perhaps my contributions to this thread seem over the top today.
> 
> But I'm not pleased about Omicron or the timing of some peoples comments.
> 
> Also it seems there have been around 135,000 UK hospital admissions/diagnoses since the start of June, and about 17,500 deaths within 28 days of a positive test since then. To my mind some people talk as if that were not the case.


Well, there are a;ways going to be different interpretations, personally Id put more weight on the data you helpfully compile than the appallingly misleading media narrative and probably like you find it depressing when people actually suck it up and forget the reality of whats happening in hospitals...until they need one


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

Supine said:


> Today’s Indy Sage is well worth watching. The discussion and first question about Christmas plans was interesting. Depressing though.


The subsequent question about schools, children and vaccination was also depressing but rang true.

We shouldnt be doing all the 'normal, expected' things this Christmas. And Omicron offers additional reasons to behave differently this month.


----------



## elbows (Dec 3, 2021)

> The Guardian understands the government has been privately urged by some of its own scientific advisers to tell people to work from home until Christmas if they can, when more will be known about the dangers posed by the new variant.











						Act now against Omicron to stop new Covid wave, UK ministers warned
					

Government privately being urged by advisers to tell people to work from home as UK cases of variant hit 134




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 3, 2021)

Will dePiffle break the habit of a lifetime and actually do something the science advisors are suggesting before it is too late ?

Past form means I'll not be holding my breath on this one.


----------



## elbows (Dec 4, 2021)

I dont do this sort of data analysis so I cant really comment on these concerns at this stage.


----------



## tommers (Dec 4, 2021)

They're saying travellers need a PCR before leaving now as well. So does that mean one before leaving and then one within 2 days of arriving? Seems a bit silly to do one 3 hours before getting on a plane and then immediately when you land.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 5, 2021)

Consenus statement of the SPI-M-O meeting, 24 November, 2021.


> Please note that this consensus statement was written prior to the emergence of B.1.1.529 / Omicron and its subsequent designation as a variant of concern.






			
				Summary said:
			
		

> SPI-M-O reviewed research conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine which suggests that there may be a smaller susceptible population in England compared to other European countries and thus England may have a smaller potential future COVID-19 hospitalisation burden. To gain firmer conclusions relating to these patterns, however, a large-scale age-structured serological study is required. This is also only a snapshot of a highly dynamic system, which will change in future.
> The festive period is a time when contact patterns are likely to change. SPI-M-O has produced new medium-term scenarios considering different plausible values of R from 6th December for six weeks. During the festive period, there is typically increased mixing between generations and within different networks. Lateral flow testing can be used as a group diagnostic to mitigate risk of SARS-COV-2 transmission into older age groups and more vulnerable individuals. Encouragement of booster vaccination, frequent lateral flow testing, increased ventilation, and use of face masks would be easy and effective interventions that would mitigate transmission risk.
> SPI-M-O has considered the determinants of COVID-19 endemicity. It will take a long time for COVID-19 to settle to its endemic state, and the path to endemicity will be critically dependent on the rate of waning of immunity and chosen policies on vaccination and boosting.
> SARS-CoV-2 will continue to be a threat to health system function and require active management, of which vaccination and surveillance are key, for at least the next five years


----------



## jontz01 (Dec 5, 2021)

tommers said:


> They're saying travellers need a PCR before leaving now as well. So does that mean one before leaving and then one within 2 days of arriving? Seems a bit silly to do one 3 hours before getting on a plane and then immediately when you land.



It's all over the news as though the UK are doing something major to protect the people. In reality, most (if not all) carriers require a negative pcr test in that 48 hour window to fly anyway. So I don't want to say 'fake news' but it's happening already, I dont see what the story is.... We're just about to fly the whole family back from NZ to the UK, it's a hell of a mission and the hardest part is getting tests done and processed in that 48hr window. Especially considering that NZ has very little testing capacity and quickly gets overwhelmed. Can't get tests processed under 72hrs where we are so have to spend an extra 2 nights in the city, where there is higher risk of exposure. Nightmare.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 5, 2021)

jontz01 said:


> It's all over the news as though the UK are doing something major to protect the people. In reality, most (if not all) carriers require a negative pcr test in that 48 hour window to fly anyway. So I don't want to say 'fake news' but it's happening already, I dont see what the story is.... We're just about to fly the whole family back from NZ to the UK, it's a hell of a mission and the hardest part is getting tests done and processed in that 48hr window. Especially considering that NZ has very little testing capacity and quickly gets overwhelmed. Can't get tests processed under 72hrs where we are so have to spend an extra 2 nights in the city, where there is higher risk of exposure. Nightmare.


Hope it goes well. Can well imagine the stress levels.


----------



## Maltin (Dec 5, 2021)

jontz01 said:


> It's all over the news as though the UK are doing something major to protect the people. In reality, most (if not all) carriers require a negative pcr test in that 48 hour window to fly anyway. So I don't want to say 'fake news' but it's happening already, I dont see what the story is.... We're just about to fly the whole family back from NZ to the UK, it's a hell of a mission and the hardest part is getting tests done and processed in that 48hr window. Especially considering that NZ has very little testing capacity and quickly gets overwhelmed. Can't get tests processed under 72hrs where we are so have to spend an extra 2 nights in the city, where there is higher risk of exposure. Nightmare.


The UK doesn’t require a test before flying back to the uk currently for fully vaccinated travellers so it’s not happening already for the large majority of travellers and is a change of requirements. Maybe some carriers had this as a requirement but BA and American Airlines don’t and I’d be surprised if many had their own rules over and above country requirements.  

Good luck with your trip though.


----------



## jontz01 (Dec 5, 2021)

Maltin said:


> The UK doesn’t require a test before flying back to the uk currently for fully vaccinated travellers so it’s not happening already for the large majority of travellers and is a change of requirements. Maybe some carriers had this as a requirement but BA and American Airlines don’t and I’d be surprised if many had their own rules over and above country requirements.
> 
> Good luck with your trip though.


Fair play, my bad. I didn't realise that, my apologies. Pre departure testing was mandatory on all the carriers we tried from here, mates all over Europe have been saying the same so I just assumed it was standard nowadays. 

Yea, long trip. Through Singapore into Manc with 2 kids. 

Actually I've just re-read your post. BA and AA don't require pre flight COVID testing?!


Fuckinell. No wonder we're all messed up.


----------



## Maltin (Dec 5, 2021)

jontz01 said:


> Fair play, my bad. I didn't realise that, my apologies. Pre departure testing was mandatory on all the carriers we tried from here, mates all over Europe have been saying the same so I just assumed it was standard nowadays.
> 
> Yea, long trip. Through Singapore into Manc with 2 kids.
> 
> ...


As I say, it’s the country requirement not the airlines. So going to the US the airlines require it as the US does. Flying back from US to UK you didn’t need it as not mandated in the UK until next week. For unvaccinated travellers I believe they need to provide a negative test before flying.


----------



## elbows (Dec 5, 2021)

2hats said:


> Consenus statement of the SPI-M-O meeting, 24 November, 2021.


Sections of the press turned this into stupid stories about how Christmas could be ruined for the next 5 years.

Those stories are not how I'd like people to gain better insight into the potential length of time that the virus may play a very significant role in our lives. But I suppose its still better than the 'its all over' bullshit that people were encouraged to believe this year. Feeble attempts by authorities to rush back to the old normal stand a fair chance of having prolonged the horror, especially when vaccine inequality is added to the mix.

I would favour not encouraging people to think that there will suddenly become a time where we can just drop the basic stuff that slows transmission, and I would want to invest in permanently increased health care systems capacity.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 5, 2021)

Should people be flying to the UK to attend weddings btw? I haven’t RSVPd to a wedding invite next weekend in St Albans, but there’ll be literally hundreds of guests (it’s a collective wedding with numerous couples - the last one I attended had about 20 couples) and most of them will be flying from India, the US and down under. I am definitely not going - am mystified why it’s still going on tbh, but the wedding couples are all Hare Krsna, so are absolute fruitloops - I know for a fact that the parents of one of the brides have come from Kolkata this weekend and gone straight to visit relatives without bothering to test themselves.


----------



## LDC (Dec 5, 2021)

They'll all have to provide evidence of tests next week when they arrive, and then get tested within 2 days of arrival and also they're supposed to isolate until they get those results.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 5, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> They'll all have to provide evidence of tests next week when they arrive, and then get tested within 2 days of arrival and also they're supposed to isolate until they get those results.


I don’t think that has happened. They just breezed in from Luton Airport and went straight to their relatives.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 5, 2021)

elbows said:


> I would want to invest in permanently increased health care systems capacity.


Pretty sure Covid will be used as the excuse for doing the exact opposite of this i.e unabashed privitisation.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 5, 2021)

reading local rag is reporting that covid rates round this way are "more than double" what they were this time last year.

quite a lot of purple / dark purple on the map again


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 5, 2021)

‘Woke’ingham is blue.
Jus’ sayin’


----------



## Flavour (Dec 6, 2021)

the test you have to get before getting on plane to UK can be lateral flow according to what i've read


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 6, 2021)

My part of Bristol is blue, my mother and siblings and offspring and kids are dark purple - though not sure if I'll use that as an excuse if my sister insists on doing Xmas at her place ...


----------



## LDC (Dec 6, 2021)

Flavour said:


> the test you have to get before getting on plane to UK can be lateral flow according to what i've read



Yeah, but not one you do yourself I think, has to be an official testing provider.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 6, 2021)

makes sense otherwise just wave it in front of your nostril - ooo no infection I'm off


----------



## Flavour (Dec 6, 2021)

I've actually only heard of home testing kits in the UK, you certainly can't do them at home in italy


----------



## elbows (Dec 6, 2021)

No time for my own graphs right now but here is someone elses.


----------



## elbows (Dec 7, 2021)

We are already at a stage where I would highly recommend people change their behaviours significantly and prepare for disruption.

From the BBC live updates page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/59559623



> Data suggests the doubling time for Omicron cases may be as short as two to three days, Sturgeon says. And the R number - which represents the average number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to - could be well over two.
> 
> There are now confirmed cases in nine out of 14 health board areas in Scotland, “suggesting that community transmission is becoming more widespread and possibly more sustained”, she says.





> There is a reasonable degree of certainty that the Omicron variant is more transmissible than Delta, "perhaps considerably so", Nicola Sturgeon says.
> 
> The first minister adds that early data suggests it is more capable of infecting people who have previously had the virus.
> 
> ...





> Sturgeon says it is vital to "strengthen compliance" with existing measures to slow the spread of Omicron.
> 
> People are already advised to work from home where practical, but she says employers are now being asked to ensure this is happening.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 7, 2021)




----------



## prunus (Dec 7, 2021)

elbows said:


>




Fucks. Sake.


----------



## elbows (Dec 7, 2021)

The earlier Sturgeon statement in full. I will just quote the closing rhetoric.









						Coronavirus (COVID-19) update: First Minister's statement – 7 December 2021
					

Statement given by the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh on Tuesday 7 December 2021.




					www.gov.scot
				






> And if you were working from home at the start of the pandemic, please do so again for the next few weeks.
> 
> None of this is what any of us want two years into this ordeal. I know that. But it is the best way of slowing the spread of the virus in general and Omicron in particular.
> 
> ...


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 7, 2021)

Naive to appeal to people's better natures. Far too many simply won't lift a finger for the greater good.


----------



## elbows (Dec 7, 2021)

Its been crucial to the response in previous waves and is not something that should be abandoned now. A significant chunk of people will do the right thing and its a vital difference maker.


----------



## elbows (Dec 7, 2021)

editor said:


> Mainly late 20s/early 30s.


I'd now say this trend is also starting to show up via footballers testing positive.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 7, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its been crucial to the response in previous waves and is not something that should be abandoned now. A significant chunk of people will do the right thing and its a vital difference maker.


I agree, and I expect masks to make a decent comeback once Omicron gets its hooks in properly. But I think loads won't. Just walked round a supermarket with signs at the door saying we request you wear a mask. 50% TOPS masked. I work in a college where the official line is _masks are compulsory but we can't make students wear them_


----------



## elbows (Dec 7, 2021)

Masks have already made a decent, but incomplete comeback.

There are lots of other things people will need to do, and I'm sure many of them will. For a multitude of reasons there are plenty of examples where the right thing isnt done, and I understand peoples focus on that, but I prefer not to focus on all that stuff at the expense of the vast sacrifices people have made already and will make again.


----------



## Sue (Dec 7, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I agree, and I expect masks to make a decent comeback once Omicron gets its hooks in properly. But I think loads won't. Just walked round a supermarket with signs at the door saying we request you wear a mask. 50% TOPS masked. I work in a college where the official line is _masks are compulsory but we can't make students wear them_


FWIW, my friends are all currently cancelling social engagements. All 40s and double vaxxed but worried about passing Covid on to elderly parents/relations over Christmas.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 7, 2021)

Pre-covid, we normally used to go over to SiLs over crimble / new year and to my elderly father for the other one & combined with a stay on the boat at whitehaven ... probably none of them this year.
Will be staying at home ...


----------



## two sheds (Dec 7, 2021)

been invited round to neighbours for christmas day but phoned today and said we should see how things go.

I was idly wondering what the odds of meeting someone with the virus for different infection rates, given that around me is 400 to 700 per 100,000 so 1-in-250 to 1-in-140 chance per person.

Starting from if you have 23 people in a room then there's a 50-50 chance that two people will have the same birthday (so 1 in 365). If that's relevant, and given of course that (hopefully) many who are infected will be self isolating.

But will depend on whether they have kids at an infested school.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 8, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I agree, and I expect masks to make a decent comeback once Omicron gets its hooks in properly. But I think loads won't. *Just walked round a supermarket with signs at the door saying we request you wear a mask. 50% TOPS masked.* I work in a college where the official line is _masks are compulsory but we can't make students wear them_


 
BIB, I suspect we will continue to see different levels of mask wearing in different areas.

Big Tesco here was around 95% wearing them, dropping to around 50% more recently, and has now bounced back to about 90%.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 8, 2021)

Downing Street press conference today with Johnson, time not yet announced, possible introduction of more restrictions.



> Boris Johnson is 'set to hold a press conference today' to announce Plan B measures in England, according to reports.
> 
> Key restrictions would be a further reintroduction of face masks, working from home and Covid vaccine passports.
> 
> The Plan B proposals draw on the findings of a review into vaccine passports earlier this year, which concluded that certification could help keep events going and businesses open.











						Covid press conference: When Boris Johnson could announce Plan B restrictions
					

Boris Johnson is 'set to hold a press conference today' to announce Plan B measures in England, reports suggest.




					www.oxfordmail.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 8, 2021)

More...



> Following the discovery of the Omicron variant, which Downing Street fears is more transmissible than the Delta variant, the prime minister is mulling tougher measures to slow the spread of cases.
> 
> Senior government sources revealed Mr Johnson is minded to move to Plan B as early as this week, with the introduction of COVID vaccine passports and a return to the work from home order for millions of people.
> 
> The prime minister received a presentation from England's chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, on the current coronavirus situation on Tuesday.











						COVID-19: Boris Johnson minded to move to Plan B of rules this week, Sky News understands
					

Boris Johnson is considering the imposition of fresh coronavirus restrictions in England and a move to Plan B of the government's strategy for dealing with COVID-19 this winter.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Supine (Dec 8, 2021)

Getting busted for the party. Time to throw in more restrictions to takeover the news cycle.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

Supine said:


> Getting busted for the party. Time to throw in more restrictions to takeover the news cycle.


It was time anyway, based on Omicron estimates and obvious clues such as Sturgeons rhetoric yesterday.

The anti-lockdown tory backbench loons will have a field day with this awkward timing, for example this sort of shit:









						Downing Street party: No 10 staff joked about party amid lockdown restrictions
					

The video obtained by ITV comes after days of questions about the event that took place last year.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> And the former vice chair of the 1922 committee of Tory backbenchers, Charles Walker, said the video "makes it very, very difficult now for the government to have anything but voluntary restrictions on people's mixing and mingling".
> 
> "People, if required in law not to meet friends and relatives, will say, 'look, it didn't happen last year at No 10 Downing Street [so] it is not going to happen this year at No 10 Acacia Avenue'."



Some people will probably have the attitude that shithead Walker describes there, but many will not, and will do the right thing beause public health trumps grubby politics and other ways to get upset about the hypocrisy will be found.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> It was time anyway, based on Omicron estimates and obvious clues such as Sturgeons rhetoric yesterday.
> 
> The anti-lockdown tory backbench loons will have a field day with this awkward timing, for example this sort of shit:
> 
> ...


Johnson isn't well known for doing things on time, usually, though...


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Johnson isn't well known for doing things on time, usually, though...


Well for reference, its likely any new measures they announce today are things I would have wanted to see 7-10 days ago. And I'll probably be of the opinion that some of them should have been done much longer ago than that, to deal with the ongoing Delta wave, never mind Omicron.


----------



## hegley (Dec 8, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I agree, and I expect masks to make a decent comeback once Omicron gets its hooks in properly. But I think loads won't. Just walked round a supermarket with signs at the door saying we request you wear a mask. 50% TOPS masked. I work in a college where the official line is _masks are compulsory but we can't make students wear them_


This is why they [govt] should never have dropped the mask wearing requirement in the first place; they didn't in Scotland and it's never really waned too much up here. I'd say it's a good 90%+ adherence in every shop, supermarket etc. that I go in.


----------



## Part 2 (Dec 8, 2021)

PM set to impose plan B with working from home and vaccine passports
					

Working from home and vaccine passports are expected to be imposed imminently after Boris Johnson decided action was needed to halt the spread of Omicron.Minist




					www.thetimes.co.uk


----------



## Cloo (Dec 8, 2021)

I have to say I can't really see the point of vaccine passports, very pro-vaxx as I am. Presumably lots of businesses won't want to check them, I don't see they'll really motivate many people into having a vaccination, and given that vaccines don't prevent transmission, if a place is really busy with no masks or social distancing I don't really see how the lack of a few unvaccinated people really makes things significantly safer. I mean, they'll be made more ill if they catch it while out, but they apparently don't care about that.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 8, 2021)

Part 2 said:


> PM set to impose plan B with working from home and vaccine passports
> 
> 
> Working from home and vaccine passports are expected to be imposed imminently after Boris Johnson decided action was needed to halt the spread of Omicron.Minist
> ...



Let's break that paywall down, full article - archive.ph

Not much new in it, compared to links I posted above, apart from mention of care homes.



> It is thought that the announcement, which could come into effect as soon as tonight, will implement the Plan B set out in the government’s winter plan rather than tougher lockdown measures.
> 
> One source said that the package was likely to include restrictions on the numbers of people able to visit care homes, raising the possibility of severe disruption to some elderly people’s Christmas plans.
> In cabinet yesterday Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, spoke in favour of vaccine passports. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, is said to have opposed the idea, which is fiercely resisted by many Tory backbenchers.


----------



## Part 2 (Dec 8, 2021)

All the same.... I'll show the article to my manager and excuse myself from the office this week.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 8, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I have to say I can't really see the point of vaccine passports, very pro-vaxx as I am. Presumably lots of businesses won't want to check them, I don't see they'll really motivate many people into having a vaccination, and given that vaccines don't prevent transmission, if a place is really busy with no masks or social distancing I don't really see how the lack of a few unvaccinated people really makes things significantly safer.* I mean, they'll be made more ill if they catch it while out, but they apparently don't care about that.*



I sort of agree with you, but re-BIB, which would add pressure on the NHS, especially ITUs.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 8, 2021)

If Omicron is as transmissible as some are claiming I'm not sure that "plan B" will do much in the way of sombrero squashing.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> If Omicron is as transmissible as some are claiming I'm not sure that "plan B" will do much in the way of sombrero squashing.



As Professor Neil Ferguson says, it will slow it down, allowing for more booster jabs to get into arms.

From that Times article - archive.ph



> He said this was not yet known but argued: “There is a rationale, just epistemologically, to try and slow this down to buy us more time, principally to get boosters into people’s arm.”
> He said that plan B “wouldn’t stop it but it could slow it down. So it’s doubling, rather than every two or three days, every five or six days. Doesn’t seem like a lot but it actually is potentially a lot in terms of allowing us to characterise this virus better and boost population immunity.”


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> If Omicron is as transmissible as some are claiming I'm not sure that "plan B" will do much in the way of sombrero squashing.


Well its certainly nowhere near enough for me to imagine that no further restrictions will be deemed necessary again later.

But the work from home bit can certainly make a useful difference, as can the effects on behaviour that these sorts of announcements can have via the prevailing pandemic mood music.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 8, 2021)

As johnson et al end up twiddling with the regs again, it just reminds you how common sense went out of the window - never even got inside the window - with something as simple as masks.  Particularly in light of the latest info on how effective they are in controlling infection, masks are the cheap/just about no downside measure that could have been in place throughout.  Aside from those with medical exemptions as well as well as the loons, we could be in a situation now where everybody wears one every time they go out. It would have become a normal, self protective, community minded thing to do. And how many lives would have been saved, along with all those who might have avoided long covid?

We've had discussions about governments ambiguity on masks as an ideological thing. But the failure to normalise mas wearing is just rank bad governance.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> But the work from home bit can certainly make a useful difference, as can the effects on behaviour that these sorts of announcements can have via the prevailing pandemic mood music.


We've just had an email at work - a university - cancelling an in person end of term meeting and lunch.  Quite sensible, but the interesting thing was the Omicron variant was mentioned as the reason for cancelling, so there is clearly some thought going on about where things are likely to be up to in higher ed after Christmas. Having said that, I think the government will be keen to resist HE/colleges and particularly schools going online again.   And loathe as I do everything about johnson's gang, 'balancing' education v virus protection is a genuine quandary as the virus rolls.  Of course it's a balancing act taking place in the context of their previous failures...


----------



## LDC (Dec 8, 2021)

I think vaccine passports is another way they're throwing the responsibility on to us.

I think you're right, places will be shit at checking them as they are with masks, and plenty of people will treat it like the 'check-in' to venues thing we had ages ago, a notice up to be largely ignored or opt in if you want/can be arsed, and that suits the government who want as little inteference in 'business as usual' as they can get away with.

_Carry on as normal, wear a mask a bit and flash your phone to someone every so often. _


----------



## existentialist (Dec 8, 2021)

Wilf said:


> As johnson et al end up twiddling with the regs again, it just reminds you how common sense went out of the window - never even got inside the window - with something as simple as masks.  Particularly in light of the latest info on how effective they are in controlling infection, masks are the cheap/just about no downside measure that could have been in place throughout.  Aside from those with medical exemptions as well as well as the loons, we could be in a situation now where everybody wears one every time they go out. It would have become a normal, self protective, community minded thing to do. And how many lives would have been saved, along with all those who might have avoided long covid?
> 
> We've had discussions about governments ambiguity on masks as an ideological thing. But the failure to normalise mas wearing is just rank bad governance.


I was struck by something this morning, as I walked through a fairly packed waiting room at the GP surgery: for all the numbers of people claiming "exempt" status re mask wearing around supermarkets, etc., only very, very few of those at the surgery were unmasked, and/or claiming exemption. Funny, that, eh?


----------



## kabbes (Dec 8, 2021)

Fortnightly COVID meeting this morning, which I’m finding a useful way of taking the pulse of how capital is reacting. Highlights:

European offices are mostly WFH again now anyway, so U.K. is where decisions have to be made

Despite mandate to RTO 3/5 days (which in truth had reached a steady 2 or 2.5 in practice), the last week has seen numbers fall off a cliff. People seem to be making their own minds up. Decision not to press on this, but simply let people continue to decide for themselves until the new year and revisit the situation. 

The office has lots and lots of social distance so it isn’t seen as a problem for people to be in there, but concerns that people might not be doing the mandated twice-weekly LFTs, so should there be evidence required? Also, should there be a vaccination policy?  Also, do we need reminders to wear masks in lifts, that kind of thing?  Recognition that the real problem is getting to the office more than being  there.  All in all, the mood music was way more concerned than it has been since some time in early 2021, but nobody even suggested that should require WFH. 

Fortnightly meetings switched to weekly for more rapid assessment of ongoing situation.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 8, 2021)

Oh, and our data still shows pretty low infection levels in UK, particularly compared with other European offices, but for the first time, doubt was raised as to whether this was just people in the UK  not bothering to tell us that they had it


----------



## 2hats (Dec 8, 2021)

Data indicate rising numbers of cases, including omicron, on our campus(es). Work from home (if you can) instruction issued; told to anticipate further guidance from the government within the next 24 hours.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 8, 2021)

6pm Downing Street press conference announced.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 8, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Downing Street press conference today with Johnson, time not yet announced, possible introduction of more restrictions.


Finally it's been confirmed for 6pm today.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 8, 2021)

I can't even watch him any more, it makes me feel physically ill


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Dec 8, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I can't even watch him any more, it makes me feel physically ill


It makes me feel physically violent.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

I can still force myself to watch them, by playing read between the lines and spot the bullshit.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

"The remorseless logic of exponential growth."


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

Oh god, daily tests for contacts instead of isolation.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 8, 2021)

"Do whatever we can..."
_sets out many, many caveats_


----------



## Balbi (Dec 8, 2021)

🎶don't call it a lockdown, it's been here for years🎶


----------



## Hollis (Dec 8, 2021)

I'm not sure I can keep up with Covid any more..

So are the latest measures about protecting the NHS capacity?

I increasingly get fatalistic that I'm going to get it sooner or later... some to have been a lot of near misses in the last couple weeks - been pinged twice and people from work getting it..


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

Hollis said:


> So are the latest measures about protecting the NHS capacity?


Yes, they dont tend to act unless there is a very real threat on that front.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

Paying tribute to Allegra probably scores highly on the tone deaf side of things.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> Paying tribute to Allegra probably scores highly on the tone deaf side of things.


Disgusting.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Dec 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> Paying tribute to Allegra probably scores highly on the tone deaf side of things.


Yup, again the brass neck, that he cares so little what normal people think that he's going to send the message they'll look after their own, in that room, today.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 8, 2021)

No Chris, you are NOT "going early". Early was a week ago.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

S☼I said:


> No Chris, you are NOT "going early". Early was a week ago.


Earlier than at the equivalent stage of similar original strain/variant case numbers than with previous waves, but also weaker, and still not as early as it could have been.


----------



## Supine (Dec 8, 2021)

Looks like i need to work out how quickly I can exit this job and get myself home. I didn’t think wfh would be back today but happy it is. They must be worried. 

Good to see the press being hard on the clown. Stupid fucker.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 8, 2021)

I'll just point out _again_ that nothing he is announcing today isn't anything we haven't already been doing in Scotland all along. How's his Freedom Day looking as a decision now, huh?

Edit, except work from home guidance, although Nicola Sturgeon put that back in formally last week, and it's always been kept in a 'if you can do this then do it' tone of voice here.


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

Harry Smiles said:


> Yup, again the brass neck, that he cares so little what normal people think that he's going to send the message they'll look after their own, in that room, today.


He's said it again! "We will miss her".


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

weepiper said:


> I'll just point out _again_ that nothing he is announcing today isn't anything we haven't already been doing in Scotland all along. How's his Freedom Day looking as a decision now, huh?
> 
> Edit, except work from home guidance, although Nicola Sturgeon put that back in formally last week, and it's always been kept in a 'if you can do this then do it' tone of voice here.


Work from home guidance clearly got a bit too slack in Scotland though since Sturgeon felt the need to tighten up and re-ephasise that yesterday.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> He's said it again! "We will miss her".


And "she did some great things during her time in government"


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 8, 2021)

I actually want to know (cos I'm tired of this party bollocks) if WFH is going to apply to me. My colleagues don't think education will come under the "WFH" umbrella


----------



## Supine (Dec 8, 2021)

S☼I said:


> And "she did some great things during her time in government"



She got hired to be government spokesperson and never actually gave a speech before getting moved. Stunning job performance


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 8, 2021)

S☼I said:


> I actually want to know (cos I'm tired of this party bollocks) if WFH is going to apply to me. My colleagues don't think education will come under the "WFH" umbrella


I’ve already had an email from the uni saying they believe education will be exempt and the graduation ceremonies we’ve been doing this week will continue along with everything else


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

Work from home if you can but still go to the Christmas party is going to be ridiculed.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 8, 2021)

They’re just an utterly incompetent shower of bastards.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 8, 2021)

It's so stupid. So many students and staff off with Covid in my college now, my daughter's school have two more whole year groups off for a third consecutive week, why not now?


----------



## xenon (Dec 8, 2021)

What’s happening with vaccine passports? I missed the beginning.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 8, 2021)

I can't watch this utter shambles any more


----------



## elbows (Dec 8, 2021)

xenon said:


> What’s happening with vaccine passports? I missed the beginning.


They are bringing them in in a weeks time, but a negative test can also be used to get in.


----------



## xenon (Dec 8, 2021)

How do you prove your vaccine status? Is it the NHS app? Only I’ve heard the version Northern Ireland are using is a right pain in the arse involving photos and passports.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 8, 2021)

xenon said:


> What’s happening with vaccine passports? I missed the beginning.


for venues over 500 cap indoors, 4000 outdoors some other numbers about seated or standing and all above 10000 cap


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 8, 2021)

xenon said:


> How do you prove your vaccine status? Is it the NHS app? Only I’ve heard the version Northern Ireland are using is a right pain in the arse involving photos and passports.


You can order a paper letter from the NHS website.


----------



## xenon (Dec 8, 2021)

Cheers. No plans to attend anything that large in the next couple of weeks.


----------



## Calamity1971 (Dec 8, 2021)

WFH if you can, but you can still photocopy your arse if you get a test first.
Plan B is as shit as all their other useless fucking plans. 
His head shaking at questions shows this cunts arrogance


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 8, 2021)

Not that I need it, but I did the phone thing - and worried afterwards that the phone camera might have caught embarassing aspects of my lifestyle  
I don't recall - was that the registering for the NHS _per se ?_
If so, I've used it in several contexts since ...


----------



## clicker (Dec 8, 2021)

He exited very quick. Allegras leaving drinks beckon.


----------



## Calamity1971 (Dec 8, 2021)

clicker said:


> He exited very quick. Allegras leaving drinks beckon.


Fastest that bin bag full of custard has ever moved.


----------



## Ax^ (Dec 8, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> They’re just an utterly incompetent shower of bastards.



Tory bastards as well


----------



## xenon (Dec 8, 2021)

Simon no case to answer will investigate. LOL.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 8, 2021)

weepiper said:


> I'll just point out _again_ that nothing he is announcing today isn't anything we haven't already been doing in Scotland all along. How's his Freedom Day looking as a decision now, huh?
> 
> Edit, except work from home guidance, although Nicola Sturgeon put that back in formally last week, and it's always been kept in a 'if you can do this then do it' tone of voice here.


It wasn’t mandated.  We have a massive office in Scotland and we never rescinded working from office because the government was only advising it, not requiring it. If a government doesn’t lay down something as a rule for business, they may as well not bother saying anything.


----------



## Sue (Dec 8, 2021)

weepiper said:


> I'll just point out _again_ that nothing he is announcing today isn't anything we haven't already been doing in Scotland all along. How's his Freedom Day looking as a decision now, huh?
> 
> Edit, except work from home guidance, although Nicola Sturgeon put that back in formally last week, and it's always been kept in a 'if you can do this then do it' tone of voice here.


Yeah it's complete bullshit.


----------



## LDC (Dec 8, 2021)

_"Your spokesperson has resigned has they've been caught abusing children."

"Well, yes, but first off let me pay tribute to them and say what a fantastic job they did before they got caught."_


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Dec 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh god, daily tests for contacts instead of isolation.



This was the tacit policy where I work  (already allowed according to the NHS app for the double-vaccinated).

Guess what? Our department has gone down one by one - even with PCR tests, the time-lag before getting a result has given it just enough time to spread before we're allowed to isolate.

Though also didn't help that the un-vaccinated & partially-vaccinated types are also most likely to rely on LFTs. Those of us who now have positive PCR results all had 2 to 3 days of negative LFTs while waiting for them.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 8, 2021)

Feels like we're probably going to see some further restrictions in Scotland quite soon (short Twitter thread)


----------



## weepiper (Dec 8, 2021)

Also, lol


----------



## weepiper (Dec 8, 2021)

kabbes said:


> It wasn’t mandated.  We have a massive office in Scotland and we never rescinded working from office because the government was only advising it, not requiring it. If a government doesn’t lay down something as a rule for business, they may as well not bother saying anything.


Was it ever actually mandated (in England or Scotland) though? I may be remembering wrong but has it not always been phrased as 'should work from home if you can' to get round all the many industries where you actually can't work from home.


----------



## little_legs (Dec 8, 2021)

plan b finally materialised in part because of the party, lol


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 8, 2021)

little_legs said:


> plan b finally materialised in part because of the party, lol



Yeah, shame it's the same as plan A though.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 8, 2021)

Too little, too late, as per usual.
I'm already boosted, masking & WFH when I can.

and testing instead of isolation, that's just bizarre ...


----------



## kabbes (Dec 8, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Was it ever actually mandated (in England or Scotland) though? I may be remembering wrong but has it not always been phrased as 'should work from home if you can' to get round all the many industries where you actually can't work from home.


It’s a subtle difference but yes. There is a difference between “should” and “advise”. The former is taken as a mandate and the latter is not.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 8, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yeah, shame it's the same as plan A though.



It's not.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 8, 2021)

elbows said:


> He's said it again! "We will miss her".


If there were a "Person Who Just Doesn't Get It" award, he'd have it for 2020, 2021, and (I strongly fear/suspect) 2022, he'd be a shoe-in.


----------



## Balbi (Dec 8, 2021)

Just in case I don't understand, what exactly was Plan A over there folks? 

Get about 70% of the population vaccinated and then just open everything up without masks or social distancing or limits on venue capacity.

Because that doesn't seem like a plan.


----------



## Sue (Dec 8, 2021)

Balbi said:


> Just in case I don't understand, what exactly was Plan A over there folks?
> 
> Get about 70% of the population vaccinated and then just open everything up without masks or social distancing or limits on venue capacity.
> 
> Because that doesn't seem like a plan.


In England, pretty much.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 8, 2021)

Balbi said:


> Just in case I don't understand, what exactly was Plan A over there folks?
> 
> Get about 70% of the population vaccinated and then just open everything up without masks or social distancing or limits on venue capacity.
> 
> Because that doesn't seem like a plan.



Basically, yes.


----------



## Balbi (Dec 8, 2021)

cool cool cool cool cool


----------



## Numbers (Dec 8, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Also, lol



Devi is brilliant, IMO.


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 8, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Too little, too late, as per usual.
> I'm already boosted, masking & WFH when I can.
> 
> and testing instead of isolation, that's just bizarre ...


They physical reality of virus incubation periods is nothing to a man such as Johnson.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 8, 2021)

Basically the plan is crossing fingers and hoping that vaccinations and some people working from home will be enough to keep everything open without ovewhelming the NHS. It's not a good one.


----------



## Chilli.s (Dec 8, 2021)

Plan B, so shit it's not surprising they took so long to tell us what it consists of


----------



## danny la rouge (Dec 8, 2021)

So, stop me if I’m missing something, but Plan B is “what Scotland’s been doing all this time”?


----------



## weepiper (Dec 8, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> So, stop me if I’m missing something, but Plan B is “what Scotland’s been doing all this time”?


Plan B (as a response to the increased threat of Omicron) is to _move to_ what Scotland has been doing all this time to mitigate _Delta_.


----------



## danny la rouge (Dec 8, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Plan B (as a response to the increased threat of Omicron) is to _move to_ what Scotland has been doing all this time to mitigate _Delta_.


Yes, that.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 8, 2021)

It's depressing the number of people online today saying 'Well ^I'm^ not going to stand for it anymore, I will do what I like and see who like over Christmas!' etc. Well... big round of applause for you mate.


----------



## Balbi (Dec 8, 2021)

The vaccine passport thing, we've brought that in here recently. Relatively simple if you're documented - sign into the platform, confirm your ID using your driving license etc and it gives you a QR code with your name and DOB on it that flashes up when you use the scanner app. I used it the other day to go to the pub and the cinema, not sure if it does anything but read and interpret the QR code to confirm its a valid pass - people on the door can ask for confirming ID to check it is you, but most don't.

That's here though, in weird fash spiral Britain I'm sure it'll be different and worse and especially worse for immigrants, undocumented people etc etc


----------



## weepiper (Dec 8, 2021)

Balbi said:


> The vaccine passport thing, we've brought that in here recently. Relatively simple if you're documented - sign into the platform, confirm your ID using your driving license etc and it gives you a QR code with your name and DOB on it that flashes up when you use the scanner app. I used it the other day to go to the pub and the cinema, not sure if it does anything but read and interpret the QR code to confirm its a valid pass - people on the door can ask for confirming ID to check it is you, but most don't.
> 
> That's here though, in weird fash spiral Britain I'm sure it'll be different and worse and especially worse for immigrants, undocumented people etc etc


Pretty much exactly the same in Scotland. I've only had to use it once so far, at a gig. I had no bother with installing the app but my daughter and my dad both had a nightmare trying to get it to recognise their passport photo as them (her because she's dyed her hair, I think, and him because his passport photo shows him without glasses but he couldn't see to do the facial recognition scan with his smartphone without his glasses on  ) so they both have a PDF that they can show instead.


----------



## Balbi (Dec 8, 2021)

Our Libraries are offering a service to older folks and those who don't truck with tech to print out their vaccine passes, which I thought was a neat bit of problem-solving.


----------



## tommers (Dec 8, 2021)

Can anybody actually access their covid passport in the app? When I go to the page that says "get your covid passport" there's just info on how you qualify, no button to actually get it.


----------



## Supine (Dec 8, 2021)

tommers said:


> Can anybody actually access their covid passport in the app? When I go to the page that says "get your covid passport" there's just info on how you qualify, no button to actually get it.



I get an error message at the moment ‘to many requests’

I think they need to scale up their servers


----------



## Numbers (Dec 8, 2021)

tommers said:


> Can anybody actually access their covid passport in the app? When I go to the page that says "get your covid passport" there's just info on how you qualify, no button to actually get it.


I checked earlier and was fine, no errors and full history.


----------



## LDC (Dec 8, 2021)

I got a paper copy a few weeks ago. Filled a form in online and it arrived a few days later. Don't expect I'll use it, it's only for pretty big venues of over 500 people unseated, not for bars or eating places generally.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 8, 2021)

Impressed. I applied to renew my driving licence in July and still not got it - just been told that my application's been accepted. Not that I ever want to drive again.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 8, 2021)

I used the Covid pass on the NHS app for entry to a venue a month or so ago. As I expected, the door staff weren't interested in verifying it or anything. A screenshot of a random QR code would probably have done the job. It seems fairly pointless to me, especially if you can bypass it with a negative test result that is trivial for anyone to fake.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 8, 2021)

Balbi said:


> Just in case I don't understand, what exactly was Plan A over there folks?
> 
> Get about 70% of the population vaccinated and then just open everything up without masks or social distancing or limits on venue capacity.
> 
> Because that doesn't seem like a plan.


Not everyone would agree with me on this but this plan was not necessarily going terribly badly prior to the emergence of Omicron. At least the jury was still out on whether it was going to prove unsustainable. Because case numbers have been high-ish and wobbling up and down but so far no definite indications of hospitalisations  starting to rise again, and deaths have been at a fairly low level and gradually dropping.

I'd say I was moderately ok with this approach, the only thing I'd have kept for a while longer would be masks in shops and public transport and other places people have to go as part of basic life. That out of courtesy to people at higher risk or who feel at risk, and have no option to go to those places.

That would all be with the caveat that things are kept under review. And the early indications of what Omicron might mean certainly justify the reintroduction of some measures.


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2021)

Well thats no surprise, as your instincts arent far removed from the UK establishments standard cold calculations and how they originally expected to deal with the pandemic and justify a fair amount of death, before the estimates of the sheer scale of probable hospital admissions scuppered their original plans.

If you are 'moderately ok' with over 17000 deaths and over 150,000 hospitalisations since the start of June 2021, in a vaccination era, then you'd not have any trouble justifying the amount of death they originally had in mind when envisaging a 'business as usual with a few concessions here and there at the worst moments' approach at the start of the pandemic. And you've made various posts during various stages of the pandemic that make your attitude towards this stuff now as thoroughly unsurprising to regular readers as my rather different stance is. And I'm pretty sure there have been a number of moments where we would have been treated to further explanations of how you can justify various sorts of and amounts of death, except the figures got too high and became an entirely unsuitable foundation on which you could build such a case without seeming utterly indecent.

And of course when looked at from the classic establishment angle, what counts when it comes to 'proving unsustainable' is hospital admissions, thats what has forced them to concede they have to go further at various stages of the pandemic. And by staying just 'within range' on that metric during this long, drawn out Delta wave, the pre-winter part of their plan was sustainable as far as they were concerned, and not yet proven otherwise once Delta met winter. And now there are some Omicron scenarios that mean we'll never get that question as it pertained to Delta fully answered, although there are I suppose still a few possible scenarios where we might yet gain enough clues about that in the coming weeks.

Theres a second sort of unsustainable when it comes to hospital figures, which involves what would have happened if the levels of infection and hospitalisation were not to shoot up alarmingly this winter, but had kept going at the rates seen in recent months for many more months. Plenty of people can be encouraged to learn to live with the quantity of deaths seen during that phase, even when they add up to quite large totals that I can throw around at moments like this. But when it comes to the establishment and health services, there are big questions about how you'd ever expect to begin to catch up with the backlog and burnout if covid-related healthcare demands remained this high. So rather than just argue with you about theoretical questions involving whether the pre-Omicron plan would have been enough to deal with Delta during the winter season, I'd encourage you to think about other ways that 'learning to live with covid' as a viable strategy needs to be different to what we've seen since June. I dont want to keep locking things down either, but clearly other mitigations were required for reasons that go well beyond courtesy, in order to successfully sustain an approach that involves a big chunk of normal life. I expect this is something we will have plenty of opportunities to talk about in future, when we are not at the moment of facing acute new waves/variants and scary peaks, but rather the constant grind at lower levels. We still dont yet know whether there will be proper equilibrium or at what levels of infection that will be at, how immunity picture and the virus evolves long term, what rhythm of epidemic waves there might be. But I think it would be sensible to assume that covid will have some ongoing degree of healthcare burden that needs proper steps to deal with one way or another, and even those who are comfortable with various amounts of ongoing death will need to deal with that more convincingly than was the case in recent months. Because yes you can get the public not to go crazy about certain levels of death, you can tap into peoples desires to live their lives, but I really dont think you'll be able to sell people on a healthcare system being left in such a worn down and perilous state for prolonged periods outside of those periods involving waves.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Paying tribute to Allegra probably scores highly on the tone deaf side of things.


Needs to take the edge of his cuntishness for the Westminster crowd.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 9, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Not everyone would agree with me on this but this plan was not necessarily going terribly badly prior to the emergence of Omicron. At least the jury was still out on whether it was going to prove unsustainable. Because case numbers have been high-ish and wobbling up and down but so far no definite indications of hospitalisations  starting to rise again, and deaths have been at a fairly low level and gradually dropping.
> 
> I'd say I was moderately ok with this approach, the only thing I'd have kept for a while longer would be masks in shops and public transport and other places people have to go as part of basic life. That out of courtesy to people at higher risk or who feel at risk, and have no option to go to those places.
> 
> That would all be with the caveat that things are kept under review. And the early indications of what Omicron might mean certainly justify the reintroduction of some measures.



I sort of agree with most of this, but I do feel the hospital admissions & deaths were allowed to drift up too far, and if they had started the booster jab roll-out earlier, based on the data from Israel, and started vaccination of younger people earlier, as other counties had, they could probably have been brought down to a more acceptable level, where they would be similar to a bad flu year, over a 52 week period.

I still think delaying some of the 'freedom day' measures by just a few more weeks could have been useful too, and mandating of masks should never have been lifted.

Those hospital admissions & deaths were coming down more recently, which seems to have been due to the booster jabs, and one would have hoped that that would have continued, but Omicron is clearly a threat now.

All in all, a bloody difficult balancing act, especially when you consider the mental health crisis caused by the restrictions over time.

Hopefully if the booster jabs hold, and Omicron does turn out to be fairly mild, with luck we can avoid the NHS melting down, and a further lockdown.

There's lots of 'ifs' and 'buts', and only time will tell, which is scary.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 9, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I sort of agree with most of this, but I do feel the hospital admissions & deaths were allowed to drift up too far, and if they had started the booster jab roll-out earlier, based on the data from Israel, and started vaccination of younger people earlier, as other counties had, they could probably have been brought down to a more acceptable level, where they would be similar to a bad flu year, over a 52 week period.



I'm not clear about how much influence government has over MHRA and JCVI and their timelines for approving and recommending stuff?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 9, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I'm not clear about how much influence government has over MHRA and JCVI and their timelines for approving and recommending stuff?



Well, they clearly have the ability to make the JCVI jump into action quickly when they want, as we've recently seen with the speeding up on the booster roll-out.


----------



## Supine (Dec 9, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I'm not clear about how much influence government has over MHRA and JCVI and their timelines for approving and recommending stuff?



They can certainly influence timelines


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 9, 2021)

> as we've recently seen with the speeding up on the booster roll-out.



Presumably you mean the _promised_ speeding up?

I notice the wording changing last few days from getting all adults boosted by january to getting all adults _offered_ a booster by then, a subtle backtrack our tinpot guvnors have used a couple of times before


----------



## LDC (Dec 9, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> I'm not clear about how much influence government has over MHRA and JCVI and their timelines for approving and recommending stuff?



Very little to none. I'd say none for MHRA, less sure about the JCVI, but I'd still say very little at most. E2A: Timelines at most. And even then I think it's minimal.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Dec 9, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I notice the wording changing last few days from getting all adults boosted by january to getting all adults _offered_ a booster by then, a subtle backtrack our tinpot guvnors have used a couple of times before


Far easier to commit to sending everyone a text than to giving everyone an injection.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 9, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Presumably you mean the _promised_ speeding up?
> 
> I notice the wording changing last few days from getting all adults boosted by january to getting all adults _offered_ a booster by then, a subtle backtrack our tinpot guvnors have used a couple of times before



It is speeding up.

And, the promise was always that everyone would be offered a jab by the end of Jan.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 9, 2021)

Obviously it takes time training up new staff and getting GPs to come back to work with their tired Nurses and auxiliaries (15 quid a jab should take care of that one)
but someone needs to point these things out to Boris when he makes his Promises



> It is speeding up



No its flat


----------



## teuchter (Dec 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Well thats no surprise, as your instincts arent far removed from the UK establishments standard cold calculations and how they originally expected to deal with the pandemic and justify a fair amount of death, before the estimates of the sheer scale of probable hospital admissions scuppered their original plans.
> 
> If you are 'moderately ok' with over 17000 deaths and over 150,000 hospitalisations since the start of June 2021, in a vaccination era, then you'd not have any trouble justifying the amount of death they originally had in mind when envisaging a 'business as usual with a few concessions here and there at the worst moments' approach at the start of the pandemic. And you've made various posts during various stages of the pandemic that make your attitude towards this stuff now as thoroughly unsurprising to regular readers as my rather different stance is. And I'm pretty sure there have been a number of moments where we would have been treated to further explanations of how you can justify various sorts of and amounts of death, except the figures got too high and became an entirely unsuitable foundation on which you could build such a case without seeming utterly indecent.
> 
> ...


I think your characterisation of my position is a little unfair because I've been generally entirely supportive of the lockdowns we've had. In the case of last winter's one in particular I would have liked to have seen it introduced earlier. I also (at the time) felt that it was lifted too soon and too comprehensively - that was based on evidence at the time that suggested the outcome of doing this could have been a lot worse than what's actually happened. In that sense I think they "got away" with lifting it sooner than seemed wise to me, but that doesn't actually change my feeling that it was not the right decision based on the evidence available at the time.

My being "moderately ok" with what has happened since is based on my feeling of what people generally want and accept, rather than what I personally would want and accept. Personally I would have accepted restrictions remaining in place somewhat longer. I personally have been much more cautious about a return to "normal" than almost all of my peers; it's only quite recently that I've started doing things like going to pubs and restaurants. And I've continued on a voluntary basis to wear masks in shops and on transport and so on while the majority of people around me haven't.

It's been discussed in the last few pages of this thread that the prevailing attitude here is way out of line with the prevailing attitude "out there" in the general population. Everything I see supports this. That is of some frustration to me because although I occasionally read stuff on this thread where I feel it's a bit over the top, and I think that some people are living with a greater level of fear/caution than is necessary, on the whole my assessment of what's sensible and realistic is rather closer to the prevailing attitude here than in the outside world.

But what can happen, in terms of public health policy, is unfortunately determined not just by rational science but by what people generally will accept, and my view is that this means that yes, we do have to just accept that this pandemic will be dealt with in a way that involves a bunch of people dying who might not have, had a different approach been taken. And possibly a bunch of people ending up with Long Covid, whatever that eventually proves itself to be. I don't really like this fact, I just think it's how things are, just like we end up societally accepting a level of risk from certain things that I personally would prefer to see dealt with differently (see my endless threads on transport policy).

Another thing that influences my position is my personal judgement on the benefits/disbenefits of lockdowns. Again this has been discussed a bit here in the past couple of weeks. For me personally, I've not enjoyed the lockdowns, especially last winter's, and I've experienced some of those "mental health" things that the anti-lockdown crew like to go on about, some them actually only becoming apparent a bit later, but on the whole I've managed ok, and if we were told right now that we were going into another month or two lockdown I'd not be pleased but I could weather it and accept it in the face of what we currently know about Omicron. But, since June I've talked to a number of people I know, people I had limited contact with during the lockdowns, and it's been clear that some of their experiences were of a time they found much more difficult than I did. That's either to do with living circumstances, or personality type, or both. So I do think that it's easy to underestimate the impact that sustained restrictions can have on some people, if you're someone who can cope moderately well with some level of isolation. Conversations I've had this year have changed my opinion on the downsides of restrictions somewhat. That doesn't mean I think they should be ruled out, it just shifts my feeling of where the threshold should be.

Yesterday I mentioned that I'd been reading a Covid thread on another forum. The mostly unchallenged attitudes on there actually horrified me a bit. They are absolutely miles away from what we talk about here. They reinforced my feeling that "general society" has moved to a position where it's going to be increasingly hard to persuade people to accept more restrictions, although I really hope that they are on the more fringe end of things. Although I was tempted to engage in argument there, I've decided just to leave it rather than letting it wind me up. Maybe I will have the opportunity in a few weeks to go back and quote some things back to people, where they were rubbishing the plausibility of some Omicron scenarios, although of course I hope that those scenarios won't actually play out.

Reading some of the views there was unpleasant and frustrating, because they diverged enough from my judgement of what is right. I understand why you reading me saying the policy of the past few months has been "moderately OK" might trigger similar feelings, and I'm not going to hold it against you for taking a mild swing at me. Basically I think everything you say is completely right, it's just that perhaps I am willing to accept the ideal response being tempered a little further by what I see as pragmatism about what "most" people want. My judgement of that might well be off, of course. I also totally accept what you say about long term sustainability. I have been watching the hospitalisation numbers in the hope that they eventually go into a decline. If that (in the uncomplicated by Omicron senario) had not started to happen then I agree that there's a problem with describing such a situation as sustainable. I agree the health service ought to be reinforced as part of the longer term "learning to live with it" strategy. I have close family members who work front line in the NHS (who as it happens are probably _less_ keen on restrictions than I am), they have been saying that Covid is not the crisis, the under-resourcing of the NHS is the crisis.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 9, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Obviously it takes time training up new staff and getting GPs to come back to work with their tired Nurses and auxiliaries (15 quid a jab should take care of that one)
> but someone needs to point these things out to Boris when he makes his Promises
> 
> 
> ...



No, it's speeding up, which should start showing up in the jabs per day figures soon.

You can't expect the NHS, GPs & pharmacies to suddenly speed things up within 24 hours of the announcement of the new plan, it takes a little time to put it into action.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 9, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Obviously it takes time training up new staff and getting GPs to come back to work with their tired Nurses and auxiliaries (15 quid a jab should take care of that one)
> but someone needs to point these things out to Boris when he makes his Promises
> 
> 
> ...


Stop slagging off the GPs ... you've already had a good deal of explanations about that. Which you are wilfully ignoring.

The nurse midwife who did my booster was on her usual 12hr shift, plus travelling time & she lived over an hour away from my local hub & not much less for her alternate days stints in the middle of Newcastle.
Having looked it up, the GP practice running that hub are probably paying around £750 to £1000 a day just to hire the location [ I didn't have the costs before, in my original reply on the booster jag thread] and there's a lot of other costs.

As for "flat" ...

I drove past my local hub yesterday, it was as least as busy as the day I had my jag. And that day they were planning nearly a thousand appointments, spread over all three doses. This hub covers a large, very rural area in SW Northumberland, but then the area already has a good take-up, somewhere in round 90% for first dose, and over 40% for the booster.

The pre-fridge stage transport box holds 1,200 vials ...

Go and look at the relevant graph on the dashboard, or the bbc data. You can understand graphs ?


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 9, 2021)

You are looking at a long history of data look at the last section covering the period in question, its fucking flat

As for Gps, I can of course only speak as I find.They were advised to give face to face consultations months ago my lot are still in hiding, I've had some serious problems last spring and all I got was  a couple of phone calls, a mis-diagnosis after sending some pictures and ultimately an entirely avoidable trip to hospital for 10 days, ill slag em off as much as I want if thats allright with you.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 9, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> You are looking at a long history of data look at the last section, its fucking flat


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I think your characterisation of my position is a little unfair because I've been generally entirely supportive of the lockdowns we've had. In the case of last winter's one in particular I would have liked to have seen it introduced earlier. I also (at the time) felt that it was lifted too soon and too comprehensively - that was based on evidence at the time that suggested the outcome of doing this could have been a lot worse than what's actually happened. In that sense I think they "got away" with lifting it sooner than seemed wise to me, but that doesn't actually change my feeling that it was not the right decision based on the evidence available at the time.
> 
> My being "moderately ok" with what has happened since is based on my feeling of what people generally want and accept, rather than what I personally would want and accept. Personally I would have accepted restrictions remaining in place somewhat longer. I personally have been much more cautious about a return to "normal" than almost all of my peers; it's only quite recently that I've started doing things like going to pubs and restaurants. And I've continued on a voluntary basis to wear masks in shops and on transport and so on while the majority of people around me haven't.


Let me put it this way:

Building a stance that is apparently based on being reasonable, well-balanced, and with one eye on what the wider public want is actually very much a part of how establishment thinking and decision-making works and fails. Its where much of the action is, and is implicated in many of the ways that experts, authority figures, commentators, institutions and others may have been found wanting and got caught with their pants down in this pandemic at various stages so far.

If I avoided some of those mistakes and was able to point out such failings in a timely manner, its not because I had some amazingly profound understanding of pandemics, its because I have a special interest in those phenomenon, and how we end up rigging our own sense of what is balanced and sensible. In terms of detailed pandemic knowledge, not too much beyond a vivid appreciation of the implications of exponential growth is actually required.

The establishment, institutions, the orthodox approach, the sense of perspective, priorities, media and propaganda, narrow specialisation of roles, all of these things and many more are easier to understand and critique in useful ways when I keep the aforementioned concepts heavily in mind. Frankly I was surprised at just how good a guide my prior understanding of these things turned out to be in this pandemic so far. And in many ways the difference between the acute phases of this pandemic and what will eventually follow may well be demonstrated via the proxy of measuring how well my take on that continues to be frequently demonstrated and how well it resonates with others, and the extent to which people are eventually able to reject my views in a manner that is actually sustainable.


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2021)

And there is a feedback loop problem:

A large percentage of the population will do the right thing. But messages about the nature of the risk and the current situation has a big influence on perceptions of what the right thing to do is. In summer with a reopening, economic agenda, it is no surprise that people were encouraged to travel further back towards the old normal, otherwise the economic and 'learning to live with covid' agenda couldnt happen at the desired scale.

Thats why I go on about mood music so much. The feedback loop errors start to become a real problem if those summer attitudes are then used to construct a view that the public wont do what is necessary to deal with a situation where things are getting worse again. This will lead to similar establishment mistakes and dodgy justifications as those seen at the start of the pandemic, where unwise assumptions about what restrictions the public would accept, and for how long, were conveniently used to justify a crap UK dont bother doing much approach. A mistake authorities now readily acknowledge happened, or at the very least something they are quite prepared to stick in their list of 'things we learnt'.

I favoured a version of messaging that was sustainable, that framed things in terms of what behaviours we could get away with in summer, rather than all the bullshit about 'irreversible' relaxation of measures. I think that merry-go-round of lies that can only survive one season is cruel and increases the risk of burn-out.


----------



## LDC (Dec 9, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> You are looking at a long history of data look at the last section covering the period in question, its fucking flat
> 
> As for Gps, I can of course only speak as I find.They were advised to give face to face consultations months ago my lot are still in hiding, I've had some serious problems last spring and all I got was  a couple of phone calls, a mis-diagnosis after sending some pictures and ultimately an entirely avoidable trip to hospital for 10 days, ill slag em off as much as I want if thats allright with you.



You're smearing a whole part of medicine and people that work in it as you've had what you think is a bad experience with one GP. And you're also coming out with Daily Mail-like bollocks like GPs being 'in hiding' and other stuff where it's clear you're just misunderstanding how medicine and the NHS works.

Fuck off with that massive idiotic chip on your shoulder.

_*E2A*_ ... as I'm slightly more sympathetic now... I'm sorry you've had a shit experience, and I hope you got the problem sorted. Balancing giving people remote (phone/web/image) consultations with face-to-face ones is hard, some people prefer the former, some the later, and some conditions and issues are fine to be dealt with remotely, and there are also other very good reasons why remote consultations have become commonplace now. It's also possible to get a mis-diagnosis in both, and that's usually nothing to do with the competence of the person involved but the fact that medicine is complex and difficult, patients sometimes give confused histories, and a whole host of other things that might not be easily grasped unless you work in this field.

Primary care is also under immense pressure for a whole host of reasons, one of which is the huge amount it has been _told_ to do by the government in the pandemic on top of an already horrendous morale and life-shattering workload, and years of under-funding and neglect. So don't be surprised if you having general moans at GPs and primary care as a whole is going to piss some people off (me for a start) as we've seen staff crack up, get abused by patients, been told to fuck off by the government, fury whipped up against us by some sections of the media, and also seen some people we knew die in the last 18 months.

#alwaysworkingonmybedsidemanner


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## cupid_stunt (Dec 9, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> You are looking at a long history of data look at the last section covering the period in question, its fucking flat
> 
> As for Gps, I can of course only speak as I find.They were advised to give face to face consultations months ago my lot are still in hiding, I've had some serious problems last spring and all I got was  a couple of phone calls, a mis-diagnosis after sending some pictures and ultimately an entirely avoidable trip to hospital for 10 days, ill slag em off as much as I want if thats allright with you.



Oh, you added more to your moronic post. 

Just because you had a bad experience, doesn't mean you can attack all GPs.

My surgery never stopped face to face consultations, for some minor matters phone or video consultations were/are offered, but on the recording you hear before connecting to reception it says if you are not happy with this, please say so, and you will be offered a face to face appointment.


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## Numbers (Dec 9, 2021)

My GP has been fantastic throughout this, as were all the staff at the Royal London in Whitechapel when I was visiting weekly earlier in the year.

Can’t fault them in any way whatsoever.


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## two sheds (Dec 9, 2021)

Yeh mine too. I actually prefer phone consultations unless there's something that can't be done across the phone. i get my list ready for everything I want to talk about, it goes really quickly and smoothly.


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## StoneRoad (Dec 9, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> You are looking at a long history of data look at the last section covering the period in question, its fucking flat
> 
> As for Gps, I can of course only speak as I find.They were advised to give face to face consultations months ago my lot are still in hiding, I've had some serious problems last spring and all I got was  a couple of phone calls, a mis-diagnosis after sending some pictures and ultimately an entirely avoidable trip to hospital for 10 days, ill slag em off as much as I want if thats allright with you.


oh, you edited.

i) No, it isn't. The growth rate in November is a bit less than that for October, But there is still growth & a range of daily variations - The latter is due to the way the vaccines are stored in the "cold chain"
You obv can't read a graph or a column of data.
and you don't understand what a "7-day rolling average" actually represents.
ii) You obv had a bad experience with ONE practice.
Do something about it, make a complaint to the appropriate authority.
Don't smear the whole profession because of that, especially on the 'rona threads.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> And there is a feedback loop problem:
> 
> A large percentage of the population will do the right thing. But messages about the nature of the risk and the current situation has a big influence on perceptions of what the right thing to do is. In summer with a reopening, economic agenda, it is no surprise that people were encouraged to travel further back towards the old normal, otherwise the economic and 'learning to live with covid' agenda couldnt happen at the desired scale.
> 
> ...


I agree with this, I think there could and should have been better messaging and if there had been, along with a few other things, I might have described "Plan A" as "fairly good" rather than "moderately OK".


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 9, 2021)

I’ve spent most of today dealing with various live events cancelling. Here we go again


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 9, 2021)

My works "crimble" party usually consists of nibbles & soft-drinks (as almost everybody drives in) on the morning of the last day before the seasonal break. 
Will probably play some seasonal muzak.
Most people will disappear about lunchtime ... having cleaned up the afternoon before !

This year, no secret santa and we don't have mistletoe, anyway ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2021)

I was going to stick this in the worldwide thread but then I read the detail.



> Australia's deputy prime minister has tested positive for coronavirus after arriving in the US on an official visit.
> Barnaby Joyce said he believed he had been infected while visiting the UK earlier this week.
> He said he was now in isolation and experiencing mild flu-like symptoms.
> In the UK, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps are both self-isolating because they had been in contact with Mr Joyce.
> Both British ministers said they were taking Covid tests.





> He told Australian media he had been Christmas shopping in London where "people [were] just lined up, shoulder to shoulder".











						Barnaby Joyce: Australia deputy PM tests positive for Covid after UK visit
					

Barnaby Joyce is now isolating in the US while two UK ministers are also isolating in London.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## sojourner (Dec 9, 2021)

In other news, my brother is still off work, 6 weeks after original infection. He's had xrays on his lungs and has shadows - 'classic Covid lungs' according to the medics.

I've got my booster booked for next Tuesday and we were meant to be going a gig tonight, but decided not to go now. Can't risk people not wearing masks the day before it's mandatory, and fuck being that ill. Fuck it.


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2021)

There are quite a lot of grim details in the latest SAGE minutes. I have quoted some of them in the Omicron thread but I hope nobody minds me drawing attention to that post here as well: Omicron news


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2021)

Covid in Scotland: People urged to cancel Christmas parties
					

Public Health Scotland said a number of outbreaks caused by Omicron were linked to Christmas parties.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Dec 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> Covid in Scotland: People urged to cancel Christmas parties
> 
> 
> Public Health Scotland said a number of outbreaks caused by Omicron were linked to Christmas parties.
> ...


Where Scotland leads... boris johnson stumbles behind, reluctantly, too late and with bad grace.


----------



## Cerv (Dec 9, 2021)

two all staff emails received from management today.
one says WFH from Monday unless impossible and you have to be on campus.
the other says the all staff xmas party in the slug & lettuce next to campus is going ahead tomorrow.
joined up thinking at its finest. despite the obvious contradiction they can truthfully say they're following the government rules and guidance on both.


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2021)

I decided to look at some of Sotlands weekly reports after not having done so for some time. One of the reasons I look at these is that they include info about wastewater covid sampling.

Anyway it turns out that this weeks report is delayed until tomorrow, but I note this from last weeks report:



> Nationwide, wastewater Covid-19 levels have continued to increase, with the week ending on 25th November seeing levels of around 80 million gene copies per person per day (Mgc/p/d), up from around 70 Mgc/p/d in the previous week (week ending 18th November). This creates an apparent discrepancy with case rates, which have decreased slightly in recent times, but does match an increase seen in the Office of National Statistics’ Coronavirus Infection Survey.











						Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic (issue no. 80)
					

Latest findings in modelling the COVID-19 epidemic in Scotland, both in terms of the spread of the disease through the population (epidemiological modelling) and of the demands it will place on the system, for example in terms of health care requirement.




					www.gov.scot


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## bluescreen (Dec 9, 2021)

elbows said:


> I decided to look at some of Sotlands weekly reports after not having done so for some time. One of the reasons I look at these is that they include info about wastewater covid sampling.
> 
> Anyway it turns out that this weeks report is delayed until tomorrow, but I note this from last weeks report:
> 
> ...


Are they able to test for Omicron in waste water in Scotland, or is it best to assume these are all Delta?

ETA: I note they say it's too soon to take account of the potential impact, from which I assume not?


----------



## elbows (Dec 9, 2021)

There are some ways to do variant analysis via wastewater data but I dont know how much of that they will attempt or make public, or how strong those signals will be. I'll be sure to report back if I notice such things in future reports.

We are already past the point where we can assume all trends are purely Delta-related, but there will be a period I consider likely to be too messy for me to attempt to properly pick apart the impact of different variants, but authorities and other interested parties may make attempts to do that.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 10, 2021)

3 more events for next week cancelled this morning. Looks like people are battening down the hatches before an incoming storm…


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## Sue (Dec 10, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> 3 more events for next week cancelled this morning. Looks like people are battening down the hatches before an incoming storm…


Yes, think it feels a bit like before the first lockdown when people acted ahead of the government. (Not that I'm suggesting we're about to head into another lockdown, just that quite a lot of people are taking matters into their own  hands.)


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

Sturgeon makes a point of saying that everything she is saying applies to the rest of the UK and likely elsewhere too.

I'll probably embed the full video later when I stumble upon it.


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## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

As with the first wave, what happens in football will probably act as an indicator and a wakeup call to some who didnt pay attention to other sources.









						PL clubs return to emergency measures
					

The Premier League tells its 20 clubs to return to emergency measures in light of new Covid rules in England.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

I wonder how many days it will be till we get an official announcement of Plan C. Some sections of the press have already started going on about it.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

Sections of the press have not helped public sentiment in recent days by stoking the narrative that Johnson only acted this week to deflect from his other woes, but the one saving grace of rapid Omicron transmission is that those feeble narratives will quickly be washed away.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 10, 2021)

And another one gone. This time a concert that was due to loadin in less than 2 hours time.


----------



## Sue (Dec 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> Sturgeon makes a point of saying that everything she is saying applies to the rest of the UK and likely elsewhere too.
> 
> I'll probably embed the full video later when I stumble upon it.



Decided the other day not to go to Scotland for Christmas. Feels like the right thing to do though I would've really liked to see my family.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

Covid: Scotland facing 'tsunami' of Omicron cases
					

Nicola Sturgeon says the new variant is expected to replace Delta as the dominant form of the virus within days.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Ms Sturgeon said that, from tomorrow, all household contacts of any Covid cases should isolate for 10 days, regardless of vaccination status and even if they initially get a negative PCR test.
> 
> Non-household contacts can leave isolation if they have had a negative PCR test and have had two vaccine doses.
> 
> Ms Sturgeon said early action was needed, with Omicron cases rising "exponentially" in recent days, and that she could not rule out further measures having to be introduced.





> Ms Sturgeon said it was hoped - although not known - that Omicron may cause less severe illness on average than Delta, despite being much more transmittable.
> 
> But she said that even if this is true, the surge in cases that was now "virtually certain" would still result in a "massive" number of people needing hospital care.





> And she said the numbers of people having to isolate after becoming infected, even mildly, would put a "significant strain" on the economy and public services.
> 
> ScotRail has already had to cancel 60 train services due to staff shortages as a result of Covid, while many staff at an accident and emergency unit in Lanarkshire are also having to isolate after attending a social event and becoming infected.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 10, 2021)

We have an offsite work thing planned for 1 and 2 March that I was about to start booking venues for.  I’m now wondering if I should avoid doing that.  No point having the admin headache only to then have another admin headache unbooking it.


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## Sue (Dec 10, 2021)

kabbes said:


> We have an offsite work thing planned for 1 and 2 March that I was about to start booking venues for.  I’m now wondering if I should avoid doing that.  No point having the admin headache only to then have another admin headache unbooking it.


Yesh, suspect being all organised about it at the moment will end up being more painful than not being organised about it.


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## sojourner (Dec 10, 2021)

Sue said:


> Decided the other day not to go to Scotland for Christmas. Feels like the right thing to do though I would've really liked to see my family.


Really glad my lass came up to see us when she did.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

Video of the Sturgeon press conference, takes nearly 2 minutes to get started, although a giant hand makes a brief appearance on the tv screen during that otherwise non-eventful period.


----------



## editor (Dec 10, 2021)

Nicely done


----------



## Numbers (Dec 10, 2021)

Not too far shy of 60k of new infections reported today.


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## brogdale (Dec 10, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Not too far shy of 60k of new infections reported today.


Just came to say that 58,194 new coronavirus cases sounded rather worrisome to me.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 10, 2021)

Mrs SI currently on a train from Leicester to Grimsby surrounded by maskless drunk people singing Christmas songs. Seriously, what the cunting FUCK is wrong with people?


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

bluescreen said:


> Are they able to test for Omicron in waste water in Scotland, or is it best to assume these are all Delta?
> 
> ETA: I note they say it's too soon to take account of the potential impact, from which I assume not?



Just to update you on the broader question, this got mentioned in latest UKHSA document, but the actual values mentioned are well out of date by now so not a useful current guide.



> Omicron has also been detected in the wastewater in 5 samples collected between 26 and 28 November from 4 of the 477 sewage treatment works and sewerage network sites





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1040076/Technical_Briefing_31.pdf
		


I havent yet had time to check the Scottish report that should have come out today.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Just came to say that 58,194 new coronavirus cases sounded rather worrisome to me.



Its the continuation of a trend of rising cases that has been visible for a while. Growth has been especially notable in the South East and London but affects all regions with the possible exception of the North East & Yorkshire so far.

Omicron variant concerns go far beyond the rises seen already, and its unclear to what extent the increases seen so far are driven by Omicron rather than an uptick in Delta. However with Omicron projected to become dominant in the coming days, and its ridiculously short doubling times and high attack rates, what I've just said about that is increasingly out of date.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 10, 2021)

So Mikey G, Minister for Snorting Cocaine and Levelling Up, comes out of the COBRA meeting he's been chairing, because the PM is on paternity leave/hiding again, and says he's been shown "very challenging new information" on Omicron. 

Do we think this is the very challenging new information that's been in the news today: vaccines less effective, 30% of Covid cases in London are Omicron, the health service could be swamped by mid-January? Or do we think there's _new_ very challenging new information that means things might be even worse?


----------



## pesh (Dec 10, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> And another one gone. This time a concert that was due to loadin in less than 2 hours time.


we loaded half a ton of baggage onto a flight on Wednesday night only for the gigs to be cancelled seconds after getting the carnet stamped, we then hid in the lounge getting pissed till they'd thrown it all back off again.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> Just to update you on the broader question, this got mentioned in latest UKHSA document, but the actual values mentioned are well out of date by now so not a useful current guide.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Also on that note and from the same document, it sounds like they are going to use some sewage treatment works to fill in some of the variant surveillance gaps that arise from a lack of S gene dropout surveillance in some areas.



> Wastewater samples will continue to be sequenced and results reported to public health teams. Additional 71 STW have been identified to increase regional population coverage and to supplement TaqPath Laboratory coverage and are in the process of being bought online.


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

Spandex said:


> So Mikey G, Minister for Snorting Cocaine and Levelling Up, comes out of the COBRA meeting he's been chairing, because the PM is on paternity leave/hiding again, and says he's been shown "very challenging new information" on Omicron.
> 
> Do we think this is the very challenging new information that's been in the news today: vaccines less effective, 30% of Covid cases in London are Omicron, the health service could be swamped by mid-January? Or do we think there's _new_ very challenging new information that means things might be even worse?



Well there was some other data as well today, such as estimates for attack rates. That stuff came up in the Scottish briefing earlier. And I quoted some of it that came out in a UKHSA report earlier Omicron news


----------



## Supine (Dec 10, 2021)

Javid advised to take ‘stringent’ Covid measures within a week, leak reveals
					

Exclusive: Health officials say urgent action needed to avoid mass hospitalisations and overwhelming the NHS




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## brogdale (Dec 10, 2021)

Supine said:


> Javid advised to take ‘stringent’ Covid measures within a week, leak reveals
> 
> 
> Exclusive: Health officials say urgent action needed to avoid mass hospitalisations and overwhelming the NHS
> ...


_It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

















2020_


----------



## elbows (Dec 10, 2021)

Supine said:


> Javid advised to take ‘stringent’ Covid measures within a week, leak reveals
> 
> 
> Exclusive: Health officials say urgent action needed to avoid mass hospitalisations and overwhelming the NHS
> ...



Sounds about right. If reality ends up broadly in line with the various estimates behind those figures, then to keep hospitalisations within the limits I'd prefer they should have done the stringent stuff this week.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 10, 2021)

kabbes said:


> We have an offsite work thing planned for 1 and 2 March that I was about to start booking venues for.  I’m now wondering if I should avoid doing that.  No point having the admin headache only to then have another admin headache unbooking it.


I think bets may be off for anything before Easter now, especially if Christmas goes ahead.

I see government is denying the existence of Plan C, which means plan C exists and they're trying not to use it until January 3rd.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 10, 2021)

brogdale said:


> _It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Customs rules change again on 1st January as well so that's going to add to the fun


----------



## Sasaferrato (Dec 10, 2021)

elbows said:


> I pay some attention to this sort of thing too, people should read between the lines when there are mixed messages and a difference between what is said and what is done:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I would consider you a weird freak if you did buy into the 'carry on' bullshit. 

Until we see how Omicron pans out, treat it as if it is Ebola.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 10, 2021)

brogdale said:


> _It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...._


Talking of which (figure 11, UKHSA TB31)...




(also assumes unbiased starting estimates from SGTF and no change in population behaviours).

Might be a motive for "urgent action"/"stringent" measures.


----------



## HAL9000 (Dec 10, 2021)

2hats said:


> Talking of which (figure 11, UKHSA TB31)...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The scale on the left is logarithmic, so not obvious at a quick glance how bad it is.  😥


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Dec 10, 2021)

Sue said:


> Decided the other day not to go to Scotland for Christmas. Feels like the right thing to do though I would've really liked to see my family.



Not sure it will be any better in England.  It's just Nicola seems 3 weeks ahead of taking this seriously compared to the Tories down south.


----------



## Supine (Dec 10, 2021)

HAL9000 said:


> The scale on the left is logarithmic, so not obvious at a quick glance how bad it is.  😥



Quick tip. A straight line on a log scale is worth worrying about.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 11, 2021)

Here's my totally arbitrary prediction: Christmas goes ahead _as normal_. Everything after that screams to lockdown. This useless bunch of ghouls in office do a half measure _recommending_ or _pleading_ with the public to _do the right thing_ over the rest of the holidays. Then Jan 3rd the binbag of luncheon meat we have as PM will go on telly to say _alas_ and _if the public had followed the guidelines_ and _we must regrettably lock down for a limited period_ meaning Easter


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 11, 2021)

2hats said:


> Talking of which (figure 11, UKHSA TB31)...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It's a joke, surely. I remember some dufus on Wikipedia making graphs in February 2020 predicting that with the doubling rate then in China, 7 billion people would be infected by May.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 11, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It's a joke, surely. I remember some dufus on Wikipedia making graphs in February 2020 predicting that with the doubling rate then in China, 7 billion people would be infected by May.



It says 'assuming' in the title of the graph. They're 'assuming' you can read.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 11, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> It says 'assuming' in the title of the graph. They're 'assuming' you can read.



Yes, no one extends such an assumption to absurdity unless they're being absurd. (Or rather, no one picks such a graph out of a lengthy document and cites it as a motive for urgent action unless they're being disingenuous.)


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 11, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Yes, no one extends such an assumption to absurdity unless they're being absurd. (Or rather, no one picks such a graph out of a lengthy document and cites it as a motive for urgent action unless they're being disingenuous.)



They're extrapolating less than a month into the future. Considering how long it takes for any controls to show up in the infection rate, that doesn't seem unreasonable.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 11, 2021)




----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 11, 2021)

Yeah, as elbows has said many times, too many people are expecting the jabs to do ALL the heavy lifting. Everyone in my office for example. All educated, professional, intelligent. All off out next weekend.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 11, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> They're extrapolating less than a month into the future. Considering how long it takes for any controls to show up in the infection rate, that doesn't seem unreasonable.



If they extrapolated another two weeks there would be 64,000,000 infections. Im not sure why 2hats think that graph is the most useful one to quote here.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 11, 2021)

Same here Si,  most people I know have grabbed on to the mild illness assumption and not listened to anything else.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 11, 2021)

One of my colleagues has HAD Covid badly, was walking like an old nan for a fortnight afterwards, and is now saying he isn't going to bother with a booster as _he believes_ Covid is now too weak to worry about.


----------



## andysays (Dec 11, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Yes, no one extends such an assumption to absurdity unless they're being absurd. (Or rather, no one picks such a graph out of a lengthy document and cites it as a motive for urgent action unless they're being disingenuous.)


It's a projection of what would happen if cases continue to rise at the current rate, in support of the suggestion that urgent action should be taken to reduce transmission and ensure that cases don't continue to rise at the current rate.

And you've got some front accusing anyone else of being disingenuous, you disingenuous prick


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 11, 2021)

The almost complete lack of direction from depiffle makes me wonder if the callous barstweard is actually back on the "let it rip" mode [at the behest of those who worship money & profit]. 
I mean by that - Planning that everybody gets it, even the vaccinated, and hope that form of hybrid herd immunity provides enough reduction in spread and severity that the NHS survives the overload until the new year or whenever. 
And the devil can take the hindmost, especially those whose immune system can't cope. Admittedly, the death toll should not as high as before vaccinations, but still far, far too many [and from other causes, not just covid.

In reality, chrimble festivities & associated social mixing is going to infect a massive segment of the population with omicron & subsequently kill a lot of people. 
Because enough [ie vast majority] people are not going to volunteer to be sensible, are they ?

My local area has 91.6,  85.8 and 48.7 % for the various jags, and the case rate 5 days ago was 243.4 / 100,000 and rising.
Despite these appearing to be good signs ie all better that the county and national rates, I am still very worried.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 11, 2021)

andysays said:


> It's a projection of what would happen if cases continue to rise at the current rate, in support of the suggestion that urgent action should be taken to reduce transmission and ensure that cases don't continue to rise at the current rate.



It supports nothing of the sort. You could have drawn a similar graph for any doubling time up to a million cases a day e.g. for alpha or delta, and it wouldn’t support anything other than the fact you can draw a line.


----------



## Supine (Dec 11, 2021)

S☼I said:


> Yeah, as elbows has said many times, too many people are expecting the jabs to do ALL the heavy lifting. Everyone in my office for example. All educated, professional, intelligent. All off out next weekend.



Everyone where I’m working is cancelling all parties and starting to self lockdown.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 11, 2021)

Supine said:


> Everyone where I’m working is cancelling all parties and starting to self lockdown.



I decided to put myself back down into lockdown mode, even had to decline an opportunity of meeting Badgers next weekend for a few ales, which was first suggested before omicron arrived.


----------



## Smangus (Dec 11, 2021)

I blew out my work xmas bash yesterday, was happy to go previous to omicron as double jabbed and boosted.


----------



## elbows (Dec 11, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> It supports nothing of the sort. You could have drawn a similar graph for any doubling time up to a million cases a day e.g. for alpha or delta, and it wouldn’t support anything other than the fact you can draw a line.



Its a government dummies guide to exponential growth and low doubling times. There are good reasons why it was deemed necessary to provide an illustration of the timing of measures required to stop the numbers reaching levels that break the NHS quickly.

It is well known that the totals involved dont actually end up going beyond a certain, still very high level, because there is more than one way to break an egg - namely population fear and informal 'take matters into our own hands' responses, and massive disruption to number of contacts between people due to self-isolation etc, end up acting as an equivalent to lockdown if no formal lockdown is declared. And even if that didnt happen, ultimately at some stage the number of susceptible people is insufficient for the virus to maintain exponential growth. However, if the objective of authorities is to avoid levels of hospitalisation that break the system, and to have some pro-active control over the number of cases, they feel compelled to act in more formal ways long before such points are clearly demonstrated to have been reached.

Sturgeon made a strongly related point in her press conference yesterday - some combination of the above cannot be avoided by trying to ignore the pandemic or the need for authorities to take action. Because if you try to ignore it, all you get instead is a messy, uncontrolled version where the authorities have abdicated their responsibilities, and the disruption happens in a chaotic, informal manner with few reassurances about what horrible level of hospitalisation will be reached in the meantime. Those are my words not hers, but making broadly the same point.

I dont think the authorities can take the risk of ignoring what even shithead Johnson called the remorseless logic of exponential growth. Especially when they are only going to discover the true hospitalisation ratio of this version of the virus, with this level of population vaccination, via the real world data that will emerge at the same time (well, slightly lagged) as the wave emerges. Because unless that ratio ends up being wonderful, by the time you discover the ratio its too late to have the required degree of influence over the number of infections that will be required if the ratio turns out to be too similar to the ratio seen in past waves.


----------



## elbows (Dec 11, 2021)

And given the number of avoidable deaths that happened due to terrible errors of perception and timing made as the first wave started growing, its exactly the sort of material the agency with responsibility for health security should produce.

Likewise the thing leaked to the Guardian:











						Javid advised to take ‘stringent’ Covid measures within a week, leak reveals
					

Exclusive: Health officials say urgent action needed to avoid mass hospitalisations and overwhelming the NHS




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 11, 2021)

The UK's in the Shite already,  isn't it ?

Fuck their "save chrimble" rhetoric - how about saving lives ?
There's almost zero wriggle room in those projections.
And I don't think vaccines can carry the burden alone ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 11, 2021)

They arent projections so the real extent of wiggle room is unknown. But yes this does still mean that as far as making timely decisions goes, there is no sensible decision-makers wiggle room. But there is room in the picture of what will actually turn out to happen, ie I dont have a completely fixed set of expectations as to how bad this wave will be in terms of hospitalisations and deaths, whatever the timing of formal actions taken. And there isnt much doubt that large shifts in population behaviour are now underway, although I am in no way claiming that these are universal.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 11, 2021)

Covid in Scotland: More rules could come next week, says Swinney
					

The Deputy First minister says the government is "wrestling with the challenge" of Omicron cases.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Sue (Dec 11, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Covid in Scotland: More rules could come next week, says Swinney
> 
> 
> The Deputy First minister says the government is "wrestling with the challenge" of Omicron cases.
> ...


Not sad because of potentially more restrictions, but at the numbers.

Where I am, our 12+ vaccination rates are 62.5%/56.3% against a UK average of 89%/81.2%. (There don't seem to be numbers for the booster.) 





__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




Those kind of numbers are not unusual in London. And yet on the bus yesterday, half the people still weren't wearing masks. 😡


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Dec 11, 2021)

Sue said:


> Not sad because of potentially more restrictions, but at the numbers.
> 
> Where I am, our 12+ vaccination rates are 62.5%/56.3% against a UK average of 89%/81.2%. (There don't seem to be numbers for the booster.)
> 
> ...



The level of mask compliance on public transport is pretty shocking in Scotland too.  Buses are generally fine, but level of compliance on trains is awful, even when they are really busy.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 11, 2021)

Lockdown before Xmas? Place your bets now.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 11, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> The level of mask compliance on public transport is pretty shocking in Scotland too.  Buses are generally fine, but level of compliance on trains is awful, even when they are really busy.


I haven't been on a train for a few months but last time (July) I observed a lot of people taking their mask off to eat or drink and then just not bothering to put it back on. I've been on buses and the Edinburgh tram very recently and compliance has been pretty good on both of those. I guess you're more likely to eat on a longer train journey.


----------



## Supine (Dec 11, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Lockdown before Xmas? Place your bets now.



Covid has proven I’m rubbish at making predictions. 

I’m going to bet on ‘stringent measures’ rather than lockdown though.


----------



## Sue (Dec 11, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Lockdown before Xmas? Place your bets now.


I'd bet on some half-arsed nonsense a couple of days before Christmas or in January when things are so bad they can't not. So essentially whenever the optimal fuck up date is.


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Dec 11, 2021)

weepiper said:


> I haven't been on a train for a few months but last time (July) I observed a lot of people taking their mask off to eat or drink and then just not bothering to put it back on. I've been on buses and the Edinburgh tram very recently and compliance has been pretty good on both of those. I guess you're more likely to eat on a longer train journey.



I only get the (party) train from Ayr to Glasgow, so an hour at most.  You're not allowed to drink booze on the train at the moment, much to my incovenience, but plenty of people continue to do so, resulting in even less mask wearing.  I don't really blame the ticket inspectors for not getting involved - I've seen/heard of enough fights on trains!


----------



## tommers (Dec 11, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Lockdown before Xmas? Place your bets now.


Immediately afterwards. Like 27th December.


----------



## elbows (Dec 11, 2021)

Supine said:


> Covid has proven I’m rubbish at making predictions.
> 
> I’m going to bet on ‘stringent measures’ rather than lockdown though.


I suppose I'll bet on something further in the coming week.

I dont think they will want to have to change the rules as stupidly close to Christmas as they ended up doing last time, but that could still happen again too. But maybe they will be a bit earlier this time, especially if the doubling time doesnt seem to be increasing.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Dec 11, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> The level of mask compliance on public transport is pretty shocking in Scotland too.  Buses are generally fine, but level of compliance on trains is awful, even when they are really busy.



I was in ASDA (for the first time in a year, and for the same reason) yesterday, nearly half half had no masks, including a lot of the staff.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 11, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> You are looking at a long history of data look at the last section covering the period in question, its fucking flat
> 
> As for Gps, I can of course only speak as I find.They were advised to give face to face consultations months ago my lot are still in hiding, I've had some serious problems last spring and all I got was  a couple of phone calls, a mis-diagnosis after sending some pictures and ultimately an entirely avoidable trip to hospital for 10 days, ill slag em off as much as I want if thats allright with you.


What troubles me the most about this is your insistence that "GPs were told to resume face to face consultations".

As has already been pointed out, GP services were on their knees before the pandemic, and the people ordering them around are doing this in full knowledge of that fact - these are _political_ decisions, aimed to please the unthinking masses, not the complex risk-based decisions they should be. GPs, remember, are far more at risk than the general population, given that they are much more likely to encounter someone with Covid in the line of their work, and a GP succumbing to illness has a knock-on effect within the service, so they've got every reason to be extra-cautious about exposing themselves to risk. 

I do think that it is inevitable that more will go wrong during a time such as this, simply because of the sheer workload it imposes, meaning that the chance of something important being missed is rather greater. But it is not reasonable - or accurate - to lay that at the door of the medical profession. To be fair, it can't all be laid at the door of the government, although there is a great deal they could have done a lot better. 

Simply because your own personal views happen to align with those being trumped up against the medical profession in general, you should be careful not to inadvertently further their agenda by adding fuel to their bonfires.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 11, 2021)

existentialist said:


> What troubles me the most about this is your insistence that "GPs were told to resume face to face consultations".
> 
> As has already been pointed out, GP services were on their knees before the pandemic, and the people ordering them around are doing this in full knowledge of that fact - these are _political_ decisions, aimed to please the unthinking masses, not the complex risk-based decisions they should be. GPs, remember, are far more at risk than the general population, given that they are much more likely to encounter someone with Covid in the line of their work, and a GP succumbing to illness has a knock-on effect within the service, so they've got every reason to be extra-cautious about exposing themselves to risk.
> 
> ...


What troubles me is your inability to differentiate between GPs and the medical profession as a whole, actually I think you can differentiate you just choose not to so you can make out that im having a go at the whole medical profession..frankly you can fuck right off


----------



## existentialist (Dec 11, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> What troubles me is your inability to differentiate between GPs and the medical profession as a whole, actually I think you can differentiate you just choose not to so you can make out that im having a go at the whole medical profession..frankly you can fuck right off


You don't think that GPs are part of the medical profession? Or is this just some artificial distinction you've made so you can ride your own personal hobbyhorse in on the coat-tails of those who would attack them for political reasons, or for gain?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 11, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> I was in ASDA (for the first time in a year, and for the same reason) yesterday, nearly half half had no masks, including a lot of the staff.



Blimey! It's back to at least 95% mask wearing in shops here.


----------



## LDC (Dec 11, 2021)

I think they'll be some further changes in the next 7 days tbh. Although we need better language to them being described as 'restrictions' and 'lockdowns'.

Public health measures, protection measures...?

I know that the 'protect the NHS' mantra/focus is problematic in some ways, but I dread to think what will happen to other types of medical care if the NHS has to cope with a wave of unwell people the next 2 months. They don't have to end up in ICU to collapse normal healthcare services.


----------



## elbows (Dec 11, 2021)

Well non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) has been the jargon since the start but obviously the press and people are less inclined to use that sort of jargon. This time around the press are more likely to refer to 'plan C' and so on, but beyond a certain strength of measures they may well resort to saying lockdown again.


----------



## LDC (Dec 11, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> What troubles me is your inability to differentiate between GPs and the medical profession as a whole, actually I think you can differentiate you just choose not to so you can make out that im having a go at the whole medical profession..frankly you can fuck right off



I did try and be more sympathetic in an earlier post, but really you need to get over yourself, you're just coming across as a bitter and irrational old man on here at the moment.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 11, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I did try and be more sympathetic in an earlier post, but really you need to get over yourself, you're just coming across as a bitter and irrational old man on here at the moment.



Daily Mail reader, innit.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 11, 2021)

more troll-like than a daily-heil, methinks


----------



## teuchter (Dec 11, 2021)

The UK case rates don't currently look entirely alarming (upward trend but not looking exponential-ish)


However these are the two south London boroughs I live on the border between.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 11, 2021)

the purple is getting darker



slightly surprised that bits of more urban / densely populated Reading is still blue.

data is based on positive tests divided by population, not by number of tests taken.

are people in more urban / working class areas testing less?  more people in casual employment / jobs without sick pay a factor?


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 11, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> the purple is getting darker
> 
> View attachment 300354
> 
> ...


I imagine people are testing less and less as time goes by


----------



## xenon (Dec 11, 2021)

Why would you get tested unless you had to for work or were going to visit vulnerable people. It’s not like theres furlough if you need to self isolate from work.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 11, 2021)

xenon said:


> Why would you get tested unless you had to for work or were going to visit vulnerable people. It’s not like theres furlough if you need to self isolate from work.


We're being advised to do a lateral flow twice a week in Scotland regardless of any 'reason'. Lots of people I know are actually doing it (myself included).


----------



## elbows (Dec 11, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The UK case rates don't currently look entirely alarming (upward trend but not looking exponential-ish)
> 
> 
> However these are the two south London boroughs I live on the border between.



Plus the existence of a large delta wave means that we shouldnt really expect to see exponential Omicron growth showing up in the overall figures until Omicron has grown large enough that it can more obviously escape the data shadow of the substantial delta wave.

Anyway you are correct to look at more localised data too. Even if we only go down to the regional level a bunch of different patterns are seen. To give just one example, looking at the North East daily positive test figures, the picture has stayed rather flat. But I still presume thats mostly telling a story about the ongoing Delta wave, and not much at all of the story of Omicron yet.

I expect I'll be doing cases for England by age group graphs again quite soon.


----------



## elbows (Dec 11, 2021)

weepiper said:


> We're being advised to do a lateral flow twice a week in Scotland regardless of any 'reason'. Lots of people I know are actually doing it (myself included).


I think the advice has since been ramped up further beyond that.

Even back in November it was evolving into stuff like this:

November 23rd: People in England and Scotland urged to take more lateral flow tests :


> In an update to official guidance, people in England are now advised to take a lateral flow test (LFT) if they expect to be in a “high risk situation” that day, such as spending time in “crowded and enclosed spaces” and where “there is limited fresh air”.
> 
> Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, called on Tuesday for people to take a test whenever they planned to socialise with others, whether at home or out, or if going shopping somewhere crowded. “The most precious gift we can give anyone this Christmas is to be fully vaccinated or tested before we meet, hug or spend time with them,” she told MSPs in her regular Covid update.



November 30th: Nicola Sturgeon says testing to be ramped up as fears grow over Omicron variant



> Sturgeon told MSPs: "I can confirm today that, in the run up to the festive period, lateral flow tests will be made available by local authorities in many more locations.
> 
> "Locations will obviously vary in different parts of the country, but will include shopping centres and supermarkets, garden centres, sports grounds and Christmas markets. We are also working with transport partners to provide access to tests in transport hubs.
> 
> ...



5 days ago: Covid in Scotland: Take a test every time you leave home, says Swinney



> *People should take a lateral flow test for Covid every time they leave home, according to the deputy first minister.*
> 
> John Swinney urged everyone to take the tests more frequently than twice a week as previously suggested.
> 
> He was speaking as new rules come into place meaning people can show a negative Covid test result to get into clubs, concerts or large events.


----------



## xenon (Dec 11, 2021)

weepiper said:


> We're being advised to do a lateral flow twice a week in Scotland regardless of any 'reason'. Lots of people I know are actually doing it (myself included).



I don’t think I know anyone doing it other than it being a requirement for work.
 Or they are visiting friends or family. perhaps. But not just as a matter of course with no symptoms.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 11, 2021)

elbows said:


> I think the advice has since been ramped up further beyond that.
> 
> Even back in November it was evolving into stuff like this:
> 
> ...



Yes. I'm doing one every two days at the moment. Chiefly because I want to protect my work colleagues as much as anything (one of them is my brother and one of them is a type 1 diabetic)


----------



## weltweit (Dec 11, 2021)

The only English person I know who is doing lft regularly seems to think it excuses him from wearing a mask!


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 12, 2021)

xenon said:


> Why would you get tested unless you had to for work


Before social visits/occasions?
that’s what I do.

But employers expect their staff to test at least twice a week or even more.

People will eventually get bored of doing it and forget though. I forget every now and then already.


----------



## tommers (Dec 12, 2021)

kids are told to test twice a week for school.  Two of my son's mates have come down with it, so he's being tested pretty much daily atm.  I've been testing if I'm going anywhere with lots of people.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 12, 2021)

Quite a few of my colleagues haven’t been wearing masks but will be from Monday.
It was announced last week. What I don’t get is why they’re waiting til then before donning a mask. Can they not think for themselves?


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 12, 2021)

xenon said:


> I don’t think I know anyone doing it other than it being a requirement for work.



That’s a lot of people though. Most people have to work.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Dec 12, 2021)

Weekly testing isn't a requirement at most/many workplaces though.

And I still know a lot of people who'd just do a LFT rather than risk a PCR (for which you have to give contact details) even after prolonged contact with someone who has Covid. (eg living with someone who's isolating due to actually having it)


----------



## LDC (Dec 12, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The UK case rates don't currently look entirely alarming (upward trend but not looking exponential-ish)



But isn't that one of the things with exponential growth, it goes from numbers that aren't huge, to numbers that _are _very quickly, and in the early stages it doesn't look anything to worry about? Have you done the back of a fag packet maths for it, it's quite interesting/scary.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 12, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> Quite a few of my colleagues haven’t been wearing masks but will be from Monday.
> It was announced last week. What I don’t get is why they’re waiting til then before donning a mask. Can they not think for themselves?


If this whole pandemic has shown us nothing else, it’s shown us that an awful lot of people are stupid, selfish, arseholes.


----------



## mentalchik (Dec 12, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> I was in ASDA (for the first time in a year, and for the same reason) yesterday, nearly half half had no masks, including a lot of the staff.


Where i work all staff (unless exempt) are wearing them but a significant amount of customers are still not...still getting people that express suprise that they're expected to...we are no longer giving out free masks and people are not buying their own so they take their chances as far as we're concerned...if the police come in to spot check they risk a fine


----------



## emanymton (Dec 12, 2021)

mentalchik said:


> Where i work all staff (unless exempt) are wearing them but a significant amount of customers are still not...still getting people that express suprise that they're expected to...we are no longer giving out free masks and people are not buying their own so they take their chances as far as we're concerned...if the police come in to spot check they risk a fine


Do the police ever do that?


----------



## teuchter (Dec 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> But isn't that one of the things with exponential growth, it goes from numbers that aren't huge, to numbers that _are _very quickly, and in the early stages it doesn't look anything to worry about? Have you done the back of a fag packet maths for it, it's quite interesting/scary.


Well yes, the fact that it's not obvious yet doesn't mean it's not happening.


----------



## mentalchik (Dec 12, 2021)

emanymton said:


> Do the police ever do that?


Now and again...apparently they chucked a guy out last thursday eve coz he refused to wear a mask


----------



## emanymton (Dec 12, 2021)

mentalchik said:


> Now and again...apparently they chucked a guy out last thursday eve coz he refused to wear a mask


Well that's good. More than the never I expected


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> But isn't that one of the things with exponential growth, it goes from numbers that aren't huge, to numbers that _are _very quickly, and in the early stages it doesn't look anything to worry about? Have you done the back of a fag packet maths for it, it's quite interesting/scary.



Plus presumably at this stage you'd expect any initial exponential growth in Omicron to be masked to a degree by the relatively high but steady numbers of Delta cases, if you're looking at overall figures. By the time that shows as exponential growth Omicron would be well into that curve.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 12, 2021)

The relative lack of sequencing, because the Delta cases are already high, will be masking the rise of omicron cases.


----------



## xenon (Dec 12, 2021)

Possibly wrong thread to ask but is there any new theory / explanation for why so many cases are asymptomatic.

And as an aside, is it possible to have one of the coronavirus that causes the cold asymptomatically? I wouldn't have thought much research has been done into the latter, until maybe in the last year or so, with random sampling or something but maybe it has relevance now.


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> If this whole pandemic has shown us nothing else, it’s shown us that an awful lot of people are stupid, selfish, arseholes.


Its understandable that people notice and focus on that, but I'd say the pandemic has demonstrated very clearly the much larger number of people who wanted to do the right things at the right time, for the sake of themselves and their loved ones but also the wider population.


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2021)

xenon said:


> Possibly wrong thread to ask but is there any new theory / explanation for why so many cases are asymptomatic.
> 
> And as an aside, is it possible to have one of the coronavirus that causes the cold asymptomatically? I wouldn't have thought much research has been done into the latter, until maybe in the last year or so, with random sampling or something but maybe it has relevance now.


Asymptomatic stuff is really quite common across quite a range of illnesses, but its one of those 'out of sight out of mind' things that hasnt gotten enough attention in the past.

A really quite large proportion of flu cases are thought to be asymptomatic, for example. And even when there are symptoms there is a broad spectrum of severity, which is why I have a tendency to bore on about how low strength of symptoms are not a good guide as to whether you've got 'proper flu' or something else. Well, they can be a reasonable guide when the symptoms are strong, clear and typical, but not when they are weaker and less well defined.

As for the reasons why, there are probably multiple factors. The bits of our immune systems that respond to a particular infection probably vary between people for reasons including their genes and their history of prior infection, how large and widespread the infection becomes within the body, our own perceptions of those immune responses kicking in. Probably some variation depending on age too, eg its apparently common for rather old people to not be aware of traditional symptoms for various diseases affected them.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its understandable that people notice and focus on that, but I'd say the pandemic has demonstrated very clearly the much larger number of people who wanted to do the right things at the right time, for the ske of themselves and their loved ones but also the wider population.


I do get that, but I, too, have been quite appalled at the prevalence of "I'm doing what I wanna do, dammit" attitudes amongst otherwise quite reasonable people. TBF, I've felt the urge quite a few times, but at least I had the insight to check myself.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Dec 12, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I do get that, but I, too, have been quite appalled at the prevalence of "I'm doing what I wanna do, dammit" attitudes amongst otherwise quite reasonable people. TBF, I've felt the urge quite a few times, but at least I had the insight to check myself.



Quite. No doubt the good people of Urban will have noticed that I'm more than a tad contrarian, but not on this.

If I caught this plague I probably wouldn't survive it. It has eaten two years of my limited lifespan, and will no doubt eat a bit more.

It will pass, everything does, so it is just a case of head down, plod on, and wait for it to go.


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2021)

> *The UK's coronavirus alert level has been raised to level four due to the spread of Omicron, the UK's chief medical officers have said.*
> 
> The last time the UK was at level four was in May.
> 
> Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to make a televised statement on Covid at 20:00 GMT on Sunday.











						Covid: UK alert level raised to four due to Omicron spread
					

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to give an update on the Covid booster programme at 20:00 GMT.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 12, 2021)

I was just coming to post that, 8pm on a Sunday is a bit odd.  🤷‍♂️


----------



## LDC (Dec 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was just coming to post that, 8pm on a Sunday is a bit odd.  🤷‍♂️



Doesn't feel like that bodes well, but BBC saying no new restrictions. Surely not just going to mention the booster campaign? More news on spread and severity maybe?

Things could change very quickly if confirmed it's the same as Delta re: severity.


----------



## LDC (Dec 12, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I do get that, but I, too, have been quite appalled at the prevalence of "I'm doing what I wanna do, dammit" attitudes amongst otherwise quite reasonable people. TBF, I've felt the urge quite a few times, but at least I had the insight to check myself.



Just had a coughing and untested and unvaccinated patient at their work as normal. It's hard not to find stuff a bit depressing sometimes tbh...


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was just coming to post that, 8pm on a Sunday is a bit odd.  🤷‍♂️


I suspect he cant really avoid addressing the nation when the alert level is raised.

Although I think he did briefly avoid it when it was raised to level 4 on 21st September 2020 - that was probably the time that Whitty and Vallance ended up doing a 'data presentation' to the media on their own on that date, and then Johnson gave a recorded address to the nation the next day.

When it was raised still further on January 4th, to one level above what its been raised to today, I think he ended up announcing another lockdown the same day.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> Covid: UK alert level raised to four due to Omicron spread
> 
> 
> Prime Minister Boris Johnson is due to give an update on the Covid booster programme at 20:00 GMT.
> ...


They're still using the same old level chart in that article 







Which means that if we're moving to Level 4, what we've seen while at Level 3 is a "Gradual relaxation of restrictions".

They came up with that in the first wave and it's been stupidly out of date for over a year.

Sort it out ffs.


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Things could change very quickly if confirmed it's the same as Delta re: severity.


Things could still change rapidly without such a confirmation of severity - if it was half as seere in terms of hospitalisations then thats only one doubling time away from the same implications as if it was just as severe. And the doubling time has been rather low so far, low enough that even this shit government at least feel the need to be seen to be acting quickly.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 12, 2021)

Spandex said:


> They're still using the same old level chart in that article
> 
> 
> 
> ...


you're asking a bunch of incompetent numpties to sort this out when all the evidence over the past 21, 22 months is they're a bunch of incompetent numpties who'd need a helping hand to wipe their own arses. it's not really on the cards, is it?


----------



## donkyboy (Dec 12, 2021)

[sings to the coco cola tune] Omicron is coming. Omicron is coming.....


----------



## LDC (Dec 12, 2021)

No new restrictions, just 'get your booster' in Latin on some kind of nightmarish recorded loop?


----------



## clicker (Dec 12, 2021)

I hope he's half cut with a party popper hanging from his ear.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 12, 2021)

donkyboy said:


> [sings to the coco cola tune] Omicron is coming. Omicron is coming.....


it's coming home
it's coming home
it's coming
omicron's coming home


----------



## LDC (Dec 12, 2021)

So...

Up next alert level.
Increasing cases of new variant and predicted coming wave.
Confirmation new variant evades vaccines to a significant level.
Increased transmissibility of new variant confirmed.
Severity of new variant as yet unknown.

But now contacts of cases don't isolate, but daily test instead?

WTF, isn't that bonkers?


----------



## Flavour (Dec 12, 2021)

People are _really, really, really _clinging onto the whole "omicron is mild" line to justify not having any more energy to do any more lockdown type stuff


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> So...
> 
> Up next alert level.
> Increasing cases of new variant and predicted coming wave.
> ...


Yes I moaned about it when it was announced.

They probably decided to do it in order to deflect from backbenchers and sections of the media going nuts about another pingdemic.

Scotland moved in a rather different direction on that front. In that household contacts are now required to isolate even if they initially test negative with a PCR test.


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2021)

Flavour said:


> People are _really, really, really _clinging onto the whole "omicron is mild" line to justify not having any more energy to do any more lockdown type stuff


And because they may not appreciate that linear improvements dont mean much in the face of greater exponential woe.


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2021)

Meanwhile in Wales:









						Covid: New restrictions in Wales likely within weeks
					

It comes as the first minister says Omicron could lead to "large numbers" of people in hospital.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *New restrictions are likely "in the next few weeks" in Wales to deal with the new Omicron variant, the health minister has said.*
> 
> Eluned Morgan said the Welsh government wanted "to act proportionately", but a spike in cases of the variant was expected "quickly."
> 
> She said there would come a point when ministers could advise people against going to Christmas parties.



What point will that be then, Boxing Day?


----------



## LDC (Dec 12, 2021)

elbows said:


> They probably decided to do it in order to deflect from backbenchers and sections of the media going nuts about another pingdemic.



Yeah, I suspect it was deal along those lines with backbenchers as well.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 12, 2021)

We had them in Wales, Alpine Pop man ...Lorry loads of the stuff


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2021)




----------



## Wilf (Dec 12, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No new restrictions, just 'get your booster' in Latin on some kind of nightmarish recorded loop?


He could be trying to look primeministerial.  Lol.


----------



## tommers (Dec 12, 2021)

I am so fucking tired of this.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Dec 12, 2021)

Thank God we're all in this together.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 12, 2021)

The idea of getting everyone a booster before the end of Dec is seems highly ambitious, the rate is going to have the shoot up.


----------



## Supine (Dec 12, 2021)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Thank God we're all in this together.



Thank God we have a fearless leader to navigate us through this crisis.


----------



## elbows (Dec 12, 2021)

National emergency boosterism boosters campaign.

The downside of vaccines in the UK was always going to be that authorities would use those to cover more of the 'being seen to act' stuff, at the expense of other stuff they should also be doing.

Although I have to say that the rather vague Omicron estimates available so far do suggest that boosters are going to be an important part of trying to shore up the defensive wall against Omicron. I dont know to what extent the early guesstimates will hold up, but at least one of them implied that a booster shot is required in order to deliver to people a similar level of protection against Omicron as they might have had against Delta once their second jab had started to wane a fair bit. If that turned out to be the case then we'd need everyone to get boosted in order to be in roughly the same situation as we would have been with no boosters and no Omicron. Although that doesnt take account of the full impact of high number of cases that Omicron may bring.


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Dec 12, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was just coming to post that, 8pm on a Sunday is a bit odd.  🤷‍♂️



Especially so near Xmas when there are parties and shit to go to.


----------



## Supine (Dec 12, 2021)

Tweet from my GP ‘Please don’t call us about the vaccination plan tomorrow - we have no information about the governments plans’


----------



## Supine (Dec 12, 2021)

Aparently there is an 8:30pm call with Primary Care Network and Health Dept. They get to find out about the plan after it is announced.


----------



## LDC (Dec 12, 2021)

Supine said:


> Thank God we have a fearless leader to navigate us through this crisis.



That's not how you spell feckless.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 12, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> The idea of getting everyone a booster before the end of Dec is seems highly ambitious, the rate is going to have the shoot up.


Two weeks ago I waited 1 hrs 20m in the cold rain for my booster and going by yesterday I noticed the same system and long queue was in place 

Authorities will have to do better than that  to up the booster regime


----------



## LDC (Dec 12, 2021)

I'm worried about the impact/overwhelm of the NHS the next 2 months. I needed an emergency ambulance (like 'blue lights there now', not 'a bit sick, in an hour') for a patient today. It was a 40 minute wait for a life threatening condition.


----------



## Sue (Dec 12, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> Two weeks ago I waited 1 hrs 20m in the cold rain for my booster and going by yesterday I noticed the same system and long queue was in place
> 
> Authorities will have to do better than that  to up the booster regime


The three times I've been round here (with an appointment mind), the longest I've waited is about two minutes. Same for friends.

(Mind you, that could be because the vaccinations rates round here are so low .)


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 12, 2021)

Sue said:


> The three times I've been round here (with an appointment mind), the longest I've waited is about two minutes. Same for friends.
> 
> (Mind you, that could be because the vaccinations rates round here are so low .)


My home patch's vaccination rates [inc boosters] are above both county & national levels
[booster rate is already over 50%].

I've not had to wait more than a couple of minutes for any of them.

In contrast, the local GPs Flu jab system has had a bit of a tail-back, so queueing outside for about five or ten minutes.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 12, 2021)

Sue said:


> The three times I've been round here (with an appointment mind), the longest I've waited is about two minutes. Same for friends.
> 
> (Mind you, that could be because the vaccinations rates round here are so low .)


For shots 1 and 2 it was an orderly and quick affair in my area. For boosters its disorderly and lengthy


----------



## weltweit (Dec 12, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> For shots 1 and 2 it was an orderly and quick affair in my area. For boosters its disorderly and lengthy


Oh for me they were all quick and efficient. For my walk in booster I arrived and there was no queue, went straight in and was jabbed pretty much immediately. For my son there was a 15 minute delay but we were sat inside out of the cold so that was fine.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 12, 2021)

Yep me too, nice orderly queues in the time honoured British fashion including booster.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 12, 2021)

I think I agree with Dr John Cambell. 
We have been very lucky its not something like MERS.
Dr John Cambell on Omicron


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 12, 2021)

My experience pretty much Mirrors Mis-Shelf's, first 2 quick and professional, booster (at mass vax centre) about  50 minutes in all... shit infection control measures including one nurse closing one of the only 2 doors open for ventilation, probably because there was a draft and 2 others maskless the whole time I was there, so shit out out of ten for those 3 'health professionals' (the other 20 or so were great, but it only takes a few arseholes to spread this shit around and doing it at a place that is ostensibly to help alleviate this shit and you are supposed to be a trained anti-this-shit operative is un-comically ironic)


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 12, 2021)

Vaccine booking website is now fucked, predictably.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 12, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I think I agree with Dr John Cambell.
> We have been very lucky its not something like MERS.
> Dr John Cambell on Omicron


I've followed him for a while now, but im afraid he has been terribly over optimistic about this variant clinging on to any positive sign and its clouding his judgement somewhat.
I do hope he is right.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 12, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Vaccine booking website is now fucked, predictably.


Bojo's message tonight was 100% about trying to look in control, his target/promise is somewhere in cloud-fucking-cuckooo land


----------



## Supine (Dec 12, 2021)

Sunray said:


> I think I agree with Dr John Cambell.
> We have been very lucky its not something like MERS.
> Dr John Cambell on Omicron



I stopped watching him after noticing a few issues. I read a real takedown by a real doctor recently.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 12, 2021)

Went for my booster last week and it was very efficient, quicker than first two. I arrived about 20mins early, short fast moving queue and was done before my official appointment time came around.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 12, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> Two weeks ago I waited 1 hrs 20m in the cold rain for my booster and going by yesterday I noticed the same system and long queue was in place





was that for a pre-booked appointment, or a walk-in?

i have my booster booked for saturday afternoon next weekend and don't really fancy waiting in a crowd for an hour and a bit...


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 12, 2021)

It was a booked appointment.   They were operating with two Clinicians and one check in person so there was no mechanism to separate walk ins for first or second shot from booked booster appointments


----------



## tommers (Dec 12, 2021)

1 & 2 was in a drive thru.  Pull up, sleeve up, feel a little prick and off.

3rd one was an hour queuing in a disused department store, which was suitably dystopian, if nothing else.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 13, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> It was a booked appointment. They were operating with two Clinicians and one check in person so there was no mechanism to separate walk ins for first or second shot from booked booster appointments


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

teuchter said:


> The UK case rates don't currently look entirely alarming (upward trend but not looking exponential-ish)
> 
> 
> However these are the two south London boroughs I live on the border between.



I've now found where even more dramatic rises can be seen in the current positive case data. With the sort of steepness we've seen in some of South Africas data.

London region, cases by age group (and by specimen date so as usual the most recent figures are incomplete).

Lots of age groups are showing rises but the sharpness of the increase is very dramatic in the 20-24, 25-29, 30-34 age groups data. Also 35-39 and some others too, but to a slightly more curved extent.

So this includes the age group editor drew attention to a little while back via anecdotes about increasing number of people he knew coming down with covid.

Some of the individual age group graphs for the London region to illustrate this point:


----------



## Mation (Dec 13, 2021)

clicker said:


> I hope he's half cut with a party popper hanging from his ear.


Yeah, it took me a while to realise that in the balloons and poppers talk, that it meant party poppers, rather than amyl nitrate!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 13, 2021)

I am trying to get my head around the idea of giving everyone a booster jab by the end of the year.

I know the figures have been drifting upwards, averaging just over 400k jabs a day in the last 7-days. I am also aware they have been recruiting for 10,000 more paid positions, plus volunteers, since two weeks ago, with more sites & slots becoming available from today, but I assumed all this was to reach the target of over 500k a day.

The new target means they will need to average around a million per day, from now until 31st Dec., I can't see how they are likely to achieve anywhere near that figure this week, then there's the problem of Christmas getting in the way.


----------



## andysays (Dec 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am trying to get my head around the idea of giving everyone a booster jab by the end of the year.
> 
> I know the figures have been drifting upwards, averaging just over 400k jabs a day in the last 7-days. I am also aware they have been recruiting for 10,000 more paid positions, plus volunteers, since two weeks ago, with more sites & slots becoming available from today, but I assumed all this was to reach the target of over 500k a day.
> 
> The new target means they will need to average around a million per day, from now until 31st Dec., I can't see how they are likely to achieve anywhere near that figure this week, then there's the problem of Christmas getting in the way.


It's (deliberately?) a bit ambiguous, but I think the target is actually to get all the bookings made by Jan 1st, rather than the vaccinations actually done.

One the stories on the BBC website (can't remember now which one) makes this clearer.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 13, 2021)

andysays said:


> It's (deliberately?) a bit ambiguous, but I think the target is actually to get all the bookings made by Jan 1st, rather than the vaccinations actually done.
> 
> One the stories on the BBC website (can't remember now which one) makes this clearer.



It certainly is a bit ambiguous, he actually says everyone 'will have the chance' to get their booster before the new year, which I suppose they do with the booking website opening up to everyone over 18 from Wednesday, then it's just a case if you get lucky or not.


----------



## LDC (Dec 13, 2021)

BBC news is a constant stream of Tory MPs saying 'it's milder' with no challenging of it.


----------



## zahir (Dec 13, 2021)




----------



## felixthecat (Dec 13, 2021)

Oh look no home LFTs available. Excellent🙄


----------



## andysays (Dec 13, 2021)

felixthecat said:


> Oh look no home LFTs available. Excellent🙄


And the NHS website has crashed because so many people are trying to book a booster


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 13, 2021)

felixthecat said:


> Oh look no home LFTs available. Excellent🙄


 
and companies have to pay for them ...

#worldbeating

What was that about doing lots of testing ?

#worldbeating [again]


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 13, 2021)

felixthecat said:


> Oh look no home LFTs available. Excellent🙄


There are still stocks in some Pharmacies and other places if you can get to them (A contact risk of course)


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Dec 13, 2021)

felixthecat said:


> Oh look no home LFTs available. Excellent🙄


Well, that was predictable.
Wasn't the plan to start charging for them some time around now, anyway?


----------



## xenon (Dec 13, 2021)

Supine said:


> I stopped watching him after noticing a few issues. I read a real takedown by a real doctor recently.



He's been popping up on my YT feed lately. Is he not a real doctor?


----------



## Supine (Dec 13, 2021)

xenon said:


> He's been popping up on my YT feed lately. Is he not a real doctor?



A nurse


----------



## xenon (Dec 13, 2021)

Got booster booked for the 22nd. Just seen on FB that the same venue is doing walk ins. At the moment just for people vacced prior to July 1st. May try on Friday though.(My second was Jul 19th.) Would obviously like to get it done ASAP.


----------



## LDC (Dec 13, 2021)

xenon said:


> He's been popping up on my YT feed lately. Is he not a real doctor?



He's a nurse by background, moved into education, and has done a PhD (hence Dr.) rather than a medical doctor.


----------



## Johnny Doe (Dec 13, 2021)

Teacher friends in North London say there is talk of schools closing early due to rising cases...all teachers in one borough....


----------



## xenon (Dec 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am trying to get my head around the idea of giving everyone a booster jab by the end of the year.
> 
> I know the figures have been drifting upwards, averaging just over 400k jabs a day in the last 7-days. I am also aware they have been recruiting for 10,000 more paid positions, plus volunteers, since two weeks ago, with more sites & slots becoming available from today, but I assumed all this was to reach the target of over 500k a day.
> 
> The new target means they will need to average around a million per day, from now until 31st Dec., I can't see how they are likely to achieve anywhere near that figure this week, then there's the problem of Christmas getting in the way.



And probably just a few people self isolating...


----------



## Supine (Dec 13, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He's a nurse by background, moved into education, and has done a PhD (hence Dr.) rather than a medical doctor.



Using a phd as Dr in a medical setting is so iffy. Not good. Someone on indy sage does the same.


----------



## xenon (Dec 13, 2021)

Supine said:


> A nurse



Thanks. Yeah just checked.  has a doctorate in nursing. And TBF he on his channel blurb, now I've looked more closely doesn't claim to be a medical doctor and says stuff like this.
"
Disclaimer; These media including videos, book, e book, articles, podcasts are not peer-reviewed. They should never replace individual clinical judgement from your own health care provider. No media-based material on this channel is suitable for using as professional medical advice. All comments are also for educational purposed only and must never replace advice from your own health care provider."

For anyone else interested.


			https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9IOB2TExg3QIBupFtBDxg
		


Although it's a bit daft he hasn't grammar checked that disclaimer...


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 13, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He's a nurse by background, moved into education, and has done a PhD (hence Dr.) rather than a medical doctor.


And went fully down the Invermectin rabbit hole - which is clearly profitable - he's got 1.8 MILLION subs ...

I continue to like Victor Racaniello and TWIV - with only 103 K - though a lot of it is aimed at scientists ...



			https://www.youtube.com/c/VincentRacaniello/videos


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 13, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> And went fully down the Invermectin rabbit hole - which is clearly profitable - he's got 1.8 MILLION subs ...
> 
> I continue to like Victor Racaniello and TWIV - with only 103 K - though a lot of it is aimed at scientists ...
> 
> ...


"the average YouTuber with 100k subscribers can make *$12,000 or more per sponsored video*."

real, real money in a youtube grift these days


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 13, 2021)

per video. lol.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 13, 2021)

I feel his credentials are good.   No matter. If you listen to what he is saying, make your own mind up.  He suggests we are all going to get it again.

The problem no matter the severity is the sheer number of people that are getting sick unless we lock down again, which Austria has shown is very effective. 

I now know more people with Covid-19 than at any time since the beginning.


----------



## BristolEcho (Dec 13, 2021)

I did a PCR test at a site yesterday. Not heard back yesterday which is fine, but hopefully tomorrow. I didn't write my name etc on the bag but hopefully it's all been done he took my dob etc. Do you get confirmation texts that the samples been received? Or is it just waiting for the result? Last time I got a text about 20 minutes later, but think they were doing it all on the site then.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 13, 2021)

BigMoaner said:


> "the average YouTuber with 100k subscribers can make *$12,000 or more per sponsored video*."
> 
> real, real money in a youtube grift these days



highly unlikely with any sort of regularity 
sponsored video also means someone would want to specifically target your channel and audience, which is also unlikely for nutjobs


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Dec 13, 2021)

BristolEcho said:


> I did a PCR test at a site yesterday. Not heard back yesterday which is fine, but hopefully tomorrow. I didn't write my name etc on the bag but hopefully it's all been done he took my dob etc. Do you get confirmation texts that the samples been received? Or is it just waiting for the result? Last time I got a text about 20 minutes later, but think they were doing it all on the site then.



Just one text with the result - sometimes same day, sometimes next morning, sometimes the day after that.


----------



## smmudge (Dec 13, 2021)

crojoe said:


> highly unlikely with any sort of regularity
> sponsored video also means someone would want to specifically target your channel and audience, which is also unlikely for nutjobs



People love selling stuff to nutjobs. They’re very suggestible.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 13, 2021)

reputable companies with that sort of money to spend on one video, probably wouldn't.
anyway, they won't be selling sponsored videos they just get money from the automatic google ads youtube serves. nowhere near as lucrative but you're obviously doing ok if you're getting 100k+ views.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 13, 2021)

What's happening with the England healthcare figures on the daily update?



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=nation&areaName=England


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 13, 2021)

BristolEcho said:


> I did a PCR test at a site yesterday. Not heard back yesterday which is fine, but hopefully tomorrow. I didn't write my name etc on the bag but hopefully it's all been done he took my dob etc. Do you get confirmation texts that the samples been received? Or is it just waiting for the result? Last time I got a text about 20 minutes later, but think they were doing it all on the site then.



In very recent experience, of a few different people and both walk-in and home tests, they're taking longer atm.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 13, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> What's happening with the England healthcare figures on the daily update?
> 
> 
> 
> https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=nation&areaName=England



Looks normal to me, what do think is wrong?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looks normal to me, what do think is wrong?


Have you looked at them?

Last few days - they're not normally figures that are adjusted but for each of the three sections they are either significantly lower, or zero.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Looks normal to me, what do think is wrong?


Recent daily admissions figures of 379, 34 and 43 for England are hugely short of the expected figures. I will look into what data issue has occurred.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

The NHS spreadsheet version of daily hospital admissions etc has not been published yet for today so I cant use that alternative source yet or look there for explanations.

( https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/ )


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 13, 2021)

Ah, they've just added a message - 'investigating missing data' - to be updated.

ETA - Someone was writing in a hurry - 'Issue with Healthcare data - we are investigating missing data from England for healthcare metrics (admissions, *pateitnts* in hospital and patients *on* mechanical *ventillation* beds). Updated figures will be added shortly.'


----------



## ska invita (Dec 13, 2021)

Id love to know how many people have stopped commuting and are now wfh because of plan b. Annecdotaly everyone I've asked (3 people!) Have been told to keep coming in


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 13, 2021)

Well, I'm back to WFH.

Never really stopped, tbh.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Id love to know how many people have stopped commuting and are now wfh because of plan b. Annecdotaly everyone I've asked (3 people!) Have been told to keep coming in


Thres been some rail passenger numbers in the news today, some of the stations with largest drops were down about 25% if I recall properly.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 13, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Well, I'm back to WFH.
> 
> Never really stopped, tbh.


Yeah that's what I mean, people who stopped wfh and are now back to wfh


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 13, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Yeah that's what I mean, people who stopped wfh and are now back to wfh


circumstances were about to require me to go in to work more often than the three times a fortnight I was doing ...
but concern for my health trumps that.


----------



## killer b (Dec 13, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Id love to know how many people have stopped commuting and are now wfh because of plan b. Annecdotaly everyone I've asked (3 people!) Have been told to keep coming in


Driving home from Manchester this morning at 7.30am was half an hour faster than the same journey on a usual weekday morning, so I reckon there's a good chunk doing it.


----------



## editor (Dec 13, 2021)

I'm hearing of loads of friends testing positive in the last week or so. The most I've ever known in my social circle. I fear things are going to get a lot worse.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

editor said:


> I'm hearing of loads of friends testing positive n the last week or so. The most I've ever known in my social circle. I fear things are going to get a lot worse.


Yeah I dont know if you saw some of the graphs I posted last night for positive London cases by age, some of the age groups have seen incredible spikes in numbers day on day.        #43,856    

I've tried to tone down the number of graphs I've done in recent months. I dont know how often to update the London by age ones, or how many different age groups to include. Cherrypicking only the most alarming ones sometimes seems wrong to me, but maybe thats what I should do routinely at the moment given the situation right now.


----------



## killer b (Dec 13, 2021)

editor said:


> I'm hearing of loads of friends testing positive n the last week or so. The most I've ever known in my social circle. I fear things are going to get a lot worse.


Javid in Parliament just now says Omicron accounts for 44% of London cases already fwiw (double the rest of the country) - from a standing start a couple of weeks ago that's quite something. 

He also said they've found booster jabs provide 'strong protection' against it - dunno what that's based on though.


----------



## belboid (Dec 13, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> In very recent experience, of a few different people and both walk-in and home tests, they're taking longer atm.


I did one yesterday at 13.30, got an email with the result 14 hours later.  I was surprised at the speed, but had paid £60 for it, so that may have helped.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 13, 2021)

belboid said:


> I did one yesterday at 13.30, got an email with the result 14 hours later.  I was surprised at the speed, but had paid £60 for it, so that may have helped.


I expect it would! I was assuming tests done through the usual channels.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 13, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Id love to know how many people have stopped commuting and are now wfh because of plan b. Annecdotaly everyone I've asked (3 people!) Have been told to keep coming in











						London tube and UK railway use falls as work-from-home advice updated
					

London Underground passengers down 20% on Monday morning as number travelling by bus falls by 6%




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

killer b said:


> Javid in Parliament just now says Omicron accounts for 44% of London cases already fwiw (double the rest of the country) - from a standing start a couple of weeks ago that's quite something.
> 
> He also said they've found booster jabs provide 'strong protection' against it - dunno what that's based on though.


There are various early studies out there, but it really is early days and the ultimate proof will be in what happens in the coming months.

In terms of UK official estimates at this stage, this is the sort of thing said in certain public statements at the moment:



> She says the UK Health Security Agency believes that two doses of a vaccine is not enough to stop us catching the Omicron variant but three doses prevents 75% of infections.



(from 15:23 entry of BBC live updates page as this was the first example of that figure that I bumped into since your post https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59632655 )


----------



## BristolEcho (Dec 13, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> In very recent experience, of a few different people and both walk-in and home tests, they're taking longer atm.


Thanks. It was very busy there. I hate anything like this where I don't know if it's been done properly, or even received.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 13, 2021)

Yeah,  my PCR at weekend to exactly 36 hours from when I had it, which is one of my longer waits.

Was going into the office on Weds, but that's shut now - we will still have our lunch and I'll chance that as it's just 5 of us in a restaurant that is generally pretty quiet. Let's put it this way, it's less risky than my kids being in school all day.  My last visit to office was late October and honestly other this week I wasn't imagining I'd be back there before next spring even before Omicron.


----------



## felixthecat (Dec 13, 2021)

Did my PCR 1120 on Saturday, result texted to me at 0730 Sunday. They're still pretty quick


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 13, 2021)

Two of my partner's sisters, one in Barcelona the other in Hackney, have just tested positive within an hour of each other. Separately obviously.


----------



## Sue (Dec 13, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> Two of my partner's sisters, one in Barcelona the other in Hackney, have just tested positive within an hour of each other. Separately obviously.


Rates in Hackney are really shooting up .


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

I dont remember if this was covered earlier.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

Starmers recorded Covid message to the nation looked to be dual-purpose: the expected politics, but also a likely indicator that the establishment are nervous about people not listening to Johnson about the Omicron wave.

Perhaps this is what we get in a tv age instead of governments of national unity.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 13, 2021)

Presumably we'll ultimately be back with schools, colleges and universities closed in the new year.  Particularly the schools will be resisted to the end by ministers but will  happen. Yet again the lack of planning and denial will both lead to a shambles and also allow omicron to go further than it would with organised closures.

Fwiw, I don't think school closures is a 'good' outcome, but the speed of spread means it till happen and government knows it will.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 13, 2021)

felixthecat said:


> Did my PCR 1120 on Saturday, result texted to me at 0730 Sunday. They're still pretty quick



That's good to know and I don't mean to suggest it's not largely working that quickly, but it hasn't been my own experience here, so it's worth pointing out for anyone waiting.
We had - close contact, with symptoms, walk in - over 36 hours. Three close contacts, another separate with symtoms, all home tests, all closer to 40 hours from postal collection.
I guess it will differ on area and collections, along with testing facilities and times.


----------



## purenarcotic (Dec 13, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Id love to know how many people have stopped commuting and are now wfh because of plan b. Annecdotaly everyone I've asked (3 people!) Have been told to keep coming in



Anecdotal too obviously but traffic was exactly the same as usual this morning. Didn’t feel to me like there was any reduction.


----------



## blameless77 (Dec 13, 2021)

Ms Ordinary said:


> Well, that was predictable.
> Wasn't the plan to start charging for them some time around now, anyway?



Think it’s lack of delivery capacity, not tests


----------



## kenny g (Dec 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> I wonder how many days it will be till we get an official announcement of Plan C. Some sections of the press have already started going on about it.


I swam 3 km on sat and 2 km on Sunday.  If they close my swimming pool as part of plan C due to covid I am going to scream to fuck.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)




----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 13, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Ah, they've just added a message - 'investigating missing data' - to be updated.
> 
> ETA - Someone was writing in a hurry - 'Issue with Healthcare data - we are investigating missing data from England for healthcare metrics (admissions, *pateitnts* in hospital and patients *on* mechanical *ventillation* beds). Updated figures will be added shortly.'



Jftr - this message has disappeared and the numbers are still the same.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

I only looked at admissions data which was since fixed, so I cant comment on whether the other figures looked wrong before the correction.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 13, 2021)

I'm wondering, assuming Xmas meeting is allowed at all, whether there'll be a run on PCRs as lots of people have the 'bright idea' to get a PCR and self-isolate 3 or 4 days before Christmas in the hopes of assuring a safe meeting.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

Well the direct, real Omicron demands on the testing system will probably break it anyway.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

elbows said:


>



More on that sort of thing:









						Hotels being used as care facilities to relieve pressure on NHS
					

Patients discharged from hospital are being looked after by live-in carers in three hotels in south of England




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## tommers (Dec 13, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I'm wondering, assuming Xmas meeting is allowed at all, whether there'll be a run on PCRs as lots of people have the 'bright idea' to get a PCR and self-isolate 3 or 4 days before Christmas in the hopes of assuring a safe meeting.


I imagine lots of people will do that anyway. Even if meeting isn't allowed.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 13, 2021)

tommers said:


> I imagine lots of people will do that anyway. Even if meeting isn't allowed.


I get the impression that some people are, effectively, isolating from around now up to their big family gathering ...


----------



## Wilf (Dec 13, 2021)

So, do we think the government have passed the point of no return in terms of further measures around pubs and entertainments before Xmas? If so, we could conceivably have schools closing early next week due to the spread amongst staff and kids, while Xmas dos and things like gigs with under 500 punters carry on as normal.


----------



## Sue (Dec 13, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I get the impression that some people are, effectively, isolating from around now up to their big family gathering ...


Yeah, I've certainly got friends cancelling stuff at the moment as they're seeing elderly relations over Christmas.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

Wilf said:


> So, do we think the government have passed the point of no return in terms of further measures around pubs and entertainments before Xmas?


No I'd never make that claim in this pandemic since they are sometimes required to act based on emerging reality even when it means large u-turns.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 13, 2021)

elbows said:


> No I'd never make that claim in this pandemic since they are sometimes required to act based on emerging reality even when it means large u-turns.


Time is pretty short though, the bulk of Christmas work dos will be this week.  Also, they are politically weaker this year and their backbench revolts will go through the roof if they close venues. I know what you mean in that specific reports and projections have been the trigger to reluctant action in the past, but politics makes the situation soggier this year.


----------



## elbows (Dec 13, 2021)

Everything about the situation is messier and even harder to predict this time, including the immunity and disease burden picture. The ridiculously low doubling time seen so far does rebalance things somewhat towards government taking action, but they always find a way to be late.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 13, 2021)

Schools close this week anyway, loads by Thu.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 13, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It certainly is a bit ambiguous, he actually says everyone 'will have the chance' to get their booster before the new year, which I suppose they do with the booking website opening up to everyone over 18 from Wednesday, then it's just a case if you get lucky or not.



same as "everyone can be a Billionnaire" (because note everyone will be)


_Russ_ said:


> There are still stocks in some Pharmacies and other places if you can get to them (A contact risk of course)


Pharmacist locally said on Saturday to start ordering as they have only been receiving a box a week recently, they also said there is a lockdown coming (don't quote me on this was also said)


purenarcotic said:


> Anecdotal too obviously but traffic was exactly the same as usual this morning. Didn’t feel to me like there was any reduction.


Anecdotal too traffic was horrendous here this morning.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 13, 2021)

Hands up who else had completely forgotten about the covid 'alert levels'.


----------



## Sue (Dec 13, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Hands up who else had completely forgotten about the covid 'alert levels'.


Was that the work experience graphics thing early on? If not, no idea. 🤷‍♀️


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 13, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Schools close this week anyway, loads by Thu.


Not all.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 13, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Not all.


But by Friday they all close and it's already Tues tomorrow.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 13, 2021)

Still no... Tuesday next week here


----------



## Sue (Dec 13, 2021)

nagapie said:


> But by Friday they all close and it's already Tues tomorrow.


My nephew finishes on the 22nd (Glasgow).


----------



## weepiper (Dec 13, 2021)

nagapie said:


> But by Friday they all close and it's already Tues tomorrow.


Lots of Scottish schools don't close til next week. Depends on your council area. Ours close on Friday but I know there's lots that don't.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 13, 2021)

Ah, ok. I work in a secondary, my eldest goes to a different secondary and my youngest to a primary and all done by Friday.


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 13, 2021)

Also academies aren't restricted to council timetables. 

Ftw finishes on Friday but Chemistry not until Tuesday.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 13, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Also academies aren't restricted to council timetables.
> 
> Ftw finishes on Friday but Chemistry not until Tuesday.


That's pretty shit. I do hope they close them by Friday then, the term has been long enough plus Covid.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 13, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Lots of Scottish schools don't close til next week. Depends on your council area. Ours close on Friday but I know there's lots that don't.


Scotland is a different country.


----------



## sojourner (Dec 14, 2021)

Remember Paul in work? The one who has only just found out that the infection numbers are daily and not weekly?  Well today he shared this nugget with me: that 50% of all new Omicron cases are people infected when they get their boosters.

I ask him the same question every single time he comes out with nonsense - 'what was the source of that, Paul?'. And he says that he heard it on the radio. He listens to Talk fucking Radio.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 14, 2021)

sojourner said:


> He listens to Talk fucking Radio.


its such a sewer 
i hate how clips from it (LBC especially) make the news now
kill it with fire


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2021)

ska invita said:


> its such a sewer
> i hate how clips from it (LBC especially) make the news now
> kill it with fire



LBC is fairly sane compared to Murdoch's TalkRadio.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> LBC is fairly sane compared to Murdoch's TalkRadio.



Nick Ferrari, Katie Hopkins, Nigel Farage and Maajid Nawaz is rabid shit, and thats just the ones i know
Can TalkRadio really beat that lineup?


----------



## Sprocket. (Dec 14, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Nick Ferrari, Katie Hopkins, Nigel Farage and Maajid Nawaz is rabid shit, and thats just the ones i know
> Can TalkRadio really beat that lineup?


They deserve a beating!


----------



## weltweit (Dec 14, 2021)

ska invita said:


> its such a sewer
> i hate how clips from it (LBC especially) make the news now
> kill it with fire


Yes, I was channel surfing Sunday afternoon and found a really irritating presenter on LBC who wouldn't let any of his callers finish their sentences, he was basically just anti vax ..  pissed me off ..


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Nick Ferrari, Katie Hopkins, Nigel Farage and Maajid Nawaz is rabid shit, and thats just the ones i know
> Can TalkRadio really beat that lineup?



They sacked Hopkins back in 2017, Farage was shown the door last year. I don't know much about Nawaz, is he that bad? Ferrari is certainly a cunt. 

But, LBC tend to have a more balanced line-up, whereas TalkRadio doesn't.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

I'm watching Sturgeons latest statement right now:



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-59651755


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

I expect there will be news stories I can quote later on what she said, but just to give a vague idea in the meantime of what Sturgeon has said:

Spoke about why even if this variant turned out to be milder, the healthcare burden would still be large due to the huge number of expected Omicron cases. Mentioned data from Denmark which didnt show an improvement to the hospitalisation ratio (my words not hers).

Asking people to limit the number of other households they mix with before and after Christmas. Not a formal law this time, but guidance is going to say no more than three households should mix.
Return of physical distancing etc in retail and a requirement for hospitality to prevent crowding and bottlenecks.
Went on about how they think they need to go further still, but cant do it unless UK government makes the funding available. Blunt language was used about how their response is being 'curtailed' by this.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

Since transmission within the UK is now the big problem, and we dont have a policy of trying to prevent every case, it is no surprise to hear just now that all countries are being removed from the red list.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

Also not surprising is that the BBC live update text covering what Sturgeon said has so far completely failed to mention the bit where she said they wanted to go further but their response is being curtailed by lack of funding that the UK government is in charge of offering. I wait with interest to see if that changes and whether wider reporting elsewhere on the BBC and well beyond the BBC draws much attention to that. In the meantime it reminds me why I often feel the need to watch speeches for myself.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 14, 2021)

I've stopped watching BBC 'news' since they stopped employing adults


----------



## magneze (Dec 14, 2021)

Sunak warns over multibillion cost of booster programme
					

Exclusive: Chancellor said to not have opposed jab regime but warned of spending cuts or tax rises to pay for it




					www.theguardian.com
				




... knows the price of everything and the value of nothing ...


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 14, 2021)

except, of course, the BBC has reported that... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-...b8adef531c2c4733360e22&pinned_post_type=share


----------



## kebabking (Dec 14, 2021)

Mrs K - now the head, don't ask - has instructed her staff to prepare for remote/home learning. Might happen, might not, but no one would be surprised. Staff do binned, nativity online.

I've cancelled all in office work for my gang - I'm in Estonia, they're in the UK, which made me feel well executive - we were already on WFH where possible, but now we're on a WW3 only basis.

Defence Medical Services have cancelled all leave and put all personnel on 12 hours NTM.

Loads of units have had people dicked for Rescript, 1000+ already deployed, and force gen at AHQ has got another 5k on 24 NTM.

Op. Deny Christmas in full swing....


----------



## Sue (Dec 14, 2021)

kebabking said:


> I've cancelled all in office work for my gang - I'm in Estonia, they're in the UK, which made me feel well executive - we were already on WFH where possible, but *now we're on a WW3 only basis.*


Tell me that doesn't stand for World War 3....


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 14, 2021)

magneze said:


> Sunak warns over multibillion cost of booster programme
> 
> 
> Exclusive: Chancellor said to not have opposed jab regime but warned of spending cuts or tax rises to pay for it
> ...


It's fucking bonkers isn't it? The man is clearly a dangerous ideologue because he knows he's not even telling the truth. As far as I can make out most of the covid response has been funded neither with spending cuts nor tax rises and will continue to be so. Note to Nadine Dorries: there is no such thing as taxpayer’s money


----------



## magneze (Dec 14, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> It's fucking bonkers isn't it? The man is clearly a dangerous ideologue because he knows he's not even telling the truth. As far as I can make out most of the covid response has been funded neither with spending cuts nor tax rises and will continue to be so.


Indeed - how many people did "Eat Out To Help Out" kill?


----------



## Supine (Dec 14, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Mrs K - now the head, don't ask - has instructed her staff to prepare for remote/home learning. Might happen, might not, but no one would be surprised. Staff do binned, nativity online.
> 
> I've cancelled all in office work for my gang - I'm in Estonia, they're in the UK, which made me feel well executive - we were already on WFH where possible, but now we're on a WW3 only basis.
> 
> ...



Is that 12hr ntm so get back to uk to help?


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

Transcript of Sturgeons statement. I shall quote the bit I was on about earlier so you can judge for yourselves whether I interpreted it fairly and considered it newsworthy.









						Coronavirus (COVID-19) update: First Minister's statement – 14 December 2021
					

Statement given by the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh on 14 December 2021.




					www.gov.scot
				






> I know how much I am asking of everyone today, after a difficult and painful two years.
> 
> I would not be doing so if I did not believe it to be absolutely necessary.
> 
> ...





> However, the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland governments do not have the ability to borrow to meet the COVID funding challenge.
> 
> UK funding arrangements mean we rely on the Treasury to do so on our behalf. And the Treasury has responded well throughout this pandemic.
> 
> ...





> So because the UK government is at this stage not proposing any further protections - a position I do not agree with - there is no funding generated to compensate businesses for any protections we think are necessary and wish to put in place.
> 
> That is not acceptable in current circumstances and, with the Welsh and Northern Irish governments, we are pressing for a fairer approach that takes account of our devolved responsibilities for protecting public health.
> 
> ...


----------



## kebabking (Dec 14, 2021)

Sue said:


> Tell me that doesn't stand for World War 3....



Sadly, it does. Deep suspicion that something _unpleasant_ is about to happen to Ukraine...


----------



## kebabking (Dec 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> Is that 12hr ntm so get back to uk to help?



Nope, it's people already in the UK - it's split between people being held on base, and people sent home.

Broadly it means keeping your bags packed, not getting pissed, having petrol in the tank and keeping your phone charged. I've already had my WhatsApp message to let me know what joyful opportunity awaits should that nice Mr Javid decide he needs more help....


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Sadly, it does. Deep suspicion that something _unpleasant_ is about to happen to Ukraine...



I worry that if Russia invades Ukraine, China with take the opportunity to invade Taiwan, whilst the west is looking elsewhere, and doing fuck all.  

But, that's for another thread.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Sadly, it does. Deep suspicion that something _unpleasant_ is about to happen to Ukraine...


Indicators certainly include 'warnings to Putin' in recent days from various leaders that remind me of this bit from Orwell: "Mussolini had bombed the Abyssinians while fifty-three nations (I think it was fifty-three) made pious noises ‘off’."


----------



## two sheds (Dec 14, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> It's fucking bonkers isn't it? The man is clearly a dangerous ideologue because he knows he's not even telling the truth. As far as I can make out most of the covid response has been funded neither with spending cuts nor tax rises and will continue to be so. Note to Nadine Dorries: there is no such thing as taxpayer’s money


There's a really good explanation of that using a tank with tap water filling other tanks and taps that I meant to dig out a while ago and ask what people think of it.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 14, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I worry that if Russia invades Ukraine, China with take the opportunity to invade Taiwan, whilst the west is looking elsewhere, and doing fuck all.
> 
> But, that's for another thread.


Yes, it is. Please


----------



## brogdale (Dec 14, 2021)




----------



## two sheds (Dec 14, 2021)

The last bit of that looks like it's itself almost increasing exponentially.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 14, 2021)

Super or double exponential. Moving into the realms of tetration.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 14, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Presumably you mean the _promised_ speeding up?





cupid_stunt said:


> It is speeding up.





_Russ_ said:


> No its flat





cupid_stunt said:


> No, it's speeding up, which should start showing up in the jabs per day figures soon.



This exchange was last Thursday, when we were already seeing things speeding up, despite what Russ had going on in their head.

Last Fri, Sat, Sun & Mon all saw record numbers of jabs compared to the same days before, and the Sat figure of 550k was the highest number on a single day since the start of the booster roll-out, and yesterday's 514k was the 3rd highest ever. Only three times have we gone over 500k, and two of those in the last few days. 

Planning had already gone into getting these sort of figures before Johnson's statement on Sunday, it should be interesting to see how far turbocharging will increase those numbers further over the coming days.


----------



## Sue (Dec 14, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Sadly, it does. Deep suspicion that something _unpleasant_ is about to happen to Ukraine...


Shit, I was joking.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

brogdale said:


>



Todays version:



Also I expect problems with the test system data to start to affect the picture available via this data. This may take the form of people struggling to get tested but also increasing lag between tests and results being reported:


----------



## B.I.G (Dec 14, 2021)

<ed: link removed - it is absolutely against the board rules to link a user name to a person's real life identity>


----------



## 2hats (Dec 14, 2021)

kebabking said:


> now we're on a WW3 only basis.


Thanks. Have penciled that into my diary; must get my dosimeters fixed and recalibrated.


elbows said:


> Also I expect problems with the test system data to start to affect the picture available via this data. This may take the form of people struggling to get tested but also increasing lag between tests and results being reported:


Expect infection/case ratio to rise even further as people eschew testing in order to avoid disrupting their personal plans.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 14, 2021)

Is the growth showing up in the interactive map yet?



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases
		


i've mainly been looking at Cornwall which still seems fairly static. There are pockets of 800+/100,000 in the 7-day figures - but most seem to be purple (400-800). The purple does seem to stretch over most of the England, Wales, N Ireland and southern Scotland though.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Is the growth showing up in the interactive map yet?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I dont really use the maps for looking at trends and pace over time. I'd rather use the graphs, which for Cornwall dont really show Omicron signs at the moment:





__





						Loading…
					





					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## two sheds (Dec 14, 2021)

Thank you


----------



## Calamity1971 (Dec 14, 2021)

Someone needs to put this cunt out of his misery.


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

This is how the combination of what I pointed out Sturgeon said and what the treasury conveniently announced was turned into a neat, tidy, nothing to see here bit of coverage by the BBC within a larger article:



> Ms Sturgeon said she would have tightened hospitality rules further with financial support from the Treasury - support that has now been announced.











						Scots urged to limit socialising to three households
					

The new limits will not apply on Christmas Day, but people have been told to keep their celebrations as small as possible.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

All the usual indicators are present of widespread new infections in some parts of the country such as London.

For example footballers as I've mentioned in recent days, but also MPs:



> The latest to confirm he has tested positive is Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey





> Earlier today, three of Labour's front bench - shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson and shadow environment secretary Jim McMahon - confirmed they were isolating after positive tests.
> 
> And a number of Tory backbenchers, including Darren Henry and Dean Russell, have also caught the virus.



Thats from the 17:10 entry of the BBC live updates. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-59651187

That page currently includes lots of idiot tories talking shit about the pandemic as usual. I will save some of their quotes and will bring them up if this wave reaches a horrible stage.

For now I'll just say that Miriam Cates mentioned that mandatory masks send a signal to panic, and quote this from fucking Drax:



> In a pantomime-style performance, Tory MP Richard Drax lists the reasons he opposes the additional measures.
> 
> "Do we want new restrictions every time a new variant appears?" he asks.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 14, 2021)

COVID-19: IMF tells UK to be ready to redeploy furlough if 'widespread' closures needed to tackle Omicron
					

A report warns of the risks to the economy from more virulent coronavirus variants, but also cautions the Bank of England against "inaction bias" when deciding whether it must raise interest rates to tackle rising inflation.




					news.sky.com


----------



## Supine (Dec 14, 2021)

Struggling to keep production lines running where i am. Lots of staff off with covid, big uptick this week.


----------



## Weller (Dec 14, 2021)

Supine said:


> Struggling to keep production lines running where i am. Lots of staff off with covid, big uptick this week.


This is the same where I am at the moment but has actually been an ever  increasing  problem for the last 3 months
imho the shite is going to hit the fan new year  as everyone is giving up
Even the agencies have given up now attempting to get temps in to cover after increasing the hourly rate sometimes by 25% and a signing up bonus nobody useful comes
 Rooms  of incomplete orders that were stagnant  already due to the pandemic parts shortage now have no staff to complete orders even when parts trickle through bringing fines from the big companies and any promised help from the gov pandemic loans after furlough ended  to essential companies supplying gov etc  isnt coming as they can only  spend on cover staff what they bring in from orders out the door the previous month
Its a  mess and with  more good staff choosing retirement now too isnt going to help matters


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 14, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> I've stopped watching BBC 'news' since they stopped employing adults



And when did this happen?


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 15, 2021)

krtek a houby said:


> And when did this happen?


Aah one of my ardent admirers steps out from the collective, thanks for your continuing support.


----------



## krtek a houby (Dec 15, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Aah one of my ardent admirers steps out from the collective, thanks for your continuing support.



Breaking news, non sequiturs to dominate this Xmas. Further variants to follow.


----------



## prunus (Dec 15, 2021)

The 10 day run up to Christmas has started so anyone catching it from now on misses the “big day”.  I wonder if there will be a drop off in testing rates as people will decide they don’t want to risk knowing?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2021)

Here we go again, another Downing Street Press Conference at 5 pm today.



> Boris Johnson will holding a Downing Street press conference at 5pm on Wednesday to give an update on the Omicron variant.
> 
> The prime minister will be joined by England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty, who will outline the latest data.
> 
> The PM is also expected to give updates on the speed of the booster campaign











						Omicron: Boris Johnson announces Downing Street press conference about COVID latest news this evening
					

The PM is expected to update the country on the latest Omicron numbers.




					uk.news.yahoo.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Harries indicates that the doubling time is now less than 2 days.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2021)

BBC is reporting that Baroness Hallett will chair the independent enquiry into the handling of covid.



> *Heather Carol Hallett, Baroness Hallett* DBE PC (born 16 December 1949) is a retired English judge of the Court of Appeal and a crossbench life peer. She was the fifth woman to sit in the Court of Appeal, and led the independent inquest into the 7/7 bombings.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## two sheds (Dec 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> BBC is reporting that Baroness Hallett will chair the independent enquiry into the handling of covid.


Will be interesting to see the scope of the enquiry, so what exactly will be off limits.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

I already have a template in my mind for how the establishment can tidy up certain aspects and eliminate the conclusions that are the most broadly damning of the establishment in general. They will still be left with a long list of 'lessons learnt' and damning failures, but they will be able to isolate them from the broadest of establishment failures and cold, calculated UK establishment attitudes.

A big chunk of my opinion about how good a job the inquiry does will boil down to stuff like how easily they buy intot he convenient narrative that the problem was we had a 'flu plan' rather than a SARS plan. And at what level of face value they take the idea that many of the faulty were due to innocent mistakes about the extent of asymptomatic transmission. Because those excuses are, if not quite a complete red herring, not the proper picture in all its horror, I've spoken of this before and I expect I shall do so again when the time comes.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 15, 2021)

sorry for the link [not the daily fail]
details of who voted against ...








						Full list of Tory rebels who opposed No 10's Covid pass plan
					

PLUS: Find out how your MP voted on the Covid pass rules with our interactive search tool below




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				




I gave up reading the comments.


----------



## Supine (Dec 15, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> sorry for the link [not the daily fail]
> details of who voted against ...
> 
> 
> ...



Never read the comments!


----------



## Sasaferrato (Dec 15, 2021)

I have noticed a large increase in Covid scepticism on Facebook over the last  couple of weeks, in all the groups I look at.

The span of group interests is large, military, military humour, anti Scottish independence, photography and a number of site specific groups such as CMH Aldershot, BMH Rinteln, Hannover and Berlin.

The only sites where there is zero scepticism are the medics groups. 

The government has lost the people, both in England and Scotland. A goodly number of people in Scotland are conflating Covid measures and SNP dictatorship, which is absolutely bonkers.

I used to give a reasoned argument as to why no government is going to cripple their income and balloon their outgoings simply to inject you with Microsoft's trackers... I've given up, there are too many now.

This shit is going to extend the pain for everyone.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 15, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> I have noticed a large increase in Covid scepticism on Facebook over the last  couple of weeks, in all the groups I look at.
> 
> The span of group interests is large, military, military humour, anti Scottish independence, photography and a number of site specific groups such as CMH Aldershot, BMH Rinteln, Hannover and Berlin.
> 
> ...



People are fed the fuck up and frankly bored. I'm probably on the extreme end but it really does feel like life is on fucking hold for the last two years and coupled with this shower of cunts doing what they feel like and the frankly schizophrenic messaging throughout I can very much see why people are willing to just stop listening any more.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2021)

I find this a bit surprising, TBH...



> Although Downing Street insists no further coronavirus measures are planned, it appears that the British public backs the idea of a two-week national lockdown over Christmas.
> 
> A survey by Savanta ComRes found that 51 per cent of adults backed the proposal as a means of stemming the spread of the omicron variant.
> 
> Just under a third of respondents (32 per cent) were opposed to the introduction of a new lockdown.



Various stats on different restrictions are in the full article. 









						Most people in UK support two-week lockdown to combat omicron, poll suggests
					

British public ‘braced for another Christmas of disruptions and restrictions’, says pollster




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

I havent spent a vast number of hours studying polling all throughout the pandemic but the above doesnt strike me as especially surprising given what we've seen from polls during past moments of great woe in this pandemic. And I expect that some groups that would lean in a different direction are underrepresented by polling.

Also if we form our opinions of others based on what we hear people say on the telly instead, the medias version of 'balance' means we've ended up hearing a disproportionate amount from business owners etc. At least in past waves, though I've tried to avoid hearing that stuff so far in this one so maybe the telly balance is a bit different this time for all I know.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 15, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> The span of group interests is large, military, military humour...



People who kill people for a living in 'not that bothered about people dying' shocker.


----------



## Sue (Dec 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I find this a bit surprising, TBH...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm not that surprised tbh. I think a lot of people feel that we need some stronger measures now in the hope this won't keep dragging on and on and on. (Certainly folk I know are anticipating a lockdown of some sort sooner rather than later.)

ETA Though obviously I've no idea how typical or not they are. They're all pro-vaxx and pretty sensible.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Dec 15, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> People who kill people for a living in 'not that bothered about people dying' shocker.


I know you are not quite the sharpest knife in the box, however, I would have thought that the word 'medics' might have alerted you to the fact that these are not 'killing' soldiers, they are 'saving' soldiers.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Dec 15, 2021)

Sue said:


> I'm not that surprised tbh. I think a lot of people feel that we need some stronger measures now in the hope this won't keep dragging on and on and on. (Certainly folk I know are anticipating a lockdown of some sort sooner rather than later.)
> 
> ETA Though obviously I've no idea how typical or not they are. They're all pro-vaxx and pretty sensible.



I think the problem is that we have had stronger measures, which we were assured would solve the problem. It didn't, and after two years, people (or a fair number of them) have moved into 'fuck it' mode, and are not listening anymore.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Dec 15, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> People are fed the fuck up and frankly bored. I'm probably on the extreme end but it really does feel like life is on fucking hold for the last two years and coupled with this shower of cunts doing what they feel like and the frankly schizophrenic messaging throughout I can very much see why people are willing to just stop listening any more.


Well put.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2021)

And, here we go.  



> *UK reports its highest number of daily coronavirus cases since pandemic began, with 78,610 people testing positive*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That's up 19.1% in a week, hospital admissions up 10.4% too.

Boosters jabs - 656,711, which is daily record, so well done all concerned.


----------



## Sue (Dec 15, 2021)

Sasaferrato said:


> I think the problem is that we have had stronger measures, which we were assured would solve the problem. It didn't, and after two years, people (or a fair number of them) have moved into 'fuck it' mode, and are not listening anymore.


Were we assured those measures would solve the problem? I'm not sure we were.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 15, 2021)

78k positive tests today. On course to beat the January highs in the next couple of days then.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 15, 2021)

That's 78k with a largely vaccinated population.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2021)

Wilf said:


> 78k positive tests today. On course to beat the January highs in the next couple of days then.



It's already has, over 10k more than on the 8th Jan.


----------



## Supine (Dec 15, 2021)

Wilf said:


> That's 78k with a largely vaccinated population.



Luckily they are mostly vaccinated


----------



## MickiQ (Dec 15, 2021)

What are the death figures compared to this time last year?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's already has, over 10k more than on the 8th Jan.


My excuse is I'm a daft bastard with the wrong specs on (misread the spike in Jan as being over the 80k line, when it was actually over the 60k):




__





						Loading…
					





					coronavirus.data.gov.uk
				




Or perhaps I was looking at the figures per specimen date.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 15, 2021)

Just looked at the dashboard.

Yikes !


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 15, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> What are the death figures compared to this time last year?


15th Dec - today 165 compared to 506 last year [459 within 28 days]


----------



## Flavour (Dec 15, 2021)

Ok I think it's time to cancel my plans to come to the UK for christmas. just way too risky


----------



## teuchter (Dec 15, 2021)

London:




Lambeth (south London):


----------



## Wilf (Dec 15, 2021)

Question for the Prime Minister: would you still recommend people to go ahead with their Christmas parties? 

Prediction for 5.00 (or whenever he turns up): he'll wibble his way round to saying 'up to individuals, make your own assessment about risk, fart, bloop, whimper...'


----------



## MickiQ (Dec 15, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> 15th Dec - today 165 compared to 506 last year [459 within 28 days]


Thanks! that's a hell of a drop, I know that's just one days figure but my take away from that is vaccinations are a brilliant wheeze but sadly not quite the universal solution we were led to believe they might be.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 15, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> Thanks! that's a hell of a drop, I know that's just one days figure but my take away from that is vaccinations are a brilliant wheeze but sadly not quite the universal solution we were led to believe they might be.


Certainly gives the lie to the tory's notion that vaccination + minimal restrictions does the trick.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 15, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> What are the death figures compared to this time last year?





StoneRoad said:


> 15th Dec - today 165 compared to 506 last year [459 within 28 days]



Daily numbers are always up & down, better to look at a 7-day period up to 15th Dec.

This year 805, last year 2,975.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 15, 2021)

MickiQ said:


> Thanks! that's a hell of a drop, I know that's just one days figure but my take away from that is vaccinations are a brilliant wheeze but sadly not quite the universal solution we were led to believe they might be.


Don't let elbows catch you saying that


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Argh my eyes...


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 15, 2021)

You don't like hula hoops elbows ?


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 15, 2021)




----------



## LDC (Dec 15, 2021)

Whitty giving the realistic view on all the 'it's milder' chatter.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Observe the extent to which the authorities are so much more comfortable when they can just point to a vaccination programme at the expense of focus on all the other things. Obviously politicians take this even further and the likes of Whitty still mention some of the other aspects, but this sort of response is the default establishment response here and the lack of vaccines in the first waves forced them into territory that was far less comfortable for them. Not that they have truly escaped the other difficult territory this time around.


----------



## T & P (Dec 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Argh my eyes...
> 
> View attachment 300952I


If I had Photoshop on my computer I'd so stick a goatsee there...


----------



## xenon (Dec 15, 2021)

Can someone explain, the hospitalisation rate. Is that right it was 22% for Delta? Meaning one in five people who are infected go to hospital? That seems much higher than I thought. How many did we have in hospital maximum, at the peak? It doesn’t seem to tally.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Well one big problem with those rates is it depends on how much testing, and therefore number of cases, a country manages to detect. More reliable estimates will need to be based on a more nuanced approach to how many cases there really were.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Also some figures are not presented as proportion of cases hospitalised, but rather increases or reductions in the personal risk of hospitalisation from one strain vs another strain. I'm afraid I dont have time to get into specific figures in specific studies right now.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 15, 2021)

xenon said:


> Can someone explain, the hospital a ties Asian rate. Is that right it was 22% for Delta? Meaning one in five people who are infected go to hospital? That seems much higher than I thought. How many did we have in hospital maximum, at the peak? It doesn’t seem to tally.


I think (from the Omicron thread) that 22% is delta cases who have been hospitalised needing ICU treatment, not 22% of delta cases being hospitalised.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 15, 2021)

The website that you input your test results to will go down soon


----------



## tommers (Dec 15, 2021)

xenon said:


> Can someone explain, the hospital a ties Asian rate. Is that right it was 22% for Delta? Meaning one in five people who are infected go to hospital? That seems much higher than I thought. How many did we have in hospital maximum, at the peak? It doesn’t seem to tally.


that was over 65s I think.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Given the very many millions of infections we've had since June in the UK, I dont think Whitty managed to make his point about immunity in South Africa compared to immunity in the UK properly today.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

If this wave is a total disaster for the NHS then we'll look back on this press conference with the same contempt as the press conferences before the second half of March 2020.


----------



## MickiQ (Dec 15, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Daily numbers are always up & down, better to look at a 7-day period up to 15th Dec.
> 
> This year 805, last year 2,975.


So that's an average of 115 vs an average of 425 a 70%+ drop. I don't think anyone could think that 300 people a day NOT dying is anything other than a good thing.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> If this wave is a total disaster for the NHS then we'll look back on this press conference with the same contempt as the press conferences before the second half of March 2020.


pretty sure it will be. those case numbers are going to continuing going up while the message is not "stop socializing"


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Flavour said:


> pretty sure it will be. those case numbers are going to continuing going up while the message is not "stop socializing"


Lots of behaviours will change even when the central messaging has dodgy aspects.

There are many uncertainties about the exact scale of hospitalisations to come for a whole bunch of reasons. I have a broad range of possibilities in mind but many parts of that range are terrible. I've mostly been expecting an intense catastrophe. Other outcomes are not impossible but will require rather a lot of different sorts of good news to come true in order to stand a chance of coming to fruition.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> If this wave is a total disaster for the NHS then we'll look back on this press conference with the same contempt as the press conferences before the second half of March 2020.



Any press conference held by Johnson is, by definition, worth nothing but contempt.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 15, 2021)

Dr David Nabarro on Sky News after the presser hasn’t exactly filled me with encouragement.


----------



## LDC (Dec 15, 2021)

Totally fucking wild we're not having a 2 week tight lockdown to slow growth a bit and to get the data we're waiting on. Could do a 48 break over Xmas even.

People are dying now cos the NHS is fucked, what do they think it'll be like in 2-6 weeks time?!


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Fucking Nick Triggle alert:

His dodgy analysis is currently included in this piece: 









						Covid: New UK cases record as Whitty warns worse to come
					

Prof Chris Whitty says Omicron is moving at a phenomenal pace, after 78,610 people test positive in a day.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Questions about whether restrictions should be introduced are going to grow the more cases rise.
> 
> That is understandable. But it is also important to remember restrictions don't stop the epidemic - they just prolong it.



Fuck off Triggle you lying piece of pandemic shit.


----------



## Threshers_Flail (Dec 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Fucking Nick Triggle alert:
> 
> His dodgy analysis is currently included in this piece:
> 
> ...



Fucking hell.


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Totally fucking wild we're not having a 2 week tight lockdown to slow growth a bit and to get the data we're waiting on. Could do a 48 break over Xmas even.
> 
> People are dying now cos the NHS is fucked, what do they think it'll be like in 2-6 weeks time?!


My guess is it will happen after christmas, if it happens at all. Which will be too late, but they've done that every time and poll well afterwards so....
I think what they'll do won't be total lockdown either, more like closing hospitality venues and forcing workplaces to close and limiting gathering size. I don't think they'll tell people to stay home and not visit friends and relatives. We'll see.


----------



## kebabking (Dec 15, 2021)

We've chinned off a visit to the Panto in Worcester next week - it's the latest in a long line of planned stuff we've binned because a) planning for stuff that's likely to get binned anyway is a bit disheartening, and b) it just looks like begging for chaos with your bowl out.

I'm still 80/20 on the Fat Clown resisting any restrictions until after Christmas, but given that I'll be placing my John Thomas in the hands of a madwoman with a pair of scissors _long_ before I take steers on what's wise from that drooling fucknugget, we're circling the wagons...


----------



## Sue (Dec 15, 2021)

kebabking said:


> I'm still 80/20 on the Fat Clown resisting any restrictions until after Christmas, but given *that I'll be placing my John Thomas in the hands of a madwoman with a pair of scissors* _long_ before I take steers on what's wise from that drooling fucknugget, we're circling the wagons...


Each to their own, we're all adults etc .


----------



## LDC (Dec 15, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> My guess is it will happen after christmas, if it happens at all. Which will be too late, but they've done that every time and poll well afterwards so....
> I think what they'll do won't be total lockdown either, more like closing hospitality venues and forcing workplaces to close and limiting gathering size. I don't think they'll tell people to stay home and not visit friends and relatives. We'll see.



I'm not sure. Basically I think they're hoping to do what they wanted to do right at the start of the pandemic, that is have a 'rough' few weeks/months and then back to normal as quickly as possible. And the vaccine is a bit giving them the cover to try that now. I think they're also hoping the curve going up will go down as quickly, so as soon as numbers come down they'll be saying 'no need for restrictions, things are getting better' kinda thing.

That and all the internal Tory party stuff which means it'd be a huge struggle to get tougher measures through.


----------



## xsunnysuex (Dec 15, 2021)

kebabking said:


> We've chinned off a visit to the Panto in Worcester next week - it's the latest in a long line of planned stuff we've binned because a) planning for stuff that's likely to get binned anyway is a bit disheartening, and b) it just looks like begging for chaos with your bowl out.
> 
> I'm still 80/20 on the Fat Clown resisting any restrictions until after Christmas, but given that I'll be placing my John Thomas in the hands of a madwoman with a pair of scissors _long_ before I take steers on what's wise from that drooling fucknugget, we're circling the wagons...


Same here with the theatre tonight. As much as I wanted to see Ramin Karimloo. Not taking any chances.


----------



## Sue (Dec 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not sure. Basically I think they're hoping to do what they hoped to do right at the start of the pandemic, that is have a 'rough' few weeks/months and then back to normal as quickly as possible. And the vaccine is a bit giving them the cover to try that now. I think they're also hoping the curve going up will go down as quickly, so as soon as numbers come down they'll be saying 'no need for restrictions, things are getting better' kinda thing.
> 
> That and all the internal Tory party stuff which means it'd be a huge struggle to get tougher measures through.


What a fucking shit show. Ffs. 😡


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I'm not sure. Basically I think they're hoping to do what they wanted to do right at the start of the pandemic, that is have a 'rough' few weeks/months and then back to normal as quickly as possible. And the vaccine is a bit giving them the cover to try that now. I think they're also hoping the curve going up will go down as quickly, so as soon as numbers come down they'll be saying 'no need for restrictions, things are getting better' kinda thing.
> 
> That and all the internal Tory party stuff which means it'd be a huge struggle to get tougher measures through.


Yeah, a more extreme version of 'learning to live with the tory regime, oops I mean Covid-19' that we've been dealing with via the Delta wave since June.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Threshers_Flail said:


> Fucking hell.


I should have quoted the rest of it really. He mixes in a little more reality than he did at the start of the first wave, but is still a disgrace that ends up being one of the faces of UK PLCs cold, calculated pandemic shit.



> It can be used to buy you time. Last winter the lockdown allowed the rollout of vaccines.
> 
> With more than 80% of the most vulnerable boosted the benefits of a lockdown are much lower this time.
> 
> ...



Some of those words may come back to haunt him again, just like they did the first time. In future, look back and remember where you heard 'the benefits of lockdown are much lower this time'.

Just for reference, this was what I went nuts at him about the first time around, back on Friday 13th March 2020:        #1,164


----------



## ska invita (Dec 15, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> LynnDoyleCooper said:
> 
> 
> > Totally fucking wild we're not having a 2 week tight lockdown to slow growth a bit and to get the data we're waiting on. Could do a 48 break over Xmas even.


Worth considering that a third of the Tory party just voted against Plan "Basically Do Fuck All" B, and are threatening to mount a leadership challenge off the very suggestion.

I appreciate that vote was filled with a range of messages to Johnson, but these swivel eyed loons would have an aneurism at the suggestion of a lockdown....until of course the situation gets out of hand and it has to happen way too late anyway.


----------



## blameless77 (Dec 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Everything about the situation is messier and even harder to predict this time, including the immunity and disease burden picture. The ridiculously low doubling time seen so far does rebalance things somewhat towards government taking action, but they always find a way to be late.



it's disappointing that they're not more on point regarding policy and nudging behaviour. It makes the job of those on the ground protecting from the fallout much harder.


----------



## blameless77 (Dec 15, 2021)

elbows said:


> Todays version:
> 
> 
> 
> Also I expect problems with the test system data to start to affect the picture available via this data. This may take the form of people struggling to get tested but also increasing lag between tests and results being reported:





_Russ_ said:


> The website that you input your test results to will go down soon



No, it won't


----------



## Supine (Dec 15, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Worth considering that a third of the Tory party just voted against Plan "Basically Do Fuck All" B, and are threatening to mount a leadership challenge off the very suggestion.
> 
> I appreciate that vote was filled with a range of messages to Johnson, but these swivel eyed loons would have an aneurism at the suggestion of a lockdown....until of course the situation gets out of hand and it has to happen way too late anyway.



And eight members of the Labour Party. I’ve still not managed to understand where they are coming from with that vote.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 15, 2021)

Supine said:


> And eight members of the Labour Party. I’ve still not managed to understand where they are coming from with that vote.



Hardline approach to "covid passports" i think? 

Id rather not have those passed but its a nonsense really as ive been to a few music events this year and all but one asked for some form of covid passport thing.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 15, 2021)

Well, the biggest threat to public health in a hundred years - and almost certainly the worst bit of that crisis - and we are trapped in a cunt off between boris johnson and the scumbag ultras in his party.


----------



## killer b (Dec 15, 2021)

ska invita said:


> Id rather not have those passed but its a nonsense really as ive been to a few music events this year and all but one asked for some form of covid passport thing.


I've been to loads in the last couple of months and only one has asked for proof of testing - most places up here are just glad to have you through the door.


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

The Triggle 'analysis' I was ranting about earlier is now part of a longer Triggle article. The rest of the article doesnt generate more rants from me, and I am too tired to pick at some of the details I could pick at. I am about to mention one of them in another thread though, relating to future timing of case numbers.









						Covid-19: A record day for cases - what does it tell us?
					

Two epidemics at once and the threat to the NHS - three takeaways on the effect of Omicron.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## bluescreen (Dec 15, 2021)

Numbers said:


> Dr David Nabarro on Sky News after the presser hasn’t exactly filled me with encouragement.


<snip>..."It is a very serious situation indeed. The rise you are seeing in the UK today is just the beginning of an extraordinary acceleration. There are two epidemics going on: Delta and Omicron, and it is an emergency situation for the British health service. It will get extremely serious within the next two weeks, perhaps quicker. [...] It's serious in the UK, it's serious for Europe, and it's serious for the world...." 








						COVID-19: "An emergency situation" for the NHS, says Dr David Nabarro of the WHO
					

Dr Nabarro says that this is a 'very serious situation' for the NHS, adding 'today is just the beginning of an extraordinary acceleration'.




					news.sky.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Cases by age group for the London region using todays data. Keep in mind that these are cases by specimen date so the downward ticks, if you can see them, at the very end of the data represent data that is incomplete.

Also note the lack of testing in the first wave, which is why that wave is not well represented in this data but since testing was done on various hospital patients, older age groups case numbers show up a bit more for that wave.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 15, 2021)

elbows you may find this interesting in light of your noticing how the media reported this (thread)


----------



## elbows (Dec 15, 2021)

Thanks for the info weepiper


----------



## Cloo (Dec 16, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> My guess is it will happen after christmas, if it happens at all. Which will be too late, but they've done that every time and poll well afterwards so....
> I think what they'll do won't be total lockdown either, more like closing hospitality venues and forcing workplaces to close and limiting gathering size. I don't think they'll tell people to stay home and not visit friends and relatives. We'll see.


Yeah, that's my guess - hospitality and club shut-down for January, maybe February too at most, to 'give more time for boosters'. For what that'll be worth.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> If this wave is a total disaster for the NHS then we'll look back on this press conference with the same contempt as the press conferences before the second half of March 2020.


We probably will. But will people?


----------



## kebabking (Dec 16, 2021)

Raheem said:


> We probably will. But will people?



I think it's got cut through - every single one of the people from work, or who I bump into in the village or walking the dog, or at the school gate (Uber safe Tory shires seat) thinks that Johnson is repeating the mistakes he's made before - leaving it too late, full of misplaced bluster, and it will all come crashing down like it has done several times, and in exactly the same way, has it's done before.

Literally the only conversation is whether restrictions will come in before Christmas or after.


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

I’m thinking, get a large pile of logs and food today and batten down the hatches, again.


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

I still want to know why the whole Xmas party scandal was dropped just in time to make it even more impossible for him to try to announce any serious changes before turkey day.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> I still want to know why the whole Xmas party scandal was dropped just in time to make it even more impossible for him to try to announce any serious changes before turkey day.



What's the new angle though? _Johnson still a perfidious cunt?_ We all know that and apparently it's fine so what else is there to say?


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> What's the new angle though? _Johnson still a perfidious cunt?_ We all know that and apparently it's fine so what else is there to say?


Exactly, it’s arguably helped nobody apart from the FreedOm loons who will fight any new measures and who are pissing inside his tent. I’m just so tired of it all.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 16, 2021)

I feel like I did at the very start, March 20. Like gathering the fam in close and hunkering down for a while.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 16, 2021)

So what’s so scary about this new variant then? I’ve not been reading the boring bits.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> So what’s so scary about this new variant then? I’ve not been reading the boring bits.



There's a thread on it here - Omicron news


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> So what’s so scary about this new variant then? I’ve not been reading the boring bits.


Speed of transmission and perhaps ease of transmission also. Someone will be able to put it better than me


----------



## Supine (Dec 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> So what’s so scary about this new variant then? I’ve not been reading the boring bits.



In technical terms, there is a fuckton of it floating around


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> So what’s so scary about this new variant then? I’ve not been reading the boring bits.


You're even more likely to get it than Delta. Significantly more likely it seems.


----------



## killer b (Dec 16, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> You're even more likely to get it than Delta. Significantly more likely it seems.


Almost everyone I know who went 'out' last weekend seems to have covid now.


----------



## kabbes (Dec 16, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> What's the new angle though? _Johnson still a perfidious cunt?_ We all know that and apparently it's fine so what else is there to say?


I think bimble is using “dropped” in its new-fangled sense of “released” rather than its more traditional “let go of”.  Like, “why was now judged the right time to tell us this story?”


----------



## Flavour (Dec 16, 2021)

France has banned arrivals from the UK -- very deja vu of last Christmas


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2021)

Flavour said:


> France has banned arrivals from the UK -- very deja vu of last Christmas



More on this breaking story, doesn't look like there's been an official announcement yet, although the BBC is reporting it as fact, so this article will probably be updated.

ETA - already updated -  'The office of Prime Minister Jean Castex is expected to issue a statement on the new measures in the coming hours.'



> France is to ban all UK tourists from Saturday 18 December, according to reports.
> 
> Only “essential” trips will be permitted between the two countries under new measures, even for travellers who are fully vaccinated.
> 
> ...











						France to ban British tourists as Covid omicron cases surge
					

New rules will apply to vaccinated and unvaccinated travellers




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## Flavour (Dec 16, 2021)

Much like last Christmas I expect a domino effect of other EU countries following suit -- making my hard decision for me this! (i.e. not to come to UK, I was due to fly on Sunday but completely off the cards now, fuck this)


----------



## killer b (Dec 16, 2021)

killer b said:


> Almost everyone I know who went 'out' last weekend seems to have covid now.


Including, I've just been told, Mrs B's brother and Sister in Law, who were due to be joining us next week for a jolly christmas celebration.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 16, 2021)

I'm hearing from lots of people in both Manchester and London who've tested positive in the last 48 hours too


----------



## killer b (Dec 16, 2021)

Flavour said:


> I'm hearing from lots of people in both Manchester and London who've tested positive in the last 48 hours too


There is a recently deceased friend's memorial event at a nightclub in Manchester this evening I've just cancelled my planned attendance at cause there is zero chance it won't be a superspreader


----------



## Numbers (Dec 16, 2021)

We were up in Manchester last weekend.  Spent the afternoon in the Midland, had dinner in the Ducie Street Warehouse followed by a cpl of hours in Sinclair's Oyster Bar.  10 of us.  I was quite taken aback at the low mask wearing.  Thankfully we all continue to test negative via LFT, we're testing daily.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's a thread on it here - Omicron news


I was asking here for a summary as I can’t read those sciency threads


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 16, 2021)

killer b said:


> Almost everyone I know who went 'out' last weekend seems to have covid now.


Shit, my dad went to a big wedding last weekend. He seems fine though. 
I had to attend a kids’ Xmas event that still went ahead this week, had to go in a very cramped Santa’s gazebo and closely supervise little kids making Xmas cards. 
Have tested each day since, so think I’ve escaped it, so not too worried. I wish they’d cancelled both events though


----------



## bluescreen (Dec 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I was asking here for a summary


It's extremely catching and spreads mega-fast. Even if you're double-jabbed you are very likely to pass it on asymptomatically. The unvaccinated are most at risk of illness, which includes children. Booster jabs reduce your chance of getting it badly and your likelihood of passing it on.


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

Just a tiny silver lining : my anti vax neighbours were planning to go to France on Sunday, to their spare house. I am a bad person.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

I have a band video recording thing tomorrow, and a Grecian themed birthday party on Saturday, in the diary. I'm quite pleased, in one way, to have succumbed to a cold that seems to mirror a lot of the current Covid symptoms, but resolutely tests negative, as it gives me a nice, non-controversial "out" (the chap whose Latin Salsa Band we're supposed to be filming is a denier) to avoid attending either event. Though I shall be sad to not go to the party, as the person who invited me is quite nice . Ah well, patience, etc...

ETA: I'm also in the process of cancelling all my face-to-face client appointments.


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 16, 2021)

bluescreen said:


> It's extremely catching and spreads mega-fast. Even if you're double-jabbed you are very likely to pass it on asymptomatically. The unvaccinated are most at risk of illness, which includes children. Booster jabs reduce your chance of getting it badly and your likelihood of passing it on.


Thank you!


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I was asking here for a summary as I can’t read those sciency threads



It's not a sciency thread, just a general discussion on the evolving situation.

Basically it's doubling in around just 2 days, how it actually plays out will become clearer as as more information becomes available.


----------



## NoXion (Dec 16, 2021)

Does anyone have any idea how risky it would be for me to travel through London to my sister's place in Chatham on the 22nd? What would be an appropriate level of caution for such an undertaking? I'm double-jabbed but haven't had my booster yet.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2021)

Some tory, technically a junior minister as a pps, attacking Whitty for giving 'socialist' advice. Oh my.





__





						Covid latest news: Tory MP attacks 'unelected' Chris Whitty over calls for Britons to scale back Christmas plans
					





					www.msn.com


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

NoXion said:


> Does anyone have any idea how risky it would be for me to travel through London to my sister's place in Chatham on the 22nd? What would be an appropriate level of caution for such an undertaking? I'm double-jabbed but haven't had my booster yet.


I don't think there is any way of knowing how risky it is, or even quantifying that risk for practical purposes. But if you have to go, I'd say all the usual precautions: rigorous mask-wearing (ideally FFP2, not the pink/blue jobs), careful hand hygiene, avoiding large crowds, especially in enclosed areas...


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Some tory, technically a junior minister as a pps, attacking Whitty for giving 'socialist' advice. Oh my.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


American, so not entirely surprising that the crude conflation of socialism with other things was in play there. Also her name, Joy Morrissey, sounds like an oxymoron.

Also I note this from her wikipedia entry:



> In June 2021 Morrissey launched a "campaign with the British Monarchists Society, to put a portrait of Her Majesty in every home, company, and institution that would like one."


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

Fuck. Remember when we used to look at R rates of 1.2 and hope it could come down to less than 1?

"Omicron R number estimated to be between 3 and 5"​
(from UK Covid live: Queen cancels pre-Christmas lunch; Omicron R number estimated to be between 3 and 5)


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

NoXion said:


> Does anyone have any idea how risky it would be for me to travel through London to my sister's place in Chatham on the 22nd? What would be an appropriate level of caution for such an undertaking? I'm double-jabbed but haven't had my booster yet.


Also prepare for the possibility that a range of services in London including transport may be badly disrupted by then, due to issues with the sheer number of staff off sick.


----------



## LDC (Dec 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Some tory, technically a junior minister as a pps, attacking Whitty for giving 'socialist' advice. Oh my.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



In June 2021 Morrissey launched a campaign with the British Monarchists Society, to put a portrait of Her Majesty in every home, company, and institution that would like one.

Seems like a thoroughly normal lovely person, not at all a batshit deranged right wing goon.


----------



## NoXion (Dec 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Also prepare for the possibility that a range of services in London including transport may be badly disrupted by then.



How would I monitor this? Seems like it could be the real heartbreaker.


----------



## LDC (Dec 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Also prepare for the possibility that a range of services in London including transport may be badly disrupted by then.



Yup, I'd advise people to be _extra_ careful with all sorts of stuff now - driving, travel, house stuff, accidents, etc. Not the time to be having any emergency the next 2-3 months. Expect disruption and possibly a much lower level of effective services in a whole load of areas - not just health.


----------



## kebabking (Dec 16, 2021)

NoXion said:


> nyone have any idea how risky it would be for me to travel through London to my sister's place in Chatham on the 22nd? What would be an appropriate level of caution for such an undertaking? I'm double-jabbed but haven't had my booster yet.



Personally, if you're not driving, I'd get a taxi. Astonishing cost I know. Wipe down the surfaces, get a proper medical grade mask, and keep the windows open.

My eldest is coming down from uni in Glasgow - she was happy to fly or get the train (300 miles), but fuck that, I'm going up there to pick her up. It's a drag, and the full 1200 mile, 4 leg trip is going to take 4 days, but getting on PT seems about as close a way to guarantee getting it as you could dream up.


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

NoXion said:


> How would I monitor this? Seems like it could be the real heartbreaker.


If it gets bad enough it will show up in the news, but also keep an eye on service information for the relevant transport authorities.

Its hard to know at this moment quite how bad that side of things will get, and even if it goes to complete shit you may still dodge that bullet.


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 16, 2021)

Once again I read a subtext - perhaps Whitty being resigned to the inevitable - that there now follows a period of "informal innoculation" with live omicron as the biotope - with the seatbelt of triple vaccination ...


----------



## Supine (Dec 16, 2021)

NoXion said:


> Does anyone have any idea how risky it would be for me to travel through London to my sister's place in Chatham on the 22nd? What would be an appropriate level of caution for such an undertaking? I'm double-jabbed but haven't had my booster yet.



I take the HS1 from st panc a couple of times a week. Probably the best covid safe train I use


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

Is there a point at which the number of active infections makes mitigation measures close to pointless?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Personally, if you're not driving, I'd get a taxi. Astonishing cost I know. Wipe down the surfaces, get a proper medical grade mask, and keep the windows open.
> 
> My eldest is coming down from uni in Glasgow - she was happy to fly or get the train (300 miles), but fuck that, I'm going up there to pick her up. It's a drag, and the full 1200 mile, 4 leg trip is going to take 4 days, but getting on PT seems about as close a way to guarantee getting it as you could dream up.


It's the coexistence of this (entirely sensible) level of caution vs the number of works parties that will still be going ahead with something like government approval* that displays the madness of where we are at.

* At least an unwillingness to say 'no, pubs and clubs are a very bad idea at the moment'.


----------



## andysays (Dec 16, 2021)

Orang Utan said:


> I was asking here for a summary as I can’t read those sciency threads


When a mummy virus and a daddy virus love each other very much...


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Is there a point at which the number of active infections makes mitigation measures close to pointless?


Not in my book. Such situations reduce the potential for what mitigation can achieve at best, but will still help some people avoid infection that would otherwise have been infected.

It is possible that the very peak part of this wave will be a quick one, going up quickly and coming down quickly, but there are still a lot of cases to be expected either side of the most prominent peak.

Also note from the UK handling of Delta what happens when few measures and behavioural changes are in place - high numbers of cases can persist for ages. Better to dampen that down even if the opportunity to significantly shrink the very peak has passed.

There will also be regional variations in timing, so even if some stuff comes too late to make a really massive difference to London for example, other places may see stronger results in terms of peak reduction.

Also the peak of overall detected case numbers may be built off of younger people, and older groups peaks may come later, so better to squish those as much as possible even if the opportunity to squish the younger peoples peak had already gone.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> In June 2021 Morrissey launched a campaign with the British Monarchists Society, to put a portrait of Her Majesty in every home, company, and institution that would like one.
> 
> Seems like a thoroughly normal lovely person, not at all a batshit deranged right wing goon.


I'm guessing Dorries is her spiritual guru.


----------



## kebabking (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Is there a point at which the number of active infections makes mitigation measures close to pointless?



No, simply because there's no reasonably solid probability that the one infection that gets each individual won't be a bad one.

We're going to get right up to the limit of what the NHS in full war mode can cope with, and quite possibly over it - each, singular, non-infection/non-hospitalisation could be _genuinely_ be the coin toss between both an individual's life, and the effective collapse of NHS capacity.

I wouldn't be surprised if by new year the hospitals are full, primary care is operating in the car parks of hospitals, and Ambulances are simply not an asset that leaves the front of A&E units. If you have a road accident, you'll be on your own...


----------



## manji (Dec 16, 2021)

My daughter’s Lidl Christmas do is cancelled but a lot of her colleague’s are going on the razz anyway 🙄


----------



## LDC (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Is there a point at which the number of active infections makes mitigation measures close to pointless?



Also expect testing for all suspected cases might hit a wall soon. I mean if it's everywhere what's the point on some level, just isolate and wait.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 16, 2021)

This is an excellent point



It shouldn't be 'everyone get infected to support hospitality industry'


----------



## LDC (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Is there a point at which the number of active infections makes mitigation measures close to pointless?



It might feel like that, but as has been said, no. Every case avoided is one possible death or person needing hospital treatment less.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 16, 2021)

Cloo said:


> This is an excellent point
> 
> 
> 
> It shouldn't be 'everyone get infected to support hospitality industry'




Is anyone really going out because they want to support the hospitality industry though? They're going because they want to surely - I don't see the numbers of people going 'I really don't want to go out due to Covid but I feel a moral responsibility to fund my local pub' being significant.


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It might feel like that, but as has been said, no. Every case avoided is one possible death or needing hospital treatment less.


Yep. It wasn't my question but when she asked me i felt stumped for a moment. What you say makes total sense.
 If i can just do a decent attempt at stopping my own self from catching it that's at least one less person who might be fighting for a bed and that's enough of a reason to steer away from the nihilism. It's not complicated when you look at it case by case like that, its just the huge numbers get in the way sometimes.


----------



## xenon (Dec 16, 2021)

Supine said:


> I take the HS1 from st panc a couple of times a week. Probably the best covid safe train I use



Good to hear. I’m supposed to be on that on the 24th.

I actually wouldn’t mind if they just told us not to travel now. Prospects of Christmas travel are stressing me out, potential for picking up the virus and passing it on et cetera.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yep. It wasn't my question but when she asked me i felt stumped for a moment. What you say makes total sense.
> If i can just do a decent attempt at stopping my own self from catching it that's at least one less person who might be fighting for a bed and that's enough of a reason to steer away from the nihilism. It's not complicated when you look at it case by case like that, its just the huge numbers get in the way sometimes.


"One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic"


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It might feel like that, but as has been said, no. Every case avoided is one possible death or needing hospital treatment less.


And in that context, what a fucking coward johnson is - came out with this at a vaxx centre today:


> If you want to go to an event or a party, then the sensible thing to do, if that’s a priority... is to get a test and to make sure that you’re being cautious.
> 
> But we’re not saying that we want to cancel stuff, we’re not locking stuff down, and the fastest route back to normality is to get boosted.



I'm not suggesting there was ever some glorious age of public service, but he's not even bothering to 'lead', just navigate a path that keeps the loons in his party quiet.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 16, 2021)

I basically begged to wfh today; emotionally, physically and mentally I'm through the fucking floor. Feel much better now I know I don't have to go anywhere for almost three weeks.


----------



## kebabking (Dec 16, 2021)

The kids are due to finish school at 12 tomorrow, we've just had the email to say the church service has been cancelled - we're currently having a WhatsApp chat about whether we should just not bother to send them in tomorrow...

It ups the chance of being able to see my folks over the Xmas period, so I think we'll do it.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Also expect testing for all suspected cases might hit a wall soon. I mean if it's everywhere what's the point on some level, just isolate and wait.


It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas time to stock up, batten down the hatches, and hibernate.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

kebabking said:


> The kids are due to finish school at 12 tomorrow, we've just had the email to say the church service has been cancelled - we're currently having a WhatsApp chat about whether we should just not bother to send them in tomorrow...
> 
> It ups the chance of being able to see my folks over the Xmas period, so I think we'll do it.


In your shoes boots, I'd definitely be giving that idea serious consideration.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 16, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Is anyone really going out because they want to support the hospitality industry though? They're going because they want to surely - I don't see the numbers of people going 'I really don't want to go out due to Covid but I feel a moral responsibility to fund my local pub' being significant.


I don't think they are but I think it's the line implied by the government. They won't shut down but support these places which have high infection risk,  but are saying 'Oh do stuff,  but be careful' , largely because they don't want to have to support these businesses and want the public to put themselves  at risk to do that for them.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

I think I probably need to organise my "last" pre-Christmas shop now/very soon, stock up on everything I'm likely to need (so that's whisky, Lemsip, frozen veg, tinned tomatoes, chocolate, whisky, baked beans...), and huddle indoors for the duration.


----------



## kebabking (Dec 16, 2021)

existentialist said:


> It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas time to stock up, batten down the hatches, and hibernate.



Yup, it's stand-to: defensive circle, belt-kit on and bergens in the middle. Stand-by for the shit to hit the fan.


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Yup, it's stand-to: defensive circle, belt-kit on and bergens in the middle. Stand-by for the shit to hit the fan.


ive got my be prepared scout belt on.


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

Got a new freezer yesterday as the previous one is nearly as old as me (well, 5-12 years younger) and has been showing signs of going wrong. The new one did not come with Johnson pre-installed.


----------



## kebabking (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> ive got my be prepared scout belt on.



I have asked for my big boy pants to be ironed, ready for immediate donning....


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 16, 2021)

In terms of "frozen veg", perhaps my standards are lower, but I'm finding great success with chucking bags of sprouts, carrots, mushrooms and kale in my over-enthusiastic chest fridge - the results seem to taste better than the commercially frozen version (blanched before freezing)
Slicing frozen carrots is "interesting" but no great problem ... sometimes frozen mushrooms end up a bit chewy ...


----------



## xenon (Dec 16, 2021)

I can’t get any groceries delivered till after Christmas. If they start that shit with socially distancing in shops not guiding people around I’m going to be quite pissed off. Or hungry. Both. The takeawas are still open. Might just end up fatter.


----------



## Sue (Dec 16, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Is anyone really going out because they want to support the hospitality industry though? They're going because they want to surely - I don't see the numbers of people going 'I really don't want to go out due to Covid but I feel a moral responsibility to fund my local pub' being significant.


And the converse, people saying 'I'm not going to go out even if I want to because it feels like the wrong/stupid thing to do/I'm seeing relations next week for Christmas and don't want to given them Covid.'


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Yup, it's stand-to: defensive circle, belt-kit on and bergens in the middle. Stand-by for the shit to hit the fan.


Who's got the rations?


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> ive got my be prepared scout belt on.


And your woggle?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2021)

If protecting the NHS remains key, it's hard to see this leading to anything other than the closure of entertainment venues and maybe even a return to essential shops only. SChool's going online too, though I'm certain a 'libertarian'  government won't impose a 'stay at home order' this time.  The effects of omicron may be milder, but the sheer numbers are going to be the thing that puts pressure on the NHS and care sector.  Having said that, the government will fuck about for 2 weeks, dragging their feet, taking half hearted measures, limited by the number of loon MPs they've got (along with johnson's own weak position and self interest).  

That's it though isn't it?  The speed and extent of spread, unless something very odd happens with the trajectory, can only take us to most of the 'lockdown' measures we had before (even if tweaked and repackaged).  It's just a question of time and how much more damage they do by prevaricating.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Got a new freezer yesterday as the previous one is nearly as old as me (well, 5-12 years younger) and has been showing signs of going wrong. The new one did not come with Johnson pre-installed.


I bought a new door seal for mine last week. I'm feeling incredibly foresighted now


----------



## Orang Utan (Dec 16, 2021)

andysays said:


> When a mummy virus and a daddy virus love each other very much...


Fuck off - some of us avoid such threads for good reasons


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

kebabking said:


> I have asked for my big boy pants to be ironed, ready for immediate donning....


 Isn't that a bit TOO prepared? I've just turned all the underpants in the wash inside out, but that's as far as I'm going...


----------



## kebabking (Dec 16, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Who's got the rations?



Pockets full of haribo mate. I can last for weeks...


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

kebabking said:


> Pockets full of haribo mate. I can last for weeks...


<removes crossed bandoliers of baked bean tins, shuffles them hurriedly under the pile of bergens>


----------



## RainbowTown (Dec 16, 2021)

Mother of God! What is This!?


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

I noticed at the supermarket this morning that all the xmas party foods (mini sausage rolls and all that finger food stuff the kind people put out at parties) seemed to be all discounted going cheap.
 Maybe i'm reading too much into it but i reckon a hell of a lot of people are just cancelling stuff without waiting to be told by Johnson to do so.
This was the pharmacy, setting the festive mood.


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> I noticed at the supermarket this morning that all the xmas party foods (mini sausage rolls and all that finger food stuff the kind people put out at parties) seemed to be all discounted going cheap.
> Maybe i'm reading too much into it but i reckon a hell of a lot of people are just cancelling stuff without waiting to be told by Johnson to do so.


Yeah thats been the pattern seen in the past and its something the authorities are quite reliant on given that the likes of Johnson wont go further at the right time.

Whitty still defends the indefensible plenty in this pandemic, but was able to go much further than Johnson with his messages in the most recent press conference. The press noticed this and so will the public.


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

An early example of this round of reporting on business & service disruption due to number of infections:









						Covid: Businesses hit by new wave of sickness
					

Employers are feeling the impact of staff shortages as cases hit a new record.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Yeah thats been the pattern seen in the past and its something the authorities are quite reliant on given that the likes of Johnson wont go further at the right time.
> 
> Whitty still defends the indefensible plenty i this pandemic, but was able to go much further than Johnson with his messages in the most recent press conference. The press noticed this and so will the public.


I agree, his deviations from the johnson line are becoming more pronounced. But what a fucking state of affairs when sensible advice has to be cautiously and quietly slipped in alongside the predominant ball of shite coming from the rest of government.  And all that at a moment like this in terms of the spread of the virus.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 16, 2021)

NoXion said:


> Does anyone have any idea how risky it would be for me to travel through London to my sister's place in Chatham on the 22nd? What would be an appropriate level of caution for such an undertaking? I'm double-jabbed but haven't had my booster yet.



Travel at 4am if at all possible.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Travel at 4am if at all possible.


Yep, I did a tescos shop at 11 last night with the same logic.  Pretty quiet, though only about 2/3 mask wearing.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 16, 2021)

Nearly 6000 positive tests in Scotland yesterday


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

Fuck off Labour, idiots.



> Meanwhile, Labour said the government needed to provide clarity on how it wants people to behave in the coming weeks.
> 
> With thousands of football fans due to attend matches in the coming days, shadow heath secretary Wes Streeting said "clarity from the government would be helpful" on whether they should attend.
> 
> ...



From We're not locking the country down, says Boris Johnson amid rising Covid cases


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2021)

A pile of quotes from the lobby briefing (guardian).  Central theme: '_dunno, it's up to you_'.  Suspect this will be exactly the stuff the inquiry picks up, on the day we no doubt get over 100,000 positive tests, the government can't even say don't go to parties. Too late of course, johnson will be long gone by then.



> Here is a summary of some of the main points from this afternoon’s lobby briefing with No 10:
> 
> 
> * Downing Street denied the government was sending out mixed messages on social contacts following the emergence of the Omicron variant. *On Wednesday, the chief medical officer for England, Prof Chris Whitty, urged people to cut back on social contacts to help curb the spread of the disease whereas Boris Johnson had previously said people did not need to cancel Christmas parties. The prime minister’s official spokesman said:
> ...


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 16, 2021)

"Every single London Conservative MP who rebelled against showing a Covid test to get into venues also voted in favour of showing ID in order to vote"


----------



## existentialist (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> I noticed at the supermarket this morning that all the xmas party foods (mini sausage rolls and all that finger food stuff the kind people put out at parties) seemed to be all discounted going cheap.
> Maybe i'm reading too much into it but i reckon a hell of a lot of people are just cancelling stuff without waiting to be told by Johnson to do so.
> This was the pharmacy, setting the festive mood.
> View attachment 301086


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Fuck this times a million:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


omyfuckinggod is he really still stuck at "wash your hands and isolate"?
how is this prick getting airtime?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, here we go.
> 
> That's up 19.1% in a week, hospital admissions up 10.4% too.
> 
> Boosters jabs - 656,711, which is daily record, so well done all concerned.



An eye watering 88,376 cases reported today, up 31.4% in the last 7-days.

Hospital admissions up 8.6%

745,183 booster jabs - WOW!


----------



## souljacker (Dec 16, 2021)

Cases in my area currently running at 1,132 per 100,000


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> omyfuckinggod is he really still stuck at "wash your hands and isolate"?
> how is this prick getting airtime?


That post was what I linked to to demonstrate his history - that was the time at the start of the first wave in 2020 when he was trying to sell the governments original 'carry on' plan, on the very last day that plan was still alive. On that occasion the BBC got cold feet and removed his analysis from that article after not too many hours.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 16, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Cases in my area currently running at 1,132 per 100,000


569 here which I thought was high.


----------



## sojourner (Dec 16, 2021)

454.9 round here


----------



## Flavour (Dec 16, 2021)

88,000 cases in a country with such a high vaccination rate is pretty staggering. i've had family members telling me Omicron is "minor" now that I've informed them I'm not coming.


----------



## BristolEcho (Dec 16, 2021)

According to the Zoe app we are 1400 cases up since last week and around 7k cases locally.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 16, 2021)

A huge wodge of today's cases are in the London, South East & East regions.

In comparison, the North East is pretty much still only got Delta case levels.


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 16, 2021)

My liberal bubble in Bristol has gone from blue to purple 

Redfield
Seven days to 11 December 2021​Total cases​53*






21 (65.6%)*
Case rate per 100,000 people​525.2


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 16, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> A huge wodge of today's cases are in the London, South East & East regions.
> 
> In comparison, the North East is pretty much still only got Delta case levels.


How can I find data for my area?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2021)

Here we go again...









						Boris Johnson joined No 10 pizza party during May 2020 lockdown, say sources
					

Claims raise questions about whether there was rule-flouting culture over number of months




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> How can I find data for my area?



Scroll down & pop your postcode in - UK Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK

It gives cases in the last 7 days, for Worthing I divide it by 1.1, as the population is about 110k, to get the cases per 100k.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Scroll down & pop your postcode in - UK Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
> 
> It gives cases in the last 7 days, for Worthing I divide it by 1.1, as the population is about 110k, to get the cases per 100k.


Thank you


----------



## teuchter (Dec 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Scroll down & pop your postcode in - UK Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
> 
> It gives cases in the last 7 days, for Worthing I divide it by 1.1, as the population is about 110k, to get the cases per 100k.


You don't need to do that; you can just zoom in on the map, click on your area and it'll tell you the rate per 100k. If we are being competitive on numbers here's mine


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

Still more than a few traces of desperation from the authorities when it comes to vaccination levels of pregnant women.









						JCVI makes pregnant women priority group for Covid vaccination
					

Move by UK’s vaccines watchdog follows research showing pregnant women are vulnerable to more serious illness




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> You don't need to do that; you can just zoom in on the map, click on your area and it'll tell you the rate per 100k. If we are being competitive on numbers here's mine
> 
> View attachment 301126



You can do that, but there's a 5-day lag, not great with omicron doubling every two days.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> You don't need to do that; you can just zoom in on the map, click on your area and it'll tell you the rate per 100k. If we are being competitive on numbers here's mine
> 
> View attachment 301126


Impressive Numbers.


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 16, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Here we go again...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


i bet he eats with his mouth open and talks with it full, showering the unfortunates near him with pepperoni and olive fragments


----------



## LDC (Dec 16, 2021)

Pickman's model said:


> i bet he eats with his mouth open and talks with it full, showering the unfortunates near him with the crunched bones and spurting blood of the newly dead.



FTFY


----------



## Pickman's model (Dec 16, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> FTFY


you're thinking of prince charles


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

In terms of the regions of England, so far as expected only the London region is showing a really notable trend in daily hospital admissions/diagnoses:


----------



## smmudge (Dec 16, 2021)

teuchter said:


> You don't need to do that; you can just zoom in on the map, click on your area and it'll tell you the rate per 100k. If we are being competitive on numbers here's mine
> 
> View attachment 301126



Hmm I think we're going to need some more colours


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 16, 2021)

smmudge said:


> Hmm I think we're going to need some more colours


darker ones


----------



## two sheds (Dec 16, 2021)

Omicron doesn't seem to have reached Cornwall yet - area round me has gone blue from purple. 🤞


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just a tiny silver lining : my anti vax neighbours were planning to go to France on Sunday, to their spare house. I am a bad person.


Ffs. They are off tonight, to beat the deadline. Fuckers that was my silver lining.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Ffs. They are off tonight, to beat the deadline. Fuckers that was my silver lining.


May expensive and incovenient things dog their stay and return!


----------



## Sue (Dec 16, 2021)

Cloo said:


> May expensive and incovenient things dog their stay and return!


May they get stuck there with no wine or cheese.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> Just a tiny silver lining : my anti vax neighbours were planning to go to France on Sunday, to their spare house. I am a bad person.


Fuckers; taking back control of their borders.


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

i dont get how they are going to be able to pull it off, they were supposed to leave on sunday so will have booked pcr tests (unvaxxed so required) on that timescale but they are getting on a ferry tonight? You can probably get it done at the ferry port or something. Fuckers.


----------



## Sue (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> i dont get how they are going to be able to pull it off, they were supposed to leave on sunday so will have booked pcr tests (unvaxxed so required) on that timescale but they are getting on a ferry tonight?


Fuck em.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> i dont get how they are going to be able to pull it off, they were supposed to leave on sunday so will have booked pcr tests (unvaxxed so required) on that timescale but they are getting on a ferry tonight? You can probably get it done at the ferry port or something. Fuckers.


you can get an LFT doesn't have to be a PCR, but not a DIY one has to be done somewhere by a trained person.
They might test positive yet after travelling there...


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 16, 2021)

bimble said:


> i dont get how they are going to be able to pull it off, they were supposed to leave on sunday so will have booked pcr tests (unvaxxed so required) on that timescale but they are getting on a ferry tonight? You can probably get it done at the ferry port or something. Fuckers.


I hope they get interned [at their own expense] on arrival over there. 
They "might" have just squeaked the test inside the 48hours if the ferry on Sunday was actually leaving Saturday night ... 
Still, fuck 'em.

The opportunity to rush home or somewhere to beat a deadline is one of the reasons that closing borders can't work.


----------



## bimble (Dec 16, 2021)

Fuck em but also stuff like this it’s a good focus for all the undirected anger that I have about the whole last two years. So much of the anger has nowhere to go it’s kind of cathartic to have them as covid bogeypeople.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 16, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I hope they get interned [at their own expense] on arrival over there.
> They "might" have just squeaked the test inside the 48hours if the ferry on Sunday was actually leaving Saturday night ...
> Still, fuck 'em.
> 
> The opportunity to rush home or somewhere to beat a deadline is one of the reasons that closing borders can't work.


It depends who does it, I remember some countries doing it as of 4AM on the night when announcing these things for that very reason (but still giving people on a flight the ability to land)


----------



## LDC (Dec 16, 2021)

Edited: My poor sense of humour tripped drunk over the line.


----------



## elbows (Dec 16, 2021)

elbows said:


> Meanwhile in Wales:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



My jibe wasnt so far off:









						Omicron: Nightclubs to shut in Wales after Boxing Day
					

And social distancing will be a requirement in offices again, the Welsh government announces.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2021)

5 Premiere League games off this weekend.  There might be an element of footballers refusing to get vaccinated in play here, but regardless it might a sign of at least parts of the ents/hospitality sector starting to close itself down due to staff shortages.








						Premier League calls off six more games due to Covid but rejects pleas for break
					

The Premier League was forced on Thursday to postpone six matches because of Covid but insisted it was determined to continue with the season despite calls for a ‘firebreak’ suspension




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## weepiper (Dec 16, 2021)

The big cafe next door to my work was closed with a sign saying it was due to staff shortages today. 7day test positivity rate in Edinburgh is 10%.


----------



## ffsear (Dec 16, 2021)

Tested positive this morning,  2nd time I've had covid...  This one feels much worse.  Much more like flu.


----------



## 19sixtysix (Dec 16, 2021)

Just tested positive. Felt like a cold and I sweated it out yesterday in bed. Cough getting a bit more annoying this evening but I've had various coughs and colds for the last month and doesn't feel worse than those.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 16, 2021)

ffsear said:


> Tested positive this morning,  2nd time I've had covid...  This one feels much worse.  Much more like flu.


Hope it's not too bad for you or at least doesn't last too long.


----------



## ffsear (Dec 16, 2021)

19sixtysix said:


> Just tested positive. Felt like a cold and I sweated it out yesterday in bed. Cough getting a bit more annoying this evening but I've had various coughs and colds for the last month and doesn't feel worse than those.



Did you have aching muscles ?  I'm aching all over. Had my booster yesterday all over so might be a double whammy for me.


----------



## ffsear (Dec 16, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Hope it's not too bad for you or at least doesn't last too long.


Thankyou


----------



## 19sixtysix (Dec 17, 2021)

ffsear said:


> Did you have aching muscles ?  I'm aching all over. Had my booster yesterday all over so might be a double whammy for me.


Had my booster 3 weeks ago. I wasn't to achy. I had a good fever yesterday and sweated away. Felt a bit like the cold that's been lingering on me for the last few weeks.

ETA Cough is tickly and annoying.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> Ffs. They are off tonight, to beat the deadline. Fuckers that was my silver lining.


It could all still go horribly wrong. Fingers crossed.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 17, 2021)

This apparently-not-Covid cold I have is definitely on the high end of the spectrum, as far as colds I have had goes. I have aching muscles, heavy fatigue, headaches, a very sore throat, plus the usual snots and sneezes. I am the last person to start going on about "'flu" (let alone man-flu ), but this is a very fluey cold.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 17, 2021)

existentialist said:


> This apparently-not-Covid cold I have is definitely on the high end of the spectrum, as far as colds I have had goes. I have aching muscles, heavy fatigue, headaches, a very sore throat, plus the usual snots and sneezes. I am the last person to start going on about "'flu" (let alone man-flu ), but this is a very fluey cold.


Have you done a PCR?


----------



## existentialist (Dec 17, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Have you done a PCR?


Just LFTs. I don't really feel well enough to haul myself out of the flat, drive to the test centre, queue, etc.

ETA: I've just ordered one by post.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 17, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Just LFTs. I don't really feel well enough to haul myself out of the flat, drive to the test centre, queue, etc.


You can get one sent to you in the post. I'd certainly be doing one with those symptoms. Hope you feel better soon anyway.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 17, 2021)

wtf is the point in closing nightclubs "after boxing day"? if christmas eve shenanigans go ahead it will be yet more super-spreading


----------



## Flavour (Dec 17, 2021)

the mighty pull of Christmas and New Year parties vs Omicron -- stay tuned for more staggering numbers. 2022 is not gonna start well.


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 17, 2021)

"Natural immunity" ... I hope they don't then visit granny ...


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 17, 2021)

Flavour said:


> wtf is the point in closing nightclubs "after boxing day"? if christmas eve shenanigans go ahead it will be yet more super-spreading


The pull of £££ and the screams of outrage from "business" that would happen if Governments (UK or Wales or ...) actually shut down before the festivities ...
ie the hard-core "covid recovery group" of back-benchers should be re-named 'business profits group' or 'pro-omicron group'.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 17, 2021)

existentialist said:


> This apparently-not-Covid cold I have is definitely on the high end of the spectrum, as far as colds I have had goes. I have aching muscles, heavy fatigue, headaches, a very sore throat, plus the usual snots and sneezes. I am the last person to start going on about "'flu" (let alone man-flu ), but this is a very fluey cold.



There’s some fucking shit cold going about, we’ve had half a dozen lft each and it’s all fine but it’s lingering for ages after peaking last week Thursday/Friday. Snot a plenty and today my chest aches.

Think this is just what I’ve been missing for two years since my last one. Just constantly sniffling all winter once it takes hold and two years of the immune system getting lazy


----------



## killer b (Dec 17, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> The pull of £££ and the screams of outrage from "business" that would happen if Governments (UK or Wales or ...) actually shut down before the festivities ...


It's already shut down, the pubs & clubs are all empty already. There just isn't any support (yet), which they'd need to pay if they formally close them.


----------



## bimble (Dec 17, 2021)

I feel like only the hermits (such as me) round here haven’t got covid at the moment, all the cool people have it.

ETA just said that to someone and he replied with this so yeah.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 17, 2021)

Flavour said:


> wtf is the point in closing nightclubs "after boxing day"? if christmas eve shenanigans go ahead it will be yet more super-spreading


NYE is the big money making night out as is NYE + 1 for the hardcore - Boxing Day is a classic night on the calendar too, there's usually lots of big lineups booked for Boxing Day < ive never managed to get off the sofa until the day after BD! 
Christmas Eve isnt a thing though that i know of
The last weekend before xmas is usually the big one for staff parties etc, this weekend starting tonight...here in London they've even got more nighttubes running especially for it


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 17, 2021)

Currently my dad, brother, cousin and aunt all have it.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 17, 2021)

ska invita said:


> NYE is the big money making night out as is NYE + 1 for the hardcore - Boxing Day is a classic night on the calendar too, there's usually lots of big lineups booked for Boxing Day < ive never managed to get off the sofa until the day after BD!
> Christmas Eve isnt a thing though that i know of
> The last weekend before xmas is usually the big one for staff parties etc, this weekend starting tonight...here in London they've even got more nighttubes running especially for it



Interesting. In Manchester when I was younger Christmas Eve was a huge night in terms of how many people went out and congregated, though it was a pub thing and didn't go on _too _late as people didn't wanna be too fucked up on christmas day morning but it was definitely still a big occasion where you saw tons of people you hadn't seen for months


----------



## miss direct (Dec 17, 2021)

Agree, Christmas Eve was pub night.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 17, 2021)

When I worked in Newcastle ...
It was quite common for the morning of the 24th to be spent socialising in the office - nibbles, maybe drinks & things like diary & present distributions - and after lunch, those that lived locally, or had provided transport, would go onto a bar/pub crawl.
Living nearly 40 miles away for most of that time, I might go out with close colleagues for an hour at the most, then I would drive home. Always on soft drinks I bought myself. Not that I didn't trust some people, but ... one bad experience could result in a lost driving licence. I went through more than one testing trap in that time.


----------



## Numbers (Dec 17, 2021)

When I lived in Ireland Christmas Eve was just lunch/few drinks then home, Boxing/St Stephen's Day was the biggie.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 17, 2021)

here comes nightclubs closing in Scotland.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 17, 2021)

Good on her for setting an example with the christmas volunteer work, I wonder what Boris will be doing?


----------



## killer b (Dec 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> I feel like only the hermits (such as me) round here haven’t got covid at the moment, all the cool people have it.
> 
> ETA just said that to someone and he replied with this so yeah.
> View attachment 301230


Same, but it's Chris who's currently plague free among my crew.


----------



## marshall (Dec 17, 2021)

Daughter lives with 5 friends in Dalston, all tested positive a couple of days ago - pcr - only negative was her’s, she caught the next train out of Dodge to get back to the sticks.


----------



## Sue (Dec 17, 2021)

marshall said:


> Daughter lives with 5 friends in Dalston, all tested positive a couple of days ago - pcr - only negative was her’s, she caught the next train out of Dodge to get back to the sticks.


My neck of the woods -- the current numbers are pretty bad alas. Hope your daughter manages to stay covid-free.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 17, 2021)

bimble said:


> Ffs. They are off tonight, to beat the deadline. Fuckers that was my silver lining.



Just steal all their shit while they're gone.


----------



## marshall (Dec 17, 2021)

Cheers, think she was a bit freaked when the + tests started coming in for her mates, her’s was the last to arrive. Probably safer in the boonies of Norfolk than depths of east London, probably pitch up here eventually; like everything else.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 17, 2021)

Meanwhile, the Junior Boy is chivvying things along a bit, probably just making sure the fish is still on the hook.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2021)

weepiper said:


> here comes nightclubs closing in Scotland.



I will tune in:



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-59697395


----------



## weepiper (Dec 17, 2021)

Why can't the UK government messaging be this unequivocal?



No new restrictions (yet) but the answer to the first press question made it clear that if Westminster were stumping up any more money then she would be closing big events right now.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 17, 2021)

weepiper said:


> Why can't the UK government messaging be this unequivocal?



How unequivocal is it? "Don't go out anywhere but we're not insisting on it because actually asking places to close without first extracting money from Westminster to pay business owners is more important than any sort of public health emergency"


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 17, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Good on her for setting an example with the christmas volunteer work, I wonder what Boris will be doing?



Need you ask ?

Drinking, partying, making merry  ...  I'm all right, Jack - and the devil take the hindmost ...

 [ but also, drowning his sorrows about Shropshire by-election ]


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2021)

weepiper said:


> No new restrictions (yet) but the answer to the first press question made it clear that if Westminster were stumping up any more money then she would be closing big events right now.


Yeah she initially started off with some slightly more moderated language in regards funding than we heard from her the other day. However the subject dominated the questions from the press, including from the BBC, and  further clues were apparent via her answers. She was trying to avoid discussing various restriction specifics but the idea that certain events would be told to cancel if compensation for them was available was made pretty clear.

I laughed at the bit where she had to repeat details about current UK funding arrangements and said something like “even for the Daily Mail that should not be impossible to get your heads around”.


----------



## Sue (Dec 17, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> How unequivocal is it? "Don't go out anywhere but we're not insisting on it because actually asking places to close without first extracting money from Westminster to pay business owners is more important than any sort of public health emergency"


What she said seems fair (and clear) enough 🤷‍♀️.


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 17, 2021)

Johnson just doesn't give a shit.  As long as there aren't optics broadcast round the world like there were in India a few months back they'll be happy not to fork out one penny to ease the burden on the NHS or save one unnecessary death.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 17, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> How unequivocal is it? "Don't go out anywhere but we're not insisting on it because actually asking places to close without first extracting money from Westminster to pay business owners is more important than any sort of public health emergency"


Maybe, but that's a country mile clearer than johnson's fetid dribbles.  We've currently got the UK PM saying something along the lines of 'be careful... don't mix households too much... but don't cancel parties... erm, it's all about the vaccine' and then Whitty saying 'cut back on socialising'... and johnson pretending there's no difference between that and his 'line'.


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> Johnson just doesn't give a shit.  As long as there aren't optics broadcast round the world like there were in India a few months back they'll be happy not to fork out one penny to ease the burden on the NHS or save one unnecessary death.


Sunak having to cut short his jolly to the USA was quite possibly an indicator that they are going to feel the need to start chucking more money around soon. But I dont like to express much certainty about that until it actually happens.

Sturgeon probably started off todays statement with slightly more moderate language in regards funding because she is hoping to extract concessions from Johnson later today. The language got stronger during the press section though.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 17, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> How unequivocal is it? "Don't go out anywhere but we're not insisting on it because actually asking places to close without first extracting money from Westminster to pay business owners is more important than any sort of public health emergency"


... and just to add, if you think her morals are dodgy, seeking to leverage the funds to do the right thing, how much worse and johnson/sunak's in (presumably... so far...) refusing to supply those funds?


----------



## weepiper (Dec 17, 2021)

Mark Drakeford making the point clear here too.


----------



## Ms Ordinary (Dec 17, 2021)

existentialist said:


> Just LFTs. I don't really feel well enough to haul myself out of the flat, drive to the test centre, queue, etc.
> 
> ETA: I've just ordered one by post.



Mentioning again for anyone else, that I had negative LFT's before, same day, and in the days following my positive PCR recently.

(And only developed noticeable symptoms a couple of days after the PCR - I was doing daily LFT's because of being in contact with a couple of people at work who tested positive on LFTs)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 17, 2021)

Heading towards 100k over the weekend - 93,045 new cases reported today, up +38.6%.

Patients admitted to hospital 'holding steady' at +8.1%, tests carried out just short of 1,600k, up 19%.

Booster jabs for England to follow around 7 pm, the rest of the UK just over 121k.


----------



## Supine (Dec 17, 2021)

So, the official tasked with investigating conservative parties last year had a party himself. Fabulous.


----------



## xenon (Dec 17, 2021)

I know it's his job and all but listening to mark Drakeford just makes me want to walk off a cliff.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Dec 17, 2021)

Supine said:


> So, the official tasked with investigating conservative parties last year had a party himself. Fabulous.


Couldn't organise an inquiry into a piss-up in a brewery  









						No 10 inquiry head faces pressure to quit over claims he hosted a party
					

Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, allegedly had drinks for up to 20 staff in his Whitehall offices in December last year




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## existentialist (Dec 17, 2021)

xenon said:


> I know it's his job and all but listening to mark Drakeford just makes me want to walk off a cliff.


I think the problem is that while Westminster aims to pander to the media, and focuses solely on optics, while achieving fuck all except the wrecking of lives, here in Wales we've got a boring apparatchik in a charity shop suit, who actually tries to do the right thing.

It says a lot about the state of our politics that, despite that, Drakeford just gets ripped into for being a boring apparatchik, while over the border chaos and carnage reign.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 17, 2021)

DaveCinzano said:


> Couldn't organise an inquiry into a piss-up in a brewery
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Obviously a good one if he didn't even know he was there.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 17, 2021)

Its kinda wild in London at the moment.
I now know more people who have recently had it or have it, including four housemates currently suffering with COVID, than at any time since the start.
Of my housemats one has pretty much recovered in 4 days, still a very very faint line on the LFT.
Two are fairly sick, one of which has had 3 vaccinations.  The final one not so sick, achy.

Another friend just tested positive as I wrote this and she's seen 1 person for over a week.

I'm still negative.


----------



## DaveCinzano (Dec 17, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Obviously a good one if he didn't even know he was there.


Well, "knowledge only means complicity in guilt; ignorance has a certain dignity" 🤷‍♂️


----------



## danny la rouge (Dec 17, 2021)

They were just all having parties weren’t they?


----------



## souljacker (Dec 17, 2021)

danny la rouge said:


> They were just all having parties weren’t they?


Yep. Whilst my 10yo daughter was cancelling hers. Utter scum.


----------



## Raheem (Dec 17, 2021)

souljacker said:


> Yep. Whilst my 10yo daughter was cancelling hers. Utter scum.


While the woman at the end of my street was waiting to die of cancer and wasn't able to see her 7 year-old daughter.

(Not that it's a contest.)


----------



## elbows (Dec 17, 2021)

> GSTT also told A&E staff that “as of yesterday there were more than 350 staff members off work and isolating across the organisations due to Covid – a 25% increase on the previous day.”





> There were similar issues with the London fire brigade, with almost 10% of operational firefighters either having tested positive or self-isolating, according to LFB statistics for Thursday. The LFB said 141 firefighters had tested positive and 283 were self-isolating.











						Hundreds off work ill at leading London hospital trust as Omicron cases surge
					

Non-essential services cancelled and staff redeployed to intensive care to treat influx of Covid admissions




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Sue (Dec 17, 2021)

Wrong thread


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2021)




----------



## Raheem (Dec 18, 2021)

Raheem said:


> While the woman at the end of my street was waiting to die of cancer and wasn't able to see her 7 year-old daughter.
> 
> (Not that it's a contest.)


Sorry, didn't want to depress anyone. A big part of people's anger at the moment, though, is that complying with the rules wasn't in any way optional for a lot of people, and it meant enormous sacrifices for some. A lot people do know or are aware of people who spent a long time in residential care, hospital or hospices without contact from their families.


----------



## Johnny Vodka (Dec 18, 2021)

Looks like a proper lockdown is coming.









						UK Covid cases and deaths drop as isolation cut to 5 days – as it happened
					

Latest Covid omicron deltacron updates today




					www.independent.co.uk
				




I don't know why they just don't get on with it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 18, 2021)

Johnny Vodka said:


> Looks like a proper lockdown is coming.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Because....

<drum roll>

...they want to save Christmas.


----------



## zora (Dec 18, 2021)

I have got to say, I'd be pretty pissed off if they do another complete household mixing ban, in which (triple-vaccinated) non-cohabiting partners are not supposed to see each other, after encouraging months and months of superspreading amongst as many households possible


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 18, 2021)

zora said:


> I have got to say, I'd be pretty pissed off if they do another complete household mixing ban, in which (triple-vaccinated) non-cohabiting partners are not supposed to see each other, after encouraging months and months of superspreading amongst as many households possible


This is the thing isn't it. It didn't have to get this bad. Fucking idiots.


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 18, 2021)

Surely the basics is contact isolation?


----------



## IC3D (Dec 18, 2021)

Work Christmas party last week. 5 caught covid. All double or triple jabbed. 
I had a strong feeling it would happen and didn't go.


----------



## magneze (Dec 18, 2021)

Better to move Christmas to the summer like Australia. I'm sure Jesus won't mind.


----------



## LDC (Dec 18, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Work Christmas party last week. 5 caught covid. All double or triple jabbed.
> I had a strong feeling it would happen and didn't go.



Friend who works in an ambulance trust which will remain nameless has had a series of emails advising all attendees to _all _the Xmas parties to test daily as lots of covid positive people are starting to emerge...


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 18, 2021)

I know I shouldn't listen to talk radio but jeez there's some thick cunts out there. Still repeating the 10 people in hospital with omicron line, ghouls like John Redwood still saying '_wait and see_' and people still saying '_ooh it's mass hysteria I don't wear a mask_' still... 2 years in...


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 18, 2021)

magneze said:


> Better to move Christmas to the summer like Australia. I'm sure Jesus won't mind.


Do it every four years too, like the world cup. Makes it more interesting that way.


----------



## zora (Dec 18, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> Surely the basics is contact isolation?


I know! 😭😭😭 And, maybe such simple things as mask-wearing not just in customer facing roles, but in all workplaces, and - call me crazy - a very clear message to not go to work or socialise with any cold symptoms of any kind!!!😩


----------



## Chilli.s (Dec 18, 2021)

zora said:


> I know! 😭😭😭 And, maybe such simple things as mask-wearing not just in customer facing roles, but in all workplaces, and - call me crazy - a very clear message to not go to work or socialise with any cold symptoms of any kind!!!😩


That's far too logical, especially with there being as many thick cunts in power as there are in the general public.

I do wonder how effective of infection etc. that kind of behavior would have been. For a strategy that costs pretty much fuck all it seems like a best bet as a support for everything else.


----------



## chilango (Dec 18, 2021)

Triple jabbed, (mostly) wfh,, barely been out since October. I've just tested positive. Daughter brought it home from school totally asymptomatic. She's got it too.


----------



## Hollis (Dec 18, 2021)

In the absence of government guidance, they've been quite effective in shifting decision-making back onto the individual.

I understand there's a public health risk from NHS getting overwhelmed.

What I currently don't have a sense of is the individual risk of contracting omicron, and then the consequences of that if you have two jabs and a booster (by age).  Its really difficult to make any meaningful decisions about what to do over Christmas other than 'gut feel'.  Notably even Neil Ferguson wouldn't say this morning when asked whether or not he was going to visit relatives over Xmas..   I get the impression if it was left to the scientists we'd probably be in full lockdown now.  I have no confidence, currently, in what the politicians are saying.


----------



## zora (Dec 18, 2021)

Chilli.s said:


> That's far too logical, especially with there being as many thick cunts in power as there are in the general public.
> 
> I do wonder how effective of infection etc. that kind of behavior would have been. For a strategy that costs pretty much fuck all it seems like a best bet as a support for everything else.


In a way, maybe not much - it seems that the main driver right now is not so much in workplaces themselves (although it might have been, if people hadn't always carried on wfh to a significant extent), but (aside from schools) in parties and indoor hospitality in general, as evidenced by the numerous reports from people where large numbers of the same group are testing positive after a night out. :/

But yes, given as you say that it would be a very low cost measure more mask wearing could possibly have helped somewhat, and I am fairly certain that the narrow casting of "covid" symptoms has contributed to a lot of spread. Even right at the start of the pandemic, it was pretty clear that the Big Three symptoms were insufficient, and it's become clearer still over time, and with the new variants. 

Wrt the effectiveness of any single measure, in German communication around this the "Swiss cheese" image has often been used - any single measure can have some effect, but has got a hole in it, but if you line up each imperfect measure behind each other, you get a pretty solid block.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 18, 2021)

Hollis said:


> In the absence of government guidance, they've been quite effective in shifting decision-making back onto the individual.
> 
> I understand there's a public health risk from NHS getting overwhelmed.
> 
> What I currently don't have a sense of is the individual risk of contracting omicron, and then the consequences of that if you have two jabs and a booster (by age).  Its really difficult to make any meaningful decisions about what to do over Christmas other than 'gut feel'.  Notably even Neil Ferguson wouldn't say this morning when asked whether or not he was going to visit relatives over Xmas..   I get the impression if it was left to the scientists we'd probably be in full lockdown now.  I have no confidence, currently, in what the politicians are saying.


Came here to post something similar ish.

Somewhere last night I read some %’s on protection against illness from omicron with different vaccines. It was all with the caveat that the figures were arrived at from comparing people’s blood, not real world infection, & what actually happens will become apparent over the next month.

Those figures were iirc ~20% for two doses of astrazeneca. And ~55%-80% for 2x astrazeneca plus mRNA type booster.

Can’t find where I read that.

But doing a general internet search for ‘omicron vaccine protection booster’ brings up umpteen recent news articles with such wildly varying % figures, my own conclusion is we just don’t have that info right now.

Anyone got anything more solid than my half remembered figures with no references?


----------



## Sunray (Dec 18, 2021)

Its been interesting (via housemates) to see the accuracy of the LFT's.
If there is a line, no matter how feint, its highly likely you have it.  It then proceeds to become progressively more red to look the same as the control line when you are properly sick.
Then fades away back to a very hard to see yellow line when you feel fine but still isolating.


This was from one housemate that has fully recovered.

Zoom
I still test negative.


----------



## Supine (Dec 18, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Its been interesting (via housemates) to see the accuracy of the LFT's.
> If there is a line, no matter how feint, its highly likely you have it.  It then proceeds to become progressively more red to look the same as the control line when you are properly sick.
> Then fades away back to a very hard to see yellow line when you feel fine but still isolating.
> View attachment 301527
> ...



That red line is a strip of antibodies that change colour when they activate against covid. So yeah, the more you have the redder it gets


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 18, 2021)

> I still test negative.



Are you sure?, I can see a line on both those pictures


----------



## brogdale (Dec 18, 2021)

kinnel


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 18, 2021)

.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 18, 2021)

brogdale said:


> kinnel



No, we’ve already established over the last two years that it’s fine for unvaccinated people to protest outdoors when prevalence is high or during lockdowns. It’s not ok to backtrack on that just because you don’t like what they are protesting about.


----------



## Sue (Dec 18, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Are you sure?, I can see a line on both those pictures


That's the control line and is meant to be there. Have you ever done an LFT _Russ_ ?


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 18, 2021)

I suspect the implication is that they have travelled from all over and may well be availing themselves of public transport and hospitality ...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 18, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No, we’ve already established over the last two years that it’s fine for unvaccinated people to protest outdoors when prevalence is high or during lockdowns. It’s not ok to backtrack on that just because you don’t like what they are protesting about.



How did they get there? Teleportation?


----------



## Numbers (Dec 18, 2021)

Sue said:


> That's the control line and is meant to be there. Have you ever done an LFT _Russ_ ?


There’s definitely a faint line by the T


----------



## prunus (Dec 18, 2021)

Numbers said:


> There’s definitely a faint line by the T



Certainly is. That would count as a positive requiring PCR test I believe.


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> How did they get there? Teleportation?



They are probably still trying to make a tired point about double-standards in regards things like BLM protests.

The temptation for me is to complicate such things by saying that the season needs to be taken into account, and the hugely increased transmissibility of recent variants is also a factor people could use to dampen down accusations of double-standards.


----------



## LDC (Dec 18, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No, we’ve already established over the last two years that it’s fine for unvaccinated people to protest outdoors when prevalence is high or during lockdowns. It’s not ok to backtrack on that just because you don’t like what they are protesting about.



Depends on your definition of 'fine', but whatever it is it's entirely fair to criticize them for all sorts of valid reasons, including what they're protesting about.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 18, 2021)

elbows said:


> They are probably still trying to make a tired point about double-standards in regards things like BLM protests.
> 
> The temptation for me is to complicate such things by saying that the season needs to be taken into account, and the hugely increased transmissibility of recent variants is also a factor people could use to dampen down accusations of double-standards.


Yes with omicron being so much easier to transmit and so many unvaxxed, unmasked people gathering together ....


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 18, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Its been interesting (via housemates) to see the accuracy of the LFT's.
> If there is a line, no matter how feint, its highly likely you have it.  It then proceeds to become progressively more red to look the same as the control line when you are properly sick.
> Then fades away back to a very hard to see yellow line when you feel fine but still isolating.
> View attachment 301527
> ...


This is interesting, thanks. I tested positive with a very faint line at the beginning of this bout and retested today out of curiosity to find I currently have a really strong red line.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 18, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> No, we’ve already established over the last two years that it’s fine for unvaccinated people to protest outdoors when prevalence is high or during lockdowns. It’s not ok to backtrack on that just because you don’t like what they are protesting about.


Not sure that's ever been 'fine' tbh, but whatever...if I feel like saying kinnel about the massive stupidity of travelling unnecessarily to gather together at this point in the pandemic at that location to protest against measures (albeit inadequate) designed to reduce deaths...I'll do just that, thanks.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 18, 2021)

Been on plenty of demos this year from early March onwards. Got there under my own steam & kept a mask on throughout. Most other people on the demos I went on had masks on & where physical space allowed were keeping a distance.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 18, 2021)

Whereas anti lockdown anti vaxx protestors by definition will be doing neither.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 18, 2021)

90.5k today. 900 hospitalised


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2021)

S☼I said:


> 90.5k today. 900 hospitalised



The daily hospital admissions data doent get updated at weekends, and there is a bit of additional lag when looking at the UK number rather than the number for England.


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2021)

By the way, this is hospital admissions/diagnoses for the London region, broken down by age. Unfortunately one of the age groups is very broad, but the version of the data that breaks things down into more age groups only comes out once a month.

It does seem that Delta was also on the rise in London recently so I dont know as I can yet use this to gain stronger clues about Omicron severity, probably not.


----------



## IC3D (Dec 18, 2021)

I think other than being triggering the millions of school kids are a far more  significant spreading vector than a few hundred protesters


----------



## LDC (Dec 18, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I think other than being triggering the millions of school kids are a far more  significant spreading vector than a few hundred protesters



Yeah, we're all triggered for sure.  Any answer to why you think vaccinating is wrong headed then, or am I on ignore? Or was it something you can't actually back up with a good reason?

Still interested in what area of the NHS you work in as well. Hospital from what you've said, but what role?


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 18, 2021)

Eldest has messaged, feeling rough and just got a positive LFT, she has booked a drive-through PCR for tomorrow. Her ex-husband has said it means she can’t see their 5 year old until after Christmas (child is with dad for the weekend and currently doesn’t have symptoms) - from the gov.uk guidance I don’t think that’s right. Rotten timing and eldest obviously won’t be able to see other family and friends next week(end) but as long as the child is tested daily and has no symptoms it seems he can still shuttle between parents, and come to me if necessary? I had my booster on 1 December.


----------



## prunus (Dec 18, 2021)

20Bees said:


> Eldest has messaged, feeling rough and just got a positive LFT, she has booked a drive-through PCR for tomorrow. Her ex-husband has said it means she can’t see their 5 year old until after Christmas (child is with dad for the weekend and currently doesn’t have symptoms) - from the gov.uk guidance I don’t think that’s right. Rotten timing and eldest obviously won’t be able to see other family and friends next week(end) but as long as the child is tested daily and has no symptoms it seems he can still shuttle between parents, and come to me if necessary? I had my booster on 1 December.



You are right, minors living with a positive case don’t have to self isolate to be in accordance with the current guidance. And also right that it’s recommended they are tested daily.


----------



## blameless77 (Dec 18, 2021)

chilango said:


> Triple jabbed, (mostly) wfh,, barely been out since October. I've just tested positive. Daughter brought it home from school totally asymptomatic. She's got it too.




Double jabbed here, and like dseeminfly everyone in Brixton, positive as of last Monday. No symptoms! Husband had high fever for two days, but now fine. Found out by doing a lateral flow before going for our boosters.


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 18, 2021)

prunus said:


> You are right, minors living with a positive case don’t have to self isolate to be in accordance with the current guidance. And also right that it’s recommended they are tested daily.


Thank you. I hope the parents sort it out between them, emotions run high over Christmas even without the complication of covid.


----------



## thismoment (Dec 18, 2021)

zora said:


> I know! 😭😭😭 And, maybe such simple things as mask-wearing not just in customer facing roles, but in all workplaces, and - call me crazy - a very clear message to not go to work or socialise with any cold symptoms of any kind!!!😩


My manager was fuming that people where taking sick days because of “just a cold”. People who work in a school!


----------



## weepiper (Dec 18, 2021)




----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 18, 2021)

Sue said:


> That's the control line and is meant to be there. Have you ever done an LFT _Russ_ ?


I've done many , look closely at the 2 pics, there is a fine line on both test pucks (No I dont mean the control line)


----------



## Supine (Dec 18, 2021)

Match Of The Day tonight

Five of the six games cancelled due to covid. If that isn’t a sign that action is needed I don’t know what could be.


----------



## elbows (Dec 18, 2021)




----------



## Wilf (Dec 18, 2021)

Supine said:


> Match Of The Day tonight
> 
> Five of the six games cancelled due to covid. If that isn’t a sign that action is needed I don’t know what could be.


There's an extra ingredient with football, with a significant number refusing vaccines, which must play havoc with the 'bubbles', but... yeah.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 18, 2021)

Plague Island.


----------



## editor (Dec 18, 2021)

A friend is having his birthday drink in a pub tonight. His FB feed is one long stream of people saying that they cant make it because they've got Covid, with a few others saying that they're not prepared to risk it as they'll be off to see their parents soon over Xmas. 

It's  never been anywhere remotely as bad as this in the past. I's a tsunami, not a wave around these parts,


----------



## Supine (Dec 18, 2021)

Wilf said:


> There's an extra ingredient with football, with a significant number refusing vaccines, which must play havoc with the 'bubbles', but... yeah.



Football has been an embarrassment throughout. No masks off pitch, no social distancing when people score etc etc.

I was actually suprised though that EFL players are vaxxed almost as much as the general population.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 18, 2021)

it's disgusting and cynical this government strategy to avoid having to pay furlough or give any support to hospitality/other affected industries by not closing it down but telling people to avoid going out. need more strike action


----------



## Wilf (Dec 18, 2021)

Supine said:


> Football has been an embarrassment throughout. No masks off pitch, no social distancing when people score etc etc.
> 
> I was actually suprised though that EFL players are vaxxed almost as much as the general pollution.


Yeah, I've not looked for a bit, but it was Prem League players who had relatively low rates.  I agree that it doesn't look good and players/managers never managed to stick with fist bumps, so there's been every bit as much hugging as before. Presumably, bubbles and testing have just about worked until recently.  The one big issue was Euro 2020, reportedly leading to the previous highest daily peak in the Summer.


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 18, 2021)

Supine said:


> Match Of The Day tonight
> 
> Five of the six games cancelled due to covid. If that isn’t a sign that action is needed I don’t know what could be.


snooker was on earlier. About 4 people in the audience wearing masks.


----------



## Supine (Dec 18, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> snooker was on earlier. About 4 people in the audience wearing masks.



Luckily they are all young and healthy!


----------



## Wilf (Dec 18, 2021)

Flavour said:


> it's disgusting and cynical this government strategy to avoid having to pay furlough or give any support to hospitality/other affected industries by not closing it down but telling people to avoid going out. need more strike action


Yep, it's also so fucking depressing as we go round that way again.  Very high figures... warnings from scientists they need to act now... government going on about 'balance' and vaccines... people facing losing their jobs again... appalling sick pay provision.  I fucking hate these cunts.


----------



## Calamity1971 (Dec 19, 2021)

Germany has put us on the red list if anyone is thinking of travelling. 20/12/21.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 19, 2021)

thismoment said:


> My manager was fuming that people where taking sick days because of “just a cold”. People who work in a school!



To start from the end and to cut a very, very long story short, and as an end result, my manager has taken out a_ formal complaint _against one of my workmates, for 'being rude', after my workmate insisted that my manager (who has been in herself coughing and hacking away - 'a cold' that she decided wasn't worth testing, along with others with 'flu' sypmtoms), needed to urgently check whether my manager was right in saying that one of our two unvaccinated staff should _not_ be sent home after his wife had tested positive with a LFD. 

It took hours to resolve and he subsequently tested positive himself and was off beyond the 10 days because he is still ill.
Separately, the second unvaccinated person should have been immediately sent home, too, for being a close contact, and everyone else advised to test.

SLT had absolutely no idea of any of the rules and are rigid in their support of continuing shit management.
I kicked the fuck off, myself, and had a surreal convo with a SLT member about whether LFD's are acceptable to be used when you have symptoms, even if you are vaccinated (no) and what constituted the _correct_ kind of cough, amongst other things, where I had to repeatedly ask him to check what I already knew and with an eventual agreement that people _should_ self isolate and get a PCR with symptoms but that yes, ok, someone coughing ONCE doesn't count.

I work in a school.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 19, 2021)

London is getting a "tier 3" lockdown "before christmas" 









						London 'to be put into Tier 3 lockdown just days before Christmas - London Daily
					

The news comes as the Covid infection rate in London continues to accelerate




					londondaily.com


----------



## Raheem (Dec 19, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> London is getting a "tier 3" lockdown "before christmas"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Think that might be a story from last year.


----------



## xenon (Dec 19, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> London is getting a "tier 3" lockdown "before christmas"
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That’s from last year.


----------



## xenon (Dec 19, 2021)

Hint, Matt Hancock is not the health secretary.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 19, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> London is getting a "tier 3" lockdown "before christmas"
> 
> 
> 
> ...



umm

10 December wasn't a Thursday this year....


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 19, 2021)

xenon said:


> That’s from last year.


I did check the date of the article before posting it.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 19, 2021)

maybe someone posted last year's info on that news website, I've certainly never heard of it before.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> I did check the date of the article before posting it.



I dont think the date at the top of that website is the article date, I think it stays the same regardless of what article you click on.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont think the date at the top of that website is the article date, I think it stays the same regardless of what article you click on.


That explains why that being published two hours ago seemed a bit odd


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2021)

Calamity1971 said:


> Germany has put us on the red list if anyone is thinking of travelling. 20/12/21.



Totally pointless, when omicron is already taking off across mainland Europe, adjusted for population, Denmark is reporting higher case numbers than the UK, but they test more, France is not much behind the UK on new cases, and they've carried out less than half the number of tests compared to the UK

I posted this on the holiday thread yesterday.



cupid_stunt said:


> A French epidemiologist was interviewed on BBC News, talking about how fast omicron was taking off in France, she said they are only a day or two behind the UK. When asked what impact the closing of the border will have, her reply, 'just about zero'.


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2021)

can anyone tell me what explains this? I thought testing +tive means you’re infectious? (Not my message, a confused friend sent it and asked me)


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> can anyone tell me what explains this? I thought testing +tive means you’re infectious? (Not my message, a confused friend sent it and asked me)
> View attachment 301676



What's the context? They must know when they got tested and why?


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 19, 2021)

Blimey how long are tests taking to come back then, that they have messages like that prepared?


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What's the context? They must know when they got tested and why?


context is the erratic friend from yestertday! The man sent her that screenshot last night. It was a day two test upon return from travel he says, claims he got that text yesterday? also says he'd done 4 Lfs all negative.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> can anyone tell me what explains this? I thought testing +tive means you’re infectious? (Not my message, a confused friend sent it and asked me)
> View attachment 301676



Test is more than ten days old I guess?


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> context is the erratic friend from yestertday! The man sent her that screenshot last night. It was a day two test upon return from travel he says, claims he got that text yesterday? also says he'd done 4 Lfs all negative.


Sorry if Im being thick but I still don't get from your post the time difference between the test in question and the message


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> context is the erratic friend from yestertday! The man sent her that screenshot last night. It was a day two test upon return from travel he says, claims he got that text yesterday? also says he'd done 4 Lfs all negative.


_
Bimble's friend: The Adventure Continues! Chapter 6: The Mystery Test._

Could be time lag between test and getting the result. Tested positive pre-10 days ago so isolation is over already. Or he's a fucking weirdo chancer?


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Sorry if Im being thick but I still don't get from your post the time difference between the test in question and the message


i dont get it either. He claims to have received that message yesterday evening. he tells her he took the day 2 PCr test after getting back from france on Thursday (16th). Very odd doesnt add up imo.


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Blimey how long are tests taking to come back then, that they have messages like that prepared?



If it was a test for travel it's not an NHS test. Doesn't look like NHS app alert to me either.


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> i dont get it either. He claims to have received that message yesterday evening. he tells her he took the day 2 PCr test after getting back from france on Thursday (16th). Very odd doesnt add up imo.



Tell her to ghost the fucker and get a better possible partner filter?!


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2021)

the only explanation for that instruction then (you tested +tive but your isolation period is over) would be a test taking 10 days or more to come back right? If thats' happening its ridiculous.


----------



## prunus (Dec 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> the only explanation for that instruction then (you tested +tive but your isolation period is over) would be a test taking 10 days or more to come back right? If thats' happening its ridiculous.



I think also if, when you filled in the form that goes with (some?) tests/test applications, you put a date for the start of your symptoms many days before your test date.  I remember thinking ‘hmmm’ about what looked like a loophole when I saw that question on a test I applied for. 

Memory is a bit hazy on the details though.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 19, 2021)

yes they asked me for when I'd first noticed symptoms


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2021)

Date of test and date of test result received are the important things. Sounds like it was a test for travel so he didn't have symptoms? And he's trying to convince her that he's fine it sounds like bimble?


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2021)

elbows said:


>



Hmm. That seems really alienating, to me. The MP asked a good question, in that, it's one lots of people have, and if you ask a question, there's an opportunity for it to be answered.

Whitty did answer it comprehensively, but should have lost everything before "The reality is..." The contempt he displayed initially is only going to drive people further into their corner.

(In case it's not clear, the question asked isn't one I have, and I agree completely with what Whitty said, but what I mutter to myself doesn't have the same impact.)


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Date of test and date of test result received are the important things. Sounds like it was a test for travel so he didn't have symptoms? And he's trying to convince her that he's fine it sounds like bimble?


i think its what prunus said, he must have told them of his recent infection (says he had it recently). Whatever it is i'm going to leave her to get on with it, its too late now anyway - if she's caught it from him she'll find out soon enough.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 19, 2021)

bimble said:


> i think its what prunus said, he must have told them of his recent infection (says he had it recently). Whatever it is i'm going to leave her to get on with it, its too late now anyway - if she's caught it from him she'll find out soon enough.


Hmm, if it's true that companies are giving the OK to come out of isolation based on the time the client states he thinks he noticed symptoms as oppossed to test date then that is very wrong and needs to be be sorted, I suspect its just that the guy is lying  though and the screenshot is fabricated


----------



## bimble (Dec 19, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Hmm, if it's true that companies are giving the OK to come out of isolation based on the time the client states he thinks he noticed symptoms as oppossed to test date then that is very wrong and needs to be be sorted, I suspect its just that the guy is lying  though and the screenshot is fabricated


why would he bother to do that?


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 19, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> London is getting a "tier 3" lockdown "before christmas"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


don't the physicists say there's parallal time portals or some such shit? message to otter: covid will get a bit better and then worse and Hancock is a Sex Man. see you when you catch up x


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> Almost everyone I know who went 'out' last weekend seems to have covid now.


mrs b sent me a group photo last night of her brother and his mates out at The Printworks last weekend, with a red circle round the heads of each member of the party who now has Covid: 30 people in the group, 20 red circles.


----------



## zora (Dec 19, 2021)

Over the course of the entire pandemic so far, we had less than 10 covid cases among my colleagues, today we have 10 plus people off at the same time (out of a staff of around 30).


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2021)

Why are people still going out? What the suffering fuck is wrong with everyone?


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 19, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Why are people still going out? What the suffering fuck is wrong with everyone?


To be fair I think last weekend the panic around omicron that we're now seeing hadn't quite set in. If people are going out this weekend I'd be more judgemental.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Why are people still going out? What the suffering fuck is wrong with everyone?


Differing value judgements, assessment of risk, loads of factors. I haven't been out really since this started (one pub meal, one restaurant) but I'm pretty sure at various times I've been overly-cautious.

Current situation seems to match my feelings though. It seems dangerous to go out now like it was still summer.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 19, 2021)

Are at least some of these people who've already had it and so have decided they've got antibodies?


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 19, 2021)

Damn..
My sister has just invited me to Xmas dinner - 4 generations - repeatedly exposed at school and work, crammed into a small space - given my lack of exposure to ANYTHING in nearly two years, I'm bound to say no.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 19, 2021)

Mrs SI is due to go to a wedding 22nd. I'm not going to ask her not to go but I think she's waiting on them to make some sort of decision.


----------



## Sue (Dec 19, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Damn..
> My sister has just invited me to Xmas dinner - 4 generations - repeatedly exposed at school and work, crammed into a small space - given my lack of exposure to ANYTHING in nearly two years, I'm bound to say no.


Nice of her to invite you  and also easy enough to swerve it at the moment.


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 19, 2021)

Sue said:


> Nice of her to invite you  and also easy enough to swerve it at the moment.


I'm rather afraid she won't understand - there was no mention of the current elephant in the room ...


----------



## Sue (Dec 19, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I'm rather afraid she won't understand - there was no mention of the current elephant in the room ...


You might be surprised. You're going to have to tell her something so might as well be the truth or some polite version of it.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2021)

Labour showing their clear strategy and offering the nation a real sense of leadership on Covid:



> Meanwhile, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting suggested that Labour was meeting with experts to gain an informed view on coronavirus, but would not be drawn on whether Labour would support any new lockdown measures
> 
> Mr Streeting said that after SAGE documents were released on Saturday the "question is why is it, having received that advice on Thursday, the prime minister has said nothing, done nothing".








__





						Ministers looking at COVID data 'almost on an hourly basis' - and Javid doesn't rule out further restrictions
					





					www.msn.com


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 19, 2021)

Our usual post chrimble meal at the SiL's ...
I suspect that will be postponed, as was last year's.

The members of this household have been very, very cautious for the last couple of months - waiting for the booster itself, as we're all AZ'ers , and then the couple of weeks "activation" afterwards. 
Just ready to come out into the world, again & blammmm !! 
Omicron showed up. 
So, we've gone back to being cautious. [in case you're wondering, everyone but me is already 70+ and we all have health issues, eg OH has asthma and only 1 & 3/4 lungs. I have low(ish) blood pressure, a heart murmur and a boat load of work-related stress ...]

Despite relatively low cases locally and extremely high vaccination rates, I'm still not taking any chances


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Why are people still going out? What the suffering fuck is wrong with everyone?


I haven't spoken to another human for over a week. I live alone. I'm triple jabbed. I will definitely be going to be a pub when my self isolation is over. I don't think that means there's anything wrong with me.


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Despite relatively low cases locally


everyone from London is going home for christmas next week, so this shouldn't last much longer


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Why are people still going out? What the suffering fuck is wrong with everyone?


judging by the posts I've seen from local pubs & venues the last few days, they aren't.


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Why are people still going out? What the suffering fuck is wrong with everyone?



Lots definitely aren't. But some for sure are, probably partly because they haven't been told they can't or shouldn't. As per usual the messaging is as clear as fucking mud.


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> everyone from London is going home for christmas next week, so this shouldn't last much longer



Yeah, there is a little part of me that thinks fuck it, let's just let it go now and have it, it all feels so close to being out of control anyway. (Don't bother telling me about XYZ of why this is a bad idea, I know why.)

I bet we get too little too late and some fucked up situation that's a mix of the bad side effects of restrictions with not enough of the good impact anyway. And given how transmissible it seems to be restrictions will have to be very strict I'd have thought?


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 19, 2021)

Retail & Hospitality are already making noises ...

I notice the tone of the Javid / Marr interview has gone much more towards potentially increasing restrictions.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 19, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Retail & Hospitality are already making noises ...
> 
> I notice the tone of the Javid / Marr interview has gone much more towards potentially increasing restrictions.



Yep, he wouldn't even rule out increasing restrictions before Xmas, cobra meeting today too.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> judging by the posts I've seen from local pubs & venues the last few days, they aren't.


Round here it looks like “official” parties/gigs etc have gone, but everyone is still heading to the pub, “just in case we can’t soon”. It’s fucking madness, _again_.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 19, 2021)

editor said:


> I haven't spoken to another human for over a week. I live alone. I'm triple jabbed. I will definitely be going to be a pub when my self isolation is over. I don't think that means there's anything wrong with me.


I think it means that your assessment of the level of risk both personal and societal is a bit lagging behind mine.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> I think it means you assessment of the level of risk both personal and societal is a bit lagging behind mine.


I'm looking after my mental health as well as my physical health.  I can't see how I can present any kind of meaningful risk to anyone given that I'm triple jabbed and will be coming out of a 10 day self isolation - and after doing three lateral flow tests before I step out of the door.


----------



## Part 2 (Dec 19, 2021)

Been ill this week, thought I'd best get a test although my ex was similarly ill and tested negative. 

Went to the walk in on Thursday. Did my own test. Friday this came.


Went down to the drive in test centre an hour later. Convinced I'm not doing the tests propelry so let the fella do it. He's a nice man, done them before.

Cancelled everything this weekend and sat about last few days waiting for the results, although I've taken cold and flu tablets and feel much better. 

Just got this. FFS.


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 19, 2021)

Part 2 said:


> Been ill this week, thought I'd best get a test although my ex was similarly ill and tested negative.
> 
> Went to the walk in on Thursday. Did my own test. Friday this came.
> 
> ...


Must be cool to know that you defy categorisation.


----------



## Part 2 (Dec 19, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Must be cool to know that you defy categorisation.


I'm feeling very special.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 19, 2021)

editor said:


> I'm looking after my mental health as well as my physical health.  I can't see how I can present any kind of meaningful risk to anyone given that I'm triple jabbed and will be coming out of a 10 day self isolation - and after doing three lateral flow tests before I step out of the door.


yeah both those things need balancing. 

the factors I'm weighing include 
omicron was 80% of London's covid cases as of the 15th December
the doubling time for omicron is currently 1.8 days
reinfection is 5x higher than with delta
data on how much protection booster vaccines give us for omicron is yet to come in but the last figures I saw were 50-80%
London's ambulance service is already taking a kicking with the number of staff off work, so if anything does happen, the basic infrastructure is failing already


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 19, 2021)

Part 2 said:


> I'm feeling very special.


More seriously, that does suck, because you need to assume it is covid with that result. I assume LFTs were negative too. Quite weird.


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 19, 2021)

I suppose there's a difference between a bunch of people sharing the same calculated risk in a pub, and my case where I'm basically saying I'm afraid I'll catch something off my family - and not just the covid and flu I've been vaccinated against - my Niece routinely posts about projectile vomiting viruses her 8 year old has brought home ...

I will be interested to see how my little brother reacts - since he got an OU science degree - I had to try to explain to my sister when I saw her that one heady day in the summer that the AZ vaccine was not mRNA... and as for my 85 year old Tory-voting mother - the 8 year old practically lives round there ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

Mation said:


> Hmm. That seems really alienating, to me. The MP asked a good question, in that, it's one lots of people have, and if you ask a question, there's an opportunity for it to be answered.
> 
> Whitty did answer it comprehensively, but should have lost everything before "The reality is..." The contempt he displayed initially is only going to drive people further into their corner.
> 
> (In case it's not clear, the question asked isn't one I have, and I agree completely with what Whitty said, but what I mutter to myself doesn't have the same impact.)



I consider his response inevitable given two factors: His personality and the fact he has been having to deal with a never ending stream of utter bullshit and rancid politics for nearly two years.

I mention his personality because I recall an appearance before a committee soon after the first wave, when some of the expert advisors had started to positioning themselves defensively, even if that meant throwing each other under the bus. He got arsey about a question and called it incredibly facile or words to that effect.

I wont try to catalogue all the bullshit he has had to deal with, but I'm not surprised he gives such questions shorter shrift now than he may have been capable of at the start. Some questions that could charitably have been called fair near the start of the pandemic are really not once we've experienced a number of deadly waves. And the people repeatedly pushing such lines, and the politics behind such stuff, are a disgusting pandemic disgrace. 

I've always been rude but even I was capable of explaining stuff with slightly less vitriol at the start of the pandemic than I am now. The pandemic scum have been told the answers to these things plenty of times before, but they carry on regardless. They arent interested in the truth, they ignore the fact we cannot find some way to magically bypass these issues and pretend the pandemic is over when it isnt. Fuck them and their deadly agendas. The likes of Whitty still welcome the opportunity to give an answer to a different sort of audience beyond the core scum who push such lies, bur clearly feel that they can still do that effectively by pointing out what idiotic bullshit politics is involved, rather than giving the benefit of the doubt to those who really dont deserve it. Other approaches may be required to reach some people, but someone else with infinite patience can try that, there is a place for those who will shame and call-out the hideous agendas and inversions of reality. To my eyes Whitty is more effective when he is blunt.


----------



## Part 2 (Dec 19, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> More seriously, that does suck, because you need to assume it is covid with that result. I assume LFTs were negative too. Quite weird.


As it is my symptoms started Wednesday, so I'd be ok for Xmas day...not that I'm that arsed anyway because I've not got anything arranged. 

I don't need to go to work and not planned to see anyone until Friday when my son gets home. Gonna do another LFT but I'm fucked if I'm going to the testing station again.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 19, 2021)

Yea elbows,  Whitty isnt stupid he knows exactly the Insinuation behind that 'reasonable' line of questioning


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Yea elbows,  Whitty isnt stupid he knows exactly the Insinuation behind that 'reasonable' line of questioning



Yeah, he mentioned the ideological reasons behind such questions.


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> I consider his response inevitable given two factors: His personality and the fact he has been having to deal with a never ending stream of utter bullshit and rancid politics for nearly two years.
> 
> I mention his personality because I recall an appearance before a committee soon after the first wave, when some of the expert advisors had started to positioning themselves defensively, even if that meant throwing each other under the bus. He got arsey about a question and called it incredibly facile or words to that effect.
> 
> ...


Ok, I get what you mean. I don't know anything about this particular MP other than seeing them ask the question there, and the way they asked it suggested to me that they were perhaps representing their constituents, as MPs are supposed to, but I may well be missing some context.

I still think that you and I can afford to lose patience with people who haven't learned what seems obvious, but I don't think Whitty can, purely because it's counterproductive. In his job, he needs infinite patience in manner, I think. I thought the main part of his answer did effectively point out and counter the bullshit, bluntly. It was possible to do it without sneering, and he almost did. (But of course he is human.)


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 19, 2021)

Whitty did a series of lectures at Gresham college (on Youtube) and he had to re-record one on "Food and Drink Borne Diseases" because of audience interruption ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

Well the tweet that I made use of to share that clip here was rude about the MP, but it isnt clear to me whether Whitty himself was meaning to direct his vitriol at the MP as opposed to those who lurk further behind that question. I havent checked the pandemic track record of that MP, but I probably will because that will offer clues.

Whitty needs more patience than me to do his job, but there are limits. And specialities, very much including medical specialities, can easily be a breeding ground for several forms of arrogance. But again I am biased because I'm not even a specialist but was well aware that my style of posting and content of my thoughts left me wide open to accusations of being pompous and arrogant. I decided not to care about that in this pandemic, because I couldnt find a way to make my personality and the pandemic detail and opinions I wanted to express work without also coming across as an aggressive arse at times. So I just have to accept that I wont win popularity contests and that some people wont be receptive to my messages because they dont like the messenger or the style of message delivery. But some of those peoples real problem is actually with the substance, and no matter how polite I was they'd still think I was an arse because they dont accept the pandemic realities as I see them.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Whitty did a series of lectures at Gresham college (on Youtube) and he had to re-record one on "Food and Drink Borne Diseases" because of audience interruption ...



Got any more info on that? What sort of interruption?


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Labour showing their clear strategy and offering the nation a real sense of leadership on Covid:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No denying that the Johnson government has handled the whole thing terribly but the opposition parties have been in agreement with the strategy - just claims that they would mange it more _competently_


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Got any more info on that? What sort of interruption?


I thought I'd found a news item somewhere - but maybe I only gleaned it from the Youtube comments - inevitably some conspiritards have contributed to those too ...


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Round here it looks like “official” parties/gigs etc have gone, but everyone is still heading to the pub, “just in case we can’t soon”. It’s fucking madness, _again_.


If there's one thing you should have learned by now, it's that many people struggle to easily weight up the risks posed to them individually and to the people around them by the pandemic, and that some of their assessments of the risks will be quite different from yours. The people to blame for the infections resulting from people going to the pub are the people who are letting the pubs stay open, not the (rapidly dwindling number of) people who're choosing to get the last pint for three months in this weekend.


----------



## rutabowa (Dec 19, 2021)

All 3 of us in my flat got the trendy london covid (inevitable once 1 caught it as it is small), so won't be leaving London for a bit. One thing I suggest: if everyone in your house has tested positive but your test shows negative: YOU ARE STILL ALMOST CERTAINLY POSITIVE! so don't e.g. catch a train out of London to "escape", cos you will be taking it with you.

Symptoms are not anything this time round for us, like more minor than a cold; I'd have been out with them, pre covid.

Tbh v glad that all 3 of us got it at once right now, means it will be done before holidays end... would be worse if we got it one at a time and it stretched out.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 19, 2021)

rutabowa said:


> All 3 of us in my flat got the trendy london covid (inevitable once 1 caught it as it is small), so won't be leaving London for a bit. One thing I suggest: if everyone in your house has tested positive but your test shows negative: YOU ARE STILL ALMOST CERTAINLY POSITIVE! so don't e.g. catch a train out of London to "escape", cos you will be taking it with you.
> 
> Symptoms are not anything this time round for us, like more minor than a cold; I'd have been out with them, pre covid.p


Are you boostered?
I'm wondering because my kids' dad has tested negative but he looks bloody awful. Unfortunately he hadn't got his booster yet but I would have expected less symptoms this time around.


----------



## klang (Dec 19, 2021)

rutabowa said:


> All 3 of us in my flat got the trendy london covid (inevitable once 1 caught it as it is small), so won't be leaving London for a bit. One thing I suggest: if everyone in your house has tested positive but your test shows negative: YOU ARE STILL ALMOST CERTAINLY POSITIVE! so don't e.g. catch a train out of London to "escape", cos you will be taking it with you.
> 
> Symptoms are not anything this time round for us, like more minor than a cold; I'd have been out with them, pre covid.


isnt it the second time for you?


----------



## rutabowa (Dec 19, 2021)

klang said:


> isnt it the second time for you?


Yep. Dont have a booster yet but in any case it is nothing compared to first time (and the  first time wasn't that bad for me). I've been commuting in and working with masses of people, no way I wasn't going to get it.


----------



## klang (Dec 19, 2021)

rutabowa said:


> Yep. Dont have a booster yet but in any case it is nothing compared to first time (and the  first time wasn't that bad for me). I've been commuting in and working with masses of people, no way I wasn't going to get it.


yes, I remember you talking about your first round.

Thinking about it, you are the first person I know to get it twice.

Get well and look after yourselves, the 3 of you!


----------



## klang (Dec 19, 2021)

rutabowa said:


> working with masses of people


my partner works in Hackney and teaches 120 kids, the only teacher in her school to work in all the 'bubbles'. We are surprised we haven't caught it yet.


----------



## rutabowa (Dec 19, 2021)

klang said:


> yes, I remember you talking about your first round.
> 
> Thinking about it, you are the first person I know to get it twice.
> 
> Get well and look after yourselves, the 3 of you!


Thanks! Feel fine tbh. Everyone I know who is getting it a 2nd time is getting it mild, that won't be true for everyone I guess but amongst people I know


----------



## klang (Dec 19, 2021)

rutabowa said:


> Thanks! Feel fine tbh.


well, enjoy it then


----------



## rutabowa (Dec 19, 2021)

klang said:


> well, enjoy it then


It has reduced my commitments for the next week or so that is for sure!


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

Triggle shit continues to emphasise the idea that strict measures will only delay the inevitable, eg various stuff in this article: Omicron: Will tougher measures stop the spread of Omicron?

I wasnt surprised to see quotes from Paul Hunter, who has become a favourite source for these sort of dismal excuses and picture painting from the Delta wave onwards - not quite the same sort of drooling shithead as Dingwall and Heneghan, he is a milder and more superficially reasonable sounding variant. They arent 100% full of shit, some of what they say is very likely a real part of the picture these days, but an agenda and a particular 'sense of balance' is still in play.

This is contradicted by SAGE modelling group documents, where they even put the word prevented in bold:





__





						SPI-M-O: Consensus statement on COVID-19, 15 December 2021
					






					www.gov.uk
				






> 14. Reducing the total number of infections and delaying any wave in the very short term would allow more time for the accelerated booster roll out to take effect. This would also allow many hospitalisations to be *prevented* as a result, not just delayed.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 19, 2021)

editor said:


> I haven't spoken to another human for over a week. I live alone. I'm triple jabbed. I will definitely be going to be a pub when my self isolation is over. I don't think that means there's anything wrong with me.


oh absoloutly. i'll have had 4 days of kids, living alone, come christmas eve. i will go out, but nothign crazy. it's that balance of well being vs risk. isolation can be toxic.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 19, 2021)

klang said:


> yes, I remember you talking about your first round.
> 
> Thinking about it, you are the first person I know to get it twice.
> 
> Get well and look after yourselves, the 3 of you!


pretty sure thagt editor is also on his second round


----------



## Mation (Dec 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Triggle shit continues to emphasise the idea that strict measures will only delay the inevitable, eg various stuff in this article: Omicron: Will tougher measures stop the spread of Omicron?
> 
> I wasnt surprised to see quotes from Paul Hunter, who has become a favourite source for these sort of dismal excuses and picture painting from the Delta wave onwards - not quite the same sort of drooling shithead as Dingwall and Heneghan, he is a milder and more superficially reasonable sounding variant. They arent 100% full of shit, some of what they say is very likely a real part of the picture these days, but an agenda and a particular 'sense of balance' is still in play.
> 
> ...


I know you've long since had a bone to pick with Nick Triggle, but hadn't really read what he says directly. I've been doing so in the past couple of weeks and jesus fucking christ he's a dangerous prick, isn't he


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 19, 2021)

Aye, Mation, based on elbows comments, I take whatever triggle says with a dumper load of salt - unless I spot something that I'm aware of from another source.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

Mation said:


> I know you've long since had a bone to pick with Nick Triggle, but hadn't really read what he says directly. I've been doing so in the past couple of weeks and jesus fucking christ he's a dangerous prick, isn't he


And his stuff this year is more nuanced than it used to be, what we see now is actually in improvement with slightly more attention paid to credibility and balance!

I go on about him so much not just to pick on him and his shit, or because of quite how bad his sales pitch was on the last day of the March 2020 plan A, but because I fear that with this stuff he is fulfilling a function of the state.

Speaking of which, the formula that has been settled on to explain and justify UK pandemic decision making, no matter how poor the decision making was, is that experts and scientists give the info to the government, and then government has to make difficult choices when balancing that stuff against other priorities. Whitty resorts to explaining this often in press conferences, whenever there are awkward questions sent his way or when a gaping chasm between the science and the government is on clear display.

I mention that now because due to the more heated political situation with the tories at the moment, there have been some signs of politicians going further beyond the cosy description of balance and tough choices. There have been more overt political attacks on the likes of Whitty. And that leads me to something Javid said today. In my opinion Javid is sometimes clumsy with his choice of language, so I suppose I have to be a little bit careful about over-interpreting some of his words. But earlier I saw reports that indicated Javid said they were 'challenging the science'. I was wondering if those words would come back to haunt him, but when I look at the detail it seems he said they needed to challenge the data and the assumptions used. Thats not quite as risky a thing to say, but I still think this shit will come back to haunt them if we have an Omicron catastrophe. The way I would describe the situation is that the picture is certainly messy and there is a wider range of uncertainty with this wave than ever before, and thats not politicians fault, nor can scientists be expected to artificially narrow down the range of possibilities. Many of the dilemmas involved suck, but in my book when there is uncertainty you have to act as though one of the worser-case scenarios will happen, and then be delighted and ease things more quickly if it turns out not to be close to that bad. But of course thats really not how the UK establishment does things, and certainly not how this tory government does them.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 19, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I think other than being triggering the millions of school kids are a far more  significant spreading vector than a few hundred protesters


Except that there is some point to keeping them exposed, whereas a bunch of loonies crowding together in the street has no purpose whatsoever.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> If there's one thing you should have learned by now, it's that many people struggle to easily weight up the risks posed to them individually and to the people around them by the pandemic, and that some of their assessments of the risks will be quite different from yours. The people to blame for the infections resulting from people going to the pub are the people who are letting the pubs stay open, not the (rapidly dwindling number of) people who're choosing to get the last pint for three months in this weekend.


Of course those in power take the bulk of the blame. But we’re in exactly the same place we were 12 months ago and people seemingly haven’t learnt a thing. How hard is it to think “hang on a minute, this don’t work last time”…


----------



## Mr.Bishie (Dec 19, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> we’re in exactly the same place we were 12 months ago


We’re not though. How many were double jabbed 12 months ago?


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Of course those in power take the bulk of the blame. But we’re in exactly the same place we were 12 months ago and people seemingly haven’t learnt a thing. How hard is it to think “hang on a minute, this don’t work last time”…


Lots of people have done exactly that, which is why the pubs and restaurants are all panicking 'cause they've got no customers. As for those who are out - they probably aren't following the news that closely, don't think they're very high risk (they probably aren't tbf) and haven't been told not to by the government so they're having a pint. Why wouldn't they?


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2021)

fwiw my brother - a nurse who's spent the last two years up to his eyeballs in it -  just sent me a photo of him and his mrs - a primary school teacher, so the same - in the pub. I'm not going to chide them for it.


----------



## xenon (Dec 19, 2021)

this is bizarre stuff. The idea that anyone who’s gone to the pub recently is ignorant, doesn’t read the news or  is reckless.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 19, 2021)

IC3D said:


> I think other than being triggering the millions of school kids are a far more  significant spreading vector than a few hundred protesters



Kids being in school serves a purpose. A horde of selfish fuckwits whinging about having to adjust their lifestyles in order to save thousands of lives on the other hand...


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2021)

xenon said:


> this is bizarre stuff. The idea that anyone who’s gone to the pub recently is ignorant, doesn’t read the news or  is reckless.


it's true that most people don't pay much attention to the news though. Otherwise I agree.


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 19, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Hmm, if it's true that companies are giving the OK to come out of isolation based on the time the client states he thinks he noticed symptoms as oppossed to test date then that is very wrong and needs to be be sorted, I suspect its just that the guy is lying  though and the screenshot is fabricated


Didnt mean to copy and paste that!


----------



## xenon (Dec 19, 2021)

I should maybe read the news less, and stay in. It was pretty dead in the pub tonight actually.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 19, 2021)

I think you probably wanted to make a comment, Miss-Shelf?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2021)

Mr.Bishie said:


> We’re not though. How many were double jabbed 12 months ago?


Well, we are and we aren't. Being double and triple vaxxed helps a lot and will cut back on  hospitalisations.  But if this wave/variant is as bad as it looks to be (and has such a high R rate), the number of hospitalisations could be just as bad.


----------



## LDC (Dec 19, 2021)

I think the 'it's milder' thing has _really _caught too, so many people have said that to me recently. And it is just brought up on every news item pretty much, often by the presenter, and sometimes totally unchallenged. So no wonder people seem less bothered now.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think the 'it's milder' thing has _really _caught too, so many people have said that to me recently. And it is just brought up on every news item pretty much, often by the presenter, and sometimes totally unchallenged. So no wonder people seem less bothered now.


Yes, and if it is milder for some or even many people that presumably increases the number of people who won't realise they have it or will mistake it for a cold. All adding to the R rate and increasing the threat to both the NHS and vulnerable.  

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather get something that is mild and the idea of a 'milder' variant _almost _takes you in the direction of wanting to get it now to get some immunity. Almost, but not really, I know that's a bad idea, not least for my partner's pregnant daughter who I'll be seeing on Christmas Eve.


----------



## editor (Dec 19, 2021)

xenon said:


> this is bizarre stuff. The idea that anyone who’s gone to the pub recently is ignorant, doesn’t read the news or  is reckless.


Suits the Tories' agenda a treat though, and helps them shift the blame to ordinary people doing ordinary things rather than elected twats committing colossal fucks ups with every move.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2021)

Here's the latest No 10 party:








						Boris Johnson and staff pictured with wine in Downing Street garden in May 2020
					

Exclusive: photograph raises fresh questions for No 10 after denial of a social event at time of Covid restrictions




					www.theguardian.com
				




Must admit, I think this one's a bit less of an issue that the Christmas ones with people pissed up till the early hours. But anything that causes johnson a bit more pain and outrage is fine by me.

By the by, have we heard who the whistle blowers are yet? Presume some of them journalists who were at the various parties.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Yes, and if it is milder for some or even many people that presumably increases the number of people who won't realise they have it or will mistake it for a cold. All adding to the R rate and increasing the threat to both the NHS and vulnerable.
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I'd rather get something that is mild and the idea of a 'milder' variant _almost _takes you in the direction of wanting to get it now to get some immunity. Almost, but not really, I know that's a bad idea, not least for my partner's pregnant daughter who I'll be seeing on Christmas Eve.



yep waiting for pcr result and can't quite decide what I'm hoping for. Reasonably mild at the moment but getting out of breath a bit easily. If it's not covid I'm a bit concerned about what else it might be. Hopefully just a coldy type thing.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

Brian May bought into a certain version of safe and making what seemed to him like reasonable judgements, and ended up catching it. Sounds like he regrets it.









						Brian May says he ‘made wrong decision’ after catching Covid-19 at birthday gathering
					

Brian May says he ‘made wrong decision’ after catching Covid-19 at birthday gathering




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

editor said:


> Suits the Tories' agenda a treat though, and helps them shift the blame to ordinary people doing ordinary things rather than elected twats committing colossal fucks ups with every move.


They've never managed to shift that blame though because people blame them anyway. For the bad timing and for sending the wrong signals to the public via shitty contradictory public health messaging and now also via the whole parties stuff, the hypocrisy over not following rules thing.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> Brian May bought into a certain version of safe and making what seemed to him like reasonable judgements, and ended up catching it. Sounds like he regrets it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ah well, another one bites...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 19, 2021)

Honestly feels a bit traumatic remembering how I felt in spring 2020. It was knife edge stuff.









						UK police warned against ‘overreach’ in use of virus lockdown powers
					

Exclusive: policing chiefs seek to set out legal powers forces have in coronavirus lockdown




					www.theguardian.com
				












						UK lockdown saw a spike in police Section 60 searches - with black people impacted the most
					

Ryan Colaço was stop and searched twice in one week, only for police to find nothing - he's one of 20,000 black men who have been victim to it over lockdown




					inews.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> They've never managed to shift that blame though because people blame them anyway.


Sure this wasn't true at first - it took Cummings' eye test to shift opinion on that. Polling throughout spring and early summer 2020 had the public firmly to blame for everything.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Well, we are and we aren't. Being double and triple vaxxed helps a lot and will cut back on  hospitalisations.  But if this wave/variant is as bad as it looks to be (and has such a high R rate), the number of hospitalisations could be just as bad.



About 45% of over 12s are already triple vaxxed so we certainly want hospitalisations to be a lot lower otherwise the vaccine really isn't up to much and we are in trouble


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> Sure this wasn't true at first - it took Cummings' eye test to shift opinion on that. Polling throughout spring and early summer 2020 had the public firmly to blame for everything.


I dont agree at all. Tories still polling ok is not the same as the public being blamed for everything in the pandemic. People consistently worried here about such a blame game, and repeatedly thought they saw signs of the setup happening, but it never came to fruition. But that is slightly different to the question of whether plenty of people were able to also feel charitable towards how much shit the tories & Johnsons should get in for their pandemic handling. A lot of people were probably somewhat ok with things because of furlough etc, perceiving that their own economic interests had been at least partially protected by the extent of the financial measures the tories ended up having to take. Some also let the tories off for the first wave fuckups on the basis that it was a rapidly moving situation which included having to do stuff the government had not imagined previously. Still not the same as blaming the public for what happened.


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

crojoe said:


> About 45% of over 12s are already triple vaxxed so we certainly want hospitalisations to be a lot lower otherwise the vaccine really isn't up to much and we are in trouble


The nature of the numbers involved mean that vaccines can really still be hugely impressive and protect vast numbers of people, but large enough numbers of people could still get sick enough that the health system comes under immense pressure.

Thats why various experts are still nervous about the Omicron wave. Because it has the potential to infect a really large number of people, and then if protection from serious illness from that variant given by vaccines fell from a figure like 95% to a figure more like 80% the resulting numbers would be a big disaster. But they dont know whether those sorts of figures will turn out to be the right ones, and frankly they will only discover the real numbers by seeing the situation unfold for a greater period of time.


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont agree at all. Tories still polling ok is not the same as the public being blamed for everything in the pandemic. People consistently worried here about such a blame game, and repeatedly thought they saw signs of the setup happening, but it never came to fruition. But that is slightly different to the question of whether plenty of people were able to also feel charitable towards how much shit the tories & Johnsons should get in for their pandemic handling. A lot of people were probably somewhat ok with things because of furlough etc, perceiving that their own economic interests had been at least partially protected by the extent of the financial measures the tories ended up having to take. Some also let the tories off for the first wave fuckups on the basis that it was a rapidly moving situation which included having to do stuff the government had not imagined previously. Still not the same as blaming the public for what happened.


I meant the polling about who was to blame for infection rates etc blamed the public not the government - it made pretty depressing reading. I'll see if I can dig out some of the polls later.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Here's the latest No 10 party:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I have seen a number of tweets such as this one explaining why this picture is just as much an issue as the Christmas booze-ups


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> The nature of the numbers involved mean that vaccines can really still be hugely impressive and protect vast numbers of people, but large enough numbers of people could still get sick enough that the health system comes under immense pressure.
> 
> Thats why various experts are still nervous about the Omicron wave. Because it has the potential to infect a really large number of people, and then if protection from serious illness from that variant given by vaccines fell from a figure like 95% to a figure more like 80% the resulting numbers would be a big disaster. But they dont know whether those sorts of figures will turn out to be the right ones, and frankly they will only discover the real numbers by seeing the situation unfold for a greater period of time.


And for those reasons, however weary everyone is, however much people want something like a normal Christmas and to see family, this is yet another crucial moment for some kind of precautionary principle to be applied.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2021)

two sheds said:


> yep waiting for pcr result and can't quite decide what I'm hoping for. Reasonably mild at the moment but getting out of breath a bit easily. If it's not covid I'm a bit concerned about what else it might be. Hopefully just a coldy type thing.


Hope you are feeling better soon, whatever it turns out to be.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2021)

weepiper said:


> I have seen a number of tweets such as this one explaining why this picture is just as much an issue as the Christmas booze-ups



Yeah, it was the same time I buried my Mum, under those funeral restrictions. She'd just died in a care home with staff doing heroics with very basic PPE and I'd only managed to see her through the window.  Told I could go in and see her on the morning she died but I arrived too late.  So yeah, fuck johnson and all the sorry shite of them.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Yeah, it was the same time I buried my Mum, under those funeral restrictions. She'd just died in a care home with staff doing heroics with very basic PPE and I'd only managed to see her through the window.  Told I could go in and see her on the morning she died but I arrived too late.  So yeah, fuck johnson and all the sorry shite of them.


And having gone back to the Guardian story, I can see they were having drinks and pizza in the garden on the very same day she died alone.


----------



## killer b (Dec 19, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont agree at all. Tories still polling ok is not the same as the public being blamed for everything in the pandemic. People consistently worried here about such a blame game, and repeatedly thought they saw signs of the setup happening, but it never came to fruition. But that is slightly different to the question of whether plenty of people were able to also feel charitable towards how much shit the tories & Johnsons should get in for their pandemic handling. A lot of people were probably somewhat ok with things because of furlough etc, perceiving that their own economic interests had been at least partially protected by the extent of the financial measures the tories ended up having to take. Some also let the tories off for the first wave fuckups on the basis that it was a rapidly moving situation which included having to do stuff the government had not imagined previously. Still not the same as blaming the public for what happened.


Here - this is from September last year, as we were firing into the second wave, but there was similar polls showing similar (or worse) numbers throughout


----------



## Wilf (Dec 19, 2021)

Apparently neither johnson nor sunak attended today's Cobra meeting.  





__





						Boris Johnson skips Cobra meeting as decision over Christmas restrictions goes unmade
					





					www.msn.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 19, 2021)

killer b said:


> Here - this is from September last year, as we were firing into the second wave, but there was similar polls showing similar (or worse) numbers throughout



Thanks for the info. Other polls with somewhat different angles are available.





__





						Coronavirus fallout: blame, trust and the future of the UK
					





					www.kcl.ac.uk
				






> The handling of the crisis
> 
> By 42% to 36%, the UK public are more likely to think the pandemic has been handled badly than well.
> 
> There is a big partisan divide in opinion, with 2019 Labour voters (60%) three times more likely than 2019 Conservative voters (21%) to say it has been mismanaged.





> Who gets the blame?
> 
> The following groups are seen as among the three or four most responsible according to those who think the crisis has been handled badly:
> 
> ...





> Those who think the crisis has been handled badly are divided along party lines when it comes to who is most culpable:
> 
> Labour voters are much more likely than Conservative voters to blame the Prime Minister (78% vs 35%), the UK government as a whole (73% vs 58%) and the Conservative party (57% vs 16%).
> 
> By contrast, Conservative voters are much more likely to blame the scientific advisors to the government (32% vs 12%), global health organisations like the WHO (29% vs 8%) and Public Health England (23% vs 5%).





> Who gets the credit?
> 
> The following groups are seen as among the three or four most responsible according to those who think the crisis has been handled well:
> 
> ...


----------



## Calamity1971 (Dec 20, 2021)

Latest rumours apparently leaked to the times that there will be a lockdown day after boxing day. After the horse has bolted again.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2021)

Calamity1971 said:


> Latest rumours apparently leaked to the times that there will be a lockdown day after boxing day. After the horse has bolted again.


Paywalled, but there's a clear sense they feel it's fine to ignore the scientific evidence.  Remember when it was 'we are following the science' in the days when the science wasn't 100% clear and so allowed them the wriggle room to avoid acting? 








						No more Covid restrictions before Christmas, says Boris Johnson
					

Brexit minister explains resignation as cabinet revolt brews




					www.thetimes.co.uk


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Paywalled, but there's a clear sense they feel it's fine to ignore the scientific evidence.  Remember when it was 'we are following the science' in the days when the science wasn't 100% clear and so allowed them the wriggle room to avoid acting?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Let's smash that paywall down, you can read the full article here - archive.ph



> Rishi Sunak is one of at least ten cabinet ministers who are resisting calls by scientific advisers for new coronavirus restrictions to be introduced before Christmas by questioning the accuracy of official modelling.
> ...
> However ten ministers — a third of the cabinet — are resisting and have cast doubt on the accuracy of the modelling, given the limited information available.





> Sunak is understood to want to delay introducing the restrictions until the information becomes clearer. He has also suggested that more models be considered before making a decision that could cost the economy billions.
> Other ministers who have similar concerns include Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the Commons, and Grant Shapps, the transport secretaryy. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, is also said to be “instinctively opposed” to further restrictions. Javid and Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary, are said to be the strongest proponents of further restrictions.





> Johnson is also believed to be reluctant to implement further restrictions before Christmas. “He’s of the view that people are self-policing to an extent and getting boosted in big numbers,” one ally said.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 20, 2021)

England hospital units may close as staff revolt over jab mandate, says NHS leader
					

Vaccination rule comes into force in April but many staff are unwilling to participate, warns NHS Providers chief




					www.theguardian.com
				




Not sure what to think about this - puzzled why NHS staff (including midwives mentioned here) wouldn't want to get vaccinated if they're working with the public.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2021)

two sheds said:


> England hospital units may close as staff revolt over jab mandate, says NHS leader
> 
> 
> Vaccination rule comes into force in April but many staff are unwilling to participate, warns NHS Providers chief
> ...



It's interesting that it's midwives that get mentioned most.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 20, 2021)

Yes - sounds like because there's a real shortage anyway.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's interesting that it's midwives that get mentioned most.



I guess midwives aren't treating people who are dying of covid.


----------



## andysays (Dec 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It's interesting that it's midwives that get mentioned most.


It is, but it's also interesting to me that there appears to have been little or no thought given to what would happen when/if significant numbers of NHS staff declined or flat out refused to be vaccinated



> The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) impact assessment of its policy found that as many as 126,000 unvaccinated staff could lose their job when the rule comes into force on 1 April.





> The House of Lords has raised concerns about the policy. Its secondary legislation scrutiny committee has warned that the DHSC’s definition of “face-to-face” is too vague, that it had no obvious contingency plans to “cope with expected staff losses” and that the potential loss of unvaccinated staff was “likely to be particularly acute” in London.



It's obviously important that as many NHS staff as possible are vaccinated, but simply mandating it in this way doesn't guarantee that everyone will comply, and now the potential consequences are becoming unavoidable.


----------



## kalidarkone (Dec 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, there is a little part of me that thinks fuck it, let's just let it go now and have it, it all feels so close to being out of control anyway. (Don't bother telling me about XYZ of why this is a bad idea, I know why.)


I feel the same!
Also every day I'm working there is an inpatient (as opposed to day patient) that comes with a negative lft,  has a pcr - because they are staying in- and it comes back positive. The day case patients only require a negative lft and do not do a pcr. Statistically  there will be a few amongst the day case patients who will be positive for covid and won't know. Who are sitting in the waiting room and spend time without a mask....in recovery.
So I now double mask.
I'm back to meeting people outdoors only.

I think I've decided that social events can only safely happen in spring, summer and perhaps autumn. 🤔


----------



## tommers (Dec 20, 2021)

Calamity1971 said:


> Latest rumours apparently leaked to the times that there will be a lockdown day after boxing day. After the horse has bolted again.





tommers said:


> Immediately afterwards. Like 27th December.



What an absolute bunch of jokers.


----------



## magneze (Dec 20, 2021)

Just checked my local area. 2,200 per 100,000 😱 crazy figures, off the scale. Most of London dark red now. Of course this is the week it normally empties out as people travel to see family.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 20, 2021)

Is anyone else a bit fed up with the constant photos of Downing Street staff within spitting distance of each other during lockdown? You know they're being leaked by even bigger cunts than Johnson so even bigger cunts than him can take control of the country. Worse, they're knowingly undermining the already really shit public health messaging that's already in place for the sole purpose of playing out their shitty libertarian game of thrones wank fantasies. 

I'm sure it's less true here but why anyone is shocked that cunts like Johnson don't follow the rules they set for everyone else is beyond me. It's not like there's landfills of evidence throughout history that these pricks play by their own set of rules and don't give two shits about the people they rule over.


----------



## magneze (Dec 20, 2021)

Nope. Keep them coming. Keep humiliating the bastards.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

We are 'only' on 750 cases per 100k, but like last year I am seeing the deep purple colour on the map heading towards us, this time from London via Surrey & west Kent, rather than from north Kent & via East Sussex.

University Hospitals Sussex (Brighton, Chichester, Haywards Heath & Worthing) now have more covid patients in than during the first wave, but only 40% of the second wave peak in Jan. so far, however it's creeping up daily.


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2021)

We're at 1464:100k in my borough at the moment, some of the numbers at ward level are pretty scary. Low vaccination rates. 🤷‍♀️


----------



## two sheds (Dec 20, 2021)

Bloody hell the 800+ areas have really grown in London and surrounds. 



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases


----------



## chilango (Dec 20, 2021)

Not London. Heres the latest on my street.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 20, 2021)

The government is set on merely waffling until Christmas. So far we've had 'we have no plans to do anything stronger', now we're on 'We can't guarantee we won't have to do anything', next comes 'Wellll, we'll probably have to do something', without actually doing anything.  Followed by a too little too late something after 26th but hey,  they Saved Christmas through prevarication.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 20, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Bloody hell the 800+ areas have really grown in London and surrounds.
> 
> 
> 
> https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases


Cases up 30% where I live. However, if I cross the road (I’m right on a boundary) it’s down 20%.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

Cloo said:


> The government is set on merely waffling until Christmas. So far we've had 'we have no plans to do anything stronger', now we're on 'We can't guarantee we won't have to do anything', next comes 'Wellll, we'll probably have to do something', without actually doing anything.  Followed by a too little too late something after 26th but hey,  they Saved Christmas through prevarication.



It's like a script from 'Yes, Prime Minister'. 

Actually it is...


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> Cases up 30% where I live. However, if I cross the road (I’m right on a boundary) it’s down 20%.


We're up 195%...


----------



## magneze (Dec 20, 2021)

288% 😭


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 20, 2021)

How's hospital capacity and ventilation etc? That's what they work with isn't it, not disruption?


----------



## teuchter (Dec 20, 2021)

wtfftw said:


> How's hospital capacity and ventilation etc? That's what they work with isn't it, not disruption?


My local area (in south London) is at about 1600 per 100,000.

If I look at my local NHS trust, there is no dramatic rise in admissions. However the data only goes up to about a week ago. There is a bit of a rise visible in the London region NHS data, and that goes up to the 15th at this point.

I was supposed to have a hospital consultant appointment last week but they cancelled it at the last moment due to "the crisis we are currently dealing with". Not sure if that means a rise in admissions that's not yet visible in the published numbers, a projection for what's about to happen, or numbers of staff off sick. Possibly a mix of all of those.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

Staffing issues in both the NHS & schools are already becoming a big problem.



> Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme on Saturday that Covid cases in London hospitals are around 1,500 - up 30 per cent in a week, compared to a national average of four per cent.
> 
> But he added: “It’s not just the increase in Covid caseload that's a problem, it's also the fact that we've got staff absences going up.
> 
> "So if you look at London, NHS staff absences, they're up 140 per cent, from 1,900 on Sunday to 4,700 on Thursday, so it's gone up very dramatically, very quickly.”











						Increasing concern as number of London NHS staff off sick doubles in a week
					

Pressure on health service only set to get worse, as figures show a third of workers yet to have Covid booster vaccine




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				




Nadhim Zahawi begs former teachers to come forward to help.



> Those who are recently retired, or trained as a teacher and moved career, are asked to consider whether they can find even a day a week for the spring term to help protect face-to-face education.
> 
> Targeted communications will begin to go out from today across a range of government, stakeholder and direct channels to encourage those eligible to apply.
> 
> The Government is providing social media and communications support to schools and colleges, trusts, local authorities, teaching unions, supply teacher agencies, and sector organisations such as Teach First to help them engage with their networks and contact databases to reach those who are most likely to be able to answer the Education Secretary’s call.







__





						Education secretary asks ex-teachers to help fill supply gaps as Omicron cases rise - Politics.co.uk
					

The Government is asking former teachers who have the skills and time to sign up to return to teaching form today. The Omicron variant is expected to continue to cause increased staff absence levels in the spring term, and some local areas may struggle to find sufficient numbers of supply...




					www.politics.co.uk


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 20, 2021)

For all the pieces criticising this government let's be clear what the opposition is demanding


> 'Inaction no longer an option' - Labour calls for further measures for England after Christmas​In her interview on the Today programme this morning *Rachel Reeves*, the shadow chancellor, implied that Labour does not favour the introduction of further Covid measures before Christmas.
> Asked if Labour favoured restrictions for England for Christmas day, she replied:
> 
> 
> ...


So no actual policy difference from the government. 
(And the bolded line is Guardian bollocks, Sage made it quite clear that measures need to be introduced as early as possible to be most effective)


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I guess midwives aren't treating people who are dying of covid.



Yeah, they also often tend to work slightly more autonomously and have more power as workers - excepting the hospital based ones, although even then there's obvious differences between maternity departments and rest of the hospital. There's also a different and arguably more radical (ancient and more recent) history to the profession. Probably something in there about it attracting more 'alternative' types than other areas of health care as well; anecdata wise all the midwives I know (4 of them) are all vague hippie types into alternative health.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 20, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I guess midwives aren't treating people who are dying of covid.


The HCP who jagged my arm for the booster was actually a recently qualified midwife.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

It's confirmed Johnson is chairing a emergency covid cabinet meeting at 2pm, the cabinet does not normally meet on a Mondays.

It wouldn't surprise me if there's a press conference and/or recall of parliament announcement later today.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 20, 2021)

probably just because we all found out he missed the last one


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 20, 2021)

Cabinet agree to ask people to be careful how many parties they got to and to get boosted.


----------



## stdP (Dec 20, 2021)

Turkeys must be cooked in full PPE
Conga lines to be limited to no more than four households
Everyone must use their own coke straw, sharing forbidden
Chateau Lafite '52 to be classified as an essential worker
Community outreach program to knit life-sized nurses to fill vacant staffing positions
The cabinet to go on a national morale-boosting tour of Covid-stricken Michelin-star restaurants
Only mistletoe with two jabs and a booster shot to be allowed for snogging under


----------



## Chilli.s (Dec 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's confirmed Johnson is chairing a emergency covid cabinet meeting at 2pm, the cabinet does not normally meet on a Mondays.


He wants to get work out of the way quickly so as not to intrude on the holidays


----------



## existentialist (Dec 20, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> The HCP who jagged my arm for the booster was actually a recently qualified midwife.


#notallmidwives


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's confirmed Johnson is chairing a emergency covid cabinet meeting at 2pm, the cabinet does not normally meet on a Mondays.



it's actually a staff drinks


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2021)

Waiting for the cabinet to act is the political version of getting a teenager to tidy their room.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I was supposed to have a hospital consultant appointment last week but they cancelled it at the last moment due to "the crisis we are currently dealing with". Not sure if that means a rise in admissions that's not yet visible in the published numbers, a projection for what's about to happen, or numbers of staff off sick. Possibly a mix of all of those.



Most likely it was due to management decisions from on high - NHS went into highest state of alert, enabling more decisions to be made centrally, and a rapid recalibration of priorities, focus and capacity was ordered.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 20, 2021)

Covid in Scotland: ScotRail cancels 118 services as virus spikes
					

Positive cases and self-isolation are having an increasing impact on trains and other public services.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Noticing a few 'closed due to staff shortages/illness' signs on the small shops around here.


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 20, 2021)

For me, when sport fixtures start to be pulled due to covid it’s usually time for another lockdown


----------



## baldrick (Dec 20, 2021)

chilango said:


> Not London. Heres the latest on my street.
> 
> View attachment 301896


Scary. It is very interesting round my way actually - very poor but actually one of the lower case rates in Brum (firmly in the 100-199 category) but Sutton Coldfield/Little Aston/Four Oaks looking really bad, as is Hagley and Bromsgrove which are all very definitely the other end of the socioeconomic scale. Is it age profile maybe? Lots of young people where I am and relatively few vaccinated (54% 1st dose).


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 20, 2021)

baldrick said:


> Scary. It is very interesting round my way actually - very poor but actually one of the lower case rates in Brum (firmly in the 100-199 category) but Sutton Coldfield/Little Aston/Four Oaks looking really bad, as is Hagley and Bromsgrove which are all very definitely the other end of the socioeconomic scale. Is it age profile maybe? Lots of young people where I am and relatively few vaccinated (54% 1st dose).



To be honest, after all this time I think a lot of the variation by area is just luck, or maybe natural fluctuation. Some areas have been persistently high I think so there are some factors there that can be analysed but when you're just looking at a snapshot, it could all change round in a week.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

Triggle has been wheeled out to say the same stuff yet again:









						Omicron: Would tougher measures really be worth it?
					

Omicron is expected to cause a surge in infections. Should more be done to suppress it?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Clearly they are going to come out with similar stuff eery time, and when wrong it will quietly be forgotten, no matter how many deaths that entails. If/when they eventually manage to have these lines somewhat mirror the reality that emerges, you can bet we will never hear the end of it. If that happens I expect some people will take a pop at me here for being too cautious. Hopefully should that happen I will be too busy celebrating the end of the acute phase of the pandemic to care.


----------



## baldrick (Dec 20, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> To be honest, after all this time I think a lot of the variation by area is just luck, or maybe natural fluctuation. Some areas have been persistently high I think so there are some factors there that can be analysed but when you're just looking at a snapshot, it could all change round in a week.


Yeah I dunno really, I'm wondering if people just aren't bothering with testing round here tbh.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 20, 2021)

magneze said:


> Nope. Keep them coming. Keep humiliating the bastards.


I can't really argue with that. I'd be happier about it though if we weren't in the middle of an absolute shit show of a public health crisis and there weren't low tax, austerity loving shit cunts waiting in the wings.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

baldrick said:


> Yeah I dunno really, I'm wondering if people just aren't bothering with testing round here tbh.



A danger when people use local rates to get some sense of their own risk, is that the data is out of date by the time people look at it.

I have for example made comments about various regions where Omicron was not showing up in hospital data yet, or not showing up in positive case data. That doesnt mean I think there isnt much Omicron in those areas yet, just that its effects havent shown up via dramatic changes to the data in those places yet.


----------



## baldrick (Dec 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> A danger when people use local rates to get some sense of their own risk, is that the data is out of date by the time people look at it.
> 
> I have for example made comments about various regions where Omicron was not showing up in hospital data yet, or not showing up in positive case data. That doesnt mean I think there isnt much Omicron in those areas yet, just that its effects havent shown up via dramatic changes to the data in those places yet.


You're right that the data is not necessarily to be relied on. But with the local reluctance to get jabbed plus the bizarrely low case rate currently I'm just wondering whether rather than it seeming at odds at my first glance it actually indicates a coherent picture of lack of engagement with health services/covid messaging. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

baldrick said:


> You're right that the data is not necessarily to be relied on. But with the local reluctance to get jabbed plus the bizarrely low case rate currently I'm just wondering whether rather than it seeming at odds at my first glance it actually indicates a coherent picture of lack of engagement with health services/covid messaging. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks.



Factors do include attitudes towards testing, and how badly an area was hit in previous waves, especially recent waves.

Some data is available that looks at case rates by socioeconomic status. And the picture shown by such data has changed at different moments of the pandemic. There are stories to be told there, for example there have been times where foreign holidays, skiing holidays, restaurants and dinner parties and university education have meant that some of the richer areas have had the big rises first. At other times 'who can actually work from home' has led to the opposite picture.

Attitudes towards testing and the financial implications of testing positive, and uneven access to testing, are some of the reasons I wish that sewage/wastewater covid analysis data was published routinely in England.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 20, 2021)

Desperate calls for retired teachers are being made now. 

I'm sure those retired teachers will be chomping at the bit to come back to unventilated classrooms full of disease ridden kids.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 20, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Desperate calls for retired teachers are being made now.
> 
> I'm sure those retired teachers will be chomping at the bit to come back to unventilated classrooms full of disease ridden kids.


Via supply agencies that managements can't afford.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 20, 2021)

It's a sort of lockdown from below, all these people calling in sick and forcing museums to close, football matches to be abandoned.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

Flavour said:


> It's a sort of lockdown from below, all these people calling in sick and forcing museums to close, football matches to be abandoned.



Yes and this has happened every time. Most famously during the first peak of the Delta wave due to the press becoming fixated by 'the pingdemic', but on the other occasions too.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2021)

It's gone mental hasn't it? It cant just be my family. People I know with Covid positive via PCR right now.

Granddaughter (and her brother and mum had it 2 weeks ago)
2 Nieces
2 sisters-in-law
Ex-partner of my partner's sister
2 daughters of a friend nearby
Best friend's partner.

I really don't know that many people as family or friends. 9 in one week suggests the vaccines aren't offering anything like the 60% protection claimed before omicron.


----------



## Flavour (Dec 20, 2021)

where are these people located planetgeli ?


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2021)

Flavour said:


> where are these people located planetgeli ?



All in London apart from one in Brighton and 2 in Barcelona.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

Pre-Omicron estimates of protection against symptomatic infection were higher than 60%. But they do vary, here is just one example:



> The relative VE estimate in the 14 days after the BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer-BioNTech) booster dose, compared to individuals that received a two-dose primary course, was 87.4 (95% confidence interval 84.9-89.4) in those individuals who received two doses ChAdOx1-S (Vaxzevria, AstraZeneca) as a primary course and 84.4 (95% confidence interval 82.8-85.8) in those individuals who received two doses of BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer-BioNTech) as a primary course. Using the 2-6 day period post the booster dose as the baseline gave similar results. The absolute VE from 14 days after the booster, using the unvaccinated baseline, was 93.1(95% confidence interval 91.7-94.3) in those with ChAdOx1-S (Vaxzevria, AstraZeneca) as their primary course and 94.0 (93.4-94.6) for BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer-BioNTech) as their primary course.







__





						Effectiveness of BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer-BioNTech) COVID-19 booster vaccine against covid-19 related symptoms in England: test negative case-control study
					

Background In September 2021, the UK Government introduced a booster programme targeting individuals over 50 and those in a clinical risk group. Individuals were offered either a full dose of the BNT162b2 (Comirnaty, Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine or a half dose of the mRNA-1273 (Spikevax, Moderna)...




					www.medrxiv.org
				




Even larger claims were made pre-Delta, pre-waning. How accurate the estimates actually were I cannot say.

Still early days for the Omicron estimates but numbers like the following have floated around so far:



> Depending on the estimates used for vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection from the Delta variant, this translates into vaccine effectiveness estimates against symptomatic Omicron infection of between 0% and 20% after two doses, and between 55% and 80% after a booster dose. Similar estimates were obtained using genotype data, albeit with greater uncertainty.











						Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

The Omicron variant largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses according to the latest Imperial modelling.




					www.imperial.ac.uk
				




Crucial unknowns include what Omicron will do when it comes to older people.


----------



## nagapie (Dec 20, 2021)

Most people in London didn't have time to get boosters before Omicron hit. Maybe the rest of the country will fare better.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

nagapie said:


> Most people in London didn't have time to get boosters before Omicron hit. Maybe the rest of the country will fare better.



Natural immunity levels may also have waned more in London because the simplified picture we tend to have is that London got hammered more in the first wave and the second wave than the third (Delta) wave. And those first couple of waves tended to be sharper and end more rapidly in London than in some other regions. At the opposite end of the spectrum we have the North East which had a notably large Delta wave, and which is so far taking longer to show big increases in the numbers again now.


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 20, 2021)

My eldest (35) had a positive LFT on Saturday when she had started to feel rough, PCR at a drive-through yesterday morning and that was confirmed positive this morning. No notification whether it’s omicron.
She has apparently told other family that she will do a daily LFT and can end isolation when it’s negative. I can’t find anything on the gov website to confirm?


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

20Bees said:


> My eldest (35) had a positive LFT on Saturday when she had started to feel rough, PCR at a drive-through yesterday morning and that was confirmed positive this morning. No notification whether it’s omicron.
> She has apparently told other family that she will do a daily LFT and can end isolation when it’s negative. I can’t find anything on the gov website to confirm?



They havent changed self-isolation rules for people who test positive, so unless I've got confused she is just plain wrong about that.

The authorities may reduce the length of self isolation for positive cases, eg down from 10 days to 7, if they think they have to due to insane pressure on essential systems due to staff shortages. This is being rumoured in the press, but hasnt happened yet. If it happens then it is possible that they might use additional testing as part of the change.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

The rules:



> If you are notified by NHS Test and Trace of a positive test result you must complete your full isolation period. Your isolation period starts immediately from when your symptoms started, or, if you do not have any symptoms, from when your test was taken. Your isolation period includes the day your symptoms started (or the day your test was taken if you do not have symptoms), and the next 10 full days. This means that if, for example, your symptoms started at any time on the 15th of the month (or if you did not have symptoms but your first positive COVID-19 test was taken on the 15th), your isolation period ends at 23:59hrs on the 25th.











						Stay at home: guidance for households with possible or confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) infection
					






					www.gov.uk
				




Those rules havent changed for ages. Rules that have changed several times in recent months are for contacts of positive cases, including household contacts, not the positive cases themselves. Those are discussed on the same page but I'm not quoting them as they are not applicable to this case.


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> They havent changed self-isolation rules for people who test positive, so unless I've got confused she is just plain wrong about that.
> 
> The authorities may reduce the length of self isolation for positive cases, eg down from 10 days to 7, if they think they have to due to insane pressure on essential systems due to staff shortages. This is being rumoured in the press, but hasnt happened yet. If it happens then it is possible that they might use additional testing as part of the change.





elbows said:


> The rules:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you - I rather suspected she was making up her own rules


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 20, 2021)

In England, if you do the PCR test within 2 days of a positive rapid lateral flow test at a test site and your PCR test is negative, you can stop self-isolating.


----------



## magneze (Dec 20, 2021)

> From 21 December 2021, an additional category will be added to the cases map to show 7-day rates of newly reported cases that are greater than 1,600 per 100,000 people.


Yeah, it's now so bad the extra category they added needs another one adding ...


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

Does the vaccine actually reduce your chances of catching it ? Sorry such a basic question but everyone I know who has covid now is double / triple jabbed.


----------



## magneze (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Does the vaccine actually reduce your chances of catching it ? Sorry such a basic question but everyone I know who has covid now is double / triple jabbed.


I believe so - trouble is that it's not 100% and with the figures being what they are, shit loads of vaccinated people will catch it. The key point though is severity of disease - very few vaccinated people get severely ill.


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Does the vaccine actually reduce your chances of catching it ? Sorry such a basic question but everyone I know who has covid now is double / triple jabbed.


It defines how you define "catching it"
No vaccine is going to prevent virus particles going up your nose and getting started while your immune system gets its act together.

It's belt and braces to reduce the chance of moderate to serious disease ...
Personally I don't want to give it any chance.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

Oh I know it’s about severity. The idea (as per the info sheet I was given after jab yesterday) that it will ‘prevent infection’ seems inaccurate though. Maybe it should be rewritten.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Does the vaccine actually reduce your chances of catching it ? Sorry such a basic question but everyone I know who has covid now is double / triple jabbed.


It reduces the chances but not to anything even remotely close to no chance. And less reduction of infection risk with Delta than what went before, and less with Omicron than with Delta, and less after the passing of time. Boosters restore some degree of protection but not to sufficient levels that vaccine-breakthrough infections could be considered rare, especially not when faced with Omicron. As you have seen for yourself, they are common.

If they were uncommon then the original summer relaxing plan would have been a better fit for the Delta variant than was actually the case. And authorities would not be busy shitting themselves about Omicron.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Oh I know it’s about severity. The idea (as per the info sheet I was given after Jan yesterday) that it will ‘prevent infection’ seems inaccurate.


Its about both, because if far less transmission and infection happened in this mass vaccination era then there would be less of the virus around for those who are susceptible to severe illness to catch.


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 20, 2021)

Here's a key player on the FDA committee whose advice was ignored and the CDC - just like in the UK - went on to offer  "boosters for all" - his opinion is that the avoidance of light to moderate disease in younger people is far less important than getting the world vaccinated...


----------



## andysays (Dec 20, 2021)

And because vaccines only reduce the dangers (of catching it, of being seriously affected by it, of passing it on), a sensible policy would have involved ensuring that other measures like mask wearing and social distancing were kept in place rather than being discarded.

Even now, the idea that Omicron won't really be a threat because most people are (supposedly) vaccinated seems to be commonplace.


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2021)

Sue said:


> We're up 195%...


Sorry, make that 221%.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Its about both, because if far less transmission and infection happened in this mass vaccination era then there would be less of the virus around for those who are susceptible to severe illness to catch.


Does it though is there far less transmission? Just doesn’t seem that way right now, at least in my little circle.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 20, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> Here's a key player on the FDA committee whose advice was ignored and the CDC went on to offer  "boosters for all" - his opinion is that the avoidance of light to moderate disease in younger people is far less important than getting the world vaccinated...




Interestingly I've seen a similar argument used against vaccinations in Africa - frontline African medical staff asking why they should direct their precious resources at jabbing mostly young adults against COVID when they'd rather concentrate on e.g. vaccinating children against measles.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Desperate calls for retired teachers are being made now.
> 
> I'm sure those retired teachers will be chomping at the bit to come back to unventilated classrooms full of disease ridden kids.


Yes, what could _possibly _go wrong?  It's almost funny.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Does it though is there far less transmission? Just doesn’t seem that way right now !


Estimates are only estimates.

But to illustrate the point properly I would have to be able to show you two worlds, one with current levels of vaccination and one with no vaccination, and then chuck in Omicron.

Omicron is ridiculously transmissible compared to the strain of virus we first faced. But if it had been around at the start then we had very little testing capacity so the number of positives wouldnt have properly reflected the absolute shitshow that would have resulted. Hospitalisations and deaths would have, but then past a certain point everyone would have hid, even without formal lockdown, reducing the numbers.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

magneze said:


> Yeah, it's now so bad the extra category they added needs another one adding ...



It's coming.



> From 21 December 2021, an additional category will be added to the cases map to show 7-day rates of newly reported cases that are greater than 1,600 per 100,000 people.


----------



## magneze (Dec 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It's coming.


I know? That's why my post already had that information in it.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Does it though is there far less transmission? Just doesn’t seem that way right now, at least in my little circle.



Bit unclear what you're asking? What is it that people in your circle think?


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 20, 2021)

reduces chance of catching, reduces risk of transmission, reduces risk of being seriously ill. it's not very hard.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

magneze said:


> I know? That's why my post already had that information in it.



OK. sorry, your post wasn't clear by saying 'extra category they added', which implied the last one, not the one they are adding tomorrow.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Bit unclear what you're asking? What is it that people in your circle think?


It’s just, so many people I know or friends know have covid right now and all of those people have been vaccinated some twice some 3 times. That’s all, it seems to prevent severe disease but not infection. If it reduces chances of infection it seems it’s not by a significant amount.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> It’s just, so many people I know or friends know have covid right now and all of those people have been vaccinated some twice some 3 times. That’s all, it seems to prevent severe disease but not infection. If it reduces chances of infection it seems it’s not by a significant amount.


Protection against Omicron infection after 2 doses that have wained is expected to be really quite poor, and it depends which vaccines they had too. Early estimates for the effect of boosters will get firmer as more real world data accrues.  Early estimates may have overstated the level of protection, time will tell.

Even if it offers 80% protection thats still a lot of people who will catch it. And if its more like 50% or well below 50% then thats absolutely shitloads of people.

If we hadnt settled on language such as 'new variants' then Omicron would be routinely described as an escape mutant by now. It is escaping a lot of the protection our authorities were relying on in order to ask vaccines to carry the vast bulk of the pandemic burden.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Oh I know it’s about severity. The idea (as per the info sheet I was given after jab yesterday) that it will ‘prevent infection’ seems inaccurate though. Maybe it should be rewritten.
> View attachment 301965


It doesn't say "prevent infection" there. That text says "preventing COVID-19". These are two different, distinct states: you can get infected, you might then go on to develop the disease COVID-19.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

Plus preventing isnt the same as claiming to prevent all.

Seatbelts reduce road deaths, they prevent some deaths, they dont prevent all road deaths.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> It’s just, so many people I know or friends know have covid right now and all of those people have been vaccinated some twice some 3 times. That’s all, it seems to prevent severe disease but not infection. If it reduces chances of infection it seems it’s not by a significant amount.


From what I've read, however confident you were feeling with 2 jabs Vs Delta is about where you should be feeling with 3 jabs Vs Omicron.  At least defined by levels of protection in the person- not of course Vs the amount of virus floating round society, which is probably higher at the moment. 

No doubt all of the above is wither wrong, unproven or based on small studies, but it'll do for me.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

Wilf said:


> From what I've read, however confident you were feeling with 2 jabs Vs Delta is about where you should be feeling with 3 jabs Vs Omicron.  At least defined by levels of protection in the person- not of course Vs the amount of virus floating round society, which is probably higher at the moment.
> 
> No doubt all of the above is wither wrong, unproven or based on small studies, but it'll do for me.


I'd slightly modify that to "2 jabs vs Delta after quite some time for waning to set in". So not the same confidence as when at the peak of 2 dose protection against Delta. Plus authorities probably tended to overplay the power of vaccines against Delta in the first place. And as you indicate this early estimate could yet end up quite wide of the mark.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'd slightly modify that to "2 jabs vs Delta after quite some time for waning to set in". So not the same confidence as when at the peak of 2 dose protection. And as you indicate this early estimate could yet end up quite wide of the mark.


And of course whilst it's useful to think about individual risk, it's better to think about issues of _public health._ Ideally, it would be good if the government could manage to think in those terms as well.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

Also it still does my head in that there is a conflict between messages in the press, often from hospital workers, and the data we get to see.

Its really very understandable that the emphasis was on the benefit of vaccines, and trying to encourage people to get them, and not to create defeatism about the effectiveness of vaccines. But this has led to a situation where hospital workers keep describing a situation where most of the people they are seeing seriously ill in hospital are unvaccinated. But the data I keep posting tells a different, more nuanced story. The data I can see is not the whole picture either, but I still think there have been some counterproductive impressions created by this simplistic messaging.

I'm not going to post any tables from the data I am on about yet again, I've done so way too often already,  but the sort of thing I mean is on pages 36-38 of this document. The press hardly ever talk about it, and when they do they will mostly use versions of the data that over the population rates rather than the absoute number of patients and deaths.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1041593/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-50.pdf


----------



## andysays (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> It’s just, so many people I know or friends know have covid right now and all of those people have been vaccinated some twice some 3 times. That’s all, it seems to prevent severe disease but not infection. If it reduces chances of infection it seems it’s not by a significant amount.


It reduces the chances of infection compared to what they would have been without vaccination, but not to zero, so if people who have been vaccinated continue to mix with people who may have it while not taking other measures, it's not surprising that significant numbers are still catching and spreading it.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

2hats said:


> It doesn't say "prevent infection" there. That text says "preventing COVID-19". These are two different, distinct states: you can get infected, you might then go on to develop the disease COVID-19.



This gets lost because the media tends to only bang on about COVID-19, which as you say is the disease, caused by the SARS-CoV 2 virus.

You can get SARS-CoV2 without developing COVID-19, see also HIV and AIDS.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

Not sure its even that simple. Clinical criteria for Covid-19 involves certain symptoms, but confirmed cases require the person to meet the laboratory criterion, and that only means a positive test result. So I dont really see how anybody testing positive for Covid-19 would be considered to be anything other than a Covid-19 case.

However when it comes to descriptions of vaccine effectiveness, they are careful to use 'protection against symptomatic disease' as one of the categories (as opposed to another category which is protection against infection and transmission). And its the protection against symptomatic disease estimates that get much of the focus and tend to arrive much earlier than other estimates.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

2hats said:


> It doesn't say "prevent infection" there. That text says "preventing COVID-19". These are two different, distinct states: you can get infected, you might then go on to develop the disease COVID-19.


If you test positive does that mean you have the disease though not just the infection?


----------



## andysays (Dec 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Plus preventing isnt the same as claiming to prevent all.
> 
> Seatbelts reduce road deaths, they prevent some deaths, they dont prevent all road deaths.


And very few people would seriously suggest that because most people now wear seat belts, no other measures are needed and drivers should be able to drive at whatever speed they fancy.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 20, 2021)

From BBC feed - no new measures 


> Boris Johnson has just been speaking after this afternoon's cabinet meeting.
> 
> He says ministers agree the current situation is "extremely difficult".
> 
> ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Not sure its even that simple. Clinical criteria for Covid-19 involves certain symptoms, but confirmed cases require the person to meet the laboratory criterion, and that only means a positive test result. So I dont really see how anybody testing positive for Covid-19 would be considered to be anything other than a Covid-19 case.



Lots of asymptomatic cases are picked-up by LFTs in particular, and are counted as cases.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 20, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> From BBC feed - no new measures



We won't hesitate. However we will wait for a bit before not hesitating.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> From BBC feed - no new measures


The famous Chuckle Brothers sketch with horses and stable doors.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

We won't hesitate. Waffle, waffle & more waffle [translation, we are hesitating]


----------



## clicker (Dec 20, 2021)

Do escape mutants get cleverer each time, as in they have higher transmission rates etc...what happens if the next escape mutant occurs really soon? Also what if it happens while we're still trying to get people boosted? Won't it just catch up and we'll always be playing catch up with vaccines?

Short version = how does it end?


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 20, 2021)

Seems like they haven’t agreed on any measures yet, just not to have any yet:


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> We won't hesitate. However we will wait for a bit before not hesitating.


WE shall not hesitate to not attend Cobra meetings.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> If you test positive does that mean you have the disease though not just the infection?



Mean/matter to who? Like daily figures and stats, or you yourself? 

Sorry for simple link Germs: Protect against bacteria, viruses and infection

Understanding infection vs. disease​There's a difference between infection and disease. Infection, often the first step, occurs when bacteria, viruses or other microbes that cause disease enter your body and begin to multiply. Disease occurs when the cells in your body are damaged — as a result of the infection — and signs and symptoms of an illness appear.

In response to infection, your immune system springs into action. An army of white blood cells, antibodies and other mechanisms goes to work to rid your body of whatever is causing the infection. For instance, in fighting off the common cold, your body might react with fever, coughing and sneezing.


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2021)

clicker said:


> Do escape mutants get cleverer each time,



No. Not necessarily. We aren't doomed and I believe the average length of a pandemic is 3-4 years.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 20, 2021)

Is any UK political party calling for a lockdown before Xmas?

Labour's position (if you can call it that) appears to be further restrictions post-Xmas
SNP is requesting people reduced contacts but I've not seen a call for a lockdown.
No idea about the LDs - empty as usual EDIT: turns out they are calling for a better shielding policy for the clinically extremely vulnerable but have nothing else   

Lots of stuff about Johnson but this is a failure of politicians in general


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Mean/matter to who? Like daily figures and stats, or you yourself?
> 
> Sorry for simple link Germs: Protect against bacteria, viruses and infection
> 
> ...


i was asking whether testing +tive means you have the disease (or do tests pick up just infection?) because of this post:


2hats said:


> It doesn't say "prevent infection" there. That text says "preventing COVID-19". These are two different, distinct states: you can get infected, you might then go on to develop the disease COVID-19.


tbh i don't think it necessarily matters much. i know i'm less likely to get seriously ill now i'm all jabbed up but certainly don't feel like i'm in any significant way protected from catching or spreading the virus.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

I always tend to look at positive cases by specimen date rather than reporting date.

For December 15th the number of positives by specimen date for the UK has now reached 102,297.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> i was asking whether testing +tive means you have the disease (or do tests pick up just infection?)


Antigen and PCR tests indicate infection and that is all. PCR doesn't necessarily translate to 'can transmit infectious virus' (that depends on viral load which isn't necessarily the same as copies of viral RNA measured by PCR; it will vary with immunocompetence, vaccination status and antigenic exposure history). Disease is measured through evaluation and diagnosis of symptoms.


----------



## Yossarian (Dec 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> I always tend to look at positive cases by specimen date rather than reporting date.
> 
> For December 15th the number of positives by specimen date for the UK has now reached 102,297.



Are they still excluding reinfections from the dashboard figures?


----------



## oryx (Dec 20, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> From BBC feed - no new measures


Translated: 'we're a bunch of populist libertarian loons who don't want to stand accused of cancelling Christmas'.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2021)

So they're doing nothing then.

Merry christmas, to everyone who lives that long.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> Are they still excluding reinfections from the dashboard figures?


The case definition remains as this:



> Cases definition





> COVID-19 cases are identified by taking specimens from people and testing them for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. If the test is positive this is referred to as a case. Some positive rapid lateral flow test results are confirmed with lab-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests taken within 72 hours. If the PCR test results are negative, these are no longer reported as confirmed cases. If a person has more than one positive test, they are only counted as one case for all nations with the exception of Wales. Cases data includes all positive lab-confirmed polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test results plus, in England, positive rapid lateral flow tests that are not followed by a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours.



Wales is the exception, where they use this method:



> Confirmed cases for Wales are calculated using six-week episode periods, with individuals who are tested multiple times in that period only being counted once. Any tests that occur more than six weeks after the initial test will trigger a new testing period.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 20, 2021)

oryx said:


> Translated: 'we're a bunch of populist libertarian loons who don't want to stand accused of cancelling Christmas'.


As truly terrible as that is I'm not sure if it is not slightly better than Labours "We know mitigation measures are needed to deal with Omicron, but we are too cowardly to implement a policy a that will save lives in case we are accused of cancelling Xmas, so we will do a performative gesture after people from different ages groups have traveled around the country and mixed".


----------



## andysays (Dec 20, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> So they're doing nothing then.
> 
> Merry christmas, to everyone who lives that long.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

“We will not hesitate to act” lol.


----------



## LDC (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> i was asking whether testing +tive means you have the disease (or do tests pick up just infection?) because of this post:
> 
> tbh i don't think it necessarily matters much. i know i'm less likely to get seriously ill now i'm all jabbed up but certainly don't feel like i'm in any significant way protected from catching or spreading the virus.



Thought that post explained it - the difference between testing positive for the virus, and having the disease?

You could have the virus asymptomatically and never develop the disease for example. As someone has mentioned you can 'have' HIV and not AIDS. And now you can also 'have' HIV asymtomatically and also not pass it on or develop AIDS or any symptoms, so it is a bit more complicated.

(Although it could get quite meta and brain hurting talking about cellular damage or some more complex thing about what disease is and isn't. kabbes mentioned something about this on another post, and I would bet lots of our understanding about this will change in the next 50 years or so.)


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2021)

You could almost feel sorry for Johnson trying to get some basic level of sanity past his cabinet of fuckwits. At least until you remember that he appointed them all in the first place, precisely because they were all too inept to ever challenge him.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Thought that post explained it - the difference between testing positive for the virus, and having the disease?
> 
> You could have the virus asymptomatically and never develop the disease for example.


Ok. I’m sad that all these double & triple jabbed people are feeling unwell right now, had hoped to feel much better protected against infection & against being a vector than I do. It’s disappointing is all. My little Xmas day plans are screwed cos of everyone else isolating with covid despite being vaccinated  : (


----------



## weepiper (Dec 20, 2021)

My colleague told me today about a mutual friend (whose house he had been planning to go to for Christmas dinner) who has tested positive. No symptoms, picked up on a routine lateral flow test, confirmed today by PCR. He's triple vaccinated and has been very cautious throughout because his wife has had two goes with cancer in the last year or two and is high risk


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Ok. I’m sad that all these double & triple jabbed people are feeling unwell right now, had hoped to feel much better protected against infection & against being a vector than I do. It’s disappointing is all.


Disappointing to have pretty good protection against getting seriously ill or dying when there's a pandemic happening that's killed more than five million people worldwide? Tough crowd .


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

Wibble.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

Sue said:


> Disappointing to have pretty good protection against getting seriously ill or dying when there's a pandemic happening that's killed more than five million people worldwide? Tough crowd .


Yes, i thought it was going to let us get back to normal like they said back in the summer.


----------



## andysays (Dec 20, 2021)

elbows said:


> Wibble.



I think there's something in what she says though, in that all the stuff which has undoubtedly weakened Johnson over the past few weeks (including but obviously not limited to the backbench rebellion) has made it even less likely that he will take the tough decisions which the worsening Covid situation requires.


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yes, i thought it was going to let us get back to normal like they said back in the summer.


The vaccines were never going to be 100% effective and I dont think anyone ever claimed they would be. And vaccines on their own were never going to be enough.

There was also always the possibility that different strains would emerge. 

Following the threads on here might help you keep up with things?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yes, i thought it was going to let us get back to normal like they said back in the summer.



That was before omicron served us a curveball, surely you understand how that has changed things?


----------



## editor (Dec 20, 2021)

Some interesting discussion here


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yes, i thought it was going to let us get back to normal like they said back in the summer.



People who know about this stuff,  including people like Chris Whittey have been careful to try and set expectations about how long this will go on and what could happen. The press unfortunately like a simple disaster or good news story.


----------



## tommers (Dec 20, 2021)

I think it's OK to feel a bit pissed off that this is all happening again.


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

Supine said:


> People who know about this stuff,  including people like Chris Whittey have been careful to try and set expectations about how long this will go on and what could happen. The press unfortunately like a simple disaster or good news story.





Sue said:


> The vaccines were never going to be 100% effective and I dont think anyone ever claimed they would be. And vaccines on their own were never going to be enough.
> 
> There was also always the possibility that different strains would emerge.
> 
> Following the threads on here might help you keep up with things?





cupid_stunt said:


> That was before omicron served us a curveball, surely you understand how that has changed things?



Yes yes I know.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yes yes I know.



Shit innit  (((bimble)))


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yes yes I know.


Not sure why you're surprised then..?


----------



## bimble (Dec 20, 2021)

Sue said:


> Not sure why you're surprised then..?


Never said I was surprised . Sad & disappointed. Tired.


----------



## Sue (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Never said I was surprised . Sad & disappointed. Tired.


Oh, I must've misunderstood.

Anyway, pretty sure we're all tired but it is what it is and things could be way worse. (Like being somewhere with v low vaccine availability. We're actually very lucky in the scheme of things )


----------



## teuchter (Dec 20, 2021)

It looks quite plausible to me that the very rapid growth rate in London is now slowing significantly.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It looks quite plausible to me that the very rapid growth rate in London is now slowing significantly.
> 
> View attachment 302009


You know it’s only really the line you can use from that chart to draw conclusions…


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 20, 2021)

bimble said:


> Yes, i thought it was going to let us get back to normal like they said back in the summer.


We won’t ever go back to how things were. There will be a new “normal”, that’s all.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2021)

Here's the Prime Minister, not hesitating:


----------



## teuchter (Dec 20, 2021)

Supine said:


> You know it’s only really the line you can use from that chart to draw conclusions…


Yeah, but the yellow segments give some clue about how much might be added on to which bars in the next few days results, and I can step back 5 or 6 days and get to the point where only very small amounts are being added on. The bars 4 and 5 days back would need to double in size to maintain the same sort of growth. I know it's still possible, just looks entirely plausible that isn't going to happen.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Yeah, but the yellow segments give some clue about how much might be added on to which bars in the next few days results, and I can step back 5 or 6 days and get to the point where only very small amounts are being added on. The bars 4 and 5 days back would need to double in size to maintain the same sort of growth. I know it's still possible, just looks entirely plausible that isn't going to happen.



Do they teach this technique in maths club?


----------



## cuppa tee (Dec 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It looks quite plausible to me that the very rapid growth rate in London is now slowing significantly.
> 
> View attachment 302009





teuchter said:


> Yeah, but the yellow segments give some clue about how much might be added on to which bars in the next few days results, and I can step back 5 or 6 days and get to the point where only very small amounts are being added on. The bars 4 and 5 days back would need to double in size to maintain the same sort of growth. I know it's still possible, just looks entirely plausible that isn't going to happen.



...some posts on twitter this morning were drawing a link between high income younger people who go out a lot  being the main group for spreading, and areas like Lambeth, Wandsworth and Westminster  with big night time economy leading the pack, I noticed a post in the Brixton forum about a superspreader event. Any of these not infected or isolating already have probably done the off back to ma and pa’s.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 20, 2021)

Supine said:


> Do they teach this technique in maths club?


I don't think the counter argument would be a maths one, it would be something about data reporting schedules.


----------



## ska invita (Dec 20, 2021)

Hospital admissions skyrocketing already in Omicron Head Office



*------------------*
Has this been mentioned?

*"Prof Stephen Powis, the medical director of NHS England, said the health service was on a “war footing”, with plans being developed to treat 15% of Covid patients at home, with remote monitoring of their oxygen levels.
The strategy would allow patients “the same care they would [receive] in hospital but from the comfort of their own home”, Powis told the Sunday Times. “This is better for patients, it is better for their families and it is better for the NHS, as it limited the spread of the virus, which we know at the minute is rising exponentially.”*

Care from home sounds great on many levels, but there's a reason there are hospitals and not doctors driving around. Fingers crossed on that one


----------



## teuchter (Dec 20, 2021)

cuppa tee said:


> ...some posts on twitter this morning were drawing a link between high income younger people who go out a lot  being the main group for spreading, and areas like Lambeth, Wandsworth and Westminster  with big night time economy leading the pack, I noticed a post in the Brixton forum about a superspreader event. Any of these not infected or isolating already have probably done the off back to ma and pa’s.


Fair bit of spread in the over 40s too though (and moving towards older groups).

But I'm sure the effect you describe has some significance. I think most people heading off out of London will do so in the next few days and many of them will have significantly changed their behaviour during last week, conscious of the 10 day isolation window.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I don't think the counter argument would be a maths one, it would be something about data reporting schedules.



Not really, data reporting is what explains why some of the data is in yellow to highlight it will change. 

What you are attempting to do is extrapolate the data with your own idea of what it will look like. I don’t know how you have done that but it’s a guess.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Fair bit of spread in the over 40s too though (and moving towards older groups).


Cases by age for the London region have moved on significantly since I last looked. In the younger groups graphs the cases this time have dwarfed the previous waves, and in the older age groups things are now rocketing up.

As usual these are by specimen data so the last parts of the curve are affected by incomplete data. Using 7 day averages otherwise these charts become a complete mess.


----------



## elbows (Dec 20, 2021)

I dont think I'm going to join in with looking for signs of slowing, peaks etc this time. The numbers are too large, I dont know the limits of the testing system, and there are a lot of behavioural changes and data issues at this time of year. Would expect that behavioural changes, school holidays etc will make a notable difference both to reality and to testing data, but dont know how clearly it will show up or exactly when, so I'm not going to drive myself mad trying, or talking about all the possible factors all the time. I'll probably still have cause to talk about some of it on a few occasions but I'm not going to rush to spot these things as soon as possible during a time of great uncertainty. Already went through this recently with data from South Africa, sick of it and various themes and premature attempts at analysis. And I'm especially unwilling to do it with data that comes out on a Monday.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 20, 2021)

The Traverse, the Lyceum and the Playhouse theatres in Edinburgh have all cancelled their Christmas shows. Lockdown is beginning to happen without any action from above anyway.

This is the 7 day numbers for Edinburgh (the whole city is above 400 cases per 100,000, everywhere that I am most often (home, work) is above 1000


----------



## existentialist (Dec 20, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> That was before omicron served us a curveball, surely you understand how that has changed things?


And "vaccine escape" has been a topic of concern from the very start...


----------



## planetgeli (Dec 20, 2021)

beesonthewhatnow said:


> We won’t ever go back to how things were. There will be a new “normal”, that’s all.



As far as lived life is concerned, I don't agree. What would be the new things that changed from the old normal?

Where I am I'd say the majority of people are (were) back to the old normal. Walking around 2 weeks ago, besides the odd face mask, I wouldn't have seen any difference with how things were before the pandemic. Don't get me wrong, this is obviously a stupid state of affairs, but people down here are largely of the opinion it's all over. Or were. Then we heard about omicron and a _few _more face masks went on. The point is, in their heads and their lived lives, covid was over. And it went back to normal. 

It would be great if the new normal had things like the attitude to face masks that you see in many parts of Asia. But like fuck it will.


----------



## beesonthewhatnow (Dec 20, 2021)

planetgeli said:


> As far as lived life is concerned, I don't agree. What would be the new things that changed from the old normal?
> 
> Where I am I'd say the majority of people are (were) back to the old normal. Walking around 2 weeks ago, besides the odd face mask, I wouldn't have seen any difference with how things were before the pandemic. Don't get me wrong, this is obviously a stupid state of affairs, but people down here are largely of the opinion it's all over. Or were. Then we heard about omicron and a _few _more face masks went on. The point is, in their heads and their lived lives, covid was over. And it went back to normal.
> 
> It would be great if the new normal had things like the attitude to face masks that you see in many parts of Asia. But like fuck it will.


I’d like to think that when we’re back here again this time next year - which I have no doubt we will - perhaps the penny will begin to drop for some people that we need to do things differently for a while. I’m not going to hold my breath though.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 20, 2021)

Supine said:


> You know it’s only really the line you can use from that chart to draw conclusions…



And that line looks likely to go up a fair bit more before it comes down. Exponential growth phases being what they are.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> It looks quite plausible to me that the very rapid growth rate in London is now slowing significantly.
> 
> View attachment 302009



From an admittedly very small sample (workmates, friends and at home), PCR tests are also taking longer and longer to come back.
For home tests - to arrive in the first place and _then_ to get to their destination (Xmas post? Absences?) - but then, generally, for results to be returned, too.

Something else. While we are all feeling massively fucked off and despondent, with whatever levels of knowledge/engagement we have, I think it's totally understandable to feel disappointed - but also, more to the point, that it should be actively _encouraged_ to still be asking questions about it, too, without those being dismissed.
Dunno if I've said that well but it feels ever more important to me.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 20, 2021)

Heard of any of these experts elbows ?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 20, 2021)

The last one rings a (bad) bell.

'Widening the pool' = finding evidence to fit.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 20, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> The last one rings a (bad) bell.
> 
> 'Widening the pool' = finding evidence to fit.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 20, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> The last one rings a (bad) bell.
> 
> 'Widening the pool' = finding evidence to fit.


Yep, there's a palpable sense of that happening at the moment.  Essentially, johnson is sat in a bunker of inaction and the only science he will listen to is the stuff that allows him to stay there.  Not postmodernism, not some post truth thing, just plain and simple cowardice and dishonesty.


----------



## Supine (Dec 20, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> The last one rings a (bad) bell.
> 
> 'Widening the pool' = finding evidence to fit.



Tbf at least two of those experts are real ones and not some barington oddballs.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 20, 2021)




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## sheothebudworths (Dec 20, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Yep, there's a palpable sense of that happening at the moment.  Essentially, johnson is sat in a bunker of inaction and the only science he will listen to is the stuff that allows him to stay there.  Not postmodernism, not some post truth thing, just plain and simple cowardice and dishonesty.



This has literally filtered down to my workplace, too.
Not anything new but with even more encouragement.
The point not being about me/my small world - just that I'm sure it's going on widely and that none of that helps (obviously).


----------



## stdP (Dec 20, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Essentially, johnson is sat in a bunker of inaction and the only science he will listen to is the stuff that allows him to stay there.  Not postmodernism, not some post truth thing, just plain and simple cowardice and dishonesty.



Are those youtube Hitler rants still a thing...?

I'd quite like to see a failed dictator having a mental breakdown in front of his most trusted and useless lackeys, setting the scene for his imminent ultimate abdication of responsibility after he finds out despondently that his orders for a "scorched earth" strategy to destroy the people and infrastructure of the country haven't been followed because, despite being evil, some people caught up in his regime still have a shred of sanity left.

Come to think of it, a Downfall parody video based on Boris would be fun to watch too.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 20, 2021)

Supine said:


> Not really, data reporting is what explains why some of the data is in yellow to highlight it will change.
> 
> What you are attempting to do is extrapolate the data with your own idea of what it will look like. I don’t know how you have done that but it’s a guess.


It's simply based on an observation that (a) not many "additional" cases are being added to the daily totals more than 2 or 3 days behind the day of report, and (b) some _very_ large numbers of "additional" cases would have to be added to totals from 4 or 5 days ago in order to fit a continuing pattern of cases doubling every 2 days or so. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it appears quite plausible that we won't see that happen and instead see the rate of increase drop by a fair bit.

Meanwhile on another forum elsewhere in the internet I'm arguing with a load of people predicting that London will peak very soon and it's all scaremongering. So if my guess here is wrong, I still win some internet points over there by telling them they've got it wrong.

Obviously I hope to see it peak asap, and also hope to see the same for hospitalisation numbers, for reasons outside of internet point winnings.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 20, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> The last one rings a (bad) bell.
> 
> 'Widening the pool' = finding evidence to fit.


That's what some people will say about those choosing to follow indie sage instead of "real sage" though.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 20, 2021)

teuchter said:


> That's what some people will say about those choosing to follow indie sage instead of "real sage" though.



Huh? Is Sajid Javid seeking out the views of anyone sitting on Indie Sage, as any part of today's 'productive discussion' (in overriding actual Sage, afaics)?


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Heard of any of these experts elbows ?



Marc Lipsitch is the only one I can comment on straight away. Has posted useful tweets in the past and I have long him in my list of twitter accounts to keep an eye on in the pandemic.

This thread on Omicron severity isnt bad for a recent example:


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Huh? Is Sajid Javid seeking out the views of anyone sitting on Indie Sage, as any part of today's 'productive discussion' (in overriding actual Sage, afaics)?


Well, I just mean that if you accuse someone of "widening the pool" in order to find views that match those they already hold, then they can say the same about you, unless you are strictly regarding SAGE as the only panel of experts that any decisions should be informed by.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 21, 2021)

Balloux is pretty clearly an "expert" in his field (I actually thought he was part of SAGE) in as far as that is a useful term.
IMO he's pretty much the incarnation of godawful technocratic liberal "centrism" and a total fucking prick to boot but he's not some internet loon.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2021)

Kerkhove is sound I think, she's been at all the WHO press conferences.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Kerkhove is sound I think, she's been at all the WHO press conferences.


Yeah just been checking. WHO take on things still has some weaknesses at times but nothing in particular that I would choose to rant about at this moment.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

As for Ben Cowling, his tweets are often very Hong Kong oriented and tend to focus on a handful of applicable themes such as stuff to do with quarantine and zero covid, so I cant really judge his opinions beyond that sort of stuff.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

Balloux winds me up quite often but some of his thoughts can still be useful, even though I find that self-described centrists tend to make certain errors of tone and substance routinely, at least during this pandemic so far. They persist because they expect to eventually reach a point in the pandemic where they get it right without having to u-turn when the data gets too bleak. I do intend to soon see if I can go back far enough in his twitter history to see if he made obvious large mistakes with reading previous waves, and whether he persisted with any of them far beyond the stage of available data where a real 'centrist' should adjust.

The following does manage to reflect some of my concerns at the moment, although he may differ with me in terms of which outcomes 'feel worse' for the future. Some outcomes may also fuck up peoples attitudes towards vaccines.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2021)

I don't usually agree with balloux but those posts are pretty much where I'm at at the moment too tbh


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

I could only go back as far as August in his tweet history when I just tried.

That was far enough back though to find him going on about a BBC Scotland article from August in which he featured. Oops.









						Is the coronavirus pandemic over at last?
					

As Scotland loosens most of its remaining restrictions, is the devastating pandemic finally at an end?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Prof Balloux is not so concerned. He thinks a "slow drift" in the evolution of the virus is more likely and just now he is "pretty confident" that there will not be a sudden mutation creating "a super virus".


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 21, 2021)

According to the rumours, Javid and Gove want more lockdown sooner compared to the rest of the government, so he could have been seeking additional views to bolster his position in cabinet meetings, rather than looking to circumvent SAGE in some way as Fraser Nelson is implying.


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Something else. While we are all feeling massively fucked off and despondent, with whatever levels of knowledge/engagement we have, I think it's totally understandable to feel disappointed - but also, more to the point, that it should be actively _encouraged_ to still be asking questions about it, too, without those being dismissed.
> Dunno if I've said that well but it feels ever more important to me.


Thanks. It did feel kind of risky / iconoclaslic to even venture to ask a question about the vaccines yesterday, and then it was like everyone was telling me to eat my greens and be grateful.  But also admittedly i was doing a bit of private despair in public, for which this is not the thread, and was feeling really unwell post-jab which didn't help.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> And "vaccine escape" has been a topic of concern from the very start...



True, and was always possible, but only people paying close attention would have registered it, it wasn't a major topic in the news, until omicron cropped-up, which I guess is understandable, because that's when it became real & news worthy.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 21, 2021)

The NHS is probably going to have the worst winter in its history isn't it? So many people have got it now and that's going to sky rocket over the week between Christmas and New Year.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 21, 2021)

Labour apparently don't have access to enough data to suggest any sort of restrictions be implemented, because only parties in government can possibly have a view on that:


----------



## rutabowa (Dec 21, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> The NHS is probably going to have the worst winter in its history isn't it? So many people have got it now and that's going to sky rocket over the week between Christmas and New Year.


Last year at the peak I didn't know many people who got it, but a fair proportion of them were pretty ill including hospitalisation. This last week it seems like EVERYONE got it, but so far noone has had any worse than a couple of days cold symptoms. This is just my anecdotal data of course (also it is what other people I spoke to have noticed). I just present it as what I noticed, not drawing any conclusions.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 21, 2021)

rutabowa said:


> Last year at the peak I didn't know many people who got it, but a fair proportion of them were pretty ill including hospitalisation. This last week it seems like EVERYONE got it, but so far noone has had any worse than a couple of days cold symptoms. This is just my anecdotal data of course (also it is what other people I spoke to have noticed). I just present it as what I noticed, not drawing any conclusions.


Yeah most people seem to have little more than cold like symptoms but it's that whole small percentage of a large number thing. There's also a lag between infection and hospitalisation. People who will need hospitalisation from infections now won't show up until January.

I'm just going on what SAGE predict. 3000 daily admissions in an already knackered and over stretched NHS with staff beside themselves with stress and tiredness from two years of this.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Labour apparently don't have access to enough data to suggest any sort of restrictions be implemented, because only parties in government can possibly have a view on that:



So, if the Welsh Labour Government have a plan, you'd think they have access to information.  And if they have that info, you'd think they might pass it on to the mighty kieth?


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 21, 2021)

Wilf said:


> So, if the Welsh Labour Government have a plan, you'd think they have access to information.  And if they have that info, you'd think they might pass it on to the mighty kieth?


Pathetic on every level - both as you say one part of Labour not talking to the other, but the Welsh plan is is itself crap, if Omicron is a issue then not introducing mitigation's before Xmas is abysmal. 
What's Scottish Labour's policy, can they make it 3 from 3?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Yeah most people seem to have little more than cold like symptoms but it's that whole small percentage of a large number thing. There's also a lag between infection and hospitalisation. People who will need hospitalisation from infections now won't show up until January.
> 
> I'm just going on what SAGE predict. 3000 daily admissions in an already knackered and over stretched NHS with staff beside themselves with stress and tiredness from two years of this.



The other big problem is going to be staff shortages in hospitals, with so many going off sick, in London hospitals it's gone up by 140% in a week.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

A break down of how the cabinet refused to take action yesterday:




__





						Ministers stand their ground against the scientists in lengthy battle over Christmas Covid restrictions
					





					www.msn.com
				




I was particularly taken by this bit:


> Ministers said they wanted to see a clear link between cases, rising hospitalisations and deaths before agreeing to any further restrictions.
> 
> One said: "The question is 'does that extrapolate into hospitalisations and deaths?' It could be that it extrapolates out into hospitalisation but does that necessarily lead to deaths."


If you are hanging your hat on something hospitalising but not killing, we are back to criminally negligent government.


----------



## rutabowa (Dec 21, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Yeah most people seem to have little more than cold like symptoms but it's that whole small percentage of a large number thing. There's also a lag between infection and hospitalisation. People who will need hospitalisation from infections now won't show up until January.
> 
> I'm just going on what SAGE predict. 3000 daily admissions in an already knackered and over stretched NHS with staff beside themselves with stress and tiredness from two years of this.


I guess it just depends what the percentage ends up being.

When you say "what sage predict": isn't that their "worst case scenario"?


----------



## Yossarian (Dec 21, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I was particularly taken by this bit:



"Before we bring in restrictions, let's be absolutely sure it's too late to bring in restrictions."


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> The other big problem is going to be staff shortages in hospitals, with so many going off sick, in London hospitals it's gone up by 140% in a week.


Exactly, I just think it's going to be bleak as fuck and the gravity of the situation is being somewhat ignored because of people boring on about parties and saving Christmas. 

The Christmas parties make it particularly bad because Johnson now has no control. The real ghouls of the tories now have control of the messaging and that is 'just get boosted and keep on buying shit.'  I'm starting to feel the same as I did last year and that wasn't good.


----------



## andysays (Dec 21, 2021)

Wilf said:


> A break down of how the cabinet refused to take action yesterday:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And I'm stating the obvious here (although it appears yet again to have escaped the cabinet's attention) but but the time they've waited for the death figures to be fully known the number of cases will have shot up uncontrolled, leading to far more deaths (and all the other consequences) in the future.

What would be sensible, but what they've stubbornly refused to do every time, would be to say "we don't know how serious this might be, so we're going to assume the worst and take necessary precautions until we know more".


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> Pathetic on every level - both as you say one part of Labour not talking to the other, but the Welsh plan is is itself crap, if Omicron is a issue then not introducing mitigation's before Xmas is abysmal.
> What's Scottish Labour's policy, can they make it 3 from 3?


Labour should be taking a stance because it's the right thing to do (of course). But it's also a political opportunity, particularly as we've just about passed the point of no return with regard to family Christmas gatherings: _government paralysed... we support a funded circuit breaker and increased social distancing... use the power of government to make sure workers don't lose out... protect NHS and social care... this is about how societies work, supporting each other... restore Universal Credit payments etc._

It wouldn't be my politics, but there's a massive space there to make the case for social democracy.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 21, 2021)

rutabowa said:


> I guess it just depends what the percentage ends up being.
> 
> When you say "what sage predict": isn't that their "worst case scenario"?


I don't think it was their worst case. I think it's what they predicted if the govnt continue with plan B, something that they're doing.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> "Before we bring in restrictions, let's be absolutely sure it's too late to bring in restrictions."


It really is that, isn't it?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

I'm never going to be a fan of Labour or parliamentary politics, but the absence of a party articulating even centrist common sense adds to the sense we are fucked.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2021)

I mean isn't pretty much every person that knows anything saying that it is inevitably going to result in a large number of hospitalizations and then related deaths, even if it is milder?

I just don't believe the Tories blocking measures are genuinely waiting for that data to actually come in, I think they're largely ideologically opposed to measures coming in and that's the excuse they're currently able to use.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I mean isn't pretty much every person that knows anything saying that it is inevitably going to result in a large number of hospitalizations and then related deaths, even if it is milder?


I don't think most people that know anything are saying "inevitably".


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I mean isn't pretty much every person that knows anything saying that it is inevitably going to result in a large number of hospitalizations and then related deaths, even if it is milder?
> 
> I just don't believe the Tories blocking measures are genuinely waiting for that data to actually come in, I think they're largely ideologically opposed to measures coming in and that's the excuse they're currently able to use.


I think that assessment is irrefutable unless resorting to Lies.
What really pisses me off is knowing that none of the people responsible for letting this get so bad will ever be held accountable, we need a plainly written constitution and publicly available and funded mechanisms to test the legality of our Government's actions

P.S. I encourage people to sign up for updates from The Good Law Project (and donate if able), its easy to lose sight of the criminal actions our government has normalised


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## existentialist (Dec 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I mean isn't pretty much every person that knows anything saying that it is inevitably going to result in a large number of hospitalizations and then related deaths, even if it is milder?
> 
> I just don't believe the Tories blocking measures are genuinely waiting for that data to actually come in, I think they're largely ideologically opposed to measures coming in and that's the excuse they're currently able to use.


They can't even tell the truth about their own decisions.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I don't think most people that know anything are saying "inevitably".



Well, I've literally just watched one scientist say that, and have seen others already. The amounts are disputed, but not that an increase in infections _will_ result in more hospitalizations and deaths.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 21, 2021)

I think they absolutely are expecting an increase in hospitalisations and deaths. I also think they are genuinely waiting on the data though, except they're looking to see if it reaches a level they feel they can't get away with. And I think their idea of what that is is quite high.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I think they absolutely are expecting an increase in hospitalisations and deaths. I also think they are genuinely waiting on the data though, except they're looking to see if it reaches a level they feel they can't get away with. And I think their idea of what that is is quite high.



Yes, it's exactly that I think.


----------



## andysays (Dec 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> I don't think most people that know anything are saying "inevitably".


It will inevitably happen *unless appropriate action is taken*.

It's not just about deaths directly caused by Covid, it's also the result of widespread sickness absence in the NHS and other emergency services.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 21, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Something else. While we are all feeling massively fucked off and despondent, with whatever levels of knowledge/engagement we have, I think it's totally understandable to feel disappointed - but also, more to the point, that it should be actively _encouraged_ to still be asking questions about it, too, without those being dismissed.
> Dunno if I've said that well but it feels ever more important to me.



Yeah, I think this is an important point. I think this thread/forum collectively can tend to be a bit of a bubble tbh and we could do with being a bit more understanding at times that not everyone is able to spend so much time analysing the latest Covid news.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 21, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I think they absolutely are expecting an increase in hospitalisations and deaths. I also think they are genuinely waiting on the data though, except they're looking to see if it reaches a level they feel they can't get away with. And I think their idea of what that is is quite high.


It's the same as the climate change problem - "we don't KNOW that it's going to get worse, so we will wait until it does before we act"


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2021)

Everyone is expecting an increase but no-one can say for sure that it is going to be a large one. Doesn't mean it's right to do nothing but it's not hard to see why they are scared of putting in major measures and then nothing much happening and a large portion of the electorate saying they over-reacted.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 21, 2021)

rutabowa said:


> Last year at the peak I didn't know many people who got it, but a fair proportion of them were pretty ill including hospitalisation. This last week it seems like EVERYONE got it, but so far noone has had any worse than a couple of days cold symptoms. This is just my anecdotal data of course (also it is what other people I spoke to have noticed). I just present it as what I noticed, not drawing any conclusions.


Hardly anyone vaccinated last year could be a reason for the difference before we even look at the current variant difference.


LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I just don't believe the Tories blocking measures are genuinely waiting for that data to actually come in, I think they're largely ideologically opposed to measures coming in and that's the excuse they're currently able to use.


This is the reason Frost resigned apparently: against coercive measures of plan B
:[


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2021)

killer b said:


> There is a recently deceased friend's memorial event at a nightclub in Manchester this evening I've just cancelled my planned attendance at cause there is zero chance it won't be a superspreader


Called this one right - a friend who did attend just got in touch to tell me he caught covid there.


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Everyone is expecting an increase but no-one can say for sure that it is going to be a large one. Doesn't mean it's right to do nothing but it's not hard to see why they are scared of putting in major measures and then nothing much happening and a large portion of the electorate saying they over-reacted.


I don't see this driven (or indeed stalled) by the electorate...


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2021)

zora said:


> I don't see this driven (or indeed stalled) by the electorate...


I think part of the reason for the delay is that - unlike at other times, when the public was heavily behind stonger measures - this time it's the opposite.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2021)

zora said:


> I don't see this driven (or indeed stalled) by the electorate...


What's your sample?


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2021)

ETA: in response to killer b:

Idk - yes, some polls seemed to say that - and indeed if someone asked me in the street about e.g ban on household mixing, I might well answer "fuck that", too.

But it's actually a good chunk of the electorate voting with their feet and actually restricting their contacts hugely, all the organisers and organisations taking things into their hands and cancelling things.


----------



## zora (Dec 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> What's your sample?


I don't know what you mean. It was an opinion.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2021)

I'll probably get some stick tbh but I'm not entirely sold on the need for this lockdown. I agreed with all the previous ones and even think we reopened too quickly during the summer but I'm not convinced that the level of hospitalisation and death etc is going to be the same this time, there is quite a lot of data saying it won't and most people have some protection due to vaccines. 

I also think there's a risk of this becoming normalised as a policy response to eg a bad flu season or something rather than something that was needed as an emergency measure during a pandemic but hopefully not beyond that.


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2021)

zora said:


> ETA: in response to killer b:
> 
> Idk - yes, some polls seemed to say that - and indeed if someone asked me in the street about e.g ban on household mixing, I might well answer "fuck that", too.
> 
> But it's actually a good chunk of the electorate voting with their feet and actually restricting their contacts hugely, all the organisers and organisations taking things into their hands and cancelling things.


people taking voluntary measures is one of the reasons the headbangers are giving for mandatory measures not being necessary though


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2021)

That said if more restrictions are introduced I'll follow them, I wear a mask in shops etc. I just think that 2 years after 2020 we shouldn't have to be in this position again


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Everyone is expecting an increase but no-one can say for sure that it is going to be a large one. Doesn't mean it's right to do nothing but it's not hard to see why they are scared of putting in major measures and then nothing much happening and a large portion of the electorate saying they over-reacted.


They are scared of each other not the electorate, they wont give a fuck about the electorate for another couple of years.
 Do you have a subscription to the daily mail or something?


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2021)




----------



## l'Otters (Dec 21, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> That said if more restrictions are introduced I'll follow them, I wear a mask in shops etc. I just think that 2 years after 2020 we shouldn't have to be in this position again


But this is where we are and being in denial about it isn’t going to change anything. 

We know the government guidelines aren’t enough & if you’ve access to reliable information on how to better protect yourself and others it makes sense to act on that.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 21, 2021)

Double post


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 21, 2021)

killer b said:


> people taking voluntary measures is one of the reasons the headbangers are giving for mandatory measures not being necessary though


Also conveniently leaves hospitality venues to struggle & smaller ones to go out of business as they have no support to cover the massive drop in custom.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 21, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I'll probably get some stick tbh but I'm not entirely sold on the need for this lockdown. I agreed with all the previous ones and even think we reopened too quickly during the summer but I'm not convinced that the level of hospitalisation and death etc is going to be the same this time, there is quite a lot of data saying it won't and most people have some protection due to vaccines.


Actually I'm not a million miles from you FW.
I do think the case for a full lockdown is (or perhaps was) less clear cut than in previous waves - the data is less clear, there are more uncertainties, vaccination has changed things. 

Also as time goes on I think it becomes increasingly less useful to lockdown. If you were going to introduce a lockdown you needed to do it yesterday, well really a week ago. If you wait until after Xmas when you've just encourage a load of mixing then you could end up with a all the disadvantages of a lockdown with very limited benefits. And as SAGE have pointed out if you introduce mitigation measures early you can go lighter.

Where I think the failure is, by all politicians, is (i) refusing to strong mitigation measures that should have been running ever since the last lockdown ended (ii) ramping up those mitigation measures pretty much as soon as Omicron came on the scene. Combing those measures with proper support for an International vaccination program and I think you'd be in a much better situation now.


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Also conveniently leaves hospitality venues to struggle & smaller ones to go out of business as they have no support to cover the massive drop in custom.


Worth noting that Nadine Dorries was one of the few cabinet members supportive of measures - fairly sure she wouldn't be if she wasn't culture secretary.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Everyone is expecting an increase but no-one can say for sure that it is going to be a large one. Doesn't mean it's right to do nothing but it's not hard to see why they are scared of putting in major measures and then nothing much happening and a large portion of the electorate saying they over-reacted.


The point of putting in major measures is SO THAT nothing much happens. I appreciate that you probably know this, but it's the perennial "security problem" - "why are we paying for all this security, when nothing bad is happening?".


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> But this is where we are and being in denial about it isn’t going to change anything.
> 
> We know the government guidelines aren’t enough & if you’ve access to reliable information on how to better protect yourself and others it makes sense to act on that.


That's not really what I said but ok.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> The point of putting in major measures is SO THAT nothing much happens. I appreciate that you probably know this, but it's the perennial "security problem" - "why are we paying for all this security, when nothing bad is happening?".


Yes, I do know this, but I also know how many people will look at the situation, and that they will consider that sometimes it's worth taking the risk of something bad happening, maybe or maybe not with an underestimate of that risk.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 21, 2021)

BTW great to see you around again frogwoman ! Merry Xmas


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2021)

I think another risk is that these kind of far reaching restrictions become normalised as a standard policy response if something else is going around like a swine flu, rather than something that was needed in an exceptional situation but after that it's less clear cut. Like it's easier to tell/encourage stuff to close (with no support) than to actually build up capacity in the NHS so these kind of measures are not needed again, and put the kind of long term measures in place which redsquirrel mentions.

I'm not saying they aren't needed now btw but I don't think the case for it is as clear cut as it was in March 2020 or January this year.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 21, 2021)

lots of people will ignore it now who didn't ignore it back then. govt has eroded any trust and the general divisions in society have emerged around covid and lockdowns.
I do wonder if the Tories are simply gauging popular opinion and thinking if they can spin it as Boris and co 'saying no to another lockdown' to give the idiots a reason to be on side again.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

I don't think a full lockdown is the way to go, not that we've ever had a full lockdown.  For me though, I'd like to have a government that looked like it was trying to introduce sensible mitigation measure rather than one that is doing everything it can to _avoid _those measures.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 21, 2021)

wouldn’t need a fucking lockdown if they’d done anything to prepare for this. not like we haven’t had 18 months to work on better preventative measures (nevermind all the shite pre pandemic lack of preparedness.)


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 21, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> wouldn’t need a fucking lockdown if they’d done anything to prepare for this. not like we haven’t had 18 months to work on better preventative measures (nevermind all the shite pre pandemic lack of preparedness.)



If the modelling is correct, there are no scenarios where we wouldn’t need a lockdown for omicron.


----------



## bimble (Dec 21, 2021)

This treatment called Ronapreve which is now available, are people factoring it into their hospitalisation prediction graphs ?


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> If the modelling is correct, there are no scenarios where we wouldn’t need a lockdown for omicron.


Which modelling?


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> If the modelling is correct, there are no scenarios where we wouldn’t need a lockdown for omicron.


Yes.

Although the modelling is not a prediction, its a series of illustrations of what happens when various different parameters are changed.

And in addition to the various uncertainties regarding vaccine protection from severe Omicron disease and death, the biggest unknown, which they didnt even fiddle with in different modelling scenerios, is peoples behaviour & mixing patterns. And these behavioural changes, should they occur, end up being broadly equivalent to a range of different strengths of lockdown type measures. On a related note, I dont think summer easing modelling properly captured the sheer potential of the 'pingdemic' to act as a sort of temporary lockdown at the peak back then.

And the one thing the state has been prepared to do whenever faced with a big wave at a difficult moment, is to enable very large changes to the mood music. When it isnt summer, they are prepared to at least do that in order to hedge their bets.

Many people cannot help but perceive the modelling as being a prediction anyway. And if we must look at it that way, the two biggest reasons the modelling could be 'wrong' this time are parameters to do with levels of protection from severe disease, and behavioural changes that happen without formal introduction of rules.


----------



## steeplejack (Dec 21, 2021)

redsquirrel said:


> What's *Scottish Labour*'s policy, can they make it 3 from 3?



who? The Model Railway Society's opinion carries more weight up here. Scottish Labour are a total irrelevance.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> I'll probably get some stick tbh but I'm not entirely sold on the need for this lockdown. I agreed with all the previous ones and even think we reopened too quickly during the summer but I'm not convinced that the level of hospitalisation and death etc is going to be the same this time, there is quite a lot of data saying it won't and most people have some protection due to vaccines.
> 
> I also think there's a risk of this becoming normalised as a policy response to eg a bad flu season or something rather than something that was needed as an emergency measure during a pandemic but hopefully not beyond that.


I understand where your position comes from, but I follow precautionary principals when the stakes are this high, so I cannot possibly begin to agree.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

existentialist said:


> The point of putting in major measures is SO THAT nothing much happens. I appreciate that you probably know this, but it's the perennial "security problem" - "why are we paying for all this security, when nothing bad is happening?".


Yes, the self-defeating prophecy, my favourite sort!





__





						Self-defeating prophecy - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2021)

Yeah, that's fair enough. I'll probably change my mind at some point! elbows


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2021)

killer b said:


> people taking voluntary measures is one of the reasons the headbangers are giving for mandatory measures not being necessary though


IME, the people doing this voluntarily are the people who've been careful all along. Mandatory measures make people who've been less careful be more careful. 🤷‍♀️


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> According to the rumours, Javid and Gove want more lockdown sooner compared to the rest of the government, so he could have been seeking additional views to bolster his position in cabinet meetings, rather than looking to circumvent SAGE in some way as Fraser Nelson is implying.


And as usual Sunaks name comes up in the press as someone pushing back hard against tough new measures.

This is never surprising given the office he holds. And then chuck in political career maneuvers and ideological stuff and the favourite narratives of the press on top of that.

I was dismayed but not surprised that previous grotesque failures of the same sort didnt really stick to him in the past. Well, the 'eat out to help out' fiasco stuck a bit at the time, but not his role in delaying the lockdown that was necessary this time last year.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 21, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> That's not really what I said but ok.


We’ve seen already how waiting for this shower to change the rules isn’t getting us out of this mess.

I find it weird that anyone who’s well informed about this pandemic as it’s been playing out in the uk, would only be willing to change their behaviour once the government tells us to.

We absolutely shouldn’t be here now, but they did away with all restrictions in July so we’re totally fucked now.

Umpteen other things could have been done to prevent this incoming public health crisis but we’ve got predatory disaster capitalist eugenicist nepotistic scum in power so here we are.

Edited to add I’d sooner listen to eg David Nabarro from the WHO as an indication of what to do next…


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

frogwoman said:


> Yeah, that's fair enough. I'll probably change my mind at some point! elbows


Since we dont get to make the big decisions at a national level, we have the 'luxury' of changing our opinions once the real picture emerges more fully.


----------



## steeplejack (Dec 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> And as usual Sunaks name compes up in the press as someone pushing back hard against tough new measures.
> 
> This is never surprising given the office he holds. And then chuck in political career maneuvers and ideological stuff and the favourite narratives of the press on top of that.
> 
> I was dismayed but not surprised that previous grotesque failures of the same sort didnt really stick to him in the past. Well, the 'eat out to help out' fiasco stuck a bit at the time, but not his role in delaying the lockdown that was necessary this time last year.



He should be in prison for killing thousands with "Eat Out to Help Out (My Friends in Business)".

His ideological intransigence now will cost many more lives, too. Because, ultimately, that's the "evidence" he wants; thousands more deaths before he green-lights money for businesses to close.


----------



## frogwoman (Dec 21, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> We’ve seen already how waiting for this shower to change the rules isn’t getting us out of this mess.
> 
> I find it weird that anyone who’s well informed about this pandemic as it’s been playing out in the uk, would only be willing to change their behaviour once the government tells us to.
> 
> ...


I didn't say I'm not willing to change my behaviour, like many people I already have tbh! I'm barely going out and I'm being a lot more cautious than a few weeks ago. 

Maybe my post was unclear, I was saying I'm not convinced of the need for a lockdown but if one was brought in would obviously listen to it because I'm not a dick. Not that I wouldn't change anything unless the government said so


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> We’ve seen already how waiting for this shower to change the rules isn’t getting us out of this mess.
> 
> I find it weird that anyone who’s well informed about this pandemic as it’s been playing out in the uk, would only be willing to change their behaviour once the government tells us to.
> 
> ...


I'm not happy with what happened from July onwards. But, apart from the erosion of trust and filling peoples heads with the wrong idea about the extent we were sure to be able to live with Covid, the Omicron threat is a separate matter.

Because things like the raw R rate for Omicron and its immune escape potential are too high, changing the equations big time. Even if someone like me got to make the summer & autumn decisions and the winter plans, my plan would have had to change to cope with Omicron.

Speaking of July, I've been doing the thing where I break death data down into the separate waves, because very few seem to do this. It looks like Northern Ireland has had more Covid-related deaths from July 1st onwards than they recorded in the first wave! And Scotland has had nearly half as many deaths from July onwards as they recorded in the first wave. I'll post all the data at some point, because some regions of England also have a level of deaths from July onwards that are around or approaching 40% of the level of deaths recorded in the first wave! And for Wales its over 40%. I was using deaths where Covid was mentioned on the death certificate, but it may be a similar picture if I use deaths within 28 days of a test. Probably the only 'unfair' thing about my sums is that rather a lot of first wave Covid deaths were not recorded as such (due to initial attitudes towards cause and lack of testing at the start), so for the first wave we have to use excess mortality data to get a truer picture.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 21, 2021)

Other things eg
Proper FFP3 grade masks for all healthcare staff
(General public should be getting these too)
Keep mask mandates
Recruit more NHS staff and pay them properly
Expand hospital capacity
CO2 monitors and HEPA filters for classrooms
Funded support for self isolation

Not just those but it’s a start of a longer list


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> I'm not happy with what happened from July onwards. But, apart from the erosion of trust and filling peoples heads with the wrong idea about the extent we were sure to be able to live with Covid, the Omicron threat is a separate matter.
> 
> Because things like the raw R rate for Omicron and its immune escape potential are too high, changing the equations big time. Even if someone like me got to make the summer & autumn decisions and the winter plans, my plan would have had to change to cope with Omicron.
> 
> Speaking of July, I've been doing the thing where I break death data down into the separate waves, because very few seem to do this. It looks like Northern Ireland has had more Covid-related deaths from July 1st onwards than they recorded in the first wave! And Scotland has had nearly half as many deaths from July onwards as they recorded in the first wave. I'll post all the data at some point, because some regions of England also have a level of deaths from July onwards that are around or approaching 40% of the level of deaths recorded in the first wave!


Yeah agreed, omicron changed things.. my point was more that we wouldn’t be quite so far up shit creek right now if he had more spare capacity in the healthcare system & a bit more protective infrastructure in place to make eg schools safer to be in.


Edited to add I have shit reception so my posting is prob even more out of sync with the flow of discussion than usual.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 21, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Yeah agreed, omicron changed things.. my point was more that we wouldn’t be quite so far up shit creek right now if he had more spare capacity in the healthcare system & a bit more protective infrastructure in place to make eg schools safer to be in.



Doubling healthcare capacity might have given us an extra day or two before it was overwhelmed, if the doubling rate of the virus were to continue to that extent. Crudely, if you have e.g. 800 beds full and it doubles in two days, you need 1600 beds two days later. Tinkering with systems in schools wouldn't have made any difference. Like it or not, the best defence against a highly transmissible variant was always vaccines. We certainly could have boosted more people sooner.


----------



## editor (Dec 21, 2021)

A lot of the hospitality industry is already in a sort of quasi-lockdown state, with pubs struggling to find enough staff and customers to justify staying open.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 21, 2021)

some pubs have shut already round my way due to the above


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Yeah agreed, omicron changed things.. my point was more that we wouldn’t be quite so far up shit creek right now if he had more spare capacity in the healthcare system & a bit more protective infrastructure in place to make eg schools safer to be in.
> 
> 
> Edited to add I have shit reception so my posting is prob even more out of sync with the flow of discussion than usual.


Yes we can certainly add 'so we dont have to have Whitty explain to us how we are dealing with two waves at the same time' to the list of reasons not to let the Delta wave carry on marching throughout summer, autumn and winter.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2021)

editor said:


> A lot of the hospitality industry is already in a sort of quasi-lockdown state, with pubs struggling to find enough staff and customers to justify staying open.



Half the museums appear to be shutting down over Christmas


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2021)

pubs and the like should be having a rent holiday, the pub chains on the whole can afford it. Pubcos are perfectly happy to continue taking rents, and will be perfectly happy to sell pubs off for luxury flats if the landlords can't pay the rents any more. Fat chance though if there's a threat to tory party coffers.


----------



## andysays (Dec 21, 2021)

editor said:


> A lot of the hospitality industry is already in a sort of quasi-lockdown state, with pubs struggling to find enough staff and customers to justify staying open.



Covid: Chancellor announces £1bn fund for hospitality​
No mention of actually ordering them to shut though...


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 21, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Half the museums appear to be shutting down over Christmas



That's much better than 2019 when they all shut:

London Museums open over Christmas


----------



## AverageJoe (Dec 21, 2021)

andysays said:


> Covid: Chancellor announces £1bn fund for hospitality​
> No mention of actually ordering them to shut though...


Not yet. 

My guess is midnight boxing day after we get a 5pm TV address from Boris


----------



## editor (Dec 21, 2021)

andysays said:


> Covid: Chancellor announces £1bn fund for hospitality​
> No mention of actually ordering them to shut though...


I doubt if that will be if any help to zero hours bar staff, musicians, promoters etc.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2021)

two sheds said:


> pubs and the like should be having a rent holiday, the pub chains on the whole can afford it. Pubcos are perfectly happy to continue taking rents, and will be perfectly happy to sell pubs off for luxury flats if the landlords can't pay the rents any more. Fat chance though if there's a threat to tory party coffers.



Worthing council recently bought a former pub to covert into a dozen or so units for the homeless, I think this should be a national policy, to stop pub chains selling at the premium so luxury flats can be developed, it could make them think again about rents & keeping pubs open, and those that still close, would be put to worthwhile use.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

I did not notice the huge and sudden discrepancy in testing data that turned out to be due to the dodgy lab. However once I had hindsight and so actually bothered to look back at the data, it became clear that anyone looking properly at that data without the benefit of hindsight should still have noticed there was an obvious problem quite quickly.

And so it is not surprising that we now have this story:



> *Discrepancies in Covid test results were spotted a month before testing was halted at one lab, court papers show.*
> 
> More than 43,000 people received incorrect results after errors at the Immensa laboratory in Wolverhampton.
> 
> ...











						Immensa: Month delay before incorrect Covid tests halted
					

Court papers show discrepancies at Immensa's laboratory were flagged as early as mid September.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2021)

editor said:


> I doubt if that will be if any help to zero hours bar staff, musicians, promoters etc.


Looks to me like promoters, and probably some bands if they've set themselves up as a business, should be able to apply for the grants? The zero hours bar staff are fucked though.


----------



## editor (Dec 21, 2021)

killer b said:


> Looks to me like promoters, and probably some bands if they've set themselves up as a business, should be able to apply for the grants? The zero hours bar staff are fucked though.


Most small bands/promoters/DJs aren't set up as businesses. They'll be as fucked as zero hours bar staff - and some may be worse off if they're already laid out for promotion/venue hire etc.


----------



## killer b (Dec 21, 2021)

editor said:


> Most small bands/promoters/DJs aren't set up as businesses. They'll be as fucked as zero hours bar staff - and some may be worse off if they're already laid out for promotion/venue hire etc.


Presumably if they're making money from playing/putting on gigs & that they'll at least be registered as self employed so they can pay tax on their earnings - is that not more or less the same as being set up as a business? Presumably they'll be able to apply for the grant if so - I guess we'll need to see the smallprint before writing it off anyway.


----------



## stdP (Dec 21, 2021)

editor said:


> I doubt if that will be if any help to zero hours bar staff, musicians, promoters etc.



The what now...?

In all seriousness, £1bn sounds like a drop in the bucket, hospitality revenue in the last two weeks before christmas in england alone must normally be many multiples of that.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 21, 2021)

The gov't help [last time with furlough and grants] was almost all concentrated onto businesses.
IIRC, the self-employed furlough provisions were some of the last to be made available.
I know a "few" people who are either IR35 self-employed or have zero-hour contracts - most of them had very little help.
No business rates relief, for example ...


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

steeplejack said:


> He should be in prison for killing thousands with "Eat Out to Help Out (My Friends in Business)".
> 
> His ideological intransigence now will cost many more lives, too. Because, ultimately, that's the "evidence" he wants; thousands more deaths before he green-lights money for businesses to close.


This. One of the horrors of this pandemic is how people have, literally, got away with mass murder.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

Scotland are imposing limits to the size of large public gatherings from Boxing Day for at least 3 weeks - 100 and 200 indoor limit depending on whether they are standing or seated, 500 limit outdoors. Indoor contact sports for adults not going ahead. Also table service only for alcohol consumption venues, and some 1 metre rules.


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## StoneRoad (Dec 21, 2021)

Wilf said:


> This. One of the horrors of this pandemic is how people have, literally, got away with mass murder.


If a business did such things, the directors would, quite rightly, be charged with "corporate manslaughter" if they are negligent over safety, for example.

Trouble is, depiffle & his cabinet are beholden to the money-making interests of business, so a lot of this balls-up is deliberate on their part ...


----------



## souljacker (Dec 21, 2021)

two sheds said:


> pubs and the like should be having a rent holiday, the pub chains on the whole can afford it. Pubcos are perfectly happy to continue taking rents, and will be perfectly happy to sell pubs off for luxury flats if the landlords can't pay the rents any more. Fat chance though if there's a threat to tory party coffers.


I said this right at the start. It's utterly ludicrous to say to pubs and restaurants that they can't operate a business whilst allowing the landlords to still operate a business.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2021)

yep and landlords of private properties too - rather than us paying landlords via their tenants there should be a rent holiday for tenants - certainly with well-off landlords (perhaps make it means tested the government likes that  ).


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 21, 2021)

Yeah, I agree with homes & businesses getting a rent holiday.

The sharks that own the site where my workshop is located are nasty, grasping cunts.
Like their predecessors, they promised all sorts of things when they bought the site ...
There's been almost no maintenance for the past seven or more years, part of several buildings have been [badly] demolished, the yard surface is dangerous from deep potholes.
They tried to get planning permission to "redevelop" the whole site, really grand plans for housing, hotel, a filling station and two drive thru's [one food, one coffee], overnight waggon-parking - as far as I know, the whole lot was kicked into touch.
During the main lockdowns last year, they were harassing people to pay up for rent and service charges, even in advance of the due dates.  They offered zero help or flexibility, even to otherwise prompt payers.
And they're still at it - we've just had a sarky reminder for the next quarter's rent. It's due on the 25th, and they want us to pay it early ! Just for that, it'll be late ...


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

Scotland act, we get some more awful figures at 4.00, maybe some more studies and projections and.... well, nothing at all for another 48 hours while johnson faffs, farts and cringes.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

> *Wales will need more restrictions to keep the country safe, a senior Welsh government minister has said.*
> 
> Ministers are considering whether further measures are needed after Christmas to tackle Omicron.
> 
> Economy Minister Vaughan Gething called for the UK government to restart the furlough scheme.











						Omicron: More Covid rules needed in Wales, minister says
					

Vaughan Gething's comments come as Welsh government bans spectators from attending sports matches.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2021)

Is the black colour in the key new?  Certainly seems to indicate Plague and Pestilence. 😭 



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2021)

Sue said:


> Is the black colour in the key new?



Yes, they had a notice on there yesterday, saying a new colour would be added today, for any areas with 1600+ cases per 100k.

Anyone remember at the start of this, when they introduced travel restrictions for any countries on 20+ cases per 100k?

Seems hard to believe now.


----------



## Sue (Dec 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes, they had a notice on there yesterday, saying a new colour would be added today, for any areas with 1600+ cases per 100k.


And BOOM, half of inner London goes black 😭 


cupid_stunt said:


> Anyone remember at the start of this, when they introduced travel restrictions for any countries on 20+ cases per 100k?
> 
> 
> It's hard to believe now.


Can someone wake me up when this is 'over'..?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2021)

Sue said:


> And BOOM, half of inner London goes black 😭



Yep, and you can see how it's spreading out of London, with most surrounding counties now dark purple.

West Berkshire will go that way tomorrow, closely followed by Hampshire, us in West Sussex, then East Sussex soon after. It's just like watching the spread from north Kent last Dec., and into Jan.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2021)

Murderous cunt.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2021)

All the time you're there, cunt...yeah.


----------



## LDC (Dec 21, 2021)

Well, January and February are going to be, erm... interesting...


----------



## brogdale (Dec 21, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Well, January and February are going to be, erm... interesting...


Pagel gives it two options:



> Last Thursday, Sage estimated that without reducing transmission further (over and above plan B), there will be at least 3,000 daily admissions to hospital in England (equivalent to the first wave in 2020), and it could be much worse even than last January. So the question is not whether it will be bad for the NHS, but *whether it will be just dreadful or catastrophic.*


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

Traansmission will be reduced further than Plan B because of all the behavioural changes due to the much worse mood music. Really difficult for me to guess to what extent though, or the extent to which extended family contact patterns over Christmas remove the advantages from workplace contacts and school contacts being reduced by the holiday period. ie similar to last year where people were on the lookout for a dreadful Christmas-induced spike in cases, but I felt the need to keep waffling on about the effect of school holidays etc.

I cant even use the daily hospital admissions data to form a strong opinion because although the numbers have been going up quite quickly in the London region, it would still take more time before they reached doom levels, and there will be some large disruptions to publication of that data over the holiday. Also given the increased Omicron transmissiveness I dont know to quite what extent I should attribute the rise in daily hospital admissions/diagnoses to spread within hospitals and people tsting positive when they are in hospital for other reasons. And of course the condition they are in for other reasons makes a difference to the implications for them when they happen to catch covid without the covid being the original cause of their admission.

My adherence to precautionary principals mean that the above would not stop me from taking further action, but those and many other unknowns mean I dont really have a solid prediction for quite what to expect in January.


----------



## stdP (Dec 21, 2021)

A similarly worrisome article from The Conversation:



> big factor in this change was a surge in cases in schoolchildren in the least deprived areas. But the same change occurred in older age groups, too. So what was going on?
> 
> There are many possible explanations, but one contributing factor is likely to be the fact that, having had high case rates for so long, more deprived areas had much higher levels of infection-acquired immunity. Essentially, so many people had had COVID already that the virus started to run out of susceptible people to infect. Many more affluent areas, however, had seen relatively fewer cases and so had greater exposure to new outbreaks, particularly among schoolchildren who didn’t have the additional protection of vaccines.
> 
> ...











						Omicron is likely to hit deprived areas the hardest – here's why
					

Fewer people in deprived areas have been receiving the COVID booster shots.




					theconversation.com
				




Thankfully we've got a government that's always got the interests of the most deprived and dispossessed at heart and the efficiency of the private sector is pulling out all the stops to help the NHS.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

Covid hospital admissions/diagnoses data for England to go with my previous post.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 21, 2021)

Whats the betting on post-clusterfuck the only way deemed plausible to provide the necessary investment in the NHS will be to privatise it?


----------



## stdP (Dec 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Covid hospital admissions/diagnoses data for England to go with my previous post.



The (presumably) infection rate for London is pretty impressive, with the rest of the country broadly stationary - suggesting that the huge increases in cases every day are predominantly London-only? I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the only person in Lambeth never to have got it.

Do your sources for stats have separate data for hospital admissions only in London itself? Seeing as it appears to be London leading the omicron charge starting about a month ago it'd be very interesting to see what the London hospital admissions started looking like a fortnight ago.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

stdP said:


> The (presumably) infection rate for London is pretty impressive, with the rest of the country broadly stationary - suggesting that the huge increases in cases every day are predominantly London-only? I'm beginning to wonder if I'm the only person in Lambeth never to have got it.
> 
> Do your sources for stats have separate data for hospital admissions only in London itself? Seeing as it appears to be London leading the omicron charge starting about a month ago it'd be very interesting to see what the London hospital admissions started looking like a fortnight ago.


Large numbers of locations around the country are showing big leaps in case numbers, but these only showed up more recently than London and it takes time to filter through into hospitalisations.

The graphs I included show London as an entire region. To zoom in more than that you need to look at data per hospital trust, which only comes out once a week (Thursdays if I recall properly). It is available on the main UK dashboard using dropdown menus. And I'm not a Londoner so I have a bit of trouble putting individual NHS trusts into context.

Just to give one example, this link should show the data for Barts. Currently only covers admissions up to the 12th December.



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=nhsTrust&areaName=Barts%20Health%20NHS%20Trust


----------



## editor (Dec 21, 2021)

elbows said:


> Traansmission will be reduced further than Plan B because of all the behavioural changes due to the much worse mood music. Really difficult for me to guess to what extent though, or the extent to which extended family contact patterns over Christmas remove the advantages from workplace contacts and school contacts being reduced by the holiday period. ie similar to last year where people were on the lookout for a dreadful Christmas-induced spike in cases, but I felt the need to keep waffling on about the effect of school holidays etc.
> 
> I cant even use the daily hospital admissions data to form a strong opinion because although the numbers have been going up quite quickly in the London region, it would still take more time before they reached doom levels, and there will be some large disruptions to publication of that data over the holiday. Also given the increased Omicron transmissiveness I dont know to quite what extent I should attribute the rise in daily hospital admissions/diagnoses to spread within hospitals and people tsting positive when they are in hospital for other reasons. And of course the condition they are in for other reasons makes a difference to the implications for them when they happen to catch covid without the covid being the original cause of their admission.
> 
> My adherence to precautionary principals mean that the above would not stop me from taking further action, but those and many other unknowns mean I dont really have a solid prediction for quite what to expect in January.


Anecdotally, there's been a HUGE increase in mask wearing in the street and in shops.  Why we couldn't have just stuck with an enforced requirement to wear masks on public transport and shops baffles me. Well it would if we didn't have a bunch of fucking clowns in government.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

editor said:


> Anecdotally, there's been a HUGE increase in mask wearing in the street and in shops.  Why we couldn't have just stuck with an enforced requirement to wear masks on public transport and shops baffles me. Well it would if we didn't have a bunch of fucking clowns in government.


Well, it would reduce transmission. And just imagine being trapped in an ideological and political place where you can't do that?  Killers.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

Anyway, they'll have a bit of think and get back to us in a couple of days. Fair enough, can't see another couple of days making a difference. Death by government.


			Boris Johnson to make 'circuit-breaker announcement in next 48 hours'


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 21, 2021)

Cases down on last week, hospitalisations and deaths remaining relatively low... Every cloud!


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

Wonder how many more ambulance crews will be waiting in hospital corridors with patients as a result of this 48 hours?  'Boris' killed my nan.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 21, 2021)

crojoe said:


> Cases down on last week, hospitalisations and deaths remaining relatively low... Every cloud!


Still a bit too early for omicron cases to be affecting deaths in particular.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 21, 2021)

crojoe said:


> *Cases down on last week*, hospitalisations and deaths remaining relatively low... Every cloud!


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2021)

Today's numbers reinforce my hopefulness about London cases having started to level off or even reach a peak.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2021)

crojoe said:


> Cases down on last week...



Cases are up 63.1% on the pervious 7 days.


----------



## purenarcotic (Dec 21, 2021)

What is happening in South Africa? They have much lower vaccination rates, so just wondering if that helps to build a picture of what it might be like? Given they discovered it so are presumably ahead of us…


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 21, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> What is happening in South Africa? They have much lower vaccination rates, so just wondering if that helps to build a picture of what it might be like? Given they discovered it so are presumably ahead of us…



Younger average population though. 

I think things are doing ok there at the moment but not paying that much attention.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 21, 2021)

teuchter said:


> Today's numbers reinforce my hopefulness about London cases having started to level off or even reach a peak.
> 
> View attachment 302201


Pass the spliff.


----------



## redsquirrel (Dec 21, 2021)

purenarcotic said:


> What is happening in South Africa? They have much lower vaccination rates, so just wondering if that helps to build a picture of what it might be like? Given they discovered it so are presumably ahead of us…


Data I've seen has cases dropping (quite fast) but I think the question is to what extent that is a true picture and/or an artefact of various factors


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

I wore myself out with that stuff via past waves peak predictions and trying to decode data, so I'm not going to try this time, I'll quit while I'm ahead (the July peak that somehow commentators and experts didnt see coming despite the same thing having happened in Scotland earlier due to earlier school holidays in Scotland back then). And I've bored myself going on about reasons for actual peaks that dont involve the classic formal lockdowns. Certainly with every day that passes there will be more people drawing attention to that data on twitter etc, but I'll take a break instead. My focus will be on cases by age group since these sometimes tell a different story to the peaks in overall case numbers. And I'm sure I will keep looking at hosiptal data one we reach a point where I can make more confident claims about such things, probably after the Christmas pause to hospital data at this rate. eg the July case peak I mentioned did not lead to the peak in hospitalisations for that wave following soon after in a straightforward manner, since the peak was dominated by younger age groups and case number in older people grew more later.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Cases are up 63.1% on the pervious 7 days.


I just read that Tuesday's figure was down on the highs of last week


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 21, 2021)

crojoe said:


> I just read that Tuesday's figure was down on the highs of last week



Not sure where you read that, but...







__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

Theres lots of different ways to look at it and different headlines can be constructed as a result.

There are 7 day averages. There are positive cases reported per day. There are positive cases by test specimen date (current peak of those is still December 15th but that could still change later).

And then there are other forms of surveillance which arent so reliant on number of tests done and attitudes to testing. eg things like the ONS study that does random sampling of households and tends to generate news items once a week. But thats a laggy form of surveillance so people will still tend to resort to daily data when trying to tell peak stories at the very earliest opportunity (or prematurely).

For England ones of the clues about testing numbers we have these days is that if you drill down to England on the test section of the dashboard and scroll down a fair bit, you can see how many lateral flow tests are recorded as having been taken each day. So far these also peaked on the 15th but I wouldnt call the drop off since then staggering.



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing?areaType=nation&areaName=England
		


Other clues are obtained via weekly reports and via things like the percentage of tests that are positive. I might focus on the positivity rate at some point, but for now I will see how long I can go without the temptation to keep making posts like these.

Oh and people could also look at daily data for the Christmas period last year, to see what sort of festive season & school holiday induced changes happened to the figures that time around.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 21, 2021)

editor said:


> Anecdotally, there's been a HUGE increase in mask wearing in the street and in shops.  Why we couldn't have just stuck with an enforced requirement to wear masks on public transport and shops baffles me. Well it would if we didn't have a bunch of fucking clowns in government.


I was thinking this yesterday - was on the tube and FINALLY almost 100% compliance in our carriage and I just thought 'See? It's not that fucking hard; we needed to have been doing this since first lockdown last year and to keep doing it next year. If you can do it now, you can keep doing it!' 

Would it have stopped COVID in its tracks? No. Would we have been in a much better position with 1000s fewer dead or left with chronic illness? Yes.


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

Plus I wanted a summer with Covid suppressed so that hospital etc staff had some period where they could begin to recharge their batteries a little before another wave arrived. Instead we got a wave that just kept on dragging on, and now another wave gets to sit on top of that one.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 21, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I was thinking this yesterday - was on the tube and FINALLY almost 100% compliance in our carriage and I just thought 'See? It's not that fucking hard; we needed to have been doing this since first lockdown last year and to keep doing it next year. If you can do it now, you can keep doing it!
> Would it have stopped COVID in its tracks? No. Would we have been in a much better position with 1000s fewer dead or left with chronic illness? Yes.



I think people doing more of two other things would help ... 
a) properly testing & isolating with symptoms or +ve test [which also needs £££ support]
and
b) not just masking but also social distancing & things like wfh [also something with school aged kids]


----------



## Cloo (Dec 21, 2021)

It doesn't help that testing and isolating info is confusing and changable, or that kids are expected to go into school when someone in their household has it. Honestly, if kids go back to school with Omicron in full swing it sounds like the whole class should be sent home the minute someone's confirmed to have it as it sounds like it's almost inevitable that multiple kids will develop it. I'm almost hoping we get it before term starts so I don't have the dilemma about trying to keep the kids off - in the event we do have it during term time I will try to keep them at home and string out tests for a day or two in the hope of keeping them off. That said, it's overwhelmingly likely that one or other kid will bring it home first.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 21, 2021)

I've worn a mask in shops since this started. Like I told my colleagues just because I'm paranoid and a hypochondriac doesn't mean I'm wrong lol


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 21, 2021)

BBC national news reporting from 'brixton high street'  as covid central...


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yes, they had a notice on there yesterday, saying a new colour would be added today, for any areas with 1600+ cases per 100k.
> 
> Anyone remember at the start of this, when they introduced travel restrictions for any countries on 20+ cases per 100k?
> 
> Seems hard to believe now.



They do think carefully about the colours:


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 21, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not sure where you read that, but...
> 
> View attachment 302205
> 
> ...



Daily numbers. Not 7 day. BBC.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 21, 2021)

crojoe said:


> Daily numbers. Not 7 day. BBC.


Tuesday 14th Dec = 59,610 reported new cases
Tuesday 21st Dec = 90,629 reported new cases

Either you misheard, or were listening to someone talking bollocks.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 21, 2021)

why so aggressive? and you're still wrong. 

"Another 90,629 new Covid cases were reported across the UK on Tuesday - slightly down on the all-time highs announced last week."









						Covid: No new restrictions in England before Christmas - Boris Johnson
					

But Boris Johnson says "we can't rule out any further measures after Christmas" as Omicron spreads fast.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Cloo (Dec 21, 2021)

Couldn't be anything to do with a shortage of tests at all then.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 21, 2021)

Cloo said:


> Couldn't be anything to do with a shortage of tests at all then.


This, I've seen a few comments about it peaking. Seems absurdly wishful thinking to me. We've had a wave of Delta that's rolled on at a steady 40-50k a day since July and now we've got omicron on top of that doubling those figures and lateral flows rarer that rocking horse shit.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 21, 2021)

And on top of that, the people who aren't doing a test because they don't want to know they've got it and thus have it spoil their Christmas plans.


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2021)

Another factor that wasn't as bad during the other peaks, has been mentioned on here before but another reason to take omicron seriously.  









						Hospitals plan for ‘mass casualty’ event with up to one-third of staff sick
					

Exclusive: Christmas is going ahead but ‘we’re going to suffer for it afterwards’ says senior NHS source




					www.independent.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 21, 2021)

Not the worst take on the uncertainty although its still too mild in tone for my liking when it comes to the gamble the government are taking. Because it wont just be a gamble ministers can lose, it could easily be a gamble lots of people pay for with their lives.









						UK government’s wait for Omicron evidence is a high-stakes gamble
					

Analysis: ‘incontrovertible evidence’ is a tall order and in the meantime the NHS risks being overwhelmed




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2021)

So is it time to isolate London from the rest of the UK before it's too late? I'd ask the local MP to close off the Tamar Bridge but it would be Eusteless.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 21, 2021)

two sheds said:


> So is it time to isolate London from the rest of the UK *before it's too late?* I'd ask the local MP to close off the Tamar Bridge but it would be Eusteless.


it's way past too late, sorry.


----------



## Riklet (Dec 21, 2021)

The next thing with masks to enforce is people wearing a proper medical or ffp2 mask on public transport not just their scarf round their face or their home made old pants one. I believe this is the rule in Germany and they give them out. Harsh but fair.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 21, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> They do think carefully about the colours:



I'm not convinced that colour scale is very accessible even for people with perfectly good colour vision. It looks like they've backed themselves into a corner not wanting to change the "lower" colours so there's no room for gradation at the top end. Surely it would be better to revise the whole scale. It was obviously not originally designed for this range of values.


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 21, 2021)

two sheds said:


> So is it time to isolate London from the rest of the UK before it's too late? I'd ask the local MP to close off the Tamar Bridge but it would be Eusteless.


The second home cunts will be down in Cornwall already


----------



## two sheds (Dec 21, 2021)

I know


----------



## Spandex (Dec 21, 2021)

crojoe said:


> why so aggressive? and you're still wrong.
> 
> "Another 90,629 new Covid cases were reported across the UK on Tuesday - slightly down on the all-time highs announced last week."


Sorry if that came across as aggressive. All this shit is doing my head in. 

All week there's been the Tory right and their echoes in the media downplaying how deep in the shit we are at the moment because save Xmas/save business/freedom! Forget about saving lives, it's probably only the economically inactive who'll die anyway. Probably good for the economy in the long run. Just a parade of cunts and their sidekicks. 

I'm not including you in that, but your post must've triggered me.

On the figures: last week the figures shot up from high 40,000s/low 50,000s to 90,000s per day. The highest recorded by specimen date is last Wednesday with 102,875; by reported date Friday with 93,045. Today's reported figure is hardly down from that. Especially as the last two days have been weekend figures, which are usually lower, and today they've resolved a reporting error (positive LFTs followed by negative PCR tests weren't being taken off the total) so there's been some knocked off today's reported figure. And the figures always fluctuate day to day for various reasons, which is why the 7 day average is a good number to look at.

Anyway, it is good that the numbers aren't shooting up the last few days, but there's been a number of things change in the last week: schools closing for Xmas, Plan B's 'compulsory' mask wearing (I'm seeing a lot more masks than 2 weeks ago, indoors and outdoors), many people stopping going out as much, taking it more seriously etc. But we're a long way from being able to breath a sigh of relief yet. Omicron has had a head start in London and is still taking off in many other parts of the country. For all the cries of 'it's mild', which really seems to have cut through, we're still waiting to see about that (it very well might be, but the amount of people catching it at once will wipe any gains from that out). 

The government has just taken a massive gamble, staking tens of thousands of lives on it not be as bad as those pesky scientists say it will. I find myself in the unusual position of hoping the right wing headbangers are right, because if they're wrong, there's going to be a horrific start to the new year.


----------



## xenon (Dec 21, 2021)

What actually would be the optimum strategy, if for argument sake, furlow (SP) could be reintroduced for several months.

Lock down and flatten the curve, well squish the spike. For a few weeks as more boosters are given? Could that have a significant impact?

This would seem the only rattionalle for  lock down AKA more restrictive measures. A short period whilst getting the booster to everyone that's going to have it. Keep mask wearing in shops, better impementation of ventilation systems but basically open after that.

People will still catch coronavirus but maybe the cases will fall due to light measures, maybe they won't. The hope being the number that fall seriously ill even after a booster is manageable. 

Otherwise if a lock down extends further than that, longer than after everyone who wants a vaccine including booster, has had one, we're into Spring. With Omicron still out there, possibly another variant of concern and around we go again.


----------



## xenon (Dec 21, 2021)

But if there will still be millions of cases because it's so viralent, even with masks, windows open whatever, we're still gonna have quite a few deaths unfortunately. As that small percentage of a large number thing. Someone in any govt would have to set an acceptable level for that.

Do not read this as supporting what Johnson et al aren't doing.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 21, 2021)

It’d be a better economic decision to up the grades of ppe for everyone. Starting with nurses etc as the most urgent, but also for everyone else. 

If preventing disruption to schools was really a priority, investment in ventilation snd co2 monitors would have happened already. 

Full funding for self isolation including accommodation where needed could still be implemented and would pay off. 

There’s a whole spectrum of things that could be done between “everything carrying on regardless” and “lockdown” 

But the only things which seem to have caught on for some ppl is “lockdowns”.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 22, 2021)

xenon said:


> What actually would be the optimum strategy, if for argument sake, furlow (SP) could be reintroduced for several months.
> 
> Lock down and flatten the curve, well squish the spike. For a few weeks as more boosters are given? Could that have a significant impact?
> 
> ...



Older and vulnerable people should be boosted by now, so it’s actually the best time for them to meet omicron, otherwise we get into waning booster immunity and fourth jab territory as Israel are doing. A full lockdown into spring while these groups sit at home with waning immunity doesn’t make sense.

So really it should be about just bringing the r number down enough that hospitals don’t get overwhelmed. What exactly would be needed to achieve this is of course why everyone is continuously scrabbling for new data.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2021)

Theres a drug now, approved for use by the nhs, which is believed to reduce the chance of vulnerable covid patients needing to be hospitalised by 70%. If thats true and access is ramped up then it will have a big impact, will help massively. But doesn't seem to be being factored into the conversation and predictions at all for some reason? Or maybe it is and i just haven't noticed.
UK's most vulnerable people to receive life-saving COVID-19 treatments in the community


----------



## LDC (Dec 22, 2021)

bimble said:


> Theres a drug now, approved for use by the nhs, which is believed to reduce the chance of vulnerable covid patients needing to be hospitalised by 70%. If thats true and access is ramped up then it will have a big impact, will help massively. But doesn't seem to be being factored into the conversation and predictions at all for some reason? Or maybe it is and i just haven't noticed.
> UK's most vulnerable people to receive life-saving COVID-19 treatments in the community



It has been mentioned in some of the more lengthy briefings and articles, it just gets mentioned as 'new drugs' though often rather than anything more specific. It's definitely a factor in the calculations as to what to do.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2021)

I see that there's mounting evidence that the astra zeneca vaccine 'showed no ability to stop Omicron infection six months after vaccination', so that's most of India's vaccination program as well as ours up til now, plus the covax program. just talking about infection, as the other day, not severity of illness.








						Most of the World’s Vaccines Likely Won’t Prevent Infection From Omicron
					

They do seem to offer significant protection against severe illness, but the consequences of rapidly spreading infection worry many public health experts.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## Supine (Dec 22, 2021)

bimble said:


> I see that there's mounting evidence that the astra zeneca vaccine 'showed no ability to stop Omicron infection six months after vaccination', so that's most of India's vaccination program as well as ours up til now, plus the covax program. just talking about infection, as the other day, not severity of illness.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I can’t read the article but AZ still protects against a lot of hospitalisations and almost all deaths. That shouldn’t be forgotten. 

Protection against any infection at all is a different ball game and requires boosters, potentially regularly.


----------



## bimble (Dec 22, 2021)

Supine said:


> I can’t read the article but AZ still protects against a lot of hospitalisations and almost all deaths. That shouldn’t be forgotten.
> 
> Protection against any infection at all is a different ball game and requires boosters, potentially regularly.


yes. i mean, i don't suppose we know yet fully what it does with omicron severity? But people seem optimistic.

On the other hand, this looks looks like not great news (for long term prevention of severe disease post vaccination). But I don't know how to read these things..




__





						DEFINE_ME
					





					www.thelancet.com


----------



## existentialist (Dec 22, 2021)

weepiper said:


> You can get one sent to you in the post. I'd certainly be doing one with those symptoms. Hope you feel better soon anyway.


All done and returned, got the result this morning - negative.


----------



## xenon (Dec 22, 2021)

existentialist said:


> All done and returned, got the result this morning - negative.



That must be frustrating, in a way. At least A positive result would mean okay, got it, deal with it. Least I get antibodies.

Hope you’re feeling better soon anyway, whatever it is.


----------



## William of Walworth (Dec 22, 2021)

magneze said:


> Better to move Christmas to the summer like Australia. I'm sure Jesus won't mind.


(Apologies for this derail, and for quoting the above from page 1476  -- am still on-catch-up with this thread  -- but ... )

Xmas already is in summer as far as myself and other mad/bonkers festival types are concerned 

To me, *Glastonbury 2022* _will_ happen despite what's happening now. Six months away from this boring, standard "Xmas" after all.

*Happy Real Xmas*! everybody!


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 22, 2021)

I still don't really understand how a couple who live together, sleep together etc, can be returning different lateral flow tests. happening to 3 couples I know now, over multiple days with one of them positive and one negative.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 22, 2021)

crojoe said:


> I still don't really understand how a couple who live together, sleep together etc, can be returning different lateral flow tests. happening to 3 couples I know now, over multiple days with one of them positive and one negative.



Having a non-zero viral load does not mean you have a sufficiently high viral load to be infectious to others.

That and the LFTs just aren't that great.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 22, 2021)

OK, so you can be in a position where you definitely have it but also can't infect people? didn't know that was confirmed as a thing to be honest. I guess it's not something to shout about to the masses


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2021)

Supine said:


> I can’t read the article but AZ still protects against a lot of hospitalisations and almost all deaths. That shouldn’t be forgotten.
> 
> Protection against any infection at all is a different ball game and requires boosters, potentially regularly.


No solid claims can yet be made about the level of protection from severe disease and death that vaccines offer against Omicron.

Boosters do not offer complete protection against any infection at all, they restore some of the previously seen protection on all fronts, and probably enhance certain immune responses beyond levels seen after initial 2 doses. But 100% protection against infection is not part of the covid vaccine picture at this time, no matter which licensed vaccine or strain of covid we are talking about.


----------



## killer b (Dec 22, 2021)

crojoe said:


> I still don't really understand how a couple who live together, sleep together etc, can be returning different lateral flow tests. happening to 3 couples I know now, over multiple days with one of them positive and one negative.


presumably they're vaccinated, and the vaccine is giving one of them more protection than the other. or one of them's doing the lateral flow tests wrong.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 22, 2021)

AIUI Covid isn't so infectious that it's vanishingly unlikely that would happen. It's not something that's been discussed really because for obvious reasons the message that has been put over is 'be super careful at all times' but it's not like the rage virus in 28 days later or anything like that.


----------



## Sue (Dec 22, 2021)

killer b said:


> presumably they're vaccinated, and the vaccine is giving one of them more protection than the other. or one of them's doing the lateral flow tests wrong.


Or one of them has already had it or people just have different immune responses to stuff?

(I've a friend like this. He's WFH, has barely been out, managed to catch it and was pretty ill. His partner tested negative and has been teaching in a school throughout, dealing with loads of kids a day. I think being a teacher for 20 years probably means she's nails.)


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2021)

The attack rate within households does get discussed in the technical literature. Including recently as they try to estimate whether the attack rate is higher for Omicron. I'll fish some of that detail out in a bit.


----------



## smmudge (Dec 22, 2021)

Yeah I think it's a number of factors between the person infected, and the person not infected, and then maybe the tests.

When my dad got it, he was quite symptomatic so I would assume infectious, but my double jabbed mum tested negative with a PCR.

With my sister in law's household, her husband, eldest and middle son got it but no symptoms. My double jabbed sister in law and not jabbed at all youngest son tested negative with PCRs. 

So probably more likely that they 'got' it but their immune systems fought it off effectively that even a PCR didn't detect it.


----------



## chilango (Dec 22, 2021)

Sue said:


> Or one of them has already had it or people just have different immune responses to stuff?
> 
> (I've a friend like this. He's WFH, has barely been out, managed to catch it and was pretty ill. His partner tested negative and has been teaching in a school throughout, dealing with loads of kids a day. I think being a teacher for 20 years probably means she's nails.)



That's pretty much our situation.

Me and my wife are both triple vaxxed. She's tested negative daily despite me and my daughter both having it and living in a small terrace....but she's been in school throughout.

Whereas my visits to school or campus have been much more sporadic and masked/distanced the whole time.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2021)

I've already linked to this news in another thread where the possibility came up in conversation some days before it actually happened, but I suppose it should go in this UK thread too:









						Covid: Self-isolation cut from 10 days to seven with negative tests
					

The new rules in England mean some people could end their self-isolation in time for Christmas.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I dont consider this to be ideal but it is the sort of balancing act that authorities feel the need to do when the level of disruption caused by self-isolation is extremely high. Countries that prioritise minimising the number of infections, and bringing in other measures to keep numbers down, are much less likely to have to do this. But of course the UK has quite different priorities, and so we find ourselves in this predicament, with these resulting compromises.


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 22, 2021)

I feel like a wimp turning down my sister's 4 generation festive science experiment - but even my 85 year old mother has been a participant for ages - whereas I have been living with only my own bacteria for company - I hope one day I will feel able to be a good great-uncle to the 8 year old but for the moment I view him with suspicion even on Facebook ...


----------



## editor (Dec 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> I've already linked to this news in another thread where the possibility came up in conversation some days before it actually happened, but I suppose it should go in this UK thread too:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I think it's a reasonable compromise. I tested negative three times by the end of the week and it was extremely frustrating being stuck in for another three days.

I also think that some people might be more likely to stick to the rules if it's only a week's isolation. 



> *People infected with Covid in England can stop self-isolating up to three days early if they test negative twice, it has been announced.*
> They will now be able to end quarantine after seven days instead of 10 by providing negative lateral flow results on day six and day seven.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2021)

Outbreaks in hospitals are unsurprisingly on the rise.









						Suspected Covid outbreaks in UK hospitals double in a week
					

Exclusive: official figures show 66 acute respiratory infection incidents in hospitals in week to 16 December




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2021)

On that same subject, I only have some very basic data avilable in terms of patients who quite possibly caught the virus in hospital. I have to subtract the figures from one table of data from another table of data to get these. The results are likely a big undercount, but they do at least provide a guide to trends. And sure enough the numbers in London are ballooning. I have that data going back to August 2020 so here it is, with the recent rise in London not subtle.



Note that this stuff is also related to why, when I do graphs of daily hospital admissions, I describe them as hospital admissions/diagnoses. Those overall daily numbers include people that were hospitalised for other reasons but then test positive for covid. Some of them already had covid before admission and some of them caught it in hospital. This does complicate our ability to use daily hospital admission figures as a complete guide to how many people are being hospitalised for covid. However people who catch it in hospital do represent a fair chunk of the mortality burden during pandemic waves, they are often vulnerable to the severe consequences of the disease, so it would not be fair to try to remove them from the picture just because they were initially hospitalised for other reasons. These days the NHS does also provide some figures which attempt to judge what proportion of people with covid in hospital beds are actually in hospital for covid and non-covid reasons. This data is imperfect but if the proportions shown by that data change notably then I will post some of that data and talk about it.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 22, 2021)

Had to go out to pharmacy today....Shopping area and traffic was a clusterfuck if it wasnt for some people wandering around with masks you'd think it was a completely normal Xmas
I expect Swansea will explode with Omicron in a week or 2


----------



## existentialist (Dec 22, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Had to go out to pharmacy today....Shopping area and traffic was a clusterfuck if it wasnt for some people wandering around with masks you'd think it was a completely normal Xmas
> I expect Swansea will explode with Omicron in a week or 2


Yes, I don't think we've seen anything like a peak in West Wales yet. It could peter out at about Bridgend, as the first wave did, but with the increasing infectivity of omicron, and a general ennui around precautions, I wouldn't be too hopeful.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2021)

I'm not surprised if they've decided to base their actions and inactions on hospital admissions data for London. And so this story does not surprise me:

                                   29m ago                            11:56                     



> In an article for the i, *Jane Merrick s*uggests that whether or not new restrictions get imposed in England after Christmas could depend on whether Covid hospital admissions in London pass the 400-per-day mark. She explains:





> Fresh restrictions in England after Christmas could be avoided if hospital admissions in London stay below 400 a day by the end of this week, *i* understands.
> 
> Ministers and scientific advisers are watching closely the number of Covid patients admitted to hospitals in the capital, as it is the leading edge of the Omicron wave and will provide some of the first real-world data on whether the variant is more severe in the UK ...
> 
> The latest figure for London admissions, from last Sunday 19 December is 245, and while the daily figure is rising, it has not increased as rapidly as Covid cases in London in the past two weeks. While the figure of 400 is not a hard and fast threshold, it will provide a good guide of whether the huge scale of Omicron cases, above 80,000 in England for the past week, will translate into hospital admissions and put severe pressure on the NHS throughout January.





> Merrick also says that, even if Boris Johnson does not impose new legal restrictions after Christmas, he could issue revised guidance as a means of discouraging social mixing.



I would add that cases in older age groups have been rising rapidly in this Omicron wave in London, but slightly delayed compared to younger cases. So these sorts of exercises in judging matters via real hospital data from the earliest affected region will also need to be repeated again after allowing a bit more time for older cases to translate to hospitalisations.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2021)

I'll give Wales a bonus point for this:



> *Groups of no more than six people will be allowed to meet in pubs, cinemas and restaurants in Wales from 26 December, the first minister has said.*
> And two metre social distancing rules are to return in public places, Mark Drakeford said.
> Licensed premises will have to offer table service only, face masks will have to be worn and contact tracing details collected.
> Outdoor events will be limited to 50, with 30 indoors.
> ...











						Covid: Only six people allowed to meet in pubs in Wales
					

There will be strict limits on the number of people who can meet in pubs, restaurants and cinemas.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## miktheword (Dec 22, 2021)

This may help answer some of the queries above concerning why some prolonged close contacts don't test positive









						People testing negative for Covid-19 despite exposure may have ‘immune memory’
					

Study says some individuals clear virus rapidly due to a strong immune response from existing T-cells, meaning tests record negative result




					www.theguardian.com
				




Wed 10 Nov 2021 16.45 GMT



_We all know that person who, despite their entire household catching Covid-19, has never tested positive for the disease. Now scientists have found an explanation, showing that a proportion of people experience “abortive infection” in which the virus enters the body but is cleared by the immune system’s T-cells at the earliest stage meaning that PCR and antibody tests record a negative result.
About 15% of healthcare workers who were tracked during the first wave of the pandemic in London, England, appeared to fit this scenario._


----------



## mwgdrwg (Dec 22, 2021)

New restrictions in Wales from Boxing Day









						Covid: Only six people allowed to meet in pubs in Wales
					

There will be strict limits on the number of people who can meet in pubs, restaurants and cinemas.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Sports all behind closed doors too.

It'll be strange seeing 60,000 fans at a Premier League game on the telly.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 22, 2021)

miktheword said:


> This may help answer some of the queries above concerning why some prolonged close contacts don't test positive
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That would probably explain how my Sis-i-L managed to avoid it, when everyone else in the [3-generation] household had it. Brought in by the youngest sprog, probably from play/school.


----------



## hattie (Dec 22, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> I feel like a wimp turning down my sister's 4 generation festive science experiment - but even my 85 year old mother has been a participant for ages - whereas I have been living with only my own bacteria for company - I hope one day I will feel able to be a good great-uncle to the 8 year old but for the moment I view him with suspicion even on Facebook ...


Hey it's ok gentlegreen - you are making a decision that is right for you - and it's an understandable, sensible decision. And your family members are making the decisions that suit them.  Hopefully everyone will accept each others choice, even if they don't fully understand it. 

I wonder if the suspicion you feel could be reframed as concern your nephew could be carrying the virus. I'm guessing it's the virus not the boy that is troubling you!

And perhaps you could tell someone in the family that you are looking forward to being a good uncle once risks have settled down. It's lovely think to be hoping for!
Maybe you could suggest a short meet with them in the local playground one day before new year, or maybe that's too soon for you to be mixing. 

Be kinder to yourself - I don't think you're a wimp!


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 22, 2021)

hattie said:


> I wonder if the suspicion you feel could be reframed as concern your nephew could be carrying the virus. I'm guessing it's the virus not the boy that is troubling you!


It's not just covid - I haven't benefited from the regular informal vaccinations I got when I was handling public computer keyboards in a university ...


----------



## Wilf (Dec 22, 2021)

I'm not exactly a keen watcher of the experts and the data, but there seems to have been a notable shift in the last 3 days or so. There were fairly clear messages from Whitty and, I think, Sage about taking action quickly, which the cabinet ignored.  Since then the mood music seems to have shifted from the experts, for example I heard the news in the car and there were 2 of them saying 'we need to wait for the data, which might be another 2 weeks'. Also, Omicron might not be as bad, though... we don't know yet.  

I'm sure that's all true, but the shift seems to have been 'it may be bad, so we need to act now' to 'we don't know, so we shouldn't act now'.  Are they just asking different experts?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 22, 2021)

Wilf said:


> I'm not exactly a keen watcher of the experts and the data, but there seems to have been a notable shift in the last 3 days or so. There were fairly clear messages from Whitty and, I think, Sage about taking action quickly, which the cabinet ignored.  Since then the mood music seems to have shifted from the experts, for example I heard the news in the car and there were 2 of them saying 'we need to wait for the data, which might be another 2 weeks'. Also, Omicron might not be as bad, though... we don't know yet.
> 
> I'm sure that's all true, but the shift seems to have been 'it may be bad, so we need to act now' to 'we don't know, so we shouldn't act now'.  Are they just asking different experts?


All of which, mood music wise, sounds very different to this:








						NHS may set up ‘field hospitals’ in car parks to cope with Omicron
					

Hospital canteens, offices and meeting rooms could also be turned into wards if health service is overwhelmed




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2021)

It is mostly just different experts being asked, and narratives being tuned to fit the policies the government chose.

If there is to be a broader shift in expert opinion then more time is required before that becomes the case. And there may be additional lag to that happening, assuming that hospital data doesnt get published as much over Christmas.

Personally when looking for optimism, so far I am mostly reliant on the idea that very widespread behavioural changes have occured in recent weeks, plus the pace of the booster programme, plus further nuancing of estimates in regards how well the vaccines still hold up against Omicron. None of this is sufficient to actually make me properly optimistic yet, but I certainly havent been pummelled by new reasons to be gloomy beyond those already provided by early modelling.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2021)

JCVI has issued a statement on vaccinating children:





__





						JCVI statement on COVID-19 vaccination of children and young people: 22 December 2021
					






					www.gov.uk
				






> Children aged 5 to 11 years in a clinical risk group (as defined in the Green Book), or who are a household contact of someone who is immunosuppressed (as defined in the Green Book), should be offered two 10 micrograms doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty®) with an interval of 8 weeks between the first and second doses. The minimum interval between any vaccine dose and recent COVID-19 infection should be 4 weeks.
> 
> Further advice regarding COVID-19 vaccination for other 5 to 11 year olds will be issued in due course following consideration of additional data. Data being sought includes:
> 
> ...


It goes on a bit so I've only quoted the first bit.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 22, 2021)

elbows said:


> JCVI has issued a statement on vaccinating children:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


About time!!!


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 22, 2021)

106k. Is this a new record?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 22, 2021)

S☼I said:


> 106k. Is this a new record?



Yes.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 22, 2021)

Wilf said:


> All of which, mood music wise, sounds very different to this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The bigger problem is likely to be a lack of medics to deal with increased cases.



> One in 10 doctors are off work in the UK, figures revealed on Wednesday, as medical leaders warned the highly transmissible new variant was fuelling the worst absence rates in the NHS since the start of the pandemic.
> 
> A survey conducted by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) found 10.5% of doctors were absent. The picture is worse in London, where one in seven doctors are off work (13.9%).
> 
> The number of absences is growing, the RCP said, leaving “exhausted and demoralised” staff on wards struggling to cope with the pressure of more cases coupled with mounting winter pressures.



Shocking figures.


----------



## elbows (Dec 22, 2021)

Given the earlier report that government will be using whether London daily hospital admissions remain below 400 by the end of the week (        #44,781      ) to make some decisions, here is the latest admissions data for London:



Admissions for England have gone above 1000 in todays data.


----------



## magneze (Dec 22, 2021)

Direction of travel looks fairly clear there.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 22, 2021)

Blimey, over a million jabs reported today, respect to all involved.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Yep, and you can see how it's spreading out of London, with most surrounding counties now dark purple.
> 
> West Berkshire will go that way tomorrow, closely followed by Hampshire, us in West Sussex, then East Sussex soon after. It's just like watching the spread from north Kent last Dec., and into Jan.



Both West Berkshire & Hampshire turned dark purple today, West Sussex will tomorrow, and East Sussex a day or two later, the spread out from London is so clear.


----------



## clicker (Dec 22, 2021)

The London bit looks like a playful, black Westie trying to catch his tail.

I'm not a scientist.
Eta sorry wrong thread 😞


----------



## existentialist (Dec 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Both West Berkshire & Hampshire turned *deep purple* today, West Sussex will tomorrow, and East Sussex a day or two later, the spread out from London is so clear.


----------



## prunus (Dec 22, 2021)

existentialist said:


>



Surely


----------



## Pingety Pong (Dec 22, 2021)

Parts of Manchester and Salford are also getting bad.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 22, 2021)

Interesting summary here. Sounds like Sage are basically saying 'Stop using the mildest scenario as basis for decisions!!!'.








						Sage memo makes the case for lockdown | The Spectator
					

On Monday, Covid restrictions were rejected after the cabinet debated the issue robustly for the first time since the pandemic started. The Prime Minister said he’d revisit the decision, so the debate is very much still ongoing.    But it wasn’t just ministers meeting that day. Sage assembled...




					www.spectator.co.uk
				




Which suggests to me they'll be ignored.


----------



## stdP (Dec 22, 2021)

clicker said:


> The London bit looks like a playful, black Westie trying to catch his tail.
> 
> I'm not a scientist.
> Eta sorry wrong thread 😞



Don't put yourself down, this is already a more thorough analysis of the data than the government has been capable of so far.


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 22, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Both West Berkshire & Hampshire turned dark purple today, West Sussex will tomorrow, and East Sussex a day or two later, the spread out from London is so clear.
> 
> View attachment 302355


Reminds me of the Dads Army opening titles (or maybe the Germans cut off at Stalingrad). You Worthing people are cutoff, you need to counterattack out of the pocket and break out to the west


----------



## Cloo (Dec 22, 2021)

In many ways it seems like the worst thing they could do (NB, this increases likelihood of them doing it) would be to have a few days with hospitality etc still open after Xmas because, while I think quite a lot of people have been careful in the last week or two to try to ensure they get Christmas with their family, after Boxing Day, especially if they know restrictions are coming, a lot of people might go 'Fuck it, we've done Christmas, let's go out for a drink/meal with everyone while we can because we'll all be sat at home for the next few weeks anyway so it won't matter if we get COVID!'


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 22, 2021)

BBC News - Omicron wave appears milder, but concern remains








						Omicron wave appears milder, but concern remains
					

The risk of needing hospital treatment could be 30 - 70% lower with Omicron than other variants.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 22, 2021)

Risk of hospital stay 40% lower with Omicron than Delta, UK data suggests
					

Researchers find those who test positive with new Covid variant up to 25% less likely to attend hospital at all




					www.theguardian.com
				












						Report 50 - Hospitalisation risk for Omicron cases in England
					

Report 50 - Hospitalisation risk for Omicron cases in England




					www.imperial.ac.uk


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

So the thing I mentioned a few times already about London hospital admissions and whether they reach 400 by the end of the week being used as some sort of trigger threshold ( New Covid restrictions could be avoided if hospital admissions in London do not soar this week )

The article says its not a fixed threshold and that other stuff is being looked at too. But I have to wonder if actually that value for London has been used as a trigger in the past.

I checked the previous occasions where London daily hospital admissions data crossed over the 400 line.

March 23rd 2020 - That day Johnson told everyone they must stay at home, lockdown.

December 19th 2020 - That day Johnson announced tier 4 restrictions for London and other areas that were already in tier 3 measures.

Caveat: the dates for daily hospital admissions on the dashboard are the admissions date, not the date that data was actually publicly published. And I dont know exactly how quickly the government get those numbers compared to when we get to see them.


----------



## Ĝasper (Dec 23, 2021)

What's the longest you've waited for PCR results? I'm waiting around 24 hours now - both times in the past it's been around 12.

Wanting results before going home to parents - currently in work digs - need to check out today. Nowhere else to go after but parents. Bit of a fix. Was meant to be getting a booster today too, but I'd better cancel that now as sore throat! Not sure if this is the right thread, but cheers guys


----------



## LDC (Dec 23, 2021)

Ĝasper said:


> What's the longest you've waited for PCR results? I'm waiting around 24 hours now - both times in the past it's been around 12.
> 
> Wanting results before going home to parents - currently in work digs - need to check out today. Nowhere else to go after but parents. Bit of a fix. Was meant to be getting a booster today too, but I'd better cancel that now as sore throat! Not sure if this is the right thread, but cheers guys



Someone I know has been waiting 48 hours now after a +tive LFT, and with the numbers of cases I'd expect waiting times are longer than they have been previously tbh. Can you call and check?


----------



## prunus (Dec 23, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Someone I know has been waiting 48 hours now after a +tive LFT, and with the numbers of cases I'd expect waiting times are longer than they have been previously tbh. Can you call and check?



We’ve been waiting 48 hours now for a result for my son (-ve LFT but a bit of a cough); we were told up to 72 hours at the time.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 23, 2021)

I did mine at 1130 on Saturday, and got the result when I woke up yesterday (Wednesday). Some of that might have been about postal delays, despite posting it in a priority box, the timings would suggest it didn't get collected until Monday


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

I wasnt sure if my opinion of Burnham could get worse in this pandemic, but yes he found a way to make it worse.

I mean the mental health point has plenty of truth to it, and its one of the reasons I'm not going completely nuts on the forum about the need to lockdown this time around, even though I clearly believe we should have acted  much more strongly again this time, and quicker. However peoples mental health will hardly be helped if we end up with a big mass of hospital admissions and deaths and then a longer period of restrictions as a result of the complete failure to take strong, early action. And what about the mental health of healthcare workers?

Plus I think it is reasonable to suspect that the motivations of the 'delay any strong action for as long as possible' wankers in the establishment are less about mental health and that its just convenient for them to hide behind that justification.

The use of the word rushing also earns him some extra contempt points in my eyes, fuck you Burnham. The word proportionate is also used. Only time will tell whose sense of proportion is correct this time - I'm still desperately waiting to be wrong about such matters and will be delighted when the moment finally arrives where my sense of pandemic proportion is proven to be out of step with reality. But am I convinved that time has come now? Sadly no. Ready to eat my hat if I'm wrong though, but will there be any consequences for people with Burnhams stance if the shit hits the fan?


----------



## existentialist (Dec 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> I wasnt sure if my opinion of Burnham could get worse in this pandemic, but yes he found a way to make it worse.
> 
> I mean the mental health point has plenty of truth to it, and its one of the reasons I'm not going completely nuts on the forum about the need to lockdown this time around, even though I clearly believe we should have acted  much more strongly again this time, and quicker. However peoples mental health will hardly be helped if we end up with a big mass of hospital admissions and deaths and then a longer period of restrictions as a result of the complete failure to take strong, early action. And what about the mental health of healthcare workers?
> 
> ...



Politicians will politick...


----------



## thismoment (Dec 23, 2021)

Ĝasper said:


> What's the longest you've waited for PCR results? I'm waiting around 24 hours now - both times in the past it's been around 12.
> 
> Wanting results before going home to parents - currently in work digs - need to check out today. Nowhere else to go after but parents. Bit of a fix. Was meant to be getting a booster today too, but I'd better cancel that now as sore throat! Not sure if this is the right thread, but cheers guys


I’ve previously always had results by 24hrs but not this time. Its only after 24 hrs for me so maybe they’ll arrive soon and your results too


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 23, 2021)

A lot of people who've never given a toss about mental health before suddenly seem very concerned 🤔


----------



## sojourner (Dec 23, 2021)

Made a bit of a breakthrough with Paul at work yesterday. He was moaning that 'surely most people in the UK must have had it by now!!'. So I asked him how many people there actually are in the UK. He didn't know, so I showed him where to look to find out. 'Wow, that's a lot of people' he said, 'how many have had Covid?'. So I checked the same site, and told him just over 11 and a half million. We agreed it was probably more than that due to asymptomatic cases and early lack of testing, but even so, with a generous margin, there's probably 30 million who haven't (yet) had it.  I think I managed to impress on him how it's actually quite easy to find reliable sources of information, and that it was better to find facts than to speculate wildly.

It's only been 2 years. We're getting there though, I think.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

The weekly ONS infection survey that isnt so affected by attitudes to testing etc. As usual the biggest flaw is that this stuff is well out of date by the time it comes out:



> Some 1,370,700 people in the UK would have tested positive for coronavirus in the week ending 16 December, according to the latest Office for National Statistics survey estimates.
> 
> This is the highest level of infections recorded by the ONS since its survey started.
> 
> The figure equates to roughly 2.1% of the population, or one in 45 people.



And an especially appalling figure:



> The ONS says one in 15 primary school children (5.9%) in England would have tested positive for Covid 19 that week.



Quotes taken from various entries on the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59764750


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 23, 2021)

Having had a look at one site -
I make it 16.95% of the UK's population have had at least one positive test,
of those people 1.27% have died, since March 2020. [that's 0.22% of the total population]

That is still far, far too many ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

Covid in Wales: No early release from self-isolation
					

Wales will not follow England in reducing the time in self-isolation by providing negative tests.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> She said they wanted "to take a kind of more risk averse approach if we can, in trying to continue to put a brake on Omincron as much as possible."
> 
> The change in England was based on the latest guidance from health experts, according to the UK government.



The England changes may well be dressed up as coming from 'health experts' but its actually only justifiable because of the negative consequences of so many people being off work. Since that includes health care workers, they can find this way to justify it, but ideally it wouldnt have been reduced in England in this way.


----------



## magneze (Dec 23, 2021)

sojourner said:


> Made a bit of a breakthrough with Paul at work yesterday. He was moaning that 'surely most people in the UK must have had it by now!!'. So I asked him how many people there actually are in the UK. He didn't know, so I showed him where to look to find out. 'Wow, that's a lot of people' he said, 'how many have had Covid?'. So I checked the same site, and told him just over 11 and a half million. We agreed it was probably more than that due to asymptomatic cases and early lack of testing, but even so, with a generous margin, there's probably 30 million who haven't (yet) had it.  I think I managed to impress on him how it's actually quite easy to find reliable sources of information, and that it was better to find facts than to speculate wildly.
> 
> It's only been 2 years. We're getting there though, I think.


There are probably over 30 million 'Pauls' in the UK.

Also, 94% of statistics are made up on the spot.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 23, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Having had a look at one site -
> I make it 16.95% of the UK's population have had at least one positive test,
> of those people 1.27% have died, since March 2020. [that's 0.22% of the total population]
> 
> That is still far, far too many ...


Using the "Covid-19 on death certificate" figure from the dashboard I get 0.25% of the total population


----------



## 2hats (Dec 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> So the thing I mentioned a few times already about London hospital admissions [...]
> Caveat: the dates for daily hospital admissions on the dashboard are the admissions date, not the date that data was actually publicly published. And I dont know exactly how quickly the government get those numbers compared to when we get to see them.


Hospital trust admissions data are available internally and to select research groups on a (near-)daily basis. The national datasets typically take considerably longer to catch up with what is going on on the ground.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Using the "Covid-19 on death certificate" figure from the dashboard I get 0.25% of the total population


Also need to factor in things like the first wave deaths still being an undercount even when using death certificates - this shows up via excess mortality/overall mortality figures for the first wave. I'm not qualified to use different measurements for different waves in order to estimate what the 'real' number of deaths was, although I probably did attempt that in the past, but in too crude a fashion.

Likewise there probably are some better estimates for how many people have probably actually been infected so far, but I havent really looked into that much.

And depending on what picture we're trying to get from looking at infections and deaths, need to factor in that many of the infections happened during the vaccine era when protection was improved,


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

2hats said:


> Hospital trust admissions data are available internally and to select research groups on a (near-)daily basis. The national datasets typically take considerably longer to catch up with what is going on on the ground.


Ah yes, I have heard some people who have access to those data streams make references to that stuff that they are signed up to receive but cannot then just start randomly disclosing to the general public. 'Management data' type stuff that comes with various caveats but is considerably more timely.


----------



## 2hats (Dec 23, 2021)

Summaries of local patient episode data have to be cleaned, de-identified and summarised before release to separate secured environments for analysis.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

Earlier I mentioned mental health as a reason I havent gone completely ballistic about the lack of restrictions in England this time. But there are other reasons I'm not doing a straightforward repeat of my stance from a year ago and the start of the pandemic this time - the complex immunity picture and the fact that behaviours and mixing patterns are key, and there are signs that there have been lots of changes to behaviour already since Omicron first popped up on the news.

Plus the responses I would have considered ideal would have required different messaging and a different balance of expectations and reasonable measures stretching back a long time, instead of the big mess we got with the government undermining trust and taking the piss, making unsustainable claims during the summer, etc etc.

Whatever the actual levels of hospitalisation and death we get this time turn out to be, they will be higher than they needed to be, leaving me unhappy. I still lack a firm sense of how bad it will actually get, but given modelling doesnt have huge behavioural changed baked into it apart from the scenarios where they model for formal introduction of various non-pharmaceutical interventions, introduced on specific dates, I can certainly retain hope it wont end up at the worst end of the spectrum of possibilities. Because plenty of such behavioural changes will have happened even without formal restrictions. Given how far we have diverged from the path I'd have preferred from first steps of the easing of restrictions in 2021 onwards, I do get a sense that its increasingly futile for me to shout about what we should have done. Beyond advising people generally about when the time to change behaviours significantly was (and in this case that was weeks ago and was rather underlined by the mood music in the news etc), I am a bit lost on these key fronts, and there will probably end up being contradictions in my stance as a result. My instincts still point towards some more formal restrictions than have actually been put in place, but I struggle to graft a reasonable version of that onto the state of affairs we find ourselves with this year. The well has been partially poisoned - hopefully this Omicron escape mutant has not escaped immunity to the extent that these mistakes will cause catastrophe this time, but we better hope another variant doesnt come along that can do a much larger job of demolishing the immunity wall that the establishment here have place so much reliance on.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

After moaning about Burnham earlier I am entirely unsurprised to see his night-time economies git Sacha Lord being featured on th BBC saying much the same thing:



> Prime Minister Boris Johnson is right to wait for more data before imposing further Covid restrictions, Greater Manchester's night-time economy adviser has said.
> 
> Sacha Lord, who was appointed into the role by Labour's Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, told BBC Radio 4's World at One that "for once" he was agreeing with the government.
> 
> ...



Thats from the 15:38 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59764750

At least his last comment was sensible. But 'knee-jerk' and 'see the figures from the scientists', what use are those sentiments? We've seen lots of estimates from scientists already. If you want to wait till all the real world data is fully available with great certainty then (a) you dont need expert scientists to give you that data, the ramifications will show up clearly enough via simple hospital and death data and (b) its already too late.

Admittedly given we have several more early estimates about Omicron disease severity available now, it would be most useful to see some updated modelling that takes those particular possibilities into account, building upon the last set of modelling. But unless the modelling results are what politicians etc really want to hear, I suspect they'll still be tempted to wait for more real data, and that wait further fucks up the timing of any further required measures, decreasing how much good those measures can achieve.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

I suppose I should point out that there is still the prospect of some fresh restrictions to come even if the authorities think the peak will be reached via existing behavioural changes, mood music etc. Because we saw with the Delta wave that combinations of mood music, behavioural changes, self-isolation 'pingdemic', school holidays etc and the virus having somewhat fewer fresh victims withing very easy reach, can induce a peak. The problem is then what happens next - with long formal restrictions in place for ages after the peaks of the first two waves, we saw case numbers come right down over many months. That didnt happen with Delta, cases carried on at rather high rates for months and months, a prolonged grinding pressure on services.

So we need to keep that in mind when it comes to what level of pressure authorities think the system can cope with. It isnt just about pressure at the very peak. Especially given that the school holiday is short compared to the summer one, and the disadvantages of winter, I wont be surprised if authorities still end up having to go further in England, even if an obvious peak is demonstrated to have happened. And on a related note I'll continue to monitor cases by age, because a big chunk of the overall case numbers are in young people, and when those numbers drop it can hide the fact that ases in older, more vulnerable people can still be high or growing beyond the overall peak - some of that has been seen in London data recently, as I covered via a lot of graphs yesterday ( My graphs were London specific and very premature but done then in response to other peoples chatter about a London peak        #816       ).

Reasons they might still hope to dodge that need for more formal restrictions include the variant being so fast that it really burned through a big chunk of the susceptible people rapidly, and the possibility that the impact of boosters could be even more significant than we can dare assume yet.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2021)

'We are watching the data hour by hour'
- it's gone up to 119,000.
'We won't be doing anything till after Christmas.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

Well they are watching the hospital data more than the case data, and unless that data shows very dramatic things or thresholds being breached they will find the wiggle room to delay (or avoid doing things completely).

edit - but I should have also reference the sort of things 2hats mentioned earlier, that they get some data in some forms earlier than us, so their view of the horizon is better than mine.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2021)

elbows said:


> Well they are watching the hospital data more than the case data, and unless that data shows very dramatic things or thresholds being breached they will find the wiggle room to delay (or avoid doing things completely).


Yeah, I get that, it's just the bullshit and dishonesty I'm sick of.  Even if it turns out this wave doesn't produce a level of hospital admission that freezes the NHS, the government weren't right to delay and div about.  Every damn time it's delay, obfuscation and inaction.


----------



## elbows (Dec 23, 2021)

And even if they dont make a big mess out of that, the press in this country will.

Also in addition to the direct damage done by the stupid games, they also get in the way of all the sensible discussions that could be had about the quality of expert analysis, data and modelling, underlying issues, and tackling the virus on far more fronts than the UK establishment can be bothered to do properly. I'm rather depressed about that right now.

Both the Delta and the Omicron waves offer new insight into what this country would have been like if it had been possible for them to get away with the governments original 'plan A herd immunity' approach at the start of the pandemic. And the role the press would have played. And the extent that people woudl have gone along with it and justified it based on often delicately balanced sense of priorities.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 23, 2021)

miktheword said:


> This may help answer some of the queries above concerning why some prolonged close contacts don't test positive
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Having listened to four of my housemates coughing for a week, one got pretty sick, I’m relieved I believe  this is what  happened to me. I did feel tired and achy just before they all started getting sick.  I went to bed, slept for ages and f felt fine the next day. 

People kept texting me, “Are you sick yet?” 

It appears you can be immune.


----------



## bimble (Dec 23, 2021)

twitter today:


----------



## Sunray (Dec 23, 2021)

I’m on the Marie Celest train to London, 
Social distancing is very easy.


----------



## Supine (Dec 23, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Having listened to four of my housemates coughing for a week, one got pretty sick, I’m relieved I believe  this is what  happened to me. I did feel tired and achy just before they all started getting sick.  I went to bed, slept for ages and f felt fine the next day.
> 
> People kept texting me, “Are you sick yet?”
> 
> It appears you can be immune.



Sounds like you could have given it to them!


----------



## shifting gears (Dec 23, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Having listened to four of my housemates coughing for a week, one got pretty sick, I’m relieved I believe  this is what  happened to me. I did feel tired and achy just before they all started getting sick.  I went to bed, slept for ages and f felt fine the next day.
> 
> People kept texting me, “Are you sick yet?”
> 
> It appears you can be immune.



How much do you bench bro?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 23, 2021)

Supine said:


> Sounds like you could have given it to them!


Positive thinking!


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 23, 2021)

bimble said:


> twitter today:
> View attachment 302580











						Rees-Mogg quoted Shakespeare & it was an embarrassing self-own
					

"Thou art a twat with nought to blather so thou thinks thou art smart by quoting ye olde shite," wrote one person in response.




					www.thelondoneconomic.com


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 23, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Having listened to four of my housemates coughing for a week, one got pretty sick, I’m relieved I believe  this is what  happened to me. I did feel tired and achy just before they all started getting sick.  I went to bed, slept for ages and f felt fine the next day.
> 
> People kept texting me, “Are you sick yet?”
> 
> It appears you can be immune.



I've been slightly wondering if I may be the same. All my life I've been certain that I've never had flu, only bad colds, given the amount of people who have exclaimed to me "Oh, you'd _know_ if you had flu! It's awful! You feel like you're dying!". I therefore assumed, as I'd never felt that bad from a cold, that I'd never had flu. However, now in my mid 40's, never having caught flu seems unlikely. So the alternative may be that I'm to some degree immune from flu. I wonder if the same extends to covid too.

We're pretty sure that the good lady had covid right back in March 2020, as she had a bad flu episode with a fever, where she also lost her sense of taste and smell, and one night her fitbit recorded really low oxygen levels too. She never got tested as testing wasn't a thing back then, but assuming it was covid, how I didn't get it at the same time I've no idea. For whilst she was pretty ill, I just had a bit of a cough and a runny nose. Perhaps this was my covid, and covid counts amongst the 'flus' to which I'm slightly immune. 

Famous last words of course. I'm aware that posting this will now lead to me getting really bad covid.


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 23, 2021)

I was laid properly low by flu in 1967-ish, 1978-ish, 2013, 2018 and 2019.

I worked in a university for 40 years as a teaching room support technician and right from the start I knew I would be laid low by *something *once a year - maybe fever, mostly tiredness .. rarely much in the way of respiratory issues  - and I would be back on my bike on the Monday - and daily cycling from the age of 27 definitely marked a change in symptoms.

In 2018 and especially 2019 underlying borderline diabetes caught up with me and it took me a long time to recover ...

My theory is that in handling teaching equipment I was effectively getting vaccinated against whatever was going around - completely preventing "colds" - and what was left was quite likely actually flu - but only a moderate dose of it ... though a lot of the time I would wonder if I was "sickening" for something that never emerged.

Usually I would literally sneeze only twice as an indicator that I was going to be out of action for a few days ...

2019 was particularly prescient in terms of thoughts of how I would regard viral infections in future years ...


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 23, 2021)

Gerry1time said:


> I've been slightly wondering if I may be the same. All my life I've been certain that I've never had flu, only bad colds, given the amount of people who have exclaimed to me "Oh, you'd _know_ if you had flu! It's awful! You feel like you're dying!". I therefore assumed, as I'd never felt that bad from a cold, that I'd never had flu. However, now in my mid 40's, never having caught flu seems unlikely. So the alternative may be that I'm to some degree immune from flu. I wonder if the same extends to covid too.
> 
> We're pretty sure that the good lady had covid right back in March 2020, as she had a bad flu episode with a fever, where she also lost her sense of taste and smell, and one night her fitbit recorded really low oxygen levels too. She never got tested as testing wasn't a thing back then, but assuming it was covid, how I didn't get it at the same time I've no idea. For whilst she was pretty ill, I just had a bit of a cough and a runny nose. Perhaps this was my covid, and covid counts amongst the 'flus' to which I'm slightly immune.
> 
> Famous last words of course. I'm aware that posting this will now lead to me getting really bad covid.


It's been nice knowing you, fare well on the other shore.


gentlegreen said:


> I was laid properly low by flu in 1967-ish, 1978-ish, 2013, 2018 and 2019.
> 
> I worked in a university for 40 years as a teaching room support technician and right from the start I knew I would be laid low by *something *once a year - maybe fever, mostly tiredness .. rarely much in the way of respiratory issues  - and I would be back on my bike on the Monday - and daily cycling from the age of 27 definitely marked a change in symptoms.
> 
> ...


I had some nasty respiratory infection when I was 11 (or 12? can't remember) where I was off school for a month (or 2) which involved a hell of a lot of bum injections and that was (in french) classified as an Atypical Pneumonia (Pneumopahy = SARS is the best equivalent translation I could find in english, ie: I didn't test positive for waht they were looking for), I remember having a great time being totally off my tits (pre any drug use), my mother thinking I was about to die and the GP turning for a home visit in the middle of the night.
All a bit of a hazy memory these days.
I still get the odd man-flu though.


----------



## Thora (Dec 24, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Having listened to four of my housemates coughing for a week, one got pretty sick, I’m relieved I believe  this is what  happened to me. I did feel tired and achy just before they all started getting sick.  I went to bed, slept for ages and f felt fine the next day.
> 
> People kept texting me, “Are you sick yet?”
> 
> It appears you can be immune.


I think I had similar when my toddler daughter had it - during the week she was sick with lots of snot and coughing at me, I had one or two days when I felt a bit achey and real tired but tested negative and no other symptoms.
A year later (post vaccination) I had extended contact with two other children who were very sick with it and I didn't catch it again, negative lfts and pcr.


----------



## Cloo (Dec 24, 2021)

I'm wondering what will prove to die the most damaging misleading/lying headline/story of the pandemic.

'Masks might make it worse' leading to hesitancy in adopting
'LFTs only pick up 40/50/60% of cases' which appears to have been from inappropriately comparing to PCRs, and has led to a lot of people feeling they're worthless. I mean, they're not a panacea, but it sounds after UCL study like they are much better than was originally widely touted
'Omicron is 50% less likely dangerous!' proving very dangerous as evidently being used as the basis for government policy in England while conveniently ignoring the context of its infectiousness


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 24, 2021)

Cloo said:


> I'm wondering what will prove to die the most damaging misleading/lying headline/story of the pandemic.
> 
> 'Masks might make it worse' leading to hesitancy in adopting
> 'LFTs only pick up 40/50/60% of cases' which appears to have been from inappropriately comparing to PCRs, and has led to a lot of people feeling they're worthless. I mean, they're not a panacea, but it sounds after UCL study like they are much better than was originally widely touted
> 'Omicron is 50% less likely dangerous!' proving very dangerous as evidently being used as the basis for government policy in England while conveniently ignoring the context of its infectiousness


Irreversibly releasing all the Lockdown measures [masks & social distancing, in particular] in July 2021, When the Delta variant was not actually under control. [although new cases were decreasing ... ] 
and 
referring to Omicron as less dangerous [so it has been able to spread].


----------



## Yossarian (Dec 24, 2021)

Cloo said:


> 'Omicron is 50% less likely dangerous!' proving very dangerous as evidently being used as the basis for government policy in England while conveniently ignoring the context of its infectiousness.



Yep, hard to fathom those "Good news - omicron is 50% less dangerous than delta but four times as infectious!" headlines. 

It's also rarely mentioned that being 50% less severe than delta would still make omicron more severe than the original Wuhan strain.


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 24, 2021)

Gerry1time said:


> Famous last words of course. I'm aware that posting this will now lead to me getting really bad covid.



Readers may be amused to know that very shortly after posting this, our two year old middle daughter suddenly woke up and vomited all over her bed. I then spent the entire night awake and looking after her whilst she vomited at least a dozen times more, and now I have extensive diarrhoea and vomiting myself. Not covid as such, but to be fair, even the Oracle at Delphi didn't have a 100% record on the old prophecy stakes.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 24, 2021)

was t


Gerry1time said:


> Readers may be amused to know that very shortly after posting this, our two year old middle daughter suddenly woke up and vomited all over her bed. I then spent the entire night awake and looking after her whilst she vomited at least a dozen times more, and now I have extensive diarrhoea and vomiting myself. Not covid as such, but to be fair, even the Oracle at Delphi didn't have a 100% record on the old prophecy stakes



Fate is cruel and mischievous.


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 24, 2021)

Indeed. 

"_O Fortuna
Velut luna
Statu variabilis
Semper crescis
Aut decrescis"_


----------



## IC3D (Dec 24, 2021)

You have displeased the Norovirus


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 24, 2021)

Hopefully my plentiful offerings from the very core of my being will appease it.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 24, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Irreversibly releasing all the Lockdown measures [masks & social distancing, in particular] in July 2021, When the Delta variant was not actually under control. [although new cases were decreasing ... ]
> and
> *referring to Omicron as less dangerous [so it has been able to spread].[\b]
> *


*
They say today it’s 70% less likely for you to go to hospital and stay there. 

South Africa has had this for many weeks and it’s not causing meltdown. They say there are differences. But we are all still people. The virus is the same. 
The only problem I see is the unvaccinated because they are already the problem.  So many then all getting sick at the same time.*


----------



## souljacker (Dec 24, 2021)

Sunray said:


> *
> They say today it’s 70% less likely for you to go to hospital and stay there.
> 
> South Africa has had this for many weeks and it’s not causing meltdown. They say there are differences. But we are all still people. The virus is the same.
> The only problem I see is the unvaccinated because they are already the problem.  So many then all getting sick at the same time.*


That's a bold statement


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 24, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> Yep, hard to fathom those "Good news - omicron is 50% less dangerous than delta but four times as infectious!" headlines.
> 
> It's also rarely mentioned that being 50% less severe than delta would still make omicron more severe than the original Wuhan strain.


I like to think I've been paying attention and I didn't realise that.


----------



## Riklet (Dec 24, 2021)

Not lockdown but tougher restrictions from the 27th almost certain IMO.  If the whole country ends up as fucked as London is now things will grind to a halt.

It's interesting (well sad and interesting) to see how omicron is hammering the places with previously low case rates and consistently low vaccine uptake. Nottingham, Manchester, Most of London, Oxford, Cambridge. Shows how easily it's evading immune response from previous exposure/infection maybe?


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

Sunray said:


> *They say today it’s 70% less likely for you to go to hospital and stay there.
> 
> South Africa has had this for many weeks and it’s not causing meltdown. They say there are differences. But we are all still people. The virus is the same.
> The only problem I see is the unvaccinated because they are already the problem.  So many then all getting sick at the same time.*


South Africa has a significantly younger population than us.

The ramifications of this difference will be felt in the weeks to come.


----------



## magneze (Dec 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> South Arica has a significantly younger population than us.
> 
> The ramifications of this difference will be felt in the weeks to come.


Indeed. In many ways the UK is the true guinea pig here. 🤞


----------



## two sheds (Dec 24, 2021)

Yes we oldies are going to have to watch ourselves. It's dogs that will be my downfall, I've been particularly careful since I've got a chest infection and have started antibiotics and prednisolone which buggers about with your immune system.

Yesterday when I went out to deliver cards I saw an acquaintance in his car with a lovely black retriever in the back. I asked to give a treat and the dog stretched towards me for a fussing and I virtually lent into the car towards him. Just before acquaintance drove off he said 'coronavirus is terrible isn't it, I've just heard my daughter has tested positive'

 (at self)


----------



## prunus (Dec 24, 2021)

prunus said:


> We’ve been waiting 48 hours now for a result for my son (-ve LFT but a bit of a cough); we were told up to 72 hours at the time.



73 hours and counting…


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

> The UK government’s chief scientific adviser has hit back at accusations from Conservative MPs that epidemiological modellers had “spread gloom” about the Omicron variant.
> 
> Sir Patrick Vallance said it was not the responsibility of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) “to take a particular policy stance or to either spread gloom or give Panglossian optimism”.
> 
> He used an article in the Times to respond to criticism that was widely circulated among Tory MPs and ministers that suggested Sage’s Omicron modelling had been an exercise in fear-mongering.





> In an apparent riposte, Vallance wrote science was “self-correcting” and about making “advances by overturning previous dogma and challenging accepted truths”.





> He wrote: “Encouraging a range of opinions, views and interpretation of data is all part of the process. No scientist would ever claim, in this fast-changing and unpredictable pandemic, to have a monopoly of wisdom on what happens next.”





> Vallance said modellers were “trying to model lots of different scenarios of how the wave of Omicron might grow, determine which factors are likely to have the biggest impact on spread and its consequences, and to assess how different interventions might alter the outcomes”.
> 
> He added: “They do not, contrary to what you might have heard, only model the worst outcomes.”











						Vallance hits back at Tory accusations of Omicron fear-mongering
					

Chief scientific adviser responds to criticism that Sage modelling has ‘spread gloom’ about Omicron variant




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 24, 2021)

Gerry1time said:


> Readers may be amused to know that very shortly after posting this, our two year old middle daughter suddenly woke up and vomited all over her bed. I then spent the entire night awake and looking after her whilst she vomited at least a dozen times more, and now I have extensive diarrhoea and vomiting myself. Not covid as such, but to be fair, even the Oracle at Delphi didn't have a 100% record on the old prophecy stakes.




Norovirus?

That is an absolute horrorshow.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> Vallance hits back at Tory accusations of Omicron fear-mongering
> 
> 
> Chief scientific adviser responds to criticism that Sage modelling has ‘spread gloom’ about Omicron variant
> ...



You can read the full, paywall busted, Times article here - archive.ph


----------



## IC3D (Dec 24, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Norovirus?
> 
> That is an absolute horrorshow.


Yea. Hand hygiene and clean surfaces needed or it will move on to its next victim


----------



## Gerry1time (Dec 24, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Yea. Hand hygiene and clean surfaces needed or it will move on to its next victim



I've been bleaching any hard surface the vomit has touched, and hot washing and drying all fabrics. Whether it will be enough, I dunno...


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)




----------



## pesh (Dec 24, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Norovirus?
> 
> That is an absolute horrorshow.


more of a shitshow


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 24, 2021)

Are people being told if their positive test is proved to be omicron and if so, how quickly? Advice from work for close contacts of a positive case is to attend work and take a daily LFT before starting the shift, unless the positive contact has omicron, in which case to stay at home and isolate.
If it takes several days to confirm the variant, and the positive contact has recovered and is testing negative by then, the advice seems flawed.

ETA perhaps this should have gone in the omicron thread?


----------



## stdP (Dec 24, 2021)

Yossarian said:


> Yep, hard to fathom those "Good news - omicron is 50% less dangerous than delta but four times as infectious!" headlines.



50 is a much bigger number than four, so when you ignore the doom-mongers and weigh up the maths properly, omicron is 46 less dangerous than delta.



Gerry1time said:


> Not covid as such, but to be fair, even the Oracle at Delphi didn't have a 100% record on the old prophecy stakes.



Given your avatar I feel I can get away with posting up this GIF I made yesterday again.

View attachment 302543

Hope you get better soon for your next dose of sprouts.


----------



## Supine (Dec 24, 2021)

20Bees said:


> Are people being told if their positive test is proved to be omicron and if so, how quickly? Advice from work for close contacts of a positive case is to attend work and take a daily LFT before starting the shift, unless the positive contact has omicron, in which case to stay at home and isolate.
> If it takes several days to confirm the variant, and the positive contact has recovered and is testing negative by then, the advice seems flawed.
> 
> ETA perhaps this should have gone in the omicron thread?



Not every test can tell so it’s probably best to assume any case is omicron. Doesn’t sound like great work advice to me.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 24, 2021)

Sunray said:


> *They say today it’s 70% less likely for you to go to hospital and stay there. *


 *Up to* 70% less likely


----------



## andysays (Dec 24, 2021)

Supine said:


> Not every test can tell so it’s probably best to assume any case is omicron. Doesn’t sound like great work advice to me.


Especially given that the proportion of all cases which are Omicron has been rising rapidly (don't know what the current figure is thought to be ATM)


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

In regards the 'London hospital admissions reaching 400 as a threshold story', todays number was another big leap compared to the previous 2 days where it was around the 300 level.

It has now reached 386.

This data will now not be published for 3 days due to weekend & Christmas.

This is how admissions by age group (one of which is stupidly broad) for the London region looks for the pandemic so far, Data actually goes up to the admissions date of December 22nd despite the 19th being the last date shown on the labels.

Unfortunately I'd say this data is already well on the way to justifying my stance in this wave - strong action is required and the optimists, liars and delayers have doomed us again.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 24, 2021)

122k today. Realise its an odd time, with more taking tests but against that with schools finishing, along with other variations from normal weeks.  But ultimately all the indicators going in the wrong direction.  😕


----------



## brogdale (Dec 24, 2021)

Wilf said:


> 122k today. Realise its an odd time, with more taking tests but against that with schools finishing, along with other variations from normal weeks.  But ultimately all the indicators going in the wrong direction.  😕


Yebbut...good old (can't even bring myself to type his fucking name in there) stood up to the commie scientists and made sure we all had a great Christmas...cough, snuffle...cough


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 24, 2021)

Bristol has gained some black bits, and my own area looks fairly sure to turn within days ...


----------



## two sheds (Dec 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> In regards the 'London hospital admissions reaching 400 as a threshold story', todays number was another big leap compared to the previous 2 days where it was around the 300 level.
> 
> It has now reached 386.
> 
> ...


18-64 admissions highest because there are more of them in the population presumably and omicron affects older people disproportionately? Although I'm not sure that makes sense.


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

two sheds said:


> 18-64 admissions higher because there are more of them in the population presumably.


Its a stupidly broad age group that infuriates me. But data which splits that group into a series of more appropriate groups only comes out once a month and is always out of date by the time it arrives, so I can only use that version with much hindsight.

Positive cases in older age groups tend to come a bit later too, so for example the people that thought it was somehow appropriate to start going on about a peak in positive cases in London a while ago, leading them to anticipate a peak in hospitalisations much sooner than was ever likely to be the case, were misguided. The overall positive numbers are skewed by a bunch of younger age groups that make up a large proportion of cases, and are more subject to changes in testing behaviour as well as genuine rapid changes. I have no exact prediction about case peaks in London, so I have no prediction about a peak date for hospital admissions in that region either. And Christmas will affect attitudes to testing, availability of testing and publication of results, so it will be hard for me to untangle that over the next week. In theory there are many more days of rising hospital admissions already 'baked in' by infections that have already happened, so it is a bit hard to imagine how the shit will not really hit the fan in regards Londons hospital situation.


----------



## komodo (Dec 24, 2021)

That 
386 is admitted WITH covid I think. So not necessarily due to covid. 
There were 5 cases in my Dad’s London care home last week - all are still well and 4 no longer testing as positive. So some hope that the boosters are working well for the elderly vulnerable.


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

komodo said:


> That
> 386 is admitted WITH covid I think. So not necessarily due to covid.
> There were 5 cases in my Dad’s London care home last week - all are still well and 4 no longer testing as positive. So some hope that the boosters are working well for the elderly vulnerable.


It changes relatively little in terms of the burden on hospitals, and it was true in previous waves too, so we can till look back at graphs that include previous waves for a sense of how this wave stacks up to previous ones and the pressure they bring. It also incorporates people who are in hospital for other reasons and then catch covid, a group which often suffers severe consequences as a result of these hospital acquired infections.

Data about this is far from perfect, but still offers some perspective about the 'for covid' and 'with covid' stuff. It isnt published every day, tends to be weekly, but here is a recent graph that I already mentioned on the Omicron thread recently. And its for patients in hospital rather than daily admissions.



Here is some wording from the NHS website about this sort of data. You may detect via some of the wording that they are not amused by some of the bullshit the right-wing press etc have tried to generate via 'with covid' stories.



> The majority of inpatients with Covid-19 are admitted as a result of the infection. A subset of those who contract Covid in the community and are asymptomatic, or exhibited relatively mild symptoms that on their own are unlikely to warrant admission to hospital, will then be admitted to hospital to be treated for something else and be identified through routine testing. However these patients still require their treatment in areas that are segregated from patients without Covid, and the presence of Covid can be a significant co-morbidity in many cases. Equally, while the admission may be due to another primary condition, in many instances this may have been as a result of contracting Covid in the community. For example research has shown that people with Covid are more likely to have a stroke (Stroke Association); in these cases people would be admitted for the stroke, classified as ‘with’ Covid despite having had a stroke as a result of having Covid.





> The headline published numbers in publications to date have been “inpatients with confirmed Covid” without differentiating between those in hospital “for” Covid and those in hospital “with” Covid. Recognising the combination of high community infections rates, with the reduced likelihood of admission for those who contract Covid in the community and are fully vaccinated, the Covid SitRep was enhanced in June 2021 to add a requirement for providers to distinguish between those being primarily treated ‘for’ Covid and those ‘with’ Covid but for whom the primary reason for being in hospital was non-Covid related. In practice this distinction is not always clear at the point of admission when the patient’s record has not been fully clinically coded. In light of this, trusts have been asked to provide this “for” and “with” split on a ‘best endeavours’ basis.







__





						Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity
					

Health and high quality care for all,  <br />now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 24, 2021)

prunus said:


> 73 hours and counting…



I got a home test for my son, with none of the 'allowed' three symptoms - erring on the side of caution, given how outdated those symptoms already were, even pre-Omicron.
Symptoms started last Mon LFT's neg but ordered the PCR on Weds, had notice of delivery of that - with a time slot - on/for Thursday but it didn't turn up, then again on Friday, when it did.
Got it in the priority box in plenty of time for the 5pm Friday collection but it didn't arrive to the final destination until 11pm on Saturday (they have previously arrived the same night).
Negative result then emailed early this Tuesday morning.

Looks like backdated results are being added further back/in greater numbers than usual on the Daily Summary, too.



elbows said:


> In regards the 'London hospital admissions reaching 400 as a threshold story', todays number was another big leap compared to the previous 2 days where it was around the 300 level.
> 
> It has now reached 386.
> 
> ...



Very sure you know this (!) but the 386 was also for the _22nd_ - no update on yesterday's numbers and, as you say, no more figures to be published for a few days now.

But it's _fiiine_ - ministers might meet to reconsider, although no earlier than Monday - and we can all have a cracking Xmas, regardless.


----------



## LDC (Dec 24, 2021)

komodo said:


> That
> 386 is admitted WITH covid I think. So not necessarily due to covid.
> There were 5 cases in my Dad’s London care home last week - all are still well and 4 no longer testing as positive. So some hope that the boosters are working well for the elderly vulnerable.



Elbows just posted a good thing on this. It's basically bollocks to see anything that positive in the WITH vs FOR covid thing that all the conspiracy people pick up on.


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Very sure you know this (!) but the 386 was also for the _22nd_ - no update on yesterday's numbers and, as you say, no more figures to be published for a few days now.


Yes, it has always been the case that the hospital admissions/diagnoses for England are several days behind the current date. Its like that every day, no Christmas delays are part of this yet. For some of the other nations of the UK it is even longer, which is why I never advise people to look at overall dashboard UK daily figure for admissions etc, always drill down to individual nations.

In terms of the Christmas schedule, for a long time now they have stopped publishing hospital data at weekends, and this Christmas weekend they also wont publish healthcare data for England on Monday, so just one extra day with no published data on this front.

Here is what the dashboard says about healtchcare data over the coming period:

*England* – no reporting on 25 to 27 December; 1 to 3 January
*Northern Ireland* – no reporting on 25 to 28 December; 1 to 3 January
*Scotland* – no reporting on 25 to 28 December; 1 to 4 January
*Wales* - no reporting on 24 to 29 December; 31 December to 3 January
In terms of other data like cases, vaccinations, deaths, there will be no updates this weekend, and for nations other than England there will also be an additional day or two with no data.

Full details here:



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/whats-new/record/863ee4e6-faae-4c30-a935-431bc02640d9


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Elbows just posted a good thing on this. It's basically bollocks to see anything that positive in the WITH vs FOR covid thing that all the conspiracy people pick up on.



Thanks. It is true that much bullshit is written about this in order to serve several agendas.

However I suppose I should point out that there are still various aspects of Omicron that may have legitimate implications, and I will not ignore these completely just because of all the bullshit. For example:

The increased transmission of Omicron does imply that we should expect more incidental cases (more people in the community catching it then going to hospital for other reasons) this time, but also potentially a lot of hospital acquired infections which are bad news.

The proportion of patients that end up requiring oxygen may be different this time due to vaccines and properties of Omicron. Likewise the proportion requiring very intensive care may be different.

In terms of numbers of patients in hospital compared to daily admissions, there could also be shorter average lengths of stay with Omicron/with vaccines.

The ratio of hospitalisations to deaths may end up being different. We'll just have to wait and see.

Unfortunately when services get overloaded by sheer number of patients and high levels of staff being off sick, the proportion of cases that end in death tends to increase, most notably during the peak of waves. So there will also be a tug of war between these factors and the protection that vaccines still offer.

We also know that this time around the NHS have several different programmes in effect that aim to reduce the number of people receiving care in hospital. For example some will be kept at home and their blood oxygen levels will be monitored. And there are some drugs that they are going to give to lots of at risk people in an effort to save them from severe disease.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 24, 2021)

The "thank heavens, Omicron is mild" narrative continues...hired ghoul Jenny Harries the latest mouthpiece to publicly sigh with relief


----------



## prunus (Dec 24, 2021)

prunus said:


> 73 hours and counting…



Finally got it - negative - after 75 hours. 

Not exactly world-beating.


----------



## komodo (Dec 24, 2021)

I perfectly understand the issue re over-playing the WITH covid thing but on the other hand there are real differences in the current context as Elbows points out.


----------



## bimble (Dec 24, 2021)

One in every 20 Londoners has covid right now ? Extraordinary really. What an efficient virus.


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

komodo said:


> I perfectly understand the issue re over-playing the WITH covid thing but on the other hand there are real differences in the current context as Elbows points out.


I doubt the differences will be large enough to bridge the gap between many peoples expectations this time, in the vaccine era, and whats actually going to happen though. Rather a lot of people seem destined to receive a nasty surprise when they watch the news over the coming weeks.


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

S☼I said:


> The "thank heavens, Omicron is mild" narrative continues...hired ghoul Jenny Harries the latest mouthpiece to publicly sigh with relief



It was a mixed message from Harries. I would not call it a sigh of relief, but it did generate dangerous headlines. Other comments were a lot more realistic.



> *Official findings that Omicron may be less likely to result in serious illness than Delta offer a "glimmer of Christmas hope", the head of the UK Health Security Agency has said.*
> 
> But Jenny Harries told the BBC it was too early to retract her statement that the variant was the most serious threat the UK had faced during the pandemic.
> 
> The UKHSA's findings are "preliminary", she said, and data around Omicron's impact on the elderly is still needed.











						Covid: Glimmer of Christmas hope on Omicron, says Jenny Harries
					

But it is too early to downgrade the serious threat posed by the new variant, says Dr Jenny Harries.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




The mood music was messed with for Christmas. I doubt that is sustainable. London data tends to imply that new restrictions will have to be announced before the new year, but of course thats a bit harder to predict this time around due to several extra layers of dodgy politics, and several sources of probably unwise hope that various agendas can make use of.

In past severe waves the authorities have found the need to want to find some other signs of hope that they think can be used in order to offer some light at the end of the tunnel to the public during lockdowns. In the first wave it was dangling the prospect that mass testing would reenable something of normal life. In last winters wave vaccines were used to fill that role. This time around the nature of the hope they've clung to ('milder' Omicron) has come at this earlier stage, before the shit hits the fan, and I dont know what they will reach for to serve the purpose of injecting future hope into messaging they have to deliver during a period of restrictions.


----------



## LDC (Dec 24, 2021)

bimble said:


> One in every 20 Londoners has covid right now ? Extraordinary really. What an efficient virus.



Yeah, I definitely have moments of admiring the virus/viruses for sure. If there's some highly developed life from another planet/whatever it'll be some super-virus I'd bet.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 24, 2021)

That is a really good summary elbows

Know I'm not the only one who is really appreciative of the time you take to fill in the gaps - and that I DO know more, largely down to the time and effort you put in - because, as exhausting and frustrating and depressing as it all is, I would still always prefer to know, than not.

Remember all those (very effective and useful/seem to have been dropped) illustrations we had _back in the day_ of how one person can infect multiple others?
Information spreads in the same way - and knowledge is power and all that - so thank you for your ongoing contributions here and therefore, more widely, too. 


Wishing you the best Xmas you can have


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

Cheers, and to you and everyone. I will try to resist the urge to critique my own contributions to communication this time around, its not been easy because there are more uncertainties this time than ever before, and I was hoping I could have moved on by now.

A genuinely much milder and far less consequential Omicron wave would see me having to defend myself from criticisms that I had cried wolf. But that would be a delightful outcome and a sign that the acute phase of the pandemic was ending. Its fair to say that I'm very far from convinced that this is whats going to happen. I suppose that until the full ramifications of Omicron play out there is still a chance this wont be a giant catastrophe again. But I'm not finding much data I could use to anticipate that will actually be the case this time around.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 24, 2021)

elbows said:


> Cheers, and to you and everyone. I will try to resist the urge to critique my own contributions to communication this time around, its not been easy because there are more uncertainties this time than ever before, and I was hoping I could have moved on by now.



With the lack of data over the next few days, take a well deserved break from posting on the covid threads, and enjoy some downtime, mate.


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

Yes a mini break looms, not just because of a lack of data but also a lack of the normal press reports, scientific publications and discussions etc. And presumably far less people posting here on this subject, as already somewhat evident. Cheers.


----------



## bimble (Dec 24, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I definitely have moments of admiring the virus/viruses for sure. If there's some highly developed life from another planet/whatever it'll be some super-virus I'd bet.


No it’ll be octopuses .


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

And due to the timing of this I dont think I'll be commenting on the updated modelling much for a few days, I havent had a chance to read the documents yet.



> Ministers could meet as soon as Monday to determine whether new restrictions are needed in England over the new year amid growing concerns that soaring Covid cases could hit public services.
> 
> They will be expected to assess new modelling from the University of Warwick, given to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) in documents published on Thursday.
> 
> Scientists have looked at the effects of a potential return to step 2 restrictionsfrom 28 December or 1 January, lasting either two weeks, four weeks or three months until 28 March. No 10 said the data had not yet been considered by ministers.











						Decision on stricter Covid rules for England may come on Monday
					

Ministers expected to assess latest data given to Sage and decide on possible return to step 2 restrictions




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

OK I have read the SAGE minutes. They are interesting and normally I would quote lots of it but on this occasion I wont, not yet anyway.





__





						SAGE 101 minutes: Coronavirus (COVID-19) response, 23 December 2021
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## Dogsauce (Dec 24, 2021)

Btw, it’s worth remembering those 120,000 reported cases are only people testing positive for the first time. It doesn’t include reinfections which will be a fair old number, I know of a lot of people who’ve had it twice now and they’ll be absent from the data.  I don’t know if those figures are available elsewhere?


----------



## 2hats (Dec 24, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Btw, it’s worth remembering those 120,000 reported cases are only people testing positive for the first time. It doesn’t include reinfections which will be a fair old number, I know of a lot of people who’ve had it twice now and they’ll be absent from the data.  I don’t know if those figures are available elsewhere?


Estimates of reinfections are published in the weekly COVID-19 surveillance reports. They are apparently adding reinfections to the daily dashboard figures in January (obviously have to decide on a definition of reinfection first).


----------



## elbows (Dec 24, 2021)

2hats said:


> Estimates of reinfections are published in the weekly COVID-19 surveillance reports. They are apparently adding reinfections to the daily dashboard figures in January (obviously have to decide on a definition of reinfection first).


They could just use the same sort of method as Wales:



> Confirmed cases for Wales are calculated using six-week episode periods, with individuals who are tested multiple times in that period only being counted once. Any tests that occur more than six weeks after the initial test will trigger a new testing period.



From https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/metrics/doc/newCasesBySpecimenDate


----------



## Carvaged (Dec 26, 2021)

Roughly along the lines of what I was saying the other week when they first announced this pea-brained short-sighted sell-off:









						Plans to sell off UK vaccine development centre criticised by scientists
					

Government warned it needs to retain innovation facility to deal with future pandemics




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 27, 2021)

I'm very confused at the new guidance - all of it seems to lead to _when you test negative_.
What happens if you don't? 



From here - Stay at home: guidance for households with possible or confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) infection


----------



## Mation (Dec 27, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I'm very confused at the new guidance - all of it seems to lead to _when you test negative_.
> What happens if you don't?
> View attachment 303237
> 
> ...


You must purchase 900 lb of Himalayan black salt from the husband of a cabinet minister's business partner. Price on application. 

That is sufficient information.


----------



## rutabowa (Dec 27, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I'm very confused at the new guidance - all of it seems to lead to _when you test negative_.
> What happens if you don't?
> View attachment 303237
> 
> ...


If you don't get a negative, you isolate for the whole 10 days as before.


----------



## LDC (Dec 27, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I'm very confused at the new guidance - all of it seems to lead to _when you test negative_.
> What happens if you don't?
> View attachment 303237
> 
> ...



The clue is the top title 'Ending self isolation early using LFD tests'. Otherwise it's 10 days.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 27, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> I'm very confused at the new guidance - all of it seems to lead to _when you test negative_.
> What happens if you don't?
> View attachment 303237
> 
> ...



Government is doing it's best to make sure you test positive


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 27, 2021)

Eldest daughter had a positive LFT on Saturday 18th, PCR next morning confirmed positive on Monday 20th. Daily LFTs showed a strong positive until the 25th, faint yellow line still positive yesterday, finally negative today, so it’s been 10 days and she didn’t get to end isolation early. She actually feels well today too. Her five year old continues to test negative, I guess if he has no symptoms he can revert to twice-weekly tests now.


----------



## DJWrongspeed (Dec 27, 2021)

Popped into Costa this afternoon. Genuinely the 1st time I've been a bit freaked by the possibility of getting Covid as it was quite busy.  Our borough Lambeth has the highest infection rate in the country ~3%.


----------



## weltweit (Dec 27, 2021)

I went into Morrisons on Christmas eve and it was rammed, I couldn't believe it but there were a few couples walking about without masks. I got my stuff and left as soon as possible.


----------



## editor (Dec 27, 2021)

There one was one woman not wearing a mask on a jam-packed tube from Paddington and it seemed like she was willing covid on herself as she was blowing chewing gum  bubbles.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 27, 2021)

Javid just confirms no new restrictions in 2021.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 27, 2021)

As expected, no new restrictions for England yet.



> *England* will have no further Covid restrictions over New Year’s Eve, *Boris Johnson* has ruled, meaning nightclubs and mass events can continue but people will be urged to test before seeing those who are vulnerable.
> 
> After a virtual briefing with England’s chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, and the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, No 10 said the data would continue to be reviewed but that no new steps would be taken before the new year.
> 
> ...











						England hospital Covid admissions highest since February; France announces new curbs – as it happened
					

No walk-in PCR tests available in England for a few hours due to ‘high demand’; French PM announces new measures




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Dogsauce (Dec 27, 2021)

Almost makes you want Hancock back, Javid is firmly in the pro-virus camp sadly.


----------



## Dogsauce (Dec 27, 2021)

Suspect twats from wales/Scotland will head over the border for NYE revelry, spreading it about a bit more.


----------



## Plumdaff (Dec 27, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Suspect twats from wales/Scotland will head over the border for NYE revelry, spreading it about a bit more.


You can still have a 30 person house party in Wales, our restrictions aren't strict (I suspect partly because the Treasury won't give the devolved nations any furlough cash)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 27, 2021)

Dogsauce said:


> Almost makes you want Hancock back, Javid is firmly in the pro-virus camp sadly.



He's not, he's one of the few ministers that supported more restrictions, but the majority of the cabinet were against them.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 27, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Javid just confirms no new restrictions in 2021.


"celebrate outside or ventilate inside"
baked beans on toast all round for NYE then.


----------



## Supine (Dec 27, 2021)

Xmas Day record number of cases









						England reports record 113,638 new Covid cases on Christmas Day
					

Official data also shows 98,515 cases on Monday, but experts say figures may not reflect true trends




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 27, 2021)

This is Johnson following the data:

Not the covid data though, the key metric now is the number of Tory MPs who are vocally unhappy about further restrictions.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 27, 2021)

Jeebus on t'bike.
Just looked at the figures.
I know the "festive" season is distorting the picture ...
but even so, it is quite distressing.

As yet, I'm still not really convinced that omicron is actually less severe - I don't think it has reached the very vulnerable.
I hope I'm wrong on that, I really do. Perhaps the vaccinations will help reduce the death toll.


----------



## marshall (Dec 27, 2021)

Are they looking at reports from SA, where the mood is now 'jubilant' apparently? 🙃


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

Expect to be knocked down for saying this but I think this is probably the correct decision. Leave it to people to make their own risk assessments allied with mass testing. After almost two years we know where we are with the virus and it is time for the state to take a back seat in terms of social control.


----------



## existentialist (Dec 27, 2021)

kenny g said:


> Expect to be knocked down for saying this but I think this is probably the correct decision. Leave it to people to make their own risk assessments allied with mass testing. After almost two years we know where we are with the virus and it is time for the state to take a back seat in terms of social control.


yeah, because that's going to go brilliantly.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 27, 2021)

kenny g said:


> Expect to be knocked down for saying this but I think this is probably the correct decision. Leave it to people to make their own risk assessments allied with mass testing. After almost two years we know where we are with the virus and it is time for the state to take a back seat in terms of social control.


You are assuming that there is such a thing as common sense ...


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> You are assuming that there is such a thing as common sense ...


Tell me about it... one of my biggest political awakenings came from seeing people's initial reaction and the mass parties the days before lockdowns. Seeing the pitiful footfall in Westfield Stratford this morning on the way back from swimming my faith has been reignited.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 27, 2021)

kenny g said:


> Expect to be knocked down for saying this but I think this is probably the correct decision. Leave it to people to make their own risk assessments allied with mass testing. After almost two years we know where we are with the virus and it is time for the state to take a back seat in terms of social control.



Aye, I'm wary but at current status I can only see a lockdown being of any use if it stops the NHS imploding. Its certainly far to late (by 3-4 weeks) to stop Omicron spreading like wildfire so shutting the gates now does very little aside from make people feel a bit better at the cost of another X weeks of isolation at the darkest time of year.

After 2 years and 3 boosts if we're not able to manage then we're in deep shit. I'm in one of the vulnerable groups but at this point I just want us to start dealing with Covid being resident in the population, its not going away but we're protected as we can be by now. I'll maintain facemask discipline and distancing, hope that others do the same, but I just want to live my life again.


----------



## Indeliblelink (Dec 27, 2021)

Balloux - "I believe it is time to give in soon"


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Aye, I'm wary but at current status I can only see a lockdown being of any use if it stops the NHS imploding.
> 
> After 2 years and 3 boosts if we're not able to manage then we're in deep shit. I'm in one of the vulnerable groups but at this point I just want us to start dealing with Covid being resident in the population, its not going away but we're protected as we can be by now. I'll maintain facemask discipline and distancing, hope that others do the same, but I just want to live my life again.


Agree 100%. Having spent a few beautiful days with my 81 year old father for his Birthday which was missed last year and having witnessed the effect of lockdown on my children and their friends I really can't see that as the way out of this.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 27, 2021)

I don't know why but I'm genuinely shocked that the government is doing absolutely nothing. And they were setting us up for it all week, getting their patsies at the BBC to sell the 'omicron is much milder' line in advance. 

For some reason I still think that because these people are able to passably impersonate human beings, that there must be _something_ to them besides short term self interest and abject moral cowardice. I'd even settle for medium-term self interest at this point, as it might accidentally lead to something slightly better than the worst possible outcome for everyone else.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 27, 2021)

Indeliblelink said:


> Balloux - "I believe it is time to give in soon"




Professor Bollox needs some help spelling his own name it seems.


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 27, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I don't know why but I'm genuinely shocked that the government is doing absolutely nothing. And they were setting us up for it all week, getting their patsies at the BBC to sell the 'omicron is much milder' line in advance.
> 
> For some reason I still think that because these people are able to passably impersonate human beings, that there must be _something_ to them besides short term self interest and abject moral cowardice. I'd even settle for medium-term self interest at this point, as it might accidentally lead to something slightly better than the worst possible outcome for everyone else.



Maybe it’s just that they don’t think the hospitals will be overwhelmed.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 27, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> *I don't know why but I'm genuinely shocked that the government is doing absolutely nothing*



I'm not sure why this is a shock considering past performance.

Its just that for once its probably the least worst option.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

The solution may become preventing the co-morbities, and yes that includes the millions of preventable type II diabetes, through taxing to fuck processed crap foods and treating them the same as tobacco. 

Dealing with the issue of consanguineous marriage and making kidney, liver and lung health a national priority.


----------



## marshall (Dec 27, 2021)

Yep, am triple jabbed, flu jabbed, will probably always wear a mask in shops and so on, but, personally, feel the cons of another lockdown now outweigh the pros.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> I'm not sure why this is a shock considering past performance.
> 
> Its just that for once its probably the least worst option.



Unless it leads to another long-term, full blown lockdown two weeks or a month from now.

Which I would put cash money on at this point.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 27, 2021)

platinumsage said:


> Maybe it’s just that they don’t think the hospitals will be overwhelmed.



Doctors, however, do think that hospitals will be overwhelmed. Many are already.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Doctors, however, do think that hospitals will be overwhelmed. Many are already.


And how many of those doctors  are working three day weeks?


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 27, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Aye, I'm wary but at current status I can only see a lockdown being of any use if it stops the NHS imploding. Its certainly far to late (by 3-4 weeks) to stop Omicron spreading like wildfire so shutting the gates now does very little aside from make people feel a bit better at the cost of another X weeks of isolation at the darkest time of year.
> 
> After 2 years and 3 boosts if we're not able to manage then we're in deep shit. I'm in one of the vulnerable groups but at this point I just want us to start dealing with Covid being resident in the population, its not going away but we're protected as we can be by now. I'll maintain facemask discipline and distancing, hope that others do the same, but I just want to live my life again.




Text:
Janel Comaeu @VeryBadLlama Dec 25
"What if I told you that "learning to live with covid" means "accepting that some degree of covid precautions are just part of life now" and not "fuck it, covid is inevitable, let's go back to freely coughing on strangers" "
"we "learned to live with" typhoid by creating permanent sanitation regulations, not by deciding that losing a kid or two was a small price to pay for the freedom to cook with dirty poop-fingers"


----------



## Sue (Dec 27, 2021)

kenny g said:


> And how many of those doctors  are working three day weeks?


Eh?


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

Sue said:


> Eh?


Simple question. Bizarre response..


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 27, 2021)

With absence at approx 20% in the NHS just hope you don’t fall off any ladders or be involved in any car crashes.


----------



## Sue (Dec 27, 2021)

kenny g said:


> Simple question. Bizarre response..


I don't understand your question or your point.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> With absence at approx 20% in the NHS just hope you don’t fall off any ladders or be involved in any car crashes.


Obviously. My understanding was that many medics had reduced their working hours due to pension issues.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 27, 2021)

Oh are we onto the "let's bash the healthcare workers who are dealing with the effects of this catastrophe" level of "lalala I can't hear the pandemic" now?


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 27, 2021)

kenny g said:


> Obviously. My understanding was that many medics had reduced their working hours due to pension issues.



I doubt their number includes many A & E nurses or junior doctors.


----------



## Sue (Dec 27, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Oh are we onto the "let's bash the healthcare workers who are dealing with the effects of this catastrophe" level of "lalala I can't hear the pandemic" now?


Looks like. I reckon it's all their fault tbh. Ffs


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

Elpenor said:


> I doubt their number includes many A & E nurses or junior doctors.


Am sure it doesn't but unfortunately the code of silence in the medical profession means that the NHS perpetuates a state funded up stairs down stairs guild ridden structure who pretend to act in the public interest.


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 27, 2021)

have absoloutly no idea if it's the right choice or not. hope it is.


----------



## Sue (Dec 27, 2021)

kenny g said:


> Am sure it doesn't but unfortunately the code of silence in the medical profession means that the NHS perpetuates a state funded up stairs down stairs guild ridden structure who pretend to act in the public interest.


So what is your point, kenny g? It's quite clear you've got one, I'm just not exactly sure what it is.


----------



## Humberto (Dec 27, 2021)

How else would you expect a rich cossetted Randist to respond to the question of freedom and help businesses (be it ever so short lived) vs help for public services and civic responsibility?


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

Sue said:


> So what is your point, kenny g? It's quite clear you've got one, I'm just not exactly sure what it is.


The very expression "junior doctor" is archaic as is the the similar expression "junior barrister" - it is an extension of the public school fag system where learners are subjected to substantially lower wages, and longer work times whilst doing all the heavy lifting. Once someone reaches the exalted heights of the consultant they are able in the NHS system to take on two or three days a week of private practice or devote these additional days to non work activities. The changes in pension rules has meant that they have a clear financial advantage in working less hours so have that age old excuse , "my accountant has told me to do it."

This is all a result of the NHS having to be set up with the DR's in the driving seat. There needs to be a root and branch reform with increased wages for those actually doing the basic work aligned with full 5 day contracts for senior staff. Private health care should be subject to a 40% or plus VAT levy.


----------



## Sue (Dec 27, 2021)

kenny g said:


> The very expression "junior doctor" is archaic as is the the similar expression "junior barrister" - it is an extension of the public school fag system where learners are subjected to substantially lower wages, and longer work times whilst doing all the heavy lifting. Once someone reaches the exalted heights of the consultant they are able in the NHS system to take on two or three days a week of private practice or devote these additional days to non work activities. The changes in pension rules has meant that they have a clear financial advantage in working less hours so have that age old excuse , "my accountant has told me to do it."
> 
> This is all a result of the NHS having to be set up with the DR's in the driving seat. There needs to be a root and branch reform with increased wages for those actually doing the basic work aligned with full 5 day contracts for senior staff. Private health care should be subject to a 40% or plus VAT levy.


If you want to discuss NHS reforms, maybe start another thread rather than cluttering up this one?


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

Sue said:


> If you want to discuss NHS reforms, maybe start another thread rather than cluttering up this one?


You asked for the explanation. Perhaps a 1499 page thread is not the best place to look for de-cluttering? But as you were..


----------



## free spirit (Dec 27, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> I don't know why but I'm genuinely shocked that the government is doing absolutely nothing.


Bear in mind this is the same PM who single handledly forced the schools to open after last years christmas holidays.
Managing to keep them open for a single day.
A single day of every kid in the country mixing after the holidays that probably cost us an extra several weeks of lockdown and fuck knows how many lives.

A century after WW! we're still being led by clueless Eton donkeys.


----------



## kenny g (Dec 27, 2021)

free spirit said:


> Bear in mind this is the same PM who single handledly forced the schools to open after last years christmas holidays.
> Managing to keep them open for a single day.
> A single day of every kid in the country mixing after the holidays that probably cost us an extra several weeks of lockdown and fuck knows how many lives.
> 
> A century after WW! we're still being led by clueless Eton donkeys.





free spirit said:


> Bear in mind this is the same PM who single handledly forced the schools to open after last years christmas holidays.
> Managing to keep them open for a single day.
> A single day of every kid in the country mixing after the holidays that probably cost us an extra several weeks of lockdown and fuck knows how many lives.
> 
> A century after WW! we're still being led by clueless Eton donkeys.


Presumably the 0.0001% of U75 readers who are planning to vote Tory and are Johnson believers were swayed by your comment.


----------



## elbows (Dec 27, 2021)

Indeliblelink said:


> Balloux - "I believe it is time to give in soon"




Let me describe some of the ways that this is slippery bullshit.

The idea that he gets to announce that covid will become endemic, at this stage, is a joke. Because since quite early on it was basically inevitable. Only a handful of countries went for zero covid, and only for a certain length of time. Thats not what an attempt to eradicate the virus looks like, and most zero covid stuff was not really about zero, it was about minimising the number of infections until vaccination uptake reached a certain level.

And the UK never attempted to push cases down to nothing. After nasty waves forced it to take action, it kept measures in place for long enough to push numbers down enough that it would take time for the virus to bounce back. And it didnt even bother doing that with the Delta wave, so its a mystery to me as to why Balloux thinks that the Omicron wave is now the right moment to declare some kind of surrender, could have done that 6 months ago!

I dont know what people who like that shit think it actually has to offer them. Are declarations of this sort going to magically mean that we can rely on fighting the pandemic on the medical front only in future? Thats always been the end game and the preference of the establishment, but they cannot make it so with words. And they've been trying to make it so for ages already, there is nothing new to see here. Its a gradual process with accumulated gains made on the immunity front (via vaccines and prior infections) and more treatments becoming available, and via a chunk of the most susceptible already having fallen victim to the virus. And when the virus finds ways to spread more effectively, or bypass some immunity, we end up with situations like this Omicron wave where it takes time to find out just how much of a setback this is.

So I ask again, what difference does this surrender mean to learning to live with covid as a country? On an individual basis there are obvious potential differences for those who have already caught the virus at least once, attitudes towards trying to avoid the virus are bound to change under such circumstances. But in terms of the country living with the virus without heavy restrictions on our lives, thats always going to be a numbers game because a certain level of pressure on healthcare will make any regime blink. Throwing your hands in the air and giving up does nothing to eliminate that possibility, and if everyone does that then it makes further interventions far more likely, so be careful what you wish for. Part of the core numbers game still involves the sheer number of people infected at any one time, and we arent quite at a stage where attention to that can be safely lost in the way Balloux is perhaps hinting at.

So for now if we want to live in relatively normality with the virus then we have to pay attention to all the factors that affect that fundamental health care equation, including the number of people catching it. One of the problems with this country is that the establishment doesnt seem interested in doing some things properly, so more ends up having to be done on other fronts under emergency conditions. Hospital infections amplify the waves and make them a heavier burden in many ways. But we still fail to do some of the basics on this front, such as upgrading mask standards for health care workers. The effort put into improving the situation with schools, in terms of both levels of infection and disruption has been pathetic. Failures on these fronts make it more likely that non-pharmaceutical interventions end up still being required. By getting vaccinated people are helping with the medical side of the equation, but this other stuff is important too.

The 'way out' of this pandemic still seems reasonably clear. An evolving picture of immunity and hospitalisation risk, and the authorities fiddling with health capacity and trying to find all sorts of ways to treat a chunk of people that would previously have ended up in hospital at home instead. Once they are more confident on that front, they will want to reduce other sorts of disruption to our lives by scaling back testing and isolation, trying to reach a point where being infected doesnt have quite so many consequences, including consequences for the workforce. Timescales are unclear to me, how this Omicron wave in winter turns out will contain some big clues, building on the messy picture of 'learning to live with Delta in summer'. So I expect I'll have more to say on this throughout January.

His 'pretending we are in control' stuff is weird framing too. There are human tendencies towards such things but this country never really pretended to be in control, rather it just found itself in periods where there was no choice but to exert some crude control over certain things, whilst leaving other fronts in a mess. We've never even attempted to have much control over the virus mutation picture either, preferring to allow conditions at home and abroad to come about which make the pace of change of this virus even faster, via large numbers of ongoing infections. And when it comes to civilisations pretending to be in the driving seat when they are not, he seems to have managed to allude to this whilst at the same time issuing a declaration and a statement of intent that is in itself a demonstration of the very same phenomenon. We lost control and/or certain agendas didnt like the control methods, so lets pretend it was unavoidable and for the best, why fight the inevitable, hey hey do you like the sound of my arse trumpet?


----------



## Wilf (Dec 28, 2021)

kenny g said:


> Expect to be knocked down for saying this but I think this is probably the correct decision. Leave it to people to make their own risk assessments allied with mass testing. After almost two years we know where we are with the virus and it is time for the state to take a back seat in terms of social control.


Own decisions 1: some people go out on NYE, pubs are fairly full, no social distancing. Significant number of those people get infected and then pass it on (with additional impact on the NHS).

Own decisions 2: some people don't go to pubs, large house parties etc. Don't get it or pass it on.

What's the difference between 1 and 2?  Is it some people making the wrong decision, the wrong 'risk assessment'?  Well, perhaps, in a literal sense it is.
But it's the government that decides whether option 1 is an option at all. It's the government that doesn't fund sick pay or further furloughs.  This is _public_ health, it's the government that sets the context in which individual choices take place.


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 28, 2021)

kenny g said:


> The very expression "junior doctor" is archaic as is the the similar expression "junior barrister" - it is an extension of the public school fag system where learners are subjected to substantially lower wages, and longer work times whilst doing all the heavy lifting. Once someone reaches the exalted heights of the consultant they are able in the NHS system to take on two or three days a week of private practice or devote these additional days to non work activities. The changes in pension rules has meant that they have a clear financial advantage in working less hours so have that age old excuse , "my accountant has told me to do it."
> 
> This is all a result of the NHS having to be set up with the DR's in the driving seat. There needs to be a root and branch reform with increased wages for those actually doing the basic work aligned with full 5 day contracts for senior staff. Private health care should be subject to a 40% or plus VAT levy.


Barristers tend not to be paid wages, as they’re generally self-employed, you probably mean lawyers  

I don’t see what’s wrong with people working part-time, mandating a 5 day week would be indirect discrimination for age and sex at the very least. 

I don’t know enough about the NHS pension scheme these days as it’s been a while since I’ve done an AW8 or a SD55, or indeed spoken to their office in Blackpool. Good to know there’s an expert here.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 28, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> *Unless it leads to another long-term, full blown lockdown two weeks or a month from now.*
> 
> Which I would put cash money on at this point.


Absolutely this. The measures needed at the moment might be a funded circuit breaker, more WFH, temp (funded) closure of hospitality settings, maybe a delayed return for colleges and universities - perhaps some mixture of these as defined by experts to help the NHS get through the next few weeks.  That's what it's about and that's what the loons in the tory party are frothing about.  If the sheer number of cases pushes up the number of admissions, we'll need more than that.


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## Doctor Carrot (Dec 28, 2021)

Indeliblelink said:


> Balloux - "I believe it is time to give in soon"



Quite the knob 'ead from what I've seen of this bloke. It's all well and good saying '_oh let's give in_' but are the sort of ghouls that cheer him on going to support what's required to live with a virus like this? Mass investment in health care, more work from home, mitigations in schools, the work place and shops, funding of mass testing and so on? Further, are we going to accept around 50000 deaths a year and people getting strokes, kidney failure, millions with ME like symptoms and people getting limbs hacked off from an infectious disease just so we can go for £6 pints and £10 fry ups?

It just seems to be more '_ooh look at me I'm so controversial and contrarian' _ from him and his ilk.


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## elbows (Dec 28, 2021)

The next version of the virus will come equipped with the knowledge that centrists get their name from the location of the arsehole.


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## Doctor Carrot (Dec 28, 2021)

elbows said:


> Let me describe some of the ways that this is slippery bullshit.
> 
> The idea that he gets to announce that covid will become endemic, at this stage, is a joke. Because since quite early on it was basically inevitable. Only a handful of countries went for zero covid, and only for a certain length of time. Thats not what an attempt to eradicate the virus looks like, and most zero covid stuff was not really about zero, it was about minimising the number of infections until vaccination uptake reached a certain level.
> 
> ...


I didn't see this post before I made mine about him. I've gotta say, you've been so bloody helpful to read throughout all this and I'm really grateful for your posts. You've been doing a stellar service 👍


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Aye, I'm wary but at current status I can only see a lockdown being of any use if it stops the NHS imploding. Its certainly far to late (by 3-4 weeks) to stop Omicron spreading like wildfire so shutting the gates now does very little aside from make people feel a bit better at the cost of another X weeks of isolation at the darkest time of year.
> 
> After 2 years and 3 boosts if we're not able to manage then we're in deep shit. I'm in one of the vulnerable groups but at this point I just want us to start dealing with Covid being resident in the population, its not going away but we're protected as we can be by now. I'll maintain facemask discipline and distancing, hope that others do the same, but I just want to live my life again.


Where does the idea that taking stronger action now does nothing other than making people feel a bit better come from? You've probably decided to believe that in order to justify your stance, but its not supported by past wave experiences or the current modelling. The exact amount of good that can be done does come down to many factors, some of which are still not yet known with Omicron. And timing is certainly a factor, there are optimal times to act depending on exactly what is trying to be achieved, and some opportunities have been missed in this wave already. Others remain. And even if those are squandered too, then the emergency version, the last resort that the UK government has had to rely on in the past, always remains on the table. That emergency response never goes no matter what noises some may make, because authorities can never ignore the heaviest form of hospital pressure and will always have to act if things on that front reach a certain level of horror. They just dont act quickly enough to prevent it, only to help cope with the emergency. And that 'emergency' version tends to last longer than the 'act early' version would have, so people that only ever support doing this stuff as a late last resort are the ones who doom us to longer periods of such restrictions!

Sp what does "I just want us to start dealing with Covid being resident in the population" actually mean in practice as far as your are concerned? Its the sort of thing some people have said since the start, whilst others only arrive at such sentiments after getting worn out by the pandemic. But what difference does it make, where is the substance, what is actually being proposed that is any different?

I would suggest that such sentiments bring very little to the table because such thinking has already been baked into establishment plans in this country since the start of the pandemic. They try to avoid taking strong action for as long as possible every time, and only when it becomes completely clear that the presure on hospitals will be too great do they have to switch temporarily to a different plan. The Delta wave is the only one that has been handled a bit differently so far - it was summer and we had vaccines and the prospect of a long school summer holiday to help out, and the context was that they had their mind fixed on completing the easing of restrictions. Under those circumstances they were prepared to delay freedom day in order to stand a better chance of not having to reimpose measures again later, and they just about managed to make that approach work. But they likely only managed this because the amount of self-isolation happening at the peak of that wave (the so-called pingdemic) acted as a sort of equivalent to doing a brief lockdown at the very peak. And they didnt manage to get that wave to fall away down to very low levels before winter arrived, so they likely remained nervous about whether, even without more new variants, such a plan would be workable all year round.

So that Delta wave experience revealed that even if you think lockdowns were imposed too late to prevent peaks of a similar level to those that would have been seen without lockdown, the heavy restrictions imposed to deal with the waves that came before Delta also made a notable difference to getting the number of cases and hospitalisations to fall continually after the peak. And this is one of the reasons why even if authorities have no intention of doing early lockdowns in order to do the most good, they are still forced to do the emergency version of them later as part of coping with an intense emergency in hospitals and across broader society. They didnt have to do that with Delta because the pressure on hospitals was not of the same magnitude, and they obviously figured that the slow grinding pressure that dragged on as a result of the Delta wave not petering out was something they could cope with for months at a time. If they get the opportunity to do the same with Omicron then thats the path they will likely follow, but it already looks like the pressure on hospitals as a result of this Omicron wave will go beyond levels seen in the Delta wave, and that poses a challenge, especially in winter and with high staff sickness levels. To hope to cope wth this, they need some other factors such as length of hospital stay and proportion requiring intensive care to be quite different for Omicron, tipping things back in their favour.

So as far as I'm concerned actually providing something new of substance via 'learning to live with' sentiments, something that really gives us new opportunities not to bother with restrictions, seems implausible unless people want to back it up with ideas such as further rationing of healthcare by not bothering to properly treat as many people with severe covid when the demands on healthcare are high during a wave. If that, or other compromises to medical care are what some people are getting at then they should say so explicitly. Or if they have something else in mind, please explain how exactly we are going to learn to live with it beyond whats already being done. In my book learning to live with covid means actually being willing to learn the lessons of the pandemic so far, not learning new ways to do an ostrich impression.

Returning to what the point of further restrictions would be if enacted soon, here is what the most recently available SAGE modelling minutes said on 19th December:



> If the coming wave rises comparatively slowly, then a short intervention for, say, a few weeks’ can prolong the wave’s duration and reduce its peak so that admissions and hospital occupancy remain below levels that would compromise quality of care. The sooner such an intervention is implemented, the lower the pressures on health and care whilst it is in place and the more time is available to assess whether it has had sufficient impact.





> It is also possible, however, that the coming wave will grow so fast that a short intervention cannot keep admissions and occupancy below a tolerable threshold. In these circumstances, enacting an intervention early would give time to detect whether such an intervention is insufficient to avoid a compromise of quality of care and adjust accordingly. If measures are implemented only later, “in an emergency”, when hospitals are alreadystruggling, the measures would need to be in place for longer and might be too late to avert very high admissions (and hence hospital occupancy) for an extended period with associated compromises in the quality of care.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1043176/S1452_9_Note_from_SPI-M-O_Chairs_for_SAGE.pdf


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Dec 28, 2021)

Not particularly wanting to get sidetracked on the consultants hours thing, but I currently work closely alongside 6 of them, and a much greater number over the last 8 years, and the part time ones tend to be (genuinely) part time because of kids or age/approaching retirement. Yes some work private alongside NHS hours but it’s far from the norm IME. Probably will vary by speciality.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 28, 2021)

Not wanting to join in with the 'doctors are just lazy' narrative at all, but AFAIC if you moonlight for private healthcare you're a fucking scab.


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2021)

kenny g said:


> Obviously. My understanding was that many medics had reduced their working hours due to pension issues.



Where do you get your comprehensive and deep understanding of the NHS and those that work in it?


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Quite the knob 'ead from what I've seen of this bloke. It's all well and good saying '_oh let's give in_' but are the sort of ghouls that cheer him on going to support what's required to live with a virus like this? Mass investment in health care, more work from home, mitigations in schools, the work place and shops, funding of mass testing and so on? Further, are we going to accept around 50000 deaths a year and people getting strokes, kidney failure, millions with ME like symptoms and people getting limbs hacked off from an infectious disease just so we can go for £6 pints and £10 fry ups?
> 
> It just seems to be more '_ooh look at me I'm so controversial and contrarian' _ from him and his ilk.



He's one of the non-SAGE scientists advising the government afaik.


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2021)

I am also much less certain of the push for strong restrictions now than I have been in the past tbh. Lots of the language being used to justify that position makes me sick (as do many of the people who have been against any measures all the way through this), but I do have some sympathy for the position of having minimal measures now. For a few reasons that might try and write something about later.


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## Artaxerxes (Dec 28, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I am also much less certain of the push for strong restrictions now than I have been in the past tbh. Lots of the language being used to justify that position makes me sick (as do many of the people who have been against any measures all the way through this), but I do have some sympathy for the position of having minimal measures now. For a few reasons that might try and write something about later.



There are very clever people arguing both sides and both doing it very convincingly at the moment so it's a bitch to make your mind up.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 28, 2021)

Sue said:


> If you want to discuss NHS reforms, maybe start another thread rather than cluttering up this one?


He made a point relating tothe subject under discussion and one he apparently has a deeper understanding of than yours, you simply ragged on it because it doesnt align with your opinion without any considered counter to what was said. You seem prone to this


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> There are very clever people arguing both sides and both doing it very convincingly at the moment so it's a bitch to make your mind up.



Actually just came back to delete my comment as really unsure either way, but since you've quoted it I'll leave it. And my position is mirrored among my friends who have also been very strongly in favour of restrictions until now as well.


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Dec 28, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Where do you get your comprehensive and deep understanding of the NHS and those that work in it?


Tbf there is some truth there, for consultants of a certain age who were full time or on about 4 days per week. It caused some thoughtfulness for a psychiatrist I worked with who would probably been 10 years older than me. I think her new position elsewhere did drop her hours below the threshold but she certainly wouldn’t have made up the extra time as private work, because that count as  earnings*.

I can’t reminder the details but it would have been a quite considerable pension drop, and whilst yes, consultant doctors get good pensions, any sudden and considerable drop with little warning is going to cause an anxious reaction. Humans feel losses more keenly than gains, after all.

That last sentence being why some people are so resistant to go back on to restrictions now I guess.

*Edit: just looked it up, apparently private earnings don’t count towards it, presumably because they’re not pensionable salary. Still, my previous point stands that IME the majority of part time consultants aren’t just doing it for extra private work on the side but for reasons such as childcare, work/life balance and quality of life. Statistically I bet it’s skewed towards women too.


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## Supine (Dec 28, 2021)

I think he makes some important points about learning to live with the virus. Some time ago he did a thread on how often we could expect to pick up a covid infection. If i remember correctly it worked out to be about once every nine years. 

The vaccines are doing a great job so far and I’m looking forward to getting back to normal now whatever that means.  Todays picture is much rosier than a year ago, even with evolving covid to account for. 

There is still more to be done with improved ventilation, jabbing the unvaccinated etc etc. but it’ll be nice to have this whole thing off of every news cycle after this winter.


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## Agent Sparrow (Dec 28, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> There are very clever people arguing both sides and both doing it very convincingly at the moment so it's a bitch to make your mind up.


Part of the problem is that the debate all seems so all or nothing, at least in England. It’s not a case of no/minimal restrictions or lockdowns, there are in between stages. 

Tbh the bit I’m most concerned about is NYE. I get that I’m not at the stage of my life of being able to celebrate (kids who need babysitters, also the exhaustion that comes with having kids of that age and working!) and that it feels special to many, but also I can see it causing a huge surge in transmissions. 

Having said that, NYE tends to be hugely underwhelming for many people who go out anyway, so maybe it would be a public service to cancel it


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## Artaxerxes (Dec 28, 2021)

Agent Sparrow said:


> Part of the problem is that the debate all seems so all or nothing, at least in England. It’s not a case of no/minimal restrictions or lockdowns, there are in between stages.
> 
> Tbh the bit I’m most concerned about is NYE. I get that I’m not at the stage of my life of being able to celebrate (kids who need babysitters, also the exhaustion that comes with having kids of that age and working!) and that it feels special to many, but also I can see it causing a huge surge in transmissions.
> 
> Having said that, NYE tends to be hugely underwhelming for many people who go out anyway, so maybe it would be a public service to cancel it



It's not helped by the government lackadaisical "do nothing until it's to late" approach over last few years. The people arguing for restrictions now were and have mostly been right. But we're majority boosted now, sooner or later we're going to have to see if the boosters work without everyone keeling over. We'll be getting new variants forever, we aren't going to stop them entirely.

I'm not happy with where we are but this might actually be the end of the beginning. I'm still masking and taking care and that needs to be encouraged as we feel our way to the other side of this. That's what we aren't going to get out of the government and needs to happen.

I don't do NYE anyway, I don't drink so it's essentially the same as any other weekend of watching people get paralytic with added fireworks.


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## Agent Sparrow (Dec 28, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> It's not helped by the government lackadaisical "do nothing until it's to late" approach over last few years. The people arguing for restrictions now were and have mostly been right. But we're majority boosted now, sooner or later we're going to have to see if the boosters work without everyone keeling over. We'll be getting new variants forever, we aren't going to stop them entirely.
> 
> I'm not happy with where we are but this might actually be the end of the beginning. I'm still masking and taking care and that needs to be encouraged as we feel our way to the other side of this. That's what we aren't going to get out of the government and needs to happen.
> 
> I don't do NYE anyway, I don't drink so it's essentially the same as any other weekend of watching people get paralytic with added fireworks.


Yeah, I just think it’s unfortunate that Christmas and NYE, both occasions that encourage loads of mixing, are so close together. Shame NY couldn’t have been delayed by a couple of weeks this year. Would certainly make January more pleasant!


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## Agent Sparrow (Dec 28, 2021)

I would be happier if younger kids in general had the chance to be vaccinated, not just the clinically vulnerable ones.


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## chilango (Dec 28, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Own decisions 1: some people go out on NYE, pubs are fairly full, no social distancing. Significant number of those people get infected and then pass it on (with additional impact on the NHS).
> 
> Own decisions 2: some people don't go to pubs, large house parties etc. Don't get it or pass it on.
> 
> ...



Own decisions 3: People choosing option 1 passing the virus (directly or indirectly) to People choosing option 2. Where's the freedom of choice (sic) in that?


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## cupid_stunt (Dec 28, 2021)

I am not keen on the use of the terms 'with' or 'from' covid when discussing hospital admissions, as there was a lot of drum beating from covid-deniers using these terms during pervious waves, when clearly the vast majority were being admitted actually needed treatment for covid.

However, there was an interesting interview with the head of NHS Providers on the news channels, based on his conversations with various Trust leaders, saying there's a lot higher proportion of patients coming in now for all sorts of other reasons, with no covid symptoms, and no need of treatment for covid, that are testing positive, and counted in the official figures. 

Apparently there's currently no way of separating the 'with' or 'from' covid figures, which would be bloody useful.

It certainly makes sense that this time there could be a big different between those two sets of patients, because of the combination of vaccines and omicron being more mild, plus the very high levels of community infection. 

He did make clear that it's still too early to dismiss concerns about the Omicron.

My gut feeling remains that staff sickness could end-up being the bigger problem this time, rather than raising cases & hospital admissions.



> “As the number of cases in the community rises, we are definitely seeing more people who’ve got incidental Covid,” he told _Sky News._
> 
> “In other words, people who haven’t got symptoms have come in for something else and then when they come into hospital, they’re testing positive.
> 
> “So what our chief executives are saying is just be careful about over interpreting the data.”











						Do not 'over-interpret' data showing rise in Covid hospital admissions, says NHS chief
					

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospitals and other NHS trusts in England, said there had been a rise in people testing positive for Covid "incidentally" after being admitted to hospital for different issues




					inews.co.uk
				






> “What’s particularly interesting is how many chief executives are talking about the number of asymptomatic patients being admitted to hospital for other reasons and then testing positive for Covid.
> 
> “Trusts are not, at the moment, reporting large numbers of patients with Covid type respiratory problems needing critical care or massively increased use of oxygen, both of which we saw in last January’s Delta variant peak.
> 
> “We should therefore be cautious about over interpreting current Covid admission data.






> Staff absences are creating such pressure that “even relatively small numbers of extra Covid cases may bring difficult decisions on prioritisation and staff redeployment”, according to NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson
> 
> Medical leaders have expressed fears that “something is going to have to give” as one modeller said as many as 40% of London’s NHS workforce could be absent, with Covid-19 a major factor, in a worst-case scenario.











						Covid admissions rising but NHS not overwhelmed, say trust leaders
					

But they have warned it is too early to dismiss concerns over Omicron.




					www.independent.co.uk


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## LDC (Dec 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am not keen on the use of the terms 'with' or 'from' covid when discussing hospital admissions, as there was a lot of drum beating from covid-deniers using these terms during pervious waves, when clearly the vast majority were being admitted actually needed treatment for covid.
> 
> However, there was an interesting interview with the head of NHS Providers on the news channels, based on his conversations with various Trust leaders, saying there's a lot higher proportion of patients coming in now for all sorts of other reasons, with no covid symptoms, and no need of treatment for covid, that are testing positive, and counted in the official figures.
> 
> ...



Yeah, and long term the (possible?) need to keep people coming in for an issue but _with_ covid separate from all other patients is going to be nightmare.


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## two sheds (Dec 28, 2021)

It's going to need multiples of three wards isn't it? Not tested, confidently tested negative and tested positive. Yep sounds like a nightmare, with staff testing conditions too.


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## Doctor Carrot (Dec 28, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He's one of the non-SAGE scientists advising the government afaik.


Yes, he is and it really shows too.


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## Brainaddict (Dec 28, 2021)

I have wondered if the intensity of this peak in London means it might burn itself out quite quickly. The government might be counting on that. And they would look quite silly if they brought in drastic measures and a week later the case rate dropped massively. As usual you can argue they are at the riskier end of the possible strategies, but that doesn't mean it won't pay off.


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## Agent Sparrow (Dec 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I have wondered if the intensity of this peak in London means it might burn itself out quite quickly. The government might be counting on that. And they would look quite silly if they brought in drastic measures and a week later the case rate dropped massively. As usual you can argue they are at the riskier end of the possible strategies, but that doesn't mean it won't pay off.


I think what we don’t know is what the genuine rates have been over the last few days. Question is what’s going to have happened by the 30th/31st, rates like we’ve got now or a dramatic jump upwards? I’m not sure I’d want to bet either way, though obviously I’m hoping for the first option.

Of course Christmas will have spread things further outside London.


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## Sue (Dec 28, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> He made a point relating tothe subject under discussion and one he apparently has a deeper understanding of than yours, you simply ragged on it because it doesnt align with your opinion without any considered counter to what was said. You seem prone to this


I was trying to clarify what his point was  As it's not specially germane to the current discussion, I suggested starting a new thread. Not sure why you've got your knickers in s twist but hey...


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## kenny g (Dec 28, 2021)

Agent Sparrow said:


> Yeah, I just think it’s unfortunate that Christmas and NYE, both occasions that encourage loads of mixing, are so close together. Shame NY couldn’t have been delayed by a couple of weeks this year. Would certainly make January more pleasant!


Maybe would have been more sensible to adopt the Chinese New Year this time round - although not sure how IDS would have reacted to that.


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## Agent Sparrow (Dec 28, 2021)

kenny g said:


> Maybe would have been more sensible to adopt the Chinese New Year this time round - although not sure how IDS would have reacted to that.


My god, could you imagine the Sun/Express/Mail’s reaction to that suggestion?!


----------



## kenny g (Dec 28, 2021)

Sue said:


> I was trying to clarify what his point was  As it's not specially germane to the current discussion, I suggested starting a new thread. Not sure why you've got your knickers in s twist but hey...


You asked for clarification. I clarified and then you suggested I was "cluttering" the thread. Charming behaviour but fortunately I have thick skin and life moves on..


----------



## Sue (Dec 28, 2021)

kenny g said:


> You asked for clarification. I clarified and then you suggested I was "cluttering" the thread. Charming behaviour but fortunately I have thick skin and life moves on..


You sound so _cross_.  (((kenny g )))


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 28, 2021)

chilango said:


> Own decisions 3: People choosing option 1 passing the virus (directly or indirectly) to People choosing option 2. Where's the freedom of choice (sic) in that?



right wing interpretation of 'freedom of choice' - 'i am going to do what i like and sod everyone else'...


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Actually just came back to delete my comment as really unsure either way, but since you've quoted it I'll leave it. And my position is mirrored among my friends who have also been very strongly in favour of restrictions until now as well.



In many cases this is a pretty simple combination of being tired of the pandemic, expecting a lot from vaccines, and the uncertainties about Omicron which leads to uncertainties about how strong the response needs to be.

As always my preferred option would have been to go in hard and early, but for a brief period of time. This option has never been on the cards here though, and people continue to struggle to grasp the logic, preferring to wait and see instead. Hopefully this time they will get away with it, but if not then I will make a renewed push to explain my stance and how the alternatives that may seem superficially more moderate end up dooming us to much heavier shit in the end. I'd much rather avoid the need for such rants so finger crossed the Omicron burden will end up within tolerable levels. But it is a disgrace that we are in a position where we have to rely on hope.


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Apparently there's currently no way of separating the 'with' or 'from' covid figures, which would be bloody useful.


Those figures have been available since mid 2021. They are imperfect but they are a much better guide than no figures at all. I will discuss them later.


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I have wondered if the intensity of this peak in London means it might burn itself out quite quickly. The government might be counting on that. And they would look quite silly if they brought in drastic measures and a week later the case rate dropped massively. As usual you can argue they are at the riskier end of the possible strategies, but that doesn't mean it won't pay off.


With a faster spreading variant the peak should be sharper and quicker. But questions remain about what levels it falls down to afterwards, and how the spread into older, more vulnerable age groups which dont make up the bulk of daily positive case figures but can make up a very large chunk of the hospital burden end up turning out in this Omicron wave with very high vaccination rates.

On a very much related note, given that many of the oldest tended to receive their boosters first, authorities will also need to watch for any signs of the booster waning in a manner that could upset any delicate balance of coping that may initially emerge.


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2021)

All the usual names in this one, taking their usual line - Paul Hunter, John Bell, Nick Triggle. Bell mentioned the '400 daily admissions in London' thing that has been implied to be a trigger threshold for taking further action.

Other views do emerge towards the end of the article.









						Covid: Evidence does not support more England curbs - minister
					

Decision not to impose more measures in England will be kept under close review, George Eustice says.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## brogdale (Dec 28, 2021)

Sky report with some simple numbers:



> The number of people in hospital with COVID in England has risen to 9,546, according to latest figures.
> 
> This is up 38% from a week earlier and is the highest number since 3 March.
> 
> ...


----------



## brogdale (Dec 28, 2021)

and this for London:



3/8ths of peak ever doesn't sound too great to me.


----------



## IC3D (Dec 28, 2021)

Hospital wards in London  are full of COVID patients. Non symptomatic or mild but admitted for other problems. Its a legistical nightmare and a huge swathe of staff off sick. This last point is the Biggie if it continues. 
Omicron seems to do a good job of causing ward outbreaks despite testing in place, I suspect it's not being touched by boosters ATM but I have no specific evidence just a feeling. 
Thankfully most patients with it are oblivious except those that have regular flu symptoms. 
I hope it's just mild disease now. Looks like it as so many unvaxxed here and no drama


----------



## LDC (Dec 28, 2021)

IC3D said:


> Hospital wards in London  are full of COVID patients. Non symptomatic or mild but admitted for other problems. Its a legistical nightmare and a huge swathe of staff off sick. This last point is the Biggie if it continues.
> Omicron seems to do a good job of causing ward outbreaks despite testing in place, I suspect it's not being touched by boosters ATM but I have no specific evidence just a feeling.
> Thankfully most patients with it are oblivious except those that have regular flu symptoms.
> I hope it's just mild disease now. Looks like it as so many unvaxxed here and no drama



No drama apart from those for whom it isn't though. We're still kicking along at 150 or so dead daily.


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Dec 28, 2021)

brogdale said:


> and this for London:
> 
> View attachment 303505
> 
> 3/8ths of peak ever doesn't sound too great to me.


Not with a massive party night in 3 days time 

I know newspapers group related articles together, and further more have agendas and bias, but these 4 together don’t seem to bode well…


----------



## weepiper (Dec 28, 2021)

Anecdotally lots of people I know irl have got it or are awaiting test results having been a contact. Including me, because my kids' stepmother has PCR tested positive today after getting symptoms yesterday. The kids were at their house up til Saturday lunchtime so we're all off for a PCR tomorrow morning too.


----------



## elbows (Dec 28, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am not keen on the use of the terms 'with' or 'from' covid when discussing hospital admissions, as there was a lot of drum beating from covid-deniers using these terms during pervious waves, when clearly the vast majority were being admitted actually needed treatment for covid.
> 
> However, there was an interesting interview with the head of NHS Providers on the news channels, based on his conversations with various Trust leaders, saying there's a lot higher proportion of patients coming in now for all sorts of other reasons, with no covid symptoms, and no need of treatment for covid, that are testing positive, and counted in the official figures.
> 
> Apparently there's currently no way of separating the 'with' or 'from' covid figures, which would be bloody useful.


He doesnt actually speak about the proportion of cases.

As I mentioned earlier, there is data on this. Its imperfect and lags a bit behind other hospital data, and only comes out once a week. And its for number of patients in hospital, rather than daily admissions.

Here for example is that data for London, which currently only goes up to December 21st. Both 'for' and 'with' have risen in similar style up to that moment. As a result, so far there is only a modest increase in proportions of 'with', but this may become more significant over time, so I will comment on this again next time that data comes out.



There are a few other things we can make use of. Given more time for data to come in, the number of patients on mechanical ventilators will start to provide quite some guide as to severity.

And then there is the aspect NHS management etc are not keen to give quotes to the press about - hospital infections. Omicron is expected to cause a lot of hospital infections, and this is already showing up in the very basic data I can ascertain, and via anecdotes such as those from IC3D above. This is always going to have logistical implications that people will need to find solutions for if they want to be able to live without covid restrictions. Whether it also has morbidity and mortality implications to the same sort of extent as we saw in the first two waves remains to be seen, in theory this variant and vaccines should make a notable difference, but this also depends what sort of wards outbreaks happen on and the sheer number of cases.

Data comes from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Dec 28, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> No drama apart from those for whom it isn't though. We're still kicking along at 150 or so dead daily.



I guess a lot of that is still from Delta. Is there any data on that for Omicron yet?


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 28, 2021)

Omicron was identified in South Africa about one month ago. 

It takes time for people to get infected, get sick, and die. 

I realise why this is, and I’m also wishing there were answers / more data to go on right now - But the way to get those answers is the somewhat ghoulish activity of waiting to see how many people die of omicron type covid in the next few weeks.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 28, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I guess a lot of that is still from Delta. Is there any data on that for Omicron yet?



Looks like 60+ cases in London (and England), are starting to reach previous highs (with a rise from around the 13th, followed by a real jump from the 20th, for both), so I guess that may start to have an impact. Can only hope not.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 28, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Omicron was identified in South Africa about one month ago.
> 
> It takes time for people to get infected, get sick, and die.
> 
> I realise why this is, and I’m also wishing there were answers / more data to go on right now - But the way to get those answers is the somewhat ghoulish activity of waiting to see how many people die of omicron type covid in the next few weeks.



Yes, it's awful.
I understand people getting tired and worn down and depressed and anxious, I really, really do - but I still feel the 'wait', the 'test', is just so fucking horrifying.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 28, 2021)

"grunt of annoyance"

I ordered a pack of LFTs before chrimble [on checking, it was on the 23rd] and unlike the previous supply which arrived in less than three days, I'm still waiting. No sign of the "tracking email" either !

[Also sent for some new masks just after doing that ^^^ & they've already arrived]


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Dec 28, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> "grunt of annoyance"
> 
> I ordered a pack of LFTs before chrimble [on checking, it was on the 23rd] and unlike the previous supply which arrived in less than three days, I'm still waiting. No sign of the "tracking email" either !
> 
> [Also sent for some new masks just after doing that ^^^ & they've already arrived]


Conversely I got two tracking emails, 24 hours apart, when I hadn’t ordered any. 🤷‍

They didn’t turn up tbf.


----------



## Elpenor (Dec 28, 2021)

I ordered some on the 21st and they must have arrived on Christmas Eve


----------



## 20Bees (Dec 28, 2021)

I let my daughter have my unopened pack so she could continue to test herself and her son daily during her isolation. The site will not let me order more to be posted and the collection code I got last week to pick some up locally is of no use when none of the pharmacies in a 10 mile radius have any LFTs in stock. I can be tested at work, but that’s not an option for everyone.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 28, 2021)

Been pondering the stats for omicron.
All the people I know (over 20) that tested positive recently had something that was indisguinshable from a cold and recovered in 3-4 days.

We are week 3 with omicron, with  628016 officially recorded infections from 13-19 December, there are ~1000 people a day going to hospital. Its been said they aren't going in because of covid, but are being added to the numbers because they routinely test you for it when you go in. They are also saying the average discarge time for covid is 3 days. Its also been said showing symptoms is 2 days and recovery is 5 days.  Its 90% of infections in London now, its ripped through.

Comparing with last year at the peak 1-7 Jan there were 397874 recorded infections , translating to 28000 people a week going to hospital and that caused about 8000 deaths a week, 2 weeks later.    We were unvaccinated and locked down.

Jury is still out but I am starting to agree with the statement



			
				Sir John Bell said:
			
		

> Omicron is “not the same disease we were seeing a year ago” and high Covid death rates in the UK are “now history”, a leading immunologist has said.



We shall know pretty soon


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 29, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> Yes, it's awful.
> I understand people getting tired and worn down and depressed and anxious, I really, really do - but I still feel the 'wait', the 'test', is just so fucking horrifying.


Yeah 
I’m utterly fed up of it all 
And sometimes just …sometimes I take a step back & notice that having such a thing as a daily death toll from this … it’s part of what I feared was coming back in March of 2020 but less sudden… it’s fukin grim


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 29, 2021)

Sunray said:


> Been pondering the stats for omicron.
> All the people I know (over 20) that tested positive recently had something that was indisguinshable from a cold and recovered in 3-4 days.
> 
> We are week 3 with omicron, with  628016 officially recorded infections from 13-19 December, there are ~1000 people a day going to hospital. Its been said they aren't going in because of covid, but are being added to the numbers because they routinely test you for it when you go in. They are also saying the average discarge time for covid is 3 days. Its also been said showing symptoms is 2 days and recovery is 5 days.  Its 90% of infections in London now, its ripped through.
> ...


Was it ever the younger generations at greater risk?
And weren't older people always at greater risk, _later_?
Hospital admissions in England, alone, rose from 926 on 19/12, to 1,374 on 26/12.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 29, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Yeah
> I’m utterly fed up of it all
> And sometimes just …sometimes I take a step back & notice that having such a thing as a daily death toll from this … it’s part of what I feared was coming back in March of 2020 but less sudden… it’s fukin grim



I hear you.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 29, 2021)

> Its been said they aren't going in because of covid, but are being added to the numbers



Sunray, the more people repeat this in a binary way as you just did the more it gets taken as a major factor, look at the actual figures as elbows posted a day or so ago, its a small percentage


----------



## LDC (Dec 29, 2021)

Sunray said:


> there are ~1000 people a day going to hospital. Its been said they aren't going in because of covid, but are being added to the numbers because they routinely test you for it when you go in.



No, go and look at the stats rather than repeating something you have half-heard or skim read as a simple fact.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> He doesnt actually speak about the proportion of cases.
> 
> As I mentioned earlier, there is data on this. Its imperfect and lags a bit behind other hospital data, and only comes out once a week. And its for number of patients in hospital, rather than daily admissions.
> 
> ...



Thanks for that, as you say when it is next updated it will be interesting to see if the 'with' number has become an even greater percentage recently, as implied by the head of NHS providers.

Mind you 400ish out of a 1600 total, is still a fairly large 25%, I doubt it was anything like that in pervious waves.


----------



## Spandex (Dec 29, 2021)

Understanding what is going on is made much harder by the politics around the current wave. It seems clear it's milder by some amount, but quite how much and what we have to expect in the next month is clouded by politicians, commentators and scientists who have already made up their minds that we're in the clear to justify the English government's 'do as little as possible' approach. 

It seems that the protective wall around the incompetent Johnson, which has rendered him teflon for so long, has been breached by the Tory right who didn't like his political direction of travel and the resulting party revelations have damaged his popularity. Johnson is in the last chance saloon and candidates are already preparing for a leadership contest. The CRG/ERG/batshit insane right of the party see themselves as kingmakers (or queenmakers) and they have been opposed to Covid measures that impinge on personal freedom and damage the economy all along. They certainly don't want to see them now. Johnson feels he needs an audacious plan to retain power and refusing to implement the measures suggested by his scientific advisors is a gamble that if it pays off could see him hold onto his position for longer.

To justify his approach there's a crowd of people, many of whom are the same voices who were questioning the need for strong measures last autumn, which did result in the carnage of last winter. It's interesting how the question of how mild Omicron is has been spun. There were a number of reports putting it anywhere between a 40% and 85% reduction in hospitalisations; the UKHSA put the figure between 50% and 70%. This was widely reported as "up to 70%" and is now often discussed as being a definate 70%. The issue of 'people in hospital with' as opposed to 'people in hospital because of' Covid has become a big talking point. Anything to minimise the size of the gamble Johnson is taking.

Will he get away with it? I don't know and nor does he or anyone else. Since he's now taken it I hope he does, because if he's wrong we're facing a mess in the coming weeks. There's always the optimistic possibility that Omicron is a milder form of Covid, everyone will get it, be a bit ill, and then we'll all have had it and can carry on. But there's still the possibility that hospitals will fill up, staff absence will hit healthcare and food distribution and everything else and he's forced into a humiliating and damaging hard lockdown. Or possibly something in between.

It was a difficult decision that any government would've faced. If Omicron does prove to be milder then implementing measures that weren't needed would be unpopular, but with the stakes so high it seems unwise to be doing nothing (and Plan B - a largely  unenforced requirement to wear masks and a frequently unenforced covid pass to show you're either vaccinated, which doesn't stop you catching and spreading it, or have an easily fakable and unreliable negative LFT - is basically nothing). There were (and still are) options available short of a lockdown, but they all hurt someone. If pubs/clubs/restaurants or schools were shut down there would be entirely accurate howls of outrage about the damage to the industry or children. But if we end up in a harder lockdown we'll have those impacts and more anyway. But we have Johnson's government of corruption and incompetent, so my faith in them having the country's best interests at heart is non-existent. 

Fingers crossed for whatever happens next.


----------



## LDC (Dec 29, 2021)

Spandex said:


> Understanding what is going on is made much harder by the politics around the current wave. It seems clear it's milder by some amount, but quite how much and what we have to expect in the next month is clouded by politicians, commentators and scientists who have already made up their minds that we're in the clear to justify the English government's 'do as little as possible' approach.
> 
> It seems that the protective wall around the incompetent Johnson, which has rendered him teflon for so long, has been breached by the Tory right who didn't like his political direction of travel and the resulting party revelations have damaged his popularity. Johnson is in the last chance saloon and candidates are already preparing for a leadership contest. The CRG/ERG/batshit insane right of the party see themselves as kingmakers (or queenmakers) and they have been opposed to Covid measures that impinge on personal freedom and damage the economy all along. They certainly don't want to see them now. Johnson feels he needs an audacious plan to retain power and refusing to implement the measures suggested by his scientific advisors is a gamble that if it pays off could see him hold onto his position for longer.
> 
> ...



Thanks for taking the time to write that, very useful and a good summary. Edie be interested what you think of this give the posts on the International thread this morning.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> "grunt of annoyance"
> 
> I ordered a pack of LFTs before chrimble [on checking, it was on the 23rd] and unlike the previous supply which arrived in less than three days, I'm still waiting. No sign of the "tracking email" either !
> 
> [Also sent for some new masks just after doing that ^^^ & they've already arrived]



according to them, due to be delivered today [29th] - sat in the postal system 23rd to 27th then 28th at the Tyneside depot but is out for delivery today [29th].


----------



## andysays (Dec 29, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> according to them, due to be delivered today [29th] - sat in the postal system 23rd to 27th then 28th at the Tyneside depot but is out for delivery today [29th].


Story here about supply of LFTs  

Covid: Warning over patchy lateral flow test supply​


> Pharmacists are warning of patchy supplies of rapid Covid tests following changes to self-isolation rules. They said demand for lateral flow tests increased after changes allowed people with Covid to leave isolation after seven days - if they test negative. The Association Of Independent Multiple Pharmacies said staff and customers were stressed over the lack of supply.



Among other things, this seems likely to mean the figures for number of positive cases will be an underestimate.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 29, 2021)

andysays said:


> Story here about supply of LFTs
> 
> Covid: Warning over patchy lateral flow test supply​
> 
> Among other things, this seems likely to mean the figures for number of positive cases will be an underestimate.


This tetchy tory old-timer is not holding back...


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2021)

Locally, case numbers doubled [as at five days ago] ... 

Despite very high vaccination rates. 

Not a fluffy bunny, as the weather is cold and very wet.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2021)

brogdale said:


> This tetchy tory old-timer is not holding back...
> 
> View attachment 303563



Little known fact, he was a DJ on Radio Caroline back in the 60s.

Anyway, it's not just LFTs, there's problems with PCR tests again.



> Walk-in PCR tests unavailable in England and Northern Ireland​There are no walk-in PCR tests available to book anywhere in *England* or *Northern Ireland*.
> Appointments had been unavailable in every region of the country, although there were some in *Scotland* and *Wales*.
> The NHS website also said no home tests were available either for the general public or for essential workers.
> On Monday, the UKHSA said the problem was due to “high demand” and the problem only lasted for a few hours before people could book appointments again.











						UK cases hit new daily record of 183,037; Spain cuts isolation period to seven days – as it happened
					

Case figures include delayed data from Northern Ireland; Spain cuts quarantine despite record rise in cases




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Edie (Dec 29, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Thanks for taking the time to write that, very useful and a good summary. Edie be interested what you think of this give the posts on the International thread this morning.


Sounds an eminently sensible post to me


----------



## andysays (Dec 29, 2021)

brogdale said:


> This tetchy tory old-timer is not holding back...
> 
> View attachment 303563


Don't know what Gale's position on all this is, whether he's one of those arguing for less restrictions, but to some extent the government are victims of their own wishes to relax restrictions and cut isolation times.

If you change the rules so that people can isolate for less time providing they test more, you inevitably increase the demand for testing, and that demand can't be magically met simply because the rules have changed.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2021)

It seems one of the main problem with LFTs was no deliveries over the Xmas period, despite many pharmacies being open over that period.



> The wholesaler which supplies the LFD test kits to pharmacies, on behalf of the UK Health Security Agency, made its last deliveries on Friday afternoon, following which all deliveries were paused until this morning, when they fully re-opened, as all pharmacies also returned to their normal opening hours.
> 
> Many pharmacies were open over the four-day Christmas break, but as deliveries of medicines and LFD kits would not be made during that period, it is likely that their supply of test kits will once again have been exhausted.
> 
> More stock of test kits will have been delivered to pharmacies this morning and they will be able to order more for delivery tomorrow and on Friday.











						UK cases hit new daily record of 183,037; Spain cuts isolation period to seven days – as it happened
					

Case figures include delayed data from Northern Ireland; Spain cuts quarantine despite record rise in cases




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## existentialist (Dec 29, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> It seems one of the main problem with LFTs was no deliveries over the Xmas period, despite many pharmacies being open over that period.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You'd think that someone might have anticipated, yannow, like, Christmas, and planned accordingly...oh wait, we're in Boris Johnson's Britain, that kind of thing doesn't happen any more.


----------



## JoeyBoy (Dec 29, 2021)

Not being tested today, I thought we would have been since we were shut Monday and today is the first day, looks like the testing might stop for a while due to lack of tests. Can these things be re-used does anyone know?
Did ask manager if this means we care as little about customers as staff now and just got told to shut the fuck up.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 29, 2021)

For me, it seems like it might still be a finely balanced decision, about implementing more restrictions in England (it almost certainly isn't a 50/50 decision, but we don't seem to yet have the information to be more definite, either way). Problem with that is:

1. If johnson et al are wrong and hospitalisations do go critical, it's too late.  There's still a need for precautionary action and that time was probably last week.
2. Even if it really is 50/50 odds, the consequences on both sides are not equal. On the one hand, if hospitalisations remain around where they are he's 'saved new year' and the hospitality industry, reduced the need for more spending etc. On the other, if hospitalisations do go much further it has a massive impact on the NHS, people don't get treated for other conditions and then more and deeper action is needed in January.
3. Needless to say, this isn't about following the evidence, it's about johnson's weak position and the headbangers. Part of that is this whole discourse of 'what do the experts know'.

Having said that, anything like a 'lockdown', particularly closing schools, isn't sustainable and we know the mental health and other issues that are building up. It genuinely is a case of being 'balanced' and 'proportionate'. Problem is, this government is short term, venal and driven by the worst elements in their ranks.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Thanks for that, as you say when it is next updated it will be interesting to see if the 'with' number has become an even greater percentage recently, as implied by the head of NHS providers.
> 
> Mind you 400ish out of a 1600 total, is still a fairly large 25%, I doubt it was anything like that in pervious waves.


Well we only have data for the delta wave onwards, but I really doubt it was a trivial proportion in the earlier waves either. Becaue when levels of the virus are high in the community it is inevitable that a fair chunk of 'incidental' cases will be found in hospital, but also hospital covid infections were a very big thing in the first two waves. There have been very occasional articles in the press about how many deaths were attributed to hospital infections and some of the numbers were really large, very many thousands. Testing and vacines have helped compared to the first wave, but its ecpected that Omicron will erode some of those gains. And things like the nature of some hospitals building and layout were probably a big factor, one which also lead to some regional variation. London is actually one of the areas where the hospital infection situation was not allowed to fester as long as it did in some regions. And since June when the data I mentioned became available, it does show a slightly lower percentage of 'with covid' cases than a bunch of other regions.

I do expect the proportion to increase in the next set of data.

It does make sense to swell on these details now, but there are also clear signs that the authorities are going to use this stuff to further justify a lack of new restrictions being brought in. Judging the extent to which it is fair enough for them to do so requires us to keep in mind that this stuff was a real part of the picture shown by data in previous waves too. But its inevitable that it will receive more focus this time because the nature of the Omicron wave pressure is likely to be even more complex than with previous waves, certain agendas are in play, and there are a bunch of plausible scenarios where the amount of pressure remains 'delicately balanced' in a way that could be used to justifyfurther restrictions and justify no further restrictions, depending on how its spun. Indeed I note that if I use Nick Triggle as an establishment guide, he has been going on about all these 'incidental' hospital cases today:



> With the Omicron variant leading to milder disease, we need to think differently about Covid now.
> 
> Hospital data requires much closer analysis than it once did.
> 
> ...





> Firstly, the number of people being discharged from hospital will have dropped significantly over the festive period. Last year the rate of discharged halved, meaning there are likely to be hundreds of patients in hospital who have recovered from Covid.
> 
> Secondly a growing proportion of hospitalisations are for what is known as an incidental admission. They are people being treated for something else, but just happen to have Covid.





> Last week this stood at about three in 10, but the expectation is this will have increased by now. The latest figures will be released on Thursday.
> 
> Therefore, it is possible of the 9,500 in hospital maybe around 6,000 are acutely unwell with Covid.
> 
> ...



Sounds like he is setting the scene for no more restrictions even if some numbers get quite large in the weeks ahead. Thats from the BBC live updates page at 11:03 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59816431

Ultimately I can still use the very basic admissions data for certain things, especially if it were to very rapidly increase. I will augment it with the other stuff without pushing agendas in a crude manner like Triggle. And I will certainly rely on other data such as number of patients in mechanical ventilation beds in order to judge one form of acute covid pressure more directly. That picture could indeed end up quite different this time, and we are entering the zone where it wont take a huge amount of time to find out. And it can make a big difference. But I wont dismiss the other forms of pressure as irrelevant either, although vaccines will hopefully offer a high degree of protection against some of the worst consequences of hospital infections etc that we saw in the first few waves. There will still be consequences for some though, and it worries me that these wont really show up on peoples radars if the overall numbers are so much lower than what people got used to hearing about in the first few waves. Not that people were used to hearing all that much about hospital infections, which is why I go on about them so much, the authorities dont like to draw attention to that shit and various failings. No wonder, given they have never even bothered to upgrade medical worker mask standards, another cold calculation by the UK establishment.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

Wilf said:


> people don't get treated for other conditions


This is one of the largest ongoing problems with the current approach to 'learning to live with covid'. It grinds away at NHS capacity all the time, not just during big waves, although obviously its an even bigger problem during waves. Even when reaching a point where many millions of infections can be tolerated because they dont lead to the same proportion of hospitalisations as they did in the past, it still creates staffing problems, infection control problems, other capacity problems and messy hospital risk picture. It one of the reasons I do not support policies which allow many millions of infections to occur on an ongoing basis. But since that clearly is the UK approach, they will have to come up with some other ways to deal with this in future. If they could get the disease consequences right down to negligible levels then they will be able to make substantial changes to the need for medical and care staff to isolate, and how much hospitals have to remain reconfigured to reduce transmission at the expense of capacity. But since these are the riskiest settings, they should really be one of the last fronts to bring in such changes, ie changes to self-isolation should become plausible for some other professions first, a while before it is sensible to do so for hospital workers.

Really to achieve that in a manner I would find acceptable likely requires the dominant virus strain to become very mild, or for us to actually have vaccines that reduce infection and transmission to a much greater extent than the first generation of vaccines have been able to do. But I suppose I expect UK authorities to press ahead with some stuff regardless, given a bit more time, because they will make certain judgement calls that still involve a fair dollop of risk, and they will fixate on the potential rewards and reducing disruption more than they will the occasions where it goes wrong with fatal consequences. Looking at UK establishment preferences, I suspect that once more treatments have proven themselves and are readily available, they will deal with these issues by chucking a lot of drugs at the problem, hoping that is enough to get the balance they seek that will then allow them to say the risk has diminished to a level where normal hospital care for other conditions can resume on a more sustainable basis.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

Oh and on that note, having glanced at some headlines from the Health Service Journal in recent months, it seems there is an agenda to treat more people at home in future, and not just for covid like we have already seen being announced for this wave. I believe there is some target to increase acute medical care capacity by 5%, but half of that is apparently supposed to come from some new form of care at home.

In some ways that makes sense given that large physical institutions with lots of people sharing the same space have infection control implications. But of course this aspect will combine with other stuff like doing shit on the cheap. There will likely be ongoing concerns about the resulting level of care on offer.


----------



## marshall (Dec 29, 2021)

Isn’t Johnson considered a ‘lucky’ politician? Let’s pray his luck holds.

Something I never thought I’d wish for, as far as he’s concerned.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh and on that note, having glanced at some headlines from the Health Service Journal in recent months, it seems there is an agenda to treat more people at home in future, and not just for covid like we have already seen being announced for this wave. I believe there is some target to increase acute medical care capacity by 5%, but half of that is apparently supposed to come from some new form of care at home.
> 
> In some ways that makes sense given that large physical institutions with lots of people sharing the same space have infection control implications. But of course this aspect will combine with other stuff like doing shit on the cheap. There will likely be ongoing concerns about the resulting level of care on offer.



Not to mention the lack of homes and crowded housing.


----------



## weepiper (Dec 29, 2021)

Nearly 16000 Scottish positive tests today 😩


----------



## Wilf (Dec 29, 2021)

marshall said:


> Isn’t Johnson considered a ‘lucky’ politician? Let’s pray his luck holds.
> 
> Something I never thought I’d wish for, as far as he’s concerned.


Yep, can't disagree with that. Though the thought of them braying 'we held our nerve' will be appalling.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Oh and on that note, having glanced at some headlines from the Health Service Journal in recent months, it seems there is an agenda to treat more people at home in future, and not just for covid like we have already seen being announced for this wave. I believe there is some target to increase acute medical care capacity by 5%, but half of that is apparently supposed to come from some new form of care at home.
> 
> In some ways that makes sense given that large physical institutions with lots of people sharing the same space have infection control implications. But of course this aspect will combine with other stuff like doing shit on the cheap. There will likely be ongoing concerns about the resulting level of care on offer.



Certainly seen some signs of that already ... 
I'm thinking of the speed at which minor surgical cases are booted out to "home" care - even when the patients local GP has only a very limited staff of "community nurses" 

When best mate was booted off the ward after having had their gall-bladder removed, there was only a cursory check that there would be someone ay home to help [my medical knowledge is only at first aider level, although my OH had had the same operation about 18mths before]. Although we did get some dressings ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Yep, can't disagree with that. Though the thought of them braying 'we held our nerve' will be appalling.


Whatever outcomes we get in this wave, I can already tell that I'll feel the need to repeatedly point out that this was achieved with the help of plenty of scary mood music and large numbers of people adjusting their behaviour. I imagin that those who seek to rush to the most extreme form of 'learning to live with covid' will want to skim over that point and pretend that we can completely forget about behavioural changes and can pretend the virus doesnt exist. eg        #10,437      

2022 will be messy but the gradual exit from the acute phase of the pandemic was always going to be messy. And I still prefer that mess and having to deal with some of the shitty politics  to an alternative scenario where we get stuck in the acute phase for longer.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Certainly seen some signs of that already ...
> I'm thinking of the speed at which minor surgical cases are booted out to "home" care - even when the patients local GP has only a very limited staff of "community nurses"
> 
> When best mate was booted off the ward after having had their gall-bladder removed, there was only a cursory check that there would be someone ay home to help [my medical knowledge is only at first aider level, although my OH had had the same operation about 18mths before]. Although we did get some dressings ...


Yeah, I think I've started to see the phrase 'from the comfort of your own home' creeping into NHS announcements for several years, it slightly predates the pandemic. In other areas it predates the pandemic by decades, once large institutions went out of fashion in areas like mental health, childrens homes etc. There were some bloody good reasons to ditch the old ways, they came with their own horrors, but of course we didnt bother to put enough resources into the alternative approach.

If the quality of care can be made good enough in the home environment then there are certainly advantages, there is probably already evidence that outcomes are better if people are not trapped in hospital wards for prolonged periods of time. But actually delivering on the upsides without half-arsing our way into a picture dominated by the downsides is not something I tend to associate with UK PLC.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 29, 2021)

"how do we make this not our problem and ensure we don't pay anything" - every UK government


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Dec 29, 2021)

not sure whether to post here, or the 'tory stupidity' thread or maybe both


----------



## Wilf (Dec 29, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> not sure whether to post here, or the 'tory stupidity' thread or maybe both
> 
> View attachment 303606


There's definitely a sense they are going on the attack now.  Scientists and people with a sensible public health message are well on the way to being portrayed as a subset of the 'woke' establishment.  Whereas 'living with covid' is the new Get Brexit Done.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 29, 2021)

Just on the 'going on the attack' theme, I'm not going to dig out the stories from the Mail and Express (didn't read the originals I might add, just the newsfeed recycling). However I've noticed those papers using phrases like 'scientists have been _*pestering *_Boris Johnson to impose new restrictions'.  Definitely a sense of scientists being attacked as overly pessimistic doom mongers over the last week - stuff that goes well beyond the Cabinet widening the net of scientists they take advice from.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

Well they've done it before, even when there was very little prospect of the earlier waves not being horrific, so its no surprise that they will ramp that shit up even further this time.

eg the fucking Mail were calling Vallance and Whitty Prof Gloom and Dr Doom back in September 2020, because the Mail did not like the idea of taking action then. By November that year we had a lockdown because even Johnson could not resist the inevitable for any longer that time.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 29, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> "grunt of annoyance"
> 
> I ordered a pack of LFTs before chrimble [on checking, it was on the 23rd] and unlike the previous supply which arrived in less than three days, I'm still waiting. No sign of the "tracking email" either !
> 
> [Also sent for some new masks just after doing that ^^^ & they've already arrived]


No royal mail deliveries over the past 4 days due to crimbo, boxing and 2 bank holidays, the LFts I ordered on the 22nd arrived today despite a text saying they had been delivered on monday  
The evil corporation was delivering over the last 2 days though.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> No royal mail deliveries over the past 4 days due to crimbo, boxing and 2 bank holidays, the LFts I ordered on the 22nd arrived today despite a text saying they had been delivered on monday
> The evil corporation was delivering over the last 2 days though.


My box of LFT's arrived about 10 minutes ago. [and about half an hour before the delivery window would be ended].

We've had post on crimbo eve and deliveries re-started yesterday. So, I suppose the missing 4 days is "explained" ...

As I'm [effectively] not socially mixing until the 4th Jan ...
Now I have a supply, I'll be able to do a test if I do need to go out.


----------



## BristolEcho (Dec 29, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> not sure whether to post here, or the 'tory stupidity' thread or maybe both
> 
> View attachment 303606


Ah covid socialists. That's a new one on me.


----------



## MrSki (Dec 29, 2021)




----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 29, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> not sure whether to post here, or the 'tory stupidity' thread or maybe both
> 
> View attachment 303606


These people are just utter cunts of the highest order. They'll just keep plugin away at the same old shit until the worst of the pandemic is over, at which point they'll say '_ha! See I told you you were just scaremongering' _Plague on all of them.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 29, 2021)

MrSki said:


>



He's obviously not the landlord at any cabinet member's local.


----------



## LDC (Dec 29, 2021)

E2A: Sorry shit reporting, been corrected by elbows further down this thread.


----------



## Sue (Dec 29, 2021)

BristolEcho said:


> Ah covid socialists. That's a new one on me.


Covid Communists would alliterate better tbh.


----------



## LDC (Dec 29, 2021)

Sue said:


> Covid Communists would alliterate better tbh.



_Free covid for all:_ that's most of the Tory cabinet tbh!


----------



## Wilf (Dec 29, 2021)

Sorry, a rather basic question: presumably, all the UK hospitalisation data is still almost all delta wave (given the usual timelag from infection to hospitalisation)?  And if that's the case, all the real world data about Omicron hospitalisation will be almost entirely from overseas, particularly South Africa?


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just announced there's been 916 more hospital admissions in the last 24 hours.


I dont recognise that number, any idea what it is exactly? Sounds like a subset of something.

Todays reported Londons daily hospital admissions/diagnoses, which is actually for the admission date of 27th December, has now breached the mythical trigger point of 400 for the first time in this wave. The figure is 436. Its not on the UK dashboard yet due to data delays, so I got it from NHS spreadsheets. I havent done graphs yet, I will do them in a bit.

Data source Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

And the latest figure for England via that data is 1751 for December 27th, up from 1374 the previous day.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

Wilf said:


> Sorry, a rather basic question: presumably, all the UK hospitalisation data is still almost all delta wave (given the usual timelag from infection to hospitalisation)?  And if that's the case, all the real world data about Omicron hospitalisation will be almost entirely from overseas, particularly South Africa?



No, Omicron has been here in large numbers for some time now and increasingly shows up in hospital admissions data. This has been more obvious when looking at Londons data and the increases seen there first because they were further ahead witht he rise of Omicron, but other regions are now starting to show increases quite obviously too. This will become clearer when I post some graphs.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> No, Omicron has been here in large numbers for some time now and increasingly shows up in hospital admissions data. This has been more obvious when looking at Londons data and the increases seen there first because they were further ahead witht he rise of Omicron, but other regions are now starting to show increases quite obviously too. This will become clearer when I post some graphs.


Ta.


----------



## LDC (Dec 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont recognise that number, any idea what it is exactly? Sounds like a subset of something.
> 
> Todays reported Londons daily hospital admissions/diagnoses, which is actually for the admission date of 27th December, has now breached the mythical trigger point of 400 for the first time in this wave. The figure is 436. Its not on the UK dashboard yet due to data delays, so I got it from NHS spreadsheets. I havent done graphs yet, I will do them in a bit.
> 
> ...



Sorry my sloppy quoting, I think it was England admissions last 24 hours. If I can find the original source and it's not that I'll correct it.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Sorry my sloppy quoting, I think it was England admissions last 24 hours. If I can find the original source and it's not that I'll correct it.


Its too low to be the standard headline hospital admissions/diagnoses figure for England, and its too high to be for an individual region of England.

Maybe its one of the Omicron-specific numbers they've been producing, which have tended to lag further behind the broader data. I'll have a look in a bit.

Meanwhile here is my first graph for today of daily admissions/diagnoses per region of England, going back to the second wave. I will post different ones in a bit that zoom in on the recent picture.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 29, 2021)

Puddy_Tat said:


> not sure whether to post here, or the 'tory stupidity' thread or maybe both
> 
> View attachment 303606



Thanks again to Baron Mann for clearing a path for this fucking donkey to get a seat in parliament.


----------



## chilango (Dec 29, 2021)

Now that the Boomers have all been triple vaxxed and think they're immune they are no longer prepared to let workshy ravers (and the unspoken inconvenience of those with "underlying health conditions") stop them playing golf/going on cruises/getting served quickly in Costa.


----------



## Sue (Dec 29, 2021)

chilango said:


> Now that the Boomers have all been triple vaxxed and think they're immune they are no longer prepared to let workshy ravers (and the unspoken inconvenience of those with "underlying health conditions") stop them playing golf/going on cruises/getting served quickly in Costa.


There was something on the news the other day about a cruise ship that had just been stricken with Covid. I mean who would seriously think that was a good idea at the moment. Apart from a load of people apparently  🤷‍♀️ .


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

Hospital admissions/diagnoses per day per region of England for the Delta wave and the Omicron wave so far. Same data as previous graph, just shown differently.

As we can see, London was the first to demonstrate obvious Omicron effects but those are now starting to be seen in other regions too.

As discussed many times previously, it is not possible to seperate those admitted because of covid, incidental covid cases when admitted for other reasons, and hospital-acquired covid infections in this data. So a mix of all three is responsible for the rises seen so far. And presuming that the government have decided to ignore the '400 London daily admission figures' trigger point this time, they are going to make heavy use of drawing attention to this in order to justify the decision not to impose new measures, as already seen from Nick Triggles BBC 'analysis' earlier.


----------



## chilango (Dec 29, 2021)

Sue said:


> There was something on the news the other day about a cruise ship that had just been stricken with Covid. I mean who would seriously think that was a good idea at the moment. Apart from a load of people apparently  🤷‍♀️ .



People that are fed up with woke remoaners stopping them enjoying their hard earned (via the property bubble) retirement. That's who. 

You know the ones who survived the war that ended a few years before they were born.

Them.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 29, 2021)

No numbers yet today?


----------



## belboid (Dec 29, 2021)

Sue said:


> There was something on the news the other day about a cruise ship that had just been stricken with Covid. I mean who would seriously think that was a good idea at the moment. Apart from a load of people apparently  🤷‍♀️ .


The US are currently monitoring 89 cruise ships that have had covid outbreaks.   Beyond belief.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

brogdale said:


> No numbers yet today?



I got latest hospital figures for England from another source, NHS England. The UK dashboard delay is because:



> Because of a delay in receiving data for Northern Ireland, today's update is delayed. The current estimate for release is 5:30pm. Further updates will be provided here.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 29, 2021)

chilango said:


> People that are fed up with woke remoaners


Everybody except woke remoaners then


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I guess a lot of that is still from Delta. Is there any data on that for Omicron yet?


The UKHSA (that replaced Public Health England) does a daily report which counts Omicron cases, hospitalisations and deaths.

However I consider that data to be a subset of the full picture, with some additional lag for various reasons. So I dont really think of these numbers as being the true total, just the totals where Omicron was properly confirmed.

This is their latest daily report. 766 hospitalisations and 53 deaths in total so far.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1044090/20211229_OS__Omicron_Daily_Overview.pdf
		


That report also looks into vaccination status of hospitalised Omicron cases. Again its not a complete picture but its the best they can muster given data limitations:



> From the above table, 40.3% of hospitalised cases in London were unvaccinated. London is currently the largest and most robust data set of the regions and reflects the importance of vaccine uptake.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 29, 2021)

belboid said:


> The US are currently monitoring 89 cruise ships that have had covid outbreaks.   Beyond belief.



Sooner we shut down the cruise ship industry the better


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Just announced there's been 916 more hospital admissions in the last 24 hours.
> 
> E2A: Sorry shit reporting, I think that was England hospital admissions last 24 hours.


Following on from earlier discussion, I have now established what this number is.

Its the rise in the number of patients with covid in hospital in England compared to the previous days number. Which is not the same thing as daily admissions. Plus the daily admissions figure lags several days behind the 'in beds' figure.

Todays total: 10,462. Yesterdays figure was 9,546. Almost a third of that increase was in London.


----------



## Indeliblelink (Dec 29, 2021)

BristolEcho said:


> Ah covid socialists. That's a new one on me.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 29, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Sooner we shut down the cruise ship industry the better



I dunno, they seem to be keeping a non-trivial percentage of all the world's covid patients extremely well isolated from everyone else.


----------



## MickiQ (Dec 29, 2021)

Doctor Carrot said:


> He's obviously not the landlord at any cabinet member's local.


Perhaps they should rename themselves Seaborne Medical Group instead


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 29, 2021)

Sue said:


> There was something on the news the other day about a cruise ship that had just been stricken with Covid. I mean who would seriously think that was a good idea at the moment. Apart from a load of people apparently  🤷‍♀️ .


I was a bit surprised at a local cafe in London today. I went there for lunch and chose it because it has a covered yard, very well ventilated but rain-proof. My partner and I sat in the yard, every other person sat inside the cafe. It was almost full of maskless people chatting away as though everything was normal, and all the doors and windows were kept shut. It seems a lot of people have decided to buy the message that it's now just like getting a bad cold or something, and apparently aren't worried about transmitting to older people or long covid.


----------



## LDC (Dec 29, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I was a bit surprised at a local cafe in London today. I went there for lunch and chose it because it has a covered yard, very well ventilated but rain-proof. My partner and I sat in the yard, every other person sat inside the cafe. It was almost full of maskless people chatting away as though everything was normal, and all the doors and windows were kept shut. It seems a lot of people have decided to buy the message that it's now just like getting a bad cold or something, and apparently aren't worried about transmitting to older people or long covid.



Yeah, I did 2 local train journeys today in and out of nearby city. Both trains were absolutely rammed with people, like standing packed in together, and only about 50% were masked, and a few people were coughing and spluttering. No windows open and when I tried one they had been locked. 

I do find it quite depressing and sad tbh, so many people can't seem to do very basic public health stuff like mask wearing to take care of everyone else.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 29, 2021)

Just over 183k new cases reported reported, a weekly increase of over 41%

Hospital admissions, up to 21st Dec., 1,213, up 13.2%


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

Someone elses representation of hospital data to augment the stuff I posted earlier:


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 29, 2021)

183,000, fucking hell


----------



## existentialist (Dec 29, 2021)

S☼I said:


> 183,000, fucking hell


I wonder what uk.gov's internal "oh, fuck" number might be?


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I wonder what uk.gov's internal "oh, fuck" number might be?


I don't have a clue, but the overall UK case numbers/rate is getting close to [if not already past] mine.

I know that boosters and the vaccines generally are reducing both severe disease & fatalities, but even so, these small percentages of a very high number are still too many ...
A vast number of those [unnecessary] deaths will, in each case, be destroying a family ....


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 29, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Yeah, I did 2 local train journeys today in and out of nearby city. Both trains were absolutely rammed with people, like standing packed in together, and only about 50% were masked, and a few people were coughing and spluttering. No windows open and when I tried one they had been locked.
> 
> I do find it quite depressing and sad tbh, so many people can't seem to do very basic public health stuff like mask wearing to take care of everyone else.


Yes, it is sad. I also find it infuriating that long covid is still not part of the narrative, even though we now have formal statistics on it and they don't look pretty Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics



> Of people with self-reported long COVID, 232,000 (19%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 less than 12 weeks previously; 862,000 people (71%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 at least 12 weeks previously, and *439,000 (36%) first had (or suspected they had) COVID-19 at least one year previously*.



As I saw someone point out on social media, this is the most globally disabling event within living memory (of most people), unmatched since WW2 I would have thought, and yet disability is still barely on the radar. Of course we don't know the long covid rate with omicron yet, but you'd only want to toss the dice on it if you didn't understand how disabling post-viral fatigue can be. Anyone who understood would err on the side of caution, because it's much more likely that you'll be disabled by covid than die from it - but afaics it's still just an occasional 'isn't this weird how doctors don't understand it' story on mainstream news.


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Dec 29, 2021)

I hope at the very least that Johnson is spending his nights awake, tossing and turning and gazing at the ceiling as the anxiety and dread takes over.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 29, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I wonder what uk.gov's internal "oh, fuck" number might be?


How many backbenchers might rebel.


----------



## LDC (Dec 29, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I wonder what uk.gov's internal "oh, fuck" number might be?



Dunno, but it is prefixed by a £.


----------



## chilango (Dec 29, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I wonder what uk.gov's internal "oh, fuck" number might be?



324


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Dec 29, 2021)

S☼I said:


> How many backbenchers might rebel.


Yes, sadly I suspect that if he is in any anguish atm, it’s more about his MPs rather than the many dead or long term affected from COVID.


----------



## LDC (Dec 29, 2021)

elbows said:


> Someone elses representation of hospital data to augment the stuff I posted earlier:




Edie you seen that modelling?


----------



## chilango (Dec 29, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Dunno, but it is prefixed by a £.



That was my other joke 

I'm just so fucking angry. Every day. I just watch with impotent, seething rage.


----------



## wtfftw (Dec 29, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Yes, it is sad. I also find it infuriating that long covid is still not part of the narrative, even though we now have formal statistics on it and they don't look pretty Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics
> 
> 
> 
> As I saw someone point out on social media, this is the most globally disabling event within living memory (of most people), unmatched since WW2 I would have thought, and yet disability is still barely on the radar. Of course we don't know the long covid rate with omicron yet, but you'd only want to toss the dice on it if you didn't understand how disabling post-viral fatigue can be. Anyone who understood would err on the side of caution, because it's much more likely that you'll be disabled by covid than die from it - but afaics it's still just an occasional 'isn't this weird how doctors don't understand it' story on mainstream news.


yeah. It's the pandemic version Epidemic myalgic encephalomyelitis - MEpedia


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 29, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> I was a bit surprised at a local cafe in London today. I went there for lunch and chose it because it has a covered yard, very well ventilated but rain-proof. My partner and I sat in the yard, every other person sat inside the cafe. It was almost full of maskless people chatting away as though everything was normal, and all the doors and windows were kept shut. It seems a lot of people have decided to buy the message that it's now just like getting a bad cold or something, and apparently aren't worried about transmitting to older people or long covid.


I've noticed that mentality too, and don't really get it. Bad colds are fucking debilitating! I've got one at the moment and I know it won't kill me, but I don't want to do anything except stay wrapped up warm in bed, reading and drinking tea. I definitely don't feel like going to a cafe, and wouldn't wish it on anyone else. If I was to ring in sick with it, many bosses would try to make me feel guilty about missing work for "just" a cold, ignoring the fact that a cold is still a virus and therefore makes you sick. I'm coming up negative on LFTs, but am staying in anyway because I feel crap and so will anyone I give it to. I feel slightly stronger today and hope to be better by the weekend, but yeah, people shouldn't take colds lightly.


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Yes, it is sad. I also find it infuriating that long covid is still not part of the narrative, even though we now have formal statistics on it and they don't look pretty Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics
> 
> 
> 
> As I saw someone point out on social media, this is the most globally disabling event within living memory (of most people), unmatched since WW2 I would have thought, and yet disability is still barely on the radar. Of course we don't know the long covid rate with omicron yet, but you'd only want to toss the dice on it if you didn't understand how disabling post-viral fatigue can be. Anyone who understood would err on the side of caution, because it's much more likely that you'll be disabled by covid than die from it - but afaics it's still just an occasional 'isn't this weird how doctors don't understand it' story on mainstream news.


It flickered across the BBC radar recently:









						Long Covid: 'I have to choose between walking and talking'
					

People say their lives have been ruined by long Covid, amid fears the number of sufferers is rising.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Here I only draw attention via quotes to the bit where health service failings are rather apparent, and how specialist services can make a big difference:



> For nine months, doctors said anxiety was the cause of her symptoms, which included a tight chest, heart pain, breathlessness, fatigue and palpitations.
> 
> She knew they were wrong and developed her own symptom tracker which helped her work out that her triggers were bending over, walking and talking, with a delayed impact in her lungs.
> 
> Her health only began to improve when she started treatment at a clinic for 130 patients with severe long Covid, at the Royal Brompton Hospital, in London.





> Doctors found multiple health issues. A gas transfer test showed oxygen levels in her lungs to be 53%, the same as a lung disease patient, and she was diagnosed with post-Covid heart inflammation, which they told her they had not seen before.
> 
> They also found small blood clots on her lungs, which only showed up on a specialised scan called a ventilation-perfusion scan.
> 
> Since starting blood-thinning medication, the clots have gone but she still has abnormal blood and oxygen flow to her lungs.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 29, 2021)

existentialist said:


> I wonder what uk.gov's internal "oh, fuck" number might be?


Who knows what the % figure is, but I think we know enough that it will have the letters GDP in it.


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Dec 29, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> I've noticed that mentality too, and don't really get it. Bad colds are fucking debilitating! I've got one at the moment and I know it won't kill me, but I don't want to do anything except stay wrapped up warm in bed, reading and drinking tea. I definitely don't feel like going to a cafe, and wouldn't wish it on anyone else. If I was to ring in sick with it, many bosses would try to make me feel guilty about missing work for "just" a cold, ignoring the fact that a cold is still a virus and therefore makes you sick. I'm coming up negative on LFTs, but am staying in anyway because I feel crap and so will anyone I give it to. I feel slightly stronger today and hope to be better by the weekend, but yeah, people shouldn't take colds lightly.


I think part of it is what gets drummed into us from school - 100% attendance being a goal and all that. Work too. For someone whose always been susceptible to respiratory viruses (I get literally every one the kids get) I’ve got used to pushing through colds that only go to a certain level otherwise I’d probably get disciplinary issues. Now it feels like things have gone the other way - I’m not going into my hospital job with any sort of sniffle unless I’ve been tested.

I’m a bit concerned about the newer symptoms basically being cold symptoms. That would be someone in our house being PCRed every 3 weeks or so during winter. I am working on the assumption that if one of us gets a cold and tests negative and then if another of us gets the same thing, it’s unlikely to be COVID. LFTs help assess that too. But it’s not foolproof…


----------



## elbows (Dec 29, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Edie you seen that modelling?


The usual caveats when considering the modelling and how it is presented apply, plus some new ones.

Firstly the graph in that tweet represents a highly simplified amalgamation of a number of modelling scenarios that were done as part of the same modelling exercise. It is still useful to see this compared to the actual figures as they come in, but I dont think its an entirely fair summary of what sort of range the model anticipated. Partly because people need to be aware of all the modelling assumptions used, including assumptions about behavioural changes due to the 'plan B measures' already in place, assumptions about how well boosters work and the amount of immune escape that Omicron can manage. Those are presented via a series of charts in the modelling which we can comapre to one another, and that detail is lost in the simplified tweet single graph version.

Also since that modelling was done, estimates came out for Omicron severity which impact on hospitalisation compared to Delta hospitalisation. The modelling document has been updated so that it says the following at the start, so we really need to scale down their figures, and Im not sure if thats been done in the graph that was tweeted:



> In the preprint below, we made the assumption that Omicron and Delta have equal “baseline” severity — i.e. the intrinsic severity in an individual who has no protection from prior infection or from vaccination. We highlight in this update that this assumption of equal baseline severity still leads to around a 40% reduction in realised severity within each age group, because more Omicron cases are breakthrough infections or reinfections (Fig. A1, a). Note that our model was already assuming that the average realised hospitalisation rate of an Omicron infection would be lower than that of a Delta infection.
> 
> A new paper released on 22nd December 2021 by Imperial College (Report 50) shows that A&E visits among Omicron cases are reduced by 30–40% relative to Delta. This could translate into a baseline severity for Omicron of 60–70% relative to Delta (see Fig. A1, b for an illustration of 70% baseline severity) which would scale our projections for severe outcomes down by 30–40%. In general, to adjust for any particular finding of reduced baseline severity, our projections for hospital admissions and deaths in Figs. 2–4 can be scaled by the corresponding reduction in severity identified by the study in question. It is important for any of these studies comparing the severity of Omicron versus Delta that the study adjusts for reinfection and for vaccine status.
> 
> Since the vast majority of projected hospital admissions and deaths below are attributable to Omicron and not to Delta, scaling the curves and estimated totals between 1st December 2021 and 30th April 2022 would very closely approximate the correct scaling.





			https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/reports/omicron_england/report_23_dec_2021.pdf
		


I suppose a further complication is that hospital infections and incidental covid cases have always been a part of the daily admissions figures since the start of the panemic. And the modellers always tune their model by fitting it to past hospital admissions data. So I suppose it is possible that simply scaling down their Omicron model results to take account of lower hospitalisation risk will end up underestimating overall hospitalisation numbers because a chunk of those numbers are actually hospital infections and patients just happening to have covid, and Omicron being less severe wouldnt be expected to reduce those numbers. And those numbers and the people admitted because covid has made them severely ill are all represented by a single daily hospitalisations figure, both in real data and the modelling results we get to see, so we cant really unpick that and have a stab at making the proper adjustment to only the 'severely ill covid admissions' part of their numbers ourselves.

Sometimes models still end up being broadly right even if they get a bunch of input parameters wrong, because some of these errors might happen to cancel eachother out. I think they are still very useful for authorities that have to plan for a range of scenarios and need to know what the bounds of plausibility are when it comes to timing and scale. Whatever actually ends up happening with Omicron, I very much doubt I will come to view this modelling as having delivered a useless red herring that made us worry about Omicron for no good reason. A reasonably precautious attitude requires this stuff to be estimated in advance of the reality emerging. And those who dismiss such concerns as fearmongering tend to have the luxury of not being in charge of planning for a health system to cope with a range of plausible scenarios.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2021)

Don't know If I already mentioned it, but at the beginning of December, the youngest member of my staff rang in with vague flu/cold symptoms ... Told him to take a PCR. He'd done an LFT, which was negative. 
And I didn't want him back until he'd got a negative PCR result. In the just over a week he was off, he took a second PCR [also neg] but he still wasn't feeling 100%. -

I told him to stay off ... a) I didn't want him making himself worse by trying to work when he wasn't fit enough and b) whatever it was, I didn't want him giving it to everybody else ... 
Told him "We're not in America ! - stay off until you are fit to work"
He was still a bit coughy / snotty for the first couple of days - still tested negative - he was back at work and he volunteered to mask-up, although he was working in the smallest work area and by himself for most of those two days. 
By the third day, he was fine ...


----------



## quimcunx (Dec 29, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> I've noticed that mentality too, and don't really get it. Bad colds are fucking debilitating! I've got one at the moment and I know it won't kill me, but I don't want to do anything except stay wrapped up warm in bed, reading and drinking tea. I definitely don't feel like going to a cafe, and wouldn't wish it on anyone else. If I was to ring in sick with it, many bosses would try to make me feel guilty about missing work for "just" a cold, ignoring the fact that a cold is still a virus and therefore makes you sick. I'm coming up negative on LFTs, but am staying in anyway because I feel crap and so will anyone I give it to. I feel slightly stronger today and hope to be better by the weekend, but yeah, people shouldn't take colds lightly.



You should get a PCR test if you haven't already. A negative  LFT doesnt mean much.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 29, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Don't know If I already mentioned it, but at the beginning of December, the youngest member of my staff rang in with vague flu/cold symptoms ... Told him to take a PCR. He'd done an LFT, which was negative.
> And I didn't want him back until he'd got a negative PCR result. In the just over a week he was off, he took a second PCR [also neg] but he still wasn't feeling 100%. -
> 
> I told him to stay off ... a) I didn't want him making himself worse by trying to work when he wasn't fit enough and b) whatever it was, I didn't want him giving it to everybody else ...
> ...


Thank you for being a good boss and caring about your staff. There's not enough of you.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 29, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Thank you for being a good boss and caring about your staff. There's not enough of you.


Thanks !

I do try my best.
I've been on t'other side for most of my life, so I'm "Doasyouwouldbedoneby" Boss ...


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Dec 29, 2021)

On the more general subject of sick leave, one thing wfh has done is lower my bar even further regarding when I’m too ill to not work.


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 29, 2021)

Agent Sparrow said:


> On the more general subject of sick leave, one thing wfh has done is lower my bar even further regarding when I’m too ill to not work.


Yeah, that's a pain for encouraging presenteeism. Even a desk job with no commute still expends energy your body needs in order to fight whatever's making you sick!


----------



## stdP (Dec 29, 2021)

Brainaddict said:


> Yes, it is sad. I also find it infuriating that long covid is still not part of the narrative, even though we now have formal statistics on it and they don't look pretty Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics



Post-viral fatigue, ME and the rest were barely noticed before the pandemic and they're still largely ignored now both by politicians and the general public. For many people it's something that largely never happens, until it happens to them.



Agent Sparrow said:


> I hope at the very least that Johnson is spending his nights awake, tossing and turning and gazing at the ceiling as the anxiety and dread takes over.



I'm still really not sure if he's psychologically capable of this. If anything bad comes out of the omicron wave, it'll be someone else's fault and there's nothing he could have done to prevent it.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 29, 2021)

stdP said:


> Post-viral fatigue, ME and the rest were barely noticed before the pandemic and they're still largely ignored now both by politicians and the general public. For many people it's something that largely never happens, until it happens to them.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm still really not sure if he's psychologically capable of this. If anything bad comes out of the omicron wave, it'll be someone else's fault and there's nothing he could have done to prevent it.


He's a weak man. He'll be getting Vallance, Whitty and other profs giving him some ranges and models, urging action.  He'll get the message but probably zone out when it comes to the detail.  Next up it'll be some braying 1922 Committee bod and he hasn't got the guts to take them on, so he'll offer up a series of reassuring wet farts.  I realise this is beginning to sound like a particularly shit version of A Christmas Carol.  Anyway, the only way he thinks he can square the 2 is with the pretence that boosters pretty much alone do the trick, protect the NHS and usher in the Age  of Aquarius.  

Saw something from South Africa saying Omicron hospitalises at 1/4 the rate of Delta, though with some provisos about a younger but less vaccinated population. With 183,000 today and, presumably an upward trajectory from Xmas/New Year (and then schools opening, back to work...), even that won't protect us sufficiently.  Also, if the case figures and hospitalisation numbers keep going up for another 4/5 days, as a weak man, that will probably spook him into closing the stable door.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2021)

Meanwhile in the NHS:









						Covid: Nightingale surge hubs to be set up in eight hospitals, NHS England says
					

It comes as the UK saw record daily case numbers of 183,000 on Wednesday.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## MrSki (Dec 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> Meanwhile in the NHS:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Same shit as last time I presume when it all falls to bits without the staff to cover the new beds.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2021)

Staffing is still an issue but the configuration and practicalities are a bit different this time, so potentially more workable, as the article mentioned:



> This is not a revival of the Nightingale hospitals set up at the height of the pandemic in the spring of 2020.
> 
> Then large venues such as conference centres were pressed into service for an anticipated surge in seriously ill Covid patients.
> 
> ...



They arent at all sure they will actually need them, but especially if bed-blocking type stuff becomes a big deal in new ways at some point during the peak or immediate aftermath of this wave, they may as well try to set these things up in advance just in case they are required. It offers a modest quantiy of wiggle room if circumstances end up so desperate that staff being inappropriately stretched is already a huge deal, it at least deals with some simple practicalities involving physical space.

Its also one of the solutions that they dont mind talking about. Other stuff that would actually be done to reduce pressure in an emergency includes changing the criteria for admission and hospital care, but they dont like talking about that much at all. Well, this time around they dont mind talking about the palatable version of that, where 'care in the comfort of your own home' is offered via remote oxygen monitoring and treatment with certain drugs that are now available. But other versions exist too which they dont want to dwell on but have been forced to temporarily use in some places in the past, where they simply change the admissions criteria in a way that rations critical care to a greater extent, which inevitably tends to increase the death rate.


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 30, 2021)

Who’s going to look after patients in these temporary structures? Same nurses who are already run ragged, burned out, many off sick etc?


----------



## l'Otters (Dec 30, 2021)

“But they were little used as major hospitals preferred to hold on to staff to deal with Covid pressures rather than lend them to the Nightingales.”

Those grasping hospitals wanting to keep their staff during a public health crisis.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2021)

I see the press noticed the problems with test availability.



And 









						Johnson blamed for Covid test shortages as cases hit record 183,000
					

Labour criticises PM over ‘total shambles’ of some essential workers being unable to access test kits




					www.theguardian.com
				






> As medical staff experienced delays in PCR test results and problems accessing rapid tests, NHS Providers called on No 10 to consider reserving some tests for health workers. Some Tory MPs were also demanding answers from government ministers about whether there should be a priority ranking for who should get tests first.





> Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said Johnson’s plea for people to take lateral flows when there were shortages showed “spectacular incompetence”.
> 
> “Congratulations to Boris Johnson who has managed to appear on television today urging people to get tested when people are struggling to access them,” he said.
> 
> “People are trying to do the right thing, follow the government’s own advice, and test themselves regularly, but are prevented by the Conservative government’s incompetence.”





> But Maria Caulfield, the government’s junior health minister, insisted there were “plenty of tests”, in a post to a WhatsApp group of Tory MPs. Caulfield said the “constant speculation that we are running out of tests is just fuelling demand”, and urged colleagues to tell constituents they should “keep trying” to book tests online.
> 
> Javid is also understood to be preparing a memo for MPs confirming supplies of LFTs and PCRs were safe.





> However, their assurances were undermined by Tory MPs reporting first-hand problems ordering tests. Roger Gale, the MP for North Thanet, tweeted that “Kent appears to be in Lateral Flow and PCR Test gridlock”.
> 
> Gale later said he had spoken with Javid and been told “there is a world shortage of Lateral Flow & PCR test supplies, but we are buying all that’s available”.
> 
> A former minister called the situation a “shitshow” and added Javid’s letter “probably won’t immediately match reality”. A second Tory MP said availability of tests “definitely seems to be an issue”, and a third said a relative who was an essential worker had been unable to order one.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Who’s going to look after patients in these temporary structures? Same nurses who are already run ragged, burned out, many off sick etc?



Bold to assume they are there for people to be cared for.

Dumping grounds for low priority patients


----------



## platinumsage (Dec 30, 2021)

l'Otters said:


> Who’s going to look after patients in these temporary structures? Same nurses who are already run ragged, burned out, many off sick etc?



I thought they recruited Virgin Atlantic air crew for this role?


----------



## brogdale (Dec 30, 2021)

Missed this yesterday evening:



and apparently the 57 deaths reported yesterday were associated with 'other settings'.


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


> Dumping grounds for low priority patients



Think that's unhelpful and an inaccurate speculation. And 'low priority', what do you mean? Not cared for? Less intensive treatments needed?


----------



## kenny g (Dec 30, 2021)

stdP said:


> Post-viral fatigue, ME and the rest were barely noticed before the pandemic and they're still largely ignored now both by politicians and the general public. For many people it's something that largely never happens, until it happens to them.


Too right.

 I remember when one of my team got covid in the first wave in March 2020 and I was adamant that he take a good week off for rest after the symptoms had stopped as his temperature had reached 40C at one point. I knew of an 18 year old who had died of a heart attack when going out on a night out shortly after flu and a work mate (not my team) who had had to be taken to hospital by ambulance ( young female of otherwise good health) after heart complications arising from a viral infection a few years back so my first instinct is to treat any virus infection seriously. 

Managing the health and wellness of a team should be at the core of success and that is about so much more than attendance spreadsheets.


----------



## magneze (Dec 30, 2021)

Up to 90% of Covid patients in ICU are unboosted, says Boris Johnson
					

Prime minister urges people to get third jab during visit to a vaccination centre in Milton Keynes




					www.theguardian.com
				




"Up to 90% unboosted" - "up to" seems weird politician speak - anything to read into that? Is that "one ICU has 90% unboosted, but most have lots of boosted patients too" or something else?

Is there a breakdown somewhere of the proportions in ICU with 0, 1, 2, 3 jabs?


----------



## Miss-Shelf (Dec 30, 2021)

At 9 45am today for England

there are no lateral flow tests online
There are no home PCR tests to be sent out for the public
There are no home PCR tests to be sent out for essential workers
There are no walk in PCR tests in any of the English regions(to book online.  Maybe there is capacity through other channels )


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2021)

Miss-Shelf said:


> At 9 45am today for England
> 
> there are no lateral flow tests online
> There are no home PCR tests to be sent out for the public
> ...



One way to get those numbers down...


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 30, 2021)

I have just received one box of seven tests 
[and I think there might be 1 left from the box my OH got before chrimble].
We are a 4 adult household ... so one box is less than enough for the twice a week regime !

And now there aren't any to order ?

#worldbeating


----------



## kenny g (Dec 30, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> One way to get those numbers down...


Or lockdown beckons as the system is overwhelmed... This regime is always full of surprises in terms of vomiting forth a shit storm when any sunshine beckons.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 30, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> I have just received one box of seven tests
> [and I think there might be 1 left from the box my OH got before chrimble].
> We are a 4 adult household ... so one box is less than enough for the twice a week regime !
> 
> ...


I think shortly after midnight might be the best time to order some but I could be wrong.


----------



## bmd (Dec 30, 2021)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I think shortly after midnight might be the best time to order some but I could be wrong.


Yeah, someone said that to my mum. What's that about?


----------



## Sunray (Dec 30, 2021)

I've been watching Dr John Cambell a lot recently.  His last one was very upbeat on Omicron.

Talk on Omicron

Of all the data he discusses, this caught my eye


This is data from INARC which gathers the data from UK ICUs and shows the number of people in ICU based on their vaccinaction status.
There are three lines there but the single and double vaccinated are the same.  Showing a single dose appears to successfully prevent you going into ICU at any age.

When does the reporting kick back in again, after the 21st its a bit dubious.?

The deaths and ICU have been on a slow but clearly downward trend since 1 November, which was entirely Delta.Totally disconnected from the numbers getting sick.
Starting to show that vaccinations are really working.


----------



## xenon (Dec 30, 2021)

bmd said:


> Yeah, someone said that to my mum. What's that about?



Presumably as you're getting that day's dispatch slots ASAP. A bit like supermarket delivery slots.


----------



## xenon (Dec 30, 2021)

Kinda gonna make a mockery of the case figures in the next few days innit.

I've not been using tests for reasons relating to accessibility so gave a box of LFTs to a family member anyway but who could have possibly predicted there might be more needed going into winter, never mind omicron.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2021)

magneze said:


> Up to 90% of Covid patients in ICU are unboosted, says Boris Johnson
> 
> 
> Prime minister urges people to get third jab during visit to a vaccination centre in Milton Keynes
> ...


I cant read much into it. The only thing thats been clear for ages is that authorities always want to draw attention to any data which can be used to encourage more people to get vaccinated, which is understandable. And Johnsons comments are just the latest example of that.

Because I want people to understand the full picture I have repeatedly posted about the actual numbers in hospital by vaccine status. More recently I found the reports in regards 'critical care' by vaccine status. Its the same source that Sunray posted a graph from above, but I focussed on a different graph in this post:        #6,834  

That post also includes some early data specific to Omicron cases. Its really quite early days for that and is not currently based on really large numbers, and since London is further ahead with Omicron its data is a bit more substantial, but London also has a lower vaccination rate than many places.

Reports on this front that I have seen so far havent tended to include any information about boosters yet, so I cant really say anything about that. It might take a while will this detail is added to reports, or perhaps it isnt far away now, I would not like to guess.

So far all the data I've seen shows the expected picture - in terms of rates per 100,000 population, the very much increased risk that the unvaccinated face shows up extremely clearly. But since such a huge percentage of the population has been vaccinated, and vaccines are not 100% effective, in terms of the raw numbers of people in hospital and in intensive care there are plenty of vaccinated people in there too. Sometimes more than half, sometimes less than half, but always a fair proportion. And this is what SAGE etc have always expected, even with vaccines working really quite well.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2021)

Javid admits a problem with testing in a letter to Tory MPs.



> In a letter sent to MPs on Wednesday evening, Javid acknowledged the intense strain being put on the system as cases of the Omicron variant continue to increase, with 183,037 new infections recorded on Wednesday.
> 
> “In light of the huge demand for LFDs seen over the last three weeks, we expect to need to constrain the system at certain points over the next two weeks to manage supply over the course of each day, with new tranches of supply released regularly throughout each day,” he wrote.





> Javid underlined the action the government has taken to increase the supply of LFDs, with 300m expected to be available in January, up from the 100m planned before the Omicron variant was discovered.
> 
> Amid warnings that the PCR tests used to confirm new cases of the virus have also been unavailable in many parts of the country, Javid also stressed that capacity for these has increased significantly, from 530,000 a day in November to up to 700,000 a day.



300m sounds a lot, but as Badgers pointed out on the chat thread, there's 7 per pack, so this is actually under 43m packs.









						Lateral flow tests to be ‘constrained’ over next two weeks, warns Sajid Javid
					

Supply of test kits squeezed despite new rules requiring their use to end quarantine early




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## bimble (Dec 30, 2021)

So the shortage of tests is going to continue for some weeks whilst we are all encouraged to go out and party cautiously. Really not good.


----------



## Chilli.s (Dec 30, 2021)

bimble said:


> Really not good.


Really obvious that we should expect this though?


----------



## bimble (Dec 30, 2021)

Chilli.s said:


> Really obvious that we should expect this though?


probably. Haven’t seen anything about when the people in charge twigged that omicron means we’d be needing a lot more tests, maybe they placed big orders weeks ago. Probably not though probably left it til yesterday.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2021)

So this sort of comment about breaking through into older people comes up a bit at the moment:



> The UK is still seeing very high Covid hospital admissions, despite early evidence suggesting Omicron may be milder than previous variants, the government's former chief scientific adviser says.
> 
> Prof Mark Walport tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme that it is not yet clear whether the wave will break through to older people in the UK.
> 
> ...



Thats from the 13:49 entry on the BBC live updates page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59825655

Well I would say that both hospital admissions and positive tests data already demonstrates that it has broken through into older people. I have no doubt about that now. The remaining uncertainties on this front are quite how high case numbers will go in the older age groups, how long that situation will persist, and how well protected against severe disease they turn out to be.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2021)

bimble said:


> probably. Haven’t seen anything about when the people in charge twigged that omicron means we’d be needing a lot more tests, maybe they placed big orders weeks ago. Probably not though probably left it til yesterday.


They should have recalculated their sums when they changed the self-isolation rules to include a 'get out early via 2 negative tests' option.

And yes they should also have expected ginormous demand once they expected a huge wave.

And since global demand is mentioned, they should really have considered that would happen given huge Delta and Omicron waves that numerous countries are now experiencing.


----------



## bimble (Dec 30, 2021)

Are they not manufactured here at all the LF tests?
ETA oh looks like one place makes them but only since September this year








						First UK manufactured rapid tests deployed across England
					

The first UK-manufactured lateral flow devices or LFDs are being rolled out to universities across England.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## Chilli.s (Dec 30, 2021)

This is what happens when a load of the budget is pissed away in kickbacks and untendered deals to mates


----------



## xenon (Dec 30, 2021)

Just read there are no trains into Victoria from south London, and beyond. until around the 10th of January.  Due to staff shortages. pfft


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2021)

xenon said:


> Just read there are no trains into Victoria from south London, and beyond. until around the 10th of January.  Due to staff shortages. pfft



I was just coming to post that, loads of other services also cancelled.









						Southern cancels London Victoria trains for two weeks over Covid
					

Firm cites ‘isolation and sickness’ as it says it will run no services to or from station until 10 January




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## sparkybird (Dec 30, 2021)

In think demand is surging everywhere. No LFTs to be had in Sevilla today and although I got two yesterday, they had gone up to €6 each from €4. No one is answering the hotline for reporting.....


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 30, 2021)

quimcunx said:


> You should get a PCR test if you haven't already. A negative  LFT doesnt mean much.


Not having much luck getting a PCR online at the moment, either delivered or at a testing centre, and the site said not to call the helplines. I'll keep trying.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 30, 2021)

xenon said:


> Just read there are no trains into Victoria from south London, and beyond. until around the 10th of January.  Due to staff shortages. pfft


Could save a few lives.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 30, 2021)

Not surprisingly, there's a delay to today's dashboard update ...


_*30 December 2021*
Because of a delay in receiving deaths data for England, today's update is delayed. The current estimate for release is 7:30pm. Further updates will be provided here.
_


----------



## brogdale (Dec 30, 2021)

I see the media (& Met office) have bought into this "hey, let's all paaarrrty outside!" vibe from the govt. including the almost unbelievably vacuous "care" minister Gillian Keegan:





I mean, I get it and all that...but when folks round my way of the Roundshaw do try to party outside it just draws the fucking OB helicopters all night.


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 30, 2021)

There were people hauling off improbable amounts of alcohol in Aldi today ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2021)

The press dont focus on hospital admissions by age group very often. But the BBC has done so today for England.

Unlike my graphs where I just use the raw numbers, they are showing rates per 100,000 of population.

This is from the 15:47 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59825655


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 30, 2021)

That's quite scary

Edit...am I reading that correctly?, does it really say that not far off 1 in every 1000 85+ in England are going into hospital with covid every day?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 30, 2021)

Not a good look for Johnson's government! 
Welsh government comes to Westminster's aid with four million lateral flow tests​


> The Welsh government has agreed to loan four million more tests to the NHS in England, bringing the total the country has given England to a total of 10 million.


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2021)

Those Nightingale hospitals are reported to be stepdown surge capacity, each of 100 beds. NHS also clearing up to 4,000 beds elsewhere.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 30, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not a good look for Johnson's government!
> Welsh government comes to Westminster's aid with four million lateral flow tests​


That's genuinely cheered me up!


----------



## emanymton (Dec 30, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> There were people hauling off improbable amounts of alcohol in Aldi today ...


This time last year I saw a women buying dozens of bottles of wine and the staff helped her carry it to her car. Not been back again despite it being 5 min away.


----------



## cuppa tee (Dec 30, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> That's quite scary
> 
> Edit...am I reading that correctly?, does it really say that not far off 1 in every 1000 85+ in England are going into hospital with covid every day?


< pissed up maths deleted>


----------



## Riklet (Dec 30, 2021)

Im saving an old box of lateral flow tests as my back up emergency box.  they are the crappier old kind with the longer throat swab and 'soy sauce squeezie' add your own liquid. What fun 

Seems like lots of delays to the daily update at the mo. More numbers means more data means more time to process?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Dec 30, 2021)

Starting next Tuesday every schoolkid in the land is due to be tested. I wonder if anyone in government has bothered to do anything about making sure tests are available in schools.


----------



## Riklet (Dec 30, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Starting next Tuesday every schoolkid in the land is due to be tested. I wonder if anyone in government has bothered to do anything about making sure tests are available in schools.



We can borrow some tests from Scotland and make it up as we go along!!


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> That's quite scary
> 
> Edit...am I reading that correctly?, does it really say that not far off 1 in every 1000 85+ in England are going into hospital with covid every day?


I dont like trying to do these calculations myself, but on this occasion I had a look at the underlying data and unless I also managed to make a mistake (quite possible!) the BBC might have fucked it up.

I'm thinking the numbers they have plotted are a better match to 7 day running totals, not 7 day averages. So they should either have changed the wording or divided their numbers by 7.

But maybe I am wrong.

One sanity check we can do is to look at the grand totals and rates per 100,000 for the entire pandemic so far. According to the UK dashboard data before todays delayed update has arrived, for England so far there have been just shy of 100,000 hospital admissions in the 85+ age group (99,788 to be precise). They also show this as a rate per 100,000, in this case the figure as of yesterdays data was 7095.2 per 100,000, so just over 7% of all 85+ year olds have been recorded in the covid hospital admissions/diagnoses figures so far in this pandemic. And at the start of this data being available in the first pandemic wave, it took a little over 1 month, till  25th April 2020, for the grand total of admissions in that age group to reach 1% of that ages population. It is reasonable to conclude that even during a period that includes a sharp massive peak, the total for this badly affected age group was not increasing at anything as high as 0.1% per day. So per week is far more plausible for this particular moment in this wave than per day.

And in terms of raw numbers, yesterdays published figure for that age group was 269 people. The total for that day and the 6 previous days combined was 1,327. I dont have the exact figures they use for number of people in the English population who are that age, but it seems to be in the 1.3-1.4 million sort of range, and I could in fact figure it out properly and quite trivially by using some of the earlier numbers I mentioned for totals so far in the entire pandemic. I dont really like posting the results of my maths, but in this case I think yeah, just over 1.4 million.


----------



## Hollis (Dec 30, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Not having much luck getting a PCR online at the moment, either delivered or at a testing centre, and the site said not to call the helplines. I'll keep trying.



It's all a bit odd.  I went for a PCR test in my local walk-in centre in north london this afternoon and it was like the Mary Celeste there.. I was literally the only person having one.. about 10 staff looking bored shitless.


----------



## Hollis (Dec 30, 2021)

If you are in Leyton then its not too far from you - up in Tottenham..


----------



## cuppa tee (Dec 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> I dont like trying to do these calculations myself, but on this occasion I had a look at the underlying data and unless I also managed to make a mistake (quite possible!) the BBC might have fucked it up.
> 
> I'm thinking the numbers they have plotted are a better match to 7 day running totals, not 7 day averages. So they should either have changed the wording or divided their numbers by 7.
> 
> ...



thank you for clarifying, I was frantically working iout odds and it took a couple of hefty shots to calm me down hence the earlier post...hopefully the bbc didn’t put too many in a+e either....!


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 30, 2021)

StoneRoad said:


> Not surprisingly, there's a delay to today's dashboard update ...
> 
> 
> _*30 December 2021*
> Because of a delay in receiving deaths data for England, today's update is delayed. The current estimate for release is 7:30pm. Further updates will be provided here._



Now extended to 20:30 [8:30pm] ...


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Dec 30, 2021)

Hollis said:


> If you are in Leyton then its not too far from you - up in Tottenham..


Is it walk in? That's great! I actually do live in Tottenham as it happens. Where would I need to go? I'll do it tomorrow.


----------



## Hollis (Dec 30, 2021)

It's the Haringey Irish Centre one - I think you need to book.

Just by Tottenham stadium.


----------



## Sue (Dec 30, 2021)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Is it walk in? That's great! I actually do live in Tottenham as it happens. Where would I need to go? I'll do it tomorrow.


In case it's closer, there's also a walk-in one at
Arriva Bus Depot, Rookwood Rd, London N16 6SS.


----------



## LDC (Dec 30, 2021)

Figures out; 189,000 infections, 330 deaths.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2021)

gentlegreen said:


> There were people hauling off improbable amounts of alcohol in Aldi today ...



The day ends in a Y so yes.


----------



## elbows (Dec 30, 2021)

There have been plenty of blatantly dodgy decisions made in this pandemic, where the real priorities are showing. 

This one certainly qualifies:



> The English Football League has removed the need for clubs to test players for Covid-19 on matchdays in an effort to prevent late postponements.
> 
> Hull City's Championship game with Blackburn on Boxing Day was called off about two hours before kick-off when away fans were already travelling.
> The EFL accept the situation was not ideal and believe that testing every day, apart from matchday, is enough.
> ...











						EFL removes matchday Covid-19 testing
					

The EFL removes the need for clubs to test players for Covid-19 on matchdays as Nottingham Forest v Barnsley becomes the latest to be called off.




					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 30, 2021)

elbows said:


> There have been plenty of blatantly dodgy decisions made in this pandemic, where the real priorities are showing.
> 
> This one certainly qualifies:
> 
> ...


That's stupidly reckless ...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2021)




----------



## Sue (Dec 30, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


>



What could possibly go wrong...


----------



## Artaxerxes (Dec 30, 2021)

Sue said:


> What could possibly go wrong...



We started with a race and by gum we'll finish with one to


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Dec 30, 2021)

Artaxerxes said:


>



I do love a bit of pandemic nostalgia. 









						Cheltenham Festival to go ahead despite coronavirus case in town
					

The number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise across the UK - here is the latest news for festival-goers




					www.bristolpost.co.uk


----------



## Wilf (Dec 30, 2021)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Figures out; 189,000 infections, *330 deaths.*


That's quite a jump and the highest since early March. But are those figures disrupted by Christmas reporting issues?

E2A: Yes with regard to reporting lags...  UK Covid case numbers hit another record high at more than 189,000


----------



## kenny g (Dec 30, 2021)

SpookyFrank said:


> Starting next Tuesday every schoolkid in the land is due to be tested. I wonder if anyone in government has bothered to do anything about making sure tests are available in schools.


Mine were sent home with tests.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 30, 2021)

Number of people in hospital has certainly jumped. Number of people on ventilators has not. Might be a positive for the idea we're not as likely to see so many serious illnesses and deaths due to omicron severity and vaccines.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 30, 2021)

pbsmooth said:


> Number of people in hospital has certainly jumped. Number of people on ventilators has not. Might be a positive for the idea we're not as likely to see so many serious illnesses and deaths due to omicron severity and vaccines.


From the link I posted above, the case numbers have been affected by the inclusion of more than 1 days data for Wales and NI (so not affected too much given the small populations in those nations). Hospital figures are inflated as NHS England is reporting all deaths in hospital from 24 Dec onwards.  Suggests the death totals are up, but not massively so, I'm guessing.


----------



## teuchter (Dec 30, 2021)

There's nothing at all to suggest that death totals are up. It's just reporting lag. Look at the numbers by date of death.

Nothing there that implies any change from the trend of a very gradual decline that's been going on for the past month or so.


----------



## Wilf (Dec 30, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There's nothing at all to suggest that death totals are up. It's just reporting lag. Look at the numbers by date of death.
> 
> Nothing there that implies any change from the trend of a very gradual decline that's been going on for the past month or so.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I was just doing mental arithmetic in comparison to the previous days figure mentioned in the article (57 I think).


----------



## BigMoaner (Dec 30, 2021)

xenon said:


> Just read there are no trains into Victoria from south London, and beyond. until around the 10th of January.  Due to staff shortages. pfft


wow! that has a massive affect on me!


----------



## two sheds (Dec 31, 2021)

Virtually whole country's gone purple/dark purple 



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases


----------



## tommers (Dec 31, 2021)

South Africa relaxing restrictions. 









						South Africa lifts curfew as it says COVID-19 fourth wave peaks
					

South Africa has lifted a midnight to 4 a.m. curfew on people's movement with immediate effect, believing the country has passed the peak of its fourth COVID-19 wave driven by the Omicron variant, a government statement said on Thursday.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## 8ball (Dec 31, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Virtually whole country's gone purple/dark purple
> 
> 
> 
> https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases



That's a lot more purple than the last time I looked.
Except for London and Manchester, which are much worse.

If this was a poker game I'd be recommending a "colour up".


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Virtually whole country's gone purple/dark purple
> 
> 
> 
> https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases



Yesterday both Surrey & Essex were black, but are back now to dark purple, as are more London boroughs, which hopefully means it has peaked where it took off first, but that could all change when people go back to work and educational settings.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2021)

teuchter said:


> There's nothing at all to suggest that death totals are up. It's just reporting lag. Look at the numbers by date of death.
> 
> Nothing there that implies any change from the trend of a very gradual decline that's been going on for the past month or so.
> 
> ...



The 7-average of reported deaths are now at 100 per day, compared to around 160 at the start of November, which is positive, but could change again as omicron spreads further in the older age groups.

There's certainly some positive signs, but still too early to know how it's going to play out over the coming weeks, I have my fingers cross, but it's still squeaky bum time for the government.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2021)

pbsmooth said:


> Number of people in hospital has certainly jumped. Number of people on ventilators has not. Might be a positive for the idea we're not as likely to see so many serious illnesses and deaths due to omicron severity and vaccines.



There's an interesting interview in The Times with Chris Hopson, the head of NHS Providers, covering this.



> NHS chiefs do not believe that the threshold for new Covid-19 restrictions has been crossed despite a surge in hospital admissions.
> 
> The number of patients with the coronavirus on wards in England rose to 11,452 yesterday, the highest since February and up 61 per cent in a week.
> 
> While concerned by the increase in admissions, NHS leaders have been reassured by the fact that serious illness among the elderly has not risen significantly.





> Chris Hopson, the head of NHS Providers, told _The Times_: “Trust chief executives are saying we should be careful interpreting the daily Covid hospital data.
> 
> “Although the numbers are going up and going up increasingly rapidly, the absence of large numbers of seriously ill older people is providing significant reassurance. But they are aware that this may change after the Christmas period.
> 
> “Trust CEOs know that the government has a high threshold to cross before it will introduce extra restrictions and can see why, in the absence of that surge of severely ill older people, that threshold hasn’t been crossed yet.”



Full article, with busted paywall, here - archive.ph

If cases have peaked in London and neighbouring counties, and the increased hospital admissions are more evenly spread across the country, the NHS may just be able to cope, and if the number of people on ventilators/daily deaths remain flat or even drop, the government may just get away with it.

Personally I remain concerned about the coming weeks, but just a little more hopeful than a few weeks ago.


----------



## bimble (Dec 31, 2021)

The Oxford AZ vaccine is it not being used at all for third shots? If so why not.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2021)

bimble said:


> The Oxford AZ vaccine is it not being used at all for third shots? If so why not.



Because it's not as good as the mRNA ones.


----------



## bimble (Dec 31, 2021)

Would we have fared better through the year if we’d used the other ones instead all the way through?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2021)

bimble said:


> Would we have fared better through the year if we’d used the other ones instead all the way through?



I don't think so, IIRC they all provided very similar levels of protection from the other variants.

Also, we would never have had enough supplies of the mRNA ones in time, leaving a lot of people unprotected for much longer without the AZ one.


----------



## magneze (Dec 31, 2021)

That's a great thread, thanks for posting. Very interesting and worth reading in full.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 31, 2021)

bimble said:


> Would we have fared better through the year if we’d used the other ones instead all the way through?


AZ has always been of lower effectiveness even against the initial variants but was massively less expensive so allowed far greater numbers to get jagged at a lower cost, I think we were better off going the way we did but we'll never really know


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 31, 2021)

And even the extended gap between dose 1 and 2 turned out to be a good decision.
Wasn't the original idea that they might not get away with a third dose of the same vector (might have acquired too much immunity to it) ?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> AZ has always been of lower effectiveness even against the initial variants but was massively less expensive so allowed far greater numbers to get jagged at a lower cost, I think we were better off going the way we did but we'll never really know



Sure it was a little less effective in preventing infection, but when it came to the most important measure of hospital admissions & deaths, AZ was just as good as Pfizer.


----------



## Brainaddict (Dec 31, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> Sure it was a little less effective in preventing infection, but when it came to the most important measure of hospital admissions & deaths, AZ was just as good as Pfizer.
> 
> View attachment 303863


Yep, I do think though that even without new variants it would have been discontinued as a first choice vaccine (at least in richer countries) due to having a higher side effect rate, and other options being available. But there was nothing wrong with choosing to use it at the time.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 31, 2021)

The other benefit/drawback of AZ compared to the mRNA two, was that AZ can be stored at normal fridge temperatures, instead of the "cold chain" required by PN and Moderna.
At the earlier stages of the UK rollout, the PN was more or less restricted to hospital or urban hubs.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2021)

Worrying trends:


----------



## Wilf (Dec 31, 2021)

I only look at headline figures and, to be honest, don't often read much beyond that. But even on that superficial reading we seem to have gone from 'much less severe illness and the NHS will hold' to 'the numbers are already beginning to show there may be a problem for the NHS', even in the few days from Boxing Day. Might not be the case, might end up that just particular hospitals end up struggling. But when you add in NYE, even if it's smaller this year and people show some restraint, things aren't looking too optimistic (as much with staff shortages as anything else).


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Dec 31, 2021)

Is noone questioning the validity of the testing for arrivals in the UK? So I went to visit family this year after not seeing them for 2 and a half years. I filled in a passenger locator form (plf). And paid about 50 quid for a day two testing package, which arrived on time and I completed and sent back and awaited a result to remain in isolation. 
And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Then it was time to go home but I couldnt be released from quarantine so I missed my flight.

And waited.

Eventually it came 2 days after i should have been home. . Negative.  Phew.


But if it smells like a scam, and looks like a scam, and we are told it's a scam and doing some research you can see that the directors of the company are exactly the type of people who are friends with people in Government who we know are scammers, you can safely assume its a scam and take necessary precautions.
Personally,  I self tested every two days, whilst there, wore a mask, tested negative before flying, triple vaxxed. And did my stuff as planned. So not trying to dodge anything. But why these extortionate prices. And what happens with all the information i provided?
 I just got the test result this morning, i got back 2 days ago.
Someone gets rich on these contracts, and we will be forced to do it forever,  like that no liquids ban. Noone even remembers why. How come noone is using liquid explosives outside of airports?
 And I've just provided all my data to the UK government, . Current mobile number, email address address when in UK, as part of the PLF. .  So it may not be as pointless as it seems.


----------



## miss direct (Dec 31, 2021)

Boris - you were allowed to go to the airport to leave the country and were not required to wait for the result. I did the same last week and checked all the requirements.


----------



## pbsmooth (Dec 31, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Worrying trends:




Comparing it to October seems a bit pointless and unhelpful.


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 31, 2021)

brogdale said:


> Worrying trends:



That last portion of the graph is almost a perfect mirror of Dr (just the facts) Campbell's extended line he drew the other day, in completely the opposite direction.
I wont stop warning people of the subtle and sometimes not so subtle spin on his channel as so many seem to think he is a pure data source


----------



## two sheds (Dec 31, 2021)

miss direct said:


> Boris - you were allowed to go to the airport to leave the country and were not required to wait for the result. I did the same last week and checked all the requirements.


Isn't that a bit pointless? (not a dig at you, them's the rules)


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2021)

pbsmooth said:


> Comparing it to October seems a bit pointless and unhelpful.


You can always put up another, longer time (frame) axis graph if you find that one unhelpful.
Tbh, it doesn't really matter where you start/stop; the trends are pretty obvious.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 31, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> There's an interesting interview in The Times with Chris Hopson, the head of NHS Providers, covering this.



A response to that article, by Hopson -


> Hopson said that hospital chiefs understood that the government had set “a high threshold” for how much pressure the NHS would need to be under from Covid before it would tighten the rules.
> 
> “Trust leaders can see why the government is arguing that, in the absence of a surge of a large number of seriously ill older people coming into hospital, that threshold has not yet been crossed,” Hopson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
> 
> ...












						UK must be poised to introduce swift Covid curbs, says NHS leader
					

Hospitals prepare for patient ‘super-surge’ as effects of rapid Omicron spread remain uncertain




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## miss direct (Dec 31, 2021)

two sheds said:


> Isn't that a bit pointless? (not a dig at you, them's the rules)


only as pointless as being able to go out to buy food and various other requirements. Only as pointless as the rigmarole of needing a day 2 test when you needed a negative test to get on the flight in the first place.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Dec 31, 2021)

sheothebudworths said:


> A response to that article, by Hopson -
> 
> 
> 
> ...



He's basically saying the same as he did in The Times article, that the threshold hasn't yet been reached for new restrictions, but that could change after the Christmas period, i.e. very quickly/soon.


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2021)

pbsmooth said:


> Comparing it to October seems a bit pointless and unhelpful.



It is always helpful to show how the proportions of things chage over time. And we were still deep in a Delta wave in October.

I'd like to be able to show this data going all the way back through the pademic, but they only started attempting to generate this data in mid 2021. I will post a few charts for the entire period later.

What is seen in the data so far is what was expected - a steady rise in the proportion of 'with' Covid, reflecting the transmission advantage of Omicron and subsequent rise in patients going into hospital for other reasons and happening to have covid, patients catching covid in hospital, and also a rise int he other number which indicates patients being admitted because covid has made them very ill.

Ultimately the intensive care and death data will demonstrate the extent to which Omicron has caused the very worst kinds of health problems. And its still too soon to use either intensive care or deaths data to reach a conclusion about that. I probably need another week or two before I consider the intensive care numbers to be great news, but if they remain steady at levels seen in recent weeks then I certainly will declare it to be good news.


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> That last portion of the graph is almost a perfect mirror of Dr (just the facts) Campbell's extended line he drew the other day, in completely the opposite direction.
> I wont stop warning people of the subtle and sometimes not so subtle spin on his channel as so many seem to think he is a pure data source


Since you keep mentioning this I have forced myself to skim through that part of one of his videos.

He seems to be using the Telegraph and Sir John Bell as sources to back up his claim, which is not a good start.

The main complication when trying to analyse the accuracy of his figures and graph is that its an attempt to show the proportion of the increase in people with covid in hospital beds which are deemed 'incidental'. The official NHS England data that is published and used by the likes of the BBC is not for admissions, its for number of people in hospital beds. So Campbell etc must be trying to estimate the admissions picture by comparing one weeks 'in hospital beds' figure to the next weeks. That isnt really the same as admissions because it incorporates people being discharged too. And its important to note that its not the same format of graph as other people are using, so I wouldnt expect it to point in the same direction as those other graphs.

I dont want to waste a lot of my news years eve trying to replicate what was shown by him, but I will have a brief play around with the figures to see if my attempt in any way aligns with what he shows,


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 31, 2021)

Im not sure what you ae looking at, im referring to where he draws his own lines to re-inforces his assertion that 80% of admissions are incindental, its not data its an invention, his guess which turned out to be bollox


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Im not sure what you ae looking at, im referring to where he draws his own lines to re-inforces his assertion that 80% of admissions are incindental, its not data its an invention, his guess which turned out to be bollox


Before judging the line he draws it is necessary to understand what the graph he draws it onto the end of is actually showing, since its quite different to the other graphs we see on this subject.

Happily I have been able to reproduce the figures he used for the final part of that graph, and can now properly expose the exact nature of the bollocks of the future projection he drew onto the end of it. And it is indeed total bollocks of the worst sort!

The big flaw in what he did comes down to the nature of what was happening in the final week on the graph. The 21st December was a time where the number of covid patients in hospital beds only rose by 259 compared to the figures a week earlier on the 14th. And so when he digs into the NHS data about 'with' and 'for', he see's that of that 259 increase in patients in hospital beds, the number being treated primarily for covid has only increased by 45 from a week earlier, and the 'incidental' number has increased by 214. When plotted as proportions, this gives a nice low value for the proportion of the increase that were down to people whose covid infection had landed them in hospital in the first place. And this serves his purpose, so he makes a big deal of it.

However the next weeks data is now available, so I can repeat the exercise and see what actually happened next  And it is a very different week, with very different dynamics in effect. The week he focussed on would be a bit early to show a lot of people getting seriously ill via the rise in cases in this new Omicron wave, but did have the right timing to show an increase in other patients happening to catch covid incidentally in this wave. By the next week this is no longer the case, far more serious illness incidents have had time to emerge, and so when I crunch the numbers his hugely incorrect assumption about the future is completely exposed:

Increase in people in hospital in England with covid on 28th December compared to 21st December:

8321-6245 = 2076

Incidental covid increase in the same period:

2743-1813 = 930

Primarily treated for covid increase in the same period:

5578-4432 = 1146

Oh fucking dear! So if I stuck this on his graph, the line would shoot back up to over 50%. Lets see if he ever bothers to revisit this now that the latest data shows how wrong he was, and does not show something that serves his wider narrative.

Source of raw data used to do this is Primary Diagnosis Supplement 31 December 2021 (XLSX, 22KB)


----------



## sheothebudworths (Dec 31, 2021)

cupid_stunt said:


> He's basically saying the same as he did in The Times article, that the threshold hasn't yet been reached for new restrictions, but that could change after the Christmas period, i.e. very quickly/soon.



Compare the headlines/context!


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2021)

The latest analysis continues to demonstrate why boosters were considered a big deal when trying to deal with the Omicron waves impact on the NHS:



> A booster dose of a Covid vaccine is 88% effective at preventing hospitalisation with the Omicron variant, new data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) suggests.
> 
> UKHSA analysed 528,176 Omicron cases and 573,012 Delta cases between 22 November and 26 December in England.
> 
> It confirmed that the risk of going to A&E or being admitted to a hospital ward after catching Omicron was roughly half that of the older Delta variant, while the risk of hospital admission alone with Omicron was approximately one-third of that for Delta.





> The new data confirms that two doses of the AstraZeneca, Pfizer or Moderna vaccines offers little protection against symptomatic infection with Omicron. But protection against severe disease appears to be holding up much better against the new variant.
> 
> A single vaccine dose reduces the risk of need hospital treatment by 52%. Adding the second dose increased the protection to 72% though after 25 weeks later that protection had waned or faded to 52%. Added a third dose boosted that to 88% two weeks later.
> 
> The health secretary Sajid Javid said: “This is more promising data which reinforces just how important vaccines are. They save lives and prevent serious illness. This analysis shows you are up to 8 times more likely to end up in hospital as a result of COVID-19 if you are unvaccinated.”



Thats from the 15:45 entry on the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59835932

edit - they now have an article about this Covid booster 88% effective against hospital treatment with Omicron


----------



## _Russ_ (Dec 31, 2021)

Is it looking a bit like the assumptions that Omicron is intrinsically milder might not be holding? and most of the reductions in severe outcomes are due to resistance via vaccination or prior infection?
beginning to look that way to me


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2021)

_Russ_ said:


> Is it looking a bit like the assumptions that Omicron is intrinsically milder might not be holding? and most of the reductions in severe outcomes are due to resistance via vaccination or prior infection?
> beginning to look that way to me


I dont think the intrinsically milder possibilities have gone away, and the likes of Whitty were always keen to point out that any reduction in burden would also be down to population immunity via vaccines and prior infections.

I have no particular reason to doubt that Omicron is milder than Delta, but we do need to remember that Delta was more severe than previous versions of the virus. I'm not sure the severity of Delta really sunk into the minds of the masses because it came at the same time as we saw lots of protection via vaccines. And some people jumped on early indications of Omicron mildness a bit too early, and conflated these different sources of protection. But now more time has passed and claims that Omicron is intrinsically milder have held up. The problem seems to be that some people cannot help but think in binary terms about this, ie they end up expecting too much from this reduction in severity compared to Delta. Perhaps it would be helpful to describe Omicron severity compared to Alpha which cause the biggest chunk of last winters wave, but I am not setup to do that properly at this time. And we still have the big effect of vaccines to consider on top of that.

The next 7-10 days worth of death and intensive care data will cause my own impression of what the burden of this wave will be to firm up considerably.


----------



## brogdale (Dec 31, 2021)

189k new cases & 203 deaths 

Fuck you, 2021.


----------



## StoneRoad (Dec 31, 2021)

brogdale said:


> 189k new cases & 203 deaths
> 
> Fuck you, 2021.


final kick in the teeth ...
a word to 2021 - Don't let the door bash yer arse on t'way out ...


----------



## elbows (Dec 31, 2021)

Hospital data for England continues to show the expected trends. The mechanical ventilation figures are where the good news lurks so far.

A fair chunk of this is probably driven by the potential of Omicron to cause lots of hospital outbreaks, but I'll wait till next year before delving into that aspect a bit more.


----------



## Sunray (Dec 31, 2021)

I think everyone is either off sick or staying at home for the moment.

I just cycled through Shoreditch  about 30 min ago.  Its a ghost town.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Dec 31, 2021)

Van Tam and Whitty knighted.
Jenny Harries made a dame.
One of these is not like the others


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Jan 1, 2022)

LeytonCatLady said:


> Is it walk in? That's great! I actually do live in Tottenham as it happens. Where would I need to go? I'll do it tomorrow.


PCR negative!


----------



## elbows (Jan 1, 2022)

Well we've had the classic UK establishment trick - say we cannot act till we see more data, then later say 'oh its too late to act now in a way that makes a real difference'.

This is demonstrated via the latest 'analysis' from the BBCs Nick Triggle. He stick to his previous line which claims the strong measures would only have delayed the inevitable, a claim which is not entirely supported by the modelling that he is now happy to make use of in order to claim that its too late. That modelling does show some rebounding in some scenarios, but restrictions brought in earlier enough would have made a real difference to totals, not just the size of the peak, so I consider that Triggle is mischaracterising that aspect.

Its true that the modelling only shows useful peak reductions if measures were brought in before now. But also the modelling in question did not include a scenario where measures were never brought in on any of the dates they picked at all, so we will be in uncharted territory. 

Its still not been a 'pure do nothing approach' because mood music and resulting behavioural changes were not subtle, and will act as the equivalent to a very mild lockdown, especially when combined with school holidays and lots of self-isolation during the peak in infections. But opportunities to reduce the size of this peak have obviously been missed and nobody really needs me to point that out.

Anyway I mention this now so that I can moan, but also so I can comment on the chance of further measures in January. Since they missed the chance to reduce the peak, I suspect they will only end up imposing other stuff if (a) this peak makes such a mess of everything that they feel the need to switch off parts of normal life in order to ease certain other pressures on the system for a while, or (b) if, after an initial big drop in cases after the peak, the Omicron wave gets stuck at a certain high level of ongoing infections, similar to what happened for many months with Delta. They probably now expect to be able to avoid doing such things, so there would need to be a very bad deterioration in order to force their hand on that. Plenty of messy disruption to come, and an ongoing need for people to behave differently for some time to come, and I rarely rule out some possible 'surprises' that will change my impression of what comes next. But for now, no sense that Johnson is going to have to appear on telly soon and say 'unfortunately.....'.









						Covid: More restrictions a last resort, Sajid Javid says
					

The health secretary believes the country must look to "live alongside" coronavirus in 2022.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The problem facing the government is that the window to suppress the peak with restrictions may already have passed.
> 
> Modelling produced for government by Warwick University suggests even a return to lockdown with only schools open has virtually no impact on hospitalisations now.
> 
> ...


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 1, 2022)

elbows said:


> Well we've had the classic UK establishment trick - say we cannot act till we see more data, then later say 'oh its too late to act now in a way that makes a real difference'.



The classic four stage strategy.


----------



## elbows (Jan 1, 2022)

Yeah. I just saw part of a BBC news broadcast and it was a similar story from another of their reporters - only start going on about that modelling now that the opportunities to have maximum impact are behind us. That modelling is weeks old and I dont recall the BBC pointing out at the time what it showed in terms of potential peak reduction.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 1, 2022)

Kicking off 2022 with another 154 deaths.

Normalised now, innit?


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 1, 2022)

BBC has always had a strong culture of top down management, guy at the top these days is Davie stood who was a conservative councillor for Hammersmith and was deputy chairman of the Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Party


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 1, 2022)

We kept to our plans of not going out over either crimble or the new year festivities.
I have one box of LFTs plus one from the previous box. That's two each ...

I am watching for the repercussions of the festivities to appear on the dashboard, and then we will see if there is progressions beyond infections ... at the moment it appears that the holiday season "lags" are still affecting the picture.

The spectacle of Glaswegians and others turning up - mostly maskless - in Carlisle and Newcastle for NYE partying binge drinking means I am heartily glad I wasn't out on the town ...


----------



## two sheds (Jan 1, 2022)

Most of country gone dark purple now  



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases
		


like ripples spreading across a pond


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 1, 2022)

brogdale said:


> Kicking off 2022 with another 154 deaths.
> 
> Normalised now, innit?



Yup. Two Grenfell towers or three 7/7 bombings isn't even a bad day any more.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 1, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yup. Two Grenfell towers or three 7/7 bombings isn't even a bad day any more.


Note; England only data.


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2022)

And now an indicator that despite what I described earlier in regards the government having deliberately squandered the opportunities to really minimise the peak of this wave via more restrictions, there are still areas where even that government now feel the need to go further, to stop resisting certain things they had resisted for a good while. Although their motives will include being seen to be doing something, to be able to point to this move and make claims about safety and how confident people should be to go back to school, and to offer this only at a time when some are calling for them to go much further. A small but meaningful concession that they've made use of like this before.









						Covid: Pupils to wear masks in class in England's secondary schools to tackle Omicron
					

The move aims to tackle concerns about secondary schools staying open for face-to-face lessons this term.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Elpenor (Jan 2, 2022)

I don’t know if it’s true or not but I saw somewhere that the cost of fitting the necessary air conditioning / filters to every classroom in the UK is half that of the far more essential royal yacht. 

I appreciate that fitting the equipment probably can’t be done in time now to do much about omicron, but had this been started in the summer of 2020…


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2022)

And some comedy timing:



> Ministers have been tasked with developing "robust contingency plans" for workplace absences, as the government warned rising cases could see up to a quarter of staff off work.
> 
> Public sector leaders have been asked to prepare for "worst case scenarios" of 10%, 20% and 25% absence rates, the Cabinet Office said.











						Covid: Workplaces told to plan for absences of up to 25%
					

Rising Covid cases could see a worst case scenario of up to a quarter of staff off work, the government says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Call me old fashioned, but I reckon its better to make these plans quite some time before the massive rise in cases happens, rather than wait till you are in the middle of a giant wave before making a noise about developing such plans.


----------



## stdP (Jan 2, 2022)

elbows said:


> Call me old fashioned, but I reckon its better to make these plans quite some time before the massive rise in cases happens, rather than wait till you are in the middle of a giant wave before making a noise about developing such plans.



You are indeed showing your age. Under the classic model, panic would set in far ahead of events actually transpiring. This would frequently give rise not just to contingency plans, but multiple stages of contingency expenditure too.

With modern Just-In-Time Panic techniques, you can achieve the same amounts of panic in much shorter timescales and be safe in the knowledge that any contingency you might be able to think of won't be able before either a) hindsight makes it the only possibility or b) everyone dies - but either way, lots of needless work and money will be saved.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 2, 2022)

elbows said:


> Call me old fashioned, but I reckon its better to make these plans quite some time before the massive rise in cases happens, rather than wait till you are in the middle of a giant wave before making a noise about developing such plans.


I'm now strongly suspecting that for my Civil Service workplace here in Swansea, and for other CS workplaces in Wales, NHS Walea and Drakeford have been handling things a bit better.

Shortly prior to Xmas, the bosses announced a possible plan to send people home, those who could not actually wortk from home. This would be on 'Special Leave'  , a CS-specific category of paid leave. Just for one day a week ......

When I go back next week, I'd now be absolutely astonished if this hasn't already been introduced.

My designated day off, I was told,  will be Tuesday, which fits excellently with the many Jan and Feb Monday's I've already booked off on Annual Leave .....   

(And in the interests of Public Health, I haven't worked any Fridays since October 2012 .........   )


----------



## Raheem (Jan 2, 2022)

I've been in Wales for a few days, and it's like going back in time to when there was a pandemic.


----------



## Humberto (Jan 2, 2022)

Wales is great though.


----------



## Humberto (Jan 2, 2022)

Wales fan here


----------



## Humberto (Jan 2, 2022)

The polity Wales is much (no irony) recommended.


----------



## Raheem (Jan 2, 2022)

Not an anti-Wales comment at all. Went out for fast food in Newport and it's all instructions at the door and giving them your mobile number. A blast from the past.


----------



## Humberto (Jan 2, 2022)

Nah, no worries. Do genuinely love all things Welsh as you obviosly do (my friend ).


----------



## andysays (Jan 2, 2022)

elbows said:


> And some comedy timing:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I heard they were unable to complete the contingency plans in time after half the team working on them went off sick.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 2, 2022)

It’s hard for me to get into a mindset that is only _now_ creating plans for high absences and so on.  We’ve had contingency plans in place for a pandemic scenario for I don’t even know how long — at least 10 years but probably a lot longer.  These business continuity plans (or operational resilience planning, as it now is) get reviewed and updated every year.  Advantages of working in a regulated industry, I guess — the regulator requires you to plan for things like pandemics (and a lot more besides).  Apparently, though, the government doesn’t turn that lens on itself.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2022)

kabbes said:


> It’s hard for me to get into a mindset that is only _now_ creating plans for high absences and so on.  We’ve had contingency plans in place for a pandemic scenario for I don’t even know how long — at least 10 years but probably a lot longer.  These business continuity plans (or operational resilience planning, as it now is) get reviewed and updated every year.  Advantages of working in a regulated industry, I guess — the regulator requires you to plan for things like pandemics (and a lot more besides).  Apparently, though, the government doesn’t turn that lens on itself.



I'm sure the relevant public sector organizations have already had pandemic-related plans for staff absences. But there's a difference between having a plan on the shelf and actually using it to prepare for a specific actuality that is presenting itself. No one knew before Christmas that there were unlikely to be further restrictions announced for example.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 2, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> I'm sure the relevant public sector organizations have already had pandemic-related plans for staff absences. But there's a difference between having a plan on the shelf and actually using it to prepare for a specific actuality that is presenting itself. No one knew before Christmas that there were unlikely to be further restrictions announced for example.



There's no such plan for schools because you can't run a school without x number of qualified staff. The 'plan' is send whole year groups home at short notice with nothing in place for remote learning. 

This time last year schools had between about 3pm on a Monday and 9am the next day to prepare for long term closures.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 2, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> There's no such plan for schools because you can't run a school without x number of qualified staff. The 'plan' is send whole year groups home at short notice with nothing in place for remote learning.



Any school that hasn't planned for remote learning by now is negligent.



SpookyFrank said:


> This time last year schools had between about 3pm on a Monday and 9am the next day to prepare for long term closures.



They had a lot longer than that because they'd have learned from the long-term closures in the first half of 2020.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 2, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> They had a lot longer than that because they'd have learned from the long-term closures in the first half of 2020.



I mean I'm a teacher and I was there at the time but whatever you say I guess.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 2, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> Any school that hasn't planned for remote learning by now is negligent.



I dunno how much spare run time you think schools have got to produce all these contingency plans whilst also doing 'catch up' from the last two school closures and operating with chronic staff shortages.

e2a: That and the government repeatedly saying 'we will not close schools' right before they close the schools. First time round they had got to the point of threatening legal action to force schools to stay open, less than a week before they were all unilaterally closed. Could you make a contingency plan for that?


----------



## Chilli.s (Jan 2, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> Any school that hasn't planned for remote learning by now is negligent.
> 
> 
> 
> They had a lot longer than that because they'd have learned from the long-term closures in the first half of 2020.


That's a fairly unrealistic view of the reality of how schools work. Not that it matters.


----------



## pbsmooth (Jan 2, 2022)

brogdale said:


> Kicking off 2022 with another 154 deaths.
> 
> Normalised now, innit?


Well, there will almost certainly always be deaths from covid...
Thankfully I feel like the general mood is much more positive than this thread. Get vaccinated, take precautions and slowly try to get back to normal while realising unvaccinated, vulnerable people will sadly be more at risk. 
More news today suggesting omicron less deadly. New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> Well, there will almost certainly always be deaths from covid...
> Thankfully I feel like the general mood is much more positive than this thread. Get vaccinated, take precautions and slowly try to get back to normal while realising unvaccinated, vulnerable people will sadly be more at risk.
> More news today suggesting omicron less deadly. New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs


Omicron will definitely be the last we'll hear of covid. We can all get back to normal again once this wave passes and we'll all breathe a sigh of relief and never, ever have to think about covid or its consequences ever again. Just keep that positive thinking up. I'm really optimistic about climate change too.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 2, 2022)

My kids go back to school on Thursday this week and my middle boy's prelims are supposed to start on the 14th of January. It's hard to see how they can possibly run them though. Our local bus company has said they're going to be running a Saturday service only for January because they've got staff shortages due to Covid. One imagines the teachers are going to be in a similar boat.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> Well, there will almost certainly always be deaths from covid...
> *Thankfully I feel like the general mood is much more positive than this thread*. Get vaccinated, take precautions and slowly try to get back to normal while realising unvaccinated, vulnerable people will sadly be more at risk.
> More news today suggesting omicron less deadly. New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs


Yes because science is based on 'mood' and 'feelings'


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 2, 2022)

If / When omicron gets into my workshop ...
Everyone goes home !
It'll be shut, until 10 days after that person gets negative tests.

I don't want it at home, thank you very much.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> Well, there will almost certainly always be deaths from covid...
> Thankfully I feel like the general mood is much more positive than this thread. Get vaccinated, take precautions and slowly try to get back to normal while realising unvaccinated, vulnerable people will sadly be more at risk.
> More news today suggesting omicron less deadly. New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs


Yes I'm certainly sad about some people being more at risk. But nevermind! The death figures are low (100 a day for an extended period means it won't be my grandmother) and most of these vulnerable don't have intrinsic worth or people who love them and probably aren't even productive economic units anyway.


----------



## pbsmooth (Jan 2, 2022)

Have you only just realised some people have always been more at risk from illness? And that people die?


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 2, 2022)

Yes


----------



## pbsmooth (Jan 2, 2022)

Wait til you find out 80 people per day die from the flu


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> Wait til you find out 80 people per day die from the flu


It's all about the death. Massive strain on hospitals, amputating children's limbs, long covid, blood clots, heart damage, brain damage, kidney failure and huge backlogs in health care are all just meh.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

Smooth PNB is an abomination.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> Well, there will almost certainly always be deaths from covid...
> Thankfully I feel like the general mood is much more positive than this thread. Get vaccinated, take precautions and slowly try to get back to normal while realising unvaccinated, vulnerable people will sadly be more at risk.
> More news today suggesting omicron less deadly. New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs


Well yes, obviously the pandemic was going to lead to some deaths, but my post was considering the level of deaths that appears to have been normalised as "acceptable" in the UK. You'll forgive me if I don't share your "positivity" that the UK government has been comfortable with this cost.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

25 to 30k a year from flu plus pneumonia apparently - and that's with a high level of vaccination in the over-60s ...


----------



## brogdale (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> Wait til you find out 80 people per day die from the flu


Johnsonesque


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 2, 2022)

Not surprising TBH.


----------



## andysays (Jan 2, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> Not surprising TBH.



It may just be clumsy wording (although that's no excuse) but that statement seems to be suggesting that schools should wait until the "operational challenges" have already made face to face teaching impossible before "considering ways to implement a flexible approach".

It's the same waiting until too late in the vain hope that things won't get any worse that we've seen from day one.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 2, 2022)

weepiper said:


> Our local bus company has said they're going to be running a Saturday service only for January because they've got staff shortages due to Covid. One imagines the teachers are going to be in a similar boat.



I'm not going to work on a Saturday for nothing


----------



## komodo (Jan 2, 2022)

I’m getting interested in the psychology of people’s views on this. I felt under attack on this threadfor saying a couple of weeks ago that I was cautiously optimistic because 5 old fully vaxed people in my Dad’s  care home in London had tested positive for probably Omicron and recovered after very mild or totally symptomless infection. 

The danger is far from over.

 But when we got the vaccines case rates decoupled from the rate of hospitalization and death. Evidence is growing that Omnicron IS milder.

Saying this doesn’t mean I’m heartless or don’t care about vulnerable people FFS.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 2, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> I dunno how much spare run time you think schools have got to produce all these contingency plans whilst also doing 'catch up' from the last two school closures and operating with chronic staff shortages.


Of course, this is why you do your contingency planning _before_ you become resource constrained as a result of the disaster you are planning for!

That plan shouldn’t be created school by school, either. The DfE should have it ready to go, with details included for how to adapt it to local circumstances.  Modern operational resilience planning (in the financial sector) is based on identifying the "important business services", i.e. the ones that are going to cause serious problems for people if they fail.  You then identify how you are going to prioritise keeping those specific services running in the event of different types of scenario.  Extending that to schools, the "important service" is clearly the lessons for children.  So you know what you need to keep running, you have scenarios for what can happen to the professionals responsible for keeping those running and from that, you can derive how to provide an alternative service in an emergency and what resources are needed to manage this.


----------



## prunus (Jan 2, 2022)

kabbes said:


> Of course, this is why you do your contingency planning _before_ you become resource constrained as a result of the disaster you are planning for!
> 
> That plan shouldn’t be created school by school, either. The DfE should have it ready to go, with details included for how to adapt it to local circumstances.  Modern operational resilience planning (in the financial sector) is based on identifying the "important business services", i.e. the ones that are going to cause serious problems for people if they fail.  You then identify how you are going to prioritise keeping those specific services running in the event of different types of scenario.  Extending that to schools, the "important service" is clearly the lessons for children.  So you know what you need to keep running, you have scenarios for what can happen to the professionals responsible for keeping those running and from that, you can derive how to provide an alternative service in an emergency and what resources are needed to manage this.



You are unfortunately implicitly ascribing to the DfE some measure of competence, planning, philosophy or idea of providing a service. 

They have none of this. Of all the govt departments I’ve had the dubious pleasure of interacting with, DfE is spectacularly useless. It’s hard sometimes to lose the feeling they’re doing it as some kind of guerrilla long-term performance art project - a manifestation in real time of the worst of humanity.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 2, 2022)

kabbes said:


> Of course, this is why you do your contingency planning _before_ you become resource constrained as a result of the disaster you are planning for!
> 
> That plan shouldn’t be created school by school, either. The DfE should have it ready to go, with details included for how to adapt it to local circumstances.  Modern operational resilience planning (in the financial sector) is based on identifying the "important business services", i.e. the ones that are going to cause serious problems for people if they fail.  You then identify how you are going to prioritise keeping those specific services running in the event of different types of scenario.  Extending that to schools, the "important service" is clearly the lessons for children.  So you know what you need to keep running, you have scenarios for what can happen to the professionals responsible for keeping those running and from that, you can derive how to provide an alternative service in an emergency and what resources are needed to manage this.



Schools have been 'resource constrained' for over a decade now.

E2a: Although tbh I'm glad there was no central plan from the DfE for the lockdowns. Because if there had been one it would have been catastrophically bad. Individual schools cobbling shit together on the fly was probably the least worst option, and I say that as someone who has seen first hand the toll taken on school staff by all this, particularly the 'centre assessed' grades fiasco.


----------



## nagapie (Jan 2, 2022)

I very much doubt a move back to remote learning other than for a few isolating students. But being in London, Omicron has already ripped through our communities. We did send one class home in the last week of term.
I imagine however there will be a lot of kids being sent home in other parts of the country next week. Everyone is set up for remote learning, it's just that remote learning doesn't cut it.


----------



## contadino (Jan 2, 2022)

There's a fair bit on continuity of essential public services in the Exercise Cygnus documents from 2016. Annex A: about Exercise Cygnus

It reads to me like they thought through many of the issues but got wrapped up elsewhere instead of implementing the recommendations.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 2, 2022)

komodo said:


> I’m getting interested in the psychology of people’s views on this. I felt under attack on this threadfor saying a couple of weeks ago that I was cautiously optimistic because 5 old fully vaxed people in my Dad’s  care home in London had tested positive for probably Omicron and recovered after very mild or totally symptomless infection.
> 
> The danger is far from over.
> 
> ...


It doesn't mean you're heartless, no but this constant optimism that's rife at the moment kinda makes me wanna puke. It's a child's view of the pandemic. We're in a pandemic. The sky isn't falling in like it was earlier but people are still being maimed, getting long debilitating illness from it, having heart problems, health systems being overwhelmed and so on. As for the whole 'Omicron is milder' line, milder than what? It's marginally milder than Delta, sure but it isn't milder than the original wuhan strain and look at the damage that did.

Sure, we have vaccines and drugs in the pipeline but the booster wains after 10 weeks and those only double jabbed have extremely poor protection, not to mention those with none at all that still number in the millions, in this country alone. Billions of people around the world have not even been near a covid vaccination and that's a perfect breeding ground for variants, and there will be more variants.

For me, the reasonable approach is to actually enforce mask wearing, put ventilation in schools and the workplace, actually limit infection spread, financially support those having to isolate and to just have a government that doesn't treat me like I'm a fucking child that's desperate to go out and play. Just tell me the truth of the situation and tell me wtf you're doing about it. At the moment it feels exactly like the climate change 'debate' that's been happening for 30 odd years. With covid about 95% of scientists are saying 'it's not looking too good better do something about that' and 5% are saying 'nah, its not that bad at all, in fact it's coming to an end so no need for further measures' and that 5% are being listened to more.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

Virologist Victor Racaniello's now somewhat jaded perspective is skewed by being based in the USA, but he is uncompromising now that the vaccine is so readily available there - but he leaves out the vulnerable and immunocompromised when there is not enough prophylactic medication for them ...


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> I'm sure the relevant public sector organizations have already had pandemic-related plans for staff absences. But there's a difference between having a plan on the shelf and actually using it to prepare for a specific actuality that is presenting itself. No one knew before Christmas that there were unlikely to be further restrictions announced for example.


But some of the Omicron modelling used, which as I mentioned earlier the likes of Triggle are making use of for an agenda now, suggested that any late lockdowns etc from now on would not make a notable difference to the peak level of infections. So as soon as government decided not to act strongly weeks ago, the very high level of infections were pretty much locked in, and widespread staffing disruptions became inevitable.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 2, 2022)

If only this could have been predicted


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2022)

komodo said:


> I’m getting interested in the psychology of people’s views on this. I felt under attack on this threadfor saying a couple of weeks ago that I was cautiously optimistic because 5 old fully vaxed people in my Dad’s  care home in London had tested positive for probably Omicron and recovered after very mild or totally symptomless infection.
> 
> The danger is far from over.
> 
> ...



Drop the bullshit use of the word decoupled for a start. The ratio of people requiring hospitalisation is changing as a result of things you mention. But the link has not been severed, there will always be a link, and the ultimate aim of the authorities is to get the hospitalisation ratio down to a level where they no longer feel that many millions of infections can cause a number of hospitalisations that threatens the ability of the NHS to function.

If they reach that point with high confidence, then they will feel like they can start to remove some of the other aspects which cause disruption during pandemic waves. They will no longer feel the need to mass test everyone, and to require so much self-isolation. They wont feel the need to turn on the heavy mood music in the news, something they clearly did still feel the need to do when the Omicron wave arrived. So clearly we are not at that stage yet, so there is no point implying we are. We are closer to this than we were. How bad the Omicron wave turns out to be will have an impact on how quickly attitudes move further along this path in 2022.

Reaching that stage in a way that is then demonstrated to be sustainable will have a notable impact on attitudes. There will still be some people unhappy with the way things are handled, but the prevailing attitude on forums like this one will be different, a different sense of balance will be in effect. Indeed we are already part of the way through this journey, as demonstrated by a different mix of attitudes here this time towards further restrictions in December. But get too far ahead of this game and setbacks become inevitable.

People will go on that journey at different speeds, and there are opportunities to annoy each other when we have very different attitudes about how close to the final destination we are. Some attitudes expressed here right into December were not entirely sustainable and required adjustment once the size of the Omicron wave became apparent. Those journeys will resume with renewed confidence if the Omicron NHS burden is on the lower end of projections, but if things get really messy then there will be setbacks to this. Various different sets of 'told you so' are waiting in the wings, ready to bolster some peoples stances and trash others. I've tried to hedge my bets to some extent but I still stuck rigidly to certain guns, and under some scenarios I'll have to move away from some of those guns going forwards.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 2, 2022)

komodo said:


> I’m getting interested in the psychology of people’s views on this. I felt under attack on this threadfor saying a couple of weeks ago that I was cautiously optimistic because 5 old fully vaxed people in my Dad’s  care home in London had tested positive for probably Omicron and recovered after very mild or totally symptomless infection.
> 
> The danger is far from over.
> 
> ...


There's a lot of context and history to why you get that reaction.

Since the very beginning of the pandemic, back in the mists of time in Feb/Mar 2020, there's been people who've sought to downplay the seriousness of Covid and wanted a minimum of public health measures enacted. People like the right of the Tory Party (Steve Baker & the CRG), the right wing press (special mention for the Telegraph), a small group of sceptical scientists given prominence as they say what those first two groups want to hear (Carl Hennigan for example). Away from the establishment there's also the anti-vaxxers and conspiraloons, but they have little sway over government policy, so they're mainly just a noisy irritant. 

After the shock of the first wave they spent last Autumn resisting new measures and complaining about gloomy scientists as the pre-vaccine wave grew into inevitable catastrophe. There were a number of people popping up here parroting their arguments, refusing to believe that last winter would be as bad as it was. They all went very quiet when the inevitable did happen.

At the moment there is no inevitability. We're in uncharted territory due to the vaccine programme and the evolution of the virus. 

Almost the first thing people heard about Omicron was that South African doctor saying it's milder. Even as scientists were browning their pants over the alarming mutations in the Omicron strain the phrase 'it's mild' echoed around the world. And those exact same voices - the ones that had been downplaying Covid all along, that spent last autumn dismissing fears of a huge wave of death in winter 20/21, that are back to saying 'it's just flu' - started telling people that it's all over now, time to live with it and get back to acting like it never happened, no need for any restrictions to control the spread, it's all good now. And an exhausted population has been only too happy to receive that message, even as the government's own scientific advisors were warning that even a milder strain would put huge pressure on the NHS, that there could be chaos if it was left to spread freely.

So when people pop up here repeating phrases used by those right wing types that have been very wrong before the reaction can be hostile. Of course, Omicron does appear to be different to what came before, but we're by no means out of the woods yet and trying to understand what is happening and what will happen next is made much harder by a group of people who've made up their mind that the most optimistic possibility is the only possibility. And when people arrive here using stock phrases and arguments from those anti-public health measure types, they can be triggered and go all


----------



## xsunnysuex (Jan 2, 2022)

So my vulnerable 78yr old father in law has just tested positive.
Silly old fucker refused to be vaccinated too. Let's see how this pans out. 🙄🙄


----------



## komodo (Jan 2, 2022)

it shouldn‘t be seen as ‘siding with the anti-public health measures faction’ if you can manage to keep an open mind on the data that’s coming in.


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## LeytonCatLady (Jan 2, 2022)

xsunnysuex said:


> So my vulnerable 78yr old father in law has just tested positive.
> Silly old fucker refused to be vaccinated too. Let's see how this pans out. 🙄🙄


I hope he gets well soon.


----------



## klang (Jan 2, 2022)

yes, all the best xsunnysuex


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

komodo said:


> it shouldn‘t be seen as ‘siding with the anti-public health measures faction’ if you can manage to keep an open mind on the data that’s coming in.


Let me guess, I bet you do your own research and consider yourself politically "centrist" ?


----------



## andysays (Jan 2, 2022)

komodo said:


> it shouldn‘t be seen as ‘siding with the anti-public health measures faction’ if you can manage to keep an open mind on the data that’s coming in.


I'm with Howard Devoto on this one



My mind
It ain't so open
That anything
Could crawl right in


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 2, 2022)

komodo said:


> it shouldn‘t be seen as ‘siding with the anti-public health measures faction’ if you can manage to keep an open mind on the data that’s coming in.


If you want tolerance and open minded discussion id suggest looking elsewhere


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 2, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> If you want tolerance and open minded discussion id suggest looking elsewhere



Yeah the rest of the internet is just a goldmine of respectful, reasoned debate.


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## Spandex (Jan 2, 2022)

komodo said:


> it shouldn‘t be seen as ‘siding with the anti-public health measures faction’ if you can manage to keep an open mind on the data that’s coming in.


I'm trying to keep an open mind on the data that's coming in, but that keeps getting clouded by those same people who keeping seizing on every positive piece of data, or what looks like a positive piece of data, and shouting 'look it's all over'. 

There is positive data, which makes me think we're at the beginning of the end of all this, but there's also plenty of negative too, which means we've got a way to go yet.

My aunt's ex died of Covid on Monday. My brother's mother-in-law spent the week before Xmas in hospital with Covid and although she's been discharged she's deteriorated significantly, barely speaks or recognises anyone. I've been stuck at home all week as my son has Covid (he's fine, loving the chance to stay in and play too many video games). 

There shouldn't be sides in a public health emergency, but the politics around it makes it hard to avoid.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jan 2, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> I dunno how much spare run time you think schools have got to produce all these contingency plans whilst also doing 'catch up' from the last two school closures and operating with chronic staff shortages.
> 
> e2a: That and the government repeatedly saying 'we will not close schools' right before they close the schools. First time round they had got to the point of threatening legal action to force schools to stay open, less than a week before they were all unilaterally closed. Could you make a contingency plan for that?


Same story at the university I work at - despite us (the unions) urging for plans for restarting in Jan management specifically refused to discuss it because they are taking their lead from the government.


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## Wilf (Jan 2, 2022)

andysays said:


> I'm with Howard Devoto on this one
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I was hoping for Shot by Both Sides.


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## Elpenor (Jan 2, 2022)

redsquirrel said:


> Same story at the university I work at - despite us (the unions) urging for plans for restarting in Jan management specifically refused to discuss it because they are taking their lead from the government.


But how would the vice-chancellor get their future knighthood if they made plans to address a situation that the government doesn’t want to acknowledge?


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## Wilf (Jan 2, 2022)

My own place, a university, was boasting about how much face to face teaching it had conducted, just a fortnight ago. In fact near universal face to face teaching has been management's response to dire National Student Survey results (rather than dealing with understaffing and oppressive managerialism/bullying).


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## pbsmooth (Jan 2, 2022)

I guess it makes sense: the only people who really bother with this thread are the doom mongers. And so people like me who are triple vaxxed, wear a mask, have been minimising social interaction to almost nothing, testing when visiting people, but then express the idea - as put out by scientists in the media - that there is some end in sight, which yes, includes living with the virus killing people, are then seen as heartless crazy Tory Gov spokesmen. Bit silly really.


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## brogdale (Jan 2, 2022)

kinnel.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> I guess it makes sense: the only people who really bother with this thread are the doom mongers. *And so people like me who are triple vaxxed, wear a mask, have been minimising social interaction to almost nothing, testing when visiting people,*


We only have your word for that ...


----------



## Wilf (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> I guess it makes sense: the only people who really bother with this thread are the doom mongers. And so people like me who are triple vaxxed, wear a mask, have been minimising social interaction to almost nothing, testing when visiting people, but then express the idea - as put out by scientists in the media - that there is some end in sight, which yes, includes living with the virus killing people, are then seen as heartless crazy Tory Gov spokesmen. Bit silly really.


The idea that posters are 'doom mongers' just doesn't fit even a casual reading. There's a recognition that the current wave may well be milder and that the rate of hospitalisations is almost certainly lower. But there's also an (informed) view that there are very real risks with regard to staff shortages in public services, along with the notion that the government haven't even got any meaningful post equine bolting stable doors in place.


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## killer b (Jan 2, 2022)

Wilf said:


> The idea that posters are 'doom mongers' just doesn't fit even a casual reading


dunno about that - there's a fair amount of catatrophising on the thread (and elsewhere) - while it's understandable how people have got that way it's also something that needs challenging from time to time.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 2, 2022)

killer b said:


> dunno about that - there's a fair amount of catatrophising on the thread (and elsewhere) - while it's understandable how people have got that way it's also something that needs challenging from time to time.


I was thinking particularly about Omicron, so the last couple of weeks or so.  Certainly an initial outbreak of 'of fuck, here we go again, this will be as bad as before', but my impression is things have been more measured about hospitalisations in particular.  The stuff about things like schools and teachers being fucked over again isn't catastrophising to my mind, just a depressing prediction of the future on the basis of how fucked up the past was.


----------



## rutabowa (Jan 2, 2022)

There 1000% more doom on this forum than I ever encounter in speaking to people in real life. Not saying the doom is right or wrong, but it is definitely here.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

Variant, shvariant.
The only variable about which we can be reasonably certain is vaccination.
With most of the world's 8 billion inhabitants unvaccinated and this disease able to mutate, (re)infect and spread asymptomatically  this is a long way from over ...


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

rutabowa said:


> There 1000% more doom on this forum than I ever encounter in speaking to people in real life. Not saying the doom is right or wrong, but it is definitely here.


On other fora, a fair proportion deny the existence of the virus - or even that viruses per se are a thing.


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## killer b (Jan 2, 2022)

Wilf said:


> I was thinking particularly about Omicron, so the last couple of weeks or so. Certainly an initial outbreak of 'of fuck, here we go again, this will be as bad as before', but my impression is things have been more measured about hospitalisations in particular.


there's also been a fair amount of anger at the government that more restrictions haven't been brought in and a wide expectation that hospitals are about to be overwhelmed - which might still happen, but you can be sure it'll all be memory-holed if it doesn't.


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## rutabowa (Jan 2, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> On other fora, a fair proportion deny the existence off the virus - or even that viruses per se are a thing.


It probably isn't really a fair proportion... probably just 1 or 2 people posting a lot. I think it is the nature of forums that the most extreme perspectives are most noticeable, because that is the people who will bother to write a lot... whereas face to face people's opinions tend to get the edges rounded off... which on the whole is a good thing, for society to function at least.... tho it might mean that uncomfortable truths get missed.


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## Sue (Jan 2, 2022)

rutabowa said:


> There 1000% more doom on this forum than I ever encounter in speaking to people in real life. Not saying the doom is right or wrong, but it is definitely here.


OTOH, more than a third of people round here haven't been vaccinated at all, most people in Boots just now weren't wearing masks and the pubs and restaurants are rammed. Can't help but feel there should be a bit more doom out there. 🤷‍♀️


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## Humberto (Jan 2, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Variant, shvariant.
> The only variable about which we can be reasonably certain is vaccination.
> With most of the world's 8 billion inhabitants unvaccinated and this disease able to mutate, (re)infect and spread asymptomatically  this is a long way from over ...



In terms of cost, it could be done for a relative pittance.


----------



## xenon (Jan 2, 2022)

killer b said:


> dunno about that - there's a fair amount of catatrophising on the thread (and elsewhere) - while it's understandable how people have got that way it's also something that needs challenging from time to time.



^This.

As been said already, this place, thread in particular is way at odds with the  conversations IRL i hear. 

I don't think jumping on a poster who proffers something other than dire prognistications in good faith should be jumped on. But Spandex post hits the nail on the head as to why that may be.


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## _Russ_ (Jan 2, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> On other fora, a fair proportion deny the existence of the virus - or even that viruses per se are a thing.


We only have your word for that ...


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> We only have your word for that ...


Crazily a New Zealand Paltalk chatter reappeared a month or two ago after a long break and claimed she'd found that her ANTI-vax views were unwelcome on Paltalk - I reckon she's either on drugs or psychotic - neither of which are uncommon on Paltalk.


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## Wilf (Jan 2, 2022)

killer b said:


> there's also been a fair amount of anger at the government that more restrictions haven't been brought in and a wide expectation that hospitals are about to be overwhelmed - which might still happen, but you can be sure it'll all be memory-holed if it doesn't.


I don't think it's either/or. If it turns out schools, hospitals, trains and the like are not overwhelmed it doesn't meant the government got it right.  Particularly after their experience of the last 2 waves, they should have applied more precautionary measures and acted earlier. Just to take one example, we should all have been wearing masks in shops for weeks. That links to another area of failure, the culture the government have generated around Covid compliance.  All their fucking about, Barnard Castleing and the rest has worked against the idea of sensible, virtually cost free universal/permanent measures like mask wearing (social distancing too, though I recognise that has consequences for places like restaurants).


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## killer b (Jan 2, 2022)

Wilf said:


> I don't think it's either/or.


it is either/or in the context we're talking about it now though, ie whether there are people on the thread making dire predictions of what's coming up. they are/have been doing that.


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## Wilf (Jan 2, 2022)

xenon said:


> ^This.
> 
> As been said already, this place, thread in particular is way at odds with the  conversations IRL i hear.
> 
> *I don't think jumping on a poster who proffers something other than dire prognistications in good faith should be jumped on. *But Spandex post hits the nail on the head as to why that may be.


True.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 2, 2022)




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## Wilf (Jan 2, 2022)

killer b said:


> it is either/or in the context we're talking about it now though, ie whether there are people on the thread making dire predictions of what's coming up. they are/have been doing that.


My either/or was aimed at what you said about anger against government.


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## pbsmooth (Jan 2, 2022)

I'm acting in good faith and as lefty liberal ponce as you can get (just about) so apologies if I've inadvertently used language which suggests otherwise. I guess it might be the flu comparison, which I get and wouldn't have made back in 2020, but like it or not death levels are currently similar. Not sure why that can't be pointed out.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> I'm acting in good faith and as lefty liberal ponce as you can get (just about) so apologies if I've inadvertently used language which suggests otherwise. I guess it might be the flu comparison, which I get and wouldn't have made back in 2020, but like it or not death levels are currently similar. Not sure why that can't be pointed out.


VACCINATION


----------



## bimble (Jan 2, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> VACCINATION


what? How is that a reply to the thing you quoted?

i suspect the reason you can't mention flu without howls of disapproval is because every single thing about this virus has become so politicised and entrenched that very few conversations are actually possible anymore. Which is pretty terrible imo.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

OK - depending on what they mean - vaccination against covid and if flu deaths are up, people dropping their guard on the mask issue.


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## existentialist (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> I guess it makes sense: the only people who really bother with this thread are the doom mongers. And so people like me who are triple vaxxed, wear a mask, have been minimising social interaction to almost nothing, testing when visiting people, but then express the idea - as put out by scientists in the media - that there is some end in sight, which yes, includes living with the virus killing people, are then seen as heartless crazy Tory Gov spokesmen. Bit silly really.


You lost me at the tabloid stereotype of "doom mongers".


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## teuchter (Jan 2, 2022)

This thread is not predominantly doom-mongering but there's certainly a bit of it going around.


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## chilango (Jan 2, 2022)

I don't think there's anywhere near enough doom mongering to be quite honest.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jan 2, 2022)

existentialist said:


> You lost me at the tabloid stereotype of "doom mongers".


This. Everything is so fucking binary and it's incredibly tedious. If you actually read the scientists who have been more or less correct about everything so far and actually read SAGE's scenarios and therefore have cause to question the government's stance, you're a doom monger who loves lockdowns. If you don't do that, like most people I guess, you're seen as sticking your fingers in your ears and pretending the pandemic isn't happening. There's a massive fuck off scale between those two positions.

I don't think I'll ever understand it though. Presumably, people think that those advocating for seatbelts in cars are just scaremongering about car crashes.


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## LDC (Jan 2, 2022)

teuchter said:


> This thread is not predominantly doom-mongering but there's certainly a bit of it going around.



Given the mess we've been in for 2 years, the fact we've had 170,000 or so dead (and counting, and not to mention 5 million + across the world) and that every time you look back the miserablist 'doom mongers' have been much nearer being right than the optimists, I'd tend towards to being softer on the 'doom mongers' tbh.


Also given that the 170,000 dead have been overwhelmingly from already poor and vulnerable and fucked over demographics it's also pretty annoying when people not from those demographics moan about how we never needed any restrictions.


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## two sheds (Jan 2, 2022)

We've only really just started finding out that Omicron isn't as damaging as the other variants haven't we? 

The speed of infection means that we should have been adopting precautionary principle which, as far as I can see, is what has been recommended on urban. 

And again, the effect on the NHS is critical. We can't just forget the overwork of nurses and doctors, and the effect that's had on other waiting lists.


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## l'Otters (Jan 2, 2022)

bimble said:


> what? How is that a reply to the thing you quoted?
> 
> i suspect the reason you can't mention flu without howls of disapproval is because every single thing about this virus has become so politicised and entrenched that very few conversations are actually possible anymore. Which is pretty terrible imo.


It’s all anyone talks about on every online platform. There’s an entire subforum here, loads of threads, loads of them active.


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## chilango (Jan 2, 2022)

Yeah LynnDoyleCooper what about the other side of the argument? Huh? The positives of 170,000 dead huh?


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## chilango (Jan 2, 2022)

You'd think Covid was some racist old white dude we were trying 'cancel' or 'no platform'  rather than a deadly fucking virus the way some carry on...


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## bimble (Jan 2, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> It’s all anyone talks about on every online platform. There’s an entire subforum here, loads of threads, loads of them active.


i should have been more specific. Of course people talk about it, endlessly, here and irl and everywhere,  but i meant something like actual conversations, like where there's a possibility of people changing their views not just retreating further into entrenched over-simple positions.


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## Red Cat (Jan 2, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> It’s all anyone talks about on every online platform. There’s an entire subforum here, loads of threads, loads of them active.



There's a lot of talking at, that's for sure.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 2, 2022)

bimble said:


> i should have been more specific. Of course people talk about it, endlessly, here and irl and everywhere,  but i meant something like actual conversations, like where there's a possibility of people changing their views not just retreating further into entrenched over-simple positions.


creation vs evolution ?
etc...


----------



## two sheds (Jan 2, 2022)

Must say all my conversations with people in the hamlet I live in (we're all fairly well wrinklies) haven't been at odds at all with the received wisdom on urban.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 2, 2022)

bimble said:


> i should have been more specific. Of course people talk about it, endlessly, here and irl and everywhere,  but i meant something like actual conversations, like where there's a possibility of people changing their views not just retreating further into entrenched over-simple positions.


----------



## LDC (Jan 2, 2022)

chilango said:


> Yeah LynnDoyleCooper what about the other side of the argument? Huh? The positives of 170,000 dead huh?



Can you imagine if it had killed mostly white rich middle aged men like some kind of killer gout? We'd all be fucking locked up in cells being fed food through some hole so nobody else died, and the Tory party would be complaining the soft-hearted lefties prevented more restrictions.


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## planetgeli (Jan 2, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Can you imagine if it had killed mostly white rich middle aged men like some kind of killer gout? We'd all be fucking locked up in cells being fed food through some hole so nobody else died.



Bang on


----------



## magneze (Jan 2, 2022)

bimble said:


> i should have been more specific. Of course people talk about it, endlessly, here and irl and everywhere,  but i meant something like actual conversations, like where there's a possibility of people changing their views not just retreating further into entrenched over-simple positions.


I see that happening here tbf.


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## Agent Sparrow (Jan 2, 2022)

bimble said:


> i should have been more specific. Of course people talk about it, endlessly, here and irl and everywhere,  but i meant something like actual conversations, like where there's a possibility of people changing their views not just retreating further into entrenched over-simple positions.


How long have you been on urban/the internet?


----------



## brogdale (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> I'm acting in good faith and as lefty liberal ponce as you can get (just about) so apologies if I've inadvertently used language which suggests otherwise. I guess it might be the flu comparison, which I get and wouldn't have made back in 2020, but like it or not death levels are currently similar. Not sure why that can't be pointed out.


Primarily because that's incorrect.
In the latest UK data sets available, deaths from influenza run at just under 4 per day, whereas the last week's official Covid death toll is 122 per day.


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2022)

bimble said:


> i should have been more specific. Of course people talk about it, endlessly, here and irl and everywhere,  but i meant something like actual conversations, like where there's a possibility of people changing their views not just retreating further into entrenched over-simple positions.


People sometimes visibly change their views about highly specific details, but its pretty rare to see people changing their overall stance before our very eyes.

What happened in the first wave, and what measures were required to deal with it, were a big shock for people and that did shift a lot of attitudes rather quickly. It was a rude awakening for sure. But various instincts and priorities havent gone away, and given the chance and an evolving picture, many clearly want to return to their pre-pandemic comfort zones with only some minor lessons learnt.

Also keep in mind the timing of the current heated discussions. Thats just the way it goes during the up phase of a big pandemic wave. More people feel the need to state their views, their hopes, their fears, their disgust of the consequences of inaction, or their perceptions that some overreact to the threat, and their eagerness to avoid further big restrictions. And there are many more uncertainties this time around, and people remember how horrible the lockdown last winter made them feel, how hard it was to cope with compared to the first one. And people have been sold certain ideas about how much pandemic weight vaccines can reasonably be expected to carry on their own.

Personally I refuse to abondon precautionary principals until it is clearly demonstrated that the acute phase of this pandemic is over. If part of the pandemic exit transition involves a very large wave but with a much lower quantity of health consequences, then I will inevitably be accused of having overreacted to that wave. So be it, I'd rather be mostly on the right page during the bulk of the pandemic and then wrong at the end of it, than wrong all the way through till the final wave finally allowed my attitude to be compatible with reality. And when it comes to how much weight vaccines can carry on their own, clearly even the current government knows there are some limits, which is why even they went as far as to switch on 'plan B' for England and are further fiddling with the rules for January, eg masks in classrooms for secondary schools.


----------



## bimble (Jan 2, 2022)

A science thing i don't understand: 
Why would it be the case that if omicron is 'milder' that means that the pandemic is waning? I mean is there a reason that the strain that comes after omicron and the one after that would be expected to continue er mildening?


----------



## Chilli.s (Jan 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> I'm acting in good faith and as lefty liberal ponce as you can get (just about) so apologies if I've inadvertently used language which suggests otherwise. I guess it might be the flu comparison, which I get and wouldn't have made back in 2020, but like it or not death levels are currently similar. Not sure why that can't be pointed out.


This is rubbish


----------



## prunus (Jan 2, 2022)

bimble said:


> A science thing i don't understand:
> Why would it be the case that if omicron is 'milder' that means that the pandemic is waning? I mean is there a reason that the strain that comes after omicron and the one after that would be expected to continue er mildening?



In short, no. 

In slightly longer, it’s encouraging that the most successful* _so far_ variant seems to be less pathogenic - every step up in transmissibility reduces the number of possible alternative variants that can invade  the dominant variant.   There may be a possible one that’s slightly less transmissible than omicron but that’s 10x more deadly - that one is now basically out of the picture as a possible variant (if it arises now it probably** won’t be able to spread).

* It seems to be outcompeting delta, which implies that although delta immunity to omicron infection is weak, the reverse is probably not the case, thank goodness. Although really need to see the picture in a highly unvaccinated population to be sure. 

** depending of course on whether it has immune escape from omicron- and other prior-variant derived immunity.


----------



## bimble (Jan 2, 2022)

prunus said:


> In short, no.
> 
> In slightly longer, it’s encouraging that the most successful* _so far_ variant seems to be less pathogenic - every step up in transmissibility reduces the number of possible alternative variants that can invade  the dominant variant.   There may be a possible one that’s slightly less transmissible than omicron but that’s 10x more deadly - that one is now basically out of the picture as a possible variant (if it arises now it probably** won’t be able to spread).
> 
> ...


Thanks, i understand some of that, but not the bits about reinfection. If having had vanilla covid doesn't protect you in any long term way from having delta /omicron why would having omicron protect you from having whichever future version? It is all pretty complicated.


----------



## xenon (Jan 2, 2022)

chilango said:


> You'd think Covid was some racist old white dude we were trying 'cancel' or 'no platform'  rather than a deadly fucking virus the way some carry on...



Nah sorry this is just idiotic.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 2, 2022)

prunus said:


> In short, no.
> 
> In slightly longer, it’s encouraging that the most successful* _so far_ variant seems to be less pathogenic - every step up in transmissibility reduces the number of possible alternative variants that can invade  the dominant variant.   There may be a possible one that’s slightly less transmissible than omicron but that’s 10x more deadly - that one is now basically out of the picture as a possible variant (if it arises now it probably** won’t be able to spread).
> 
> ...


And, of course, there is a potential competitive advantage to a variant which infects people readily AND tends to allow them to carry on for much longer without having to take to their bed, etc.

I'll bet someone's written a paper on the "perfect" viral infection - highly transmissible, minimally symptomatic, minimally restricting of the activities of its host. And I imagine it's probably some kind of cold virus. So. perhaps, there's an evolutionary pressure on viruses to select for those characteristics. #notafuckingvirologist #notadvocatinglaissezfaire


----------



## existentialist (Jan 2, 2022)

bimble said:


> Thanks, i understand some of that, but not the bits about reinfection. If having had vanilla covid doesn't protect you in any long term way from having delta /omicron why would having omicron protect you from having whichever future version? It is all pretty complicated.


So far as I understand how immunity works, prior infections can INCREASE your immune system's ability to detect and respond to related variants. The operative terms there are "can" and "increase". It's always a mistake to think of anything in this context (eg "does/doesn't protect you") in such binary terms. And, of course, there is the important factor - one that our current government appears to be incapable of grasping - that it's not about individual protection, so much as providing a less facilitative environment for the virus(es) to rip through the population.


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## Mation (Jan 2, 2022)

What does 'doom-mongering' mean?

I'd have thought it would be predicting inexorably terrible outcomes, rather than judging that it's possible to do more to prevent things from becoming worse, or that it's too early to say how things will turn out, based on current data.



pbsmooth said:


> I guess it makes sense: the only people who really bother with this thread are the doom mongers. And so people like me who are triple vaxxed, wear a mask, have been minimising social interaction to almost nothing, testing when visiting people, but then express the idea - as put out by scientists in the media - that there is some end in sight, which yes, includes living with the virus killing people, are then seen as heartless crazy Tory Gov spokesmen. Bit silly really.


It sounds like the end you see involves individuals doing what they can to prevent spread and minimise risk, and that, after that, there will be some remaining amount of death or illness that we'll just have to live with, because we've done what we can. Have I misread you?

I think there will be some amount of covid death and illness we'll have to live with, but don't think we've done nearly enough yet to minimise it.


----------



## weltweit (Jan 2, 2022)

I think the world has to bite the bullet and vaccinate everybody, with up to date vaccines. Variants are produced mainly in infected populations, if we don't vaccinate everyone there will be more variants and next time or the time after we might not be as lucky as we have so far been with Omicron.


----------



## zahir (Jan 2, 2022)




----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 2, 2022)

zahir said:


>



Fewer


----------



## xenon (Jan 2, 2022)

40% less is a weird way to put it as well. I make it 150% less.


----------



## xenon (Jan 2, 2022)

Or rather 200 is  150% more than 80.


----------



## elbows (Jan 2, 2022)

They did a correction to that.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 3, 2022)

brogdale said:


> Primarily because that's incorrect.
> In the latest UK data sets available, deaths from influenza run at just under 4 per day, whereas the last week's official Covid death toll is 122 per day.
> 
> View attachment 304262



I thought those figures seemed very low, compared to those wildly reported, you do need to include deaths "due to influenza and pneumonia", as flu is a very common cause of pneumonia, and cases of pneumonia caused by flu tend to be more severe and deadly.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 3, 2022)

xenon said:


> 40% less is a weird way to put it as well. I make it 150% less.



80 is 40% of 200 so I would say 60% less.

E2a: Oh, we had that already. As you were.


----------



## andysays (Jan 3, 2022)

It's OK everyone, the government have made another announcement about testing

Covid: English secondary pupils to be tested before starting term​


> Secondary schools pupils in England will be tested for Covid at least once before rejoining classes for the new term, the government has said. Ministers have assured schools that testing kits will be provided as needed and urged pupils to test twice weekly. It comes as the government stressed on Sunday that nothing in the Covid data suggests new restrictions are needed.



No word on where all these new test kits are going to magically appear from, but I'm sure it's all under control.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 3, 2022)

Omicron exposes a fundamental fault line between individualism and collectivism that little bit more than delta did.  The more a disease has very high transmissibility and very low (serious) morbidity/mortality, the more an individual can reasonably feel that they personally have little to gain from prophylactic measures, even though society as a whole still needs them.

At the extreme, imagine a virus that can transmit just by looking somebody in the eye and whose immunity period only lasts for weeks post-recovery, but whose serious illness/death rate is incredibly low (say 1-in-100 million, or whatever it takes to make the maths work).  People can only protect themselves by completely isolating forever, but an individual’s value in doing so is negligible — every time they leave the house to walk to work, their personal risk is likely higher from the traffic than from the disease.  Meanwhile, the isolation is devastating.  And yet, this disease still has the potential to overwhelm the health services.

Omicron is a long way off that thought experiment, but it’s a step closer to it than Delta was, which means more individuals might reasonably conclude that their _personal_ risk balance has fallen on the side of carrying on with life.  This is why community health measures can’t be left to individual choice.  If we need to prevent transmission for the sake of overall community protection, it has to be a community-level actor making the decision what to do.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 3, 2022)

Interesting interview with the head of NHS Providers on BBC News, saying the data suggests cases in London peaked before Christmas, and that now seems to be filtering into the levelling off of both staff sickness and admissions across London hospitals, with the caveat that it's too early to know how the mixing over Christmas & New Year will play out, but the hope is that it was a fast climb to an early peak, followed by a fast drop off after that peak.

So, I guess that's the hope of the government, that it will follow what happened in South Africa, so fingers crossed that their gamble could well pay off, personally I'll continue to be concerned for a while yet.


----------



## zahir (Jan 3, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> Interesting interview with the head of NHS Providers on BBC News, saying the data suggests cases in London peaked before Christmas, and that now seems to be filtering into the levelling off of both staff sickness and admissions across London hospitals, with the caveat that it's too early to know how the mixing over Christmas & New Year will play out, but the hope is that it will be a fast climb to an early peak, followed by a fast drop off after that peak.


 
I think I'd wait to see what happens when the kids go back to school.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 3, 2022)

..and not forgetting there are bits of the UK outside the M25, Wales for instance is perhaps a week and a half maybe 2 weeks behind London so the christmas bulge with be at a time when we are stifl on a rapid upwards trajectory so might not showw up distinctly


----------



## two sheds (Jan 3, 2022)

indeed and it doesn't seem to have hit Cornwall or West Devon at all yet.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 3, 2022)

kabbes said:


> Omicron exposes a fundamental fault line between individualism and collectivism that little bit more than delta did.  The more a disease has very high transmissibility and very low (serious) morbidity/mortality, the more an individual can reasonably feel that they personally have little to gain from prophylactic measures, even though society as a whole still needs them.
> 
> At the extreme, imagine a virus that can transmit just be looking somebody in the eye and whose immunity period only lasts for weeks post-recovery, but whose serious illness/death rate is incredibly low (say 1-in-100 million, or whatever it takes to make the maths work).  People can only protect themselves by completely isolating forever, but an individual’s value in doing so is negligible — every time they leave the house to walk to work, their personal risk is likely higher from the traffic than from the disease.  Meanwhile, the isolation is devastating.  And yet, this disease still has the potential to overwhelm the health services.
> 
> Omicron is a long way off that thought experiment, but it’s a step closer to it than Delta was, which means more individuals might reasonably conclude that their _personal_ risk balance has fallen on the side of carrying on with life.  This is why community health measures can’t be left to individual choice.  If we need to prevent transmission for the sake of overall community protection, it has to be a community-level actor making the decision what to do.


I've been trying to put my finger on this concept for a while (for myself, really, not to post here) so thank you for doing so so articulately.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> Interesting interview with the head of NHS Providers on BBC News, saying the data suggests cases in London peaked before Christmas, and that now seems to be filtering into the levelling off of both staff sickness and admissions across London hospitals, with the caveat that it's too early to know how the mixing over Christmas & New Year will play out, but the hope is that it was a fast climb to an early peak, followed by a fast drop off after that peak.



For me the story of Londons positive case figures so far is a story that must be told by age groups.

Whats happened so far is that the 'early peak spotters' who thought there were signs of a peak around the 15th December in Londons figures had in fact spotted something real happening, but it was somewhat more complex than that. The number of positives being detected had reached a point where the numbers were no longer shooting up rapidly in a key age group that usually contributes massively to the overall number of cases.  And a peak was seen in some of those age groups. But in some other age groups where there have been bigger implications for hospitalisation figures in past waves, the numbers in the London region kept growing well past that date, and still havent necessarily stopped growing yet. Availability of testing is another issue I cannot determine the impact of in this data.

There are 19 age groups and in the past on another thread I did post graphs of them all for the London region. Today I have simplified this into 4 larger age groups instead.

And as usual these graphs show cases by test specimen date, so the most recent days of data are as yet incomplete.



Also note that the y axis scales are different for each of those age groups.

The above translates into the following when it comes to overall number of positive cases detected in the London region:


So I think its reasonable to talk about an overall plateau in London that started well before Christmas. But I'm not willing to make many claims about what will happen next, partly due to Christmas effects on testing, and the age group positives data and hospitalisation data becomes very important to look at. And unlike a year ago, this time schools are set to return, further complicating my expectations.

In regards hospital data for England and its regions, a change of mind seems to have happened over the Christmas period. There was going to be 3 days without data over Christmas instead of the usual 2 day weekend non-publication. But in the end they published on the 3rd day, so it was just the normal weekend break. And then this last weekend it looks like they got rid of the weekend data pause altogether and went back to how things were earlier in the pandemic, with hospital data published every single day. But a handful of trusts didnt file their data on those days, and weekend data usually tended to be of more variable quality, so I am tempted to wait a day or two longer before next producing graphs of those things.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2022)

I suppose I'll post the daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for the London region as they currently stand anyway, to demonstrate why I cannot be sure whether the most recent few days of data reflects a real phenomenon or a data issue.

In a normal week the admissions data with the most accurate trend signals sometimes doesnt arrive till Wednesday. Maybe I have to allow an extra day this week to account for the bank holiday, I dont know. But I'll be unwilling to try to spot the difference between a real trend and the usual fluctuations in data for at least a few days yet. Well, thats my typical stance with hospital data when trying to establish genuine plateaus and downward trends, if things suddenly shoot up again then I can read something into that straight away. If we add the aforementioned positive case data into the mix then it is if course tempting to be expecting a plateau or fall in some of the admissions age groups, but sometimes the reality does not turn out quite as neatly as that, so I just have to wait and see.

Again this is for the London region, not the whole country.


----------



## komodo (Jan 3, 2022)

Interesting that Tim Spector is saying this on twitter:

 W Covid cases in London now decreasing + UK slowing - it is great to see no real change in Covid deaths over last month. The health crisis is in danger of being driven by staff problems due to over- cautious isolation rules. Lets reduce this to 5 days!


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2022)

Its a difficult judgement call. They already made one change to self-isolation rules and they will want to go further at some point. Its probably just a question of when, and any calculations about the risks of doing this with health care workers in particular, given that there are big concerns about hospital infections in the Omicron wave.

Massive understaffing will kill people, so the pressure to act will not be subtle in the coming days, thats for sure. But then again, if London already peaked in key working age groups at least, then the staff shortage pressures may ease soon in that region anyway. But there may still be a very awkward period where this stuff hasnt fully worked through the system yet, leaving staffing levels in a perilous state.

We are certainly much closer to the stage where if 'patients in mechanical ventilator beds' and deaths data doesnt show an increase fairly soon, some of the fears about this wave will diminish quite rapidly, and that will likely factor into this decision. Since London has been used as an early indicator of what is to come, I suppose I should pay more attention to the ventilation beds and deaths figures for the London region in particular.


----------



## elbows (Jan 3, 2022)

Chris Hopson of NHS providers was prepared to go further than me when discussing recent London hospital admissions data.

He still included some caveats and wiggle room. I'm less certain about that data than him because of the aforementioned picture of cases by age group, although that stuff isnt a perfect guide as to the future of hospital admissions either. Also there were some drops in the figures in other regions on those recent days which in theory are less likely to reflect reality since the timing in the other regions is later in general than London.

Time will tell, neither possibility will surprise me.



> The rate of hospitalisations in London during the latest wave of Covid infections may have peaked, a health boss tells the BBC.
> 
> Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, says in London - the first region to be hit hard by Omicron - the number of hospitalisations has "dropped significantly" in the past two days.
> 
> ...



Thats from the 11:02 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59857255


----------



## brogdale (Jan 3, 2022)

Today's (post-Sunday) numbers:


----------



## brogdale (Jan 3, 2022)

brogdale said:


> Today's (post-Sunday) numbers:
> 
> View attachment 304381


Just to clarify those 42 deaths are all non-hospital ("other settings") deaths from E&W, not Scotland or NI.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 3, 2022)

kabbes said:


> Omicron exposes a fundamental fault line between individualism and collectivism that little bit more than delta did.  The more a disease has very high transmissibility and very low (serious) morbidity/mortality, the more an individual can reasonably feel that they personally have little to gain from prophylactic measures, even though society as a whole still needs them.
> 
> At the extreme, imagine a virus that can transmit just by looking somebody in the eye and whose immunity period only lasts for weeks post-recovery, but whose serious illness/death rate is incredibly low (say 1-in-100 million, or whatever it takes to make the maths work).  People can only protect themselves by completely isolating forever, but an individual’s value in doing so is negligible — every time they leave the house to walk to work, their personal risk is likely higher from the traffic than from the disease.  Meanwhile, the isolation is devastating.  And yet, this disease still has the potential to overwhelm the health services.
> 
> Omicron is a long way off that thought experiment, but it’s a step closer to it than Delta was, which means more individuals might reasonably conclude that their _personal_ risk balance has fallen on the side of carrying on with life.  This is why community health measures can’t be left to individual choice.  If we need to prevent transmission for the sake of overall community protection, it has to be a community-level actor making the decision what to do.


This is closely tied with the "I'm the only mug on this train wearing a mask" effect, ie. even if you're willing to do some stuff for the benefit of public health rather than yourself, it feels pointless if no-one else is doing it, especially if you perceive that the illness is likely to be mild and that the high transmissibility means most people are going to get it regardless.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 3, 2022)

5.30 my college posted on Facebook that "following changes to government advice" everyone is to wear masks in classrooms as well as communal areas. Also requested everyone has an LFT before coming back to college _tomorrow morning_. Suspect many staff won't have them to hand let alone students.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 3, 2022)

S☼I said:


> 5.30 my college posted on Facebook that "following changes to government advice" everyone is to wear masks in classrooms as well as communal areas. Also requested everyone has an LFT before coming back to college _tomorrow morning_. Suspect many staff won't have them to hand let alone students.


We got a similar one with this phrase included:



> Our priority remains to ensure continuity of learning and the student experience, alongside ensuring the safety, health and wellbeing of our university community



To be read as 'we'll - well the staff and students, not management obviously - will carry on with classroom teaching come hell or high water'.


----------



## killer b (Jan 3, 2022)

S☼I said:


> 5.30 my college posted on Facebook that "following changes to government advice" everyone is to wear masks in classrooms as well as communal areas. Also requested everyone has an LFT before coming back to college _tomorrow morning_. Suspect many staff won't have them to hand let alone students.


we had an email from my kids school late afternoon saying school will only be open for testing tomorrow, with year groups in during hour timed slots and they'll need to be home otherwise, which at least makes sure everyone is tested before they open school, but also means half the school's kids will be heading off to their more-vulnerable grandparents' houses after testing...


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2022)

A couple of interesting quotes here, with all the usual caveats, firstly from Hopson of NHS Providers saying that care home omicron outbreaks are not translating into hospital admissions, secondly from Neil Ferguson saying he's “cautiously optimistic” that cases are starting to plateau in London.





> A top *UK* infectious disease expert said he was “cautiously optimistic” that Covid cases are beginning to plateau in *London*, and that he was expecting cases to come down in regions outside of the capital within one to three weeks.
> 
> *Prof Neil Ferguson*, who specialises in the patterns of spread of infectious disease, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
> 
> ...


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> Chris Hopson of NHS providers was prepared to go further than me when discussing recent London hospital admissions data.



I wonder why that might be?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 4, 2022)

brogdale said:


> Today's (post-Sunday) numbers:
> 
> View attachment 304381


Be careful over interpreting changes in death numbers at the moment. Holiday delays mean that numbers for a week including the holiday period are under reported, while numbers for the week after will have extras from that period. It will take until the end of this week for delayed reporting over Christmas and New year to fully unpack.

In this instance, 500 deaths were reported on 30 and 31 Dec combined. Yesterday was a bank holiday so today's number is likely to be low again with a catch up tomorrow. You can expect the weekly figure after tomorrow to sound very high as it will include catch up numbers for two weeks and be contrasted with a week of under reporting. That will be an artefact not a real trend. 

Th Guardian has form for not pointing this stuff out in its reporting.


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## _Russ_ (Jan 4, 2022)

Sad excuse for a human being


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Sad excuse for a human being


Good grief, what nasty pieces of "work".
I'm talking about the makers of that film, as well.
All serious wastes of oxygen.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Sad excuse for a human being


Birds of a feather...

(from that article)


> Redfern has received more than £61,000 in donations since she first received a closure notice after a crowdfunding page was set up by former Brexit Party and Abolish the Welsh Assembly candidate Richard Taylor.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Jan 4, 2022)

Forget the stats, look beyond them, everything is fine...









						Omicron stats are huge, but look beyond them
					

A difficult month lies ahead, but the evidence points to this wave being different from ones before.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2022)

mwgdrwg said:


> Forget the stats, look beyond them, everything is fine...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Ah, Triggle again. Cassandra's idiot twin.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Sad excuse for a human being


Son of Icke


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2022)

Can't link to it because it's rolling news but Guardian headline says 
UK Covid news: up to 15% of Omicron cases are reinfections, says top scientist – live​
so with vaccinations and reinfections reducing severity of omicron, do we know yet how serious it is compared to delta (say) in non-vaxxed people?


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Can't link to it because it's rolling news but Guardian headline says
> UK Covid news: up to 15% of Omicron cases are reinfections, says top scientist – live​
> so with vaccinations and reinfections reducing severity of omicron, do we know yet how serious it is compared to delta (say) in non-vaxxed people?



Below is the link to that post, the next post under that quotes Ferguson saying....


> I think the good news here is it is certainly less severe. We think, if you’ve never been infected before, never had a vaccine, [there is] about a one third drop in the risk of just any hospital admission, probably a two thirds drop in the risk of dying from Omicron. So [it is] substantially less severe. And that has helped us undoubtedly. We would be seeing much higher infection case numbers in hospital otherwise.
> 
> And vaccines, as we always expected they would, are holding up against severe outcomes well. Well that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be, as the prime minister said, a difficult few weeks for the NHS.











						UK Covid news: up to 15% of Omicron cases are reinfections, says top scientist – live
					

Imperial College epidemiologist Neil Ferguson ‘cautiously optimistic’ but says weeks ahead could still be difficult for NHS services




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2022)

Interesting, ta. I'm a bit surprised though with the 1/3 drop in hospital admissions - huge number of people have been vaccinated but still very high admissions.

Eta: ah a lot of that will be down to faster transmission.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Interesting, ta. I'm a bit surprised though with the 1/3 drop in hospital admissions - huge number of people have been vaccinated but still very high admissions.



Cases are far higher than this time last year, remember there's been problems testing recently and re-infections are not included in the daily figures. whereas admissions are much lower, so we're back to a smaller percentage from a much bigger number.

And, those on ventilation beds, mainly the unvaccinated, are under 25% of the level seen last Jan.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 4, 2022)

> I think the good news here is it is certainly less severe. We think, if you’ve never been infected before, never had a vaccine, [there is] about a one third drop in the risk of just any hospital admission, probably a two thirds drop in the risk of dying from Omicron. So [it is] substantially less severe. And that has helped us undoubtedly. We would be seeing much higher infection case numbers in hospital otherwise.



I  wish he would show at least a basic working of how he comes to that figure
No way ill just to take his word for it


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 4, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, those on ventilation beds, mainly the unvaccinated, are under 25% of the level seen last Jan.


This is the most striking difference, I think. The number on ventilation beds has barely changed. It's up slightly in London (approx 240 from 200), but only slightly, and not at all elsewhere. 

If even Neil Ferguson is saying this is different, we must be onto something.  Wonder what he's saying now about the apocalyptic forecasts he was giving two weeks ago? Why did he get it so wrong? (Again)


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> I  wish he would show at least a basic working of how he comes to that figure
> No way ill just to take his word for it



Err, all the data seems to support what he's saying.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 4, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> Err, all the data seems to support what he's saying.


Im not certain of that, but of course I havn't seen everything. Not sure how you seem satisfied when even he says "we think"


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Im not certain of that, but of course I havn't seen everything. Not sure how you seem satisfied when even he says "we think"



It's basically what loads of experts have been saying for over a week, with a number of studies finding that to be the case.



> More evidence is emerging that the Omicron coronavirus variant is affecting the upper respiratory tract, causing milder symptoms than previous variants, a World Health Organization official said on Tuesday.
> 
> "We are seeing more and more studies pointing out that Omicron is infecting the upper part of the body. Unlike the other ones, that could cause severe pneumonia," WHO Incident Manager Abdi Mahamud told Geneva-based journalists, saying it could be "good news".











						WHO sees more evidence that Omicron causes milder symptoms
					

More evidence is emerging that the Omicron coronavirus variant is affecting the upper respiratory tract, causing milder symptoms than previous variants and resulting in a "decoupling" in some places between soaring case numbers and low death rates, a World Health Organization official said on...




					www.reuters.com


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 4, 2022)

You're missing the point, read the bit I quoted initially, Specifically:


> We think, if you’ve never been infected before, never had a vaccine, [there is] about a one third drop in the risk of just any hospital admission



This claim goes beyond just saying its less severe, Im unsure of the evidence for this claim (tbf he seems unsure himself)


----------



## Storm Fox (Jan 4, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is the most striking difference, I think. The number on ventilation beds has barely changed. It's up slightly in London (approx 240 from 200), but only slightly, and not at all elsewhere.
> 
> If even Neil Ferguson is saying this is different, we must be onto something.  Wonder what he's saying now about the apocalyptic forecasts he was giving two weeks ago? Why did he get it so wrong? (Again)


If you get it wrong one way you end up with a load of people whinging about how the scientists got it wrong. Get it wrong the other way and you end up with a lot of dead people.


----------



## killer b (Jan 4, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Wonder what he's saying now about the apocalyptic forecasts he was giving two weeks ago? Why did he get it so wrong? (Again)


is that this forecast? It still seems reasonable based on the information they had at the time. He got it 'wrong' because you really want to plan for the worst rather than the best with this sort of stuff I'd imagine. The government took a massive gamble which looks to have paid off, but it could easily not have done. 









						Omicron could overwhelm NHS if it is as virulent as Delta, Neil Ferguson says
					

Exclusive: UK already experiencing ‘very explosive wave of infection’ from new variant, top scientist says




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## komodo (Jan 4, 2022)

Just think about it - this omnicron kicked in one of the most undervaxed parts of the country and yet the hospitals are still coping. Just about coping I should say - due to the staffing crisis. This point has been underplayed deliberately to encourage people to get their vaccinations/boosters. Which is fair enough IMHO.

Have also read in Chris Hopson’s posts that hospitals are not receiving admissions with COVID from old peoples homes. But a lot of those homes are blocked to new admissions because they have COVID outbreaks. So initial evidence is that older people are coping OK.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> You're missing the point, read the bit I quoted initially, Specifically:
> "We think, if you’ve never been infected before, never had a vaccine, [there is] about a one third drop in the risk of just any hospital admission"
> 
> This claim goes beyond just saying its less severe, Im unsure of the evidence for this claim (tbf he seems unsure himself)



No, you are missing the point, and your selected quoting this time misses what he starts by saying 'I think the good news here is it is certainly less severe', then 'we think.....', followed by a estimates the actual percentages, so it may not be exactly 33.3% & 66.6%, but may be slightly less or more, but they think it's around that level. That will be based on the current data available, and the increasing number of studies.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 4, 2022)

Oh good grief, I give up


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Oh good grief, I give up



Thank fuck for that.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 4, 2022)

Storm Fox said:


> If you get it wrong one way you end up with a load of people whinging about how the scientists got it wrong. Get it wrong the other way and you end up with a lot of dead people.


If you get it completely wrong when there are others telling you you're completely wrong and telling you why you're completely wrong, which is what has happened with Ferguson and other modellers over omicron, at what point should people just stop listening to you? Various other epidemiologists at the time pointed out flaws in the modelling presented by Sage last month, including_ completely ignoring_ T-cell priming from vaccination/previous infections and assuming that omicron is just as deadly, which is why it was so at odds with the emerging picture from South Africa. They cherry-picked from the South Africa data, taking on board the bits about increased infectiousness but ignoring the bits about less severe disease. 

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicted 25,000 more deaths by spring as its optimistic scenario unless we went beyond Plan B. Its pessimistic scenario was 75,000. So even at its most optimistic, it was predicting that omicron would kill more people in the UK than the delta variant has killed since May (around 20,000). Its most pessimistic scenario saw the worst wave of the pandemic yet. This stuff is used to justify the imposition of restrictions. It matters when it is badly wrong.


----------



## bemused (Jan 4, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If you get it completely wrong when there are others telling you you're completely wrong and telling you why you're completely wrong, which is what has happened with Ferguson and other modellers over omicron, at what point should people just stop listening to you? Various other epidemiologists at the time pointed out flaws in the modelling presented by Sage last month, including_ completely ignoring_ T-cell priming from vaccination/previous infections and assuming that omicron is just as deadly, which is why it was so at odds with the emerging picture from South Africa. They cherry-picked from the South Africa data, taking on board the bits about increased infectiousness but ignoring the bits about less severe disease.
> 
> The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicted 25,000 more deaths by spring as its optimistic scenario unless we went beyond Plan B. Its pessimistic scenario was 75,000. So even at its most optimistic, it was predicting that omicron would kill more people in the UK than the delta variant has killed since May (around 20,000). Its most pessimistic scenario saw the worst wave of the pandemic yet. This stuff is used to justify the imposition of restrictions. It matters when it is badly wrong.


Have Ferguson's models ever been published? I'd like to look at one.


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## _Russ_ (Jan 4, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> Thank fuck for that.


You really need to work on your reading comprehension, it might even help with that problem of posting shit that got posted just one post before.


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> You really need to work on your reading comprehension, it might even help with that problem of posting shit that got posted just one post before.



Nowt wrong with my reading comprehension, more your posting style, because I've no fucking idea what you are dribbling on about now.  🤷‍♂️


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## Sunray (Jan 4, 2022)

I was out with two people on NYE and NYD that tested positive.  I'm still negative. 
Everyone I know in London has got sick.  We are very lucky its not more closely related to MERS which is also a corona virus. 



littlebabyjesus said:


> If you get it completely wrong when there are others telling you you're completely wrong and telling you why you're completely wrong, which is what has happened with Ferguson and other modellers over omicron, at what point should people just stop listening to you? Various other epidemiologists at the time pointed out flaws in the modelling presented by Sage last month, including_ completely ignoring_ T-cell priming from vaccination/previous infections and assuming that omicron is just as deadly, which is why it was so at odds with the emerging picture from South Africa. They cherry-picked from the South Africa data, taking on board the bits about increased infectiousness but ignoring the bits about less severe disease.
> 
> The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicted 25,000 more deaths by spring as its optimistic scenario unless we went beyond Plan B. Its pessimistic scenario was 75,000. So even at its most optimistic, it was predicting that omicron would kill more people in the UK than the delta variant has killed since May (around 20,000). Its most pessimistic scenario saw the worst wave of the pandemic yet. This stuff is used to justify the imposition of restrictions. It matters when it is badly wrong.


Its just a computer model based upon the severity of Delta.  I don't think a modeller can decide that a virus is more or less severe in advance of knowing the reality?  It'd give a huge number of outcomes most of which would be wrong.

There has been a study in South Africa that has suggested Omicron is giving some protection against delta. This is a stroke of luck as it protects the unvaxiccnated against delta and omicron. Might be able to refuse a vaccine but I'm wondering how your virus refusal is going?





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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

mwgdrwg said:


> Forget the stats, look beyond them, everything is fine...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Triggle continues to provide a guide as to what the propaganda would have continued to look like in the first wave if the government had not been forced to abandon its original herd immunity plan.

But unlike that occasion, Triggle is able to use a lot of stuff that is arguably true in his articles this time around. He is relying on only a few dodgy aspects in order to push a particular agenda this time. And I wont bother to discuss those properly right now, rather I will return to them later when it becomes much clearer whether any of them hold up.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> I wonder why that might be?


I will dwell on this point by the end of the week at the latest, once I've seen what happens next with Londons hospital data.

One thing that distorts almost all of the narratives about hospital data is that there is very little acknowledgement about the substantial role that hospital infections play in these figures. Admissions figures are not pure admissions figures, they are admissions/diagnoses, so they include people that came in for other reasons and happened to hae covid, but also people that catch it while in hospital. And I'm tracking that stuff as best I can, because some data on this is actually available, although its far from complete.

And Omicron has a lot of hospital transmission potential. But since we have vaccines that still hold up quite well, hopefully the worst implications will be much less substantial than they were in the first two waves.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> A couple of interesting quotes here, with all the usual caveats, firstly from Hopson of NHS Providers saying that care home omicron outbreaks are not translating into hospital admissions, secondly from Neil Ferguson saying he's “cautiously optimistic” that cases are starting to plateau in London.



Ferguson is correct to highlight the ages up to 50 as being a key driver of the overall number of Covid cases. And I'd agree that a notable downward trend for these age groups has been seen in London for a while now. I posted a graph about this the other day. The older age groups show a different pattern of continuing rises so far, and they are a key group too, but hopefully vaccines will continue to have a big impact on the implications of that.

As for Hopsons remarks, NHS England does publish figures on Covid admissions/diagnoses from care homes. Its probably not capturing the whole picture, and it will invariably include people who were admitted from care homes for other reasons and then caught it in hospital. But here is the graph anyway, which does not cover the first wave since this data only became available from August 2020 onwards:


Data comes from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


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## komodo (Jan 4, 2022)

Yes omnicron has a lot of in-hospital transmission potential. But there is much more testing going on and better ways of separating people with COVID than in the horrendous early days. Plus improved treatments if people get it.

Plus IF it is intrinsically milder impact will be less.

Plus if there was a big problem with hospital squired omnicron wouldn’t that be showing up by now in London? In terms of use of ventilation etc


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> This is the most striking difference, I think. The number on ventilation beds has barely changed. It's up slightly in London (approx 240 from 200), but only slightly, and not at all elsewhere.
> 
> If even Neil Ferguson is saying this is different, we must be onto something.  Wonder what he's saying now about the apocalyptic forecasts he was giving two weeks ago? Why did he get it so wrong? (Again)


Do you have any links to examples of what he was saying some weeks ago?

He is Imperial College if I remember correctly, and unlike earlier waves I dont think I saw any Imperial modelling for the Omicron wave, at least not as part of the SAGE documents released so far. The modelling this time seemed to come from Warwick and the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine. And as usual those modelling exercises contained a range of scenarios, which I will compare to what actually happened when the time comes.

But of important note is that these modelling exercises dont include behavioural changes that happen as a result of gloomy mood music and appeals from the government. They tend to model only the expected impact of formal measures introduced, so of course the reality tends to end up not being as bad, because people are not stupid and a lot of behavioural changes happen, some of which are the result of the gloomy modelling you seem to despise!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love self-defeating prophecies, they make a big difference to how bad the pandemic waves end up. They inevitably lead to bogus criticisms but plenty of people see through those false criticisms.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

komodo said:


> Yes omnicron has a lot of in-hospital transmission potential. But there is much more testing going on and better ways of separating people with COVID than in the horrendous early days. Plus improved treatments if people get it.
> 
> Plus IF it is intrinsically milder impact will be less.
> 
> Plus if there was a big problem with hospital squired omnicron wouldn’t that be showing up by now in London? In terms of use of ventilation etc


Ventilation beds data shows hugely impressive impact of vaccines (and Omicron reduced severity) so far in this wave, its my main source of optimism so far, and I hope it continues to hold true.

The authorities understand the Omicron implications for hospital spread and they know it will be a big issue, despite testing etc. Largely due to the huge numbers infected int he community and bringing it in, and how much more transmissive Omicron seems to be.

There are many factors that make these things worse in some places than others. London seems to have had some advantages on this front in previous waves, and some places up north seem to have had especially bad and persistent issues with this.

Thanks to vaccines I expect a lower death burden as a result this time. Many of the implications are those that impact on broader hospital care issues, this stuff erodes capacity and affects staffing levels. Fingers crossed the wave passes through quite quickly and we dont get stuck with a high level of ongoing community infections once the peaks are well past, since what we really dont want to see is that situation dragging on for a long time.


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## xenon (Jan 4, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> If you get it completely wrong when there are others telling you you're completely wrong and telling you why you're completely wrong, which is what has happened with Ferguson and other modellers over omicron, at what point should people just stop listening to you? Various other epidemiologists at the time pointed out flaws in the modelling presented by Sage last month, including_ completely ignoring_ T-cell priming from vaccination/previous infections and assuming that omicron is just as deadly, which is why it was so at odds with the emerging picture from South Africa. They cherry-picked from the South Africa data, taking on board the bits about increased infectiousness but ignoring the bits about less severe disease.
> 
> The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine predicted 25,000 more deaths by spring as its optimistic scenario unless we went beyond Plan B. Its pessimistic scenario was 75,000. So even at its most optimistic, it was predicting that omicron would kill more people in the UK than the delta variant has killed since May (around 20,000). Its most pessimistic scenario saw the worst wave of the pandemic yet. This stuff is used to justify the imposition of restrictions. It matters when it is badly wrong.



I understand the need for caution of course but this annoyed me. The relative young age of the South African populas was also sighted as meaning hospitlisation there couldn't be used to indicate what might happen here. Which is fair enough. But rarely if ever mentioned in the same discussion by those were the greater numbers of people with HIV in SA, with the implication for immune systems and the lower vaccination rates.


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## Edie (Jan 4, 2022)

.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

Modelling covers a range of scenarios and of course there is more opportunity to criticise the modelling when the media and people with an axe to grind insist on simplifying the modelling down to one central scenario.

I've found it extremely hard to discuss all the modelling properly without doing that, since my posts would end up nearly as long as the modelling documents themselves if I included all the detail. So I end up somewhere in the middle when it comes to getting into the detail.

But here is one example from the Warwick modelling in December. They considered a range of scenarios in terms of disease severity and escape from vaccines. I'm putting these charts in a spoilers tag because they will probably end up as a rather large image.



Spoiler






From https://assets.publishing.service.g...99_S1441_Warwick_Omicron_for_release_v2.0.pdf

Its not their fault if people only focus on the worst-case modelling output! The worst case needs mentioning and taking into account by those that have to plan for every eventuality, but its hardly the only thing modelling brings to the table.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

bemused said:


> Have Ferguson's models ever been published? I'd like to look at one.


Imperial College modelling, of which plenty is available for past waves but not this current one (or at least I havent found any for current wave yet). I'll be very happy to get into loads of detail about this, but now is not a good time beyond what I've already said on this thread today. Could you remind me again in a few weeks? Maybe we need another dedicated thread for this topic. There has been at least one review of how well the initial modelling did, a necessary exercise because those with agendas have spewed vast amounts of misleading shit about this ever since.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

There has been plenty of focus on London so far this time because they were first to experience the Omicron wave in full.

People have drawn attention to the relatively low vaccine uptake rates in London. Some portion of that is real, some portion of it is down to less accurate population figures for London, including people who left London during the pandemic or left at other times but remained registered there.

But there is apparently another factor which impacts both on those figures but also on how well London is coping in this wave. I have heard it said that London has a population which is younger than the average for the country as a whole. So I'm asking if anybody has a nice source of data on that, perhaps a nice visualisation of it?


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

Johnson, Whitty & Vallance press conference at 5pm.

At least it wont be a straightforward repeat of the one we had a year ago.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

This twitter thread is excellent and really starts to dig much deeper into the sort of pressure hospitals are facing this time around.


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## Storm Fox (Jan 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love self-defeating prophecies, they make a big difference to how bad the pandemic waves end up. They inevitably lead to bogus criticisms but plenty of people see through those false criticisms.


I think the exemplar for this was the Y2K bug, where there were doom and gloom predictions of a lot of stuff failing, some over blown but a lot not. In the end nothing happened. So the fuckwits kick off in the papers saying what a load of scaremongering it all was; when in fact the reason nothing happened was that a lot of people spent a lot of time ensuring nothing happened and fixing code to correct the issue.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 4, 2022)

Hopefully someone will be able to come up with how many lives were saved through restrictions and vaccination...


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## _Russ_ (Jan 4, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> Nowt wrong with my reading comprehension, more your posting style, because I've no fucking idea what you are dribbling on about now.  🤷‍♂️


With your head so far up your arse enlightenment is unlikely


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Hopefully someone will be able to come up with how many lives were saved through restrictions and vaccination...


There wont be a straightforward figure because of interplay between factors - for example if we hadnt had vaccines, we'd have ended up with far more restrictions in the UK in the Delta and Omicron waves.

Plus there are all the informal behavioural changes. eg Big impacts on the virus were seen for a period before formal lockdown in the first two UK waves, because people took matters into their own hands.

Studies have still been attempted that look at very specific waves and scenarios. For example there were estimates for how many less deaths there would have been if the first UK lockdown had been done a bit earlier, The differences were large. I dont have such studies to hand right now.

But one that I did notice recently involved comparing the approaches of Sweden, the UK and Denmark in the first wave, which also mentions timing:



> We use two approaches to evaluate counterfactuals which transpose the transmission profile from one country onto another, in each country’s first wave from 13th March (when stringent interventions began) until 1st July 2020. UK mortality would have approximately doubled had Swedish policy been adopted, while Swedish mortality would have more than halved had Sweden adopted UK or Danish strategies. Danish policies were most effective, although differences between the UK and Denmark were significant for one counterfactual approach only. Our analysis shows that small changes in the timing or effectiveness of interventions have disproportionately large effects on total mortality within a rapidly growing epidemic.











						Comparing the responses of the UK, Sweden and Denmark to COVID-19 using counterfactual modelling - Scientific Reports
					

The UK and Sweden have among the worst per-capita COVID-19 mortality in Europe. Sweden stands out for its greater reliance on voluntary, rather than mandatory, control measures. We explore how the timing and effectiveness of control measures in the UK, Sweden and Denmark shaped COVID-19...




					www.nature.com
				




For many months of the initial vaccination campaign, estimates were done by PHE involving how many deaths vaccines had already prevented, but again these are an oversimplification. The results were still a useful guide though, vaccines have made a huge difference both to illness and death but also to the alternative measures we'd have needed to impose had vaccines still not been available.


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> With your head so far up your arse enlightenment is unlikely



Oh, do shut-up, Rodney.


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## xenon (Jan 4, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Hopefully someone will be able to come up with how many lives were saved through restrictions and vaccination...



Restrictions is a bit harder to ascertain , there was no control group. But I recall hearing a figure like 30,000 as an estimate for lives saved by vaccination in the UK. This was back towards the end of last summer. Apologies for lack of citation.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

xenon said:


> Restrictions is a bit harder to ascertain , there was no control group. But I recall hearing a figure like 30,000 as an estimate for lives saved by vaccination in the UK. This was back towards the end of last summer. Apologies for lack of citation.


I lost track of the official estimates once PHE turned into UKHSA, but I have now found some PHE figures from September:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1019992/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_38.pdf
		




> The latest estimates indicate that the vaccination programme has directly averted over 230,800 hospitalisations. Analysis on the direct and indirect impact of the vaccination programme on infections and mortality, suggests the vaccination programme has prevented between 23.7 and 24.1 million infections and between 119,500 and 126,800 deaths.



But as I mentioned in my previous post, what would actually have happened in a no-vaccine scenario over that time period is that we'd have ended up with further restrictions to put a dent in those figures, since the system would not have coped with over 230,000 extra hospital admissions in that period, and peoples attitudes and behaviours would also have been different to what we actually managed.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

Ah I found out what happened to such estimates later on. They stopped doing them for reasons I already mentioned:



> UKHSA previously reported on the number of hospitalisations directly averted by vaccination. In total, around 261,500 hospitalisations have been prevented in those aged 45 years and over up to 19 September 2021.
> 
> UKHSA and University of Cambridge MRC Biostatistics Unit previously reported on the direct and indirect impact of the vaccination programme on infections and mortality. Estimates suggest that 127,500 deaths and 24,144,000 infections have been prevented as a result of the COVID- 19 vaccination programme, up to 24 September.





> Neither of these models will be updated going forward. This is due to these models being unable to account for the interventions that would have been implemented in the absence of vaccination. Consequently, over time the state of the actual pandemic and the no-vaccination pandemic scenario have become increasingly less comparable. For further context surrounding this figure and for previous estimates, please see previous vaccine surveillance reports.







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## LDC (Jan 4, 2022)

It regularly crosses my mind about what might have been if no vaccines had been forthcoming... very, very grim.


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## Storm Fox (Jan 4, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It regularly crosses my mind about what might have been if no vaccines had been forthcoming... very, very grim.


I feel if this had happened 20years ago, without biotech and the internet being what it is today we would have been in a much worse state.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It regularly crosses my mind about what might have been if no vaccines had been forthcoming... very, very grim.


We might presume that the downward side of last winters wave would have been slower and have involved plenty more death. Then when Delta arrived the unlocking strategy would have been left in tatters, and we'd have ended up with some sorts of lockdown of various strengths over summer and beyond.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

But of course there would have been many other consequences. The messaging and unlocking plans would have been different, tuned towards treatments as the light at the end of the tunnel instead of vaccines, and a range of other ideas about how infections could have been kept to a lower level. In the pre-vaccine era we saw a few of those from government - during first lockdown they settled on going on about mass testing and contact tracing as a means to cope in future, as a reason for people to expect the future to be less grim. We found out quite quickly after that lockdown ended that they botched that system and oversold how much pandemic weight it could hope to carry, and I expect there would have been more of such stuff if vaccines hadnt come along to take a big chunk of pandemic weight.

Those who oppose the sensible measures, including ones that are far away from full lockdown, would have gone utterly crazy and would be calling more loudly for things which had big implications for getting access to treatment, amount of death, the economy and any remaining sense of solidarity.

Those on the other end of the spectrum would be calling for things that were closer to the 'zero covid' approach than anything this country would have previously taken seriously.

It is pretty hard to say what would have happened under those conditions, and which 'side would have won', but given that even shitty governments cannot ignore the impact on hospitals, its safe to assume that an alternative pandemic exit would not have magically revealed itself.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

Even if we end up having dodged a couple of the most high-profile bullets in this wave, leading some to talk shit with increased confidence, many other bullets remain.

I have to say that some of the remaining bullets may yet require further action from the government in ways that affects us all. Things are delicately balanced and it will probably take some more weeks before I can breathe a sigh of relief on all those fronts. Or not breathe a sign of relief at all, if the attempt at delicate balance doesnt hold up to the pressure.

I'm not going to drive everyone crazy by posting about every single hospital critical incident declaration in this thread, but Shaun Lintern seems to be trying to cover them all on twitter. Here is a thread with the ones he is aware of today:

I think one is in Plymouth so some people might need to update their sense of the pressure spreading to that part of the country.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

Todays dashboard update managed to arrive on time.

A rather large total of new reported cases was involved, 218,724.

However a chunk of this is due to backlogs from various nations. I try to use data by test specimen date to overcome these reporting issues, but on this occasion to illustrate the reporting gaps of recent days:


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## editor (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> With your head so far up your arse enlightenment is unlikely


This really isn't the forum for this kind of aggressive, disruptive bollocks, newbie.


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## LDC (Jan 4, 2022)

Press briefing now. Continue with Plan B. Daily LFTs from 10th January for 100,000 critical workers. Lots of 'war footing' nonsense. 9 million people still not had a booster. 90% in ICU not had their booster.


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## brogdale (Jan 4, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Press briefing now. Continue with Plan B. Daily LFTs from 10th January for 100,000 critical workers. Lots of 'war footing' nonsense. 9 million people still not had a booster. 90% in ICU not had their booster.


"plan B" or _Carry on dying, _as it is properly known.


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## Plumdaff (Jan 4, 2022)

10th Jan quite a long way off if your hospital already has 500+ staff off sick and an internal critical incident. Plus, how do you stop infection if all the family members/friends etc of these critical workers presumably won't have a chance in hell of getting hold of an LFT? Pathetic, even by their standards.


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## bimble (Jan 4, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Press briefing now. Continue with Plan B. Daily LFTs from 10th January for 100,000 critical workers. Lots of 'war footing' nonsense. 9 million people still not had a booster. 90% in ICU not had their booster.


thank you. So much less painful than watching him.


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## LDC (Jan 4, 2022)

Plumdaff said:


> 10th Jan quite a long way off if your hospital already has 500+ staff off and an internal critical incident.



Also don't think it includes NHS, it's other critical workers like transport etc. The NHS has over a million workers, and also already has a testing regime in place... hahahaha.


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## bimble (Jan 4, 2022)

Just a pondering, does anyone know offhand where else in the world is still doing lateral flow tests free* for everyone & whenever you want one (if in stock)?
 (* at point of use obvs)


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## brogdale (Jan 4, 2022)

High time that blustercunt was a former person.


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## andysays (Jan 4, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Also don't think it includes NHS, it's other critical workers like transport etc. The NHS has over a million workers, and also already has a testing regime in place... hahahaha.



Breaking story, so details being updated
Covid: Workers in key industries to take daily tests, Boris Johnson says​


> Around 100,000 critical workers are set to take daily Covid tests in order to reduce the spread of the virus to colleagues, Boris Johnson has said.





> It will be for key industries including food processing, transport and the border force, the prime minister said at a Downing Street briefing.


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## LDC (Jan 4, 2022)

bimble said:


> thank you. So much less painful than watching him.



He's stumbling so badly and at length over the first question from the public, it's just painful to watch.


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## Numbers (Jan 4, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He's stumbling so badly and at length over the first question from the public, it's just painful to watch.


Isn’t it.


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## brogdale (Jan 4, 2022)

andysays said:


> Breaking story, so details being updated
> Covid: Workers in key industries to take daily tests, Boris Johnson says​


Their attachment to the talismanic 100k figure extends to virtually everything...apart from deaths.


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## Plumdaff (Jan 4, 2022)

bimble said:


> Just a pondering, does anyone know offhand where else in the world is still doing lateral flow tests free* for everyone & whenever you want one (if in stock)?
> (* at point of use obvs)


Looks like Austria and the Czech Republic are the only other European countries making them free to non-residents, a fair few other EU nations have them freely available to residents.


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## Throbbing Angel (Jan 4, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> He's stumbling so badly and at length over the first question from the public, it's just painful to watch.



Why is the O in the NOW of 'Get Boosted N*o*w' different?

MrsA reckons that it is supposed to represent a "jab hole".  Whaddya think?


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## Numbers (Jan 4, 2022)

I’m not rewinding it but is he actually saying Omnicron?


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## LDC (Jan 4, 2022)

Numbers said:


> Isn’t it.



It's like watching someone lose control of their bowels in front of a crowd, but them not realizing and they just keep standing there as everyone just cringes but can't stop watching.


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## LDC (Jan 4, 2022)

He's clearly been taking public speaking lessons from Priti Patel.


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## Storm Fox (Jan 4, 2022)

Throbbing Angel said:


> Why is the O in the NOW of 'Get Boosted N*o*w' different?
> 
> MrsA reckons that it is supposed to represent a "jab hole".  Whaddya think?


I think it's the greek letter omicron Ο

Because why not have a bilingual play on words in the middle of a pandemic. Jolly Japes you know.

Well I assume Johnson would actually have anything to do with the branding, not who know maybe it's his one input to the whole thing


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## Throbbing Angel (Jan 4, 2022)

Storm Fox said:


> I think it's the greek letter omicron Ο
> 
> Because why not have a bilingual play on words in the middle of a pandemic. Jolly Japes you know.
> 
> Well I assume Johnson would actually have anything to do with the branding, not who know maybe it's his one input to the whole thing



But why not the O's on Boosted.  It makes no fucking sense.


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## Sue (Jan 4, 2022)

Yes, thanks to the folk watching and translating. Even when I watch him, I can't actually remember what he's just said (probably because I'm filled with loathing or something) so getting the 'highlights' on here is super helpful.


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## Boudicca (Jan 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> I have heard it said that London has a population which is younger than the average for the country as a whole. So I'm asking if anybody has a nice source of data on that, perhaps a nice visualisation of it?


I had a quick look at ONS data, definitely less 65+ and more 20-39 in London.


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## bimble (Jan 4, 2022)

Throbbing Angel said:


> Why is the O in the NOW of 'Get Boosted N*o*w' different?
> 
> MrsA reckons that it is supposed to represent a "jab hole".  Whaddya think?
> 
> View attachment 304514


cos everyone likes hoola hoops.


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## Calamity1971 (Jan 4, 2022)




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## Sue (Jan 4, 2022)

Boudicca said:


> I had a quick look at ONS data, definitely less 65+ and more 20-39 in London.View attachment 304520


Suspect there's also quite a divide between inner and outer/suburban London.


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## Plumdaff (Jan 4, 2022)

If we're doing war metaphors, hasn't he just said he is going to recommend that we keep sending people over the top?


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## bemused (Jan 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> Imperial College modelling, of which plenty is available for past waves but not this current one (or at least I havent found any for current wave yet). I'll be very happy to get into loads of detail about this, but now is not a good time beyond what I've already said on this thread today. Could you remind me again in a few weeks? Maybe we need another dedicated thread for this topic. There has been at least one review of how well the initial modelling did, a necessary exercise because those with agendas have spewed vast amounts of misleading shit about this ever since.


I only ask because he draws a lot of criticism for his model, but I can't remember his model(s) ever being published allowing experts to critique them. What appears to happen is some of the scenarios in his model are published and they are then called 'the model'.


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## bemused (Jan 4, 2022)

Storm Fox said:


> I think the exemplar for this was the Y2K bug, where there were doom and gloom predictions of a lot of stuff failing, some over blown but a lot not. In the end nothing happened. So the fuckwits kick off in the papers saying what a load of scaremongering it all was; when in fact the reason nothing happened was that a lot of people spent a lot of time ensuring nothing happened and fixing code to correct the issue.


I did many hours working on y2k projects.


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## sparkybird (Jan 4, 2022)

bimble said:


> Just a pondering, does anyone know offhand where else in the world is still doing lateral flow tests free* for everyone & whenever you want one (if in stock)?
> (* at point of use obvs)


Not here in Spain. In the summer govt allowed them to be sold at farmacias. The cost over the last couple of weeks has varied from €4 to €7.5
Private tests at clinics are €30-40 for LFT and around €80 for PCR.
If you get a +ve home test LFT you're supposed to call the regional health authority, but it's overwhelmed and no one can get through. So some people just seem to stay at home, hopefully get better and nothing gets registered. Tough luck if you need a cert to be off work......
I actually think the UK system of reporting isn't doing too badly. Never thought I'd be saying that


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

bemused said:


> I only ask because he draws a lot of criticism for his model, but I can't remember his model(s) ever being published allowing experts to critique them. What appears to happen is some of the scenarios in his model are published and they are then called 'the model'.


I'm pretty sure that even the code was published, and was what we might expect given it was adapted from other sorts of diseases and involved years of fiddling around with somewhat crude legacy code. I have a background in development but I was not in a position to get the model running for myself. And a model is only as good as its inputs and the assumptions fed into it for different scenarios, and I would not have been qualified to get all of those right when evaluating it for myself.

The results of the first wave modelling have been reviewed, but I cannot find that stuff right now. It appears that the results were more than appropriate enough to guide policy in a sensible way if the political will was there, but there were some early mistakes with the modelling in the weeks before the original plan a was abandoned.  Some of the most glaring mistakes with interpreting data were fixed by mid-March, enabling a rapid policy u-turn at that time which then resulted in the first lockdown. Basically the expert establishment managed to get the wrong impression of how far advanced into the first wave we already were at the time, and this showed up really dramatically at one point when people on the internet and this forum had deduced we were about 11 days beind Italy, and then Vallance came on telly and claimed we were 4 weeks behind Italy. Within days they realised they had gotten that all wrong and we were already deep in the shit, so every subsequent press conference that month involved a scramble to adjust in a big way. I believe one of the problems was that the people feeding real, observed data into the modelling had not realised how laggy and incomplete the NHS data was in the early days. A estimate of the hospitalisation ratio may also have been belatedly changed in a notable way in March 2020 which led to the sudden realisation that anything less than a lockdown was not going to allow the numbers to stay within limits considered tolerable for the NHS.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jan 4, 2022)

bemused said:


> I did many hours working on y2k projects.


Why, there wasn't a problem 🤪


----------



## bemused (Jan 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> I'm pretty sure that even the code was published, and was what we might expect given it was adapted from other sorts of diseases and involved years of fiddling around with somewhat crude legacy code. I have a background in development but I was not in a position to get the model running for myself. And a model is only as good as its inputs and the assumptions fed into it for different scenarios, and I would not have been qualified to get all of those right when evaluating it for myself.
> 
> The results of the first wave modelling have been reviewed, but I cannot find that stuff right now. It appears that the results were more than appropriate enough to guide policy in a sensible way if the political will was there, but there were some early mistakes with the modelling in the weeks before the original plan a was abandoned.  Some of the most glaring mistakes with interpreting data were fixed by mid-March, enabling a rapid policy u-turn at that time which then resulted in the first lockdown. Basically the expert establishment managed to get the wrong impression of how far advanced into the first wave we already were at the time, and this showed up really dramatically at one point when people on the internet and this forum had deduced we were about 11 days beind Italy, and then Vallance came on telly and claimed we were 4 weeks behind Italy. I believe one of the problems was that the people feeding data into the modelling had not realised how laggy and incomplete the NHS data was in the early days. A estimate of the hospitalisation ratio may also have been belatedly changed in a notable way in March 2020 which led to the sudden realisation that anything less than a lockdown was not going to allow the numbers to stay within limits considered tolerable for the NHS.


Interesting, I work with retrodictive software to detect fraud. and the most common issue is the quality and veracity of the inputs.


----------



## bemused (Jan 4, 2022)

Storm Fox said:


> Why, there wasn't a problem 🤪


It was the dullest thing I did in my life, patching hell.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2022)

bemused said:


> It was the dullest thing I did in my life, patching hell.


you saved all our lives though


----------



## bemused (Jan 4, 2022)

two sheds said:


> you saved all our lives though


If it wasn't for me planes would have crashed into mountains and power plants around the world would have exploded. My super hero name is 'patching bitch'


----------



## Numbers (Jan 4, 2022)

bemused said:


> I did many hours working on y2k projects.


Ditto, and got paid ridiculous amounts of money to do so too.


----------



## miss direct (Jan 4, 2022)

bimble said:


> Just a pondering, does anyone know offhand where else in the world is still doing lateral flow tests free* for everyone & whenever you want one (if in stock)?
> (* at point of use obvs)


Free lateral flow tests don't exist in Turkey, and people there seemed both shocked and impressed when I told them about the system in the UK.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 4, 2022)

Sue said:


> Suspect there's also quite a divide between inner and outer/suburban London.


Probably even down to which street you live on.. if you can WFH or not.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

bemused said:


> Interesting, I work with retrodictive software to detect fraud. and the most common issue is the quality and veracity of the inputs.


In present times some of the biggest challenges with the modelling involve the messy picture of population immunity, and unknowns about the detail of variants.

At all stages the modellers have also prefered to focus on the impact of formal restrictions of various sorts and introduced on specific dates, rather than the vast unknowns that result from behavioural changes as a result of worsening mood music etc long before lockdowns were imposed. This is one of the reasons some are then able to criticise the worst case modelling, because the public actually pay attention and change their behaviours in ways that have some similarities to formal measures, but also some differences. These earlier changes in behaviour prevented some of the worst scenarios from taking place in full.

In the early days of the pandemic the real-world data being fed into the modelling was in a terrible state. A big reason why is that we did hardly any testing, and testing was restricted for too long to people that had a specific history of travel to places with known outbreaks such as China. Once we finally broadened the testing requirements so that at least people very ill in hospital who didnt have that travel history could be tested, we discovered that people had already been getting sick and dying and that there had been more community transmission than assumed. Then they had to slam on the brakes much sooner and harder than they had been indicating they would in prior press conferences. The penny really dropped around 13th-16th March 2020, and Imperial modelling was soon released to show the picture they were suddenly staring at.


----------



## klang (Jan 4, 2022)

bimble said:


> Just a pondering, does anyone know offhand where else in the world is still doing lateral flow tests free* for everyone & whenever you want one (if in stock)?
> (* at point of use obvs)


In Germany (well, at least in Bavaria), LFT's are free but have to be done at one of the official testing stations. They email you the results within 15mins or so. A negative result allows you into public pools, theatres, etc.
You can home LFT test, but a home testing kit costs a few euros and doesn't count for anything, officially.


----------



## bimble (Jan 4, 2022)

klang said:


> In Germany (well, at least in Bavaria), LFT's are free but have to be done at one of the official testing stations. They email you the results within 15mins or so. A negative result allows you into public pools, theatres, etc.
> You can home LFT test, but a home testing kit costs a few euros and doesn't count for anything, officially.


you're required to go to a test center before entering say a pool even if fully jabbed?
(Two years in and whilst mostly bored, the amazing variety of ways different countries have been dealing with it is still kind of fascinating.)


----------



## klang (Jan 4, 2022)

bimble said:


> you're required to go to a test center before entering say a pool even if fully jabbed?
> (Two years in and whilst mostly bored, the amazing variety of ways different countries have been dealing with it is still kind of fascinating.)


yes. a month ago anyway, rules might have changed since, but only a vaxx passport plus negative official lft plus id allowed you into a pool. They had such harsh rules to encourage people getting jabbed as vaxx uptake was pretty slow.
(same for non-essential shops and other leisure facilities)
(recovered from covid counts as one jab iirc)


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

Todays press conference was really something.

If we remove the fact that my sense of how best to 'ride out' this wave is not the same as this governments, and that Johnson is a shithead, the press conference was massively in tune with stuff I've been saying in recent days and weeks.

There was for example a lot of emphasis from Whitty and Vallance about not looking simply at the overall peak in cases, but in how things are going with the number of infections in older age groups.

And I nearly fell off my chair because at one point *Johnson mentioned nosocomial spread!*

Thats infections acquired in hospital, a subject that deserves a lot of attention. I give it a lot of attention all the way through the pandemic, the authorities give it plenty of attention privately, but as little as they can get away with publicly. Partly because its embarrassing and would create pressure to act in ways they dont want to act, partly because it puts people off going to hospital for other serious health emergencies and that has consequences. Whitty is particularly tuned to that last point, it forms part of his sense of balance and his duty, albeit in a way that has other consequences I'd like to avoid too. And since I am not the chief medical officer and do not have a large audience, I can go on about it in ways he will not do publicly.

Johnson actually managed not only to mention it, but to give it an even larger role in the data than it likely deserves! He mentioned it in connection with the whole 'in hospital because of covid' vs 'in hospital for other reasons but then tested positive for covid'. There was a slide about this in the press conference, but Whitty was very careful with his words when going through that slide. Johnson was not careful, and so he ended up suggesting that 25-30% of people in hospital with covid had caught it in hospital. Actually those figures are a mix of people who caught it in hospital, and people who caught it in the community before then going into hospital for other reasons. But Johnson didnt mention that, oops! I do not have the means to decode what proportion are down to hospital infections - it will be a lot, but it wont be all of them, so Johnson botched this bit. This more than compensates for the disgusting lack of attention this subject normally receives, but I dont know if the press will pick up on this, and plenty of viewers may not have met the word nosocomial before. Johnson will certainly have met it on numerous occasions in private briefings where experts feel less need to be guarded about this topic.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

And thank fuck they at least had journalists on a screen rather than sitting there in person like they did in briefings towards the end of last year.

Someone even asked a good question about proper masks for hospital staff, an ongoing scandal in this country, and one which has a relationship to the nosocomial spread stuff I've just been going on about.

Whitty was correct to say that there is an ongoing technical argument about that stuff. In my opinion the wrong side has come out on top of that debate within the UK establishment all the way through the pandemic so far.


----------



## sparkybird (Jan 4, 2022)

miss direct said:


> Free lateral flow tests don't exist in Turkey, and people there seemed both shocked and impressed when I told them about the system in the UK.


Likewise for my friends in Mexico and Guatemala. Private tests are relatively expensive so of course hardly anyone bothers.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

This sort of thing also happened with someone I know here in this town in the midlands, but that was some months ago during Delta pressures. He had a heart attack at work and the ambulance was taking too long so a colleague took him to the hospital by car instead. Someone there told them he would probably have died if they had waited instead.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> This sort of thing also happened with someone I know here in this town in the midlands, but that was some months ago during Delta pressures. He had a heart attack at work and the ambulance was taking too long so a colleague took him to the hospital by car instead. Someone there told them he would probably have died if they had waited instead.



Shocking as this is, it's not new. And particularly in rural areas. Doesn't stop it being shit, though, and if it is able to heap further culpability on this shitehouse of a government, then bring it on...


----------



## Dogsauce (Jan 4, 2022)

“We’re sorry you feel your hospitals are overwhelmed”


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

existentialist said:


> Shocking as this is, it's not new. And particularly in rural areas. Doesn't stop it being shit, though, and if it is able to heap further culpability on this shitehouse of a government, then bring it on...


Yeah. Its a pretty new thing in this pandemic for my town though, didnt used to happen pre-pandemic except on exceptionally rare occasions.

I've gone back and checked when it happened to the person I know. It was the 4th October.


----------



## smmudge (Jan 4, 2022)

sparkybird said:


> I actually think the UK system of reporting isn't doing too badly. Never thought I'd be saying that



I feel like the UK is good at 2 things really - stats and modelling. As to actually taking action and putting the health of the population before profit, not so much.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 4, 2022)

existentialist said:


> Shocking as this is, it's not new. And particularly in rural areas. Doesn't stop it being shit, though,


I have this crazy plan to retire to a peninsula with a half hour drive to the two nearest hospitals or a 5 minute helicopter flight. ... 

They do have local defibrillators though ...


----------



## Nine Bob Note (Jan 4, 2022)

Dogsauce said:


> “We’re sorry you feel your hospitals are overwhelmed”



Shame he couldn't have built more of them really, you know, as opposed to buying new carpets and curtains for the existing ones. In fact, given his taste in soft furnishings, new builds could have been cheaper.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 4, 2022)

He's built 40 new hospitals you ungrateful bastards


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

As well as the Johnson nosocomial spread comments I mentioned earlier, there were a couple of other issues with todays press conference.

Vallance accidentally mentioned 15,000 hospital cases a day, when thats the latest number in hospital beds in England, not daily admissions.

And some of Whittys remarks about self-isolation and testing have led to this sort of article:









						Prof Chris Whitty sparks confusion over England’s Covid self-isolation rules
					

Chief medical officer says people should isolate until testing negative, contradicting official guidance




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

I was tempted to ask Spiegelhalter about this weeks ago on twitter but I didnt bother, and people tend to wait till things like the percentage estimates for Omicron reinfection start to become available.

It finally popped up in the news agenda. Even the likes of Peston tried to seek change on this long before Omicron, once they realised reinfections werent included in the daily totals (though they are for Wales these days), but there wasnt big pressure to act that time around because reinfections werent such a big number, it didnt distort the daily figures too much in previous waves.









						Scientists call for Covid reinfections in UK to be included in case figures
					

Intervention comes as data shows up to 15% of Omicron cases among those who have had coronavirus before




					www.theguardian.com
				






> “The reinfection rate was fairly low with Delta, but is higher now, both because prior infection provides little protection against Omicron, and there is a bigger pool of people with prior infection,” said Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at the University of Cambridge.



They've left it too late to make the change quickly enough by the sounds of it, given the sprawling mass of data that probably bubbles beneath the surface. I'm not that impressed with the following excuse although as a nerd I can appreciate that the systems are probably ugly to work with. But if my life depended on it and I was in that position, I'm pretty sure I could jerry rig a solution quickly, even if it wasnt ideal. And this sort of thing should have been planned for a very long time ago.



> The Guardian understands the UKHSA is planning to include reinfections in case data from the end of the month, though Pagel – who is not involved with the dashboard –said the task is not simple.
> 
> “My understanding is that most of the complex, interlinked data tables that underlie the dashboard need to be changed to include reinfections and that is just a massive job,” she said.


----------



## prunus (Jan 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> I was tempted to ask Spiegelhalter about this weeks ago on twitter but I didnt bother, and people tend to wait till things like the percentage estimates for Omicron reinfection start to become available.
> 
> It finally popped up in the news agenda. Even the likes of Peston tried to seek change on this long before Omicron, once they realised reinfections werent included in the daily totals (though they are for Wales these days), but there wasnt big pressure to act that time around because reinfections werent such a big number, it didnt distort the daily figures too much in previous waves.
> 
> ...



Um, I can’t actually see how it could be difficult. Unless they’ve built it in Access or something.  Or it was designed by idio…. Oh, sorry, as you were.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

prunus said:


> Um, I can’t actually see how it could be difficult. Unless they’ve built it in Access or something.  Or it was designed by idio…. Oh, sorry, as you were.


I'd possibly be able to go much further with my comments if I knew what the structure and tech was like myself. But certainly its easy to imagine all sorts of ways to crudely work around this, even if it was only fit to be a temporary solution pending a more impressive update. Duplicate some tables so as not to risk messing up the originals (or use a dev copy of the system and data), add some fields, write and run some scripts to reprocess existing data as a result. Or depending on what sort of processing they do on raw data sources, if they are even in charge of that side of things within that system, there may be some relatively straightforward code changes that could get the job done.


----------



## prunus (Jan 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> I'd possibly be able to go much further with my comments if I knew what the structure and tech was like myself. But certainly its easy to imagine all sorts of ways to crudely work around this, even if it was only fit to be a temporary solution pending a more impressive update. Duplicate some tables so as not to risk messing up the originals (or use a dev copy of the system and data), add some fields, write and run some scripts to reprocess existing data as a result. Or depending on what sort of processing they do on raw data sources, if they are even in charge of that side of things within that system, there may be some relatively straightforward code changes that could get the job done.



Yes, I have found myself designing and maintaining databases for a living, by mistake, 20 years, man and boy etc. Something can always be kludged, especially if it’s output only (like the dashboard).  

My blindness is that it’s not clear to me how one could structure the data in the first place such that adding an A/not-A/all filter on a binary* attribute wouldn’t be close to trivial. In fact in many (perfectly sensible) structures it would be harder to exclude 2nd and subsequent infections. But maybe I’m lacking in imagination. 

* even if it’s an ordinal or first-count it’s still going to be A/not-A at the output I guess.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

prunus said:


> Yes, I have found myself designing and maintaining databases for a living, by mistake, 20 years, man and boy etc. Something can always be kludged, especially if it’s output only (like the dashboard).
> 
> My blindness is that it’s not clear to me how one could structure the data in the first place such that adding an A/not-A/all filter on a binary* attribute wouldn’t be close to trivial. In fact in many (perfectly sensible) structures it would be harder to exclude 2nd and subsequent infections. But maybe I’m lacking in imagination.
> 
> * even if it’s an ordinal or first-count it’s still going to be A/not-A at the output I guess.


Yeah. I need to know more about source data and how it is processed.

We know that at one stage the data got truncated because they were using a spreadsheet, so thats not a promising sign of how things used to be. Although maybe that was for deaths, I cant remember.

If they've got raw data thats linked to individuals then they need to change their scripts that currently only allow one individual to show up once, the first time, in the simplified output from that processing. How this is then represented in tables that are exposed to the public via graphs and data downloads is another matter, more than one way to do it, most of which are probably trivial in some ways and slightly hellish to develop in others. I dont even know what they have in mind for how they present this data, probably via some specific graphs, but these reinfections should also be a part of the main headline totals by date of reporting and date of test specimen.

Wales doesnt have this limitation, adn their resulting data is used on the main UK dashboard. They decided to define a single episode of someone catching covid by using a 6 week window. I've been trying to find out how long ago they made this change. I havent succeeded, maybe they did this since the start or quite early on, but I at least discovered that this is described in a document that says it hasnt been updated since August 2020:



> Individuals may be tested more than once for COVID-19 for numerous reasons. A testing episode is a six-week period starting from the date of the first sample taken from the patient. Individuals who are tested multiple times during a six-week period are only counted once during that period.
> 
> If any of the test results for the individual are positive then that is the result which is presented. If an individual tests positive more than once during the six-week period then this is still recorded as only one new case.
> 
> Any tests which occur more than six weeks after the initial test will trigger a new testing episode.











						Understanding data on coronavirus (COVID-19) testing | GOV.WALES
					

COVID-19 testing aims to identify those who are currently infected by the virus through a swab test or to identify those who have been exposed to the virus through an antibody test.




					gov.wales
				




I do much prefer the user interface of the main UK dashboard and the range of things it shows, compared to the tableau ones the likes of the Welsh government use ( https://public.tableau.com/app/prof.../RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary )


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Sad excuse for a human being


I'm *really* glad, now, that the once-widely-spread local rumour that she was going to take over and manage the longtime-defunct former Adan  & Eve further up the High Street nearer the station, never came about.

At the moment the place, which still has the pub sign saying 'The Last Resort' (briefly excellent bar ... ), has become something under a different name,  'The Hippo Bar'

Which sounds really fucking crap 

*But* a mate of ours, who may once have 'known some people' more 'nvolved'  with weed dealing many years ago , has taken over, and he's started to be pretty cool at sourcing good beer. For now, just on electric fizz-machine pumps, but the beers were far from bad last week .... Tiny Rebel was included ...

And once trade ends up recovering, he plans to  revive the actual cellar and handpumps with class Welsh ales such as Greytrees and Gower, plus even better imports ......

For now though, he's *closed* the place  -- insufficient staff to do table service, and he's a one-man boss ....

Still, he  reckons Drakeford will cease or at least reduce the current Welsh rules by early-to-mid-February.

That, for the time being, seems fairly plausible in Wales IMO 

(Apologies for derail ....    )


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

Dogsauce said:


> “We’re sorry you feel your hospitals are overwhelmed”


That side of todays press conference was hugely depressing.

The press werent exactly convinced by it either, judging by many of the questions.

I'd be going far more nuts about this if I hadnt been prepared for it for so long. That doesnt help much, but at least it wasnt a shock. I tiwll probably take me longer to get over some of the attitudes expressed here in recent weeks.


----------



## Mation (Jan 4, 2022)

prunus said:


> Yes, I have found myself designing and maintaining databases for a living, by mistake, 20 years, man and boy etc. Something can always be kludged, especially if it’s output only (like the dashboard).
> 
> My blindness is that it’s not clear to me how one could structure the data in the first place such that adding an A/not-A/all filter on a binary* attribute wouldn’t be close to trivial. In fact in many (perfectly sensible) structures it would be harder to exclude 2nd and subsequent infections. But maybe I’m lacking in imagination.
> 
> * even if it’s an ordinal or first-count it’s still going to be A/not-A at the output I guess.


I'd guess that either the data haven't been captured consistently, or that they have, but that publishing an analysis would reveal some other fuck up.


----------



## elbows (Jan 4, 2022)

They've got some forms of the data because they do reinfection reports, but only monthly in recent times. And those reports will show a large leap in the Omicron wave. I'll point one out next time its updated.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 5, 2022)

For the first time in my life I found myself thinking 'I hope I don't need the hospital any time soon.' I mean obviously we all hope that but for reasons of health. I've never thought it for fear of having to wait 12 hours in a packed waiting room or queuing ambulance, if I'm lucky, to get seen by over stressed and exhausted staff. 

I was listening to nursing staff phoning the radio yesterday and every one that called in said that things have either been overwhelmed or are on the verge of being overwhelmed.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 5, 2022)

It would be catastrophic to release information that would put massive numbers of people off attending hospital that need care as they will ultimately end up there anyway in a far worse condition putting way more pressure on nursing teams than if they attended when their condition was manageable. Straight to ICU don't pass go.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 5, 2022)

prunus said:


> Yes, I have found myself designing and maintaining databases for a living, by mistake, 20 years, man and boy etc. Something can always be kludged, especially if it’s output only (like the dashboard).
> 
> My blindness is that it’s not clear to me how one could structure the data in the first place such that adding an A/not-A/all filter on a binary* attribute wouldn’t be close to trivial. In fact in many (perfectly sensible) structures it would be harder to exclude 2nd and subsequent infections. But maybe I’m lacking in imagination.
> 
> * even if it’s an ordinal or first-count it’s still going to be A/not-A at the output I guess.


I did databases for a living, and my suspicion is that they've probably - as so many do - designed the database appallingly, without any appropriate normalisation that would enable subtle changes to data structure to be made without horrific restructuring of existing data. Towards the end, most of my DB work was trying to untangle the shitty mess that previous design assumptions had led to. And that wasn't in the public sector, which I suspect is 10x worse.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 5, 2022)

Test kits Shrinking like Mars bars


----------



## existentialist (Jan 5, 2022)

IC3D said:


> Test kits Shrinking like Mars bars


And?


----------



## IC3D (Jan 5, 2022)

existentialist said:


> And?


That's the joke


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Looks like a good way to enable the royal mail etc to deliver more of them to me. And/or they ran out of larger boxes and managed to source some smaller ones.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 5, 2022)

wait until you see what's been happening to computers over the last 50 years


----------



## IC3D (Jan 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> Looks like a good way to enable the royal mail etc to deliver more of them to me. And/or they ran out of larger boxes and managed to source some smaller ones.


There are less tests in the kit and they are for NHS staff to test before going on shift so many wtfs shared


----------



## two sheds (Jan 5, 2022)

IC3D said:


> There are less tests in the kit and they are for NHS staff to test before going on shift so many wtfs shared


who's going to ?


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

IC3D said:


> It would be catastrophic to release information that would put massive numbers of people off attending hospital that need care as they will ultimately end up there anyway in a far worse condition putting way more pressure on nursing teams than if they attended when their condition was manageable. Straight to ICU don't pass go.


That happened a lot already, especially in the first wave. It was down to a few factors - plenty of people figures out that hospital spread was a thing, but also the central 'stay home, protect the NHS' message caused some people to go to extremes, deciding not to seek medical intervention in order to reduce the NHS burden. Plus some people get very scared at needing to go to hospital anyway, and an excuse to ignore it and hope they recover anyway had some appeal. Plus the authorities didnt put a brilliant system for evaluating people remotely in place, the telephone triage wasnt very good, and things were deliberately put in place to reduce demand during the peak. They may have been expecting the first wave to be even larger than it was, so they went overboard with demand destruction. People were also not given much information about what some of the extreme danger signs were in regards catastrophic complications of having blood oxygen levels that were too low, and some people that did seek late intervention were still not admitted anyway.

That awful picture is rather visible in certain first wave data, most obviously the deaths from all causes during the period, which really stands out for the first wave in ways that were not the same in subsequent waves, not even the awful 2nd wave.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 5, 2022)

IC3D said:


> There are less tests in the kit and they are for NHS staff to test before going on shift so many wtfs shared


How many?


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## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

By sizes in the photo alone, perhaps they have halved the number of included tests per pack?


----------



## andysays (Jan 5, 2022)

IC3D said:


> There are less tests in the kit and they are for NHS staff to test before going on shift so many wtfs shared


*Fewer   

 *


----------



## two sheds (Jan 5, 2022)

andysays said:


> *Fewer  *
> 
> **


thank you


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> By sizes in the photo alone, perhaps they have halved the number of included tests per pack?


That would be a bit fucking daft


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> That would be a bit fucking daft


Its not necessarily a bad way to adjust a system to cope with supply/demand issues, but only so long as a continual dribble of the modified supply can reach the right people at the right time not to leave a different sort of gap in their ability to test.


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## _Russ_ (Jan 5, 2022)

...Whoosh


----------



## prunus (Jan 5, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> That would be a bit fucking daft



Yeah. The old kits had 7 in. Who needs half a kit? ✊


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## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Fair enough.

Anyway it wont surprise anyone to know that the way I would ideally handle such issues is by not allowing a wave to go beyond a certain size in the first place.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

two sheds said:


> wait until you see what's been happening to computers over the last 50 years



Especially monitors!


----------



## Plumdaff (Jan 5, 2022)

The test positivity rate in Wales between Christmas and New Year was 51.6%


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

IC3D said:


> It would be catastrophic to release information that would put massive numbers of people off attending hospital that need care as they will ultimately end up there anyway in a far worse condition putting way more pressure on nursing teams than if they attended when their condition was manageable. Straight to ICU don't pass go.


By the way, Wales had no problem putting hospital covid infections on their dashboard.



Some data for England is released by NHS England too, but in convoluted form and not via graphs on the main UK dashboard.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 5, 2022)

Those smaller kits are what they hand out to the kids at school here.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 5, 2022)

Not the ones Wales has generously donated? (Scotland too?)


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

I see that in Scotland the usual pandemic politics are trying to be made out of 'in hospital for covid' vs 'in hospital with covid', with some squabble about when this data is actually going to be made available there. Its useful to see that data but I hate the way some try to use to to stretch points too far, and both sorts add up to pressure on hospitals, just somewhat different sorts of pressure. Apparently some want to use it now to undermine the slightly stronger restrictions that Scotland currently has in place.

The Guardian live updates page has been going on about it today, eg                                    36m ago                            13:28                          and                                    8m ago                            13:56


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

I watched Sturgeons statement.

They are now making the change to self-isolation period, down to 7 days as long as you test negative twice in the final days.

They are also doing the changes to self-isolation of close contacts, stuff they had previously resisted changing.

And they are also doing the thing which is being talked about for England today, removing the need for a confirmatory PCR test if you test positive on a LFT but have no symptoms. Unlike what is being suggested about the timing of this change in England, they are making this change from midnight tonight.

Sturgeon also mentioned discussions with the rest of the UK in regarding certain testing requirements for travel, which we have also heard about in the press today in regards the UK governments approach to that.

So various things in Scotland are now going to be more closely aligned to the rules in England again.

She also spoke about developing in the coming weeks their future strategic plan for dealing with the virus going forwards, dealing with it longer term once this Omicron wave has subsided. Again I expect this to have some things in common with whatever the UK government approach for 2022 turns out to be, but perhaps we may even get to hear about some of these changes via the Scottish government first. I think its inevitable that plenty of these changes will involve reducing disruption, changing the balance, given the evolution of the virus, the number of people already infected, the number of vaccines given, and the evolved picture of hospital pressure at this stage of the pandemic. I have some hope that a lot of these changes will end up being appropriate, so I'm not expecting to be moaning about all of them, since even I will move on gradually in this pandemic as the phase and risk picture changes.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

There should have been legislation to make the Covid response cover the whole of the UK right from the start.

The Scottish bollocks has hit hospitality so hard that many establishments will not reopen, whilst Carlisle, Berwick, Newcastle etc had a booming New Year partly through the hordes of Scots that went there.


----------



## ddraig (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> There should have been legislation to make the Covid response cover the whole of the UK right from the start.
> 
> The Scottish bollocks has hit hospitality so hard that many establishments will not reopen, whilst Carlisle, Berwick, Newcastle etc had a booming New Year partly through the hordes of Scots that went there.


What's more worth saving, lives or businesses?


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> There should have been legislation to make the Covid response cover the whole of the UK right from the start.
> 
> The Scottish bollocks has hit hospitality so hard that many establishments will not reopen, whilst Carlisle, Berwick, Newcastle etc had a booming New Year partly through the hordes of Scots that went there.


The pandemic is often just about partisan party politics as usual for you.

If your idea was applied in such a way as that Sturgeon would have been in charge of UK pandemic press conferences rather than Johnson, I might have supported it.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

And I'm not a giant fan of the SNP, I just think her public communication during the pandemic hit the right notes so much more often than Johnsons did.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)




----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> And I'm not a giant fan of the SNP, I just think her public communication during the pandemic hit the right notes so much more often than Johnsons did.



The response should have been for all of the UK, and not delivered by a politician.


----------



## killer b (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> The response should have been for all of the UK, and not delivered by a politician.


who should have delivered it?


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> The response should have been for all of the UK, and not delivered by a politician.


I dont agree since I havent been against devolution of health matters. However there are problems with the current setup in terms of the power to raise funds to implement different policies in different nations of the UK.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> The pandemic is often just about partisan party politics as usual for you.
> 
> If your idea was applied in such a way as that Sturgeon would have been in charge of UK pandemic press conferences rather than Johnson, I might have supported it.



Are you saaying that Sturgeon's response, which was different from England, has not seriously harmed the hospitality industry? If that is your stance, I can assure you that it has. There were dozens of business owners interviewed on the *STV *news who were seriously doubting if the business would survive. New Year is the time that pays for the flat Jan and Feb.

STV benefits from about £20m of Scottish government advertising each year, and as result has become the house organ of the SNP. So for STV to be highlighting this, the situation is serious.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

I'm not a big fan of nations and figureheads at all.

But since we have a system with figureheads, its expected that the biggest ones get to delivery such messages.

In a pandemic that could be managed by medical interventions alone, its easier to imagine those with responsibility for health doing most of the messaging. But this pandemic intruded into all aspect of life and thats bound to involve politicians and all manner of non-health policy areas.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

killer b said:


> who should have delivered it?



A subject matter expert.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> Are you saaying that Sturgeon's response, which was different from England, has not seriously harmed the hospitality industry? If that is your stance, I can assure you that it has. There were dozens of business owners interviewed on the *STV *news who were seriously doubting if the business would survive. New Year is the time that pays for the flat Jan and Feb.
> 
> STV benefits from about £20m of Scottish government advertising each year, and as result has become the house organ of the SNP. So for STV to be highlighting this, the situation is serious.


As Sturgeon pointed out just weeks ago, during large waves the choice is not between magically making the problem vanish or taking strong action. Its a choice between trying to manage things in a controlled way with proper financial support for those affected, or just letting things rip in a way that is uncontrolled and messy with big gaps in financial support.


----------



## killer b (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> A subject matter expert.


who decides which subject matter expert gets the job?


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> *I don't agree since I haven't been against devolution of health matters*. *However there are problems with the current setup in terms of the power to raise funds to implement different policies in different nations of the UK.*



Somewhat of a contradictory statement there.


----------



## mwgdrwg (Jan 5, 2022)

killer b said:


> who should have delivered it?



Ant & Dec


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> A subject matter expert.


Chief Medical Officers are not experts in the financial plight of the nighttime economy.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> A subject matter expert.



The subject here being 'expert in virology' or 'expert in the economics of the hospitality industry'?


----------



## killer b (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> Are you saaying that Sturgeon's response, which was different from England, has not seriously harmed the hospitality industry? If that is your stance, I can assure you that it has. There were dozens of business owners interviewed on the *STV *news who were seriously doubting if the business would survive. New Year is the time that pays for the flat Jan and Feb.


the same is true in much of England - December has been a total washout for the licensed trade here.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> Somewhat of a contradictory statement there.


The contradiction is solved by giving the individual nations more powers to borrow money themselves rather than having to rely on the central UK government.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> The subject here being 'expert in virology' or 'expert in the economics of the hospitality industry'?


 Virology, epidemiology...


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

killer b said:


> the same is true in much of England - December has been a total washout for the licensed trade here.


I lost track of how much support the government is providing to affected businesses in England compared to what the Scottish regime have tried to offer. I know Sturgeon wanted more and was not impressed by some of the stunts the treasury pulled by reannouncing money that Scotland was already expecting. And I know that support for workers has been extra shit this time.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> The contradiction is solved by giving the individual nations more powers to borrow money themselves rather than having to rely on the central UK government.



You must be joking!


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> I lost track of how much support the government is prviding to affected businesses in England compared to what the Scottish regime have tried to offer. I know Sturgeon wanted more and was not impressed by some of the stunts the treasury pulled by reannouncing money that Scotland was already expecting.



You could give Sturgeon the entire GDP in cash and she would whine that it wasn't in Scottish bank notes.


----------



## klang (Jan 5, 2022)

killer b said:


> who should have delivered it?





mwgdrwg said:


> Ant & Dec


My vote goes to Noddy.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> You must be joking!


No, we just have very different opinions about all sorts of matters, its not a joke, its just a very different approach where we will rarely see eye to eye. Politics as usual.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> You could give Sturgeon the entire GDP in cash and she would whine that it wasn't in Scottish bank notes.


Like I said earlier, the usual pre-pandemic politics infecting your opinion on pandemic matters.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> No, we just have very different opinions about all sorts of matters, its not a joke, its just a very different approach where we will rarely see eye to eye. Politics as usual.



You are absolutely superb with regard to interpreting what is happening re the virus. On Scottish politics? Not so much.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Jan 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> Like I said earlier, the usual pre-pandemic politics infecting your opinion on pandemic matters.



Are you aware of Sturgeon's comment that it was older people who were opposing independence, but time was on her side? A nasty comment from a nasty person.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Speaking of politics, I have skipped over PMQs today but am now forcing myself to watch Johnsons covid statement to parliament. I'll only draw attention to anything that seems any different to what he said in yesterdays press conference.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> Are you aware of Sturgeon's comment that it was older people who were opposing independence, but time was on her side? A nasty comment from a nasty person.


I'm not asking you to magically change your opinion of her or her party. I was just pointing out that this is the usual political argument which remains relatively unchanged by the pandemic itself. Save it for other threads eh.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Johnson is happy to mention again some large hospital number rises when it means he can use it to stop his own party calling for an end to current restrictions.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Pickman's model I think Johnson is scaling up the penguin plan, as a slip of the tongue caused him to mention how they have enabled millions of people to get tasted.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

He didnt say anything extra apaprt from mentioning some of the changes that came up in the news today, such as changes to the travel testing regime.

Rayner responded by saying that in regards 'riding the Omicron wave', the NHS isnt surfing, its struggling to stay afloat. Then moves on to broader points about the erosion of the NHS before the pandemic.


----------



## bimble (Jan 5, 2022)

1 in 10 Londoners had covid last week!  thats quite incredible. 








						Almost 200,000 new Covid cases reported in UK
					

Latest data comes as infection survey reveals one in 10 Londoners had coronavirus last week




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Smangus (Jan 5, 2022)

Sasaferrato said:


> Are you saaying that Sturgeon's response, which was different from England, has not seriously harmed the hospitality industry? If that is your stance, I can assure you that it has. There were dozens of business owners interviewed on the *STV *news who were seriously doubting if the business would survive. New Year is the time that pays for the flat Jan and Feb.
> 
> STV benefits from about £20m of Scottish government advertising each year, and as result has become the house organ of the SNP. So for STV to be highlighting this, the situation is serious.



Probably best we give them independence and let them get on with it then.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 5, 2022)

by the by, speaking in general terms rather than statistically, it feels like johnson's gamble has already failed.  Even if things don't get worse the fact that so many trusts are close to breakdown means they got too close to the wire.  That it's got so close to disaster means they should have done more and earlier.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 5, 2022)

Wilf said:


> by the by, speaking in general terms rather than statistically, it feels like johnson's gamble has already failed.  Even if things don't get worse the fact that so many trusts are close to breakdown means they got too close to the wire.  That it's got so close to disaster means they should have done more and earlier.



That's not really the gamble he's making is it though. He's chancing it on being able to get through this without enough pressure being brought on him to sort it the fuck out that he has to try and react to that and face up to the Tory right wing who might well kick him out as a result. So far he'll feel he's winning.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 5, 2022)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> That's not really the gamble he's making is it though. He's chancing it on being able to get through this without enough pressure being brought on him to sort it the fuck out that he has to try and react to that and face up to the Tory right wing who might well kick him out as a result. So far he'll feel he's winning.


He even thinks there's a win there as well, being able to say 'we kept our nerve when others were calling for restrictions, and we were right'.  The chances of that happening are real, but receding rapidly.  But yes, as you say this is about johnson's weakness in his own party.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 5, 2022)

The twat in charge seems to have forgotten nurses can't work from home and get sick like everyone else. At least the ffp3 masks are available after 2 fucking years of this bollocks


----------



## Spandex (Jan 5, 2022)

Wilf said:


> by the by, speaking in general terms rather than statistically, it feels like johnson's gamble has already failed.  Even if things don't get worse the fact that so many trusts are close to breakdown means they got too close to the wire.  That it's got so close to disaster means they should have done more and earlier.


Johnson's gamble was that the early anecdata from South Africa that Omicron was milder would be borne out. So far it looks like he (and we) will get away without a repeat of last winter. As cases have rocketed, ICU and death stats have barely moved. Hospital admissions continue to rise but new cases seem to have plateaued in London, so hopefully will everywhere else in the next couple of weeks. January currently looks like chaos instead of carnage. 

How bad the chaos gets, how badly hit the NHS, schools and everything else gets still has to play out. But I think many people will put up with a lot of chaos to avoid another lockdown, in a way they wouldn't put up with thousands of people dying every day. I'm sure there'll be plenty of politics and debate around how bad things are, but unless it gets really bad, or death rates start rising significantly, Johnson will aim to ride it out.

Doesn't mean I think his gamble was right. It could easily have gone the other way, with an 'oh shit' realisation that it wasn't significantly milder once it was too late to do anything about it. If he does get away with it he'll crow like a 12 pint deep drunk getting out of their slightly scraped car having driven home and shouting 'look, I told you I was safe to drive'.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Yes. Although it wasnt just about inherent properties of Omicron severity, but also how well vaccines would hold up. And they were lucky in that a large booster programme was already well underway for non-Omicron reasons, so they could accelerate that to take a chunk of the strain.

Plus the timing of school holidays worked somewhat in their favour. And they had resisted doing plan B earlier, so that was another set of stuff they could do so as to be seen to be doing something when things took a turn for the worse. And they relied heavily on grim mood music at a key stage, and the fact we hadnt scrapped mass testing or self-isolation before Omicron arrived. Chuck in appeals to work from home and we still ended up with something equivalent to a very weak lockdown in some ways, with associated damage to the hospitality industry etc. If the balance of coping turns out to be delicate, then peoples voluntary behavioural changes enabled the balancing act to just about work out.

A bunch of unknowns remain, some of which are due to greater uncertainty about data over the holiday period. And obviously the school holiday advantage has now ended. And the Delta wave didnt meet all of their hopes, so we have to see whether Omicron causes a repeat of any problems in terms of a relatively high level of infections persisting long after the peak, rather than the constant declines we saw when we had lockdowns. I expect the hope is that the sheer number of people infected with Omicron during the main peak part of the wave will help things to fall to a much lower level once that period ends. If that doesnt happen and things then drag on, then there could come a point where they become nervous about vaccine effect waning in those who had their boosters longest ago.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

For example the holiday season means I cannot simply use mobility data to cleanly prove a point about massive behavioural changes.

But all the same, looking at the following sort of mobility data from Google we can see that things were not back to the old normal before Omicron, and that Omicron behavioural changes and normal Christmas changes to behaviour have temporary impacts that arent subtle.

For 2022 to be a much larger journey back to the old normal, we need not just to have managed to cope witht he Omicron wave, but to have changed the picture of the potential the virus still has, so that we can actually get away with returning to the old normal sustainably in future. Its not just about whether we can get away without strong lockdowns or not.










						COVID-19 Community Mobility Report
					

See how your community is moving around differently due to COVID-19



					www.google.com


----------



## Mation (Jan 5, 2022)

Today in the UK: 343 new deaths 

Does that include a backlog?


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Yes there are big backlogs at the moment, equivalent to longer than normal weekend backlogs, and some other forms of temporary non-reporting.

If the deaths by actual date of death ever change notably in this wave, I'm sure people will talk about it.

Patients in mechanical ventilator beds figures tended to trend in the same ways with similar timing in past waves, and those havent done anything horrible this time around either.


----------



## elbows (Jan 5, 2022)

Also in regards whether Johnsons gamble will work or not, I'm still at least two days data away from providing updated thoughts on the hospital picture, but in the meantime:





Its a rather long twitter thread with other interesting details but I only posted a fraction of it.


----------



## Humberto (Jan 6, 2022)

NHS staff have been and are now suffering, Totally out of order Johnson, when he struggles to get 'Plan B' through with a backbench of Wackford Squeers amplifying misinformation.

Ministers must act now on NHS staffing crisis, health chiefs warn


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 6, 2022)

IC3D said:


> Test kits Shrinking like Mars bars


The latest ones we have at work are massive packs of 25 with confusing instructions. We previously had the Forex nasals in packs of 7 and a later cheap Chinese analogue version which does the same. Before that we just   had the NHS branded old school double penetration tests that i only ever managed to use properly on two occasions before giving up and waiting for the nasal only LFTs  As for the 25-packs that must have been redirected from nursing homes (cos who gives a fuck about gasping codgers being deaded, eh?)c they offer a variety of testing options - nasal, mouth or sputum (coughing phlegm into a small beaker). The instructions are a bit tl;dr but I think you only need to do one of those to get a reliable result. I choose to get fucked in the nostril. Would rather not cough a loogie into a container that looks like a shot glass. I can do that in a shitty cocktail bar for free.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 6, 2022)

LFTs are currently orderable online if anyone needs them.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 6, 2022)

Too little, too late ?









						Covid-19: Hundreds of maskless London Underground passengers fined
					

Compulsory face coverings were reinstated amid rising concerns about the Omicron variant.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Mation (Jan 6, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Too little, too late ?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Better late than never.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 6, 2022)

I think you can obviously say it should have done much earlier but it doesn't make it pointless now IMO. It's about the message more than anything isn't it. Previously the message has been 'weeeelll, technically you should wear a mask but if you don't then meh' so this is about changing that. The message 'yes this actually something you have to do' is more important than the actual threat of a fine I think.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 6, 2022)

Oh, absolutely.

I was seriously p155ed off with the removal of the mask mandates last year ... and I am not that impressed with the overall lack of restrictions in response to Omicron. I base that opinion on the differences in age profiles as the UK has a distinctly aging population.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 6, 2022)

Another, thank g+d, at long last :









						Covid: Anti-vaccine campaigns are mumbo jumbo, says PM
					

Boris Johnson says it is time for him to call out those spreading false information on Covid jabs.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




some of these CTs have been left to fester for far, far too long ...
but whether having depiffle pour scorn on them will have any affect at all will be interesting to see.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Another, thank g+d, at long last :
> 
> 
> 
> ...





> *Boris Johnson has accused anti-vaccine campaigners of speaking "mumbo jumbo"*



Well, he should know, when it comes to speaking "mumbo jumbo".


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2022)

He is still desperately wanking on about moving staff from one hospital to another in that piece.


----------



## LDC (Jan 6, 2022)

elbows said:


> He is still desperately wanking on about moving staff from one hospital to another in that piece.



The epitome of re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.


----------



## Numbers (Jan 6, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> Well, he should know, when it comes to speaking "mumbo jumbo".


He prob' wouldn't even get his mumbo jumbo right, more 'er...umb...er..mum...er...jumb...mumbo...er...munj...er...jumbo'


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2022)

The origins of the word are compatible with Johnsons worldview and the colonial view of parts of Africa.









						Mumbo jumbo (phrase) - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## brogdale (Jan 6, 2022)

another 231 deaths today 

at this rate the (lower) total will be 150k within a couple of days.


----------



## killer b (Jan 6, 2022)

brogdale said:


> another 231 deaths today
> 
> at this rate the (lower) total will be 150k within a couple of days.


Aren't daily numbers even more unreliable a guide to how things are going than usual atm because of Christmas reporting delays?


----------



## emanymton (Jan 6, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Too little, too late ?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


How thick must you be to 
a) not wear a mask, and
B) to not say you are exempt when challenged.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 6, 2022)

killer b said:


> Aren't daily numbers even more unreliable a guide to how things are going than usual atm because of Christmas reporting delays?


Quite possibly but I wasn't really commenting on the reliability of the number...just how fucking sad it is to keep seeing such a high death toll.


----------



## sojourner (Jan 6, 2022)

There was something on the news the other day about building new Nightingale hospitals. Wtf happened to the existing ones?


----------



## killer b (Jan 6, 2022)

brogdale said:


> Quite possibly but I wasn't really commenting on the reliability of the number...just how fucking sad it is to keep seeing such a high death toll.


What did you mean when you said in the same post 'at this rate the (lower) total will be 150k within a couple of days.' then?  That would require the numbers to be reliable and sustained/increasing over the next few days.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2022)

sojourner said:


> There was something on the news the other day about building new Nightingale hospitals. Wtf happened to the existing ones?



What existing ones?

I assume you mean the ones set-up back in 2020, and decommissioned between late 2020 & early 2021.

The new ones are actually 'Nightingale Hubs', much smaller & on existing hospital sites, but like before, no one can explain where staff would from to run them.


----------



## sojourner (Jan 6, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> What existing ones?
> 
> I assume you mean the ones set-up back in 2020, and decommissioned between late 2020 & early 2021.


I didn't know they'd been decommissioned, clearly.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 6, 2022)

killer b said:


> What did you mean when you said in the same post 'at this rate the (lower) total will be 150k within a couple of days.' then?  That would require the numbers to be reliable and sustained/increasing over the next few days.


Really not here to argue today, thanks.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 6, 2022)

killer b said:


> What did you mean when you said in the same post 'at this rate the (lower) total will be 150k within a couple of days.' then?  That would require the numbers to be reliable and sustained/increasing over the next few days.



The current deaths within 28 days of positive test is 149,515, so not unreasonable to think it will hit 150k in the next few days.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> What existing ones?
> 
> I assume you mean the ones set-up back in 2020, and decommissioned between late 2020 & early 2021.
> 
> The new ones are actually 'Nightingale Hubs', much smaller & on existing hospital sites, but like before, no one can explain where staff would from to run them.


I see the current ones as being more akin to increasing capacity for patients that are near the end of their hospital stay or are basically ready for discharge but with nowhere to go.

Staffing still an issue, but slightly different staffing needs for this setup, something it would be possible to fudge with a bit more success than the original ones.

Not clear these will be needed much either. Explosive growth has not returned to the hospital data overall yet, and maybe it isnt going to, there are all manner of potential peak indicators starting to show up with increased clarity in recent days. But its not completely clear if that is also true for the North of England which saw some of the most alarming growth recently. And there might still be exceptions for specific hospital trusts. And there are no clear signs as yet as to what extent the slower, constant grinding pressure will be sustained for too long. We are still at least one days worth of data away from me updating my graphs, but hopefully tomorrows figures for England wont destroy the description I just gave.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> The current deaths within 28 days of positive test is 149,515, so not unreasonable to think it will hit 150k in the next few days.


And there is no real doubt that that version of the numbers was especially badly affected by circumstances in the first wave, including late discovery of what stage we were at with the wave, lack of testing etc.

I still prefer the figures where Covid is mentioned on the death certificate, a number that is bound to reach 175,000 at some point in the coming weeks. Excess deaths in the first wave imply this isnt quite the right number either. What number we come out with obviously depends on the definition used, but to my mind, when trying hardest not to leave anybody out, I expect the 'true' figure will be closer to 200,000 at some stage that isnt hugely far away. But thats not the same as how many more deaths we've had in total during the pandemic compared to what would have been expected without the pandemic, because there were also quite a lot of deaths that didnt happen during certain periods, due to a lack of flu etc, and some periods of greatly reduced economic activity.


----------



## killer b (Jan 6, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> The current deaths within 28 days of positive test is 149,515, so not unreasonable to think it will hit 150k in the next few days.


I was challenging the extrapolation of a single day's data to make that calculation, as you know. the numbers are artificially high today, like they were artificially low a couple of days ago. I didn't see anyone posting about how great it was the numbers were coming right down on the 4th, when there was 49 reported.


----------



## elbows (Jan 6, 2022)

I lost track of who I told I'd mention reinfections to again once the latest UK data on that was out, and on which thread.

But anyway, it came out.


----------



## AverageJoe (Jan 6, 2022)

Have we had the news that Bra maker Michelle Mone and her husband might have secured a £200million deal for providing Covid stuff when this started?









						Tory peer Michelle Mone secretly involved in PPE firm she referred to government
					

Exclusive: Leaked files suggest Mone and her husband were involved in business given £200m contracts




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Wilf (Jan 6, 2022)

killer b said:


> I was challenging the extrapolation of a single day's data to make that calculation, as you know. the numbers are artificially high today, like they were artificially low a couple of days ago. I didn't see anyone posting about how great it was the numbers were coming right down on the 4th, when there was 49 reported.


But then, responding to ongoing large scale death and misery shouldn't be treated as a form of emotional double entry book keeping.


----------



## killer b (Jan 6, 2022)

Wilf said:


> But then, responding to ongoing large scale death and misery shouldn't be treated as a form of emotional double entry book keeping.


I don't know what that means sorry wilf.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 6, 2022)

killer b said:


> I don't know what that means sorry wilf.


That people get upset and angry about ongoing deaths and that you shouldn't expect a calibrated opposite reaction when there is less bad news.


----------



## killer b (Jan 6, 2022)

Wilf said:


> That people get upset and angry about ongoing deaths and that you shouldn't expect a calibrated opposite reaction when there is less bad news.


I don't, I was just saying it doesn't happen. One of the reasons it doesn't happen is because it would have been roundly challenged if it had, so here we are.


----------



## xenon (Jan 6, 2022)

AverageJoe said:


> Have we had the news that Bra maker Michelle Mone and her husband might have secured a £200million deal for providing Covid stuff when this started?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



FWIW also being investigated for alleged racist messages:

https://www.theguardian.com › uk-news › jan › met-in...


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2022)

Dear oh dear the Guardian have fucked these numbers up:



> The data also showed that in England there are 17,988 Covid patients in hospital, up from 15,659 the day before



Thats from Military deployed at London hospitals due to Omicron staff shortages

No the data doesnt show that. 17,988 is the UK number, which happens to be the latest UK figure but for a couple of days earlier than the latest England figure since some of the nations data publication lags behind.

The actual figure for England is 16,058. They did manage to get right that this is up from 15,659 the previous day.


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 7, 2022)

elbows said:


> The origins of the word are compatible with Johnsons worldview and the colonial view of parts of Africa.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"how Mumbo-Jumbo conquered the World" by Francis Wheen (erstwhile Marx biographer, and Private Eye ivestigator ... 

It's an old book now, but if you're a conspiracy theory 'sceptic' , that is, a resolute opponent of those who pontificate such 'theories', then this Wheen book is well worth a read IMO ....


----------



## IC3D (Jan 7, 2022)

Surprised to see police in numbers enforcing masks on the tube this morning. First time ever I've seen this in two years.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 7, 2022)

IC3D said:


> Surprised to see police in numbers enforcing masks on the tube this morning. First time ever I've seen this in two years.


Gobsmacked


----------



## bluescreen (Jan 7, 2022)

Anyone better informed than me have any thoughts on this thread on Long Covid? Ricksecker isn't a medic but a data nerd from Silicon Valley who seems to have done his homework.



And then we have this from Eric Topol


----------



## two sheds (Jan 7, 2022)

Did see this on long covid: 









						Inflammatory micro clots in blood of individuals suffering from Long COVID
					

Researchers have found an overload of various inflammatory molecules, 'trapped' inside insoluble microscopic blood clots (micro clots), in the blood of individuals suffering from Long COVID.



					www.sciencedaily.com


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 7, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> Anyone better informed than me have any thoughts on this thread on Long Covid? Ricksecker isn't a medic but a data nerd from Silicon Valley who seems to have done his homework.
> 
> 
> 
> And then we have this from Eric Topol




The problem with all the studies cited is that they use self-reported symptoms and include no control group. Ideally control groups would include people who didn't have COVID but had some other virus e.g. a cold virus, and people who thought they had COVID but for whom in-study antibody testing reveals they didn't.

If you just ask people "do you sometimes experience fatigue", you can't conclude that everyone who says yes is suffering from long COVID.


----------



## LDC (Jan 7, 2022)

It's too long and cites multiple studies and would take a huge effort to digest it all to have an easy communicated opinion I think. 

The micro-clots thing is very early days and more studies are being done, so can't draw any firm conclusions from it yet I think it's fair to say.


----------



## LDC (Jan 7, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> If you just ask people "do you sometimes experience fatigue", you can't conclude that everyone who says yes is suffering from long COVID.



That's why there's always been wariness about using 'fatigue' as a symptom for testing like cough and temp are.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> That's why there's always been wariness about using 'fatigue' as a symptom for testing like cough and temp are.


That stuff makes basic studies into the effects on adolescents especially tricky too, due to various forms of fatigue that are somewhat 'normal' during that stage of development.

I do find all this stuff hard to unpick. And I'm not actually as far along the gloomy doomy end of the pandemic spectrum as some think I am, so theres a whole bunch of possibilities that I havent spent a long time dwelling on here so far. Need better data and a lot of time for the full picture to emerge. There may well be some aspects which in future years will emerge more clearly and cause some to regret the way they thought about this disease in the first few years, but it wont be good for peoples mental health if I go on about those endlessly long before the scale of that picture and its its ramifications have really been ascertained properly. In my own mind I am reminded about some of the fears about mad cow disease and its future implications, there were years where it was hard to predict what the appropriate way to think about that risk and the scale and future of it really was.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 7, 2022)

Got an email confriming by order or a lateral flow test kit made at 12.30am this morning. Was definitely asleep then and haven't ordered any since the weekend, which I got a confirmation email for at the time, so a bit worried about what my unconscious is doing if that's so....


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2022)

There could be ordering system glitches which have manifested themselves as they attempt to clear any backlog.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2022)

Harries as UKHSA head is far more impressive than Harries was as a public communicator in the first months of the pandemic, in my opinion so far. I suppose this isnt too surprising, as all of the people in those roles suffered from having to operate under a government with dodgy priorities, and early pandemic mistakes were made across the full establishment and expert advisors. A lot of those people improved once the early errors of pandemic perception and timing were out of the way, although I cant say I really put Harries in the much improved camp at that stage.



> The head of the UK Health Security Agency raised concerns about low-paid workers being disadvantaged by changes to the Covid testing regime in England, as they would still need a PCR test to access financial support for isolation, a leaked internal memo shows.
> 
> The memo from Dame Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UKHSA, also highlighted a greater risk of false negatives for those on lower incomes forced to go to a testing centre to ensure they received the £500 Covid test-and-trace support payments.











						England Covid testing changes could hit low-paid workers, leaked memo warns
					

Exclusive: Health Security Agency chief set out risks of PCR test requirement for £500 isolation payment in December




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## bluescreen (Jan 7, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> The problem with all the studies cited is that they use self-reported symptoms and include no control group. Ideally control groups would include people who didn't have COVID but had some other virus e.g. a cold virus, and people who thought they had COVID but for whom in-study antibody testing reveals they didn't.
> 
> If you just ask people "do you sometimes experience fatigue", you can't conclude that everyone who says yes is suffering from long COVID.


The studies he cites don't all rely on self-reported symptoms like fatigue but measurable physiological symptoms*. Admittedly it's anyone's guess what these actual patients' functions were before catching the disease because they weren't being measured then, which is why Topol's article is interesting because it measures before and after.

*eg, The Yale study Ricksecker cited measured reduced aerobic capacity, oxygen extraction. and ventilatory efficiency in “mild” COVID patients even after recovery from their acute infection, compared with a control group.




__





						DEFINE_ME
					





					journal.chestnet.org


----------



## zahir (Jan 7, 2022)

Independent Sage, back with their first briefing since before Christmas.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 7, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> The studies he cites don't all rely on self-reported symptoms like fatigue but measurable physiological symptoms*. Admittedly it's anyone's guess what these actual patients' functions were before catching the disease because they weren't being measured then, which is why Topol's article is interesting because it measures before and after.
> 
> *eg, The Yale study Ricksecker cited measured reduced aerobic capacity, oxygen extraction. and ventilatory efficiency in “mild” COVID patients even after recovery from their acute infection, compared with a control group.
> 
> ...



None of the studies searching for long-COVID symptoms featured a control group: Post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 in a non-hospitalized cohort: Results from the Arizona CoVHORT, Long COVID in a prospective cohort of home-isolated patients - Nature Medicine, Sequelae in Adults at 6 Months After COVID-19 Infection

The Yale study is interesting but it compares a group of former COVID patients who were referred to specialists for unexplained exercise intolerance with a control group. This is very different from assessing a random sample of those who have had COVID.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2022)

The weekly data on 'for covid' and 'with covid' in hospital patients is out for England, leading to the usual press reporting that I dont think does the subject proper justice. Hospital infections as part of this picture still dont get much of a mention, and most of the focus ends up being on the politics instead.

I believe Sotland have published their version of this data for the first time too, which I havent looked at for myself yet but sounds like it shows a similar pattern.

My graphs using data from the Primary Diagnoses Supplement file at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Data goes up to 4th January despite what the date labels show. And this is number of patients in hospital beds, not daily admissions/diagnoses.

Also note this data covers acute hospitals, so I dont think its showing the picture in other sorts of community hospitals and mental health hospitals.


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2022)

> *Mark Drakeford has accused Boris Johnson of failing to take the necessary action to protect people in England from Covid.*
> 
> "The one country that stands up as not taking action to protect its population is England," said the first minister.
> 
> ...











						Covid: Drakeford accuses Johnson of failing to protect England
					

Mark Drakeford calls the UK government "politically paralysed" as Covid rules remain in Wales.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2022)

I am lacking time to do the England hospital data graphs I was going to do today.

I'll just have to do a quick description instead. I would describe the daily hospital admissions/diagnoses picture for England overall as a bumpy plateau, a description that is also a fair fit for most regions at the moment.

Thats much better news than continual steep rises, obviously, ad the intensive care data also continues to look promising. When zooming down to the individual trust level, even phrases involving the word decoupling which I have often criticised, seem more fair to use right now. This is probably a combination of Omicron leading to less severe illness, especially when coupled with booster jobs, and the fact that Omicron infections have displaced the more severe Delta infections.

It is possible to find a handful of hospital trusts where the number of admissions and covid patients in hospital beds are challenging or even exceeding the levels seen in the wave a year ago, but as discussed many times before this picture is partly sponsored by incidental positives and hospital acquired infections. Not that those are entirely implication-free either. 

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust is perhaps the most obvious example: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/det...me=Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 7, 2022)

Whilst Im not in agreement with everything Drakeford has done during the pandemic, at least he has tried and if you read transcripts of his interviews and compare them to the absolute nonsense that gobshite Boris spits out....

ETA nice to see his openness over a disagreement with an advisor rather than trying to hide it with waffle or lies, shows he has some principles which seems a rare attribute in politics


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2022)

Meanwhile in terms of cautious messages from the UK government, a theme of rising cases in older age groups has continued since the last press conference. This is one of the reasons I really need to update some of my graphs, but the picture shown by age doesnt always tend to neatly follow the simplistic and gloomy expectations. Best case scenario is that any sustained rises in older age groups, continuing long after the main overall peaks, will have a more limited impact on healthcare systems than might be implied on the face of it. And we know that when the first two waves peaked, the government were keen not to change the mood music quickly, preferring to delay the sense that the worst was behind us. Which is fair enough considering the impact of behaviours and the problems that can still arise from slower, grinding pressure even after the explosive growth phase has ended.


----------



## MBV (Jan 7, 2022)

Some hospital graphs here:


----------



## Cloo (Jan 7, 2022)

elbows said:


> There could be ordering system glitches which have manifested themselves as they attempt to clear any backlog.


That's my guess, I'm not expecting they will turn up!


----------



## elbows (Jan 7, 2022)

The BBC put loads of daily admissions graphs for the regions and UK nations in this article, similar to the ones I do except I've been very slack about doing ones for the other UK nations.









						Covid: Sajid Javid concern over admissions in older people
					

The NHS faces "a rocky few weeks", the health secretary says as staff absences grow and cases rise.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Not sure I would pay much attention to the doubling time stuff they included though, the way they are doing it is laggy and smoothes out recent trends too much, or doesnt pick up on recent trends properly, and in the case of London describing that as 'flat across the last fortnight' would not be my choice of words at all. I mean its fair in some ways with the benefit of hindsight (ie with subsequent data after the very peak) but thats taking data smoothing a bit too far for me and exaggerates how long ago admissions stopped rising in the London region.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 7, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> The problem with all the studies cited is that they use self-reported symptoms and include no control group. Ideally control groups would include people who didn't have COVID but had some other virus e.g. a cold virus, and people who thought they had COVID but for whom in-study antibody testing reveals they didn't.
> 
> If you just ask people "do you sometimes experience fatigue", you can't conclude that everyone who says yes is suffering from long COVID.


Firstly I think we need to be clearer about a difference between 'lingering physical symptoms', which is all it is with those footballers, and proper post-viral fatigue, which is a poorly understood dysregulation of much of the body. If people are concerned about the rigor of asking people about their fatigue in post-viral fatigue cases I think the response should be to fund expensive studies in which objective measures are used - i.e. using activity monitors or other such devices. It is no longer the time to quibble about what people experience but measure it. I can promise you that those suffering with serious long covid are not worried about being excluded from diagnosis by objective measures.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 7, 2022)

Brainaddict said:


> Firstly I think we need to be clearer about a difference between 'lingering physical symptoms', which is all it is with those footballers, and proper post-viral fatigue, which is a poorly understood dysregulation of much of the body. If people are concerned about the rigor of asking people about their fatigue in post-viral fatigue cases I think the response should be to fund expensive studies in which objective measures are used - i.e. using activity monitors or other such devices. It is no longer the time to quibble about what people experience but measure it. I can promise you that those suffering with serious long covid are not worried about being excluded from diagnosis by objective measures.



Well exactly. To determine the prevalence of long COVID we’ll need much better studies than the ones that have been published.


----------



## zahir (Jan 7, 2022)

Thread from Christina Pagel


----------



## Mation (Jan 8, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> The problem with all the studies cited is that they use self-reported symptoms and include no control group. Ideally control groups would include people who didn't have COVID but had some other virus e.g. a cold virus, and people who thought they had COVID but for whom in-study antibody testing reveals they didn't.
> 
> If you just ask people "do you sometimes experience fatigue", you can't conclude that everyone who says yes is suffering from long COVID.


Not so the studies cited in that thread that measured oxygen levels, lipids, brain atrophy, cardiovascular outcomes, testicular function etc. Did you just look at the first two or three? There are loads more.


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

The uptick in reported deaths has now gone on for long enough that its gone slightly beyond merely plugging the holiday season reporting gaps, and will start to be visible in deaths by date of death graphs too. But its still very modest at this stage, and may well remain that way, especially when contrasted with the very high daily death figures people got used to in the first two waves. It has also taken us past the 150,000 milestone for deaths within 28 days of a positive test, as someone was talking about the other day.

In regards hospital data, as I suggested this last week this data for England now continues to be published at weekends. Todays data doesnt add any new trend to the picture, with the overall description of 'flat' being fair. Although when it comes to daily hospital admissions/diagnoses in the London region, it is increasingly possible to fairly describe numbers as falling rather than flat.


----------



## David Clapson (Jan 8, 2022)

So the vaccine only reduces transmission of Delta for 8 weeks. And for Omicron it's probably less. This is news to me. This nugget is within one of today's Covid news stories, a debate between Sajid Javid and an unvaccinated NHS consultant at Kings Unvaccinated NHS doctor challenges Sajid Javid over compulsory Covid jabs. I can't find it anywhere on urban. The short version of the story is:



> An NHS doctor has challenged Sajid Javid over compulsory vaccines for healthcare workers...the government has decided that all NHS staff in England who have direct contact with patients must have had their first dose of a Covid vaccine by 3 February or risk losing their job at the end of March....While on a walkabout at King’s on Friday, Javid had asked doctors and nurses what they thought... Steve James, a consultant anaesthetist... told Javid: “I’ve had Covid at some point, I’ve got antibodies, and I’ve been working on Covid ITUs since the beginning; I have not had a vaccination, I do not want to have a vaccination. The vaccine is reducing transmission only for about eight weeks with Delta. With Omicron it’s probably less. And for that I would be dismissed if I don’t have a vaccine? ...the protection I’ve got is probably equivalent to someone who is vaccinated...if you want to provide protection with a booster you’d have to inject everybody every month. If the protection has worn off for transmission after two months then after a month you’ve still got a bit of protection. But if you want to maintain protection you’re going to need to boost all staff members every single month, which you’re not going to do.”



Wham. Suddenly I'm a bit of a vaccine sceptic. Rug pulled from under me. (FWIW I'm triple jabbed, hardly go out, always wear a mask when I do.)


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 8, 2022)

There has been sod all meaningful research to evaluate actual live transmission by vaccinated people.
And in any case that was never a reasonable aim of a vaccine.

Vaccines prevent serious illness and death and that's one thing we CAN reasonably infer to be working.
Paul Offit is a paediatrician as well as a virologist who advises the FDA and disapproved of "boosters" - but they were overridden by the CTC.


----------



## David Clapson (Jan 8, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Vaccines prevent serious illness and death and that's one thing we CAN reasonably infer to be working.


Good stuff. It's a shame that message isn't winning. Or maybe it is? Maybe I'm just too much of a hermit?


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> There has been sod all meaningful research to evaluate actual live transmission by vaccinated people.
> And in any case that was never a reasonable aim of a vaccine.



The whole reason that even the UK government got nervous about Omicron was that it further eroded the amount we could expect from the current vaccines in terms of protection from catching Covid as well as on paper possibilities leading to nerves about how much it would erode protection against hospitalisation and death too. And there has been some erosion on that severe end of the spectrum front, but boosters have compensated for a big chunk of that, especially in the short term.

The figures the doctor mentions are an oversimplification but there are some very fair points in there, at least when applied to the issue of how much good can come from mandatory vaccines for health care workers. The picture of protection afainst infection is now different enough that my own stance on mandatory vaccination for health and social care workers has now evolved, its quite a bit harder to make a proper case for such things, and easier to imagine the upsides being outweighed by downsides such as loads of essential workers losing their jobs.

Its hard to predict whether the government will stick to their guns on that front or will u-turn. Perhaps they may initially delay the cut-off date for vaccination of these workers. I would back off if I were them, and would only reignite the issue if we get a different class of vaccines that do far more to reduce infection and transmission at some future point.


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

David Clapson said:


> Good stuff. It's a shame that message isn't winning. Or maybe it is? Maybe I'm just too much of a hermit?


Its in a lot of the news, the messaging about the importance of getting boosters, and the daily data covering the current wave and the previous wave.

If the vaccines were not very good at protecting against severe disease and death then we would not have been able to relax the rules so much this last summer. And we'd have ended up with something more akin to a full lockdown in both the Delta wave and the current Omicron wave, along with hospitalisation and death figures that would have been far more horrible than those we've actually ended up with.

There are still limits to this side of things too, a lot of the people who have died of the virus in this country from the second half of 2021 onwards have been vaccinated. But this was expected given that the vaccines dont offer 100% protection and that very many millions of infections have been allowed to occur. And its still a small amount of death compared to what we would otherwise have endured.


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

And I say all that as someone who does think that in this country people were encouraged to expect the vaccines to be able to carry more of the weight of this pandemic than was ever likely to really be the case. But they can still carry a tremendous amount of weight, and people should resist losing faith in them to too great an extent, just tweak your expectations, dont get defeatist about them, they are saving a shit load of lives as we speak.


----------



## David Clapson (Jan 8, 2022)

The antivaxxers are capitalising hugely on the Steve James interview. It's a pity that Javid didn't have a useful response.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 8, 2022)

elbows said:


> The uptick in reported deaths has now gone on for long enough that its gone slightly beyond merely plugging the holiday season reporting gaps, and will start to be visible in deaths by date of death graphs too. But its still very modest at this stage, and may well remain that way, especially when contrasted with the very high daily death figures people got used to in the first two waves. It has also taken us past the 150,000 milestone for deaths within 28 days of a positive test, as someone was talking about the other day.
> 
> In regards hospital data, as I suggested this last week this data for England now continues to be published at weekends. Todays data doesnt add any new trend to the picture, with the overall description of 'flat' being fair. Although when it comes to daily hospital admissions/diagnoses in the London region, it is increasingly possible to fairly describe numbers as falling rather than flat.



I keep half an eye on the data from my local NHS trust, partly because it's my local one and partly because it's in the area of London that started seeing the first effects of Omicron in the UK. One thing I've noticed is that mechanical ventilation numbers for London as a whole don't really show much happening:



But there has been something of a rise in my local trust (King's).


----------



## brogdale (Jan 8, 2022)

Another milestone 

The respective populations of those other named countries being 331m,  213m, 1326M, 146m, 130m, & 33m.

#Worldbeating


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 8, 2022)

David Clapson said:


> So the vaccine only reduces transmission of Delta for 8 weeks. And for Omicron it's probably less. This is news to me. This nugget is within one of today's Covid news stories, a debate between Sajid Javid and an unvaccinated NHS consultant at Kings Unvaccinated NHS doctor challenges Sajid Javid over compulsory Covid jabs. I can't find it anywhere on urban. The short version of the story is:
> 
> 
> 
> Wham. Suddenly I'm a bit of a vaccine sceptic. Rug pulled from under me. (FWIW I'm triple jabbed, hardly go out, always wear a mask when I do.)


Why would this make a you a vaccine sceptic? The main goal of vaccines is not to prevent transmission but to prevent hospitalisation and death. In the limited question of whether staff should be mandated to have the vaccine in order to reduce transmission in hospitals, these figures (if they are right) might mean something. But they're meaningless to whether or not vaccines work for their main goals in the majority of the population.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 8, 2022)

elbows said:


> The whole reason that even the UK government got nervous about Omicron was that it further eroded the amount we could expect from the current vaccines in terms of protection from *catching* Covid as well as on paper possibilities leading to nerves about how much it would erode protection against hospitalisation and death too.


Depends how you define "catching" - certainly in the context of unreasonable expectations that our immune system can be so "boosted" that our immune system is constantly poised ready to stamp on any random "spore" that breezes in and does at least *some *replication and transmission ...


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 8, 2022)

David Clapson said:


> Good stuff. It's a shame that message isn't winning. Or maybe it is? Maybe I'm just too much of a hermit?


Politicians.


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Depends how you define "catching" - certainly in the context of unreasonable expectations that our immune system can be so "boosted" that our immune system is constantly poised ready to stamp on any random "spore" that breezes in and does at least *some *replication and transmission ...


Well in terms of what sort of analysis they get our health institutions to perform, the term would be 'vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease'.

eg this recent analysis in regards older people:



> VE against symptomatic disease for cases aged 65 years or older is shown in Figure 1 for those who received a primary course of the ChAdOx1-S (AstraZeneca) (Figure 1a) and BNT162b2 (Pfizer) (Figure 1b) vaccine. In all periods, effectiveness was lower for Omicron compared to Delta. There was minimal or no effect against mild disease with the Omicron variant from 20 weeks after the second dose of either a ChAdOx1-S or BNT162b2 primary course. Among those who had received 2 doses of ChAdOx1-S, at 2 to 4 weeks after a booster dose (either BNT162b2 or mRNA-1273 (Moderna)), VE ranged from around 62% to 65%, dropping to 48% and 56% at 5-9 weeks for the BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273 booster, respectively. For the BNT162b2 booster, VE dropped further to 32% at 10+ weeks. Among those who had received 2 doses of BNT162b2 followed by a BNT162b2 booster, VE was 65% at 2 to 4 weeks post the booster, dropping to 49% at 5 to 9 weeks and 31% at 10+ weeks. For those who had received 2 doses of BNT162b2 followed by a mRNA-1273 booster, VE was 70% at 2 to 4 weeks post the booster, dropping to 57% at 5 to 9 weeks.



Thats from https://khub.net/documents/13593956...lder.pdf/ab8f3558-1e16-465c-4b92-56334b6a832a

Obviously they pay even greater attention to protection against hospitalisation and death, which that document also covers.


----------



## LDC (Jan 8, 2022)

David Clapson said:


> The antivaxxers are capitalising hugely on the Steve James interview. It's a pity that Javid didn't have a useful response.



Yeah, the doctor was an idiot doing that tbh. It was inevitable it was going to be used by the anti-vaxxers all over the world.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 8, 2022)

David Clapson said:


> So the vaccine only reduces transmission of Delta for 8 weeks. And for Omicron it's probably less. This is news to me. This nugget is within one of today's Covid news stories, a debate between Sajid Javid and an unvaccinated NHS consultant at Kings Unvaccinated NHS doctor challenges Sajid Javid over compulsory Covid jabs. I can't find it anywhere on urban. The short version of the story is:
> 
> 
> 
> Wham. Suddenly I'm a bit of a vaccine sceptic. Rug pulled from under me. (FWIW I'm triple jabbed, hardly go out, always wear a mask when I do.)


What a shocking lack of grasp on the function of the vaccine in the context of the present pandemic and hes a fucking consultant FFS


----------



## cupid_stunt (Jan 8, 2022)

brogdale said:


> View attachment 305090
> Another milestone
> 
> The respective populations of those other named countries being 331m,  213m, 1326M, 146m, 130m, & 33m.
> ...



Pointless, unless you adjust it to deaths per million, in which case the UK is ranked around 30, not great, but a number of European countries are ahead of us.


----------



## weepiper (Jan 8, 2022)

Oof 









						Covid in Scotland: Virus hospital patients increase by 50% in a week
					

There were 1,362 people in hospital with the virus in Scotland on Friday - up from 897 on Hogmanay.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

weepiper said:


> Oof
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Its also become a bit harder to interpret daily positive case numbers of the sort mentioned in that article. Because Scotland made the change to remove some requirements to get a PCR confirmation of a lateral flow test, but unlike England they dont include Lateral Flow positives in their daily case numbers.


----------



## cuppa tee (Jan 8, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I keep half an eye on the data from my local NHS trust, partly because it's my local one and partly because it's in the area of London that started seeing the first effects of Omicron in the UK. One thing I've noticed is that mechanical ventilation numbers for London as a whole don't really show much happening:
> 
> View attachment 305088
> 
> ...



Coincidentally Kings is the home turf of the doc who fronted Javid about the vax..... he stated the people most at risk are obese with multiple co-morbidities, greater Lambeth is notably vax resistant iirc, there was a piece in national media (The Guardian and also quoted on these boards ) by a senior nurse at Kings who made a clear connection IRL between vax resistance and bad outcomes....


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## weepiper (Jan 8, 2022)

elbows said:


> Its also become a bit harder to interpret daily positive case numbers of the sort mentioned in that article. Because Scotland made the change to remove some requirements to get a PCR confirmation of a lateral flow test, but unlike England they dont include Lateral Flow positives in their daily case numbers.


I didn't know that. Does that mean some of the English case number counts have the same person's positive test twice?


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## Pickman's model (Jan 8, 2022)

weepiper said:


> I didn't know that. Does that mean some of the English case number counts have the same person's positive test twice?


The entire thing's fucked, to use a technical term, as the criterion for deaths is anything within 28 days of a positive result - so lots of people who lasted longer then succumbed missed out while people who died eg falling down stairs a week later included. Then there's this bit you highlight, plus the way backlogs of data aren't put on the day they refer to but a later day  if I collected library stats the way the government collects covid stats I'd be out of a job and rightly so


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## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

weepiper said:


> I didn't know that. Does that mean some of the English case number counts have the same person's positive test twice?


Only if mistakes were made with processing the data - the way it worked in England is that you show up the published figures if you report a LFT positive, but they then remove that figure from the data later if you subsequently tested negative on the confirmatory PCR. And obviously people that dont report a lateral flow positive in the first place, just a PCR, are counted.


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## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

Pickman's model said:


> The entire thing's fucked, to use a technical term, as the criterion for deaths is anything within 28 days of a positive result - so lots of people who lasted longer then succumbed missed out while people who died eg falling down stairs a week later included. Then there's this bit you highlight, plus the way backlogs of data aren't put on the day they refer to but a later day  if I collected library stats the way the government collects covid stats I'd be out of a job and rightly so


Some of the issues are surmounted by focussing on data by date of death, date of test specimen rather than publication date.

I always moan about issues witht he death stats but at least we do have multiple versions with which to try to build am impression. For example deaths within 60 days of a positive test are still availabe for England, and we have deaths where covid was mentioned on the death certificate (which is also far from a perfect system), as well as excess deaths and deaths from all causes that we can use to sopt any really massive undercounting, such as that which happened in the first wave especially.

Oh and the death figures for Wales that make it to the UK dashboard have some further limitations, check out these details which I am copy & pasting from the dashboard explanation of those figures. If you dont die in hospital or in a care home, you dont get counted in those figures for Wales!



> Data for Wales include reports to Public Health Wales of deaths of hospitalised patients in Welsh Hospitals or care home residents where COVID-19 has been confirmed with a positive laboratory test and the clinician suspects this was a causative factor in the death. The figures do not include:
> 
> people who may have died from COVID-19 but COVID-19 was not confirmed by laboratory testing
> people who died outside of hospital or care home settings
> ...


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## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I keep half an eye on the data from my local NHS trust, partly because it's my local one and partly because it's in the area of London that started seeing the first effects of Omicron in the UK. One thing I've noticed is that mechanical ventilation numbers for London as a whole don't really show much happening:
> 
> But there has been something of a rise in my local trust (King's).


Thanks for the info. I've now been through the dashboard graphs for every single trust in England.

The patients in mechanical ventilation beds data can be especially challenging to interpret, due to the fact that many trusts dont end up with numbers that are large enough to cancel out the sort of 'noise' we can get in data due to individual cases, outbreaks etc.

Kings is one of the trusts where there have been sufficient numbers in the past to overcome that more comprehensively, and its one of only a few that are showing the trend you have spotted at the moment. Its far from the only one where this new large wave has brought levels back up to where they were earlier on in the previous Delta wave, as the numbers in that wave had been very slowly declining for some time in plenty of places. But its one of only a few where the levels have now exceeded the maximum height they reached in the Delta wave, and are now back to something more like levels last seen in March during a steep descent from much higher levels that were reached about a year ago. Croydon and Frimley are two other examples, but with smaller figures involved and slightly different timing.

When looking far beyond London, these mechanical ventilation figures remind me why I moaned so much about the government response to the Delta wave. There are all manner of places where, relative to the pre-vaccine era peaks, the long Delta wave really sucked when viewed via this measurement. A consequence of using many of the gains of vaccination to enable there to be less rules, combined with the limits of vaccines and the number of people who were still not vaccinated. Unlike most of the data pictures I see from London trusts, there were quite a few trusts where it is possible to claim that number of people in mechanical ventilation beds was only roughly halved compared to last winters peak levels. Or worse in some cases, but not consistently over the entire Delta period. Omicron impact hasnt shown up in some of those places yet. And in others things are a big mess where there may be other stories going on too, such as changes to which hospitals the most seriously ill covid patients are being directed to.

Here is a list of some of the trusts that stuck out to me in various different ways when it came looking at dashboard graphs of that particular mechanical ventilation data. But some of them are small and the stories wont always be straightforward at all. And only some of them are telling fairly clear stories about the Omicron waves impact, I didnt compile this list with one particular picture or trend in mind, different ones stuck out or posed questions in various different ways. And some of them only involve small numbers.

Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust
Croydon Health Services NHS Trust
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust
Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust
Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
North Bristol NHS Trust
United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust
University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust
University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust
Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Northern Care Alliance NHS Ft
Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust
Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust


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## zahir (Jan 8, 2022)

Proposal to end free lateral flow tests









						Free lateral flow tests to end as country to be told to live with Covid | JOE.co.uk
					

Free lateral flow tests are set to be axed as part of plans for living with Covid, which Boris Johnson is set to announce in the coming weeks.




					www.joe.co.uk


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## pbsmooth (Jan 8, 2022)




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## zahir (Jan 8, 2022)

More living with covid


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## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> View attachment 305112


Ah yes I was going to draw attention to that critical care report since they recently included info about boosters in it.

I usually post the raw numbers in addition to the rates per 100,000, otherwise some people get the wrong impression about what share of the burden on health services the unvaccinated end up being in practice.

Also note that this latest report uses data that goes up to mid December, so we'll need to keep an eye on subsequent reports to get much more of the Omicron picture.



From the latest report at ICNARC – Reports


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## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

zahir said:


> Proposal to end free lateral flow tests
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That is one of the least surprising things to expect from the UK in 2022.

I suppose I'll wait for the official announcement with more details before I go on about it too much. Those details, the timing and what levels of infection persist after the Omicron peak is a way behind us will influence my opinion. But frankly I consider it pretty much inevitable that scaling back on mass testing will be part of the governments choice of approach for dealing with covid in the medium term, they cant get the return to normalcy agenda past a certain point, or reduce non-healthcare disruption down to very low levels, without doing this sort of thing.

Another reason I might not rant so much is that I'm still sore from seeing the sort of attitudes that started getting expressed more strongly on this thread a little over a month ago. Loads of people want to move on to a greater extent than it is strictly speaking wise to from a purely public health perspective. And I will likely have to go on my own version of that journey this year, though the timing and detail will diverge from many other peoples.


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## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

zahir said:


> More living with covid



Ah yes, Dix. I did draw attention to his ill-advised comments in May, although it seems I wasnt anything like as rude about them as I sometimes am in this pandemic.        #37,282      

I wouldnt call him a totally reliable guide as to how far the government will be confident to go, and as we can see his track record in regards variants changing the picture is rather poor. He is after all someone the likes of the Telegraph make use of to underline their shitty pandemic stance, and even Johnsons stupid government have not in the past tended to go as far as the Telegraph would like.

The stance of Dix broadly reflect where a big chunk of the establishment in this country was coming from before the pandemic and up until mid March 2020 when plans changed, and is a somewhat fair reflection of where they would like to get back to. I'm not sure they will completely get their way in terms of quite how far back to the old normal the government tries to go at first, or how quickly. But if the government becomes highly confident than that is the sort of destination we might expect.


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## blameless77 (Jan 8, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> That would be a bit fucking daft



Packs of 25 for frontline workers


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## elbows (Jan 8, 2022)

Even the BBCs graphic illustating cumulative deaths within 28 days of a positive test draws attention to the undercounting in the first wave.

However the article also includes the following and I consider the description of the 2nd wave rise in the autumn/winter to be highly inaccurate.



> It's almost a year since the UK recorded 100,000 deaths. Most of those came in two waves - a sharp sudden surge in the spring followed by a slow, sustained rise in the autumn and winter of 2020 into 2021, largely before vaccines were available.



The November 2020 lockdown (but with schools still open) combined with the timing of the rise of the Alpha (Kent) variant meant that the rise in daily death figures came in two stages that time, but they were still sharp, especially the second part (Alpha) one.









						Covid: UK records more than 150,000 deaths
					

The UK is the seventh country to pass this number, after the US, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico and Peru.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## Orang Utan (Jan 8, 2022)

I can’t see how they can get away with charging for LFTs. It’s massively unfair and people who can’t afford it will just give up testing


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## two sheds (Jan 8, 2022)

elbows said:


> Ah yes, Dix. I did draw attention to his ill-advised comments in May, although it seems I wasnt anything like as rude about them as I sometimes am in this pandemic.        #37,282
> 
> I wouldnt call him a totally reliable guide as to how far the government will be confident to go, and as we can see his track record in regards variants changing the picture is rather poor. He is after all someone the likes of the Telegraph make use of to underline their shitty pandemic stance, and even Johnsons stupid government have not in the past tended to go as far as the Telegraph would like.
> 
> The stance of Dix broadly reflect where a big chunk of the establishment in this country was coming from before the pandemic and up until mid March 2020 when plans changed, and is a somewhat fair reflection of where they would like to get back to. I'm not sure they will completely get their way in terms of quite how far back to the old normal the government tries to go at first, or how quickly. But if the government becomes highly confident than that is the sort of destination we might expect.


Easy for me - not altogether keen on the great british public and happy to isolate and get deliveries and stuff. 

Not so for people my age living in multiple age households and with kids mixing at work and grandkids who are mixing in schools.  looks like it will be a fuck them


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## David Clapson (Jan 8, 2022)

zahir said:


> More living with covid



Hmmm. I don't feel as if the Guardian has the readers' best interests at heart. They seem to be doing the anti-vaxxers' job for them. What's afoot?


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## two sheds (Jan 8, 2022)

David Clapson said:


> Hmmm. I don't feel as if the Guardian has the readers' best interests at heart. They seem to be doing the anti-vaxxers' job for them. What's afoot?


have you misunderstood? Seemed sensible posts

ooops me that misunderstood  yes very strange


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## Elpenor (Jan 8, 2022)

zahir said:


> Proposal to end free lateral flow tests
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Infect your family, friends and colleagues at no extra cost… a cynical way to reduce recorded covid rates


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## elbows (Jan 9, 2022)

two sheds said:


> have you misunderstood? Seemed sensible posts
> 
> ooops me that misunderstood  yes very strange



Its nothing to do with being anti-vax, Dix used to be head of the vaccine taskforce in this pandemic.

What he was saying is in regards further booster doses in future It is inevitable that there will be debate about how much vaccination will be required in future, how often it should happen and what proportion of the public it should involve. Given that the focus is really about protecting those most at risk, and that the original few versions of herd immunity that used to be mentioned are a red herring since we are not achieving a picture which would stop most transmission, this is understandable.

The main complications with the way the Guardian (actually the Observer I think) have kicked off their version of this debate is that Dix is a bit of a dickhead when it comes to how hard he pushes the complete 'return to normality' agenda, and this affects the way he makes remarks about the future of vaccines too. Another complication is that Omicron was a bit of a setback in terms of some concerns about protection from severe disease, and the current booster campaign seems to have made a real difference in helping to restore the balance. But there will still be questions about the longer-lasting forms of protection, and the extent to which further boosters need to be repeated in future, how often, and for whom. Modified versions of the vaccine that target newer variants directly are also a consideration.

Even Dix did not say anything close to 'no more vaccines for anyone in future'. And in terms of public perceptions in regards the need for them to get vaccinated again at some future point, opinion on that will probably wobble around in response to events and increased scientific understanding of risks in future. If a future variant causes a new scale of problem that requires another big campaign, then attitudes will shift in response. As will government dictats if they get something wrong in the coming months and have to change the plan again later.


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## elbows (Jan 9, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Easy for me - not altogether keen on the great british public and happy to isolate and get deliveries and stuff.
> 
> Not so for people my age living in multiple age households and with kids mixing at work and grandkids who are mixing in schools.  looks like it will be a fuck them


That has already happened to quite an extent with both the Delta and Omicron waves. This will just be the next few steps along that path, which is not me excusing it, and I've moaned plenty about the 2021 approach. But I'm also aware of how attitudes are shifting more broadly than they did in the past, there are lots of people here on this forum who are ready to move on more and in my opinion this caused some to take a stance in December that depressed me. But it is also a somewhat understandable stance, and I have long known that I would eventually have to come to terms with it, it was always coming, it was just a question of when. For it to be less inevitable would have required a different attitude, one that did not sneer or react with horror to concepts like zero covid or at least a more mixed approach, somewhere between zero covid and the approach people actually went along with in this country so far. There are in my opinion better ways to think about this stuff and to adapt in reasonable ways, but there was not so much appetite for that, and some dull and mildly inconvenient longer term changes to behaviour found little favour, especially as far as establishment and press attitudes go. A better balance would have been possible without moving the largest goal-posts or having to come to terms with unpalatable things for the long term, but this is also a cruel, half-arsed country where little emphasis is placed on doing some things properly for the long haul.


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## elbows (Jan 9, 2022)

In other words when the threat is transformed from an intense, acute one, to one which leaves people vulnerable in the same way people are always left vulnerable by inequalities and cold calculations in this country, expect a return to business as usual from UK PLC and all those who find a way to live with the stench.


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## two sheds (Jan 9, 2022)

yep it's the inequalities that make the difference - I live on my own comfortably. People crowded together will be the ones who get the problems


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## l'Otters (Jan 9, 2022)

and people who live on their own in isolation and who suffer from depression & suchlike.


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## bimble (Jan 9, 2022)

bimble said:


> Just a pondering, does anyone know offhand where else in the world is still doing lateral flow tests free* for everyone & whenever you want one (if in stock)?
> (* at point of use obvs)


oh. End of free lateral flow tests as country told to live with Covid
eta i see we've already done this, and agree its deeply unsurprising, we were something of an outlier for doing this one thing well.


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 9, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> I can’t see how they can get away with charging for LFTs. It’s massively unfair and people who can’t afford it will just give up testing



A feature, not a bug. It's the only plan they have for getting over the staffing crisis.

Let's just hope a few million extra people being long term disabled doesn't affect services in any way.


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 9, 2022)

And of course kite-flying the testing thing now gives people plenty of time to hoard the things and fuck up availability again.

Employers will also have plenty of time to figure out how to use such a change to railroad sick people into coming back to work early.


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## andysays (Jan 9, 2022)

bimble said:


> oh. End of free lateral flow tests as country told to live with Covid
> eta i see we've already done this, and agree its deeply unsurprising, we were something of an outlier for doing this one thing well.


It will be interesting to see how this all unfolds.

Maybe worth remembering that LFTs weren't made available to all to begin with, and that some employers (including mine) started providing them to their employees before they were generally available.

At some point, it was presumably decided that the benefits (mostly to the economy, rather than public health, I suspect) of providing them free to anyone who wanted one outweighed the costs of providing them, especially as having a negative test was used to avoid other potential controls or restrictions.

But there have already been moves towards reducing availability, including requiring people to register before collecting them, and the idea of prioritising those working in certain sectors.

I also suspect that if free provision of LFTs does happen, many employers will choose to go back to providing them for employees who can't work from home as a way of reducing staff absence.


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2022)

bimble said:


> oh. End of free lateral flow tests as country told to live with Covid
> eta i see we've already done this, and agree its deeply unsurprising, we were something of an outlier for doing this one thing well.



You can read the full, paywall smashed, Times article here - archive.ph

The headline is basically based on this quote.



> A senior Whitehall source said: “I don’t think we are in a world where we can continue to hand out free lateral flow tests to everybody for evermore. It’s likely we will move to a scenario where there is less testing but where we have a capacity to ramp it up if necessary, such as in the winter.”



It's just one 'source' expressing a view on the subject, so a bit of a non-story TBH.

It's logical at some point we will probably move away from mass testing at the current scale, but I doubt it'll happen anytime soon.


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2022)

The former vaccine minister, Nadhim Zahawi, interviewed on Sky's Trevor Phillips show, was asked about ending free LFTs.

He said he had seen the article, has no idea where it has come from, it's not something he recognises, it's not something being discussed, and it's certainly not going to happen anytime soon, otherwise why would an extra 420 million LTFs have been ordered this month alone.


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## IC3D (Jan 9, 2022)

If Boss Moron further rolls out the ludicrous vaccine passport I imagine he will want his business cronies to charge for those that need lat flows in entry rather than get them free.

Essentially a charge to be unvaxxed


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 9, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> The former vaccine minister, Nadhim Zahawi, interviewed on Sky's Trevor Phillips show, was asked about ending free LFTs.
> 
> He said he had seen the article, has no idea where it has come from, it's not something he recognises, it's not something being discussed, and it's certainly not going to happen anytime soon, otherwise why would an extra 420 million LTFs have been ordered this month alone.



Oh well then if a tory minister says it ain't so. 

We can see from the shortages over christmas that there's a lot of just-in-time stuff going on with these LFTs. 420 million test is not much more than one box each.


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> Oh well then if a tory minister says it ain't so.



So, you believe an anonymous source is suggesting something is going to happen soon, which they haven't actually done, rather than at some point in the [distance] future?

It's clearly not going to happen in the short term.


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## Steel Icarus (Jan 9, 2022)

They couldn't give LFTs away fast enough at my college's two libraries a few months ago. Now nobody is allowed more than one box. 

On a separate point, I get a lift with a colleague who kept banging on about "we have to live with Covid now" until eventually I'd had enough and asked her to explain what she meant by that, especially since literally the only imposition on her life since _freedom day_ is having to wear a mask now and again. Eventually she confirmed she meant "the weak shall perish". If I didn't hate the idea of getting the bus to work daily I might have cancelled our arrangement on the spot.


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## andysays (Jan 9, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, you believe an anonymous source is suggesting something is going to happen soon, which they haven't actually done, rather than at some point in the [distance] future?
> 
> It's clearly not going to happen in the short term.


Depends what you mean by the short term.

As SpookyFrank  points out 420 million tests is not much more than one box each, so that's about one months supply if people do two tests a week on average.

It's also worth remembering that the government has frequently floated "ideas" like this, and waited to gauge the response before implementing them.

I'm not saying that free tests will definitely end next week or next month, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are at least scaled back earlier than you seem to think is likely.


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## Steel Icarus (Jan 9, 2022)

Yeah, there was a report on _Look North_ the other day apparently where a reporter couldn't get hold of any.

It's not beyond the realms of possibility that this utter bunch of venal cunts might make getting free LFTs difficult to find so people are relieved to be able to buy them for a small fee.


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## emanymton (Jan 9, 2022)

I think they were planning to start chargeing but ended that plan when Omicron hit.

Also worth remembering that ending free tests is not an all or nothing thing. They can stop giving away free tests to anyone who asks but still make them free in some circumstances they can't just change the channels used to get them or make you jump through a few more hoops.

They could make it so employers in certain industries can get them free to distribute to their staff and/or still be free to pensioner's and people claiming benefits. And dozens of other options I can't think of right now.

But then again this is a tory government and implementing unfair polices that disproportionately affect the poor is their bread and butter.


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## bimble (Jan 9, 2022)

andysays said:


> It's also worth remembering that the government has frequently floated "ideas" like this, and waited to gauge the response before implementing them.


Yep. If my twitter is anything to go by, the reaction to the mooted idea in the times is extreme and very loud pushback. It would be a wildly unpopular move. I'd be curious to know how evenly the use of LFs is spread across the population though. I don't imagine theres any way of finding out if conservative voters use fewer of them.


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## wtfftw (Jan 9, 2022)

Booking a PCR. Not asking about booster?


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## _Russ_ (Jan 9, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> So, you believe an anonymous source is suggesting something is going to happen soon, which they haven't actually done, rather than at some point in the [distance] future?
> 
> It's clearly not going to happen in the short term.


BBC giving it airtime this morning, its just another  Gov leak a bit better disguised than usual...testing the waters. Whether or not its going to happen sooner or later is dependent on a few things of course.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 9, 2022)

bimble said:


> Yep. If my twitter is anything to go by, the reaction to the mooted idea in the times is extreme and very loud pushback. It would be a wildly unpopular move. I'd be curious to know how evenly the use of LFs is spread across the population though. I don't imagine theres any way of finding out if conservative voters use fewer of them.



Survey data possibly. Wouldn't be the most reliable but would be a good indicator.


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2022)

andysays said:


> Depends what you mean by the short term.
> 
> As SpookyFrank  points out 420 million tests is not much more than one box each, so that's about one months supply if people do two tests a week on average.
> 
> ...



He said 420 million extra tests.

People seem to have short memories, this first came up in the Guardian back in mid-November, it was based on a discussion document for a 'exit strategy' at some point, possibly as early as April, but that was before omicron arrived. These sort of documents are regularly drawn-up and many, probably most, end-up going nowhere.









						UK officials have compiled ‘Covid exit strategy’ from April – report
					

No 10 sources say ministers had not seen leaked plan to wind down testing and self-isolation




					www.theguardian.com


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## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2022)

S☼I said:


> Yeah, there was a report on _Look North_ the other day apparently where a reporter couldn't get hold of any.
> 
> It's not beyond the realms of possibility that this utter bunch of venal cunts might make getting free LFTs difficult to find so people are relieved to be able to buy them for a small fee.



It is really. If there was a conspiracy to restrict supply there would have to be lots of people involved and it wouldn't be possible to keep it from leaking.


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> It is really. If there was a conspiracy to restrict supply there would have to be lots of people involved and it wouldn't be possible to keep it from leaking.



The problem has been two-fold, one the massive growth in cases, and secondly Johnson telling people to test more, the combination resulted in a massive increase in demand, which the system, particularly the logistics side of things, were not being able to cope with.

Back at the start of Dec. about a million tests a day were being reported, now it's nearer 2 million.


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## andysays (Jan 9, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> He said 420 million extra tests.
> 
> People seem to have short memories, this first came up in the Guardian back in mid-November, it was based on a discussion document for a 'exit strategy' at some point, possibly as early as April, but that was before omicron arrived. These sort of documents are regularly drawn-up and many, probably most, end-up going nowhere.
> 
> ...


OK, the point I was attempting to make is that the fact they've ordered 420 million extra tests to cope with recent issues doesn't in itself act as any guarantee that they won't scale back free testing in the coming months, which is what you appeared to be suggesting.


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## bimble (Jan 9, 2022)

This is not about fewer tests being done, its some actual good news right?


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2022)

andysays said:


> OK, the point I was attempting to make is that the fact they've ordered 420 million extra tests to cope with recent issues doesn't in itself act as any guarantee* that they won't scale back free testing in the coming months, which is what you appeared to be suggesting.*



Depends how many months, at some point, when/if we get on top of this bastard virus, scaling back testing will/may make sense, but we are clearly nowhere near that ATM, no one knows what the timescale will be, so nothing to get excited about, as I said in my first post it's a non-story ATM.


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## _Russ_ (Jan 9, 2022)

> I said in my first post it's a non-story ATM.


..and you're just as wrong saying it the second time


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2022)

bimble said:


> This is not about fewer tests being done, its some actual good news right?
> 
> 
> View attachment 305151



We are testing at far higher levels than at any pervious point, so hopefully it's a sign of good news.


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## cupid_stunt (Jan 9, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> ..and you're just as wrong saying it the second time



And, you're an idiot, as you have proved time & time again.


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## bimble (Jan 9, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> Depends how many months, at some point, when/if we get on top of this bastard virus, scaling back testing will/may make sense, but we are clearly nowhere near that ATM, no one knows what the timescale will be, so nothing to get excited about, as I said in my first post it's a non-story ATM.


The vast majority of other countries don’t offer free tests on demand to whoever wants them, we are an outlier, nhs related obvs, but I think they’d like to scale back and or start charging like everywhere else as soon as public outcry measurements allow.


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## StoneRoad (Jan 9, 2022)

I suspect that the easiest way to "charge" for LFT's might be to put them on an equivalent to the system for prescriptions, albeit without needing to get a doc to sign off on a form.

I still think doing that would be wrong when depiffle is encouraging more testing, and there is a logistical SNAFU with demand vs supply because we're in the middle of a pandemic.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> I still think doing that would be wrong when depiffle is encouraging more testing, and there is a logistical SNAFU with demand vs supply because we're in the middle of a pandemic.



That's irrelevant because it's not happening now. If and when it does happen, it should be judged against the testing/prevalence etc situation at the time.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 9, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> That's irrelevant because it's not happening now. If and when it does happen, it should be judged against the testing/prevalence etc situation at the time.


So you'd argue in favour of charging for LFTs if the circumstances were right?


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 9, 2022)

Soz for ignorance/forgetfulness but in what circumstances should you do a PCR test? Is it just if you test positive from an LFT?


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 9, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> Soz for ignorance/forgetfulness but in what circumstances should you do a PCR test? Is it just if you test positive from an LFT?


Or get symptoms of Covid


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2022)

S☼I said:


> So you'd argue in favour of charging for LFTs if the circumstances were right?



Sure. If we've got a new sterilizing vaccine and zero prevalence, and people are grabbing millions of free ones and selling them abroad, then yes. And some line in between there and here. As I said, if it's actually proposed I'll make a judgement at the time on whether I agree with it or not.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jan 9, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> Soz for ignorance/forgetfulness but in what circumstances should you do a PCR test? Is it just if you test positive from an LFT?











						Get tested for coronavirus (COVID-19)
					

Find out about the different types of coronavirus (COVID-19) test and how to get tested.




					www.nhs.uk
				




Tell you what, my hairy orange friend, you seem utterly unable to find things out on the internet


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 9, 2022)

S☼I said:


> Get tested for coronavirus (COVID-19)
> 
> 
> Find out about the different types of coronavirus (COVID-19) test and how to get tested.
> ...


I am. There’s too much to read. And I prefer asking real people things rather than search engines


----------



## bimble (Jan 9, 2022)

i missed this at the time, its only Omicron that caused the shelving of the plans to start charging for tests around now.








						Lateral flow tests: Government shelves plan to charge for testing in face of Omicron wave sweep
					

The Government had been preparing to withdraw the free rapid tests in the New Year, but now they are vital in the battle against rising infections numbers




					inews.co.uk


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 9, 2022)

bimble said:


> i missed this at the time, its only Omicron that caused the shelving of the plans to start charging for tests around now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And that was despite an on-going (& increasing) wave of Delta infections ...


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> And that was despite an on-going (& increasing) wave of Delta infections ...



The article doesn't say they planned to start charging now, simply that they planned to enable that functionality to be ready by now. Any decision on whether to charge would have taken into account the actual prevalence of delta etc at the time.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 9, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> The article doesn't they planned to start charging now, simply that they planned to enable that functionality to be ready by now. Any decision on whether to charge would have taken into account the actual prevalence of delta etc at the time.


sorry, not sorry, but those cynical amongst us might not credit our current government with enough sense of social / public health priority to avoid the opportunity for profit by one of their cronies.


----------



## contadino (Jan 9, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> It is really. If there was a conspiracy to restrict supply there would have to be lots of people involved and it wouldn't be possible to keep it from leaking.


That's not really true. The shortage of LFTs over the Christmas period was caused by the country's main distribution company shutting down for a break. The decision to do that was likely made by one or two people.

If the government had a hand in that, with the goal of deferring the Omicron peak until after Christmas, it would have taken one call and would be nigh on impossible to prove.


----------



## contadino (Jan 9, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> The article doesn't say they planned to start charging now, simply that they planned to enable that functionality to be ready by now. Any decision on whether to charge would have taken into account the actual prevalence of delta etc at the time.


The decision to charge or not is driven by the daily stats being an inconvenience to the government. They can't tell us to ignore the pandemic and go back to our pre-covid lives when we know that there are hundreds of thousands of new daily cases, the hospitals are overflowing and hundreds of people are dying each day.


----------



## chilango (Jan 9, 2022)

tbh the government does enough shady/corrupt/criminal stuff that is not only proved, but openly performed on camera and on record...and gets away with little to no challenge that I doubt the above scenarios would cause the blink of an eye.

(I'm not saying they did it, I'm saying in the general scheme of things it wouldn't really matter)


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2022)

contadino said:


> That's not really true. The shortage of LFTs over the Christmas period was caused by the country's main distribution company shutting down for a break. The decision to do that was likely made by one or two people.
> 
> If the government had a hand in that, with the goal of deferring the Omicron peak until after Christmas, it would have taken one call and would be nigh on impossible to prove.



No, a company shutting down for a Christmas break is completely different from that company being inexplicably ordered to shut down via a phone call from a government official. For a start it would obviosuly be in that company’s interests to say publicly that they didn’t shut down for a holiday but because they were ordered to. The number of people both within government and within the company that would have to be permanently silenced for such a scheme to work would be significant. The notion that people would risk such a plot leaking “in order to make people more willing to pay for tests in the future” is conspiraloon territory.

Don’t let your hatred of the government affect your rationality.


----------



## IC3D (Jan 9, 2022)

Did not someone post a tweet from an ltf supplier who couldnt get hold of govt procurement saying he has thousands of the things. So much corruption while the Pandemic rolls on hidden from us.


----------



## contadino (Jan 9, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> No, a company shutting down for a Christmas break is completely different from that company being inexplicably ordered to shut down via a phone call from a government official. For a start it would obviosuly be in that company’s interests to say publicly that they didn’t shut down for a holiday but because they were ordered to. The number of people both within government and within the company that would have to be permanently silenced for such a scheme to work would be significant. The notion that people would risk such a plot leaking “in order to make people more willing to pay for tests in the future” is conspiraloon territory.
> 
> Don’t let your hatred of the government affect your rationality.


The public didn't give them the contract to distribute LFTs. A government minister did.

I generally prefer to believe in cock-up rather than conspiracy, but that particular cock-up was very convenient for some people.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2022)

contadino said:


> The public didn't give them the contract to distribute LFTs. A government minister did.
> 
> I generally prefer to believe in cock-up rather than conspiracy, but that particular cock-up was very convenient for some people.



Cockups happen all the time, of course some of them will be convenient for the government. Claiming that distribution problems over Christmas were due to politicians trying to make the public more amenable to paying for tests is batshit and distracting from genuine criticism.


----------



## contadino (Jan 9, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> Cockups happen all the time, of course some of them will be convenient for the government. Claiming that distribution problems over Christmas were due to politicians trying to make the public more amenable to paying for tests is batshit and distracting from genuine criticism.


Except that wasn't what I said. I said that it wouldn't be difficult to do and that it's purpose would be to defer the rise in cases until after Christmas.

Separately I said that business as usual can't happen until the number of daily cases and deaths fall. I don't think anyone can argue that making test something you have to pay for won't suppress reported case numbers.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 9, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> And, you're an idiot, as you have proved time & time again.


Fuck right off you sanctimonious little prick


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2022)

contadino said:


> I said that it wouldn't be difficult to do and that it's purpose would be to defer the rise in cases until after Christmas.



Yes it would. And I was referring to catbum’s conspiracy rationale, not yours which is equally ridiculous.



contadino said:


> Separately I said that business as usual can't happen until the number of daily cases and deaths fall. I don't think anyone can argue that making test something you have to pay for won't suppress reported case numbers.



Yeah, it’s really stopped restrictions in all the other countries where tests are chargeable hasn’t it.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 9, 2022)

More on the reducing Tests narrative

It’s time for more targeted use of lateral flow tests for covid-19


----------



## existentialist (Jan 9, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Fuck right off you sanctimonious little prick


Nice to see that the charm school evening classes are paying off...


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 9, 2022)

bimble said:


> This is not about fewer tests being done, its some actual good news right?
> 
> 
> View attachment 305151



Note the graph shows _growth _in case numbers. So 0% near the bottom of that graph means a steady number of cases week-on-week, not a fall in the number of new cases. What we don't see from that graph is what the actual case numbers are or which regions have the highest case rates.

Haven't looked at the daily case numbers for a while but I understand they're still horrendous.


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2022)

contadino said:


> Except that wasn't what I said. I said that it wouldn't be difficult to do and that it's purpose would be to defer the rise in cases until after Christmas.
> 
> Separately I said that business as usual can't happen until the number of daily cases and deaths fall. I don't think anyone can argue that making test something you have to pay for won't suppress reported case numbers.


Their primary aim was to avoid having to impose further restrictions, both before and after Christmas.

And those decisions are being driven by hospitalisation data, not case data. The staggering number of positive cases didnt stop them sticking to this, continued explosive growth in daily hospitalisations would have forced more action if those figures went beyond a certain level, but they didnt.

If we were not in a vaccine era then the link between cases and hospitalisations would have been stronger, and there would have been more political pressure to act on soaring case numbers alone. Because it would have been reasonably well understood that the ratio of cases to hospitalisations didnt give them so much wiggle room, and that a giant rise in cases would have translated to a giant rise in hospitalisations. But we've gone beyond that stage, they have had more wiggle room from the Delta wave onwards. There is still a link so huge rises in case nubers do force them to act, but in much weaker ways - with Delta that was most visible as a delay to 'freedom day' and with Omicron it caused them to activate plan B and a few other things. Their reluctance to impose much heavier restrictions, and their greater chances of getting away with this approach, means they were only going to be forced into that via hospital data, not case data. And they've tried to do that in every wave really, which is why our lockdowns were always rather late, but in the pre-vaccine era they didnt have much chance of being able to stick to that beyod a certain point, the hospital data was always going to breach their thresholds. Not so simple these days.


----------



## contadino (Jan 9, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> yours which is equally ridiculous.


Phew! Thanks for putting my mind to rest.



platinumsage said:


> Yeah, it’s really stopped restrictions in all the other countries where tests are chargeable hasn’t it.


Oh right, so there any countries that have had free LFTs, then made people pay for them? And did they see no reduction in cases? Good.


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> Note the graph shows _growth _in case numbers. So 0% near the bottom of that graph means a steady number of cases week-on-week, not a fall in the number of new cases. What we don't see from that graph is what the actual case numbers are or which regions have the highest case rates.
> 
> Haven't looked at the daily case numbers for a while but I understand they're still horrendous.


There are plausible peaks all over the data these days, and attention has turned to seeing the same thing play out in the hospital data, watching what happens with cases in older age groups, and crucially seeing what happens in terms of how low the figures can go, whether they get stuck at levels that will cause the sort of gradual pressure that would still fore further action to be taken if high levels were sustained for too long.

If there are no nasty surprises ahead then overall figures are at the delicate point where admissions vs discharges are balancing in a way that overall number of covid patients in hospital beds figures may start to fall rather than grow. This is not a perfect guide to hospital pressure due to the numerous other issues hospitals are facing right now. And there is obviously regional variations in timing and both covid and non-covid pressures.


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2022)

The LFT stories are about the future, the story of 2022, and how the government will want to move on in some key ways. But there are limits as to how far they will be confident in going. Their 'back to normal' agenda will run the risk of backfiring if they push too hard, so there may be gradual tweaks rather than the sudden abandonment of big chunks of the testing system. So its no surprise to see that further reductions to the length of self-isolation are now being mentioned, which is a slightly different twist on the 'reduce disruption' agenda. Plus their confidence in proceeding with such things has a seasonal component, ideas will be floated in winter but thats not the season to actually implement them, unless there is an emergency where the self-isolation disruption is deemed to be a bigger risk than the risk of too many hospitalisations. And we did see a bit of that this time, hence the initial changes to self-isolation rules some weeks ago.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 9, 2022)

contadino said:


> Phew! Thanks for putting my mind to rest.


Sure.



contadino said:


> Oh right, so there any countries that have had free LFTs, then made people pay for them? And did they see no reduction in cases? Good.



If you think this is evidence for a government conspiracy why not take your highly rational argument to the conspiracy thread instead of cluttering up this one?


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2022)

The government didnt mind talking up the huge number of infections that could occur by Christmas, because their strategy did not require them to totally distort that picture, and they needed to get people to adjust their behaviour and take the threat seriously. So I dont think they had a clear and obvious reason to suppress the number of positives. There were just inevitable limits to supply of tests, some of which could have been much better planned for in advance.

Indeed Johnsons 'carry on going out but take a test first' approach ended up looking more silly than they would have liked, due to problems accessing enough tests at a crucial moment.


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Jan 9, 2022)

No LFT's available from the government website.

I have 3 left (not going out all that much so testing once or twice a week at the moment)

No doubt hoarding / stockpiling ready to profiteer will be happening...


----------



## blameless77 (Jan 9, 2022)

elbows said:


> The LFT stories are about the future, the story of 2022, and how the government will want to move on in some key ways. But there are limits as to how far they will be confident in going. Their 'back to normal' agenda will run the risk of backfiring if they push too hard, so there may be gradual tweaks rather than the sudden abandonment of big chunks of the testing system. So its no surprise to see that further reductions to the length of self-isolation are now being mentioned, which is a slightly different twist on the 'reduce disruption' agenda. Plus their confidence in proceeding with such things has a seasonal component, ideas will be floated in winter but thats not the season to actually implement them, unless there is an emergency where the self-isolation disruption is deemed to be a bigger risk than the risk of too many hospitalisations. And we did see a bit of that this time, hence the initial changes to self-isolation rules some weeks ago.



Interesting that Omicron seems to have a more rapid cycle of infection and recovery than Delta. Could this be partly driving the reduction in isolation times?


----------



## blameless77 (Jan 9, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> No LFT's available from the government website.
> 
> I have 3 left (not going out all that much so testing once or twice a week at the moment)
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2022)

blameless77 said:


> Interesting that Omicron seems to have a more rapid cycle of infection and recovery than Delta. Could this be partly driving the reduction in isolation times?


It could be used to attempt to justify the changes at some point, but its not whats been driving them so far. Desperation in terms of disruption, staff shortages etc is what has provided the impetus so far. They can dress that up in science if they feel the need to, but a high degree of scientific certainty takes longer to establish than has been available for Omicron so far.


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2022)




----------



## existentialist (Jan 9, 2022)

elbows said:


>



Marvellous.


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 9, 2022)

existentialist said:


> Marvellous.


aye 
#world-beating [again]


----------



## elbows (Jan 9, 2022)

This article may contain various things that are of some interest:









						‘Living with Covid’ does not have to mean ditching all protective measures
					

Analysis: reports and denials that free LFTs will be axed highlight gulf in opinions on how to move forward




					www.theguardian.com
				




However I consider the way it frames the use of lateral flow tests to be quite misleading. It makes it sound like their use was in response to Omicron - it was ramped up then, to the extent that some of the testing figures pretty much doubled, but very large quantities of lateral flow tests were being used in England from March 2021 onwards.

The graph of rapid lateral flow tests conducted in England, which is the 4th one down on the following dashboard page, shows what I'm talking about:



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing?areaType=nation&areaName=England


----------



## David Clapson (Jan 9, 2022)

David Clapson said:


> The antivaxxers are capitalising hugely on the Steve James interview. It's a pity that Javid didn't have a useful response.


Dr Steve James being given plenty of stick by other medics in the i NHS staff react with fury over 'deluded' doctor who questioned Sajid Javid over vaccine mandate


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 10, 2022)

The press are particularly awful for this wave. Today it's all upbeat NHS bosses and how the UK can be pioneers for living with covid. I sometimes feel like I inhabit another dimension. Must be unbelievably frustrating for scientists trying counter this crap with the reality of the situation.


----------



## _Russ_ (Jan 10, 2022)

Interesting development on Vaccine administration, right here in Swansea 👍

Covid: Swansea Uni develops 'world's first' vaccine smart patch


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> The press are particularly awful for this wave. Today it's all upbeat NHS bosses and how the UK can be pioneers for living with covid. I sometimes feel like I inhabit another dimension. Must be unbelievably frustrating for scientists trying counter this crap with the reality of the situation.


I was ready for this because they were universally pretty bad after the peaks of previous waves too. The got lockdown fatigue first, want to look ahead, get bored of reporting the same old cautious stories and tales of disaster at specific hospitals. And they can always find some professionals to quote who have stupid expectations of the future. And the ones who have a dodgy right-wing agenda are obviously even worse, soiling themselves at the start of waves too.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2022)




----------



## IC3D (Jan 10, 2022)

If people have not had the vaccine it's not hesitant, it's not wanting it.
Perhaps some leadership to resolving the staffing crisis might encourage people more than the threat of losing an important job.


----------



## LDC (Jan 10, 2022)

IC3D said:


> If people have not had the vaccine it's not hesitant, it's not wanting it.



What exactly are you commenting on, or was it another one line wonder spewing out of your head with no context?

My friend has had a first dose and is health anxious, and that's what's stopping her having the other doses, so really more hesitant than outright not wanting it, but I'll tell her you know better than her and understand all the reasons why millions of people haven't had any or all of the doses.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 10, 2022)

The graphs are starting to suggest that London might now have peaked in the over-60s as well as in general (this one goes to 5th Jan).


----------



## brogdale (Jan 10, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The graphs are starting to suggest that London might now have peaked in the over-60s as well as in general (this one goes to 5th Jan).
> 
> View attachment 305347


The authorities don't know I've got the fecking rona & I bet there's many out there who are also not troubling/able to access the official testing.


----------



## pbsmooth (Jan 10, 2022)

yes but that's a constant


----------



## brogdale (Jan 10, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> yes but that's a constant


How would that be known?


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2022)

Its not a constant, its expected to be worse when the testing system is under much greater strain, as are thing such as results taking longer to be reported.

Things like the ONS infection survey provide a better guide, but thats laggy so by the time we hear about its results, the trends are often already clear in other data despite test system limitations.

Even the hospital data is not completely immune to test system limitations, in that case the throughput of testing within the hospitals. However I'd expect the hospital figures to still be a pretty reasonable guide, and there are various peak indicators in those too. That shows up in the admissions data already, although it looks like we arent yet at a point where this filters through into number of people with covid in hospital beds, since those figures are still rising. But not dramatically for England like they were previously.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2022)

I see from th BBC live updates page that the sort of vaccine hospitalisation stats I'm always going on about, and the wrong impression that some end up with, came up:



> Ofcom will not investigate TV show over inaccurate Covid claim​Ofcom says it won’t investigate ITV's Lorraine show after Dr Hilary Jones made an inaccurate statement about Covid-19 figures.
> 
> The media watchdog received 3,833 complaints after he incorrectly said 90% of the Covid patients in hospital were unvaccinated - a figure that was more applicable to those in intensive care.
> 
> ...


From 17:24 of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59934070

90% isnt a good fit with ICU realities either, unless you zoom in in a particular way like Johnson did a while ago, and even that might of been quite far wide of the mark, hard to tell because the detail matters, and the timing.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The graphs are starting to suggest that London might now have peaked in the over-60s as well as in general (this one goes to 5th Jan).


Yes and this is even more apparent when drilling down to each age groups and using each days figures rather than the averages which are quite laggy the way the dashboard does them. Not sure when I will do my graphs, probably soon.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2022)

OK this is what cases by specimen date for the London region look like using my simplified age groups. With the usual caveat about recent data being very incomplete.

Uncertainties very much including what happens next in the younger age groups limits my ability to make many forward looking claims at the moment.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2022)

And the same graphs but for England as a whole:


----------



## teuchter (Jan 10, 2022)

The difference in timing between age groups is quite different in the London graphs, compared to the England ones.


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The difference in timing between age groups is quite different in the London graphs, compared to the England ones.


Reasons likely include the different pictures in different regions pre-Omicron compared to London pre-Omicron, London being ahead with the Omicron wave, plus of course the overall England figures do still include London. And obviously the changes to rules and mood music and the timing of Christmas and New Year were the same everywhere, which made their timing relative to the Omicron wave different in different places. And obviously there are differences in the size of age groups in different places too.

I probably will do the sae graphs for each region individually but whetehr I post them depends on whether they show anything interesting.

In the meantime here are some graphs that may illustrate some of the differences in London before and during Omicron. Started from a lower base and had a much more dramatic spike in cases in some younger age groups, for a mix of reasons including what happened there in previous waves, vaccination rates, initial Omicron seeding, timing of behavioural changes relative to Omicron growth etc.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...9_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W1_v2.pdf


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2022)

Latest leak in regards parties:



> One of Boris Johnson’s top officials invited staff to “socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden” during May of the first lockdown, a leaked email shows.
> 
> The email, from Martin Reynolds, the principal private secretary, invited just over 100 employees in No 10 at a time when social mixing was banned apart from with one other person from another household outdoors.
> 
> According to ITV News, it said: “Hi all, after what has been an incredibly busy period it would be nice to make the most of the lovely weather and have some socially distanced drinks in the No 10 garden this evening. Please join us from 6pm and bring your own booze!”











						Email shows Boris Johnson aide invited No 10 staff to lockdown ‘BYOB’ party
					

Police investigating reports that Martin Reynolds invited 100 employees and PM attended at time when social mixing was banned




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Jan 10, 2022)

I see the BBC did some fact checking of the now infamous doctors claims:









						Covid: Fact-checking the doctor who challenged the health secretary
					

An intensive-care doctor challenged the health secretary over mandatory vaccination - are his claims right?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I broadly agree with this bit:



> Dominic Wilkinson, a professor of medical ethics, at the University of Oxford, says doctors have a clear ethical duty to be vaccinated but sacking someone who is not but can show they have had a recent infection that may provide similar protection may be unjustifiable.
> 
> If the vaccines completely blocked transmission, it would be a much simpler ethical question, he says.
> 
> But since they are less effective against new variants, it is "no longer as clear".


----------



## William of Walworth (Jan 10, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What exactly are you commenting on, or was it another one line wonder spewing out of your head with no context?
> 
> My friend has had a first dose and is health anxious, and that's what's stopping her having the other doses, so really more hesitant than outright not wanting it, but I'll tell her you know better than her and understand all the reasons why millions of people haven't had any or all of the doses.


I'm not in any way backing what IC3D said  just above your post here, but in your experience, have you heard many, or _any_, genuinely "vaccine-hesitant" people outright criticise or condemn conspiracists?? Are they even _aware_ of them even??

Good on 'em if any do condemn, but if I was "vaccine-hesitant", which thank the fuck I'm fucking not sir (bring those jabs the fuck on  ), I would *hate* those conspiracy-cunts _even more_ than do us general Urban enemies of them!! 

Very much because of all the shite of Dave from Facebok discrediting genuine concerns, although that's by no means all of the reason .... 

Generally, I have to work really hard (myself!!  ) to understand and accept actual vaccine-hesitancy stuff, because of all the lamp-post, on-line-post, and White Rose-post anti-vaccine idiocy, and because of their tolerence, even welcoming, of extremism, fascism, etc! 

TBF though, I do wonder whether there might? be a more sympathetic, less suspicion-inducing phrase   than "vaccine hesitancy", that could be used to make the point easier to get .....


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2022)

In Scotland they are now prepared to start talking about a peak in cases, they are removing the outdoor event restrictions, and their vaccine certification system is going to require boosters in order for people to be classed as fully vaccinated.

And as per the following from the BBC live updates page, they are going to add LFT positives to their official daily case numbers:



> Last week, it was announced that people without symptoms who test positive on a lateral flow test will no longer need to have their result confimed by a PCR test.
> 
> Ms Sturgeon says this change means the current daily numbers are capturing fewer positive cases than before.
> 
> ...



That quote is from 14:37 of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-59940847


----------



## brogdale (Jan 11, 2022)

379 dead. 

Another Airbus (+) lost.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 11, 2022)

With the very high infection rates I think there's a legitimate reason for people to object to the "within 28 days of a positive test" numbers now - and the apparent rise in them - and it would be better to look at the death certificate ones. Of course they have the disadvantage of having a much greater lag on them.


----------



## Storm Fox (Jan 11, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> What exactly are you commenting on, or was it another one line wonder spewing out of your head with no context?
> 
> My friend has had a first dose and is health anxious, and that's what's stopping her having the other doses, so really more hesitant than outright not wanting it, but I'll tell her you know better than her and understand all the reasons why millions of people haven't had any or all of the doses.


I'm health anxious, I've hardly been out since the start. I was 'stab me with that vaccine, stab me now'. That's no comment on your friend, just how different people see the world.


----------



## elbows (Jan 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> With the very high infection rates I think there's a legitimate reason for people to object to the "within 28 days of a positive test" numbers now - and the apparent rise in them - and it would be better to look at the death certificate ones. Of course they have the disadvantage of having a much greater lag on them.


Of course you will say that because its consistent with your attitude towards the deaths all the way through really.

I dont say that with the intention of demolishing your entire point, there has always been a rationale to it, but there arent actually very many good ways to thoroughly decode that picture. And so we end up arguing about the degree to which incidental deaths contributes to the overall death picture, in the same sort of ways people can argue about 'for' and 'with' hospital data. Yes the proportions may have changed these days, but probably not to extent that some will try to convince us of.

For example death certificates likely wont unscramble the picture in the way you might hope, because those can and often do mention covid without saying its the only factor in each of those deaths.

And its not possible to use 'patients in mechanical ventilator beds' to completely untangle the matter either, because those most likely to die are the oldest who are often not deemed suitable for ventilation in the first place.


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## elbows (Jan 11, 2022)

Plus having thought about it a little more, if the deaths do not rise by a really notable amount then that actually undermines the point you are trying to make, given the very large number of detected positives in recent times compared to the Delta wave. Because if a large proportion of the deaths are incidental to having covid, we'd expect a more notable increase in deaths than has actually been the case so far, especially when general winter deaths are factored in. But obviously I wil revisit this point once the death picture in January is clearer.


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## brogdale (Jan 11, 2022)

proper fucking scum


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## teuchter (Jan 11, 2022)

elbows said:


> your attitude towards the deaths all the way through really.


As a matter of interest... what is my "attitude towards the deaths"?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 11, 2022)

Ultimately, excess deaths is our best guide to how bad a situation has been. Has the advantage of being able to compare it to other places and bypassing reporting issues.

Right now, I would say the picture is unclear to say the least. Numbers have clearly risen, but up to at least mid-December, delta was raging very significantly alongside omicron, so there will still be a fair few delta deaths. In two or three weeks, nearly all the deaths will be omicron only.

You may be surprised to hear that I agree with you, elbows, about the 'for or with' argument. I think its importance can be overstated and we can take general trends as accurately reflecting the changing situation as various factors cancel each other out. In this case, that trend is a certain rise in covid deaths over the last couple of weeks. We'll see how much higher it goes. It's probably already peaking in southern England.


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## elbows (Jan 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> As a matter of interest... what is my "attitude towards the deaths"?


I'm simply refering to the fact you have brought up this sort of point in past waves havent you?

Lets get into the detail more, because I'd love to know what proportion are actually incidental deaths too, but I get the idea we do not share the same assumptions about that.

So you tell me, what sort of proportion do you have in mind? Because as I mentioned in my previous post, there are going to be some ways we can at least begin to test such assumptions. And there is no point making the point if you arent prepared to give some vague indication of how big an issue you think this is in terms of skewing our perception about pandemic deaths.

Lets get into some detail so we can do some very basic analysis on the data now, and again in some weeks time. Probably we could start by only looking at a certain age group upwards. Then I can see how many positive cases were detected in that age group at the peak this time, compared to the peak in the Delta wave. And then we can see to what extent the deaths within 28 days of a positive test for that age group increases compared to how much the cases have increased. This will offer some clues about what proportion might really be incidental, though it wont be anything like perfect, it will just give us some basis with which to think about plausible proportions.


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## teuchter (Jan 11, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> I think its importance can be overstated and we can take general trends as accurately reflecting the changing situation as various factors cancel each other out.


I agree with that in principle, but the number of (tested and reported) infections has gone up so massively in the past few weeks that it seems quite plausible that the numbers of people who die of other things but have covid "incidentally" is going to go up by more than a trivial amount.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 11, 2022)

Swale Sheppey East 5168 cases per 100k

Thereafter it's all up north ...



			https://archive.uea.ac.uk/~e130/MSOA.html


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## bimble (Jan 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I agree with that in principle, but the number of (tested and reported) infections has gone up so massively in the past few weeks that it seems quite plausible that the numbers of people who die of other things but have covid "incidentally" is going to go up by more than a trivial amount.


This is just a fact isn't it, if even saying that is to fall on the wrong side of some partisan divide things are even worse than i imagined.

If what this WHO person is saying is even remotely true then its going to be a fairly important thing to learn about and not ignore i think, whether the deceased's covid infections were causal or not.   Omicron could infect 50% of Europeans in next two months, says WHO


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## brogdale (Jan 11, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Swale Sheppey East 5168 cases per 100k
> 
> Thereafter it's all up north ...
> 
> ...



poor old Swale, again.
Pretty certain that's where I picked it up last week.


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## teuchter (Jan 11, 2022)

elbows said:


> I'm simply refering to the fact you have brought up this point in past waves havent you?
> 
> Lets get into the detail more, because I'd love to know what proportion are actually incidental deaths too, but I get the idea we do not share the same assumptions about that.
> 
> ...


Well in very crude terms,

I can look at the gov.uk dashboard for England and see that in early/mid december, the case rate for over 60s was around 130. And by 3rd Jan it was over 1100. That's not quite enough for me to say it increased by an order of magnitude but it's not far off.

it's around half the rate given for under-60s. And we have the recent ONS survey estimating that 1 in 10 people in London or 1 in 15 in England had covid a week or two ago.

So I extropolate that to say that maybe one in 20 or one in 30 over-60s had it.

Of course you may well be able to show me that the proportion of people who are likely to have had it incidentally when they died is actually way less than that, in which case I'll take your point, and it'll be useful in an argument I'm having on another forum where I'm arguing the other direction.


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## LDC (Jan 11, 2022)

Storm Fox said:


> I'm health anxious, I've hardly been out since the start. I was 'stab me with that vaccine, stab me now'. That's no comment on your friend, just how different people see the world.



Yeah, totally, complex reasons why people haven't had it, a mix of things from across the spectrum, not the simple 'if you haven't had it you don't want it' stuff spouted by the previous poster.


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## frogwoman (Jan 11, 2022)

There are people who have had serious reactions to the vaccine as well tbh, there are also people who are worried about stuff like immigration status rightly or wrongly. I don't think they need to get lumped in with actual anti vaxxers


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## elbows (Jan 11, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Ultimately, excess deaths is our best guide to how bad a situation has been. Has the advantage of being able to compare it to other places and bypassing reporting issues.
> 
> Right now, I would say the picture is unclear to say the least. Numbers have clearly risen, but up to at least mid-December, delta was raging very significantly alongside omicron, so there will still be a fair few delta deaths. In two or three weeks, nearly all the deaths will be omicron only.
> 
> You may be surprised to hear that I agree with you, elbows, about the 'for or with' argument. I think its importance can be overstated and we can take general trends as accurately reflecting the changing situation as various factors cancel each other out. In this case, that trend is a certain rise in covid deaths over the last couple of weeks. We'll see how much higher it goes. It's probably already peaking in southern England.


Cheers, I'm actually not surprised we agree on some of this stuff, one of the reasons my arguments with you went so wrong on occasions is that I was well aware of all the areas where we are on roughly the same page, but that then made some of the divergences in our opinion of other details harder to get my head around and come to terms with!

In terms of deaths from all causes and excess deaths, they were more useful on some occasions than others. They were especially useful during the initial horrible part of the first wave, because it wasnt in winter, and because limited testing meant that there was a rather notable undercount in official covid deaths for a while, part of that wave is missing from the official covid death data but shows up strongly in the deaths from all causes. There are still some complications, for example the lockdowns and behavioural changes were expected to have an effect on other sorts of deaths (eg the start of recessions and reduced economic activity is traditionally associated with a reduction in deaths!). And during winter waves there was also an absence of the usual number of flu deaths to consider. And obviously problems with healthcare and people not going to hospital when they really needed to, again especially in the first wave, would be expected to have an impact on overall mortality, as will healthcare backlogs going forwards.

I was actually messing around with a graph of weekly deaths from all causes in England and Wales, via data in the latest ONS release. Here is the graph I ended up with. Complications with this graph often relate to bank holidays, Christmas and New Year causing delays to death registrations. And some weeks are deemed to have 53 weeks instead of 52. Note for example that the transition between the end of 20202 and the start of 2021 involves a massive leap after an artificial decline.

When comparing the latter half of 2020 to the latter half of 2021, we have to consider not just different variants, but also different strength of restrictions, and a greater return to 'normal economic activity' in this part of 2021, impacting on both covid and non-covid deaths in various ways over time. So I cannot unpick all this stuff neatly. For example with only this graph as a guide, it isnt easy to tell the difference between the vaccine era and the non vaccine era, when it comes to the second half of the years!



Data is from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional       - Office for National Statistics


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I agree with that in principle, but the number of (tested and reported) infections has gone up so massively in the past few weeks that it seems quite plausible that the numbers of people who die of other things but have covid "incidentally" is going to go up by more than a trivial amount.


Yes but incidental covid in hospital admissions is still well under 50 %. I think the current upward trend is real enough even if it turns out to be slightly less steep than it may appear. 

London is the lead example. Covid deaths have more than doubled since omicron (from a relatively low figure). It is unlikely that's just an artefact given that incidental covid in London is running at around 30-odd percent tops ( and it was up at about 20 percent pre omicron).


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## elbows (Jan 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> Well in very crude terms,
> 
> I can look at the gov.uk dashboard for England and see that in early/mid december, the case rate for over 60s was around 130. And by 3rd Jan it was over 1100. That's not quite enough for me to say it increased by an order of magnitude but it's not far off.
> 
> ...


The ONS do helpfully provide estimates per age group, although it isnt brilliantly presented for our purposes. I'll have a look at the underlying data they provide and see if I can present it in a more useful way for our purposes.





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

Estimates for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This survey is being delivered in partnership with University of Oxford, University of Manchester, UK Health Security Agency and Wellcome Trust.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




I'm still not getting a full sense of what proportion you think may be incidental. But I understand that it is not necessarily easy to come up with a guesstimate even if you believe it does skew the data quite a bit, its not like I am willing to provide my own estimate either! Its not hard to claim we might expect it to make up a bigger proportion than it did in the pre-vaccine era, but I still tend to assume that it isnt such a big deal that it would totally ruin our impression of the ongoing burden of this virus.

But for example I doubt that you are expecting the deaths to shoot up to levels anything like 10 times higher than they were?

I'll let you know next time I have attempted to crudely scrunch some data for these purposes.


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## bimble (Jan 11, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes but incidental covid in hospital admissions is still well under 50 %. I think the current upward trend is real enough even if it turns out to be slightly less steep than it may appear.
> 
> London is the lead example. Covid deaths have more than doubled since omicron (from a relatively low figure). It is unlikely that's just an artefact given that incidental covid in London is running at around 30-odd percent tops ( and it was up at about 20 percent pre omicron).


these 'incidental covid' numbers, are they about people in hospitals only? People who died in hospitals? Or also at home / in care homes / hospices / in car accidents etc?


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## elbows (Jan 11, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Yes but incidental covid in hospital admissions is still well under 50 %. I think the current upward trend is real enough even if it turns out to be slightly less steep than it may appear.
> 
> London is the lead example. Covid deaths have more than doubled since omicron (from a relatively low figure). It is unlikely that's just an artefact given that incidental covid in London is running at around 30-odd percent tops ( and it was up at about 20 percent pre omicron).


Plus via things like hospital infections, we might still expect that in some proportion of the incidental hospital cases, death due to covid will still be a real outcome. But it should be less than in the pre-vaccine era.

I will start to look at deaths in London and the whole country by age group, though I probably wont present the results until we are further beyond the period where Christmas and the New Year have interferred with reporting. And I say that even now because I will be sure to include ONS death certificate deaths as well as the 28 day ones that arent so delayed.


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## elbows (Jan 11, 2022)

bimble said:


> these 'incidental covid' numbers, are they about people in hospitals only? People who died in hospitals?


Number of people in hospital beds who tested positive for covid.

They come out weekly for England. They are far from precise. Here is what they looked like last time the data came out, for England as a whole (next ones due out on Thursday).

Data is from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity as are the following comments from the NHS on this data. And their choice of words is in part sponsored by the right-wing press who were shitty about this stuff and tried to use it to serve a particular agenda. Hospital acquired covid is part of this picture too, though the NHS arent drawing attention to that, and the press dont tend to either.



> The majority of inpatients with Covid-19 are admitted as a result of the infection. A subset of those who contract Covid in the community and are asymptomatic, or exhibited relatively mild symptoms that on their own are unlikely to warrant admission to hospital, will then be admitted to hospital to be treated for something else and be identified through routine testing. However these patients still require their treatment in areas that are segregated from patients without Covid, and the presence of Covid can be a significant co-morbidity in many cases. Equally, while the admission may be due to another primary condition, in many instances this may have been as a result of contracting Covid in the community. For example research has shown that people with Covid are more likely to have a stroke (Stroke Association); in these cases people would be admitted for the stroke, classified as ‘with’ Covid despite having had a stroke as a result of having Covid.





> The headline published numbers in publications to date have been “inpatients with confirmed Covid” without differentiating between those in hospital “for” Covid and those in hospital “with” Covid. Recognising the combination of high community infections rates, with the reduced likelihood of admission for those who contract Covid in the community and are fully vaccinated, the Covid SitRep was enhanced in June 2021 to add a requirement for providers to distinguish between those being primarily treated ‘for’ Covid and those ‘with’ Covid but for whom the primary reason for being in hospital was non-Covid related. In practice this distinction is not always clear at the point of admission when the patient’s record has not been fully clinically coded. In light of this, trusts have been asked to provide this “for” and “with” split on a ‘best endeavours’ basis.


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## kabbes (Jan 11, 2022)

teuchter — I think the best way of thinking about it is that ordinary deaths in winter run at about 0.08% per month (i.e., I’m going to use that to extrapolate the likely “excess” deaths).  Crudely, if we apply that to the number of people getting COVID, that tells us how many of those people we might expect to have ordinarily died anyway in a normal year.  If it’s 100,000 per day getting COVID, for example, then that’s an exposure rate of about 3 million people per month, and about 2,400 of those people would ordinarily have likely died even without COVID.  However, the current _weekly_ average of deaths with COVID is actually 1660, which is about 3 times this normal rate, giving us about 5,000 excess deaths per month, or 160 per day.

So even by trying to statistically strip out the deaths that are somehow incidental to having COVID, we’re still left with a massive excess death rate right now.  An excess that is surely unpalatable, which means it doesn’t massively matter what the “true” number is, it’s just something that needs handling.


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## brogdale (Jan 11, 2022)

Not wrong.


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## frogwoman (Jan 11, 2022)

There will also be a number of people who died of non covid illnesses because they couldn't get to hospital due to pressures from covid I'd have thought.


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## teuchter (Jan 11, 2022)

kabbes said:


> teuchter — I think the best way of thinking about it is that ordinary deaths in winter run at about 0.08% per month (i.e., I’m going to use that to extrapolate the likely “excess” deaths).  Crudely, if we apply that to the number of people getting COVID, that tells us how many of those people we might expect to have ordinarily died anyway in a normal year.  If it’s 100,000 per day getting COVID, for example, then that’s an exposure rate of about 3 million people per month, and about 2,400 of those people would ordinarily have likely died even without COVID.  However, the current _weekly_ average of deaths with COVID is actually 1660, which is about 3 times this normal rate, giving us about 5,000 excess deaths per month, or 160 per day.
> 
> So even by trying to statistically strip out the deaths that are somehow incidental to having COVID, we’re still left with a massive excess death rate right now.  An excess that is surely unpalatable, which means it doesn’t massively matter what the “true” number is, it’s just something that needs handling.


This current excess deaths situation has not gone un noticed by the "back to business" / anti lockdown crowd and they are arguing it's the product of people dying of stuff that's fallout from the NHS "ignoring everything that wasn't covid".


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## kabbes (Jan 11, 2022)

frogwoman said:


> There will also be a number of people who died of non covid illnesses because they couldn't get to hospital due to pressures from covid I'd have thought.


Indeed, and that’s all taken care of by using an “excess deaths” approach, since whether  COVID is implicated directly or indirectly isn’t really the issue


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## kabbes (Jan 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> This current excess deaths situation has not gone un noticed by the "back to business" / anti lockdown crowd and they are arguing it's the product of people dying of stuff that's fallout from the NHS "ignoring everything that wasn't covid".


Surely this is just showing that the NHS needs to be much better funded?  What are such types suggesting?  That people dying of COVID should be ignored by the NHS?


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## Dystopiary (Jan 11, 2022)




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## wtfftw (Jan 11, 2022)

Anyone seen any reports of positive LFD and then negative PCR?

We got lines on Friday but just had negative PCR results. This is a surprise as we've had sneezes, bit of runny nose, diarrhoea, nausea, banging headache, scratchy throat. He's been sleeping. I've got my usual fatigue but also an heavy painful trunk. Slightly raised temp and sweats for me. ETA to add itchy eyes which we both remarked on but I've now also seen listed as a symptom   


Although upon googling I've just seen that we no longer do a PCR after a LFD.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 12, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> Anyone seen any reports of positive LFD and then negative PCR?
> 
> We got lines on Friday but just had negative PCR results. This is a surprise as we've had sneezes, bit of runny nose, diarrhoea, nausea, banging headache, scratchy throat. He's been sleeping. I've got my usual fatigue but also an heavy painful trunk. Slightly raised temp and sweats for me. ETA to add itchy eyes which we both remarked on but I've now also seen listed as a symptom
> 
> ...


pretty sure that LFD are still for asymptomatic/no symptos situations
so PCR needed/justified if you have symptoms
also:
other viruses are currently available
hope you are Ok


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## zahir (Jan 12, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> Anyone seen any reports of positive LFD and then negative PCR?



My understanding is that when this happens it's quite likely that the lateral flow test was correct. If it's a few days between tests then maybe that explains the negative PCR anyway.


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## teuchter (Jan 12, 2022)

kabbes said:


> Surely this is just showing that the NHS needs to be much better funded?  What are such types suggesting?  That people dying of COVID should be ignored by the NHS?


I dunno, yes they do seem to be saying that NHS capacity should be increased, although I might suspect that once the potential imposition of Covid related restrictions has passed they might lose interest in that project.


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## Fruitloop (Jan 12, 2022)

Heard anecdotally that mech venitilation might be a particularly bad proxy for Omicron, because it has a lower affinity for the lungs and so ICUs are seeing very ill patients with d dimer scores off the chart but not requiring ventilation


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## teuchter (Jan 12, 2022)

kabbes said:


> teuchter — I think the best way of thinking about it is that ordinary deaths in winter run at about 0.08% per month (i.e., I’m going to use that to extrapolate the likely “excess” deaths).  Crudely, if we apply that to the number of people getting COVID, that tells us how many of those people we might expect to have ordinarily died anyway in a normal year.  If it’s 100,000 per day getting COVID, for example, then that’s an exposure rate of about 3 million people per month, and about 2,400 of those people would ordinarily have likely died even without COVID.  However, the current _weekly_ average of deaths with COVID is actually 1660, which is about 3 times this normal rate, giving us about 5,000 excess deaths per month, or 160 per day.
> 
> So even by trying to statistically strip out the deaths that are somehow incidental to having COVID, we’re still left with a massive excess death rate right now.  An excess that is surely unpalatable, which means it doesn’t massively matter what the “true” number is, it’s just something that needs handling.



For what it's worth here is what I'd do with these numbers.

0.08% x population of c60M = 48,000 deaths per month = 1600 deaths per day in a "normal winter".

Pre Omicron, say 1 in 100 people has Covid at any one time. That means that even if Covid didn't actually kill anyone, 16 people per day would die "with Covid" and be included in the numbers. But if official Covid numbers are running at 100 a day, and someone tries to argue that this is not the real number because of this "with Covid" issue, then I'd reject their argument because maybe actually only 84 people are dying "of" Covid, but so what, 100 or 84 is not a big difference. And also, assuming the background prevalence is staying very roughly around 1 in 100, then if the official numbers go up or down I'll take it as reasonably likely that the increase or decrease is "real". In fact even if the background prevalence doubled to 1 in 50, then it doesn't produce a massive shift in the recorded numbers (they "artificially" shift from about 100 to 115 or so).

However...say, in the Omicron era, 1 in 10 people has Covid at any one time. Then, even if Covid doesn't kill anyone, doing the same sums, 160 people per day die "with Covid". Now, if someone says to me that the official numbers indicate, say, 200 "with Covid" deaths per day, but 160 of these probably actually died of something else, I no longer feel I can say "so what" because now it's plausible that in fact a very large proportion of that 200 have in fact died of something else, and just happened to have Covid at the time.

At the moment we are looking at a 7-day average of about 235, up from an average of around 115 that was relatively stable through most of December.

If someone tries to tell me that those additional 120 deaths per day are mostly just an artefact of the greater background prevalence of Covid, then I find that difficult to write off entirely. It seems plausible to me that at least some of it can be explained this way.

The main way in which the argument would fall down of course is if the prevalance in the group of people who have died is a lot lower than it is in the general population. And if we assume that people dying tend to be in older age groups then yes, this is significant.

Looking at the graphs in the ONS survey that elbows linked to does suggest that prevalence ranges from about 2.5% in the over 80s, rising to about 5% once you get to 60 year olds.



So I guess that my conclusion would be that the increase we can see in the (28 days/with covid) death rate over the past couple of weeks is, plausibly, influenced by the large rise in background prevalance, but this probably doesn't account for all of it.

(If we re-do my sums in the first bit of this post assuming we are looking at prevalence in, say, over-70s instead of the general population, we could say that pre Omicron, incidental covid deaths might have been 5 per week, and post Omicron, 50 per week)


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## Orang Utan (Jan 12, 2022)

A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?


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## editor (Jan 12, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?


You got a union there?


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## LDC (Jan 12, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?



That's council place? Do you have a whistleblower person?


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## Chilli.s (Jan 12, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?


Leak that to the guardian or private eye


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## StoneRoad (Jan 12, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?


They should refuse on Health & Safety grounds, in particular, safeguarding their own health. 
One can't work effectively when ill, leaving aside whether or not if their covid is still infectious.

&  also: inform whichever Union(s) are applicable.


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## killer b (Jan 12, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?


It's right they are able to go into work even though they're still testing positive - they could test positive for weeks.


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## zora (Jan 12, 2022)

Eh? Self-isolation ends after 10 days regardless of test result, no?
The bit where they say "not to tell anyone" sounds iffy, because it sounds like they don't understand the guidance and want to pull a fast one, but the principle of returning to work is in accordance with guidance. 
(But of course, once again the more complex rules now - I.e. being able to "test yourself free" with negative LFTs on Day 6 and 7, is causing a lot of confusion, in this case people thinking they have to provide a negative result on Day 10).


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## killer b (Jan 12, 2022)

zora said:


> The bit where they say "not to tell anyone" sounds iffy


Probably just wanting to avoid undue panic from colleagues who don't know what the rules are


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## zora (Jan 12, 2022)

Yeah, but at the same time it seems to have created an air of scandal or hush up in itself.
Might be better to try and communicate the actual guidance to staff. 

What I meant was that if there was anything dodgy about it, as several posters seemed to think, it would be that aspect, but not the fact that they told the staff member it's okay to come back.


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## zora (Jan 12, 2022)

For anyone wondering:
Quote from article from 2 days ago (can't link to it on my phone right now, Cambridge News)
"So the answer is: you can leave self isolation after 10 days if you are still testing positive with a lateral flow. But ONLY if you don't have a high temperature, and you're not feeling unwell."


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## killer b (Jan 12, 2022)

either way it's unlikely the guardian or private eye would be interested


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## zora (Jan 12, 2022)

Well, indeed. I was puzzled by the number of posters who seemed to think this was a case for whistle-blowing or union involvement, and my response was to them.


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## LDC (Jan 12, 2022)

zora said:


> Well, indeed. I was puzzled by the number of posters who seemed to think this was a case for whistle-blowing or union involvement, and my response was to them.



I slightly mis-read and assumed they were still ill as they'd been told not to tell anyone. Seems an odd thing to tell someone if it's all allowed.


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## Orang Utan (Jan 12, 2022)

zora said:


> Eh? Self-isolation ends after 10 days regardless of test result, no?
> The bit where they say "not to tell anyone" sounds iffy, because it sounds like they don't understand the guidance and want to pull a fast one, but the principle of returning to work is in accordance with guidance.
> (But of course, once again the more complex rules now - I.e. being able to "test yourself free" with negative LFTs on Day 6 and 7, is causing a lot of confusion, in this case people thinking they have to provide a negative result on Day 10).


I looked on the Covid guidelines on self-isolation and it’s not very clear at all


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## Orang Utan (Jan 12, 2022)

It doesn’t make sense - surely if they’re positive they should not be at work?


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## LDC (Jan 12, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> It doesn’t make sense - surely if they’re positive they should not be at work?



"You do not need to take any more LFD tests after the 10th day of your self-isolation period and you may stop self-isolating after this day. This is because you are unlikely to be infectious after the 10th day of your self-isolation period. Even if you have a positive LFD test result on the 10th day of your self-isolation period you do not need to take any more LFD tests after this day and you do not need a follow-up PCR test."

From:






						[Withdrawn] [Withdrawn] Stay at home: guidance for households with possible or confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) infection
					






					www.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2022)

I think the BBC fucked up their reporting of the deaths figure yesterday.

Yesterdays daily deaths reported number was a larger one, mostly because of the weekend catchup but also because number of deaths has actually been rising.

However on the main BBC news bulletins they claimed this was because of a technical error causing underreporting in the late December period. This is incorrect - the technical problem was with ONS death cause codes, which affects the 'covid mentioned on death certificates' figures, which are not the same figures as the daily reported deaths figure at all. So the ONS figure for a particular period had to be corrected, not the daily number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test.


----------



## Chilli.s (Jan 12, 2022)

zora said:


> For anyone wondering:
> Quote from article from 2 days ago (can't link to it on my phone right now, Cambridge News)
> "So the answer is: you can leave self isolation after 10 days if you are still testing positive with a lateral flow. But ONLY if you don't have a high temperature, and you're not feeling unwell."


Thanks for that, I misunderstood the rules


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 12, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> "You do not need to take any more LFD tests after the 10th day of your self-isolation period and you may stop self-isolating after this day. This is because you are unlikely to be infectious after the 10th day of your self-isolation period. Even if you have a positive LFD test result on the 10th day of your self-isolation period you do not need to take any more LFD tests after this day and you do not need a follow-up PCR test."
> 
> From:
> 
> ...


The search I did on that website did not take me to that page. No wonder people are confused!


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2022)

I note that even the Triggle article on the peak makes mention of fears of a long, flat peak or for cases to drop very slowly.



> But Prof Medley says there is still a risk of a long, flat peak or for infections and serious illness to drop very slowly. Last winter the lockdown halted the virus in its tracks and ensured a relatively quick descent from the peak.
> 
> This slow decline has - to some extent - been seen in South Africa, where the variant was first reported. There, cases have been dropping much more slowly after an initial big fall once they peaked.











						Omicron: Has the winter wave peaked already?
					

Cases are falling and hospital admissions appear to be plateauing - has the UK weathered this wave?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I dont have a prediction about that, its just one of those possibilities I have to keep an eye out for, especially without lockdowns etc this time, given what happened with the Delta wave.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 12, 2022)

teuchter said:


> For what it's worth here is what I'd do with these numbers.
> 
> 0.08% x population of c60M = 48,000 deaths per month = 1600 deaths per day in a "normal winter".
> 
> ...


Couple of things:

Prevalence in over-70s has only risen recently. As usual, the initial surge was among the young. Remember that death rates reflect infection rates 2-3 weeks ago, not right now.

The other thing muddying the waters is the number of delta deaths still occurring. I don't know if the figures for that are available. Thankfully delta does appear to have been knocked out by omicron now, but we won't be down to just omicron deaths for at least another couple of weeks.

Govt website shows infections in the over-60s in London now falling, which is encouraging in terms of getting any nasty shocks with deaths in the next couple of weeks. Looking wider at Denmark, Ireland and other places with huge omicron waves, they're all seeing a similar uptick in deaths from a low level but nothing big. Fwiw my prediction would be deaths rising a little more over the next week or so before falling back, possibly quite quickly.

ETA:

One final point, looking at South Africa (both official covid deaths and excess mortality), it is clear that omicron has killed a significant number of people. It just hasn't killed anywhere like as many people as previous strains. Excess excess deaths in SA from omicron so far are probably around 5-10,000 (it also has some excess deaths atm for other reasons to do with the fallout from the pandemic ). To put that in context, SA's excess deaths since March 2020 stand at nearly 300,000.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 12, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Couple of things:
> 
> Prevalence in over-70s has only risen recently. As usual, the initial surge was among the young. Remember that death rates reflect infection rates 2-3 weeks ago, not right now.


That's true for people that die "of covid" now - they will correlate with infection rates 2-3 weeks ago.

But people who die "with Covid" now - they will correlate with infection rates now, not 2-3 weeks ago.


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 12, 2022)

teuchter said:


> That's true for people that die "of covid" now - they will correlate with infection rates 2-3 weeks ago.
> 
> But people who die "with Covid" now - they will correlate with infection rates now, not 2-3 weeks ago.


Yeah, and that's a decent way of telling roughly whether deaths are predominantly 'of' (including co-morbidities) or predominantly 'with'. If the deaths curve roughly mirrors the infection curve with a two-week lag, then we can say that it's mostly 'of'. Certainly the hospitalisation rate has followed the expected lag of about a week or so.


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> The other thing muddying the waters is the number of delta deaths still occurring. I don't know if the figures for that are available. Thankfully delta does appear to have been knocked out by omicron now, but we won't be down to just omicron deaths for at least another couple of weeks.


Yeah Im not sure as they are publishing much data on that any more - daily Omicron updates from UKHSA seemed to stop at the end of 2021, and whenever I saw these reports for Delta and then Omicron in the past, the figures for number of Delta deaths and number of Omicron deaths, hospitalisations and cases seemed like only a fraction of the full picture, I dont think they really lined up fully with the overall totals reported elsewhere.

In terms of number of infections from different variants, I note that at the moment the ONS population survey stuff is being published 2 days earlier than it used to be. Which means the latest version came out today. They mention that Delta variant compatible infections hae fallen to very low levels, but I havent yet checked what underlying data is available from them on this, I will.






						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey headline results, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

The latest data from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection survey, containing high-level estimates for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. 



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




And there are uncertainties with the picture they present, such as:



> In England, the percentage of people testing positive has increased among age groups aged 50 years and over, however, infections remain lowest in those aged 70 years and over; in all other age groups, the percentage of people testing positive has increased over the most recent two weeks, but the trend is uncertain in the most recent week.





> COVID-19 infections continued to increase across all regions of England except the East of England, and London; the percentage of people testing positive has decreased in London in the most recent week and in the East of England, the trend is uncertain.



This report covers up tp the week ending January 6th.


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2022)

I found the data relating to the variants from that report. But note the date it goes up to. 

We also need to keep in mind that all the ONS population survey figures are applicable to households, not hospitals, care homes etc.



From Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey headline results, UK       - Office for National Statistics


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2022)

This report from Scotland includes the sort of vaccine data (cases, hospitalisations and deaths by vaccine status including boosters) I usually draw attention to, but I think there are too many tables and graphs for me to highlight all the info and caveats properly.

Its a good thing the UK had the booster campaign when we did, I'll say that much.



			https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/11076/22-01-12-covid19-winter_publication_report.pdf


----------



## brogdale (Jan 12, 2022)

Another 398 dead today.

I'm no expert, but I think we're moving on from an Airbus-worth per day on towards a jumbo jet full every day.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 12, 2022)

brogdale said:


> Another 398 dead today.
> 
> I'm no expert, but I think we're moving on from an Airbus-worth per day on towards a jumbo jet full every day.


They're just mild endemic deaths now though so nothing to worry about.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 12, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> They're just mild endemic deaths now though so nothing to worry about.


innit?


----------



## elbows (Jan 12, 2022)

On the 'chuck the word endemic around' front, I wonder how long I'll have the energy to keep picking apart the following sort of comments. All sorts of press picked up on these comments yeterday. Some of the comments from Heymann make some sense and some do not.

For example what the fuck is the point in making this sort of stupid claim, other than to further an agenda too quickly?



> That population immunity seems to be keeping the virus and its variants at bay, not causing serious illness or death,” he told Chatham House think tank's online seminar.





> “It's causing illness in children, possibly more than it did in the past,” he said. “Children are the only population now where the virus can find a welcome home because they haven't had infection previously … because there's nowhere else that it can transmit in an effort to perpetuate itself.”



What bollocks, as if Omicron has had trouble infecting adults!









						Britain 'could be first country to emerge from pandemic', scientist says
					

Prof David Heymann says high infection and vaccination rates mean UK is now living with Covid




					www.thenationalnews.com


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jan 12, 2022)

frogwoman said:


> There will also be a number of people who died of non covid illnesses because they couldn't get to hospital due to pressures from covid I'd have thought.


Someone at work fell seriously ill the other day. Nearly didn't get admitted for this reason but thankfully our GP insisted..... It was not a Manageable in the Carehome type of scenario and the guy is not that old.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jan 12, 2022)

IC3D said:


> If people have not had the vaccine it's not hesitant, it's not wanting it.
> Perhaps some leadership to resolving the staffing crisis might encourage people more than the threat of losing an important job.


What's hesitant then? Getting the vaccine whilst screaming AM HESITANT AF HERE MATE


----------



## souljacker (Jan 12, 2022)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> What's hesitant then? Getting the vaccine whilst screaming AM HESITANT AF HERE MATE


I've always pictured the hesitant ones outside the vaxx centre, umming and aahing, maybe putting a foot in the center before going nope and backing off. A bit like when you are trying to jump off the top board of the local pool.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 12, 2022)

elbows said:


> On the 'chuck the word endemic around' front, I wonder how long I'll have the energy to keep picking apart the following sort of comments. All sorts of press picked up on these comments yeterday. Some of the comments from Heymann make some sense and some do not.
> 
> For example what the fuck is the point in making this sort of stupid claim, other than to further an agenda too quickly?
> 
> ...


This tweet relates to those comments. 



Huge amount of antibodies in the population but still millions of infections and loads of death.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 12, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> They're just mild endemic deaths now though so nothing to worry about.



We're just going to have to learn how to live with being dead.


----------



## Mation (Jan 12, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> It doesn’t make sense - surely if they’re positive they should not be at work?


I'd agree. Positive by lateral flow is positive according to what's detected in the sample as provided at the time, whereas PCR amplifies the sample up to detect what's in there, rather than the original viral load (I think).

Is it not the case that f there's enough of the virus currently (at time of testing) to be detected by lateral flow, then there's enough to be infectious? Does transmissibility decrease over time independently of the amount of virus that can be detected?


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 12, 2022)

.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 13, 2022)

Mation said:


> I'd agree. Positive by lateral flow is positive according to what's detected in the sample as provided at the time, whereas PCR amplifies the sample up to detect what's in there, rather than the original viral load (I think).
> 
> Is it not the case that f there's enough of the virus currently (at time of testing) to be detected by lateral flow, then there's enough to be infectious? Does transmissibility decrease over time independently of the amount of virus that can be detected?


I have no idea. That’s all gobbledygook to me. I rely on the boffins to interpret that for me. I just need to know what’s the right thing to do. I don’t need to understand the science as it just goes in one ear and out the other.


----------



## killer b (Jan 13, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> I have no idea. That’s all gobbledygook to me. I rely on the boffins to interpret that for me. I just need to know what’s the right thing to do. I don’t need to understand the science as it just goes in one ear and out the other.


the boffins say it's fine to end your isolation after 10 days (unless you're still ill).


----------



## Cloo (Jan 13, 2022)

Son tested + this morning,  wondering if my thoughts about 'might falling infections celebrations be a bit premature given kids have only just gone back to school?' might be borne out. After all,  ill or positive testing kids won't have gone in on first week, so school infections are only really going to start kicking in now presumably.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 13, 2022)

Cloo said:


> Son tested + this morning,  wondering if my thoughts about 'might falling infections celebrations be a bit premature given kids have only just gone back to school?' might be borne out. After all,  ill or positive testing kids won't have gone in on first week, so school infections are only really going to start kicking in now presumably.


Yep. We've had a positive in ftw's class -she's been off anyway as positive LFTs for us mean we haven't been able to take her in.

And seriously. Why can't we do spit tests on kids?


----------



## Cloo (Jan 13, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> Yep. We've had a positive in ftw's class -she's been off anyway as positive LFTs for us mean we haven't been able to take her in.
> 
> And seriously. Why can't we do spit tests on kids?


Yes,  haven't heard any more about those for  about a year or more ago when they were being tested.  Wasn't the idea to check a while class at once and then you'd know if you need individual tests?


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 13, 2022)

The LAMP tests only seem to be available for NHS staff or via paid for travel test place.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 13, 2022)

I am not looking forward to frequently testing her.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2022)

It is a shame that spit tests didnt become a huge part of the testing system. I dont know the reasons why, I took part in a home trial of one after the first wave and I never heard any more about it, apart from the thing with NHS staff.


----------



## two sheds (Jan 13, 2022)

and where are the dogs


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2022)

Covid: People in 'left behind' communities more likely to die
					

The report's authors call for measures to reduce health inequalities and say action is needed now.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> People in England's "left behind" communities were 46% more likely to die from Covid-19 than those living in the rest of the country, a study has found.
> 
> The report concluded people in these areas worked longer hours and lived shorter lives, with more ill health.
> 
> ...





> The study found:
> 
> People living in LBNs were 46% more likely to die from Covid-19 than those in the rest of England and 7% more likely to have died of the virus than those living in regular deprived areas.
> 
> ...


----------



## Orang Utan (Jan 13, 2022)

elbows said:


> It is a shame that spit tests didnt become a huge part of the testing system. I dont know the reasons why, I took part in a home trial of one after the first wave and I never heard any more about it, apart from the thing with NHS staff.


we got some delivered by mistake at work recently, but they were meant for care homes


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## elbows (Jan 13, 2022)

It doesnt look like daily positive cases officially detected are going to get anywhere close to the huge levels last seen on January 4th (by date of test specimen).

Hospital admissions in England are continuing to plateau a little above and below 2000 per day. This is currently leading to slight falls each day in terms of number of covid patients in hospital beds, but this remains delicately balanced.

Over 300 deaths within 28 days of a positive test have now been reported for 3 days in a row. So far this is translating to a little over 200 deaths per day by date of death. I dont have big claims about how much higher these will go, or exactly when they might change trajectory.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2022)

teuchter I see the latest per-trust data is on the dashboard and the Kings 'patients in mechanical ventilator beds' numbers went back down compared to when you made your post about this using last weeks data. I havent looked at other trusts yet.


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## elbows (Jan 13, 2022)

Had a slightly better look at the per-trust data.

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust continues to be the most obvious example of a trust exceeding its previous records for number of covid patients in hospital beds compared to all the previous peaks. But obviously this doesnt reveal the full clinical picture. There are some other examples that have come somewhat close to or equalled previous peaks. Given the amount of attention Bolton received when the Delta wave arrived, I should probably mention that as one to look at in this Omicron wave. And given that some attention has been paid to higher numbers of hospitalisations in children this time around, I shall mention the Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust as one to look at in that regard.

I continue to be extremely thankful for the booster rollout timing we ended up with in this country.


----------



## bimble (Jan 13, 2022)

From Monday ,apparently, it will be down to 5 days, the period of isolation after testing positive?


----------



## teuchter (Jan 13, 2022)

elbows said:


> teuchter I see the latest per-trust data is on the dashboard and the Kings 'patients in mechanical ventilator beds' numbers went back down compared to when you made your post about this using last weeks data.


So I see. Which is good.

King's has one of the biggest A&E / critical care departments in London, I believe. Certainly I know that critically injured people from things like RTAs are brought there from a relatively wide area of the southeast of England, including by helicopter. I don't know if this would explain why it would show a blip while other trusts don't. It may be that serious cases from other hospitals end up getting transferred and concentrated there.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2022)

Yeah Im certainly wary of reading too much into per-trust data since to analyse it properly I would need to study differences in how the NHS configured itself in each wave.

Plus other stuff such as specific hospitals having outbreaks on their wards, which depending on where in the hospital they happened could be expected to make a difference to either admissions (since these include in hospital diagnoses too), patients in beds and patients in intensive care.

I still get very sad when I look back at first wave data for the period after the initial peak and leading up to the start of July 2020. My local hospital and local death statistics still stick out for that period, because a hospital infection situation persisted for months in my local hospital and gave us a first wave pattern that isnt replicated in quite the same way anywhere else


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2022)

bimble said:


> From Monday ,apparently, it will be down to 5 days, the period of isolation after testing positive?



Yes although there is some tedious detail that means it is described as 'five full days', you need to test negative on days 5 and 6.

eg see this graphic from the BBC article about the change. I may have more to say when I've seen more official documents as well as the UKHSA justification for this change.











						Covid self-isolation in England being cut to five full days
					

People will be able to end isolation after negative tests on days five and six from Monday.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Jan 13, 2022)

Does anyone know what the current thinking is on how the virus is spread? Initially everyone was washing their hands all the time, cleaning stuff that came through the door etc. Then it became clear that most transmissions were airborne and spread by breathing. But is there still thought to be a risk from indirect contact? A risk worth worrying about? The reason I ask is that at our local hospital the waste porters have been told that henceforth, in some circumstances, COVID waste may be mixed in with non-COVID waste. This is new. Previously waste was segregated and only some designated porters dealt with it. 'Infection Control' say that the new rules are OK, but they blow with the wind. Any ideas?


----------



## Mation (Jan 13, 2022)

elbows said:


> Yes although there is some tedious detail that means it is described as 'five full days', you need to test negative on days 5 and 6.
> 
> eg see this graphic from the BBC article about the change. I may have more to say when I've seen more official documents as well as the UKHSA justification for this change.
> 
> ...


That successfully employs the kind of mud-based clarity we have come to expect.

E2a: in case _I_ wasn't clear, I meant from the government, not from you, elbows!


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2022)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Does anyone know what the current thinking is on how the virus is spread? Initially everyone was washing their hands all the time, cleaning stuff that came through the door etc. Then it became clear that most transmissions were airborne and spread by breathing. But is there still thought to be a risk from indirect contact? A risk worth worrying about? The reason I ask is that at our local hospital the waste porters have been told that henceforth, in some circumstances, COVID waste may be mixed in with non-COVID waste. This is new. Previously waste was segregated and only some designated porters dealt with it. 'Infection Control' say that the new rules are OK, but they blow with the wind. Any ideas?


Perception of this risk in general are that it has reduced in many peoples minds compared to how it was perceived in the first wave of the pandemic.

Personally I doubt the risk is zero but it probably looks small compared to other risks that people focus on more these days. Peoples attitudes towards pandemic risk in general have also changed a bit since vaccines etc, which then has a knock on effect on how hard they try to shutdown all possible transmission paths. And attitudes varied quite a lot in the first place, eg I never nuked my shopping, I just avoid touching my face and wash my hands frequently when handling it, and so I havent really felt the need to change that.

Hospital waste is a pretty specific thing though, and I doubt the authorities are operating on the basis that risks associated with it are zero. A far as I know this is still the latest version of the NHS COVID-19 Waste management Standard Operating Procedure:





__





						Coronavirus » COVID-19 waste management standard operating procedure
					

Health and high quality care for all, now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk
				




Lots of tedious detail including plenty that would have to be looked up in other documents, and what the 'some circumstances' you mention actually are may make quite a difference.



> The Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens designates waste arising from COVID-19 patients as infectious clinical waste (EWC code 18 01 03*). It must be packaged in UN-approved orange bags in accordance with the safe management of healthcare waste (HTM 07-01). The transport categorisation for this waste is Category B. Sharps and pharmaceutically contaminated items should continue to be segregated into appropriate containers sent for incineration; these should not enter the orange bag stream.





> In summary, infectious clinical waste including waste visibly contaminated with respiratory secretions (such as sputum or mucus from the mouth and nose) generated from an individual who had tested positive for COVID-19 and is still within their required isolation period, should be treated like any other infectious clinical waste – that is, as it would be for TB, hepatitis, etc, following national waste regulations.


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## Kevbad the Bad (Jan 13, 2022)

elbows said:


> Perception of this risk in general are that it has reduced in many peoples minds compared to how it was perceived in the first wave of the pandemic.
> 
> Personally I doubt the risk is zero but it probably looks small compared to other risks that people focus on more these days. Peoples attitudes towards pandemic risk in general have also changed a bit since vaccines etc, which then has a knock on effect on how hard they try to shutdown all possible transmission paths. And attitudes varied quite a lot in the first place, eg I never nuked my shopping, I just avoid touching my face and wash my hands frequently when handling it, and so I havent really felt the need to change that.
> 
> ...


Thanks for all that. The circumstances I referred to are where there is overflow from COVID wards to non-COVID wards, and a handful of COVID patients are on a non COVID green ward. This is becoming more common because of the volume of COVID patients. Yet it didn't happen during the previous waves.


----------



## elbows (Jan 13, 2022)

Ah I see, that does sound like the sort of circumstance whre they will fudge things and could end up breaking the rules if they try to overlook some stuff in the process. But its a specialised topic and I cant really take it further than the waffle I already came out with.


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2022)

Indie SAGE looked at the term endemic today, what it actually means and its implications. This is timely given the way its being used for propaganda purposes at the moment (my choice of words not theirs).

oops problem with the youtube link right now, I'll put it back in later.

They do rather shit on the idea that there is a nice tidy path of viral evolution where the 'milder' aspects of Omicron are a sure sign of whats to come next.


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2022)

The situation with young children and covid hospitalisation finally made it to the UK press, but with lots of reassurances given. Clearly a subject where panic is a concern, which may well be why we heard very little about this stuff all through the pandemic till now, where attention to the numbers now forces a response, in contrast to countries like the USA which have featured it more in previous waves too.









						Babies in England hospitals with Omicron as a precaution
					

The virus is causing some to develop fevers but not serious illness, experts say.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				












						More UK infants in hospital amid Omicron wave but experts urge calm
					

Proportion of hospitalised children aged under one rises, though medics say most cases are very mild




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Fruitloop (Jan 14, 2022)

Fucking nobody is being admitted just on the off-chance at the moment. Seriously!


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 14, 2022)

The daily deaths figure seems incredibly high. I've been waiting for some sort of Christmas/New Year correction but it's now the middle of January. The last figure I heard was 270 in a day and the day before that was well over 300. This suggests Covid is killing well over 1000 a week right now.

Am I right? elbows?


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2022)

Yes, although incredibly high as a concept is probably skewed by the incredibly high number of deaths we had in the first few waved of the pandemic.

There was some discussion of deaths earlier this week in this thread.

And its probably better to look at deaths by date of death, the first graph on this page of the dashboard, so the effect of late and weekend reporting can be removed:









						Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard
					

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 14, 2022)

elbows said:


> The situation with young children and covid hospitalisation finally made it to the UK press, but with lots of reassurances given. Clearly a subject where panic is a concern, which may well be why we heard very little about this stuff all through the pandemic till now, where attention to the numbers now forces a response, in contrast to countries like the USA which have featured it more in previous waves too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Gah! This whole 'it's mild' narrative is really boiling my piss now. No one goes into hospital for a mild viral infection. A cold where you bung a couple of lemsip and get on with the day is a mild viral infection. Going to A&E and requiring oxygen is not a mild viral infection. How the fuck has this decades old distinction been lost in the space of 2 months?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jan 14, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> How the fuck has this decades old distinction been lost in the space of 3 months?



Repetition plus everyone wants it to be so they don't give a shit that it ain't.


----------



## elbows (Jan 14, 2022)

This is the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health statement:





__





						RCPCH comments on reports of increased admissions of under 5s in hospital with COVID-19
					

In response to reports of increased admissions of under-fives in hospital with COVID-19, RCPCH comments:




					www.rcpch.ac.uk


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jan 14, 2022)

Mation said:


> I'd agree. Positive by lateral flow is positive according to what's detected in the sample as provided at the time, whereas PCR amplifies the sample up to detect what's in there, rather than the original viral load (I think).
> 
> Is it not the case that f there's enough of the virus currently (at time of testing) to be detected by lateral flow, then there's enough to be infectious? Does transmissibility decrease over time independently of the amount of virus that can be detected?



The amplification re PCR helps detect small amounts of the virus, and small amounts of virus likely indicates the person is either pre-infectious, or post. Whereas LFT's are not as sensitive and generally just pick up the virus when the person is at their most infectious- though I don't think there's a clear line in that positive LFT= infectious Negative LFT= not infectious as they are still gathering research on cycle thresholds(google those, a whole other level of boffinry) in PCR  tests so I think that's all a work in progress atm.  They don't- at least in Scotland- do more PCR tests after someone tests positive as they could as Killer B says test positive for weeks. Testing positive on an LFT ten days later whilst asymptomatic is pretty rare though it is known to happen- and research I've looked at generally shows that people aren't infectious 8 days or more after onset of symptoms- so if you factor that in with staffing crisis in the NHS it's perfectly understandable that those with positive LFT's after 10 days who are _also_ asymptomatic are told to go back to work as it is highly unlikely they will be infectious.


----------



## HoratioCuthbert (Jan 14, 2022)

Kevbad the Bad said:


> Thanks for all that. The circumstances I referred to are where there is overflow from COVID wards to non-COVID wards, and a handful of COVID patients are on a non COVID green ward. This is becoming more common because of the volume of COVID patients. Yet it didn't happen during the previous waves.


I'm guessing then you mean that the waste guys in question are now dealing with a ward that has covid and non covid patients? The document Elbows shared probs quite complicated if you aren't used to waste in a healthcare setting but strictly speaking when waste leaves a healthcare setting it isn't really segregated as "covid" and "non covid" so I would guess rather than following new rules, the existing rules are being applied to a setting with mixed scenarios going on? Could be wrong though. I've been dealing with orange and black bagged shite last two weeks in a red wing, which is why I had a stab at yer post. In Scotland, though. We keep it all for 72 hours first but we are a care home, that might be undoable in a hospital, not sure.

Also I'm defo now using "the offensive stream" in life, at some point.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 14, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> Repetition plus everyone wants it to be so they don't give a shit that it ain't.


I've corrected my last post because it's actually only be 2 months since Omicron was detected, less than in fact. Amazing the speed of it and the speed with which 'it's just mild' has caught on. 400 people dying a day from it at the moment and it's just mild... Crazy.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 15, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I've corrected my last post because it's actually only be 2 months since Omicron was detected, less than in fact. Amazing the speed of it and the speed with which 'it's just mild' has caught on. 400 people dying a day from it at the moment and it's just mild... Crazy.


Where's this "400 people a day" coming from?


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## Doctor Carrot (Jan 15, 2022)

teuchter said:


> Where's this "400 people a day" coming from?


There have been some days this week showing that figure or close to it.


----------



## Spandex (Jan 15, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> There have been some days this week showing that figure or close to it.


On 12th Jan there were 398 deaths reported, but that was a catch up day for reporting after lower figures had been reported at the weekend.

Here's the current 'by date of death' figures from the dashboard:


The higest number of recorded Covid deaths on a single day so far since Omicron hit is 231 on 6th Jan.

If you look back at the past 6 months, more people are currently dying per day than during the Detla wave:

But if you look back over the whole pandemic, these figures are dwarfed by the huge numbers of people dying in the first two waves in the pre-vaccine era:


We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that two hundred people dying every day is a lot of people, every one of them a personal tragedy for someone. 

I guess the blasé attitude of the government is in part because these kinds of death figures are what we might see in a bad flu season, but then bad flu seasons don't tend to go on for six months, like the current wave of deaths has so far, and every grown up in the country isnt offered three free vaccines while there are work from home orders, mask mandates and millions of people told to self-isolate, like there currently is.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jan 15, 2022)

Spandex said:


> On 12th Jan there were 398 deaths reported, but that was a catch up day for reporting after lower figures had been reported at the weekend.
> 
> Here's the current 'by date of death' figures from the dashboard:
> View attachment 305997
> ...


I thought there were a few days that had around 400 deaths rather than just one catch up day so thanks for clarifying. 

You're right, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact there's still lots of people dying a day. Nowhere near what we've seen previously of course but still a lot. 

I've tried to stop reading so much about the pandemic the last few days as it really does wind me up, the blasé attitude you talk about.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

One consequence of the attention to rising number of child hospitalisations in this wave is that we get to see some clinical indicators of this group in each wave, including the number that needed oxygen or ventilation.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1046475/S1483_CO-CIN_Child_admissions_and_severity_by_epoch.pdf


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

There were plenty of other SAGE documents published recently, but I've only looked at a couple of them so far.

This one is updated modelling from Warwick uni. They looked at what effect additional measures in January would have, and concluded that the difference would be limited by the peak of infections already having happened, but also that older people were already behaving cautiously in a manner similar to what the extra restrictions would entail. They also say that although such measures wouldnt have much effect on peak rate of hospitalisations, they would bring the wave under control more quickly, leading to a lower total number of admissions (the sort of finding that contradicts the shit Triggle was coming out with weeks ago).

They also do a version of the modelling which looks further ahead, and an exit wave of hospitalisations shows up.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

The most recent SAGE meeting minutes available are from January 7th, so much of what they say is stuff that already became clear a while ago. eg stuff relating to Omicron severity and how well vaccines, especially boosters, have held up.





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				




They do echo one thing that I mentioned Indie SAGE said in their video yesterday:



> These data are consistent with Omicron being a more upper respiratory tract infection. It is important to note that future variants will not necessarily retain these properties.



Stuff to do with the Omicron picture in children features. As does this action point, the results of which we started to see yesterday:



> ACTION: CMO office to work with paediatricians to accurately communicate the assessment of the risk to children from Omicron.


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

Brudgen makes a fair point in this story about Johnsons plight:



> But Andrew Bridgen, Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire, said: "I don't need to see what Sue Gray says to know that for me Boris Johnson has lost the moral authority to lead the country.
> 
> "If there's another emergency where he has to call on the public to make sacrifices, he doesn't have that authority. That makes his position in my book, as prime minister, completely untenable."











						Lead or step aside, senior Tory Tobias Ellwood tells Boris Johnson
					

Tobias Ellwood says "we need leadership" as MPs are inundated with messages about Downing Street parties.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




A future variant which has huge potential for woe and moves in a different direction to Omicron, will be rather incompatible with Johnson so the sooner he is gone the better. There is no way to know whether we'll have to face such a threat, but if we do then there might not be a huge amount of time to do the right thing, and so Johnson needs to be gone before such a scenario gets going.


----------



## maomao (Jan 15, 2022)

elbows said:


> Brudgen makes a fair point in this story about Johnsons plight:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The alternative could easily be worse than Johnson.


----------



## andysays (Jan 15, 2022)

maomao said:


> The alternative could easily be worse than Johnson.


The alternative could be worse than Johnson in some respects, but I'm struggling to think of anyone who would come close in the specific area of complete absence of moral authority. 

He's never scored that highly in that area, but any authority he might have had is now gone, and, as mentioned, any suggestion from a government he leads that we make further sacrifices to control covid will simply be laughed at now.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

In terms of resisting imposing restrictions, perhaps. In terms of having a shred of credibility when it comes to asking the public to act during the pandemic, no.


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## Sunray (Jan 15, 2022)

Are we seeing the end of the pandemic? 

Barring a terrible new variant, I feel we are.  Everyone I know got it, nobody I know has it now. 

I see that Pfizer has made a new Omicron vaccine.  I'm all over that, because it'll give you some immunity to variants that have omicron ancenstry.   That infection rate is worrysome if there is suddenly a more lethal version.  Civil society could break down.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 15, 2022)

There is a massive reservoir of unvaccinated people out there and clearly people are unable to modify their habits to prevent them catching and spreading it - and every new infection has the potential to come up with a new more problematic strain.
A virologist I follow Amy Rosenfeld is still pencilling-in 5 years ...

No vaccine alone is going to prevent infection and transmission - probably not even if we are "boosted" every few months ...


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## _Russ_ (Jan 15, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Are we seeing the end of the pandemic?
> 
> Barring a terrible new variant, I feel we are.  Everyone I know got it, nobody I know has it now.
> 
> I see that Pfizer has made a new Omicron vaccine.  I'm all over that, because it'll give you some immunity to variants that have omicron ancenstry.   That infection rate is worrysome if there is suddenly a more lethal version.  Civil society could break down


Everybody you know?, what are you a bunch of professional crowd surfers?


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jan 15, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Are we seeing the end of the pandemic?
> 
> Barring a terrible new variant, I feel we are.  Everyone I know got it, nobody I know has it now.
> 
> I see that Pfizer has made a new Omicron vaccine.  I'm all over that, because it'll give you some immunity to variants that have omicron ancenstry.   That infection rate is worrysome if there is suddenly a more lethal version.  Civil society could break down.


I know more people who haven't had it than who have, no body I know has it now. 

Another variant is a certainty. What you said about vaccines was said, word for word almost, about delta and then there was the mass scramble for boosters and the quasi lockdown we had in the run up to Christmas. 

Personally, I won't be happy until there's proper ventilation and air quality monitoring of indoor crowded spaces. It's well beyond time we did that now.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jan 15, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> A virologist I follow Amy Rosenfeld is still pencilling-in 5 years ...


Does she give any particular reasons for that time frame? I was thinking 3 myself, which is the end of this year but 5 doesn't sound unreasonable to me.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 15, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> Does she give any particular reasons for that time frame? I was thinking 3 myself, which is the end of this year but 5 doesn't sound unreasonable to me.


I don't recall if she ever explained it - but she repeated it very recently ...


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Are we seeing the end of the pandemic?
> 
> Barring a terrible new variant, I feel we are.  Everyone I know got it, nobody I know has it now.
> 
> I see that Pfizer has made a new Omicron vaccine.  I'm all over that, because it'll give you some immunity to variants that have omicron ancenstry.   That infection rate is worrysome if there is suddenly a more lethal version.  Civil society could break down.



In the UK the signs are that we have reached the stage where, when the Omicron wave substantially diminishes, the orthodox establishment view of the disease will become firmly reestablished.

That view has much in common with the original 'herd immunity' approach, where an endemic state is the envisaged end game.

And so we will hear the term endemic being overused and misused, although some of what is said will be fair enough. Hopefully 2022 offers the opportunity for me not to have to go on about the other possibilities every day. 

Key questions involve length of immunity, future variants, and what number of daily infections an endemic state actually involves. The timing and scale of these things will determine whether the word pandemic is dropped as far as the UK is concerned. If sufficient time passes before another wave, then that period will be seen as an endemic state which still includes the possibility of future, sporadic, epidemic waves.

Take the following article for an example of how this stuff is currently being painted. Variants with particular properties and their implications are the main caveat mentioned, but those are not dwelt on at all. Nor is the level of infection that an endemic state may settle on discussed properly at all, which is a mistake I will not make. There is a graphic in the article that provides a very simple sense of the differences between endemic, epidemic and pandemic. Some contradictions between that and what the body of the article says may be spotted. There are some scenarios where these shortcomings wont end up mattering very much to the UK approach in 2022, and some which could in theory force a reevaluation and quite some divergence away from the reassuring, simplistic picture painted in the article. I do not know what will happen, I am certainly be hoping that I at least get the chance to take a very long break from having to think about this stuff. Its a bit too soon for me to fall silent on all those matters just yet, but it is my intent to do so when the opportunity arises. If everything goes as well as could possibly be expected, then there will still be long-term healthcare matters to discuss. But they wont have the same intensity as the acute pandemic phase unless they involve a large epidemic wave that bypasses a large amount of immunity.

I am certainly hoping that we can go through at least 9 months without another variant with highly significant potential coming along, but I wont be able to offer any guarantees about that. Its worth noting that the narrative was already building to this stage after the Delta wave peak, but then Omicron eventually scuppered it that time. Maybe this time will be different, and certainly there will be many who will make this assumption despite past setbacks, we are invited to forget about the failures of such talk to match the reality that we then faced. Boosters and some behavioural changes were required to cope with Omicron, and that could happen again in future.









						Endemic Covid: Is the pandemic entering its endgame?
					

Are we about to start the era of endemic-Covid and what will that mean for our lives?



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## zahir (Jan 15, 2022)

Yesterday's Independent Sage talked about what endemic covid would mean.


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## Sunray (Jan 15, 2022)

The common cold is endemic, everyone gets the all the time. This might not even work for this, depending how good the omnicron immunity pans out over the next year.


_Russ_ said:


> Everybody you know?, what are you a bunch of professional crowd surfers?



Yes


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## Indeliblelink (Jan 15, 2022)

__





						Deaths from COVID-19 with no other underlying causes - Office for National Statistics
					





					www.ons.gov.uk
				




Apparently that adds up to 17,371 till mid 2021.


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

Indeliblelink said:


> __
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That data is based on no other pre-existing conditions listed on the death certificate. Which is far from a perfect guide, and certainly no guide at all as to how many of the other cases were actually likely to die during that time if the virus had not arrived.

It does tend to show how much of a git Delta is, and the number of deaths in the 0-64 age group during Q3 reminds me of why I moan so much about attitudes & response to the Delta wave. Although obviously those who were vaccinated are also part of that story.



> 2020: 9400 (0-64: 1549 / 65 and over: 7851)
> 
> 2021 Q1: 6483 (0-64: 1560/ 65 and over: 4923)
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)




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## Cloo (Jan 15, 2022)

I would say that I can't believe that Johnson seems to be planning to end all the/the tiny amount of 'Plan B' restrictions in 10 days' time to try to save his sorry arse, but obviously I can totally believe it.

It's so fucking stupid as at least masks were keeping shops cinemas, theatres, museums etc lower risk at no damn cost to the government and if restrictions go barely anyone's going to wear them.


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## Elpenor (Jan 15, 2022)

Cloo said:


> I would say that I can't believe that Johnson seems to be planning to end all the/the tiny amount of 'Plan B' restrictions in 10 days' time to try to save his sorry arse, but obviously I can totally believe it.
> 
> It's so fucking stupid as at least masks were keeping shops cinemas, theatres, museums etc lower risk at no damn cost to the government and if restrictions go barely anyone's going to wear them.


That's utter shit news to hear but as you say totally unsurprising


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## Cloo (Jan 15, 2022)

It's like 'Hello, we still have 100K+ cases a day it might actually help to keep things open as you are so desperate to do if we ask of people just the teensiest, weensiest, cheapest bit of mitgation!


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## bluescreen (Jan 15, 2022)

Cloo said:


> It's like 'Hello, we still have 100K+ cases a day it might actually help to keep things open as you are so desperate to do if we ask of people just the teensiest, weensiest, cheapest bit of mitgation!


And now fewer than 300 people a day dying from it, so get back out there and make money!


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## xenon (Jan 15, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> There is a massive reservoir of unvaccinated people out there and clearly people are unable to modify their habits to prevent them catching and spreading it - and every new infection has the potential to come up with a new more problematic strain.
> A virologist I follow Amy Rosenfeld is still pencilling-in 5 years ...
> 
> No vaccine alone is going to prevent infection and transmission - probably not even if we are "boosted" every few months ...



Given it's virulence there's only so much that can be done to avoid it on a population scale whilst society operates at some sort of normality. 

And my layman's guess is that it's unlikely to evolve so far that vaccine and natural derived immunity will count for nothing. The vaccine's are evolving too.

I recently read Station 11, now that is a grim albeit fictional scenario. Don't think I coulda have read it 18 months ago...


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

Its removing whats left of the 'only so much that can be done', via a range of shit excuses and perspectives, that is the problem. How normal do some people demand things be? There seems to be no limit. I can see why people want to see reduced levels of people working from home, but people then push on and apply the same logic to masks. It sucks.


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

I think I get especially pissed off about that stuff because I start thinking about data which includes things like deprivation and ethnicity. Nice tidy stories abot the population as a whole returning to the old normal rather skates over the detail about who ends up bearing the burden.

I really do hope we end up with endemic levels that are relatively low, and ongoing improvements to vaccines and other treatments like antivirals. Otherwise I will probably struggle to leave some of these inequalities alone, and the more people justify shit the madder I will become. The sanitised, simplistic picture rarely reflects reality as I understand it to be, and is often way too close to the cold calculations of the UK establishment.


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

Pay no attention to the children on oxygen. Everything is fine, return to the status quo, and call me a freak for thinking otherwise.


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## Puddy_Tat (Jan 15, 2022)

Is there any data for how many tests are being done at the moment?

The headline 'daily cases' seems to be going down, but wonder if the shortage of LFT's means some people have given up testing?


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## weepiper (Jan 15, 2022)

A tale of two front pages


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

I already posted a link to this document in regards Children but this time I will actually include one of the tables here.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1046475/S1483_CO-CIN_Child_admissions_and_severity_by_epoch.pdf


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## pbsmooth (Jan 15, 2022)

So, an incredibly small number, thankfully.


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> Is there any data for how many tests are being done at the moment?
> 
> The headline 'daily cases' seems to be going down, but wonder if the shortage of LFT's means some people have given up testing?


The dashboard has various figures on the testing page. If you drill down to England you'll also get some other data that isnt shown for the UK as a whole.



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing
		


Changes to attitudes and rules (eg less cases where confirmatory PCR is needed, many people potentially not registering the LFT results) are a factor that has to be kept in mind when studying positive case numbers. Reinfections are also missing from the picture in most UK nations so far (Wales does count them in their main figures).

There are some ways to work around these limitations. The ONS population infection survey sidesteps many of these issues but is a little bit laggy. 

And ultimately I use hospital and death stats to check that the icture of infections has truth to it. Again these require time, for example in England the daily hospitalisations are roughly flat so far, and we should epect that to start to change more in the coming week if the fall in infections was real.

I suspect there has been a real fall in cases, but its probably not as large a fall as the fall shown in daily positive test data. Its probably still a substantial fall though.


----------



## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> So, an incredibly small number, thankfully.


Just one of the million attempts to downplay all this stuff that we have seen before, and will see much more from now on. I would expect nothing less.

The numbers are small, yay, they fit under the carpet, mission fucking accomplished assholes.

Besides, the point of posting those numbers was not about the absolute numbers, it was about proportions by index of deprivation and ethnicity.


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## bluescreen (Jan 15, 2022)

elbows said:


> <snippage>
> 
> Changes to attitudes and rules (eg less cases where confirmatory PCR is needed, many people potentially not registering the LFT results) are a factor that has to be kept in mind when studying positive case numbers. Reinfections are also missing from the picture in most UK nations so far (Wales does count them in their main figures).


Do you foresee a general degradation in stats as people get more careless?


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

Well thats not exactly how I would put it, and at some point we might expect the mass testing system to end anyway. I've always paid more attention to the data at the sharp end of things, ie hospitalisations and deaths, and the more general surveillance systems that dont require everyone to be testing. This invludes wastewater testing but as far as I know we still dont get to see much of that data for England. But thats certainly one example of what the authorities can use to keep an eye on things in the absence of mass testing, and which is not affected by attitudes, supply of tests etc.


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## bluescreen (Jan 15, 2022)

elbows said:


> <snippage> data at the sharp end of things, ie hospitalisations and deaths, and the more general surveillance systems that dont require everyone to be testing. This invludes wastewater testing but *as far as I know we still dont get to see much of that data for England*. But thats certainly one example of what the authorities can use to keep an eye on things in the absence of mass testing, and which is not affected by attitudes, supply of tests etc.


Am I wrong to be troubled by the BIB? Am probably needlessly troubled by the idea this could be politically suppressed when it suits TBTB.


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

Please excuse me being extra pissed off at the moment, aspects of this phase and some peoples attitudes towards the perceived future were always going to wind me up and this last week both my brother and nephew have caught it. And they both have type 1 diabetes. Thankfully data does not seem to imply a massive increased diabetic-specific risk, a lot of the correlation seen there may be coincidental, ie diabetes tracking the age profile that covid also tracks in terms of increased risk. But I still get twitchy when either of them get ill with anything, since it can mess with ability to control blood glucose levels and I have awful memories of how messed up my brother used to get on that front when he was young. He has much better control of such things in the last few decades, but illness still poses a risk and he mostly lives alone, so I do endure prolonged periods of concern that dont do my mental health any good.


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> Am I wrong to be troubled by the BIB? Am probably needlessly troubled by the idea this could be politically suppressed when it suits TBTB.


Whats BIB?

Data suppression isnt where most of my concerns have been found so far, the establishment here often has other techniques for achieving a similar result, other ways to affect peoples perceptions and create the sort of public attitudes that are required.

There probably will come a point where I dont get enough data to feel like I have a good view of the situation, but in the event of a severe wave the reality will still become obvious, theres no suppressing that. And so far the authorities have actually needed people to continue to take things seriously really quite often, and that will be true in future if something goes badly wrong. And beyond such periods it isnt really going to be necessary for me to see daily numbers in order to have some sense of how things are going.


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## bluescreen (Jan 15, 2022)

elbows said:


> Whats BIB?
> 
> Data suppression isnt where most of my concerns have been found so far, the establishment here often has other techniques for achieving a similar result, other ways to affect peoples perceptions and create the sort of public attitudes that are required.
> 
> There probably will come a point where I dont get enough data to feel like I have a good view of the situation, but in the event of a severe wave the reality will still become obvious, theres no suppressing that. And so far the authorities have actually needed people to continue to take things seriously really quite often, and that will be true in future if something goes badly wrong. And beyond such periods it isnt really going to be necessary for me to see daily numbers in order to have some sense of how things are going.


Sorry, BIB = bit in bold. 
Thanks for your insights here - much appreciated as always.


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## bluescreen (Jan 15, 2022)

Sorry, elbows, to hear about your brother and nephew. Wishing them well.


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

weepiper said:


> A tale of two front pages


Thanks for posting those.

I suppose an interest in propaganda is one of the reasons I got interested in paying this much attention to pandemics in the first place.

And I could not help but notice that a striking feature of this wave is that the press in England have mostly moved on from the 'pingdemic' and have been content to largely ignore that aspect, creating a misleading impression of how many people who are close contacts of cases have still been told to self-isolate this time.

They made much of the rules change that enabled the vaccinated to self-isolate less, but the updated rules still had a bit about how you are still required to self-isolate if NHS Test & Trace contact you. And recently, I think it was on the Johnson thread, I had a look into the statistics about those. And the recent numbers were rather large:



> In the current reporting week, 946,805 (76.8%) were reached and told to self-isolate, an increase from the 777,907 (76.9%) were reached in the previous reporting week. 286,277 (23.2%) were not reached, an increase from 234,135 (23.1%) in the previous reporting week.



Thats from test-and-trace-week-84.pdf

I think this is worth mentioning again because regardless of whether I agree or disagree with peoples perceptions about how easily we may live with covid going forwards, I do think there are distorted perceptions in regards how much intervention has still been required in order to cope with the current Omicron wave.


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## elbows (Jan 15, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> Sorry, elbows, to hear about your brother and nephew. Wishing them well.


Cheers. There are other, more appropriate threads for me to talk about that if I feel the need, but I felt I should point it out here since this is the thread I have been getting overly animated in tonight, and I thought I probably should explain myself briefly. I mostly dont want to talk about it at the moment, I will try to wait till I can hopefully breathe a sigh of relief.


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## wtfftw (Jan 15, 2022)

I dunno if it's been covered but I don't think there's any test and trace for school contacts. I only know that one of ftws crew is off because the dad messaged me.


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 15, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> I dunno if it's been covered but I don't think there's any test and trace for school contacts. I only know that one of ftws crew is off because the dad messaged me.



Not at present no. But we're having to plan for it being brought back in at five minutes' notice so we've still got to keep records of who is sat where in every lesson etc.

e2a: Lack of contact tracing means nobody will tell me if I've been stood six feet from a kid with covid for an hour or two. By a strange coincidence, staff absence rates are so high that there's no short notice cover staff available anywhere in this county. Agencies are ringing around anyone who has ever worked in teaching and still has a valid DBS.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 16, 2022)

I just heard Alan Dove starkly suggest "in 5 years the virus will become its own vaccine" - and it struck me that at some point we may have to consciously de-mask and get exposure or we will be at risk of getting a worse disease outcome with a newly-naive immune system...

I have already mentioned several times that I'm reasonably convinced that at work over 40 years I was self-vaccinating by handling IT equipment in between users - so I had zero colds but annual moderate flu...
After 2 years living as a hermit, I was reluctant to visit my sister for the hostilities and not just because of covid ...

... unless they actually carry on giving older people (combined ?) covid / flu vaccinations ...



Spoiler: TWiV 839: The long and the short of it: get vaccinated


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## elbows (Jan 16, 2022)

We've already seen i this and the previous wave what the general UK response to that sort of thing is - let people with less risk catch it, reduce the risk in vulnerable people via vaccines, antivirals and some of them being careful not to catch it. With a dollop of getting people to wear masks, work from home etc if the numbers game looks like it still runs the risk of overwhelming healthcare.

Some variations on that theme seem likely for the future too - eg yearly vaccination aboe a certain age or with specific clinical conditions. And then the hope is the other stuff wont be necessary to make the numbers work, but some of those other things will still be held in reserve in the event that there is a rather large epidemic wave at some point.

We are only part of the way along that path so far and a lot of my ranting is because of that, I will settle on a better balance eventually, providing we actually get a sizeable period where big waves arent a thing. Some other details will also firm up a bit this year, such as what sort of hospitalisation rates are expected if some levels of immunity wane too quickly for a yearly vaccination programme to have perfect timing. Im not going to guess about those things, I'll wait for more evidence and to see what happens with variants.


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## Dogsauce (Jan 17, 2022)

Sounds like they’re planning to bin off all restrictions next week to try and save the Prime Minister’s skin. Nice to know we’re still ‘following the science’ then.


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## Wilf (Jan 17, 2022)

Dogsauce said:


> Sounds like they’re planning to bin off all restrictions next week to try and save the Prime Minister’s skin. Nice to know we’re still ‘following the science’ then.


Just nipped out of work to get a sandwich from Budgens.  Less than half of the customers had masks, which isn't surprising given the mood music from government. It's not just the rules that are in place, it's the lack of supportive messaging needed to affect behaviour.


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## brogdale (Jan 17, 2022)

Dec 29th peak now stands at 246,261 cases:


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## elbows (Jan 17, 2022)

Even the self isolation laws could be gone by March. Sounds like guidance would vaguely fill in part of the hole instead. I'll save any rants till nearer the time, and I want more data on various things in the meantime, including the impact of antivirals. The size of the current wave should after all lead to plenty of data on that front.









						All Covid restrictions in England could end in March under No 10 plans
					

Guidance may replace legal requirements as Boris Johnson indicates UK must now live with the virus




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Mation (Jan 18, 2022)

elbows said:


> Even the self isolation laws could be gone by March. Sounds like guidance would vaguely fill in part of the hole instead. I'll save any rants till nearer the time, and I want more data on various things in the meantime, including the impact of antivirals. The size of the current wave should after all lead to plenty of data on that front.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow. If that were the case, and my workplace followed it, I'd refuse to teach in class. Pretty sure my union, UCU, would go into bat on that.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 18, 2022)

So "Freedom Day" 2022 is 1st April ...


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## teuchter (Jan 18, 2022)

For those who feel that March will probably be too soon to remove things like mask mandates and self isolation rules - what would be your threshold for when it would be appropriate?


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## Brainaddict (Jan 18, 2022)

teuchter said:


> For those who feel that March will probably be too soon to remove things like mask mandates and self isolation rules - what would be your threshold for when it would be appropriate?


From what I can tell from previous pandemics there will be a point when the pandemic is over in some sense. Covid will still be around of course, but the massive waves sweeping through the population will not be happening any more. I think it would be crazy to remove self-isolation when sick before that point is reached.


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## souljacker (Jan 18, 2022)

teuchter said:


> For those who feel that March will probably be too soon to remove things like mask mandates and self isolation rules - what would be your threshold for when it would be appropriate?


I'm not so sure about the isolation rules. But I'd prefer to see mask mandates continued for the rest of the year. If the tubes and trains start ramping up the passenger numbers, there is no way I'm getting on without most people wearing masks.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 18, 2022)

Brainaddict said:


> From what I can tell from previous pandemics there will be a point when the pandemic is over in some sense. Covid will still be around of course, but the massive waves sweeping through the population will not be happening any more. I think it would be crazy to remove self-isolation when sick before that point is reached.


Sure, but how do you determine when that point is reached?


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## teuchter (Jan 18, 2022)

souljacker said:


> I'm not so sure about the isolation rules. But I'd prefer to see mask mandates continued for the rest of the year. If the tubes and trains start ramping up the passenger numbers, there is no way I'm getting on without most people wearing masks.


Why the end of the year?


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 18, 2022)

souljacker said:


> I'm not so sure about the isolation rules. But I'd prefer to see mask mandates continued for the rest of the year. If the tubes and trains start ramping up the passenger numbers, there is no way I'm getting on without most people wearing masks.



If you're wearing an FFP2/3 then it's pretty much irrelevant whether other people have bits of cotton over their mouths, especially if you aren't talking to them.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 18, 2022)

I imagine I will stop masking in shops when *un*vaccinated people my age are not going to hospital - in other words when it's no worse than a cold - or at least when yearly or six-monthly boosters are proved to do the job in preventing even *moderate *disease.
I'm fairly confident based on experience that my immune system will be making good use of vaccination ...


----------



## souljacker (Jan 18, 2022)

teuchter said:


> Why the end of the year?


Because I like to think (and hope) that by then deaths and infection rates will be down to practically nothing. I'd also hope that in the event of a new surge, the gov can move quickly and reinstate the mask mandate.


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## Spandex (Jan 18, 2022)

teuchter said:


> For those who feel that March will probably be too soon to remove things like mask mandates and self isolation rules - what would be your threshold for when it would be appropriate?


I'd just like there to be some kind of threshold for removing mask mandates and isolation rules, somthing we can look at and say 'yes, that makes it look like a sensible time for these things to end'.

Instead we've got a date thrown out there along with a flurry of other eye catching policies - acadamy hospitals, end of the TV licence, the military dealing with refugees and all the rest - just to encourage people to talk about something else, anything else, than Johnson and his lockdown parties.

Is March too soon? I dunno. Look at data not dates, as someone once said.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 18, 2022)

But even if you "look at data" you still have to decide what data satisfies you that the time is right. >100 deaths a day? >50? >10? Or go by hospital numbers, or prevalence in the population?

I don't think anyone can make a very strong argument for any particular threshold, other than perhaps those related to hospital pressure.

For me I think it therefore has to somehow take into account what most people seem to be prepared to put up with. That's obviously something the govt will be trying to judge and make a call on. My feeling (which can never be an accurate or objective measure) is that "most" people are now moving towards a position where they don't think compulsory restrictions are appropriate. Obviously this could change if the numbers started going in a different direction.


----------



## Wilf (Jan 18, 2022)

teuchter said:


> But even if you "look at data" you still have to decide what data satisfies you that the time is right. >100 deaths a day? >50? >10? Or go by hospital numbers, or prevalence in the population?
> 
> I don't think anyone can make a very strong argument for any particular threshold, other than perhaps those related to hospital pressure.
> 
> For me I think it therefore has to somehow take into account what most people seem to be prepared to put up with. That's obviously something the govt will be trying to judge and make a call on. My feeling (which can never be an accurate or objective measure) is that "most" people are now moving towards a position where they don't think compulsory restrictions are appropriate. Obviously this could change if the numbers started going in a different direction.


In terms of masks, there's certainly a decline in wearing them. But I don't see that as any kind of weariness, more a natural response to government drift, mood music, parties and the rest. Masks remain the easiest 'win' in the whole set up and wearing one should have been normalised by now.  I'm not getting at more regulations or saying they should be worn forever, just that they are a clear public health measure that has attracted support, not least for the degree of protection they provide for the vulnerable.  The government have fucked about with the culture of public protection, not least because they can't conceive of a public good, full stop (as we seeing with this big dog shite).


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## gentlegreen (Jan 18, 2022)

Wilf said:


> In terms of masks, there's certainly a decline in wearing them. But I don't see that as any kind of weariness, more a natural response to government drift, mood music, parties and the rest. Masks remain the easiest 'win' in the whole set up and wearing one should have been normalised by now.  I'm not getting at more regulations or saying they should be worn forever, just that they are a clear public health measure that has attracted support, not least for the degree of protection they provide for the vulnerable.  The government have fucked about with the culture of public protection, not least because they can't conceive of a public good, full stop (as we seeing with this big dog shite).


I will never forget the crazy advice that was flying around at the start of this.
How can "cover your face" not have been the rule from the start ?
I did anyway, but based on advice I also built a MASH-style scrub-up station just inside the front door and very soon ended up having to sleep in rubber gloves full of coconut butter ...


----------



## teuchter (Jan 18, 2022)

Wilf said:


> In terms of masks, there's certainly a decline in wearing them. But I don't see that as any kind of weariness, more a natural response to government drift, mood music, parties and the rest.



I don't think this is entirely true. Most of people hate wearing masks, and their willingness to carry on is affected by more than these things.

I hate wearing masks and am becoming weary of it. I don't personally care about all the no. 10 parties nonsense. It has zero effect on my willingness to wear a mask, which is affected by my perception of risk to me, my public health responsibility to others and whether or not I am becoming the mug who's the only person bothering in certain circumstances. The parties stuff is just a handy excuse for people who have already decided they don't want to wear a mask, or comply with certain rules.


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## elbows (Jan 18, 2022)

teuchter said:


> But even if you "look at data" you still have to decide what data satisfies you that the time is right. >100 deaths a day? >50? >10? Or go by hospital numbers, or prevalence in the population?
> 
> I don't think anyone can make a very strong argument for any particular threshold, other than perhaps those related to hospital pressure.
> 
> For me I think it therefore has to somehow take into account what most people seem to be prepared to put up with. That's obviously something the govt will be trying to judge and make a call on. My feeling (which can never be an accurate or objective measure) is that "most" people are now moving towards a position where they don't think compulsory restrictions are appropriate. Obviously this could change if the numbers started going in a different direction.



I'll share my thoughts gradually rather than end up doing some really mammoth post.

In the longer term I am more interested in whether there are any permanent changes to the culture of working when ill, the amount of sick pay we offer in this country, and whether forms of mass testing are used to tackle other common illnesses so that we have a 'test not guess' system that could both improve public health and reduce the burden on the NHS.

I say this now because the talk of changes in March relates to the law, and that isnt the only aspect - guidance and advice also influences the behaviour of a fair proportion of the public. And people may be surprised at just how much we initially (and briefly) relied upon guidance as opposed to formal rules with consequences.

For example, take a trip back to February 2020 and marvel at how self-isolation guidance was initially presented:









						Coronavirus (COVID-19): What is self-isolation and why is it important? - UK Health Security Agency
					

The official blog of the UK Health Security Agency, providing expert insight on the organisation's work and all aspects of health security




					ukhsa.blog.gov.uk
				




Then note that much of the formal stuff and fines relating to self-isolation was done in September 2020, in conjunction with mass testing, a test & trace system, and some payments for some people forced to self-isolate:









						New legal duty to self-isolate comes into force today
					

From today, people in England will be required by law to self-isolate if they test positive or are contacted by NHS Test and Trace.




					www.gov.uk
				




Obviously that isnt the entire story of these fronts in 2020, we ended up with a bunch of other rules in March 2020 and a lot of those were focussed on much broader lockdowns, and we lacked the capacity to actually test the masses during the first wave. And there are other bits of the history that I havent looked up yet. eg I expect there were self-isolation rules of a vaguer sort for a period of 2020, relying on symptoms rather than formal testing.

But certainly at this stage I expect a bunch of guidance to remain after March this year, and that guidance will feed into what peoples sense of 'the right thing to do is'. Obviously I dont have high hopes for how high a priority the UK establishment will put into changing work culture in regards illness, or properly funding peopel being in a position to always do the right thing. But I dont expect all of this stuff to toally vanish in March, but it will move to a different phase and the extent to which a mass tst & trace system remains will influence the other details.


----------



## brogdale (Jan 18, 2022)

Blimey.



& that's from a fairly hefty 30k+ British Electoral study sample (Wave 21) which was big enough to yield 478 REFUKers.


----------



## elbows (Jan 18, 2022)

In regards the 'incidental' deaths conversation of the other week:

It turns out the ONS death certificate deaths for England & Wales do actually include some further analysis which I hadnt spotted before.



> From the bulletin dated 3 November 2020, we have added two additional analyses.





> This weekly release now provides a separate breakdown of the number of deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19); that is, where COVID-19 or suspected COVID-19 was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, including in combination with other health conditions.
> 
> If a death certificate mentions COVID-19, it will not always be the main cause of death but may be a contributory factor. This bulletin summarises the latest weekly information and will be updated each week during the coronavirus pandemic.





> Deaths "involving" a cause include all deaths where the cause was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, as a main cause of death or a contributory cause. Deaths "due to" a cause are a subset of "involving", and only include deaths where the cause was the underlying (main) cause of death.



I doubt such things are a totally precise guide but they are some kind of guide nonetheless.

The most recent figures:



> The number of deaths involving COVID-19 in England increased to 857 in Week 1, compared with 557 in Week 52 2021; for Wales, deaths involving COVID-19 increased to 61 in Week 1, compared with 24 in Week 52 2021.
> Of the 922 deaths involving COVID-19, 77.2% (712 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death compared with 78.0% in Week 52 2021.







__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), by age, sex and region.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




I will go back and graph the figures from the start of this data being available when I get the chance.

I only noticed this additional data because the BBC reported on it. Some of their wording would not quite be my choice of words, as 'caused by' can be slippery territory, but anyway this is from the 10:42 entery of their live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60035427



> Some 23% of deaths “involving” Covid in England and Wales in the first week of the new year were not “caused by” Covid, according to figures just published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
> 
> Doctors registering a death record all the factors that contributed to the death as well as the ultimate cause.
> 
> ...


----------



## teuchter (Jan 18, 2022)

Did I imagine that there was a plan to start breaking down the hospital and deaths numbers on the main gov.uk dashboard into "with" and "for", quite soon?


----------



## quimcunx (Jan 18, 2022)

Wilf said:


> In terms of masks, there's certainly a decline in wearing them. But I don't see that as any kind of weariness, more a natural response to government drift, mood music, parties and the rest. Masks remain the easiest 'win' in the whole set up and wearing one should have been normalised by now.  I'm not getting at more regulations or saying they should be worn forever, just that they are a clear public health measure that has attracted support, not least for the degree of protection they provide for the vulnerable.  The government have fucked about with the culture of public protection, not least because they can't conceive of a public good, full stop (as we seeing with this big dog shite).



There might also be a sense for a lot of people that this might be a good time to risk getting it while it's relatively mild if you are freshly boosted.


----------



## elbows (Jan 18, 2022)

teuchter said:


> Did I imagine that there was a plan to start breaking down the hospital and deaths numbers on the main gov.uk dashboard into "with" and "for", quite soon?



I dont know. There are obvious political reasons to do so. But even if they start to present that data on that dashboard then it wont be any more informative than the stuff I already graph unless there is also a plan to gather and formally publish  far more data in that regard.

For example:

It wont change the deaths within 28 days of a positive test data because the definition of those deaths only requires a positive test result.

The hospital data is for patients in hospital beds in England, not admissions, and only comes out once a week. Scotland recently started providing some data on this but initially they only used a couple of hospitals to provide a guide, they had not attempted to do this exercise on their total numers, but I wont necessarily notice in a timely way if thats changed.


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## elbows (Jan 18, 2022)

Looks like I didnt get round to graphics last Thursdays NHS England figures on that. Here they are. There has probably been quite a lot of hospital outbreaks and we might also expect people with 'incidental' covid to spend a different length of time in hospital beds compared to people who were admitted for covid and are in hospital primarily for covid.



Data is from the Primary Diagnoses Supplement spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


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## elbows (Jan 18, 2022)

I'd love to know how many covid hospital admissions have been averted via antiviral treatments, because thats another difference between this wave and previous ones.


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## elbows (Jan 18, 2022)

I dont normally do the per region graphs of that breakdown but perhaps this will be of interest this time. Data actually goes up to 11th Jan despite what the labels say. Sorry I couldnt make the South West one the same size as the others, something to do with the way this forum shows images.


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## elbows (Jan 18, 2022)

Scotlands latest moves confirm what we already knew about the peak etc.

Masks and working from home remain.









						Scotland to lift most remaining Covid restrictions
					

Nightclubs will reopen and large indoor events can resume from 24 January, Nicola Sturgeon confirms.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## brogdale (Jan 18, 2022)

438


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## William of Walworth (Jan 19, 2022)

Last Frtiday (14/1), Drakeford announced a three-week plan for easing restrictions in Wales .....

Most people that I heard talking, were most bothered abiut full crowds being allowed again when the Six Nations start .....


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## LeytonCatLady (Jan 19, 2022)

William of Walworth said:


> Last Frtiday (14/1), Drakeford announced a three-week plan for easing restrictions in Wales .....
> 
> Most people that I heard talking, were most bothered abiut full crowds being allowed again when the Six Nations start .....


I haven't had my morning coffee yet and misread that as "*eating* restrictions"!


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## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

So press reports about mask rules remaining were wrong.

And I dont think its a good idea to turn the end of self-isolation rules in a few months (or sooner if 'data allows') into a political gesture.


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## Sunray (Jan 19, 2022)

elbows said:


> Scotlands latest moves confirm what we already knew about the peak etc.
> 
> Masks and working from home remain.
> 
> ...



This makes a lot of sense because the Scots had fairly strict measures and they may well have made the problem much worse.

From Our world in data, an interesting graph where all the issues have been time aligned and scaled so the 1st wave is 100%








						How do key COVID-19 metrics compare to previous waves?
					

How are confirmed cases translating into hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths now that many have been vaccinated?




					ourworldindata.org
				




The UK


Scotland


Double the UK.
This variant is so transmissible there is little point in any measures apart from a brutal lockdown because they seem to have had little impact.  Getting it this time has had the biggest impact of any of these waves.  

There is cross reactivity between the Delta and Omicron variants.  If you get Omicron you have some protection against delta. 

Lots of the leading scientists are coming around to saying its the beginning of the end for now.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 19, 2022)

This is too soon, seems released to divert attention from other things that may be happing in Johnson-world right now. No one is asking to return to the office or to stop wearing masks, these things could easily wait another 6 weeks or so until we are out of winter. Fairly unhappy at this news.


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## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

Sunray said:


> This makes a lot of sense because the Scots had fairly strict measures and they may well have made the problem much worse.



What a fuckwit you have been in this pandemic.


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## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

Tories, their agenda and their rushed sense of timing do make it harder to celebrate the moving to a new phase, but I'm still rather glad that the picture has evolved. I have no sense of permanence because of unknowns about future variants, but I am pleased that the current immunity picture in the UK allows more wiggle room.

It would be nice if the removal of formal mask rules did not result in the same stampede to abandon them as we have seen in the past, but I dont have high hopes about that.

And I do note that even Johnson feels the need to reiterate that Omicron is not mild for everyone.

I'll have no faith in Johnson if stronger things are required again at some future point, hopefully a replacement Tory PM will have slightly more political wiggle room to do some of the right things if required in future.


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## Miss-Shelf (Jan 19, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Lots of the leading scientists are coming around to saying its the beginning of the end for now.


Even if it is the beginning of the end,    continuing to require masks to be worn is not a difficult ask until we are sure things are on an upward trajectory


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## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

I see the ONS infection survey confirms that the drop in cases was real, but more modest than the daily data suggested, and I think this was the expected picture. Especially as this picture of reality is a little laggy.



> About 5.3% of the population had the virus in the UK last week, compared to 6.7% the week before, equating to roughly one in 20 people, the ONS says.
> Across the UK, the percentage of people testing positive were:
> England: 5.5% (previously 6.9%)
> Wales: 3.7% (previously 5.6%)
> ...











						Covid infections falling across the UK, says ONS
					

It's the most significant drop since the Omicron wave hit the country in December, the figures suggest.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I note that the BBC are reporting it as percentages rather than the '1 in 15' type framing we had in the recent past. I will dig into this a bit more later.

'Flat in the over 70s' needs keeping an eye on, also as expected as far as I'm concerned. There is also the question of whether the rise in primary school aged children being infected has knock on implications for other age groups. In the past the virus has struggled to regain momentum once its original peak momentum was lost, but eventually it can mount something of a resurgence as we saw with the Delta wave. I dont know how relevant that will actually turn out to be with Omicron though.


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## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

Triggle alert, especially the last sentence.



> Infections levels, while falling, are still well above what they were last winter. And hospital admissions have only just started coming down.
> 
> The fact remains England – and the rest of the UK for that matter – is one of best protected nations when you combine the immunity built up by vaccination and previous infection.
> 
> ...





> This has given both ministers and the scientists advising them confidence that it’s at least time to ease restrictions.
> 
> Others will argue this is going too far, too quickly.
> 
> ...



From 13:33 of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60046073

Given that at the start of the pandemic Triggle was happy to sell the idea that we'd all catch it anyway so we may as well carry on with out lives, I dont think I'll be listening to him about what is proportionate.


----------



## 2hats (Jan 19, 2022)

Sunray said:


> This makes a lot of sense because the Scots had fairly strict measures and they may well have made the problem much worse.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Double the UK.


Oh dear. I sincerely hope you aren't involved in any line of work that demands numeracy or scientific understanding.


Sunray said:


> Lots of the leading Some scientists are coming around to saying it's the end of the beginning of the end for now.


FTFY.


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 19, 2022)

elbows said:


> So press reports about mask rules remaining were wrong.
> 
> And I dont think its a good idea to turn the end of self-isolation rules in a few months (or sooner if 'data allows') into a political gesture.


I can understand a bit more dropping all isolation for contacts. But dropping isolation for people with covid is fucking madness. It means people knowingly going out with covid to nightclubs or crowded workplaces. It's another return to herd immunity thinking, because it can only demonstrate a preference for lots of people getting it sooner, in the hope that this will end the pandemic phase of covid circulation more quickly. And to my knowledge we still have no evidence that can work.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 19, 2022)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> No one is asking to return to the office or to stop wearing masks,


I don't really see how you can come to this conclusion unless the only view of the country you have is through urban75.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

Brainaddict said:


> I can understand a bit more dropping all isolation for contacts. But dropping isolation for people with covid is fucking madness. It means people knowingly going out with covid to nightclubs or crowded workplaces. It's another return to herd immunity thinking, because it can only demonstrate a preference for lots of people getting it sooner, in the hope that this will end the pandemic phase of covid circulation more quickly. And to my knowledge we still have no evidence that can work.



If we flip that round very slightly then we can consider that they didnt actually care directly as to whether herd immunity worked, they just care about not having to handle the disease differently to how other public health issues are handled. So removing the formal requirement to self isolate is the prize itself. And we learnt long ago that short and medium term prizes are what they care about, even if those lead to more shit later that ends up requiring stronger action.

Omicron is something of a gift to them beyond what it enabled them to get away with with regards the current wave. It potentially allows them to take any big concerns about future variants less seriously until the problems actually show up in real UK hospital data, it allows them to take modelling scenarios far less seriously. There are still some limits, but they arent going to miss the opportunity to at least have a period in 2022 where things largely return to the 'old normal', and to resist any future u-turns for as long as possible no matter how the virus evolves.

But I suppose there are some limits to this. eg with Omicron they could use the picture in South Africa as a source of hope. If a future variant with very bad potential arrives in a country with comparable vaccination etc levels to the UK before it arrives in the UK, and it causes very bad shit in that other country, then perhaps even our tory government will grasp the implications and be forced to act. But Im not planning on spending too much time talking about these things in 2022 unless such a variant actually seems to have arrived, because I need a break at some point and I didnt get one in 2021 due to the timing of Delta and Omicron.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

elbows said:


> I note that the BBC are reporting it as percentages rather than the '1 in 15' type framing we had in the recent past. I will dig into this a bit more later.



The BBC subsequently made a small reference to the figure in terms of '1 in 20' but not with the focus previously given to this format of reporting.

The ONS are still reporting the data in those terms though:


----------



## vanya (Jan 19, 2022)

The Tories' handling of Covid arguably amounts to reckless endangerment  









						Conservative Friends of Covid
					

First, there was Operation Save Big Dog , the officially disavowed but entirely accurate leak - borne out by events - to get Boris Johnson o...




					averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com
				






> Writing about Covid makes me sound like a broken record. For the umpteenth time, it is more than a respiratory disease. It can attack the brain, storing up possible neurological trouble down the line. It leaves lesions on internal organs. And Covid also depletes T cells, reducing our capacity to fight off future infections _and_ making us more vulnerable to serious long-term health conditions. Like cancer. Like MS. I know this, medicine knows this. And this knowledge is littered throughout government briefing notes and the research summaries Chris Whitty presents to ministers. Meanwhile, Johnson, the rest of politics, and the entirety of the media carry on as if Covid is a bad case of the flu and nothing, except for an unlucky few, people need worry about. This alone is damning and should see them in the dock for reckless endangerment.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 19, 2022)

Johnson today was making much of "Labour would have locked the country down unnecessarily" ... I hope the gamble *does *ultimately  pay off and Omicron vaccinates the unwilling without too much carnage ...

So he was not only claiming their policy got us better and earlier vaccination, but dining out on what was essentially a gamble didn't end up overflowing the hospitals ..

Ironic that the heat of Test and Trace was in the horse racing business ...


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

vanya said:


> The Tories' handling of Covid arguably amounts to reckless endangerment
> 
> 
> 
> ...



They probably wouldnt have gotten away with that if it were the case that this was just a tory response to a disease of this type. Sadly such attitudes extend far beyond the tories, they are compatible with a broader establishment & power attitude in this country, part of the cold calculations and indifference that have manifested here for centuries.

From Delta onwards we have seen many examples of how the UK establishment would really have liked to manage this pandemic all the way along. Do as little as possible whilst being seen to be doing something. Which does involve some real action and progress when it comes to pharmaceutical measures, but beyond that its treated as an inconvenience to the status quo.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Johnson today was making much of "Labour would have locked the country down unnecessarily" ... I hope the gamble *does *ultimately  pay off and Omicron vaccinates the unwilling without too much carnage ...
> 
> So he was not only claiming their policy got us better and earlier vaccination, but dining out on what was essentially a gamble didn't end up overflowing the hospitals ..
> 
> Ironic that the heat of Test and Trace was in the horse racing business ...



It was a gamble that quite a few people here were up for too. I wasnt one of them but I can see why we were at that point, the pandemic took quite a toll in various ways including the restrictions and how long it was dragging on for. And its a numbers game where some real progress had undeniably been made, and Omicron only looked like it was going to partially erode that, it was just a question of to quite what extent. And booster campaign timing really helped. I know I still went nuts about some of those gambles and attitudes, but even I was not calling for a full lockdown repeatedly this time, though I would have gone further and sooner than the tories did, and I did say around December 7th that the time had arrived for people to change their behaviours and prepare for disruption.

The other thing is that even before vaccines the tories indulged in a similar gamble - in September 2020 they left themselves with no scientific cover and resisted doing the right thing for months.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 19, 2022)

Well my daughters primary school have just gone back to no parents even in the playground and using allocated gates etc.


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## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I don't really see how you can come to this conclusion unless the only view of the country you have is through urban75.



Yes and even if I used u75 as a complete guide then I couldnt have made that claim, especially if I go back to what some were saying in November rather than December/January.

Using stuff like the Triggle line about what is proportionate, its a shame that there arent good ways to seriously demonstrate that things like mask wearing are enough on their own to avoid the need to have to impose any other restrictions. We dont tend to get the sort of finely balanced situation where masks on their own can clearly tip us in the good direction, otherwise it would be much easier to sustain really high levels of support for mask wearing so that we can avoid all the other stuff that has much bigger downsides.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

For the second time in the last month, Johnson has actually made reference to people catching covid in healthcare settings.



> Conservative MPs have asked Boris Johnson if he will end plans to require NHS and social care workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 before April. In November when the policy was announced around 100,000 health staff were not fully vaccinated. Esther McVeigh says the plans are "utterly unjustifiable" any longer, while Mark Harper urges the prime minister to reconsider the position, given the hard work healthcare staff have done over the course of the pandemic.
> 
> The prime minister replies to both backbenchers saying the policy will remain and the evidence is clear they should get vaccinated.
> 
> Johnson also cites the support for the plans from the families of people who died after contracting Covid in healthcare settings and broader support of the NHS as a whole.



Thats from the 13:27 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60046073


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

Even Johnson can still make some of the right noises, albeit without policies to match.

The vaccination figures for 2022 so far have been rubbish. Its a shame that people who were prepared to point out the successes and big numbers havent bothered to dwell on the figures when they are shit.



> Labour's Marsha De Cordova asks the PM to set out a plan to encourage take up of the vaccination among some groups.
> 
> The prime minister says that it is "not actually hesitancy, it's apathy" that is the problem with people seeing Omicron "wrongly" as a mild disease. He says we need to break down that apathy.



Thats from the 13:20 entry of the BBC live updates page.



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60046073
		


Some of the booster data from the UK dashboard. Although part of this picture is sponsored by many people catching Omicron and so having to delay their booster, thats unlikely to be the whole story.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

Fored myself to watch the Javid press conference.

It was a combination of cheering and justifying the easing of restrictions, a vague review of the previous period including previous relaxing of measures last summer, and some emphasis on trying to get more people vaccinated going forwards. The vague review of the past obviously benefits from hindsight and being able to falsely tidy up the picture by focussing on the arrival of new variants, avoiding the need to draw attention to the ongoing nature of the Delta wave (right up till Omicron) and the question of whether we'd have needed to behave differently this winter in response to that existing variant, never mind Omicron. In some ways this is a repeat of a year earlier, where the arrival of Alpha(Kent) meant they could frame everything in those terms and avoid some tricky questions about whether the number of pre-Alpha infections were still a big problem right up till Alphas explosion. In other ways the description of the past and how they were able to ease restrictions for some months this summer was at least better framed than the sort of cruel merry-go-round we got at the time, where they pretended relaxations might be permanent rather than subject to heavy seasonal variation.

Javid remains very keen on learning to live with covid rhetoric, and comparing it to how we live with influenza. Including an emphasis on pharmaceutical measures rather than anything else. I think I've spoken about these things quite enough already, what he said was in line with my expectations and all my waffle about the traditional UK establishment response and their goals for living with covid in future. I do have to point out that even the likes of Javid are still pointing out that in many cases the formal laws are being replaced with guidance, so they still feel the need to recommend people wear masks in certain settings, and there will still be some kind of guidance about self-isolation even when that law is axed. I'd be more comfortable with the switch from laws to guidance if a much better job was done of communicating that, a tasks made worse by the attitudes of large swathes of the press whenever those times arrive, at least if the past and present is any guide.

The journalists asking questions were not convinced about the timing of the relaxation of measures, and certainly not about the dangled carrot of removing the self-isolation laws by the end of March or sooner. It seems likely that if the WHO is still recommending self-isolation when we remove the legal requirement for it, the press will draw some attention to the WHO stance. Unsurprisingly journalists also kept sticking questions about Johnson quitting into the mix.

Someone tried to ask whether the current level of daily reported deaths is at a level the government want us to live with, and Javid took the opportunity to start going on about 'incidental' deaths and how the proportions are larger with Omicron. Except he decided to use the quite large percentage of 'incidental' hospital cases in recent data, rather than any such comparable data on deaths (eg the ONS numbers I mentioned yesterday have had a much lower percentage of 'incidentals' than the hospital data he mentioned, although the ONS figures are also laggier). He also mentioned how the ONS would have more data on this soon, so unless he is confused about whats already available, I guess there is more analysis in store soon on that front. Analysis which will no doubt be used to make political points so long as it can be made to show what the 'incidental' fans want to see. Hopkins mentioned that if they see a greater divergence between deaths within 28 days of a positive test and ONS death certificate death figures in future, they will discuss the reasons for that, and so thats another potential opportunity for the 'incidental' stuff to be both fairly looked at, but also used for political purposes.

One thing I found noteworthy was that when talking about the future of living with covid and all the formal rules they expect to drop, he still spoke about the testing system in glowing terms. So perhaps they dont plan to axe that in the way some media has suggested in recent times. Perhaps they think they dont need to get rid of that in order to achieve their objectives, and that removing self-isolation laws instead will be enough to placate the right wing media etc who have called for an end to mass testing.

I havent got through the whole thing yet so I'll do another post if anything else of interest comes up.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

Dr Susan Hopkins was asked whether they expect number of infections to keep going down, given the easing of restrictions etc. She said it was hard to predict more than 2-3 weeks ahead with confidence, made some mention of the somewhat differing trends in different age groups, but still tried to be as positive as possible about the prospects of decline. Given what we saw with Delta dragging on, a wave without a big formal lockdown, I'm trying to keep my expectations blank, both possibilities seem plausible to me so far.

At least Hopkins emphasised that its peoples behaviour in the coming weeks that will make a difference to this picture. Emphasised getting vaccinated, regular testing, taking care on public transport, indoors and in crowded places (masks etc), in the context of people returning to work.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

Even with this government, talk of bumps in the road and unknowns about future variants isnt going away. But now there is greater emphasis on how 'the British people' respond responsibly to these events, and pharmaceutical measures. Thats understandable, and is closer to the environment  (peoples attitudes) in which I was used to talking about flu, pandemics etc before the current pandemic arrived.


----------



## platinumsage (Jan 19, 2022)

elbows said:


> Even with this government, talk of bumps in the road and unknowns about future variants isnt going away. But now there is greater emphasis on how 'the British people' respond responsibly to these events, and pharmaceutical measures. Thats understandable, and is closer to the environment  (peoples attitudes) in which I was used to talking about flu, pandemics etc before the current pandemic arrived.



I thought you might have been chucking things at the screen when Javid dropped the f word....


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

Javid was asked when the definition of fully vaccinated would be changed to include boosters. A good question, and something that might make a notable difference to booster uptake rates going forwards, since momentum was lost once 'Christmas had been saved'.

Javid does get a bit carefree with his wording on this sort of thing, I'm going to assume some of his choice of words in response made some professionals groan because they usually tend to moderate their language to downplay the extent of certain things. This is my own attempt at transcribing the bit in question, might not be word perfect but is close:

"We are looking at the definition of fully vaccinated. If we look at what we have learnt in the last few weeks, we know that two vaccines are not enough against Omicron. *Nowhere near enough, they just dont work, in terms of protecting, certainly against hospitalisation. *But we know that 3 vaccines, they can err, they can give you, Susan, is it 88% protection against hospitalisation, and so they work, and thats why we are where we are today".

I dont actually disagree with that, although even I might have been a bit more cautious with some of my language when making that point, I probably wouldnt have said 'they just dont work', I'd have pointed out some estimates for protection they still offered that fall far short of protection after boosted but still not close to no protection.


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## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> I thought you might have been chucking things at the screen when Javid dropped the f word....



Depends on exactly how its used. In this case he was pointing out stuff I've already been going on about, such as establishment preferences for guidance and pharmaceutical measures rather than laws.

My stance is actually far more moderate than would have come across during various hairy moments in the last 2 years. I became very loud in part because I'm aware of what the orthodox approach is, where its comfort zone ended, and how this virus was incompatible with that comfort zone in the no vaccine era. As we return to the orthodox approach more and more, I'll be able to come to terms with much of it. But it would help if the timing was right, and if we take the opportunity of the pandemic to at least permanently change attitudes towards mass diagnostic testing in this country rather than guessing and over-reliance on sentinel surveillance that isnt large enough/nuanced enough/timely enough and does little to help individual patients.


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## Sunray (Jan 19, 2022)

2hats said:


> Oh dear. I sincerely hope you aren't involved in any line of work that demands numeracy or scientific understanding.
> 
> FTFY.


You need to justify the edit.

You have google and can search.  I can't generally can't be bothered to do what you can do for yourself.

Prof Julian Hiscox, Chair in Infection and Global Health, University of Liverpool and
Dr Elisabetta Groppelli, virologist, St George's, University of London
Prof Eleanor Riley, an immunologist at the University of Edinburgh all contributed to this article.








						Endemic Covid: Is the pandemic entering its endgame?
					

Are we about to start the era of endemic-Covid and what will that mean for our lives?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I think I would listen to these people than to you.

Of note is this quote



			
				Prof. Julian Hiscox said:
			
		

> There will be people - mostly the old and vulnerable - who will die from endemic Covid. So there is still a decision to be made about how we live alongside it.
> "If you're willing to tolerate zero deaths from Covid, then we're facing a whole raft of restrictions and it's not game over," Prof Hiscox explains.
> But, he says, "In a bad flu season, 200-300 die a day over winter and nobody wears a mask or socially distances, that's perhaps a right line to draw in the sand."
> Lockdowns and restrictions on mass gatherings will not come back and mass testing for Covid will end this year, he expects.



The EMA




__





						EMA regular press briefing on COVID-19 - European Medicines Agency
					

EMA regular press briefing on COVID-19




					www.ema.europa.eu
				



"Fast moving to a situation where there  is Endimicity"

Interesting to hear more doses aren't something we can ore should keep doing over and over for the general population.


----------



## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

A lot of my compaints on those fronts Sunray are to do with timing and the degree of certainty expressed.

And the term endemic is being used for purposes including crude propaganda at the moment. It will take a long time to find out what endemic levels look like, how often epidemic waves will still feature and how challenging either the endemic or epidemic levels are to coping via pharmaceutical means alone.

Its no surprise that the establishment does not envisage the entire population being vaccinated every year. I'll take that topic a few months at a time I think, like many others this year, still lots to learn. And some of those who rushed too far ahead already made some howlers in the Delta wave, let alone Omicron. I'm interested in what is actually sustainable for say 9 months a year, and what winters will look like, including what sort of resurgence eventually happens with flu, given the NHS pressures are combinations of things.


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## komodo (Jan 19, 2022)

This is a good summaryhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/19/science-covid-ineradicable-disease-prevention?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter


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## 2hats (Jan 19, 2022)

Sunray said:


> You need to justify the edit.
> 
> You have google and can search.  I can't generally can't be bothered to do what you can do for yourself.


You certainly can't be bothered to look at plots, read the captions and then think about what they are illustrating.

Bothering might not be your thing, and the article is largely very parochial, but did you manage to read to the end of it?


> "For the world it is still a pandemic and an acute emergency," Dr Groppelli concludes.


They also conveniently fail to discuss animal reservoirs and sequelae of COVID-19 beyond shorter term "mild" respiratory issues.


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## elbows (Jan 19, 2022)

2hats said:


> sequelae of COVID-19 beyond shorter term "mild" respiratory issues.


Thats an area that bothers me but where I have not lived up to being a doom-monger, since I dont like to go on about it too much with no clear info about how big a deal this will be. It troubles me because I dont expect it to be a non-issue, I just struggle to figure out what the right balance might be in terms of going on about it in a way that may be bad for peoples mental health.


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## Cloo (Jan 20, 2022)

Interesting, having commented about the removal of mask mandate on a national news FB post, how you get all the 'Face nappies are a government plot!' people.... if so, it's one they've decided not to bother with so not sure what they're so incensed about.


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## prunus (Jan 20, 2022)

Cloo said:


> Interesting, having commented about the removal of mask mandate on a national news FB post, how you get all the 'Face nappies are a government plot!' people.... if so, it's one they've decided not to bother with so not sure what they're so incensed about.



A plot to what, though? I’ve never understood what nefarious aims getting the population to wear masks in crowded places might serve.


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## Sue (Jan 20, 2022)

prunus said:


> A plot to what, though? I’ve never understood what nefarious aims getting the population to wear masks in crowded places might serve.


So we can all commit loads of crime and make it more difficult for us to be caught? Oh.


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## Cloo (Jan 20, 2022)

prunus said:


> A plot to what, though? I’ve never understood what nefarious aims getting the population to wear masks in crowded places might serve.


They seem to have a couple of arguments, all of them stupid:


That if we agree to wear masks, we'll be 'primed' to obey more extreme demands on us, like, presumably, reporting our friends and family to the authorities for criticising the government. Because that totally logically follows from wearing a mask in public to help slow down a dangerous infection.
That if They make us cover our faces it'll dehumanise us and make us more inclined turn against one another so They can control us. This fails to note that the government doesn't need masks to dehumanise people - strategic use of words like 'refugee', 'scrounger', 'benefits claimant', 'asylum seeker' etc have done that job very nicely.
To make the kiddies scared of other people which will, guess what... ? make it easier to control us.


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## editor (Jan 20, 2022)

Encouraging...


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## LeytonCatLady (Jan 20, 2022)

Bit of an unfortunate name, this commuter. I wonder if this is a deliberate misprint by the Telegraph (original source)?





__





						Back to work anger as commuters complain of having to keep face masks on in London under Sadiq Khan's orders
					





					www.msn.com


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## kabbes (Jan 20, 2022)

Much to my surprise, we got an email this evening saying that our work is _not_ rescinding the WFH recommendation, because case rates are still so high. I am surprised because I know the higher-ups are very keen to get everybody back into the office


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 20, 2022)

Snip - got a bit paranoid


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## elbows (Jan 20, 2022)

There are probably plenty of companies that dont like the sound of office outbreaks. And health & safety at work  and employee relations are extra tedious at a time of high viral prevalence. They may also relish the prospect of the eventual return being done at a time when they are far more confident that its sustainable. I'm mostly talking about companies where working from home was really feasible and so at this point is in some ways 'the easy option', as opposed to various sorts of jobs where people are inevitably in harms way all the way throughout this pandemic.

One impression of the lurch back to the old normal is given if people listen to the Johnson government and great swathes of the press. The wider reality is far from a perfect match to that, and even the government know this. Its one of the reasons they can move early, because they know that although some things change reasonably quickly, others are a much slower affair. They can quack on all they want about the 'freedoms' that were on offer last summer, but they know that all sorts of things did not actually return to the old levels during that time, including number of contacts between people. Others did trend back towards the old normal, but didnt necessarily make it all the way back, even when given months to do so.


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## StoneRoad (Jan 20, 2022)

Trying to run a woodworking business from home is a nightmare - especially with the workshop manager "off sick" ...

But I already was doing a significant part of the job from home anyway.
The workshop office is not soundproof, nor is it interruption proof, which has consequences,
Quite often, I take calls from clients and suppliers that involve long discussions - I can't cut the calls short, nor can I tell the team to stop noisy work ...
Also, compiling tenders, reports and other documentation needs peace and quiet to allow me to concentrate ...

So, I'm torn between two opposing forces.
I ought to be there for supervisory reasons, but equally, I need to WFH to do admin etc.


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## Miss-Shelf (Jan 21, 2022)

elbows said:


> various sorts of jobs where people are inevitably in harms way all the way throughout this pandemic.
> 
> One impression of the lurch back to the old normal is given if people listen to the Johnson government and great swathes of the press.


In the last several months part of my job has been to visit nursery settings to assess students in practice
I have found that 1) i'm the only person wearing a mask 2) that my students and other nursery staff voice press messages like 'get back to normal'  'we're all going to get it anyway'  'got to live our lives'   3) that people who work in nurseries have been in harms way throughout the pandemic [and didn't close when schools did] so this influences attitudes


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## elbows (Jan 21, 2022)

Yes there are several parallel realities at the moment that feature some big differences.

In many ways this is consistent with the feature of this pandemic whereby the pandemic shone a light on shit that was always there, bringing longstanding inequalities and differences of perception and priorities into sharper focus.


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## Boudicca (Jan 21, 2022)

FridgeMagnet said:


> Snip - got a bit paranoid


I spent a big chunk of my working life doing contracts for big multi-nationals, ideally three days a week,  I also had a clothing shop in Brixton then Camden market, which satisfied my more creative side and kept me busy between contracts.  I do remember once legging it down Granville Arcade because I had reggae music in the background and the MD of a telecoms company on the phone, but mostly it worked for me.  So my suggestion is for you to consider cutting your hours a bit and doing something else (voluntary or paid) as well which gets you out of the house and mixing with good people.


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## MrSki (Jan 21, 2022)

This would be funny if it was not true.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 21, 2022)

My sister just posted a jokey "mask-off" meme.
She's 50-something and  works in M&S and also has grandkids ..
I'm amazed no one in that sometimes 4 generational household has not caught it 

I laughed but also posted what I thought ...


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## existentialist (Jan 21, 2022)

MrSki said:


> This would be funny if it was not true.



I think Drakeford might be beginning to learn to enjoy himself


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## Cloo (Jan 21, 2022)

Once I get this COVID and isolation over early next week I might actually try to go into office again on at least a fortnightly basis - they've kept it open since 'Plan B' for a few people who have real difficulty wfh for one reason or other and have announced they will open more widely after next week, but still no mandate to come in. Since Xmas I've hit a bit of a wall with being at home every day for nearly two years and fancy the change of scene - I really don't need to go in at all for the work I do, but the few times I came in during autumn I did quite enjoy the quiet hum of people around.


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## elbows (Jan 21, 2022)

Since I previously pointed out how many contacts were reached by Test & Trace and told to self-isolate, here are the latest figures in that respect:

Covers England for the period 6th to 12th January 2022.



> In the current reporting week, 1,016,532 (82.0%) were reached and told to self-isolate, an increase from the 947,067 (76.8%) reached in the previous reporting week. 222,991 (18.0%) were not reached, a decrease from 286,002 (23.2%) in the previous reporting week.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1048603/NHS_Test_and_Trace_20220120.pdf


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## Sunray (Jan 23, 2022)

Apart from Test and Trace being a collossal waste of money and a near abject failure.
With the Omicron variant now sweeping the country unabated, is their work of any real use?  I'm not sure there is anymore. Disband it and save the money.


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## existentialist (Jan 23, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Apart from Test and Trace being a collossal waste of money and a near abject failure.
> With the Omicron variant now sweeping the country unabated, is there work of any real use?  I'm not sure there is anymore. Disband it and save the money.


Or run it properly, like some of the local authorities did, and do a better job for far less cost.

There really isn't room for counsels of despair.


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## elbows (Jan 23, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Apart from Test and Trace being a collossal waste of money and a near abject failure.
> With the Omicron variant now sweeping the country unabated, is there work of any real use?  I'm not sure there is anymore. Disband it and save the money.


In my book it was only considered a total failure because there was massive overselling of how much could be expected from contact tracing in the first place. More can be expected of it if it is combined with a wide range of policies that actually attemtp to suppress outbreaks and keep overall number of infections as low as possible.

But there is another version of success from such systems which this country has actually made heavy use of. When a million people are told to self-isolate in a week, that does have an effect on levels of viral prevelance, it ends up acting like a sort of mini, targeted lockdown. And that stuff does affect the size of the peak. People can look at rates such as 1 in 20 of the population being infected at the same time as a failure if they want, but its still a better outcome than 1 in 10 or 1 in 5 being infected.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 23, 2022)

The recent Omicron wave tells *naive *me, that for all the testing and tracing, there are millions who either cannot or will not comply with basic mitigation strategies - and maybe a lot of younger people deliberately "getting it over with" ...


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## elbows (Jan 23, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> The recent Omicron wave tells *naive *me, that for all the testing and tracing, there are millions who either cannot or will not comply with basic mitigation strategies - and maybe a lot of younger people deliberately "getting it over with" ...


You'd need to see the same variant in a completely unmitigated wave in order to really judge.

People were not asked to mitigate as much this time, vaccines are still asked to carry the bulk of the weight, and compliance has always varied by age and circumstance.


----------



## elbows (Jan 23, 2022)




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## gentlegreen (Jan 23, 2022)

John Campbell made a video about this 

Here's his video on the topic deconstructed so you don't have to watch it on his channel ... :-



Spoiler: youtube video


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 23, 2022)

elbows said:


>




Probably better if they took this stuff straight to the banks they work for and said, 'look there's a public health emergency, maybe stop fucking working folk over for a week or two'.


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## teuchter (Jan 23, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> Probably better if they took this stuff straight to the banks they work for and said, 'look there's a public health emergency, maybe stop fucking working folk over for a week or two'.


That would definitely work. They should definitely do this. I wonder why they haven't.


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 23, 2022)

teuchter said:


> That would definitely work. They should definitely do this. I wonder why they haven't.



Because they like money more than they give a shit about public health.


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## kabbes (Jan 23, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> Because they like money more than they give a shit about public health.


I mean, the first point I would make is that very very few of them work for banks. It’s not the most important point, but it is the first of them.


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## teuchter (Jan 23, 2022)

We should have an "actuaries are awful" thread where everyone can blame actuaries for various things and explain why they are terrible people, and a few posters can defend them probably only to be contrarian. It would take inspiration from the brewdog and libdems threads.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 23, 2022)

teuchter said:


> We should have an "actuaries are awful" thread where everyone can blame actuaries for various things and explain why they are terrible people, and a few posters can defend them probably only to be contrarian. It would take inspiration from the brewdog and libdems threads.


which begs the question
do Brewdog use libdems actuaries?


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## teuchter (Jan 24, 2022)

Tim Spector on the radio this morning saying he feels less optimistic than a couple of weeks ago ... case numbers no longer falling rapidly and their app picking up an uptick in children which might then move through the age groups.












						Omicron falling fast, but new uptick detected in children
					

According to ZOE COVID Study incidence figures, in total there are currently 144,527 new daily symptomatic cases of COVID in the UK on average, based on PCR and LF test data from up to three days ago.




					covid.joinzoe.com


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## Cloo (Jan 24, 2022)

It sounds to me like falling adult cases have been compensating for rising 5-18yo ones in overall figures , but I'm assuming there's a point where that stops being the case , or at best infections 'stabilise' at a high level. Omicron had only just got going when kids were off for two weeks, so it was pretty obviously going to ramp up this month in that cohort.


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## wtfftw (Jan 24, 2022)

and we've failed to vaccinate the under 12s


----------



## zahir (Jan 24, 2022)




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## StoneRoad (Jan 24, 2022)

So, is this really the right time to relax even the weak "Plan B" ???

I don't think it is, not yet.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 24, 2022)

Why do we think the children are so out of step ?


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## existentialist (Jan 24, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Why do we think the children are so out of step ?


The mitigation rules in schools have been so weak and ineptly established that rampant infection is a given. Added to which, a lot of (especially younger) children will not have been vaccinated.


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## Wilf (Jan 24, 2022)

I just did my first face to face lecture in nearly 2 years (mixture of lockdown and being off sick). Then University still advises masks to be worn in communal areas and, in my school, in class. However this has become pretty much a joke as the government itself bins the regulations. Result: about 40 students, one wearing a mask.


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## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

existentialist said:


> The mitigation rules in schools have been so weak and ineptly established that rampant infection is a given. Added to which, a lot of (especially younger) children will not have been vaccinated.


Ans there was a school holiday which postponed further rises for a brief period.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 24, 2022)

existentialist said:


> The mitigation rules in schools have been so weak and ineptly established that rampant infection is a given. Added to which, a lot of (especially younger) children will not have been vaccinated.


What I mean is I always assumed the elephant in the room was children, so why were they not leading or at least in sync ... given children don't live in isolation ..


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

Johnsons mask removal etc politically driven timing really sucks. I'll post various positive cases per day in England per age group graphs today. I've set the graphs to go back as far as the Delta wave.I wont post every single age group but with try to capture all the main trends.

As usual these are by specimen date so the most recent days of data are incomplete and will grow further.

First the youngest age groups:


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## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

Although I mentioned Johnson, obviously the other nations have also deemed this period as a suitable moment to relax certain measures too. I expect this is the usual combination of relaxing after a clear peak, and having more confidence about how cases will translate to hospitalisations with Omicron. It could still backfire in future, but perhaps ina. way not dissimilar to Delta where its the slower, grinding pressure on health services which is an issue. It isnt clear to me what level of infections they consider tolerable for long periods of time, probably rather a lot.

Here is the next set of age groups, where as with the last wave they were responsible for plenty of cases and saw some dramatic falls. But some of the current levels of infection are still not all that far off the peaks seen in the Delta wave in these age groups, and clearly the trends are starting to change recently.


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 24, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> So, is this really the right time to relax even the weak "Plan B" ???
> 
> I don't think it is, not yet.



Time to force schools to get rid of masks.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

Tests for people entering the U.K. to be scrapped from next Monday, apparently.


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## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

At least Openshaw and NERVTAG arent going along with optimism about the future evolution of the virus that doesnt seem to be grounded in fact or a high degree of genuine scientific confidence.



> More now on advice from scientists that we shouldn't drop our guard against Covid just yet.
> 
> Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, says it’s not certain Covid will become less severe over time.
> 
> ...



From the 12:44 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60108374


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> Time to force schools to get rid of masks.


I note that Zahawi said no when asked about sanctioning headteachers, but obviously I wouldnt trust the tories not to try to achieve the same result by slightly different means. But maybe they are just posturing and wont actually stop the sensible decisions some schools are still taking.



> More now on the government’s decision to remove guidelines for pupils to wear face masks in secondary school classrooms in England.
> 
> Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi tells BBC Breakfast he believes it is the "right decision".
> 
> ...



From 9:21 of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60108374


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

Concluding my graphs for now:

In a few age groups we may be seeing more obvious signs of spread from the youngest age groups:



Further up the age groups the trends and levels have been a bit more hopeful up to this point:



In the very highest age groups we see a somewhat different pattern. This may be due to more people in these age groups being picked up via hospital and car home testing rather than community testing, and also potentially due to more of these cases being driven by hospital and care home outbreaks, the timing of which may be a bit different to the wider community:


----------



## kabbes (Jan 24, 2022)

At the kabbess’ university, they have been requested to _not_ wear masks during lectures. Something that horrifies her and, I suspect, the lecturers too.


----------



## existentialist (Jan 24, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> What I mean is I always assumed the elephant in the room was children, so why were they not leading or at least in sync ... given children don't live in isolation ..


Give it time...I think that's starting to happen. As others have said, there will have been a lag between kids resuming school and rates going up.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

kabbes said:


> At the kabbess’ university, they have been requested to _not_ wear masks during lectures. Something that horrifies her and, I suspect, the lecturers too.




This is weird. I can understand if not condone the lecturer being asked not to wear one, but why the students? What difference could it make to anything? What about niqabs and so on?


----------



## kabbes (Jan 24, 2022)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> This is weird. I can understand if not condone the lecturer being asked not to wear one, but why the students? What difference could it make to anything? What about niqabs and so on?


I know.  It's really bizarre.  I think it shows the desperation of universities to make everything "normal" again.  My interpretation is that the curtain has been pulled back on the fact that without lectures, universities often aren't really providing much of a service.  Rather than fix this, they want to get the students back in the lecture theatre before they notice this. 

It's not an _order_ to not wear a mask, it's a request.  But given that your average 22 year old is not that keen to wear a mask in the first place, it's basically eliminating masks.

This is a medical MSc, by the way, in the School of Medicine and Dentistry in Barts hospital.


----------



## bluescreen (Jan 24, 2022)

How many children have to be hospitalised before it's regarded as serious? How many deaths?
I'd naively assumed the great British public would be more affected by Covid's effect on young people but I was wrong about that.

Meanwhile, people are celebrating that it's becoming endemic. 
As if that meant it's attenuated.

Malaria is endemic. 
So is yellow fever.
Living with it =/= ignoring it.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> Meanwhile, people are celebrating that it's becoming endemic.
> As if that meant it's attenuated.
> 
> Malaria is endemic.
> ...



Is there an alternative?


----------



## bluescreen (Jan 24, 2022)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Is there an alternative?


There's no alternative to reality (OK, there probably is) but it is sensible to respond to reality by, eg, washing hands, masking up, getting the jab.


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> How many children have to be hospitalised before it's regarded as serious? How many deaths?
> I'd naively assumed the great British public would be more affected by Covid's effect on young people but I was wrong about that.


Attitudes are affected by media coverage, absolute numbers, and the reassurances that the establishment came out with when some of the numbers and trends were getting more attention online recently.

Walk in vaccinations for the 5-11 group with vulnerabilities has now begun today, so this can be added to the mix.

By the way I've just in the last hour been reading a paper SAGE looked at in January which investigated paediatric intensive care data for 2020. As well as looking at covid numbers and the effect of cancelled planned operations, they also noticed some data pertaining to diabetes and also the effect that lockdowns etc had on other respiratory conditions that normally cause a larger peak of child intensive care admissions. It concludes with this:



> During 2020 we found a significant reduction in age–sex adjusted prevalence of unplanned PICU admissions, the number of PICU admissions, particularly secondary to respiratory diseases, and fewer child deaths in PICU. While it is possible that these may point towards a beneficial impact of population-based public health interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic, wider societal impact on physical and mental health of children are unclear. However, this could be considered as useful information, at least in part, to generate a public discourse related to the population costs and benefits of continuing adoption of public health interventions in some form or other to relieve annual winter pressures on paediatric critical care and childhood illnesses.



Is there actually going to be a large public debate about that sort of thing? I have big doubts about whether there will be many signs of that. Our priorities suck!



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1048937/s1493-impact-of-covid-19-pandemic-on-uk-picu-2021.pdf


----------



## two sheds (Jan 24, 2022)

I'd have thought there was an  alternative to just letting it rip for people who are vulnerable and particularly those in care homes (hospitals, too, although I'm not sure what measures are being taken there).


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> There's no alternative to reality (OK, there probably is) but it is sensible to respond to reality by, eg, washing hands, masking up, getting the jab.




Well no, we should all have the jab as we do with flu, we should carry on with mask wearing as has happened in Japan etc. since the early 2000's and we should wash hands regularly anyway, in spite of it not being a significant vector of Covid, we should just do it.


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

two sheds said:


> I'd have thought there was an  alternative to just letting it rip for people who are vulnerable and particularly those in care homes (hospitals, too, although I'm not sure what measures are being taken there).


With hospitals there were some specific relaxations made to pandemic inection control procedures a month or two ago, but much of that stuff remains firmly in place. It does have an impact on capacity, but I would hope some changes stick and lead to a permanent change to the extent to which hospitals have long been a contributory factor to seasonal resiratory disease deaths. When people shit on about how many flu deaths we live with, I would rather consider what lessons from the pandemic could be applied to permanently reducing such things. This very much includes care home and hospital infection control, routine testing, etc.

What I hope is that we dont see a big resurgence in flu for several seasons to come, and that people start to wonder why, and stumble upon some of this stuff in addition to other explanations.


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Well no, we should all have the jab as we do with flu, we should carry on with mask wearing as has happened in Japan etc. since the early 2000's and we should wash hands regularly anyway, in spite of it not being a significant vector of Covid, we should just do it.


We dont all have the flu jab, I dont think I've ever had one because I still fall in a broad age group in the middle, a group which the flu vaccine programme has not been expanded to cover yet. The establishment probably has a similar thing in mind for covid vaccines going forwards, if they think they can get away with that approach and make the hospitalisation numbers add up.


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

Another paper SAGE looked at this month, in regards voluntary risk-mitigation behaviours, a very important aspect, especially these days with less formal rules:



> Over 95% of survey respondents (NALSPAC=2,686 and NTwins=6,155) reported some risk mitigation behaviours, with being fully vaccinated and using home testing kits the most frequently reported behaviours. Less than half of those respondents reported that their behaviour was due to “plan B”. We estimate that without risk mitigation behaviours, the Omicron variant is consistent with an effective reproduction number between 2.5 and 3.5. Due to the reduced vaccine effectiveness against infection with the Omicron variant, our modelled estimates suggest that between 55% and 60% of the English population could be infected during the current wave, translating into between 15,000 and 46,000 cumulative deaths, depending on assumptions about vaccine effectiveness. We estimate that voluntary risk reduction measures could reduce the effective reproduction number to between 1.8 and 2.2 and reduce the cumulative number of deaths by up to 24%.





> Conclusions
> We conclude that voluntary measures have substantially reduce the projected impact of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant but that voluntary measures alone would be unlikely to completely control transmission.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1048350/SAGE103_S1492_RR_Omicron.pdf


----------



## Sunray (Jan 24, 2022)

elbows said:


> We dont all have the flu jab, I dont think I've ever had one because I still fall in a broad age group in the middle, a group which the flu vaccine programme has not been expanded to cover yet. The establishment probably has a similar thing in mind for covid vaccines going forwards, if they think they can get away with that approach and make the hospitalisation numbers add up.


Anyone can get a flu vaccine, its about £16 in boots if you don't qualify for a free one. 
Its efficacy is hugely variable, rarely about 60%, sometimes as low as 10% so its debatable its worthwhile if your young and healthy.  
Saying that I've had bad flu twice in my life 15 and 21.  Unflinchingly brutal with no end.  It took me over two months to fully recover both times.  Covid-19 was nothing in comparison.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 24, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> and we've failed to vaccinate the under 12s


Its only been a month since the UK regulator approved it for under 12.  
Parents need to be involved so its not like the general public just wandering into a vaccination centre.


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Anyone can get a flu vaccine, its about £16 in boots if you don't qualify for a free one.
> Its efficacy is hugely variable, rarely about 60%, sometimes as low as 10% so its debatable its worthwhile if your young and healthy.
> Saying that I've had bad flu twice in my life 15 and 21.  Unflinchingly brutal with no end.  It took me over two months to fully recover both times.  Covid-19 was nothing in comparison.


There is a very big difference between people being able to get a vaccine and there being a large national programme that encourages a high percentage of uptake.

It was a horrible flu epidemic in the UK in 1989-90 that really kickstarted mass flu vaccination here, although its happene gradually in many stages. Its been expanding ever since, with older people given a different sort of flu vaccine in recent years due to low efficacy against H3N2 from the previous vaccine in the last decade or so, and the programme has also been expanded in children quite significantly. There has also been a lot of effort put into trying to improve the percentage of NHS workers who get the flu vaccine. How much they seek to expand the programme further in future is unclear to me.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 24, 2022)

I bounced back amazingly well from a serious dose of flu at 53, but the flu at 58 and especially 59 (2018/2019) properly floored me - and if at 60-plus I'm going to need covid top-ups, I hope I will be offered a free flu jab too ...  hopefully the vaccine efficacy will improve thanks to what is being learned about SARSCV2


----------



## Wilf (Jan 24, 2022)

kabbes said:


> I know.  It's really bizarre.  I think it shows the desperation of universities to make everything "normal" again.  My interpretation is that the curtain has been pulled back on the fact that without lectures, universities often aren't really providing much of a service.  Rather than fix this, they want to get the students back in the lecture theatre before they notice this.
> 
> It's not an _order_ to not wear a mask, it's a request.  But given that your average 22 year old is not that keen to wear a mask in the first place, it's basically eliminating masks.
> 
> This is a medical MSc, by the way, in the School of Medicine and Dentistry in Barts hospital.


Yes, the 'normality' thing is really important in Universities at the moment. It's also a 'competitive normality', given that the institution up the road might be doing more of the day to day reality of student life. The other thing is vice chancellors are desperate to align themselves with government thinking, even when that thinking is about saving johnson's arse.


----------



## wtfftw (Jan 24, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Its only been a month since the UK regulator approved it for under 12.
> Parents need to be involved so its not like the general public just wandering into a vaccination centre.


Yes. I'm saying this country has not vaccinated under 12s.


----------



## pbsmooth (Jan 24, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> How many children have to be hospitalised before it's regarded as serious? How many deaths?
> I'd naively assumed the great British public would be more affected by Covid's effect on young people but I was wrong about that.



it looks like around 120 deaths within 28 days of a positive test in under 19s since the start of the pandemic. not deaths necessarily because of covid - not shown in data - but within positive test.
obviously sad but at the same time it's statistically a very small number. more kids die in road accidents in london every year, for example.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 24, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> How many children have to be hospitalised before it's regarded as serious? How many deaths?


More than the currently tiny numbers, I'd imagine.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Tests for people entering the U.K. to be scrapped from next Monday, apparently.




From 11th February, not Monday...


----------



## kabbes (Jan 24, 2022)

I got a flu voucher from work this year but after repeated attempts to book an injection, I gave up.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

kabbes said:


> I got a flu voucher from work this year but after repeated attempts to book an injection, I gave up.



They gave me mine with my Covid booster jab, anyone over 40 was offered it.


----------



## bimble (Jan 24, 2022)

when you're above 50 the nhs invites you for flu jabs once every year is that how it works ?


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

elbows said:


> There is a very big difference between people being able to get a vaccine and there being a large national programme that encourages a high percentage of uptake.



Everyone in the vulnerable group has been offered it for free for ages. Frau Bahn helps out at flu clinics in the autumn, they get though 1000's of old codgers in a day. Also primary age kids get it too. And anyone else who wants it can pay for it. So it's fairly ubiquitous and I would have thought the Covid boosters will be similar, no?


----------



## planetgeli (Jan 24, 2022)

bimble said:


> when you're above 50 the nhs invites you for flu jabs once every year is that how it works ?



Via your GP


----------



## bluescreen (Jan 24, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Anyone can get a flu vaccine, its about £16 in boots if you don't qualify for a free one.
> Its efficacy is hugely variable, rarely about 60%, sometimes as low as 10% so its debatable its worthwhile if your young and healthy.
> Saying that I've had bad flu twice in my life 15 and 21.  Unflinchingly brutal with no end.  It took me over two months to fully recover both times.  Covid-19 was nothing in comparison.


What are you arguing from your sample of one? That Covid isn't that bad? Well, it kills some people. You have to be very ill to be admitted to hospital, so 'mild' is a low barrier.



pbsmooth said:


> it looks like around 120 deaths within 28 days of a positive test in under 19s since the start of the pandemic. not deaths necessarily because of covid - not shown in data - but within positive test.
> obviously sad but at the same time it's statistically a very small number. more kids die in road accidents in london every year, for example.


Yeah, sorry - I was improperly focusing on the kneejerk dead kids number rather than people (children are people) who become ill and/or suffer long Covid. (And yes, I know there are those who argue that long Covid isn't a thing but they can GTF.) 
_Sad, but look at road deaths_... Can you hear what you're saying? 'OK, this thing is sad but that thing over there is worse'?


----------



## teuchter (Jan 24, 2022)

The deaths numbers have been updated for London since the last time I looked (I think). They now go up to the 19th Jan and seem to show a peak in over-60s deaths having passed now.


----------



## kabbes (Jan 24, 2022)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> They gave me mine with my Covid booster jab, anyone over 40 was offered it.


I wasn’t offered it with my booster on 21 December


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## xenon (Jan 24, 2022)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> They gave me mine with my Covid booster jab, anyone over 40 was offered it.


No they weren't. I wasn't.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

kabbes said:


> I wasn’t offered it with my booster on 21 December



Mine was 10th December, but Frau Bahn's was the day before at the same place and she wasn't offered it, so I guess they were just jabbing folk with whatever they had to hand. She was able to get one at pharmacy attached to our GP's free of charge, in spite of being under 50, it was a walk in service, no queue at all.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

xenon said:


> No they weren't. I wasn't.



Were you at the Woking place on 10th December?


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## xenon (Jan 24, 2022)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Were you at the Woking place on 10th December?



So only for 40 - 50 YoS in Woking?


----------



## LDC (Jan 24, 2022)

bimble said:


> when you're above 50 the nhs invites you for flu jabs once every year is that how it works ?



Not quite that simple. I usually get offered mine through NHS work, but didn't this year. My GP got in touch and offered it, but I'm under 50 and with no underlying health issues and when I asked they said they'd widened the offer quite a bit due to covid this year.


----------



## xenon (Jan 24, 2022)

The 40 something's I know who've had the flue jab have got it due to line of work. Not many TBF but I haven't been conducting a survey...


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## pbsmooth (Jan 24, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> Yeah, sorry - I was improperly focusing on the kneejerk dead kids number rather than people (children are people) who become ill and/or suffer long Covid. (And yes, I know there are those who argue that long Covid isn't a thing but they can GTF.)
> _Sad, but look at road deaths_... Can you hear what you're saying? 'OK, this thing is sad but that thing over there is worse'?



not sure I'm 100% sure on your point and sorry if the way I phrased it sounded blase. my point is it's an incredibly small number and we don't even know how many of that incredibly small number - if any - are actually due to covid. so i disagree with your point that the country is in the wrong for not being more affected by this.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

xenon said:


> So only for 40 - 50 YoS in Woking?



I dunno, I didn't have a booster anywhere else so can't comment on other places, and as said, Woking wasn't offering them the day before. But Frau Bahn did get a sticker and I didn't, so all's fair really.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jan 24, 2022)

oh and if you do ever get offered a Covid jab and a flu jab at the same time, get them to do both in the same arm unless you can sleep flat on your back or front.


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

Matters relating to children from the most recently available SAGE minutes:





__





						Loading…
					





					assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
				






> Data continue to show relatively increased paediatric hospital admissions with COVID-19, especially for those under 1 year old, though it remains the case that most of these children have very short stays in hospital and are not severely ill. The number of admissions, including to intensive care, remains low compared to the usual level of admissions observed with other respiratory viruses at this time of year. Encouraging vaccination uptake in pregnant women should remain a priority.





> No impact of Omicron on incidence of the COVID-19 associated multisystem inflammatory syndrome PIMS-TS can yet be observed, but cases typically present several weeks after infection so this cannot be excluded at this point. It is notable that in CO-CIN data, for the most recent month, there were no vaccinated 12–17-year-olds in HDU or ICU compared to 20 unvaccinated in the same age group. Further analysis would be required to fully assess the impact of vaccination on likelihood of ICU admission. The overall risk to children from COVID-19 remains very low (high confidence).





> Work is underway to understand the increased number of diagnoses of type 1 diabetes in children, and the potential association with SARS-CoV-2 infection.





> ACTION: Russell Viner to coordinate assessment of evidence on type 1 diabetes in children and share with CMO when available.



The type 1 diabetes stuff bothers me most about the UK approach to children in this pandemic, but then I am sensitive to this topic because both my brother and nephew developed type 1 diabetes before they were adults. My brothers manifested not long after a huge flu epidemic in 1989/90 and my nephews developed during the pandemic. Genetic susceptibility combined with infection as a trigger seems very plausible. By the way, I previously reported that they both caught Covid recently, and I am now pleased to report that they seem to have gotten through this without any complications. I cannot say whether this was their first infection due to a lack of testing in the first wave. My brother was triple-vaccinated. Whether a previous covid infection triggered my nephews diabetes remains a possibility, but I doubt whether we will ever know for sure.


----------



## Sunray (Jan 24, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> What are you arguing from your sample of one? That Covid isn't that bad? Well, it kills some people. You have to be very ill to be admitted to hospital, so 'mild' is a low barrier.
> 
> 
> Yeah, sorry - I was improperly focusing on the kneejerk dead kids number rather than people (children are people) who become ill and/or suffer long Covid. (And yes, I know there are those who argue that long Covid isn't a thing but they can GTF.)
> _Sad, but look at road deaths_... Can you hear what you're saying? 'OK, this thing is sad but that thing over there is worse'?


I wasn't commenting on COVID-19 but on the virtues or not of the flu vaccine given my experience getting flu when young and healthy.   
You can infer anything you like about covid from my sample of one.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 24, 2022)

Sunray said:


> You can infer anything you like about covid from my sample of one.


After careful consideration I'm going to go with "nothing".


----------



## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> not sure I'm 100% sure on your point and sorry if the way I phrased it sounded blase. my point is it's an incredibly small number and we don't even know how many of that incredibly small number - if any - are actually due to covid. so i disagree with your point that the country is in the wrong for not being more affected by this.


The numbers are small, some of them did die of covid.

Risk factors include being male, developmental disorders and neurological conditions, being at the older end of childhood, certain ethnicities, multiple chronic disabilities. If I cast a wider net to look at reports from countries like the USA, and hospitalisations rather than only deaths, stuff like obesity, type 1 diabetes also show up.

Due to the higher case numbers in recent waves, I expect a broader picture to emerge in future.

Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in particular requires a deeper look at, I havent done much reading on this yet.

Here are a bunch of example articles:









						Underlying conditions common among kids and teens who die of Covid-19
					

The report also showed stark racial disparities in Covid-19 deaths among children.




					www.nbcnews.com
				











						Underlying Medical Conditions and Severe COVID-19 Illness Among Children
					

This cross-sectional study examines the risk of severe COVID-19 illness among children associated with underlying medical conditions and medical complexity.




					jamanetwork.com
				











						Covid: Children's extremely low risk confirmed by study
					

The overall risk of death is around two in a million children, scientists looking at England's data estimate.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				











						Daily Mail understates the risks of Covid-19 to children - Full Fact
					

Severe disease and death are very rare, but still more common than the Mail claimed.




					fullfact.org
				







__





						Child mortality in England during the COVID-19 pandemic | Archives of Disease in Childhood
					





					adc.bmj.com
				




Attitudes and studies of child death are a strange subject, there has been a tendency to brush a lot of it under the carpet in various ways, including not studying things properly via not collecting data properly. I still think we can explore this topic via the earlier point about the reduction in paediatric intensive care admissions due to lockdowns etc. But taking it further, by looking at deaths. For example here is an article from December and I will quote lots of notable bits:









						Child deaths fell 10% during first year of pandemic
					

Researchers credit likely record low to reduced deaths by infection during winter lockdown




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The number of children in England who died fell to 3,067 between April 2020 and March 2021 – 356 fewer than were recorded in the previous 12 months – with the fall particularly marked in under-10s and those with underlying health problems.
> 
> It is likely to represent the lowest level of child mortality on record, researchers at the Universities of Bristol and Cardiff found.





> In Archives of Disease in Childhood, they wrote: “What these data show is that, during 2020–21, when multiple measures were introduced with the aim of reducing morbidity and mortality from Covid-19 in the adult population, there was an unexpected fall in overall child mortality in England, most marked in younger children and those with underlying health conditions and infectious disease other than Covid-19.
> 
> “The magnitude of this fall (around 10%), including those children living in the most deprived conditions, a group for whom previous attempts to reduce excess mortality have generally been less successful, makes clear that we need to investigate what aspect of societal reorganisation and the restrictions faced by the whole population have had this effect.”





> The study used data from the University of Bristol-led National Child Mortality Database (NCMD) – a first-of-its-kind initiative to collect comprehensive and timely data on every child death in England.



That this database is a first of its kind initiative speaks volumes!



> Findings from the analysis showed that deaths from non-Covid infections and other underlying conditions fell, and there is some evidence of fewer deaths from substance abuse.
> 
> In addition, the reduction in mortality appeared to occur during the winter months, where the seasonal increase, often caused by infections other than Covid, was not apparent, researchers said. This period coincided with the prolonged lockdown in England from January to April 2021.





> Prof Karen Luyt, programme lead for the NCMD and professor of neonatal medicine at the University of Bristol, said: “There was clear evidence that the reduction in mortality was seen in two key areas: those children with underlying health conditions and those who died of infectious diseases other than Covid.
> 
> “Our data demonstrate that child deaths caused by seasonal infections are potentially substantially modifiable at population level.
> 
> “It is therefore important that we learn from the effects highlighted in this study to improve the outcome for the most vulnerable children in our society.”



Is there a big conversation about these things? I think not, which tells us something about attitudes towards the death of vulnerable children.

As usual I am also inclined to focus on stuff like hospital-acquired infections, and it might be possible to tie in some of whats been seen with a reduction in various forms of surgery and other medical procedures over the period, greater emphasis on infection control etc.


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## bluescreen (Jan 24, 2022)

elbows said:


> That this database is a first of its kind initiative speaks volumes!
> <snip>
> Is there a big conversation about these things? I think not, which tells us something about attitudes towards the death of vulnerable children.


So much this! 
Children are people.


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## existentialist (Jan 24, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Its only been a month since the UK regulator approved it for under 12.
> Parents need to be involved so its not like the general public just wandering into a vaccination centre.


Which doesn't alter the practical reality that a lot of unvaccinated children are currently mingling with no mitigation whatsoever.


pbsmooth said:


> it looks like around 120 deaths within 28 days of a positive test in under 19s since the start of the pandemic. not deaths necessarily because of covid - not shown in data - but within positive test.
> obviously sad but at the same time it's statistically a very small number. more kids die in road accidents in london every year, for example.


Those kids will likely still die in road accidents. I'm not sure that kind of comparison is all that helpful.


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## teuchter (Jan 24, 2022)

existentialist said:


> Those kids will likely still die in road accidents. I'm not sure that kind of comparison is all that helpful.


The comparison is relevant as far as the question of "acceptable risk" is concerned though.

There are lots of things we could do to reduce the number of kids killed in road accidents, but we don't because people want the benefits of not doing those things. (As it happens, I think we should do many of those things, but that's not for this thread)


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## pbsmooth (Jan 24, 2022)

What he said.


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## elbows (Jan 24, 2022)

So in regards my previous post, lets asume we wont even be able to have a sensible conversation about saving 356 vulnerable children from death via respiratory diseases by having a full lockdown every winter.

But we could attempt to explore a milder version of that.

Lets say we wore masks every winter. We cannot say exactly how many vulnerable children would avoid death each winter if we did, but we could estimate that the number might be higher than 1 and quite a bit less than 356. How many would it take to be considered worthwhile?


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## l'Otters (Jan 24, 2022)

Sunray said:


> Its only been a month since the UK regulator approved it for under 12.
> Parents need to be involved so its not like the general public just wandering into a vaccination centre.


Exactly, we haven’t protected children.


----------



## teuchter (Jan 24, 2022)

elbows said:


> So in regards my previous post, lets asume we wont even be able to have a sensible conversation about saving 356 vulnerable children from death via respiratory diseases by having a full lockdown every winter.
> 
> But we could attempt to explore a milder version of that.
> 
> Lets say we wore masks every winter. We cannot say exactly how many vulnerable children would avoid death each winter if we did, but we could estimate that the number might be higher than 1 and quite a bit less than 356. How many would it take to be considered worthwhile?


I think this deserves a thread of its own.


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## Sunray (Jan 24, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> Exactly, we haven’t protected children.


This was done to distract people from Boris Johnson and happy ending the ERG.   
Any public health concerns anyone might have right now are utterly irelevant to the stupidest govenment in history.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 24, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> Exactly, we haven’t protected children.


Vaccinating children is not about protecting children first and foremost. Not really. Vaccinating children should have been done over the last six months to reduce the spread and save other people's lives - the lives of their grandparents and great-grandparents. That rationale was rejected by the UK government back in June. As a result, probably thousands of people have died unnecessarily. It was, imo, a terrible decision.

The main benefit to the children themselves would have been a big reduction in the disruption to their lives. Better to be vaccinated than to be stuck in bubbles and facemasks all day.


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## Dogsauce (Jan 25, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The deaths numbers have been updated for London since the last time I looked (I think). They now go up to the 19th Jan and seem to show a peak in over-60s deaths having passed now.
> 
> View attachment 307270


Those sort of graphs always have a little downward trend at the end due to reporting delays, so I wouldn’t assume tailing off yet, such changes won’t be apparent for a week or two.


----------



## MickiQ (Jan 25, 2022)

bimble said:


> when you're above 50 the nhs invites you for flu jabs once every year is that how it works ?


Yes but loads of pharmacists do it and they (in theory at least) update the NHS database you've had it. we just ring up our local pharmacist and book a date. Then we hope that it is the lady pharmacist on duty that day, she's fine but her husband clearly wanted a job operating pneumatic drills but settled for being a pharmacist.


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## teuchter (Jan 25, 2022)

Dogsauce said:


> Those sort of graphs always have a little downward trend at the end due to reporting delays, so I wouldn’t assume tailing off yet, such changes won’t be apparent for a week or two.


The downward trend is visible between about the 15th and 19th January, so it's already a week or two in the past.


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## prunus (Jan 25, 2022)

I've been getting a flu jab from Boots (about £15 I think) for about a decade (I'm 50 now though so can get it free ) - I had really nasty flus* in winter 2000/2001 and 2008/2009 (I think) - the first one was particularly scary - I passed out, just suddenly collapsed, in St Martins Lane (passers-by called ambulance, no-one tried to lift my wallet, it was a powerful learning experience about the kindness of strangers).  Both times I was floored for 3-4 weeks.  I figured £15/year to lessen the chance of that happening again was more than worth it, even without considering beneficial effects of reduced transmission etc.

* I only call it flu because that was what I was told the first time (I assume hospital tested for it?  I didn't ask at the time) and the second time felt basically the same - either one could have been a different respiratory virus of course.


----------



## zahir (Jan 25, 2022)




----------



## Fruitloop (Jan 25, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Vaccinating children is not about protecting children first and foremost. Not really. Vaccinating children should have been done over the last six months to reduce the spread and save other people's lives - the lives of their grandparents and great-grandparents. That rationale was rejected by the UK government back in June. As a result, probably thousands of people have died unnecessarily. It was, imo, a terrible decision.
> 
> The main benefit to the children themselves would have been a big reduction in the disruption to their lives. Better to be vaccinated than to be stuck in bubbles and facemasks all day.


I dunno, the hospitalization rates in children are sky-high at the moment, and there's 100k+ cases of pediatric long covid. I'd quite like my kids to be vaccinated for their sakes, and I'll take my own chances.


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## StoneRoad (Jan 25, 2022)

zahir said:


>



And that's why I think abandoning "Plan B" [weak as it is] is the wrong thing to do at this moment. Maybe they should have waited another month to six weeks, when the decline in cases would be showing clearly up here in the NorthEast [as I suspect we were the last mainland area to really get started with the Omicron wave]

Insufficient vaccinations [not just the boosters] and no mitigations against transmission will mean that Omicron will continue to rampage across the UK. Also, I suspect that there are still quite a few Delta cases lurking, as the UK still had a lot of them when the new variant arrived.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 25, 2022)

I watched this video today - somewhere around here he mentions the upper-respiratory focus of Omicron and the relative narrowness of the tract in children.



Spoiler: long Mayo Clinic video


----------



## gentlegreen (Jan 25, 2022)

Dr. Gregory Poland in that video heavily emphasises the importance of really good masks.


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## l'Otters (Jan 25, 2022)

Sunray said:


> This was done to distract people from Boris Johnson and happy ending the ERG.
> Any public health concerns anyone might have right now are utterly irelevant to the stupidest govenment in history.


Whut? 

Could you try and make your point(s?) intelligible?


----------



## pbsmooth (Jan 25, 2022)

Fruitloop said:


> I dunno, the hospitalization rates in children are sky-high at the moment



"sky-high". where are you getting that from?


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

When people say that its usually because they are comparing child admissions now compared to all previous stages of the pandemic.

Meanwhile I was just about to comment on the reinfections stuff coming to the UK dashboard soon, but it appears that the announcement has been deleted!


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

Given the current phase and some themes that keep coming up, including in a propaganda context, I am paying attention to twitter thread like the following ones.

Since flu is often dragged into the mix I am also revisiting my past reading on notable flu epidemics in the UK and how they were reported at the time. I will have something to say about that later today or perhaps tomorrow if I run out of time.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 25, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> "sky-high". where are you getting that from?
> 
> 
> View attachment 307380


From initial reports I've read, hospital admissions of young children are up with omicron (from almost zero), but the majority of the cases are not of serious illness and hospital stays are brief, which hopefully is reflected in the death figures there - one baby that week, by the looks of it, but nobody else under 15.

I would still argue that covid-19 remains a very minor threat to the health of the under-18s, whether they are vaccinated or not, but that it is making some very young children ill is new.

I don't know how that compares to flu. I suspect it may not be very different. Flu can also make young children very ill. Also, there is a possible behaviour change here. I haven't had the flu since I was a kid, but I remember being flattened by it for many days. I didn't go to hospital despite running a fever and feeling like death, but I suspect that, at the moment, parents are (understandably) more likely to take their kid to the hospital if they get that sick with covid.


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> From initial reports I've read, hospital admissions of young children are up with omicron (from almost zero), but the majority of the cases are not of serious illness and hospital stays are brief, which hopefully is reflected in the death figures there - one baby that week, by the looks of it, but nobody else under 15.
> 
> I would still argue that covid-19 remains a very minor threat to the health of the under-18s, whether they are vaccinated or not, but that it is making some very young children ill is new.
> 
> I don't know how that compares to flu. I suspect it may not be very different.


Such discussions are hampered by the low numbers in absolute terms. And the attitudes people have towards deaths that primarily occur in people already classed as vulnerable. There is also an association between certain ethnicities and child death risk.

In terms of covid, see this stuff I posted yesterday:        #46,061   

In terms of influenza, those complications exist too, but there are some additional ones. Firstly the 2009 swine flu pandemic gave us a strain that affected children more than normal. For some details on numbers and risk factors, see articles like this one:





__





						Child swine flu deaths analysed | NICS Well
					

“The flu pandemic in England killed 70 children in 2009,” The Guardian has reported. The newspaper says that “most of those who died had pre-existing health ...



					www.nicswell.co.uk
				




Part of my planned talk about flu and attitudes and reporting during large, deadly flu epidemics in this country in the last 40 years will address another big issue with flu data. I may as well mention it now - there has been no mass testing, so much is left to opinion which distorts the figures and leaves us reliant on other measurements such as excess mortality and all cause mortality, or broader sentinel indicators such as 'influenza-like illness'. The sort of thing that causes arguments whenever we try to come up with realistic number of flu deaths in both normal years and epidemic years.

Take for example the really bad UK flu epidemic of late 1989/early 1990. That epidemic came after quite a number of years without an epidemic, and acted as a wake up call which helped sponsor a vastly larger flu vaccination programme in subsequent decades. But when it comes to collective public memories, such epidemics tended to hardly leave a mark. And I would suggest that a big reason why is down to the nature of influenza death numbers reporting during the epidemics. Lack of mass testing and the fact that even stuff like death certificate causes are heavily influenced by local attitudes towards whether a flu epidemic has arrived there, means the number of confirmed flu deaths reported in the media at the time were an absolute disgrace that was entirely divorced from reality. Unfortunately various links I saved last night are not showing up on my computer right now, but I will return later with some vivid examples of what I am on about in this regard.

Most of what I've just ranted about in regards flu involves older adults, but it obviously has consequences for data regarding the smaller number of deaths involving children too.

Another thing to consider is how poor our typical awareness of paediatric health system pressures from other respiratory infections are, including ones that are considered to disproportionately affect children. An obvious example is RSV. RSV resurged last summer, at about the same time as there were Delta pressures, and was responsible for quite a chunk of the prolonged strain the health system was placed under during that period. It was quite widely reported on at the time, but did not generate too much discussion here. Some of the way it presents may have much in common with the way Omicron has been leading to greater hospitalisations of children recently.


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## danny la rouge (Jan 25, 2022)

This is my BBC News app today. 



Help me out here. I work in education in Scotland. I’m tired. So very tired. What am I supposed to do with this information?


----------



## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

Prepare a lesson on double-think, propaganda, establishment priorities, contradictions, the perils of low morale and subversion by disgruntled servants of the state.


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

So then, reporting of the really bad influenza epidemic of 1989/90, and the ridiculous undercounting of deaths:

December 1989:









						English flu' rages in Britain
					

Scores of nurses are among the latest victims of an influenza epidemic sweeping through Britain, straining the resources of hospitals throughout the country,...




					www.upi.com
				






> Officials said several hospitals prepared to declare a 'red alert' barring all but emergency admissions amid the growing epidemic. Different strains of the flu have killed at least 158 people this year.





> It was the first influenza epidemic to hit Britain since 1975-76, when more than 1,200 people died from the virus.
> 
> Newspapers said the latest victims of the virus were a 16-month-old girl, a 7-year-old boy and a 79-year-old man. The boy died in his sleep after complaining of a severe headache, sore eyes and difficulty in standing up, The Independent newspaper said.





> The elderly, young children with asthma or cystic fibrosis, or those with heart or lung diseases are especially at risk, officials said.
> 
> Doctors said flu vaccines should be reserved for the most vulnerable people and antibiotics were not effective in combatting the disease. The best cure, they said, was old-fashioned bed rest, aspirin and lots of fluids.





> An outbreak is classified as an epidemic when 100 people out of 100,000 are documented as suffering from a virus.







__





						archive.ph
					





					archive.ph
				






> The worst flu epidemic in 14 years has strong-armed its way through Britain, claiming lives, forcing hospitals to postpone surgery and dominating conversation with worries over who has it, how to avoid it or how to get rid of it.
> 
> Government statistics released this week showed that 102 people in England and Wales died of illnesses related to flu in the first week of December, bringing the total such deaths so far this year to 276. In the corresponding week last year, there were seven flu-related deaths.





> The virus is said to be similar to the strain that killed a total of 1,283 people in the winter of 1975-76. The highest number of flu cases ever recorded by the research unit was 918 for every 100,000 people during the winter of 1969-70.





> Nonetheless, the Department of Health said it would continue to recommend that people in high-risk groups -those who have chronic chest, heart or kidney disease, diabetes, or who are taking certain drugs - be vaccinated against the flu. Elderly people in those groups are considered particularly vulnerable. Most of the flu-related deaths have been among people over 65, Government statistics show.





> Some hospitals have asked for volunteers to ''adopt a grandparent'' over the Christmas holidays in an attempt to keep the flu epidemic from sweeping through hospital wards reserved for the elderly.



In my next post I will deal with the actual number of deaths and some of the professional attitudes towards testing, sentinel surveillance etc.


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## brogdale (Jan 25, 2022)

fuck


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## StoneRoad (Jan 25, 2022)

That's 439 appalling tragedies ...
and this from a supposedly "milder" strain ?

[although, I wonder how many are actually Delta variant cases, which have been hidden behind the greater Omicron case numbers - not to ignore the legion of unvaccinated]


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

The picture of the 1989 epidemic via this paper which uses surveillance via the weekly returns service of the Royal College of General Practitioners:

I will only quote a couple of bits, the paper is quite short and worth a look if interested in graphs, sentinel surveillance methods and attitudes towards illness classification.





__





						Loading…
					





					www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
				






> The name influenza, is very old and precedes the first identification of an influenza virus by several centuries. The clinical syndrome which is labelled influenza is not exclusively caused by the influenza virus either A or B. Nor can this ever be, because virus infections are so variable in their clinical manifestation, *and routine virolo'gical investigation of patients with influenza illneses is not justifiable*.



Hence my rants not just about bad influenza death data, but also the traditional attitude towards actually testing patients rather than guessing, a phenomenon that persisted right up until the current pandemic forced mass diagnostics testing onto the agenda in a massive way!

As for massive death undercounting:



> Clifford and colleagues estimated that there were approximately 15000 excess deaths attributable to influenza during epidemic years, one third in persons under 65 years of age. During the period 15 November to 31 December 1989 the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys reported 112697 deaths from all causes compared with an expected value of 89900. Of the 22797 excess deaths, only 1919 were directly attributed to the influenza or influenzal pneumonia (OPCS Monitor, registrar general's weekly return for England and Wales).





> An epidemic of upper respiratory disease in the UK occurred during the last seven weeks of 1989. This was almost certainly due to influenza virus A/England/H3N2. During the epidemic there were almost 22000 more deaths than expected for this time of year but only one tenth of them were attributed on death certificates to influenza.



So contrast the picture revelaed by that report to the stupidly low numbers that featured in the press articles I mentioned from December 1989.

I rather suspect that public attitudes towards those epidemics of influenza would have been idfferent if we'd had ass testing and daily death figures widely reported back then.

Just to illustrate the true burden, here are daily deaths from all causes graphs for England and Wales that year, as well as another year I often go on about in regards flu epidemics that people dont remember, and an early version of the same figures for 2020. I moved the 1989/90 and 99/00 months on the x axis so that the winter fell in the middle of the period rather than being chopped off mid-peak by the year-end boundaries. No such adjustment was required for 2020 since that first wave didnt happen in winter.


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## andysays (Jan 25, 2022)

danny la rouge said:


> This is my BBC News app today.
> 
> View attachment 307395
> 
> Help me out here. I work in education in Scotland. I’m tired. So very tired. What am I supposed to do with this information?


----------



## littlebabyjesus (Jan 25, 2022)

danny la rouge said:


> This is my BBC News app today.
> 
> View attachment 307395
> 
> Help me out here. I work in education in Scotland. I’m tired. So very tired. What am I supposed to do with this information?


Figures for England show that covid is on the rise in young children - quite sharply in those under 10, and a bit less sharply in 10-14. It's also rising slightly in their parents' age group. It is still falling among other age groups. The overall effect in England is that total case numbers are more or less flat, and have been for the last two weeks, at about half their peak.

The govt website doesn't give age breakdowns for Scotland or Wales, but both of these have seen sharper overall falls than England. I suspect that the child-related surge is either smaller there or hasn't happened yet. The timing of these things varies across the country - for instance, Scotland saw a school-related surge in Delta in September, a few weeks before England and Wales. So Scotland might be about to see a similar rise in children. I wouldn't rule it out. tbh people working at home or in the office isn't likely to make much difference. The dynamic is that it's spread at school then the kids come home and give it to their parents.

There is good news. Cases in the most vulnerable groups are well down and hospitalisations and deaths should fall over the coming couple of weeks. All politicians have form for announcing successes prematurely, though, including Sturgeon.

Sorry don't even know if that helps. Probably not.


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

A final though on my recent flu posts:

Frankly the amount of testing for influenza and the nature of sentinel surveillance, and almost non-existent surveillance of the other existing human coronaviruses means that I cannot even be sure that every bad epidemic and wave of death this country experienced in the last 50 years was actually a straightforward story of influenza epidemics. I'm not going to make wild claims about whether we had a bad wave of coronavirus deaths as part of the real picture of those years, but neither can I entirely exclude the possibility.

Also my brother developed type 1 diabetes in the wake of the 1989 wave so I have a special interest in the subject and try to keep as many angles open as possible, given that his son developed type 1 diabetes in the current pandemic.


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 25, 2022)

elbows said:


> A final though on my recent flu posts:
> 
> Frankly the amount of testing for influenza and the nature of sentinel surveillance, and almost non-existent surveillance of the other existing human coronaviruses means that I cannot even be sure that every bad epidemic and wave of death this country experienced in the last 50 years was actually a straightforward story of influenza epidemics. I'm not going to make wild claims about whether we had a bad wave of coronavirus deaths as part of the real picture of those years, but neither can I entirely exclude the possibility.


That thought has occurred to me as well.

If the initial wave had been of a virus that affected the population in the way omicron is affecting the population now, tests for it wouldn't have been developed. It would just have been 'a bad cough that's going around', I would have thought. We might well not ever have identified it, especially given the speed at which it spreads.


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## brogdale (Jan 25, 2022)

Worryingly stubborn 'peak' of deaths:


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 25, 2022)

Not really that surprising, tbh. If the peak ends up being 15 Jan, that's almost exactly two weeks after the peak in cases at the end of last year, which is more or less what you'd expect.


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> That thought has occurred to me as well.
> 
> If the initial wave had been of a virus that affected the population in the way omicron is affecting the population now, tests for it wouldn't have been developed. It would just have been 'a bad cough that's going around', I would have thought. We might well not ever have identified it, especially given the speed at which it spreads.


I know what you mean and I dont need to pick it apart because you were careful to say 'the way omicron is affecting the population now', which is a combination of the intrinsic properties of omicron along with the high levels of infection from previous strains and the massive number of vaccines given (ie population not naive to this virus in its broadest sense).

We can apply some of these concepts in regards surveillance and what signals are strong enough to trigger alarm and proper investigation to the original detection of the pandemic too. Actually spotting it in Wuhan required a combination of: an unusual and large number of severe cases within a narrow timeframe, someone to actually notice this, with quick discovery of the underlying cause likely being helped by it taking place in a country with SARS awareness, in a city with specialist SARS-like viral research institutes.

Other countries further demonstrated that point by still not managing to notice what stage of wave they were at until they broadened their testing criteria for the severely ill and then actually noticed they had already started seeing deaths from this virus. I do wonder quite how many deaths we missed before the first wave fully exploded. And we could also consider the possibility that if early phases of seeding and spread involved younger people who were much less likely to require clinical attention, the failure to notice something was happening at all could have been really quite prolonged regafdless of whether we were armed with the info from China at all.

Although I moan about sentinel surveillances limitations compared to massive routine diagnostic testing, sentinel surveillance systems are good enough to spot epidemics and trends, albeit with a bit of lag. But that only applies when the disease in question is actually the subject of sentinel surveillance in the first place. Unlike influenza, RSV, Rhinovirus, etc, I've seen precious little indication that we have the same systems in place for the 4 known human coronaviruses that predate the current pandemic virus. We do have the much broader surveillance categories of 'influenza-like illness' and 'acute respiratory infection', but these can end up being part of the picture of assumtions, conflation and complacency.

I still hope that if this pandemic achieves anything long-term, its that attitudes towards mass diagnostics testing in this country will be permanently changed.


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Not really that surprising, tbh. If the peak ends up being 15 Jan, that's almost exactly two weeks after the peak in cases at the end of last year, which is more or less what you'd expect.



Yes and the prolonged plateau isnt unexpected either, given differences in regional timing, the possibility of outbreaks in certain settings coming a bit later (eg care home and hospital outbreaks were often a bit later in the first waves, not sure about this time). Also when we see incredibly sharp spikes in the daily positive case number. peaks, I tend to assume these are a bit of a distortion of the actual picture, which still has pronounced peaks but probably not quite as abrupt in reality.


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## brogdale (Jan 25, 2022)

elbows said:


> Yes and the prolonged plateau isnt unexpected either, given differences in regional timing, the possibility of outbreaks in certain settings coming a bit later (eg care home and hospital outbreaks were often a bit later in the first waves, not sure about this time). Also when we see incredibly sharp spikes in the daily positive case number. peaks, I tend to assume these are a bit of a distortion of the actual picture, which still has pronounced peaks but probably not quite as abrupt in reality.


I get that, and your rational, level analysis is always welcome.
That said, in the context of the tory triumphalism, and vibe that it's all over...439 is a bit "fuck", no?


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

brogdale said:


> I get that, and your rational, level analysis is always welcome.
> That said, in the context of the tory triumphalism, and vibe that it's all over...439 is a bit "fuck", no?


Not really because thats deaths by reporting date, as in:



As opposed to deaths by date of death which is the data I prefer to look at otherwise we get the same pattern of alarm after every weekend when the above are doing their regular catch-up act.


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

As for the tories, yes they like to promote a sense of the worst being over whenever they can, but even Johnson has to go on about it not actually being all over.

Where they do have a sense of it being all over is in terms of the wave and the trigger points that force even them to impose restrictions. Which largely boils down to concerns about ever higher daily hospital admissions figures, and in this wave we've gone past that point of concern. Which is not to say that the situation cannot deteriorate again in future, including in the future of the current wave. But for now they've done their usual, just a bit sooner than in previous waves because the scale of things was lower this time, and they arent even trying to drive cases down to very very low levels, unlike what they were trying to get to via the prolonged restrictions in the first two waves.

And yes this approach is not without risk. But Im not going to be able to muster the energy to go on about that risk endlessly, I'll just have to wait like everyone else and see if it all starts to go wrong again in the coming months (or doesnt finish going wrong in terms of current levels of death etc persisting).


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

Pandemic shithead Nick Triggle spinning the scene for a long Omicron tail:



> Let's take a moment to look at the current Covid situation in the UK. The rapid drop in detected cases has come to an end.
> 
> Week on week cases are down by just over 3% now when at one point they were falling by well over 30%.
> 
> ...





> It's not clear exactly what will happen next.
> 
> Modellers believe any rise will be relatively short-lived or there could be an extended period where cases remain relatively flat, bobbling around up and down, as happened after restrictions were eased last summer.
> 
> What looks certain is that the Omicron wave will have a fairly long tail to it.



From 17:08 of the BBC live updates page. 



			https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60122893


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 25, 2022)

elbows said:


> Yes and the prolonged plateau isnt unexpected either, given differences in regional timing, the possibility of outbreaks in certain settings coming a bit later (eg care home and hospital outbreaks were often a bit later in the first waves, not sure about this time). Also when we see incredibly sharp spikes in the daily positive case number. peaks, I tend to assume these are a bit of a distortion of the actual picture, which still has pronounced peaks but probably not quite as abrupt in reality.


Yep that. And also, while the average between testing positive and death may be around 2 weeks, that covers a wide variation from a few days to a couple of months. That will also flatten the peak compared to cases.


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## elbows (Jan 25, 2022)

Also there was quite a lot of sync between intensive care numbers and deaths in earlier waves. The pattern this time seen with ICU numbers has exceeded even 'Omicron mild' and 'incidental covid' fans expectations so far, I would guess. Especially if we look at regions other than London, which often didnt even have the rise initially seen in London. I do need to look at deaths per region more to get a better handle on how these two forms of data compare this time, whether it diverges in the manner we might predict.

I know too much emphasis on 'incidental' hospitalisations and deaths provokes rants from me, but I dont deny that they are likely a larger proportion this time due to the very high case rates and different severe disease impact. Due to ONS deaths reporting lag theres never quite a perfect time to use differences between ONS death certificate death figures and 28 day positive test death figure to explore 'incidental' deaths further, but once the ONS data gets properly filled in for the period right up to that which covers some initial decline in deaths in this wave I'll take another look at that.

Although any conclusions I reach will have to be tempered by a subject not entirely unrelated to what I was talking about with flu earlier - recording cause of death is not a perfect science, and it would be especially easy to reach some wrong conclusions if the mechanisms of death are slightly different, or in different proportions, with Omicron compared to earlier variants. For example death certificate based forms of recording death reasons are influenced by attitudes, and attitudes are influenced by factors that include whether death comes via obvious respiratory distress compared to some of the other modes of covid death such as strokes and heart attacks. Much of the potential to make errors in that regard have been limited by the presence of a large testing system, and a huge amount of pandemic awareness/assumptions in the minds of those filling in the death certificates. But those attitudes will probably start to evolve at this stage or sometime later this year. And then when we come to try to use differences between death certificate death figures and deaths within 28 days of a test numbers, to spot differences that could be attributed to 'incidental' deaths since those are inevitably fully present in 'deaths within 28 days of a test' figures, we might go too far. As if we want to try to exclude some of the 'incidentals' showing up via formal testing, we'll inevitably be reducing the weight of such tests in a manner that starts to strip away the protection the testing system has offered against underreporting on death certificates. All of which means I expect we wont get perfect answers, we'll end up with a somewhat plausible range of deaths in the figures that may be 'incidental' in that they would have happened anyway even without the pandemic.

 But like I said, the matter of accurately recording death causes is not a perfect science at the best of times and is often a complicated mix of causes. The story of each persons death is often a story of their life, and of much more gradual decline in the years preceding the final curtain. And thats always the case, with or without the pandemic, which is one of the reasons I start ranting when people use 'incidental' stuff to make too strong a point. Yes such things affect perceptions, and certainly affect numbers we should have in mind when it comes to whats acceptable in regards long term living with this virus, at what levels restrictions are appropriate etc. But these details dont actually make much difference to the health care systems and death management systems, and their capacity to cope. Which is after all the bottom line as far as strong government decisions that affect all our lives dramatically are concerned. Without that heavy stuff we are back to the old status quo and indifference, punctuated only ineffectively by people like me ranting to a much reduced audience in very dusty corners of the internet.


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## Sunray (Jan 26, 2022)

Here is as accurate atomic image of the virus as humans can produce. Not sure how they produced it, it’s not clear. I know there are protein folding modelling simulations on super computers but I think accurate modelling is currently considered NP so I think it might be other methods.









						File:Coronavirus. SARS-CoV-2.png - Wikimedia Commons
					






					commons.m.wikimedia.org


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## two sheds (Jan 26, 2022)

ah I'd thought there was a single spike there's loads of them


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## Sunray (Jan 26, 2022)

I also see there is an omicron variant now out competing the original strain as incredibly it’s more infectious! If you avoided it so far, well…

In terms of it’s vital statistics  it’s being considered the same as omicron. time well tell.


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## elbows (Jan 26, 2022)

The info about reinfections being counted on the dashboard from next Monday is back, looks like they just jumped the gun a bit when this first came up but then vanished. Well actually I wouldnt be surprised if they made changes to exactly what data this would affect, but right now I'm not sure if I will be able to figure out what changed compared to the original description of what would change, I'll investigate.

I guess I will do a 'before and after' graph for cases by specimen date when this change happens.



> On the dashboard, this means:
> 
> 
> cases in England by report date will change to the new definition of an episode of infection
> ...





> UK public health agencies are now updating surveillance data to count infection episodes, including reinfection episodes. Infection episodes will be counted separately if there are at least 90 days between positive test results. Each episode begins with the earliest positive specimen date. If someone has another positive specimen within 90 days of the last one, this is included in the same episode. If they have another positive specimen more than 90 days after the last one, this is counted in a separate episode (a possible reinfection episode).







__





						Loading…
					





					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


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## Dogsauce (Jan 26, 2022)

Would have thought reinfections were quite a significant proportion now, hearing of a lot of people having it twice, and may do myself if I ever get my PCR result back.  Wonder how it will affect the slopes on graphs, whether it’s just a percentage increase consistent over time or shows something else such as cases not declining.


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## elbows (Jan 26, 2022)

I dont expect it to be consistent over time because its expected that Omicron is causing far more reinfections than previous variants.

However I also dont expect it to totally change overall trends, eg the recent decline in cases will still show up.


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2022)

Evolution of the covid patients in hospital beds for/with covid situation. With percentage proportions recently influenced by the different timing of the peaks and the lack of decline seen in 'with' cases yet. 

Data goes up to 25th Jan and is from the 'Primary Diagnoses Supplement' thats published weekly on Thursdays at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2022)

Wastewater data for England finally published by the UKHSA!









						Monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in England wastewater, monthly statistics: 1 June 2021 to 10 January 2022
					

Data showing the concentration of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and the number of Omicron variant detections in wastewater as part of the EMHP wastewater monitoring programme.




					www.gov.uk


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## rubbershoes (Jan 27, 2022)

I've noticed mask wearing in supermarkets has become significantly less in the last week. 

I hiss at them from behind my mask


----------



## killer b (Jan 27, 2022)

rubbershoes said:


> I've noticed mask wearing in supermarkets has become significantly less in the last week.


probably because the government has said no-one needs to wear one at all from today


----------



## elbows (Jan 27, 2022)

The guidance remains to wear one in a bunch of settings inluding crowded indoor places where you are mixing with people you dont normally mix with. However this sort of guidance doesnt get much of a look-in compared to all the news stories about the formal laws being removed.

The likes of Sainsburys and Tescos have asked people to keep wearing masks but we know from the past that these words only carry a little weight and enforcement is another matter entirely.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jan 27, 2022)

No apparent change around where I am in supermarkets - I think it's been only people who deliberately want to wear masks who do for a while. Everybody knows that nothing is ever enforced; I get the impression that regulations are just one of many things that influence people's estimation of covid risk, and an increasingly minor one.


----------



## Cloo (Jan 28, 2022)

Have noticed covid situation seems much more marked in primaries than secondaries, presumably as most kids in the latter have at least one jab. Presumably somewhere they are breaking down stats for under 12s and 12-18s?


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 28, 2022)

Triggle alert !









						Omicron's fall has slowed - should we worry?
					

Covid cases could stay at a high level until spring, experts say. What does this mean for the UK?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Useful graphics, but NT is back on the "herd immunity" band-waggon, but without actually ever saying so ...
{apart from a reference to rethinking zero-covid approaches}


----------



## xenon (Jan 28, 2022)

Well who'd have thought, a highly infectious disease is circulating in areas where most people haven't had a vaccine but gather in numbers. Not like the exact same thing has happened like 2 or 3 times by now.


----------



## elbows (Jan 28, 2022)

Cloo said:


> Have noticed covid situation seems much more marked in primaries than secondaries, presumably as most kids in the latter have at least one jab. Presumably somewhere they are breaking down stats for under 12s and 12-18s?



There is a supplementary document with the weekly surveillance report that features a large number of graphs that break things down by year group.

Click on Surveillance in 'educational-age' cohorts in the contents page and be ready for a bewildering array of charts.

I'd not look for a single explanation for primary and secondary differences because vaccination rates havent been really amazing and there is plenty of vaccine breakthrough when it comes to infection. So probably better to combine that side of things with different mitigation attempts, different magnitude of very high peaks in the past in secondary ages compared to primary, ongoing different timing in different age groups, and perhaps Omicron has some properties that gives it more potential for easy primary school spread. And even where primary school rates recently stick out compared to secondary, there are still some upward trends in secondary education.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1050509/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_w4.pdf


----------



## elbows (Jan 28, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Triggle alert !
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Triggle is happy that a broder array of experts say things that are compatible with his spin these days than used to e the case. I note that he points to a particular Guardian article that further demonstrates that, but I dont really expect him to point to the following one!









						Reckless to leave 3bn unvaccinated while easing England rules, experts say
					

Scientists tell Boris Johnson that failure to help poorer countries means new variants will put thousands at risk in UK




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## xenon (Jan 28, 2022)

of course the international community, need to get on and get vaccines to the worlds poorest. but asking England to continue with restrictionsuntil the rest of the world has been vaccinated, is more than a bit daft. TBF I haven’t read the article, that might just be poor headline writing by the Guardian.


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## teuchter (Jan 28, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> but NT is back on the "herd immunity" band-waggon,


What exactly do you mean by that?

Earlier on, it might have referred to an attitude that we should build up immunity just by letting it spread, rather than waiting for vaccines first, to make it a less risky strategy.

We now have a population that is about as vaccinated as it's going to get, and seemingly fairly good evidence that the combination of this and the Omicron variant mean that hospitalisation and death rates are nothing like what they were a year or so ago. What do you want to happen instead? If it's further restrictions then what's your threshold for lifting them?


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## miss direct (Jan 28, 2022)

I was pleased that most customers in the (hot, airless) post office had masks on yesterday. Although most of them were Chinese students, who seem to consistently be careful and diligent with mask use. 

I need another negative PCR for an upcoming flight, which is tedious. I'd like to go out and see some friends this weekend, but it's a bit too cold to sit outside.


----------



## elbows (Jan 28, 2022)

xenon said:


> of course the international community, need to get on and get vaccines to the worlds poorest. but asking England to continue with restrictionsuntil the rest of the world has been vaccinated, is more than a bit daft. TBF I haven’t read the article, that might just be poor headline writing by the Guardian.



The substance is all about getting the world vacinated and not pretending its all over in the meantime.

It is inevitable that such a topic will hint at worst-case possibilities that include another variant popping up elsewhere at some point in future which then causes a setback in the UKs own situation. Because thats perceived as being a risk that may force countries like the Uk to take the global vaccine situation seriously. So far it hasnt worked out that way.

And yes the usual Guardian sloppiness did feature and already led to this at the bottom of the article:



> This article was amended on 28 January 2021 to clarify that the accusation of recklessness made in the letter was in relation to the failure to get vaccinations to poorer countries.


----------



## elbows (Jan 28, 2022)

Such angles are an oversimplification with contradictions anyway because until/unless we get a different class of vaccines that do more to knock transmission and infection on the head, there seems to remain plenty of potential for new variants to pop up even in heavily vaccinated populations. Indeed the presence of much immunity, via previous infection or vaccination, is something that provides much selection pressure for strains of the virus that can bypass existing immunity. Some narratives ignore this and so these days there is much double-think when vaccines and the end of the pandemic are discussed.

We've been told in the past that the more infections are allowed to happen, the more mutation opportunities the virus has. But I dont hear much of that concept being applied to the likes of the UK with its staggeringly high number of Omicron infections these days.


----------



## elbows (Jan 28, 2022)

teuchter said:


> What exactly do you mean by that?
> 
> Earlier on, it might have referred to an attitude that we should build up immunity just by letting it spread, rather than waiting for vaccines first, to make it a less risky strategy.
> 
> We now have a population that is about as vaccinated as it's going to get, and seemingly fairly good evidence that the combination of this and the Omicron variant mean that hospitalisation and death rates are nothing like what they were a year or so ago. What do you want to happen instead? If it's further restrictions then what's your threshold for lifting them?



We can still point out the similarities between the original plan a and the 'herd immunity justification' that went with it, and the approach the government first set out almost a year ago and then acted upon from approximately July 2021 onwards.

However if we scratch below the surface then the original 'herd immunity' thing doest actually apply anyway - the concept of herd immunity involves immunity in the general population having reached levels which makes it hard for the virus to persist at high levels, therefore protecting those who still dont have immunity, by denying the virus many opportunities to reach those people. We clearly dont have a situation where that sort of protective effect is actually in play, due to reinfections and vaccine breakthrough. Perhaps we will get there one day if the evolution of the virus slows and we end up with new vaccines that can do more on the transmission and infection front, perhaps not.

Whether that should make any real difference to the chosen government approach these days depends on whether genuine herd immunity was actually a real part of the original approach, or whether it was just a fake justification used to justify a 'do little' approach at the start of the pandemic.

So with real herd immunity not currently on the agenda, we have different framing involving 'endemic levels' of the virus instead, and protection against severe disease and death. And when people mention herd immunity its just sloppy short-hand, what people are really talking about is how similar the approach is to the original favoured approach, the orthodox approach before authorities realised that they would need lockdowns etc to make the numbers add up. When it comes to severe disease and death, I have very much moved with the times now in that I acknowledge that the numbers game is very different now. Authorities in many countries figure that their original preference for dealing with this virus, pharmaceutical measures rather than heavy non-pharmaceutical measures, is now increasingly viable, for now at least. I'll still feel the need to point out that there can still be future setbacks to the progress made, in theory new variants or vaccine waning can still change the numbers game in a negative way in future. I would not have us all sitting at home in the meantime, but neither would I push rhetoric about it all being over too far. Nor would I want to forget all about those who remain vulnerable, or pay absolutely no attention at all to high levels of viral prevalence, since those increase the future risk of setbacks in my opinion. In practical terms this means I would not be encouraging the abandonment of masks, but its an uphill struggle to get people to take the middle ground and stop seeing things only in binary terms of 'really heavy measures or no measures'. Just as its an uphill battle to get people to still take seriously the health consequences that are not of the same magnitude as the levels of hospitalisation and death seen in the first two waves, every time we get a period of easing of restrictions these milder consequences are brushed under the carpet. I dont think I'm going to be pleased with the level of type 1 diabetes onset that will eventually show up in data for the Omicron period, for example, unless we get lucky and the properties of Omicron also happen to reduce the diabetes risk compared to whats emerging in regards the variants of previous waves triggering diabetes.


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## Agent Sparrow (Jan 28, 2022)

teuchter said:


> We now have a population that is about as vaccinated as it's going to get, and seemingly fairly good evidence that the combination of this and the Omicron variant mean that hospitalisation and death rates are nothing like what they were a year or so ago. What do you want to happen instead? If it's further restrictions then what's your threshold for lifting them?


Personally I would have appreciated at least the option to vaccinate my under 12 kids.


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## elbows (Jan 28, 2022)

> Much can be done to shift the evolutionary arms race in humanity’s favour. First, we must set aside lazy optimism. Second, we must be realistic about the likely levels of death, disability and sickness. Targets set for reduction should consider that circulating virus risks giving rise to new variants. Third, we must use — globally — the formidable weapons available: effective vaccines, antiviral medications, diagnostic tests and a better understanding of how to stop an airborne virus through mask wearing, distancing, and air ventilation and filtration. Fourth, we must invest in vaccines that protect against a broader range of variants.





> Thinking that endemicity is both mild and inevitable is more than wrong, it is dangerous: it sets humanity up for many more years of disease, including unpredictable waves of outbreaks. It is more productive to consider how bad things could get if we keep giving the virus opportunities to outwit us. Then we might do more to ensure that this does not happen.











						COVID-19: endemic doesn’t mean harmless
					

Rosy assumptions endanger public health — policymakers must act now to shape the years to come.




					www.nature.com


----------



## StoneRoad (Jan 28, 2022)

Agent Sparrow said:


> Personally I would have appreciated at least the option to vaccinate my under 12 kids.


And, somewhere in the region of 4 million adults ... no. I'm wrong it's a lot more !

NIMS counts a smidgeon over 62.5 million people in that system, including approx 8.25 under 12s.
By 26th January 2022, approx 52.25 million of them have had at least one dose of vaccine.

So, still some way to go !

E2A - Still not forgetting those with medical problems that preclude working vaccination as an option, for whom masks etc are still important.


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## elbows (Jan 28, 2022)

I cant say that the peak in detected positive cases had vastly different timing in my town.

However, when it comes to the local hospital, I see a different picture. Whether this is down to things happening in the broader community or whether its been driven by hospital outbreaks or care home outbreaks I cannot currently say:

Daily hospital admissions/diagnoses:



Number of covid patients in hospital beds:



Note that when it came to an infamous previous hospital outbreak here, the spike in the period prior to July 2020 (by which time it had been squashed) was a hospital outbreak, one of the most vivid ones seen in any graphs of NHS trusts in England.

And local press stories like this one:









						RAF drafted in to help Nuneaton's hospital cope with demand
					

They are helping in several different roles




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


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## teuchter (Jan 28, 2022)

Something I have noticed in the England numbers - the proportion of "LFD only" test results goes up massively during/post Omicron wave - why's that?


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## littlebabyjesus (Jan 28, 2022)

Something to do with the fact that a big proportion of positive tests are now in the under 15 age category? Much less likely to be seriously ill, so maybe much less likely to seek further confirmation with a PCR? That growth in purple correlates pretty well with the surge in rates after schools went back.


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## andysays (Jan 28, 2022)

teuchter said:


> Something I have noticed in the England numbers - the proportion of "LFD only" test results goes up massively during/post Omicron wave - why's that?
> 
> View attachment 307805



Presumably it's because the rules have been changed recently so it's no longer necessary to take a PCR test as confirmation of a LFT if you have symptoms.


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## Puddy_Tat (Jan 28, 2022)

berkshire seems to be becoming plague central



covid cases up almost 50% week on week in wokingham borough

😷


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## elbows (Jan 28, 2022)

andysays said:


> Presumably it's because the rules have been changed recently so it's no longer necessary to take a PCR test as confirmation of a LFT if you have symptoms.



Exactly.


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## teuchter (Jan 28, 2022)

andysays said:


> Presumably it's because the rules have been changed recently so it's no longer necessary to take a PCR test as confirmation of a LFT if you have symptoms.


Ah yes, I see.


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## elbows (Jan 28, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> berkshire seems to be becoming plague central
> 
> View attachment 307810
> 
> ...



Yeah, the pattern of drops and subsequent rises in daily positive case figures also show up as being different for a whole bunch of places down South.

For example Reading:



I'm also seeing a different pattern in daily hospital admissions/diagnoses in the oldest age groups when I look at regions such as the South East.

I've got way too many graphs to even begin to present them all, so here are just two to begin to illustrate this difference. 

North West:



South East:


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## Leighsw2 (Jan 28, 2022)

elbows said:


> A final though on my recent flu posts:
> 
> Frankly the amount of testing for influenza and the nature of sentinel surveillance, and almost non-existent surveillance of the other existing human coronaviruses means that I cannot even be sure that every bad epidemic and wave of death this country experienced in the last 50 years was actually a straightforward story of influenza epidemics. I'm not going to make wild claims about whether we had a bad wave of coronavirus deaths as part of the real picture of those years, but neither can I entirely exclude the possibility.
> 
> Also my brother developed type 1 diabetes in the wake of the 1989 wave so I have a special interest in the subject and try to keep as many angles open as possible, given that his son developed type 1 diabetes in the current pandemic.


Interesting points about 'flu. Here's a very prescient article in the Guardian about the 'flu pandemic of 1957 - interesting how history repeats?
A cavalier Tory leader and a botched pandemic response? It must be 1957 | Andy Beckett


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## elbows (Jan 28, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> John Campbell made a video about this
> 
> Here's his video on the topic deconstructed so you don't have to watch it on his channel ... :-
> 
> ...




The idiot Campbell caused the idiot David Davis to talk shit and then ended up getting rebuked by someone at the ONS:





__





						To say only 17,000 people have died from COVID-19 is highly misleading | National Statistical
					






					blog.ons.gov.uk
				












						ONS debunks ‘spurious’ Covid deaths claim shared by David Davis
					

Suggestion true number of deaths in England and Wales could be as low as 17,000 is factually incorrect, says ONS




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## Brainaddict (Jan 29, 2022)

It's been weird seeing what's happened to John Campbell. I watched him at the beginning of the pandemic and he seemed very cautious about coming to conclusions or forming opinions, particularly on things that weren't much in his expertise. If anything he sometimes seemed overcautious when it came to opinions on policy and so on. Now it feels like all the praise from thousands of people for months on end has gone to his head and he has strayed well outside what he is qualified to express opinions on.


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## elbows (Jan 29, 2022)

He only pops up on my radar when he says things that fit a particular agenda. And so it is too easy for me to conclude that he has bought into a particular agenda, or has been bought.

Not that I am into 'stay in your lane' stuff or the idea that qualifications are necessary to have an opinion.


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## elbows (Jan 29, 2022)

I doubt this is what would actually have happened, because I presume we'd have ended up with stronger restrictions instead, but thought it may still be of interest:


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## elbows (Jan 29, 2022)

BBC reality check article on the bullshit about deaths that Campbell etc spread. Includes interesting info about death certificate details.









						Covid: Posts claiming only 17,000 died of virus 'factually incorrect'
					

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube posts that vastly underplayed the number of UK Covid deaths have been condemned.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## Cloo (Jan 29, 2022)

Went to supermarket this morning and I have to say mask wearing was pretty good, I don't think any change from last week.


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## StoneRoad (Jan 31, 2022)

Today's dashboard update is delayed ...


_*31 January 2022*
Because of the move to reporting infection episodes, today's update will be delayed. An estimated time will be provided when available._


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## sojourner (Jan 31, 2022)

Cloo said:


> Went to supermarket this morning and I have to say mask wearing was pretty good, I don't think any change from last week.


Predictably dire round here, in grim St Helens. Only hardcore mask wearers, about 80 odd % maskless now.


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## xenon (Jan 31, 2022)

Have stopped wearing a mask myself in shops now, since  it's not mandated. Still do so in taxis. Can't really blame people for ditching masks if they're no longer a requirement.


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## elbows (Jan 31, 2022)

xenon said:


> Have stopped wearing a mask myself in shops now, since  it's not mandated. Still do so in taxis. Can't really blame people for ditching masks if they're no longer a requirement.



The government guidance still says the following. I'm not a big fan of people who think if something is only public health guidance and not law then it is fine to ignore it.



> In England, face coverings are no longer required by law.
> 
> The government suggests that you continue to wear a face covering in crowded and enclosed spaces where you may come into contact with other people you do not normally meet.











						Face coverings: when to wear one, exemptions and what makes a good one
					






					www.gov.uk


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## Boudicca (Jan 31, 2022)

Cloo said:


> Went to supermarket this morning and I have to say mask wearing was pretty good, I don't think any change from last week.


Ah but which supermarket!  I went to Lidl and Waitrose a couple days ago - virtually no masks at all in Lidl and absolutely everyone (staff and customers) wearing them in Waitrose.


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## StoneRoad (Jan 31, 2022)

One of our two local shops [too small to be a "supermarket"] has never properly enforced the mask mandate, and the layout has always been too cramped for comfort.
The other has done their best - someone enforcing the traffic lights / occupancy figures, offering masks / hand sanitiser ...

Annoyingly, the first shop is the one I would rather have supported, from an ideological standpoint. But because of the local management's anti-mask stance, we'll be going elsewhere, when we eventually re- start face2face shopping again. There is another, independent, version of the same brand close enough to patronise.

In the meantime - on-line grocery & other shopping prevails.


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## xenon (Jan 31, 2022)

elbows said:


> The government guidance still says the following. I'm not a big fan of people who think if something is only public health guidance and not law then it is fine to ignore it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The shops I've been in aren't crowded. I'll start wearing a mask again if the situation deteriorates but as I've only got a general mask, seems reasonable to forego it at present. I know asymptomatic etc but everyone's gonna make a judgement for themselves at some point. Mine is now.

Actually has there been any change in how many cases of Omicron are thought to be asymptomatic? The difficulty in obtaining LFTs would make it hard to impossible to say I suppose.


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## oryx (Jan 31, 2022)

xenon said:


> Have stopped wearing a mask myself in shops now, since  it's not mandated. Still do so in taxis. Can't really blame people for ditching masks if they're no longer a requirement.


I can't really understand people not wearing masks in shops etc. (unless they have a medical exemption of course, but I suspect that the numbers of people who do is actually quite low).

Surely it's not that difficult?


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## gentlegreen (Jan 31, 2022)

At my age and having dodged this virus and all others for two years - and having been off work for two months with long-flu in 2019, I will be masked in shops until the virus is a *very *different beast.
I will find out how my liberal bubble is behaving on Wednesday at Aldi...


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## xenon (Jan 31, 2022)

It's not difficult. I just don't like wearing them.
Tripple jabbed, Omicron is everywhere but generally agreed to be milder for most people
So seems reasonable to dispense with them now
Others will come to their own conclusions sure but most people are going to ditch them at some point.


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## gentlegreen (Jan 31, 2022)

I have 2023 pencilled-in.
If for some reason they stop giving out boosters, maybe I'll wear a leaky one in the hope of getting boosted that way ...

I've bored the boards far too much with my theories about my working life at a continuous  super-spreader event, but I no longer take viruses *of any kind* lightly.


----------



## xenon (Jan 31, 2022)

That said, I went to the barber for the first time in 2 years the other day. For a trim rather than the buzz cut I've been doing.

Some herbert was in their waiting talking loudly about his terrible cold, on his chest etc. I don't think he was being deliverately provocative but was just dense.


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## elbows (Jan 31, 2022)

xenon said:


> The shops I've been in aren't crowded. I'll start wearing a mask again if the situation deteriorates but as I've only got a general mask, seems reasonable to forego it at present. I know asymptomatic etc but everyone's gonna make a judgement for themselves at some point. Mine is now.
> 
> Actually has there been any change in how many cases of Omicron are thought to be asymptomatic? The difficulty in obtaining LFTs would make it hard to impossible to say I suppose.





xenon said:


> It's not difficult. I just don't like wearing them.
> Tripple jabbed, Omicron is everywhere but generally agreed to be milder for most people
> So seems reasonable to dispense with them now
> Others will come to their own conclusions sure but most people are going to ditch them at some point.



There is no denying that the personal severe disease risk picture has evolved. A combination of inherent Omicron properties, vaccines very much including boosters, and previous infections is responsible. Not everyone can benefit fully from this evolved risk picture, and so I would still personally wear a mask in indoor public places in order not to add to the decline in mask wearing that occurs as a result of people seeing less people wearing masks. We've been here before, and probably had similar conversations last time.

There isnt as much analysis and discussion of asymptomatic case proportions as I would like. And Omicron-specific findings take longer than I would like. But there are still some ways to do that, although its unlikely they will be able to fully separate the effects inherent to Omicron from the impact of vaccines and prior infections. I'll look into it next time I have some spare time. Although there were some challenges to LFT supply there have still been a very high number of LFT tsts reported to the system in recent times, so I dont think thats a huge barrier. And other forms of testing such as the ONS infection survey arent affected by testing constraints.


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## l'Otters (Jan 31, 2022)

xenon said:


> It's not difficult. I just don't like wearing them.
> Tripple jabbed, Omicron is everywhere but generally agreed to be milder for most people
> So seems reasonable to dispense with them now
> Others will come to their own conclusions sure but most people are going to ditch them at some point.


Translation 
It’s just that you’re a selfish prick


----------



## xenon (Jan 31, 2022)

Translation


l'Otters said:


> It’s just that you’re a selfish prick



Fuck you, you self righteous arse.


----------



## elbows (Jan 31, 2022)

Oh and in terms of this idea of not bothering with stuff unless the 'situation deteriorates', I would point out that the prevalence of infections is still incredibly high, likely quite similar to the peak rates seen in previous waves, or still higher than even those peaks. And there is some expectation that the numbers will go back up again, especially if the BA.2 version of Omicron, which appears to feature another increase in transmissibility, soon becomes the dominant version of the virus doing the rounds in the UK.

Other forms of perception of the situation deteriorating may relate to the levels of severe disease, and the future of that may well come down to stuff like the timing of vaccine protection against hospitalisation waning, especially if such waning is notable and starts to happen whilst the levels of infection are still incredibly high.


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## Cloo (Jan 31, 2022)

Boudicca said:


> Ah but which supermarket!  I went to Lidl and Waitrose a couple days ago - virtually no masks at all in Lidl and absolutely everyone (staff and customers) wearing them in Waitrose.


Tesco - North London. Fairly good on the tube yesterday too - I think currently so many people know someone who's got it that they are actually being careful. I just had COVID week before last, but still going to wear masks a) not counting on how long any protection will last and b) other people don't know that and I don't want to be a cause of anxiety for someone who is vulnerable/has vulnerable family and c)... I honestly don't find it at all difficult to do.


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## Sue (Jan 31, 2022)

Cloo said:


> Tesco - North London. Fairly good on the tube yesterday too - I think currently so many people know someone who's got it that they are actually being careful. I just had COVID week before last, but still going to wear masks a) not counting on how long any protection will last and b) other people don't know that and I don't want to be a cause of anxiety for someone who is vulnerable/has vulnerable family and c)... I honestly don't find it at all difficult to do.


I was on a bus yesterday and pretty much no-one was wearing a mask.


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## Cloo (Jan 31, 2022)

Sue said:


> I was on a bus yesterday and pretty much no-one was wearing a mask.


Everyone has always been shit on buses, and marginally better on the tube, though I expect it'll head in a downwards direction soon if not already. Acid test for this tomorrow as I'm actually going into the office, so we'll see what people are like at peak hours.


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## elbows (Jan 31, 2022)

Report is at COVID-19 Report


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## nagapie (Jan 31, 2022)

Someone told me today the rules have changed and if you get it, you just have to wear a mask at work. This can't be true, right?


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## elbows (Jan 31, 2022)

nagapie said:


> Someone told me today the rules have changed and if you get it, you just have to wear a mask at work. This can't be true, right?


That is bollocks.

They will review the self-isolation rules in the next few months, but the requirement to self-isolate if positive remains for now.


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## elbows (Jan 31, 2022)

I do expect them to ditch it unless they cant make the future estimated number of hospitalisations stay within range. Omicron makes it much more likely they will ditch it because intensive care admissions have fallen quite dramatically. Things that could scupper that picture include if vaccine waning reverses that trend, but whilst Im not ruling out that possibility I'm not betting on it either.

After ditching it in terms of a formal law I expect there to be some guidance instead that will advise people to stay off work when sick, but this will be more like business as usual where plenty of people ignore such things or are at least pressured to do so by the management or the culture and expectations of their workplace.


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## elbows (Jan 31, 2022)

They now have an estimate for when the UK dashboard may update today (to include reinfections and all the usual data). 10PM.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Jan 31, 2022)

elbows said:


> They now have an estimate for when the UK dashboard may update today (to include reinfections and all the usual data). 10PM.


still lagging, was there a date attached to that timestamp?


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## elbows (Jan 31, 2022)

Update came in. 588,114 reinfections were added to Englands data.


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## teuchter (Jan 31, 2022)

I see that patients in MV beds are now lower than any time since mid July, and appear to have been on a consistent downwards slope for about a month now, which has to be a positive thing.


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## elbows (Jan 31, 2022)

See pages 52 and 53 of the ICNARC report I mentioned earlier today if you want to see an even more obvious display of those trends. 

( COVID-19 Report )

They show admissions to critical care as a percentage of hospital admission. And the number of critical care admissions where covid was reported as the primary cause for admission compared to secondary reason for admission to critical care. Just be aware of the usual caveats with that (in this case "For patients with COVID-19 reported as secondary reason for admission, COVID-19 may or may not have contributed to the reason for admission." ) and that the most recent periods data in that report is incomplete.


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## elbows (Feb 1, 2022)

This is how the reinfection data added or England looks when graphed on its own.

The first reinfection recorded in the data using the new method they introduced is for a test specimen on June 19th 2020. But do keep in mind that a lot of reinfections will have been counted as first infections due to the extreme lack of testing during the first wave.

We can clearly see that reinfections became a much bigger deal when Omicron grew. No doubt it is an escape mutant.

Since for a long time its hard to even see the reinfections on a graph using a linear scale, I have also included a graph that uses log scale so that it is clearer what numbers were being seen in the earlier period.


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## killer b (Feb 1, 2022)

have you plotted infections by age recently elbows? everyone in my family (including me) with school age children has one off with covid, was wondering if this was just bad luck or if there's a teen spike happening right now...


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## elbows (Feb 1, 2022)

killer b said:


> have you plotted infections by age recently elbows? everyone in my family (including me) with school age children has one off with covid, was wondering if this was just bad luck or if there's a teen spike happening right now...


The age groups 04, 5-9 and 10-14 saw new highs reached quite a bit later than other age groups. Its the wrong moment for me to say with confidence whether these have now reached their peak. But they are so much higher than levels recorded via the testing system in previous waves, and frankly there are many other age groups where even after some large drops earlier in January, levels remain very high relative to previous waves. And some regions such as the South East are seeing more obvious growth again in more age groups.

I've got too many graphs to know where to start, and I probably wont update them till later this week, so to illustrate my point here is a graph from the weekly surveillance report. https://assets.publishing.service.g...1050508/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w4.pdf


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## elbows (Feb 1, 2022)

killer b said:


> have you plotted infections by age recently elbows? everyone in my family (including me) with school age children has one off with covid, was wondering if this was just bad luck or if there's a teen spike happening right now...


Actually I did find time to graph latest data for the 10-14 age group.

As usual this is by test specimen date so the most recent 5ish days of data are incomplete. Data actually goes up to January 30th despite what the labels say.

England:



The South East:


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## elbows (Feb 1, 2022)

At the same time as adding the half million+ reinfections to Engalnds figures yesterday, their new methods also caused them to discover other missing records:



> This has identified extra cases of infection that were previously removed as duplicates. These additional 173,328 cases represent around 1.5% of all infections in England.











						COVID-19 daily dashboard amended to include reinfections
					

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is now including data on possible reinfections in its COVID-19 dashboard.




					www.gov.uk
				




Northern Irelands data was also updated to include reinfections yesterday but I'm afraid I've paid little attention to their data.

Today they are apparently going to add any deaths within 28 and 60 days of a positive test that occurred after reinfection. Apparently it wont be a very large number but I will reserve judgement till I see the new data.


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## zahir (Feb 1, 2022)




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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 1, 2022)

killer b said:


> have you plotted infections by age recently elbows? everyone in my family (including me) with school age children has one off with covid, was wondering if this was just bad luck or if there's a teen spike happening right now...


In my local area it’s highest in 0-9s, second highest in 40-49s (ie age of many parents) and third highest 10-19s.


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## elbows (Feb 1, 2022)

The update to deaths in England today to include the new reinfection criteria and better deduplicating process resulted in an additional 902 deaths within 28 days of a positive test being added to the historical daily data.


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## elbows (Feb 2, 2022)

Someone in Whitehall has been telling the press that they plan to end the daily data publication by easter:









						Daily Covid death stats could be axed by Easter under plan to 'live with Covid', source says
					

Covid expert says the move could lead to a new variant of the virus going unnoticed




					inews.co.uk


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## elbows (Feb 2, 2022)

The numbers still suck.


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## StoneRoad (Feb 2, 2022)

elbows said:


> Someone in Whitehall has been telling the press that they plan to end the daily data publication by easter:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



So how is that supposed to help ?

[I don't think it will !]


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## elbows (Feb 2, 2022)

Its to help the 'back to the old normal' agenda, rather than actually do anything to reduce levels of infection.

From a psychological point of view I would expect it to make a difference, it will play into the 'its all over' agenda, although that stuff has already come quite a long way in this country in the last couple of months, as the current pace of this thread demonstrates.


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## brogdale (Feb 2, 2022)

kinnel


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## elbows (Feb 2, 2022)

brogdale said:


> kinnel
> 
> View attachment 308453


Thats just because a big chunk of the weekend catchup figure of reported deaths has happened a day later than normal this week. Overall daily numbers by date of death have also increased slightly because reinfections are now included, but this isnt responsible for a large leap in numbers, just a subtle increase.

The trend and levels seen in the data when looked at by date of death hasnt really changed in a significant way at all, so there will be no fucking hell comment from me, although I remain unhappy about various aspects of the current UK approach.


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## brogdale (Feb 2, 2022)

elbows said:


> Thats just because a big chunk of the weekend catchup figure of reported deaths has happened a day later than normal this week. Overall daily numbers by date of death have also increased slightly because reinfections are now included, but this isnt responsible for a large leap in numbers, just a subtle increase.
> 
> The trend and levels seen in the data when looked at by date of death hasnt really changed in a significant way at all, so there will be no fucking hell comment from me, although I remain unhappy about various aspects of the current UK approach.
> 
> View attachment 308459


Yeah. I know...but tbh 250-300 per day is fucking hell, anyway.


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## elbows (Feb 2, 2022)

I'm not happy about it but its in line with my thinking about what level of death they'll ask us to live with in the vaccine era, at least in winter. In fact its probably a bit below the levels they would probably consider we should put up with, probably due to a combination of Omicrons intrinsic properties and the size and timing off the booster campaign. What happens next is where my attention starts to turn, eg what impact from vaccine protection waning will be seen in the months ahead. Thats one of the reasons I wont be happy if rates of infection remain at similar levels to the present ones for a long period of time. And I watch data from Israel with some unease.

I'm not a big fan of those who want 'incidental' covid explanations to do all of their dirty justification work for them, but that doesnt mean I ignore such factors either. For that reason I am paying attention to ONS deaths data, which is laggy but can eventually help a better picture of covid death levels to emerge. Via their work we can get a sense of what proportion of all deaths are being caused by covid at the moment, how our total deaths compare to other winters death rates, and what proportion of covid deaths had covid listeed as the primary underlying cause (though dont push this too far, covid can still be a contributory factor in the other deaths too) eg:



> The number of deaths registered in England in the week ending 21 January 2022 (Week 3) was 12,012; this was 387 fewer deaths than the previous week (Week 2) and 8.4% below the five-year average (1,099 fewer deaths).





> Compared with the 2015 to 2019 five-year average (as opposed to the new five-year average used in the previous main points), deaths in England and Wales were 3.3% below average (440 fewer deaths); deaths were 2.9% below average in England (358 fewer deaths) and 8.5% below average in Wales (69 fewer deaths).





> Of the deaths registered in Week 3 in England and Wales, 1,484 mentioned "novel coronavirus (COVID-19)", accounting for 11.6% of all deaths; this was an increase in the number of deaths compared with Week 2 (1,382 deaths, 10.4% of all deaths).





> Of the 1,484 deaths involving COVID-19, 72.9% (1,082 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death in Week 3 compared with 77.4% in Week 2.







__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), by age, sex and region.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




None of this makes me too complacent in regards future winters because we dont know what will happen with variants, vaccine programmes, vaccine waning, and the return of more flu etc deaths in future.


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## oryx (Feb 2, 2022)

elbows said:


> Its to help the 'back to the old normal' agenda, rather than actually do anything to reduce levels of infection.
> 
> From a psychological point of view I would expect it to make a difference, it will play into the 'its all over' agenda, although that stuff has already come quite a long way in this country in the last couple of months, as the current pace of this thread demonstrates.


This^

Isn't believing it's all over tantamount to believing in Father Christmas, or the tooth fairy?


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## elbows (Feb 2, 2022)

Depends what 'it' is in peoples minds exactly.

If 'it' is the heavy use of non-pharmaceutical measures to an extent not seen before in our lifetimes, then for now that is all over here. I just cant offer any guarantees about how sustainable that is because of various unknowns like the ones I just mentioned in my previous post. But certainly some properties of Omicron and the timing and takeup levels of the booster shots has meant that whats been seen this winter has proven to be compatible with that agenda and way of seeing things.


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## elbows (Feb 2, 2022)

By the way, a UKHSA document describes the changes to data caused by now having a method for counting reinfections in England and Northern Ireland.



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1051898/UKHSA-technical-summary-update-February-2022.pdf
		


Here is a graph from that document showing weekly additional deaths that now show up in the 'deaths within 28 days of a positive test' data:


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## Puddy_Tat (Feb 3, 2022)

wokingham (my local area) has the highest covid rate in england at the moment





maybe i'll leave it another week or three before going for a haircut...


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## Cloo (Feb 3, 2022)

Rather BS-seeming headline on COVID from Telegraph here (you'll have to open post to see) - it says 'Lockdown only prevented 0.2% of deaths in first wave':



It says that closing schools, shops, businesses and stay at home orders lowered potential deaths by up to 18%, but then says 'mandatory lockdown'  only lowered deaths by 0.2%. Surely those first things listed are most of what you'd consider mandatory lockdown? Unless they're using it solely to mean orders not to go to anyone else's house/not meeting with anyone else at all?


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## Steel Icarus (Feb 3, 2022)

It's the Telegraph


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## elbows (Feb 3, 2022)

Yeah I saw that late last night and would normally pick it apart in detail but was hoping it wouldnt be necessary because I am a bit burnt out. It certainly seems to be the case that in order to fit the Telegraphs agenda, they've included only a few of the measures under the label of 'lockdown'. I will actually read the analysis they refer to at some point, but for now I'll say that it looks like the thing the report found greatest fault with was people not being allowed to do various things outdoors, combined with the idea that a bunch of the stuff done with formal rules could have been done voluntarily by the masses. I've always gone on about peoples behaviours and number of contacts being the thing that matters, but a lot of the right things that people would need to have done is incompatible with what the likes of the Telegraph would have spouted at the time, so they are trying to have their cake and eat it.

A similar contradiction arises when the early death modelling is criticised - if you want peoples voluntarily behavioural changes to act in a manner equivalent to formal lockdown then you need people to take the risk very seriously and act at the right moment. Worst case modelling scenarios that show the potential magnitude of events if everyone just carried on as normal are part of the necessary grim mood music. So self-defeating prophecies of the type that modelling offered are a useful thing, not something to complain about. But right up until the government u-turned and locked down in the first wave they were spending all their energy trying to get people to carry on almost as normal for as long as possible, and they utterly fucked the timing up as well. Plus one of their crap excuses for not considering asking people to suffer massive restrictions and behavioural changes earlier was that they didnt think people would accept such stuff, so they were hardly likely to then rely in a strategy that required people to do the right thing without formal laws at that stage. Meanwhile the reality of the first wave in the UK was that a lot of people did understand and took matters into their own hand a week or so earlier than the formal measures were announced, saving more people from death than would have otherwise been the case, so there was an important voluntary aspect to the first wave response.

Plus for those that choose to maintain the belief that UK lockdown came too late to make a big difference to the peak, we've now seen via the Delta wave (and potentially now with the Omicron wave) that strong measures also make a difference after the peak, and lots of the hospitalisations and deaths happened in the post-peak period in the pre-vaccine era. I wouldnt have wanted to see those long deadly tails play out without heavy restrictions and grim mood music in the first wave, as I expect it would have prolonged the agony.


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## elbows (Feb 3, 2022)

And none of that means that I wouldnt change anything about the details of non-pharmaceutical measures now that we have the benefit of hindsight. We know more of what measures make the biggest differences, how people will behave in such circumstances, and that for example people could of exercised etc outdoors without a devastating impact.

But I suspect there were also other non-epidemiological reasons authorities favoured going that far. They were worried about unrest and loss of control, due to factors including a loss of emergency service capacity due to staff absences etc. So they tried to simplify the picture by having more people simply stay at home, until some of the unknowns about behaviour and wave magnitude revealed themselves. Likewise there were unknowns about the role of pollution at the time, and we have also seen that non-Covid health system pressures are reduced when people arent indulging in normal economic and leisure activities outside the home. Certainly if you then keep those heavy restrictions in place for way too long then some of the resulting health etc implications eventually start to tip in the other direction, but to start with its unsurprising that they felt the need to simplify the picture by curtailing normal activities with a very broad brush.

Also we had shit all mass testing capacity the first time around, so they couldnt use any of that stuff to take any of the strain, couldnt use it to unlock more nuanced approaches to stopping infectious people spreading the virus around. And public health messaging, rules and guidance are best kept simple. 'Stay home' was crude and heavy but at least people had a lot less trouble understanding it compared to all the rules and systems they introduced later, which included details that people have struggled to keep up with ever since.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 3, 2022)

If the telegraph said the sun rises in the east I would have to get up early to make sure the earth hadn't changed its rotional direction (something I actually wish for)

e2a: leaving the late evening wine fuelled typo for future historians to pore over while pulling myself another glass of stay at home juice.


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## Cloo (Feb 4, 2022)

Annoyingly of course people will nonetheless complain 'See it was all pointless!' rather than understanding that until you have data and mitigation, you have to assume the worst and this information isn't intended to discredit somehow what was done, rather it's info we can build on for the future.


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## elbows (Feb 4, 2022)

Well in this particular case, having looked into it a little more since I last posted it appears the study itself likely was actually intended to discredit what was done. Because it was written by biased economists and has resulted in quite the backlash from scientists. I'm only going to quote one of them but have linked to the full article. Its fair to say I no longer plan to read the shitty report.





__





						expert reaction to a preprint looking at the impact of lockdowns, as posted on the Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences website | Science Media Centre
					





					www.sciencemediacentre.org
				






> “Smoking causes cancer, the earth is round, and ordering people to stay at home (the correct definition of lockdown) decreases disease transmission. None of this is controversial among scientists. A study purporting to prove the opposite is almost certain to be fundamentally flawed.
> 
> “In this case, a trio of economists have undertaken a meta-analysis of many previous studies. So far so good. But they systematically excluded from consideration any study based on the science of disease transmission, meaning that the only studies looked at in the analysis are studies using the methods of economics.


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 4, 2022)

Guardian is saying cases are somewhere in the 84k region, the ZOE app update is saying nearer 200k. What gives? 

Anecdotal info of people I know testing positive would point more towards the ZOE figures.


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## elbows (Feb 4, 2022)

Cases picked up by the testing system are always considered to be only a fraction of the full picture, and it is expected that the system is picking up even less cases these days due to changes to the testing rules (eg no need for PCR confirmation of LFT coupled with people not reporting their LFT results). Things like ZOE and weekly ONS infection surveys will give a better sense of scale and trends.

Hospital admissions per region have continued to decrease or remain relatively flat so far, with quite some variance between these two different trends by region. This is probably due to the younger age groups having been responsible for the bulk of the rises seen in this second Omicron wave. I dont know what will happen next on this front, it would not be a shocking development if hospitalisations started to rise again, or if the regions with decreases till this point see a flattening off. I certainly wouldnt expect to see sustained falls continue until the trends shown by ZOE etc change again.


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## elbows (Feb 4, 2022)

And I think its fair to say the media have currently lost interest again and are playing into the agenda of it being all over, so they arent likely to draw much attention to the resurgence in cases at the moment. This is somewhat driven by data at the sharp hospitalisation and deaths end of things, but also because the media are called upon to ramp up the gloomy mood music when the authorities need the masses to behave in a certain way.

I would be going crazy about this repeatedly if it were not for the various factors which have capped severe disease and death at a certain level (eg some properties of Omicron coupled with the size and timing of the UK booster rollout). I'll still draw attention to it but only sporadically unless the situation deteriorates markedly. If anyone still reading my posts is still in the mode of hoping to avoid catching Covid, my advice is that the risk of catching it has not decreased substantially compared to the situation at the turn of the year, and you should behave accordingly.


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## killer b (Feb 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> (eg no need for PCR confirmation of LFT coupled with people not reporting their LFT results).


I was wondering today about what kind of an impact this rule change might have had - when my daughter tested positive with a LFT early this week I didn't bother reporting the result or going for a PCR, just sent her to bed with some paracetamol - it was only when I was afflicted by a savage fever a couple of days later and was planning on just going to bed for a week myself that I was told by my nurse brother that the rule change is just for people who've tested positive with LFTs but don't have symptoms - if you have symptoms you still need to get a PCR. We went for a PCR and where last time I did there was a queue, this time I was the only car in the testing centre. 

(My PCR was negative but I'm assuming it's still covid as it's unlikely I'd pick up a different virus with similar symptoms at my daughter at the same time...?)

In my circles, locally and further afield, there seems to be a big surge of cases atm - a colleague at work was off with it the week before last, another brother has been struck down last week - but if most of those people were understanding the rule change as I did, then the cases won't be getting reported - they'll just shut up shop for 5 - 10 days, lateral flow tests allowing, and crack on.


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 4, 2022)

killer b said:


> I was wondering today about what kind of an impact this rule change might have had - when my daughter tested positive with a LFT early this week I didn't bother reporting the result or going for a PCR, just sent her to bed with some paracetamol - it was only when I was afflicted by a savage fever a couple of days later and was planning on just going to bed for a week myself that I was told by my nurse brother that *the rule change is just for people who've tested positive with LFTs but don't have symptoms - if you have symptoms you still need to get a PCR. *We went for a PCR and where last time I did there was a queue, this time I was the only car in the testing centre.


I’m not sure if that is the case. I just had a LFT test with symptoms, and the resultant communication when I reported it just said I had to do a PCR if I needed to claim financial assistance. Presumably I would have also had to do it if I had been abroad.

Anyway, there was no way I needed my very strong line confirmed as a case 😭😷


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## killer b (Feb 4, 2022)

Agent Sparrow said:


> I’m not sure if that is the case. I just had a LFT test with symptoms, and the resultant communication when I reported it just said I had to do a PCR if I needed to claim financial assistance. Presumably I would have also had to do it if I had been abroad.
> 
> Anyway, there was no way I needed my very strong line confirmed as a case 😭😷


oh ok - I read something last night that seemed to confirm his view, but looking again today perhaps you're right. 

Either way I reckon loads of people aren't bothering reporting anymore.


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 4, 2022)

killer b said:


> oh ok - I read something last night that seemed to confirm his view, but looking again today perhaps you're right.
> 
> Either way I reckon loads of people aren't bothering reporting anymore.


Yeah, I imagine a lot of people aren’t reporting at all. Which is quite fortunate for the government’s spin machine.

I was a bit put out that I’ve been reporting ALL my LFTs since the omicron surge on the work site and when I got a positive it meant fuck all! Nobody contacted me about it, there was no clear guidance about if I was meant to report it elsewhere, and I had to push myself on day two of feeling like utter crap to get confirmation I also needed to use the government register.


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## andysays (Feb 4, 2022)

I'm pretty sure that the current situation is that if you test positive with an LFT and then develop symptoms, you don't need to take a PCR to confirm.

I only know this because this is what happened to me a few weeks ago and I had to read up on what the rules were in my particular circumstances.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 5, 2022)

official governement guidance:
shush!!!!!


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## Cloo (Feb 5, 2022)

I think a lot of people don't know you can report with an lft. I did for me and Ziggy and like you Agent Sparrow , the message said you only needed pcr if claiming payments and one or two other scenarios that didn't apply. Didn't say anything about symptomatic or not.


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## PursuedByBears (Feb 5, 2022)

It literally says "report your result to the NHS" on every page of the instructions that come in every pack of LFTs.


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## killer b (Feb 5, 2022)

PursuedByBears said:


> It literally says "report your result to the NHS" on every page of the instructions that come in every pack of LFTs.


Who reads the instructions in your box of lateral flow tests when you're doing your 200th test?


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## kabbes (Feb 5, 2022)

killer b said:


> Who reads the instructions in your box of lateral flow tests when you're doing your 200th test?


Presumably everybody read them in the first place. “Report your results” is one of the steps.


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## PursuedByBears (Feb 5, 2022)

It's also printed in big letters on the side of each box of tests


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## killer b (Feb 5, 2022)

kabbes said:


> Presumably everybody read them in the first place. “Report your results” is one of the steps.


Sure but after 200 negative results, how many people are realistically still reporting them, esp. With recent changes in mood music about how severe omicron is, no longer needing a PCR etc etc?


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## killer b (Feb 5, 2022)

PursuedByBears said:


> It's also printed in big letters on the side of each box of tests


I honestly don't remember seeing this. I think the mind just blanks it out after a while


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## wtfftw (Feb 5, 2022)

Yup. I've never reported a lateral flow result which is odd when I think about it as I'm the kind of person who does read the manual.


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## killer b (Feb 5, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> Yup. I've never reported a lateral flow result which is odd when I think about it as I'm the kind of person who does read the manual.


I reported them when you needed evidence of a negative test result to get into an event, never otherwise tho


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## Red Cat (Feb 5, 2022)

I know you're supposed to do it but I don't. I struggle with all the different systems I have to log onto for work as it is, I find it really overwhelming, and our lft boxes are all mixed up. I've got enough on my plate keeping things together as it is without reporting lft results. I did get a pcr following a positive lateral flow so that it was recorded though.


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## kabbes (Feb 5, 2022)

killer b said:


> Sure but after 200 negative results, how many people are realistically still reporting them, esp. With recent changes in mood music about how severe omicron is, no longer needing a PCR etc etc?


Doesn’t excuse being unaware of the instruction to report them, and the knowledge that reporting positive tests is particularly important.


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## kabbes (Feb 5, 2022)

Red Cat said:


> I know you're supposed to do it but I don't. I struggle with all the different systems I have to log onto for work as it is, I find it really overwhelming, and our lft boxes are all mixed up. I've got enough on my plate keeping things together as it is without reporting lft results. I did get a pcr following a positive lateral flow so that it was recorded though.


Sure. And a decision not to do it because you are personally overloaded is very different to claiming obliviousness of the request at all. We all have to prioritise based on personal circumstances — that’s totally understandable.


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## killer b (Feb 5, 2022)

kabbes said:


> Doesn’t excuse being unaware of the instruction to report them, and the knowledge that reporting positive tests is particularly important.


I'm trying to explain, not excuse.


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## kabbes (Feb 5, 2022)

killer b said:


> I'm trying to explain, not excuse.


You’re explaining that you don’t know you are supposed to report tests because you have done _too many _of them?  As explanations go, I feel it lacks rigour.


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## killer b (Feb 5, 2022)

kabbes said:


> You’re explaining that you don’t know you are supposed to report tests because you have done _too many _of them?  As explanations go, I feel it lacks rigour.


it's that a year or more after once reading some instructions, some of the information not related to the actual carrying out of the test can easily be overlooked? That the words on the side of a box you see every day but don't really look at while you scrabble about for the various bits inside it don't really register?


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## killer b (Feb 5, 2022)

Either way, I think regardless of the moral implications of not doing so, huge numbers of people - probably the majority - have never reported most of their lateral flow tests, and it's probably even more now.


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## kabbes (Feb 5, 2022)

Oh yeah, that’s definitely true. The kabbess has certainly never reported one.


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 5, 2022)

kabbes said:


> Presumably everybody read them in the first place. “Report your results” is one of the steps.


Who reads instructions? Pffft


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 5, 2022)

Agent Sparrow said:


> Who reads instructions? Pffft



Yeah it's easy innit. Stick the thing in your ear then in the liquid. Sorted.


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 5, 2022)

I made sure I reported all our first positive LFT tests because that put our infections on record. I’ve had periods of trying to record most of my negative LFTs (at least the recommended two a week) on our work system though I had got slack until we got nagging emails about it. But I’ve recorded no negative LFTs with the government and I didn’t record my positive day 5 LFT yesterday. Tbf that final one was because I didn’t trust the system to not think it was a new infection and send me all the T&T again


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 5, 2022)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Yeah it's easy innit. Stick the thing in your ear then in the liquid. Sorted.


You put it in a hole in your face?


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 5, 2022)

Anyway, after yesterday’s burst of energy I’ve gone back to bed to feel like shit/doze again 😭


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## SpookyFrank (Feb 5, 2022)

killer b said:


> Sure but after 200 negative results, how many people are realistically still reporting them, esp. With recent changes in mood music about how severe omicron is, no longer needing a PCR etc etc?



I reported my first two or three negative LFTs then gave up. I can't imagine the information is useful to anyone. I would report a positive test.


----------



## nagapie (Feb 5, 2022)

I report my lft results to school. Never noticed the writing on the side of the box, who reads that.


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## mr steev (Feb 5, 2022)

I'm pretty sure the vast amount of people don't report negative laterflows - particularly when you end up having to do them nearly daily. I used to report my daughters results to her school, but don't now. I did report her positive results to the school and NHS though. We are also both part of the ONS's testing & bloods which I think helps give a clearer picture.

I have a question about the testing kits - what's the difference between the nasal & throat compared to just the throat (as in the tests, not how they work). Can you use the same solution with both tests? I seem to have some spare testers from one sort and liquids from the other.


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## prunus (Feb 5, 2022)

mr steev said:


> I have a question about the testing kits - what's the difference between the nasal & throat compared to just the throat (as in the tests, not how they work). Can you use the same solution with both tests? I seem to have some spare testers from one sort and liquids from the other.



I’ve wondered about this too, but haven’t been able to find any definitive answer.  From what I know about the technology I would guess they are almost certainly cross-usable - it’s probably a mixture of water, SDS (to break down virus membranes), EDTA (to stabilise the resultant solution) and a pH buffer probably using sodium and/or potassium salts.  I think all the active components are in the test strip itself. 

Incidentally if you have a look at the ingredients of your shampoo you’ll probably find several of the same ingredients :-D.  Though I don’t advise using shampoo instead of the provided liquid.


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## elbows (Feb 5, 2022)

There is a section of the official dashboard that shows number of lateral flow tests conducted per day, for England at least.

eg for 3rd February 846,059 lateral flow tests were recorded. So I would think that plenty of people are reporting their negative results.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing?areaType=nation&areaName=England and scroll down a bit.


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## emanymton (Feb 5, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> I reported my first two or three negative LFTs then gave up. I can't imagine the information is useful to anyone. I would report a positive test.


Same. Although I belive the information is probably useful for working out overall stats so probably should really.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 5, 2022)

mr steev said:


> I have a question about the testing kits - what's the difference between the nasal & throat compared to just the throat (as in the tests, not how they work). Can you use the same solution with both tests? I seem to have some spare testers from one sort and liquids from the other.



My entirely speculative guess would be that they're basically the same but they decided the throat bit didn't add value given a) it might put people off doing them and b) it's incredibly hard not to touch your tongue with the swab. Pretty sure I never managed it.


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## Steel Icarus (Feb 5, 2022)

andysays said:


> I'm pretty sure that the current situation is that if you test positive with an LFT and then develop symptoms, you don't need to take a PCR to confirm.
> 
> I only know this because this is what happened to me a few weeks ago and I had to read up on what the rules were in my particular circumstances.


So many people at my college are under the assumption that if you're negative with an LFT you don't have to have a PCR. Several staff and students I know have come into work with Covid symptoms for a day or two before testing positive THEN getting a PCR. This is Googleable in literally 30 seconds.


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## elbows (Feb 5, 2022)

Some studies suggest that the virus shows up at detectable levels with slightly different timing in the throat compared to the nose. eg you might be able to get a positive LFT result a day earlier if you do a throat swab.

When authorities decided whether to change the instructions to exclude throat swabs, they would be weighing up factors such as the benefits of swabbing the throat against the downsides of people being put off bothering to routinely test at all because they found throat swabbing difficult or distressing.


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## William of Walworth (Feb 5, 2022)

At work, I make sure that I get LFT tested  every Thursday morning, as emphatically/regularly offered, and hugely encouraged 

I've been consistently tested negative since this started in late October (?) 

The way our testing system works in the CS, removes any worry about having to report results.

If I ever do get to test positive, I've heard that they immediately tell you to go and get PCR tested ASAP.

It's a real shame that this system doesn't apply for everyone in all forms of employment .....


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 5, 2022)

S☼I said:


> So many people at my college are under the assumption that if you're negative with an LFT you don't have to have a PCR. Several staff and students I know have come into work with Covid symptoms for a day or two before testing positive THEN getting a PCR. This is Googleable in literally 30 seconds.


Yeah but it’s got trickier since COVID essentially got snotty and started presenting like a cold. My youngest and I have gone through the PCR rigmarole multiple times between us - sometimes probably triggered just by _allergies_ for me. And I’m not regretting being cautious each of those times, but the process of thinking “this is it” and self isolating until you’ve got that negative PCR result isn’t so much of an issue if it’s happening every 3 months or less. It’s more of an issue if, between you, it’s happening every two weeks. 

Basically, now “symptoms” are much more likely to be caused by other viruses and it isn’t always feasible to self isolate for every first warning sign that your nose is about to start running.


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## Boris Sprinkler (Feb 5, 2022)

Nadine Dorries was going to donate her covid antibodies to save Boris Johnson.

"he was getting no better, he was getting no worse"


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## two sheds (Feb 5, 2022)

With that and the adoring image of her in parliament, she really wants Johnson's babies doesn't she


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## Boris Sprinkler (Feb 5, 2022)

🤮


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## Puddy_Tat (Feb 5, 2022)

two sheds said:


> she really wants Johnson's babies doesn't she



but that would mean him knowing how many he has and where / who they are...


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## quimcunx (Feb 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> There is a section of the official dashboard that shows number of lateral flow tests conducted per day, for England at least.
> 
> eg for 3rd February 846,059 lateral flow tests were recorded. So I would think that plenty of people are reporting their negative results.
> 
> https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/testing?areaType=nation&areaName=England and scroll down a bit.



So many people work for NHS,   in care settings, in shops, in education settings, prisons, then all those pupils and students and  all the people testing the whole family  daily while they have covid. 

I haven't taken many tests and only found out recently we are meant to report LFT results. I suspect the website would collapse if everyone reported their LFTs. 

Nothing on either of the boxes here say to report. 

How do the test report numbers compare to number of tests sent out?


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## Boris Sprinkler (Feb 5, 2022)

Boris Sprinkler said:


> Nadine Dorries was going to donate her covid antibodies to save Boris Johnson.
> 
> "he was getting no better, he was getting no worse"



A Covid anti bodies transplant. 
The interview with the prime ministers sister. 
A Covid anti bodies transplant.

You can donate blood plasma.
I don’t think (nor does google) that transplanting Covid anti bodies is a thing.
“Yeah well it’s so new, even googles not heard of it”


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## wtfftw (Feb 5, 2022)

quimcunx said:


> So many people work for NHS,   in care settings, in shops, in education settings, prisons, then all those pupils and students and  all the people testing the whole family  daily while they have covid.
> 
> I haven't taken many tests and only found out recently we are meant to report LFT results. I suspect the website would collapse if everyone reported their LFTs.
> 
> ...


June last year



> COVID-19: Around 600 million lateral flow tests may have gone unused, says watchdog​Only 96 million of 691 million quick-result tests have been registered since mass testing was rolled out, a report finds.​


Sky article. Too stoned to find another.








						COVID-19: Around 600 million lateral flow tests may have gone unused, says watchdog
					

Only 96 million of 691 million quick-result tests have been registered since mass testing was rolled out, a report finds.




					news.sky.com


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## StoneRoad (Feb 6, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> June last year
> 
> 
> Sky article. Too stoned to find another.
> ...



More likely the tests were used, the result was negative - or voided and had to be done again - and not reported.

Also, more recently, a few people will have "been prepared" & stored a couple of boxes in case there's a shortage when they actually need them. If you recall the chaos & shortages at the end of December ... but even that doesn't explain the gap in the sent out & results reported figures ...


----------



## wtfftw (Feb 6, 2022)

Exactly


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 6, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> June last year
> 
> 
> Sky article. Too stoned to find another.
> ...


It feels like a good half million of those have just been our household 😭


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 6, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> More likely the tests were used, the result was negative - or voided and had to be done again - and not reported.
> 
> Also, more recently, a few people will have "been prepared" & stored a couple of boxes in case there's a shortage when they actually need them. If you recall the chaos & shortages at the end of December ... but even that doesn't explain the gap in the sent out & results reported figures ...


Before I wasn’t recording my negatives with the government due to recording with work, and sometimes even failing to do that. But honestly, given how pointless the T&T seems to be, I wouldn’t report them from now because what on Earth does it achieve? It didn’t have to be this way, but a lot of this feels like a pointless admin exercise now.


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## Mation (Feb 7, 2022)

PursuedByBears said:


> It's also printed in big letters on the side of each box of tests


That's very recent. I have two boxes from work. Only the more recent one says it.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 7, 2022)

Mation said:


> That's very recent. I have two boxes from work. Only the more recent one says it.


I have an older box that does not mention it, but it is at the bottom of every page on the instruction booklet in big bold letters.


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## toblerone3 (Feb 7, 2022)

elbows said:


> BBC reality check article on the bullshit about deaths that Campbell etc spread. Includes interesting info about death certificate details.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



In this case the BBC is wrong and Campbell is correct Campbell put the correct caveats in the presentation of the figures.


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## elbows (Feb 7, 2022)

toblerone3 said:


> In this case the BBC is wrong and Campbell is correct Campbell put the correct caveats in the presentation of the figures.


I dont know what you are playing at by taking his word for it via that pathetic wriggling response video.

I watched the original video in question, not the shitty one you posted where he was on the defensive (although Ive watched a fair chunk of that one in the past too), and indeed have just forced myself to watch the original one again before replying to you. It is a terrible disgrace and he did not put the correct caveats in the video in question at the stage of the video where it mattered. His agenda was on pretty naked display and he utterly misrepresented the data in question. In the last few minutes of the video he did take a more reasonable tone with somewhat better framing than some of his earlier shit, but as already pointed out in a debunking video that someone else already posted on this thread, he had also made some errors in regards life expectancy which still left his choice of angles near the end of the video wide open to fair criticism. Even when talking about quality of life years lost, he tried to downplay how large that loss probably was. Pathetic, disgusting shit of the most dangerous kind. Its not enough for him to stick some caveats at the end, he hugely inflated the significance of the data he presented, and distorted reality to an extent that leaves everything else he will ever say open to suspicion.

And that criticism did not just come from the BBC, the ONS themselves wrote a blog post about it. To say only 17,000 people have died from COVID-19 is highly misleading | National Statistical

I think he knows exactly what he is playing at. His exact motivations are unclear, but a simple explanation is that he has learnt what sort of audience he has ended up attracting on youtube, and had tuned much of his content to tell that audience what they want to hear.


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## elbows (Feb 7, 2022)

And the bottom line is that the stuff he said in the main section of the video was sufficiently misleading and distorted that the likes of David Davis soiled himself by parroting it. Mission accomplished on the crap propaganda front, regardless of whether he left just enough wiggle room to issue vaguely plausible denials later. Even the criticism he got from media articles was music to his ears in terms of then being able to use it for another agenda he has adopted, which is to make stupid noises about mainstream media agendas during the pandemic. Again, I doubt this is an accident, it plays to the audience and indeed the sort of crap we heard from the likes of Trump.


----------



## elbows (Feb 7, 2022)

Also when studying youtube propaganda, we should consider the fact that youtubers get data on things like what length of time subscribers and non-subscribers to their channel actually watch their videos for. Therefore particular attention should be paid to videos that take a particular tone and make particular claims in the earlier parts of the video, and only put caveats in towards the end. The content creators know what proportion of their audience are likely to even see the latter part. And in this case the video in question raises a massive red flag on that front, theres nothing subtle about it.


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## toblerone3 (Feb 7, 2022)

Just gone back to rewatch the original video and I think you're being overly harsh. All of the four figures of deaths related to the COVID pandemic described in the first three minutes of the video were accurate as far as can see and he did clearly explain the difference between them. 

Indeed he started with excess deaths at the one minute mark and said that that this was perhaps the most accurate way to look at deaths.

Three out of the four ways of counting COVID deaths were well-known, so it was understandable that he was focussing on the one that that had recently come to light via the FOI request.  That is the nature of news you focus on what is new and you have to bear in mind that he posts almost every other day.

While he had explained the different definitions clearly in the initial part of the video, from the 14  minute mark he did put in further caveats noting that "I don't want to be disingenuous here, people always die from a variety of causes.....

Just because it was near the end of the video doesn't make it not there.  The discussion about life expectectancy and QALYS was also pretty near the end of the video.  I had a feeling that some of the arguements there were a bit flaky and that would have been a better way of criticising the video.

Also I didn't think that the response video was insincere or anything like a "pathetic wriggling response"

Of course other people may have used the 17,000 (or so) deaths from COVID with non other underlying cause to further other agendas.  It was clear that the ONS article was not about Dr John Campbell alone because if you believed that the ONS article was was a misrepresentation.  Campbell simply did not state "the true number of deaths caused by COVID-19 in England and Wales is ‘only’ around 17,000 people" everything was defined and caveated from the very beginning of the video. Another piece of context that you might have missed out on is that he is not an anti-Vaxxer and often states on his videos that he is triple-vaxxed.


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## teuchter (Feb 7, 2022)

It made me curious to watch the original video too, and I agree elbows description is a bit harsh. He could have presented things a little differently, placed emphasis differently but I don't see a reason to read some kind of sinister agenda into it.


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## elbows (Feb 8, 2022)

Pull the other one.

He said things like the following and I have a massive issue with these statements so I stand by what I already said. I'm afraid I had to mostly use youtubes auto-transcription for these quotes because there is no way I can watch it all again without having a blood pressure problem.



> "the number of deaths actually solely attributable to covid may be way lower than anyone had thought"
> 
> "that's why I wanted to bring it to you now there's been no mention of this whatsoever on mainstream media um at least on the bbc sort of itv channel 4 in the uk and i haven't seen anything on the us channels that I follow so surprising surprising that they haven't picked this up because it's a huge story"
> 
> "without being melodramatic about it it's really quite surprising surprisingly low"





> "so where covid 19 is the only attributable cause of death we see that the the rate of death is actually uh remarkably low. Now there's still deaths but it's much lower than we've been thinking and it's much lower than mainstream media seems to be intimating"
> 
> "so it looks like the average age of death in men as a result of that year of the pandemic has gone down by seven weeks and the average age of uh death women has gone up three or four days"
> 
> "as of the 30th september official uk data one three seven one three three deaths within 28 days of a diagnosis versus the ones where covid was the only attributable cause one seven three seven one. um it's a massive difference isn't it so um i thought that was pretty uh pretty interesting"



His use of phrases like "solely attributable to Covid" and similar is an utter disgrace, blatant propaganda, and something that the ONS very much had in mind when they wrote the blog post I linked to earlier.

His 'surprise' at the data is also completely ridiculous given that we have long known about the age profile of the majority of covid victims, and that a huge number of older people will have had various underlying health conditions. Health conditions that in many cases may well have made them more vulnerable to covid, but it was still very much covid which killed them. And thus their deaths were directly caused by covid, their other health conditions made them vulnerable to covid but these other conditions did not kill them, covid killed them.

Just one quote from the ONS blog:



> We distinguish between deaths that are “due to COVID-19” and those “involving COVID-19” to provide the most comprehensive information on the impact of the disease on mortality. More than 140,000 deaths have been due to COVID-19, meaning that it has been determined as the underlying cause. To exclude individuals with any pre-existing conditions from this figure greatly understates the number of people who died from COVID-19 and who might well still be alive had the pandemic not occurred.



As for him not being anti-vaccine, there are a bunch of different stances people can take in this pandemic which leave them open to accusations that they are disgusting propagandists who are peddling an agenda that seeks to downplay the number of deaths caused by this virus. You dont have to be anti-vaccine to peddle that shit.

I already commented on what he said towards the end of the video, and why saying it only at that stage of a video is a red flag to me. I do not consider that his statements near the start of the video were his attempt to accurately frame the 'new data'. Rather, he mentioned those other, high, numbers at the start in order to set the stage for going on about how staggeringly low the number he was about to discuss was, and plenty of the language he then used was designed to imply that the small number was the 'true' number of covid deaths.

Also please keep in mind that the previous occasion where I had to pick apart one of his videos was one where he was talking absolute shit about what he expected the future trend of 'for' and 'with' covid hospitalisation data to show. The very next weeks data in that regard demonstrated his projections on that were bullshit, but of course he did not then draw attention to that data and his highly suspicious error. Same fucking agenda that time too. If that agenda appeals to you, then I hold you in the same low regard. And note that I do take care to routinely point out the real data in regards 'for' and 'with' hospital data, and more recently the same sort of 'for' and 'with' split in the ONS death data (though I only noticed that aspect of death data from the ONS existed quite recently). I'm not afraid to point out what the data shows even when it might be considered inconvenient to my own stance, unlike dubious shitheads like Campbell.


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## elbows (Feb 8, 2022)

The next ONS data is out later on Tuesday so I will be sure to comment here on what the latest trend is. In the meantime, here is what was reported last week, in regards ONS deaths data for the week ending 21st January:



> Of the 1,484 deaths involving COVID-19, 72.9% (1,082 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death in Week 3 compared with 77.4% in Week 2.



Thats from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics

Those are the sorts of figures people should pay attention to when trying to get a sense of deaths caused by Covid, not the stuff Campbell misused in that video.

In addition to the ONS's own 'involving' and 'underlying' analysis of the death certificate figures and how thats evolving week by week, I expect that at some point the difference between the number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test in this wave will be contrasted to those death certificate numbers for this wave, in order to point out how the 'incidental' proportions seem larger in this wave - a phenomenon which makes proper interpretation of the 28 day death figures require greater attention be paid to such caveats. As long as its done properly and is not turned into really crude propaganda, I will have no objections to this at all and will draw attention to it. In the meantime, if in doubt use those death certificate figures, not deaths within 28 days of a positive test figures which include incidental cases that cannot be separated out.

As for the stuff I just mentioned about a previous video of his regarding what he told everyone we might expect to see in terms of 'for' and 'with' covid patients in hospital beds, here is the post where I repeated his technique using the subsequent weeks data and saw a very different picture to what he predicted in his video on that subject.         #45,208       I dont know if that post of mine will make much sense on its own though, people probably need to see the video in question and the conversation here about it leading up to that post, but I'm not going to go over all that again now. And the picture has evolved further since that post, and I've often posted graphs of that subsequent data too. There have been a lot of 'with' cases in hospital, to the extent that recently the number 'with' covid finally exceeded the number listed as being treated primarily 'for' covid in hospital beds in England. Hence incidental cases did make up a larger proportion than previous seen. Even so, his video on that remains misleading. I will post the latest graph again this Thursday when the next weeks worth of hospital data on that becomes available.

In a nutshell the nature of Omicron, the huge size of the infection wave and the levels of immunity from severe disease in the population mean that we are seeing different proportions of 'for' and 'with' hospitalisations and deaths in this Omicron wave compared to previously. There is good news in this story, the detail of which should legitimately alter peoples interpretation of various headline data. But that good news still does not stretch as far as the likes of Campbell are often keen to suggest. We are at a stage of the pandemic in this country where the burden at the deadly sharp end of things is not as great as it was, which is why authorities in countries like the UK are able to rely much less on non-pharmaceutical measures at the moment. But it seems that those with an agenda to minimise the impression of how bad covid is still feel the need to go way too far and to make claims that are incompatible with the truth. I am quite happy to report on the improving situation without bullshitting.


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## elbows (Feb 8, 2022)

Also note that when it comes to peoples impressions of Campbell and his agenda, some people on this forum reported that they went off him and lost trust in him because he was wanking on about Ivermectin. I cannot really comment on those videos myself and his views on that drug, because I havent followed that side of his output at all, but that subject is understandably seen as another large red flag in this pandemic for sure.


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## teuchter (Feb 8, 2022)

What do you think his agenda is, and why is he pursuing it?


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## Spandex (Feb 8, 2022)

I know elbows has covered this in detail, but for the avoidance of doubt: that '17,000 deaths' figure is a meaningless bullshit number forced out of the ONS by weirdo cunts with some weirdo cunt agenda to pretend that Covid isn't as bad as it is. It's calculated by arbitrarily excluding most people who were at risk from being killed by Covid from the death figures, all the people with asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. People who wouldn't be dead if they hadn't caught Covid. Do these people's deaths not count? Why not? Because they have a health issue/disability? That's properly fucked up. They could have got the numbers even lower by excluding women or black people, but that would've been too obvious in a way that saying disabled peoples' deaths don't count apparently isn't. That's some disgusting shit. And anyone repeating it is repeating disgusting bigoted meaningless shit that only exists to create a false impression about how many people have died from Covid.

Which brings us to Dr John: dear old Dr John with his title and his reassuring manner and his data (the same data you or I could get off the internet if we could be arsed). I watched a video of his ages ago and his interpretation of the data beyond the beedingly obvious was hopeless. He might as well be any random. He is just any random, albeit with a title and a reassuring manner, some data off the internet and a YouTube channel. That he made a video about this meaningless 17,000 figure, that he publicised this figure at all, that he claimed it was a huge issue not being reported, shows that he's either a hopelessly clueless gimp whose opinions are worth less than dogshit on a shoe, or that he's fallen into wanting to minimise the impact of Covid.

Why do people want to minimise the impact of Covid? For many and varied reasons; as a coping strategy for dealing with the immense catastrophe that has befallen the world over the last two years; as a contrarian position to show they know better than everyone else; because they hated the restrictions on their life Covid bought and they don't want to see them return ever again no matter what happens; probably almost as many reasons as people who think this way. But throwing around meaningless disablist numbers to further their misguided worldview is a cunt's trick.


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## andysays (Feb 8, 2022)

teuchter said:


> What do you think his agenda is, and why is he pursuing it?


Maybe he's just being an attention seeking contrarian twat for the sake of it.

It baffles me why people would do this, but there's no denying that some seem to get a perverse kick out of it.


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 8, 2022)

Apparently Farage has been banging on about the 17k figure during his GB News shows, but I think we can all agree he's a hopelessly clueless gimp.


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## two sheds (Feb 8, 2022)

yes some twat on Nextdoor brought up that 17,000 FOI answer. It took half a second to search for the ONS response which luckily shut the twat up.


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## elbows (Feb 8, 2022)

teuchter said:


> What do you think his agenda is, and why is he pursuing it?


Well he has several million subscribers so maintaining or growing those would be an obvious agenda. Perhaps beyond that he doesnt even have an agenda of the sort I moan about, and the videos I've mentioned which serve an agenda I am critical of only served those agendas unwittingly. I cannot climb inside his head to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt.

I intend to stop talking about him. But before I do I did check a recent video of his which was looking at the paper by economists that made stupid claims about lockdowns not having saved lives (already discussed here recently). A good subject with which to check whether he has a really simple dodgy agenda. On that front he does not, because he was quite happy to point out various flaws of the paper, and add some thoughts of his own which ran contrary to the papers findings. So if I wanted to insist that he has such a foul agenda, I'd be reduced to saying stuff like 'well he still drew peoples attention to the dodgy study'. I could comment that some of his thoughts were still along the lines of 'the lockdowns just dragged the deaths and hospitalisations out over a longer period, the same people still ultimately died', similar to the 'pushing the curve down' stuff that the likes of Vallance mentioned with our original pre-lockdown plan a in this country. And I take issue with that because actually it seems that very large numbers of people that the virus had the potential to kill did not end up meeting the virus in the pre-vaccine era, and that there were people in this group who would have died if lockdowns an massive behavioural changes hadnt happened. But then to be fair to him he does also go on about how many people would have died for other reasons if hospitals had been totally overwhelmed by covid, he talks about lockdowns being late and botched here, and he thinks that lockdowns were the right thing to do. So I'm not accusing him of being a straightforward one-dimensional pusher of the most simplistic reality-denying pandemic bullshit.

Anyway I dont intend to spend my time following more of his videos and offering my own critique all the bloody time, I only tend to mention him if the news or people start going on about something he said.


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## teuchter (Feb 8, 2022)

elbows said:


> Well he has several million subscribers so maintaining or growing those would be an obvious agenda. Perhaps beyond that he doesnt even have an agenda of the sort I moan about, and the videos I've mentioned which serve an agenda I am critical of only served those agendas unwittingly. I cannot climb inside his head to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt.
> 
> I intend to stop talking about him. But before I do I did check a recent video of his which was looking at the paper by economists that made stupid claims about lockdowns not having saved lives (already discussed here recently). A good subject with which to check whether he has a really simple dodgy agenda. On that front he does not, because he was quite happy to point out various flaws of the paper, and add some thoughts of his own which ran contrary to the papers findings. So if I wanted to insist that he has such a foul agenda, I'd be reduced to saying stuff like 'well he still drew peoples attention to the dodgy study'. I could comment that some of his thoughts were still along the lines of 'the lockdowns just dragged the deaths and hospitalisations out over a longer period, the same people still ultimately died', similar to the 'pushing the curve down' stuff that the likes of Vallance mentioned with our original pre-lockdown plan a in this country. And I take issue with that because actually it seems that very large numbers of people that the virus had the potential to kill did not end up meeting the virus in the pre-vaccine era, and that there were people in this group who would have died if lockdowns an massive behavioural changes hadnt happened. But then to be fair to him he does also go on about how many people would have died for other reasons if hospitals had been totally overwhelmed by covid, he talks about lockdowns being late and botched here, and he thinks that lockdowns were the right thing to do. So I'm not accusing him of being a straightforward one-dimensional pusher of the most simplistic reality-denying pandemic bullshit.



That seems fairly reasonable, unlike what you wrote yesterday -



elbows said:


> I dont know what you are playing at by taking his word for it via that pathetic wriggling response video.
> 
> I watched the original video in question, not the shitty one you posted where he was on the defensive (although Ive watched a fair chunk of that one in the past too), and indeed have just forced myself to watch the original one again before replying to you. It is a terrible disgrace and he did not put the correct caveats in the video in question at the stage of the video where it mattered. *His agenda was on pretty naked display and he utterly misrepresented the data in question.* In the last few minutes of the video he did take a more reasonable tone with somewhat better framing than some of his earlier shit, but as already pointed out in a debunking video that someone else already posted on this thread, he had also made some errors in regards life expectancy which still left his choice of angles near the end of the video wide open to fair criticism. Even when talking about quality of life years lost, he tried to downplay how large that loss probably was. *Pathetic, disgusting shit of the most dangerous kind.* Its not enough for him to stick some caveats at the end, he hugely inflated the significance of the data he presented, and distorted reality to an extent that leaves everything else he will ever say open to suspicion.
> 
> ...


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2022)

Where there is a contradiction in what I said its because I do find it utterly impossible to watch that particular video about those deaths without developing a hideous sense of an agenda being on display in that particular video. That agenda disgusts me, and anyone who strays deep into that territory is going to get me ranting and will raise my suspicions. Especially when another of their videos I saw in recent months was talking shit about hospital 'for' and 'with' trends, If they've strayed into that area only unintentionally, eg via sloppy language or analysis, then some of my resulting comments will probably not be entirely fair. Today I watched a different video in order to see if a broader case could easily be built or not, since bullshit analysis of the merits of lockdown tend to go hand in hand with the most obvious dubious pandemic agendas. I tried to be fair by doing that, even though I really dont enjoy having to sit through any of his videos. What I'm not going to do is watch loads of his other videos in order to build an even larger picture. I still believe that the video that started this current conversation was worthy of debunking for reasons I already explained, and the BBC were not wrong to mention him in their article.


----------



## elbows (Feb 8, 2022)

elbows said:


> The next ONS data is out later on Tuesday so I will be sure to comment here on what the latest trend is. In the meantime, here is what was reported last week, in regards ONS deaths data for the week ending 21st January:
> 
> Of the 1,484 deaths involving COVID-19, 72.9% (1,082 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death in Week 3 compared with 77.4% in Week 2.
> 
> Thats from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics


As promised, here are todays figures from the ONS in that regard:



> Of the 1,385 deaths involving COVID-19, 71.2% (986 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death in Week 4 compared with 72.9% in Week 3.







__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), by age, sex and region.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## tim (Feb 9, 2022)

In times past, along with some of the threads here, he was one if my main source of Covid information because he gave fairly sensible sounding  updates in more depth than media outlets. This means that quite a lot of what I know about the pandemic comes from him.

I began to get a little wary when he went in av out taking huge doses of vitamin D. Was I being taken in?


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2022)

Well if I want to be charitable about it then I could just file it under 'all sources have their limitations' and declare that these limitations will show up more when the communicator in question tries to describe every single issue all the way through this pandemic.

For example I was most useful during stages of the pandemic where a whole bunch of forms of optimism were misplaced and reckless and too easily served an inappropriate agenda that was divorced from the reality of this virus. Under those circumstances the orthodox status quo approach, institutions and decision makers were bound to fuck up the detail and the timing, and I was well placed to point this out in some detail. The situation is more complicated now, and so I am of less use and more likely to get things wrong, or bore people as I try to adopt a new sense of balance that is appropriate for the current moment. Not that I am entirely allergic to optimism, for example I always had a fair chunk of faith that quite a large proportion of people would do the right thing when given the right information and opportunities to do so.

Drugs, treatments, medical advice are areas where it pays to be cautious and to go the extra mile in moderating claims made. Especially given that there are loads of holes in our traditional understanding of many details, and that proper data can take a long time to emerge. I try not to stray into this area too much, although I recall wanting to talk about one concern early on, fears that there might have been a correlation between some medicines that many people take which happen to affect ACE2 levels and their risk of severe covid disease. So I brought it up a few times but didnt persist with it because incorrect claims with too much confidence could have caused all sorts of problems of their own, and it was hard to talk about the theoretical possibility without people being tempted to reach solid conclusions.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Feb 9, 2022)

Covid: Self-isolation law could be scrapped in England this month
					

The rules are due to end in March - but that could be brought forward if "encouraging trends continue".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




All restrictions to end in England by the end of February, including isolating.


----------



## Numbers (Feb 9, 2022)

That’s nuts.


----------



## weepiper (Feb 9, 2022)

Wtf


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 9, 2022)

That's going to lead to more deaths, if we haven't already had enough of those.

Murdering twunts.


----------



## LDC (Feb 9, 2022)

Not a surprise they're rushing towards that. It's the law replaced by guidance though which tbh is mostly about the way it works now in my experience. People isolate as it's the right thing to do, or because they're ill and that will hopefully mostly continue.


----------



## zahir (Feb 9, 2022)

I'm not expecting this to lead anywhere but I'm sure he's right.









						Advisor to Government Agency Demands Police Investigation into ‘Criminal’ Healthcare Worker COVID Deaths  – Byline Times
					

A formal complaint accuses the British Government of facilitating ‘the largest single health and safety disaster to befall the United Kingdom workforce since the introduction of asbestos products’




					bylinetimes.com
				





> An expert letter to the UK Government’s Health & Safety Executive (HSE) from one of its own advisors accuses the agency of failing to use its statutory authority to correct “seriously flawed” guidance on infection protection and control (IPC), imperilling “the health and safety of healthcare workers by failing to provide for suitable respiratory protection”.
> 
> The continued failure to protect healthcare workers by ensuring they are wearing the appropriate form of PPE (personal protective equipment) to minimise the risk of infection from COVID-19 airborne transmission, the letter says, has led to thousands of avoidable deaths. The failures amount both to “gross negligence” and serious “criminal offences”


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not a surprise they're rushing towards that. It's the law replaced by guidance though which tbh is mostly about the way it works now in my experience. People isolate as it's the right thing to do, or because they're ill and that will hopefully mostly continue.


Yep Its no surprise since they only changed approach in the pandemic in the first place because they couldnt get number of hospital admissions to stay within manageable limits, and now they think they've got beyond that problem.

In terms of people continuing to do thae right thing, I expect that to be eroded due to changing perceptions, changing employer attitudes, and probably the removal of a huge chunk of the free testing system.

Personally I would have kept these parts of the system and law in place until we saw what happened next in terms of booster effects waning, learnt more about what sort of levels infections would persist at, and until we'd allowed at least some more months to see if another variant with large implications emerged. But if something does go wrong on any of those fronts in a big way in future they can always bring some of these systems back. And in the meantime they will still have some other forms of disease surveillance available, even without the mass testing system. All the same, there is a sense that Johnson has rushed the timetable for political reasons, beyond the still giddy timetable that the UK establishment would otherwise have settled on.

Its bad news for people that will remain vulnerable to the worst implications of this disease, but we'd need to change the very nature of the establishment and its priorities in order for this not to have happened at some point, and that has never looked to be on the cards.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2022)

zahir said:


> I'm not expecting this to lead anywhere but I'm sure he's right.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah this was a big issue that was never corrected and that the press mostly lost interest in after the first few months of headlines about grotesque PPE failures. Its truly another example of the cold calculations and indifference of the UK establishment, and its one of the areas where I will be interested to see how much focus it receives in the public inquiry. Quite possibly that will end up being a similar story to how the press framed it, where they focus on the initial failures and dont end up dwelling on stuff that would make a permanent difference to what standards are demanded in this area at all times as the bare minimum default.


----------



## Chilli.s (Feb 9, 2022)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Covid: Self-isolation law could be scrapped in England this month
> 
> 
> The rules are due to end in March - but that could be brought forward if "encouraging trends continue".
> ...


Seems as short sighted as usual, a virus that regularly mutates, who knows how deadly, what could go wrong?


----------



## teuchter (Feb 9, 2022)

If some kind of deadly mutation arose, then restrictions could and would be brought back in.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2022)

teuchter said:


> If some kind of deadly mutation arose, then restrictions could and would be brought back in.


Yes.

We might expect our genomic surveillance to deteriorate once a big chunk of the mass testing system is disabled, but hopefully this wont make a large difference to variant surveillance overall. eg testing in hospitals and care homes should remain (I'll kick up a huge stink if they ditch testing in those settings) and they can sequence those, and also the wastewater surveillance system has a genomic component.


----------



## Chilli.s (Feb 9, 2022)

teuchter said:


> If some kind of deadly mutation arose, then restrictions could and would be brought back in.


When it's too late... again


----------



## Brainaddict (Feb 9, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> Not a surprise they're rushing towards that. It's the law replaced by guidance though which tbh is mostly about the way it works now in my experience. People isolate as it's the right thing to do, or because they're ill and that will hopefully mostly continue.


To some extent that's true, but people will try to end isolation as soon as they feel a bit better and will regularly misjudge whether they are still infectious. And where it will make the most difference is with shitty employers. "Oh, you don't feel any worse than a cold? You can come in then, if you want to keep your job." This is capitalism we're talking about, it's not like everyone has a free choice to do the right thing.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 9, 2022)

I ain't changing my company policy anytime soon.
Thanks to anno domini, I'm still wfh
[also easier for writing reports & tenders in relative peace & quiet --- if my advice is needed, there's this wonderful invention called the telephone ...]

Workshop to be kept ventilated, if you are working within arm's length of someone, both get a mask on.
Everyone is at least double vaccinated.
Paid time off for getting booster jab plus up to two days if bad side affects [not that this has been taken advantage of, but it was there if needed] ... 

If Jack or Jill have symptoms / +ve test.
STAY AT HOME ... and you will get paid.
If someone in your household has the plaque - ditto until they are not infectious & you've tested clear.

Sorry, but not sorry.
Small company, we can manage [sort of] with one or two off under those conditions.

But not if Jack or Jill give the plague to everyone at one go because they didn't stay off when they should have done.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2022)

The ONS infection survey has picked up on cases rising, just like ZOE did, albeit the ONS has not captured this to the same extent (yet) and there is variation per UK nation and by age group.







__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey headline results, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

The latest data from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection survey, containing high level estimates for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. 



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## andysays (Feb 9, 2022)

teuchter said:


> If some kind of deadly mutation arose, then restrictions could and would be brought back in.


I'm sure the horse won't bolt, but if it does, we can always shut the stable door behind it...


----------



## zahir (Feb 9, 2022)

Thread from Deepti Gurdasani


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2022)

I know what to say - they were never intending to prevent all preventable illness and death. I give a shit about it but I know what attitudes towards such deaths were like before this virus and had no expectation of a sea change in that regard as a result of this pandemic.


----------



## elbows (Feb 9, 2022)

And so long as results from widescale public drug trials show some benefit, they better not remove the ability of vulnerable people to get a test and its results quickly and then get access to the drugs at the appropriate moment. Not that the system has so far been perfect in terms of timing, it needs to get better not worse.

I also saw the other day that an investigation has been launched into bias in diagnostics equipment that may have been tuned to only work appropriately for some ethnicities, failing others in a bad way. eg the disgraceful situation with pulse oximeters, a subject that I do not remember gaining traction here when it first came out.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 9, 2022)

teuchter said:


> If some kind of deadly mutation arose, then restrictions could and should be brought back in.


cfy
would is not a word I would use with this isos at the rudder


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 10, 2022)

Prince Charles was at an event last night and guess what he’s been diagnosed with.









						British Asian Trust reception at the British Museum | Prince of Wales
					

The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall tonight attended a reception for the British Asian Trust, a charity founded by His Royal Highness in 2007 to support disadvantaged communities in South Asia.




					www.princeofwales.gov.uk
				




Priti and Rishi were there to


----------



## Dogsauce (Feb 11, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> Apparently Farage has been banging on about the 17k figure during his GB News shows, but I think we can all agree he's a hopelessly clueless gimp.


I removed a shitty lamppost sticker on my way home last night that was using the ONS logo and making claims of much lower deaths (I think they got it down to 6,000 something).  This stuff is just passed around and misprepresented eagerly by loons.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Feb 11, 2022)

Artaxerxes said:


> Prince Charles was at an event last night and guess what he’s been diagnosed with.


And guess who he went to see two days beforehand.
Love the quote from The Mirror: "Prince Charles catching coronavirus a second time reminds us the pandemic isn't over". Like, cheers, I was wondering why I'm kipping on my own sofa and not hugging my kids this week


----------



## Steel Icarus (Feb 11, 2022)

Has there been any research into whether people who have _recently_ had Covid - Omicron - can still be carriers and pass it on to others despite having little chance of getting it again themselves?


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Feb 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> If some kind of deadly mutation arose, then restrictions could and would be brought back in.


That's what I don't get with the removal of all the restrictions. We seem to be acting as if just because Omicron was far milder than the original strains, therefore we don't need to worry about Covid any more. But we KNOW that variants will keep appearing, and they won't always have the same characteristics as Omicron. Seems rather pre-emptive to declare it's all over already.


----------



## Boris Sprinkler (Feb 11, 2022)

S☼I said:


> Has there been any research into whether people who have _recently_ had Covid - Omicron - can still be carriers and pass it on to others despite having little chance of getting it again themselves?


I am presuming not. In my corona pas it says i have immunity until july the 5th having cuaght it in beginning of january So that is magic. Or something. I haven't looked into the science behind it, but the government say it and I trust them implicitly.


----------



## prunus (Feb 11, 2022)

Buddy Bradley said:


> That's what I don't get with the removal of all the restrictions. We seem to be acting as if just because Omicron was far milder than the original strains, therefore we don't need to worry about Covid any more. But we KNOW that variants will keep appearing, and they won't always have the same characteristics as Omicron. Seems rather pre-emptive to declare it's all over already.



Just because this piece of misinformation seems to be gaining traction: omicron is not intrinsically milder than the ‘original’ strains - it is milder than delta, but is more virulent than the original Wuhan strain of lockdown 1.  The reason we are seeing such apparent mildness in effect is because of the vaccinations.  Without them we would be in a world of pain. 

Imagine if they’d taken 5 years to develop as was being suggested as a plausible timeline back at the beginning…


----------



## two sheds (Feb 11, 2022)

prunus said:


> Imagine if they’d taken 5 years to develop as was being suggested as a plausible timeline back at the beginning…


Wouldn't have been a problem, we'd all have caught it and built up natural immunity like Johnson wanted right at the start  

Those of us who hadn't died, that is.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 11, 2022)

Buddy Bradley said:


> That's what I don't get with the removal of all the restrictions. We seem to be acting as if just because Omicron was far milder than the original strains, therefore we don't need to worry about Covid any more. But we KNOW that variants will keep appearing, and they won't always have the same characteristics as Omicron. Seems rather pre-emptive to declare it's all over already.



I suppose the question as far as that goes is whether restrictions now have any real impact on what would happen in that situation? A higher rate of infection now might actually improve outcomes. You could argue that reintroducing restrictions wouldn't be accepted but I think people in general have demonstrated they're more than capable of dealing with it (despite the endless 'everyone is shit' whining.) 

I know Johnson would love to declare victory and that doing so would be ridiculous but I don't think that in itself means restrictions should be retained right now does it?


----------



## Dogsauce (Feb 11, 2022)

prunus said:


> Just because this piece of misinformation seems to be gaining traction: omicron is not intrinsically milder than the ‘original’ strains - it is milder than delta, but is more virulent than the original Wuhan strain of lockdown 1.  The reason we are seeing such apparent mildness in effect is because of the vaccinations.  Without them we would be in a world of pain.


Yep - that’s why roughly 3000 people a day are dying in the US, because of a high level of vaccine/mask avoidance meaning there are big chunks of the population that are basically facing the same threat as early 2020.


----------



## elbows (Feb 12, 2022)

Sadly no surprise to hear about the push to end mass testing sooner rather than later, but oh look they may have even explored the possibility of pushing even harder and deadlier:



> One source said the Treasury had even questioned at one point whether PCR testing was still necessary for the immunosuppressed, who are eligible for antivirals if they test positive, although this was denied by the government.











						UK Treasury pushes to end most free Covid testing despite experts’ warnings
					

Most PCR testing for people with symptoms could be scrapped by end of March in plans to ‘live with virus’




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 12, 2022)

elbows said:


> Sadly no surprise to hear about the push to end mass testing sooner rather than later, but oh look they may have even explored the possibility of pushing even harder and deadlier:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


was it not DT who said "if you don't test it doesn't happen" or some such?


----------



## two sheds (Feb 13, 2022)

UK investigates COVID variant combining Delta, Omicron
					

British health officials are investigating a new coronavirus variant which combines features from the highly-contagious Omicron strain with the more dangerous Delta variant, according to an initial report. An update from the UK Health Security Agency included “Delta x Omicron Recombinant” as a...




					bnonews.com
				






> British health officials are investigating a new coronavirus variant which combines features from the highly-contagious Omicron strain with the more dangerous Delta variant, according to an initial report.
> 
> An update from the UK Health Security Agency included “Delta x Omicron Recombinant” as a signal that’s currently being monitored and investigated. The variant has been detected in the UK, it said.
> 
> Specific details about the variant have not yet been released and it’s unclear how many cases have been detected so far. The recombinant, which is also known as Deltacron, has so far not been designated as a variant of concern.




Ohhh goodie with the restrictions ending. Says not a variant of concern yet.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 13, 2022)

two sheds said:


> UK investigates COVID variant combining Delta, Omicron
> 
> 
> British health officials are investigating a new coronavirus variant which combines features from the highly-contagious Omicron strain with the more dangerous Delta variant, according to an initial report. An update from the UK Health Security Agency included “Delta x Omicron Recombinant” as a...
> ...


I think they're trying to avoid being blamed for causing panic - AIR, the new variants that have turned out to be nasty were initially announced with similar mood music accompanying. It's one to watch...and in some ways would be the perfect storm: a "not too worrying" omicron strain that gets everybody nice and complacent, then WHAM, the worst of omicron and the worst of delta together. It could be messy.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 13, 2022)

two sheds said:


> UK investigates COVID variant combining Delta, Omicron
> 
> 
> British health officials are investigating a new coronavirus variant which combines features from the highly-contagious Omicron strain with the more dangerous Delta variant, according to an initial report. An update from the UK Health Security Agency included “Delta x Omicron Recombinant” as a...
> ...


Oh, that's a * great prospect [ * sarcasm] , just what we need.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 13, 2022)

Who could have predicted that though? Delta and Omicron variants coexisting and .... combining?


----------



## 2hats (Feb 13, 2022)

Small clusters at the moment. Appears to be BA.1 with ORF1ab substituted from delta, a mutation in which is part of what perhaps gave BA.1 something of an advantage in the first place (and even then BA.2 has been eating into that dominance, though intrinsically only has a marginal advantage, if at all).


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Feb 13, 2022)

Crikey, you really can see how easily this feeds into loon circles.

'_Oh really? Another variant? Deltacron? How fucking convenient_' 

All easily dealt with of course by giving proper clear, concise messaging and stop treating us like children with 'freedom day' and other such bollocks.


----------



## elbows (Feb 13, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Who could have predicted that though? Delta and Omicron variants coexisting and .... combining?


Recombination of RNA viruses is a well known phenomenon.

However in the past during this pandemic, when 'evidence of recombination' has been suggested, some experts have been skeptical as to whether the evidence really proves that. Presumably this is down to some combination of the person in questions existing preferences and biases combined with complications in proving that the mutation was actually a result of recombination as opposed to one of the other mechanisms for genetic change.

Just one example of something I could quote from the internet:



> The high mutation rate of RNA viruses makes it problematic to understand and resolve the role of recombination in generating genomic variation. Frequent mutations will (1) increase the likelihood of convergent mutations, particularly in regions subject to strong positive selection, causing sequence similarities that can be mistaken for recombination events, and (2) introduce new changes that accumulate and obscure recognition of past recombination events. We analyzed the patterns of recombination across Betacoronaviruses using a dedicated approach to distinguish true recombination from convergent mutations. The Betacoronaviruses comprise several populations that could be considered distinct biological species in that they do not engage in gene flow with one another. Moreover, recombination events within the Sarbecovirussubgenus, which includes SARS-CoV-2, are highly biased and predominate in the spike protein region, implicating recombination as having a substantial role in host tropism and viral ecology











						Recombination events are concentrated in the spike protein region of Betacoronaviruses
					

Author summary The high mutation rate of RNA viruses makes it problematic to understand and resolve the role of recombination in generating genomic variation. Frequent mutations will (1) increase the likelihood of convergent mutations, particularly in regions subject to strong positive...




					journals.plos.org


----------



## 2hats (Feb 13, 2022)

A handy overview of recombination in RNA viruses and the role it quite likely has been playing (to some greater or lesser degree) in the production of VOCs. Also, how it might potentially be leveraged to ultimately undermine the virus.








						Plenty of Evidence for Recombination in SARS-CoV-2
					

Different variants of the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic are swapping chunks of genetic material, but it’s not yet clear what implications that may have for public health.




					www.the-scientist.com


----------



## Left sider (Feb 14, 2022)

Swann, who has Covid, confirms all remaining restrictions will be lifted: Covid-19: Northern Ireland to remove all remaining restrictions


----------



## elbows (Feb 14, 2022)

He actually tested positive yesterday.


----------



## elbows (Feb 15, 2022)

This weeks ONS death certificate deaths:





__





						Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics
					

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), by age, sex and region.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				






> Of the 1,242 deaths involving COVID-19, 65.8% (817 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death in Week 5 compared with 71.2% in Week 4.



Last Thursdays 'for' & 'with' data for patients positive with Covid in English hospital beds (data actually goes up to 8th Feb):


Made using data from the 'Primary Diagnoses supplement spreadsheet from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## elbows (Feb 15, 2022)

This is what hospital admissions/diagnoses for England by age group look like, data goes up to February 12th and is taken from the downloads section of the UK dashboard.

I'm not posting regional versions of these graphs, but there are some differences by region. For example in the South East and South West regions, there hasnt really been a fall in admissions in the older age groups. But those regions also saw less of a rise in this wave in the first place.

I probably wont post these sorts of graphs much in future, unless there are new stories to tell with them.



edit - Given the regional variation I mentioned I suppose I should post one as an example, but I'm afraid its a bit messy since I'm not smoothing out the data in these graphs.

South East region:


----------



## elbows (Feb 15, 2022)

I suppose I may as well post a couple more graphs. Data is from the daily NHS England spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Regional picture of daily hospital admissions/diagnoses, smoothed using 7 day averages:



NHS England admissions/diagnoses that were listed in the data as involving people admitted from a care home. A subject I doubt the media provided a good understanding of in this wave. Not that I know how complete a picture of care home admissions this data really provides, and there is no way to separate out 'for' and 'with' covid cases in this data:


----------



## zahir (Feb 15, 2022)




----------



## elbows (Feb 15, 2022)

UK authorities like to go on about how independent the likes of the JCVI are, but it sounds like JCVI reports get sat on when there are political rows. But it seems Wales has spilt the beans on this one anyway, ha ha.









						Covid in Wales: All five to 11-year-olds offered jabs
					

Wales becomes the first UK nation to announce it will vaccinate the younger age group.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *All five to 11-year olds in Wales are to be offered Covid vaccinations, the health minister has announced.*
> 
> Eluned Morgan said she was following a "yet to be published" recommendation from the UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
> 
> ...


----------



## two sheds (Feb 15, 2022)

Free testing to be scrapped next week? (according to LBC). I've not actually used an LFT so I just ordered a set in case I need them in future.


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Feb 16, 2022)

two sheds said:


> I've not actually used an LFT


What, ever? Do you live on the moon?


----------



## two sheds (Feb 16, 2022)

Pretty well  I just don't have contact with people - retired, live in the country, don't have a car and get deliveries, asthma so vulnerable. I've done a couple of PCR tests but they were negative.


----------



## elbows (Feb 16, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Free testing to be scrapped next week? (according to LBC). I've not actually used an LFT so I just ordered a set in case I need them in future.


The tweet a few posts back implied that the end of free testing doesnt happen just yet, more like the end of March, but guidance recommending regular asymptomatic testing will be scrapped imminently. I dont know if the leaked plans are accurate.

Meanwhile Scotland has taken much the same stance as Wales in regards jabbing 5-11 year olds, and the BBC article about it also says:



> Speaking on the BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland, Mr Swinney said curbs had been "relaxed very significantly" in recent weeks - but warned that the virus was still a danger.
> 
> He said: "Fundamentally the government has got to have in place a legal framework that allows us to act.
> 
> ...











						Covid in Scotland: Vaccine offered to children aged five to 11
					

The Scottish government made the move based on draft advice on vaccinating children from the JCVI.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Feb 18, 2022)

Almost zero mask-wearing today in Aldi.
They clearly think it's all over ....


----------



## souljacker (Feb 18, 2022)

Got to admit that I'm wearing one less and less. My local shop has removed it's Perspex screens too.


----------



## Mation (Feb 19, 2022)

souljacker said:


> Got to admit that I'm wearing one less and less.


How come?


----------



## souljacker (Feb 19, 2022)

Mation said:


> How come?


Less COVID around and what is around is giving people a few days of essentially a nasty cold.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 19, 2022)

souljacker said:


> Less COVID around and what is around is giving people a few days of essentially a nasty cold.


TBF, that's not what I'm seeing. Quite a few people I know who've contracted Covid lately have been feeling a LOT worse than a "nasty cold" would suggest.

Fortunately, here in Wales, mask-wearing is still pretty much the norm in shops, etc. I won't be getting rid of mine any time soon.


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## LDC (Feb 19, 2022)

Mation said:


> How come?



I work in a large hospital and we currently have 0 patients with Covid in ICU, and it's been that way for a few weeks (we get weekly email updates). Loads of people I know have had Covid the last few weeks and they've all had very mild cold like symptoms. 

I've been pretty strict the last 2 years, but the last few weeks my mask wearing has gone from everywhere indoors (unless eating/drinking) including transport, to in shops nearly all the time, but being generally much less strict and more relaxed about it. It's partly a reflection that what I see about me which is that everything seems pretty normal, and mask wearing is in single digit percentages here I'd guess.


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## gentlegreen (Feb 19, 2022)

souljacker said:


> Less COVID around and what is around is giving people a few days of essentially a nasty cold.


Is that the way you plan to get your boosters from now on ?
I'll let you be the beta tester ...


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## LDC (Feb 19, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Is that the way you plan to get your boosters from now on ?
> I'll let you be the beta tester ...



It might not be the plan, but it is the reality as avoiding catching Covid for ever is not realistic in the long run.


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## Steel Icarus (Feb 19, 2022)

I figure it's less hardship for me to wear a mask than unwittingly pass Covid on to someone for whom it isn't mild.


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## Mation (Feb 19, 2022)

souljacker said:


> Less COVID around and what is around is giving people a few days of essentially a nasty cold.


That's something I have trouble getting my head around. To me, I see a new disease, which means that I don't know what it will do. Even though the currently predominant strain seems to be affecting many (vaccinated) people less severely than the original, I don't feel confident that I know what the longer term effects might be. Long covid exists, and it scares me. It's vascular, and that scares me.



LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I work in a large hospital and we currently have 0 patients with Covid in ICU, and it's been that way for a few weeks (we get weekly email updates). Loads of people I know have had Covid the last few weeks and they've all had very mild cold like symptoms.
> 
> I've been pretty strict the last 2 years, but the last few weeks my mask wearing has gone from everywhere indoors (unless eating/drinking) including transport, to in shops nearly all the time, but being generally much less strict and more relaxed about it. It's partly a reflection that what I see about me which is that everything seems pretty normal, and mask wearing is in single digit percentages here I'd guess.


So is that 'things look normal, so I feel safe' or 'most people are doing x and I don't want to stand out' or something else?

Not trying to have a go. I just don't get it, and am often in conflict at work because I don't.


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## gentlegreen (Feb 19, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> It might not be the plan, but it is the reality as avoiding catching Covid for ever is not realistic in the long run.


It probably makes a big difference that I retired, so the sum total of effort required is to wear a mask in the shops once a week ... my sister's 4 generational experiment at xmas was far too much - I suspect she and my mother consider me a hypochondriac - but I've made it to my 60s with no significant health issues and I hope to keep it that way ...


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## Sasaferrato (Feb 19, 2022)

I've just had a scam Covid passport E-mail, purporting to be from the NHS.


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## mystic pyjamas (Feb 19, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> It probably makes a big difference that I retired, so the sum total of effort required is to wear a mask in the shops once a week ... my sister's 4 generational experiment at xmas was far too much - I suspect she and my mother consider me a hypochondriac - but I've made it to my 60s with no significant health issues and I hope to keep it that way ...


I'm sure  I've read posts from you before about your various medical aliments, no?
Perhaps they weren't as serious as I understood them to be.


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## gentlegreen (Feb 19, 2022)

mystic pyjamas said:


> I'm sure  I've read posts from you before about your various medical aliments, no?
> Perhaps they weren't as serious as I understood them to be.


The only significant medical issue is a slightly elevated uric acid .
Most of my problems have been caused by visiting doctors ...


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## souljacker (Feb 19, 2022)

Mation said:


> That's something I have trouble getting my head around. To me, I see a new disease, which means that I don't know what it will do. Even though the currently predominant strain seems to be affecting many (vaccinated) people less severely than the original, I don't feel confident that I know what the longer term effects might be. Long covid exists, and it scares me. It's vascular, and that scares me.



Don't get me wrong, first sign of a new strain causing problems again and the mask will be straight back on wherever I go. But currently it feels more likely I'll get hit by a flying tree branch than get killed by COVID.


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## Doctor Carrot (Feb 19, 2022)

I've certainly stopped wearing a mask at work now. None of my colleagues do and it's dropped a lot among customers. The door is always open though so the place is very well ventilated. I think that's what has prevented any of us from catching it, at work at least because a couple of colleagues have caught it elsewhere on nights out or from their kids.

I'll still wear a mask if the supermarket is busy or on public transport but that's it. I don't think the pandemic is over and as soon as another strain comes along the mask will be back but I do think we're in a new phase now. Even my local Sainsburies have removed the dividing perspex screens from the self service tills.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 19, 2022)

Just as an aside is there any verdict/evidence on the effectiveness or otherwise of the screens?


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## LDC (Feb 19, 2022)

Mation said:


> That's something I have trouble getting my head around. To me, I see a new disease, which means that I don't know what it will do. Even though the currently predominant strain seems to be affecting many (vaccinated) people less severely than the original, I don't feel confident that I know what the longer term effects might be. Long covid exists, and it scares me. It's vascular, and that scares me.
> 
> So is that 'things look normal, so I feel safe' or 'most people are doing x and I don't want to stand out' or something else?
> 
> Not trying to have a go. I just don't get it, and am often in conflict at work because I don't.



It's just the reality that the overwhelming number of people who get Covid and are fully vaccinated are fine so _are _safe, and most of society is steadily going back to normal. I also wear one for 13 hours a day at work (which wasn't before) which probably makes me less happy to wear one outside that as well now if I'm honest.

It is (has been made) a personal choice, and as you say you're scared, whereas at points early on I was very concerned but I am much less so now and that's reflected in how I behave. And as for the passing it on/mask wearing thing, yes for sure, but what I see about now is vastly different to a year ago, in that people aren't generally seemingly that bothered any more. As I said I do generally wear one, but if I forget it I'll go into a shop, and have done the same on train journeys now as well. (For example I was on a packed bus a few weeks ago, people crammed in and talking and shouting etc. and I was pretty much the only person in a mask, so thing like that do make you less likely or bothered to wear one sometimes.)

We're all complicated beings, and we don't always make logical choices and decisions, and what we see as sensible and rational might just seem bonkers to others. I also do admit that there's an element of fatigue to it all now, and that seems to be the same among friends, even those that have been very worried in the past. Nearly everyone I know is 'back to normal' with most of their life now - mask wearing sometimes excepted.


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## two sheds (Feb 19, 2022)

Can't really argue.

I'm avoiding people until we see how it progresses and the effect on NHS. Friends are visiting next week and I'm not sure how to phrase that I'm up for a walk but not to meet inside. They've been really conscientious with masks and things throughout but if you're vulnerable and nobody has to isolate any more then you have to assume that everyone's (potentially) got it.


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## LDC (Feb 19, 2022)

I do think for some people they've either got a bit stuck in a rut with some of the behaviors over the last 2 years and are struggling to change (totally understandably) or that in some way it enables them to avoid some kinds of social contacts that they found difficult anyway. I have concerns that a few people won't be able (or willing) to go back to how things were before due to fear, anxiety, etc.


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## gentlegreen (Feb 19, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I do think for some people they've either got a bit stuck in a rut with some of the behaviors over the last 2 years and are struggling to change (totally understandably) or that in some way it enables them to avoid some kinds of social contacts that they found difficult anyway. I have concerns that a few people won't be able (or willing) to go back to how things were before due to fear, anxiety, etc.


That would include me.
I had got rather blasé about viral infections, but was off work for over a month in 2018 and 2019.
I hope the flu vaccines will get better...


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## andysays (Feb 19, 2022)

souljacker said:


> Less COVID around and what is around is giving people *a few days of essentially a nasty cold*.


Just in case anyone takes this seriously, I've just finished my fifth week off work off work with Covid and (although I'm able to function OK) I'm still not fit enough to go back to work yet.

Even without considering Long Covid (which I'm not qualified to talk about) many many people are finding that getting over Covid takes *a lot* longer than getting over a cold or even a typical case of flu.

Some people may experience Covid as "a few days of essentially a nasty cold", but many (even those who eventually make a full recovery) do not, and it's a bit silly to assume that this is all it is.


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## pbsmooth (Feb 19, 2022)

Five weeks! wow. Have you got underlying health issues or are you considered vulnerable? Are you bed ridden for all this time?


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 19, 2022)

I’m still wearing a mask on public transport, work, smaller enclosed/inside public spaces etc. but I will admit to enjoying a bit of a period where I perceive myself as  having some immunity. So for example it was good going to the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday, which was rammed with families, and not feeling on edge and that I had to keep my mask on the entire time (as it’s hard to talk to the kids in noisy places with it on).

If I’m taking it off at all, it is primarily about communicating with children.

Edit: I’ll have to watch for that mindset lasting too long/becoming complacency


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## souljacker (Feb 19, 2022)

andysays said:


> Just in case anyone takes this seriously, I've just finished my fifth week off work off work with Covid and (although I'm able to function OK) I'm still not fit enough to go back to work yet.
> 
> Even without considering Long Covid (which I'm not qualified to talk about) many many people are finding that getting over Covid takes *a lot* longer than getting over a cold or even a typical case of flu.
> 
> Some people may experience Covid as "a few days of essentially a nasty cold", but many (even those who eventually make a full recovery) do not, and it's a bit silly to assume that this is all it is.


I know and I'm not in any way ignorant of others experiences. But I know loads of people who caught it in the latest wave and have had no problem at all with it. One chap I know is severely immuno-compromised with Rheumatoid Arthritis and he was barely ill at all when he got it recently. He'd done the best part of 2 years in total isolation but is now getting on with life, going out to the pub and is currently skiing in France. If he is prepared to start living his life again, then I definitely can.


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## andysays (Feb 19, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> Five weeks! wow. Have you got underlying health issues or are you considered vulnerable? Are you bed ridden for all this time?


I don't have underlying health issues and I'm fully vaccinated.

I haven't been bed ridden at all, and I haven't had, eg, problems breathing. Most days since my isolation period is over I'm going for a walk, for example

I don't consider I've been "seriously ill", it's just that it's taking ages to get fully better - I have a few days of feeling more or less OK, and then back to feeling achey and tired.

And from speaking to a doctor and reading stuff online this is not unusual or particularly concerning (although it is becoming a bit frustrating). It's an established medical fact that it can take a long time to fully recover from viral infection.

There's some useful information here for anyone else experiencing similar
Supporting your recovery after COVID-19​


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## Puddy_Tat (Feb 19, 2022)

souljacker said:


> If he is prepared to start living his life again, then I definitely can.



I don't want to personalise this, but surely wearing a mask in crowded places isn't completely incompatible with 'living your life'?

i really don't understand why the whole covid thing has got so all or nothing...


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## Agent Sparrow (Feb 19, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> I don't want to personalise this, but surely wearing a mask in crowded places isn't completely incompatible with 'living your life'?
> 
> i really don't understand why the whole covid thing has got so all or nothing...


This is what I feel. For the vast majority of people surely mask wearing is just a slight inconvenience? And I honestly sometimes forget I’m wearing one of the hospital ones at work.

Of course for some expense is a factor


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## souljacker (Feb 19, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> I don't want to personalise this, but surely wearing a mask in crowded places isn't completely incompatible with 'living your life'?
> 
> i really don't understand why the whole covid thing has got so all or nothing...


We'll be wearing them for ever based on that. There has to be a point where we stop surely?


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## Puddy_Tat (Feb 19, 2022)

souljacker said:


> We'll be wearing them for ever based on that. There has to be a point where we stop surely?



dunno really - seems to have been a thing in some parts of the world for some time before covid

and maybe there is a time to stop, but when the covid map is still dark purple in large chunks, now doesn't seem to be it.

from where i'm sitting, there's a difference between 'living with covid' and 'pretend covid doesn't exist any more' which the government seems to be pushing...


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## existentialist (Feb 19, 2022)

souljacker said:


> We'll be wearing them for ever based on that. There has to be a point where we stop surely?


The thing is, stopping wearing masks won't make it go away.  Personally - and your mileage may well vary - I'd rather be wearing masks for a while after the risk is minimal than stop wearing them early, and catch the fucking thing.


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 19, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> and maybe there is a time to stop, but when the covid map is still dark purple in large chunks, now doesn't seem to be it.



There is very little dark purple left on the map in England & Wales, just those dirty fuckers in West Sussex. 



Personally I am still wearing a mask in shops, but if things continue to go well, I'll reconsider come spring.


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 19, 2022)

And, yes, I am in West Sussex.  /  /  /


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## Puddy_Tat (Feb 19, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> There is very little dark purple left on the map in England & Wales, just those dirty fuckers in West Sussex.



There are other chunks if you zoom in, just none quite so big

and that of course is with testing numbers being well down because people have swallowed the line that it's all over



cupid_stunt said:


> And, yes, I am in West Sussex.



😷


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## souljacker (Feb 19, 2022)

Ironically, based on my previous posts, my area, if you zoom right in, is dark purple and the area I'm moving to next week is black!

Maybe I'll stick with the masks for a bit longer.


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## StoneRoad (Feb 19, 2022)

existentialist said:


> The thing is, stopping wearing masks won't make it go away.  Personally - and your mileage may well vary - I'd rather be wearing masks for a while after the risk is minimal than stop wearing them early, and catch the fucking thing.


This is my plan.
I will re-assess in the spring, if the case rate continues to diminish (& not as an artifice of less testing)
Especially since the gov't "Living with Covid" is prompting a lot of "Ignoring it, hoping it will go away" ...


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## cupid_stunt (Feb 19, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> There are other chunks if you zoom in, just none quite so big



Still very little at borough/district council levels, and it's pointless zooming in further to council ward areas, when the sample numbers are so small, and the very next road to you could be showing totally different numbers.





> and that of course is with testing numbers being well down because people have swallowed the line that it's all over



Testing levels always drop after each peak, the testing levels are still very high, far higher than most countries, we've carried out much more testing than most European countries, at almost 7 tests per head, compared to 3.7 in France, 3 in Italy, and only 2.7 in Belgium.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 19, 2022)

I'm planning on keeping mine for now, and also to use it for work in the future, I used to catch at least a couple of respiratory virus in the spring and the autumn every year, the joy of working in small unventilated venues.


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## weepiper (Feb 19, 2022)

The council ward immediately surrounding the shop where I work presently has a 7 day rate of 1,605 per 100,000 people so I'm in no hurry to stop wearing a mask.


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## Sasaferrato (Feb 19, 2022)

weepiper said:


> The council ward immediately surrounding the shop where I work presently has a 7 day rate of 1,605 per 100,000 people so I'm in no hurry to stop wearing a mask.



892 in West Lothian, been around that for a while.


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## Steel Icarus (Feb 19, 2022)

When did 45k cases a day and almost 1000 deaths in the last week become ignorable? Guess everyone has their number


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## Doctor Carrot (Feb 19, 2022)

S☼I said:


> When did 45k cases a day and almost 1000 deaths in the last week become ignorable? Guess everyone has their number


How many cases of flu are there a day? Obviously we can't tell as it's not tested for. I'm in no way comparing flu to covid but I do wonder at what number of covid cases a day we are supposed to stop wearing masks. 

From my understanding covid is incredibly contagious, it is here to stay, it reinfects repeatedly and mutates quickly. It looks like there will be this level of cases every winter. Does this mean wearing masks everywhere in crowded spaces for as long as covid is circulating? I don't think that's sellable, particularly when the overwhelming majority are fully vaxed, happy to be vaxed further and those that do get it mostly don't suffer too badly and for not much longer than a week or so. 

I don't think it's about people having a number I just think it's a combination of fatigue, feeling confident that you won't get too ill if you get it and wearily accepting that it's not going away.


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## Dogsauce (Feb 19, 2022)

andysays said:


> Just in case anyone takes this seriously, I've just finished my fifth week off work off work with Covid and (although I'm able to function OK) I'm still not fit enough to go back to work yet.
> 
> Even without considering Long Covid (which I'm not qualified to talk about) many many people are finding that getting over Covid takes *a lot* longer than getting over a cold or even a typical case of flu.
> 
> Some people may experience Covid as "a few days of essentially a nasty cold", but many (even those who eventually make a full recovery) do not, and it's a bit silly to assume that this is all it is.


That’s my experience too, took weeks and weeks to get over, the fatigue and brain fog. I had it in October and still probably not quite right. The gf was worse with it. Neither of us was seriously ill with it, couple of days in bed, lots of aches but not much respiratory stuff. Other people at my work suffered for months. When I had something else a couple of weeks back the post-viral bit felt similar too. It’s not trivial.


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## elbows (Feb 19, 2022)

Post-pandemic I wouldnt be averse to wearing a mask if it saved lives and made clinically vulnerable people feel slightly less vulnerable and less afraid to go to the shops or use public transport. Same goes for any period where large epidemic waves of covid occurred outside the traditional season.

I dont claim to be in a majority with that view, but I find notions of the 'overwhelming majority' quite underwhelming at moments like this.

I'm not expecting a huge amount of non-pharmaceutical measures to be deployed in a heavy way when covid isnt causing ig problems on the hospitalisation and death front. Pharmaceutical measures are being asked to take the strain instead, I get that. I'd still rather take a slower, precautionary approach that has more concern for the vulnerable in society, but I am aware that although this pandemic has raised awareness of deaths on that front, a sense of fatigue and wanting it to all be over and to forget all about such things may win out in many minds. Its a shame the media etc doesnt really bother with conversations about that though, their framing is usually a long way away from having a sensible conversation about being considerate to others. There are still occasional articles from certain publications that feature the thoughts of people who are still vulnerable, but such angles dont exactly rise to the top of the news agenda or form a large part of the mood music at times like these.

Perceptions of death and risk are complicated and often vague and quite strongly tied to overall mood music. Very seldom will anyone come out with an 'acceptable number', that sort of discussion goes nowhere or just to vague comparisons with flu death numbers. People certainly knew an unacceptably high and scary number of deaths per day when they saw them in the first few waves, especially when the number was increasing every day, before a peak was reached. The height those figures reached in this country in those first two waves has consequences for perceptions now, with figures that seem small compared to those ugly heights. And people like me who looked at overall deaths could comment in the first wave that at the peak twice as many people were dying as normal, and there are no such claims to be made in the recent waves.

But there are other ways that death risks thoughts form. Such as someone you know dying of covid. And the media putting names and faces to a small fraction of the deceased. There isnt much of that from the media this time, the deaths this winter have largely been faceless as far as I can tell.

I could take for example the following article. I have no objection at all to articles like this one pointing out the pharmaceutical tools that are now available to fight this virus. And unlike the sort of shit that Nick Triggle comes out with, the tone isnt terrible, certain things are acknowledged properly, eg:



> There are still more than 12,000 Covid patients in hospitals across the UK. And there could still be new and concerning variants which cause further waves of infection. If this pandemic has taught us one thing it is to avoid making rash predictions. Coronavirus will flare up again and continue to pose a threat, especially to the unvaccinated and those who have serious underlying health conditions.
> 
> Even though the Covid hospital admissions have fallen sharply, there is the growing problem of long Covid. Last month a record 1 in 50 people in the UK said they were living with lingering symptoms of Covid.











						Covid: How new drugs are finally taming the virus
					

As Covid treatments are changing, fewer patients are becoming seriously ill or dying.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




However even in an article like that one, those who have not and will not been saved by the available pharmaceuticals are not really brought into sharp focus. They are implied to exist, but the emphasis is on those who will be saved and on society not having to put much other effort in any more.


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## IC3D (Feb 20, 2022)

I've never heard anyone in the NHS asking for people to wear a mask and get vaccinated to protect them. I hear a lot of stuff about better pay and investment though. Just a thought.


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## elbows (Feb 20, 2022)

IC3D said:


> I've never heard anyone in the NHS asking for people to wear a mask and get vaccinated to protect them. I hear a lot of stuff about better pay and investment though. Just a thought.



Some would like all of those things, and for people to wear a mask and get vaccinated to help protect other vulnerable people and patients, to reduce the burden on NHS services etc if not themselves. And its not an either/or issue, just because you jumped the shark over vaccines quite a long time ago doesnt make your excessive polarisation of these issues valid. Funding matters, pay matters, health matters.


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## elbows (Feb 20, 2022)

And NHS workers are not a blob with shared opinions on everything. There is a wide array of thoughts, and plenty of divergence of opinion about the current situation and what it is still reasonable to ask people to do now. I know NHS workers who find the sort of thing you come out with about vaccines to be abhorrent or at least unwise and ignorant, but I also know at least one NHS worker who thinks my pandemic posts on this forum are a disgrace.


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## two sheds (Feb 20, 2022)

IC3D said:


> I've never heard anyone in the NHS asking for people to wear a mask and get vaccinated to protect them. I hear a lot of stuff about better pay and investment though. Just a thought.


Nobody in the NHS has ever asked me to wear a mask or get vaccinated to protect them because .... errrrm ... I wear a mask when I should and have been vaccinated. And yes they should get better pay and there should be more investment in the NHS.

What's your point with this?


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## elbows (Feb 20, 2022)

And it was only a few days ago I saw this in my local paper:



> Nuneaton's hospital has issued a mask plea as staff are repeatedly facing backlash from rule-breaking patients.
> 
> While mandatory mask-wearing is no longer in force, the George Eliot Hospital continues to ask people to wear face coverings when on site.
> 
> But there are numbers who aren't and it has prompted the 'Eliot's chief Nurse, Daljit Athwal to issue an urgent appeal to the community.





> In it she explains that staff are facing 'difficult conversations and challenges' when being forced to ask people to wear a mask.
> 
> This is a situation, she says, they should not be put in as the hospital is simply trying to keep people safe.
> 
> ...





> "Our staff are dedicated to keeping our patients and colleagues safe and often face difficult conversations and challenges while putting our rules into practice.
> 
> "We care for some of the most vulnerable people in our community and I ask that local people support us as we try to offer the best care we can to them."
> 
> She concluded: "Rules on face coverings may have been relaxed in wider society, but for the moment our message is ‘Inside the hospital there is no change – please wear a mask."











						Hospital's mask plea to rule-breaking patients as staff face backlash
					

Some are not adhering to the plea to wear face coverings




					www.coventrytelegraph.net


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## two sheds (Feb 20, 2022)

People not wanting to wear a mask in a hospital?  ffs


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## elbows (Feb 20, 2022)

two sheds said:


> People not wanting to wear a mask in a hospital?  ffs



A tragic and inevitable consequence of those who have always been fuckwits about masks combining with the 'its all over' mood music and mask rule removal in wider society. Something as straightforward as masks brings out the worst and best in people, and is mostly a manifestation of damaged attitudes from long before the pandemic. Attitudes towards being asked to follow rules are a bit messy, sometimes because people have been damaged by arbitrary rules and authorities and people with power over them earlier earlier in life. This is just one of the factors that likely contributes to what we have seen with deprivation and risk of death from this virus. An unpleasant cycle of those who have been fucked over and damaged going on to further damage and disadvantage themselves and others. The privileged have their own version of this too, but the consequences for themselves and their communities are often rather cushioned by numerous advantages, rigged games and reduced stakes.


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## Puddy_Tat (Feb 20, 2022)

two sheds said:


> People not wanting to wear a mask in a hospital?  ffs


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## l'Otters (Feb 20, 2022)

When people talk about how we didn’t wear masks for flu as a justification for dropping them for covid. Does it cross your mind that maybe we should wear masks to prevent the spread of flu? 

Some people like to compare the death figures for covid to previous years’ death figures for flu as some kind of gotcha because people have taken notice of covid and apparently didn’t care about flu deaths.  Non pharmaceutical measures for covid have wiped out some strains of flu altogether, these measures have worked on flu as well.

Why is wearing a mask in an enclosed or crowded public space such a difficult thing to accept? Harder to accept than 1000 preventable deaths a week, two years in?


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## l'Otters (Feb 20, 2022)

Double post


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## existentialist (Feb 20, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> When people talk about how we didn’t wear masks for flu as a justification for dropping them for covid. Does it cross your mind that maybe we should wear masks to prevent the spread of flu?
> 
> Some people like to compare the death figures for covid to previous years’ death figures for flu as some kind of gotcha because people have taken notice of covid and apparently didn’t care about flu deaths.  Non pharmaceutical measures for covid have wiped out some strains of flu altogether, these measures have worked on flu as well.
> 
> Why is wearing a mask in an enclosed or crowded public space such a difficult thing to accept? Harder to accept than 1000 preventable deaths a week, two years in?


Oh, I'm definitely going to take something away from this Covid thing, and yes - if there's a lot of 'flu going around, I'll be masking up, no doubt about it. I'd like to think that Covid might have ushered in some of the same social changes that we see in the Far East around infection control and masks, perhaps to a slightly less, culturally mediated, degree. It's no great hardship for most of us, whatever the noisy minority might have to say about it.


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## elbows (Feb 20, 2022)

By the way I'm torn between several threads when it comes to ranting about some of the incoming changes at the moment, and I'm trying to put quite a bit of it in the 'Living with Covid plan' thread rather than this one. I've just been moaning there about Johnsons latest choice of words and the idea that they arent even going to keep the ONS infection survey (the thing that tells us 'one in x people were estimated to have Covid in England in the week ending xx'. Sounds like they are going nearly all the way back to the old orthodox approach that I spent so much time in this pandemic criticising and blaming for initial failures. The UK doesnt believe people have a right to mass diagnostics testing, and they dont like some of the consequences of such testing, and such attitudes and priorities really limit the extent to which we can benefit long-term from lessons learnt in this pandemic.


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## Steel Icarus (Feb 20, 2022)

The Queen has got Covid. "Will continue to undertake light duties". I thought all she did was shake hands and ask people what they do.


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## klang (Feb 20, 2022)

if I managed to avoid thus far, how did the Queen catch it? would have thought her social network was a lot smaller than mine...


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## elbows (Feb 20, 2022)

If it killed her then it would be very awkward timing for their agenda, but I suppose more likely she will be fine and then they will use her recovery to encourage old and vulnerable people to get up close and personal with strangers in nightclubs.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 20, 2022)

S☼I said:


> The Queen has got Covid. "Will continue to undertake light duties". I thought all she did was shake hands and ask people what they do.



Until she tests negative for two consecutive days she's refusing to bail out any of her children.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 20, 2022)

elbows said:


> By the way I'm torn between several threads when it comes to ranting about some of the incoming changes at the moment, and I'm trying to put quite a bit of it in the 'Living with Covid plan' thread rather than this one. I've just been moaning there about Johnsons latest choice of words and the idea that they arent even going to keep the ONS infection survey (the thing that tells us 'one in x people were estimated to have Covid in England in the week ending xx'. Sounds like they are going nearly all the way back to the old orthodox approach that I spent so much time in this pandemic criticising and blaming for initial failures. The UK doesnt believe people have a right to mass diagnostics testing, and they dont like some of the consequences of such testing, and such attitudes and priorities really limit the extent to which we can benefit long-term from lessons learnt in this pandemic.


Yes I was thinking of suggesting something like a 'Living with Covid' for people who are vulnerable before I realized there was already a 'Living with Covid' thread. Good if this sort of information goes there I think. 

Rather than not publishing infection/hospital/death figures I'd prefer to see figures from all causes then we could make up our own minds about the relative risks.


----------



## StoneRoad (Feb 20, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


>


That's in the main hospital for my area.

it walked over 25m down that mezzanine level to reach that point - unmasked & accompanied by the dir of nursing. 
an aide handed a mask over shortly after this image was taken, which was - belatedly - worn.


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## klang (Feb 20, 2022)

elbows said:


> she will be fine and then they will use her recovery to encourage old and vulnerable people to get up close and personal with strangers in nightclubs.


is that where she caught it?


----------



## weepiper (Feb 20, 2022)

klang said:


> if I managed to avoid thus far, how did the Queen catch it? would have thought her social network was a lot smaller than mine...


She's supposed to have got it from Charles who tested positive after a charity event last week.


----------



## elbows (Feb 20, 2022)

klang said:


> if I managed to avoid thus far, how did the Queen catch it? would have thought her social network was a lot smaller than mine...


Even if it wasnt her son who gave it to her, she has rather a large staff. In the first wave they put the staff in a bubble to protect her, offering her the sort of 'protective ring of steel' that was not given to care home residents.

This time around articles such as the BBC one about her testing positive include not just references to Charles, but also stuff like:



> It is understood a number of people have tested positive at Windsor Castle, where the Queen resides.





> The following day, she smiled as she suggested she had mobility problems during a meeting with defence staff. Standing while using a walking stick, she pointed to her left leg and said: "Well, as you can see, I can't move."











						The Queen tests positive for Covid
					

She has mild symptoms and expects to continue "light duties" at Windsor, Buckingham Palace says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




And that one wasnt a virtual meeting, as can be seen in some video footage:









						Queen Elizabeth quips she 'can't move' too much
					

Britain's Queen Elizabeth on Wednesday quipped to members of the royal household that she could not move much as she carried out her first in-person engagement since her son Prince Charles tested positive for COVID-19.




					www.reuters.com


----------



## klang (Feb 20, 2022)

elbows said:


> In the first wave they put the staff in a bubble to protect her,


surprised they are not still doing that.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 20, 2022)

The Interactive map/cases data site is asking for comments on their site today:



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases


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## elbows (Feb 20, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Yes I was thinking of suggesting something like a 'Living with Covid' for people who are vulnerable before I realized there was already a 'Living with Covid' thread. Good if this sort of information goes there I think.
> 
> Rather than not publishing infection/hospital/death figures I'd prefer to see figures from all causes then we could make up our own minds about the relative risks.


Traditionally in non-pandemic times what I'm used to having publicly available to us is monthly, quarterly and yearly mortality data from the ONS, and during 'flu season' there has long been a weekly surveillance report which was expanded to include Covid in recent years, and kept going all year round during the pandemic so far. I wasnt familiar with what, if any, hospital data was available pre-pandemic. I now know where to look if such health data indicators do continue, but I'll have low expectations about whether they continue to be available on a weekly basis throughout the entire year.


----------



## two sheds (Feb 20, 2022)

elbows said:


> Traditionally in non-pandemic times what I'm used to having publicly available to us is monthly, quarterly and yearly mortality data from the ONS, and during 'flu season' there has long been a weekly surveillance report which was expanded to include Covid in recent years, and kept going all year round during the pandemic so far. I wasnt familiar with what, if any, hospital data was available pre-pandemic. I now know where to look if such health data indicators do continue, but I'll have low expectations about whether they continue to be available on a weekly basis throughout the entire year.


that survey in the post above is interesting - I'm sure it would be worthwhile you taking a look. They're e.g. asking for how you use the site/improvements.


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## elbows (Feb 20, 2022)

The survey has been active for a while but Im afraid I'm not bothering because all the signs are that the government will pull a large quantity of the underlying data streams regardless.


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## two sheds (Feb 20, 2022)

yep I did ask in one of their boxes how they would be carrying on if the testing dwindles.


----------



## 2hats (Feb 20, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> When people talk about how we didn’t wear masks for flu as a justification for dropping them for covid. Does it cross your mind that maybe we should wear masks to prevent the spread of flu?
> 
> Some people like to compare the death figures for covid to previous years’ death figures for flu as some kind of gotcha because people have taken notice of covid and apparently didn’t care about flu deaths.  Non pharmaceutical measures for covid have wiped out some strains of flu altogether, these measures have worked on flu as well.
> 
> Why is wearing a mask in an enclosed or crowded public space such a difficult thing to accept? Harder to accept than 1000 preventable deaths a week, two years in?


Listening to a senior NIH virologist (flu specialist) the other week who said that one of the personal changes he will make going forward is to wear a N95 mask when they anticipate being in crowded enclosed spaces during the winter respiratory virus season, even avoiding packed indoor bars during that period. They made the point that, additional deaths aside, the consequences of influenza infections are estimated to cost the US economy between $10-50B each year just from folks staying home and that, due to masking and distancing, we've just seen next to no flu for a year and have either seen the extinction of, or come close to the extinction of, an entire lineage of influenza virus (B/Yamagata).


----------



## elbows (Feb 20, 2022)

Yeah Im still very interested in that sort of thing but frankly some of the posts here in the last 2 or 3 months have caused me to downgrade my hopes for the future in that regard.


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Feb 20, 2022)

S☼I said:


> The Queen has got Covid. "Will continue to undertake light duties". I thought all she did was shake hands and ask people what they do.


I hope she doesn’t die before that extra bank holiday, we’ve factored it in plus the extra day off school to various plans.


----------



## klang (Feb 20, 2022)

Agent Sparrow said:


> I hope she doesn’t die before that extra bank holiday, we’ve factored it in plus the extra day off school to various plans.


tbh it's a win-win.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Feb 20, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> When people talk about how we didn’t wear masks for flu as a justification for dropping them for covid. Does it cross your mind that maybe we should wear masks to prevent the spread of flu?
> 
> Some people like to compare the death figures for covid to previous years’ death figures for flu as some kind of gotcha because people have taken notice of covid and apparently didn’t care about flu deaths.  Non pharmaceutical measures for covid have wiped out some strains of flu altogether, these measures have worked on flu as well.
> 
> Why is wearing a mask in an enclosed or crowded public space such a difficult thing to accept? Harder to accept than 1000 preventable deaths a week, two years in?



Autumn before covid someone rocked up to the office with a clear cold and you could watch it filter through and hit people over the course of the week.

Absolute fucking insanity people say it’s just a cold, don’t know about you but as I get older colds are more and more horrific to deal with. They make my sinuses hurt like bastards


----------



## existentialist (Feb 20, 2022)

Artaxerxes said:


> Autumn before covid someone rocked up to the office with a clear cold and you could watch it filter through and hit people over the course of the week.
> 
> Absolute fucking insanity people say it’s just a cold, don’t know about you but as I get older colds are more and more horrific to deal with. They make my sinuses hurt like bastards


Even a comparatively "mild" cold can be horrible and debilitating. We may have been used to just putting up with it up until now, but - from a logical point of view at least - the idea of mildly inconveniencing ourselves by wearing a mask, or taking other moderate measures, to avoid spreading it seems perfectly sensible. I can see how lockdowns and isolation would be disproportionate for a typical cold, and perhaps even for the less virulent 'flu strains, but if it's just about sticking a mask on or WFH for a few days, rather than that awful presenteeism and Lemsip-advert "treat the symptoms and carry on regardless" mindset, I'm all for it.

And not just to protect ourselves as individuals, but to protect those we come into contact with...although I realise that's a pretty unfashionable view, at least as far as our political lords and masters are concerned.


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## Puddy_Tat (Feb 20, 2022)

existentialist said:


> although I realise that's a pretty unfashionable view, at least as far as our political lords and masters are concerned.



and employers who regard being off sick as a serious disciplinary offence...


----------



## pbsmooth (Feb 20, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> When people talk about how we didn’t wear masks for flu as a justification for dropping them for covid. Does it cross your mind that maybe we should wear masks to prevent the spread of flu?
> 
> Some people like to compare the death figures for covid to previous years’ death figures for flu as some kind of gotcha because people have taken notice of covid and apparently didn’t care about flu deaths.  Non pharmaceutical measures for covid have wiped out some strains of flu altogether, these measures have worked on flu as well.
> 
> Why is wearing a mask in an enclosed or crowded public space such a difficult thing to accept? Harder to accept than 1000 preventable deaths a week, two years in?



In a similar vein, the idea that just wearing masks instantly prevents all these deaths is also an oversimplification. Reduces the spread but doesn't stop it. So "1000 preventable deaths" is emotive and untrue.


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## existentialist (Feb 20, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> In a similar vein, the idea that just wearing masks instantly prevents all these deaths is also an oversimplification. Reduces the spread but doesn't stop it. So "1000 preventable deaths" is emotive and untrue.


Now we're getting into semantics. I'm sure you wouldn't dispute that mask-wearing at least reduces the _risks _of infection?


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## pbsmooth (Feb 20, 2022)

of course. but they're not 100% -  i.e. 1000s of prevantable deaths due to simply people not wearing masks isn't true. 

I think the idea that always wearing a mask in busy places is 'no big deal' isn't true. constantly wearing them in clubs, concerts, restuarants, busy streets, parks etc., where does it stop? just not realistic. and ship has sailed now anyway, thousands of people attending events already. the key is vaccinations. if you want to wear a mask, fine, and I wear one on the tube, but the idea it should still be more prevalent I don't agree with.


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## l'Otters (Feb 20, 2022)

Spot the selfish man-babies…


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## existentialist (Feb 20, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> of course. but they're not 100% -  i.e. 1000s of prevantable deaths due to simply people not wearing masks isn't true.
> 
> I think the idea that always wearing a mask in busy places is 'no big deal' isn't true. constantly wearing them in clubs, concerts, restuarants, busy streets, parks etc., where does it stop? just not realistic. and ship has sailed now anyway, thousands of people attending events already. the key is vaccinations. if you want to wear a mask, fine, and I wear one on the tube, but the idea it should still be more prevalent I don't agree with.


Nobody's *saying* they're 100% - that's a straw man argument.

And I don't think people are arguing that it should be more prevalent - just that we shouldn't simply throw up our hands and abandon everything in the name of some political dead cat.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 20, 2022)

existentialist said:


> Nobody's *saying* they're 100% - that's a straw man argument.
> 
> And I don't think people are arguing that it should be more prevalent - just that we shouldn't simply throw up our hands and abandon everything in the name of some political dead cat.



I do believe you mean dead dog.


----------



## pbsmooth (Feb 20, 2022)

existentialist said:


> Nobody's *saying* they're 100% - that's a straw man argument.
> 
> And I don't think people are arguing that it should be more prevalent - just that we shouldn't simply throw up our hands and abandon everything in the name of some political dead cat.



erm I was literally replying to someone who was equating wearing masks directly with preventing deaths. 
and then practically the next poster was saying why can't we just all wear masks in busy places.
so... I guess you agree with me.


----------



## existentialist (Feb 20, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> erm I was literally replying to someone who was equating wearing masks directly with preventing deaths.
> and then practically the next poster was saying why can't we just all wear masks in busy places.
> so... I guess you agree with me.


🤷‍♂️


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Feb 21, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> When people talk about how we didn’t wear masks for flu as a justification for dropping them for covid. Does it cross your mind that maybe we should wear masks to prevent the spread of flu?
> 
> Some people like to compare the death figures for covid to previous years’ death figures for flu as some kind of gotcha because people have taken notice of covid and apparently didn’t care about flu deaths.  Non pharmaceutical measures for covid have wiped out some strains of flu altogether, these measures have worked on flu as well.
> 
> Why is wearing a mask in an enclosed or crowded public space such a difficult thing to accept? Harder to accept than 1000 preventable deaths a week, two years in?


In winter last year I thought there would be much more public information campaigns in future about wearing masks in winter to prevent flu because, as you said, flu has had our collective boots on its head since we all started wearing masks. I guess because covid is still the disease we're all focusing on it hasn't come to pass yet but it may well do in future. 

I don't think chastising people for not wearing masks is helpful anymore, particularly when it's no longer law it's just a waste of energy. I learned that the hard way working in a shop all the way through. Instead I think the focus should be on legally compelling crowded places to be properly ventilated. I think ventilation is the key to infection control in general and not just covid.


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## Doctor Carrot (Feb 21, 2022)

This is why we still have a royal family innit?

_'Back to work, plebs. If the Queen can do it you can too.'_


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## Artaxerxes (Feb 21, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> This is why we still have a royal family innit?
> 
> _'Back to work, plebs. If the Queen can do it you can too.'_
> 
> View attachment 311214



Look forward to seeing her doing a shift delivering Prime parcels


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2022)

Yeah the Mail is the worst but quite a lot of the other newspaper front pages are also about as subtle as a brick to the face today.


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## two sheds (Feb 21, 2022)

My mum broke her hip when she was 80 and never recovered. The Queen Mum broke her hip around the same time and was skipping around happily after a few months. We should clearly be telling old people that they're malingering if they don't pull themselves together and heal themselves pdq.


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## StoneRoad (Feb 21, 2022)

Of course, if we all had the same level of medical care & high quality diet available that this particular family does, then maybe, just maybe, the daily heil & other rags might have a point.
But we don't, despite the best efforts of the NHS.


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## two sheds (Feb 21, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Of course, if we all had the same level of medical care & high quality diet available that this particular family does, then maybe, just maybe, the daily heil & other rags might have a point.
> But we don't, despite the best efforts of the NHS.


Yep, exactly like my mum vs the queen mum


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## platinumsage (Feb 21, 2022)

elbows said:


> Yeah the Mail is the worst but quite a lot of the other newspaper front pages are also about as subtle as a brick to the face today.



The Sun was the worst because their headline "HRH TO WFH" is factually inaccurate, because the Queen is referred to as HM, whereas HRH is used for princesses but never the monarch.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Feb 21, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> The Sun was the worst because their headline "HRH TO WFH" is factually inaccurate, because the Queen is referred to HM, whereas HRH is used for princesses but never the monarch.


That's not how we refer to the queen in our house.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2022)

I see the likes of John Bell still make this sort of claim:



> "I think we can rely pretty effectively on good behaviour from the population to avoid spread of the disease," he tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme, adding that *only the unvaccinated are now "really suffering badly" from Covid.*



Thats from the 13:59 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60461378

However when I look at the vaccine surveillance report, I still see figures for 2022 which utterly contradict that claim, eg:


From https://assets.publishing.service.g...5620/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_7.pdf

Do the media ever point this out? Not that I've seen. There are some 'with' rather than 'because of' caveats but those still dont utterly demolish my point.


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## Wilf (Feb 21, 2022)

IC3D said:


> I've never heard anyone in the NHS asking for people to wear a mask and get vaccinated to protect them. I hear a lot of stuff about better pay and investment though. Just a thought.


 +  and plenty of


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## StoneRoad (Feb 21, 2022)

IC3D said:


> I've never heard anyone in the NHS asking for people to wear a mask and get vaccinated to protect them. I hear a lot of stuff about better pay and investment though. Just a thought.


Ballcoxs.

My SiL works in the NHS - and she's said all four of those things ... to me and others !

Been to outpatients recently - asked to wear mask & sanitise hands & keep up with social distancing, and was asked if I'm vaxx'ed ... so yet more ballcoxs from IC3D.


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## existentialist (Feb 21, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Ballcoxs.
> 
> My SiL works in the NHS - and she's said all four of those things ... to me and others !
> 
> Been to outpatients recently - asked to wear mask & sanitise hands & keep up with social distancing, and was asked if I'm vaxx'ed ... so yet more ballcoxs from IC3D.


Thing is, what IC3D isn't saying is that the minute it looks like anyone's going to talk about masks or vaccines, he puts his fingers in his ears and shouts "LALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU". Just like he does on here.

So, strictly speaking, he's right - he has never heard it.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2022)

I suppose I will watch the Johnson, Whitty and Vallance press conference at 7pm and comment on it here, though in terms of my broader thoughts on todays details and document, I've put those on the living with covid thread instead. Rather than rant in long detail I've been brief and will try to spread my thoughts out over the coming weeks and months instead.


----------



## MickiQ (Feb 21, 2022)

Just read on the Beeb that the isolation payment for people on low incomes to encourage them to stay at home rather than go to work spreading the lurgy around because they're desperate for cash will end this week as well.
Another well thought out measure to contain it there.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2022)

My first comment on the press conference is that as of now at least, they forgot to switch off live chat on the youtube stream.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 21, 2022)

Urgh no still can't listen to the twat. We already know most of it anyway.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2022)

The difference in messaging from Whitty and Vallance compared to Johnson was quite obvious. A couple of journalists pointed out that the deprived are being fucked over. Concerns about future variants remain quite high. Shit funding priorities and psychological priorities have increased the gap between SAGE etc advise and what the government have decided to do.


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## existentialist (Feb 21, 2022)

elbows said:


> The difference in messaging from Whitty and Vallance compared to Johnson was quite obvious. A couple of journalists pointed out that the deprived are being fucked over. Concerns about future variants remain quite high. Shit funding priorities and psychological priorities have increased the gap between SAGE etc advise and what the government have decided to do.


I think the thing that pisses me off the most is how transparently shortsighted this approach is. So much so that it *has* to be wilful. I can hardly bear to watch Johnson, as he mouths his barefaced likes and platitudes along with a - to be fair, rapidly collapsing - line in smirks and three-word slogans. He must know that 90% of what he says is bullshit - yet he is clearly so full of himself that he thinks he will get away with it. I think Pickman's model's penguins are well overdue a treat.


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## elbows (Feb 21, 2022)

Its even worse when Johnson tries to make noises of agreement in regards something the likes of Vallance have just said, even when the thing Vallance has said was actually a thinly veiled criticism of the governments new plan.

There were quite a few Vallance quotes today which fit into that category, and that sort of thing is usually a fairly good indicator that when I get round to reading the relevant SAGE papers, they will have recommended all sorts of things that the government has decided to ignore.

It seems my mum got more out of this press conference than most of the other ones she has watched, because she picked up on some of the remarks from Vallance and to a lesser extent Whitty which were clearly pointing in a different direction to the government plan. Some of the journalists questions tickled her fancy too.


----------



## elbows (Feb 21, 2022)

As expected via Vallances words today, I've now read the SAGE documents for their 10th February meeting and it indeed includes stuff like:



> Mobility data (which only captures the level of mixing rather than the type of contact) suggest mixing has gradually increased throughout January, with a marked change following the lifting of Plan B measures. SPI-M-O currently estimates that a combination of behavioural change (e.g. increased home working, mask wearing) and mitigations (e.g. testing, self-isolation) are currently reducing transmission by 20–45%. This suggests there is significant potential for transmission to increase if behaviours revert rapidly to pre-pandemic norms and mitigations are removed (medium confidence). The faster growth of BA.2 may also increase this risk.





> SPI-M-O has reviewed several sets of prior modelled scenarios, where R has been set to a range of values from a given date, against actual admissions data. The period of flat prevalence and admissions in summer and autumn 2021, is suggestive of a significant role for self-regulation of behaviour, in which testing is likely to have played a part (low confidence). Future waves of infections could have sharper peaks if reduced testing availability hampers self-regulation.





> Removing access to free testing would make it harder for people to take this and other precautionary actions. It may also increase anxiety among those who have found testing reassuring after possible exposure, particularly those who are or live with someone who is clinically vulnerable. Increased ambiguity about a requirement to self-isolate upon testing positive will also disproportionately impact vulnerable sections of the population (medium confidence).





> Some people may also take the removal of free and accessible testing as a signal that they should continue to attend workplaces/social gatherings while showing COVID-19 symptoms, as these become conflated with other symptoms of respiratory illness such as influenza. Various proactive measures could be considered to address the culture and impacts of “presenteeism” including encouraging individuals to work from home when unwell (where possible), providing adequate financial support (sick pay) for employees and providing effective incentives, advice and guidance for organisations and employers.





> Public messaging should make efforts to stress the different needs and risk appetites of others. This should help to improve understanding of the continued need and adoption of protective behaviours by different groups and reduce the risk of social tensions, abusive incidents and stigma towards minority groups.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1054509/S1509_SAGE_105_minutes.pdf
		


I expect I will quote and discuss some of that stuff in the 'Living with Covid plan' thread i the days ahead, although I plan to take a break for the next few days. I've just mentioned some of the other SAGE February documents in that thread, but now I need to take a break.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 21, 2022)

elbows enjoy your break.


----------



## Cloo (Feb 22, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> This is why we still have a royal family innit?
> 
> _'Back to work, plebs. If the Queen can do it you can too.'_
> 
> View attachment 311214


Well, this is all part of the mail's general campaign to paint anyone younger than your average DM reader as a workshy layabout who had clearly been putting their feet up for the last two years and refusing to 'go back to work'


----------



## cupid_stunt (Feb 22, 2022)

Sky News is reporting the Queen has cancelled her zoom meetings this afternoon, because of covid, so this 'keep working' nonsense is going well.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 22, 2022)

It must be a nightmare having to do Zoom meetings for the Queen, what with her kids continually barging in and embarrassing her. Bet she can't wait to get back in the office.


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## Wilf (Feb 22, 2022)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> It must be a nightmare having to do Zoom meetings for the Queen, what with her kids continually barging in and embarrassing her. Bet she can't wait to get back in the office.


Sounds off Camera: 'Mum. _Mum. MUUUUUM_! Can I have 12 million quid?'


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 22, 2022)

Wilf said:


> Sounds off Camera: 'Mum. _Mum. MUUUUUM_! Can I have 12 million quid?'



'No you can't have your titles back and if you don't stop complaining I'm going to confiscate your XBox again.'

'Yes well Edward hasn't disgraced the family recently so he gets to stay up and play Call of Duty.'


----------



## LeytonCatLady (Feb 23, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> This is why we still have a royal family innit?
> 
> _'Back to work, plebs. If the Queen can do it you can too.'_
> 
> View attachment 311214





			Voices: The Queen is setting an example to us all – a very bad one


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Feb 24, 2022)

got an order in today for another box of LFT's (i'm down to 3 in the current box) as i intend to carry on testing now and then (i'm down to about once a week now, as i'm mosty wfh-ing) but would intend to test before going and visiting mum-tat (80+)

bet some twunts will be stockpiling the bloody things to sell after april


----------



## elbows (Feb 24, 2022)

I thought I would check John Campbells videos again to see if I could possibly have been unfair to him in previous posts.

I dont think so. A recent video was titled 'Pandemic ends Thursday' . In it he went on about how everyone would get Omicron, how he thought was better to get it sooner rather than later, and took a swipe at the likes of Vallance for daring to go on about future threats from variants etc. He also went on about levels of antibodies in the population without mentioning the limitations of the sample sources (eg blood donors only so not a completely fair reflection of society) and he wasnt even aware that data he wanted which showed the split between antibodies from infection and antibodies from vaccination has actually been available for ages.

I am hoping never to feel the need to watch another of his videos.


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## gentlegreen (Feb 24, 2022)

elbows said:


> I am hoping never to feel the need to watch another of his videos.


I find it challenging even to watch others deconstructing his cynical bullshit.
I hope he's not making a fortune out of it.

Bloody Youtube keeps showing me right wing shite and earlier there was some nutjob NZ virus-denying doctor.









						Doctor who posted controversial Covid videos loses fight to stop investigation
					

Council had 15 complaints about online content.




					www.nzherald.co.nz


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## elbows (Feb 24, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> I find it challenging even to watch others deconstructing his cynical bullshit.
> I hope he's not making a fortune out of it.
> 
> Bloody Youtube keeps showing me right wing shite and earlier there was some nutjob NZ virus-denying doctor.


You can influence which videos it tries to recommend to you, at least if you are logged in. Hovering over the three dots next to video titles gives options including 'not interested' and 'dont recommend channel'.


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## gentlegreen (Feb 24, 2022)

elbows said:


> You can influence which videos it tries to recommend to you, at least if you are logged in. Hovering over the three dots next to video titles gives options including 'not interested' and 'dont recommend channel'.


Yes - I keep doing that but it keeps showing me the stuff.
I have a premium account ...
It was probably my fault for googling the antivax nutjob who was in here last night ...


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## wemakeyousoundb (Feb 24, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Yes - I keep doing that but it keeps showing me the stuff.
> I have a premium account ...
> It was probably my fault for googling the antivax nutjob who was in here last night ...


if you are on chrome use the guest profile for any such searches, or the version for whatever browser you use


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## two sheds (Feb 24, 2022)

and preferably a vpn


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## Cloo (Feb 24, 2022)

Do any of the 'OMG! Nazism! Oppression!' lot in the UK perhaps feel the slightest bit silly now that all the public health rules they said were part of a well-plotted swing towards utter totalitarianism have been withdrawn?

I guess not. They'll probably a) assume it's because of their valiant efforts - and sad to say, it is in part, as the Tories want their votes more than they want the votes of the vulnerable and b) they'll just move on to complaining about the assault on their freedom of severe weather warnings.


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## pbsmooth (Feb 24, 2022)

they can still bang on about the vaccine, unfortunately.


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## Cloo (Feb 24, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> they can still bang on about the vaccine, unfortunately.


The not at all mandatory one,  you mean?


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## elbows (Feb 24, 2022)

And they will still make noises about how its softened us up for some badly imagined future scenario, sponsored by unimpeded paranoia and a poor understanding of power and how the world actually works.


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## Orang Utan (Feb 25, 2022)

I am continuing with all the precautions in spite of Government advice, but am wondering about when it would be sensible to stop mask-wearing and social distancing and start going to raves and going on foreign holiday? Is there an acceptable amount of transmission I need to be looking out for or something?


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## two sheds (Feb 25, 2022)

How long does it take for the booster to wear off?


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## gentlegreen (Feb 25, 2022)

two sheds said:


> How long does it take for the booster to wear off?


The premise of "boosters" was to maintain antibody-readiness and thereby minimising disease *even when other physical measures are dropped...*
It's going to take months to know ...

Personally I won't be dropping my guard any time soon ...


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## StoneRoad (Feb 25, 2022)

I'm another who's not dropping their guard [masks, distancing, deliveries] in the immediate future.

I'm also concerned as to how quickly the additional immunity from the booster is reducing.
The advice to 4th jab the over 75s and CEV cohorts later in spring indicates that decline in immunity is real. 

I think I remember reading somewhere that an autumn jab for a wider group, together with one for flu is also planned ?


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## gentlegreen (Feb 25, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> I think I remember reading somewhere that an autumn jab for a wider group, together with one for flu is also planned ?


I bet they're hoping that millions will opt for infection rather than vaccination ...


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## StoneRoad (Feb 25, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> I bet they're hoping that millions will opt for infection rather than vaccination ...


I'm going to disappoint "them" as I'll want the jab and not an infection.

Although it hasn't. as far as I know, yet appeared, I'm sort of expecting another VOC with a tendency to develop serious illness to arrive.


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## existentialist (Feb 25, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> I bet they're hoping that millions will opt for infection rather than vaccination ...


I don't actually think they're much bothered either way. They've got so used to the idea of making things go away by ignoring them - NHS problems, benefits claimants, coronavirus, Parliamentary convention - that pretty much nothing impinges unless they're hit in the face with it. Or the bank balance.


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Feb 25, 2022)

existentialist said:


> I don't actually think they're much bothered either way. They've got so used to the idea of making things go away by ignoring them - NHS problems, benefits claimants, coronavirus, Parliamentary convention - that pretty much nothing impinges unless they're hit in the face with it. Or the bank balance.



Yeah I think this about right. Johnson has always wanted to wash his hands of the whole thing hasn't he. You see people on here talking about the herd immunity plan as some sort of devious plot when what it really amounted to was an attempt to just shrug it off. He couldn't then but he reckons he's at the point now where he can safely leave it be so that's what he's doing.


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## 2hats (Feb 25, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> Is there an acceptable amount of transmission I need to be looking out for or something?


My own guideline is to keep an eye on the 7-day rolling prevalence dipping to ≲20/100k (though a senior colleague is looking for ~1). So we are only off by a factor of several hundred (or a few thousand) right now (ONS/REACT; the daily testing number is largely meaningless other than perhaps, at times, as trend guidance).


two sheds said:


> How long does it take for the booster to wear off?


This begs questions like: 'What' is wearing off? How immunocompetent is the person concerned?

In the immunocompetent: circulating antibodies, which will tend to curb infection, will contract within several weeks to a few (<4) months; cellular immunity to severe disease will likely be maintained for up to 2, perhaps something out to (maybe) 5 years (speculation; data not yet available).

But then you will get infected (unless you completely isolate yourself from everyone and everything), particularly at current levels of prevalence, and each time the immune system will get "boosted" (assuming you survive, the odds of which tend to improve with each successful encounter with antigen, though will progressively slowly decay as you age (ignoring the plunge at the end)).


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## two sheds (Feb 25, 2022)

interesting, ta


2hats said:


> This begs questions like: 'What' is wearing off? How immunocompetent is the person concerned?


I'm assuming I'm immunoincompetent 


2hats said:


> But then you will get infected (unless you completely isolate yourself from everyone and everything),


that's the plan


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## teuchter (Feb 25, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> when it would be sensible to stop mask-wearing and social distancing and start going to raves and going on foreign holiday? Is there an acceptable amount of transmission I need to be looking out for or something?


It depends how much you want to go to raves or go abroad.


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## teuchter (Feb 25, 2022)

2hats said:


> My own guideline is to keep an eye on the 7-day rolling prevalence dipping to ≲20/100k (though a senior colleague is looking for ~1). So we are only off by a factor of several hundred (or a few thousand) right now (ONS/REACT; the daily testing number is largely meaningless other than perhaps, at times, as trend guidance).


How do you or your colleague arrive at these numbers?


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## 2hats (Feb 25, 2022)

teuchter said:


> How do you or your colleague arrive at these numbers?


20/100k was the trigger point for red listing travel the last two years.

My learned colleague is considering use of public transport and the prolonged occupation of shared, moderate-poorly ventilated confined spaces therein (me less so since I cycle or walk everywhere). They are a leading infectious diseases expert.


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## Orang Utan (Feb 25, 2022)

teuchter said:


> It depends how much you want to go to raves or go abroad.


Really want to go to a rave. Not fussed about holidays


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## teuchter (Feb 25, 2022)

2hats said:


> 20/100k was the trigger point for red listing travel the last two years.
> 
> My learned colleague is considering use of public transport and the prolonged occupation of shared, moderate-poorly ventilated confined spaces therein (me less so since I cycle or walk everywhere). They are a leading infectious diseases expert.


But are they arrived at from the point of view of personal risk, or public health responsibility?


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## 2hats (Feb 25, 2022)

teuchter said:


> But are they arrived at from the point of view of personal risk, or public health responsibility?


Both.


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## elbows (Feb 25, 2022)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> You see people on here talking about the herd immunity plan as some sort of devious plot when what it really amounted to was an attempt to just shrug it off. He couldn't then but he reckons he's at the point now where he can safely leave it be so that's what he's doing.



Hardly anybody here did that, there was one person who came to u75 during the pandemic and kept going on about deliberate murder but I think they fell silent after a month or two.

Herd immunity was indeed briefly used as a justification for not doing very much, the original plan to mostly have people carry on with their lives. Johnson influenced that approach but even without him it was an approach deemed highly compatible with the traditional UK establishment way of doing things, the usual cold calculations, the orthodox approach. A narrower, modified version of the same sort of rationale was also used to justify a very slow rollout of vaccines for children and young adults much later on.

Likewise at the stage we and many other countries have reached now, Johnson pushes further and faster than some, but the same overarching agenda is being pursued in many countries with roughly the same timing.


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## teuchter (Feb 25, 2022)

2hats said:


> Both.


Not that you should be under any obligation to justify the level that you personally feel comfortable with, but waiting for prevalence to fall to 1/100th or 1/1000th or less of what it currently is, seems an extraordinarily cautious approach - is there any expectation we will reach those levels in the foreseeable future, or ever will? The red list threshold (however that was determined at the time) was determined on the basis of an unvaccinated population wasn't it?

I reckon that if Orang Utan doesn't have any especially risky pre-existing conditions, and really wants to go out raving, now is a "sensible" time to go out raving.

But maybe I've misunderstood what the expectations are from now on about the ongoing prevalence of Covid.


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## Orang Utan (Feb 25, 2022)

teuchter said:


> Not that you should be under any obligation to justify the level that you personally feel comfortable with, but waiting for prevalence to fall to 1/100th or 1/1000th or less of what it currently is, seems an extraordinarily cautious approach - is there any expectation we will reach those levels in the foreseeable future, or ever will? The red list threshold (however that was determined at the time) was determined on the basis of an unvaccinated population wasn't it?
> 
> I reckon that if Orang Utan doesn't have any especially risky pre-existing conditions, and really wants to go out raving, now is a "sensible" time to go out raving.
> 
> But maybe I've misunderstood what the expectations are from now on about the ongoing prevalence of Covid.


I live and work with vulnerable people though,  so it’s not just my health that I need to consider


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## two sheds (Mar 5, 2022)

So, with most of England and Wales trending to blue and light blue, is it disappearing, or are we just not testing as much? And why would there be so many cases in Scotland still? And why is there a band of Scotland above Aberdeen that doesn't exist?



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases


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## StoneRoad (Mar 5, 2022)

The number of tests are certainly reducing significantly, but even the ONS survey seems to show a steady decline in cases.

The changes to the govt dashboard & "living with covid" mood music / lack of rules are all factors trying to push the pandemic into the background.


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## weepiper (Mar 5, 2022)

Scotland is testing more so picking up more cases but also we don't have as high a level of natural immunity as England does because we haven't had the same number of infections previously.


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## elbows (Mar 5, 2022)

Yeah I cant read much into the positive test figures any more, have to rely on things like the ONS infection survey and ZOE instead. I'd include wastewater testing data too, except that data for England isnt published frequently enough to make timely use of. Although if that form of surveillance continues then I can use it to look back on the situation in the past with some degree of accuracy rather than to give clues about the current/very recent situation. I havent looked at Scottish wastewater data for months, if they still mention that stuff in their weekly report than its of more immediate use there.


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2022)

Scotland’s Covid cases rise, while England and N Ireland show falls
					

Data comes as UK’s scientific advisers to no longer meet on regular basis to discuss pandemic




					www.theguardian.com
				




Up to 26th Feb.

Cases and admissions in England have also started to rise since then, too.


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## Riklet (Mar 5, 2022)

There may well also be more or a spread of the BA.2 omicron variant in Scotland, this rise may start to be reflected in England more in the next few weeks. Or not. Who knows. Cases certainty arent declining towards zero in England as loads of people still havent been infected or got super high immunity to covid.

In my circle, 2 people (one NHS, one a carer) who have avoided Covid the whole pandemic (probably) have finally just caught it...


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2022)

weepiper said:


> Scotland is testing more so picking up more cases but also we don't have as high a level of natural immunity as England does because we haven't had the same number of infections previously.





			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation%26areaName=Scotland#card-cases_by_specimen_date


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2022)

Riklet said:


> There may well also be more or a spread of the BA.2 omicron variant in Scotland, this rise may start to be reflected in England more in the next few weeks. Or not. Who knows. Cases certainty arent declining towards zero in England as loads of people still havent been infected or got super high immunity to covid.
> 
> In my circle, 2 people (one NHS, one a carer) who have avoided Covid the whole pandemic (probably) have finally just caught it...





			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation%26areaName=England#card-cases_by_specimen_date
		


(Sorry, I still don't know how to post the actual visual charts, two years on!)

What predictably happens when people are told it's all over and not to test anymore.
Similar outbreak in my work currently, too.


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## two sheds (Mar 5, 2022)

sheothebudworths said:


> https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation%26areaName=England#card-cases_by_specimen_date
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I found out that I could right click which asked me whether I wanted to do a screenshot  yes I said, yes.


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## sheothebudworths (Mar 5, 2022)

two sheds said:


> I found out that I could right click which asked me whether I wanted to do a screenshot  yes I said, yes.



I don't have that option  although might just be on the PC - pop-up stuff? Fuck knows, I have given up trying! Hope the links work, at least!


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## two sheds (Mar 5, 2022)

sheothebudworths said:


> I don't have that option  although might just be on the PC - pop-up stuff?


was on firefox and linux - not sure how it does it but it does 



sheothebudworths said:


> Fuck knows, I have given up trying! Hope the links work, at least!


it does indeed


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## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 6, 2022)

weepiper said:


> Scotland is testing more so picking up more cases but also we don't have as high a level of natural immunity as England does because we haven't had the same number of infections previously.


The recent ONS survey is showing that Scotlands numbers are indeed rising, they are using a different method of collecting data than the daily figures, they've been doing this survey throughout the pandemic apparently 









						Scotland’s Covid cases rise, while England and N Ireland show falls
					

Data comes as UK’s scientific advisers to no longer meet on regular basis to discuss pandemic




					www.theguardian.com
				





Also, these past 2 weeks I'm noticing a real uptick in reports of people my age being absolutely floored by this recent wave, which seems very different to what everyone was saying over xmas- I was looking after vulnerable people with it and they weren't nearly as ill as me and the boy and many friends are right now. Friend reporting the same, Scottish friends past two weeks way more ill than her London friends over xmas. For what that anecdata is worth..... :-/


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## 2hats (Mar 7, 2022)

ONS infection survey to continue, albeit with around 75% of the previous sample size, until at least June.


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## cupid_stunt (Mar 7, 2022)

On the dashboard today, the falling number of reported new cases we've been seeing for some weeks has been reversed, and they up by 28.2% in the last 7-days, despite less testing. 

Hospital admissions are also up slightly by 1.6%, and a slowing on the reduction rate for deaths, down by only -5.5%


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## Cloo (Mar 8, 2022)

Definitely feels like we're on a sharpish upswing to me - gosh I wonder why?


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## elbows (Mar 8, 2022)

I've got nothing useful to say about how sharp an upturn it is at this stage. The modest rise in daily hospital admissions/diagnoses seen so far does seem to be happening across all regions of England though.


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## Riklet (Mar 8, 2022)

My Spanish housemate works on the bar and was called into work with Covid. During the first few days of illness while actually ill. And he went in!! Daft prick never bothered registering with a GP despite me reminding him to for months. Hadnt had the booster cos he didnt have an NHS number. Sigh.

I think in the end he ended up going home but its just crazy the way behaviour has changed. He is quite careful and still got it too so id imagine the BA.2 variant could be a big factor for the 50% increase in cases round my part of the south-west.


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## cupid_stunt (Mar 8, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> On the dashboard today, the falling number of reported new cases we've been seeing for some weeks has been reversed, and they up by 28.2% in the last 7-days, despite less testing.
> 
> Hospital admissions are also up slightly by 1.6%, and a slowing on the reduction rate for deaths, down by only -5.5%



Oh, FFS, 7-day averages UK wide, new cases up 39.2%, hospital admissions up 11.1% (up 24.6% in the south-east).


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## StoneRoad (Mar 8, 2022)

So much for depiffle saying [in effect] it was all over.

No it bliiidddy isn't.

OH has a minor medical procedure booked for later this month, one that's been waited for & needs attending to, before anything more serious occurs / develops. So, we are all isolating / shielding ...


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## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 9, 2022)

Do they have enough data yet to claim BA2 is "similar in severity" to BA1, because I think that's a load of bollocks tbh.


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## ska invita (Mar 9, 2022)

That is a massive spike... I know 4 people who have it right now...I might have had it last week.


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## elbows (Mar 9, 2022)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Do they have enough data yet to claim BA2 is "similar in severity" to BA1, because I think that's a load of bollocks tbh.



I havent looked at international research on this recently, and the last published analysis for this country is several weeks old. eg:



> Preliminary analyses of sequenced cases have been undertaken to compare the risk of hospitalisation, as defined by admission as an inpatient, or presentation to emergency care that resulted in admission, transfer or death, following BA.2 compared to BA.1. This analysis adjusted for age, reinfection status, sex, ethnicity, local area deprivation and vaccination status. It also controlled for the effect of geography and specimen date. The risk of hospitalisation does not appear higher following a BA.2 infection than following a BA.1 infection (hazard ratio 0.87, 95% CI: 0.75-1.00).
> 
> Although the central estimate indicates that the risk of severe outcomes for BA.2 may be lower than for BA.1, the variability of the data, as reflected by the confidence intervals, mean that it is not possible to conclude this with certainty. These results are preliminary, and it is possible that the estimates of the risk of hospitalisation may change as cases accrue.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...7359/Technical-Briefing-37-25February2022.pdf

In terms of bullshit, the biggest bullshit was the extent to which it was claimed that Omicron in general was mild. I dont have any particular reason to smell bullshit in terms of BA.2. Although we should note that the potential of a variant to cause more hospitalisation and death is not just related to severity, but also its transmissibility, ability to bypass existing immunity etc.

My future concerns about variants currently remain generalised, rather than a particular variant ringing alarm bells already. In the absence of clear signs about a new variant with obvious threat potential, my concerns for the UK in the short-medium term relate to human behaviour, reduced surveillance, and the unknowns about the extent to which protection against hospitalisation and death will wane in the months to come.


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## teuchter (Mar 9, 2022)

ska invita said:


> View attachment 313533
> 
> 
> That is a massive spike... I know 4 people who have it right now...I might have had it last week.


The spike is not as big as it looks in that graph, which is showing Monday's reported cases which is effectively 3 days' worth, because they seem to have stopped doing reported cases at weekends.


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## platinumsage (Mar 9, 2022)

Zero sign of a lack of antibodies in any boosted age group from the latest ONS release:





__





						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, antibody data, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

Headline results of antibody data by UK country and regions in England from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey.



					www.ons.gov.uk
				




Compare to the drops after the second dose:


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## 2hats (Mar 9, 2022)

HoratioCuthbert said:


> Do they have enough data yet to claim BA2 is "similar in severity" to BA1, because I think that's a load of bollocks tbh.


(At the time of writing) There's no clear evidence to indicate that it is intrinsically more severe.

A couple of animal model studies have suggested it but epidemiological studies would tend to invalidate those results (hamsters are not human).

Laboratory and epidemiological data might _suggest_ that BA.2 does appear to be slightly more transmissible and immune evasive than BA.1.

At the individual (not population) level, quite possibly antigenic exposure history may dictate the direction of pathogenesis (for particular genotypes).


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## elbows (Mar 9, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> Zero sign of a lack of antibodies in any boosted age group from the latest ONS release:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Would be interesting to know how much of that difference in waning observed so far this time compared to last time was due to Oxford Astrazenicas use in lots of age groups for the first few doses.

Because I note the ONS raised the threshold value they are using as a cutoff point for these simple figures. And the research that informed that increased threshold, from November 2021 made this observation:



> At least 67% protection against infection was estimated to last for 2-3 months after two ChAdOx1 doses and 6-15 months after two BNT162b2 doses in those without prior infection, and 1-2 years for those unvaccinated after natural infection. A third booster dose may be needed, prioritised to ChAdOx1 recipients and those more clinically vulnerable.











						SARS-CoV-2 anti-spike IgG antibody responses after second dose of ChAdOx1 or BNT162b2 and correlates of protection in the UK general population
					

We investigated anti-spike IgG antibody responses and correlates of protection following second doses of ChAdOx1 or BNT162b2 SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in the UK general population. In 222,493 individuals, we found significant boosting of anti-spike IgG by second doses of both vaccines in all ages and...




					www.medrxiv.org
				




ONS are well aware that the research was pre-Omicron so some assumptions and implications may not be well covered by these particular antibody measurements at all. They dont provide a full picture of the implications and timescales of waning in practice. eg the threshold was chosen based on infection risk from pre-Omicron strains. Risk of hospitalisation etc changes due to waning is something we are most likely to learn about via the reality of what happens in the months to come, via hospitalisation data over time.


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## HoratioCuthbert (Mar 9, 2022)

2hats said:


> (At the time of writing) There's no clear evidence to indicate that it is intrinsically more severe.


I know that, I am questioning whether you could call it this early. Obvs the load of bollocks part was me being more flippant, as well as feverishly unwell


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## sojourner (Mar 10, 2022)

Up by over 46% now, new cases, and that's with less testing





__





						England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK
					

Official Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease situation dashboard with latest data in the UK.




					coronavirus.data.gov.uk


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## ddraig (Mar 10, 2022)

Both my parents have it now, my mum has been testing positive every day for a week! Meh


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## Numbers (Mar 10, 2022)

5 out of 12 in the family have either had it recently or currently have it.

e2a: none of us have seen each other and all in different parts of London or surrounding areas.

I feel ropey as fuck (constant coughing, headache, blocked/runny nose, heavy chest, some aches), been gradually getting worse the last few days, but testing negative.


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## Cloo (Mar 10, 2022)

Got a message from ZOE study saying that,  after being told by goverment further funding was 'extremely likely', they've now been told it's being totally pulled in less than a month. I am sadly unsurprised...


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## elbows (Mar 10, 2022)

Maybe there are enough people in the country that remain concerned and want there to be ongoing surveillance of levels of disease that crowdfunding could be considered.


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## 2hats (Mar 10, 2022)

Latest REACT 1 results are out (round 18 which covers 8 February to 1 March 2022 consisting of 95k swab tests across England).

BA.2 was just on the verge of becoming dominant (highest incidence in London) with a continuing upward trend.

Overall 1 in 35 people (2.88%) were infected (the second highest levels since the study began, the previous round having been the highest). Higher prevalence seen towards the south of the country (particularly the SW, SE, E and London). Signs of potentially increasing infection rates in older cohorts (55+ years) with high rates in the very young (5-11 years).








						Coronavirus infections remain high while Omicron ‘stealth variant’ rises - REACT | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

Coronavirus infections have continued to decline in England but remain at a high level, according to new surveillance data.




					www.imperial.ac.uk


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## teuchter (Mar 10, 2022)

Interesting to compare the shape of the REACT "real" prevalence graph with the positive tests graph which obviously is very dependant on how much testing is happening.


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## weepiper (Mar 10, 2022)

Covid in Scotland: Hospital patient numbers highest in 13 months
					

Fewer people need intensive care but large numbers are affecting available beds and other services.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Blurgh 

Meanwhile I am beginning to notice some pushback against being asked to wear a mask in our shop. Previously people (bar the odd antivaxxer nutjob) have largely been very compliant but in the last week I think there's been at least one person every day who's got pissy to various degrees about it. There was a guy today who huffed 'I thought we were finished with all that nonsense' and when my colleague said he was happy to serve him at the door instead he had a tanty and said he would go elsewhere instead.


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## emanymton (Mar 10, 2022)

I'm about the only person I ever see still wearing a mask. If out shopping I might see 1 or 2 others. But if I do see more than one they are normally together.


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## muscovyduck (Mar 10, 2022)

I see between 5-20% of people wearing masks in shops depending on what shop I'm in locally but also noticed attitudes to masks vary dramatically between different towns and cities as I go about my travels. I have noticed the people left wearing masks seem to be wearing proper decent masks


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## Artaxerxes (Mar 10, 2022)

muscovyduck said:


> I see between 5-20% of people wearing masks in shops depending on what shop I'm in locally but also noticed attitudes to masks vary dramatically between different towns and cities as I go about my travels. I have noticed the people left wearing masks seem to be wearing proper decent masks



This is about what I'd say the tube tops out at the moment - max 25% masked but its usually about 10-15%.

Shops is significantly lower I think.


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## StoneRoad (Mar 11, 2022)

OH was in Freeman Hospital yesterday for a pre-op assessment.

Inside the actual buildings, OH didn't see anybody unmasked, although a couple were protecting the chin more than their nose !


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## gentlegreen (Mar 11, 2022)

My sister is at home and has tested positive.
I don't know what this means for BIL and nephew who also live in the house ...
She works in the bakery at a suburban M&S ...

I think she's about 55 - so far nothing very serious in the way of symptoms. I know she's double-vaxxed and almost certainly "boosted".


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## pogofish (Mar 11, 2022)

Several folk at work are down with it, incl one close colleague who tested positive this morning whose whole family is down with it - looks like he was infected via his kids at school and there have been no other likely/risky contacts in the last week or so.

Away to take my laptop home and do some testing myself tonight.


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## Orang Utan (Mar 11, 2022)

My niece has it, first in the family. She’s 7 but she’s been quite poorly.
Cousin’s kids in NZ have it too, but mildly. NZ though. 
So is it fuck over as many customers (and some colleagues) seem to believe


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## Orang Utan (Mar 11, 2022)

pogofish said:


> Several folk at work are down with it, incl one close colleague who tested positive this morning whose whole family is down with it - looks like he was infected via his kids at school and there have been no other likely/risky contacts in the last week or so.
> 
> Away to take my laptop home and do some testing myself tonight.


We had 70/80 off staff off last week just in our  directorate and it seems even worse this week - we’ve been having serious staffing issues.


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## pogofish (Mar 11, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> We had 70/80 off staff off last week just in our  directorate and it seems even worse this week - we’ve been having serious staffing issues.



Yes - we are no longer at the level where we get daily updates on staff absences after positive tests but the amount of stuff being cancelled or moved all-online because pf people being isolated at home suggests there could well be larger problem.

The one person in our office who is on the senior COVID group and probably could give an answer is also currently off!


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## elbows (Mar 11, 2022)

A BBC article that mixes together the hospital situation, Scottish figures, latest ONS survey figures, the timing of the next booster shots, the rise of BA.2 and Harries mentioning a rise in cases in the over 55s.









						Covid infections rising again across UK - ONS
					

A form of Omicron called BA.2 is now the most common variant in most of the UK, figures suggest.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## Mation (Mar 11, 2022)

Several people I know at work and home have tested positive in the last week or so.

Almost no one at work is even vaguely trying to prevent it spreading. 

Is triple-masking a thing? I think it needs to be a thing.


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## gentlegreen (Mar 11, 2022)

Mation said:


> Is triple-masking a thing? I think it needs to be a thing.


Perhaps for political reasons...
It's fallen right off in the shops near me, but I don't hang around very long and carry as much home at once as I can manage to minimise visits.


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## nadia (Mar 11, 2022)

Well we gave up masks a week ago in my office, I tested positive this morning I am 90% sure which colleague I caught it off


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## Puddy_Tat (Mar 11, 2022)




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## Artaxerxes (Mar 11, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


>




"We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas"


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## ska invita (Mar 12, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The spike is not as big as it looks in that graph, which is showing Monday's reported cases which is effectively 3 days' worth, because they seem to have stopped doing reported cases at weekends.


a few days have passed - how about now?


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## StoneRoad (Mar 12, 2022)

Anecdotally [schools are back], and from looking at the dashboard, I'm pretty sure that, at present. there is an uptick in cases and hospitalisations, although vaccines & drug treatments have largely prevented a similar rise in deaths.


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## ska invita (Mar 12, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Anecdotally [schools are back], and from looking at the dashboard, I'm pretty sure that, at present. there is an uptick in cases and hospitalisations, although vaccines & drug treatments have largely prevented a similar rise in deaths.


also i think people are socialising a lot more and acting as if its over (that has included me, im not judging)


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## zahir (Mar 12, 2022)

Thread from Deepti Gurdasani


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 12, 2022)

zahir said:


> Thread from Deepti Gurdasani



"lab reports indicating that BA.1 infection may lead to lower neutralisation against BA.2"

What new horror is this ?


----------



## 2hats (Mar 12, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> "lab reports indicating that BA.1 infection may lead to lower neutralisation against BA.2"
> 
> What new horror is this ?


It's not. Has been indicated in several studies over the last few months.


2hats said:


> antigenic exposure history may dictate the direction of pathogenesis


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 12, 2022)

2hats said:


> It's not. Has been indicated in several studies over the last few months.


Is there a simple explanation ?
I never managed to properly watch a video about the "learning" mechanisms involved in B Cell adaptation ...
Is the implication that the process of optimisation for one antigen will mean we're more reliant on T cells for new ones from even very similar viruses  ?


----------



## teuchter (Mar 12, 2022)

ska invita said:


> a few days have passed - how about now?
> View attachment 314025


The diagram you've posted makes it look like there's a spike more than half the height of the one from a couple of months ago. Reported cases are going up again, but not by that much (at this point).



(Reported cases by date reported and by specimen date).


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## gentlegreen (Mar 12, 2022)

Bristol is only a gnat's crotchet from dark purple again - trailing Scotland a little ...


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## elbows (Mar 12, 2022)

In the South East the daily hospital admissions/diagnoses have clearly exceeded the previous Omicron wave peak for that region in the 65-84 and 85+ age groups.

I have not repeated this exercise for other regions yet. And this graph uses 7 day averages to smooth the lines.


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## ska invita (Mar 12, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The diagram you've posted makes it look like there's a spike more than half the height of the one from a couple of months ago. Reported cases are going up again, but not by that much (at this point).
> 
> View attachment 314046View attachment 314047
> 
> (Reported cases by date reported and by specimen date).


maybe its these two peaks which are giving that impression?


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## elbows (Mar 12, 2022)

You'll see those spikes every week now because of the change to not reporting data over weekends, changes which go far beyond any weekend breaks to data there were earlier in the pandemic.

Since changes to testing, rules and attitudes make me less able to compare current case numbers to those seen in the past, I am mostly using hospital data instead. Cannot tell the difference in the daily admissions figures between cases that were hospitalised for covid, people that went into hospital for other reasons but happened to have covid, and people that went in for other reasons but then caught it in hospital. But we can still use the hospital figures to act as a guide as to overall levels of infection in different age groups.

And I am not at all happy about the way hospital admissions in England continued to rise this week.


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## StoneRoad (Mar 12, 2022)

elbows

The government's attitude has, I think, begun regressing the present situation, firstly, with the lack of public testing - and secondly, with effectively lowering the quality of information available - back down to that which occurred during the initial wave of infections.

I feel that information to allow me to manage the risks of my exposure to potential infection is becoming much less readily available.


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## muscovyduck (Mar 12, 2022)

2 years into this now and it doesn't feel like it's ever going to be over


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## elbows (Mar 12, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> elbows
> 
> The government's attitude has, I think, begun regressing the present situation, firstly, with the lack of public testing - and secondly, with effectively lowering the quality of information available - back down to that which occurred during the initial wave of infections.
> 
> I feel that information to allow me to manage the risks of my exposure to potential infection is becoming much less readily available.



Yes they've tried to go back to the approach that was compatible with default establishment instincts and cold calculations.

However it doesnt look like they got all the way back fast enough to achieve their objectives - the testing regime isnt dead yet and unlike those first few months, there is still testing for hospital patients. So if the resurgence of the virus happens quickly and at huge scale then they arent going to manage to hide it and the political shit will hit the fan.

There is also an additional reason why its so stupid to hide it and suppress information this time - if they are relying on the next booster campaign to keep things within the manageable limits, then in order to achieve high enough uptake the public probably need to be scared by relevant data and mood music in order that they take things seriously enough to bother with the boosters.


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## Agent Sparrow (Mar 12, 2022)

Are vaccinations still going to be offered for all 5-11s who want them? As I seem to remember it was announced but then have heard nothing. School sent out some info recently but just for CEV kids.


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## elbows (Mar 12, 2022)

Agent Sparrow said:


> Are vaccinations still going to be offered for all 5-11s who want them? As I seem to remember it was announced but then have heard nothing. School sent out some info recently but just for CEV kids.



They announced it in a manner that left little doubt that they werent hugely enthusiastic about it and were not going to treat it as a huge priority in terms of timing.


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## On Fire (Mar 13, 2022)

I have Covid at the moment. I am triple vaccinated and it is very mild.
Just thought I would share this lol


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## William of Walworth (Mar 14, 2022)

muscovyduck said:


> 2 years into this now and *it doesn't feel like it's ever going to be over*


I'm septical that this is any kind of _certainty_ though.

Covid will never disappear, but surely the level/widespreadness of ir in future months and years will depend on all sorts!


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## Orang Utan (Mar 14, 2022)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm septical that this is any kind of _certainty_ though.
> 
> Covid will never disappear, but surely the level/widespreadness of ir in future months and years will depend on all sorts!


But still things will never be the same again


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## William of Walworth (Mar 14, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> But still things will never be the same again


That's a broader (albeit valid) point though.

In terms of how much and how widely Covid, specifically, will continue to spread, *no-one* can make safe assumptions.

(IMO, etc.).


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## _Russ_ (Mar 14, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> But still things will never be the same again


Things never are.

Somewhere down the line Covid 19 will be a tiny nuisance and some other shitfest will have taken over


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## Orang Utan (Mar 14, 2022)

Anyway my brother, SIL and two daughters all have it now. It’s finally become real to me after two years.


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## Sue (Mar 14, 2022)

Agent Sparrow said:


> Are vaccinations still going to be offered for all 5-11s who want them? As I seem to remember it was announced but then have heard nothing. School sent out some info recently but just for CEV kids.


My sister just got an appointment letter for my 10 year-old nephew. That's in Scotland though.


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## CH1 (Mar 15, 2022)

This popped up on Twitter re Hong Kong and New Zealand. Looks like vaccination is v important


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## elbows (Mar 15, 2022)

Fucking Wilko and the traditional approach to working when ill:









						Wilko sorry for saying staff could work with Covid
					

The retailer says it made a mistake by telling staff they could continue to work if they tested positive.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> In Wilko's initial memo to staff, the company, which has 414 stores in the UK, said: "If you test positive for Covid-19 and feel well you can continue to come to work, if you feel too unwell you can follow the absence policy."





> Wilko confirmed the memo was sent out and the firm has since made a U-turn.
> 
> "When we get something wrong, we hold our hands up, admit it, and work to correct the situation," the firm said.


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## StoneRoad (Mar 15, 2022)

Bliddy 'ell.

Wilko, you were being top o'the line pratts with that ...

this omicron variant BA.2 seems to be just as transmissible.
I still say that depiffle should not have removed all the social distancing & masking requirements.
guidance only is not enough when there isn't a strong sense of community & "for the common good"


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## elbows (Mar 15, 2022)

I note that they've had to u-turn because they tried to get back to that destination before testing was removed, creating an unacceptable look. Once they can rely on many more people never having the opportunity to be able to afford to get tested and discover they are positive in the first place, sliding back to the old ways without a backlash seems much more likely.


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## elbows (Mar 15, 2022)

CH1 said:


> This popped up on Twitter re Hong Kong and New Zealand. Looks like vaccination is v important




Hong Kong got some attention on the worldwide pandemic thread, the following post is a recent example:









						Coronavirus - worldwide breaking news, discussion, stats, updates and more
					

The global death toll hit 6 million today.




					www.urban75.net


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## elbows (Mar 15, 2022)

Scotland keeping the mask rules for at least a few more weeks but some of the other stuff is still going to end in a weeks time.









						Covid in Scotland: Mask rules will stay in force until April
					

Other restrictions will be dropped on 21 March, but masks will remain due to a rise in Covid cases.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## gentlegreen (Mar 15, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> Anyway my brother, SIL and two daughters all have it now. It’s finally become real to me after two years.


I noticed my 60 yo BIL was online on Facebook this morning alongside my sister ...  she says she isn't confined to the shed - but no mention of BIL and nephew being infected ...

My manor is once more a plague pit relative to more suburban areas ... - 0.85% of those tested ...


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## l'Otters (Mar 15, 2022)

Glad to see Wilko at least have done a U-turn on that - but they've also shown us clearly what they'll do as soon as mass testing winds down, as Elbows said. 

I've seen mention of other chains doing similar to Wilko re coming in to work with covid - Iceland and Asda - only on Twitter - wonder if they'll back down on it as well? (For what that's worth, for the next month or so...)


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## Thora (Mar 15, 2022)

Feels very weird that covid is suddenly "over" in terms of restrictions and measures but cases are absolutely rampant where I am in the south west, higher than ever I think.  My kids' school is closing after school clubs and restricting assemblies again, loads of teachers and children off, my kids have it for the first time, my parents have it for the first time


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## BassJunkie (Mar 16, 2022)

Thora said:


> Feels very weird that covid is suddenly "over" in terms of restrictions and measures but cases are absolutely rampant where I am in the south west, higher than ever I think.  My kids' school is closing after school clubs and restricting assemblies again, loads of teachers and children off, my kids have it for the first time, my parents have it for the first time


Totally this. Mrs BassJunkie has been off school since last Thursday. She's triple jabbed and a secondary school teacher. My first poker game for 2 years this Saturday has now been cancelled because the host has tested positive. Despite my best efforts (trying to not to treat Mrs BassJunkie like a pariah) I'm still testing negative. But feel like a positive test is imminent.

Although this makes me very grateful for the vaccinations, if this was 2020 it would be a lot more terrifying.


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## StoneRoad (Mar 16, 2022)

We are "in hiding" as OH has a minor surgical procedure in a few days time, and we really, really do not want that to be further postponed.


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## Thora (Mar 16, 2022)

My daughter's class is now closed for the rest of the week.


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## Voley (Mar 16, 2022)

Just had a look on the interactive map for the first time in a while.

Cornwall cases up by 2005 - 86.6%

Erk.


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## prunus (Mar 16, 2022)

Voley said:


> Just had a look on the interactive map for the first time in a while.
> 
> Cornwall cases up by 2005 - 86.6%
> 
> Erk.



Don't worry, they'll plummet in 2 or 3 weeks.


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## editor (Mar 16, 2022)

Eek!


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## Sue (Mar 16, 2022)

Up 31% where I live (Hackney). But then so many people seem to be acting like it's all over and vaccination rates are 65%/60%/40% so it's not a huge surprise really.


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## StoneRoad (Mar 16, 2022)

Locally to me, we have very high vaccinations rates [73.5% boostered and 92.5% first dose] ...

But because people have the attitude "it's all over now" we have a local case rate of 'only' 272/100,000, which is up 375% in the past seven days to the 11th March.

Which isn't great, as OH is shielding [& therefore, so are the rest of the household] as they have a minor surgical procedure on Monday.


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## cupid_stunt (Mar 16, 2022)

We had the bronze award a few days ago -

*England's 10 worst Covid hotspots*


Somerset West and Taunton - 913.6 cases per 100,000 people
Hastings - 907.6 cases per 100,000 people
Worthing - 897.7 cases per 100,000 people
We are now on 1,348.


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## gentlegreen (Mar 16, 2022)

We're nudging ahead of those in Bristol 5.
It was too wet for the park so I went to the shops for the first time this week and only one other customer and one till person masked in Tesco.
Zero masks in the deli / veggie food shop where all the staff are in their 20s.

Nice and airy and I have my ffp2 so it was *probably *worth it for recreational calories ...


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## BristolEcho (Mar 16, 2022)

It's all going to plan isn't it from the Government point of view? One area of Bristol no one is wearing masks at all in the Tesco so I did stop too. Still take it with me though and generally wear it.


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## weepiper (Mar 16, 2022)

All of Edinburgh is well over 1000 per 100,000. The area where my shop is is on 1232 and where my flat is is 1109. Bits of the catchment for my kids' school are on 1921.


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## teuchter (Mar 16, 2022)

My observations looking at the numbers at the moment -

The most recent rises in positive tests and in hospital admissions (about 2-3 weeks ago) start pretty much in line with each other. There's not a lag, which suggests to me that the rise in hospital admissions with Covid is largely people with Covid rather than because of Covid.

It's been over two weeks since the rise in positive tests became apparent but as far as I can see there is no discernable rise in deaths, nor in "patients in mechanical ventilation beds". Both of these figures remain small and on a very gradual decline.

So, lots of people are getting Covid but it's not resulting in a significant level of serious illness.


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## elbows (Mar 16, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The most recent rises in positive tests and in hospital admissions (about 2-3 weeks ago) start pretty much in line with each other. There's not a lag, which suggests to me that the rise in hospital admissions with Covid is largely people with Covid rather than because of Covid.



The fact there are plenty in the 'with' category explains why there is no lag when you are looking only at the start date of a rise in admissions, but 'for' hospitalisations are still expected to follow a bit later on, with the usual lag. So you cant use the no-lag start date to claim there are negligible 'for' cases appearing and further driving the subsequent rise seen a week or so later than the rise first began.

The weekly data on 'for' and 'with' should be available tomorrow if the old schedule of data releases is still in place for NHS England. Unfortunately it shows numbers in hospital beds rather than being available directly for admissions data, but I still expect it to show some signs of an increase in 'for' cases. I wont bother to graph last weeks version of the data since we should be so close to the next version, but what was visible a week ago was the the 'with' numbers had started to rise, and the 'for' numbers had stopped falling and might just have been starting to rise, but too early to make that claim with confidence at the time.

On a related note, I've moaned before about English data for probable hospital-acquired infections being delivered in a somewhat obfuscated manner, but from what I can make out these have been rising sharply again in all regions, which explains some chunk of the 'with' patients.

Of particular note with hospital admissions figures is that the oldest two age groups have been seeing the most notable rises. For England as a whole the 85+ group is back to about the same levels seen at the first Omicron peak, and the 65-84 group is somewhat close to matching its previous Omicron peak too. In the 18-64 age group the recent numbers are only about half what they reached in that age group in late December/early January Omicron peak.



> It's been over two weeks since the rise in positive tests became apparent but as far as I can see there is no discernable rise in deaths, nor in "patients in mechanical ventilation beds". Both of these figures remain small and on a very gradual decline.
> 
> So, lots of people are getting Covid but it's not resulting in a significant level of serious illness.



Still a bit early for me to look for death increases, especially as I use ONS data more than anything else these days (because they distinguish between deaths primarily caused by Covid and others) and ONS data has additional lag. And non-ONS data is affected by variations in testing. 

As for mechanical ventilation figures, there have been some very modest rises in some English regions in very recent days, not enough to draw attention to yet. Plus we know Omicron changed that picture, and also that the ages of people being hospitalised for Covid has an impact on proportion who end up ventilated. This form of data is only a partial guide to disease severity, since there are other ways people can end up seriously ill from Covid. 

In summary, I think the fact its older age groups that are showing the biggest rise in hospital admissions/diagnoses is the largest cause for concern right now. But I doubt it will impact on government policy or media reporting and wider perceptions unless it continues to grow substantially from the levels its already reached in the latest data.


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## teuchter (Mar 16, 2022)

elbows said:


> The fact there are plenty in the 'with' category explains why there is no lag when you are looking only at the start date of a rise in admissions, but 'for' hospitalisations are still expected to follow a bit later on, with the usual lag. So you cant use the no-lag start date to claim there are negligible 'for' cases appearing and further driving the subsequent rise seen a week or so later than the rise first began.


Fair enough - but it means that at the moment I look at the increases in hospital admissions numbers and don't feel that it's something to get too worried about - obviously if they started accelerating faster it would be different. They are also still well below the previous peak, even though we know from the last set of ONS data (and also from what the ZOE study reports) that the number of people with Covid just now is very likely at least as high as it was in the previous peak(s) this year.


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## elbows (Mar 17, 2022)

I worry about it mostly because of the data by age this time around - we know that Covid has more potential to kill in older age groups, and in all the previous waves the older age groups did a pretty good job of hiding from the virus, albeit with obvious exceptions within sub groups of that older population via hospital acquired infections and care homes being vulnerable.

They've still got some things on their side, such as older age groups having fewer contacts in general, including during normal non-pandemic times, greater chance that many are still being careful in that age group, etc. But they do seem more exposed than ever before this time around. I may start to fret about unknowns in terms of waning immunity from booster shots, but the boosters with non-Oxford AZ vaccines have probably undone a potential weakness of that particular vaccine in terms of faster antibody waning seen in some earlier pre-Omicron vaccine data after 2 doses of AZ. A very large chunk of the older age groups dont have the immune advantage of vaccine+previous infection though. But there are still certain properties of Omicron that appear to help when it comes to severe disease and death risks, and at least the greater exposure of older age groups to the virus has only happened well into the vaccine era, with high vaccine uptake rates in the older age groups unlike the sorry situation in Hong Kong.

I really dont like the steepness of the hospitalisation figures in the older age groups in some regions of England, and will share some of those graphs another day. I cant go completely nuts about it yet though because how long it continues at that trajectory matters greatly in terms of whether the shit is really going to be considered to have hit the fan, and because I dont get 'for' and 'with' versions of that data in particular, forcing me to wait for other indicators such as deaths.

And I dont really know how essential the next boosters will turn out to be, or when the optimal timing of them will turn out to be. If this 'Omicron part 2 (BA.2)' wave doesnt go very well then the timing of those boosters could end up being blamed, or it might not pan out like that at all.

Whatever happens with the current wave, I doubt I will become much more relaxed about the current strategy unless we see the evolution of the virus, and thus the frequency of large waves, settle down to a much greater extent than has been the case so far.


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## William of Walworth (Mar 17, 2022)

Here is a chart of the "Headline Summary" from Public Health Wales showing graphs for cases etc.

(Next to it is a tab leading to page for a general/broader summary)

I'm pretty poor at stats-- how bad (or not) do case-rates look in Wales, please? 

I'm in a bit of a hurry I'm afraid .
 Help welcomed


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## l'Otters (Mar 17, 2022)

William of Walworth said:


> Here is a chart of the "Headline Summary" from Public Health Wales showing graphs for cases etc.
> 
> (Next to it is a tab leading to page for a general/broader summary)
> 
> ...


Bad by what measure? 

Do you need to decide whether to do something? 

Short & slightly vague answer: It’s high, there’s a lot of people with covid in Wales… 
It’s a lot worse in England and Northern Ireland… and worse than that again in Scotland…


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## William of Walworth (Mar 17, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> Bad by what measure?
> 
> Do you need to decide whether to do something?
> 
> ...


I meant that 'm rubbish at stats and graphs on their own -- I tend to need wiise interpretations alongside! 

I just need a bit of help interpreting really. Will return to this thread later though -- must dash.!!


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## Orang Utan (Mar 17, 2022)

William of Walworth said:


> I meant that 'm rubbish at stats and graphs on their own -- I tend to need wiise interpretations alongside!
> 
> I just need a bit of help interpreting really. Will return to this thread later though -- must dash.!!


Just ignore them unless you absolutely need to know for practical reasons


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## Fruitloop (Mar 17, 2022)

One thing I wonder, with the whole 'with' vs 'because of' Covid thing in terms of hospitalizations, is how many people without Covid are in hospital because of Covid.


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## elbows (Mar 17, 2022)

Fruitloop said:


> One thing I wonder, with the whole 'with' vs 'because of' Covid thing in terms of hospitalizations, is how many people without Covid are in hospital because of Covid.



The description on the NHS England webpage where such data is published does draw attention to that sort of thing too, I've put that bit in bold in the quote below:



> A subset of those who contract Covid in the community and are asymptomatic, or exhibited relatively mild symptoms that on their own are unlikely to warrant admission to hospital, will then be admitted to hospital to be treated for something else and be identified through routine testing. However these patients still require their treatment in areas that are segregated from patients without Covid, and the presence of Covid can be a significant co-morbidity in many cases. *Equally, while the admission may be due to another primary condition, in many instances this may have been as a result of contracting Covid in the community. For example research has shown that people with Covid are more likely to have a stroke (Stroke Association); in these cases people would be admitted for the stroke, classified as ‘with’ Covid despite having had a stroke as a result of having Covid.*


(from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity )

Not that they cover every possibility in that description, eg as usual they dont want to draw attention to hospital-acquired infections.

We are never going to get a full and accurate picture of hospitalisations and deaths and the true role covid played in each case. I had to come to terms with that reality long before this pandemic because its true with plenty of other diseases and causes as well. And wider medical and societal opinions always have an influence over such things, including death certificate listed causes and attitudes towards covid changing over time. This stuff is one of the main reasons I continue to put 'for' and 'with' in quotation marks, I dont treat them as solid, well defined things we can perfectly rely on, and I moan at people who use such data to downplay this virus and its impact.


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## elbows (Mar 17, 2022)

Oops I just realised that I missed out specifically mentioning the variation of the above that actually responds to your question - assuming I understood your post properly, this variation jsut requires slightly different timing, eg someone has covid but then suffers health complications as a result later on, beyond the period when they would actually test positive for the virus. Is that the sort of thing you meant?


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## teuchter (Mar 17, 2022)

The relevance of all this depends on what your purpose is in looking at the numbers.

For me at this moment, I am looking at them to see if there's anything particular to worry about - for example signs of a developing situation that might require the return of restrictions or that is putting certain groups at increasing risk. 

A broad sense of (messily defined) "with" vs "for" numbers is useful in making these judgements.

For someone who is looking at the numbers with the purpose of making an assessment of past public health strategy, who might want to criticise it for being too lax or too restrictive or who wants to "downplay its impact" or whatever, then these distinctions have different implications and relevance.

Once you start looking at things like people in hospital without covid but because of consequential effects of having previously had covid, then you are potentially getting into an argument with those who want to point out people who are in hospital because of consequential effects of restrictions that they think were uneccessary, and so on.


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## elbows (Mar 17, 2022)

Well I didnt say they were utterly useless, if I thought they had no value at all then I wouldnt have bothered talking about them and making graphs about them so much.

But you already know by now that I will have a go at people who use them in certain ways or try to make more out of them than it is actually safe to do so. Especially as the NHS itself says the classification is done on a 'best endeavours' basis and so the quality of the data may not be that high.

From a practical point of view in regards hospital pressures (which in turn affect policy decisions), both 'for' and 'with' cases have implications. Obviously the 'for' people that would not have been hospitalised at all if they didnt have covid represent a distinct additional burden, whereas the 'with' cases would often have been taking up beds anyway, but the management of those cases still places an additional burden on the NHS due to infection control, potentially increased length of stay, worse outcomes etc.

Anyway here is the latest data published today in the Primary Diagnoses Supplement spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

As I always say, this data shows people with covid in hospital beds in England, not daily admissions. It did what I predicted it would when I spoke about this the other day, because such a prediction was not hard to make since it would have been odd and unexpected if the 'for' cases hadnt increased in the current circumstances.


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## Fruitloop (Mar 18, 2022)

elbows said:


> Oops I just realised that I missed out specifically mentioning the variation of the above that actually responds to your question - assuming I understood your post properly, this variation jsut requires slightly different timing, eg someone has covid but then suffers health complications as a result later on, beyond the period when they would actually test positive for the virus. Is that the sort of thing you meant?


Yeah, that was exactly it. As you say, super hard to quantify, but obviously being ignored by the minimizers who are trumpeting the 'with' not 'because of' nonsense. Anecdotally it's not at all uncommon though, and might well be quite significant


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## two sheds (Mar 18, 2022)

would that include long covid? Although that would I presume normally be picked up during that initial period.


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## elbows (Mar 18, 2022)

What I expect to happen on that front in the medium-long term is that all sorts of long term population health aspects will show up in all sorts of ways in data for decades. There will be numerous attempts to unpick the effects caused by lockdowns/fear of seeking treatment in a timely way, healthcare backlogs etc, from the direct physical consequences of infection. Agendas and politics will influence the narrative and which aspects are shouted about the loudest.


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## 2hats (Mar 18, 2022)

Latest ONS infection survey indicates an increase to around 1 in 20 infected (varies across nations, regions, age cohorts, but increases everywhere), with BA.2 a major driver.


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## elbows (Mar 18, 2022)

The BBC has been mostly avoiding stories about the hospital situation, but I doubt that is sustainable.

The Guardian had a piece last night:









						Rise in UK Covid admissions leading to hospital illness, absence and delays
					

Hospitals in southern England worst affected, with Devon recording highest ever numbers of Covid patients




					www.theguardian.com
				






> The number of people in hospital with Covid in Devon has doubled in a fortnight and is higher than at any other point in the pandemic, according to the NHS Devon clinical commissioning group (CCG).





> According to data for England, the number of people in hospital with Covid increased from 8,210 on 3 March to 11,346 on Thursday.





> While rising infection levels in the community mean the number of people in hospital who have an “incidental” Covid infection is likely to be rising, the number of those who are being treated primarily for Covid rose from 3,445 on 3 March to 4,475 on 15 March, according to NHS England.





> In addition, analysts have suggested hospital-acquired Covid infections are rising.





> Dr David Strain, a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter medical school, told the Guardian the situation was continuing to deteriorate.
> 
> “What we are seeing here is what we’re expecting the rest of the country to be seeing over the next week to 10 days,” said Strain, adding that the pressure on hospital beds had coincided with the rise of the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron.



The article also discusses the pressure that even the 'with' cases causes on hospitals, waiting lists etc.

I'll probably do some graphs later when todays data is out. Daily admissions for England have really been soaring this week.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2022)

And here is a twitter thread the Guardian linked to when they mentioned hospital-acquired infections in that article:

The proportions involved probably go some way to explaining why hospital-acquired infections is something I've droned on about all the way through the pandemic. I considered even lower percentages like 5% to be noteworthy, and now the percentages estimated are so much higher.


----------



## elbows (Mar 18, 2022)

Fuck Rees-Mogg. The pandemic was serious, the lockdowns and rules were serious, rule-makers being seen to adhere to the rules was serious.









						Jacob Rees-Mogg dismisses partygate as 'trivial fluff'
					

The cabinet minister says war in Ukraine has returned a sense of "fundamental seriousness" to politics.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Cabinet minster Jacob Rees-Mogg has dismissed concerns over parties in Downing Street during lockdown as "fluff" and "fundamentally trivial".
> 
> Speaking at the Conservative spring conference, he said war in Ukraine "was a reminder that the world is serious".


----------



## Numbers (Mar 18, 2022)

Cunt.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 18, 2022)

Just watched the Gold Cup at Cheltenham.  60,000 people packed in like sardines.
Will be interesting to see if anything comes of it like it did 2 years ago.


----------



## BassJunkie (Mar 18, 2022)

BassJunkie said:


> Totally this. Mrs BassJunkie has been off school since last Thursday. She's triple jabbed and a secondary school teacher. My first poker game for 2 years this Saturday has now been cancelled because the host has tested positive. Despite my best efforts (trying to not to treat Mrs BassJunkie like a pariah) I'm still testing negative. But feel like a positive test is imminent.
> 
> Although this makes me very grateful for the vaccinations, if this was 2020 it would be a lot more terrifying.



Apologies for replying to myself, but, so, it came to pass. I tested positive on Thursday morning. 

Feeling quite rough, which gives me another reason to thank medicine and science for the vaccines.  Still, getting 12 hours sleep a night. And 3 hours sleep an afternoon.

It looks like it's going to be a quiet weekend. 

Now I must go an update my vote on that other thread.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2022)

Daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for England by age group. Data goes up to March 15th. Same data shown three different ways.

The 85+ age group has exceeded the level seen in the first Omicron peak. Less hospital cases in ages under 65 are the only reason the overall totals dont match or exceed the earlier Omicron peak yet.


----------



## elbows (Mar 19, 2022)

Daily hospital admissions/diagnoses by region of England and overall England figures.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2022)

I wish the following surprised me, but it does not.

The full article is only available if you are registered but the start is probably enough to get the idea:



> Infection control rules in the NHS are ‘now disproportionate to the risks’ posed by covid and should be relaxed, including potentially allowing staff with covid to work, some of the NHS’s most senior leaders have said.











						‘Disproportionate’ infection control holding back electives, say NHS bosses
					

Infection control rules in the NHS are 'now disproportionate to the risks' posed by covid and should be relaxed, including potentially allowing staff with covid to work, some of the NHS's most senior leaders have said.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				




NHS Providers are not so bullish, but in other areas there is pressure from senior management to have the rules changed.

Attitudes, decisions and capabilities in regards infection control within our health system is, I believe, one of the reasons this country did badly in the pandemic. It is a difficult area and despite my large number of posts about hospital-acquired infections, I do recognise that when the risk picture changes a new balance will inevitably be struck. But 'learning to live with Covid' in this context sucks, and I tend to point my finger in this direction when it comes to things like the number of flu deaths that are considered normal and that we are encouraged to accept, so its unlikely I'll ever be in line with authorities when it comes to this stuff and Covid.

These sorts of things remind me what whoppers were told when the pandemic forced attitudes towards working when sick within the health system to temporarily change, eg claims that people always understood the value of not coming to work when infectious when actually most people are only too well aware of the standard pressure to keep working.

The pressures that arise in the current circumstances, the effect on healthcare and the temptation to relax rules as a result, is one of the big reasons why I dont like broader acceptance of massive waves of covid being allowed to happen, even when we have changed the ratio of cases to severe cases and deaths substantially.


----------



## elbows (Mar 21, 2022)

Also note how quickly we have travelled all the way from mandatory vaccinations for NHS workers to 'let them come to work when sick with covid'.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 21, 2022)

hmmppfff.

OH is currently in the "local" Green ie covid-free hospital for a minor surgical procedure, this has been waiting for some time ...
I would much rather that OH did not come back with covid to add to the need to be convalescing at home ...


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 21, 2022)

On a slightly better note, IIRC I heard the radio declaim that it was now possible to book for the "spring" booster - if you are over 75 and immunocompromised. 

OK so far as it goes, but I would prefer the age limit to have been somewhat lower and more CEV people to be covered.


----------



## weepiper (Mar 21, 2022)

Everything is fine









						Schools closed over staff Covid absence rates
					

Pupils in at least six primaries move to remote learning as councils warn of high staff absences.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I am in Edinburgh. My son is sitting his Higher exams in 6 weeks.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Mar 22, 2022)

Highest ever numbers of covid patients in hospital in Devon ATM.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 22, 2022)

bloody hell (although not really surprising)


----------



## Numbers (Mar 22, 2022)

Good to see there’s zero Covid in Ireland.


----------



## two sheds (Mar 22, 2022)

.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 22, 2022)

two sheds said:


> View attachment 315360
> bloody hell (although not really surprising)


Unfortunately, I've been expecting the map to do the going back to deep purple again.
Removing all restrictions before Omicron had been properly subdued is/was downright negligent.
Without a sense of community responsibility, any "guidance" and lack of proper support, just hoping people will do the right thing was never going to cut it, was it ?
and fuck "living with covid" at least until the case rate has been down a lot lower for a decent few weeks ...


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 22, 2022)

Infection rate in my part of Bristol is now twice the England average and should flip from dark purple to black in a day or two. 

Almost zero masking in Aldi - They think it's all over - again ...


----------



## teuchter (Mar 22, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Removing all restrictions before Omicron had been properly subdued



I am finding it hard to see that this is now an option.

I know that one view is that we should have continued with mask requirements for longer, and it's not something I'd have argued against, but what is the evidence that it really would have made a lot of difference?

In February I was in Germany. The difference in approach to mask rules there, compared to the UK, was very striking. Almost everyone was wearing a mask in every situation they were supposed to - in shops, on trains, on buses, in galleries, pretty much everywhere except restaurants and bars. Furthermore almost everyone was wearing an FFP2 mask and almost everyone was wearing it properly. So in other words what they were doing was the absolute best case scenario for compliance that we could ever have seen here.

As far as I'm aware, they've only just announced that they will end these requirements, and many states are opting to continue for another couple of weeks.

But when I look at their case numbers, they do not appear to be doing any better than the UK.



Of course, I know that differences in testing regimes can make these figures misleading.

I've not been able to find any "prevalance" numbers for Germany, to compare with those from the UK REACT study etc. Nor hospitalisations. But their deaths figures don't appear to be any better than ours either.



I now find it a little hard to see that we could really, meaningfully suppress Omicron numbers without a return to lockdowns and shutting down of hospitality etc.
I'm very willing to be argued against on this.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2022)

Comparisons to other countries are harder than ever. Take for example those death figures for Germany. As far as I know their December peak was from a Delta wave, so they havent actually had a Omicron death wave of the magnitude the UK experienced with its first Omicron wave. And the vaccination and booster coverage and timing wasnt the same as ours. Chuck in a bunch of other differences and there is no way I can use the data to make any claims about how much difference masks are making.

I can certainly agree that masks arent going to make a giant, dramatic difference on their own. Even with the original version of the virus we were told that only combinations of measures applied together would make enough of a difference, and things are even harder now because of the transmission advantages recent variants have.

Masks on their own will still make a difference as to whether some specific individuals catch covid, and that still matters to me even when the impact on the overall numbers game is more modest. Even there, we'd still expect some effect, but whether its something authorities would go for in isolation would depend on what estimates looked like - if they thought numbers might just exceed tolerable thresholds then masks on their own might make enough of a difference, but its more likely that masks would be paired with at least one other thing like working from home and gloomy mood music. Or likewise with timing, if for example there was a race to get boosters done in time and things like masks might slow things just enough to buy the necessary time. There are also the psychological knock on effects, such as reminding people that the threat is still out there, putting people off from certain activities and locations, etc. But these days thats exactly the sort of psychology the authorities want to get rid of because it gets in the way of their normalisation agenda, they actively want people to go back to the old ways and not be reminded of the ongoing threat. Javid has been bragging again recently about showing the rest of the world how to live with covid, and when thats the agenda they will not be seeking to save every possible life, they have their eyes on a different prize and the threshold for when they'd be forced to act becomes higher.

There are lots of other things in between masks and lockdowns, but we scrapped those too. eg working from home, self-isolation rules. They wont look to bring any of that stuff back unless hospitalisation figures go completely nuts in this wave. And even if dramatic signs of that happening emerge then I expect all they will try to do initially is to use it to encourage the new booster campaign to reach more people, faster. Only if the projections become very bleak would they be forced into a proper u-turn.


----------



## elbows (Mar 22, 2022)

Plus the fact more people in older age groups are catching it this time is actually a factor that makes them even keener to hold their nerve - if the NHS consequences arent too severe and the wave is ridden out, they can use that to claim with increasing confidence that we can live with covid without restrictions. Certain properties of Omicron appear to make it a good candidate upon which to build such claims, at least when combined with the right amount of vaccine coverage, right timing of boosters. If some future variant spoils this then they'll not bother crossing that bridge till they come to it.

Personally I still have absolutely no intention of returning to relative normality until prevalence levels fall so much lower than they have been so far since Omicron came along. I have the luxury for a few more months of taking that approach.


----------



## l'Otters (Mar 22, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I am finding it hard to see that this is now an option.
> 
> I know that one view is that we should have continued with mask requirements for longer, and it's not something I'd have argued against, but what is the evidence that it really would have made a lot of difference?
> 
> ...


Do you think that dropping self isolation when infectious with covid, including in hospitals, is a good idea at this point? 
Likewise with no support for self isolation (and the lowest rate of sick pay in Europe iirc)? 
Likewise ending free testing? 
Are you one of these people who doesn’t accept that masks have an impact on transmission?


----------



## teuchter (Mar 22, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> Are you one of these people who doesn’t accept that masks have an impact on transmission?


Are you "one of these people" who never really bothers to read what someone's actually written?


----------



## teuchter (Mar 22, 2022)

Anyway, of course there are all sorts of measures that could be taken which could reduce the number of infections to some extent, an extent that is basically somewhat unknown. And that has to be balanced against the negative impacts of those measures, again something that can never be definitely measured and something that people will inevitably disagree on because of the wildly differing extent to which they impact on different people with different lives.

There's never going to be agreement on what the right balance is. Those who want restrictions done away with, may underestimate the real and perceived consequences for those more vulnerable to the disease. Those who want them kept in place, may underestimate the implications of those restrictions, for people in different circumstances to their own.


----------



## Numbers (Mar 23, 2022)

2 years since first lockdown announcement today.

Fuckin crazy.


----------



## elbows (Mar 23, 2022)

Whitty:









						NHS under pressure from new Covid wave across England, says Chris Whitty
					

Increasing numbers of people needing hospital treatment for coronavirus, says chief medical officer




					www.theguardian.com
				






> Whitty raised concerns that other areas of public health had “gone backwards” in the last two years, including obesity and alcohol. Child obesity rates in particular were now “significantly worse” than they were at the start of the pandemic, he warned.
> 
> However, while there was an urgent need to tackle problems in a number of other areas of public health, Covid-19 remained a major threat, he said. “Covid cases are now rising quite rapidly – from quite a high base – and this is driven by a number of different factors, of which BA.2, the new Omicron variant is a large part. Rates are high and rising in virtually all parts of England.”





> “If we look at hospitalisations, there are now quite significant numbers of people in hospital,” he told delegates at the conference. “They are now rising again, and I think will continue to rise for at least the next two weeks – so there is pressure on the NHS.
> 
> “It is currently being driven by Omicron rather than new variants, but we need to keep a very close eye on this because at any point new variants could emerge anywhere in the world, including the UK, as happened with the Alpha variant.”





> Asked by a delegate when the pandemic might end, Whitty said that while Covid would become less dominant over time, it would remain a significant problem across the world “for the rest of our lives”.
> 
> “Let’s have no illusions about that. I’m expecting it to be probably – in the UK – seasonal but interspersed at least for the next two or three years by new variants … I think we should just accept that is what we’re going to deal with and just roll with it rather than expect some end point.”


----------



## weepiper (Mar 23, 2022)

Covid pressure on hospitals 'as serious as it gets'
					

Scotland's biggest health board says it is facing a perfect storm of high patient numbers and staff absences.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## panpete (Mar 24, 2022)

I got it on 13th March, Dr ordered me to order pcr, positive, but two lateral flow tests showed negative on 21st. Healing and get well soon to all those with it and condolences to anyone who knows someone who died from it.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2022)

ONS infection survey suggest 1 in 11 people had Covid in Scotland last week!









						Covid in Scotland: New record as one in 11 Scots had virus last week
					

Official estimates suggest 473,800 people in Scotland had the virus in the week ending 20 March.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




One in 16 in England and Wales.









						UK Covid infections climb by a million in a week
					

About 4.3 million people - or one in every 16 - are thought to have the virus, compared to 3.3 million the week before.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## weepiper (Mar 25, 2022)

I feel rather more that it's only a matter of time til I get it than I have at any point so far during the pandemic.


----------



## Sue (Mar 25, 2022)

weepiper said:


> I feel rather more that it's only a matter of time til I get it than I have at any point so far during the pandemic.


The numbers in Scotland are shocking at the moment.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2022)

Ridiculous shithead Simon Jenkins offers a glimpse at the sort of revisionist history these kind of cunts still hope to be able to indulge in in future:









						Two years ago I said I was taking Covid ‘with a pinch of salt’ – perhaps I was wrong | Simon Jenkins
					

March 2020 was a nightmare month in the game of prediction. But I stand firm that some of my scepticism may be borne out, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2022)

I thought quite a lot of the sliders in this weeks indie SAGE video were rather interesting.

I dont usually get around to viewing ONS infection survey results as useful graphs, so I screengrabbed a couple of those from todays video when I saw them (video at  )


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 25, 2022)

I am hopeful we could be reaching the peak of this new wave soon, the increases in the 7-day average of reported new cases has been slowing over the last week or so, up 'just' +8.5% today.

Here in Worthing, which has been in the top three areas for infection rates in England for a few weeks now, the 7-day averages have actually started to drop this last week, down -8.3% today.


----------



## elbows (Mar 25, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> I am hopeful we could be reaching the peak of this new wave soon, the increases in the 7-day average of reported new cases has been slowing over the last week or so, up 'just' +8.5% today.
> 
> Here in Worthing, which has been in the top three areas for infection rates in England for a few weeks now, the 7-day averages have actually started to drop this last week, down -8.3% today.



Yeah, reasons to hope for that include previous wave timing patterns hopefully repeating, the virus running out of sufficient new victims to maintain ever growing numbers, better weather seen lately, the number of people who are still doing the right thing by isolating when sick.

I dont have an exact sense of timing in mind eg I could be a week or two off, but if it drags on longer then the easter school holiday will also be expected to make a difference when that arrives.

Obviously there is some lag when it comes to hospitalisations and deaths, so I dont think we've seen that side of the picture emerge in full yet for the BA.2 wave of Omicron, but there are still some obvious limits in the extent to which we'd expect those to grow given the level of infections already reached but not sustainable.


----------



## brogdale (Mar 26, 2022)

Govt interactive map of covid cases on left (blue = lower rates/100k) and map of socio-economic deprivation on the right (blue = higher levels of deprivation).

Isn't it wonderful that the poor people aren't catching covid any more?


----------



## Cloo (Mar 28, 2022)

I think this might be the peak so far of 'people I know with covid at the same time'


----------



## mr steev (Mar 28, 2022)

Cloo said:


> I think this might be the peak so far of 'people I know with covid at the same time'



It feels crazy round here. I had a doctors appointment this morning and most of the doctors are off sick. Two of my colleagues tested positive over the weekend (one is quite rough, and the other is waiting on heart surgery so not ideal), I was going to cover for them this afternoon, but I've just had a message that 4 out of 6 of the team who were coming in have all tested positive too


----------



## Cloo (Mar 28, 2022)

Yeah, got two colleagues, one kid in son's class (which will soon be more then) and her sister, 5 or 6 mates.


----------



## LDC (Mar 28, 2022)

Cloo said:


> I think this might be the peak so far of 'people I know with covid at the same time'



Yeah same here for the last 2-3 weeks.


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2022)

Another little indicator here In the midlands is that last week the BBC had to cancel the east midlands version of Midlands Today due to Covid staff shortages, temporarily switching viewers in that region to watching the west midlands version instead.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 28, 2022)

elbows said:


> Another little indicator here In the midlands is that last week the BBC had to cancel the east midlands version of Midlands Today due to Covid staff shortages, temporarily switching viewers in that region to watching the west midlands version instead.



BBC South Today has been welcoming viewers from Oxford in the last week, this could complain why.


----------



## elbows (Mar 28, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> BBC South Today has been welcoming viewers from Oxford in the last week, this could complain why.



Viewer served by the Oxford transmitter normally get a modified version of South Today, where about half the broadcast is different to the main South Today, featuring stuff produced in Oxford and covering events more relevant to their region. 

Yeah, probably reasonable to assume that covid staffing issues have scuppered the Oxford edition for a time recently, in much the same way as what I described has happened to the east midlands news service.

They havent tended to acknowledge this in any detail on the programmes - viewers in particular places being briefly welcomed at the start of the programme was certainly the main indication here, in our case Nottingham and Derby viewers were welcomed to our Birmingham-based news programme. I think some people moaned and yesterday the programme went out of its way to actually include some news from those places.


----------



## _Russ_ (Mar 28, 2022)

Mask mandates abolished today in Wales and its like a fucking on off switch, im surrounded by fucking idiots


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 28, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Mask mandates abolished today in Wales and its like a fucking on off switch, im surrounded by fucking idiots


ZERO masks in Tesco earlier - with case rate of nearly 1600 per 100k locally - twice the England average, 1.5 times the Bristol average ..
I found myself rehearsing a come-back - thankfully it hasn't been needed yet - perhaps my grey hair marks me out as a scared OAP ...


----------



## BCBlues (Mar 28, 2022)

elbows said:


> ...in our case Nottingham and Derby viewers were welcomed to our Birmingham-based news programme. I think some people moaned and yesterday the programme went out of its way to actually include some news from those places.



I bet they moaned, who wants to hear that Midland Metro has been taken out service yet again


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Mar 28, 2022)

local bus and train services are disrupted today due to staff sickness levels...


----------



## Dystopiary (Mar 28, 2022)

Latest release (ie, today) from the ONS on Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in England 2020 shows that "avoidable mortality" rates due to Covid were significantly higher for people living in the most deprived areas. 


Socioeconomic inequalities in avoidable mortality in England - Office for National Statistics


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Mar 28, 2022)

couldn't order any tests today, someone else I spoke to said it had been so for a few days.


----------



## 20Bees (Mar 28, 2022)

I ordered a pack of LFTs around 08.00 on Saturday and received them today. They’re the original tonsil-swab type, my last few packs have just been nostril swabs, with the reactant already in the dropper. I’m not bothered about tonsil-swabbing but the other type are much easier.


----------



## lazythursday (Mar 29, 2022)

Impossible to get LFTs here. I am recovering from covid and have an event on weds, have hoarded one test to see if I'm negative before going. Official guidance is two days in a row negative but they're so hard to come by.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 29, 2022)

Went to grab LFT after doing the form to collect. Local pharmacy says the NHS stopped supplying them last week.


So we're looking at least a week before the 31st deadline so someone's taking the piss with that deadline


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 29, 2022)

Artaxerxes said:


> Went to grab LFT after doing the form to collect. Local pharmacy says the NHS stopped supplying them last week.
> 
> 
> So we're looking at least a week before the 31st deadline so someone's taking the piss with that deadline


I expect they attempted to buy enough that they would run out on the 31st rather than having any left over. But there has been some understandable (given the cost of buying privately) hoarding behaviour which has messed up their calculations.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 29, 2022)

Brainaddict said:


> I expect they attempted to buy enough that they would run out on the 31st rather than having any left over. But there has been some understandable (given the cost of buying privately) hoarding behaviour which has messed up their calculations.




Wife works for NHS so I'm hoping she's got more options than I have.

Government are a bunch of profiteering cunts.


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 29, 2022)

I've not been able to order any online for over a week.


----------



## BristolEcho (Mar 29, 2022)

Artaxerxes said:


> Wife works for NHS so I'm hoping she's got more options than I have.
> 
> *Government are a bunch of profiteering cunts.*


They think that's a compliment when you point that out to them unfortunately.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 29, 2022)

Lack of LFTs or making them far too expensive is just part of their "It's all over now, get back to being wage slaves, you plebs" mindset.
the murdering cockwombles ...


----------



## Mation (Mar 29, 2022)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> couldn't order any tests today, someone else I spoke to said it had been so for a few days.





sheothebudworths said:


> I've not been able to order any online for over a week.



I've been trying and failing to order some online. Instead today I went to a local mobile test centre; they have a stand next to it, where packs are being given out free. You just tell them your postcode. Not sure they even write it down. They apparently run out around mid-morning.

Don't know whether that's the case for places, especially if more remote, other than London (or even other boroughs in London) but worth a shot?


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 29, 2022)

I see my manor has pulled back from the brink of going from dark purple to black. 
Will this be on account of less testing ?


----------



## Jimmy Don't (Mar 29, 2022)

elbows said:


> Another little indicator here In the midlands is that last week the BBC had to cancel the east midlands version of Midlands Today due to Covid staff shortages, temporarily switching viewers in that region to watching the west midlands version instead.


_Insert something about the People's Front of Jusea here_ Splitters!


----------



## Ms T (Mar 29, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> I see my manor has pulled back from the brink of going from dark purple to black.
> Will this be on account of less testing ?


Isn't it based on the ONS survey?


----------



## Ms T (Mar 29, 2022)

I gave up trying to order the NHS ones and purchased five for just under a tenner from Boots.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2022)

Ms T said:


> Isn't it based on the ONS survey?



The interactive maps on the dashboard are based on the main testing system rather than the ONS survey. I pay little attention to this data these days, since the main testing regime & rules were too subject to rules changes, test availability etc, and thats obviously about to get worse with the loss of free lateral flow tests. I rely far more on ONS data even though its laggy. And other stuff like ZOE. I still use the hospital data from the dashboard though, since that hasnt been decimated (yet).


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Mar 29, 2022)

Mation said:


> I've been trying and failing to order some online. Instead today I went to a local mobile test centre; they have a stand next to it, where packs are being given out free. You just tell them your postcode. Not sure they even write it down. They apparently run out around mid-morning.
> 
> Don't know whether that's the case for places, especially if more remote, other than London (or even other boroughs in London) but worth a shot?


I see, will try and reach windrush square in time tomorrow or thursday, I only just noticed this morning that they had dismantled the test centre outside my estate despite walking past it yesterday morning.

e2a: the medisave website where I get my FFP2 from have tests for sale, not cheap but I'll need some for work as I'm not sure contracting for the NHS in a face to face role entitles me to their testing regime.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 29, 2022)

My local area has got what appears to be another rapid rise in infections going on at the moment.


----------



## prunus (Mar 29, 2022)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I see, will try and reach windrush square in time tomorrow or thursday, I only just noticed this morning that they had dismantled the test centre outside my estate despite walking past it yesterday morning.
> 
> e2a: the medisave website where I get my FFP2 from have tests for sale, not cheap but I'll need some for work as I'm not sure contracting for the NHS in a face to face role entitles me to their testing regime.



Peace Pharmacy on Coldharbour lane had supplies in this afternoon if it’s not too far out of your way.


----------



## elbows (Mar 29, 2022)

They finally published the details of who will still be eligible for free testing:









						Government sets out next steps for living with COVID
					

New guidance outlines free COVID-19 tests will continue to be available to help protect specific groups once free testing for the general public ends on 1 April.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## pbsmooth (Mar 29, 2022)

Cloo said:


> I think this might be the peak so far of 'people I know with covid at the same time'


Agreed. Especially in London.


----------



## prunus (Mar 29, 2022)

elbows said:


> They finally published the details of who will still be eligible for free testing:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Interestingly if actually followed this should mark the end of the Lemsip business model get yourself into work whatever presenteeism.  They are explicitly saying avoid other people if you have any respiratory disease symptoms. I wonder how this will be played out in actual workplaces - no legislation, but official govt guidance is to stay at home if you have a cold. Interesting ammunition for an employment tribunal should employers kick up a fuss.


----------



## Mation (Mar 29, 2022)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I see, will try and reach windrush square in time tomorrow or thursday, I only just noticed this morning that they had dismantled the test centre outside my estate despite walking past it yesterday morning.
> 
> e2a: the medisave website where I get my FFP2 from have tests for sale, not cheap but I'll need some for work as I'm not sure contracting for the NHS in a face to face role entitles me to their testing regime.


I got mine from Windrush Square, so they're definitely doing them.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 29, 2022)

prunus said:


> Interestingly if actually followed this should mark the end of the Lemsip business model get yourself into work whatever presenteeism.  They are explicitly saying avoid other people if you have any respiratory disease symptoms. I wonder how this will be played out in actual workplaces - no legislation, but official govt guidance is to stay at home if you have a cold. Interesting ammunition for an employment tribunal should employers kick up a fuss.



The way it is worded seems to leave room for going into work with child symptoms, if you don't have a temperature or "feel unwell".



> updated guidance will advise people with symptoms of a respiratory infection, including COVID-19, and a high temperature or who feel unwell, to try stay at home and avoid contact with other people, until they feel well enough to resume normal activities and they no longer have a high temperature.


----------



## bluescreen (Mar 29, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The way it is worded seems to leave room for going into work with child symptoms, if you don't have a temperature or "feel unwell".


_Child symptoms_? Being small and crying when things don't go your way? Arguing?
You are being more than usually combative here.


----------



## _Russ_ (Mar 30, 2022)

Not sure if yer trolling bluescreen, but Id imagine its a typo, try 'mild'


----------



## gentlegreen (Mar 30, 2022)

Curiously, though my BS5 plague pit is heading in a favourable direction, there are other parts of town - including some posh suburbs that are going in the opposite direction.

I assume my sister's mild case fully-cleared-up because she posted a photo of herself alongside my 85 year old mother ...

I will have a bit of a dilemma in a couple of weeks' time when I'm hauling fence materials through my next door neighbours' house ... they have children and *she *is a teaching assistant ... but the grandparents are in and out to act as litmus paper ...


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Mar 30, 2022)

my half empty glass outlook reads this


> Although COVID-19 infections and hospitalisations have risen in recent weeks, over 55% of those in hospital that have tested positive are not there with COVID-19 as their primary diagnosis.


as
Over 44% of those in hospital that have tested positive are  there with COVID-19 as their primary diagnosis.


----------



## cupid_stunt (Mar 30, 2022)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> my half empty glass outlook reads this
> 
> as
> Over 44% of those in hospital that have tested positive are  there with COVID-19 as their primary diagnosis.



That's true, but most are not 'serious cases', and are often only in for a few days on oxygen, there're 'only' 363 on ventilation, compared to a peak of over 4,000.


----------



## prunus (Mar 30, 2022)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> my half empty glass outlook reads this
> 
> as
> Over 44% of those in hospital that have tested positive are  there with COVID-19 as their primary diagnosis.



With maximum pedantry, you can't actually infer that from the figure you quoted...

But yes, probably fair!


----------



## elbows (Mar 30, 2022)

I post those figures quite often, but I wont repeat that right now as the next weeks worth should be out tomorrow. I might post them per region since there is really quite a lot of regional variation, with London having an especially high proportion of 'not primarily for covid' in this wave.

I also tend to go on about how a really notable chunk of the 'not primarily covid' hospital cases are people who caught the virus in hospital, which is hardly a satisfactory state of affairs.

These days in the media, including the BBC, the proportion of cases that are not there primarily for covid is used as something else to talk about instead of actually getting into the detail of how much the primarily for covid cases have risen in this wave. I'll say more on this when tomorrows figures are available.


----------



## Mation (Mar 30, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> they have children and *she *is a teaching assistant ... but the grandparents are in and out to act as litmus paper ...


Edifying!


----------



## teuchter (Mar 30, 2022)

bluescreen said:


> _Child symptoms_? Being small and crying when things don't go your way? Arguing?
> You are being more than usually combative here.


It was autocorrect and should have said "cold symptoms".


----------



## bluescreen (Mar 31, 2022)

teuchter said:


> It was autocorrect and should have said "cold symptoms".


Sorry - yes, that is what I suspected but failed to resist the temptation to be flippant.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 31, 2022)

More "live with it" crap ... this time the bbc attempting to say "it ain't that bad now, stop whinging and get back to work ..."
with a slight sop to say don't spread it to the most vulnerable [e2a - despite the limited "spring" booster program].









						Covid: Why are so many people catching it again?
					

As Covid continues to spread rapidly, are many people catching Omicron for a second time?



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## teuchter (Mar 31, 2022)

I don't see anything wrong with that BBC article at all. Nothing in it that isn't a reasonable description of the current state of play.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 31, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I don't see anything wrong with that BBC article at all. Nothing in it that isn't a reasonable description of the current state of play.


Despite what the gov't are trying to pretend, including that both BA2 and "Omicron" are less severe than previous variants, I don't think that the pandemic [especially worldwide] is anything like over.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 31, 2022)

Bit more government hypocrisy ...









						Covid: Sacked test centre staff 'thrown to wolves'
					

Staff at Covid test centres say were given very little notice that their jobs would disappear.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## xenon (Mar 31, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Despite what the gov't are trying to pretend, including that both BA2 and "Omicron" are less severe than previous variants, I don't think that the pandemic [especially worldwide] is anything like over.



They are less severe though. To those who have had a full vaccination. This does not mean everyone who gets coronavirus will have mild symptoms though.


----------



## rubbershoes (Mar 31, 2022)

xenon said:


> They are less severe though. To those who have had a full vaccination. This does not mean everyone who gets coronavirus will have mild symptoms though.



Deaths are still more than 100 a day


----------



## xenon (Mar 31, 2022)

Yes. But these variants are still milder. Saying otherwise isn’t true.


----------



## xenon (Mar 31, 2022)

I mean if they weren’t,  with the infection rate would be seeing thousands of deaths a day.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 31, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Despite what the gov't are trying to pretend, including that both BA2 and "Omicron" are less severe than previous variants, I don't think that the pandemic [especially worldwide] is anything like over.


What's the problem with the BBC article though? It doesn't claim anything about the pandemic being over.


----------



## StoneRoad (Mar 31, 2022)

xenon said:


> I mean if they weren’t,  with the infection rate would be seeing thousands of deaths a day.


Much of that is, imo, down to the protection offered by a full course of the three vaccinations and the drug treatments available.


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2022)

xenon said:


> I mean if they weren’t,  with the infection rate would be seeing thousands of deaths a day.



A combination of the properties of Omicron, vaccination rates especially in older people, boosters including the timing of boosters and that the the boosters with non-AZ vaccines overcoming some of the possible limitations of the AZ vaccine. And a range of drug treatments. Also degrees of immunity via prior infection, and the sad fact that a proportion of those most vulnerable to covid death already died in previous waves.

There is no denying that in plenty of countries including the UK, Omicron waves have featured a very different number of people requiring mechanical ventilation. 

Putting all these things together means that the consequences of widespread talk about Omicron being milder have been modest here. All the same, some people are still dying every week as a consequence of the current agenda and of perceptions about the severity of the disease. Its just that many more people are prepared to accept that there is a balance to be struck between those deaths and everyone else leading more normal lives again. 

In countries where the immunity picture is quite different, such as Hong Kong, the potential of Omicron to cause terrible population death rates is still on vivid display.

Longer term population health consequences from allowing staggeringly huge waves at this stage is somewhat unclear. And in theory by allowing huge numbers of infections, we are promoting the speed at which the virus might be expected to evolve further, with the consequences of future variants also currently unknown.


----------



## elbows (Mar 31, 2022)

Here is the data I said I would post. Sorry its a bit messy due to me including the per-region numbers and not having time to tidy up. Patients with Covid in hospital beds in England, data goes up to March 29th despite what the labels say.

Data is from the Primary Diagnoses Supplement spreadsheet from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Despite the positive impact of the factors discussed earlier, we can see that there are more people in hospital 'primarily for' Covid in both peaks of the Omicron wave compared to the levels during the prolonged Delta wave. Obviously this is down to the much larger number of people who have caught the virus in the Omicron waves. London is the obvious exception during the Omicron BA.2 wave, if we are only counting those labelled as being in hospital 'primarily' for Covid.


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 31, 2022)

NHS are going to send me LFTs apparently


----------



## wtfftw (Mar 31, 2022)

So people who buy lateral flows can't log their results? I'm fuzzy brained today but have I read that right?


----------



## Artaxerxes (Mar 31, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> So people who buy lateral flows can't log their results? I'm fuzzy brained today but have I read that right?



Yes, its absolutely as clever as you'd expect from something thats been announced literally 7 hours before free tests come to an end.


----------



## wtfftw (Mar 31, 2022)

Splendid.  I'm glad you get to test still tho.. Shame everyone you're in contact with can't


----------



## Brainaddict (Mar 31, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> So people who buy lateral flows can't log their results? I'm fuzzy brained today but have I read that right?


Is this true? So they really are just going to stop counting cases basically?


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Mar 31, 2022)

Artaxerxes said:


> Yes, its absolutely as clever as you'd expect from something thats been announced literally 7 hours before free tests come to an end.


Almost as if the government didn’t want to be able to track cases…


----------



## two sheds (Mar 31, 2022)

Neighbour's got covid from her son's wedding  only the second person in the village I think because none of us go out much


----------



## sheothebudworths (Mar 31, 2022)

Iirc from the other day, you can still log results, but it will cost more to do that in addition to paying for the actual tests.

Eta, that was Boots (fuck knows re anyone else) -



> Boots has said it will offer the devices for £2.50 each or £12 for a pack of five, or £17 for a pack of four with the extra option to send results to the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
> 
> Tesco then announced that it would be selling the swabs for £2 each, among the most affordable on the market, from 1 April.


----------



## teuchter (Mar 31, 2022)

I'm not sure i agree with the ending of free tests, but I'm also not sure I can see the point of counting positive test numbers now that they will become increasingly decoupled from actual prevalence. Carry on with the random sample studies, and testing in healthcare settings, sure.


----------



## sparkybird (Mar 31, 2022)

Agent Sparrow said:


> Almost as if the government didn’t want to be able to track cases…


I think the '1 in 16 people have Covid' type data comes from the ONS survey which is continuing. Which is a good thing (esp as I've been part of the survey!)


----------



## l'Otters (Apr 1, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I'm not sure i agree with the ending of free tests, but I'm also not sure I can see the point of counting positive test numbers now that they will become increasingly decoupled from actual prevalence. Carry on with the random sample studies, and testing in healthcare settings, sure.


Do you actually believe the stuff you post here or is it trolling?


----------



## teuchter (Apr 1, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> Do you actually believe the stuff you post here or is it trolling?


What are you taking exception to exactly?


----------



## CH1 (Apr 1, 2022)

Re teuchter on number crunching and others going spare it does seem to me we are back in the loop of herd immunity or not herd immunity. Seems like no-one wants to mention the war as it were, but the government are steering us down that road by default - ready for the new financial year (as it happens).


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 1, 2022)

Interesting coincidence that we're coming up to 6 months since our boosters ... are we expected to decide that getting a mild infection sooner rather than later and thereafter at perhaps 6 month intervals will make us less sick than deliberately avoiding infection for as long as possible and *then *getting infected when our B cell immunity has waned  ?


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 1, 2022)

Of course I am in a very privileged position - over-60, but unusually healthy, and also retired so at minimal risk of exposure.
Perhaps a good reason to hang onto my spurious "diabetic" status for as long as possible so I jump the queue for future boosters.

Bastard Fail at it again ...



> Covid scare-mongering returns: Sir Patrick Vallance says new variant may take world by storm, Chris Whitty warns NHS is still under huge pressure and Jenny Harries calls for Brits to KEEP wearing face masks because Covid infections are so high​
> *Sir Patrick Vallance said the 'room for this virus to evolve remains very large'*
> *Dr Jenny Harries says Brits should mask up during 'periods  of high prevalence' *
> *Chief medical officer Sir Chris Whitty said NHS is under 'significant pressure'*


----------



## pbsmooth (Apr 1, 2022)

I agree with a lot of what teuchter says. people on this thread seem slightly obsessed with positive test numbers - we test as a country far more than any other.
the number of deaths remain low and a fraction of the peak= 100s compared to 1500s.
so vaccination does seem to have turned it into a normal flu-like illness in terms of numbers, i.e. comparable with a bad flu season right now.


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 1, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> so vaccination does seem to have turned it into a normal flu-like illness in terms of numbers, i.e. comparable with a bad flu season right now.


Were similar numbers of people being *hospitalised *with flu before 2020 ?
Is hospitalisation "acceptable" ?


----------



## pbsmooth (Apr 1, 2022)

similar, yes.


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 1, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> similar, yes.


Well, given that no one is wearing masks any more, how long until flu numbers return *in addition* to covid ?
And as I mentioned upthread, B cell immunity is waning so there will be more disease  - plus there's the danger of new variants ...


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2022)

Flu comparison propaganda isnt as effective when it isnt winter.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Were similar numbers of people being *hospitalised *with flu before 2020 ?
> Is hospitalisation "acceptable" ?



There are some large problems trying to make direct comparisons with influenza when it comes to hospitalisations. This is because of a lack of routine mass testing and patient screening for influenza, in contrast for hospital testing for covid.

So I treat hospital figures for influenza as being very crude estimates, based on general disease classification codes rather than formal diagnoses via testing. Here are some example ones for England:



> There were 41,730 and 39,670 influenza-related hospital admissions in England during the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons respectively.



Those numbers are from Quantifying the direct secondary health care cost of seasonal influenza in England - BMC Public Health and that paper itself goes on about the difficulties with data due to lack of proper diagnosis and classification. Our traditional attitudes towards proper mass diagnostics testing for such illnesses are a complete disgrace, such things have for very many decades not been considered to be worth bothering with, obscuring the true picture.

Hospital admissions/diagnoses for Covid in England are over 130,000 for 2022 so far. People will go on about the proportion of those that are 'incidental', and might like to include only 45% of that figure, which would give a number around 58,000.

Another issue is the role and scale of hospital-acquired infections. It is possible that around 25% of Englands hospital covid figures are caused by those sorts of infections during the Omicron waves, and there is a large overlap between those cases and the figures people seek to dismiss as being 'incidental'. I suspect hospital-acquired infections are a big deal when it comes to influenza too, but I dont have good data about that, and again lack of influenza testing doesnt help.

Another issue is the time periods and the ongoing covid situation. For example those influenza numbers I mentioned involved traditional flu season assumptions, in the case of that paper it seems they used September-March time periods, but I dont have exact dates. Above I just used 2022 figures for covid admissions, but there is no reason I shouldnt have included some months of 2021. If I add December 2021 to the total I mentioned earlier, I get over 160,000. If I add September-November as well then I get over 225,000. I'm only counting England because the influenza figures I found are only for England.


----------



## 2hats (Apr 1, 2022)

FWIW (UK study): in unvaccinated adults (read also: poor immunoresponders) co-infection of SARS-CoV-2 with influenza more than doubled mortality risk and more than quadrupled risk of requiring mechanical ventilation (during the study period Feb2020-Dec2021).
DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00383-X.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2022)

2hats said:


> FWIW (UK study): in unvaccinated adults (read also: poor immunoresponders) co-infection of SARS-CoV-2 with influenza more than doubled mortality risk and more than quadrupled risk of requiring mechanical ventilation (during the study period Feb2020-Dec2021).
> DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00383-X.



And both the risks from co-infection, and the risks to health system capacity in the event of a notable flu wave and covid wave happening at the same time, meant that worst case winter planning did not have the luxury of assuming everything would be ok in the covid vaccine era. And I doubt it will next winter either.


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 1, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> On a slightly better note, IIRC I heard the radio declaim that it was now possible to book for the "spring" booster - if you are over 75 and immunocompromised.
> 
> OK so far as it goes, but I would prefer the age limit to have been somewhat lower and more CEV people to be covered.



Just got this on NextDoor



> NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).
> 
> Wondering if you’re eligible for a spring booster? *Everyone aged 75 and over,* people who live in care homes for older people, and people aged 12 and over with a weakened immune system can now come forward. Visit grabajab.net for more information.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 1, 2022)

My earlier comments about not being too bothered if we stop counting positive self tests aren't really connected to the current number of hospitalisations and deaths and whether or not I would deem them "acceptable". It's more to do with the complete change in rules and restrictions. Now that no-one is really obliged to isolate, now that tests are no longer free, it seems fairly obvious that the number of people taking tests voluntarily is going to decline massively, and the makeup of the portion of the population who _do_ take tests is going to change. So, firstly they become a bit useless for comparing with previous levels and secondly they will present an increasingly distorted picture of true prevalence.

The ONS type random sample surveys obviously continue to be useful and I assume it's here that new variants are spotted (not in LFTs). And monitoring the number of hospital admissions resulting from covid also seems very wise. It looks to me like we should be doing the same for "normal" flu probably.

Perhaps someone can explain to me the benefit of monitoring and counting LFT type tests at this stage in the pandemic.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2022)

Nobody is legally obliged to isolate but plenty still do - I would still offer free lateral flow tests because testing positive on those is likely to influence behaviour in that respect. But thats likely one of the reasons they have stopped offering them for free for most people.

My opinion about the usefulness of seeing the data that comes from those tests is already known, I'm like you, I look at ONS etc stuff instead at this stage.

Better surveillance of the variant picture is one of the reasons I wasnt keen on them reducing availability of PCR testing months ago either. But in addition to ONS PCR tests, they do analyse a proportion of PCR samples that come through other channels too, eg hospitalised cases.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2022)

Speaking of the ONS data, I see England and the UK hit one in 13.









						Covid: Record 4.9 million people have the virus in UK
					

The latest data from the ONS suggests some 4.9 million people in the UK are infected with the virus.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## cesare (Apr 1, 2022)

I know I'm probably over-reacting but it makes me so anxious.


----------



## elbows (Apr 1, 2022)

I'd be a lot less anxious if the rates would just come down to something that isnt so stupidly high. Until that happens Im not going back to anything approaching normal, since I'm still intending to avoid catching this virus at the moment.

I see from the end of that last article that Van-Tam was speaking on his last day in his role. I dont really know why he chose London as an example of very high hospitalisation rates. But I can certainly appreciate why he chose to highlight concerns about uptake of the next booster:



> "And what keeps me awake at night is whether the people we have called - over-75s - for their second booster dose are going to come forward really rapidly and really quickly in the next few days and weeks, because it is going to be important."


----------



## cesare (Apr 1, 2022)

elbows said:


> I'd be a lot less anxious if the rates would just come down to something that isnt so stupidly high. Until that happens Im not going back to anything approaching normal, since I'm still intending to avoid catching this virus at the moment.
> 
> I see from the end of that last article that Van-Tam was speaking on his last day in his role. I dont really know why he chose London as an example of very high hospitalisation rates. But I can certainly appreciate why he chose to highlight concerns about uptake of the next booster:


At the moment when there's been so much loss and grief, I just wanted to say that I'm not sure if I've ever told you how much I appreciate you as a poster;  I really do. Not just on flu and other nasty-virus type threads but also what you have said on the trans threads.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 1, 2022)

By my reckoning, with over 3M people being infected at one time, if sustained at that sort of level, it's something like 15-20 weeks until pretty much everyone has had it. Is that very roughly correct?


----------



## gentlegreen (Apr 1, 2022)

teuchter said:


> By my reckoning, with over 3M people being infected at one time, if sustained at that sort of level, it's something like 15-20 weeks until pretty much everyone has had it. Is that very roughly correct?


At which point the early adopters' B-cell immunity will be waning and it will be time to get infected again ?


----------



## kabbes (Apr 2, 2022)

cesare said:


> I know I'm probably over-reacting but it makes me so anxious.


Rightly or wrongly, it paradoxically makes me less anxious.  I’d like to claim some kind of logical reason for this but it’s mostly just the usual human process of norm-referencing.  If everybody is living as normal, the danger is less visible and so less salient to me.  The knowledge that despite 1-in-13 people having it and now seeing it everywhere, I personally know of fewer _serious_ cases (actually none) helps create that sense of normality.


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 2, 2022)

Daily deaths now up from 1 every quarter hour to 1 every 10 minutes


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## pbsmooth (Apr 2, 2022)

Covid deaths UK.


----------



## Louis MacNeice (Apr 2, 2022)

Royal Mail has removed the exemption of Covid sick leave from staff absence records and local managers are phoning staff absent with Covid to see if they will come into work. My office currently at somewhere near 25% off sick.

Cheers  - Louis MacNeice


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2022)

pbsmooth said:


> Covid deaths UK.



Certainly as a result of the changed deaths picture nobody here is claiming that the threat these days is the same as the threat in the pre-vaccine era. That doesnt mean everyone is going to be comfortable with the current infection situation or all of the policies and attitudes.

Its understandable that some people arent happy about the number of infected people, or are concerned that attitudes have moved too far in the other direction. I suppose my own greatest fears involve the future, eg if there are problems with future variants. Or if further boosters turn out to be very necessary to maintain lower levels of hospitalisation and death, but changed attitudes and mood music hamper attempts to get enough people in older & vulnerable groups getting those boosters at the right time.

I'm certainly not expecting or asking people to treat the threat in the same way as they did in the first two waves. I'm still going to go on about this virus even at times when the threat is not so acute. Keep in mind that I'd be going absolutely nuts and shouting a lot if the current policies were attempted when the hospitalisation and death risk was high. Its all relative, my attitude these days is mild compared to what it was in the first 12-18 months. But I dont like the pressure this virus continues to place on health services, its still fucking up other kinds of care.


----------



## elbows (Apr 2, 2022)

cesare said:


> At the moment when there's been so much loss and grief, I just wanted to say that I'm not sure if I've ever told you how much I appreciate you as a poster;  I really do. Not just on flu and other nasty-virus type threads but also what you have said on the trans threads.


Thanks very much. Its been good for my mental health to receive such appreciation, and I received more from people here than I ever anticipated. I do get a bit embarrassed about it though, and I'm glad we've moved into an era when my pandemic thoughts are less useful.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 2, 2022)

Louis MacNeice said:


> Royal Mail has removed the exemption of Covid sick leave from staff absence records and local managers are phoning staff absent with Covid to see if they will come into work. My office currently at somewhere near 25% off sick.
> 
> Cheers  - Louis MacNeice


This is nasty of them but it also seems extraordinarily stupid of them. They are aware it's a fairly contagious virus? And that if their other staff get it a lot of them will have to take sick days too?


----------



## Agent Sparrow (Apr 2, 2022)

Got a text today offering my non CEV 8 year old a COVID jab. Even though we’ve all had it recently, it’s probably worth doing as we have CEV people in the wider family. Would be good to get both kids done at once though.

Pretty efficient considering it was only opened up to her group yesterday


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Apr 3, 2022)

Have just seen something on tweeter (without any source quoted) that schools in England have been told by DFE not to hand out any LFT packs they have left, but to dispose of them

Anyone know if this is bollocks?


----------



## sheothebudworths (Apr 4, 2022)




----------



## _Russ_ (Apr 4, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> Have just seen something on tweeter (without any source quoted) that schools in England have been told by DFE not to hand out any LFT packs they have left, but to dispose of them
> 
> Anyone know if this is bollocks?


Sounds a stretch, but could this possibly be someone misunderstanding changing advice on LFT tests being ok for recycling?

P.S. Could you please post the twit/twat whatever  you call them?


----------



## prunus (Apr 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Sounds a stretch, but could this possibly be someone misunderstanding changing advice on LFT tests being ok for recycling?
> 
> P.S. Could you please post the twit/twat whatever  you call them?



I can confirm this (that schools have been told by the govt to dispose of (actually I think return) any LFTs they have left and _not_ under any circumstances to hand them out to staff.)

It’s almost as if they want us all to get it. Oh.

I despise this shower of cunts more than I have any other Tory govt, and I grew up under thatcher.


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## Chilli.s (Apr 4, 2022)

prunus said:


> I despise this shower of cunts more than I have any other Tory govt, and I grew up under thatcher.


It is certainly a close call as to who wins in the tory cuntyness race, I think this lot have it due to the death toll as well as the blatant corruption


----------



## StoneRoad (Apr 4, 2022)

I "think" I still have a small stash of LFTs left at work, from the last time we had a close contact notification and tested everybody "officially" for the required number of times. Several of the team still test at least twice weekly as their OHs are in working in care / medical / education settings and the odd few unused tests have arrived to top up the workshop supply. I suspect that the stash will disappear, unless I get the projects co-ordinator to put them to one side in secure storage.


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## elbows (Apr 4, 2022)

Since the end of free testing for most people means a return to guesswork, they finally expanded the list of symptoms! They've included the non-covid-specific symptoms, of which there are many. They probably figure they should do this now because they cant actually have everyone go back to the old attitudes just yet, and if staffing is an issue there are other ways to discourage those with any of these symptoms from staying off work. And because the extremely high prevalence of covid means people are more likely to have covid than another respiratory infection at the moment, the guesswork is currently a reasonable guide. Should a time come when another respiratory disease becomes the most likely candidate, they may feel the need to fiddle around with their emphasis for economic reasons.









						Covid: Nine new symptoms added to official list
					

Sore throats, headaches and loss of appetite are now all officially recognised as signs of infection.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				












						People with symptoms of a respiratory infection including COVID-19
					

Guidance for people  with symptoms of a respiratory infection including COVID-19, or a positive test result for COVID-19.




					www.gov.uk
				




Children are only advised to stay away from educational settings if they have a high temperature:



> Children and young people with mild symptoms such as a runny nose, sore throat, or slight cough, who are otherwise well, can continue to attend their education setting.


----------



## StoneRoad (Apr 4, 2022)

Call me cynical ... but I don't think using guesswork [reduced testing vs more 'official' symptoms] and a serious reduction in the dashboard / BBC interpretation statistics actually helps anyone. Other than bullying managers who see only the "bottom line" and not the human costs of being ill [not just with covid].

e2a - Especially with the BA.2 version of Omicron having such dominance in new cases.


----------



## elbows (Apr 4, 2022)

It helps the sort of cold calculations this country specialises in, and helps maintain the normalisation agenda, an agenda that the media have gone along with.

Such cold calculations can easily end up being counterproductive, with unintended consequences blowing up in their face. Thats often the case with such crude calculations, but never seems to be enough to change establishment instincts here. Ways it could blow up in their face include the economic implications of long term health consequences, or peoples confidence to return to normal being undermined, or encouraging a new variant that fucks things up in future, or being so successful at reducing peoples perceptions of the threat that not enough people get the next booster, piling pressure on the NHS further down the line. Those and other risks have not been enough to stop the short term thinking, the high stakes gamblers, and the usual sort of political calculations.

Its sadly no surprise. They liked to take these chances even in the pre-vaccine era, when there was little prospect of getting away with it for more than a few months at a time. Now there is a much greater chance of getting away with it in a manner that can be sustained, so they will push as hard and fast as they can. Especially because plenty of people were sick of it all and had the expectation that it should be all over by now. And they dont want to indulge those who would rather proceed more slowly and cautiously, they want to drag people along and can live with some people grumbling along the way. For political reasons they much prefer to have people grumbling that we are moving too quickly than people and businesses shouting that we are moving too slowly. Even if it all blows up later, they will probably still think it was worth it, pointing to the months of relative normality that were achieved for a time. Never mind that things are still far from normal, especially when it comes to disruption due to staff shortages, and pressure on the NHS which still shows up not just via waiting lists and treatment delays, but also long ambulance response times for medical emergencies.


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## Brainaddict (Apr 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> Since the end of free testing for most people means a return to guesswork, they finally expanded the list of symptoms! They've included the non-covid-specific symptoms, of which there are many. They probably figure they should do this now because they cant actually have everyone go back to the old attitudes just yet, and if staffing is an issue there are other ways to discourage those with any of these symptoms from staying off work. And because the extremely high prevalence of covid means people are more likely to have covid than another respiratory infection at the moment, the guesswork is currently a reasonable guide. Should a time come when another respiratory disease becomes the most likely candidate, they may feel the need to fiddle around with their emphasis for economic reasons.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yeah, saw this today, and it makes so clear that they didn't keep the symptoms list short out of inertia or to not confuse people or anything. It was literally to restrict access to tests. And I remember telling people last year that the NHS symptoms list was wrong (in being much too short) and some of them looked at me like I was paranoid. These people running the country are real fucking arseholes.


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## elbows (Apr 4, 2022)

Yeah, it was to limit demand for PCR tests. Later on they were able to fill a big part of that gap between supply and demand by using lateral flow tests, which is why the rules were kept different in terms of symptoms and which sort of test people should seek.

To be fair it would have been very hard to scale up PCR testing to really be able to meet maximum demand, and at least the media etc meant that people were at least aware for a long time of how much broader the actual symptoms of covid are. I suppose my preference for how supply and demand could have been balanced in regards PCR tests would have been to do more things at the right time to keep the number of people with covid much lower in the first place when a wave arrived, thats a nice way to reduce demand.


----------



## Brainaddict (Apr 4, 2022)

Unfortunately many people weren't aware of the broader list of symptoms, in my experience. I had multiple conversations with people who were sure they had colds because they just had a sniffle and a sore throat. Mostly I was trying to persuade them that they should get a test, and they might have to lie about symptoms on the NHS website.


----------



## elbows (Apr 4, 2022)

Brainaddict said:


> Unfortunately many people weren't aware of the broader list of symptoms, in my experience. I had multiple conversations with people who were sure they had colds because they just had a sniffle and a sore throat. Mostly I was trying to persuade them that they should get a test, and they might have to lie about symptoms on the NHS website.



Yeah, and lateral flow test availability did eventually help with that phenomenon by making it easier for people not to guess and presume, or to have to jump through hoops and lie about symptoms, but to get a lateral flow test. Even then, I see people reading too much into negative results, assuming they didnt have covid when actually they still might have done. People are keen to avoid uncertainty, they want to reach a conclusion, but the wrong conclusions are drawn quite often.

I'm not a fan of guesswork and unfortunately I'm well aware pre-pandemic of the sorts of assumptions people make, and how they have trouble getting their heads around the broad, overlapping symptoms that many diseases all feature, and the broad spectrum of symptom severity that the very same virus can cause in different people. Most famously this always shows up with incorrect attitudes to do with influenza - its very common for people to only appreciate they've had 'proper flu' if they get the very worst symptoms that keep them in bed for days. As soon as anything that falls short of that level of symptoms features, people end up making mistakes, promoting misconceptions by going on about 'man flu' etc etc. In reality just like covid, many cases of influenza can be asymptomatic, or very mild.


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## SpookyFrank (Apr 4, 2022)

Brainaddict said:


> This is nasty of them but it also seems extraordinarily stupid of them. They are aware it's a fairly contagious virus? And that if their other staff get it a lot of them will have to take sick days too?



The fact that you don't understand how clever it is to phone sick people and tell them to not be sick any more is exactly why you're not management material.


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## SpookyFrank (Apr 4, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> Have just seen something on tweeter (without any source quoted) that schools in England have been told by DFE not to hand out any LFT packs they have left, but to dispose of them
> 
> Anyone know if this is bollocks?



Not heard anything like this but we don't have any LFT's anyway. We've had none delivered  since January. Teachers with a few leftover boxes squirreled away were told weeks ago to hand them over.

I've got a few spare boxes at home but as I don't get paid at all for time off sick and as we will go hungry if I lose a week's pay I've only been doing one a fortnight.


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## Cloo (Apr 4, 2022)

Haved booked son in for jab in a fortnight - pretty much exactly 12 weeks after he recovered from his bout earlier this year.

Now got three close work colleagues with COVID - I mean close as it team structure, not physically, in fact they're all in totally different parts of the country.


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## MrSki (Apr 4, 2022)

Just managed to order a 7 pack of testing kits off the NHS site.


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## blameless77 (Apr 4, 2022)

elbows said:


> Since the end of free testing for most people means a return to guesswork, they finally expanded the list of symptoms! They've included the non-covid-specific symptoms, of which there are many. They probably figure they should do this now because they cant actually have everyone go back to the old attitudes just yet, and if staffing is an issue there are other ways to discourage those with any of these symptoms from staying off work. And because the extremely high prevalence of covid means people are more likely to have covid than another respiratory infection at the moment, the guesswork is currently a reasonable guide. Should a time come when another respiratory disease becomes the most likely candidate, they may feel the need to fiddle around with their emphasis for economic reasons.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Also they can afford to finally expand the list as it won’t result in a spike in demand as eligibility is so limited now...


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## elbows (Apr 4, 2022)

blameless77 said:


> Also they can afford to finally expand the list as it won’t result in a spike in demand as eligibility is so limited now...



Yeah I forgot to state that clearly and explicitly in my first post on this subject. Accidentally taking it as a given that people understood how testing demand was suppressed to varying extents during the pandemic so far, in response to variations in potential demand, available supplies and types of testing available to the masses. These points came up a bit more directly in later posts.

If I recall properly, the way that the testing system quickly and visibly started to buckle under demand was the most obvious initial sign that the second wave was really getting going in the UK, circa early September 2020.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Apr 4, 2022)

MrSki said:


> Just managed to order a 7 pack of testing kits off the NHS site.


Just tried this but answered truthfully as I contract for them rather than work for them and got a negative result.
Will try again with a different answer on another day.
Got a small stock for now.


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## MrSki (Apr 4, 2022)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> Just tried this but answered truthfully as I contract for them rather than work for them and got a negative result.
> Will try again with a different answer on another day.
> Got a small stock for now.


Well I have to go to the surgery for blood tests & the hospital for a scan so assume I need to test before attending.


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## MrSki (Apr 5, 2022)

Arrived this morning. That was quick considering I ordered them last night.


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## _Russ_ (Apr 5, 2022)

prunus said:


> I can confirm this (that schools have been told by the govt to dispose of (actually I think return) any LFTs they have left and _not_ under any circumstances to hand them out to staff.)
> 
> It’s almost as if they want us all to get it. Oh.
> 
> I despise this shower of cunts more than I have any other Tory govt, and I grew up under thatcher.


Just when I thought they couldnt sink any lower, I dont know what to say.
Please defy this instruction and hand them out, these arseholes need standing up  to


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## brogdale (Apr 5, 2022)

Just heard my 90YO FiL has Covid (again); it's going through the care-home (again).

#LivingWithCovid ?


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## LDC (Apr 6, 2022)

Yeah where I work now has patients in ICU for the first time in months.


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## StoneRoad (Apr 6, 2022)

I keep half an eye on the Manx plague situation, as I'm due a business visit over there "soon" ...

The main hospital has just re-opened their second covid ward & one of the main care home providers has closed their facilities to visitors.
All signs of an infection wave, one with potentially serious-ish results for the vulnerable, despite vaccinations etc.

At the same time, the Manx government has discarded all masking & social distancing restrictions. A move that mirrors the UK, but likewise to the reaction here, has been greeted with mixed feelings / reviews.
And no sign of cancelling the TT this year, although the normally excessively crowded & noisy "funfair" has been deleted from the scene.


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## 2hats (Apr 6, 2022)

Final round (8-31 March) of Imperial REACT as the plug is pulled on funding (report PDF).

1 in 16 across England testing positive, which is the highest recorded since the study began in March 2020. 94.7% of the samples were BA.2, with XE and XL recombinants also detected. Highest rates seen in 5-11 year olds (1 in 10 infected) though that was starting to fall. Cases in 55+ year olds were rising. Data suggested vaccination in secondary school children is helping to reduce infections in that age cohort.










						1 in 16 infected with the coronavirus as REACT study records highest rates yet | Imperial News | Imperial College London
					

Coronavirus infections in England have climbed to a record level as the REACT programme reports the highest prevalence since it began in May 2020.




					www.imperial.ac.uk


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## Hellsbells (Apr 6, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> I keep half an eye on the Manx plague situation, as I'm due a business visit over there "soon" ...
> 
> The main hospital has just re-opened their second covid ward & one of the main care home providers has closed their facilities to visitors.
> All signs of an infection wave, one with potentially serious-ish results for the vulnerable, despite vaccinations etc.
> ...



We do still have restrictions in all Health & social care settings in the isle of man though, so there's something. Masks, LFTs etc. Anyone who works in these settings also has to continue isolating if they test positive. Well, they have to isolate from their place of work, they're free to go to the pub or cinema.& spread a bit of covid there ....


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## StoneRoad (Apr 6, 2022)

Hellsbells said:


> We do still have restrictions in all Health & social care settings in the isle of man though, so there's something. Masks, LFTs etc. Anyone who works in these settings also has to continue isolating if they test positive. Well, they have to isolate from their place of work, they're free to go to the pub or cinema.& spread a bit of covid there ....


Ah, thank you - the info I was given didn't mention those details ...


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## elbows (Apr 6, 2022)

2hats said:


> Final round (8-31 March) of Imperial REACT as the plug is pulled on funding (report PDF).
> 
> 1 in 16 across England testing positive, which is the highest recorded since the study began in March 2020. 94.7% of the samples were BA.2, with XE and XL recombinants also detected. Highest rates seen in 5-11 year olds (1 in 10 infected) though that was starting to fall. Cases in 55+ year olds were rising. Data suggested vaccination in secondary school children is helping to reduce infections in that age cohort.
> View attachment 317370
> ...



BBC article about both of those things:









						Covid: React study finds latest wave 'may have peaked' in young
					

But the final React study found "worrying" signs that infections are still rising in those over 55.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I'll take a look at hospitalisations by age group later this week.


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## Buddy Bradley (Apr 7, 2022)

How exactly is Test & Trace going to function now that we are buying our own LFT packs from the shops, which don't have the QR/reference codes on for reporting? There's literally no way to report a positive test now as far as I can see - even the gov.uk site states:



> Do not use this service to report results from a test kit you’ve paid for.


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## teuchter (Apr 7, 2022)

Test and trace finished as of about a month ago.


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## Buddy Bradley (Apr 7, 2022)

So is the assumption then that there's never going to be any kind of new variant that requires a return to stricter control measures?


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## StoneRoad (Apr 7, 2022)

teuchter said:


> Test and trace finished as of about a month ago.


Didn't

Someone I used to work with rang me up to query how their phone was pinged by T&T on 2nd April to tell them that on Monday 28th March they were a close contact [15mins within 2m of a positive case] ... and what should they do ?


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## gentlegreen (Apr 7, 2022)

Buddy Bradley said:


> So is the assumption then that there's never going to be any kind of new variant that requires a return to stricter control measures?


I suspect it will depend on how noticeable any increase in hospitalisation and deaths becomes now that infection has replaced boosters.


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## muscovyduck (Apr 7, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Didn't
> 
> Someone I used to work with rang me up to query how their phone was pinged by T&T on 2nd April to tell them that on Monday 28th March they were a close contact [15mins within 2m of a positive case] ... and what should they do ?


Isn't that the tracking system not the test and trace system? Glad to know that's still limping on though


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## wtfftw (Apr 7, 2022)

Buddy Bradley said:


> So is the assumption then that there's never going to be any kind of new variant that requires a return to stricter control measures?


They're just going to see if it turns up in the hospital data. Because acting early has no benefit.


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## gentlegreen (Apr 7, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> I suspect it will depend on how noticeable any increase in hospitalisation and deaths becomes now that infection has replaced boosters.


This leaves me in a dilemma.

My go-to's are Victor Racaniello and Amy Rosenfeld. I skimmed their weekly session last night.
Amy still has 2024 pencilled-in for being on top of the virus (sub 1 case per 100k) depending on how vaccination takes off elsewhere ... 
Victor - who is 60-something  pointedly states that he doesn't mask up in NY wherever the mandates have been lifted - thanks to vaccination - and that the only group where he recommends masking is young children for whom vaccination isn't an option. I suppose I should make an effort to get on the live chat and ask the question - but my focus is elsewhere at the moment - perhaps virology fatigue has set in ...

So with my social isolation, if I continue to strive to never get infected by masking in shops, 1 year from now, with the virus still going around, will I be back substantially nearer to where I was pre-vaccination ?
Am I wilfully not accepting the new "vaccination strategy" ?

I felt I was getting dirty looks yesterday when I bought compost in a spacious drive-to homestore and was waiting behind an unmasked younger middle-aged couple buying just one pack of fancy toilet paper on a rainy day.
I suspect I get written off as a terrified pensioner these days ... my 85 year old mother is probably boosted as she spends time with the three other generations and is relatively sensible.

That said, the staff were mostly masked.


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## teuchter (Apr 7, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Didn't
> 
> Someone I used to work with rang me up to query how their phone was pinged by T&T on 2nd April to tell them that on Monday 28th March they were a close contact [15mins within 2m of a positive case] ... and what should they do ?


I've never been clear about exactly how the app is connected to the test and trace system.

Test and trace is definitely closed though.









						What to do if you've been in close contact with someone with COVID-19
					

Find out what to do if you have been in close contact with someone who has coronavirus (COVID-19) (previously 'self-isolation').




					www.nhs.uk


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## existentialist (Apr 7, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> This leaves me in a dilemma.
> 
> My go-to's are Victor Racaniello and Amy Rosenfeld. I skimmed their weekly session last night.
> Amy still has 2024 pencilled-in for being on top of the virus (sub 1 case per 100k) depending on how vaccination takes off elsewhere ...
> ...


I've been really rather surprised at the number of people wearing masks in situations where they aren't obliged to. And people I've spoken to (generally older ones) are very much of the view that they're wearing masks to protect themselves and others, not because they are obliged to. 

But I will (metaphorically) bite the head off anyone who gives me grief about wearing a mask.


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## elbows (Apr 7, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> I suspect it will depend on how noticeable any increase in hospitalisation and deaths becomes now that infection has replaced boosters.



Infection has not completely replaced boosters. There is a new booster campaign now, although it targets a much narrower group and there are questions about what uptake will be like and whether it will be expanded in the coming months. It is also expected that a broader booster campaign will feature again later, although the authorities probably want to try and make this a yearly event rather than every 6 months.

As for your follow up question, assuming you were speaking of being back to square one in terms of risk of severe disease, hospitalisation and death, this question is complicated and requires much more data that can only emerge with the passage of time. There will be assumptions that protection continues to wane over time, but the immune system has many parts and there will be big questions about how low the level of protection (expressed as reduced risk relative to being unvaccinated) will actually fall down to on average. And our risks in any given period also depend on the properties of the virus in circulation at the time.


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## elbows (Apr 7, 2022)

I should probably also have said that the assumption is that we never really go all the way back to square one, because the reason a pandemic gets called a pandemic in the first place is total population immune naivety to the virus. And that naive immune situation cannot persist, especially when vaccines are added to the mix.

But thats not quite the same thing as public perceptions, where a certain level of future hospitalisation and death could still generate the impression that we were back to square one, or at least a sense of 'here we go again'.


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## elbows (Apr 7, 2022)

Even though testing is still in place for some scenarios, such as hospitalised patients, the testing changes are still going to have an affect on the quality of a broad range of data, and in some cases are being used to justify no longer publishing certain data.

For example on a good number of occasions I tried to demonstrate the realities of the vaccinated versus unvaccinated burden on the NHS by posting data showing number of people who were hospitalised or died by age group and vaccine status, data that more recently also included booster doses. However upon looking at this weeks vaccine surveillance report, I see the publication of this data has now ceased.



> Data on the vaccination status of COVID-19 cases, and deaths and hospitalisations with COVID-19, was previously published to help understand the implications of the pandemic to the NHS, for example understanding workloads in hospitals, and to help understand where to prioritise vaccination delivery.
> 
> From 1 April 2022, the UK Government ended provision of free universal COVID-19 testing for the general public in England, as set out in the plan for living with COVID-19. Such changes in testing policies affect the ability to robustly monitor COVID-19 cases by vaccination status, therefore, from the week 14 report onwards this section of the report will no longer be published. For further context and previous data, please see previous vaccine surveillance reports and our blog post.
> 
> Vaccine effectiveness is measured in other ways as detailed in the vaccine effectiveness section of this report.





			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1067158/vaccine-surveillance-report-week-14.pdf
		


This is the final report where it was published:



			https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1066759/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-13.pdf


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## elbows (Apr 7, 2022)

The peak of the current wave in England looks like it happened long enough ago that it now shows up in daily hospital admissions/diagnoses, but not yet for total numbers in hospital beds. The admissions rises in the oldest age groups were quite bad in this wave, and the 85+ groups daily admissions are only just at what I could identify as a peak, so I retain a bit more caution about claiming a peak in that age group just in cases rises there resume. But expect more reports such as the ONS infection survey to identify a peak.


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## elbows (Apr 8, 2022)

As expected:









						Covid infections show signs of plateauing in UK
					

Nearly 4.9 million people would test positive for coronavirus, according to the ONS.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## redsquirrel (Apr 10, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> Have just seen something on tweeter (without any source quoted) that schools in England have been told by DFE not to hand out any LFT packs they have left, but to dispose of them
> 
> Anyone know if this is bollocks?


That is what I was told (as union rep) by our university management. They admit they have 1000s of the things but they are only t one used in emergencies (serious local outbreak) as they going to be returned to the Health bodies. 

FWIW I don't think management are spinning us a line on this, whatever failings they make they've been happy to distribute tests, so this is from UKSHA (or whoever).


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## Chilli.s (Apr 12, 2022)

Death within 28 days now one person every 6 min. Thats poor


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2022)

Chilli.s said:


> Death within 28 days now one person every 6 min. Thats poor


There are lots of ways we are not encouraged to think about those numbers, and the media usually do their bit to go along with that.

To give another example, 42,452 deaths within 28 days of a positive test in the last year in the UK. A year that featured vaccines and treatments, but also a reopening agenda. Doesnt compare favourably to Vallances '20,000 would be a good result' comments near the start of the pandemic.

But of course ways have been found to muddy the waters these days. People who are satisfied with the current state of affairs will as ever point to the age of victims, and these days also to ideas such as plenty of those psitive case deaths being 'incidental'. And we might also expect availability of testing and attitudes towards covid to have further effects on both perceptions and data in future. For example the ONS version of the death stats relies on death certificate info, and the perceptions of those who fill in death certificates does vary over time.

All I can really do is repeat various points I make on this subject, and from time to time present various different versions of the data.

For example, for England the aforementioned period featured about 35,509 recorded deaths within 28 days of a positive test. But England also gives figures for deaths within 60 days of a positive test, and for that period the total is 46,923. If I use a years worth of ONS death certificate deaths for England instead, the number is 30,391.

There is quite a big difference between those numbers, for a number of reasons, and peoples attitudes will influence which number they consider to be most fair. There are strengths and weaknesses to all of them, some of which change over time, and also some forms of later death which dont show up much in the figures at all. And unlike the first two waves, we cannot gain as much insight from overall all-cause excess deaths, especially given far fewer influenza deaths than usual. Personally I end up using all of the above numbers to form a sense of the plausible range of likely covid deaths, rather than settling on a single number.

In terms of the number which the current UK political pandemic strategy would most prefer society to use as a guide, in order to continue to enable traditional establishment thinking and priorities to prevail, I expect the following ONS breakdown is where its at for them. Because for England and Wales figures are available which attempt to differentiate between 'Deaths involving COVID-19' and 'Deaths due to COVID-19'. And the difference between those two sets of numbers is not so small these days.

For example here are those ONS numbers for England and Wales in 2022 so far:



Giving 2022 totals of 12,767 for 'involving' and 8,753 for 'due to'. Its hard to make a 100% fair direct comparison to dashboard '28 day deaths' due to different reporting lag considerations, but approximately 16,785 would be the equivalent dashboard number for England and Wales.


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## Chilli.s (Apr 12, 2022)

The dashboard having a people tested positive is a bit behind the times now that testing isnt a thing anymore


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## _Russ_ (Apr 12, 2022)

Wrong thread, sorry


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2022)

Chilli.s said:


> The dashboard having a people tested positive is a bit behind the times now that testing isnt a thing anymore


When it comes to the death statistics, ongoing hospital testing means that its still a relevant metric. There have always been some community and sudden deaths, and reduced testing means we may expect some more of those to be missed going forwards, so I wont claim that the changes to testing have no impact on the death figures at all. But a lot of the deaths happen in the hospital setting so there are still plenty of opportunities for 'deaths within 28 days of a positive test' to feature.


----------



## elbows (Apr 12, 2022)

Although if this sort of horror story is repeated across the country, I'll end up having to further tone down what I said in my last post:



> _The Independent _understands at least two major hospitals, in Newcastle and York, have dropped testing of all patients without symptoms in order to alleviate pressure on beds – raising fears that Covid could spread on unchecked wards. Other hospitals are also likely to do the same as bed pressures worsen.
> 
> Sources have told _The Independent _some trusts have begun to drop “red” Covid only wards, while some are considering not separating patients in A&E.











						‘Brutal’ NHS pressures stop Covid testing
					

Exclusive: ‘Things really are a mess right now ... you can’t treat anything if you don’t have beds,’ senior hospital worker says




					www.independent.co.uk
				




For fucks sake, we seem determined to travel all the way back to square one in this country in terms of throwing away the most fundamental lessons learnt and establishment attitudes towards testing.



> One expert, critical care doctor Tom Lawton, who analyses hospital-acquired infection data, said that stopping patient testing in hospitals was “worrying” and that the NHS would be putting “blinkers on” just as in-hospital infections were “as high as they’ve ever been”.



I know I never stop going on about hospital-acquired Covid, but it relly is important stuff and if I had one wish about the public inquiry, it would be that it could focus properly on this area in a ways that permanently changes attitudes. I dont think its likely though, it runs contrary to management thinking and deep-seated calculations in this country. Easier to write hollow articles earlier in the pandemic, pondering why we do so badly in this country without genuinely seeking answers to the question or any changes that would prevent a future repeat.

Further quotes in that article do cover the difficult balancing act involved, and I can appreciate some of those complexities. However its that sort of balancing act that I know is used to justify cold calculations in this country, and to settle for unacceptable results. Plus I always suspect that stuff brought in at moments of the greatest pressure, drastic, less than ideal stuff done to cope in the short term with a tragic lack of capacity, then become the norm in later times when actually we could go back to handling this stuff properly.

One more set of quotes since I take these issues so seriously:



> Dr Lawton, said that the decision to stop testing was “worrying” and that putting “blinkers” on was not a justified response to the problem.
> 
> He explained: “We don’t know exactly how dangerous hospital-acquired Covid is, but people have been dying with it, and we know from studies like CovidSurg that Covid adds risk to surgical patients in the form of clots and heart attacks.





> “If we don’t have the resources to do infection control properly, we should at least do what we can, such as keeping Covid and non-Covid patients as far apart as possible. Stopping testing means we can’t do anything to reduce the risk.”
> 
> He pointed out that the risks of hospital-acquired Covid are “as high as they’ve ever been”. In the 28 days to 3 April there were 11,936 probable or definite cases in England, which amount to 23 per cent of hospital cases in total.


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## elbows (Apr 12, 2022)

Actually the later part of that article also deserves quoting, staff protection via PPE failings on display once again:



> The internal staff guidance for Newcastle also says that staff caring for patients on a “standard” pathway do not need to wear personal protective equipment for aerosol-generating procedures.
> 
> York hospitals have also moved to the same measures, and both trusts have dropped Covid testing for patients on days three, five and seven of their admission.





> According to an analysis by Dr Lawton, York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust has one of the worst rates of hospital-acquired Covid infections.
> 
> Official NHS guidance, published on 5 April, said that all symptomatic and asymptomatic patients requiring emergency or unplanned admission should be offered a PCR test. This could be a rapid PCR test.



I'd go as far as to say that overall COVID-19 data for the North East has long implied to me that this part of the country does even worse than the rest in terms of hospital infections, a region that still sticks out even though there are plenty of other terrible examples elsewhere to choose from. But then I would say that because I believe hospital infections have been a major pandemic driver all the way along. One that deserves to be a much larger part of our perceptions about each wave we've faced here, and how far we've had to go in terms of restrictions in other settings in order to compensate for how the infection has spread in hospitals. And of course I cannot conclusively prove this without being able to compare our viral wave dynamics to places that do better, and properly measure all of this stuff, and are then prepared to have an open and honest discussion about it. And I'm powerless to affect this, I just hope that anyone who cares to think back on my pandemic output in years to come very much remembers how much I have always sought to emphasise this angle, and how distressed I am that it still seems to only occupy niche territory in the overall pandemic narratives.


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2022)

We arent too many months away from a whole year of these sorts of stories not getting the attention they deserve:









						NHS faces an Easter 'as bad as any winter'
					

Record numbers of patients have to wait four hours or more before being treated and discharged in A&E.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2022)

I also note the uncomfortable dance such articles perform these days, at least BBC ones. It doesnt really want to mention Covid. But of course it has to mention it, and more than once. But as long as possible is spent on non-covid matters, and Covid is mentioned in a narrow way. So it gets mentioned in the context of the backlog, and the difficulties that covid infection prevention measures cause. The bits that discuss current Covid pressures are kept to a minimum, and apparently these days it is obligatory for the BBC to show the data only in terms of 'for' and 'with' cases, with no discussion about where we are at with the current waves peaks or plateaus, or the idea of trying to do something directly about it.

Unlike the earlier Independent article I mentioned the other day, the BBC dont tend to dwell on what large chunk of 'with' cases caught it in hospital, nor in this case do they even bother with the high level of Covid staff absences, or the quotes from healthcare leaders begging the government for new public health measures to reduce the Covid burden.

And so the BBC continues to be an excellent guide as to how emphasis and omission are used to frame things, how propaganda works during very different phases of pandemic policy. The 'protect the NHS' mantra feels long ago.


----------



## elbows (Apr 14, 2022)

The latest ONS infection survey continues to show what was expected, although it seems the ONS are still resisting making any claims that we are beyond the peak:









						Covid levels starting to fall in UK, says ONS
					

About one in 15 people would test positive for coronavirus, as levels start to fall.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




SInce I've just been going on about BBC framing, I should mention that the end of that article does mention hospital admissions trends. Although I also note the following clunky use of language at the start of the article:



> About 4.4 million people had the virus in their body in the week up to 9 April



I'm not sure I recall them using the phrase 'had the virus in their body' before, but maybe they did and I just didnt notice.


----------



## zahir (Apr 18, 2022)

Cases of hepatitis among young children without a connection to the known hepatitis viruses but possibly with a link to SARS-CoV-2





__





						Acute hepatitis of unknown aetiology – the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
					






					www.who.int
				





> On 5 April 2022, WHO was notified of 10 cases of severe acute hepatitis of unknown aetiology in children under the age of 10 years, across central Scotland. By 8 April, 74 cases had been identified in the United Kingdom. Hepatitis viruses (A, B, C, E, and D where applicable) have been excluded after laboratory testing while further investigations are ongoing to understand the aetiology of these cases. Given the increase in cases reported over the past one month and enhanced case search activities, more cases are likely to be reported in the coming days.





> Laboratory testing has excluded hepatitis type A, B, C, and E viruses (and D where applicable) in these cases while Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and/or adenovirus have been detected in several cases. The United Kingdom has recently observed an increase in adenovirus activity, which is co-circulating with SARS-CoV-2, though the role of these viruses in the pathogenesis (mechanism by which disease develops) is not yet clear. No other epidemiological risk factors have been identified to date, including recent international travel. Overall, the aetiology of the current hepatitis cases is still considered unknown and remains under active investigation.


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## elbows (Apr 19, 2022)

Yeah the BBC covered this a bit earlier, with higher numbers, but I didnt post it here because I hadnt got anything useful to add and a COVID link isnt established. They have ruled out COVID vaccines though as the children in question were not vaccinated.









						UK officials investigating total of 74 child hepatitis cases
					

One potential cause could be adenoviruses, but health experts are also looking at links to Covid-19.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *Health officials are now investigating a total of 74 cases of hepatitis - or liver inflammation - in children across the UK since the start of this year.*
> 
> They believe that the common adenovirus could be the cause, but they have still not ruled out Covid-19.
> 
> ...



I believe there are reports of the same phenomenon in Europe and the USA too, but I havent read them yet.


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## elbows (Apr 19, 2022)

The Daily Mail were ranting on their front page the other day about how many civil servants are still working from home. And now Rees-Mogg is piling on the pressure:









						Jacob Rees-Mogg calls for civil servants to return to the office
					

A "clear message" must be sent to civil servants about ending home working, minister says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




The narrow and stupid priorities of this country will continue to serve us badly.


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## 2hats (Apr 19, 2022)

zahir said:


> Cases of hepatitis among young children without a connection to the known hepatitis viruses but possibly with a link to SARS-CoV-2


Also seen in the US, Spain, Netherlands and Denmark:
Mysterious hepatitis outbreak sickens young children in Europe as CDC probes cases in Alabama

Details of the Scottish cases provided in the Eurosurveillance bulletin DOI: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2022.27.15.2200318.

Could perhaps be a new adenovirus variant or a new pathogenesis arising from co-infection or sequential infection with SARS-CoV-2.


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## elbows (Apr 19, 2022)

I cant read the article due to a lack of paid subscription, but the HSJ reports that "A significant relaxation of infection control guidance has been announced in a bid to free up more capacity to tackle substantial waiting lists and demand for emergency care."


----------



## Cloo (Apr 19, 2022)

10 hyear old had his jab today - found it a bit ouchy and is kibbitzing about his arm but seems to have coped OK.


----------



## CH1 (Apr 20, 2022)

The view from "across the pond"








						All the omicron variants you’ve probably never heard of — and what they mean for the future of COVID
					

The idea that the coronavirus will one day look similar to seasonal influenza has been widely discussed over the past year. But now, more data has shed new light on the topic.




					www.seattletimes.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2022)

Another HSJ article about the removal of infection control procedures in hospitals. Unlike the previous one, I was able to read this one as part of their free pandemic articles that required registration but not a paid subscription.









						Sky high hospital covid infections underline risk of IPC relaxation
					

Recovering services from the covid crisis is the big task for NHS leaders for the foreseeable future. The Recovery Watch newsletter tracks prospects and progress. This week by HSJ correspondent Matt Discombe.




					www.hsj.co.uk
				




A constant theme is the need to balance infection risks against the risks that resulting reduced capacity create. Even I acknowledge such risks, but do not believe that the balance is appropriately struck in this country. The ideal balance is not possible due to resource issues, but more could still have been done.



> Trust chiefs will welcome the latest relaxation in infection control rules, but the spread of covid within hospital settings remains a significant risk.
> 
> New updated guidance from national bodies represents another major scaling back in infection control measures in hospitals.
> 
> The changes will see a relaxation in isolation requirements for inpatients who either test positive for covid-19, or are identified as close contacts of covid cases.





> Intriguingly, NHS England has now also relaxed its own infection control advice to hospitals over and above the UK-wide guidance released last week.
> 
> A letter to trust chiefs recommended the “[return] of pre-pandemic physical distancing in all areas” – whereas the guidance published by the UK Health Security Agency still recommends one metre distancing in healthcare settings, rising to two metres in areas where suspected or confirmed respiratory infections are being cared for.





> While NHS England sees the latest changes to the national guidance as “a step in the transition back to pre-pandemic IPC measures”, there are still remaining measures which have the potential to significantly impact patient flow.
> 
> Among these are the recommendations that patients with respiratory symptoms should still be isolated from other patients in the hospital, in single rooms where possible, and patients with confirmed respiratory infections should be cohorted with patients confirmed to have the same infections.





> In the week to 14 April, 22 per cent of covid cases in hospital were detected eight days or more after a patient was admitted – meeting the NHSE definition of “probable” hospital acquired, or “nosocomial” infection. This is one of the highest proportions of “probable” hospital-caught covid throughout the entire pandemic.
> 
> The percentages have been far higher at some individual trusts.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2022)

Latest 'for' and 'with' Covid patients in hospital beds in England. Data goes up to April 19th and is from the Primary Diagnoses Supplement spreadsheet available at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Plenty of the 'with' cases caught it in hospital but I'm not ready to show that data at the moment, will try to do so sometime in the next week.


----------



## elbows (Apr 21, 2022)

2hats said:


> Also seen in the US, Spain, Netherlands and Denmark:
> Mysterious hepatitis outbreak sickens young children in Europe as CDC probes cases in Alabama
> 
> Details of the Scottish cases provided in the Eurosurveillance bulletin DOI: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2022.27.15.2200318.
> ...


Latest BBC article continues to primarily put adenovirus in the frame:









						Doctors suggest adenovirus link to child hepatitis cases
					

UK child hepatitis cases rise to 108, with a common virus increasingly likely to be the trigger.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## _Russ_ (Apr 21, 2022)

The Wales stats confuse me a bit, but they seems to me to show its rife as fuck in Hospitals right now

https://public.tableau.com/app/prof.../RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary

P.S. about 1 in 8 inpatients being confirmed cases...I suppose that shouldnt surprise me


----------



## StoneRoad (Apr 21, 2022)

Sadly, Welsh covid deaths now exceed 10,000.
Beeb coverage ... with some other [useful] data.









						Covid: Pandemic deaths in Wales pass 10,000
					

There is now fewer than 100 people being treated primarily for Covid in hospitals across Wales.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 2hats (Apr 22, 2022)

There are now over 190,000 deaths in the UK where COVID-19 is mentioned as cause on the death certificate.


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## _Russ_ (Apr 22, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> Sadly, Welsh covid deaths now exceed 10,000.
> Beeb coverage ... with some other [useful] data.
> 
> 
> ...


Considering the virtual abandonment of T&T and vastly reduced testing (including in Hospitals which absolutely baffles me) I cant see how anyone can say things are improving


----------



## elbows (Apr 22, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Considering the virtual abandonment of T&T and vastly reduced testing (including in Hospitals which absolutely baffles me) I cant see how anyone can say things are improving


ONS infection survey, ZOE app are still capable of providing useful wave trend indications. I do have to take more care interpreting hospital admissions data these days due to testing changes, but the trends in that likely still tell us something too. Combine these things and its still possible to fairly claim that the current wave already peaked a while ago.

The ONS infection survey is based on household sampling and it has not been ruined by policy changes in regards testing (yet). Its a bit laggy, but is still very useful.


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## elbows (Apr 25, 2022)

The HSJ did a podcast the other day about the relaxation of infection control measures in hospitals. The second part of the podcast moves on to looking at the cancer diagnoses and treatment woes.


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## nogojones (Apr 25, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> The Wales stats confuse me a bit, but they seems to me to show its rife as fuck in Hospitals right now
> 
> https://public.tableau.com/app/prof.../RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary
> 
> P.S. about 1 in 8 inpatients being confirmed cases...I suppose that shouldnt surprise me


I was up A&E with a relative a couple of weeks back and it was chaos. They would have normally admitted him given his condition and history, but the doc sent him home with lots of monitoring and community nursing as the risk was just too high on the wards.


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## Wilf (Apr 25, 2022)

Could someone indulge me on a purely personal q?  My partner got Covid around 2 weeks ago.  I had a couple of -ve tests over the next couple of days, even though I started with a cough last Sunday.  I eventually got a +ve test last Tuesday, which I repeated again this morning (a clear positive, not some faint line thingy).  So, I've had it a week give or take and I've still got the dry cough, though the fever has gone.

My question is how long to isolate.  When government last had any advice it was to isolate for 5days, but not meet anyone who is vulnerable for 10 days.  I also know you are most infectious just before and after exhibiting symptoms.  Anyway, to get to it... is it a good idea to isolate a bit longer, s_pecifically because I've still got symptoms?_  Unlike our government, I have concerns about passing it on to other people.


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## zahir (Apr 25, 2022)

Wilf said:


> My question is how long to isolate.  When government last had any advice it was to isolate for 5days, but not meet anyone who is vulnerable for 10 days.  I also know you are most infectious just before and after exhibiting symptoms.  Anyway, to get to it... is it a good idea to isolate a bit longer, s_pecifically because I've still got symptoms?_  Unlike our government, I have concerns about passing it on to other people.



I'd say yes - there's still a small chance of being infectious after the 10 days.


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## Wilf (Apr 25, 2022)

zahir said:


> I'd say yes - there's still a small chance of being infectious after the 10 days.


Cheers.


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## Riklet (Apr 25, 2022)

Yeah tbh I think while youre still testing positive on a LFT you are to some degree infectious. But once you start getting a faint line etc probably less so (correct me if im wrong guys).

I assumed this with a lady Ive been sleeping with anyway  She got covid and I didnt. And carried on testing positive for 12 days. I was happy to wait until a firm clear negative to be honest!


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## Wilf (Apr 25, 2022)

Riklet said:


> Yeah tbh I think while youre still testing positive on a LFT you are to some degree infectious. But once you start getting a faint line etc probably less so (correct me if im wrong guys).
> 
> I assumed this with a lady Ive been sleeping with anyway  She got covid and I didnt. And carried on testing positive for 12 days. I was happy to wait until a firm clear negative to be honest!


Yeah, to mix my metaphors, I'm taking the point when I downgrade to a faint line to be my green light.  

Good luck with your further 'testing'.


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## elbows (Apr 25, 2022)

Latest child hepatitus story suggests mounting adenovirus evidence, although a couple of covid-related things are still mentioned int he broader article.









						Adenovirus probable cause of mysterious child hepatitis
					

Experts say there is mounting evidence that a common virus is linked to these rare cases.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Altered risk profile due to being exposed at an older age due to covid restrictions reducing chances of catching it earlier would be an unfortunate cause, though we are used to that sort of concept with a bunch of other illnesses.


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## weltweit (Apr 25, 2022)

I think like many, since Ukraine has dominated the news and regulations on Covid-19 have been withdrawn I have paid less attention and have stopped wearing a mask as one example of relaxation of my guard. 

Right now a colleague just returned recovered from it, another has just returned to work after a nasty bout of it. Another worker has not come in today because he just got it, and a third went down with it at the weekend.

Looking back, this is the most affected my workplace has been since the very beginning.


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## _Russ_ (Apr 25, 2022)

Recently published ONS survey of over a million Englanders indicating 70% + have antibodies from a covid infection (distinct from antibodies due vaccination) Data is before latest Omicron peak so has to be an underestimate)


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## William of Walworth (Apr 26, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> *The Wales stats confuse me a bit, but they seems to me to show its rife as fuck in Hospitals right now*
> 
> https://public.tableau.com/app/prof.../RapidCOVID-19virology-Public/Headlinesummary
> 
> P.S. about 1 in 8 inpatients being confirmed cases...I suppose that shouldnt surprise me



As I posted in the "Have you had Covid-19?" thread, I was (PCR) tested Covid-positive while I was in (a Welsh) hospital**

** [for which see  '*My Left Foot*' thread in H + S subforum]

I'm sceptical (?) that I actually caught it in hospital though, as I was tested the day after I was admitted.

The duty-Doctors classed my infection as 'Low Covid' (this is a special 'hospital category', no?) and suggested that it might be the tail-end of an old, prior infection -- I had no symptoms at all throughout.

I've since (LFT) tested negative at home (I'll test again tomorrow to double-check).

Apologies for semi-derail ....


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## cupid_stunt (Apr 26, 2022)

I was a bit shocked looking at the dashboard yesterday, despite reduced testing, cases are up 116.9% in a week, and deaths are up 78.2%.


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## William of Walworth (Apr 26, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Considering the virtual abandonment of T&T *and vastly reduced testing (including in Hospitals which absolutely baffles me)* I cant see how anyone can say things are improving


Absolutely!! It's totally insane and beyond understanding 

 I only got tested *at all* in the hospital because I was very shortly due an operation! 

Days afterwards, they didn't even seem to have _access_ to any tests for me (or anyone -- either PCR or LFT) when I asked to be re-tested prior to being allowed home!


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## elbows (Apr 26, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was a bit shocked looking at the dashboard yesterday, despite reduced testing, cases are up 116.9% in a week, and deaths are up 78.2%.


Sounds like a rather large easter bank holiday distortion, which those '7 day totals compared to the totals from the previous chunk of 7 days that ended a week earlier' are going to be massively susceptible to. In other words, for yesterday figures the previous totals they are comparing to the latest weeks worth covered the period of 12th-18th April, which encompassed the long easter weekend that featured reporting delays and general lack of data, and so the percentage growth in the week that followed looks much worse. A double whammy because the earlier week has missing data, and the subsequent week includes the catch-up of that data. Until that phenomenon clears as we move further past that easter period, better to look at other forms of data on the dashboard than those headline things on the main page.


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## existentialist (Apr 26, 2022)

cupid_stunt said:


> I was a bit shocked looking at the dashboard yesterday, despite reduced testing, cases are up 116.9% in a week, and deaths are up 78.2%.


The Tory cunts got their "let it rip", and "let the bodies pile high" in the end. No doubt, the future narrative will be that this was inevitable, and that all the pressure to lock down and throw sackloads of cash at their mates for ineffectual testing systems was pointless and "woke".


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2022)

William of Walworth said:


> I'm sceptical (?) that I actually caught it in hospital though, as I was tested the day after I was admitted.



Yeah they use the timing to classify cases as hospital acquired or not.

For example articles about Englands NHS say this sort of thing:



> In the week to 14 April, 22 per cent of covid cases in hospital were detected eight days or more after a patient was admitted – meeting the NHSE definition of “probable” hospital acquired, or “nosocomial” infection.



And for Wales where hospital acquired infections are shown on their dashboard, these definitions are used:

Not hospital onset = positive test within 2 days of admission.
Indeterminate = positive test taken more than 2 and less than 8 days after admission.
Probable = positive test taken more than 7 and less than 15 days after admission.
Definite = positive test taken more than 14 days after admission.



> The duty-Doctors classed my infection as 'Low Covid' (this is a special 'hospital category', no?) and suggested that it might be the tail-end of an old, prior infection -- I had no symptoms at all throughout.



I've not heard that term but then I've hardly seen any Welsh NHS documents during the pandemic, and trying to search the internet for low covid is no good because it turns up very many stories about low rates of covid.

It could be an informal term or relates to 'low levels of covid in the test sample' or 'low chance of being infectious' or something relating to lack of symptoms or something else along these lines.


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2022)

existentialist said:


> The Tory cunts got their "let it rip", and "let the bodies pile high" in the end. No doubt, the future narrative will be that this was inevitable, and that all the pressure to lock down and throw sackloads of cash at their mates for ineffectual testing systems was pointless and "woke".



In terms of both tories and the broader population, what I've seen so far is a very large group who still recognise that there was a need to act in those first waves, and can spot the key differences between the pre-vaccine and vaccinated eras. There is another group who seek to indulge in a revisionist rewriting of history despite the facts and the painful lessons of the first waves, but these are mostly the shitheads who never believed in strong action at any stage. There is also a little bit of creep from some of those who once knew better, who are tempted by narratives from the shitheads to cast certain actions in those first waves as 'government over-reaction and panic'. The extent to which that creep will continue as more time passes is currently unclear to me, and of course those with a ridiculous axe to grind and a faulty version of history to promote tend to be rather loud and visible, potentially distorting attempts to estimate their number. Some otherwise reasonable people may yet develop a faulty sense of the past risk if they are very heavily influenced by their current sense of risk and current attitudes, with thoughts about the present leaking into their impression of the past.


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Recently published ONS survey of over a million Englanders indicating 70% + have antibodies from a covid infection (distinct from antibodies due vaccination) Data is before latest Omicron peak so has to be an underestimate)



Sadly they cant actually use antibody data to achieve that sort of estimate. They do have the ability to tell the difference between infection-induced and vaccine-induced antibodies, although the sampling is also inevitably biased (its often from blood donors who arent a perfect mirror of the total population). And the big problem is that antibodies wane over time, and the pandemic has been going on for too long to capture all prior infections using current antibody levels. For example, pre-omicron the blood donor antibody from infection totals often struggled to get far past 20-something percent, although earlier in the Omicron wave this data had managed to soar past 40%. For example see the red line on the graph on page 39 of the following report, or the regional or age graphs on the subsequent two pages https://assets.publishing.service.g...70356/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-16.pdf

So rather than rely on antibody data, what this latest ONS study does is to model the cumulative total infections based on the positive tests in households that they've been detecting via their ongoing infection survey. This isnt perfect but its a much better guide than either antibodies or relying on the positive test totals on the government dashboard. Limitations include any flaws in the model, and the fact it covers private households rather than hospitals, care homes etc. But by far the biggest limitation is the lack of testing and the non-existence of this ONS infection survey during the rise of the first pandemic wave. So when we consider the figure they came up with, its important to note that the totals only cover the following time periods:

27 April 2020 to 11 February 2022 for England
30 June 2020 to 11 February 2022 for Wales
27 July 2020 to 11 February 2022 for Northern Ireland
22 September 2020 to 11 February 2022 for Scotland
Its still a very useful study and I have often wondered what sort of totals this exercise would come up with, so I'm glad they have done this now.

I do not have a good sense of what percentage it would be fair to add on top of these figures to cover the missing first wave period. And its important to note that this missing data is worse for the countries other than England. Nor have I attempted to add the numbers after 11th February to see where we've got to more recently.

Here is the report:






						Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey technical article: Cumulative incidence of the number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19, UK - Office for National Statistics
					

The number of people in the UK who have tested positive for COVID-19 using the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey.



					www.ons.gov.uk


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2022)

With those graphs in mind, allow me to understate the obvious by saying that its a good thing the 'herd immunity' plan was abandoned early on. Since getting to those high levels of infection took multiple waves and even in the heavily vaccinated era with a strain that had some advantages for us in terms of severe disease, getting there still placed an uncomfortable and prolonged amount of pressure on the NHS.

Plus now that we are getting there, its far from clear the exact extent of benefits all this prior infection will grant us. Its probably a mixed bag, with the very much changed immunity picture offering some really obvious advantages (blunting what makes a pandemic a pandemic in the first place, population immune naivety), but with little expectation of the 'protection from infection' form of herd immunity, and various unknowns due to future variant immune evasion unknowns.

In some perverse way we were 'lucky' that this disease caused high enough hospitalisation rates that our authorities could not stick to their original shitty 'plan a' for all that long at the start. I dread to think what would have happened if their hospitalisation estimates had been more finely balanced in a manner that would have enabled that plan to carry on for even longer.


----------



## teuchter (Apr 26, 2022)

I note those graphs are labelled "population who have tested positive" rather than "population who would have tested positive". Is that deliberate? If assume the latter number would be higher than the former.


----------



## elbows (Apr 26, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I note those graphs are labelled "population who have tested positive" rather than "population who would have tested positive". Is that deliberate? If assume the latter number would be higher than the former.


Well you can read all the tedious details in the report I linked to.

The figures they presented are not the actual number of people who tested positive in their surveys, since they didnt sample the whole population. According to the report, they sampled 535,116 people during the period in question. They extrapolated and modelled what the whole population figures would look like, and they also adjusted their figures based on their understanding of periods of infection, and other factors such as reinfection.

Language that refers to positive tests rather than true levels of incidence is down to stuff like the thing covered by the following quote from their report:



> Positivity refers to the proportion or number of people who would test positive on any given day if we sampled the whole population. Positivity is not the true number infected on a given day, it is those testing positive on a given day. To calculate the true number of people infected on a given day (prevalence), we would need an accurate understanding of the swab test's sensitivity (true-positive rate) and specificity (true-negative rate).


----------



## elbows (Apr 27, 2022)

Another ridiculous state of affairs that is asking for trouble:



> The flagship public health body set up by Boris Johnson to combat the pandemic is in turmoil, with plans looming to cut jobs by up to 40% and suspend routine Covid testing in hospitals and care homes to save money.
> 
> Whitehall sources have told the Guardian that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), led by Dr Jenny Harries, is in a state of disarray, with morale at rock bottom and concerns it is not funded to cope with any resurgence in the pandemic. Public health experts warned that the “alarming” cuts could cost lives.





> After the Treasury slashed its budget to deal with Covid, UKHSA is now proposing to health ministers that it suspend regular asymptomatic testing in hospitals and care homes from May to save money before a potential winter spike in cases.
> 
> Sources in the organisation said funding for asymptomatic testing in high risk settings is only enough to cover six months in a year, and senior officials believe it would be better saved for later in the year.











						UK health agency to cut 800 jobs and halt routine Covid testing
					

Exclusive: ‘Alarming’ cuts by UK Health Security Agency could cost lives, public health experts warn




					www.theguardian.com


----------



## elbows (Apr 27, 2022)

Longstanding government bullshit about when they could reasonably have understood the implications of asymptomatic cases & transmission was not enough to get these judgements to all fall in their favour:









						Covid: Discharging untested patients to care homes 'unlawful'
					

The High Court says government policies did not take into account transmission risks to the elderly.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> The High Court said the policies failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission of the virus.
> 
> The women partially succeeded in claims against the health secretary and Public Health England.
> 
> In their ruling, Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Garnham concluded that, despite there being "growing awareness" of the risk of asymptomatic transmission throughout March 2020, there was no evidence that then Health Secretary Matt Hancock addressed the issue of the risk to care home residents of such transmission.


----------



## Calamity1971 (Apr 27, 2022)

Sky have just put up a statement by Hancock talking about Hancock in the third person.
Can't find it ATM, this is all that's up 
Hancock blames Public Health England after damning ruling on Covid in care homes


----------



## two sheds (Apr 27, 2022)

Odds on emails being released from Public Health England warning Hancock of just that?


----------



## farmerbarleymow (Apr 27, 2022)

Calamity1971 said:


> Sky have just put up a statement by Hancock talking about Hancock in the third person.
> Can't find it ATM, this is all that's up
> Hancock blames Public Health England after damning ruling on Covid in care homes


It's never their fault is it?

The cunts.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 27, 2022)

At times I was almost tempted to feel sorry for Hancock (if he wasn't such an egregious Tory shithead) as he was so obviously miles out of his depth and sitting there as a convenient scapegoat if required. He really thinks he's some sort of hero though doesn't he?


----------



## LDC (Apr 27, 2022)

farmerbarleymow said:


> It's never their fault is it?
> 
> The cunts.



Yeah for sure he's avoiding any blame, but PHE threw NHS staff under the bus with PPE at the start, so entirely possible they fucked up as well (not read the article).


----------



## two sheds (Apr 27, 2022)

It's a fairly fucking obvious thing not to do though isn't it?


----------



## elbows (Apr 27, 2022)

The 'cant do' mentality extended across management of multiple health-related institutions. I dont have good things to say about any of them in the early months of the pandemic, and that includes PHE and NHS England management.


----------



## William of Walworth (Apr 27, 2022)

In the BBC story, this is a section that jumped out at me :




			
				BBC said:
			
		

> They ruled this was on the grounds the drafters of those documents failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission, *which had been highlighted by Sir Patrick Vallance in a radio interview as early as 13 March*.



Can anyone ( elbows ? others?) remember how prominent/well publicised that Vallance warning was, at the time? ( and not after the care-home scandal  properly emerged?)


----------



## Chilli.s (Apr 28, 2022)

Everyone knew about non-symptomatic transmission. Right from the start. If it was only transmissible with symptoms it would have been easier to contain, the reason it spread so quickly is precisely because of non-symptomatic transmission


----------



## StoneRoad (Apr 28, 2022)

Chilli.s said:


> Everyone knew about non-symptomatic transmission. Right from the start. If it was only transmissible with symptoms it would have been easier to contain, the reason it spread so quickly is precisely because of non-symptomatic transmission


Not to mention the distinct lack of testing.


----------



## elbows (Apr 28, 2022)

I'm intending to re-read a load of early forum posts at some point in order to see how accurate my memory of that period on here is.

There were some attempts to downplay and deny the role of asymptomatic cases, for example I seem to remember complaining that China made some claims about that which the WHO then placed too much emphasis on in their first highly publicised China report. I'll have to check the timescale of that but it may have been late February 2020.

In any case that stuff would still not be a suitable let-off for the care home failings, because a lot of the focus on that just amounted to quibbling as to whether a lot of those cases and transmission involved people who remained asymptomatic, and those who were pre-symptomatic and did eventually develop symptoms. A subject people were interested in when trying to judge potential hospital burden and how quickly a wave may engulf the population and then diminish, but when it comes to transmission it doesnt really make any difference how many were asymptomatic vs pre-symptomatic.

I probably banged on about the subject and treated China findings with skepticism because of how large a role asymptomatic cases are through to have int he transmission of other illnesses such as flu, and my bullshit directors were somewht tuned to crap excuses and fake ignorance in this area. There was some 'expert public talking heads' bias again accepting the full asymptomatic picture because of how large the implications were, and that bullshit continued from some quarters until the old pandemic policy landscape had been killed off, replaced with the sort of 'unthinkable' strong measures that eventually became the new normal.

 This article from the i newspaper helpfully lists 20 warnings that are relevant. I doubt I was aware of all 20 of these at the time, but some do sound familiar.

I'm glad this stuff got exposed and gone over now because it was one of the areas where bullshit defences were expected to be wheeled out in the pandemic public inquiry, and could have formed part of weak and faulty inquiry conclusions, and it would have driven me mad if that shit was taken at face value.









						The 20 missed warnings over asymptomatic Covid before patients were sent to care homes
					

Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Garnham said: 'It is apparent that the Defendants were alive to the possibility of pre-symptomatic infection and transmission'




					inews.co.uk


----------



## _Russ_ (Apr 28, 2022)

'Missed' warnings?..were they fuck


----------



## StoneRoad (Apr 28, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> 'Missed' warnings?..were they fuck


"missed" as in "ignored", I think would be a better, but less charitable, interpretation ...


----------



## ska invita (Apr 29, 2022)

Can someone explain where we are with cases please?

Guardian reports daily new cases of 12,421 - thats around 100,000 a week.



BBC says 2.8 million a week - a massive discrepancy

"Around 2.87 million people would have tested positive in the week to 23 April - 900,000 fewer than the week before."


----------



## teuchter (Apr 30, 2022)

The BBC one is an estimate of how many people would test positive at a point in time (if you tested everyone in the country).

The guardian one, how many new cases pop up each day. So on a given day, the number of positive cases is the new cases that day, plus all the cases that were "new" each day in the previous week or two, but are still active.

On top of that you have the difference between positive test results, and number of people actually positive (but not necessarily tested).


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Apr 30, 2022)

teuchter said:


> On top of that you have the difference between positive test results, and number of people actually positive (but not necessarily tested).



I think a lot of it, especially now, is going to be people who have tested positive by LFT but haven't reported it. I've got to admit I didn't bother when I had it recently - I vaguely thought I should but never got around to it.


----------



## elbows (Apr 30, 2022)

The formal dashboard one, the one the Guardian reported on, is not much use these days due to the way the testing system has been decimated.

The ONS one, which the BBC reported on, is still quite useful since its based on random household sampling where the ONS proactively gets people. A programme that has not been abandoned yet, and is not reliant on all the population being able to get a test or bother getting a test or report the results of a test. its just a bit laggy, tending to show the picture from the previous week.

In the grand scheme of things infection levels are still rather high, but have fallen a lot in recent weeks. So I'm hoping the levels of infection are no longer totally ridiculous by some point in May.


----------



## _Russ_ (May 1, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> "missed" as in "ignored", I think would be a better, but less charitable, interpretation ...


Yes that was my point, its the ubiquitous  tactic of absolute shits to paint deliberate acts as mistakes when pulled up on em, its blatant everyone knows it and there's fuck all you and me can do about it except vote in a different bunch of shits every five years or so (but it is a matter of degree innit and I dont think any of the other shits in the running could approach the extremes of shit our current shits embrace)


----------



## weltweit (May 2, 2022)

Nine new symptoms added to official list​
shortness of breath
feeling tired or exhausted
aching body
headache
sore throat
blocked or runny nose
loss of appetite
diarrhoea
feeling sick or being sick









						Covid: Nine new symptoms added to official list
					

Sore throats, headaches and loss of appetite are now all officially recognised as signs of infection.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (May 2, 2022)

Yeah that happened nearly a month ago, once they were no longer concerned about broader list of symptoms overloading the testing system, due to dismantling big chunks of the testing system and the right to free tests.


----------



## MBV (May 2, 2022)

Ignore


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (May 2, 2022)

I think we will


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## weltweit (May 3, 2022)

I have never known so many people getting it, just had it, or getting it again as I know at the moment.


----------



## StoneRoad (May 3, 2022)

weltweit said:


> I have never known so many people getting it, just had it, or getting it again as I know at the moment.


sadly, to be expected ...

vaccines are protecting against severe illness, not infection _per se _
and the lack of social distancing / masks etc ...
plus the high transmissibility of the Omicron variants, esp BA.2 ...


----------



## Leighsw2 (May 4, 2022)

weltweit said:


> I have never known so many people getting it, just had it, or getting it again as I know at the moment.


'fraid to say I'm one of them having succumbed after two years dodging this virus. I'm writing this from my sickbed!

In other news, an interesting twitter thread from Christina Pagel about Omicron subvariants - prepare for the third Omicron wave in 4 to 6 weeks! (infuriating as, assuming I'm infected with BA.2, this won't necessarily protect against BA.4 or 5 which appear to be on their way. So my suffering this week will be of little tangible benefit!)


----------



## l'Otters (May 4, 2022)

Can anyone explain in layman’s terms when / how variants stop being sub-variants of eg omicron and start being a new variant which gets its own letter?


----------



## gentlegreen (May 6, 2022)

Yesterday I took the bus to Bristol for gardening supplies as I had two weeks ago.
A calculated risk ?
Very few masks anywhere..
I had to sit on the upper deck on the way there and sat on the right hand side where people even older than me were sitting - all masked...
My sympathies to those who have no choice and do this every day.

My go-to virologist who is 6 years older than me makes a point of saying he rides the NY subway maskless now.
Perhaps he feels he needs to to express confidence in the vaccine - but I'm a long way off being at that point.

Six months since my third vaccination so if my FFP2 mask failed, I can expect a moderate dose - not helped by having regained most of the weight I lost last year. My vitamin D stores should be fairly well charged up as I've been working in the sunshine in tee shirt and shorts.


----------



## platinumsage (May 7, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Six months since my third vaccination so if my FFP2 mask failed, I can expect a moderate dose



If an infected maskless person is having a long close-up conversation with you, or you're in a totally unventilated space with infected people for over an hour maybe, otherwise highly unlikely.


----------



## teuchter (May 12, 2022)

Zoe update



Video has some graphs. He is saying that although cases have been falling for a while they may now be plateauing or even rising again.

BA2 perhaps less severe symptoms than BA1.

Meanwhile here are what the UK healthcare graphs currently look like.

My observations are that number of people in hospital seems to correspond with no of cases in general - but the latest wave seems to have had less of an impact on numbers in ventilation - hopefully because of lower severity?


----------



## elbows (May 13, 2022)

teuchter said:


> My observations are that number of people in hospital seems to correspond with no of cases in general - but the latest wave seems to have had less of an impact on numbers in ventilation - hopefully because of lower severity?


As usual I will say that our perceptions of severity arent just about the evolution of the virus, but also very much the evolution of our population immunity picture.

eg 2nd Omicron wave happened in the context of further evolution of the number of unvaccinated people who hadnt yet caught the virus, vaccinated people who had already caught Covid before etc etc.

When it comes to hospital data and comparing numbers in hospital beds to numbers in mechanical ventilation beds, there are some other factors to consider too when it comes to 2nd Omicron wave compared to the first one. Probably the most obvious example is that in England where data is available, the proportion of 'incidental' hospital cases compared to those recorded as being in hospital primarily for Covid has been different in the 2nd Omicron wave compared to the first one. So I'm not surprised the ventilation bed figures didnt show the same height of peak this time. Here is the usual graph, which I havent posted for a while, which illustrates this point quite well:


Data actually goes up to May 10th despite what the axis labels say. Data is from the primary diagnoses supplement spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Since I've posted that data, I suppose I should point out that I'd expect changes to the hospital infection control rules, in hospital testing regimes etc to have some effect of unknown magnitude on the 'incidental' hospital data these days and in future. But these changes didnt happen so long ago that they would have messed up the ability to compare 1st Omicron wave to 2nd Omicron wave in this data, this point is more about any comparisons we may want to make in future.

Also note that if we can still trust the ability to measure the number of 'primarily for cases' under the various new testing rules, and so can still right now fairly compare them to the levels seen in past years, we have finally reached a stage where the number of primary covid patients in hospital in England has fallen below a level its not fallen below since the Delta wave fully emerged.

As for what happens next and the possibility of decline having slowed or showing signs of going into reverse, now is certainly one of those moments where we wait to see if the now familiar oscillation happens yet again. I suppose we are at the point where there is renewed selective pressure on the virus to show its hand in terms of a new variant that dominate by being able to punch through the existing immunity picture in an obvious way, at scale. Because clearly we've gone quite a long way beyond the point where the last dominant version of the virus could sustain growth, due to running out of sufficient number of fresh victims, and so some mutations (or other changes to the population immunity picture, eg notable waning) are required in order for the virus to enjoy obvious growth again. Such a variant could have been around for some time and may be one of the ones thats already on the radar, and so what I really mean is that now is the time we will start to get a clearer view of its rise to dominance becoming obvious.


----------



## gentlegreen (May 13, 2022)

I didn't get to Aldi during the week, so I took a gamble on 4pm on a Friday evening.
I was used to near-zero masking, but why remove the perspex between the scab tills ?
I suppose now that it's warmed-up they can keep a good draught blowing.


----------



## LDC (May 13, 2022)

I think there's been a massive shift in the last few weeks among people I know. I would say everyone is 'back to normal' in terms of behaviour, going out, not wearing masks, etc. and it not featuring in conversations really.

So many people I know had it in the last month or 2, none were in hospital and everyone (bar one person) seems to have recovered fine.

The NHS Trust I work for has also just announced they'll stop doing daily updates on Covid and Covid figures in the Trust. Only thing noticeable now is masks at work and some testing of staff, either routine or if you have symptoms.


----------



## miss direct (May 13, 2022)

I've not been in the UK since January but will be back next week. Is it really zero masks? I've got to get back from the airport via muliple forms of public transport, noone is going to bother me if I choose to keep wearing one, are they? I've managed to get all around the world without catching it and don 't want to get it now. Although are cases lowish now? I've not been keeping up.


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## teuchter (May 13, 2022)

No-one will bother you for wearing a mask. There are still a few people in most trains or shops choosing to wear one.

Cases are not exactly low. I think the estimate is something like 1 in 30 or 40 people have it just now, compared to 1 in 10 or 20 a little while ago.


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## gentlegreen (May 13, 2022)

I haven't had any issues - apart from some iffy looks from a couple buying ultra-luxury bog roll and nothing else in a homestore on a rainy day ...
I walked home from Aldi earlier - deliberately wearing my FFP2 mask when I usually wouldn't bother - though the pavement was quite busy ...
I weighed-up the quality of social interaction (near zero) vs not catching their germs ...


----------



## BristolEcho (May 13, 2022)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> I think there's been a massive shift in the last few weeks among people I know. I would say everyone is 'back to normal' in terms of behaviour, going out, not wearing masks, etc. and it not featuring in conversations really.
> 
> So many people I know had it in the last month or 2, none were in hospital and everyone (bar one person) seems to have recovered fine.
> 
> The NHS Trust I work for has also just announced they'll stop doing daily updates on Covid and Covid figures in the Trust. Only thing noticeable now is masks at work and some testing of staff, either routine or if you have symptoms.


Yeah must admit when I moved to my new workplace and zero people were wearing masks I have let it lax. No one on the bus has one now. Kind of off topic I wonder when GP's are going to start seeing people face to face again regularly. I had been direct working and we were seeing people regularly pretty quickly though I always masked even when we moved away from that.  Wonder if they will ever go back to normal. 



miss direct said:


> I've not been in the UK since January but will be back next week. Is it really zero masks? I've got to get back from the airport via muliple forms of public transport, noone is going to bother me if I choose to keep wearing one, are they? I've managed to get all around the world without catching it and don 't want to get it now. Although are cases lowish now? I've not been keeping up.


You should be okay I have occasionally worn one without any problems. I did have a tipping point though where it sort of felt futile.


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## teuchter (May 13, 2022)

To me it seems the only reason to continue wearing a mask is if you seriously want to avoid catching it, but that would mean also not going to social stuff. If you want to go to pubs or cafes or restaurants - you're going to get it eventually. Unless there's some dramatic fall off in case numbers and no-one really seems to be expecting that.


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## BristolEcho (May 13, 2022)

teuchter said:


> To me it seems the only reason to continue wearing a mask is if you seriously want to avoid catching it, but that would mean also not going to social stuff. If you want to go to pubs or cafes or restaurants - you're going to get it eventually. Unless there's some dramatic fall off in case numbers and no-one really seems to be expecting that.


My main reason for wearing one until around 6-8 weeks ago was mainly for other people who are still nervous and wearing there's. I barely see anyone doing it now though. I agree I'm on the way to the pub now so it is pointless.


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## Steel Icarus (May 13, 2022)

I'm still wearing a mask on the bus and in shops because it's a small hardship - hardly one at all tbh - compared to potentially unknowingly passing it from a student I've been in contact with to someone vulnerable elsewhere.


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## miss direct (May 13, 2022)

It's going to feel really strange not wearing one...it's been over two years for me as they were made compulsory very quickly in Turkey (where I was at the start of the pandemic.) I suppose I'll wear it for the last part of my journey - would be pretty shit to get covid just as I arrive back home and have lots of plans. But then I'll want to do social stuff.


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## cesare (May 13, 2022)

Steel Icarus said:


> I'm still wearing a mask on the bus and in shops because it's a small hardship - hardly one at all tbh - compared to potentially unknowingly passing it from a student I've been in contact with to someone vulnerable elsewhere.


Me too.


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## oryx (May 13, 2022)

cesare said:


> Me too.


And me.


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## teuchter (May 13, 2022)

Steel Icarus said:


> I'm still wearing a mask on the bus and in shops because it's a small hardship - hardly one at all tbh - compared to potentially unknowingly passing it from a student I've been in contact with to someone vulnerable elsewhere.


I'm still doing it in certain circumstances.

But when you're on a packed train or bus and you're the 1 in 50 who's wearing a mask, the reduction in risk to someone vulnerable on the same bus cant be that great.

Someone vulnerable travelling on that bus would be much better off making sure that they themselves have a mask that protects them as much as possible.

I resisted this argument for quite some time - it's one that a lot of people were pushing as their reason for not wearing a mask even while it was still supposed to be mandatory - but we are now at the point where hardly anyone is wearing a mask, whether we like it or not.


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## two sheds (May 13, 2022)

Used the train for first time in a while, not many masks in view but there was an announcement 'please wear a mask if you can' or something like which was nice because I'd forgotten.


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## Steel Icarus (May 13, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I'm still doing it in certain circumstances.
> 
> But when you're on a packed train or bus and you're the 1 in 50 who's wearing a mask, the reduction in risk to someone vulnerable on the same bus cant be that great.
> 
> ...


I can't control what others do, but I can wear a mask. Makes me feel better however misplaced. I also get a bus half an hour earlier than I need to so I can avoid it being crowded.


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## l'Otters (May 14, 2022)

I wear a mask in shops, on public transport, etc. I'm in a minority in most of those contexts but not had any comments or any grief. 
(not since the day I got a train out of central London on the same day as a big anti mask anti vax demo had been on)

Similar to others, I have no desire to pass covid on to anyone who might suffer badly with it. Which could be anyone, long covid is a gamble which means I'm still not keen on getting it myself. So for crowded trains I wear a well sealing ffp3.

For pubs cafe's etc I look to the outside seating options which thankfully most of the people I'm meeting prefer anyway now the weather has improved. Been doing various social stuff which carries a risk, but in general the cost/benefit balance works out for me else I wouldn't do it.


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## miss direct (May 14, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> For pubs cafe's etc I look to the outside seating options which thankfully most of the people I'm meeting prefer anyway now the weather has improved. Been doing various social stuff which carries a risk, but in general the cost/benefit balance works out for me else I wouldn't do it.


This is how I feel. Maybe it's silly, but I don't want to get covid from something unenjoyable, like sitting on a bus, when it's easy to wear a mask. If I have to get it, at least let it be from something joyful.


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## elbows (May 19, 2022)

I see the absurdities and bad comedy timing are still present in the UK.









						Jonathan Van-Tam misses knighthood ceremony due to Covid
					

England's former deputy chief medical officer is recovering and the ceremony will be rescheduled.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




At least being Van-Tam we got stuff like this:



> He added: "This shows us that much as we'd all like to think this pandemic is over and Covid has gone away, it hasn't gone - it's something we are going to have live with for many years to come.
> "We just have to try and be careful and protect each other."


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## elbows (May 20, 2022)

Latest picture from the ONS infection survey:









						Covid infections down again to one in 50, says ONS
					

Infections have been falling since the end of March, after the Omicron variant pushed up cases.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				





> one in 55 in England - down from one in 45 the week before
> one in 40 in Wales - down from one in 35 the week before
> one in 60 in Northern Ireland - down from one in 55 the week before
> one in 45 in Scotland - down from one in 35 the week before





> However, the ONS found that infections may no longer be falling in the south-east and south-west of England. And among under-35s, the drop in infections looks to be slowing down.


----------



## Sue (May 20, 2022)

miss direct said:


> It's going to feel really strange not wearing one...it's been over two years for me as they were made compulsory very quickly in Turkey (where I was at the start of the pandemic.) I suppose I'll wear it for the last part of my journey - would be pretty shit to get covid just as I arrive back home and have lots of plans. But then I'll want to do social stuff.


Wear one if you want to though why only for the last part of your journey?  (I'm also still wearing one inside, had no hassle for doing so.)


----------



## elbows (May 20, 2022)

Northern Ireland fucked the overall UK dashboard stats by deciding to stop reporting deaths etc:



> From 20 May 2022, Department of Health Northern Ireland stopped reporting data on cases, testing and deaths.
> 
> This means UK headline figures for these topics will not be updated.





			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/whats-new/record/4d64ce27-f18c-4908-b204-23c11da2da9c


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## miss direct (May 21, 2022)

Sue said:


> Wear one if you want to though why only for the last part of your journey?  (I'm also still wearing one inside, had no hassle for doing so.)


Oh I didn't mean only for the last part. I had a very long journey and masks were compulsory throughout, apart from the last bit in the UK (although you would have thought they weren't compulsory on the flight from Dubai too, which was full of Brits...)


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## gentlegreen (May 21, 2022)

miss direct said:


> Oh I didn't mean only for the last part. I had a very long journey and masks were compulsory throughout, apart from the last bit in the UK (although you would have thought they weren't compulsory on the flight from Dubai too, which was full of Brits...)


I can't help feeling now in my "liberal" enclave, that people have lost the will to care - or perhaps, as is my own concern as an always masked 62 year old last vaccinated 6 months ago - is that they've accepted that future "boosting" is going to be via natural infection...


----------



## Brainaddict (May 25, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> I can't help feeling now in my "liberal" enclave, that people have lost the will to care - or perhaps, as is my own concern as an always masked 62 year old last vaccinated 6 months ago - is that they've accepted that future "boosting" is going to be via natural infection...


I've known a few older people, some with other illnesses, who had covid recently and it was...mild, for all of them. I think when people see the effects of vaccination like that, it becomes difficult to stay focused on the few people on the unlucky end of the statistics. And of course long covid is a minor thing that the media only mentions now and then, so no need to worry about that.


----------



## kalidarkone (Jun 2, 2022)

Rumours at work (Hospital) that no one including staff will be required to wear a mask in the next two weeks. Non public facing staff have already ditched them.

I shall report back.


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## teuchter (Jun 2, 2022)

prompted me to have a look at the dashboard, which I haven't done for a few weeks.

About three weeks ago, it looked like numbers were levelling off and possibly about to rise again - and a Tim Spector video speculated that another rise was coming.

That doesn't seem to be what has happened so far though. Deaths appear to be continuing on a downwards trajectory. The ZOE study data doesn't show a rise in infections at this point.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 2, 2022)

I'm now virtually always the only masked person at college, on the bus, and in shops.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Jun 2, 2022)

Even with FFP2 worn pretty much everywhere and at all times I managed to finally catch it the other week and I think that I passed it to the assistant manager at the pub (where I also advance masked...) where I work.
Still gonna keep wearing a mask.


----------



## Doctor Carrot (Jun 7, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> I can't help feeling now in my "liberal" enclave, that people have lost the will to care - or perhaps, as is my own concern as an always masked 62 year old last vaccinated 6 months ago - is that they've accepted that future "boosting" is going to be via natural infection...


I'm still in the ONS infection survey and the word from that is another surge is expected in winter and that there will be another booster push before then in the same way there was last year. Long term aim is for an annual booster along with a flu jab.


----------



## gentlegreen (Jun 7, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I'm still in the ONS infection survey and the word from that is another surge is expected in winter and that there will be another booster push before then in the same way there was last year. Long term aim is for an annual booster along with a flu jab.


I'm still worried about catching it in the meantime - six months after my last booster  - my worst flu ever was in April / May 2019 - though I suppose if I'd been vaccinated it would have been November ...


----------



## Buddy Bradley (Jun 7, 2022)

Doctor Carrot said:


> I'm still in the ONS infection survey and the word from that is another surge is expected in winter and that there will be another booster push before then in the same way there was last year. Long term aim is for an annual booster along with a flu jab.


My in-laws were invited to get another booster a few weeks ago - they're in their mid-80s. Don't think my parents (mid-70s) have had anything through yet though.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jun 7, 2022)

Buddy Bradley said:


> My in-laws were invited to get another booster a few weeks ago - they're in their mid-80s. Don't think my parents (mid-70s) have had anything through yet though.


Yeah it's a bit haphazard among more vulnerable patients. The person taking my test this month said some people have had 5 doses!


----------



## elbows (Jun 7, 2022)

Well as of May 13th, attempts to quantify the uptake of the spring booster vaccine suggested that just under 80% of the eligible over-75s had received their extra spring booster:









						Almost 80% of eligible over-75s receive spring booster
					

Latest UKHSA data shows 79.2% of those aged 75+ who became eligible at the end of March for coronavirus (COVID-19) booster have taken up the vaccine.




					www.gov.uk
				




As for the plan for autumn of this year, on May 19th interim advice from the JVCI was revealed, and it doesnt involve population-wide coverage. Its more like how they target the flu vaccine. However, since there is currently a lack of understanding of quite what impact waning will have on future hospitalisations once much more time has passed, it is quite possible that this plan could change if data emerges from any country in the meantime that implies more will need to be offered.



> The JCVI’s current view is that in autumn 2022, a COVID-19 vaccine should be offered to:
> 
> 
> residents in a care home for older adults and staff
> ...











						JCVI provides interim advice on an autumn COVID-19 booster programme
					

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has provided interim advice to government regarding coronavirus (COVID-19) booster doses this autumn.




					www.gov.uk


----------



## hegley (Jun 10, 2022)

__


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## elbows (Jun 10, 2022)

teuchter said:


> prompted me to have a look at the dashboard, which I haven't done for a few weeks.
> 
> About three weeks ago, it looked like numbers were levelling off and possibly about to rise again - and a Tim Spector video speculated that another rise was coming.
> 
> That doesn't seem to be what has happened so far though. Deaths appear to be continuing on a downwards trajectory. The ZOE study data doesn't show a rise in infections at this point.


I was certainly relieved that it didnt shoot straight back up in the manner that happened when BA.2 was taking over from BA.1.

However there are tentative signs of it rising again recently, via anecdotes, hospital admissions data (more on that later) and now the ONS:









						Early signs that Covid may be rising in parts of the UK
					

Official estimates suggest there has been a small increase in infections in England and Northern Ireland.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I hope its a modest rise this summer but I have no predictions.


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## elbows (Jun 10, 2022)

First I should point out that I'm spending very little time observing pandemic news at the moment.

In regards the 'for' and 'with' number of Covid patients in hospital beds in England, here is the most recent picture, with data going up to June 7th. Number of patients being treated primarily for covid managed to fall to levels not seen since before the Delta wave really ramped up. Incidental 'with' levels didnt make it back down below the pre-Omicron levels seen, despite various changes to the in-hospital testing regimes in recent months. And both of these look to be starting to show another turning point now, but I dont want to say much about that until more data accumulates. In theory we can use the 'with' figures as one of the indicators of general levels of infection.


Made with data for England from the primary diagnosis supplement spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

In terms of daily Covid hospital admissions/diagnoses for England, the bottoming out and small rise is also visible, though these figures dont differentiate between the 'for' and 'with cases:

There does not seem to be much prospect of these figures returning to the very low levels seen after the two big lockdowns effects had been seen in full, when variants with different properties were around, which is sadly not surprising (although I'm certainly not sad that we didnt end up with more lockdowns).


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## teuchter (Jun 10, 2022)

Seems to show up in the ZOE graph too.


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## elbows (Jun 13, 2022)




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## kalidarkone (Jun 15, 2022)

Face masks in clinical areas no longer required unless it is ICU or a suspected covid or confirmed covid case and pre covid visiting resumed. (In my hospital trust)


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## quimcunx (Jun 15, 2022)

Have they decided that vaccines, the thing they were pinning everything on, aren't needed any more?  I had my last one in November.  Even in that shithole of a country USA I heard someone my own age saying he's getting his 2nd booster.


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## kalidarkone (Jun 15, 2022)

quimcunx said:


> Have they decided that vaccines, the thing they were pinning everything on, aren't needed any more?  I had my last one in November.  Even in that shithole of a country USA I heard someone my own age saying he's getting his 2nd booster.


It seems that way otherwise I don't see why I've not been offered a 4th jab.


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## LDC (Jun 15, 2022)

kalidarkone said:


> Face masks in clinical areas no longer required unless it is ICU or a suspected covid or confirmed covid case and pre covid visiting resumed. (In my hospital trust)



Dunno why I 'wowed' that really as heard it's coming here to this Trust too soon. Staff been moaning not here already. Nobody wearing on in non-clinical areas from last week, and hardly any patient or visitors have since then.


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## Sue (Jun 15, 2022)

kalidarkone said:


> Face masks in clinical areas no longer required unless it is ICU or a suspected covid or confirmed covid case and pre covid visiting resumed. (In my hospital trust)


I was at my local hospital (Homerton) the other day and it's still full mask wearing everywhere. They're also still handing out masks to folk without on the way in. I've a GP appointment this afternoon and they've just sent me a text reminding me that mask wearing is compulsory.


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## kabbes (Jun 15, 2022)

quimcunx said:


> Have they decided that vaccines, the thing they were pinning everything on, aren't needed any more?  I had my last one in November.  Even in that shithole of a country USA I heard someone my own age saying he's getting his 2nd booster.


Repeated reinfection seems to have replaced vaccination


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## srb7677 (Jun 15, 2022)

kabbes said:


> Repeated reinfection seems to have replaced vaccination


Which is fine when the dominant variant is no worse than the common cold for most of us.

But if some new and much more deadly variant should arise, we might have problems.


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## quimcunx (Jun 15, 2022)

kabbes said:


> Repeated reinfection seems to have replaced vaccination



some of us haven't had it yet!


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## srb7677 (Jun 15, 2022)

quimcunx said:


> some of us haven't had it yet!


Can't be sure about that. Some people who have had it would never have known having been asymptomatic. This is especially true for many younger people.

Others who have had it have experienced symptoms identical to a cold, and with test kits no longer free for most people, many wouldn't have bothered testing.

And there has been a particular problem with test reliability with the omicron variant, because the tests often give false negative results.


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## quimcunx (Jun 15, 2022)

srb7677 said:


> Can't be sure about that. Some people who have had it would never have known having been asymptomatic. This is especially true for many younger people.
> 
> Others who have had it have experienced symptoms identical to a cold, and with test kits no longer free for most people, many wouldn't have bothered testing.
> 
> And there has been a particular problem with test reliability with the omicron variant, because the tests often give false negative results.



I can be pretty sure that some of us haven't had it yet, even if I can't say with 100% that I personally haven't. Especially true for older people or people who would likely not cope well with it.  I would love to think I had it mildly enough to not know I had it.  I am 99.9% sure I haven't had it. I've had PCR tests every time I've had possible symptoms.


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## sheothebudworths (Jun 15, 2022)

Is UK at start of new Covid wave driven by BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants?
					

Virus may be evolving to refavour infecting lung tissue. We assess what this could mean for the course of the pandemic




					www.theguardian.com


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## wemakeyousoundb (Jun 15, 2022)

srb7677 said:


> Can't be sure about that. Some people who have had it would never have known having been asymptomatic. This is especially true for many younger people.
> 
> Others who have had it have experienced symptoms identical to a cold, and with test kits no longer free for most people, many wouldn't have bothered testing.
> 
> And there has been a particular problem with test reliability with the omicron variant, because the tests often give false negative results.


LFTs are very good at false negative, so they can only be relied on when they tell you that you are positive, hence the "probably not contagious" wording on the test report website.


sheothebudworths said:


> Is UK at start of new Covid wave driven by BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants?
> 
> 
> Virus may be evolving to refavour infecting lung tissue. We assess what this could mean for the course of the pandemic
> ...


Yep, and there was something posted on another thread about omicron not being any good for herd immunity as it doesn't seem to stop re-infections.


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## kalidarkone (Jun 16, 2022)

quimcunx said:


> I can be pretty sure that some of us haven't had it yet, even if I can't say with 100% that I personally haven't. Especially true for older people or people who would likely not cope well with it.  I would love to think I had it mildly enough to not know I had it.  I am 99.9% sure I haven't had it. I've had PCR tests every time I've had possible symptoms.


Same for me.


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## l'Otters (Jun 16, 2022)

srb7677 said:


> Which is fine when the dominant variant is no worse than the common cold for most of us.
> 
> But if some new and much more deadly variant should arise, we might have problems.


Where to even start. 
It is not fine.


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## elbows (Jun 16, 2022)

quimcunx said:


> Have they decided that vaccines, the thing they were pinning everything on, aren't needed any more?  I had my last one in November.  Even in that shithole of a country USA I heard someone my own age saying he's getting his 2nd booster.



The spring boosters were given to over 75's and certain categories of vulnerable people and care home residents.

The current advice in regards next autumns vaccine campaign is as follows, but could still be changed:



> The JCVI’s current view is that in autumn 2022, a COVID-19 vaccine should be offered to:
> 
> 
> residents in a care home for older adults and staff
> ...











						JCVI provides interim advice on an autumn COVID-19 booster programme
					

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has provided interim advice to government regarding coronavirus (COVID-19) booster doses this autumn.




					www.gov.uk


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## quimcunx (Jun 16, 2022)

So fuck everyone else?  Cross your fingers you get a mild case?


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## elbows (Jun 16, 2022)

Its a numbers game, it alway has been and it always will be. It was a numbers game when we had no vaccine and it certainly is now that we do have that tool available.

Factors that influence that numbers game include properties of the virus as it evolves over time, age-linked risk of hospitalisation or death, and the extent to which protection offered by previous vaccine doses against hospitalisation or death actually wanes over time. They were never going to bother revaccinating the whole population every so often unless a combination of data and clues about these factors combined to show a picture where the number of hospital admissions and deaths could easily soar beyond levels they think the system can cope with. And for the bulk of the population, 3 doses was enough to get the situation to a place where it was deemed we could cope last winter. The extent to which the magic number will be 4 doses instead of 3 for next winter remains to be seen. Plus the 3rd dose was also important because it gave them a chance to give people a mRNA shot who had previous only had an Oxford AZ shot, and also the timing of that booster campaign coincided nicely with the arrival of the Omicron threat.

Personally I broadly agree with taking a data driven approach and not revaccinating for the sake of it if the gains from giving more doses beyond the third at the moment are insignificant for the general younger population. However this doesnt mean I'm a fan of the current pandemic approach as a whole, since I remain deeply unhappy with the entire 'dont give a shit about trying to suppress the disease, prevent outbreaks, reduce spread, keep the number of infections low' approach. ie I dont believe in asking the vaccines to carry all of the weight of the pandemic on their own, and there are many aspects of the UK approach which involve pushing our luck and not taking a precautionary approach. And my attitude towards future boosters requires ongoing decent data from around the world, to make sure we dont miss any signs of significant waning of protection or immune-evading viral evolution that should really require the masses to get another dose of vaccine.


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## SpookyFrank (Jun 16, 2022)

We've got fully vaccinated people off work for weeks on end here with nasty symptoms. I'm doing three people's jobs this week. Here we fucking go again


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## elbows (Jun 16, 2022)

This new wave may well be the biggest test yet as to whether the UK establishments 'live with Covid by doing almost fuck all different to normal times' can be gotten away with.

Because this time we dont have a well timed booster campaign for anywhere near as many people. We may well not have a variant that is milder in terms of not targeting the lungs. We dont have much in the way of rules left, or much free testing, or a public 'keen to save Christmas' or a government keen to ask people to do the right thing, or a media that will loudly and constantly reinforce such messages. And hospital infection control measures have progressively been reduced in various ways.

So the most obvious thing we do have left is a reliance on the overarching theme of 'the population is different now to what it was at the start, because there is now a complex immunity and protection picture, a situation where the virus (or at least the spike of the virus via vaccines) isnt brand new to everyones bodies'. Plus some proportion of the most vulnerable already died from it.

And those sorts of fundamentals are broadly what makes a pandemic a pandemic in the first place, and where the main action and justification is for the 'we can go back to normal' people. There are potential flaws and limitations to that sort of simplistic approach though, and not just from attempting to pretend we've reached that point too soon. eg even when the virus lacks the potential to kill at such high rates, it can still place quite the burden on healthcare, a burden that was not there before this virus arrived, a burden that can upset another kind of numbers game in an ongoing way.

But I am oversimplifying somewhat, the central 'population immunity picture is different' likely can carry quite a lot of real weight, and we still arent 100% reliant on it to cope with this wave and future wave. Some older people got a well timed booster again, more treatments are available, some people are still being cautious. School holidays arent here yet but are looming and usually help. And if the situation gets real bad then behaviours will change in response again, the media will pay more attention, etc etc. But if those things are required then a mockery will still be made of various relaxed attitudes and the governments 'the pandemic is over, we can live with the virus without special effort' shit.

We've been here before with me probably making similar points, but the amount of good fortune with these new Omicron versions sounds like it will be less than what we enjoyed with the first few Omicron versions, and so I consider this to be a fresh test. And there is some evidence that all the Omicron infections that happened already havent made a wonderful difference to the population immunity picture, may not have really got us any closer to the promised land.


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## CH1 (Jun 16, 2022)

elbows said:


> This new wave may well be the biggest test yet as to whether the UK establishments 'live with Covid by doing almost fuck all different to normal times' can be gotten away with.


Seems like only a year ago that Tim Martin and Lord Sumption were arguing for the "Swedish Model"
Sounds like we will now get to try it - courtesy of a beached-whale Prime Minister whose ministers are chosen to be less intelligent than even he is.


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## elbows (Jun 16, 2022)

This really isnt the first time we are trying it - they always wanted to do it but couldnt do it without blinking in the pre-vaccine era. From the moment vaccine rollout began they put plans in place to do it as quickly as they possible could. There were a few timing setbacks due to Delta and then Omicron along the way, but they were still broadly able to stick to that plan. Depending on exactly what people count, this will be somewhere between the 2nd and 4th time it is really being tested by new variants/new waves.

A year ago when they were trying it despite Deltas arrival, it was still necessary for a bunch of people to come out and justify the 'do little' approach on the basis of a load of shitty claims about 'endemic equilibrium' and stuff like that. We've now come far enough that they dont even feel the need to bother dressing it up in that way. And the likes of Javid have basically been using the same 'move on, treat it like flu' rhetoric since the moment he got the health job almost a year ago.

As for Johnson, the establishment are aware that he has no 'moral authority' left in terms of any future covid restrictions and public advice, as a result of partygate. So there will be a big mess if we were to end up in a future situation where they need to apply the pandemic brakes in some way with Johnson still at the helm. What they'll actually do to sort that probably causes a few nerves, so they are probably just crossing their fingers and hoping that situation doesnt arise. I have no prediction as to whether it will because its very difficult to guess quite how bad a particular wave might be in terms of hospitalisations, or how the story of the viruses evolution will go in future.


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## elbows (Jun 17, 2022)

The latest ONS figures, which inevitably lag behind by about a week:



> In the week ending 9 June, the Covid rates are:
> 
> One in 50 in England - up from one in 70 the week before
> One in 45 in Wales - up from one in 75
> ...











						Covid infections up after Platinum Jubilee celebrations
					

The latest UK figures cover the long weekend of partying and suggest one in 45 has Covid.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## weepiper (Jun 17, 2022)

One in 30 in Scotland 😳


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## elbows (Jun 17, 2022)

Yeah and unfortunately Scotland has had higher rates for quite some time now but I havent seen very much commentary about it.


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## weepiper (Jun 17, 2022)

elbows said:


> Yeah and unfortunately Scotland has had higher rates for quite some time now but I havent seen very much commentary about it.


I mean anecdotally it certainly feels like we're in the early part of another wave here (lots of people I know have recently had/currently have it). I don't know what the reason is but everyone has pretty much stopped bothering with facemasks so perhaps that's part of it.


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## quimcunx (Jun 17, 2022)

yeah, it's hard to think what's different between Scotland and England to account for the difference.  and it has been for a while now.  Maybe a bit more likely to socialise inside because of the temperature difference?


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## elbows (Jun 20, 2022)

As part of the 'lets learn to be shit about this virus' they are only going to bother updating the dashboard once a week from July onwards. They say this decision will be kept under review in the coming weeks.



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/whats-new/record/2d8367fb-8235-4ad3-9f55-7f96573f73c6


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## miss direct (Jun 20, 2022)

I just did a bit of housesitting - left before the owners came back - both now have quite bad covid following their trip. Seems to be a lot of virus about now. 

Giving blood today, I put a mask on before entering the building (checked on the website, which said masks were required, and just seems sensible.) The nurse asked if I knew that I didn't have to wear one...said it was the first day they haven't had to since the pandemic began. Kept mine firmly on


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## StoneRoad (Jun 21, 2022)

elbows said:


> As part of the 'lets learn to be shit about this virus' they are only going to bother updating the dashboard once a week from July onwards. They say this decision will be kept under review in the coming weeks.
> 
> 
> 
> https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/whats-new/record/2d8367fb-8235-4ad3-9f55-7f96573f73c6


Not impressed with that decision, nor the "logic" apparently behind it.

especially with the two omicron variants currently available [my small workforce had been managing to stay relatively clear of infections, so far only three have managed to catch it. And all of those cases have been in the past three / four months and no-one actually came into work with it, either.


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## Leighsw2 (Jun 21, 2022)

Interesting news in a country where systematic reinfection has now become official policy....





We're fucked aren't we?


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## 2hats (Jun 21, 2022)

It's not a very informative study. It only spells out the obvious: that (a) being infected with SARS-CoV-2 and exhibiting symptoms is not as good as not being infected by it, and (b) multiple infections somewhat increase the disease burden risk. Also note that this work draws exclusively on healthcare data from the US Department of Veteran Affairs! (The study cohort is overwhelmingly male, median age ~65 and with significant pre-existing co-morbidities).


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## Puddy_Tat (Jun 21, 2022)

> Wokingham Borough currently has an infection rate of 201.8 per 100,000 people with 351 new cases reported in the seven days to June 15. The cases have risen by 47.5% week-on-week, according to the Public Health England.



source

hmm

(although 201 is within the 'dark blue' shade on the map)

and that's presumably with much reduced testing / reporting

although is there a class / income level thing going on with testing?  (as in many people can't afford to pay for tests / can't afford to take time off work if they do get it)?

lowest (pale green) rates / not enough data to report areas seem to be in the most working class bits of E London.  Broad demographic of wokingham borough is more towards middle class / reasonably well off remainers so maybe higher levels of testing / reporting still?


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## elbows (Jun 22, 2022)

Looking at the pandemic from that local an angle always carried risks of getting the wrong impression about true local trends and personal risk, including the risk of focussing on a picture that reflected the recent past rather than what was soon to happen.

And yes, variations in attitudes to testing and ability to financially weather the costs of getting infected and having to isolate always had the potential to distort the figures. And thats there is indeed a different version of that distortion in play now, via evolved attitudes to the pandemic, lack of access to free tests, etc.

Hospital data and ONS infection survey data are the figures I would pay attention to these days, even though those are laggy and not very local. They are useful for seeing what the recent trend has been and gaining clues about where things are going, and are not so affected by changes to the testing regime. Anecdotal evidence via forums such as u75 also continues to have some use, still seems to be a pretty good and timely guide, for overall trends and for parts of the country that are well represented by active posters here.


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## elbows (Jun 22, 2022)

In terms of implications of those u75 anecdotes, the most obvious thing is that reassurances people had in the past about the relatively lower risk of getting infected when attending gatherings outdoors in the summer dont seem very valid this time around.

It would be tempting to ascribe all of that increased risk to the recent variants, but I suppose there are plenty of other potential factors too. ie far more people are going to such gatherings, behaviours have changed a lot, and the much higher prevalence of the virus much increases the risk of having contact with someone who was already infected. Especially compared to the previous two summers when the virus was still recovering from the very low prevlance levels it had been pushed down to by formal lockdowns months earlier. We'e not enjoyed such low prevalence levels as we got post-lockdowns for pretty much a whole year now, not that I miss lockdowns and the impact they had on people, I just miss the impact they had on the virus.


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## elbows (Jun 22, 2022)

Leighsw2 said:


> We're fucked aren't we?


Some limitations of the study have been pointed out. It may also be necessary to point out that although this study found reinfection risks in the vaccinated, it doesnt mean that all the positive impact of vaccines comes undone.

I cannot say we are fucked because vaccines make a big difference, and because different people will have different ideas about what being fucked means. I can say that each wave will provide a test as to the extent that the immunity picture and vaccines will protect people and health services, but these tests come with quite different buffers and chances of getting away with the sloppy UK approach than would have been the case in the pre-vaccine era. If the numbers game goes wrong in any of the waves to come then we'll probably have quite a bit of time to see it going that way, and to anticipate being fucked in a more dramatic way. eg a long period where people and authorities stick their heads in the sand in the wake of very bad data before we could reasonably be expected to see that leading to an incredibly bad situation more reminiscent of the earlier pandemic period.

The areas where I dont need to wait for such eventualities before claiming we are fucked is in areas such as the long term overall health of the population, and slow grinding pressure on health services. It seems reasonable to conclude that the health of populations has been permanently changed by the presence of this virus, that side of the picture not being something that vanishes once the acute pandemic period is over. Even there I suppose I have to stick some caveats into my use of the word permanent, since the implications could somewhat fade, or become even more obvious, over time.


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## weepiper (Jun 24, 2022)

Fucking hell 😫 Covid in Scotland: One in 20 had the virus last week


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2022)

weepiper said:


> Fucking hell 😫 Covid in Scotland: One in 20 had the virus last week


I've seen this showing up in various little ways, such as an electronic musical instrument store in Glasgow having a notice on its website that they had to shut their retail premises due to covid-related staff shortages this week.

Have the Scottish media been dwelling on this stuff or are they largely ignoring it as part of the current agenda?


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2022)

In England this is what the 'for' and 'with' Covid patients in hospital beds is looking like. Data goes up to June 21st and is from the Primary Diagnosis Supplement spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity



I'll post regional daily admission graphs once todays data is available.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2022)

weepiper said:


> Fucking hell 😫 Covid in Scotland: One in 20 had the virus last week


Here are some charts I grabbed from the version of the ONS survey that the Sottish government put on their website. Coronavirus (COVID-19): ONS Infection Survey – headline results – 24 June 2022

 I'll probably try to create my own graph shortly that directly compares the nations over a longer period of time than shown in the final graph below:


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2022)

As promised here is a quick attempt to show a whole years worth of ONS estimated % comparisons between the nations. I did it because I had a sense that Scotland also hit a higher peak in the last wave but couldnt remember, and so wanted to see all the nations on a single chart over a longer period than shown in the last official chart I posted above. England blue, Wales orange, Scotland grey, Northern Ireland green. Sorry about the lack of date labels, and I also left out the 95% credible intervals.

Made with data from .xlsx from this page: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2022)

BBC coverage of the ONS figures features Van-Tam falling into line with the agenda by making comparisons to flu in the winter, never mind that its not winter.

My own framing of the risks has of course evolved too because in the vaccine era the risk of hospitalisation and death is not the same, so I dont freak out about infection data in the way I would have done in the early waves. I'm still not happy about how far they've pushed the normality agenda though, the change to framing has gone too far and ignores other sorts of consequences. The numbers game has changed, but that change also demonstrates the cold calculations and the extent to which indifference towards public health prevails when the risks are not so acute and are not at a system-breaking level.









						Covid: UK infections continuing to rise
					

The increase, with an estimated one in 35 people testing positive, is being driven by newer variants.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## 2hats (Jun 24, 2022)

Interesting that the positivity rates (England, ONS) are now highest (have progressively been growing so) in the 50s to early 70s, a "hot spot" with a clear cut off around 75, at, and beyond which, significant numbers were 'spring' boosted (though there will be a small contribution from a mobility/networking factor too).
​


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## miss direct (Jun 24, 2022)

Thanks to this thread, I'm keeping a mask on for all my upcoming train journeys.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2022)

I poked around with some Scottish data. They stopped reporting deaths within 28 days of a positive test at the start of June. Other data tends to only come out once a week, which makes things like hospital data extra laggy. They also acknowledge that changes to the testing regime affect hospital data quality, and I havent found equivalents to the 'for' and 'with' numbers I often show for England.

They felt the need to encourage spring booster uptake earlier this week:





__





						Uptake of spring booster encouraged as COVID-19 cases rise across Scotland - News - Public Health Scotland
					

As cases of COVID-19 increase across Scotland, people who are older or who have a weakened immune system are being encouraged to get the spring booster vaccination in order to increase their levels of protection.




					publichealthscotland.scot
				




Here are a couple of things from their last weekly report that I got from COVID-19 statistical report - 22 June 2022 - COVID-19 statistical report - Publications - Public Health Scotland

Intensive care picture doesnt show anything alarming so I am not posting anything related to that at this time.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2022)

For England, the dashboard data downloads that I used to be able to use to see a more granular set of age groups for hospital admissions is no longer available, so I can only do a version of such charts that uses the much broader age groups. I can get a more granular version from NHS England but it only comes out once a month. And as always I cannot provide a 'with' and 'for' version of data that includes age groups.

Here is that data for England. Same set of data presented in two different ways. Data goes up to June 22nd. I probably failed to pay much attention to these figures in the second wave of Omicron, so this might be the first time I am commenting on the fact that older people made up a greater proportion of hospital admissions/diagnoses during that peak compared to the forst Omicron peak, I cant really remember.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2022)

Thanks for learning to live with my latest data splurge. I dont do them very often anymore but since we have another wave and daily data is due to stop soon, I wanted to do a bunch of them today.

Here are the hospital admissions/diagnoses per English region that I mentioned I would do. These is the last ones I am doing for now.

If all of these charts told the full story of the Omicron waves then government policy would likely have had to change. But since lots of the cases were 'incidental' and the intensive care numbers did not show the same rises as these other graphs do relative to previous waves that led to lockdown, the governments were able to stick to their 'living with covid' approach. Even if this pattern persists in future, I still have reasons to complain about what I call the slower, grinding form of pressure this places on the NHS.

Made with data that goes up to June 22nd from the daily spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Given changes to the testing regime, including changes in hospitals, care needs to be taken when comparing recent trends to those from before the various changes. eg we might expect less 'incidental' cases including hospital acquired cases to be captured in this data now.

It probably doesnt need saying that I consider the decision to stop daily publishing of this data on the dashboard at the end of this month to be especially badly timed.


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## LDC (Jun 24, 2022)

Sudden uptick in people I know with Covid now. And the hospital I work in have given up on any mask wearing for patients and visitors, with the result today that I sat in a cubicle assessing a patient coughing, who then tested positive for Covid half an hour later. FFS, I only had it in March.

Staff starting to call in sick for the weekend with Covid as well, so staffing will be poor this weekend.

So this is the plan, this every few months? Pretty fucked up.


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## elbows (Jun 24, 2022)

Yeah a year ago they tried to promote the agenda by having some people go on about how waves would calm down, how we'd have some sort of 'endemic equilibium' etc, but it didnt pan out that way and these days they dont even bother with that shit. They just focus on the idea that most people wont become seriously ill.

I especially dont like the lack of attention to hospital infection control, that stuff really tempts fate.

If there is persistent disruption caused by number of people going off work sick, then they'll probably try to find ways to get people to take things even less seriously, come to work when ill etc.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Jun 25, 2022)

elbows said:


> ...
> 
> If there is persistent disruption caused by number of people going off work sick, then they'll probably try to find ways to get people to take things even less seriously, come to work when ill etc.


pretty sure I read this as a policy somewhere on this board for a NHS trust some urbanite works at if fully vaccinated, but I could remember wrongly.


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## elbows (Jun 25, 2022)

Yeah there are almost certainly examples already, but they'll have to push even harder at this rate.


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## kabbes (Jun 25, 2022)

We don’t hear much about the R rate any more. I guess that’s all part of the “ignore it and it will go away” plan.


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## wtfftw (Jun 25, 2022)

Anecdatally I'm a bit concerned that recent 5 year olds aren't getting vaccinated. I'm in a due date group which is usually all for vaccinations but they're 50:50 on getting this done. - reasons like the kid has had COVID (they all started school last September) or it's over now, doesn't really affect kids etc. Might go and look for vaccination by age figures. I reckon uptake will be lower simply because parents have to organise it themselves unlike the rest of the vaccination programme.

I'm booking in my five year old and have pointed out to them that if it's worse in winter they'll want to be on second jab protection by then...


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## 2hats (Jun 25, 2022)

kabbes said:


> We don’t hear much about the R rate any more. I guess that’s all part of the “ignore it and it will go away” plan.


Hard to divine from testing due to inadequate coverage but an estimate can be derived from hospital admissions.
​Unsurprisingly, recently >1.0 (lagged, obviously).


----------



## nagapie (Jun 25, 2022)

wtfftw said:


> Anecdatally I'm a bit concerned that recent 5 year olds aren't getting vaccinated. I'm in a due date group which is usually all for vaccinations but they're 50:50 on getting this done. - reasons like the kid has had COVID (they all started school last September) or it's over now, doesn't really affect kids etc. Might go and look for vaccination by age figures. I reckon uptake will be lower simply because parents have to organise it themselves unlike the rest of the vaccination programme.
> 
> I'm booking in my five year old and have pointed out to them that if it's worse in winter they'll want to be on second jab protection by then...


It took me a bit longer than I planned but got my 8 year old his first dose today as I want him double dosed by winter.


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## elbows (Jun 26, 2022)

oops double post due to me messing up editing this post after accidentally quoting myself instead of someone else. Intended post is below.


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## elbows (Jun 26, 2022)

kabbes said:


> We don’t hear much about the R rate any more. I guess that’s all part of the “ignore it and it will go away” plan.


Yes, it was considered most useful when there was a need to educate the public about pandemic wave dynamics because their behaviours were the most important tool we had. Especially when other forms of data were missing, eg before we had mass testing in the first place.

So yes, its greatest use and emphasis was when policy makers were aware that there would be cycles where they needed to switch on and off various heavy policies that had huge implications for public life. And that was still true even during periods where for example policy makers in England came out with rhetoric that implied they didnt see future lockdowns as likely, because there was a period when privately they still did, and were just bullshitting to increase levels of economic activity during the gaps between lockdowns.

This all changed once vaccines became the new tool in the arsenal, shifting the focus of public education and desired public behaviour towards getting vaccinated when asked, and emphasising the 'light at the end of the tunnel'. A period where roadmaps that moved away from lockdowns could be considered in a more sincere manner rather than being empty rhetoric with a short shelf life. There were still some wobbles along that road, especially in winter, but then they could use other data and framing, eg hospital data, information about the rise and increased transmissibility of new variants, and framing things along the lines of 'get a booster to save Christmas'.

And yes they were especially keen to de-emphasise R when they were moving away from wanting people to pay attention to and react to the rise of case numbers. This has been ongoing since early 2021 in this country. It was an incomplete mission this time last year, whih is why some people were still put out there to talk shit about 'endemic equilibrium' when Delta came along and caused an enduring wave. That shit hasnt been deemed necessary this time around, for various reasons including having at least superficially dealt with 'the pingdemic' by removing the requirements to self-isolate. The reality is messier than that, disruption still happens and new waves still get some coverage.

Official estimates for R had some obvious limitations even when they were being relied on heavily by authorities and public communications. They were and still are a bit laggy, tending not to show the situation as quickly as mass testing data (when we still had such systems) and not really being much more timely than hospital admissions data.

All the same there are contradictions at this stage, including in what I've said above. Because these days the ONS estimates have taken their place. These are also laggy, but not quite as laggy as R estimates, and are at least framed in the manner of '1 in 20 people had covid that week' which people can grasp. These being mentioned in the media every week contradicts what I was saying about authorities no longer wanting people to pay attention to infection levels. The most gung-ho of those in power would like to have ditched such indicators long before now, but since the situation can still be delicate at times, the least they can do is hedge their bets by keeping that stuff in place just in case. Its availability also adds a little bit more credibility to their rhetoric about the public 'using their own judgement' about risks and behaviour, since if there were no indicators available at all that people could use to assess personal risk, that rhetoric would ring extra hollow, and that might undermine the normalcy agenda.


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## steeplejack (Jun 26, 2022)

We're in another nasty COVID wave where I live in Northern Scotland. As many as 1 in 20 people have it here and dozens of people I know through work or socially have had it or are going through it since the beginning of June. It's as bad as it was last Christmas round my way.

The indifference / desperation not to talk about it / pretend it isn't happening, is staggering.


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## elbows (Jun 26, 2022)

By the way the R estimates are still produced, they just dont get any media attention these days (and of course there are no covid press conferences or nervous SAGE reports) and are updated too infrequently to be the most useful indicator.

Eg for England:



> 24 June 2022
> The R range for England is 1.1 to 1.4 and the growth rate range for England is +2% to +5% per day as of 24 June 2022.



That was the first update since 24th May, and there are also regional breakdowns that I'm not bothering to quote here.





__





						The R value and growth rate
					

The latest reproduction number (R) and growth rate of coronavirus (COVID-19).




					www.gov.uk
				




Following various links leads me to these figures for Scotland:


> The reproduction rate R in Scotland is currently estimated as being between 1.0 and 1.2, as at 7th June. Both the lower and upper limits have increased since last publication (on 26th May 2022).
> The daily growth rate for Scotland is currently estimated as between +1% and +4% as at 7th June. Both the lower and upper limits have increased since last publication (on 26th May 2022).



From https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2022/06/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-issue-no-1022/documents/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-102/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-102/govscot:document/coronavirus-covid-19-modelling-epidemic-scotland-issue-no-102.pdf

So yeah, too laggy for me to routinely focus on.


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## elbows (Jun 26, 2022)

steeplejack said:


> We're in another nasty COVID wave where I live in Northern Scotland. As many as 1 in 20 people have it here and dozens of people I know through work or socially have had it or are going through it since the beginning of June. It's as bad as it was last Christmas round my way.
> 
> The indifference / desperation not to talk about it / pretend it isn't happening, is staggering.


The media are dutifully doing their bit I presume.

What we've seen in the last year or so and especially these days, offers clues about what things would have been like if the original pandemic waves had not so obviously threatened healthcare and death processing systems. What we would have seen if the 'keep calm and carry on' agenda had not died by mid March 2020. The obvious difference is that the amount of hospitalisations and deaths were far too high in the first few waves to be able to stick to that once the shit really hit the fan. Authorities could not realistically expect that calm, downplayed news coverage would be accepted by the media classes as the responsible thing to do.

The way the enduring crisis in parts of the system such as ambulances over the last year has been covered so weakly is an example of how far that bullshit can be pushed and accepted in more normal times though. We were only saved from the coldest establishment calculations by the sheer scale of the pandemic crisis in the first year, and now we are back to business as usual.


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## Cloo (Jun 28, 2022)

I've had two texts now seeing I'm eligible for a booster vaccination - I'm 44, are they giving boosters to my age group now? I've totally lost track. 

Or is it aimed at my son,  as I'd be the phone number they have for him; he would be due a 2nd vaxx next month if he's due one, and again, I'm not clear whether they're giving 2nd doses to under 12s? I suppose I could just try to book one for him and see what happens.


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## 2hats (Jun 28, 2022)

(Cranfield/Essex/others) Wastewater based epidemiological analysis indicates SARS-CoV-2 infections in schools led those in the surrounding community by around 2 weeks (study period October 2020 till year end), suggesting (surprise!) school infections are a significant driver of community spread.
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0270168.


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## SpookyFrank (Jun 29, 2022)

So on the ward where Mrs Frank works they got rid of masks for staff on Monday. Today they've got three positive cases and everyone's back to masks and testing.


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## sojourner (Jun 29, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> So on the ward where Mrs Frank works they got rid of masks for staff on Monday. Today they've got three positive cases and everyone's back to masks and testing.


Boo to the first, good news on the second.


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## CH1 (Jun 29, 2022)

I rang up yesterday to make an appointment to see a friend of mine in a dementia home in South Croydon.
They are closed for visits at the moment due to Coronavirus. "Try in a couple of weeks" 

Last time I went - 13th May - they tested me on the way in and issued a mask.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2022)

Cloo said:


> I've had two texts now seeing I'm eligible for a booster vaccination - I'm 44, are they giving boosters to my age group now? I've totally lost track.
> 
> Or is it aimed at my son,  as I'd be the phone number they have for him; he would be due a 2nd vaxx next month if he's due one, and again, I'm not clear whether they're giving 2nd doses to under 12s? I suppose I could just try to book one for him and see what happens.


Nothing new got activated recently in terms of a brand new booster campaign for adults - the most recent booster campaign was for over 75s and those with particular health issues affecting immune systems. If you fall into that group for a health reason and have just reached 6 months since your last booster then it could be for you.

I'm not so clued up about doses for children but I just got the following off this page:









						Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine for children aged 5 to 15
					

NHS information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine for children aged 5 to 15, including how and when children are offered the vaccine.




					www.nhs.uk
				






> Children can get a 1st dose of the vaccine from the day they turn 5.
> 
> Most children can get a 2nd dose from 12 weeks after they had their 1st dose.
> 
> ...


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## Sue (Jun 29, 2022)

elbows said:


> Nothing new got activated recently in terms of a brand new booster campaign for adults - the most recent booster campaign was for over 75s and those with particular health issues affecting immune systems. If you fall into that group for a health reason and have just reached 6 months since your last booster then it could be for you.
> 
> I'm not so clued up about doses for children but I just got the following off this page:
> 
> ...


Hmm. I'm immunocompromised and got my booster in October. Not heard anything about another jab/booster.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2022)

Sue said:


> Hmm. I'm immunocompromised and got my booster in October. Not heard anything about another jab/booster.


Looks like the gap was only supposed to be 3 months for that category too, not the 6 months I mentioned earlier.

However I obviously cant really tell individuals with particular health conditions whether they should have been included or not. The general info page is here and its the 'spring booster' that I was referring to.

My advice would be to try booking and/or speak to someone in the health service.









						How to get a booster dose of the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine
					

Find out how to get a booster dose of the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine.




					www.nhs.uk


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2022)

Oops I edited in some advice to that last post after you had already liked it.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2022)

Todays data showed that daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for England reached 1,438 on June 27th. They had gotten as low as around the 400 mark towards the end of May/early June.

Covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds in England got down below 120 briefly in early June but are now up to the 200+ sort of level. So still low enough that there wont be all that much establishment alarm at the sharp end of things, but still not a welcome trend at all.

Covid patients in hospital beds in England got as low as 3,800 on June 1st but are now up to 8,587. That figure will include 'incidental' cases and hospital acquired cases, with more details about the 'for' and 'with' covid breakdown available in data that comes out tomorrow.


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## Thora (Jun 29, 2022)

My children all had covid in March, just as vaccinations became available, so we hadn't got them vaccinated as you had to wait 12 weeks I think.

Now they have all come down with a horrendous "summer cold"   Raging fevers, headache, sore throats/lost voices, coughs.  Basically exactly the same as they had in March.  All missing school yet again.  But no testing this time and even if they did test positive they only have to be off school for 3 days!


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2022)

A similar picture in Scottish data (that comes out less often). Covid patients in hospital got as low as 597 on 4th June but reached 1,298 on 27th June. 4 Covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds there on May 29th and 30th, rose to 16 by June 27th.

Maybe I will do a graph of some possible hospital acquired case numbers for England shortly.


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## two sheds (Jun 29, 2022)

Sue said:


> Hmm. I'm immunocompromised and got my booster in October. Not heard anything about another jab/booster.


I'd phone your GP. I asked about a booster because of asthma but am not immunocompromised so they said no. I'd phoned 111 as I recall and they told me to ask my GP. So hopefully they'd say yes to you.


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## elbows (Jun 29, 2022)

So yeah, daily hospital acquired infections in England. A graph I dont post all that often despite my interest in the subject, because the data isnt routinely made available in this form and has to be figured out by subtracting one set of daily admissions/diagnoses figures from another, an imperfect methodology. And one that likely doesnt manage to capture the full picture. And given the changes to hospital testing regimes this year, we might expect even more of the picture to be missed these days, but this will vary by hospital and this new wave may have caused some to bring back forms of testing they previously abandoned.

Another reason I dont post this graph too often is that it tends to show the same sort of trends as seen in the main headline hospital covid data. Same goes for admissions from care homes.

Data goes up to June 27th. Made by subtracting 'Estimated new admissions to hospital from the community' from 'Estimated new hospital cases' using the daily spreadsheet from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


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## LDC (Jun 29, 2022)

elbows said:


> Maybe I will do a graph of some possible hospital acquired case numbers for England shortly.



Make sure you add eleventy-thousand from my workplace...

There's no effort being made at all here now to keep people with Covid separate in the acute setting of A&E - including in the waiting room. We've started to see admissions to us for Covid again after a good break start again as well. No idea about the numbers in ICU (they have been pretty low like 1-3ish so far this year), the Trust stopped sending out email updates to staff with numbers off sick, in hospital, in ICU beds, etc. a bit ago now. Anecdotally feels like more staff are starting to be off sick with it again now.


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## Cloo (Jun 29, 2022)

Thanks elbows  - I'll book in son for 2nd lot then!


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## Sue (Jun 29, 2022)

two sheds said:


> I'd phone your GP. I asked about a booster because of asthma but am not immunocompromised so they said no. I'd phoned 111 as I recall and they told me to ask my GP. So hopefully they'd say yes to you.


Tbh, i was told at the time the 'booster' was actually a third primary dose and I'd get a booster on top. I didn't hear anything and it wouldn't let me book online so I chased it with my GP twice and they were like 🤷‍♀️ so I left it.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2022)

ONS figures:



> ONS Covid infections up more than 30% on last week Around 2.3 million (2,294,300) people in the UK had coronavirus in the week ending on 24 June, according to the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
> 
> This is up about 32% from around 1.7 million the week before.
> 
> ...





> In both England and Wales about one in 30 people would have had coronavirus in the week ending 24 June, data just released says.
> 
> In Northern Ireland it was about 1 in 25 and in Scotland the rate was about 1 in 18.



Taken from the BBC live updates page because I dont have much time right now. Other entries on that page continue with the BBCs job of helping the usual normalisation agenda in ways I've discussed plenty before, including stupid quibbling about whether this even counts as a new wave, and digging out Van-Tams comments again. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-62008118


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2022)

Although there is perhaps a desire to get people to pay a bit more attention to it, eg the BBC decided to show a few of the graphs this time:


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## weepiper (Jul 1, 2022)

Ugh one in 18  anecdotally lots of things are getting cancelled because people are ill (gigs/events, shops with signs in the window apologising for staff shortages etc)


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## xenon (Jul 1, 2022)

I'm going to Glasgow in a few weeks, with family. The oldest ones in the group have had covid a couple of months ago, so hopefully will be OK. I'm resigned to getting it at some point.


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2022)

2hats said:


> (Cranfield/Essex/others) Wastewater based epidemiological analysis indicates SARS-CoV-2 infections in schools led those in the surrounding community by around 2 weeks (study period October 2020 till year end), suggesting (surprise!) school infections are a significant driver of community spread.
> DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0270168.


I see school holiday timing got a brief mention on the BBC live updates page when discussing potential factors in regards Scotland:



> Scotland has had the highest rates of Covid infection since the end of May and the virus has become more and more prevalent ever since.
> 
> This is partly because the infection rates here never fell as low as it did in other nations – but some have suggested colder weather and earlier school holidays could also be a factor.


From 12.55 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-62008118


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## elbows (Jul 1, 2022)

That live page has finished now but they did manage to highlight an issue that has been bothering me for a long time, and making me angry when people make comparisons to the pressure health systems face with flu in winter.



> The president-elect of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine says he is concerned about work force problems as Covid infections rise.
> 
> Dr Adrian Boyle says there has been a "modest rise" in hospitalisations, but the "big problem" was people being unable to work because they have coronavirus.
> 
> ...





> "The waits [for ambulances] we’ve had in April and May have been much longer than we’ve seen in winter periods in previous years," said Dr Boyle.
> 
> "We're getting pretty worried about [staff] burnout.
> 
> "I’m worried about nursing staff working in hospitals getting pretty fed up and beginning to walk away."



Unless we stop having waves this often or this large, unless we change the detail that matters when it comes to the 'living with covid' approach here, I do not see how the situation is truly sustainable. The slow grinding pressure will surely reach crunch points when it comes to long term staffing and capacity. Especially when a perfect storm is created via other isues such as awful capacity problems in the social care sector leading to more bed blocking issues in hospitals.


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## elbows (Jul 2, 2022)

Another awful decision that is justified in the laziest of terms via little more than the hideous 'learning to live with covid' phrase:


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## weltweit (Jul 2, 2022)

Anecdotally 

I know more people here right now that have covid 19 or have just had it, than ever before.


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## IC3D (Jul 3, 2022)

Lots of primary care nursing staff going off sick again, round 3 for most if not all.


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## kabbes (Jul 3, 2022)

weltweit said:


> Anecdotally
> 
> I know more people here right now that have covid 19 or have just had it, than ever before.


Yeah, me too


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## 2hats (Jul 3, 2022)

Effect noted in post #46921 now even more pronounced. Highest positivity rates appear to be in late 40s-early 70s age groups.
​Increasing contribution from BA.5.1. All BA.5.x easily outstripping BA.4 and BA.2.x cases (BA.2.75 not in play in the UK yet).
​
Meanwhile, in the southern hemisphere, a hint for a potentially large flu wave to arrive later this year - significant influenza A (H3) waves (here, illustrated in Australia and Argentina).
 ​


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## elbows (Jul 4, 2022)

I guess this is what the change in mood music towards the more gloomy side of things looks like when the wave that causes it is happening at a time when the 'living with covid' agenda is in full effect and they dont actually want the public to react in a very strong way, dont have a major new vaccine rollout to encourage people to take part in etc:

Harries still not a great inspirer of confidence.









						Covid: UK hospital cases set to rise, says health chief
					

Dame Jenny Harries says Britons should lead "normal lives" but take precautions as infections go up.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Dame Jenny told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme: "It doesn't look as though that wave has finished yet, so we would anticipate that hospital cases will rise."
> 
> She said it is "quite likely" numbers in hospital would peak above where they were in the spring when the BA.2 sub-variant was prevalent but "the overall impact, we won't know. It's easy to say in retrospect, it's not so easy to model forward".
> 
> She added: "For this particular wave we have some evidence there may be some slight reduction of the effectiveness of vaccines on variants, but they are still maintaining the majority of people, keeping them safe from severe disease and out of hospital."



I also note articles like this one which are actually now bothering to deliver the modern form of covid bad news in various forms, and even feature experts expressing various degrees of concern. There is dismay that previous Omicron infection isnt doing more for immunity against subsequent Omicrom infection. There is acknowledgement that the whole 'it will settle down and become a winter disease' has been bollocks so far, and of the resulting weaknesses in the comparison to flu. I'm still adjusting to Woolhouse being a voice of reason, although that isnt a brand new phenomenon. There is a return to mentioning stuff about a small percentage of a very big number still being a problem. Someone mentions the NHS being one doubling away from a significant challenge. Long Covid and the impact on the clinically vulnerable both get a mention. The BA.4 and BA.5 growing more easily in lung cells study gets a mention. Disruption due to people being off work sick gets a mention.

In terms of actually doing more proactively about this the article still goes nowhere, instead mentioning the lack of political will to bring back restrictions, and a focus on what the autumn vaccine campaign might involve instead. Someone on twitter recently pointed out that its an interesting exercise to try replacing the world restrictions with protections in sentences, and see how that stuff then reads and what sort of feelings that change of words may cause.

At least these days the 'learning to live with covid' agenda apparently doesnt involve me having to read shit by fucking Nick Triggle from the BBC any more. They get people who arent quite so blatantly shit and vulgar at propaganda to do these sorts of articles instead. Not that I actually know what the story is with Triggle these days, there is always the risk that having said that he might burst back onto the scene at any moment.









						Covid is rising again in the UK - should we worry?
					

The UK is facing yet another surge in cases of Covid. What does it all mean?



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## elbows (Jul 4, 2022)

Oh and that article also implies that we are supposed to find it surprising that maybe 1 in 5 people in this country havent had covid yet. But I do have to point out that it seems the source linked to for that is the attack rate table from the MRC Biostatistics Unit, and their modelling is one of the ones I think we used to laugh at earlier in the pandemic for being shit. But I'm tired so I dont know if I got that memory wrong or how kindly I should think of that estimate right now.

I suppose I may as well post screenshots of their attack rate tables anyway. From *


			https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/nowcasting-and-forecasting-23rd-June-2022/
		



*


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## Brainaddict (Jul 5, 2022)

This has probably been discussed but it's disappointing to see the numbers climbing so much not just in summer but in a part of summer that has been pretty warm. Is there any current thinking on whether this is still likely to be a lower spike because of summer, or whether it turns out the seasons just don't make a difference like they do in colds and flu?


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## two sheds (Jul 5, 2022)

Couple of neighbours seem to have it. They both have breathing problems anyway and she's badly allergic to a few things medicinal.


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## elbows (Jul 5, 2022)

Brainaddict said:


> This has probably been discussed but it's disappointing to see the numbers climbing so much not just in summer but in a part of summer that has been pretty warm. Is there any current thinking on whether this is still likely to be a lower spike because of summer, or whether it turns out the seasons just don't make a difference like they do in colds and flu?



My own thinking on this matter includes this sort of stuff:

Seasons make a difference in a few ways. Some may be down to individual health variations during different seasons, some down to UV light destroying the virus in the environment more quickly and other environmental factors, some of them are down to differences human behaviours, eg ventilation issues and meeting indoors. 

However these differences only become key difference-makers if things are more delicately balanced between conditions that can cause a wave and those where the virus struggles to get beyond a basic foothold.

Factors that go into how such balances work out include the transmissibility of the virus, human behaviours, and the population immunity picture.

Applying those things to flu, we could suggest that the flu virus doesnt spread as easily as the current covid strains, and that there are prolonged periods where it faces a far more disadvantageous population immunity picture that thwarts its ability to find enough victims to gain explosive growth. So most years (ie years where there isnt a 'brand new' new flu via a new flu pandemic) it struggles to explode until it gains the additional opportunities offered by winter, coupled with just enough ability to evade prior immunity in the population at the time. Depending on the exact state of the populations immunity and how the virus has evolved between that winter and the previous one, we either get a mild or severe epidemic wave in winter.

Clearly the balancing act is still very different with Covid at the moment. Its highly transmissible. It doesnt currently need the winter advantages in order to find enough victims. And there is no solid wall of immunity that thwarts it at this stage, for a bunch of reasons including the speed at which it is still evolving, and the failure of prior Omicron infections to provide strong immunity against future Omicron infection. And this year, unlike the previous 2 years, we didnt have a strong lockdown earlier in the year which pushed the number of infections down to a low enough level that it would take quite a while to substantially bubble up again.


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## Brainaddict (Jul 5, 2022)

elbows said:


> My own thinking on this matter includes this sort of stuff:
> 
> Seasons make a difference in a few ways. Some may be down to individual health variations during different seasons, some down to UV light destroying the virus in the environment more quickly and other environmental factors, some of them are down to differences human behaviours, eg ventilation issues and meeting indoors.
> 
> ...


All makes sense, thanks. It does seem to mean that 'living with covid' will never be like living with flu (deadly as that is), at least until we get better vaccines. Omicron seems evolved to be able to create wave after wave ad infinitum.


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## elbows (Jul 5, 2022)

Also consider that even if Covid settles down into a seasonal pattern at some point, the resulting winter pressure on the NHS will come on top of any bad flu pressure. And the health service was sometimes only just coping with the flu pressure on its own.


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## nagapie (Jul 6, 2022)

I haven't been following covid news but staff at my school are dropping like flies again. Why haven't we received another round of vaccinations? Is it just cause our government are shitheads?


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## SpookyFrank (Jul 6, 2022)

nagapie said:


> I haven't been following covid news but staff at my school are dropping like flies again. Why haven't we received another round of vaccinations? Is it just cause our government are shitheads?



Yup same here. My registers are full of holes as well, suggesting lots of symptomatic covid in kids.


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## nagapie (Jul 6, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> Yup same here. My registers are full of holes as well, suggesting lots of symptomatic covid in kids.


And interestingly its across the country instead of London first like before.


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## Thora (Jul 6, 2022)

No staff at my school either - yesterday only one class (of 5) had a teacher!
All the breakfast/as club staff have it at the moment too and even the outside PE coach was off yesterday.
Barely limping towards the end of term.  Children who test positive are back in class in 3 days anyway.


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## two sheds (Jul 6, 2022)

My neighbours think they just caught it from their grandson. They have health problems but I'm not sure whether they got the latest booster.


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## wtfftw (Jul 6, 2022)

My kids class is covid central at the mo - I'm hearing of staff, parents and kids. But we only get officially notified of the chicken pox.


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## l'Otters (Jul 6, 2022)

A guest on indie sage last Friday was explaining that there’s not much more an extra vaccine can do at this point. The cdc in the states just decided on which type to roll out next but apparently it’s not going to make much difference. Different type of vaccine might be on its way - bivalent? Worth reading the other thread for detail. 

Anyway 
The solution to the current situation is adequately ventilated buildings, classrooms etc; support for staying home when sick, reinstate masks, reinstate free testing.


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## two sheds (Jul 6, 2022)

Yes I just checked with my neighbours and they've had the recent booster.


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## elbows (Jul 8, 2022)

Latest ONS estimates, which as usual reflect the estimated situation 1+ week ago:



> In the week ending 29 June, the ONS estimates Covid rates were:
> 
> One in 25 in England - up from one in 30 the week before
> One in 20 in Wales - up from one in 30
> ...











						Covid infections hit 2.7 million in UK
					

The latest figures show an estimated one in 25 people has the virus.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




There are some signs of the rate of increase slowing in some of those figures, but as usual I'm not keen to make firm peak timing or size predictions.


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## elbows (Jul 10, 2022)

My 'favourite' subject and one of the ones the media overall failed to do justice to:


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## 2hats (Jul 11, 2022)

(Repost from the mutations thread):
The MRC Biostatistics Unit (Cambridge) suggests that, for England, the current wave will peak in the week 17th-23rd July.

National Rt estimated to be 1.26 (ie still growing), though in the NE and London it is now estimated to be <1 (ie declining).
85% of the population are estimated to have been infected at some point and 21% suffered reinfections.


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## teuchter (Jul 11, 2022)

The January and April peaks in numbers of infections are reflected in spikes in deaths. Obviously we have to wait and see what happens with this current peak.

But it's notable that while numbers of infections pre- the January peak & post the April peak were quite similar, the numbers of deaths, measured at the same points in time, dropped considerably.


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## teuchter (Jul 11, 2022)

That Cambridge MRC report seems to come to a different conclusion about the January peak, from what ZOE estimated, by the way.


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## elbows (Jul 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> That Cambridge MRC report seems to come to a different conclusion about the January peak, from what ZOE estimated, by the way.


You arent quite comparing like for like there, since that particular ZOE chart shows estimated number of people with symptoms, rather than new daily infections. And the wider peak in daily new infection estimates would indeed push up the peak in number of people with symptoms.


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## miss direct (Jul 11, 2022)

I made sure I logged my recent positive test on the NHS website and would encourage others to do so.


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## elbows (Jul 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The January and April peaks in numbers of infections are reflected in spikes in deaths. Obviously we have to wait and see what happens with this current peak.
> 
> But it's notable that while numbers of infections pre- the January peak & post the April peak were quite similar, the numbers of deaths, measured at the same points in time, dropped considerably.


When comparing the three omicron peaks and their associated deaths, need to factor in a point I made throughout the pandemic so far:

Availability of testing and attitudes towards the disease have an effect not just on the old 'deaths within 28 days of a positive test' but also death certificate deaths. I wish it were not so, but it is, and at this stage of the pandemic I'd expect to see this show up quite clearly. I'd expect it to have had a little influence on the 2nd peaks figures, and an even bigger influence this time. However it likely wont be possible for me to judge the extent to which this phenomenon causes a very different death peak this time, as opposed to the difference in figures being due to a very real drop in deaths.

It was much easier for me to make this point in relation to the very first pandemic wave, because we knew pretty well where we stood with lack of tests, and there were so many deaths that we could use overall excess deaths from all causes to get a different sort of view of the likely true picture.

And I dont want to make this point in an over the top and unfair way this time. I dont want to downplay any very real drop in the number of covid deaths in the current wave. But I do still want to highlight the fact that availability of test results and establishment attitudes towards the virus have an inevitable effect on what causes end up on some death certificates. Death certificate stuff is far from a precise science, its heavily influenced by how those who are filling in the death certificates think about a disease at that moment.

Having said that, in terms of very real differences in actual numbers of deaths in reality, I would expect the spring booster campaign to have made a real difference, especially given the age group it targeted. And this is another reason I'll have to go easy if attempting to use the current waves death data to make a point about the unreliability of death certificate figures.


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## teuchter (Jul 11, 2022)

miss direct said:


> I made sure I logged my recent positive test on the NHS website and would encourage others to do so.


I don't really see much point in doing so. So few people are doing this now that any data generated from it is fairly meaningless. Much better to rely on infection surveys based on random sampling of the population now.


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## elbows (Jul 11, 2022)

By the way when seeking to see this waves trend in deaths, and compare different cources to the death certificate figures, we can resort to an old form of death data that I hadnt really felt the need to look at for a long time, hospital ones.

NHS England hospital death figures are still published. Only once a week since the start of July (Thursdays), but still here:





__





						Statistics » COVID-19 Deaths
					

Health and high quality care for all,  <br />now and for future generations




					www.england.nhs.uk
				




If people want to use the UK dashboard 28 day test death figures, then there are several things to note. Not only is the dashboard now only updated once a week (Wednesdays), but various nations of the UK completely stopped 28 day test death figures, so you have to drill down to England rather than look at the UK graph, since the UK graph isnt going to update at all these days.



			https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths?areaType=nation&areaName=England
		


What both of these sources show is that a rise in deaths due to the current wave can be seen, but the figures are so far very low compared to all previous waves, and the rise modest.


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## teuchter (Jul 11, 2022)

elbows said:


> Availability of testing and attitudes towards the disease have an effect not just on the old 'deaths within 28 days of a positive test' but also death certificate deaths. I wish it were not so, but it is, and at this stage of the pandemic I'd expect to see this show up quite clearly.



Fair enough. But what's the evidence that this is happening, or how significant an effect it's having?


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## elbows (Jul 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> Fair enough. But what's the evidence that this is happening, or how significant an effect it's having?


I already explained that it will be very hard to determine the extent to which that pehnomenon is distorting the picture. This is one of the reasons that actually having a decent, comprehensive test system is desirable in the first place. If we had a perfect way to work round the limitations of death certificate figures then this issue wouldnt matter so much in the first place.

And so I have no expectation of being able to give peoples a sense of scale of the distortion. But I think its completely fair to still point out that the phenomenon exists. The phenomenon is after all a big reason why even the establishment bothers to track various forms of excess mortality data, in an attempt to get another view of situations which can somewhat bypass these limitations. So I should not have to prove that the phenomenon is well known (though not shouted about) and is already acknowledged implicitly by the establishment via other forms of data they pay attention to. However excess deaths tend only to be able to give a good view when the numbers involved are reasonably large, and when other factors influencing overall death rates can be estimated and factored out.

I'll still try to take a multi-angled view of this wave though. We can use various other forms of data to look for trends in those other forms of data, and raise a red flag if those trends dont show up in the same way in the death certificate death data. We can use all the other forms of death data, as well as other hospital data such as intensive care data, to attempt this. We can also resort to looking out for anecdotes (such as 'my relative died in a covid outbreak but it wasnt even mentioned on the death certificate'), which can offer clues but not good guides as to the true scale of any issues.

In a way I am very pleased that we've reached the stage of the pandemic where it is difficult to unpick all of the factors, where it is not possible to discuss the death certificate limitations to your satisfaction. Because it means there are all sorts of very real factors at play that are affecting the actual number of deaths at the same time, eg vaccines and treatments. And so I am in no way insinuating that a massive amount of death is being swept under the carpet. What I am doing is being clear that this year, due to changes in attitudes and testing, makes it harder to make straightforward comparisons to the data from the current wave compared to previous waves. And that the change has been gradual but is now likely significant, but that there are no perfect ways to adjust the data to allow for for these changes. And that such an evolved picture and attitudes have influence well beyond the obvious stuff that directly involves positive tests, it influences death certificates too.


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## teuchter (Jul 11, 2022)

elbows said:


> I already explained that it will be very hard to determine the extent to which that pehnomenon is distorting the picture. This is one of the reasons that actually having a decent, comprehensive test system is desirable in the first place. If we had a perfect way to work round the limitations of death certificate figures then this issue wouldnt matter so much in the first place.
> 
> And so I have no expectation of being able to give peoples a sense of scale of the distortion. But I think its completely fair to still point out that the phenomenon exists. The phenomenon is after all a big reason why even the establishment bothers to track various forms of excess mortality data, in an attempt to get another view of situations which can somewhat bypass these limitations. So I should not have to prove that the phenomenon is well known (though not shouted about) and is already acknowledged implicitly by the establishment via other forms of data they pay attention to. However excess deaths tend only to be able to give a good view when the numbers involved are reasonably large, and when other factors influencing overall death rates can be estimated and factored out.
> 
> ...


Fair enough, that seems reasonable to me.


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## elbows (Jul 11, 2022)

Since deaths have come up, I may as well highlight a little bit of all cause death registrations per week ONS data for England & Wales, even though it might have been better to wait until tomorrow when another weeks worth of data will be available.

Since this is death registrations rather than instances, some of the spikes and troughs are caused by registration delays for reasons such as bank holidays. Even so we can see a pattern - this year we were initially doing better than the previous year and the 5 year average, and then by March that was no longer the case, and still isnt the case.

For now I will leave it to someone else to observe any gap between the number of deaths being reported as due to covid, and the extent to which total deaths per week are exceeding the norm. Any formal attempt to use such a gap to determine extent of possible undercounting of covid deaths at the moment will be complicated by factors including the sorry state of the ambulance & hospital service at the moment, and any picture that may exist in regards other diseases.

Data is from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional       - Office for National Statistics


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## miss direct (Jul 11, 2022)

teuchter said:


> I don't really see much point in doing so. So few people are doing this now that any data generated from it is fairly meaningless. Much better to rely on infection surveys based on random sampling of the population now.


Maybe, but I wanted to do so.


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## sojourner (Jul 11, 2022)

miss direct said:


> I made sure I logged my recent positive test on the NHS website and would encourage others to do so.


Oh, I thought it was only healthcare workers that could log their results now, so I didn't bother.


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## miss direct (Jul 11, 2022)

sojourner said:


> Oh, I thought it was only healthcare workers that could log their results now, so I didn't bother


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## miss direct (Jul 11, 2022)

sojourner said:


> Oh, I thought it was only healthcare workers that could log their results now, so I didn't bother.


You can just follow the instructions from the test. I don't have the app anymore but did it on the website.


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## sojourner (Jul 11, 2022)

miss direct said:


> You can just follow the instructions from the test. I don't have the app anymore but did it on the website.


No idea where the instructions went tbh. I've done so many over the last few years that I never bother to look at them!


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## miss direct (Jul 11, 2022)

sojourner said:


> No idea where the instructions went tbh. I've done so many over the last few years that I never bother to look at them!


Me too, but each new pack seems to be slightly different. This latest one had me leaving the swab in the liquid for a minute, which I'd never done before.


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## elbows (Jul 12, 2022)

Grim situation on the ambulance/hospitals front:



> All ambulance trusts now on highest level of alert due to extreme pressures
> One leader in the north says situation is “dire for patients and staff”
> Possibly the “worst ever” night for ambulance handovers at emergency departments
> Trust says one ambulance delayed for 24 hours outside A&E





> One senior leader in the north of the country, who asked not to be named, said the situation was “dire for staff and patients”.
> 
> They said that at many hospitals crews are being held outside emergency departments due to overcrowding inside, with patients suffering in extreme heat in the back of the ambulances. The concerns arise because of the heatwave, staff sickness rates from covid, as well as “chronic under resourcing versus demand”.



I dont think you ca read the article without a subscription but here is a link anyway so that my source is clear. I didnt get a chance to look for other media covering this story.









						24 hour ambulance handover on ‘worst night ever’
					

All ambulance services are now understood to be on the highest level of alert due to 'extreme pressures' caused by the hot weather and covid absences among staff.




					www.hsj.co.uk


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## SpookyFrank (Jul 12, 2022)

sojourner said:


> Oh, I thought it was only healthcare workers that could log their results now, so I didn't bother.



Anyone can log their results. If you log a positive test, you'll get a text to tell you've got covid. Then you'll get an email to tell you you've got covid. Then you'll get another email telling you how to log your result on the NHS covid app, so that it can also tell you that you have covid.


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## SpookyFrank (Jul 12, 2022)

elbows said:


> Grim situation on the ambulance/hospitals front:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Our local hospital is on black alert again, which means they're asking any and all staff anywhere to come in for any shift they can possibly do. 

This a fortnight before the grockles start to show up in their tens of thousands.


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## elbows (Jul 12, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> Our local hospital is on black alert again, which means they're asking any and all staff anywhere to come in for any shift they can possibly do.
> 
> This a fortnight before the grockles start to show up in their tens of thousands.


Its ok, the Queen gave the NHS the George Cross so everything is great, nothing to see here.









						Queen awards NHS with George Cross medal
					

The vaccine rollout had been "amazing", said the Queen, at a ceremony at Windsor Castle.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## sojourner (Jul 12, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> Anyone can log their results. If you log a positive test, you'll get a text to tell you've got covid. Then you'll get an email to tell you you've got covid. Then you'll get another email telling you how to log your result on the NHS covid app, so that it can also tell you that you have covid.


Swerved that particular bollock then!


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## Chz (Jul 13, 2022)

The Little One has it now. Probably should have tested him _before_ the school musical, but it was only on the way home when he talked about how many of his friends weren't there due to covid that we twigged he'd been coughing a bit. Mercifully not infected either of us, though.


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## LDC (Jul 13, 2022)

elbows said:


> Grim situation on the ambulance/hospitals front:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



No surprise, yesterday was a total and utter fucking disaster in A&E. We had people there over 24 hours waiting for a ward bed, queues out of the door, people kicking off at us, etc. A huge amount of people in for intentional overdoses for some reason as well.


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## Puddy_Tat (Jul 13, 2022)

From Lewisham + Greenwich NHS Trust on teh tweeter



> Due to limited space and rising Covid rates, adults and children can be accompanied by one person only in our Emergency Departments. We have also reintroduced mask wearing across all of our sites. Thank you for your understanding.


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## William of Walworth (Jul 14, 2022)

(Masks re-introduced in our local Hospital too!) 

There's a new and big local outbreak in the Swansea area ..... both my immediate boss and top boss have currently got it and are absent.

From an immature POV, that might sound great (  ).

But various things to do with peoples' (everyone's!) leave/CS flexitime/regaining time for Medical/Hospital appointments (*very!* relevant to my situation right now! : ), can't be sorted until they're back. 

Which will be no earlier than next Monday (18/7), apparantly!


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## wemakeyousoundb (Jul 14, 2022)

William of Walworth said:


> (Masks re-introduced in our local Hospital too!)
> 
> There's a new and big local outbreak in the Swansea area ..... both my immediate boss and top boss have currently got it and are absent.
> 
> ...


Can't the bosses WFH?


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## IC3D (Jul 14, 2022)

Summer holidays and NHS are always short due to staff often looking after kids, it's not looking good with covid absences on top ATM. Wards are at knife edge staffing levels right now and the holidays havent even started.


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## sheothebudworths (Jul 15, 2022)

UK Covid infections soar by almost 30% in a week
					

Estimated 3.5 million people thought to have disease in first week of July, with Omicron sub-variants blamed




					www.theguardian.com


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## Numbers (Jul 15, 2022)

It's not surprising, in London anyway.  I was on an absolutely jam packed tube the other morning and there was only me and 1 other person wearing a mask, thankfully I was stood by the between carriages door facing away from everyone but it was quite scary.


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## sheothebudworths (Jul 15, 2022)

Numbers said:


> It's not surprising, in London anyway.  I was on an absolutely jam packed tube the other morning and there was only me and 1 other person wearing a mask, thankfully I was stood by the between carriages door facing away from everyone but it was quite scary.



Yeah, felt totally inevitable that we would end up here/worse, ongoing. Such a fucking shit show.


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## Buddy Bradley (Jul 15, 2022)

Covid booster: Will be offered to all over 50s this autumn
					

More people than originally planned will be offered the jab in the UK ahead of the coming winter.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## 2hats (Jul 15, 2022)

Also note that everyone over 50 will also be offered the flu vaccine this autumn.








						Over 50s to be offered COVID-19 booster and flu jab this autumn
					

Everyone aged 50 and over will be among those offered a COVID-19 booster and a flu jab this autumn under plans to increase protection against respiratory viruses ahead of winter.




					www.gov.uk


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jul 17, 2022)

Numbers said:


> It's not surprising, in London anyway.  I was on an absolutely jam packed tube the other morning and there was only me and 1 other person wearing a mask, thankfully I was stood by the between carriages door facing away from everyone but it was quite scary.



I think this sort of stuff heavily overstates the importance/effectiveness of masks tbh. The point here is the packed carriage, plus the fact the people on there are going to offices/pubs/wherever, plus the massively more transmissible variants. Higher levels of mask wearing might mitigate it but it's not the difference between a big wave and no wave or between 'safe' and 'not safe'.

That's not an anti mask point btw but I do think the heavy focus on masks in public is a bit of a continuation of the 'all these other people are to blame' narrative that's been around since the start of the pandemic.


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## IC3D (Jul 17, 2022)

Always thought tubes fairly safe. TFL tested the air and published the findings that no rona was found. The air circulates far better than the pub, office (Aircon is definitely a strong vector in hospital transmission) and other settings.


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## Kevbad the Bad (Jul 17, 2022)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> I think this sort of stuff heavily overstates the importance/effectiveness of masks tbh. The point here is the packed carriage, plus the fact the people on there are going to offices/pubs/wherever, plus the massively more transmissible variants. Higher levels of mask wearing might mitigate it but it's not the difference between a big wave and no wave or between 'safe' and 'not safe'.
> 
> That's not an anti mask point btw but I do think the heavy focus on masks in public is a bit of a continuation of the 'all these other people are to blame' narrative that's been around since the start of the pandemic.


True. But wearing masks is a reminder to keep your distance, be careful etc. People are getting back to their old, relaxed, unhygienic ways. So many Tory ministers prattle on about how Boris got us through the pandemic. Wearing masks is that little nudge that lots of people need.


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## teuchter (Jul 17, 2022)

There's not much choice about keeping your distance on a packed tube. It's hardly nudge territory.


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## kenny g (Jul 17, 2022)

IC3D said:


> Always thought tubes fairly safe. TFL tested the air and published the findings that no rona was found. The air circulates far better than the pub, office (Aircon is definitely a strong vector in hospital transmission) and other settings.


Agree. I reckon a pub was where I got it and I had been using tube / DLR/ trains all the way through.


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## ouirdeaux (Jul 18, 2022)

How do you know?


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## l'Otters (Jul 18, 2022)

They’re better than nothing but the masks most people wear are crap. The ideas people have on what to use hasn’t been updated since 2020 for the most part. At that point there was a shortage of N95 standard masks, so it did make sense to reserve those for healthcare workers. That’s no longer the case and hasn’t been for ages. 

Basic cloth or gappy medical masks worn by everyone was supposed to work as source control. I’m not sure that would work for an airborne disease, this was summer of 2020’s strategy… it was known it was airborne not droplet at that point but the info wasn’t communicated effectively. 

In Austria the mask mandate was FFP2 for public transport. Don’t know if that’s still the case. (Hasn’t the whole of Europe decided it’s over?)


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## Steel Icarus (Jul 18, 2022)

A shit mask is better than none, and I seem to remember wearing one was more to protect others than yourself. It's why I still wear one - I don't want to unwittingly pass C19 on to someone more vulnerable.


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## LDC (Jul 18, 2022)

l'Otters said:


> They’re better than nothing but the masks most people wear are crap. The ideas people have on what to use hasn’t been updated since 2020 for the most part. At that point there was a shortage of N95 standard masks, so it did make sense to reserve those for healthcare workers. That’s no longer the case and hasn’t been for ages.
> 
> Basic cloth or gappy medical masks worn by everyone was supposed to work as source control. I’m not sure that would work for an airborne disease, this was summer of 2020’s strategy… it was known it was airborne not droplet at that point but the info wasn’t communicated effectively.
> 
> In Austria the mask mandate was FFP2 for public transport. Don’t know if that’s still the case. (Hasn’t the whole of Europe decided it’s over?)



I've just got a train from London to Berlin, no mask in the UK, full FFP3 mask wearing in Germany on trains. France was somewhere between the 2.


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## l'Otters (Jul 18, 2022)

Fully agree a shit mask is better than none.
It will make a difference. But with an airborne virus the lower grade masks don’t protect others as much as you might think.

Doesn’t help that the government’s advice here chose to lie about what was needed instead of being honest about the supply problems.


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## Cloo (Jul 18, 2022)

Is this version taking longer to show than others, do people think? Beginning of this year, it tended to be household members falling like dominoes, eg multiple +s on the same or within a few days, whereas now it seems like it's taking more like a week. gsv tested + last Sunday and isolated at home; I felt some symptoms this Friday but didn't test + until today; my dad also didn't test + until a week after my mum did. Or is it just because we are in households where we can isolate that that's slightly postponed the inevitable?

LFTs have cost me £50 in the last week and a half for a family of 4 with kids in school  - we can afford that but it must be a prohibitive cost for so many. At least gsv can buy any further ones now he's imminently out of COVID jail


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## elbows (Jul 18, 2022)

A joint editorial from the BMJ and HSJ says the government are gaslighting the public over Covid, that there are multiple factors destroying the NHS but that Covid is the straw that is breaking the camels back, and that the NHS is not living with Covid, its dying from it:









						The NHS is not living with covid, it’s dying from it
					

The government must be honest about the threat the pandemic still poses  Today may be the most difficult day the NHS has ever experienced. The headlines will focus on the pressures created by the heatwave and that most visible sign of healthcare failure—ambulances queuing outside hospitals.1...




					www.bmj.com
				




They want some pandemic measures to be reintroduced and they point out various things, including some stuff I've probably already mentioned and some that I havent. eg:



> One of the assumptions underpinning this hope was that covid-19 would be nothing more than an irritant for most of the year, with perhaps a winter wave in December. It is now July, and not counting the first omicron surge that peaked in January, the UK and the NHS have experienced two further covid waves, with gaps of just under three months between peaks (England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK). The current wave of hospital admissions driven by the BA.4 and BA.5 variants is likely to peak in the next few days, but other variants will be ready for global distribution soon.





> What the hospital admissions figures hide is a rising tide of people with long covid, now at two million and likely to be a major burden on the health service and the nation’s productivity, for a generation. And there are many other much less recognised but still deeply disturbing effects of the continuing pandemic, including endangering the NHS’s supply of blood.





> How is the government responding to this crisis? Largely by pretending it is not happening or implying it is all under control. In the House of Lords last week government health spokesperson Lord Kammal repeated the spurious line: “We managed to break the link between infections and hospitalisations and hospitalisations and death.”
> 
> But the link between infections and hospital admissions has clearly not been broken, even if you just consider those being treated “primarily” for the disease. As for deaths, the latest ONS figures indicate just under 24 000 fatalities “involving covid” in the first six months of 2022. Yes, that figure is substantially smaller than the 66 000 recorded in the first half of 2021, but it is more than the 21 000 people who died in the last six months of that year. Excess deaths from all causes are also still running above five year averages before the pandemic.





> The constant pressure created by repeated covid waves is already the main reason that the NHS is nowhere near reaching the activity levels needed to begin to recover performance. By now the NHS had hoped to be operating better than before the pandemic; instead elective activity is around 10% below 2019.


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## elbows (Jul 18, 2022)

If anyone sees mainstream media coverage of that editorial, plese post links here. I've been too warm to look today. Generally I'm of the opinion that the media have been part of the problem during the 'learning to live with covid' period. So they can stick all that self-righteous shit about what they see as their vital duties and service to the public up their arse, they dont come close to living up to those aims except in the most obvious of emergencies, usually when the state asks the media to 'do the responsible thing'. There was a week or two early in the pandemic when certain journalists and publications actually rose to the occasion and occasionally challenged the governments blatantly shit original pandemic plan, but apart from that period, and a few times where it was clear the government were only delaying the inevitable in terms of further lockdowns, they've tended to go along with what they are told and what the establishment agenda is.

edit - I should probably have explicitly stated that I'm not including specialist publications such as the BMJ and HSJ in this rant. And there have likely been some journalists who work for newspapers who would like to have covered ongoing issues in a sensible manner too. My rant is mostly directed towards what gets on the front pages, what stuff gets to be a big, ongoing story that can affect the politics etc.


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## William of Walworth (Jul 19, 2022)

William of Walworth said:
			
		

> (Masks re-introduced in our local Hospital too!)
> There's a new and big local outbreak in the Swansea area ..... both my immediate boss and top boss have currently got it and are absent.
> 
> From an immature POV, that might sound great (  ).
> ...






			
				wemakeyousoundbad said:
			
		

> Can't the bosses WFH?



You'd think so, but some of the more _personnel-focussed_ systems aren't properly available to them except while on office-based systems! 

Why that's actually the case, I have no real idea! , but them's the breaks apparantly!


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## dessiato (Jul 19, 2022)

When I got to Scotland two weeks ago I was surprised that the majority aren't wearing masks. I, stupidly, followed suit. I've got covid.

I'm surprised that I don't have to isolate, it's only recommended that I do, and for only 5 days. If I'm not clear then another 5 days. But I'm allowed to go out shopping etc as long as I wear a face covering. 

I'm not in the least surprised that there's a surge in cases. What else could there be?


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## two sheds (Jul 19, 2022)

Two neighbouring couples have just had it/got it for the first time, I'm presuming all caught it from the grandkids. Two friends who moved to Bristol have it (bloke for the third time , works as lorry driver).


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## 2hats (Jul 19, 2022)

Cloo said:


> Is this version taking longer to show than others, do people think?


(Princeton/McMaster/others) Dutch data re-analysed suggests delta v omicron incubation interval (time to exhibiting symptoms) is similar but generation interval (ie time to transmitting infectious virus) is ~1 day shorter for omicron. This, and anecdotal observations, may be variously clouded by degrees of (dynamic) population (infection and vaccine elicited) immunity.
DOI:10.1101/2022.07.02.22277186.


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## teuchter (Jul 19, 2022)

The ZOE estimates suggest we're now approaching another peak, of a similar level to the April one.









						Latest Daily UK COVID-19 Data: Vaccines, Cases, Trends | ZOE
					

COVID infection & vaccination rates in the UK today, based on public data and reports from millions of users of the ZOE Health Study app




					health-study.joinzoe.com


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## prunus (Jul 19, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The ZOE estimates suggest we're now approaching another peak, of a similar level to the April one.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And at the height of summer. I fear for this winter.


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## Cloo (Jul 19, 2022)

gsv tested a very faint line this morning on about day 8 I think, so probably clear tomorrow. Mine is just doing it's best impression of a common or garden cold.


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## Cloo (Jul 22, 2022)

Definitely appears to be a waning vaccine immunity issue to me - covid is ripping through the adults I know,  but not the kids, who obviously were vaxxed more recently. 

Neither of my kids seemed to know of anyone missing the final day of school with Covid, and although 3 of the 4 teachers who went on son's year trip to Isle of Wight a few weeks ago came back with covid, there doesn't appear to have been any significant infection among the kids.


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## killer b (Jul 22, 2022)

Cloo said:


> Definitely appears to be a waning vaccine immunity issue to me - covid is ripping through the adults I know,  but not the kids, who obviously were vaxxed more recently.
> 
> Neither of my kids seemed to know of anyone missing the final day of school with Covid, and although 3 of the 4 teachers who went on son's year trip to Isle of Wight a few weeks ago came back with covid, there doesn't appear to have been any significant infection among the kids.


Most kids are pretty asymptomatic and only got picked up because they were testing all the time - now they aren't.


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## Red Cat (Jul 22, 2022)

That might be part of the picture but my H has had it twice and had symptoms both times. Omicron is more symptomatic in children, I think.


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## Cloo (Jul 22, 2022)

killer b said:


> Most kids are pretty asymptomatic and only got picked up because they were testing all the time - now they aren't.


I think there is less testing to a degree,  but people usually started checking if they heard of cases in the year. But you may be right that people didn't even notice symptoms in kids.  I wouldn't have noticed anything when my son had it in January, but tested him as  a close friend was positive.


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## Thora (Jul 22, 2022)

There have been loads of children off with cough, colds and tummy bugs at my daughter's infants school, but no one is testing kids.  Lots of parents have been off with covid so children have been off because parents haven't been able to bring them in.


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## nagapie (Jul 22, 2022)

No one is testing kids at my secondary, but loads of staff off every week.


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## SpookyFrank (Jul 23, 2022)

killer b said:


> Most kids are pretty asymptomatic and only got picked up because they were testing all the time - now they aren't.



Not so much with this latest version. We had loads of kids off with covid the last two weeks of term, maybe 15-20% of them altogether, and given that tests aren't available any more they're presumably symptomatic. At least half the staff have been off with covid at some point in the last six weeks.

E2a: Last week of term is fun activities/general dossing about week so skiving is unlikely to account for much of that absence.


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## kabbes (Jul 25, 2022)

Bit of proprietary data for you -- the COVID-related claims from a Europe-wide (including UK) life insurer.  I have smoothed and removed the scale to slightly anonymise the data but word of warning that it is pretty small scale, so subject to noise.  



Peak life insurance claims occurred in May 2021, but the whole of H1 2021 was the worst of it.  Winter 21-22 definitely saw a mini surge, though.


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## Puddy_Tat (Jul 27, 2022)




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## weepiper (Jul 27, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


>



I've seen a very similar one in Edinburgh too.


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## miss direct (Jul 28, 2022)

Feeling a bit annoyed today. Had a work meeting and was informed that "most people manage to work with covid" - erm, I'm "relatively" young and "relatively" healthy, and the recent bout made me sicker than I can remember for years. This myth that it's just like a cold is so out of date and frankly offensive! 

Glad in a way that I've just had it and recovered, because there will be a lot of it about over the summer, and we don't get paid when off sick...


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## 2hats (Jul 29, 2022)

2hats said:


> (Repost from the mutations thread):
> The MRC Biostatistics Unit (Cambridge) suggests that, for England, the current wave will peak in the week 17th-23rd July.



And so it came to pass...


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## elbows (Jul 29, 2022)

Yes, and the peak showed up pretty clearly in hospital data too. And because we cant rely on the standard testing regime for good data any more, and the ONS data is laggy, the peak showed up first in the daily hospital data this time. Well actually it showed up first in ZOE data, but I had to wait for confirmation from other data sources before making too big a deal about that. Plus when peak first showed up in hospital data, I couldnt entirely rule out the possibility that any in hospital testing regime shortages or changes, or changes to admissions policies/flow due to strain on the system, might have impacted on the data, so I needed another source to lend further credibility to the picture shown, which the ONS now has.

Daily hospital admissions/diagnoses in England up to July 26th, from a spreadsheet at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity :



'For' and 'with' number of Covid patients in England in hospital beds up to July 26th, using data from that same NHS page:


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## elbows (Aug 18, 2022)

I see disgraced MP Margaret Ferrier pled guilty:









						MP Margaret Ferrier pleads guilty to exposing public to Covid
					

Margaret Ferrier spoke in the Commons while awaiting a test result before taking the train home after testing positive.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## 2hats (Aug 18, 2022)

UK autumn booster rollout to start on 5 September with care home residents (then health and social care staff, everyone aged 50 and over, carers who are over the age of 16, people over 5 whose health puts them at greater risk, including pregnant women and people over 5 who share a house with somebody with a weakened immune system).

Original (WT) formulation vaccines will be available. Bivalent vaccines will be offered subject to supply.








						Covid booster rollout to start in early September in England
					

Care homes residents and housebound people will be the first to receive a jab in England.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## two sheds (Aug 18, 2022)

separate from the flu jab then


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## Leighsw2 (Aug 18, 2022)

Will it be better to try and receive the bivalent vaccine rather than just another jab of the old one?


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## LDC (Aug 19, 2022)

Leighsw2 said:


> Will it be better to try and receive the bivalent vaccine rather than just another jab of the old one?



You won't be able to try, nor should you. Imagine the mess if X million people tried to get the jab they wanted rather than the offered one.


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## CH1 (Aug 19, 2022)

LDC said:


> You won't be able to try, nor should you. Imagine the mess if X million people tried to get the jab they wanted rather than the offered one.


Are you in the UK?  In glorious Brexitland we get what we are given, if at all.


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## 2hats (Aug 19, 2022)

Leighsw2 said:


> Will it be better to try and receive the bivalent vaccine rather than just another jab of the old one?


Generally, and in particular if you are elderly or clinically vulnerable, it will be best to take the one that you are offered.


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## elbows (Aug 19, 2022)

Depressing cheapskate government shit. I get to see this article on HSJ because its Covid related so I dont need a paid subscription but did need a free account.



> The families of any NHS and social care staff who died from covid in the most recent waves will not be eligible for the covid death assurance scheme launched at the start of the pandemic, it has emerged.
> 
> The scheme closed on 31 March, despite pleas from the Royal College of Nursing to keep it open. Since it was set up in April 2020, it has paid out £60,000 lump sums to the estates of 688 workers. A further 42 cases have been declined and 29 applications are still being processed.











						Covid death payments unavailable for staff who died in most recent waves
					

The families of any NHS and social care staff who died from covid in the most recent waves will not be eligible for the covid death assurance scheme launched at the start of the pandemic, it has emerged.




					www.hsj.co.uk


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## elbows (Aug 24, 2022)

Irresponsible decisions again:









						NHS and care homes in England to pause routine Covid testing
					

Most hospital patients and care home residents will no longer be tested unless they fall sick.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## zahir (Aug 25, 2022)

Deepti Gurdasani isn't happy about it.


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## elbows (Aug 25, 2022)

The front page of the Telegraph draws on some grubby Sunak interview with the Spectator which indicates that Sunak is still rather proud to point out what an absolute pandemic disgrace he was. I dont like to contemplate how many more deaths there would have been if he had gotten his way, and his pathetic signalling about how we should have listened to scientific advice even less is an especially vulgar piece of revisionist pandemic history. The only good thing about the other, non-Sunak parts of the Johnson regime during the pandemic is how readily they u-turned on various key issues, since even they were not stupid enough to stick rigidly to Sunaks stance in the pre-vaccine era, there came a point in each of the first few waves where they blinked, thank fuck.

Sunak is surely a champion of the very worst establishment instincts and priorities in this country.

This shit also features the bogus claim that we could somehow have avoided causing a NHS backlog if we had avoided lockdowns. Delusional shit, disgusting double-think, nonsense of the worst kind.

Its also a complete lie for him to suggest they didnt acknowledge the trade-offs from the beginning - they actually shouted very loudly about the need for balance and those sorts of trade-offs, they used that sort of logic all the way through their doomed initial attempts to resist lockdowns and school closures till mid March 2020, and then again every subsequent time that they sought to delay the inevitable and ignore the scientific advice for as long as possible. And they got the scientific/medical figureheads like Whitty and Vallance to sing from that same hymn sheet in public during those early days. Whitty in particular was very keen to go on about the need for balance, the downsides of having to take very tough action. Ultimately none of them could make the 'keep things open' numbers add up though, the waves were too big, so in the pre-vaccine era they simply had to buckle, it was just a question of when. And actually, if you want to achieve the best possible balance, acting early is the best approach, so you dont have to do stuff for quite so hard and long as ends up being necessary once you've squandered the opportunity to reduce the levels of transmission well before the levels of infection reached a staggering extent.

To buy into this shitty narrative requires not just a certain set of beliefs, not just a rewriting of history, not just the removal of many inconvenient facts from the picture, but also requires us to forget what the realities were in many other comparable countries during that period. This drivel is the return of British exceptionalism in even more absurd form. If this shit persists then there will come a time when it rubs uneasily against the very different conclusions that the public inquiry should draw, even if that inquiry is watered down and manages to find a few things that dont always neatly fit with my version of basic pandemic reality.

I've not bothered to seek out the full story, this snippet from the front page is more than enough.


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## two sheds (Aug 25, 2022)

"empower scientists"  

rather than doing his own research


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## elbows (Aug 25, 2022)

Perhaps in order to appeal to the Telegraph variety of tory party members, he'll soon promise to make sure CMO stands not for chief medical officer, but rather chief murdering officer.


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## CH1 (Aug 25, 2022)

elbows said:


> Perhaps in order to appeal to the Telegraph variety of tory party members, he'll soon promise to make sure CMO stands not for chief medical officer, but rather chief murdering officer.


You leave Chris Whitty out of it. I was "under him" for 3 weeks at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases - because my bloody GP receptionist sent me home "You just got 'flu - were are too busy on the run up to Christmas etc etc..."
YES - NHS GP receptionists were dragons who killed even in 1996, when Covid was a twinkle in Jiang Zemin's eye.
Could have been worse - Simon Hughes' brother died of malaria back then, which is why we had free anti-malarials in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham - until abolished by the Tories.


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## SpookyFrank (Aug 25, 2022)

elbows said:


> Perhaps in order to appeal to the Telegraph variety of tory party members, he'll soon promise to make sure CMO stands not for chief medical officer, but rather chief murdering officer.



I'm fairly sure a lot of the stuff he's come out with lately has just been made up on the spot in a desperate attempt to pry some swivel-eyed votes away from Liz Truss. But there's no such excuse available for his shitfuckery during the height of the pandemic.


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## izz (Aug 25, 2022)

two sheds said:


> "empower scientists"
> 
> rather than doing his own research


Exactly this, what an irresponsible piece of verbal spaffage on behalf of Sunak here, as if the Covid-deniers needed any encouragement/ratification. Oy vey.


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## brogdale (Aug 25, 2022)

Suitable response to Sunak's psychopathic posturing...


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## elbows (Aug 25, 2022)

And here is the BBCs version of it. Its treated as a political story where the analysis is all about the leadership contest rather than any sene of pandemic reality and basic fact. There isnt much of the usual injection any sense of balance beyond template responses from current government spokespeople, except for a couple of short sentences. At least one of those is "A report from MPs last year said the UK should have acted sooner to stop Covid spreading early in the pandemic."

It also includes the following:



> In his interview, Mr Sunak also hit out at campaign posters showing Covid patients on ventilators, saying it was "wrong" to "scare people".



I've probably mentioned the phrase mood music hundreds of times in this thread, so I doubt I need to explore that stuff all over again in depth. Getting people to adjust their behaviour was key. But again its complete bollocks to pretend that if the government had stuck with a 'dont use scary messages, dont do very much' plan, that people would magically have carried on with their lives. Plenty of people would have been even more scared by the governments inaction and the terrible death rate. There was no way to keep normal hospital activity, normal economic activity, consumer confidence etc going during those nasty pre-vaccine covid waves, the only choice for government was whether to try to join in with this reality and try to get on board and bring some order to the chaos, or whether to remain dangerously detached from reality, peddling false reassurances that stood no chance of working in the face of the number of hospitalisations and deaths.

Although he is coming out with this shit so overtly now for leadership election reasons, and while he's still in the public eye enough to influence how history will record hm, this crap stance is entirely consistent with what we already knew about his pandemic position. For example its no surprise that he didnt like the messages of fear, because the entire point of his deadly, misguided 'eat out to help out' scheme was to get a big chunk of the public to travel back away from those fears at a stage where the first moment of maximum danger had passed, to restore more economic activity at that point than would otherwise have been the case. Never mind that it helped ensure the second wave got a foothold more quickly, or that his attempts to delay the second lockdown and economic support ultimately made our second wave deadlier and our lockdowns longer than they could have been.









						Tory leadership: Rishi Sunak criticises Covid lockdown response
					

Former chancellor says discussion of negative side-effects of government action was not allowed.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## elbows (Aug 25, 2022)

CH1 said:


> You leave Chris Whitty out of it. I was "under him" for 3 weeks at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases - because my bloody GP receptionist sent me home "You just got 'flu - were are too busy on the run up to Christmas etc etc..."
> YES - NHS GP receptionists were dragons who killed even in 1996, when Covid was a twinkle in Jiang Zemin's eye.
> Could have been worse - Simon Hughes' brother died of malaria back then, which is why we had free anti-malarials in Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham - until abolished by the Tories.



Sorry to hear that. I dont have a negative opinion of him as a doctor, I dont have any opinion at all about that side of him because I have no experience, but I would guess he is rather competent. 

I tried to be mostly fair towards him during the pandemic. I would have been most negative about him during the first wave failings, because his position inevitably left him as one of the public figureheads and justifiers of the original approach. But even then I found many reasons to quote him. And he was one of the 'good guys' when it came to the second wave, eg he and Vallance ended up having to do their own press conference without Johnson etc back when the need for action was obvious in September 2020 but the government and the tory press were desperate to resist for as long as possible at any price.

These days he is almost completely invisible, likely for a number of reasons. The government approach of pretending the pandemic is mostly all over requires us not to hear much at all from people in such positions. And for any such comms efforts that still remain and are occasionally deemed necessary, the UKHSA people are the main channel these days. And he may have been shaken by the excessive attention he received from a range of fuckwits, including those who were prosecuted for manhandling him. Plus SAGE got stood down ages ago, after a long period where their advice was largely being ignored by government. Whether a time will come where we need to hear from him or any successor to him in the CMO role depends on what turns this pandemic or other diseases take in future.


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## Artaxerxes (Aug 25, 2022)

"I'd have liked to have killed more of you" is a hell of a flex.









						Sunak says it was a mistake to ‘empower scientists’ during Covid pandemic
					

Ex-chancellor admits being furious about school closures, adding trade-offs of lockdowns were not properly considered by experts




					www.theguardian.com


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## Thesaint (Aug 25, 2022)

It's not just Sunak, but Truss said she had misgivings about the relationship between Sage the PM and cabinet although I presume she was more of an outsider being foreign secretary though.

So if either and especially Rishi, had concerns about how things were being run why didn't they resign in protest? 🤔

Given there _maybe_ a public backlash coming about the use of lockdowns  I can see why they might now try to distance themselves from it.  Something Whitty may need to be wary of as he may unfairly become the lone scapegoat as he is the only person left linked closely to them.


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## elbows (Aug 25, 2022)

What exactly informs your view that there maybe a public backlash against lockdowns coming?

Most of the people who might support Sunaks stance were like that pretty much all the way along, its nothing new for them or for certain publications like the Telegraph. They never truly accepted the case for lockdowns, and went through cycles of being forced into relative silence and temporary begrudging acceptance during the very worst of the initial waves, when it was bloody obvious that there was no alternative to strong measures, only to then attempt to rewrite history and go back into denial later on.

I'd say its true that the further removed we become from those desperate first waves, the more the maximum potential can be unleashed for people to indulge in a convenient misremembering and/or misjudging of that period. But I dont think that maximum potential is actually a very big deal, because I believe that the proportion of the population who can genuinely convince themselves that it was all a terrible overreaction that was disproportionate to the threat is not so great, and continues to be dwarfed by the number of people who had a reasonable view of what we faced. And where those attitudes exist, they have long since already been priced into the picture.

So I dont see how those sorts could contribute significantly to a meaningful new backlash against lockdowns of the past. So are you alluding to possible future lockdowns? As per the other thread we conversed in recently, I dont really see how I can evaluate those possibilities properly at this time. Lockdowns were never something people were going to be delighted to welcome with open arms, people acceptance of them was based on an obvious, dramatic peril that people could grasp. I would not want to have to predict public attitudes unless an equivalent peril properly reveals itself again, until we got to see what proportion of people came to terms with it and accept the need for dramatic action all over again. And there are many other forms of far less dramatic measures and adjustments to behaviour that would come first.

I mean there are clues as to what some of the challenges would be. But evaluating those properly without actually knowing the detail of the viral context the new measures were being suggested in response to seems a bit pointless, too detached from any foundations that would force such issues onto the agenda again in the first place. For example we might expect the public response to be different if we were facing a new variant with really obvious potential and a rapidly established reputation for causing great woe in some other countries, compared to if we were facing a situation where its the slow grinding down of the NHS combined with general and covid-specific winter pressures that have pushed things to a dangerous stage the government deemed necessary to respond to. The psychology would vary between those two different scenarios in ways that could make quite a difference to compliance. Especially since the ability to 'cope' with the last 3 or 4 waves without lockdowns would find people struggling to grasp the detail of why the ability to cope this time was so degraded, why a different response was necessary this time. And the governments 18+ month old attempts to change the mood music to one of having moved on, of the pandemic being in the past, of vaccines on their own being enough, would then come back to haunt them.

In the absence of understanding what context any new measures were imposed in, I can only make some broad and obvious comments about how things varied over time in the past. For example the first lockdown was somewhat easier to accept and come to terms with because there was a big shock that shook people from a sense of normality, a fresh tank of willingness to respond to an emergency and do the right thing, some sense of lots of people being in it together, some novelty value. By the second wave and then the arrival of alpha variant + second full lockdown, people found it harder because some of that had worn off, people were wearier, and the winter season made that lockdown especially grim to cope with. And we might have expected any further lockdowns to carry on that trend, but thankfully we didnt get to find out. Actual lockdowns were replaced by other measures, delays to the timetables to remove other measures, and the threat that lockdowns were still being held in reserve as a last resort. And the behaviours the government needed to encourage were able to be simplified, eventually down to little more than 'get your vaccines when asked on each occasion deemed necessary'. And such things have faded even further from view since then. I'm a 'never say never' person so I cannot convincingly claim that all of those things are certainly gone for good, but I also dont intend to hype up the prospects of their loud return unless we start to find ourselves more obviously in a situation that demands that sort of response and mood music to return. Maybe I'll be able to say something different in a month or three, but hopefully not.


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## BristolEcho (Aug 25, 2022)

It's just dog whistling shit and they are saying what they think certain people want to hear. How long is this fucking thing rolling on? Feels like it's been ages I've not even been keeping track recently.


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## Thesaint (Aug 25, 2022)

elbows said:


> What exactly informs your view that there maybe a public backlash against lockdowns coming?
> 
> Most of the people who might support Sunaks stance were like that pretty much all the way along, its nothing new for them or for certain publications like the Telegraph. They never truly accepted the case for lockdowns, and went through cycles of being forced into relative silence and temporary begrudging acceptance during the very worst of the initial waves, when it was bloody obvious that there was no alternative to strong measures, only to then attempt to rewrite history and go back into denial later on.
> 
> ...


The backlash....
Despite economic news taking over people are aware there's a big nhs backlog of people that either didn't get treatment for various reasons.  If that becomes headline news questions will be asked why this wasn't considered a risk of lockdown and managed better.

Sunak alluded to Sages minutes being manipulated to ensure the cabinet would make the decision they want. What happens if this is true and Sage intentionally misled ministers?

The media is economy issues right now and apart from the Telegraph were very supportive of lockdowns, so there might be a delay before they react although they may forget on purpose.  

Much the same happened in  2003 after Irag war and WMDs so that's my model for how lockdowns may be remembered.


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## elbows (Aug 25, 2022)

The lockdowns didnt cause treatment delays, the virus and people being sick with it, unmanageable risks of carrying out certain procedures that would have left people immunosuppressed during a nasty wave, lack of hospital capacity and staff etc caused treatment delays. A lack of lockdowns would have made that problem even worse, not better.

It is true that there is a relationship between people being told to stay home to protect the NHS, and people choosing not to seek treatment in the same ways and speed that they would have done pre-pandemic. But even there the lockdowns and related messages were not the only factor behind that, there was also entirely rational fears of hospital acquired infections, and indeed the lack of capacity in the healthcare system meant that a big chunk of this response by the public was exactly how the authorities wanted and needed them to respond.

The lack of decent PPE in the first wave, lack of other forms of protection for healthcare staff was another barrier to keeping every level of the healthcare system, including GPs, functioning at normal levels.

I do not think the public at large have developed an incorrect impression of that situation, they are well aware that optional lockdown decisions were not responsible for all the ways that our health system could not possibly hope to process the normal number of cases during the pandemic. Even if most of the issues I describe had not been a big deal at all in this country, the sheer number of staff absences due to sickness and need to free up hospital capacity to deal with serious covid cases would on their own have been quite sufficient to prevent business as usual. They will blame the pandemic virus combined with the broader state of the NHS for any future NHS woe along these lines, they arent going to blame lockdowns for fucks sake. Well, they can blame other sorts of mismanagement including lockdown mismanagement, eg the lockdowns being late, too weak, not backed up by fully joined up thinking in other areas.


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## elbows (Aug 25, 2022)

As for SAGE minutes, on plenty of occasions during the pandemic I have described how they are not really minutes, they are quite broad summaries that usually shy away from revealing the opinions of individuals. And its already quite well understood that SAGE is a fairly broad church, it can issue consensus statements without any need to misleadingly imply that every single person in SAGE had the same view about something. Nor is it some great revelation that proper science isnt a monolith, there is a spectrum of opinion and a range of confidence levels when it comes to how confident such experts are about a particular fact, expectation, prediction, need for a response etc.

Plus during the buildup to the first wave, SAGE were initially about as on board with the 'do little, stick to insufficient traditional pandemic response plans' agenda as the rest of government. The penny dropped for them that far more would need to be done at about the same time that it started to drop for the rest of government, rather late in the day. And when it comes to who said what and started to change the consensus and push things forwards, there really isnt much point talking about SAGE as if its a monolith. Most of the key action came from specific individuals and institutions and its no secret who they were, eg the people who specifically modelled the much higher rates of hospitalisation and death that finally sent the original government plan into the dustbin, a fair few weeks later than should really have been the case. And even if none of those people and modelling existed, there were other giant clues visible for all to see, based on how most other countries felt the need to respond, once we'd seen what would happen via the awful example of Italy. 

If it was not for the Brexit agenda then far more attention could have been paid to the way the need for lockdown penny dropped within the EU establishment, stuff we can trace quite clearly by studying how the ECDC pandemic updates evolved between late February and mid-March 2020. Because those documents inevitably added stuff to reflect the experience of Italy. British exceptionalism may continue to pretend that this was irrelevant to us, but it really wasnt, it reflected the same reality that establishments around the globe faced, as they suddenly had to think the unthinkable and act in dramatic ways. Scientific branches of the establishment may have come to terms with the emerging reality a bit quicker, but the rest of the authorities would have got there in the end. Even if they'd tried to remain in denial, the brutal consequences of inaction would have eventually caught up with them and forced their hand unless they were lucky enough to face different key variables to the ones this country, Italy, Spain, USA etc faced. To pin the way this played out on SAGE is bogus, it was an inevitable consequence of the virus combined with  how our societies and economies and behaviours, health and social care systems are ordered that could not be magically dodged. Italy was the wakeup call, the writing was always going to be on the wall as a result. It was only a question of exactly how many weeks further delay our establishment could eke out before reality bit, how the decisions would then be dressed up, who would be given credit for influencing the dramatic shift and its timing. Cummings and his whiteboard would certainly like to take a chunk of the key mid-March credit you are attributing to SAGEs influence! Or we could give some of the journalists who asked the right questions in the right press conferences in early March some of the credit - really it all amounts to the same inevitable momentum towards a new, undodgeable reality of the viruses making. If Sunak was able to resist that momentum then its only testament to the rigidity of his ignorance, to his unwavering commitment to ridiculous priorities at any price. This country has always specialised in cold calculations, but there are still limits to how far such calculations can be stretched before they become counterproductive and unfit to serve the priorities of the establishment. Johnsons relative willingness to u-turn at least made the cold calculations oven ready in this particular instance.

SAGE is also not one group, there are all sorts of subgroups and there was plenty of variation in what they thought, their priorities and the angles they shouted about the loudest, and how useful particular members were deemed to be. For example Robert Dingwall was in a SAGE subgroup but he was soon regarded as a bad joke not fit to contribute sensible ideas during a bad pandemic, a useless 'take little to no action' extremist deeply out of touch with reality. And it wasnt simply a case of 'pro lockdown SAGE' versus the government, plenty within other areas of government had similar low regard for Dingwall and the useless twisted bullshit he came out with in the anti-lockdown press.

And when we get to the subsequent stages of the pandemic where SAGE as a whole were much more clued up and proactive about what needed to be done, its pretty easy for us to see what their stance was, and the extent to which government tried to resist their suggestions for far too long, causing further damage. We can see the timetable of how SAGE suggested responding to the emerging second wave, the extent to which government and the right wing press tried to resist, including attempts to smear and dismiss SAGE members views, and how eventually even the government still had to accept that their own approach was unsustainable and that SAGE was right months earlier. And that the public would then have to face a longer, more brutal lockdown because of those wasted earlier opportunities to do the right thing. So I doubt that any serious commentator is going to spin the sort of bullshit version of history you seem keen to come out with now. Because we followed this stuff every step of the way, we saw sensible advice being ignored, we saw what the consequences of rightwing anti-lockdown goofs getting their way for too long in this country were. Its no surprise they still have the nerve to try to turn the blame back to the people who were trying to do the right thing at the right time, and to attribute all the horrors of the pandemic to the lockdowns rather than the virus, but it wont wash. The shitheads tried to avoid lockdowns, it blew up in their face whenever they tried it in the pre-vaccine era, and left us with longer lockdowns and more damage of every kind!


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## LDC (Aug 25, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> The backlash....
> Despite economic news taking over people are aware there's a big nhs backlog of people that either didn't get treatment for various reasons.  If that becomes headline news questions will be asked why this wasn't considered a risk of lockdown and managed better.



It was fucking considered. It was more of a risk not to have collective protective measures. Also I work in the NHS, it's been collapsing for years for a mix of complex reasons, largely related to how society is organised and run. On top of that Covid is now being used as an excuse for things like poor public health, underfunding of the NHS for many years, purposefully run down NHS capacity, and worsening poverty and other issues that cause and exacerbate poor health.

Honestly fuck these cunts, hang them from lamp-posts. They caused loads more deaths than we needed to have. And all this war on woke, libertarian, economy the most important murderous bollocks as thousands of people will be dying from fuel and food poverty this winter, plus many more to come from climate disasters we could start dealing with if they wanted to. Fuck them all.


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## teqniq (Sep 4, 2022)

This is just completely disgusting of the Telegraph and also highly irresponsible:



BMJ piece here: Covid-19 in the UK: policy on children and schools

Paywall busted Torygraph piece here: British Medical Journal accused of fuelling culture war with articles from hardline Covid scientists


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## elbows (Sep 4, 2022)

The Telegraph is one of the world's least prestigious publications and has been accused of being partisan, stoking the culture war and driving a wedge through the scientific community.


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## miss direct (Sep 4, 2022)

Pretty pissed off that the pathetic lack of rules now means I have student(s) coming in tomorrow for speaking assessments who have covid. It will definitely be a mask on day for me, and I'll sit at the other end of the classroom, with the air purifier on. Windows only open a few cm.


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## miss direct (Sep 5, 2022)

This has been on my mind so first thing this morning I emailed the student in question, asking if they are still testing positive. I'm not allowed to stop them from coming, but am hoping the subtle pressure will help make a decision either way.


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## Chilli.s (Sep 5, 2022)

miss direct said:


> This has been on my mind so first thing this morning I emailed the student in question, asking if they are still testing positive. I'm not allowed to stop them from coming, but am hoping the subtle pressure will help make a decision either way.


If they dont mask up... less 10%
If they do mask up   ... Less  5%
If the postpone under your support to test later  = plus 5%


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## miss direct (Sep 5, 2022)

No answer to my email but the student is here. Mask on (as have most of the others). We do have an air purifier now, so that's on full blast.


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## Brainaddict (Sep 5, 2022)

miss direct said:


> Pretty pissed off that the pathetic lack of rules now means I have student(s) coming in tomorrow for speaking assessments who have covid. It will definitely be a mask on day for me, and I'll sit at the other end of the classroom, with the air purifier on. Windows only open a few cm.


That's nuts. Can't help thinking the student is a dick for coming in too.


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## teqniq (Sep 18, 2022)

The Fail weighs in on the Covid disinformation bullshit. I won't link directly to the vile rag on general principles:



Instead here is an archived version of the article so they don't benefit from clicks or advertising:

British Medical Journal faces backlash from leading scientists for publishing ANOTHER 'one-sided' Covid inquiry piece from group of hardline experts who've repeatedly criticised No10 for ditching restrictions too early


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## teqniq (Sep 18, 2022)

elbows said:


> The Telegraph is one of the world's least prestigious publications and has been accused of being partisan, stoking the culture war and driving a wedge through the scientific community.


Yes, I know all of this but people still get what passes for news from them. It may well quite possibly be futile to hope that at least some of them may question the rags motives but it is still worth a try. Also we know that they do this and they should be called out on it every time.


----------



## Storm Fox (Sep 18, 2022)

So I thought I was coming down with COVID, so far, although I have had mild symptoms I have not tested positive, although my wife has it and is isolating in the spare room. 
However, she cannot register her positive tests. The latest batch of tests I have do not have codes and I have an older test with a code but these are no longer valid on the NHS website. The government is deliberately ignoring the spread in the UK and doubt will get away without any sanction. It fucking stinks. 😠 🤬

I haven't read most of this thread, so I guess it's no surprise to those who are following closely, but I needed to vent.


----------



## elbows (Sep 18, 2022)

Yeah, and since changes to test availability the official daily positives are no longer used as a proper guide to spread and waves. The ONS testing is still considered to be a useful guide but has also undergone some changes of methodology - it was always a bit laggy but as a result of those changes the lag has now reached the stage where the picture it shows each Friday is the picture from about 2 weeks previously, at least thats how Indie SAGE described it in the latest video of theirs that I saw a bit of. The ZOE Covid study also continues to provide a guide as to the infection and wave picture. As of the start of September NHS admissions etc data is only published once a week (switched to weekly much earlier on the official dashboard but for a good while the data was still available daily on the NHS England website), and there were changes to testing methodology there too.

A combination of those sources should continue to provide some indication when the next wave gets going beyond a certain scale. So far we are in the foothills with only vague indications of a resurgence and variation by UK nation and region. The typical 'infections rising in younger groups once schools went back' may be on display again in certain data, but not yet in dramatic enough fashion for me to have started going on about this stuff frequently again. And I took a break from looking at much data so my own descriptions of the picture may not be the best. Certainly in terms of timing with schools, Scotland was ahead of England again in terms of showing a rise, which we'd expect with their earlier school term start, but it seems to have been a modest rise so far. I've not seen any steep trajectories so far but as I said I've not been looking very closely.


----------



## two sheds (Sep 20, 2022)

PR agencies bidding for UK Covid inquiry risk ‘farcical conflict of interest’
					

Listening Project contract will be awarded to one of 12 pre-approved firms, many of which worked for government during pandemic




					www.theguardian.com
				




Looks like we'll be getting an expert and in-depth impartial inquiry


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## elbows (Sep 21, 2022)

two sheds said:


> PR agencies bidding for UK Covid inquiry risk ‘farcical conflict of interest’
> 
> 
> Listening Project contract will be awarded to one of 12 pre-approved firms, many of which worked for government during pandemic
> ...



That covers one strand of the inquiry, its not the whole thing by any stretch.

This side of things is how they will pay lip service to the idea of placing the bereaved at the heart of things. How they will do no such thing, will keep this stuff off to one side and will instead seek to demonstrate that they have listened by having a 3rd party process the thoughts of the bereaved, turning them into a neat product that will distill thoughts down to some bullet points, a few example quotes, and some attempts to quantify certain feelings. And then when it comes time to summarise their overall findings, they will blend that product in with all the failings they discovered via the main body of work of the inquiry, and will try to use words that demonstrate how much they really care. But they dont want the bereaved clogging up their main channels of inquiry, thats a pesky inconvenience that involves having to hear from too many people that simply dont understand the 'difficult choices and balances' the establishment managerial classes have to make. All the practical management reasons why actually caring about the rascal multitude in that way would change the cold calculations and priorities of the establishment, upsetting the applecart and encouraging little people to have weird ideas about their lives actually mattering in the grand scheme of things. We cant have that! The calculations must remain cold at their heart, the inquiry will pretend otherwise but will actually prioritise learning lessons that make the cold calculations of the future more effective and fit for their purposes rather than genuinely changing establishment priorities and sense of purpose.

They will need an entirely different set of mechanisms in order to make all the other inquiry angles stay within the establishment comfort zone, stuff unrelated to this Guardian article.

There is a dedicated thread for the public inquiry but its not very active yet because the inquiry isnt very active yet:









						Covid Inquiry set for Spring 2022
					

Why the delay?  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57088314  I am sure I read somewhere today that Ministers will be immune from prosecution by the end of 2021. Can't for the life of me think where I read it but it would fit with the date.  Also with the fixed Parliament Act being scrapped I am sure...




					www.urban75.net


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## _Russ_ (Sep 21, 2022)

Government inquiries are done because they have to be done, not to learn anything


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## elbows (Sep 21, 2022)

Well it varies a bit. They are certainly done so as to be seen to be doing something, to draw lines under things, to control the timing and narrative, etc. The extent to which they are used to perpetuate cover-ups, impose limits on the bounds of discussion, and actually learn and make changes to establishment thinking varies. If they fail to take enough heat out of the matters then sometimes they end up having to revisit the subjects again years later.

Peoples skepticism is usually well-founded but sometimes goes so far as to overlook meaningful changes that can sometimes result. Its entirely understandable that skepticism will be at an especially high level in this country given that the Leveson inquiries recommendations were ignored in such a blatant and comprehensive manner, to give a very sad example from a recent era.

Lots of the pandemic failures were mirrored in some other countries and international institutions and blocks, and we can already see plenty of areas where sensible lessons will continue to be incompatible with other priorities, and will not be acted upon. The Lancet commission on lessons for the future from the COVID-19 pandemic covers plenty of this, and its not hard to see which areas they are pissing in the wind because those institutions they look to to implement necessary change wont want to do so.



			https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01585-9/fulltext


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## ska invita (Sep 22, 2022)

Covid hospitalisations rise by nearly 20% in a week in England
					

People urged to get a Covid booster jab if eligible and to stay at home if ill as number of positive tests and patients admitted to hospital on the rise




					www.theguardian.com
				




back on the rise


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## Puddy_Tat (Sep 22, 2022)

☹️ 😷


----------



## elbows (Sep 22, 2022)

ska invita said:


> Covid hospitalisations rise by nearly 20% in a week in England
> 
> 
> People urged to get a Covid booster jab if eligible and to stay at home if ill as number of positive tests and patients admitted to hospital on the rise
> ...



Yes. At least the press noticed, I was wondering if they would.

Since the NHS England data only comes out once a week these days my ability to judge this rise more comprehensively is rather limited. And the increase in daily hospital admissions/diagnoses had a rather abrupt increase on the most recent days available admissions data. Now we've got to wait a whole week to see what it does next.


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## elbows (Sep 27, 2022)

We wont get the next NHS England hospital figures till later this week, so I'm unsure of the extent to which the following could be attributed to Covid or not:



None of the media reports on this that I've seen have shed any light so far, they all include various quotes from hospital management going on about sustained demand for a long period of time, and none use the word Covid.


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## _Russ_ (Sep 27, 2022)

Im unable to see anything on Twitter, is whatever it is reported anywhere else?


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## elbows (Sep 27, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Im unable to see anything on Twitter, is whatever it is reported anywhere else?


Yes. One example:









						Grimsby hospital cancels routine operations over high demand'
					

Hospital bosses say the decision to cancel appointments and routine operations is "the only option".



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




As I said, Covid doesnt get a mention and clearly there are multiple severe pressures on the NHS these days, some of which are directly related to Covid and some of which are indirectly related or not much related. I'll get some clues on Thursday, which since the start of September has been the day that the dashboard and NHS England data comes out (it used to be Wednesday for the dashboard, when new NHS England data was still available each weekday from the NHS England website, something that no longer happens).

I dont know as anyone here looks at the dashboard anymore, but be aware that Scotland changed their measurements for hospital admissions to a different definition as of September 22nd. And so the overall UK hospital admission figures are no longer published at all on the dashboard since that date, since Scotlands numbers arent the same thing as the other nations figures. I am still studying the details of that change and will probably comment on it later.

The only reason I havent moaned more about the 'learning to live with covid' agenda having big knock on implications for data availability and timeliness is that its been clear for ages that this would happen, and it happened in stages, so I moaned about it in stages rather than via one giant rant. And sadly I knew the media wouldnt kick up a stink about it, they would broadly go along with it. Certain decisions which affected data quality and frequency could be reversed again in future if a new wave requires much attention, but Im not banking on it.


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## elbows (Sep 28, 2022)

Here come the concerns, that the next covid wave is upon us and that we'll have to cope with a lot of flu as well. Authorities have been worried about this combination for several years but the return to normal behaviour and the experience in countries like Australia make those concerns much stronger this year.

Of course unlike earlier in the pandemic, the 'need to act' that such warnings can sponsor is channeled towards getting more people vaccinated, and  we wont hear too much about other behavioural changes etc unless the shit really hits the fan.









						Flu and Covid could make this a hard winter for UK
					

People should prepare for a rampant flu season, say experts, based on what Australia has experienced.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> UK Health Security Agency chief medical adviser Dr Susan Hopkins told BBC News Covid cases "looked like they were turning in all four nations in the UK".
> 
> "We do believe we are starting to see our autumn wave of Covid," she said.
> 
> NHS director for vaccinations and screening Steve Russell said: "This winter could be the first time we see the effects of the so called 'twindemic' with both Covid and flu in full circulation, so it is vital that those most susceptible to serious illness from these viruses come forward for vaccines in order to protect themselves and those around them."





> Dr Hopkins said: "I am more worried about flu than I have been for the last few years because of the reduction of immunity that is around."
> 
> She said there were "strong indications" that the UK could face the threat of widely circulating flu along with new Covid variants that might evade the immune response.
> 
> "This combination poses a serious risk to our health, particularly those in high-risk groups. So, if you are offered a jab, please come forward to protect yourself."



The Daily Express is mostly a useless rag but at times like these it is thought that its front page may usefully reach part of the vaccine target demographic, and in this respect they have 'done their duty'.


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## StoneRoad (Sep 28, 2022)

Already taken heed of previous warnings - I'm getting t'flu jab this afternoon and I've been one of the lucky people in the bivalent moderna vaccine trial.


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## CH1 (Sep 28, 2022)

Is there any point in taking the next Covid jab at the £13m "cathedral for GPs" (ie Ackerman Health Centre - private appointments ARE available).
After all the FREE SPEECH part of Govt - OFCOM - happily licence GB News to peddle covid conspiracies.
Maybe the Ackerman and the new annual Covid injection are one of them?
If not you can look forward to receiving my next post from beyond the grave!


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## elbows (Sep 29, 2022)

The NHS England hospital data came out. It confirms the trend that was just starting to be seen in last weeks data, there is another wave as far as admissions and number of people with covid in hospital beds goes.

In hospital beds (data goes up to September 27th):


Daily admissions/diagnoses (data goes up to September 26th):


Made using data from spreadsheets at Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## two sheds (Sep 29, 2022)

are the peaks in the top graph new variants?


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## 2hats (Sep 29, 2022)

English COVID-19 hospital admissions are now clearly back into a two-week doubling phase.


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## elbows (Sep 29, 2022)

two sheds said:


> are the peaks in the top graph new variants?


The graph as a whole covers the Delta and Omicron waves era.

The three most prominent peaks were our Omicron waves so far. Emergence and rise to domination of new varieties of Omicron is a very major factor in the wave dynamics and timing. Policies/human behaviour, school holiday timings, and waning immunity can also contribute to wave timing.

A somewhat simple story of the different versions of Omicron arriving and dominating could probably be used to describe those peaks, but the picture of Omicron variants is somewhat messier than with previous variants and I dont like to forget to mention those other factors in my previous paragraph.


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## elbows (Sep 29, 2022)

Here is a variant graph from a UK government variant surveillance paper to add some proper substance to my answer. Things line up reasonably well so I could probably just have answered you with a simple yes previously, but thats not really my style.

Also note that as the testing regime has changed in this country, been scaled back, the quantity of genomic sampling has declined notably. Right now a whole bunch of further Omicron variants are vying for dominance, and the picture is a bit messy, and the reduced amount of testing and genomic sequencing really doesnt help a clear picture to emerge quickly. Anyway this latest chapter in regards which Omicron variants will feature strongly in the latest wave is not reflected in the graphic below at all.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...3869/Technical-Briefing-45-9September2022.pdf


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## two sheds (Sep 29, 2022)

interesting, ta


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## 2hats (Sep 29, 2022)

Also worth pointing out that in an extant wave the apparent dominant variant may actually later be (often is) refined to be composed of key sub-lineages that just haven't been identified or classified yet. For example, right now a rapidly growing proportion of that BA.5 is actually various BE/BF/BQ/BU/BV/BW.x (in particular BQ.1[.x]) along with some BA.5.x[.x].


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## elbows (Sep 29, 2022)

By the way since in the past I have sometimes pointed out that Scotland was ahead with the progress of most waves, likely in part down to earlier school holiday timing, I should mention that this wave has not evolved in a straightforward way for Scotland. Because unlike what the likes of ZOE and hospital admissions are showing for England and its regions, Scotlands rise in apparent cases was not sustained so far, they started to get a rise with earlier timing than England, but then there was a fall and its not clear what will happen next there.


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## elbows (Sep 29, 2022)

Shaun Lintern has been mentioning other hospital incidents on twitter, similar to the Grimsby stuff the other day:







He also has this:


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## elbows (Sep 29, 2022)

I may as well mention hospital-acquired covid infections again. Someone has some charts. Given that I think this has been a big issue all throughout the pandemics waves, and that various measures which can detect and reduce this stuff have been removed, I wont be surprised if it is especially bad this time.


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## elbows (Sep 29, 2022)

And when other people produce those numbers, it gives me more confidence to publish my own charts on that subject. Because coming up with those figures requires subtracting some published figures from some other published figures, and I'm not always confident that I've done it right. But if I add up the 7 days worth of most recent figures I calculated for this I get the same numbers as she did, so I will show my chart which stretches back to the 2nd wave. Data goes up to September 26th.


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## gosub (Sep 30, 2022)

England sees surge in COVID-19 hospital admissions in latest week
					

Much of the surge is driven by coronavirus acquired in hospital, the figures show.




					www.politico.eu


----------



## quimcunx (Sep 30, 2022)

Someone mentioned to me something about a new study of people who have never had covid but I can't find anything.  Anyone know anything?


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## Yossarian (Sep 30, 2022)

quimcunx said:


> Someone mentioned to me something about a new study of people who have never had covid but I can't find anything.  Anyone know anything?



This one? 

_This summer, Hollenbach and her colleagues demonstrated that, with a specific mutation in HLA, some people have T cells that are already pre-programmed to recognize and fight off SARS-CoV-2. So there's no delay in generating COVID-specfic weaponry. It's already there.

"Your immune response and these T cells fire up much more quickly [than in a person without the HLA mutation]," Hollenbach says. "So for lack of a better term, you basically nuke the infection before you even start to have symptoms."

But here's the kicker. For the HLA mutation to work (and for you to have these pre-armed T cells), you first had to have been infected with another coronavirus.

*"*Most of us have been exposed to some common cold coronavirus at some point in life," she explains. And we all generate T cells to fight off these colds. But if you also have this mutation in your HLA, Hollenbach says, then just by mere luck, these T cells you make can also fight off SARS-CoV-2.

"It's definitely luck," she says. "But, you know, this mutation is quite common. We estimate that maybe 1 in 10 people have it. And in people who are asymptomatic, that rises to 1 in 5."_


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## 2hats (Sep 30, 2022)

There are several studies underway. Almost certainly there are genetic factors which predispose some cohorts to being less likely to develop COVID-19, or even able to abort infection. HLA† and CCR5‡ have been shown to be two such factors. However these can be a double-edged sword - for example the same gene expression that affords HIV-1 protection appears to predispose the subject to elevated COVID-19 risk. Likely particular patterns of historic sarbecovirus antigenic exposure also play a role.
† DOI:10.1073/pnas.2116435119
‡ DOI:10.1016/j.coi.2022.102178









						The Mystery of Why Some People Don’t Get Covid
					

A small number of people appear naturally immune to the coronavirus. Scientists think they might hold the key to helping protect us all.




					www.wired.co.uk


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## Storm Fox (Sep 30, 2022)

Yossarian said:


> This one?
> 
> _This summer, Hollenbach and her colleagues demonstrated that, with a specific mutation in HLA, some people have T cells that are already pre-programmed to recognize and fight off SARS-CoV-2. So there's no delay in generating COVID-specfic weaponry. It's already there.
> 
> ...



Anecdote alert:
The Storm Vixen tested positive for 14 days, she, thankfully is now negative, but it's knocked her sideways a bit, she gets breathless easily and cannot do much physical activity without getting tired. 

When she tested positive, I moved into the spare room, but we were in the same room and she had symptoms a day before testing positive. 

I tested negative the whole time, although had minor symptoms that could have been psychosomatic. 
Seeing that the high transmissibility of the later Covid variants, I may be one of those mutants.


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## weepiper (Sep 30, 2022)

Notable uptick in people wearing masks in shops here this week.


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## friedaweed (Oct 1, 2022)

Daft numbers around here including the elderly inlaws. Here we go again.


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## cesare (Oct 1, 2022)

friedaweed said:


> Daft numbers around here including the elderly inlaws. Here we go again.


Are they very poorly or are they holding up ok?


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## friedaweed (Oct 1, 2022)

cesare said:


> Are they very poorly or are they holding up ok?


The old boy's got dementia (Mid 80's) and has been rough as a badgers for three days but it was only when the MIL got a text from the 'Youth club' that Mable had tested positive that she though to do a test. Thankfully he's on the meand now and her  spinal prescribed morphine patches seem to be masking any symptoms that she might have had manageable, but fuck me they're worse than the kids for taking precautions  . Both tested positive this morning, been to Costa 3 times, two clubs and a walk round a stately home . Thankfully they seem ok for now, apart from the fact that they're nutty as batshit. God bless...

My poor wife, all she wanted was an easy life


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## cesare (Oct 1, 2022)

friedaweed said:


> The old boy's got dementia (Mid 80's) and has been rough as a badgers for three days but it was only when the MIL got a text from the 'Youth club' that Mable had tested positive that she though to do a test. Thankfully he's on the meand now and her  spinal prescribed morphine patches seem to be masking any symptoms that she might have had manageable, but fuck me they're worse than the kids for taking precautions  . Both tested positive this morning, been to Costa 3 times, two clubs and a walk round a stately home . Thankfully they seem ok for now, apart from the fact that they're nutty as batshit. God bless...
> 
> My poor wife, all she wanted was an easy life


Proper envy their social diary but I bet they're driving Mrs Frieda scatty   Glad they seem OK though x x


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## friedaweed (Oct 1, 2022)

cesare said:


> Proper envy their social diary but I bet they're driving Mrs Frieda scatty   Glad they seem OK though x x


Wife's tested pos this morning. Rough as a badgers. That's her on the sofa with the railway children. 

Just screening off the living room with heavey duty polythene with a hatch in for her meals. Has anyone got a portable loo she can borrow, or a sheewee she can use out of the window?


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## cesare (Oct 1, 2022)

friedaweed said:


> Wife's tested pos this morning. Rough as a badgers. That's her on the sofa with the railway children.
> 
> Just screening off the living room with heavey duty polythene with a hatch in for her meals. Has anyone got a portable loo she can borrow, or a sheewee she can use out of the window?


Oh no! GWS Mrs F ☹️


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## elbows (Oct 2, 2022)

The lag in the ONS survey results, which got a bit worse when they changed their methodology a while ago, coupled with a cautious narrative, combine to demonstrate that this survey is unable to generate appropriately timed statements about a new wave, even when the wave became obvious via other data some time ago.



> Sarah Crofts, from the ONS Covid-19 Infection Survey, said: "It is too early to identify whether this is the start of a new wave of infections. We will continue to closely monitor the data."



And so the likes of the BBC have to mention hospital data in their article. However unlike some other media this week the BBC have ignored the 'infections caught in hospital' dimension, instead focussing on the proportion of those 'with' not 'for' in hospital with covid data as though it is straightforward reason to be more relaxed about the hospital numbers. All the same, due to quotes from other sources their article is still able to come across as a warning rather than a simple 'everything is fine' story.



> More recent data showing a rise in hospital admissions with Covid has been called "a wake-up call".
> 
> Dr Thomas Waite, deputy chief medical officer for England, told BBC News that a number of new sub-variants of Omicron were circulating at low levels, and could be behind the hospital figures.
> 
> ...











						Covid infections rise by 14% in UK and now top a million
					

But there is no clear evidence of an autumn wave starting, says the Office for National Statistics.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Later in the article there is a section labelled Unpredictable with quotes about how unpredictable this winter will be. But in many ways it seems all too predictable, especially given the removal of much asymptomatic testing.


----------



## Thesaint (Oct 2, 2022)

elbows said:


> Here is a variant graph from a UK government variant surveillance paper to add some proper substance to my answer. Things line up reasonably well so I could probably just have answered you with a simple yes previously, but thats not really my style.
> 
> Also note that as the testing regime has changed in this country, been scaled back, the quantity of genomic sampling has declined notably. Right now a whole bunch of further Omicron variants are vying for dominance, and the picture is a bit messy, and the reduced amount of testing and genomic sequencing really doesnt help a clear picture to emerge quickly. Anyway this latest chapter in regards which Omicron variants will feature strongly in the latest wave is not reflected in the graphic below at all.
> 
> ...


Presumably the BA5, is not significantly different to any of the other Omicron predecessors as it didn't justify a new name.  I guess this wave will pass by much like the last if so.


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## elbows (Oct 2, 2022)

BA.5 was the last wave. Its still around, but there are a bunch of other evolutions of Omicron that are vying to gain the upper hand now. Its not currently clear to me which of those, or which combination of those, will be shown to drive the new wave. There are various mutations in those which may impact on protection from vaccination or prior infection, but how much difference that makes remains to be seen. Other aspects of the immunity picture also evolve, including waning and uncertainties about what proportion of eligible people will go and get their latest booster. Changes to human behaviour and changes to things like testing of asymptomatic patients in hospital can also make a difference. The timing and extent of flu pressures on the NHS is also uncertain. 

Important changes to specific aspects of the virus can occur without a brand new variant name being deployed.

Nothing has appeared on my radar that would make me think of the situation with waves these days as being the same as it was in the pre-vaccine era. But I still wouldnt go so far as to be very complacent or make comfortable assumption based on the size of peaks seen in the previous Omicron waves. But that does work both ways, a wave could be smaller than those seen previously for all I know.


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## 20Bees (Oct 2, 2022)

DD was in the US last week, where she flew between venues. Home on Friday, collected her little one from his dad on Saturday and had a pub lunch with her father, her sister, and sister’s toddler and new baby. This morning she felt rough and achy and tested positive for Covid. 

She had a rotten bout of it over Christmas. Her father was quite poorly when he had it in the spring, and is just recovering from gall bladder removal a month ago, her sister had it mildly last winter. The grandchildren haven’t had it, neither have I. My seasonal booster is booked for next week.

DD said she can’t think where she caught it! Maybe airports, four flights and evening functions weren’t such a good idea.


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## Thesaint (Oct 3, 2022)

20Bees said:


> DD said she can’t think where she caught it! Maybe airports, four flights and evening functions weren’t such a good idea.


With hindsight probably not a good idea...but depends how much of hers or our lives we want to cancel or indefinitely delay based on avoiding  covid which will always be there and lurking and unavoidable unless you're a hermit. Would DD have still done that trip if she had that hindsight?


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## elbows (Oct 3, 2022)

I feel like I should really be posting the NHS woe in a different thread but I havent got my head round which one (or a new one) so for now I will continue to stick them here.


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## Puddy_Tat (Oct 3, 2022)

just "improve" with bugger all staff and bugger all money

bunch of cunts


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## Puddy_Tat (Oct 3, 2022)

on the covid track, i'm down to my last couple of LFT tests that came free - I tend only to do them before going to visit aged mum-tat which is tending to be about once a month at the moment.

realise i'm going to have to buy more - where's good / not a big rip-off?


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## mx wcfc (Oct 3, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> on the covid track, i'm down to my last couple of LFT tests that came free - I tend only to do them before going to visit aged mum-tat which is tending to be about once a month at the moment.
> 
> realise i'm going to have to buy more - where's good / not a big rip-off?


Yeah, me too.  

I had a cough/runny nose thing last week, and "mum mx" was in hospital.  

Two free tests used (both negative).  three left I think.

(need to check whether M-i-L being 91 means she can get free ones)


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## elbows (Oct 5, 2022)

Drakeford has been a dick.









						Covid inquiry: Mark Drakeford accused of 'shameful' remarks
					

Mark Drakeford criticised for saying "the world has moved on" after questions on Wales-only inquiry.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




By the way, the covid bereaved relative in Wales that is quoted later in this article involves a hospital-acquired case.


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## elbows (Oct 5, 2022)

More in this series of woe:


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## elbows (Oct 6, 2022)

This weeks NHS England data reveals that they've stopped publishing one of the figures that people were using to get a sense of how many hospital-acquired infections were happening!


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## StoneRoad (Oct 6, 2022)

elbows said:


> This weeks NHS England data reveals that they've stopped publishing one of the figures that people were using to get a sense of how many hospital-acquired infections were happening!


Because "they" want us to think & behave as if it is all over ... and rely on vaccinations for the most vulnerable.
An attitude which stinks, but thankfully, we do have those vaccinations.


----------



## elbows (Oct 6, 2022)

Well there is still data that will demonstrate the existence of this wave and generate headlines. And there is still other hospital data which will show the strain they are being placed under again.

But I dont think they liked the headlines about the percentage week on week growth in hospital-acquired infections, especially given the context of certain measures having been relaxed in hospitals in recent months, including the abandoning of routine asymptomatic testing. And so one number in particular has suddenly vanished from the scene.


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## elbows (Oct 6, 2022)

England daily hospital covid admissions/diagnoses. Data goes up to October 3rd.



England covid-positive patients in hospital beds. Split by the usual 'for covid' and 'with covid'. Data goes up to October 4th.



Made using data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


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## elbows (Oct 6, 2022)

Daily Covid admissions/diagnoses in England, by region, where the patient is listed as being admitted from a care home. I've never been sure how well this data does at actually capturing the full care home admissions picture so I only post it a few times a year, but here it is anyway. Data goes up to 3rd October and is from the same website as mentioned in previous post.



Daily Covid admissions/diagnoses per region of England and overall. Data goes up to October 3rd, same source.


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## Chilli.s (Oct 6, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> An attitude which stinks, but thankfully, we do have those vaccinations.


I have been unable to arrange them for myself, housebound mother and Alzheimer's dad to have at their house, the only viable option.


----------



## elbows (Oct 7, 2022)

I'll be watching to see if there is any ramping up of warnings in future beyond the sort of stuff being said right now. The following already marks an evolution of the message compared to what was being said for much of this year, with more emphasis being placed on avoiding the elderly if sick, presumably because the hospitalisation figures in these older age groups are already causing concern.



> Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency, said the latest increases were "concerning", and that cases and hospitalisation rates were at their "highest level in months".
> With outbreaks on the rise, she asked people to help protect the most vulnerable.
> 
> "If you are unwell, it is particularly important to avoid contact with elderly people or those who are more likely to have severe disease because of their ongoing health conditions.
> ...











						Covid: Protect elderly from rising virus levels in UK
					

With cases on the up, people who feel unwell are advised to avoid vulnerable relatives as a precaution.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 7, 2022)

Puddy_Tat said:


> on the covid track, i'm down to my last couple of LFT tests that came free - I tend only to do them before going to visit aged mum-tat which is tending to be about once a month at the moment.
> 
> realise i'm going to have to buy more - where's good / not a big rip-off?



I've still got tons, PM me and I'll send you a box.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 7, 2022)

Chilli.s said:


> I have been unable to arrange them for myself, housebound mother and Alzheimer's dad to have at their house, the only viable option.


Where are you? NHS does seem to help with them although I'm not sure whether it still holds: 






						Coronavirus » Making the universal offer of vaccination to JCVI cohorts 1-4 ahead of February 15, and additional funding for vaccination of housebound patients
					






					www.england.nhs.uk


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 7, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Where are you? NHS does seem to help with them although I'm not sure whether it still holds:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 they seem far more overwhelmed here compared to down south


----------



## StoneRoad (Oct 7, 2022)

Chilli.s said:


> Northumberland, they seem far more overwhelmed up here compared to down south



I think it varies a lot, depending on how good the local set-up is at coping with jag campaigns ...

I'm in SW Northumberland, but quite a rural area, about 20 miles from the local market town.
I think our local health centre was involved in some home visits, although I had most of my jags at the "Mart" in Hexham.
They were on the ball with the flu jags this year.


----------



## friedaweed (Oct 7, 2022)

SpookyFrank said:


> I've still got tons, PM me and I'll send you a box.


I can normally get my hands on some if anyone is stuck too.


----------



## Chilli.s (Oct 7, 2022)

StoneRoad said:


> I think it varies a lot, depending on how good the local set-up is at coping with jag campaigns ...
> 
> I'm in SW Northumberland, but quite a rural area, about 20 miles from the local market town.
> I think our local health centre was involved in some home visits, although I had most of my jags at the "Mart" in Hexham.
> They were on the ball with the flu jags this year.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2022)

One of the entirely unsurprising effects of the 'its all over' mood music is that its contributed to relatively poor uptake of the latest boosters, and so now there is enough concern that we can start to see some sporadic changes to the mood music. Perhaps these messages will start to become more continuous, I dont know yet.

So there was a piece on the main BBC news, albeit somewhat understated and with the sense of urgency not helped by the ONS portion of the segment continuing to be describe a picture that is rather behind the times with its descriptions of a new wave. Including the somewhat ludicrous idea that they dont want to clearly call it out as a major new wave until their survey shows a similar picture in other UK nations as seen in England. The hospital graph shown next in that segment showed a wave that is further along in its progress than the ONS described, but the BBC continue to take the edge off that by indulging in the usual narrative about what a large proportion of those patients arent being treated primarily for covid, and how not too many serious cases have been seen so far.

The Mirrors front page is much more dramatic:



Not that 'its all over' mood music and lack of prominent enough covid stories are the only cause of this. Some people who havent come forwards probably caught the virus this year and ended up being somewhat reassured by the experience, not that I would treat that as a reliable guide as to the severity of future infections if I were them. And some probably put too much weight in the whole 'Omicron is mild' thing in general. And some may have been let down by the system not being proactive enough or suffering from inconvenient logistics problems in making the vaccine available to them at the right time in the right place.

I expect the concerns of the establishment about this are well-founded and so there will be more noise about this in the coming weeks. Though it remains to be seen quite how big a problem it causes, due to all the other variables that will affect how bad this autumn and winters wave(s) get if they cant get vaccine uptake to a high level this time. Even if everything had been handled well on the communications front, its expected that uptake of vaccines in each subsequent campaign would not hit the levels seen for the first few doses, but so far the drop this time has been much too steep for comfort.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 8, 2022)

I wonder will Truss will be against recommending to people that they get the vaccine because it's nanny state and she's all for individual choice.


----------



## Thesaint (Oct 8, 2022)

Given the PMs workload right now, covid isn't on her immediate radar I doubt. Ukraine, nukes, gas prices, imminent recession, dropping pound, potential back bencher revolt etc. Equally other worries about everyday life will push covid to the back of the public's minds.

Although boosters are offered to over 50s, there are more 50 somethings than 90 somethings and a healthy 50 year old has little to fear from covid compare to an 90+ so the low uptake stats don't tell the whole story but do fit a trend since 2021.  Also many people at the start were effectively told it would it would stop them getting covid and have lost faith in the messaging and voting with their feet.


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## _Russ_ (Oct 8, 2022)

"Although boosters are offered to over 50s, there are more 50 somethings than 90 somethings and a healthy 50 year old has little to fear from covid compare to an 90+ so the low uptake stats don't tell the whole story"

OK, the start of that sentence is stating the bleeding obvious, but im struggling with  what actual point are you making?


----------



## CH1 (Oct 8, 2022)

I'm thinking of deferring my 2nd booster until HMG decide to regulate GB News and Mark Steyn








						GB News faces Ofcom investigation over host’s Covid booster claims
					

Mark Steyn’s misleading claim that jab was killing Britons was based on ‘inaccurate reading’ of report, says Full Fact




					www.theguardian.com
				




My best friend (sort of) went to the £15 million Ackerman Palace of Community Health in SW9 today for the injection and now claims he is too weak to get out of bed.
I think there's a lot of hysteria about this disease still. BTW the staff administering the injection actually told him he should take paracetamol and will be affected for 2 days.
He's 73 and was fit as a fiddle before the injection.
For my part I've got cold symptoms - sore throat, chest infection, yellow to brown phlegm etc. Been going on for a couple of days.
Not wishing to grace King's A &E I await developments - but I'm sure a Covid Booster won't help.

AND ANOTHER THING - this Brain Fog everyone had got.
It's depression isn't it?
Depression caused by financial worries, nuclear worries, inability to relate to people due to excessive posting online.
All sorts of things. I first BRAIN FOG in February 1973 when I was locked into a degree course at University and realised I was going to fail and I didn't know what the hell to do.

As it happened I did what many did at the time - furn on, tune in and drop out. Worked for me - but only until the next next crisis around 1981.
Go with the flow mates - even if it's a lateral flow. And yes I might need a free test, in case I'm refused admission to "Mary's House" next time I visit to see my friend with dementia.


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## elbows (Oct 8, 2022)

It is ignorant to attribute all reports of brain fog to a single cause. Some people get persistent brain fog as a result of long covid. Some people get brain fog for a while after covid infection but it gradually wears off. There are real physical reasons for this. Some people may get it as a result of depression too, but thats not the whole story.

As for hysteria, Im not sure thats a useful concept either. There are a range of reactions to this pandemic, some are proportionate and sometimes some are not. The large number of deaths were very real. The ongoing strain on the NHS is very real. The need for people to live relatively normal lives is very real. There are balances to be struck, and such balances vary over time and are related to individual circumstances and the bigger picture. Extremes are unwelcome but are appropriate under certain circumstances.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> Although boosters are offered to over 50s, there are more 50 somethings than 90 somethings and a healthy 50 year old has little to fear from covid compare to an 90+ so the low uptake stats don't tell the whole story but do fit a trend since 2021.  Also many people at the start were effectively told it would it would stop them getting covid and have lost faith in the messaging and voting with their feet.



Some more detailed breakdowns are available by age group from sources including the weekly covid reports at National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports: 2022 to 2023 season

Here are some examples of data from the most recent report. There are others in the report but posting every single chart and table would be a bit much.


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## Puddy_Tat (Oct 8, 2022)

I'm far from a covid denier, but think the mirror's line is slightly misleading - 50-64's haven't generally been offered the autumn 2022 booster yet...


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## CH1 (Oct 8, 2022)

elbows said:


> It is ignorant to attribute all reports of brain fog to a single cause. Some people get persistent brain fog as a result of long covid. Some people get brain fog for a while after covid infection but it gradually wears off. There are real physical reasons for this. Some people may get it as a result of depression too, but thats not the whole story.
> 
> As for hysteria, Im not sure thats a useful concept either. There are a range of reactions to this pandemic, some are proportionate and sometimes some are not. The large number of deaths were very real. The ongoing strain on the NHS is very real. The need for people to live relatively normal lives is very real. There are balances to be struck, and such balances vary over time and are related to individual circumstances and the bigger picture. Extremes are unwelcome but are appropriate under certain circumstances.


Well obviously I am ignorant. I am trying to project my own sense of extreme loss of control onto people saying they have brain fog. And I am not a doctor.

But its a bit like ME, which is not so prevalent now as it once was. Various people (as reported in the press, and one I new personally) were pretty pissed off to have their ME treated with anti depressants - they had a wonderful new diagnosis, a glorious creation once pejoratively called "Yuppy Flu". And they needed it to be untreatable, or at the very least treated by some special means, not generally available to the population at large.

I think its a bit much to predicate a situation where a virus causes brain fog IN SOME PEOPLE, but not generally. Its actually a self-defining illness that cannot be defined.


----------



## elbows (Oct 8, 2022)

Thats a narrow and inappropriate take on ME too.


----------



## Kevbad the Bad (Oct 8, 2022)

CH1 said:


> Well obviously I am ignorant. I am trying to project my own sense of extreme loss of control onto people saying they have brain fog. And I am not a doctor.
> 
> But its a bit like ME, which is not so prevalent now as it once was. Various people (as reported in the press, and one I new personally) were pretty pissed off to have their ME treated with anti depressants - they had a wonderful new diagnosis, a glorious creation once pejoratively called "Yuppy Flu". And they needed it to be untreatable, or at the very least treated by some special means, not generally available to the population at large.
> 
> I think its a bit much to predicate a situation where a virus causes brain fog IN SOME PEOPLE, but not generally. Its actually a self-defining illness that cannot be defined.


Do you seriously think that a virus will have identical effects on everybody? If it is attacking the immune system, for instance, the people will have inevitable genetic variability, different immune systems because of different histories of infection, different uptake of different vaccines, different life histories and nutritional histories etc. Why expect similarity? As for yuppie flu, you sound like the Daily Mail.


----------



## BristolEcho (Oct 8, 2022)

CH1 said:


> Well obviously I am ignorant. I am trying to project my own sense of extreme loss of control onto people saying they have brain fog. And I am not a doctor.
> 
> But its a bit like ME, which is not so prevalent now as it once was. Various people (as reported in the press, and one I new personally) were pretty pissed off to have their ME treated with anti depressants - they had a wonderful new diagnosis, a glorious creation once pejoratively called "Yuppy Flu". And they needed it to be untreatable, or at the very least treated by some special means, not generally available to the population at large.
> 
> I think its a bit much to predicate a situation where a virus causes brain fog IN SOME PEOPLE, but not generally. Its actually a self-defining illness that cannot be defined.


My partner has ME. ME is just as prevalent, and yes a lot of people's long covid will may be ME. The research is still ongoing.  Are you trying to say that people with ME don't want treatment?


----------



## CH1 (Oct 8, 2022)

BristolEcho said:


> My partner has ME. ME is just as prevalent, and yes a lot of people's long covid will may be ME. The research is still ongoing.  Are you trying to say that people with ME don't want treatment?


I'm trying to say that they want special treatment - that is not the treatment given to people with depression.


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## BristolEcho (Oct 8, 2022)

CH1 said:


> I'm trying to say that they want special treatment - that is not the treatment given to people with depression.


No they don't. They want a treatment that actually helps their condition. Anti-depressants don't work for ME. They can help someone with depression and who also has ME, but it doesn't help with the ME itself.

It's a condition that has been completely mishandled, under researched and this is very likely because it largely affects women. The "treatments" that had been pushed included Graded Excerise which made people worse and CBT which again wasn't effective. These have now both been withdrawn from NICE guidelines.

Two years ago this condition turned out world upside down. We have been lucky with the support of our local service. Do we want "special" treatment? Not really, but I dream of them finding some sort of cure and it would be amazing if there was some form of treatment they could provide. How very demanding of us.


----------



## B.I.G (Oct 8, 2022)

CH1 said:


> Well obviously I am ignorant. I am trying to project my own sense of extreme loss of control onto people saying they have brain fog. And I am not a doctor.
> 
> But its a bit like ME, which is not so prevalent now as it once was. Various people (as reported in the press, and one I new personally) were pretty pissed off to have their ME treated with anti depressants - they had a wonderful new diagnosis, a glorious creation once pejoratively called "Yuppy Flu". And they needed it to be untreatable, or at the very least treated by some special means, not generally available to the population at large.
> 
> I think its a bit much to predicate a situation where a virus causes brain fog IN SOME PEOPLE, but not generally. Its actually a self-defining illness that cannot be defined.



Ignorant old man.


----------



## muscovyduck (Oct 8, 2022)

CH1 said:


> Well obviously I am ignorant. I am trying to project my own sense of extreme loss of control onto people saying they have brain fog. And I am not a doctor.
> 
> But its a bit like ME, which is not so prevalent now as it once was. Various people (as reported in the press, and one I new personally) were pretty pissed off to have their ME treated with anti depressants - they had a wonderful new diagnosis, a glorious creation once pejoratively called "Yuppy Flu". And they needed it to be untreatable, or at the very least treated by some special means, not generally available to the population at large.
> 
> I think its a bit much to predicate a situation where a virus causes brain fog IN SOME PEOPLE, but not generally. Its actually a self-defining illness that cannot be defined.


Jesus fucking Christ


----------



## Puddy_Tat (Oct 8, 2022)

CH1 said:


> I'm trying to say that they want special treatment - that is not the treatment given to people with depression.





if i had something that wasn't depression, i wouldn't think it was 'special treatment' to be given something for what i had, rather than anti-depressants...


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## CH1 (Oct 8, 2022)

BristolEcho said:


> No they don't. They want a treatment that actually helps their condition. Anti-depressants don't work for ME. They can help someone with depression and who also has ME, but it doesn't help with the ME itself.
> 
> It's a condition that has been completely mishandled, under researched and this is very likely because it largely affects women. The "treatments" that had been pushed included Graded Excerise which made people worse and CBT which again wasn't effective. These have now both been withdrawn from NICE guidelines.
> 
> Two years ago this condition turned out world upside down. We have been lucky with the support of our local service. Do we want "special" treatment? Not really, but I dream of them finding some sort of cure and it would be amazing if there was some form of treatment they could provide. How very demanding of us.


Glad you are getting the support you need.
Most of my life I have had little support from the NHS - although from 1993 to about 2013 saw this chap "off the books" He is a bloody saint (and now retired from the NHS). I never understood why he continued "support" for years after the SLAM revolving door slammed shut after 2 years. My GPs simply assumed I was deluded - they had their computer print-out "finishing" me in 2002.


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## CH1 (Oct 8, 2022)

B.I.G said:


> Ignorant old man.


You will be one soon!


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## B.I.G (Oct 8, 2022)

CH1 said:


> You will be one soon!



I’m old now. Sad to say I’m not going around yet claiming people like to pretend to have illnesses. Will probably die before I do.


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## CH1 (Oct 9, 2022)

B.I.G said:


> I’m old now. Sad to say I’m not going around yet claiming people like to pretend to have illnesses. Will probably die before I do.


The doyen of depression Dorothy Rowe on the perils of getting a mental health label - which argues for the majority view here in one way - she says that depression is over used as a label, many are unhappy)
So don't take up your bed and walk!


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## Thesaint (Oct 9, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> "Although boosters are offered to over 50s, there are more 50 somethings than 90 somethings and a healthy 50 year old has little to fear from covid compare to an 90+ so the low uptake stats don't tell the whole story"
> 
> OK, the start of that sentence is stating the bleeding obvious, but im struggling with  what actual point are you making?


Just a arithmetic quirk: If 50s all if ignore the booster, but all 90s take it up the demographic imbalance means only a small fraction offered take it up, but the important target group did get good take up so shouldn't concern anyone.  Equally someone mentioned many 50s won't have offered it at this point anyway and it's poor journalism.


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 9, 2022)

CH1 said:


> Well obviously I am ignorant. I am trying to project my own sense of extreme loss of control onto people saying they have brain fog. And I am not a doctor.
> 
> But its a bit like ME, which is not so prevalent now as it once was. Various people (as reported in the press, and one I new personally) were pretty pissed off to have their ME treated with anti depressants - they had a wonderful new diagnosis, a glorious creation once pejoratively called "Yuppy Flu". And they needed it to be untreatable, or at the very least treated by some special means, not generally available to the population at large.
> 
> I think its a bit much to predicate a situation where a virus causes brain fog IN SOME PEOPLE, but not generally. Its actually a self-defining illness that cannot be defined.


This is laughably ignorant, not just about ME, or post-viral conditions, or disease in general, but also about the history of people trying to find solutions to ME/CFS, and the extraordinary, unbelievable amounts of effort people suffering from it have put into to trying to find cures or at least ameliorative treatments in the absence of support from the medical establishment. Best just not to talk about things you don't know anything about really. It's easy. Just say nothing and people will think better of you.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 9, 2022)

CH1 said:


> I'm trying to say that they want special treatment - that is not the treatment given to people with depression.



Well if you're not going to accept chemotherapy for your broken leg I just don't think there's anything we can do for you.


----------



## CH1 (Oct 9, 2022)

Why not go the whole hog and argue for ME/CFS being a viral disease allied to Covid?


----------



## SpookyFrank (Oct 9, 2022)

CH1 said:


> Why not go the whole hog and argue for ME/CFS being a viral disease allied to Covid?



Because ME predates covid? 

Post-viral is probably more accurate anyway. In which case it's entirely possible to get simillar symptoms from different viruses, because the common factor is the immune response not the virus itself.

We have no problems accepting that symptoms like pneumonia, fever, coughing etc can be caused by all sorts of unrelated viruses. Dunno why it's so absurd to think of chronic fatigue in the same way.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 9, 2022)

Presumably long covid doesn't exist either and they're just attention seekers


----------



## teqniq (Oct 9, 2022)

I know personally at least one person with long Covid. Big guy fit and healthy before. Now he's got no energy and gets exhausted going any further than a short walk so anyone dismissing it is frankly talking bollox.


----------



## _Russ_ (Oct 9, 2022)

Well depression and ME do share some symptoms, to what extent misdiagnosis of either is happening I have no clue, but in these days of difficult access to GPs and the use of Phone assessments Ill bet its a rising number


----------



## Brainaddict (Oct 9, 2022)

CH1 said:


> Why not go the whole hog and argue for ME/CFS being a viral disease allied to Covid?


It's likely that a high percentage of ME/CFS cases result from viruses*. Many people know they had a virus and didn't recover. Others may not have noticed because it was a simple 'cold' or something that they barely noticed. Covid is another virus that causes serious post-viral disability in many people, yes.  Other viruses thought to cause it include influenza, Epstein-barr, SARS1 and ebola. Medical science after years of being baffled by MS recently converged on the idea that that too is a post-viral condition from the Epstein-Barr virus. I say this for the benefit of other people really, as you seem to enjoy your ignorance. Here's a good summary article on ME/CFS and long covid.

*I wouldn't say all, there are known cases of people recovering from CFS when some previously unnoticed malady got found and cured.


----------



## Sasaferrato (Oct 9, 2022)

BristolEcho said:


> No they don't. They want a treatment that actually helps their condition. Anti-depressants don't work for ME. They can help someone with depression and who also has ME, but it doesn't help with the ME itself.
> 
> It's a condition that has been completely mishandled, under researched and this is very likely because it largely affects women. The "treatments" that had been pushed included Graded Excerise which made people worse and CBT which again wasn't effective. These have now both been withdrawn from NICE guidelines.
> 
> Two years ago this condition turned out world upside down. We have been lucky with the support of our local service. Do we want "special" treatment? Not really, but I dream of them finding some sort of cure and it would be amazing if there was some form of treatment they could provide. How very demanding of us.



It seems that other than deciding that ME is actually a real illness, there hasn't been a huge amount of progress with regard to either treatment or determining a cause.


----------



## wtfftw (Oct 9, 2022)

Are we really fucking debating ME again? jesus fucking christ. Thanks to those with more patience who reply properly but fucking fuck off. frankly.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> Just a arithmetic quirk: If 50s all if ignore the booster, but all 90s take it up the demographic imbalance means only a small fraction offered take it up, but the important target group did get good take up so shouldn't concern anyone.  Equally someone mentioned many 50s won't have offered it at this point anyway and it's poor journalism.



Regardless of any dodgy angles in the Mirrors reporting, the fact is that the authorities are concerned about uptake and have been saying stuff about this in recent days. Some of that stuff is quoted by the Mirror and others.

Here is something from NHS England itself. Its a mix of declaring how pleased they are to have delivered over 5 million jabs this campaign already, with pleas for eligible people to come forwards. The 50-64 age group without medical conditions that increase their vulnerability are not skewing their thinking on this, its uptake in the higher priority groups they are concerned about right now, especially given the indicators of a wave already being well underway, and its associated impact on hospitalisations.






						NHS England » NHS urges six million people to get their Covid autumn booster
					






					www.england.nhs.uk
				




Including:



> NHS director of vaccinations and screening, Steve Russell, said:
> 
> “While we have already delivered over five million autumn boosters – which is fantastic progress and testament to the hard work of NHS staff and volunteers – there are millions more eligible for the life-saving dose still to come forward. This weekend we are urging all those eligible to get their Covid-19 autumn booster to maximise their protection against the virus, as soon as possible.
> 
> “NHS staff continue to pull out all the stops to make sure that happens with thousands of vaccine sites open across the country, I cannot emphasise enough the importance of getting your booster dose as soon you are invited – it is best protection for you, your family and your community this winter.”





> NHS medical director, Professor Sir Stephen Powis, said:
> 
> “The threat of a Covid-19 and flu season creating a “twindemic” this winter is real, as infections levels continue to rise and the number of people in hospital with covid climbing by more than a third in just over a month across England.
> 
> ...





> People currently eligible for an autumn booster include those aged 65 and over, pregnant women and frontline health and care workers.
> 
> Almost one in three people with suppressed immune systems have had an autumn booster with the remaining urged to come forward as soon as possible if it has been 91 days since their last dose.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2022)

Also i addition to the data I posted the other day, the official dashboard has a graph showing percentage of autumn boosters given in the age groups of 65 and above for England. Hovering over the graph currently shows these numbers:



From the 3rd chart at https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations?areaType=nation&areaName=England


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## Thesaint (Oct 9, 2022)

elbows said:


> Also i addition to the data I posted the other day, the official dashboard has a graph showing percentage of autumn boosters given in the age groups of 65 and above for England. Hovering over the graph currently shows these numbers:
> 
> View attachment 346474
> 
> From the 3rd chart at https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations?areaType=nation&areaN


It looks like people aren't so interested in the vaccines when left to their own devices especially as you go younger and it's not like people don't know they exist.

My suspicion based on anecdotal conversations is people have lost faith somewhat as they get minor side effects and then get covid anyway and this can't be discounted and this maybe a reaction to the vaccines being oversold early on.

In any case as I often mention there's too much other stuff going on right now news wise anyway.


----------



## muscovyduck (Oct 9, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> It looks like people aren't so interested in the vaccines when left to their own devices especially as you go younger and it's not like people don't know they exist.
> 
> My suspicion based on anecdotal conversations is people have lost faith somewhat as they get minor side effects and then get covid anyway and this can't be discounted and this maybe a reaction to the vaccines being oversold early on.
> 
> In any case as I often mention there's too much other stuff going on right now news wise anyway.


I think with younger generations, a lot of us have never really experienced a functioning NHS and only ever experienced something that functions a bit like trying to get benefits out the DWP. Trying to get a vaccine in that context is a lot more stressful and potentially even triggering of ongoing medical anxiety. Following the metaphor trying to book a vaccine feels a bit like trying to claim JSA to cover a week out of work between jobs or something, you know you should do it but you don't


----------



## two sheds (Oct 9, 2022)

I wonder how many people who've not taken it have been influenced by the anti-vaxxers, false claims of vaccine death rates, and how the vaccine doesn't work. because people get (a mild version of) it anyway.


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## CH1 (Oct 9, 2022)

two sheds said:


> I wonder how many people who've not taken it have been influenced by the anti-vaxxers, false claims of vaccine death rates, and how the vaccine doesn't work. because people get (a mild version of) it anyway.


I know an osteopath who is a GB News and Daily Mail addict. I haven't kept up, but he seems to get really intense about wanting to dictate which brand of booster he is given. But he says Mark Steyn is the only one investigating all these vaccine related deaths. (I posted a Guardian article about this up-thread).
I think he took his 4th jab - I will ask him.


----------



## Thesaint (Oct 9, 2022)

two sheds said:


> I wonder how many people who've not taken it have been influenced by the anti-vaxxers, false claims of vaccine death rates, and how the vaccine doesn't work. because people get (a mild version of) it anyway.


I'm going to guess not many. Most people get their news from BBC Facebook etc so only experience their controlled content.
To find any unofficial view on vaccines takes a concerted effort to bypass the usual channels and the older age groups simply aren't going to do that.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 9, 2022)

I wasn't meaning just older groups, and anti-vaxxers seems to be all over fucking social media don't they. Also places like Next Door where older people are on, and you'd think any of their kids who've been turned would be pretty vocal.


----------



## Thesaint (Oct 9, 2022)

two sheds said:


> I wasn't meaning just older groups, and anti-vaxxers seems to be all over fucking social media don't they. Also places like Next Door where older people are on, and you'd think any of their kids who've been turned would be pretty vocal.


What's your definition of an anti vaxxers though? At one end is people who are sure it's got Gates's nano-bots in it, through those just disinterested, to people who had bad experiences of it.


----------



## two sheds (Oct 9, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> What's your definition of an anti vaxxers though? At one end is people who are sure it's got Gates's nano-bots in it, through those just disinterested, to people who had bad experiences of it.


category A.


----------



## elbows (Oct 9, 2022)

CH1 said:


> I know an osteopath who is a GB News and Daily Mail addict. I haven't kept up, but he seems to get really intense about wanting to dictate which brand of booster he is given. But he says Mark Steyn is the only one investigating all these vaccine related deaths. (I posted a Guardian article about this up-thread).
> I think he took his 4th jab - I will ask him.



That Guardian article doesnt get into proper detail about the claims and exactly what sort of misreading the data was involved. The following article does a much better job of that:









						GB News presenter wrong about booster vaccine deaths - Full Fact
					

Mark Steyn claimed during his programme that booster vaccines were ineffective and wrongly suggested they increased the chance of hospitalisation and death.




					fullfact.org
				




I used to look at those official reports and the data in them all the time, until they stopped publishing that particular data. I used to post them here from time to time as part of my efforts to demonstrate that people were getting the wrong end of the stick if they thought that most people in hospital with covid had not been vaccinated at all. Because what the data showed was that vaccines will not save everyone from hospitalisation or death, a reality that is not divorced from official claims because official claims never involved the idea that vaccines are 100% effective.

Also note that this question of some people who have been vaccinated still being hospitalised or dying from Covid is separate from the issue of any deaths directly caused by the vaccine, such as deaths from vaccine side-effects, eg the people who had blood clots as a result of an issue with the Oxford AstraZenica vaccine.

As for being insistent about which brand of booster someone receives, I'm not aware of any strong data that should lead to that preference. Maybe there is some but I havent seen it, so I'd like to hear about his rationale in that regard. I was certainly pleased that people were offered Pfizer or Moderna for their first booster and subsequent ones, because some of the data did imply that Pfizer and Moderna were a bit better, and people who had received Oxford for their first 2 doses were getting a nice increase in protection by being offered one of the mRNA ones as their first booster. But that picture is quite old now, Oxford AstraZenica hasnt been part of the UK vaccine picture for ages now, except perhaps for any people for whom mRNA vaccine ingredients are contraindicated.


----------



## Thesaint (Oct 10, 2022)

elbows said:


> That Guardian article doesnt get into proper detail about the claims and exactly what sort of misreading the data was involved. The following article does a much better job of that:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Do you remember the weekly vaccine surveillance reports?  I don't think they are published any more but they did chart how various number of doses performed against infection or deaths. 

From memory with both delta and omicron variants the vaccine were shown to wane to the point the most vaccinated had higher infection numbers and this might be the data backing up Stynes point maybe.  No one really knows how many unvaccinated there are forming the 'control group' as that relies on population estimates which are contraversial.

Either way back in 2020 and 2021 policy makers were making excessive claims for these vaccines capabilities, so it's unfair to criticise one broadcaster and ignore the policy makers claims.


----------



## CH1 (Oct 10, 2022)

elbows said:


> That Guardian article doesnt get into proper detail about the claims and exactly what sort of misreading the data was involved. The following article does a much better job of that:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think the GB News approach is typically as per John Cleese this morning on Radio 4 - "Oh well, it's a free speech station" "You mean it's OK to put forward mis-information" "Well yes, provided you get to debate it"

Essentially if it generates publicity (for GB News) the truth is immaterial.
For anybody interested John Cleese said his trajectory had been from the Labour Party till the Limehouse declaration when he supported the old SDP (Shirley Williams & the gang of 4), then Paddy Ashdown and the Lib Dems. He is currently flirting with the new SDP - effectively a splinter group of UKIP.
Amol Rajan obviously did not have time to delve into Brexit politics (Cleese thought Brexit was a disaster apparently, yet the NEW SDP is a Brexit party). The issue was Cleese making a come-back in a GB News show (if he is still alive by January).


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> Do you remember the weekly vaccine surveillance reports?  I don't think they are published any more but they did chart how various number of doses performed against infection or deaths.
> 
> From memory with both delta and omicron variants the vaccine were shown to wane to the point the most vaccinated had higher infection numbers and this might be the data backing up Stynes point maybe.  No one really knows how many unvaccinated there are forming the 'control group' as that relies on population estimates which are contraversial.
> 
> Either way back in 2020 and 2021 policy makers were making excessive claims for these vaccines capabilities, so it's unfair to criticise one broadcaster and ignore the policy makers claims.



I already said that I looked at those reports all the time, that I used to comment on that data, and I already linked to an article that explains why Steyns interpretation was flawed.

The vaccine surveillance reports still exist. They arent as frequently published these days, and the form of data which showed raw numbers of hospitalised people by age group and vaccination status hasnt peen published for ages, if thats the data you are referring to. But various attempts to estimate how effective different doses of different vaccines are at reducing the risk of infection, hospitalisation and death are very much still a part of the reports, including attempts to see how much waning of protection there is in between doses.

In the past there were occasions where I complained about certain politicians perhaps over-egging certain specific things in regards vaccines at particular moments in time, and I have always been unhappy with our pandemic response placing quite so much weight on vaccines alone instead of retaining other measures too. However vaccines are still an incredibly useful tool that has been a huge difference-maker in this pandemic. And I do not think there is anything wrong at all with articles that criticise disgusting, distorting anti-vax shithead scumbags and their misreading of data - those articles can be entirely valid in their own right, they can zoom in on particular claims and the shitheads who make them without at the same time needing to mention whatever 'policy maker claims' you've apparently got some beef with.


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2022)

elbows said:


> They arent as frequently published these days, and the form of data which showed raw numbers of hospitalised people by age group and vaccination status hasnt peen published for ages, if thats the data you are referring to.



Actually I misspoke about that. Originally there were various raw numbers of hospitalisations and deaths included as part of the report, and they did indeed stop publishing those at some point, which I commented on at the time. That was really quite a long time ago now though I forget when exactly (sometime in 2021?). However they have since reintroduced hospitalisation data (but not deaths) gleaned via the SARI-watch surveillance system, and so there is data about this for 2022 hospital admissions by vaccination status in the current report. They also use that data to try to estimate hospitalisation rates per 100,000 people in different age groups and also grouped by the various lengths of time since they were last vaccinated.

I havent spoken much about that newer form of data because its a bit of a bloody nightmare to try to interpret it properly. Because there are now so many caveats and variables given the number of different boosters and timing of them that people have had or not had. eg there are potential phenomenon such as 'people more theoretically vulnerable to hospitalisation from covid in the first place were also more likely to be in a group that got a more recent booster by virtue of their vulnerability', which could skew numbers and result in data that anti-vax idiots might try to misuse by ignoring such caveats.

Other data thats always been in the reports, such as vaccine effectiveness estimates, are also harder to present in simple form these days due to the increasingly convoluted history of number of boosters, periods of waning, covid variants etc. And a lot of the estimates take a long time to firm up, or never really get past 'low confidence' quality. This makes me wary of trying to pluck a few of the most 'important and timely/relevant to the current situation' numbers out of these reports in order to illustrate the importance of boosters or to attempt to provide a sense of the limitations of vaccines ability to ward off the most severe consequences of the current variants. I dont think I can fairly present a few numbers that do the subject justice, but when taken as a whole I can very much see why authorities feel the need to do booster campaigns and will worry a lot if uptake is too low - the pandemic remains a numbers game with evolving parameters and certain combinations present a threat to our systems ability to cope.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Oct 10, 2022)

did I spot a base rate fallacy claim 4 posts above?


----------



## Thesaint (Oct 10, 2022)

elbows said:


> Actually I misspoke about that. Originally there were various raw numbers of hospitalisations and deaths included as part of the report, and they did indeed stop publishing those at some point, which I commented on at the time. That was really quite a long time ago now though I forget when exactly (sometime in 2021?). However they have since reintroduced hospitalisation data (but not deaths) gleaned via the SARI-watch surveillance system, and so there is data about this for 2022 hospital admissions by vaccination status in the current report. They also use that data to try to estimate hospitalisation rates per 100,000 people in different age groups and also grouped by the various lengths of time since they were last vaccinated.
> 
> I havent spoken much about that newer form of data because its a bit of a bloody nightmare to try to interpret it properly. Because there are now so many caveats and variables given the number of different boosters and timing of them that people have had or not had. eg there are potential phenomenon such as 'people more theoretically vulnerable to hospitalisation from covid in the first place were also more likely to be in a group that got a more recent booster by virtue of their vulnerability', which could skew numbers and result in data that anti-vax idiots might try to misuse by ignoring such caveats.
> 
> Other data thats always been in the reports, such as vaccine effectiveness estimates, are also harder to present in simple form these days due to the increasingly convoluted history of number of boosters, periods of waning, covid variants etc. And a lot of the estimates take a long time to firm up, or never really get past 'low confidence' quality. This makes me wary of trying to pluck a few of the most 'important and timely/relevant to the current situation' numbers out of these reports in order to illustrate the importance of boosters or to attempt to provide a sense of the limitations of vaccines ability to ward off the most severe consequences of the current variants. I dont think I can fairly present a few numbers that do the subject justice, but when taken as a whole I can very much see why authorities feel the need to do booster campaigns and will worry a lot if uptake is too low - the pandemic remains a numbers game with evolving parameters and certain combinations present a threat to our systems ability to cope.


Indeed making sense of any data is getting so difficult given all the combinations of age, vaccines and prior infections contribution to immunity and all sorts of people have cherry picked data or quoted modelling predictions which aren't data anyway for example.  It's risky to bury heads in numbers like that for risk of seeing a wider picture.

Loads of vulnerable folk filling up ICUs is the only one worth looking at now and I don't remember it being a big issue the last wave in the summer hence why the issue is down-rated compared to all the others - collapsing house prices is today's economic panic it seems.  If this wave is linked to schools returning, Scotland's data might give a clue to the future as their return to school was earlier.

The pandemic is now moved into endemic so what can and should be done changes relatively.


----------



## elbows (Oct 10, 2022)

There is no simple, clear definition of what will count as it having moved to an endemic. Well there are various definitions, but when it comes to applying it to this particular disease, the stakes involved mean they will still vary depending on the politics of different countries governments, and individual attitudes, including varying attitudes amongst experts. 

And the goalposts have been moved on this over time. For example in 2021 there were some experts who the media quoted who were keen to promote the idea that some kind of 'endemic equilibrium' was close, and that when this stage was upon us we would not see really pronounced waves so often, that such waves would become seasonal and/or infrequent. It hasnt worked out like that at all so far, and so that particular narrative was dropped, and there wasnt really an adequate conversation about what was happening instead. In the UK there is some relationship between 'learning to live with covid' attitudes of the authorities and endemicity, but not really a clear and uncontroversial one.

In the absence of that relatively clearcut endemic picture, there are other concepts which will be used to declare that covid is in an endemic phase. These tend to focus on the concept of how much disruption the virus is causing to peoples lives, and to healthcare systems, and what kind of measures authorities feel the need to go for in response. With the first Omicron wave the authorities went for a sped up booster campaign and some mood music that urged caution. With subsequent Omicron waves so far, the messages became quieter and so we can certainly see that as time has gone on, the response has become weaker without systems totally breaking as a result. There has still been disruption to some peoples lives, and the pressure on healthcare systems has not reduced to the stage where I have become significantly more relaxed about the impact of Covid. This autumn and winter will be another opportunity to see how things are going. Peoples attitudes towards the virus over this time period will end up being less about terminology like pandemic or endemic, and more about whether the strain on hospitals causes a load of unpleasant headlines and very real concerns.

The UK raced ahead at maximum speed once the vaccine era was fully upon us. A lot of other countries did a similar sort of thing but were sometimes a bit more cautious with the language and in how far they dropped some of the other measures. Clearly we have gone beyond lockdowns etc for a prolonged period now, but there are plenty of other measures that are nowhere near as heavy as lockdowns that are sometimes still on the table in some countries, albeit in a toned down way due to priorities such as getting the economy back to normal. In the USA at the moment they are into a period where the rhetoric is shifting, and they are trying to move beyond the stage where certain emergency legislation remains on the books, but they arent quite there yet. They've set the scene for this but they seem a little hesitant to go the full distance just yet. Likewise the WHO has started to shift its language and to introduce the concept of the pandemic being over as looming on the horizon, but they arent quite there yet either.

If we can get through autumn and winter waves without a really bad degradation in the ability of the NHS to provide other services, then I will finally be able to move my own levels of concern down a notch. But to be able to move them down another notch still further beyond that, to the rather relaxed level that some people currently enjoy, we'll also need to get to a stage where the size, frequency and impact of waves decreases to the extent that the NHS can actually start to recover more substantially, can actually start to notably reduce the backlog that built up during the most acute phases of the pandemic. Because if this is not achieved then I dont really see how we'll avoid some future breaking point, the prospect of which is incompatible with a relaxed attitude.

As far as typical attitudes on this forum go, we're coming up to about 9-10 months since my own stance became more obviously at odds with a far greater number of people than previously seen in terms of the extent to which people could allow themselves to think'its all over' or 'the acute bit is nearly all over', and to stop paying so much attention to this subforum. I have no regrets, and over the next 3 or 4 months I'll discover more about the extent to which I'll have to shift my stance, or not. The intensive care picture over that period has certainly been notably different to the earlier phases, but I still need a bit longer to make sure that picture holds true and that the other hospital pressures arent going to break things in a really notable, ugly way. I would certainly have been able to move further in 2022 if the grinding pressure on hospitals had not involved as many waves as turned out to be the case. If we are going to have 3 or 4 large waves of covid every year then the 'learning to live with covid' agenda really needs to become more sophisticated and nuanced, but sensible discussion about that is hard to come by and we've seen more polarisation into 2 or 3 camps instead.


----------



## elbows (Oct 11, 2022)




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## elbows (Oct 11, 2022)

There is currently no prospect of me becoming more relaxed about the situation.


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## CH1 (Oct 12, 2022)

My second invitation for a "seasonal covid-19 vaccination" - this time in larger print - on the doormat just now.
ACTUALLY NHS I'M DEAF and currently waiting 5 months to get the results of a CT scan on the bones of my middle ears which was done in July. 5 months delay due to covid-19. Allegedly.
Or was it because the minister of health wants everyone to go private?
When will the NHS give me the treatment I want, rather than the treatment IT wants?


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## B.I.G (Oct 12, 2022)

CH1 said:


> My second invitation for a "seasonal covid-19 vaccination" - this time in larger print - on the doormat just now.
> ACTUALLY NHS I'M DEAF and currently waiting 5 months to get the results of a CT scan on the bones of my middle ears which was done in July. 5 months delay due to covid-19. Allegedly.
> Or was it because the minister of health wants everyone to go private?
> When will the NHS give me the treatment I want, rather than the treatment IT wants?



Or maybe one thing does not equate to the other. You are the worst!


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## Thesaint (Oct 12, 2022)

CH1 said:


> My second invitation for a "seasonal covid-19 vaccination" - this time in larger print - on the doormat just now.


Is it going to be like tv licensing letters where they get more persistent and alarming if you don't attend? 😳

Assuming the excess death phenomenon seen in many countries is a sign of disrupted health care, it may not be a NHS or UK specific issue. Not sure that will make you feel any better though, other than many others might be in the same boat😒.  We are still awaiting results of a simple allergy test from what seems like ages ago🙄


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## elbows (Oct 12, 2022)

The excess deaths are likely to be some mix of acute covid deaths, deaths related to the additional risk of severe illness that appears to exist for quite some time after a covid infection, disruption to healthcare and social care, and other factors. Examples of other factors would be the flu seen during Australias winter, a brief but pronounced UK death spike during the record temperatures on a few days this summer, and any longer-term rise in the base rate of deaths due to austerity etc (which appears to have reversed the previously seen long trend of gradual reduction in deaths).


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## teuchter (Oct 12, 2022)

CH1 said:


> My second invitation for a "seasonal covid-19 vaccination" - this time in larger print - on the doormat just now.
> ACTUALLY NHS I'M DEAF and currently waiting 5 months to get the results of a CT scan on the bones of my middle ears which was done in July. 5 months delay due to covid-19. Allegedly.
> Or was it because the minister of health wants everyone to go private?
> When will the NHS give me the treatment I want, rather than the treatment IT wants?


If you get Covid and end up in hospital for it (or with it) you put further pressure on the NHS that means that all these other treatments are delayed even further.


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## Thesaint (Oct 12, 2022)

teuchter said:


> If you get Covid and end up in hospital for it (or with it) you put further pressure on the NHS that means that all these other treatments are delayed even further.


People just get it anyway 😔  

It's not really a a solution on my part, but accepting we have no sustainable tools to stop it isn't going to win any post popularity contests, but is where we ultimately are. It's a tough place to be agreed.


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## xenon (Oct 12, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> People just get it anyway 😔
> 
> It's not really a a solution on my part, but accepting we have no sustainable tools to stop it isn't going to win any post popularity contests, but is where we ultimately are. It's a tough place to be agreed.



I can’t believe   This still needs explaining. The vaccines make it less likely you will be hospitalised if you do contract coronavirus.

Unless you’ve had a bad time with the vaccine shots before, may as well get the booster if offered it, IMO


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## existentialist (Oct 12, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> People just get it anyway 😔
> 
> It's not really a a solution on my part, but accepting we have no sustainable tools to stop it isn't going to win any post popularity contests, but is where we ultimately are. It's a tough place to be agreed.


Except we do.

Mask-wearing reduces transmission - that's incontrovertible, notwithstanding the nonsense anti-vax loons insist on peddling.

Not only that, but since they reduce the viral load, even someone who is infected while wearing a mask is potentially going to experience a milder episode.

And vaccines, while not eliminating infection, can have a profound effect - as xenon points out - on the severity of the infection, resulting in the very significant reductions in hospitalisation we saw following the rollout of the first vaccines.

I really don't understand why you are so insistent on doing the Covid denialists' job for them.


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## Pickman's model (Oct 12, 2022)

existentialist said:


> Except we do.
> 
> Mask-wearing reduces transmission - that's incontrovertible, notwithstanding the nonsense anti-vax loons insist on peddling.
> 
> ...


if he is going to do the covid denialists' job he ought to at least ask for the same wages as all the other denialists are getting


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## two sheds (Oct 13, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> People just get it anyway 😔
> 
> It's not really a a solution on my part, but accepting we have no sustainable tools to stop it isn't going to win any post popularity contests, but is where we ultimately are. It's a tough place to be agreed.


Did you initially support herd immunity and if so do you feel vindicated now?


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## elbows (Oct 13, 2022)

There are signs in NHS England and ZOE data that some sort of peak or plateau has happened with the current wave in England. With some regional variations and uncertainties.

It isnt clear to me that any new Omicron variants have actually driven this wave significantly, so I suppose it is tempting to think of this wave as the inevitable 'back to school/changing of the seasons/waning immunity' type of thing. But I dont know if that is actually a really fair description of this wave or not, nor do I know whether new variants are poised to create a more complicated picture very soon, or only quite a bit later, or not at all. eg I dont know if we are going to face a 'wave on top of a smaller wave or on top of a plateau' thing like we have sometimes seen in the past, or whether the current wave will neatly fall back to much lower levels, etc. And unlike occasions a year+ ago, there isnt as much commentary from others to help guide my own sense of where we are at.


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## Thesaint (Oct 13, 2022)

I know covid denial is an easy label to use, but I'm just realistic and pragmatic about the situation.
That said one thing never tried here was something India I believed tried which as soon as getting a positive test result a kit of self administered pills would be delivered with a view to aid recovery at home. It maybe an option to avoid infected people coming to hospital. 
The idea has never been mentioned here as far I know.


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## existentialist (Oct 13, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> I know covid denial is an easy label to use, but I'm just realistic and pragmatic about the situation.
> That said one thing never tried here was something India I believed tried which as soon as getting a positive test result a kit of self administered pills would be delivered with a view to aid recovery at home. It maybe an option to avoid infected people coming to hospital.
> The idea has never been mentioned here as far I know.


You don't come across as "realistic". It seems to me that you only favour any argument against vaccination, which is at the least somewhat intellectually dishonest.

Why not cite a link for this India story, then there might be an option to have a fact-based discussion around it? Otherwise, it seems to me you're just spreading a bit more rumour.


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## two sheds (Oct 13, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> I know covid denial is an easy label to use, but I'm just realistic and pragmatic about the situation.
> That said one thing never tried here was something India I believed tried which as soon as getting a positive test result a kit of self administered pills would be delivered with a view to aid recovery at home. It maybe an option to avoid infected people coming to hospital.
> The idea has never been mentioned here as far I know.


Was this it?


> Ivermectin obliterates 97 percent of Delhi cases​
> By Justus R. Hope, MD
> Jun 1, 2021        Updated         Jun 7, 2021


https://www.thedesertre view.com/ne...cle_6a3be6b2-c31f-11eb-836d-2722d2325a08.html
(space inserted)


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## xenon (Oct 13, 2022)

No data available to suggest a link between India’s reduction of COVID-19 cases and the use of ivermectin
					

India experienced a decrease in the number of COVID-19 cases in May 2021. However, no data is available to support the claim that this is causally associated with the recommendation to use ivermectin. The slow down of the disease spreading began before India released official recommendations to...




					healthfeedback.org
				













						Success of ivermectin in preventing COVID-19 in India has not been proven
					

While cases appear to have fallen in Uttar Pradesh as well as most locations in India, it’s not clear why. Many other factors, including immunity from a previ




					www.newswise.com
				




Yes. Thesaint if you're gonna make claims, link to some evidence. Otherwise your ponderances are as credible as pub man reckons.


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## elbows (Oct 13, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> I know covid denial is an easy label to use, but I'm just realistic and pragmatic about the situation.
> That said one thing never tried here was something India I believed tried which as soon as getting a positive test result a kit of self administered pills would be delivered with a view to aid recovery at home. It maybe an option to avoid infected people coming to hospital.
> The idea has never been mentioned here as far I know.



The NHS offers a bunch of different home drug treatments, but this programme applies to those they consider to be in the highest risk group due to various specific medical conditions. A broader programme also exists but its part of a research study, and people going via that route arent guaranteed to be chosen to receive the drugs.









						Treatments for coronavirus (COVID-19)
					

NHS information about treatments for coronavirus (COVID-19), including what types of treatment are available and who is eligible for them.




					www.nhs.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 13, 2022)

elbows said:


> It isnt clear to me that any new Omicron variants have actually driven this wave significantly, so I suppose it is tempting to think of this wave as the inevitable 'back to school/changing of the seasons/waning immunity' type of thing. But I dont know if that is actually a really fair description of this wave or not, nor do I know whether new variants are poised to create a more complicated picture very soon, or only quite a bit later, or not at all. eg I dont know if we are going to face a 'wave on top of a smaller wave or on top of a plateau' thing like we have sometimes seen in the past, or whether the current wave will neatly fall back to much lower levels, etc. And unlike occasions a year+ ago, there isnt as much commentary from others to help guide my own sense of where we are at.


Given what I said there I better quote a few things from a UK variant report of October 7th:



> The genomic surveillance dataset is currently challenging to interpret due to continued changes in testing as well as proliferation of similar variants.





> Overall variants may be contributing to the current increase in coronavirus (COVID-19) incidence (LOW confidence), however given the age mix and the timing of the increase in incidence compared to the variant prevalence, it is likely that other factors are contributing.



Later in the document they get into more detail in regards how laggy various estimates may now be due to data issues caused by current testing regime:



> Since April 2022, PCR testing in England is targeted at specific groups and not representative of the community. The timescales have recently updated in view of the current data situation. Experience as evidenced by BA.4/BA.5 risk assessment shows that the detection of growth signal with high certainty might be delayed to 6 to 8 weeks or more. Critical number of cases for initial estimates of growth transmissibility/growth rates from case data), initial data on immune evasion and severity (laboratory data) of a new variant took 6 to 15 weeks. Definitive analysis of the relative risk of admission to hospital following presentation to emergency care took longer than 20 weeks although this was also affected by some data supply issues.



From https://assets.publishing.service.g...t_data/file/1109820/Technical-Briefing-46.pdf


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## existentialist (Oct 13, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Was this it?
> 
> https://www.thedesertre view.com/ne...cle_6a3be6b2-c31f-11eb-836d-2722d2325a08.html
> (space inserted)


And, in case it needed pointing out, is a breathless report about something that is a total load of bollocks. TheSaint does it again


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## elbows (Oct 16, 2022)

This weeks ONS continued to demonstrate how laggy it is, by shopwing the picture of increased infections rather than the peak or plateau picture that the likes of ZOE and hospital data have started to show.

The autumn vaccine booster campaign has continued at a pace that means Im not as nervous about progress as I was.

No charts from me this week, but there are plenty of useful ones in the first 13 minutes of this weeks Indie SAGE video.



I dont think they cover ZOE graphs so here is one of those:


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## Thesaint (Oct 18, 2022)

elbows said:


> This weeks ONS continued to demonstrate how laggy it is, by shopwing the picture of increased infections rather than the peak or plateau picture that the likes of ZOE and hospital data have started to show.
> 
> The autumn vaccine booster campaign has continued at a pace that means Im not as nervous about progress as I was.
> 
> ...



Given Scotland went back to school earlier and that might be a factor is there any breakdown of the wave by UK regions? Ie did Scotland start and peak faster to give a guide to the UK overall experience?


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## elbows (Oct 18, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> Given Scotland went back to school earlier and that might be a factor is there any breakdown of the wave by UK regions? Ie did Scotland start and peak faster to give a guide to the UK overall experience?


In past waves the typical picture was of Scotland being ahead of England, but for whatever reason it didnt end up as such a neat and predictable picture this time. Scotland saw a brief initial rise ahead of England, but then that stopped and stalled in Scotland and England soared ahead. Scotland eventually started rising notably again but they ended up being behind England instead of ahead of England.


----------



## elbows (Oct 18, 2022)

I canot comment that much on this modelling unless its published.









						Respiratory illness may take up half of NHS beds this winter
					

Health bosses in England are worried about the threat of flu, Covid and other respiratory illnesses.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> *Up to half of all hospitals beds in England could be occupied by patients with respiratory infections, including Covid and flu, NHS England says.*
> 
> The warning came as NHS bosses set out further details of its plans to help the health service cope this winter.
> 
> ...





> It said the modelling, which has not been published, was very much a worst-case scenario - even during the peak of the pandemic, Covid did not lead to such high levels of beds being occupied.
> 
> But NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard said it was important to be prepared.


----------



## Thesaint (Oct 20, 2022)

Gi


elbows said:


> I canot comment that much on this modelling unless its published.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Given the performance of viral modelling in recent years would you even trust it anyway?


----------



## 2hats (Oct 20, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> Gi
> 
> Given the performance of viral modelling in recent years would you even trust it anyway?


Which "viral modelling" would that be?


----------



## elbows (Oct 20, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> Given the performance of viral modelling in recent years would you even trust it anyway?


The models were incredibly useful as far as I'm concerned. They were certainly useful for getting idiot politicians who didnt understand the scale of the pandemics implications to end up taking action eventually.

I dont expect the models to be a perfect prediction of the future or anything vaguely close to that.  The modellers themselves made it quite clear they were just modelling various scenarios with various parameters, they werent trying to provide a perfect guide as to what would actually happen. Especially since many of the most famous modelling exercises were designed to inform political decisions that would then have an impact on what sort of pandemic wave curves we actually saw in reality.

Im a big fan of realsonable worst case scenarios too. They are an important planning tool. People who moan about those often have really shitty agendas and love making unsafe, ignorant claims and gambling with public health.


----------



## existentialist (Oct 20, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> Gi
> 
> Given the performance of viral modelling in recent years would you even trust it anyway?


Here we go...


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2022)

Even if Covid vanished tomorrow I would still be shitting it over the sorts of figures shown in stories like this one:









						Patients at risk as NHS and care 'gridlocked'
					

The system can no longer operate effectively, the Care Quality Commission warns, as delays mount.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## elbows (Oct 21, 2022)

I know its not covid but the flu season is behaving as feared/planned for so far, following a similar pattern to what Australia experienced - an earlier than usual wave, although in the UK its still much to early to tell how large it will end up being:









						Flu comes early in England, with hospital cases rising
					

Cases have climbed quickly in the past week, suggesting the season has already begun, say officials.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Oct 24, 2022)

I'm glad I had my booster and flu shot last week and reacted to them.

I cycled to the deli and forgot it was Diwali ...
I was one of the oldest people in a rammed shop and was the only one wearing a mask.
Someone behind me in the queue actually coughed...

The greatest exposure I've had since this all started . 
Watch this space....


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2022)

Same sort of picture this week, but with RSV hospitalisations in young children also showing up more notably again now.









						Concern over flu and winter viruses but Covid levels unchanged
					

The flu season has started early and some young children under five are ending up in hospital.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I've plucked a few charts from the weekly surveillance report, to try to add some context to the story. There are way more charts in the weekly report tyhan I can reasonably post though. Full report here: https://assets.publishing.service.g...97/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w43__3_.pdf





Hopefully that provides some sense of how we've been here before with RSV hospital pressures, and that the influenza pressures havent yet had the steeper climb seen in some pre-pandemic seasons, and nor are they comparable to the rates per 100,000 we still see for Covid.


----------



## elbows (Oct 28, 2022)

Also the North West rather sticks out in terms of intensive care rates for influenza according to the following chart from the same source, but I dont really know how much to read into this yet.


----------



## elbows (Oct 29, 2022)




----------



## CH1 (Oct 29, 2022)

elbows said:


>



I did that in 2010, when I was put on special measures at Lambeth Accord and forced to take them to a tribunal. As and when IDS cancelled ESA a year later that was the last straw.
I was buggered if I would ever work again. I refused to renew my Lib Dem membership and defected to the Green Party.


----------



## oryx (Nov 1, 2022)

Excellent myth-busting piece from IndySage:






						12 MYTHS ABOUT COVID-19: WHERE’S THE TRUTH? | Independent SAGE
					






					www.independentsage.org


----------



## elbows (Nov 2, 2022)

NHS boss Amanda Pritchard says patients not always getting care they deserve
					

Challenge facing health service greater than it was at peak of pandemic, says Amanda Pritchard.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Ms Pritchard told the King's Fund annual conference in London that demand was rising more quickly than the NHS could cope with.
> 
> "I thought that the pandemic would be the hardest thing any of us ever had to do," she said.
> 
> "Over the last year, I've become really clear.... it's the months and years ahead that will bring the most complex challenges."



Well those first pandemic waves could be met with an emergency response where quality of care was not the headline aspect, and where many non-NHS and previously unthinkable actions could be used to reduce the pressure on the NHS. Including lockdowns and letting people die at home.

Clearly the subsequent period is more complex because its a mix of all the pre-pandemic problems, problems the pandemic is still causing, backlog that built up, etc etc. And there doesnt seem to be the same political impetus to respond.

An article I just stuck in the global thread is also likely relevant, when it comes to the various very real impacts Covid is still having, plenty of which are affecting healthcare services ability to cope.        #10,826    To quote the most relevant section of that (its by an Australian emergency doctor) again here:



> With no consent, no mandate, no public discussion, the “dry tinder” (the elderly, those with chronic disease, those most at risk of “reaping”, as Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly has termed them) is being burnt off. Deaths and infirmity in these individuals can easily be explained away and so easily discounted.
> 
> The only way to identify that this is happening is through statistical analysis of death and illness rates. These analyses accumulate daily and are remarkably consistent around the globe, but statistical reports are not eye-catching and are easily ignored when it is expedient to do so.
> 
> In the same way, horror stories from a healthcare system burdened by abnormally high rates of illness can conveniently be explained away by citing “decades of underfunding”, creating “a dam that has finally burst”.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2022)

I was going to visit keithy last weekend but I just couldn’t get on the train as it was a) too crowded and b) no one was wearing a mask
I’ve barely used public transport since the pandemic and fear I may have developed a neurosis about it. I keep making plans to visit my friends in London (don’t have any where I live in Leeds) and then chickening out. I’m supposed to be going there for Xmas but may have to cab it everywhere which will be dear


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 2, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> I was going to visit keithy last weekend but I just couldn’t get on the train as it was a) too crowded and b) no one was wearing a mask
> I’ve barely used public transport since the pandemic and fear I may have developed a neurosis about it. I keep making plans to visit my friends in London (don’t have any where I live in Leeds) and then chickening out. I’m supposed to be going there for Xmas but may have to cab it everywhere which will be dear


I think your post would fit well in the covid agoraphobia thread , I know the friendofdorothy who started the thread has just caught covid despite all the avoidance so maybe a chat there might help you with doing stuff you want to do?
I also acknowledge that covid is still here and present despite the MSN narrative and it is something to look out for if you have any health issues that could make the outcome worse, and yes hardly anyone seems to wear a mask anymore in london (I stopped despite my plans not to, and I caught some other lurgy a few weeks backs because of this, I also caught covid while wearing a FPP2 mask a few months back).
How are you with vaccination and boosters?


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2022)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> I think your post would fit well in the covid agoraphobia thread , I know the friendofdorothy who started the thread has just caught covid despite all the avoidance so maybe a chat there might help you with doing stuff you want to do?
> I also acknowledge that covid is still here and present despite the MSN narrative and it is something to look out for if you have any health issues that could make the outcome worse, and yes hardly anyone seems to wear a mask anymore in london (I stopped despite my plans not to, and I caught some other lurgy a few weeks backs because of this, I also caught covid while wearing a FPP2 mask a few months back).
> How are you with vaccination and boosters?


I’m all boosted up thanks.
I don’t have agoraphobia though. 
I’ve been clubbing and to festivals and not worn masks. I don’t use them much at work and I work with the public face to face. It’s just the thought of being jammed up against people in a place I have little control over that gets my heart thumping, temples throbbing and BP leaping. Never liked public transport much or even cars, but it’s never been a fear or horrible anxiety, just unease and lack of trust in anyone but myself to get me around.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 2, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m all boosted up thanks.
> I don’t have agoraphobia though.
> I’ve been clubbing and to festivals and not worn masks. I don’t use them much at work and I work with the public face to face. It’s just the thought of being jammed up against people in a place I have little control over that gets my heart thumping, temples throbbing and BP leaping. Never liked public transport much or even cars, but it’s never been a fear or horrible anxiety, just unease and lack of trust in anyone but myself to get me around.


fair enough, I hate public transport too and used to get up earlier to use the buses instead of the tube when I had to, hope you get to meet your friends and family.


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## Orang Utan (Nov 2, 2022)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> fair enough, I hate public transport too and used to get up earlier to use the buses instead of the tube when I had to, hope you get to meet your friends and family.


It might not even Covid related cos I’m not scared of getting it or even transmitting it as I rarely even think about it. But seeing other people behaving as if there’s no pandemic gives me such rage and disgust at other people (just strangers) and their close proximity makes me want to heave. But if I’m relaxed at a rave with sweaty people hugging me and pushing past me, I don’t feel that way at all. Our brains are far from rational I guess.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 3, 2022)

As of this morning the "report your test result to the nhs" will actually read your test cassette to tell you if you have covid if you use a smartphone. 😲

It didn't do this yesterday morning.


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## friendofdorothy (Nov 3, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> I’m all boosted up thanks.
> I don’t have agoraphobia though.
> I’ve been clubbing and to festivals and not worn masks. I don’t use them much at work and I work with the public face to face. It’s just the thought of being jammed up against people in a place I have little control over that gets my heart thumping, temples throbbing and BP leaping. Never liked public transport much or even cars, but it’s never been a fear or horrible anxiety, just unease and lack of trust in anyone but myself to get me around.


Mine didn't start as agoraphobia - it started with panic attacks, which I had never experienced before, at the thought of going on buses, trains, inside shops, and then outside at the market then eventually just anywhere getting to close to anyone at all even outside on the pavement.  And it was a fear of getting covid with me and its associations with breathlessness and previous traumas.  CBT didn't help me at all but EMDR therapy cured the panic attacks and crippling anxiety.

Sounds like your fear is being stuck to close with strangers who you don't like the look of, in confided spaces where you can't control the space or escape.  Would it help to go at a quieter time when trains are not crowded?   imagine that the people on the train are friends/ people you do like (they could be urbs!)? put headphones on close your eyes and imagine yourself at a rave?

Sorry you didn't get to see keithy  Best wishes to you x


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## elbows (Nov 3, 2022)

Following on from my previous post we have this story about the excessive number of deaths.









						NHS disruption driving rise in heart deaths, charity says
					

Ambulance delays and waiting lists are driving excess cardiac deaths, the British Heart Foundation says.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I am in no way claiming that all of the explanations in this article are invalid, they are a very real part of the picture, but as usual I note that the issue of covid causing health problems which lead to death quite a bit later on without being attributed to covid is still missing from this sort of picture. And the absence of any proper discussion of this fits rather well with what the Autralian doctor was saying in the article I mentioned in my last post (        The notion that COVID-19 has been vanquished is not supported by the facts      )


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## Orang Utan (Nov 3, 2022)

friendofdorothy said:


> Mine didn't start as agoraphobia - it started with panic attacks, which I had never experienced before, at the thought of going on buses, trains, inside shops, and then outside at the market then eventually just anyone getting to close to anyone at all even outside on the pavement.  And it was a fear of getting covid with me and its associations with breathlessness and previous traumas.  CBT didn't help me at all but EMDR therapy cured the panic attacks and crippling anxiety.
> 
> Sounds like your fear is being stuck to close with strangers who you don't like the look of, in confided spaces where you can't control the space or escape.  Would it help to go at a quieter time when trains are not crowded?   imagine that the people on the train are friends/ people you do like (they could be urbs!)? put headphones on close your eyes and imagine yourself at a rave?
> 
> Sorry you didn't get to see keithy  Best wishes to you x


thanks luv, glad you're feeling a bit better. 
It's particularly difficult with intercity trains, esp with Transpennine Express (the Manc-Leeds train) and GNER (Leeds-London) as they're typically shit and chaotic, esp with all the strikes recently. So often you plan a quiet journey but cancellations and the subsequent doubling and even tripling up of passengers on a train results in you standing all the way. I don't want to travel without seating even at the best of times and it's a shame but probably operationally necessary that you can't ever get a guaranteed seat on a train even if you book it, unless you go 1st class. I think I'd feel more comfortable on a coach, which is also more cheap and you're at least guaranteed a seat, and there's arguably more room on a coach than on a crowded train.
But just even thinking  of getting on a busy tube or London bus has me literally horripilating in dread and worry. 
I've always immersed myself in my own world with headphones and/or a book - great tip! - and that does help, but not when it's standing room only.
Anyway I now have a mental image of a hellscape of a passenger train full of the likes of editor and Pickman's model terrifyingly multiplied like in that scene in Being John Malkovich, which is making me chuckle rather than panic 


Spoiler: THAT SCENE IF YOU DUNNO WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT


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## editor (Nov 3, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> thanks luv, glad you're feeling a bit better.
> It's particularly difficult with intercity trains, esp with Transpennine Express (the Manc-Leeds train) and GNER (Leeds-London) as they're typically shit and chaotic, esp with all the strikes recently. So often you plan a quiet journey but cancellations and the subsequent doubling and even tripling up of passengers on a train results in you standing all the way. I don't want to travel without seating even at the best of times and it's a shame but probably operationally necessary that you can't ever get a guaranteed seat on a train even if you book it, unless you go 1st class. I think I'd feel more comfortable on a coach, which is also more cheap and you're at least guaranteed a seat, and there's arguably more room on a coach than on a crowded train.
> But just even thinking  of getting on a busy tube or London bus has me literally horripilating in dread and worry.
> I've always immersed myself in my own world with headphones and/or a book - great tip! - and that does help, but not when it's standing room only.
> ...



Thanks for that.


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## Orang Utan (Nov 3, 2022)

editor said:


> Thanks for that.


Soz! This only reflects badly on me and my imagination, not you or even Pickman's


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## Pickman's model (Nov 3, 2022)

editor said:


> Thanks for that.


remember, the only thing worse than being spoken about is not being spoken about


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## elbows (Nov 3, 2022)

The wave has continued to decline.

In terms of how bad this wave was, a bunch of hospital data for England paints a picture of it not being as bad as the previous waves, and some data even shows a picture of continual improvement with each wave throughout this year, eg this stuff for number of patients with covid in hospital beds in England (with data going up to November 1st):


I wouldnt want to get too carried away with that interpretation, since changes to testing regimes including in hospitals has probably affected the extent to which data captures the full picture. And on the less severe side of the picture, there has been no shortage of anecdotal evidence about how rather a lot of people caught covid this time around. But even taking these things into account, we might still be able to presume that the immunity and vulnerability picture has grown more complicated over time, and overall protection has gradually grown to the point that it makes an increasing diffference to the sharp end of the picture. It isnt easy for me to express high confidence in terms of the future threat including this winters threat, but the latest vaccination campaign has likely made a real difference. And for the picture to get eye-wateringly grim again one of the new variants of the virus is going to have to demonstrate the ability to really bust past our built up protection against severe disease in quite a dramatic way. Well the overall situation could still get grim due to covid combined with general winter NHS pressures, what happens with flu, and overall state of the NHS and the nations health, but in terms of the sort of covid hospital levels that get people to pay attention and change the national mood music, I think the ball is in the virus evolutions court.

A while back I suggested that some data that enabled me to get a sense of hospital infection numbers had stopped being published, but I since learnt via others that actually enough data is still available to get a sense of infections in hospitals in England where the person tested positive 7 or more days after admission. The picture that data shows is that hospital infections were as bad as ever in many regions of England at the peak of this last wave, but then the situation improved. The ratio of hospital infections compared to community infections actually got worse than previously seen (excluding first wave that lacks data and sufficient testing), but Im not sure if that was the true picture or a data distortion due to the changing testing regime. I'm tempted to say that guards against hospital infections were reduced even more than before this time, and then when the inevitable implications were felt some corrective action was taken and more of a grip on the situation was obtained. But I cant really build that case strongly without more data and insider info than I really have, especially given changes to in-hospital testing.

Hospital Covid admissions/diagnoses for England by length of time from admission to positive test, to illustrate that last paragraph:

(it wont quite capture the full hospital infection picture since some cases testing positive in the 3-7 day timeframe will be suspected hospital infections too but I dont have that data)



Data from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity


----------



## friendofdorothy (Nov 3, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> thanks luv, glad you're feeling a bit better.
> It's particularly difficult with intercity trains, esp with Transpennine Express (the Manc-Leeds train) and GNER (Leeds-London) as they're typically shit and chaotic, esp with all the strikes recently. So often you plan a quiet journey but cancellations and the subsequent doubling and even tripling up of passengers on a train results in you standing all the way. I don't want to travel without seating even at the best of times and it's a shame but probably operationally necessary that you can't ever get a guaranteed seat on a train even if you book it, unless you go 1st class. I think I'd feel more comfortable on a coach, which is also more cheap and you're at least guaranteed a seat, and there's arguably more room on a coach than on a crowded train.
> But just even thinking  of getting on a busy tube or London bus has me literally horripilating in dread and worry.
> I've always immersed myself in my own world with headphones and/or a book - great tip! - and that does help, but not when it's standing room only.
> ...



Thanks

Shame about the trains - sounds very uncomfortable. I haven't been on a tube in years (not keen even before the pandemic) and as I'm not working I have the luxury to travel at quiet times and just not bother going out on strike days.

Sorry about the hellscape image - but glad it made you chuckle. Try imagining urbs from a SLD meet?

buscador suggests if you are ok in crowds at a rave - would drugs help? 

Maybe coaches are a better way forward.  Good Luck x


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 3, 2022)

friendofdorothy said:


> Thanks
> 
> Shame about the trains - sounds very uncomfortable. I haven't been on a tube in years (not keen even before the pandemic) and as I'm not working I have the luxury to travel at quiet times and just not bother going out on strike days.
> 
> ...


Hehe drugs do help. Which is why I’m always on them  
Hi to buscador - miss you guys x


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## nagapie (Nov 3, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> Hehe drugs do help. Which is why I’m always on them
> Hi to buscador - miss you guys x


Drugs on a tube?! I don't recommend 😂


----------



## Griff (Nov 9, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> I was going to visit keithy last weekend but I just couldn’t get on the train as it was a) too crowded and b) no one was wearing a mask
> I’ve barely used public transport since the pandemic and fear I may have developed a neurosis about it. I keep making plans to visit my friends in London (don’t have any where I live in Leeds) and then chickening out. I’m supposed to be going there for Xmas but may have to cab it everywhere which will be dear



Sorry but this is effecting your life and you have to ask yourself some things.

You're all jabbed up so they work don't they? 
Obviously in your mind they don't as you wouldn't be so frightened about public transport.

You're obviously wearing a mask on public transport, so why does it bother you others aren't?  Masks work don't they? 

Why are you so frightened when there are so many of us who haven't had any jabs at all just getting on with life normally day to day on crowded trains/tubes with no masks with no worries at all? 

Serious questions, as it really seems to be restricting you and it's pretty fucking sad to be honest. 

I feel sorry for you.


----------



## Orang Utan (Nov 9, 2022)

Griff said:


> Sorry but this is effecting your life and you have to ask yourself some things.
> 
> You're all jabbed up so they work don't they?
> Obviously in your mind they don't as you wouldn't be so frightened about public transport.
> ...


Go fuck yourself, halfwit


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

You didn't answer the questions, and I was being polite. 

So you have to swear at me, nice.


----------



## oryx (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> You're all jabbed up so they work don't they?
> Obviously in your mind they don't as you wouldn't be so frightened about public transport.
> 
> You're obviously wearing a mask on public transport, so why does it bother you others aren't?  Masks work don't they?



It's well known - or at least I thought it was well-known, obviously not - that vaccines reduce the risk of catching Covid and the seriousness of it, rather than eliminating it altogether.

And that one person wearing a mask is far less effective than a whole train carriage full of people all wearing them. 

Your post comes over as disingenuous.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

oryx said:


> It's well known - or at least I thought it was well-known, obviously not - that vaccines reduce the risk of catching Covid and the seriousness of it, rather than eliminating it altogether.
> 
> And that one person wearing a mask is far less effective than a whole train carriage full of people all wearing them.
> 
> Your post comes over as disingenuous.



Well the first point is quite new as vaccines always prevented infection back in the day. 

But my point was why monkey boy being all jabbed up and masked up is terrified of life. 

Something I'll carry on thinking as being quite sad. 

---->


----------



## oryx (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Well the first point is quite new as vaccines always prevented infection back in the day.
> 
> But my point was why monkey boy being all jabbed up and masked up is terrified of life.
> 
> ...


Obviously OU can speak for himself but he didn't say he was terrified of life, just getting on a crowded train when Covid is still around. 

I don't think that's an unreasonable fear. I'm due to do a similar journey soon and am really hoping the train isn't rammed full. I will be quite concerned if it is. I don't want to get Covid as it can seriously fuck with your health long term. If a crowded train was full of masked and vaccinated people, I would be significantly less worried. I will do the journey, but I can't see that someone not willing to is 'terrified of life'.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 10, 2022)

Yeh there are people with medical reasons for being concerned about catching coronavirus (I'm one), and there are others with medical reasons for not being vaccinated, but there are other selfish and ignorant fucks who could but choose not to.


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## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

So everybody who chose not to be vaccinated are selfish and ignorant fucks? 

You really think that? Wow! 

I'd laugh if it wasn't such a mug thing to say.


----------



## B.I.G (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> So everybody who chose not to be vaccinated are selfish and ignorant fucks?
> 
> You really think that? Wow!
> 
> I'd laugh if it wasn't such a mug thing to say.



Selfish and ignorant fucks that have caused many deaths. 

Not yours yet though.


----------



## Raheem (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> So everybody who chose not to be vaccinated are selfish and ignorant fucks?
> 
> You really think that? Wow!
> 
> I'd laugh if it wasn't such a mug thing to say.


Or maybe if you'd read it properly.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> So everybody who chose not to be vaccinated are selfish and ignorant fucks?
> 
> You really think that? Wow!
> 
> I'd laugh if it wasn't such a mug thing to say.


Chose as opposed to unable to have the vaccine yes. Some people are very vulnerable and risk dying if they do get the virus, but are medically unable to have the vaccine. 

People who choose not to have the vaccine increase the risk of giving the virus to those vulnerable people, and often they were the people who refused to wear masks for some spurious fucking reason. And many of the people who refuse vaccines have the smug attitude you've just shown in your comments. 

I feel sorry for you.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

Thanks


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

B.I.G said:


> Selfish and ignorant fucks that have caused many deaths.
> 
> Not yours yet though.



Lol! You're a fucking caring charmer.

Cunt.


----------



## Raheem (Nov 10, 2022)

Any adult who didn't take the vaccine without some particular reason relating to their health took the risk of contracting the virus and passing it on. To someone who would pass it on to someone else and so on. 

Some of those people died. It's not really an issue of you've got your view and I've got mine.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 10, 2022)

Imagine someone who has no medical reason for refusing being _so_ scared that they don't take an overwhelmingly safe vaccine.


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## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Chose as opposed to unable to have the vaccine yes. Some people are very vulnerable and risk dying if they do get the virus, but are medically unable to have the vaccine.
> 
> People who choose not to have the vaccine increase the risk of giving the virus to those vulnerable people, and often they were the people who refused to wear masks for some spurious fucking reason. And many of the people who refuse vaccines have the smug attitude you've just shown in your comments.
> 
> I feel sorry for you.



Do you actually live in the real world? 

You know like going about day to day in London mixing with thousands of people daily on packed tubes/ trains/pubs/clubs etc.etc.? 

You obviously don't.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 10, 2022)

That makes it even more important to have the vaccine so you don't spread coronavirus round crowded carriages/pubs/clubs if you get it.


----------



## B.I.G (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Lol! You're a fucking caring charmer.
> 
> Cunt



Its a shame God doesn’t exist so cunts like you cant be shown the lives you ended earlier as a result of your selfishness.

I hope they haunt you forever.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

Raheem said:


> Any adult who didn't take the vaccine without some particular reason relating to their health took the risk of contracting the virus and passing it on. To someone who would pass it on to someone else and so on.
> 
> Some of those people died. It's not really an issue of you've got your view and I've got mine.



I'm sure you were so fucking worried every flu season prior to Covid, bet you avoided granny at Christmas, ay? 

Stick a mask on did you?


----------



## B.I.G (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> I'm sure you were so fucking worried every flu season prior to Covid, bet you avoided granny at Christmas, ay?
> 
> Stick a mask on did you?



More likely to catch covid than flu are you?

Thick cunt.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

B.I.G said:


> Its a shame God doesn’t exist so cunts like you cant be shown the lives you ended earlier as a result of your selfishness.
> 
> I hope they haunt you forever.



My selfishness? 

Wow! You total fucking mug! 

I'm a cunt for not being jabbed! Wow!


----------



## B.I.G (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> My selfishness?
> 
> Wow! You total fucking mug!
> 
> I'm a cunt for not being jabbed! Wow!



Yes you are a cunt. 

Lets go over it again for the slow. 

You are more likely to catch and transmit covid if you are not vaccinated. 

You have no idea of the effect it will have on the people you transmit it to or who they will transmit it to as a result of catching it from you. 

The more that is multiplied by the number of selfish cunts like you the higher the chance someone will get it and die. 

Thanks for your service.


----------



## Raheem (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> I'm sure you were so fucking worried every flu season prior to Covid, bet you avoided granny at Christmas, ay?
> 
> Stick a mask on did you?


When she was alive, she had a flu vaccine each year, you moron.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

B.I.G said:


> More likely to catch covid than flu are you?
> 
> Thick cunt.



Not even sure what you're on about with that.  Drunk?


----------



## BristolEcho (Nov 10, 2022)

Raheem said:


> When she was alive, she had a flu vaccine each year, you moron.


I also tended not to go and visit my old man when I had colds. Even though he'd had a flu jab I still didn't want to give him a cold due to his respiratory problems. Didn't realise that was such a controversial decision.


----------



## B.I.G (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Not even sure what you're on about with that.  Drunk?



You are more likely to catch covid than flu. 

Does that help.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

B.I.G said:


> Yes you are a cunt.
> 
> Lets go over it again for the slow.
> 
> ...



You can kerp calling me a cunt all you like, not sure where this came from as I was asking monkey boy why it was stopping him doing things like travelling on traibs, but not being vaccinated and living a normal life without getting covid serns to have rattled some of you.


----------



## B.I.G (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> You can kerp calling me a cunt all you like, not sure where this came from as I was asking monkey boy why it was stopping him doing things like travelling on traibs, but not being vaccinated and living a normal life without getting covid serns to have rattled some of you.


Glad to see you have chosen to fall back on ignoring it all. 

So. Covid is for a wider range of people more serious than flu. People are more likely to catch it than flu. 

And your decision to not be vaccinated has meant it has spread more freely. 

So that if so many hadn’t been vaccinated, thereby helping to protect those that were more vulnerable to covid, then the bodies would once again be piling up. 

But you were a cunt already regardless.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

B.I.G said:


> But you were a cunt already regardless.



Lol!


----------



## B.I.G (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Lol!



Excellent rebuttal of the very simple facts. God knows what would happen if you discussed it with a scientist.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

Nothing more to be said mate, in your eyes I'm a cunt for not being jabbed even though they don't stop getting it or the transmission of it. 
But you crack on with your boosters 'coz you're not an uncaring cunt like me. You must me saving thousands.  

Fair play! 👏


----------



## B.I.G (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Nothing more to be said mate, in your eyes I'm a cunt for not being jabbed even though they don't stop getting it or the transmission of it.
> But you crack on with your boosters 'coz you're not an uncaring cunt like me. You must me saving thousands.
> 
> Fair play! 👏



They reduce the chances. Less chance means less illness means less death. 

But for you less deaths are meaningless. Only zero deaths would be worth it. 

And that makes you… a cunt.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

Your moral highground is fascinating yet so deluded.

I feel as sorry for you as the ginger monkey boy.

Sad.


----------



## B.I.G (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Your moral highground is fascinating yet so deluded.
> 
> I feel as sorry for you as the ginger monkey boy.
> 
> Sad.



So again ignoring simple facts.

I admit I was unaware trying to protect people more vulnerable was such a high moral position. 

I think next up you have to say something that isn’t true. 

Wouldn’t it be easier to admit you want to feel special and feel you know better? And its worth it to you so you ignore the consequences for others.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

Whatever, you keep thinking you're 'protecting people' it must work for you and keep you happy. 

Makes everyone else a cunt, eh?


----------



## B.I.G (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Whatever, you keep thinking you're 'protecting people' it must work for you and keep you happy.
> 
> Makes everyone else a cunt, eh?



Science says it protects people. But you don’t believe in science. 

Or you do believe in science and just think that helping protect others isn’t for you. 

We are back to you being a cunt again. 

Hopefully the next pandemic, its you that is more vulnerable and some other cunt(s) do you and your loved ones in instead of you doing it to others.


----------



## Raheem (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Whatever, you keep thinking you're 'protecting people' it must work for you and keep you happy.
> 
> Makes everyone else a cunt, eh?


Yeah, I guess when it comes down to it, all you're really guilty of is not 'protecting people'. And, so long as you put it in quotes, they didn't really 'die'.


----------



## kabbes (Nov 10, 2022)

The vaccinations do notably limit transmission of the virus, including, for example, even in the delta variant when using  vaccines designed for the alpha variant:









						Effect of Covid-19 Vaccination on Transmission of Alpha and Delta Variants | NEJM
					

Original Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Effect of Covid-19 Vaccination on Transmission of Alpha and Delta Variants



					www.nejm.org
				




It doesn’t stop it, but it does significantly reduce it.  These things are not a binary, whereby it either “prevents transmission” or “doesn’t prevents transmission”. If, post-vaccine, transmission is reduced by half, for example, that is of _massive_ benefit to society. And it is well established across multiple studies that there is significant reduction in transmission in the real world due to the vaccines.

Denying this massive body of evidence does indeed make you a stupid cunt. Believing the evidence but refusing to get vaccinated anyway makes you a selfish cunt.  I wouldn’t have thought there was anything controversial in either of those positions — it’s as close to hard fact as you can get in a subjective world.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 10, 2022)

Always shocking when one of the 'being reasonable, not like those other loons' anti Vax types turns out to be exactly the same as the other toxic shitheads isn't it.

Oh actually it's not.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Do you actually live in the real world?
> 
> You know like going about day to day in London mixing with thousands of people daily on packed tubes/ trains/pubs/clubs etc.etc.?
> 
> You obviously don't.


Coming back to this - it really does show how far your head is up your arse. You won't get vaccinated because you're going to be packed in with thousands of people in enclosed situations. That's _exactly_ where covid is at most risk of transmission. 

Have we seen you with your mates outside vaccination centres hassling NHS staff then, calling _them_ murderers?


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

Admitedly I was a little pissed last night and looking for a row, but my initial post to OU still stands and wasn't answered, why his life is limited now even though he's jabbed up to his eyeballs and wears a mask. 

The 'fuck off' reply was informative as to why he thinks that way.


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 10, 2022)




----------



## existentialist (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> You can kerp calling me a cunt all you like, not sure where this came from as I was asking monkey boy why it was stopping him doing things like travelling on traibs, but not being vaccinated and living a normal life without getting covid serns to have rattled some of you.


You were snidely pushing your own antivaxx agenda, and doing so by having a pop at someone expressing their concerns about risk. In my book, that makes you a cunt. Quite apart from your refusal to do the decent thing and get vaccinated.


----------



## xenon (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Well the first point is quite new as vaccines always prevented infection back in the day.
> 
> But my point was why monkey boy being all jabbed up and masked up is terrified of life.
> 
> ...



It’s not New. for someone who is so vehemently against them I would’ve thought you would’ve read about  them. You dope. and yeah your post was snide.


----------



## xenon (Nov 10, 2022)

Raheem said:


> Any adult who didn't take the vaccine without some particular reason relating to their health took the risk of contracting the virus and passing it on. To someone who would pass it on to someone else and so on.
> 
> Some of those people died. It's not really an issue of you've got your view and I've got mine.



I would quibble with this because it’s not a neutralising vaccine. however they’ve certainly taken the risk of contracting the virus and taking up NHS resources if becoming seriously ill.
I’m beyond  arguing with people who have decided not to take the vaccine. but misrepresenting what the vaccine was said to do annoys me.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 10, 2022)

xenon said:


> I would quibble with this because it’s not a neutralising vaccine. however they’ve certainly taken the risk of contracting the virus and taking up NHS resources if becoming seriously ill.
> I’m beyond  arguing with people who have decided not to take the vaccine. but misrepresenting what the vaccine was said to do annoys me.


And having a go at people anxious about infection.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

existentialist said:


> And having a go at people anxious about infection.



Hardly having a go, a question was asked and no answer was given.


----------



## xenon (Nov 10, 2022)

existentialist said:


> And having a go at people anxious about infection.



Yeah. That is a Cunt’s trick.


----------



## wtfftw (Nov 10, 2022)

Absolutely normal to be concerned about playing transport sardines. I was on a bus yesterday and ofc started coughing because and the air change from outside to inside made my throat tickle (you know the one) - so many people turned round to tut at me that I did mutter, "sorry, not covid"


----------



## xenon (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Hardly having a go, a question was asked and no answer was given.



Fuck off it was obviously an transparently a snide pop at the whole vaccination thing. Tell yourself otherwise but it’s plain to see.


----------



## killer b (Nov 10, 2022)

I spent the weekend in london travelling around on busy tubes and wandering round busy museums and theatres and now I have covid fwiw. It's hardly an irrational concern.


----------



## Griff (Nov 10, 2022)

killer b said:


> I spent the weekend in london travelling around on busy tubes and wandering round busy museums and theatres and now I have covid fwiw. It's hardly an irrational concern.


Get well soon, hope it's not too serious for you. Genuinely. 

Signed

The uncaring selfish cunt.


----------



## killer b (Nov 10, 2022)

I'll most likely be fine ta, I've had the vaccine.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 10, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Coming back to this - it really does show how far your head is up your arse. You won't get vaccinated because you're going to be packed in with thousands of people in enclosed situations. That's _exactly_ where covid is at most risk of transmission.


While we're talking about not answering questions. You've not answered this.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Hardly having a go, a question was asked and no answer was given.


Nobody is under an obligation to answer your questions, and you know as well as I do that it was a deliberately loaded, leading question with an implicit statement behind it. You're a cunt.


----------



## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Hardly having a go, a question was asked and no answer was given.



You've picked on someone's health anxieties to needle at them with your shitty agenda. Honestly that was one of the most genuinely nasty posts I've seen in twenty plus years on here - way worse than all the calling someone a cunt for their political views.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 10, 2022)

Swindon Borough Council has shown it's appreciation for the key workers during the pandemic with this nice plaque...


----------



## Sue (Nov 10, 2022)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Swindon Borough Council has shown it's appreciation for the key workers during the pandemic with this nice plaque...
> 
> View attachment 350947


...random capitalisations and spacings notwithstanding. And 'honor'. Seriously.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Nov 10, 2022)

And the famous pandemic of March 2019…


----------



## editor (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Well the first point is quite new as vaccines always prevented infection back in the day.


Are you really this ignorant?


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 10, 2022)

Griff said:


> Well the first point is quite new as vaccines always prevented infection back in the day.


As ed says- nope.
The only vaccine considered at all "sterilising" is the HPV.

The latest bullshit is the shocking revelation that Pfizer did not spent months testing effectiveness at preventing onward transmission while people were dying in their thousands - hence the "emergency" licensing - well duh.


----------



## maomao (Nov 10, 2022)

I had a reaction to the measles vaccine as a small child in the mid 70s and then got measles twice. But vaccines always worked back in the day.


----------



## Sue (Nov 10, 2022)

maomao said:


> I had a reaction to the measles vaccine as a small child in the mid 70s and then got measles twice. But vaccines always worked back in the day.


I had the measles as a kid too despite being vaccinated. But 'a rash and feeling a bit rubbish for a week' measles, not the potential 'blindness/brain damage/death' kind of measles because of the vaccine.

Kind of like Covid, Griff. With the vaccine, you can still get it but you're way less likely to get seriously ill/die of Covid.

Without the vaccine...have you forgotten all the deaths and people being left with serious impairments from getting Covid already?


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 10, 2022)

Apparently an unpleasant feature of measles is its ability to undo acquired immunity to other diseases ...
Since I have no way of knowing if I had measles as a kid, I will probably get my MMRs at some point.









						Measles has a devastating and long-term effect on your immune system
					

Measles makes children vulnerable to other infections and now we know why – it wipes a large part of the immune system's memory of other pathogens




					www.newscientist.com


----------



## CH1 (Nov 16, 2022)

I noticed on the RaDIO 4 news that someone at the





						Annual Conference and Exhibition event - NHS Providers
					

NHS Providers' flagship Annual Conference and Exhibition is a unique event. It brings together senior NHS leaders for debate discussion and networking.




					nhsproviders.org
				



was citing underfunding in the NHS and holding up the spectre of








						Uptick in flu cases prompts hospitals to use overflow tents in parking lots to ease ER burden
					

Health care professionals unsure if season is peaking early or will be sustained through winter




					www.sandiegouniontribune.com
				




Maybe the NHS providers (or to be more specific the NHS internal market) might be a contributory cause of this underfunding problem here in the UK.

Still at least the NHS Providers held their conference in Liverpool, not Sharm El Sheik, or indeed Cannes - where Homes for Lambeth np doubt go for their MIPIM property fairs.


----------



## Thesaint (Nov 19, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> As ed says- nope.
> The only vaccine considered at all "sterilising" is the HPV.
> 
> The latest bullshit is the shocking revelation that Pfizer did not spent months testing effectiveness at preventing onward transmission while people were dying in their thousands - hence the "emergency" licensing - well duh.


The problem is claims were made about the vaccines performance which turned out to be not reflected in real life. 

In Pfizers case the CEO famously claimed at one time his product was effective at stopping covid but the company now admit they didn't really test this feature as they didn't have time which itself is fair enough, but begs questions about his claims.

Normally PR bluster of a company over promoting their product is nothing new, but in 2021 situation this was poorly judged by the CEO and and those implementing policy becomes particularly political as people have lost their liberties and livelyhoods because of these claims....the backlash is hardly surprising if we're honest.


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 19, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> In Pfizers case the CEO famously claimed at one time his product was effective at stopping covid


Do you have a link for that ?
Not that what the CEO of a massive scientific company says counts for much ..
I find it best not to listen to such people ..

Even Fauci et al. saying not to wear masks at the start - they had their reasons and were working within the limitations of knowledge and expectations of acceptability to the public.
I masked from day 1 - though mostly it would have protected others from me ...


----------



## existentialist (Nov 19, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> The problem is claims were made about the vaccines performance which turned out to be not reflected in real life.
> 
> In Pfizers case the CEO famously claimed at one time his product was effective at stopping covid but the company now admit they didn't really test this feature as they didn't have time which itself is fair enough, but begs questions about his claims.
> 
> Normally PR bluster of a company over promoting their product is nothing new, but in 2021 situation this was poorly judged by the CEO and and those implementing policy becomes particularly political as people have lost their liberties and livelyhoods because of these claims....the backlash is hardly surprising if we're honest.


I think you'll find that *assumptions* were made - in the media, politics, etc. - about vaccine performance. Any virologist knows damn well that a vaccine isn't some kind of magic bullet. But the narrative gets oversimplified by non-clinicians, and those oversimplifications quickly become accepted as "fact".

Bottom line: vaccination HAS reduced severity of infection in many, many cases: you only have to look at the sharp drop in hospitalisations and deaths following the rollout of vaccination programmes. It would be harder to measure, but it is likely that vaccination has also reduced transmissivity of the virus, as well.

I notice you're still wedded to your tactic of snide insinuation.


----------



## Thesaint (Nov 19, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Do you have a link for that ?
> Not that what the CEO of a massive scientific company says counts for much ..


Try searching Twitter for "Albert Bourla 100% claim". As time progressed he did admit they were effective at limiting serious problems but not so good at the infection/transmission side in a tv interview from memory which is what real life was showing but the internet remembers his early claims.



existentialist said:


> I think you'll find that *assumptions* were made - in the media, politics, etc. - about vaccine performance. Any virologist knows damn well that a vaccine isn't some kind of magic bullet. But the narrative gets oversimplified by non-clinicians



Exactly, and not only the media and politiciansbut people repeating these 'facts' online with a cult like ferocity.
My main point was somebody somewhere decided or advised policies on assumptions/claims and people cant be surprised people react back 🙄


----------



## Sasaferrato (Nov 19, 2022)

Sue said:


> I had the measles as a kid too despite being vaccinated. But 'a rash and feeling a bit rubbish for a week' measles, not the potential 'blindness/brain damage/death' kind of measles because of the vaccine.
> 
> Kind of like Covid, Griff. With the vaccine, you can still get it but you're way less likely to get seriously ill/die of Covid.
> 
> Without the vaccine...have you forgotten all the deaths and people being left with serious impairments from getting Covid already?


Absolutely. It has never been claimed that any of the Covid vaccines are 100% effective in preventing you catching Covid, because they are not.

Nor do they necessarily stop spread.

What they do do is help people like me not to die if we catch Covid.

Anyone questioning the desirability of the vaccination campaign should just cast their mind back to the pre-vaccine days, and the death figures at that time.

One would have thought that the usefulness of vaccination wouldn't even be a topic for discussion, now that there is solid evidence.


----------



## pbsmooth (Nov 19, 2022)

“Try searchingly Twitter for …” isn’t a great start for actual evidence


----------



## 2hats (Nov 19, 2022)

Whoops! My ‘mendacious troll’ detector appears to have gone off.



Thesaint said:


> Try searching Twitter for "Albert Bourla 100% claim". As time progressed he did admit they were effective at limiting serious problems but not so good at the infection/transmission side in a tv interview from memory which is what real life was showing but the internet remembers his early claims.


Shy about providing actual references eh? I’m still waiting for you to answer this question:


2hats said:


> Which "viral modelling" would that be?



Meanwhile I had a dip in the sludge of social media and see that your fellow travellers appear to be using that ('100%') phrase to refer to this tweet from Bourla:





						Albert Bourla (@AlbertBourla)
					

Excited to share that updated analysis from our Phase 3 study with BioNTech also showed that our COVID-19 vaccine was 100% effective in preventing #COVID19 cases in South Africa. 100%...




					nitter.net
				


where he clearly references this press release:





						Pfizer and BioNTech Confirm High Efficacy and No Serious Safety Concerns Through Up to Six Months Following Second Dose in Updated Topline Analysis of Landmark COVID-19 Vaccine Study | Pfizer
					

Analysis of 927 confirmed symptomatic cases of COVID-19 demonstrates BNT162b2 is highly effective with 91.3% vaccine efficacy observed against COVID-19, measured seven days through up to six months after the second dose Vaccine was 100% effective in preventing severe disease as defined by the...




					www.pfizer.com
				


Which makes it very clear that they refer to *100% efficacy to severe disease* seen in a key study (and sub-study thereof):


> The vaccine was *100% effective against severe disease* as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and 95.3% effective against severe COVID-19 as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
> 
> Results from this analysis of 46,307 trial participants […] Thirty-two cases of severe disease, as defined by the CDC, were observed in the placebo group versus none in the BNT162b2 vaccinated group, indicating that the vaccine was *100% efficacious in this analysis against severe disease* by the CDC definition (95% CI, [88.0,100.0]).
> 
> In South Africa, where the B.1.351 lineage is prevalent and 800 participants were enrolled, nine cases of COVID-19 were observed, all in the placebo group, indicating vaccine *efficacy of 100% (95% CI, [53.5, 100.0])*. In an exploratory analysis, the nine strains were sequenced and six of the nine were confirmed to be of the B.1.351 lineage.



Anyone with any awareness of the underlying science was, well before they were publicly available, very clear that these first generation vaccines were unlikely to provide sterilising immunity:


2hats said:


> Don't bet on the first vaccines to prevent you from infecting others; masks and other mitigations will still be required.
> 
> There's no evidence thus far that the leading (mRNA) vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna), in advanced trials, provide any sterilising immunity, only immunity from developing the disease, COVID-19.
> 
> None of the vaccine studies are even yet to look at sterilising immunity (the ability to avoid infection and transmit the virus onwards). Most animal models don't suggest many of the vaccines (tested thus so far) will provide sterilising immunity and that's a not entirely unexpected outcome for intramuscular delivery.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 19, 2022)

That was the sound of Thesaint having his arse handed to him in a sling.


----------



## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 20, 2022)

existentialist said:


> That was the sound of Thesaint having his arse handed to him in a sling.


shouldn't gloat about the reminder
but hey, 
it's 1Am and I'm pissed


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 20, 2022)

mauvais said:


> I meant to post this somewhere, there are better threads but this will do:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Turns out this peer-reviewed choir superspreader case wasn’t anything of the sort. Oh well never mind I guess.









						Ban on choral singing based on flawed evidence, study suggests
					

Misguided risk analysis lay behind pandemic ruling, paper says




					www.churchtimes.co.uk


----------



## existentialist (Nov 20, 2022)

wemakeyousoundb said:


> shouldn't gloat about the reminder
> but hey,
> it's 1Am and I'm pissed


If there's one thing I really dislike, it's people who don't actually have the integrity to stand behind their views. So when one of them gets decently owned, I'm going to permit myself just a little gloat.

Not that it'll make any odds. He'll just lie low for a bit, and be back in due course peddling the same half-arsed drivel.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 20, 2022)

But so out of character that he's not answered whether he was in favour of herd immunity before we got the vaccines despite multiple times of asking. I wonder whether he was, and how many excess deaths that would have led to.


----------



## existentialist (Nov 20, 2022)

two sheds said:


> But so out of character that he's not answered whether he was in favour of herd immunity before we got the vaccines despite multiple times of asking. I wonder whether he was, and how many excess deaths that would have led to.


He'd rather spend half a dozen posts implying something that he can then run away from than commit himself to a position and debate it honestly.


----------



## gentlegreen (Nov 20, 2022)

Even though I've taken an interest in the science, I keep forgetting that COVID19 is the *disease *and the virus is called SARS-COV2.
Thesaint


----------



## existentialist (Nov 20, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Even though I've taken an interest in the science, I keep forgetting that COVID19 is the *disease *and the virus is called SARS-COV2.


Yeah, I think it's not really a distinction that's massively relevant in day-to-day conversation. People look at you funny when you say "SARS-Cov-2"


----------



## 2hats (Nov 20, 2022)

Though a useful metric for determining an interlocutor's degree of knowledge and the level at which to pitch explanations.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 20, 2022)

that'll be me then


----------



## platinumsage (Nov 20, 2022)

2hats said:


> Though a useful metric for determining an interlocutor's degree of knowledge and the level at which to pitch explanations.


----------



## teuchter (Nov 20, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> Turns out this peer-reviewed choir superspreader case wasn’t anything of the sort. Oh well never mind I guess.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A PDF of this (pre print) paper is here, for anyone interested in reading it.



			https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033350622003237


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2022)

Fucking Dingwall is one of the authors of that paper. One of the other 4 authors is a music director and conductor. I will look into the other authors. One of the complaints is about 'excessive' investment in ventilation equipment.

It is reasonable to think that some assumptions about super-spreaders may have been wide of the mark. But its not sensible to form an opinion based on a single paper, regardless of authors and establishments involved, and especially when one of its authors has such as disgraceful pandemic record and attitude as Dingwall.


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2022)

Ah, another of that papers authors is Colin Axon who says a lot of things about masks. Some of the details he goes into may even be reasonable at times, but the overall agenda is pretty clear and the likes of HART and the Telegraph made heavy use of him to serve their agenda. Includes claims that masks 'reinforce bad behaviour' and do such little good that its impossible to measure the positive effects.

For example the following Telegraph article that they later had to edit:









						Cloth face masks are 'comfort blankets' that do little to curb Covid spread, Scientist warns
					

Dr Colin Axon warned some cloth masks have gaps that are invisible to the naked eye, but are 5000 times the size of viral Covid particles




					www.telegraph.co.uk
				






> CLARIFICATION: This article has been amended to reflect that the gaps in some cloth masks are 5,000 not 500,000 times the size of viral Covid particles and to reflect that whilst Dr Axon has advised Sage and Nervtag on ventilation, he is not currently a Sage adviser.



An example of the shit that HART peddle on this, the doubts they deliberately sew, again featuring some quotes from Axon:









						Drop the mask and be a force for good
					

Masks are nothing more than a ‘comfort blanket’




					www.hartgroup.org


----------



## Sasaferrato (Nov 20, 2022)

elbows said:


> Fucking Dingwall is one of the authors of that paper. One of the other 4 authors is a music director and conductor. I will look into the other authors. One of the complaints is about 'excessive' investment in ventilation equipment.
> 
> It is reasonable to think that some assumptions about super-spreaders may have been wide of the mark. But its not sensible to form an opinion based on a single paper, regardless of authors and establishments involved, and especially when one of its authors has such as disgraceful pandemic record and attitude as Dingwall.


I know a person who is both a vaccine denier and an ecstasy user.

He was banging on at length about the vaccines not being tested enough, and you can't be sure they are safe.

When I asked him for the product license number for his ecstasy, et al, tablets, he looked at me in a bemused manner.


----------



## elbows (Nov 20, 2022)

Another of the authors is Jackie Cassell. At last someone that represents a far more nuanced position. Her track record includes being especially interested in the socioeconomic drivers of the pandemic, with an emphasis on offering support to those who we left throughly exposed during the large pre-vaccine waves.

Here for example is an article she wrote to debunk a complete pandemic shithead:









						Medical anti-heroes and Covid-19 - plausible yet wrong. What can we learn? - Jackie Cassell
					

What should we learn from the popularity of Covid-19 denying scientists?



					www.jackiecassell.com
				




Likely if I spent ages reading all of Jackies pandemic output then I would find some areas of emphasis that dont actually mirror my own, and much quibbling and exploring of nuanced details could follow. But I dont have the time or inclination to do that right now. Instead I will use her to remind myself that there are some grey areas in the pandemic, some very challenging subjects where 'the right thing to do' could not be boiled down to very simple choices like the ones I have been prone to offer when faced with the likes of fucking Dingwalls attitude. For example it is likely that Jackie was concerned about the effects of certain strict measures on children during the earlier stages of this pandemic, and I can appreciate those arguments even if I didnt draw identical conclusions during the most dramatic crunch moments, or during the periods where we were first feeling our way around the possibilities for easing restrictions.


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## platinumsage (Nov 20, 2022)

Do you have an opinion on the methods in the paper, or are you just going to make a series of posts about how the authors rank on your personal scale of acceptability?


----------



## teuchter (Nov 20, 2022)

When I read the paper I also noted the implication that uncritical citations of this single study (the original one produced Scott the choir outbreak) had somehow distorted the overall picture about the importance of ventilation and masks, and thought that seemed a nontrivial claim to make, and a dubious one.


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## teuchter (Nov 20, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> Do you have an opinion on the methods in the paper, or are you just going to make a series of posts about how the authors rank on your personal scale of acceptability?


The main point of the paper, which is that the original study had various qualifications and cautions about its conclusions, and which contained certain untested assumptions, seems sound.

The issue I'd say is what is then extrapolated from this.

You can see that the news article you linked to has somewhat focused on the extrapolations side of it, perhaps predictably.


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## elbows (Nov 20, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> Do you have an opinion on the methods in the paper, or are you just going to make a series of posts about how the authors rank on your personal scale of acceptability?



Its completely legitimate to study the authors since I have very rarely read a study in my life that didnt have some degree of inevitable bias to it. And good science tends to come from an accumulation of many studies and papers, not individual papers taken in isolation. And I'll certainly not be taking lessons in science from the Church Times which you used as a source.

I am left with absolutely no doubt that the strong actions taken at key stages of this pandemic reduced spread and saved lives. These actions also caused an understandable amount of soul-searching, some oversimplifications, some veering from one extreme to another, and a variety of different sorts of denial. Some long forgotten old public health orthodoxies were brought back, others were put on ice, and there was a lot of 'thinking the unthinkable' in a short space of time. It was inevitably messy, and I also consider it inevitable that some never accepted how far we went, and that the mainstream would also seek to return to the previous standards once the moments of most acute danger were behind us. I do not expect science is going to perfectly answer some of the resulting questions, just as it was thoroughly unsurprising that people on here were quibbling about the extent to which pubs were responsible for viral spread and needed to be closed during the worst periods. Neither I nor science was ever going to be able to offer cast iron proof of the exact level of risk and infection in those realms to the high burden of standards that some demanded.  There were plenty of occasions where waiting for good enough scientific proof was not an option, and where some basic common sense and logic had to be relied on instead. Some of the practical implications of that common sense were damaging to peoples perceived self-interests, and they sought to resist. In this later period they may now manage to unpick some of the 'common wisdom' from the time, some of the flawed details may be discovered and dispensed with, but not to the extent that a radical reevaluation seems necessary.


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## elbows (Nov 20, 2022)

Does that paper reveal anything that means certain venues should have been left open, certain activities allowed to continue during those times? I dont think so. The likes of Dingwall wanted all that stuff to continue at the time, didnt believe in taking massive actions to reduce the size of those waves. In that battle ground detailed scientific study was not the only weapon, not the only driver of measures, even though there is a need to pretend it was. So pick some of it apart all you like, I dont think it makes as much difference to the fundamentals as some would have us believe. Far more basic beliefs, principals and logic actually underpinned much of that stuff and many of the decisions, and some of the detailed attempts at scientific study and attempts at quantification of risk were actually just window dressing.


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## elbows (Nov 20, 2022)

In other words, the bottom line was that anywhere people met has the potential to spread the virus, and authorities had choices to make about curtailing a large chunk of that during certain periods. 

They prioritised keeping certain vital industries,  services and supply chains etc going. Some crudely left in harms way, other stuff crudely curtailed until they could make the hospitalisation etc equations work with any degree of confidence. 

All sorts of people wanted a more knowledge-based, sophisticated level of detail to be placed on top of that picture and to influence key decision making. What was actually possible along those lines was far from adequate, was never going to be adequate due to our actual capabilities and the timescales involved. We were never going to be able to unpick everything, never going to be able to neatly separate all the factors.

I try not to let that drive me crazy, it is what it is and we can still build a useful picture by sticking to the basics. A similar thing will probably happen at the public inquiry - there will be endless picking over the modelling-based advice but the bottom line is we saw what happened in Italy, removing the desperate hope that other countries fates would somehow be different to Chinas, and so had to act. The numbers in terms of scale of wave and time of doubling were grim, and so all sorts of nuanced plans to delay school closures etc went out of the window in just a few weeks. No complex science was required to bring about that evolution of response, just some basic numbers, just an appropriate sense of potential scale. And we saw this happening before our very eyes, without a high degree of insider or expert knowledge being necessary. And the simplest of amateur data exercises bore more useful fruit in terms of accurate timescale predictions than Vallances '4 weeks behind Italy' managed, no peer reviewed papers necessary to come up with the basic picture that mattered.


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## elbows (Nov 20, 2022)

Also I'll never apologie for, or consider it inappropriate to rant about Dingwall or point out his involvement in papers or articles given that he said this in March 2020:



> There is, though, a first question: who says it is desirable to prevent every death regardless of the cost? My impression is that the loudest voices are coming from young or middle-aged people who have yet to accept that death is a normal part of life. It comes to all of us in good time. A wise person would, of course, prefer to die later rather than sooner, but they might also consider that some deaths are easier to bear than others. It is not for nothing that pneumonia was described as ‘the old man’s friend’ in the days before antibiotics. Contrary to some media coverage, no-one is advocating that any old person is abandoned to die without professional nursing care. However, we should acknowledge that many frail old people might see Covid-19 infection as a relatively peaceful end compared with, say, several years of dementia or some cancers. Government encouragement to discuss this question within families would not be a plan to cull the elderly but respect for their autonomy and their right to make such decisions rather than have others make them on their behalf.



Speaking of death, sometime soon I intend to point out in some detail what happened to deaths from all causes in a much younger age group, the 1-14 age group, in England and Wales during the lockdown years. They went down. We dont hear much about that from anyone, and certainly not from the likes of Dingwall, even though they claim their stance is part of a well rounded attitude towards death.


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## platinumsage (Nov 20, 2022)

tldr but I'll take that as a no.


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## existentialist (Nov 20, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> tldr but I'll take that as a no.


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## platinumsage (Nov 20, 2022)

teuchter said:


> The main point of the paper, which is that the original study had various qualifications and cautions about its conclusions, and which contained certain untested assumptions, seems sound.
> 
> The issue I'd say is what is then extrapolated from this.
> 
> You can see that the news article you linked to has somewhat focused on the extrapolations side of it, perhaps predictably.



Yes the main criticisms are for the papers that were based uncritically on the original report.

elbows might not think this matters, but in any other field of science, doing this sort of stuff is part of the process. Just because these previous papers were published during a pandemic, and worst of the pandemic is over, doesn't mean that it's not important to replicate/analyse/criticse etc.


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## elbows (Nov 20, 2022)

Its not that I consider that broad issue as completely unimportant. I just have a different approach to trying to factor it in. Place much less weight on every paper, whether its one promoting a particular sense of reality in the first place, or one that comes later and attempts to prove the original paper wrong.

Because its hard to overstate just how big an issue the problem with taking individual scientific studies at face value is. Its a huge issue, and in this era it has been labelled as the 'replication crisis'.

eg:



> Science is in the throes of what is sometimes called the replication crisis, so named because a big hint that a scientific study is wrong is when other teams try to repeat it and get a different result. While some fields, such as psychology, initially seemed more liable than others to generate such “fake news”, almost every area of science has since come under suspicion. An entire field of genetics has even turned out to be nothing but a mirage. Of course, we should expect testing to overturn some findings. The replication crisis, though, stems from wholesale flaws baked into the systems and institutions that support scientific research, which not only permit bad scientific practices, but actually encourage them. And, if anything, things have been getting worse over the past few decades.











						The replication crisis has spread through science – can it be fixed?
					

It started in psychology, but now findings in many scientific fields are proving impossible to replicate. Here's what researchers are doing to restore science's reputation




					www.newscientist.com
				




Its a nightmare. There is no quick fix. Science is far from immune to the influence of individual and institutional beliefs. Maintaining a healthy degree of skepticism and picking at the interests and potential biases of those involved in studies is something I indulge in in the meantime.


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## elbows (Nov 20, 2022)

platinumsage said:


> tldr but I'll take that as a no.



Well I am in part reliant on others to check parts of the study that I cannot properly check for myself. I cant reproduce the maths they used, for example. I will be keeping an eye out for responses to this study and will mention them if I see them.

If their use of case timing and fitting those cases to epidemic curves has been done well, then its the strongest, most substantial part of their study and I hope there are other sources that will look into that.

I cant say their attempts to model the infection risk within that location were very illuminating. I didnt see much that they did which can really strongly support the idea that "In particular, it is unlikely that transmission occurred through aerosol clouds in the rehearsal hall or main church.". I think its very hard to get the science on that right, its very hard to model such things properly and thats one of the reason people were tempted to use superspreader events and other mass gatherings to try to learn stuff about this in the first place. There are all sorts of studies out there which manage to downplay the risks in all sorts of different settings, just as there are ones which attempt to highlight such risks, and I dont think humankind is doing a very good job of getting to the bottom of this stuff at all, leaving vaguer notions about 'common sense' in the driving seat.

The part of the paper that I find it most easy to broadly agree with is:



> A point-source origin is attractive to disease control specialists as it raises the possibility of a well targeted and highly focused prevention intervention. Multi-source introduction and overlapping
> risks are, however, ubiquitous features of the Covid-19 pandemic. Transport, occupational and leisure networks often overlap, and so too do routes of exposure.



Thats consistent with how impossible it was to have a proper stab at quantifying the risk of pubs when that subject was discussed here at certain points. Unfortunately that messy reality is fertile ground for quibbling that people use to argue for all sorts of things to stay open, for not bothering to employ strong, broad mitigations. For example their next sentence reads:



> Failure to recognize this encourages stigmatization of vulnerable occupational and population groups, and of activities that have an important role in supporting wellbeing.



But whether a particular reaction, conversation and authority action counts as stigmatisation or a reasonable measure then comes down to other individual beliefs and stances that are not solved by the available scientific study, not then, and still not now. These unclear pictures of risk can be used to argue that we should act in a precautionary way, or that we should have kept all these things open in the absence of hard evidence. Or just keep certain things open which happen to be in tune with the priorities and beliefs of the person making the case. The likes of Dingwall were keen to argue against government action, and in favour of individual choices which people should make based on their own personal understanding of risk. But at times in the past he was caught getting the maths wrong and making claims that had a negative influence on peoples ability to judge those risks for themselves. I cant remember the detail but I think at one point he made some absolutely ridiculous claims about the numbers used to describe the risk of covid risk to older people.


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## elbows (Nov 20, 2022)

I was also unimpressed by a lack of diagrams in the paper, they didnt offer any visual aids to understanding the physical layout and pattern of infected people, unlike various other studies of this type. And it was hardly a substantial paper. Looking at other studies into possible choir-related outbreaks tends to show all sorts of methods and diagrams which were not a feature of the Dingwall paper at all.

For example this which looks like it was published a few days ago and relates to a couple of events involving choirs in Germany:









						Analysis of two choir outbreaks acting in concert to characterize long- range transmission risks through SARS-CoV-2, Berlin, Germany, 2020
					

Background Superspreading events are important drivers of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and long-range (LR) transmission is believed to play a major role. We investigated two choir outbreaks with different attack rates (AR) to analyze the contribution of LR transmission and highlight important...




					journals.plos.org
				




Obviously it is possible that this other study contains various flaws of its own. Reading through it provides some indication of some of the areas where better data would at least give us a somewhat better chance of unpicking particular possible mass infection events. The most obvious of which is genomic sequencing. Only a little bit of that data was available for this particular study, limiting the scope of the conclusions that can be drawn. But in situations where a large quantity of genomic analysis has been possible, such as some studies of viral spread in UK hospitals, it can really help remove specific uncertainties and leave us with a much better picture of whether people were infected via a particular route/circumstance or not.


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## 2hats (Nov 20, 2022)

Has someone, presumably screened out by my drivel filter, been pedalling a Torygraph hobby horse?

Particular occasions aside, which may or may not be superspreader events (individual infection risk at which is now understood to be significantly influenced by genetic and antigenic history factors), aerosol physics still has some bad news for victims of sky fairy cults (amongst others). Singing is most definitely a risk factor and has consistently been found to trump talking and breathing for viral dissemination.


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## 2hats (Nov 21, 2022)

teuchter said:


> A PDF of this (pre print) paper is here, for anyone interested in reading it.
> 
> 
> 
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033350622003237


Regarding that paper...

I first note that another of the usual suspects couldn't resist commenting on it in the same rag the following day - archive.ph .

Then, to the flaws in the Axon paper,  a mathematician writes:








						Alex Selby (@alexselby1770)
					

Covid-19 history-rewriting bothers me. Heneghan, Jefferson and Axon, Dingwall et al make a big stretch as they seek to discredit a well-known early study of a superspreader event at a choir rehearsal (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e6.htm).




					nitter.net
				


TLDR: the claims made in the paper aren't credible and don't stand up to relatively simple mathematical statistical analysis.


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## elbows (Nov 22, 2022)

Thanks for taking the time to poke at that study and the subject more broadly.

I'll continue to use Dingwalls presence as a guide in future. For quite a chunk of time I managed to have a nice break from following his foul output and the articles the Telegraph etc were able to write off the back of his bullshit.  Although I confess that I laughed the other day when searching for him, since it seems that some months ago he was describing Vallance rolling his eyes at Dingwalls bullshit in 2020. And of course the Telegraph, the Daily fucking Mail etc wrote this up:



> Prof Robert Dingwall had pushed for a study to find out if children really need to wear face masks at school. It was late summer 2020, schools were supposed to reopen after the Corona lockdown and the professor wanted to know what the evidence for such a draconian measure was.
> 
> At the government scientific meeting, held remotely via Zoom, the respected sociologist called for a pilot study to examine the need for masks. Out of the corner of his eye, he said, he could see Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, rolling his eyes in apparent disapproval. Prof. Dingwall took the message and stopped his pleading speech.
> 
> “I was persona non grata from the beginning,” recalls Prof. Dingwall. Concerned about the impact of the lockdown and other strict measures – such as the two-metre social distancing rules – he had expressed his dissent. “The problem was that the social and economic voices were not taken into account,” he told The Telegraph.



(taken from How Sir Patrick Vallance 'rolled his eyes' to smash dissent over controversial Covid rules - UK Daily News so I dont have to link directly to the Telegraph or the Mail)

Its sort of hard to imagine Dingwall actually stopping his bullshit when met with an eye-roll, easier to imagine he would have carried on regardless. In my book 'social and economic voices' is a fake distinction anyway because avoiding tough measures would not have dodged the pain on those fronts, it would likely have made those impacts even worse, just like delaying lockdowns etc eventually made things worse, led to more deaths and illnesses and longer lockdowns and periods of reduced economic activity.

There is a consistency to the stance these shitheads have. They are consistently out of whack with reality, consistently shit, consistently best ignored.


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 22, 2022)

elbows said:


> Thanks for taking the time to poke at that study and the subject more broadly.
> 
> I'll continue to use Dingwalls presence as a guide in future. For quite a chunk of time I managed to have a nice break from following his foul output and the articles the Telegraph etc were able to write off the back of his bullshit.  Although I confess that I laughed the other day when searching for him, since it seems that some months ago he was describing Vallance rolling his eyes at Dingwalls bullshit in 2020. And of course the Telegraph, the Daily fucking Mail etc wrote this up:
> 
> ...


School children in Denmark were not made to wear masks. It's not bullshit to question that policy given that you can make a strong case for saying that Denmark had the best pandemic of any European country.


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## teuchter (Nov 22, 2022)

2hats said:


> Regarding that paper...
> 
> I first note that another of the usual suspects couldn't resist commenting on it in the same rag the following day - archive.ph .
> 
> ...


Am I right to understand that "journal pre-proof" means it's not been peer reviewed yet?

If so, it would be interesting to see what comes out of that peer review process.


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## littlebabyjesus (Nov 22, 2022)

Don't get the Dingwall hate. In May 2000, he said this: 

'There is a fair degree of consensus now among people who are more expert on these things than I am that outdoor transmission is negligible... Fleeting contacts are really irrelevant – if a jogger runs past you in the park, this is not a big deal.'

That comes across to me as a caution of sanity reading it now, given what was happening at the time - parks closing, etc.


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## 2hats (Nov 22, 2022)

teuchter said:


> Am I right to understand that "journal pre-proof" means it's not been peer reviewed yet?


Usually reviewed by that stage. Varies slightly with the journal/field but to quote from that very journal:


> *Journal pre-proofs are Articles in Press that have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication by the Editorial Board of this publication.* They have undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but are not yet definitive versions of record. These versions will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review, and may not yet have full ScienceDirect functionality. For example, supplementary files may still need to be added, links to references may not resolve yet, etc. The text could still change before final publication.


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## elbows (Nov 22, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> School children in Denmark were not made to wear masks. It's not bullshit to question that policy given that you can make a strong case for saying that Denmark had the best pandemic of any European country.



If a nation does other strong things at key, early stages of the pandemic that prevents the virus from running rampant in the population then it gives them wiggle room to be less strict in other ways. Schools are far less of a transmission risk if the prevalance in the population is kept extremely low, if the virus lacks a substantial starting point. Multiplication where one of the numbers is very low gives very different results to multiplication where that part of the equation already starts off orders of magnitude higher.


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## elbows (Nov 22, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Don't get the Dingwall hate. In May 2000, he said this:
> 
> 'There is a fair degree of consensus now among people who are more expert on these things than I am that outdoor transmission is negligible... Fleeting contacts are really irrelevant – if a jogger runs past you in the park, this is not a big deal.'
> 
> That comes across to me as a caution of sanity reading it now, given what was happening at the time - parks closing, etc.



You can find some Dingwall quotes that are not unreasonable. The others are the problem, of which there are many. 

So of course at times Dingwall did tread into more complex territory, territory which a much broader range of people can reasonably ponder the nuances. I'm sure I could find a whole bunch of sentences that came from him which I could manage to agree with, at least in part. But I would also find many more that were extreme shit, incompatible with what this country faced.

Many of these areas would also mirror the disagreements me and you had in the past. They involve all the usual themes, including masks and lockdowns. Lets not repeat all those again now, I'm sure we both know where we stand on those things. And people should know well by now where the Telegraph stands on those things, where HART stands on those things. Your stance on the pandemic and what the right thing to do was is broadly compatible with Dingwall etcs stance, mine isnt.


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## elbows (Nov 22, 2022)

A bit more detail about Denmark and school closures and reopenings in response to the first wave. The detail matters.









						Here's how Denmark safely reopened schools in a pandemic without requiring masks
					

In the early weeks of the pandemic, Denmark reopened elementary schools without worsening...




					www.sfgate.com
				




eg:



> First it tamped down the outbreak by ordering a month-long nationwide lockdown.
> 
> When Danish schools reopened, there were only 185 new cases daily in the country, although at the time only those patients with medium to severe symptoms were being tested.





> Classes were limited to cohorts of 10-12 pupils and one teacher throughout the day. Parents were not allowed into schools except under special circumstances.





> Whenever possible classes were held outside. Public parks were reserved between 8 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. for lessons. Hotels, libraries, museums and conference centers were made available to schools.





> Masks were never mandatory for children or teachers. However, face coverings were recommended for students who were feeling sick and on the way to isolation, and for those taking public transportation.



And more in that article that I wont go over the top by quoting now.

Its also important to consider all phases of the pandemic and a countries response, including how timely their actions were. So for example here is a description of a broader period of the schools situation in Denmark. They locked down much quicker when we did and were also prepared to act again later.



> Danish schools have undergone four major phases since the outbreak of the coronavirus. On March 11th, 2020 the Prime Minister announced that schools were closing down, in line with many other public organizations (Ministry of Health, 2020a). This closure of schools and day-care facilities remained in place until mid-April, 2020, where schools began to open gradually over the course of a month, starting with the youngest pupils. Restrictive measures were put in place to secure physical distance between pupils and teachers, routines of handwashing as well as ventilating and cleaning classrooms and surfaces. Schools remained fully open during the summer and autumn, and while restrictions remained in place, they were somewhat loosened, mainly regarding physical distance, in order to enable pupils to return to their original class sizes. On December 7th 2020 a partial closure was enforced as older pupils in 38 municipalities were sent home, followed by a complete closure of schools on December 21st 2020, this is called phase two in this report (Ministry of Health, 2020b; Ministry of Health 2020c). Beginning of 2021, day care centers for children under the age of six remained fully open in order to secure better working conditions for parents of small children. Schools were also open for the youngest half of students since February 2021, and the oldest half of students were returning gradually (Ministry of Health, 2021). During every closure “emergency on-site school” was made available to children who, for whichever reason, needed to leave their home.



(quote is from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...ort_2021.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1ULTQIV_s-3jYkduRXAI0N )

Much later in the pandemic Denmark was prepared to act early and do things that countries like ours resisted, such as shutting schools early in December last year:









						Schools in Denmark to close early for Christmas as Covid cases surge
					

Closing time of midnight set for nightclubs, bars and restaurants




					www.irishtimes.com
				




The entire picture and response matters. If you are prepared to act early and strongly and manage to dampen things down quickly, then you might give yourself the opportunity to recover more quickly and have more normality in the periods between the most dangerous moments. Decisions about masks should be influenced by prevalence rates. Things like Eat Out to Help Out in this country hardly set the scene for a successful return to normality in schools in September 2020. And we were not exactly brilliant when it came to ventilation in schools, or embracing teaching outdoors etc etc.


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## elbows (Nov 22, 2022)

One of the telling things about the shits is that the sense of 'balance' they claim to favour isnt actually about balance at all, they are usually against all the potential balancing mitigations too, they offer no counterweight, no alternatives for reducing the risks. Often they are just as much against the other mitigations as they are the most draconian ones.

So they dont just come out against school closures, they also pissed on masks and social distancing measures and investing in ventilation and changing routines. Dodgy as fuck.

And this theme did not become irrelevant once we got well into the vaccine era either. Instead it persisted along those lines, with the same people often being the ones against the vaccination of children. What I would ideally do at this point is post a handy graphic showing comparisons of the levels of covid vaccination in children between different countries. But I havent managed to find one right now, I think I saw one earlier this year but I cannot remember where.


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## elbows (Nov 23, 2022)

I forgot which threads I have recently mentioned the issues with whats happened to the uk workforce, probably a few different ones. It was certainly mentioned in the budget statement, with the government having a plan to investigate and report on what can be done about it.

Anyway the BBC have an article about the numbers. We can see a complex picture involving a whole bunch of causes, some of which are linked to the pandemic in different ways. For example the worsening waiting lists are responsible for some of it. Also long covid, mental health impacts stemming from the pandemic itself, from lockdowns, from the way people were treated in their jobs (and loss of jobs). And some of that stuff probably needs to be mixed in with what was happening over a longer period of austerity pre-pandemic. Also a bunch of other factors that arent pandemic-specific including demographic realities, generations being shat on, cumulative effects of this nations shit priorities etc.

Articles like this one can be lopsided in terms of what areas they focus on most, and certain possible narratives that they leave out. Especially for those whose stories of why they have left the world of work isnt a purely health story, but involves some cross over with other phenomenon that got some attention in recent years such as work-life balance, how people are treated, valued or not valued, etc etc.

Ignore the silly headline and subheadline, its not a question of people not being sure why, rather its a whole bunch of reasons that arent served by a single simple answer, and thats what the substance of the article is all about really.









						The puzzle of UK’s half a million missing workers
					

The number out of work through ill health has been rising sharply - and no-one is really sure why.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## elbows (Nov 24, 2022)

AverageJoe said:


> Have we had the news that Bra maker Michelle Mone and her husband might have secured a £200million deal for providing Covid stuff when this started?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



The Guardian have now seen more documents about this:



> The Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her children secretly received £29m originating from the profits of a PPE business that was awarded large government contracts after she recommended it to ministers, documents seen by the Guardian indicate.











						Revealed: Tory peer Michelle Mone secretly received £29m from ‘VIP lane’ PPE firm
					

Documents suggest husband passed on money from PPE Medpro, which secured £200m contracts after Mone lobbied ministers




					www.theguardian.com


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## existentialist (Nov 24, 2022)

elbows said:


> The Guardian have now seen more documents about this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


And I can pretty much guarantee that she will not be held to account, far less have to return the money.

These are the people who govern us.


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## Thesaint (Nov 24, 2022)

littlebabyjesus said:


> Don't get the Dingwall hate. In May 2000, he said this:
> 
> 'There is a fair degree of consensus now among people who are more expert on these things than I am that outdoor transmission is negligible... Fleeting contacts are really irrelevant – if a jogger runs past you in the park, this is not a big deal.'
> 
> That comes across to me as a caution of sanity reading it now, given what was happening at the time - parks closing, etc.


The hate isn't about Dingwall himself.

There is now going to be a lot of soul searching and reflection on what happened over the last few years and for many wedded to a idioloical and often narrow short termist view on the pandemic now have to come to terms with the response was driven by an emotional panic rather than any calculated or rationale response.

The willfully blindness of other viewpoints (often accompanied with abusive posts to filter them out online) has left them thinking there was only their observations existed and now the shock arrives that a) they even existed and we'rent the alt-right b) had a valid point to make.


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## Thesaint (Nov 24, 2022)

existentialist said:


> And I can pretty much guarantee that she will not be held to account, far less have to return the money.
> 
> These are the people who govern us.


I'm sure "the lessons will be learned" as usual though.🙄


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2022)

No, I'm painfully aware that shitheads like you with your shit views exist and have existed all the way along. Its no surprise, and that sort of stance was even more dangerous during the early waves of the pandemic because the fuckers advocated doing little even in the pre-vaccine era, and letting the bodies pile higher. Plenty of us ranted about that shit at every stage, its not a new phenomenon to have people like you coming out with this shit now, or for people to continue to refute your version of reality. If you'd joined this forum years earlier you'd not be able to paint this as a recent phenomenon. Some of the people that got in on that crap act from the start were made fools of by the virus, when they tried to make claims about subsequent waves being overhyped, only to see the exponential growth of the virus shit all over their stances a second time. Later things got more complicated and the worst case concerns that people like me stuck to stopped coming to full fruition every time, allowing more room for nuance and more occasions where the reality did not turn out as bad as my worst fears. Once this was demonstrated to be the case last winter a lot of people stopped posting here at all, and plenty of the people who had previous entertained shit beliefs didnt see the point in spouting their shit any more because the heaviest restrictions they didnt like were gone. Those who still seek to revise history because of their crap beliefs still pop up from time to time, with you currently fulfilling that role.

Meanwhile:









						Patients dying as ambulances face crippling delays in England
					

Warning by NHS bosses as nearly three in 10 crews caught in queues outside A&E in England last week.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> Prof Sir Stephen Powis said the figures showed fears of the so-called "tripledemic" - high levels of flu, Covid and a respiratory infection called RSV - were very real.


----------



## Thesaint (Nov 24, 2022)

elbows said:


> No, I'm painfully aware that shitheads like you with your shit views exist and have existed all the way along.


Aimed at myself? Thank you for proving one of my points either way by your use of abusive languange.

You want, sorry need_,  to_ paint anyone else who has any viewpoint or observation as being a total 'do nothing granny killer' and what you perceive complete opposite because it gives you a strawman to lash out at and feel 'right' against.

You spend a lot of time studying all this data etc which I much admire, but you aren't helping yourself and your well being by doing this assuming anything else is the total opposition.


----------



## two sheds (Nov 24, 2022)

He's right in your case though


----------



## elbows (Nov 24, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> You spend a lot of time studying all this data etc which I much admire, but you aren't helping yourself and your well being by doing this assuming anything else is the total opposition.



You havent got that many posts here so its not hard to read them all. If you dont want to be viewed in certain ways then you should think about what you come out with. Just to give one example, you went on about people who still believed in the merits of masks in certain contexts as being 'ultras'. That use of language can be read into every bit as much as my use of swearwords pointed in your direction. And beyond the pandemic threads you give hints about your political stance and your worldview with the way you've described GB news etc.

Long ago some people described to me the issues they had with the level of vitriol and language used in my posts at times. I explained that I struggled to change, that its part of the package of what you get from me. It has its downsides, but I wasnt in a place in my life where I could realistically hope to change that during the pandemic, so I didnt promise to change. And if I manage to change over time, responding more politely to people with your sort of crap pandemic beliefs will remain the greatest challenge.

In any case the real window of opportunity where peoples views on the virus and the pandemic could be most influenced by other individuals posting on forums like this one was relatively short-lived. It was mostly in effect during a few short months when the virus first arrived on the scene and people didnt know what to think or how big a deal it was. It wasnt long before they had all manner of dramatic ways to judge for themselves, through their own experiences and the huge flood of information and attention and changes to daily life and unpleasant death data and tales of personal loss. The virus rather dominated peoples lives and all sorts of lessons had to be learnt in a hurry. Most people are unlikely to substantially change their views now, that bit of history is done, and any revisions to it will be very gradual affairs as certain memories and details fade, and as some things get mushed together in peoples memories. For a number of years now people like me have mostly just been preaching to the already converted, and people like you are mostly talking to your own congregations too. We're just reinforcing our own existing views.


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## existentialist (Nov 24, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> Aimed at myself? Thank you for proving one of my points either way by your use of abusive languange.
> 
> You want, sorry need_,  to_ paint anyone else who has any viewpoint or observation as being a total 'do nothing granny killer' and what you perceive complete opposite because it gives you a strawman to lash out at and feel 'right' against.
> 
> You spend a lot of time studying all this data etc which I much admire, but you aren't helping yourself and your well being by doing this assuming anything else is the total opposition.


You're tilting at the wrong windmill, old son.


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## gentlegreen (Nov 24, 2022)

@Thesaint

Perhaps start by explaining what a virus is and how it differs from a disease ?


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## elbows (Nov 24, 2022)

Charts are another example where the usefulness of me continuing to post them here has become far more questionable as the years have gone by.

Sometimes they still tell stories that I think are worth telling though.

Here for example is monthly all cause death data for England from the ONS, up to and including October 2022. The horrible number of deaths in the first 2 waves still stand out rather obviously, but this year we can also see another story emerging. The ongoing presence of the virus, the benefits of vaccination balanced against the removal of other restrictions, the state of the NHS, the ambulance service, and a bunch of other things have combined to cause the normal seasonal dips in deaths to fade from this sort of chart for 2022 in a way that has rarely if ever been seen before. I'd quite like to hear from people as to whether this is news to them.

One of the reasons I still go on about the pandemic is because I dont think that sort of story is being told properly in the media, even though they do cover all manner of aspects of it. It just doesnt seem to get joined up into a cohesive story, routinely supported by this sort of data, and it doesnt seem to lead to much public discussion about whether we should at least consider tweaking our approach.



The data comes from plucking one set of numbers from Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales       - Office for National Statistics

As always with data there are caveats. If I do the same graph but with age standardised death rates instead of raw number of deaths, this year doesnt compare so badly with many of the years shown from earlier this century. I do intend to discuss that more one day when I have time. Also note that I didnt start the bottom of the y axis at 0, just because I didnt want a load of pointless blue area taking up space.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Nov 25, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> Aimed at myself? Thank you for proving one of my points either way by your use of abusive languange.
> 
> You want, sorry need_,  to_ paint anyone else who has any viewpoint or observation as being a total 'do nothing granny killer' and what you perceive complete opposite because it gives you a strawman to lash out at and feel 'right' against.
> 
> You spend a lot of time studying all this data etc which I much admire, but you aren't helping yourself and your well being by doing this assuming anything else is the total opposition.


just thought I'd chip in from an uneducated viewpoint
you are obviously pushing a denialist agenda and are 
(in my personal opinion) 
a fucking ignorant fool/...tool of the misinformation brigade/...willfull carrier of the brain disease
let the debate continue

and you can keep JAQingoff


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## elbows (Nov 25, 2022)

The real pandemic response soul searching that matters is of the 'why were we slow to act and slow to acknowledge some of the fundamentals of this virus?' variety.

Here for example is the outgoing WHO chief scientist:



> Q: Was that your biggest mistake as chief scientist—not calling SARS-CoV-2 airborne?
> 
> A: We should have done it much earlier, based on the available evidence, and it is something that has cost the organization. You can argue that [the criticism of WHO] is unfair, because when it comes to mitigation, we did talk about all the methods, including ventilation and masking. But at the same time, we were not forcefully saying: “This is an airborne virus.” I regret that we didn't do this much, much earlier.



When it coes to explaining why that happened, the explanation is entirely inadequate, seemingly an attempt to dodge the difficult reasons why:



> Q: Why didn’t you? What went wrong?
> 
> A: I think it's a mixture of things. I was very new in the role of chief scientist, and it had not been defined; what does the chief scientist do during a pandemic? I tried to do what I thought was best. What happens at WHO is that the technical departments do the guidelines, at the science division we just set the norms of how to do guidelines. So it was not my role and neither did anyone ask me to get involved at that stage. … The existing paradigm is based around flu, because most of our pandemic preparedness is flu. And similarly, SARS-1 was very different as a pathogen, so we couldn't fully extrapolate from that. But in the beginning, we had to base it on some things. So, I think what I would say to the next chief scientist: If there's any situation where there's new evidence emerging, particularly from other disciplines, that’s challenging our understanding, get involved early on!



Those explanations dont properly ring true to me, or at the very least dont offer the full picture. Better clues are likely to be found in some 'unrelated' parts of that interview when they speak about the challenges of working with all the nations and their politics. For example they were much happier to discuss this when they could point to an example where they can say the WHO stuck to its guns:



> Sometimes, certain member states or interest groups are upset and want us to change the recommendation. So, the chief scientist has to stand very strong at that point.
> 
> Q: Can you give an example?
> 
> A: A few years ago, we issued a guideline strongly saying that antibiotics should not be used for growth promotion or disease prevention in animals because that contributes to antimicrobial resistance. A couple of member states were very upset. They did not want this recommendation to come out because it affects their industry. We stuck to our guideline, we did not change it.



From Science | AAAS

Not just airborne stuff and the implications of it either. Asymptomatic spread too, which was the main thing I tried to pick at along these lines in the early months of the pandemic. There was a bias against details which were inconvenient and had large ramifications. The tune was changed by WHO and by individual governments later on, and some of them then have the nerve to claim that a lack of knowledge about those things was the reasonable excuse for their pandemic failings, and was only possible to fix with the benefit of hindsight. But enough people were speaking up about those things in the early days of the pandemic to demonstrate that hindsight was not actually required. I can probably find some other examples too, since there are no shortage of vested interests that get in the way of the best possible response, but this post is probably long enough already and I think I've made my point.

This sort of thing is why I will continue to swear, especially at those who want to feed those vested interests rather than starve them, undermining reality and the prospects for a reasonable response to future pandemics. People should look into the HART group if they want to see a vulgar, barely disguised example of that sort of lobbying and agenda, and then consider how the babbling contrarian shitheads are playing into that agenda with their crap.


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## teuchter (Nov 25, 2022)

Thesaint said:


> Aimed at myself? Thank you for proving one of my points either way by your use of abusive languange.
> 
> You want, sorry need_,  to_ paint anyone else who has any viewpoint or observation as being a total 'do nothing granny killer' and what you perceive complete opposite because it gives you a strawman to lash out at and feel 'right' against.
> 
> You spend a lot of time studying all this data etc which I much admire, but you aren't helping yourself and your well being by doing this assuming anything else is the total opposition.


I don't think you've addressed a single one of the questions that you've been asked about your various apparently evidence-free assertions on this thread.


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## elbows (Nov 26, 2022)

By the way I note that the flu, covid and RSV pressures combined with other factors relating to lack of hospital staff and care home capacity issues is being reported in a very similar manner in the USA of late. eg:



			Welcome to nginx!
		




> Hospitals across the United States are overwhelmed. The combination of a swarm of respiratory illnesses (RSV, coronavirus, flu), staffing shortages and nursing home closures has sparked the state of distress visited upon the already overburdened health-care system. And experts believe the problem will deteriorate further in coming months.
> 
> “This is not just an issue. This is a crisis,” said Anne Klibanski, president and CEO of Mass General Brigham in Boston. “We are caring for patients in the hallways of our emergency departments. There is a huge capacity crisis, and it’s becoming more and more impossible to take care of patients correctly and provide the best care that we all need to be providing.”



They have some especially eye-watering staffing figures:



> More than half a million people in the health-care and social services sectors quit their positions in September — evidence, in part, of burnout associated with the coronavirus pandemic — and the American Medical Association says 1 in 5 doctors plan on leaving the field within two years.



This version of learning to live with covid is not very impressive, and much of what is mentioned int he article stands in stark contrast with the 'clap for NHS workers' and the parades past hospitals mentioned in this American piece.


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## elbows (Nov 29, 2022)

I wont have time to read the report into the faulty test results at the Wolverhampton lab till another day.

However I would say that the estimates of what increase in infections, hospitalisations and deaths these errors caused offer some clues about what good the testing system as a whole was during that phase of the pandemic. It was not a useless thing like some would have us believe.









						Immensa lab errors may have led to 23 Covid-19 deaths
					

A report says 39,000 people may also have been given incorrect PCR results from a private lab.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## existentialist (Nov 29, 2022)

elbows said:


> I wont have time to read the report into the faulty test results at the Wolverhampton lab till another day.
> 
> However I would say that the estimates of what increase in infections, hospitalisations and deaths these errors caused offer some clues about what good the testing system as a whole was during that phase of the pandemic. It was not a useless thing like some would have us believe.
> 
> ...


I think that nuance will be lost on the antivaxx mouthbreathers, who will no doubt be going "see? Testing is useless, just like vaccination. HRED IMUNITIE"


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## elbows (Dec 1, 2022)

Another cycle may be beginning.

At least the peaks have not been consistent this year. The troughs have been very consistent though, which they mention in the replies.


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## elbows (Dec 1, 2022)

I'll stick this here because although not a pure covid story, its important to explore the cause for the higher than normal levels of death this year, and get some sense of which factors may account for what proportions of the excess:



> Experts believe these problems are a contributing factor to the high levels of deaths being recorded - in recent months 1,000 more deaths a week are being seen than would be expected.
> 
> The Royal College of Emergency Medicine believes disruption to emergency care may account for around a quarter of these deaths.



From My mum's 40-hour wait to get to A&E with hip break

And this is the sort of statement The Royal College of Emergency Medicine have made about this sort of thing in recent months:









						Emergency Care in crisis as more patients than ever before face dangerously long waits in Emergency Departments
					

Responding to the latest Emergency Department performance figures published by NHS England for October 2022, Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said:




					rcem.ac.uk


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## _Russ_ (Dec 3, 2022)

Considering the huge decrease in testing compared to earlier stages then its fair to assume the current rise is proportionally greater than the published figures show
and of course the NHS in an even worse state and most people think its all over and other viral and bacterial infections are increasing and...etc


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## Rox (Dec 3, 2022)

Hello, thanks for this thread and the other corona threads. So helpful and educational and has been a god send.


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## teuchter (Dec 4, 2022)

_Russ_ said:


> Considering the huge decrease in testing compared to earlier stages then its fair to assume the current rise is proportionally greater than the published figures show


Don't think so, they seem to match the random sampled ONS estimates quite well.


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## elbows (Dec 4, 2022)

Yeah, it depends on which published figures Russ means. The ONS survey was fiddled with in a manner that made it even laggier, but it should not have been spoilt by changes to testing in the way the daily positive case numbers will have been. Because of how the ONS survey is done, it isnt affected by the change in availability of free tests or peoples attitudes towards tests.

There have been changes to in-hospital testing regimes this year, and we might have expected some of those to at least make a difference to how many 'incidental' cases were detected in hospital. However in recent waves any resulting change has not been hugely obvious, eg estimates of number of people catching covid in hospital seemed similar to what the data detected previously.


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## Rox (Dec 5, 2022)

Elbows i've followed your posts for the past couple of years, i bet thousands of others have benefited. too, folk like you change lives. Thank you and others for guiding us through the pandamic. I remember you said  a year or two ago you're a self educated man, truly inspirational. You are the reason why many follow threads like this. The Anti vax meme thread has been fun too for work mates much in need of light entertainment.
i'm Slightly drunk as moving home and just been out with fam at a place we've been going for 40 years, house sold stresfull times so they say. i'ts snowing here and 1 am just been out with our pooch Rox for a game of ball, one more glass of presco then lights out x


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## elbows (Dec 5, 2022)

Cheers, thousands is likely rather a big exaggeration but impossible to measure I suppose. I'm happy enough even if I was only a very very small help to a few people for a very limited period of time in the grand scheme of things. A nerd with too much time on my hands, wanted to give a little back but there are great limits to what I can achieve. Especially these days given the stage we are at.


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## TopCat (Dec 5, 2022)

Urgh. Second time now. Vaccinated with a booster not long ago.


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## Chz (Dec 6, 2022)

Sorry if this has already been brought up before. It's a long thread.
Had the Boy looked at by the GP who says he has shingles brought on by a depressed immune system. Doctor goes on to say that there's a popular opinion in the GP community that covid "resets" the immune system and you're suddenly vulnerable to loads of previous things that you should be immune to. Like chicken pox/shingles. Is there any data that actually suggests this? I'm sure GPs are just as vulnerable to pop theories as the rest of us. 
They also went and gave him antibiotics, even though he has no infections that respond to it. They've said there's so much going on out there (like the strep A that's going around), that they're giving preventative amoxicillin to vulnerable children.


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## elbows (Dec 6, 2022)

Well there is a lot about the immune system that we dont understand as well as we should.

To give a pertinent example, it was known for a long time that measles does bad things to the immune system, but some of the detail was only confirmed via studies more recently. So we can find plenty of articles from just a few years ago, 2019, about that research which appears to demonstrate that measles causes 'immune amnesia'. 

Just one example: Measles infection wipes our immune system’s memory, leaving us vulnerable to other diseases - Wellcome Sanger Institute

It is not surprising that GPs found it attractive to apply this same theory to explain some of the immunity picture showing up in populations in the wake of this pandemic. Whether that is the actual mechanism in the case of covid I cannot say, I havent looked for covid-specific research about that and it may still be too early. And who knows which theories will survive for a long time and which will be superseded at some stage. Other possibilities probably remain plausible.


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## _Russ_ (Dec 7, 2022)

TopCat said:


> Urgh. Second time now. Vaccinated with a booster not long ago.


How do you feel, compared to first time?


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## Orang Utan (Dec 7, 2022)

A bloke came into work today and walked around the spit guard to get far too close (a few inches), even for non-pandemic times.
I told him to step away and he asked why. I told him ‘because of COVID’ and he snorted incredulously, telling me it was gone. I attempted to disabuse him of that notion but he wouldn’t listen, but he did step behind the spit screen.
Where are these people getting their info from? Whoever said it was over?


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## Steel Icarus (Dec 7, 2022)

Orang Utan said:


> A bloke came into work today and walked around the spit guard to get far too close (a few inches), even for non-pandemic times.
> I told him to step away and he asked why. I told him ‘because of COVID’ and he snorted incredulously, telling me it was gone. I attempted to disabuse him of that notion but he wouldn’t listen, but he did step behind the spit screen.
> Where are these people getting their info from? Whoever said it was over?


They want it to be over, the "general mood" is that it's over


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## two sheds (Dec 7, 2022)

he asked why


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## kabbes (Dec 7, 2022)

If somebody asks you to step back, it shouldn’t _matter_ why. If you’re in their personal space, that’s enough of a reason. Who the hell asks _why_?


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## elbows (Dec 12, 2022)

Last weeks covid & influenza report for England showed a fairly complicated picture. I could probably describe influenza growth as explosive, especially in certain regions and age groups, but still with much more to come if it is to reach levels seen in previous bad flu seasons. Various broader indicators for 'influenza-like illness' and 'coughs' picked up by various healthcare surveillance systems were also showing plenty of this sort of increasing pressure.

With covid there were further signs of resurgence, but I mostly wouldnt call the rises explosive, and it was the same story with covid hospital admissions/diagnoses data. ie the increases were not resembling the dreaded degree of steepness we've been used to seeing at a certain stage of new waves in the past. I suppose I have to be slightly careful with the hospital data due to other pressures on the system at the moment which could limit the number of people they could actually admit over the period, but I wont get carried away with assumptions about how much impact that will have on those figures. As usual there was regional variation but I'll wait till the picture is clearer before trying to describe those.

However if the ZOE study data turns out to still be a useful guide to this wave, then based on what thats started to show recently we might see a far steeper covid resurgence in subsequent data. But I'll keep an open mind about that and I wont be any the wiser till Thursday since hospital data is only published once a week these days.


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## elbows (Dec 14, 2022)

> But - not counting those filled by patients who have tested positive for Covid, even though they may be there mainly for something else - there were 5% fewer beds available in the third quarter of this year than in 2019, the IFS says. The impact of the virus has lasted longer than expected.





> IFS research economist Max Warner says: "The NHS is showing clear signs of strain heading into the winter and is treating fewer patients than it was pre-pandemic, across many types of care.
> 
> "The real risk, almost three years on from the start of the pandemic, is that the Covid hit to NHS performance is not time-limited.
> 
> "Going forward, we need to grapple with the possibility that the health service is just able to treat fewer patients with the same level of resources."











						How Covid has dealt the NHS a lasting blow
					

The health service is treating fewer patients than before Covid, so why is it still struggling?



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




Hard for that writeup to cover all aspects of the report in enough detail so if not going to read the whole report, may be of benefit to read this twitter thread:



One part of that which I was bound to want to draw attention to:


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## elbows (Dec 16, 2022)

I havent spent too much time with this week data yet, but the BBC has this, which isnt too surprising given the previous weeks trends:









						Flu hospital admission rates shoot up to overtake Covid
					

The under-fives and over-85s are most likely to become ill - getting a jab is urged.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## 8ball (Dec 16, 2022)

My work Xmas party turned out to be a massive flu super-spreader event.  I know a few other people with it too. Lots of it about.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 17, 2022)

good old flu, 
welcome back to the fold
X-x-XX-x-X_etc


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## gentlegreen (Dec 17, 2022)

Did I hear this year's flu vaccine is only about 25 percent effective ?
I don't know if I will ever accept my sister's invitation to her 4 generation Xmas pox party.
I suspect she and my 87 year old mother would both think it was an excuse because I compete with my youngest brother for any claim of fittest and healthiest.
My last viral infection was Nov 2019 and earlier that year a crazy dose of flu kept me off work for 6 weeks. COVID made retirement a no-brainer for me

Maybe in a future life I will tolerate being incapacitated for a few days for human company, but right now, my daily couple of miles walk is far too important.


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## elbows (Dec 17, 2022)

gentlegreen said:


> Did I hear this year's flu vaccine is only about 25 percent effective ?


I dont know, it usually takes a long time for me to get any numbers, and the methodology and amount of detail is usually much less impressive than what we were treated to with the covid vaccine efficacy data. Maybe there is a provisional number out there already, but I havent found it. And they absolutely hate giving bad news on this front, especially early on, they much prefer to emphasise all the stuff that would encourage people to get vaccinated. Even when the numbers are awful they dont provide much of a narrative, and for years they avoided drawing heavy attention to bad numbers, until they were ready to offer a different vaccine to older people that was expected to perform better. Once that happened everyone including the media were far more prepared to point out how badly vaccines had often been performing in the older age group.

We might be able to get a rough idea, at least in terms of the resulting implications that matter, by looking at what numbers UK authorities came up with for the last bad season, and compare that wave of flu with what we are seeing so far in this one:

According to a chart that BBC article that I linked to a few posts ago included, 2017-18 would be the the most obvious season from recent years to compare this one to so far (looking for similar scale rather than similar wave timing):


And here are the UK estimates for what the vaccine was like in 2017-18:









						Flu vaccine effectiveness in 2017 to 2018 season
					

Public Health England has published flu vaccine effectiveness data for the 2017 to 2018 season.




					www.gov.uk
				






> Public Health England (PHE) has today (Wednesday, 18 July 2018) published data on the effectiveness of the flu vaccine in the 2017 to 2018 season. The data show that overall, flu vaccine was 15% effective in all age groups. However, effectiveness varied considerably. By age-group, the vaccine was overall:
> 
> 26.9% effective in children aged 2 to 17 years (who received the nasal spray)
> 12.2% in at risk groups aged 18 to 64 years
> ...



If I look to Australia that had its winter ages ago, I get this kind of vague stuff for their most recent season:



			https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2022/10/aisr-fortnightly-report-no-14-26-september-to-9-october-2022.pdf
		




> Vaccine effectiveness is a measure of the protective effect of influenza vaccines against influenza and its complications and is typically around 40–60%. Based on preliminary estimates from sentinel hospitals (FluCAN), vaccine effectiveness appears at the lower end of the moderate range in 2022.



I would not try to use this to infer a very strong sense of what the number they come up with will be for this season in the UK, but all the same we can see that indicators are not pointing in a happy direction.


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## elbows (Dec 22, 2022)

I havent had time to look at this weeks covid hospital data yet but others have and the familiar pattern is indeed repeating, including the notable increase in likely hospital acquired infections:


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## elbows (Dec 22, 2022)

Possible hospital acquired covid infections in England in a broader context, second wave onwards:



Number of covid patients in hospital beds in England, Delta wave onwards, with the 'primarily for covid' separation that they are keen on.



As usual we cant really guess what level the peak will be at from these graphs in advance of it happening. In previous years we saw things like the school holidays and broader Christmas holidays/different mixing patterns help to damp things down, although the impact of this is laggy and so it wont affect the hospital side of the picture straight away.


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## elbows (Dec 22, 2022)

From my point of view its still madness that we dont even have a sensible discussion in the media etc about the sustainability of having that many waves per year that place a strain on hospitals.

A lot of that is down to the 'learning to live with covid' agenda and peoples desires to move on. But its also down to the sustained change to the intensive care side of the picture, as demonstrated by the following graph. In theory there is still a certain level of broader hospital pressure that would force authorities to change their tune again, but thats last resort stuff as far as they are concerned, and these days that pressure can be described as a much more complicated picture where they wouldnt need to pin the need to act differently all on covid, but also on flu, and judging by recent government rhetoric, strikes.

Second wave onwards:


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## Karl Masks (Dec 22, 2022)

kabbes said:


> If somebody asks you to step back, it shouldn’t _matter_ why. If you’re in their personal space, that’s enough of a reason. Who the hell asks _why_?


They are taking back their sovereignty


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## elbows (Dec 22, 2022)

Old attitudes towards respiratory infections are stubbornly persistent despite the obvious lessons of recent years.


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## SpookyFrank (Dec 22, 2022)

elbows said:


> Old attitudes towards respiratory infections are stubbornly persistent despite the obvious lessons of recent years.




Lots of our kids have been sent into school even though they're coughing constantly and look like they're at death's door. 

Part of it is probably that a parent can't take time off work and stay home with them. The school has actually been great and instead of demanding that sick kids come in (as a lot of the batshit academies do) they've been persuading parents to keep them home.


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## Riklet (Dec 22, 2022)

I had a flu vaccine yesterday. Free on my work woo hoo.

My sister has flu at the mo. Loads of others around here too. Nasty. Hopefully xmas day will still be fine.


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## elbows (Dec 23, 2022)

With no formal self-isolation rules around for Christmas this time, we now see this sort of advice issued instead:









						Flu and Covid: People told to stay home for Christmas if unwell
					

Health officials warn people with flu or Covid symptoms to avoid mixing with vulnerable relatives.



					www.bbc.co.uk


----------



## gentlegreen (Dec 23, 2022)

My sister hasn't bothered inviting me to her pox party this year - she has Ukranian guests in any case...
Hopefully in later life I will manage to acquire a small pool of similarly careful people to spend time with.. people who I spend enough time with generally to be confident of their health status...
My family have health vastly lower down their list of priorities...


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## two sheds (Dec 23, 2022)

I have some slight sniffles, but I think enough for me to say "no sorry, can't really socialize I'll be getting the food and things in and watch some vids this christmas"


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## gentlegreen (Dec 23, 2022)

two sheds said:


> I have some slight sniffles, but I think enough for me to say "no sorry, can't really socialize I'll be getting the food and things in and watch some vids this christmas"


Given my lifestyle, no claims of my actually having any kind of lurgy would be credible as an excuse 
(plus anything I managed to catch in Aldi by licking basket handles would doubtless have already ripped through my sister's household ...)


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## extra dry (Dec 23, 2022)

Covid could be causing heart issue around the world. 

Vid is 19 minutes long, a heart Doc talking about the various differences and causes of heart attacks and cardiac arrests.


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## prunus (Dec 24, 2022)

extra dry said:


> Covid could be causing heart issue around the world.
> 
> Vid is 19 minutes long, a heart Doc talking about the various differences and causes of heart attacks and cardiac arrests.



This guy seems to be claiming it’s the vaccines causing the trouble. Got more than a whiff of conspiracy theorist about him.  Especially with a copy of ‘We’ve been played’ prominently displayed on his desk (“How BIG PHARMA, BIG TECH, and BIG GOVERNMENT are destroying the American Healthcare System.”). 

Link broken in quote.


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## gentlegreen (Dec 24, 2022)

I still have no handle on the specifics and likely mechanisms of morbidity of this virus as opposed to other respiratory viruses.... also on why there is a modest adverse effect on the heart for some people from the mRNA vaccines...

I "allowed" myself to get a moderate dose of the flu every year for decades due to where I worked.
(i.e didn't start to get the flu vaccine until COVID "normalised" vaccinations for me.)
I have to assume there would have been no significant physiological effects because there were no symptoms beyond exhaustion - which was presumably just my immune system doing its thing.
I always bounced back.


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## wemakeyousoundb (Dec 24, 2022)

prunus said:


> This guy seems to be claiming it’s the vaccines causing the trouble. Got more than a whiff of conspiracy theorist about him.  Especially with a copy of ‘We’ve been played’ prominently displayed on his desk (“How BIG PHARMA, BIG TECH, and BIG GOVERNMENT are destroying the American Healthcare System.”).
> 
> Link broken in quote.


indeed he is all that this bloke and republican politician to boot, what's not to love.


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## farmerbarleymow (Dec 25, 2022)

They're stopping publication of some stats.  (((elbows))) 









						UK to stop publishing Covid modelling data
					

R range and growth rate, which during the height of the pandemic was published weekly in England, deemed ‘no longer necessary’




					www.theguardian.com


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## Elpenor (Dec 26, 2022)

Had a read back of this thread bit late now Orang Utan fyi I’ve taken a lot of coaches this year partly due to cost but also due to being guaranteed a seat.

I would say they feel safer than trains, I wear a mask when on a coach. it takes a little longer but the additional time is acceptable I think


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## CNT36 (Dec 26, 2022)

prunus said:


> This guy seems to be claiming it’s the vaccines causing the trouble. Got more than a whiff of conspiracy theorist about him.  Especially with a copy of ‘We’ve been played’ prominently displayed on his desk (“How BIG PHARMA, BIG TECH, and BIG GOVERNMENT are destroying the American Healthcare System.”).
> 
> Link broken in quote.


Not watched the video but the usual suspects seem to have been pushing myocarditis as the new vaccines are bad angle. SARS-CoV-2 can cause heart problems though even without gaining entry to the cells. Cell surface interactions can lead to problems even without the presence of ACE-2.


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## LDC (Dec 26, 2022)

extra dry said:


> Covid could be causing heart issue around the world.
> 
> Vid is 19 minutes long, a heart Doc talking about the various differences and causes of heart attacks and cardiac arrests.




FFS, do you not spend 30 seconds looking at the source for things like this that you post extra dry?


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## 8ball (Dec 26, 2022)

CNT36 said:


> Not watched the video but the usual suspects seem to have been pushing myocarditis as the new vaccines are bad angle.



Bad angle?


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## two sheds (Dec 26, 2022)

8ball said:


> Bad angle?


Obtuse?


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## 8ball (Dec 26, 2022)

two sheds said:


> Obtuse?


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## two sheds (Dec 26, 2022)

Possibly acute if it's an infection


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## _Russ_ (Dec 29, 2022)

Its definitely not a right angle.


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## two sheds (Dec 29, 2022)

a wrong 'un and no mistake


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## gentlegreen (Dec 29, 2022)

Scott Jensen (Minnesota politician) - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## elbows (Dec 31, 2022)

I and some others have spoken about the heart health problems the virus itself may be causing. Elevated excess death figures over a sustained period of time are part of that discussion.

It is very important that other possible factors are included in such discussions and attempts to get to the bottom of things and try to reduce the problem. I note that the Times has the following thing on its front page today. I havent searched for the actual article online due to a lack of time at the moment.

My main concern and complaint with the following sort of angle is if it entirely misses out the 'some of these problems may be down to the virus itself' angle. Reasons this might happen include the fact that authorities and various other interests really dont want to promote the idea that we should still be trying to actively reduce the number of covid infections as much as possible. Because of the political ramifications that come with many of the ways this would be achieved in practice. A subject that has obviously bothered me greatly over the last year or so.


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## zahir (Dec 31, 2022)

That Times article: 



			Welcome to nginx!


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## elbows (Dec 31, 2022)

Thanks for the link. Its also important that we dont let the entities such as the Telegraph, who tend to use every phenomenon of that type to make bogus claims that its all the fault of lockdowns, to poison the well and distract from trying to fix the issues caused by the way healthcare was disturbed by the pandemic.

The bogus shit is obviously bogus because healthcare and the normal patterns of diagnosis, prevention and treatment would still have been disturbed by the pandemic, even if the various non-pharma interventions that the Telegraph hates had not taken place. In fact some of the disruption would have been even worse, because we would have had more covid cases, more workforce absences, more health services being overwhelmed, and probably a similar or even greater amount of people avoiding or being unable to access routine checkups etc.


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## elbows (Jan 2, 2023)

More of the usual mix of explanations for NHS woe and excess deaths, along with uncertainties in regards how to fairly ascertain the proportion of blame to different factors here:



> On Sunday, RCEM president Dr Adrian Boyle said between 300 and 500 people were dying every week as a result of delays to emergency care.
> 
> He said a severe flu outbreak, which was made worse by a lack of immunity because of Covid isolation measures, has resulted in bed occupancy reaching record levels.
> 
> ...





> But NHS England's Chris Hopson said care needed to be taken "jumping to conclusions about excess mortality rates and their cause without a really full and detailed look at the evidence".
> 
> He said a study of the evidence was "under way", but until detailed work was conducted "it's really difficult to say".





> Mr Hopson listed multiple factors that have contributed to pressures on NHS services including:
> 
> 18% more people coming into A&E in the last six weeks compared to the same period last year
> Covid patients in England increasing to 9,500 compared to 4,500 a few weeks ago
> ...





> He said adding all these together left "25,000 of the 100,000 NHS beds" filled with either medically fit patients waiting to be discharged and people suffering with either Covid or the flu.
> 
> Mr Hopson also said there were 9,500 NHS staff absent at the moment due to Covid.











						Some A&Es in complete state of crisis, warn health chiefs
					

Hospitals are facing soaring demands and experts say there is "no doubt" it causes harm to patients.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				




I note that the 500 deaths a week claim rather dominates the newspaper front pages today.


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## elbows (Jan 2, 2023)

farmerbarleymow said:


> They're stopping publication of some stats.  (((elbows)))
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks for drawing my attention to that. I actually only recently realised that they were still routinely producing the figure for R and some medium term modelling.

I wont shout too loudly about them stopping this because the R figure hasnt been used by the public, politicians or media much for a very long time, and experts and medical authorities still have other measures by which to judge the situation. And the R estimates tend to be a bit too laggy to be extremely useful. Its absence wont make much difference on its own to our ability to see new waves arrive and end. But maybe the medium term modelling has been used for planning purposes and the end of that modelling might have a detrimental affect on that, I dont know. As with most other data that has stopped, they tend to pad the announcements with the sense that if things got really bad again they would look at bringing some of this stuff back. But Ive got no sense of what threshold would need to be breached in order for that to happen, I suppose things would probably have to get so bad that the whole politics of covid would be changed again, eg having to comsider bringing back certain non-pharmaceutical measures.


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## elbows (Jan 2, 2023)

Now they are actually telling parents to keep sick children off school:



> Parents in England are being urged to keep children off school if they are unwell and have a fever, amid high levels of flu and Covid-19 cases.
> 
> The same applies for nurseries, according to advice from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).
> 
> ...











						Children told to stay home from school if sick amid flu, Covid and scarlet fever
					

The advice to parents at the end of the Christmas break comes amid high levels of flu and Covid cases.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## SpookyFrank (Jan 2, 2023)

You'd think 'don't send your kids to school if they're sick' would be just the policy at all times, but in reality we've got parents who can't afford to stay home with their kids. And schools employing people just to harass anyone whose kid doesn't show up because it's making their numbers look bad and OFSTED will want to know why they haven't been hassling the parents of sick kids enough.


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## farmerbarleymow (Jan 3, 2023)

Ordered another batch of 60 FFP2 masks as I'm starting to run low on the ones I bought last year or so.  Isn't showing any signs of going away unfortunately.


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## _Russ_ (Jan 3, 2023)

I shudder to think of the level of education that UK children are going to leave school with in a few years. 

(please dont do the usual knee jerk bollox  and think this is a criticism of keeping sick children away from school)


elbows said:


> Now they are actually telling parents to keep sick children off school:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## elbows (Jan 3, 2023)

The messages they've started to feel the need to tell the public are the modern, watered down equivalent of the 'changes in mood music' that I used to gone on about back when such things were presented in more dramatic fashion with a wider range of policy tools waiting in the wings.

Todays example feels like saying hello to a long lost friend, its the BBC highlighting a tory minister who is actually prepared to say that some advice to wear masks is sensible.









						Wearing a mask if ill is sensible advice - minister
					

Adults are told to wear a mask if ill and need to go out, as the NHS faces "intolerable" pressures.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## elbows (Jan 3, 2023)

The authorities in this country love to make use of this claim:



> He said people with conditions like heart disease had been reluctant to come forward for support at times during the pandemic - and this was a major factor in the demands now being seen.



From We're focussed on supporting NHS - health secretary

Its likely got some truth to it, its one part of the picture, but often seems to be far from the largest factor. Surely the winter disease waves and covid wave are the biggest factors right now, coupled with the longstanding bed-blocking issue and staff vacancy issues. I think they like to go on about it because its not something that requires an immediate change of policy, public behaviour etc. These days it could also be used to try to reduce the number of deaths that some are directly attributing to overloaded A&E and long ambulance response times, or otherwise excuse this picture.

For example even back in the early days of the pandemic Whitty liked to go on about this aspect when making excuses for inaction in the name of balance. I dont mind it being raised but it often came up in the context of reasons not to activate non-pharmaceutical measures in a timely way, and I'm never going to be happy about that, not when it plays into the hands of certain tory agendas.


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## 8ball (Jan 3, 2023)

elbows said:


> The authorities in this country love to make use of this claim:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, poss being exaggerated.  Definitely a thing, though.  Treatment for my heart condition has been delayed and the surgeons have told me this is because many of the patients they have been seeing have been showing up in significantly worse shape than was the norm a few years ago.


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## elbows (Jan 3, 2023)

Yes its a real factor. I'm just paying special attention to which things the health secretary and the authorities are more comfortable acknowledging, because I always focus on that side of things and the things they are less keen to highlight. They are especially keen not to attribute a portion of the excess deaths to the ongoing affects of the virus itself, because that would directly challenge their whole 'learning to live with covid' approach.

Along the same lines I still think its absolutely ridiculous that in a 'democracy' where we are told the press has an important role to play, we dont even get any proper public debate about whether the whole 'living with covid' thing, which was long sold to us on the basis that there would be challenges a few times a year especially in winter, and that every so many years might be especially grim, needs rethinking given that so far we've had 4 notable waves in a year.


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## elbows (Jan 3, 2023)

Which means that more than 4 times a year I find myself asking the question 'endemic equilibrium wankers, where are you now?'. That concept was used to justify and sell people on the current approach, but of course once that was done that narrative is nowhere to be seen, we are supposed to forget that prediction, we are not supposed to go on about it having dismally failed to turn out that way. Meanwhile in casual conversations more of the old attitudes have slipped back into view, people casually mentioning having had 'a cold' recently etc etc.


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## elbows (Jan 4, 2023)

Typical shit from the from page of the Daily Mail. They want people to think of masks as dystopian, rather than awful articles like this one and certain shithead MPs actually being what comes across as dystopian.

I also note that their language makes covid sound like a thing of the past, and they deliberately choose to speak of 'cold and flu victims' rather than 'covid and flu'. Dodgy fuckers.


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## brogdale (Jan 4, 2023)

elbows said:


> Typical shit from the from page of the Daily Mail. They want people to think of masks as dystopian, rather than awful articles like this one and certain shithead MPs actually being what comes across as dystopian.
> 
> I also note that their language makes covid sound like a thing of the past, and they deliberately choose to speak of 'cold and flu victims' rather than 'covid and flu'. Dodgy fuckers.
> 
> View attachment 358298


Desmond Swayne in print form.


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## 8ball (Jan 4, 2023)

elbows said:


> Typical shit from the from page of the Daily Mail. They want people to think of masks as dystopian, rather than awful articles like this one and certain shithead MPs actually being what comes across as dystopian.
> 
> I also note that their language makes covid sound like a thing of the past, and they deliberately choose to speak of 'cold and flu victims' rather than 'covid and flu'. Dodgy fuckers.
> 
> View attachment 358298



I thought staying at home when you had something transmissible predated covid by a long, long way.
And if they are talking about wearing a mask when you have the lurgee and have to go out, well I guess it’s better than a leper bell.


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## Steel Icarus (Jan 5, 2023)

To these psycho cunts the idea of collectively taking measures to help others _is_ dystopian.


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## elbows (Monday at 1:40 PM)

> Scotland's hospitals are "almost completely full", with bed occupancy exceeding 95% last week, the first minister has said.
> 
> Nicola Sturgeon said services were facing "truly unprecedented" pressures.
> 
> Demand for hospital beds had been driven up by "extraordinary" levels of winter flu, rising rates of Covid infections and cases of Strep A.











						Scottish hospitals are almost full, says Nicola Sturgeon
					

The first minister warns of "exceptional and severe" pressure on Scotland's health services.



					www.bbc.co.uk


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## elbows (Tuesday at 1:20 PM)

Overall deaths in 2022 is something I've been going on about for ages and now most of the data is published we get some more articles about it:









						Excess deaths in 2022 among worst in 50 years
					

New figures show more than 650,000 people died in the UK last year.



					www.bbc.co.uk
				






> More than 650,000 deaths were registered in the UK in 2022 - 9% more than 2019.
> 
> This represents one of the largest excess death levels outside the pandemic in 50 years.



Well thats in part because we arent actually outside the pandemic.



> Covid is still killing people, but is involved in fewer deaths now than at the start of the pandemic. Roughly 38,000 deaths involved Covid in 2022 compared with more than 95,000 in 2020.



I will probably pick at the wording of that claim and the number used later.



> Some of the excess may be people whose deaths were hastened by the after-effects of a Covid infection.
> 
> A number of studies have found people are more likely to have heart problems and strokes in the weeks and months after catching Covid, and some of these may not end up being linked to the virus when the death is registered.
> 
> As well as the impact on the heart of the virus itself, some of this may be contributed to by the fact many people didn't come in for screenings and non-urgent treatment during the peak of the pandemic, storing up trouble for the future.



OK thats more like it, I'll give them a point for drawing attention to all of those aspects rather than totally shying away from heart etc effects of the virus.


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## CH1 (Tuesday at 1:44 PM)

elbows said:


> Overall deaths in 2022 is something I've been going on about for ages and now most of the data is published we get some more articles about it:


I think excess deaths will go on increasing as the baby boomers die off (including me - I'm nearly 69).
These NHS types piss me off - I had an MRI scan on last Sunday morning at 10 am - seemed fully staffed notwithstanding the strike. Maybe they prefer working overtime? My last scan in July 2022 was at 6.30 pm on a Friday - equally empty in the waiting room, but less staff on duty than Sunday morning.

BTW the scan instructions stipulated Renal tests. I didn't fancy my chances of getting my GP to order a blood test - or Kings College Hopsital's Serco phlebotomy unit providing a result in time (what with Christmas/New Year/strike etc).
I remembered I'd had some of these tests last year - and printed out two pages from "Patient Access"
The MRI technician binned them.
"We're not going to inject you!" she said.
EIGHT pages to tell you all about your MRI appointment - and really they only need give you the time.
No wonder the NHS is fucked.


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## elbows (Tuesday at 1:50 PM)

Age-adjusted mortality data is available which will allow for that and remove the affects of an ageing population from the trends, although I'm not sure that the population data they use to do these calculations is as good as I would ideally like it to be.

Meanwhile, comparing deaths from all causes in England and Wales in 2021 to 2022:

Due to a bad covid wave and vaccines not having had enough time for maximum impact, by early March 2021 there had been over 35,000 more deaths registered that year than there were by the same stage in 2022. However due to the shitty situations that have happened over the rest of 2022, by the end of the year the difference in number of deaths registered in 2021 compared to 2022 had fallen to just under 9,500.

Unlike the previous BBC article I'm not really setup to talk about UK deaths as a whole because I have to combine data from 3 different sources to do that. Maybe I will actually try to do this at some point like I used to in the first year or two of the pandemic, but even I dont spend as long on this sort of thing as I used to.


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## SpookyFrank (Tuesday at 9:10 PM)

CH1 said:


> These NHS types piss me off - I had an MRI scan on last Sunday morning at 10 am - seemed fully staffed notwithstanding the strike. Maybe they prefer working overtime?



I guess the NHS is actually fine then. Besides all the idle carpetbagging staff anyway. That's a weight off my mind.


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## kabbes (Wednesday at 2:17 PM)

Stuart McDonald, an actuary at LCP, has modelled the likely impact of excess deaths deriving from long waiting times at A&E alone.



15,000 in the past 18 months.  He thinks that is likely highly conservative, however, as the paper it is based on did not give estimates for how mortality increases with waiting time, only the effect of a wait longer than a given number of hours.


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## elbows (Wednesday at 2:28 PM)

Its a disgrace that it hasnt been made more of a story of until recently. Whatever the various causes people attribute it to, the excess deaths have been showing up very clearly in weekly data for a very long time. In 2022 the weekly deaths from all causes didnt dip in seasons like summer, breaking the pattern that has otherwise been visible in pretty much every year for which data exists.


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